Arguing with anti-White Bear

/24 Comments/in /by

Tim Wise learned a few years ago that he has nothing to gain and everything to lose from a fair and open debate about racial issues. Fortunately for him, modern technology has empowered him to create imaginary straw men to win debates against. This is a great catharsis for him, as his opponents walk right into all of his traps, resort to name-calling, and even fart.

Behold: Arguing With Xenophobe Bear: Volume Two of the “Bears and Bigots” Series.

Some thoughts…
Read more

Derrida’s (Crypto-) Jewish Identity

/35 Comments/in , , , /by

In Culture of Critique I had a brief section on philosopher Jacques Derrida’s strong Jewish identity and how that informed his writing. (See here, p. 198ff.) It emphasizes the point that Derrida thought of himself as a crypto-Jew. Despite his pose as “a leftist Parisian intellectual, a secularist and an atheist,” Derrida descended from a long line of crypto-Jews, and at one point he explicitly identifies himself as a crypto-Jew: “Marranos that we are, Marranos in any case whether we want to be or not, whether we know it or not.” Derrida changed his first name to the French Christian sounding ‘Jacques’ in order better blend into the  French scene.

Indeed, one might say that Derrida’s crypsis is typical of Jews on the left:

[Leftist] universalism may thus be viewed as a mechanism for Jewish continuity via crypsis or semi-crypsis. The Jewish radical is invisible to the [non-Jew] as a Jew and thereby avoids anti-Semitism while at the same time covertly retains his or her Jewish identity. Lyons (1982, 73) finds that “most Jewish Communists wear their Jewishness very casually but experience it deeply. It is not a religious or even an institutional Jewishness for most; nevertheless, it is rooted in a subculture of identity, style, language, and social network. . . . In fact, this second-generation Jewishness was antiethnic and yet the height of ethnicity. The emperor believed that he was clothed in transethnic, American garb, but [non-Jews] saw the nuances and details of his naked ethnicity.” (Chapter 3 of CofC, p. 91)

The Forward has an article on a recent biography of Derrida that adds to the portrait. It notes that Derrida was “acutely aware of his ethnic identity” and as a result much of his early writing was on “fellow Jews.” He took his crypto-Judaism to the grave:

Abundant details provided by Peeters prove Derrida’s lasting devotion toYiddishkeit … When Derrida was buried, his elder brother, René, wore a tallit at the suburban French cemetery and recited the Kaddish to himself inwardly, since Jacques had asked for no public prayers. This discreet, highly personal, yet emotionally and spiritually meaningful approach to recognizing Derrida’s Judaism seems emblematic of this complex, imperfect, yet valuably nuanced thinker.

In other words, Derrida was a crypto-Jew until the end and instructed his family to participate in the charade.  Read more

Geert Wilders and the Growing Jewish Influence in Dutch politics

/28 Comments/in , /by

The rise of Geert Wilders and the new Dutch government

The Dutchman Geert Wilders is a break-away parliamentarian from the Liberal Party who founded his own Freedom Party in 2004. Since his youth he has developed an emotional bond with the Jewish state and has visited Israel at least more than 40 times. As a youngster he went there to work in the Kibbutz, a socialist experiment of collective farming, and had an abortive relationship with a Jewish girl. His second wife is the Jewish-Hungarian diplomat Krisztina Marfaimarried.

The reason for his breakaway from the Liberal Party was their point of view about immigration in general and Muslims in particular. Wilders’ concern for Muslim immigration is because he believes that Israel and the West are confronted by the same enemy. He recently declared in an interview for the Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot that the Palestinians are not a puny guerrilla force fighting a last stand against dispossession by the settler movement backed by the Israeli military juggernaut. They are the first line of defense of the Western world:

The Palestinians believe – and this is the nature of Islam – that Israel is their country and that they are fighting the non-Muslims in the West through it. The struggle against Israel is a struggle against us. We are Israel. The reason Dutch parents can sleep calmly without having to worry about their kids is that Israeli parents stay awake at night because their children are in the army. This doesn’t mean Israel cannot be criticized, but I’m not ashamed to fight for Israel. Read more

Recent Jewish and Muslim pro-immigration activism

/45 Comments/in , /by

Just in case there remained any doubt, non-White groups are leading the charge on legalizing the illegals and raising even further the numbers of legal immigrants. The latest things I’ve come across (in addition to Newsweek’s predictable puff piece on Rep. Luis Gutierrez (Dem, IL) “the most passionate, tireless, and nettlesome voice in Congress on immigration matters”) is a grant from the Ford Foundation to the American Jewish Committee:

The Ford Foundation has awarded a grant of $500,000, the second in two years, to support AJC programs to strengthen intergroup relations in the United States and mobilize for comprehensive immigration reform. Read more

Charles Dodgson replies to comments

/110 Comments/in , , , /by

I want to thank commentators for pointing out errors in my review of Band of Brothers. Watching the sequence again I can see that it was Webster who shouted out at the surrendering German troops. And sure enough there are the different types of uniforms on the camp inmates, as John Orloff notes. Also I did not realize that Liebgott was in fact Catholic or that Tom Hanks is partly Jewish (actually I still don’t realize that Hanks is Jewish). One part of the camp scene in which an error occurs is especially important because a prisoner explains what the camp is and who the prisoners are. The exchange is as follows:

(Liebgott interprets.)

Winters: “Will you ask him what kind of camp this is? Why are they here?”

Prisoner: “It is a work camp for Unerwuenscht.”

Liebgott cannot translate the final word.

Winters: “Criminals?”

Prisoner: “No. Doctors, clerks, musicians, taylors, farmers, intellectuals, . . . Jews, Jews, Jews . . . Poles, Gypsies.”

My review correctly quoted the prisoner as identifying the camp as a work camp. However, where the prisoner comes to describe ethnicity and nationality my review omits his mention of Poles, though I do include Gypsies in quoting him. The omission does not affect my argument because Jews are clearly emphasized, more so in the literal transcript above than in my review. Nevertheless this and other errors are embarrassing. Read more

Uri Avnery on Religious Jews

/51 Comments/in , /by

Uri Avnery is an insightful observer of the Israeli scene and Judaism in general. In a recent column, he notes that the early Zionists were anti-religious, at least partly because prominent orthodox rabbis were anti-Zionist. But David Ben-Gurion subsidized “a few hundred” Yeshiva students so they could spend their time studying rather than working or joining the military. Now, these “Torah-shielded parasites”  “constitute 13% of the entire yearly crop of those liable to the draft. Moreover, 65% of all Orthodox male citizens do not work at all and live on the public purse.”

Photo from article on U.S. State Dept. Report criticizing Israel for favoring Orthodox sects (see below). Note the very close social bonds and close physical resemblance among these young men. This doubtless reflects their close genetic relatedness, their similarities accentuated by their common dress. It's an excellent one-picture-is-worth-a-thousand-words snapshot of traditional Jewish collectivism that has become politically and culturally dominant in Israel.

However, a small group of nationalist religious Jews were also encouraged by Ben Gurion. This group has prospered as well, giving rise to Gush Emunim (“the Bloc of the Faithful’), “the ideological core of the settlement movement. Nowadays this camp is directed by Rabbis whose teachings emit a strong odor of Fascism.” Read more

Steven Spielberg: Body Snatcher–A Review of the Miniseries “Band of Brothers”

/125 Comments/in , , , , /by

Band of Brothers, the 2001 TV miniseries, was produced  by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks.

Episode 9 was directed by David Frankel and written by John Orloff.

Based on the 1992 book by Stephen E. Ambrose, Band of Brothers. E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler’s Eagle Nest, Simon and Schuster (reviewed edition by Pocket Books, 2001).

In ten episodes, Band of Brothers depicts how E (“Easy”) Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, trained in America and England and then fought from D-Day through to the end of the European phase of WWII. It is a technically strong and gripping production. The battle scenes are among the most realistic I have seen, though one must allow for the demands of the cinematic medium — emphasis of a few individuals and spatial compression of combat groups. I am reminded of the grim and gritty street battle sequences in Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan. This review looks at the ninth episode, which does not depict military conflict but is itself something of a black operation in the culture wars.

As our own Edmund Connelly has repeatedly demonstrated, Jewish interests have frequently been pushed by American television and Hollywood films in various ways, often as a backdrop to stories unrelated to ethnicity, like the omnipresent upper class Anglo twit and the Black genius technical expert. The 9th episode of Band of Brothers, titled “Why We Fight”, represents an unprecedented level of ambition — to claim America’s WWII sacrifices as motivated by the desire to save Jews from Nazi persecution, to make America’s sacrifice in WWII all about the Jews, not about Americans doing their duty in a tragic internecine conflict. Read more