Of course not! But, according to many right-wing "patriots" (too many to list here), and their equally pin-headed left-wing "humanitarian" (AKA: Isreal is the real reason for Palestinian woes, ad nauseum) wackos, Jews are somehow collectively guilty of whatever it is that doesn't seem to make sense to them. To the right-wing religious nuts, Jews are "wicked" for rejecting Christ (and, please, spare me all that tripe about Christianity being "the religion of love", because I've been there), so countless Christian dimbulbs thrill to the leaden prose of LEFT BEHIND, which leaves no stomach unturned in its zestful descriptions of the END TIMES. I won't assault your sensibilities by repeating some of the literary- religio-porn splashed all over the series pages like aborted fetuses (oh yes, there's at least one Christian Fundy website that offers images of, among other things, the Pope holding a "Last Supper" with said fetuses as the main dish. Yum!). On a later date, I'll try to list a few of these "Four-Square Gospel" and related leftist hate sites here, but I may run out of space even so. Yes, sadly, there are that many.As always, these pernicious politico-fascist fetishists fasten onto the historically simple, yet factually far-out solution of Jews being the cause of all their problems. And what, pray tell, is their proof? Why, THE PROTOCALS, naturally. Y'see, they say gleefully, it's gotta be true 'cuz it's the minutes of an actual meeting of those 33 nasty rabbis that secretly rule the world! Sure, and I'm the Anti-Christ, too. But, hard as we may laugh at this stupidity, it's here, has been here for God-knows-how-long, and isn't going away. Not today, not tomorrow, not next year. Because, notwithstanding the falsity of its claims, this belief in Jewish world-control is easy to understand, simple in operation (after all, didn't Charles Dickens himself have an unnamed Jewish rag-picker in league with Fagin? Of course Jews all know each other, right?), and virtually unassailable in its "us against them" logic. Try convincing a believer that all those obviously "Jewish" names at the head of major corporations aren't up to no good. So how'd they all get there? Your run-of-the-rut bigot will demand. Not that he's asking. He knows the answer: Jews only help other Jews, he'll retort. Shake your head in disbelief at him and he'll produce---drum roll---a copy of THE PROTOCALS, or some other screed downloaded from the rabid-right-wing/loonytoon-left conspiracy sites. Hopeless, me thinks.
I believe Umberto Eco, in his THE NAME OF THE ROSE, gave about the best answer as to why these people insist on seeing a mere 3% (it may be slightly higher) of the world's population to blame for almost everything. He places, in the mouth of an illiterate peasant, the sublimly simple sentence that haunts me as I write this: "When your enemies are powerful, you have to chose weaker ones", he states unself-consciously (I am not quoting verbatim, of course). There, you have it---choose an enemy that (preferably) can't fight back. For all we have Isreal, we Jews still stand mostly out-numbered and out-gunned, even here in America. It was thus when we arrived on these shores penniless and pulled ourselves up by our own bootstraps, as it were. Jews were never poor, many Christians believe (including my sister and brother-in-law). Jews hid money in the lining of their clothes, they say. (oh, sure, wads and wads of rubels, marks, and other foreign currancy that was worthless over here). Uh huh, and I suppose they stuffed their brogans full of gold coins, too (which explains why so many of them walked funny, I presume?)
Nevertheless, such intellectually-myopic hordes are to be feared because they outnumber us. Worse, they have panderers like Falwell, LaHaye, and Robertson who, while they might not openly preach hatred (or suger-coat it if they do), endorse whole-heartedly the "kikes are gonna get it when Jaysus returns" approach to God's Justice. And not only us but gays, Buddhists, Muslims, etc., as well. God's going to need one humongous Fry-Daddy come Judgement Day, according to the Fundies, who can't wait. Considering that most of our Repubican elected officials court these Fundies for their votes, rely heavily on their contributions, and even share some of the same beliefs---I say we'd better arm ourselves. Because you just know what's going to happen when the "wrong" messiah shows up...
