Jew Corrupter Jim Kunstler

[CrackSmokeRepublican]

Out of the Woodwork

      When rocket attacks from Gaza were answered by Israeli air strikes, a great outcry of empathy for the beleaguered Palestinians rang out world-wide -- along with growls of objurgation and anathema aimed at Israel from certain quarters in the USA. They showed up in my world as a raft of Jew-hating e-mails (READ THEM YOURSELF) after I wrote that Israel had a right to defend itself.
     Lately, public Jew-hating has made a comeback in the USA among two distinct groups: one is the extreme right-wing crypto-Nazi step-child of the old John Birch Society bunch, the idiots who believe the world is a web of conspiracies against wholesome Christian white folks. As a young newspaper reporter with an interest in political pathology back in the early 1970s -- a heyday for extremism -- I used to cover the Birchers' antics (and study their belief system, if you could call it that). Their paranoid ideology has survived the decades marvelously intact, complete with all the colorful leitmotifs including The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the Orders of the Illuminati narrative, the Bilderburgers conspiracy story of world domination, and a Jesus-soaked crusade against "socialism" that has mutated far beyond the quaint sepulcher of John Birch into a broad mostly Southern evangelical, Nascar-tinged, aggressive apocalypticism.
       Lately, another large cohort on the political Left adopted the Palestinians as their "pet oppressed minority group du jour." This branch of Jew-haters emanated out of the humanities departments of the universities, when the faculty got bored with the Nazi holocaust, or wished to stake out some new turf in the arena of multiculturalism for the sake of academic advancement. (It even included some ethnic Jews intoxicated by new horizons in victimology.) To a certain extent, it was an academic fashion choice. The drab old Jews from the Hitler documentaries, with their shabby World War Two suits, gray skirts, boxy shoes with bad hose, pitiful deal luggage, and black-and-white expressions of horror on the train-platform-to-hell had exceeded their sell-by date in the sociology seminars. And since irony and paradox had become the stock-in-trade of higher ed in the USA, wasn't it perfect to cast the Israelis as "the new Nazis" with the Palestinians as the new epitome of victimization?
      It's a cute inversion, from a purely grad school standpoint -- good, perhaps for levering a PhD into an entry position on the faculty at Brown University (or perhaps as an art "statement" suitable for the Whitney Museum) -- but it doesn't comport with reality. The reality is that decency requires the Palestinians to do two things: 1.) to stop lobbing rockets into Israel; and 2.) to come to the peace negotiating table with a position other than the idea that Israel has no right to exist. Towards both of these simple propositions, the Palestinians have been adamantly opposed and contemptuous, prompting the casual observer to wonder: what part of these two things don't you understand? Indeed, what part does world opinion not understand?
     Since Israel responded to the recent rocket attacks vigorously, a new outcry has welled up about something called "proportionality." Israel's retaliation is said to exceed the lethality of the Palestinian rockets fired randomly at Israeli civilian settlements. It is curious that so many of these outcries emanate from the USA, where the Powell Doctrine (after General Colin Powell) still reigns supreme in the strategic playbook, to wit: "if you're going to engage in any military operation, do so with overwhelming force." The American apologists for the Hamas extremists -- especially on the Right, where things military are generally revered -- conveniently forget the Powell Doctrine when it conflicts with their rationalizations for Jew-hating.
     My own theory-du-jour goes something like this: The current orgy of Jew-hating is prompted by rage actually derived from the perceived "Jew-run" Wall Street companies who have now utterly wrecked the US economy -- Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, et cetera, not to mention the Jewish players leading the cast of this show -- Alan Greenspan, Robert Rubin, Larry Summers, Sandy Weil, Bernie Madoff, et al., a veritable Jew-O-Rama of money-grubbing (i.e. a Jewish trait) scoundrels who have utterly pranged the American Way of Life in order to hide their private billions in the Cayman Islands. These Jew villains, the story goes, have taken Little Debbie Snack Cakes out of the mouths of millions of squalling KMart-Shoppers-in-Training! And must now be called out to punishment! The fear and anger over the losses on Wall Street -- and the personal accounts of millions of investors -- is being deflected (for the moment!) onto the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
      At my end, the anti-Jewish hate mail salvo opened with a blog from one Bob Moriarty who runs a web site called http://www.Gold321.com (and subsidiary http://www.energy321.com), where he denounced me for saying that Israel was entitled to defend itself against the Hamas rocket salvos. (READ BOB'S SCREED.) Moriarty used to run my blog on his site occasionally -- I never asked him to, by the way -- and he's apparently indignant over my defense of Israel. He wrote: "...it took a reader to point out to me Kunstler is a racist anti-Semitic whining War Criminal." I was quite mystified by the rabid virulence of his response, including his cockamamie assertion that only the Palestinians are entitled to be called "Semites," and therefore that the true anti-Semites are opponents of the Palestinians, namely, the Jews. (This sort of clumsy casuistry was a favorite of the old John Birch Society crowd.)
     As it happened, though, in the days that followed Bob's denunciation of me, I got some letters from people who had known Bob Moriarty from the mining industry over the years, and this is what they had to say about him:
It happens that I had in the past extended email "conversations" with Mr. Bob Moriarty. A couple of years ago I challenged him for some very pointed and (I believe) unfair remarks concerning the United States and George Bush. The upshot of our several dozen emails was that he is..without a doubt ..the most virulent anti-Semite I've ever met. His attacks
against people he disagrees with shoot out of him like nuclear powered garbage....He even accused me and my relatives!! of being Jew loving cowards. I informed him that my father and uncles were combat soldiers that engaged in 5 sea borne invasions including Italy..Sicily..Iwo Jima..and Guadalcanal!! He then became very angry and said he was going to kick my butt..at which point I gave him a place to meet me in California so we find out just how tough a blow hard ex-Marine he really was. He never came...very fortunate for him. Mr. Moriarty is one of the most disgusting racists I've ever met. Mr. Kunstler has nothing to apologize for...


And this one:
I work in the Mining Industry -- I know of his [Bob Moriarty's] websites. This is not new. Mr. Moriarity has for years provided links to anti-semitic, anti-Israel commentary. And, everytime there is flare up in Israel -- he spews even more rubbish. I have sent his comments to many people and company's in the Mining World, to boycott his site -- as many mining company's advertising on his site probably are unaware they are supporting a racist. Mr. Moriarity is entitled to his opinion on the Middle East, but when he inserts racists lies against Jews (IE. the Khazar lie) he loses any moral ground. In fact, a person I know -- Jewish -- and in the mining business informed him a couple years ago, that they will no longer advertise on his site due to his racist views. Mr. Moriarity responded by emailing a Jewish Contributor to his site, telling him his commentaries will no longer be on his 321sites. No reason given --Just a Jew fires me -- I will fire Jew -- mentality of Mr. Moriarity. Mr. Moriarity, like many in the anti-Israel/Peace movement has exposed his real reason for hating Israel --They Hate Jews.


Some of it was just garden variety name-calling:
From: kunstler@aol.com
Dear Mr Cuntsler, Concerning your comments on Israel: By your reasoning, if a neighbor's dog shits on your lawn you would be justified in blowing up the poor animal with a rocket launcher while the neighbor's children watched. And if that didn't teach the fuckers a lesson you would shoot all his friends in their sleep as well. Being bald, ugly and Zionist is really no way to go through life. Why don't you take some of your shekels and go buy yourself a conscience. Asshole.


    What remains to be seen, of course, is whether the new spate of All-American red-white-and-blue Jew-hating will ramp up and turn into something I have been predicting for a while: "Corn-pone Nazism." We are a people now with great reservoirs of grievance and resentment. The nation is getting hammered economically, and yes, the banking industry lies in smoldering ruins -- due, no more to the Jews than to all those fine, blonde-headed WASP young men and women who marched straight out of the Ivy League MBA programs to the computer boiler rooms of the Wall Street Investment banks, where they cooked up the giant alphabet soup of securities swindles that blew up the banks. There's culpability galore to go around to all ethnic persuasions -- a regular diversity fiesta of misfeasance and greed.
     The basic formula persists, though, despite Hitler, Himmler, Eichman, Hasan Nasrullah, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: when something goes wrong with money, blame the Jews. A lot of readers have sent me letters pressing me to lay low, go into hiding, be quiet, buy motion-detector lights for the house. I'm not doing any of these things, but I'm real eager to see what kind of craziness will come streaming out of America's woodwork. Maybe I should buy some stock in the company that manufactures roach motels.
____________________________________
My 2008 novel of the post-oil future, World Made By Hand, is available in paperback  at all booksellers.

January 12, 2009 | Permalink
Comments

There are a lot of us out here that feel neither pro or con towards either Israel or the Palestinians.

We just hate to see humans suffer and are endlessly tired of this chronic fight. I turn 50 this year and the one continuous thread of conflict throughout my sentient life has been the strife in the Middle East.

Northern Ireland, Vietnam, Communism, Disco...all of these nightmares have been laid to rest but not so with Gaza, the West Bank and Hamas.

I am confident this conflict will never end in my lifetime. It just all seems so wasteful and useless.

We don't think that you're a bad man for your leanings, Jim. We just like it better when you write about fixing the rail network in the United States of Awesome instead.

Posted by: clevelandbob | January 12, 2009 at 10:28 AM

I don't care who's right and who's wrong. I just don't want my tax dollars funding any of it.

Posted by: Martin | January 12, 2009 at 10:30 AM

Jim:

I can't see beyond the sadness of the conflict. I know people have opinions on the why's and what-to-do-now's...but mostly I just sympathize. I see human suffering...and can't even mentally grasp the misery.

As for America...soon we will want to blame those who have, oh I don't know, food to eat.

I doubt we'll be very poli/sci about it.

Kris7
Working hard at http://www.sccworlds.com

Posted by: Kris | January 12, 2009 at 10:36 AM

Get a grip, Jim. Just because people feel sorry for the Palestinians who are being pounded by bombs day after day in a place from which there is no escape doesn't mean they all hate Jews. Sounds like you're a big believer in the "Powell doctrine" yourself in spite of your anti-Bush rhetoric in the past.

Posted by: Helen Highwater | January 12, 2009 at 10:37 AM

Can any explain who or what is holding up the so-called 'two state solution'. It's what's always given to be the solution everyone claims to want... yet both sides can never seem to get there. Is just a few radicals on either sides sabotaging the effort so as to maintain their power base? Or is there not as much support for the two-state solution as is purported to be. I just don't get it.

Posted by: Jynx | January 12, 2009 at 10:38 AM

Groups unfairly stereotyped in this post:

Palestinians
Jews
Israelis
White Christians
Southern Evangelicals
Americans
K-Mart Shoppers

C'mon now James, it's no fair supporting your position by ridiculing the most insane among your opposition. That just brings you down to their level. There are plenty of GOOD reasons that SANE people have for opposing the Israeli military intervention in Gaza -- and they are so ubiquitous that I feel no need to repeat them here.

Now can you please get back to your usual insightful analysis of the Long Emergency, rather than lingering on such partisan prattle?

Posted by: wiwa | January 12, 2009 at 10:39 AM

Jim,

The real issue is mythology, God as real estate agent and the displacement and annihilation of a contemporary native population - policies both the US and Israel embrace.

Personally, I don't give a shit - life is a bitch and people die. But Jim you're just blowing smoke and whining.

Posted by: Howard Effing Beale | January 12, 2009 at 10:41 AM

i really can't keep
watchin'this slaughter
i already can't sleep
but i'm livin' here safe

can't say the same
for palestinian babies
bein' torn limb from limb
or standin' starvin' beside
their mommas dead bodies

israel continues
to kill,crush and maim
my government blesses
but not in my name

Posted by: dk | January 12, 2009 at 10:41 AM

Kunstler;
If you feel so strongly about the rightousness of the the IDF actions in Gaza, perhaps you should move to Israel and join up. After all, the only good Palestinian is a dead one, right?
Dred

Posted by: SubKommander Dred | January 12, 2009 at 10:41 AM

Actually, it seems that a great many people who know something about this kind of stuff DON'T believe Israel has a right to "defend itself".

A post from the Informmed Comment blog an item from the Times Of London:

http://www.juancole.com/2009/01/this-le ... emics.html

Since Mr. Kunstler has driven over the cliff on this subject, I must bid you all a civil adieu, because if he cannot see how out of proportion the Israeli response is to what has happened (and if you dig into this you will find that Israel provoked Hamas into this) then the discussion is over. So, have at Jim, OEO and anyone else, I won't be wasting anymore electrons at this site (or coincidentally anymore $$$ on Jim's books).

Posted by: The Mule | January 12, 2009 at 10:43 AM

Thanks Jim for your post. It seems unfortunate to have to be the recipient of so much vitriol. I am not advocating head in the sand denial here. But I would like to remind everyone that first and foremost, humans are creatures of stories; stories to tell, stories to listen to and watch, stories to enact. If you give it some thought, I think you will agree. If we are to leave a reasonable Earth to the future generations of humans and all living beings, then it is important that we choose wisely the stories we tell. So I urge everyone to learn more about what it means to be human by looking at this program, http://ishkbooks.com. Let us all cultivate a strong positive (and realistic) story of the future, and seek the strength, courage, wisdom, and perseverance necessary to make our vision a reality. As Ghandi said, "If you want to change the world, change yourself." Check out http://entropypawsed.org for ideas on how to implement this in your life.

Posted by: Frank Gifford | January 12, 2009 at 10:44 AM

Wow....a new word today "objurgation", never heard that one before! I think you can calm down a little Jim, they aren't coming for you...yet.

DanaJ,
Will do, I expect to make a donation while there to reduce my guilt over being a "rich" gringo. You planning on moving there eventually?

Doom,
Tell me about it, I did a 24 unit development in eastern Idaho (the Mormon Sudetenland), we got fucked over by those people every chance they got. Highest level of con artistry in my experience, I'll never trust them.

Gordaux,
Thanks for the link. Take care of that liver, I finally had to give mine a rest awhile back and permanently cut my wine consumption down to 4-5 glasses a week. Fortunately for me, I just like to drink, I don't have to drink, so it wasn't really that hard. Seems to be part of getting older, you slowly get to eliminate your vices.....or you don't get older.

Posted by: dale | January 12, 2009 at 10:46 AM

Israel lacks a true friend and ally to help negotiate a truce and resolve grievances with its antagonists. Unfortunately, it has only the US, its weapons and diplomatic support which enable and compel it to adopt the failed American way of war.

The available literature is saturated with realistic commentary, criticism and guidance. For example:
Israel in Gaza: Right but not Smart
by Rabbi Michael Lerner, RDPulpit, religion dispatches, January 2, 2009
http://www.religiondispatches.org/archi ... age=entire

It's shocking and dismaying that you fail to engage this segment to instead nurture a selective history and the invective of reactionary primitives.

Posted by: Pvt. Keepout | January 12, 2009 at 10:46 AM

Thanks for the reminder that making significant, impressive scientific predictions and being a mean-spirited, racist bigot aren't mutually exclusive, Jim. (See also: James D. Watson)

You can cross one more name off the shrinking list of people who take you seriously or pay attention to the things you write.

Posted by: Matt Norwood | January 12, 2009 at 10:47 AM

I'm sitting this week out. Personally, I think there's plenty of blame to go around in the Israel/Palestine conflict, including the US and neighboring Arab states. This is one issue that Peak Oil will not affect much... both sides will continue to find creative ways of trying to off each other.

If you want something else to read, there's always FAR Future #68. The year 2023 starts off with a bang. http://is.gd/fvso

Posted by: FARfetched | January 12, 2009 at 10:48 AM

I have a lot of Jewish friends who hate Israel, but as I always point out to them, Israel is the only country in the Middle East where a man, like me, who's gay, has rights. Any other country, I could be killed just for being a homosexual.

Posted by: kangxi71 | January 12, 2009 at 10:52 AM

When does the mandate of victimhood expire?

At what point does the Nazi genocide of Europe's Jews cease to excuse the state of Israel from the demands of international law and of common humanity?

Posted by: wtf over | January 12, 2009 at 10:54 AM

ziggy sez:

"Can any explain who or what is holding up the so-called 'two state solution'."

Um, I think it might be the side that claims that the other side not only will be never recognized as a state but that the members of said state should be slaughtered to the last man. I'd call that the "little glitch" in the two state solution. But what the fuck would I know?

Posted by: oneEyeOpen | January 12, 2009 at 10:56 AM

Jim, it's hard to tell if this is actually an ideological crusade for you, or you inadvertently strayed into a mine field. Either way, the Golden Goose stands a good chance of becoming collateral damage. Better get back on (the railroad) track.

Posted by: mczilla | January 12, 2009 at 10:57 AM

Jim, ignore the haters here.

As you well know, there's lots of these in the political fringes. And, and sad as it is, peak oil is by no means a political subject that gets all that much attention by the mainstream. As a result, the lunatics will be way overrepresented here. Do not ever allow an anti-semite to silence you.

Your analysis is spot on, and I entirely agree with it.

Posted by: vitoc | January 12, 2009 at 10:57 AM

This is a blatant violation of Godwin's law. You lose.

Have a nice day.

Posted by: Steve | January 12, 2009 at 10:59 AM

The mule (Jackass) sez:

" So, have at Jim, OEO and anyone else, I won't be wasting anymore electrons at this site (or coincidentally anymore $$$ on Jim's books)."

Hey mulie, don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out.

Posted by: oneEyeOpen | January 12, 2009 at 10:59 AM

I hate this ignorant racist crap. Peak Oil, Global Warming, World economic collapse, and people are wasting their time with skin color and ethnic backgrounds.

What would the U.S. do if a boat load of Iranians pulled up off the East coast of the U.S. and started firing rockets into New York City?

Can we please get back to the important problems we ALL face?!

Posted by: we_are_toast | January 12, 2009 at 11:04 AM

So anyone who disagrees with your point of view is a "Jew-hater?"

Posted by: smr33 | January 12, 2009 at 11:05 AM

I'm reluctant to defend Hamas, because there's certainly a logt of blame to pass around. However, as a Jew, I prefer to criticize my own people because I believe I have some collective responsibility for the actions of my people. Not a whole lot of responsibility, as I am not an Israeli, but some, nonetheless.

My attitude towards the Israelis at this point is "they made their bed, let them lie in it." Specifically, despite the stated Israeli intent to end the Occupation and support thr two-state solution they agreed to in 1947, their actions tell a different story. The constant growth in West Bank settlements and number of settlers, the intrusive roadblocks, the lack of respect for the private property of individual Palestinians, the violation of due process, including applications of torture of terrorist suspects send a clear message to the Palestinians that Israel intends to conquer the entire Land of Israel and dispossess the non-Jewish residents. These things are not the spewings of antisemitic nutcases --- I suggest the Mr. Kunstler review the bolgs of Gershom Gorenberg and Haim Watzman and check out the website of the Israeli civil rights fgroup "B'Tselem."

Given that the Israeli actions have indicated that Israel is not going to be giving the Palestinians anything other than dispossession, is there any wonder why the Palestinians are not curbing the excesses of groups like Hamas, or even more extreme, Islamic Jihad? If I were a conspiracy theorist, I would say that the Israeli government is instituting these policies deliberately to ensure that the terrorists remain in charge so that the Israelis can claim that all the Palestinians are unreasonable terrorists, and so Israeli conquest and dispossession of the non-Jews of the Land of Israel is the only reasonable course. However, I don't believe that Israeli politicians have that much intelligence, I believe that what they've been doing is constrained by the dysfunctional aspects of the Israeli political system in which Israeli governments must depend on extremist political factions in order to simply be able to do their routine business.

If Mr. Kunstler is correct and Israel-bashing is a substitute for more comprehensive Jew-bashing, I as a Jew won't be too upset. As a former Zionist, I'm not so sure that the State of Israel has provided much of benefit to the Jewish people. In any event, just because the actions of the Israeli government are criticized by an antisemitic nutcase, it doesn't mean that criticism of Israel is invalid.

Posted by: Conservative Apikorus | January 12, 2009 at 11:07 AM

http://jameshowardkunstler.typepad.com/ ... tinia.html

[abduLMaria]

there's a lot of Jewish people that are active in the Sustainability/ Peak Oil movement.  some of them are Zionists.  Kunstler is definitely a Zionist.  i suggest not boosting his pageviews by reading his stuff.

admittedly, he has set a world record for finding different ways to eloquently re-state the following:
1.  the architecture is ugly.
2.  we're running out of oil.
3.  our urban planning is mis-matched to our economy.

e.g. this list of contributors to Energy Bulletin
    * Sharon Astyk
    * Kurt Cobb
    * John Michael Greer
    * Richard Heinberg
    * Rob Hopkins
    * Amanda Kovattana
    * James Howard Kunstler
    * Gene Logsdon
    * Dmitry Orlov
    * Gail Tverberg
    * Tom Whipple
http://www.energybulletin.net/index.php

for more info on energy issues, there's also
http://www.theoildrum.com/

[Wimpy]

As a young newspaper reporter with an interest in political pathology back in the early 1970s -- a heyday for extremism -- I used to cover the Birchers' antics (and study their belief system, if you could call it that). Their paranoid ideology has survived the decades marvelously intact, complete with all the colorful leitmotifs including The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the Orders of the Illuminati narrative, the Bilderburgers conspiracy story of world domination, and a Jesus-soaked crusade against "socialism" that has mutated far beyond the quaint sepulcher of John Birch into a broad mostly Southern evangelical, Nascar-tinged, aggressive apocalypticism.


Obviously the Birchers were spot on and ahead of their time.



Lately, another large cohort on the political Left adopted the Palestinians as their "pet oppressed minority group du jour." This branch of Jew-haters emanated out of the humanities departments of the universities, when the faculty got bored with the Nazi holocaust, or wished to stake out some new turf in the arena of multiculturalism for the sake of academic advancement. (It even included some ethnic Jews intoxicated by new horizons in victimology.) To a certain extent, it was an academic fashion choice.


The Zionist academic creation is biting the hand that feeds them; Oh, my.


 And since irony and paradox had become the stock-in-trade of higher ed in the USA, wasn't it perfect to cast the Israelis as "the new Nazis" with the Palestinians as the new epitome of victimization?


They learned irony and paradox from the masters; impudent students!


It's a cute inversion, from a purely grad school standpoint -- good, perhaps for levering a PhD into an entry position on the faculty at Brown University (or perhaps as an art "statement" suitable for the Whitney Museum) -- but it doesn't comport with reality.


Know your place Goyim.  Obey your Masters.



Since Israel responded to the recent rocket attacks vigorously, a new outcry has welled up about something called "proportionality." Israel's retaliation is said to exceed the lethality of the Palestinian rockets fired randomly at Israeli civilian settlements. It is curious that so many of these outcries emanate from the USA, where the Powell Doctrine (after General Colin Powell) still reigns supreme in the strategic playbook, to wit: "if you're going to engage in any military operation, do so with overwhelming force."



Why even our Houseboy agrees; what the F**k is wrong with you???


" The American apologists for the Hamas extremists -- especially on the Right, where things military are generally revered -- conveniently forget the Powell Doctrine when it conflicts with their rationalizations for Jew-hating.


We taught him right so listen up!!


The current orgy of Jew-hating is prompted by rage actually derived from the perceived "Jew-run" Wall Street companies who have now utterly wrecked the US economy -- Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, et cetera, not to mention the Jewish players leading the cast of this show -- Alan Greenspan, Robert Rubin, Larry Summers, Sandy Weil, Bernie Madoff, et al., a veritable Jew-O-Rama of money-grubbing (i.e. a Jewish trait) scoundrels who have utterly pranged the American Way of Life in order to hide their private billions in the Cayman Islands. These Jew villains, the story goes, have taken Little Debbie Snack Cakes out of the mouths of......



Oops, I mean, uh, er, you're a hater and and it has absolutely NOTHING to do with the Israhell-Palestinian issue.  You moronic, imbecile Goyim!


Mr. Moriarty is one of the most disgusting racists I've ever met. Mr. Kunstler has nothing to apologize for......


See, people agree with me, as you should too!......RACIST!