Thank you and David Brooks of the Weekly Standard (an article I had read earlier in the day) for pointing out what I have been seeing develop over the last six months to maybe even a year and did NOT want to belive - anti-semitism!

The question people need to ask themselves is how big of a step is it from anti (put whatever group of people you want here) developing on a national scale to pogroms to persecute the said object of the "anti" feeling?

Thanks for picking up on the latest trend from the left: anti-Semitism. I've been aware of this for some time now and am active in trying to counter these views.

I wrote the article linked above on the same subject, although more from the point of view of someone who has taken part in counter-demonstrations to the so-called anti-war rallies.

Hope it adds something to the discussion...

Okay, I'm obviously new to this whole blog thing, because I thought I included a link in my comment, but I guess I didn't. Let me try it again:

Why Does the Left Hate Israel?

While my reservoir of sympathy runs pretty low before it gets to Illinois Nazis I fear that if you do use threats, intimidation, harrassment or saliva to silence someone with whom you disagree, however loathsome, you will find that this is exactly what the 1st amendment does not protect, it protects against. The only valid response to bigoted lies is the truth. I'd also be very careful about threatening children, or any one else for the speech made by a some third party. Post web-cams on their business and homes? Hah! The pro-lifers tried that and look what it got them.

Lloyd,

I'm an attorney. There is adequate caselaw on this point, in particular that pertaining to restrictions on anti-abortion protesters. The latter generally win on appeal. I disagree with Trent about children but everything else seems legal provided access isn't blocked and at least a 5-10 foot distance is maintained (i.e., heavy garlic breath won't do much).

Southern racists weren't silenced through peaceful persuasion. Not getting in the new anti-Semites' faces will only encourage them. Following them around with phony cameras and talking into dead cellphones is exactly the right way to feed their paranoia.

I wrote a piece on this exact subject about six months ago which you may find worth reading:

The Left's Jewish Problem.

From what I can see, it's only getting worse. And it was fairly predictable. The truth is that the left is increasingly without any solid intellectual base for most of its core beliefs. Anger and resenment and other highly charged emotions is all they have left. They're imploding, and turning to hatred is a natural next step for them.

The future political division is between conservative libertarianism and transnational progressivism. The old Left is on its last legs and will soon extinguish itself--if it doesn't turn into full-blown fascism first.

Getting in their faces is exactly the right thing to do.

Trent:

RE: the Right has their problem with Anti-Semitism.

What you and probably most of your other readers don't know is that Bill Buckley, Bill Rusher and National Review kicked the anti-semites out of the conservative movement in the 1950's. And it was a big fight. Before that, Birchers and Klansmen were more or less welcome in some polite society. Not afterwards. More recently, a couple years before he relinquished the editorship of NR, he publicly rebuked one of his writers and forbade him to write about anything to do with Israel or Jewish matters in the US. His reason was that he was not convinced the man was an anti-semite (in which case he would have kicked him out of the magazine) but he was convinced the man did not have the sense to know that in a century where 6 million Jews had been killed simply because they were Jews, some things had to be handled with a great deal of sensitivity. Shortly thereafter NR ran a "In Search of Ant-Semitism" issue in which the staff examined the criteria by which to judge whether someone was an Anti-Semite and then also considered the published work of some folks who might be accused of Anti-Semitism. Pat Buchanan was among those considered. In my dotage, I forget the result and any of the dates, but I am sure one of your intrepid readers can supply them.

>I disagree with Trent about children but everything else seems legal provided access isn't blocked and at least a 5-10 foot distance is maintained (i.e., heavy garlic breath won't do much).

These people support children suicide/homicide bombers and dress up their own kids to look just like them.

Pictures of that are fair game.

The only concern I have is that people on our side don't go to jail.

>What you and probably most of your other readers don't know is that Bill Buckley, Bill Rusher and National Review kicked the anti-semites out of the conservative movement in the 1950's.

I was very much aware of it. However, Donald Sensing has pointed out that they are still a part of the Religious Right.

What Patrick Walsh wrote about the Right and
antisemitism is correct. The "Old Right"
(which today is represented by only Buchanan
and people associated with Chronicles) was
completely discredited after WWII. What Buckley
and friends did in the 1950s was to found a
new American conservatism based on limited
government and opposition to Communism. They
did a pretty complete housecleaning as far as
antisemites, isolationists, and other cranks
were concerned.

What happened in the early 1990s with Buchanan
was really just a footnote to what Buckley did
in the 1950s. The writer Buckley got rid of
(after patiently giving him multiple chances)
was Joseph Sobran, who slid off the deep end
about 10 years ago. He was an editor of NR.

The Democratic Party might have a very serious
problem on its hands with this issue in 2004.
The fact that they're having their convention
in Boston, a center of goo-goo liberalism and
the campus left, won't help.

There hasn't been a real problem with antisemitism
in American politics since the early 1940s.
Antisemitism is usually adopted by "losers" who
need scapegoats after a big catastrophe has
destroyed some illusion they believed in. That
is how Germany felt after 1918. It's happened
to some extent in Russia after 1991. And it's
happening now to the Left. Nothing really
remains of the Left in any positive, substantive
sense. All that remain are conspiracy theories
and hate.

Donald Sensing is wrong about the Religious
Right and antisemitism. It's a constantly
repeated canard that helps to keep American
Jews in their political ghetto.

Conservative Christians believe Judaism is
incomplete. That doesn't make them antisemites.
It just makes them serious Christians.

What Patrick Walsh wrote about the Right and
antisemitism is correct. The "Old Right"
(which today is represented by only Buchanan
and people associated with Chronicles) was
completely discredited after WWII. What Buckley
and friends did in the 1950s was to found a
new American conservatism based on limited
government and opposition to Communism. They
did a pretty complete housecleaning as far as
antisemites, isolationists, and other cranks
were concerned.

What happened in the early 1990s with Buchanan
was really just a footnote to what Buckley did
in the 1950s. The writer Buckley got rid of
(after patiently giving him multiple chances)
was Joseph Sobran, who slid off the deep end
about 10 years ago. He was an editor of NR.

The Democratic Party might have a very serious
problem on its hands with this issue in 2004.
The fact that they're having their convention
in Boston, a center of goo-goo liberalism and
the campus left, won't help.

There hasn't been a real problem with antisemitism
in American politics since the early 1940s.
Antisemitism is usually adopted by "losers" who
need scapegoats after a big catastrophe has
destroyed some illusion they believed in. That
is how Germany felt after 1918. It's happened
to some extent in Russia after 1991. And it's
happening now to the Left. Nothing really
remains of the Left in any positive, substantive
sense. All that remain are conspiracy theories
and hate.

Cinnamon, nice article, but the Left was already infected by Palestinian nationalism by the late 60s. Once Israel won the 67 war, it became persona non grata in the eyes of the righteous bros of the New Left in solidarity with various 3rd-world romantic revolutionary gangs. Black anti-semitism as an official political practice began with the Black Panthers.

I have writings from Leftist Jews of the 60s with the same pain and bewilderment and the same language as Left Jews now. The Jews who were active then, by and large didn't get sucked in this time (Michael Lerner is not naive - he is purposefully being a gadfly), but a new generation didn't avail itself of the lessons of its parents.

"Conservative Christians believe Judaism is
incomplete. That doesn't make them antisemites.
It just makes them serious Christians."

So what you're saying is that serious Christianity is profoundly anti-Jewish. Well, we knew that. Some Christians are trying to fix that. I guess it'll take time, as it will require rebuilding your faith from the ground up.

Yehudit: As a non-Christian and a non-Jew, I must point out that you're being intolerant of Christians with such remarks.

If Jews are to give the same acceptance to Christians as they want Christians to give to them, Jews must accept that Christians believe that Jesus was the messiah. Unless you're looking for a constant theological battle, what you should do is accept with good grace that this is an area where Christians and Jews agree to disagree, and move on. Suggesting that it makes Christianity "profoundly anti-Jewish" simply makes you profoundly anti-Christian. I think we can do better than that when it comes to inter-faith dialog, don't you?

As for anti-semitism on the Right: others have covered this better than I have. The National Review "In Search of Anti-Semitism" article came to the conclusion that Buchanan was not an anti-Semite but that he expressed things that could easily construed that way, and should stop it. Which I suppose sounds shallow, but the article was actually quite thoughtful.

What the recent spate of anti-Semetic outbursts have done is less reveal something new as to reveal a long streak of anti-Semitism that's always been part of the Left, but hasn't been remarked on much. Marx and Lenin were both anti-Semites (although both had Jewish ancestors--nothing new in that). There's been a strain of genteel (and not so genteel) anti-semitism in the left for a long, long time. I recall how at the 1968 Democratic convention, the late Mayor Daley called Senator Abraham Ribicoff a "Jew bastard" on national television, for example.

I wrote more about this in the article I mentioned above, and might as well mention again:

The Left's Jewish Problem.

This phenomenon has been there for a long time, all but unnoticed while people sometimes gloatingly talked about "right wing anti-semites."

Er, correction, Daley called Ribicoff a "Jew sonofabitch." But I'm sure he meant it in the nicest way possible. :-)

Dean Esmay - Good comments. I think the left's long history with racism and anti-semitism deserves more attention. Other good examples of early-day leftists who, like Marx and Engles were flamingly racist, but unlike those two, have gotten a pass on it ever since, are Charles Dickens and Frank Norris. My socialist high school teachers explained this away saying that racism was everywhere then.

I recently read Ivanhoe written in the 1820's by the not remotely Jewish Sir Walter Scott. That novel has been accused of whitewashing the medieval era and stereotyping the Jews and I found those accusations to be completely without base. In fact, Scott is very critical of the treatment of Jews in medieval society and damn near Zionist before Zionism even existed. The book also gives some really good insight into the history of the English language and culture. I highly reccomend it. Read it alongside Frank Norris and/or Dickens if you've been told, or ever believed, that racism was always with us at a constant level until the 1960's.

For a long time in my youth, I could not understand why conservative white southerners all voted Democratic instead of Republican, where political logic demanded their vote(s). And when I learned about the lingering effects of the Civil War and radical reconstruction, all I could think of was, "but that was a 100 years ago!" And of course eventually white conservatives in the south began to drift away from the Democratic Party toward the Republican Party and Presidential Politics haven't been the same since.

With Jewish folks today, I can't really understand why they're not drifting steadily away from the Democratic Party. It may be true that Jewish voters are by nature very liberal politically, and that surely explains why Jewish folks started out voting Democratic. But much of the anti-Israel rhetoric coming out of the Political Left these days is really anti-Jewish bias hiding behind a false front.

The Sharpton-Lieberman exchanges are going to be interesting to watch in the coming campaign. Thinking a little longer down the road, Lieberman would be a very competitive Presidential candidate running as a Republican in 2008 if he could rediscover his backbone and be supportive of vouchers and skeptical of affirmative action.

Actually jews are drifting away from the Democratic party in ever increasing numbers. It is not a flood yet but it gets larger every year. A lot of people of my mother's generation started voting Dem during the depression and still feel the same about the republican party as they did then. They have passed these beliefs onto their children and their children's children. A lot of these people will never vote for republicans becasue they never had. Bad habits are hard to break.
It is changing but big changes happen slowly unless there is a majot event to bring about change. What we are seeing now and what is decribed in the Brooks article could be such an event, if only the major media would have the balls to cover it.

A few weeks back, during the first round of ANSWER organized protests I made the mistake of asking an anti-war acquaintence how he, in good conscience, could march in a rally where people carried signs that said "Jew$ out of Palestine". When he wouldn't even acknowledge that the sign is a example of classic Jew hatred, I realized that you can't argue with a closed mind.

Trent,

I'm not aware of any instance in America of parents dressing up their kids in suicide bomber costumes for a political protest. Perhaps you conflate foreign instances of that with events here. Please tell us if you are basing your children comments on events in America, or events elsewhere.

As a California attorney I say that the following would likely occur if someone was dumb enough to do this here:

1) Child Protective Services would take away the children involved. This is absolutely certain.

2) Child Protective Services would likely take away ALL of that family's minor children.

3) The parents would likely be deported by the INS if they are not citizens.

4) The children of deported parents, taken by Child Protective Services, would likely stay here. This is certain for the younger ones, and they'd be anonymously adopted after parental rights were terminated. This is my day job. The deported parents would never, ever, see those children again.

I consider your comment here to be an urban myth until proof to the contrary.

Is today's anti-Americanism a close cousin to anti-Semitism?

Tom,

I have not seen it credited as happening here yet.

I have seen the anti-abortion radicals spooling up and using their kids just like Palestinians use their kids.

I have yet to see Child Protective Services of any state take action against the latter so I have my doubts about the former.

>Is today's anti-Americanism a close cousin to anti-Semitism?

In the sense that the same people practice both for the same reasons, yes they are related.

The Left has had long-standing problem with antisemitism, but it has not been traditionally been part of the Left's central message. My thought is that the Left doesn't have a viable central message any more. (By Left, I don't mean Dick Gephardt; I mean Chomsky et al.) What passes for "Left" today is mainly hate.

As a non-Christian, I would also like to answer Yehudit's misapprehension about Christians. Christianity is an incomplete religion by itself. It depends on a certain interpretation of Judaism and the Bible. This dependence on Judaism has historically Christians into a troubled relationship with Judaism. The use of Jews as scapegoats has a long history in Christianity.

But in modern times, this scapegoating has been recycled into new forms not directly connected with Christianity. For example, I've known people with serious "Jews-on-the-brain" conspiracy theories. Not one was religious. On the other hand, I've never met a declared Christian who thought Hitler was not an
evil man or that what he did was not a monstrous crime.

P.S. Apologies for yesterday's double posting.

Yehudit,

In the article, I mentioned that I first noticed this trend during the Gulf War, but that I wasn't sure when it had started. I understand now that anti-Semitism from the Left began way back when, but many Jews of my generation (born in 1970), are just discovering this trend now.
And yes, I am one of those disallusioned Jewish ex-lefties, who became a Republican after 9/11!

I'm just glad to see these kinds of discussions going on. I'm learning a lot from them.

Raised Christian, I don't practice organized religion anymore . . . . . but I do remember being continually confused in my youth by the logical implications of two facts: 1. We believed that Jesus was the son of God, and 2. Jesus was Jewish.

Why we weren't Jewish as a consequence ALWAYS befuddled me.

When you first mentioned "Jacksonians" I thought you meant Jessie "Hymietown" Jacksonians.

Scott,

Confusing Jesse Jackson with Andrew Jackson is like confusing Groucho and Karl Marx.

All of this criticism of the anti-semitic left is rather nauseating. Marx a racist and anti-semite. It all comes home when someone draws comparison's between anti-semitism and anti-americanism.

You must understand that your anger and defensiveness is misdirected. Calls against violence directed by Israel are not anti-semitic, just as calls against violence directed by America is not anti-american, just as calls against violence directed by "Palestine" is not anti-palestinian. This mythical, all-inclusive left that everyone here is so boldly generalizing about does not, in anyway, stand united against jewish people. It's absolutely ridiculous and you should all be ashamed of it.

That said, yes ANSWER is a group run by World Workers Party. Yes WWP has supported, among other things, the Tienanmen Square massacre, North Korean government, Slobodan Milosovich, and Saddam Hussein. Yes I believe they turn a blind eye towards Palestinian violent actions and instead focus only on Israeli violent actions. And yes, I have been to two of their anti-war rallies. But consider that anti-war protestors do not really care who is organizing the protest, the government has been much more leniant towards ANSWER's wishes then other groups, there are major factions in the "left" umbrella group that opposes ANSWER. Consider for instance the anti-authoritarian segment of the movement.

Please don't lump all "lefties" together. I dare to ask your opinions of people like Alexander Berkman, Abraham Cahan, Joseph Cohen, Rudolf Rocker, and, most importantly, Emma Goldman.

Some of you guys might want to read Ha'aretz occasionally: comments that are regularly condemned in the US as "anti-Semitic" are part of the standard political dialog there. The problem with folks like Wolfowitz and Safire isn't that they are blindly pro-Israel, it's that they are blindly pro-Likud, and push policies that are not in Israel's long-term interest. Israel simply can't maintain its identity as a Jewish democracy and hold on to the territories, as it will soon rule over a majority-Arab state.
If it rejects giving the Palestinians a state, it only has three other choices, two tried by South Africa (apartheid: re-occupy the territories fully, and bantustans: find quislings to run small chunks of unwanted territory as "homelands"), and one tried by Serbia (ethnic cleansing: expel the Muslims from the land). There are still plenty of decent people in Israel who hope for something better.

What am I doing about the anti-Semitism of the Left? As a white h*t*ros*xual able-bodied male, all I can do is welcome you at last to the "Vilified by the Left No Matter What" society.

Why not ask folks like Barbra Streisand, Susan Sontag, and Ed Asner to help you out? They have worked hard to support the left, maybe they can subdue the hardliners a little. Perhaps they can take the little chip out of the mouth of the anti-Semitic Golem they have been so busy nurturing.

"The problem with folks like Wolfowitz and Safire isn't that they are blindly pro-Israel, it's that they are blindly pro-Likud"

thank you joe buck. the left criticizes governments, all governments, regardless of religion or ethnicity. And my segment of the left criticizes those governments simply because they are authoritarian. That's not anti-any kind of people.

It's true that there is very lively discussion in Israel about whether or not to hold on to the territories captured in 1967 - after all, as is often said, Israel is a democracy.
But there are many elements of the current left wing preoccupation with Israel that can only be described as anti-Semitic, starting with just that - their preoccupation with Israel, when there are so many terrible things happening in the world - they never mention Tibet, Chechnya, Somalia..... Another factor is the one-sided nature of the condemnation, particularly comparing Israel to Nazis - something which I don't think would ever be part of accepted discussion in Israel. There is no hint that Israel is actually at war with the Palestinians, a war which they started and which they have often said is aimed at destroying Israel.

Until the left condems things like Syria's leveling of Hama with as much venom as they do the Israeli security forces minimalist measures.

I will dismiss them as the anti-semetic, murderous, bigots in Palestinian bed sheets they are.

Unless you haven't noticed Trent, the "left", or I would rather say the progressive movement, as only recently sprung to (back to) popularity. The majority of the 80's and 90's saw a completely comatosed state of progressive opinion among a subdued tranquility in America. After GW's election, the global justice movement (incorrectly referred to as the anti-globalization movement) came to the forefront of "the left," culiminating in the Seattle demonstrations. Now, due to the increased power this movement has gained, an in-depth critique has been performed on the current status of oppressive governments around the world, including, but not restricted to, the U.S. government, the Palestinian government, the Iraqi government, the Israeli government, the British government, the North Korean government, the Italian government - hell the oppressive nature of all governments.

What happened in 1982 in Hama is atrocious, and I definitely stand against it. I understand that a focus on Israeli action seems unfair, but you must understand the conditions surrounding it. First of all, due to this movement being recently borne, it is focussed on current events. I asure you that this movement would move as harshly against Syrian oppression today as it would against Israeli. Secondly, "left" action in the U.S. is naturally focused on actions by this government. Israel's actions are focused on because the U.S. is their number one financial, military, and political supporter.

oh and I'm pretty sure I've never even seen a palestinian bed sheet. Do they even have bed sheets? Or even houses for that matter? Palestinian people, even the ones dying for their rights, are not the evil in the world, and until people like you, Trevor, realize that the better off we will all be.

or trent rather. my sincere apologies.

Why the Palestinians. Why not the Lebanese? In case you hadn't noticed, Lebanon is being occupied by Syria.

The fact that this is completely ignored by the left pretty much exposes their anti-semitism, I think. (Syria can also apparently kill all the Palestinians it wants, yet no one on the left complains...)

Many, many other countries do the same thing as Israel, or worse, yet they get no complaints from the left. All their vitriol is aimed at Israel (and the US).

PS Yes, the Palestinians do in fact have bed sheets. If you look at the demographics of the suicide bombers, most are fairly well educated. Many are in college.

I remember one suicide bombing which involved a Palestinian who was a graduate student working on his master's degree. He was dropped off at the location by an audi sports car.

Sounds really opressed to me!

I wish I could afford to go grad school. I wish I had an audi sports car. Yet I don't go blowing myself up in restaurants or shopping malls.

PPS Anti semitism & the left goes way back. Hitler was the classic example. He was a very "progressive" ruler in terms of socialism - providing pensions and such to the people.

I'm afraid Yehudit was confusing the virtuous old notion of Tolerance("I'm right, you're wrong, but you have my support for your freedom anyways") with the new notion of Tolerance where we all just agree on something.

My training as a fundamentalist was very pro-Israel. Sermons mentioned the Old Testament verse stating that God would bless those who blessed Israel. Hitler was universally condemned as probably the most evil man ever short of Judas Iscariot(my Lord's betrayer).

If you ever end up in trouble from some wannabe Nazi's just run straight to your local Christian fundamentalist church. They may hand you a Roman's Road to Salvation tract on the way out the door to put a serious thumping on your persecutors. I would suggest you read it and seriously consider the claims put forth, but it is always your choice to make.

Like I said Jeremy, the left goes after any action by the US, and Israeli action is seen as directly related to US interests. In a similar way, the left has also equally attacked the genocide commited in East Timor by Indonesia. This was American supported, with around 700,000 dead - by far the worst genocide since the holocaust, and ONLY the left discusses it. Or how about the situation in Columbia? Columbia, an american supported government, and the FARC, are constant topics of demonstration among the left. Or military actions in Puerto Rico (Vieques). By attacking the actions of the Columbian government against the FARC rebels (who have used disgusting techniques for liberation), should the left be considered anti-columbian? That's just as ridiculous as calling the left anti-semite because they're critical of Israeli government policies.

Oh, and Hitler was as much a socialist as GW is. I don't know where you pulled that from. The anarchists and socialists in Germany were THE ONLY groups that straight out opposed Hitler's rise to power and were killed or exiled en masse because of it. (similar things happened in Russia near the end of the Boleshivik revolution by the way)

>>February 23, 2003 04:30 AM Southern racists weren't silenced through peaceful persuasion.

Mr. Tom Holsinger,

No, peaceful persuasion did not silence southern racists. Things did not begin to change until the federal government stepped in and forced enforcement of civil rights legislation. The 1965 Voting Rights Act is still renewed by congress every seven years or so.

Southerners then only slowly accepted change. You cannot expect people to accept radical changes like this over night. This bigoted treatment of American blacks only slowly took place over a long period.

Regarding Military Children being Harassed at School:

Unfortunately this is not only just happening in Maine. Just this morning I made a trip to my daughter's Middle School here in the Seattle area to talk to the principal about comments being made by one of my daughter's teachers.

My oldest child is a Unites States Marine currently deployed to Kuwait. This teacher runs the journalism classes and has made what I feel are inappropriate comments in the classroom setting. My daughter has come home near tears on several occasions. Yesterday he was telling the class that millions of innocent Iraqis will die and that 'only' three thousand died in the WTC and asked if the class thought that was fair. In another instance, he had the student who is in charge of drawing the cartoons for the paper change what he had already drawn to depict an anti-war position. The student ended up drawing a picture of a tank being driven by President Bush and it was aimed at a person with a caption above their head saying "innocent civilian".

The principal told me that they school district policy strongly discourages teachers to express their personal feelings when it comes to controversial subjects and noted that she would talk to this teacher. I told the principal that I would expect that if a teacher is going to talk about such a controversial subject, they need to explain both sides of the coin, not just their own views.

As a parent, I want my child to come to their own, informed conclusions. I have always prided myself on the fact that I take the time to talk to make my beliefs know to my children. I explain what my views are and why. Then I tell them what others believe and why. I tell them that they do not have to believe the same as me, but that they do need to hear both sides before drawing any conclusions.

I resent the fact that many teachers are trying to force their views on our children. That is NOT their job.

Sincerely,
Barbara Webb
Seattle, WA
Proud Mom of LCPL Kelly, USMC Kuwait

"... the left goes after any action by the US, and Israeli action is seen as directly related to US interests. In a similar way, the left has also equally attacked the genocide commited in East Timor by Indonesia. This was American supported, with around 700,000 dead - by far the worst genocide since the holocaust, "

Thus Crandan deftly insinuates that the US is responsible for whatever happened in Timor and compares it to "Israeli Action" and the latter to the holocaust.

I would not accuse crandan and people like him of anti-semitism. I know many such people and they are generally well-meaning. I would, however, compare him to "Typhoid Mary"...he carries the germ and infects others unknowingly.

Ed - do you doubt that America gave financial and military support to the Indonesian government as it conducted a genocide of the East Timorease people? I wasn't insinuating anything - you made the connection, however strong or loose, between support and responsibility. All I am saying is that a general position of the left is to call out against improper support that the U.S. government gives to other nations, whether it be support of the Indonesian government, the Columbian military, the Venezuelan military, or the Israeli government.

I am not even intending to compare the governments of all the nations that I have mentioned previously, nor am I judging them. The ONLY thing I am trying to get across, as a representing member of the mythical left, is that showing dissent against American financial and military support of another government or nation does not equate to being anti the inhabitants of that nation; just as expressing dissent against American support of the Indonesian government is not anti-Indonesian, expressing dissent against support of the Israeli government is not anti-Israeli - it is purely dissent.

Crandan, your understanding of the ideology of Hitler and his party are 180 degrees wrong. While Hitler himself was less of an ideologue than a nationalist, National Socialism itself was a party of the Left. Evident in your comment is your blurring of the differences between 'socialists' and Communists. Its a blurring deliberately made by Communists but it doesn't change the reality. An examination of the actual ideology of national socialism reveals that it was a nationalist varient of german non-marxian socialist movements. Discussions of this in detail can be found in Von Mises "Socialism" and Walter Laqueur's "Fascism".

Robin, trust me, I perfectly agree with everything you said. I, in no way whatsoever, blur the terms socialist and communist, or at least didn't mean to. I was referring to Jeremy's comment of Hitler's progressive socialism, his party was not socialist as Marx had intended, just as Stalin's party was not.

But this does point to the heart of what this whole discussion has been dancing around. There is no such thing as a simple 1-dimensional right/left line. It should be considered 2-dimensional, with a right/left scale and an authoritarian (fascist)/anti-authoritarian (anarchist) scale. In pointing this out, as I have been trying to point out throughout my discussion on this list (however pointlessly), is that the anti-authoritarian left (anarchists, marx socialists, anarcho-syndicalists) is in extreme contrast with the authoritarian left (Stalin, Hitler, and, to a lesser extent, Castro), just as the progressive, liberal left is in extreme contrast with the ultra-conservative right. That must be understood.

And the anti-authoritarian left is not anti-semetic in any way shape or form, nor is it racist, or sexist; any of those would completely go against the basis for anti-authoritarianism. As I mentioned before, Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman are prime examples.

It is interesting that the left is named here as anti-semetic. I am very left wing and I believe that I am as such because of an ability to think critically, to filter through lies and half-truths to some degree of reality. I am a leftist because I care more about people and the earth than I do profit. I guess I am a leftist because as a woman, I value democracy and the freedom of choice about who to do business with, who to believe and who to follow almost as highly as I do my own beliefs. Thus such disgusting actions as to blame Jews or minorities, immigrants or women for the plight of the world seemingly every decade or so seems totally ludicrous and repugnant to me. I applaud investigation into those organizations on the right and on the left whom fail to respect human rights and freedom of expression, freedom of religion and in that to respect differences in our expression and practice of our beliefs. It boggles the mind that at this point in human existance, we have neither learned from the mistakes of the past nor sought to route out those that hold fast to the politics of hate. I would lastly like to add that it is all well and good to point to elements on the left for signs of anti-semetism and racism. I would also urge you to look to the right wing for in it rests the heart of Aryan Nations and many other such "Christian" groups who preach violence against minorities, immigrants and Jews. It infuriates me that mainstream organisations and people throughout the world do not cry out for laws against hate mongering that do more than slap people on the wrist. Fanning the flames of hate should be held as criminal as murder because that is exactly where they are intended to incite.