The End of the Jewish Left

By EmmaZahn on Mon, 05/21/2012 - 2:38pm |

The problem for the left today is that it has gone over largely—but not, Geras and others insisted, wholly—to the negative view of Judaism as an obstacle to human progress. Israel, Geras held, “has been an alibi for a new climate of anti-Semitism on the left,” a development whose full venomousness can only be seen in Europe. (“I don’t think people here realize,” he said mournfully, “what it’s like to be a Jewish leftist in Britain today,” comparing it to living in a sea of poison.) This is the atmosphere that the Anglo-Jewish novelist Howard Jacobson evoked so powerfully in his recent novel The Finkler Question: one in which hostility to Israel is a reflex and insinuations about Jewish power and the “Jewish lobby” go unchallenged.

If the left in Europe and, increasingly, the United States is so hospitable to anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic ideas, what does that mean for the future of “Jews and the Left”? Michael Walzer explained the historical Jewish affinity for the left as a straightforward matter: “We have supported the people who support us.” The historical insights of the “Jews and the Left” conference suggested that things were never so simple—or mutual. So, when that basic equation no longer holds—if the left are no longer “the people who support us”—will we continue to support them? The “rising generation” of the left will contain its share of Jews, maybe even more than its share; but whether it will be a Jewish left, as it was in the past, is very much in doubt.

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http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/books/99711/the-end-of-the-jewish-left?all=1

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It's become a stress, and it's been painful, to say the least, from my perspective. But I don't think it will change my voting patterns, my professional life, or the causes I believe in. In the aggregate, I'm not so sure what will happen. Seems to me that the cost of admission is to leave certain things at the door. That's just my experience of course.

by Bruce Levine on Mon, 05/21/2012 - 3:23pm

I'll admit that I thought of you when I read this article. There are many Jews in my personal circle of lefties (although probably more than half of them are atheist/agnostic Jews), so the idea of anti-Semitism being compatible with liberalism seems foreign to me. As I've stated before, I don't follow Israeli issues much, and most of what I hear of Israel, including criticism, comes from these lefty Jewish friends, so I also completely separate Israel criticism with anti-Semitism. (I should stress that the Israeli criticism is not overly harsh, either.) Regardless of my personal experiences, I'm aware that other people's personal circles (possibly including yours) are different. It pains me to hear that, because I really think we should be respective of other people's religion and culture—and being Jewish can be one, the other, or both, of course.

by Verified Atheist on Mon, 05/21/2012 - 4:29pm

Just to clarify, I'm not accusing anyone in my circle(s) of anti-semitism by any stretch of the imagination. To the contrary, I don't think that's the case. But I do understand that, in most cases, the subject of Israel, which I consider important and part of my essence, is something I don't discuss with most of my peers, including Jewish folks to my left and right. I guess that's why I've spent so much time on the internet in the past on this issue. And to the extent that an issue that is important to me is taboo so to speak, it is painful.

by Bruce Levine on Mon, 05/21/2012 - 4:52pm

This is the atmosphere that the Anglo-Jewish novelist Howard Jacobson evoked so powerfully in his recent novel The Finkler Question: one in which hostility to Israel is a reflex and insinuations about Jewish power and the “Jewish lobby” go unchallenged.

This really surprised me, having read the book a couple months ago and not seeing it in that way at all. I just saw it as a funny portrayal of Jewishness that used a non-Jew who was a friend to a couple Jews as a vehicle to tell a humorous story about Jews and about being Jewish. I came away thinking I had learned a little of what Treslove had learned.

Treslove decided he might actually be a Jew, but that even if not he definitely wanted to be a Jew, and tried to learn enough to become one, but his real motivation was to understand what being Jewish meant. His two Jewish friends had intrigued him for all the years that he knew them. Hostility towards Jews did not seem to be a major point at all, although it was not completely overlooked. The hostility was not what the book was about. At least I do not think so.

So, I wondered if I had missed something significant to the story. I googled the title and read the first two reviews. Sure enough, the first one seemed to think it was all about anti semitism. The second reviewer, though, saw it in a very different way and mentioned anti semitism in only one sentence at the very end of his review.

I am away from home with other things to do right now but I will probably revisit this to try to satisfy my own curiosity about why different people see this story in such significantly different ways.

by LULU (not verified) on Mon, 05/21/2012 - 11:07pm

Once upon a time, to me to be Jewish meant to be a great writer, or somehow in the arts and sciences, or a great thinker. Now it's about politics, and seldom about US politics or world politics, but only about Israeli politics.

Of course that reflects in part my smaller library and limited internet reading, but possibly an element of what's happening in Jewish culture too.

By the way, Adam Yauch died.

by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 1:26am

I know this is a good faith comment, and I take it that way. I can assure you, for what it's worth, that Judaism was never just about great writing or thinking, or the arts or the sciences. And it is hardly just about politics now, although rightly or wrongly the re-establishment of a Jewish national presence in the Land of Israel and on the heels of the Holocaust after 2,000 years brings a focus on politics.

But there is so much more about Judaism and who we are. In my family, Daughter number one, who studied in Senegal (90 percent muslim) and majored in French, does media and public relations for a Japanese museum and gardens in Florida. Daughter number two is also fluent in French, not Hebrew or Yiddish, and is in communications. And son, who graduates next month, heads to a Mexican state on a Fulbright in Chiapas, where there is not a single synagogue in the entire state and the number of Jews are a handful. While all of his friends--Jews and non-Jews, enter law school, or medical school, or business consulting, or investment banking, he'll return from Mexico and teach non-Jewish kids for two years in Newark, New Jersey with the Teach for America program. There Mom is a dietician, and serves the poor as a county employee. Daughter number 3, who is five, shares a special needs kindergarten class, with more colors and ethnicities than you will see in any rainbow coalition. And their Dad--well you know him and perhaps that's fostered your impression. And we're all Jewish and I can assure you that even their atheistic Mom has been influenced accordingly.

There's Jewish crooks too. Thankfully, I think, none in my family. But some of us still write and win prizes in the sciences and humanities and stuff. We're complex, just like the rest of humanity.

And, for what it's worth, my understanding of Judaism has barely scratched the surface--and that is the indisputable and, for me, a real tragedy in my life. Truth be told, the tragedy was set in place at the age of six or so, when the price of being different than the other kids who celebrated Christmas was too much for me to handle. And I am not alone on that score I can assure you of that. I never gave what my descendants adhered to for centuries the remotest chance. And that's infinitely more painful than this union lawyer's inability to completely fit in and be a part of the American left.

by Bruce Levine on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 6:55am

My understanding of the Beastie Boys has barely scratched the surface. We're all white wannabee gangstas now....

by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 7:01am

by Bruce Levine on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 7:02am

Wow, Bruce. You're raising an incredible family! Shepping nachas, much?

by Peter Schwartz on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 8:21am

Truth be told, the tragedy was set in place at the age of six or so, when the price of being different than the other kids who celebrated Christmas was too much for me to handle. And I am not alone on that score I can assure you of that.

Apologies in advance for the rant but the just pushed me over the edge:

Poor, poor pitiful ~~you~~ y'all

I really must share my most Jewish boss' favorite and often quoted punchline: "So you had a bad day, I should suffer?"

The happiest of goy holidays, one specifically celebrating good will, made you feel bad and scarred you for life? Please. What probably scarred you was the reaction of the adults to it or maybe to your desire to be a part of it. What? No happy Jewish holidays? Well, now you have Hanukkah likely because of kids like you. That's the bright side. Look at it from time to time.

You really should read Irving Kristol's essay in which he shares his memories of growing up Jewish in a Christian nation. That part is behind Azure's pay wall now but here is an excerpt.

It is a fairly extraordinary story when one stops to think about it. In the decades after World War II, as anti-Semitism declined precipitously, and as Jews moved massively into the mainstream of American life, the official Jewish organizations took advantage of these new circumstances to prosecute an aggressive campaign against any public recognition, however slight, of the fact that most Americans are Christian. It is not that the leaders of the Jewish organizations were anti-religious. Most of the Jewish advocates of a secularized “public square” were themselves members of Jewish congregations. They believed, in all sincerity, that religion should be the private affair of the individual. Religion belonged in the home, in the church and synagogue, and nowhere else. And they believed in this despite the fact that no society in history has ever acceded to the complete privatization of a religion embraced by the overwhelming majority of its members. The truth, of course, is that there is no way that religion can be obliterated from public life when 95 percent of the population is Christian. There is no way of preventing the Christian holidays, for instance, from spilling over into public life. But again, before World War II, there were practically no Jews who cared about such things. I went to a public school, where the children sang carols at Christmastime. Even among those Jews who sang them, I never knew a single one who was drawn to the practice of Christianity by them. Sometimes, the schools sponsored Nativity plays, and the response of the Jews was simply not to participate in them. There was no public “issue” until the American Civil Liberties Union—which is financed primarily by Jews—arrived on the scene with the discovery that Christmas carols and pageants were a violation of the Constitution. As a matter of fact, our Jewish population in the United States believed in this so passionately that when the Supreme Court, having been prodded by the ACLU, ruled it unconstitutional for the Ten Commandments to be displayed in a public school, the Jewish organizations found this ruling unobjectionable. People who wanted their children to know about the Ten Commandments could send their children to heder.

Since there was a powerful secularizing trend among American Christians after World War II, there was far less outrage over all this than one might have anticipated. The Jewish campaign against any suggestion that America was a Christian nation won one battle after another; eventually it made sufficient headway in the media and the legal profession—most importantly on the Supreme Court—that today there is widespread popular acceptance of the belief that this kind of secularism, which is tolerant of religion only so long as it is practiced privately and very discreetly, was indigenously and authoritatively “American,” and had always been so. Of course, it has not always been so, and Americans have always thought of themselves as a Christian nation—one with a secular government, which was equally tolerant of all religions so long as they were congruent with traditional Judeo-Christian morality. But equal toleration under the law never meant perfect equality of status in fact. Christianity is not the legally established religion in the United States, but it is established informally, nevertheless. And in the past forty years, this informal establishment in American society has grown more secure, even as the legal position of religion in public life has been attenuated. In this respect, the United States differs markedly from the democracies of Western Europe, where religion continues steadily to decline and is regarded as an anachronism grudgingly tolerated. In the United States, religion is more popular today than it was in the 1960s, and its influence is growing, so the difference between the United States and Europe becomes more evident with every passing year. Europeans are baffled and a little frightened by the religious revival in America, while Americans take the continuing decline of religion in Europe as just another symptom of European decadence.

You really should read the whole thing. Maybe your synagogue has a subscription key if you don't already.

by EmmaZahn on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 9:57am

Whoa! Emma!

You must've required two big wagons to pull this much horseshit to market.

So let's take a look, shall we?

Stepping back, let's ask: What is the point of Kristol's "argument"? That Jews have attempted to efface Christianity from the public life of this nation...and failed.

And somehow you, Emma, feel you "suffered" because this effort, begun long ago, failed an equally long time ago?

I don't know. Can't really tell what your point is except that, somehow, Bruce's description of how he felt as a kid pissed you off.

But never fear! Even Irving says Christians have grown more secure in their dominance over the past 40 years.

So if you are Christian, and you feel Jews have shunted you into a corner, know that you've won the battle and the Godfather of the Neocons has your back.

But hey, if you feel you've been put upon by the 3% of the population who've failed to take over society, I'M ALL EARS. Please don't hold back.

by Peter Schwartz on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 12:25pm

Peter,

You are a sweet man to come to my defense. There are many things I would say in response to Emma, beginning with the fact that she has a Jewish boss so she knows her shit, and her recommendation to me that I learn from what the father of neo-conservatism has to say. No thanks.

You correctly note that I was honest about how I "rebelled" as a six year-old, and how it impacted on my decision to pursue a more secular way of life. I didn't know that that would be construed as hating X-Mas for heaven's sake.

I grew up in Patchogue, New York, one of few Jews, and for the most part my closest friends remain the non-Jewish kids I grew up with. I wouldn't trade my love for them for anything. I was always over Russell's house early in the morning on X-mas to open his and my presents. And my mom and dad came later on in the day to share in the festivities, and fonder memories I have none.

If Emma weren't so, respectfully, insensitive, I might tell her that one of the things I am most proud of is that I was raised by two people who never, ever judged anyone by their race, religion, wealth, etc. So Emma's stereotype of me on the basis of my confession of a six year-old is particularly curious.

How about this anecdote? When my son was a sophomore in high school, we signed him up to travel to England with the high school chorus. The organized Jewish community went nuts because the kids were going to be singing religious songs in Anglican churches during Passover (it was spring break). I showed up at the town hall meeting and told every single person opposing this trip that they should be ashamed of themselves. And I went further. I was advising my rabbi professionally at the time because he was having a dispute with my synagogue that Emma referred to with snark. I told the rabbi if he didn't back off I would no longer represent him. He didn't back off and I withdrew my representation of him. And, you know what, I missed Todd at Seder that year--hope that doesn't offend Emma.

And I have vivid memories of being 6 and rebelling because in my rebellion I brought my grandmother of blessed memory to tears. It took me some time to figure out why she cried. Her entire family, except for one sister and brother, had been liquidated only twenty years before--because they were Jewish. And here was her beloved grandson--with all of the privileges of an American middle class kid-- rebelling against being Jewish.

Perhaps Emma is offended that I just brought up the Holocaust. Guess how much I care.

Bruce S. Levine

New York, New York

by Bruce Levine on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 1:16pm

I grew up in Weston, Connecticut, a bedroom suburb of New York. There were a number of Jews there, all very secular and working in law and media, etc.

It was the classic New England town with white church steeples. No synagogues except one, eventually, one town over.

My parents, while culturally very Jewish, were completely secular. For example, we never attended services; I never had a bar mitzvah.

At some point, I learned I was a Jew, but that was the sole data point. I didn't know what it meant, but for some reason I was glad I was it.

However, I had strong spiritual leanings. So while my friends were forced to go to Sunday school and complained, I actually LIKED the minister and once even had dinner at his house.

Since he was the only spiritual person I knew, I asked him about converting at one point. Since he was a true Christian, he told me I should be a good Jew instead. But he didn't tell me what that meant, and I didn't know.

Fast forward to Georgetown University where, on my freshman hall, I meet this guy who tells me I have to be a Zionist because I may need to escape there one day to save my life. For someone who'd grown up among the gently rolling hills of Connecticut in a town that resembled nothing so much as Brigadoon, this was the strangest thing I'd ever heard in my life.

Nonetheless, it sparked something in my Jewish soul, and I caromed off of that to become part of the chavura movement in the early to mid-1970s. The group I belonged to was called Fabrangen and for some years went to services Friday and Saturday. You may have heard of one of its members, Arthur Waskow who has gone on to do many things.

In terms of my informal Jewish education, which is all I've ever had, I went from 0 to 60 in a few years, learning to read Hebrew and many other things. At a certain point, I left that path, or drifted away from it, and stopped going to services. I never did keep kosher, so that didn't change. And I've still never been to Israel.

My broad family is mostly secular, however, I do have cousins in B'nai Brak. A family of scribes. And I have one great cousin who is a nun in the order of Sion, a small order begun in the 1850s or so by two Jewish brothers who converted. I had one relative who became Satmar after his family was wiped out in the war.

(Benush had been secular as were many Hungarian Jews. He played violin and came back late from a gig to find every house in his neighborhood empty. He gave up secularism for the religious life, but never married.)

Recently, like in the last month, I've started studying, or trying to study, the Steinsaltz Talmud with the long-distance help of Rabbi Judith Abrams, who is a great soul, IMO. I'm also thinking (in my spare time-:) of going back to the clarinet to study klezmer, but who knows if I'll ever get to it.

I think you grew up in a much more Jewish household than I did. Sometimes I regret I didn't get the "learning" I could've gotten at a younger age. But...

by Peter Schwartz on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 2:18pm

Peter,

I will try to respond later. Just got to the Marine Air Terminal at LGA (best place to get a flight in the Big Apple). Funny thing, if you've ever been here you know there's a passageway to the gates where there are a bunch of free magazines for passengers to take. Commentary (Kristol's baby) was on the shelf. I passed it up. :)

Your story is interesting, really. Have to chat another time. On to Chicago, a day or two late I guess!

by Bruce Levine on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 2:49pm

Didn't bother to actually read the essay did you, Peter? Obviously did not really read what I wrote either. That's okay. Knee-jerk reaction to knee-jerk reaction, I guess. At least I acknowledged mine and put my apology upfront.

At this point of my life, I can honestly say I dislike of all the Abrahamic religions, just not equally. In that sibling rivalry contest, I guess I do prefer the red-headed stepchild Protestant culture that is my own. You know, the one that was weary enough after 300 years of holy war to set up their brand spanking new government guaranteeing separation of church and state.

See more below. I guess I have to go answer Genghis now.

by EmmaZahn on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 1:30pm

No, Emma, one thing I do do is read the articles people post. You can see my comments below.

I have to say your post is one of the cruelest I've seen in a while--not just nasty, not just stupid, but out and out cruel.

Here you have Bruce talking about his childhood. The feelings he had as a kid. How those feelings affected his choices in life. Some of the regrets he now has about those choices.

He wasn't whining about how hard it is to be a Jew in America. He wasn't talking about the ACLU. He wasn't talking about banning prayer in school. He wasn't talking about taking down the Ten Commandments from the courthouse. He was talking about how he, as a kid, and like all kids, are desperate to fit in with the "crowd."

Can't you even fucking read?

by Peter Schwartz on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 1:44pm

Emma, if I may offer some suggestions to you:

First, it is extremely offensive when non-Jews quote Jews criticizing other Jews. It comes off as a shallow disguise for making derogatory generalizations that you're afraid to state in your own voice. I'm not sure how to best help you understand this. Imagine a male chauvinist quoting an anti-feminist woman to argue that sexism is not a serious problem.

Related, it's also offensive to drop hints that bolster your Jewish cred as a precursor to criticizing Jews. Imagine a white guy using ghetto slang and referring to his black friends while complaining about affirmative action.

Third, it's insensitive to denigrate people's childhood difficulties that you clearly don't understand. When every kid you know bubbles excitedly about Santa Claus and Christmas presents for weeks on end, when all the radio stations play Christmas music all month, when the other houses get done up in brilliant lights, when all the television shows are Christmas themed: I can assure you that it does not require a parent to tell you to feel envious and excluded.

Such experiences are far from the worst tragedy a child can experience, and I'm making no political argument here about how Christmas should be celebrated in America. But surely you can make your argument for Christmas without belittling our childhood traumas as a political fabrication pushed on us by adults like some kind of bizarro Santa Claus myth.

Last but not least, never quote Bill Kristol with a straight face. The guy is a hack, and his history of the America Jewish experience is as misleading and self-serving as everything else he writes.

by Michael Wolraich on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 12:43pm

PS While it's not worth getting into details of Kristol's revisionist history, here's one example. Kristol:

There was no public "issue" until the American Civil Liberties Union--which is financed primarily by Jews--arrived on the scene with the discovery that Christmas carols and pageants were a violation of the Constitution"

The ACLU was founded in 1920 (by three WASPS, for the record, and the focus was and remains freedom of speech, not religion). But the anti-Semitic press was already complaining about the Jews' supposed war on Christmas. From Henry Ford's Dearborn Independent in 1920:

Jews' determination to wipe out of public life every sign of the predominant Christian character of the United States, is the only active form of religious intolerance in the country today.

Some things never change.

by Michael Wolraich on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 1:03pm

Next we can move on to Kevin MacDonald's trilogy.

The same pile of shit is always slapping against the side of the boat.

by Peter Schwartz on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 1:49pm

PPS Sorry, I mean Irving Kristol. Not that the apple fell far from the tree.

by Michael Wolraich on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 1:42pm

This is all too complex for me.

What happened to the good old days when Jews just killed Christ and ate Christian babies? Simple to understand, simple to get riled up. Killing Christmas? Almost like conspiracy theory - have to find the grassy knoll somewhere.

PS - snark.

by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 2:17pm

Don't sell yourself short Peracles.

by Bruce Levine on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 2:50pm

We're reviving that custom, PP.

Stand by...

by Peter Schwartz on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 4:35pm

Thanks for the suggestions, Genghis. Let's take them one by one.

1. In this case, I quoted a Jewish source because Bruce's comment reminded me of the section I excerpted not to establish some kind of Jewish cred. As to saying the same thing in my own voice. Been there, done that. Doesn't seem to work. We'll see how it goes here.

2. I love languages and worked with some wonderful Jewish people from whom I picked up a bit of Yiddish, a wonderfully blunt dialect. And yes, sometimes I do use it for a bit of Jewish cred. I have found it does affect the attention given to some conversations. How is that different than the shock humor you use when writing about religion?

3. If Bruce were still six years old, I would feel very bad indeed for mocking him about it but he was describing grown children and yet he is still obsessing over his hurt feelings as a child. I almost died twice when I was six. I have very real physical and emotional scars from then. Sure they influenced how I developed but I do not still obsess over them.

Very touching description of the trauma induced by being left out of the bubbly Christmas celebrations. Sort of like a waif whose nose is pressed to the window of a candy store, only not. More like me trying to understand why my brother can have a doll just like mine but I cannot have a bb gun like him. Do I blame my brother for it? Not his fault. My parents? Just going along with generally accepted practices. The old bitty's that make up stupid norms. Yes, them I can blame. But what good does that do? Definitely challenge and change things that feel wrong when and if you can. If you cannot, you may just have to get over it at a personal level.

As to your last. I did not quote Bill Kristol, I quoted Irving who had a decent intellect and is often worth reading even if I fear and loathe his vision. Maybe especially if I loathe and fear it. The essay does have an unfortunate title but maybe that is the editors choice. If anyone manages to read the whole thing they will see that it was 1) writtten in 1999; 2) addressed to a Jewish audience; 3) warning of a possible Christian fundamentalist backlash unnecessarily provoked by overly zealous enforcement of the Establishment clause by the ACLU. Note this was before W Bush was ensconced as President with the support of the evangelical community that so freaked out the Progressive community afterwards. In my mind, that warning still stands. If you all keep baiting the majority bear because of some misguided crusade against their happiest holiday because of 'childhood traumas', you risk losing the Establishment clause altogether -- something I definitely do not want to see happen.

by EmmaZahn on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 2:22pm

If you all keep baiting the majority bear because of some misguided crusade against their happiest holiday because of 'childhood traumas', you risk losing the Establishment clause altogether -- something I definitely do not want to see happen.

Do you have any idea what that sounds like?

What you call "baiting the majority bear", I call standing up for our* rights. (The only way I see someone getting "baiting the majority bear" out of what has really happened is if one actually believes what Kristol wrote is true…)
Thus, what you're suggesting sounds an awful lot like "appeasement" to me.

*In case it's not clear from my name and prior comments, by "our" I am referring to all people who don't want to be coerced into pretending to be Christian and not just Jews. By the way, that number is a lot more than 5% these days…

by Verified Atheist on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 2:36pm

This sounds a lot like the debate between the proponents of same-sex unions, with one side saying now wasn't the time to push the marriage issue and instead push for civil unions, and the other side claiming it was time to stand up for all of one's rights.

by Elusive Trope on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 2:43pm

AT,

Perhaps you are more rational and could shed light on what the debate is. I wasn't debating anything when all this stuff was thrust upon me, and certainly not anything about Christmas.

by Bruce Levine on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 3:09pm

I kind of came in when all this stuff was being thrown around, and saw the "baiting the majority bear" side comments, and that was what I was addressing - the debate in this particular side thread being does one attempt to push secularization of politics full steam ahead or does one take a more measured approach lest the fundamental Christians get all bent out of shape and fight to take what has already been gained. Don't believe you were discussing that at all, but that is where this particular subthread was going it seemed.

by Elusive Trope on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 5:15pm

Trope (below) is right. It is something like the dispute over gay marriage versus civil union, although personally I want to see both lose their special property/contract rights status.

When you want to change something what should you do first Win hearts and minds to your cause? or grab enough power to force others to go along with you whether they like it or not?

A combination is probably the best strategy. Get enough power to prevent the worst abuses then win hearts and minds over time.

Probably the worst strategy is what is happens from time to time in both arenas. Enough power is gained to force others to go along then scorn and ridicule are heaped on dissenters. That is just stoking a powder keg.

by EmmaZahn on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 3:00pm

A combination is probably the best strategy. Get enough power to prevent the worst abuses then win hearts and minds over time.

Which is exactly what I and most others here (I assume) think is the current path. I know you're not a bad person Emma, which is why I'm sincerely confused that you don't get why the Kristol quote was so distasteful. Blaming Jews for the actions of the ACLU? Suggesting that the ACLU are victimizing poor Christians?

Just to recap, here are some of the most atrocious bits:

the official Jewish organizations took advantage of these new circumstances to prosecute an aggressive campaign against any public recognition, however slight, of the fact that most Americans are Christian

…

But again, before World War II, there were practically no Jews who cared about such things. I went to a public school, where the children sang carols at Christmastime. Even among those Jews who sang them, I never knew a single one who was drawn to the practice of Christianity by them. Sometimes, the schools sponsored Nativity plays, and the response of the Jews was simply not to participate in them. There was no public “issue” until the American Civil Liberties Union—which is financed primarily by Jews—arrived on the scene with the discovery that Christmas carols and pageants were a violation of the Constitution.

…

The Jewish campaign against any suggestion that America was a Christian nation…

This next part isn't atrocious, but it is laughable:

The truth, of course, is that there is no way that religion can be obliterated from public life when 95 percent of the population is Christian.

(And no, after reading your excerpt, I had absolutely no desire to read the mother-lode that spawned such horrible filth.)

by Verified Atheist on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 3:09pm

Just to be clear—what I found laughable about that last bit was the "95 percent". Wikipedia puts it at 76-80%, and that's consistent with what most other people report. Sure, perhaps Kristol was talking about the "good old days", but back when "95 percent of the population [was] Christian", I'm sure you'd find out that less than 1% of the population was homosexual, if you catch my drift. (Although don't get me wrong, I'm sure the percentage of people who genuinely "accepted Jesus as their savior" was higher in the '50s than it is now.)

Additionally, table 2 of this document has some interesting trends.

by Verified Atheist on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 7:06pm

Emma, no one baited any bears here. No one launched any crusades. No one but you said a thing about any Establishment clause. Bruce made one reference to his Christmas experience as a child. I added my own in response to your weird insinuation that Jewish parents just made it all up. If there is any Christmas crusade here, it's yours.

Now if I had written a comment that inspired such censure from people not normally prone to hysteria, I would try to understand what pissed them off. I offered my comment not to denounce you but to explain why people find what you said so offensive. But you don't seem interested. All I hear from you is defensiveness and additional accusations that are nearly as disturbing and gratuitous as the original.

by Michael Wolraich on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 3:24pm

Obviously I am interested. How many threads have I participated in to this extent? I really, really, really do not understand.

Okay, I probably should not have hurt Bruce's feelings but the Christmas thing does irk and Irving Kristol, a Jew, offers a different childhood perspective, one not that different from my own. What I remember is people who were much less overtly religious and more openly tolerant before all the legal challenges to public displays whether or not the ACLU is financed by Jews.

Also I am not unsympathetic to the lasting influence of childhood traumas but is this really that kind of forum? Note how Peter Schwartz took the first opportunity to mock what I shared of my own. Reminds me of grade school.

So please help me understand. Quote my defensiveness tell me why they are disturbing and what is gratuitous about them.

Dead serious. I am guess I am even further along the Asperger's scale than Orion so plain statements rather than insinuations would be most helpful.

by EmmaZahn on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 4:36pm

I appreciate your asking, seriously. I thought that I was doing that in my original reply, but I'll try to be plainer.

First off, no one is trying to turn dag into a daytime talk show. Bruce just mentioned his experience to explain his perception of American Judaism, helpfully I thought. It was not at a point about Christmas celebrations. Peter, Atheist, and I added our own experiences to back up his account after you belittled it. Your response, by contrast, seemed really loaded. Sure, there have been Jews, atheists, and other minorities who have used their negative experiences to support their criticisms of publish worship, but neither of us were making that point. So your Christmas rant seemed gratuitous.

Secondly, in making your point, you invoked a number of devices that bigots often use to make make their arguments seem less bigoted--quoting members of the minority, using minority slang, and referring to their friends and acquaintances who are minorities. It's a transparent defense mechanism, which is why "I have lots of black friends" is such a famous joke. I'm not accusing you of bigotry, but I do think that you employed these devices for the same reason, perhaps subconsciously: to make your ideas seem more acceptable to critics.

Third, racial and religious generalizations are inherently explosive. In this case, your generalization was implicit: Jews are opposed to public Christmas celebrations. I don't even think that's true, and it was certainly never expressed by Bruce or the rest of us. But tarring Jews as anti-Christian has been a frequent anti-Semitic motif since the Middle Ages, so of course many of us reacted with anger when we interpreted that theme in your comments.

Fourth, Kristol's piece really is a bad article, as a few of us have argued, full of inaccuracies and loaded with typical right-wing fallacies. It seemed liked you quoted it at length because it supported your pet issue--public Christmas celebration--not because you read it with a critical eye.

Finally, while it is not necessary to express sympathy when someone talks about their childhood difficulty, belittling it just isn't nice. Not the end of the world, but why go there just to make a point about Christmas?

I hope this helps with your Asperger issues. :)

by Michael Wolraich on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 6:47pm

Not really.

Perhaps I should not have excerpted Kristol but I did not know there was so much antipathy from so many here toward him. Toward Bill, sure, who hasn't wanted like to wipe that smirk off his face from time to time.

And maybe I should not have tried to blunt my knee-jerk overreaction to Bruce's Christmas comment with some Fiddler on the Roof humor although I doubt putting it in my own words would have gone over any better. My first thoughts were that it reminded me of those children who cry, act out and just plain ruin another child's birthday party because they are not the birthday boy or girl. Possibly understandable in a six-year old but why is he still nursing that grudge.

I disagree. The Kristol article is really quite good but it is a point of view with which you are free to disagree but it is not a treatise of fact that can be disproved assuming the magazine fact-checked it before publishing. And, its main point was about how Jews should be more politically savvy and less Quixotic. He only used the part I excerpted to illustrate his main point. No way did I read it as Jews being anti-Christian.

Thank you for telling me how you identify bigots. In the future I will avoid clumsy attempts to spare feelings that might be misinterpreted using these parameters.

by EmmaZahn on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 9:11pm

Yeah, I don't think you're getting it. It's not who you quote and what joke you make or don't make. These are just symptoms. It's the whole attitude that people are objecting to. That attitude comes through as clearly in this last comment as in the rest.

by Michael Wolraich on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 11:00pm

I can't be sure, but I think there's also a Northeast tilt towards the discussion.

If you were in NY, you have a support group for being Jewish.

If in Alabama, say, you're an outsider.

And yeah, 30 days starting at Thanksgiving focused on someone else's major holiday while yours is an asterisk or simply not mentioned can be hard on a kid.

Of course same applies for being Chinese or Asian Indian. And if you were descended from African slaves, your religions and spiritual beliefs just got whisked away, hardly a trace.

In some ways, that's always been the political point of religion - control the masses with a single point of view and prescribed behavior. Somewhere in there is still the human yearning to understand the cosmos. And then there's the little kid just wanting some excitement, presents and to belong.

by PeraclesPlease on Wed, 05/23/2012 - 12:55am

Like others, I'm very confused by what you wrote here. I'm hoping that someone has hacked your dagblog account…

There's a special irony in making fun of Bruce's hardships in being a Jewish child in a culture that celebrates Christianity while suggesting (by Kristol proxy) that the Jews (by ACLU proxy) have somehow damaged other children's ability to enjoy their Christian pageants in public school, being left only with the ability to enjoy it at Church, at home, and at private schools (if they so desire).

by Verified Atheist on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 12:51pm

So let's look at what Irving says. BTW, I suspect his real gripe is that most Jews are liberals and support organizations like the ACLU, he's most definitely not. But that's not in the text, so let's leave it aside:

It is a fairly extraordinary story when one stops to think about it. In the decades after World War II, as anti-Semitism declined precipitously, and as Jews moved massively into the mainstream of American life, the official Jewish organizations took advantage of these new circumstances to prosecute an aggressive campaign against any public recognition, however slight, of the fact that most Americans are Christian.

So the weasel words here are "however slight." What does "slight" mean? What does "prosecute an aggressive campaign" mean? He gives no examples, so we don't know if he's referring to objections to Christmas parties being held at work, Christmas windows at Bloomies...or what? Nor does he tell us if this prosecution met with early success or failure. Maybe you can fill us in, Emma.

It is not that the leaders of the Jewish organizations were anti-religious. Most of the Jewish advocates of a secularized “public square” were themselves members of Jewish congregations. They believed, in all sincerity, that religion should be the private affair of the individual. Religion belonged in the home, in the church and synagogue, and nowhere else.

So I guess it's not as if they were trying squelch religion or make Judaism dominant. No, they wanted a "secularized public square."

And they believed in this despite the fact that no society in history has ever acceded to the complete privatization of a religion embraced by the overwhelming majority of its members. The truth, of course, is that there is no way that religion can be obliterated from public life when 95 percent of the population is Christian. There is no way of preventing the Christian holidays, for instance, from spilling over into public life.

So here he pivots. I guess he wants to say that the desire to create a secular public square was...what?...irrational? ahistorical? somehow wrong? But here's my question: Doesn't Irving believe in American exceptionalism? Isn't America supposed to be a different kind of country? A place where there is freedom practice religion and freedom from religion? But how, exactly, can you have freedom from religion if one particular religion is woven to finely into the cloth of public life?

But again, before World War II, there were practically no Jews who cared about such things. I went to a public school, where the children sang carols at Christmastime. Even among those Jews who sang them, I never knew a single one who was drawn to the practice of Christianity by them. Sometimes, the schools sponsored Nativity plays, and the response of the Jews was simply not to participate in them.

So here he sets up a classic conservative argument: There was "no problem" until those busybody leftists--who are Jews but don't really represent "the Jews"-- decided to butt in and stir things. Just like did with the negroes down South. And lest he be accused of stirring up anti-Semitism with his assertion that the ACLU is mostly back by Jews, he's careful here to note that the Jews, real Jews, never cared about this issue. It was only a subset of pesky leftist Jews populating the ACLU who cared and ruined it for everyone.

There was no public “issue” until the American Civil Liberties Union—which is financed primarily by Jews—arrived on the scene with the discovery that Christmas carols and pageants were a violation of the Constitution. As a matter of fact, our Jewish population in the United States believed in this so passionately that when the Supreme Court, having been prodded by the ACLU, ruled it unconstitutional for the Ten Commandments to be displayed in a public school, the Jewish organizations found this ruling unobjectionable. People who wanted their children to know about the Ten Commandments could send their children to heder.

Whoops! What a difference a war makes. Before the war, Jews didn't care. After the war--thanks to the ACLU--Jews suddenly cared a great deal. Seems like a big change for an entire people to go through, but one can't under-estimate the power of Jew-fueled lefty organizations, I guess. He also omits to say, however, whether the ACLU was SUCCESSFUL in getting carols and pageants banned. They certainly weren't when I was growing up in the 1950s.

Since there was a powerful secularizing trend among American Christians after World War II, there was far less outrage over all this than one might have anticipated. The Jewish campaign against any suggestion that America was a Christian nation won one battle after another; eventually it made sufficient headway in the media and the legal profession—most importantly on the Supreme Court—that today there is widespread popular acceptance of the belief that this kind of secularism, which is tolerant of religion only so long as it is practiced privately and very discreetly, was indigenously and authoritatively “American,” and had always been so.

Where to start with this? So even though there was a "powerful secularizing trend among American Christians," this was a "Jewish campaign." Not just an ACLU campaign, but a Jewish campaign. And what of those secular Christians? Did they have a hand in any of this? Or were they too busy not feeling the outrage that Irving The Jew thinks they should have felt?

The phrase "any suggestion that America was a Christian nation" is particularly slimy and tendentious. Why? Because there have always been plenty of "suggestions" that this country is predominantly Christian. No one has ever been forced or asked to hide that away. But it's equally true that America was self-consciously established as a country without an established religion.

Of course, it has not always been so, and Americans have always thought of themselves as a Christian nation—one with a secular government, which was equally tolerant of all religions so long as they were congruent with traditional Judeo-Christian morality.

Hard to know what this means "always thought of themselves as a Christian nation"?

But equal toleration under the law never meant perfect equality of status in fact. Christianity is not the legally established religion in the United States, but it is established informally, nevertheless.

This is nonsense. What does "equal status" even mean? Under the law, all religions DO have equal status. And, of course, he ends the piece with a slap at secularism in Europe as another sign of its "decadence." What hogwash.

What a pile of steaming horseshit this.

by Peter Schwartz on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 1:36pm

Easy now Schwartz. You're the good cop, stick to the script!

by Bruce Levine on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 2:56pm

The problem for the left today is that it has gone over largely—but not, Geras and others insisted, wholly—to the negative view of Judaism as an obstacle to human progress.

Speaking of the left, didn't Marx have a pretty negative view of Judaism? I know he wasn't crazy about religion in general, but his Hegelianism sort of led him to take a dim view of obstinately particularist movements (versus the universality inherent in Christianity). So perhaps it's built in to the foundations of the left.

The Bundists, as I recall, were Jews, but Jews who wanted to dissolve the separation between Jews and non-Jews, that separation being a product and remnant of a class society that oppressed all people and maybe especially Jews.

by Peter Schwartz on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 8:26am

Your point about Marx's negative view of Judaism is correct but was even more sharply delineated than your comment suggests. In his "On the Jewish Question" (an early writing:1843) he said the following:

As soon as society succeeds in abolishing the empirical essence of Judaism--the market and the conditions which give rise to it--the Jew will have become impossible, for his consciousness will no longer have an object, the subjective basis of Judaism--practical need--will have become humanized, and the conflict between man's individual sensuous existence and his species-existence will have been superseded.

The social emancipation of the Jew is the emancipation of society from Judaism.

The use of commonly received stereotypes in passages such as this diminishes the scope of his work. Marx wasn't as thorough in turning "Hegel upside down" as he thought he was.

by moat on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 8:08pm

Message to Genghis and the Entire Dagblog Community.

I am so sorry for a number of things, but in particular for threatening to leave forever if I didn't get my way and have a comment I was offended by removed. That was totally inappropriate and inexcusable.

Genghis, please forgive me. Dagblog community, please forgive me as well.

Genghis, I had no right to ask that a comment be removed, and if it were up to me I would put it back where it was (without my totally inappropriate response).

With nothing but respect and deep humility,

Bruce S. Levine

New York, New York

by Bruce Levine on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 12:00pm

No worries, Bruce. You're still a mensch.

by Michael Wolraich on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 1:04pm

See, Bslev, this is why I love you. Truly.

by Ramona on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 1:10pm

Perhaps because of Jewish guilt (snark), I was beginning to feel badly about Emma getting pounded on. But then I just read her explanation of her comment to Genghis, something about that she would "feel bad" for Bruce. . .if something or other . I am not asking anyone to feel badly for me, and certainly not Emma. I was just telling a friggin' story. My life, for the most part, has turned out pretty friggin' good, and certainly relative to many of my brothers and sisters in this country and around the world. If it's TMI, well get used to bslev; I tend to tell stories through personal anecdote.

It is I who now feels badly for Emma. She just doesn't get it. And I honestly don't get that.

by Bruce Levine on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 2:55pm

And you never once tried to hit me directly did you.

At least I am willing to fight my own fights. /scoff

by EmmaZahn on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 3:17pm

I have nothing to discuss with you Emma. And I reserve the right to address others concerning what I think. I am not interested in what you think. So go ahead and change this into a legitimate debate about x-mas, or about whether I sought sympathy because of what I felt when I was 6.

Thankfully, your comment to me is there for all to see. Res Ipsa Loquitor.

by Bruce Levine on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 3:24pm

I wonder what Destor would have done if he walked by and heard you two fighting?

by Donal on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 3:26pm

FWIW. The following is a comment on the magazine article -- not the other contretemps.

For most of my life I was reflexively pro-Israel. Never even considered any alternative.

I admired its spunkiness, its defiance and its daring. Entebbe, Munich, Osirik. I even had a bit of a crush on Moshe Dayan after the Six-Day War. Well, he was on all the magazine covers then.

Oh, yes. I recognized the influence of pop culture on my perspective but that really did not matter. It just seemed so right.

Then came the internets and 9/11 and Iraq and getting flamed as an anti-Semite for what to me was an innocuous and self-evident fact. I disputed a claim that Iraq was an existential threat to the United States then offhandedly commented that they could possibly be one to Israel.

It gives one pause to be descended on by flaming hordes of former friendlies. You have to step back and consider what just happened. Very much like this thread.

Later after we invaded Iraq and failed to turn up WMDs and there was a big brouhaha over not having enough Arabic translators because Defense and State and the CIA could not hire gays or something like that, I thought well surely we relied on our good friends in Israel's Mossad as well as the Saudis for that particular service. So I went searching for some evidence of that. All I turned up was the transcript of a pre-invasion 2002 speech to NATO by then Mossad head which enumerated every Bush/Cheney talking point supporting invasion. That is when I realized that Chalabi was not the only one who duped us into invading and for the first time felt a very cold, hard anger toward Israel.

That is when I stopped being reflexively pro-Israel and paid much closer attention to the special USA/Israel relationship. Please do not even try to use this to brand me as anti-Semite which I most definitely am not. Just thought you should know that it is possible to lose the support of even the most thoroughly and contentedly indoctrinated pro-Israeli Americans.

by EmmaZahn on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 4:02pm

I hope you understand that there's a huge difference between not being pro-Israel (or even being anti-Israel) and what you wrote up above, both specifically about Bruce and more generically what you quoted from Irving Kristol. I'm all for respecting Christian's rights to be Christians, in public and elsewhere, but I'm strongly against any suggestion of state-sponsoring of religion, which is exactly what the ACLU has been fighting. (Don't get me wrong, I think the ACLU is on the wrong side of some cases, but those are the exception as far as I'm concerned.)

by Verified Atheist on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 4:03pm

Maybe you missed the edit where I said this comment was about the magazine article and not the bslev v EmmaZahn cage match.

by EmmaZahn on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 4:07pm

The magazine article bothered me far more than the cage match, as I'm quite convinced both of you know how to defend yourselves. What bothers me about the article is that you appear to be endorsing many (most?) of its views, and you have not distanced yourself from any of the obnoxious content that you were quoting. Maybe you were attempting to point it out as a viewpoint to be understood even though you disagreed with it, but if that was your intention I dare say that none of us commenting here understood that to be the case.

Like I've said before, I know you're a good person, which is why it's so hard to reconcile what appears to be at least a tacit agreement with such horrible stuff…

by Verified Atheist on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 4:29pm

I do often seem to have the same problem as Cassandra. :-/

Really. Not 100% but more often right than wrong about trends.

Not really sure what you find offensive except maybe hurting bslev's feelings. Can you be quite specific about that, please.

by EmmaZahn on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 4:48pm

Read what I wrote up above at 3:09 pm (with the timestamp provided solely for search purposes).

I don't like it when anyone at dagblog insults someone else (especially when I'm doing the insulting), but it's not unusual, so that particular insult towards Bruce is something I could've easily ignored. As I wrote up above, it's what you chose to quote that's troubling. (And I highlighted the especially troubling passages.)

by Verified Atheist on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 6:25pm

Yes, several of you took exception to whom and what I quoted which is rather disturbing. Now you being a Verified Atheist somewhat explains your objections which we can discuss later. You did annotate the excerpt but I still feel you rejected the author before considering the argument.

Serendipitously, I was just reading this:

The Unabomber's Pen Pal - The Chronicle Review - The Chronicle of Higher Education

At one point an older student in the back with gray hair and a denim shirt suggests that it's wrong to be having this discussion. "Is it even morally or ethically right," he asks, "to be studying the works of a societal criminal—in this case a social terrorist?"

Skrbina is quick to respond: "So the question is, Can the ideas stand on their own merit regardless of who said them? It could be Kaczynski, it could be Mother Teresa, it could be Mr. Anonymous—the ideas are what they are, and the arguments are what they are. So I think from a rational standpoint we should say we can treat the ideas in abstraction from the circumstances in which they appear."

I read perspectives from across the political and religious spectrum and consider the authors' backgrounds and the context in which they are written and then I try very hard to evaluate the ideas from different perspectives although naturally favoring my own. The ideas are more important to me than who thought them.

by EmmaZahn on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 8:25pm

To be honest, your excerpts are my first introduction to the author (at least that I remember). Hopefully they'll be my last exposure to him as well. Others mentioned him being the son of the more famous Kristol (Billy, right?), but even in his case I'm not that familiar with his writing. So, my rejection had everything to do with the argument—both the axioms on which the argument was built as well as its logical consistency.

As for discussing what he wrote (or the Unabomber), that's fine. My concern, as I've stated elsewhere, is that you seemed to be sympathetic with both his axioms and his conclusion. I don't care about Irving Kristol. I do care about you.

by Verified Atheist on Wed, 05/23/2012 - 6:19am

Irving was the dad, and is much more renowned in academic circles as sorta the dad of neoconservatism as well; Bill is the son and more well known in pop culture, for his teevee appearances and newspaper columns and yes, for his smirk. I always imagined a situation like this--at University of Chicago conferences, they make fun of Kristol fils but still respect Kristol père's work

by artappraiser on Wed, 05/23/2012 - 9:27am

Thanks for the clarification. Am I the only one that laughs at Bill Kristol/Billy Crystal?

by Verified Atheist on Wed, 05/23/2012 - 10:33am

True, but...

It would appear your quoting Kristol was context-free and, in effect, seconded some factually incorrect assertions, e.g., the ethnic make up of the ACLU and its goals.

Moreover, his assertions about Jews pre-War and Jews post-War appear to be made up out of whole cloth. For example, we're asked to accept that "the Jews" at first didn't care about being asked to sing Christmas carols, but after the war mounted an aggressive campaign to efface the Christian nature of America.

(If this is true, one reason might be that before the war Jews were still poor and hadn't established a firm foothold in America. After the war, they felt the country was "theirs" just as much as it was Christians'. Isn't that what we want? Or do we want a permanent stratification in which everyone who arrived after the Mayflower somehow doesn't have the same rights as the folks who belong to DAR?)

(Interesting side bar here. In the section of the Talmud I'm reading, it says that it is forbidden to oppress people with your words. For example, in arguing with a convert to Judaism, it is forbidden to remind the person that he once ate pork--to say to him, in effect, that he isn't a "real" Jew because he wasn't born into the religion.)

Irving also asks us to accept or somehow ratify, despite the establishment clause in a Constitution written by non-Jews, America's informal "status" as a Christian nation.

But since this isn't a legal status as he admits, what kind of status could this be? The fact that more Christians have always lived in America than other religious groups? Well, okay.

But surely this "status" doesn't mean that Christians get to use the public space--and public resources--to express their faith as the dominant faith as Irving comes pretty close to saying. And surely there is no shortage of publicly viewable expressions of the Christian faith elsewhere--I note all the churches in plain view, the trees in Rockefeller Center, the Christmas music you can't escape on the radio (not that I want to), the blizzard of advertising with the trappings of Christmas.

I don't know when this was written, but Irving seems to be asserting that there's a war on Christianity in America. I don't see it. But if there is a war, the Christians are winning it hands-down. And Irving even admits as much when he says that the last 40 years have been pretty good for Christian dominance in America. Isn't 40 years something like two generations? That's a darn good run.

In fact, I believe, Christmas is a federal holiday and perhaps Easter as well. Passover isn't a federal holiday last I looked. Nor Hanukah. Nor Yom Kippur or Rosh Hashanah. So, despite the fact that we aren't supposed to establish a "religion of the land," Christianity DOES take precedence in these ways.

So what's the beef and where's the beef?

by Peter Schwartz on Wed, 05/23/2012 - 10:23am

Christmas is a federal holiday, but Easter is not—no doubt because it always falls on a Sunday.

by Verified Atheist on Wed, 05/23/2012 - 10:38am

Not only that but I believe many Christians are taught like I was, when they are past the age of believing in Santa Claus, the truth about Christmas: that it is an invented celebration of Christ's birth mainly meant to turn the traditional solstice celebration into a Christian one, and that Easter is the holiest Christian holiday and is the one that should be a bigger deal.

No coincidence: sounds sorta like the usual narrative about Hanukkah celebrations, doesn't it? For the kids, not taken that seriously by believing adults. I don't think enough non-Christians realize this--that many Christians think the O'Reilly's screaming about putting "Christ back into Christmas" are kind of wack, something you roll your eyes about. Anyone whose done their catechism knows Jesus was not born on December 25 in a snowy manger. It's a story for kids! About a cute little baby and hope and tenderness! And a man in a red suit giving gifts got all tied in with the story because of the charitable acts of Good King Wenceslas and similar. Easter is the holy Christian day of the year, the be all and end all, the raison d'etre, for Christians to play up Christmas as soooo important to Christianity is not to get it, not to get your own religion.

by artappraiser on Wed, 05/23/2012 - 10:55am

I think you might be over-estimating how many Christians know that. (I mean it's true that many are taught that—which is all you're claiming—but I'm pretty sure not most.)

As for your last point, check out what the Christian Science Monitor has to say… (Of course, you're probably already aware of it. Heck, you probably posted a link to it already.)

That's not to disagree with anything you've specifically written. I just thought there was a "vibe" (which might be purely my interpretation) that you thought that most Christians know more than I think they know. (A lot of wiggle room in that sentence, no?)

by Verified Atheist on Wed, 05/23/2012 - 10:59am

Even if they know it, they'll ignore it when O'Reilly throws down the war on Xmas gauntlet.

by Donal on Wed, 05/23/2012 - 11:16am

Not a universal "they", of course. I'm not sure if even a majority of Christians sympathize with O'Reilly… (I'd like to believe not, but I wouldn't wager either way.)

by Verified Atheist on Wed, 05/23/2012 - 11:46am

I knew about Easter being more important religiously than Christmas. And yes, Christmas is a paganb solstice borrow maybe from Germany or thereabouts.

WaPo once ran a long story on the history of Mr. Claus, most of which I don't remember.

Apparently St. Nicholas was a real person and lived in the first to second centuries and was known as a pretty rotten guy. Or maybe just an unhappy guy.

Somehow, much later, he got his Christmas duties, maybe in Germany where he was merged with Father Christmas.

The real Saint Nicholas was pretty scrawny, so the heavyweight we know today was, I believe, created in the 1800s--maybe here in America--first as an advertising figure.

The story about the North Pole may also have been made up as part of the advertising.

Anyway, all of this may be wrong, but I share it with you anyway.

by Peter Schwartz on Wed, 05/23/2012 - 12:29pm

Okay, so he wasn't rotten. He was a good guy.

Saint Nicholas (Greek: Ἅγιος Νικόλαος, Hagios ["Saint", literally "Holy", Latin: Sanctus] Nicolaos ["victory of the people"]) (270 – 6 December 343),^[3]^[4] also called Nikolaos of Myra, was a historic 4th-century saint and Greek^[5] Bishop of Myra (Demre, part of modern-day Turkey) in Lycia. Because of the many miracles attributed to his intercession, he is also known as Nikolaos the Wonderworker (Νικόλαος ὁ Θαυματουργός, Nikolaos ho Thaumaturgos). He had a reputation for secret gift-giving, such as putting coins in the shoes of those who left them out for him, and thus became the model for Santa Claus, whose modern name comes from the Dutch Sinterklaas, itself from a series of elisions and corruptions of the transliteration of "Saint Nikolaos". His reputation evolved among the faithful, as was common for early Christian saints.^[6] In 1087, part of the relics (about half of the bones) were furtively translated to Bari, in southeastern Italy; for this reason, he is also known as Nikolaos of Bari. The remaining bones were taken to Venice in 1100. His feastday is 6 December [O.S. 19 December].

by Peter Schwartz on Wed, 05/23/2012 - 12:31pm

Seems I got a fair amount of this wrong:

Santa Claus is generally depicted as a portly, joyous, white-bearded man wearing a red coat with white collar and cuffs, white-cuffed red trousers, and black leather belt and boots (images of him rarely have a beard with no moustache). This image became popular in the United States and Canada in the 19th century due to the significant influence of Clement Clarke Moore's 1823 poem "A Visit From St. Nicholas" and of caricaturist and political cartoonist Thomas Nast.^[3]^[4]^[5] This image has been maintained and reinforced through song, radio, television, children's books and films. The North American depiction of Santa Claus as it developed in the 19th and 20th century in turn influenced the modern perceptions of Father Christmas, Sinterklaas and Saint Nicholas in European culture^{[citation needed]}.

According to a tradition which can be traced to the 1820s, Santa Claus lives at the North Pole, with a large number of magical elves, and nine (originally eight) flying reindeer. Since the 20th century, in an idea popularized by the 1934 song "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town", Santa Claus has been believed to make a list of children throughout the world, categorizing them according to their behavior ("naughty" or "nice") and to deliver presents, including toys, and candy to all of the well-behaved children in the world, and sometimes coal to the naughty children, on the single night of Christmas Eve. He accomplishes this feat with the aid of the elves who make the toys in the workshop and the reindeer who pull his sleigh.^[6]^[7]

by Peter Schwartz on Wed, 05/23/2012 - 12:34pm

Then he got run over by a reindeer.

by Donal on Wed, 05/23/2012 - 12:47pm

I don't know but all this makes me think of Sedaris' essay "Jesus Shaves," in which he details his time in a French lesson class explaining Easter to the non-Christians in the class, and how he learns in France it is a bell that comes in from Rome to give candy, not a rabbit.

At the end he writes:

In communicating any religious belief, the operative word is faith, a concept illustrated by our very presence in that classroom. Why bother struggling with the grammar lessons of a six year-old if each of us didn't believe that, against all reason, we might eventually improve? If I could hope to one day carry on a fluent conversation, it was a relatively short leap to believing that a rabbit might visit my home in the middle of the night, leaving behind a handful of chocolate kisses and a carton of menthol cigarettes. So why stop there? If I could believe in myself, why not give other improbabilities the benefit of the doubt? I accepted the idea that an omniscient God had cast me in his own image and that he watched over me and guided me from one place to the next. The virgin birth, the resurrection, and the countless miracles -my heart expanded to encompass all the wonders and possibilities of the universe.

A bell, though, that's fucked up.

by Elusive Trope on Wed, 05/23/2012 - 12:57pm

Modern day Santa Claus is an American hybridization of Dutch (not Deutsch) and British traditions. In Germany, Sankt Nikolaus Tag (Tag is German for day) is still held on December 6^th. He is still separate from "der Weihnachtsmann".

by Verified Atheist on Wed, 05/23/2012 - 12:49pm

In my hometown, heavily German Milwaukee, that whole thing got real screwed up, at least in the area I grew up in. As children, we put out stockings on Dec. 5 to receive candy from St. Nicholas overnight, and on the morning of Dec. 25 we received toys and clothes from Santa Claus under the tree. St. Nicholas and Santa Claus became two different people: one a candy giver and a Saint, and one a jolly non-religious toy maker and giver with elves concerned about improving the ways of naughty children.

My mother was the child of Polish immigrants and my father's grandparents were 1/2 German and Alsace and 1/2 Polish; I don't know where they got this, but many kids in my parochial school, (which was heavily Polish heritage,) had the same practices.

PS The art history world generally agrees that the fat white-haired & bearded Santa Claus we know today is a genuine American, invented by the cartoonist/illustrator Thomas Nast in 1862 on the cover of Harper's Weekly.

by artappraiser on Wed, 05/23/2012 - 2:56pm

Christmas holidays as I knew them were a much simpler than today's marketing frenzies.

Sure the stores stocked up for after Thanksgiving purchasing but the holidays did not officially begin until Christmas Eve although we only had 1/2 day of school the day before. We returned to school the day after New Year's. Names were drawn and gifts exchanged at both day school and Sunday School.

There was one Christmas pageant the Sunday evening before Christmas. The story from Luke 2 was read and acted out. The choir sang carols and there was always a solo of O Holy Night of variable quality.

The tree, a much more modest thing then, went up the week before and came down New Year's Eve. Gifts were simple and fun until Santa Claus was discovered to be Dad. That was when underwear other clothing began to show up instead of toys.

Over and done with with as little fuss as possible.

The lessons of it were Peace on Earth and Good will to Men.

Like I said, the happiest of religious holidays -- except for a couple when an uncle drank too much, started feeling sorry for himself and ruined the party for everyone.

by EmmaZahn on Wed, 05/23/2012 - 3:23pm

This whole friggin' thing is just so stupid, it really is. Just catching up from yesterday. I happen to love x-mas carols, share with my wife a passion for cheesy x-mas specials in claymation, and these days love nothing more than spending x-mas day up at the in-laws place in the Berkshire, cozying up by the fire and listening to Handel's Messiah. And I am hardly alone among the peeps.

Who are these people, on the right and apparently even on our so-called left, who think Jewish Americans are trying to play Grinch and steal X-mas from the masses -- by the way yet another excellent special I look forward to each and every day?

I mean, Rabbi Peter, my talmudic scholar, as you say, where the F. . . is the friggin' beef?????

P.S. One more funny little PERSONAL anecdote. One of my associates is an orthodox Jew who is married to a public school teacher. They scramble every X-mas break to arrange for childcare because the orthodox day school they send their kids to makes a point of staying open during the Christmas holidays. And it drives him totally bats@@t. You really have to laugh at all of this--if you can, and I'm honestly trying to.

Bruce

by Bruce Levine on Thu, 05/24/2012 - 11:30am

Well, now that this has filtered through the old thinkolater, I have to say this is the WEIRDEST thread I've participated in in a long time.

First, my apologies to Emma for using bad words and a harsh tone toward her.

Second, it's clear (to me anyway) that something in what Bruce said about his childhood inadvertently struck a painful chord in her and she lashed out.

Third, none of this "content" (least of all Mr. Kristol) makes any sense whatsoever. We are into the subconscious here, and I'd call Dr. Freud, but he was Jewish, wasn't he?

Hey, here's something: A cousin of mine just died and was buried between Lucien Freud and Gabriel Rossetti in the old section of Highgate Cemetery in London. Is that cool, or what?

by Peter Schwartz on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 3:54pm

From memory:

From perfect grief

there need not be

wisdom or even memory

one thing then learnt

remains to me

the woodspurge has a cup of three.

-- Gabriel Rosseti

by EmmaZahn on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 4:05pm

Beautiful poem. The trinity?

by Peter Schwartz on Wed, 05/23/2012 - 8:57am

No idea. Just some lines stored in my brain connected to the name.

by EmmaZahn on Wed, 05/23/2012 - 2:15pm

Weird thread, indeed.

Since everyone is fighting with everyone else, let me quibble with Genghis's admonition about the offensiveness of non-Jews quoting Jews about Jews.

Surely, I can write, "Noam Chomsky says ... ," right? What's offensive is writing, "Noam Chomsky, a well-known Jew, says ... ." And an anti-feminist can legitimately quote Phyllis Schlafly. You just can't quote them to imply, "As a Jew and/or a woman, these people must know, so they bolster my case by agreeing with me."

It's all in the context, but the discerning reader can tell whether you're saying, "Here's a particularly compelling argument" or "Look, even a gay/leftist/black/Muslim/woman/dagblogger agrees with me."

It's just like saying, "Some of my best friends are ... ." It may well be true, I can't think of any way that reinforces whatever point you're trying to make. So shut up about it.

by acanuck on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 5:26pm

Of course. But when it all comes together--the "my friends," the slang, the right-wing Jewish writer criticizing Jews, and the war on Christmas--that's a whole lot of context. See my last reply to Emma.

by Michael Wolraich on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 7:00pm

As my black friend Noam Chomsky would say, "Got it."

by acanuck on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 8:28pm

Actually, after reading the thread, I was thinking maybe a short round of politically incorrect ethnic jokes might tie up the thread quite nicely....you know, like: a rabbi and priest walk into a bar where a Polish plumber is unsuccessfully trying to turn on the light bulbs on a Christmas tree.....

Re: the war on Christmas

Must say I am kinda disappointed with how that went here on this thread because geez, in December I thought everyone here at dagblog ended up agreeing that western "Christmas" has basically become once again the very nice pagan holiday it always was before the Christians co-opted it, quite suitable for people of all religions (including atheists) to celebrate. I thought I was among like minds here on that and saddened to find I am not

Bill O'Reilly knows this, it's what angers him, that it got stolen back from the Christians that stole it, but so what? Until he can figure out how to change the planetary alignments, people all together are always going to celebrate the Winter Solstice in some way shape or form.

P.S. Interesting factoid I just discovered: "Festivus" was actually invented circa 1966 by a writer on anthro/socio with an Irish name.

by artappraiser on Tue, 05/22/2012 - 10:00pm

I've got no problem with celebrating Christmas. Heck, as I probably mentioned on that thread, I celebrate Christmas myself. (I imagine religious Jews would have a harder time celebrating it. However, none of them that I know of would have a problem with someone else celebrating it.)

However, as PP alluded to, how Christmas is celebrated in schools can vary from region to region, and even within a region from school to school or teacher to teacher. By all means, students should be allowed to dress up (assuming there's no uniform dress code), but when teachers and principals imbue Christmas with "the reason for the season", things get sticky.

I recently lost my job working at a company (of about 30 employees) where the owner would lead a prayer before meals. I never felt free at that company to mention my own religious views, even though (almost) everyone else mentioned theirs. I even wonder if that had something to do with me getting laid off. (Doesn't matter, I now have a better job with people of a like mind.) I imagine that's how atheist and Jewish students can feel in a school where it at least seems like 95% (or more) are Christians who think you're going to Hell. Christmas can be a reminder (especially when laced with reminders of the importance of remembering the "reason for the season", and I don't mean the axial tilt), but it's probably more of a side issue.

Cool factoid about Festivus.

by Verified Atheist on Wed, 05/23/2012 - 6:30am

The ultimate problem here is that despite the good faith efforts of so many of you to help the blogger understand the significance of what she wrote, the blogger just doesn't get it. She seems to believe that the only thing she did wrong--maybe--was to hurt my feelings or that perhaps she shouldn't have relied upon the writings of Irving Kristol.

The bottom-line is that the blogger went O'Reilly on this Hebe because she just presumed I was dissin' the Claus. And as others have more eloquently tried to explain, she responded with the kind of bile and cheese that we ordinarily expect to see from real bigots--which I assume the blogger is not. And I submit it's far more than stupid and so-so wrong with respect to making presumptions about me personally. More importantly, the blogger betrays the kind of stereotyping and presumptions about "others" that good people should strive to avoid. And, as here, it often begins with assuming facts that just ain't in the record, and building on 'em anyway.

So to sum this up as I see it, the real problem isn't even that the blogger did what she did--although I submit what she wrote is problematic and ugly. But the real problem is that she either doesn't understand what she did, or for whatever reason she purposely refuses to see the error in her ways. For the sake of community, I would prefer that it be the former, i.e. just a fundamental lack of understanding, or more succinctly, garden-variety ignorance filled with some kind of deep-seeded resentment about non-believers dissin' the Claus. That's putting the best light on it as far as I'm concerned. And it's sad, particularly when so many of you tried so hard to make this a real teachable moment.

FWIW, it was a teachable moment for me. And that's all I gotta say about that.

by Bruce Levine on Wed, 05/23/2012 - 7:29am

Well, as a non-Jew who has grown up and lived in communities where there was little visible Jewish culture/religion, my understanding of Jews and the Left is mostly what I have gleaned consciously and subconsciously from the arts and academic studies, and lets face it, stand-up comedians. John Stewart (born John Stuart Leibowitz) is probably what most Americans think of today when they think of the Jewish Left.

The topic of Jews and the Left is interesting, if only from an academic kind of interest about perceptions within and across a community. The Tablet article mentions in the beginning:

For the first two-thirds of the 20th century, from the first immigrant generation through the baby boom, the radical and revolutionary left played a hugely important role in defining how the rest of America saw Jews and how Jews saw themselves. From Mike Gold’s proletarian novel Jews Without Money all the way down to Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, the literature and mythology of American Jewish radicalism has often appeared identical—to a certain audience—with Judaism itself.

There is this topic as it is discussed among Jews themselves. But then there is this topic as it is discussed between Jews and non-Jews. As the above thread indicates, it is one which can be easily derailed. We are dealing with self-identity and religion and politics and just about everything else that can get people talking past one another.

I saw Angels in America when it was first being performed outside of New York and it was a profoundly moving experience. I had gone thinking it was going to be a play about AIDS and politics, and it was so much more - starting with Rabbi Isidor Chemelwitz words to the mourners:

She was ... not a person but a whole kind of person, the ones who crossed the ocean, who brought with us to America the villages of Russia and Lithuania--and how we struggled, and how we fought, for the family, for the Jewish home, so that you would not grow up here, in this strange place, in the melting pot where nothing melted. Descendants of this immigrant woman, you do not grow up in America, you and your children and their children with the goyische names. You do not live in America. No such place exists. Your clay is the clay of some Litvak shtetl, your air the air of the steppes--because she carried the old world on her back across the ocean, in a boat, and she put it down on Grand Concourse Avenue, or in Flatbush, and she worked that earth into your bones, and you pass it to your children, this ancient, ancient culture and home.

Later Louis makes the comment:

Jews don't have any clear textual guide to the afterlife; even that it exists. I don't think much about it. I see it as a perpetual rainy Thursday afternoon in March. Dead leaves.

There is a whole facet of modernist and post-modernist thinking and sentiment in those lines, thinking and sentiment that has been a huge facet of the Left, at least from the artistic contingency.

by Elusive Trope on Wed, 05/23/2012 - 10:20am

In the News

Russia plays weak hand in Palestine
Russia plays weak hand in Palestine

submitted by PeraclesPlease 10 months ago

The intra-Palestinian meeting in Moscow has precedent

Russia's hosted such meetings in the past, most recently Feb 2019

Russia has long lamented the US' "monopolization" of the peace process & tried to carve out a niche for itself: mediating among the disunited Palestinians/2
— Hanna Notte (@HannaNotte) February 29, 2024

Read the article at https://twitter.com/HannaNotte/status/1763116222256701787

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Mother Jones is Reaching out to Alternative Party Voters
Mother Jones is Reaching out to Alternative Party Voters

submitted by HSG 10 months ago

Here's what I told them: https://halginsberg.com/vote-for-jill-stein-again/

Read the article at https://halginsberg.com/vote-for-jill-stein-again/

2 comments

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Controversial Brazil law curbing Indigenous rights comes...
Controversial Brazil law curbing Indigenous rights comes into force

submitted by artappraiser 1 year ago

Controversial Brazil law curbing Indigenous rights comes into force https://t.co/pCoDg05irX
— Gareth Harris (@garethharr) December 28, 2023

Read the article at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/28/brazil-law-indigenous-land-rights-claim-time-marker?CMP=share_btn_tw

1 comment

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Security Alert: U.S. Embassy Port-au-Prince, Haiti (...
Security Alert: U.S. Embassy Port-au-Prince, Haiti (December 25, 2023)

submitted by artappraiser 1 year ago

Location: U.S. Embassy and residential compounds

Events: Heavy gunfire is occuring around the area of the U.S. Embassy and residential compounds adjacent to the Trutier area of Tabarre. All Embassy personnel have been instructed to remain indoors and shelter-in-place until further notice. All others should avoid the area.

Actions to take:

Avoid the area;

Avoid demonstrations and any large gatherings of people;

Do not attempt to drive through roadblocks; and

If you encounter a roadblock, turn around and get to a safe area.

Read the article at https://ht.usembassy.gov/security-alert-u-s-embassy-port-au-prince-haiti-december-25-2023/

3 comments

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Pakistan Is Creating the World’s Next Refugee Crisis
Pakistan Is Creating the World’s Next Refugee Crisis

submitted by artappraiser 1 year ago

By The Editorial Board @ Bloomberg.com, December 8, 2023

A mass expulsion of Afghan migrants could destabilize the region and fuel radicalization. The West should pressure Islamabad to change course.

Read the article at https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-12-08/pakistan-s-expulsion-of-afghan-refugees-risks-another-crisis

6 comments

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Internet shut down in Chad
Internet shut down in Chad

submitted by artappraiser 1 year ago

All eyes on #Chad right now
Chad has two internet trunks coming into the country: One from the Red Sea via Sudan; the other from Cameroon. Not possible for the totality of the country's internet network to be shut unless done centrally. A lot of rumors swirling; few facts. https://t.co/N6bDJZ2ixO

Read the article at https://x.com/_hudsonc/status/1732891968709992511?s=20

2 comments

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[Economy] where Joe's success falls short
[Economy] where Joe's success falls short

submitted by PeraclesPlease 1 year ago

Read the article at

3 comments

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[CRIME News] 3 loss-prevention employees in Macy’s across...
[CRIME News] 3 loss-prevention employees in Macy’s across the street from Philadelphia City Hall stabbed

submitted by artappraiser 1 year ago

BREAKING: Three loss prevention employees in Macy’s across the street from Philadelphia City Hall stabbed, one of them has died from stab wounds, @PhillyPolice sources tell me. Police converged on the store as the three workers were rushed to Jefferson Hospital. pic.twitter.com/4U1eKycL4W

Read the article at https://x.com/KeeleyFox29/status/1731713272942940365?s=20

38 comments

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Former U.S. Ambassador Arrested, Charged With Working As...
Former U.S. Ambassador Arrested, Charged With Working As Secret Agent For Cuba

submitted by artappraiser 1 year ago

Former US Ambassador Arrested, Charged With Working As Secret Agent For Cuba https://t.co/LDwo4ZJI1K
— HuffPost (@HuffPost) December 4, 2023

Read the article at https://www.huffpost.com/entry/manuel-rocha-ambassador-arrested-cuba_n_656d1e2ae4b028b0f3d07478

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[War in Israel, Chapter II] UNRWA under scrutiny
[War in Israel, Chapter II] UNRWA under scrutiny

submitted by artappraiser 1 year ago

[Chapter I news is HERE, Oct. 7 til today]

You don’t get it.
It’s not about an UNRWA teacher who held an Israeli kid hostage in his house.
It’s all about how for 75 years you have destroyed the future of generations of Palestinians, including my family.
My cousins in Arab countries are still not citizens - not even the… https://t.co/nv6anubGhc
— George Deek (@GeorgeDeek) December 2, 2023

Note 'Community Notes' attached to UNWRA's statement.

Read the article at https://x.com/GeorgeDeek/status/1731020551328579863?s=20

58 comments

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Maduro, Under Pressure, Holds Vote to Annex Territory From...
Maduro, Under Pressure, Holds Vote to Annex Territory From a Neighbor

submitted by artappraiser 1 year ago

Imperialism for me but not for thee?

It's wild that Venezuela is now holding a vote on whether 2/3 of Guyana actually belongs to them! Analysts suggest that Modoru may want military action to pump up his sinking popularity.

Could we have a war in South America?!?

"The people who live in Essequibo are largely… pic.twitter.com/QvMEjkkgwy

Read the article at https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/03/world/americas/maduro-vote-essequibo-guyana.html

6 comments

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[Where is the GOP headed?] Divisions leave Florida’s House...
[Where is the GOP headed?] Divisions leave Florida’s House Republicans powerless

submitted by artappraiser 1 year ago

The lack of a cohesive delegation has allowed attention-seeking lawmakers to act on their own.

McCarthy: “You have [Rep. Matt] Gaetz, who belongs in jail…”

Gaetz: “Tough words from a guy who sucker punches people in the back. The only assault I committed was against Kevin’s fragile ego.”https://t.co/LctPuz6Pcf

Read the article at https://www.politico.com/news/2023/11/29/divisions-leave-floridas-house-republicans-powerless-00129200

10 comments

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‘She got so mad at me’: book on the ‘Squad’ details AOC-...
‘She got so mad at me’: book on the ‘Squad’ details AOC-Pelosi clashes

submitted by artappraiser 1 year ago

By Martinn Pengelly in Washington DC for TheGuardian.com, Nov. 30

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tells Ryan Grim life in Congress ‘completely transformed’ after Democratic leader stepped down

Read the article at https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/nov/30/squad-book-aoc-nancy-pelosi?CMP=share_btn_tw

15 comments

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US health insurers Humana, Cigna in talks to merge -source
US health insurers Humana, Cigna in talks to merge -source

submitted by artappraiser 1 year ago

@ Reuters, Nov. 29

Read the article at https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/us-health-insurers-humana-cigna-talks-merge-wsj-2023-11-29/

3 comments

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Central Africa’s dinosaur regimes and the art of coup-...
Central Africa’s dinosaur regimes and the art of coup-proofing

submitted by artappraiser 1 year ago

"Both the AU and the intl community place more weight on whether elections are held than whether they are free and fair. Sanctions/expulsions occur when there is a coup but not necessarily when elections are rigged or if an “institutional coup” occurs." https://t.co/m9dNimJP0D
— Cameron Hudson (@_hudsonc) November 28, 2023

Read the article at https://africanarguments.org/2023/11/central-africas-dinosaur-regimes-and-the-art-of-coup-proofing/

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