Letters to the Editor
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If the mods are going to delete me
They sould delete the people who quote me verbatim. You make my case for me and it's laughable. Sad, but laughable. Oh well I guess I'll go back to controlling the world's money supply for now. TTFN.
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It can't happen here
Yellow Dog: I'm afraid the Usurper does indeed have a choice come January 2009.
Him and what army? I mean, we pay them, he doesn't.
-- SusanMc
Ever hear of Kent State?
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The 'anti-semitic left'
The paleo-fascists (I think I coined that, not sure) over at Stormfront are rabidly opposed to the war in Iraq. They blame zionists in Israel and Jews here in America which own Hollywood and the media and have infiltrated mulitple levels of gov't.
Exactly. I keep hearing about the anti-semitic left, but mainly what I actually see are anti-israeli policy rants.
The unambiguousy anti-semitic posters I find online (don't actually know any IRL) are either new-wave skinheads or complete tinfoil-hatters who are barely coherent.
I mean, I (a conservative/libertarian) have a lot of problems with Israel's current government, I don't think they are such a great ally to the US. I have never understood how after Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by a right-wing nutjob, the nutjob's political views managed to dominate the next elections.
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All Totalitarian Regimes are Alike
Slate excerpts Clives James' Cultural Amnesia, from which the following is excerpted. All the reality-based experts purged from the Usurper's regime will certainly find this familiar:
" ... Eventually any kind of knowledge that had been acquired under the old order was enough to mark down its possessor. The Soviet "organs" discovered that even a knowledge of engineering was a threat to state security. ... Any field of study with its own objective criteria was thought to be inherently subversive.
"To this day, scholars puzzle over the reasons for Stalin's purging the Red Army of its best generals in the crucial years leading up to June 1941, but the answer might lie close to hand. The fact that military knowledge—strategy, tactics, and logistics—was a field of data and principles verifiable independently of ideology might have been more than enough to invite his hatred. In attacking his own army, of course, Stalin came close to demolishing the whole Soviet enterprise. But at the center of the totalitarian mentality is the fear that the internal enemy might go unapprehended.
"A totalitarian regime's progressively expanding concept of the enemy is the thing to bear in mind ...."
Orwell nailed it first, of course: up-is-down-ism, ideology trumping facts, permanent war ....
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On the Marxian view of religion
Paul R., thanks for the snippet of true facts about Marx, who's been turned into a cartoon by both sides in our current ideological struggles. I'm reminded of the signs carried about the stage in Brecht's Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny:
Für die gerechte Verteilung der überirdischen Güter
(For the just distribution of otherworldly goods.)
and
Für die ungerechte Verteilung der irdischen Güter
(For the unjust distribution of worldly goods.)
About sums it up, nicht wahr?
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David:
Coulter's success merits attacking her, but it doesn't negate the fact that anti-Semitic thought, and virulently anti-Israel sentiment perilously close to classic anti-Semitism, is today found among the Left and it seems to bother no one. I do see you on occassion making an effort to make it clear that you don't subsribe to the anti-Semitic views of a particular commenter. But you have an obvious self-interest in maintaining credibility. I almost never see other commenters getting exercised by naked anti-Semitism. Why not acknowledge that there's a problem? If it were any other ethnic group or race, the reaction would be totall different.
1) In reference to the bolded part. If you can't call us outright antisemitic, why should we respond to charges that we are "perilously close" to being so? This is fundamentally dishonest. If I support a Palestinian state, and so does the KKK, my position is "close" to theirs. However they do so because they believe such would be harmful to the Jews, whom they hate. I do so for reasons of human justice and the right of peoples to self-determination. The closeness of our desire is immaterial compared to the vast difference in motives.
Similarly the familiar complaint about accusations of dual-loyalty by certain Jews. Yes, this is "close" to the idea spread by anti-Semites that Jews are fundamentally disloyal and only exist to subvert society yada yada. However if I accuse a particular sub-group or individual of putting their loyalty to Israel over their loyalty to their state of actual citizenship (typically America) - again, my case must be judged on the merits of those individuals or sub-groups. Not because some anti-Semitics would happen to agree with me. Otherwise the act of refuting an argument is reduced to finding someone reprehensible who happens to agree on that point. To take it to absurdity: Hitler liked dogs, so should I not like dogs to avoid being like Hitler?
I mean seriously, do you not see that distinction? We can't help if our positions happen to agree with these nefarious elements, but that cannot tar our positions or us, in principle.
FYI, this fallacy is called Guilt by Association.
2) Your implication that Glenn only refutes Antisemitism in comments for reasons of "maintaining credibility" is unwarranted and conspiratorial. Do you have any basis to doubt Glenn's sincerity in that regard, or do you treat everyone with equal cynicism?
3) In what time frame should we have jumped on that comment? Frankly, it's a really bad example to choose as it is written so bizarrely as to be incoherent, which is why I decided against replying. I just couldn't make sense of it. Luckily Glenn did, and replied more than adequately. You make some sweeping generalizations that the commenters here routinely ignore their (appointed by you) responsibility to refute antisemitism by pseudononymous commenters, so you'd better back that. Please link to a representative sample of antisemitic comments left on Glenn's blog that no one refuted.
The onus is on you to prove some bias in our lack of reply, not in us to prove we're prompt in our disregard for bigotry.
I think the answer is that, unfortunately, the Left treats everything held dear to the Right as anathema. One of those things is support for Israel. It used to be a bi-partisan sentiment, but it's increasingly becoming more associated with the Right due to the Bush polarization factor. And it's a shame that partisan politics has dislodged people from their moral bearings.
Accepting your premise that the left treats Israel as "anathema" in the first place, can you see no other or more adequately intellectually honest reason that we might do so? Nothing about Israel's behaviour, record or actions that should warrant any intellectually honest criticism from the left, based on our admitted values of things like human rights, or rule of law and self-determination?
Your cynicism again rears its head. It's possible you see nothing wrong in Israels actions whatsoever, and therefore conclude any criticism of same is fundamentally dishonest but I doubt it. You're simply choosing to believe your opponents are evil because that's a more satisfying belief.