August 3, 2017

"The Ugly History of Stephen Miller’s ‘Cosmopolitan’ Epithet/Surprise, surprise—the insult has its roots in Soviet anti-Semitism."

Writes Jeff Greenfield. This caught my eye because I'd just been reading Miller's Wikipedia page and noticed that he is Jewish.

Here's Greenfield:
So what is a “cosmopolitan”? It’s a cousin to “elitist,” but with a more sinister undertone. It’s a way of branding people or movements that are unmoored to the traditions and beliefs of a nation, and identify more with like-minded people regardless of their nationality....

One reason why “cosmopolitan” is an unnerving term is that it was the key to an attempt by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin to purge the culture of dissident voices. In a 1946 speech, he deplored works in which “the positive Soviet hero is derided and inferior before all things foreign and cosmopolitanism that we all fought against from the time of Lenin, characteristic of the political leftovers, is many times applauded.” It was part of a yearslong campaigned [sic] aimed at writers, theater critics, scientists and others who were connected with “bourgeois Western influences.” Not so incidentally, many of these “cosmopolitans” were Jewish, and official Soviet propaganda for a time devoted significant energy into “unmasking” the Jewish identities of writers who published under pseudonyms....
ADDED: I was curious about what Stalin actually said, speaking, of course, not in English, but Russian. I found this Wikipedia article, "Rootless Cosmopolitan":
Rootless cosmopolitan (Russian: безродный космополит, bezrodnyi kosmopolit) was a pejorative label used during the anti-Semitic campaign in the Soviet Union after World War II. Cosmopolitans were intellectuals who were accused of expressing pro-Western feelings and lack of patriotism. The term "rootless cosmopolitan" referred to Jewish intellectuals. It was popularized during the campaign in a Pravda article condemning a group of theatrical critics....

223 comments:

1 – 200 of 223   Newer›   Newest»
Chest Rockwell said...

The outrage card has been played out.

Also, Jeff Greenfield is douche.

Qwinn said...

Translated: "One of 'them' kicked one of 'our' guy's ass in front of witnesses! Quick, call him a racist!"

JohnAnnArbor said...

Someone in another thread said it best: "provincial" is more accurate. These reporters are very limited in perspective and basic knowledge, often shockingly so.

But taking a word your adversary uses, then trying to find the most sinister past user/past use of the word, then saying that the current context is "just like that" is asinine.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

Wow, just wow.

So because I love my country, I'm bad somehow?

Ken B said...

Helen Gurley Brown, Sex and the Single Commie Jew-Baiter

chuck said...

Ha, ha. I can play that game too. From Wikipedia

"The origin of the cosmopolitan is disputed. It is widely believed that the drink was created independently by different bartenders since the 1970s.[3] Generally, people have recognized that John Caine brought the drink to San Francisco around 1987 from Ohio.[4][5] The same year in Manhattan, the internationally recognized version of the cocktail was created by Toby Cecchini, based on a poorly described version of Cheryl Cook's creation.[6] According to Sally Ann Berk and Bob Sennett, the cosmopolitan appears in literature as early as 1993 and derives from New York City."

New York City? Gentlemen, hats off, a dog whistle.

bgates said...

official Soviet propaganda for a time devoted significant energy into “unmasking” the Jewish identities of writers who published under pseudonyms

Related: How CNN found the Reddit user behind the Trump wrestling GIF.

buwaya said...

Cosmopolitan was a word with positive connotations long before whatever it is the Soviets did with it.

There are any number of Cosmopolitan Hotels all over the world.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/11/realestate/11scapes.html

In the 19th-early 20th century to be described as cosmopolitan was praise, as being sophisticated and attractive to the international elite. These were the days of a trans-national European haut-bourgeoisie and aristocracy.

mockturtle said...

JohnAnnArbor asserts: These reporters are very limited in perspective and basic knowledge, often shockingly so.

'Cosmopolitan' is far too generous. Though they would rather be considered anything but provincial, that's what they are. Not just provincial, which in itself isn't bad, but appallingly ignorant.

tcrosse said...

BTW Jeff Greenfield used to edit the Daily Cardinal.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Everything is racist, sexist, homophobic, islamophobic, and anti-semitic.

As a tactic it's definitely not getting old, guys. Please keep using it.

buwaya said...

"Someone in another thread said it best: "provincial" is more accurate. These reporters are very limited in perspective and basic knowledge, often shockingly so."

This is true, but this is not the reason for the words they put out.
This is propaganda, and they are paid for it.

As they used to say about an earlier generation of mercenaries,

Pas d'argent, pas de Suisse

YoungHegelian said...

"Rootless Cosmopolitan" was used as anti-Jewish slur by the Nazis before it was used by Stalin in 1946. I don't know if the phrase was in general use among the Bolsheviks before Stalin's 1946 usage. My guess is that it was.

As an insult against the Jews, the "rootless" is more important than the "cosmopolitan". It re-enforced the idea that the Jews were a people without a nation, cultural outsiders in whatever nation they happened to find themselves.

The idea of rootlessness was also emphasized by the early Zionist like Theodor Hertzl, who used it as a justification for the idea that to be a true people in the modern world, the Jews needed a state & a nation of their own.

Mattman26 said...

So a Jewish guy, in a conversation with an American of Cuban ancestry, used a word that has at times been used in an anti-semitic context, and we're supposed to infer . . . what, exactly?

mockturtle said...

Didn't Jeff used to write for Pravda?

weh said...

I think there was a good discussion of the difference between cosmopolitan and sophisticate in one of Booth Tarkington's novels - without the sinister undertone. It was probably written before Stalin's speech, before the word developed Greenfield's connotation. Miller isn't the first to accuse the press of being divorced from citizenship.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Wait, are we all supposed to know Russian history relating to antisemitism now? Because I thought the current righteous movement was rejection of all things Russian and a studious ignorance of history especially.

Tyrone Slothrop said...

If the shoe fits...

Diamondhead said...

It just seemed like the wrong word to use in that situation, right after Acosta put his ignorance on display. It's not cosmopolitanism or a cosmopolitan bias that leads someone to think only people from the UK and Australia speak English. So now Acosta will say Miller was attacking his sophistication, not his stupidity.

rhhardin said...

It comes from the women's magazine, Cosmopolitan.

He plays on the feminization of the society's brain, probably.

Meade said...

"Eight years ago, Mr. Obama suggested a messenger from a dreamy, multicultural future: the son of a Kenyan father and a white American mother; a well-traveled cosmopolitan who had spent much of his childhood in Indonesia, seemingly at home wherever he planted his feet. His vision of international diplomacy stressed the virtues of candid dialogue, mutual respect and bridge building. His famous address to the Islamic world, given at Cairo University in 2009, was a judicious balance sheet of past wrongs and an eloquent plea to turn a new page in history.

'Real power,' the president told Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic last year, 'means you can get what you want without having to exert violence.' Exhibit A, in the Obama years, was the Iran deal, which not only peacefully prevented Tehran from developing a nuclear weapon, but also brought about a thaw in Iran’s relations with the West."

-from Obama Hoped to Transform
the World. It Transformed Him.
ADAM SHATZ in the NYT Sunday Review

Henry said...

“the positive Soviet hero is derided and inferior before all things foreign and cosmopolitanism that we all fought against from the time of Lenin, characteristic of the political leftovers, is many times applauded.”

Greenfield's quote is in quote marks, but he doesn't footnote it. He appears to be quoting from the Rootless Cosmopolitan Wikipedia article. Funnily enough, the Wikipedia article was updated today to link to Greenfield.

If Miller calls Acosta an "Imperialist Running Dog" let me know.


tcrosse said...

It all comes down to Cosmo Kramer.

Fabi said...

Time to get Miller in front of Congress to testify -- under oath! -- about his anti-Semitism.

mockturtle said...

Time to get Miller in front of Congress to testify -- under oath! -- about his anti-Semitism.

Yes! Him and all the other anti-Semitic Jews in Trump's administration. There must be dozens!

JohnAnnArbor said...

"Exhibit A, in the Obama years, was the Iran deal, which not only peacefully prevented Tehran from developing a nuclear weapon"

Um, the deal was months old then. We're trying to prevent them from EVER getting one. And that jury is still out, as Israel is quite aware.

buwaya said...

In fact much of the Stalinist anti-cosmopolitanism was directed at the distinctly foreign-influenced aristocratic culture of the Russian empire, which persisted in Soviet intellectual circles. Stalin came down squarely (well, almost so) on the "Russian" side of the long-running Russian culture wars.

Yes, Marxism itself was an import by the "cosmopolitan", European factions.

fascinating book -
"Natashas Dance", Orlando Figes

Rosalyn C. said...

Interesting video of Acosta accusing the Trump administration of anti-Hispanic racism to a fellow unchallenging CNN commentator. He repeats the same deliberate confusion between legal immigration policy and refugee policy, not to mention illegal immigration.

Blatant editorializing by someone who claims to be a "journalist." He is #Fake News and he doesn't even know it. It's apparent that Acosta is impervious to reason, fact or objectivity.

JPS said...

Geez, they're desperate.

Thanks, YoungHegelian, for beating me to it on which part is more important. If a commenter uses "rootless cosmopolitan" unironically, I am pretty sure which corner of the internet I am dealing with. If you just say cosmopolitan, then it's a specious word-association game.

In related news, I like today's game on the left of pointing out the white supremacists who agree with Miller on Lazarus' poem's being added afterward to the Statue of Liberty. We should all play this game. Hey, you know who else favored universal health care? Hitler!

*: I gather Pravda favored "as is well known" when they were about to make some accusatory claim, but I don't know firsthand.

Fabi said...

At Ace of Spades there's a story from some CNN dork who went to summer camp with Miller and says, while there, Stephen got mad and flipped over a table! I hope Mueller is on the case -- this demands further investigation!

Birches said...

IS this for real? Cosmopolitan has now become a dog whistle?

Give these guys some tin foil hats. They've completely lost it.

JohnAnnArbor said...

"Stalin came down squarely (well, almost so) on the "Russian" side of the long-running Russian culture wars."

Ironic, isn't it, that the Georgian revolutionary Ioseb Jughashvili would be so pro-Russian....

Bob Boyd said...

These 10 Epithets Will Drive Him Wild In The Briefing Room

Static Ping said...

So when I am waiting in line with my twelve items or less at Stop and Shop and I spy a set of propped up boobs decorating the cover of Cosmo, right next to the alerts about "WILD SUMMER SEX" and "50 WAYS TO USE ALL YOUR ORIFICES FOR FUN AND PROFIT," apparently I should be humming the Internationale and internally naming the left boob Lenin and the right boob Stalin. Or perhaps Lenina and Stalina. I get confused on communist naming conventions. Maybe Comrade Nipples and Commissar Udders would be more appropriate. If that is the case, they really should have hammers and sickles right next to the gum for impulse purchases.

Reading that was so stupid that I think all of humanity lost a few IQ points.

Anonymous said...

Well OK then, since the phrase "rootless cosmopolitan" was used to attack Jews, we can never, ever point out, discuss, or examine the negative effects that "people or movements that are unmoored to traditions and beliefs of a nation, and identity more with like-minded people regardless of their nationality" can have on a nation. Sure, it may be obvious to rubes that the interests of people who don't identify with the people they may live among, who consider themselves "globalists", or "one worlders", or "citizens of the world" (aka "rootless") may be opposed to the interests of the rubes, may be whoppingly destructive of rube-society, but hey...something something something anti-Semite! so shut the fuck up and do as you're told!"

It’s a way of branding people or movements that are unmoored to the traditions and beliefs of a nation, and identify more with like-minded people regardless of their nationality....

How else would you prefer we "brand" them? Ah, I see. You don't want them noticed, criticized, opposed...branded at all. "Shut up", he nuancefully argued.

One reason why “cosmopolitan” is an unnerving term

This habit of bien-pensants projecting their own daft, neurotic obsessions onto everyone else is getting very, very tiresome.

There is nothing "unnverving" about the word "cosmopolitan" to a sane person. It's a useful, descriptive word, carrying both positive and negative connotations, as words do. ("Educated, cultured, well-traveled" vs. "Person with 'no skin in the game' of a nation, toward whose projects people who are invested in their country and people will naturally evince a prudent skepticism".)

Rosalyn C. said...

PS Miller's use of the word "cosmopolitan" as it relates to Russian history and anti-semitism is irrelevant. The meaning of the word has evolved, and he wasn't using it in the same way it was once used in the Soviet Union. Acosta is more of a representative of the "cosmopolitan" elite than Miller. This is one more version of the ongoing "Nazi-Hitler" smear against the Trump administration, as the video I linked illustrates.

buwaya said...

"*I gather Pravda favored "as is well known" when they were about to make some accusatory claim, "

Copied from Lenin's own style I think.
As is "it is no accident".

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

I'd like know more about how Jeff Greenfield hears "cosmopolitan" and mentally attaches "rootless" as a Stalinist or NAZI might do. It seems odd. Is there a reasonable medium between 21-year-old reporters who "literally know nothing" and these dinosaurs like Greenfield and Woodruff who know too much that isn't so?

Jael (Gone Windwalking) said...

~
“ ... all things foreign and cosmopolitanism ...”

Relax. Stalin’s talking only about Faberge Imperial Eggs. Not onto-genetic reproductive, ethnic eggs. He just got a little confused along his way. The macroeconomic objective amounted to how Soviet optimal economies - solved everyone. Like Trump throwing imaginary - “weight” - behind an immigration bill that - he- didn’t even write.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

So Miller is Jewish, but used an anti-Semitic catchphrase? That makes sense to people who think Trump, a man with a Jewish SIL, daughter and grandchildren, hates Jews.

In the meantime, nobody at CNN seems to be that interested in the fact that Debbie Wasserman-Schultz kept a guy on her payroll who is suspected of donating to the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization which is not terribly fond of Jews.

Comanche Voter said...

Is it a drink, a Nazi slur, a Stalinist slur, or simply a liberated Cosmo girl who, when she got a bit older, fatter and uglier, liked to march in the streets with a pink pussy hat on her head. Who knows, who cares?

But in this particular instance I think Mr. Miller hit the nail (or the dolt) squarely on the head. Acosta's question/speech/harangue was coming from a sort of one world "cosmopolitan" point of view where anybody who wants to can simply walk across our borders. There was a time when the USA was uniquely willing to accomodate/assimilate all sorts of immigrants. But even in those days, large numbers of people who wanted to immigrate to the USA were turned back and sent home from Ellis Island. Maybe as much as 1/3 who tried to pass through were simply rejected and excluded. And in that era there were also laws with wholesale exclusions of people from certain countries--the "Yellow Peril" laws of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. That of course is not in accordance with the Acosta "cosmopolitan" view of things.

Mr. Acosta doesn't know much--but then who learns any history in what passes for a K-12 or even a college education these days. But in his heart Acosta knows that whatever blubbering codswallop exits his mouth is "right".

In his own way Acost--when talking o someone who doesn't agree with Acosta's received "wisdom" is like the American tourist who believes, when faced with a foreign national who doesn't understand English, that simply talking louder will make the foreign national understand. Sorry progressives---that technique does not work with conservatives. You have to explain things to them in a clear, logical and persuasive fashion. And they might even disagree with you after you do that.

Robert J. said...

There's a blogger named Clare Spark who writes about this kind of stuff all the time. She's an expert on the history of sociology and related subjects, and even has a tag in her blog for "rootless cosmopolitans":

https://clarespark.com/tag/rootless-cosmopolitans/

I confess I find her writing hard to follow sometimes, but that may be because she's so completely embedded in obscure 20th-century schools of socio-political thought that I lack the necessary frame of reference. She often mentions the Jewish angle:

"What is the difference between a rooted cosmopolitan and a rootless cosmopolitan? This is a crucial distinction! Both Hitler and Stalin loathed ‘finance capital’ or the rule of money. These (grasping, uncompassionate) moneybag ‘Jews’ were rootless and indifferent to the plight of ordinary persons, it was held by the earthy and loving ‘rooted’ nationalists. (Both National Socialism and Soviet socialism would affix roots to the unpredictable wanderers of the working class.) The concept of the Volk or ‘people’s community’ was constantly promoted by the Hitler party."

Achilles said...

Stalinists hate being called stalinists.

Meade said...

"These 10 Epithets Will Drive Him Wild In The Briefing Room"

HA!

dreams said...

"cos·mo·pol·i·tan
[ˌkäzməˈpälətn]
ADJECTIVE
familiar with and at ease in many different countries and cultures:
"his knowledge of French, Italian, and Spanish made him genuinely cosmopolitan"
synonyms: worldly · worldly-wise · well travelled · experienced · unprovincial · [more]"

Don't the liberals see themselves as cosmopolitan, citizens of the world whereas the Republicans/conservatives, aka provincial redneck patriots are to be ridiculed by the likes of Katie Couric and other elitists for displaying the American flag after 9/11.

Static Ping said...

To be more serious, Jeff Greenfield is going out of his way here to find the most negative angle possible - to the point of absurdity - to what can be at worst described as a mildly rude comment in response to at least equally rude comments. No one in that room was thinking that "cosmopolitan" meant "pogroms." No one sane thinks that this was some hidden message to his Russian controllers. It's a damn word with a damn well understood meaning that is used regularly by damn well everyone who writes at a college level and was not controversial at all until this very moment when Jeff wanted to have a gotcha moment.

To be plain, this is malice. This is the sort of thing a propagandist trying to demonize opponents and render them sub-human would do, except a good propagandist would think this too obtuse and ridiculous and fall back on something more believable like "he eats babies." This is the sort of mindset that starts wars because once you go to this place, there is no room left to compromise. This is "I hate you" followed by "you should die" and "**** you!"

Meade said...

"Despite the best of intentions, and for all his fine words, Mr. Obama became one of the midwives of this dangerous and angry new world, where his enlightened cosmopolitanism increasingly looks like an anachronism."

Unknown said...

Speaking of Russia and Stalin,

Mueller has impaneled a grand jury in Washington DC.

Let the indictments begin.

Unknown said...

Financial crimes may be front and center. Good work by Mueller and his investigators.

readering said...

You gotta admit that accusing someone of Cosmopolitan bias from the White House is weird.

SukieTawdry said...

I enjoy an expertly mixed Cosmopolitan now and then.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

Not only did Miller use the word "cosmopolitan" but he was a wild, unruly young hoodlum with a secret past that CNN reporter Chris Moody has revealed:

Chris Moody
✔ ‎@moody

Stephen Miller and I went to same summer camp.
He had an outburst.
Flipped a table.
Now he's in the White Househttp://www.cnn.com/interactive/2017/politics/state/the-time-i-went-to-summer-camp-with-the-future-mini-trump …

4:36 PM - Aug 2, 2017

Oh dears. Miller had an outburst and flipped a table when he was 16.

This sort of hard-hitting investigative reporting surely puts Moody in line for a Pulitzer.

YoungHegelian said...

"Little Chaim Moskowitz & The Rootless Cosmopolitans"

What a great name for a Klezmer band!

Feel free to use it without attribution, all you budding Klezmerites!

buwaya said...

"Acosta is more of a representative of the "cosmopolitan" elite than Miller."

I would class them both in there, or actually, Miller more so.

Miller went to Duke, almost but not quite Ivy league, so that's a points, and he is Jewish - and like it or not, to be Jewish is worth several points on the Cosmopolitan scale, among other things he being perhaps ever so distantly related to a Rothschild, the near-ultimate in cosmopolitans; perhaps only genuine Habsburgs trump them.

As for Acosta, he went to James Madison U, which is miles less prestigious than Duke. He is the son of immigrants but thoroughly assimilated, and Cubans are terminally declasse anyway. He might as well be Italian-American. And he is thoroughly white. You can pop the fellow down in Barcelona and the locals will address him as a native.

dreams said...

"You gotta admit that accusing someone of Cosmopolitan bias from the White House is weird."

I'm pretty sure the liberal media see themselves as cosmopolitan.

Mike Sylwester said...

The expression Cosmopolitan goes much farther back in history than the attacks on Jews at the end of Stalin's life.

The Masons called themselves Cosmopolitans. If you google "Masons Cosmopolitan", you will find a long list of Masonic organizations called "Cosmopolitan Lodges".

In US history, there was a populist anti-Masonic movement that used the word "Cosmopolitan" as an epithet against Masons who were thought to be secretly manipulating the US Government.

In Russia at the beginning of the 1900s, there was a wide-spread suspicion that Masons -- Cosmopolitans -- were conspiring to overthrow the Russian Tsar.

In Leo Tolstoy's novel War and Peace, the main character, Pierre Bezukhov, is a Mason -- a "cosmopolitan".

In the years following the Russian Revolution, the Communists were always finding Masonic conspiracies to undermine the Communists and institute a bourgeois government.

Later, in Stalin's final years, this "cosmopolitan" epithet was assigned to the imaginary Zionist conspirators, and it resonated because of the long history of the word "cosmopolitan" in Russian rhetoric.

Sebastian said...

We deplorables trace the roots of cosmopolitanism to Kant's Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte in weltbürgerlicher Absicht. Which ain't so bad, even for conservatives.

But rather than use the term as a mere epithet it would be smarter to culturally appropriate Herder's "pluralist cosmopolitanism" in Auch eine Philosophie der Geschichte zur Bildung der Menschheit. Take-away: real cosmopolitanism needs cultural diversity and recognition thereof, which presupposes distinct cultures, nations, and boundaries. In honor of which y'all will no doubt pardon the German titles.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

CNN must know Miller made Acosta look like a pompous, ignorant douchebag, which is why they're counter-attacking so hard. Except that if "Miller said "cosmopolitan!!!!" and "Miller flipped a table once!!!" is the worst they can come up with....Sad!

buwaya said...

"To be plain, this is malice. This is the sort of thing a propagandist trying to demonize opponents"

Well, yes. That's the point. He is a propagandist for hire.

That's why they used to pay Foreign Legionnaires to stick Rosalie into troublesome natives.

Bob Boyd said...

"Miller had an outburst and flipped a table when he was 16."

It happened when the Camp Counselor got two scoops of ice cream and the kids only got one.

khematite said...

Breitbart has been using the term "cosmopolitanism" for quite awhile, with no apparent reference to Jews (just as Trump has sought to resurrect the concept of "America First" without reference to its 1940s isolationist origins). Their argument is with both Left Cosmopolitanism (open borders, multiculturalism, high regard for the UN) and Right Cosmopolitanism (economic globalism, multinational corporations, high regard for economic integrative institutions like the WTO and EU).

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/03/20/as-donald-trump-overthrows-the-old-order-a-look-at-the-new-order-the-ten-ideologies-of-america/

Quayle said...

I'm not an originalist, so what the word used to mean is irrelevent.

I can make up my own meaning today, and apply it as I want. After all, words are living, breathing things. At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of the meaning of teh word "Cosmopolitan".

rhhardin said...

Cosmopolitan magazine was 1886.

Michael K said...

"The expression Cosmopolitan goes much farther back in history than the attacks on Jews at the end of Stalin's life. "

Yes, it was a slur on Jews in Germany for centuries. I posted a comment on this in another thread.

holdfast said...

I thought it was an odd word choice.

"Narrow-minded, oikophobic coastal douche bag" would seem to fit better.

YoungHegelian said...

I also gotta say that I, fer one, take offense at Acosta bitching & moaning about American immigration policy of any sort, since he is Cuban.

Until the Jackson-Vanik act gave Soviet Jews preferred immigration status, no group, absolutely no group, had an easier ticket-to-America than the Cubans. Castro was the Commie Enemy Near Miami. Whatever we could do to kick him in the balls we did, including taking about 1/4 of the population, including many of Cuba's best & brightest, in as immigrants. The minute those Cubans stepped ashore, they were on their way to being Americans.

Maybe somebody ought to ask Acosta, since he's so concerned with immigration fairness, if maybe some Kenyans should have had it as easy as did his Cuban family. Yeah, I know, the Cubans suffered in Cuba. Sadly, the 20th C gave the world no shortage of suffering, & if we used that as a criterion for immigration we'd have a billion people in the US now.

hombre said...

So Miller is an anti-Semitic, Stalinist Jew?

Is there no end to the calumny to be offered up by the leftymediaswine, however idiotic?

Matt Sablan said...

Wow. They're really, really going to mat over what was obviously a good hit against an elitist, racist opinion about only Great Britain and Australia speaking English?

Bob Boyd said...

"Miller had an outburst and flipped a table when he was 16."

It happened when the Camp Counselor got two scoops of ice cream and the kids only got one.

Miller also apparently told the Camp Counselor he showed a "neapolitan bias".

traditionalguy said...

Cosmopolitan may have meant Jewish Intellectual to Joe Stalin who accused everybody on earth of something evil if he saw them as a threat to him. But to the post 1953 Americans it has at best meant New York's cultural milieux. And it is a much easier drink to mix than Ginny Churchill's Manhattan.

Todd Roberson said...

...yawn .... Tax cuts? ... Obamacare repeal? .... Infrastructure? ...

Until the idiots in the Senate get something done (or, otherwise kill off the stock market rally through incompetence) we're going to be hearing about drivel like this every day.

Mike Sylwester said...

I am currently reading a history book titled Stalin's American Spy: Noel Field, Allen Dulles and the East European Show-Trials by Tony Sharp. This book is superb, a masterpiece. I read it carefully all the way through, and then I went right back to page 1, and I am reading it a second time, along with all the footnotes. In about 70 pages I will finish. Then I might read it a third time.

The book is fun to read, because it tells how a large number of top Communists in East Europe were falsely accused, arrested, tortured, forced to confess in public trials and then executed during the last five years of Stalin's life.

Essentially, Stalin came to believe that an international guy named Noel Field was operating a wide-spread spy network to undermine the Communist Bloc. Field was a US citizen, but he grew up and lived most of his life in Western Europe. He spoke English, German and French with native proficiency and later learned to speak Spanish, Russian and Hungarian well. He really was a "cosmopolitan" person, and I vaguely recall reading in this book that the expression was applied to him.

Field and his wife both were secret Communist spies, and they were friends and collaborators of Alger and Priscilla Hiss.

During World War Two, Field's main activity was helping international Communists who had fought in the Spanish Civil War and had subsequently had fled to France and been interned in camps there. Lots of these international trouble-makers were Jews, Czechs, Hungarians, Poles, Germans, Yugoslavs, etc.

At the end of the war, those trouble-makers went back to their home countries and became big-shots in the new Communist governments there.

Then beginning in about 1947, Stalin came to think that all those Communist veterans of the Spanish Civil War were agents in a network run by Noel Field for CIA Director Allen Dulles.

The Field couple was kidnapped and then imprisoned in Hungary.

As Stalin's investigations of this imaginary spy network spread throughout Eastern Europe and then the Soviet Union itself, Stalin focused more and more narrowly on the Jews in the imaginary spy network of Noel Field.

Noel Field himself was not Jewish, nor was his wife.

Soon after Stalin died, the Fields were released and were exonerated and released, along with all his "spies" who still had not been executed.

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/stalins-american-spy-9781849043441?cc=ca&lang=en&

Etienne said...

The people who know who Stalin was, are all dead or over 65.

Greenfield is stirring shit that is so solid it will never boil.

Fernandinande said...

Bob Boyd said...
"neapolitan bias"


Neapolitan ice-cream is "separate but equal".

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Etienne said...
The people ... are all dead or over 65.


Much the same thing.

Murph said...

exiledonmainstreet said...
CNN must know Miller made Acosta look like a pompous, ignorant douchebag,

To the contrary, Acosta needed no help from Miller. He did just fine playing douchebag all by hisownself.

Fernandinande said...

mockturtle said...
Didn't Jeff used to write for Pravda?


In Trump's America, Pravda writes for you!

sakredkow said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Etienne said...
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William said...

The word cosmopolitan does sound a little dissonant. I would have used the word parochial to describe the narrow concerns of the press. But, then, Acosta would have called it a veiled threat against Catholics and a dog whistle to the Know Nothing bigots who are Trump supporters.......Side note: Jews, despite their achievements in physics and medicine, are not that bright. It took them well into the seventies before it dawned on them that that the Soviets were anti-Semitic. Ethel Rosenberg literally gave her life in defense of the Soviet Union. Later, the Pulitzer Prize winning play Angels in America took the trouble to beatify her. The villain of the piece is Roy Cohn. He was a Jew who supported Nixon and not Stalin. What kind of asshole considers Nixon worse than Stalin?

Pinandpuller said...

Do Cosmopolitans come from the city of Cosmoli?

Humperdink said...

Bob Boyd said...
"neapolitan bias"

You can say that again. There's always strawberry left. Some might say Strawberry Fields Forever.

Pinandpuller said...

My Mosun Nagant came packed in Cosmoline.

traditionalguy said...
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traditionalguy said...

Taking Stalin's point of view, the Catholic Church is as cosmopolitan as it gets...that is the Universal Christian Church recited as our base belief in the Creed.

And the Evangelical Christians are still trained in World Geography for a reason...It's all ours.

Jael (Gone Windwalking) said...

Genghis Khan cosmopolitanized Tibet. But could not keep his general-kings supplied with sleep.

Pianoman said...

Sex And The City has been credited with revitalizing the martini industry, specifically the Cosmopolitan. It was Carrie Bradshaw's favorite drink.

Sarah Jessica Parker starred in the show. She's Jewish.

The Left really *is* that desperate. Miller must have stung Acosta badly.

Static Ping said...

buwaya said...
"To be plain, this is malice. This is the sort of thing a propagandist trying to demonize opponents"

Well, yes. That's the point. He is a propagandist for hire.


Oh, I fully understand that, but I don't think the propagandists involved here know what they are getting themselves into. Smart propagandists know that they are latching themselves onto a cause and will benefit or suffer as that cause performs. Acosta and Greenfield seem to think they are beyond repercussions, as if they can keep prodding the dog with the stick and the dog will just remain where it is, docile as always. The concept that the dog will eventually get fed up and turn on them never seems to cross their minds.

They are doing everything they can to start a war and I don't think they realize it. This is a very bad sign. Well educated idiots like this tend to be in charge just before it hits the fan. They don't tend to survive when that occurs.

Achilles said...

Unknown said...
Speaking of Russia and Stalin,

Mueller has impaneled a grand jury in Washington DC.

Let the indictments begin.


Stalinist shithead likes to talk tough. You are in for a rude awakening.

Clinton, Clinton, and Obama committed dozens of felonies. Nothing Trump or any of his people have ever done is even close to what they have done. The democrats are running from the Arwan debacle screaming. More Abedin emails got released today showing clear pay to play corruption. You people are ignoring clear criminality and bringing up bullshit against Trump. It wont fly.

The swamp will be drained slowly and peacefully or it will go up like a pile of tires. With lots of black smoke.

It will smell bad. Burning hair is one of the worst smells in the world.

mockturtle said...
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Rick said...

I'm shocked some left wing tool called someone he disagreed with an anti-semite. Who could possibly have seen that coming?

mockturtle said...

"Miller had an outburst and flipped a table when he was 16."

So did Jesus. Another anti-Semitic Jew. ;-)

OregonGuy said...

In my dictionary, "безродный" is defined, "without kith or kin." In Russian word formation, "без" means, "without;" "родный" is the genitive form of "relatives," or, "relations".

Russian-English Dictionary, E.P. Dutton & Company, Inc. New York 1973.
.

Jael (Gone Windwalking) said...

~
“.. there was a secret chord, that David played, and it pleased the Lord .. Hallelujah ..”

Leonard Cohen never quite got to cosmopolitan Solomon. And his mines. And babes. Or did he?

Yet skippingly ..

"Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew ya
She tied you to a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
...
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though it all went wrong
I'll stand before the lord of song
With nothing on my tongue but hallelujah.”

A cold, and very broken, hallelujah. But, thanks.

buwaya said...

"Genghis Khan cosmopolitanized Tibet. "

There are interesting cultural connections between Tibet and Mongolia.
If anything, most of the influence went Tibet->Mongolia AFAIK.
Thats why the Mongols became Buddhists, which they hadn't been in Genghis day.

ddh said...

The adjective безродный (bezrodniy) really means "without a homeland," родина (rodina) being the noun for homeland. If Russians were talking about plants that lack roots, they would say бескорыстный (bezkoritniy).

Scott said...

So it's obvious that Helen Gurley Brown was an anti-Semitic white nationalist too, isn't it. Jeff Greenfield is emerging as the Jeremy Burke of breathless political commentary.

Jael (Gone Windwalking) said...

"So did Jesus. Another anti-Semitic Jew. ;-)"

Only in the "Gospel of John" [and not even there] ... but, nobody's perfect.

Rick said...
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buwaya said...

It was really the Chinese and Russians that cosmopolitanized Mongolia, in modern times.

Prettiest girl I ever knew in person was Russian-Mongolian-Spanish-Filipino.
That combination of genes needs to be patented.

Rick said...
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Jael (Gone Windwalking) said...

“Thats why the Mongols became Buddhists, which they hadn't been in Genghis day.”

Buwaya, not sarcasm?

New to me. Thanks either way ... my Heruka-Mahatma Peaceful-Wrathful thanks you!

Paddy O said...

Very cosmopolitan.

Featuring a fine selection of sophisticates...

Hagar said...

I once owned a Lincoln Cosmopolitan. I had no idea I was engaging in a malicious anti-Semitic action.

Michael K said...

"Thats why the Mongols became Buddhists"

Pretty good country and western singers, too.

Rick said...
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Rick said...

Next thing you know academics will embrace their activism and write entire books alleging policies they disagree with are racist / sexist / homophobic. That'll be a sad day.

Munger on MacLean

http://www.independent.org/issues/article.asp?id=9115

So we know the Grievance Studies are useless, Literature has long been overridden,and now History is gone.

Thank god we still have Engineering.

Wichman on Purdue

Oh, wait...

Birkel said...

Perhaps this is written above. If so, apologies.

I thought the use of cosmopolitan was out of place when first I heard this exchange. However, I think Miller was trying to turn the "flyover" insult on its head. When people on either coast refer to flyover country, they mean insignificant people and places. And in doing so they discredit the legitimate concerns those people have for their own welfare, i.e. low cost labor competition hurts people in flyover country disproportionately.

Therefore, the cosmopolitan comment was of an accord with Miller's other comment about importing a bunch of reporters to compete against Acosta and drive his own wages lower.

Thoughts?

mockturtle said...

Matthew 21:12: And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves,.

Titus said...

One time I went to an interview and the interviewer called me cosmopolitan. She was calling me a fag.

buwaya said...

"One time I went to an interview and the interviewer called me cosmopolitan. She was calling me a fag."

She was being parochial. You aren't a bit cosmopolitan.

Jael (Gone Windwalking) said...

~
mockturtle

"Matthew 21:12: And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers, and the seats of them that sold doves ..."

Yeah, cupcake! But that was love. Jewish-on-Jewish love, baby!

Jesus cleansing sold-out-military-pro-Herod-Sanhedral-Temple-taxing-legion-enforcing motherfuckers.

Problem never arose until - "we have no King but Caesar!"

If - and only if - ya follow the story-line ;)

Mock-it-True!

Fabi said...

That was my first impression, Birkel.

Meade said...

"One time I went to an interview and the interviewer called me cosmopolitan. She was calling me a fag."

And did you take it as the compliment I'm sure she intended?

buwaya said...

"Jesus cleansing sold-out-military-pro-Herod-Sanhedral-Temple-taxing-legion-enforcing motherfuckers. "

The deep state of its day.
Imagine Christ with Twitter.

mockturtle said...

One time I went to an interview and the interviewer called me cosmopolitan. She was calling me a fag.

So Miller essentially called Acosta a fag! Even better, no? Thanks, Titus. You should get a job writing editorials.

Titus said...

No I wasn't even thinking about Miller. Just my self natch.

Jael (Gone Windwalking) said...

~
Buwaya, dude. Came here to rest. You’re makin’ this a workout.

“Imagine Christ with Twitter.”

Didn’t Jesus - withdraw ? In radio silence? And in dark ops?

After he fed the five-thousand? And they tried to make him Vending-Machine-King by force?

Buwaya really sayin' Withdrawn Jesus knew irregular warfare.

Just a feeling. I wasn’t there. What do I know - just a fool. Ask Patton. He had so many lives ... and some damn good ones ...

Birkel said...

Further, I think it is very smart politics to use Democrat strategies against Democrats. Democrats practice their divisions based on (mostly) immutable characteristics such as race or gender.

I think Miller is trying to use economic interests as a wedge. If successful this will drive a wedge between persuadable voters and the propagandists of the Left. If ordinary people see the Leftists on TV as representing interests they do not share, that is a huge win for Trump and Republicans in the swing districts. Those swing districts are filled with voters who know their own needs and see the imposition of coastal Leftists for what it has been: economically disastrous!

If the term flyover is turned on its head, Trump and his press team will have done an enormous favor for the middle class. Culturally, it is time for the middle class to reassert itself. So too, it is time for the middle class to reassert itself in national policy.

J. Farmer said...

As soon as I saw Miller's interaction with Acosta, I knew he would be called out for veiled anti-semitism. There is a segment of criticism of Trump that still foolishly holds to the canard that Trump is deeply anti-semitic. Remember the sheriff's star tweet that got turned into an anti-semitic Star of David tweet?

But of course, the biggest problem with Miller's use of "cosmopolitan" is that most people aren't going to know what he's talking about. "Globalist" is the new term du jure, and I'm surprised that someone like Miller, who is four years younger than me, does not realize that. Miller certainly has the knowledge to make the nationalist case but not really the demeanor. His speaking style and mannerisms are pretty awkward.

J. Farmer said...

p.s. Can't Trump just hire me? I've been making these arguments for 10 years and can do it extemporaneously better than anyone I've witnessed in the administration so far :P

The Vault Dweller said...

So is Greenfield's article about the prior usage of cosmopolitan, a way for him to say Miller is a Communist? Or perhaps an Anti-semite? Or maybe a Communist Anti-Semite? I'm used to hearing people and ideas on the right being called Nazis, or Nazi-like ideas, but Communist is a new one for me.

Birkel said...

In the same way that gays reclaimed a word and made it their own, it would be excellent if people from "flyover country" reclaimed that phrase and united (as best as is possible in the current climate) in proclaiming they are rednecks and hillbillies and the people over whom the coastal self-described elites fly.

(This was an effort to combine my own line of thinking with the Titus diversion. What Titus describes seems woefully ill-suited to an interview process.)

Jael (Gone Windwalking) said...

Buwaya,

Courtesy of Mistress Mine. She knows.

“So Jesus, perceiving that they were intending to come and take Him by force to make Him king, withdrew -- again -- to the mountain by Himself alone” (John 6:15).

mockturtle said...

Titus confusingly answers: No I wasn't even thinking about Miller. Just my self natch.

Miss my point? If Miller's use of 'cosmopolitan' as an epithet against Acosta caused a major media meltdown based on some obscure Stalinist rhetoric meaning 'antisemitic', then you could argue that what he was really calling Acosta a 'fag' based on your relatively obscure experience. Get it? Never mind. [sigh!]

buwaya said...

"Didn’t Jesus - withdraw ? In radio silence? And in dark ops? "

Not in his time (well, in his time physically here)
Man, back then he was like Trump with all the rallies and speeches and large scale miracles, running around Judea. And that was with the campaign donkey, mind you. No personal 757.

He talked to everyone. CNN and Fox both could have interviewed him.
It seems everyone else did.

J. Farmer said...

@Birkel:

In the same way that gays reclaimed a word and made it their own, it would be excellent if people from "flyover country" reclaimed that phrase and united (as best as is possible in the current climate) in proclaiming they are rednecks and hillbillies and the people over whom the coastal self-described elites fly.

This has already happened. I'm not sure about "flyover country," and I don't really ever see that being adopted by its target, but redneck/hillbilly have long been claimed as terms of pride by the people they once described derisively.

The problem with the "cosmopolitan" label is that it does not really define the problem. One can be a cosmopolitan and a nationalist (as I am). There are really two kinds of cosmopolitan. The ones who recognize that many people in the world are decidedly not cosmopolitan and have no ill will or contempt for such people. And then there are those cosmopolitans who see provincial people as their enemy, as unsophisticated rubes who need to be educated, enlightened, etc. This point of view was no better summed up than by Andrew Neither, adviser to Tony Blair, who wrote in the Evening Standard about Labour's embrace of mass immigration: "I remember coming away from some discussions with the clear sense that the policy was intended – even if this wasn't its main purpose – to rub the Right's nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date."

Jael (Gone Windwalking) said...

~
lol

See above John 6:15 @ 8/3/17, 5:08 PM.

Buwaya, back in those days, underground churches really didn’t have grass on front lawns, pretty marque signs, sweeping parking lots, covertly saying, "Kill us! We're right here!"

Paul had to get papers to do that.

Something tells me.

buwaya said...

" If ordinary people see the Leftists on TV as representing interests they do not share, that is a huge win for Trump and Republicans in the swing districts. "

Trump and co. themselves have not yet made this argument, interestingly.
It seems an obvious one from my perspective.
Go for the people behind the propaganda system.

There are names that can be used. The obvious ones are Bezos and Slim and Soros, very commonly cited bogeymen (but not really by Trump & co), but the others are probably more sensitive.

buwaya said...

"See above John 6:15 @ 8/3/17, 5:08 PM."

So? At one time Jesus went on strategic vacation/sabbatical? Big deal.
That's hardly what he was up to the rest of the time.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Funny how hard these other Media outlets are going after Miller after he embarrassed Acosta (or, really, helped Acosta embarrass himself), isn't it? This is a silly slur to toss out against Miller, so the journalist making the accusation must feel pretty strongly that Miller has to be pushed back against, even if doing so makes the accuser look foolish (as it certainly does here).

Almost like there's a "Media" with a strong Leftist bias that sticks together and is willing to ruin their own reputations and standards of professionalism in the cause of protecting one of their own and continuing to push their own ideological viewpoint(s). That can't be correct, though, since LifeLongRepublicans tell me there's just no such thing.

Jael (Gone Windwalking) said...

lol, shit, I'm done!

Sammy Finkelman said...

But where did Stephen Miller get wtwh word from?

Not only it is Russian, he used it wrong (unless you want to hold it wss deliberate irony)

He used it in a context where he should have usaed the word "provincial?

Seems like he had it waiting, to use on people favoring more liberal immigration than this.

J. Farmer said...

OT, but:

As best I can figure out, Jesus was an apocalyptic Jew expecting a major supernatural event to occur if not in his own lifetime, at least within the lifetime of his followers. Although Jesus is the ultimate source, what is today called Christianity is probably much more the result of the work of Saul of Tarsus than it is of Jesus Christ.

buwaya said...

"And then there are those cosmopolitans who see provincial people as their enemy, as unsophisticated rubes who need to be educated, enlightened, etc. "

And then there are people who believe they are cosmopolitan, but are in fact rubes.
In spite of their place of residence or their preferred entertainments.
That's the usual case IMHO, in this city of San Francisco anyway.

Sammy Finkelman said...

It;s ot anti-semitism. It's being used somewhat differently. the antisemitic hrase was "rootless cosmopolitan" Here it is an epithet for possibe critics of restrictive immigration policies - only Miller used it at just the wrong point.

I wouldn't say this is antisemitic. But it does likely bear the fingerprints of Vladimir Putin.

Sammy Finkelman said...

The Vault Dweller said... 8/3/17, 5:05 PM

So is Greenfield's article about the prior usage of cosmopolitan, a way for him to say Miller is a Communist? Or perhaps an Anti-semite? Or maybe a Communist Anti-Semite? I'm used to hearing people and ideas on the right being called Nazis, or Nazi-like ideas, but Communist is a new one for me.

Well, if Greenfield had done some thinking he would say this is firther evidence of Russian meddling. Putin isn't a Communit, but he knows the whole history. Stalin didn't use it in a leftist way.

Jael (Gone Windwalking) said...

Done in. Finis. Kaputu. By a single, cold hearted, buwayalain crocodylidae, marshaling the whole reptilian sunbathing phylum, with tectums near their rectums, all after me. Jesus, help me!

J. Farmer said...

Sammy Finkelman said...

I wouldn't say this is antisemitic. But it does likely bear the fingerprints of Vladimir Putin.

Oh, come on. I hate questions of this form, but: do you honestly believe this? Putin is giving talking points on US immigration policy?

buwaya said...

"As best I can figure out, Jesus was an apocalyptic Jew expecting a major supernatural event to occur if not in his own lifetime, at least within the lifetime of his followers."

That's not a clear interpretation of the Gospels. You COULD extrapolate a proximate apocalyptic message from that, and a heck of a lot of Christian heresies have gone there.

I disagree, partly, re Paul & Co.
Its more like in software, Jesus gave them the algorithms and device drivers.
Paul and that lot wrote the UI and established the tech support system.

buwaya said...

Feste, dude,

I am after you?
I am a sated croc of a certain age, on a diet and everything.

The Godfather said...

I don’t hate much, but I hate, Hate, HATE antisemitism. I’m not Jewish; I’m a Christian, but I am (50%) of German ancestry and was born in the US in the middle of WWII; I grew up in a community that was around 1/3 Jewish, so many of my friends had lost family members in the Holocaust, and many had survivors living with them. My young friends might hate antisemitism more than I do, but not by that much. So if you tell me that so-and-so is an anti-semite, you’ve got my attention.

But if you LIE about it, then you’re walkin’ on the fightin’ side of me. I used to have a vaguely favorable opinion of Jeff Greenfield as a reasonable liberal – perhaps because he started off his career on Wm F. Buckley, Jr.’s “Firing Line”. No longer. Dredging up some old statement by Stalin to imply that Miller is an antisemitic Jew is inexcusable. He should be ashamed of himself, and no decent person should ever pay attention to his opinions.

Sebastian said...

Farmer: "One can be a cosmopolitan and a nationalist (as I am). There are really two kinds of cosmopolitan." Herder is your man, philosophy-wise, though he was personally not all that nationalist, in our current sense. Much nineteenth-century nationalism was pretty cosmopolitan, too. For many of the great leaders, there was no contradiction, at any rate.

Not that anyone in the administration has an actual intellectual clue. Same goes for the buwaya point about naming and shaming the moves and shakers. Maybe I underestimate the Trump gang (kidding).

buwaya said...

"But it does likely bear the fingerprints of Vladimir Putin."

Oh my.

Francisco D said...

Greenfield has quite an imagination. Who would have thought that a Jew would use an archaic anti-Semitic slur against a Cuban-American?

My imagination is a little different. I thought Miller was accusing Acosta of drinking too many overpriced Cosmopolitans at some fancy DC bar.

That's where journalists come up with their best "inside scoops."

Jael (Gone Windwalking) said...

“ .. Jesus was an apocalyptic Jew ..”

“So when they had come together, they were asking Him, saying, ‘Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the [cosmopolitan] kingdom to Israel?’ He said to them, ‘It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority’ (Acts 1:6, ff).

Effete text? Corporate-cosmopolitan wishing? Talking to when? Is it for me to know deep horizon times or epochs? More quantum gyroscopic textual corrections in their own time than a man here and now can obey, how me? Somewhere, out there, the cosmos has an apocalyptic plasma, waiting just for me.

buwaya said...

"So if you tell me that so-and-so is an anti-semite, you’ve got my attention."

Its a complicated world. There are huge parts of it that are openly anti-semitic to a degree.
You can't deal globally without working with all sorts of people who, if you permit yourself to do so, will rub you the wrong way. I suspect the Israelis are far more used to dealing productively with genuine anti-semites than their American cousins, or most Americans.

Accept, deal, work around, learn to talk, compromise, organize, compartment, palliate. Israelis are used to living in a country with a minority of about a million and a half people most of whom quite openly dislike Jews.

In that sense the Israelis are much more cosmopolitan, in fact, than their American cousins.

Fabi said...

"But it does likely bear the fingerprints of Vladimir Putin."

It's safe to turn off the internet now -- I've read it all. Thanks.

buwaya said...

"Effete text? Corporate-cosmopolitan wishing? "

No, its much simpler than that. Its right there - its not for you to know.
All else is fruitless speculation.

J. Farmer said...

@Festa:

This really is not the place to get into an extended argument about texts, and while there are certainly references to the exact day being unknown, there are also references in the synoptic gospels in which it is alluded that the events would occur within the lifetimes of the followers.

But this really is neither here nor there. I approach Christianity in a very simple way. I start by asking (1) Does Christianity make sense without Judaism? My answer is no, and I think Christians would largely agree with me, hence the inclusion of the Hebrew Bible as Christian scripture. I then proceed to a second question (2) Is there any reason to believe Judaism is true? Again, my answer is no. And while I accept Yehezkel Kaufmann's notion that Israelite monotheism was a unique contribution to history, I still think Israeli religion is steeped in Bronze Age mythology. I do not believe that ancient Israelites were in communication with the creator of the universe anymore than I believe that the writings of the Vedas, the Pali canon, the Quran, or the Book of Mormon have origins outside the human brain.

Anonymous said...

"So what is a “cosmopolitan”? It’s a cousin to “elitist,” but with a more sinister undertone. It’s a way of branding people or movements that are unmoored to the traditions and beliefs of a nation, and identify more with like-minded people regardless of their nationality...."

Gee, so it's a perfect insult for transnational progressives. It's a perfectly legitimate attack to use against anyone who is anti-nationalist.

It's a perfectly reasonable way to describe anyone who's pro-EU.

And Jeff Greenfield hates it because he's a lying sack of shit who hates it when people honestly describe leftists.

Jael (Gone Windwalking) said...

buwaya - “No, its much simpler than that. Its right there - its not for you to know. All else is fruitless speculation.”

Met a physical-anthro, Native American professor, Kahn (?something), on his way to San Francisco conference, said to me, in an outdoor, under the stars, Eastern Sierra hot springs (accidental meeting), after his return from studying Australian aboriginals ..

"Only thing you need to know [paraphrase]

... is secrets (ordinary) ..

... sacred-secrets (between lovers) ...

and,

Sacred-Secret.”

Jael (Gone Windwalking) said...

can be interposed ...

Secret-Sacred.

buwaya said...

"Sacred-Secret.”

Well, there you go. Wait for the next episode (no schedule yet from the Network) for the resolution of the series.

In the meantime there is a lot else that Christ put on the agenda.

Jael (Gone Windwalking) said...

... yes, and thanks ...

HT said...

Cosmopolitan is a drink, and it's also a great word most of the time. I love it and loved it during some long nights in my youth, listening to the train whistle and imagining it going some place different and exciting, such as the North. At some point or other, we all wanted to be cosmopolitan.

Jon Ericson said...

Most excellent discussion.
How can we help make these more possible?
CLOMP! CLOMP!
HERE COMES PEDRO!

southcentralpa said...

So are vodka, triple sec, cranberry juice, and lime juice now all deplorable, or only when mixed into a Cosmo ... ?

Birkel said...

Again, I say the Trump communication strategy is revealing itself. You can all wow people at cocktail parties repeating what I am giving you for free.

Trump is planning to go after people who use "flyover country" as a pejorative.

It will be easy to inject the connection between the MSM and it's desire to further the power of Washington DC: both political parties. The MSM is about to lose its persuasive power where it matters.

This is as much an attack on DC Republicans as Democrats. This is an attack on Leviathan.

Fernandinande said...

J. Farmer said...
I do not believe that ancient Israelites [etc] were in communication with the creator of the universe ...


Do you think those people were
- lying
- insane/epileptic
- eating moldy bread
- something else
?

Birkel said...

Fernandinande:
J Farmer does not believe. Period.

mockturtle said...

All we need now is Ritmo.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

"but redneck/hillbilly have long been claimed as terms of pride by the people they once described derisively."

I'm not sure the Left understands that the contempt isn't just about the culture and class resentments. The average redneck looks down on the average government employee because the government employee doesn't know how to do anything useful, at least in the redneck's eyes. Can't build a fence, can't operate a D6, can't wire a house, can't fix a car, can't restore a power line, and so on. About the only professional Joe Six-Pack automatically has respect for is a surgeon.

rcocean said...

Another boring left-wing word game as a substitute for an argument.

Trump: Put America First!
Left-wing: Trump's a Nazi! Charles Lindberg used that word 76 years ago!

Now its "Cosmopolitan" ="antisemtic" because 72 years ago, Stalin used the word for Jews he didn't like.

And....so what?

Jael (Gone Windwalking) said...

J. Farmer said...

“ ... origins outside the human brain ...”

Which rules in justa about everything. Including you to me.

Last time I went to Church[land], Patricia asked me, "with such a large number of neurons-a-twitching, Feste? - how many cards in that Poker deck?"

Imagine playing a hand with all those neurons?

Problem isn’t what comes in from outside.

My brain’s an organ of illusion. Last I checked.

What am I missing?

Looking for a Lover that won’t blow my Cover.

imho

rcocean said...

Miller supposedly using an antisemitc dogwhistle codeword to attract his fellow Nazi-Jews.

So, ignore everything he says, and lets have open borders!

buwaya said...

"About the only professional Joe Six-Pack automatically has respect for is a surgeon."

Joe Six-Pack machinist exhibits a rather genial tolerance of engineers who presume on their field. A kindness and generosity for the lesser creatures in Gods creation. They can't help it, poor things.

HT said...

From the sound of it you have as much insight into governmental employees as you do rednecks, which is to say not much at all.

rcocean said...

As Scott Adams says, when your whole policy argument revolves what word you use, you got nothing.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...


"Joe Six-Pack machinist exhibits a rather genial tolerance of engineers who presume on their field."

Oh dear, we haven't been talking to the same machinists. I realize it's unfair, but when a machinist can't make something work, it's an engineer's fault.

HT said...

"So, ignore everything he says, and lets have open borders! "

He is there to clarify what the president says, not to be ignored or bought into. He should not be engaging in an extended way in what he may consider petty arguments or wrong-headed thinking (unless it's part of the endless campaign). Answer the guy once and move on. At some point they need to move more confidently and competently through these press briefings.

Michael said...

Cosmopolitan is perfect, the corollary of hillbilly, an insult packaged in a word that can be said aloud and in company. He could have used the new word "woke" as well, effectively mocking him and the word at once.

Jon Ericson said...

All will soon be revealed!
Toothache will touch down momentarily.

Paddy O said...

"Jesus was an apocalyptic Jew expecting a major supernatural event to occur if not in his own lifetime..."

Well, there was the resurrection, which was both not in and in his lifetime, though usually apocalyptic implies another major supernatural event (a la Schweitzer). Whether or not the resurrection happened is up for debate, but scholarship is predominantly leaning towards the fact that the early Christians thought it happened, and that led to a lot of Jews becoming radicalized in a different sort of way than the usual revolutionaries.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Is that the angle they want to take? I think young Chrome-Dome actually did a better job than most at deflecting MSM/Mainstream American objections to their anti-immigrant policy. He was quick on his feet, articulate and actually somewhat topical. Not such a common thing in this administration.

Paddy O said...

The Romans were quite cosmopolitan. They wanted the city of Rome to rule the universe. The followers of Jesus thought the universe was already ruled by a different lord. Tensions ensued.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

All will soon be revealed!
Toothache will touch down momentarily.


Did you want to know my bathroom habits, too? How about my schedule in general?

Were you always this creepy or did it take years being beaten into such a creep by even creepier parents?

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

This I see anti-semites overreach guff needs to end. "Cosmopolitan" is in no way a term unique to descriptions of Jews by anti-semites.

When they assumed the bomb threats and cemetery desecrations were hate crimes they turned out to be conducted by an Israeli.

Pretty embarrassing in hindsight now to have assumed the complete opposite.

Miller is a Jew, IIRC.

Jon Ericson said...

Pedro wants to start insult wars.
Poor Pedro.
Sorry, I can't lower myself.

See if you can be more stupid and disgusting than you've ever been!
Sort of like you usually are, but turn it up to eleven! whahoo!

Francisco D said...

Ritmo is in the house!

Time for intelligent people to find something else to do.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

As long as people are looking at the Russian history of the term, how about the Russian term, "cosmonaut?" That's a cool one.

And then with one more degree of separation, I just saw a trendy clip on adventurous eaters who formed a club of like-minded diners called, "Gastronauts."

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Oh, Fran D! I just imagine you and Jon Ericson (the other stalker obsessed with me) going and striking out together on Jeopardy.

Too bad you admire intelligence as a trait in way that far exceeds your capacity for demonstrating any of it. That must make you feel bad.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Fran D is a midwestern psychologist who lists the babbling ninny Ayn Rand among his favorite authors.

Many psychologists are transparent in how their own pathologies might have attracted them to the field. I'm happy to report that Fran is even more transparent than most.

Jon Ericson said...

Pedro, Clear speech.
Try it.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Do you often try to control what others say, Ericson?

And what's up with using this code-name "Pedro?" Does your way of being clear mean making up aliases for others that you alone use?

Who taught you to be this way? Retreating into your own way from lots of childhood playground bullying?

Jon Ericson said...

Thesauri can mask toothless whateverens

Jon Ericson said...

Asshole contrarians like you made us.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Asshole contrarians like you made us.

You definitely ascribe to me more power of you than I care to have.

But it's interesting to note how powerless you are to control your own behavior.

Jon Ericson said...

I have no clue what the fuck you are talking about.
Start your usual insulting fol-de-rol and let's watch...

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Oh, so you object to words longer than the 6-letter maximum that taxes your brain and makes you feel stupid. What a brave objection!

You must have gotten, what, less than 200 points on your verbal SAT?

I guess that's when a long career of staying at home and complaining about how people on the internets make you feel stupid must have ensued.

"Talk down more to me! Use 8th-grade language, so I can understand!" Jon Ericson protests!

No thank you. Get your own kiddie-mind Cliff's Notes. Or just don't read what you can't read.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

I have no clue what the fuck you are talking about.

So how is that my problem?

It's not.

Starting with, "I have no clue!"

Go get a clue or fuck off and leave me alone. You're like a stinking, homeless bum busting into a college lecture hall and complaining that the course is too advanced for you. NO ONE CARES! GO AWAY! Dumbass!

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Shorter Jon Ericson: "I'm dumb. You should talk dumb, too."

Jon Ericson said...

Bzz.
Bzz.
SWAT!

Bunghole.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

I note, for the record, that Mr. "I Hate Long Words!" is spewing his complaints on a comments thread defending an administration spokesperson's use of the word cosmopolitan!

Ericson, when Miller used that word, how come you didn't hold up a sign demanding he be shut down and saying, "I have no clue what the fuck you are talking about!"

Jon Ericson said...

I'm just here wasting your time.
Your valuable time.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Bzz.
Bzz.
SWAT!


Yep. That's all you're good for.

Something an appliance can do.

Jon Ericson said...

Because cosmopolitan is a code word for Joo, asshole.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

I'm just here wasting your time.
Your valuable time.


Which is an obvious admission that your own time is of no value. Lol!

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Because cosmopolitan is a code word for Joo, asshole.

Apparently not according to the administration, or the "Joo" that used it. Asshole!

Read much?

Jon Ericson said...

More than you, apparently.

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