Earlier this week, ThinkProgress, reported on “vulture capitalist” hedge fund manager Paul Singer’s financing journalists to write attack articles opposing the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement. In addition, a campaign to infiltrate and sabotage the movement has now been documented. Those protecting the Wall Street criminals have proven they're willing to say and do anything to undermine and diminish the 99 Percenters in the OWS movement.
However, goons of the financial elite have sunken to a new low. The right-wing is now attempting to label the OWS movement as anti-Semitic. According to MJ Rosenberg, writing in the Jewish Journal, The New York Times columnist David Brooks, was one of the first widely respected conservatives to suggest an anti-Semitic element to the movement. Essentially, Brooks accuses the magazine AdBusters, who helped promote the protest, as having an anti-Semitic bent due to an article it published back in 2004 Here is what Brooks said in his column, dated October 10, 2011:
“Take the Occupy Wall Street movement. This uprising was sparked by the magazine AdBusters, previously best known for the 2004 essay, “Why Won’t Anyone Say They Are Jewish?” — an investigative report that identified some of the most influential Jews in America and their nefarious grip on policy. “
Actually, thanks to Brooks providing the link, we can all read the article and know exactly what the articles is about. To summarize, the article points out that 50 percent of the top 50 most influential neocons in the Bush Administration were not only Jews, but had ties to Israel’s far right Likud party. The article notes that while only 2 percent of the U.S. population is Jewish, 50 percent of Bush’s influential neocons were Jewish. The AdBusters article then asks, “If half the neocons were Palestinians would the U.S. have invaded Iraq?
AdBusters knew when they published the article that some folks would immediately start hurling charges of anti-Semitism at them: “Drawing attention to the Jewishness of the neocons is a tricky game. Anyone who does so can count on automatically being smeared as an anti-Semite…The point is simply that the neocons seem to have a special affinity for Israel that influence their political thinking and consequently American foreign policy in the Middle East.” Personally, I find this point to be very interesting and worthy of reporting. If half of Obama’s national security advisors were Muslims, or followers of a particular Christian orthodoxy, I would find that equally worth reporting.
MJ Rosenberg points out, “[a]n ugly old tradition is back: exploiting anti-Semitism to break the backs of popular movements that threaten the power.”
Rosenberg goes on to provide a brief history on the misuse of anti-Semitism: “Perhaps its most famous use was by the viciously anti-Semitic Czar Nicholas, whose supporters concocted the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” at the start of the 20th century to prevent Russians from joining socialist movements and other reform efforts that were fighting to get the czar to cede some power to an elected parliament.
The Protocols were a forged document purporting to show that a cabal of Jews met regularly to solidify their supposed control of the entire world. According to the Protocols, Jews were behind socialist and liberal movements but also ran the banks and Wall Street. (A modern version of this ridiculous theme was a staple on Glenn Beck’s television program that ran on Fox News until being canceled this summer.)”
Now we see a consorted effort by the right-wing to discredit the OWS movement by pinning the word anti-Semitism on the protesters. The tactics they are using to discredit the OWS movement are highly deceptive. Take for example this quote from an online blogger quoting Abe Greenwood:
“The Jew-hatred among protesters and sympathizers is diverse and unapologetic. It is, in fact, atmospheric. Tune in randomly to live television coverage of the spectacle and you’ll see—as I did—placards scapegoating Israel, Zionism, or "Hitler's Banker." Check out the continuous flurry of protest-supporting tweets and blog posts, and you’ll get more of the same.”
Well, I searched YouTube for a video clip of the “Hitler Banker” sign and found the guy shouting anti-Semitic comments amongst the OWS protesters. What Greenwood doesn’t say in his comment is that the OWS protesters had surrounded the Hitler Banker guy and were holding up handmade signs that read “He’s Not With Us”,with arrows pointing to the Hitler Banker guy. But what is more telling is, if you listen closely, you can hear all the actual OWS protesters are telling the Hitler Banker guy to “Go Away” and “Nobody wants your hate” I found stories about the Hitler Banker guy on a half dozen website and not one commented on or included the audio of the actually OWS protesters shouting out "Nobody want your hate."
This video tells a starkly different story then the “unapologetic” “Jew-hatred” portrayed in the online article. When it comes to manuplating videos and stories, the right-wing has had a very seedy past recently. Taking events out of context in order to distort the facts and smear their political opponents, James O’Keefe and his buddy Andrew Breitbart of Big Government have been found in numbers legal investigations to have used “selectively”, “heavily” and “deceptively” edited videos in order to leave a “false impression” and to portray their political rivals in a bad light. Many Journalists have called O’Keefe deceptive videos “unethical” and Fred Barnes, of the conservative paper the Weekly Standard, has even called O’Keefe a “political hit job.”
This same unethical tactic is now being employed on the OWS movement. However, I don’t think this desperate tactic is not going to work this time. First of all, the OWS protesters are now onto the fact that the right-wing has infiltrated the crowds and are attempting to disrupt and discredit the movement. They know there are right-wing agent provocateurs in their midst That is why you see in the above video clip the protesters quickly making sure the video camera knew the Hitler Banker guy was not part of the movement and not welcome. It’s no coincidence that as soon as an idiot shows up with a racist sign, Glenn Beck TV shows up with a camera crew.
Second, there are plenty of liberal Jews amongst the protesters. After all, most American Jews are actually liberal progressives, not the neocons found in the Bush Administration. This year, Yom Kippur fell on the 21 day of the OWS protest. To celebrate, the night was filled with Jews and non Jews singing and dancing. Check out this video. There is not a single anti-Semitic image in the crowd.
The fact is, if you scour the official_statements by the OWS movement and look at the official Tweets you will not find a single shred of anti-Semitism. Nonetheless, I’m sure there are some corrupt right-wing nut bars spewing racist comments amongst the OWS activists in order to discredit the movement. I’m also sure that as soon as the provocateurs show their face, Glenn Beck or James O’Keefe will miraculously have their cameras in place. Unfortunately, it’s just the type of world we live in.
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