Amazing that the Jewish Journal of LA is running this nutty piece by David Mamet directed to Jews who are voting for Obama. The statement about a liberal government being inherently indisposed toward Israel ought to be true, by the way. The other pronouncements– alternative reality:
Will you tell your children that a liberal government will increasingly marginalize, dismiss and weaken the support for and the safety of the Jewish state?
Will you tell them that, in a state-run economy, hard work may still be applauded, but that it will no longer be rewarded?
Will you explain that whatever their personal beliefs, tax-funded institutions will require them to imbibe and repeat the slogans of the left, and that, should they differ, they cannot have a career in education, medicine or television unless they keep their mouths shut?
…Most importantly, will you teach them never to question the pronouncements of those in power, for to do so is to risk ostracism?
What interests me is the psychology behind this all.
Mamet, an intermarrying, assimilated liberal New York Jew who was the chief creative force behind ‘Race’, a very liberal (and critical) Broadway play on race relations from a decidedly left-wing perspectice has done a 180, now he supports(or supported) Sarah Palin.
He mimicks the same actions of Haim Saban, who he too intermarried, and even told his rabbi to ‘think of me as a Christian in favour of Judaism’.
Saban was also a total leftie and then snapped in the mid-90s and now admits to being ‘like Avigdor Lieberman whenever Israel is attacked, and then I calm down’.
No, he’s always like Lieberman. Except perhaps for the open threats to execute his opponents(like Lieberman).
Or take Michael Steinhardt, the brain behind Birthright. Who plainly admitted that Zionism for him was something he came to later in his life since he was a devout atheist(‘and feeling guilty about it’) and since he couldn’t start believing in a higher power, he turned to Zionism. There’s something to be said for ex-left wing Jewish men after the age of 50, something snaps in their minds.
It will be interesting what Goldberg will do in 10 years. Remember, he was a devout Kahanist in his youth and even in his biography(released just a few years ago), he praised Kahane as a man of ideas.
In Goldberg’s case, I suspect it will be a return to the fold where he began. After all, if you’ve had a Gentile white man who dabbled in being a devout follower of David Duke and then heaped praise on him as a man of ideas in his biography, when he is in his 40s, I wonder how many people would call that man a ‘liberal’.
Between Pesach with his “Wicked Son” and his nutty interview with Pat Robertson, then factoring in his racism and gynophobia, he’s a sick individual. And his plays suck.
‘Please remember that we have the secret ballot and, should you, on reflection, vote in secret for a candidate you would not endorse in public, you will not be alone.’
— Wow.
I liked Mamet’s House of Games with it’s clever reveal of a con getting conned but I walked out of his Spanish Prisoner because it was so self-indulgent and phony I just couldn’t stomach anymore of his pretentious dialogue (after 15 minutes) … he is a self-important, pompous ass to begin with and now he seeks to use his literary and film fame to pronounce on politics and he chooses the Chicken Little route – funny considering he likes to convey himself as so macho
RE: “Mamet sees creeping totalitarianism in Obama 2” ~ Weiss
MY COMMENT: Apparently David Mamet is not familiar with America’s current unholy trinity of “inverted totalitarianism”, “manufactured consent” and “monetary fascism”.
Wake up Mamet. Get your head out of your . . . um . . . er . . . the sand.
P.S. “FREE DON” SIEGELMAN PETITION – http://www.change.org/petitions/president-obama-please-restore-justice-and-pardon-my-dad