This Real News Network segment discusses how a small number of American Jewish billionaires are promoting a hawkish, aggressively pro-Israel stance which is at odds with the anti-war, anti-neocon views of many Jewish voters. The interviewee, Max Blumenthal, points out that this concerted, well-funded effort to direct American policy risks playing into anti-Semitic stereotypes.
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Well, the Catholic bishops in the US, and Antonin Scalia, decided in the 1980s to make all the old slurs against Catholics (refusing to obey the civil law due to following orders from a foreign potentate) true.
Given that, why shouldn’t rich Jewish idiots decide to act exactly like some of the oldest anti-Semitic slurs?
WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH OUR ELITES?!? Crazy self-destructive lunatics all of them, but they’re going to hurt ordinary people while they do so!
” WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH OUR ELITES?!? ”
What’s wrong is that they are NOT self-destructive. Those who get destroyed are the constituency/flock those elites pretend to represent. But those guys, Saban, Adelson, Sembler, have their “conscience” for themselves. They are absolutely convinced they are doing the “right thing” … and taking the risk of playing in the hands of the rankest antisemites out there. They, objectively, won’t the one suffering.
If, per chance, you are an history buff and want to see a truly terrifying example of that dynamic at work, you should look at a very obscure yet momentous event, the Krach of 1882, the bankruptcy of the Union Generale bank and the ensuing economic crisis in France. It wasn’t just a financial panic. It also pretty much single-handedly set in motion the transition of antisemitism in Europe from its traditional and then slowly fading “catholic” form to its modern “racialist” and conspiratorial form that would grow and evolve all the way to Naziism and the genocide of European Jews during WWII.
Those guys, Saban and friends, should look back on that episode, before they brandish too high the banners of Israel and Judaism, banners no one gave them. It may, hopefully, give them pause.
Did you read this in some book? I have been looking for something like this – a tracing of the antisemitism in Germany specifically that led to the Holocaust. While I am not an antisemite it has always struck me that prejudice never grows without cause – it may become a tsunami all out of proportion to the initial impetus but it NEVER starts with nothing.
Among the other ironies of history:
Until well into the Nazi period, many European Jewish people, especially the most sophisticated and cultured, were big fans of Germany and German Kultur. To give but a few examples, Sigmund Freud refused to leave Vienna until it was almost too late.
In part this was because Freud did not want to part with his antiques, but also because he and many others refused believed that Germans could behave the way they did.
In 1932, Arnold Schoenberg wrote that he had secured the supremacy of German music for the next thousand years, and he wrote those words without a hint of irony. (This is especially perverse, considering what the Nazis thought of Schoenberg’s music in particular.)
And the lady I learned Polish from told me a story of German Jewish refugees declining a chance to escape to the USSR, as they knew Germany, knew German Kultur, and were certain that Germany would soon come to her senses…
(The same German Jews of that time were also often prejudiced against their co-religionists from Poland, the Baltics, Russia and Galicia, whom many saw as superstitious, backward and an all-around embarrassment. This is how some Vienna Jews squared their support for Karl Lueger, the anti-Semitic mayor of Vienna at the turn of the century. “He means them, not us.”)
The other irony is that again, until the Nazi period got well under way, France was considered the western European country with the greatest danger of lapsing into anti-Semitism. (Although the record of many French people during the Holocaust was shocking.)
Any ideology ( vapor’s over a crack in the ground ) that make one special buy* (slavery to others… country man thingy) will do that.
Uhh . . . what was the cause for white racism against blacks then? Because by this logic, it must have had a cause even if it, umm. . grew out of all proportion.
So, what was the impetus which black people caused to cause racism against black people?
Dear dc;
Perhaps it was something as simple as looking different.
It was jobs. There is a whole history about the Copperhead press and their stand during the Civil War. They were a steady source of racist propaganda striking fear of a post freedom holocaust caused by freed slaves. The white tradesmen had already been driven from the South when slaves were educated as “engineers”. You could rent a slave for a year and he would build you a house. The workers in the Midwest were paranoid of 4 million slaves moving into their area starving and looking for work, after they killed their master, burnt the plantation and raped the women. All the racist literature fed into their paranoia. None of it happened. After they were free they became tenant farmers for the old masters if they had been treated well. The planters gave them land on which to build. I have the remains of an old free slave community a couple of miles from my house. When their houses wore out, they built newer ones but left the old, which are now covered in vines. Ultimately, the Copperheads were backed by NY bankers, angry at the Greenback and angry at disruption of lending to the South for land acquisition and lending against crops as collateral.
The slaves became more valuable and were treated as a commercial asset. Poor whites had no commercial value and were forced to do the crap work.
Slavery was the original cause of anti-black racism.
It was awfully convenient for slaveowners to be able to tell your slaves apart from your free people by color. The entirety of “American style” racism (as opposed to old-fashioned medieval xenophobia and racial theories) was one giant excuse for slavery, and specifically for making slavery easier in this manner.
Slavery, of course, was advantageous because you didn’t have to pay your workers.
Anti-black racism then spread further among poor free whites because the black slaves were essentially undercutting the free whites for labor costs. Now, it’s obviously not reasonable to blame the slaves, but that’s what a lot of people did.
After emancipation, resentment continued because of the competition for work.
So, y’know, absolutely none of it was the ex-slaves’ *fault*, but there was a definite source of resentment.
@PaulArt
There is a very good NBER paper by Rutgers’ Eugene White, on the subject of the bankruptcy of Union Generale and the financial panic.
http://www.nber.org/papers/w12933
(Actually, I’ve just looked at Wikipedia and it turns out to be the only reference on the relevant article :-)
For the broader context, I don’t have any reference in English. I imagine the subject is treated at least tangentially in many books and but for analysis from primary sources, you would have to read French and German.
On the bankruptcy itself, there wasn’t cause for assigning the blame of the crash on Jews or anyone else. The alleged Jewish and Freemason conspiracy on the short side against Union Generale was a made-up defense by its fraud of a CEO, Paul Eugène Bontoux. The bankruptcy of Union Generale was already written. It was under-capitalized, overextended and it was even trading in its own shares. Same story as always. If anything, Jewish bankers like many others contributed to clean up the aftermath of the crisis, a little bit like J.P. Morgan would step in to smoother the Panic of 1907.
But the bankruptcy happened in a context of extremely bitter rivalry between Union Generale and more established players, in particular the French and German branches of the Rothschild family. And the actions of those more established players against Union Generale, if perfectly proper competition by the rules of the time, were driven in their very narrow self-interest, without regards for broader consequences, and it painted a very visible target. So, when it all came crashing down, it was very easy to blame “Jewish finance” for the crash, all the more that the crash brought a very severe and protracted recession that would last for nearly a decade.
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Yep, they are about to ruin it for everybody. Is it intentional?
“THE SECRET WAR AGAINST THE JEWS” by Loftus and Aarons, and “CONJURING HITLER” by Guido Giacomo Preparata, show how *some* Jews seem adamantly determined to get their way, no matter how horrible the results of their actions may be for “the Jews* by association.
There have been “children of JacobIsrael” living in America in peace and harmony with all other citizens, loving the New World as HOME since Colonial times. For their descendants, “Israel” is NOT “the Jewish Homeland” as The British Empire claimed it would be.
These *zealots* are NOT “good for the Jews” at large in America. If they keep being so aggressive and arrogant, they will cause tremendous grief to ALL, again. These guys are pushing us into *the next Holocaust* from American soil. Again, is this their purpose? These people are dangerous. If they put the State of Israel before America, they should just move to Israel and leave us alone to live in peace and harmony with our fellow citizens.
So Gingrich thinks Palestinians are an invented people? I thought it was Isreal that was the invented country.
I thought it was Gingrich who was the invented person! It’s hard to believe so many contradictions and so much flakiness could come together in one actual human persona. But wait! Then there’s Donald “Flock of Seagulls” Trump! The far right lunatic fringe: the gift that just keeps on giving.
They’re better at taking than giving.
Actually, most of the Arab countries were invented, primarily by British colonialism, which drew up imaginary boundaries. In 1948 Israel was re-established by the U.N., which also created Jordan at the same time. I assume you’ll be railing against that invented country Jordan next?
Some HalluciNations are more important than others.
I will point out that Israel, Iraq, and Jordan share something with *practically every country in Africa*: they have artificial colonial borders which cause nothing but trouble.
In contrast, Turkey and Iran are “real” countries, as is Egypt. And even Yemen.
There are medieval coins imprinted with the word “Palestine.” Gingrich is confusing Palestinians with candidate Gingrich which is most assuredly a made up entity.
The book below shows what happened the last time they tried something like this, and it’s heartbreaking:
“THE PITY OF IT ALL: A History of Jews in Germany, 1743-1933” by Amos Elon (New York, Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt and Company, 2002.
Amos Elon lived in the State of Israel many years, but he left there in despair over what had happened due to the zealots in charge. Can we learn?
Thank you Lenova. That is the book I tried to desribe yesterday. So typical of me to forget both the title and the author. When a book is that good I just absorb it as my own heart and mind.
“A small number of … billionaires” don’t have more votes than a handful of Palestinian College students. So I don’t see that big of an influence here.
Billionaires can spend all the money they want. I and others will still vote the way we want.
So do politicians work so hard to get campaign contributions if they don’t influence elections at all?
Have I got a deal for you, Moser…
Read Tom Ferguson’s Golden Rule, and his more recent work (quoted here) on how the Democrats and Republicans have an explicit pay to play system for Congressional leadership positions.
If you think politicians are responsive to voters, as opposed to big money backers, you are sorely mistaken.
And I’m sure you carefully perouse the entirety of each incumbents record before voting. Alas, most of us cannot read each bill to find what such lobbying buys. What the big bucks buy are favors in large bills unrelated to the favor, and establishing group think amongst the ranks of Washington. Your vote, dear citizen, is completely inconsequential to the matter.
I take it you’ll be voting third party then?
I have the choice in the Presidential and Senatorial elections of corrupt candidates who vote against civil liberties and for giveaways to rich corporations and for insane foreign wars… or third party candidates.
The situation is better downticket.
Blaming the (or some) Jews for anti-Semitism.
Are we supposed to find this claim sophisticated or smart or what?
This comment is intellectually dishomest. It is not “blaming the Jews for Anti-Semitism” but pointing out that the action of some Jews can spark anti-Semitic feelings. That is not quite the same thing.
I do not think that the behavior of Jews should be guided by the fear that certain actions or activities will feed into anti-Semitic stereotypes. That is a victory for anti-Semites. (Should we also avoid being seen picking up pennies we see on the street?) However, I do think the behavior of Jews should be guided by general ethical principles and universal justice, which would be legitimate principles on which to base a critique of Zionism in America.
Your point is well taken. The only point I want to make is that criticism of Israel is often dismissed as anti-Semitism. That is ultimately harmful to Israel and risks putting the country in the position South Africa was in the 1960s, with support only from the US and the UK.
Back when Israel was South Africa’s only buddy and they swapped tips on suppressing the inconvenient people in their little fiefdoms as well as nuclear weapons lore? Good times, people.
News flash: Israel is pretty much only supported by the US at this point. Since its insane government decided to deliberately go out of its way to offend its major trading partner Turkey, who the hell would support them? They’ve been shooing away would-be allies very efficiently.
The world has judged Americans by the actions of a handfull of neocons who were “democratically” elected twice.
The point is the perverse effect these few number of people have on American foreign policy, military and budgetary considerations.
AccruedDisinterest, you misapprehend the point, which is, as stated in the into paragraph of the post, “this concerted, well-funded effort to direct American policy risks playing into anti-Semitic stereotypes.”
My point is that the fact that actions or policies happen to be consistent with anti-Semitic stereotypes (and thereby tend to reinforce them) is not in and of itself a good reason to refrain from those actions or policies. The actions or policies themselves should be judged on their merits. I am not defending our policy toward Israel or the actions of neocon billionaires, I am just saying there are better grounds than this on which to be critical of them.
Missed that it’s a couple of Jews making this argument? I think I’d be worried too if the misdeeds of the 1% in my ethnic group put me in the line of fire.
Agreed. I’d be worried too.
I’m already concerned. Vikram Pandit doesn’t help public opinion of Indian-Americans, does he?
Seconded, or rather, thirded.
Blumenthal has been great in recent years at lifting the veil of Jewish racism; he has done videos featuring interviews with New Yorker Jews at Israel rallies and in Israel with Israeli and Jewish American youth and it is ugly stuff. Good on him. I was always taught people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones and that you make sure your own back yard’s clean before complaining about the neighbours. Jews like Max and Phil Weiss and Gilad Atzmon are crucial in ensuring that any ill-informed reaction that tends toward a ‘recrudescence’ is countered by clear examples of members of the tribe who stand for humanity before their own particular brand of it. We (and they) need more of them. I sometimes wonder what would happen if Bob and Bruce and Leonard decided to diss Israel together on the basis of it’s dreadful behaviour, if it would make a difference. But then maybe, like Spielberg, they’re supporters.
I wonder too whether self-preservation is stronger in the majority of breasts than tribal solidarity. Or rather, if the first will at some stage shade into the realm of the second, there to effect change from within. What’s ‘good for the Jews’ might then reverse it’s current meaning.
Western Leaders would have us believe it’s essentially ALL about ‘security’ (i.e. protecting the superior un-corrupt good-intentioned West from the evil corrupt extremely-hostile East). Independent observers would have us believe it’s essentially ALL about ‘money’ (i.e. the balance of global economic geo-strategic wealth and power… globalization… the project to establish a single monetary/production/consumption system… a proven-superior ever-more-efficient system from which all the world’s people will benefit… a system that the Western Leaders have so obviously HUGELY benefited from, and so shall all).
So is it all about ‘security’ or ‘money’? Pushed to answer this question Western Leaders will admit that ‘security’ is ‘money’, so ‘both’ justify, and make-imperative, that the West impose it’s grand system on the East. The East must, by force if necessary, join the Great Western Globalization of banking, production, and consumption! Think what a Gambling Casino Mogul could do with all those New Markets! Look what they’ve already accomplished on the the eastern shores of Saudi Arabia!!!
Letting any other system exist is absolutely NOT an option at this point. “It’s off the table” as ‘they’ like to say. The process has not only produced great success but it’s picked up some fantastic momentum over the past twenty years! Let’s keep going!!!
So what has ‘Western Leaders being Jewish’ have to do with all this? Rather than push a button that leads to nothing but an irrational surge of emotions, why not stick to the subject… how the West will bring nothing but Pure Greatness to the East!!! Ask anyone with an MBA… they know. After all… why else would they have payed $100K for a few night classes for???
Our flawlessly brilliant Western Leaders have a perfect plan. Just look how incredibly successful they’ve been! Only a fool would question them. There should be no more discussion. All decent should not be allowed, by force if necessary, and the sooner the better. Just tune into Fox News and help our Global Leaders get rid of the worthless, evil ‘Government’, which is the only thing that can stop them from their perfect plan of Pure Globalization. And bonus, if we exclusively tune into Fox News then we can put all the stupid sources of information out of business!!!
I wonder what the ratio of Jewish MBAs to other demographics is??? Just curious… since we all know that you have to have an MBA to get into upper management.
Sorry… I know… it’s all bla bla bla
As yourselves this question: would we put up with the behavior and policies of Israel if it were Muslim, Protestant, Catholic, black, asian, indian, etc.?
Israel has a Golden Ticket in America. Anything it does is justified by the Holocaust and Munich. Supporters claim it is the only civilized country in the Middle East.
Of course, let’s ignore Israeli terrorism against the British, nuclear proliferation and threats, illegal seizure of territory, political imprisonments and assassination, torture, collective punishment of civilians, and attacks on foreign flag vessels in international waters.
It’s not a Jew or Arab or Christian thing. I am an atheist and so consider any religious person to be unbalances and ignorant. I don’t particularly care which brand of crazy you use. But I take great offense at the use of religion as an excuse. Israel, Iran, and the Vatican all use religion as justifications for political decisions, but it is no better than using economics.
In the end, when a nation calls itself a religious polity, any actions it takes which are viewed negatively by the outside world will automatically become anti-religious. In the case of Israel, as a Jewish state, it invites anti-semitism by definition and thereby justifies it.
And, while you are out there sharpening your nails, please replace Israel with Iran and Jewish with Islamic in the previous paragraph and then tell me what you think.
Horrifyingly, the answer is, “Yes, we would put up with it, as long at that country agreed to act as a military proxy for the US”. Look at the way the US government treats Bahrain and Saudi Arabia for nasty examples of exceptionally brutal and evil governments which get consistent US support.
I susptect that this post will generate another record number of comments that sometimes will degenerate into the kind of gutter-faith mudslinging that we have witnessed before.
Or I will be proven wrong, which would be a step in the right direction.
I knew that Las Vegas is one of the weirdest places on the planet, but this adds another dimension. Weird +++++. If only what happens in Vegas, could stay in Vegas.
Living in a secular place where this kind of steroid and nuke-ready tribalism, topped off with the various brands of competing ghost-worshiping, it is sometimes hard to “believe” that we will be able to sit around the table like adults and deal with the real problems.
Perpahs I should stop worrying and start loving the Casino?
Ethnic identity politics always misses the most important thing: class. It’s why poor Jewish people put their savings in Bernie Madoff’s hands, because they thought they could trust another Jewish man. But he was just another rich man.
It’s why so many thought Obama was going to be the people’s Hope president. They didn’t see him as a rich man, they saw him as a black man. Now he governs rich, they call him an Oreo, “white on the inside”. He’s really a person of color all the way through, what he is on the inside is rich. See also all the black Republican politicians like Powell, Rice, and Cain, and all the women in politics who fail on feminist issues.
It’s not Jews, it’s rich people, it’s not white men, it’s rich people.
“Poor Jewish people put their savings in Bernie Madoff’s hands?” Really? Do you think Madoff was in the business of gathering assets from “poor” anyone? The people that invested with Madoff thought he was a magic Jew, which is a form of anti-Semitism.
No need to resort to questionable rhetoric like that. Madoff was simply a very good example of affinity fraud.
Akerlof’s “Identity Economics” for a “sure thing.” This is by no means limited to “the Jews.”
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/219746/february-25-2009/the-word—ablacknophobia
Israel Firsters like Newt and most of our elected officials on both sides of the aisle are like a virus that has taken control of the living cell, in this case the US. Normal rules of conduct just do not apply to Israel. That is why the Holocaust narrative is so essential to Israel and those who sustain that rogue state through words and deeds. It enables them to pull out the “existential threat” nonsense in order to stifle any debate about the actions of Israel or its fifth column in the US and UK. Iran is under a much greater existential threat from the rogue state of Israel than Israel is from Iran in actual fact. We truly live in an Orwellian world.
The Jewish community should be very conscious of this. These guys could easily be set us as major villains if populists decided to take this route.
The The Balfour Declaration was a bit of a dubious writ.
They are! It might seem a lame excuse but they have no money and no influence.
I continue to marvel at the double standard of pay for play in the US political system. If china had 1% of the organization that Isreal does, inside this country, it would be called a coup.
Same with foreign banks. UBS and Credit Swisse, foreign banks that are larger than their “home” country can handle, are allowed to electioneer inside this county, at will.
But, dubai ports world gets politically black listed, momentarily, on trying to buy some ports. I said momentarily, becasue they learned. Prince Al went out and paid Rupert Murdock (another non-US person) for some stock. Now no such critisism is allowed on FOX. They won’t even say his name.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-august-23-2010/the-parent-company-trap
http://www.smh.com.au/business/gina-rineharts-fairfax-ploy-20120201-1qsas.html
Skippy… barf
There’s a follow-up today Skip. An insight into Aust 1%-er Lucky Sperm Club family life:
http://www.smh.com.au/executive-style/management/judge-rejects-rinehart-fear-that-media-exposure-would-put-family-at-risk-20120202-1qvox.html
I wouldn’t mind a few more bob. But I don’t want to get within a bull’s roar of people like that, for fear of turning into one of them.
Glenn, “Pity the Billionaires” — the latest book from Thomas Frank (“What’s Wrong With Kansas” and “The Wrecking Crew”).
At the risk of offending anyone’s senses, what is the difference between these Jews in the video clip and the 1% elite[s] that run this country? Both seem willing to throw the other 99% under the bus, which because of today’s instant communications, what was once hidden from view, is exposed. I’ve always found it a curious item, that down throw the history of the Jewish existence, they were always having their ranks thinned out. It seems that this quirk in in their makeup, at least where the elites are concerned. Of course, to think this way, begets howls of antisemitism. How convenient, especially when you look at who it is that preaches such.
The difference is that there is a plan. The 1% are rich, but this small group wants something else.
If you watch the Adam Curtis series “The Power of Nightmares” you can see history repeating with Iran. First comes the propaganda, then the smoking guns, like the anthrax letters, yellow cake or an informer. Propaganda and disinformation leaked to reporters, like Miller and Kristoff for distribution. It is all being repeated. What is the endgame? Is America the two State holdout? It is clear that one goal is a single State because they need living space and they are currently taking it one acre at a time. But what to do with the Palestinians? There is more to this than meddling, there is a plan and it is the Americans doing the dying and funding it. The billionaires may just be conduits of convenience between there and here, a patriotic duty. The irony is the announcement today that the fictional “al Quaeda” is considered less of a threat, we now have a new threat.
the unholy alliance with the evangelicals/American taliban/jihadists who literally believe the end of days scenario in which a major conflict will erupt in the middle east then jesus will come down in his space ship and the jews will all convert to christians and he will take then to heavan
they just want to try and start something to prompt all this
they would love a nuclear war
the rest of those non believers?
too bad about you
cuz they are such good christians
brian, moreover, nobody’s saying much (except in the inner sanctum of AIPAC) about the nefarious influence in the U.S. and Israel that such groups as “Jews for Jesus” and the “Messianic Jews” have brought to bear on this complex issue.
But Rev. Haggi and Ann Coulter have made the cause of their “love for Israel” abundantly clear: ONLY if *Armaggedon* comes will *Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior* come and the Jews convert or die. This Biblical *Armageddon War for Total Victory of Good over Evil*, is “Megiddo” on today’s maps. The Right-Wing Israeli Zealots are complicit with their agenda, bucking for the *Coming of the Messiah* which they erroneously call “Shiloh” (due to a radical misunderstanding of JacobIsrael’s dying words in GENESIS 49). They seem to miss what the Evangelicals have in store for them.
The Evangelical Christians bucking for the return of THEIR *Jesus in flesh* on a cloud, the Muslims bucking for the return of the *Mahdi* on a white horse, the Messianic Jews bucking for the *coming of the Messiah*, ALL OF THEM are fracking crazy to bring RUIN to civilization because of their *religious CERTAINTY*! And our governments are crazy to allow this to continue!
Can this be anything but MASS PSYCHOSIS? Consider:
“RACING TOWARD ARMAGEDDON: The Three Great Religions and The Plot to End the World” by Michael Baigent;
‘SACRED CAUSES: The Clash of Religion and Politics, From the Great War To the War on Terror” by Michael Burleigh;
“THE THREE ORDERS: Feudal Society Imagined” by Georges Duby;
“THE MIND OF THE MASTER CLASS: History and Faith in the Southern Slaveholders’ Worldview” by Elizabeth Fox-Genovese and Eugene D. Genovese;
“FRUITS OF MERCHANT CAPITAL: Slavery and Bourgeois Property in the Rise and Expansion of Capitalism” by Elizabeth Fox-Genovese and Eugene D. Genovese;
“THE REACTIONARY MIND: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin” by Corey Robin;
http://www.youtube.com — for the brave:
“The 12th Crusade-Zionism vs Islam-WW3” (dunky3940 on Oct 24, 2010);
“Arbenz & the CIA, Guatemala 1950’s” (ColdWarWarriors on Feb 24, 2009);
“The Tavistock Agenda” (lindor2323 on Feb 2, 2011);
“Tavistock Institute for Global Manipulation” (4GodNUs3 on Apr 25, 2009);
“The Six Principles of Global Manipulation” (Zakonvremeni on Oct 22, 2010);
Civilization is going in REVERSE! STOP THEM!
We must be our Sole Agents (those who ACT, perform deeds) for ourselves. WE are the People, and WE can be in charge, acting in solidarity.
BILL BLACK/SUSAN WEBBER 2012: UPPITY AGENTS UNITE!
Chris Hedges: Secretary of State
The TIME for us to act is now. If not now, when?
But Rev. Haggi and Ann Coulter have made the cause of their “love for Israel” abundantly clear: ONLY if *Armaggedon* comes will *Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior* come and the Jews convert or die. LeonovaBalletRusse
Alas, you who are longing for the day of the LORD,
For what purpose will the day of the LORD be to you?
It will be darkness and not light;
As when a man flees from a lion
And a bear meets him,
Or goes home, leans his hand against the wall
And a snake bites him. Amos 5:18-19 New American Standard Bible (NASB)
OTOH, I expect that genuine Christians will be Raptured out of here before the “tough love” is administered.
Still, it seems rude to wish the End of the World just to experience the Rapture when we will all die soon enough anyway.
The “Rapture” was invented in the 19th Century.
Was 1 Corinthians written in the 19th Century?
Now I say this, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 1 Corinthians 15:50-52 New American Standard Bible (NASB)
That could mean, I suppose, that Christians have to endure the Tribulation. I hope not. There should be some reward for putting up with Skippy and such. :)
Copper and Bronze age diatribes are a fantastic starting point in ones mental development. BTW what if Constantinople went Magna Carta on the old lady?
Skippy… the cannons… manufactured desire. The beliefs of the aboriginals down here have more validity, but for gunpowder.
My favorite interpretation, from a devout Christian friend of mine, states that all the prophecies in the Bible have *already happened* and that we are now living in the Kingdom of Heaven.
I realize it’s an unusual view. Not much wish-fulfillment present in that interpretation! (Which is why it’s not popular, obviously.)
Is this article and others the beginning of the long-awaited conversation that the American populace has to have with itself about its anomalous and unwavering support for the proto-fascist apartheid police state that is the country of Israel?
One can only hope.
And before any hasbara squawks appear, I’ll state for the record that I understand that the US is a proto(?)-fascist police state itself.
I think Israel will get there before we do, if only because it’s a much smaller country, so political change is probably faster.
I’m expecting change to hit the United States last — as the center of the current collapsing kleptocracy, it is most likely that change will work from the outside in, as it did with the collapse of the Soviet Bloc and the Roman Empire.
On the other hand, it may go the other way ’round — change may strike directly at the heart of the US MIC and spread out.
Who can tell? Only the people making the change, perhaps….
In the first part of The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt analyzed anti-semiticism in Europe in the centuries leading up to the Holocaust. One of the points she makes is that the Jewish people were not homogeneous. They had a class structure and social hierarchy, and the leadership of that heirarchy often not only did not represent the interests of the wider Jewish community but worked against those interests.
There is a quote Arendt cites in Eichmann in Jerusalem in the postscript which, I think, perfectly sums this up. The debate mentioned concerns the controversy over the collaboration of the Jewish leadership with the Nazis during the Holocaust in the Jewish Councils.
History may not repeat but it does rhyme. None of this should surprise us. What is at work here is not something Jewish but another example of the pernicious effects of elitism. It is in the nature of elites to sell out, for their own benefit, the interests they represent.
To clarify that last line and remove any ambiguity: “It is in the nature of elites to sell out, for their own benefit, the interests of those they supposedly represent.”
Many smart Jews are beginning to question themselves. See Mark Braverman’s Fatal Embrace. http://markbraverman.org/fatal-embrace/
Johnny B, thanks for the link. The Braverman video is quite moving.
In the land of “money wins it all” there’s no question of leadership. No one elected Mr. Adelson or Mr. Saban as a representatives of the Jewish community. With their money they presented themselves as leaders and try to influence the public opinion, and as Haanah Arendt wisely said the Jewish communty was never homogenous.
Hugh, yes, let’s get it out there for the record: a Brief Bibliography:
“SACRED CAUSES: The Clash of Religion and Politics, From the Great War to the War on Terror” by Michael Burleigh;
“TRIALS OF THE DIASPORA: A History of Anti-Semitism in England” by Anthony Julius;
“THE ANGLO-AMERICAN ESTABLISHMENT: From Rhodes to Cliveden” by Carroll Quigley;
POWER, FAITH, and FANTASY: AMERICA in the MIDDLE EAST 1776 to the PRESENT” by Michael B. Oren;
“AARONSOHN’S MAPS: The Untold Story of the Man Who Might Have Created Peace in the Middle East” by Patricia Goldstone;
LAWRENCE AND AARONSOHN: T.E. Lawrence, Aaron Aaronsohn, and the Seeds of the Arab-Israeli Conflict” by Ronald Florence;
“THE BALFOUR DECLARATION: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict” by Jonathan Schneer;
META-POLITICS: The Roots of the Nazi Mind” by Peter Viereck;
“CONJURING HITLER: How Britain and America made the Third Reich” by Guido Giacomo Preparata;
“TRADING WITH THE ENEMY: The Nazi-American Money Plot 1933-1949” by Charles Higham;
“HITLER’S BENEFICIARIES: Plunder, Racial War, and the NAZI Welfare State” by Gotz Aly, translated by Jefferson Chase;
“HITLER’S WILLING EXECUTIONERS: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust” by Daniel Johah Goldhagen;
“THE SEVEN SISTERS: The Great Oil Companies & The World They Shaped” by Anthony Sampson;
“A CENTURY OF WAR” Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order” by F. William Engdahl (new edition);
“THE OLD BOYS: The American Elite and the Origins of the CIA” by Burton Hersh;
“AMERICAN DYNASTY: Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush” by Kevin Phillips;
“THE SECRET WAR AGAINST THE JEWS: How Western Espionage Betrayed the Jewish People” by John Loftus and Mark Aarons;
“THE FORTY YEARS WAR: The Rise and Fall of the Neocons, from Nixon to Obama” by Len Colodny and Tom Shachtman;
THE HEIDELBERG MYTH: The Nazification and Denazification of a German University” by Steven P. Remy;
NAZIS ON THE RUN: How Hitler’s Henchmen Fled Justice” by Gerald Steinacher;
“OLD NAZIS, the NEW RIGHT, and the REPUBLICAN PARTY” Domestic fascist networks and their effect on U.S. cold war politics;
A MOSQUE IN MUNICH: NAZIs, the CIA, and the Rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in the West;THE THIRD REICH IN THE IVORY TOWER: Complicity and Conflict on American Campuses” by Stephen H. Norwood;
“RUNNING COMMENTARY: The Contentious Magazine That Transformed the Jewish Left Into the Neoconservative Right” by Benjamin Balint;
“CRONIES: Oil, the Bushes, and the Rise of Texas, America’s Superstate” by Robert Bryce;
“GANGS OF AMERICA: The Rise of Corporate Power and the Disabling of Democracy” by Ted Nace;
“THE WRECKING CREW: How Conservatives Rule” by Thomas Frank;
REPUBLICAN GOMORRAH: Inside the Movement That Shattered the Party” by Max Blumenthal;
“DEATH OF THE LIBERAL CLASS” by Chris Hedges;
“WINNER-TAKE-ALL POLITICS: How Washington Made the Rich Richer and Turned Its Back On the Middle Class” by Jacob S. Hacker & Paul Pierson;
“AMERICAN EMPIRE AND THE FOURTH WORLD” by Anthony J. Hall;
“WAR IS A FORCE THAT GIVES US MEANING” by Chris Hedges;
“THE FAMILY: The Secret Fundamentalism At the Heart of American Empire” by Jeff Sharlet;
“C STREET: The Fundamentalist Threat to American Democracy” by Jeff Sharlet;
“AMERICAN FASCISTS: The Christian Right and the War On America” by Chris Hedges;
“RACING TOWARD ARMAGEDDON: The Three Great Religions and The Plot To End The World” by Michael Baigent;
“TOP SECRET AMERICA: The Rise of the New American Security State” by Dana Priest and William M. Arkin;
“THE MONEY MEN: Capitalism, Democracy, and the Hundred Years’ War Over The American Dollar” by H.W. Brands;
“AGE OF GREED: The Triumph of Finance and the Decline of America, 1970 to the Present” by Jeff Madrick;
“THE INVENTION OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE” by Schlomo Sand, tr. Yael Lotan.
“EMPIRE OF ILLUSION: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle” by Chris Hedges.
“NOBILITY and Analogous Traditional Elites in the Allocutions of Pius XII: A Theme Illuminating American Social History” by Plinio Correa de Oliveira;
My Colonial ancestors came from the Old World to the New World during the Colonial Era to get away from zealots like Gengrich, Adelson, and the Pope’s fanatics. Although I aspire to remain one of the JUST and MERCIFUL self-governing People of the Children of JacobIsrael, according to the vision of the dying Patriarch related from his death bed (GENESIS 49), I despair of the repeated OPPRESSION and UNJUST CLAIMS OF KINGS such as Mr. Adelson. With the last great Judge Samuel in mind, I look forward to participating in the communal life of my fellow Americans, in my dream of SELF-GOVERNING AMERICA, our Government by/of/for the People, as WE the People return to self-governance with the guidance of Wise Judges, within our Tent of Meeting at *Shiloh* as metaphor.
My fellow Americans, we can be our own AGENTS as WE the People: the 99%. Let us REJECT Tyranny by the .01% and their Total 1%. OCCUPY DEMOCRACY:
BILL BLACK/SUSAN WEBBER 2012: UPPITY AGENTS UNITE!
Chris Hedges: Secretary of State
CORRECTION: name of AUTHOR omitted above:
“A MOSQUE IN MUNICH” is by Ian Johnson.
Again, the TRAGEDY we must NOT see repeated, in the U.S.A., is as follows:
“THE PITY OF IT ALL: A History of Jews in Germany, 1743-1933” by Amos Elon (New York, Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt and Company, 2002).
This MUST NOT happen again, even as an *unintended consequence* of zealous, “self-protective” action at the expense of others.
My apologies, another AUTHOR omitted above:
“OLD NAZIS, the NEW RIGHT, and the REPUBLICAN PARTY…” was written by RUSS BELLANT.
I have gradually reached the conclusion that a person cannot become a member of the “elite”, the weathy or the 1% without being a sociopath/psychopath. I don’t know if it is the human condition or the social system but to reach the top, you have to climb over bodies and carry out brutal decisions. Most compassionate people are simply unwilling to leave a trail of bodies to reach the “top”. Only someone with severe deficits in humanity can reach the top.
Those minority leaders which reach the top do become the face of a minority even though they are no more representative of the mass than any other member of the 1% elite. Only if the elite are openly and actively opposed by their own, do they not become the representative of their group. We aren’t seeing and hearing much public opposition to the Jewish billionaires and their Israel uber alles zionism. It certainly exists but not enough to overcome the image created by those billionaires.
History and the mistakes of humanity repeat over and over and over. Sometimes I wonder if we really have changed that much over the last couple thousand years.
It’s not actually true; you can get to the elite, the 0.1% even, by sheer dumb luck as well.
However, it is correct that the vast majority of people who make it there are sociopaths or psychopaths, with a sprinkling of narcissists.
Everything is so in flux now… I don’t buy the too-obvious propaganda that war with Iran is instigated by and for Israel. War with Iran has been going on for 2000 years. And magnified in the early 1900s because of oil. Then the British tried to dominate Iran but failed; the US and Britain together tried in 1953 and failed again after 1979. The thing that will settle this eternal raiding party is not diplomacy or war but clean energy technology. If Iran hates Israel it is because Iran recognizes Israel is an agent of the US et al. And if Israel is agitating for war with Iran it is because of the same. But with China, Russia, and India now in this brew it is too complex for war. It is not, however, too complex for clean energy technology. Forget war. Who cares about sibling rivalry as long as they do not injure each other? One day they will come together like a bankrupt synagog and a nasty narcissistic actor.
Obvious propaganda? WHOSE obvious propaganda? Read the link provided by another reader (above) just to get a sense of the lock the Lobby has on US policy:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/02/02/the-iran-crisis-and-israeli-nukes/
Or the link I just posted on Israel’s utterly disgusting past and current treatment of Palestinians’ water rights (or lack of) and the mountain of lies that attends virtually everything Israel has to say about its conduct:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/74066277/DRIP-JORDAN-Israel%E2%80%99s-water-war-with-Palestine-By-Ben-Ehrenreich
Israel has had Iran at the top of its list from virtually the minute the Shah was booted, and it was clinched in blood when Israel brutally moved on Lebanon in ’82 giving birth to Hezbollah. Israel and the Lobby wanted to go for Iran NOT Iraq under the cover of post-9/11 “payback”. They came around, and then led the cheerleading for Bush II’s insane war, but it was with the clear understanding it was “FIRST, Iraq”. This has all been widely reported in Haaretz, by Hersch, in the Guardian, on Common Dreams and by many, many others (not to mention literally thousands of books on the history of the conflict). But you will almost never see any of it in US media. There’s no doubt whatever Israel is the principal driver for this.
The ability to deny China Iranian oil is distant second, though it is of course also insane for the US to continue its hegemonic Empire Games stupidity in opposition to most of humanity.
I devoutly hope we manage to avoid an utterly stupid US or Israeli war with Iran.
The US and Israel would actually lose.
There would be many other interesting results. The world containment policy towards the US, already in embryo form under G W Bush, would go into full effect.
Harper’s had a great piece about Israel’s theft of virtually all of Palestinians’ water supply over the course of this disgusting display of colonialism cum apartheid. But that the peoples of the countries in the Anglosphere, where the Lobby is most powerful, ever got this on the evening news – fat chance of that.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/74066277/DRIP-JORDAN-Israel%E2%80%99s-water-war-with-Palestine-By-Ben-Ehrenreich
Fiver, thanks for the link. Horrifying. This is NOT *good for the Jews*.
You are most welcome.
That was a very good article. In the end it is all about resources and stories must be concocted to cover up the brutality used to obtain them. I think anyone reading this, if the 2 sides were described as A and B, would be disgusted, repelled and indignant, if not outraged, at how A is denying water to B, but once we have the “background scenario” of A as a historically persecuted people just trying to cling to existence and B as getting in the way …..
For one people to deny water to another is inexcusable, but for the Israeli’s to deny it to the Palestinians becomes morphed into something excusable and justifiable once the cloak of invisibility known as “history” is tossed over the act …
Water is life, to deny water is to deny life – the story of how Israeli life is ever so much more important than Palestinian life has been carefully nurtured over the decades so that this denial is considered trivial in the great scheme of things – after all, what are the lives of an “invented people” when “civilization” is at stake.
An side note is the irony that when the Messiah comes, the water He baptizes with from the river Jordan will be the sewage of the Israeli state ….
Glad you got some good value out of it.
It is also the story of what’s coming over resources in many, many places, with water at the heart in many. We need a UN Right to Water Protocol and no better place to start than Palestine.
I find two things very ironic, and one feeds into the other
First, the ideal of Zion, as related to the World To Come, is a Utopian prophecy, and we know how those things go. I cannot believe G*d will walk amongst people who may have only made peace through the destruction of other of G*d’s children.
So you’d think peace would be a big deal to Israel – something high on the list of priorities, but that’s not the case.
It’s supremely ironic that Israel, instead of dropping bombs on the Palestinians, have never once tried dropping reclining leather chairs, digital cable TV, and junk food on the heads of the Palestinians in the chance they might be turned into a bunch of fat, lazy consumers. It would be cheaper to give every Palestinian a million dollars and then announce the price of admission into Israel is a million dollars and a business plan.
For a smart people, they sure are idiots.
There’s too much racism in Israel to do that. It was founded by racists (this is easily documented — to be fair, racism was endemic at the time), and created by theft.
Same way the US is unwilling to compensate, or treat decently, the Native Americans. Founded in racism and created by theft — the cognitive dissonance of doing the right thing is too hard for the majority.
Israel has a large minority who backs doing the right thing — but they started emigrating after the Rabin assassination, so they’re getting to be a smaller and smaller minority.
jsmith, thanks for the ZH link. While NCers are there, they should see the current williambanzai7 contribution featuring Van Praag of Goldman Sucks, AND the Comments to that cartoon. With regard to Van Praag’s early Roman Catholicism and current *spiritualism*, consider connecting the following dots:
“IN GOD’S NAME” by David A. Yallop;
“FUNNY MONEY” by Mark Singer;
“AMERICAN DYNASTY” by Kevin Phillips;
“META-POLITICS: The Roots of the Nazi Mind” by Peter Viereck;
“THE OCCULT ROOTS OF NAZISM: Secret Aryan Cults and Their Influence on Nazi Ideology” by Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke;
“BLACK SUN: Aryan Cutls, Esoteric Nazism and The Politics of Identity” by Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke;
BABYLON’S BANKSTERS: The Alchemy of Deep Physics, High Finance and Ancient Religion” by Joseph P. Farrell.
SCARY: “Doing God’s Work.” Is Van Praag a High Priest for GS?
STOP THEM!
jsmith, thanks for the second link re the information gathered by Seymour Hersh, which the cowed U.S. Presidents could not face fairly. Once again, we see evidence here that the Court Jew Henry Kissinger is NOT *good for the Jews*.
CONNECT the DOTS to WARS on *Drugs* and *Terre*; note NAMES below:
“Juan Carlos [of Greece] controls the global drugs trade via the Intelligence Network overseen by his loyal servant, the Duke of Kent, Prince Edward. Why d you think Carlos wants Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq? One barrel of oil makes only $80 where one barrel of heroin makes $20-28 million uncut/cut. This my friend is the continuation, this time attacking the whole Western world with tricks used of old elsewhere [i.e. Opium Wars].” (4:13/9:45)
“Speaking of drugs, here’s Richard Armitage, a loyal Christian in Action Crusader who’s a great drug dealer and thug for Juan Carlos. Notice his connection to the real terrorist organization called The American Turkish Council, the ones who tried to place WMDs in Iraq to justify the illegal unjustified Crusade in Iraq in 2003, known as the Socialist-Communist named Operation New Dawn.” (4:38/9:45)
“All the propaganda on Iraq stemmed from this British Intelligence front known as HILL & KNOWLTON, headquartered in London and also located in Rome.” (5:00/9:45) [connect with Hillary Clinton]
“Juan Carlos rules the Middle East from the WHQ of The Union for Mediterranean. This is located in Barcelona, Spain.” (5:13/9:45)
“Juan Carlos with Knight of Malta, George H.W. BUSH, also Bonesman, George W. BUSH, Crusaders in Action, Bush Sr. being the boss of Knights of Malta, LEON PANETTA the current CIA director, also controlled by Jesuit trained, Roman Catholic, James CLAPPER, Director of National Intelligence.” (caps mine, 6:24/9:45)
“Roman puppet, [George W.] BUSH, being the ignition for the 12th Crusade. All via the “Metabridge” Intelligence Operation on 9/11. Bush being totally subordinate to The Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem’s CARDINAL EDWARD EGAN, also head of American Knights of Malta.” (6:41).
[CONNECT the dots between Cardinal EGAN and the Knights of Malta in New Orleans, a Jesuit stronghold. Note that CLAPPER spoke today as a military authority before a Congressional Committee as related on All Things Considered on NPR.]
Quotations from “The 12th Crusade-Zionism vs Islam-WW3” (dunky3940 on Oct 24, 2010) at http://www.youtube.com.
Re DRUGS and the New World Order to which all three branches of our Government are CAPTIVE, see: “British Corruption (MI6 london)” [sergino19 on May 31, 2010] at http://www.youtube.com —
CONNECT HILL & KNOWLTON with Hillary Rodham Clinton and British Intelligence with:
“The Tavistock Agenda” (lindor2323 on Feb 2, 2011) and:
“Tavistock Institute for Global Manipulation” (4GNUs3 on Apr 25, 2009) at:
http://www.youtube.com with “THE ANGLO-AMERICAN ESTABLISHMENT: from Rhodes to Cliveden by Carroll Quigley, W.J. Clinton’s mentor at Georgetown.
On YouTube, search “Michael Ruppert”–a friend of We the People–re Drugs, Banks, and Presidents in America. We the People are victims of High Crimes.
Our Presidents from Nixon through Obama are Agents of a Global Organized Crime Syndicate–a FOREIGN POWER ruining the People of the U.S.A. They have placed We the People into the grips of a Global Monopoly Capitalist OCCULT CABAL.
Bring RICO. Cry TREASON! Bring “The Tyrannicide Brief” against Presidents Obama, G.W. Bush, Clinton, G.H.W. Bush, Carter, Henry Kissinger and Richard Cheney–who were co-conspirators while in the Executive Branch of Government with the above as Agents of a Foreign Power.
OCCUPY DEMOCRACY!
BILL BLACK/SUSAN WEBBER 2012: UPPITY AGENTS UNITE!
Chris Hedges: Secretary of State
Jews are a real people and have mostly a real religion. Israel is a country invented by the U.N. I don’t know that Jews are good or bad, just people. Israel is like any country, run by the folks who can promise enough things to fool enough people to get elected.
If you don’t like Israel, go rave at the U.N.
I always come in on the tail end of these discussion because I’m at work where I can’t respond to this website. So, hoping that a few late birds like myself will see this, I am posting this article; it raised quite a ruckus when it was published and the line contains a lot of that ruckus in written form. The article contains some salient points which need to be considered:
” For the past several decades, and especially since the Six-Day War in 1967, the centrepiece of US Middle Eastern policy has been its relationship with Israel. The combination of unwavering support for Israel and the related effort to spread ‘democracy’ throughout the region has inflamed Arab and Islamic opinion and jeopardised not only US security but that of much of the rest of the world. This situation has no equal in American political history. Why has the US been willing to set aside its own security and that of many of its allies in order to advance the interests of another state? One might assume that the bond between the two countries was based on shared strategic interests or compelling moral imperatives, but neither explanation can account for the remarkable level of material and diplomatic support that the US provides.”
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n06/john-mearsheimer/the-israel-lobby
“Netanyahu has his sites set on Iran”???
Puleeeease Paul!
With all the Money behind Netanyahu you clearly cite under all our very noses, WHO REALLY has their sites set on Iran?
Puleeeease. Don’t give Netanyahu too much credit.
Remember. It was Thyssen, Schroders, et al who made Hitler! With some cheques from Dulles to cover up for the American Fascists who to this day remain off the hook!
Don’t let these creeps who create and make all these Pols escape this time…The WASP Anglo-American Oil Family Offices have their sites on Iran, and always have! Adelson et al have been hoodwinked into playing along…
You should be ashamed of yourself, Yves/Susan, for going down this route. This post of a nonsense clip alleging that Jews are too influential in the US is precisely what Hitler argued in his rise to power. I’ve reviewed a number of Ron Paul posts and haven’t seen anything close to the vitriol spewed out here in the comments section.
The idea that “Jewish money” amounts to 45% of campaing contributions is insane.
My bad for ever having helped you so much when you were so stretched writing Econned. Boy was I conned. Never thought you could stoop this low.
I think your indignation might be a bit more understandable if it weren’t for the way the Israeli State has treated the Palestinian people since its inception. There is no excuse for that. So it is not entirely off base to consider where the support for the US being not only complicit in, but an enabler of, such ethnic cleansing is coming from. If the powerful individuals involved in supporting this behavior claim, in essence, identity with Israel not on the basis of nationality, but on the basis of religion or ethnicity, this “tribalism” is obviously not an irrelevant consideration.
In just about any other lexicon, by virtue of its behavior, Israel would be considered a “terrorist”, or at least a pariah, state by the US – so why isn’t it? That question is a legitimate one to explore …
doctorx, time will show that Yves was wise to air this video and the comments that followed. Nothing is gained by hiding *an inconvenient truth*.
Hasbara, comes in at the end of a thread, does the concern troll driveby routine, doesn’t engage on any of the points raised, and is gone.
jews for ronpaul!
please visit my website RONPAULTHIRDPARTY.COM
I remember 10 years ago walking the streets of Manhattan and seeing swastika graffitti everywhere. No efforts were made to remove it. Do we care enough about anti-semitism in America?