Total number of comments: 195 (since 2010-01-29 23:27:39)
PeaceThroughJustice
Mondoweiss.net supporterPosted in the early years of Mondoweiss under the name "David," but that name was not available when I returned.
Showing comments 195 - 101
Page: 2 1
Showing comments 195 - 101
Page: 2 1
"One can become a Jew by converting to Judaism, just like you can become a Christian by converting to Christianity."
In a sense, you're wrong on both counts. Actually, you can't become a Jew, even if you are (grudgingly) allowed to convert to Judaism. You can stand on your head for the rabbis, but OlegR is never going to think of you as a Jew in the same sense as he thinks of someone with the proper bloodlines (even a flaming atheist). And you don't "convert" to Christianity (unless you had already adopted another faith). Christianity is not something you're born into. It's something you elect to do.
"Hey, don't forget about me!" says Oleg.
This review of Appelfeld's latest, Until the Dawn's Light, by Gabriel Josipovici makes it sound distinctly creepy--
"Blanca, who had been a brilliant pupil in the local high school, destined for a university career, 'converted to Christianity and married hastily, to avoid watching her mother's death from up close'. That brief sentence is elaborated in the course of the book. Adolf, her husband, turns out to be a boor and a bully. His instinctive anti-Semitism is fuelled by resentment at his Jewish teachers consistently giving him bad marks and eventually getting him expelled from the school.
...
"Later, on the run by herself [after killing Adolph with an axe], she lights a fire to warm herself beneath a crucifix next to a church, and when it catches fire and the fire spreads to the wooden structure of the church, she finds the sight pleasing and goes on to burn down any church she comes across.
...
"The richness of ambiguity, which was what made [Appelfeld's earlier books] so powerful, is singularly lacking here.Everything is black and white. Jews who have kept faith with the old ways have a strange light emanating from them, while the goyim are the embodiment of evil, which is always linked, rather unpleasantly for those who love animals, with animality; and Jews who renounce their roots always get what they deserve. This curious Manichaeism, one cannot help thinking, is merely the flip side of anti-Semitism, and is unworthy of a serious novelist. ...
(Amazingly, this quote is also currently included in the Wikipdia entry for AIPAC. I bet it won't stay long.)
"is there an actual enlightenment of the American population?"
Not according to the latest BBC World Poll--
The echo chamber effect is misleading a lot of Mondoweiss readers. But the truth is most of the pictures and stories seen here are only seen here. (And as I have pointed out before, even Pam Geller's site draws twice the viewer traffic that MW does.)
Here's one of my favorites from Eli Valley. (I probably should have linked this during that long discussion of Phil's dinner with Shmully.)
link to forward.com
Kimball is also associated with EMET, and with Steven Emerson's Investigative Project on Terrorism, and is on the speakers bureau of the National conference of Jewish Affairs, and I'm guessing he's the same EJ Kimball who led team "White Tide" on the staff of Camp Avoda in 1999.
Here he is speaking before the Boca Raton Synagogue. Seemed to have a good crowd that night--
link to brsonline.org
Thanks for the link Blake. Phil wrote about the 2011 results last year--
link to mondoweiss.net
This year's results represent a further slide for the Light Unto the Nations. Interestingly however, in the U.S. opinion on Israel actually improved sharply--
Annie, the only reason the neocons got away with it is because the so-called "liberal" Jewish community insulated them from attack. Think of the NYT in the run-up to the war, wringing their hands over whether it was "antisemitic" to even mention that all the neocons happened to be Jewish zionists. Think of Goldberg, Friedman, Pollack.
"... is afraid to broach because it touches on uncomfortable issues, like the prevalence of conservative Jewish donors in our political system."
Phil, why do you hide behind "conservative"? Is Haim Saban conservative? The media bigwigs? The Hollywood community?
And speaking of the media, I'd argue that a discussion of Jewish power in our media is an even more sacred taboo than discussing its role in campaign finance. Even at this site, the minute this topic is broached we're back to accusations of "antisemitism" and talk of the Protocols.
It's nice to see the people running our mass media still have the time and energy to keep abreast of the complex issues of American foreign policy. Whoever said Hollywood was self-absorbed?
BTW, Halpern's criticism of NPR was made from her position as chairwoman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (2005-2007).
I also didn't see much to admire here. More of the usual self-regarding lite liberalism. The most valuable part was the description of the intensity of the Birthright experience, that mix of hormones and tribal belonging that Kiera Feldman already spoke about in Nation.
BTW, about the claim: "... the Holocaust Museum in Dallas has expanded the content of that museum from the the persecution of Jews in World War 2 to include the persecution of African Americans in Texas."
Maybe they're still working on the transition, but right now the only people allowed on their front page are still all Jews--
link to dallasholocaustmuseum.org
If a Black story has been allowed to share space with the story of G-d's Chosen Victims, you have to drill down pretty far to find it. I gave up looking.
Thanks, MHughes. I do hope people remember your comment. Whether you approach it from the perspective of restoring Palestinian human rights, or of mending U.S. corruption of the political system, this is really not a "left/right" issue. Treating it as one plays into the hands of those who want to divert and distract. One of the strengths of Mondoweiss is that Phil in the past has recognized this.
Finkelstein gets a full half-hour on BBC HardTalk--
link to youtube.com
Great post, Dan, and I'm sorry Phil didn't seem to get it. What makes the output of our Hollywood industry such shit is not that it's about elites (although it usually is) but the elite attitude it takes towards the viewer. It's all about manipulating the viewer, and the more skillful the manipulation the more we praise it. Iris Murdoch once said that all art seems to be aspiring to the condition of pornography, and it's certainly come to pass in this country.
"Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal Vexed Nixon"
NYTimes, November 29, 2007
link to nytimes.com
Johnson's chief campaign fundraiser was also the chief fundraiser for the Israeli nuclear weapons program in the United States?!!!
"At the time, almost nobody believed what the activists had said."
For the record, here is the original 2005 report from IMEMC--
link to imemc.org
"according to whom?"
It's more than just the headline, Klaus. "From my earliest memory, I always knew my grandmother was Jewish -- but it only came up once. ... My grandmother's conditioning from her early childhood was to never let on that she was Jewish. It was a survival mechanism reinforced over and over again by her family and her environment in the first years of her life."
I'd like to know how Jamie knew this was a "survival mechanism" and not just a lack of interest in the ideas of Jewishness. Considering that Nana never mentioned the subject to him, I'm wondering if Jamie might have inadvertently imposed his own narrative.
(BTW Jamie please don't think I'm attacking you. I think your piece raises all kinds of interesting ideas about identity and historical narratives, and I'm very grateful. I'm just offering another interpretation. There's almost always more than one.)
Jamie, you talk as if being Jewish were a genetic condition. Doesn't Nana get to decide for herself?
Mooser, the point (as I think you know) is the amount of power represented by "90% of U.S Jews", not their numbers.
U.S. Jews, roughly speaking, run 80% of the mass media, fund 50% of the elections, and own 30% of the economy. Given how modern mass democracies function, having their collective weight behind any single issue is going to determine the outcome.
That's what caught my attention too. It's an eye-opener to see the word "tribal" used so frankly as a badge of honor, to the extent that Beinart must scurry to defend himself against the damning charge of being insufficiently tribal.
This is all fine, but it's very different from what gentiles have been taught Judaism is. NPR never mentioned this.
Gordis: "Our disagreement tonight fundamentally lies in the response to the following question: ... What does it mean to be loyal to your own people. That, it seems to me, is the fundamental question elicited by Peter's book."
"Caroline Glick, Pamela Geller, Rachel Abrams, Debbie Schlussel, Melanie Phillips, Andrea Levin, Eliana Benador, Meyrav Wurmser, etc."
Intriguing list, Sean. (I'd add Ruth Wisse.) Such a peculiar psychological type that it crys out for an exploration of just what makes them tick. But if that ever happens I think it's going to have to come from a woman. A lot of Phil's more personal work can be considered an investigation of the masculine dimension of this question. Is there a Jewish woman anywhere brave enough to cast her eye on the feminine side?
Maybe they could start out with the question of whether there is a difference between male and female manifestations of extreme ethnic nationalism.
Jeffrey Blankfort posted this here a while back. It's a British cabinet paper from 1923, dealing with future policy in Palestine--
A similar point is made in Lloyd George's memoirs--
link to mailstar.net
If Anna/Stuart see this, I'd like to know just how important is this issue to the delegates there. The conference must be dealing with many topics. We here see this vote as a crucial battle with powerful symbolic significance. But do the delegates see it this way, or is it just another administrative issue? In other words, are the delegates conscious that they are being watched by the world?
(I heard Anna Balzer speak at a small church once. She was great. And check out her book--
link to amazon.com
)
There's no reason to apologize to Terryscott (and not just because no amount of apology will ever weaken his suspicion of gentiles). Your statement was a perfectly rational opinion (shared by me), based on plenty of empirical evidence, that most gentiles in our mass media try desperately to avoid touching on topics of Jewishness and Israel. By social convention, these are usually reserved for Jews if they're going to brought up at all. In fact, I imagine that's why Phil highlighted this otherwise pretty innocuous comment, to show that the broader community is beginning to talk about these things.
(Now you're going to feel like you're being attacked from both sides! Sorry.)
Pretty timid. Colbert's 2006 roast was much more against the grain.
link to video.google.com
That's the look of someone who has suffered deeply from "antisemitism" all her life, and is now starting to worry about the photographer. :)
Thanks. typo in your first link
link to turcopolier.typepad.com
"Would this have happened if the moguls in Hollywood had not been determined to normalize Israel’s dark deeds?"
Would this have happened if the moguls of Hollywood did not regard gentile society as an adversary?
About "24": we've already talked on this site about Surnow's politics--
link to newyorker.com
But the show's co-creator, Howard Gordon, is also Jewish and also an enthiusiastic booster for the back-up homeland.
link to jewishjournal.com
"I keep hearing about the pigs and apes ..."
Everyone knows that Arabs think Jews are sons of pigs and apes. Jeffrey Goldberg has told us so--
"Nizar Rayyan of Hamas on God's Hatred of Jews"
link to theatlantic.com
Goldberg says he interviewed a Hamas official who believed it, although he conveniently waited until after the man's death before reporting the discussion. And he has never explained why any Hamas official would have given an interview to such a notorious Zionist. And he has never exlained how the interview actually took place, since he does not know conversational Arabic.
Still the story appears to have been good enough to scare TokyoBK.
Thanks MJ. There's not a lot of journalists left that conceive of their job as fighting power. We're lucky to have you.
"and . … in whom would that drivel inspire guilt or sympathy?"
I think we're being a little too hard on Phil. You have to remember that the world view he was confronting at that dinner is the same world view as his mom's. And that's a difficult thing for any man to reject. In a sense (and I hope I'm not sounding too much like the dream analysts here), you could even say that the whole evening was really a symbolic confrontation with his mother.
Annie writes: "Most people are not prone towards hatred."
Based on his comments here, I suspect it's too late for BK to ever accept this. He has too much invested in the notion of "antisemitism." All of his posts rely on this idea as their spoken or unspoken foundation. To start questioning that bogus concept now, to start regarding gentile and jewish behavior as symmetrical, would leave him completely adrift.
"Would you ever describe Jews - Chabad and otherwise - as inclined to hate Arabs/non-Jews?"
Shmuel deserves an answer.
"I admire Phil’s courage, or is it recklessness, for accepting the invitation."
Yes, this is what struck me, the oddness of anyone accepting that invitation. Obviously Phil was looking for something, but what? To be enveloped in the attention of 18 highly intelligent people, begging him to join them?
I'm guessing that was a very lonely drive back home. Once again he was just a man, but the night before he had glimpsed what it was like to be a part of something bigger than an individual, something that never dies.
Just a technicality, but you describe Fein as "from the Forward." His J-mag was called the Moment. (But he's best know for his leadership of AfPN.)
I was amused to discover that he also founded something called Mazon: A Jewish Response to Hunger. I'm still fully expecting to someday see "Jews against Global Warming."
Dershowitz tried to pull the same thing, claiming that he was always against the war. Unfortunately for him, his op-ed from Sept. 2002 is available for all to read.
A Hawk in Drag: Dershowitz and the Iraq War
Tim Wilkinson, January 31, 2007
link to counterpunch.org
Very nicely put, Miriam.
hopmi writes: "Arguing a source that is an Arab news source is biased is different from arguing that a source run by a parent company whose CEO is a Jew is biased. That’s comparing apples and oranges."
Why don't you elaborate on this a little, for those of us who don't quite see the distinction, and in fact worry that it sounds just a little "nefarious."
As if ethnicity and religion mean anything, hopmi. I mean we only have to look at how you spend your days to know how silly that is. ;)
CBS is owned by National Amusements Inc., which is privately held by Sumner Redstone.
ABC is owned by the Disney Co., whose Chairman & CEO is Robert Iger.
NBC is majority owned by Comcast Corp., whose Chairman, President, & CEO is Brian L. Roberts.
CNN is owned by Time Warner Inc., whose Chairman & CEO is Jeffrey Bewkes
All of the above are Jewish. (The one remaining major news outlet in this country is Fox, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.) Jews represent 1 1/2% of the U.S. population. You should be celebrating your ethnic success, hophmi, not denying it.
I wish Simon had had the courage to tell his audience that Oren's call to Fager, the head of CBS, was a call to a fellow Jew, if only to illustrate the kind of tribal pressures that can be brought to bear on coverage of the Middle East. But then that could have opened a whole can of worms. Before you know it Americans might be told that the Chairman of ABC is Jewish too. And the Chairman of NBC. And the Chairman of CNN.
And we all know that mentioning that amazing coincidence is "antisemitic."
Have any gentiles been allowed to speak on the book, anywhere? (Not that there's many who would dare.)
Looks like we've just got to keep waiting for the Jewish-American awakening. Now I know Phil assures us this is just around the corner, but I do wish it would hurry up.
"There’s no way that came from Rabbinical Judaism."
I'm not following your logic. Rabbinical Judaism doesn't recognize a Jewish "people," membership in which is conferred by bloodlines?
And even if it doesn't, modern secular Jewish identity certainly does.
"Much, Much higher than 50%."
I have to agree with Fred here. I think Phil is trying to convince himself of something for which there is not really much evidence, at least yet. The point of about echo chambers is well taken. The internet misleads us because we self-select our news sources. Probably all the self-identifying Jews in the USA who oppose Zionism are here commenting on this site. (And even a Pam Geller can easily outpull Mondoweiss in the traffic statistics.)
Yes, the ordinary people have been saying this for some time. The EU's public opinion polls go back to at least 2003 and have all found that Israel is considered by the public to be the biggest threat to world peace. Here's last year's poll--
Now, hopefully, more and more elite voices (those that are embedded in the power structure and are the most indebted to editors, publishers, critics, etc.) will be rebelling.
Remember when Phil asked "When is someone going to lose his job for calling someone an anti-Semite?" Why don't we we start here.
Anyone who uses this highly problematic term as if it had a clear meaning is either a naive fool, or a scoundrel.
Remember the argument against BSD, that it would engender a "siege mentality" among Israelis? That first we must win their trust and then they will make concessions? Well just how long do you think it would take to win the trust of Irit Linur?
"because they were born anti-Semites and will die anti-Semites ..."
It's important that gentiles get to see these glimpses into what "antisemitism" really means to many secular Jews. It's not just the word used to categorize prejudice against a minority when that minority happens to be Jewish. For the Irit Linurs, antisemitism is its own metaphysical category ("causeless hatred"), which is not caused by anything in history but is what causes history itself. It's a prime mover of the world, and she worships it.
So when Dena Shunra calls this ranting a "slander," she's actually missing the point. A slander is a lie, and a lie is something that could at least conceivably be true. But here we're talking about something which exists only in the casebooks of aberrant psychology.
BTW, this yahoo is an American, writing from New Jersey.
It's also interesting to note that the screenplay for Indecent Proposal differed a little from Jack's novel. From Wikipedia:
Speaking of the media, Julian Assange's new interview show premiered today. There's been considerable buzz about it and he didn't let us down. First guest--Hassan Nasrallah!
Here's the show's site--
link to assange.rt.com
But if you're having trouble streaming from there, here's a direct link to the interview--
link to youtube.com
"all the doves turning into hawks ..."
Reminds me of the 2006 attack on Lebanon. ("We will turn Lebanon’s clock back twenty years.") I remember the Jewish community organizations out demonstrating from Manhattan to Seattle, screaming for more Arab blood. Whenever I hear the claim that the Jewish community has been hijacked by an old-school leadership, that it doesn't reflect their true values, I think of that and worry that the problem goes much deeper.
Al Jazeera's interview yesterday with Dan Meridor was all about Israel's relations with Iran. It showed that Al Jazeera still has a little fight left in it and hasn't been completely emasculated--
link to youtube.com
"... or we wouldn’t pay attention to Palestinians reporting from Gaza or the West Bank or East Jerusalem."
Where in the NYT are you seeing these reports? My copy doesn't have them. (Presumably because they haven't gotten through the Jerusalem Bureau Chief.)
Another media story:
Roger Cohen has an op-ed in today's NYT, about "the manipulation of Jewish victimhood in the name of Israel’s domination of the Palestinians," etc. It was originally entitled "The Dilemmas of Jewish Power." Somehow that has gotten changed to "The Dilemmas of Israeli Power." Apparently some aspects of victimhood are just too hard to give up.
link to nytimes.com
For those who were too lazy to follow Alex's link, here is reporter Adam Kredo's bio--
I notice Goldberg is now allowing comments at his Atlantic blog. Is this the first time? I assume they are being heavily edited, but the general tenor is critical of Goldberg's position.
""Israel-firsters" are not those who put Israel first, but rather those who put an Israeli right-wing agenda first, even at the expense of American interests."
Mairav Zonszein at +972 is tying himself into logical knots trying to make this into a left/right issue. Can't there be left-wingers who put Israel's interests ahead of American interests?
It's about tribalism, not theories of government.
(pelican)
Shouldn't he be wearing a Chicago Bulls cap? tsk tsk tsk
About Sarkozy, Winnica was being too modest.
"Who is Nocolas Sarkozy?"
link to jewishworldreview.com
"Under these intolerant political circumstances, liberal Jews must imagine other political coalitions than ones of only Jews hanging on to the idea of a majority state."
Is there any doubt that when Gorenberg's "universalist commitment to tikkun olam" comes up against the appeals of "Jewish communal life," it's the first that's going to go, just as it always has?
OT:
"More Intellectual Dishonesty at The New York Times"
Michael Harrington
link to original.antiwar.com
I don't understand Blumenthal's idea of a "wedge issue." I've always seen opposition to the lobby as essentially an anti-corruption issue, with little to do with issues of left/right ideology. So unless you take the Christian Zionist movement seriously (which I see as essentially a trailer-park demographic lacking any real economic power), how are Bibi and the lobby going to make support for Israel into a broad "red team" issue. What's so "conservative" about it? It's either a good idea or not, to be decided on moral and economic grounds, but it's not like the abortion issue, which is already pre-decided on religious grounds.
Also, wedges are supposed to have two sides. I have yet to see any significant "blue team" opposition to "America's plucky little ally."
Ultras are more honest.
Mndwss, your second link (the Santorum Q&A at the Oxford Centre for Religion and Public Life) is a fascinating document. I imagine it could even trigger some debate in the MSM, a la the Ron Paul newsletters. (Assuming, of course, Santorum's fifteen minutes of fame aren't almost over.)
BTW, it dates from a course on Religion & Politics that he presented at the OCRPL on August 1, 2008.
Slightly off topic: Speaking of the Diaspora Korps, I came across an interesting full-page ad in the Times Literary Supplement, where full-page ads are relatively rare and which normally confines itself to academic books--
There are a few blurbs ("A tour de force of the one the most intriguing and disturbing phenomena in history," says Brown University's Omer Bartov), and across the top is splashed this headline--
"DO WE KNOW HATRED WHEN WE SEE IT?"
(Apparently there's a hatred out there that doesn't look like hatred, but with training we'll be able to spot it. I'm guessing it sometimes looks a lot like criticism of Israel.)
The publisher isn't a university press, but something called Facing History and Ourselves.
link to facinghistory.org
Their motto is "Combating racism, antisemitism, and prejudice and nurtures democracy through education programs worldwide."
Oddly the "About Us" section doesn't give any names at all, but if you go to the annual report you can find the staff--
link to facinghistory.org
Chairman of the Board of Directors is Seth A. Klarman, among whose credentials is Chairman of the Board of The David Project, and Director of The Israel Project.
Also on the board and chairman of the Board of Scholars is Martha Minow (Dean, Harvard Law School).
Having gotten this far, I just couldn't bring myself to look up author Phyllis Goldstein's history.
"No, I don’t agree there should have been such an intervention–it would have been unthinkable for any number of obvious reasons."
Jerome, could you spell out those reasons for us simpletons? Because I can't see why it would have been so different from those interventions that you applaud--Bosnia, Kosovo, Kuwait, Libya.
"Sheldon Adelson to Birthright group: Gingrich is right to call Palestinians 'invented people'"
link to haaretz.com
"the kind of attention that will generate is primarily those trying to silence it."
Exactly, just as in the run-up to Iraq the religious identity of the neocons was only mentioned by the MSM in the context of whether noticing it was "antisemitic." (Remember the uproar over the AdBusters article.)
(P.S. I hate people who use "religious" like I did here. But it's the usage Phil favors.)
"Is anyone who is afraid to say no to our Israel Lobby, qualified to represent the US to the world?"
Good point. This issue of integrity should be added to David Samel's excellent moral arguments against militarism. Part of the significance of Paul's anti-war position is his willingness to confront a powerful establishment. (Even those who don't agree with him never argue that he's chosen his position opportunistically.) And the real significance of Obama's pro-war position is the man's craven capitulation to power. Are we supposed to trust a man who shows no integrity in his foreign policy, when it comes to domestic policy? The problems the country faces -- socially, economically, domestically, abroad -- can all be seen as symptoms of a corrupted system. Sooner or later those forces are going to have to be confronted, so why not start the battle now?
"Simpleminded" or corrupt, that's our choice.
(But of course this assumes that you interpret Obama's foreign policy as a capitulation to the Israel Lobby and not an expression of his true convictions, and I'm not sure Prof. Slater acknowledges the existence of an Israel Lobby.)
"I wouldn’t mind having these small recollections gathered by tags so you could revisit old stories you liked."
I agree, but who could ever do justice to the tags? :)
BTW, this brought a smile: "I was tucked under the eaves holding soffit strips for the taller guy to screw down, and grinning devilishly."
"I wonder if the cultural thievery is conscious and intentional or merely lazy."
Editor Gabriella Gershenson is Jewish. I'm afraid this fact tilts the scales towards "intentional."
With ads like these coming from an organization calling itself the Committee for Israel, it's going to make it almost impossible for anyone to deny any longer that there's such a thing as an Israel Lobby. And when their attacks focus on a candidate's anti-war position, it's also going to make it hard for anyone to deny that the Israel lobby is a pro-war lobby.
On the other hand I don't accuse these people of stupidity and they must have thought of this too, and therefore must have decided that the Israel brand name is strong enough to take the hit. It's going to be interesting to see if they're right.
“He is a poison”
I'm guessing this required an heroic effort to suppress the A-word, which was just dying to get out. Bravo to both ToivoS and Mooser for finding new ways to express the old cliche.
And thanks to both of you, from the community, for protecting our impressionable minds from all dangerous ideas. Dangerous ideas are the last things we want around here.
That's a fascinating document, MRW. Thanks.
I'm struck by the length and depth of the coverage of the topic, on what was just a local nightly news report. That was in 1984. It's amazing how quickly our media's treatment of any subject touching on Jewishness became infantilized and trivialized.
And I agree with you, the fact that Jewish groups can succeed in segregating that clip as "inappropriate" is infuriating.
The Christian Post article is SPECIFICALLY about Jewish Romney supporters. The NY Times article is about Romney’s Super PAC."
Yeah, any day now the NYT will be running its own report on Jewish money in the Romney campaign.
"Jerry Slater and I are probably going to have a dialogue about this in weeks to come..."
Be sure to ask him how he distinguishes an "antisemite" from someone who finds some of the ideas of Jewishness unappealing, or socially harmful.
Phil wrote: "Obama will be a better policymaker the longer Ron Paul is in the process."
If you're registered as an Independent or Democrat, you might want to change your voter registration so that you can participate in your state's Republican primary. It's an easy process, and for most states there's still time.
The structure of Jeffrey's post is a little complicated, so to make sure Robert Werdine doesn't misunderstand let me point out that the statement "The Jews would naturally regard it as an act of baseness if, having appealed to them in our hour of peril, we were to throw them over when the danger was past," are the exact words of a British cabinet minister, writing in 1923, and not merely an historian's interpretation of British motives.
Werdine, you don't have to believe Jeffrey. You can read it directly from Lloyd George's memoirs--
Mooser writes that the statement “jews who refused to allow their children to marry a non-jews” is "very hard to understand." Presumably he means that all those Jews (still roughly half, today in the twenty-first century in one of the most secular societies on the planet) who refuse to marry any of the 98% of the people around them because of their bloodlines, are doing it from choice and not out of duress. But what's worse?
RoHa writes: "It seems to me ... that Jewish separatism has frequently been so extreme as to alienate the rest of the community."
But it isn't really separatism by itself which is so alienating. It's the combination of on the one hand refusing to break bread with the crowd while at the same time insisting on participating in the ruling power structure. This is almost unique and is what constitutes the "Jewish problem." Think of other separatist groups, like the Amish, who believe the ways of the broad society are harmful and so insulate themselves by keeping apart. But they keep completely apart (or as completely as they can). They suffer from the prejudice that all minorites must suffer from, but there is no need for new concepts like "anti-Amishness" to explain it.
BTW, 501(c)(3)'s are not just "tax exempt," they are "tax deductible." The difference is important. It means that when Irving Moskowitz makes a contribution, you and I and all American taxpayers are effectively boosting his contribution by another 35%.
(We have a CPA on this forum. Maybe Richard can explain to everyone just how this works. I'm sure he's as indignant as anybody about this abuse of power.)
I think you've got it right, MRW.
Here's the classic clip from the 2000 campaign--
"The George Bush You Forgot"
link to youtube.com
Annie wrote: "who could forget the line in the rolling stone..ron s..brain malfunctioning..argh..about the people just watching what happens of finding out and they write history or something."
You didn't give us much to go on, but perhaps you were thinking of this from Karl Rove?
There is actually very little difference between the positions of Kampeas and Phil. Kampeas writes that the administration wanted a war and "tailored the sales pitch to the target." So the media got WMD, liberals got the Kurds (Hitch got that assignment), and "Jews got the threat to Israel." But isn't that exactly what we're talking about? (Leaving aside for the moment the intellectually interesting question that Phil wants to ask of just how the different hawks in the administration arrived at their pro-war positions.)
The fact that Kampeas can write that American Jews were sold on the basis that it was good for Israel, while at the same time arguing that there was no Israel Lobby, might seem to be a contradiction. But you would be overlooking a key assumption in the worldview of people like Kampeas: JEWS HAVE NO POWER, EVER! To be Jewish is to suffer passively from that fundamental building block of the universe, "antisemitism," and victims can't hold power. The whole difference between Kampeas and Weiss boils down to this assumption, which is at the very center of the idea of Zionism.
"our new zio poster ambv linked to a youtube of david duke the other day."
I don't remember Krauss lashing out that time. Oh well, maybe he missed it.
Strange people indeed.
"does anyone have this JB interview?"
This may be it. I remember it also influenced me. (It was orignally published in SFIndymedia, but this blogger has put up a copy.)--
"Jeffrey Blankfort: Jewish-American anti-Zionist journalist"
SF-IMC, Nov. 20, 2006
link to bleiersblog.blogspot.com
"Now, does anyone else here think that this incoherent Blankfort rant might be legitimately labeled as “anti-Semitic?” Just a little?"
Not me, not at all. Particularly since you don't even attempt to point to anything "antisemitic" about it. Just bald assertion. That doesn't work any more, Mr. Slater.
"Paul’s response thus far has been about as flimsy as the paper his Newsletter was printed on. “I didn't write them. I didn't read them at the time and I disavow them.”"
Doesn't sound all that flimsy to me, but I suppose it depends on where you're coming from. I imagine a nose dedicated to a lifetime of sniffing out "antisemitism" can eventually grow hypersensitive from all the exercise.
If Ron Paul is such a monster, why can't Lizzy Rattner can't find anthing to get indignant over which doesn't date from the early nineties? What happened in the last twenty years?
Postville, not Pottsville. And the interesting part, the part relevant to the theme of this blog, occurred well before the animal cruelty scandal broke or the illegal immigrant scandal broke. Here's from the afterword to the 2001 edition:
I've always thought "When Victims Rule" should have been the title for the book.
Perhaps he'll join Scooter and Judy at the Hudson Institute. Isn't that why Weinstein bought it, to provide a home for fellow landsmen?
(BTW, I'd love to see the list of names who were on that "Freedom Community" listserv. Why hasn't this been made public? I'm guessing the one common thread you'd find would not be ideological position, but just old-fashioned ethnic identity.)