Sent to you by Sean McBride via Google Reader: When Will the Press Lift the Hood on the New Jewish Aristocracy? via Mondoweiss by Philip Weiss on 7/15/08 Today's WSJ has a front-page piece on casino-king Sheldon Adelson saying that the cash-strapped Republican Party is counting on him to fund a lot of races. I can't get the whole piece online, I'm going to go out and buy it. But apparently the Israel angle is prominent. I wonder if they talk about his relations with Douglas Feith and One Jerusalem, and other neocon extremists.
Of course Obama's biggest backers include members of Chicago's "billionaire first families," both Jewish: the Pritzkers and the Crowns. Here's a Tribune article about the "mammoth mansions" that Penny Pritzker, Obama's finance director, and a member of the Crown family are building right across the street from one another. James Crown is said to be on Obama's team. He's my age and went to Hampshire College, says Wikipedia. His father Lester chairs the Global Affairs Council in Chicago, which banned/censored John Mearsheimer last year, and has his tentacles [apologies; over the line] hands in at the Council on Foreign Relations too. Lester is said to be hawkish on the Middle East. The FEC reports that Lester Crown gives a lot of money to Dems and so does son James, who supported Obama early and often (as well as many other Dems). Scarily, father and son gave money to Joe Lieberman after Ned Lamont knocked him off in the primary in Connecticut. Lieberman is neoconnish. Where are the Crowns? In this letter of January (reported in Aspen, where the Crowns are aristocracy), Lester supports Obama as a stalwart on Lester's "fundamental" issue, Israel; and calls for a two-state solution, even as he signs up for a war on terror from Gaza to Tehran. I see that Ryan Lizza's piece in the New Yorker on Obama's political rise touches on the Pritzkers but doesn't mention the Crowns. Doesn't really go near the Jewish angle. This Washington Post piece scants the Israel angle, too. When is someone going to open the hood on the new Jewish aristocracy and where all the sons and daughters are on Israel, Jerusalem, the two-state solution, etc.? Things you can do from here: - Subscribe to Mondoweiss using Google Reader - Get started using Google Reader to easily keep up with all your favorite sites
