Blog has moved, searching new blog...

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Maywood, 96.4% Diverse

Maywood to lay off all city employees, dismantle Police Department | L.A. NOW | Los Angeles Times:
At a council meeting Monday night, city leaders said they were forced to dismantle the Police Department and lay off city workers because they lost insurance coverage as a result of excessive police claims filed against the department. They also blamed years of financial abuse and corruption from the previous council.

I have said that Mexico does not stop at its border, that wherever there is a Mexican, there is Mexico

- Mexican President Felipe Calderon

Labels: , , ,

white

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Problem, What Problem?

In The Eternal Obsession, Steve Sailer quotes Sarah Kaufman's WaPo article, Ballet series has lots of talent, little diversity:
The companies are also overwhelmingly white and dotted with Europeans -- as they have always been. Diversity in ballet remains a serious problem for the small companies as well as the large, on the coasts as well as in the heartland. In the 21st century, we can put a black man in the White House, but as last week's survey shows, we can't put a black ballerina in the Opera House. Clearly, not enough work is being done to foster African American dancers. But with public money in their coffers, ballet companies -- and the local, state and federal funders -- need to make equal opportunity in the dancer ranks a priority.
Sailer then witlessly tries to dismiss this as friendly fire:
I'm always struck by how white people are constantly admonishing each other
Sarah Kaufman thinks too many "white" people in ballet is a "serious problem", but she didn't have anything to say about that in Israel Ballet at Silver Spring Performing Arts Center. An all-jew troupe? That's just splendid. In fact, in Paul Taylor's Marvelous Melting Pot Kaufman gives the distinct impression she can't get enough of jewish "diversity". In To strengthen Jewish identity in America through the arts and humanities Richard Siegel, "the Executive Director of the National Foundation for Jewish Culture, an organization dedicated to enhancing Jewish identity in America through the arts and humanities", cites Kaufman's article in defense of Taylor's production. Defense from what? Well, it seems some jews think Taylor's production wasn't jewish enough.

Kaufman's snide attack on "whites" in ballet echoes Harold Meyerson, who in Economy? What Economy? wrote about the "huge problem" of "whiteness" in politics, likewise using blackness as a proxy:
In a year when the Democrats have an African American presidential nominee, the Republicans now more than ever are the white folks' party, the party that delays the advent of our multicultural future, the party of the American past. Republican conventions have long been bastions of de facto Caucasian exclusivity, but coming right after the diversity of Denver, this year's GOP convention is almost shockingly -- un-Americanly -- white. Long term, this whiteness is a huge problem.
Meyerson is #48 in The (shockingly jewish) Atlantic 50.

I'm struck, like many of Sailer's commenters, by a pattern of jews attacking "whites". That they are funded and broadcast by mainstream sources only underscores the seriousness of the problem. Contra Sailer it appears Kaufman and Meyerson don't consider jews "white", otherwise we could find them criticizing the more lopsided voting of jews, the bipartisan power of the Israel lobby, jewish over-representation on SCOTUS, in law generally, in finance, in media, or in pushing an anti-White agenda. It seems to me that anti-White jews behave as they do precisely because they consider their "jewishness" distinct from Whiteness.

I'm also struck by Sailer, a proponent of "human biodiversity", lamely describing this situation as "white people constantly admonishing each other". Is political correctness making him stupid, or is it the jewish genes he suspects he carries? Either way he can consider himself admonished.

Kaufman, meanwhile, has just been lauded by her anti-White/pro-jew peers. The Pulitzer Prizes | Citation:
Awarded to Sarah Kaufman of The Washington Post for her refreshingly imaginative approach to dance criticism, illuminating a range of issues and topics with provocative comments and original insights.
Contrast this with Helen Thomas, who was excoriated and ultimately lost her job for making a provocative comment about jews.

Labels: , , , , ,

white

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

The Great Faux-White "Liberal" Babbles Again

In The anti-white left and the non pro-white right Auster once again describes the aggression of "liberals", like David Zirin, who he never identifies as a tribemate.

Once again Auster blames the "non pro-white right" "conservatives" for being worst:
The liberal-left's bigoted campaign to delegitimize and dehumanize conservatives is thus total and absolute.

But the hell of it doesn't stop there. The worst part is that the conservatives themselves are so much under the thumb of liberal-left premises that they never identify what the left is doing to them, and never attack the left for what it is doing to them.

. . .

But they never identify what the left is really up to, namely removing of any human value from conservatives by painting them as hopelessly sick and immoral racists who deserve to be racially marginalized and turned into a dispossessed minority in their own country. The conservatives don't identify it, because they themselves have no principle by which they can oppose being turned into a dispossessed minority in their own country. And the reason they have no such principle is that they themselves subscribe to the liberal view that any concern by whites about race is disgusting and immoral.
And once again Auster absurdly links all of this to his truest love, Israel. In conclusion an Auster commenter identifies the problem as a lack of "white" "tribal loyalty".

Of course anyone who distinguishes jews from Whites, "left" or "right", is violating Auster's "liberal" view that any concern by Whites about jews is disgusting and immoral. In his view however, jews can be concerned about Whites - that's perfectly normal. In "Larry Auster's lies", for example, Auster explains his motivation for removing any human value from "conservatives" by painting them as hopelessly sick and immoral "racists" against jews:
Here is my motivation: to expose the anti-Israelism and anti-Semitism that currently are harbored at the heart of the paleocon and immigration restrictionist movements, and to get conservatives and immigration restrictions to reject those evils, so that the cause of saving America and the West is not tainted and discredited by them and might actually have a chance of success.
By his own words and logic, what Auster is really up to is doing his part in the "liberal-left" anti-White cause he knows so well, campaigning to delegitimize and dehumanize the "racists" who identify jewish aggression against Whites. Auster wants Whites to feel tribal loyalty for jews (we're all just one indivisible "white" tribe, ready to defend Israel) even though jews, far from reciprocating in kind, treat us not just as "others", but as inferiors to be lectured, commanded, and ultimately punished if we disobey them.

Labels: , ,

white

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Madoff and Friends

The Madoff Circle: Who Knew What?, by Jake Bernstein, ProPublica:
What these men undeniably shared were similar backgrounds and interests. Based largely in New York and South Florida, they moved through parallel milieus of affluent Jewish country clubs and synagogues. They were active in similar philanthropies and served on the boards of foundations, universities and yeshivas.

The cast of characters, spelled out mostly in complaints filed by the trustee and the SEC, includes: Carl Shapiro,, 97, a Boston-based philanthropist who made one fortune in ladies dresses and a larger one with Madoff; Robert Jaffe, 66, Shapiro’s son-in-law; Maurice “Sonny” Cohn, 79, a onetime Madoff neighbor turned business partner; Stanley Chais, 83, a close friend of Madoff’s for more than 50 years and one of his earliest investors; and Jeffry Picower, a lawyer and accountant, who recently died of a heart attack at 67.

None of these men has been charged criminally. Thus far, federal authorities have indicated in court filings that just one of them – Chais – is the subject of a criminal inquiry. A year ago, The Wall Street Journal, citing anonymous sources, reported that the U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan was investigating at least eight investors, including Picower, Chais and Shapiro.

All have denied being anything but victims of Madoff’s.

Chais, Cohn and Jaffe have drawn considerable ire from investors for running so-called feeder funds that channeled huge sums into Madoff’s investment business. Jaffe alone funneled more than $1 billion of investor money to Madoff, according to the SEC. He worked with Cohn in a business called Cohmad – a contraction of Cohn and Madoff – that operated out of Madoff’s offices. Contrary to what some investors in the funds believed, it appears the men did little to manage the money beyond simply collecting it for delivery to Madoff.

Members of this circle not only did far better than other investors, who averaged 10 percent to 12 percent returns annually, they also had a highly unusual level of input into the nature of their returns.
Bernie Madoff
His scheme is alleged to have been helped by wealthy investors who "knew or willfully ignored" signs that it was a fraud.
Jeffry Picower, 67
This lawyer, accountant, and noted philanthropist is alleged to have reaped the most from Madoff's scheme – $7.2 billion. He died recently of a heart attack.
Carl Shapiro, 97
A Boston-based philanthropist who made a fortune in ladies fashion and allegedly as much as $1 billion from Madoff.
Stanley Chais, 83
A close Madoff friend for more than 50 years. He and his family are alleged to have withdrawn approximately $200 million more than they invested with Madoff.
Robert Jaffe, 66
Shapiro's son-in-law is believed to have funneled more than $1 billion of investor money to Madoff.
Maurice Cohn, 79
Madoff's former neighbor and business partner, he worked with Jaffe at a business called Cohmad, which allegedly did little else for investors beyond sending money to Madoff.

Labels: , , , ,

white

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Everybody Else is Crazy

Israelis Wonder: Has the World Lost Its Mind?, by Yossi Klein Halevi at wsj.com:
The outcry in Israel over the operation against the Gaza flotilla has cut across political lines. Yet unlike the outrage being expressed abroad, the concern here is over tactics, not morality. "It's not enough to be right," wrote one liberal columnist in the daily Ma'ariv, "one also needs to be smart." The assumption that Israel was right to stop the flotilla—and right to maintain its siege on Hamas-led Gaza—is largely a given here.

Israel and the rest of the world seem to be speaking dissonant moral languages. How, Israelis wonder, can pro-Hamas activists wielding knives be confused for peace ...
The "dissonant moral languages" problem is that the "the world" is talking morals while the Israelis (and their cheerleaders abroad) are talking tactics.

The derangement of the world, by Melanie Phillips. Her "key point":
The treatment being meted out to Israel is qualitatively and quantitatively different from the treatment meted out to any other nation. Ever. It's not just that the tyrannies of the present are not even reported on, let alone seen as a worthy and legitimate target of protest. Even the great progressive causes of the past, such as the campaign against apartheid South Africa, for example, never provoked such hysterical obsession, let alone such a sustained and frenzied onslaught of lie after distortion after fabrication after blood libel. Just like the Jew-hatred of the past, the characteristics of this victimisation are unique; just like the Jew-hatred of the past, it treats the Jewish people as some kind of cosmic evil; and just like the Jew-hatred of the past, ultimately it simply defies explanation. But it is happening, right now, before our disbelieving eyes; it is quite simply a derangement of the world.
According to Phillips, the international campaign against South Africa was "great", but the toothless disapproval of Israel is "hysterical obsession", "a sustained and frenzied onslaught of lie after distortion after fabrication after blood libel", "just like the Jew-hatred of the past" (repeated three times).

Right after Phillips insists the contrast between South Africa and Israel "simply defies explanation" she claims the explanation is "simply a derangement of the world". A more plausible explanation is that Phillips is deranged. She treats jews as some kind of cosmic victims of unique hatred. An even more plausible explanation is that Phillips is perfectly sane. She's just hysterically guilt-tripping "the world" about "jew-hate" because she knows that this tactic has worked for jews many times in the past.

For some people it is indeed simple - crazy "jew-hate" explains everything. It's a liberating idea. It justifies any jewish behavior whatsoever.

Just Torpedo The Next Flotilla, by Jonathan Mark at The Jewish Week:
The beauty of the almost unanimous international condemnation of Israel for attempting to stop the terrorist flotilla like gentlemen -- using paint guns? -- instead of using serious military force, should send a message to Jews: You can't win by being polite to terrorists who have a schoolyard bully mentality. Weakness brings out even more outrageous behavior in bullies.

Next flotilla that violently resists a search -- just sink it. Torpedo it. See how many more flotillas follow. The condemnation won't be any different. Better that than even one more Jew being injured while boarding these floating Jenins.

Few events in recent decades have illuminated the complete hypocrisy of the world. There is nothing that Israel can do or could have done that would stop the next diplomatic ambush. So start acting tough.
By Israel fighting as if their lives actually depended on it -- which it does -- Israel will, in fact, be taken more seriously by the international scholyard bullies. Bring back the "fear factor." It is the reason why in 1980 Iran released the hostages when Reagan became president, and not during Carter's presidency, because Carter was rightly seen by the Iranians as a wimp and Reagan was feared as a trigger-happy cowboy.

We are no longer in the general Euopean anti-Semitism mode but deeper into the new run-up (in the Arab mind) to the Final Solution -- the extermination of Israel. In old Germany, a Jew sitting on an Aryan park bench was as much of a criminal as a Jew who robs a bank. So we might as well rob the bank. We might as well take out Iran as take out the flotilla.

The Other Side is fearless now. If someone is going to fear anyone, make the bad guys fear Israel. Right now, too many Jews fear the world. Turn the tables. Make the bad guys think that Israel is craziest S.O.B. in the room. Make everyone wonder what the Jews will do. The world will be furious? Imagine that. Imagine winning.
Here Mark is rationalizing bank robbery and torpedoing civilian ships, slinging "blood libels" at Europeans, and he thinks the problem is "the complete hypocrisy of the world".

Labels: , , ,

white

Wednesday, June 09, 2010

More Bile for Helen Thomas, From Women

Semitism trumps feminism. Imagine that.

Breaking: Helen Thomas retires, effective immediately, by Kim Priestap, "a Ronald Reagan conservative", with a strong concern for Israel's well-being:
From this day forward, Ms. Thomas will no longer be a part of the White House Press Corps. While I expect nothing less than than a fawning send off from her adoring colleagues in the media, to much of America she will be long remembered, not for her reporting and breaking of the glass ceiling for women in journalism, but for her irrepressible anger and hatred for Israel and the Jews. It’s a pathetic way to end a career, but in Helen Thomas’s case, a fitting one.
For me, Helen’s words brought back memories from my tour of the National Holocaust Museum in DC. It’s important to note that the Nazis didn’t just suddenly round up and gas the Jews out of nowhere. It was part of a long and effective strategy of government sanctioned anti-Jewish text books, children’s storybooks, public posters, and print and radio propaganda designed to generate enough public distrust of and anger toward the Jews that it caused the German people, unaware of the Nazi government’s ultimate goal, to marginalize them.
Priestap is so concerned for jews that she hasn't noticed that today it is Whites who are targeted for marginalization by virtually all Western governments.

Priestap links Helen Thomas Retires, by black "conservative" La Shawn Barber:
Helen Thomas’s comments that Jews should leave Israel and go back to Poland and Germany were especially weighty for me, as I’ve spent the last couple of weeks reading and watching documentaries about WWII and the Holocaust. I guess she forgot that Jews fled Poland and Germany to escape Nazi death camps, and suggesting they “go back” invoked Holocaust images.

I was sad and enraged when I saw a photo of naked Jewish women walking to a mass grave to be shot, and one carried a newborn. I’ve seen lots of Holocaust photos, but that one in particular brought the tragedy into focus. According to a book on the subject, Nazi’s sometimes buried the babies alive with their dead mothers, instead of shooting them.
The moral of this token's little testimonial: jewish propaganda even works on blacks.

Priestap also links Leftists Cheerfully Defend Helen Thomas' Anti-Semitism, which embeds a longer version of the Thomas interview, Helen Thomas Complete (original). Thomas uses the same argument as the jews who have accused her of being ignorant of history: "Why push people out of there who have lived there for centuries?" The leftist "defense" is that Thomas is offering friendly advice to young jewish journos - she probably thought it was safe to speak her mind because, "some of my best friends are jews" and "after all, some of them have said the same thing".

The right's Helen Thomas hypocrisy, by Gabriel Winant at salon.com:
In much the same way that some of us on the left are fond of calling out racism among conservatives, right-wing commentators love little more than lobbing the accusation of anti-Semitism back our way. Normally, they aim way too wide, and wing a bunch of people who are plainly just reasonable critics of Israel. (As someone who's unmistakably Jewish in person, but lacks a particularly Jewish last name, I especially enjoy blogging about Israel and getting called a Jew-hater in the comments. On the Internet, nobody knows you're a Heeb.)

For once, though, conservatives are piling up on someone who really did cross some kind of line.
Oddly enough, when jews aren't nervously trying to pass they're shoving their jewishness in your face.

Helen Thomas: When An Icon Disappoints, by Irin Carmon at Jezebel, "an Israeli-born Jew, whose European grandparents and great-grandparents were among the few in their families to survive Nazi genocide because they were Zionists in what was then known as Palestine":
There may be only one Helen Thomas — who refused to follow the script for a woman, who has pushed back at every single president since Eisenhower, and who has now disappointed a lot of us. But maybe we've moved to a point where she no longer has to stand in for all loudmouthed, fearless women. There have been plenty of firsts and seconds and thirds since then, so even though she is harder for me to admire now, I hope that we no longer need her as badly.
No longer need her as badly? I think we all know what that really means is Carmon wants to ship Thomas to a concentration camp.

Why Helen Thomas and Not Rush Limbaugh? (crossposted at HuffPo), by Joanne "PunditMom" Bamberger:
I don’t condone in any way what she said about calling for the Jewish people to get out of Palestine or the way that she said it. It was a horrible and thoughtless comment and there should be consequences when someone who is supposed to be an objective journalist not only inserts themselves into a news story, but also does it in an offensive and inexcusable way.

But I have to ask -- why does Helen have to "resign" but others who have done similar things get to keep their jobs?

Like, say, Rush Limbaugh?

Or Sean Hannity?

Or Glenn Beck?

Or Bill O' Reilly?

If forced resignation is good enough for someone who's actually contributed to real journalism, then it ought to be good enough for those who work for "news" organizations with an agenda when they cross that kind of not-so-fine line of offensiveness.

But I suppose in this day and age of opinion news, as long as the offenders are making money for their bosses, it will get excused. If Helen Thomas had been working for FOX News, she'd probably still have a job.
Sure, because in PunditMom's fevered imagination Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck, O'Reilly, and FOX are clearly "anti-semitic". Why might she imagine that? Well here's PunditMom on Surviving My Mixed Marriage:
My husband and I are very different in many ways.

He’s a city boy and I’m a farm girl. I’m Protestant and he’s Jewish.
The Helen Thomas media blitz: She got fired for WHAT?!, by Meryl Yourish:
It’s a rare person that actually came out and criticized Thomas without pretending that she made her remarks because she’s old or angry. The remarks are sheer Jew-hatred, nothing less. Jews’ millennia-old ties to the land of Israel are utterly discounted by Thomas, who chooses to use the fiction that Israel was a country created specifically by and for Holocaust survivors.
Meryl Yourish is:
a former New Jerseyan who now resides in Virginia. She is a former liberal who now considers herself center-left, and has been the SNN token woman and token feminist since almost the beginning of the podcast.

Since moving to Virginia she has voted twice for Republican presidential candidates, purchased a handgun and a rifle (and knows how to shoot them), and spends most Fourth of July holidays at Fort Lee in Petersburg. Zionism and finding media bias are Meryl's two specialties, as well as delivering as much juvenile scorn as a subject will stand. Meryl blogs about Jewish and Israeli issues at yourish.com.
Losing Helen Thomas, by Rachel Sklar at Mediaite (whose alter ego, when she's in a lighter mood, is Lady Jew-Ga whose "biggest hit" is Bad Shiksa):
It’s not enough to have spent a lifetime being an awesome, trailblazing journalistic and feminist icon. Because longer still than the shadow cast by such a great career is the one cast by the Holocaust.
The verdict is in. People who love Israel and love jews hate Helen Thomas.

Labels: , , ,

white

Monday, June 07, 2010

Helen Thomas F*cks With the Jews



In an exchange with Joey Kurtzman at jewcy.com, Be Nice, or We'll Crush You, subtitled "Criticizing Jews is professional suicide", John Derbyshire writes:
Almost the first thing you hear from old hands when you go into opinion journalism in the U.S. is, to put it in the precise form I first heard it: “Don’t f*ck with the Jews.”
Joe Sobran expressed it with his usual hyperbole: “You must only ever write of us as a passive, powerless, historically oppressed minority, struggling to maintain our ancient identity in a world where all the odds are against us, poor helpless us, poor persecuted and beleaguered us! Otherwise we will smash you to pieces.”
Helen Thomas has been a fixture in the White House press corps since JFK was president. She must have understood Derbyshire's little bit of journo wisdom. What little I know of her involves her supporting role in the left-right kabuki that passes for US politics. Based on opinion from the right, or "conservative" side of the theatre, all I could ever really be sure of was that Thomas was some kind of immortal wicked witch of the left. She was "a nasty piece of work" who could be impertinent and insolent, even to presidents, and yet she never had to fear for her job.

Now that portion of the kabuki lies in tatters.

The response from "the jews" of all stripes to Thomas' heresy has been swift and merciless. For "liberal" jews, Thomas' "anti-semitism" towers above personal friendships, her decades of reliable "liberal" service, and her being the first woman journalist to do this or that. For "conservative" jews, her "anti-semitism" totally eclipses her "liberalism". Everyone could live with Thomas' "liberalism", but now she has vexed "the jews", and this cannot be tolerated. With the flotilla flap making Israelis look like bullies there couldn't be a better time to remind everyone that they had better not say as much out loud.

Helen Thomas Says Jews Should Get the Hell Out of Palestine and Back To Germany-MUST SEE VIDEO, at Yid with Lid:
There are some people who believe that any criticism of Israel is Anti-Semitism. That belief is as ignorant as Anti-Semitism itself. There is however, a great deal of crossover between hatred of Israel and Hatred of the Jews. To find out what people really mean you need to examine the words they use.

Helen Thomas' comparing of the IDF to Nazi Germany is nothing but an attempt to water-down the horror of the Holocaust, and to dehumanize Israel. And her advice to the Jews to get the hell out of Palestine, and go back to Poland and Germany is nothing short of anti-Semitism. If Thomas' comments were directed toward any other group but the Jews, she would have been out of work a very long time ago. Maybe it’s time for Helen’s bosses to retire her to the “The Home For Old Crazy Anti-Semites.
VIDEO: Frau Helen Thomas wants to join Pat Buchanan’s Army, Too, Debbie Schlussel:
Helen Thomas–who is a Christian Arab, not Muslim (plenty of Christian Arabs hate Israel and the Jews)–continues in her neo-Nazi ways. In this video, she preaches Judenrein, which is in line with her previous support for Hezbollah.
So, Helen, I’ll go “back” to Poland (even though I, myself, am not from there), if I can get back all of my family’s land, my maternal great-grandfather’s thriving hardware store, my great-grandfather’s spot as Mayor of his town, my great-grandmother’s diamonds, my paternal great-grandparents’ farm, etc., etc., etc. (But since I’m an American, just as many other Jews are Israeli, I love my country and will only stay a week.)
Schlussel's title alludes to her similarly motivated ethnic animus aimed at Pat Buchanan, most recently expressed in Pat HAMAS Buchanan: Qaeda Attacks on US Justified b/c of Israel – TownHall, Human Events, WND Run Column. These two columns of Schlussel's contain one over-the-top, hysterical statement after another.

Obama's White House Correspondent: Jews Should Go Back to the Ovens, Pamela Geller, at Atlas Shrugs:
Look, this would never stand under any other administration. The fact that Palestinian Jews were in Israel (Transjordan, Palestine) thousands of years before and during and after the Palestinian Muslims began their Islamic anti-semitic genocidal massacres is ignored by the morally depraved Thomas and her ilk.

Has The White House thrown her out on her ugly Jew-hating keyster? Not a chance.
Helen Thomas, Jew Hatred And Acceptance, by JoshuaPundit:
Helen Thomas is valuable because she provides a picture perfect example of the double standard most Left- leaning journos ( and believe me, the majority are Left- leaning) have when it comes to Jew hatred. While they might not personally endorse it, they're prepared to accept it, just like Joe Lockhart, as a legitimate point of view that is subject to debate. That's something virtually none of them would do if that hatred was directed anywhere else but at Jews.

So I think it's better that Helen Thomas remains an honored part of the White House press corps, especially since few if any of them seem uncomfortable with her in their midst. It tells us a great deal about a large part of the membership of that august body. And who knows? It may actually serve as a wake up call about how commonplace and acceptable in public discourse this kind of obscene anti-Semitism has become.
Ari Fleischer: Fire Helen Thomas:
"She should lose her job over this," Fleischer said in an email. "As someone who is Jewish, and as someone who worked with her and used to like her, I find this appalling."

"She is advocating religious cleansing. How can Hearst stand by her? If a journalist, or a columnist, said the same thing about blacks or Hispanics, they would already have lost their jobs."
Former Clinton counsel Lanny Davis calls reporter Helen Thomas an anti-semite over Israel comments, NYPOST.com:
Lanny Davis, the former White House Counsel for President Bill Clinton, weighed in on the Helen Thomas controversy today, calling her an “an anti-Semitic bigot.”

“Helen Thomas, who I used to consider a close friend and who I used to respect, has showed herself to be an anti-Semitic bigot. This is not about her disagreement about her criticisms of Israel. She has a right to criticize Israel and that is not the same as being an anti-Semite,” Davis said in a statement.
In a written statement issued Friday, Thomas apologized for the comment to Rabbi David Nessenoff, saying, she deeply regretted her comments and they "do not reflect" her "heartfelt belief that peace will come to the Middle East only when all parties recognize the need for mutual respect and tolerance."

But Thomas' apology did not go far enough, Davis said.

“In my opinion, her apology was not direct and didn't address the merits of her belief in the stereotype that Jews are aliens in Israel and don't belong there. She should be at the least suspended from all privileges in the White House press room since bigots don't merit such privileges. And I believe Hearst should consider a similar suspension of her position as a nationally-syndicated columnist until she owns up to her bigotry and aplogizes (sic) for it,” he said.
Helen Thomas Should Go, Says Lanny Davis, by Jennifer Rubin at Commentary:
Helen Thomas, who I used to consider a close friend and who I used to respect, has showed herself to be an anti-Semitic bigot. This not about her disagreement about her criticisms of Israel. She has a right to criticize Israel and that is not the same as being an anti-Semite.

However, her statement that Jews in Israel should leave Israel and go back to Poland or Germany is an ancient and well-known anti-Semitic stereotype of the Alien Jew not belonging in the “land of Israel” — one that began 2,600 years with the first tragic and violent diaspora of the Jews at the hands of the Romans.

If she had asked all Blacks to go back to Africa, what would White House Correspondents Association position be as to whether she deserved White House press room credentials — much less a privileged honorary seat?
Privileged bipartisan icon Abraham Lincoln wanted free Africans to be sent back to Africa. We know this particular viewpoint of Lincoln's has become unspeakable because nobody ever speaks of it.

Rubin adds that she has already used her hotline to the White House:
See, that wasn’t so hard. Where is the rest of the media, the White House Correspondents Association, and the White House? As to the latter, no response to my inquiry has been forthcoming.
The Helen Thomas 'Scandal', by Jonah Goldberg at The Corner:
For starters, this is a classic gaffe because Helen Thomas accidentally told the truth. She's wrong on the substance, obviously. But of course she believes the Israelis should go away. I sincerely doubt there is anyone familiar with Thomas who really doubts for a moment that she was being less than honest when she made her "back to Poland" comments or that she is lying now when she says she didn't mean it.

But beyond that, can we do away with all of the shock and dismay at Thomas' statement? Spare me Lanny Davis's wounded outrage. Everyone knows she is a nasty piece of work and has been a nasty piece of work for decades.

And when I say a nasty piece of work, I don't simply mean her opinions on Israel. She's been full-spectrum awful. I've known a few people who knew her 40 years ago, and she was slimy then too.
Organized jewry had some monotonously repetitive and hate-filled things to say about ignorance.

Helen Thomas Apology 'Does Not Go Far Enough', by Abe Foxman of the ADL:
Helen Thomas's statement of regret does not go far enough. Her remarks were outrageous, offensive and inappropriate, especially since she uttered them on a day the White House had set aside to celebrate the extraordinary accomplishments of American Jews during Jewish American Heritage Month.
Jewish group: Dismiss Helen Thomas - Israel Jewish Scene, Ynetnews:
The B’nai B’rith International organization says that the YouTube video showing long-time White House correspondent Helen Thomas saying that “Jews should go back to Poland…back to Germany…and America, and everywhere else" demonstrates an outrageous and complete lack of understanding of history.
“Thomas’ comments are contemptible,” said B’nai B’rith International President Dennis W. Glick. “Her distortion of historical reality is astonishing. Her call for Jews to return to Poland and Germany—site of the Nazi genocide, the worst genocide in modern history—is beyond offensive.”

“These vile comments, unfortunately, are the culmination of Thomas’ ongoing anti-Israel sentiments that she kept thinly veiled over the years,” said B’nai B’rith International Executive Vice President Daniel S. Mariaschin. “There should be no place for her in a news organization. Her comments go beyond commentary and land well in the camp that will stop at nothing to delegitimize Israel.”

B’nai B’rith called on the Hearst Corporation to dismiss Thomas, its current columnist, immediately.
AJC Outraged by Journalist Helen Thomas's Remarks on Israel, by the American Jewish Committee:
"Her comment revealed unbridled hostility to Israel's very existence, if not to the Jewish people," said Harris. "It also showed profound ignorance, as half of Israel's Jews come not from Germany or Poland but from the Arab world, itself a telling point.
Ms. Thomas’s statement is astonishing both in its ignorance and insensitivity. It ignores entirely the enduring historical link of more than 2,000 years between the Jewish people and the land. It ignores the painful history of the Jewish people in Germany and Poland. And, it ignores the fact that half of Israel's Jewish population today has roots in Arab countries, from which they were expelled or driven out by persecution.

While Ms. Thomas has issued an apology, it is unconvincing. It seemed designed to do nothing more than attempt to put out a fire of her own making. She has demonstrated blatant antipathy for Israel, and for the Jewish people.
This Haaretz article isn't as emotionally charged as any of the items quoted and linked above, but its headline accurately sums up the consequences of saying something "the jews" don't like: Top U.S. journalist loses agent, friends after saying 'Jews should get the hell out of Palestine'.

Despite the impotence and fears of partisanship feigned by "conservative" jews, Thomas has indeed lost her job, or as the Drudge headline put it: "Helen Sent to Poland". In the fullness of time we'll see if her career-ending statement has made her notorious enough to join the bipartisan pantheon of infamous "jew-haters", like Harry Truman and Richard Nixon, or if she will simply be flushed down the memory hole.

The irony is that Helen Thomas could have said something quite the opposite and she would just as likely have ended up vilified and fired. She could have suggested that all the zionist diaspora jews advocating so diligently for Israeli interests from afar should get the hell out and move to Israel. With only slight modifications to the portions of rhetoric about "unbridled hostility to Israel's very existence" the jewish denouncements would be much the same and from the same people. The crime is the "insensitivity" to jewish sensibilities.

The strange thing about jewish sensibilities is that so many of them have such a preference for insensitively bossing people around, telling us what is or isn't moral, dictating what we can or can't say, judging whether our grovelling is good enough or not. And yet, it doesn't really matter what you command them to do, the reaction is best characterized as unbridled hostility to your very existence.

Jewish moralizing about expulsion is as ignorant of history as it is brazenly hypocritical. Current events, such as the flotilla flap, provide constant reminders that many zionists would like the Palestinians to get the hell out. The Israelis have actually killed people to encourage as much. The Israeli government has a long history of ethnically cleansing Palestinians:
Benny Morris is a leftist Israeli historian who attained notoriety some years ago by uncovering Israel Defense Forces documents showing Israel’s deliberate policy of expelling Arabs from Israel during the 1948-49 War of Independence. Morris then startled the world by turning around and declaring that such expulsions were essential for Israel’s survival against enemies seeking to destroy it, and were therefore moral. He then went further and said that Ben Gurion’s great error was that he got cold feet and did not expel all the Arabs from Israel in 1948. He then went further and said that Israel in the near future will face an existential crisis in which it will, as a matter of necessity, complete the job that Ben Gurion failed to complete.
For a more recent critique see The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment, by Peter Beinart at The New York Review of Books:
[Effi] Eitam, a charismatic ex–cabinet minister and war hero, has proposed ethnically cleansing Palestinians from the West Bank. “We’ll have to expel the overwhelming majority of West Bank Arabs from here and remove Israeli Arabs from [the] political system,” he declared in 2006. In 2008, Eitam merged his small Ahi Party into Netanyahu’s Likud. And for the 2009–2010 academic year, he is Netanyahu’s special emissary for overseas “campus engagement.” In that capacity, he visited a dozen American high schools and colleges last fall on the Israeli government’s behalf. The group that organized his tour was called “Caravan for Democracy.”

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman once shared Eitam’s views. In his youth, he briefly joined Meir Kahane’s now banned Kach Party, which also advocated the expulsion of Arabs from Israeli soil. Now Lieberman’s position might be called “pre-expulsion.” He wants to revoke the citizenship of Israeli Arabs who won’t swear a loyalty oath to the Jewish state. He tried to prevent two Arab parties that opposed Israel’s 2008–2009 Gaza war from running candidates for the Knesset. He said Arab Knesset members who met with representatives of Hamas should be executed. He wants to jail Arabs who publicly mourn on Israeli Independence Day, and he hopes to permanently deny citizenship to Arabs from other countries who marry Arab citizens of Israel.
In 2009, a poll by the Israel Democracy Institute found that 53 percent of Jewish Israelis (and 77 percent of recent immigrants from the former USSR) support encouraging Arabs to leave the country. Attitudes are worst among Israel’s young. When Israeli high schools held mock elections last year, Lieberman won. This March, a poll found that 56 percent of Jewish Israeli high school students—and more than 80 percent of religious Jewish high school students—would deny Israeli Arabs the right to be elected to the Knesset.
Has anybody of any consequence tried to defend Thomas? Why would they? They'd lose their job too. Whatever their political differences, jews agree: one set of rules for "the jews", another for everyone else. If you have a problem with this then they will work to make sure you will indeed have a problem.

Labels: , , ,

white

Friday, June 04, 2010

Targeting Oath Keepers

An instinct for duty, honor, law and order, liberty, a government loyal to its citizens; like the Tea Party, Oath Keepers is a White thing. Thus the suspicious and hostile reaction from the usual anti-White suspects, projecting their own sneaky, malevolent tactics and motives onto their "wingnut" boogeymen.

This Mother Jones hitpiece, this series of cynical articles, is all about manufacturing fear and aiming it at their self-proclaimed adversaries. They want to wake up their "progressive" fellow travellers and right-thinking useful idiots. The "liberal" mask slips as they ridicule, insinuate, and fret about the motives and intentions of a growing movement of mostly confused Whites who cling as desperately to their deracinated, pro-Civil Rights, anti-Nazi liberalism as they cling to their guns and religion.

The fear MoJo stokes is that Oath Keeper rhetoric about Rosa Parks and the Warsaw Ghetto is insincere. MoJo sees through it. Likewise all that nonsense about opposing tyranny. Why? Because their own "liberal", anti-racist rhetoric is insincere. They don't trust White people. They don't share our beliefs or values. They don't like us. When Oath Keepers talk about upholding their oath to oppose threats to the republic and its constitution, MoJo and friends realize, "hey, that means us!"

The Tea Party's Military Wing | Mother Jones:
Oath Keepers, which recruits soldiers and police to resist federal "tyranny," has become a hub in the sprawling anti-Obama movement.
For our March/April 2010 issue, reporter Justine Sharrock got up close and personal with Oath Keepers, a fast-growing "patriot" group that recruits active-duty soldiers, police, and veterans to resist what its members consider an increasingly tyrannical government. Members reaffirm their service oath to uphold the Constitution and further vow to disobey any orders they deem illegal or unconstitutional. Unveiled last April, the group has already established itself as a hub within the larger anti-Obama movement, attracting a wide range of followers from politicians to Tea Partiers to militia enthusiasts—not to mention alienated soldiers like Private 1st Class Lee Pray, above. The group has also drawn praise from a who's who of right-wing cable hosts including Glenn Beck.
Why Do Some Conservatives Play Footsie With Treason? | Mother Jones:
Wing nuts no longer: Right-wing celebs are helping anti-Obama militias go mainstream.

— By Monika Bauerlein and Clara Jeffery
IN THE FALL of 1964, not long after Barry Goldwater had clinched the Republican nomination for president, historian Richard Hofstadter penned penned an essay for Harper's called "The Paranoid Style in American Politics." It was an instant classic—not because it was so elegantly written, but because in just a few pages it described with deadly accuracy one of the major strains of our national dialogue.

"The paranoid spokesman," Hofstadter wrote, "is always manning the barricades of civilization...Like religious millennialists he expresses the anxiety of those who are living through the last days and he is sometimes disposed to set a date for the apocalypse...He does not see social conflict as something to be mediated and compromised...Since what is at stake is always a conflict between absolute good and absolute evil, what is necessary is not compromise but the will to fight things out to a finish."

Oath Keepers, the group featured in our cover story, would seem the classic case in point. Its members are cops, sheriffs, and military men and women determined to resist the tyrannical orders they believe are imminent from the Obama administration. The fantasies they spin—a "globalist" leadership intent on declaring martial law, putting God-fearing Americans in detention camps, and asking UN blue helmets to keep order while it imposes health care reform and who knows what else—replicate almost exactly the fears far-right cranks have peddled for generations. Replace "socialism" with "communism" and you are pretty much back to 1964 (or 1934 or 1884, for that matter).
But what was true then is true now: Dismissing one's adversaries as wing nuts is myopic, both intellectually and politically. Like it or not, the Oath Keepers, and the myriad other "patriot" groups now emerging around the edges of the Tea Party movement, are tapping into a real strain of popular anger. And who wouldn't be angry? Unemployment for millions, bailouts and bonuses for a few. A health care reform plan supremely undersold by a Democratic establishment unconcerned with the battle for hearts and minds (see: Martha Coakley). A GOP controlled by pro-corporate nihilists.

But righteous anger is one thing. Manufacturing fear, dare we say terror, is another—and over the past year, we have seen cynical politicians and talk-show demagogues increasingly willing to traffic in it. It's no longer just handfuls of militia types trading overheated conspiracy theories; it's America's most popular cable news network giving gobs of airtime to people who all but advocate armed insurrection.
When people in positions of great power play footsie with those who advocate treason—or claim that the elected commander in chief is a bastard foreigner with no claim to the office—they are not just engaging in a lively debate. They are actively negating a fundamental principle of American politics: that the government, no matter how much you might disagree with its representatives, is of, by, and for the people.
Oath Keepers and the Age of Treason | Mother Jones:
Glenn Beck loves them. Tea Partiers court them. Congressmen listen to them. Meet the fast-growing "patriot" group that's recruiting soldiers to resist the Obama administration.

— By Justine Sharrock
His belief that that day [when the US government declares martial law] is imminent has led [Pvt. 1st Class Lee] Pray to a group called Oath Keepers, one of the fastest-growing "patriot" organizations on the right. Founded last April by Yale-educated lawyer and ex-Ron Paul aide Stewart Rhodes, the group has established itself as a hub in the sprawling anti-Obama movement that includes Tea Partiers, Birthers, and 912ers. Glenn Beck, Lou Dobbs, and Pat Buchanan have all sung its praises, and in December, a grassroots summit it helped organize drew such prominent guests as representatives Phil Gingrey and Paul Broun, both Georgia Republicans.

There are scores of patriot groups, but what makes Oath Keepers unique is that its core membership consists of men and women in uniform, including soldiers, police, and veterans. At regular ceremonies in every state, members reaffirm their official oaths of service, pledging to protect the Constitution—but then they go a step further, vowing to disobey "unconstitutional" orders from what they view as an increasingly tyrannical government.
Most of the men's gripes revolve around policies that began under President Bush but didn't scare them so much at the time. "Too many conservatives relied on Bush's character and didn't pay attention," founder Rhodes told me. "Only now, with Obama, do they worry and see what has been done. Maybe you said, I trusted Bush to only go after the terrorists.* But what do you think can happen down the road when they say, 'I think you are a threat to the nation?'"

In Pray's estimate, it might not be long (months, perhaps a year) before President Obama finds some pretext—a pandemic, a natural disaster, a terror attack—to impose martial law, ban interstate travel, and begin detaining citizens en masse. One of his fellow Oath Keepers, a former infantryman, advised me to prepare a "bug out" bag with 39 items including gas masks, ammo, and water purification tablets, so that I'd be ready to go "when the shit hits the fan."

When it does, Pray and his buddies plan to go AWOL and make their way to their "fortified bunker"—the home of one comrade's parents in rural Idaho—where they've stocked survival gear, generators, food, and weapons. If it becomes necessary, they say, they will turn those guns against their fellow soldiers.
Rhodes stood on the common that day before a crowd of about 400 die-hard patriot types. He spoke their language. "You need to be alert and aware to the reality of how close we are to having our constitutional republic destroyed," he said. "Every dictatorship in the history of mankind, whether it is fascist, communist, or whatever, has always set aside normal procedures of due process under times of emergency...We can't let that happen here. We need to wake up!"

He laid out 10 orders an Oath Keeper should not obey, including conducting warrantless searches, holding American citizens as enemy combatants or subjecting them to military tribunals (a true Oath Keeper would have refused to hold José Padilla in a military brig), imposing martial law, blockading US cities, forcing citizens into detention camps ("tyrannical governments eventually and invariably put people in camps"), and cooperating with foreign troops should the government ask them to intervene on US soil. In Rhodes' view, each individual Oath Keeper must determine where to draw the line.

The crowd was full of familiar faces from patriot rallies and town hall meetings, with an impressive showing by luminaries of the rising patriot movement. There was Richard Mack, a former Arizona sheriff who had refused to enforce the Brady Law in the mid-'90s. Also present was Mike Vanderboegh, whose Three Percenter movement styles itself after the legendary 3 percent of American colonists who took up arms against the British. Rhodes singled out Marine Charles Dyer, a.k.a. July4Patriot—whose YouTube videos advocate armed resistance—as a "man of like minds." When Rhodes finished, Captain Larry Bailey, a retired Navy SEAL, Swift Boater, and founder of the anti-antiwar group Gathering of Eagles, asked the crowd to raise their right hands and retake their oath—not to the president, but to the Constitution.
Rhodes has become a darling of right-wing pundits. In a column last October, Pat Buchanan predicted that "Brother Rhodes is headed for cable stardom." Glenn Beck has cited the group as a "phenomenal" example of the "patriot revival movement," while Lou Dobbs declared that its platform "should give solace and comfort to the left in this country." Conspiracy-radio king Alex Jones even put an Oath Keepers segment, including footage of the Lexington speech, on his hit DVD Fall of the Republic. "I can't stress enough how much your organization is scaring the globalists," he told Rhodes on his show.

All this attention has put Oath Keepers on the radar of anti-hate groups. Last year, the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center both name-checked the group in their reports on rising anti-government extremism. "They think the word 'patriot' is a smear," Rhodes countered during his Dobbs segment. SPLC's Mark Potok "wants to lump us in with white supremacists and neo-Nazis, and of course make the insinuation that we're the next McVeigh." But such attacks have only raised Oath Keepers' profile. After a combative Hardball interview in October—host Chris Matthews asked Rhodes whether Oath Keepers had the "firepower to stand up against the federal government"—the group says it gained 2,000 members in three days.
IT IS EASY ENOUGH to dismiss the Oath Keepers as (in the words of Britain's Independent) "right-wing crackpots" or "extremist nimrods" (Huffington Post). CNN stressed the group's conspiracy theories in its series on militias. But beyond the predictable stereotypes, "the reality is a lot of them are fairly intelligent, well-educated people who have complex worldviews that are thoroughly thought out," says author David Neiwert, who has been following the patriot movement closely since the '90s.

Rhodes' vision is simple—"It's the Constitution, stupid." He views the founding blueprint the way fundamentalist Christians view the Bible. In Rhodes' America, sovereign states—"like little labs of freedom"—would have their own militias and zero gun restrictions. He would limit federal power to what's stated explicitly in the Constitution and Bill of Rights; any new federal law affecting the states would require a constitutional amendment. "If your state goes retarded," he says, "you can move to another state and vote with your feet." The president would be stripped of emergency powers that allow him to seize property, restrict travel, institute martial law, and otherwise (as the Congressional Research Service has put it) "control the lives of United States citizens." The Constitution, Rhodes explains, "was created to check us in times of emergency when we are freaking out."

Much of this is familiar rhetoric, part of a continuous strain in American politics that reemerged most recently during the 1990s. Back then, a similar combination of recession and Democratic rule led to the rise of citizen militias, the Posse Comitatus movement, and Oath Keepers-type groups like Police & Military Against the New World Order. But those groups had little reach. Nowadays, through the power of YouTube and social networking, and with a boost from the cable punditry, Oath Keepers can reach millions and make its message part of the national conversation—furthering the notion that citizens can simply disregard a government they loathe. "The underlying sentiment is an attack on government dating back to the New Deal and before," says author Neiwert. "Ron Paul has been a significant conduit in recent years, but nothing like Glenn Beck and Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin—all of whom share that innate animus."

Oath Keepers' strength derives from what Rhodes calls "a very powerful common bond" (the vow of service) as well as the uniform—"a powerful source of credibility and respect" that allows members to "throw their weight into any movement...and tip any election." Rhodes is wary of "old-party asshole RINOs" (Republicans in name only)—he mentions Dick Armey, the former House majority leader turned Tea Party sponsor—who in his view are merely out to hijack the grassroots.
In the months I've spent getting to know the Oath Keepers, I've toggled between viewing them either as potentially dangerous conspiracy theorists or as crafty intellectuals with the savvy to rally politicians to their side. The answer, I came to realize, is that they cover the whole spectrum.
Oath Keepers is officially nonpartisan, in part to make it easier for active-duty soldiers to participate, but its rightward bent is undeniable, and liberals are viewed with suspicion. At lunch, when I questioned my tablemates about the Obama-Hitler comparisons I'd heard at the conference, I got a step-by-step tutorial on how the president's socialized medicine agenda would beget a Nazi-style regime.
From the podium, ex-sheriff Mack told the crowd that he wished he'd been the officer ordered to escort Rosa Parks off the bus, because not only would he have refused, he would have helped her home and stood guard there. These days, he said, it's not African Americans who are under attack, but Christians, constitutionalists, and people who uphold family values: This time "it's going to be Rosa Parks the gun owner, Rosa Parks the tax evader, or Rosa Parks the home-schooler."
After an Oath Keeper who is also a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War touted IVAW repeatedly on Oath Keepers' Web forum, Rhodes deleted the guy's online testimonial. "The IVAW have their own totalitarian mindset," he told me. "I don't like communists any more than I like Nazis."
There may also be serious downsides for a soldier who follows through on his Oath Keepers pledge. Disobeying orders can mean discharge or imprisonment. "You have every right to disobey an order if you think it is illegal," says Army spokesman Nathan Banks. "But you will face court-martial, and so help you God if you are wrong. Saying something isn't constitutional isn't going to fly."

A soldier like Charles Dyer, who in his July4Patriot persona advocated armed resistance against the government, could risk charges of treason. As a Marine sergeant based out of Camp Pendleton, Dyer posted videos to YouTube last year, his face half-covered with a skull bandana. "With the DHS blatantly calling patriots, veterans, and constitutionalists a threat, all that I have to say is, you're damn right we're a threat," he said in one. "We're a threat to anyone that endangers our rights and the Constitution of this republic...We're gathering in defense of our way of life." For a while, he ran a training compound in San Diego, teaching civilians his Marine combat skills.

Dyer, who with Rhodes' blessing represented Oath Keepers at an Oklahoma Tea Party rally on July 4, was charged under the Uniform Code of Military Justice with uttering "disloyal" statements. He ultimately beat the charge, left the Marines, and reappeared unmasked on YouTube encouraging viewers to join him at his makeshift training area in Duncan, Oklahoma—"I'm sure the DHS will call it a terrorist training camp." In January, Dyer was arrested on charges of raping a seven-year-old girl. When sheriff's deputies raided his home, they found a Colt M-203 grenade launcher believed to have been stolen from a California military base. He now faces federal weapons charges and is being hailed by fringe militia groups like the American Resistance Movement as "the first POW of the second American Revolution."

Shortly after I asked Rhodes about Dyer—before his arrest hit the news—his testimonial vanished from the group's website­. Rhodes once endorsed Dyer in glowing terms, but now claims he was never a member because he hasn't paid dues. Yet Dyer publicly referred to himself as an Oath Keeper, and Rhodes had previously insisted—to Lou Dobbs and anyone else who would listen—that you didn't need to pay dues to be a member.

In an interview prior to Dyer's arrest, Andrew Sexton, another uniformed YouTube star who argues the need for armed resistance, criticized Dyer for making himself a target. Sexton, an Army reservist who served in Afghanistan with US Special Operations Command, also keeps his Oath Keepers ties under the radar. Most soldiers, he told me, don't talk openly about such things, but it's easy enough to tell which ones have been woken up. The Department of Defense, Sexton added, will be shocked by the number of service members willing to turn against their commanders when the time comes. "It's an absolute reality," he says. He views last April's DHS report on right-wing extremists as a "preemptive attack because they know it's coming."

Rhodes isn't calling for violence—indeed, he insists that his group is about laying down arms rather than turning them on citizens. Yet when he writes that "the oath is like kryptonite to tyrants, as the Founders intended. The time has come for us to use it to its full effect," some followers take that as a call for drastic action.

Chip Berlet, of the watchdog group Political Research Associates, who has studied right-wing populist movements for 25 years, equates Rhodes' rhetoric to yelling fire in a crowded theater. "Promoting these conspiracy theories is very dangerous right now because there are people who will assume that a hero will stop at nothing." What will happen, he adds, "is not just disobeying orders but harming and killing."
LEE PRAY thinks Rhodes downplays the threat Oath Keepers represents to a rogue administration. "They have to be careful because otherwise they will be labeled as terrorists," he says. "You have to read between the lines, but I wish they were more up-front with their members."

It's not hard to see the appeal of Oath Keepers for guys like Pray and Brandon, frustrated young men nervous about their future prospects. They signed up to defend the greatest country in the world, only to be cast aside. Even their injuries were suffered ingloriously. Brandon can't sit for long after being flung from a pickup truck; Pray now walks with a cane, possibly for good. The men sincerely believe their country is headed for disaster, but as broken warriors they are powerless to do anything about it. They have tried writing to Congress, signing petitions, and voting, all to no avail. Oath Keepers offers a new sense of pride and comradeship—of being part of something momentous.

And when the time comes, Pray insists he is battle ready. "If the government continues to ignore us, and forces us to engage," Pray says, "I'm willing to fight to the death." Brandon, for his part, is resigned about their odds fighting the US military. "If we take up arms, realistically we would lose, and they would label us as terrorists," he says. Pray nods sadly in agreement. But they'll take their chances. They consider it their duty.
MoJo talks about treason. Consider who and what MoJo thinks Oath Keepers are betraying.

What Is Mother Jones? | Mother Jones:
Mother Jones is a nonprofit news organization that specializes in investigative, political, and social justice reporting.
What's with the name?

Mary Harris "Mother" Jones was a very cool woman who fought for the underdog and made herself up to look way older than she was so that when she got beat down by Pinkerton agents, she'd gain public sympathy. Brilliant! That said, it's an odd name for a magazine. Our founders had originally wanted to call it New Dimensions (no comment), but when that name was taken, they pegged their ID to the radical reformer who'd been dubbed "the most dangerous woman in America." Too bad not many people actually know who she was.
My brother says you're a lefty pinko rag. True?

Here's where we're coming from: We believe all people should have equal opportunity in life, that all children should be able to go to good schools, and that everyone should have health care. Call that what you will–we're not insulted by being called left, liberal, progressive, whatever. (We've noticed, though, that the people who resort to name-calling are often just trying to distract the public from their own misdeeds.)
See also, DHS Hypocrites Direct Fear and Hatred Toward Whites.

Labels: , , ,

white