"They" are attempting to discredit the Occupation movement.

[kentuck]

Who is "they"?

They are the 1% and those that lick the boots of the 1%.

As was mentioned on the Chris Hayes show this morning, people like Bill Kristol are attempting to damage the movement with cheap propaganda. They find the most insane or whacked-out person at the occupation and attempt to paint the entire movement with that broad brush. Very "cheap propaganda."

They say that those in the movement are anti-Semitic. There is little doubt that one can find all kinds of people involved with the occupation movement, since it is such a mass movement. However, it is propaganda to attempt to portray them as a spokesman or a leader of the movement, or even to portray them as the average "occupier". We should understand that more people agree with the movement than disagree, if we are to believe most of the polls we see?

The mayors and the governors should understand that little fact before they send in their troops and policemen to try and stop it. Their job is to police those that are breaking the law. If there is one person threatening the cops, their job is to arrest that person and not to stop everyone from speaking their minds or to stop them from moving freely about our country and public places.

They should understand why all this is happening? It is because our Congress and government is impotent. They cannot fix the tax code. They cannot help create jobs. They cannot agree on anything. Therefore, the people have no choice. The government has become incapable of working for the people. It is necessary to have this occupation.

The government has become like two concrete workers. Each of them is working on the sidewalk and one is pouring one square of concrete and the other is pouring another square of concrete. They begin to argue and cannot agree on anything. The concrete hardens around their feet and they stand there screaming at each other, with their feet frozen in cement.

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[WingDinger]

2. The reason they use anti-semetic is so Fox watchers dont join.

[kentuck]

3. Can you explain?

How that works??

[WingDinger]

10. Anti semetic is a dog whistle. anyone that doesnt gush zionism

doesnt know the secret handshake. They can stop those that should support OWS from doing so.

[AntiFascist]

5. The reason they use "anti-semitic"....

is so that they can draw parallels to Hitler's Germany and attempt to make this look like some sort of fascist uprising, which is ridiculous because Hitler was financed by the very same type of people being protested.

[sabrina 1]

9. Except it was totally debunked, the fake anti-semitic smear

like all their other attempts. They are being swept away out to sea by a huge Tsunami of actual Americans which is more inclusive than any institution THEY at FOX belong to.

Best to ignore them, as many are doing. This was expected and at the beginning I remember organizers making the decision to give them as little attention as possible and to keep rolling over them.

They've been exposed each time they tried something else. We have to remember that they hire the dumbest, most pathetic individuals they can find to do the dirty work (see Breitbart/O'Keefe et al) people who are social outcasts but too stupid not to put themselves on the line for money and because they are bitter people blaming their own social isolation on the rest of the world.

The only reason in the past they gained any traction was because the MSM was part of the plot to give them credibility. Now there is a huge movement they cannot stop, their silly games appear more and more pathetic as the movement grows, like wildfire, in spite of all their efforts. They can't figure out why everything that used to work, isn't working any more, and they know that because the polls say that OWS is one of the most popular movement ever.

Let them stew in their ever-shrinking world of hate and bitterness. They are like creatures who live in the dark, muddy parts of the world, striking out in frustration as they lose more and more credibility even among those who once bought their hate-filled, deceptive, lying garbage. Look at Glenn Beck eg, he can't even get a few dozen people to pay to hear his rantings anymore.

[WingDinger]

11. yup

ditto

[Fire Walk With Me]

4. K&R!

[Zoeisright]

6. I find it so ironic that these same boot-lickers in the media

didn't go up to the quite visible, quite numerous racist pigs in the teabagger movement and point them out to the public.

[Raksha]

7. It's way past time for the Left to confront the issue of anti-Semitism head on.

Absolutely the best treatment of how the Left should approach the subject of anti-Semitism I have ever found anywhere is the self-published pamphlet by April Rosenblum called The Past Didn't Go Anywhere: Making Resistance to Antisemitism Part of All Our Movements. It is available for download in PDF format here:

http://pinteleyid.com/past/

I downloaded this pamphlet several weeks ago on the recommendation of a Facebook friend. It can be a little confusing trying to follow the page numbering when reading it onscreen, since it's intended to be printed out as a half sheet, double-sided pamplet. A printed version is also available from the author for $2.00 plus postage. I don't know how to copy and paste from a PDF document, but here are some excerpts from a couple of reviews:

From the JVoices review by Matthew N. Lyons:

quote:
As this discussion suggests, talking about antisemitism on the left is a complicated business. One one side, the Zionist right has systematically misused the charge of antisemitism to smear all critics of Israel, while glossing over anti-Jewish attitudes and policies among some of Israel’s allies – and even within the Zionist movement itself. On the other side, some leftists have trivialized or dismissed concern about antisemitism. This stance bolsters real anti-Jewish tendencies and feeds the myth that Jews’ true friends are on the right.

For confused leftists who want help in navigating this mess, a useful starting point is April Rosenblum’s pamphlet The Past Didn’t Go Anywhere: Making Resistance to Antisemitism Part of All of Our Movements. Rosenblum, a Philadelphia activist, was one of the panelists at the Bluestockings workshop, and she is familiar with both the reality of antisemitism and the ways the term has been abused. Far from focusing on Jewish concerns in isolation, she emphasizes that countering anti-Jewish oppression should be integrated with other struggles and “has to come from a perspective of justice for all people."(1). Scapegoating Jews deflects popular anger away from the real systems of exploitation and power.

<snip>

Rosenblum argues that the left needs to do a much better job of fighting antisemitism, both in society at large and within its own ranks. Although “the number of Leftists with real anti-Jewish beliefs is tiny,” voicing concerns about antisemitism often elicits “silent, uncomfortable, defensive, and even accusatory” reactions by people and organizations on the left (12). To counter this avoidance, Rosenblum breaks down common myths about Jews and outlines some of the history of antisemitism and the left’s mixed record of responding to it. Sometimes this discussion focuses on antisemitism to the neglect of other historical dynamics, but for many readers it offers a helpful corrective and guide for further study.

Above all, The Past offers a radical take on the dynamics of anti-Jewish oppression. Whether fomented by elites or bubbling up from below, “antisemitism’s job is to make ruling classes invisible” (1). Scapegoating Jews deflects popular anger away from the real systems of exploitation and power.

http://jvoices.com/2008/08/08/not-just-a-right-wing-smear-tactic/

More reviews: The first one is by Rokhl Kafrissen, originally published in the March 2008 issue of Jewish Currents. Excerpt:

quote:
COINTELPRO was on my mind that day at the film festival, many years ago. As I left the theater of the Schomburg Library, where I had just seen The Murder of Fred Hampton, a man put a flyer in my hand about “Sin and Zionism.” Another guy, a few feet away, was giving out pamphlets about how today’s Jews are only “fake” Hebrews.

The flyers in themselves were upsetting, but even worse was Kathleen Cleaver’s reaction when I asked that these hateful and misguided people be removed. Her response was clear: “Get over it.” Not only did she not do anything about the flyers; she didn’t feel that anti-Semitism was important enough to question or fight — not when there were ‘real’ struggles to be fought.

Hadn’t we all just sat through hours of films about disinformation and COINTELPRO? Was I the only one who understood that this junk anti-Zionist (and anti-Semitic) literature — the kind you’ll find at many lefty or anarchist bookstores — was disinformation, pure and simple? Zionism and the Jews hadn’t caused the problems faced by the African-American community! Jews hadn’t murdered Fred Hampton in his bed! Jews, as always, were being used as the scapegoat, the screen behind which the real enemy gets to hide. As long as that kind of literature has a presence in leftist communities, and is tolerated by leftist leaders, there will always be seeds of discord between Black and Jewish activists — just as J. Edgar would have wanted.

Source: Jewish Currents
http://jewishcurrents.org/2008-mar-kafrissen.htm

A comment from Britain from still another source:

quote:
April Rosenblum’s ‘The Past…’ seems a very timely and well though-out piece. I think it should be distributed to (and discussed by) anti-fascist groups and student forums around the world.

We have a problem here in Britain that it simply isn’t fashionable to stand up for Jews in left-wing activism anymore. Speaking up for the rights of Asian, Muslim and Afro-Caribbean people is fine, but because of the anti-Israel bias you can’t get vocal about Jewish welfare without being accused of supporting conservative Zionism or the invasion of Gaza.

There’s also the perception that Jews in Britain handle their security internally and prefer not to publicly respond to incidents of antisemitism as a method of avoiding further flak. To a certain extent this is true, but it also provides an excuse for non-Jews to shrug their shoulders, down another pint of lager and not get involved. “Just let the Jews get on with it – they know what they’re doing”.

“It’s always a real struggle for the Left to
successfully tackle oppression within its own
ranks. But when we do it, our movements
gain, every time, from the deeper understandings
that emerge”

Wise words. Let’s hope we can unite and make the Left truly liberal once again.

Source: Engage Online

[Raksha]

8. K & R