Comments on: (Former) Feminist Icon Helen Thomas is a Raving Anti-Semite

By: BeckySharper

BeckySharper — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 02:35:24 +0000

@martha: Completely agree about the hate-filled version of senility usually being a glimpse of what was there all along. Any kind of deterioration means you lose the ability to self-edit and then you tend to start spouting stuff you’ve been thinking all along. Then again, when you see bigots ranting their bigotry, they always look/sound kind of crazy because what they’re saying is illogical and hateful.

The other way that I think age might play into this is that people of Helen Thomas’s generation were raised in an atmosphere of casual racism, anti-Semitism…the -isms were pretty much the norm. I see this in my family members that age ALL the time. I think it’s highly likely that she was raised with a lot of anti-Semitic stereotypes and she absorbed them, as people do, and still holds them.

By: martha

martha — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 01:25:24 +0000

@BeckySharper and @Lindsay: There is a chance she’s slightly senile. At 90, it’s pretty hard to be entirely lucid. That being said, the hate-filled version of senility is usually an exaggerated (or merely filter-free) version of pre-senile shit.

By: veggiewood

veggiewood — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 20:18:36 +0000

Oh dear, but I do think I’m going to throw my two cents in here about the religious/ethnic lobby. I think the concerns people have (including me) are that our foreign policy is dictated by a disproportionately small group of people (in relation to population) that wield incredible power – I’m thinking of AIPAC and the Cuban lobby (sorry, I don’t specifically know any of their groups). I can’t say I’m a huge fan of fundamentalist Christians, but they are more representative of our population and one could argue that it would make sense that they wield more power (again, not that I want them too). Same goes for LDS in Utah. Of course, they couldn’t wield that power if Congress didn’t let them, so I think it’s kind of weird to blame the lobbyists themselves rather than the political system that begets them. Except of course those who lobby for things I’m against ethically like the pro cock-fighting lobby. Then they’re just assholes.

By: BeckySharper

BeckySharper — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 14:10:38 +0000

@Bellacoker: That’s possible, although throughout the interview she tends to use “they” a lot to refer to Jews. The only other “they” I can think of that she might mean in that context would be “reporters”, which could be the antecedent to “they”.

But the whole “they have their ink” and “they have to have their way” sounds to me like she’s just being paranoid about the Jews she believes control the media and got her fired…although I suppose she could be paranoid about the other reporters in general, although I’m not sure why.

By: BeckySharper

BeckySharper — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 13:56:48 +0000

Boogienights comment deconstructed:

I hate Israel’s government therefore I hate all Jews everywhere because everyone knows they all think alike and conspire together to destroy the world through genocide!

People should be able to be raving anti-Semites if they want! People are bigots about other groups, so why can’t people be bigots about Jews? If Jews complain about it, well, they should just STFU because this is America and we shit on everyone! It’s our right to shit on minorities and if you object when we shit on you, you’re censoring us!

Thanks for that. Always good to hear from the pro-Jew-bashing crowd. Also, you need to look up both “censor” and “genocide”, because you are misusing both.

By: bellacoker

bellacoker — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 04:02:54 +0000

It seemed to me that the “they” in the second block quote was referring to the “people” who will write her “obituary” and probably not to “the Jews.” And she is also probably correct on that point.

By: boogienights

boogienights — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 02:32:39 +0000

Becky Sharper, none of those other lobbies you have mentioned are lobbying to use US tax dollars to commit genocide. Stop dragging America into it! Also, these other groups are not censoring American citizens and getting them fired for expressing contrary opinions about a foreign country. THAT is where the resentment comes from. Racists like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck can be on the air but Rick Sanchez and Helen Thomas can’t?

Look what happened to Rachel Corrie and how they shut down the NY play about her life.
Americans don’t like being censored.

By: BeckySharper

BeckySharper — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 16:38:24 +0000

@Lindsay: There’s no evidence that she suffers from dementia or any kind of mental illness, and throughout the rest of the Playboy interview, she speaks lucidly, candidly, and with humor about many aspects of her life and career. She doesn’t seem to be befuddled or confused and seems to have good clarity and recall on other topics. And remember, she’s always been an emotional, assertive, outspoken person in public—that was one of the hallmarks of her career as a journalist—so this seems pretty consistent with her usual behavior, IMO.

Personally, I think she’s probably always been this way. In the days before YouTube and internet and the 24-hour news cycle, you could be a bigot and get away with it much more easily because you didn’t leave any evidence. For example, no one knew the depths of Nixon’s Jew-hating (and Billy Graham’s) until his White House tapes were made public, but he was clearly into the same paranoid conspiracies that Thomas is. My guess is she’s always been an anti-Semite, but she’s only been caught out now. And maybe she’s more willing to be open about it in this interview because now she has nothing to lose.

By: mischiefmanager

mischiefmanager — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 15:58:55 +0000

@MonkeyShines: What does that mean, the “Israeli [sic] lobby” has “wiped out” careers? Does that mean that voters in the districts of those congresspeople voted them out? Does it mean that Jews stay informed regarding issues of interest to us and vote accordingly? Do you really think that Jews march in lockstep about Israel?

And Walt and Mearshimer have been pretty thoroughly discredited.

By: Lindsay Beyerstein

Lindsay Beyerstein — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 15:58:52 +0000

Has she gone senile? Or was she always like this? The part in the interview where she breaks down and says “I’m a reporter” made me wonder.