{"id":6766,"date":"2009-02-20T12:44:37","date_gmt":"2009-02-20T20:04:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=6766"},"modified":"2009-02-20T12:44:37","modified_gmt":"2009-02-20T20:04:25","slug":"lets-put-it-in-a-different-context","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=6766","title":{"rendered":"Let's Put It In a Different Context"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Working off this conservative ad against the stimulus, Ezra Klein<\/a> writes the following:<\/p>\n

Ever watched a parent explain math to a child? “Imagine Johnny has three power rangers, but you only have one power ranger…” That’s sort of the tactic “The American Issues Project” is taking in its attempt to attack the stimulus. Except instead of power ranger, sub in the Baby Jesus himself. “Suppose you spent $1 million every single day starting from the day Jesus was born \u2014 and kept spending through today,\u201d says the announcer over a diorama picture of the three wise men and a camel. \u201cA million dollars a day for more than 2,000 years. You would still have spent less money than Congress just did.\u201d Call it Jesus-nomics.<\/p>\n

But I’m still confused. Can you please phrase your answer in the form of anti-semitism? Seconds after the Son’s unexpected cameo (think he’s SAG-registered?) the ad plays a final clip of Chuck “Jew” Schumer scheming to take your money<\/span> nasally explaining the bill while gesticulating wildly.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’m genuinely curious what folks think of Klein’s allegation here. Ezra Klein, from my readings of him (and I think Klein is one of the best young progressive bloggers out there), would I suspect be sympathetic to the idea that “anti-Semitic” is an overused charge vis-a-vis Israel. Yet, I think one could make a solid case that Klein’s allegation here is flimsier than much of the charges that certain branches of anti-israel rhetoric are, in one way or another, anti-Semitic.<\/p>\n

I think, to the extent that this ad, shall we say, sets my anti-Semitism antennae buzzing, it’s because of the juxtaposition. Any time you couch political argumentation in terms like “from the day Jesus was born”, there is an implicit alienation of Jewish (and other non-Christian) members of the polity flowing from the assumption that all Americans find that date meaningful. The resonance it is supposed to bring out amongst the viewers is profoundly Christian, giving the entire ad a Christian overtone. So when viewing the ad, I’m already primed to view myself as alien, making it more likely that I’ll interpret the Schumer clip with reference to his and my Jewishness.<\/p>\n

I find the above argument compelling enough for me to find Klein’s charge “reasonable”, which isn’t to say that I think it is “true” in some transcendental sense. I just think that Klein is responding to something “real”, non-trivial and non-paranoid, and that makes it worth taking into account alone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Working off this conservative ad against the stimulus, Ezra Klein writes the following: Ever watched a parent explain math to a child? “Imagine Johnny has three power rangers, but you only have one power ranger…” That’s sort of the tactic … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[92],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6766","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-whatever"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6766"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6766\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}