H. Brown & Anti-Semitism
A few days ago, Pat Murphy handed the keys to the San Francisco Sentinel over to another political blogger, H Brown of the SF Bulldog. In a Week in Review type column, Brown starts giving out grades to members of the Board of Supervisors, based on his opinions and how they measured up to his progressive beliefs. He gives Sup. Gerardo Sandoval an A- and writes this as the reason why:
"For taking one for the team in fighting Donald Fisher pretty much alone. I feel almost responsible because I kept writing about the Jewish cabal of Fisher & Shorenstein & Blum & Goldman & Hellman and how they're playing Sim City with San Francisco. It's true that they think they're better than all of us. It's true that a big part of why they think they're better than us is because they're Jewish. That's all true. But, you better not say it if you have any property to lose. Or, a family to raise.
Needless to say, an interesting thing to write. One way of looking at it would be that it was a poor choice of words. Another way to look at it is that it's fairly anti-Semitic. Calling a bunch of people who you oppose by their ethnic/religious identity? Always questionable. Using the words "Jewish" right next to the word "cabal"? Not so good. Then going on to say that the people in question "think they're better than all of us" and then say it's because they're Jewish? Really not good. The reason? See past 2000 years or so of Jewish history.
Somehow, this made it past everyone, including Pat Murphy of the Sentinel who either didn't notice or allowed H to post that. The only one to raise any kind of stink is political gadfly Able Dart, who wrote about it on his new blog, the Wall.
So we asked H. what he meant and if he had any clarification about what he wrote, especially the possibility that it might be perceived as anti-Semitic. Here's what we got, after the jump:
Photo by Luke Thomas, SanFranciscoSentinel.com
All publicity is good publicity. Write what you will. The Hellman group cloaks themselves in their religion pretty much the way the fundamentalist Christians hide behind Jesus and Uncle Toms use the color of their skin. None of them have a special right to a bigger slice of the pie due to their claims. As regards the local cabal, their greed contributes to an imbalance of wealth that spawns suffering and violence. It's happened before over and over. They want to shift the attention from their greed and lame justification to my frailties (good move). Challenge Hellman & Fisher & Blum to debate me. Not their mouthpieces. Me & them. How about Christmas day? We're all free then.
A little background here. Hellman and Fisher are both on the Committee on Jobs and SF SOS, which Fisher helped start along with Sen. Dianne Feinstein. Blum is Feinstein's husband. Both the Committee on Jobs and SF SOS represent "downtown interests" and are therefore the progressive communities' Big Bads.
How Sandoval fits into all of this and what is drawing H's ire is that in 2001, Sandoval made an unfortunate comment during a debate in which he said people in the city should protest CEOs and other big business types by picketing their "houses in Tiburon and their bar mitzvahs." This drew the ire of the SFSOS who anonymously mailed out flyers charging Gerardo of anti-Semitism. Sandoval got upset and sued, the result of which are the financial and legal problems facing him now.
Underlying all that is the fact that lately the tensions between the Jewish and the Progressive communities have been on the rise, with the Middle East conflict being the hot point. The Jewish community has felt that the line between being anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic is being crossed way too often and way too easily, while the Progressives feel that one can be anti-Zionist without being anti-Semitic. H. Brown's comments probably are not going to help matters. Neither is the fact that the Sentinel let him say it and the only person to call Brown on it is the admittedly-biased Able Dart.
And then, of course, there is the irony of somebody proclaiming to be a progessive mouthing off completely un-progessive statements.