Richard Dawkins' Jewish Question

"A scientist looking at nonscientific problems,'' said the great physicist Richard Feynman, "is just as dumb as the next guy.'' That's not necessarily anyone else's concern -- unless the scientist in question is claiming to speak, with scientific authority, for the rest of us.

A fresh case in point is this analysis by Oxford's Richard Dawkins, from an interview published earlier this month in Britain's Guardian (see the sixth paragraph). As part of his ongoing campaign to get "downtrodden,'' apologetic atheists stand up for themselves, Dawkins suggests that we secular humanists emulate other minorities. For instance, the Jews:

"When you think about how fantastically successful the Jewish lobby has been, though, in fact, they are less numerous I am told -- religious Jews anyway -- than atheists and [yet they] more or less monopolize American foreign policy as far as many people can see. So if atheists could achieve a small fraction of that influence, the world would be a better place."

The historian David H. Fischer identified this kind of rhetoric as "the fallacy of equivocation.'' That's where, he wrote, "a term is used in two or more senses within a single argument, so that a conclusion appears to follow when in fact it does not.'' Dawkins starts with the "Jewish lobby'' (by which one presumes he means the pro-Israel lobby, from his later reference to foreign policy). Then he says "they'' are less numerous than atheists (so now the referent is not an office-full of people, but rather, American Jews). Then he qualifies the term to mean "religious Jews.'' We've gone from (1) AIPAC to (2) "the Jews'' to (3) Jews who believe in God and (4) Jews who follow traditional practice. (The term "religious Jews'' could describe both types of person, and there is no reason to think that everyone in category 4 is also in category 3.)

In short, quite a muddle. I cannot tell who we secularists should be trying to copy -- lobbyists, ethnically Jewish Americans, believers in a deity or people who hold to traditional practice without reflecting on ultimate questions. Only one thing is clear: By casually echoing the rhetoric of anti-Semites, Dawkins has made a fool of himself and, by extension, those of us for whom he claims to speak.

The interesting question is: Why? How could Dawkins, the holder of Oxford's Charles Simonyi Chair for the Public Understanding of Science, miss the differences among the kinds of people he lumps together, both in the Guardian interview and on the website? Those distinctions are well-documented. Pro-Israel lobbyists get plenty of support in the US from non-Jews (importantly including conservative evangelical Christians). Meanwhile, plenty of Jews, in Israel and throughout the world, do not support the goals of this lobby. Take a look here for an example. Then too, there are religious Jews who most emphatically do not support the State of Israel or its goals. Have a look here, for instance.

As it happens, the potency of pro-Israel lobbyists has been much in the news lately, since John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt just published a long-germinating book that analyzes the effect of the lobby in the U.S. (You can read a shorter version of their arguments here. Briefly, they say lobbyists for Israel have been highly successful in influencing government policy -- as have the National Rifle Association or the AARP. Perhaps the controversy over their book inspired Dawkins' remark.

But they don't say what Dawkins is saying. In fact, Mearsheimer, offered a chance to say precisely what Dawkins claimed, instead explained that this picture is not supported by his and Walt's study. You can see him saying it here.

Anyone can get his facts wrong and later correct himself. But Dawkins' confusion suggests a deeper problem -- a conceptual misunderstanding about identity. That mistake may stem from his casting himself as a leader of downtrodden atheists. In any event, it explains why his movement is doomed.

The problem, briefly, is just this: Identity-based behavior is not a unitary phenomenon. It comes in many forms. And what people do in one mode does not predict what they will do in another. The forms overlap (you can be at the same time a Dawkinsian secular humanist and a Jewish person and an activist for Palestinian rights). We often use the same language for the different types. All that makes the fallacy of equivocation easy to commit. But it's still an error.

Dawkins' statement, for example, invokes at least three different modes of identity. First, there is identity based on a consciously chosen belief. (You've thought about U.S. policy in the Middle East and come to a conclusion about what you want the Government to do.) Second, there is identity based on habit and upbringing. Maybe you don't believe in God or approve of West Bank settlements, but you go to seder at your grandparents (it's family, it's childhood, it's what "we'' do). Third is identity based on a trait that is perceived to be involuntary, and often thought to be inherited. You can decide to support Palestinian rights or choose to go to the movies on Yom Kippur, but somehow, you feel, you can't change where you come from.

Identities of the second type, like knowing yourself to be Irish or Catholic or a Yankees fan or a hunter, come to you through early experiences, where you're taken through the rites and patterns of life that teach you "what we do'' and "who we are.'' Such identities are learned by the body, in sights, smells, sounds and movements that arrive before reason. The mode was well described by the philosopher Michael Oakeshott, when he wrote:

We acquire habits of conduct, not by constructing a way of living upon rules or precepts learned by heart and subsequently practiced, but by living with people who habitually behave in a certain manner: we acquire habits of conduct in the same way as we acquire our native language.

This sort of identity is rather impervious to rational thought and official declarations, and a good thing too. I, for one, am glad that my sense of being American -- my sense that home is home -- does not depend on the policies of the federal government.

Identities of the third type are imposed. They arise out of the encounters you have with the rest of the world; encounters you cannot refuse to see and cannot wish away. You can decide how to deal with such an identity -- whether, for example, you want to be an out and proud member of the GLBT community or a total closet case. But you cannot decide to leave such an identity behind you. The rest of the world won't allow it.

Now, atheism is an identity of the first type, the conscious, thought- out sort. That is the point Dawkins makes when he says we should not refer to a "Catholic child'' or a "Muslim child,'' because a child can't decide what s/he thinks about the existence of God.

The problem, though, is that identities based on opinions feel ephemeral, because opinions change all the time. With an identity based only on opinion, you have two unattractive choices: (1) Admit that tomorrow you could no longer belong to the tribe, because you might change your mind; or (2) admit that in order to preserve tribal feeling, you will have to behave as if your opinion is much more certain and consistent than a normal thought.

This second choice is what Dawkins advocated, I think, when he wrote this on his web site:

I admit, I sympathize with those skeptics on this site who fear that we are engendering a quasi-religious conformity of our own. Whether we like it or not, I'm afraid we have to swallow this small amount of pride if we are to have an influence on the real world, otherwise we'll never overcome the 'herding cats' problem.

But the problem with atheist solidarity (and the reason atheist groups are comically riven by orthodoxies, inquisitions, purges and schisms) is not that all members are nuanced, independent thinkers. It is that atheism, unlike sexual orientation or religious upbringing or beloved cultural tradition, is an easily-changed conviction, and everyone knows it. Dawkins can't admit this because he wants to lead his people into the Promised Land, and to do that he needs to have a people. He thinks atheists just need to go slumming, and pretend for a bit to believe the same thing. But identities that matter are not based on belief at all.

Most everyone knows this, and so very few people can take atheism seriously as a basis for understanding "what kind of person I am.'' Instead, the identities that make people glad, mad, and weepy are those about which people feel they have no choice: The identities they learn at their parents' knees, the experiences imposed on them by the beliefs of the neighbors. Not coincidentally, it is those identities that make people cough up money to support effective lobbyists in Washington. Identities like "hunter'' (National Rifle Association) and "gay person'' (Human Rights Campaign) and "old person'' (American Association of Retired Persons).

Could atheism be made then into such an identity? For example, by atheist parents who raise atheist children with explicitly atheist annual rituals and beloved cultural icons? (The standard American Christmas is fairly secular but it pretends not to be, so it wouldn't count.) Well, sure. You can make a convincing identity out of anything, if you put generations of effort into it. And perhaps, with his t-shirts, buttons, instructions for holding meetings, this is what Richard Dawkins is aiming at. In the meantime, though, he is fooling himself and making the rest of us secularists look like idiots.

Follow David Berreby on Twitter: www.twitter.com/davidberreby

Comments

[Malkintent]

Once again, Huffingtonpost runs an apoplectic tirade accusing anyone who acknowledges that there exists a strong, Pro-Israel lobby of more or less anti-semetism. Since I hardly ever see Dawkins on television (actually, I've only seen him on PBS), but far too often see an actual anti-semite by the name of Ann Coulter on everything but rollerskates (i.e. CNN, Fox, MSNBC, Today Show, Tonight Show, ect...), I think the author's concerns are misplaced.

[TheWesternBreed]

The rabbi of the nearest synagogue to my home has stated--in an article he wrote for the local newspaper last Passover--that he doesn't actually believe in God, and that many of his congregation don't either. Sure, they say the old prayers, but that has to do with cultural heritage and the sense of comfort and continuity that they provide. What should these people be called? "J-theists?"

[Lynette1977]

I've always wondered if that was the case. I've never heard anyone admit it before, though. I'd love to read that article. Thanks for pointing this out.

[pwrye]

Dawkins should have said 'Cubans' or 'Armenians' or some other group, so Berreby wouldn't care.

I do quite enjoy the 'you can't lump all together' followed by blanket statements re: NRA/GLBT/AARP.

To think that a desire to emulate equates in some way to Anti-Semitism is past the edge of crazy.

[godlessclif]

If Dawkins said Armenians he would have been accused of genocide.

[cylindar]

Dawkins is appearing to have the same problems as orthodox religionists. So he should be dismissed. After all people are free to think what they damn well please. Yes, non religionists need a stronger voice but the cold hard steel of science cannot and never will replace the humanity that welcomes all but needs to say don't tread on my rights. Basically Dawkins is history.

[PopeRatzo]

Yes, people are free to do as they damn well please. However, they are not free to govern my country based on their belief that the end times are coming and that we have to prepare the playing field for Armageddon.

Nor are they free to monopolize our foreign policy based only on the security of a Middle-Eastern theocracy with a secret nuclear weapons program (Israel).

[godlessclif]

Freethinking with a belief in cold hard science leads to humanism. Science does not want to replace humanity. Science is humanity.

What is anti-humanistic is religion and superstition because it makes an enemy of science
and scientific solutions to relive human suffering.

Abortion is just one example of denying a girl in trouble a technological way out because of ignorant superstition about the nature of life.

[DanaGarrett]

Berreby's post is much ado about nothing. It's amazing that he would spend so much time dicing up Dawkin's quick analogy, one intended only to suggest that a relatively small minority can make an enormous difference in influencing policy. Then to associate the analogy w/ the cant of Hitlerite anti-Semitism ("The Jewish Question") is a smear of the most craven sort.

Worse than all of that is Berreby's claim that individuals are incapable of taking their identities as atheists as seriously as individuals take their ethnic or sexual orientation, etc., identities. Berreby labors under a one size fits all view of self identification, a view he insists everyone really shares. That's the problem with dubious generalizations about human beings: the descriptions reek of furtive prescriptions. That's also why they come with the faint odor of a totalitarian tendency.

Now for a democratic view. The value individuals place on the principal ways they identify themselves differ significantly and probably those differences are accounted for by one's life experiences and circumstances. For that reason, some individuals will place value on identities they inherit (e.g. ethnic, sexual orientation, etc.) and for others on identities they have chosen for themselves. In the latter case, some individuals will esteem their chosen identities precisely because they chose them and were not identities foisted upon them from birth.

The empirical evidence indicates that there are individuals who place more value on their chosen identities than identities they’ve inherited. These individuals might be in a minority but that doesn’t mean that these individuals don't exist or their mode of self identification is any less authentic. Apparently, Berreby finds such a plural stance politically inconvenient and intolerable.

[jayrayspicer]

Exactly. I think identities based on beliefs are the only kind that really matter. Identity based on inherited traits seems to be nothing more than tribalism. The world has enough of that, thanks.

[cognate]

"Dawkins starts with the "Jewish lobby'' (by which one presumes he means the pro-Israel lobby, from his later reference to foreign policy). Then he says "they'' are less numerous than atheists (so now the referent is not an office-full of people, but rather, American Jews). Then he qualifies the term to mean "religious Jews.'' We've gone from (1) AIPAC to (2) "the Jews'' to (3) Jews who believe in God and (4) Jews who follow traditional practice. (The term "religious Jews'' could describe both types of person, and there is no reason to think that everyone in category 4 is also in category 3.)"

Well, SOMEBODY or some group that feels Israel can do no wrong has taken over American foreign policy and is driving us into the ground by having us attack Israel's enemies, real or imagined, including Lebanon in 1983, Iraq (first in 1991, throughout the '90's and again in a big way since 2003), Afghanistan and if they are successful, very soon Iran. Not to mention the $4.5 billion plus in direct and indirect US taxpayers' money that goes every year towards arming Israel.

What name would you recommend for these people if not the Israel Lobby?

[villastrangiato]

ROFLMAO....yeah cognate, perhaps we should refer to them as the non christian, non muslim, non bhuddist people - that way we won't have to use that insulting "j" word or have it accompanied by the "i" word or have the previous two words followed by the "l" word....god knows...oops...the supreme being knows we wouldn't want to offend anyone or worse yet - be called anti-semites......oh the horrors.......

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA

This creepy cabal and its henchmen referred to as the Israeli lobby - OMG..there....I said it - are so offensive, they tried to ban together to boycott the company that published Walt and Mearsheimer's book - the book that finally, historically, and accurately revealed the huge white elephant standing in everybody's livingroom. Kind of ridiculous to accuse Walt and Mearsheimer of being anti semitic - but I'm sure they'll do their best. Oh my GAWD!!!What a pathetic world we live in......

[TheWesternBreed]

cognate is correct.

[Doubtom43]

Clever use of Abe Foxman's style of equivocation--you should give him credit

[Doubtom43]

The Foxman reference was meant for you, cognate

[jayrayspicer]

This is a ridiculous, nit-picking article. Yes, Dawkins pretty much garbled his ideas here, but I think it's undeniable that Jews and AIPAC have a larger influence on American Mideast policy than their percentage of the population would suggest. I hardly think it's anti-Semitic to say so.

As to the rest of the article, I'm sure there are various categories of sources for our beliefs, but the key difference between the theist and the atheist is that the theist chooses to believe without (or despite) evidence, whereas the atheist believes that which the evidence compels, and doesn't much bother with those things that repeatedly fail to be supported by the evidence.

This is why theists are so misguided when they accuse atheists of simply practicing a different kind of religion. A thing is not the same as the absence of that thing. Only the muddle of religious thinking could assume otherwise.

[Shizzlewhizzle]

They have this influnce AND CONTROL over us by buying our cheap ass politicians. Now to athiest, never met but one, and he had a need to broadcast it like some people announce they are Jewish. The number of athiest is likely small then those who have doubts are likely great in number.The best reason for another life is this one is so lacking for so many. We live in a world where most people suffer when its not really neccessary for life to be that way. I dont have a great need kill some asshole because of his relioion.

[Kendo Nagasaki]

Well, if there is a God, he is not doing a very goood job.

[rumata]

The greatest lobby ever having influence on American foreign policy is SAUDI. I guess, you didn't notice that oil hit $87 today. $100 mark is in sight. Keep driving your SUV, prince Bandar thanks you.

[JewishJesus]

I guess the Israeli Lobby's large influence on American foreign policy might have something to do with both nations being democracies and both fighting Islamo-Fascist murderers. Or , you could say it's because Jews are so much smarter than the rest of the American public! I believe it's BOTH reasons!!!!The Chrisrian Lobby(IMMORAL MINORITY,etc.) have little effect on our foreign policy...Muslims have none! I rest my case!!!! oh,and.....Shalom!!!

[newworldman777]

The Zionist lobby in America is so powerful because it serves to promote the religious interests and beliefs of the Judeo-Christian sect of our populace, who comprise a whopping 80% of our overall "theocratic" population. That's a no-brainer. When their holy book -- the Bible -- teaches them that "God" promised the land of Israel to the Jews forever, then of course these brain-washed followers will support such a sacred treatise unwaveringly. In Genesis 12:3, the "Lord" says in the covenant He makes with Abraham: "I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." This relates not only to a people (the Jews), but it also relates to a lnad (Israel). The Abrahamic Covenant...God says, "I will give you a people and a land, and through this seed the nations of the Earth will be blessed" -- (Genesis 17). Any American politician who doesn't support such pro-Zionist policies will quickly lose support from his/her Judeo-Christian constituents who voted him/her into office. BTW...The hefty donations from wealthy Jewish American supporters of Zionism don't hurt either, regarding garnering support for their cause.

Ironically, America's support for Zionism -- and the implementation of its land-stealing policies -- is the number one reason that breeds Islamic terrorism against us. Those so-called "Islamo-Fascist murderers" (as was so eloquently coined by JewishJesus) who fight against aggressive Zionist policies, wouldn't be fighting the Zionists and their supporters if the Zionists had not returned to Israel to reclaim the land from the Palestinians (after losing it to the Romans 2000 years ago).

JewishJesus said that "Jews are so much smarter than the rest of the American public!" Wow...I wish that I was as smart as our Jewish counterparts in America. You know, it's this kind of arrogant...and false...attitude espoused by people like this guy that turns many of us "not-so-smart" non-Jews against Zionism.

[avergejoe]

Boy, it will be nice to sit this one out
Watching the jews take on the atheists for a change.

We Christians have been under attack lately, whew.

[theoldhenk]

An exceptional post. I am a fan of Dawkins' evolutionary biology tracts, but not his atheism advocacy. Perhaps this is a splendid example of "chosen" identity. I am an agnostic, which I have found most congruous with my observations. To know that God doesn't exist is as absurd, in my view, as professing knowledge of God's existence. Both positions appear to be faith based.

I don't believe that any organized religious faith, or non-organized, for that matter, is likely correct in its interpretation of God, should God exist.

Atheism as a movement is unpalatable to many, I hazard to guess, for the same reasons that organized faith is unpalatable: the presumption of unavailable knowledge.

Make room for those of us who don't pretend to know, and maybe secular humanism will prevail.

[cognate]

Based on what we know of nature, the existence of an anthropomorphic God is preposterous.

You think an Abrahamic God would have the lion tear the flesh off of a living zebra? Mind you, the lion dies without meat. Or is it OK because neither the lion nor the zebra have a soul?

Are you sure you do?

[Rational66]

Making room for those who "don't pretend to know" seems like a nice, balanced approach until you recognize how many people interpret that to mean that there is a 50/50 chance that invisible deities -- as well as Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny -- actually do exist.

[wondering]

You say, "To know that God doesn't exist is as absurd, in my view, as professing knowledge of God's existence. Both positions appear to be faith based."

My 3-year-old is absolutely convinced that Santa Claus comes down our (non-existent) chimney every December 25th with a sack of toys on his back. Although I won't try to dissuade him of this belief for a few more years, I obviously feel pretty confident that no magical toy-giver named Santa actually exists.

Apparently, you would argue that to claim to know Santa doesn't exist is as absurd as professing knowledge of Santa's existence.

Please help me understand agnosticism. I have always felt it was little more than a stage one passes through on the journey to atheism.

How can you choose to NEVER examine the question of god/no-god? I sometimes imagine agnostics running through life with their hands over their ears, their eyes tightly shut, shouting "La-la-la. I can't hear you" over and over. Or maybe shouting, "I don't want to think about it. I don't want to think about it."

Perhaps an analogy will illustrate my point : You could invent any crazy notion - call it a Flibwitzit - and assert, "Aha! You cannot prove the Flibwitzit does not exist anymore than you can prove it does." But where does that get you?

Just because the notion of god has persisted for so long among human beings does not automatically grant it any special consideration. Until empirical evidence can be found to prove otherwise, the existence of god is no more likely than UFOs, bigfoot, or fairies. The burden is entirely on the believer to prove atheists wrong.

[MSaldana]

To theoldhenk:

Your comments are nothing short of eloquent...

From another agnostic.

-MS

[Kendo Nagasaki]

If there is indeed a Creator, who created him/her?

[Verity1025]

Indeed. I have been wondering the same thing for about 40 years now, but you are the first person I have ever read or heard saying it.

I really would like to hear a reasoned answer to this question.

[chinohillster]

I cannot prove, in scientific notation, that God exists.

I only ask: What occurred between Planck Time and the singularity, Planck Time being 10 to the minus 43 after the Big Bang, and the current limits of the Grand Unified Theories?

As I've said before, I have no problem with evolutionary processes, or the Universe being 12-16 billion years old. I have no problem with humans and other primates sharing a common ancestor (which I believe is actually the CORRECT statement made by Darwinian theory). I don't think that humans and dinosaurs co-existed.

I just find it hard to believe that the Earth is the exact distance from the Sun, with internal radiation, plate tectonics, a large Moon in tidal lock to allow it to retain water and oxygen, in a Solar System with a large Jupiter to sweep most of the Extinction Level asteroids away from it - and all of this just happened.

I just find it hard to believe that glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase, nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, adenosine triphosphate, etc, etc, etc just arose out of the primordial ooze all by themselves - sorry, but it's a bit much for me.

I cannot explain everything in Scripture, I cannot explain why many things happen (or don't happen upon the Earth) - I don't agree with a good deal of religion, or the spokespeople for religion. I do believe in God, I am an imperfect follower of the Lord Jesus Christ, and I think that NONE of us REALLY understands the Universe on some level...

[Quaoar]

"It is that atheism, unlike sexual orientation or religious upbringing or beloved cultural tradition, is an easily-changed conviction, and everyone knows it."

Got any evidence to support this assertion?
Since many if not most atheists were raised in religious households, it would seem to me that religion is at least as easily-changed as atheism, if not more so. And people seem to retain the beloved cultural traditions but have no problems jettisoning the disliked ones.

[CrisOmg]

"[A]theism, unlike sexual orientation or religious upbringing or beloved cultural tradition, is an easily-changed conviction, and everyone knows it."

My religious upbringing was strictly Christian and I even attended Non-Secular Private School. However, in my adult life I have become an atheist. I cannot now think of any argument that would change my mind. I have spent over a decade thinking about, researching, pining over, and debating what and how I believe. It IS beloved to me, the same as another's cultural tradition. For you to treat it like a flavor of the month is quite offensive to me.

The statement I quoted leads to exactly the point I believe Dawkins was trying to make. A lobby that represented one of my most deeply held convictions would be a welcome thing indeed. I’m not defined by my atheism any more than a gay person is defined by their homosexuality; however, a powerful group that spoke for that aspect of me, one who gave that side of me credibility on a national level, might make it easier for people to see that it is a deeply held conviction that does influence how I think and how I would like to be governed.

"[F]ew people can take atheism seriously as a basis for understanding 'what kind of person I am.'" So, what kind of person am I, as an atheist? I am the kind of person who holds logic and reason - as opposed to superstition and dogma - to be a better method of determining my place in the universe. I am the kind of person who tries to understand the subjectivity of every decision we make in life, good or bad. I am the kind of person who wants my government to stand by its own convictions of a separation of church and state – not just pay it lip service while inserting “one Nation, under God” into the Pledge of Allegiance and launching crusades against another country and their religion just to make money.

[Rational66]

Oh, man, this again... all Dawkins was saying is that the atheist population is, like the Jewish population, a fairly small minority worldwide and should, if organized properly, be able to assert their views and objectives equally well. The fact is atheists do not, historically, tend to organize or feel much need to group together -- as ethnic or religious groups tend to do -- because they are not an ethnic or religious group. Thus, the sole purpose of Dawkins' comments. There was nothing negative in what he said or meant.

[imfedup]

I agree -- that's exactly what I took from it.

[ApolloSpeaks]

Dawkin's a fool? Come on, guys. What's so foolish about this man believing that given a typewriter and 10,000 years a monkey could bang out The Merchant of Venice?

[melakfilms]

I don't know Apollo, you seemed to crank that out pretty fast! And all seemingly without an iota of knowledge about the evolution of humankind. Cool!

[melakfilms]

Wow. Berreby (any relation to Barabus?) provided a quote, quite simple on many levels, concerning mere demographics. But the level it's been taken to not only in this column but in the responses to it, is somewhat silly.

Looks like many are out there willing to pounce upon any statement Dawkins makes these days. And if this is all Berreby's got - it's not much of an argument.

There simply is no there there.

[davedave]

"In the meantime, though, he is fooling himself and making the rest of us secularists look like idiots."

nope. whats making you look like an idiot is your use of convoluted sophistry to try to make a point.

the simple point is--wouldn't it be cool if atheists came out of the closet and acted like their ideas were reasonable, acceptable and easily defensible.

cool!

d

[rixhex56]

davedave,

Well said. So succinct, so dead-on. Pseudo-intellectual rants like this one are annoying at best. They dance all around the main points and ultimately say nothing. This one appears to be based in some sort of knee-jerk reaction to anything that says anything about "Jews". There is nothing "anti-Semetic" in what Dawkins has said.

[Shizzlewhizzle]

Jews are very tender poeple and their feelings are easily hurt. They are a step above us Goi.

[avicenna]

I second your short and sweet summary of the warbled argument posted above. Feelings definitely get tender when one mentions Israel and lobby in the same sentence - shows you exactly how powerful a lobby it is!