>Does anyone else find this as offensive as I do? Is this supposed to be an
>analogy between the subjective outlook of "capitalists and CEOs" and that
of
>desparate Jews in post holocaust Europe? Are you saying that Jews had a
>similar outlook to your average (modern) bourgeois?
No. I am stating that Jews, like the CEOs and capitalist Newman describes, are human beings with all the attendant foibles, possibilities, problems, passions, anxieties, etc. One attribute of humanity is our capacity to give in to terror, and, in so doing, committing even more (qualitatively and quantitatively) terrible acts to relieve us of our terror. Some people handle terror better than or worse than others, with attendant results. I would imagine some can even resist terror and keep a clear head.
>Are you not aware that by the '30s many European Jews didn't even consider
>themselves Jewish? That, as somebody once said, social conditions and
later
>Nazism in Europe meant that even long-assimilated Jews were "squeezed out
of
>the pores" of European society and held up for public scorn, isolation and
>repressive measures?
No, I wasn't aware of it (your first question), but in retrospect I can see that happening: people want to fit in. And I can understand the Jews getting the treatment they did: people want a scapegoat for their terror (read "A Canticle for Liebowitz"). I think I have a pretty good understanding of humanity for someone my age, but I don't condone everything humans do simply because "that's the way we are". We also have, as a species, a great capacity to change and adapt, I think, for the better (also for the worse, but that's another matter).
>What alternative did many Jews have but to go to Palestine? Do you not
know
>that the Western world was closed to most of them? Or that Jews who
returned
>to Eastern Europe faced yet further pogroms when they tried to reclaim
their
>houses and property? What were they expected to do when a Jewish state
>(undeniably on stolen land) was all that was on offer after all they'd been
>through? That this involved a sordid compromise with Western countries
>which somehow didn't have the space for them on their own soil was
something
>they just had to put up with.
Yes, I realize that Palestine was probably the best option open at the time for a lot of Jews (I haven't studied the history of this yet), and I can't blame them (much) for taking it, considering the alternatives: it was the best of a bad lot (probably). I have the habit of questioning compromises; I understand that, maybe, a compromise seems like or definitely is the best way at the time, but I've found that compromises, especially with Power, can blow up later in the face of the weaker party.
>This was the "bloody trap" that Trotsky wrote so eloquently about so long
>ago (go and read it for god's sake). He also wrote that an important
>consequence of the terrible compromise made in accepting a Jewish state
>solution would be yet more anti-Semitism.
That sounds like a good observation; the little I've been reading by and about Trotsky so far has warmed me to him.
>"Like minded folks"? Often the only common characteristic of these people
>was that they were identified as Jews by others who had until recently
>slandered, expropriated, assaulted and killed them on a production line
>basis.
Yes, that's right. However, name me one group of people which has been artificially created from scratch for whatever reason which didn't have what would be normally a hodgepodge, disparate, polyglot group united by one thing they have in common. I'm a role-playing gamer (Dungeons & Dragons, et al.); I belong to a club designed to bring other gamers together for the intentional purpose of playing games. Apart from that one thing in common, we are a pretty mixed bag (not perfectly heterogeneous, mind). I feel very comfortable around these people; even a stranger to the club gets a warmer reception from me than someone who just shows up at my door unannounced because that person has something I KNOW is in common with me. I don't think it too radical to say I almost feel that that person is an extension of me. This same sort of liking of/desire for commonality, which I suspect stems from a more basic desire for order, can get out of hand and turn into racism, xenophobia, etc.
>Who had the power to "decide"? I wish that there had been some alternative.
Me too.
Your quote by Trotsky is right on the money: what happened to the Jews wasn't fair, or right, or decent: it was a crime against humanity (if I may use that overused, but apt, term), aided and abetted by Capitalism. The Jews were used then discarded when it was expedient to do so, by people with power.
I realize that not all Jews are Zionists or capitalists or Israeli nationalists. I simply oppose the doing of evil by humans to other humans, all the while realizing that I might have to make a big compromise to that opposition some time in the future. I really hope I can die without that happening (says the [selfish?] human). Marxism seems like a good way to go about making things on this planet better, even though I am perfectly aware of the terror that's been unleashed in it's name.
If you want to debate or attack me further, publicly or not, feel free.
<Whew!>
Todd