Althouse: Occupy Los Angeles experiences "a growing encroachment of anti-Semitic 'Jewish bankers' conspiracy theories."

October 14, 2011

Occupy Los Angeles experiences "a growing encroachment of anti-Semitic 'Jewish bankers' conspiracy theories."

"Obviously not everyone at the 'Occupy' protests is an anti-Semite, but the fact that these statements and views fit so neatly into the whole anti-banker milieu, and often go completely unchallenged by fellow protesters, should give everyone cause for concern about where this whole movement is heading."

Photos and video at the link.

223 comments:

«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 223 of 223

David R. Graham said...: Anti-Semitism Anti-Schmemitism. Merely diversion. This "movement" is a shake-down, extortion racket aimed at financiers who are perceived as having insufficient enthusiasm to re-elect the occupier of the White House.

Release the pitch-forks, scare hell out of "donation" laggards. It's as old as the hills, with iterations in all the hills of the planet, not ethnically or geographically specific.

Laying his gun on the table and looking the other guy in the eye, he says, "Now the three of us are going to have a talk. You're not helping me enough. Shall I expect a change of heart?"; 10/14/11, 6:52 PM
Ritmo Re-Animated said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 10/14/11, 6:53 PM
Ritmo Re-Animated said...: oe, yo, I gotta go. But the fact is that Trent Lott voiced his view in 2002, a view that Republicans could afford to appeal to after making efforts to reverse the advances Buckley, et al. had made.

Buckley's views re: segregation in the 50s are known from what he had written (and had later hidden) in The National Review. They were not very, er, progressive.

Republicans had a huge constituency to appeal to, after they had made a stronger backing of civil rights. They did what they could to gain their vote.

Strom Thurmond claimed to have changed his views years later. But Lott represents a Republican who came to the party AFTER civil rights.

Just accept it, dude. It's history. Bigots vote and pundits/pols pander. Accept it.; 10/14/11, 6:54 PM
Joe said...: (The Crypto Jew)
Joe, yo, I gotta go. But the fact is that Trent Lott voiced his view in 2002, a view that Republicans could afford to appeal to after making efforts to reverse the advances Buckley, et al. had made

Yeah that’s why the REPUBLICANS forced him out of the Majority Floor Leader’s position….; 10/14/11, 6:54 PM
Tyrone Slothrop said...: @Drill Sgt.

Thank you for your service and your family's service; 10/14/11, 7:16 PM
Steve Koch said...: Really difficult to make heads or tails out this thread, it is an explosion of crazy. There may be some nuggets of lucidity buried in this wasteland but it is too tedious to read carefully.

Maybe if Althouse would have linked to a more scholarly article that provided more facts, the thread would not have disintegrated so completely.; 10/14/11, 7:23 PM
Crimso said...: "At the moment, simply to maintain reasonable levels of intellectual ability in economically useful endeavors such as engineering and science it is necessary to import large numbers of academically gifted foreigners."

As someone with graduate degrees in both fields, my personal experience over the past 29 years is that such claims are overstated. Think we're lagging behind in science Nobel laureates? Or if you want to argue that is an arbitrary measure of whether "it is necessary to import large numbers of academically gifted foreigners" then I'm willing to entertain some other measure.

Most Americans (most people) don't go into science and engineering because they are intellectually very challenging fields. Not just anyone can do it, and the students who come here from other countries are often (if not mostly) the best and the brightest of their countries. They come here not so much because we need them (and I'll concede that, for some very specific reasons having nothing to do with bankers, we do need them to a certain extent) but rather because they will receive the best education in the world in their fields.; 10/14/11, 7:29 PM
Crimso said...: "My view is that financial services and legal services have become increasingly parasitic on the real economy. The self serving inefficiencies in these industries act as a very large tax on the people that actually produce useful goods and services."

And I'm not snarking here, but am genuinely curious. Do you know you are preaching Marx? Or were you taught these ideas under some other name and didn't realize they're straight out of Marx? Do you consider yourself a Marxist? If you don't, it would be a bit like me telling people "You must accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior" and then denying I'm a Christian (FWIW, I'm not religious).; 10/14/11, 7:39 PM
sorepaw said...: The reactionaries here are just jealous and wish they could keep the bigot vote to themselves. It's a powerful political bloc, apparently.

Strom Thurmond was a nasty critter. He is also dead, and unreplaced.

Same goes for people like Jesse Helms. Nasty bigots. Now gone, without replacements.

Trent Lott lost his post as Majority Leader after praising Strom's 1948 campaign for President. Even Mississippi is unlikely to elect another Trent Lott.

And Tim Scott beat Strom Thurmond's son in the 2010 Republican primary.

If your Racist-Republican doctrine holds water, you'll be able to come up with an explanation for Tim Scott winning the primary and the general election—in a majority-White district of South Carolina.

What the hell, it's worth a try.; 10/14/11, 8:26 PM
hombre said...: Ritmo brayed: Oh yes, the idea that the vast majority of the U.S. public who favor greater regulation of Wall Street and less corruption are all racists.

Really? Who said that? My comments were directed at the "OWS". As far as I know, the so-called OWS is not constituted of the "vast majority of the US public" and has not necessarily articulated a demand for more regulation of Wall Street.

This "idea" is just another of Ritmo's moonbat wet dreams (evidently considered "moderate" by the moby know as Seven Machos who [6:28]).; 10/14/11, 8:50 PM
Anonymous said...: Hombre -- You've got this strange idea that everybody here is apparently either a moby or a sock puppet. Don't you think that's a little odd?

Who's real?; 10/14/11, 9:16 PM
Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...: Most of the posters on this thread fell for a cheap party trick by Althouse. Look, look, look at the bright shiny anti-semitism, she says, and ignore the fact that the financial industry has run this country's economy into the toilet. And, like a bunch of mildly retarded children, most posters ran helter skelter after the bright shiny things she threw in the air, helplessly distracted from thinking about the economic disaster that has befallen us.

The fact that the financial industry has captured the leadership of both parties to a degree that the industry no longer functions in our best interests the county is a monumental problem for every citizen of this country, republican and democrat, jew and anti-semite. Everyone can see this. A few racists in the Tea Party or anti-semites in the OWS shouldn't allow us to be so easily distracted from the core problem, how to move resources out of a parasitic industry back into economically useful ones.

There is a reason why the country mourns the death of a Steve Jobs and feels pride in the success of our Nobel Prize winners. We all recognize that these people were able to see past the simple accumulation of wealth and reach for the stars in a way that benefits civilization as a whole. No one is going to mourn the death of our money changers or celebrate their success in extracting an ever greater fraction of the country's wealth for their personal use. This is a service industry and while the people involved should be compensated for their work it is difficult to make the argument that they should receive significantly more compensation than the cashiers at McDonalds or the garbage men who collect our trash. It is not that they contribute nothing to the country it's that they contribute nothing more than most other citizens, while extracting a disproportionate share of the country's wealth.; 10/14/11, 10:08 PM
hombre said...: Seven Machos wrote: Hombre -- You've got this strange idea that everybody here is apparently either a moby or a sock puppet. Don't you think that's a little odd?

Actually, what I think is a little odd is that you think you and your pecker-touching buddy Ritmo are "everybody."

N'est-ce pas?; 10/14/11, 10:37 PM
Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...: Crimso said...

As someone with graduate degrees in both fields, my personal experience over the past 29 years is that such claims are overstated.

………………………..

This is definitely not my experience or that of many colleagues. While I have not conducted any systematic study on the topic, most people that run grad programs in life sciences will tell you that their best students are almost entirely foreign born.

Increasingly the faculty are also foreign born. Five new faculty were recently hired in one local academic department, none of whom were native born. For some of the job searches no native born applicant even made the short list. On one level it is good that U.S. universities attract so much talent from outside the country but it is not good when the local students have so little interest or aptitude for science that they can no longer field a competitive team.

There are a lot of factors contributing to this failure, but financial incentives, drawing intellectual talent away from areas that are productive for the long term intellectual health of the country, are the single biggest reason. One of the perversities produced by large wage disparities is that many professions that are essential for the continued health of society as a whole will attract fewer and fewer talented people. A flatter wage structure makes it more likely that there will be a more even spread of talent across a range of fields.; 10/14/11, 11:16 PM
Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...: Crimso said...

Do you know you are preaching Marx?
………………………..

Calling someone a Marxist is such a childish and unthinking thing to do that it doesn't really require a response.

But I am bored. Would it have been Marxist to suggest to the Dutch in the 1600's that it might be inadvisable to invest so much of the countries economic activity in the production of tulips? How would such an enquiry be the sole concern of Marxists?; 10/14/11, 11:32 PM
William said...: It was all the fault of those fucking tulip brokers.; 10/14/11, 11:42 PM
Anonymous said...: Marx wasn't all wrong. A lot of his critique of the inequality of the systems then in place. I think it's a little excessive to go on for 3000 pages on marginal utility, and I question the Good sense of anyone who does so, but he had valid complaints. The trouble with Marx is his awful ideas about how to improve those flawed systems.; 10/14/11, 11:47 PM
Crimso said...: "most people that run grad programs in life sciences will tell you that their best students are almost entirely foreign born."

I don't "run" a grad program in the life sciences, but I was a graduate student at a decent school, and a postdoc at a world-class university in terms of biomedical research. In both cases, the majority of the graduate students were Americans. In both cases, the best students ("best" in my opinion) happened to be mostly American. That's simply my personal experience, but I disagree with your basic premise (which sounds like one of those things that everybody knows but just isn't so).

"to a degree that the industry no longer functions in our best interests"

The financial industry does not exist to serve our best interests any more than any other businesses. It exists to make money. I realize many people think that it is immoral for corporations to make money (and as much as they can, too), but that is the reason they exist. Not to provide jobs (though they do), but to make money. You apparently are of the mindset that at a certain point, they've made all the money they need or deserve, and that they've gone way past that. You assert they should make no more money than a burger flipper or a custodian. Do you feel the same way about professional athletes? Movie stars? Or do you figure they make the money that the market will bear?; 10/14/11, 11:57 PM
Crimso said...: "Calling someone a Marxist is such a childish and unthinking thing to do that it doesn't really require a response."

I didn't call you a Marxist, I asked the question of whether you are aware that you are espousing ideas that are often (though not necessarily always) associated with Marx. Rest assured, if I do label you a Marxist, it will be because you are advancing Marxist ideas. If you were taking the opposite position, then I would agree that calling you a Marxist (which I have not yet done) would be "childish and unthinking." I am perfectly willing to believe that you can't be so easily classified (does anybody other than the philospher believe in everything the philospher proposes?). Still, when I hear the labor theory of value, I tend to think of Marx. Perhaps you come by it from another source.; 10/15/11, 12:13 AM
Synova said...: "All the usual suspects mock and deride the OWS people for not having a cogent set of alternatives put forward yet.(...)

What most of you do not seem to get (or more likely, don't want to get), is that what is needed now is a simple raising of awareness."

I not only mock, I despise the utter laziness of this notion that it's virtuous to not bother with answers.

What shall we raise awareness about that everyone doesn't already know?

The economy sucks.

Unemployment has held high and steady for years. There really is no end in sight.

People are frustrated and upset and feel trapped and helpless. Those without jobs despair. Those with jobs know they can't afford to lose them, no matter how unpleasant they become.

OWS isn't raising anyone's awareness, it is looking for scape goats, for villains.

While looking for villains, how is it virtuous to "raise awareness" of these villains without explaining how the economy works and by what mechanisms policy change will solve problems?

No matter how heart felt and emotionally authentic, the demands we've seen are firmly in fantasy land. Free education? Someone pays for it. Is your professor going to teach for nothing, live on the street and starve to death?

Raising awareness and expecting someone else to come up with answers... and not just come up with answers but ones that are pleasing instead of medicinal, is worse than lazy. Someone else is supposed to do the hard work, but in such a way that you're not made uncomfortable.

But that sort of typifies OWS doesn't it.; 10/15/11, 12:47 AM
harrogate said...: Synova,

Nope, you're wrong. There is a dramatic lack of awareness in the US, that a small cadre of morally bankrupt, practically subhuman corporate and banking suits are pillaging the nation. Are ACTIVELY benefitting from the things you so snottily assert that everyone knows about.

It is not "scapegoating" when you are identifying actual culprits.

Only good can come from increasing what is a rapidly growing the anti-banker, anti-corporate discourse in the US. Before you can offer solutions you have to correctly identify the problems. Which you continue to show a remarkable inability to do. But not everyone is so backwards and silly in their perception, thank goodness.; 10/15/11, 10:18 AM
Synova said...: "Only good can come from increasing what is a rapidly growing the anti-banker, anti-corporate discourse in the US."

"Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded- here and there, now and then- are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty. This is known as bad luck." - Robert A.Heinlein; 10/15/11, 12:51 PM
Synova said...: You can not correctly finger the villain and expect something good to happen without providing the intellectual elbow-grease to explain how the world works and what will solve the problem.

Or even bother to explain why you think you've correctly identified the villain.

"Rich people have money" is not proof of anything at all.

Those of us scoffing, scoff at the willful blindness that refuses to blame the people who *lied* for overwhelming student debt. The fact that no one is protesting on campus demanding their loans be forgiven is a farce of high order. And that is only one example. Government is forgiven any culpability for the bailouts given to corporations (that the Tea Party vehemently opposed!) because it's preferable to infantilize government than to *correctly* identify the role of market-subverting laws and regulations for subsequent financial disaster.

The OWS people will find their scapegoats, grow government even bigger demanding fantasy economics that can't and won't work, and when the "bad luck" comes down on them it still will not be their fault.

Without follow through and *solutions* and intelligent consideration of *answers* and giving forth a plan and policy that can be examined for viability and shown to have a good chance of working... it's all just untestable desires. I *want* stuff. And it's not up to be to show how my getting it is economically viable?

Babies.

All of them.; 10/15/11, 1:01 PM