Divided Loyalties
(posted by Daniel Koffler)
So there are these rules you may have heard about regarding the n-word and some related terminology. They can use it to describe themselves, but no one else can use it to describe them.
I’m referring to neoconservatives, of course. If neoconservatives call themselves neoconservatives, that’s a-ok. If a non-neocon uses the word “neoconservatism,” on the other hand, that’s paranoid conspiracy mongering. When neoconservatives act as if they are the sole legitimate claimants to the heritage of the children of Israel, that’s only their right. When non-neoconservatives observe that that’s what they’re doing, it’s blatant anti-Semitism. When neoconservatives argue that Israel ought to be “both supported and worshipped” (”worshipped”? srsly?), they’re simply laying out a muscular foreign policy in the deeply American tradition of Franklin Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and Scoop Jackson. When non-neocons notice that asking “is it good for Israel?” of any foreign policy position whatsoever expresses loyalty to Israel, they might as well just cut the bullshit and put on the SS uniforms they obviously have hidden in their closets.
Those are the rules. If you don’t understand why they make perfect sense, you probably hate the Jews.
Tags: Israel, neoconservatives
July 7th, 2008 at 8:36 pm
Yeah, I’m real carfeul about using the n-word myself. I’d hate for anyone to think I was using anti-Semitic codewords about obvious Elders of Zion like Jeanne Kirkpatrick, Scoop Jackson and Pat Moynihan. What’s really funny is that the same people who throw around the term “anti-Semite” so recklessly (remember Jerry Seinfeld’s Uncle Leo?) are the first to get their panties in a bunch over Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton playing the “race card.”
July 7th, 2008 at 9:06 pm
What’s really funny is that the same people who throw around the term “anti-Semite” so recklessly (remember Jerry Seinfeld’s Uncle Leo?) are the first to get their panties in a bunch over Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton playing the “race card.”
Ha. I was just going to write that, though I would have noted the use of “race pimp,” which strike me as unbelievably aggressive, particularly for people who whip out claims that criticisms of neoconservatives are merely cover for antisemitism. (Even better, I seem to recall hearing David Frum on bloggingheads worrying that in an Obama Administration, all criticism might be met with charges of racism. Ha!) Which doesn’t even take us to the related phenomenon of the constant neocon carping about the Democratic “dependence on identity politics.”
July 8th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
I’ve weaned myself off of it for awhile now, modified it to neo-imperialist for the following reasons:
1) the former term is an insult to the relatively sane conservatives (Daniel Larison*, for example).
2) I feel that “Neo-Imperialist” more accurately describes their real political purpose. These people aren’t trying to “conserve” anything. In fact, if their agenda had any chance in hell of accomplishing what they say it can, it’d amount to a wholesale reconfiguration of how the world works. I’m talking pigs flying, sky raining beer, clocks moving backwards type shit here.
(* - I don’t pretend to know everything he’s said. All I know is he’s one of precisely 2 people that self-describe as conservative who I can read without wanting to break something.)
July 9th, 2008 at 12:44 am
[...] b-psycho: I’ve weaned myself off of it for awhile now, modified it to neo-imperialist for the following reasons: 1) the former term is an insult to the relat… [...]
July 13th, 2008 at 10:14 am
[...] has a lot more to say about the Robert Kaplan “Current” piece in the Atlantic that I linked to the other day — the one in which Kaplan proclaims that we ought to “worship” [...]