By Sydney Stock, , Bellevue
Professor Derek Penslar’s views at the University of Washington, “Sovereigns & Subjects: Jewish Political Thought in the 20th Century.” (“Fighting for their countries,” March 7) were dangerous. He claims that stereotyping Jews as Woody Allens, or as “pink” liberal radical pacifists, requires responding how Jews “served honorably,” a view especially ironic given that again the U.S. is waging an aggressive, criminal war.
Everyone is to believe that males’ highest and best use is killing or maiming, being killed, or maimed, “for country.” Questioning or resisting is branded cowardly/traitorous, especially when it’s Jewish men.
Nazi Hermann Goering stated, “Naturally the common people don’t want war: Neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”
Penslar referenced Czarist “service,” 25 years for Jews. Most never returned. Shtetls employed maimers to blind eyes, deform limbs, etc. to make youths unacceptable.
In 1935, two-time Congressional Medal of Honor recipient Smedly Butler wrote: “I spent 33 years and four months in the Marine Corp on active duty. I served from second lieutenant to major general. I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. I was a racketeer for capitalism…. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank to collect revenues in. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras “right” for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927, I helped see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.
“I suspected I was part of a racket. Now I am sure of it. Like all military professionals, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed orders. I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket…. I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was operate in three city districts. We Marines operated on three continents….
“Our exploits against the American Indian, the Filipinos, the Mexicans, and against Spain are on a par with the campaigns of Genghis Khan, the Japanese in Manchuria and the African attack of Mussolini. No country has ever declared war on us before we first obliged them with that gesture. Our whole history shows we have never fought a defensive war.”
Branded “prematurely anti-Fascist” the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, 30 percent Jews, defended democracy in the Spanish Civil War. Teddy Roosevelt, unbelievably pro-war until war took his son, said: “Standing by a president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
“Serving” to disprove anti-Jewish stereotypes is internalized anti-Semitism.”