Media Bias

The New Republic’s “High Shul phase”

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Andrew Sullivan is busy attempting to exonerate himself from charges of anti-Semitism — always a difficult chore, and likely to consume quite a bit of his time given Leon Wieseltier’s rather long accusatory piece. Sullivan’s offense is that he circulated a comment of poet W. H. Auden that it would be to explain the Christian doctrine of the Trinity to the secular leftist TNR writers of the 1940s. How anyone could think of that as “anti-Semitic” is beyond me.

Sullivan’s first line of defense is to link to his “passionate defense of the Jewish people from Catholic bigotry.” I’m sure Sullivan is thinking, “Hey, I earned my stripes as a goy in the media by defending Jews. How dare you question my motives!”

But then it gets interesting. We find that Jews think of TNR as a Jewish publication. Wieseltier himself is quoted as saying that TNR is a kind of “Jewish version of Commentary.” (Update: HelenChicago, a commenter on this blog writes, “”A Jewish version of Commentary“?!? Isn’t that a bit like “a kosher version of matzoh”? Wish I had thought of that. As we all know, Commentary is published by the American Jewish Committee.)

Sullivan notes that “my old friend, Frank Foer” (translation: “some of my best friends are Jews”) commented that Auden made his statement “before we entered our High Shul phase.” And he goes on to describe the “joke ubiquitous at TNR when I worked there . … We teased each other for years about my being one of the few goyim at the place, that I was a function of affirmative action, etc. Leon was particularly and often mordantly hilarious on this kind of theme.”

This reminds me of Michael Wreszin’s comment that Dwight Macdonald, a member of the New York Intellectuals and contributor to Partisan Review, was “a distinguished goy among the Partisanskies.” He stood out because he was a goy in a Jewish-dominated movement. Always good to have a few goyim for window dressing.

Pretty clearly, the Jews who run TNR think of it as a Jewish publication. But one dare not say that Jews influence the media or that Jews attempt to use their position in the media to advance their version of Jewish interests (or that the New York York Intellectuals were a Jewish intellectual movement). Auden’s quote happened before TNR became a High Shul — a presumably the consequence of Martin Peretz buying TNR and turning it into a fanatically pro-Israel publication. This is a passage in The Culture of Critique:

Jews have also been greatly overrepresented as editors, publishers and contributors to a variety of radical and liberal periodicals, including The Nation, The New Republic, and The Progressive (Rothman & Lichter 1982, 105). In 1974 The New Republic (TNR) was purchased by Martin Peretz, son of a “devoted Labor Zionist and right-wing Jabotinskyist” (Alterman 1992, 185) and himself a leftist student activist before moving in the direction of neoconservatism. The only consistent theme in Peretz’s career is a devotion to Jewish causes, particularly Israel. He reflects a major theme of Chapter 3 in that he abandoned the New Left when some in the movement condemned Israel as racist and imperialist. During the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, he told Henry Kissinger that his “dovishness stopped at the delicatessen door” (p. 185), and many among his staff feared that all issues would be decided on the basis of what was “good for the Jews” (p. 186). Indeed, one editor was instructed to obtain material from the Israeli embassy for use in TNR editorials. “It is not enough to say that TNR’s owner is merely obsessed with Israel; he says so himself. But more importantly, Peretz is obsessed with Israel’s critics, Israel’s would-be critics, and people who never heard of Israel, but might one day know someone who might someday become a critic” (p. 195).

Sullivan better watch it — he’s just getting himself in deeper. All those quotes from Jews who joke among themselves about Jewish control of particular media outlets like TNR are for internal consumption only. For someone like him — or me — to mention it will certainly draw the ire of people like Wieseltier and the ADL. Tune in for more on this as it unfolds.

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Christopher Donovan: Super Bowl Quick Take

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Christopher Donovan:  *Jewish comedian Jerry Seinfeld once observed that because of constantly rotating rosters, cheering for a sports team is essentially cheering “for a uniform.” That point was underscored at yesterday’s Super Bowl, where New Orleans native Peyton Manning played against his hometown of New Orleans.  If the racial discordance of college and pro sports isn’t enough, you barely ever have anyone who’s even from the area they’re playing for. Put another way, fans root for the local branch of a globalized business enterprise more than they root for the “blood and soil” military-in-miniature warriors of a real hometown team.

*  The game was good enough, with a successful on-side kick and a 70-yard interception that made for some excitement.  An alien in Miami (the kind from outer space, that is) might observe that football is a game where white men throw the ball to black men.  The folks at Caste Football lament this.

* In pre-game interviews, I was struck by the marked Whiteness of Manning and his opponent, Drew Brees.  They both exuded the can-do earnestness of your Eagle Scout, Rotary-club next-door neighbor —  qualities much mocked by Jews and other culture-setters.  Of course, to me, these are heartening qualities, and I suppose our masters only look the other way when lots of money is being made off them.

* If there was a big loser at the Super Bowl, it was the ads.  Lots of people hitting other people, which was supposed to be funny but wasn’t, and lots of crass sexuality.  “People without clothes on” was the theme of more than one ad.  Even Budweiser came up short, with the “people bridge” ad being the only amusing one (you can probably find it on the Internet somewhere, but I’m not linking.)

* One interesting ad theme:  the emasculated male of today’s society.  In one ad, men drone on about all that’s de-masculinizing about being an adult male, then insist that the muscle car will be their refuge.  Hey, white man — yes, you’re emasculated.  You’re deracinated, too.  But instead of chomping Doritos and slathering yourself with Dove, try checking into your racial displacement.

Christopher Donovan is the pen name of an attorney and former journalist. Email him.

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Christopher Donovan: Radical Muslim Shoots Up Fort Hood, But Attention's on Whites?

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Christopher Donovan: I try to ignore the Southern Poverty Law Center and its pathetic flailing, but this blog item was irresistable in its stupidity. 

I had been searching for stories on the Fort Hood killings, scrounging up evidence for my theory that the media has buried this story because of the heavily negative implications for multiracialism.  More on that in a second, but here’s the Google news search result for Fort Hood. 

Note that by the fourth story down, the talk is of grand marshals for parades.  I may be on to something. 

Back to the Southern Poverty Law Center.  Incredibly, they manage to flip this story into something about “white supremacists” — never minding that “white supremacists” were about as far removed from the Fort Hood killings as possible.

In fact, pro-whites are vindicated by the story, because it shows the internally destructive nature of mixing all manner of racial, ethnic and religious groups into a fighting force.

But to the SPLC, it’s an example of how we need to be on the lookout for “hate” — “hate” being something only whites are capable of, naturally.

And the SPLC has great official backing — an author of the Pentagon report they cite is Togo West, a black former Army secretary.

What a shocker that he’d come to conclusions approved by the SPLC.  Where does this absurdity end?

To put the attention back where it belongs, let me state the following.  The killings at Fort Hood by a Muslim extremist who somehow managed to become an officer in the U.S. Army is direct proof of:

* the failure of multiracialism generally

* that the military is infected with political correctness to the point of (literal) self-destruction

* the loss of security created by the destruction of white hegemony

* the failure of nerve on the part of whites who know better but fear being called a “racist” for calling attention to an obvious problem

* the ridiculous nature of the American justice system, which extends to a thoroughgoing enemy all the rights and privileges of a Revolutionary-era tavern owner

* the creeping prevalence of the “not guilty” psycho-babble culture, which had commentators wondering if the “stress of war” caused the shooter’s actions (never mind that he never saw combat).

Nidal Hassan, by his actions, repudiated everything the multiracial global elite teaches us:  that all religions and cultures can blend into an American ideal, that culture and background don’t matter, that only native or poor persons are sucked into anti-Americanism, that the military is a uniquely cohesive organization made up of all colors and creeds focused on a single goal (and is capable of overcoming differences that the rest of society can’t).

So it’s not surprising that there’s radio silence on his story.

Up next for consideration:  when and how did the U.S. military become the last pillar of traditionalism to succumb to anti-white political correctness?

Christopher Donovan is the pen name of an attorney and former journalist. Email him.

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Mel Gibson to Dean Richards: "I’ve moved on; You’re an asshole"

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Mel Gibson can’t avoid questions about his anti-Jewish comments. Dean Richards, a reporter for WGN in Chicago, brought up the topic once again, probably realizing that it was a great strategy for getting ahead. Gibson is obviously pissed off about it:

“That’s been almost four years, dude. I’ve moved on. But I guess you haven’t. …  That was a while back, and I’ve done all the necessary mea culpas, so … let’s move on, dude.”

Richards wrapped up the interview with a standard thank-you-for-coming, and Gibson, drinking coffee, gave the reporter a thumbs-up before muttering a loud-and-clear [“asshole”] right into his mic before the satellite feed was cut.

The mea culpas don’t matter. Apologizing doesn’t work and never has. This is the kind of realization that radicalizes people. One can only hope that Gibson, with all his wealth, his movie-making ability, his  fan base, and his connections in the movie industry will realize that there is no going back and that he will make movies that can change the world.

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Mel Gibson is back

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Mel Gibson’s new movie, Edge of Darkness, has just been released, so he’s making the media rounds. But of course, a lot of reporters want to remind people what the real story about Mel Gibson is — his anti-Jewish comments while being arrested for DUI in 2006. There was a great television moment during an interview with Sam Rubin that goes approximately as follows:

Rubin: “Some people are going to welcome you back and some people are going to say you should never come back.”

Gibson leans forward aggressively, and with a big smile says, “Why?”

Rubin: “Because of what happened before.”

Gibson, feigning ignorance: “Because what happened before?”

Rubin: “Because of the remarks that were attributed to you.”

Gibson: “Remarks that were attributed to me that I didn’t necessarily mean [translation: “Maybe I meant what I said and maybe I didn’t”], but I gather you have a dog in this fight.”

Rubin: “What?”

Gibson: “Do you have a dog in this fight or are you being impartial?”

Beautiful. Putting Rubin on the defensive and calling attention to his Jewish identity — as much as saying, “Of course your remarks are completely understandable because you have an ax to grind: You’re Jewish.”

The best defense is a good offense. The LA Times described Rubin as looking “uncomfortable and, really, who could blame him? Every moviegoer learned long ago that no one comes uncorked quite like Mel Gibson.” I rather doubt that Gibson is going to have deal with his Jewish problem in future interviews.

After the interview, Rubin beats himself up for not being more aggressive  and telling Gibson that “as a Jew and a human being ” he was offended by Gibson’s remarks. Rubin also says he doesn’t really think Gibson has apologized enough, nor has Gibson ever said that what he said was false. (For example, Gibson is reported to have said, “Fucking Jews…Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world.” In an interview with Diane Sawyer he attributed his remarks to the situation in the Middle East and to  the “brutal sort of public beating” he received from Jews in the wake of The Passion. To take the most obvious recent example, if you think that the Iraq war would have happened without Jewish influence you are either seriously deluded or simply not paying attention.)

Actually, I wish Rubin had gotten more aggressive instead of going into a state of shock. Gibson getting uncorked on Rubin would be a great pay-per-view event. My money would definitely be on Braveheart.

Obviously, Rubin was dumbfounded when Gibson didn’t grovel. There’s a lesson for all of us in that.

Incidentally, as I noted previously, Edge of Night seems to be an entirely non-Jewish enterprise: The producer, director, the screenwriter, and the lead actors are all non-Jews. It’s probably the only way Gibson could work in Hollywood as an actor apart from producing his own projects.

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Charles Dodgson: The New York Times Keeps on Page

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Charles Dodgson: The other day I came across a somewhat befuddled but nevertheless  interesting op-ed in the New York Times titled “The Protocol Society” (22 Dec. 2009). The idea is that nowadays industry not only makes physical things but packages sets of instructions. An obvious example is a piece of software. So is a car, most of the value of which is tied up with the knowledge that goes into its design. The steel and plastic are not worth much unshaped. There are important difference between physical and information-rich products. The former are costly to produce, the latter cheap once the design is there. Metal and glass are costly to produce and transport. But an idea, once formulated, can travel at the speed of light and be copied endlessly at essentially zero cost. The pharmaceutical industry is another example. The first pill can cost billions to develop but from there on producing copies costs less than a dime a dozen. 

My only objection at this stage of the article is that physical culture has always had elements of the protocol economy. The first sewn clothing must have been a creative act of genius but because imitation is easier than invention it could spread to the hoi polloi. The ingredients for simple tools are often readily available, but not the knowledge about how to make them. The Neolithic was an economic and lifestyle revolution driven by the spread of innovations. Population density rose 100 times with profound ramifications for human evolution, as argued by Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending in their  recent book, The 10,000 Year Explosion.  My point is that the protocol economy is not new, just accelerated. 

Then the article veered off into the fascinating subject of social implications. It also became horribly befuddled where before it had been middling. 

Protocols are intangible, so the traits needed to invent and absorb them are intangible, too. First, a nation has to have a good operating system: laws, regulations and property rights.

Oh really! Ideas are intangible. Does it follow that the brains that produce them are intangible? What a remarkably silly thing to say. And how did nationhood enter the conversation? The author, whose name I had not yet noticed, was using the nation concept loosely to say the least. The term crops up 5 times, once in a book title. It seems that any state is a nation. The New York Times was making the same error as George W. Bush who throughout his presidency called anything with a government a “nation.” More of the distinction between state and nation in a future post. 

Then came the paragraph that made me look for the author’s name. 

A protocol economy tends toward inequality because some societies and subcultures have norms, attitudes and customs that increase the velocity of new recipes while other subcultures retard it. Some nations are blessed with self-reliant families, social trust and fairly enforced regulations, while others are cursed by distrust, corruption and fatalistic attitudes about the future. It is very hard to transfer the protocols of one culture onto those of another. 

The article does not hint at the possibility of tangible differences between societies. Consistent I suppose. What possible effect could genes and brain characteristics have on a population’s production of useful ideas? Or for that matter what could stable family life and general altruism have to do with,  say, hormone levels and evolutionary history? 

The thing is that this ignorance is willful. Someone who has been around as long as David Brooks knows the evidence or knows where to find it. In addition the NYT does not publish all the news fit to print on such matters. Such people together with such publications create synergies of lies and deception. 

The author is David Brooks. Here he is:

The rewards for towing the line are considerable. Mr. Brooks has an illustrious career providing Americans with an outlook designed to lead them away from their vital interests. Here is one career trail of this “conservative” and very well-connected columnist: 

     The New York Times Columnist (2003-)
    The Weekly Standard Senior Editor (1995-2003)
    The Wall Street Journal (1986-95)
    Atlantic Monthly Contributing Editor
    Newsweek Editor (former)
    National Review�
    The New Yorker�
    The Washington Post�
    The Washington Times  

He is currently a commentator on “The Newshour with Jim Lehrer.” He is the author of Bobos In Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There (basically a portrait of people from his ethnic group — combining “the values of the countercultural sixties with those of the achieving eighties) and On Paradise Drive : How We Live Now (And Always Have) in the Future Tense, both published by Simon & Schuster.

Jews and immigration policy — Again

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A friend sent along Steve Sailer’s review of historian Otis L. Graham’s  Immigration Reform and America’s Unchosen Future. Misleading title. American immigration policy was chosen. It just wasn’t chosen by the vast majority of the American people, and this is Graham’s point. As I have tried to show, it was chosen by the organized Jewish community and put into action as a result of Jewish political pressure and financial wherewithal. Graham notes that the successful immigration restriction of 1924 was seen by historians as one of the reforms of the Progressive Era’s campaign against the excesses of capitalism, since immigration lowered wages.

It’s fair to say, however, that Jews never saw it that way and there’s at least a fair amount of truth in the idea that the 1924 law was enacted to achieve an ethnic status quo that Jews saw as unfair to them. (Jewish immigrants were correctly seen by restrictionists as disproportionately involved in political radicalism, and it was generally a period of ethnic defense of White America.)

As Sailer’s review shows, Jews have not ceased seeing the 1924 law as exclusion of Jews. Graham points out that Jews live in the past when it comes to thinking about immigration: “the “filiopietistic” urge (“of or relating to an often excessive veneration of ancestors …”) is particularly strong among Jewish media figures. Italian-Americans, in contrast, tend to approach the immigration policy question by thinking about the future rather than by obsessing over the past. This anti-rational emotional reflex about immigration contributes to the kitschy quality of MSM discourse on the topic.”

In other words, Jews see the 1924 immigration law as part of their lachrymose history among Europeans, It’s just another example of irrational anti-Semitism — an example that warrants the evil nature of  the people and culture who created it. Since, as Sailer notes, Jews constitute half of the most influential media figures, and since the other half are rigorously vetted to exclude anyone who opposes what amounts to the Jewish consensus on immigration, there really isn’t much real debate in the above-ground media.

Of course, there is a lot of self-censorship. Graham recounts the example of Theodore White, then the most influential journalist in America (and a Jew), refusing to publish his views on immigration. “‘My New York friends would never forgive me. No, you guys are right [on immigration], but I can’t go public on this.’ ” Sailer quotes Graham:

Hearing White’s agitated response, I had my first glimpse of the especially intense emotional Jewish version of that taboo [against immigration skepticism]. His whole heritage, and his standing with all his Jewish friends, was imperiled (he was certain) if he went public with his worries about the state of immigration. …

I did not suspect it then, but this would become an important subtheme of our experience as immigration reformers. American Jews were exceptionally irrational about immigration for well-known reasons. They were also formidable opponents, or allies, in any issue of public policy in America.

In a nutshell, that’s the problem with Jews: They get what they want and what they want is not necessarily what others want (leading to conflicts of interest) or what is good for the country as a whole. It really wouldn’t matter if the only group that wanted open borders was African Americans. But it matters greatly that Jews do.

Incidentally, Otis Graham’s brother Hugh Davis Graham, agrees with me on the forces behind the 1965 law. He wrote in his 2002 book Collision Course (pp. 56-57):

Most important for the content of immigration reform [i.e., loosening], the driving force at the core of the movement, reaching back to the 1920s, were Jewish organizations long active in opposing racial and ethnic quotas. These included the American Jewish Congress, the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, and the American Federation of Jews from Eastern Europe. Jewish members of the Congress, particularly representatives from New York and Chicago, had maintained steady but largely ineffective pressure against the national origins quotas since the 1920s…. Following the shock of the Holocaust, Jewish leaders had been especially active in Washington in furthering immigration reform. To the public, the most visible evidence of the immigration reform drive was played by Jewish legislative leaders, such as Representative Celler and Senator Jacob Javits of New York. Less visible, but equally important, were the efforts of key advisers on presidential and agency staffs. These included senior policy advisers such as Julius Edelson and Harry Rosenfield in the Truman administration, Maxwell Rabb in the Eisenhower White House, and presidential aide Myer Feldman, assistant secretary of state Abba Schwartz, and deputy attorney general Norbert Schlei in the Kennedy-Johnson administration.

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