Sunday Reflection: First They Came...

First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me

Lutheran Pastor Martin Niemöller's widely-cited poem. Niemöller considered himself a "national conservative" and was an early supporter of the Nazis. He turned against them and was imprisoned in Sachenhausen and Dachau from 1938 to 1945 for his anti-Nazi activities.

Here are the innocent victims of yesterday's horrific massacre in Pittsburgh, PA:

Joyce Fienberg, 75, of Oakland, City of Pittsburgh

Richard Gottfried, 65, of Ross Township

Rose Mallinger, 97, of Squirrel Hill, City of Pittsburgh

Jerry Rabinowitz, 66, of Edgewood Borough

Cecil Rosenthal, 59, of Squirrel Hill

David Rosenthal, 54, of Squirrel Hill

(Cecil and David Rosenthal are brothers)

Bernice Simon, 84, of Wilkinsburg

Sylvan Simon, 86, of Wilkinsburg

(Bernice and Sylvan are husband and wife)

Daniel Stein, 71, of Squirrel Hill, City of Pittsburgh

Melvin Wax, 88, of Squirrel Hill, City of Pittsburgh

Irving Younger, 69, of Mt. Washington, City of Pittsburgh

Trump's Cult And Anti-Semitism

Just one day before the massacre at the Jewish synagogue in Pittsburgh, the Anti-Defamation League published a harrowing study of the effect of social media in spreading anti-Semitic hate. The study was conducted for the ADL by Oxford scholar Samuel Woolley and presented, in part, the following findings:

"Continuing what began during the 2016 presidential election, the members of far-right extremist groups and the so-called 'Alt Right' have stepped up 'online propaganda offensives' in the runup to the upcoming midterm elections to attack and try to intimidate Jews and especially Jewish journalists..."

Exhibit A would be the despicable use of letter bomb recipient and progressive philanthropist George Soros in this anti-Semitic offensive, as demonstrated in the vile tweet by despicable weasel and Rethuglican House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Reptile-CA), as noted in the post below. But he's just the tip of the garbage heap. Right-wing bots have played a major role in spreading anti-Semitic memes and lies:

"Bots have played a critical role in anti-Semitic attacks online. Nearly 30 percent of the accounts that repeatedly tweeted terms meant to denigrate Jews were judged to likely be bots, according to the analysis. These accounts made more derogatory comments about Jews on average than accounts that seemed to be from humans – 43 percent of the tweets even though they represented just 28 percent of the accounts."

And the kicker:

"The study also found that 80.26 percent of the harassing tweets used hashtags associated with those on the right side of the political spectrum. Nearly 40 percent of the tweets included #MAGA or #KAG, which supporters of President Trump use to tout his 2016 and 2020 campaign slogans. The most popular term used by Trump supporters 'by one or two orders of magnitude' was 'Soros,' referring to George Soros, the Jewish billionaire that anti-Semites use to blame for anyone who resists conservatives." (our emphasis)

Neo-fascist demagogue Donald "Rump" Trump encourages this spewing by his cult followers, using loaded and unsubtle language like "globalists" and "nationalists" in his rage speeches. His reference to the tiki torch-bearing neo-Nazis of Charlottesville as "very fine people" was no slip. He knows they form the hardest core of his base, who rejoiced after November 2016 by acts of vandalism against Jewish temples and cemeteries.

We. Must. Vote. Them. Out.

BONUS: Josh Marshall reminds us that Rump's closing campaign ad in 2016 was filled with anti-Semitic dog whistles.

BONUS II:  Jay Michaelson says it's time for Trump- supporting American Jews to decide which side they're on --

No amount of pro-Israel policies—no embassy in Jerusalem, no encouragement of settlements, no increased aid—outweighs the existential danger to Jews of the Trump movement’s coddling, or even overt encouragement, of anti-Semitism, racism, and nativism.  Even those Jews not motivated by solidarity with Muslims, Mexicans, the media, and others singled out by Trump for opprobrium must now recognize that we Jews, ourselves, are at risk.

Photo Of The Day - Here's The Swamp That Just Oozed Into Washington

(click on image to enlarge)



That's person semi- known for being semi- known Tila Tequila on the right (luckily her right arm isn't incapacitated for saluting) at this weekend's gathering of anti- Semites, alt- righters, neo- Nazis, "white nationalists" and other assorted misfits and loons at the white supremacist National Policy Institute's annual meeting in Washington, DC.  The other two saluting nitwits are unidentified.  (This picture is from her Twitter, and includes the mis-spelled message "Seig heil!")

Feeling emboldened by the "election" of their hero, neo- fascist demagogue Donald "Rump" Trump, they're emerging from trash heaps, from under rocks and, of course, the swamp, to pledge their loyalty and take credit for Rump's election, when they're not busy spray painting swastikas, assaulting non- whites, or otherwise Making America Great Again.

This is what over 60 million Americans voted for, whether they want to admit it to themselves or not. This is "white nationalism," though it looks an awful lot like Nazism, salutes and all.

(h/t Little Green Footballs)

Tweet Of The Day - Breaking Glass

Congrats on Steve Bannon for finally breaking the glass storefront window for white nationalists everywhere!

— Patton Oswalt (@pattonoswalt) November 16, 2016

Kristallnacht...  Anyone?

Trump's Anti-Semitic Closing Ad

It should come as no surprise that the closing ad from the camp of the neo- fascist white nationalist Donald "Rump" Trump has alt-right, anti-Semitic overtones:

The Trump campaign released the ad Saturday, and it is reportedly set to spend $4 million to air it in nine swing states. It features audio of the Republican nominee declaiming against "global special interests" and "those who control the levers of power in Washington" played over footage of Hillary Clinton, George Soros, Janet Yellen and Lloyd Blankfein – all of whom are Jewish, except Clinton.

The audio comes from a speech that the Republican nominee gave in October at a rally in West Palm Beach, Florida, warning voters about a global "power structure" of establishment figures conspiring to derail his campaign.

The offensive ad is embedded at the link and represents perhaps the lowest low of Rump's gutter sewer campaign to date.

Feel free to compare and contrast it with Hillary Clinton's closing ad here, then ask yourself which vision and candidate do you want leading and representing our country.

The Anti- Defamation League was quick to notice and protest:

This #Trump ad touches on images and rhetoric that anti-Semites have used for ages https://t.co/fKjHU3Bsy5 pic.twitter.com/itMxVUpS2R

— ADL (@ADL_National) November 6, 2016

Shameful and disgusting.

Very Strange Bedfellows

Armin Rosen has a good read at Tablet on why neo- fascist white nationalist Donald "Rump" Trump is likely to get a majority of the Orthodox Jewish vote next month.  Rosen boils this disturbing phenomenon down to its essence: Orthodox Jews are more religiously observant than other Jews, and church- going, or in this case synagogue- going is the biggest predictor of Republican political identity.  Fortunately, American Jews support Hillary Clinton by an overwhelming 3- to- 1 margin, but one has to wonder just what it would take for this small but influential subset of American Jewry to see the danger to them that Rump and his followers represent.  (The Clinton campaign has even resorted to dispatching - gag - "No Labels" Joe Lieberman to Florida to speak to Orthodox audiences about the stakes in the election.)

In the meantime, Peter Dreier at Alternet covers Rump's history as a serial anti- Semite, including:

Trump's comment about Clinton's ties to an international banking conspiracy was not an offhand remark. He has a history of making anti-Semitic remarks, including this comment in a speech during this campaign to the Republican Jewish Coalition (a tiny group): "I know why you're not going to support me. You're not going to support me because I don't want your money ... Look, I'm a negotiator like you folks, we're negotiators." 

In an interview where he was asked if he'd read any of Hitler's speeches, Trump said: "If I had these speeches, and I am not saying that I do, I would never read them... My friend Marty Davis from Paramount gave me a copy of Mein Kampf, and he's a Jew." (Davis is not Jewish.) 

Trump's frequent references at his rallies and during the debates to Sidney Blumenthal, George Soros and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz—Jewish supporters of Hillary Clinton—is no accident. This is not random name-dropping; these are dog whistles aimed at his racist and anti-Semitic supporters.

To say the least, Orthodox Jews voting for Rump have some strange bedfellows:

She had seen her face superimposed on the body of a concentration camp inmate. She had been called “a slimy Jewess.” She had been told she “deserved the oven.” One anonymous individual had electronically harassed her for 19 hours straight. 

Things got so bad that Bethany Mandel, a 30-year-old freelance writer in Highland Park, N.J., decided one afternoon last spring to drive to a nearby gun shop. A mother of two small children, she now keeps a .22 in her home. 

What had she done to provoke so much vitriol? She posted some messages on Twitter drawing attention to the fact that Donald J. Trump seemed to have a lot of anti-Semitic supporters. [snip]

Anti-Semitism has been resurgent in Europe for years. But it has taken on a new dimension in the United States with the emergence of the Trump campaign, whose battle against political correctness has provided a kind of on-ramp for bigotry to enter the political mainstream.

That's just the tip of the iceberg, unfortunately.  Any canvassing of Twitter or other social media will turn up many vicious anti- Semitic slurs and threats against anyone (Jew or perceived Jew) opposing Rump. Back to Peter Dreier:

In response to Trump's repeated claim about the election being rigged, the popular right-wing site Daily Stormer wrote that "People aren't going to quietly go home if the Jews steal this election from us." Other sites supporting Trump have posted similar slurs. 

Anti-Semitic comments on social media have skyrocketed, because Trump is bringing these ugly stereotypes, once relegated to the lunatic fringe of the internet, into the mainstream. A new Anti-Defamation League uncovered more than 2.6 million tweets with anti-Semitic comments and images between August 2015 and July 2016, a huge upsurge from the previous year. Many of them identified themselves as Trump supporters or Clinton haters, and many (including death threats) were directed at Jewish journalists who had been critical of Trump. 

Beyond an argument for self- preservation and self-interest, one also has to ask about the moral dimension of a vote for this unfit, white nationalist demagogue.  It's the same question we would ask of "Christian" evangelicals who not only put party above country, but party above their purported religious tenets.  For there can be no doubt that Rump is an evil, dark element in our politics who is enabling hatred and bigotry to come into the light and flourish. It's disheartening that this subset of American Jewry is deaf and blind to the danger posed by its new bedfellows.

Tweet Of The Day - Rhetorical Question

Gee, I wonder if the press will depict Trump as riding a wave of racist lunacy or as a man of the people underestimated by the fusty elites?

— Bob Schooley (@Rschooley) April 29, 2016

As if more evidence were needed, there's this.  And this.  Don't look for them on your national tee-vee news or newspaper.