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Song of Balandshar: The Khazar origins of Trotskyite Globalism

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Dick Eastman

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Jun 10, 2001, 10:47:22 AM6/10/01

Now we have a debate!
Here is a remarkable counter argument from Columbia University:

----- Original Message -----
From: "Daniel Hugh Nexon" <dh...@columbia.edu>
To: "Dick Eastman" <eas...@wolfenet.com>
Sent: Saturday, June 09, 2001 9:54 PM
Subject: Re: Song of Balandshar: The Khazar origins of Trotskyite Globalism

> Most scholars no longer accept the proposition that the Jews of Russia
> were mostly descendend from Khazars. Most of the texts you cite predate
> genetic testing and more recent historical evidence with regards to the
> Khazars. There is some dispute about this... but even _if_ a substantial
> number of Muscovite (for example) Jews from before c. 1600-1790 were
> descended from Khazars, the Jewish population in Russia by the latter part
> of the 19th century were largely from western Europe by way of the
> Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
>
> Moreover, the sharp distinctions between ethnic groups discussed
> in these texts (mostly from 1890-1920) are largely the product of 19th
> century nationalist ideologies. They are not reflected in actual political
> and historical documents (such as we have them) from Muscovy and the Rus'.
>
> Finally, the image of the Khazars as some sort of collectivist,
> proto-totalitarian group is simply bizarre. The Khazars were one of many
> in a series of tribal confederacies to impose a tribute-taking empire in
> western Asia, a pattern that began at least with Scythians and continued
> through the Khanates of the Mongol conquest. There was nothing
> particularly "collectivist" about them. Nor did Khazar culture persist, as
> such, into 19th century Europe.
>
> The origins of Trotskyism are not particularly mysterious: it is simply
> a variation on marxist-socialist thought, the origins of which lie mostly
> in western and central European ideologies of the 19th century. Such
> ideologies have roots in Radical Reformation views on property and
> community.
>
>
> Regards, Dan | Columbia Political Science | www.columbia.edu/~dhn2
> "Everyone who has had a referee get the argument of his or her paper
> directly backward has wondered about calling it 'peer' review."
> -- Arthur L. Stinchcombe.

Thank you Daniel,

John Beaty is was a Columbia man, and in the installment posted
last night, a President of Columbia, is quoted.

You say "most scholars" -- well certainly "most scholars" have never heard
of the Khazars. If you said "most historians" the same may alos be true.
But if you had said most scientists who have heard of the Khazars feel the
Khazars are not the Russian Jews, then you are right -- most would agree --
because that is what most have read. But what about most of the historians
who have done primary research in the field? Are you qualified to answer
that question? I find that where the scholarship is deepest the conclusion
goes the other way, John.
ANd, if you choose to answer this, I will show that the one historian who
goes your way posits an argument that cannot be true.

You say:

but even _if_ a substantial
> number of Muscovite (for example) Jews from before c. 1600-1790 were
> descended from Khazars, the Jewish population in Russia by the latter part
> of the 19th century were largely from western Europe by way of the
> Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

But wait -- the Polish-Lithuanian, according to Beaty were also saturated
with the Khazars -- recall his argument -- wherever you have Ghettoization
that is the result of the Talmudic Rabbi's holding the Khazars to
discipline, keeping them under control. The Polish Ghetto was filed with
Khazars, not German Jews
(and this is ESPECIALLY true in the latter period).

You say:

>the image of the Khazars as some sort of collectivist,
> proto-totalitarian group is simply bizarre

Well, I don't form images in my head and evaluate them asthetically and then
present that as counter argument -- but the Khazars were Talmudic and ruled
by the rabbis, and that is all that Beaty is saying. But the Khazars came
from the same Turkic stock that had totalitarian khans ruling them -- and
they were conditioned by Gengis Khan for a significant period. WHile Beaty
did not make the assertion about the Khazars that you make above (and what
he did claim I have amply corroborated privately to my own satisfaction with
ancient Jewsih writings and Arabic histories) you certainly have no basis
your your assertion that they were not totalitarian or collectivist (saying
we agree on what we mean by these terms) -- show me one study on the
Khazar culture that gives you grounds for your being struck by bizzarness --
do so and I will drop this project of mine at once!

You say:

> The origins of Trotskyism are not particularly mysterious: it is simply
> a variation on marxist-socialist thought, the origins of which lie mostly
> in western and central European ideologies of the 19th century

A variation, yes, but it is the business of history to account for
variations; variations are everything in history. History is not uniform,
all is complexity -- we find threads and themes -- strains of cultural
practices and trace them back to sources -- and we account for variations by
looking at other influences and innovations -- but to say Trotskyism is a
variation of Marxism tells us nothing beyond the trivaal commonplace --
i.e, what reader here does not know that?
The point is too elementary to be of help in this discussion.

But then you say:

> a variation on marxist-socialist thought, the origins of which lie mostly
> in western and central European ideologies of the 19th century.

Oh, the sources of the variation like in central European ideologies, do
they?
ANd what people were carrying this ideology. And what did the 19th century
ideologies grow out of -- besides the 18th- century ideologies --. You give
no name for these ideologies and I suspect you have no pedigree for them
either.
Yet you are sure that they came from the head of Zeus and had nothing to do
with the Khazars dislocation and alienation and rabbinical resistance that
would make them especially susceptable to "revolutionary" anti-government
ideas.

In short everything you say stands on the name Columbia University at the
end of your post and your own good name to those who know you.

Now deliver some of the scholarship you appeal to, my friend.

(Need any economics instructors at Columbia? I'm always ready.)

Dick Eastman
Yakima, Washington
Every man is responsible to every other man.

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