Zionists Ate My Brain

Here's an ugly list of 10 recent Arab-world conspiracy theories about the Jews and the Americans, from the National Review's Steven Stalinsky. Update: As commenters have pointed out, "Arab-world" is not a place that includes Iran and Pakistan, where three of the 10 stories are from.

Comments

[Howard Beale]

http://tinyurl.com/26ryh

Above is a link to the Google cache of the weblog of Joe Ryan, a CACI Interrogator who works at Abu Ghraib. I like the part about his shirt stain.

[Roger]

Here's conspiracy theory. Disgusting godless filth strip Iraqi prisoners naked and pose smiling with them. You can take your neocon kaka and cram it up you posterior. Enough of PNAC and enough of godless heathens. Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz need to be handed their heads. I'm not voting for Bush if this is the best he can offer. Get your head out of your heinie.

[Baylen]

Interesting if slightly misleading list. Three of the ten "Arab conspiracy theories" aren't Arab at all:

10. Pakistani
8. Iranian
2. Iranian

[garym]

Sorry, Roger, all our positions for self-parodists are full at the moment. Please take a number.

[MB]

"Interesting if slightly misleading list. Three of the ten 'Arab conspiracy theories' aren't Arab at all"

Don't you get it, Baylen? Arabs, Pakis, Persians--they're all filth who must be exterminated. National Review is just making it easier for their readers to understand.

[Joe L.]

No Roger, that's not a conspiracy, that's what happened, sans the "godless" invective. So tell me Roger, we you going to vote for Bush until the prison fiasco or until the invasion of Iraq? And why do Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld need to be handed their heads? And this relates to conspiracy theories, how?

[Joe L.]

No Roger, that's not a conspiracy, that's what happened, sans the "godless" invective. So tell me Roger, we you going to vote for Bush until the prison fiasco or until the invasion of Iraq? And why do Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld need to be handed their heads? And this relates to conspiracy theories, how?

[Joe L.]

MB good point MB, those Conservatives they is dum, stoopit... Not like us smart peeples. All they want to due is kill peeple. "Do I get to kill Arabs?"-Good posting MB.

[xray]

Joe L. (if that is your real name) You are turning into the reliable defender of the wingnut viewpoint. Unfortunately, you'll eventually lose interest ('cause you're preaching to the wrong choir) and then some other three-letter-named reactionary will appear to briefly amuse the libertarians.

[Jarod]

Be careful, Matt, that you don't incur the wrath of Tim Cavanaugh:

http://www.reason.com/hitandrun/004327.shtml

"Making a gratuitous comment about Jews with the actual purpose of insulting Arabs vs. just making a gratuitous comment about Jews?that strikes me as a distinction without a difference. There are certainly enough bad examples from the Arabic press without witlessly making them up. More and more, I wonder if there's any actual difference between anti-Semites and anti-anti-Semites: They both seem incapable of going more than 10 seconds without bringing The Jews into any conversation."

Maybe he can explain to you and the rest of us why it's inappropriate to make a joke about or even mention Jews.

[Roger]

Who promotes the porn industry, who mocks Christianity at will? C'mon guys, wake up and smell the coffee. This is the godless, heathen society you want and now you co-opted the conservative movement. You have no realistic advesary. I'll call a turd a turd. You tell me how PNAC is in my best interest. I'm all ears.

[MB]

Joe L.--

I think your post speaks volumes about at least one conservative.

[Dan]

Joe L. (if that is your real name) You are turning into the reliable defender of the wingnut viewpoint

I haven't seem him agree with joe or Jennifer even once, so it's hard to see how that could be true. 🙂

[xray]

okay D-A-N whatever you say.

[Joe L.]

MB: Yeah, that we of the Right don't much cotton to silliness from our opponents. You have a "Beef' with NRO, go for it, you want personal invetice, take it to the play ground. "Reason" is an attitude, not just a title. I prefer critique or criticism. The guy/gal who pointed out that several of these weren't Arab theories did a good post. All you said was, "Dem folks is stoopit"-functionally, and "I'm oh so much more intelligent and witty."

And X-Ray, good post too. I liked that, wing nut... in response how about dope smoking, godless, libertine idiot as my response. We can go there is you want, but why? Again, Reason, the motto used to be "Free Markets, Free Minds." Now is it "We're Smarter and Snarkier than You."? Oh and amusement, I thought it might provike some thought... I've never thought of myself as having a monopoly on good public policy, mayhap you do.

[Adam Weishaupt]

The Illuminati denies any involvment in these conspiracies. I blame Hasan ibn al-Sabbah.

[Ron]

That these kinds of hateful stories are widespread and popular among Muslims is what the real "root cause" of the problem is. People raised in lands where it's hard to openly argue such things creates dysfunction. This is why, ultimately, we did the right thing in Iraq--somehow, somewhere, we've got to create a space for openness that will counterbalance the nuts and liars, and show others that freedom will create a better land than being bathed in ignorance and it's brother, poverty.

[xray]

Joe L. my aren't we techy! Wingnut, like dope-smoking and libertine, is a technical term. However, idiot is an ad hominem attack, to be expected from a wingnut. Calling me godless is both rude and unchristian of you. Your last sentence is the most coherent thing you've typed all day.

[MB]

Joe L.:

I wasn't saying the boys at National Review are stupid--far from it! I think their conflation of events within and without the Arab world was quite clever--but to what purpose?

BTW, don't call me a snob until you run your stuff through spell-check first. Just a little constructive criticism.

[Joe L.]

X-ray, I don't care for wing nut, so idiot it is... We can call a truce. We don't have to agree. We just have to be civil. As to unChristian, well I'll take my Purgatory time and leave it at that. Oh and I've typed a lot of coherent things today. I just don't think you liked what you read.

MB, good point on Spell Check... Now to the larger point, you don't care for NRO's article. Why? Because you are an ethnologist, a geographer? Your post says "Don't you get it, Baylen? Arabs, Pakis, Persians--they're all filth who must be exterminated. National Review is just making it easier for their readers to understand." Really, where do the words "filth" or "exterminate" appear? I must have missed that portion of the conclusion, in the article. Just wonderin' where the genocide advocacy was, of course mayhap you got this weeks VRWC Decoder Ring and I didn't.

[xray]

Joe L. Fine, truce it is. I will let MB continue trying to make you understand his point. You will continue misunderstanding it. Unfortunately, it seems you are intentionally misunderstanding it. I mean you can't be that big an idiot can you? If I published a list of the top ten stupid things Americans believe but three of the things on the list were things Candians and Australians believe, you wouldn't have a problem with that would you? I mean American, Canadian, Australian, what's the diff?

[Ira Weatheral]

What happened to Lazarus Long? Where's Jean Bart?
Is Thoreau in the house?

IT MUST BE A CONSPIRACY!

[Ken Shultz]

"Here's conspiracy theory. Disgusting godless filth strip Iraqi prisoners naked and pose smiling with them. You can take your neocon kaka and cram it up you posterior. Enough of PNAC and enough of godless heathens. Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz need to be handed their heads."

Rumsfeld: "You know I want the same thing that you do Paul, but how are we gonna get pictures of a bunch of naked Iraqis all in a pile?"

Wofowitz: "One step at a time, Rummy. First we'll have the CIA plough a couple of airliners into the World Trade Center, and then we'll blame it on Al Qaeda! Next, we trick the President into thinking Saddam has WMD..."

Rumsfeld: "I see where you're going Wolfie...Nice!"

[The Lonewacko Blog]

"This is why, ultimately, we did the right thing in Iraq--somehow, somewhere, we've got to create a space for openness that will counterbalance the nuts and liars"

I'm sure many of those conspiracy theories could be shown to be false. Assuming they aren't real, of course, but I digress.

So, we show they're false, laying out the argument step by step. Then, we have a proxy broadcast it either over satellite TV or on the web or in a newspaper. And, we make sure that's widely available in the Arab/Muslim world.

We marginalize and trivialize those who propagate conspiracy theories and those who seek to profit from them.

Are we doing this? If not, what do we need to do to start doing it?

[Gary Gunnels]

Maybe NRO should have linked these folks as well:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4880432/

[Joe L.]

Damn, X-ray, you follow truce's like the insurgents in Fallujah honour ceasefires, "idiot" again... Ok, you dope-smoking libertine idiot (DSLI-from now on). I don't understand MB's point... You know what because he makes no point.

Now the person that pointed out that these theories were NOT exclusively Arab had the beginnings of a point. We might link some hints from MB with the earlier facts and say, ?NRO uses the word Arab when many of these theories aren?t from ARABS. That?s playing fast and loose with the evidence. At worst it?s racism, ?All them dark-skinned rag heads is alike. At best, it?s just sloppy argumentation, and I expect better from a leading Conservative Journal.? See some evidence and a conclusion. That?s a point.

All MB said was? "Don't you get it, Baylen? Arabs, Pakis, Persians--they're all filth who must be exterminated. National Review is just making it easier for their readers to understand." Is this a point? OK I conclude from MB?s post that NRO was advocating the slaughter of Middle Easterners. And my response is: ?That?s playing fast and loose with the evidence. At worst it?s foolish, ?All them NRO readers is alike. At best, it?s just sloppy argumentation, and I expect better from a folks trying to make ?points?.?

So yeah, DSLI I was unimpressed with MB?s argument. We wing nuts, we?re funny that way. We kind of expect our ideological foes to present a little evidence and/or make a rational argument, not just explain that something is ?proof? of nasty intentions.
Now here at "Hit and Run" you all may be different, all "knowing" so much about NRO and wing nuts, that you can skip the middle, the connecting clauses or minor premises and just jump to the conslusion.

[Ken Shultz]

My earlier comments could easily be misconstrued as an attack on the Muslim people's ability to reason; but I was merely trying to ridicule the ridiculous association implied by one poster?s comment. Muslims have good reason to be on the lookout for conspiracies against them.

Hitler tops my list of history?s evil bastards, but faulting him for being paranoid ignores the fact that hundreds of millions of people all over the world were conspiring against him. Ridiculing the Muslim World for being susceptible to conspiracy theories, likewise, disregards a key fact. Muslim peoples have been victimized by the political conspiracies of foreign powers for at least a century.

As long as the people of the Muslim World are denied legitimate and stable government, ridiculous conspiracy theories will continue to proliferate there just as the Dolchstoss Myth, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and other ridiculous conspiracy theories proliferated in Europe at times of great political turmoil.

[Jason Ligon]

"As Rick points out, sometimes conspiracy analysis proves a conspiracy theory correct. The worst thing you can do to a conspiracy denier is to tell them what really happened."

The problem with most conspiracy theories is that they have been intentionally constructed so as to be unfalsifiable. Even better, they mutate. Was the JFK thing settled after the Warren Commission? Nope. The proposer of the theory supposes that the rest of the world has a burden of disproof, which is exactly backwards considering the inevitable lack of evidence presented by the theorist. Back and to the left indeed.

My whole point is that we are all operating from a position of relative ignorance, but the romantic appeal of an explanation is no reason to accept it over something more plausible. How do I know what is plausible? We do an investigation into the facts, we come up with the best explanation we can (Oswald acted alone), and we are done until there is some piece of evidence that precludes the story we came up with.

[Rick Barton]

Much in the political world goes on via conspiracy. What's also really bad about racial and religious group conspiracy "theories" such as these, is that they unfairly put valid and important political conspiracy theories, concerning ruling elites, in in bad light.

When you debase conspiracy analysis, you're throwing out an invaluable tool for understanding real politic. Often, conspiracy theorizing is the only way to apprehend political reality.

Political power is often transmitted via the machinations of hidden collusion and miss-direction. We need to engage in conspiracy analysis to understand political power. We need to ask the question; who benefits?

I like Rothbard's extension of common sense volitional analysis from small political situations (such as the collusion between labor and management to enact tariffs, which surprises no one) to things like entry into war, the creation of the Federal Reserve, etc.

[Rick Barton]

Calling a conspiracy "Jewish" is to assume a uniformity of opinion and motivation among Jews that is absurd. Even conspiracies in support of the Israeli government for instance, can't be called "Jewish". And, why is a "Zionist Conspiracy to Take Over the World", nonsense? Because, there is not a shred of evidence, or logic to support such a notion, the scope of which is preposterous. This is not to say that political conspiracies on behalf of the government of Israel don't exist:

In the book The Mossad by Dennis Eisenberg, Uri Dan and Eli Landau, the authors provide evidence of the Israeli government tactic of getting people with assumed allegiance to their native nation but with real loyalty to the Israeli government in positions of power in various nations.

We may have seen this dynamic played out in the case of Richard Perle, the man at the nexus of so many neo-con "pro-democracy" organizations that have a long history of advocating an attack on Iraq. In 1970, while working for Sen. "Scoop" Jackson"s office he was caught on a NSA wiretap giving classified information to the Israeli Embassy.
http://www.amconmag.com/03_24_03/cover.html
http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/82may/hershwh2.htm

[Joe L.]

Jason is correct. Rick, you ascribe an importance to "conspiracy" that is unwarranted. Ignoring the personal psychology of conspiracy and conspiracy theorists, noble, intelligent individuals struggling mightily against the conventional wisdom. Conspiracy just doesn't pan out, but it does LOOK good.
A Marxist friend of mine once pointed out that the oil shocks of 1974 and 1979 put a lot of money into the hands of Arabs and other Developing countries. They in turn, put their Petro-Dollars into Western financial institutions, who in turn loaned the money to the Third World. Which had trouble repaying the debt. Which allowed the IMF and the IBRD to step in and propose significant changes to the operation of these nation's governments and societies. The end result was that the First World ended up with enormous influence and control over the Third World. In his view, it was Neo-Colonialism.
He made a good point in that he said, It sure LOOKS like a conspiracy made in capitals and board rooms around the world to bind the Third World to the US. BUT, it wasn't. It was a logical progression of players each trying to maximize his utility in the way that made the most sense.
Conspiracy posits a plan and the reality is that the Universe is too large for plans. What APPEARS as a conspiracy is often just individuals struggling to make sense of the world around them and to prosper in that world.

[rothbardian4life]

I have seen 4 of these over at anti-war.com. Is that now the arab world neocons?

Besides rick is correct. We all know that these are just propagada by the REAL Jooish conspiracy that runs the banks, the neocons, the NWO and Google.

"I will stand up proudly for it. I have cheered on men attacking US troops. I will continue to cheer any defeat US troops meet." - Jeremy Sapienza, founder of anti-state.com and Senior Editor at antiwar.com

[Rick Barton]

Dream on. Antiwar.com would never countenance any of the ten.

[Jason Ligon]

"When you debase conspiracy analysis, you're throwing out an invaluable tool for understanding real politic. Often, conspiracy theorizing is the only way to apprehend political reality.

Political power is often transmitted via the machinations of hidden collusion and miss-direction. We need to engage in conspiracy analysis to understand political power. We need to ask the question; who benefits?"

Ahh, yes. What would normally proceed after asking 'who benefits?' is some sort of, I don't know, maybe EVIDENCE, before saying anything else. If you only know that party A came out better off than they were before action X, you don't know ANYTHING about the relationship between A and X.

There is no such thing as conspiracy analysis, because it is nothing more than a game whereby those utterly ignorant of sufficient facts to have an informed opinion get to make themselves feel superior and privy to Special Knowledge. It certainly doesn't allow one to apprehend anything. It is the casual tossing out of nearly every imaginable tool of epistemology in favor of an over interpreted fantasy scape in which the theorist writes himself in as protagonist.

As Umberto Eco has pointed out, the worst thing you can do to a conspiracy theorist is to tell them what really happened.

[Joe L.]

Right ON, Jason...and the big words too! I had a graduate school flashback, there. You shoudda used "heuristic" and "paradigm" and it would have be perfect.

[Jason Ligon]

Joe L.:

Self-important writing isn't just for the pros (prose?) anymore - the rest of us can indulge now and then, too. 😉

[Joe L.]

"Self-important writing isn't just for the pros (prose?) anymore - the rest of us can indulge now and then, too." *ROTFLMAO*

[The Truth Is Out There]

the denial by Zionist agent Jason "ZOG" Ligon is all the proof we need that the Power Elite (zionists, neocons, UFOs, etc) are controlling my brain through wi-fi waves.

[Rick Barton]

Jason Ligon:

What would normally proceed after asking 'who benefits?' is some sort of, I don't know, maybe EVIDENCE, before saying anything else.

Absolutely, but in the apprehension political reality , asking who benefits?, often leads us in the right direction.

There is no such thing as conspiracy analysis.

That would assume that political power is never transmitted via the machinations of hidden collusion and miss-direction. Reality just doesn't work that way.

the worst thing you can do to a conspiracy theorist is to tell them .

But in the world of politics, "what really happened" is often in contrast to the picture offered by those in power.

Examples: 1) Communist influence in the FDR administration was belittled as a "crank conspiracy theory", but we now that it's true.

2)Are we to believe the content of the Iraq report that Powell presented at the UN and described as; "valuable intelligence" but turned out to be an altered, plagiarized and dated grad student thesis was actually believed by those in the administration who put it forth?

Lies of such magnitude would have landed them in prison had they been corporate CEO's instead of government officials.

[Rick Barton]

Joe L,

Ah Hell, he just used some of my big words 😉 "Paradigm" has worked its way into pop. Culture. I like how "heuristic" has been adopted by chess software geeks, i.e., "killer heuristics".

[Jason Ligon]

Again, Rick, it is all about restraint. What you know is that the quality of intelligence in some cases was low. Speculation about intent is just that - speculation.

I am all for skepticism, but constructing an entire world of supposition based on a fact of shoddy intelligence isn't skepticism.

In other words, certainly we should look for truth, but we shouldn't claim to know what REALLY happened until we have some sort of supporting evidence beyond the conspiracy clincher of 'X is just too convenient'.

[Russ D]

Jason,

Conspiracy analysis and conspiracy theory aren't the same thing. Analysis investigates and collects the "sufficient facts" behind the theory and determines whether the theory is likely correct or likely incorrect. Eco is right that you debunk conspiracy theory with facts, that's what conspiracy analysis does. Gathering facts is hard work! As Rick points out, sometimes conspiracy analysis proves a conspiracy theory correct. The worst thing you can do to a conspiracy denier is to tell them what really happened.

[Russ D]

A little anecdote about "heuristics"...

At my software shop, one of our applications used a heuristic mathematical approach. For whatever reason, our salesmen claimed they were getting their asses kicked in the market because our competitor was using a "linear" approach. So the sales staff was on our ass to come up with a linear version to replace the heuristic one. I'm no mathematician, so the words don't mean a whole lot to me. But since "heuristic" has become a buzzword, they don't have trouble selling our product now.

[Rick Barton]

Jason Ligon:

"the romantic appeal of an explanation is no reason to accept it over something more plausible."

I agree, but neither is basking in the reflected glory of the powers that be, reason to accept or reject an explanation. Nor, is the fear of ridicule of the same, reason to accept or reject an explanation. (Remember the derision that was so heaped on those who said that there were commies in the FDR administration, but with the opening up of KGB files, we now know that these "right wing conspiracy nuts"" were accurate)

Also, maintaining a position for the sake of consistency with prevalent thought is not to being intellectually honest.

Joe L.:

"Conspiracy just doesn't pan out, but it does LOOK good."

Again; that would assume that political power is never transmitted via the machinations of hidden collusion and miss-direction. Surely, you don't believe that.

Political conspiracy theorizing and analysis in general should not be judged by Marxist class conspiracy theorizing. Marxist conspiracy theory grafts some of the errors of Marxism onto conspiracy analysis. Whole classes don't and can't conspire. Political entities do and those whom they serve, do.

Your objection that...

Conspiracy posits a plan and the reality is that the Universe is too large for plans.

...is true for classes of people but certainly not true for the conspiracy of political entities and those whom they serve, which may however manipulate large numbers of people in causes such as "soak the rich", "save the planet", "save us from the WMD", etc.

[Chet]

The Protocols' resurge in popularity is no end-times gobbedyglook. They're pretty damn accurate and not in some vague, hocus-pocus Nostradamus way. Many Jews really are the "lesser brethren" they're referred to. They're not in the loop. But, the stereotype of the wicked and odious Jews whispering foreign treacheries into the ears of callow, power-mad despots has a lot of basis in fact. And, Perle, Wolfowitz & Co. and their mass media "Amen Corner" fit the profile in almost eerie fashion. If these boys were Greeks working on behalf of making Greece an imperial power, and political leaders and people were pointing it out- would anyone complain about "conspiracy theories" or "anti-Greekism"?

Some of you like to give "the Jews" a pass. Does anyone think it's a coincidence that the world's only post-industrial societies in which over the past twenty-plus years workers are toiling longer hours for less pay are "The Jewish Homeland" and the USA? That's what happens when Jews gain the upper hand in a society. Call it "anti-semitism" but it's the truth. There's a paradigmatic greed that animates a not insignificant percentage of Jews. They live for the Material World and too much is never enough. It eventually begins to harm the society at large. And everyone shouts "hogwash!" and the Jews all carry on and get back in the fold and eventually many innocent Jews wind up being blamed for the actions of a few. It's happened over and over. Just not in America. It may never happen here. But, stranger things have happened.

[Rick Barton]

Chet:

"They're (The Protocols) pretty damn accurate."

Accurate? How? By what standard? Some of the Protocols describe the behavior of any deceptive ruling elite. Also, there is good evidence that they were a forgery, not written by any Jews at all. Even if Jews wrote them, they could not possibly justify the anti-Jewish bigotry that they have engendered.

Note that the Protocols were first published by Sergye Nilus, a pronounced anti-Jewish racist. Also, many passages of the Protocols bare a striking resemblance to much earlier articles of Illuminism and of other secret societies. It's easy to see Nilus weaving together these earlier documents of world revolution and then putting a Jewish stamp on them for the purpose of making his racist case. (see: World Revolution by Nesta Webster)

"Some of you like to give "the Jews" a pass."

That's also called not being racist. When you attribute the bad behavior of some Jews to systemic problems of Jews in general, you are the one who is giving "a pass" to the bad actors at the expense of an unfounded judgment against Jews in general.

"the world's only post-industrial societies in which over the past twenty-plus years workers are toiling longer hours for less pay are "The Jewish Homeland" and the USA?

Could you provide evidence that this is even true? And, if it is true, those Jews in Israel must be exploiting their own kind, huh?

"That's what happens when Jews gain the upper hand in a society."

So then, are you saying that Jews have only had the "upper hand" for twenty years, or is this decline of living standards effect that you posit a delayed reaction?

The only "upper hand" with which any group can harm others is the government. Fully one half of the billionaires in the country are Jewish. Those who have depended on voluntary patronage to achieve their wealth have no doubt enriched many people's lives. Those (of any background) who depend on government intervention to attain or preserve their wealth are a different story.

"They (Jews) live for the Material World and too much is never enough. It eventually begins to harm the society at large."

Lets suppose that Jews are indeed less spiritual and more "greedy" than the population in general. How in the world does that, "harm the society at large"? To the contrary, absent government intervention, this greed makes the population in general better off.

"eventually many innocent Jews wind up being blamed for the actions of a few."

This is in part because people have believed some of the unfounded generalizations about Jews that you made in your post!

[Chet]

Rick,

Are you a believer in the trickle-down theory of economic well-being? If that's the premise of your defense of America's Jewish Establishment (comprising perhaps 30-40% of America's Ruling Elites), you need to review the data of how average Americans are acually faring when "Greed is good" is made the national policy.

Yes, of course, the policies of the Israeli Government are exploiting most Israelis, those Israelis who are not wealthy or super-rich. What, Jews don't cheat their fellow Jews? Look at the number of lawsuits filed alleging corrupt business practices in any city with a significnt Jewish population and the point will be underscored.

It's irrelevant that the Protocols are a forgery if the Jewish elites are behaving in a fashion that shows THEY believe in them. William Safire certinly believes Jews are the master race and convenes weeky meetings with a select number of Jewish billionaires and gansa macha Zionists like Mort Zuckerman. Zuckerman had to dump his shiksa wife to be accepted by the group. Sfire's even written columns on this, so this is not some crudely fanciful invention of mine. And, by the "Establishment", to clarify, here's how I define it:

A. Media Ownership
B. Financial instituitions and concentrations of wealth
C. High-governmental Position and/or Influence Over Policy

In think nearly 25% or more of the U.S. Senate is Jewish, and it's likely to rise given the costs of running. Professional Sports franchise ownership is another story. The percentage of Jews is astronomical, it may even be as high as 75%. All this is easily researhed, just never discussed except on non-official, far right anti-semitic sites. This entire concept of *ZOG, of course has long been a staple of this sub-culture. Turns out, scoundrels and undesirables they may be, they appear to have been wy ahead of the curve. They took notice. Was the N.Y. Times doing likewise?

The point is, the founder of Zionism himself, Theodor Herzl expressed an extremely cautionary piece of wiasdom once, addressing all Jews:

"We Jews must always be aware of the terrible power of our purse."

When people are starving and one group seems to be cultivating its smugness at the expense of 90% of their countrymen/woman's misery, "civil behavior" or "You're generalizing you anti-semite!" just doesn't stem the anger.

It's a sage warning that the current generation of Jews seems to have forgotten.

[Rick Barton]

Chet,

I'm a believer in the economic freedom theory of economic well being. Entrepreneurs of all backgrounds, including Jewish, enrich our lives when they don't resort to government to restrict their competition or for subsidies.

"(I) think nearly 25% or more of the U.S. Senate is Jewish"

Nope, there are 11 Jewish US senators.

The 75% figure you give for Jewish professional sports franchise ownership strikes me as too high of an estimate, but what does it matter anyway?

If it bugs you, then please join me in opposing building playing facilities at tax payer expense.

The disproportionate Jewish control of mass media helps explain the pro-Israeli government bias that is offered to consumers, which is substantial. For balance I go to: Palestine Media Watch
http://www.pmwatch.org/pmw/index.asp

Know where I found out about them? On MSNBC. Are they controlled by Jews? They also carry Pat Buchanan, no friend of the brutal Sharon regime or US tax support of it. Also, an important point here is, is that Jews in the media are not of one mind concerning the Israeli government. There is a definite bias, but it's not monolithic.

The disproportionate Jewish representation in financial institutions and concentrations of wealth only matters when government is used toward those ends. Those Jews, and others, that use the state should be opposed, those that don't, have achieved their positions with honor, what ever their ethnic background.

If you're concerned about Jewish over representation in high-governmental positions and/or Influence over policy, you should want government to be made/kept weak so that it doesn't matter who controls it.

The neo-cons (btw, not ALL are Jewish) pushed for, and lied us into a war with Iraq because they thought it would be best for the Israeli government. Our government was loose enough to deliver. That's the real problem.

Herzl's cautionary wisdom is really valid for the purchasing of government power. That's where the "power of the purse" is truly terrible.

[Chet]

Jewish Senators:

Schumer
Reid
Levin
Boxer
Feinstein
Wyden
Spector
Lautenberg
Corzine
Dayton
Minnesota Republican who took Wellman's seat
Lieberman
That's 12 and there's plenty more...

Purchasing Government power is what Jewish money is all about. The Zionist Lobby (AIPAC, JINSA, WZO, ADL, ad nauseum) puts more money in the purses of national (and State, and City) politicians than anybody. The bulk of contribuitions to the Democratic Party is substantial, and contribuitions to the Republicans I've read estimates as high as 45%. That's buying and bribing the Government.in gratitude to his heavy Jewish contributors (the ones who got him to pardon Marc Rich) Clinton made his entire foreign policy team Jewish. So naturally, genocidal sanctions were maintained against Iraq, Israel could do a song and dance on the settlements, the Sudan, and Afghanistan, and Iraq were all bombed. Ho-hum. What's that got to do with Jews and blah, blah, blah...

I know one thing- if I were Muslim and I saw all my children and friends loved ones dying horrible deaths from diseases and contaminated water and destruction of crops, and my neighbors blown up by U.S. bombs for no reason except to put on a show, and it was shown to me that all of Clinton's foreign policy team were Jews and the "advisors" who pushed America into invading and occupying Iraq were Jews, too...I don't think I'd care to hear any quibbles or pooh-poohs from you or anyone else.

Look, the propblem has meta-psychological levels, subterranean dynamics that you may be missing. Let me give you an example- id you ever read any of the correspondence between Timothy Mcveigh and Gore Vidal? If you haven't you should, because they get into the very thing I'm talking about. I'm not trying to say that by next Monday pogroms will be breaking out in Pittsburgh on up to Connecticut, just that there's more resentment out there about "them" than our leaders hav any idea, or our media would have anyone believe.

Albright (Sec. of State)
Berger (National Security Advisor)
Cohen (Secretary of Defense)
Deutsch/Tenet (CIA)
Holbrooke (U.N. Ambassador)

[David Duke Addiction]

David Duke Addiction

Duke's Decline
On Tuesday, David Duke will report to a federal prison in Texas, a new personal and political low for a man who had already fallen far from the political prominence of a decade ago.

The Times-Picayune/April 13, 2003
By John McQuaid
Louisiana white supremacist David Duke visited the tiny Persian Gulf kingdom of Bahrain in November at the invitation of Discover Islam, a local organization whose mission is, ironically, building cross-cultural understanding between Westerners and Muslims.

Discover Islam paid Duke's travel expenses and lodging at a five-star hotel in Manama, Bahrain's capital. Local papers carried ads announcing the appearance of "Dr. David Duke" (the title thanks to a Ukrainian honorary doctorate). Over three days Duke gave a news conference and two speeches in packed hotel meeting rooms. Then he flew to nearby Qatar and appeared on the talk show "Without Borders" on the Al Jazeera satellite network seen throughout the Arab world.

Duke attacked Israel, Judaism and the U.S. posture toward Iraq. His message included anti-Semitic conspiracy theories that have long been a staple of the right-wing fringe and have more recently taken hold in the Arab world: That Israel is actually running U.S. foreign policy and is the shadowy main mover behind the confrontation with Iraq; and the Israeli intelligence agency the Mossad knew of terrorist plans to destroy the World Trade Center with hijacked airplanes and warned Israelis to get out before the planes hit.

That corner of the Persian Gulf region was abuzz, briefly, over the visit. The U.S. State Department protested to Al Jazeera. Bahrain's expatriate community was outraged. "In a nutshell, he is a racist who does not deserve the notoriety he was initially given here in Bahrain. He will never be invited to Bahrain again, because we won't be fooled again," said Tony Nazzal, an American communications technician who lives in Manama.

In a world plagued by spectacular terrorist attacks and religious and ethnic hatred, Duke can still find audiences for his brand of extremism. In fact, it's much easier for him to grab the spotlight abroad now than at home in the United States. He has spent much of the past several years traveling and making speeches, mostly in Europe and more recently in the Middle East.

The international arena is rife with hostility toward both the United States and Israel, and that offers plenty of platforms for Duke's views, which are harshly critical of both countries. In Duke's universe, the Jews and Israel are the roots of all evil, and the United States bears the ultimate blame for Sept. 11 because of its support for Israel. U.S. foreign policy -- including the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq -- is the result of Israeli manipulation. For Duke, supporting it amounts to treason.

Political eclipse at home
But here, Duke is in political eclipse -- and a felon soon to be behind bars.

On Tuesday he will report to the Federal Correctional Institution in Big Spring, Texas, to start a 15-month sentence after pleading guilty to charges of tax and mail fraud. Duke admitted to sending letters begging money from supporters that exaggerated his financial problems, then going out and gambling the money away in casinos in Louisiana and along the Gulf Coast.

The prison term marks a new personal and political low for Duke, who had already fallen far from his days of political prominence of a decade ago.

Running as a Republican, Duke won a seat as a Louisiana state representative in 1989, took 59 percent of the white vote in his unsuccessful challenge to Sen. J. Bennett Johnston the next year, and knocked incumbent Gov. Buddy Roemer out of the runoff in the 1991 governor's race. The Louisiana political and business establishments trembled before the threat posed by an extremist becoming a major officeholder. National Republican officials worked overtime to dissociate their party from him. National and international media were riveted on his every move.

But Duke was never able to abandon his extreme ideology or overcome his personality flaws. Instead of trying to build on that relatively brief moment in the limelight, he squandered it with repeated financial chicanery and a migration back to the far fringes of anti-Semitism and white supremacy where he had started his career. Partly to escape his legal troubles, he began spending most of his time abroad. He found his fame opened doors and the media attention was less skeptical.

Even supporters alienated
Duke's political descent and felony plea have alienated even longtime supporters in America, including those who once saw him as the ticket to the mainstream.

"He is a fractured personality. He is morally bankrupt, a tragic character. He had great potential. It's a shame he frittered it away," said Richard Barrett, the general counsel of the Nationalist Movement, a Mississippi-based white supremacist organization that once supported Duke's political career.

Duke's prison stay is a further blow from which he will have trouble recovering, political analysts say. When he gets out of prison, Louisiana law prohibits him from seeking office for 15 years, but he could mount a legal challenge to run for a federal post. His fund-raising ability, already at low ebb, will likely dwindle further, the analysts say.

"I'm sure he'd still appeal to some people. Some will see him as a martyr," Loyola University political scientist Ed Renwick said. "But he hasn't been a major figure for a decade. You never hear of him except for an occasional article in the newspaper. He went so far and he kept going further to the right until he left most people behind. I don't see him major threat to anybody. His political career in Louisiana is probably over."

'Political schizophrenia'
Duke never abandoned his extremism even while he was flirting with the mainstream. He never mentioned Jews while campaigning, for example, but in 1989 he was caught selling Nazi, anti-Semitic and other extremist literature out of his Louisiana legislative office.

"He has this political schizophrenia," said longtime Duke critic Lance Hill, director of Tulane University's Southern Institute for Education and Research. "On the radical right he is an openly anti-Semitic white supremacist, but when he runs for office he puts on this mask of conservatism."

By papering over his more extreme beliefs and past associations, for a time Duke became an appealing vehicle for anger toward government and at liberal welfare-state policies that was festering among a segment of white voters in Louisiana and nationally. He was in some ways a political pioneer, said Carol Swain, a University of Tennessee political scientist and author of the book "The New White Nationalism in America: Its Challenge to Integration."

"I believe he has had a major impact on American politics. He championed at the beginning of his career a lot of issues facing white Americans that were not being addressed by the major parties," Swain said. Though tainted by racism, she said, Duke's attacks on welfare, affirmative action and other issues presaged later mainstream political fights.

During the 1990s, though, Duke dropped this mask. He shifted his focus away from the issues that won him votes and returned to openly promoting a neo-Nazi point of view. He didn't call it that, though he has been calling himself an Aryan and publicly blaming "the Jews" for most of the world's ills in recent years.

Book was turning point
The key event was the 1998 publication of his book "My Awakening," its title evocative of Hitler's "Mein Kampf," German for "My Struggle." The self-published book is part autobiography, part pseudoscientific tract about the supposed genetic roots of racial disparities, part conspiracy theory alleging the Jews control various U.S. and global institutions. Above all, it is a call to action for "Aryans" to protect the white, European heritage by whatever means necessary -- through politics first and if that ultimately fails, through violence.

Publishing and promoting an earnest, 717-page tome was a major statement that Duke could not easily paper over, though he did try during a 1999 run for Congress.

"I think the autobiography was a turning point," Hill said. "It's clear he had given up any hopes of winning public office. He had been criticized on the far right in the campaigns of the early 1990s of compromising his beliefs to win votes. He started his career as leader in neo-Nazi movement in America, and he came back to those roots in the late '90s."

Duke himself is opaque about why he moved in this direction. Some theorize that there was more money to be made tapping support from the far right. "He had to come back to the fringe to get money from the fringe," said conservative radio station owner Robert Namer, who acted as a go-between when Duke sold mailing lists to then-gubernatorial candidate Mike Foster in 1995. "He had to find religion again. You can't be a mail-order priest and then be an atheist -- no one will send you money."

There is a market for what Duke is offering these days. "My Awakening" has apparently sold well, according to Duke and some Duke critics. Duke claims it has sold 50,000 copies in the United States, and many more abroad, where it has been translated into Russian and several other languages.

But the now-obsessive focus on what he calls "Jewish supremacism" -- the title of his latest book -- has marginalized him even on the far right. Even his most loyal backers question this focus and his extensive travels abroad, saying they are not the ingredients for political success at home.

"I think his efforts would be better served by giving his attention to matters here at home," said longtime supporter Kenny Knight. "He'd get more mileage out of efforts to deal with issues here in Louisiana and the South: the Confederate flag, race issues, crime issues."

Aside from self-aggrandizement, Duke's practical political aims were never completely clear. He was never a good political organizer. Most of the organizations he founded he eventually abandoned, either through inattention or personal conflicts. His current organization, the European-American Unity and Rights Organization, known as EURO, has a Web site and members scattered across the country. But it's not a force on the far right, according to several hate-monitoring groups.

The odd couple
At home and later abroad over the past decade, Duke has traded on his fame and his skill as a polemicist. He has led a self-indulgent, if not luxurious, lifestyle marked by dalliances with women, daily workouts, gambling for a time and speaking engagements before small, sympathetic audiences.

Duke's odd-couple encounters with controversial British historian David Irving offer a snapshot into the life he was living as he wrote "My Awakening."

Once a respected scholar of World War II Germany, Irving veered increasingly into the "revisionist" camp that questions the Holocaust and reveres at least some elements of the Nazi regime. In 2001 he lost a libel suit he filed in England against American scholar Deborah Lipstadt, who in a book referred to him as "one of the most dangerous spokespersons for Holocaust denial."

Lipstadt's attorneys used Irving's own journals to demonstrate he was associating with Holocaust deniers and neo-Nazis. Duke was exhibit A.

In the journals, Irving writes that Duke approached him at a 1994 book signing and they dined together along with Duke's then-girlfriend Christy Martin. They socialized often over the next several years in Louisiana and at rightist gatherings, sometimes playing tennis and golf and at one point hanging out until 2 a.m. in a St. Petersburg, Fla., disco called Beech Nutts, where Duke picked up a waitress named Dorrie.

Irving did editing work on Duke's emerging manuscript and tried unsuccessfully to hook him up with a New York literary agent. At his request, Duke gave Irving the names of 400 contributors who gave more than $100 each. Duke also lent him $2,000. Nevertheless, Irving viewed Duke with some personal distaste.

"Duke makes rather a lot out of his tennis victory yesterday: crowing slightly more than is funny," Irving wrote while Duke and Martin were staying with him on Key West. "He speaks loudly in a kind of un-modulated American southern croak, which is hard to take after a while. . . . It is also hard to listen politely to his seemingly endless vapourings on the -- to me -- boring subject (of the Holocaust); ditto the Jews and Zionism, although these are admittedly the topics of the chapters he has been writing while down here. He is also insensitive to others: his treatment of Christy Martin, an innocent 23-year-old soul who (wrongly) believes he will marry her, is not above reproach."

Rolling the dice
Several years later, an apparently fed-up Martin approached authorities with evidence that Duke had been lying about his financial situation in fund-raising letters and then gambling with the "personal gifts" sent in by supporters deposited in her bank account, according to news reports and sources close to the investigation.

"My equity, savings and retirement are gone, but my computer is humming, and my word processor is clicking out the book that I know will make a huge difference in the struggle ahead," Duke wrote in one appeal in which he also wrote about being forced to sell his house. But according to prosecution documents, Duke sold his house at a profit and was maintaining a variety of accounts open for noncampaign donations that, while not enormous, totaled more than $400,000 over a five-year period.

Duke had been an avid craps player for years, and prosecution documents indicate he was playing the tables in Louisiana, Mississippi and Las Vegas. In a defense posted for a time on his Web site, Duke wrote that he and some friends developed a computer model that could beat the house at craps, and his gambling forays were made to support his political efforts: "The system that I employed at the casinos was a sincere, if unorthodox, effort to find a way to raise funds for the Cause and not a 'lavish spending spree,' " the statement said.

But Duke's attorney and friend, Jim McPherson, said that the gambling simply got out of hand and he asked Duke to stop. "The gambling industry has learned long ago, if you've got a system, come on down," McPherson said. "At first he won. He was using small amounts of his own money. But then he started losing and started using money he was soliciting from his supporters."

Duke says he hasn't visited a casino since 1998, when the investigation began -- something prosecutors do not dispute.

Taking extremism abroad
With his finances under scrutiny, Duke decided to seek more sympathetic shores and headed overseas. He had been to Europe and Russia before. In 1995, he visited Moscow and met with ultranationalist politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky. This type of exchange wasn't unique. In recent years, driven in part by the growth of the Internet, American far-right organizations have expanded their contacts with counterparts abroad. Anti-Semitic, anti-Zionist extremists have a greater following in some parts of Europe and the former Soviet Union than they do in the United States.

In 1999, Duke said, he began spending time abroad, using the northern Italian mountains near Verona as a base, but making several extended trips to Moscow and other parts of Russia. He was in Moscow promoting the Russian version of his book when the FBI raided his house in November 2000, carting away boxes of documents.

Duke said he visited Ukraine, the Baltic states, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, France, Germany and Austria, among other places. Mostly, he did the same things he did in America: speechmaking, writing and meeting with far-right political leaders and organizations, and partying when possible. When in Moscow, Duke stayed in a downtown apartment and frequented a popular disco and striptease bar called the Hungry Duck, according to Lev Krichevsky, then the Moscow director of the Jewish organization the Anti-Defamation League, who monitored Duke's activities.

Duke said he partly paid his own way, but also received travel and other expenses from various host groups.

Audiences were larger
But the audiences were larger and the venues often more respectable than the fluorescent hotel meeting rooms and small book and pamphlet fairs where American extremists gather.

In January 2002, for example, Duke spoke at a conference held at the Moscow Social Humanitarian Academy, a private high school favored by Communist Party members. Titled "Global Problems in World History," it featured revisionist historians and conspiracy theorists. Beginning his presentation with a crisp wave of a wooden pointer, according to a fellow presenter, Duke spoke on "The Zionist Factor in the U.S." Among other things, he said Israeli scientists were genetically engineering viruses to use as weapons. "Only the Jews will be immune to them," he said, according to a story in the newspaper Novy Peterburg.

The press attention was also generally more favorable than he gets in the United States. Sometimes the mainstream press ignored Duke, sometimes it treated him with respect, sometimes with criticism. But he wasn't the political pariah he is in the United States.

"My Awakening" was translated into Russian and retitled "The Jewish Question Through the Eyes of an American." Duke appended several new chapters on the importance of preserving Russian heritage and the threat of "Jewish oligarchs." For a time it was put on sale for 50 rubles -- about $1.70 -- in bookstalls in the basement of the Russian parliament building, where it sold at a brisk pace, Krichevsky said.

An embarrassment
Still, he had the capacity to cause embarrassment. In Ukraine, Duke received an honorary doctorate of philosophy from the Interregional Academy of Personnel Management, a prominent university with a student body of more than 30,000 at its central campus and affiliates elsewhere. According to various sources, the top management of the school has taken a strong anti-Zionist position and produced a series of articles in a university-published magazine called Personnel condemning the Jews and Israel for international mischief-making.

Duke's visit contributed to an ongoing uproar over the university's leadership and its alleged anti-Semitism. Several prominent politicians on the board of the academy have been pressured to resign, including former President Leonid Kravchuk and former Prime Minister Viktor Yuschenko.

"President Kravchuk has made some steps to distance himself, publicly and privately. The former prime minister Yuschenko has made some too," said Jed Sunden, the publisher of the Kiev Post, an English-language newspaper that called for them to step aside. "But they have not made the clean break as you see with politicians in the states -- in the Trent Lott affair, for example."

Effects of Sept. 11
The events of Sept. 11, 2001, had an unusual effect on the right-wing fringe. Some groups crowed enviously over the terror attacks. "Anyone who is willing to drive a plane into a building to kill Jews is all right by me. I wish our members had half as much testicular fortitude," wrote Billy Roper of the National Alliance, a far-right group with ties to Duke.

Duke took a softer line, but he still blamed U.S. policies abroad, especially its support of Israel, for stoking hatred of the United States that led to the attacks.

The world's intense focus on the Middle East gave Duke's anti-Zionist activities a boost, and he churned out polemics on the topic. His Web site focuses heavily on the issue, with a long screed against Israel and what Duke calls its role in Sept. 11. Duke also claims that the U.S. war in Iraq is done at Israel's bidding.

These sentiments are quite common now across the Arab world, and before long Duke's writings were being picked up by newspapers in Saudi Arabia, Yemen and elsewhere. One article even made it full circle and was posted on the Web site of a New York University student protesting U.S. policy, stirring a campus controversy.

Duke's Internet postings on Israel also led to his invitation to Bahrain, according to Essam Eshaq, a director of the group that hosted him, Discover Islam.

He said that the group knew of Duke's racist views -- among them his belief in the intellectual superiority of people of European descent over dark-skinned people, including Arabs -- but that they decided they still wanted to hear an American politician criticize Israel.

But others say that privately, the group's leaders were taken aback by the uproar the visit caused. "He completely took people in," said George Williams, the editor of the Gulf Daily News, Manama's English language newspaper. "Discover Islam would never admit it, but they were quite embarrassed by this."

Still, Duke's resume is opening doors for him abroad. "If the Republican Party, which is the party in office in the White House today, finds it acceptable to field him as a candidate, what's the big deal in coming and speaking on issues which concern people here?" Eshaq said.

Prison security concerns
A month after the Discover Islam appearance, Duke's attorney and prosecutors finally reached a plea arrangement and Duke returned to the United States from a visit to Austria. As he prepares for prison, some supporters are worried he may be a target of violence. A spokesman at the Big Spring prison said no decisions have been made on whether to provide special protection for Duke.

"It's certainly going to be, I would imagine, a difficult period for me, but no, I am not overly concerned about that," Duke said. "I certainly have apprehension, like anyone going into federal custody. But I'll get through it. I can handle it. I want to make sure the experience makes me stronger and better and affords me a time for self-inspection and hopefully embark upon a good path, an effective path for the rest of my life. I've got a lot of life ahead of me."

Duke says that the charges he pleaded guilty to were insignificant and maintains he didn't bilk his supporters. He says he took the plea deal because he feared drawing a heavily black jury. "A man identified as a former Ku Klux Klan leader wouldn't have a chance (in a jury trial)," he said. "I was given a choice of doing that or taking a plea."

Duke may find it hard to recover, even on the fringe, which has taken several other hits recently. In the wake of Sept. 11, the FBI and Justice Department have put more pressure on rightist groups. Matt Hale, the head of the hate group the World Church of the Creator, is under indictment for plotting to kill a federal judge. William Pierce, the founder of the National Alliance, died last year.

But Duke will likely be viewed as a martyr by some government-hating segments of the far right. And he will probably retain some cachet abroad that he can still exploit. Duke observers caution that he is a very resourceful figure.

"Is he washed up as a mainstream figure? I don't know. There were at least three other times when I would have said he's washed up, and he wasn't," said Tim Wise, a senior adviser to the Fisk University Race Relations Institute who monitors the far right. "Now he's going to jail, but I've learned to never say when he might be finished. He always manages to reinvent himself, and the movement he's a part of is so desperate for leaders, they keep coming back to him."

[David Duke is a malignant narc]

David Duke is a malignant narcissist.

He invents and then projects a false, fictitious, self for the world to fear, or to admire. He maintains a tenuous grasp on reality to start with and the trappings of power further exacerbate this. Real life authority and David Duke's predilection to surround him with obsequious sycophants support David Duke's grandiose self-delusions and fantasies of omnipotence and omniscience.
David Duke's personality is so precariously balanced that he cannot tolerate even a hint of criticism and disagreement. Most narcissists are paranoid and suffer from ideas of reference (the delusion that they are being mocked or discussed when they are not). Thus, narcissists often regard themselves as "victims of persecution".
Duke fosters and encourages a personality cult with all the hallmarks of an institutional religion: priesthood, rites, rituals, temples, worship, catechism, and mythology. The leader is this religion's ascetic saint. He monastically denies himself earthly pleasures (or so he claims) in order to be able to dedicate himself fully to his calling.
Duke is a monstrously inverted Jesus, sacrificing his life and denying himself so that his people - or humanity at large - should benefit. By surpassing and suppressing his humanity, Duke became a distorted version of Nietzsche's "superman".
But being a-human or super-human also means being a-sexual and a-moral.
In this restricted sense, narcissistic leaders are post-modernist and moral relativists. They project to the masses an androgynous figure and enhance it by engendering the adoration of nudity and all things "natural" - or by strongly repressing these feelings. But what they refer to, as "nature" is not natural at all.
Duke invariably proffers an aesthetic of decadence and evil carefully orchestrated and artificial - though it is not perceived this way by him or by his followers. Narcissistic leadership is about reproduced copies, not about originals. It is about the manipulation of symbols - not about veritable atavism or true conservatism.
In short: narcissistic leadership is about theatre, not about life. To enjoy the spectacle (and be subsumed by it), the leader demands the suspension of judgment, depersonalization, and de-realization. Catharsis is tantamount, in this narcissistic dramaturgy, to self-annulment.
Narcissism is nihilistic not only operationally, or ideologically. Its very language and narratives are nihilistic. Narcissism is conspicuous nihilism - and the cult's leader serves as a role model, annihilating the Man, only to re-appear as a pre-ordained and irresistible force of nature.
Narcissistic leadership often poses as a rebellion against the "old ways" - against the hegemonic culture, the upper classes, the established religions, the superpowers, the corrupt order. Narcissistic movements are puerile, a reaction to narcissistic injuries inflicted upon David Duke like (and rather psychopathic) toddler nation-state, or group, or upon the leader.
Minorities or "others" - often arbitrarily selected - constitute a perfect, easily identifiable, embodiment of all that is "wrong". They are accused of being old, they are eerily disembodied, they are cosmopolitan, they are part of the establishment, they are "decadent", they are hated on religious and socio-economic grounds, or because of their race, sexual orientation, origin ... They are different, they are narcissistic (feel and act as morally superior), they are everywhere, they are defenseless, they are credulous, they are adaptable (and thus can be co-opted to collaborate in their own destruction). They are the perfect hate figure. Narcissists thrive on hatred and pathological envy.
This is precisely the source of the fascination with Hitler, diagnosed by Erich Fromm - together with Stalin - as a malignant narcissist. He was an inverted human. His unconscious was his conscious. He acted out our most repressed drives, fantasies, and wishes. He provides us with a glimpse of the horrors that lie beneath the veneer, the barbarians at our personal gates, and what it was like before we invented civilization. Hitler forced us all through a time warp and many did not emerge. He was not the devil. He was one of us. He was what Arendt aptly called the banality of evil. Just an ordinary, mentally disturbed, failure, a member of a mentally disturbed and failing nation, who lived through disturbed and failing times. He was the perfect mirror, a channel, a voice, and the very depth of our souls.
Duke prefers the sparkle and glamour of well-orchestrated illusions to the tedium and method of real accomplishments. His reign is all smoke and mirrors, devoid of substances, consisting of mere appearances and mass delusions. In the aftermath of his regime - Duke having died, been deposed, or voted out of office - it all unravels. The tireless and constant prestidigitation ceases and the entire edifice crumbles. What looked like an economic miracle turns out to have been a fraud-laced bubble. Loosely held empires disintegrate. Laboriously assembled business conglomerates go to pieces. "Earth shattering" and "revolutionary" scientific discoveries and theories are discredited. Social experiments end in mayhem.
It is important to understand that the use of violence must be ego-syntonic. It must accord with the self-image of David Duke. It must abet and sustain his grandiose fantasies and feed his sense of entitlement. It must conform David Duke like narrative. Thus, David Duke who regards himself as the benefactor of the poor, a member of the common folk, the representative of the disenfranchised, the champion of the dispossessed against the corrupt elite - is highly unlikely to use violence at first. The pacific mask crumbles when David Duke has become convinced that the very people he purported to speak for, his constituency, his grassroots fans, and the prime sources of his narcissistic supply - have turned against him. At first, in a desperate effort to maintain the fiction underlying his chaotic personality, David Duke strives to explain away the sudden reversal of sentiment. "The people are being duped by (the media, big industry, the military, the elite, etc.)", "they don't really know what they are doing", "following a rude awakening, they will revert to form", etc. When these flimsy attempts to patch a tattered personal mythology fail, David Duke becomes injured. Narcissistic injury inevitably leads to narcissistic rage and to a terrifying display of unbridled aggression. The pent-up frustration and hurt translate into devaluation. That which was previously idealized - is now discarded with contempt and hatred. This primitive defense mechanism is called "splitting". To David Duke, things and people are either entirely bad (evil) or entirely good. He projects onto others his own shortcomings and negative emotions, thus becoming a totally good object. Duke is likely to justify the butchering of his own people by claiming that they intended to kill him, undo the revolution, devastate the economy, or the country, etc. The "small people", the "rank and file", and the "loyal soldiers" of David Duke - his flock, his nation, and his employees - they pay the price. The disillusionment and disenchantment are agonizing. The process of reconstruction, of rising from the ashes, of overcoming the trauma of having been deceived, exploited and manipulated - is drawn-out. It is difficult to trust again, to have faith, to love, to be led, to collaborate. Feelings of shame and guilt engulf the erstwhile followers of David Duke. This is his sole legacy: a massive post-traumatic stress disorder.