Ace on The Jews

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Wed Mar 13 18:31:24 PST 2002


"C. G. Estabrook" wrote:
>
> "How the Jews control Hollywood" is a tendentious summary of Cockburn's
> observation, "Since three of the prime founders of Hollywood, were Polish
> Jews who grew up within fifty miles of each other in Galicia, it's
> reckoned as not so utterly beyond the bounds of propriety to talk about
> Jewish power in Hollywood, though people still stir uneasily" --
> apparently on this list as well.

But it _wasn't_ and _isn't_ "Jewish power," any more than it was "The Jews." It was the individual power of a group of people who happened to come from X. It makes sense to speak of "Zionist power" or "Israeli power," (and I don't really share Ian's concerns about this, but that another time). It simply makes no sense at all to speak of Jewish Power -- in part because what _appears_ as "Jewish Power" is something else, and to call it "Jewish Power" is to make oneself unable to understand _why_ it appears that way. It doesn't even ask the questions that need to be asked.

To say "Its all the capitalists' doing" is clumsy, but it fairly clearly asks a question -- that is, it leads to searching for an explanation of why and how the capitalists do it -- and that can (has often) led to a deeper understanding statable in better terms. And if the speaker herself who uses "Jewish Power" understands it in a non-antisemitic way, why in the hell can't she (or Cockburn) SAY it in a clear way that doesn't cause people to "stir uneasily" (and they are stirring uneasily because they KNOW that there are a lot of people out there who will really think it is "The Jews" (in the sense of "The X" that Max legitimately condemns).

The Americans are driving SUVs and making themselves fat on Big Macs. Such statements are pretty obnoxious too, because as understood they really apply to working-class Americans, not on the structures and the class oppression which lead _many_ to adopt those habits.

Carrol



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