Interesting article from the (conservative) Weekly Standard on line, giving some good insights into the relatively right-wing, pro-America, pro-Iraq War and pro-Bush views in the athletic community, versus the relatively left-wing, internationalist, anti-war, anti-Bush views in the entertainment community: Stardumb: Professional Sports v. Hollywood and Music

The article neatly summarizes the distinction as to why top celebrities veer left, while top athletes frequently veer right. I found the article to be generally balanced, with only a few jabs at the lefties to spice things up. Here's one passage:
Discuss.

It is interesting that in all the discussions about stars and their views on the war, including this piece, there is never an indication that the stars may have a legitimate viewpoint. In this piece the noble athlete is compared to the narcissistic hollywood celebrity, and the writer attempts to use the respective professions as a analogue to personal character.

Unfortunately, the argument cannot stand. While it is true that pure performance drives success as an athlete, the same is true for Hollywood and the recording industry. Those that fail to perform (that is, bring in the revenue) are quickly dropped by their respective studios and record labels. The writer assumes there is some talent difference here - that the athlete is receiving adulation and respect because he/she has the talent to perform a particular skill, while the "star" receives misplaced adulation because many stars lack the talent to perform their arts. But the "talent" that matters in Hollywood and even the recording industry, is not necessarily the "talent" to actually perform one's craft, but the talent to entertain people and bring in the money.

In fact, those that speak out in Hollywood or the recording industry are those that are most putting their livelihoods at risk, as the Sarandon/Robbins and Dixie Chicks examples show. They have every reason to stay quiet and keep on making money.

In addition, to argue that athletes don't get inundated with mis-placed adulation is a joke. These men and women are certainly talented, and they do have to perform amazing physical feats, but not one athlete has the same positive impact on his/her society in their lifetimes that a good teacher does in one year. Both athletes and "stars" are over-paid and made into demi-gods because of public approval, which does not derive solely from talent, the most famous athletes are not the most talented, they are the most charismatic (compare the endorsements of the charismatic Steve Young to the driven, and quite possibly obsessive-compulsive, Jerry Rice during their heydays with the 49ers).

The real reason there are different political views between the two professions is likely more a factor of the artist's outsider status in society, while the successful athlete is the ultimate insider. To be an artist requires a different perspective on life, and the ability to challenge societal assumptions about life. To be an athlete is to conform and follow the rules of the game. It is not surprising that the two groups differ.

it's simpler than that.

acting (and all the arts) draws the touchy-feely, liberal, pinko groups. hence their politic are shaped as such.

sports tends to draw guys who are more conservative, macho, traditional, and in many cases guys who don't think beyond what's on the field, only care about what's happening in their backyard and don't understand many of the subtleties of life. These kinds of guys are more drawn to conservatism because it tends to be more black&white and more often than not reflects the politics of their own backgrounds.

Also, athletes who take progressive political stands tend to be marginalized by both their ownership and the media, whereas actors don't suffer as much whether they're on the Right or Left. CITT realizes this--there are any number of famous, quite popular right-wing actors, and people still adulate them--Tom Selleck, Arnold Schwarzenegger, etc.

But athletes who demonstrate or speak out on the left usually get attacked. In general, the article presents a very reductionist view of a more complex situation, but should anyone be surprised? This is the way with the Right.

Give me an example more recent than the Black Power Salute at the Mexico City Olympics.

I'm curious if any of these leftist athletes get attacked more viciously than Tom Selleck on "Rosie" or Charleton Heston by Michael Moore.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,84258,00.html

Bumpin some cavuto!

First, Michael Jordan refused to attend George H. W. Bush's White House celebration of the Bull's victory in 1991 or 92, I believe. I do recall some attacks on him not going along with the program, but his fame pretty much insulated him, and since then Jordan has been fairly apolitical. Other notable progressive pro-athletes have included Muhammad Ali, Bob Gibson, Bill Bradley, Alan Page, Jim Brown, Arthur Ashe, and notable gay and lesbian folks like Billy Jean King and Martina Navratilova, who was incoherently attacked by that dunce Connie Chung (a journalist who, unlike O'Donnell or Moore, is supposed to be OBJECTIVE). Navratilova grew up under a Stalinist system that suppressed dissident political speech, so Chung's comments were particularly ironic.

Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf was execrated when he took a stand that was considered anti-American, though he felt it was in the best interest of his religious (Islamic) beliefs. Not only conservative commentators, but the NBA itself, lit into him. Again, it is as if our national history, which ARISES OUT OF DISSENT AND REVOLUTION against the status quo, conformism, dynastic, non-democratic governance, and so forth, should be completely forgotten in some cases. What's ironic about Abdul-Rauf was that in fact his political ACT was liberal, but his ideological and religious BELIEFS were conservative.

Also, you mention Rosie O'Donnell and Michael Moore. They are only one person, and not that powerful. The Right has far more powerful organs and institutions, including the White House and both houses of Congress, to vilify its critics. Again, irony: the US was founded by religious and political dissidents, who on more than one occasion had to battle repressive behavior and conformism even here in the colonies. This is one reason that the political histories of Rhode Island, Pennsylvania and Maryland different from those of theocratic Massachusetts, British stronghold New York, and slaveocratic Virginia. The ideolgoical conformism right-wingers want runs counter to our political and civic history and traditions.

[ April 18, 2003, 09:40 PM: Message edited by: fantomas ]

I would add Paul Robeson to fantomas' list. He is the reigning dean of bashed left-wing athletes.

I would not however exclude catholic-founded Maryland from the list of "theocratic" states. Catholics were an oppressed group in the Church of England dominated homeland that the original Marylanders fled. Catholic Marylanders were very tolerant during their early history. Unfortunately they lost their backbone as slavery became so profitable that they couldn't oppose the largely rural protestant success using the institution mostly to raise tobacco.

That said, I don't see a consistent dominance of either political persuasion in Hollywood or entertainment perse. It seems to ebb and flow, with the sexiest movement of the moment taking precedence.

On another note, I noticed recently that Howard Dean seems to be picking up a surprising amount of support from the Hollywood cabal. Since free-speech tends to equal money in modern television-powered campaigns, this may turn out to be his only hope of staying competitive.

Interesting. I ask you for a list of athletes who, since 1968, were \"attacked\" for their political beliefs. What I get is a list of handful of athletes associated with liberal causes over the last 40 years.

Michael Jordan? Attacked for being a leftist? Oh yeah. He really felt some kind of retribution for that stand.
Muhammad Ali? Anything since he was Cassius Clay and stripped of his heavyweight title in the 1960s for his Vietnam stand?
Bob Gibson? Again. The key date I gave you was 1968.
Bill Bradley? He was a Senator. From New Jersey. Got elected for, like four terms. And the most vicious recent attacks on him were coming from Al Gore in 2000 campaign.
Alan Page? He got elected to the Supreme Court in Minnesota. Not really feeling the consequences of attacking the political elite, is he?
Jim Brown? Community activist in L.A. What's he been attacked for lately?
Arthur Ashe? Treated like a secular saint in the media. And not someone anyone really associated with political positions of any sort.
Billy Jean King? Simply being lesbian does not, in my book, instantly equate to lefty politics. And she wasn't (openly) lesbian when she was playing, so even that doesn't count.
Martina Navratilova? Yeah, she's been attacked for partisan political stands. But I'd equate the attacks on her with the attacks on Tom Selleck. And still not as vicious as the anti-Charlton Heston stuff. By the way, given Heston's position with the NRA, I think it's wholly appropriate for Heston to be attacked for his political positions -- just like it's fair game to attack Bill Bradley for his Senate votes or Alan Page for his judicial decisions.

What I wanted was an answer to this question: Was there any athlete of recent who suffered repercussions for his left-wing / liberal / progressive political stands. And we're left with potentially two: Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf and Toni Smith, that girl from Manhattanville College, both of whom got in trouble for their flag acknowledgment policies.

Abdul-Rauf was, to my recollection, taking a religious stand. Not political. Not unlike the Jehovah's Witnesses kids in my school growing up who wouldn't recite the Pledge of Allegiance. The fans in Denver reacted very negatively. One Vietnam Veteran fan in New York reacted negatively to Toni Smith. And lots and lots of people exercised their first amendment rights to colorfully express their disagreements with Abdul-Rauf and Smith (and the Mexico City two-some). But was their any institutional attack? Did the NBA kick Abdul-Rauf out of the league. No -- he's still playing. Did Manhattanville suspend Smith? Don't think so.

So many people on the left have a martyr complex. They assume that \"powerful forces on the right\" constantly are on the look-out to retaliate against them for speaking out. Simply voicing disagreement is not an \"attack.\" And when the left controls the reins of power -- like on college campuses -- look out for the attacks on anyone disagreeing with the orthodoxy ( See \\"Tough Guy: Earlier this week Yale lecturer Jim Sleeper attacked two conservative freshmen in print, likening them to \\"Fedayeen.\\", The Weekly Standard on line edition (Apr. 18, 2003).)

I don't believe that you have young athletes afraid to take public political stands because they are afraid of retribution from the conservative apparatus that controls their destinies. And while Tom Selleck and Bruce Willis and James Woods can publicly take conservative political positions, there still is the idea in Hollywood among young actors that they cannot dissent from the prevailing liberal Democrat orthodoxy.

You've not name one athlete since 1968 who has suffered from his politics.

With all due respect, I don't think anyone considers Paul Robeson primarily to have been an "athlete." And what were the consequences to him for politics after 1968? And ... and ... he was a Stalinist. Not just a "communist," which he was, but an open apologist for Stalin and his atrocities.** He deserved all the scorn heaped on him for his politics (but not, of course, the purely racist issues).

I personally don't equate being a communist and Stalinist with "left wing".
______________________
** I've said it before: it is not McCarthyism to call someone who actually was a communist "communist." McCarthyism refers to a false accusation of communist politics.

[ April 19, 2003, 09:33 AM: Message edited by: Charlie in the Trees ]

CITT, I'd also say it is McCarthyist to ensure or enable the personal or professional destruction of someone who *is* communist or socialist... The likes of PhillyFan may not be aware that it IS legal to be a Marxist in America.

I'd also say it's very likely that athletes who lean left are apt to *keep quiet* as a result of seeing what happens to Abdul-Rauf or Toni Smith. is it *really* possible that almost no pro athletes feel misgivings about the war or the Bush Doctrine? Even if they are pampered macho millionaires? The "chilling effect" can't be measured.

[ April 29, 2003, 08:41 AM: Message edited by: Bill W ]

Oh, please. Like the right-wingers don't complain endlessly about \"liberal media bias\".

And yet, whenever anyone on the left does this people scream \"political correctness\". Like Ung on the other thread and the \"liberal nazis\"--all those gay conservatives like Andrew Sullivan and Bruce Bawyer have been silenced and dragged off to concentration camps. Talk about a victim complex.

Also Mel Gibson, Arnold Schwarzenagger, Sonny Bono, Clint Eastwood, etc.

Who has suffered for voicing conservative views? John Rocker? Aside from a short suspension, he's been punished for bad pitching not politics. And his pitching decline was mostly after leaving Atlanta. Sure Shockey was villified on Outsports, but has his career been impacted?

I remember an actor being asked about how important it was to follow liberal orthodoxy in Hollywood. He snorted and said, essentially, what most people in Hollywood really care about is making money. And you can't get more conservative than that.

actually, you probably couldn't find a bigger believer in the need for divergent views than me. an example: I'm a firm believer that speaking up against the recent war is NOT a sign of treason. Rather it is very possible to be patriotic while criticizing the government at the same time.

When I scream "PC" or "liberal Nazi", it is not because someone disgarees with me. Rather, it is when someone tells me that I can not, Must not disagree with their views.

Look, I'm on a college campus every day, an 100+ year old, wealthy university that is ranked within the top 20 of American research universities. And let me tell you, despite all these idiotic tirades by the Right about Leftism, MOST of the administration, the faculty and the students here, as at the other places I've taught, are moderate to conservative. Yes, let me say it again: they are moderate to conservative.

We recently had anti-Semitic and racial incidents at my campus, and the President did not speak out that forcefully at all. It was pathetic. If this place, like others, is so "leftist," why the tepid response not only to racism but to anti-Semitic incidents? I think the Right is always going on about its martyrdom on college campuses, yet Right-wingers usually get promoted faster than people on the Far left. And they're allowed to say the most hateful things to students with impunity. Having sat through lectures with the likes of Stephan Thernstrom, James Q. Wilson, and Harvey Mansfield, I can tell you, they operate with impunity.

A number of my students express views about racial and religious minorities that are really disturbing to me. (Usually they're speaking from ignorance.) And their regular use of "gay" or "fag" in discussions and creative work is also disturbing. I always challenge this from moral, ethical and a larger sociopolitical standpoints, but I don't censor them. None of the professors I know or work with silence their students. The Leftist extremists were run out a long time ago, unless they somehow got tenure before the purges began.

This FANTASY (or phantasy?) about the Left controlling college campuses is just that, a fantasy. Perhaps you should spend more time at a campus other than the ones often extolled in these right-wing fictional pieces. Not every place is Oberlin, or Wesleyan, or Penn, or Brown, some of the campuses that are known for being very liberal.

Perhaps you should name some of these allegedly right-wing campuses among the nation's Top 20 schools. Frankly, their existence is a surprise to me, and I would like more than just blanket statements that they exist. Which ones are they? Stanford? Harvard (not!)? Yale? Duke? Princeton? MIT? Please be more specific - give us names and examples so we can do a tally and compare which of the Top 20 schools fall into which political camp.

You're way too smart not to know the answer to this question. Most of the anti-Semitism that's surfacing nowadays is coming from the LEFT.** Yes. The left. Sometimes it's couched as solidarity with the Palestinians. Usually, though, it's just vile naked anti-Semitism that would've been home in decadent leftie Weimar Germany.

So I would attribute the college president's tepid response to blatant anti-Semitism to: an unwillingness to take on the entrenched left.

_____________
** You want an example? The recent anti-Jewish riots at Concordia University in Montreal.

[ April 29, 2003, 08:51 PM: Message edited by: Charlie in the Trees ]

One thing that tends to get lost in these stories of campuses being "left-wing" is that it assumes the whole campus has a single idealogical identity--and I've never seen a campus that did. In most cases, the arts and humanities, and biology will lean liberal, but professors in business, economics, engineering, medicine, physics and chemistry tend to be conservative. As far as top 20 schools: Do you really think most of the professors in the Harvard Business School are liberals? I would guess MIT is fairly conservative, though not very political. Duke is conservative. I was suprised to see Penn listed as a liberal place by fantomas, because my impression (from students I've met who went there and a friend who teaches there) is that the student body is VERY conservative.

Also--whether a particular school is perceived as liberal or conservative is going to be influenced by your own politics. I suspect you and Fantomas would not agree on where centrist politics lie.

Hi, JC - I'm actually quite familiar with the Harvard Graduate School of Business, as it is my alma mater. I would classify most of the professors there as outwardly apolitical. The issue here, though, is the leadership - the public face and image - of the these institutions as a whole. While individual professors might not march in lockstep, the image of Harvard is most determinedly liberal in the extreme. My personal opinion is that that is true of the majority of the top private institutions in this country.

Oh, this is SUCH tripe! Most of the anti-Semitism that occurred in "leftie Weimar Germany"--as well as in the pre-war Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the post-war Austria, came from the PARTIES OF THE RIGHT, including the nascent NSDAP (Nazi Party), which blamed the Jews (including the assassinated moderate Foreign Minister, Walter Rathenau, as well as the Communist radicals Rosa Luxembourg and Karl Liebknecht, thrown into the Landwehrkanal--you can look it up, it's in the history books) for Germany's loss in World War I. Now if you're going to rewrite history, then there's no point in continuing the discussion. Among the key figures in the Communist and Socialist parties in Germany and post-WWI Austria were Jews; the Left wasn't the main oppressor of Jews, it was the Right. And the Zentrum Catholic Party in Germany, at least, provided little buffer to stop the various right-wing parties from their Jewish attacks, and their eventual takeover of the government in 1933. We all know what the Right did after that point in Germany.

As for Leftist anti-Semitism, I suppose the same leftists scrawled swastikas and anti-Black statements on students' doors, though I doubt it. I think many institutions really are not as "leftist" as people fantasize; I can tell you, my department, like many, includes people who would not be out of place at the Heritage Institute--and they have been running things for a while, not the phantom Spartacists and Volvo-Maoists that the Right likes to brandish.

Harvard's official policies are very liberal compared to American society, but Harvard is LESS liberal under Lawrence Summers than it was under either Neil Rudenstine or Derek Bok (who was president when I was a student there). Harvard also has quite a few very high-profile right-wing faculty members, including the ones I've named (Mansfield, Thernstrom, etc.), as well as others who are less well known, like N. Gregory Mankiw, the economist. In point of fact, the university has always tended to balance far leftists (like the radical art historian Norman Bryson) with noted conservatives (like the famous classicist Emily D. T. Vermeule). This is as true of the Law School (where Charles Fried and other right wingers are on the faculty with the likes of Laurence Tribe), as it is of the John F. Kennedy School of Government. The current head of both schools are noted moderates. Of the various Harvard schools, the Graduate Schools of Design, Divinity and Education are probably the most "liberal."

Of the US News 2002 25 nationally ranked universities, Caltech, Northwestern, Chicago, Johns Hopkins, Rice, Notre Dame, Vanderbilt, University of Virginia, and Wake Forest are considerably more conservative in administration and outlook (though more liberal than Hillsdale or Pepperdine) than the other institutions you named (Princeton, Harvard, Yale, MIT, Stanford--the top five in the US); yet all of these institutions, I believe, do provide things like same-sex spousal benefits, etc., as do most of the surrounding communities, and they do not discriminate against homosexuals or people because of religion, race, etc. Should they? Leftist professors do not run or even direct my field at any of these institutions (and I am at one of them), nor are leftists in charge in my field (any more) at Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Dartmouth, etc. So as I've said, this fantasy about the Left is just that, a fantasy.

JC, you make excellent points. Duke and UNC, for example, are certainly more liberal overall in outlook than many North Carolina institutions, but compared to Brown, for example, both would be considered quite conservative. Also, Duke's liberal English faculty, who were so notorious in the 1980s, have LONG SINCE evacuated for other parts--University of Illinois-Chicago, Princeton, Harvard, Berkeley, etc. The people who remained were much more conservative.

Penn's student body is probably more conservative than the faculty in general, but its president, Judith Rodin, I believe, has proved to be moderate-liberal in her administration of the institution. She is less liberal, however, than Penn's previous president, Sheldon Hackney.

Not even Harvard, however, is the Kremlin on the Charles that the right wing likes to make it out to be. Brown is about as liberal as they get, and even there, one can find a number of conservative faculty members...even in the humanities departments!

About the anti-semitism... To say that most MODERN (i.e. the last 10 years) anti-semitism hasn't come from the left, is just lying. The European left is blatantly so and the American version is quickly catching up. There's been almost a 180° shift in the west since WWII. Sorry, but resentment of jews doesn't come from the people it used to.

I don't like the term "left" because if doesn't represent much more than a vague perception, but.... as most people use the term, the group it refers to is invariably sympathetic to any people that they see as less successful than other groups -- hence their siding with Palestinians against Israelis or virtually anyone against the US. Same thing with ethnicity. You won't find "leftists" having much nice to say about Asian or European Americans, but African Americans are their gods.

Never forget that self esteem and personal resentments often drive political sentiment -- especially on the fringe, both right and left.

This really is bizarre stuff you're putting forward.

First of all, some of the truly horrifying anti-Semitic blathering and ACTION over the last 10 years has come straight out of the right in Europe; I'm talking about FIRST the fascist remnants of the neo-Nazis in Austria (remember, they were running the government until recently), Germany (where the Far Right surged in the 1990s), Spain, France (LePen and even more extreme rightist groups, etc.), and Britain, where opposition Conservative Party has among its ranks prominent supporters of the National Front. Jews are in leadership of the Left in France and Britain, which can not be said for the Right. SECOND there are the Islamo-fascist (to use CITT's term) anti-secular folks throughout Europe, who viscerally loathe the Socialist and Democratic institutions of these nations (again, they are quite prominent in France), and have set up cells that contributed to the horrible destruction of 9/11. These people were NOT on the Left; in fact they LOATHE the Left, its institutions, what it represents. They make a mockery of the idea(l)s of liberalism, whether in classical or modern form. They are for closed, hyperreligious, oppressive societies. AND THEY HATE JEWS. This is obvious to anyone even with blinders on.

There are people on the Left, both in the US and outside it, who are obssessed with the Palestinians, and yes, some of them--Jews among them, like Chomsky--are Jewish. Some of them are anti-Semitic, virulently so. They idealize the Intifadahs and hate Israel. I haven't done any studies on this, but I wouldn't doubt that if you took out the Islamic contingent, the majority of attacks against French Jewish cemetaries and synagogues are still by extreme contingents of the Right. Attacks on synagogues, etc., in this country tend to come from the Right far more than the Left. The riots at Concordia, as CITT pointed out, were launched by Leftists, but in general the anti-Semitism of the Right, even in light of the current idealization of the Biblical right of the Jews to Palestine and the Sharon government, remains, especially in extremist pockets both within and outside the U.S. The Neo-Nazis, the Church of the Creator, etc., have killed or attacked more blacks, Jews, Asians, etc., than any Leftists in the US.

Also, where are these "Leftists" you're talking about? As you say, the term is vague. Do you realize that many American Leftists ARE European Americans and Asian Americans? That "leftists" in India, for example, have articulated some of the harshest critiques of American Imperialism? What about Latinos? Do they even figure into your argument, are they seen as "gods" too? The "left" in the US has been criticized for its "multicultural" approach, which seeks to empower Asians, among other groups, as opposed to holding up European-Americans as the standard. One of the best known and most forceful Leftists in this regard is Ronald Takaki, who is Japanese-American, but others include Mari Matsuda, Frank Wu, Frank Chin, and on and on. You may want to check up on some of these folks. Really, the Left HARDLY sees "blacks" as gods. I'll ignore the racism and ignorance of this statement to say that many Blacks commentators harshly critique white liberals for their blindness and pathologizing of Black people; they often deal in as many generalities and stereotypes as white conservatives. Some of the most uninformed racist comments I've ever heard have come from the mouths of white liberals--about BLACKS. Racism, unfortunately, has more than one ideological face.

[ May 01, 2003, 10:03 AM: Message edited by: fantomas ]

Fantomas - thank you for educating those here who think they know what they're talking about...I appreciate your knowledge on this subject.

fantomas,
wow.... Although I'm gonna take issue with some of it, I appreciate the input and that you took the time to give this some serious thought.
There's a lot there, so I'll try to take it in order.

I wonder what it was that you considered "really bizarre."

In general, you seem to be focusing on smaller more dramatic incidents (violence, attacks, and such) while I'm speaking of much larger, but often unorganized political sentiments of the greater societies. The things you cite are factual, as far as they go, but the focus on the dramatic incidents can leave larger less quantifiable and more important shifts unrecognized.

For example, I think speaking of a far right surge in Germany totally misrepresents what's happening in that country. While the extreme right has some (and maybe growing) support, it is negligible in an electoral sense. Gerd is not in office because the country is in the grip of a right wing wave. The opposite is true. Look at the anti-war sentiment of the last few months. That sort of anti-Americanism (which is probably a more accurate phrasing) is part of what I'm talking about. There are HUGE numbers of people who share a similar kind of resentment that's rooted in the things I mentioned in my first post. But an even better example is France. Sure, Le Pen surprised some people with his numbers, but his numbers are insignificant when you think in terms of government and power. If you want to see the real direction of France, look at the polls taken before the war. You may argue that Iraq is a specific issue, but I think it represents much more. It just happens to be the issue of the day that taps into an ideological leaning that's already there. More important, I'd argue that Le Pen's greater than expected support came as a reaction to some alarming trends in France. Trends that are supported or enabled by the very people I referred to earlier. I do realize the NF has been no friend of Jews, but they strangely (remember the old thinking about alliances is changing) are offering the only strong voice against growing Islamo fascism (a term you wisely chose to use) that is the ultimate threat to French Jews. You won't find the UDF, the RPR, or the Socialists doing anything but enabling the rush toward the decline of French culture and identity. Cultural "diversity" has come to be their ultimate tool. And the people pushing it in the name of enlightenment are doing their best to poison France -- and doing their part to hasten the destruction of the hated West. If you want to watch a nation decline, train your eyes on France for the next 20 years.

You say the Islamo fascists are not of the left, and that's true, but what you fail to acknowledge is that the left is increasingly their willing partner. And that kind of crazy self-destruction is what has led, for example, lesbian feminists to march side by side with fundamentalists who would otherwise stone them to death. Led them to march with them AGAINST powers that have allowed them to live in relative freedom. But so furious is their hatred of the West -- its culture, its power, its success -- and so deep are their resentments, that they feel no qualms about siding with those who would ensure their destruction. And their feelings about Jews? Well, what do you THINK the roots of it are? What sort of resentments did Hitler tap into? It's really the same thing. They're too successful. To be blunt.... Israel is a tiny country that sits alone in the Middle East but kicks ass in just about every category. Military, government, economy, freedom of its citizens, & the whole prosperity and happiness thing. They do so because of culture -- the way people organize and live their individual lives and interact with their societal entities. It stands as a stark contrast to the other cultures of the region. That very disparity is what creates the affection from the "left" (bad word again) that I spoke of. They support Arabs against Jews, not because they prefer their race or religion, but because one culture has demonstrated clear superiority over another one. And that is the one sin they can't tolerate. To acknowledge such a thing would be to open the possibility that cultural choices matter, and that blame can be placed for unwise ones. And that is the ultimate goal of that sort of fragile self.... to fashion a world where that sort of blame is not possible.

Again, citing a few American neo-nazis and racists' acts in the US as evidence of where most anti-semitism lies is extremely misleading. Compare their numbers to the numbers of the anti-war movement. And again, "anti-war" isn't an accurate term. For the most part, it's an anti-Western and anti-American power movement. Yes the neo-nazis are hardcore, while the people I'm speaking of often aren't even honest enough to admit their leanings and motivations, but those leanings can be easily discerned by following them cause by cause. Did you happen to notice the recent NYT picture of some signs that said "kill jews" at an "anti-war" rally. I'm even personally familiar with many who share these views. My school (and this town for that matter) is inundated with that unnamed ideology. Talk to any of them for a while. Do a little challenging and the truth always comes out.

Maybe my analysis seems odd because I'm not using the labels people normally do. Some would tar these people as Commies or whatever, but I try to avoid that because I think some of it is more strategical name-calling than accurate description. I do however think they share a common unspoken ideology that's rooted in a resentment of success.

Yes, I'm aware that most "leftists" in America are of European ancestry. But I'm also aware that they are the source of most anti-Euro resentment. I'm surprised you don't seem to know about the widespread anti-Asian sentiment among much of the "left." Granted, it's not something you'd ever get them to say on TV, but again, TALK to these people. It comes out fairly easily. I've personally seen a lot of it. Of course it can be very specific, especially around where I live. If you're Hmong or Laotian you get sympathy (because they're seen as poor and not assimilated). But if you're Korean, Chinese, or God forbid Japanese, you get contempt. Not the contempt of a racist mind you, but the contempt of one who really wishes you didn't exist and will behave as if you didn't. To be fair, I think this phenomenon varies by where you live in North America --- It's shaped by immigration patterns and by the perception people have of the immigrants.

Hehehe... the gods term was used with a little humor. I only mean that in American racial hierarchies, they put them first in admiration. Hispanics? Not favored quite as much, but definitely fall more into the sympathetic category. Now when you say "the Left HARDLY sees blacks as gods" I know we are talking about different things, because it is very true that the people I'm speaking of have almost nothing positive to say about those who came from Europe or Asia, but engage in an almost propagandistic celebration of the "culture" of the descendants of West Africa. Observe the major media.... It's subtle but relentless. Especially when targeting young people, watch who they single out for credibility, coolness, or whatever, and who they subtly (and sometimes blatantly) ridicule. If you want get in a huff and deny this, fine. But you would be arguing against what is blatantly so. I won't lie as you did and say that your statements are "racism and ignorance" (I was quite offended by that), but I will say that your citing criticism of "white liberals" as evidence that the left doesn't have a decided sympathy for blacks in America, (compared to say, Asians or whites) is unconvincing to say the least. Criticism means nothing unless it's valid. People say a variety of things for political reasons. Of course maybe I'm assuming wrong here. If so, please explain about the blindness and pathologizing you were talking about. Are you saying that the left sees blacks as poor and dysfunctional? If so, then I don't really disagree with you. The point I'm making is that that very perception is what draws the idealization -- In the same sense that it draws an idealization of Palestinians over Israelis.

A final word about my views. Since this exchange has been a little different from the usual Democrat/Republican debate, I hope that you don't make any quick broad assumptions based on the above. As I said, ideologies worldwide are shifting and mixing. And I certainly can't be fit under one label. Certainly not Democrat/Republican Liberal/Conservative.

Hopefully some of all that makes things a little more clear and a little less bizarre.