The Demise of the Berkeley Daily Planet
When it announced last month that its final print edition would occur on February 25, 2010, the Berkeley Daily Planet also tacitly acknowledged defeat in its conflict with elements of the East Bay Jewish community. Viewed as anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic by increasing numbers of Jewish residents and ultimately by some leaders of the Jewish community, the Planet’s demise was, nonetheless, not a cause for celebration.
The aspiration of those who confronted the Planet was that it would reform. But the Planet’s publisher and editor, Becky O’Malley, appeared to be obsessed with Jews. O’Malley strongly denies being an anti-Semite, and as the conflict over the Planet heated up, O’Malley, at times, published letters attacking the Planet. She even published one of mine.
But O’Malley’s objectivity ebbed and flowed, as did her attempts to portray the Planet as a local newspaper. On August 8, 2006, O’Malley published a commentary written by Kurosh Arianpour, an Iranian living in India. Arianpour’s screed recounted tragedies Jews experienced over the centuries, including the Holocaust, and then proceeded to blame the Jews themselves for incurring the wrath of those who hated and murdered them.
The commentary had nothing to do with local issues, and why Mr. Arianpour chose a local newspaper ten thousand miles away to vent his bile was never made clear. There was nothing redeeming about the commentary, unless a vicious, anti-Semitic diatribe is important because it appeals to the new anti-Semitism of Berkeley’s far left or satisfies some morbid psychological need of those who lust after such portrayal of Jews.
No one disputed the Planet’s legal right to publish hate. After all, the First Amendment, which O’Malley frequently wrapped herself in, does protect hate. But the First Amendment does not immunize O’Malley from criticism or from the implications of Mark Twain’s sarcastic aphorism about Americans being given the right to free speech and the good sense not to use it.
Certainly, O’Malley evidenced no compelling need to portray other ethnic or racial groups with similar contempt or generally to push her First Amendment rights elsewhere without restraint. As John Gertz, O’Malley’s most insightful, passionate and influential critic and editor of the web site DPwatchdog, points out from his intensive analysis of the Planet’s writing, the Planet editorialized about its decision not to publish the Danish cartoons mocking Mohammed. But true to form, O’Malley published a series of anti-Semitic cartoons by Justin DeFreitas that could have come straight from the Nazi party paper Der Sturmer.
“When four Oakland police officers were gunned down in a shootout, O’Malley published a letter blaming the Oakland police officers for their own tragedy.” Awright, the “little Eichmanns” school of thought! Sadly, the paper ’twas but the symptom… left-induced derangement rambles on.
“the Planet’s demise was, nonetheless, not a cause for celebration.”
Kinda like when a rabid dog gets shot. No one throws a party, but everyone is relieved.
I don’t know about you all, but when I get rid of trash, I feel rather happy. The house no longer stinks from the trash. So, break out the gin and have a glass. A vicious liar was forced out of business, and one more self-hating Jew has to look elsewhere to get her trash published.
If the organized Jewish community was conspicuous by its absence in getting rid of the O’Malley’s trash, then the other trash that read her garbage cannot be heard to whine that O’Malley was driven out by the “evil Zionazis”. Not that I have any decent opinion of the windbags and fools that make up the cowardly American Jewish organizations in America. They are worthless, the lot of them.
But in the mean-time, I can break out the schnapps and drink l’Háyim. A litle bit of Jew-hating trash was gotten rid of.
American and Canadian Jewish leadership is simply stupid, they are also in DENIAL. In fact it is a problem with English language Jewry across the world. I consider contemporary North American Jews (I focus on them because of their numbers) to be for the most part pathetic, out-of-touch and clueless, never mind all the self-loathing.
The lack of any adequate Jewish education has a lot to do with it. In fact everything to do with it. I don’t mean religious education, not at all. I mean an education in the REALITY OF leftwing anti-Semitism, anti-Israelism, its dynamics and roots. Too many Jews are utterly clueless, hell I was unashamedly clueless myself, well into adulthood. In my twenties I didn’t have a clue. I hold out no hope for American Jews as a whole, part of a culture that worships inanity, entertainment news and multiculti post-modern baloney. The less said about the schools and universities the better.
Good riddance, and good work!
The “uselessness” of American Jewry is worse than you think. I was educated in Catholic schools for 12 years, and I came to realize sometime in my adulthood that my (now cast-off) leftism came largely from the writings and speeches of American Jews. I realize that looks downright anti-Semitic or conspiracy kooky, but it’s actually a testament to the persuasiveness and erudition of Jewish lefties.
American Jews are really JINO’s (Jews in name only). They do not worship the G-d of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, but the false god of liberalism, multiculturalism and radical environmentalism. I am convinced that these liberal Jews would even give Iran a nuke with which to destroy Israel, if only to prove their tolerance and open-mindedness. It is not that the US Jewish leaders are in denial or stupid, it is that they are selfish and greedy for power and the ability to burnish their post-modern progressive ideology. Much like Madoff, most of whose victims were Jewish, and who were cheated out of their finances, these modern-day capos in the Jewish establishment are cheating Jews out of their voice, heritage and future security.
Excuse me. The only way words are viewed to be impotent is via the snobbishness of those who have power, and look upon those with no power as sweepings.
Words have power, regardless of who communicates them.
The demise of a small community newspaper is hardly worth getting excited about…it happens all the time across the country, just that this one was particularly bird-cage worthy.
Now when the NY TIMES has to stop printing a daily edition, or goes completely electronic…THAT will be cause for some serious celebration!
Is this the same paper we used to call the Berkeley Barf?
Yo, Trainwreck, that’s a salient point on JINO’s. It would help people’s understanding of why there seem to be so many of Jewish descent that go hard after the High Religion of Liberalism and Atheism if they understood that there are three primary stripes of Jews – Zionist, Sionist, and Reformed. The group most prone to the worship of the “G-d of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob” are the Zionists. They want to see a reconstituted Hebrew people who hold to some form of traditional religion. Sionists as a rule are not for a reconstituted Israeli nation but don’t mind their people’s cultural distinctives and Reformed pretty much want their culture absorbed by those around them.
Also, the term “Jew” is a false construct in the O.T.. It first appears in II Kings but there was no translative basis for it’s English inclusion or existence. Before this new “inclusive” term was fabricated the Hebrew people were either Judahites (tribes of Benjamin and Judah/southern kingdoms) or Israelites (the remaining northern tribes). While the southern kingdom had some God-fearing kings from time to time it was the northern kingdoms that pretty much ejected the God-concept from their thinking and way of life and perpetually aligned themselves with “the world.”
By creating a new “cover all” term, Jew, the northern kingdom was able to “steal back into the blessing” reserved for Hebrews that were faithful to Jehovah’s Abrahamic and Mosaic covenants (the Covenantal Promises). So now when someone says “Jew” they think of the entire modern day collective of diasporic and reconstituted “Israel/ites,” making no distinction between the descendants of the the two spiritually divergent kingdoms. This helped me understand a good bit of scripture that seemed a bit out of place/odd (i.e. “those that call themselves ‘JEWS’ and are not). It was a paradigm shift. It even puts the titling and reading of the Book of Hebrews in a different light. This is not an exhaustive commentary on the matter, it’s pointing out something that others can chose to pursue or not.
So, for me this explains the Soros’ of the world and why they actually support a theoretical pogrom against their own people (I’m making a distinction between physical oppression vs. social engineering/deconstruction) and enable anti-Semitic press and propaganda.
A last word – I believe G-d when he said that he has a plan for the faithful Hebrews over the ages and is not done with them. The Hebrews of the lineage of Judah and Benjamin will provide a blessing to the world. I maintain the distinction that the O.T. maintained/never removed regarding the two kingdoms and their spiritual (and thus “practical”) compositions and fates. As with the principle of preterition – I am not “anti” anything, if anything I am “pro” something… for Hebrews that honor their G-d rather than militant secularism (ala Soros, et al.).
Regardless, distinctions or not, for any press to employ irrational fear-mongering in hating Hebrews/Jews is a violation of honest journalism and, as someone noted, if that body won’t ameliorate/reform it’s screeds, then shuttering is not an unfavorable outcome.
#7 Trainwreck
“I am convinced that these liberal Jews would even give Iran a nuke with which to destroy Israel, if only to prove their tolerance and open-mindedness.”
I don’t think they would give Iran a nuke specifically stated TO DESTROY ISRAEL. However, I have no doubt that they would do so with some sob story from Iran, perhaps claiming that it would only be FAIR for them to have one since Israel already does.
Then, after Iran bombs Israel, they will feign horror and probably believe it when the Iranians claim that Israel nuked itself.
Daily Planet’s ….publisher and editor, ..obsessed with Jews,
Must be contagious…
…it sounds a lot like The San Jose Mercury, and The Santa Cruz, Metro, Good Times and Sentinel.
Bankrupt industries attract evolutions lowest forms of humanity.
…”the Jews did this, the Jews did that”
How can history keep playing this song over and over and over again?
Why do we allow it to be played?
When did we become so comfortable & apathetic listening to this alarming melody?
I think the leaders of the American Jewish community stopped going to synagogue and started going to lefty political meetings. Its ability to function so well in the West’s urban life has meant that many of the upper class Jews have grandparents who pushed handcarts selling rags. How embarrassing! The LAST thing these snobby people want is to be associated with their grubby grandparents and their hardworking ‘retailer’ parents. From that handcart in 2 generations to being a Doctor or a Lawyer, with clean soft hands: that has been the journey of the Jewish American. And now they will say – and believe it – that their problems with Israel’s “militarism” is not “anti semitism”, it is cool intelligent political science with a hot dollop of morality.
Ah, to be educated and intelligent and moral and CLEAN, like these denizens of the urban Democratic Party! In fact, I really believe that if those refugees from the Euro Ghettos were to meet their descendants in Berkeley, they would be sick to their hearts.
Great work! I’d wipe my a** with the Berkeley Daily Planet if it wasn’t so shi**y already!
I thank the comments section for explaining to this Catholic the insanity of a people embracing their destroyers. Rhett Butler sneered at southern women ‘embracing the chains that bind them’ – but leftist Jews are embracing a noose. It just doesn’t make sense – so I thank the comments for explaining so much of it to me.
And btw, Abe’s article is (as usual) beautifully written but I disagree with him on one point. I think we should celebrate like hell when a piece of garbage newspaper is flushed down the toilet. Yup, throw a party to toast marshmallows over the bonfire of the last edition! Yee hawww!
Great posts and even greater comments. The illogical reality of western Jews hating themselves so much they vote rush to left even when it hurts themselves is almost as sad as the Holocaust, itself, in my view.
What about its sister paper, the East Bay Express? Violently anti-white and anti-Christian as well as openly Stalinist and a supporter of North Korea?
It has been a while since I have been in the PRB, but I can’t think of anything there whose would sadden me, with the exception of that wonder resort hotel–the name escapes me–and probably the Marine Corps office.
I wonder how Obama would read that sentence.
No, I don’t.
“rush to vote left” instead
Luckily, those liberal Jews have very few kids, so their numbers are dwindling. And we got the Hasidic Jews (very right-wing) and the Russian Jews who are moving into their place. And trust me (I am a Russian Jew), few ethnic groups are as right-wing as Russian Jews.
It has always been a mystery why the most vocal and hateful leaders of anti-semitism have been Jews themselves.
Every nation or nationality/religion has its fair share of ‘quislings’ or traitors but why the vehemence that Jews press against their own kind?
Is this true and if so does anyone know why this is?
The American Jewish leftists are just pissed because they still live in the Diaspora, while all the REAL Jews went back to Israel. They had the “huevos” to come face to face with neighbors who wished them harm.
It’s just such a shame that public schooling (invented by jews, btw) has been overrun by anti-semitic leftists. Look at Brandeis. It was a Jewish college. Now there’s an MSA chapter there.
“American and Canadian Jewish leadership is simply stupid, they are also in DENIAL.”
The way I see it is they’re acting the same way they did in Krakow’s ghettos in Poland. Denial and actually cooperating with their persecutors for gawds sake!
What the hell is wrong with them? The busterds are coming after them again all over the world…and they want to comply so as not to “upset” anyone? What’s it going to take for them to wake up? Another Speilberg movie called Armadinnerjackets List?
TO TRAINWRECK AND STEVE REGARDING THE IRAN NUKE THING;
NO ISLAMIC NATION WILL USE NUCLEAR WEAPONS ON THE STATE OF ISRAEL BECAUSE THEY HOLD THE SAME SITES AS HOLY (AS DOES THE CATHOLIC FAITH) AND THEY WANT THAT “HOLY SITE” UNDER “THEIR” CONTROL.
THAT SAID, CHEMICAL AND/OR BIOLOGICAL COUPLED TO HUMAN WAVE ATTACKS ARE MORE LIKELY ON THE WAY.
THE SO-CALLED SELF-HATE OF JEWS FOR JEWS MAKES NO SENSE TO ME BUT HINTS OF WISHFUL OR MAGICAL THINKING BY PERSONS BOTH IN AND OUT OF JEWISH COMMUNITY.
HAS ANYONE EVER DONE A GENETIC ANALYSIS OF ISRAELI AND ARAB(ISLAMIC) POPULATIONS OVER THE ENTIRE MIDDLE EAST?
SEEMS LIKE IT MIGHT BE A QUESTION OF BROTHER FIGHTING BROTHER.
Keller45, anybody who feels the need to write every word of their commentary in CAPSLOCK comes across as mentally unbalanced and emotionally unstable, and cannot be taken seriously at all, no matter their politics, Left or Right or whatever.
The so-called Jewish self-loathing makes no sense to you because you too are in denial. You are also utterly clueless. Run out of zoloft and paxil, have you?
I would like to better understand the relative absence of the organized Jewish Community here–aren’t these the very threats that those ‘leaders’ should be fighting???
Having trouble believing in Jewish self hate?
The article summary on the main page, backed up in the article itself, says the author wishes the anti-semetic paper could have hung around. Presumably so that the staff could send out some half-hearted apologies, then get right back to business.
I’m not Jewish, but I’ve always thought well of the non-self-haters. But I do think it’s kind of stupid to hang onto the plot of land called Israel. It’s no like there aren’t any other miserable places to live. Just pick one area somewhere, and start moving. I’m utterly certain that the neighbors would be more than willing to pay the moving expenses. With the Jewish work ethic, they could turn the worst desolation anywhere in the world to a livable paradise. One without Hamas next door. Can’t do it? Lots of folks have migrated in the past, and for very similar reasons. Heck, they could start moving to Utah. Plenty of room, neighbors that like them, and even a substitute Dead Sea.
Would it suck to move? Not as much as being surrounded by nihilists who all dream of the day they can torture one of your people to death. And who lob rockets at you day after day. And who are working on nuclear bombs, so the rockets can be much worse. When ALL your neighbors want to kill every last one of you, and get the means, your only options are to kill the current ones, or move. Personally, I’d move.
But I also believe that suicide is a personal right, and if Israelies enjoy being miserable, then by all means, they should stay where they are. In 20 years or so, the Arabs will have a voting majority in Israel, and the entire situation will end VERY rapidly.
“It’s no like there aren’t any other miserable places to live.”
Scooooze me…idiot. I thinks it should be quite obvious by now that Israel has managed to turn a number of lands that were once complete sheetholes into viable, productive states. It’s only when they throw their people out to accommodate 7th century savages…that it reverts back into a total wasteland. Which should make the sand monkies happy.
Now…maybe we should tell everyone in New Jersey to move to cause it really belongs to the dweebs and sissified cowards in new yawk too?
In my twenties I didn’t have a clue. I hold out no hope for American Jews as a whole, part of a culture that worships inanity, entertainment news and multiculti post-modern baloney. The less said about the schools and universities the better.