Monday, January 25, 2010

Was Rush Limbaugh wrong about Jewish bankers and Wall Street "money people"?

Kevin MacDonald: What’s gotten into Rush Limbaugh?
(The Occidental Observer blog) -- By Kevin MacDonald

The ADL reports that Rush Limbaugh “raised the possibility that liberal Jews were having “buyer’s remorse” with President Obama in light of the outcome of the Senate election in Massachusetts.” Limbaugh:

"To some people, banker is a code word for Jewish; and guess who Obama is assaulting? He’s assaulting bankers. He’s assaulting money people. And a lot of those people on Wall Street are Jewish. So I wonder if there’s – if there’s starting to be some buyer’s remorse there."

Abe Foxman responded as follows:

"Rush Limbaugh reached a new low with his borderline anti-Semitic comments about Jews as bankers, their supposed influence on Wall Street, and how they vote..."

This is classic ADL-talk. Anything said about Jews as Jews is anathema. No need to actually look at the evidence that indeed Jews are vastly overrepresented in the Wall Street elite and that they gave vastly disproportionate amounts to Obama...

What’s surprising is that Limbaugh would go there, given the long track record of the ADL in condemning any mention of Jews as influencing anything at all. Unless he’s living under a rock (and he isn’t), Limbaugh must have known of the consequences and did it anyway. Perhaps things really are changing for the better.

This is from a previous article reacting to ADL angst about anti-Jewish comments that were appearing in a great many of the comment sections of news articles on the internet in the wake of financial meltdown in 2008:

"The problem is that we all know that there is more than a grain of truth to the claim that Jews run Wall Street, just as there is more than a grain of truth to the claim that Jews run Hollywood. In fact, as we previously pointed out, Benjamin Ginsberg, a prominent social scientist, noted during the 1990s that 50% of Wall Street executives were Jewish.

"Nevertheless, the immediate reaction of the ADL is to attempt to stifle any such comments and simply label them as “anti-Semitism.” …

"Such heavy-handed attempts to squelch discussion of Jewish influence can be seen on a wide range of issues, most notably the role of the Israel Lobby in influencing US foreign policy in the Middle East. When John Mearsheimer and Steven Walt published their work on the Israel Lobby, organizations like the ADL were quick to condemn them as anti-Semites and compared their writing to classic anti-Jewish themes in writings like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion...

"The situation is similar to a previous financial scandal — the one involving Michael Milken, the notorious 1980s junk bond king. As a 1989 National Review article noted, Milken “is Jewish, as were many of his partners and peers. (Indeed, about the only sympathy he has gotten is from those who see his prosecution as an instance of anti-Semitism.)”

"Much of the discussion of the Jewish role in this financial scandal centered around the book Den of Thieves by James B. Stewart. Jewish activist Alan Dershowitz called Den of Thieves an “anti-Semitic screed” and attacked a review by Michael M. Thomas in the New York Times Book Review because of his “gratuitous descriptions by religious stereotypes.”...

"The difference between the current crisis and the Den of Thieves debacle is that the consequences to the financial system of the current Wall Street disaster are far greater and they are far more likely to have a negative effect on pretty much everyone. When a new version of Den of Thieves describes in detail the Jewish involvement in the current catastrophe, perhaps not even Alan Dershowitz or the ADL will be able to keep the lid on the bottle"...MORE...LINK
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Judeofascism.com notes:

Update: Gutless Neocon Limbaugh says he was taken out of context, points to backing by Neocon warmonger Norman Podhoretz, adds he doesn't want bankers regulated

(Limbaugh apparently doesn't understand the difference between free markets and fascism, where crooked banksters, corrupt government "regulators" like Barney Frank and the Wall Street insiders who buy them off transfer billions of taxpayer dollars from average Americans into their own pockets. Or he does know the difference, but is in on the action himself. Either way, Limbaugh is a Neocon buffoon/Big Government shill -- ed.).

Limbaugh: "Earlier this week, I posed a political question in the process and in the context of trying to help a friend and my audience understand the concept that people ask me about a lot: “Why are so many Jewish people liberal?” And a friend of mine — a good friend of mine, Norman Podhoretz — has written a book, an excellent book to explain it. Mr. Podhoretz is himself Jewish. He is the husband of Midge Decter and the father of John Podhoretz, and I know all of them very well and have socialized with them on a number of occasions, and in the process of… Let me just read you this. Podhoretz has written a response to Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League, who is demanding that I apologize for “borderline anti-Semitism.” Now, anybody who listens to this program even marginally knows that this program is and has consistently been one of the most outspoken supporters of the Jewish people and of Israel in particular.

"And Mr. Foxman knows this as well. What I suspect is the usual thing that happened. Somebody took a few words that I said in a pretty long monologue, cut them up, and published them in a way to make it appear I said something that I didn’t say, and rather than check it out..."

"I don’t want the government telling banks how they can and can’t operate. I don’t want Obama being everybody’s boss. I don’t want the government being able to hire and fire people and set salaries. That’s all happened. I don’t want that kind of thing. I wanted him to fail. I was the only person to say so, and that changed the political dynamic...

"So the sheer hatred of me crystallized and compacted this week. You know, I totally understand people trying to damage me and my credibility so that I’m no longer a factor. The thing is when they do this they only amplify me and add to my supposed importance. But you don’t have to be anything other than a liberal to lie about me and attack me and so forth, and this is silly. This “borderline anti-Semitic” charge from the Anti-Defamation League is just silly, and here is what Mr. Podhoretz himself has written in response. He titled this: “It’s Not Rush Limbaugh Who Should Apologize — In my new book, ‘Why Are Jews Liberals?’, I argue that it no longer makes any sense for so many of my fellow Jews to go on aligning themselves with the forces of the Left...

"And Mr. Foxman, if you really want to go after anti-Semitism you should first start looking at it on the left and within the Obama administration and within his circle of friends, because that’s why you’re going to find it. You’re not going to find anti-Semitism on this radio show. You’re going to find nothing but love and respect and admiration for the Jewish people and an unwavering support for Israel that has not ever shaken. I was referring to the Jew haters, the bigots. Twice I referred to “prejudiced people.”...MORE...LINK

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