Евреи ХХ века
Хиллари Родэм была слишком молода, чтобы голосовать на выборах 1964 года. Но, заканчивая школу, она была "Goldwater girl" - поклонницей консервативного лидера и республиканского кандидата в президенты Барри Голдуотера. За время обучения в колледже ее взгляды претерпели изменения от консервативных к либеральным. Свою дипломную работу в 1969 она писала о Сауле Алинском, общественном организаторе и борце за социальную справедливость.
Голдуотер и Алинский родились в одном году и одном месяце (январе 1909 года) и имели схожее этническое происхождение.
Еврейский отец Барри Голдуотера и его христианская мать воспитывали детей в Епископальной церкви и финансовом благополучии. В своей автобиографии Голдуотер писал: "Neither my father nor any of our family ever took any part in the Jewish community. We never felt or talked about being half Jewish since my mother took us to the Episcopal church. It was only on entering the power circles of Washington that I was reminded I was a Jew. I never got used to being singled out in that way. My answer was always the same. I'm proud of my ancestors and heritage. I've simply never practiced the Jewish faith or seen myself or our family primarily of the Jewish culture. In the jargon of today's sociologist, we've been assimilated. We're American."
Саул Алинский родился в семье еврейских иммигрантов из России и вырос в одном из беднейших районов Чикаго. В интервью журналу Playboy в марте 1972 он рассказывает характерный анекдотичный эпизод про свои отношения с матерью:
Momma's great, she's still around and going strong. She speaks more Yiddish than English, but she collects all my clippings, even though she's confused about what I'm doing, and she gloats over the fact that I'm the center of a lot of attention. "My son the revolutionary," you know. Once I was the lead speaker at a mass meeting in Chicago and I thought she'd enjoy seeing it, so I had her picked up and taken to the auditorium. Afterward, I drove her home and I said, "Momma, how did you like my speech?" And she said, all upset, "That's a fine thing you did, to do a thing like that, what will people think of your mother, how will they think I brought you up?" I said, "Momma, what was it I said?" And she said, "You don't know? You ask me, when twice, twice you wiped your nose with your hand when you were talking? What a terrible thing!"
http://www.bahaistudies.net/neurelitism/library/alinsky_interview_1967.pdf
В том же интервью Алинский рассказывает, что после опыта работы с беднейшими слоями населения он осознал, что главная борьба в Америке развертывается за умы людей среднего класса.
The middle class actually feels more defeated and lost today on a wide range of issues than the poor do. And this creates a situation that's supercharged with both opportunity and danger. There's a second revolution seething beneath the surface of middle-class America -- the revolution of a bewildered, frightened and as-yet-inarticulate group of desperate people groping for alternatives -- for hope. Their fears and their frustrations over their impotence can turn into political paranoia and demonize them, driving them to the right, making them ripe for the plucking by some guy on horseback promising a return to the vanished verities of yesterday. The right would give them scapegoats for their misery -- blacks, hippies, Communists -- and if it wins, this country will become the first totalitarian state with a national anthem celebrating "the land of the free and the home of the brave."
Через несколько месяцев после этого интервью Алинский скоропостижно скончался от сердечного приступа.
При всех их различиях Голдуотер и Алинский имели много общего. Салинский был практиком, а не идеологом. Но в своей практике он считал, что для борьбы за справедливость люди должны организовываться самостоятельно по месту жительства, а не рассчитывать на помощь федерального правительства. Эта позиция сближала его с консерваторами. В книжке Radical: A Portrait of Saul Alinsky рассказывается о встрече Голдуотера и Салинского в начале 1960ых. "The conversation was about Goldwater’s opposition to pending civil rights legislation. Saul shared the conservative misgivings about the mischief such laws could cause if abused, but he told Goldwater that he should not morally and could not politically oppose the legislation unless he had a better idea himself."
Рассказ о двух влиятельных политиках-oдногодках можно дополнить рассказом о двух писательницах еврейского происхождения. Одна из них была на 4 года старше Голдуотера и Алинского, другая - на 4 года моложе.
Первая, урожденная Алиса Розенбаум, известна как Айн Рэнд. Ныне она вдохновляет республиканских политиков нового поколения вроде Пола Райана, спикера Конгресса: "... the reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand. And the fight we are in here, make no mistake about it, is a fight of individualism versus collectivism."
Интервью журналу Playboy Айн Рэнд дала в марте 1964.
What, in your view, is the proper function of a government?
Basically, there is really only one proper function: the protection of individual rights. Since rights can be violated only by physical force, and by certain derivatives of physical force, the proper function of government is to protect men from those who initiate the use of physical force: from those who are criminals. Force, in a free society, may be used only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use. This is the proper task of government: to serve as a policeman who protects men from the use of force.
What about other public needs? Do you consider the post office, for example, a legitimate function of government?
Now let’s get this straight. My position is fully consistent. Not only the post office, but streets, roads, and above all, schools, should all be privately owned and privately run. I advocate the separation of state and economics. The government should be concerned only with those issues, which involve the use of force. This means: the police, the armed services, and the law courts to settle disputes among men. Nothing else. Everything else should be privately run and would be much better run.
If Senator Goldwater is nominated as the Republican presidential candidate this July, would you vote for him?
At present, yes. When I say “at present,” I mean the date when this interview is being recorded. I disagree with him on a great many things, but I do agree, predominantly, with his foreign policy. Of any candidates available today, I regard Barry Goldwater as the best. I would vote for him, if he offers us a plausible, or at least semi-consistent, platform.
http://www.playboy.com/articles/playboy-interview-ayn-rand
Вторая была поэтессой по имени Muriel Rukeyser, активисткой феминистского и антивоенного движения. Одно из ее произведений называется To be a Jew in the Twentieth Century.
To be a Jew in the twentieth century
Is to be offered a gift. If you refuse,
Wishing to be invisible, you choose
Death of the spirit, the stone insanity.
Accepting, take full life. Full agonies:
Your evening deep in labyrinthine blood
Of those who resist, fail, and resist; and God
Reduced to a hostage among hostages.
The gift is torment. Not alone the still
Torture, isolation; or torture of the flesh.
That may come also. But the accepting wish,
The whole and fertile spirit as guarantee
For every human freedom, suffering to be free,
Daring to live for the impossible.