Re: It is simply unbelievable how Jews manage to get themselves into positions of great power and influence in the entire Western World. It is a marvel and a mystery.
A "marvel and a mystery"?! Well, not if you view the "Western world" as just another version of India's caste system... As for the Jews' alleged "power and influence", isn't it a "marvel and a mystery" as well that European Jews didn't use it to foresee and thwart Nazi schemes in the 1930s?
Anyway, my point is to say that Jews don't "manage to get themselves into positions" just like Brahmins (India's top caste) don't have to sweep their way to the top --they ARE the top! Of course, such an interpretation is, from an American perspective, highly subversive and shocking: there's no birthright or hereditary claim to "success" in America --that's a core tenet of the American creed. Everybody can make it --through hard work and savvy. The Indians, at least, are less hypocritical yet more lucid about the way society works... Americans, like their European cousins, fancy they're too civilized to live in a caste system hence their relentless effort at concealing their social fabric's true nature.
Of course, the Western caste system is more subtle and elusive than the Indian one: Western Brahmins are made up of several sub-castes --Jews, Protestants, even Catholics and atheists. That's why it would be more appropriate to talk of a "class system" instead of a caste proper... And just like India was previously presided by an untouchable(*), Western tokenism allows for a select few among "untouchable minorities" to get a lift....
Caste and Class
India Table of Contents
Varna, Caste, and Other Divisions
Although many other nations are characterized by social inequality, perhaps nowhere else in the world has inequality been so elaborately constructed as in the Indian institution of caste. Caste has long existed in India, but in the modern period it has been severely criticized by both Indian and foreign observers. Although some educated Indians tell non-Indians that caste has been abolished or that "no one pays attention to caste anymore," such statements do not reflect reality.
Caste has undergone significant change since independence, but it still involves hundreds of millions of people. In its preamble, India's constitution forbids negative public discrimination on the basis of caste. However, caste ranking and caste-based interaction have occurred for centuries and will continue to do so well into the foreseeable future, more in the countryside than in urban settings and more in the realms of kinship and marriage than in less personal interactions.
Castes are ranked, named, endogamous (in-marrying) groups, membership in which is achieved by birth. There are thousands of castes and subcastes in India, and these large kinship-based groups are fundamental to South Asian social structure. Each caste is part of a locally based system of interdependence with other groups, involving occupational specialization, and is linked in complex ways with networks that stretch across regions and throughout the nation.
The word caste derives from the Portuguese casta, meaning breed, race, or kind. Among the Indian terms that are sometimes translated as caste are varna (see Glossary), jati (see Glossary), jat, biradri, and samaj. All of these terms refer to ranked groups of various sizes and breadth. Varna, or color, actually refers to large divisions that include various castes; the other terms include castes and subdivisions of castes sometimes called subcastes.
Many castes are traditionally associated with an occupation, such as high-ranking Brahmans; middle-ranking farmer and artisan groups, such as potters, barbers, and carpenters; and very low-ranking "Untouchable" leatherworkers, butchers, launderers, and latrine cleaners. There is some correlation between ritual rank on the caste hierarchy and economic prosperity. Members of higher-ranking castes tend, on the whole, to be more prosperous than members of lower-ranking castes. Many lower-caste people live in conditions of great poverty and social disadvantage.
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friesian.com
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