On Useful Idiocy and David Harris Gershon

It has come to my attention that there are still supposed liberals and progressives (on Daily Kos, of course) maintaining that baptizing my dead relatives into the Mormon Church against theirs and my will is no big deal. Just, you know, shit happens and I should stop complaining. As usual, these supposed 'progressive' thinkers are defended, excused, and inspired by wannabe author and serial failure David Harris Gershon.

Apparently they also maintain that dog whistles about Jewish control of the government and disloyal Jewish senators that are drawn straight out of Neo-Nazi rhetoric are also just fine. After all, what a terrible, 'chilling effect on free speech' it would be if one were to insist on norms of respectful behavior that have long ago been accepted in regard to every other ethnic group. Without being able to insinuate in polite company that Jews or Jewish interests control the government and that Jewish-American politicians are disloyal... well how in Earth would people be able to insinuate that Jews or Jewish interests control the government and Jewish-American politicians are disloyal?? Down with censorship!

And I am also told that in spite of a mountain of convincing evidence that includes, well fuck, everything, many people who claim to be on the side of the political aisle that favors rationality are simply unable to wrap their heads around the simple concept that Jews are a people, not a religion. Nope, in spite of a mountain of genetic and historical evidence, they can't process it. I kid you not, there are seriously people seemingly unable to understand this.

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Now, I learned long ago not to be surprised at these attitudes from supposedly "progressive" quarters. Still, it does still manage to amaze me that a few Jewish people themselves (or at least those claiming on the anonymous internet to be Jewish) often love to provide cover for their own haters. For purveyors of antisemitism, Jewish useful idiots are the most useful idiots of all.

One particularly prominent useful idiot (as prominent as one can be in a web-based echo chamber filled with a rapidly diminishing number of readers such as Daily Kos), who goes by the affore mentioned name name of David Harris Gershon, recently tried the "look over there!" tactic, where when an episode of antisemitism is pointed out the person says 'oh yeah, but these other people have it way worse than us successful happy educated Jews'. Often the 'other people over there' are Muslims, as it was in this case. Now I'm not going to get into a pissing contest about who suffers worse discrimination, other than to refer to this chart or the hundreds like it that are readily available from 2 milliseconds of web searching:

See that, not even in their worst year right after 9/11 were anti-Muslim incidents anywhere as common as anti-Jewish incidents in the US. And this is not privileged information that you have to be a genius like me to get. It is just right there for everyone. And yet, the statements of useful idiots asserting exactly the contrary go unchallenged and accepted in a forum that is supposedly for the 'reality based' side of the political aisle.

Again, I shouldn't be surprised. I do recall that this person is so eager to be useful to antisemites that he would write a diary with a title such as "Criticism of Israel is not Antisemitic" only to be presented with myriad examples where criticism of Israel was in fact highly antisemitic, you know of the "Israeli vampires are harvesting our childrens' organs and blood" variety. Instead of, say, admitting a mistake, Gershon would simply change the title to something less dramatic so that nobody would know he made a boo boo, and go on earning the accolades and twitter follows of antisemites and his fellow useful idiots. Par for the course.

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But this David Harris Gershon character is a useful idiot that not only excels in the useful part, he is also an overachiever in the idiot part (Jews are known for overachieving, after all). See, he would have us believe that in spite of being thus far unable to obtain a much coveted book deal, the thing he wants more than anything and writes about every day, he actually turned down the chance to have a national TV interview on the leading newsmagazine regarding his experience as the spouse of a terrorist victim, and will claim with with a straight face (to the extent that faces are relevant in anonymous web forums) that he did so out of some sort of principle.

While this explanation may fool the sort of feeble minds who can't even understand the simple concept of Jewish peoplehood or why one might justifiably be the slightest tad offended at having their dead relatives baptized against their will, in the real world, outside of the bubble, normal thinking people see right through that unbelievable bullshit.

For those that don't know (which can't be very many people because he says it every two seconds) a hate filled terrorist tried to blow up Gershon, did injure his wife, and killed several other people. Now, let's think about this: Within in the bubble that exists in forums such as Daily Kos, "I am a lowly middle aged male substitute kindergarten teacher who wants to hug the rage filled America-hating person who maimed my wife and did kill several other people" earns a bunch of oohs and aahs and "OMG I love you so much you brave brave man."

But outside of the bubble, in front of a national TV audience? Not so much. If that story ever got airtime, the same story that is peddled within the bubble, Gershon would become the most reviled laughing stock in America. Forget Bill O'Reilly, I'm talking Bill Maher and Ed Shultz and every other person with a pulse and a shred of dignity would be making fun of this guy. He would be our version of the recent Italian sea captain, only about 100 times more reviled. The butt of jokes and true scorn. "I want to hug him" might become the new "Don't touch my junk". We're due for a new buzzphrase, anyway.

It is obvious why he backed out of the TV interview, if one was ever actually on offer. And it is also painfully obvious, for the same reason, why mainstream publishers do not want to touch his book with my ten foot pole. But he thinks that that the rest of us don't see that big chunk of obviousness before us. He has confused the bubble with the real world. Unreality has taken over from reality. And that, my friends, is idiotic.