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Lerner points to anti-Semitic character of new hatred in America

Rabbi Michael Lerner insists on the Jewish angle in the Arizona shootings. Interesting. I don’t know, want more evidence. But hear him out.

[D]on’t think of this action as a mere “irrational event,” because it fits very well with the agenda of those who want to give the country back 100% to the corporate powers and their Republican agents in Congress while scaring those who might wish to participate in helping build any kind of progressive alternative.

And don’t underplay the anti-Semitic elements either.

According to Ha’aretz newspaper, the killer’s website had Hitler’s hate book Mein Kampf listed as one of his favorite books! When Jews are targeted, it’s rarely “by chance.” Right-wing haters particularly hate Jews, since Jews were the most consistent non-African American constituency for the Democratic Party , in 2010 voting 70% for Democrats. If the rest of the country voted like Jews we’d have a liberal Democratic Congress. And this is not lost on the right-wingers. Just listen to the tapes of Nixon and you see how extreme the hatred of Jews is revealed to be by the “moderate” Nixon, and now we have the more extreme elements of the Right coming to power. Jews are, in the minds of these haters, the same as liberals or progressives–maybe even the worst of them. And then, the sexism of the right manifests dramatically in attempting to kill a woman–the perfect symbol of uppity feminists who dare to take power away from the male chauvinists who thought that “their” country was about white male Christian power. You won’t hear the media dealing with these dimensions of the reality–but they are central.

Most immediately, I invite you to join us in prayer for Representative Gabrielle Gifford and all those wounded and their families! May she receive a refu’ah shleymah, a healing of body and a healing of soul, and speedily return to our community fully healed.

(Thanks to Susie Kneedler. My feeling is that if you are going to  bring in all the giant power issues that Lerner brings into this discussion of hatred– including blue staters allegedly wanting to put “restrictions on corporations”–then you must speak also of class-borne resentment against Jews as big winners; we are the richest group in the U.S. by religion; and Lerner’s claim to our righteous role re the corporations may in fact be seen by others as a mediators’ role that only empowers the corps. I don’t know; but I think these culture wars are very complicated by class.)

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