A commenter writes:
- Steve Sailer: Some people don't criticize billionaires out of fear of anti-Semitism.
- Critics of Steve: Only a crazy, conspiracy theorist Jew-hater racist sexist like you would say that.
- WSJ: animosity towards top 1% is driven by anti-Semitism.
From the Wall Street Journal:
Ruth Wisse: The Dark Side of the War on 'the One Percent'
Stoking class envy is a step in a familiar, dangerous and highly incendiary process.
By RUTH R. WISSE
Feb. 3, 2014 7:37 p.m. ET
Two phenomena: anti-Semitism and American class conflict. Is there any connection between them? In a letter to this newspaper, the noted venture capitalist Tom Perkins called attention to certain parallels, as he saw them, between Nazi Germany's war against the Jews and American progressives' war on the "one percent." For comparing two such historically disparate societies, Mr. Perkins was promptly and heatedly denounced.
Would Kleiner Perkins' Perkins' attempt to play the Kristallnacht Kard have gone over better if he weren't a Norwegian-American? He seems to think so, and quickly argued that his late Jewish partner Eugene Kleiner would have agreed with him and he was motivated by white knight feelings toward his ex-wife Danielle Steele in her battle with San Francisco's bureaucracy.
But is there something to be said for his comparison—not of Germany and the United States, of course, but of the politics at work in the two situations? The place to begin is at the starting point: with the rise of anti-Semitism, modernity's most successful and least understood political movement. ...
The parallel that Tom Perkins drew in his letter was especially irksome to his respondents on the left, many of whom are supporters of President Obama's sallies against Wall Street and the "one percent." These critics might profitably consult Robert Wistrich, today's leading historian of anti-Semitism. His "From Ambivalence to Betrayal: The Left, the Jews, and Israel" (2012) documents the often profound anti-Semitism that has affected socialists and leftists from Karl Marx to today's anti-Israel movement of boycott, divestment and sanctions.
... My point is broader: Stoking class envy is a step in a familiar, dangerous and highly incendiary process. Any ideology or movement, right or left, that is organized negatively—against rather than for—enjoys an inherent advantage in politics, mobilizing unappeasable energies that never have to default on their announced goal of cleansing the body politic of its alleged poisons.
In this respect, one might think of anti-Semitism as the purest and most murderous example of an enduring political archetype: the negative campaign. That campaign has its international as well as its domestic front. Modern anti-Zionism, itself a patented invention of Soviet Communism and now the lingua franca of the international left, uses Israel just as anti-Semitism uses Jews, directing grievance and blame and eliminationist zeal against an entire collectivity that has flourished on the world scene thanks to the blessings of freedom and opportunity.
Herein lies a deeper structural connection. On the global front today, the much larger and more obvious beneficiary of those same blessings is the democratic capitalist system of the United States, and the ultimate target of the ultimate negative campaign is the American people. Anyone seeking to understand the inner workings of such a campaign will find much food for thought in Mr. Perkins's parallel.
Ms. Wisse, a [actually, The Martin Peretz] professor of Yiddish and comparative literature at Harvard, is the author of "Jews and Power" (Schocken, 2007) and "No Joke: Making Jewish Humor" (Princeton, 2013).
Dr. Wisse was one of Larry Summers' few outspoken defenders at Harvard after his 2005 "gaffe" about women mathematicians.
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80 comments:
Any "war on crime" is immediately painted as a war on blacks.
Disparate impact.
When one turns from street crime to suite crime, the cry is antisemitism, i.e., disparate impact against Jews.
Do you suppose were there a movement to regulate pedicure palaces, we would hear complaints about anti-Vietnamesianism?
Gee, if such is so dangerous, why did so many Jews do it when Wasps dominated the 1%?
You see, all this PC 'hate speech control' is not about protecting the poor and the powerless. It is to protect the new elites from criticism from the masses.
"with the rise of anti-Semitism, modernity's most successful and least understood political movement."
"[M]odernity's most successful," eh? MMM, offhand, I can think of at least two rivals for that accolade:
1. Communism: Nazi Germany, the gold standard for an explicitly anti-Semitic state, had an extremely limited run (1933-45). Soviet Russia, on the other hand, lasted from 1917 to 1991....
2. Nationalism: By far the most potent of modernity's children. Last time I checked, this one was still pretty vigorous.
She should have kept her mouth shut. Most Americans are so stupid that they don't think the 1% refers to the 2%.
If anything, lots of Leftist Jews like this 1% vs 99% thing because it leaves out ethnicity and just focuses on numbers.
Besides, most conservatives are dummies who side with the 1% who dispossess them. The anti-1% crowd of Occupy Wall Street tend to be be anti-rightist and anti-racist Liberals and Leftists, and they will not tolerate any discussion of ethnicity(unless it's 'white privilege'). By mentioning Jews, Wisse has stupidly given the game away. She says the 2% is heavily represented in the 1%.
The latest economic wisdom from Chairman Frankie at the Vatican is that we should "enrich others by our own poverty." (per AP). A modest proposal: I'd like to see a debate on economic inequality between Steve Sailer and Chairman Frankie.
Martin Peretz? There's a name I haven't heard in a while.
"Modern anti-Zionism, itself a patented invention of Soviet Communism and now the lingua franca of the international left, uses Israel just as anti-Semitism uses Jews, directing grievance and blame and eliminationist zeal against an entire collectivity that has flourished on the world scene thanks to the blessings of freedom and opportunity."
1. So, since anti-Semitism is the "lingua franca" of the international left, I guess that means that leftists only have anti-Semitism in common? Is she being serious here?
2. Israel flourishing due to the "blessings of freedom and opportunity": MMM, I thought that the "flourishing" of Israel had rather more to do with old-fashioned blood and soil nationalism combined with a healthy dose of militarism.
While the Holocaust was terrible and Nazis were pathological knuckleheads, it would be stupid to say EVERY anti-Jewish sentiment in Europe prior to WWII was unfounded or crazy.
There were many valid reasons to distrust Jewish power and to hate Jewish involvement in communism and financial manipulation.
Just because Nazis used those issues as excuse to commit a massive crime doesn't mean those issues weren't valid on their own.
Even valid issues can be exploited. It's like Farrakhan is a sick demagogue but some issues he raises about American society are valid. If we don't want crazies like Farrakhan to exploit the issue, responsible people should.
Suppose someone is a total jerk and mocks others. Suppose someone overreacts and knocks out all the jerk's teeth. Now, the reaction was crazy, but it still doesn't mean that the jerk was not a jerk.
It's like US might have overreacted in nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki--by killing babies along with bad adults--, but Americans had legit reasons to be angry with Japan. American 'crime against humanity' doesn't invalidate American rage over Japanese perfidy.
It's like communists went too far with gulag, mass killing, and etc. but not all communist gripes about capitalism or imperialism were invalid.
Communism and Nazism were terrible overreactions and radical and ugly and vile, but they were not wrong to notice certain bad things about Jews or capitalists.
Similarly, Islamists acted crazy in bombing US on 9/11, but they also had some legit gripes about US power and Zionist interference in the Middle East.
So, while US had a right to retaliate after 9/11, it also had an obligation to be self-critical and re-examine its policies in the Middle East that caused so many problems and led to so many Muslims hating America as a hypocritical and cynical power.
Suppose blacks in South Africa commit a holocaust and kill all whites. It would be a horrible crime, but that still doesn't mean that blacks don't have any valid reason to be angry with whites over the history of apartheid.
Or suppose Ukrainians kill all Russian ethnics in Ukraine. It would be a terrible crime, but that doesn't mean Ukrainians don't have some legit gripes against Russians and Russia itself.
So, while we can all agree with Jews that Nazis were crazy and holocaust was evil, Jews need to reexamine their own role in history and society and ask why they continue to draw so much suspicion and anger, however repressed it may be.
Otherwise, Jews are being supremacist and essentially saying that they are perfect and never wrong and that any criticism of Jewish power is a form of Nazism since Jews can never do wrong.
Also, if responsible criticism of Jewish power is silenced in respectable society, it will be taken up by less savory figures.
This quote from Dr. Wisse's Wiki page is interesting:
"Women's liberation, if not the most extreme then certainly the most influential neo-Marxist movement in America, has done to the American home what communism did to the Russian economy, and most of the ruin is irreversible. By defining relations between men and women in terms of power and competition instead of reciprocity and cooperation, the movement tore apart the most basic and fragile contract in human society, the unit from which all other social institutions draw their strength."
She sounds a bit like Camille Paglia there.
"WSJ: [some] animosity towards top 1% is driven by anti-Semitism."
Do you doubt it? If you do, read comments to your posts. Read comments to this post.
Dr. Wisse was one of Larry Summers' few outspoken defenders at Harvard after his 2005 "gaffe" about women mathematicians.
Dr. Wisse in 1997:
"Women's liberation, if not the most extreme then certainly the most influential neo-Marxist movement in America, has done to the American home what communism did to the Russian economy, and most of the ruin is irreversible. By defining relations between men and women in terms of power and competition instead of reciprocity and cooperation, the movement tore apart the most basic and fragile contract in human society, the unit from which all other social institutions draw their strength."
I wish we could get off this Israeli flourishing bull. Israel's western standard of living has been subsidized for decades by German/US reparations/aid, the former at the point of a gun, the latter through political will. The numbers have been in the tens if not hundreds of billions. Per capita the numbers must be staggering. The real miracle is how the hell Germans have come to dominate Europe after the cost of war reparations and absorbing Eastern Germany. That blows the mind.
So, leftists are all Nazis?
"The real miracle is how the hell Germans have come to dominate Europe after the cost of war reparations and absorbing Eastern Germany."
German economy looks good only in comparison.
What kind of competition does it have? Corrupt Italians. Dumb Poles. Lazy Spaniards. Crooked Greeks. Pompous French. De-industrialized UK. Backward Russia. Some Germanic nations are decent but they are small in population.
"The real miracle is how the hell Germans have come to dominate Europe after the cost of war reparations and absorbing Eastern Germany."
It's not really a mystery. Germans are more hardworking and competent than the British or French could ever hope of being. What's more, Germany doesn't pretend to be a major military power and isn't drowning in worthless immigrants and "refugees:.
Since the topic has been brought up, some info on
German reparations to Israel:
"Despite the protests, the agreement was signed in September 1952, and West Germany paid Israel a sum of 3 billion marks over the next fourteen years; 450 million marks were paid to the World Jewish Congress. The payments were made to the State of Israel as the heir to those victims who had no surviving family. The money was invested in the country's infrastructure, and played an important role in establishing the economy of the new state. The reparations would become a decisive part of Israel's income, comprising as high as 87.5% of the state income in 1956.[3] Israel at the time faced a deep economic crisis and was heavily dependent on donations by foreign Jews, and the reparations, along with these donations, would help turn Israel into an economically viable country." (via WIKIPEDIA).
"So, leftists are all Nazis?"
------------------------------------
They didn't call it the National Socialist German Workers' Party for nothing, you know.
From a Rene Girardian perspective, The 1% are the new Jews who were the new Jesus...
More info on German reparations to Israel:
"The reparations were paid directly to the headquarters of the Israeli purchase delegation in Cologne, which received the money from the German government in annual installments. The delegation then bought goods and shipped them to Israel, receiving its orders from a Tel Aviv-based company that had been set up to decide what to purchase and for whom. A great part of the reparations money went into purchasing equipment and raw materials for companies that were owned by the government, the Jewish Agency, and the Histadrut labor union. Notably, much of that money went into purchasing equipment for about 1,300 industrial plants; two-thirds of this money was given to 36 factories, most of them owned by the Histadrut. At the same time, hundreds of other plants, mostly privately-owned ones, received minimal assistance with reparations money. From 1953 to 1963, the reparations money funded around one-third of investment in Israel's electrical system, helping it to triple its capacity, and nearly half the total investment in Israel Railways, which obtained German-made rolling stock, tracks, and signaling equipment with reparations money. The reparations were also used to purchase German-made machinery for developing the water supply, oil drilling, mining equipment for use in extracting copper from the Timna Valley mines, and heavy equipment for agriculture and construction such as combines, tractors, and trucks. About 30% of the reparations money went into buying fuel, while 17% was used to purchase ships for the Israeli merchant fleet; some fifty ships including two passenger liners were purchased, and by 1961, these vessels constituted two-thirds of the Israeli merchant marine. Funds from the reparations were also used for port development; the Port of Haifa was able to obtain new cranes, including a floating crane that was named Bar Kokhba. The Bank of Israel credited the reparations for about 15% of Israel's GNP growth and the creation of 45,000 jobs during the period they were in effect."
(via WIKIPEDIA)
US aid to Israel:
"Since the 1970s, Israel has been one of the top recipients of U.S. foreign aid. In the past, a portion was dedicated to economic assistance, but all economic aid to Israel ended in 2007 due to Israel's growing economy.[60][61] Currently, Israel receives $3 billion in U.S. assistance through U.S. Foreign Military Financing (FMF).[62] Seventy-four percent of these funds must be spent on the acquisition of U.S. defense equipment, services, and training.[63] Thus, United States military aid to Israel is seen as a subsidy for U.S. industries." (WIKIPEDIA)
"I wish we could get off this Israeli flourishing bull. Israel's western standard of living has been subsidized for decades by German/US reparations/aid, the former at the point of a gun, the latter through political will. The numbers have been in the tens if not hundreds of billions. Per capita the numbers must be staggering."
Per Wikipedia German reparations to Israel amounted to 3 billion marks over 14 years, starting in 1952. In 1952, a mark was worth about 25 cents. And it didn't come "at the point of a gun", but through negotiations. This may be tough for some readers to grok, but, after World War II, some Germans actually felt bad about the whole genocide business and wanted to improve West Germany's moral and diplomatic standing by making reparations.
US Aid to Israel is more significant, at about $3 billion per year, but most of that is military aid that's spent on weapons built here. And all together it amounts to ~1.5% Israel's GDP, which is about $240 billion.
"The real miracle is how the hell Germans have come to dominate Europe after the cost of war reparations and absorbing Eastern Germany. That blows the mind."
The absorption of East Germany has been impressive, but there's nothing unexpected about the domination of the German economy post World War II. Germans are bright and industrious people, with a long history of skill in high end manufacturing, chemicals, etc., and absent follies like starting and losing World War II, they are bound to be prosperous.
Why is everything Jews and Nazis all the time? The obvious historic comparison is the Kulaks under Communism. I bet a clever chap could find lots of others. Extra points if they are bible references or Shakespeare.
David Pinsen:"US Aid to Israel is more significant,"
That's not quite true. German aid in the 1950s was far more important to Israel, in terms of overall effect on the economy, than US aid has been:
"The money was invested in the country's infrastructure, and played an important role in establishing the economy of the new state. The reparations would become a decisive part of Israel's income, comprising as high as 87.5% of the state income in 1956.[3] Israel at the time faced a deep economic crisis and was heavily dependent on donations by foreign Jews, and the reparations, along with these donations, would help turn Israel into an economically viable country."
Does anyone here know who invented the whole "1%" thing ? Because I very much doubt that it was created by the people that go to places like Stormfront.
My guess is that it was created by people whose families are in the 1%, but when they and Hollywood stars and people like Paul Krugman came to realise that they were also in the 1% and that it was not just the stereotypical evil Republican billionaire, the whole thing very quickly lost steam.
Actually Germany's accomplishments are very real. It's a regional economic dynamo.
Germany's strength comes from several sources.
1. A well educated workforce with strong technical/mechanical aptitude. Germany has wisely invested in developing its vocational schools to support its manufacturing sector.
2. An emphasis on highly specialized mechanical and electrical components. Rather than compete with China on the price of low end widgets, Germany specializes in the high end market.
3. A population which is already reasonably disciplined, industrious, and resourceful.
4. Strong cooperation between government, industry, and unions to create a strong and equitable export-oriented economy. Germany's government protects industry with tarrifs and barriers, German industry employs German workers for German jobs, German unions make sure their workers do good quality work. Everybody wins.
Unlike quite a few other European nations, the Germans didn't buy the neoliberal/IMF/Worldbank nonsense.
Germany does take in quite a few immigrants, but they tend to be Europeans who work a few years and then go back home. Germany did have a problem with Turkish gasterbeiter and also with refugees in the past, but it's done quite a bit to bring down non-EU immigration. I recall reading a few years ago, that more Turks were leaving Germany than immigrating in.
"""""My guess is that it was created by people whose families are in the 1%, but when they and Hollywood stars and people like Paul Krugman came to realise that they were also in the 1% and that it was not just the stereotypical evil Republican billionaire, the whole thing very quickly lost steam."""
Good guess. And also, once they realize that the stupid might eventually begin to think and catch on to the whole thing, they decided to switch the terms of the debate ever so slightly, just enough to somehow or coincidentally exempt themselves from the entire focus of the object of blame.
But yes, who else BUT the top 1% would be very much interested in the overall wellbeing of the top 1%. The top 1% is certainly not all that much interested in the bottom 1%, or even the bottom 99%. And why should they be when they don't have to.
OT: Jerry Seinfeld on diversity in comedy: “Who cares?”
I'm sure the currently influential mob on Twitter is registering their disgust and outrage at Seinfeld, leaving the major media stuck with who to support.
"Does anyone here know who invented the whole "1%" thing ? Because I very much doubt that it was created by the people that go to places like Stormfront."
I had the impression it was the (lefty) anti-consumerists at Adbusters, who initially suggested the whole Occupy Wall Street thing.
Germany's government protects industry with tarrifs and barriers
Can they really do that as part of the EU?
Germany has a pretty substantial non-German population.
5.2% Middle Eastern
2.0% Asian
1.0% black
2.0% mixed
7.2% other Europe (Poles, Greeks, etc.)
Plus some other. In total, only 80% of Germany is now ethnic Germans. There are some 16 million non-Germans. What this means at the street level is that, like in the U.S., everywhere you go you see non-white, non-German people. Everywhere.
The global Left isn't really "anti-Semitic." They are anti-Israel because they love the morality play of the Palestinians (oh, how they miss apartheid!).
At the same time, the global Left has countless Jews in it and is funded to a great extent by Jews. Most of the Leftist mouthpieces in the West (newspapers, television, movies) are Jewish owned and controlled.
This isn't really a contradiction. It's just a cognitive dissonance game. By focusing "the Jewish question" solely on Israel, it distracts from the real Jewish questions of fiat finance, media control, political influence, etc. In other words, Israel is used as a red herring to focus whatever anti-Jewish feeling does exist (very little, and none in the corridors of power) onto Israel.
Another brilliant and totally successful ploy by the Jewish Left.
It certainly looks like Germany is in a death spiral:
http://www.prb.org/Publications/Reports/2011/world-at-7-billion-part-5.aspx
(...)
In 1964, births exceeded deaths by 486,985, the highest postwar surplus. By 1972, deaths in Germany exceeded births by 64,032, and deaths have surpassed births every year since. In 2010, the difference between births and deaths stood at -180,833. Only a positive balance of net immigration has forestalled a much more rapid population decline...In the United States, fertility fell from 2.9 children per woman in 1965 to a record low of 1.7 in 1976. Germany reached a TFR of 1.7 in 1970. But while the U.S. fertility rate slowly rebounded to 2.1 in 1990 (and has remained close to that ever since), the German fertility rate did not rebound, and today is much lower, at 1.4.
This quote from Dr. Wisse's Wiki page is interesting:
Neocons are usually good on one or two issues.
Sorry, I even managed to overlook Allison Kanders.
Germany's government protects industry with tarrifs and barriers
Can they really do that as part of the EU?
Nope. Classic case of someone who thinks good economies must have tariffs and doesn't bother to actually look at the situation.
I read the same Wikipedia page. Yes, Israel was a poor country in the '50s, and not yet a US client state, and the ~$750 million in German aid over 14 years was very helpful (as was US Marshall Fund aid to West Germany post WW2). But German reparations didn't create Israel's $240 billion economy any more than the Marshall Fund created Germany's $3.6 trillion economy. The Israelis and Germans deserve most of the credit, respectively, for their countries' economies.
David Pinsen:"I read the same Wikipedia page. Yes, Israel was a poor country in the '50s, and not yet a US client state, and the ~$750 million in German aid over 14 years was very helpful (as was US Marshall Fund aid to West Germany post WW2). But German reparations didn't create Israel's $240 billion economy any more than the Marshall Fund created Germany's $3.6 trillion economy. The Israelis and Germans deserve most of the credit, respectively, for their countries' economies."
Well, yes. Both Germany and Israel deserve the credit for their robust economies. My point was simply that the aid that Israel received from Germany in the 50s was significantly more important than the aid that it has received from the USA.
A fellow I know who went to the OWS protests in New York said there were some real Jew-haters in the leadership.
But I don't think ordinary jealousy of the very rich is based on hating Jews. The 1% slogan has seemed to me more a way for some public-sector workers to argue for higher taxes on the rich to fund their pensions.
Tom Perkins' faux-pas is well-documented here.
Fair enough.
+100 for anonymous@3:51 PM's comment
>>> how the hell Germans have come to dominate Europe after the cost of war reparations and absorbing Eastern Germany
They used the wealth they had stolen from the Jews and the conquered nations.
>>> Israel at the time faced a deep economic crisis and was heavily dependent on donations by foreign Jews, and the reparations, along with these donations, would help turn Israel into an economically viable country."
Were the USA railroads of the 1860-1870's built with american money? No.
"WSJ: [some] animosity towards top 1% is driven by anti-Semitism."
Do you doubt it? If you do, read comments to your posts. Read comments to this post.
Define anti-Semitism. Then you will get an answer to your question.
Germany's aid to Israel pales in comparison to its commitment to bailout Greece, both already committed and implicit. We are talking about likely around 800 billion USD as a floor. Probably more.
As for anti-semitism, it is real, and it does exist, among leftists. Who count among them plenty of Jews, because Leftism is a religious/cultural class thing. And it picks up wealthy, upper class Jews like it does WASPs of that class. As such, it presents real divisions among the Obama Coalition and requires KKKrazy Glue to keep things together. Which is harder and harder as the White Middle Class bogeyman (the real target of all of them) is destroyed.
Recall -- once the Mensheviks were destroyed, the Bolsheviks turned on each other with of course the hard Georgian peasant coming out on top not the Jewish intellectuals.
By defining relations between men and women in terms of power and competition instead of reciprocity and cooperation, the movement tore apart the most basic and fragile contract in human society....
This is reminiscent of Dewey's critique of Marxism/Trotsky. Like Robert Owen, Dewey favored class cooperation, while Trotsky believed in permanent class conflict that tore apart the fabric of society.
Hunsdon: In the immortal words of Fred Sanford, "Elizabeth, this is the big one, I'm coming home!"
Our resident "white wimminz hate hate HATE beta males" has said something I agree with.
This must be a sign of the end times.
Whiskey said: Recall -- once the Mensheviks were destroyed, the Bolsheviks turned on each other with of course the hard Georgian peasant coming out on top not the Jewish intellectuals.
Precisely. And they're still doing it. See the recent article on anti-Semitism and the rise of the M&A industry, esp. with regard to the hostile LBO of Revlon by Ron Perelman.
Class warfare by the establishment Left - real class warfare; the kind that actually took a bite out of the upper class - has all but disappeared since the Clinton Era.It is non-existent. That is why the inheritance tax all but disappeared for a few years, and why both inheritance and cap gains taxes are far lower than they used to be. The WASPS have been vanquished. Their vanquished have no more desire to pay high tax rates than did the vanquished, but were happy to support high tax rates so long as it was destroying the competition.
I'd imagine High IQ + Low Stewardship would be the worst possible combination in an elite.
.
"Do you doubt it? If you do, read comments to your posts. Read comments to this post."
So you're saying if the people who off-shored all the jobs that could be off-shored and imported millions of immigrants to drive down wages in all the jobs that couldn't be off-shored weren't disproportionately Jewish no one would mind?
.
""Women's liberation, if not the most extreme then certainly the most influential neo-Marxist movement in America...etc"
Can't be all bad.
.
"Germany's aid to Israel pales in comparison to its commitment to bailout Greece"
The "Greek" bailouts are bailing out the banks not Greece. Greece is being looted.
No one in the western world is allowed to criticize jewish group behavior - thats anti-semitism!
Many neo-cons argue that criticism of Israel is also anti-semitism by another name. So criticizing Israel may be deemed beyond the pale at some point.
Now criticizing the rich (disproportionally jewish) is being put beyond the pale.
Its almost as if somebody didnt *want* to be criticized!
A little history in order here b/c I cannot believe the amount of crap spewing out of people about Germany's reparations to Jews--as an aside do people have ready-made talking points on any issue related to Jews and Israel? It's striking the quick (and quality) response time of some on these matters.
US, British and French recognition of West Germany as a sovereign state was conditioned on reparations to Israel. So please enough with the "Germans, in deep regret and guilt and sorrow, jumped at the opportunity to hand over cash to Jews." At a time when West Germany was in ruins, yes, one of its priorities would have been reparations. When dozens of divisions of an alien army are stationed on your territory, I'd say that decisions made are at the "point of a gun."
And then turning to the relative modesty of these reparations and their insignificant value to Israel, as claimed by some here, Nahum Goldmann (who negotiated the reparations) said in 1976,
"What the Luxembourg Agreement meant to Israel is for the historians of the young state to determine. That the goods Israel received from Germany were a decisive economic factor in its development is beyond doubt. I do not know what economic dangers might have threatened Israel at critical moments if it had not been for German supplies. Railways and telephones, dock installations and irrigation plants, whole areas of industry and agriculture, would not be where they are today without the reparations from Germany. And hundreds of thousands of Jewish victims of Nazism have received considerable sums under the law of restitution."
He continued:
"Without the German reparations, the State of Israel would not have the half of its present infrastructure: every train in Israel is German, the ships are German, as well as the electricity, a large part of the industry ... without mentioning the individual pensions paid to the survivors ... In certain years, the amount of money received by Israel from Germany exceeds the total amount of money collected from international Jewry-two or three times as much."
More specifically, five power plants built and installed by West Germany between 1953 and 1956 quadrupled Israel's electric-power-generating capacity. West Germans laid 280 kilometers of pipelines for the irrigation of the Negev (which certainly helped to "make the desert bloom"). Israel acquired 65 German-built ships, including four passenger vessels.
But these reparations were just one part of West Germany's payments to Israel. By far, such payments paled in comparison to individual compensation to Israelis. By the end of 1980, payments of 50.18 billion marks had been made for war-time claims of which about 40 percent of the claimants lived in Israel. There were a total of 4.34 million claims at that time.
I couldn't find more updated figures, but can we please agree that without German reparations, Israel would not be the country it is today? In venture capital terms, would those who babble about Israel's magnificent $250 billion economy agree too that Germany should be getting a big piece of the successful enterprise.
In comparison to what? All countries compete globally. Until recently Germany's trade surplus was larger than China's - for a country of only ~90 million people. What's astonishing is that, for all the talk of the economi contributions of Asians and Jews, Germany did this without many of either. Germany has far fewer East Asians and Jews than the UK. German culture is a high-functioning culture. Jewish culture is probably, in most ways, even higher functioning. But to the extent that Jewish culture encourages political policies like the importation of low-functioning cultures (like Latins and refugees) it actually serves to dumb down and eviscerate the high functioning cultures of most Western European countries.
You know what would be an even better subsidy to US industries? Giving that $3 to the US Army...or in reduced taxes on American citizens.
" At a time when West Germany was in ruins, yes, one of its priorities would have been reparations. When dozens of divisions of an alien army are stationed on your territory..."
West Germany was experiencing an economic boom in the 1950s, thanks in large measure to the post-war aid it received from the countries whose "alien" armies occupied it in 1945 (after the most destructive war in history, which, incidentally, Germany herself started).
"Nahum Goldmann (who negotiated the reparations) said in 1976..."
Israel's per capita GDP, in current US dollars, was ~$3,500 in 1976. It's about 9x higher now, so presumably, German reparations make up a much smaller % of its infrastructure today.
"I couldn't find more updated figures, but can we please agree that without German reparations, Israel would not be the country it is today?"
Sure. And without the Marshall fund (which, alone, amounted to close to 4x what West Germany spent on reparations to Israel), and other "alien" aid -- and, of course, those "alien" army divisions defending West Germany from the Soviets for 50 years -- Germany wouldn't have become the country it is today.
"In venture capital terms, would those who babble about Israel's magnificent $250 billion economy agree too that Germany should be getting a big piece of the successful enterprise."
Murdering millions, and then tossing the equivalent of $125 per corpse, isn't quite how venture capital works.
Define anti-Semitism. Then you will get an answer to your question.
- Attempting to understand Jewish cultural and political influence.
- Analyzing the effects of the Jewish power structure's behavior on non-Jews.
- Reacting against Jewish hypocrisy.
I think all these qualify, so yes, by this standard, this site's readers are deeply, virulently anti-Semitic.
Except for the executive suites, the Bundestag, and the Bundesrat. The elite in Germany appear to remain very, very German. They have not imported an elite at odds with the ethnically German majority.
1. So, since anti-Semitism is the "lingua franca" of the international left, I guess that means that leftists only have anti-Semitism in common? Is she being serious here?
Of course she's being serious. WSJ readers will gobble that up. That it's a fantastic distortion of reality is of no concern to people like her (and never has been).
Israel's per capita GDP, in current US dollars, was ~$3,500 in 1976. It's about 9x higher now, so presumably, German reparations make up a much smaller % of its infrastructure today.
Israel's per capita GDP in purchasing power parity terms - which is really what matters in international comparisons - was about $16,500 in today's dollars in 1976.
Israel's per capita GDP expanded at a blistering rate of well over 5% per year from 1950-1970.
Source
""Modern anti-Zionism, itself a patented invention of Soviet Communism and now the lingua franca of the international left, uses Israel just as anti-Semitism uses Jews, directing grievance and blame and eliminationist zeal against an entire collectivity that has flourished on the world scene thanks to the blessings of freedom and opportunity."
The history is a bit more complex than this. The Soviets were quick to recognize the establishment of the State of Israel, and, at the time, the Left was generally pro-Zionist. The Soviets recognized Israel because they still saw Britain as a great power, and the emergence of Israel (along with the end of its Palestine Mandate) was symbolic of the decline of Britain's influence in the region.
By the late 1960s, the international Left was abandoning Israel, mostly because it had become a US client state, and the US was aligned against communism. But also because Arabs had started to successfully reframe the conflict from Arab-Israeli (where Israel was the David and its Arab neighbors were Goliath) to Israeli-Palestinian (where Israel became the Goliath to the Palestinians' David).
Germany's aid to Israel pales in comparison to its commitment to bailout Greece, both already committed and implicit. We are talking about likely around 800 billion USD as a floor. Probably more.
Where are you getting this number from? Is your $800 billion figure a total for the bailouts, or just the German contribution?
Your figures are not even close. Additionally Germany is providing about a quarter of the bailout so it's commitment is nowhere near $800 billion.
As usual one cannot take what you write at face value. Your use of hyperbole is well-known.
There is anti-Semitism and "anti-Semitism." You defined the latter (and quite well, I would say). This blog tends to get a large amount of both.
It's funny that there is no problem when people try to understand and critique the impact of various cultures on American politics - white, WASP, Southern, evangelical Christian, etc. - except for, you know...
anti-Semitism, modernity's most successful and least understood political movement. ...
That is a prima facie ridiculous statement. Anti-Semitism is certainly the least successful political movement of the 20th century. Any regime that has made anti-Semitism an organizing principle of policy has either been crushed - Nazi Germany, Russia pre-1917, the USSR and allies post 1948, Apartheid South Africa - or isolated and impoverished like Iran. Never in world history have the Jewish people been as prosperous, secure and influential as they were by the end of the 20th century. How can Ruth Wisse write that with a straight face?
Apartheid South Africa
Huh?
Recall -- once the Mensheviks were destroyed, the Bolsheviks turned on each other with of course the hard Georgian peasant coming out on top not the Jewish intellectuals.
As if a lone dictator can simply order things done without any base of support in the ruling elites. Slezkine says that Jews were still a privileged elite in the USSR up to the 1960s.
Any regime that has made anti-Semitism an organizing principle of policy has either been crushed - Nazi Germany, Russia pre-1917, the USSR and allies post 1948, Apartheid South Africa - or isolated and impoverished like Iran. Never in world history have the Jewish people been as prosperous, secure and influential as they were by the end of the 20th century.
Apartheid South Africa was hardly anti-Semitic. Neither was the Jim Crow South.
Peter the Shark asked: How can Ruth Wisse write that with a straight face?
Hunsdon: Chutzpah?
Huh?
Lol, I am impressed IHTG. Quiet, quiet, quiet as the general thrust of the thread was overwhelmingly against you, but oops, a slip and you immediately pounced. This is great stuff.
Okay, remove S.Africa (fellow who wrote it: proofread, proofread, proofread) and substitute Palestine 1917-2014.
First these anti-Semitic bastards resisted the initial Jewish demographic incursion, which is anti-Semitic enough. Then rather than simply pack up their bags and leave so as to make way for the land-without-a-people's rightful owners, they forced peace-loving Israelis to physically evict them - egregiously anti-Semitic.
And then as if that weren't bad enough they had the temerity to tell the truth about their dispossession rather than sign off on official Israeli historiography which claims they voluntarily departed with the anti-Semitic intention of one day returning to their homes when the fighting was over.
West Germany was experiencing an economic boom in the 1950s, thanks in large measure to the post-war aid it received from the countries whose "alien" armies occupied it in 1945 (after the most destructive war in history, which, incidentally, Germany herself started).
The Marshall Plan Myth
MARSHALL PLAN MYTH
And Germany was looted in the immediate aftermath of WWII:
SECRETS BY THE THOUSANDS
Lazar Kaganovich outlived the Soviet Union itself. He died peacefully in his bed.
The eternal wandering and smugly contented Jew who really ran the USSR.
Secular Jews in America don't affiliate as Jews any more. So I don't think there's a group to criticize any more. What's left is hatred.
Anonydroid at 12:39 PM said: There is anti-Semitism and "anti-Semitism." You defined the latter (and quite well, I would say). This blog tends to get a large amount of both.
Hunsdon said: You got an example or two of the former, Sparky? I mean, of the unreasoning racial, cultural or religious Jew-hatred? Of the foaming-at-the-mouth Der Sturmer variety? If this blog tends to get a large amount of it, you should be able to throw us out some examples.
"The place to begin is at the starting point: with the rise of anti-Semitism, modernity's most successful and least understood political movement. ..."
Hah! In reality, "modernity's most successful and least understood political movement" is anti-goyism.
"WSJ: [some] animosity towards top 1% is driven by anti-Semitism."
Do you doubt it? If you do, read comments to your posts. Read comments to this post.
WSJ has the causation backwards.
Anonymous:"Lazar Kaganovich outlived the Soviet Union itself. He died peacefully in his bed."
Which is something to regret. He should have gone on trial for the crimes he committed in the 1930s.
Anonymous:"The eternal wandering and smugly contented Jew who really ran the USSR."
Um, no. Kaganovich did not really run the USSR. Try looking up Stalin, Joseph sometime. Kaganovich was a henchman/lieutenant (ch Himmler in Nazi Germany).
"Dr. Wisse was one of Larry Summers' few outspoken defenders ...".
And Barbara Walters recently defended Woody Allen. And Dana Milbank defended Woodward to radio's Hewitt. Still fellow talker Ingraham wondered who might inhabit Walters' "orbit"?
Secular Jews in America don't affiliate as Jews any more. So I don't think there's a group to criticize any more.
Then why do we still have AIPAC and the ADL worrying us? Why does USG still lie about the USS Liberty? Anti-Zionist Jew Jeff Blankfort claims that about 30% of Jews support strong Zionism of the AIPAC variety. Assuming that's true, that means that 30% identifies as ethnic Jews whether they are religious or not.
Secular Jews in America don't affiliate as Jews any more. So I don't think there's a group to criticize any more. What's left is hatred.
I know you're just following the time-honored (and highly successful) technique of throwing enough shit against the wall in the hope that some of it will stick, but that doesn't even make sense in its own terms. If secular Jews don't regard themselves as Jews anymore (rolleyes) then the group that is left to criticize is those Jews, of whatever degree of religious belief, who do affiliate as Jews.
Furthermore, if there is no one "left" to criticize, that must mean that at some earlier point there were Jews to criticize, which (a) is as close to a frank confession as I've ever heard, and (b) means that accusations of "anti-Semitism" in the past were false (which, given the harm done to individuals so accused, might require something in the way of compensation).
You might want to rethink your position.
http://stuartschneiderman.blogspot.com/2014/02/trouble-at-new-york-times.html
Quiet, quiet, quiet as the general thrust of the thread was overwhelmingly against you, but oops, a slip and you immediately pounced. This is great stuff.
...get a life.
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