Jack Ross responds to earlier post on the politics of J Street and the Obama administration:
I just caught Isi Liebler of the Jerusalem Post on Shalom TV, comparing J Street in its appeals to Obama to Jewish communists defending Stalin during his purges. Interestingly, he basically said Obama is alright but Rahm and Axelrod are pushing him in this direction and may therefore be among history’s greatest traitors to the Jewish people. He made a point in that discussion of also asserting that Dennis Ross has been completely marginalized.
All you say about the big picture is true, but I was going to focus on the Jewish organizational picture. Specifically, I would refer you to the recent lament by Michael Lerner about his exclusion from J Street. Now, no doubt a big piece of it is his ego, and in any case he compares it to the cold shoulder given to the antiwar movement once Democrats were united against Vietnam.
But Lerner hints at a bigger strategy J Street seems to have up its sleeve. Just as I once heard that they plan to flip the relatively moderate Jewish Democrats in Congress their way and thereby isolate the wings, such as they are, they seem to be committed to the same strategy in the Jewish organizational world.
Specifically, they seem to be giving short shrift to the cadre of progressive rabbis epitomized by Rabbis for Human Rights and are instead, based on a perusing of their advisory board, most aggressively reaching out to Reform rabbis. If they could successfully flip the URJ their way, which is now around twice the size of the Conservative movement, and certain other dominoes fell in turn, this, combined with the favor of Obama, would amount to nothing less than a palace coup in the American Jewish officialdom.
I have to ultimately withhold judgment on the wisdom of this strategy because we are in uncharted waters. And moreover, the winning of hearts and minds to a progressive Jewish identity and future is not J Street’s job, nor should it be.
As to your declaration that we are the fringe and represent no more than 5% – yes, absolutely, but both we and the center take for granted the mushy 15-20% between us.
“I just caught Isi Liebler of the Jerusalem Post on Shalom TV, comparing J Street in its appeals to Obama to Jewish communists defending Stalin during his purges.”
Well, let’s see…that would make the Zionists Trotskyites.
Sounds right.
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The Life of an American Jew in Racist-Marxist Israel
link to worldnewsdigest.net
Thanks Chris. I always enjoy reading your posts.
J Street appealing to Obama (or playing footbal blocker for Obama?) is akin to Jewish Stalinists defending Stalin against Stalin’s purges?
Please clarify; I don’t know too much about historic internal communist disputes.
Perhaps Liebler equates Stalin with anti-semitism incarnate and AIPAC/Israel
as defenders of the Jewish tribe survival at all costs, and so, J Street’s POV is
suicidal for Jews? I guess I better view Liebler’s video first. I will. And also reread
the link content Chris provides, which I read a few years ago.
If the Zionists are Trots, then a la Animal Farm depicting the war between the animals and the human farmer, Snowball (Trotsky) wants to spread the revolution of the
animals to all farms, while Napoleon (Stalin) is more interested in the immediate farm at
issue. So, who exactly are the exploiting human farmers? Iranians? And what is the continual revolution, and what the Stalinist goal? It seems to me at this moment that although
classical Zionism may have been Trotty, once Israel became a viable piece of actual
land the Zionists de facto became Stalinists first. And would that make J-Street
more akin to Trots than today’s Zionists since 1948?
OK, I could not get Liebler’s Shalom TV entry–I went to it but it simply was not available on my cable box entries for Shalom TV and its partners. But I did get this
reflection on Liebler ‘s POV–basically he equates Obama’s crew and J-Street with those who sold out the Czechs, appeasement. Chamberlain. You will notice he
views the usa as a tool.
When Trotsky and Stalin broke, there were heated intra-Jewish disputes over whether Trotsky represented the ideals of the revolution and Stalin had betrayed them, or vice-versa.
The Neocons, for example, went to the Trotsky camp, which later morphed into a Zionist camp as well. (A lot of authentic conservatives understand they never really left their Trotsky-Zionist identity behind.) More ethnocentric Jews seemed attracted to Trotskyism (probably because he was Jewish) whereas less ethnocentric Jews seemed to backed Stalin.
But from the America-first perspective, it’s really all “inside baseball” stuff. The differences between Stalinists and Trotskyites is like the difference between Hitlerites and Srasserites (a rivalry that in some ways paralleled the Stalin-Trotsky one.) Patton wanted to crush them all, Communist and Nazi alike, but was sabotaged by left-wing elements in America.
I think most Americans (and the world, really) want to wash their hands of these primitive psycho-socialist authoritarians and totalitarians. But certain (ahem) elements keep trying to drag the world back into that Sisyphean hell.
They always seem to think that “next time” they’ll get it right. Problem is, “right” for them is world totalitarianism. Socialists (whether Communist, Nazi or Zionist variety) are all really a very insecure, primitive and controlling species — the antithesis of the ideals of the Founders. (Which isn’t to say that unbridled Capitalism, also easily co-opted by totalitarian elements, is any silver bullet, either.)
It occurs to me, Revolutions repeat…the first (American) as progress, the second (French) as farce, and the third (Russian) as tragedy. (Tragedy always sets in at the stage when calculating machiavellians and money powers like Jacob Schiff have gotten their greasy fingers into the mix.)
It occurs to me, Revolutions repeat…the first (American) as progress, the second (French) as farce, and the third (Russian) as tragedy. (Tragedy always sets in at the stage when calculating machiavellians and money powers like Jacob Schiff have gotten their greasy fingers into the mix.)
Reminds me of the old Mexican proverb:
“All revolutions degenerate into governments.”
Kelly, ha–you got a point; I’m not sure what to about it since any government is at least not chaos… I guess the POV depends on where you live and how many guns you have, either of your own, or Cops’ guns around a gated suburb?
I have to say that I think some of you guys are taking the “Stalinist or Trotskyist” argument a bit far.
True a good number of the jewish godfathers of neo-conservatists were one and/or the other, and it’s true that a number of them and or their off-spring are drawn to the kind of messianism that Trotsky engendered, but name one who hasn’t clearly broken with that which Trotsky believed in above all which is communism—or indeed one who hasn’t broken with socialism either. And, really, without that, what in the world can anyone say that Trotsky stood for or means? Nothing that I at least can see. So what exactly do you mean by calling someone who isn’t either a communist or a socialist a “Trotskyist” or “Trotskyite”?
I suspect that some of this is because the many of the neo-cons seem to have the same cut-right-at-your-throat-the-first-words-out manichean style of debate and writing that Trotsky somewhat had. (And indeed I think you see that utilized by many Ashkenazi Israelis too.) But that wasn’t something that Trotsky innovated by any means: If anything it was brought into its flowering by Lenin who then had his style rather slavishly copied, by the Bolsheviks, including Trotsky who became one. And indeed it even seems the style that you see so many other modern revolutionaries try to copy, Maoist, or whatever.
Regardless however, and again, unless you are accusing these “Trotskyite” neo-cons of still believing in communism or socialism, what exactly do you mean? Saying (only?) that they are Trotskyist in terms of believing in world democratic/capitalist revolution instead of just democracy/capitalism in one country?
That would make a little more sense to me, but if that is indeed your definition, my goodness to a great degree Ronald Reagan was a Trotskyite then too, no? As are zillions of others who one would never think of in the same breath as Trotsky.
What tosh! When Israel starts arming the Naxalites, then I’ll believe.
I don’t know about the Naxalites, but Israel supports (arms?) the MEK, a violent Marxist-Feminist-”Islamic” group that wants to overthrow the Islamic Republic of Iran.
link to sourcewatch.org
Given the Jewish Neocons’ (and Neolibs’) clear and steadfast Trotskyite background, is it really so hard to believe that Trotskyism has crypto Judeophile leanings, or hard to believe that Zionism (Jewish socialism) is totally inconsistent with Trotskyism?
And going back to early Communism, wouldn’t a small but clever, hyper-ambitious ethnocentric group need a larger Trojan Horse to secrete it into the corridors of power? Wouldn’t it be cleaver to disguise itself as an “egalitarian” movement seeking “social justice” for the downtrodden in order to attract partners, and later centralize and redistribute society’s wealth into its own hands? Isn’t that all the Jewish Zionists profess to be doing in their gobbling of Palestine — seeking social justice for Jews? Isn’t that all the Neocons/Bushcons professed to be doing with the Iraq war — seeking to liberalize and democratize the Mideast for the good of the Arabs?
Whether Bushcon, Neocon, Zionist, Trotskyite or Stalinist, there’s a pretty wide variety of murderous, centralizing, Big Government (plutocratic) “socialist” scams out there, and they’re all the enemy of average Joe (and average Muhammad, for that matter.)
Revolution from below is always met by Reaction from above. They are diametrically opposed. Conflating them is disingenuous.
As for getting it right the next time , that’s perfectly reasonable. Happens all the time. It’s how people learn to tie their shoes.
Woops, broken link on Marxist, Zionist-backed MEK. Hopefully this works:
link to sourcewatch.org
Other than blend of Marxism and Islam (is that even possible?)nothing there about seizing the means of production, dictatorship of the proletariat, fraternal relations with other Revolutionary groups, internationlism, the typical Red flags that infuriate the Privileged.
“seizing the means of production, dictatorship of the proletariat, fraternal relations with other Revolutionary groups, internationlism,”
The Jewish socialists have done all that in Soviet Russia, Zionist Palestine, and Neoconned America — to the benefit of themselves, international Jewish interests, and their disgusting gentile collaborators.
The most tenacious and money-hungry forces will always find a way to attain the fruits of labor and production for themselves. If that means joining the Communist Party to do so, then that’s what they’ll do. And the more any given society is centralized and managed top down by an “elite,” the more they will be able to steal, and the easier the theft will be.
The best way to spread the wealth is to shatter all monopolies, monopolistic organizations, and monopolistic forces, be they private or governmental.
Does anyone know what % of US Jews believe in God at all? The ones I’ve known are mostly atheist or agnostic. I just wonder what all this fuss about rabbis is worth, when it seems the real movers in the Lobby are Wall Street and media billionaires.
Jack Ross: Can we get a link to the “self-hating” clip