Posted on 11/17/2007 12:27:11 PM PST by ckilmer
McCarthy & American Jews.
Waves of immigrants came to the USA from 1880-1920: the Poles the Italians the Irish the Jews. Most of these ethnic groups voted for FDR by large majorities in 1932, 1936 & 1940, but over time they have assimilated and become less politically monolithic. Yet to this day the American jews still vote democratic by hefty majorities. Why? It is because Hollywood still strenuously maintains the communist lie about the 1950-54 McCarthy era. That lie is maintained by the recent movies “A Beautiful Mind,” and “Good Night and Good Luck”.
Shortly before his death in 1953 Stalin initiated the Doctor’s Plot. There are various reasons given for that. The KGB hated Israel. Many Americans who were enthusiastic supporters of the UN were Jewish. Edvard Radzinsky in his book “Stalin” argues that while at one time Stalin hoped Jewish financial capital would help rebuild the Soviet Union after the WWII, Stalin hated the prospect of suborning himself to the Baruch Plan and he flat out rejected IAEA nuclear controls—presented in 1946 (an attitude is not entirely dissimliar to that of Iran today.) The Russians were working on their own A-bomb based on stolen US designs. Stalin, himself a Geogian, wanted to insure that the Russians saw a Russian face to a Communist Party which was top heavy with Jews.
Whatever the reason, Stalin fomented the Doctor’s plot hysteria and broke off diplomatic relations with Israel. He was within days of preparing to exile the Soviet Jews to the Gulag (as was done previously with various other ethnic minorities such as the Crimean Tatars, Chechens, etc.), and initiate another great purge along the lines of 1938.
Stalin already had the concentration camps set up, and some of the preliminary accusations had gone out for the Doctor’s Plot. 100 or so Russian jews had already been executed when he died in 1953. The important thing to recall is that the Doctor’s Plot happened at the same time as the McCarthy anti communist business from 1950-54. Also in 1953, in the US the Rosenburgs were tried and executed for treason—and this less than a decade after the Holocaust. This naturally caused fear and suspicion in the US Jewish community. This fear and suspicion was played upon by knowledgeable communists and leftists—large numbers of whom were themselves jewish. These folk not only knew about what Stalin had done in the 1930s and had been about to do with the doctor’s plot before he died, but also saw the McCarthy trials as show trials american style . . . that is, a prelude to an american pogrom. For which the Rosenbergs were exhibit A.
In a brilliant piece of jujitsu, leftists and communists imputed to Americans on the right exactly what Stalin had planned to do. But it was done soto voce. Basically, a blood libel was perpetrated on Americans without their knowing it. Worse, Protestant America was painted as the tribal enemy tooth and claw of the US jewish establishment without Protestant America even knowing it. Never again! — Was the battle cry. But there weren’t any such enemies of Jews in the USA. If there actually had been Protestant tribal enemies in the USA, Meyer Kahane and his Jewish Defense League would have provoked them into a bloodletting. Why did Meyer Kahane behave the way he did? Because he heard the same thing as everyone else - all the Jews, that is. He heard about enemies of the jews in the heartland. But when he went to give battle, the only sorts of fights the JDL could find resulted in unintelligible court disputes in places like Idaho. In the end, Kahane married an American woman & helped expedite Stalin’s last wish—to rid Russia of Jews. When his American wife committed suicide, Kahane lost interest in the USA and focused instead on Israel. When Kahane died in 1990 it was at the hands of a Moslem.
While the American public outside NY/LA were generally given the view that the McCarthy era was an age when innocent men were unjustly tried by suspicious anti semites like McCarthy & Nixon, the NY/LA Jewish establishment was given a very different story. They were given to understand that the democrats/liberals had prevented the US from visiting a holocaust on them - and that American Jews owed their loyalty to the liberal democrats because the liberal democrats were the protectors of the Jews. And this Meme went on untouched for decades after McCarthy.
This dual track story line didn’t crack until the early 1990’s when the KGB/NKVD/GRU opened up their files on the WWII-McCarthy period. In 1995 the US’s National Security Agency opened up their Venona files. Both Russian and American spy agency files showed that McCarthy was right. The Rosenburgs were guilty. The US government —notably including the Manhattan Project—had been at one time soaked with Russian Spies. While McCarthy had the details wrong, he got the general outline of the story right. Why did McCarthy get the outline right and the details wrong? The reason is that McCarthy’s relationship to Hoover was the same as Hoover’s relationship to the NSA.
The NSA told the FBI about the Venona intercepts but insisted that the FBI could not use NSA intercepts as evidence in court. The FBI had to develop their own leads. As a result most of the spies escaped prosecution. The FBI did not get their man.
In 1950 J. Edgar Hoover began weekly meetings with Joseph McCarthy. Those meetings ended in 1954. The beginning and end of those meetings coincided with the beginning and end of McCarthy star turn in the national spot light. McCarthy got most of the details of the spy story wrong but he got the general outline of the story right. His predicament was the same as that of the FBI. Whatever Hoover told him—McCarthy could not use in the senate hearings. To this day the FBI denies that Hoover told McCarthy anything about the Venona Cables and maybe Hoover said nothing explicit to McCarthy for which Hoover could be liable in court.
Needless to say, an American style shoah was never in the cards.
The reason that Hollywood hated Ronald Reagan so much was that he was an anti communist in Hollywood during the McCarthy period. To be staunchly anti communist in Hollywood or NYC at that time was to be at least vaguely anti semitic because in the 30’s to the 50’s communism was considered to be almost a secular form of Judaism in the Jewish communities of NY/LA. Given the reputation of the Jews in capitalist countries as the quintessential capitalists, this seems ironic. But in Russia, communism was a way to get ahead for the jews. And in addition to the opportunities communism presented to Jews, there was a biblical antecedent for jewish communists in the bible in the person of Joseph in Egypt because the relationship between Jews to Joseph’s Egypt maps over well to that between Jews and Communist Russia. And the history of the Jews from Joseph to Moses looks very similar to the rise to prominence of many Jews in the soviet communist bureaucracy from the 1917-1970 and the decades long expulsion of Russia’s jews after 1970 when it became clear that communism was not working. The Russians blamed Russian jews for the failure of communism.
Reagan was among the first wave of FDR democrats to switch parties. Reagan’s star turn in Hollywood ended after McCarthy, but his experiences in Hollywood served him well when he went into public service. He always understood the jujitsu of media talk of the age. Something that cannot be said of Nixon. Nixon's rise to prominance began with his role with the House Unamerican Activities Committee (HUAC)--a role for which gained visceral leftist enemies with long memories (in the way John Kerry gained prominence during the Viet Nam era and made visceral enemies of the swift boat veterans.) Nixons fall also coincides with the Russian expulsion of Russia's jews.
I would not argue that Nixon paid the price for Russia's expulsion of Russian jews. That stretches the point. However, when I hear American based Moslems talking about McCarthyism being visited on them, I have to laugh. They have unknowingly pronounced themselves guilty in the eyes of many Americans.
The history of the McCarthy period now is forgotten among American Jews except for the vague idea that somehow Republicans are bad and somehow Democrats are good.
As for the Democrats, part of the reason for the loss of their inner coherence in the last decade has been that the part of their foundational raison d’être which stems from the McCarthy era was revealed to be based on a lie. So now the core of the Democratic Party is the sodomites. Those people are not just confusing, they are confused.
David Horowitz interviewed by Rush Limbaugh some months ago -- talked about how his parents were communists and he was a communist in college. He said when he was in college his views were always treated respectfully by his professors. But, he said recently, a young Christian college student told him that his homosexual college professor had singled him out in class and asked him “Why do you Christians hate queers?” Asked why he continued to do what he did in the face of all the abuse he gets, David Horowitz said that - like Rush - he took public political positions because he had to. But also he said he did it as a matter of atonement.
He gets it.
Venona Historical Writings that include comparisons of venona and russian spy lists and the changing venona story in the academy. http://www.johnearlhaynes.org/page43.html http://www.johnearlhaynes.org/index.html
Yes! I often say to my liberal Islamic and Mexican friends, ‘your Jewish friends welcome you!’.
The cult of victimitis and cultivation of victimosis answers a lot of questions, IMHO.
Simplistic to be sure, but I try to apply Occam's principle whenever possible.
I understand your point. Not to overstate the obvious, but that 80% who bristle at the notion that America is a Christian nation, or at least was founded as a Christian nation, are simply factually wrong and living in some kind of logic-free zone. One could have a good debate on just what “Christian nation” means in this context, because the founding fathers did not want the nation per se to have any particular religion. But having said that, its whole culture, moral fabric, legal framework, work ethic and just about everything that made (make) it a great country stemmed from the Christianity of the founders. I don’t mind administering a little self pat on the back to say that one could add a good dose of Judeo to that Christian origin. I am sometimes amazed at how well versed the founders, as well as Lincoln’s generation were in the Old as well as the New Testament.
Can’t agree. Meir Kahane was not a warrior in need of someone to make war. He saw the helpless mentality of the holocaust generation and he wanted to prevent Jews from ever being that vulnerable again.
Religious Jews have distinctly different voting patterns from ethnic, secular Jews.
Religious Jews have distinctly different voting patterns from ethnic, secular Jews.
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agreed
Can’t agree. Meir Kahane was not a warrior in need of someone to make war. He saw the helpless mentality of the holocaust generation and he wanted to prevent Jews from ever being that vulnerable again.
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Ok the incorrect word was the word “need”. Mr Kahane didn’t need anyone but G-d. Still if there was danger from the USA to the US jewish community—he would not have turned his attention away from the USA. This can’t be news. For decades the Israelis have had to laugh at American Jews who have tried to equate their experiences in the USA with what the Israelis experience with their neighbors. I wasn’t there but I could well imagine Mr. Kahane being stung by such a laugh.
I think you’re on to something there. At one point, during the 1970’s Rabbi Kahane moved to Israel and ran successfully for Parliament. I believe he came to see that the greatest existential threat to Jews was not in America, but in Israel, after Israel squandered its victories in ‘67 and ‘73 and started down a path of self-doubt and post-Zionism. The new left in Israel came straight out with the philosophy that Israel virtually had no right to exist, that it was a usurper and had no religious or historical claims to the land. When Kahane saw that kind of attitude take hold, he realized (IMHO) that the fight had to be fought in Israel. Having said that, he still encourage American Jews to come join the fight in Israel and he did mention that their situation could never be totally secure in any place outside Israel where anti-Semitism still persists. Ironic, isn’t it, that Israel now has it’s own anti-Semitism problem?
Bookmark.
Interesting point. The Compact certainly reflects the deep Christian devotion of the Pilgrims. The whole world was a much more religious place then and, if you read just about any official document or proclamation, you would find it replete with such dedications to G-d, etc.
As you correctly point out, the Pilgrims came to escape religious persecution, as did many of the early settlers who crossed the ocean. When that motive found its way into the founding consensus of the new country in 1776 and later, they clearly intended to address religious persecution by making sure that no one religion should rule. I still agree with my Christian friends that the great founding concepts and sense of public morality stemmed very clearly from the unmistakeable (Judeo)Christian traditions of the founders. Therefore, I am in wholehearted agreement that America was, and probably still is, a Christian nation. Unfortunately, the last 50 to 60 years of liberalism has stripped almost all of the best part of those Christian roots out of the national discourse and the cultural life of the country.
To anyone who thinks it is a paradox for an Orthodox Jew like myself to rejoice in the Christian origins of America, it is not because I make any compromise in my own faith. It is simply because the founders gave the nation all the best attributes of Christianity that can be celebrated by men of any creed: charity, loyalty, love of peace, good will, fairness, natural law, liberty and even a healthy dose of hard work and self-reliance.
Ironic, isn’t it, that Israel now has it’s own anti-Semitism problem?
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Well when you define anti-Semitism that broadly — the meaning shifts to something like “rebellion against God”—which is not unique to Israel or Jews.
Fulton Oursler began writing the The Greatest Story Ever Told in 1935 and concurs with your dating.
It was Rabbi Solomon B Freehof, of a great Jewish temple in Pittsburgh, who said to me at dinner one evening that the unspoken scandal of our times was the hidden fact that Bible-reading had been largely given up in America.
From a social perspective that ignores technology the zeitgeist of contemporary times seems eerily identical to that which existed millenniums earlier.
“Well when you define anti-Semitism that broadly — the meaning shifts to something like “rebellion against God”—which is not unique to Israel or Jews.”
Huh? I’m talking about the recent spate of neo-nazi attacks in Israel.
“It was Rabbi Solomon B Freehof, of a great Jewish temple in Pittsburgh, who said to me at dinner one evening that the unspoken scandal of our times was the hidden fact that Bible-reading had been largely given up in America.”
And now, here we are with the recent reports that Gideon’s will no longer be featured in hotel rooms. A true sign of the times that relates back to your very pertinent quote.
Huh? I’m talking about the recent spate of neo-nazi attacks in Israel.
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Yeah I saw those reports. Those were Russian Jews. What’s not generally acknowledged in the West is that for several decades after the formation of Israel — when the Israeli army sang songs— they were generally old Red Army songs. That generation retired out of the Israeli army in the 70’s. Its not unknown in Israel that Russian Jews played not insignificant role in Stalin’s party killing machine. The newest waves of Russian Jews are just as tough as the Russians. The were never subjected to all Holocaust all the time media programming that I recall seeing in NYC during the 1980’s. And they never had those soto voce debates about whether the interests of Jews were with white races or non white races.
But I wouldn’t lump these young hooligans into the same camp as leftist defeatists that Mr. Kahane railed against.
...As I read this piece, I immediately thought of how the bamboozling of Black America by the Democrat Party parallels that of Jewish Americans...notably those in the New York/Malibu/Los Angeles enclaves. Nearly every facet based on lies, and the railroading of the Republican Party by the MSM and Special Interest groups.
I am going to apologize here, because my post is not about the “Jews & McCarthy”, but this article also talks about the two films “A Beautiful Mind” and “Goodnight & Good Luck” as “lies”.
When I saw “A Beautiful Mind” and that figment of the title character’s imagination was going on about “McCarthy being right and there were Communists in the US government, but McCarthy went about it wrong”, it really had me. We already knew about the Cambridge Set in England that pre-dated WWII, so it was probably true here, too. It made sense, and it really pissed me off to find out that this character was just a delusion because he made perfect sense on the issue of “communists at high levels in the US government”.
But, I have a more direct insight into “Goodnight and Good Luck”.
I knew Milo Radulovich personally for many years and Radulovich’s real life story was the one that Murrow used to bait McCarthy and was featured in “Goodnight & Good Luck”. (Milo just died two days ago.)
“McCarthyism”, as opposed to McCarthy, himself may well have been two different issues, but there was an atmosphere of fear created by McCarthy in this country at the time that was unwarranted and was taken to extremes — especially in Milo’s case. And that was what the film “Goodnight & Good Luck” was about — and it wasn’t “a lie”
Instead of going after “the big fish”, the government started offering up “little sacrifices” of people who had NO communist leanings, and Milo was one of those. Even the military said that “Milo’s loyalty to the US, was not in question”, but they demanded that Milo renounce his family because his father (a WWI US veteran, who also had no communist leanings) read two newspapers from the land of his birth and one of those newspapers was labeled “subversive”. (Ironically, it was Britain & the US who had supported the establishment of a communist government in the country of his dad’s birth to appease Stalin, post-war!) And Milo’s married sister was an early civil rights activist.
Ironically, this was one of those instances where the US military started acting like the very communists that they claimed to be fighting — “renounce your family for political reasons” and “guilt by association” were typical communist tactics. And yet, they were used against Milo in the name of “anti-communism”. It was bizarre.
Even more ironically, Milo was not only “not a communist”, he had been a conservative married guy with kids who just wanted to work in the field he loved and had trained in, yet if he didn’t fight back, the military was going to make his finding work in his field impossible unless he “renounced his family”. That was equally impossible.
Edward R. Murrow had been looking for that “little picture” story and Milo’s story became the one he chose for, “See It Now”. It turned the country against McCarthy and it baited McCarthy into debating Murrow — a debate that McCarthy eventually lost.
Although, McCarthy personally, may not have been quite the villain he was made out to be, and he may have been right about high level communists in the government, McCarthy also never removed those “real communists at high levels” and he allowed himself to get outmaneuvered by allowing (and not denouncing) “witch-hunts of the innocents” in his name. And he didn’t seem to care that he was trampling all over the rights of ordinary citizens who weren’t communists. For those reasons, I’d really think twice about making McCarthy into some great “martyred hero of American patriotism”.
Having said that, I will read the recommended book on McCarthy.
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