Granted that focusing on their Jewishness specifically is Lindberghian and every modern should know better, if we give him the benefit of the doubt, might not his point be that religion imposes certain duties and that among them is not to purvey gratuitous sex and violence? Don't the people who produce and distribute such products bear moral responsibility for the desensitization of their societies? Of course that's true regardless of whether they are Christian or Jew.

David -

I agree, it is sinister. I'll offer one *possible* interpretation that could be exculpatory, although I am 98% sure that it is not what he (Easterbrook) meant: Jewish executives are held to a higher standard than others (by implication, they are _capable_ of higher standards than others). The reverse (holding minorities to lower standards) is considered odious when applied to, say, black educational achievement, so this _may_ be viewed as a back-handed compliment of sorts.

But I really doubt that is what he meant, at least consciously.

I think that the reference is to the experience of Jews in Europe during the period 1933-1945. If I were to channel Mr. Easterbrook (who I also enjoy reading), I would venture a guess that he was trying to make the point that Jews more so than most other groups suffered as a result of depersonalized violence becoming an acceptable means of eliminating large populations. They of all people should be sensitive to messages wherein violence against innocents is treated as anything other than an outrage or tragedy.

Of course, such lessons are hardly confined to the Jewish population around the world, which is why Mr. Easterbrook's message seems somewhat off-putting.

I just think he was tired when he wrote it. Hard to know what he had in mind. Not really good judgement on Gregg's part to whip this out without thinking it through.

I didn't read the whole posting yet, just what was quoted by David.

From reading Easterbrook for a long time, I certainly don't think he's anti-semitic. Even in his NFL column he regularly rants against the
mindless violence and destruction in Hollywood movies (although he admits the minor inconsistency that he has no problem with the
mindless T&A in Hollywood movies)...so I think what he's saying here is that while all of us should be troubled by gratuitous, de-personalizing and desensitizing images of violence, Jews should be especially bothered by it in light of the Holocaust....it probably didn't come out the way he meant to say it, but I think that's it...and, yes, it is to a certain degree holding Jews to a higher standard....and that doesn't bother me....that's my understanding of what it means to be "chosen"...not that we get special love or privileges from G-d, but that we have special obligations and burdens...

I could be reading too much into it, but I took the last sentence of the excerpt ("...hearing the screams of the innocent is a really fun way to express yourself") to be an indirect reference to Palestinian terrorism.

let him find some other group to make his piggish comparisons.

Interesting commentary on this subject from editor Alex Linder at VNN

http://www.vanguardnewsnetwork.com/default.asp

and don't miss the 'Reader Mail' page

http://www.vanguardnewsnetwork.com/readerMail/default.asp