The News & Topicality Thread

[Del]

How Whoopi ever got a lead spot on an ABC News show.... defies explanation.

She's:
- Female
- Black

(sigh)

Well, if it's intersectional boxes that they care about.... Could they at least find someone who is less dumb and less ugly?

[Biff]

How Whoopi ever got a lead spot on an ABC News show.... defies explanation.

She's:
- Female
- Black

(sigh)

Well, if it's intersectional boxes that they care about.... Could they at least find someone who is less dumb and less ugly?

Probably not.

[Wosbald]

+JMJ+

Survey finds ‘classical fascist’ antisemitic views widespread in U.S.

A woman leaves a candle in front of the Tree of Life synagogue after 11 people were killed during a 2018 shooting in Pittsburgh. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)

At points in the past half-century, many U.S. antisemitism experts thought this country could be aging out of it, that hostility and prejudice against Jews were fading in part because younger Americans held more accepting views than did older ones.

But a survey released Thursday shows how widely held such beliefs are in the United States today, including among younger Americans. The research by the Anti-Defamation League includes rare detail about the particular nature of antisemitism, how it centers on tropes of Jews as clannish, conspiratorial and holders of power.

The survey shows “antisemitism in its classical fascist form is emerging again in American society, where Jews are too secretive and powerful, working against interests of others, not sharing values, exploiting — the classic conspiratorial tropes,” Matt Williams, vice president of the ADL’s year-old Center for Antisemitism Research, told The Washington Post.

The study uses a new version of surveys the ADL has been doing in America since the 1960s in order to get at the specific nature of antisemitism, and what makes it different from other types of hate. Its new metric is centered on affirming or rejecting 14 statements, including whether Jews: “have too much control and influence on Wall Street,” “are more willing than others to use shady practices to get what they want,” or are “so shrewd that other people do not have a fair chance.”

The ADL’s center was created in response to a spike in the past few years of reported incidents of antisemitic violence and harassment, as well as a rise in antisemitic rhetoric from high-profile public figures.

[…]

It is difficult to assess whether antisemitic views have increased over time, given changes in the survey’s response options as well as how respondents were sampled. The survey was conducted in September and October among a national sample of 4,007 adults online through AmeriSpeak, a randomly sampled panel of U.S. households maintained by NORC at the University of Chicago.

Williams and some experts who helped review the study noted that it shows the views of Americans under 30 and those of Americans over 30 are very similar. Of Americans ages 18 to 30, 18 percent said six or more of the statements were true, while among those 31 and older, 20 percent did. Of younger Americans, 39 percent believed two to five statements, while among the older group, 41 percent did.

“It used to be that older Americans harbored more antisemitic views. The hypothesis was that antisemitism declined in the 1990s, the 2000s, because there was this new generation of more tolerant people. It shows younger people are much closer now to what older people think. My hypothesis is there is a cultural shift, fed maybe by technology and social media. The gap is disappearing,” said Ilana Horwitz, one of the survey’s reviewers, and an assistant professor of Jewish studies at Tulane University.

The “pervasiveness” of antisemitic tropes the study shows is what’s most interesting, Horwitz said. Even the fact that 3 percent of Americans say all of the original statements are “mostly or somewhat true” is alarming, she said.

[…]

The new research also delved into the differences between believing anti-Jewish tropes and negative sentiment toward Israel and its supporters.

“One of the findings of this report is that antisemitism in that classic, conspiratorial sense is far more widespread than anti-Israel sentiment,” Williams said.

The report highlighted that 90 percent of Americans agreed Israel “has a right to defend itself against those who want to destroy it” and that 79 percent agreed Israel is a “strong U.S. ally in the Middle East.” However, 40 percent at least slightly agreed that Israel “treats Palestinians like Nazis treated the Jews,” and 17 percent disagreed with the statement “I am comfortable spending time with people who openly support Israel.”

[…]

[Del]

+JMJ+

Survey finds ‘classical fascist’ antisemitic views widespread in U.S.

"Widespread"?

In the last 20 years, I have encountered exactly one young person (college age) out in the wild who holds such views.*


This sort of chatter is not tolerated on conservative news chat boards. "Group-identity" intolerance is probably more common on woke news sites, but I haven't checked.



*(Not counting Wosbald and Ilhan Omar or Rashida Tlaib)

[Wosbald]

+JMJ+

European Jewish Congress Shocked and Appalled by Russian FM’s Holocaust Reference

(Source: EJC)

(Wednesday, January 18th, 2023) — The European Jewish Congress has expressed its shock and concern following comments today by Russian Federation Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov comparing Western governments’ support for Ukraine to Hitler’s Final Solution which resulted in the murder of six million Jews in the Shoah.

Lavrov claimed on Wednesday that the United States had put together a coalition of European states to solve the “Russian question” in the same way that Hitler had organised a Final Solution for Europe’s Jews.

“We are shocked and appalled by this shameful comparison drawn by Minister Lavrov between the actions of a coalition of democratic countries and Hitler’s persecution and murder of six million Jews in the Shoah,” EJC President Ariel Muzicant said.

“This is Holocaust distortion at its most basic level and we call on Mr. Lavrov to unequivocably apologise and withdraw these comments,” he added.

Mr. Lavrov claimed the West is “waging war against our country with the same task: the “Final Solution” of the Russian question.

“This is not the first time the minister has used Holocaust equivalence and Hitler references,” Musicant pointed out. “This must stop. As we mark in the coming days International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the day that the Red Army liberated Auschwitz, the memory of Holocaust victims must never be used in such an appalling manner.”

[Del]

+JMJ+

European Jewish Congress Shocked and Appalled by Russian FM’s Holocaust Reference

Serious question: Why do you think this is newsworthy?

I get why the Jewish officials protest and I can see why they sent out a press statement, but where are you on this? Why do you think that CPS should care?

So a Russian compared their enemies to Nazis. Everybody does that.

And Jews defend their well-deserved status as the victims of history's most egregious oppression. They do that consistently. Jewish groups protest when American pro-lifers call Democrats "Nazis" and liken their 60+ million murdered children to "Ten Holocausts." They do not want the tragedy of that unique genocide to be appropriated, and I don't blame them.

But how is this "topical news" in a thread that could be talking about Joe Biden's concentration camps on the border. Or his taking over $40 million from China to set up an office with carelessly kept Top Secret US intel where Chinese agents can have easy access?

[Hovannes]

I found a box marked Top Secret in my garage, next to the Model T.
Something about Austro-Hungary invading Cuba during WW1.
I was kind of hoping it was the microwave popcorn.