At the risk of piling on, let me just advise the untutored that the expression "The Jews"* doing ANYTHING is prima facie anti-semitic. It is impossible for "the Jews" to do anything, besides be jewish. If every last media magnate was jewish, it would still not follow that "the Jews" controlled the media. Jews are not a corporation.
The same follows for "the Arabs," "the Palestinians," "the Blacks," etc. I seem to recall Carrol making this point w/respect to Dave McReynolds and Palestinians, though if you know Dave M. you know it was more a mistake than an expression of malice.
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CB: See _Jews without Money_, by Mike Gold.
You do get statements like "The African-Americans have made great contributions to the building of the country" that are considered the a respectful formulation. I guess the "rule" is it is ok to refer to good things but not bad things overgenerally. The Jews have a long history of struggle.
I think it's the word "the". "The" implies "all" which is incorrect when in fact it is "some". If you say " African-Americans dominate the play in the NBA" , it's not incorrect without the "the" , no ? Canadiens dominate the National Hockey League.
No,no's: "The African-Americans control the drug trade in such and such a city" , "The Arabs dominate the gas stations" vs. Gas stations are predominantly Iraqi owned in Detroit.
Anyway, maybe Cockburn has been hanging out with the Militias too much.
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To be honest, I have to say I can't be sure I haven't employed the same usage w/respect to other groups. But if I did, I'm pretty sure I wasn't dumb enough to make a column out of it!
Cockburn has really slipped down a rung, and he wasn't that high to begin with.
mbs