Tag Archives: jewish influence

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Cabal Theories

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In JournoList: Inside the echo chamber, at Politico, Michael Calderone writes (my emphasis):

For the past two years, several hundred left-leaning bloggers, political reporters, magazine writers, policy wonks and academics have talked stories and compared notes in an off-the-record online meeting space called JournoList.

Proof of a vast liberal media conspiracy?

Not at all, says Ezra Klein, the 24-year-old American Prospect blogging wunderkind who formed JournoList in February 2007. “Basically,” he says, “it’s just a list where journalists and policy wonks can discuss issues freely.”

But some of the journalists who participate in the online discussion say — off the record, of course — that it has been a great help in their work. On the record, The New Yorker’s Jeffrey Toobin acknowledged that a Talk of the Town piece — he won’t say which one — got its start in part via a conversation on JournoList. And JLister Eric Alterman, The Nation writer and CUNY professor, said he’s seen discussions that start on the list seep into the world beyond.

“I’m very lazy about writing when I’m not getting paid,” Alterman said. “So if I take the trouble to write something in any detail on the list, I tend to cannibalize it. It doesn’t surprise me when I see things on the list on people’s blogs.”

Last April, criticism of ABC’s handling of a Democratic presidential debate took shape on JList before morphing into an open letter to the network, signed by more than 40 journalists and academics — many of whom are JList members.

But beyond these specific examples, it’s hard to trace JList’s influence in the media, because so few JListers are willing to talk on the record about it.

POLITICO contacted nearly three dozen current JList members for this story. The majority either declined to comment or didn’t respond to interview requests — and then returned to JList to post items on why they wouldn’t be talking to POLITICO about what goes on there.In an e-mail, Klein said he understands that the JList’s off-the-record rule “makes it seems secretive.” But he insisted that JList discussions have to be off the record in order to “ensure that folks feel safe giving off-the-cuff analysis and instant reactions.”

One byproduct of that secrecy: For all its high-profile membership — which includes Nobel Prize-winning columnist Paul Krugman; staffers from Newsweek, POLITICO, Huffington Post, The New Republic, The Nation and The New Yorker; policy wonks, academics and bloggers such as Klein and Matthew Yglesias — JList itself has received almost no attention from the media.

A LexisNexis search for JournoList reveals exactly nothing. Slate’s Mickey Kaus, a nonmember, may be the only professional writer to have referred to it “in print” more than once — albeit dismissively, as the “Klein Klub.”

While members may talk freely about JList at, say, a Columbia Heights house party, there’s a “Fight Club”-style code of silence when it comes to discussing it for publication.

But a handful of JList members agreed to talk for this story — if only to push back against the perception that the group is some sort of secret, left-wing cabal.

Several members volunteered that JList is unlike listservs such as Townhouse, the private, activist-oriented group formed by liberal blogger Matt Stoller.

“No one’s pushing an agenda,” said Toobin.

Toobin joined JList about a year ago, and he said that he had to get a new e-mail address just for JList in order to keep up with the sheer volume of commentary that appears there every day. The frequent disputes among members, he said, are “what’s most entertaining on the list.”

John Judis, a senior editor at The New Republic, described JList in an e-mail as “a virtual coffeehouse” where participants get a chance to talk and argue.

“There is probably general agreement on the stupidity of today’s GOP,” he said. “But beyond that, I would say there is wide disagreement on trade, Israel, how exactly we got into this recession/depression and how to get out of it, the brilliance of various punk bands that I have never heard of, and on whether, at any given moment, the Obama administration is doing the right thing.”

But aren’t there enough forums for arguing about domestic and foreign policy — or even for partaking in the more idiosyncratic JList debates about the merits of Bruce Springsteen and whether The New Republic is liberal enough? And do those debates really have to happen behind a veil of secrecy?

“It’s sort of a chance to float ideas and kind of toss them around, back and forth, and determine if they have any value,” said New Republic associate editor Eve Fairbanks, “and get people’s input on them before you put them on a blog.”

Indeed, the advantage of JList, members say, is that it provides a unique forum for getting in touch with historians and policy people who provide journalists with a knowledge base for articles and blog posts.

Yglesias, who writes an eponymous blog hosted by the Center for American Progress, noted that “the combined membership has tentacles of knowledge that reach everywhere,” adding that “you can toss out a question about Japan or whatever and get some different points of view.”

Alterman said it’s important that there are “people with genuine expertise” on the list.

“For me, it’s enormously useful because I don’t like to spend my time reading blogs and reading up-to-the-minute political minutia,” he said. “This list allows me to make sure I’m not missing anything important.”

POLITICO’s Mike Allen, Ben Smith and Lisa Lerer are on the list. “The roster includes some of the savviest authorities on everything from behavioral economics to Ben’s Chili Bowl,” Allen said. “It’s a window into a world of passionate experts — an hourly graduate education.”

Said another JLister: “I don’t know any other place where working journalists, policy wonks and academics who write about current politics and political history routinely communicate with one another.”

But what if all the private exchanges got leaked?

That’s been the subject of some JList conversation, too, as members discuss the Weekly Standard’s publication of a 2006 e-mail posted to the private China Security Listserv by diplomat Charles Freeman, who last week withdrew his name from consideration for a top intelligence job.

Michael Goldfarb, a former McCain staffer and conservative blogger who published the e-mail, was not part of the China list and therefore hadn’t agreed to any off-the-record rules.

Asked about the existence of conservative listservs, Goldfarb said they’re much less prevalent.

“There is nothing comparable on the right. E-mail conversations among bloggers, journalists and experts on our side tend to be ad hoc,” Goldfarb said. “The JournoList thing always struck me as a little creepy.”

Kaus, too, has seemed put off by the whole idea, once talking on BloggingHeads about how the list “seems contrary to the spirit of the Web.”

“You don’t want to create a whole separate, like, private blog that only the elite bloggers can go into, and then what you present to the public is sort of the propaganda you’ve decided to go public with,” Kaus argued.

But Time’s Joe Klein, who acknowledged being on JList and several other listservs, said in an e-mail that “they’re valuable in the way that candid conversations with colleagues and experts always are.” Defending the off-the-record rule, Klein said that “candor is essential and can only be guaranteed by keeping these conversations private.”

And then Klein — speaking like the JLister he is — said there wasn’t “anything more that I can or want to say about the subject.”

Nearly every name in this article is jewish, even the outsiders, Kaus and Goldfarb. A preponderance of the signers of the aforementioned open letter to ABC are jewish as well.

Are the JournoList “liberals” embarassed with the lack of diversity in their cabal? Are they concerned how their ethnic networking appears to “liberal” anti-racists?

Not likely. Diversity is a weapon of ethnic warfare intended for use solely against Whites. Likewise anti-racism. If these jewish journalists were White, “liberals” would viciously attack their cabal as a form of racist “white privilege“. Jews however are treated to a different standard.

Keep in mind now, the existence of this cabal in no way substantiates crazy conspiracy theories and old canards about jewish media influence. It is nothing special. There are dozens, maybe hundreds of cabals just like this one, all full of influential jews who disagree widely about what’s best for jews, how to defend israel, whether Bernie Madoff deserves life in prison or death, who to pin the financial meltdown on, which holocaust movie deserves the Oscar, etc.

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Whose Country Is This Anyway?

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If the Israel Lobby is a myth, then why is obsequience to israel a bipartisan litmus test for US officials? “Are you now, or have you ever been, a critic of israel?”

On 5 March 2009 the Washington Times reported Foreign ties of nominee questioned:

The director of national intelligence, Dennis C. Blair, last Thursday named Mr. [Chas W.] Freeman, a veteran former diplomat, to the chairmanship of the National Intelligence Council, known inside the government as the NIC. In that job, Mr. Freeman will have access to some of America’s most closely guarded secrets and be charged with overseeing the drafting of the consensus view of all 16 intelligence agencies.

His selection was praised by some who noted his articulateness and experience as U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia and a senior envoy to China and other nations. But it sparked concerns among some members of Congress from both parties, who asked the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s inspector general, Edward McGuire, to investigate Mr. Freeman’s potential conflicts of interest.

Why didn’t these kind of questions sink Rahm Emanuel? After all:

Mr. Emanuel is arguably the second most powerful man in the country and, just a few days into his tenure, already one of the highest-profile chiefs of staff in recent memory.

Renowned as a fierce partisan, he has been an ardent ambassador to Republicans, including Mr. Obama’s defeated rival, Senator John McCain of Arizona. He has exerted influence on countless decisions; in meetings, administration officials say, Mr. Obama often allows him to speak first and last.

“You can see how he listens and reacts to Rahm,” said Ron Klain, the chief of staff to Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. “You can see that his opinion is being shaped.”

Emanuel has strong foreign ties. Haaretz writes U.S. Jews laud Obama pick of Rahm Emanuel for chief of staff:

“Rep. Emanuel is also a good friend of Israel, coming from good Irgun stock, davening at an Orthodox synagogue, and sending his children to Jewish day schools,” Daroff concluded.

Ira N. Forman, Executive Director of the National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC), echoed Daroff’s approval, saying in a statement Thursday that “Obama made an outstanding selection. Emanuel has been a forceful and effective leader within the Democratic Party. His voting record and leadership in support of the U.S.-Israel relationship are outstanding.”

“Emanuel has deep Jewish roots and strong ties to the Jewish community. Emanuel, the son of an Israeli immigrant, has a proven commitment to Israel’s security and served as civilian volunteer on an Israeli military base during the Persian Gulf War of 1991,” the statement continued.

“Good irgun stock” means his jewish “faith” is very strong. His middle name is Israel.

On 10 March 2009 Foreign Policy blog The Cable posted a letter from Freeman explaining his withdrawal from the position, Freeman speaks out on his exit (my emphasis):

You will by now have seen the statement by Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair reporting that I have withdrawn my previous acceptance of his invitation to chair the National Intelligence Council.

I have concluded that the barrage of libelous distortions of my record would not cease upon my entry into office. The effort to smear me and to destroy my credibility would instead continue. I do not believe the National Intelligence Council could function effectively while its chair was under constant attack by unscrupulous people with a passionate attachment to the views of a political faction in a foreign country. I agreed to chair the NIC to strengthen it and protect it against politicization, not to introduce it to efforts by a special interest group to assert control over it through a protracted political campaign.

As those who know me are well aware, I have greatly enjoyed life since retiring from government. Nothing was further from my mind than a return to public service. When Admiral Blair asked me to chair the NIC I responded that I understood he was “asking me to give my freedom of speech, my leisure, the greater part of my income, subject myself to the mental colonoscopy of a polygraph, and resume a daily commute to a job with long working hours and a daily ration of political abuse.” I added that I wondered “whether there wasn’t some sort of downside to this offer.” I was mindful that no one is indispensable; I am not an exception. It took weeks of reflection for me to conclude that, given the unprecedentedly challenging circumstances in which our country now finds itself abroad and at home, I had no choice but accept the call to return to public service. I thereupon resigned from all positions that I had held and all activities in which I was engaged. I now look forward to returning to private life, freed of all previous obligations.

I am not so immodest as to believe that this controversy was about me rather than issues of public policy. These issues had little to do with the NIC and were not at the heart of what I hoped to contribute to the quality of analysis available to President Obama and his administration. Still, I am saddened by what the controversy and the manner in which the public vitriol of those who devoted themselves to sustaining it have revealed about the state of our civil society. It is apparent that we Americans cannot any longer conduct a serious public discussion or exercise independent judgment about matters of great importance to our country as well as to our allies and friends.

The libels on me and their easily traceable email trails show conclusively that there is a powerful lobby determined to prevent any view other than its own from being aired, still less to factor in American understanding of trends and events in the Middle East. The tactics of the Israel Lobby plumb the depths of dishonor and indecency and include character assassination, selective misquotation, the willful distortion of the record, the fabrication of falsehoods, and an utter disregard for the truth. The aim of this Lobby is control of the policy process through the exercise of a veto over the appointment of people who dispute the wisdom of its views, the substitution of political correctness for analysis, and the exclusion of any and all options for decision by Americans and our government other than those that it favors.

There is a special irony in having been accused of improper regard for the opinions of foreign governments and societies by a group so clearly intent on enforcing adherence to the policies of a foreign government – in this case, the government of Israel. I believe that the inability of the American public to discuss, or the government to consider, any option for US policies in the Middle East opposed by the ruling faction in Israeli politics has allowed that faction to adopt and sustain policies that ultimately threaten the existence of the state of Israel. It is not permitted for anyone in the United States to say so. This is not just a tragedy for Israelis and their neighbors in the Middle East; it is doing widening damage to the national security of the United States.

The outrageous agitation that followed the leak of my pending appointment will be seen by many to raise serious questions about whether the Obama administration will be able to make its own decisions about the Middle East and related issues. I regret that my willingness to serve the new administration has ended by casting doubt on its ability to consider, let alone decide what policies might best serve the interests of the United States rather than those of a Lobby intent on enforcing the will and interests of a foreign government.

In the court of public opinion, unlike a court of law, one is guilty until proven innocent. The speeches from which quotations have been lifted from their context are available for anyone interested in the truth to read. The injustice of the accusations made against me has been obvious to those with open minds. Those who have sought to impugn my character are uninterested in any rebuttal that I or anyone else might make.

Still, for the record: I have never sought to be paid or accepted payment from any foreign government, including Saudi Arabia or China, for any service, nor have I ever spoken on behalf of a foreign government, its interests, or its policies. I have never lobbied any branch of our government for any cause, foreign or domestic. I am my own man, no one else’s, and with my return to private life, I will once again – to my pleasure – serve no master other than myself. I will continue to speak out as I choose on issues of concern to me and other Americans.

I retain my respect and confidence in President Obama and DNI Blair. Our country now faces terrible challenges abroad as well as at home. Like all patriotic Americans, I continue to pray that our president can successfully lead us in surmounting them.

Later that same day Ben Smith at Politico posted Freeman hits ‘Israel lobby’ on way out:

Charles W. Freeman Jr.’s abrupt withdrawal from his appointment as chairman of the National Intelligence Council came after he drew fire on a number of fronts – including questions about his financial ties to China and Saudi Arabia.

But the most heated opposition came from supporters of Israel – and Freeman’s departure shows Obama’s reluctance to signal a dramatic change to a U.S. policy in the Middle East that centers on standing beside Israel.

Throughout his presidential campaign, Obama jettisoned aides and backed off statements that appeared to imply a change in the Bush Administration’s firm support for hawkish Israeli governments.

On 12 March the Jerusalem Post, in Freeman blames ‘Israel lobby’ for ouster from NIC, wrote (my emphasis):

Critics of the selection of the former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia – among them members of Congress – cited statements he had made harshly criticizing Israel, praising Saudi Arabia and seeming to side with the Chinese government over democracy advocates, as well as business and financial ties to China and Saudi Arabia, in calling for Freeman to be denied the position overseeing the compilation of the US intelligence community’s National Intelligence Estimates.

In his statement, Freeman also said, “The outrageous agitation that followed the leak of my pending appointment will be seen by many to raise serious questions about whether the Obama administration will be able to make its own decisions about the Middle East and related issues.”

Those questions, which rebounded through the blogosphere Wednesday, have led some to argue that Israel advocates who believe they helped their cause by seeing Freeman shut out have only scored a Pyrrhic victory.

“The perception, almost universally held, that he was brought down because he is a strong and vocal opponent of Israel’s West Bank and settlement policies, is not good for the Jewish community and the pro-Israel community in particular,” M.J. Rosenberg of the Israel Policy Forum, wrote on his blog, pointing out that criticism of Freeman first surfaced in the pro-Israel community.

He told The Jerusalem Post that the community has been trying to argue that its alleged power is a myth, yet it will now be perceived as “bringing down” a top government appointee.

Prominent blogger Andrew Sullivan, not known to be a harsh Israel critic, called Freeman’s “cardinal sin” his willingness to blame Israel for the situation it finds itself in in the Middle East.

“This is the third rail no one is allowed to touch and have access to real power in Washington,” he wrote. “I find the hysterical bullying of this man to be repulsive.”

Even some mainstream media outlets have picked up on this theme. Reuters called the controversy a “a test case for the strength of Washington’s right-wing pro-Israel lobby” since remarks critical of Israel have previously been “virtually taboo in official Washington, whose elected leaders – or those running for office – tend to stress unflagging support for the Jewish state.”

Still, pro-Israel groups who opposed Freeman’s appointment openly welcomed the news that he would not be taking the post.

Ira Forman, executive director of the National Jewish Democratic Council, said that Freeman’s comments blaming the Israel lobby only proved that he was ill-suited for the job.

“I understand someone being upset if people oppose an appointment, but to lash out at what appeared to be a conspiracy in his mind was not the type of temperament one would hope for in someone in such a position,” he said.

Obviously Freeman’s foreign ties weren’t the real problem, it was his criticism of israel. And this was true before he wrote this letter about the Israel Lobby. Rahm Emanuel wasn’t subjected to a different standard. It was the same standard: “what’s good for the jewish community?”, as M.J. Rosenberg would put it.

Ira Forman, who was quoted praising Emanuel above, here gleefully spells out the fate of anyone who notices that what’s good for the jewish community isn’t necessarily good for their own. If you speak out, you’ll be punished. If you object to that, you’ll be smeared as “crazy”. Jewish power is a myth. If you doubt that, an invisible, imaginary, non-existent jewish conspiracy will crush you.

In related news, on 11 March 2009 AP published Officials: Iran does not have key nuclear material (my emphasis):

Iran does not yet have any highly enriched uranium, the fuel needed to make a nuclear warhead, two top U.S. intelligence officials told Congress Tuesday, disputing a claim by an Israeli official.

U.S. National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair and Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lt. Gen. Michael Maples said Tuesday that Iran has only low-enriched uranium – which would need to be refined into highly enriched uranium before it can fuel a warhead. Neither officials said there were indications that refining has occurred.

Their comments disputed a claim made last weekend by Israel’s top intelligence military official, who said Iran has crossed a technical threshold and is now capable of producing atomic weapons.

The claim made by Israeli Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin runs counter to estimates by U.S. intelligence that the earliest Iran could produce a weapon is 2010, with some analysts saying it is more likely that it is 2015.

Maples said the United States and Israel are interpreting the same facts, but arriving at different conclusions.

“The Israelis are far more concerned about it,” Maples told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Blair also stood firm behind former U.S. Ambassador Charles Freeman, his pick for a top analysis job, despite strong congressional criticism.

Freeman, who was U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia during the Persian Gulf war, had harshly criticized the Israeli government, the Iraq war and the war on terrorism in general.

A policy council Freeman headed also has been criticized for some ties to foreign governments, including Saudi Arabia and China. Blair’s inspector general is investigating those ties while Freeman works with ethics advisers to scrub his personal finances for potential conflicts of interest.

Blair and Maples will very soon be following Freeman. Then Rahm Emanuel can tap Ira Forman or someone else Ira Forman approves of as National Intelligence Director. Then Obomba will get the “correct” intel. Then he can bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb iran. And then jews everywhere will live happily ever after.

American Goy notes the relative silence of the media and other curious details in Irony overload- the strange case of Charles W. “Chas” Freeman.

UPDATE 12 March 2009: On 11 March 2009 American Jewish Committee Executive Director David A. Harris issued the following statement:

Apparently, Chas Freeman can dish it out but can’t take it.

Like all appointments to key national security positions, Freeman’s merited public scrutiny. His views on “Abdullah the Great,” on Israel, on September 11, and on Tiananmen Square were a matter of public record, and respected officials on both sides of the aisle raised legitimate concerns about them.

Ambassador Freeman could have defended those beliefs in an open debate. Instead, he chose to fire off nasty emails scapegoating the “Israel Lobby” for his own decision to withdraw.

The only “libels” and “smears” here are Freeman’s tired cliches about a nefarious “Israel Lobby” that stifles debate. In truth, it’s Freeman, a charter member of the Saudi Fan Club, who wanted the debate to be silenced – since he found himself on the losing side once it started.

If Freeman’s conspiratorial rant reflects the quality of his analysis and his temperament under pressure, it’s just further evidence that he wasn’t the right man for this critical job.

This statement, and especially the last sentence, sounds just like Ira Forman, executive director of the National Jewish Democratic Council, already quoted above. It’s as if they’re conspiring or something. But that’s just conspiratorial talk.

Scapegoating, in my dictionary, means blaming someone who isn’t responsible. When criticism is aimed at any other powerful entity it’s called “speaking truth to power”. When jewish power is criticized many jews insinuate the critic is insane, others revel in crushing the critic’s windpipe, and a few “self-hating jews” affirm his criticism.

On 6 March 2009 Richard Silverstein wrote Chas. Freeman: Aipac Smells Blood in the Water (links in original):

Admiral Dennis Blair’s appointment of Chas. Freeman as chair of the National Intelligence Council becomes more troubled by the day. Not because of any real taint on Ambassador Freeman’s record, but because Aipac and its Congressional water carriers are upping the ante day by day in a campaign to oust him due to his strongly critical views about the Israeli Occupation.

His critics veil their criticism in an attack on Freeman’s close ties to Chinese and Saudi business and government interests, but make no mistake–Freeman’s sin is his outspokenness on Israel and his sympathies for Palestinian suffering.

This coordinated attack fits Aipac’s modus operandi to a tee. First, you will probably not hear the group’s name directly associated with the assault. The phone calls go from Aipac headquarters to their mostly Republican minions on the Hill. But it’s entirely possible that unlike the Manchurian Candidate, Aipac doesn’t even need to activate their operatives. They’ve been so indoctrinated that the Congress members know what is expected of them and they start the campaign themselves.

And by the by, Jim Lobe notes notes that most of the seven Congress members who signed a letter asking for an investigation of Freeman were heavy recipients of pro-Israel campaign donations closely affiliated with Aipac.

Even Chuck Schumer, now New York’s leading pro-Israel political leader after Hillary’s promotion to State, is getting in on the act. He picked up the phone to call his good friend and fellow pro-Israel Dem., Rahm Emanuel, to rail about Freeman. What’s especially significant about Schumer’s involvement is that until now the opposition was led by straight neo-con Republican forces and the pro-Israel right: Steve Rosen, Michael Goldfarb, the Republican Jewish Coalition, John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Mark Kirk, Marty Peretz, Jonathan Tobin, etc. Schumer is the first Democratic leader to get into the tussle.

AJC, NJDC, AIPAC, Schumer, Emanuel, … how many more nonentities of the mythical Israel Lobby are involved here?

Read more about AIPAC at Secrecy News. Among other things you might be interested to find out more about Steve Rosen, Freeman critic and alleged spy for israel:

AIPAC Case Lingers On | Secrecy News
AIPAC Appeals Court Rules Against Prosecutors | Secrecy News
The Jewish Chronicle – Classifieds, News, Business, and Events

American Goy sums up why spying for israel isn’t considered wrong:

You see, the defense team can point out to the 2008 AIPAC meeting, and show a few short films showing Obama, Clinton, McCain, Pelosi, Reid, Boehner all saying the same thing – that Israel is America’s greatest friend.

Well then, since Israel is America’s greatest friend, giving our greatest friend and ally, the best thing to happen to the world since sliced bread was invented, a few measly “top secret” documents stolen from the Pentagon, is not treason, nor can it be proven to cause injury to the United States.

Because Israel is our greatest friend and ally.

Because American and Israeli interests and goals are the same.

Steve Rosen’s response posted 10 March 2009, Chas Freeman withdraws from NIC nomination:

Democratic Representative Steve Israel said that he spoke of his concerns last week to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and later sent him materials about the former ambassador’s statements and associations. Israel, a member of the House Appropriations Committee’s Select Intelligence Oversight Panel, said in a phone interview, “As I was leaving the White House this afternoon, they told me of Blair’s statement” of Freeman’s withdrawal. “I think Blair’s defense of Freeman was indefensible, and people in the White House realized that.”

Freeman is indefensible in the sense that at this point anyone who defends him will just as surely be drummed out of government by the same mythical conspiracy.

A powerful US politician whose middle name is Israel, and another whose last name is Israel, join together with a collection of well-funded, well-organized pro-Israel organizations to snuff the appointment of a critic of Israel, while a gaggle of jews waves their hands, Jedi-style, saying “it was his conspiratorial temperament”.

What can I say? This is absolutely mindnumbing. The scandal is already over-the-top and the ADL and SPLC haven’t even piped up to claim that it’s just another example of how the poor powerless jews get scapegoated by “old canards” of “the anti-semites”.

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Moral Hazard

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View From the Top – Part 1, January 29 2009:

Mort Zuckerman, co-founder and chairman of Boston Properties, talks to Chrystia Freeland, US managing editor, and the economic crisis, the credit crunch and what government intervention should look like.

At about 3:20:

Zuckerman: …some how or another the federal govt is going to have to join in some way with guaranteeing bank loans. Not the full amount but let’s just say that commercial banks would make loans for 10 or 15 or 20…

Freeland: Guarantee new loans?

Z: New loans, not old loans. Because we must find a way to start credit flowing in the economy again or else we stand a chance of a real bust. So some how or another we have to get the government involved.

F: Wouldn’t that impose a risk of moral hazard? Isn’t that sort of Fanny Freddization all over again…

Z: Moral hazard, ideology, these are the things we can no longer think about – when you’re talking about saving the system. I wouldn’t care if we save the system by violating concerns about moral hazard or ideology.

F: If the govt has to intervene even more deeply in the financial system how much extra money do you think it’s going to end up spending on that?

Z: Well I saw where Larry Summers estimated that it would take somewhere between a trillion and a half dollars and three trillion dollars just in a sense to refloat the financial system. I think that’s a very good range. If anything I would come out near the top end of the range.

F: Of government money?

Z: Or government credit.

F: And do you think the American people, the American political system, is prepared to sign off on that amount of money?

Z: I think when they see what the alternatives are I think they’ll be prepared to do that.

At about 6:45:

Z: …because without that confidence nothing will work. No matter what this is a consumer led economy. 72% of our economy is based on consumption. If the consumer holds back and pulls back – which he or she can do – people can live very well with alot of what they already have other than food and drink and fuel.

F: No one needs to buy a new a car this year, no one needs to buy a new TV set.

Z: Right. A lot of people can live – it’s the TV programming that needs to be changed not the TV set. And I’ll tell ya, this is going to be an extraordinary year in American public life no matter who is in the Congress and who is in the White House.

View From the Top – Part 2, January 29 2009 begins:

F: You’re also a publisher. How is the print publishing business doing?

Z: Well the print publishing business is an oxymoron. It is no longer a business. It is an advertising driven business and the advertisers have driven elsewhere.

Zuckerman goes on to claim that almost every major newspaper is losing money, but that he didn’t get into the business to make money, he’s just addicted to journalism.

At about 8:05:

F: Has the Madoff affair had a particular impact on the American jewish community?

Z: Well I suppose on some level it is, the fact is that what he did was completely against jewish values, against not only the way jews contribute to a community in human terms but in financial terms – he robbed alot of charities of the funds which they are contributing to…

F: Specifically actually jewish charities that he was involved in.

Z: Yeah, alot of jewish charities, yes. My charity isn’t specifically a jewish charity – I mean I support cancer research, and scholarships, and things like that, but having said that, but you know as I said Ponzi, last time I checked, was an Italian and he was the person who gave the name to this kind of thing and it doesn’t mean that all Italians are involved in this. So the fact that he happens to be jewish, he’s also a sociopath, and that was the dominant feature of this man, who was willing to damage all sorts of people almost without remorse.

Freeland would seem to disagree. She’s concerned about the particular impact on jews, and specifically actually jewish charities.

It’s easy to imagine Madoff, at least up until December 2008, was thinking about his private pyramid scheme along the same lines Zuckerman is still thinking about the larger consumer-based economy: moral hazard, ideology, these are the things we can no longer think about – when you’re talking about saving the system.

Jewish charities. Keep people spending. Save the system. This is how jews really contribute to a community in financial terms.

Ponzi, last time I checked, was a piker compared to Madoff. From here on Madoff should be the person who gives the name to this kind of thing. As Zuckerman should readily agree, nobody will think that means all jews are involved.

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how to be HAPPY, dammit

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I was going through a box of books separating the wheat from the chaff when I came upon how to he HAPPY, dammit – a cynic’s guide to spiritual happiness. It was a gift and I never had any interest in reading it. Wincing once more at the garish cover I was about to toss it in the trash when on a whim instead I cracked it open, just to see what kind of wisdom about happiness I was about to forgo…

Life Lesson #15

You must unlearn.

To get what you want, you must be open not only to learning – but un-learning. You must sign up for un-lessons – where you un-learn learned fear, guilt, anger, jealousy, insecurity – and that’s just for starters.

Hmm. This is interesting. I know I’ve got a lifetime of guilt-tripping to un-learn. Eagerly I turned the page…

In other words, before you write your to-do list of what you want, you have to write your un-do list and to-don’t list. So you get a piece of paper and you write down the following six categories: money, love, sex, family, power, happiness. Next to each of these categories you write down your negative views – your fears, your guilts, your insecurities – that you must un-learn and un-feel.

Hmm. Well, those aren’t necessarily the categories or priorities I would pick, but let’s see where this is going…

For instance, you ask yourself what negative views you have about money. Like: Do you believe all rich people are superficial jerks – hence if you become rich you too might become a superficial jerk? Do you suffer from Keeping Down with the Joneses syndrome? Do you feel guilty about surpassing your friends – and/or parents – in wealth? If so, you must un-learn and un-feel these negative ideas and negative emotions…And you find that when you trade in these negative beliefs and emotions for positive ones, you start getting more in harmony with receiving money. You start seeing money everywhere.

Even in the word harmony, which suddenly now looks to you like harmoney.

Wait a minute…what kind of spiritualist wrote this materialist crap?

karen salmansohn

Oh.

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A Censorious Debate

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In a post at Oz Conservative titled A curious debate, Mark Richardson writes:

Should the liberal state permit the existence of non-liberal communities? There has been a debate amongst academics in recent years on this issue.

One curious feature of this debate is the concept that the liberal academics have of themselves. They usually take themselves to be free, autonomous individuals leading self-directing and self-chosen lives in contrast to the unreflective, non-liberal individuals in traditional communities.

He quotes an academic named Jacob Levy who questions our right to exist.

Seeking to engage in the debate I used a response from Lawrence Auster as a launching point:

Auster writes:

The signs are gathering that the Western societies are heading into an age of civil wars. Not between white and nonwhite, not between Christian and Muslim, but between liberal whites and non-liberal whites. That’s shaping up as the major divide of our time.

That’s right. Our biggest problem is not muslims. It’s the “liberal whites” who prepared the ground and opened the gates, who enabled the muslims and the rest of the non-White world to invade and rape the West. The “liberal whites” are raping it too.

Western societies have been in an age of treason since the French revolution ended and jewish emancipation began. Here was the first ill-fated deployment of liberal egalitarianism – the recognition of jews and Europeans as equals. This egalitarianism led directly to the emancipation of negroes and the emancipation of women. In 1965 egalitarianism became equalitarianism, which produced civil rights and open borders. This mutated into “non-discrimination”, an Animal Farm-like regime where some groups are more equal than others. We see it today in the elevation and celebration of homosexuals and illegal aliens. Big Lies abound. They come for the jobs! Diversity is our greatest strength! Islam is a religion of peace! But anyone with eyes can see what’s going on. Under the neo-liberal regime all that is deviant, non-White, non-Christian, or non-European is sacrosanct and held in the highest esteem, while all that is traditional, White, Christian, or European is suspect, tainted, held up for scorn and ridicule.

Indeed, the major divide of our time is between neo-liberal “whites” and non-liberal Whites. It’s not so much a civil war as it is a race war. On the one side are the bolshevist, totalitarian, anti-liberal, anti-White “liberal whites”. The hippies, cosmopolitans, plutocrats and globalists who dominate all sides of politics, finance, media, law, and academia. They’re revolutionaries, left and right, whose highest calling is to erase all borders, “mobilize” labor, and “harmonize” the world’s laws. They want world government. One system. Death or the gulag for their critics.

In their way are Whites – the ordinary, unassuming natives of Europe and the descendants of European pioneers elsewhere. We occupy the center politically, divided against each other. We are the middle class economically, our resources outmatched by our corporate- and endowment-funded enemies. We share Main Street, family-oriented values. We’re skeptical of change and wish to be left alone to live, think, speak and worship in peace. Many of us see what the “liberal whites” have been up to and are aghast, appalled, or apoplectic. Some of us see how the “liberals” have now moved beyond pathologizing and gagging us, that they intend to exterminate us via immigration.

What “liberal white” Jacob Levy wrote is just a couched way of saying what “liberal white” Jeremy Hardy put more explicitly:

On the 9th of September, 2004, the Marxist comedian, Jeremy Hardy, said this on the Radio 4 show Speaks to the Nation:

“In some areas of the country the British National Party has been doing quite well electorally…

The BNP are Nazis…

If you just took everyone from the BNP, and everyone who votes for them, and shot them in the back of the head, there would be a brighter future for us all.”

Hardy was not vilified, warned, cautioned or threatened with prosecution for making these remarks.

Or what “liberal white” Susan Sontag (born Rosenblatt) expressed more generally:

Mozart, Pascal, Boolean algebra, Shakespeare, parliamentary government, baroque churches, Newton, the emancipation of women, Kant, Balanchine ballets, et al. don’t redeem what this particular civilization has wrought upon the world. The white race is the cancer of human history.

Or what “liberal white” Noel Ignatiev put more bluntly:

“Make no mistake about it,” he says,

“we intend to keep bashing the dead white males, and the live ones, and the females too, until the social construct known as ‘the white race’ is destroyed–not ‘deconstructed’ but destroyed.”

“Liberal whites” who think like this have been in control of the West since WWII ended. They’ve been sending ever louder signals for some time that their “tolerance” for our existence has reached its end. It’s high time we recognized the war they’ve been waging against us and respond.

When I checked back my comment was gone. Mark Richardson explained why:

Taanstafl, I eventually decided to delete your comment, even though there were parts of it written to a high standard.

Your initial description of the political divide was interesting. You wrote that on one side there were:

“The hippies, cosmopolitans, plutocrats and globalists who dominate all sides of politics, finance, media, law, and academia. They’re revolutionaries, left and right, whose highest calling is to erase all borders, “mobilize” labor, and “harmonize” the world’s laws. They want world government. One system.”

But:

“In their way are Whites – the ordinary, unassuming natives of Europe and the descendants of European pioneers elsewhere. We occupy the center politically, divided against each other. We are the middle class economically, our resources outmatched by our corporate- and endowment-funded enemies. We share Main Street, family-oriented values. We’re skeptical of change and wish to be left alone to live, think, speak and worship in peace. Many of us see what the “liberal whites” have been up to and are aghast, appalled, or apoplectic.”

The problem for me is that you then left this larger view of things for a more reductionist one, by suggesting that it is specifically Jews who control the West and that it is they who are no longer willing to tolerate the existence of Christian whites.

I’m ruling this out of bounds for this site. I’m willing to recognise that Jews have been disproportionately represented in the radical movements. However, when nearly the entire political class shares a liberal orthodoxy, I don’t think it’s right, or helpful, to blame one group alone.

Auster responded like so:

On another subject, I note that the comment by Tanstaafl that Mr. Richardson has deleted is very mild compared to his usual anti-Semitic outpourings. Tanstaafl has written, “Jews are my enemy,” and criticized me for, among other things, not directing “all” my criticisms against Jews. The basic Tanstaafl position (and the Darwinian anti-Semitic position) is that everything that Jews or people of Jewish background do and say (including everything that I have ever written) is directed at undermining white gentiles in the interests of Jewish power. The only good Jew, in the anti-Semites’ book, is one who agrees with the anti-Semites’ position that I’ve just summarized.

I am about to post the following. I’m curious to see if it is also considered reductionist, or has some other defect:

Mark, this is your blog and you can delete what you want. If you’d prefer I not post here at all just say the word and I won’t.

Thank you for taking the time to explain why you deleted my previous comment. Obviously it will be harder now for others to judge whether your characterization of it is fair. I was actually trying to expand Auster’s one-dimensional vague assertion about “civil wars” into a deeper view, rooted in history going back generations, and to provide an interpretation linking many of the themes you discuss in isolation elsewhere in your blog. In that respect what I wrote is a synthesis into a more complex whole, not a reduction into simpler parts.

As for Auster, I trust readers will note his very “liberal” smear tactics. If there’s a reductionist view here it is his own – with every problem springing either from “liberals” or “anti-semites”. Like “liberal whites” he believes certain people should not be permitted to express our opinions. Like Jacob Levy he’s capable of rationalizing all sorts of reasons. Unlike Levy, Auster claims to oppose liberalism, so when he gets censorious there’s really only one explanation that makes sense. He resents that I see it and point it out. For example, notice that he’s not nearly as willing to shun and silence “liberals” or to delve into their motives as he is with “anti-semites”.

Prior to his civil war comment above Auster has been describing our predicament as “suicidal white guilt”, as if it is our idea to destroy ourselves, and it sprang from thin air. I consider this an unacceptable libel against my people, offered in bad faith in the interest of protecting his own.

I was trying to contribute to the discussion here and don’t wish to derail it. I’ll gladly continue to debate any of this at my own blog.

The image above is from The Censorious Race.