August 19, 2012

A wicked proposition

I have been thinking about this for some time but have not mentioned it before because almost any mention of race and ethnicity is prone to being misunderstood, if not actively demonized.  Yet what I want to say is, I think, commonsense and is certainly well-meant.  Yes.  I know about the road to hell.

What have Indians, Chinese and Jews got in common?  High IQs maybe but there is something more important that a knowledge of history would tell you:  All three have been heavily persecuted in lands  where they have been minorities  -- the Chinese in S.E. Asia, the Indians in East Africa and the Jews we all know about.

Sadly,  I have to say that I think that is human nature.  We can struggle against it and we might even change the minds of educated people but I think the average Joe in any society does not like to think that his society is run by those he perceives as aliens.  That doesn't mean I condone what Indonesia did to the Chinese or Uganda did to the Indians any more than I condone what Hitler  did.  But do note that the Jews in prewar Germany occupied a space in Germany not dissimilar to the space that Jews occupy in America today:  At the top of most heaps. 

Jews in America today seem perfectly safe but Jews in Germany once seemed that way too.  The Prussian parliament announced the emancipation of the Jews as early as 1812 and Frederick the Great welcomed them when just about no-one else would.  As a result the German Jews of the 1930s were the most assimilated Jews in the world.  It did them no good.

Why did it do them no good?  It did them no good because Hitler tapped into precisely the sentiment I mentioned:  resentment of dominance by an ethnically distinctive elite.  Hitler waxed eloquent about Jewish dominance of banking, commerce, science and industry and there were plenty of examples for him to point at.  And there was little objection to that among non-Jewish Germans.

So what should Jews learn from that?  I think that they should learn that they are not as safe as they think.  The antisemitic comments I get on my blogs (DESPITE the Israeli flag I have flying on them all) are both frequent and virulent and the antisemitic cadre formed by Muslim-Americans is well known. 

And the ever-encroaching socialism promoted by the Democrats has already long ago halted any growth in the average incomes of Americans -- despite great technological and scientific improvements.  And the Obama-induced Great Recession seems finally to have put America into economic reverse-gear.  Even a Romney/Ryan victory would seem to have only a slim chance of reversing the huge debt overhang that Obama has bequeathed to America    -- so an outright economic collapse via Weimar-style inflation seems all too possible.  And amid an economic collapse the people at the head of most parts  of "the system" could be very exposed.  Politicians will certainly prioritize saving their own skins above all else and pointing the finger at people other than themselves is totally predictable.

Let us suppose (for instance) that Romney/Ryan is defeated this year and an (overdue) inflationary thunderclap befalls America shortly thereafter.  What is Obama going to say as the 2014 mid-terms approach?  The dislike of Jews among African-Americans is well-known and Obama is an African-American politician who has no problem with race-hate (embodied in  his pastor of 20 years, Jeremiah Wright).  And even among white Democrats there is a barely-suppressed stream of antisemitism that occasionally breaks the surface.  So if Obama pointed to Jewish bankers as the culprit for America's woes he would have almost every prominent African-American and Muslim-American on his side immediately.  And the media will swallow anything that Obama says.  And it's all downhill along a well-trodden path from there.

Republicans might object (as some did in response to FDR's imprisonment of Japanese Americans in WWII) but the well-oiled and media-enabled Leftist abuse machine would soon drown that out.

Are there any steps that Jews can take right now that will help them in the future?  I think there is one.  I will be blunt about it:  Jews occupying prominent positions in American life should make aliyah.  Israel needs their money and talents and they need Israel.



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