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 TODAY'S
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A California Native Mourns His Pre-Immigration Golden State
 03/08/10
- Should Middle-Class Americans Subsidize
$100,000-A-Year Pensions For Government Workers? by
Patrick J. Buchanan
03/06/10
- View From Lodi, CA
Pittsburgh, PA: Oscars And History, by Joe Guzzardi
03/05/10 - National Data: What
Job Rebound? Immigrants Displace Americans at Record
Clip, by Edwin S. Rubenstein
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03/05/10
- Immigration Help Is On The Way To New York
State—Maybe, by Joe Guzzardi
03/04/10 - Come Back,
Stonewall Jackson! Hispanic Gangs Invade Shenandoah
Valley, by A.W. Morgan
03/04/10
- Jim Bunning Was Pitching for America, by Patrick J.
Buchanan
03/04/10
- The Obama Way: Bluster, Bully, Bribe, by Michelle
Malkin
03/03/10 -
Diversity Is Strength! It’s Also…The Incredible UCSD
Hate Crime Hoax, by Ellison Lodge
03/03/10
- Thanks, Harry Reid! Can We Agree Trent Lott Was Right
Now? by Charles G. Mills
03/02/10 - Rosa
Pedalino Porter's American Story: Her Life In Three
Languages, But Only One Country, by Athena Kerry
03/02/10
- Union Boss Andy Stern and Barack Obama: Fiscal
Responsibility Fraudsters, by Michelle Malkin
03/02/10
- Hooray For Starbucks And Gun Rights, by Chuck Baldwin
03/02/10
- Is The Recovery Real? by Paul Craig Roberts
03/01/10 - Yeah, Yeah,
“Attrition Through Enforcement”—But It’s No Substitute
For An Immigration Moratorium, by Washington Watcher
03/01/10
- Global Warming—Hoax Of The 21st Century, by Patrick J.
Buchanan
03/01/10
- Muslims Are Their Own Worst Enemy, by Paul Craig
Roberts
02/28/10 - Samuel
Eliot Morison And America’s Displaced Protestant
Establishment, by Steve Sailer
02/27/10 - Saturday Forum: A
Hungarian Immigrant Is Shocked By “Un-American” Los
Angeles, Suggests We Emulate Singapore; etc.
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 Thomas Allen
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D. A. King
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02/26/10 - Memo From
Middle America (Formerly Known As Memo From Mexico):
Evangelicals, The NAE And Immigration, by Allan Wall
02/26/10
- Obama's Problems—and Ours, by Patrick J. Buchanan
02/26/10
- Is America Becoming A Police State? by Chuck Baldwin
02/25/10 - Keith
Olbermann vs. Dallas Tea Partiers: Both Wrong, One
American, by Ellison Lodge
02/25/10
- Oba-Kabuki: A Box-Office Bomb, by Michelle Malkin
02/25/10
- The Road to Armageddon, by Paul Craig Roberts
02/24/10 - National
Data: Ron Unz Vanishes Hispanic Criminality…Not!, by
Edwin S. Rubenstein
02/23/10 - Epic
Beard Man, The MSM, And Citizen Reportage, by Alexander
Hart
02/23/10
- Remembering The Alamo, by Chuck Baldwin
02/23/10
- Corruptocrat Eric Holder's National Security Cover-Up,
by Michelle Malkin
02/22/10 -
Diversity Is Strength! It’s Also…Ukraine’s Troubled
Election, by Eugene Girin
02/22/10
- 2010 AR Conference Held Against All Odds, by Jared
Taylor
02/22/10
- Liquidating The Empire, by Patrick J. Buchanan
02/22/10
- America’s First Suicide Bomber, by Paul Craig Roberts
02/21/10 - Without An Immigration Moratorium, How Long
Can The GOP Hold Texas? by Steve Sailer
02/20/10 - Saturday
Forum: A CA Reader Recalls When An Immigrant Ice Cream
Vendor Was A Central Figure In A Terrorism
Investigation; etc.
02/19/10 - Haiti And
Main Stream Media Immigration Enthusiasm: Nothing New,
by Joe Guzzardi
02/19/10
- View From Lodi, CA Pittsburgh, PA: Joe To Join Up With
Tea Party Express—In Frigid Erie, PA! by Joe Guzzardi
02/19/10 - I Wish
Joe Stack Had Not Killed Himself! by Chuck Baldwin
02/18/10 - That Mount
Vernon Statement: Beltway Right Ignores Immigration
(Again). But They Still Want Your Money, by A.W. Morgan
02/18/10
- Blaming The Tea Partiers: First Step To Criminalizing
Dissent, by Michelle Malkin
02/18/10
- Is This How Democracy Ends? by Patrick J. Buchanan
02/18/10
- Wall Street Oligarchs Eying Social Security, by Paul
Craig Roberts
02/17/10 - Arizona
Armageddon: J.D. Hayworth’s Challenge To John
(“McAmnesty”) McCain, by Richard Hoste
02/17/10
- Texas’ Debra Medina, The Fahad Hashmi case: Grounds
for Hope and Despair, by Paul Craig Roberts
02/17/10
- "Spiritual Wickedness In High Places", by Chuck
Baldwin
02/16/10 - The
Saga Of American Renaissance’s 2010 Conference:
Anarcho-Tyranny In Action, by Alexander Hart
02/16/10
- The Other Stupid Things John Brennan Said, by
Michelle Malkin
02/15/10 - Bye-bye
Bayh And Amnesty. Hello Hostettler And Immigration
Moratorium?, by W. James Antle III
02/15/10
- Is Iran Running a Bluff? by Patrick J. Buchanan
02/15/10
- America—A Country of Serfs Ruled By Oligarchs, by Paul
Craig Roberts
02/14/10 - Don
Peck’s Atlantic Unemployment Cover Story:
Where’s The I-Word? by Steve Sailer
02/13/10 - Saturday Forum:
“Defensor De La Raza” Talk Show Host Ben Reed Presents
His Side; Allan Wall Replies; etc.
02/12/10 - Tales from
Trinidad, by Nicholas Stix
02/12/10
- A Warning To The Tea Party Nation, by Chuck Baldwin
02/12/10
- View From Lodi, CA
Pittsburgh, PA: Snow, Snow Go Away! by Joe Guzzardi
02/11/10 - MSM Reporters, Innumeracy, And The Alleged
Economic Benefits Of Illegal Immigration, by Paul
Nachman
02/11/10
- Secession in the Air, by Patrick J. Buchanan
02/11/10
- John Murtha: Requiem for a Corruptocrat, by Michelle
Malkin
02/10/10 -
Biohistory Meets Oswald Spengler: Gerhard Meisenberg’s
In God’s Image, by Richard Hoste
Prior 2010
Articles...
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03/07/10 -
It’s Happening There (2): “Free” Germany’s Police
State, by Paul Gottfried
03/06/10 - Saturday
Forum: A Former ACU Intern Confirms Its Anti-Amnesty
Fund-Raising Scam; etc.
Thoughts On America’s Jewish Ruling Class And Noblesse
Oblige
By Steve Sailer
My
article last week profiling historian
Admiral Samuel Eliot Morison was inspired by David
Brooks’ column,
The Power Elite [NYT,
February 18, 2010]. Brooks outlined some of the problems
caused by the replacement of Morison’s old Protestant
Establishment by what Brooks calls a
“meritocratic
elite”—actually, as I
pointed out, substantially Jewish—more interested in
short-term profit-making in than long-term
caretaking of the country.
One
commenter on Brooks’ column,
CTWood, filled in some missing background on the
once-popular notion of
noblesse oblige:
"Not
too long ago elites lived the ethos that with great
wealth and power came great responsibility. The ruthless
climbers of the 19th and 20th centuries secured that
wealth and/or power then spawned succeeding generations
(Republican and Democrat alike) in which public service
meant something:
Taft,
Rockefeller,
Kennedy."
Another,
Hugo Pirovano, made Brooks’ point far more
explicitly:
"When
the
WASPS dominated, their best and brightest performed
selflessly and honestly because they felt that in
working for their country they were working for
themselves. They were not ashamed to want America to
win. They were advancing their patrimony."
Admiral Morison’s Oxford
History of the American People ,
for example, is quite explicit about the dubious way the
United States acquired California—but, he points out, it
was
“California!”
Pirovano continues:
"Nowadays the best and brightest, are quite
equivocal in
their feelings for their country. The burden of
America's past faults and sins weighs heavily on
them. Their sympathies go well beyond America's
borders."
The most central aspect of this
process was well described by David Samuels in
Assimilation and Its Discontents in
New York Magazine
(September 28, 2008):
“Future historians
will record that the Jews replaced the old Protestant
elite, who had run the city [of
New York] off and on since the eighteenth century until their power was finally
shattered by the cultural metamorphosis of
1968…”
Samuels observes:
"It takes a certain
amount of effort to remember that it was not surprising
even into the late sixties for Jews to be excluded from
top-tier jobs at the commercial banks, ad agencies, and
insurance companies that formed the elite of the city’s
business class … The Jews of New York City had their own
banks, their own law firms, their own social clubs, and
their own charities, which enabled them to function as a
kind of parallel elite …"
Since then, there has been a huge
diffusion of the talents and values of Jews
throughout the financial industry.
Yet, as the
New York Times’
Brooks asked,
“would we say that banks are performing more ably than
they were a half-century ago?”
Well, they have certainly acquired an ever-larger share
of the GDP!
The theory behind the dusty old
concept of
noblesse oblige is that a powerful class that thinks
of itself as being in the game for the very long run
will tend to behave in a more responsible fashion than
one that doesn’t. As they say, nobody ever washed a
rental car.
In the early 20th Century, for
example, leadership caste WASPs played a major role in
setting aside
National Parks and in
limiting immigration.
Even
more fundamentally, they tolerated criticism of
themselves by others. Criticism encourages you to behave
better.
Of
course, the moribund WASP Establishment’s increasing
fair-mindedness had its downsides. One problem with
letting other people have their say about you is that
they may undermine your power. Samuels writes of
"my
own personal sorrow about the fate of the
Harvard-educated
Brahmins I admired in my youth, who cherished their
belief in liberal openness while licking at the bleached
bones of their family romances. Their mansions are
threadbare and drafty, and stickers on their salt-eaten
Volvos advertise the cause of zero population growth.
It’s hard to imagine that their ancestors sailed clipper
ships to China and
wrote great
books and built great companies and ran spies
behind enemy lines in Europe."
(VDARE.COM links added).
But,
shouldn’t new elites be held to the same standards of
criticism that helped them displace the old elites? Why
is it considered admirable for the new establishment to
try to destroy the careers of their critics?
For
noblesse oblige
to work, privileged and influential groups have to be
publicly acknowledged to be privileged and influential.
If, on the other hand, their main sense of collective
identity is that of marginal members of society
endangered by the might of the current majority, then
the system doesn’t operate.
In
2006, blogger Noah Millman was surprised by a rabbi’s
Purim sermon. Not by the message—Write
your Congressman about Darfur!—but by the unusual
explanation the rabbi offered:
noblesse oblige.
"He
compared the position of the Jewish community in America
today with Queen Esther's position in King Ahashuerus's
[Xerxes’s]
Persia: that is to say, a position of power or, more
precisely, profound influence on those who wield power.
And, he said, that power implies responsibility."
Millman noted:
"But you (or at
least I) rarely hear a Jewish leader saying, in so many
words, that Jews must act to prevent this or that
injustice because we are powerful, and power implies
responsibility."
[Gideon's
Blog, March 13, 2006]
Instead, Jewish leaders typically exhort Jews with one
of three arguments, all based around feelings of
communal self-pity. Millman enumerates them:
(1) “We Jews have
suffered, so we should be acutely sensitive to others'
suffering …;”
(2)
“As God
liberated the Jews from captivity in Egypt … we have
a religious obligation as Jews to help the oppressed”;
(3) “Jews should be
aware of our collective vulnerability, historical and
continuing, and therefore for our own good always take
the other side of the kinds of groups, movements and
individuals who have victimized us in the past, and who
could threaten us again in the future.”
And yet that plain fact is that in
modern America, Jews are the biggest winner among ethnic
groups. Although only two percent of the American
population, Jews make up about
35 percent of the
Forbes 400
wealthiest individuals. (That percentage is from
after the financial bubble burst in 2007-2008, so it likely reflects
a long-run baseline.)
By way of comparison, consider
Italian-Americans, who arrived in America at roughly the
same time as Jewish-Americans and tend to live in
similar parts of the country. Today, Italians are fairly
well represented in most aspects of American life:
movie
stars, the
Democratic Speaker of the House, two
Republican Supreme Court Justices, and so forth.
Indeed, Italians make up 5.4 percent of the gentile
members of the
Forbes 400 and
5.7 percent of the gentile population. For
Italian-Americans, on average, life isn’t bad.
Yet,
Italians are only 1/30th as likely per capita as Jews to
be billionaires.
Thirty to one is a big difference.
This ratio isn’t proof of conspiracy
or even simple discrimination. It is merely proof of
Disparate Impact. Federal law makes a very big deal out
of Disparate Impact when it involves
“Hispanic”
ethnicity. If ethnic Hispanics are less than
four-fifths as successful as white non-Hispanics, a
longstanding
EEOC regulation puts the burden of disproving
discrimination on employers.
One-thirtieth is a lot smaller
than four-fifths. Yet the law doesn’t mention any
other kind of ethnicity than Hispanic.
You
really can’t understand modern America without thinking
about these sorts of numbers. But, do Americans really
want to understand America?
On
the rare occasions when the topic of Jewish influence
surfaces in the Main Stream Media, attempts to confuse
are trotted out over and over—such as theological
hair-splitting over Who Is a Jew? and reminders that
Not All Jews Agree.
Of course, the exact same points could
have been made about the
old Protestant elites. Indeed, their disagreements
are the stuff of American history, for example
the
Civil War. For that matter, Henry Ford and
George
S. Patton believed in
reincarnation, but nobody claims they therefore
weren’t ethnically Protestant.
Just as it was worth understanding the
Protestant Establishment, its strengths and weaknesses,
it is now
worth understanding the Jewish elite.
Yet in the Main Stream Media,
mentioning the kind of numbers I just cited is mostly
just not done.
One possible reason: roughly 50
percent of the
Atlantic 50 list of the most important pundits
are Jewish.
Similarly, with the
Oscars just selected, it’s worth recalling
Abe Foxman of the
Anti-Defamation League
noting in 2008 that
"all eight major
film studios are
run by men who happen to be Jewish."
Samuels contends
“New York Jews circa 2008 are wealthy white people whose protestations
of outsiderness inspire blank stares or impatient eye
rolling.”
But
is that really true? Or has the public increasingly
internalized Politically Correct ignorance?
The ADL has
polled Americans four times on whether or not they
agree with the proposition
“The movie and television industries are pretty much run by Jews”.
In 1964, 47 percent agreed versus 21 percent who
disagreed. By 2008, amazingly, only 22 percent of the
public agreed and 63 percent disagreed.
Columnist
Joel Stein laughed:
“Actually, it
just shows how dumb America has gotten. Jews totally run
Hollywood.”
In contrast to the Main Stream Media,
the Jewish press, such as
The Forward and the
Jewish Telegraph Agency (which first compiled an
estimate of the Jewishness of the 2009
Forbes 400),
is usually much more informative on the subject of
Jewish influence.
Conclusion: American Jews should start
thinking of themselves
less as oppressed outcasts who need to go for
whatever they can get while the getting is good, and
start more accurately thinking of themselves as
belonging to the best-connected inner circle of the
contemporary American Establishment.
Thus, American Jews should realize
that, like the Protestant elite of yore, their
privileged position as a de facto leadership caste
bestows upon themselves corresponding duties to conserve
the long-term well-being of the United States—rather
than to indulge in
personal
and ethnic profit and
power maximization.
But
that’s unlikely to happen until the Jewish elite to
begin to tolerate non-Jewish criticism, rather than to
continue to try to
destroy the careers of critics—or even just
honest observers—in what seems to be an instinctive
reaction intended
to
encourage the others.
A group self-image of victimization,
combined with a penchant for ideological intensity and
powerful ethnocentric lobbies, can lead to bizarre
political manifestations—such as the dominant Jewish
assumption that proper veneration of their
Ellis
Island ancestors requires
opposition to patriotic immigration reform today.
In contrast, Italian-Americans, who
lack institutions such as the ADL, appear to
feel themselves freer to make up their own minds
about what immigration policy will be best for their
American posterity.
Comedians have been snickering for generations about the
pretensions of the Daughters of the American Revolution.
It’s time for snickering whenever the
Sons of Ellis Island start to declaim about
immigration based on ancestor worship.
[Steve Sailer (email
him) is
movie critic for
The
American Conservative. His
website
www.iSteve.blogspot.com
features his daily blog. His new book, AMERICA’S
HALF-BLOOD PRINCE: BARACK OBAMA’S "STORY OF RACE AND
INHERITANCE", is available
here.]
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