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Buy the Book
The Podhoretz Method
The question Norman Podhoretz has been asked more than any other in his career.
Why Are Jews Liberals?
By Norman
Podhoretz
(Doubleday, 337 pages, $27)
Some years ago the New York Sun issued an editorial called “The Podhoretz Method.” It was triggered by a jibe that had been made against the former editor of Commentary for asking — at, as it happens, a banquet I hosted honoring, among others, Robert Bartley — “What’s a Kurd, anyway?” To Mr. Podhoretz’s critic, the neoconservative sage seemed “authentically bewildered.” But to me, Podhoretz seemed to be setting up, with a seemingly simple question, a conversation that, if given time to unfold, would lead in all sorts of surprising and illuminating directions. The technique of the disarming question from which an extraordinary answer can be spun out is what the Sun called the “Podhoretz method,” and it has rarely been used, even by Podhoretz himself, to greater effect than in his latest book, Why Are Jews Liberals?
The question, Podhoretz writes, is the one he has been asked more than any other in his career, and it doesn’t surprise me, particularly as the years roll on. For on the face of it, the interests of Jews increasingly seem to be at odds with liberal policies. Whereas once it was conservatives who failed to follow the lessons of Munich, more recently it has been the liberals. Where once quota systems were used against Jews by exclusionary establishments, in more recent decades Jews have been excluded by quota systems pressed by idealistic liberals to redress wrongs against other minorities. Whereas it was once the Democrats who were inclined to give the most support to the Jewish state, more recently it has been the Republicans. Whereas once violent anti-Semitism appeared to be a feature largely of what might be called the nativist right, more lately it has emerged on the nihilistic left.
It has not been an easy adjustment for anyone. This was brought home to me during the 1980s, when I was living in Europe on assignment for the Wall Street Journal editorial page. One afternoon, I entertained a visiting friend and his wife. They were an inspiring couple. He had worked for one of Jewry’s great institutions, the Joint Distribution Committee, after World War II and had been among the first into the concentration camps. Now, two generations later, we sat at a café in a square called the Petit Sablon, just steps from Brussels’s main synagogue. I pointed out that, although cars were parked on sidewalks all over the square, none, nor even a motorbike, was near the synagogue. The reason, I explained, is that the police would whisk away anything parked there, lest someone plant a bomb at the grandest house of Jewish worship in the city.
The need for this precaution, I explained, was terrorism from training camps in countries like Libya and Jordan that were operated or funded by Warsaw Pact regimes like those in Czechoslovakia and East Germany. Nor was the main Brussels synagogue an isolated case. The tiny shul in suburban Brussels where my wife and I had marked Passover had a courtyard that was entirely covered in hand-grenade netting. Almost every Jewish institution in Europe was on guard, even in the 1980s, against the danger that had emerged from the left.* [*For a sense of what it was like, I recommend the film Die Bader Meinhof Komplex, which is currently in selected theaters; though sympathetic to the left, it captures a moment in Europe with remarkable power.] It was almost painful to watch my aging liberal visitors, wonderful individuals, as they tried to grasp what had become plain to a newspaperman following the story — that the world had changed since they had formed their political paradigm.
I mention this not to suggest that Jews failed to rise to the struggle against Soviet Communism. They did rise to it. Or to suggest that there was no longer any threat from the nativist right. There certainly was. But rather to suggest that the awakening of Jewish opinion has not been easy. Nor, as Podhoretz explains in the second half of his book, has it had much impact in terms of American politics, even today, when Jews swung behind President Obama in far greater percentages than other groups. Indeed, they have been voting for Democrats in outsized numbers even after other immigrant groups have begun to vote in a way that reflects their own improving economic interests. To explain this Podhoretz goes all the way back to the start of the Christian era. He pulls no punches with regard to Christian anti-Semitism, which has appeared at various stages of history, and the impact the phenomenon has had on the Jewish communal outlook. It will never be said of Podhoretz that he flinched from looking his Christian friends in the eye and reprising these crimes and tragedies.
But neither will it be said that Podhoretz, who himself had once been a man of the left, failed to speak honestly of the hostility that was directed at Jews from the left. This hostility has, it turns out, a long history, which is one of the mysteries Podhoretz plumbs. The question arises, he writes, “of why the Jews who joined the radical camp were not put off by the egregious anti-Semitism of Marx or that of several other major figures of the socialist movement, including Charles Fourier (to whom the Jews were the ‘the leprosy and the run of the body politic’) and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (to whom the Jews were ‘the race which poisons everything [and] the enemy of the human race’).”
Marx, who was baptized and had a flirtation with Christianity before moving to materialism, was quite coarse in his derision of Jews. “What is the secular basis of Judaism? Practical need, self-interest,” Podhoretz quotes him as saying. “What is the worldly religion of the Jew? Huckstering. What is his worldly God? Money.”
I read Podhoretz’s account as I was working on a biography of the late editor of the Jewish Daily Forward, Abraham Cahan, who had his own awaking to anti-Semitism on the left when, in 1891, he traveled to Brussels from New York as a delegate of the United Hebrew Trades to the Second Congress of the Socialist International. When he tried to put the question of the plight of the Jews on the agenda, he met with angry hostility from the noble comrades. It was a rude awakening that began Cahan’s own turn toward what became, years later, a leading role in the anti-Communist camp. Yet he never reached what we would call, today, a conservative shore.
Podhoretz’s strongest points are made in respect of those who seek to explain the liberalism of Jews as a function of Judaism itself, which lays down clear requirements regarding charity and help for the less fortunate. But if there is a political component to this, Podhoretz points out a problem for the liberal argument — the fact that the degree to which Jews are conservative runs in direct proportion to the degree that they are Orthodox. Or, to put it another way, the so-called ultra-Orthodox communities, which are faithful to fundamental laws of Judaism, tend to be the more conservative politically and socially of the Jewish communities as a whole and more likely to vote Republican than other Jews. What Podhoretz suggests at the end of the book is that liberalism itself has become the religion of modern liberal Jews. He calls it the “Torah of liberalism,” which is the title of the penultimate chapter in his book.
In the chapter, Podhoretz quotes a remark attributed to G. K. Chesterton: “When men stop believing in God they don’t believe in nothing; they believe in anything.” This, writes Podhoretz, “was not true of the Jewish immigrants who came to American from Eastern Europe. Almost all the young intellectuals and political leaders among them had stopped believing in the God of Judaism, but it was not ‘anything’ they now believed in — it was Marxism.” At one point he quotes a passage from I. J. Singer’s novel The Brothers Ashkenazi about a rabbi’s son who becomes a disciple of “the prophet Marx” and who, as Singer puts it, “never let his copy of Das Kapital out of his sight and carried it everywhere, as his father had carried his prayer shawl and phylacteries.” Podhoretz writes of a “new religion in which Marx’s Capital became (in the words of Paul Johnson) ‘a new kind of Torah.’”
It is a conclusion calculated to generate outrage, as it has certainly done in the weeks since the book has been published. For few things are more shameful for a Jewish person than abandoning his religion. It would be hard to read Podhoretz as suggesting that any particular liberal policy prescription is the equivalent of religious apostasy. But it would not be hard to read Podhoretz as suggesting, in a typically courageous way, that logic alone fails to explain the degree to which Jews are in thrall to a liberalism that abandoned their interests long ago. My own view is that neither Jews nor Christians need worry about the fact that conservatives are, among Jews, a small minority. It is said that the great court of sages known as the Sanhedrin would not hand down a capital sentence if the verdict were unanimous, for the fear that unanimity itself could be a sign that a real adversarial process had not taken place.
About the Author
Seth Lipsky, founding editor of the New York Sun, is the author of The Citizen’s Constitution: An Annotated Guide (Basic Books).
Letter to the Editor View all comments (73) | Leave a comment
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JP| 11.2.09 @ 8:53AM
Why are Jews liberals:
1)A 2000 year traditions that focuses on scholarship, languages, and theology.
2)A 4000 year oral tradition that stresses continuity, family, Jewish Exceptionalism
3)The Diaspora, and the prohibitions against Jews from property ownership. This forced many Jewish families to stress formal education. Especially law, medicine, finance, and languages.
4)Abject poverty. Despite many streyotypes to the contrary, Jews (esp in Eastern Europe) suffered greatly in both the urban ghettos and the shettls. When these people emigrated to the US they felt a natural solidarity to other minorities, the working class, and the urban underclass.
5)Like other religious groups, the Jews overtime became more secular during the late 19th and 20th centuries. However, they retained thier ethnic solidarity, as well as thier focus on education.
Alan Brooks| 11.2.09 @ 2:14PM
It's extremely important to control anger; but the more I read Toddard's comments on Israel, the more I despise him. And the more Toddard claims he only disparages (hates?) Israel, and not Jews, the more I disbelieve him.
He is hiding his animus towards Israel behind analytical objectivity, and I wish to cease hiding my animus towards SL Toddard.
I detest SL Toddard-- no offense though. We don't mean to personalize our biases, do we?
Alan Brooks| 11.2.09 @ 2:19PM
One might say Toddard's dislike (hatred?) of Israel might osmotically transfer into a dislike of Jews. But we don't want to be judgmental.
S.L. Toddard| 11.2.09 @ 3:38PM
*yawn*
Playing the bigotry card. I suppose that means the Republicans have learned *something* in the half-century during which they've forgot their people, place, principles, economics, history and priorities. Unfortunately, that something was learned from Al Sharpton.
There is nothing quite so pathetic as watching victimologists and group-grievancy peddlars like Al Sharpton, Abe Foxman, Jesse Jackson and the rest lamely hawking their tired, shoddy wares. Now the Fox News Right has joined in the act. America: The Greatest Country the World Has Ever Known, populated almost entirely by emasculated whiners, PC Puritans and uber-sensitive androgynes like Mr. Brooks here.
Mr. Brooks - perhaps you should report me to your ideological brothers-in-arms at the Southern Poverty Law Center. I hear they do a wonderful job there turning American males into gooey, tolerance-mongering One Worlders like yourself. Can't we all just get along?
Alan Brooks| 11.2.09 @ 4:12PM
Todd,
The Philistinians are so incompetent, that if you tranferred all of Israel to them, they would run it into the ground, possibly even ecologically.
Native Americans are as incompetent as Philistinians; Indians can't even run their own casinos and other properties & enterprises-- someone else does it for them.
Wish your bluff could be called, Todd; wish we could move Israel to Germany (sending Germans to Madagascar) and let the Philistinians turn Philistine into another third world cesspool.
Alan Brooks| 11.2.09 @ 4:35PM
BTW,
As you turned the discussion concerning the saint in Hawaii weeks ago into a diatribe on American imperialism ("ah yes, Hawaii, the first outpost of the American Empire") today you (remember, YOU started it) turned this blog on Mr. Podhoretz into an attack on Israel.
William Woodford| 11.2.09 @ 9:00AM
Conspicuously absent from this review is the term “social justice,” i.e., socialism, i.e., an equal division of wealth scheme correctly called “wicked” by Madison in Federalist 10. Mr. Lipsky appears to be slandering belief in basic American political principles as “nativist.” Immigrants can be defined as people who go to live in a new country with the expectation of adapting to its culture. People who go to a new country with the expectation of imposing their values on the natives are invaders. At bottom, “social justice” is the new golden calf for which all too many contemporary American Jews are willing to sacrifice themselves.
Roy| 11.2.09 @ 10:07AM
At least for younger Jews(under 40 or so) the Left still offers the bargain it offers a lot of other minorities. Namely, gullible college girls will ooh and aah at everything you say, criticism of you will be labelled "prejudice", and you can be pandered to as respresenting "the Jewish perspective" and allow people to pat themselves on the back over their "diversity".
The price is of course that you must blame all your troubles on "the extreme right", "the Christian right", "white male Christians", etc, and enthusiastically reject any parts of your tradition that conflict with unstinting self-indulgence with respect to sex and drugs. If you can produce a few limp poems about the horrible emotional suffering undergone by sensitive Jews due to their community's narrow-minded rejection of man-horse love, you get a twofer, you're not only a member of an exotic minority but also a sensitive outcast.
Of course, these days you also have to reject the actual Jewish state, but I mean, come on, what's a little genocide compared to a stable of subservient female "activists"?
S.L. Toddard| 11.2.09 @ 10:18AM
As I've noted before, Norman Podhoretz not only adheres to the malignant, insidious belief that Jews harbor "dual loyalty", but that this dual loyalty is not sufficiently tilted toward the foreign state of Israel. Witness him here bemoaning the fact that not enough Jews vote according to which candidate would be best for a foreign state rather than for America:
"Since 1928, the average Jewish vote for the Democrat in presidential elections has been an amazing 75% -- far higher than that of any other ethno-religious group.
Yet there were reasons to think that it would be different in 2008. The main one was Israel. Despite some slippage in concern for Israel among American Jews, most of them were still telling pollsters that their votes would be strongly influenced by the positions of the two candidates on the Jewish state. This being the case, Mr. McCain's long history of sympathy with Israel should have given him a distinct advantage over Mr. Obama, whose own history consisted of associating with outright enemies of the Jewish state like the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and the historian Rashid Khalidi. . . .
In 2008, we were faced with a candidate who ran to an unprecedented degree on the premise that the American system was seriously flawed and in desperate need of radical change—not to mention a record powerfully indicating that he would pursue policies dangerous to the security of Israel. Because of all this, I hoped that my fellow Jews would finally break free of the liberalism to which they have remained in thrall long past the point where it has served either their interests or their ideals."
http://online.wsj.com/article/.....01498.html
To continue with the nefarious allegations of “dual loyalty”, David Gelernter in the Weekly Standard argued vociferously that American Jews should base their vote on which candidate is best for a foreign state instead of America, and that refusing to do that is “a lesson in self-destructive nihilism” – as though the loyalty of Americans of Jewish descent should be no different than those of Israeli citizens visiting Disneyland:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/.....v.asp?pg=1
S.L. Toddard| 11.2.09 @ 10:21AM
At the Jerusalem Post, Jennifer Rubin (of Commentary, I believe) expresses extreme frustration that some Jews might not base their vote on who is “the most resolute candidate in defending Israel”, and choose instead to vote for the candidate whom they believe will be best for America:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/S.....e/ShowFull
And lastly, Joe Lieberman exhaustively sought to exploit the “dual loyalty” he attributed to Jews when he argued to Jews in Florida that they should vote for McCain because of his “pro-Israel voting record”:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/946058.html
American Jews who are as loyal to their country as any other red-blooded American should ban together and condemn these corrupt, disloyal "Americans" and their belief that Jews in general should mirror their disloyalty, and so vote for candidates based on whether they are best for an alien state rather than whether they are best for America.
Alan Brooks| 11.2.09 @ 2:05PM
the one thing I like about the Red Army is that they killed people like SL Toddard in 1945.
Thus far I harbor an intense dislike of you, Toddard. Keep it up.
Can I say that without huting your precious little feelings? We like to remain civil.
S.L. Toddard| 11.2.09 @ 3:22PM
I doubt very much you could say anything that would "hut [sic]" my "precious little feelings". From what I've read, you're not exactly capable of the sort of substantive criticism that could have any real impact. To be frank, I'm not convinced you're capable of grasping the subjects at hand here, which is why you usually respond by regurgitating some standard GOP boilerplate, or reproducing some trite, uber-conventional sentiment (Like your courageous post below, about how very much you hate Nazis. What a brave stance.).
Anyway, give it a try. I fear that, as has been the case up to this point, anything you have to write will be more likely to elicit a long, drawn-out yawn rather than outrage or even an indignant "hmph!", but I could be wrong.
Alan Brooks| 11.2.09 @ 4:25PM
"Like your courageous post below, about how very much you hate Nazis. What a brave stance.)"
oh you're brave too, Todd; you are in a Philistinian refugee (far better than many prisons in Arab nations) camp right now, blogging away on your break from aiding refugees. I'm androgynous? well, you're the one who is gay, so it takes one to know one.
And where did the reference to Southern Poverty Law Center come from? it is a total nonsequitor.
S.L. Toddard| 11.2.09 @ 10:45AM
America, stop sucking up to Israel
By Gideon Levy
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1124928.html?
Barack Obama has been busy - offering the Jewish People blessings for Rosh Hashanah, and recording a flattering video for the President's Conference in Jerusalem and another for Yitzhak Rabin's memorial rally. Only Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah surpasses him in terms of sheer output of recorded remarks.
In all the videos, Obama heaps sticky-sweet praise on Israel, even though he has spent nearly a year fruitlessly lobbying for Israel to be so kind as to do something, anything - even just a temporary freeze on settlement building - to advance the peace process.
The president's Mideast envoy, George Mitchell, has also been busy, shuttling between a funeral (for IDF soldier Asaf Ramon, the son of Israel's first astronaut Ilan Ramon) and a memorial (for Rabin, though it was postponed until next week due to rain), in order to find favor with Israelis. Polls have shown that Obama is increasingly unpopular here, with an approval rating of only 6 to 10 percent.
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He decided to address Israelis by video, but a persuasive speech won't persuade anyone to end the occupation. He simply should have told the Israeli people the truth. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who arrived here last night, will certainly express similar sentiments: "commitment to Israel's security," "strategic alliance," "the need for peace," and so on .
Before no other country on the planet does the United States kneel and plead like this. In other trouble spots, America takes a different tone. It bombs in Afghanistan, invades Iraq and threatens sanctions against Iran and North Korea. Did anyone in Washington consider begging Saddam Hussein to withdraw from occupied territory in Kuwait?
But Israel the occupier, the stubborn contrarian that continues to mock America and the world by building settlements and abusing the Palestinians, receives different treatment. Another massage to the national ego in one video, more embarrassing praise in another.
Now is the time to say to the United States: Enough flattery. If you don't change the tone, nothing will change. As long as Israel feels the United States is in its pocket, and that America's automatic veto will save it from condemnations and sanctions, that it will receive massive aid unconditionally, and that it can continue waging punitive, lethal campaigns without a word from Washington, killing, destroying and imprisoning without the world's policeman making a sound, it will continue in its ways.
Illegal acts like the occupation and settlement expansion, and offensives that may have involved war crimes, as in Gaza, deserve a different approach. If America and the world had issued condemnations after Operation Summer Rains in 2006 - which left 400 Palestinians dead and severe infrastructure damage in the first major operation in Gaza since the disengagement - then Operation Cast Lead never would have been launched.
It is true that unlike all the world's other troublemakers, Israel is viewed as a Western democracy, but Israel of 2009 is a country whose language is force. Anwar Sadat may have been the last leader to win our hearts with optimistic, hope-igniting speeches. If he were to visit Israel today, he would be jeered off the stage. The Syrian president pleads for peace and Israel callously dismisses him, the United States begs for a settlement free ze and Israel turns up its nose. This is what happens when there are no consequences for Israel's inaction.
When Clinton returns to Washington, she should advocate a sharp policy change toward Israel. Israeli hearts can no longer be won with hope, promises of a better future or sweet talk, for this is no longer Israel's language. For something to change, Israel must understand that perpetuating the status quo will exact a painful price.
Israel of 2009 is a spoiled country, arrogant and condescending, convinced that it deserves everything and that it has the power to make a fool of America and the world. The United States has engendered this situation, which endangers the entire Mideast and Israel itself. That is why there needs to be a turning point in the coming year - Washington needs to finally say no to Israel and the occupation. An unambiguous, presidential no.
Alan Brooks| 11.2.09 @ 1:53PM
Stop Sucking Up To S.L. Toddard.
Alan Brooks| 11.2.09 @ 1:58PM
hey, Todd,
who did the Soviets support with billions of rubles? Feudalistic Arab misogynists and their one step forward, one step backward Nasserite fizzle.
"Arab solidarity"?-- without Israel there would be little. Too bad we can't move Israel to Bavaria and let Arabs have at each other more. Oh, justice, where are you?
Alan Brooks| 11.2.09 @ 6:00PM
Todd,
Aren't you capable of comprehending that I wouldn't mind Israel being moved out of the region so Arabs don't have The Other to kick around and can concentrate more on killing each other off?
For a purpose: to reduce the population in West Asia.
Alan Brooks| 11.2.09 @ 9:48PM
Can't emphasize it enough: without The Other -- the scapegoat Israel -- violent Arabs (and I don't say most Arabs are violent, but a sizable fraction are) would go at each other, as was adequately demonstrated in the 1980- 1988 Iraq-Iran War.
Alan Brooks| 11.2.09 @ 9:54PM
I feel about this very strongly, which is why I keep posting. I don't like it that Israel is being used as the scapegoat for Arab problems.
If Israel is so insignificant to its enemies in the region that it deserves nothing more than to be pushed into the sea, then why can't a territory of similar size, constructed from Arab territory-- seeing as how Israel is considered such an insignificant little bugbear-- be given by the Arabs to Palestinians?
S.L. Toddard| 11.3.09 @ 7:13AM
"I don't like it that Israel is being used as the scapegoat for Arab problems"
Why not? Who cares?
Wee Willie| 11.2.09 @ 11:32AM
I am a traditional Papist. My late best friend was an ethnically Finnish Lutheran Pastor, Missouri Synod. We respected each other but we were not above occasionally needling each other about our beliefs.
One day I noted that Gus Hall, the head of the American Communist, party was a ethnic Finn. His comment was that in Wisconsin the seriously believers remained Lutheran. Those with no faith became Communist. So this is not just a Jewish phenomena.
Otis, my man| 11.2.09 @ 11:53AM
Yes, you, Seth Lipsky and Norman Podhoretz are on to something here. Liberalism is a "faith system" for secular people.
Most know that Marx was born into a Jewish family that had converted to Christianity. He eventually renounced both religions. Trotsky was a Jew, as was Felix Dzerzhinsky. Many leading Communists of the early 2oth century were Jews. We often forget that Israel is a socialist country and that its kibbutzes are communes.
I find it interesting that many religiously observant Jews tend to be conservative, just as many religiously observant Christians tend to be conservative as well.
Ken (Old Texican)| 11.2.09 @ 11:40AM
We have immigrants here from all over the world. Those from democratic countries tend to wish their former nations well, even as they embrace The United States of America.
Aussies tend to wish Australia well.
Brits tend to wish Briton well.
etc.
Some people just hate Jewish people. They often wrap their hatred in all kinds of twisted lies...even self hatred.... if they are Jews themselves.
The US allowed Israel to be born after WWII.
I just think the world of Mr. Podhoretz.
To Israel: "Fare thee always well!"
I shall stand for you, and bless you.
Any present day knowledgeable Christian understands we are adopted Jews, due to Jesus Christ.
S.L. Toddard| 11.2.09 @ 3:24PM
"We have immigrants here from all over the world. Those from democratic countries tend to wish their former nations well, even as they embrace The United States of America."
Um... American Jews are for the most part immigrants from countries in Europe, not from Israel.
JP| 11.2.09 @ 3:51PM
SL,
You remind me of that wealthy Greek writer who calls himself Taki. The only thing you haven't done is call Podheretz fat.
Alan Brooks| 11.2.09 @ 5:48PM
Agreed.
I play silly word games with Todd to try to get at him him the way he is digging into us to pick our brains.
Why else would he blog here, and not at some site more suited to his interests and his ego?
That's all my wasted words here are about-- to try to penetrate into Todd's armor and have at his pwecious wittle bitty ego.
victor| 11.6.09 @ 9:14AM
He does blog elsewhere as you can find Tod-droppings if you look hard enough. That is, if you are so inclined.
Slo Todd has a Superiority Complex and is here to lord it over his supposed inferiors.
If Todd were a baseball team he would never leave the basement. The Nats would be World Series winners compared to Toddy.
Come to think of it I am reminded of an old Twilight Zone episode where a hoity-toity critic buys an old player piano where everyone spills their guts and reveals their innermost secrets. This critic reveals himself to be a little boy who has no talent, but is envious of those who are.
He reminds of Frank Rich who destroyed people on Broadway and continues to do the same to those he hates to this day.
victor| 11.6.09 @ 12:52AM
Ken, if Toddard were a Christian, then perhaps he might understand.
Romans 2:29
"But he is a Jew which is one inwardly __ and circumcision is that of the heart in the spirit and not in the letter whose praise is not of men but of God."
Alan Brooks| 11.2.09 @ 1:48PM
First class piece.
Residual jewish Communist (and, as you know, progressivism is derived from Marxism) sympathy is based on the constancy of psychological processes, in this case 200 years of such from Rousseau to 1970s Marxist icons. And it was also an attempt to pour new wine into old wineskins in validating past core beliefs:
one doesn't want to abandon past ideology altogether, so rather than just jettison the entire outmoded ideology and start anew, an attempt is made to syncretize Marxism/Communism with something else (also sad that some Catholics wasted their time with Liberation Theology).
Hopefully Jewish interest in Marxism will wither away completely and be swept into the dustbin of history.
artin j smith| 11.2.09 @ 2:15PM
My mother's parents came fom what is now called Poland,but was under the Russian empire. They were socialists and belonged to an organization that is well known among those cirlces. I suspect this was very common among eastern-european jews.. Yet I believe many of these people did support the State of Israel. However there is yet another element that I believe is a factor and that is fear of anti-semitism. The divided loyalty issue if you will and fear also I think with specific reference to Obama of Black anti-semitism if you voted against him. In this particular election there is a sense of have of denial that Obama and his administration is really against Jewish interests and and need for self-preservation whatever the cost. This is my personal theory.
Alan Brooks| 11.2.09 @ 2:27PM
Not all socialism is pernicious. Fabian socialism is harmless. Fabians merely have meetings and paass around the offering basket.
Alan Brooks| 11.2.09 @ 2:33PM
I shouldn't hide, either.
I have an intense, almost overwhelming urge to perform surgery on National Socialists, as the Red Army did in 1945. Cutting up Nazis piece by screaming piece appeals to my very worst instincts.
Not everyone is a peacenik.
S.L. Toddard| 11.2.09 @ 3:39PM
What a hero!
Alan Brooks| 11.2.09 @ 4:43PM
jusust give me your home address and I WILL be a hero.
I'll come over to your place, turn you into a woman, and then do to you what you do to this blog (okay, so I AM androgynous. Again, it takes one to know one).
Willing to give it a try, big brave boy?
S.L. Toddard| 11.2.09 @ 5:02PM
Man. Are you okay? You've posted before about how you believe sex between a man and a woman to be a repugnant thing, not to be enjoyed even while procreating and so forth. Now you're all worked up, imagining turning me "into a woman" and calling me "big boy."
It's disturbing.
Alan Brooks| 11.2.09 @ 5:33PM
WHAT? if I'm insane, then you are even more insane than I am-- though many reading our exchanges will understand that we deserve each other... God put us at this blog together to punish us for our sins.
Please, Todd, I NEVER said I disapproved of homosexuality; look, try to get it straight, I disapprove of ALL sexuality save for procreation. Now, I do wish your parents hadn't reproduced, but it wasn't my fault--
it was the Devil's fault. So, homosexuality has its advantages: if your father had been gay, he wouldn't have married your mother (assuming you are legitimate) and you wouldn't have been born.
And then we would be discussing Norman Podhoretz here, and not Israel, or SL Toddard's inflated opinion of himself.
William R| 11.3.09 @ 10:25AM
You're very unstable!!! Who runs this blog??
Alan Brooks| 11.2.09 @ 4:56PM
see, you can see right through me, Todd; but it's not what we know, it's what we don't know-- like, the car you don't see is the one that hits you.
You clearly see that I am, in fact, a little queer.
But you are the Big Fag of AS blogs, Todd.
Alan Brooks| 11.2.09 @ 4:59PM
... just admit it to yourself, Todd; if to no one else.
For once, be a MAN about it.
Ken (Old Texican)| 11.2.09 @ 7:55PM
Alan
Give ole' punchbowl shooter a break.
This is his "work from home" job. Heh!
Mr. Soros pays him pretty well.
Alan Brooks| 11.2.09 @ 9:07PM
I was thinking the same thing, Ken!
But wouldn't Soros' people (someone as high up as Soros gets executives to do hiring) hire someone who isn't an a-hole such as Toddard?
Alan Brooks| 11.2.09 @ 9:17PM
It's really hard to say with Toddard.
First of all, that's obviously a made-for-TV name. "Toddard"; like 'Matlock', or something.
Could be he's an extremely educated black, hence the dislike of Israel-- and we (or at least I) can safely assume the associated dislike of Jews.
He's conservative, though, so he might be hispanic, which is conceivably why though he has criticized Bush and Obama for foreign policy, he has not-- not much anyway-- criticized border policies.
Maybe Toddard's real name is Gonzalez.
Or it could be he is of German extraction, which would explain much.
Alan Brooks| 11.2.09 @ 9:34PM
... besides, Soros is very liberal, but he isn't anti-Israel, is he?
Nick| 11.2.09 @ 8:02PM
*If you support *Israel*, you are a Neo-con. If you don't think the targeting and killing of Jewish civilians by *radical* Moslems is O.K., you are a Neo-con. If you think randomly launching lethal rockets into Jewish *neighborhoods* is evil, you are a Neo-con. If you don't agree that *Hamas* and *Hezzbollah* are *freedom fighters*, not *terrorists*, you are a Neo-con. If you *think* an *Israeli* *Apache* *taking out* a *Hamas leader* with a *Hellfire missle* is *self-defense*, you are a Neo-con.*
-S.L. Toddard
The Most *Conservative* Person in the World
and Grand Arbiter of Who Is and Is Not *Conservative*
(or should that be *Grand Mufti*?)
William R| 11.3.09 @ 10:24AM
No you're a NeoCon if you think Israel's national interests are the same as the United States. You're a Neocon if you think the United States should go on some crusade in the Middle East to bring Democracy to the Arab world.
Nick| 11.2.09 @ 8:10PM
For all the useful idiots out there who reflexively attack Israel (like the good little reactionaries you are), let me educate you on why you hate Israel so much. You guys obviously don't know why, based on your stale, rehashed diatribes.
When Israel chose to be pro-West in the early '50s, the evil Soviets (the "bad guys") backed the Arab nations against the Jews. The Soviets would go on to train the PLO to be terrorists. In fact, most all Moslem terrorism can be traced back to KGB or Warsaw Pact training.
Since the Soviet Union was now anti-Israeli and pro "Palestinian", the Ring Laudner Juniors and Alger Hiss' of their day had to convince their useful idiots to be the same.
And you reactionary lefties have been anti-Israel ever since. That is, ever since Moscow decided that you would be.
One could say that you guys are pathologically anti-Israel. You will spread any lie that supports evil Hamas and Hezzbollah, and condemns peaceful Israel.
But hey, it helps you to better serve your master, Lucifer, the prince of lies.
Alan Brooks| 11.2.09 @ 9:29PM
BTW, the comment that started with the paragraph below was just an attempt to mess with Toddard's mind. I was thinking perhaps he is a gay black guy.
OR maybe he's a bisexual hispanic; I like to psyche people like him out.
Actually, he's probably white, going by his education, and he lives possibly in California, say in silicon valley, or in DC.
But he's educated. He is a hard one to figure.
"WHAT? if I'm insane, then you are even more insane than I am-- though many reading our exchanges will understand that we deserve each other... God put us at this blog together to punish us for our sins."
Alan Brooks| 11.2.09 @ 11:11PM
By Jove, it all becomes clear now!
Toddard is a coprophile! That is why his suit is brown, his car is brown, his house is painted brown. Brown is Toddard's favorite color, it reminds him of his favorite "food"!
How could I have been so blind? It was staring me in the face all this time-- no pun intended..
Alan Brooks| 11.3.09 @ 5:03PM
All I want to know is: what is Toddard's real name, and then my epithets will cease.
Is Toddard's real name Leroy Grover Washington?
Does he teach at a small college in CA?
Don't forget, if you scroll back you'll see Todd started in with Israel in this blog on Mr. Podhoretz.
Nick| 11.3.09 @ 7:04PM
Didn't someone at the beginning of the year say Toddard was Justin Raimondo?
If I remember correctly, he ran away for a few months after that.
From another thread, you were into the Amboy Dukes?
For someone of your maturity, how cool is that?
Alan Brooks| 11.3.09 @ 9:45PM
nah, just this song:
'Journey To the Center Of The Mind', a one quality-song-wonder by them. But Ted Nugent is conservative, so we can feel good about it, if we want to, that is.
And if a monkey bangs on a guitar for years it might come up with something worth listening to. All pop music is fairly simple-- as you undoubtedly know.
You are an experienced blogger, you don't need me to tell you anything.
ARealist| 11.3.09 @ 10:07AM
Why does anyone join a radical cause?
Yes, liberalism, progressivism, communism, socialism, national-socialism are all radical causes in that the coercive power of government is used force the citizens to turn over a large percentage of their earnings or assets to be used in the manner prescribed by a bunch of self anointed, narcissistic, arrogant, power hungry - mostly millionaire elitists.
Eric Hoffer, the longshoreman/migrant worker-philospher answered that question long ago in his book "The True Believer."
Everybody needs to read this.
Michael W. Perry | 11.3.09 @ 1:50PM
Keep in mind that even today Jewish culture is as heavily influenced by mid-19th century German thinking as Catholicism here was once heavily Irish. A century and a half ago, Germany Jewry did have good reason to tilt toward the centralizing, secular liberalism in their country. The monarchist establishment of that day was conservative (in the European sense) and had the support of well-educated Protestants, who were quite happy to see the better jobs reserved exclusively for them. Liberalism was good for German Jews. It offered them the opportunity of ending that discrimination. Despairing of that ever happening in Germany, they came to America, where they continue to this day to try to impose a German answer on America politics.
As a result, all too many secular American Jews view contemporary politics through those now yellowed and scratched lenses, with the Republican party and its religious supporters seen in the same role as the Kaiser and the Lutherans occupied long ago.
Yes, it's strange almost beyond belief. The Establishment, whether in the universities or the press, is now almost monolithically liberal and secular. But that merely permits liberal Jews to 'have their cake and eat it too.' They can get a kick out of pretending to be outsiders while being well inside the Establishment. Only recently has that Establishment began to take on a nasty anti-Semitic and anti-Israel slant. Nothing in their mid-19th century worldview prepares them for that, hence their current, foolish voting patterns.
In contrast, Orthodox Jews were Eastern European and thus not culturally linked to 19th century Germany. Success for them meant being very entrepreneurial. It meant finding small openings the the prevailing structure of Eastern Europe in which they could insert themselves and get ahead. I suspect that, with no political options available that appealed to their religious worldview, they remained apolitical, unlike the secular Jews who turned Marxist.
Ironically, being apolitical in Europe has meant that religious, Eastern European Jewry has adapted better to American politics than their liberal, cultural Germanic neighbors. You can see that in the contrasting responses to the persecution of Jews in Germany in the 1930s and the genocide of the 1940s.
Culturally Germanic Jewry looked to American liberalism and FDR and it failed them. America's doors remained shut to persecuted Jews and FDR used his considerable political skills to keep liberal Jews passive. Germanic/liberal Jews trusted liberalism even when it failed them and they continue to do so. Today's failure merely echoes that earlier and far more serious failure.
In contrast, the religious Jews from Eastern Europe learned the American form of political activism and used it effectively in the 1930s and 1940s, although their limited numbers restricted their effectiveness.
What does that mean? It means that many religiously Orthodox Jews have actually become more American and more adaptable in their politics than their secular, liberal counterparts, who remained mired in an antique worldview that's never applied to America.
Alan Brooks| 11.4.09 @ 12:35AM
"Didn't someone at the beginning of the year say Toddard was Justin Raimondo?"
If true that might explain a bit. Raimondo/Toddard could possibly be an hispanic libertopian, like Angelo Codevilla. Unless Raimondo is an Italian surname-- but it doesn't sound like it is.
Toddard might not like Israel because he associates Israel with former American imperialism in Latin America; since America has little power anymore in Latin America, but much say in Israeli politics, could it be Toddard is transfering his dislike of 20th century imperialism in Latin America to his dislike of Israel?
And then there is the jealousy factor. More Israelis are well off than Latins.
Let's start a discussion on this little Latin weasel.
victor| 11.6.09 @ 1:39AM
Raimondo is indeed Italian and Justin nee Dennis is a little weasel. Wait, that is offensive to weasels.
Weasels are actually useful.
Course this would explain a lot of things.
Alan Brooks| 11.4.09 @ 12:43AM
... "Toddard" is such a giveaway-- like if Colombo changed his name to Rockford or Magnum.
Gee, Toddard, ashamed of the family name?
Alan Brooks| 11.6.09 @ 12:23AM
So where are you?
taking a siesta?
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Mark| 10.12.10 @ 9:41PM
"Why are Jews liberals?"
Jews are only "liberal" when it is "good for Jews." When it's not, they are visciously and hypocritically illiberal.
They are not "liberal" in Israel as is evidenced by its Nazi-like mistreatment of the indigenous Palestinians; not "liberal" in their Jewish-only immigration policy, etc.
They are not "liberal" when it comes to those who excercise TRUE free speech.
They are not "liberal" towards revisionist historians who question the 'official' narrative and want to set the story straight about an event known as the "Holocaust."
They are not "liberal" when it comes to massive non-white immigration into America--both legal and illegal--and to those concerned Americans who oppose it, because such policy is, of course, very "good for Jews."
Need I go on?
Since I will be called the usual 'name' for stating what I know to be the TRUTH, I'll just say this in response:
Calling a person names, shouting him down, etc. doesn't change the FACTS and TRUTH one iota.
Mark