When is a racist no longer a
racist? How do you revise history
and turn past lies into plausibly deniable claims? How do you spin the words of a self-avowed Nazi sympathizer
and turn him into a defender of the Faith and the American way?
Simple! Just say it. Words alone have the power to change reality and turn dross into gold. Heated denials can make a tasty reduction sauce. Throw in some red meat
to feed hungry lynch mobs. Add a
pinch of tribalism. And
presto! The Devil has become your
Savior:
Anyone who doubted that the American government, media and “culture” has not been completely colonized and taken over by Jewish Supremacists and their sick ideological worldview, need look no further than …
In other words, look no further
than David Duke, Steve Scalise, and their Zio-Apologist and
Zio-Revisionist-in-Chief, John Boehner. How ironic! The GOP has chosen Steve Scalise (R, La) to hold the same position formerly held by Eric Cantor. Since it is no longer fashionable to be a racist (and since David Duke
claims he is not nor has he ever been a racist), you can trade in your old
bigotry for a real collectors’ item - the oldest scapegoat of them all -
anti-Semitism. Which reminds me. Here is a
comment from a notorious blogger who no longer plies the waters of civilized society:
Yes, indeed! But they he failed to mention the nearly absolute control Jews exert upon A) the ENEMEDIA, B) the Entertainment Industry, and C) the Educational Establishment, and the hugely disproportionate influence Jews enjoy over The Courts, The Law in general, and their ever-growing numbers in the U.S. Congress. (Schumer, Boxer, Feinstein, Franken, Sanders, et al.)
No need to name names -
the memes and themes should be recognizable to all. David Duke and this voice from the Cringe Fringe appear to
be reading off the same page, and you can still smell the stench of Zio-Protocols and Zio-taunts beneath their words.
True bigots are like leopards, they can't change their spots.
ReplyDeleteI believe it was Scott Walker, the guy who presides over the Koch Brothers' subsidiary once known as "Wisconsin," who wished his Jewish constituents "Molotov!"
ReplyDeleteOy!
WASHINGTON -- Hanukkah is a holiday that commemorates the burning of oil. Republicans naturally love it. But in his haste to celebrate the festival of lights, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) got a little farmisht.
In an undated letter posted by the Capital Times Wednesday, Walker wrote to a constituent that he would be happy to display a menorah at the Milwaukee County Courthouse. At the time, he was serving as county executive. But what stands out most is his closing line. From the letter:
Thank you for you letter regarding the Menorah Display. Yes we would be happy to display the Menorah celebrating "The Eight Days of Chanukah" here at the Courthouse. [...]
Thank you again and Molotov.
Remember Michele Bachmann saying President Obama had "Chootz-spa?
Shaw,
DeleteCorrection noted. I knew of the gaffe but named the wrong author. I inserted the gaffe at the end of this post as a satirical afterthought – without intending to accuse Scott Walker (or former Texas Governor “Oops’ Perry) of anti-Semitism. Obviously, Walker was making an honest outreach to members of the Jewish community; he merely made a fool of himself in the process. That makes two GOP governors (one current and one former) who are “OOPS” prone.
Chootz-spa? Is that something like Cooties or a resort in the alps?
DeleteI wonder how many African Americans groan when plaid clad white people from Fargo attempt to sound "Black." As if all black people spoke with a certain accent, just like all Jews are recent immigrants from 19th century Eastern Europe.
By the way, it's not a menorah, it's a Channukiah and no, there's no way to spell that in the Roman alphabet. You just have to know. The Hebrew Language and Yiddish as well are a Shibboleth of sorts. Trying to pronounce it identifies you just as it did in Judges 12:6. It's America. English is acceptable here.
And while we're at Hannukah, why not Tu Bishvat and Purim, Pesach, Tisha B'av, Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Simchat Torah? They're pretty much more important holidays.
Meanwhile this member of the non-existent community in question is also an American of many years' standing and would prefer an outreach that consists of saying something intelligent and useful. Thank you and Kalashnikov.
I didn't know most of those Congressmen you named were Jewish.
ReplyDeleteYet (no this is not an accusation to you at all) that didn't matter at all. Because unlike those thugs, my perception of Jewish people is such that this difference doesn't matter to me.
Dmarks,
DeleteThose named Congress critters (i.e. Schumer, Boxer, Feinstein, Franken, Sanders, et al) were not named by me but by the author of the insert quotation. I did not reference the insert quotation with a link because the author deleted subject text after he was called to task by you, me, and others.
Who is this mysterious author quoted above? Here is a hint: I quoted you under this post:
Dmarks: “FreeThinke: Reading your comment to RN, I can see that free thinking is not so welcome here” (September 12, 2014 at 8:05 AM).
And here is another hint:
DMarks: “Waylon proved my point of his Nazi sympathies when he discussed the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion” (September 13, 2014 at 10:55 AM).
So the issue is this: Is subject author bashing liberals (who happen to be Jews) or bashing Jews (because many of them happen to be liberal)? Here are my reasons for considering subject author to be anti-Semitic:
1. FT’s insert quotation mirrors the same attitudes as David Duke (whom I regard as viciously anti-Semitic);
2. FT cannot separate partisanship from anti-Semitism, having made similar anti-Semitic remarks in the past;
3. Historically, Jews have always been the target of viciously paranoid conspiracy theories – in banking, media, politics, education, and culture. FT’s remarks are consistent with this tradition.
Regretably, anti-Semitism is by no means dead, gone and buried in the past. It is alive and resurgent in Europe (i.e. the Holocaust Museum murders in Belgium), in Kansas (i.e. the Jewish Community Center murders), in New York (i.e. swastikas painted on gravestones in Jewish cemeteries), and throughout the world. I don’t take these reports lightly.
I hope this comment clarifies some admittedly vague points regarding the source of subject text.
So, is there any evidence that these meant anything in the least antisemitic with their gaffe? In the least- what so ever?
ReplyDeleteDmarks,
DeleteWith regard to my Rick Perry misquote, please see the mea culpa in response to Shaw’s comment (above).
Mazel Tov, Kalashnikov oh me oh my oh
ReplyDeleteSon of a gun we'll have big fun down on the bayou
With apologies to Hank Williams
Hey, at least I'm old enough to remember Molotov!
Is there any group -- and I ought to put the word "group" in quotes -- that is less like a group and more like a sack full of pissed off cats? The very euphemism "Jewish community" has to bring a smile or perhaps a grimace to anyone trying to find a sense of community in the wide world of the Jewish religion. Of course, I should put quotes around phrase like "the Jews" or "Jewish control" since that very lack of community makes the concept useful only to bigots and paranoia salesmen.
The only thing that approaches commonality in a group which includes radical right and radical left, the fanatically observant and the atheist, the billionaire and the pauper, is the reliance on education to get ahead in a somewhat alien environment. That may explain the apparent prominence of Jews in some fields and of course the historically closed nature of other fields may explain the rest. But of course the Lumpenrepublican, being a dull, incurious and ignorant sort buys into anything they can attribute to "the Jews." You hear "Jew controlled" Hollywood, when after all, "White Christian controlled" almost everything might be more accurate.
Sure, the bigot doesn't think he is one, he just thinks of groups and stereotypes and so much in our culture steers him in that direction. I'm long past giving a shit about stereotypes about Jews although I'm still annoyed when people think they have to walk on eggshells when talking to me -- like I'm somehow different or "sensitive." I'm not and if someone says something hilarious like "Molotov" I'm not offended by the malapropism as much as I am by the pandering. We all say dumb things when we try to sound smart.
So no, I don't think that particular remark was anti-semitic any more than the moronic Palinisms we should be used to from similar sources. The thought that one can earn respect or votes from Jews by attempting Yiddish or Hebrew, isn't anti-semitic either -- any more than when any politician prostitutes his vocabulary to his audience. I speak English better than nearly all of them, don't give a damn about Hannukah or however you spell it and don't believe in YHWH any more than I believe in Chuckwu so all I get from this panderfest is annoyance. I'm not "the Jewish people, or the Jews. I'm not an Israeli -- I'm an American. Speak English.
I have encountered lots of Jew baiting in the Blogs, but when it descends to calling me a Hebe or a Kike or worse, I always take that as an acknowledgement of my victory and the opponent's defeat, I don't cry or tremble or feel hurt. Swastika painters, skin heads, Jew Watchers and other losers will always be with us. We can handle it.
"Swastika painters, skin heads, Jew Watchers and other losers will always be with us. We can handle it."
DeleteIndeed, they will always be with us; but what concerns me is history repeating itself. Anti-Semitism is by far one of the oldest of bigotries, one of the deadliest, and the one rendered so manifest in Western culture that it has become "routinized" and "accepted" in certain circles ... even to this day as evidenced in the indent quotations above. When my great grandfather was brought before a firing a firing squad by Adolph Eichmann, I can't imagine him saying: "We can handle it." So when I see evidence of anti-Semitism - or any form of bigotry - I will condemn it in the harshest terms.
It's not that I don't take it seriously or that I don't think it's totally impossible for such things to happen here, but these people are not about to take over the government and put millions of people in death camps. We are not as powerless as our grandfathers or great grandfathers, nor even the heroes of Warsaw or Sobibor and I have faith in the cowardice of bullies, their rage fueled by full knowledge of their own worthlessness and impotence. They don't scare me. I don't accept the stereotype of the helpless, defenseless Jew either. The list of Muslim leaders rudely disapprised of that notion is long.
DeleteThey number in the thousands, not the millions: losers, idiots, pathetic psychotics -- shiny heads make such good targets, you know and white sheets don't stop bullets. The only anti-semites that I think are really dangerous today, are anti-almost anything else Western and the enemy of us all, but even so, it's hard to see the wholesale slaughter of millions repeated here by the US government.
Here is a tidbit from the past, perhaps relevant to this conversation.
ReplyDeleteBack in 1970 or even earlier, students at UC San Diego published a radical, far-left newspaper called the Crazy Times. Needless to say, the paper ridiculed and reviled Nixon. What I wouldn't give to still possess that one issue that I managed to save as a young teenager!
A few years after I enrolled as a freshman in September of 1977, some bright students took up the long-forgotten mantle and began publishing The New Indicator. It was a very memorable journal of the early 1980s in spite of how very up-to-the-moment it was in political thought. One of the funnier serial cartoons made fun of the UCSD mascot, the Koala Bear. The only one I remember was one where our hero, a Koala, shot two UCSD police officers with an extremely high-powered rifle loaded with hashish, Thai stick and an instantanous incendiary device that funneled all of the smoke into the victims' mouth and nose. In the last frame, he was helping to calm the officers and direct them to the nearest donut shop.
Not so funny. One of the earliest issues showed the right-wing perception of race politics in the U.S.A. of about 1981. A vigorously strong and able, enormous black man was being powered by a Jewish master, who stood at the controls of the black man's brain much as a charioteer might control his horses.
Is that so far from the truth of the way that they still believe to this day?
As far as David Duke... If he can cite three Gentile comedians as funny as Groucho Marx, Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks, I'd like to hear about it.
If I still did cartoons, I might try one with an enormous tattooed skin head being controlled by David Duke. Who knows what vermin like that think, but I suspect any principles he has are only tools for his own advancement.
ReplyDeleteMost of my favorite comedians tend to be black or Catholic, Maybe both groups also have a sence of cynicism I don't know why, but bigots have no trace of humor -- that seems to be universal.