Everyone is talking about Greg Smith’s smashing explanation of his resignation from Goldman, Sachs, as well they should be. A great moral document, it might actually change the “toxic and destructive” Wall Street environment that so nauseated the 12-year Goldman veteran. (Yes I’m a dreamer).
The Greg Smith statement was Made by the New York Times. If the Times hadn’t published it on the Op-Ed page, it wouldn’t have had near the impact it did. And who knows what the negotiations were like– but maybe Greg Smith wouldn’t have resigned in that fashion if the Times hadn’t published his piece. And to the Times’ credit, it followed up the initial op-ed with a top-of-the-front-page two-column story on Smith.
Back to my headline. The end of Smith’s letter includes this paragraph:
My proudest moments in life — getting a full scholarship to go from South Africa to Stanford University, being selected as a Rhodes Scholar national finalist, winning a bronze medal for table tennis at the Maccabiah Games in Israel, known as the Jewish Olympics — have all come through hard work, with no shortcuts. Goldman Sachs today has become too much about shortcuts and not enough about achievement. It just doesn’t feel right to me anymore.
This paragraph recalls one of the greatest moral stands that the late Tony Judt took in his life– also on the Times Op-Ed page, when he stood up for Walt and Mearsheimer in April 2006 a few weeks after they had published The Israel Lobby in the London Review of Books. Remember, it was a time when people were smearing Walt and Mearsheimer as anti-Semites and saying they were crazy. And Judt thundered, They are right, the paper is “a wake-up call, a reminder of the damage the Israel lobby is doing.”
That Op-Ed included the fact that Judt was Jewish. In a parentheses:
(I know something about [anti-Semitism] , growing up Jewish in 1950’s Britain)
Judt later said that the editors had asked him to insert that phrase. Their logic ws obvious: it gave the piece greater traction inside a dubious Jewish establishment.
How large is the Jewish portion of the establishment? How central is Jewish opinion to the ideas and reforms that can produce social change– in the Middle East or on Wall Street? My own sense is that We make up the bulk of the east coast establishment today. Witness the Daily Beast’s decision to start a blog on Israel/Palestine at which 7 of the 10 writers are Jewish. “It is time for a Jewish conversation that faces—rather than evades—the realities of our time,” Peter Beinart wrote in kicking off that blog. And one of those realities is that a Jewish voice is more powerful than a non-Jewish one in establishment circles.
“Judt later said that the editors had asked him to insert that phrase. Their logic ws obvious: it gave the piece greater traction inside a dubious Jewish establishment”
Right, and twice: ONCE a Jew is talking, listen up; TWICE: I am not an anti-Semite.
Establishment seems full of people who do not want to offend their Jewish friends — including — of course — many Jews.
Doesn’t the prevalence of Jews all over our media invite discussion of bias?I mean even the sites like here and Salon(GG)and DNow are Jews.What kind of healthy discourse is there when ethnic and religious conformity are necessary credentials for bloviation or even sane discussion?(Free will,of course,we don’t have to come here,and we can shove our alleged bias up our ass,I know,but where else is there to go?Freakin Joan Walsh and the rest of the liberal hypocrites?Crooks and Liars?They just about all suck,outside of Moon of Ala,Infowars(with their strange fixation on dead Communism,)and very few others.The Guardian has gone neolibcon also.a veritable wasteland of biased fraud info,along with AJ which committed harikari over Libya and Syria. )
I blame the governments devaluation of alleged agencies like the FCC,which have destroyed our conversation by allowing Zionist media conglomeration,as every MSM network is Zionist leaning or controlled,and our nation serially lied to,as we descend into the cellar of the tower of Babel,as divide and conquer is the new civilized playbook by the uncivilized.
I see the bane of European Jewry Demanjuk died today,with all the sins of Adolf Hitler buried with the Ukrainian fall guy for German consumption,and another Maus gone to his demise.(As a former German soldier coworker who emigrated after the war told me,”you do what they said,or you were one dead Maus”.)
“And one of those realities is that a Jewish voice is more powerful than a non-Jewish one in establishment circles.”
Phil, you are a sharp observer. That distinguishes you from many other sites. Quality gets rewarded, so I predict your readership will grow in quantity and quality, while the readership of people who shut their eyes on something as obvious as the Jewish share of the establishment will decline.
“It is time for a Jewish conversation that faces—rather than evades—the realities of our time,” ” Peter Beinart wrote in kicking off that blog. And one of those realities is that a Jewish voice is more powerful than a non-Jewish one in establishment circles.”
Yes Phil, y’all run this – for now, and i sincerely hope it doesn’t end in a tragedy for your tribe! It is as if the dominant Jewish establishment is trying its’ darnest to validate the fake and libelous Protocols of Zion and the classic anti semitism of yore; the Jewish courtier who poisons the Kings ear.
How large is the Jewish portion of the establishment? How central is Jewish opinion to the ideas and reforms that can produce social change– in the Middle East or on Wall Street? My own sense is that We make up the bulk of the east coast establishment today.
Funny thing, that’s my sense. too. And thank Goodness there is a Philip Weiss who is willing to say such erstwhile-taboo things in public so that the matter can be discussed.
Yes, it is clear to all sentient beings that Jews “make up the bulk of the east coast establishment today.” No need to argue about that if you are aware of the facts in our society. The question, as I have put it on a recent thread, should be, “Is Jewish power good for us?”
https://mondoweiss.mystagingwebsite.com/2012/03/beinart-time-for-a-jewish-conversation-about-jewish-power-and-responsibility.html#comment-432842
I think that Phil and I would probably answer that question differently. His view would be that of a concerned Jew having pride in the tribe. Mine would be that of a simmering goy wondering, ‘WTF is going on here?’ How did American society get to this point in the last half-century, and why?
Yes, prior to this time our nation’s Establishment had been peopled primarily by the infamous ‘wasps’. ‘White’ American Protestants were the demographic majority, and in a democracy it is natural that they would have been predominant in the Establishment. Unfortunately, most other religious/ethnic groups were under-represented in the centers of power – such as Catholics, Blacks, Hispanics, etc.
Jews, then as now, constituted 2% or less of the nation’s population. They were generally not under-represented in America’s power sources, such as universities, national media, high finance, commerce. Likewise, they were generally not under-represented, during, say, the half-century from 1880-1930, in countries like Germany, Poland, Hungary, Britain where Jews had a small but significant numerical presence.
But now, in America, Jews’ place in the American power structure has become so large and overwhelming that Philip Weiss can say matter-of-factly that Jews make up the bulk of the East Coast [our most significant] establishment, and that a Jewish voice is more powerful than a non-Jewish one. I might add that a Jewish voice not only carries more weight within the power centers, but they (the 2 per cent!) are heard most frequently in representations of the power centers to the general public.
It is now quite appropriate to speak of a Jewish power structure, and to ask how it arose. As before, I tender this caveat civis:
https://mondoweiss.mystagingwebsite.com/2012/03/beinart-time-for-a-jewish-conversation-about-jewish-power-and-responsibility.html#comment-433189