Conference taveng::bagels

104.0. "Jews and the "farm crisis"?" by KATIE::RICHARDSON () Tue Apr 08 1986 18:42

Jews Convenient Scapegoats for Farmers' Problems

Sharon Cohen, Associated Press 7 April 1986

(Des Moines, Iowa)
It usually begins with talk of conspiracy: outsiders plotting to bankrupt
America's farmers and take their land.  International bankers are involved.
So is the Federal Reserve System.

And somehow, they're all linked to the Jews.

That shadowy message, that Jews are behind the farm crisis, has become an
uncomfortably familiar refrain in the economically devastated Midwest and
Great Plains.  With land values and crop prices down, it's not hard to see how
distraught farmers fall prey to such talk.

"Hitler did the same thing in Germany.  This went on back during the
Depression in the '20s and '30s," said retired Nebraska Judge Samuel Van Pelt.
"Anytime you have someone in financial trouble, they're more vulnerable to a
racist pitch."

Jews, furthermore, tend to be convenient scapegoats because so few live in
rural areas.

"People can blame Jews because they're not there," said Joe Chrastil of the
Family Farm Organizing Resource Center, a farmer assistance group in
Minnesota.  "It's easy because they don't have to confront people."

A recent Louis Harris poll commissioned by the Anti-Defamation League of
B'nai B'rith found that while most rural Iowans and Nebraskans blamed farm
problems on Congress, bankers, the Raegan administration and local loan
agencies, 13 percent of the 606 people questioned believed substanstial
fault could be attributed to "certain religious groups, such as Jews, for
example."

The poll also found that 27 percent felt Jews have "too much power" in this
country.

The Harris organization said, "Any phenomenon which affects over one in four
residents must be viewed as a mass phenomenon, even if it is not massive."

The poll has prompted varied interpretations.  Michael Lieberman, the ADL's
Midwest civil rights director in Chicago, said it demonstrated that "despite
these very concerted efforts ... (extremists) are not making a significant
impact."

But Dan Levitas of the Iowa-based farm advocacy group Prairiefire saw it
another way.  "Without question, they've made significant inroads ... and have
worked their way into the mainstream of rural communities," he said.

"The degree to which a farmer believes any of the conspiracy theories,"
Levitas added, "has little to do with whether he's intelligent or well-educated
and much more to do with the profound sense of desperation and powerlessness
he feels."

There is little dispute, however, between farm organizations and the ADL about
those they beleive are peddling anti-Semitism in newsletters and at farm
meetings and foreclosures.

The major forces, they say, are not such notorious groups as The Order, a
white supremacist organization with members linked to the murder of a Jewish
radio talk show host in Denver.

The groups they did label as anti-Semitic included the Populist Party, founded
in 1984 and known for extreme political and social goals, and Posse Comitatus,
whose members are militant tax protesters.

In a 1986 ADl report, the league asserted that many Populist Party leaders had
"unsavory conenctions with Ku Klus Klan, neo-Nazi and paramilitary hate
movements."  The document accuses the party of trying to "cloak itself in the
seeming respectability of nationwide electoral politics."

The Populists, according to the ADL, were on the ballot in 14 states in the
1984 election.

One Populist goal is abolition of the Federal Reserve, said Nancy Shearer,
a party administrator in San Diego.  Miss Shearer said the party believed the
Federal Reserve was run by international banking families, a term the ADL says
has long been code for Jews.

As for membership, Miss Shearer said no one had to pass a religious test to
join a political party.  "When I sign up people, I don't ask if they're with
the Klan ... or if they're Jewish," she said.

The ADL says it's not that simple.  it says the Populist Party was established
to promote the goals of a different organization, the Liberty Lobby, which
Lieberman called "the most professional and sophisticated anti-Semitic group
in the country."

Miss Shearer acknowledged that Willis Carto, a member of the Populist Party's
none-member national executive committee, founded the Liberty Lobby.

The ADL also asserts that The Spotlighgt weekly newspaper, until recently
published by the Liberty Lobby, has long maintained an antagonistic attitude
toward Jews.  The newspaper claims a paid circulation of about 200,000.

The newspaper, Lieberman said, frequently aims its message at rural
America and has suggested one reason farmers are not getting aid is because
of U. S. financial suport for Israel.

Vince Ryan, the Spotlight editor, declined comments on the ADL accusations.
Trisha Katson, the Liberty Lobby's legislative liaison in Washington, said the
group is "not against Semitic people, be they Jewish or Arab."

She called ADL allegations "a very familiar tactic of using smear labels."

Another newspaper circulated in rural areas, the Primrose and Cattleman's
Gazette, has linked Jews and farm troubles.  A 1983 piece was headlined "How
The 'Jewish Question' Touches the Farm."  The newspaper has been published
sporadically by an organization called the National Agricultural Press
Association.

The Posse Comitatus, described by the FBI as a loose band of armed survivalists
who challenge the government's power to levy taxes, has also preached
anti-Semitism in rural areas.

    History has been repeating itself for the past 2000 years.
    In every century, Jews find one or another reason that, "It has
    to be different here."
    And the cycle goes on.
    
    Sorry to sound a sour note, but this is clear with
    an elementary knowledge of medieval+ Jewish history.