← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Maximillian
Thread ID: 10286 | Posts: 3 | Started: 2003-10-06
2003-10-06 02:31 | User Profile
Read the whole essay by Professor Kaplan: [url]http://www.wpunj.edu/cohss/old_cohss/sociology/sociology/kaplan4.htm[/url]
[QUOTE]Gerald L. K. Smith was in the years before World War II a populist orator of the first magnitude and, as opposition to his message grew- an opposition which he identified as emanating primarily from the American Jewish community- was alongside Father Charles E. Coughlin, among the leading anti- Semites in the nation. More, Smith's crusade brought together the adherents of a number of radical right wing appeals in a coalition which, given its fractious nature, is unlikely to occur again in the Americas. At first, the organized Jewish community in the form of the American Jewish Committee (AJC) and the Anti- Defamation League of the B'nai B'rith (ADL) did little to combat the Smith phenomenon.
This would soon change. War was looming in Europe and the Depression era flourishing of populist appeals of the left and the right had yet to fade. More, Nazi Germany had strong regional pockets of North American admirers and a core of high profile propagandists in both the United States and Canada. With American engagement in the war on the side of the Great Britain and Stalin$s Russia, [B]the interests of the American government and the Jewish organizations converged on the necessity of neutralizing the still influential voices of the radical right for whom distrust of Britain was only marginally less acute than hatred of Sovietcommunism.[/B] One symptom of this sensitivity to the voices of the radical right was the great sedition trial of 1944 in which Gerald L. K. Smith was fortunate to escape indictment.[2] Another symptom was the evolution of resolve in the Jewish community to make an example of Smith to any would- be successor to his mantle as the doyen of the racialist right.
The American Jewish Committee first focused on the activities of Gerald L. K. Smith on a formal level in May 1947 when, alarmed at the apparent success of Smith and other right wingers at linking Jews to Soviet communism, the AJC executive committee met to form a plan of attack against the Smith crusade.[3] This and subsequent meetings failed to come to an agreement on a coherent strategy, due primarily to the delicate alance of the body politic in this, the first flush of the Cold War. [B]Soviet Jews were simply too deeply involved in the Soviet state, and ith the international communist movement as well, to risk involving a Jewish organization in the controversy[/B].4 Making a virtue of indecision, the strategy which both the ADL and AJC eventually arrived at was termed at the time "dynamic silence." [B]Championed by Rabbi S. A. Fineberg of the AJC, the idea was to close off all access to the public media- and thus the larger culture- to "rabble rousers" such as Smith[/B].[5] This decision would mark the moment in time when the radical right would gradually fade from direct access to the popular media, and thus the public consciousness, leaving the 'watchdog' organizations such as the ADL and AJC in a position to assume stewardship of the public exposure of the movement.[/QUOTE]
The apparently Jewish Professor Kaplan lays it all out in this paragraph. His entire essay on the death of the "radical" right and the emergence of counterproductive right-wing terrorism is worth reading.
2003-10-06 17:45 | User Profile
This sort of thing is called racketeering when other people do it:
[QUOTE]Making a virtue of indecision, the strategy which both the ADL and AJC eventually arrived at was termed at the time "dynamic silence." ...This decision would mark the moment in time when the radical right would gradually fade from direct access to the popular media, and thus the public consciousness, [B]leaving the 'watchdog' organizations such as the ADL and AJC in a position to assume stewardship of the public exposure of the movement...[/B][/QUOTE]
Nice find, Maximillian.
2003-10-07 06:11 | User Profile
Excellent find. Coughlin was the first victim of "dynamic silence", I'd wager.