{Also published by Jews Down Under.}
Yiannopoulos is one of the more notorious figures emerging out of the previous presidential election in the United States.
The guy is a British, Gay, conservative, secular Jew who will kick your rhetorical ass in a New York minute.
The reason that I like Milo is because he is brave.
The reason that many in the Jewish community despise Milo is because they think he is a degenerate.
So, good for Burd and Freedman for having the guts to bring him on.
The thing is, Nothing Left attracts top names from Dershowitz on down.
I am biased because I occasionally drop in to say hello, but the fact of the matter is that they also speak with Isi Liebler, Caroline Glick, Tuvia Tenenbom, Brigette Gabriel, Matthias Küntzel, Jonathan Tobin, Diane Bederman, Ted Belman, Gregg Roman, Dan Shapiro, Martin Sherman, and Avi Abelow.
And that is just since August of this year.
Anybody who knows anything about the Arab-Jewish conflict knows most of those names.
But Yiannopoulos is in a category unto himself.
Some refer to him as "alt-right," but, in truth, he is probably something closer to a "classical liberal"... perhaps bordering on economic libertarian.
He drives some people batty because they cannot stick him into pre-ordained slots within the identity politics Hierarchy of Victimhood.
He represents one example of how the term "alt-right" was (and is) used as a smear against people who having nothing whatsoever to do with "white nationalism" or "white supremacy" or the Klan or Nazis or anything even close to such nonsense.
The term "alt-right" is generally understood to mean "white nationalist."
It was coined by actual white-nationalist-nobody Richard Spencer who came to fame because the Clinton campaign needed a specimen who Hillary could smother in her "Basket of Deplorables."
Milo Yiannopoulos, however, is an openly Gay, half-Jewish Brit and a former editor for Breitbart - which is also an example of a venue that came into fame in the months leading to the astonishing triumph of Donald Trump to the Presidency of the United States. In truth, the best thing ever to happen to Breitbart and Bannon and the fellahs over there was the Hillary campaign.
Were it not for Hillary - or such is my claim - virtually no one would ever have heard of the "alt-right."
One thing that it is interesting to note is that Yiannopoulos and everyone's favorite antisemitic anti-Zionist, Linda Sarsour, came to widespread public notice during the same political moment.
They are both charismatic figures who carry their ends of the political zeitgeist.
The difference is that Linda is still enjoying her "fifteen minutes."
Milo got his cut short.
Sarsour is charismatic? And all this time I just thought she was a distasteful loudmouthed bigot.
ReplyDeleteThis country is coming apart at the seams. And Trump is certainly NOT the reason, just an excuse.
!!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteMilo is probably closest to libertarian if one uses these classifications, more than a liberal, the latter more open to communitarianism in the political order.
ReplyDeleteWhat he represents is the counter-culture, and it will be felt increasingly as new generations rebel against the progressive politics and cultural hegemony permeating media and social media platforms.
Watch the Google Youtube by James Demore at Prager. He represents it better, and what is on the horizon.
The millenials crave Marx and prefer socialism because they are so far removed from the effects of either, especially in the university environment, poisoned by critical theory. They actually believe these flawed ideas represent utopia, that the grass is greener in proximity from capitalism.
Trump in S. Korea and Japan illustrated the power of capitalism, compared to the N. Korean dystopia care of the Marxist way, in the aftermath of the devastation of WWII. These "intellectuals" should heed this most basic illustration, but won't. There are other things going on.
Milo is not a hater like Sarsour, and he speaks truth to power, which she does not. In an ironic way, he is more the threat to the status quo and will have a longer lasting effect.
No love for Nick Cohen, Douglas Murray and Rod Liddle?
ReplyDeleteI knew that I was going to miss some people.
DeleteOf those three, Douglas Murray, first-and-foremost.
Less well-known, but a powerful writer:
Deletehttp://www.frontpagemag.com/point/268406/anti-semite-linda-sarsour-anti-semitism-doesnt-daniel-greenfield
Jeff,
DeleteGreenfield is a terrific writer. As an analyst he is about as hard-right as it gets within the Jewish / pro-Israel community.
I mean, look, I sometimes have a tendency toward the polemic, but Greenfield is brilliant at it.
He writes:
"The left will briefly discuss anti-Semitism as a real thing only in the context of attacking the right. And will make sure to emphasize that anti-Semitism isn't nearly as bad as racism, homophobia, Islamophobia, etc... because Jews have a surplus of white privilege. Just ask a Holocaust survivor. Or a survivor of Stalin's gulags."
Or perhaps I am wrong.
Is that polemic or simple honesty?
He's certainly a polemicist, and pushes hard. But he is an interesting specimen. While I believe he paints with way too broad a brush, I think he believes he's boiling things down to their essence. Still, every few weeks or so, what can I tell ya, I get a hankering to see just what he's up to.
DeleteOf the writers discussed, Douglas Murray is my personal favorite. He's got great chops, well-balanced, insightful, down to earth. Whereas Greenfield is up in the ideological clouds.
As for the paragraph you cite, well, yes I have observed that phenomenon on the hard-left. There is certainly a watering down of antisemitism and a tendency to push it all onto the Right. And, of course, antisemitism does indeed exist on the Right. At heart, it's never really been a Left vs. Right phenomenon. A lot of people on the Left just don't, or won't, get that.
His an article I think many here will want to read:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/248926/everybody-hates-nazis
*Here's
Delete"recounting the incident from his White House tenure described in his introduction to the ZOA where he refused to attend a lunch meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
ReplyDelete“I wouldn’t go to the lunch because I didn’t want to breathe the same air as a terrorist,” said Bannon. “I didn’t want to eat lunch with a guy that had the blood of innocent Jewish civilians on his hands. I just don't" Steve Bannon
https://pamelageller.com/2017/11/bannon-refused-abbas.html/
If everyone thought like Bannon there'd be peace in no time. Giving terrorism oxygen just doesn't work.
The New York Times report on
ReplyDeleteRasmeah Odeh was grossly incompetent:
www.algemeiner.com/2017/11/14/new-york-times-adds-editors-note-to-travel-story-that-glorified-terrorist/
______________________________________________
New York Times Erases Israel from Map:
https://shilohmusings.blogspot.com/2016/11/guest-post-nyt-erases-israel-from-map.html
http://shilohmusings.blogspot.com/2016/03/guest-postnyt-vs-israel.html
______________________________________________
How to Convict the New York Times
of Unfair Bias Against Israel:
https://shilohmusings.blogspot.com/2016/11/guest-post-how-to-convict-new-york-times.html
______________________________________________
Why Israel’s 1967 Borders are Undefendable:
www.algemeiner.com/2017/10/27/israel-cannot-withdraw-from-the-west-bank/
https://shilohmusings.blogspot.com/2017/03/guest-post-why-1967-borders-are-suicide.html