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Libertarians Gone Wild

Christopher Beam
Slate
March 17, 2009

Editor’s note: Cohen, the off-beat comedian starring in the Bruno movies, attempts to lampoon Dr. Ron Paul, but fails miserably. Even so, folks who manage to stumble into the comic’s lame stint and set-up may be inclined to check out the political philosophy of Paul and join the ever-growing resistance to the New World Order. It is all good… minus the antics.

Presidential candidates will do almost anything for publicity. But Ron Paul’s appearance in Sacha Baron Cohen’s upcoming Bruno movie suggests he draws the line at making sex tapes with gay Austrian TV hosts.

In a five-minute scene, comedian Cohen tries—and fails—to seduce the Texas congressman and former Republican presidential candidate in a Washington hotel room. A spokeswoman for Paul confirmed the appearance but declined to discuss details, which were provided by two people who attended a test screening last week.

The film, slated for release in July, is the follow-up to 2006’s Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, about a Kazakh news reporter’s quest to find a wife. Bruno follows a similar arc: After the flamboyant TV host’s show in Austria gets canceled, he heads to the United States to try to resurrect his career.

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Family
Baron Cohen was born in Hammersmith, London, England,[1] the youngest of three sons in an Orthodox Jewish family.[3] His mother, Daniella (née Weiser), teaches at a school of movement and was born in Israel, and his father, Gerald Baron Cohen, was originally from Wales.[4][5][6] Baron Cohen's paternal grandfather was born in Pontypridd, and his maternal grandmother, who now lives in Haifa, Israel, was an acclaimed ballet dancer from Germany.[7][8][9][10][11] His paternal great grandfather was born in Kaunas, Lithuania.[12] His brother Erran Baron Cohen, a composer and trumpet player, contributed to the Borat film with the song "O Kazakhstan." Sacha Baron Cohen's cousin Simon Baron-Cohen is a leading researcher in the study of autism spectrum disorders (including Asperger syndrome) at Cambridge University.

Education
Baron Cohen first attended St. Columba's College Prep School, in St. Albans, Hertfordshire, before moving on to attend Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School, a private school in Elstree, Hertfordshire, near London. The same school was also attended by fellow comedians Matt Lucas and David Baddiel. He went on to Christ's College, Cambridge, where he read History under Niall Ferguson and wrote his thesis on Jewish involvement in the American Civil Rights movement, with emphasis on the 1964 murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner in Mississippi.

At the Cambridge University Amateur Dramatic Club, Baron Cohen acted in plays such as Fiddler on the Roof (in which he played Tevye) and Cyrano de Bergerac. While at Cambridge, he performed in Habonim Dror Jewish theatre performances.[13]


Early roles
After leaving university, Cohen worked for a time as a fashion model.[14] By the early 1990s he was hosting a weekly program on Windsor cable television's local broadcasts alongside Carol Kirkwood, who has become the BBC anchor for weather broadcasts.

Israel and Judaism
Baron Cohen first acted in theatrical productions featuring the Socialist-Zionist youth movement Habonim Dror ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habonim_Dror ).[49]

He spent a year in Israel at Kibbutz Rosh HaNikra and Kibbutz Beit HaEmek as part of the Shnat Habonim Dror, before matriculating to university.

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CASE IN point is the Union of Progressive Zionists. The UPZ is the US campus representative of the Labor and Meretz parties as well as of Hashomer Hatzair and Habonim Dror. In its mission statement, the UPZ claims to be "a network of student activists organizing on campuses across North America for social justice and peace in Israel/Palestine. The UPZ was created to provide guidance, education and resources to students who seek to impart a progressive voice into the campus debate on Israel."

Mission statement in hand, the UPZ joined the Israel on Campus Coalition (ICC) - a pro-Israel umbrella group established to build support for Israel and fight the rise in anti-Israel incitement on college campuses. Yet, while operating under the ICC umbrella, UPZ is actually promoting hostility toward Israel and so advancing the cause of those who maintain that Israel has no right to exist.

In recent months, under the aegis of the ICC, the UPZ has hosted members of the radical leftist Israeli organization "Breaking the Silence" on a number of college campuses. "Breaking the Silence" was established by former IDF soldiers for the declared purpose of "exposing" the "irreversible corruption" of Israeli society by the IDF's counterterror operations in Judea and Samaria.

Armed with photographs which purposely present a distorted image of IDF operations, soldiers and Israeli civilians in Judea and Samaria, the group works to demonize and criminalize the IDF and so undermine Israel's right to defend itself against the Palestinian jihad. That is, it seeks to advance an aim which is diametrically opposed to the goals of the ICC.

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Inflation
Office Politics
Students work to shut down PLO's New York office

The group of 30-odd students stood across the street from the Palestine Liberation Organization's mission to the United Nations, chanting "hey ho the PLO has got to go." The February 24, protest was one of many demonstrations organized by "PLO out of NYC," a campaign run by students from several area colleges working to shut down the PLO's New York City offices.

PLO out of NYC is taking its message to the streets: setting up regular rallies in front of the PLO mission, phone campaigns, and plastering the streets with PLO out of NYC posters. "We felt that in the post 9/11 world the American public mind was ripe for the message that those who sponsor terrorists are the same as terrorists themselves," said New York University student and protest organizer Nathan Gessner. "There is no way we could allow Al Qaeda or the Taliban to have an office in New York City."

Gessner said that the group has made a great deal of headway in the past few months, citing a proposal by a New York City Council member that aims to shut down the PLO's New York City offices.

The campaign to kick the PLO out of New York, however, hasn't met with universal approval in Zionist circles. Jamie Levin, national director of Habonim Dror North America, a Labor Zionist youth movement, initiated an e-mail campaign to ensure that the city council knows there are Jews who disagree with the effort to shut down the PLO office. "The only thing we guarantee through an end of dialogue is an end of dialogue," said Levin. "Not that anyone is particularly so fond of the PLO, but even the American and Israeli governments have left the channel open for dialogue."

For his part, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has declared his opposition to the proposal: "As the host city for the UN, we have to--even when it is painful and disgraceful and disgusting, any term you want to use--we have to be willing to let anybody that the UN wants to credit, or visit, come here."

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Efforts to Remove UPZ from the Israel on Campus Coalition Fail
UPZ Vindicated

Efforts by the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) to have the Union of Progressive Zionists expelled from the Israel on Campus Coalition - the umbrella organization encompassing pro-Israel groups working on campus - have failed.

During the Fall 2007, the UPZ, which is supported by Meretz USA, Ameinu, Habonim Dror, and Hashomir Hatzair, sponosored a tour of Breaking the Silence - a group of discharged Israeli soldiers critical of some IDF practices in the Palestinian territories. For this, the ZOA began its lobbying efforts. After meeting to discuss the issue, the ICC Steering Committee released a statement rejecting the ZOA's demand and reaffirming the ICC's commitment to open dialogue and freedom of thought.

Below, see the ICC statement as well as links to several articles detailing the controversy.
Statement of the Israel on Campus Coalition (ICC) Steering Committee
January 22, 2007

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Labour Zionism in North America

Labour Zionism came to North America in 1905, when Poale Zion (Workers of Zion) established a branch in the US and Canada. The party merged in 1931 with another labour Zionist organization, Zeirei Zion Hitahdut (Youth of Zion). Labour Zionism was always a small current within the North American Zionist movement (unlike eastern Europe, where it had substantial Jewish support before World War II), but it achieved a disproportionate influence, thanks partly to its direct ties with the labour Zionist leadership in Palestine. A series of Poale Zion-affiliated projects culminated in 1935 with the founding of a North American branch of the Habonim (Builders) youth movement. Other labour Zionist youth movements active in Canada and the United States included Gordonia (named for early Zionist leader A. D. Gordon) and Dror (Freedom), which merged with Habonim in 1938 and 1982, respectively, and Hashomer Hatzair. Through these youth movements, members learned the ideology of labour Zionism and the practical skills for making aliyah (literally "ascent," the Zionist term for Jewish immigration to Palestine or Israel) and founding kibbutzim (such as how to farm or drain swamps); such youth movements in Europe and North America were largely responsible for the first kibbutzim. Some youth activists also ran guns to the Zionist underground in Palestine.[18]

This is one of the unique aspects of Zionism as a settler-colonial project: Zionist groups abroad had a material connection to settlement in Palestine; thus there was back-and-forth on strategy and politics between members in Palestine/Israel and in Europe, and later in Canada and the US; and labour Zionist organizations in North America since the early 20th century have not seen themselves as auxiliaries to Zionist organizations in Palestine/Israel, but rather as strategic centres of movement in their own right.

Today, North American organizations that identify to varying degrees with labour Zionism's socialist heritage include Habonim Dror North American (HDNA), Hashomer Hatzair, and the Union of Progressive Zionists (UPZ), which are active in both the US and Canada; and Ameinu (formerly Labour Zionist Alliance, a descendant of Poale Zion) and Meretz-USA, which operate only in the United States. These groups have few members or resources compared with the big liberal and conservative groups of the Zionist establishment, but they continue to speak to sections of the North American Jewish community and are a significant voice on some college campuses and among groups promoting Israeli-Arab dialogue and reconciliation. The labour Zionist tradition also provides a kind of historical cachet to the broader progressive Zionist movement, exemplified by Tikkun magazine or Brit Tzedek v'Shalom (Jewish Alliance for Justice and Peace), whose members may or may not relate directly to labour Zionist organizations.

Historically, labour Zionist groups were divided, sometimes bitterly, over their various relationships with Marxism and with Jewish religious practice, their allegiances to various labour Zionist thinkers, and their specific strategies for building a Jewish homeland in Palestine. In recent decades these conflicts have mostly been reduced to differences of emphasis and language. (Hashomer Hatzair has historically been anti-religious, while HDNA tends to be more religiously pluralist, yet the two have drawn closer together in recent years and jointly sponsor the UPZ.) In North America, the most significant political contrast now is between adult organizations, which tend to distance themselves from socialism, and the youth groups, which remain oriented toward communal living and ground their ideology and analysis more squarely in labour Zionism's socialist tradition. Our discussion centres on youth organizing, which is a long-standing focus of labour Zionism.

Today, labour Zionist organizations in North America pursue a number of goals, from providing political and cultural education for young Jews to supporting the work of progressive Zionist organizations in Israel, from advocating for a two-state solution to recruiting and training North American Jews to immigrate to Israel to live the labour Zionist dream. Labour Zionist groups offer participants a sense of collective purpose, social and cultural connections with like-minded Jews, training in politics and organizing skills, and an opportunity to combine progressive values with a strong assertion of Jewish identity.

Given the declining state of the kibbutz movement, in recent years these movements have developed the concept of the "irbutz," or urban kibbutz, where members live communally and usually pursue social justice work (within Zionist limits). However, for most labour Zionists within these organizations, the contemporary focus is not on moving to Israel to live the dream so much as on influencing US and Israeli policy from North America. As compared to the kibbutz-building years of the 40s and 50s, few members of labour Zionist youth movements "make aliyah" to kibbutz, irbutz, or anywhere. Hashomer Hatzair and HDNA run summer camps in North America and programs in Israel that focus more on educating members to continue work in the movement back in North America, with few opting to stay in Israel or to move back later. HDNA's Israel programs, for example, include a two-month summer program for 16-year-olds, a 10-month program between high school and college in which members live communally on kibbutz and in a city, and a semester-abroad program in which students live together and study in Haifa (known as Habo U).

Campus activism has recently been a major focus for labour Zionists, mainly through the Union of Progressive Zionists network. UPZ mobilizes young left-leaning Jews as an alternative to the Palestine solidarity movement, presenting itself as "Pro-Israel, Pro-Palestine, Pro-Peace." The way UPZ positions itself sets it up as the rational middle course between right-wing Zionist crazies and pro-Palestinian crazies. UPZ, like other liberal Zionist campus projects, focuses on "dialog" and prejudice-reduction rather than an analysis of Palestinian oppression as a system of power, offering young Jews who are concerned about racism a way to stay in the Zionist movement, rather than pushing them to rethink the concept and examine its structural problems. In this way, the UPZ and related groups undermine Palestine solidarity work.

Hillel, a well-resourced Jewish campus organization with offices across the US and Canada, uses labour Zionism's progressive appeal in its motto, "Wherever we stand, we stand with Israel." Hillel proposes a kind of pluralistic Zionism that takes a hard-line stance on some campuses and a progressive form on others, sometimes working with the UPZ and sometimes pressuring them from the right. This has been a widely successful strategy in painting Palestine solidarity groups as extremist, anti-Jewish, and unwilling to engage in "civilized" dialogue with Hillel's broad-minded pluralism. (Pressure from Hillel has also fueled UPZ's self-perception as a leftist, pro-peace organization.)

The cover that UPZ provides for Zionism on campus is analogous to labour Zionism's public relations utility for more conservative (and more powerful) Zionist organizations like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), whose work labour Zionists themselves often find reprehensible. The progressive self-representation of labour Zionist organizations, and their often-progressive stances on issues not related to Israel, makes it possible for other organizations to hide the more obvious racism of mainstream Zionism, or to package Zionism as deeply and historically linked to progressive causes.

Habonim Dror North America

Habonim Dror is an international youth movement run by separate regional organizations in countries around the world, with a central office in Israel. Each country's or region's organization has separately articulated aims; each includes labour Zionism in its mission statement. In the United States and Canada, Habonim Dror operates from a central office in New York that runs seven summer camps and a number of local chapters whose activities during the year range from hosting Chanukah parties to organizing contingents at Israel Day parades. HDNA has five pillars it uses for educational purposes: socialism, progressive labour Zionism, self-actualization, cultural Judaism, and social justice.

At summer camps, on trips to Israel, and in chapter activities, HDNA provides for its youth a political education that ties analysis to action; a Jewish cultural home that links leftist political engagement to Zionism; and a creative, dynamic community. HDNA's political education inspires many of its hundreds of members to do progressive work on a range of issues during and after their time in the organization. On the other hand, the deep links between Zionism and leftist political education in HDNA have led some members to leave the movement as the contradiction between these commitments becomes unworkable.

A close look at HDNA's approach to pedagogy reveals further contradictions. The teaching is focused on current realities but nostalgic for labour Zionism's heroic past, directed toward empowering young people yet consciously manipulative, and designed to reveal and attack structural oppression while shrouding and protecting Zionism's own oppressive core.
To spell out these issues in concrete detail, co-author Nava EtShalom discusses her experiences in HDNA, as a first-person case study of labour Zionism.
* * *
I was a member of HDNA from 1995 to 2001. As a camper at HDNA's Camp Galil in Pennsylvania and later as a counselor and chapter leader, I experienced -- and implemented -- a range of ...

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But I was surely tricked into appearing on one of the most silliest programs in Britain and apparently one of the most popular variety shows in their country hosted by Ali G (Sacha Baron Cohen). Because Ali G is not well known in the US, he and his producers were able to convince me to do an on camera interview for his program. If you are not familiar with Ali G, you may have noticed him as the limousine driver in a recent Madonna video named Music.

I was contacted by Chloe Court of TalkBack Productions from London about an idea that they had regarding Los Angeles gangs for purposes of educating the English youth about gangs and informing the general public about how destructive street gangs have been for many American youth. I thought that this was a decent topic and agreed to partcipate. They claimed that the name of the show was "The Message," a working title, which is a late-night factual-entertainment program, which turned out to be a lie. The name of the show was "The 11 O'Clock Show" on NBC and they were already in their second season of conducting ridiculous interviews with unsuspecting guest, such as myself. [View initial letter from TalkBack Productions to Mr. Alonso - 172 k PDF].

When I finally met Ali G, which was moments before the interview was to begin, I sensed that this guy had another plan. He was dressed in solid yellow althletic apparel with a matching head beanie and large goggles. I knew that this chap could not be taken seriously and I was not prepared for the questions he was about to ask. After the interview began, I was not sure how to behave, because he was asking some really silly questions, I wanted to laugh, but I just maintained a calm demeanor and continued to do the interview. It turns out that Ali G, the character that Mr. Cohen created is a spoof gangster from the West End Massive that communicates a bizarre street lingo, heavy with slang and plenty of accent.

Other Americans that have been unsuspectingly interviewed by Ali G include former Secretary of State (1981-82 under Ronald Reagan) Alexander Haig, Professor Alan Dershowitz of Harvard Law School, Admiral Stansfield Turner and former head of the CIA, and Emeritus Professor of Economics at Harvard John Kenneth Galbraith.

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Spoof TV character Ali G has won himself a starring role in Madonna's latest pop video, it has been reported.

His creator, comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, was flown to Hollywood to film the video to Music, the title track from the singer's new album, according to the Observer newspaper.

Madonna is said to have become a fan after a friend sent her a copy of his Christmas special, Ali G, Innit.

"She watched the tape and thought he was brilliant - the Peter Sellers of our generation," her manager, Caresse Norman, told the paper.

"We came up with the video idea, and she thought he would be great in it."

Ali G is said to appear in the video wearing his trademark yellow track suit and wraparound sunglasses.

The details are not being revealed, but Ali G is said to feature at the centre of a "strong storyline".

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Madonna has become an Ali G fan when someone gave her his video as a present. 'I hope he breaks America,' she muses. 'I think he could do you like his other characters, the Kazakhstani? I love him' Last Friday, Madonna went round to Sacha Baron Cohen's parents' house for dinner. 'Sacha's not at all like Ali G,' she says. 'He's a very lovely young man and the apple of his family's eye.'

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Sacha came up with Ali G - based on his irritation with young white men who tried to ape black street culture - and a comedy phenomenon was born.

Word- of-mouth spread and suddenly Ali G was being talked about everywhere.

The Ali G segment quickly became the most popular part of the 11 O'clock Show. The video Da Best Of Ali G sold millions and Baron Cohen was quickly given his own show on Channel 4, Da Ali G Show.

It ran for two series, pulling in around five million viewers, winning two Baftas and becoming one of the most popular shows on the channel, with fans from every age group and every walk of life.

Prince William famously did an impression of Ali G for the television cameras during his gap year trip to Chile.

And Madonna, always one of the first to spot a new trend, snapped him up to appear in a video for her single Music.

The two have since become firm friends and that led to Sacha taking Madonna, who is interested in kabbalah, a form of Jewish mysticism, and her husband Guy Ritchie home to his parents for a sabbath meal.

Erran, Sacha's brother, recalled that night: 'It was surreal,' he once told a journalist. 'Madonna brought round a copy of the final cut of her Music video and we all sat round the TV and watched it.'

The evening ended with Guy and Erran playing chess.

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MADONNA got a nasty surprise when she begged SACHA BARON COHEN to appear in one of her music videos - she received a torrent of abuse from the Borat funnyman. Cohen was asked to star in the promo for the song Music in 2000, but refused to believe the person on the other phone was really the Queen of Pop and began to scream obscenities at her. He recalls, "I got a call from someone claiming to be Madonna. I thought it was a prank so I proceeded to totally insult the woman on the end of the line." Luckily, Madonna forgave him and he appeared on the video as one of his characters Ali G.

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Sacha's intelligence was clear from an early age. He was accepted for the exclusive Haberdashers' Aske's school, known as 'Habs', where he did well enough to gain a place at Christ's College, Cambridge to read history.

But Habs was also one of the most important influences on Sacha's life - it was where he made friends with a brilliant clique to which he has stayed close ever since.

Many of those gawky young teenagers now form part of the writing team for Ali G, as well as providing Sacha's social life.

They include novelist William Sutcliffe, who satirised Habs in his first book, New Boy - which memorably described a character called Dave, a Jewish boy who sat 'in a green-belt public school classroom with floor polish in [his] hair pretending to be [a] ghetto black kid'.

Another is Matt Lucas, better known as George Dawes, the bald comedian on Vic Reeves's TV quiz show Shooting Stars.

There is also Dan Mazer, who went on to become president of the Cambridge Footlights and worked on The Big Breakfast.

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'I don't remember Sacha having girlfriends,' says his former classmate. 'He wasn't the most attractive of boys so I'm not sure he was a big hitter with the girls.

Which leads us to the other big influence in Sacha's life - his religion.

Sacha was involved with the Habonim youth group, which organises camps and Jewish education and has strong links to kibbutzim in Israel.

He threw himself into the group, becoming a 'madrich' (youth leader) and taking a year off before Cambridge to live on the Rosh Hanikra kibbutz in Israel picking avocados. 'We think Habonim is where he got his craziness,' says a spokeswoman for the London Habonim that Sacha attended. 'The confidence in speaking out, feeling comfortable in a crowd - that is what Habonim would have given Sacha.'

Elliot Reuben, a 30-year-old music industry executive who shared a room with him at the kibbutz, recalled Sacha making short cine films.

'In one, he climbed into a hoist and pretended to be the Messiah ascending to Heaven. In another, he acted out a Western, rolling around in the sand dunes nearby. He was the funniest man in the place by a mile.'

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INTRODUCTION
Habonim Dror., the pioneering youth movement, stands for the Zionist, socialist ideal, which is based
on the following fundamental goals:

a) To maintain, in strength, the State of Israel as a Jewish State with a stable Jewish majority.

b) To negate Diaspora living by means of Aliyah, the only solution to the problems faced by the
Jewish People.

c) To develop human beings who will foster a progressive, equal, and democratic society.

d) To build a creative society, founded on individual effort.

e) Peace and cooperation between all the countries in the region.
The above goals commit the members of the movement to personal realization in the form of .aliyah.,
the most fundamental expressions of which are aliyah to a kibbutz, and involvement in Israeli society.


ZIONIST FULFILLMENT
a) In recognition of the fact that the only true Zionism is Aliyah, the First Worldwide Conference
of Habonim Dror demands that Aliyah serve as the basis for and the key to all of the efforts
and activities undertaken by the Zionist Organization and its institutions.

b) Gravely alarmed at the present condition and prospects of the Zionist Movement, the First
Worldwide Congress of Habonim Dror calls upon the Zionist Organization to convene a true
Zionist Congress within the next two years, to be attended by those individuals who are
actively fulfilling the Zionist Ideal, with a view to rekindling the spark of the Zionist
revolution.


PEACE WITH NEIGHBOURING COUNTRIES

a) The fundamental goal of the Zionist Movement is the ingathering of the Jewish People in the
land of Israel, and it is therefore of ultimate importance that the continued existence of Israel
as a Jewish State be ensured.

b) The achievement of a comprehensive peace settlement must be at the core of Israeli
government policy.

c) This conference considers the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt an historical
breakthrough in the hitherto unbreachable wall of refusal to make peace with Israel put up by
her Arab neighbors.

d) Peace must be based on the principle of compromise and the creation of defensible borders.
This is contrary to the Likud government.s annexation policy, which is endangering the
existence of Zionism as the freedom movement of the Jewish People.

e) The settlement and annexation policies advanced by the Likud government and its supporters,
such as .Gush Emunim., foster the existence of authority under duress and the systematic
suppression of the Arab population of the Occupied Territories. These policies also distort
Zionism.s humanitarian basis: they are leading to the transformation of Israel into a binational
state and are frustrating the prospects for peace. This conference calls for the freezing
of all plans to establish new settlements on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and it
condemns the establishment of Jewish settlements in these areas, which have dense Arab
populations.

f) This conference, as a body, states unequivocally that the Likud government is impeding and
preventing the creation and development of settlement projects in highly important areas such
as the Galilee, the Negev, and the Arava. These are projects which could prove of crucial
importance in attracting Jewish youth to Israel.

g) This conference condemns the use of the Israel Defense Forces as a power to enforce political
arrangement: it calls upon the government to remove its forces from Lebanon as soon as the
security of her northern settlements can be guaranteed.