Come on Ed,
Jews = Capitalists? I am well able to
differentiate between "capital" and "capitalism".
It does not sound as if you can. It is not
capital that causes people to suffer. But
capitalism does punish people and tells them they
should like it. And capitalists do profit from
that suffering. Some capitalists I know are
"good" people but they still do bad things to
other people -- it's what capitalists do. Do you
support the bad that they do? Do you support the
McD owner because (s)he does not give his/her
employees health care? Because he/she does not
pay a living wage? Because (s)he tries to sell us
us crap and calls it food? Because (s)he sells us
beef filled with hormones? I could go on. This
is "good" behavior? These are good choices? I
don't think so!
Bruce Leier
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ed Weick" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "Ed
Goertzen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, December 07, 1999 5:15 PM
Subject: Re: torn: Reply to Ed Wieck
> Ed,
>
> The posting you comment on seems to have been
misunderstood by a lot of
> people. It was intended as irony and as a
demonstration of how laying the
> blame for a wide range of woes and human
failings on a single group or class
> can lead to absurd and dangerous conclusions.
My point is that the world
> was in a sorry state long before there was an
identifiable capitalist class.
> My reference to the Jews was intended to
illustrate that, if you can trump
> up enough charges and make them sound credible,
you can get away with just
> about anything. Historically, many charges were
trumped up against the
> Jews. In ancient times, they killed Christ. In
medieval times they
> desecrated the host and participated in blood
libels, and worst of all,
> poisoned wells and thereby brought on the
plague. The 19th century
> witnessed things like the Dreyfuss affair, and
in the 20th we had the
> trumped up Protocols of Zion. The fact that
some Jews, including Trotsky
> and some other leading Bolsheviks, were
communists did not help them either.
> As Goldhagen demonstrates, convincingly in my
opinion, so many nefarious
> labels had been pinned on the Jews by the 1930s
that they became easy
> victims. Translate that into some of the things
posted on the internet
> recently and you could have a crusade against
anyone you label a capitalist,
> including the guy who operates a Macdonalds or
Starbucks franchise in
> Seattle. I'm not saying that the Seattle
protests were such a crusade, but
> some of the so-called protesters could easily
have become one.
>
> So, to summarize, my quarrel is not with Jews or
capitalists or any other
> group, but with pinning labels on people and
unjustifiably blaming them for
> things they may not have had much to do with.
Crusaders did not kill Jews
> and other infidels because the crusaders were
capitalists. They killed them
> because within medieval society they had been
conditioned to do so. It
> assured them of a path to heaven. Right now,
Russians are not killing
> Chechyns because of capital. They are doing so
out of animosity going way
> back into czarist times, because they're afraid
that if the Chechyns go,
> much of the Caucuses could follow and perhaps
also because they want to
> demonstrate to the world that they are still a
military power (a very sorry
> way of doing it!!). To justify what they are
doing they've pinned a
> convenient label on the Chechyns, that of
"terrorists".
>
> Hope this clarifies what I was trying to say.
>
> Ed Weick
>
>
>
>
>
