#we’re looking in real time how Israel is getting away with genocide again and people are here being neutral because both sides are bad | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

schraubd · 6 years

Text

When The Mask Comes Off ... What's Beneath Doesn't Look All That Different

The Prime Minister of Malaysia, Mahathir Mohamad, explains why he is "glad" to be called an antisemite.

“There is one race that cannot be criticized. If you are anti-Semitic, it seems almost as if you are a criminal,” Mohamad said in an interview with the Associated Press on Monday, denying that he disliked Jews, as such. “Anti-Semitic is a term that is invented to prevent people from criticizing the Jews for doing wrong things.”

“When somebody does wrong, I don’t care how big they are. They may be powerful countries but if they do something wrong, I exercise my right of free speech. They criticize me, why can’t I criticize them?”

Mohamad, an avowed anti-Semite, was sworn in as prime minister in May, nearly two decades after he last held office. He is well known for his anti-Semitic rhetoric, writing on his personal blog in 2012 that “Jews rule this world by proxy.”

He has also said, “I am glad to be labeled anti-Semitic […] How can I be otherwise, when the Jews who so often talk of the horrors they suffered during the Holocaust show the same Nazi cruelty and hard-heartedness towards not just their enemies but even towards their allies should any try to stop the senseless killing of their Palestinian enemies.”

This, of course, is rather naked. It speaks of Jews (although the de rigueur conflation with Israel is present), and it does not shy away from (indeed it actively embraces) the idea of antisemitism. In that sense, it is almost too easy of a case. And this is not remotely out of character for Mohamad either. But where these passages may be of some use is in highlighting how certain antisemitic tropes work in a context where they are freely and openly attached to an antisemitic ideology, the better to spot them when they appear without such an overt gloss. Basically everything Mohamad is saying is something that, dressed up (a little) more nicely, is a common feature of discourse about Jews in global society today. First, there is the claim that the real victims of antisemitism are those accused of it -- antisemitism is not (or is not primarily) a genuine form of oppression for Jews, but rather is a perk Jews enjoy to shield ourselves from critical review. Compare here Bruce Robbins "The real issue here is anti-Semitism; that is, accusing people of it" or Naomi Klein suggesting that some Jews "think we get one get-away-with-genocide-free-card." Second, there is the argument that in taking on the Jews, he is taking on someone or something "big". Here he really dips between referring to "Jews" generally and "Israel" specifically (For the record, Malaysia has four times the population of Israel across a territory almost sixteen times its size). Of course, the perception of Jews as inherently "big" -- domineering, cabalistic, pulling the strings -- has deep pride of place in antisemitic rhetoric. Mohamad is appealing to a notion whereby antisemitism always is a form of "punching up", "a movement of the little people against an intangible, global form of domination". This perspective has come to occupy a critical role in the narrative Corbyn supporters tell of Jewish outrage -- both in the view that Corbyn, in antagonizing the Jews, is tackling the powerful, and in the view that the Jewish backlash is itself attributable to some nefarious conspiracy Next, there is the invocation of "free speech". Of course, this particular ploy should by now be familiar to anyone forced to endure alt-right trolling of college campuses -- when they choose to be racist, it's just free speech! And if you call it racist, you're suppressing their free speech! But this device makes its appearance regarding antisemitism too, and has done so for a very long time. Jewish Voice for Peace's old blog was titled "MuzzleWatch", and one of the major fringe groups backing the Corbynistas and opposing Jewish efforts to raise awareness of antisemitism in the UK is named "Free Speech on Israel". Glenn Greenwald has likewise dismissed the widespread adoption of the IHRA antisemitism definition as part of a "global campaign to outlaw criticisms of Israel as bigotry". Then there's the comparison of "Jews" (represented through Israel) to Nazis -- we're all familiar with that play, and I'm glad to see it here if only for completion's sake. But we'll conclude with the most striking bit, and the one that perhaps seems least applicable to more workaday antisemitic cases: where Mohamad says he is "glad" to be called antisemitic. Here one might say I'm actually being a touch unfair to Mohamad, for what I suspect he means is something more like "while antisemitism -- appropriately (and narrowly) defined -- is terrible; what is called antisemitic in public discourse are actually good, noble, and virtuous positions that one should be proud to hold." This is buttressed by the caveat Mohamad gave at the beginning, where he denies that he "dislikes Jews, as such." Once again, this has parallels. Steve Bannon notoriously said that being called racist is a "badge of honor"; Steven Salaita's contention that antisemitism has become "honorable" thanks to Zionism plays on the same turf. In all cases, the claim actually isn't "it is good to hate outgroups"; it's something more like "what outgroups claim is hateful, actually is good". Now, to be clear -- that's still a BS response, partially because it is too clever by half, partially because it depends on an epistemic injustice directed against the outgroups whereby their assessments of their own experience of inequality is so unreliable that one should be "honored" if they feel threatened by you. But at least formally, it reduces down to a claim that "one can and should dislike X group insofar as they act in A B C bad ways, or support D E F bad policies." Which actually circles back, strangely enough, to my Tablet Magazine article on Open Hillel's intervention in the SFSU antisemitism debate. In that article, I cited Bernard Williams for the proposition that virtually no form of racism holds itself out as being a product of raw, unadorned antipathy. It always comes attached to claims that are at least on-face about something that qualifies as a candidate for a reasonable position. Wrote Williams:

Few can be found who will explain their practice merely by saying, 'But they're black: and it is my moral principle to treat black men differently from others'. If any reasons are given at all, they will be reasons that seek to correlate the fact of blackness with certain other considerations which are at least candidates for relevance to the question of how a man should be treated: such as insensitivity, brute stupidity, ineducable irresponsibility, etc. Now these reasons are very often rationalizations, and the correlations claimed are either not really believed, or quite irrationally believed, by those who claim them. But this is a different point; the argument concerns what counts as a moral reason, and the rationalizer broadly agrees with others about what counts as such -- the trouble with him is that his reasons are dictated by his politics, and not conversely. The Nazis' 'anthropologists' who tried to construct theories of Aryanism were paying, in very poor coin, the homage of irrationality to reason.

So too here. I quoted Mohamad's words extensively because to my mind they represent an unquestionable case of antisemitism. But his caveat that he does not dislike Jews "as such" is one that Open Hillel's standard of antisemitism has great trouble grappling with. If Mohamad's point is that he doesn't dislike Jews-qua-Jews, only the bloodthirsty ones, the Zionist ones, the Nazi-like ones, the ones who are "big" and the ones who censor his free speech -- is that antisemitism? Cast in that light, Mohamad isn't actually all that different from the peers I've been comparing him to; perhaps just a little rougher around the edges. And that, ultimately, is the real point here. One might think that Mahathir Mohamad represents what happens when the screen of respectability comes down and an antisemite simply says what he thinks. But it turns out that, when that happens, what one sees doesn't look all that different from what one sees when the mask stays on. Mohamad uses tropes and claims and devices that are common in discourse about Jews by people who have far more claim to respectability than Mohamad does. One would like to think that's an indictment of the respectable. But it just as easily can become a defense of what we otherwise would think of as undeniable antisemitism. via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/2L1o6Gj

#anti-semitism #Malaysia

71 notes · View notes

ninety9percent · 5 years

Text

Comments on Joe Biden’s Ad soliciting donations

Joe Biden sponsored this ad on FB. There were interesting comments. Sharing some. Not surprisingly only “Vote Blue No Matter Who” people support him. Comments are being presented as is - no editing. First his ad:

As a top Democrat, you’ve been selected by the Biden for President campaign to share your top priorities with Joe! We need your answers by midnight tonight, so don’t delay. Click below to begin the survey:

MaryBeth Sjostrom Pasmore

✅Opposes Medicare For All ✅Opposes legalizing marijuana ✅Supports the death penalty ✅Wrote the 1994 crime bill ✅Voted for DOMA ✅Voted for NAFTA ✅Voted for Iraq War ✅Voted for PATRIOT Act. Takes money from health insurance, corporations. ... no, I won't vote Joe.

Jenny Miles

Sorry Joe, you are exactly the opposite of what's needed. Too many reasons: 1. “The younger generation now tells me how tough things are—give me a break... No, no, I have no empathy for it, give me a break.” 2. “Trump is not a bad man” 3. Biden praises former Republican Senator who was forced to resign after 19 sexual harassment complaints. 4. Referred to immoral moneylenders as Shylocks - insulting and offending Jews 5. Supported attacks on Anita Hill (who had accused Clarence Thomas of “ inappropriate sexual behavior“) and refused to call witnesses who could testify in support of her claim. 6. Wrote 1994 Crime Bill heralding “the era of mass incarceration“ 7. Wrote 1995 Omnibus Counter Terrorism Bill “ allowing the Government to use evidence from secret sources in deportation proceedings “ (despite claiming to oppose that section he introduced the bill), and included 1st Amendment violating “anti freedom of association” provisions (became Patriot Act) 8. Opposed marriage equality; “ No. Barack Obama nor I support redefining from a civil side what constitutes marriage” (has since changed) 9. Voted in 1999 to repeal Glass Steagall - leading to (as expected) the financial crisis 10. In 2001 voted for Patriot Act, emphasizing that it was essentially a copy of his 1995 Omnibus Counter Terrorism Act 11. In 2002 Voted for “illegal” Iraq War 12. In 2005 Voted to end bankruptcy protection for students [ Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act (BAPCPA) ] 13. In 2018 Presented George Bush with Liberty Medal “presented to individuals for their commitments to veterans “ 14. “I am not Bernie Sanders. I don't think 500 billionaires are the reason we're in trouble. The folks at the top aren't bad guys”. 15. Supported Civil Asset forfeiture, even without an arrest or conviction 16. Pushed for “Cabinet Level Drug Czar” to punish “drug crime” 17. “The punishment should fit the crime. But I think [marijuana] legalization is a mistake. I still believe [marijuana] is a gateway drug.” 18. Opposed spending money on drug research (including medical) on any Schedule 1 drug 19. Supported and introduced mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses that saw “the average federal drug sentence for African Americans was 11% higher than for whites. Four years later, the average federal drug sentence for African Americans was 49% higher”. 20. Despite the strong anti drug stance, his daughter was arrested for drugs (and a decade later caught on video allegedly snorting cocaine), but there is no evidence of a conviction or asset seizure. 21. Again, despite the above, when his son tested positive for cocaine, there was no conviction and no asset seizure. 22. Supported Militarization of the Police - that had no effect on reducing crime, but is correlated with higher rates of police discrimination against minorities (blacks) 23. Unable to “think of any reason not to run for President” 24. MBNA Credit Card Company in his home state was his biggest donor between 1989 amnd 2000. Biden voted against a measure requiring credit card companies to warn consumers of the consequences of making only minimum payments (and others). MBNA hired Biden’s son, Hunter, as a lobbyist straight out of law school, and later hired him as a consultant from 2001 to 2005 — the same years Biden was helping to pass the bill 25. Ukraine’s biggest private gas producer (whilst under investigation for corruption) hired his son to serve on its board while Biden was acting as the Obama administration’s point man on Ukraine policy. 26. A mid-sized construction firm Hill International won a $1.5 billion contract to build 100,000 homes in Iraq had Biden’s brother, James, as its executive vice president, despite lacking any experience in residential construction prior to joining the firm. 27. One of the Senate’s top twenty-five earners of outside income — and, along with twenty-two others on that list (of top earners), voted against a bill to limit such earnings. 28. In 1979, after receiving donations from Coca-Cola, Biden cosponsored and voted for legislation that let the soft-drink industry get around antitrust laws. 29. The same year, he voted against a measure before the Judiciary Committee to expand consumers’ rights to sue over price-fixing — one of only two Democrats to do so. 30. Has a very close “revolving door” relationship with lobbyists 31. Vehement opponent of school busing implemented to tackle racial segregation 32. Opposed a deficit reduction military spending freeze, and supported an increase in the retirement age 33. “I have the most progressive record of anybody running" 34. Has NOT signed pledge not to accept money from fossil fuels industry 35. “rejection of the whole movement of black pride.” 36. After being accused by seven women of “inappropriate touching” , hugs kids, and makes jokes about it. 37. Offered Ukraine $1Bn to sack their prosecutor 38. Supports a number of anti abortion measures 39. Proud of his support for the death penalty for a wide range of offenses 40. No statement on pledge rejecting corporate money 41. No statement on GND (Green new Deal) 42. No statement on fossil fuel money pledge 43. No statement on support for universal healthcare 44. No statement on "free" college education 45. No statement on abolishing Electoral College 46. No statement on supporting whistelblowers exposing government criminality 47. No published tax returns for 10 years 48. No declared statement opposing Israel genocides in gaza

- via Dennis Freeland

Lindsay Shugerman

Don't run. Please don't run. We don't need another corporate paid shill. Medicare for ALL, no fracking, free public college, livable wages (for real), end to Citizens United and lobbyists buying power. Renewable energy, not oil. In other words, NOTHING you support.

Matthew Pace

There is only one priority. Get the Orange Menace evicted from squatting in the WH; stabilize the government and pass it off to peaceful elections in 2024. The insanity in the WH has to end.

Josh Ruppert - Matthew Biden is just as bought why don't you research before running your mouth. Biden is put as a candidate because the DNC wants to loose. If Bernie wins their slush money goes bye bye.

Hugh Stearns - This anti-intellectual trope is brought to you by the DNC. How, before the primary, does it make any sense to interject anyone but Trump? Of course, we want anyone but Trump. This is an attempt to suggest that we must suffer another centrist candidate or risk losing to Trump. This is the same argument that was used against the more progressive candidate last time. If we want to beat Trump and future Trumps we better think critically about the elitist element of the Democratic Party and question their authority.

Allen Heinzer

My top priority is for Biden to withdraw and support Bernie

Allen Heinzer - Biden is a republican lite there is no establishment democrats they all just democrats in name only Fdr was a democrat Look up his record If democrats would run on that they’d never lose

Allen Heinzer - Ask yourself if he is a democrat why didn’t him and Obama give us universal healthcare when they had super majority in all 3 branches

Nancy Hollister Kozlenko - Allen Heinzer I hope you support who ever represents the Democratic Party and not go off in a huff if your guy or gal doesn’t win. That’s how Trump got in!

Lin Bower - Martha Korte Get real,Bernie is a back stabber.He was such a good friend to Hillary until she beat him .Then he wasn’t.A person like that is not Presidential material.

D Kim Sayre-Arnold - Gary Bailey And Bernie WAS THE SPLITTER IN 2016!!! HE NEEDS TO STICK TO HIS OWN PARTY, and please, stay out of mine.!

Pamela Jarvis - Allen, that about sums it up. Biden announced his run at $2,000 a plate fund raiser with corporate CEO's. I am voting Bernie. I may be old but I am hanging with the young progressive's choice..feel the Bern

Tammy Fox Sorry

my top priority is getting Bernie Elected.

Charlotte Arnold - Bernie cost us the last election. Republicans have a lot of crap on Bernie they are going to release if he wins the primary. Bernie will not win.

Lezli Magnani - Charlotte Arnold Bernie did not cause that loss!! The DNC shoving Hillary down people’s throats caused that loss. Again, the clearest candidate that can beat Trump is being ignored by the corporate democratic party. Joe will not be shoved down our throats either. Please just follow the money-look where Joe is getting his money from-always follow the money

Rebecca Sake - D Kim Sayre-Arnold once you take your corporate owned Republicans out of our Democratic Party then you’ll see Bernie is in the right place. And Bernie didn’t split anything, your candidate was too weak to win. #BernieWouldHaveWon

Rebecca Sake - Me too, #HealthCareForAll will only be attainable with #Bernie2020 Biden is backed by big pharma & Comcast. He's not a man of the people and he's out to make his corporate donors happy.

Rebecca Sake - Kim Crane they weren’t her votes to begin with. And every chance she had to earn those votes were blown by her own decisions, remember she said she didn’t need the progressive dems. You can think he took away millions of votes all you want, doesn’t make it true. The truth is, she never earned the votes she needed to win. End of story. Stop blaming everyone but the one who lost the easiest victory ever.

Rebecca Sake - Kim Crane actually it was Hillary supporters who, in larger numbers refused to vote for Obama. In 2016, Hillary failed to even try to court progressive votes. Most of us had very specific reasons to not vote for her, and her cheating her way into the nomination made it very easy to vote third party. A very small percent voted Trump but the majority voted third party. Btw you earn votes, they aren’t given because of the fear of the other candidate. It might also surprise you to know Hillary helped trump in the early primaries because she felt he’d be the easiest to beat. You guys forget that a lot while you’re trying to shame people for not voting for the most owned candidate in history. Your lack of insight and foresight is more to blame for a trump presidency than our educated choice of voting.

Anita Concilio

Health care Joe - and parity for women in the workplace and as citizens of the world. Child care, education, and for goodness sake, job training for the families in the midwest who have lost manufacturing and farming. Oh, and also, immigration reform, like amnesty maybe? Middle class needs some significant help. And campaign financing reform, oh, the list is so long. But I have faith that a Biden administration would focus on the things that will make America respected again.

Nicole F Sharpe

Joe, your time has come and gone by. You've made too many "bi-partisan" compromises that have hurt too many people, especially women, in your need to be liked. We can't trust you to do the right things in office because we know you'll cave to political expediency at the people's expense. You may get the DNC nod but you won't be elected, and we need a candidate that can be elected. Please bow out of the race now and put your support where it will do some good instead of sapping the strength of more viable candidates

Ashley Smuts Pizzuti

Joe - what are you going to do about your history with student loans? I know you love those lenders. We know your history. But you are very out of touch with a problem you helped create.

Mary Nikas

We have predators on our streets that society has in fact, in part because of its neglect, created," said Biden, then a fourth-term senator from Delaware so committed to the bill that he has referred to it over the years as "the Biden bill." "They are beyond the pale many of those people, beyond the pale," Biden continued. "And it's a sad commentary on society. We have no choice but to take them out of society." In the speech, Biden described a "cadre of young people, tens of thousands of them, born out of wedlock, without parents, without supervision, without any structure, without any conscience developing because they literally ... because they literally have not been socialized, they literally have not had an opportunity." He said, "we should focus on them now" because "if we don't, they will, or a portion of them, will become the predators 15 years from now." Biden added that he didn't care "why someone is a malefactor in society" and that criminals needed to be "away from my mother, your husband, our families."” https://www.google.com/.../biden-1993-speech.../index.html

Laurence Bridge

Medicare & the cost of long term care is the most important concern for those of us who having worked and saved all our working life,can end up in a facility that was once called the workhouse.Untrained staff, disgusting food,left to lie in our own waste ,to the tune of thousands of dollars from our life time savings,for these disgraceful places called LONG TERM CARE, perhaps our politicians should be forced to take a long look at the Chinese system,who treat the elderly with dignity in the twilight of their lives.

Cathy Sullivan

i'm going with .. go away Joe Biden .. we can't afford to lose to trumpy again. Make sure Hillary leaves with you

Deborah Birdsong

#NoJoe No more corporate democrats who run their campaigns using special interest monies! #OverturnCitizensUnited#Bernie2020

Mary Nikas

“Biden, by contrast, has been a bag man for big corporations for his entire career. Delaware is like the Luxembourg of U.S. states — a tiny tax haven and flag of convenience for corporations who own the local political system outright, and Biden is no exception. His economic policy career has been one disgrace after the next — sponsoring or voting for multiple rounds of financial deregulation, trade deals that savaged the American manufacturing base, and bankruptcy "reform" that made it much harder to discharge consumer debt (and nearly impossible to get rid of student debt). It's no surprise at all that on the same day he launched his campaign, Biden held a fundraiser including several corporate lobbyists and Republican donors at the home of a Comcast executive.”

Jeffery Ansani

Perfect example of his stupidity. Did he send this to all the "disaffected" white working class males who voted for trump in 2016 whose votes he needs to capture to beat trump? He's so arrogant he thinks his mere presence in the race is enough. And secondly, if I'm a Right Wing Fuckhead I use this to Demonstrate that he doesn't give a FUCK about ALL Americans' concerns. Like taking candy from a baby dinosaur. It's a transparent attempt to bolster small donor roles, nothing more. Seriously! All he has to do is look at the polls. We overwhelmingly FAVOR a Green New Deal, money OUT of politics, Medicaid for ALL, sensible gun laws, reasonable and humane immigration reform, free college, and just about every other Progressive proposals. WAKE THE FUCK UP DEMOCRATS! And when you do, smarten up too. These people have failed you for thirty years while Bernie has been FIGHTING for you. He's the only choice. For Robert Paul PaulKarla Jen Lynn Jannon and any others who may be thinking Joe is a good option. He's not. Look at the polls. Not the candidate polls but the issues ones. You'll see very clearly, he's out of touch. Don't argue with me, he's not the one.

0 notes

bellarkelifestyle · 7 years

Text

not normally political but here goes

I have a lot of thoughts about what’s happening to the Muslim/Arab people in America right now and I just want to say that I understand. Living in a white society, it is so hard being an immigrant, especially if you’re part of a visible minority, and I’m not trying to belittle, devalue, or make light of other minorities that have been oppressed over the years like the LGBTQ+ community, or women in general, but because of what’s going on right now in this context, with this ban, this is about race. They (the Trump administration, Trump supporters, xenophobic/racist people in general) can chalk it up to immigration all they want, but they aren’t fooling anyone. Even though it’s said to be temporary, the fundamentals behind even implementing this as temporary action is highly concerning.

If you look at the events that led to World War II, to the Holocaust, it starts with the idea that certain people were creating problems for the German people, that they were eroding the German identity. The “they” in this situation was mostly Jewish people, along with others deemed undesirable, unfavourable and ill-suited to the German nationalistic identity. It didn’t take long for it to turn into a debate on the definition of who/what is German and who/what is not, and we see a frighteningly similar pattern right here and right now, in the continued and deliberate attack on anything related to Islam or the Middle East as well as comments made pertaining to the Latino community. When people in Europe needed help, when Jewish people needed help, they were turned away because of the semitism and the prejudice of the 1930s and 40s, and countless lives were lost. It was horrific, and the world said “never again, never again will we let this happen”, and slogans started coming up saying “as long as people remember what happened in WWII, it’ll never happen again,” and now I have to ask you what was the point of all of these Holocaust Memorials and genocide teachings when we’ve just managed to land right back here all over again, after 70 years with more genocides? (Fun fact: after the horrific events of WWII, a new term had to be coined to be able to properly describe the mass extinction and eradication of a specific group. A term that would be able to encompass all the horrors and disgusting activities perpetrated. So they came up with ‘genocide’; “geno” from genos, generally pertaining to human, or group (like genome), and “cide”, a suffix used to express more than just death; but also loss (see suicide, homicide, etc). A word that should send shivers down one’s spine with just the realization of what it represents. Mass death; extinction.) But after 70 years, what have we learned? We haven’t learned anything, clearly.

But getting back to the present; life became so inconceivably difficult for people that were visible minorities after 9/11. If your appearance in anyway suggested Middle Eastern descent or origin, you became someone that could be targeted, that could be demonized because of what your culture represented, because of what your religion represented. People who have been categorized as ‘Brown’ know what I’m talking about and the behaviour such a label entails. It means the comments about terrorism and being a terrorist said so offhandedly, it means “go back to where you came from” jokes, it means the glances you would get anytime you’d see or hear something about Al Qaeda or Taliban or Isis, it means getting called aside at airport security for ‘random selection’ time and time again because when you’re the brown person travelling in a group of white people it can look suspicious. It happens a lot in Europe, and I understand their fear, I really do. Horrible things have happened in Europe, but horrible things have also happened elsewhere in the world too, for a longer period of time, and that 'fear’ that they feel is the point of all the attacks. They (the radicals, extremists, terrorists, call them whatever you want, their point is the same) want to create that fear to isolate and weaken. We call it 'terrorism’ because it strikes terror - literally paralyzing, unimaginable, unendurable fear - into the hearts of people of diverse nations. It is meant to divide people, to make people distrust their neighbours because of the way they look or the way they pray or the way they dress. It is meant to create factions amongst people that otherwise have no fight with one another, and to create an environment where people are targeted and demonized and blamed for the actions of others. When we react to violence with violence, fear with fear, terror with terror, we are feeding the beast. We are giving those people that want to create worldwide discord what they want. So let’s not let them do that!

Personally, I’m a 17 year old Canadian-born girl of two Indian immigrants, born in Winnipeg, one of the whitest (demographically), most-racist (anecdotally) cities in Canada, where after three months, we moved to Montréal, spent eight years in one of the most cosmopolitan cities in North America, and then finally moved to Calgary where we are now; and I think it’s fair to say I’ve seen a lot of different aspects of what Canada looks like, of what a fairly healthy and functioning diverse country looks like and the truth is, it’s not always fair and it’s not always equal. It’s not always kind, either, and that’s the harsh truth. The notion that a country that’s as generally accepting as Canada is is without flaws is, well, a flawed ideal. Work still has to be done in Canada, but I think it’s safe to say that more work needs to be done in America. I could talk about my own story and my family’s story and just kind of how we’ve seen the world evolve - but then I remember that “evolve” is not the right word, because we’re not becoming something better, we’re just changing, so instead - how it’s changed in the 15 years since 9/11. But that wouldn’t change anything. That doesn’t help people that are scared right now, that feel isolated and alone right now, and that have had terror struck into their hearts because of what 'their’ president said, because of what 'their’ president has done and how he said he would protect the rights of all people in his country. Well, it’s been a week on the job President Trump, and you’ve already failed.

When 9/11 happened, this Islamophobia started, and no one knew what to call it back then, there wasn’t really a word for it. It was just this concept that the Islamic countries were dangerous, and that their ideas were dangerous, and that you have to watch out for them because there’s something wrong with them, and people never really got over that and it’s still visible in the aftermath and the consequences of wars that western countries had no part of getting involved in; but that’s a conversation for another day. When people started comparing Trump to Hitler, I really hated that trend, because you can’t compare the genocide of 10 million people deemed 'unfavourable’ by a sociopath to the ramblings of a racist, rich, white man. I mean there was really no comparison, and it’s unfair to the Jewish population to say that, but never did I think I’d see the day that Trump’s executive policies would align him closer to Hitler’s iconic (sorry, but true) and infamous ideologies than any other head of state since WWII. The fact that his administration has had the audacity to flat-out lie on national television to the very population it swore to serve on its very first day in power is an ominous sign. And nearly every executive order signed since has just further cemented that Trump is a petulant child who is so stubborn he demands that his views and opinions become the law and basis on which to run the country. Because he seems to have forgotten that the core of democracy is that it is run by the people, for the people. Because he is a hypocrite above all else.

But to go back to what this post was originally about. Race. To the people out there who say race is a human construct: that may be true. But to think that we can live in a post-race world is just naive. Unfortunately, that is not the way our world was built, and so we will have to fix it through the limits and barricades the generations of people before us have set up. That means accepting that race is real, that it won’t just go away, and that there truly is a race problem, not only in America, but in caucasian-centric nations around the world. I mean, the idea of being Middle-Eastern or Arab is so taboo that Christianity insists on depicting Jesus as white. You can argue that it was derived from different times, and that’s it’s just tradition, but if you know it’s wrong now, then why not invoke change? Hello? Jesus was a Jewish man from the Syria-Israel-Palestine-Egypt geographic area. He is 99.99% likely to have been brown, with black hair and a thick beard. To think or demand otherwise is frankly, pure stupidity. But it’s not necessarily those believers’ faults, and I’m not here to stir up religious dissent. It’s simply one of the consequences of a system that demands white-washing everything to be at a purity level acceptable for white people, who have always seen themselves as superior, even if it hasn’t been blatantly obvious. Sorry to white people who do care, I and I’m sure many others appreciate the support, but making a difference starts with realizing that the milennia of white-washing and racial negligence that has occurred to create a “proper” society whose idols fit into a range of “white appropriateness” is a system and a concept that need to be changed. And it means stepping up for Black Lives Matter, for DACA/DAPA, and speaking out against religious intolerance when mosques go up in flames or black churches go through mass shootings. It means giving a damn beyond grumbling at the tv, “this is bullshit.” I’m guilty of this too. But we can help invoke change by speaking, by not staying quiet, by taking the leap and breaking the taboo silence that makes us fear being called an overzealous social justice warrior. Don’t be afraid to speak your mind. I had to work up the courage to type this, let alone post it for the world to see. But I feel lighter now, so I would definitely recommend it. Change begins by showing support and getting the word out, letting people know that someone out there really does care, and is not okay with what’s going on.

I literally can not believe that we (humanity) have been civilized for nearly 10,000 years and are still unable to grapple with the concept that skin colour does not a person make. Does not define worth or ability or reputation. And no, just because I’m brown doesn’t make me biased in this cause. It makes me a victim, it makes me a bystander, it makes me a sympathizer, it makes me a supporter, and most importantly, it makes me human. Because racial discrimination isn’t just un-American. It’s inhumane.

I would be happy to hear any thoughts people wanted to share! I don’t have all the info, nor do I know all the proper tags to spread awareness, but it’s all out there and all over and trending so if shouldn’t be too hard to find! Spread kindness y'all :)

#i condemn the muslim ban #muslim ban #news #politics #screw trump #speak out #no ban no wall #i was missingwaterbottles #bellarkelifestyle

6 notes · View notes

republicstandard · 6 years

Text

Liberal Nationalism? The Hypocrisy of Yascha Mounk

Yascha Mounk is an interesting chap. A political scientist, author, and Harvard lecturer, Mounk is obsessed with populism- or rather, he is obsessed with ensuring that his peculiar idea of what populism means is adopted as objective truth.

"We're trying a historically unique experiment: Transforming a mono-ethnic, mono-cultural society into a multi-ethnic one. That can work out. I believe it will work out, but naturally this will provide social distortions." -Yascha Mounk

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

Mounk is not a populist, he is a globalist and a liberal- which is absolutely fine by me, the West has been built on the friction between ideas and free expression. That is why we are not totalitarians. However, Mounk is also dishonest and seeks to conflate ideas that he does not like together under the umbrella of 'populism' and reduce 'nationalism' to being just the civic identity of all nation-states- provided that state is not named Israel, but we will come to that thorny business later. With all due credit to Mr. Mounk, he does have a book coming out so you can see why he is so prevalent in the mainstream media talking about his ideas. We should be grateful that his agent is so diligent and that he has been so forthcoming, as the results are illuminating indeed.

In an interview with Haaretz, Feb. 21, 2018, Mounk said:

"Today, we face a trilemma of nationalism, democracy, and globalization. You have to find a way to make those three work together because you cant get away from nationalism and you don't want to give up democracy and globalization.

The key, says Mounk with an ironic smile, is... to give people a feeling they have a control over their lives and that your own nation has control over its destiny. In order for people to feel that they have to be convinced that they can live in a multi-ethnic and democratic society and still be better off materially and the liberal camp must learn how to embrace nationalism.

The idea used to be that we can get away from nationalism and substitute it with other things like social justice, and somehow people will learn to live without it. But when nationalism and democracy clash, nationalism wins."

This is a crucial part of understanding Mounk's perspective. He recognizes that some form of nationalism defeats democracy- but he is truly talking about two different kinds of nationalism in these three paragraphs. He begins with the idea of nationalism being an ever-present force, literally the glue that binds a nation together. He says that you cannot escape it, but that he doesn't want to give up on democracy and globalization. Well, I would suggest that globalization we can do well without and are in fact incompatible entirely with a concept of a nation- the very nature of free movement of people, free trade and free movement of capital requires that globalism dominates the rights of any nation-state or her people.

Mounk recognizes that the ethnic root of nations exists in a tangible way. He knows that the ethnic root of a people, this immortal tie forged over centuries, will always defeat a 'democratic' process that treats that ethnic identity poorly or is perceived to do so. We need only look at the rise in Black Identitarianism in the West to show this to be true- despite acquiring protected class status in legislation and not being discriminated against one iota by the democracy of the United States, the perception that this is so is enough for a wide-ranging ethnocentric movement that is immune from any accusation of racism thanks to the effect of the ideology of intersectional social justice on society at large.

Mounk smiles when he says that you have to give people the feeling of being in control of their own destiny- not that this is an inalienable right, not that people need this to be a free people, but that they only need to feel it is so. Again:

"In order for people to feel that they have to be convinced that they can live in a multi-ethnic and democratic society and still be better off materially and the liberal camp must learn how to embrace nationalism."

This is the reframe that Mounk is pushing towards. A liberal understanding of nationalism is, in reality, a co-opting of civic nationalism to be compliant with progressivism. To make this a reality, the frame of conversation will necessitate a re-definition of what nationalism actually is, away from the complex mix of ethnic identity and the civic identity that ethnicity defines for itself, and towards pure civics, the 'magic soil' which transforms every Turk into a German when his shoes touched the ground at Flughafen Dusseldorf and ingrained me with a thousand years of Balearic identity when I arrived here in Ibiza. What remains, the concept of a people who are identified more than simply the land they choose to live, the very real ethnic and racial bonds that exist between all humans to varying degrees in this great species called humanity, all this is to be swept up into a box marked 'populism' and there it will be spat at and denigrated for being racial bigotry with a political name.

In The New York Times, March 3rd Mounk wrote:

"There is a sizable number of Americans for whom the idea of the nation remains synonymous with whiteness and Christianity.

So long as nationalism is associated with one particular ethnic or religious group, it will serve to exclude and disadvantage others. The only way to keep the destructive potential of nationalism in check is to fight for a society in which collective identity transcends ethnic and religious boundaries — one in which citizens from all religious or ethnic backgrounds are treated with the same respect as citizens from the majority group."

'American' is both an ethnic identity and a civic status. If it was not an ethnic identity, then there would be no need for prefixes to describe the different races that are also American citizens, with all the same respects and rights as the majority group which are guaranteed under the Constitution of the United States. This being said, the nation of the United States is a former European colony, in the same way as South Africa and Australia. The American Dream is fundamentally a dream of European people, which through the civics of the American state defined by people of European culture and descent were eventually extended to all people of all creeds- but the idea is as fundamentally European in nature as the ideas of Aristophanes and Plato and Socrates are Hellenic. We cannot separate the development of civics from the people who created that civic identity, it's crazy to do so. The Aztecs had their own kind of civics particular to their culture that demanded human sacrifice, that was the practice of their citizenship. It sounds alien to us, but was human sacrifice just an idea that these people came up with in order to assure good harvests that they came to through scientific endeavor, or was it a product of generations of superstition and religion and culture?

The point is that it cannot be so that ideas are merely the product of a human mind, disassociated from everything that taught that mind how to think. Are there no Boers as a distinct ethnic identity? Do they not have a cultural identity? Ask any Boer and he will tell you he is a White African. Is it the destructive potential of nationalism that threatens this minority group with genocide and destruction, or is it the racist form of Stalinism adhered to by the ANC that demands the death of Whites and the expropriation of their lands by force? Mounk recognizes that you cannot transcend ethnicity through social programming- the past few decades of world history puts the lie to that idea. In this way, Mounk sees that to achieve his utopian ideals we must all be deconstructed and returned to tabula rasa. We will come back to the impossibility of a blank slate culture later on.

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

In The Guardian, March 4th, Mounk writes:

"Politicians need to recover the will and the imagination to ensure that the fruits of globalization and free trade are distributed much more equally. And citizens – which is to say all of us – need to work even harder to build an inclusive patriotism that protects vulnerable minorities against discrimination while emphasizing what unites rather than what divides us."

The fruits of globalization are rotten. You can get drunk on fermented fruits, even squirrels know how to do that. Eventually though you sober up with a cracking headache, nausea, and you promise to yourself that you will never do something so stupid again. Like the alcoholic, Mounk staggers back to the bar for another pint of Open Borders and demands that you also drink from the same cursed cup. What fruits of globalization need to be distributed? Wealth? Is it wealth redistribution you seek, Yascha? Is it cultural enrichment? If this is your end you will need something stronger than just globalist evangelism. Mounk again deploys his technique of redefinition. Patriotism is no longer attachment to your homelands but is in fact the corruption of patriotic ideals entirely. Patriotism is already inclusive, and is available to all people. In America it is expressed already in the pledge of allegiance, in serving your fellow citizens as equals. That is the civic nationalist system implemented by European people's virtually everywhere they go. The vulnerable minorities are not defined by Mounk as to why they are vulnerable, but it is surely not the fault of an overtly civic nationalist society which proclaims 'We The People' if some people do not follow those ideals and feel excluded. There is no framework in which an entirely individualist sense of national identity exists.

As the late Christopher Hitchens noted when :

"For a writer to become an American is to subscribe of his own free will to a set of ideas and principles and to the documents that embody them in written form, all the while delightedly appreciating that the documents can and often must be revised, so that the words therefore constitute, so to say, a work in progress.

This was all rather well set out in the passport that I immediately went to acquire… Human history affords no precedent or parallel for this attainment. On the day that I swore my great oath, dozens of Afghans and Iranians and Iraqis did the same.”

Hitchens recognized that he and his other new Americans were subscribing not a monolithic ideology of Americanism, but a constitution that is a living system born out of the ideals of the Founding Fathers. As great a mind as Hitchens recognized that to adopt the American identity is to pay fealty to the ideas of the American people as a people in their lands as a requirement of entry through the swearing of an oath, while also taking part in that conversation as a new and welcome citizen. It is a beautiful thing, and a universal human experience in all lands where free people together determine their story.

This concept Mounk espouses of a more "inclusive" patriotism is therefore an abuse of language. It is subversive and assumes that rather than the newer arrival adopting the customs and ways of their new nation, the nation must bend to the will of the minority. That is madness and a recipe for utter annihilation of everything that is remotely good and pure in the world- and I mean pure as in ideals, not racial purity or anything like that. Mounk already believes: "There is a sizable number of Americans for whom the idea of the nation remains synonymous with whiteness and Christianity." This is what he hates. This is what he wants to divorce from the idea of patriotism itself, that the United States which was built on the values of Europeans and Christianity, for better or worse, must be torn down, for it is evil, though why it is so is not shown.

From Slate, March 8th.

"From Hugo Chávez in Venezuela to Jaroslaw Kaczyński in Poland and from Viktor Orbán in Hungary to Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey, many populists around the world have remained sufficiently popular for a long enough span of time to concentrate vast powers in their own hands. Trump has some important commonalities with them. Like them, for example, he is a master at riling up his base with lofty promises of big improvements and urgent warnings about imminent dangers."

Mounk goes on to tar Orbán as a xenophobe, populism -regardless of stripe- as merely a factor of luck, and for some reason invokes the long-dead Chavez as the cause of all Venezuelan ills. What is interesting is what Mounk ultimately decides populism really is.

"While other populists also like to stir the pot with outrageous claims, the bulk of their rhetoric is focused on one goal and one goal only: to cast themselves as the only legitimate spokesmen of the people—and portray their nation as being under siege from both internal and external enemies. This is what Erdogan is consciously doing when he calls all critical journalists terrorists, what Orbán is doing when he claims that Soros has hatched a plot to make Hungary subservient, and what Kaczyński is trying to achieve when he insinuates that Jews are telling lies to use the Holocaust as a weapon against Poles."

Populism is not an ideology that is restricted to right wing or left wing politics, as Mounk recognizes. What Mounk does here though is reveal his own agenda through by what he considers to be most abhorrent about Erdogan, Orbán, and Kaczyński. The Turk Erdogan is bad because he does not like the critical press -and the press definitely has a point against Erdogan and his regime, though he is far from the Islamist he is painted to be by some he is still Ottomanist and authoritarian. I would probably agree with Mounk on his criticism of Erdogan alone, and I suspect that this is a deliberate tactic on Mounk's part. By including Erdogan in a description of populism also featuring Orbán and Kaczyński the term is broadened to include all manner of unpalatable ideas, and through this method, Mounk may attack President Trump as not only a populist, but also as an unsuccessful one.

"Far from showcasing the strengths of American institutions, the past years have demonstrated that a rank amateur can push them close to breaking point." My @Slate cover story assesses how dangerous Trump would be if he learned on the job. Please read.https://t.co/vLkmn7bsad

— Yascha Mounk (@Yascha_Mounk) March 8, 2018

Mounk makes no mention of Chavez at this point, perhaps the concentration of power that took place in Venezuela trampling on the press and the courts does not matter- after all, Chavez was a leftist. In any case, Mounk moves swiftly on to defend George Soros for being George Soros, and then on to lie about the nature of the debate in Poland about the Holocaust. I've already covered in detail my response to the smear campaign conducted by the Ruderman Family Foundation and Jewish journalists like Bradley Burston of Haaretz but once again for those in the back- Poland is not denying the Holocaust. Poland is not accusing Jews of anything- the same Poles take their share of responsibility on an cultural level already, that some of their kin aided the Nazis. So did some Jews. This is not a matter of debate, the records prove it.

What Poland has attempted to do -wrongly in my opinion- is to prevent the accusation that the Polish state had involvement in the Holocaust which is, unfortunately, an implicit association with the phrase 'Polish Death Camp' or such like. The attitudes from the Jewish media and the literary world towards Poles has been objectively racist for years but this does not matter to Mounk. Mounk recognizes very well that ethnic differences matter in this conversation- it is at the crux of his argument against it, as illuminated by his use of three nations that are essentially ethnonational in character, by virtue of their ethnic homogeneity in Poland and Hungary and the suzerainty of the Turk in the land that bears the name of their people.

When Mounk accuses Poland of accusing Jews of lying about the Holocaust, this is Mounk's own ethno-nationalist feelings coming to the fore. He is a partisan, a Jewish-American raised in Germany who rejected the German Philo-Semitism while claiming to also not feel Jewish nor German. With his negative experiences of being an outsider having a great impact on his identity, Mounk wrote

"I grew impatient with the endless complications of being a German Jew. I wanted nothing more than to be seen, finally, as an individual. And so, despite everything I loved about Germany, and unlike so many other German Jews, I decided to leave... My identity is no longer that of a Jew or a German. It is that of a seeker who has found; that of a stranger who has come to be at home; that of, simply and immeasurably, a New Yorker."

With startlingly Messianic words, Mounk explicitly rejects his Jewish identity with his deliberately written words, and expresses his natural and ingroup preferences towards his ethnic kin with his unintended missteps, thereby proving once and for all that his entire thesis is built on sand. It is an idea that lives in a vacuum of fantasy liberalism, that if we just teach people the correct manner of behaving, then all racism will evaporate- meanwhile Mounk cannot resist attacking another race of people for the perceived slight against the race of people he claims to feel no affiliation for. If Mounk was interested in the generation of a new liberalism that co-opts the positive aspects of civic nationalism and does away with the old and divisive ideas of creed and nationhood, of actual populism, then his lens would be universally critical and an engine of pure analysis, based in the spirit of academic inquiry and the search for an ultimate truth. I would still disagree with Mounk on those terms, but I could at least respect him for his opinion. This is not what Mounk has created. Mounk denies himself.

From the Haaretz interview again:

"On only his second, short visit to Israel, Mounk admits that he knows very little about the country and that as a political scientist, he prefers not to analyze the Israeli situation with the same tools he employs to analyze other countries.

In any discussion in which it is mentioned, Israel takes over. Once you mention Israel, you cant just do so in passing, he says. It can’t just be another example. There is such a complexity and so many emotions when dealing with Israel that either you write 20 pages or nothing at all. For a political scientist who is not an expert on Israel, the best option is nothing at all."

Well, that is very interesting, a Jewish academic who refuses to hold Israel to the same standard that he advocates for all other nations. Yascha Mounk claims no loyalty to Israel or even Judaism;

" Being free to construct my own identity has had an unexpected effect: I’ve come to realize that being Jewish is not particularly important to me after all. Sure, I enjoy “Seinfeld” and a whitefish bagel. But is that enough to make me “culturally” a Jew? I’m not convinced."

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

Yet, when asked to apply the lens of his apparently expert knowledge in political science to Israel by a Jewish journalist while standing in Israel he refuses to do so, claiming the complexity of a nation that is theoretically less than a century old is too complex for anyone who is not an expert on Israel. But Yascha, I thought we were moving away from such backward ideas as populism or ethnicity? If we are, what makes Israel exempt from such a conversation if we are criticising the ethnic-pluralism of Poland and Hungary and Turkey- can you not take a guess at Israel? Are you an expert on the politics of Poland and Hungary and Turkey and Venezuela? Is it not the very antithesis of 'Liberal Nationalism' to build a giant wall to keep one particular people inside, separate from the rest? I do not hold a PhD in Government from Harvard University, perhaps there is some light that Mounk can shine on this apparent double standard for me.

It is my suspicion that Mounk recognizes that applying the same critique to Israel that he applies to other nations would be uncomfortable for him. Why is this uncomfortable? Because contrary to his own belief that he has created his own identity the truth is that this individual identity is based on our understanding of who we are and where we come from, as a people. The cultures we are raised in are extensions of this ethnic identity, the people who are mixed race experience a twin-cultural formation of identity also- it is utterly inescapable, and to deny it as Mounk does in the face of his own actions that disprove his ideas is simply bizarre. He is flying in the face of the observed reality of all human beings, falling into Lockean tabula rasa, ideas.

This idea about our existence that claims that we are all born into this world with no inherent tendency towards actions or behaviors, which is why Rousseau claimed that mankind had to learn warfare. The reality is that in some ways we are blank-slates and in some ways, we are not. We are blank slates as infants learning how to speak, to think, to draw, but the slate itself is not universal to all people, we each bear a slightly different ‘slate’ to begin with. That is the product of our genetics, directly from your parentage and further back in time from the rest of your ethnicity whatever that may be. There are of course certain traits that are shared by all humans, but over millennia of separation, we have adapted to our environments to produce babies with a marginally different slate to one another.

We know that this is so, even within our own distinct groups. In England in the 15th Century Sir John Fortescue wrote;

His igitur, Princeps, dum Adolescens es, et Anima tua velut Tabula rasa, depinge eam, ne in futurum ipsa Figuris minoris Frugi delectabilius depingatur

“Therefore, Prince, whilst you are young and your mind is as it were a clean slate, impress on it these things, lest in future it be impressed more pleasurably with images of lesser worth."

Teach the young well. That is all that is meant by Locke and Fortescue and Ibn Sina and the sages, who had no concept of what an ethnically diverse nation would even be. It is a universal understanding of humanity that we have known for centuries if not millennia and that has been proven by behavioral psychologists using twin studies and so forth that there is no such thing as a blank slate save for that slate which is contextualized by the people who made it. The blank slate of my people is an ethnic British infant. The blank slate of the Maori people is a Maori infant. Are the two completely interchangeable? Science tells us that they are not. Why does Mounk claim that an entire culture can be replaced with a blank slate ideology that we all decide to adopt en masse? Does that idea not necessitate authoritarianism and force?

There is nothing wrong in being any race or mix of races. There is nothing wrong with choosing to leave your own culture in search of another, to forge a new identity- but this will never be an identity forged of tabula rasa. My children will be English and Polish and raised in Spain- but they will not be 'Spanish' in anything other than a purely civic sense The ethnically distinct Ibicenco and Catalan people who are my neighbors recognize this. These citizens of Spain are proud Spaniards by and large, but do they not also recognize that they are not Galicians or Andalusians? The Andalusians and all the other peoples that make up Spain are of a similar mind- is that populism? Is that ethnonationalism? No, Spain itself is a civic concept, recognizing the distinct ethnicities that make up the state does not diminish the state in any manner- it is an enhancement, or so the theory goes and many Catalan separatists will disagree with me, and that is their prerogative- the very concept of a self-determined Catalan state has come around from the feeling within Catalonia that the interests of this self-identifying ethnic group would be better served if they governed themselves. Are they ethnonationalists? Racists? Bigots? It is not so hard to imagine then that even within an outwardly homogenous looking nation there are ethnic differences that transcend the ability for civic nationalist ideas to serve.

The point is that ethnic identity is simply reality. It is not bigoted or racist to notice this reality, and we must accept this reality if we as a species are to prosper and survive on Earth together. Mounk extrapolates blank slate theory and applies it to entire nations comprised of millions of people bearing very different identities on a fundamental level. In his future we are to be re-educated. We have to scrap the past, force all people to begin with a new blank slate, and define afresh what identity means.

"One problem that Israel does share with other countries, he notes, is that its history tends to bog down any conversation about its present and future. When confronting populism and nationalism, dealing with history is problematic. Especially as the migrant citizens don't have the same history, Mounk says.

One solution may be dwelling a little less on history. To change the narrative, he says, we have to be talking about the present and future of our national identities."

Yascha Mounk recognizes the importance of history but wishes to persist in the chalkboard globalism that he perpetuates through his role as Executive Director at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change. The methods and ideas that Mounk spreads through the Guardian, the New York Times, Slate and Haaretz and no doubt at his Harvard classes are thus ignorant of history (and we know the fate of those who ignore history) and, worst of all, betray a perverse identity for me but not for thee attitude. Though Mounk is impatient to be seen as an individual, he is a hypocrite because he himself rejects individualism. He wishes to co-opt nationalism for progressivism which I would be remiss in failing to note would be a phenomenally dangerous idea. The concept of a national identity solely based on hard-left neo-Marxist ideology is one of the most heinous and wicked ideas I can imagine. Even so, Mounk recognizes he is to some extent identified with America, and Germany by the rite of his country of adoption and birth respectively, and Israel by virtue of his ethnic heritage.

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

Therefore, the ideas he proposes are based on hypocrisy, they are based on lies, and they are designed to strip the identity from others that Mounk feels was denied to himself. “So long as nationalism is associated with one particular ethnic or religious group, it will serve to exclude and disadvantage others.” Yascha, either you advocate for globalism for all, including open borders for Israel, or you are the worst kind of racist and a hypocrite for demanding that these practices be employed in everywhere except Israel.If this is not the case and you believe Israel should receive special treatment, then why will you not say so?

I ask you Yascha Mounk- why is Hungary a xenophobic state by your own definition but Israel is not?

from Republic Standard | Conservative Thought & Culture Magazine http://ift.tt/2FmWH3m via IFTTT

#IFTTT #Republic Standard | Conservative Thought & Culture Magazine

0 notes