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Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg and Jewish Ethnic Networking

American Whites of European extraction — particularly White males — are being systematically displaced in the very country they built. This surely will not be news to TOO readers. As editor Kevin MacDonald has already pointed out, the appointment of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court is testimony to this trend:

Kagan’s arrival on the Supreme Court is a sort of official coming out party for the new elite. It’s been there for quite some time, but the Kagan nomination is an in-your-face-demonstration of the power of Jewish ethnic networking at the highest levels of government. And the first thing one notices is that the new elite has no compunctions about nominating someone for the Supreme Court even though she has no real qualifications. So much for the principles of merit and inclusion: Inclusion does not apply to WASPs now that they have been deposed. And the principle of merit can now be safely discarded in favor of ethnic networking. As I noted previously,

This is a favorite aspect of contemporary Jewish self-conception — the idea that Jews replaced WASPs because they are smarter and work harder. But this leads to the ultimate irony: Kagan isremarkably unqualified to be a Supreme Court Justice in terms of the usual standards: judicial experience, academic publications, or even courtroom experience. Rather, all the evidence is that Kagan owes her impending confirmation to her Jewish ethnic connections (see also here).

The same goes for Jewish over-representation in elite academic institutions — far higherthan can be explained by higher Jewish IQ. Does anyone seriously think that Jewish domination of Hollywood and so much of the other mainstream media  (see, e.g., Edmund Connelly’s article) is about merit rather than ethnic networking and solidarity?”

In conclusion, MacDonald writes, “Whatever else one can say about the new elite, it certainly does not believe in merit.” Allow me to offer a newer case in point — that of Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, who grew up in a Jewish family in Miami. Sandberg’s key break was admission to Harvard, despite the fact that her academic background hardly seemed to warrant it. As she admits in her best-selling book Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead. (New York, Random House, 2013), she was clearly not prepared for the rarified atmosphere of Harvard:

Freshman year of college was a huge shock for me… [M]y professor of political philosophy assigned a five-page paper. I was panicked. Five whole pages! I had only written one paper that length in high school, and it was a year-long project. How could anyone write five pages in just one week? I stayed in every night, plugging away, and based on the time I put in, I should have gotten an A for effort. I got a C. It is virtually impossible to get a C at Harvard if the assignment is turned in. I am not exaggerating — this was the equivalent of a failing grade.”

How unprepared was she? Well, in a class called “The Concept of the Hero in Hellenistic Civilization,” she hadn’t even heard of the two main texts, The Iliad and The Odyssey. Meanwhile, most of her classmates had already read them, and about a third of them had read them in the original Homeric Greek. Yet there sat Miss Sandberg right beside them. Read more

Alon Confino: Jews as Symbols of Morality

Further evidence, if any were needed, that many Jews are simply incapable of comprehending collective Jewish wrongdoing while at the same time attributing collective guilt to Germans or Christians can be seen in a review of A World Without Jews: the Nazi Imagination From Persecution to Genocide by Alon Confino, an Israeli who is professor of history at the University of Virginia. Confino’s claims that the hostility of Nazis toward Jews was not driven by a sense of ethnic competition or warfare but by hostility because Jews were seen as morally  superior. 

The Nazi struggle “wasn’t about territory, or states, or armies,” Confino emphasized. “It was about identity.” For the Nazis the Jews were “the key to world history,” he writes in A World Without Jews. “It goes back to what the Jews represented: the Bible,” Confino said over the phone. “They weren’t racial enemies. They were the symbols of morality.” Confino knows, of course, that much of the Nazi propaganda about the Jews depicted them as a racial threat, but the far more crucial message, he argues, was that Jews signified the old world of moral law. The Jew had to be destroyed, to be replaced by a pure new vision of the German nation, a people freed from the archaic constraints of doing good. And this ethical revolution required the ultimate realization: mass murder.

Now this is surprising on the face of it. The Talmud has been called many things but I don’t recall it being seen by its critics as depicting a higher morality. During the Middle Ages, Christians burned it because of passages blaspheming Jesus and Christianity. Rather than representing a uniquely higher morality, Jewish religious writings. including the Talmud, are replete with moral particularism (in which an action has very different moral implications depending on how it affects Jews) that is entirely foreign to the Western tradition of moral universalism. Read more

The Genesis of Genocide: Paranoia, Ingroup Thinking, and Ethnic Supremacism

To study how genocide can be rationalized, you don’t always need to study history. You could just read some recent comments inspired by the Gaza war — none of which include messy details like the blockade of Gaza which has reduced it to a very large concentration camp in all but name. Given such a situation, extreme hostility toward Israel on the part of Gazans is entirely expected.

This failure to place the Gaza situation in context is typical of ingroup thinking. As Andrew Joyce notes, ignoring the context and how Jewish behavior has contributed to or even shaped the  context are key components of Jewish self-deception. But ignoring the context completely creates a situation where any and all actions against the Palestinians are warranted.

I’ll start with this blog by a Jewish New Yorker called Yochanan Gordon:

When Genocide Is Permissible

Judging by the numbers of casualties on both sides in this almost one-month old war one would be led to the conclusion that Israel has resorted to disproportionate means in fighting a far less-capable enemy. That is as far as what meets the eye. But, it’s now obvious that the US and the UN are completely out of touch with the nature of this foe and are therefore not qualified to dictate or enforce the rules of this war — because when it comes to terror there is much more than meets the eye. …

We are at war with an enemy whose charter calls for the annihilation of our people. Nothing, then, can be considered disproportionate when we are fighting for our very right to live.

The sad reality is that Israel gets it, but its hands are being tied by world leaders who over the past six years have insisted they are such good friends with the Jewish state, that they know more regarding its interests than even they do. But there’s going to have to come a time where Israel feels threatened enough where it has no other choice but to defy international warnings — because this is life or death. …

Hamas has stated forthrightly that it idealizes death as much as Israel celebrates life. What other way then is there to deal with an enemy of this nature other than obliterate them completely?

Everyone agrees that Israel has the right to defend itself as well as the right to exercise that right. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon has declared it, Obama and Kerry have clearly stated that no one could be expected to sit idle as thousands of rockets rain down on the heads of its citizens, placing them in clear and present danger. It seems then that the only point of contention is regarding the measure of punishment meted out in this situation. I will conclude with a question for all the humanitarians out there. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu clearly stated at the outset of this incursion that his objective is to restore a sustainable quiet for the citizens of Israel. We have already established that it is the responsibility of every government to ensure the safety and security of its people. If political leaders and military experts determine that the only way to achieve its goal of sustaining quiet is through genocide is it then permissible to achieve those responsible goals? (“Genocide Is Permissible” Muses Times Of Israel, Promptly Retracts, Zero Hedge, 1st August 2014)

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The Rise and Demise of the EU: A Short History of A Big Failure

Several costly mistakes were made by the founding fathers of the European Union:

  • economics, and not politics, was thought to be the best tool to bring about the unification of Europe;
  • unclear plans about the limits of the enlargement of the European Union;
  • the unexpected and ongoing floods of non-European immigration as a result of the iron law of capitalism, combined with starry-eyed, guilt-feeling Christian inspired “love thy colored neighbor” ecumenism.

The first signs of the decline did not wait to occur.  The Amsterdam Treaty of 1997, the Nice Treaty of 2001, and the Lisbon Treaty of 2007 became face-saving attempts at rectifying the failures already embedded in the founding myth of the Maastricht Treaty of 1992.

Quite revealing is the fact that the predecessor of the European Union, the European Economic Community (EEC), following the Treaty of Rome in 1957, had adopted the “economic” name and not the name of “political community.” The underlying belief, inherent to liberalism, was that only thorough economic benefits — only through the removal of trade barriers and state borders, and with the free flux of people, goods and capital — would age-old interethnic hatreds among Europeans disappear. The results of such delusions are becoming visible every day. Read more

Australian PM Caves in to Jewish Lobby on Free Speech Laws

In the face of a coordinated and sustained campaign initiated and led by Jewish activists, the Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has abandoned his 2013 election promise to water down or remove Section 18C of Australia’s Racial Discrimination Act which makes it unlawful to act in a manner likely to “offend, insult, humiliate or intimidate” someone on the basis of race. Abbott said he had made a “leadership decision” to walk away from his pledge despite having promised to remove this outrageous restriction on the free speech after the law was used successfully against conservative columnist Andrew Bolt in 2011.

It is a measure of the power wielded by organized Jewry in Australia that the Prime Minister would rather damage his political credibility by breaking a clear election promise than suffer the consequences of defying the single most powerful group in Australian society. Abbott, who made the announcement while outlining an extension of anti-terrorism laws, attempted to justify his broken promise by claiming “I don’t want to do anything that puts our national unity at risk at this time and so those proposals are now off the table.” Abbott’s apparent desire to not further alienate Australia’s problematic Islamic community by repealing Section 18C (at a time when the government is set to strengthen laws against terrorism) is an obvious political smokescreen. The veteran Jewish journalist, Michael Gawenda, writing in the Business Spectator, identified the real reason behind the Prime Minister walking away from his election commitment:

While Abbott said that the decision to ditch the plan to rid the Racial Discrimination Act of section 18C was taken because of “complications” in dealing with Islamic communities in the context of the proposed tough new terrorism laws, it seems likely that more was involved in this decision. The conflict in Gaza and the coverage and reaction to this appalling, heartbreaking conflagration, in my opinion, made it virtually certain that any move to change or abolish section 18C would extract too high a political price.

The repeal of section 18C was vigorously opposed by the leadership of virtually every ethnic community in the country. But it would be fair to say — without wishing to give succor to those who reckon the Jews are too powerful — that Jewish community leaders have played a crucial role in organizing the opposition to any potential change to the RDA.  It is the opposition of the Jewish communal leaders that had been of major concern to [Attorney General] Brandis and, to a significant extent, Tony Abbott.

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How to talk about Jewish money influencing politics without getting into trouble

Here is Matt Yglesias talking about how Jewish money is what is making Congress so pro-Israel, my brackets and bolding:

What drives the overwhelming congressional support for Israel that’s such a striking element of American politics? For some members, it’s genuine passion. For others, it has to do with public opinion [shaped by whom?]. But another real consideration that’s rarely discussed in daylight is fundraising. Memos written by consultants working for Michelle Nunn, the Democrats’ candidate in Georgia, and leaked to National Review in an effort to make Nunn look bad lay it out. This excerpt, in particular, is a great window into how it works [note the casual-yet-patronizing SWPL-speak]: Screen_Shot_2014-07-28_at_1.42.54_PM This is getting spun in certain circles as a damning indictment of Nunn or her staff, as if she is planning to tailor her entire foreign policy around fundraising concerns. But really it’s just people doing their jobs. Sheri and Steve Labovitz are wealthy individuals who are active in the Atlanta Jewish community, as is Elaine Alexander. The author of the memo is informing the campaign that these individuals are likely sympathetic to Nunn’s broad policy outlook, and are promising candidates to help Nunn raise money. But they are also cautioning that taking the appropriate line on Israel is likely to be a litmus test for these donors. It’s not the place of a finance memo writer to come up with Nunn’s Israel policy, but the memo cautions that there are fundraising implications to what Nunn chooses to say about this. To anyone who’s familiar with Democratic Party fundraising — particularly for non-incumbent underdogs, who typically have trouble raising money — this won’t be too surprising.

So plutocrats’ using their financial clout to exploit U.S. foreign policy to further ethnic interests and politicians’ pandering to said interests are normal, basically. Yglesias also mentions the (self-)censorship:

Jewish donors are very important to Democratic Party finances, some of these donors have strongly held hawkish views on Israel, and the financial clout of AIPAC is the stuff of legend. At the same time, talk of rich Jews throwing their financial muscle around to influence policy in favor of Israel touches far too many anti-semitic tropes to be regularly mentioned in political discourse. But the concrete world of political fundraising doesn’t leave a ton of time for beating around the bush, so we get a little window here into how it looks to the finance people: if Nunn wants to maximize her donations, she needs to take the right stance.

Of course none of this is news to anyone who has been paying attention for the past 30 (40, 50, 100, 200, 500…?) years. But it is interesting to see this discussed in the mainstream. Vox is run by Ezra Klein. The article was tweeted by Glenn Greenwald. Read more

How to Criticize Israel without being Anti-Semitic: The Unofficial Guide

The news media have once again been ablaze with reports of Israel’s military attack on Gaza. The historic Israeli-Palestinian conflict has, consequently, returned as a subject of discussion at cafés, salons, and dinner tables.

The discussion, however, is not an easy one to have—unless, of course, you are foursquare behind Israel. Criticism of Israel very quickly lands the critic into trouble; accusations of anti-Semitism are fired back as if from an Uzi. What is more, these accusations can sometimes come accompanied by raised voices, red faces, bared teeth, waved fists, and even rude expletives. Sometimes, not even Jews can avoid them. So it is understandable that non-Jews desiring to avoid drama think it best to keep mum.

Noticing the problem, and apparently in the interest of free and open debate, a concerned Jewish blogger has recently made waves posting a 19-point guide on how to criticize Israel without being anti-Semitic. The Tumblr blog post has, at the time of writing, attracted 8485 notes. And the BBC deemed it so useful that they even reported it on their news website.

As TOO was created for purposes of free and open debate, including Jews and Israel, it seems pertinent that we examine the 19 points. Perhaps we will find in them the Philosopher’s Stone in our efforts to discuss important matters involving Jews without being accused of ignorance and moral turpitude. The points are meant to be considered in no particular order.

1. Don’t use the terms “bloodthirsty,” “lust for Palestinian blood,” or similar. Historically, Jews have been massacred in the belief that we use the blood of non-Jews (particularly of children) in our religious rituals. This belief still persists in large portions of the Arab world (largely because White Europeans deliberately spread the belief among Arabs) and even in parts of the Western world. Murderous, inhumane, cruel, vicious—fine. But blood…just don’t go there. Depicting Israel/Israelis/Israeli leaders eating children is also a no-no, for the same reason.

While one can understand the desire to avoid rehashings of the ancient blood libel, this seems a little paranoid in the case of “bloodthirsty”. Read more