Trump whistles his dogs

In her recent Washington Post Article, Jewish academic Cheryl Greenberg makes one valid observation. Trump’s criticism of the Jews is far more subtle than his disapproval of other groups and identities (Mexicans, Muslims, Women etc). Though Trump is not known for pulling his punches, when it comes to the Jews, Trump chooses his words very carefully. Trump, according to Greenberg, is so careful “that it’s not clear that Trump himself fully understands the implications of what he’s saying.” I guess that the Jewish academic couldn’t restrain herself from looking down at the Goy candidate.

Greenberg sees Trump as a puppet-master who controls his audience by means of ‘dog whistling.’ “Trump’s references to money, bankers and international conspiracies appear to be deliberate anti-Semitic dog whistles, and his alt-right supporters recognize (and celebrate) that.”

Greenberg elaborates on her observation, “first of all, dog whistles serve when overt expressions are not an option; they communicate to those who are familiar with the conspiracy theories but maintain plausible deniability.” According to Greenberg, when Trump wants to communicate a message about the Jews, he uses an indecipherable code intelligible only to half of the Americans . . . Greenberg and the ADL.

If Greenberg is correct, if Trump says ‘international Bankers’ but really means Jews, then both the Republican candidate and half of the American people are fearful of the Jews. They must very well understand what a confrontation with Jewish institutions may entail. They know that, in America, criticism of Mexicans, Women, and Muslims is a kosher territory but even a subtle criticism of Jews may cost them dearly. One may wonder, how did this happen? What is the substance of that magical power that empowers half of Americans to speak in codes when they think about Jews?

Greenberg seems to raise the right question just to come up with the wrong answer. “Why would anti-Semitism not be an overt option, while racism, sexism, and xenophobia are?”

“Americans are less willing to accept blatant anti-Semitism than racism,” Greenberg’s answers.

What Greenberg really wants to say is that Americans can be racists and can say whatever they like about whoever they want. But when it comes to Jews, they refrain. Americans do know very well the geography of the boundaries of correctness. Jewish power is for them a taboo, at least momentarily. America and Americans are fully aware of the enormous power that is bestowed in the hands of just a few Jewish oligarchs within the ubiquitous industries of media, finance, politics, and culture.

America would have loved to dissolve the situation peacefully but it can’t. Jewish power can’t be contained or suppressed because we are not even allowed to allude to it, let alone point it out.

Jewish power is defined as the power to silence criticism of Jewish power. Jewish power, as such, is a ticking time bomb. It is a unique form of self-destructiveness. The history of the Jews proves this point. Time after time it is Jewish power that sets the path towards a glamorous Jewish golden age that leads to the most severe tragic consequences.

The Jewish phobia of anti-Semitism is not driven by fear of the gentile. It is actually the other way around. The Jewish fear of anti-Semitism is the result of Jews being fearful of their own might. Jews tend to recognise that there is something in themselves that evokes animosity from others. This is the true meaning of the Jewish “Pre Traumatic Stress Syndrome.” It is the acceptance that from here forward, things can only get worse. Many Jews see in Trump’s popularity a symptom of a fatigue of their own power. They interpret the nostalgic yearning for ‘America being great’ as a pining for a Christian past. Something that predates Goldman Sachs’ and Soros’ dominion. The Jewish aggression towards Trump can be realised as an expression of Jewish guilt. Yet, Trump himself has very little to do with it. He married his daughter to a Jew. He trades with Jews, he loves Israel. He is almost as Jewish as the Clintons.

Greenberg is optimistic. For her, Trump’s popularity is “the final gasping of white supremacy.” His voters—pretty much half of the American people—are dogs reacting to a man with a whistle. I am not as optimistic as Greenberg. I think that exploring such contempt towards half of the American people in the name of a vague progressive mantra is a very dangerous game. It suggests to me that progressives have reached a state of complete detachment.

Gilad Atzmon is an Israeli jazz musician, author and political activist. His new book, “The Wandering Who,” may be ordered from amazon.com or amazon.co.uk.

2 Responses to Trump whistles his dogs

  1. “Detachment” is a word…..
    “Self-important masturbating criminal snots” are words too.

  2. Efforts to build a new global deal to tackle climate change were for many years criticized for moving at a glacial pace. But this week climate negotiators meeting in Morocco find themselves facing an entirely new problem: a deal that, astonishingly, has come into effect more than three years ahead of schedule.

    The Paris Agreement on climate change, designed to start in 2020, entered into force on Friday, a month after reaching key ratification thresholds. On Sunday, the United Nations said 100 parties – 99 countries and the European Union – had formally joined the accord.

    Its swift entry into force has been a cause for celebration – and some puzzlement.

    “We’re now in an interesting conundrum we never thought we’d find ourselves in: After pushing for decisive and speedy action, we got it,” said Paula Caballero, global director of the climate program at the Washington-based World Resources Institute (WRI).

    The immediate challenge for negotiators is that, by law, countries that have ratified the deal must start agreeing the rules to implement it at the next U.N. climate conference.

    But that meeting starts on Monday in Marrakesh. That has left officials a very short time to iron out a host of technical issues – and only about half the parties that crafted the Paris deal eligible to participate in the early decision-making.

    “Because we’ve jump-started the (deal), we now have to find a way for negotiators to discuss the rules while still finding ways for other countries to come in and join,” said Liz Gallagher, a climate diplomacy expert at London-based E3G, a sustainable-development think tank.

    But that is “a good problem to have”, she said. “It’s the first time we really feel the urgency in the negotiations is reflected.”

    TRUMP EFFECT

    The rapid approval of the agreement – one of the fastest in the history of international deal-making – has happened in large part because a growing number of countries feel the urgency of taking swift action to deal with climate change and its worsening impacts, while big climate polluters such as China and the United States have jointly stepped up to push the deal.

    But many nations also have an anxious eye on this week’s U.S. elections, where Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has promised to pull his country out of the climate agreement if elected, analysts said.

    That threat, in recent months, has spurred a rush to ratify the agreement and ensure it takes force before the U.S. vote.

    Under the rules of the Paris Agreement, once it has come into effect, “legally a country cannot withdraw before the next five years are over”, said Sven Harmeling, international climate change policy coordinator for the aid agency CARE.

    The quick ratification of the global climate deal, however, will likely require a bit of procedural fancy footwork at the Nov. 7-18 U.N. climate talks.

    Negotiators, for instance, likely will open the first meeting of the governing body of the Paris Agreement and then suspend it very soon after until 2017, or more likely 2018, said Ulriikka Aarnio, international policy coordinator for Climate Action Network Europe.

    Talks can then continue but no decisions will need to be made until the suspension is lifted, she said. As only countries that have ratified the agreement can vote on the rules, the suspension could spur countries that have not yet passed the deal to do so quickly, she and others said.

    “We need to find a way to ensure that the inclusiveness that has been at the core of the agreement is maintained, so that all countries that want to ratify and haven’t been able to do so are able to fully participate in the rule-making process,” said WRI’s Caballero.

    TEMPERATURE THREAT

    Negotiators in Morocco will be trying to push ahead on a few key points, however, looking at immediate actions that could be taken to cut emissions and how emissions reductions could be ratcheted up from existing promises after a 2018 progress review.

    They also will dig into how the world will make a promised shift to using virtually no fossil fuels by the second half of the century and how to hold global temperature rise to an ambitious target of “well below” 2 degrees Celsius.

    “It’s now starting to sink in,” Aarnio said. “It means really, really drastic mitigation in all sectors, much faster than anything we’ve seen before.

    That effort has had a boost in recent weeks with the passage of an accord to begin limiting the use of hydrofluorocarbons – refrigerants that are major contributors to climate change – and a separate deal to cap increases in aviation emissions by 2020.

    Critics, however, say both deals and the national commitments so far made under the Paris Agreement are less ambitious than what is needed.

    The U.N. environment agency, UNEP, says those national pledges put the world on track for an average temperature hike of 2.9 to 3.4 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times.

    Record temperatures and worsening weather extremes are already putting many people at risk even with the warming of just over 1 degree Celsius registered so far, development experts say.

    From drought-related food insecurity in Malawi and Madagascar to worsening storms in Vietnam and the Philippines, “what we are seeing this year is more and more difficult for people to prepare for and cope with”, said CARE’s Harmeling.