About something I wrote on many moons ago. That is, the idea that for the Left there is no humanity, only demographic groups. And your value, your believability, your suffering, your place on the pyramid depends on if your demographic group is the group du jour or not. Which means is it the one, at this moment, most able to shoot holes in the heritage of the Western Tradition? I wrote about this little development within the Left some years ago. You can read it here.
Ms. Eden appears shocked that so many would accuse Israel of the hospital bombing. Heck, I'm shocked so few did. Jews are important for trotting out endless stories of antisemitism and Jewish hate throughout Western and American history. Ms. Eden herself has embarked on a crusade to focus on antisemitism in the Church, in our leaders, in our forebears, in anyone White, Christian, preferably male. To the Left, people like Ms. Eden, who are willing to keep the focus the West's sins, are the good Jews. Just like blacks who go all BLM or radical anti-patriarchal feminists. Anyone who helps tear down the foundations of the Christian Western Democratic tradition is A-OK.
Ah, but sticky point. Israel is seen as a love child of that vile imperialistic, colonizing West. In the minds of a growing number on the Left, the State of Israel is as bad as the Nazi Confederacy. Plus, being not Western means innocent, pure, virtuous, victim. Hence even our president is careful to say 'Bad boys you Hamas people' and insist Palestinians are not the problem. Despite Palestinian protests at best fully supporting and sanctioning what Hamas has done. At worst, they have made it clear they want to see more of it, with at least a couple such protests sporting signs along the lines of 'gas the Jews.' How many times that happened I don't know. The press has quickly stopped mentioning such things. Compare that to Charlottesville, which is still trotted out by the press at least every couple months as proof that defenders of America's heritage equal White Nationalist.
Of course it isn't as easy as 'bad Hamas, bad Israel, beautiful Palestinians'. A sane non-21st Century thinker would realize this taps into that ages old rift between Arabs and Jews that saw its own brand of bigotry and racism long before Bismarck decided to make Germany a thing. Instead, it's an inconvenient challenge to the narrative that, as bad as Hamas is, Israel and everyone in it is worse because of the evil West.
That is part of the overall narrative that Ms. Eden clearly accepts. If not about Israel, then about the unique and singular evils of anything west of the Urals. Despite accepting these narratives, she appears shocked that they are applied even when you think they shouldn't be. Like when more Jews were killed in a single day than any time since the Holocaust, yet let's just have a polite discussion and not jump to conclusions. Unless it's assuming Israel is the bad guy of course. If you live by the leftwing sword, be prepared to die by it when you or what you cherish is no longer convenient.
BTW, I was going to post a photo from one of the protests where the horrible 'gas the Jews' signs were held up. You know what? I searched hundreds of images in various news outlets and on Google, and could find none. The closest I came to anything suggesting it happened at all was this:
I should have copied the pictures when I saw them. Our ministry of censorship and propaganda at work.
Again Ms. Eden, get used to it. You matter when your various group identities can bring down the Western tradition, including its democratic and Judeo-Christian roots. As long as you do that, you're good. Most valuable player and all. But the minute you don't, as we see here, people who are about aiding in the destruction of the West will be given carte blanche over your interests in a fast heartbeat. If they chant 'gas the Jews', we'll do our best to insist to cover our ears and just move on. And we'll do it because you have no more worth for the Left as a Jewish woman than you would as a woman opposing sharing the bathroom with Trans men, or if you were black, being a black conservative. It's the side you've chosen. Get used to it.
UPDATE:
Wow. So I was informed that the comments at the link to Mark's blog tell the tale:
Note that. Nothing at all about the Palestinians who chanted support for Hamas, or called for more of what Hamas gave. We won't even discuss the explicit calls in pro-Palestine rallies for more slaughter because the victims were Jewish. Just ignore the slaughter and the hatred of Jews, and attack Trump/MAGA. All of this is as good as saying it's not the slaughter of Jews we mind so much, but that their slaughter can be exploited to attack our hated political enemies.
This is the result of that evil tendency of only caring about human misery when it can be exploited that I've been pounding the pulpit about all these years. And it isn't just at Mark's site. Send me examples of politicians, pundits, journalists or even Christian leaders who have called out those Palestinians who cheered on the slaughter and demonstrated hatred of Jews, as opposed to simply framing it as 'bad Israel/bad Hamas/beautiful Palestinians.' The narrative is already that deep.
BTW, the video Mark links to is an Al Jazeera affiliated video that explains it's only MAGA Trump supporters who are a threat to Jews. In a sane world that is the last thing I'd link to after the horrific slaughter of innocent Israeli Jews. But sanity is one of the first casualties of the anti-Western Left.
Sometimes I feel like Simon in that scene of Firefly: "This must be what going mad feels like."
ReplyDeleteTrump was literally one of the most pro-Israel & Jew presidents of the last 50 years. Besides having literal in-laws and grandchildren that are Jewish. Moving the embassy to Jerusalem, brokering peace deals in the middle east...
He's the threat/anti-semite, not the people literally killing Jews or chanting "gas the jews" or....
It's a cult. A literal cult where doctrine is more important than facts.
That's a leftwing trick. Failure of a white conservative Republican Westerner to be better than God means he's Hitler. Being a not-white non-Westerner who wants Jews slaughtered, more Israelis slaughtered, and nations destroyed means white conservative Republican Westerners are Hitler. It's a fairly easy formula to memorize, so not sure what the problem is.
DeleteWhen it comes to Mark specifically, this is a tactic he's deployed for a long time.
DeleteA celebrity would hear results from Pope Francis and convince themselves that the Church would allow gay marriage (even though one thing that Pope Francis has been clear on is that this will never happen.) Mark would then talk about how while the celebrity might have a flawed view of the Church, this represented a first small step towards the truth which we should be grateful for. We should support the celebrity as much as possible no matter how many dogmas of the Church that they want to overturn, since their hearts are undoubtably in the right place.
But then a traditionalist Catholic would (horror of horrors) defend the traditional teaching on the death penalty, a teaching which Mark claimed to support. He would go off on tirades about how the traditionalists cannot be supporting the teaching because it is right, but instead is motivated by bloodlust and a desire to exterminate all who oppose them. He said this sort of nonsense even in direct response to the likes of Edward Feser stating his position calmly and with plenty of support. Part of Mark's argument was that traditionalists should know better, and thus are obligated to not only get everything right, but to also have perfect motivations and to say things that couldn't get misinterpreted or scare potential converts off.
In short, leftist celebrities only needed to say that they didn't completely hate the Church to get Mark's full support, while traditionalists could agree with every one of his stated positions and still receive his ire.
From the beginning, Mark was plagued by a tendency towards favoritism, hypocrisy and projection. That's a nasty combination, and sets the stage for such radically inconsistent treatment of people. Of course he's not the only one to use the 'to those who have been given much' excuse to beat those who don't get in line. Some could think today you're better off being a non-believer since there is little in the way of leeway for the believer to be anything but in perfect conformity. But I don't think most who pull this trick are terribly worried about that implication.
DeleteKenofken is a liar or a kook. It's fitting he's one of Shea's acolytes. The only segment of 'conservative Catholics' who are antagonistic to Jews qua Jews is a subset of those on the masthead and subscription rolls of The Remnant, The Wanderer, and Catholic Family News. Unless things have changed dramatically of late, the Joobabble in those publications consists of odd little asides.
ReplyDeleteYeah, whoever Kenofken is, the individual laps up what Mark spills whenever he goes crazy leftist. He's one who defines partisan tribalism. To the right - Nazi. Otherwise, the beautiful people (or simply ignore).
DeleteYep. Mark Shea is clueless. I have a sister-in-law who is/was jewish, and a niece and nephews whom I love dearly. But since I loath George Soros, who is/was jewish, I must therefore want my own family deported. Mark is too stupid to understand that I loath Soros because of his POLITICS, not because of his ancestry. The same reason I loath Mark Shea, who shares my ethnicity.
ReplyDeleteFrom the beginning, Mark had a nasty tendency toward hypocrisy, projection and favoritism. Those things are bad, and make such a partisan trick all too easy. Time and again, he will accuse critics of a Jewish donor like Soros, or an African American, or a woman, or 'designated minority group', as motivated purely by racism, antisemitism, sexism, whatever. But then he will turn and blast conservative (or even non-leftist) women, blacks, Jews, whoever and declare it's for the purest reasons. Seeing him so easily use such a naked hypocritical tactic, it's easy to see why Jesus was so tough on hypocrisy.
DeleteSome people saw the logical endgame and woke up from woke.
ReplyDeleteMore buried their heads in the sand and looked for old foes to beat up--Mark, the ADL. A British Jew took the ADL to the woodshed for focusing on the usual safe nobody hillbilly Jew-haters instead of going after the university presidents who enabled some horrid stuff, post 10/7.
But the most worrisome part is how many decided to put the pedal to the metal.
The brink seems a lot closer now.
The above comment was by me. Google is a pain in the tuchus with comments.
DeleteIn fairness, if we watch how women who accuse liberal Democrats, or black conservatives have been treated in the past, this shouldn't surprise us. Heck, remember the Occupy Wall Street protesters who were finally swept under the carpet in light of the growing number of digs against Jewish people on Wall Street. The idea that racism, bigotry, sexism and evil exist only in red states with white people wearing MAGA hats is as stupid as any speech from the 1930s Reichstag. The amazing thing at this point isn't watching someone like Mark do what's easy to predict he'll do. It's watching those who know better look down, shuffle their feet, avoid the obvious, and keep the narrative with 'it's a shame, both sides now, give peace a chance, racism in some abstraction is always wrong, but let's not name names.' Again, they are the mischief makers here.
Delete(Tom New Poster)
DeleteFascism and Nazism both had solid roots in the 19th century European academies, which infection was passed on to our own (and how virulently I would have to examine the history to determine). They didn't slither out of the gutter. The first treatise on "scientific racism" was published by a French minister of education named Gobineau, and it was racist academics alongside the Klan that the Knights of Columbus fought in the "eugenics wars" of the early 20th century. As Von Balthasar observed: utopianism rejects special claims i.e inherent rights, which is why it turns totalitarian and attacks Jews, Catholics and the family. "The educated" supported mass murder then as they support it know (at least in abortion).
Tom, I think that is a point often lost, or even denied. I saw a special about the rise of Nazi Germany some years ago. To see it, the Nazis barely had a 1st grade education between them. A bunch of dumb barbarians. Which is sometimes the way things are presented today. The problems are always the dumb people. Let our educated experts run the show, and all will be well. Even a sympathetic appraisal of their effectiveness over the last few generations should call that into question. Never mind studying the actual history of the events over the last century.
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