Public Intellectual: Profession and Purgatory

Columnists

In Washington, where the rice paddies of self-importance are nourished with the night soil of mendacity, columnists are viewed with the seriousness properly reserved for lung cancer. This is ridiculous. Columnists, the rodent class of journalism, have the dignity of carney barkers and merit the social standing of bellhops. It’s a living. For most of us, barely.

A columnist’s job is to tell readers things that they already believe. His function is purely confirmatory. What he confirms may be nonsense, and often is, but this is irrelevant. There is after all everywhere a boom market in nonsense.

Liberals read liberal columnists to be told liberal things, conservatives, conservative, feminists, feminist. All want to be assured that their vacuous and pernicious delusions are the bedrock of cosmic truth. Readers of columns do not want to learn anything. Most want to be protected from it.

Consistency is a columnist’s indispensable stock in trade. He must never tell his readers anything that they do not hold to be sacred lore. Thus an aspiring columnist is wise to choose an ideological position–it doesn’t matter which–and never, ever stray from it. Whether he believes it is not important.

I once read of a columnist, perhaps in the Thirties, a savage conservative who eventually drew the ire of a leftish columnist on another paper, who began a campaign to have the conservative fired. The dispute became ugly with unpleasant accusations being traded. Lawsuits were threatened. Public interest became intense. Then it transpired that the two were the same man. Charged with lack of journalistic integrity, he responded that readers wanted to see their prejudices ventilated in lively prose. He was, he said, doing it for both sides. Stores sold more than one product. Why shouldn’t he?

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From Fred on Everything, here.

Rabbi Shach, Radical Anti-Zionist

Here is a ‘fun’ fact: Rabbi E.M.M. Shach would regularly discourage Jewish Aliyah to Israel (the opposite of the custom of his supposed teacher, the Chazon Ish).

For instance, Moshe Reichman once asked him whether he ought to come live in Eretz Yisrael. Rabbi Shach uttered this in response: Israel is veritably a “Makom Sakanah”, because of the Arab enemy. Israel is (supposedly) dependent for its very existence on the US government’s aid and military might. Nevertheless, those Jews already here need not (and therefore ought not) leave; since it is unclear they would be much safer anywhere else on the planet. (As we know, Rabbi Shach thought Jews worldwide, in accordance with their deeds, were way overdue for yet another Holocaust!) But to get up and come on over in the first place? No.

The falsity of his evil counsel is partially demonstrated in the hyperlinks above (he also ignores the very value of Eretz Yisrael, of course). Israel’s imaginary dependence on American aid was ridiculous propaganda even then. Moreover, his own soft-Satmarism is a major cause of any ‘Sakanah’.

(Updated 30.5.2017)

Of Jew Hating Trumpists and the Reverse

Of Nerve and Nerves

The overwrought and hyperbolic response of some American Jewish organizations to the series of threats against JCC’s across the country should now be met with apologies of similar passion. The repeated accusations of misconduct and outright Jew hatred leveled against the Trump Administration should now be withdrawn and must engender forthright and unrestrained contrition. For all the talk about dog whistles, faint signals, hints, alt-right, alt-white supremacists and neo-Nazi nationalists lurking outside the Oval Office, well, it turns out that, no, it wasn’t Steve Bannon, after all, calling in bomb threats to Jewish institutions. Imagine that. Who would have thought??

The news that an Israeli-American Jew, probably a tad off, has been arrested in Israel for orchestrating dozens of phony bomb threats to US centers should put American Jews at ease. But of course it won’t, because the narrative of “rampant Jew hatred fomented by the right-wing government” is too precious to abandon. So far, two people have been arrested for this “anti-Semitic” wave: a black supremacist, anti-Trump journalist with ties to left-wing organizations and an Israeli-American Jew. Only in America!

Come on: will the white supremacist, Trump-supporting, flag-waving American from the boondocks of Kentucky who hired both of them please identify yourself and surrender to the authorities? The concern here is that until the narrative is satisfied, Jews of a certain temperament and political persuasion will not move on. But they should, as should we all, and try to recover some semblance of normal political discourse. Like the resident of Chelm who kept looking for the lost object under the street light “because it’s brighter there,” there are Jews who are obsessed with finding Jew haters in America, the Trump administration, the government and everywhere but where they can really be found.

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From Rabbi Pruzansky, here.

מצידי אני לא אנוס!

ספר צדקת הצדיק אות מ”ג:

פעמים יש אדם עומד בניסיון גדול כל כך עד שאי אפשר לו שלא יחטא כדרך שאמרו (ברכות ל”ב.) מה יעשה הבן וכו’ ובזה הוא נחשב אונס גמור דרחמנא פטריה. וגם בהסתת היצר בתוקף עצום שאי אפשר לנצחו שייך אונס [ואם ה’ יתברך הסיב את לבו הרי אין חטא זה חטא כלל רק שרצון ה’ יתברך היה כך] ועיין מה שאמרו (כתובות נ”א ע”ב) גבי תחילתו באונס אפילו צווחת לבסוף שאלמלא מניחה היא שוכרתו מותרת לבעלה, מאי טעמא יצר אלבשה הרי דזה מיחשב אונס גמור אף על פי שהוא מרצונה מכל מקום יצר גדול כזה אי אפשר באדם לכופו והוא אונס גמור ואין בזה עונש אף דעשה איסור כיון דהיה אנוס. אבל האדם עצמו אין יכול להעיד על עצמו בזה כי אולי עדיין היה לו כח לכוף היצר [וכמו ששמעתי בזה מענין זמרי שטעה בזה].

(הובא בספר “רציתי לשאול אותך, פרופ’ ליבוביץ”.)

The US Deep State: An Introduction

America’s two governments

760 Shares

There are two governments in America, the government you see and the government you don’t see.

The government you see is the politicians and the courts. They are actors.

Their job is to give the illusion that you have some input in the process of government; that the rule of law and the Constitution is in force.

The political process is theater. It is designed to distract you.

Politicians and judges are employees of the government. The government pays their salaries and their health insurance premiums and funds their pensions. So it should come as no surprise that they always work to grow and expand government.

To watch the politicians on C-SPAN or the news shows or to hear their speeches, one would think that there are two major parties. One claims to be the party of small, limited government and personal responsibility. One claims to be for the working man and for women’s rights, minority rights, for egalitarianism, and big, nanny government.

And so they introduce laws, they debate, and sometimes they come to consensus. They act “bipartisan.” Sometimes they don’t. They act “partisan,” and the party in power forces its will on the other.

But in all of this, government is never cut. It never shrinks in size. Its power is never reduced. Even when politicians are arguing over cutting some so-called “entitlement” or government agency, the cuts they talk about are cuts in growth. They are illusions. There are never any serious discussions about actually cutting government.

It does not matter which Party is in control of the government at any given time. Regardless of whether the president and/or Congress is led by the “R” people or the “D” people, money debasement continues unabated, wars are started or expanded, regulations increase, the dependent class grows and government becomes more overbearing and more authoritarian.

Most people who are aware of politics on at least a basic level remain trapped in the false left/right paradigm that politicians are “R” people or “D” people and they have different agendas. But the political process is a façade of government that satisfies the quest for political choices. It is an illusion unrelated to reality and political participation by the people.

It is, however, the perfect system for keeping the people focused on empty nonsense year after year. People totally misunderstand the nature of government. Otherwise they would know that there is no such thing as political choices or political freedom.

The truth is that on the federal level there is just one political party, and it is the government party. Any belief that there is any significant difference between Democrats and Republicans is pure fantasy.

All supposed differences are merely Kabuki Theater designed to keep the people distracted from the behind-the-scenes machinations of the elites. This is aided and abetted by a compliant mainstream media, which functions as a propaganda arm of the government and the parties.

Politicians — with only a handful of exceptions — do not care about the Constitution and generally see it as an impediment to their objective. Their No. 1 goal is to do the will of their masters. That way, politicians can hold on to their places of prominence and supposed “power” in government for as long as possible.

That’s why politicians who wear the “R” label as well as those who wear the “D” label are working in concert against those who seek to reign in government, reduce its scope, return it to its constitutional parameters and reduce government spending. They want to hold on to their positions of prestige and honor. It is heady business crafting laws that millions must follow, being feted like royalty, having servants and hired hands meeting your every need and, after all that, facing the prospect of a cushy seven-figure lobbying gig once the political gig runs its course.

The visible government has a symbiotic partner in the mainstream media. The media tell you to “call your congressman” and to go out and vote for the candidate “of your choice,” never telling you that the only choices you have are those provided for you.

The Fourth Estate — the mainstream media — long ago ceded its independence and became the Fourth Branch. Six media giants now control 90 percent of what we read, watch and listen to. These corporations are large feeders at the corporatist, government trough, often receiving special remuneration — thanks to the lobbying efforts of former members of the political class — as bills are crafted. Thanks to internet, as I wrote last week, the power of the mainstream media to control the message is dwindling.

The government you don’t see has many names and many elements, all working against your best interests. Among its several names are shadow government, the deep state, powers that be, etc. It is made up of faceless bureaucrats, crony corporations, the power elite, the banksters, the vast U.S. intelligence apparatus, the military-industrial complex (as revealed by President Eisenhower) and the globalists found in think tanks, the Council on Foreign Relations and Trilateral Commission.

They do not change and do not cede power regardless of who is elected. And although they may have slightly different agendas on the micro scale, on the macro scale they work in concert to amass more wealth and power for themselves as they are all natural enemies of the people.

I and others in alternative media have been writing about the shadow government or Deep State for many years, yet until recent events most people either had no idea of it or, if they had heard of it, doubted its existence or considered belief in it a “conspiracy theory.” But the term “Deep State” is being used more and more often these days.

Senator William Jenner spoke about the Deep State in a speech in 1954:

“Today the path to total dictatorship in the U.S. can be laid by strictly legal means, unseen and unheard by Congress, the President, or the people. Outwardly we have a Constitutional government. We have operating within our government and political system … a well-organized political-action group in this country, determined to destroy our Constitution and establish a one-party state…. The important point to remember about this group is not its ideology but its organization… It operates secretly, silently, continuously to transform our Government…. This group … is answerable neither to the President, the Congress, nor the courts. It is practically irremovable.

The Rutherford Institute’s John W. Whitehead describes the Deep State as a, “corporatized, militarized, entrenched bureaucracy that is fully operational and staffed by unelected officials who are, in essence, running the country, this shadow government represents the hidden face of a government that has no respect for the freedom of its citizenry.

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From Personal Liberty, here.