David Seaton's News Links
One of the best comments I have seen on the Rick Sanchez affair comes from one Snuffysmith over at Talking Points Memo, I quote:
Sanchez: Jews control the media
Jews: No we don’t. BTW, you’re fired. LOL
I think that sums the whole thing up pretty well.
I'd like to make clear several points, before we go on. At the beginning of the 20th century, Ashkenazi Jews were excluded by the "gentleman's agreement" from almost any "respectable" (read WASP dominated) way of making a lot of money. Many of the Ashkenazi immigrants in New York City, who had made some capital in "rag and bone" trades, tailoring or the fur business soon saw opportunities in industries that were not even yet on the radar of the comfortably settled WASPs, innovations such as the first flickering cinema and the nascent radio. In these areas that the WASP financial aristocracy considered frivolous, if not sordid, these immigrants or children of immigrants found no serious obstacles to realizing the universal American dream of fabulous wealth. Consequently they came to dominate those fields. When Howard Hughes, a WASP, bought RKO movie studios in 1948, Samuel Goldwyn was reported to have asked in outraged tones, "What does Hughes know about movies, he was never in the fur business?"
This was not a "Jewish conspiracy", moving into movies and radio (which subsequently became TV) was simply expanding into a vacuum. I certainly don't blame the Jewish people for stumbling onto the depressing reality that Americans, and the rest of humanity unfortunately, are grotesquely addicted to being endlessly "entertained" and obsessed by their worship of entertainers. This is a fact; somebody was bound to discover it and exploit it sooner or later. It fell to America's Ashkenazim to do so. Therefore the Jewish "domination" of entertainment is richly deserved, they took something that the dominant group despised and turned it into the "colonization" of America's, and perhaps the world's, subconscious. I don't think this was planned, I believe that, like the making of the British Empire, this entertainment empire was obtained "in a fit of absent mindedness".
The problem now would be how that power is being administrated when the oil dependent United States finds itself in such a complex problem in the oil producing Middle East due to its joined at the hip relationship with Israel. The possibilities of conflicting interests obviously multiply.
The Sanchez story should be seen as the symptom of a valid issue and not just some sort of "slipping of the mask" fit of bigotry.
The value of unobtrusive domination was something that the great moguls of classic Hollywood understood perfectly, but this ability seems to have been lost somewhere along the line. The question then becomes: where does omnipresence turn into a sensation of oppressiveness and where does the sensation of oppressiveness turn into actual oppression? DS
5 comments:
Sorry, David. But the real question I have at this moment is why you're buying into a Victorian British apologist's explanation/defense of the British Empire. Yikes.
It's always an awkward business when someone blurts out that Jews control Hollywood, because for the reasons you mention Jews did and still do retain a dominant presence in showbiz, although not in the sense intended by the Rick Sanchezes of the world.
"The value of unobtrusive domination was something that the great moguls of classic Hollywood understood perfectly, but this ability seems to have been lost somewhere along the line."
They were unobtrusive because they were terrified of anti-Semitism, even the toughest of them; it was one reason they fell apart in the face of economic and government threats during the Communist-hunting era when a united front would have warded off the threat. A far more innocent phenomenon than, say the East India Company.
As for Sanchez - too bad he didn't take out after some Muslim. He'd probably still have his job and if he lost it, Fox News would snap him up.
This is a discussion that cannot be had in America where the Jewish lobby's influence will only be countenanced in a positive light. To couch it in any other terms, to question its benificence is a direct route to misunderdtanding. The more intelligent people fancy themselves, the quicker the discussion devolves into name-calling and onanistic thinking, as you put it elsewhere. Here it is seen as 6 million dead on one side, anti-semitism on the other. The editing of this post from its initial appearance indicates that certain words are censored from the national discourse. Comments elsewhere also seem to indicate that ex-pats are dilletantes who need not be taken seriously in any national discussion. We seem to have adopted the same appreciation of 9-11 where there are 3000 dead on one side and terrorist sympathisers on the other.
You are a very patient man, David.
Growing up in Seattle via San Fran, life was pretty non-denominational.
When we moved to Rome, my social life was different, Italianate, quietly social. However, when we moved to Paris, I noticed a major change. It's a friskier environment and I entertained a great deal. I had Jewish Argentinians telling me how my American taxes should be spent, French Jewish musicians telling me I should fear Iran circa 2006, Jewish NY'ers who'd lived and worked in Paris for years telling me my full collection of the Mitford sisters could be construed as anti-Semitic, etc, etc, etc.
Last week my husband came back from Geneva, he'd stayed with his German/French/Englishish kinda sister who married an Israeli. His brother in law said, "you know Bailey's posts could be construed as anti-Semitic."
I think it was the one where I wrote about having lunch in Geneva with an Israeli that insisted Israel was just like (N) America.
Because I grew up in Seattle via San Francisco, it just softly shocked me, this notion that an Israeli would assume Seattle and San Fran were just like NY. I don't think he's ever been to the West coast.
Well, I can't vent anywhere else, and David, didn't you wonder where I'd disappeared?
Yeah Bailey, I wondered where you were, very glad to have you back.
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