Here’s a decent summary: http://www.gospelcom.net/apologeticsindex/c106.html
- Tamerlane
js africanus
Good. Then we agree. If you go to the home page of the american defense leaguehttp://www.americandefenseleague.com/ you get this “nugget of information:”
sorry, but my anti-Jewish-meter pretty much pegs whenever I see a quote from The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Why doesn’t yours?
What js_africanus means (if I may be so presumptuous) is that there is a difference between opposition to Zionism (the political movement or ideology which called for the establishing a Jewish national state in Palestine, or the support of the resulting State of Israel) and being anti-Jewish. One can be anti-Zionist to varying degrees–be opposed to current Israeli policies, regard the establishment of the State of Israel as a regrettable but now irreversible mistake, or even favor dissolving the current Jewish nationalist Israeli state in favor of, say, a multi-ethnic Palestinian state that would officially be neither “Jewish” nor “Arab”–without necessarily having any ethnic or religious prejudice against Jews as such–without having any stereotypes about or harboring any ill-will towards Jewish citizens of one’s own country, for example. Now, realistically, a lot of anti-Jewish bigotry is concealed as mere opposition to Israeli policy (and anyone who cites the Protocols of the Elders of Zion is not even really pretending otherwise); and personally I would say that your more extreme forms of anti-Zionism–e.g., the people who want to do away with the actual existence of the State of Israel–are at best wrong-headed, and would lead to a lot of dead Jews (and a lot of dead Arabs, for that matter).
Also, “Zion” (as used in the Protocols of the etc.) is a word with various meanings. Zion was originally a word with religious connotations; Israel (or actually IIRC Jerusalem specifically, later extended to the whole land or nation) seen as the Promised Land given by God to his chosen people; and therefore by extension the Jewish people (which was how it was being used by the Tsarist secret police when they forged the Protocols–“the Record of the Secret Deliberations of the Leaders of the Jewish People”). Later, the movement to establish a Jewish nation-state in the Middle East (which was actually mainly a secular, not a religious movement, with the goal of making the Jews not a special people set apart and covenanted to God, but rather just another nation-state, like the Germans or the Italians or the Poles) took the name “Zionism”.
The problem is, without a real conspiracy, the issue dwindles quickly into tautology.
Do some Jews try to lobby for Israel, or for other more local Jewish interests? Of course they do. So do some Blacks lobby for “Black” issues, some Hispanics lobby for Hispanic issues, and some Catholics lobby for Catholic issues … which proves exactly nothing. Particularly as a person can be member of more than one such identity group at the same time (for example, a person can be both Hispanic, Catholic, and say Left Wing) - to which group does that person’s loyalty and advocacy lie? That is a matter of individual choice.
Do all Jews engage in this lobbying? They do not. I can think of many of Jewish ancestry who lobby against Israeli interests (Noam Chomsky springs to mind). It is all a question of whether loyalty to one’s ethnic or religious background, or loyalty to some intellectual or political cause, is more prominent.
In this, Jews are exactly like everyone else.
So I fail to see that there is even an issue, unless some kind of “elders of Zion” type conspiracy exists.
Exactly how, in your opinion, is “the Jews’” relationship with the media different than (say) “the Catholics’” ? That is what I want to know.
I think people react badly to this type of issue because:
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so many who push this idea are active Jew-haters, and the notion of Jewish conspiracies has been a staple of anti-semitic and Nazi rhetoric for a very long time;
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there is no evidence that any such secret conspiracy among Jews exists; and most significantly
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it presumes, incorrectly, that “the Jews” are a monolythic group who all have the same interests and who work together in harmony (and in secrecy?) to advance them. This is very far from the truth!
On a side note, I read an article that the “Jews control America” myth is very popular in Japan (which has no Jews, or very few). Lacking the “correct” cultural background to interpret this myth in the way originally intended (i.e. with hatred and fear of Jews), the Japanese take the pragmatic approach along the lines of “what can we learn of the wisdom of the Jews, who cleverly control those foolish non-Jews – and how can we imitate them?”
;j
That’s the first quote from that text that I’ve ever seen. Did 2Thick’s cite quote the Elders of Zion?
My anti-Zionist bent comes from Middle-Easterners I’ve known, listening to NPR’s reports from Israel/Palestine, Jews for Justice, Not In My Name, Gush Shalom, Ghandi, Desmond Tutu, and the Neurati Karta (sp?). Zionism, after all, is the idea that the Jews should recreate the Israel of antiquity–regardless what god has to say about it. It’s got nothing to do with the rest of the world. Basically I see the idea that a religious tradition should connect a group of people with a piece of land as nothing more than pagan idolotry (sp?) and, when such a view is put into practice, evil. To say that one group of people are somehow “connected” to a piece of land is simply racist. I can’t condone that sort of thing.
And I’m still not convinced that the Jews control the media (or that they don’t–for the sake of argument). I started this thread specifically because such a claim was recently made in a GQ thread. I thought there’d be more takers.
Then how can a person be convicted of, or acquitted of, conspiracy?
Fuck if I know. That’s why I wrote the OP! I want people to make their cases!
You may. I think you did better job of it than I just did. Thanks!!
I don’t think there’s any reason to disregard the specific incidents related by the author cited in the OP. Not too many anti-Semitic neo-Nazis get away with concealing themselves as writers of books sympathetic to the plight of blacks, American Indians, and Mexican immigrants. So I believe she has no agenda and was telling the truth of her own personal experience. Therefore, there are at least a couple places in the publishing world where showing a less than stellar picture of the Israelis behaviour is a no-no…
That doesn’t mean there’s any industry-wide bias. If there was in the past, it surely isn’t here now. 5 years ago, it seemed like I was the only person I knew who was sympathetic to the Palestinians. This was thanks to my father, who had very good Arab friends in college who filled him in on the whole story. (In jr. high, I actually got called into the counselor’s office by two Jewish students who thought I was anti-Semitic because I suggested in class that the Palestinians were treated poorly and had as much right to that land as the Israelis.) Nowadays, it seems like the pendulum has swung and sympathies are more often with Palestine than with the Zionists. That is, I suspect, partly due to the fact that the media has indeed been showing both sides of the story lately. So I don’t think a Jewish-controlled media would have allowed that fundamental shift in American sympathies to occur if they could have prevented it by presenting a one-sided picture of the conflict. Or at the least, if there is Jewish influence in the media that creates bias, it must not be pro-Zionist Jews doing the controlling.
The real place where the influence of Zionism can be seen is in politics. The voting block of pro-Zionist Jews, and the need to get donations from people of those sentiments, seems like the only reason that possibly explains our continuation of the alliance with Israel. But this is hardly improper. I’m sure that candidates often form their positions with regard to the interest groups they need as voters and donors. Though I may disagree with their positions, candidates identifying as pro-Israel to get elected are no different than candidates who promise to work in support of the black community to get Jesse Jackson’s endorsement, or who pledge to be pro-union in order to get the endorsement of the AFLCIO.
I think you are missing my point.
Normally, if someone is “charged” with conspiracy, the prosecution must make its case. It bears the burden of proof. If it is unable to discharge this burden, then the defendant is acquitted.
That is the case of a criminal prosecution.
In the present case, you seem to be talking about something more diffuse - the “Jewish control of the media”. Either (a) there is a conspiracy to control the media; or (b) there is not. If (a), the burden is on those who allege it.
I will say it again: you cannot disprove the existence of a conspiracy - disprove or fail to disprove any evidence advanced that a conspiracy exists. Does that make sense?
If (b), there is no conspiracy, then as I point out the issue disappears into tautology - some Jews devote their efforts to lobbying on behalf of ethnic or religious issues; others do not. To assume that all Jews (absent a conspiracy) cooperate perfectly in promoting “Jewish interests” is to invest Jews with super-powers that, alas, they do not possess.
from JS Africanus
technically, no- the article did not. The homepage of that site does, and is definitely worth a gander (http://www.americandefenseleague.com/)
I’m not sure I have the stomach for that. I’ll give a whirl tomorrow.
Maybe you should have tried reading my second post in this thread before you responded to it. I did not flame you for the general crime of flaming. I flamed you for flaming people who are a lot smarter than you are, and that’s a crime that I’m certainly not guilty of. (Not in this thread, anyway.)
Evidently not. Consider an example: Over the past few years, it seems like every time the price of gasoline goes up by a couple of dimes the oil companies are accused of price gouging.
Look at the market for gasoline. From what I can see it has all the hallmarks of being a competitive market. Its responsiveness to external shocks can be easily explained by it being such a market. But does that show that there is no collusion? Yes, because there is something better explained by the competitive market hypothesis than by the gouging hypothesis.
Remember that gouging isn’t just charging monopoly prices–gouging is charging arbitrarily high prices for really excessive profits, usually when people are in great need. Is there any state of great need? No, during those times people were still driving to work without carpooling, still driving on vacation, etc. More importantly, the fact that the price responded to external shocks at all indicates that there isn’t collusion to gouge. If oil companies could charge arbitrarily high prices, why wouldn’t they do it already? It’s not like the case of people needing drinking water after a hurricane (sp?). There’s no huge shortage of gasoline going on–yet just the other day I heard a news headline about gouging at the pumps. If it could be done, they’d already be doing it.
Suppose instead that they merely collude to charge monopoly prices once in a while. That seems untenable as well, since the profits from cheating would probably be too great. To charge monopoly prices would also mean selling monopoly quantities. If all the gasoline stations agree that for the month of Feb. they’ll charge a price $0.25 higher, then each station will have a bunch of excess capacity. Any station owner would reap significant rewards by charging only $0.15 higher and selling at capacity! The incentive to cheat is too great.
For these reasons, I can say that I am convinced that there is no conspiracy to collude and gouge at the pump. Yet, you seem to maintain that this is some sort of tautology; i.e. there is no logical way for it to be false. How can that be? There’s lots of ways it could be false. Planning documents. Excessive unnecessary maintenance at refineries coordinated across the industry. Those are two that pop into my head.
So let’s get back to the point at hand. I really hoped there’d be more takers on the pro-conspiracy side. I’ve heard it asserted countless times, yet a list of last names is the only evidence presented.
BTW, when I remarked that I oppose Zionism, don’t read between the lines. I think anybody should be able to live anywhere she chooses and engage in economic, social, religious, and political activity as she fits. What I oppose is a specifically Jewish state in the same way that I would oppose Palestine being a specifically Arab state, or Iran being a Muslim state, or the U.S. being a Christian state, or Germany being for ethnic Germans only.
You misunderstood my tautology point, I think. What I was attempting to say was, once you have eliminated a willful conspiracy as the explianation for the actions of a group, the statement “people can be relied upon to independantly promote their self-interest” is self-evidently true and a point which requires no particular emphasis (unless you happen to think that Jewish people are somehow unique in this regard).
Your example by no means “proves” that there is no collusion. But you seem to move arbitrailly between demanding the sort of proof required to convict someone of conspiracy (you will recall that my answer was a direct reply to your question “Then how can a person be convicted of, or acquitted of, conspiracy?”) and the sort of anecdotal and story-telling examples sufficient to “convince” you personally that no conspiracy exists.
Now, I am no economist and no expert on the gas industry. But if I was sitting in a jury and some prosecutor presented as evidence a memo of a meeting at which a plan to fix gas prices in may was approved by the CEOs of the major oil companies, I would not be interested in hearing about your speculations about the economic reasonableness of abuse of monopoly power. I would want to know if the memo was a real document or a forgery, if the plan was acted upon, etc.
In other words, I would examine the evidence provided by the prosecution. If it failed, then no conspiracy was proven. I would not ask the Oil Companies to prove that a conspiracy did not exist - no single piece of evidence could ever do that!
If the document was proved a forgery, I would be very wary of any further documents purporting to “prove” collusion. I would equally be wary of the sort of anecdotal inference and innuendo which you seem to find acceptable, if it was presented as “evidence” for a conspiracy - one bitten, twice shy. I would particularly be unimpressed if there was a long history of psycopaths and liars pushing this particular “conspiracy theory” in the past, who have been discredited.
Now, in the case of the Jews, there has been “conspiracy” evidence offered before - The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Long exposed as a forgery. There is a long history of psycopaths basing their whole philosophy on this same conspiracy - the Nazis. So there is a lot of faked up stuff floating around out there, which ought to cause you to be wary.
You seem to be wanting to impose on me things which I have never endorsed nor accepted. Indeed, I’ve remarked before in this thread about the Protocols being a forgery–I’m not exactly sure what you’re driving at by bringing it up again. That text is moot. This thread was prompted by the “Jewish controlled media” remarks being very recently made here on the SDMB; IIRC, the Protocols didn’t surface in that thread either. Just as the hypothesis was weakly defended, it’s refutation was equally weak as I noted in the OP. I was hoping to prompt some good arguments on both sides of the issue.
I do recall. It was an example, not a standard of proof. I was given to the mistaken impression that you were arguing as some sort of pedantic exercise that the question of conspiracy is inherently unknowable; I was drawing attention to the fact that such questions are regularly handled by the criminal justice system.
Again, my gasoline example was just an example. The point was to illustrate, not to prove. Recall that you are the one who wrote that “you cannot disprove the existence of a conspiracy…” a claim about which I am still skeptical. My example was to suggest that it is indeed possible to create a case that might qualify as prima facie. It wouldn’t be that hard to get industry data and model that very situation and find out, given that it is a profit maximizer, what an individual firm would do. If a firm is willing to break the law and the backs of its customers for profits, then it would certainly cheat on the deal for even greater profits. Since an elaborate conspiracy involving >10 major corporations and thousands of individual franchise owners is inherently more complicated than the competitive market scenario, since the conspiracy hypothsis is analytically weak, and since the market explains the facts as well if not better than the collusion, Occam’s Razor would make the non-conspiracy hypothesis the acceptable one. So in that sense, the a conspiracy is “provable”–at least in a weak sense.
Note that it stands to reason, as I’ve mentioned before, that a conspiracy would leave a different empirical foot print from what we would expect to see absent a conspiracy. Frankly, I think ** astorian** pointed out a good one. We’re dealing with possibly many theories. The conspiracy theory doesn’t explain the fact brought up by astorian. So I still tend to see propositions 2, 3, & 4 of the OP as being “provable” in the weak sense of convincing me.
Right. There must be some reason why people believe in the whole Jews control the media bit. God damnit, I want to know why! It can’t just be the last names of a few well placed individuals. Shit, even crop-circle believers have a better case than that.
As Augustine of Hippo would say:
“A thing is not necessarily true because badly uttered, nor false because spoken magnificently.”
Well and good, but are you ever going to answer the questions that I, and others, have asked? If you don’t address the issues that your cite has brought up then you’ll come across, IMO, as looking like you just wanted a forum to post anti-semitic/anti-zionist garbage.
I have seen so many of these like minded conspiracy theories, just look at youtube videos and the hate speech about how Jews control the media, the banks, and every war and/or conflict on earth.
The reality is that Jewish culture, much like Asian cultures, puts a very high priority on education and getting ahead, which is why so many Jews are in positions of power. I assure you there is no conspiracy behind it, it is simply the way the culture is…But the people who believe these things will never believe otherwise, you can argue till the cows come home, I’ve learned to ignore them and come to a place with sane people like you all to have a non paranoid conversation 
But sadly Jewish conspiracy theories are rampant…I’ve been blamed for everything from sinking the titanic to destroying the world through communism and zionism (although all of these things began long before I was born lol). And not one of said people ever bothers to ask me whether or not I am any of these things, rich, in the media, a communist, a zionist etc., I am simply guilty because I was born. It’s rather bizarre.
Not sure if anyone has gone through various media companies and looked at ownership.
There was an LA Times article a few years ago by Joel Stein expressing his amazement that people didn’t think Hollywood was largely run by jewish execs 
I don’t know about those other CTs, but I blame them for resurrecting threads that are over 10 years old.