Anti-Imperialism & Anti-Humanist Rhetoric of Gilad Atzmon

[AlicetheKurious]

David Duke and the KKK are hardly "fringe". David Duke received 671,009 votes when he ran for the governorship of Louisiana, which was 55% of the white voters in the state. The website run by his ex-wife, Stormfront, welcomes over 40,000 unique visitors per day. He likely has significant support within the Tea Party.

I don't know about the Tea Party, given the fact that the Koch brothers have been described as the Tea Party's "financial engine". You may not know this, but the Koch brothers are part of an influential pro-Israeli network running a very well-funded and multi-faceted campaign to spread anti-Muslim hatred in the US. It's hard to imagine them making common cause with David Duke, though you never know; strange bedfellows and all that. On the other hand, compared to Israel's loyal hate-mongers in the Tea Party, the government and in the 'Islamophobia' industry, David Duke is a small fish indeed.

Sounder, I don't think it was "rigorous" for c2w to accuse me of being "very antisemitic". I expected a lot better from you, c2w, than such a vicious personal attack (notwithstanding the bubbly hearts and smiley face).

Anyway. Let's see if we can divine from the context what prompted you to lash out in such a mean way.

Regarding the statement: "California is a scary, racist place for Jews to live, but not for Muslims", you responded:

all the statistics suggest that's simply (and quite literally) a fair observation.

For pointing out the difference between individual racism and institutionalized racism, and because I asked a logical question about whether those statistics distinguished between say, refusing to give an employee time off to celebrate a holiday, or making a rude remark, and bombing a house of worship, or even killing someone, you responded:

Sure. If you insist on making otiose comparisons. And also on minimizing, dismissing. denying and/or remaining blind to all signs of prejudice against Jews (some of it institutional, in this country and -- to a much greater extent -- elsewhere) as it actually occurs, I guess that might mean something besides....Oh, sorry. No, it doesn't. It's just antisemitic. You're very antisemitic, Alice.

By the way, I had to look up "otiose". It means:

o·ti·ose/ˈōSHēˌōs/
Adjective:

Serving no practical purpose or result.
Indolent; idle.

Really? It serves "no practical purpose or result" to ask perfectly valid questions about the evidential basis for your claim that Jews are persecuted in California? Only if by "practical purpose or result", you mean accepting your rather outrageous statement on faith.

Now this is interesting: if I fail to meekly accept your unexamined, unsourced statistics which "prove" that Jews are more targeted by racism, including institutional racism, than Muslims in California (700% more!), then this makes me "very antisemitic". In other words, to avoid being labeled "very antisemitic" I must agree, without question or credible evidence, that California is a "scary, racist place for Jews to live".

At the same time, I must "minimize, dismiss, deny and/or remain blind to all signs" that certain influential Jewish political, religious and law enforcement authorities, and even wealthy members of the business elite are disproportionately implicated in anti-Muslim, anti-Arab racist incitement designed to make, not just California, but pretty much everywhere else, into a scary, racist place for Muslims. According to you, even to acknowledge this fact is "discriminatory".

In other words, to avoid your accusations, I must "see" institutional prejudice against Jews where it doesn't exist, and to blind myself to institutional prejudice by Jews where it does exist.

Regarding that video I posted, showing people exercising what you describe, c2w, as their right to free speech:

Well. Since it wasn't, in fact, a hate crime but rather an exercise of the exact same free-speech rights that people who wish to deny the Holocaust can (and do) avail themselves of legally in California -- as I thought that you and I quite agreed on principle that they should be able to do, btw -- I'd say that it VERY probably wasn't counted as one. Are you suggesting that you think it should have been?

First, according US law, it does constitute a hate crime:

Hate Crime Law & Legal Definition:

A hate crime is usually defined by state law as one that involves threats, harassment, or physical harm and is motivated by prejudice against someone's race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, sexual orientation or physical or mental disability. ...

It is the right of every person, regardless of race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, or physical or mental disability, to be secure and protected from threats of reasonable fear, intimidation, harassment, and physical harm caused by activities of groups and individuals. Link

Second, when you say,

Since 2001, however, about 26 percent of all hate crimes in in California have been anti-black; about seven percent have been anti-Jewish, and about one percent have been anti-Muslim.

In these statistics, do you include or exclude the exercise of the kind of "free speech rights", which in the case of the mob harrying the Muslim families, you say "wasn't, in fact, a hate crime"?

The reason I ask, is that when I asked a similar question earlier, your answer was that I am "very antisemitic". If yes, then wouldn't that be a glaring double standard on your part? If no, then I repeat my question: what criteria did your anonymous researchers use, to determine what does and doesn't constitute a hate crime?

What I'd really like to know, is what motivated you, c2w, to react to my question about the evidence for your claim that Jews are subjected to institutionalized racism in California, by accusing me of being "very antisemitic"? What does disputing a spurious claim of systemic racism have to do with being "very antisemitic"?

Gilad Atzmon might shed some light on this, in view of what he describes as the secular, modern version of "Jewish identity":

Within the concept of Jewish identity, Jewish suffering and victimhood are set as unique Jewish symptoms. For a Jew to celebrate his identity means to celebrate Jewish pain, to visit and to revisit the agony. To be a Jew is to religiously believe in the Holocaust. To be a Jew is to be chased. To be a Jew is to be able to find an anti-Semite under every stone and behind every corner.

He continues, showing why it is necessary to ask this question:

Within such a notion of Jewish identity and bearing in mind the Zionist expansionist project, it is hardly surprising that Jewish collective ideology had become a bipolar schizophrenic volley between Victimhood and Aggression. Link

Aggression against whom? First, aggression against the Palestinian people, of course. For decades, it was simply denied: there was no aggression. The Palestinians were happy, prosperous and thriving under Israeli rule. The "refugee problem" was the fault of the Arabs; they caused it, and it's their responsibility to solve it. The Palestinians opposed Israel only because they are "antisemitic".

Then, there's aggression against outsiders who dare to dispute any part of this narrative, in the form, naturally, of the "antisemitism" slur, frequently with serious consequences, commensurate with the target's credibility -- the greater the credibility, the graver the consequences. Also for decades, anybody who denied that Jews have the "right" to maintain an illegal military and colonial occupation, to steal land and treat people like animals because they are not Jews, was "antisemitic" (or a "self-hating Jew"). Now that the West Bank is effectively annexed, Jerusalem has largely been "Judaized" and the Palestinians have either all been expelled or squeezed into less than 12% of their own land, it's ok to 'criticize' the occupation. That is not necessarily 'antisemitic' any more, unless you're in a position to do anything about it, like say, if you're an American president.

Speaking of politicians, while it's ok for American elected officials to boast that they view their role as "guardians of Israel", and for Israeli politicians to boast of how easily they manipulate the US, to even acknowledge these facts (unless you view these as good things) is "antisemitic". To point out that near-unanimous unconditional support by US political candidates and officials for Israeli impunity might be related to the disproportionate power of campaign contributors loyal to Israel is "antisemitic".

What is antisemitism? It's hard to say, because its meaning is as fluid as "Jewish collective rights", which include the 'right' to wield the accusation of "antisemitism" or "self-hater" for the purpose of intimidating or even threatening people even (especially?) into violating their own principles or integrity. In practice, a lot of these "Jewish collective rights" are not even rights in the way I understand the word. For me, human rights are indivisible, and the violation of anybody else's rights is in a very real sense a violation of my own. Similarly, to respect the rights of others is to affirm mine. But in the case of "Jewish collective rights", all too frequently what's meant is "prerogatives":

pre·rog·a·tive/priˈrägətiv/
Noun:

A right or privilege exclusive to a particular individual or class.
A faculty or property distinguishing a person or class.

These include, in effect, the 'right' to define reality for others, to even, in some cases, to commit crimes against other people. It's all very tiresome, being ordered what to think, what to say, what parts of reality we're allowed to acknowledge, what we aren't supposed to notice and also, the belief in a unique category of 'victim' whose victimhood is tautological.

This goes to the heart of the issue we're discussing. Is this thread only, or even mainly, about Gilad Atzmon? From my point of view, no. It's about reality, and our freedom to share our individual perceptions of it, and to exchange insights and experiences we've acquired, to discuss them intelligently and honestly, without malicious and ignorant attempts to squeeze us into somebody else's suffocating pigeonhole.

[barracuda]

I don't know about the Tea Party, given the fact that the Koch brothers have been described as the Tea Party's "financial engine". You may not know this, but the Koch brothers are part of an influential pro-Israeli network running a very well-funded and multi-faceted campaign to spread anti-Muslim hatred in the US. It's hard to imagine them making common cause with David Duke, though you never know; strange bedfellows and all that.

Sometimes I can't tell if you really don't get it or if you're just pretending you don't because it fits your polemic. I more than suspect it's the latter. Yes, the Christian right-wing supports Israel, but that doesn't mean they give a shit about Jews. Quite the contrary. Christian right-wing quote, antisemitism, unquote, is just as fun of an American pastime as baseball and target practice. And believe it or not, it's a world-wide good time. I've heard rumors - just rumors, mind you - that... wait, come closer... [whispering] some Christians even in Egypt don't like Jews!!

*shock*

On the other hand, compared to Israel's loyal hate-mongers in the Tea Party, the government and in the 'Islamophobia' industry, David Duke is a small fish indeed.

This is coming from a woman who considers the entire U.S. military and government to be small enough to fit neatly under the thumb of Benny Netanyahu. But alright, point taken. I'm not trying to characterize Duke as a mover and shaker on the order of the Koch bros, rather, I'm pointing out that he has, still, a sizable following and that to characterize him and his beliefs as "fringe" in this here United States of America is erroneous. David Koresh was "fringe". Rigorous Intuition is "fringe".

If he's such a small fry, you've got to sort of wonder why Gilad Atzmon hasn't simply written a brief response to Duke's endorsement making it clear that he rejects the things Duke stands for? Let's see, how did you characterize Duke and his followers? "Denizens of the fringes of society, excoriated, denied legitimacy for his hateful ideology" with "odious racist and fascist views", right? Maybe Gilad is too busy gigging around and doing interviews and stuff to bother. I suppose it's possible.

But I'm gonna guess a better explanation has something to do with the exposure his ideas get on Duke's various media outlets. I mean, that kinda stuff translates into book sales and other opportunities, right? Where else is Atzmon going to see his work presented positively before an audience numbering conservatively in the quarter-million range?

Lemme ask you this, Alice: if you, Alice, Alice Teh Kurious, wrote a modest book of your philosophy, and upon humble publication of that sincere tome you received a glowing endorsement from the good Doctor Duke, the publishing of a gushing review of your book before his large built-in audience of potential book buyers, and then found that three hundred threads happily mentioning you, your book, and your ideas had shown up on Stormfront... what would you do? Would you simply bask in the adulation to be found amongst these excoriated, odious racist and fascist denizens of the fringe? Would you be glad to have finally found you true audience? Would you run the numbers in your head and decide to just see how many extra books and albums you might sell as a result of this little unexpected bit of happenstance marketing?

Or would you work to distance yourself from such trash?

You know what? Don't even bother answering. I don't wanna read some bunch of BS you made up because you felt like you couldn't say what you really think out of some sort of affected deference to the rules of the board.

As for this board, if the Holocaust is the officially sanctioned religion here, then members must respect that; it's just good manners.

You know, I may be childish to you, but I know one thing about children: they don't hide their real feelings behind some phony façade built of of socially correct behaviors and sham verbiage. They tell you just what they think. I don't have to tread carefully around here like you do, Alice, for fear I may accidentally say the wrong thing. I could care less.

I throw my shoe in your general direction.

[dada]

Great thread, guys and gals! Man, it's been a blast... what, the party's over, you say? Time to lock it up? Ah, that's alright. What a great time we all had, though, didn't we? I think we've all learned something here; about Love, and Beauty, and Truth. Let's not forget truth. I'm proud of us, for not letting the old internet drag us down, like it has a tendency to do. I'm so very sad to see it go. But let's be strong, join hands, and move forward together. I'm sure there'll be plenty of opportunities for us to do this again, on some other thread, sometime. Let's all give ourselves a hand. Great job, everyone. Clap clap clap.

Really... pretty please?

[compared2what?]

Sounder, I don't think it was "rigorous" for c2w to accuse me of being "very antisemitic". I expected a lot better from you, c2w, than such a vicious personal attack (notwithstanding the bubbly hearts and smiley face).

I honestly did not say it with any vicious intent. It's a harsh thing to say, inherently. And there's not much I can really do about that. However, I feel nothing but the fondest regard for you. I speak from this position:

When I don't know that I'm errant wrt something I take seriously, I want to be told about it.

That certainly doesn't mean that I like to be told about it, though. On the contrary. I greatly resent it. And in my experience and observation, that's how most people are, within individually variable parameters. Which I try to respect. But that part's an uncertain business. Sadly.

So. There you have it.

Anyway. Let's see if we can divine from the context what prompted you to lash out in such a mean way.

Regarding the statement: "California is a scary, racist place for Jews to live, but not for Muslims", you responded:

all the statistics suggest that's simply (and quite literally) a fair observation.

For pointing out the difference between individual racism and institutionalized racism, and because I asked a logical question about whether those statistics distinguished between say, refusing to give an employee time off to celebrate a holiday, or making a rude remark, and bombing a house of worship, or even killing someone, you responded:

Sure. If you insist on making otiose comparisons. And also on minimizing, dismissing. denying and/or remaining blind to all signs of prejudice against Jews (some of it institutional, in this country and -- to a much greater extent -- elsewhere) as it actually occurs, I guess that might mean something besides....Oh, sorry. No, it doesn't. It's just antisemitic. You're very antisemitic, Alice.

You don't have to divine anything.

Just go back and make more of an honest, good-faith effort to read what I wrote.

Also, I apologize for not realizing my post didn't provide a source for those stats. I cut the sentence that had the link in it and forgot to put it someplace else. But they're DOJ statistics. All states are required to keep them. And a PDF of the annual hate-crimes report for California 2010 can be found here.

By the way, I had to look up "otiose". It means:

o·ti·ose/ˈōSHēˌōs/
Adjective:

Serving no practical purpose or result.
Indolent; idle.

I wouldn't know what it meant either, if at some now-forgotten point in my life, I hadn't acquired (and retained) the mistaken impression that using it in the phrase "comparisons are otiose" was common parlance, as plenty of other bowdlerized quotations from Shakespeare are.

I don't think I've ever actually used it before.

Really? It serves "no practical purpose or result" to ask perfectly valid questions about the evidential basis for your claim that Jews are persecuted in California? Only if by "practical purpose or result", you mean accepting your rather outrageous statement on faith.

Okay.

Well, as you can see...

Second, nobody's addressed my main point about the crucial difference between individual racism and institutional racism. The former is very limited in impact and scope and can usually be dealt with as a crime, but the latter has a devastating yet often ignored impact on the personal, national and even global levels. Within the US, both black people and Arabs and/or Muslims are systematically targeted by the latter, unlike Jews. It's enough to know that "respectable" establishment types can and do openly call for Muslims to be profiled and kept under surveillance, and that for them, even a small, spontaneous charity donation or striking up an acquaintance with the wrong person could open up a whole world of hurt for them and their families. World-wide, there's simply no basis for comparison: we're talking about economic deprivation, denial of human and legal rights and mass murder in the millions. Institutional racism within the US may not be as obvious or severe as its external manifestations, but it's pretty bad, and they are very much interlinked.

Sure. If you insist on making otiose comparisons. And also on minimizing, dismissing. denying and/or remaining blind to all signs of prejudice against Jews (some of it institutional, in this country and -- to a much greater extent -- elsewhere) as it actually occurs, I guess that might mean something besides....Oh, sorry. No, it doesn't. It's just antisemitic. You're very antisemitic, Alice. That's a terribly painful thing to see you suffering from, tbh. So I very much hope you get over it some day.

...you've completely revised our exchange in your own rhetorical favor, to the point that it excludes both the real content and real context of what I said.

So. That's already one example of how the honesty, good-faith and effort that I mentioned earlier might come in handy,

Now this is interesting: if I fail to meekly accept your unexamined, unsourced statistics which "prove" that Jews are more targeted by racism, including institutional racism, than Muslims in California (700% more!), then this makes me "very antisemitic".

What? No, not at all. My remarks had nothing to do with your failure to meekly accept my unsouced statistics, for which I once again apologize. Nothing whatsoever. Seriously. I would have been shocked senseless if you'd done anything but scorn those numbers and change the subject, to be honest. And I was laboring under the misapprehension that they were respectably sourced, too. So I had already moved on.

However, please do note that I never said those stats proved anything at all. Llet alone that mouthful you assert I'm calling you anti-semitic for having failed meekly to accept, which is entirely of your own devising. Because I don't really know what "prove" is doing in quotes up there. In fact, as long as you're at it, please further note that I also never offered those figures as evidence of institutional discrimination against Jews.

Because I didn't offer any evidence for that claim at all, as it happens. And what's more, I very much doubt that I ever will. Although you never know, I guess.

In other words, to avoid being labeled "very antisemitic" I must agree, without question or credible evidence, that California is a "scary, racist place for Jews to live".

What? No, not at all.

Sorry to repeat myself. But I never said anything of the kind. In any words. I think you're actually just recycling one of your own old rhetorically convenient restatements of something barracuda posted there. In fact, I'm sure of it. I'd recognize that misleadingly quoted phrase anywhere. Even freshened up with a new -- albeit imaginary -- implication that I demanded you agree to it or risk being labelled antisemitic.

That never happened.

At the same time, I must "minimize, dismiss, deny and/or remain blind to all signs" that certain influential Jewish political, religious and law enforcement authorities, and even wealthy members of the business elite are disproportionately implicated in anti-Muslim, anti-Arab racist incitement designed to make, not just California, but pretty much everywhere else, into a scary, racist place for Muslims. According to you, even to acknowledge this fact is "discriminatory".

Now I'm really lost. That's not what I said or meant....


****
Alice?

I've told you this before. But I want you to know it's true so thoroughly that you never un-know it, if possible. I champion you. I root for you. I love you. I respect you. And I admire you.

In short, I feel for you what I want, hope, wish and pray you feel for yourself. Because you deserve it. And I'm completely incapable of addressing you in any other spirit. So. If I caused you any undue distress at all by taking it too much for granted that you knew that, I apologize.

Also, the un-serious attitude of my response up to this point has been premised purely on the sincere belief that if you'd been taking anything I said very seriously, you would have responded to it. But I guess I'll try to keep that in check from here. Can't hurt.

Okay? I hope so.

****

In other words, to avoid your accusations, I must "see" institutional prejudice against Jews where it doesn't exist, and to blind myself to institutional prejudice by Jews where it does exist.

Regarding that video I posted, showing people exercising what you describe, c2w, as their right to free speech:

Well. Since it wasn't, in fact, a hate crime but rather an exercise of the exact same free-speech rights that people who wish to deny the Holocaust can (and do) avail themselves of legally in California -- as I thought that you and I quite agreed on principle that they should be able to do, btw -- I'd say that it VERY probably wasn't counted as one. Are you suggesting that you think it should have been?

First, according US law, it does constitute a hate crime:

Hate Crime Law & Legal Definition:

A hate crime is usually defined by state law as one that involves threats, harassment, or physical harm and is motivated by prejudice against someone's race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, sexual orientation or physical or mental disability. ...

It is the right of every person, regardless of race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, or physical or mental disability, to be secure and protected from threats of reasonable fear, intimidation, harassment, and physical harm caused by activities of groups and individuals. Link

I'm not a lawyer. But to the best of my familiarity with and understanding of the law -- the worth of which I leave it to you to estimate -- that was protected speech. I mean, I don't frankly know what the statutory definitions for "threats" and "harassment" in Caifornia actually are. But they'd really have to be a departure from the norm for that language to apply, afaik.

And I don't really even know what they'd have to be to override the First Amendment. Per my understanding, it's actually pretty robust for the particular kind of right-to-assemble-covered incident that's under consideration here.

I mean, it covers the rights of the the Westboro Baptist Church to protest at a military funeral and those of the the American Nazi Party to march in Skokie. So it really should cover Islamophobes, too, if you ask me.

But what do I know? I'm also not the appellate bench.

Second, when you say,

Since 2001, however, about 26 percent of all hate crimes in in California have been anti-black; about seven percent have been anti-Jewish, and about one percent have been anti-Muslim.

In these statistics, do you include or exclude the exercise of the kind of "free speech rights", which in the case of the mob harrying the Muslim families, you say "wasn't, in fact, a hate crime"?

I myself didn't include or exclude anything in connection with those stats, other than a link to their source, the State of California. It's my opinion, based on my understanding of the material just now cited, that the events we're discussing did not, in fact, constitute a hate crime, as defined by the law. I might not be right about that. But I think I am. And, ftm, I also hope I am. Because, in reality. the law doesn't answer to my understanding of it. It's actually the other way around.

The reason I ask, is that when I asked a similar question earlier, your answer was that I am "very antisemitic". If yes, then wouldn't that be a glaring double standard on your part? If no, then I repeat my question: what criteria did your anonymous researchers use, to determine what does and doesn't constitute a hate crime?

I thought I answered the question you asked about double standards, although you're free to differ with me about that. But I'm quite sure that I didn't respond to it by saying that you were very anti-semitic. Because, for one thing, it isn't very anti-semitic to ask such a question. And because, for another, I didn't.

What I'd really like to know, is what motivated you, c2w, to react to my question about the evidence for your claim that Jews are subjected to institutionalized racism in California, by accusing me of being "very antisemitic"? What does disputing a spurious claim of systemic racism have to do with being "very antisemitic"?

I don't know how to respond, except by pointing out that you not only hadn't asked me for any evidence to support that claim prior to my sayiing that but also literally couldn't have done so, since I hadn't yet made it. Nor was I responding to any disputations of spurious racism.

I refer you again to what I've already written.

This has gotten very long. And since I've now addressed the parts that were specific to me. I think I'll stop here.

[Searcher08]

Cuda, I thought it would be worthwhile to check your stats regarding Atzmon at St0rmfr3nt.

The total number of occurrences of the string 'Atzmon' appearing in it is 485. Which is actually near the same number as Rigorous Intuition - 465.

Just to be random, I also did a search on the word 'cows'. That turned up
1110 and 699 respectively.

JUst to put tihngs into perspective, these stats point to RI being perhaps (given size disparity) orders of magnitude more relatively interested in Atzmon than the Nazis are... and both RI and the Nazis being much more into talking about cows than about Atzmon.

I also didn't want to let your characterizing me as a Nazi go without comment.
You see, even though you might say you think 'I'm o.k. really' (which I get and reciprocate), it ascribes to me to a political philosophy that is not mine and whose values and actions I disagree with (I am saying that with English understatement, capische?)

I looked up the reviews of Atzmon's book on Amazon and they are very bi-modal, with none other than "Greenstein and Friends" featuring in the anti's (I'm saying that for AD, as I think he has already posted all of Greenstein's blog in this thread, so this is a useful source for his CopyPasta machine), but with a majority of reviewers who seem to find it an really interesting and thought provoking read. The audience of Amazon is considerably larger than that of St0rmfr3nt, besides those people appear more interested in cows.

[Laodicean]

[compared2what?]

The article that AD posted continues...

I will conclude with one of a series of articles I wrote on the Goldhagen thesis before I began blogging. It deals with real anti-Semitism as opposed to the knuckle-dragging stupidity of an Israel Shamir or a Gilad Atzmon that is a threat to nobody. It puts the persecution of the Jews into a historical context that is unfortunately lacking in the well-meaning and often very intelligent articles on Atzmon from his critics on the left.

Abram Leon wrote “The Jewish Question: A Marxist Interpretation” in 1941 when he was all of 24 years old and at a time when his hands were filled leading the Belgian Trotskyist movement under conditions of fascist repression. Eventually, the Gestapo captured him and sent him to Auschwitz. He did not make it out alive.

Leon’s first involvement with radical politics was with the Hashomir Hatzoir, a Zionist-socialist youth group. He grew disenchanted with Zionism and became a Trotskyist at the time of the Moscow trials. This showed a certain independent streak since the Hashomir-ites were pro-Stalin, as well as being Zionist.

While Leon devoted himself to the Trotskyist movement from this point on, he never lost interest in the “Jewish Question.”

Louis proceeds to present a serviceable history of anti-Semitism from an economic perspective, concluding with this from Abram Leon

“The economic catastrophe of 1929 threw the petty-bourgeois masses into a hopeless situation. The overcrowding in small business, artisanry and the intellectual professions took on unheard of proportions. The petty-bourgeois regard his Jewish competitor with growing hostility, for the latter’s professional cleverness, the results of centuries of practice, often enabled him to survive ‘hard times’ more easily. Anti-Semitism even gained the ear of wide layers of worker-artisans, who traditionally had been under petty-bourgeois influences.”

When a Trotskyist veteran first presented this theory to me in 1967, it had powerful explanatory aspects. The true cause of anti-Semitism was the capitalist system, not some latent and free-floating animus toward the Jew. The key to the survival of the Jewish people was not the Zionist state of Israel, but the abolition of the capitalist system.

It sounds like for Louis the first concern is ‘survival of the Jewish people’, with ‘abolition of the capitalistic system’ as the imperative adopted in order to assure Jewish survival.

Honestly? To me, it sounds more like his only real concern is with keeping it dialectically materialistic. Although by "it," I mean really mean the essay as a whole, and not that quote in particular. Because that just sounds like an honest recapitulation of what he felt when first discovering that there was a whole other way of thinking about his life. back in 1967. If you ask me. Not that it's really a crucial point. Of course.

So. Hm...Well. I guess I agree with you that what he wrote is serviceable for his purposes. I just wouldn't go so far as to call it "serviceable history," in any general sense. Some of it is. But some of it is really, really isn't. For example, I have no idea at all what end this...

The period that lasted from classical antiquity to the Carolingian epoch was a time of prosperity and relative well-being for the Jews. In the Hellenistic era, Jews were part of the commercial elite in cities such as Alexandria, Antioch and Seleucia. The rise of the Roman Empire saw their continued success, as cities such as Alexandria continued to function as trading centers between the West and East. The role of Jews at Alexandria was so important that a Jew, Tiberius Julius Alexander, was appointed Roman governor of the city.

It is important to note that what united the Jews in this period was not wealth and power per se, but their economic role as tradesmen. Within the group were poorer peddlers and artisans. In the decline of the Roman Empire, many of these individuals were hardest hit. Their desperation, argues both Kautsky and Leon, explains the emergence of the Christianity cult which expressed class hatred of the rich in theological terms.

...could rightly be said to serve. True, the second paragraph is kind of funny. But it's not that funny.

Also, while I'm not positive about this, fwiw: I don't think that Kautsky was even a Jewish Marxist. Properly speaking, I mean. He definitely wasn't a Bolshevik. But that's just happenstance. Because obviously, there wouldn't ever have been any reason for being one at all, if there hadn't also been plenty of Jews and non-Jews alike who weren't.

Now how is it that despite the foregoing words, direct from someone involved with Marxism, it can be construed as being improper to associate the process of ‘abolishing capitalism’ through forced collectivization resulting in the intentional starving of millions of peasants and the pathologies or misguided imperatives adopted by ideologists that are Jewish?

I don't think it is improper. I just think it's not serviceable for any true purpose, as with any construct that rests on a foundation that's made entirely out of 100-per-cent syllogism. Mostly this kind:

Major premise: All men are mortal.
Minor premise: All Greeks are men.
Conclusion: All Greeks are mortal.

That applies to the conflation of Jews with Marxists, but not only, by any means. Because in another form, it's also blocking your view of Stalin -- who certainly wasn't Jewish and can't meaningfully be described as a Marxist in any way that also applies to Louis P., either, btw -- if it appears to you that his aim was to abolish capitalism. Because, seriously. He wasn't really all that theoretically oriented.

Anyway. I'm sorry if I'm missing something. But I still just don't see it. How is the Ukraine Famine a product of Jewish ideology, exactly?

Consciousness precedes Being- The unrepentant Marxist believes that he is qualified to define the nature of your being for you. Marxism is just another variety of vertical authority distribution system.

I suppose. Not the part about Projyet, or however you spell it. He didn't really strike me as overly presumptuous. That is pretty much how authority always stacks up, though.

[Searcher08]

[AlicetheKurious]

Sometimes I can't tell if you really don't get it or if you're just pretending you don't because it fits your polemic. I more than suspect it's the latter. Yes, the Christian right-wing supports Israel, but that doesn't mean they give a shit about Jews. Quite the contrary. Christian right-wing quote, antisemitism, unquote, is just as fun of an American pastime as baseball and target practice. And believe it or not, it's a world-wide good time. I've heard rumors - just rumors, mind you - that... wait, come closer... [whispering] some Christians even in Egypt don't like Jews!!

*shock*

When at a loss, evade the issue with nasty ad hominem attacks. If you are really unprincipled and sleazy, use racist insinuations about someone's ethnic/religious background. It's all good, when you're intellectually and morally bankrupt.

You speculated, apparently based on nothing more than your own feverish obsessions, that David Duke "likely has significant support within the Tea Party." I pointed out that the Tea Party is run and financed by fanatical pro-Israelis, for whom supporting Israel is a core value, which makes it unlikely that he and they would see eye-to-eye, since he (apparently) is very anti-Israel, "though you never know; strange bedfellows and all that. On the other hand, compared to Israel's loyal hate-mongers in the Tea Party, the government and in the 'Islamophobia' industry, David Duke is a small fish indeed."

Incidentally, it is David Horowitz, not David Duke, who is a featured guest speaker at Tea Party events, and who writes for Tea Party publications, as well as being welcomed to share his deep knowledge and insights about the Middle East as a tv pundit and at college campuses across the US.

Even when you look at the Tea Party, run by fanatics who support Israeli apartheid, ethnic cleansing and even genocide, with its massive, lavishly-funded, powerful racist agitation against Muslims, it's not anti-Muslim racism you see, but 'antisemitism'. Is there a name for your condition?

Speaking of David Duke, oh, no! He supports Occupy Wall Street! So does the American Nazi Party! (So does the American Communist Party, so does Hugo Chavez... it's all so confusing). Oh woe! OWS is a cesspool of 'antisemitism'!! Now, given how fond you are of "guilt-by-association", you'll have to "disavow" OWS, too!

Former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke Supports Occupy Wall Street Movement
By Erick Hamme
October 27, 2011

(CNSNews.com) -- David Duke, a former grand wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, has joined President Barack Obama, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in expressing support for the Occupy Wall Street movement, whose protests have been marked by anti-Semitism.

In a video about the Occupy Wall Street protests, Duke said: “I cheer the men and women on the streets condemning the international banks that hold America financially hostage. These Wall Street banks are not the product of free enterprise; they are the product of crime.”

“Yes, occupy Wall Street,” Duke also said. “Finally, Americans are rising up and it feels great.” ... Link

This is coming from a woman who considers the entire U.S. military and government to be small enough to fit neatly under the thumb of Benny Netanyahu.

Actually, I was referring to Benny's own assessment. If you disagree, you might want to take it up with Benny.

Woman: Aren't you afraid of the world, Bibi?

Netanyahu: Especially today, with America. I know what America is. America is something that can easily be moved. Moved to the right direction.

Child: They say they're for us, but, it's like...

Netanyahu: They won't get in our way. They won't get in our way.

Child: On the other hand, if we do some something, then they...

Netanyahu: So let's say they say something. So they said it! They said it! 80% of the Americans support us. It's absurd. We have that kind of support and we say "what will we do with the..." Look. That administration [Clinton] was extremely pro-Palestinian. I wasn't afraid to maneuver there. I was not afraid to clash with Clinton. I was not afraid to clash with the United Nations. I was paying the price anyway, I preferred to receive the value. Value for the price. Link

I'm not trying to characterize Duke as a mover and shaker on the order of the Koch bros, rather, I'm pointing out that he has, still, a sizable following and that to characterize him and his beliefs as "fringe" in this here United States of America is erroneous. David Koresh was "fringe". Rigorous Intuition is "fringe"

You must stop confusing your obsessive hallucinations with reality, in which enormous things appear tiny, and tiny things appear gigantic, and it's always about "antisemitism", all the time.

When David Duke ran as the Populist Party's candidate in 1988, near the peak of his fame (he's the definition of a has-been now), he scored 47,004 votes. Nationally. For every Duke voter there were four misguided souls who pulled the lever for the decidedly black, female, and odd Lenora Fulani. Link

If he's such a small fry, you've got to sort of wonder why Gilad Atzmon hasn't simply written a brief response to Duke's endorsement making it clear that he rejects the things Duke stands for? Let's see, how did you characterize Duke and his followers? "Denizens of the fringes of society, excoriated, denied legitimacy for his hateful ideology" with "odious racist and fascist views", right? Maybe Gilad is too busy gigging around and doing interviews and stuff to bother. I suppose it's possible.

But I'm gonna guess a better explanation has something to do with the exposure his ideas get on Duke's various media outlets. I mean, that kinda stuff translates into book sales and other opportunities, right? Where else is Atzmon going to see his work presented positively before an audience numbering conservatively in the quarter-million range?

Of course, because David Duke looms so insanely large in your mental landscape, it may not have occurred to you that someone like Gilad Atzmon may not want to give him some priceless free publicity? Gilad Atzmon is an internationally-famous musician and bestselling author; David Duke is a fringe nobody. Any mention of this David Duke, even negative, by someone of Gilad Atzmon's stature would simply handing him needless international exposure. But of course, you can't think that way, because for you, David Duke is huuuuuge.

As for this board, if the Holocaust is the officially sanctioned religion here, then members must respect that; it's just good manners.

You know, I may be childish to you, but I know one thing about children: they don't hide their real feelings behind some phony façade built of of socially correct behaviors and sham verbiage. They tell you just what they think. I don't have to tread carefully around here like you do, Alice, for fear I may accidentally say the wrong thing. I could care less.

I throw my shoe in your general direction.

Your shoe only went as far as your computer screen. (And hopefully bounced right back). We have a saying here, "People see only what is within themselves: thieves see thieves everywhere, kind people see kindness, and hypocrites see only hypocrisy, everywhere they look."

If I'd been the sneaky, phony, sham you describe, slinking around, afraid I may accidentally say the wrong thing, I'd be far more likely to engage in the kind of insinuations followed by mysterious ... that elicited such a favorable response from you earlier. I'd also use a lot of copy-pastes, so I could hide behind others' work, and avoid taking responsibility for my own views.

It's not a matter of choice: dishonest people can't help but use dishonest means to try to impose their will, including venomous personal attacks, circular or fallacious reasoning, lying, alluding to people's ethnic/religious background to insult them, etc. They're also hypocrites, ascribing to themselves lofty motivations, but using, and approving, sneaky, low-down methods -- when you have nothing else, you use what you do have, eh?

[Sounder]

C2W?, I am struggling with pen and paper to formulate both what you may think of as major, minor premise and conclusion of the syllogism that you see me as presenting, and the form I might give the syllogism if I were intending to present the argument in such a form. I will be away for awhile so maybe something will come to me, but if you could help out in this regard it would be much appreciated.

How does ‘ideologists that are Jewish’ morph so easily into Jewish ideology? Note that I only answer your question under protest because it uses an improper device where where you seem to tag me with an odd assumption that I consider Marxism to be a Jewish ideology.

C2W? wrote…

Anyway. I'm sorry if I'm missing something. But I still just don't see it. How is the Ukraine Famine a product of Jewish ideology, exactly?

Assumption that drives this one particular Jew...
"The true cause of anti-Semitism was the capitalist system, not some latent and free-floating animus toward the Jew. The key to the survival of the Jewish people was not the Zionist state of Israel, but the abolition of the capitalist system."

Sounder earlier wrote…

...resulting in the intentional starving of millions of peasants and the pathologies or misguided imperatives adopted by ideologists that are Jewish?

It sounds like for Louis the first concern is ‘survival of the Jewish people’, with ‘abolition of the capitalistic system’ as the imperative adopted in order to assure Jewish survival.

False imperatives do all the killing in society, and folk that care for their fellow man will always do their best to break down the falsity of these imperatives.

One cannot expect to use improper means to achieve noble ends, reality/nature will provide all training necessary for those that think different.

[barracuda]

Cuda, I thought it would be worthwhile to check your stats regarding Atzmon at St0rmfr3nt.

The total number of occurrences of the string 'Atzmon' appearing in it is 485. Which is actually near the same number as Rigorous Intuition - 465.

Just to be random, I also did a search on the word 'cows'. That turned up
1110 and 699 respectively.

JUst to put tihngs into perspective, these stats point to RI being perhaps (given size disparity) orders of magnitude more relatively interested in Atzmon than the Nazis are... and both RI and the Nazis being much more into talking about cows than about Atzmon.

I'm really not sure what your point is in trying to downplay or equivocate the support Atzmon enjoys from David Duke. All you've demonstrated to me is the way in which the interests of Rigorous Intuition happens to align with those at Stormfront. The equivalence in the number of occurrences between here and there serves only to indicate a sad truth about confluences of opinion and interests on the two sites which should really surprise no one.

Unfortunately, when the folks over at Stormfront say the word "cow", about half the time they're referring either to Jews or Negros.

[dada]

The equivalence in the number of occurrences between here and there serves only to indicate a sad truth about confluences of opinion and interests on the two sites which should really surprise no one.

Wow. Have we reason to begin nazi hunting on the RI boards?

This is getting a little ridiculous, don't you think?

On edit: I mean, I'm not as well versed in the internet as some, maybe there's some undercurrent of nazi code going on around here that I'm not picking up on. But I have to say, I don't think so. I'm usually pretty clever and can figure stuff like that out.

[barracuda]

You're kidding, right? This forum has been actively promoted at Stormfront.

[barracuda]

Of course, because David Duke looms so insanely large in your mental landscape, it may not have occurred to you that someone like Gilad Atzmon may not want to give him some priceless free publicity? Gilad Atzmon is an internationally-famous musician and bestselling author; David Duke is a fringe nobody. Any mention of this David Duke, even negative, by someone of Gilad Atzmon's stature would simply handing him needless international exposure. But of course, you can't think that way, because for you, David Duke is huuuuuge.

What hooey. Sometimes, Alice, your prose seems almost as if you had planted a tiny hooey seed and then lovingly nurtured it with manure until it blossomed into a fully-bloomed flower of hooey, almost beautiful to behold. But not this time. I doubt even your most dire sycophants would be interested in joining you in promoting this fabulism. Gilad Atzmon may not want to give David Duke some priceless free publicity? More likely he doesn't want to hurt the sales of his French best-seller by offending the members of Stormfront en Français.

And again, resorting to any line of bull to avoid saying what you really think, to avoid the nut of the matter. You're schtick is getting so tired. How many times have you posted that Bibi quote? A jewzillion times?

We have a saying here, "People see only what is within themselves: thieves see thieves everywhere, kind people see kindness, and hypocrites see only hypocrisy, everywhere they look."

Ah, yes, another nice touch of homespun Egyptian wisdom. I guess by those lights, you must be a Jew.

[American Dream]

...The Jewish nationalist would rob Palestine in the name of the right of self-determination, the Jewish progressive is there to rob the ruling class and even international capital in the name of world working class revolution.6

... Were Jewish Marxists and cosmopolitans open to the notion of brotherhood, they would have given up on their unique, exclusive banners and become ordinary human beings like the rest of us.7 ...

... Israel defines itself as a Jewish state, and Jewishness is, sadly enough, inherently intolerant; indeed, it may be argued that Jewish intolerance is as old as the Jews themselves.9

... The endless trail of Jewish collective tragedies is there to teach us that Jews always pay eventually (and heavily) for Jewish power exercises. Yet, surprisingly (and tragically) enough, Jews somehow consistently fail to internalise and learn from that very lesson.

... The remarkable fact is they don't understand why the world is beginning to stand against them in the same way they didn't understand why the Europeans stood against them in the 1930s. Instead of asking why we are hated they continue to toss accusations on others.

... I have hardly seen any Israelis or Jews attempt to understand the circumstances that led to the clear resentment of Europeans towards their Jewish neighbors in the 1920's-40's.

OK- time to start building a master list.

More points regarding Atzmon that some here continue to rigorously ignore:


Atzmon has gone out of his way to support and associated with those who declare themselves ‘proud’ to deny the holocaust. People like Paul Eisen, whose purpose is to ‘contextualize and re-humanize the person of Adolf Hitler, the National Socialist regime, and, indeed, the German people….’


Anti-Semitism is no longer a danger to Jews. It is dangerous for Palestinians. Not only does it threaten to misdirect the movement onto false targets, but it plays into the Zionists’ hands by racialising the struggle. Zionists constantly attack anti-Zionists as ‘anti-Semitic’ when they are no such thing. There is nothing more that the Zionist leadership desires than an upsurge in traditional anti-Semitism. Without anti-Semitism there are no Jewish immigrants to Israel and without immigration there can be no Zionism. It is the lack of such immigrants today, more Jews leave than go to live in Israel, which is, in part, responsible for the political crisis of Zionism.


Palestinians have faced two centuries of orientalist, colonialist and imperialist domination of our native lands. And so as Palestinians, we see such language as immoral and completely outside the core foundations of humanism, equality and justice, on which the struggle for Palestine and its national movement rests. As countless Palestinian activists and organizers, their parties, associations and campaigns, have attested throughout the last century, our struggle was never, and will never be, with Jews, or Judaism, no matter how much Zionism insists that our enemies are the Jews. Rather, our struggle is with Zionism, a modern European settler colonial movement, similar to movements in many other parts of the world that aim to displace indigenous people and build new European societies on their lands.


Challenging Zionism, including the illegitimate power of institutions that support the oppression of Palestinians, and the illegitimate use of Jewish identities to protect and legitimize oppression, must never become an attack on Jewish identities, nor the demeaning and denial of Jewish histories in all their diversity.

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=34135&start=270

More points regarding Atzmon that some here continue to rigorously ignore:


A Guide to the Sayings of Gilad Atzmon, the anti-Semitic jazzman




Excerpted from:
http://azvsas.blogspot.com/2011/03/guid ... -anti.html

‘The J’s are the ultimate chameleons, they can be whatever they like as long as it serves as some expedient. As soon as you criticise their expansionist militant national beliefs (Zionism) you hurt them as a race (Semites),… When you condemn their racist tendencies, they are transformed immediately into an innocent cultural identity… when it was right to be a Socialist they were right there in the forefront of the Bolshevik revolution, now when it is hard capitalism that sets the tone, you read about them in the Wall Street Journal, they are the new prophets from Manhattan. Life is never boring for ‘J’ people.’ It’s one never ending (Jewish) conspiracy.

'I am not a Holocaust scholar nor am I a historian. My primary interest is not the story of Auschwitz nor the destruction of European Jewry…. I do not wish to enter the debate regarding the truth of the Holocaust….

'Most of the scholars are themselves orthodox observants. Though they may be critical of different aspects of the exploitation of the Holocaust, they all accept the validity of the Nazi Judeocide and its mainstream interpretations and implications. Most of the scholars, if not all of them, do not challenge the Zionist narrative, namely Nazi Judeocide, yet, more than a few are critical of the way Jewish and Zionist institutes employ the Holocaust…. no one goes as far as revisionism, not a single Holocaust religion scholar dares engage in a dialogue with the so-called 'deniers' to discuss their vision of the events or any other revisionist scholarship’.

’

…. Holocaust religion was well established a long time before the Final Solution (1942)…. The Holocaust religion is probably as old as the Jews.’

‘If, for instance, the Nazis wanted the Jews out of their Reich (Judenrein - free of Jews), or even dead, as the Zionist narrative insists, how come they marched hundreds of thousands of them back into the Reich at the end of the war?’ ‘If the Nazis ran a death factory in Auschwitz-Birkenau, why would the Jewish prisoners join them at the end of the war? ‘We should ask for some conclusive historical evidence and arguments rather than follow a religious narrative...’ ‘Why were the Jews hated? Why did European people stand up against their next-door neighbours? Why are the Jews hated in the Middle East.’

‘To regard Hitler as the ultimate evil is nothing but surrendering to the Zio-centric discourse. To regard Hitler as the wickedest man and the Third Reich as the embodiment of evilness is to let Israel off the hook... Hitler has never flattened a country for no reason at all, and this is exactly what the Israelis have been doing in Lebanon for four weeks already and in Gaza for years and years….

If a comparison is to be made, then it is the Israelis who win the championship of ruthlessness and the reasons are obvious. Nazi Germany was a tyranny, Israel is a democracy led by a centre-left national unity government.’…

Nazis were indeed proper expansionists, they were trying to take towns and land intact. Carpet bombing and total erasure of populated areas that is so trendy amongst Israeli military and politicians (as well as Anglo-Americans) has never been a Nazi tactic or strategy.’

'I am suggesting that the only way to internalise the meaning of the Jewish Holocaust is to teach Jews how to start looking in the mirror, to teach Jews to ask themselves why conflicts with others happen to them time after time. Rather than blaming the Goyim, the Germans, the Muslims, the Arabs, it is about time the Jewish subject learns to ask the 6 million $ question: “why do they pick on me?”

posting.php?mode=quote&f=8&p=453203

Even More points regarding Atzmon that some here continue to rigorously ignore:

http://socialistworker.org/2010/07/15/n ... zmon-at-sw


Gilad Atzmon has revealed time and time again in his writings that he is less interested in being a part of a genuine anti-racist mass movement for the liberation of Palestine against Zionism than he is in trying to prove that there is something "inherently Jewish" about Zionist atrocities, attacking anti-Zionist Jews in England as "undercover Zionists" and, in the case of founder of the revolutionary anti-Zionist Israeli Socialist Organization, Moshe Machover, a "Judeo Marxist."

Atzmon has declared Machover to be worse than British neo-Nazi Nick Griffin, and in criticizing the printing of a speech by Moshe Machover in the International Socialist Review urged "Socialists and Marxists to save themselves from the Judeo political grip" and "consider liberating themselves of their tribal infiltrators." (If Moshe Machover's politics make him a "Judeo Marxist," then I am proud to identify as one--a Muslim Judeo-Marxist. Let's see how Atzmon tries to figure that one out.)

In addition to that, Atzmon has been known to circulate Holocaust denial literature and to associate with known fascists like the notorious racist Russian-Swede Israel Shamir, an open admirer of Hitler, David Duke, Jean-Marie Le Pen and Nick Griffin and the neo-Nazi British National Party (although apparently being very disappointed that the BNP isn't doing more these days to attack Jews). Israel Shamir has said of Atzmon: "Gilad takes up the tools of modern philosophical discourse...to explain our position: why we are against domination by Judaic spirit."

Atzmon also has previously been condemned by Palestine solidarity activists Ali Abunimah and Hussein Ibish. Atzmon's pseudo-philosophical writings include quotes like this: "In the light of Israeli brutality, the conviction of gross swindler Madoff and the latest images of Rabbis being taken away by FBI agents, it is about time we stop discussing the rise of anti-Semitism and start to elaborate on the rise of Jewish Crime."

To quote from a statement put out by the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign against any legitimacy in the movement for Gilad Atzmon and Israel Shamir:

Anybody who insists that Jews must give up their Jewishness, or Catholics their Catholicism, before being allowed to join the anti-Zionist movement, or even line up alongside the vast army of critics of Israeli murder, is not just an idiot, but is a menace to the Palestinians...

Palestinians need mass support--it won't come by associating ourselves with extreme-right sympathizers who miss no opportunity to spew their racist bile into a movement for human and national rights for the Palestinian people. For the Palestinians are groaning under Zionism, which is armed and sustained by Western imperialism. Not a Jewish world conspiracy. One of these ideas is the natural discourse of the left and liberal center: one is a blind cul-de-sac propagated by the extreme right.



viewtopic.php?f=8&t=34135

And of course, this kind of historymust be ignored:


Racism, anti-Semitism and the modern world

Racism is a set of ideas that takes older prejudices, and systematically makes them into a worldview. Contrary to what most folk think, it emerged specifically in the modern world, as a way of explaining and understanding what was happening as global society began to rapidly change. Most racialised views of different peoples made their victims out to be inferior, such as the claim black people are stupid and lazy for example.

But Jews had a long history in Christian thought as being thought of as demonic enemies. They were blamed for the killing of Jesus, and in the medieval world were regarded as clever and dangerous because they took part in trade and money lending. In the modern world Jews came to be understood by many people as some kind of absolutely monstrous Other, a huge evil threat. This was of course total nonsense, but it was a useful idea for those who couldn’t face the reality of what was going on in capitalist society, and for those in power who didn’t want people to see that reality.

Anti-Semitic ideas became to be encapsulated in the idea that there was a world Jewish conspiracy, which aimed to establish a global government under their control. They would do this by their international control of banks and money, as well as control of the media and education.


An anti-Semitic cartoon shows the crazy idea
of a global Jewish conspiracy

These ideas came together in a book called The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. This was an anti-Semitic forgery put together in Russia at the turn of the 20th century, which claimed to be documents of meetings and plans of the Jewish elite to dominate the world. These documents were circulated around the world, and became particularly important after the Russian Revolution in 1917. Many, who were fooled into thinking the Protocols were real, used them as evidence that the revolution was part of the Jewish conspiracy, and that the Bolsheviks aimed to advance it. This was a huge part of why Hitler hated socialists and communists so much. But the same ideas also had massive circulation in the leading government and powerful circles of US politics, and were argued by many right wing US Congressmen and other political figures.

If it has ever confused you why right wing conspiracy nutters say they hate banks and big business, and then go on to say they hate communists and socialists who run the world, this is why. For them, communism and socialism are part of a wider conspiracy by a tiny elite to control the world. The aim of this group, they think, is to create a one world government. Whether they talk about Jews openly, or whether they restrict what they’re saying to names like “international bankers”, the origins of this idea go back to the Protocols and the mad ideas of 19th century anti-Semites.

The Protocols are a straight up work of fiction. But the ideas they put forward have surfaced again and again. Since World War Two it’s been increasingly difficult for racist groups to openly advocate anti-Semitism, because these ideas saw their ultimate expression in the slaughter of the Holocaust. Even before this, many didn’t talk openly about Jews, but instead about “international bankers”, the “secret cabal” who ran the world.

The problem with all this for socialists is obvious: financial capitalists really do hold a huge amount of power and influence over government policies, and the international ruling class does co-ordinate its actions secretly and conspiratorially to make sure that capitalism keeps working and that profits are maximised.

However, these things aren’t the result of a plot of a small group of evil men. The fact is that capitalism is a self-sustaining economic system with a life of its own. It doesn’t really matter who is at the top as long as somebody is. People find it hard to grasp the reality of the way our economic and social system works, because it’s complex and hard to understand. Put simply, capitalists don’t want to just get rich and sit back. They want to find ways they can invest profits to create more profits and keep the economy growing. That’s the driving force, not the evil desires of a small group of men. But it’s hard to get your head round that, and many people find it much easier to blame an identifiable group they can easily conceptualise, like Jews.

The 19th century German socialist August Bebel once said that “Anti-Semitism is the Socialism of fools,” because it tried to understand the causes of real problems resulting from capitalism, and instead blamed them on Jews. Throughout the 20th century, many right wingers began to see the dominance of banks and financial capital as evidence of a Jewish conspiracy. for them, this was evidence of the traditional prejudice that Jews were evil, manipulative money lenders bent on power and control.

The real reason that finance has become more and more dominant is that it’s increasingly difficult for capitalists to invest their money in something that produces stuff (like a factory) and make their money back, because after 200 odd years of capitalism the world is full of factories and stuff -- so it’s harder and harder to make new products, like cars or furniture or tools say, and make a profit from it. So instead capitalists put more of their money into banks, financial investments etc. There’s no secret to it -- it’s just about making money, and what’s the best way to go about it.

http://ssy.org.uk/2010/06/shitegeist/

Even More points that some here continue to rigorously ignore:

http://www.labournet.net/antiracism/0507/ongilad1.html

On Gilad Atzmon

[Report by Greg Dropkin
Published: 28/07/05

I speak as an anti-racist and Palestine solidarity activist in Liverpool, and an opponent of Zionism - a racist ideology in charge of an apartheid state.

In June, Gilad distributed an article by his friend Paul Eisen, entitled “The Holocaust Wars”. It is a long defence of the neo-Nazi, Hitler lover, and Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel, now deported from Canada to Germany where he faces criminal charges. Eisen speaks warmly of Zundel and sets out the historical revisionist case - that there was no Nazi plan to exterminate European Jewry and no gas chambers - a case which he supports. He concludes that the Palestinian resistance and their supporters should make common cause with the historical revisionists - supposedly the only people the Zionists fear aside from Palestinians themselves.

In fact, the real radical statement on relations between Zionism and the Holocaust is made by Lenni Brenner in a book which I’m sure Gilad has read: Zionism in the Age of the Dictators. Zionism and Nazism both sought the removal of Jews from Europe. They developed a special relationship in the 1930’s and even at the height of the Holocaust in 1944, some of the Zionist leadership in Hungary collaborated with Eichmann and his subordinates to evacuate a relatively small number of selected middle class Jews whilst many thousands more went to Auschwitz, not knowing the fate which awaited them and which they might have escaped by crossing the Romanian border.

In place of Brenner’s exposé of the collaboration which was subsequently covered up by the official Holocaust Industry, Eisen offers a potted claim that the Holocaust never happened!

Gilad described “Holocaust Wars” as a very important text, and defended Eisen when the controversy erupted. The document was originally published in December on the website of Israel Shamir, whom Gilad described as a “unique and advanced thinker”.

Shamir also writes of neo-fascists as potential allies:

“For as long as Richard Perle sits in the Pentagon, Elie Wiesel brandishes his Nobel Prize, Mort Zuckerman owns the USA Today, Gusinsky bosses over Russian TV, Soros commands multi-billions of funds and Dershowitz teaches at Harvard, we need the voices of Duke, Sobran, Raimondo, Buchanan, Mahler, Griffin and of other anti-bourgeois nationalists.”

Who are these “anti-bourgeois nationalists”? Duke refers to David Duke, a former leader of the Ku Klux Klan. Last week Duke wrote an obituary for the British fascist John Tyndall, who twice led the National Front in the 1970’s and then the BNP and its forerunner from 1980 to 1999. Here it is:

John Tyndall, White Patriot, Passes On

It saddens my heart to learn of the death of a long time friend, John Tyndall. But, he was far more than a friend, he was a leader from whom I learned much when I was younger. He stood as an example of both intellect and courage and he influenced my life greatly.

... He lived and breathed our Movement, and in death his spirit will remain with us, animating our own hearts and will.

And when our day comes, when our people will regain our freedom and secure our heritage, his name will adorn many streets and parks and his image in stone will be found in more than a few places in every nation of European mankind.

Thanks John, for all you have done. You have lived an exemplary life and we salute you and wish your loved ones our deepest condolences.

Griffin refers to Nick Griffin, the current leader of the BNP. Griffin was convicted of incitement to racial hatred in 1998 for his holocaust denial publication. His star witness was Robert Faurisson, the French Holocaust denier who is quoted extensively in Paul Eisen’s document.

The BNP’s 1997 manifesto declared

“The horrifying future that awaits Britain as a result of the follies of Third World immigration can only be averted if we adopt two very firm policies:

1) Future immigration of non-whites must be stopped;

2) Non-whites already here must be repatriated or otherwise resettled overseas and Britain made once again a white country”.


They later dropped the call for compulsory repatriation, but still want to stop all non-white immigration.

Paul Eisen and Israel Shamir would like Palestians and their supporters to form an alliance with Zundel, Duke, and Griffin. People in this room have been on the streets against Griffin, Tyndall, and Martin Webster, another mate of Israel Shamir. Our counterparts in the States have done the same with David Duke et al. In the 1970’s the left were confronting the NF and National Party throughout the North West and elsewhere on a weekly basis. They were our physical and ideological enemy. We focused on the Nazi past of their leadership, their racism, and just as important their anti-semitism, an integral part of their politics.

Our problem now is how to develop an effective counter to British complicity with the Israeli State. In my opinion, that requires direct solidarity with Palestinian organisations in struggle against the Apartheid Wall and in occupied Gaza; a massive campaign of boycott, sanctions, disinvestment, and a political challenge to the Government’s foreign policy. But there’s no way we can appeal to trade unionists, anti-racists, or the general public who might join such a campain, with Nick Griffin and David Duke on board. Why hand the Zionists proof of their own claim, that those who oppose them actually hate Jews?

The Palestinian academic Joseph Massad has written: “all those in the Arab world who deny the Jewish holocaust are in my opinion Zionists.” He points out that Arab denial is based on the justified wish to deny the legitimacy of the existing Israeli state. But there is no reason to accept the Zionist claim that the Holocaust itself justified the creation of Israel through ethnic cleansing and everything which followed in the way of racist laws and illegal occupation. Denying the Holocaust is therefore to concede the Zionist premise, and in that sense those who deny it become Zionists.

I appeal to the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and other Palestinian supporters, and Palestinians themselves, to make anti-racism and anti-fascism the basis of our solidarity. Likewise I appeal to anti-racists to take up solidarity with Palestine as central to the conflict in the Middle East.
**

Racism, Bigotry and Prejudice are Antithetical to Human Rights Struggles

BY JINJIRRIE, ON MARCH 3RD, 2012

Gilad Atzmon boasts in this recent interview:

‘And this really means that my detractors are pretty much left in a hopeless situation — they do not posses the intellectual means to silence me or my criticism, so instead, they revert to smear campaigns: they label me an ‘anti Semite’, a ‘Neo Nazi’, a ‘racist’, and so on. Tragically enough for them, no one out side of the Jewish political circuit takes any of these empty accusations at all seriously anymore.’

The signatories, including my (non-Jewish) own, on this article ‘“Not Quite “Ordinary Human Beings” – Anti-Imperialism and the Anti-Humanist Rhetoric of Gilad Atzmon‘ which exposes how Atzmon’s views serve zionism and imperialism may not convince him they do not aim to silence him, as he claims, but to advance legitimate criticism of his faulty positions, or that at the least a substantial number of them come from ‘outside the Jewish political circuit’. Yet racist views have no place in solidarity struggles grounded in human rights and international law.

Apparently, Atzmon does fail to recognise the depth of his non-Jewish critics – and he throws a pathetic character assassination and woeful strawmen at As’ad AbuKhalil, who is one of the signatories, to conflate As’ad into his manufactured framework, despicably calling Professor AbuKhalil a collaborator – a term with dangerous connotations.

As’ad is clear on his stance:

‘this is somebody that we should reject from the pro-Palestinian advocacy movement. He is anti-Jewish and his offensive language against Jews and Judaism should be categorically rejected. I would put the name of Israel Shamir in the same category. Anti-Semites belong to the Zionist side, and not to our side.’

Below, Palestinian Ali Abunimah critiques Atzmon’s “theories” presented at Stuttgart in 2010.

“I do not agree at all with how he characterised the situation and the problem. And I think to use the language which blames a particular culture – he was talking about Jewish culture – is wrong, because such arguments could be made about anyone – we could blame German culture for the history of Germany, we could blame British culture for the history of British imperialism, we could blame Afrikaaner culture for apartheid in South Africa and this really doesn’t explain anything at all. So I think we should not go in that direction, and should be very clear in condemning explanations which blame a culture or a religion for a political situation. So I wanted to make that very clear.”






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