In a letter published on Dec. 16, a former elected school board member supporting then-President-elect Donald Trump said Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign was backed by “anti-Christian, anti-U.S. globalists” led by George Soros, a wealthy businessman who was described as a “Rothschild banker.”
Many readers called the letter anti-Semitic in its description of Soros and his supposed control of Clinton and then-President Barack Obama in a way that raised questions of Jews’ loyalty to their country and propagated international banking conspiracy “theories” that have been a staple of anti-Semitic writings across history.
We said in an editorial published on Dec. 30 that although we believed the letter was thinly disguised anti-Semitism our readers were better served by confronting ignorant or hateful ideas.
We now realize we were wrong and apologize for the pain the letter’s publication caused.
Readers who objected to our decision to publish the letter cited the pain suffered by Jews across the centuries based on vicious falsehoods such as those referred to in the letter.
Many of those who called or wrote, or with whom we met personally, recalled the horrors of the Holocaust, still fresh in their minds either through personal experience or the experiences of friends and family. The author of this editorial — the child of a Holocaust survivor and named after a grandfather murdered at Auschwitz — understands this all too well.
Some who disagreed with the publication of the letter also said the rhetoric during the past election season and the national rise in hate crimes since the election added to their concerns.
We are committed to not adding to those concerns. We will not publish letters in the future that are inflammatory like the one published on Dec. 16.
The decision on where to draw the line in publishing letters to the editor is an admittedly subjective one that has bedeviled daily and weekly newspapers since the nation’s founding.
As we said in December, we are believers in the marketplace of ideas that is at the heart of our First Amendment and, as such, our newspapers offer a forum to our readers that grants them latitude in what they say and what subjects they address.
This has also led to some difficult decisions about what to publish and what not to publish.
This is not to rationalize or equivocate about our responsibilities. Just to acknowledge the care that is needed to allow a robust debate to continue while not further fueling the flames of bigotry and intolerance.
In the instance of the December letter, we now recognize we made a serious error in not taking proper account of the potential harm certain ideas can cause, as well as the depth of the community’s feelings. We express our profound sadness for the discomfort this may have caused.
We very much appreciate the dialogue that we have had with many members of our community. It will help us better navigate these difficult choices in the future.
Now, more than ever, this nation and this community is in need of a vibrant press.
Although we are the first to admit that we make mistakes, we are proud to be part of that great tradition.
You are folding like a beach chair under economic coercion. If the letter writer advocated violence or Nazi killing of Jews, then suppression of the letter would be appropriate. There is no legal right to advocated genocide of any group. I doubt if any of the protesters have spent years researching the issues as I have done. There are elements of truth in what the letter writer stated, and whether or not he is motivated by animus is irrelevant. |” Some even believe we [Rockefeller family] are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as ‘internationalists’ and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure – One World, if you will.If that’s the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it |” The aforesaid quote is what David Rockefeller stated in his own autobiography, “MEMOIRS” Rockefeller is not a Jew , but he is certainly evil. No group has a monopoly on evil; Jew or Gentile.
| David Rockefeller |
You folded like a cheap beach chair due to threats of boycott and other economic coercion. Suppression of a lettter that advocated genocide or violence is one thing, but one should always err on the side of free speech. My research of 20 years has shown me that there is some truth to what the letter writer alleges. For ex, David Rockefeller in his autobiography, “MEMOIRS”,states at pg 405; | “Some even believe we [Rockefeller family] are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as ‘internationalists’ and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure – One World, if you will.If that’s the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it ” |Rockefeller is a GENTILE banker, not a Jewish banker. ” I know that people love to live on the River DeNile, but does any of the blinded automatons aka Americans notice that every Presidential administration {including TRUMP] is dominated by Goldman Sucks. No group, Jew or Gentile, has a monopoly on evil , but the people to whom the letter writer refers are indeed quite evil, including George Soros, who admitted to helping the Nazis on famous TV show, 60 Minutes. AS a matter of full disclosure, I am a Jewish activist and an ardent Torah ZIONIST and very proud of it
| David Rockefeller |
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Nice apology. A bit late though don’t you think?
Seems to me there’s a lot wrong with the letter …. and the apologia. Soros’ Nazi ties — no matter how poo-poo’d by the left — are documented. How the original letter combined Soros, Rockefeller, international cabals and Jews is beyond baffling … but apologizing for printing it is PCism … and the ONLY thing political correctness means is that one cannot tell the truth for fear of offending someone. Offend away. It’s a First Amendment right.
read “Shadows of Power” by James Perloff or “The Creature From Jekyl Island” by GE Griffin and it will cease to be baffling