It's on the home page of Fairicans NOI

His real name is Eugene Walcott.

It is a fact: If you take money from someone, depend on their money, and hope to get money from them in the future, your are at risk to have your own aims corrupted by the desires of your financier.

This seems to me to be the point that he is making here; it is a valid and important point.

This quote leaves some things unclear. He may or may not have a special dislike for accepting financing from Jewish people, as opposed to other groups he doesn't identify with. And if he does, it may or may not be because of any bigotry he has towards Jews in general; it might also be due to having legitimately differing agendas.


I agree with Farrakhan here. Am I an antisemitic?






I'm disappointed that he said these things in 1996 and 2005. Had this been said a few decades earlier, I would have found it entirely defensible. Historically, the white people populating the power structure (legislators, government officials, business leaders, the police and the courts) have so thoroughly failed to respond to and address the interests of the black community, that looking upon white organizations and power structures with distrust was simply a rational course of action.

I don't agree with him, but I find his position understandable given the history of oppression against blacks.




Okay, as an atheist, all of that is just weird to me. It cliche to say that democracy is "the tyranny of the majority" (and, more recently, the tyranny of the special interest groups and the well financed PACs) - but there is truth in that cliche.

Honestly, this bizarre quote is matched by statements made by ex-President bush and the ex governor of alaska.




In this quote, he does not declare the WTC event was an inside job. He is saying that this event is being used, opportunistically, to justify a war that was desired for other reasons.

There is obviously truth to this statement. The majority of the american people believed that the war in iraq was, in some way, actually related to the WTC event. Our xenophobia, our desire to 'see something done', it was all harnessed to gain support for the war.



This excerpt hardly gives him the chance to explain his suspicious claims of conspiracy. I agree with him that part of the problem is a failure amongst some black people to take responsibility for their actions.

I agree with part of it, and don't have enough information for the other.



Again, the conspiracy part requires elaboration, the God part is simply foreign to my worldview. So yeah: appeals to religious authority are often dangerous, and its something we should be very careful about.





Um.... yeah. I disagree w/ F. lol.

Why is it that all the wing-nut **** is of a pro-religious nature? I thought he was supposed to be a racist?



(going back to reread the OP)

I went back to the OP. As an atheist, of course I don't agree with the religious weirdness in F's views. For many of his other claims, he is simply correct or not, and I don't have the facts to prove him wrong. If Ms H has seen evidence that he is correct, I cannot fault her for agreeing with those statements. I would expect he is correct about wealthy Jewish bankers financing Hitler - this is what many wealthy people do.

I visited the site, but couldn't see whether thats being promoted as part of the doctrine of present day organisation, or simply a historically relevant text.

I did stumble across other sites hosting that text, and its clear that the anti-white racism evident in that text survives today.

Cite examples of wealthy Jewish bankers financing Hitler.





Cite evidence that the 911 bombings were some kind of conspiracy..



There is no evidence of any of this - unless of course you count
the Nazi's stealing all of the possesions of the Jews they gassed
in the concentration camps as "financing".

The 911 conspiracy theories have been thoroughly debunked.

http://www.debunking911.com/

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion conspiracy theories have
likewise been demonstrated to be false antisemitic propaganda.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protocols_of_the_Elders_of_Zion

Farrakhans numerous antisemitic and bigoted statements have been
well documented on the ADL site:

http://www.adl.org/special_reports/farrakhan_own_words2/farrakhan_own_words.asp

The resemblance of Farrakhan's arguments to the Protocols and Der Sturmer are clear.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Der_St%C3%BCrmer#Anti-Semitic_content

=-=-=-=

about your defense of Farrakhan's arguments...



Now you are being pigheaded!!



I see your point of view and I can see Farrakhan's line of reasoning alright. He is simply wrong and over the top in his exaggeration.

When Farrakhan says:

"Any time the Jewish philanthropists financed the NAACP, they have a stake in what the NAACP does. So the leaders of that organization have to kowtow to those kinds of powers. That's what I'm angry about."

He is being ridiculous. Of course any charity is grateful to its
contributors. We all are grateful to charitable people. But then
to turn around and try to suggest that all these charitable
contributions are made solely for the purpose of some kind of
slavery of the recipients is paranoid and simply untrue. Primarily
people contribute to charity for the sake of supporting the
charitable cause. It should not make anyone angry that anyone Jewish
or not supports a charitable organization or the NAACP.



Know what I mean?

You agree with Farrakhan? You think that ANY TIME Jewish philanthropists
contribute to charities or the NAACP to attempt to control
black people?

Do you really feel "hateful of their inordinate control over black politicians, black intellectuals, black organizations," and you "will fight to destroy that kind of control as long as God gives you health and strength?"



You have got to be kidding.

You think he has a valid point that charities feel grateful and indebted
to philanthropists who are generous enough to support them? Well I have
to laugh. I think you have a trivial point there. Where he goes off
the rails is when the then says that somehow anytime Jewish philanthropists contribute to the NAACP the organization must kowtow to them. Why single out Jewish philanthropists? Aren't they equally having to kowtow to the Muslim philanthropists? To the Christian philanthropsts? To the Buddhist philanthopists? To the Atheist philanthropists?

And why do they have to kowtow to anyone anyway? Can't they just
do the work that they always do? Where is the control aspect?
Sure, if they do something one of their donors doesn't like then
they may lose a donor but there are always other donors so...
This is just anti-Jewish paranoia and irrational nonsense for
the most part.

Same as with the statement that the Black journalist serve their
white masters. What kind of paranoid crap is that? These educated
journalists somehow are more subservient than the white journalists?
They can't express their own opinions? You mean we don't really
have free speech in this country? No freedom of the press here?
Compare with China, Saudia Arabia and Egypt please...



Sure Juan Williams can get fired but it was not by "Jews"
moreover he can still say what he wants...and he is even a black
journalist. I think he was even offered a new job and continues
to be a journalist!



As an atheist you may not be familiar enough with religion to
recognize all the religious hogwash but his twisted theology
and particularly his blaming the Jews for all sorts of stuff is
far beyond anything that Bush or Palin ever said - unless you
want to give me quotes illustrating Bush and Palin's rabid
antisemitic statements - but I feel confident that such statements
might have made headlines if there actually were any...



So you see, Farrakhan is hardly a beacon of truth and his
repeated misrepresentations specifically towards Jews are clearly
antisemitic and many of his statements are recent and not
<ahem> "youthful indiscretions" or only said during the
turmoil of civil rights protests in the 1950s and 60s.

Why anyone would try to defend this bunk is beyond me really.



Just compare some of Farrakhan's statements about Jews with similar
statements made by Julius Streicher!



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Streicher

Why? I don't assert that they did, only that this would be consistent with the behavior of some of the super wealthy.



Which is a basis for saying "might be, might not be".



Lets see, you wrote this after midnight last night. Was it a long day? Were you tired? Because if you think I asserted the 9/11 events were 'some kind of conspiracy', you evidently didn't read what I wrote. This makes it difficult and tedious to have a conversation.



You aren't even parsing my words, any more than you are F's.





Of course, I'm left with the impression that you haven't really bother to read - so I'm not sure if you are saying that my actual position strikes you as pigheaded, or if some misrepresentation of my position does.




Sigh. Call me cynical, but I'm not always grateful to all so-called charitable people. Motive, motive, motive! I've watched 'charity' go down between people and between organizations which were clearly intended to make the recipient dependent on the giver, and/or make them feel guilty and therefore easily manipulated, and/or provide a means for elevating the giver in some way (status, esteem, etc). I've seen people who had this down to a science, 'helping' others while guilting them into doing errands for them - so that the net result is much cheaper for the 'giver' than if they had hired someone.



Stop right there! You are oversimplifying. "Solely for the purpose" ? That has nothing to do with my interpretation of F's words, at all. The point is not what the giver's purpose is, nor is it the question of how many purposes they may have ('solely' ?). The point is what effect does this have. Sometimes you don't need to have a diabolical agenda to incidentally do wrong.

We don't need to impugn the motives of the 'charitable' party to this degree to see that there can be a dilution of our own agendas.




Calling it slavery is part of his rhetorical technique. Its a gross exaggeration, comparable to some that have been made in this thread by his critics.




"Primarily" - you mean 'in the majority of cases' ? That might be your belief - is it based on evidence? IME, the primary (majority cases) motives are to reap social benefits or to ameliorate guilt.




I can't read his mind. I have no knowledge of whether or to what degree people 'kowtowed' to Jewish philanthropists. I believe he is making a valid point, which I restated in my own words in the last post.



Did he make a statement about their motivations? Or only the effect this had on black leaders?



Of course I don't feel hateful, as I'm not personally involved.

I have felt resentment over situations in which business partners sold out in a way that effected my life. Its frustrating to see people you trusted, and whom you would otherwise work well with, become beholden to influences whose aims are contrary to your own.




Because, after all, if Farrakhan were ever found to actually say something reasonable or wise - it would have to be trivial. He is an evil, evil man who only spouts nonsense.




Questions are good, Slowhand! Why indeed?

As far as Jewish vs Muslim - likely Muslim philanthropists inherently present less of a conflict of interests.

As far as the Christian, Buddhist, and Atheist ones....how prevalent were those? What kind of history has he had with those?



You mean this one? ""You are the National Association of Black Journalists that works for white institutions.""



Where do you get that from? The way I read it, the white journalists also serve white institutions. This is not a comparison of how much autonomy white and black journalists have. What I saw was a suggestion that white institutions may not have the same agenda as black journalists, but the black journalists make themselves subservient to them. Its a non-issue for the white journalists to do so.



You are using a straw man argument here, via gross exaggeration. As long as a journalist relies on a publisher other then themselves, they can't be said to have complete (personal) freedom of expression. This is not a tragedy, its just a fact. One which is particularly relevant to those whose agendas may be opposing that of the institution.




Um, what? I didn't claim they were anti-semitic, only that they've made bizarre statements, comparable to F's, due to their religious beliefs. Be careful with the fallacy of confusing the whole with the parts. Not everything F says is related to Jews.

1. Farrakhan implies that the motivation for the 911 bombings was as a
cover for a Cheney/Bush agenda - which is ridiculous.

2. I'm glad you do not assert that Hitler was financed by wealthy
Jewish bankers.

3. It was late and I was tired but I read what you wrote. But your
interpretation of Farrakhan's WTC comment was wrong. You interpret
his comment as stating that the event was used as a cover but that
is not what Farrakhan says. He says that the WTC bombing was "a cover
for a war that had been planned to bring a pipeline through Afghanistan
to bring oil from that region, oil owned by Unical of which Dick Cheney
is a stock holder.”

In other words he is saying that the WTC bombing was set up to cover
a "war that had been planned" prior to the WTC bombings which is
of course absurd. The U.S. Govt is not in charge of Al-Qaeda!



That is the conspiracy theory which has been "debunked".

4. You are pretty darned cynical if you think that people only
donate to charity to try to deal with their guilt or to somehow
manipulate people. That is not the reason I donate to charities
nor the reasoning of most people I know. The most common reason
that I see for people to donate to charities is to do something
positive to help the less fortunate.

The simplist examples are anonymous donations of which there are
many. Or take this news story for example:

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/kindness/post/2010/11/couple-gives-112-million-lottery-win-to-charity/1

You think they are social climbers or trying to ameliorate their
guilt?



5. As far as the contributors to charities - I'd think that the
contributors generally reflect the population demographics of
those who can afford to donate. Certainly there are many many
more rich Muslims and Christians philanthropists than Jews for
example and they should have exactly the same sway and conflicts
with their charities as the Jews.

Farrakhan singles out Jewish philanthropists for derision only
to imply that they specifically are manipulative which is false
and goes along with his other antisemitic comments.

6. About the Black Journalists. Farrakhan implies that they are
only serving white masters. Ridiculous. They have their own
opinions same as their white, latino, asian etc. colleagues.
The media does not tell the Black Journalists what to write.

7. I know that Farrakhan doesn't only talk about Jews.

Also, the "effect" that charitable giving has is to provide funds to the charity - not change the charities' agendas.

Yes, I think that Farrakhan is impugning the motives of Jewish
philanthropists and this is why he singles them out. It is bigotry.

It is not reasonable to assume that even super-wealthy Jews would
finance a regime which is attempting to exterminate them and all
their relatives.

Since Bush and Palin did not produce the same antisemitic rhetoric
that Farrakhan does I do not consider their religions statements
(as ridiculous as they might be) to be comparable to Farrakhan's hate
speech. Silly is one thing and hateful another.

Although the ADL website has plenty of non-Jewish related material
from Farrakhan - I have just been using the Jewish examples because
they are so egregious and easily refuted.

Not in the quote you provided. Maybe you know this from other things he's written?



I disagree, strongly. He says that the war had been planned, yes. He says the bombings were used as a cover, yes. He leaves unstated (in this quote) whether he believes this 'cover' was opportunistically seized upon, or deliberately created, or other.



Why are you so fond of all-or-nothing interpretations of other people's statements? Only? Show me where I said 'only'.

I did say something about 'primarily', after suggesting that word might mean 'in the majority of cases', and while specifying that I was talking about my personal experience.

People rarely do anything 'only' for one reason. Almost everything most of us do is influenced by a multitude of factors, of motivations. If we were to think in terms of singular motivations, we will oversimplify other people - their worldview, their opinions, their actual motivations.



"That you see", yes, I'm sure thats a true statement. Its an obvious fact that you and I know different sets of people. Incidentally, I've worked in for many years in situations which exposed me to charities and donors, which is not to suggest that I'm right, but that I have a basis for my opinion/estimation.



'Social climbers', no. Do they enjoy having their names (as generous benefactors) in print, and in the minds of any of the people they know? Probably. (Which is the 'esteem of others' part, even if you aren't a 'social climber'.) Guilt motivated: who knows? Could be, could not be. (Do they believe they will be meeting their creator in the next decade?)

Aware that they have more than enough money of their own for their remaining years? Almost certainly. Its common for wealthy people that age to look for ways to 'do good things' with their money, knowing they won't have a use for it very soon.

This is not a negative view, at least not for me. There are people who prefer to live in a fantasy land and see such pragmatical, honest, and practical assessments of motivation as negative criticism, as an attack on their idyllic outlook. These are still good people, who did a good thing.



Thats a very interesting suggestion; it makes sense to me, but of course we don't really have the facts. Some people claim that the concentration of wealth is far greater within the Jewish community than in most other communities (Mormons and Catholics excepted).

I would expect Muslims to be greater contributors because of their shared views. ('Expect' implies that I don't have the facts.)



Of course they might not have the same conflicts with Muslims; which leaves open why he singled out Jews amongst other non-muslim charities.



I understand you have reason to believe this, taking into account his history of statements. In this quote I see mistrust, I don't see derision.

""Any time the Jewish philanthropists financed the NAACP, they have a stake in what the NAACP does. So the leaders of that organization have to kowtow to those kinds of powers. That's what I'm angry about."""

If you see derision in this quote, if you think that this quote has F implying Jews are especially manipulative, then it would seem to me that you have a significant bias to see these things where they aren't directly evidenced.


Its an open question for me whether he has previous experience specifically with Jewish charities that motivates his focus - generalized antisemitism aside.




There you go with the 'only' again. Its looking to me like you are the one who is inclined to insert the word 'only' into other people's words, leading to misunderstandings and misrepresentations.


I assume you are talking about here:

""You are the National Association of Black Journalists that works for white institutions.""

Where does he say anything to compare the degree to which the media influences different races? He is talking to black journalists. I don't necessarily disagree with your overall assessments - I disagree that these quotes substantiate them.

Well its extremely rare that a charter is changed directly in response to a funding opportunity, but the actual 'agenda' is a composite of the feelings, thoughts, motives of all the decision makers in the organization. Its evident to me that large sources of income usually do have some influence on the agenda of an organization. I've seen non-profits choose which projects to prioritize based on how it would influence their appearance to specific likely (but not certain) future donors.



That might fit the pattern of his previous statements, but its not in that one quote.



I agree, its not 'reasonable to assume' that. I also don't think its reasonable to assume that a wealthy businessman involved in a lucrative venture will (a) be fully aware of the consequences of his investments and (b) definitively take responsibility for it, as opposed to seeing it 'as business'. So often I've heard 'business is business' from cold heart sons of ******* that wash their hands of the actions of those they finance. It seems to be a common quality amongst successful investors. Please don't insert the word only anywhere in there.



I fully agree. This whole tangent arose because we were discussing the question of 'agreeing' with F., and I was telling you how I don't agree with the ridiculous religious statements, not all of which could even be construed as anti-semitic. I see those statements as comparable to Bush/Palin...but then I don't try to bring everything back to an antisemitic issue.

I just noticed you said "you are pretty damned cynical if", and I allow that you might have meant that literally. I mean, it sounded to me on first reading that you were assuming the antecendant applied; not I see you may have simply been stating an if-then constructs based on an acknowledged hypothetical.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Lists_of_people_by_wealth

The world population is about 6.7 billion with about 0.18% jews.

Wait...I just want to understand. Are you saying that you believe that Jews are less generous than Christians or Muslims? And if you are, what do you base that on?

My bad for careless speech without specifying context - I meant that we don't have facts related to the history of donations from different sources for the organization that F was talking about. I realize that by making that comment directly after quoting your statement about numbers of rich people in general it would seem I was saying we don't have facts about the numbers of reach people in general. I thought that you were trying to imply that we could extrapolate a likely profile for the donors to F's organization, and I was saying that makes sense to me, but we could still be wrong (lacking specific facts about who donated how much, under what circumstances, to F's org.)

No, of course not. I'm curious which part of my words gave this impression.

If you are saying that the very notion (which I neither believe nor disbelieve) that Jews might have a greater concentration of wealth (per person) than other groups of people implies that they 'hoard' their money more - that would be wrong. A group can achieve a greater concentration of wealth while also being more generous, just as a person can have, say, a 60% percent greater income than another, and give away 30% more money than another, and still amass more wealth than the other.

If you are responding in some way to my comment about mulsims contributing more, the context was 'to a muslim-oriented organization'.

But there are facts, you just have to google them.

Study Finds Jews Donate More to Poor


In Judaism, a refusal to give to charity is considered idolatry (worshiping money). It's taught to every young Jew that they should always give money to help the poor and needy.

Regardless, it's racist for Farrakhan to make that claim without any numbers to support him. He's basing it on an unfair stereotype of Jews as being greedy.

I don't assert that F. isn't racist, and I don't assert that he hasn't, elsewhere, stereotyped Jews as being greedy.

I'm curious - in this conversation, based on the quotes presented: which claim are you talking about when you say "to make that claim" ?



As far as facts about wealth, generosity - we were talking, I thought, about "why else would F. single out Jewish donors, except to be racist".

Let's not make this conversation more complicated than it already is. I've only quoted one claim by Farrakhan, so that's the one I'm talking about.

I agree emphatically with the first sentence! It was to avoid complexity that I sought to clarify which claim. I can't seem to find F's actual words anywhere in nested quotes within your comments here on page ten, and gave up looking backwards at page 7.

I had assumed you were talking about: "Any time the Jewish philanthropists financed the NAACP, they have a stake in what the NAACP does. So the leaders of that organization have to kowtow to those kinds of powers. That's what I'm angry about."

If that's the quote you mean, it seems like you could still mean any of a variety of claims, depending on your interpretation. I only see "When Jewish philanthropists finance the NAACP, they gain influence over the NAACP. This angers me." His style of speech yields an exaggerated form of: a reasonable observation followed by a statement of feeling.

nothing to be angry about,, isnt it widely reported that about 5 percent of americans hold 80 percent of the wealth,,I never did get angry about that

not hard to believe that it applies as well to certain religions and their net wealth in the states as well...

http://awesome.good.is/transparency/web/1002/almighty-dollar/flat.html


they do an excellent job networking, something other communities can learn from,,,,,,