BB562975 · Ⓐ☭
Ok, now how about these depictions of Goldman Sachs as a vampire squid?pic.twitter.com/4iohjnzSVN
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Curious for folks' responses. Bearing in mind that the Kochs are not Jewish and that the octopus, with its tentacles in everything and/or encircling the globe, has been used as a motif in antisemitic imagery for over 100 years: Is this image antisemitic?pic.twitter.com/CP1R8winL5
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The image of the octopus was a frequent theme in anti-Communist propaganda. Communism has always been associated with Jews by the far-right.pic.twitter.com/EX31pzSCi4
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It's also been a frequent theme in anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist propaganda.pic.twitter.com/ILMkGeQgne
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It's true that the image has been used in many contexts, some having absolutely nothing to do with Jews.https://atlanticsentinel.com/2017/08/the-octopus-in-political-cartoons/ …
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But it's also true that it's been such a common feature of antisemitic imagery throughout the ages that one should studiously avoid using at no matter how alluring the appeal of the tentacle analogy.pic.twitter.com/be4eLWA3FS
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There is a strain of antisemitism that seeks to Judaize nefarious public figures by falsely depicting them as Jewish in order to foster further animosity against Jews. By applying antisemitic motifs to non-Jews, the goal is to communicate that they are Jewish and thus bad.
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You see this most often in Nazi memes about Jewish ownership of the media that claim Rupert Murdoch and other absolutely-under-no-circumstances-Jewish people are Jews.
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But it's a practice that has gone on for many years in many societies for various reasons at various times.https://www.memri.org/reports/egyptian-journalist-emad-albeheery-turkey-based-muslim-brotherhood-tv-channel-president-al …
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Now what if I were to tell you that none of this thread is actually about octopi and squid but about the way we think about antisemitism and the way it infects our discourse in unconscious ways that can be harmful even if unintended?
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No one is going to see a picture of the Koch Bros. octopus and walk into the Koch wing of the American Natural History Museum and shoot up the place. But they might think Koch is a Jewish-sounding name and associate the image of the octopus with a conception of Jewish power.
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This could also be an instance of Judaization insofar as it is frequently falsely claimed that Rockefeller was a Jew.https://twitter.com/LCRWnews/status/1127657778401558528 …
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Anywho, I've been thinking about this today because of the whole Buttigieg/Adelson thing. Criticizing powerful Jews isn't necessarily antisemitic. But criticizing Jews and non-Jews alike can be antisemitic if you're tapping into the vocabulary of antisemitism to do it.
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Buttigieg did no such thing. But it is important to be conscious and aware of how thin that line can be and to do your best to stay on the right side of it...and to also not be full of shit and blur that line so you can use it to hit your political opposition.
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It's why I got so pissed when Bernie announced and non-Jewish Bernie supporters started cynically claiming criticism of him was antisemitic to get back at Hillary supporters who claimed that criticism of her was sexisthttps://twitter.com/JewishWorker/status/1098400566672273408 …
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After two years of screaming about how Trump was normalizing antisemitism, the GOP figured out that they could play the same game and now they're throwing it back in the Left's face using whatever they can find at their disposal. Just don't give them the ammo. It's not hard.
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A few more examples, including a spider variant of the theme.pic.twitter.com/ppKoK6HQxd
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End of conversation
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