I’m sure readers are familiar with the idea of “Six degrees of separation”: the idea (quoting Wikipedia now) that all living things and everything else in the world is six or fewer steps away from each other so that a chain of “a friend of a friend” statements can be made to connect any two people in a maximum of six steps.
Well, sometimes I start clicking on links that other diarists and commenters here provide and within just a couple of clicks–two degrees of separation, not six–come up with some truly unsavory stuff. By “unsavory”, I don’t mean that I just happen to disagree with the perspective offered, but rather some really vile stuff. Following is an example:
A recent comment by Oui contained a link to a Canadian website and an article entitled Donald J Trump and the Deep State by one Peter Dale Scott. I hope I don’t need to comment on the notion of the “deep state”, which I believe is synonymous with what some commenters here called “The Powers That Be”, for example. Call it an accurate description or call it conspiracy mongering, your choice. Alright then…linked to the deep-state story, in a sidebar entitled “Latest News/Top Stories”, is an article on the same website entitled The Neocons and the `Deep State’ have neutered the Trump Presidency, It’s Over Folks! by someone who goes by “The Saker”. This last article makes reference to “the Neocon-run Ziomedia” as one of Trump’s enemies. Farther along is a reference to “the AngloZionist Empire” and a statement that “they, the Neocons, are an occupation regime which rules against the will of the American people.” But arguably taking the cake is this description of the allegedly neutered Trump: “From now on, Trump will become the proverbial Shabbos-goy, the errand boy of the Israeli lobby.”
Zionist Occupation Government, anyone?
I’m Jewish, and obviously dismayed and disgusted by blatantly antisemitic invective thinly disguised as political commentary. What makes this garbage all the more troubling is that it pops up so damn easily: start from a left-wing website or a right-wing one, and one is quickly down in the sewer of antisemitic ranting. And yes, of course, one can quickly find oneself in various other fetid swamps of intolerance and hatred.
To be clear, the antisemitic article I mentioned above was not directly linked by Oui, and I don’t hold him responsible for it.
