Anti-semitism on the rise..? Comments by liberal congress woman, calls for apology from fellow Democrats.

[fskimospy]

It isn't. But these tropes that are constantly used are a lot like "blackface" for Jews. You wouldn't understand it if you had little knowledge of the history of anti-semitism any more than a white person with little knowledge of the history of racism in America understands blackface.

While I agree the 'sneaky Jews and their money paying people off' is absolutely a longtime racist trope used against Jews it does happen to be the case that Israel spends a pretty significant amount of money on US lawmakers for the express purpose of influencing their opinion. They certainly aren't alone in doing so but from my understanding (which isn't great and I'm open to being corrected), they spend money on lawmakers in larger amounts and more openly than the overwhelming majority of countries.

So while I get the whole concern about that slur in this case it appears to be literally true.

 

[Jhhnn]

It isn't racist, but I got yelled at for posting it here. Snowflake P&N...

An admin here also told me, "whites cannot be a victim of racism in this country." so... understand what you're dealing with.

Yeh, white people are so persecuted in America. And the swastika wasn't always a Nazi power symbol, either.

 

[realibrad]

This is cute coming from the guy who joins with Slow in finding some tiny thing that they can then generally attribute to 'the left.'

Mind explaining what that is? The last interaction I had with him was a disagreement. About the only thing I think I agree with him on is that cultural norms hold some people back.

 

[woolfe9998]

Well yeah but I just sort of assumed your reply was to the general topic. I never accused you of saying it personally.





It's hard for me to interpret these women being roundly criticized by liberals of all stripes as somehow being indicative of liberals' indifference to antisemitism. I'm very sure there are antisemites on the left but these people are pretty marginal figures - if you had given me their names and asked me who they were before reading this I couldn't have told you.

They're being criticized by some people on the left, yes. Yet the Women's March continues with those four as the leaders of the national organization. These are not obscure people.

From the WaPo article I linked, this is what Sarsour said in response to the controversy:

Tamika and I are women with our own agency. We speak for ourselves and ourselves alone. We are being stripped of our agency when every few months we are asked to condemn the Minister about words that we did not say, nonetheless the words of a man who did not consult us on his words,” Sarsour wrote.

The hypocrisy of this is nauseating. So every time someone is asked to condemn reprehensible statements by people they have repeatedly praised, they are being "stripped of their agency." Tamika Mallory called Farrakhan GOAT (Greatest of All Time) after attending a speech where he made vicious remarks about Jews.

How do they continue to lead the Women's March? If they were praising people with a history of racism against people of color or Muslims and were totally unrepentant about it, they would be gone.

 

[woolfe9998]

While I agree the 'sneaky Jews and their money paying people off' is absolutely a longtime racist trope used against Jews it does happen to be the case that Israel spends a pretty significant amount of money on US lawmakers for the express purpose of influencing their opinion. They certainly aren't alone in doing so but from my understanding (which isn't great and I'm open to being corrected), they spend money on lawmakers in larger amounts and more openly than the overwhelming majority of countries.

So while I get the whole concern about that slur in this case it appears to be literally true.

Let's just use facts and dollar values. Israel is third in spending on US lobbying as foreign nations go.

https://www.opensecrets.org/fara

I bet you didn't know that South Korea spends 70% more lobbying us than Israel. Neither did I until I googled up that link. No one cares.

Nor do they care that US based lobby groups spend 10x as much as any foreign country, and I'm talking about individual lobby groups, not the total of all.

https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?indexType=s

The US Chamber of Commerce alone spends 30 times what Israel spends, all to lobby for "pro-business" policies.

The trope is this: when money is in any way associated with Jews, its power to persuade is suddenly assumed to be verging on magical. One dollar of "Jewish money" is worth 10 dollars of gentile money when used to convince people to do bad things.

 

[Jhhnn]

I bet you didn't know that South Korea spends almost twice as much. Neither did I until I googled up that link. No one cares.

S Korea isn't running the world's largest concentration camp in Gaza. They're not expropriating the land & resources of another ethnic group, either.

 

[woolfe9998]

S Korea isn't running the world's largest concentration camp in Gaza. They're not expropriating the land & resources of another ethnic group, either.

Israel isn't running a "concentration camp" either. You are in bad need of a history lesson.

And again, you've missed the point and are trying to change the subject. My point is there is nothing special about the money spent by AIPAC. It's a pin prick compared to domestic lobbying efforts. The notion that we have strong support for Israel among pols in both parties being entirely or even mainly because of "AIPAC money" is ludicrous.

So why so much emphasis on this money? If it has nothing to do with anti-semitism then I have to wonder why it is that whenever anything involves Jews, suddenly the absolute power of money to change minds is beyond question.

Here's a novel idea. If you want to criticize Israel, criticize Israel. These process arguments having to do with money and supposed hypnotic powers aren't necessary. More to the point: these people can take their anti-semetic tropes and shove it.

 

[realibrad]

Let's just use facts and dollar values. Israel is third in spending on US lobbying as foreign nations go.

https://www.opensecrets.org/fara

I bet you didn't know that South Korea spends 70% more lobbying us than Israel. Neither did I until I googled up that link. No one cares.

Nor do they care that US based lobby groups spend 10x as much as any foreign country, and I'm talking about individual lobby groups, not the total of all.

https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?indexType=s

The US Chamber of Commerce alone spends 30 times what Israel spends, all to lobby for "pro-business" policies.

The trope is this: when money is in any way associated with Jews, its power to persuade is suddenly assumed to be verging on magical. One dollar of "Jewish money" is worth 10 dollars of gentile money when used to convince people to do bad things.

You can add this too.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/h...ainst-other-washington-influencers-2019-02-11

The pro-Israel lobby tends to donate more to Democrats than Republicans, having shown higher levels of giving to Democrats In every election cycle since 1990. That’s shown in the center’s chart above. Republicans had been getting a rising share of the contributions in this decade, scoring as much as 47% of pro-Israel interest groups’ money in the 2016 election cycle vs. Democrats’ 53% — up from only 28% for the GOP in 2002. But that trend abated in the 2018 cycle, with Republicans getting just 36% of the outlays.

 

[SlowSpyder]

Yeh, white people are so persecuted in America. And the swastika wasn't always a Nazi power symbol, either.

The left has instituted socially acceptable racism against white people, males in particular. You can laugh it off, but there is indeed white persecution in the name of affirmative action.

 

[fskimospy]

Let's just use facts and dollar values. Israel is third in spending on US lobbying as foreign nations go.

https://www.opensecrets.org/fara

I bet you didn't know that South Korea spends 70% more lobbying us than Israel. Neither did I until I googled up that link. No one cares.

1) Your numbers for South Korea reflect a one time surge in lobbying spending to defend a trade deal while Israel's lobbying spending is an ongoing, yearly expense. EDIT: I would love to see what place they come in when we look at the last 10 or 20 years. I suspect the answer is #1 or close to it despite being #34 in the world in GDP.
2) South Korea's GDP is roughly 500% of Israel's.
3) As per your link South Korea spent ~$50 million in 2017 (and this was very much reported on) and ~$5 million in 2018. Israel appears to spend about $15 million every year.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/when-donald-trump-won-south-korea-started-raining-cash-on-dc

So basically that one time surge of foreign influence by South Korea was STILL a smaller percentage of their GDP spent on lobbying the US government as compared to Israel in just a regular year.

Nor do they care that US based lobby groups spend 10x as much as any foreign country, and I'm talking about individual lobby groups, not the total of all.

https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?indexType=s

The US Chamber of Commerce alone spends 30 times what Israel spends, all to lobby for "pro-business" policies.

The trope is this: when money is in any way associated with Jews, its power to persuade is suddenly assumed to be verging on magical. One dollar of "Jewish money" is worth 10 dollars of gentile money when used to convince people to do bad things.

That is very, VERY untrue. People most certainly care about domestic lobbying organizations, the chamber of commerce included. I wonder if you googled the NRA and looked for pieces that talked about their undue influence how many you would find. An astronomical number I am sure. Regardless, Americans lobbying Americans is extremely different than foreign governments lobbying Americans.

 

[fskimospy]

Israel isn't running a "concentration camp" either. You are in bad need of a history lesson.

And again, you've missed the point and are trying to change the subject. My point is there is nothing special about the money spent by AIPAC. It's a pin prick compared to domestic lobbying efforts. The notion that we have strong support for Israel among pols in both parties being entirely or even mainly because of "AIPAC money" is ludicrous.

So why so much emphasis on this money? If it has nothing to do with anti-semitism then I have to wonder why it is that whenever anything involves Jews, suddenly the absolute power of money to change minds is beyond question.

Why are you comparing domestic lobbying efforts to foreign lobbying efforts? Domestic lobbying efforts represent the opinions of Americans about how America should be run. Israeli lobbying (and lobbying by any foreign government) represents how non-Americans think America should be run. The difference between the two is why we ban foreign campaign contributions and not domestic ones, after all.

Here's a novel idea. If you want to criticize Israel, criticize Israel. These process arguments having to do with money and supposed hypnotic powers aren't necessary. More to the point: these people can take their anti-semetic tropes and shove it.

Nobody is defending the supposed hypnotic powers of money. The idea that they are spending money to change minds should be utterly uncontroversial though. I'm sure they would freely admit as much, in fact.

 

[fskimospy]

They're being criticized by some people on the left, yes. Yet the Women's March continues with those four as the leaders of the national organization. These are not obscure people.

From the WaPo article I linked, this is what Sarsour said in response to the controversy:

The hypocrisy of this is nauseating. So every time someone is asked to condemn reprehensible statements by people they have repeatedly praised, they are being "stripped of their agency." Tamika Mallory called Farrakhan GOAT (Greatest of All Time) after attending a speech where he made vicious remarks about Jews.

How do they continue to lead the Women's March? If they were praising people with a history of racism against people of color or Muslims and were totally unrepentant about it, they would be gone.

Oh to be clear I don't think they should. I also don't think many people care who the co-chairs of the Women's March are.

 

[SlowSpyder]

While I think what she said in the OP isn't the worst thing and could be seen as valid criticism, I do think she has an anti-Semitic streak.

"Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel. #Gaza #Palestine #Israel"

https://twitter.com/x/status/269488770066313216

If a conservative lawmaker said something about a shithole country hypnotizing the world, said they are evil, and asked for the christian god to intervene, that lawmaker would be front headlines in all the liberal press. The left really elected a turd here, their own leftist Steve King.

 

[zinfamous]

I know that. What does that change?

your entire failed analogy.

 

[woolfe9998]

1) Your numbers for South Korea reflect a one time surge in lobbying spending to defend a trade deal while Israel's lobbying spending is an ongoing, yearly expense. EDIT: I would love to see what place they come in when we look at the last 10 or 20 years. I suspect the answer is #1 or close to it despite being #34 in the world in GDP.
2) South Korea's GDP is roughly 500% of Israel's.
3) As per your link South Korea spent ~$50 million in 2017 (and this was very much reported on) and ~$5 million in 2018. Israel appears to spend about $15 million every year.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/when-donald-trump-won-south-korea-started-raining-cash-on-dc

So basically that one time surge of foreign influence by South Korea was STILL a smaller percentage of their GDP spent on lobbying the US government as compared to Israel in just a regular year.



That is very, VERY untrue. People most certainly care about domestic lobbying organizations, the chamber of commerce included. I wonder if you googled the NRA and looked for pieces that talked about their undue influence how many you would find. An astronomical number I am sure. Regardless, Americans lobbying Americans is extremely different than foreign governments lobbying Americans.

In principle, no, I don't think it's that different. It may be different if someone is literally doing the bidding of a foreign government in exchange for illegally stealing data and interfering in an election. As with Trump and Russia. If it's ordinary lobbying, the implications in terms of corruption are about the same.

Yet the scale of it is not. Does anyone think the US Chamber of Commerce is largely responsible for conservative attitudes toward taxes and regulations? That is a function of so many different people and organizations, including conservative pundits and TV personalities. USCOC is just a cog in that machine. Yet it spends 30 fold what AIPAC spends.

Money isn't why so many people support Israel. Someone else said it already - we instinctively support other democracies and people we perceive as being more like us. We may overlook flaws and even misdeeds. Yet we don't need to posit money spent on lobbying to explain it.

AIPAC money isn't even 1% of total money spent on lobbying here. The total amount is a serious concern, but one tiny portion of it doesn't have any more power than any other tiny portion of it just because it happens to be linked to Jews, er, excuse me, Israel.

 

[HomerJS]

Yup, while I think what she said in the OP isn't the worst thing and could be seen as valid criticism, I do think she has an anti-Semitic streak.

"Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel. #Gaza #Palestine #Israel"

https://twitter.com/x/status/269488770066313216

If a conservative lawmaker said something about a shithole country hypnotizing the world, said they are evil, and asked for the christian god to intervene, that lawmaker would be front headlines in all the liberal press. The left really elected a turd here, their own leftist Steve King.

Odd because this story made headlines in all the major media. Your pea brain is unable to discern facts from paranoid rhetoric.

 

[SlowSpyder]

Odd because this story made headlines in all the major media. Your pea brain is unable to discern facts from paranoid rhetoric.

Leftists elected a bigot. Own it.

 

[HomerJS]

Leftists elected a bigot. Own it.

Pretty much the same as this and he's in GOP leadership. Its' her first offense, Steve King was on his 30th. When she catches up we'll talk

 

[Amused]

It isn't racist, but I got yelled at for posting it here. Snowflake P&N...

An admin here also told me, "whites cannot be a victim of racism in this country." so... understand what you're dealing with.

Racism:

prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior.

Sorry, skippy, but minorities sick of whites thinking they're better is not racism. Minorities resentful of racism is not racism. Minorities resentful of the majority race is not racism.

"I know you are but what am I" is not a valid argument.

And when icons and symbols become widely used by racists to identify each other and troll their victims, that symbol is now racist.

Examples: The swastika, a noose, pointy white ghost outfits, Pepe the frog, the confederate flag, the SS symbol, the Iron Cross and 14/88.

White powder puffs have also busily been turning a lot of norse mythology symbols into racist symbols as well.

This is just a short list. Kinda like the bus you came in on.

 

[fskimospy]

In principle, no, I don't think it's that different. It may be different if someone is literally doing the bidding of a foreign government in exchange for illegally stealing data and interfering in an election. As with Trump and Russia. If it's ordinary lobbying, the implications in terms of corruption are about the same.

I disagree. There is a fundamental right enshrined in the Constitution expressly to enable US citizens to lobby the government in support of their interests. There are very strict prohibitions for the latter precisely because we don't view them as the same thing. And to be clear, I hate lobbying in all its forms. To say they aren't different though assumes that domestic US groups are no more interested in the well being of Americans and America than foreign governments are. I think that's wrong.

Yet the scale of it is not. Does anyone think the US Chamber of Commerce is largely responsible for conservative attitudes toward taxes and regulations? That is a function of so many different people and organizations, including conservative pundits and TV personalities. USCOC is just a cog in that machine. Yet it spends 30 fold what AIPAC spends.

As others have pointed out though it's not like linking Israel's influence to money is anything special for liberals. I mean why do they think so many states enact shitty policies? Koch brothers money! Why do we have bad gun laws? NRA money! Why are taxes so low on billionaires? Dark money! Blaming things liberals don't like on the corrupting power of money isn't unique to Israel, it's kind of the left's jam.

Money isn't why so many people support Israel. Someone else said it already - we instinctively support other democracies and people we perceive as being more like us. We may overlook flaws and even misdeeds. Yet we don't need to posit money spent on lobbying to explain it.

I totally agree! As I said before I don't think money is the primary or even the secondary reason why Americans tend to support Israel. Israel clearly believes it plays an important part though or they wouldn't do it.

AIPAC money isn't even 1% of total money spent on lobbying here. The total amount is a serious concern, but one tiny portion of it doesn't have any more power than any other tiny portion of it just because it happens to be linked to Jews, er, excuse me, Israel.

Again though, if we look at its place in terms of lobbying by foreign governments it looms very large and I think comparing it to domestic sources of influence is a mistake. In practice Israel really does commit a way larger amount of funding to lobbying than nearly any other country (potentially ALL other countries) despite not being a particularly large or economically powerful one.

If not to influence US policy in a friendly direction then why do they do this? Again, I don't think this is a controversial idea for ANY country. That's what lobbyists do!

 

[SlowSpyder]

Pretty much the same as this and he's in GOP leadership. Its' her first offense, Steve King was on his 30th. When she catches up we'll talk

And this will probably be the third or fourth time I'll be saying it in this thread... I don't think the tweet about buying politicians is necessarily out of bounds. But, her history and the tweet I just posted to me suggest bigotry, and I think it would be tough to pretend she isn't anti-Semitic.

 

[fskimospy]

Leftists elected a bigot. Own it.

lol you voted for a guy who said someone couldn't judge his case because he was a Mexican.

 

[Amused]

And this will probably be the third or fourth time I'll be saying it in this thread... I don't think the tweet about buying politicians is necessarily out of bounds. But, her history and the tweet I just posted to me suggest bigotry, and I think it would be tough to pretend she isn't anti-Semitic.

Says the guy who thinks the Unite the Right marchers were "very fine people" and pepe the frog is not racist.

Dude. We get it. You're concerned.

 

[SlowSpyder]

Racism:

prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior.

Sorry, skippy, but minorities sick of whites thinking they're better is not racism. Minorities resentful of racism is not racism. Minorities resentful of the majority race is not racism.

"I know you are but what am I" is not a valid argument.

And when icons and symbols become widely used by racists to identify each other and troll their victims, that symbol is now racist.

Examples: The swastika, a noose, pointy white ghost outfits, Pepe the frog, the confederate flag, the SS symbol, the Iron Cross and 14/88.

White powder puffs have also busily been turning a lot of norse mythology symbols into racist symbols as well.

This is just a short list. Kinda like the bus you came in on.

It is about as racist as the three point sign in basketball (another brilliant never-Trump'er trying to manufacture racism). You leftist cucks build the racism part, create it where there was none. It is all about creating the victim. You are the real racists today.


More on idiot leftists running with the three point sign being Nazism... so stupid.

 

[woolfe9998]

Why are you comparing domestic lobbying efforts to foreign lobbying efforts? Domestic lobbying efforts represent the opinions of Americans about how America should be run. Israeli lobbying (and lobbying by any foreign government) represents how non-Americans think America should be run. The difference between the two is why we ban foreign campaign contributions and not domestic ones, after all.

No, all lobbyists represent special interests as opposed to the broad national interest. Some people agree with the positions of some of these lobbyists. Some people are also pro-Israel. Most are, actually, according to polls.

Many US lobbyists are taking stances which are very unpopular and/or quite injurious to the general public. See the list? Exxon - promoted global warming denial and argues for unrestricted drilling and fracking. Check. Big pharma wanting to continue fleecing the public on its drug prices? Check. Telecoms lobbying to be allowed to invade our privacy for profit? Check. Defense contractors? Check.

Lobbying and all other forms of monetary influence on our politics are a serious systemic problem. Israel's contribution to it isn't somehow special because it comes from a foreign country. It certainly has less chance to influence people and pols given that its expenditures are on a different order of magnitude. Unless you subscribe to the notion that $1 if there's is equivalent to $10 from Exxon or Comcast.

Nobody is defending the supposed hypnotic powers of money. The idea that they are spending money to change minds should be utterly uncontroversial though. I'm sure they would freely admit as much, in fact.

Sure, so too are SO many other people and organizations. Like you said, it's what lobbyists do. But that isn't the point of contention. The point of contention is why this AIPAC money looms so large as a causative factor. I don't think the case has been made.