Thread by @PnictogenHorses

Western #education is in abysmal state, and #capitalism is to blame.

the noisemakers at all levels of the #conservative noise machine, from the august @AEI propagandists (like "race scientist" @charlesmurray) to circus sideshows like @Timcast, try to blame "woke", but...

(1/x)

that "woke" game is extremely thin by now. really it's just rebranded Red Scare nonsense. in 1950, it was Commies who were "destroying our youth" with virulent ideas that right-wing ideologues didn't like, like abstract algebra; now @mtracey and @DouthatNYT blame "woke".

(2/x)

but ask any low-level right-wing expert on "woke"—ask @realchrisrufo or @ConceptualJames what "wokeism" actually *is*—and you'll get the word "Marxism" in no time: "woke" is, in other words, nothing new at all. it's the same old paranoia about pinko Rooskies in closets.

(3/x)

it's ALSO basically the same paranoia that informs antisemitic stereotypes about "Jewish physics" and even "Jewish chess" that both @thehenryford and the Third Reich peddled (Ford taught the NSDAP a lot of their "race science"): anticommunism blends into antisemitism.

(4/x)

antisemitism is, sadly, evergreen in Western society. if @elonmusk or @mtaibbi ever burble about "adrenochrome" to their gullible fans, they're peddling a rebranded antisemitic trope called the "blood libel"—the accusation that Jews stole infants for blood sacrifices.

(5/x)

#Christianity and #Christian culture has never let go of antisemitism and antisemitic fears; they're a psychological defense mechanism against *doubt*.

Christians can't get away from it: there's a good chance that all their claims about Jesus and the Bible are *wrong*.

(6/x)

@dalepartridge and @pastorlocke and all the preacher-grifters of #Christianity, the people who view "faith" chiefly as a tool for grabbing money and fame (Saul of Tarsus was himself a preacher-grifter), have *literally* banked their futures on selling a story about Jesus.

(7/x)

they and millions of other Christians are in the same boat: they're committed to a narrative about #Jesus and the #Bible that makes little sense and which no human being is obliged to believe.

Christianity is *terrified* of admitting this. they can't acknowledge doubt.

(8/x)

so, #Christians see potential enemies everywhere. they're so frightened by the mere *possibility* that their religion is _false_ that their only recourse is violent hatred and attempted suppression of any competing religious ideas—starting of course with Judaism.

(9/x)

#Christian civilization even went so far as to create a *false Judaism*, a secular Judaism—namely, the modern-day state of @Israel, a *political* entity and proxy for aggressive Western foreign-policy ambitions in the Middle East.

this nation is *not a religious entity*.

(10/x)

yet Western #media and #journalism and #politics (especially @GOP politicians, who are instruments of a hideously antisemitic form of right-wing #Christian fascısm) all habitually pretend as though supporting @Israel's genocidal activities is refutation of antisemitism.

(11/x)

but @Israel does not represent Judaism; a political creation of imperialist European geopolitics is not—in any way, shape, or form—a religious body representative of worldwide Judaism.

but Western propagandists like @bariweiss and @EliLake and @mtaibbi sell this lie.

(12/x)

they *need* to: the culture of the West—especially its right wing—is saturated with scarcely hidden antisemitism. stale antisemitic tropes turn up often in Western #journalism and Western pop culture. #HarryPotter and @HogwartsLegacy traffic in antisemitic stereotypes.

(13/x)

"gender criticism" justifies itself partly with antisemitism; @HJoyceGender copied antisemitic conspiracy nonsense from another GC propagandist, Jennifer Bilek, and beyond doubt the entire @bindelj / @Docstockk / @jk_rowling set is festering with bigotry towards Jews.

(14/x)

they just can't help themselves. their own bigotry is mostly #Christian in origin; to be a bigot like @mtaibbi or @AbigailShrier (or @elonmusk) is to imagine oneself an infallible God judging humans on their worth, and that is a characteristically Christian sickness.

(15/x)

hence it's sadly *expected* that these people pounce on antisemitism as an explanation for their woes. if you see @mtaibbi or @Timcast or @MattWalshBlog, or anyone else from that crowd, blithering about a "cabal" or about George Soros, you are seeing antisemitic excuses.

(16/x)

@TheDemocrats are hardly exempt; @HillaryClinton and @BillClinton and a heap of other Democratic pols seethe with spite towards Bernie Sanders for the same reason that @mtaibbi or @mtracey likes pretending that Soros is an evil mastermind: he's a convenient scapegoat.

(17/x)

that's why bigotry exists: it gives the bigots an explanation for their own failures. @mtaibbi, a failure, can pretend it was some "cabal" or "Deep State" that brought him down. @HillaryClinton can pretend "Bernie" was why she blundered away an election.

~Mona Drafter

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