Decoding Amy Sullivan’s message
Why not say what you mean: the Hollywood Jews are ruining this country. At least you don’t go as far as Bill Donoghue and accuse them of loving anal sex, but the whiff of the bonfire and the brownshirt still eminates from your words. The elitism comes from the Dan Gerstein article, which cleverly suggests that women in “exburbs” haven’t heard of threesomes. As if swingers were some unknown thing and the internet didn’t reach them. The arrogance here is just amazing.
However, what does shine through is the often coded anti-semitic words like “cultural elite” and “Hollywood”. When they talk about “Hollywood’s” influence on the media, what they really mean are those dirty Jews are polluting our Christian culture again. Because it’s the same argument used from the days of Father Coughlin. Back then, the studios hopped to their tune to keep the cultural brownshirts away.
But the argument is so subtle, so denuded of history, even well-meaning people slip into the silvershirt and logic of the German-American Bund while not even realizing it. I don’t think you hate Jews or even think your argument is at all anti-semitic. But it is. Because there is never any mention of the culture of sports or fashion or even comic books, but Hollywood. We have a vast culture, music, art, the internet, but they never get mentioned.
Just “Hollywood”. Now, when I think back, the pro-German Joe McCarthy couldn’t wait to get his hands on Hollywood, and oddly enough, many of those blacklisted were…..Jews. Some may have been commies, but a lot were just Jews.Because this isn’t a discussion about culture. Because if it was, we’d be asking why country music lionizes adultery and revenge, why NASCAR fans seem to enjoy crashes, why high school kids are shoved into basketball. Instead we talk about video games, which are marketed and sold to adults, music which hasa shelf life of a few weeks, and movies which cycle in and out of theaters every few weeks, then cable. But this, not a culture which keeps adults at work longer and pays them less is the issue.
I’m not one to accuse people of anti-semitism or Jewhating lightly; like anybody who has some sympathy towards the Palestine side of the Israel/Palestine question I’ves seen too many false accusations of anti-semitism to last me a lifetime, but Steve is right. Even if Amy Sullivan herself is innocent of Jewhating herself, she is putting herself in service to those people who actually do think “secular Jews” control Hollywood and fromt here it is only a short step to believing in the Protocols…
Amy Sullivan is at best a patsy, well meaning if incredibly clueless. She is in the same situation as the late Andrea Dworkin was, when she helped enact anti-pornography laws which were primarily used to suppress feminist writing, rather than Hustler or its ilk. It would be Queer Eye for the Straight Guy that would be banned.
The real culture warriors are only satisfied by having their culture shoved down every american’s throat, 24/7 with no expections. The vast mjority of Americans do not want that, they want their Desparate Housewifes, WWF wrestling, violent computer games and whatever other unrefined passtime Amy Sullivan, miss cultural elite herself, doesn’t like.