When They Come for the Jews
Sun Apr 17, 2005 at 07:02:53 PM PDT
This is well inspired by Bob's fantastic diary and the resulting discussion, but it's thoughts I've definitely been tossing about in my head for a while anyway. Anyway, this is what I see happening, and if we can have a fresh page to start up after that 400-comment piece, I'm happy to offer it!
I'm going to apologize out in front that I have somewhat disappointingly little evidence. Of cousre, it's nice not to have that evidence just lying around, but still, this is much more speculation and instinct rather than rationale.
The basic problem, I think, is that the alliance between the neo-con PNAC movement, the Rapture Right conservatives, and a faction of AIPAC-inspired Jews is untenable, in the long term under the guise of the Republican Party. The Evangelicals are going to lose it. And that's where the troubles will come from.
First off, I am not specifically concerned about pogroms, state-sponsored attacks, or a second version of the Holocaust. It's not how things happen in this country, and a majority government spousing things like that will never come to power. We're a pluralist state in the minds of most of our citizens.
This does not mean, however, in the slightest that there is no danger. It will come from hate groups, Christianist terrorist organizations, and miscellaneous wackos. Unfortunately, these groups may have a significant backing of indifference and enthusiasm from various sectors of Middle America. In short - watch out for thugs.
The Republican Party is getting dangerously close, particularly evidenced during Schiavo, to losing hold of its coalition. It has neede to whip the Rapture Right into an ever increasing fury to keep their votes, and they know they can't stay mainstream if the give in. So that's why there's been no FMA after the election, etc. It's all lipservice, and they can only keep doing it for so long. They have to step up the rhetoric as carefully as they can.
They've been nurturing a latent anti-Semitism for some time, using it as a wedge against the liberal media, and Hollywood, plus the big cities. The hate was there first - they merely leveraged it against their political enemies. It's been keeping hate alive when it should have faded away - see the incident in "Throw the Jew down the Well", for example (Ali G's satire)
At some point in the past twenty years, they realized they were going to need cover - having Pat Buchanan as your poster boy tends to scare off American voters and put Bill Clinton in office - so that's where the Rapture Alliance came from. There's decent theology that says the Jews play a pretty big part, so they need to enthusiastically support Israel. Robertson and Falwell and LaHaye ran to the pulpits preaching of the importance of Biblical Israel, and the GOP reached out to AIPAC - we'll scratch your back. Plus, they got in on the oil- and power- driven plans that PNAC lets out.
It was a shrewd strategy, I think - the Jews, and I speak as one, are as prone to ethnocentrism and nationalism as anyone else in the world. Most of them are liberal pluralists, but there's always a faction of True Patriots who are willing to deal quite literally with the devil. No people are immune, and it resonated because hey, the Jews have been through a lot. It's easy to be defensive.
This bought off the Likud-nik Americans (a small minority) directly, but it had wider effects. Many Jews have a cousin or an uncle who leans that way, and it's just enough to keep them from calling out the strategy, raise a doubt. 1 in 5 Jews voted for Bush - but that still puts one in every extended family.
With Jewish cover, the Rapture Right could go mainstream. It put the Judeo- in front of Christian, and created the illusion of just barely enough tolerance to deflect mainline criticism: See? We love Israel! We can govern a multi-religious country.
So that gets us today - the alliance in full swing. It's safe at least for the time being, but we're really just biding our time for an Incident that will tip it off. The key heat on the soon-to-be boiling kettle is the state of Israel itself, I believe.
Someday, sooner rather than later, Israel is going to have a real agreement with Palestine. Probably a week after Sharon gets out of power - in any case, it will involve passing off the West Bank, Gaza, and probably a chunk of Jerusalem. Settlers and rights of return are details.
The Rapturist will watch a grinning Prime Minister shake hands with a beaming Mahmoud Abbas (maybe). And the thought will pop into his head: "The motherfucking kikes just sold us out."
Stabbed in the back, so to speak. American Jews are thrilled, and even AIPAC will probably not go dramatically against the Israeli government. What's left, however, is a radical group of fundamentalist Jews waging war in the holy land. The guys who killed Rabin. The guys who threatend to piss on Sharon's wife after the exhume her corpse. They're going to have some American friends, and they're going to be LOUD.
Check your bible: 40,000 Jews are going to be saved in the rapture. The radical fundamentalist fringe in Israel is going to number something fairly close to that. Tantalizingly close. Now that the Rapturists have found the real Jews, in their mind, they can put prophecy aside. They need to save these real Jews against the atheists who sold out.
That is, me, and everyone on that side of my family. Every Jew you know, for example. They won't get the government to do it for them, because this is a fringe movement. But they've already been forgiven - the Congress told them Hollywood is Evil. The President told them about that Lib'rul Media in New York City. They think they had one foot in heaven, and American Jews yanked them back. Meanwhile, the government has failed to outlaw abortion, the queers just won marriage rights in five more states, condoms advertise during the Super Bowl, and the Supreme Court said you can't have "In God We Trust" on the money. Plus, a nigger is President (Obama) (Maybe) and you just lost your job. Not your fault. Not the White Boss's fault (isn't Walton a good Christian). "It's the fucking Jews that did this to me". They killed Christ ("I saw that movie", they took down the best Congressman we ever had (that temptor Abramoff), and now they fucked it all up for guys like me. It just needs any small spark from their on out, it doesn't matter what, and it's going down.
Some nutjob will blow up a synogogue. Maybe heave a rock through ever Kosher deli he can find. Buy his son his first beer for beating up Billy Liebowitz in school. Assassinate Russ Feingold. Or Jon Stewart. Maybe just suicide bomb Times Square. You get the picture.
They'll be arrested of course. Some will probably be executed. There might be a shootout in a compound somewhere. Governments - both Democratic and Republican, are going to have to crack down, and there will be martyrs and more pushes outside the mainstream. But every time, there might be a few converts.
It's bad news when the Apocalypse doesn't come when you're expecting it. This is what I'm afraid of. It's a worst-case scenario, of course, but it's scarily possible.
Permalink | 12 comments