Who are the protesters behind Occupy Wall Street–and what do they want?

[Raskolnikov]

Do you realize how juvenile that sounds?

The point I was making was not that I have read many books on the subject, but that Goldberg has read surprisingly few. He gives that away in his book, in that he doesn’t even know what’s in the books he cites, except for the tidbits he cherrypciked.

ANd speaking of juvenile, you’re the ones who are playing this idiotic little game of trying to call people fascists who are not remotely fascist in any way. “you’re fascists; no *you’re *fascists.” It’s just dumb.

 

[Raskolnikov]

And Jews. The far left and the far right are similar in their hatred of Jews.

Ishii

That’s an odd thing to assert. One of the main “arguments” of the Nazis against the leftists was that they were disproportionately Jewish. This was true, of course, as Jews were disproportionately educated, urban, working class or bourgeoisie, all correlative to left leaning ideologies.

Of course you may be referring to the 'leftists qua “everyone who doesn’t love Israel more than his children and isn’t afraid of a Muslim living under his bed”= anti-Semite.

 

[ishii]

True enough. Rightist (supposedly Christian) monarchists massacred each other for centuries for mony and power. They too thought they were advancing history by genociding their enemies. Not a trait particular to one side of the political spectrum at all.

But you are quite wrong here. Why did the other right wing parties join forces with this supposedly left wing party that sought to eradicate all “other” far left ideologies and establish an authoritarian anti-demicratic racialist state that the “other” leftists (most of whom were social democrats) opposed?

Perhaps opportunism? “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” ? Maybe the Nazis weren’t international and therefore were tolerated by right-wing parties. Think about it, when faced with a putsch by an international communist group that would ally with the Soviet Union and a national socialist group that is pro-German uber alles, its natural that the rightists would see the Nazis as the lesser of two evils. I suspect there were opportunists seeking power among the Nazis that trumped ideology. Isn’t ideology often an excuse (or vehicle) to get power?

I have still yety to see an argument in defense of this indefensible position that Nazis were left winger.

Maybe the truth lies somewhere in the idea that there were both leftists and rightists in the Nazis and they were united by their desire for power. Hitler didn’t really have an ideology much beyone some strange racial theories, did he? Perhaps you can speak to that having done more research than me.

And I have to say, I am actually rather appalled. Having visited Dachau myself and seen the very chambers in which many of these people were slaughtered because they opposed the rightist authoritarian racial state died horrible deaths as part of a power struggle between self-interested demagogues is just idiotic and preposterous. Why anyone would try put these victims of Naziism in the same category as Hitler is just beyond me. we might just as well reduce the holocaust to an ethnic feud between jews and Germans. Just ludicrous.

Have you read the book, Modern Times by Paul Johnson?

Ishii

 

[Scott_Lafrance]

Again, people have no say in who voices support for them. Not long ago white supremacists donated money to Ron Paul’s reelection campaign. Did that make Ron Paul a white supremacist. Certainly not. He can’t control who supports him. He could return the donation, but that’s another discussion.

Suffice it to say that your claim that all the OWS people are anti-Semites is ludicrous. The reason the neo-Nazis are ‘anti-Wall St.’ is because they want to overthrow the liberal democratic states and replace it with an authoritarian white nationalist one. The OWS people, needless to say, do not appear to be of the same mind.

Right, the rest of the OWS people just want a plain old authoritarian nationalist one, they don’t care what color it is.

 

[ishii]

That’s an odd thing to assert. One of the main “arguments” of the Nazis against the leftists was that they were disproportionately Jewish. This was true, of course, as Jews were disproportionately educated, urban, working class or bourgeoisie, all correlative to left leaning ideologies.

Of course you may be referring to the 'leftists qua “everyone who doesn’t love Israel more than his children and isn’t afraid of a Muslim living under his bed”= anti-Semite.

No, a very true thing to assert. Your seeming inability to wrap you mind around this fact speaks to your bias. The far left hates the Jews - go to any far left group on campus or elsewhere and look at their grievances - you will find that they rail against zionist oppression, etc. It makes sense for the secular, atheist, far left that they would oppose the Jews as their (the Jews) existence are one of the strongest arguments for the existence of God. The far right comes from a different direction in their hatred of Jews, and I’m not totally sure of that origin, other than traditional view of Jews as international bankers, etc. (notice how the left criticizes the neo-cons and bankers, etc.). This is a topic I would like to explore further in order to provide more solid scholarly examples of this for you.

Ishii

 

[gilliam]

The Email Archive of the OWS Movement: Anarchists, Socialists, Unions, Democrats and Their Plans is.gd/8Ukyua

 

[Raskolnikov]

Perhaps opportunism? “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” ? Maybe the Nazis weren’t international and therefore were tolerated by right-wing parties. Think about it, when faced with a putsch by an international communist group that would ally with the Soviet Union and a national socialist group that is pro-German uber alles, its natural that the rightists would see the Nazis as the lesser of two evils. I suspect there were opportunists seeking power among the Nazis that trumped ideology. Isn’t ideology often an excuse (or vehicle) to get power?

Fear of communists was indeed one of the major motivators for supporters of Naziism, but at the time of the Nazi rise to power, there was no immediate communist Putsch, though the Nazis were successful at convincing most people that there was. It has been argued that conservative industrialists fostered Naziism to stavge off communism. That’s not a very good theory; though the Nazis gave up any semblence of socialism (beyond what was already established in German politics, that is; by American Republican standards, Germany has been socialist for about eight hundred years) after they realized the support of certain industrialists was necessary. Hitler was the ultimate opportunist: in the early days, he played the socialist card, to get support at the bottom; by 1930, he was a moderate capitalist, because he needed money from the higher-ups. The only causes that were dear to his heart, however, were nationalism, militarism, and racism.

Maybe the truth lies somewhere in the idea that there were both leftists and rightists in the Nazis and they were united by their desire for power. Hitler didn’t really have an ideology much beyone some strange racial theories, did he? Perhaps you can speak to that having done more research than me.

Well, originally, there were indeed quasi-leftists in the party. Goebbels was one. He had even spoke of allying with the Soviet Union to fight the Europeans. Gregor Strasser was another. However, when the whole socialism thing was no longer useful, Hitler had Strasser killed, and Goebbels “saw th light” and switched sides to the more capitalism friendly Nazis. They were opportunists indeed.

 

[nathan_oc]

Suffice it to say that your claim that all the OWS people are anti-Semites is ludicrous. The

If you look at the links I posted you will see who started the OWS movement. Like I said adbusters registered the domain name occupywallstreet.org on June 9, 2011. In 2004 Adbusters magazine entitled “Why won’t anyone say they are Jewish?” libcom.org/library/anti-semitism-adbusters-2004 You don’t think it’s odd that the group that named and promoted this movement is rooted in anti-semitism.

 

[Raskolnikov]

No, a very true thing to assert. Your seeming inability to wrap you mind around this fact speaks to your bias. The far left hates the Jews - go to any far left group on campus or elsewhere and look at their grievances - you will find that they rail against zionist oppression, etc. It makes sense for the secular, atheist, far left that they would oppose the Jews as their (the Jews) existence are one of the strongest arguments for the existence of God. The far right comes from a different direction in their hatred of Jews, and I’m not totally sure of that origin, other than traditional view of Jews as international bankers, etc. (notice how the left criticizes the neo-cons and bankers, etc.). This is a topic I would like to explore further in order to provide more solid scholarly examples of this for you.

Ishii

No, the far left does not hate Jews. People can hate things, maybe groups can in some sense, but the far left is just an ambiguity.

I have been to a couple events related to Palestine, and heard a Paelstinian speaker talk about the policies of Israel. I have not encountered anti-Semitism at such events. They do not complain about Jews at all. Note, Israel does not equal the Jews, and many Jews would like people to acknowledge that as wel. Your equation of the two betrays your bias.

I find your generalization of leftists as anti-Semite rather bothersome. I have a professor who is quite a leftists, he is actually a German history professor and my academic advisor. No one I have ever met has went to greater lengths than him to warn of the perils of anti-Semitism and racialist ideology (he also grew up in deep South during the '50s, so that’s a big concern of his). Another professor who is quite critical of many of Israel’s policies will immediately and tersely correct any student who mistakes ‘the Jews’ for the Israeli government. Perhaps because you base your opinions on these people from sources that are most likely designed to denigrate them, you don’t have an entirely impartia view of them as they really are.

As for neocons and bankers. Well, I crfiticize neocons. I think the neoconservative foreign policy ideology is naive and dangerous. I don’t care if a neoconservative is a Jew like Paul Wolfowitz or a gentile like Donald Rumsfeld. I’m not going to forgo criticism of problematic foreign policy ideas just because the person who makes them happens to be Jewish because, the fact of the matter is, Jews, being disproportionately well-educated in America, are well-represented among the political and intellectual leaders of both sides. One might just as easily accuse people critical of communism of being anti-Semites because Jews were and are disproportionate among communists. Karl Marx, Leon Trotsky, Rosa Luxemborg, Howard Zinn, just to name a few. What if everyone who didn’t like them were accuse of being an anti-Semite?

I personally have nothing against bankers. I’d rather some of them didn’t get such big bailouts though. I suspect that is a view common among conservatives as well as liberals of course. I wouldn’t think of it being an indicator of anti-Semitism however.

 

[nathan_oc]

Suffice it to say that your claim that all the OWS people are anti-Semites is ludicrous.

I said Occupy Wall Street is made up of a lot of groups. I just listed a few parts of this movement, not all of it.

 

[louis91766]

The far left hates the Jews - go to any far left group on campus or elsewhere and look at their grievances - you will find that they rail against zionist oppression, etc.

Many Jews themselves rail against Zionism. Does that make them anti-semitic? I don’t think so. Why don’t you read what a few rabbis have said about zionism such as:
Rabbi Yitzchak Aramah.
■Rabbi Yechezkel Halberstam
■Rabbi Tazdok Hakohen of Lublin
■Rabbi Yehoshua Leib Diskin
■Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch
■Rabbi Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld
■Rabbi Yehoshea Dzikover
■Rabbi David Friedman of Karlin
■Rabbi Meir Simcha of Dvinsk
■Rabbi Yosef Rozen
■Rabbi Avraham Freund
■Rabbi Elchonon Wasserman
■Rabbi Chaim Soloveichik of Brisk
■Rabbi Chofetz Chaim
■Rabbi Sholem Schneersohn
■Rabbi Shaul Brach
■Rabbi Yissachar Dov Belze Rabbe
■Rabbi Chaim Oizer Grodzinski
■Rabbi Chaim Elazar Shapiro
■Satmar Grand Rebbe Joel Teitelbaum
■Rabbi Yosef Tzvi Dushinsky
■Rabbi Yitzchock Zev Soloveitchik
■Rabbi Avraham Yeshayau Karelitz
■Rabbi Yitzchok Dov Koppelman
■Rabbi Michael Dov Weissmandl
■Rabbi Aharon Kotler
■Rabbi Mordechai Gifter
■Rabbi Elya Svei
■Rabbi Baruch Kaplan
■Rabbi Amram Blau
■Rabbi Avigdor Miller, zt’l
■Rabbi Yitchok Hutner Z"L
And by the way, have you read the statement of principles of 13 rabbis published in the NY Times of September 30, 1982 in which they say that since the Divine will has placed Jews in exile, it is forbidden for Jews to have nationalistic aspirations.
I don’t see how you could be more anti-zionist than that.

 

[Gift_from_God]

estesbob, I;ve read his book. And as a student of German history, I have read more books and articles on fascism than even Goldberg has (most of his sources, one can tell, he did not even read in their entirity; many of the ones he used tyo support his ‘argument’ criticized his book afterword because of his cherrypicking.)

The National Socialist German Worker’s party was a national rightist party, bob. Ever here the phrase ‘don’t judge a book by it’s cover’? They hated the communists most, the Social Democrats second most. The rightists mostl fell in line after '33, and the Catholic Centrists tried to put up a fight, some died with the Social Dems in Dachau, others joined the Nazis.

Edvard Benes of Czechoslovakia’s left wing was a "national socialist’ before the rise of the Nazis. He was an actual “national socialist.” HItler adopted the term to garner favor from the proletarians, but later assured his industrialist supporters that he was not actuallly a socialist. You should read about Gregor Strasser, the leader of the Nazi party’s original “left wing,” that is, genuine socialst compnent. He and the others were murdered on the night of long nives because of their ideological differences.

Somewhat unrelated, but remember, North Korea calls itself democratic, and East Germany did the same thing. I bring this up because just because it’s in your name or title, it doesn’t make it true

 

[Gift_from_God]

Let me guess. You read Jonah Goldberg’s polemic about how liberals are fascists? Really, at least read a real history book if you’re going to make claims about it.

History books have facts, and that’s an inconvenience to certain people. Have you noticed how people on this forum say FDR started the Great Depression and didn’t end it? This is contrary to actual history, but facts are no good for some people

 

[louis91766]

I’m sure that there are designated shelter areas or tents or even cabins for those picking the fruit.

This is somewhat vague. Can you give us the address of where we may pitch our tents so that we will not get thrown in jail? Also, if it is so cold at night, will you have doctors on the site in case we come down with the influenza. As you know, influenza can be deadly. I hope you do not want any harm or sickness to befall American students who find themselves in a poverty situation.

 

[Darryl1958]

That the Nazi’s sought to eradicate the communists is not proof that Nazism is not a leftist ideology. ** Leftists have fought and killed each other for years. **Its about power. Stalin routinely slaughtered other leftists in order to consolidate his hold on power. Remember it was Stalin who ordered the killing of Trotsky. The left will do anything for the cause, anything if they think it will advance history - even if it means killing their own.

Ishii

Very true. The Bolsheviks killed the Menshevik when it was their time to go. The rule of terror in these socialist systems eliminates all pretenders to the throne

 

[Darryl1958]

… Have you noticed how people on this forum say FDR started the Great Depression and didn’t end it? …

He idn’t start it, and his policies didn’t end it either.

 

[Darryl1958]

And Jews. The far left and the far right are similar in their hatred of Jews.

Ishii

All in all, I think the skinheads will blend in quite well with the crowds of the OWS, for sure.

 

[louis91766]

All in all, I think the skinheads will blend in quite well with the crowds of the OWS, for sure.

I thought that the skinheads were with the Tea Party movement?
"The April 16 rally in San Juan Capistrano, California, corresponded with more than 100 Tea Party rallies scheduled across the country for that Saturday. It was promoted on the website of Tea Party.org, also known as 1776 Tea Party, one of six well-established Tea Party umbrella groups. Its true organizers, however, were from American Third Position, or A3P, a white nationalist political party founded by racist skinheads. A3P did not respond to repeated inquiries for this article. Neither did 1776 Tea Party.

Since April 2010, A3P members have organized, co-sponsored or freely distributed literature at no fewer than 10 Tea Party rallies in six states, including Augusta, Georgia; Harrison, Arkansas; Baton Rogue, Louisiana and throughout California, where A3P was founded in May 2009 by Freedom 14, a racist skinhead crew seeking to establish a more respectable-seeming political front group.

Although it would be unfair to characterize the Tea Party movement on the whole as white nationalist, it’s clear that large gatherings of angry, conservative, predominately white Americans are viewed with relish by groups like A3P.

“The Tea Parties are fertile ground for our activists,” said A3P Pennsylvania Chairman Steve Smith. “Tea Party supporters and the A3P share much common ground with regard to our political agendas.”"
See mediamatters.org

 

[nathan_oc]

The only good to come out of OWS is to will show America what the left really looks like with it’s mask off. As Ann Coulter said " This is the flea party, not the tea party."

 

[Darryl1958]

The one big difference between the Nazis and other socialists is that Nazis did not murder the nobility and the ruling classes. Class warfare, as far as I know, was not really a Nazi thing.

Instead, for the Nazis, the Jew as the evil banker, as the capitalist manipulator and that cabal of Jewish conspirators who plotted to enslave the human race; these were the ones who served the function that the bourqoise, the landed lords and noblemen, the millionaires and billionaires making over 200 K a year, and the otherwise privileged played in other kind of socialist regimes and administrations play.
These are the scapegoats, the greedy, miserly demons that stood between the oppressed people and the promised utopia of ultimate security for all.

Socialism takes on a variety of forms over the years, according to era and cultural geography. What remains consistent is a populace that values security over individual freedom, and a utopianist type of government that encroaches more and more into all aspects of society and the economy until their control is complete.