The LA Times reports "Madoff Debacle Hits Region's Jewish Community," with movie moguls like Spielberg and Katzenberg on the list.
The interesting questions at this point are whether the Madoff case represents merely a conventional affinity scam, exceptional only in being carried out among the richest and most influential affinity group in the country, or whether it's representative of a general trend where the more ethnocentric Jews are being hit particularly hard by the general financial collapse (not just Madoff), perhaps due to being more aggressive risk-takers. If so, that could have sizable political and cultural ramifications.
For example, consider the high regard with which the opinions of the Southern Poverty Law Center are treated. It basically comes down to the assumption: if they are rich, if they can afford to trumpet their assertions widely, then must be legit, right? (In truth, the vast wealth this so-called charity has piled up is more a sign of their moral corruption, but human beings respect riches.) What happens, though, if the SPLC, which gets much of its money from the kind of people who invest with the Bernie Madoffs of the world, isn't quite so rich in the future?
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
I don't understand how the financial collapse could have such a big effect.
ReplyDeleteIf I understand you, what you're saying in that many Jews thought they were wealthy because of bubbles and Ponzi schemes. Because they thought they were wealthy, they gave lots of money to charity. So in effect, we've had a bubble in the kinds of charity Jews care about, which is now about to pop.
But the people in these stories seem to really be wealthy - Katzenberg and Spielberg really are out there being productive and earning money, and the other people I've seen quoted in the paper were things like clothing manufacturers. They're not like condo flippers whose ability to give to charity is clearly gone.
This is certainly a big hit for American Jews - but there's probably a "BAILOUT COMING here too...
ReplyDeleteIt's a bit hit because: anytime you have a minimum $10 million buy in, scores of people at the Palm Beach Country Club, Hollywood types, owners of pro teams, etc. --- this is a formidable, rich crowd. This is a hit for them.
But a BAIL OUT is coming, mark my words:
Already CNN is touting this in apocalyptic terms as "A Financial Murder."
The Government is going to be blamed and blamed, because of the failure of the SEC investigation of Madoff, and the "victims" are going to demand some kind of financial compensation.
There's no way this particular crowd is not going to make this into a tragedy of "SINGULAR PROPORTIONS." with UNIQUE HARM and complain to the high heavens until taxpayers cough up some more dough
"If 50 billion has been lost ... there are about 6 million Jews in the US. That comes to about $8000/person. Not a gigantic hit. I suspect that Jewish influence will continue."
ReplyDeleteAs a Jew who had never heard of Madoff before this scandal, and who has lost plenty of money this year in mutual funds run by WASP firms such as Fidelity and Dodge & Cox, I think your fixation is misplaced, for two reasons. The first is that most of the folks who lost money in Madoff's scam -- Jew and non-Jew -- are still plenty rich. The second is that almost everyone else got crushed in the market this year, not because of fraud, but because of simple incompetence and the herd mentality among most mutual fund managers.
The idea that Jewish influence will wane because of financial losses must be based on a theory of losses among Jewish activists that are relatively large versus the carnage everyone else suffered this year, not merely absolutely large. If Jewish political donor Morty lost 30% of his money this year, and white nationalist donor John lost 40%, then it would be hard to see how Morty's influence would drop precipitously on a relative basis.
I think the real reason people respect the SPLC is because they have confused with the SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference), Martin Luther King's group. I had the two conflated in my mind for quite some time in years past.
ReplyDeleteWho is surprised? Jews have ALWAYS disproportionately been white-collar criminals wherever on Earth they have settled.
ReplyDelete--
"Rancid materialism is corrupting our community"
By RABBI SHMULEY BOTEACH
The Jewish community better get serious about the cancer that's growing inside it. The devastation on Wall Street carries a lot of Jewish names, from firms like Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers to individuals such as Bernard Madoff, whose $50 billion Ponzi scheme collapsed over the weekend, and lawyer Marc Dreier, arrested last week for defrauding investors of hundreds of millions of dollars.
On the Internet more and more people who don't like us are beginning to connect the dots, pointing out that there are an awful lot of Jews who bear responsibility for Wall Street's fall.
(cont.) - http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1228728209076&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
It basically comes down to the assumption: if they are rich, if they can afford to trumpet their assertions widely, then must be legit, right?
ReplyDeleteI'm acually going to have to quote Marx on this one:
"That which is for me through the medium of money--that for which I can pay (i.e. which money can buy)--that am I, the possessor of the money. The extent of the power of money is the extent of my power. Money's properties are my properties and essential powers--the properties and powers of its possessor. Thus, what I am and am capable of is by no means determined by my individuality. I am ugly, but I can buy for myself the most beautiful of women. Therefore, I am not ugly, for the effect of ugliness--its deterrent power--is nullified by money. I, as an individual, am lame, but money furnishes me with twenty-four feet. Therefore I am not lame. I am bad, dishonest, unscrupulous, stupid; but money is honored, and hence its possessor. Money is the supreme good; therefore its possessor is good. Money, besides, saves me the trouble of being dishonest: I am therefore presumed honest. I am stupid, but money is the real mind of all things and how then should its possessor be stupid? Besides, he can buy talented people for himself, and is he who has power over the talented not more talented than the talented? Do not I, who thanks to money am capable of all that the human heart longs for, possess all human capacities? Does not money, therefore, transform all my incapacities into their contrary?"
Speaking of Spielberg...
ReplyDeleteI haven't really followed him much lately. I posted this a few years back at F.I.R.M...
I like Tom Hanks' comments...
Of course Lindbergh never got made...
Spielberg teaches tolerance
Posted on June 25, 2003 at 11:13:49 PM by Sisu
Why Spielberg promotes "tolerance."
...What’s the most effective way to shape public opinion? Control what people read, watch, and listen to. Also, tell them what they can and cannot say in polite society. Tell them what is good and what is evil...over and over and over. (Why, you could also mandate Holocaust education in schools)
Americans are clamoring for diversity in the highest levels of corporate America, academia, the government, and we even want more diversity on TV, but we’re not suppose to care that Jews (approximately 3% of the population) fill the majority of positions of power in many areas of the media. We’re told that they are just Americans, who happen to be Jewish, acting as individuals, "pursuing the American dream."
Is Steven Spielberg an individual just pursuing "the American dream" or is he an individual ethnic activist combating anti-Semitism? After making Schindler’s List, Spielberg established Survivors of the Shoah Foundation. He also helped fund Professor Deborah Lipstadt's defense against David Irving. So what’s next for Steve? Spielberg bought the rights to A. Scott Berg’s biography of Charles Lindbergh. But when he read Berg's biography, he was troubled by parts of Lindbergh 's life...
In February of 1999 Spielberg told the New York Times:
"We'll probably make `Lindbergh ,' but one of the reasons I've considered not being the director is that I didn't know very much about him until I read Scott Berg's book and I read it only after I purchased it, and I think it's one of the greatest biographies I've ever read. But Lindbergh 's America First and his anti-Semitism bother me to my core, and I don't want to celebrate an anti-Semite unless I can create an understanding of why he felt that way. Because sometimes the best way to prevent discrimination is to understand the discriminator."
More Spielberg on Lindbergh
"Once you commit to do a biography on an icon of a century, you have to be unflinching, you have to flesh out the entire story -- and from (Lindbergh's wife) Anne Morrow Lindbergh's point of view -- and not from Lindbergh the man," Spielberg told Variety.
Variety said Spielberg selected Meyjes for the project after reading his script for "Hoffman," (Later titled "Max") the story of a Jewish art teacher who discouraged Hitler's hopes for a career as a painter -- an event some historians have speculated helped sparked Hitler's political career and eventually the Holocaust.
He didn't know very much about Lindy until he read Scott Berg's book?
Really, that’s not what A. Scott Berg says...The following piece from New York Magazine makes it look like he wants to vilify Charles Lindbergh. Of course, Lindy was guilty of raising an anti-Semitic "canard" or two.
Lindbergh Drama Gets The Works
"...Exactly what Steven Spielberg knew and when he knew it was the question, after news circulated that the Academy Award nominated writer Paul Attanasio had withdrawn from a planned Charles Lindbergh project. Spielberg bought the rights to A. Scott Berg's Pulitzer Prize winning biography of the famous aviator before reading the book, and the story making the rounds last week was that Spielberg turned cold on the project once he realized exactly how anti-Semitic Lindbergh was. 'He did buy the rights to the book before reading the manuscript,' confirms Berg, 'because I was still working on it.' But the writer adds that Spielberg always knew about Lindbergh. 'When he and I first met, topic A was anti-Semitism,' says Berg. 'And I would say that topic Z was anti-Semitism as well.' Another source close to the project explains that Attanasio, who wrote QUIZ SHOW and DONNIE BRASCO, wanted to write a character based drama, while the director of SCHINDLER'S LIST wanted more of a 'spectacle.' Spielberg is now talking to another writer about taking over the project..."
Again, we’re told that the ethnicity of the Jewish media moguls doesn’t matter. But imagine if all of the Jewish moguls, agents, producers, editors, writers, publishers, journalists, directors, various impresarios, etc. were Italian, WASPs, or African Americans. Do you think that their ethnicity would go unquestioned? But when you’re "immune to criticism," and any dissent is met with the accusations of "hate," "anti-Semitism," and "fanning the flames of the Holocaust"...not much changes.
So, is it possible that the Jewish media elite may be individuals acting alone with the same "noble" purpose, "Is it good for the Jews?" No conspiracies, no Protocols of Zion rubbish, just individuals working to keep Jews safe, however, often to the detriment of gentiles.
From ADL website:
"Even a reputable British magazine in 1994 revived the stereotype of Hollywood in which an alleged "Jewish cabal" controls the industry. The article, in The Spectator, authored by William Cash, a Hollywood correspondent for the conservative British newspaper The Daily Telegraph, contended that Jews have created an "invidious and protective culture" that denies employment to non-Jews."
"The Anti-Defamation League expressed outrage at the article, saying that it raised the age-old canard of Jewish control and conspiracy and was reminiscent of classic anti-Semitic propaganda of the past hundred years. "Those Jews who enter the movie industry have done so as individuals pursuing the American dream, not as representatives of their religious group," commented ADL National Director Abraham H. Foxman."
From A certain People: American Jews and their lives today Silberman, C.E. (1985)
(p. 350) "American Jews are committed to cultural tolerance because of their belief-one firmly rooted in history-that Jews are safe only in a society acceptant of a wide range of attitudes and behaviors, as well as diversity of religious and ethnic groups. It is this belief, for example, not approval of homosexuality, that leads an overwhelming majority of American Jews to endorse "gay rights" and to take a liberal stance on most other so-called "social" issues.
Spielberg biographer Joseph McBride tracks Spielberg's career from the obsessed young home moviemaker who knew at 12 he was going to make films his life's work, to the wunderkind apprentice at Universal Studios, soaking up all he could learn and dropping out of university, to his parents' dismay. He, in turn, was troubled by their divorce and by difficult days at high school, where he claims he encountered anti-Semitism -- although colleagues believe he was tormented more because he was a loner and "different."
Spielberg on using films to "educate."
"I like to think history is taught with purpose and passion, but I also feel film has a responsibility to do, ah, everything. To teach, but without preaching, to entertain, to illuminate, to reflect on events that are not taught sufficiently in school, which is why I made Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan, Amistad -- but at the same time, films should only inspire students to discover an interest they never had before, so the film acts as a catalyst for discovery ... I'm always pleased when people say, 'I saw your film and I was not interested that much in the Holocaust but then I began to read Primo Levi and Elie Wiesel and all those books.' And that's what I like to hear. They're not talking about the film anymore, they're talking about all the books they've read."
Steve contributes to German student Holocaust fatigue…
Spielberg launches tolerance contest
http://abclocal.go.com/wls/news/entertainment/012703_en_contest.html
January 27, 2003 (BERLIN) — Director Steven Spielberg has launched a Germany-wide contest designed to promote tolerance through students' intercultural interaction.
"We've been at the brink of many world crises ever since the Holocaust, and this is one more crisis," Spielberg said at a news conference Sunday. "But the need for tolerance education has always existed."
Learning From History's Horrors
Interview with Chuck Schwartz
How goes the work for the Shoah Foundation?
Steven Spielberg: Thank you for asking that question. It goes great. We have 52,000 Holocaust survivors on tape. We have a CD ROM course on tolerance education that is being taught right now to kids in Germany. We have five states with one school in each state doing beta testing on our tolerance education curriculum and at the end of I think the experiment is over early next year and then we do a feasibility study and then we try to move our entire archive out into the public school districts to try to get teachers to mandate tolerance education right next to science and biology and a language and mathematics. We'll be happy to combine it with social science but it must be taught in schools and it must be compulsory. My whole goal now with the Shoah Foundation is to try and make tolerance education compulsory. It is so needed. All the kids need to know about racial hatred and kids should celebrate what is different among us not condemn us for the differences.
Excerpts from The Guardian UK, 3.21.99, Inside the Dream Factory:
http://film.guardian.co.uk/The_Oscars_1999/Story/0,4135,36555,00.html
"…His motivation for making those earlier serious movies was simple: to be taken seriously. But Schindler's List, he says, 'is the most personal film I've ever made, because it was something I was so ashamed of.'
The 'it', of course, was being Jewish. As a scrawny kid in gentile suburbia, he couldn't stand being disliked for something he had no control over. 'It wasn't so much that I wanted to be
popular or wanted to meet girls,' Spielberg says. 'I just didn't want to get hit in the mouth.'
…The harshest killing by far befalls Private Mellish, a tough Jewish soldier who is knifed through the heart, slowly, by a German soldier who hushes Mellish like a baby as he leans on the blade. 'I made that up on the spot,' Spielberg says when I ask about it….
But why did he choose the Jewish soldier?
'Believe it or not,' he says, 'I chose the Jewish soldier because all the other squad members were
accounted for, and I'd already shot their whereabouts.' Tom Hanks, the star of Saving Private Ryan, recalls watching Spielberg shoot the scene. 'The blood drained out of my body,' Hanks says. 'I could not believe what he had done.'
Spielberg says his alter-ego in the film is Corporal Upham, the cowardly pacifist. Hanks disagrees. 'I think who Steven fantasises himself being is Mellish,' he says, 'who pulls out his Star of David, and says, "Juden, Juden", as the German POWs are going by. I think Steven, for his Jewishness, wants to be that guy who, when the time comes, can pop a guy in the mouth with the butt of his M1.'
In serious conversation with Spielberg, tolerance and intolerance are among the most common words to crop up. Despite his success, he says, he still feels like an outsider, indelibly stamped by his childhood. Indeed, his movies add up to one long argument for tolerance, a plea to accept the outsider. ET the Extra-Terrestrial has Elliott, a young loner, recognising that ET is more kindred spirit than alien. Close Encounters of the Third Kind was, above all, a quest for peace among men (and, again, aliens). More recently, Saving Private Ryan was rewritten, at Spielberg's insistence, from a swaggering Second World War movie into a melting-pot ensemble drama: the Jewish soldier, the Italian soldier, the scripture-quoting sharpshooter.
It is this morality of tolerance, his critics say, that turns his characters into stereotypes or leads Spielberg to crown the wrong heroes. Why, he was asked after Schindler's List, did he make a Holocaust film with a redeemed Nazi as its hero? Even David Geffen feels that Amistad was less about slavery than 'about white people saving black people'…
End of Guardian excerpts
At the same time Speilberg and associates put down gentile American heroes. One of the WB/Speilberg cartoon series, "Histeria!", had an particularly egregious episode in which George Washington is portrayed as a retarded, wacky old fool (his eyes cross with stupidity) whose teeth are always falling out and who is hen-pecked by his infinitely smarter wife. This was presented, as history and educational content, to children. Why no wacky Wiesel?
ReplyDeleteThat whole series is a rich field of examples of breathtaking hostility toward White gentile culture.
(Surely no one will protest that cartoons are insignificant.)
Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteFor heaven's sake, try to be a little pithier next time. Regarding this statement of yours,
"Again, we’re told that the ethnicity of the Jewish media moguls doesn’t matter."
Who told "us" that? And why would you think that an artist's personal background wouldn't influence his artistic choices?
Why should Spielberg direct a movie about Lindbergh that glosses over Lindbergh's hatred of Jews and affinity for Hitler? Because you say so? If you think Lindbergh's anti-Jew/pro-Hitler attitudes should be celebrated instead, then write your own screenplay and shop it around to other production companies. Try Mel Gibson's company for starters.
It's a free country, and you're free to sell your angle on the story. Whether anyone's willing to buy it is another story.
Good luck to you though. It's always better to try to do something constructive (even if it's a hagiography of Lindy) than to sit around complaining about stuff on the Internet. Maybe this will be your big break.
"He (Madoff) has sapped the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles of 11 percent of its assets, or some $18 million."
ReplyDeleteYou're right, Steve. How is this one organization in one city in one nation alone going to manage with just $147,000,000 in assets remaining? The boot is finally lifting off our necks!
I hope I'm not belaboring the obvious but Madoff scammed a LOT of non-Jewish investors, notably Santander bank from Spain, UBS Bank and Banque Benedict Hentsch of Switzerland, Halifax Bank of Scotland, BNP Paribas of France, Bramdean Group of England, and lots more. What's unique about Madoff? I don't know about unique, but the length of time -- apparently 30 years -- that the scam lasted is greater than any swindle I've ever heard of, and must, for the last decade or so, have been one of the factors that convinced a lot of people it was safe to invest.
ReplyDeleteI hope I'm not belaboring the obvious but Madoff scammed a LOT of non-Jewish investors, notably Santander bank from Spain, UBS Bank and Banque Benedict Hentsch of Switzerland, Halifax Bank of Scotland, BNP Paribas of France, Bramdean Group of England, and lots more. What's unique about Madoff? I don't know about unique, but the length of time -- apparently 30 years -- that the scam lasted is greater than any swindle I've ever heard of, and must, for the last decade or so, have been one of the factors that convinced a lot of people it was safe to invest.
ReplyDeleteIts not clear at what point Madoff started the scam. One of the (many)reasons the fund wasn't heavily scrutinized was because fund has pretty middling returns in the 90s. It is quite possible that Madoff didn't start defrauding investors until the last 8 years or so
CJ,
ReplyDeleteGood point. I'm just reading this Maddoff stuff for entertainment but I get the impression he was good because he could dosage his rate of collapse over a long period of time and basically had his greed under control. As NASDAQ boss he was perched right to observe the mechanisms and those guys are also in the know about any shady operations so he learnt a few things there. Maybe being NASDAQ boss was part of his grand scheme. I wonder what unrigged him. Was his rate of collapse too fast or did he become less disciplined? Or was it the market which tanked too much even for him? Surely he was in the know about the crash so he could plan in advance. But if his scheme was Ponzi from the start he must have had an exit strategy for the end? Like make the fund go bust when he turns 60 so he can ostensibly retire as a pauper but live off the loot stashed away. Many questions. Maybe this interlude is all part of his grand scheme and us goy doofs will look like idiots again. Jews are not known to be smart from nothing.
David Geffen is pure Hollywood capitalism. I'll bet he got burned too but ain't saying. But did not lose major money, being too clever for that
ReplyDeleteYou get these hot hedge fund (and other hot investment tips) tips at the golf course and cocktail parties. No salesman tries to get you interested
Geffen is amazing.
I look at his Forbes ranking each year and it repeatedly grows by a few billion due to getting entree to extraordinary investments. Though this year perhaps even he took a hit
Geffen also got in on the ground floor with Obama. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/11/obama-geffen.html
Hosting an infamous Hollywood party in Feb 2007 where 0 was introduced to the shakers and movers
Exactly what is so unique about what Bernie Madoff did, other than to admit his business was a "giant Ponzi scheme"?
ReplyDelete~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Sure—provided somebody tells him when he's young enough that there
is a Money River, that there's nothing fair about it, that he had damn
well better forget about hard work and the merit system and honesty and all
that crap, and get to where the river is. 'Go where the rich and powerful
are,' I'd tell him, 'and learn their ways. They can be flattered and they can
be scared. Please them enormously or scare them enormously, and one moonless
night they will put their fingers to their lips, warning you not to make a
sound. And they will lead you through the dark to the widest, deepest river of
wealth ever known to man. You'll be shown your place on the riverbank, and
handed a bucket all your own. Slurp as much as you want, but try to keep the
racket of your slurping down. A poor man might hear.'"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater," by Kurt Vonnegut
http://akkartik.name/blog/money-river
Anon.,
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion Spielberg passed because Lindbergh performed too many good actions and had too many good traits. Tough to demonize him in a biopic. The neocon mission of resurrecting and hatcheting the star of the America First'ers got ramped up after 9-11, and fell to Roth. Easier to make Lindbergh just one heavy in a larger story - the story of how the people and heroes of this country are rotten unless they are fighting for Jewish interests.
"That whole series is a rich field of examples of breathtaking hostility toward White gentile culture."
ReplyDeleteAnd the way he portrayed Indiana Jones - just reprehensible. Oh, he invented Indiana Jones (not Indiana Goldberg), a quintessential all-American Gentile hero? Oh okay. Well what about that Tom Hanks character in "Saving Private Ryan" - what an affront to whiteness! Oh, Tom Hanks is the Gentile, All-American decent guy in said film, just like he is in a thousand other films from Jewish Hollywood? Never mind.
And the way he portrayed Indiana Jones - just reprehensible. Oh, he invented Indiana Jones (not Indiana Goldberg), a quintessential all-American Gentile hero? Oh okay. Well what about that Tom Hanks character in "Saving Private Ryan" - what an affront to whiteness! Oh, Tom Hanks is the Gentile, All-American decent guy in said film, just like he is in a thousand other films from Jewish Hollywood? Never mind.
ReplyDeleteWhite Americans are allowed to look good in Hollywood only when they're killing Nazis or some other enemies of the Jews, or embracing "diversity" or other Jewish values. Good = servitude to God's chosen.
Spielberg: "We have five states with one school in each state doing beta testing on our tolerance education curriculum and at the end of I think the experiment is over early next year and then we do a feasibility study and then we try to move our entire archive out into the public school districts to try to get teachers to mandate tolerance education right next to science and biology and a language and mathematics. We'll be happy to combine it with social science but it must be taught in schools and it must be compulsory. My whole goal now with the Shoah Foundation is to try and make tolerance education compulsory."
ReplyDeleteJews have already made it compulsory in Illinois. My wife and I let them set up their political reeducation camps for gentiles and moved our kids to a private Christian school.
Although in all fairness, Spielberg is no different than the schools in Israel. They both are steeped in the Evil Gentile curriculum.
I wish Spielberg and his friends would make aliyah. They should go home and "make the desert bloom" with movies.
Do America a favor, Steve, and go politically reeducate your own people. "Teach tolerance" (and demographic suicide) to Jews in Israel, you putz. See how far you get.
Can't get enough of the Holocaust and Nazis?
ReplyDeleteLook at what is at/coming to your local theater!
Good
Plot
The rise of national socialism in Germany should not be regarded as a conspiracy of madmen. Millions of "good" people found themselves in a society spiralling into terrible chaos. A film about then, which illuminates the terrors of now.
The Reader
Plot
THE READER opens in post-WWII Germany when teenager Michael Berg becomes ill and is helped home by Hanna, a stranger twice his age. The two are quickly drawn into a passionate but secretive affair…Despite their intense bond, Hanna mysteriously disappears one day and Michael is left confused and heartbroken. Eight years later, while Michael is a law student observing the Nazi war crime trials, he is stunned to find Hanna back in his life - this time as a defendant in the courtroom. As Hanna's past is revealed, Michael uncovers a deep secret that will impact both of their lives.
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas
Plot
Set during World War II, a story seen through the innocent eyes of Bruno, the eight-year-old son of the commandant at a concentration camp, whose forbidden friendship with a Jewish boy on the other side of the camp fence has startling and unexpected consequences.
Adam Resurrected
Plot
Jeff Goldblum, with his ironic domineering smirk, is Adam Stein, a Holocaust survivor and mental patient who lords it over an Israeli insane asylum like a Jewish vaudeville R.P. McMurphy; they should have called this One Flew Over the Meshuggenah's Nest. Adam Resurrected flashes back to Stein's days as a prisoner, where he saved his hide — but lost his soul — by literally pretending to be the Nazi commandant's dog.
Valkyrie
starring Tom Cruise
Plot
A German officers' abortive attempt to assassinate Hitler toward the end of WWII.
Defiance
Plot
Three Jewish brothers escape from Nazi-occupied Poland into the Belarussian forest, where they join Russian resistance fighters and endeavor to build a village in order to protect themselves and others in danger.
Quentin Tarantino’s "INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS"
Plot
In Nazi-occupied France during World War II, a group of Jewish-American soldiers known as "The Basterds" are chosen specifically to spread fear throughout the Third Reich by scalping and brutally killing Nazis. The Basterds soon cross paths with a French-Jewish teenage girl who runs a movie theater in Paris which is targeted by the soldiers.
Except when they're gentiles like John Rambo, who was killing communists. Or gentiles like Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry, who killed all manner of scumbags
ReplyDeleteIt would be interesting to compare the level of involvement of Jews in writing, directing, producing, or starring in such films compared to the standard Nazi-slaying flicks Hollywood never tires of turning out.
Quentin Tarantino’s "INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS"
ReplyDeletePlot
In Nazi-occupied France during World War II, a group of Jewish-American soldiers known as "The Basterds" are chosen specifically to spread fear throughout the Third Reich by scalping and brutally killing Nazis. The Basterds soon cross paths with a French-Jewish teenage girl who runs a movie theater in Paris which is targeted by the soldiers.
Sounds like a rip-off of the Jedburghs. See here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Jedburgh
It would actually be a good story/movie without the revisions. Why it has to be revised is beyond me...
Or compare the latest Indy Jones flick, where angst-filled Indy reluctantly (at first) fights commies, to his classic ones where he employs patriotic zeal vs. the Nazis. Plus the McCarthy references in Crystal Skull, that were not mirrored by 1930s anti-war isolationist references in the other three movies.
ReplyDeleteFor heaven's sake, try to be a little pithier next time.
ReplyDeleteI thought it made for a good read. Many interested parties consistently try to dumb down the conversation on this subject to the point of sound bites ("gee, when do I get my check from the Worldwide Jewish Conspiracy?" - now there's an illuminating contribution); doesn't mean we all have to.
"Again, we’re told that the ethnicity of the Jewish media moguls doesn’t matter."
Who told "us" that? And why would you think that an artist's personal background wouldn't influence his artistic choices?
Oh, but he'd run on so long already, how can you ask him to elaborate?
Why should Spielberg direct a movie about Lindbergh that glosses over Lindbergh's hatred of Jews and affinity for Hitler? Because you say so? If you think Lindbergh's anti-Jew/pro-Hitler attitudes should be celebrated instead, then write your own screenplay and shop it around to other production companies. Try Mel Gibson's company for starters.
Maybe he wanted to explain, but realized how far beyond the "pithy" border he'd wandered? To answer a question with a question - why is yours relevant?
It's a free country, and you're free to sell your angle on the story. Whether anyone's willing to buy it is another story.
Gee, more illumination, better grab the SPF 50.
Good luck to you though. It's always better to try to do something constructive (even if it's a hagiography of Lindy) than to sit around complaining about stuff on the Internet. Maybe this will be your big break.
You consistently gate-keep on the issue of criticism of Jews, a pasttime centered on complaining, one you seem only capable of practicing in emotional terms, but it's the other guy's problem?
http://www.jewishjournal.com/swindlerslist/item/what_madoff_investments_reveal_about_hollywood_jews_20081217/
ReplyDeleteHow else can you explain the kind of incestuous financial rings developed and sustained within the Hollywood Jewish community? Spielberg entrusts his net worth to his Jewish business manager; he shares said business manager with friend Jeffrey Katzenberg; and that very same manager trusts their sizable assets to another reputable Jew: Bernard Madoff. It could be argued that the entire entertainment industry operates this way; a tribalistic clan working together, sharing with each other and trusting one another.
What’s more Jewish than that?
"VoodooMan said...
ReplyDeleteOr compare the latest Indy Jones flick, where angst-filled Indy reluctantly (at first) fights commies, to his classic ones where he employs patriotic zeal vs. the Nazis. Plus the McCarthy references in Crystal Skull, that were not mirrored by 1930s anti-war isolationist references in the other three movies."
As I recall, Indy never actually called the russians "commies" - he just (sneeringly) called them russians. The hollywod establishment of today is deeply invested in the false idea that anti-communism was all just "paranoia".
Amusingly, there was a seen in the movie where the President of Indy's college muttered something about "witchhunts" and "seeing communists in our soup". This was mentioned when, just a few scenes before, Harrison Ford was battling a whole detachment of russian soldiers who had infiltrated an American military base in Nevada. Within the internal logic of the film, I'd say that communists were popping up in people's soup.
anti-Semitism floods the internet
ReplyDeleteAnti-Jewish commentary is flooding the Internet in the wake of Bernard Madoff's arrest on charges of masterminding one of the biggest Wall Street frauds in history, campaigners said Friday.
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) said there had been "an outpouring of anti-Semitic comments on mainstream and extremist Web sites."
Madoff, 70, is Jewish and a prominent member of the powerful US Jewish community. He is alleged to have defrauded investors, including a number of Jewish-related charities, of some 50 billion dollars.
"Site users have posted comments ranging from deeply offensive stereotypical statements about Jews and money -- with some suggesting that only Jews could perpetrate a fraud on such a scale -- to conspiracy theories about Jews stealing money to benefit Israel," the ADL said in a statement.
"Jews are always a convenient scapegoat in times of crisis, but the Madoff scandal and the fact that so many of the defrauded investors are Jewish has created a perfect storm for the anti-Semites," said Abraham Foxman, ADL national director.
"Nowadays, the first place Jew-haters will go is to the Internet, where they can give voice to their hateful ideas without fear of repercussions."