Forum Post: Anti-semitism at the Wall Street Occupation Protests
Posted 1 year ago on Sept. 26, 2011, 10:07 a.m. EST by RossWolfe
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Apparently the childish anti-capitalism on display on Wall Street has already drifted into a perverse form of anti-semitism. Though I am usually loath to repost anything from the Huffington Post, whose lukewarm "progressivist" prattle tends to bore me to death, I was astonished to come across this article by Nathalie Rothschild: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nathalie-rothschild/supporters-of-the-wall-st_b_977505.html
In it, she links to a blatantly anti-semitic web article indicting her as a "Journalist and Jew": http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=b20_1316612128
Of course, influenced I am by Moishe Postone's reading of Marx and theory of capitalism, I am in the final analysis unsurprised by the misrecognition of capitalism's abstract, global domination as domination by the cosmopolitan Jewish financier. Still, that these carnivalesque demonstrations have so swiftly turned produced anti-semitic sentiments should indict these protests even further.
I have included these musings on my more general post in critique of these protests:
...so because one person called her a Jew, now the entire movement is anti-semitic? Just so everyone knows - I'm not anti-semitic - I've never met an Arab I didn't like.
For a look at the way anti-semitism emerges around discussions of capitalism, see:
ANTI⎯GLOBALISATION AND THE DANGERS OF NATIONALISM AND ANTI⎯SEMITISM By Werner Bonefeld
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:jbe0b1WMQb4J:www.nodo50.org/cubasigloXXI/congreso/bonefeld_10abr03.pdf+&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESjDyw79s1OgAnhaSDc3aZXZ-cI7Ay3fkCu6HWATPNmM9XNmKxi60m7OadGyufHUlm78bkO_4CGZrgvyeUtlZQcMVZXwRLj4-LZV2W7mHg_v8ykLL2aNZ3xJ4yljhSf0kvy6ZdqT&sig=AHIEtbTyrxVon_UcrYrJfOMmtUTS4fRE0g
Ross, You are right to bring up the issue. Anti-semitism is a problem, particularly on the internet, where anti-jewish conspiracy theories run rampant. The attack on the journalist that you mention is a clear example of this. And anti-Semitism is also a problem on the Left. (Here is a good left-wing website on the topic: http://contested-terrain.net) But it appears to me to be a broad generalization to accuse the protesters of this. It appears to be a very marginal phenomenon. Although, when it appears, it should be directly opposed, both on the streets and on the web. Do people have experiences with this that they want to share?
Ahem, a lot of us at the protest are Jews, Lenin was a Jew, Trotsky was a Jew, Marx was a Jew, and I saw nothing at all anti-semitic. Critique of Israel was at a minimum, and anyway, what is wrong with criticizing an oppressive government? I do it all the time.
Hear, hear!