Clarification on anti-Semitism

Posted by: Doug Henwood | November 30, 2010

Clarification on anti-Semitism

I asked here (An apology) why the evil financiers are almost always Jews. This prompted an email from someone saying that it sounded like anti-Semitism. It was most certainly not. It was an ironic (and apparently not successfully so) question about how conspiracy types so often flirt (or worse) with anti-Semitism. Also, a lot of populist critiques of finance traffic in covert or overt anti-Semitism. I should resurrect an old polemic on that topic and post it here soon. Sorry if there was any misunderstanding.

Posted in clarification

Responses

It was clearly ironic, and well put, in my opinion. No need to apologize for other people being obtuse.
By: Peter on November 30, 2010
at 11:58 pm
I’ve gotten myself into a LOT of trouble lately with irony…ugh
By: Tom M on December 1, 2010
at 12:04 am
Reading McLean and Nocera’s /All the Devils are Here/ I was surprised at how many of the names (not all Devils) in the index end in vowels: Paul Abbamanto, Maria Bartiromo, Joe Cassano, Ralph Cioffi, Alberto Cribiore, Alano Grinspanio, Andrew Cuomo, Enrico Dallavecchia, Angelo Mozilo Armando Falcone, Lew Ranieri, John Gamboa, etc. etc.
By: Buce on December 1, 2010
at 12:15 am
I think most of us got what you were saying. Maybe you should have provided a definition of irony in footnotes or something.
By: Kevin Alexander Gray on December 1, 2010
at 12:39 am
“Reading McLean and Nocera’s /All the Devils are Here/ I was surprised at how many of the names (not all Devils) in the index end in vowels:”

Ponzi? Sacco? Vanzetti? Al Pacino? Bobby Deniro?
By: 4854derrida on December 1, 2010
at 5:07 pm
The tone in which you meant it was perfectly obvious to this Jew. No apology needed.
By: marcel on December 2, 2010
at 10:22 am
Ok, no more apologies for irony! Promise!
By: Doug Henwood on December 2, 2010
at 10:43 am
maybe an irony smilie?
By: petey on December 2, 2010
at 2:51 pm
I’m glad to read this. Now if you’d only stop comparing Israel to Nazi Germany as you have in the past(if memory serves), that would be really nice!
Plus if you’d be just as critical of say, the government of Colombia, calling for boycotts of Colombian academics etc., the way you have with Israel(again if memory serves).
By: Ed Beaugard on December 6, 2010
at 1:02 pm
Ed Beaugard seems to be following the hasbara script outlined by Gabriel Ash, especially the part about “everything sucks”. This is a predictable old trope that they never tire of peddling.
By: sk on December 8, 2010
at 1:27 am
I understood what you meant. I guess people who don’t have the misfortune of running into zany conspiracy types wouldn’t understand that these characters are quite often practice antisemitism lite.
By: Jack Costello on December 8, 2010
at 5:09 pm
[…] and “the neocons” as a malevolent cabal of Jewish string-pullers. Why, Doug Henwood asks, “are the evil financiers almost always […]
By: Wikileaks and the conspiracy theory of history | contested terrain on October 7, 2011
at 10:50 am
Sanford in jail for a long time, is a Wasp not a jew, the difference between his ponzi scheme and Madoff’s is that in his no one will get a cent back, at least in the Madoff’s case most principal has been recaptured by thea Trustee!!!
You are an ignorant antisemite and like Jean-Paul Sartre stated in a Jewish tailor overcharges you, the antisemite states the Jew overcharged me but if a Christian tailor overcharges then the same person states the tailor overcharges. The antisemite is precisely your type: trying to infer a relationship from a religious derivation…
By: Roger Bondel on March 19, 2013
at 9:42 am

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