In my new VDARE.com column, I come up with two new angles on Jeffrey Goldberg's accusation of anti-Semitism against Glenn Beck at The Atlantic:
- Why didn't Goldberg put in a link to wherever Beck named "nine people, eight of them Jews, as enemies of American and humanity"? It's easy to put in a link ... if you have one. On the other hand, it's a good idea not to put in a link if you are badly mischaracterizing what the person you are smearing actually did.
- Ironically, leftist sociologist Frances Fox Piven gave an interview four days before Goldberg's smear in which she blamed Beck's campaign against her not on anti-Semites, but on Semites. And named names.
Read the whole thing there.
According to Goldberg, Beck denounced billionaire George Soros, psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, 1920s’ PR man Edward Bernays, 1920s pundit Walter Lippmann, Obama Administration official Cass Sunstein, National Welfare Rights Organization co-founder Frances Fox Piven, former Philadelphia mayor Ed Rendell, former SEIU labor boss Andy Stern, along with one unnamed gentile, as "enemies of America and humanity."
ReplyDelete----
Piven blames Beck’s attacks on her not on anti-Semitism, but on … David Horowitz, Fred Siegel, Jim Sleeper, Ron Radosh, and (at interviewer Amy Goodman's suggestion) Stanley Kurtz.
It seems that political debate in America is really about one camp of Jews arguing with another camp of Jews.
About 20 years ago, for reasons I no longer recall, I tried putting together a list of quotations about events and Supreme Court decisions of the late the 1960s and early 1970s, which appeared in light of later events extremely idiotic. I looked over the preliminary list and realized it might look anti-Semitic, given the extreme overrepresentation of apparently Jewish names. The problem was, I decided, not that Jewish people were the only, or even the majority of, bubbleheads in the 1960s (As I recall, that trait was pandemic among intellectuals in the 1960s). But it seems that when Jewish people become bubbleheads, they tend to be energetic, competent, articulate and thus highly quotable bubbleheads.
ReplyDeleteSince I have read Mr. Sailer's book " America's ...", I have looked at Amazon the "index" of Kurtz's book, which book was published 2 years _after_ Sailer's.
ReplyDeleteNot even single mentioning of Sailer.
What a low level of morality by Kurtz. As a result, I have not bought and have not read the said book by K.
I do not want to give him even this, negative, publicity.
Respectfully, Florida resident.
Steve, you had another post about this which, it seems, you deleted, but still shows up on Google Reader. Just FYI.
ReplyDelete"It seems that political debate in America is really about one camp of Jews arguing with another camp of Jews."
ReplyDeleteEither that or one camp of anti-Semites arguing with another camp of anti-Semites. :o)
Having said that, why is Beck such a fruit loop? Seriously, Bill O'Reilly is Jacques Barzun by comparison.
"Steve, you had another post about this which, it seems, you deleted, but still shows up on Google Reader"
ReplyDeleteYes, I put up a blog post about Piven's Democracy Now interview, but then quickly decided to take it down and incorporate it within a longer VDARE article. I do that sort of thing fairly often.
Great work, Steve. You should print this out and mail a hard copy of it to Goldberg's boss at the Atlantic. He might be interested to learn that Goldberg is regurgitating Media Matters talking points.
ReplyDelete"Piven blames Beck’s attacks on her not on anti-Semitism, but on … David Horowitz, Fred Siegel, Jim Sleeper, Ron Radosh, and (at interviewer Amy Goodman's suggestion) Stanley Kurtz."
ReplyDeleteThat's absolutely hilarious!---almost as good as that (apparently mistaken) claim that the Giffords and the (anti-Semitic) Loughners both attended the same small synagogue...
It's things like this that make me awfully, awfully sympathetic to certain particular elements of the WN perspective...
Beck's list of the evil masterminds of history seems to me to be odd and haphazard. I think it's just some goofy updated version of the "doctors' plot". I'll bet 90% of Americans have never heard of most of the people on the list. Bernays refined public relations and advertising, selling soap and cigarettes, among other things. He doesn't seem to have thought much of the average person, but then they did buy the cigarettes, proving him right. Freud created an entire industry, people purchasing psychoanalysis and others selling it, teaching it, writing about it, etc. Lots of money exchanged hands there. It's fantastic to think the average viewer of American Idol is under the sway of Freudian inspired concepts. Soros is a guy with bags of money who's decided to get involved in politics internationally, hardly the only one who does so. He's fairly open about it and has written some books explaining his viewpoint. Read a couple and make up your own mind about him. Piven is just a do-good liberal who has been more influential than was justified. Insofar as the Jewish angle is concerned most of the ones on this list are quite secular, assimilated and non-religious; most barely qualify.
ReplyDeleteTrumka (Wiki says Polish, but the name looks Slovakian, maybe Ruthenian) looks way more like Alex Karras (Greek from Gary, IN) than Mike Ditka (Dyczko, Ukrainian from Carnegie, PA).
ReplyDeleteKarras' dad was a doctor (many of the Greeks around Gary are restauranteurs and businessmen). Trumka's dad worked in the mines and Ditka's dad worked in the mill. HBD at work in a steel town.
it seems that when Jewish people become bubbleheads, they tend to be energetic, competent, articulate and thus highly quotable bubbleheads.
ReplyDeleteI don't believe a word of this nonsense. Can you cite some of the "highly quotable" things which these allegedly "articulate" people have come out with? Jews get quoted a lot in the press because the press is full of other Jews who share the Jewish bubbleheads views. Period. It's not remotely necessary for any of the Jews in question to be especially competent, in the objective sense.
Stanley Kurtz has a good short
ReplyDeletepiece on Piven at natl review today--
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/257733/frances-fox-piven-s-violent-agenda-stanley-kurtz
Piven wrote:
ReplyDeleteAn effective movement of the unemployed will have to look something like the strikes and riots that have spread across Greece … We should hope for another American social movement from the bottom—and then join it.
It will have to look like Greece. It can't look like the Tea Party, because Piven hates Tea Partiers. If and when Tea Partiers riot Piven's hatred will only be expressed more frequently, more loudly and more shrilly.
Goldberg knows Beck is not an anti-Semite. But it would be good for Goldberg's politics if he was. Accusing a fair person of Anti-semitism, thus bringing the full historical weight of the charge down upon one, can easily cause that person to start resenting privileged Jews and the games they play. I'm sure Goldberg realizes that.
ReplyDeleteinteresting article steve.
ReplyDeleteIf I were granted 3 wishes, I would like Steve (and Vdare) to have a regular readership numbering close to FoxNews' viewership; for Steve to be a regular guest on the TV pundit shows; and a few billion dollars to start my own cable network and publishing house dedicated to telling the truth.
ReplyDeleteSteve, your eliminationist agenda is showing again. How dare you repeat the notorious canards of rabid and virulent anti-semites like the xenophobic, isolationist Glenn Beck?
ReplyDeleteHe is hardly more than a rank reborn Goebbels!
This shmendrick and his ilk oughta be locked up in the name of liberty!
And how dare you tell the TRUTH?!
Everybody knows that way lies the gas chambers!!!
here's a good little essay about one element of the jewish political psychodrama:
ReplyDelete"Yet, an apostate is usually astute enough to understand that, in order to catch the public eye and reap the attendant benefits, merely registering this or that doubt about one's prior convictions, or nuanced disagreements with former comrades (which, after all, is how a reasoned change of heart would normally evolve), won't suffice. For, incremental change, or fundamental change by accretion, doesn't get the buzz going: there must be a dramatic rupture with one's past. Conversion and zealotry, just like revelation and apostasy, are flip sides of the same coin, the currency of a political culture having more in common with religion than rational discourse. A rite of passage for apostates peculiar to U.S. political culture is bashing Noam Chomsky. It's the political equivalent of a bar mitzvah, a ritual signaling that one has "grown up" - i.e., grown out of one's "childish" past. It's hard to pick up an article or book by ex-radicals - Gitlin's Letters to a Young Activist, Paul Berman's Terror and Liberalism… - that doesn't include a hysterical attack on him. Behind this venom there's also a transparent psychological factor at play. Chomsky mirrors their idealistic past as well as sordid present, an obstinate reminder that they once had principles but no longer do, that they sold out but he didn't. Hating to be reminded, they keep trying to shatter the glass. He's the demon from the past that, after recantation, no amount of incantation can exorcise."
http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=4&ar=6
jews talking to jews about jews criticizing jews. the platonic ideal of contemporary political debate?
"Having said that, why is Beck such a fruit loop?"
ReplyDeleteAre you talking about the radio personality silliness? He was a radio personality.
Did you not know that orrrr
Yup, Alex Karras, NFL lineman turned TV actor on one of those sitcoms with white people adopting tiny black people (the other one, not Gary Coleman), is it.
ReplyDeleteMy modest suggestion to those Jews who fear the building of mosques in American cities is that they look elsewhere for threats that seem to be gathering against them
ReplyDeleteWow! So here is a Jewish guy who fought with the IDF and he still sees white Christians like Beck as being a greater threat to the Jews than Muslims.
Karras's show was called Webster. I think Dick Butkis might have had a recurring role on it too.
ReplyDelete"Wow! So here is a Jewish guy who fought with the IDF and he still sees white Christians like Beck as being a greater threat to the Jews than Muslims."
ReplyDeleteHe didn't "fight" with the IDF, he guarded Palestinian prisoners.
Goldberg knows Beck is not an anti-Semite. But it would be good for Goldberg's politics if he was. Accusing a fair person of Anti-semitism, thus bringing the full historical weight of the charge down upon one, can easily cause that person to start resenting privileged Jews and the games they play. I'm sure Goldberg realizes that.
ReplyDeleteI wish I could point things like this out more often without tripping Steve's A-S meter. I end up sounding a lot harsher, but making the same point.
YES, gentile-baiting is a game many Jews seem to love playing. If you don't hate them, but they hate you, they tend to work hard to elicit fouls.
Maybe a little off-topic, but if you listen to Beck's morning radio show [typically 9AM to 12N in most markets], then you will quickly come to realize that he & his staff have far & away the highest IQs of anyone in the news or entertainment business in America today.
ReplyDeleteThese guys are extremely smart & extremely talented [they're about the only people who can make me laugh anymore], and they make the poseurs at the Leno or Letterman shows look like rank amateurs by comparison.
PS: Glenn Beck "gets it", and we should be damned grateful that we have someone as talented & as energetic as he to lay it all out for us to see - the enormity of the situation we are facing as regards the near-overwhelming power of the forces which have aligned in a unified attempt to destroy this nation.
Fred sez:"He didn't "fight" with the IDF, he guarded Palestinian prisoners."
ReplyDeleteDo you mean by merely guarding Palestinians caught by the IDF, one should be absolved from their crimes?
Chicago said...
ReplyDeleteInsofar as the Jewish angle is concerned most of the ones on this list are quite secular, assimilated and non-religious; most barely qualify.
Yes, but religion is beside the point.
"Do you mean by merely guarding Palestinians caught by the IDF, one should be absolved from their crimes?"
ReplyDeleteNo, that's not what I mean. Care to try again?
Brilliant Vdare piece, Steve.
ReplyDeleteAnd that raises the question: What is the penalty for falsely accusing somebody of anti-Semitism these days?
ReplyDeleteNot much, I suspect.
Bingo. The Duke Lacrosse Hoax really drove this home for me; the penalty for false accusations should be the same as the penalty that the accused would receive if found guilty.
An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, basically. Otherwise, you're always going to have people falsely accusing others and getting away with it.
In this case, I think that means Goldberg's new name should be Jeffrey "likes to trivialize the Holocaust" Goldberg, or something similar. Just as Beck would be introduced as Glenn "name the Jew" Beck if Goldberg's charges stuck (like David "former KKK leader" Duke, George "Macaca" Allen, Trent "Strom Shoulda Won" Lott, etc.).
"here's a good little essay about one element of the jewish political psychodrama:"
ReplyDeleteFinkelstein is reading way too much into this. The reason why former leftists attack Chomsky so harshly isn't so they can signal how much they have outgrown his writing or to get back at him for "not selling out". Instead, they attack him because Chomsky's writings are so widespread among politically interested college students. One could say reading Chomsky in college is a rite of passage. College students take him far more seriously than say, Cornell West. Clinton loyalists also loathe Chomsky and many of them were neither Trotskyites nor neoconservatives.
TH:
ReplyDeleteOne group of elites vs another group of elites. Jews are overrepresented in the set of elites, for reasons of IQ, connections, and geography, so:
a. Elite opinion often involves a lot of stuff that concerns Jews more than gentiles, like Israel and its policies and future, or accusations of antisemitism.
b. Elites arguing will often be two Jews arguing, just because of the composition of elites. This is especially true when the issue is one of those that concern Jews more than anyone else, like Israel or antisemitism. How passionate are you honestly likely to be about antisemitism, if you're an Irish Catholic? You probably don't much like it, but it's just not your main concern in life.
c. More broadly, for each ethnic group, the concerns of that group that are discussed among the elite will inevitably be the concerns of the subset of that group that makes it into the elite, however defined. Affirmative action in school admissions is a good illustration of this--it's a very important issue to elites, but not really to most normal people, who probably would be more interested in seeing their local public schools run better.