The left’s reaction to the massacre in Israel has many progressive Jews in the West rethinking their past activism, political affiliations, and friendships.
““When you look at the political right you see a group that seems very comfortable with Jews in Israel and very uncomfortable with Jews at home. And when you look at the political left, you see a group that seems very comfortable with Jews at home and very uncomfortable with Jews in Israel,” Clark said. “
The actions of professors and students on college campuses says otherwise, the mass protests in western cities says otherwise, your own eyes and ears tell you otherwise and yet you still can’t see the left for what it is.
Covid mandates gave everybody a little taste of progressive authoritarianism. All of you progressive dimwits are busy undermining individual rights in the name of group rights and encouraging mass immigration. You are going to reap what you sow. It won’t just be Jewish people. Gay people, trans people, disabled people, anyone who does not have a powerful tribe to protect them will be victimized.
Don't know about Gaza but it is a proven fact that this sort of killing is done by Islamic State and ISIS militants, so it is certainly possible they're doing that in Gaza too.
There is a video circulating of someone being throw off a building by guys who look like Hamas. The video description claims it was Hamas and that it was because he was gay. Who knows if any of that is true.
Okay, now follow the thread to see how Comprof successfully baits readers to go off on a tangent unrelated to Bari’s article. Stop feeding and following the troll.
Yes, Neo-Nazis, who are few in number, wield no power over anything relevant outside some thrash metal concert in Idaho. Leftists' "march through the institutions" has them in positions of power from dog catcher to prime minister / president.
It isn't so much that the Left is anti-Semitic so much as that they're bat shit crazy. Which makes them perfect bedfellows for the Nazis, who defined bat shit crazy. The problem with the "progressive" Jews who still bray idiotically here is that they now see only the anti-Semitism of the Left but continue to embrace its otherwise patent lunacy.
I heartily agree. So much careful parsing of words when it's clear the left is, as you say, bat shit crazy. For example, they support Antifa for being anti-fascist, when the group acts just like the German Brownshirts, and borderline personalities learn to bully and intimidate at will. Because they claim to be anti-fascist. Duh!
Thanks for articulating what I thought as I read this. It's like they are so accustomed to compartmentalizing, they'll continue doing it at their peril.
To clump conservatives as one of those interviewed did, you have to believe she'll never change her views or her vote. Again, at her peril.
That's what my father said, who was Wehrmacht then. And Martin Niemöller made it like unforgettable, but you see... Cohen sang "there is a war between the ones who say there is a war and the ones who say that there isn't." The left and the young always love the underdog, looking the other way when it starts biting. Or killing.
Yes I think that is the attraction to the young progressives. Israel is the Silicon Valley of the Middle East and Palestine is a wreck. We also have to ask ourselves how is it our young go to “institutions of higher learning” and come out dumber? They don’t have the intellectual curiosity to Google and find out Israel does not occupy Gaza, or simply look up the definition of Apartheid. They could Google it, not even have to spend an afternoon at the library, to find out about South Africa.
So true. And while these nitwits bray idiotically about the alleged "genocide" of the "Palestinian people," they blindly ignore the throngs of them. Some "genocide."
Comprof, any words for Hamas building their bases under hospitals? Schools? Homes of innocent Palestinians? Using babies as shields? No? Does Hamas’ charter not call for genocide of Jews? Did Israel not try 5 separate times to create a peaceful resolution with Palestine? Help me understand what I’m missing here.
So Israel can't take any action "where civilians are?" Good thing that rule did not apply in World War II, because we would have to call off D-Day or the Doolittle Raids.
This abomination has already accused Israel of stealing organs. It is one step away from accusing us of using babies’ blood to make matza. Time to stop engaging.
And let’s be clear, it’s the far, far right where the neo-Nazis are and yes there aren’t that many. But most of the middle left to far Left is antisemitic and there are many. So how does that even compare?
Agree. I tell the same fact and it were the upper class Jews who felt more German than Jewish- they perished. Some read Hitler’s Mein Kampf and believed what he will do, others denied it and died.
Most of the German Jewish intellectuals left Germany in the early 1930s as Hitler came to power. Mein Kampf was written in 1925 while Hitler was in prison. Doubt anyone read it until he came to power in the 1930s. The first to leave were the Communists, Socialist, peaceniks, and Zionist who were told to leave or be jailed. There was a 5 year period leading up to the "Night of Broken Glass" in 1938 where most thought that Hitler would lose power politically. After that night, 2/3rds of the German Jewish population left over the next 2 1/2 year period. By that time the rest of the world had closed its door to Jewish immigration. There were only 300,000 Jews left. There were 3 million Jews killed in Poland. My grandfather immigrated from Poland to London in 1928 running from the antisemitism. Last fall my son visited Auschwitz in Poland. I didn't suggest he do this nor really go into the Holocaust with him. He knew his great grandfather left Poland and was Jewish, that is all he knew (He was raised Catholic). I was proud of him, but he has always been intellectually curious. Anyway, facts are stubborn things.
In fact, I don't think there's many neo-Nazis in this country at all
If they even dared pop their heads in public, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, NYT, yada, yada, would be making front page news of it 24hrs a day, and they DON'T. That tells me everything I need to know
I despise the media for how they've brainwashed the liberal masses. They're despicable pieces OS
I equally despise the liberal masses for allowing themselves to be so brainwashed. They consider themselves the intellectual and moral superiors to any who don't adhere to their carefully constructed catechisms, yet possess zero capacity for even the most rudimentary critical independent thinking.
There aren’t, their prominence in national discourse is entirely a creation of the corporate media and US intelligence services intended to keep the left in fear of the nonexistent boogeyman. At its peak in the 1920’s, the KKK numbered over two million, today less than five thousand. Neo-nazis are vastly outnumbered by, say, Jehovah’s Witnesses or the Amish.
Remember that the KKK were the southern Democrats enforcement squad, a role assumed today by ANTIFA and college undergrads.
The much maligned Southern Poverty Law Center has made it their mission to convince America (and American law enforcement) there is a neo-Nazi hiding behind every tree.
True at first. But in the 1920's the KKK was re-born in Indiana and co-opted numerous judges and politicians, including the Republican governor and other Republicans. They had rallies that drew as many as 100,000 people in Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, and Kentucky.
Before you can learn from history you must first be taught history, something which isn't very common in American education these days. At least not in any remotely objective or in-depth fashion.
any future plan needs to look at the education system in Gaza and remove it's hatred teaching of the jewish peoples to make a change. Islamic countries that teach hatred of Jews and Christians in their schools to their young, ingrain that mentality and make it hard to allow for change. I remember reading an article in Readers Digest many years ago, about schools in Pakistan teaching that hatred and how can it be overcome later.
The only reason there's an impression that the "right" are antisemetic is because of media bias. Sure, there's some -- there's a tiny minority of the far right that are "uncomfortable with Jews at home" -- maybe 5% of fewer. But those guys are also pretty uncomfortable with Israel existing. It's just magnified via propoganda since so many media outlets (and ADL, of course) are so leftist that any right-wing antisemitism is instantly exposed.
For every Nick Fuentes type, I guarantee there are 20 college students ready to declare Jewish people an oppressor class.
Wrong. You must not have any connections to college students. While most haven't experienced the Arab/Israeli wars, they now are understanding who the Arabs really are. Most of my 21 year old son's friends are fully in the Israeli camp against the Palestinians. And they know about 9/11 because they were told about that their entire lives. Easy to put those two historical events together. There is a minority on "elite" campuses and obviously loud professors that we hear from that are anti-Jew. But even the media like CNN is having a problem keeping up the pro-palestanian orientation.
I also have a 21-year-old son who is a college student. He is not easily identified as Jewish by name or appearance and is not active with the campus Hillel. He has been dismayed to hear a number of his acquaintances (thank goodness, not close friends) spout “anti-Zionist” garbage to him. There have been loud, large demonstrations on campus.
He happens to be at an Ivy League university, but friends of mine whose kids are at state universities have heard the same story, though perhaps not with the same size demonstrations. Most colleges lean quite liberal and the progressives—who lean heavily into intersectionality—are active even in state universities in the Midwest.
We are going to have to disagree. I live several miles from an Ivy League University. The pro-palestanian protest was about a dozen to twenty students. I will say this, you are right about the so-called elite universities being more attuned to progressiveness. But, is it not so much the professors (although they are certainly much of that) but the administrators. Elite campuses now have as many administrators as students and they have used their power to move the campus to the far left. This aligns itself with the movement to hire non white males going on its 3rd decade. And to admit the same. The Jews who dominated the professorships at elite universities have been retiring for years and are being replaced. Even Brandeis is suffering from this same issue. Outside of the elite universities is a very different and more diverse thinking group of students.
You know, they also like to trot out David Duke every four years, yet David Duke has had nothing but praise for radical blacks who hate Jews as much as he does.
It should not be difficult to find (even in a search on radical left Google) how he has praised and endorsed Louis Farrakhan, Ilhan Omar and Cynthia McKinney. AFAIK, none of these renounced his endorsement.
Understandably--it's only been three weeks--these people haven't had a chance yet to make new friends. I was raised evangelical, although I'm not anymore (still Christian, but some theology shifts) and my experience is that they're very comfortable with Jews both here and in Israel. I grew up being told Jews were "elder brothers of the faith," that our tradition is rooted in theirs, and we owe them deep respect and affection for that, as well as for their social and cultural contributions.
The neo-Nazi faction of the right is real and it needs to be rooted out but, turns out, not quite as big as the neo-Nazi faction of the left!
It's a sliver. A handful of nitwits amidst a sea of conservatives who are proud supporters of Israel and defenders of Jews in our communities - even the silly progressive Jews depicted in this story.
I was raised evangelical too and my parents actually talked to us about Israel and why we should support. I’m still in shock at the level of dissent against Israel and Jews in this country. I think we must have failed in teaching our kids about the holocaust. Never again was the quote, right?
I think the current crop of college kids are probably the first ones who didn't grow up around WWII vets and Holocaust survivors. I'm late Gen X, and both my granddads fought in the war. We had all-school assemblies where Holocaust survivors would visit to tell their stories. That generation was really determined that people know what had happened, so they passed it on to their children and their grandchildren...they weren't around to teach it to their great-grandchildren, and I guess the rest of us dropped the ball.
That doesn't explain the 40-year-olds at the protests but I don't pretend to be inside their heads.
How many muslims have emigrated to the U.S., especially during Obama and post Obama years. How many times have we heard to not have islamophobia by our elected leaders. Well what do they teach their children regarding the jewish people? They are certainly in our education system including colleges and universities. Just look at London and ask yourself if they still believe in anti-semitism? With over a billion muslims worldwide, it only makes sense that their world view would infiltrate every developed nation. People don't consider religion education at their own peril.
My wife grew up evangelical and her parents are pretty far to the right. We have many points of disagreement, but they are some of the most moral people I have ever met. They are certainly not anti-Semites.
Between marrying her and moving to a rural area, I have met a lot of real, flesh and blood conservatives. It has really opened my eyes to the casual (and casually cruel manner) in which the intellectual elites often stereotype conservatives and lump them in with the crazies who have far more in common with Antifa than they do with the vast majority of conservatives. I wonder how it is that they miss the fact that the Tea Party was spiritual brethren with the Occupy movement.
In any event, I am grateful to have met and broken bread with so many people who aren't quite sophisticated enough to believe that mass murder, torture, rape, and the deliberate targeting of civilians (and use of civilians as human shields) is somehow justifiable.
I like this comment but I wonder if there is a nazi faction on the political right. I believe there are some whackadoodle internet groups out their but I would be surprised if they actually vote.
Of course there is. And they control no meaningful aspect of politics or any part of society. They're incredibly marginalized, as they should be. The Nazi-Hamas left on the other hand ARE NOT. They control the narrative in college. They're influential in politics. They are the progressive left. Unfortunately, they are America's future.
I know there are some I just question whether they are POLITICAL. Apparently there are some Nazi youth in Ft. Worth and everybody is outraged. As they should be. But looking at the pics I think maybe they are attention seekers. I mean when rainbow hair, vampire teeth, horns, full body tattoos, boys as girls, and girls as boys do not even raise an eyebrow what is a youngster to do for attention?
Same. People like to think that evangelicals hate Jews because “Jews killed Jesus” but I was always raised to think of Jews as our respectable elder in a way.
Don't bother worrying about the neo-Nazi. We are a nation of over 300 million. A certain percentage are always going to be loopy. They are insignificant. But once you decide you have to regulate every evil thought or challenge every whacked out personality, you are going to drive yourself nuts. And you're going to need a lot of secret police
Sure! I'm at an EPC church (Evangelical Presbyterian Church)--the EPC allows women to be pastors and elders (I think each congregation can choose for itself whether it ordains women but the denomination doesn't prevent it). I started attending an EPC church 20 years ago not because I was particularly attached to the Westminster Confession, but because I wanted an interracial congregation since I was raising a black foster child. I found one in Houston. It happened to be EPC. My pastor came from a Missionary Baptist background. He's still one of my most trusted mentors. Just a pillar of integrity.
Figure out what matters to you. What mattered to me was having Jesus at the center of everything, not being beholden to any political party, strong community, and a connection to the physical community around it (be that via food pantries, AA meetings, whatever). I found that at an EPC church but it could just as easily have been PCUSA or the Episcopal Church. Churches vary a LOT within any denomination--I loved an Episcopal Church I went to for liturgical days (Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, etc) in Houston but I've been in other Episcopal churches where I felt like they cared more about attending the next Pride march than discipling their congregation. As my old teacher Peter Gomes used to say, "We do not preach from The New York Times. We do not preach from our favorite book of poetry. We preach from the Word of God, which is the Old and New Testaments." (Harvard Divinity School is a mess but Gomes was an absolute gem who used to sing old Baptist hymns with me in the basement--I was so sad when he died.)
Anyway, figure out what matters most to you, visit some churches but don't judge an entire denomination by one congregation, and then once you're there settle in. I don't think there's a single denomination that aligns with me perfectly, and if it did I'd probably have created God in my own image. There's no such thing as a perfect church; it's a community and community ought to force us to deal with people we disagree with. Know what your dealbreakers are and let the other stuff slide.
Yeah, as someone on the political right, I don’t run into a lot of people who have a problem with Jews, although I acknowledge some fringe actors who do.
Israelis will tell you that their most fervent supporters are devout Christians. As a conservative Jew, one of two, in a Christian based charity supporting multiple orphanages in Nicaragua, all I saw was evidence of love and generosity from my Christian friends. I am old enough to remember blatant anti-Semitism in my youth, but in my community it is virtually non-existent. My wife and I have as many Christian social friends as Jewisn.
Yeah, they're projecting something from a century ago. All of the mainstream conservative Christian churches are fully accepting of Jews. A huge number of conservative Christians make pilgrimages to Israel -- their churches organize group trips. The only anti-Semitic incident I've seen here in this moderate-conversative Alabama city in years was an act of teenage vandalism.
It is the left-wing, formerly "Mainline" churches that are so rabidly Jew-hating these days. The Presbyterian Church USA and the United Church of Christ openly support BDS; I think the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America may also, but even if it doesn't, they are still rabidly pro-Palestinian and anti-Semitic.
I agree. And these are not Christian churches. They are social clubs and quasi religion for leftists. I know I belonged to one for a while. I was so naive. I learned after being asked serve on Church leadership that most didn’t believe in God and were there for the Choir and the Causes. The BLM banner being flown was the deal killer for me.
True story: I used to attend a UCC before I learned about real Christianity. I was at a confirmation class meeting and the kids had been told to write up a list of commitments they would make to God. One kid put on the list "I will not worship demons or other gods." The mothers freaked out. Said "No, this is an open and affirming church! You can't have that as a commitment!" I said "Guys, that's the first commandment." They were horrified at me, too. I told my son (who wanted to go through confirmation) that I felt ill and needed to leave. He stayed, and later told me proudly that I was the only mom to ever walk out of confirmation class and he was the only kid who wanted to go to confirmation. He was never confirmed, thank God.
I’m a lifelong Lutheran of ELCA churches until recently when I moved to another state (now in a LMCS church for a variety of reasons). I would never consider the Lutherans as Jew-hating or as a church of the “in-crowd”. Lutherans in most non-urban areas tend to remain Lutheran and stick pretty close to the traditional liturgy. I think more recently the ELCA has turned more liberal in cities, but that’s not the majority of Lutherans. Growing up Lutheran in the 1960s, we were taught the Jews were God’s chosen people, originators of Judeo-Christian values.
Not as much as you might think in the southern states, further from the MO mother ship…and there are a lot of transfers in from ELCA churches. I’ve been a member in several eastern ELCA churches, very small congregations in blue states, much older congregations and they were pretty moderate.
You'll notice I pointed out ELCA and not Missouri Synod. I assume rural churches tend toward the more conservative denomination. And if they are still part of ELCA, despite its move toward cultural Communism, then I have no choice but to assume they are OK with it.
Evangelical Christians aren’t uncomfortable with Jews at home. Rather we are uncomfortable with the progressive left ideology of many Jewish groups at home. Not their Jewishness at all, but their politics.
The naive line about being "comfortable with Jews at home, but not in Israel" is a lie. They ain't comfortable with Jews anywhere. The sooner people realize it, the better. These Nazis are always peeking under Jews' hair to see if there are horns.
They're only semi-comfortable with the most assimilated, pandering Jews at home. They're not comfortable with religious Jews or even Jews who have had a solid Jewish education.
Nah, they'll turn on anyone named Stein or Gold at any moment, even if they pray at Our Lady of Simchas or Temple Episcopel or the Al-Selfhatingjew Mosque, or claim to be agnostic or atheist. Be warned. These people are just looking to let the Nazis know that Anne is in the attic. Just because you're useful now, doesn't mean they want you and your horned head in their utopia.
There’s an urban-rural divide there. Suburban and ex urban Trump supporters don’t encounter many ultra-orthodox Jews, certainly not well enough to know them personally.
Rural white folks hardly encounter ANY type of Jew, from ultra-Orthodox to Liberal. I grew up one of those, and never met a Jew until high school. Most Jews live in cities and suburbs, not in the boonies.
Right. I seized on that statement too, but from the right perspective. Where are the anti semites on the right? What is that allegation based on? I am a lifelong Conservative, used to say Republican but they have largely lost my confidence, a Christian, who sees Jews as my brothers and sisters. If you accept that the right has more Christian’s than the left, then the right shared the same Judeo Christian foundation. I surely hope Jewish Americans are waking up to how the left sees them, the same as I would for my black fellow citizens, both have been used by the Democrats for decades and decades. But let’s get past these false characterizations of the right.
I agree with your observation of the left, I have been seeing this growing anti semitism from the left for a number of years. They have been clearly pro Palestine and anti Israel, I just cannot deal with it continuing after the barbaric attack that left babies in ovens and beheaded. How the left can do a hand wave on that tells me our society has reached a new low point. I pray on it daily.
there's definitely antisemites on the right. Neo nazi types, people who despise when Jews move into their neighborhoods. etc. they just have no actual command of politics or any backing in society. And don't scare me, as a Jew. Make no mistake: they exist. And are happy to jump on the israel bashing bandwagon. But the left has literally become just one antisemitic blob and it's scary as hell to me. It's definitely not as prominent on the right as it has become on the left. The left made it acceptable in 2023 to say terrorism and genocide against Jews is okay. The right made it acceptable in 1939, they're the past of antisemitism, the left is the future.
I've been around the sun a few revolutions now, and for the life of me there are two things I just cannot understand: how blacks consistently vote against their own best interests, and how so many Jews do the same.
Maybe just maybe after their communities are fully decimated by crime and they have no police, the black community will wake up. I would have thought Biden’s “you ain’t black” comment would have done it, but I was wrong. If the current scene on campus and from the left political establishment after the Hamas attack doesn’t wake up Jewish voters, nothing ever will.
To my eye, the only organized crime in the black community is when a) there's a gang hit and b) when dozens of blacks swarm Apple, Foot Locker, and jewelry stores, "just trying to feed their families."
Just last night I looked at Facebook for the first time in a few months, primarily to share hope with my Jewish friends from high school. I was struck by one Jewish friend who was reposting all sorts of pro-Israel comments, who also posted how hearing Biden's speech from Israel "made her cry." I hope she was starting to realize that the Democratic Party does not support Jews, but I'm really not sure.
Increasingly people on either side of the divide don't know each other. We get to choose where we live now, more so than in the past when people lived in the same town for decades and served on PTAs and the Rotary Club together, so we self-sort. I've had friends who wouldn't move to a given city because its political representatives were too liberal or too conservative.
My parents are conservative Christians who count among their closest friends a liberal atheist couple and a Conservative Jewish couple (conservative in denomination, not in politics). I know very few people under 40 who have friend groups that ideologically diverse, so both sides become prone to caricaturing the other.
It's really not the same. Polling has shown conservatives know what progressives believe but progressives don't know what conservatives believe. Progressives believe the narratives they tell each other as purity tests. There is a very good reason for this. Conservatives that want to have a good job or go to college have to be around progressives but progressives are never forced to be around conservatives.
I’ve run across people who genuinely believe that mainstream conservatives are morally opposed to women working outside the home. I was like, “Just what century do you think you’re living in?!”
Ya'. Their are a lot of ridiculous people. My mom once confessed to me that we had to fight because their are people that are trying to make the handmaids tale happen. I didn't even know what to say... I just said, "okay mom... I love you."
Cool cool, so when the Speaker of the House says gay marriage is a "dark harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy that could doom even the strongest republic," I should assume that's what all conservatives believe (after all, the Speaker has a lot more weight in the party than a governor)? That that is, in fact, the one and only conservative position on that matter?
Good to know. I'm still new to this game so always happy to be shown the rules.
When I read that quote I wondered what political right he was talking about. Specific examples? Because, other than a very few on the far right I don't know of anyone that is uncomfortable with "Jews at home." The neo-Nazi's are way overblown and their numbers and influence constantly inflated to make them into more of a threat than they really are. Look at the numbers who show up for their marches. They can barely get 100 people to show up. Not much of a threat.
I don’t believe that Christians are unaccepting of local Jews by heritage but are perplexed at the progressive ideology of American Jews. The divide is more about political leanings and not about race. What is it about people on the left who automatically default to “ race?” It’s really very lazy thinking and part of the reason we are having the problems we currently have.
I had just highlighted those exact words to copy, but you beat me to it. These blind Jews are still in denial. Here is a very uncomfortable truth for them. There are Jews and Christians who believe in the Bible and the Judeo-Christian ethical founding of this country. They are not going to celebrate homosexuality or abortion, but they also will not call for the annihilation of Jews in America, around the world, or in Israel. You do not get to know better than God when he calls certain actions sins and then urge people to listen to Him when he opposes beheading babies - or throwing practicing homosexuals from roofs. The choice is rather stark now. Perhaps it's time to learn more about your heritage and accept that you are not smarter, nor more loving people, than those who follow thousands of years of wisdom.
The political Right is mostly either economic or religious. We want less government intrusion in our lives, and Christians want some semblance of public morality, which ultimately is some set of shared values, because human society is better if we agree at least on some things, like the perniciousness of pornography, the moral hazard of murdering fetuses, and the general ills of making our culture less serious, less respectful, and more selfish. We can draw the lines in different places, but in my view the underlying idea is unassailable. We are disintegrating as a society, because we have no idea what to expect from our neighbors, so we don't talk to them.
But Anti-Semitism is not a feature of Republicans or Conservatives. It is a feature of toothless rednecks who live in remote places and are really irrelevant to the national political scene.
Just look at what Israel is being blamed for now, and what people are believing. That same shit has been happening to us for 30 years or more. It's not only true that Big Lies on loop get believed, but that you can TRAIN people to believe lies. That has become the function of our K-12 and beyond indoctrination system. Once people are trained, they won't question even the most obvious lies. That much has become very, very clear in the past few years. Critical thinking on a mass scale is gone. No longer relevant.
"But Anti-Semitism is...a feature of toothless rednecks who live in remote places and are really irrelevant to the national political scene."
Shortly after my husband and I finally moved to our dream small town in North Carolina, we took a day trip to Asheville - at that time, still a vibrant, artsy community, before full- woke politicism made it THE place to avoid. We stopped at a small, crowded coffee house and invited a couple who walked in a couple of minutes later to share our table. That they were elite and progressive was immediately evident from the small talk that dominated the first ten minutes. We told them we had just moved from California and that seemed to open the floodgates. We smiled and nodded and learned about the "true plight of the Cherokee" as portrayed in a local theatre production. They told us not to believe that the whole of the South was racist - at least not this far north. Then one of the women asked where we had settled.
Our turn to gush about our tiny, Western North Carolina mountain town.
"How could you CHOOSE to live THERE?" she howled. With total disregard to the looks on our faces, she proceeded to let fly a virtual blizzard of Toothless Redneck jokes - political views, backwards religion, lack of education and hygiene, incest - every known stereotype.
When she finally took a breath, nudged into silence by her slightly more cognizant companion, we offered that everyone we had met in and around our new home town seemed nice and welcoming, that the young people seemed to be better educated than those in our native state of California (something we, as retired teachers, always seemed to notice), and that even the toothless poor seemed to be open and kind-hearted toward people outside their socio-economic-politico circle.
The Wit gave her companion a knowing glance, but said nothing. We obviously didn't share her insight. The conversation died. We paid for our drinks and left.
In eight years, our opinions of the 'Toothless Rednecks" of Western North Carolina have not radically changed - people are people no matter where they live or how many teeth they sport. But for all of that time, I have wished I'd had the guts to pop that smug, judgmental woman in the nose.
I was with your comment until the redneck jab. Their are individuals but they aren't dominant. A lot of banter happens between races in redneck places that liberals would find offensive but its done often enough between the closest of friends. The actual redneck racist is a small dying breed.
I will add I’ve spent time in many small towns in Appalachia. Most of those people are very decent. But there are actual racists among them, or so I suspect. Maybe I am wrong. In any event the naked and highly consequential racism of the Left is by far the most pressing ignorant hate I see in this country.
I'm from those folks and there absolutely are actual racists*** among them. Quite a few of them, even if they no longer feel comfortable flying the Rebel flag and deploying "the N word" so freely.
And I think that's where we (now, for me) on the middle have gone wrong. There actually are bad (white) actors on race, not just the overt ones (including the TINY numbers of swastika-tattooed white supremacists), and to pretend like that is not an underlying motivation for at least some R voters, makes switching sides unpalatable for a lot of otherwise middle-of-the-road former Ds.
***Almost useless word now, but I'm speaking in terms of white people who truly believe black people are "inferior," at a fundamental level.
The majority of those that I've met with actual racist views tend to be in horrible circumstances and unable to accept personal responsibility so they look for scape goats. Same thing happens in urban black communities whether it ends up as racism or just hating cops. It's poverty and desperate despair. In both the black and the white ghettos, these people aren't typically influential.
I still think it was wrong to remove geometry proofs from the regular math curriculum in high schools. It was the one place students learned logical thought. Hence now many college students believe illogical arguments.
I’ve met plenty of toothless rednecks. I am speaking from experience. Everybody in every small town has an uncle or cousin who says hateful things when they get a few beers in them. These people exist but as I keep saying, are socially irrelevant. There is no System outside big cities owned by Democrats.
Then say that - some small town (as if assholes don't live in cities) people who say racist things when they get a few beers in them. In your sanctimoniousness you lumped toothless rednecks into a pile. You know it. You acknowledged it in other comments. I do expect better from you.
Edited to say I think you are correct about the urban/rural divide. I think it is because rural people are born into or migrate into rural life and understand that self-sufficiency is important. Toothless rednecks and all. Whereas urbanites believe in and want government services/fixes. They are bleeding rural items dry to have them. I know which I prefer and which I believe to have superior intellect.
I would say people on the right are very comfortable and supportive of the Jewish community in this country and with Israel and that people on the woke far left have shown themselves to be comfortable with neither and extremely hostile to both.
For me, the shock was seeing my numerous Muslim friends and acquaintances, pleasant and intelligent people, suddenly exhibit this ancient blood lust. It’s like, who are you?
The Left’s hatred of Israel is baffling. There is not a single Muslim country in the Middle East that is a democracy. Women are second class and often way worse( Iran ) Gays are castrated , jailed or killed( Palestinian gay men sneak to Tel Aviv to meet nice Jewish boys) Saudi allowed women the right to drive only in the last 2 years. Syria is a disaster. Israel is a young democracy ( imperfect but so is ours) that has spent the last year demonstrating on a massive scale to define and improve their democratic commitment. Israel has absorbed Jews from any and all countries who have needed to emigrate due to persecution. These Jews come from all over North Africa and, Ukraine, Muslim dictatorships. How the western left sees the Muslim world as its ally is beyond perplexing. They share not a single value.
It is because the progressive Left sees the world primarily in terms of oppressor and oppressed, which they define not by behavior but by outcomes. Since Muslim countries tend to be poorer with lower standards of living and Jews tend to be wealthier and more successful, therefore Muslims must be the oppressed and Jews must be the oppressors. It is overly simplistic and emotional thinking that leads to this categorization, but it's the only thing that explains how the Jews can be seen as the evil aggressors in this story and the Muslims the kind, compassionate victims who take care of the powerless. The Jewish people have always been victimized and oppressed throughout history, yet through their values and hard work they continue to overcome their oppression and thrive. That's the story the Left does not want people to hear.
The same can be said for Asian Americans. Instead of looking to thriving non-White or immigrant communities, the DIE-addled “progressives,” denounce any and all subgroup success as proof of guilt. They might as well be envious, Medieval villagers hunting for witches to blame for their own misfortunes.
The broader point is that "the oppressed" are just stand ins for "the proletariat", this re-branded leftist ideology hell-bent on destroying all liberal western democracies.
You neglected to mention that Saudi Arabia abolished slavery in 1964 and Oman in 1970. Any leader of those countries over 60 years old was, because of his privileged upbringing, almost certainly an actual slave owner at one point.
But they share a hatred of Israel and the Jews. That's how these "strange bedfellows" have ended up in bed together. The hatred is so strong that both sides carefully look the other way when it comes to their extremely disparate values.
The most difficult relationship is with people from the Balkans - if you don't know which country, you can step in it fast. There are two kinds of antisemitism there...
It’s shocking at first but also unsurprising. Anti-Semitism is deeply ingrained in Muslim culture and tradition. This goes back to even before the creation of Israel as seen in the historical fact that the great Mufti of Jerusalem was an ally of Hitler. Unfortunately, Muslims are often their own worst enemies and subjugated their own people since the beginning of time up to today. Blaming the Jews for all of their ills is just a form of deflecting blame
I was mistaken about the Koran, but here is a link from a Muslim site that speaks of the Hadith saying that the Jews will be killed befor judgment day. The whole thing is interesting, but still open to some opinions, but it DOES give justification for Muslims to kill Jews, usually for fighting against Muslims. As you can see, there is no peace or mercy involved.
Essentially all of the labels thrown around by the left are nonsense. Nazi, Apartheid, Colonialist, Islammaphobe, Homophobe, these are very handy labels to throw at someone, and for most, just that you have to defend label has you struggling.
Agreed. The one thing about the illiberal left is their perfected craft of throwing around ridiculous, elitist jargon-y phrases, some of which you named above. And it works because it sounds fancy, it’s catchy and it’s hip and trendy (so of course it’s attractive to the young HS and college folks). Speaking of folks, even their making use of changing the spelling of words like folks to folx is a way to distract and dissuade. When you go and try to defend yourself against any one of these accusatory phrases or words, you just get called more accusatory phrases or words (ah hah! See? You really are a fill-in-the-blank!). If you are anyone that matters or has a job that’s remotely public facing , you will be fired or canceled. It’s a lose-lose. Bully tactics. Censorship. Fascism. It’s all about power and control.
I have ZERO sympathy for the people they interviewed. They are shocked, but they are sure that this is just some kind of mistake, not something that is baked into the ideology they've been embracing.
True, the MSM has enthusiastically monetized tribal hatreds and are now clutching their proverbial pearls and asking “how did it come to this?” And don’t get me started on NGOs!
The “Progressive Left” glorifies murderers and terrorists from the safe bubbles in which they live. I am a Cuban American whose uncle was executed by the death squads led by Che Guevara for the crime of publishing a pro democracy editorial. While growing up in the USA I felt personally insulted every time I saw clueless American young people wearing Che t-shirts. I can only imagine the pain and sorrow every Jewish person must feel to see and hear their fellow Americans cheering for Hamas and even for Nazis after the countless centuries of persecution and genocide the Jews have endured. Cristina Moore
In San Diego there is a "Che Cafe" on the campus of UCSD! NO one questions the appropriateness of the name because it is "just a name", even though there are pro Palestine demonstrators who bully Jewish students. How about a "Hitler Hostel"?
Not just young people as you can easily find examples of Bernie Sanders praising the Castro regime to this day.
There is an ingrained attitude among privileged, wealthy people like Bernie Sanders to admire anyone anti-American and opposed to liberal, democratic values in the true, original sense of those words.
Bernie Sander is anti-American? How old are you? 20? There was a time when the Democratic Patry supported unions and working people and didn't take a penny from corporations. Today the party of the left is the party of the uber-rich. What democratic values in the "true original sense" is Bernie Sanders not supporting?
Interesting facts for BLM to consider when they support Cuban government:
Most political prisoners after 2021 rebellion that are still in prison are black
Black artists in Cuba have been the leading dissenters against the Cuban government during the last few years.
The top leaders of the Cuban government and military are Caucasian and have been since the “glorious revolution “ of 1959.
Although everyone in Cuba is poor ( except for the corrupt leadership), White people’s income is as much as 5 times greater than Black people, mostly because of remittances from USA relatives.
Somehow these grim numbers are ignored by “the left” as they keep blaming all of Cuba’s problems on the USA embargo.
Ironically, Fulgencio Batista, the dictator who was overthrown by Fidel, was of mixed race and lower working class background while Castro brothers and Che were upper middle class university graduates and 100% Caucasian. Aren’t they what BLM defines as “settler colonialists”?
It is a real shame these progressive Jews had to wait until the woke mob came after them - until it affected them personally - for them to recognize the insidious mind virus for what it is. Alas, one way or another, they've learned. Hopefully the lesson sticks. If not, you're all free to vote alongside the blood-thirsty, Jew-hating, LGBQT brigade (along with their fiercest ally, Hamas).
My own cousin, who until 3 weeks ago was a bleeding heart liberal, told me he know "considers himself a conservative". Hopefully progressive Jews remember the lessons of the last three weeks otherwise, for another election cycle, they will be voting against their own interests (and in this case, safety).
Hi there. Might interest you to know you all Jewish folks aren't the first to suffer this betrayal. A segment of women on the left realized the left had abandoned them circa 2016 when the left decided to give away all our rights to men who decided to cosplay women. It's been a real eye opener to see left wing misogyny on full display. Now we're seeing left wing antisemitism out in the open. Maybe soon they'll round up all the Asians, possibly the Chinese Americans this time, and send them to internment camps too.
Yes, except if you belong to one of the groups they decide are heretics and evil, then how long can you keep your head down and pay fealty before they decide that's not good enough and all those like you including you must be exterminated and wiped out? And how long can you live being beaten down and told you're worthless like excrement to these people?
Conservatism seems to be getting a fresh look from a lot of traditionally Democrat voters lately. Now it's up to conservatives to win their trust, help show why conservatism is a better way, and not do stupid stuff.
I would much rather face conservative Democrats on the ballot than the crowd we now have! After Trump won in 2016 I re-registered as "Decline to state" in California. Now, in Georgia, I wasn't asked for my affiliation, which is fine with me.
I think that one look at the House of Representatives and the Rep. presidential candidates will put a stop to that. But that is just me, who years ago saw the progressive Democrats for what they are and tried to find another home. The far right has taken over the Rep. just as the far left has gained undue influence over the Dems. IMO of course.
Until Trump leaves the stage, or is soundly defeated, there will be not change in the Republican Party. They are afraid of him. The Dems, though, are another story! Their stance seems to be organic, baked into the cake, as they say. Cleansing THAT party will be more difficult.
I don't see it that way. Ideologist have captured both parties. But the vast majority are not and represent the middle. Yes, some lean left of middle, while others lean right of middle, but most in the middle have the same moral compass; fairness, equality, kindness. Just want to live there best lives free of crime and authoritarian politicians.
The interesting thing for me is that college made me a Republican. It was a long time ago, and things were not as Marxist as they are now, but the liberal left still dominated.
Yes - college nudged me toward the center from the liberal bastion in which I grew up. An International Relations professor assigned reading on the Tet Offensive that indicated that the US actually won that battle, but that US media packaged it as a US loss to indigenous forces, significantly contributing to the narrative that the US was losing and should withdraw. At the time I had never doubted that narrative. That professor made me realize that there was more going on. It was the beginning of more critical thinking about then fairly homogenous American media.
Jerry Brown being elected Governor in California for his FIRST term was what pushed ME over the ledge! I was raised in a reflexively Democrat, union household and it took life lessons to change my mind.
Unfortunately, some Jewish progressives are ineducable. I was with my family the day of and for a couple weeks after 10/7. While they all were horrified by the attacks, they were willfully blind to its coverage and fallout. When I mentioned commentators on MSNBC or writers at the NYT who gave obvious anti-Israel slants to things, they insisted the coverage was accurate and “balanced.” When I was upset by the large, frankly antisemitic demonstrations around the world, they countered with a story about neo-Nazis marching in Florida. (I later found out this happened months ago.)
Progressivism is a mental disorder which is difficult to cure.
I fully understand and am completely happy with having differences of opinion. My kids all are more liberal than I am, but we can have respectful and enlightening discussions about those differences. My problem is when some other family members deny reality and get angry if I mention something like the numbers of college kids siding with or making excuses for Hamas. That’s not simply a matter of disagreement.
Look - they disagree with your worldview. You think they "deny reality," they disagree. It's both that simple and that complicated. I am not a progressive and have never called myself that. Progressives act in ways that I believe are counter productive and keep people at odds by demonizing the other. However, you need to be careful not to demonize the other. It is not a mental disorder, though I agree it is resistent to reason.
Sure, some old-school lefties may be "rethinking" their past activism as they realize that their "allies" are supportive of genocidal maniacs. But they'll still vote for the left-wing candidate, and thus continue to enable these horrors, because the notions of maybe voting for a Republican, or that Donald Trump is the peace candidate, are inconceivable.
That's kind of what bothers me... some of them (I emphasize "some") don't seem to want to admit that other groups might have legitimate concerns about leftism too. They want to keep applying the leftist rules, except to themselves.
People are still parroting the ADL on the "white supremacist" far-right threat when we know a bigger threat lies within the walls of colleges, specially elite ones. Young minds are being taught to hate Israel, and Jews and they will go on to their jobs in academia, government, and corporations and spew their new found hatred there too.
As even the left-leaning Tablet Mag has pointed out - the ADL has suffered ideological capture by the far left, and Jews should write it off.
By acting as the new SPLC, it is actually facilitating anti-Semitism by crushing free speech.
Think about it - how does an organization designed to fight anti-Semitism decide that silencing Chaya Raichik (the Orthodox Jewish woman who runs Libs of TikTok) is more important than calling out BLM, Antifa and the Social Democrats for their genocidal Jew-hatred?
Has anyone ever met a white supremacist? Really asking b/c I am a conservative - as are the vast majority of my friends and colleagues. None are white supremacists - certainly not openly. I really think it’s an extraordinarily small percent of wackos who get all the media coverage for the sole purposes of denouncing conservatives in general.
Yes, I have met white supremacists. I have taken care of Aryan Brotherhood members and others with swastikas all over their bodies. As a Jew who wears a kippah every day, they can be just as dangerous on an up-close-and-personal level. Having said that, they are small in number and the fringe. They are not the masses of progressive, terrorist-supporting crowds gathering in almost every institute of higher learning and major city. And, I have never met anyone who truly believes in Christianity who is a white supremacist. Perhaps that’s the point. There are people who believe and support good and there are people who support evil. Since 10/7, that has become crystal clear and on display for all to see and assess.
Exactly! I've been noticing this for years. Yes of course there are these neo-Nazis and Proud Boy types that come out of the woodwork now and then to hold some demonstrations, but they're basically whack jobs. More than that, they're useful idiots to the Left, which loves to pretend these whackos are representative of conservatives. And everyone goes along with this stupid line including the Right which always avoid outright denouncing them because they still want these whack jobs' votes or something. It's a total theater and yet everyone keeps replaying this same movie.
and I would actually put "toxic" in scare quotes (this being Halloween!) I think we are seriously running short of masculinity in this country. Check your local volunteer fire department and see what the median age is. Many of my local communities are running low on members. Who will be there when the house catches fire?
Completely agree, I was uncomfortable with my parent's Conservative friends who posted a bunch of whataboutism about January 6th instead of actually dennouncing it. It also doesn't help that those same conservatives who won't dennounce the Proud Boys are putting Marjorie Taylor "Jewish Space Laser" Green on a pedestal.
Majority of the Trump supporters I know are black. Most of the rest are Latino or Asian. I know lots of white supremacists, but they all consider themselves to be progressive and would shirk the label.
Maybe you are not old enough, but I was hanging out in Republican circles in Florida in the 1990s and saw them being brought into power. Before that they were pushed to the side and told to shut up. I was amazed at how open they had become. They have always been there as a minority, first as Southern Democrats and then turned to the Republican party in the 1970s. But they are still around, thankfully just not a lot of them.
One of the quoted 'progressive Jews' in this piece, Nate Clark, said, "“When you look at the political right you see a group that seems very comfortable with Jews in Israel and very uncomfortable with Jews at home."
I peg myself as a Constitutional conservative. Nate would certainly say that I am part of the 'political right.' Given this quote from Nate, though, I have to wonder what he means by 'political right,' and whether he ever actually interacts with anyone from that cohort. Frankly, I have no idea what planet he is on when he says that those mysterious others on the 'political right' are "very uncomfortable with Jews at home."
Nate is hopeless. He has imbibed too much stupidity for too long to become a normie. I'm glad on this one issue he sees the light, but there is no 12 step program for the rest of it.
Suzy and friends. Not to put too much on y'all's plates at once, but at some point, also take a look back at the folks you thought racist, hateful or whatever in the past and see whether you may have missed something there as well. Maybe some of them have a principled stance that was just uncritically swept in the 'hate pile'. Maybe some of these folks had good reasons for disagreeing a hot button issue. That level of reflection may make your head spin.
A good example would be people who are opposed to open borders. There's a very good rationale for getting the immigration process under control, so that we know who is entering our country. Once the process is under control, then we can think about reforming legal immigration (and it needs a ton of reform). But people who express that opinion get labeled "racist", and that ends the discussion.
The border is indeed a good example. I have a young and very liberal friend. When we discussed illegal immigration, I discussed how I was concerned about how illegal workers impacted the earning power of low skilled US citizens while simultaneously harming the immigrants who are often thrown into a shadow economy. That perspective was an epiphany for her.
From the right, we need to be sincere in the intent to have immigration reform.
And that used to be a liberal issue! I can remember when Barbara Jordan (I'm a Texan) made exactly that argument: illegal immigration drives down wages. That used to be a mainstream Democratic position.
I was reading a blog written from a left of center point of view and what struck me was its characterization of "immigration," as something that the right wing opposed. I appreciate immigration, myself, but I am thoroughly opposed to "illegal immigration." I wonder how many people on the left dont recognize this essential distinction.
When you put children in cages and separate them from their parents you might get some kickback, no? Frankly, don't see this as a political issue, but an existential one. Statue of Liberty versus putting up a wall...............
When you ignore the possibility of child trafficking and don’t try to verify you’re actually dealing with a family, then you are complicit in child trafficking, and folks may think you just want to feel warm and fuzzy - consequences be damned.
There is a chasm between open borders and responsible immigration policy. Support responsable immigration policy and not border chaos that enriches drug cartels, entails child and sex trafficking, and contributing to the drug overdose of fellow citizens.
An open border, like many progressive policies, have horrible consequences, but sure make their supporters feel virtuous.
Every single immigrant who came through Ellis Island was documented. We're talking about the process. Legal immigration is a huge runaround and badly needs to be reformed. But open borders isn't a reasonable alternative to that.
When they drove a nice Pittsburgh girl like Bari Weiss out of the Times, that was enough canary in the coal mine for this white, historically liberal gay, some of whose family came on the Mayflower. If I could see the writing on the wall in June, 2020, I have to wonder at the confusion of some of the folks quoted here. October 7 provided an exceptionally high threshold for soul searching; there were many earlier, well-lit exit ramps.
I hope this is the start of a broader conversation, because I don't think y'all went far enough with your questions, nor in your conversations here. These people like Rose and others seem to still be very much in denial. They were ALWAYS in denial, but even after the last 23 days of watching all aspects of our culture that is controlled by the Woke Zealots (media, academia, entertainment, big tech, and the entire Democratic Party) they are still sadly in denial.
Rose marched with the same BLM who always hated Jewish people.
No, insane Woke people are NOT comfortable with Jews in America.
Stop using words like "ally" that applies to countries in a war, which is a coded Woke word that plays into their lies and world view about "victim vs oppressor."
I am hopeful that TFP is at the forefront of moving this important conversation forward, because it beyond time for American Jews to stop being an automatic voting block for the people in the Democratic Party that hate them, that hate Israel, and that don't believe either deserve to exist.
There has always been a good portion of black activist that were antisemitic. BLM was no exception. People just act emotionally and in the social media age were easy to fool.
The large and rapidly expanding orthodox community is largely gun owning Maga republicans. It is an insular community which makes it difficult to know them or their voting habits. It is the more secular Jews who are the historically loyal democratic voting bloc
There is no such thing as a "secular Jew" in the minds of Woke antisemites. They don't care about the God part. They think that Jews are a different "race," yet still white for some reason.
“I started to see these intelligent, educated people..." I'm not sure how intelligent or educated these people are if they don't know the long history of Israel or the Jewish people. If they instinctively follow the woke, progressive crowd where ideology is more important than decency and morality. They reflexively repeat "from the river to the sea" without thinking what that means to the Jews living between the river and the sea. Or maybe they do realize what it means and don't care. So perhaps they should be described as ignorant and malign not "intelligent and educated"
Woke people are the opposite of intelligent and they are only educated in as much as they've been brainwashed by public schooling and then, for most, in corrupted colleges and universities.
They are not intelligent. They are emotional and reactionary. They are, for lack of a better phrase, religious zealots, and their religion is Woke aka Cultural Marxism aka Neo-Maoism.
Defining “ education” is the key. A phd in critical race theory or queer studies is not an education. It is a lot of time studying lies and nonsense delivered in grandiose language.
It is the same with the supposed "innocent Palestinians"! They have been brainwashed by schools, mosques, and the media! There are no "innocent Palestinians". They are complicit in their own destruction.
They don't seem to realize or even care that "from the river to the sea" doesn't just mean the destruction of Israel and the Jewish people. It also means, at best, the expulsion of the gay and trans people now living openly and safely in Israel, or at worse, their freedom or even their very lives. What about the reproductive rights of women, or even just their rights in general? Hamas wants sharia law. How naive are these students to believe they have any common cause with people who are devoutly devoted to values that are polar opposite from the ones they claim are so important to them. Are they just so insular and uncurious that they don't even bother to read the many published manifestos out there?
“When you look at the political right you see a group that seems very comfortable with Jews in Israel and very uncomfortable with Jews at home...."
My politically right wing friends are very comfortable with Jews, everywhere, and in blogs and discussions express their surprise and anger at the anti-semitism from Democrats and especially on college campuses. If they say anything remotely negative, it's their wonder why Jews would support liberal politicians when liberals keep turning on them.
I mean Trumps son in law is Jewish isn't he?!?!!? What was his name Jared? Jared Kush...? Kushnerstan? Jared McFly? No that's not it... Anyways! The narratives have never really been representative of reality.
If the Jewish Progressives at The Free Press see conservatives as "very uncomfortable with Jews at home", they might be projecting.
Go on a field trip and observe these MAGA conservatives in their natural environment. They might find some decent people who unconditionally support Israel and are comfortable with Jews.
Have you ever seen an Evangelical Christian on a TV show or movie who wasn't the baddie? Doesn't it seem weird that everyone is all bad - every one of them is gay-hating, dance-hating small minded uptight bigot?
I promise you the professors at Liberty U are more open-minded than the ones at Berkley because they actually confront what it means to be a Fundamentalist in a modern society.
Are all working class MAGA "deplorable'? Really? How about the the burly man who confronted the poser vandal in NYC who didn't know or care if his friend was a Jew?
"Evangelical Christians and social conservatives" would NEVER excuse or ignore those who would bake a living, breathing, tiny little baby alive in an oven while it's mother is gang-raped and forced to hear her child's agonizing cries and mewls as it was being cooked alive. I had heard interviews of those who had seen the immediate aftermath in Israel who said that Hamas had done things so wicked that they couldn't even give voice to them. When I read this accounting on X today I froze. I am still quaking on the inside from the knowing of this horror. I don't have words for my rage and emotions. I am not Jewish. I don't understand this global hatred of Jews. If the good and decent people of this world do not take a stand and defend and protect Jewish people, humanity is truly going to be lost.
We are descended from apes and Neanderthals, so it is still in our DNA; however, we can certainly evolve, and are evolving, away from it. Our minds have the capacity to transcend the descent into pure limbic reaction.
I disagree. How can someone look at Ruanda, the balkans, Ukraine, the Sudan, the Mexican cartels, afghanistan, boko Haram, most African countries, not to mention Hezbollah and most recently hamas, and say the human race is evolving? How about our inner cities?
It would be nice to think that turning the other cheek would be something people could do but most likely that would just get it sliced off.
I grew up in the Bronx, so I understand what you're saying, but most people do not live in that way, and I believe wouldn't live in that way given the choice. Most people act out violently, in the examples you cite, because of the incitement by governments and wars between conquering countries. We have known nothing else for thousands of years, so can't imagine it. We built the United States of America for that very reason, so I do believe it is possible because it is working in the West. The violence being committed against Israel and Jews right now is a backlash against Western values, money and imperialism. The ignorant supporting the blood lust violence of Hamas terrorists are only seeing simplistically and blindly, Their ignorance is a new form of violence. The violence of mind. We can transcend it. We do so every day. If we Fall, then you will be proven right.
““When you look at the political right you see a group that seems very comfortable with Jews in Israel and very uncomfortable with Jews at home. And when you look at the political left, you see a group that seems very comfortable with Jews at home and very uncomfortable with Jews in Israel,” Clark said. “
The actions of professors and students on college campuses says otherwise, the mass protests in western cities says otherwise, your own eyes and ears tell you otherwise and yet you still can’t see the left for what it is.
Many German Jews were in denial, too, in the 1930's, until it was too late. When somebody tells you who they are, believe them.
The Left is as antisemitic as the neo-Nazis, except there are fewer neo-Nazis than progressives.
And, having captured our institutions, have more power to enforce antisemitism than the fringe looney toons on the right. That's scary.
Covid mandates gave everybody a little taste of progressive authoritarianism. All of you progressive dimwits are busy undermining individual rights in the name of group rights and encouraging mass immigration. You are going to reap what you sow. It won’t just be Jewish people. Gay people, trans people, disabled people, anyone who does not have a powerful tribe to protect them will be victimized.
They throw transvestites off of buildings in Gaza.
Really?
Don't know about Gaza but it is a proven fact that this sort of killing is done by Islamic State and ISIS militants, so it is certainly possible they're doing that in Gaza too.
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YES!
There is a video circulating of someone being throw off a building by guys who look like Hamas. The video description claims it was Hamas and that it was because he was gay. Who knows if any of that is true.
Okay, now follow the thread to see how Comprof successfully baits readers to go off on a tangent unrelated to Bari’s article. Stop feeding and following the troll.
666
Hamas threw Fattah fighters off buildings during the civil war. Good enough?
Yes, Neo-Nazis, who are few in number, wield no power over anything relevant outside some thrash metal concert in Idaho. Leftists' "march through the institutions" has them in positions of power from dog catcher to prime minister / president.
Exactly. But the media tries to make it like they're a barbarian horde immanently marching on blue cities...
It isn't so much that the Left is anti-Semitic so much as that they're bat shit crazy. Which makes them perfect bedfellows for the Nazis, who defined bat shit crazy. The problem with the "progressive" Jews who still bray idiotically here is that they now see only the anti-Semitism of the Left but continue to embrace its otherwise patent lunacy.
I heartily agree. So much careful parsing of words when it's clear the left is, as you say, bat shit crazy. For example, they support Antifa for being anti-fascist, when the group acts just like the German Brownshirts, and borderline personalities learn to bully and intimidate at will. Because they claim to be anti-fascist. Duh!
Well said!
Agreed. Having observed the Left over decades I don't see how anybody is even a little surprised by this.
Thanks for articulating what I thought as I read this. It's like they are so accustomed to compartmentalizing, they'll continue doing it at their peril.
To clump conservatives as one of those interviewed did, you have to believe she'll never change her views or her vote. Again, at her peril.
Let's hope this makes them wake up...
Don't bet on it. The left is too stupid to wake up.
Watch Sen Hawley skewer the reptilian "Homeland Security" director.
https://www.theepochtimes.com/epochtv/sen-hawley-mayorkas-in-heated-exchange-over-dhs-staffers-pro-genocidal-social-media-posts-5520403?utm_source=goodeveningnoe&src_src=goodeveningnoe&utm_campaign=gv-2023-10-31&src_cmp=gv-2023-10-31&utm_medium=email&est=IpDRLf51r33bbCYiZz%2FJgL%2F0QJVYBLsfTZEVpPH8kEvNYG%2BHib58oT%2Fwumk27A%3D%3D
Link for subscribers only😔
That's what my father said, who was Wehrmacht then. And Martin Niemöller made it like unforgettable, but you see... Cohen sang "there is a war between the ones who say there is a war and the ones who say that there isn't." The left and the young always love the underdog, looking the other way when it starts biting. Or killing.
Yes I think that is the attraction to the young progressives. Israel is the Silicon Valley of the Middle East and Palestine is a wreck. We also have to ask ourselves how is it our young go to “institutions of higher learning” and come out dumber? They don’t have the intellectual curiosity to Google and find out Israel does not occupy Gaza, or simply look up the definition of Apartheid. They could Google it, not even have to spend an afternoon at the library, to find out about South Africa.
So true. And while these nitwits bray idiotically about the alleged "genocide" of the "Palestinian people," they blindly ignore the throngs of them. Some "genocide."
Well, targeting civilians/bombing where you know civilians are isn't the best look, Bruce. Get ready.....gonna be clocking some big "Amalek" numbers.
https://jewishcurrents.org/a-textbook-case-of-genocide
Comprof, any words for Hamas building their bases under hospitals? Schools? Homes of innocent Palestinians? Using babies as shields? No? Does Hamas’ charter not call for genocide of Jews? Did Israel not try 5 separate times to create a peaceful resolution with Palestine? Help me understand what I’m missing here.
Says the guy whose peeps beheaded babies and raped mothers in front of their children.
So Israel can't take any action "where civilians are?" Good thing that rule did not apply in World War II, because we would have to call off D-Day or the Doolittle Raids.
This abomination has already accused Israel of stealing organs. It is one step away from accusing us of using babies’ blood to make matza. Time to stop engaging.
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They don’t know how to drive to the next town without GPS
Well said.
Well over a billion Muslims as opposed 16 million Jews worldwide. And the Muslims are the underdogs🤦♂️
Strange mathematics, indeed.
And let’s be clear, it’s the far, far right where the neo-Nazis are and yes there aren’t that many. But most of the middle left to far Left is antisemitic and there are many. So how does that even compare?
Agree. I tell the same fact and it were the upper class Jews who felt more German than Jewish- they perished. Some read Hitler’s Mein Kampf and believed what he will do, others denied it and died.
Most of the German Jewish intellectuals left Germany in the early 1930s as Hitler came to power. Mein Kampf was written in 1925 while Hitler was in prison. Doubt anyone read it until he came to power in the 1930s. The first to leave were the Communists, Socialist, peaceniks, and Zionist who were told to leave or be jailed. There was a 5 year period leading up to the "Night of Broken Glass" in 1938 where most thought that Hitler would lose power politically. After that night, 2/3rds of the German Jewish population left over the next 2 1/2 year period. By that time the rest of the world had closed its door to Jewish immigration. There were only 300,000 Jews left. There were 3 million Jews killed in Poland. My grandfather immigrated from Poland to London in 1928 running from the antisemitism. Last fall my son visited Auschwitz in Poland. I didn't suggest he do this nor really go into the Holocaust with him. He knew his great grandfather left Poland and was Jewish, that is all he knew (He was raised Catholic). I was proud of him, but he has always been intellectually curious. Anyway, facts are stubborn things.
In fact, I don't think there's many neo-Nazis in this country at all
If they even dared pop their heads in public, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, NYT, yada, yada, would be making front page news of it 24hrs a day, and they DON'T. That tells me everything I need to know
I despise the media for how they've brainwashed the liberal masses. They're despicable pieces OS
I equally despise the liberal masses for allowing themselves to be so brainwashed. They consider themselves the intellectual and moral superiors to any who don't adhere to their carefully constructed catechisms, yet possess zero capacity for even the most rudimentary critical independent thinking.
There aren’t, their prominence in national discourse is entirely a creation of the corporate media and US intelligence services intended to keep the left in fear of the nonexistent boogeyman. At its peak in the 1920’s, the KKK numbered over two million, today less than five thousand. Neo-nazis are vastly outnumbered by, say, Jehovah’s Witnesses or the Amish.
Remember that the KKK were the southern Democrats enforcement squad, a role assumed today by ANTIFA and college undergrads.
The much maligned Southern Poverty Law Center has made it their mission to convince America (and American law enforcement) there is a neo-Nazi hiding behind every tree.
True at first. But in the 1920's the KKK was re-born in Indiana and co-opted numerous judges and politicians, including the Republican governor and other Republicans. They had rallies that drew as many as 100,000 people in Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, and Kentucky.
100% !
It is almost 100 years later though and you would think something might have been learned from.the history.
Before you can learn from history you must first be taught history, something which isn't very common in American education these days. At least not in any remotely objective or in-depth fashion.
And that's the goal, isn't it?
I think so.
🪒🛎️🔨
I find it best not to criticize any Israeli policy/IDF action.....better that way.
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any future plan needs to look at the education system in Gaza and remove it's hatred teaching of the jewish peoples to make a change. Islamic countries that teach hatred of Jews and Christians in their schools to their young, ingrain that mentality and make it hard to allow for change. I remember reading an article in Readers Digest many years ago, about schools in Pakistan teaching that hatred and how can it be overcome later.
Absolutely. IDF actions/Israeli policies have little, if anything, to do with Israeli people or "antisemitism."
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The only reason there's an impression that the "right" are antisemetic is because of media bias. Sure, there's some -- there's a tiny minority of the far right that are "uncomfortable with Jews at home" -- maybe 5% of fewer. But those guys are also pretty uncomfortable with Israel existing. It's just magnified via propoganda since so many media outlets (and ADL, of course) are so leftist that any right-wing antisemitism is instantly exposed.
For every Nick Fuentes type, I guarantee there are 20 college students ready to declare Jewish people an oppressor class.
I see conservatives on individual level being very supportive of Israel actions to wipe out the terrorists, but the leadership is quite or ambivalent.
I am a conservative staunchly in favor of Israel. I now fly their flag. Does anyone else?
Wrong. You must not have any connections to college students. While most haven't experienced the Arab/Israeli wars, they now are understanding who the Arabs really are. Most of my 21 year old son's friends are fully in the Israeli camp against the Palestinians. And they know about 9/11 because they were told about that their entire lives. Easy to put those two historical events together. There is a minority on "elite" campuses and obviously loud professors that we hear from that are anti-Jew. But even the media like CNN is having a problem keeping up the pro-palestanian orientation.
Sorry, Dave, but Bobby is correct.
I also have a 21-year-old son who is a college student. He is not easily identified as Jewish by name or appearance and is not active with the campus Hillel. He has been dismayed to hear a number of his acquaintances (thank goodness, not close friends) spout “anti-Zionist” garbage to him. There have been loud, large demonstrations on campus.
He happens to be at an Ivy League university, but friends of mine whose kids are at state universities have heard the same story, though perhaps not with the same size demonstrations. Most colleges lean quite liberal and the progressives—who lean heavily into intersectionality—are active even in state universities in the Midwest.
We are going to have to disagree. I live several miles from an Ivy League University. The pro-palestanian protest was about a dozen to twenty students. I will say this, you are right about the so-called elite universities being more attuned to progressiveness. But, is it not so much the professors (although they are certainly much of that) but the administrators. Elite campuses now have as many administrators as students and they have used their power to move the campus to the far left. This aligns itself with the movement to hire non white males going on its 3rd decade. And to admit the same. The Jews who dominated the professorships at elite universities have been retiring for years and are being replaced. Even Brandeis is suffering from this same issue. Outside of the elite universities is a very different and more diverse thinking group of students.
Democrats elect the Nick Fuentes types to Congress. They just didn't understand that until now.
They still do not understand it.
BS! Nick Fuentes is never mentioned in my circle ⭕️ of Republicans friends
Ah, the "personal anecdotal evidence" to disprove the existence/influence of someone.
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You know, they also like to trot out David Duke every four years, yet David Duke has had nothing but praise for radical blacks who hate Jews as much as he does.
It should not be difficult to find (even in a search on radical left Google) how he has praised and endorsed Louis Farrakhan, Ilhan Omar and Cynthia McKinney. AFAIK, none of these renounced his endorsement.
Everyday people on the right have never heard of Nick Fuentes. Or Q. Or Milo. They are media / social media creations.
Let's just all turn on the kingmakers then.
Understandably--it's only been three weeks--these people haven't had a chance yet to make new friends. I was raised evangelical, although I'm not anymore (still Christian, but some theology shifts) and my experience is that they're very comfortable with Jews both here and in Israel. I grew up being told Jews were "elder brothers of the faith," that our tradition is rooted in theirs, and we owe them deep respect and affection for that, as well as for their social and cultural contributions.
The neo-Nazi faction of the right is real and it needs to be rooted out but, turns out, not quite as big as the neo-Nazi faction of the left!
"Not quite????"
It's a sliver. A handful of nitwits amidst a sea of conservatives who are proud supporters of Israel and defenders of Jews in our communities - even the silly progressive Jews depicted in this story.
I was raised evangelical too and my parents actually talked to us about Israel and why we should support. I’m still in shock at the level of dissent against Israel and Jews in this country. I think we must have failed in teaching our kids about the holocaust. Never again was the quote, right?
I think the current crop of college kids are probably the first ones who didn't grow up around WWII vets and Holocaust survivors. I'm late Gen X, and both my granddads fought in the war. We had all-school assemblies where Holocaust survivors would visit to tell their stories. That generation was really determined that people know what had happened, so they passed it on to their children and their grandchildren...they weren't around to teach it to their great-grandchildren, and I guess the rest of us dropped the ball.
That doesn't explain the 40-year-olds at the protests but I don't pretend to be inside their heads.
Somewhat proud that my wife (teacher in local public school) leads a field trip to San Antonio every year to visit the Holocaust museum.
How many muslims have emigrated to the U.S., especially during Obama and post Obama years. How many times have we heard to not have islamophobia by our elected leaders. Well what do they teach their children regarding the jewish people? They are certainly in our education system including colleges and universities. Just look at London and ask yourself if they still believe in anti-semitism? With over a billion muslims worldwide, it only makes sense that their world view would infiltrate every developed nation. People don't consider religion education at their own peril.
My wife grew up evangelical and her parents are pretty far to the right. We have many points of disagreement, but they are some of the most moral people I have ever met. They are certainly not anti-Semites.
That's my folks. We disagree on a lot of policy issues but they are the best people I know.
Between marrying her and moving to a rural area, I have met a lot of real, flesh and blood conservatives. It has really opened my eyes to the casual (and casually cruel manner) in which the intellectual elites often stereotype conservatives and lump them in with the crazies who have far more in common with Antifa than they do with the vast majority of conservatives. I wonder how it is that they miss the fact that the Tea Party was spiritual brethren with the Occupy movement.
In any event, I am grateful to have met and broken bread with so many people who aren't quite sophisticated enough to believe that mass murder, torture, rape, and the deliberate targeting of civilians (and use of civilians as human shields) is somehow justifiable.
100%
I like this comment but I wonder if there is a nazi faction on the political right. I believe there are some whackadoodle internet groups out their but I would be surprised if they actually vote.
Of course there is. And they control no meaningful aspect of politics or any part of society. They're incredibly marginalized, as they should be. The Nazi-Hamas left on the other hand ARE NOT. They control the narrative in college. They're influential in politics. They are the progressive left. Unfortunately, they are America's future.
I know there are some I just question whether they are POLITICAL. Apparently there are some Nazi youth in Ft. Worth and everybody is outraged. As they should be. But looking at the pics I think maybe they are attention seekers. I mean when rainbow hair, vampire teeth, horns, full body tattoos, boys as girls, and girls as boys do not even raise an eyebrow what is a youngster to do for attention?
Same. People like to think that evangelicals hate Jews because “Jews killed Jesus” but I was always raised to think of Jews as our respectable elder in a way.
Don't bother worrying about the neo-Nazi. We are a nation of over 300 million. A certain percentage are always going to be loopy. They are insignificant. But once you decide you have to regulate every evil thought or challenge every whacked out personality, you are going to drive yourself nuts. And you're going to need a lot of secret police
I'm also a post evangelical looking for a home. Would you be comfortable sharing where you landed?
Sure! I'm at an EPC church (Evangelical Presbyterian Church)--the EPC allows women to be pastors and elders (I think each congregation can choose for itself whether it ordains women but the denomination doesn't prevent it). I started attending an EPC church 20 years ago not because I was particularly attached to the Westminster Confession, but because I wanted an interracial congregation since I was raising a black foster child. I found one in Houston. It happened to be EPC. My pastor came from a Missionary Baptist background. He's still one of my most trusted mentors. Just a pillar of integrity.
Figure out what matters to you. What mattered to me was having Jesus at the center of everything, not being beholden to any political party, strong community, and a connection to the physical community around it (be that via food pantries, AA meetings, whatever). I found that at an EPC church but it could just as easily have been PCUSA or the Episcopal Church. Churches vary a LOT within any denomination--I loved an Episcopal Church I went to for liturgical days (Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, etc) in Houston but I've been in other Episcopal churches where I felt like they cared more about attending the next Pride march than discipling their congregation. As my old teacher Peter Gomes used to say, "We do not preach from The New York Times. We do not preach from our favorite book of poetry. We preach from the Word of God, which is the Old and New Testaments." (Harvard Divinity School is a mess but Gomes was an absolute gem who used to sing old Baptist hymns with me in the basement--I was so sad when he died.)
Anyway, figure out what matters most to you, visit some churches but don't judge an entire denomination by one congregation, and then once you're there settle in. I don't think there's a single denomination that aligns with me perfectly, and if it did I'd probably have created God in my own image. There's no such thing as a perfect church; it's a community and community ought to force us to deal with people we disagree with. Know what your dealbreakers are and let the other stuff slide.
Good luck!
Yeah, as someone on the political right, I don’t run into a lot of people who have a problem with Jews, although I acknowledge some fringe actors who do.
Israelis will tell you that their most fervent supporters are devout Christians. As a conservative Jew, one of two, in a Christian based charity supporting multiple orphanages in Nicaragua, all I saw was evidence of love and generosity from my Christian friends. I am old enough to remember blatant anti-Semitism in my youth, but in my community it is virtually non-existent. My wife and I have as many Christian social friends as Jewisn.
Yeah, they're projecting something from a century ago. All of the mainstream conservative Christian churches are fully accepting of Jews. A huge number of conservative Christians make pilgrimages to Israel -- their churches organize group trips. The only anti-Semitic incident I've seen here in this moderate-conversative Alabama city in years was an act of teenage vandalism.
It is the left-wing, formerly "Mainline" churches that are so rabidly Jew-hating these days. The Presbyterian Church USA and the United Church of Christ openly support BDS; I think the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America may also, but even if it doesn't, they are still rabidly pro-Palestinian and anti-Semitic.
I refer to them as the Churches of Hitler.
I agree. And these are not Christian churches. They are social clubs and quasi religion for leftists. I know I belonged to one for a while. I was so naive. I learned after being asked serve on Church leadership that most didn’t believe in God and were there for the Choir and the Causes. The BLM banner being flown was the deal killer for me.
True story: I used to attend a UCC before I learned about real Christianity. I was at a confirmation class meeting and the kids had been told to write up a list of commitments they would make to God. One kid put on the list "I will not worship demons or other gods." The mothers freaked out. Said "No, this is an open and affirming church! You can't have that as a commitment!" I said "Guys, that's the first commandment." They were horrified at me, too. I told my son (who wanted to go through confirmation) that I felt ill and needed to leave. He stayed, and later told me proudly that I was the only mom to ever walk out of confirmation class and he was the only kid who wanted to go to confirmation. He was never confirmed, thank God.
UCC is a joke. Just be a Unitarian and be done with it. Stop pretending to be a church.
I’m a lifelong Lutheran of ELCA churches until recently when I moved to another state (now in a LMCS church for a variety of reasons). I would never consider the Lutherans as Jew-hating or as a church of the “in-crowd”. Lutherans in most non-urban areas tend to remain Lutheran and stick pretty close to the traditional liturgy. I think more recently the ELCA has turned more liberal in cities, but that’s not the majority of Lutherans. Growing up Lutheran in the 1960s, we were taught the Jews were God’s chosen people, originators of Judeo-Christian values.
Vast difference between the conservtaive, fundamental Missouri Synod and the progressive ELCA.
Not as much as you might think in the southern states, further from the MO mother ship…and there are a lot of transfers in from ELCA churches. I’ve been a member in several eastern ELCA churches, very small congregations in blue states, much older congregations and they were pretty moderate.
You'll notice I pointed out ELCA and not Missouri Synod. I assume rural churches tend toward the more conservative denomination. And if they are still part of ELCA, despite its move toward cultural Communism, then I have no choice but to assume they are OK with it.
But it reminds of this from Cheers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLXfmDoeJ3Y
You are correct as far as SW Ohio is concerned.
Hahaha! I never saw that before. Yes, I think it’s more the urban ELCA churches that have veered to the left.
The one down the street from me in my oh so progressive little Northeast town is still flying the BLM flag.
Evangelical Christians aren’t uncomfortable with Jews at home. Rather we are uncomfortable with the progressive left ideology of many Jewish groups at home. Not their Jewishness at all, but their politics.
Great observation.
The naive line about being "comfortable with Jews at home, but not in Israel" is a lie. They ain't comfortable with Jews anywhere. The sooner people realize it, the better. These Nazis are always peeking under Jews' hair to see if there are horns.
They're only semi-comfortable with the most assimilated, pandering Jews at home. They're not comfortable with religious Jews or even Jews who have had a solid Jewish education.
Nah, they'll turn on anyone named Stein or Gold at any moment, even if they pray at Our Lady of Simchas or Temple Episcopel or the Al-Selfhatingjew Mosque, or claim to be agnostic or atheist. Be warned. These people are just looking to let the Nazis know that Anne is in the attic. Just because you're useful now, doesn't mean they want you and your horned head in their utopia.
It ain't only America. and only ignorant/gullible people believe in utopia anyway.
There’s an urban-rural divide there. Suburban and ex urban Trump supporters don’t encounter many ultra-orthodox Jews, certainly not well enough to know them personally.
"Ultra-orthodox?" -- I'm talking about a Jewish person who goes to shul and wears a kippah, even if modern orthodox or even "conservative"
Rural white folks hardly encounter ANY type of Jew, from ultra-Orthodox to Liberal. I grew up one of those, and never met a Jew until high school. Most Jews live in cities and suburbs, not in the boonies.
My dear departed friend, a conservative Jew, referred to reform Temples as "the First Church of Moses." He did have a way........
"we’ll forgive you for being a Jew" Until they DON'T!
Right. I seized on that statement too, but from the right perspective. Where are the anti semites on the right? What is that allegation based on? I am a lifelong Conservative, used to say Republican but they have largely lost my confidence, a Christian, who sees Jews as my brothers and sisters. If you accept that the right has more Christian’s than the left, then the right shared the same Judeo Christian foundation. I surely hope Jewish Americans are waking up to how the left sees them, the same as I would for my black fellow citizens, both have been used by the Democrats for decades and decades. But let’s get past these false characterizations of the right.
I agree with your observation of the left, I have been seeing this growing anti semitism from the left for a number of years. They have been clearly pro Palestine and anti Israel, I just cannot deal with it continuing after the barbaric attack that left babies in ovens and beheaded. How the left can do a hand wave on that tells me our society has reached a new low point. I pray on it daily.
there's definitely antisemites on the right. Neo nazi types, people who despise when Jews move into their neighborhoods. etc. they just have no actual command of politics or any backing in society. And don't scare me, as a Jew. Make no mistake: they exist. And are happy to jump on the israel bashing bandwagon. But the left has literally become just one antisemitic blob and it's scary as hell to me. It's definitely not as prominent on the right as it has become on the left. The left made it acceptable in 2023 to say terrorism and genocide against Jews is okay. The right made it acceptable in 1939, they're the past of antisemitism, the left is the future.
I've been around the sun a few revolutions now, and for the life of me there are two things I just cannot understand: how blacks consistently vote against their own best interests, and how so many Jews do the same.
Maybe just maybe after their communities are fully decimated by crime and they have no police, the black community will wake up. I would have thought Biden’s “you ain’t black” comment would have done it, but I was wrong. If the current scene on campus and from the left political establishment after the Hamas attack doesn’t wake up Jewish voters, nothing ever will.
To my eye, the only organized crime in the black community is when a) there's a gang hit and b) when dozens of blacks swarm Apple, Foot Locker, and jewelry stores, "just trying to feed their families."
Just last night I looked at Facebook for the first time in a few months, primarily to share hope with my Jewish friends from high school. I was struck by one Jewish friend who was reposting all sorts of pro-Israel comments, who also posted how hearing Biden's speech from Israel "made her cry." I hope she was starting to realize that the Democratic Party does not support Jews, but I'm really not sure.
Hispanics too.
I never realized I was uncomfortable with Jews at home. Sometimes I wonder if people on the left actually know any people on the right.
Increasingly people on either side of the divide don't know each other. We get to choose where we live now, more so than in the past when people lived in the same town for decades and served on PTAs and the Rotary Club together, so we self-sort. I've had friends who wouldn't move to a given city because its political representatives were too liberal or too conservative.
My parents are conservative Christians who count among their closest friends a liberal atheist couple and a Conservative Jewish couple (conservative in denomination, not in politics). I know very few people under 40 who have friend groups that ideologically diverse, so both sides become prone to caricaturing the other.
It's really not the same. Polling has shown conservatives know what progressives believe but progressives don't know what conservatives believe. Progressives believe the narratives they tell each other as purity tests. There is a very good reason for this. Conservatives that want to have a good job or go to college have to be around progressives but progressives are never forced to be around conservatives.
I’ve run across people who genuinely believe that mainstream conservatives are morally opposed to women working outside the home. I was like, “Just what century do you think you’re living in?!”
Ya'. Their are a lot of ridiculous people. My mom once confessed to me that we had to fight because their are people that are trying to make the handmaids tale happen. I didn't even know what to say... I just said, "okay mom... I love you."
Well, as someone who has been told I support murdering infants minutes before birth, we'll have to disagree on that.
Lol... You didn't hear when Northam talked about killing babies after birth?
https://freebeacon.com/issues/northman-on-40-week-abortion-bill-infant-would-be-delivered-and-then-a-discussion-would-ensue-between-the-physicians-and-the-mother/
Cool cool, so when the Speaker of the House says gay marriage is a "dark harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy that could doom even the strongest republic," I should assume that's what all conservatives believe (after all, the Speaker has a lot more weight in the party than a governor)? That that is, in fact, the one and only conservative position on that matter?
Good to know. I'm still new to this game so always happy to be shown the rules.
This is the same paragraph that irked me! I don’t know one person that has a problem with Jews in the USA!
The GOP has become a BIG TENT party! Check Log Cabin Republicans!
When I read that quote I wondered what political right he was talking about. Specific examples? Because, other than a very few on the far right I don't know of anyone that is uncomfortable with "Jews at home." The neo-Nazi's are way overblown and their numbers and influence constantly inflated to make them into more of a threat than they really are. Look at the numbers who show up for their marches. They can barely get 100 people to show up. Not much of a threat.
I don’t believe that Christians are unaccepting of local Jews by heritage but are perplexed at the progressive ideology of American Jews. The divide is more about political leanings and not about race. What is it about people on the left who automatically default to “ race?” It’s really very lazy thinking and part of the reason we are having the problems we currently have.
I had just highlighted those exact words to copy, but you beat me to it. These blind Jews are still in denial. Here is a very uncomfortable truth for them. There are Jews and Christians who believe in the Bible and the Judeo-Christian ethical founding of this country. They are not going to celebrate homosexuality or abortion, but they also will not call for the annihilation of Jews in America, around the world, or in Israel. You do not get to know better than God when he calls certain actions sins and then urge people to listen to Him when he opposes beheading babies - or throwing practicing homosexuals from roofs. The choice is rather stark now. Perhaps it's time to learn more about your heritage and accept that you are not smarter, nor more loving people, than those who follow thousands of years of wisdom.
Nor will those people call for the annihilation of homosexuals or those who have abortions.
The political Right is mostly either economic or religious. We want less government intrusion in our lives, and Christians want some semblance of public morality, which ultimately is some set of shared values, because human society is better if we agree at least on some things, like the perniciousness of pornography, the moral hazard of murdering fetuses, and the general ills of making our culture less serious, less respectful, and more selfish. We can draw the lines in different places, but in my view the underlying idea is unassailable. We are disintegrating as a society, because we have no idea what to expect from our neighbors, so we don't talk to them.
But Anti-Semitism is not a feature of Republicans or Conservatives. It is a feature of toothless rednecks who live in remote places and are really irrelevant to the national political scene.
Just look at what Israel is being blamed for now, and what people are believing. That same shit has been happening to us for 30 years or more. It's not only true that Big Lies on loop get believed, but that you can TRAIN people to believe lies. That has become the function of our K-12 and beyond indoctrination system. Once people are trained, they won't question even the most obvious lies. That much has become very, very clear in the past few years. Critical thinking on a mass scale is gone. No longer relevant.
"But Anti-Semitism is...a feature of toothless rednecks who live in remote places and are really irrelevant to the national political scene."
Shortly after my husband and I finally moved to our dream small town in North Carolina, we took a day trip to Asheville - at that time, still a vibrant, artsy community, before full- woke politicism made it THE place to avoid. We stopped at a small, crowded coffee house and invited a couple who walked in a couple of minutes later to share our table. That they were elite and progressive was immediately evident from the small talk that dominated the first ten minutes. We told them we had just moved from California and that seemed to open the floodgates. We smiled and nodded and learned about the "true plight of the Cherokee" as portrayed in a local theatre production. They told us not to believe that the whole of the South was racist - at least not this far north. Then one of the women asked where we had settled.
Our turn to gush about our tiny, Western North Carolina mountain town.
"How could you CHOOSE to live THERE?" she howled. With total disregard to the looks on our faces, she proceeded to let fly a virtual blizzard of Toothless Redneck jokes - political views, backwards religion, lack of education and hygiene, incest - every known stereotype.
When she finally took a breath, nudged into silence by her slightly more cognizant companion, we offered that everyone we had met in and around our new home town seemed nice and welcoming, that the young people seemed to be better educated than those in our native state of California (something we, as retired teachers, always seemed to notice), and that even the toothless poor seemed to be open and kind-hearted toward people outside their socio-economic-politico circle.
The Wit gave her companion a knowing glance, but said nothing. We obviously didn't share her insight. The conversation died. We paid for our drinks and left.
In eight years, our opinions of the 'Toothless Rednecks" of Western North Carolina have not radically changed - people are people no matter where they live or how many teeth they sport. But for all of that time, I have wished I'd had the guts to pop that smug, judgmental woman in the nose.
It isn’t bigotry when done by the right sorts, right?
Claiming to understand “the common man and woman” is a feature of emotionally and socially ignorant elitism.
One might even define the elite as those able to advocate stupid ideas without personal consequences.
Its beyond debate that GENUINE and open racism is entirely a feature of the Left, but there do remain, I feel sure, pockets of old school racists.
I was with your comment until the redneck jab. Their are individuals but they aren't dominant. A lot of banter happens between races in redneck places that liberals would find offensive but its done often enough between the closest of friends. The actual redneck racist is a small dying breed.
I will add I’ve spent time in many small towns in Appalachia. Most of those people are very decent. But there are actual racists among them, or so I suspect. Maybe I am wrong. In any event the naked and highly consequential racism of the Left is by far the most pressing ignorant hate I see in this country.
I'm from those folks and there absolutely are actual racists*** among them. Quite a few of them, even if they no longer feel comfortable flying the Rebel flag and deploying "the N word" so freely.
And I think that's where we (now, for me) on the middle have gone wrong. There actually are bad (white) actors on race, not just the overt ones (including the TINY numbers of swastika-tattooed white supremacists), and to pretend like that is not an underlying motivation for at least some R voters, makes switching sides unpalatable for a lot of otherwise middle-of-the-road former Ds.
***Almost useless word now, but I'm speaking in terms of white people who truly believe black people are "inferior," at a fundamental level.
The majority of those that I've met with actual racist views tend to be in horrible circumstances and unable to accept personal responsibility so they look for scape goats. Same thing happens in urban black communities whether it ends up as racism or just hating cops. It's poverty and desperate despair. In both the black and the white ghettos, these people aren't typically influential.
Yes! Great clear and concise statement.
I still think it was wrong to remove geometry proofs from the regular math curriculum in high schools. It was the one place students learned logical thought. Hence now many college students believe illogical arguments.
Almost everything I write has a geometric proof as the ideal template.
Your toothless redneck remark demonstrates that you are as hostage to a scheme of faux values as those you criticize.
I’ve met plenty of toothless rednecks. I am speaking from experience. Everybody in every small town has an uncle or cousin who says hateful things when they get a few beers in them. These people exist but as I keep saying, are socially irrelevant. There is no System outside big cities owned by Democrats.
But if you want to judge me, have at it.
Then say that - some small town (as if assholes don't live in cities) people who say racist things when they get a few beers in them. In your sanctimoniousness you lumped toothless rednecks into a pile. You know it. You acknowledged it in other comments. I do expect better from you.
Edited to say I think you are correct about the urban/rural divide. I think it is because rural people are born into or migrate into rural life and understand that self-sufficiency is important. Toothless rednecks and all. Whereas urbanites believe in and want government services/fixes. They are bleeding rural items dry to have them. I know which I prefer and which I believe to have superior intellect.
I find this sort of thing tiring. The whole fucking world has become an obstacle course.
Have you ever seen a mother putting Mountain Dew in her two year olds Sippy Cup?
No. But I have seen a lot of bitchy people judge mothers for not living up to their standards.
The outcomes of bad mothering are all around us.
With that I am going to stop commenting, at least for today.
I would say people on the right are very comfortable and supportive of the Jewish community in this country and with Israel and that people on the woke far left have shown themselves to be comfortable with neither and extremely hostile to both.
imagine the shock of realizing that the people you've been calling Nazis all these years actually turn out to be the good guys.
For me, the shock was seeing my numerous Muslim friends and acquaintances, pleasant and intelligent people, suddenly exhibit this ancient blood lust. It’s like, who are you?
No matter how smart and industrious they are, I keep my distance from them, because I know this is how most of them think.
I think in view of recent events, Jewish groups should be looking to limit Muslim immigration into this country.
Why import more of your future executioners?
The Left’s hatred of Israel is baffling. There is not a single Muslim country in the Middle East that is a democracy. Women are second class and often way worse( Iran ) Gays are castrated , jailed or killed( Palestinian gay men sneak to Tel Aviv to meet nice Jewish boys) Saudi allowed women the right to drive only in the last 2 years. Syria is a disaster. Israel is a young democracy ( imperfect but so is ours) that has spent the last year demonstrating on a massive scale to define and improve their democratic commitment. Israel has absorbed Jews from any and all countries who have needed to emigrate due to persecution. These Jews come from all over North Africa and, Ukraine, Muslim dictatorships. How the western left sees the Muslim world as its ally is beyond perplexing. They share not a single value.
It is because the progressive Left sees the world primarily in terms of oppressor and oppressed, which they define not by behavior but by outcomes. Since Muslim countries tend to be poorer with lower standards of living and Jews tend to be wealthier and more successful, therefore Muslims must be the oppressed and Jews must be the oppressors. It is overly simplistic and emotional thinking that leads to this categorization, but it's the only thing that explains how the Jews can be seen as the evil aggressors in this story and the Muslims the kind, compassionate victims who take care of the powerless. The Jewish people have always been victimized and oppressed throughout history, yet through their values and hard work they continue to overcome their oppression and thrive. That's the story the Left does not want people to hear.
The same can be said for Asian Americans. Instead of looking to thriving non-White or immigrant communities, the DIE-addled “progressives,” denounce any and all subgroup success as proof of guilt. They might as well be envious, Medieval villagers hunting for witches to blame for their own misfortunes.
This may be the most sensible explanation ever. Thank you.
The broader point is that "the oppressed" are just stand ins for "the proletariat", this re-branded leftist ideology hell-bent on destroying all liberal western democracies.
You neglected to mention that Saudi Arabia abolished slavery in 1964 and Oman in 1970. Any leader of those countries over 60 years old was, because of his privileged upbringing, almost certainly an actual slave owner at one point.
But they share a hatred of Israel and the Jews. That's how these "strange bedfellows" have ended up in bed together. The hatred is so strong that both sides carefully look the other way when it comes to their extremely disparate values.
The West is undoing itself through open borders.
The most difficult relationship is with people from the Balkans - if you don't know which country, you can step in it fast. There are two kinds of antisemitism there...
It’s shocking at first but also unsurprising. Anti-Semitism is deeply ingrained in Muslim culture and tradition. This goes back to even before the creation of Israel as seen in the historical fact that the great Mufti of Jerusalem was an ally of Hitler. Unfortunately, Muslims are often their own worst enemies and subjugated their own people since the beginning of time up to today. Blaming the Jews for all of their ills is just a form of deflecting blame
Its in their holy book!
They don't make a peep about Saudi Arabia killing thousands of Yemenis. Apparently not all Muslim lives matter.
Uh, have you questioned their RELIGION that equates the Final Judgement with the elimination of Jews? It is in their holy book, by the way!
Can you cite that? I’d like to read it
I was mistaken about the Koran, but here is a link from a Muslim site that speaks of the Hadith saying that the Jews will be killed befor judgment day. The whole thing is interesting, but still open to some opinions, but it DOES give justification for Muslims to kill Jews, usually for fighting against Muslims. As you can see, there is no peace or mercy involved.
https://islamqa.info/en/answers/223275/in-the-battle-between-the-jews-and-the-muslims-at-the-end-of-time-the-aggressors-will-be-the-jews
The same people they were two months ago, you just didn't notice back then. Read MEMRI a little, you'll see what Muslims really think.
Essentially all of the labels thrown around by the left are nonsense. Nazi, Apartheid, Colonialist, Islammaphobe, Homophobe, these are very handy labels to throw at someone, and for most, just that you have to defend label has you struggling.
When you cannot argue logically you resort to ad hominin attacks!
Agreed. The one thing about the illiberal left is their perfected craft of throwing around ridiculous, elitist jargon-y phrases, some of which you named above. And it works because it sounds fancy, it’s catchy and it’s hip and trendy (so of course it’s attractive to the young HS and college folks). Speaking of folks, even their making use of changing the spelling of words like folks to folx is a way to distract and dissuade. When you go and try to defend yourself against any one of these accusatory phrases or words, you just get called more accusatory phrases or words (ah hah! See? You really are a fill-in-the-blank!). If you are anyone that matters or has a job that’s remotely public facing , you will be fired or canceled. It’s a lose-lose. Bully tactics. Censorship. Fascism. It’s all about power and control.
I have ZERO sympathy for the people they interviewed. They are shocked, but they are sure that this is just some kind of mistake, not something that is baked into the ideology they've been embracing.
Truth.
It’s the media’s perception. If you’ve only been consuming MSM then you think everyone else is the devil.
True, the MSM has enthusiastically monetized tribal hatreds and are now clutching their proverbial pearls and asking “how did it come to this?” And don’t get me started on NGOs!
The “Progressive Left” glorifies murderers and terrorists from the safe bubbles in which they live. I am a Cuban American whose uncle was executed by the death squads led by Che Guevara for the crime of publishing a pro democracy editorial. While growing up in the USA I felt personally insulted every time I saw clueless American young people wearing Che t-shirts. I can only imagine the pain and sorrow every Jewish person must feel to see and hear their fellow Americans cheering for Hamas and even for Nazis after the countless centuries of persecution and genocide the Jews have endured. Cristina Moore
Thank you for this post. CG was a monstrous piece of human garbage.
In San Diego there is a "Che Cafe" on the campus of UCSD! NO one questions the appropriateness of the name because it is "just a name", even though there are pro Palestine demonstrators who bully Jewish students. How about a "Hitler Hostel"?
Not just young people as you can easily find examples of Bernie Sanders praising the Castro regime to this day.
There is an ingrained attitude among privileged, wealthy people like Bernie Sanders to admire anyone anti-American and opposed to liberal, democratic values in the true, original sense of those words.
El pueblo cubano sufre, pero no muere. 2506!
Bernie Sander is anti-American? How old are you? 20? There was a time when the Democratic Patry supported unions and working people and didn't take a penny from corporations. Today the party of the left is the party of the uber-rich. What democratic values in the "true original sense" is Bernie Sanders not supporting?
"What democratic values in the "true original sense" is Bernie Sanders not supporting? "
Freedom of expression in both the US and Cuba
Great fan of the USSR, East Germany and Cuba
With his wife, plundered the College of Burlington until it declared bankruptcy
Interesting facts for BLM to consider when they support Cuban government:
Most political prisoners after 2021 rebellion that are still in prison are black
Black artists in Cuba have been the leading dissenters against the Cuban government during the last few years.
The top leaders of the Cuban government and military are Caucasian and have been since the “glorious revolution “ of 1959.
Although everyone in Cuba is poor ( except for the corrupt leadership), White people’s income is as much as 5 times greater than Black people, mostly because of remittances from USA relatives.
Somehow these grim numbers are ignored by “the left” as they keep blaming all of Cuba’s problems on the USA embargo.
Ironically, Fulgencio Batista, the dictator who was overthrown by Fidel, was of mixed race and lower working class background while Castro brothers and Che were upper middle class university graduates and 100% Caucasian. Aren’t they what BLM defines as “settler colonialists”?
CM
Disclaimer: * I am Jewish *
It is a real shame these progressive Jews had to wait until the woke mob came after them - until it affected them personally - for them to recognize the insidious mind virus for what it is. Alas, one way or another, they've learned. Hopefully the lesson sticks. If not, you're all free to vote alongside the blood-thirsty, Jew-hating, LGBQT brigade (along with their fiercest ally, Hamas).
My own cousin, who until 3 weeks ago was a bleeding heart liberal, told me he know "considers himself a conservative". Hopefully progressive Jews remember the lessons of the last three weeks otherwise, for another election cycle, they will be voting against their own interests (and in this case, safety).
Hi there. Might interest you to know you all Jewish folks aren't the first to suffer this betrayal. A segment of women on the left realized the left had abandoned them circa 2016 when the left decided to give away all our rights to men who decided to cosplay women. It's been a real eye opener to see left wing misogyny on full display. Now we're seeing left wing antisemitism out in the open. Maybe soon they'll round up all the Asians, possibly the Chinese Americans this time, and send them to internment camps too.
The "trans women" camp is really anti gay male!
Yes, except if you belong to one of the groups they decide are heretics and evil, then how long can you keep your head down and pay fealty before they decide that's not good enough and all those like you including you must be exterminated and wiped out? And how long can you live being beaten down and told you're worthless like excrement to these people?
Conservatism seems to be getting a fresh look from a lot of traditionally Democrat voters lately. Now it's up to conservatives to win their trust, help show why conservatism is a better way, and not do stupid stuff.
I would much rather face conservative Democrats on the ballot than the crowd we now have! After Trump won in 2016 I re-registered as "Decline to state" in California. Now, in Georgia, I wasn't asked for my affiliation, which is fine with me.
I think that one look at the House of Representatives and the Rep. presidential candidates will put a stop to that. But that is just me, who years ago saw the progressive Democrats for what they are and tried to find another home. The far right has taken over the Rep. just as the far left has gained undue influence over the Dems. IMO of course.
Until Trump leaves the stage, or is soundly defeated, there will be not change in the Republican Party. They are afraid of him. The Dems, though, are another story! Their stance seems to be organic, baked into the cake, as they say. Cleansing THAT party will be more difficult.
I feel like Trump is that last hope this country has to get back to normalcy.
I don't see it that way. Ideologist have captured both parties. But the vast majority are not and represent the middle. Yes, some lean left of middle, while others lean right of middle, but most in the middle have the same moral compass; fairness, equality, kindness. Just want to live there best lives free of crime and authoritarian politicians.
The interesting thing for me is that college made me a Republican. It was a long time ago, and things were not as Marxist as they are now, but the liberal left still dominated.
Even then, their antics turned me off.
Yes - college nudged me toward the center from the liberal bastion in which I grew up. An International Relations professor assigned reading on the Tet Offensive that indicated that the US actually won that battle, but that US media packaged it as a US loss to indigenous forces, significantly contributing to the narrative that the US was losing and should withdraw. At the time I had never doubted that narrative. That professor made me realize that there was more going on. It was the beginning of more critical thinking about then fairly homogenous American media.
same here
Good for you guys. I think these cases happen but not very often.
Jerry Brown being elected Governor in California for his FIRST term was what pushed ME over the ledge! I was raised in a reflexively Democrat, union household and it took life lessons to change my mind.
And today, Brown seems almost reactionary to the Marxists ruling the state.
Here is a clue: the main liberal-Democrat news channel has Al Sharpton as its star performer.
Unfortunately, some Jewish progressives are ineducable. I was with my family the day of and for a couple weeks after 10/7. While they all were horrified by the attacks, they were willfully blind to its coverage and fallout. When I mentioned commentators on MSNBC or writers at the NYT who gave obvious anti-Israel slants to things, they insisted the coverage was accurate and “balanced.” When I was upset by the large, frankly antisemitic demonstrations around the world, they countered with a story about neo-Nazis marching in Florida. (I later found out this happened months ago.)
Progressivism is a mental disorder which is difficult to cure.
How about they just disagree with you?
I fully understand and am completely happy with having differences of opinion. My kids all are more liberal than I am, but we can have respectful and enlightening discussions about those differences. My problem is when some other family members deny reality and get angry if I mention something like the numbers of college kids siding with or making excuses for Hamas. That’s not simply a matter of disagreement.
Look - they disagree with your worldview. You think they "deny reality," they disagree. It's both that simple and that complicated. I am not a progressive and have never called myself that. Progressives act in ways that I believe are counter productive and keep people at odds by demonizing the other. However, you need to be careful not to demonize the other. It is not a mental disorder, though I agree it is resistent to reason.
People are stupid and usually vote for people and things that are not in their self-interest, because it FEELS good!
Agree. You’ve used a key. word “personally”. It is what most of the time changes ones mind.
Josh I hope you are right.
Sure, some old-school lefties may be "rethinking" their past activism as they realize that their "allies" are supportive of genocidal maniacs. But they'll still vote for the left-wing candidate, and thus continue to enable these horrors, because the notions of maybe voting for a Republican, or that Donald Trump is the peace candidate, are inconceivable.
That's kind of what bothers me... some of them (I emphasize "some") don't seem to want to admit that other groups might have legitimate concerns about leftism too. They want to keep applying the leftist rules, except to themselves.
RFK Jr is an old fashioned liberal who strongly supports Israel.
He has my vote.
People are still parroting the ADL on the "white supremacist" far-right threat when we know a bigger threat lies within the walls of colleges, specially elite ones. Young minds are being taught to hate Israel, and Jews and they will go on to their jobs in academia, government, and corporations and spew their new found hatred there too.
As even the left-leaning Tablet Mag has pointed out - the ADL has suffered ideological capture by the far left, and Jews should write it off.
By acting as the new SPLC, it is actually facilitating anti-Semitism by crushing free speech.
Think about it - how does an organization designed to fight anti-Semitism decide that silencing Chaya Raichik (the Orthodox Jewish woman who runs Libs of TikTok) is more important than calling out BLM, Antifa and the Social Democrats for their genocidal Jew-hatred?
Has anyone ever met a white supremacist? Really asking b/c I am a conservative - as are the vast majority of my friends and colleagues. None are white supremacists - certainly not openly. I really think it’s an extraordinarily small percent of wackos who get all the media coverage for the sole purposes of denouncing conservatives in general.
Yes, I have met white supremacists. I have taken care of Aryan Brotherhood members and others with swastikas all over their bodies. As a Jew who wears a kippah every day, they can be just as dangerous on an up-close-and-personal level. Having said that, they are small in number and the fringe. They are not the masses of progressive, terrorist-supporting crowds gathering in almost every institute of higher learning and major city. And, I have never met anyone who truly believes in Christianity who is a white supremacist. Perhaps that’s the point. There are people who believe and support good and there are people who support evil. Since 10/7, that has become crystal clear and on display for all to see and assess.
White Supremacists are mostly pagans, with maybe a veneer of Christianity as a cover.
Yup, they have largely migrated to a Nordic-based pagan religion (can't remember the name) that supports their racist views.
Exactly! I've been noticing this for years. Yes of course there are these neo-Nazis and Proud Boy types that come out of the woodwork now and then to hold some demonstrations, but they're basically whack jobs. More than that, they're useful idiots to the Left, which loves to pretend these whackos are representative of conservatives. And everyone goes along with this stupid line including the Right which always avoid outright denouncing them because they still want these whack jobs' votes or something. It's a total theater and yet everyone keeps replaying this same movie.
Proud Boys are not racist or antisemitic. Just toxically masculine.
and I would actually put "toxic" in scare quotes (this being Halloween!) I think we are seriously running short of masculinity in this country. Check your local volunteer fire department and see what the median age is. Many of my local communities are running low on members. Who will be there when the house catches fire?
Completely agree, I was uncomfortable with my parent's Conservative friends who posted a bunch of whataboutism about January 6th instead of actually dennouncing it. It also doesn't help that those same conservatives who won't dennounce the Proud Boys are putting Marjorie Taylor "Jewish Space Laser" Green on a pedestal.
Still having conniptions over the Self-Guided Tour?
No. Most of them are INCEL doofus edgelords looking for attention.
Been a conservative all my life, read assiduously, and have never bumped into a “white supremacist”.
Me, too! I have lived and worked in 28 states...... never met a "white supremacist".
Actually, I HAVE! Ironically, he is a Jew! Try to explain THAT one!
There were plenty in northern Connecticut when I lived in central Connecticut in the ‘80s. KluKluxKlan bikers.
Majority of the Trump supporters I know are black. Most of the rest are Latino or Asian. I know lots of white supremacists, but they all consider themselves to be progressive and would shirk the label.
Maybe you are not old enough, but I was hanging out in Republican circles in Florida in the 1990s and saw them being brought into power. Before that they were pushed to the side and told to shut up. I was amazed at how open they had become. They have always been there as a minority, first as Southern Democrats and then turned to the Republican party in the 1970s. But they are still around, thankfully just not a lot of them.
Actually I think it was Ed Gein who wore the faces he cut off of his victims. He was a REAL person, unlike Hannibal who was fictional.
One of the quoted 'progressive Jews' in this piece, Nate Clark, said, "“When you look at the political right you see a group that seems very comfortable with Jews in Israel and very uncomfortable with Jews at home."
I peg myself as a Constitutional conservative. Nate would certainly say that I am part of the 'political right.' Given this quote from Nate, though, I have to wonder what he means by 'political right,' and whether he ever actually interacts with anyone from that cohort. Frankly, I have no idea what planet he is on when he says that those mysterious others on the 'political right' are "very uncomfortable with Jews at home."
It’s because Nate is not exposed to people other than his contemporaries.
He is captured and brainwashed by the left.
He is going through trauma right now.
Hopefully he will meet someone outside of his eco system that treats him with respect, so he can welcome others into his circle and begin to heal.
Nate is hopeless. He has imbibed too much stupidity for too long to become a normie. I'm glad on this one issue he sees the light, but there is no 12 step program for the rest of it.
I agree.
Reality is the only antidote.
That goes back to my comment on MSM. If you’re only watching CNN or NYT you think conservatives hate everyone.
My thoughts exactly. Who in the world has he talked to that expresses that sentiment??? I think he's been told that so just believes it.
Suzy and friends. Not to put too much on y'all's plates at once, but at some point, also take a look back at the folks you thought racist, hateful or whatever in the past and see whether you may have missed something there as well. Maybe some of them have a principled stance that was just uncritically swept in the 'hate pile'. Maybe some of these folks had good reasons for disagreeing a hot button issue. That level of reflection may make your head spin.
A good example would be people who are opposed to open borders. There's a very good rationale for getting the immigration process under control, so that we know who is entering our country. Once the process is under control, then we can think about reforming legal immigration (and it needs a ton of reform). But people who express that opinion get labeled "racist", and that ends the discussion.
The border is indeed a good example. I have a young and very liberal friend. When we discussed illegal immigration, I discussed how I was concerned about how illegal workers impacted the earning power of low skilled US citizens while simultaneously harming the immigrants who are often thrown into a shadow economy. That perspective was an epiphany for her.
From the right, we need to be sincere in the intent to have immigration reform.
And that used to be a liberal issue! I can remember when Barbara Jordan (I'm a Texan) made exactly that argument: illegal immigration drives down wages. That used to be a mainstream Democratic position.
It's especially true now, since our economy does not have a lot of jobs left for low-skill labor.
I was reading a blog written from a left of center point of view and what struck me was its characterization of "immigration," as something that the right wing opposed. I appreciate immigration, myself, but I am thoroughly opposed to "illegal immigration." I wonder how many people on the left dont recognize this essential distinction.
Labels. They make people defensive.
When you put children in cages and separate them from their parents you might get some kickback, no? Frankly, don't see this as a political issue, but an existential one. Statue of Liberty versus putting up a wall...............
When you ignore the possibility of child trafficking and don’t try to verify you’re actually dealing with a family, then you are complicit in child trafficking, and folks may think you just want to feel warm and fuzzy - consequences be damned.
There is a chasm between open borders and responsible immigration policy. Support responsable immigration policy and not border chaos that enriches drug cartels, entails child and sex trafficking, and contributing to the drug overdose of fellow citizens.
An open border, like many progressive policies, have horrible consequences, but sure make their supporters feel virtuous.
Every single immigrant who came through Ellis Island was documented. We're talking about the process. Legal immigration is a huge runaround and badly needs to be reformed. But open borders isn't a reasonable alternative to that.
If we keep them from entering... we can avoid "putting" them anywhere!!! Keep illegal entrants OUT! Reform Legal Migration.
It was Obama who first put children in cages.
Ah, self reflection.
My sense is what you ask will make some heads explode.
But a good exercise none the less.
When they drove a nice Pittsburgh girl like Bari Weiss out of the Times, that was enough canary in the coal mine for this white, historically liberal gay, some of whose family came on the Mayflower. If I could see the writing on the wall in June, 2020, I have to wonder at the confusion of some of the folks quoted here. October 7 provided an exceptionally high threshold for soul searching; there were many earlier, well-lit exit ramps.
The wokies hate Bari just like they hate detransioners. Apostates get crucified.
As one of the growing number of right-leaning posters here, all I can say is "We tried to tell you, but you wouldn't listen."
The left always eats its own... I've said it. Others have said it. Being repetitive is boring... Another generation learns the hard way.
I hope this is the start of a broader conversation, because I don't think y'all went far enough with your questions, nor in your conversations here. These people like Rose and others seem to still be very much in denial. They were ALWAYS in denial, but even after the last 23 days of watching all aspects of our culture that is controlled by the Woke Zealots (media, academia, entertainment, big tech, and the entire Democratic Party) they are still sadly in denial.
Rose marched with the same BLM who always hated Jewish people.
No, insane Woke people are NOT comfortable with Jews in America.
Stop using words like "ally" that applies to countries in a war, which is a coded Woke word that plays into their lies and world view about "victim vs oppressor."
I am hopeful that TFP is at the forefront of moving this important conversation forward, because it beyond time for American Jews to stop being an automatic voting block for the people in the Democratic Party that hate them, that hate Israel, and that don't believe either deserve to exist.
I fully get your concerns. This just happened. People need time to process. Gentle prodding might be very successful. Play the long game.
There has always been a good portion of black activist that were antisemitic. BLM was no exception. People just act emotionally and in the social media age were easy to fool.
I agree with most of your comment.
The large and rapidly expanding orthodox community is largely gun owning Maga republicans. It is an insular community which makes it difficult to know them or their voting habits. It is the more secular Jews who are the historically loyal democratic voting bloc
There is no such thing as a "secular Jew" in the minds of Woke antisemites. They don't care about the God part. They think that Jews are a different "race," yet still white for some reason.
“I started to see these intelligent, educated people..." I'm not sure how intelligent or educated these people are if they don't know the long history of Israel or the Jewish people. If they instinctively follow the woke, progressive crowd where ideology is more important than decency and morality. They reflexively repeat "from the river to the sea" without thinking what that means to the Jews living between the river and the sea. Or maybe they do realize what it means and don't care. So perhaps they should be described as ignorant and malign not "intelligent and educated"
Woke people are the opposite of intelligent and they are only educated in as much as they've been brainwashed by public schooling and then, for most, in corrupted colleges and universities.
They are not intelligent. They are emotional and reactionary. They are, for lack of a better phrase, religious zealots, and their religion is Woke aka Cultural Marxism aka Neo-Maoism.
Defining “ education” is the key. A phd in critical race theory or queer studies is not an education. It is a lot of time studying lies and nonsense delivered in grandiose language.
They are well versed in propaganda, and can cite it length. I'm not sure what a good word for that is. Maybe we need to invent one.
I already used the word. It's called "brainwashed."
I prefer dumber than a box of rocks.
I think one of the donors who is pulling his money called them shit for brains. Either way get your drift.
You did and the response followed by your response caused me to ROTFL.
How about "F__KED UP"?
It is the same with the supposed "innocent Palestinians"! They have been brainwashed by schools, mosques, and the media! There are no "innocent Palestinians". They are complicit in their own destruction.
They don't seem to realize or even care that "from the river to the sea" doesn't just mean the destruction of Israel and the Jewish people. It also means, at best, the expulsion of the gay and trans people now living openly and safely in Israel, or at worse, their freedom or even their very lives. What about the reproductive rights of women, or even just their rights in general? Hamas wants sharia law. How naive are these students to believe they have any common cause with people who are devoutly devoted to values that are polar opposite from the ones they claim are so important to them. Are they just so insular and uncurious that they don't even bother to read the many published manifestos out there?
“When you look at the political right you see a group that seems very comfortable with Jews in Israel and very uncomfortable with Jews at home...."
My politically right wing friends are very comfortable with Jews, everywhere, and in blogs and discussions express their surprise and anger at the anti-semitism from Democrats and especially on college campuses. If they say anything remotely negative, it's their wonder why Jews would support liberal politicians when liberals keep turning on them.
Because people are stupid and usually vote for people and things that are not in their self-interest, because it FEELS good!
I mean Trumps son in law is Jewish isn't he?!?!!? What was his name Jared? Jared Kush...? Kushnerstan? Jared McFly? No that's not it... Anyways! The narratives have never really been representative of reality.
Time for a field trip.
If the Jewish Progressives at The Free Press see conservatives as "very uncomfortable with Jews at home", they might be projecting.
Go on a field trip and observe these MAGA conservatives in their natural environment. They might find some decent people who unconditionally support Israel and are comfortable with Jews.
Have you ever seen an Evangelical Christian on a TV show or movie who wasn't the baddie? Doesn't it seem weird that everyone is all bad - every one of them is gay-hating, dance-hating small minded uptight bigot?
I promise you the professors at Liberty U are more open-minded than the ones at Berkley because they actually confront what it means to be a Fundamentalist in a modern society.
Are all working class MAGA "deplorable'? Really? How about the the burly man who confronted the poser vandal in NYC who didn't know or care if his friend was a Jew?
Field Trip Permission Slips due Nov 14.
First they came for the truckers
And I did not speak out
Because I was not an extreme fringe minority trucker
Then they came for the MAGAts
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a racist fascist Nazi election-denying MAGAt
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew...
https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/first-they-came-for-unvaccinated-jews-stoves
Then they came for the Minneapolis business owners and residents
and I joined them
The best lack conviction and the worst are full of zeal.
LOVE THIS. Thank you.
"Evangelical Christians and social conservatives" would NEVER excuse or ignore those who would bake a living, breathing, tiny little baby alive in an oven while it's mother is gang-raped and forced to hear her child's agonizing cries and mewls as it was being cooked alive. I had heard interviews of those who had seen the immediate aftermath in Israel who said that Hamas had done things so wicked that they couldn't even give voice to them. When I read this accounting on X today I froze. I am still quaking on the inside from the knowing of this horror. I don't have words for my rage and emotions. I am not Jewish. I don't understand this global hatred of Jews. If the good and decent people of this world do not take a stand and defend and protect Jewish people, humanity is truly going to be lost.
The horror of knowing that any human can descend into this abyss of hatred and perform such acts is the scariest thing in the world to me.
But until the last 70 years and now coming around again, this has been the way of the world.
https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2023/10/30/accept-that-savagery-is-the-true-nature-of-the-world-and-deal-with-it-n2630502
We are descended from apes and Neanderthals, so it is still in our DNA; however, we can certainly evolve, and are evolving, away from it. Our minds have the capacity to transcend the descent into pure limbic reaction.
I disagree. How can someone look at Ruanda, the balkans, Ukraine, the Sudan, the Mexican cartels, afghanistan, boko Haram, most African countries, not to mention Hezbollah and most recently hamas, and say the human race is evolving? How about our inner cities?
It would be nice to think that turning the other cheek would be something people could do but most likely that would just get it sliced off.
I grew up in the Bronx, so I understand what you're saying, but most people do not live in that way, and I believe wouldn't live in that way given the choice. Most people act out violently, in the examples you cite, because of the incitement by governments and wars between conquering countries. We have known nothing else for thousands of years, so can't imagine it. We built the United States of America for that very reason, so I do believe it is possible because it is working in the West. The violence being committed against Israel and Jews right now is a backlash against Western values, money and imperialism. The ignorant supporting the blood lust violence of Hamas terrorists are only seeing simplistically and blindly, Their ignorance is a new form of violence. The violence of mind. We can transcend it. We do so every day. If we Fall, then you will be proven right.
I think this even tops the Manson murders. Too horrendous for words!