Two phenomena: anti-Semitism and American class conflict. Is there any connection between them? In a letter to this newspaper, the noted venture capitalist Tom Perkins called attention to certain parallels, as he saw them, between Nazi Germany's war against the Jews and American progressives' war on the "one percent." For comparing two such historically disparate societies, Mr. Perkins was promptly and heatedly denounced.
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? The place to begin is at the starting point: with the rise of anti-Semitism, modernity's most successful and least understood political movement.Basically: The racist Wilhelm Marr was "originally a man of the left," and Karl Marx once used an unfortunate metaphor. This proves progressives are anti-Semitic, just as the Jamaican bobsled team proves that Caribbeans are natural winter athletes.
Also, today we have an "anti-Israel movement of boycott, divestment and sanctions," not because people (including plenty of Jews) are troubled by the treatment of Palestinians in the occupied territories, but because they all hate Jews and just needed a more exotic focus for their hatred now that Nazi rallies are unfashionable.
Wisse continues:
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......says the lady equating mainstream liberals with Hitler. Would it be anti-Semitic to tell her to go fuck herself?
UPDATE. Commenters catch the anti-Semitic bug! "Tl;dr, alt: If you don't have anything nice to say, you're Hitler," offers whetstone. Jeffrey_Kramer kicks it up a notch:
It turns out that anything can be equated with Hitler if you keep the association abstract enough. Flip through the dictionary and come up with a random word: I got scrum. So, "Is it not at the very heart of Nazism to join arms mindlessly in an attempt to crush the enemy into submission?" Flip again: crayon. "The opposing team's suggestion that children be given crayons is redolent of the Nazi love for gaudy propaganda which dazzled its followers with colorful phrases while bypassing the intellect"....Etc. Big_Bad_Bald_Bastard posits "Cristalnacht," because "now [the rich] can't drink their overpriced champagne in peace." Jay B recognizes that because he wants the 1% "taxed at a reasonable level and maybe several dozen of them in prison," he is "the Gregor Strasser of Liberal Fascism or something. We've already established that Roy is the Ezra Pound." Hmmph! I'll be Celine or nothing.
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