Who is Ken O'Keefe?

[Wombaticus Rex]

I don't "look stoopid" -- I am stupid.

[solace]

In the first OP video (I didn't watch the second), Ken O'Keefe makes sense and says a lot of true and laudible things.

But the bit below, from the video Solace linked, is a terrible thing to say.

the worst insult you could say to somebody — which I didn’t even know the origin of it, but we used to all use it — and it was no basis of any kind of discrimination, it was just this term — and it was Jew. In the worst way, fucking Jew. You know, you’re a fucking Jew, or something like that.

And you know, I never really thought about it. I didn’t have any Jewish friends as far as I knew, and yet I look back at it now and I realize it must be that there is some truth behind this, that it would be the ultimate insult, that’s somehow there’s this awareness without even being aware of the historical reality of Jewish impact on human history.

It's true that in the video, there's another ten minutes' worth of context that makes the above remarks somewhat more understandable. But whether alone or in that context, it's a terrible thing to say and to teach, and it will unfortunately always cast a pall in my eyes over anything he has to say. Others are more (or less) forgiving and that's okay.

Who was the audience in that video? SPLC doesn't say on the YouTube page. Note the applause at the idea of the EU fracturing. They really seemed to be eating up the whole thing.

Evidently the audience was vile:

"The most noteworthy of these was O’Keefe’s speech to the IONA London Forum, a gathering of academically oriented white supremacists and anti-Semites held last August."

https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/201 ... i-semitism

Here's what Searchlight has to say about them. I won't quote it so you can make up your own mind:

http://www.searchlightmagazine.com/arch ... ing-threat

[slomo]

Just weighing in here on this very interesting thread. I don't have a deep knowledge base about Iraq, Palestine, Israel, etc. (or rather, my knowledge is deeper than the average American but shallow in comparison to some others here at RI), so I'm largely keeping my mouth shut on the substantive issues.

However, I can't help noticing that this is yet another thread about a complex issue (or, rather, a complex personality): a person who makes a great many accurate factual statements about extremely important foreign policy matters, and yet has also made some very disturbing generalizations about Jews, and has some potentially very disturbing associates. In short, he is something of an embodiment of the set of actual foreign policy issues about which he speaks. Meanwhile, we have a forum participant who has been identified by others as a marginal troll willfully dragging the discussion down to an ad-hominem level, while others have stopped just short of asking for a ban. I applaud WR for exercising restraint on the moderation of both poles.

I do want to remark on one of Solace's comments:

You're an adult with a computer that googles; look it up yourself. Not that I think yopu will or would understand if you did.

This is a tried-an-true tactic I've seen in other discussions (you know which kind), and it represents total intellectual cowardice. If you are going to make a statement like "your ignorance of Judaism is profound", and you are subsequently asked for illumination on the subject, then you are obligated to provide references, if you expect anybody to take your intellectual position seriously.

That is all. Carry on...

[solace]

Just weighing in here on this very interesting thread. I don't have a deep knowledge base about Iraq, Palestine, Israel, etc. (or rather, my knowledge is deeper than the average American but shallow in comparison to some others here at RI), so I'm largely keeping my mouth shut on the substantive issues.

However, I can't help noticing that this is yet another thread about a complex issue (or, rather, a complex personality): a person who makes a great many accurate factual statements about extremely important foreign policy matters, and yet has also made some very disturbing generalizations about Jews, and has some potentially very disturbing associates. In short, he is something of an embodiment of the set of actual foreign policy issues about which he speaks. Meanwhile, we have a forum participant who has been identified by others as a marginal troll willfully dragging the discussion down to an ad-hominem level, while others have stopped just short of asking for a ban. I applaud WR for exercising restraint on the moderation of both poles.

I do want to remark on one of Solace's comments:

You're an adult with a computer that googles; look it up yourself. Not that I think yopu will or would understand if you did.

This is a tried-an-true tactic I've seen in other discussions (you know which kind), and it represents total intellectual cowardice. If you are going to make a statement like "your ignorance of Judaism is profound", and you are subsequently asked for illumination on the subject, then you are obligated to provide references, if you expect anybody to take your intellectual position seriously.

That is all. Carry on...

No I'm not obligated. I can't teach someone something they obviously never had any interest in to begin with. When I consider my previous interactions with that poster it occurred to me that he was being disingenuous, especially considering his previous challenge "You don't want to debate me under even the best of circumstances. I promise you that." Why would I engage someone who is obviously looking for a fight; not enlightenment? That's a fool's errand and a waste of my time; not any kind of tactic.

[slomo]

^^^^ Well I guess then nobody's going to take your position seriously.

Oh wait, they already don't.

[solace]

^^^^ Well I guess then nobody's going to take your position seriously.

Oh wait, they already don't.

I know that. They support Ken Okeefe. An antisemite and friend of neo-Nazis and white supremacists. How could I expect such people to take anything I say seriously? They are way too seriously fucked up to begin with. Anti-fascist board and all that nonsense.

[Searcher08]

^^^^ Well I guess then nobody's going to take your position seriously.

Oh wait, they already don't.

I know that. They support Ken Okeefe. An antisemite and friend of neo-Nazis and white supremacists. How could I expect such people to take anything I say seriously? They are way too seriously fucked up to begin with. Anti-fascist board and all that nonsense.

Sometimes, people dont take a person seriously when that person consistently throws a lot of personalised shit in every direction. That isnt having a conversation about enlightening what they see as a viewpoint they profoundly disagree with. Just about every post of yours can be summarised as "I'm right, you are wrong... and fuck you!". What learning or change of attitude happens from that? My objection to you isnt your beliefs, it is the attitude which which you communicate them, which is the online equivalent of having someone spit in one's face. There was a poster here called Sepka who had similar opinions but was a valued member of the community. She was unfailingly polite, regularly brought other stuff to the RI party and one was able to have great conversations outside of Israel, about other RI areas. You would get a very different response if you did that.

[backtoiam]

thing about being called 'an' anti-semite......which i'm pretty sure has lost much (but by no means all) of its meaning - even if it originally had a defined/technical precise meaning.
- and that can only be the fault of people who (relentlessly & oftentimes with mindfucking degrees of self-righteousness) hurl it around like monkey shit.

Like ammunition that changes its calibre according to the bore of the person who fires it.

That is funny as hell and i am not even joking. One day when I was at the zoo i was not paying attention to the monkeys in the pen next to me. The next thing I knew a piece of shit stuck to the side of my head like plaster of paris. I looked to my left to see where it came from and that damn monkey was picking up another pile of shit to throw at me. He missed me and hit the guy beside me but his accuracy was amazing. I'm not making this up. This is true. Monkeys can throw shit at the zoo because they have had years of practice. Captive monkeys learn aim and precision.

[identity]

solace = RI's captive monkey?

Maybe an RI (virtual) initiation ritual that finally recognizes him as a full-fledged member of the human race (and not exclusively of some subset or precursor thereof) will resolve the issues he brings to this forum.

[solace]

solace = RI's captive monkey?

Maybe an RI (virtual) initiation ritual that finally recognizes him as a full-fledged member of the human race (and not exclusively of some subset or precursor thereof) will resolve the issues he brings to this forum.

What kind of people consider others not to be full-fledged members of the human race? Racists and bigots. Hitler for one regarding Jews.Man this place is getting bad when it's channeling Stormfront et al.

[Sounder]

solace » Sat Dec 05, 2015 2:19 am wrote:

slomo » Fri Dec 04, 2015 10:15 pm wrote:

^^^^ Well I guess then nobody's going to take your position seriously.

Oh wait, they already don't.

I know that. They support Ken Okeefe. An antisemite and friend of neo-Nazis and white supremacists. How could I expect such people to take anything I say seriously? They are way too seriously fucked up to begin with. Anti-fascist board and all that nonsense.

I do not 'support' Ken O'keefe, but I am still inclined to recognize valid points that he makes. I love Jews and Judaism, some of my best teachers have been Jewish. Solace, are you familiar with Abraham Joshua Heschel? Of course you are. He was and is an largely unrecognized giant of philosophy of this last century.

Why don't we talk about the incredible contributions that Jewish folk make to shaping our intellectual world? Instead we have a situation where many people associate Jews with a morally dodgy Israel, and many Jewish folk spending way too much time trying to defend the indefensible.

Also, what Searcher08 said, your approach has changed a bit and I trust that it can change still more in the future.

[identity]

solace = RI's captive monkey?

Maybe an RI (virtual) initiation ritual that finally recognizes him as a full-fledged member of the human race (and not exclusively of some subset or precursor thereof) will resolve the issues he brings to this forum.

What kind of people consider others not to be full-fledged members of the human race? Racists and bigots. Hitler for one regarding Jews.Man this place is getting bad when it's channeling Stormfront et al.

lol

Misinterpretation was, alas, inevitable...

Of course, what I meant was that RIers might, through a healing ritual of sorts, help solace acknowledge (and reconnect with) his membership in the greater human family, since up to now he

a) has given every indication that he considers *himself* first and foremost a member of a distinct subset of the human family (and subject to everything that uniquely follows from this particular identification...), and "therefore" at odds, for one reason or another, with many other members of the human family (a large number of whom seem, in his fevered imagination, to inhabit this forgotten outpost)

and

b) has behaved in this forum like the proverbial captive monkey, shooting faeces from the hip at whomsoever happens to get in his way

Nevertheless, I'm glad I was able to afford dear solace an opportunity to unburden himself yet once more. The man is a sad, tragic figure, and really could benefit from a group healing here.

All he has to do is ask!

(edited for clarity)

[AlicetheKurious]

It's true that in the video, there's another ten minutes' worth of context that makes the above remarks somewhat more understandable. But whether alone or in that context, it's a terrible thing to say and to teach, and it will unfortunately always cast a pall in my eyes over anything he has to say. Others are more (or less) forgiving and that's okay.

It is a terrible thing to say. I'm sure that many Irish have, and historically had, very nasty things to say about the English. There are Africans who have some really awful ideas about Europeans. And you wouldn't believe what some Westerners, even US presidential candidates, say about Arabs, and Muslims. It's just terrible. It can hurt people's feelings, if they care about what others think of them. The big problem, though, is when those prejudices constitute just part of a well-funded, industrial-scale propaganda campaign that accompanies wholesale slaughter and looting, sometimes even bombing, leading to the destruction of entire nations and widespread destitution and millions of dispossessed refugees.

That's really bad.

By the way, I'm not talking theoretically: these horrors are occurring right now, and have been ongoing for decades. In some cases, we're told that such things are necessary, "to protect the Jews". A racist, expansionist and super-militaristic entity calling itself "the Jewish state" commits the most horrific atrocities and gets away scot-free, because trying to stop it or hold it accountable or, in many cases, even criticizing it or asking people to stop funding it, is denounced as "anti-semitic", with some powerful organizations trying to criminalize such criticism even inside countries that pride themselves on their liberalism. Individuals are pilloried, and in some cases lose their jobs (guaranteed if they work in mainstream media) if they dare to speak out against the "Jewish state" or try to take back their countries from powerful and rich Jewish individuals and groups who openly proclaim that their mission inside those countries is to serve its agenda, and who proudly and self-righteously abuse their position or wield their wealth to sacrifice their own countries' interests, or even drag their countries into infinitely destructive wars for, "the Jewish state". Why? In the name of their "Jewishness".

Most people don't know much about what "Jewishness" even is. Jews themselves don't even agree about what it is. But whether it is articulated or not, and often it is explicitly spelled out, too many do seem to agree that it confers a sort of specialness comprised of two parts: exceptional automatic and transcendental victimhood status regardless of objective reality, and special 'rights', backed by power, that everyone else may legitimately be denied. Such as the right to do wrong things in the name of one's "Jewishness", and then to punish those who point out this very fact. Amazingly, not only is this done in the open, but well-meaning, liberal, "anti-fascist" people approve and even participate in disciplining or silencing the offenders! And they do so while feeling self-righteous and confident that they thereby occupy the moral high ground.

It's very effective, though it doesn't hold up under rational scrutiny. Nevertheless, it rarely is: the very topic has been so systematically and deliberately imbued with emotional triggers that reason or critical thinking are kept at bay.

People tend to hate, that which they fear. When a category of people is feared and loathed, it is usually for one of two reasons: either as the result of a deliberate campaign to demonize it in to justify enslaving or killing its members "in self-defense", to steal their labor or property; or because it is bullying and oppressing others.

In the first case it's a lot worse, a whole universe of worse, because it's adding insult to injury. The injury is real, and hatred can, and often is, a normal human reaction against the group committing the injury. Especially in the initial stages of liberation, oppressed people recognize and then reflect back the hatred directed at them, and in turn hate the people who are oppressing them, as a category.

When Malcolm X expressed his hatred of "white people", and referred to them as 'devils', this marked the first stage of his emancipation from the mental shackles in which he was born, as a black man in a society that regarded the black man as a resource to be plundered and controlled, and who was denied the right to set his own agenda or even to see the world through his own eyes. Malcolm X's hatred and disparagement of whites represented defiance and rejection of the value system that placed black men at the bottom and white men at the top. It is the equivalent of the boy who shouted out that the emperor is naked: liberating and cathartic, but only slightly more meaningful (though no less sincere) than an infant's inchoate first cry. Later, as Malcom X's thought and knowledge and experience evolved, his hatred of all whites was transformed into hatred for the system that produces and profits from oppression itself, including the ideology of oppression. He no longer hated white people, nor did he view them, individually, necessarily as enemies.

“I knew, better than most Negroes, how many white people truly wanted to see American racial problems solved. I knew that many whites were as frustrated as Negroes. I’ll bet I got fifty letters some days from white people. The white people in meeting audiences would throng around me, asking me, after I had addressed them somewhere, ‘What can a sincere white person do?’

When I say that here now, it makes me think about that little co-ed I told you about, the one who flew from her New England college down to New York and came up to me in the Nation of Islam’s restaurant in Harlem, and I told her that there was “nothing” she could do. I regret that I told her that. I wish that now I knew her name, or where I could telephone her, or write to her, and tell her what I tell white people now when they present themselves as being sincere, and ask me, one way or another, the same thing that she asked. The first thing I tell them is that at least where my own particular Black Nationalist organization, the Organization of Afro-American Unity, is concerned, they can’t join us. I have these very deep feelings that white people who want to join black organizations are really just taking the escapist way to salve their consciences. By visibly hovering near us, they are "proving" that they are "with us." But the hard truth is this isn't helping to solve America's racist problem. The Negroes aren't the racists. Where the really sincere white people have got to do their "proving" of themselves is not among the black victims, but out on the battle lines of where America's racism really is—and that's in their own home communities; America's racism is among their own fellow whites. That's where sincere whites who really mean to accomplish something have got to work.

“Aside from that, I mean nothing against any sincere whites when I say that as members of black organizations, generally whites’ very presence subtly renders the black organization automatically less effective. Even the best white members will slow down the Negroes’ discovery of what they need to do, and particularly of what they can do—for themselves, working by themselves, among their own kind, in their own communities.

“I sure don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings, but in fact I’ll even go so far as to say that I never really trust the kind of white people who are always so anxious to hang around Negroes, or to hang around in Negro communities. I don’t trust the kind of whites who love having Negroes always hanging around them. I don’t know—this feeling may be a throwback to the years when I was hustling in Harlem and all of those red-faced, drunk whites in the after hours clubs were always grabbing hold of some Negroes and talking about ‘I just want you to know you’re just as good as I am—.’ And then they got back in their taxicabs and black limousines and went back downtown to the places where they lived and worked where no blacks except servants had better get caught. But, anyway, I know that every time that whites join a black organization, you watch, pretty soon the blacks will be leaning to the whites to support it, and before you know it a black may be up front with a title, but the whites, because of their money, are the real controllers.

“I tell sincere white people, 'Work in conjunction with us—each of us working among our own kind.' Let sincere white individuals find all other white people they can who feel as they do—and let them form their own all-white groups, to work trying to convert other white people who are thinking and acting so racist. Let sincere whites go and teach non-violence to white people! We will completely respect our white co-workers. They will deserve every credit. We will give them every credit. We will meanwhile be working among our own kind, in our own black communities— showing and teaching black men in ways that only other black men can—that the black man has got to help himself. Working separately, the sincere white people and sincere black people actually will be working together.

In our mutual sincerity we might be able to show a road to the salvation of America’s very soul. It can only be salvaged if human rights and dignity, in full, are extended to black men. Only such real, meaningful actions as those which are sincerely motivated from a deep sense of humanism and moral responsibility can get at the basic causes that produce the racial explosions in America today. Otherwise, the racial explosions are only going to grow worse. Certainly nothing is ever going to be solved by throwing upon me and other so-called black ‘extremists’ and ‘demagogues’ the blame for the racism that is in America.

--The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Alex Haley and Malcolm X (Ballantine: 1964): pp. 383–384.

It's fascinating to see the parallels with the "Palestine solidarity movement", which in the West especially, has become dominated by Jewish individuals and worse, all-Jewish groups. As a result, suddenly the single most pressing and issue facing the Palestinian liberation movement is 'anti-semitism' -- whether the words of this or that speaker or writer promote "hatred of Jews".

Thus, a liberation movement at the center of such global issues such as imperialism, colonialism, economic enslavement, resource theft on a massive scale, mass media ownership and manipulation, wars of aggression and other crimes against humanity, terrible atrocities, the global weapons trade, the deliberate and well-funded distortion and 'weaponization' of religion, and a nation struggling to survive against incredible odds, is lured into the sticky quick sands of the infinitely malleable and useful "anti-semitism" accusation, where it sinks. As in real quicksand, the more the victim struggles, the faster it will sink. But with no struggle at all, the victim will also inexorably sink, though more slowly.

Though Jews may act collectively, in the name of Jewishness to further an agenda of oppression, exploitation and wars that cause human suffering on a mass scale, and enjoy public legitimacy in doing so, it is forbidden and a thought-crime to point this out. Why? Because of Jewish victimhood, a victimhood that has no current basis in reality, but is imbued with all the urgency and hysteria that the self-serving, self-described victims can drum into the masses, using the enormous media, political and financial resources at their disposal, which they have because in reality, far from being an oppressed and persecuted category of people, collectively, by any objective standards, they comprise a powerful and privileged elite.

Even stating this fact is forbidden. Instead, in order to be granted permission from the self-appointed gate-keepers to defend the real victims who are suffering from very tangible, quantifiable, daily oppression, one must declare one's allegiance to the lie that the Jews, collectively, are oppressed, if not the most oppressed people on earth, "from time immemorial". Without that permission, a person, a supposedly free citizen of a free country, may freely be abused, hounded, attacked physically and of course economically, using the massive and coordinated resources wielded by the 'oppressed' Jews, acting from behind the shield of their Jewish victimhood. I can't believe people are still falling for it.

This brings us back to the subject of Ken O'Keefe. He's just a guy, who bravely insists on speaking the truth as he sees it, and acting on his principles (principles that we all give lip-service to) in a non-violent way, even at the risk of his own life. This is not a crime, or shouldn't be, unless one is a fascist. We should respect people's right to hear what he has to say if they want to, or not to listen if they don't want to. We should respect people's right to agree with some or all of what he says, or not. We should respect his right to say it. O'Keefe does not command an army of aggression, nor does he own the media that markets the global warmongering elite's propaganda to the masses, nor does he kick and punch and incarcerate those who oppose him. He's not trying to silence anybody, but to break the silence that surrounds some very terrible things. Those who do those terrible things are the only winners (as always) when individuals like Ken O'Keefe are eliminated, especially in the name of "anti-fascism". Because there is no mechanism of oppression as powerful as one that is disguised as its opposite.

Just the fact that I have to spell this out, to people who live in countries that are literally invading and bombing other people's countries to spread "freedom" and "democracy" is so funny.

[BrandonD]

Bam that was powerful Alice, thank you.

[solace]

Ken O Keefe talked about "fucking Jews," and that there must be some truth to it to a bunch of neo-Nazis and Holocaust deniers at the Iona London Forum. Talk about knowing your antisemitic Jew hating audience. Christ, and look at the reception he is getting here on a (cough cough) antifascist board. What a fucking joke. What a fucking sick joke.