Neoliberal centrists have weaponized anti-semitism
Some months back I wrote, "the so-called 'moderates' are the most rabidly partisan...With little of ideological substance to distinguish them from their opponents, partisan tribal-based politics is the only game in town."
It turns out that this wasn't 100% true. There is another game in town - weaponized identity politics. While both parties engage in this divisive and destructive tactic, it probably shouldn't surprise anyone that ones most likely to use this underhanded method are the neoliberal "moderates".
You probably are unaware that the current face of this tactic isn't in the U.S.
He's in Britain's Labour Party.
The perfect example here is Tom Watson, Labour’s deputy leader, who is on the payroll of the UK’s Zionist lobby. Watson did his utmost to stoke the fires of the antisemitism crisis.
To give you an idea of who Watson is, he sent out a public letter attacking general secretary, Jennie Formby, claiming she interfered with investigations into anti-semitism in the party.
Formby wrote back to Watson, "publicly attacking me when you know I am undergoing chemotherapy and am unable to respond in the media, is another example of the inappropriate way in which you choose to discuss this issue."
There is a consistent pattern when it comes to "whistleblowers" in the Labour Party.
Another of the young whistleblowers speaking “as a Jew in the Labour Party” was Alex Richardson – a member of the JLM executive.The BBC did not name him, but I – and many others on social media – recognized him because he was a key figure exposed in Al Jazeera’s 2017 undercover documentary, The Lobby.
At the time of filming, Richardson was an employee of lawmaker Joan Ryan – who chairs Labour Friends of Israel, which is an Israeli embassy front group.
Ryan, who quit Labour earlier this year, was infamously exposed in Al Jazeera’s film fabricating an instance of “anti-Semitism” at the Labour conference in 2016.
But the film also shows that Richardson was personally involved in that same fabrication.
Labour's "anti-semitism crisis" is completely manufactured.
On one hand, surveys show antisemitism to be more prevalent in the Tories than it is in Labour. That's only the start.
for a decade the Tories have been in alliance with a host of genuinely anti-Semitic parties in the European parliament. Parties like Poland’s Law & Justice Party or Latvia’s LNNK, whose MEP Robert Zile goes on a walk each March with veterans of Latvia’s Waffen SS who did their duty helping out with the Holocaust.
So given all the undeniable, public evidence you would think that the party having an anti-semtism crisis would be the Tories. Instead, people believed that a third of Labour Party members had been reported for antisemitism, when the actual figure was far less than 1%.
Unlike the usual red-baiting, the reason why the right-wing is having so much success with this artificial anti-semitism problem in Labour is because neoliberal Blairites like Watson are serving the same function to double-agents or moles for the conservatives, deep inside of Labour, giving the smear legitimacy.
Britain's Jews are no dummies. They know just how cynical this whole ploy is.
...What makes Labour unique however is that for four years now, Jeremy Corbyn and his allies have been spearheading an effort to democratize the internal workings of the party... So over the past four years, they've tried throwing practically everything else they can think to throw at Corbyn and his supporters. Tolerance of antisemitism was the first to really stick.
With the Tories undergoing a complete Brexit meltdown, a real socialist in Corbyn has never been closer to being in charge, and that terrifies the ruling elites.
Of course, what is true in Britain is also true in the U.S.
Let's face it - there is nothing exceptional by moderate centrists, by definition.
Like the Tories, the GOP has rebranded anti-semitism and dishonestly tried to apply it to The Left.
Like in Britain, the neoliberal centrists are assisting with the smearing.
It’s disorienting to see white (and black) liberals calling leftists of color sellouts, Uncle Toms, “coons,” house-slaves, and well, white people, all in the name of anti-racism. But the Bernie Bro framework tells us that all the racists are at the fringes of the political spectrum, while the middle remains pure. Progressive women or leftists of color therefore present a kind of glitch in the matrix. The solution? Deny our existence. Leftists of color are regularly told—by white liberals!—that we are white and/or secretly racist.
That's Bernie-hating, neoliberal Jonathan Chait proving that neoliberals are the same everywhere.
Comments
It is a feature
Do you honestly care about humans? Yes
Is what the world done as Israel has ethnically cleansed Arabs from their homeland wrong?
Well if you answer yes, you are an anti-Semite. Well not really. But you have shown that you don't belong in the ruling class. You do NOT have what it takes to talk out of both sides of your mouth when talking about humanity. The ruling elite want people that pretend to care. Like those that pushed 'Save Darfur'. The group that not one penny went to save Darfur. But it did help split Sudan into Sudan and South Sudan. How'd that go? Well about as well has humanitarian adventure in Libya.
But here we are.
this is, as we've all guessed, a technique
it comes down to this:
bad guys want to push something bad
good guys point it out
bad guys then use the good guys most cherished ideals and accuse good guys of being anti-that.
don't like war? anti-semite! don't like being crushed by capitalists? racist! don't like destruction of neighborhoods by greedy developers? anti-environment! don't see WMDs in Iraq? Pedophile!
Speaking of ontocide...how about us half-Jews?
Do I count for beans?
Do I bear the stain of Whiteness, or not (REMEMBER: A plurality of votes on DailyKos itself says Jews aren't "white": https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2009/6/18/742552/-)?
When someone tells me the blood of my ancestors' crimes remains forever on my hands and I must be punished for them, am I supposed to:
- contritely agree and submit to flagellation, or
- openly sob about Hitler (while politely omitting any mention of Catholicism, its history, or its doctrines, of course) until Allies(TM) show up to assault them for me?
In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.
Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!
US politics is already crazy enough
I don't need to look for more reasons to be skeptical of politicians.
Neocons and Neolibs are the Radical Center. They're not Moderate
but they are the deathly guardians of what used to be called "the Washington foreign policy consensus." That's rapidly crumbling away along with the American Empire it sustained through two World Wars and the Cold War. The resurgence of McCarthyism and a clumsy, disorganized lashing out at Russia, China, Iran and Venezuela we're seeing now are the last futile stumblings of the thing as it collapses into its death throes.
It's pathetic to see anything die.