← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · il ragno
Thread ID: 13676 | Posts: 9 | Started: 2004-05-13
2004-05-13 12:06 | User Profile
Jews being Jews. Which is to say, parasites. By the time they've turned your town into a West Bank settlement, you won't even be able to complain without the first question the media poses to you in response being, "How long have you been an anti-Semite, and are you still beating your wife?" (Thanks to Chuck Pearson for the links, and Wintermute for the heads-up.)
[QUOTE][url]http://www.jta.org/page_view_story.asp?strwebhead=Tension+up+over+slaughterhouse&intcategoryid=5[/url]
BEHIND THE HEADLINES Fight over kosher slaughterhouse in Iowa takes its saltiest turn yet By Amir Efrati
IOWA CITY, May 9 (JTA) — For more than a decade, tension has been a way of life in Postville, Iowa, where a group of Chasidic Jews are the small town’s power brokers, owning the top industry and employer, Agriprocessors Inc., the world’s largest glatt-kosher slaughterhouse. In the saltiest chapter yet, a group of farmers is fighting the company’s new, $10.7 million mechanical wastewater treatment plant, which when complete will discharge more than 14.5 tons of salt used by the slaughterhouse into local streams every day.
Construction of the plant began last month with $7.5 million in federal grants and loans. But on April 28, Northeast Iowa Citizens for Clean Water filed an appeal with the Iowa Supreme Court to stop construction of the plant until a trial — slated for February 2005 — decides the legality of the proposed level of salt discharge.
The litigation will focus on an August 2003 permit issued by Iowa’s Department of Natural Resources, or DNR, authorizing the salt discharge. The state’s supreme court will review the appeal for a stay later this month.
The citizens group and environmentalists in Iowa claim the proposed discharge — more than twice the amount the slaughterhouse currently releases into the city’s lagoon system — would violate state and federal water quality standards.
They also say it would damage the ecosystem of the scenic Yellow River, a rare and valuable cold-water trout stream that connects to aquifers tapped by the farmers’ drinking wells, which they say would be contaminated.
“I’m definitely in favor of the new plant,” said Jerry Anderson, an environmental lawyer and law professor at Drake University in Des Moines who is representing the citizens group, which has 15 core members. “But the plant will not take one molecule of salt out of the water. It’s just going to dilute it. This doesn’t comply with the law.”
Anderson’s clients are asking Agriprocessors to add technology to the new plant that would remove salt from outgoing wastewater.
On two separate occasions this year, the citizens group failed at the district court level to get a stay on the plant’s construction.
Sholom Rubashkin, vice president of Agriprocessors, said his company is being targeted by farmers who are purposely ignoring other sources of pollution in the area.
“If people are so concerned about the environment, let’s talk about all the other pollutants, like those from the hog farms. Why are they not concerned about that?” he said. “Which contaminant are they attacking? Salt — which belongs to the Jewish people.”
Salt is used to leach blood from the meat, an essential part of making meat kosher.
Rubashkin added that Agriprocessors, which will pay back $4.5 million in federal loans for the plant, is making a “tremendous improvement” to the environment because the plant will reduce pollutants such as ammonia, which kills fish.
“This is all done with the blessing of the DNR,” Rubashkin said. “This is the most researched permit ever given in the state of Iowa.”
The Lubavitch Chasidim came to Iowa from Brooklyn in the late 1980s to take over a defunct meat processing plant. Chasidic Jews now make up about 10 percent of Postville’s 2,200 residents, and the slaughterhouse employs more than 600 people.
Since they arrived, the Chasidim often have been at odds with local farmers — and much of the rest of Postville, says Stephen Bloom, author of “Postville: A Clash of Cultures in Heartland America.”
When they opened the slaughterhouse, “there were farmers who pleaded with the Lubavitchers not to dump the tonnage of salt,” said Bloom, a journalism professor at the University of Iowa. “Their response was consistent: ‘This is how we go about our religion. If you disagree with us, you’re an anti-Semite.’ There seemed to be little concern by the Lubavitchers about the environment.”
But Aaron Goldsmith — the only Chasidic Jew to serve on Postville’s City Council, until his term ended in January — said there was “no science whatsoever to support that there will be any negative effect” on the environment from the plant’s discharge.
During his three-year term, Goldsmith served on a 10-person city committee that unanimously approved the Department of Natural Resources permit after hearing from scientific experts who supported the plan, and he played a key role in negotiating a settlement between the city, the Department of Natural Resources and Agriprocessors over the specifics of the plant’s operations.
Goldsmith said the citizens group was “undermining the spirit of cooperation” that made the plant possible and was jeopardizing funds for the project from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency.
“They’re breaking the backs of the town. For those who want to see the Jews leave, this is a great opportunity,” he said. “And by holding the project up they’re polluting the Yellow River worse.”
As for the argument that Agriprocessors should improve technology at the plant to remove salt, Goldsmith said there was “no known cost-effective removal of chloride.”
In the 1990s, the City of Postville annexed the land on which the slaughterhouse is located. There have since been many lawsuits involving the slaughterhouse that are pending, settled or already adjudicated.
In 2001, for example, Postville filed a lawsuit to recover $2 million that it said Agriprocessors owed in unpaid wastewater-related fines, penalties and user fees dating to 1990. That and other, similar cases were settled out of court in mid-2002.
Agriprocessors plans to expand production from 760,000 pounds to 1.1 million pounds of meat per day once the wastewater plant is up and running in mid-2005.
The City of Postville, which is doing the actual construction of the wastewater plant on land owned by Agriprocessors, supports the project.
“Many, many hours were spent by Department of Natural Resources engineers looking into the question of whether this permit was a good idea and whether it was protective of the environment,” said Steven Pace, an attorney for the city. “The conclusion was that it was.”
But Anderson said the Department of Natural Resources never conducted a formal environmental study of possible effects on the Yellow River ecosystem, even after 1,300 Postville residents signed a petition in March asking the Department of Natural Resources for such a review.
Lawyers for the Department of Natural Resources said they could not comment on the pending litigation. [/QUOTE]
[QUOTE][url]http://www.jewishsf.com/bk001117/etapostville.shtml[/url]
[B]Clash of Chassidim, Iowans piques ex-S.F. journalist[/B] JOE ESKENAZI
Bulletin Staff
In rural, northeastern Iowa, the heart of the nation's heartland, the closest one usually gets to a culture clash is a debate over the relative merits of Ford or Chevrolet pickup trucks over after-dinner pie and ice cream.
But that was before the "Jewish invasion."
In 1987, Aaron Rubashkin, a Lubavitch butcher from Brooklyn, bought a defunct slaughterhouse in the unlikely locale of Postville, Iowa, a quaint town of 1,465 where locked doors, road rage and, for the most part, Jews, were nonexistent.
Within a decade, Rubashkin's abattoir had burgeoned into the largest Lubavitch-owned packinghouse in the world, processing 1,300 cattle, 225,000 chickens, 700 lambs and 4,000 turkeys a week, and attracting hundreds of fervently religious Jews. In fact, tiny Postville had more rabbis per capita than any other city in the United States.
Rubashkin had succeeded beyond his wildest dreams, and in doing so, he had single-handedly saved Postville's economy from taking the boarded-up Main Street, post-Wal-Mart route. But all was not well.
Locals claimed the Jews were standoffish to a fault, and ran roughshod over local customs and even laws. The Jews fired back that the locals were anti-Semitic.
Observing from afar in Iowa City, University of Iowa journalism Professor Stephen Bloom realized this was a story he had to see for himself.
Five years and more than 350 interviews later, Bloom's book, "Postville: A Clash of Cultures in Heartland America," is a deep and painstakingly researched analysis of a situation that initially piqued his interest as something of a novelty.
"This is what journalists used to call a 'Didja Story,' as in 'Didja see that? Didja read that?'" he said during a recent interview in San Francisco. "I end my first chapter thinking maybe I just wanted to kibitz and nosh with someone. I did a lot more than kibitz and nosh."
The odd circumstance of black-hatted Chassidic Jews strolling through the cornfields and quickly becoming the economic big wheels of a small, Midwestern town was more than just a spectacle for Bloom. It was personal.
A veteran journalist and former San Jose Mercury writer and press secretary to San Francisco Mayor Frank Jordan, Bloom left San Francisco in the early 1990s when the University of Iowa offered him a teaching position. Now, nominally an Iowan, Bloom quickly found he had "traded matzah for mayonnaise."
"In a place like San Francisco, everyone peppers their speech with words like 'shmooze' and 'shtick,'" said Bloom, who was born and raised in New Jersey, graduating from U.C. Berkeley in 1973. "That just didn't happen in Iowa. If I used the word 'shtick' in front of my classes at U.I., they'd think I was talking about a piece of wood."
Bloom, a Jew "down to my corpuscles," with curly, black hair and olive skin, felt isolated amid the pig farms and watermelon socials. So when he heard about an enclave of Chassidic Jews in a small town 22 miles west of the Mississippi River, he thought he might find someone with whom he could commiserate about being a stranger in a strange land. He got more than he bargained for.
Over time, the miles on the odometer of Bloom's 1979 Volvo piled up from trip after trip to Postville, as the professor became a confidant of both the Jews and the townspeople . He even unwillingly became something of a "mini-Kissinger," acting as a go-between for the two feuding communities.
Locals, sick and tired of the Chassids' isolationism and blatant disregard for zoning or environmental laws, proposed a vote to annex the unincorporated land beneath the slaughterhouse, which would force the Jews to pay higher taxes and obey additional laws. The Jews, not surprisingly, alleged anti-Semitism. In the years leading up to and following the vote, Bloom spent virtually every free minute visiting with both the Jews and the locals. The conclusions he came away with surprised even him.
In Postville, Bloom did, indeed, uncover a few garden-variety bigots, but for the most part, he said the locals were not anti-Semitic and were largely justified in their anger toward the Chassidim.
"I don't think the locals had enough experience with Jews to call them anti-Semites," said Bloom, adding that while the Jews clearly recognized him as a landsman, Postville's non-Jews didn't realize he was Jewish until he had been visiting with them for 2-1/2 years.
"This book is called "Postville," but it could easily be called 'Pleasantville'; the town is yanked right out of the '50s. I think that if, say, a group of French people settled in Postville and opened a winery, if the French were as arrogant and intolerant to the locals [as the Postville Jews], I think the locals would respond the same way."
Local after local told Bloom that despite all attempts at friendliness, members of the Jewish community refused to talk to or even acknowledge them.
"I was walking down the street, and I decided to say 'good morning,' but this fellow wouldn't make eye contact with me," local historian Stanley Schroeder told Bloom of his encounter with a Chassidic Jew. "I wanted to invite him in for some cookies and Kool-Aid, but he didn't want to have anything to do with me. No, sirree."
On the other hand, Bloom found the Postville Jews considered the locals beneath them, rampantly breaking their laws and customs. Bloom cringed when the Chassidim recalled bewildering the locals by aggressively bargaining -- and then breaking the terms of their own agreements. They also chided Bloom for saying "good morning" to a non-Jew.
"The goyim will always be the goyim no matter how nice they are to you," Bloom said he was told. "So what's the point?"
In addition, Bloom discovered the Postville Jews' dirty secret: Wayward Chassidim from around the country had been "exiled" to Postville, making the Iowa Jewish enclave a modern-day Botany Bay. In fact, a pair of Chassidic hoodlums living in Postville had even shot and crippled a 49-year-old Iowa grandmother in 1991.
From his half-decade of study in Postville, Bloom got more than just a story. His experiences changed his outlook on what it is to be a Jew and what it is to be alive.
"I look at the world as being too bountiful to make every judgment based on whether a person is Jewish or not," he said. "Many Jews believe in the Hebrew words tikkun olam, which roughly translates as 'healing the world.' The [Postville Jews] believe in only repairing their sliver of the world. I reject that. I think that is too narrow a view for the world to ever, in its entirety, become a better place."
[I]"Postville: A Clash of Cultures in Heartland America" by Stephen G. Bloom (338 pages, Harcourt, $25).[/I][/QUOTE]
2004-05-13 14:02 | User Profile
What a sad f**king story. The Heartland of America has been infected with a deadly disease and will stop beating altogether if there's not an anjewoplasty ASAP.
2004-05-13 17:05 | User Profile
"I don't think the locals had enough experience with Jews to call them anti-Semites,"...
No, but after this salty experience I bet they do now. Once again, we see Jews out there being their own worse enemies. Of course, they are blameless...
2004-05-13 17:35 | User Profile
*"I don't think the locals had enough experience with Jews to call them anti-Semites,"... *
[QUOTE=Sertorius]No, but after this salty experience I bet they do now. Once again, we see Jews out there being their own worse enemies. Of course, they are blameless...[/QUOTE]
FWIW, Iowa has many conservative Lutherans, especially among its rural farmers, so expect the New York and South Florida media to spin that angle ("Martin Luther was an anti-semite and inspired the Nazis", "amillennialism is anti-semitic," etc.) into this story eventually if it grows legs.
2004-05-13 17:43 | User Profile
Dr. Martin Luther was a giant among men and I would encourage everyone here to get their hands on and carefully read everything he ever wrote.
2004-05-15 06:29 | User Profile
Martin Luther:On the Jews and Their Lies, 1543
[url]http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/1543-Luther-JewsandLies-full.html[/url]
2004-05-15 16:37 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Faust]Martin Luther:On the Jews and Their Lies, 1543
[url]http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/1543-Luther-JewsandLies-full.html[/url][/QUOTE]
The kikes on FReak Republic loved to post excerpts from Martin Luther to prove he was an "anti-Semite."
Back in 97,98, and 99, I didn't know how to respond to these attacks or really know what to make of Luther's statements.
I should have known that Luther was only responding to the obscene anti-Gentile bigotry in the Jewish Talmud.
According to Voegelin on LF, Luther learned about the Talmud from Jews that converted to Christianity, so he decided to learn Hebrew and read the Talmud for himself -- and was sickened by what he found.
Like many of us, Martin Luther didn't have a problem with Jews until he learned the truth -- the truth about what the kike really thinks the goy.
2004-05-15 16:59 | User Profile
local after local told Bloom that despite all attempts at friendliness, members of the Jewish community refused to talk to or even acknowledge them.
"I was walking down the street, and I decided to say 'good morning,' but this fellow wouldn't make eye contact with me," local historian Stanley Schroeder told Bloom of his encounter with a Chassidic Jew. "I wanted to invite him in for some cookies and Kool-Aid, but he didn't want to have anything to do with me. No, sirree."
On the other hand, Bloom found the Postville Jews considered the locals beneath them, rampantly breaking their laws and customs. Bloom cringed when the Chassidim recalled bewildering the locals by aggressively bargaining -- and then breaking the terms of their own agreements. They also chided Bloom for saying "good morning" to a non-Jew.
Yeah...and Jews wonder why they are "hated." Amazing.
Hitler, Striecher, and the Nazis are looking better and better in retrospect.
I don't see how anyone can deny it, least of all the paleocons.
2004-05-15 17:08 | User Profile
[QUOTE=AntiYuppie]What this means, of course, is that if philosemitic Christian Fundamentalists are exposed to the truth, there's always the hope that they will be on our side. How many "Christian Zionists" realize that Jews think of them as subhuman cattle? The more psychotic of the lot may realize this and revel in it, but the majority are simply ignorant (as even Martin Luther was prior to his studies).[/QUOTE]
I remember a few occasions on Jew Republic when some un-pc members managed to post quotes from the Talmud before being banned. dennisw, veronica, sabramerican, and their lackeys would usually respond to these posts by claiming that only Jews can interpret the Talmud. And from what I remember, the Christian Zionists bought it hook, line, and sinker. But then again, as you point out, the Christian Zionists on FR may very well be the type that agree with the Talmudic view of the goyim. Fanatical Jew apologists like a_witness and Lent would certainly seem to fit that definition.