Second Religiosity Part 33 1/3

The Zion Insult

The World Police ain’t what they used to be.

After reaching the long sought after milestone of hitting my first one hundred subscribers I figured it was a great time to see how many could be lost with a single post, and there's no better wedge issue than bringing up the subject of Judaism and the unprecedented executive privilege that minority has enjoyed in our society for the past few decades. The only down side with such an unscientific experiment is that I won't be able to tell who dumps me for antisemitism vs being a Tribe apologist, so feel free to let it rip in the comments before you scurry off to less challenging conversations. All I ask is that you don't use obscenities since they are useless filler that lazy people lean on when their arguments are weak.

Give me a heads up before you split so we know that you didn’t just kill yourself.

Back in the 1990's my family relocated from the land of Hellmans (East Coast) to the land of Best Foods (West Coast) in order to seek greener pastures, or at least a different market where my father had not yet burned any bridges. Tearing up roots and moving about the country was a familiar ritual for us, as it was easier for him to hit the reset button than confront the emotional scars from being tortured in MK-Ultra experiments during his Ivy League days. Needless to say I was a very angry kid and my grades reflected it. Only by a miracle of transferring credits between states was I able to squeak through a high school diploma, and was told that I had to either choose between a trade school, community college, or go flip burgers and move out on my own.

The option of trade school was presented as something for losers (my parents still hoped that I would be able to weasel may way back into the managerial class someday) so off to community college I went, and this was far more of a culture shock than I anticipated. As opposed to the East Coast where white culture pretended to be enlightened and progressive while secretly enforcing racist policies, La Fronteira embraced a more rigid cliqued-up system of social stratification where segregation was elevated to a high art. West Coast tribalism made it far easier for people to find others from the same group and economize social interactions, but at the cost of nuance and individual expression. It also allowed for "safe spaces" where people could openly express racial criticisms that Easterners were forced to hide behind closed doors.

On the plus side the West Coast social rules were simple to follow regardless if were a hippie, a gangster, a cowboy, a surfer, a yuppie, a punk, or a Neo-Nazi. Stick to your own tribe, do as they do, avoid hostile territory, and everything will be just fine. The only exception to this rule were the Mexicans. They already had a strong authentic culture and weren't looking for a cheap substitute to fill the void. They were also the most open and welcoming folks that I met out there despite pretty much everyone else treating them like the underclass. Since they were were living in what was historically their own land had practically zero restrictions as far as hostile territory, I suppose from their perspective the rest of us were just pushy tourists who had overstayed our visas.

But I digress…

It was in this environment that I took my first truly interesting history class which focused on the Anglo conquest of Mesoamerica. It's also where I had my initial experience with "mainstream" antisemitism. I don't remember the exact context, but a girl in the class was talking about a historical event where someone got "jewed" by someone else. By this term she was referring to theft of course, and it shocked me that the conversation continued on without anyone registering a protest or even seeming to notice.

This would never fly in the East Coast metropolitan centers where Holocaust survivor stories are still regularly passed around. Over on the Atlantic side Jews were still considered a semi-endangered species that were once on the edge of extinction but managed to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and earn their place as the world’s most successful minority. That girl's comment shattered my unquestioning belief that Jews were both victims and masters at the same time, and while it certainly didn't cause me to hate them I began to quietly ponder that odd previously-unspeakable contradiction. Thanks to growing mainstream awareness of elitist criminal activity giving a rocket boost to the conspiracy theory movement it has finally become socially acceptable to dissect clunky historical narratives and lopsided political arrangements, and the forums are getting hot as we begin working through the huge backlog of forbidden fuel.

Hopefully by letting off some steam through honest dialogue we can prevent this from happening again.

It turns out California Jews live in a bit of a paradox. While they enjoy outsized access to the levers of power, the vast majority of the state is considered hostile territory for them. A white family accidentally taking the wrong urban freeway exit will sink low in their seats and pray that their window tint is dark enough, but having a breakdown on a dusty road in Cowboy country is a mere inconvenience. Not so for a Jewish family. The threat may be less existential but it's never fun hanging around with people who hate you, especially when your wellbeing is dependent on their good graces. As a result they usually stick to resort areas and other safe zones where the common folk make their living by catering to the whims of the ruling class.

As someone who spent a lot of time on Hollywood productions and working in resort towns I have a fair amount of experience with demanding and demeaning Jews. Palestinians aside, I probably have just as much justification as anyone to harbor antisemitic views if I chose to do so. Some of them can be a real nightmare, and I’ve tried to arrange my life to stay away from the obnoxious ones as much as possible. What prevents me from falling down the slippery slope of mal-ignorance is that I kind of understand where they are coming from.

Jewish culture is ancient and diasporic, and living for thousands of years without a homeland required them to maintain the kind of solidarity that most people only reserve for their immediate family (if at all). Instead of following the latest fashionable political trends they stick together and create an insulating barrier that allows for the Jewish project to continue as societies rise and fall around them. It's a successful cultural adaptation to a hostile world and has served them well through some very dark periods of bloody persecution, so asking them to give it up would be like asking a porcupine to give up his spikes.

In case you were wondering, the answer is still NO.

The problem is this greatest strength is also what gets them into trouble whenever they start to get a little too comfortable. Just like brothers or best friends backing up each other in a fight even when they know their compatriots are wrong, Jews defend the tribe because to do otherwise would result in extinction. Combine this with a high drive for achievement and relentless social pressure to outperform the competition and you get a group of extremely arrogant people who cluster into influential positions, while looking down at everyone else who doesn't share their values as subhuman.

It's not like this is a "problem" that needs to be "solved" however. It's just the way things are and, although not insurmountable goal, living together with Jews will always present a challenge for the host culture. A case in point might be useful here, specifically a couple people who I went to high school with. During the Baby Scoop era it was fashionable for wealthy families to adopt native children until people started to noice that it regularly resulted in a total disaster. Both my fellow students came from American Indian families (one from Central America and the other from Alaska) and despite not knowing anything about their DNA culture and being raised Jewish, their inherited ethnic karma gave them a completely different value system that made them a total disappointment to their adoptive parents. As a result they gravitated to the closest available equivalent that resembled their genetic cultural background, which in Southern California at the time was Neo-Hippie Grateful Dead movement and it's focus on drug use.

I can still smell the Patchouli

This allowed the kids to self-medicate the emotional torment that comes from being an outsider in one's own family. To make things worse both my classmates also had successful non-adopted siblings who were high achievers and perfectly adjusted into Jewish culture. At some point their parents gave up trying to pretend that they didn't have a preference, put the dysfunctional outcasts on a stipend, and encouraged them to move far away.

One of them is probably either dead or a born again Christian by now. I'm just guessing as I really don't want to look him up. The other is working as a nurse and has a strong earth-mama vibe, but if you spend more than 5 minutes with her the neediness that has strained all her relationships starts to come out (although she's made noticeable improvement over the past couple of years since the Covid crisis caused a priority reset).

If we are to take only one lesson from the Baby Scoop era, it's that cultural DNA is a lot less elastic than people are led to believe. Therefore nobody should be surprised by the horrific results of giving an insular ethnic group who see themselves as The Chosen Ones an unlimited military budget and permission to carve out their own nation from a territory occupied by the descendants of their historical enemies.

How it’s going…

Israel is a complicated subject of course, but pretty soon the only people who will care about the details will be historians since that nation is not long for this world. Fences might make good neighbors, but not if you have sharp elbows and keep pushing the property lines. The long string of wars which are once again raising to a fevered pitch were never an accident, nor were they the result of the inherent evil-ness of Jewish or Islamic culture. Instead they were a deliberate campaign by the West to destabilize the region and insert loyal dictators in order to control the abundant energy reserves. Ironically giving the Jews these "gifts" has turned out to be a curse, and thanks to the relentless campaign of foreign intervention, the citizens of the Promised Land have become disposable pawns who are now facing an increasingly hostile world that is fed up with their crap.

Everyone can see what’s going on. The gaslighting is not going to work any more.

Meanwhile headlines about the U.S. government sending billions to Israel while fumbling YET ANOTHER domestic disaster relief effort are not going to help Jews win popularity contests at home any time soon. Add to that the fact that mass migration of unverified military age Muslim males has allowed terrorist cells to form in the backyards of the urban centers where Jews formerly enjoyed relative safety, and it’s pretty clear the future is not looking bright for this once-untouchable minority. I especially feel sorry for the normal non-elitist Jews just trying to get by and make a (more or less) honest living. I don't really have any advice for them since they are going to do what they have always done when they lose their protected status. It’s time to circle the wagons and lay low for a bit with whatever means are left to them after the dust settles. They know how to get through this.

What I will say is that the survivors stumbling away from the ruins of our collapsing Microwave Dinner consumer culture could definitely take some notes from the Jews about loyalty. All successful social arrangements focus on solidarity to one's in-group while fostering an overall project of education and advancement for the young. Yes, people have been known to let success go to their heads and accelerate their self destruction with hubris. It’s not exactly an original story, and that’s why it's important for every culture to be vigilant against narcissistic tendencies before they get out of control. If the unchecked elite narcissists are allowed to devour their own seed corn, the lower classes will soon realize they have nothing to lose, everyone stops following orders, and the whole thing comes apart.

Oops. Too late.

The extreme irony of Western arrogance causing it's current downfall and then blaming the Jews is not lost on me. They are merely practicing the Jungian art of projection, by which we condemn others for the faults that we refuse to recognize in ourselves. It's rare to find a group that doesn't seek advantages, and the Sons of Abraham just happened to be more successful at chasing the American Dream than anyone else thanks to honing their Group Will to a sharpened point over the millennia.

As the age of cheap energy fades out and asking the government for free stuff starts to give negative results, the increasing destabilization is now forcing us back into our neglected traditional institutions to try and figure out how to make them work again. Our success depends on reigniting our group spirit while recognizing that a sense of overall purpose is an important survival skill. In this respect the Jewish historical saga has many useful lessons that should not be discarded for the cheap emotional thrill of wallowing in our own ignorance.

Things are going to suck, but they will suck less when we stop blaming everyone else and take responsibility for our part in the ongoing cascade of crises. It is only from this perspective that meaningful changes can be made.