The Left Will Lead The Charge Against Israel, Against The Jews. It Always Has Been That Way!

Brendan O'Neill

Brendan O'Neill is editor of the online magazine spiked and is a columnist for the Big Issue in London and The Australian in, er, Australia. His satire on environmentalism, Can I Recycle My Granny and 39 Other Eco-Dilemmas, is published by Hodder & Stoughton. He doesn't tweet.

Is the Left anti-Semitic? Sadly, it is heading that way

By Brendan O'Neill Religion Last updated: July 27th, 2014

461 Comments Comment on this article

Protesters take part in a 'Stop the War' demonstration march from the Israeli Embassy to the Houses of Parliament on July 26, 2014 in London. (Photo: Getty)

There has been a lot of talk over the past two weeks about whether it is anti-Semitic to oppose Israel’s attack on Gaza. Radical Leftists and liberal commentators have insisted (perhaps a bit too much?) that there is nothing remotely anti-Semitic about their anger with Israel or their fury on behalf of battered, bruised and bombed Palestinians. And of course they are right that it is entirely possible to oppose Israel’s militarism without harbouring so much as a smidgen of dislike for the Jewish people. Some will oppose the war in Gaza simply because they are against wars in general, especially ones that impact on civilians.

However, it seems pretty clear to me that much of the left in Europe and America is becoming more anti-Semitic, or at least risks falling into the trap of anti-Semitism, sometimes quite thoughtlessly. In the language it uses, in the ideas it promotes, in the way in which it talks about the modern world, including Israel, much of the Left has adopted a style of politics that has anti-Semitic undertones, and sometimes overtones. The key problem has been the Left’s embrace of conspiratorial thinking, its growing conviction that the world is governed by what it views as uncaring “cabals”, “networks”, self-serving lobbyists and gangs of bankers, all of which has tempted it to sometimes turn its attentions towards those people who historically were so often the object and the target of conspiratorial thinking – the Jews.

Yes, one can hate Israel’s attack on Gaza without hating the Jews. But there’s no denying that the hatred being expressed for Israel’s attack on Gaza is different to the opposition to all other acts of militarism in recent times. Just compare the huge 2003 Hyde Park demo against the Iraq War with the recent London demos against Israel’s attack on Gaza. The former had an air of resignation; it expressed a mild, middle-class sense of disappointment with Tony Blair, through safe, soft slogans like “Not In My Name”. The latter, by contrast, have been fiery and furious, with screeching about murder and mayhem and demands that the Israeli ambassador to the UK be booted out. Some attendees have held up placards claiming that Zionists control the British media while others have accused both London and Washington of “grovelling” before an apparently awesomely powerful Israeli Lobby.

This is a recurring theme in anti-Israel sentiment today: the idea that a powerful, sinister lobby of Israel lovers has warped our otherwise respectable leaders here in the West, basically winning control of Western foreign policy. You see it in cartoons depicting Israeli leaders as the puppet masters of politicians like William Hague and Tony Blair. You can hear it in Alexi Sayle’s much-tweeted claim that the “Western powers” kowtow to Israel because they are “frightened of it… frightened of the power that it wields”. You can see it in the arguments of John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt in their popular book The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy, which holds an apparently super-powerful pro-Israel lobby in the heart of Washington responsible for the Iraq War and all other kinds of disasters. The claim is often made that Israel has corrupted Western officials, commanding them to carry out its dirty work.

Sound familiar? Yes, this has terrible echoes of the old racist idea that Jewish groups controlled Western politics and frequently propelled the world into chaos – an idea that was especially popular in the early to mid-20th-century Europe. Very often, anti-Israel protesters treat Israel not just as a nation at war – like Britain, America or France, which also frequently launch wars that kill huge numbers of civilians – but also as the warper of policy and morality in the West, as a source of poison in global affairs, as the architect of instability across the globe. Indeed, a few years ago a poll of Europeans found that a majority of them view Israel as “the biggest threat to world peace”. So Israel is undoubtedly singled out by Leftists and others, and even more significantly it is singled out in a way that the Jews used to be singled out – that is, as a sinister, self-serving corrupter of nations and causer of chaos.

Much of today’s anti-Israel protesting has a conspiracy-theory feel to it, with its talk about powerful lobby groups designing wars behind closed doors in order to isolate Israel’s enemies and boost Israel’s fortunes. And this is in keeping with Left-wing politics generally, today. The Left has increasingly embraced a conspiracy-theory view of the world. It is now very common to hear Leftists talk about the “cabals of neocons” who control world affairs, or the “cult of bankers” who wreak havoc on our economies, or the Murdoch Empire that “orchestrates public life from the shadows” (to quote Labour MP Tom Watson). All seriously analytical and nuanced readings of international trends and political dynamics have been elbowed aside by contemporary Leftists, who prefer instead to argue that dark, hidden, mysterious forces are ruining politics, plotting wars, and enriching themselves at the expense of the poor. And, as history shows us, there is a thin line between railing against wicked cabals and cults and wondering out loud whether the Jews are secretly running world affairs, or at least wielding a disproportionate influence.

Indeed, some of the most influential trends in Left-wing politics over the past five years – including the Occupy movement and the Wikileaks movement – were both given to conspiracy-theorising and both also had a bit of a problem with anti-Semitism. So Occupy was kickstarted by Adbusters, a magazine convinced that powerful corporations control the masses’ fickle minds. In 2004, Adbusters published a disgustingly anti-Semitic article titled “Why Won’t Anyone Say They Are Jewish?”, which listed the neocons in the Bush administration and put a black mark next to the names of those who are Jewish. Not surprisingly, Occupy itself, which was obsessed with the baleful influence of small cliques of bankers and other faceless, evil people, often crossed the line into anti-Semitism, as the Washington Post reported. And Wikileaks, too, which is also a borderline conspiracy-theory outfit, what with its obsession with the“conspiratorial interactions among the political elite”, has had issues with anti-Semitism: one of its key researchers, Israel Shamir, was exposed by the Guardian as being “notorious for [his] Holocaust denial and publishing a string of anti-Semitic articles”.

It is not an accident that the three key planks of the Left-wing outlook today – the anti-Israel anti-war sentiment, the shallow anti-capitalism of Occupy, and the worship of those who leak info from within the citadels of power – should all have had issues with anti-Semitism. It is because the left, feeling isolated from the public and bereft of any serious means for understanding modern political and economic affairs, has bought into a super-simplistic, black-and-white, borderline David Icke view of the world as a place overrun and ruled by cabals and cults and sinister lobby groups. And who has always, without fail, been the final cabal, the last cult, to find themselves shouldering the ultimate blame for the warped, hidden workings of politics, the economy and foreign turmoil? You got it – the Jews.

Downey Worth $50 Mil, Not Execs

Is an actor worth $50 million? If you would listen to the Occupy meat heads, they will tell you that no corporate executive is worth that much. In fact, most of these never-do-well-living-on-daddy's-paycheck types will say that no executive is worth $2 million per year, but actors are a different matter. They are artists and their art must be rewarded otherwise this would be a very dull world painted only in black, white and shades of grey.

Hey, these actors have to work a full six months, sometimes, to earn their money and the rest of the time is taken spending what they earned on new houses, cars,  contributions to Democratic candidates and, yes don't forget, their drugs. Downey is an expert in that scene.  But doesn't his dealer also need to make a living and doesn't he contribute to the economy? Of course, we cannot forget those little people,  his hangers-on who need their piece of the pie.

You see an actor really is a small business, with his staff, his drivers, his caterers, his hairstylist, his lawyers and accountants. He is a small business and shouldn't they also be able to make a living?  Shoot, if we cut him down to $500,000 per film, he would have to let go most of these people which would only increase the unemployment!

Would a film be less successful if we only paid him 1% of his current take? We doubt it! Yet, we hear no one on the left side of the political spectrum espousing the greed of the movie stars, because they know that is where their money comes from. For the most part, it does not come from the corporate executive who worked his or her way up to the top giving up family, friends and relationships to crawl their way to the upper echelons. Regardless of the company's successes, the CEO is told that he or she is greedy and only wants for themselves and not for the "little people."  Such hypocrisy!

Our point is that most of us will never earn 3% of what Downey does in a short stint on a movie stage. He makes nothing and is only part of the machine that produces a movie.  He does not write, direct or edit the movie, he pretends to be someone who is not real. And for this he gets paid outrageous amounts of money.  Yet, the CEO who manages  millions of employees and trillions of dollars of assets is slammed for getting a salary less than Downey.  This is ridiculous. 

This is not to mean that Downey is not deserving of the money that he gets. He obviously is a box office attraction who can make a movie successful. Bravo to him. However, we should also reward those men and women who make it to the top and lead their companies to better and better performance. They should be richly rewarded, also.

The US has always rewarded hard work and rising to the top.  We will no longer be a world leader if we eliminate the opportunity to grasp of the "gold ring" in ANY field or venture.

Conservative Tom

Robert Downey Jr.'s 'Avengers' Pay To Reportedly Hit $50 Million

The Huffington Post  |  By Kia Makarechi Posted: 05/15/2012 7:33 pm Updated: 05/15/2012 11:06 pm

Robert Downey Jr. made a lot of money off "The Avengers."

Robert Downey Jr. is prone to making mathematical gestures on the red carpet, but he's going to need more than ten fingers to sift through his payout from "Marvel's The Avengers." According to The Hollywood Reporter, the 47-year-old actor stands to make about $50 million from the film.

Downey's "Avengers" co-stars stand to make a fraction of his earnings, in part because of a savvy deal the "Iron Man" lead reportedly renegotiated, under which he would receive a portion of Marvel's revenue from any future film in which he plays Tony Stark. He allegedly rejiggered the deal when the first "Iron Man" film dialed up $585 million in 2008.

Though Downey's deal is not unheard of for the rarefied circle of Hollywood's biggest names, it's a great deal more than any of his "Avengers" cohorts. Sources say Chris Hemsworth, Chris Evans, Jeremy Renner and Mark Ruffalo will each ultimately make $2 million to $3 million from the film.

Marvel has a history of cutting sharp deals. Terrence Howard, who starred with Downey Jr. in the first "Iron Man" film, was reportedly faced with a 50 to 80 percent pay cut for the sequel after the studio learned director Jon Favreau planned to limit his role. Howard's agents smarted, and though it's unknown if he walked out or if Marvel decided to go a different direction, Don Cheadle replaced Howard for the sequel.

"The Avengers" continues to smash through box office records and recently surpassed the $1 billion mark in global earnings, so the $50 million payout is unlikely to put a big dent in Marvel's balance sheet. The film is currently making "Avatar"-type money, a big relief to Disney, which bought Marvel and desperately needed a hit after the crippling loss it suffered on "John Carter."

The Summer of '12 Will Be Memorable

We have been discussing the negative aspects of OWS and until now we have only had minor crimes like rape, property destruction, taking over police stations, and defecation.  However, now with the attempted bridge bombing in Cleveland http://news.yahoo.com/ows-tactics-turn-violent-attempted-cleveland-bridge-bombing-210700652.html, we are beginning to see what will be occurring this summer around the country.  We hate to be negative but it is perfectly clear where OWS is going and it is not pretty.


We expect to see major riots in large and secondary cities around the country as well as major attacks on the infrastructure (bridges, tunnels) and against commercial office buildings housing  national and international companies. We think there will be attempts to close down car, train, internet and possibly air traffic. There also will be attempts to take over company  as well as government offices in these same cities.


Police response will be very measured and only when there is demonstrable (not potential) property damage or fear of or actual physical harm to individuals will they become involved. Arrests will be limited to only the most outrageous participants.  Law enforcement will take this low key approach in an attempt to not encourage more over the top activity.


We expect there will be loss of life, substantial property damage and many injuries. The last time we saw this much trouble was in the late 60's. This time it will be worse.


Of course, we are just guessing what these domestic terrorists will have up their sleeves. It might be much more terrible. We pray that we are wrong but with the damage on April 30 in San Francisco and the attempted bridge bombing, we believe we are in for a bad summer and fall.


Conservative Tom

Occupy NimWits Start May 1 With Frisco Riot

The "Occupy" nuts prove who they really are and it is not productive citizens.  Last night a general strike resulted in broken glass, occupied police stations and thousands of dollars in damage.  So much for peaceful demonstrations!

It is obvious to anyone watching this bunch of malcontents that their purpose is to disrupt, to tear down and destroy the United States as it is today.  It is more Communist than liberal, more Marxist than progressive and much more violent than the Tea Party. In other words it is the complete antithesis of the conservative,  grass roots, leaderless Tea Party.

In no Tea Party event was there property destruction or conflicts with the police by those attending the rally. There were no rapes, theft or similar actions taken the attendees. However, at Occupy events it has been entirely the opposite.

The Occupy movement is not grass roots, it is an organized campaign designed to destroy the government of the United States. Its leaders are schooled in methods of destruction.  

Police and civil authorities must clamp down on the illegal activities that have been happening at these events. For example, it has been reported that police allowed these roving bands of animals to destroy businesses, cars and police stations in San Francisco last night.  This cannot be allowed.

Peaceful protests are fine, however, when they turn into violent, destructive riots, the police MUST step in, re-establish calm and arrest the law breakers. Otherwise, we will see increased civil disobedience and riots this summer.

Could this be the plan?  What do you think?

Conservative Tom

Occupy Wall Street kicks off May Day riots and "general strike"

Stand with workers by ruining jobs!

by John Hayward

05/01/2012

May Day, also known as International Workers Day, is a Communist holiday widely celebrated by people who become very angry when similarities between their agenda and Communism are pointed out.  It’s also being observed with gusto by what remains of Occupy Wall Street, which is much less shy about embracing Marxism that most other divisions of the American Left. 

Occupy decided to mark the day with riots and a “general strike,” in which they called for people to avoid shopping, going to school, or banking, in addition to staying away from work.  In other words, after three years of grinding unemployment, and just days after a dismally flat first-quarter GDP report that presaged an even worse Q2, they want you to demonstrate solidarity with workers by destroying jobs.

As goofy as that sounds, it’s not really much of a stretch from mainstream liberal thought, which has embraced a curious disconnect between “jobs” and “employers.”  It’s a conventional leftist assumption that the former can exist, in plentiful supply, without the latter earning those evil “profits.”  Jobs are seen as a resource that exists outside of capitalism, rather than a product of capitalism.  The destructive, and frequently bloody, quest of the Left is to build a society where the poor can prosper, while the rich do not: the search for a rising tide that does not lift the largest boats.

In the likely event that you disregard the call for a general strike and solider on to your job, Occupy is going to make May 1 as miserable as possible for you.  Breitbart.com reports that Occupy San Francisco kicked off its “Black Bloc” riot early, after abandoning grandiose plans to shut down the Golden Gate Bridge:

A crowd of about 50 protestors gathered at San Francisco’s Dolores Park, most wearing the now familiar black masks of the Black Bloc. Police were stationed at the perimeter but made no attempt to break up the gathering mob of mask wearing hoodlums. Then the group left the park and broke windows, threw garbage cans and painted anarchist symbols on street signs, businesses and cars in the area of Mission and 16th Street.  The group was shouting “F**k the police” and “Here, piggy piggy!” They were met by a phalanx of riot police, who caused the group to scatter.

Gosh, they’re just like the Tea Party, aren’t they?  At least, that’s what the media used to tell us.  Incessantly.

You’ll be seeing more of these “Black Bloc” characters as we draw closer to the election.  Anarchy is the handmaiden of socialism, and masked anarchists will be very useful for creating the kind of chaos that helps the more respectable leftist candidates sell a message of Big Government control.

It has been noted that Occupy is long on complaints, and painfully short on solutions.  This is a feature of the movement, not a glitch.  It’s what makes them useful to the “mainstream” political operators who will step in to profit from the disruptions they cause, and harness the passions they unleash.

“Every day should be strike day,” the website organizing the May Day action declared.  “They’ve stolen our lives.  They’ve stolen our health.  They’re taking over every inch of our cities and pushing us nowhere.  If there is anything we have learned from the last six months it is this: May 1st isn’t the only day for striking, and isn’t only a day for workers.  April 30th kicks off a string of actions in the Bay Area against all who would take our lives from us.”

Imagine the sheer pandemonium that would result if they got their wish, and every day brought a massive general strike.  Actually, you don’t have to imagine it – just read up on the news from Europe, where general strikes occur with distressing frequency.  Picture something like that hitting a massive, fast-moving, highly interconnected American economy larger than all of Europe combined, and already tottering on the brink of a double-dip recession.  You would hear plenty of “solutions” proposed after a crisis like that… and none of them would involve greater individual liberty.

Occupy Groups Now Offering Condom Showers

David, one of our followers who consistently makes great comments and keeps us on our toes here at Conservative Musings says he is an Occupy (OWS) follower.  He and we agree on many things, however,  OWS is not one of those things. We see the OWS movement in short time degrading from an idealist movement against the problems with Wall Street (for which there are many) to one where anything goes. We have all heard about the defecating on police cars,  the rapes, robberies and civil disobedience at various OWS locations and it seems that these events are becoming more the norm rather than an aberration.

Last week, this peaceful group would not let a Catholic Priest deliver a prayer, they shouted him down and then dumped condoms on school girls.  This is abhorrent behavior as it violates the rights of those at the event.  If you believe people should use condoms, use them! If you don't agree with Church teachings, don't attend the Church.  Where do they get off trying to change a religion's way of practicing their religion. As long as that religion does not effect anyone outside the religion, who should care?  Why are the listeners rights less important than those who were there to protest? Where is the listeners freedom of religion,  speech and assembly? 

We have found that when people lose the argument they either call names or try to shout you down. In this case it appears as if the OWS people lost the argument and retreated into a mob mentality. It is a wonder no one got hurt.

If this is an indicator of things to come, this summer is going to be filled with all sorts of demonstrations, riots, and civil disobedience (defecating, urinating, raping, stealing, destruction etc etc.)

So David, this is not your way and  we think it is time for you to sever your connection with  

this group!  (We can hardly wait for your response!)

The following article is more on the Condom Shower!

Conservative Tom

   

Occupiers Dump Condoms on Catholic School Girls

Posted in Top Stories | 873 comments

Jan 31, 2012

By Todd Starnes/FACEBOOK

A group of Occupy Wall Street protesters disrupted a Right to Life rally and threw condoms on Catholic school girls inside the Rhode Island state capitol building.

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Barth Bracy, executive director of Rhode Island Right to Life, said their rally had to be cut short after the Occupiers began screaming and refused to allow a Catholic priest to deliver a prayer.

“This is their idea of civil speech but we believe it’s an outrage,” Bracy told Fox News & Commentary “They started heckling, chanting and blowing whistles. They shouted down a priest.”

Last week’s rally was held inside the rotunda of the state capitol in Providence. Bracy said the Occupiers, along with some pro-choice demonstrators, infiltrated the crowd of some 150 pro-lifers. He said the pro-life crowd was made up of senior citizens, mothers with young children, Cub Scouts, and school kids.

Bracy said one of the most egregious incidents occurred when an Occupier climbed to the third floor balcony and dumped a box of condoms on girls from a Catholic school.

“What kind of individual throw condoms at Catholic school girls,” Bracy asked.

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Bracy said capitol police were outnumbered and overwhelmed by the protesters. At one point they even attacked State. Rep. Doreen Costa.

“This was one of the most disturbing sights I’ve ever seen,” Costa told Fox News & Commentary. “It was horrendous. “

Costa said a female Occupier hit her on the head with a sign and shoved her “moppy” hair in the lawmaker’s face.

“I told her that she really stunk bad and needed to take a bath,” Costa said.

Costa said she was “speechless” when they showered the young girls with condoms. So was Father Bernard Healey, the executive director of the Rhode Island Catholic Conference.

“It’s disgraceful behavior,” Healey said. “The week before, the pro-abortion people had their rally and no one bothered them. Apparently freedom of speech only applies to those who agree with you.”

Healey called the protesters “mean-spirited” and “ugly.”

He was trying to deliver a blessing to the crowd when the demonstrators shouted him down.

“I led the crowd in singing ‘God Bless America’ to try and down out their awful chants,” he said.

Joseph Little, the chief of the capitol police, told Fox News & Commentary that he did not receive any reports of condoms being dropped on children. He also said to his knowledge, nothing happened to that rose to the level of needing to call in additional support.

Little said no one was arrested.

The Outrageousness Of The Occupy Movement

Being outrageous is the best way to illustrate the outrageous. And so it goes with the Occupy Wall Street/Occupy Washington/Occupy Oakland/Occupy Whatever Movement. These people are whiny, unproductive members of our society who want everything provided to them without their having to work and provide for themselves.


So when we received the following tongue in cheek condemnation of the players on the PGA Tour, we knew the author had hit pay dirt.  Outrageous, yes, but it did indeed point out the ridiculousness of the movement. The same comments could be made for other pro sports such as the NBA, the NFL, and Major League Baseball.


All the players who make it in these sports are very talented and put in hours of work to get where they are.  That is also true for the 1%. Very few of these men and women inherited their way into this elite club, they worked hard, made good choices and yes maybe, had some luck. Think about Warren Buffett, Rush Limbaugh, Steve Jobs, Oprah Winfrey and Sam Walton, who are all or were members of this group. None were born with a silver spoon in their mouths, most were fired from jobs (a couple were fired from many), but all made a significant impact on the world.


The spoiled brats that make up the Occupy Movement are not willing to put in the time or energy to do what it takes to become successful. They find it easier to demand that society give them whatever they desire. This is a sad day in America when some are no longer are willing to strive and feel empowered to demand that the rest of us give them what they want. 


Conservative Tom

From Occupy the P G A Tour!! I am a member of golf's 99%.  I play golf, but have not yet made it to the professional level!! I have played the game for over 40 years, but have not really put in the practice time and study to be the best. I also probably do not have the skills to really get there either. However, I now feel that I should be paid by the successful professionals for trying. It isn't fair that those players who have worked harder, have studied the game, have better equipment and are stronger and more skilled should make all that money. Oh sure, they have their charities that they give millions of dollars to, but I am sure that they write all that off on their tax returns to reduce paying their fair share. Is that fair? They should pay for my golf, buy me new equipment and share their winnings. The whole system should be changed to accommodate people like me!! Occupy the PGA Tour!! PS: The above should not in any way be construed as a criticism aimed at members of the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement who are simply demanding their "right" to be as rich as those who have taken chances, studied, & worked their asses off to get there.

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