From: colten@cbnewsb.cb.att.com (marc.colten)
Subject: Re: Why The Statue of General Albert Pike Must be Destroyed
Summary: Accusing Jews, Jewish organizations and Jewish families
Organization: AT&T
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 12:34:28 GMT



For anyone (if there is anyone) who is following these exchanges -
let me just mention why I have become so heated and decided to
challenge the LaRouche articles.  While Steve Crocker goes to
great lengths to say that it is certain (often unnamed ) Jewish
people who are evil - they cannot stay off the topic of Jewish
organizations for more than a paragraph.  They say that condemning
one is not condemning the other, but it is a long leap of logic
to start with the wrongdoing of (let's say for example) an
executive of the AAA and expanding that into the AAA being an
organization of evil dedicated to overthrowing the USA on the
instructions of the British Empire.  I'll try to make these
points clear as I work my way through this article.

>>>>In article <19ee6mINNck8@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu>, 
>>>>aq817@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Steve Crocker) writes:
>
>>>>>colten@cbnewsb.cb.att.com (marc.colten) writes:
>
>>No Jew, to my knowledge, claims that all Jews are saints.  The
>>jails in Israel are full of Jews who decided crime pays.  In
>>America there are plenty of Jews in prison.  That's not the point.
>
>And the fact that a particular Jew may be socially prominent as 
>a Jew, or may be among the leadership of an organization whose
>aim is to promote Jewish interests should not alter this principle.

Then name the individuals who started, or are at the head of 
organizations like the Bnai Brith, and state what they have
done.  And prove that the organization is their instrument.

>When LaRouche and his colleagues attack groups like the B'nai B'rith 
>or the ADL, individuals like Judah Benjamin or Henry Kissinger, or
>families such as the Bronfmans or the Rothschilds, there is no reason
>I can see to equate this with an attack on the Jewish people.

In one sentence you attack individuals, groups and families.  Dont' you
see the error in that.  Are the Rothschilds evil - all of them,
including the kids?  If you have a problem with any of the Rothschilds
name them and say what they've done.

> By analogy, one could attack an organization such as the NAACP or a 
>leader such as Jesse Jackson for their political stance and/or
>character without being accused of being anti-black.

Again individuals, or organizations?

> The question that needs to be answered about the objects of LaRouche's ire is 
>not "are they Jewish" but "are they guilty". If there were cause
>to think he made these charges in bad faith BECAUSE the targets were 
>well known as Jews, we might suspect anti-semitism at work. This 
>appears far-fetched to me, primarily because of the even-handed 
>manner in which prominent gentiles are attacked on the same issues.
>

Attacking Jews without evidence may or may not be proof of anti-semitism,
but the fact is that whoever is doing the attacking, and whoever else
they are accusing, they always seem to overlap on Jews, especially
the Rothschilds (who are alternately accused of controlling or of being
controlled by, the Rockerfellers.

>>>The post accuses particular Jewish and Gentile organizations and
>material in which "Jews are the bad guys". I presumed your objection
>here was that the criticized organizations, in this case the B'nai 
>B'rith, are in fact Jewish. I am fully aware that no such organization
>can claim to represent the Jewish community as a whole. This is a 
>point I have made repeatedly in trying to explain why I do not consider
>such attacks anti-semitic. Neither LaRouche nor myself has any control
>over the fact that the B'nai B'rith is Jewish. 

No, you cannot control the fact that the Bnai Brith is Jewish, but
you can control the fact that you accuse them of many things without
proof.  You said that the Bnai Brith was "pro-Slavery" - are there
documents to support this?  You accused them of being organized by
British Intelligence.  Of creating the Ku Klux Klan, or sending
skinheads to Germany.  Where is any proof of this.  You even said
that the Bnai Brith had been "banned" because of their treasonous
activities - banned by who?  where? when?  Any support for any
fo thise?
>
>To drive home that what is going on here is NOT anti-semitism, let
>me quote from Tony Chaitkin's speech. Note that he carefully 
>distinguishes between different factions within the Jewish community
>at the time, based on their political perspective - particularly their
>attitude pro or anti slavery
>
><begin excerpt>
>
>    The B'nai B'rith and `Egyptian >Principles'
>
>   In his admiring biography of Judah >Benjamin, Eli Evans quotes the famous
>attack against Benjamin's pro-slavery >fanaticism by Ohio's Senator Ben Wade:
>``when old Moses, under the immediate >inspiration of God Almighty, enticed a
>whole nation of slaves, and ran >away ... to old Canaan, I suppose that
>Pharaoh and all the chivalry of old >Egypt denounced him as a most furious
>abolitionist.... There were those who >loved Egypt better than they loved
>liberty.... They were `Israelites with >Egyptian principles.'|'' 

Or maybe just fear of the unknown - what's the point?

>   Senator Wade's barb hit its mark.  >Judah Benjamin had deserted the
>religion of Moses. He had spat on the >law of freedom, the gift that Jews
>celebrate in the Passover seder (which >was also Christ's last supper). 

Judah Benjamin was the Secretary of State of the Confederacy, a new
nation he thought more his home than the United States.  I disagree with
him (but then I'm from New York originally), but I know people who
would have agreed with him.  Hardly makes him evil.  Yes, many Jews, even
at the time would have thought that Benjamin had drifted from true
Judaism to support the confederacy - others might have believed he was
fighting for his home.  


>   Since then, other ``Israelites with >Egyptian principles,'' those Jews who
>like Benjamin attached their destinies >to the British Empire and its
>racialism, have become a vital >component of the Anglo-American Eastern
>Establishment; ``honorary Anglo-Saxons,'' >they have helped transform the United
>States into an essentially mindless British
>model imperium. And the racialism they >coauthored has brought tragedy to Jews
>as well as to others outside the racial >pale. 

Again with the British Empire.  This right wing Anglophobia amazes me, and
is too paranoid.  Where is there one shred of evidence of the washed up
British Empire is behind ANYTHING?  And exactly who, other than Judah
Benjamin, were these "Jews with Eqyptian principles" who co-authored
"racialism", something that has always been there.

>   In the Civil War, twice as many >Jews fought for the Union as for the
>Confederacy. Northern Jews, many of >them recent German immigrants, were
>strongly pro-republican and >anti-slavery. 

More likely a factor of population density.  There were a lot more Jews
in the North than in the South.  Even in Civil Wars people don't get to
pick and choose their sides (except perhaps in border states).  You get
your values and your loyalties from where you are.  As for Southern Jews,
when the troops are coming down the road burning everything in sight,
political and philisophical differences fall into the background.

>   The predominant Jewish tradition >in the South was not only pro-slavery,
>but overwhelmingly Freemasonic. 

Numbers?  Proof?  Anything.  What percentage of Southern Jews were Freemasons?
What percentage of Freemasons were Jews?  What proof do you have that it
matters?  As for being pro-slavery - I don't believe anyone has any
numbers on what people believed.  Did most Southern Jews own slaves?  I doubt
if most southerners actually owned slaves.  The Southern Jews may have 
supported the principle that they had the right to choose their own destiny,
(State's Rights) but I doubt if anyone could show they they were all
or even predominantly pro-slavery.

>   The Independent Order of B'nai >B'rith formed in 1843 as a Jewish
>community sub-project in the >restoration of Masonry by the Scottish
>Rite and the British foreign office.  >Though most of its lodges were in the
>North, B'nai B'rith was openly >pro-Confederate. Though it claimed to
>be neutral in the war, many of the >Order's Northern spokesmen were
>stridently pro-slavery. B'nai B'rith's >post-Civil War leaders were
>pro-Confederate operatives, including >later president Simon Wolf, who had
>been arrested by the War Department in >Washington, D.C. as the lawyer for a
>Confederate spy ring. 
>

So there we have it again.  No matter how much you talk about Jewish individuals
we keeps coming back to "B'nai B'rith formed in 1843 as a Jewish *community*
sub-project [what was the communities main project?] in the restoration of Masonry
by the Scottish Rite and the British foreign office."  You try to make it
sound as if you object to wrongdoing by individuals - who you never name. But
then you claim that the Jewish "community" is to blame and they they are
working for "Scottish Rite" and the British Foreign office.  

>[much more relevant material deleted for brevity]
>
><end excerpt>
>
>
>>So if I look for the smoking gun, I won't find any after 100 years, and
>>yet we are supposed to accept LaRouche's accusations anyway.  Where
>>is HIS smoking gun?
>
>You don't get it Marc. There IS no smoking gun. I cannot produce one.
>LaRouche cannot produce one. Anybody who expects a gun to still be 
>"smoking gun" quality of proof on historical issues in being absurd.
>Historical questions unavoidably turn on ambiguous and circumstantial 
>evidence, as do most questions of conspiracy. And we deal here with
>historical conspiracies. If you have read Tony's speech, you will
>have seen as much "evidence" as exists in machine readbale form. If
>you need more, see if you can find "Treason in America" by Anton
>Chaitkin in your library (be sure to get the 2nd edition). It touches 
>on related issues and is better documented than the speech.
>

So there is no proof, no evidence, just conjecture, and accusations
that could have been made up as they went along.  You support
accusations based on "circumstantial evidence" but you have not even
given any of that.  Considering the crimes you claim these people
have committed I think we need more proof than that.

>>mind and I think most other people don't need convincing.  however, certain
>>allegations need to be at least challenged.  As for you conversion to
>>LaRouches idea, the question I have is how much independent research
>>you did, or was it just circular research where you went back and forth
>>to complementary sources which support only each other.  Some of the
>
>I went to documents from those LaRouche claimed to be modern day
>conspirators (Council on Foreign Relations, Trilaterial Commission,
>Rockefeller family institutions, etc.) as well as standard reference
>works. I looked for personel overlaps and ideological stances. It
>took VERY little research, for example, to confirm that the Rockefeller
>family was up to their eyeballs in supporting Malthusian "population
>control" programs.
>

Which Rockefellers?  What "Malthusian population control programs" and
what documents.  I've seen quite a few books that blame the CFR and
the TLC and the Rockefellers for just about everything, but they
all sound identical as if they were written by the same person.  And
not one of them doesn't claim that 99% of what they know comes from
ONE GUY, name Quigly.  It's all a very slim base, like a pyramid
balancing on it's tip.

>>>allegations (mutli-generation, thousands year old, secret societies,
>>>etc) would seem to have no proof to go on.  How much is proof and how
>>>much is belief?
>
>Again, I am uncomfortable with your demand for "proof".

I know, but are you uncomfortable because I ask, or because you know
there isn't any?

>We rarely have
>"proof" in social affairs. Who shot Kennedy? Why? Where's your "proof".

Assasination is not a "social affair" - it's a crime.  I would hesitate
to execute someone on your standard of proof.

>If we demanded proof before we acted, most social activism would come
>to a grinding halt.

So would most witch hunts.

>As I said before, the relevant question is what
>sort of circumstantial evidence is sufficient to lend plausibility
>(not certainty!) to a hypothesis. Aditionally, on what grounds would
>you establish somebody's intellectual authority so you would take their
>word for anything? LaRouche has dozens of full time researchers and
>writers digging this stuff up. I should reproduce their research before
>I believe any of it? That's just not physically possible. I believe
>LaRouche about secret societies, etc. because he acquired authority in
>my eyes by saying uniquely sensible things about issues I consider 
>myself qualified to have an opinion on. 
>

You are not stating a hypothesis.  STating that you think there's a heaven
is a hypothesis.  Claiming it's gates are 20 miles east of Freno and the
walls are 100 meters high and made of Alabaster is not.  You claim 
knowledge of things that no one could know and then say you don't need
proof.

>
>Marc, once more, please try to get this straight. The form 
>of your statement leaves it conveniently unclear exactly
>what opinion you accuse LaRouche of holding, since the phrase
>"accusing Jews" can be read as either "accusing certain specific
>Jews" (this is accurate) or "accusing Jews in general" (untrue
>and rather disgusting). THE B'NAI B'RITH IS NOT THE JEWISH
>PEOPLE. AN ACCUSATION AGAINST THE FORMER IS NOT AN ATTACK ON 
>THE LATTER.
>

Claiming that Joe Shmo - a Jew - commited a crime may or may not
be anti-semitism.  It depends on whether or not he committed the
crime, whether you have any reason to think he commited the crime,
whether you have any evidence that he commited the crime and why
(if you don't) you didn't accuse his neighbor Joe O'Schmo who
isn't Jewish.  Accusing an organization whose sole distinguishing
feature is that it is a Jewish organization comes a lot closer
and needs a similar standard of proof.  If I suddenly started
posting 1000's of lines of material claiming that the Hibernians
were behind everything as agents of the French, I think people
might wonder if I had anything agains the Irish and the French,
and would want some proof.

>>>Bear in mind, that "proof" is relative. There are still people who
>>>believe that Oswald acting alone, killed JFK. What we deal with in
>>>conspiracy research is usually circumstantial evidence. The question 
>>>of how much of what kind of evidence lends how much credibility to a
>>>hypothesis is an important one, but yelling "proof, proof" whenever
>>>somebody voices a hypothesis you personally dislike is not going to
>>>make a positive contribution to that discussion.
>

And accusing people of killing JFK when you have no proof is not
intellectual debate.  The same with your accusations - if you
have no proof, how can you even have a hypothesis?  On the basis
of what you claim to know you could pick any organization out
a hat and make the same case.

>Well, in this particular case, the targets of the accusation are already
>safely dead :)  I understand your point generally, though. But I would 
>say that nobody but a fool will "accept" anything merely because it 
>is posted on usenet. The value of announcing an allegation of this
>sort is that knowing in detail what is being alleged, the reader can
>keep their eyes and ears open for material from other sources which 
>would tend to confirm or refute them. 
>

I think your smily face is inappropriate - since as I believe you
are not accusing individual Jews (since you never name them) but
Jewish groups, which still exist and (to my mind) the Jewish
people, who still live.  I see that you do not, and will never
get the point.  You remind me of some Fundamentalists who try
to get around their belief in the inerrancy of the Gospels and
say things like "Well of course, the Jews didn't kill Jesus,
it was just *some* Jews - you know misquided people at the top
and the rest didn't know about it."  So what are we to do?
Accept absurd accusations and hope that only the other Jew is
blamed for something?  I don't think so.  If an accusation
blames one Jew for something with no proof, then it will
eventually spread to all.


>But Marc, "people" ARE all of these things. You appear to believe
>that THESE PARTICULAR people are not. You should do a little research
>and determine if this is accurate. I called your insults 
>"mindless" because they lacked substantive content. They were
>almost the precise semantic equivalent of jumping up and down
>yelling "IS NOT...IS NOT".

Some people CAN be all these things, but they are not simply because
you claim they are without proof.  I may, if I have the time, do
some research, but it is up to the accuser to provide *objective*
proof, not just the same accusation rehashed by many authors.
As for my yelling "IS NOT ..... IS NOT", again you have it wrong.
You are yelling IS IS IS, and I am responding.


marc colten

Newsgroups: alt.activism,talk.politics.misc