Tag: anti-semitism

France’s frightening fascist flirtation.

There is precisely one bright spot in this depressing story about the rise of anti-Semitism and national socialism* in France.

…people debating the issue of a resurgent anti-Semitism would resort in good faith to the reassuring remark that “after all, Nazis were not marching in Paris.”

Since the Jour de Colère rally, even die-hard optimists must recognize that this is no longer true. Nazis are marching in Paris, unchecked.

Postmodern Nazis, to be sure: no brown shirts. But Nazis nevertheless — nazis who relish in anti-Jewish paranoia and are eager to spread it everywhere.

Radical politics usually develop when classic politics fail. According to an Ipsos/Steria poll published on January 21 by Le Monde, 8% of the French — only 8%! — trust the political parties. Only 23% trust their National Assembly representatives. Trade unions do not fare much better: 31%. Nor does the judiciary, at 46%.

Real confidence starts only with local powers: 63% of the French trust their mayors. The increase culminates with such last-resort players as the police and the army, credited, respectively, with a 73% and a 79% confidence rate.

Continue reading France’s frightening fascist flirtation.

Jewish Lefty site defends Jew-baiter by… accusing Righty critics of anti-Semitism.

Did you get all of that? If not, Ed Driscoll can walk you through it.  Basically, the Jewish Daily Forward thinks that the smartest way to defend “Pajama Boy” (guess that they didn’t get the MiniTrue memo that he’s a joke) is to accuse mockers of being anti-Semites. Which is… awkward, because Pajama Boy forgot the first rule of Social Media: “NEVER WRITE ANYTHING IN COLLEGE THAT YOU’LL HAVE TO FURTIVELY DELETE LATER.*”  In this particular case, being linked to a school paper that specifically targeted Jews for ridicule and hate speech**. Continue reading Jewish Lefty site defends Jew-baiter by… accusing Righty critics of anti-Semitism.

On the successful marginalization of anti-Semitism in WWII America.

I was particularly struck by this passage:

“The Battle of the Warsaw Ghetto” wasn’t just a piece of timely wartime programming by NBC. It was the capstone of an American Jewish Committee program to combat anti-Semitism by promoting the idea that, with the world at war, anti-Jewish bigotry wasn’t just a problem for the Jews—it was also essentially un-American.

The initiative was the brainchild of Richard Rothschild, a philosopher-turned-advertising executive who was recruited in the late 1930s to craft AJC’s national strategy to combat anti-Semitism. Rothschild introduced the concept of “salting in,” whereby notable Jewish figures were folded into radio programs or print material. Their names alone, he felt, would identify them as Jews; there was to be no discussion of the character’s religion or ethnicity. The Jew was to be presented, quite simply, as a natural part of the landscape. At the same time, non-Jewish stars like James Cagney were recruited to perform AJC material. Meantime, millions of Americans saw full-page newspaper advertisements, school posters, and comic books prepared by AJC but distributed through partner organizations. Continue reading On the successful marginalization of anti-Semitism in WWII America.

Chuck Schumer makes Chuck Hagel beg for his endorsement.

Aww, too bad:

Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) announced his support Tuesday for the nomination of former senator Chuck Hagel as secretary of defense, delivering a key vote for the Nebraska Republican’s confirmation after weeks of voicing doubt about his positions on security issues related to Israel and Iran.

Schumer, the No. 3 Democrat and most senior Jewish senator, made the decision after a 90-minute meeting Monday in the West Wing, a secretive huddle that Schumer and White House officials kept under wraps until the decision to announce his support Tuesday.

Continue reading Chuck Schumer makes Chuck Hagel beg for his endorsement.

National, WA State Democrats take in 121K of Catholic-hating cultist money!

Well. This was highly disturbing to read:

Democrats on the bottom of the ticket in Washington state all the way to the very top are caught in a pickle. Stand against religious bigotry or give back some $60,000 in state campaign cash contributed by world-famous spiritual channeler JZ Knight after videos showing Knight preaching hatred of Catholics became public.

In a story that may become a national news story as soon as tomorrow morning, Knight is seen and heard on video to let loose a profanity-strewn rant against Catholics and has been a frequent and generous contributor to Democrats here in Washington and at the national level. Knight’s contributions to Democrat at all levels total more than $120,000 for the current election cycle.

Continue reading National, WA State Democrats take in 121K of Catholic-hating cultist money!

BREAKING: SEN. SHERROD BROWN (D, OH) MAKES ANTI-SEMITIC ATTACK AGAINST JOSH MANDEL.

Dear God but this is filthy. From Sherrod Brown’s campaign ad:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=4h0fCsr0NEw

Specific quote: “Josh Mandel: He’s become the candidate of the Big Lie.”

(Via @freddoso)

The “Big Lie” – as Calfornia Democrat Chair John Burton so helpfully reminded us earlier this week, when he explicitly referenced that term to call Republicans Nazis – is a term coined by Adolf Hitler to help justify his systematic demonization and degradation of the Jews.  It is, bluntly, a term that was used to justify genocide.  Given that Josh Mandel happens to be Jewish himself, this is appalling – and no, Brown has no excuse here; agents of the Democratic party have spent the entire week calling Republicans Nazis.  And, again, in at least one case the use of the phrase was done explicitly and specifically – which means that it was part of the record, and certainly in the news.  Sherrod Brown should get no benefit of the doubt, here.  None. At. All.

John Burton was forced by his party to apologize.  But will any Democrat dare bring Sherrod Brown to heel?

Moe Lane (crosspost)

Moveon.org rediscovers its anti-Semitic, racist roots: endorses [apologizes to] racist anti-Semite Charles Barron for NY-08. [UPDATED and corrected.]

[Well, this is embarrassing: Jeffries of course won his nomination, because the Good Lord looks after fools, drunks, and the United States of America. Everybody have a good laugh at me; I somehow crossed wires on this one. Corrections and annotations below.- Moe Lane]

Politicker has the background. Basically, it went down like this: over in NY-08 the choice for the Democratic nomination was between Hakeem Jeffries and Charles Barron. The major difference between the two was that Mr. Jeffries did not have a history of praising Muammar Qaddafi and Robert Mugabe, calling Israel a terrorist nation, and/or advocating physical attacks on white people*… and while in a civilized party having an opponent who did all these things would pretty much guarantee you the nomination, in the Democratic party none of this is an insurmountable obstacles to a nomination. So, MoveOn.org – like a good little fully-owned subsidiary (and toady) of the Democratic establishment, went full-bore against Mr. Barron. To quote them: “There are some people who don’t belong in elected office. Charles Barron is one of those people.” Which is a reasonable statement, no matter what your partisan alignment is, right?

Alas… Charles Barron won [lost, thank God] his nomination battle, so you’d expect MoveOn.org to then put basic human decency about abjectly pitiful partisanship and start [be happy about it (and never mind backing Republican Alan Bellone)]... HAHAHA! I slay myself. No, of course MoveOn.org went into full reverse and started begging Barron’s pardon:

Last month, you received an email from MoveOn about Councilman Charles Barron, a candidate for Congress in your district. It was offensive and inflammatory—and we shouldn’t have sent it.

On behalf of the MoveOn staff, I apologize to you and to the Brooklyn community.

Although I half-believe that apology represents true regret, actually. It must have been quite a strain for MoveOn.org to not cleave to the Jew-hating racist in the first place; being able to go back to Charles Barrons’ bigoted embrace must have been fundamentally reassuring to them on, and I use the term fairly loosely, a spiritual level. In that context it’s almost a shame that Barron made them crawl like that, but then… it’s MoveOn.org. They chose a long time ago to be convenient… receptacles… for their Democratic betters; I can’t be expected to respect them if they won’t even respect themselves. [Umm… actually, that pretty much can stay the same.  In fact, the fact that Barron lost this race reinforces the above paragraph.]

One last note: during their earlier – and possibly? probably? forced – disapproval of Charles Barron, MoveOn.org sought to insult Barron by calling him the dirtiest term in their particular, and rather debased, lexicon (‘tea partier’). Two points about that. One, the typical length of time that any filth-mongering racist scum of Barron’s caliber would spend at a Tea Party function before being shown the door would be, at best, measured in minutes. Second: while I understand that Moveon.org is upset that the Tea Party gets respect while it does not, I politely suggest that one major reason why this would be so is because the Tea Party’s favored reaction to losing a particular internal political fight is not to abjectly surrender. [As well as winning a particular internal political fight, too.  Seriously: the more I think about it, the more depraved this Moveon.org apology is.  The bad guy lost this primary, remember? So why apologize to him?]

Have a nice day! [Also still true: and, in fact, I am keeping this up on RS’s front page anyway.  This is pretty disgusting stuff on MoveOn.org’s part, really.]

Moe Lane (crosspost)

*They were also upset that Charles Barron is against same-sex marriage. I happen to disagree with him on that, too – but I’m not seeing where that’s even close in equivalence to suggesting that the entire nation of Israel is made up of terrorists. Opposing same-sex marriage is, in point of fact, one of two mainstream positions in American contemporary political thought; while Barron’s blind hatred of Israel is a fringe position found only among the most miserable of wretches.

#rsrh An IQ test for the Occupiers. #ows

Read this paragraph:

[Occupy DC press flack Kevin] Zeese* says the Tea Party lost momentum and power when it got into elections and pushing candidates. If one of their elected candidates sold out, they’re not strong enough to do much about it. He explained that the Occupy movement is years from engaging in electoral politics. “My guess is this is a multi-year movement to shift power,” he said. “That’s going to take a 10-year effort.”

Are you now pounding your head against the nearest wall?

If the answer is ‘no,’ then… just keep doing what you’re doing, boychik.  Thanks!

Moe Lane Continue reading #rsrh An IQ test for the Occupiers. #ows

Ethical oil’s excellent enemies: Saudi Arabia & Think Progress.

Perfect together!

One of the nicest things about being a mainstream supporter of the Global War on Terror is that you are blessed, for a given value of ‘blessed,’ with a collection of the vilest, most despicable, most appalling domestic enemies in recent political history.  Nazis, Communists, Stalinists, Maoists, blackshirt anarchists, Jew-haters of various flavors, anti-human deep ecologists, anti-Israel conspiracy theorists… honestly, by the time that the antiwar movement was done they had managed to taint most of the groups out there that I casually despise, and virtually all of the progressive ones.  I’d like to pretend that this marvelous example of contagious karma isn’t really that big a deal, but honesty forces me to admit that the nasty, somewhat cognitively challenged nature of the Other Side was a powerful factor in keeping the antiwar folks firmly under the rocks that are in fact their native environment.

I mention this because it’s exciting to see this dynamic play out over in the ‘ethical oil’ arena as well. Continue reading Ethical oil’s excellent enemies: Saudi Arabia & Think Progress.