Smart Jewish Lady Thinks Bazillionaire Was Right About Progressives Genociding Him, So That’s Settled

It's over, people! The Tom Perkins controversy is over. A lady called Ruth Wisse, who is a smart Harvard-type Jewish lady who writes so many books about Jewish stuff, has decided that Tom Perkins was right on the money when he said that "progressives" might be getting ready to genocide all rich people. She is slippery, though: She, like Tom Perkins, is  just asking questions:   

But is there something to be said for his comparison—not of Germany and the United States, of course, but of the politics at work in the two situations?

Hmm, IS there "something to be said for his comparison"? Beyond "it was stupid, many people laughed at it, and we are confident that, on the whole, it won over literally not a single person"? No, but it's pretty much this lady's entire job to compare things abstractly, and not very well, and write words about them, so she'll just do that and we'll see where we end up, shall we? Once more unto the breach, dear friends!

These were some of [anti-Semitism's] typical ploys: Are you unemployed? The Jews have your jobs. Is your family mired in poverty? The Rothschilds have your money. Do you feel more insecure in the city than you did on the land? The Jews are trapping you in factories and charging you exorbitant rents.

OK, let us ponder the difference between the false claims made against Jews (throw in blood libel while we're at it), and the true things that liberals/progressives are saying about "the 1%," such as "median income has stagnated or declined while income for top earners has vastly increased," and also "raising taxes on high earners could help us pay for early childhood education, health care, and economic security for everybody." Oh, did you already work out how they're different? Like how one relies on true things, while the other is just a bunch of nonsense to manipulate people using paranoia and fear?

Anti-Semitism accused Jews of undermining Christian authority and corrupting the German legal system, the arts and the press. Jews were said to be rabid internationalists spreading Bolshevism—and ruthless capitalists exploiting for their own gain the nation's natural and human resources.

Are you worried about political corruption? Pollution? Exploitation? Why, don't you realize that anti-Semites said the same things about Jews? You monster.

Herein lies one structural connection between a politics of blame directed specifically at Jews and a politics of grievance directed against "the rich." The ranks of those harping on "unfairly" high earners include figures in American political life at all levels who have been entrusted with the care of our open society; in channeling blame for today's deep-rooted and seemingly intractable problems toward the beneficiaries of that society's competitive freedoms, they are playing with fire.

Basically this reduces to "It's the same thing because both Nazis and liberals were/are represented in government." Also, did you notice how she threw in the bit about today's "seemingly intractable problems"? Don't even worry about those problems, or even try to describe what they are exactly -- they are seemingly intractable!

Herein lies a deeper structural connection. On the global front today, the much larger and more obvious beneficiary of those same blessings [freedom and opportunity] is the democratic capitalist system of the United States, and the ultimate target of the ultimate negative campaign is the American people. Anyone seeking to understand the inner workings of such a campaign will find much food for thought in Mr. Perkins's parallel.

In part, this is block-quoted for her duplication of "Herein lies," and bad writing in general: "On the global front today" feels cribbed from a half-assed freshman essay. But what is she trying to say here, with these inferior words? Even reading her preceding paragraph sheds no light on it. The "ultimate negative campaign" is... what? Being indirectly mean to Tom Perkins, causing him to write a dumb letter, probably from his yacht, jet, or fortified compound? Being directly mean* to Tom Perkins after he wrote the dumb letter? Being worried about how many people are struggling harder and harder just to get by? Acknowledging the obvious reality that we're not going to solve this problem by lowering taxes, cutting welfare, and dissolving the EPA?

What part of this is "the ultimate negative campaign"? Is it, maybe, collective shaming? It's really confusing because Ruth Wisse herself is not above collective shaming. For example, she has said:  "Palestinian Arabs [are] people who breed and bleed and advertise their misery," which must mean she personally spoke to every Palestinian Arab, since no educated, reasonable, non-Holocaust-doing person would condemn an entire culture like that, right?

*Whenever we do a post like this, some people comment that they want to do pitchforks and guillotines and mouth-poops** to the rich jerks, which is really not nice and does not make it easy for us to say "It's so dumb when rich people feel threatened by the proles," because aren't you kind of threatening them when you say "I want to murder rich people"? Try and do like the Bible and Martin Luther King, Jr. told you: Love your enemies. Or if you can't do that, at least don't stoop to their level. After all, they are what powers yr Wonket.

**Mouth-poop comments are OK.

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