European Left More Dangerous for Jews than European Right
Jewish groups in Europe and the United States have reacted with alarm to the gains made by far-right political parties in the recent elections for European Parliament. Right-wing and nationalist parties posted significant victories in Austria, Britain, Denmark, Hungary, Romania, and the Netherlands in four days of voting that ended on June 7.
The Paris-based European Jewish Congress (EJC), an umbrella organization for Jewish communities in Europe, said: “As we assess the results of this week’s elections, one disturbing trend has already crystallized; the gains made by extreme-right groups is a Europe-wide phenomenon. The success of the far-right and nationalistic parties that won seats in the elections on the basis of racist, anti-Semitic, and xenophobic platforms points to a clear erosion of tolerance and a clarion call to European officials to immediately engage in intercultural dialogue. The success of such rabid groups as The Freedom Party in the Netherlands, the Freedom Party in Austria (FPO), the Danish People’s Party, the British National Party, and Jobbik in Hungary, among others, will sadly only serve to embolden those who espouse the dangerous concepts of extreme nationalism, racism, anti-Semitism and xenophobia.”
The New York-based Anti-Defamation League (ADL) said it was “deeply distressing that the blatantly anti-Semitic parties received so many votes,” and called on European leaders to “ensure that anti-Semitism, racism and bigotry never again gain a foothold in Europe. … It is imperative that European leaders do not remain silent, but speak out and reject the hateful and bigoted worldview of parties of the far-right and their supporters.”
The Geneva-based World Jewish Congress (WJC) said: “Far-right parties and extremists have made gains across Europe amid protest votes and low turnout for the European Parliament (EP) elections. The elections were held in all 27 EU member states from Thursday to Sunday last week. Support for centre-Left parties and governments collapsed across the EU as fringe parties, picked up protest votes.”
Although these and other Jewish groups are not alone in their concerns about rising anti-Semitism in Europe, their fear of the far right often obscures the indisputable fact that some of the greatest threats to Jews (and Israel) in contemporary Europe stem from the left side of the political aisle. Indeed, it is no big secret that all across the European continent, left-wing intellectuals are playing a crucial role in making anti-Semitism seem respectable. Of course, they are (usually) careful to promote their hatred of Jews only indirectly. Instead, modern anti-Semitism is typically disguised as anti-Zionism and an obsession with Palestinian victimhood.
the biggest threat to European Jews of the 20th century WERE on the left. re: National Socialist Party aka Nazi, were leftists/socialists.
Find an individual Jew in the UK has has EVER been personally threatened or intimidated by someone on the left. Find me one individual Jew here who has ever had their individual human rights attacked or even questioned by someone on the left. It’s an absolute abomination of the truth to suggest that the left in Britain is prejudiced against Jews or Judaism.
Israel is something else. But that’s about politics – nothing to do with race.
This conflation of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, is disingenuous and just plain wrong.
Fascists are on the march again. Please direct your fire where it matters.
Why don’t we just quit describing politics as a linear spectrum, and instead a circular one. Then we could have a meaningful picture of what is actually happening in the world. The far-right and the far-left are neighbors, and on the opposite side of the circle are those of us who still value liberal, pluralistic democracy. The only historic difference between exteme left and extreme right is that the right wing puts their “national” in with their “socialist”.
We simply have to stop letting the left frame themselves as the antidote to right-wing extremism. The truth is that they are both competing between themselves to bring the modern age to its ruin. Together, they will be the ruin of us all.
The European left have swallowed the Arab Narrative re Israel hook line and sinker. That narrative defines that Jews are colonialists in the holyland and have no legitimate rights to any parts of the holyland nor the right to a Jewish State there which by the lefts definition is racist. As far as the European left is concerned, Jewish History in the holyland is a Jewish fabrication and therefore Jews have no “FirstNation” rights in their own land.
The European Left support actively and without question any and all Muslim terror groups in the world (hamas, Hizbullah, Muslim Brotherhood….) in their attempts to inflict mayhem upon Jewish or Jewish Israeli civilians where ever they may be in the world. The European Left has no qualms funding and publicly supporting the overt anti semitism as expressed daily through the official and unofficial media outlets throughout the muslim world and by Muslim groups both official and unofficial within Europe.
If I were a Jew in Europe today I would be thinking of packing my bags and leaving for either the US (things are getting rougher there with the left aswell) or Israel.
The Danish People’s Party and Geert Wilder’s Party of Freedom in Holland have gained a huge support and they are Europe’s and even world’s most pro-America and pro-Israel parties. The Greens have also gained support and they (together with Socialists and Communists) are among Europe’s most anti-America, anti-Israel , pro-Hamas and pro-Hezbollah parties. One must suffer from mental disorder not to have the ability to separate friends from enemies.
While there certainly are people on the right who hate Jews, because they blame Jews for killing Christ or whatever, I’ve noticed a lot more anti-Jewish sentiment from the left as well just in my personal life. I live in a very left wing area in Northern Virgina and in highschool and now in college students call each other Jews all the times as an insult. They say things like “Stop being such a Jew” and “shutup your stupid Jew” ALL the time. Even when the person isn’t Jewish. Or when something bad happens like someone getting murdered on the news or getting a hard foul while playing basketball they’ll say “they got Jewed”. And I’ve seen so much hatred for Israel from the intellectual left. It’s basically just as intense as their anti-Americanism if not worse.
The notion that the left-right model informs in any way is fallacious. Big, powerful government is dictatorial, collectivist, and plutocratic whether it be called National Socialism, Soviet Socialism, Sino-Socialism, Italian Fascism, Baathist Socialism or any other such name. Such a government wages war even on its own peoples. Small, weak government is the opposite, stresses freedom and individuality.
To imagine that the far-left and far-right are somehow “neighbors” twists the notion of left and right into the pretzel it always was. Strip government of much of its powers except to protect its people, and there is no attack on its own, whether of one religion or another.
Big government interferes with lives, markets and individual values, amasses unsustainable debts and rages against liberty. Smaller government follows the old adage of live and lets live. Take you pick.
But do not pick one flavor of big government and think that this is somehow different from another. Recall the history of the von Ribbentrop pac, wherein National Socialism and Soviet Socialism waged peace — before they waged war.
“European Left More Dangerous for Jews than European Right”
Lately.
Yours, TDP, ml, msl, & pfpp
umm, what are the right-wings aimed for ? cuz I’m loosing my latin, generally they are viewed as the good and the fairest ones on this site, faudrait qu’on m’explique pourquoi tout d’un coup ils deviennent les méchants
Avec 1,30% en Ile-de-France, la seule circonscription où il présentait une liste, le comique d’origine camerounaise obtient un «faible résultat» dont le Crif (Conseil représentatif des institutions juives de France) «se réjouit» dans un communiqué diffusé ce lundi.
http://www.20minutes.fr/article/331105/Elections-europeennes-L-echec-politique-de-la-liste-Dieudonne.php
CrumbleKid,
Leftist agitators can incite anti-Semitism without ever having to get their hands dirty by actual physical attacks and intimidation. Plenty of Muslim street thugs are happy to act on tacit approval from leftists elites.
As to your specter of the rise of Fascism, well, note my formulation, above. The return of the Fascists? And Farmer Jones might come back too. You don’t want JONES to come back, do you?
CrumbleKid has bought the leftist BS story that the National SOCIALIST Party was somehow a right-wing movement. Didn’t we put that to bed yesterday?
Crumblekid: This is all about the alliance that has come about between Vlaams Belange and the pro-israel “Anti-jihadists”. The nazis have found muslims to hate, and so no longer needs the jews for that, while they are very happy to get the money from the christian fundamentalist groups. Synergy in action, eh? Welcome to the new fascism, where its legitimate to talk about a coming “racewar” in Europe. Its all paranoia and hate coming from Gates of Vienna/Jihadwatch etc., and its designed to maximise problems so that we will get the conflict going and the brownshirts will gain more power.
CrumbleKid:
Find an individual Jew in the UK has has EVER been personally threatened or intimidated by someone on the left. Find me one individual Jew here who has ever had their individual human rights attacked or even questioned by someone on the left. It’s an absolute abomination of the truth to suggest that the left in Britain is prejudiced against Jews or Judaism.
Israel is something else. But that’s about politics – nothing to do with race.
This conflation of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, is disingenuous and just plain wrong.
Fascists are on the march again. Please direct your fire where it matters.
Jun 12, 2009 – 1:00 am
You’ll find plenty of Jews who have been attacked by Muslims and the Left here in Britain. It’s an ongoing activity hence the enhanced security measures now in place in many Jewish schools and establishments.
Your comment is therefore a complete canard and by now, classic socialist dissembling. How can you possibly back up your crazy factoid? You simply cannot is the obvious answer.
You and your leader,the Great Helmsman Brown have been rumbled as has most of the lying left across Europe.
Anti Zionism is akin to anti-semitism and no amount of toe curling so called sophistry can deny it.
Denying the Jews a homeland is about as bad as it gets yet you clothe your arguments in swathes of such dishonesty it defies belief. Quite literally.
Get used to it, it’s over. The Left has imploded, reduced to tatters by it’s own inate dishonesty and grasping greed.
Find me one individual Jew here who has ever had their individual human rights attacked or even questioned by someone on the left.
During recent demos outside the Israeli Embassy in London January 2009 attacks were made by gangs organised by Lindsay German of the Socialist Workers Party and other assorted Trotskyite/Muslim thugs:
A reader on that thread adds his experience…
‘I was there last night – in fact me and my mate were one of the first to arrive. As we crossed from the station and walked towards the embassy, we were greeted by lunatics waving Hamas and Hezbollah flags.
‘In front of us walked a young man, wearing a kippah. He got out of his bag an Israeli flag and was immediately taken to the side by two police officers.
‘After questioning him for about 10 minutes, he was issued a caution. After he was released we went up to talk to him – he showed us the police caution – and I kid you not – it stated that by getting out an Israeli flag he was causing provocation to the pro Palestinian demonstration’.
Another reader who was there wrote this…
‘It was genuinely scary afterwards with gangs of Middle Eastern thugs in keffiyehs, roaming Kensington High Street looking for Jews to beat up’.
Chas Newky-Burden writes of this week’s demonstrations…
‘Between High Street Kensington tube station and the embassy were numerous folk from the pro-Hamas rally. They shouted and screamed abuse at anyone they perceived as headed towards the Israel solidarity rally, including some elderly Jews.
‘When I arrived at the rally area and was giving an interview to a television crew, two of the pro-Hamas bunch jumped in my way and screamed at me.
‘I then joined the Israel Solidarity Rally. The hatred from the pro-Hamas side was intense. They hurled the most wicked abuse imaginable, and threw objects. Some of their number tried to break through the barrier.
‘Thankfully the police had undertaken searches because some of the Hamas supporters had arrived at their demonstration with bricks and knives. One of their lot came over and spat at a young Jewish boy who had been minding his own business.
‘From my own experience as an identifiably Orthodox Jew, since the beginning of the operation in Gaza I have had things shouted at me like ‘death to the Jews’ and ‘Hamas should finish where Hitler left off’ along with the usual spitting and angry looks which I’ve become accustomed to.
‘However, yesterday it went a bit further. I attended the demo in Kensington High Street. Walking back to Gloucester Rd tube as was suggested by the Community Security Trust and Metropolitan Police, there was visibly high security on the route.
‘I saw two friends to the tube station and decided I would walk to a friend’s house a mere three or four minute walk away since he had told me to stop by to say hello to him and his wife.
‘As usual, I wasn’t holding any kind of political symbol, flag, banner or placard and was just wearing my yarmulka. As I was about to ring on the doorbell I was set upon by two Asian youths (one wearing a keffiya and one wearing a badge with the Palestinian flag on his jacket) who punched me in the head, threw me to the ground and continued to kick and punch me in the head and other parts of my body until I managed to shout loud enough causing them to flee.
‘I bashed on the door of my friend’s house, sat on the kitchen floor with blood coming out of my head and badly bruised elsewhere.
‘Thank God, my injuries were not serious and the paramedics were happy for me to go and stay at a friend’s house until the morning so someone would be able to keep an eye on me.
‘As for my friend who is living with his wife and 10-month old baby, the police have suggested that they go away for a couple of days since there are lots of ‘unknown’ people in the area who could make the place unsafe’.
This is what it is like to be Jewish in Britain today. The BBC wants to portray that it is only places like France or Belgium that have problems with crazy Muslims attacking Jews.
The Danish Peoples Party have been removed from the list by The European Jewish Congress, Finn Schwarz from the Mosiac Believe Society wrote a mail to EJC’s president Moshe Kantor explaining that DPP is a Democratic party, and they have close relations with the DPP.
The DPP is Pro-Israeli and its foreign Policy Spokesman Søren Espersen, his wife is Israeli, gave an excellent speech at the Pro-Israeli Demonstration the 10th of January in Copenhagen – link below from the Demo.
The DPP has been removed from list over Anti-Semitic parties – The DPP is working closely with the Mosiac Believe Society in Denmark:
http://snaphanen.dk/2009/06/11/endnu-en-dødstruet/
And DPP is removed from EJC
http://www.eurojewcong.org/ejc/news.php?id_article=4071
The Pro-Israel demo:
The foreign policy spokesman of the Danish People’s Party, Søren Espersen, reminded the demonstrators of the daily situation in Sderot and other population centers in southern Israel.
http://europenews.dk/en/node/18164
The Danish Peoples Party is a member of European Friends of Israel (EFI)
http://www.israel-info.dk/flora/flora.asp?page=1534
Geert Wilders is Pro-Israeli – Here you can listen to his speech in the Palm Springs Synagogue
http://bijenkorf.wordpress.com/2009/04/27/video-geert-wilders-synagogue-speech/
The problem of the media template for rightwing parties is that they per definition are portrayed as Nazis and Anti-Semitic, when in fact the real Anti-Semitic agendas are that of the left.
Rightwing Parties in Europe are with three exceptions, the BNP, Jobbik and France’s FN not Anti-Semitic at all, but Pro-Israeli, Pro-Western and therefor in opposition to the Left and the Socialists.
It is no secret that the Left has always used ‘the projective strategy’ labelling their opposition with their own characteristics, the Left is nothing short of ‘feel good Fascism’ itself.
Medias have got the same problem everywhere, they are infiltrated with Left leaning jopurnalists and their views and Pro-Palestine, Pro-Islamic in various degrees, people are not buying it, and despite the medias bias and at times Pro-Socialist bias up the EU election the result was as we have seen, a rejection of Socialism, something Europeans fear in the face of Economic crisis, people are not willing for experiments in those regards, and in particular because the EU Socialists talked about mimicking Obama style bailouts at the EU level.
People are fedup with crimes and immigrations, fedup with Transnationalism and losing freedoms, the EU nickname EUSSR has gained it’s way into the blogs and debates in the Mainstream Medias, rightwing parties has become increasingly Eurosceptics.
There are many reasons the Europeans voted for conservatives and rightwing parties, the biggest in my opinion is the rejection of Socialism and Euro scepticism.
During the 1920′s and 1930′s, as the socialist movement grew and socialist control over the Democrat Party functional mechanisms, including propaganda (The press back then… now the MSM) organs there was a phony distinction drawn between Communism and other forms of Socialism (most especially corporate-statism better known as Fascism.)
The two movements were opposite sides of the same coin. Both label groups were methodologies of imposing state control on the general populace. There were few real differences between Fascism and Communism, most of them cosmetic, and none of them radical, except from where the power would emanate. Communism’s power base was Moscow. Fascism’s power base was less international, and hence National.
The false dichotomy was drawn over that conflict, and only that conflict. The fight was fundamentally one State Power Gang, fighting the OTHER State Power Gang.
RIGHT WING (in the very rare instance the term is correctly applied) refers to Monarchists, believers in traditional Divine Right rule. Ironically both extreme flavors of Socialism – and its middle ground state bureaucratic compromise – are enabled and organized on very similar social constructs and separations. In both there are rulers, nobles, freemen, and serfs. Of course the opulence of the Romanov Family and the Boyars could never compare to the cheap smarmy classless Secretariat and Politburo of Tsarist Russia versus the Soviet Union. The fundamental operation remains largely the same, however.
Where does that lead us? Well the truth, actually. Because the American “Right” is the social movement of electoral republican Constitutional self-governance. It is equally opposed to the 9:00 to midnight shift of Monarchy, and the midnight to 3:00 shift of various forms of state socialist dictatorship.
Since Woodrow Wilson became the first Fascist leader of the Western world, the American Democrat Party has occupied the 3:30 position on the clock. It seems that The One is seeking to drive the clock backwards to a 2:00 position where he can comfortably live and dictate over a peasantry that is mollified by stipends and stupefied by state run media.
:-/ – John – TMF
The instilled self loathing of the left is awesome to observe, perhaps “self” loathing is not the word, it’s more of a loathing of ones own culture and society (as it is and was). Perhaps that is why a common bond exists between the far left and ultra right wing Islamic groups exist. You could assume a conversation going something like this between an avowed proletarian and a Salafist, “I hate my culture, I’m shamed by my people, I want to tear it all down” to which the Salafist replies “Hey, I feel the same way about you, I can help you with that!” . . .
BTW what that has to do with the treatment of God’s first chosen?
The Left hates excellence. It despises community outside of the state. So, it plays the peasantry off against “outsiders”, those who operate successfully within their own tribal conditions.
Socialism/Fascism is all about envy and control. Jews were a convenient scape-goat for the State to blame, because they were marginally successful, insular, and identifiably different. And one knows that dictators of any stripe will always seek to blame someone else for their failures.
Within that context there is an historic warning: Those who mistreat and abuse God’s Chosen will eventually pay a severe price for their sins.
PS. Anti-Zionism is just an excuse for Anti-Semitism. If Israel is murdered again, the West will soon follow.
-TMF
So all those Jewish friends I have who are anti-Zionist, they’re all self-haters, are they?
I promise you, they’re not. They’re friendly, non-dogmatic, well balanced individuals. They’re proud of their traditions and culture, but they choose not to assert them at the expense of other people.
CrumbleKid,
Thank you for posting here. I sincerely hope you continue to do so. I find it enlightening to observe your self-delusion up close.
CrumbleKid: In the future, we’re either going to have ordinary fascism or Islamo-fascism. Take your pick. The rise of ordinary fascism is merely the reaction to the advance of Islamo-fascism.
Of course, if you don’t like either of these, then do something about it by standing up to the Muslims. Stop empowering people who want to impose shari’a on us.
While in college (1966-1972) in the Boston area, I was already seeing examples of leftwing antisemitism; in some cases on the part of Jewish radicals. Not surprising in view of Karl Marx’s venom towards Jews and Judaism. If our so-called defense organizations can’t see this as a threat, it’s because they are liberals who can’t fathom the very idea of leftwing antisemitism. They filter it out.
Sorry, DD, why am I self-deluded? Please explain.
The weird thing is that ALL the Jews and Muslims I know are reasonable law abiding people who want to get on with each other. It seems reasonable that this is something worth building on. I’m not into demonising anyone.
I know that many posters on Pajamasmedia dwell in a Manichean universe where Good is permanently pitched against Evil. But for most of us, out here in the real world, it’s more complicated and nuanced than that. And actually a good deal more pleasant. The belief that we’re permanently on the verge of the Last Battle surely can’t do much for one’s mental health.
Neither the left nor the right have been true friends of the Jews in Europe, or really the US for that matter. For the left, it’s hip to wear the Pali terror scarves and to hop onboard the right-on wagon to defend the Palestinians.
Up until recently to the right, Jews have been greedy Christ killers pushing commie agendas like racial equality.
And don’t tell me otherwise, I live in the south.
CrumbleKid: “The belief that we’re permanently on the verge of the Last Battle surely can’t do much for one’s mental health.”
Tell that to Theo van Gogh, ok?
The Left is a threat to everyone. The impulse to force Socialism on other people is a near neighbor to the impulse to kill them. Socialisn just kills the soul before killing the body, I would rather be murdered, thank you.
Hitler, National-Socialist, murderer of millions.
Stalin, Communist (sub-variant Socialist) murderer of millions.
Mao, Sino-Socialist, murderer of millions.
and the list goes on….
Jews are easy to pick on because they largely are peaceful and law-abiding as well as a readily identifiable, self-procaliming, minority. Moslems are far less peaceful and law-abiding and are happy to lie to you about their religion. Demagogues always go for the easy target first.
CrumbleKid:
You’re obviously a smart person. It’s sad to see you fight so bravely against an army of straw men and retort so cleverly to points no one has made.
I don’t know any openly self-loathing Jews or open Islamofascists either. But I know they exist. And you do, too.
No one here said good will among “reasonable, law abiding people” is not “something worth building on.” But it’s not reasonable to pretend that there aren’t unreasonable (to put it mildly) people out there. A self-loathing Jew, a Muslim radical, a “Christian” anti-Semite or or a bigot who remains unaffiliated don’t care about reason, facts or logic. And neither do those apologists who can’t face the fact that the hard left has, along with its devotion to socialism, its anti-Semitism and fascism in common with the hard right.
I come on this site because it strikes me as more interesting to experience the views of people you disagree with, rather than go somewhere where everyone thinks like yourself. We learn nothing otherwise. I am anxious to create dialogue. I want to listen, and I want to be listened to in turn.
I am, by inclination, a person of the left. That doesn’t make me a Stalinist or a Fascist. It only means that I believe in some areas of our lives, collective action can work better than individuals working by themselves. It’s essentially a peaceful, democratic enterprise I’m engaged in. The problem seems to be that for many people on here, the very mention of the word ‘Socialism’ raises the banner of Satanism. And it’s just not like that.
Over here in chaotic, crazy Britain, we muddle along pretty well. Sure there are some nutters around, but a tiny number and I’m firmly of the belief that by bigging up the threat, we actually worsen the problem. Several times over the last year there have been hugely publicised arrests of ‘terrorists’ only for them all to be released a fortnight later. What does that experience do the young men involved? if they weren’t radicals before, they almost certainly are following two weeks in police custody.
All my life there has been the threat of ‘the other’. One of my earliest memories is hearing on the radio that the Cuban missile crisis meant ‘war was inevitable’ and my mother bursting into tears. Yet we survived the cold war. And you know what, we’ll survive this one too. And we’ll probably survive global warming too.
Let’s stop stirring it up. Let’s relax and try being kind to one another. It’s actually quite a good feeling.
2. CrumbleKid,
I guess you haven’t heard much of what Rev. Wright has said in the past or just very recently. *cough-cough*
CrumbleKid wrote:
“I am, by inclination, a person of the left. That doesn’t make me a Stalinist or a Fascist.”
Stalinism and Fascism are two varieties of socialism. That doesn’t make you a Stalinist or Fascist at all. What I don’t understand is why the left has historically felt the need to apologize and make excuses for totalitarian regimes and ideologies, many of which have had socialism at their core.
“It only means that I believe in some areas of our lives, collective action can work better than individuals working by themselves.”
Voluntary community and involuntary collectivity aren’t the same thing. Yes, in some things we work better together. I think history speaks pretty clearly that state-enforced collectivity doesn’t work AT ALL. Yet we keep trying it, for some reason.
“The problem seems to be that for many people on here, the very mention of the word ‘Socialism’ raises the banner of Satanism. And it’s just not like that.”
That’s a hyperbolic way to describe how other people think. It really is not a bad way to describe the onset and effects of socialism, though. Some socialisms are worse than others, but they are all enforced collectivity; they hamper, to different degrees, freedom to associate with others voluntarily and to practice charity at all. We’ve seen in our country that “just a little bit” of socialism will eventually turn into, by small increments A LOT of it. It’s like making a deal with the devil, so the fear of “satanism” that you somewhat unfairly attribute to other people is actually not a bad analogy.
“Over here in chaotic, crazy Britain, we muddle along pretty well.”
According to who, Gordon Brown? And by what standard? Excuse me for the sarcasm, but it’s been a very long time since I’ve seen a Briton, left, right or in the middle, write that things are going well. Other than the technocrats who run the place, that is.
“Sure there are some nutters around, but a tiny number and I’m firmly of the belief that by bigging up the threat, we actually worsen the problem.”
“Bigging up,” I assume, means inflating it out of proportion? You (and we in the U.S.) have the opposite problem: Pretending that the threat of anti-Semitism doesn’t exist. Especially in your country, you have to be willfully blind not to see it.
Gosh, I lived in the UK for three years, where can I begin?
-Oona King was called a “Jewish Bitch” by “Georgeous” George Galloway’s pro Palestinian supporters.
-Jewish men do not feel safe wearing skullcaps on some streets in London.
-two Jewish girls in the Golders Green area were beaten on a bus in 2006
-a parlimentary report in 2007 documented attacks on Jews and their institutions, you can download it, there have been TV documentaries as well.
-pro Israel rallies in London are met with shouts of “Jewish Nazis” or “death to the Jewish State”
-attempts to boycott Israeli academics is outright discrimination
-Treating Israel, the Jewish state, differently than all others in the world (how much time is spent in the UN condeming Israel versus Iran, North Korea, Syria, Zimbabwe?) is discrimination and smacks of bias.
-Sixty years ago graffiti in Europe went like this, “Jews out of Europe, to Palestine” now it’s “Jews out of Palestine.”
The message is; “Die Jews”
I got news for you CrumbleKid, we have no such intention.
Am Yisroel Chai and a hearty Shabbat Shalom to all!
Do I support any of that Psychobarb? Of course not. And of your list, only George Galloway, massive egoist that he is, could ever be considered of the left. I never said there wasn’t anti-semitism; I said it wasn’t a feature of people of the left over here, who [alright with exceptions - Galloway amongst them] are respectful of people’s human rights. Am I advocating the death of Israel? Of course not. But in much the same way as I’d want Saudi Arabia to grant rights to women, I’d want Israel to grant rights to Palestinians. It’s not extreme.
Re Juvenal’s questioning of collectivism. It’s just a question of degree. You like your collectivised army, don’t you? Your Police, your Fire Service? These are bodies that protect and look after the collective. Over here we’d put doctors in with that. And if I had my way, natural monopolies like water and power would be restored to collective ownership. It used to be like that and it was better. That doesn’t make me an enemy of freedom.
There is also the Flip Dewinter and the Vlaams Belang right wing party of Belgium
The gap between Vlaams Belang and Jean-Marie le Pen is getting too wide to bridge, and though it might appear to be a strategic move, Dewinter sounds sincere in his doubt about any further cooperation with Le Pen. VB is very positive about the idea of inviting Israel to join NATO.
All parties in Belgium — except for one — are a bunch of potential Nazis. The exception is Vlaams Belang.
gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2009/05/filip-dewinters-speech-in-cologne.html
The Greens and other aligned groups are a haven for jew-haters as well. This is an excellent piece that demonstrates the true danger to European based Jews.
It grates me when reports come out that are poorly researched. I have even seen a claim in the US that UKIP (UK Independence Party) are xenophobic/racist. This is a slanderous description of a group that merely opposes further integration/devolvement of powers to the EU from the nation state.
Vlaams Belang is right up there supporting Jews and Israel unconditionally, even when there’s no political benefit to it. Decent Conservatives, rule-of-law, free markets etc. Diametrically opposite to fascists and their corporate state, suppression of dissent, confiscation of private property.
The EJC messed up. That happens, not everything from a Jewish organisation is perfect. I wrote an essay about it here.
As for those slandering my great friends at Gates of Vienna: Please stop the hate-mongering and enter a civilized debate. Getting a grip on what fascism actually is might help you to ditch the useless second-hand prejudice
Europeans voted for the right because they are worried about the muslims, not the jews. That does not mean that the european antisemitism is dead, it is not. The far right in Europe has long been a vehicle of antisemitism, but that’s no longer one of its main thrusts. So it’s not a case of antisemitism suddenly having become stereophonic because of equal opportunity hate at both ends of the spectrum, it’s general concern about national identity, poorly articulated, but widely felt.
It’s the failure of integration of the muslim immigrants that is the source of the tension, from a deep distrust, which is quite reciprocal, unfortunately. In contrast, the jews are not particularly anti-Europe. Those who leave do so for their safety, driven by the surrounding ntolerance, not by particular hate of their own.
The European right has many pro-Israel leaders these days, who have awakened to threatening aspect of Islam, and are trying to wake up the rest of society.
Obama, the ultimate political animal posturing as the general purpose solver of all problems, has taken an anti-Israel stance! The situation is ripe with latent unstability.
Oh. I just issued (in the form of a readers’ letter) an invitation for Israel to join the EU
uh oh y’en a qu’ont modère !
“”"”"”Find an individual Jew in the UK has has EVER been personally threatened or intimidated by someone on the left.”"”"”
Crumblekid: it happens all the time. Anti-semitism on the Brit left is as prevalent as lice were in the Middle Ages.
“”"”"”This conflation of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, is disingenuous and just plain wrong.”"”"”"
No, it’s not. I should know, because I’m very, very familiar with “Anti-Zionists.” They are almost always jew-haters, period.
To be fair and accurate, there are people who are anti-zionist who are NOT also anti-semites. Again, I should know, because I met both of them in 1979.
“”"”"”Why don’t we just quit describing politics as a linear spectrum, and instead a circular one. Then we could have a meaningful picture of what is actually happening in the world. The far-right and the far-left are neighbors,”"”"”"
Class Clown is absolutely correct. I’ve been making this observation for decades from direct experience.
Here’s something that illustrates it in a nutshell like nothing I’ve ever seen:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Bolshevik_Party
“”"”"”"I live in a very left wing area in Northern Virgina and in highschool and now in college students call each other Jews all the times as an insult.”"”"”"”
Blackwater: interesting. Jim Moran, a N. Virginia Democrat, is an anti-semite.
I see too much imprecise talk about the European Right especially in Briton where the British National Party is classed a right wing party. Nonsense! The BNP is full fledged National Socialist leftwing Party. Their party platform was chock-a-block full of Socialism. They support the nationalization of industry, banks and utilities. They are also strong supporters of the broken British National Health system. They stand to the left of the Labor Party. They are anti-immagrant and anti-Semitic. The Dutch and Danish Freedom Parties are pro-market, pro-liberty and strong supporters of Israel and defenders of the Jewish people. They are right wing parties. So there you have it. The parties of the left are anti-Semitic and the parties of the right are not.
Far-right is an oxymoron. It just doesn’t compute. As this article indicates, all the trouble comes from the left, the anti-Capitalist, anti-American, anti-Jewish ideologies. Core to German anti-Semitism was a deep mis-understanding of banking, which looked like the Jews (who were good bankers) were making money without working – that is, they were exploiting the working class.
Sounds familiar?
Banking is a vastly intersting subject. Investment banking, too – for it assumes the risk of business and permits businesses to employ people in stable corporations. Banking is Good, as is Capitalism. Interestingly, real Capitalism renders racism moot
The danger of conflating either left-wing or right-wing politics with antisemitism or even anti-zionism is that they’re largely orthogonal phenomena.
The difference between the European left and what is mischaracterized in this article (and many, many others) as “extreme right-wing” is the difference between international socialism and national socialism, respectively. Both are specifically left-wing (i.e., totalitarian-leaning) ideologies.
The reason we confuse these things is because the dumb-them-down education system teaches it this way, per long-standing Marxist dictates going back to the 50s.
Extreme “left-wing” is totalitarianism, i.e., a state of all-powerful government where EVERYTHING is politicized. This is the direction in which most countries on the planet are headed today. Extreme “right-wing” is anarchy, i.e., no government. Both fascism and nazism are forms of national socialist totalitarianism and decidedly left-wing ideologies.
This silliness of claiming that “when one goes far enough right or left, one reaches the other side” has done nothing but confuse the issue. And it’s the Marxists’ efforts to distance themselves from the leftist ideologies of Hitler and Mussolini that have created this myth.
The fact that many conservatives view themselves as “right-wing” or “right-leaning” is evidence of how pervasive this lie has penetrated society. If anything, conservatism – support for constitutional republicanism, democracy and individual liberty/responsibility – is the closest thing to centrism that has ever existed. Remember Alinksy’s rule about “polarizing”. Well, conservatives have been very successfully – and erroneously – polarized. The left has usurped absolute control over the language of the discussion by labeling conservatives “right-wing”.
Since many American Jews who support Israel also support left-wing social policies, antisemitism and anti-zionism are best left discussed independently of political ideology. The longer we conflate these the longer it will take to resolve the moral and social issues they represent.
Chris H wrote:
“Re Juvenal’s questioning of collectivism. It’s just a question of degree. You like your collectivised army, don’t you? Your Police, your Fire Service? These are bodies that protect and look after the collective.”
It is PARTLY a question of degree. It’s also a question of being able to make meaningful distinctions between community and collectivity, a distinction which you’re continuing to pretend doesn’t exist.
It’s one thing for the federal government to tell me I have to pay for national security; it’s quite another for a bureaucrat in Washington to tell me I can’t smoke a cigarette because of the national health-care plan I was forced into accepting by a different Washington desk jockey.
It’s one thing for the community I live in to forbid me to appear drunk in public; it’s quite another for the federal government to dictate the legal BAC level to my state government.
I once read a book by an anti-terrorism expert and fiction writer who goes by the pen name of Gayle Rivers. He wrote (I’m paraphrasing), that “imagine the political spectrum as a line, where the far-right and far-left exist at opposite ends of the line. But when the line is bent into a circle, the two extremes meet.” What he meant is that when it comes down to each, the far right and left have the same twisted agendas. They’re both anti-semetic and often nationalist in a socialistic way. I think the key is to recognize who occupies the fars ends. It does not appear to me that Geert Wilders party is so much far right as the Bristish Nationalist Party is in fact far left and anti-semetic.
goy, and others,
There’s been some impicit criticism here of my statement that the political spectrum is better described as a circle. In actuality, I’m just trying to come up with a visual aid that communicates the exact same thing you are. In other words, the notion that Leftism provides some sort of antidote to Fascism. Expressed another way, I’m trying to oppose the Leftist lie that the farther left they let them take us, the safer we are from Fascism. In reality, of course, they offer same thing.
As I’ve said before, the difference between Fascists and Communists is that the Fascists like a little national in with their socialism.
Perhaps a circle isn’t a perfect visual representation, but it is far better than a straight continuum, for exactly the reasons that goy explains so well. And maybe a circle isn’t completely off, either. Mussolini was perfectly able to move from the Left to the Right, and Mark Steyn made a great comment about some British neo-Nazis converting to Islam. To paraphrase him, they are white supremicists who decided that it was the “supremicist” bit that really mattered to them.
The best framing of the divide comes from Paul Berman (Terror and Liberalism), who does such a good job of showing that the real fight is between liberal, pluralistic democracies and the totalitarian rebels that oppose them.
Let me offer some corrections on my first paragraph:
There’s been some impicit criticism here of my statement that the political spectrum is better described as a circle. In actuality, I’m just trying to come up with a visual aid that communicates the exact same thing you are. which is that Leftism does not provide some sort of antidote to Fascism. Expressed another way, I’m trying to oppose the Leftist lie that the farther left we let them take us, the safer we are from Fascism. In reality, of course, they offer same thing.
I believe that the comments of Goy,Juvenal, jerryofva and Henrik Clausen are sound. I’ll expound a bit on the good points they raised. The fact is, racism-bigotry (anti-Semitism) is not the sole property of any single ideology, what’s in question is the ideology or political system that allows such illogical thinking to gain root and flourish the most. Communism, Fascism and presently, modern day SDP/Greens soft socialism are the ideologies that are most vulnerable to anti-Semitism, regardless of the Leftists belief that their progressive credentials offer an automatic inoculation to the virus of anti-Semitism, when the opposite has been historically true.
Class Clown touched on the fact that we should “quit describing politics as a linear spectrum”, which is something that I totally agree with, it’s a highly flawed model that only serves to cloud the lines that separate the most anti-human/anti-liberal political parties/ideologies in existence over the past 150 years.
Henrik Clausen hits the nail decisively on ´the head when he states that “Banking is Good, as is Capitalism. Interestingly, real Capitalism renders racism moot”. Clausen goes to the heart of why Communism and its heretical brother, Fascism, are so closely tied together (more than people would know, or care to know), it’s their joint hatred of capitalism and their loathing for the ones whom they deem responsible for using it to their own advantage to the detriment of everyone else, “The Jews”. The ones who are ‘less-likely’ to be anti-semitic are the ones who are for limited government and free market enterprise bereft of big brother intrusion into the marketplace.
The problem today in understanding the various political convergences and differences arises from the fact that few understand the original concept behind Communist ideology, as well as being aware that the terminology used to define political parties and the ideologies that they represent have morphed from their original meaning. For example, in today’s understanding of conservatism, we view advocates for a free market with limited government interference to be the standard bearers of that ideology, while in fact, the very nature of conservatism during the period in which Marxist Communism was being developed, during the mid 1800′s, viewed the existing ruling class order, to uphold much of the values Communism was to take for itself.
Communism, Conservatism and the upstart Liberal Capitalists were the three main political ideologies vying for political clout, with the ruling class (Conservatives) finding more and more of their numbers viewing Communism as a means to counter the threat of rampant, unchecked Capitalism that was challenging the existing ruling order. So in truth, Communist/Fascist/Social Democratic Party socialism are the ideologies one has to watch out for, not the Liberal (classical sense) free market Capitalists.
Looking at the parties today deemed by the Leftist Media and Leftist parties as “far-Right” today, one must be aware of their political-economic anchors in their ideologies before drawing an such conclusions that they are “Fascist and Neo-Nazis”. I think that the BNP, though they make some sense where Islam is concerned, are emblematic of the Leftist hate ideology and are anti-Capitalist in the traditional sense. They are truly a Left-wing party. The Vlaams Belang on the other hand, are for limited gov’t and decisively free enterprise, and less vulnerable to classic bigotry and racism.
Austrian parties like the FPÖ can be lumped into the same category as the BNP, while Danish DPP and the Dutch VVP are sound political parties, but as with most of Europe (as in Finland), some form of socialist thought can be found, such as viewing the welfare state as something worth saving. Like I said, I agree with the notion that racism and bigotry which can be found in classic anti-Semitism, is not the sole property of any single ideology, but attention to where it can find the most fertile soil to flourish is important, and it’s more than likely to find ample room to grow within the house of the Socialists and ilk, not within the camp of free market (present day conservatives) capitalists.
Then why are the majority of Jews liberal?
NOTE: Both DPP and VVP parties are pro-Israel and philo-Semitic and the closest to conservative politics that you can get in Europe.
# 46 James
“that “imagine the political spectrum as a line, where the far-right and far-left exist at opposite ends of the line. But when the line is bent into a circle, the two extremes meet.” What he meant is that when it comes down to each, the far right and left have the same twisted agendas”
this is so right !
compare the populist humorists far leftist with far rightist, their inspiration both appeals to the same “demons” (devils), from under the belt
Actually, the gay rights and abortion movements in this country are the result of right wing extremists who are creating wedge issues in their relentless quest to gain power and destroy our American way of life. It’s all right their in Van Loon’s “The Story of Mankind” Know your history, people!
2.Crumblekid
Mr. Moran didn’t claim that European leftists are going out and attacking Jews. It’s easy to win an argument against straw men.
What is happening, is the Left is drumming up hostility against Jews and fanning the hatred of the Muslims and the Far “Right” (when socialists like the BNP and nazis started being “right wing” I don’t know). The Muslims and Nazis then attack Jews, and the left is in the clear when the finger pointing starts.
Even if this is unintentional, it is still the reality.
As for the Jews and everyone else you know who is vehemently anti Israel and anti Zionist, that’s only because you and they have swallowed the kool aid and eat up 60 years of false, revisionist history and blood libel.
James, Class Clown and Marie Claude,
Uhm, no.
Again, this silly notion that far-left and far-right extremes are in any way equivalent is precisely the sort of specious effluent the left has been pumping into our education system for decades. I remember being “learnt” this bullsh!t 30 years ago at community college. It didn’t fly then.
IT. IS. NONSENSE.
This false premise of a ‘circular’ spectrum of political ideology leads to the following false consequents:
1. “Fascism is the ‘opposite’ of communism.” It’s not – they are both variants of socialism (see Jonah Goldberg’s book Liberal Fascism for copious examples and related history).
2. “You can ‘bend’ the political ideology spectrum into a circle.” You can’t. It’s a spectrum. Geometrically: a line. Just like the frequency spectrum for sound or visible light, the endpoints have nothing in common. Likewise, the behaviors of the political systems at the endpoints of the political spectrum (totalitarianism, anarchy) have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING in common.
3. “Conservatism is ‘right-wing’”. It’s not. If anything, it’s centrist, espousing a balance between totalitarianism and anarchy through constitutional, republican government using democratic institutions in support of individual liberty and responsibility. This is the optimum form of government, and – when amplified by capitalism – explains the rise of the USA from nothing to sole superpower in a scant 200+ years.
4. “There are ‘far-right’ or ‘right-leaning’ political factions which have geopolitical influence in the world.” There are no functional anarchies in the world today. There are no functional political parties of any social significance which preach anarchy. The Libertarians are the closest you’ll find to this.
5. “The ‘left’ is anti-Israel and the ‘right’ is pro-Israel.” This is the myth this article attempts to leverage by discussing an apparent paradox. It’s not a paradox at all because the whole argument is based on a red herring.
The reason communism and fascism appear to have systemic similarities is because they are both forms totalitarianism. The are not “opposites”.
Left = Totalitarianism: these are communism (international socialism), fascism/nazism (national socialism), statism and corporatism. This is any condition where the state approaches all-powerful status and every facet of public and private life is politicized – like how much you weigh, what you eat, where you can smoke, what job you can have, how much you can earn, how you pay for your health care, what you’re allowed to drive, how your personal financial risk is managed, what your children are taught, etc. Sound familiar?
Right = Anarchy: literally, ‘no government’. Outside some isolated (read: geopolitically irrelevant) tribes in South America and Africa, the closest you’ll find to this is Libertarianism.
We need to push the reset button on the perpetuation of this ‘circular political spectrum’ canard, and soon. It has led to a complete misunderstanding of political ideology, as well as an unnatural alliance of convenience between libertarians & leftists, and polarization of conservatism as “right wing” when it is not.
The central problem is that the idiotic “far-right” label includes 2 very different sets of parties: one which is economically liberal/libertarian, pro-American, Zionist, and non-racist; the other which is anti-capitalist, anti-American, antisemitic, and most often racist. Only an idiot would group those 2 sets together. (There are actually more than 2 sets being labeled “far-right”, but that only makes the label even more idiotic.)
What distinguishes the 2nd set from the “far-left” is, of course, that the “far-right” anti-Semites are white supremacists, while the “far-left” anti-Semites are typically anti-white (but still anti-capitalist, anti-American, and of course anti-Semites). I have nothing against distinguishing between the 2 sets of anti-capitalist, anti-American anti-Semites; it is only the label “far-right” that is idiotic as currently used.
Goy, this an analyse made by our journalists in comparing the french humorists
I got the author of this article mixed up with another I was reading in my previous comment. Apologies, Soeren Kern!
Also:
Goy #55 is 100% correct about everything.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-4kCD4nbrw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxXhqxtmHjo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rulSfrcNU9U
Thanks for those links, Frank – they’re excellent!
Fascinating discussion. But why hasn’t anybody mentioned the origin of “left” and “right”? Marie Claude will confirm that the terms originate in the Assemblee Nationale during French revolutionary times, when the bloodiest-minded Jacobins sat on the far left and the monarchist diehards on the far right of a circular arrangement which almost met in front of the podium. In other words, there was but a small gap between the extremes on both ends of the political spectrum. Thus it has ever been. See the many Communists who became Nazis, and then reverted the other way in East Germany. And the one point on which fascists and Marxists can always agree? “Down with the Jews.”
Continued: perfectly understandable, since Karl’s brochure, “Zur die Judenfrage” ranks with the Gospels, the Koran and “Mein Kampf” in the anti-
Fnord:
“Crumblekid: This is all about the alliance that has come about between Vlaams Belange and the pro-israel “Anti-jihadists”. The nazis have found muslims to hate, and so no longer needs the jews for that, while they are very happy to get the money from the christian fundamentalist groups. Synergy in action, eh? Welcome to the new fascism, where its legitimate to talk about a coming “racewar” in Europe. Its all paranoia and hate coming from Gates of Vienna/Jihadwatch etc., and its designed to maximise problems so that we will get the conflict going and the brownshirts will gain more power.”
Shouldn’t you be back at your post at LGF, Mr. Johnson? There are creationists to be denounced, associations with neo-Nazi’s to be exposed, and DHS reports to be vindicated.
goy,
I actually agree with everything you are saying, but I’m going to ponder dropping the circle analogy for future use if it causes this much contention. I used the circle analogy not because I disagree with you, but because I think it is a better way to represent all of the exact same things you are saying. My point in mentioning a circle is to oppose the Leftist lie that they are offering us the opposite of fascism when in fact they dish out the same thing.
You seem upset about the circle concept because you are taking it as indicative of a squishy, throw-your-hands-up moral equivocation. I’ve been using a circle so that there is a spatial way to position liberal pluralistic democracy as the opposite of BOTH Leftism and Rightism.
You are saying that the “circular” spectrum fuels the lie that the right and left are opposites. I have been suggesting that the “linear” spectrum does the same thing. A typical leftist will have you believe that the further left you let them take you, the further you are from totalitarianism.
Like I said, I’ll drop the circle thing if it causes this much contention. I think that those of us who value freedom, peace, and representative democracy (ie, those of us who are “conservative”, these days) have got a huge fight coming, and I don’t want to waste energy on arguments with allies.
One more brief stab at this.
Goy,
The linear spectrum is best if you place, as you do, anarchists at the right extreme. However, that is an unusual concept, and as someone pointed out previously, originally right-wing meant monarchists.
However, and this has been more relevant to my point, we long ago lost the battle on framing the political spectrum this way. The popular concept is now that Fascists are on the right, and Communists are on the left. That view is now so entrenched that it is very, very, hard to fight, and it gives Leftist a way to convine the gullible that they are offering protection from right-wing tyranny.
You and I both know that Fascism and Communism are the two flavors of leftist socialism, and are therefore, placed at the left of the political spectrum. However, the world at large no longer knows that, so the circle is somewhat useful as a way to place them with each other, as they deserve to be.
The great accomplishment of Orwell was that he so clearly showed that those that wish totalitarianism on us, will always use language to sow confusion. Those people will find a way to muddy the waters no matter how one tries to visualize the conflict. If we draw it as a line or as a circle, they find the ways to confuse the issue. They would do the same to us if we drew it as a triangle, a pentagram, or an ink-splatter.
Now let’s both stop this argument and go fight bad guys.
@64. Class Clown: - I actually agree with everything you are saying, …
I thought you might.
I used the circle analogy not because I disagree with you, but because I think it is a better way to represent all of the exact same things you are saying.
I know that, and I appreciate your position as it is the one I’ve very grudgingly held almost all my life. It’s never made complete sense, but I’ve always fallen back on it because it was what I was taught in PoliSci.
The problem is that the circle notion is a completely false analogy that supports a false choice in the larger sense of government and social systems. As Edward Norden points out, the only context in which the “left-right” paradigm can be twisted into a circle is the context in which the notions of left and right were born. We no longer think in those terms – or at least we shouldn’t be. The left has relentlessly pushed that exact premise, however, because it fits their agenda. This is why it’s a fundamental tenet of our Deweyite educational program.
My point in mentioning a circle is to oppose the Leftist lie that they are offering us the opposite of fascism when in fact they dish out the same thing.
Again, the circle analogy fails to do that, unfortunately. A better way to illustrate this is to realize that communism, socialism, corporatism, statism, fascism and nazism are all faces on the same die. No matter how you throw that die, you get a variation of totalitarianism. Some variations “feel” less imposing than others. Fascism, for instance, was touted as the answer to all social ills back in the 1930s. But in the end, they all aim at the same thing.
You seem upset about the circle concept because you are taking it as indicative of a squishy, throw-your-hands-up moral equivocation.
No, I’m not really. What upsets me about the circle analogy is that it is a misrepresentation of the facts based on a misunderstanding of human nature. It is a lie that is tantamount to the unsupportable notion that our choices of government lie somewhere between communism on the one hand and fascism, its “opposite”, on the other. The left proceeds from this false choice to declare that the “ideal” is somewhere in the middle. The reality, however, is that when both communism and fascism derive from Marxist socialism, that “middle” is, by definition, still socialism. You can’t fold that spectrum into a circle and find constitutional, republican democracy in it anywhere – it doesn’t exist anywhere between those two endpoints!
You are saying that the “circular” spectrum fuels the lie that the right and left are opposites. I have been suggesting that the “linear” spectrum does the same thing.
But the linear model doesn’t do that – not if you understand what it’s intended to represent.
The most fundamental question political science tries to answer is how much government is the right amount? In the context of that question, the only spectrum of political ideology that has any use whatsoever is that spectrum which represents no government at one end and absolute government on the other. Conventionally, this is anarchy on the right and totalitarianism on the left, respectively.
A typical leftist will have you believe that the further left you let them take you, the further you are from totalitarianism.
Yes, and the right way to counter that nonsense is to point out, as Jonah Goldberg has done with copious historical references and irrefutable reason, that both communism and fascism – two different forms of totalitarianism – are leftist ideologies that derive from socialism. The circle analogy does nothing but cloud this issue with irrelevant thesis based on an abstract, non-intuitive notion that doesn’t hold in reality.
I’ve been using a circle so that there is a spatial way to position liberal pluralistic democracy as the opposite of BOTH Leftism and Rightism.
And, again, this is a misrepresentation, because classical liberalism is NOT the “opposite” of both totalitarianism and anarchy. Two diametrically opposed entities can not have a third “opposite” because opposition is a binary relationship.
Rather, constitutional republicanism is the answer to the question posed above, i.e., that government is best which governs least. This form of government is essentially between the two polar extremes of totalitarianism and anarchy. You don’t have to play fold-it-into-a-circle games to demonstrate this.
The linear spectrum is best if you place, as you do, anarchists at the right extreme. However, that is an unusual concept, and as someone pointed out previously, originally right-wing meant monarchists.
It’s only “unusual” if you buy into the fallacies used to teach political science. If we try to address the issue without addressing the fallacies, we’re simply wasting our time.
However, and this has been more relevant to my point, we long ago lost the battle on framing the political spectrum this way. The popular concept is now that Fascists are on the right, and Communists are on the left. That view is now so entrenched that it is very, very, hard to fight, and it gives Leftist a way to convine the gullible that they are offering protection from right-wing tyranny.
I completely disagree here. If we can’t show the initiative necessary to dispel this idiocy, then society is truly doomed. Unfortunately, there’s ample precedent for this, since neither Greece nor Rome – the precursors of our Republic – ever figured out how to keep a Republic from devolving into a mob-rule “Democracy” and then into an oligarchy. On one of these rise-and-fall cycles of civilization, we’re going to HAVE to realize that Jefferson words to Charles Yancey were absolutely correct: “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.” The only way to stop the cycle is to stop the ignorance. Besides, if you think you’ll ever make any headway on this issue by allowing the left to (re-)define the terms of the discussion, you’re pursuing a fantasy.
You and I both know that Fascism and Communism are the two flavors of leftist socialism, and are therefore, placed at the left of the political spectrum. However, the world at large no longer knows that, so the circle is somewhat useful as a way to place them with each other, as they deserve to be.
And, again, see above. NOWHERE in that circle formed by the spectrum running from communism to fascism are you going to find constitutional republicanism – it doesn’t exist between those two endpoints! That’s why the circle analogy fails.
@63. Landru – Good one!!
I will tell you why Jews are generally liberal and vote Democrat. (By the way, Jews tended to vote Labour in Britain).
Fear
It may have had more of a basis 70 years ago when Jews came to the US fleeing progroms and actually thought a utopian workers state, free from the Czar, made sense. But even then, clear thinkers, Jewish and otherwise, figured out utopia would lead to totalitarianism with Jews on the front line as always happens. (Though it shames me Jews worked in Soviet concentration camps, Jews ran them, read Anne Applebaum, “The Gulag.”)
What else explains the Jews slavish support of FDR and now Obama? Fear of going against the popular guy, aka, “If I am a good Jew, you won’t kill me.”
It’s a ghetto mentality, not so different from Jews in the Middle Ages, bowing before the King.
The Israelis are different because they have an actual country and blood and treasure to defend.
Edward Norden
It’s also what I read
Landru, y’a du vrai, the “racewar” is someway agitated as a “scarecrow” ; some persons only take in account specific facts that suit their agendas, honest statistics and or neutral analyses are avoided for exposing how the whole society cannot get along, at least true for us.
Excuse me, but that should have read, “100 years ago when Jews fled the Czar and pogroms.
Of course, 70 and 60 years ago, Jews were liquidated by death squad in Ukraine.
Another thing to ponder.
Countries that lose their Jews, due to anti-Semitism, perhaps I should say perceived anti-Semitism as Crumblekid suggests, generally fare badly (think, Iraq, Poland, Netherlands, they lost a valuable middle and professional class.)
For this reason, what happens in France and the UK is enormously important.
It will be very sad, not just for these countries but for the continent, if the two largest Jewish communities over time are gone.
I know Jews in parts of France are leaving and setting up households in Israel. I also know Jews, generally more observant Jews in the UK, who say there is no future for their children and grandchildren in the UK.
A tragedy, really, for both the Jews and Britain.
goy,
Well, at least we agree on all the important parts.
“I know Jews in parts of France are leaving and setting up households in Israel.”
http://tinyurl.com/mnkml6
they are less and less numerous to leave for Israel ; unemployment rates 10%, so it was/is still difficult for those who tried the experience to find a job, even with the prime and the fiscal adventages, it can’t fit what they expected ; 3/4 of them return.
Though some elders like the sunshine at Tel Aviv where they bought/buy an apartment for their retirement. Idem the french Jews that go to America, essentially to Florida, go there to make businesses and to invest in apartments and buildings since the euro rates higher than the dollar, and more since the prices lowered there.
Most of the population, that is usely labelled as jewish in France, is secular, so they don’t feel the necessity to make their alya. It is generally a well integrated population that doesn’t feel different than any other provincial french ethnies. I’m from Brittany, our history of integration to the Kingdom and to the republic of France has been of discriminations. It’s only after WW2, in the early seventies that we were considered as an equivalent province of france.
Now saying that there isn’t a problem of antisemitism resurgence would be veiling our face, but it was/is volontary exagerated by some foreign médias and persons, that are not endorsed by the largest part of our so called “jewish population”. Lots of our intellectual “Jews” belong to the “lefty Bobo” elite, they are our fist university strikers too.
Re: “It is imperative that European leaders do not remain silent, but speak out and reject the hateful and bigoted worldview of parties of the far-right and their supporters.”
Oh, they have, they have. And every time the incompetent, corrupt, Muslim-coddling, self-satisfied “European leaders” that drove their nations into the ditch do speak out, they stampede more and more people into voting for the far Right.
What is really meant by these calls to “reject bigotry” is to suppress freedom of representation by parliamentary fiat. I expect the MEP’s from the BNP will never be allowed to take their seats. This, of course, will precipitate more and more dissent and even violence, which will be used as a pretext to outlaw the BNP and perhaps even the UKIP altogether. Then it will be time for each son of Albion to decide for himself exactly what kind of country he wants his grandchildren to live in, and take appropriate action.
Further to the circle analogy. Again, because in the Assemblee Nationale of the 1790s the extreme left and extreme right were seated so close to each other, and so far from the Girondists—the more liberal conservatives and republicans—wits coined the phrase “les extremes se touchent.” Isn’t that so, Marie Claude? And they’ve “touched” ever since, in all countries.
I wouldn’t doubt that the dangerous Leftists in Europe are dominated by dangerous UnJews. Such Leftist Jews are a danger to themselves and others worldwide.
Liberal Jews are a disgrace and a humiliation
Interesting tidbit, Edward. And it doesn’t evoke the metaphor of a circle at all unless one is distracted by the historical seating arrangement (which, in toto, was not representative of an ideological continuum – that’s the problem I have with Class Clown’s insistence here).
Rather it inspires a vision of the extremes bunched together at one point and the (equivalent of) classical liberals at another, no? Two points determine a line, not a circle.
And, as your comments seem to suggest, I would submit that these extremes have “touched” ever since, in all countries, because they are just slight variations on the same underlying malady. This of course depicts the ostensible “difference” between international socialism (communism) and national socialism (fascism, nazism) almost perfectly.
I would rather see 2 circles that haves their own universe and that meet in a tangent point, and that that produces an aleatory arc of alliances
David Ben-Ariel,
you forget that these persons have already a nationality, and saying they are UNjews is only putting a religious mark ; since when does a religion define a population ?
sorry, but not in our democraties anymore, some people died for freedom of religion rights as for human rights
Edward, we have been copied for so many things, and when people are not happy with their political spectrum, the put the fault on the french !
Marie Claude: Oui, cherchez la francaise.
goy, I’ve been ready to drop the issue for some time now, and I did. I don’t really appreciate being called out again and again.
I’m not actually philosophically attached to this “circle analogy” at all, but let me give you some perspective here. These questions are fine as academic exercises, but at this point the discussion has become rather esoteric. So here is a better question… How do you get non-academics to appreciate this argument?
I’ve been teaching high school history and government for many years, and I can tell you that the standard linear political continuum is absolutely useless in getting young people to understand what has gone on in the past, and what dangers we are facing in the world today.
When I get them in high school, even good, smart kids know next to nothing of Stalin or Mao (beyond just the names). However, they know a great deal about Hitler, and they have absorbed the pop-culture version of history that frames the Nazis as “right-wing”, and the right-side endpoint of a continuum that includes everything from fascists to small-government Republicans and your grandma who is a social conservative.
Therefore, what they have been conditioned to believe by Leftist propaganda is that, the farther you let them take you Left, the safer they are from tyranny. They have no idea that monsters await on the left-end of the spectrum as well. I’m reminded at this point of the line in Animal Farm, in which any time the other animals show doubt, the pigs warn that a failure to follow them will inevitably lead to the return of Farmer Jones. “You don’t want JONES to come back? Do you?” is the refrain.
The “circle”, such as it is, becomes a point of discussion so that I can get them to realize that Left-wing ideologies are tyrannical as well. To continue the Animal Farm analogy, we see in the end that the pigs are walking, talking, and living just like the deposed farmer.
If it makes you feel better, I can tell you that I have never once drawn a circle to illustrate this, I use it as a point of rhetorical discussion.
You are pursuing this as an academic debate. That is fine for us, but if we are going to have any hope for the big picture, we have to have useful ways to convince regular Americans what is at stake. That includes public school kids, who by the way, grow up to be voters (the tendency to write these kids off as lost causes because of all of our public schools’ problems is actually one of the dissentions I have with Republicans, but that is a side issue).
On that note, it is not defeatism, as you accuse me of above, to come up with new ways to conceptualize things, and new words once the meanings of old ones have been corrupted. We do it all the time. For example, the introduction of the term “statism” has been enormously useful as a way to break the old left/right vocabulary, and correctly group all philosophies that seek centralized power into one.
I don’t have any more time for this. But I want to ask you this question. Do you really want to keep calling out your allies so that you can argue terminology, or do you want to arm the rising generation to fight this stuff?
Your call.
CC, who the hell is “calling you out”??
You posted “at least we agree on all the important parts.” I tend to agree, but didn’t think it was necessary to broadcast that fact, because…
You posted at my site. I invited you to return and discuss the issue, noting that we probably only disagree on methods. Haven’t seen you respond.
My grandma’s dead.
Not sure what your problem is, but since you insist on belaboring this point two days on with an accusatory tone, I’ll just cross-post my response to your comment below. It’s equally applicable to your post above.
In short, the metaphor you insist on perpetuating is flawed, inaccurate, non-intuitive, irrational and unsupportable. I’m not sure how else to demonstrate that any better than I already have: nowhere on the political spectrum between communism and fascism are you ever going to find classical liberalism or constitutional republicanism. I don’t care if you twist the spectrum into a fecking Möbius strip – you won’t find classical liberalism on any line connecting communism and fascism. Not in the real world.
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Based solely on what you’ve written here and at my site, I submit that you simply lack vision. You fall back on what your students “know” and how they’ve been conditioned, rather than stimulating their imagination with the verifiable facts that challenge their conditioning. That’s your choice. I’m not in your position and I’m sure you have bigger fish to fry in terms of pushing at least some nuggets of knowledge into youngsters’ heads. But please don’t try to suggest that this approach will ever fix their misconceptions. It can’t, since it perpetuates a lie.
I was educated by the same corrupted public education system as you and everyone else, and came away from PoliSci 101 thinking that “fascism is the opposite of communism”, just like everyone else. The memory of my PoliSci instructor standing at the front of the class and explaining this lie is seared… seared into my memory (actually, all kidding aside, it’s one of the very few events in my education that I remember so clearly… which is interesting in its own right – I think it’s because it made no sense at the time and try as I did to get him to elaborate, he couldn’t). I never consciously stopped to notice that nowhere in between these two “extremes” are you ever going to find constitutional republicanism. The flaw always bothered me subconsciously, but I never cared enough or understood the underlying ‘-isms’ enough to pursue it. Until fairly recently.
This obfuscation is purely by design in the left’s indoctrination curriculum – the one you’re willingly perpetuating. The goal is to focus on the false choice between the “extremes” of communism and fascism, and get the student to believe that our form of government is a democracy that sits between them. It’s like when MSNBC stages a “debate” between Tucker “Bow-tied Wimp” Carlson and Paul “Professional Asshole” Begala – the viewer is encouraged to believe that both sides have a point and the truth is somewhere in between. Anyway, the fact is that nothing could be further from the truth: the midpoint – any point – between international socialism (communism) and national socialism (fascism/nazism) is … socialism. And the socialists know it. Your students would know it too if you took the time to explain it to them.
My position is that anything which obfuscates reality will only perpetuate the ignorance we can and must overcome. So I believe it’s wrong to promote the political-spectrum-as-a-circle canard. This only cedes the choice of ground to the left – and they always grab the high ground first. I believe it’s wrong to pander to “conventional wisdom” (read: ignorance) by accepting this false choice and “arguing” against it instead of dismissing it as the red herring fallacy that it is.
I’m tired of playing by rules designed by the left, for the left’s benefit, changed at the whim of the left. That sort of compromise is what has led to the slow decline of our Republic. You do that Republic no favors by continuing to engage in it.
goy,
I will graciously offer my apology. Obviously I misread the tone of your post on no. 76. And by the way, my use of “your grandmother” was purely a rhetorical generic grandmother, and was not your grandmother.
I think that with your last comment post I finally see what you have been so distressed about. Ironically, in a different forum better suited to nuance of expression, I think you would realize that we actually agree on virtually everything.
In fact, your statement that “the midpoint – any point – between international socialism (communism) and national socialism (fascism/nazism) is … socialism. ” happens to be exactly what I have been trying to say. But is not that statement itself an expression of the limitations of a linear political model? You yourself are saying that conventional American political parties do not exist on a continuum between “left” and “right”. I wholly agree.
But in fact, “left” and “right” do in fact correlate to “Democrat” and “Republican” in common political discourse, and even many educated people assume that conventional American politics exist on a continuum between Socialism and Fascism. Therefore, extra effort must be expended in breaking the connection.
One must start somewhere, and forcing people to re-think what they think they know about the popular concept of the political spectrum is the best place. Because as you said, the rules were designed by the left, and sometimes you have to break them down before you can start.
I have no attachment to a circle, and in fact, I have already made note of your triagular model for future use.
I did not check back directly to your blog. I should have. I thought that you would email if you wanted to discuss it further.
Once again. My apologies. I’m on your side.
I will graciously accept. And as I mentioned in response to your comment at my place, I agree that we agree on more than we disagree on, and that we have no need to agree to disagree.
One thing though – probably best discussed in person over a six-er of Bass – we’re still not completely connecting on this political continuum thing, based on your comment above. I think we need a whiteboard – I’m a visual kinda guy and it’s much easier for me to just draw pictures. That’s why I cobbled that triangle diagram together in the post on political ideologies.
cheers,
g