I always love a literary reference. Yeah I wonder what he was seeing, in his time, and I have thought about that myself from time to time in recent months...
The Talmudic approach to "truth" or rather to winning an aim via use and modification of language, disturbs me. Sefaria dot org is full of examples of this sort of verbal dance. I feel that poetry even suffers, because tricksiness and oneupmanship are in opposition to poetic richness. Sure the approach might make use of associations and tangents, but the motive and the outcome aren't poetic, to me anyway.
But anyway, even if you don't see or agree with what I mean, I wonder if you might like this: https://gutenberg.org/files/61963/61963-h/61963-h.htm 'We' by Eugene Zamiatin was apparently inspirational to Orwell, Huxley, and many other writers. I just learned of this book the other day, from a podcast interview with a playwright. It's really something!
There's a bit in here where the ADL office tries to come up with some "anti" activity in the past week and all there is, is stuff like, someone contacted their hotline because they didn't get the job they wanted.
Of course this means that said person was hoping to use the ADL to strongarm the hiring manager... it also means that this misrepresentation of normal human activity as "unfairness" and "hate", to the benefit of the identity group the ADL truly serves, has always been going on.
And yes, contra what someone else is saying here, the "power of the lobby" should absolutely be exposed. There are many ways to skin a cat, and one very effective way to stop undue influence is to simply stop that undue influence. Human nature being what it is, there will always be power games afoot. Trying to get all meta and biggest-picture about it, abstracting from a very clear situation of a deceptive organization exerting undue influence, to a vaguer more all-encompassing and multi-stranded concept, is doomed to failure. Why? Because when every concrete activity that can be halted is passed over as "not root enough", all one's really doing is passing over the concrete activities that can be halted.
Know your limits. Be humble enough to direct energies where they can make a difference, fast. By halting concrete activities, the opponent then has to figure out another move. In that interim space, go after additional concrete activities. Go after the motive engine--which will be more exposed, as it struggles to implement its next move. That is how to attack the problem. Chip away, take advantage where it presents itself, and get down to the root in that fashion.
In this way, even if one fails in one's grandiose goal, one will have severely limited the harms produced by the problem.
As well, in this way, by attacking all the myriad concrete and local manifestations of what one thinks the root problem is (US use of proxies in West Asia--but why stop there, why not go after the big abstraction, US use of proxies anywhere, but why stop there, why not go after the bigger abstraction, US hubris, but why stop there...), it becomes not just possible but in some ways necessary to repeatedly bring that big, abstract driver into the "discussion" or criticism of whatever the concrete and local manifestation is, and so in that way, going after each and every one of them repeatedly drives home the point: there is an idea which is causative of this problem as well as many others. *Over time*, with repeated efforts against concrete, local manifestations, the lesson sinks in: attitudes and large-scale political goals must change.
This simply cannot occur, if one passes up the opportunity to target concrete, local manifestations such as the ADL, and instead stays safely mired in high level dissatisfaction with the big abstraction.
As a result, if one sticks only to the most grandiose goals, while declining to limit the harms one can realistically address, one's actually serving the purposes of the opponent.
There is fwiw an interesting book on the concept of large, multi-tentacled event-objects, 'Hyperobjects' by Timothy Morton. A point he continually makes which is relevant is that it is very difficult for most people to understand sprawling event-objects. By trying to shift everyone's attention to such large event-objects as "US use of proxies in ___ is the real problem", one therefore drastically limits the number of people who can be effective in fighting the problem, or can even understand how it is a problem. Work with the tools and the battle that are available. Idealism and grandiosity is great to feel, it feels important to be a big battler of big ideas. But the long term war is won by slogging through the concrete and the local, and internally it is won by learning to work as hard as one can, accept dissatisfyingly partial outcomes and just move on to the next one, as fast as one can.
Everything you said here rings true however, the conclusion reached by too many is: "Therefore, we need to expose the power of the Lobby" or..."let's get foreign influence out of US politics"
Its essential to expose the real nature of the US/Entity relationship as a military proxy in W Asia, and the ADL as its domestic tool of repression
‘It is necessary to call things by their proper name.’ — Leon Trotsky
Orwell would have had Naziism from which to draw ideas for 1984 but he must have seen the most outrageous liars of all time in Zionism.
I always love a literary reference. Yeah I wonder what he was seeing, in his time, and I have thought about that myself from time to time in recent months...
The Talmudic approach to "truth" or rather to winning an aim via use and modification of language, disturbs me. Sefaria dot org is full of examples of this sort of verbal dance. I feel that poetry even suffers, because tricksiness and oneupmanship are in opposition to poetic richness. Sure the approach might make use of associations and tangents, but the motive and the outcome aren't poetic, to me anyway.
But anyway, even if you don't see or agree with what I mean, I wonder if you might like this: https://gutenberg.org/files/61963/61963-h/61963-h.htm 'We' by Eugene Zamiatin was apparently inspirational to Orwell, Huxley, and many other writers. I just learned of this book the other day, from a podcast interview with a playwright. It's really something!
This documentary, 'Defamation', https://youtu.be/CTAjc1OSrmY?si=O6xTG19jB6hCssdo is from an Israeli documentarian who was given insider access to the ADL because of his bio.
There's a bit in here where the ADL office tries to come up with some "anti" activity in the past week and all there is, is stuff like, someone contacted their hotline because they didn't get the job they wanted.
Of course this means that said person was hoping to use the ADL to strongarm the hiring manager... it also means that this misrepresentation of normal human activity as "unfairness" and "hate", to the benefit of the identity group the ADL truly serves, has always been going on.
And yes, contra what someone else is saying here, the "power of the lobby" should absolutely be exposed. There are many ways to skin a cat, and one very effective way to stop undue influence is to simply stop that undue influence. Human nature being what it is, there will always be power games afoot. Trying to get all meta and biggest-picture about it, abstracting from a very clear situation of a deceptive organization exerting undue influence, to a vaguer more all-encompassing and multi-stranded concept, is doomed to failure. Why? Because when every concrete activity that can be halted is passed over as "not root enough", all one's really doing is passing over the concrete activities that can be halted.
Know your limits. Be humble enough to direct energies where they can make a difference, fast. By halting concrete activities, the opponent then has to figure out another move. In that interim space, go after additional concrete activities. Go after the motive engine--which will be more exposed, as it struggles to implement its next move. That is how to attack the problem. Chip away, take advantage where it presents itself, and get down to the root in that fashion.
In this way, even if one fails in one's grandiose goal, one will have severely limited the harms produced by the problem.
After all, the harms they produce aren't in fact produced by abstractions. Abstract ideas without concrete implementation in a myriad of small, local ways are just abstractions. The harms they produce are via the concrete small and local tools, such as the ADL. Such as AIPAC. Such as Republicans within the last couple of years trying to divert US funds to give benefits to US citizens who go fight in Israel's army. Such as Chuck Schumer. https://www.palestine-studies.org/sites/default/files/attachments/books/Kahanism%20and%20American%20Politics%20-%20The%20Democratic%20Party%27s%20Decades-Long%20Courtship%20of%20Racist%20Fanatics.pdf
As well, in this way, by attacking all the myriad concrete and local manifestations of what one thinks the root problem is (US use of proxies in West Asia--but why stop there, why not go after the big abstraction, US use of proxies anywhere, but why stop there, why not go after the bigger abstraction, US hubris, but why stop there...), it becomes not just possible but in some ways necessary to repeatedly bring that big, abstract driver into the "discussion" or criticism of whatever the concrete and local manifestation is, and so in that way, going after each and every one of them repeatedly drives home the point: there is an idea which is causative of this problem as well as many others. *Over time*, with repeated efforts against concrete, local manifestations, the lesson sinks in: attitudes and large-scale political goals must change.
This simply cannot occur, if one passes up the opportunity to target concrete, local manifestations such as the ADL, and instead stays safely mired in high level dissatisfaction with the big abstraction.
As a result, if one sticks only to the most grandiose goals, while declining to limit the harms one can realistically address, one's actually serving the purposes of the opponent.
There is fwiw an interesting book on the concept of large, multi-tentacled event-objects, 'Hyperobjects' by Timothy Morton. A point he continually makes which is relevant is that it is very difficult for most people to understand sprawling event-objects. By trying to shift everyone's attention to such large event-objects as "US use of proxies in ___ is the real problem", one therefore drastically limits the number of people who can be effective in fighting the problem, or can even understand how it is a problem. Work with the tools and the battle that are available. Idealism and grandiosity is great to feel, it feels important to be a big battler of big ideas. But the long term war is won by slogging through the concrete and the local, and internally it is won by learning to work as hard as one can, accept dissatisfyingly partial outcomes and just move on to the next one, as fast as one can.
Everything you said here rings true however, the conclusion reached by too many is: "Therefore, we need to expose the power of the Lobby" or..."let's get foreign influence out of US politics"
Its essential to expose the real nature of the US/Entity relationship as a military proxy in W Asia, and the ADL as its domestic tool of repression
Dr CBS claims anti-semitism is the new anti-communism