shooting at DC Holocaust museum

[Nordic]

e who usually does everything he/she can to make every thread about "the jooz."

And I have to say I don't trust the words of anyone who uses the phrase "the jooz" in this context.

It's like saying Amerikkka.

It's sloganeering and is propagandistic in its very nature.

[professorpan]

And Nordic, I have to say I wish you would go back and answer my questions about your initial comments in this thread. Thanks.

[lightningBugout]

The prevalence of false or deflective anti-semitism charges in our culture at large is terrifying. But then the prevalence of anti-semitism in the world at large is also fucking terrifying.

When a poster comes along here and, say, links to a pic of Wolfowitz standing next to an orthodox jew, lots of us get up in arms and we castigate and reprimand and love the moral high ground that drives the scapegoat off into the moors.

But this place is rife with anti-semitism. Go ahead and slam me for it. I didn't used to think so and I'm choosing to be general because I don't want to get into time-wasting aggro flame wars. But this thread alone, on even a coarse examination reveals that basic trend. It is readily apparent to anyone who cares about that sort of thing.

Sure its often on the part of the most well-spoken among us and too obscured to get anyone banned. But its here. And I don't give a shit if you attack me for saying so. But to be honest, sometimes it scares the living fuck out of me.

I really sometimes feel like some of us have not taken the time to fully fucking comprehend s-i-x m-i-l-l-i-o-n DEAD.

[professorpan]

I really sometimes feel like some of us have not taken the time to fully fucking comprehend s-i-x m-i-l-l-i-o-n DEAD.

That's because it never happened, silly. Don't you read the stuff on Rense? Sheesh.

[Percival]

The prevalence of false or deflective anti-semitism charges in our culture at large is terrifying. But then the prevalence of anti-semitism in the world at large is also fucking terrifying.

When a poster comes along here and, say, links to a pic of Wolfowitz standing next to an orthodox jew, lots of us get up in arms and we castigate and reprimand and love the moral high ground that drives the scapegoat off into the moors.

But this place is rife with anti-semitism. Go ahead and slam me for it. I didn't used to think so and I'm choosing to be general because I don't want to get into time-wasting aggro flame wars. But this thread alone, on even a coarse examination reveals that basic trend. It is readily apparent to anyone who cares about that sort of thing.

Sure its often on the part of the most well-spoken among us and too obscured to get anyone banned. But its here. And I don't give a shit if you attack me for saying so. But to be honest, sometimes it scares the living fuck out of me.

I really sometimes feel like some of us have not taken the time to fully fucking comprehend s-i-x m-i-l-l-i-o-n DEAD.

Yea there is a lot of antisemitism here and it is one reason I dont post here as often as I would like to because if I did I would blow a gasket more often than I need to trying to point out how the forum is slowly being hijacked by those with a very sickening anti-Jewish bias who take every single opportunity they see to turn every discussion in to "Jewish Communist Conspiracy to Dominate the World 101."

Fuck the Protocols and fuck those who read and believe in such nonsense.

You would think that there would be one fucking place on the internet where you could get away from the "Jew hiding behind every bush" bullshit but it is harder than you might think to do so and I find it more disturbing every day.

[AlicetheKurious]

I really sometimes feel like some of us have not taken the time to fully fucking comprehend s-i-x m-i-l-l-i-o-n DEAD.

That's because it never happened, silly. Don't you read the stuff on Rense? Sheesh.

No, it happened. But some of us don't ascribe different values to human lives depending on the victims' religion or ethnicity, or those of their oppressors. And some of us are able to distinguish between the world as it was 65 years ago, and the very different world as it is today.

I keep thinking about George Carlin's comment (I'm paraphrasing) that the only reason the Nazis were considered so uniquely evil is that they dared to do to White Europeans what White Europeans had been doing for centuries to millions and millions of Black and Brown people.

It hit me right between the eyes when I first heard it, and since then its accuracy has been confirmed by so many things. Including, I'm sad to say, the inexplicably obtuse reactions of some people on this board.

[Jeff]

Obviously, I have my own views about this -- driven not by "hatred" towards anyone, but by a strong concern for those whose rights and lives are being trampled.

Alice, even when we disagree, it's always been evident to me that your heart is informed by justice and justified outrage.

I've explained myself on this many times. Part of my intent for RI has been to try to rescue good research, and worthy subjects for research, from discrediting misdirection. And one of the most enduring misdirections has been, Look over there - Jews! I don't see you doing that. I do think you're indifferent to my concerns, or maybe find them incomprehensible, and I can appreciate why and how you might. For myself, administering a board such as RI in this place and time, and contending with the antisemitic and national chauvinist legacies burdening contemporary fringe thought, I cannot regard Jewish conspiracy postulated here as a benign hypothesis.

Maybe that's gatekeeping. But then, a moderated forum is a gated community.

[nathan28]

No comments on the OP, unfortunately, because as usual this has turned into another case--and to be very, very clear, I am generally horrified by the genocidal policies of the welfare queen (Reaganite for "client state") that is the state of Israel and wish that such a position was not labeled as "racist" because I brook no ill will towards anyone Jewish--of St*rmfr*nters vs. The Anti-Anti-Semites. This well was poisoned a long time ago, and, quite obviously, on purpose.

@AD:

You consistently get involved in back-and-forths with particular posters here. This isn't the first time someone's pointed that out. Some of your antagonists are pretty easy to antagonize. If you're running your own forum vigilante operation that's not something I can stop you from, just like I'm not going to stop the people on the other side of that from falling into easily-avoided traps. I for one would like to see something besides the neologisms and shibboleths of caricature of the Left (The Ten Thousand -Isms) become the dominant language around here, but again, do as you will.

@ the Cryptoantisemites and the LaRouchetards:

You think no one knows it's shit, but everyone can smell it. Go to St*rmfr*nt.

[yathrib]

Here's the thing: It becomes harder for such situations as the shootings at the Museum to command the same respect as Lessons For Us All when other Lessons For Us All are hypocritically minimized or ignored.

I'm very much a proud anti-anti-semite, and I can still see this.

[stefano]

I take Alice's side on this, maybe it's because I'm also from somewhere other than Europe or North America. Where you guys are from World War II and the Holocaust are extremely important stories, a defining event that informs all the discourse you receive. I got the History Channel for a while and was amazed at how much of it was about WW2. This isn't the case in most of the world. Where I'm from it was a faraway war between European countries, and a good part of the population supported the Germans (against the colonial master). In the Middle East I think people were even less involved. So when Alice says "some of us are able to distinguish between the world as it was 65 years ago, and the very different world as it is today", to you that sounds like belittling the Holocaust denial at worst or callousness at best, but it's true and it's important.

I really sometimes feel like some of us have not taken the time to fully fucking comprehend s-i-x m-i-l-l-i-o-n DEAD.

I was arguing about Palestine with a British friend last week, he's very sympathetic to Israel and said "but we have a debt towards them." He meant that Britain and Europe have a moral obligation to take Israel's side. How does that work? I think most of the posters here understand how the Holocaust gets used in the discourse around I/P, but it gets used in exactly the same way to smother discussion of conspiracy in the US and Europe.

Anyway, Jeff, I see where you're coming from and don't have a pain with vigilant being banned for a while. You have to draw the line somewhere.

[Jeff]

I got the History Channel for a while and was amazed at how much of it was about WW2.

I think that's a great observation about the subjectivity of historical consciousness, and the totalism of Euro-American narratives.

I think most of the posters here understand how the Holocaust gets used in the discourse around I/P, but it gets used in exactly the same way to smother discussion of conspiracy in the US and Europe.

In different ways as well. A few years ago, 9/11 skepticism was smeared as being intellectually akin to Holocaust denial. However, increasingly, as the extreme right has co-opted "Truth" and the more temperate leaders left the movement or have been overshadowed, it's been much more likely to find the two espoused together.

[Nordic]

I got the History Channel for a while and was amazed at how much of it was about WW2.

I think that's a great observation about the subjectivity of historical consciousness, and the totalism of Euro-American narratives.

I think most of the posters here understand how the Holocaust gets used in the discourse around I/P, but it gets used in exactly the same way to smother discussion of conspiracy in the US and Europe.

In different ways as well. A few years ago, 9/11 skepticism was smeared as being intellectually akin to Holocaust denial. However, increasingly, as the extreme right has co-opted "Truth" and the more temperate leaders left the movement or have been overshadowed, it's been much more likely to find the two espoused together.

The reason The History Channel is all about WWII is because the History Channel is a right-wing corporate channel, and they want to condition us into believing "WAR = GOOD"

World War II is literally called "The Good War".

So the powers that be can keep equating their enemies to Hitler (Saddam Hussein for example), and lo and behold, "War is STILL Good"!

WWII is the new "Western", the new "Gunsmoke".

[AlicetheKurious]

Thanks, Jeff, for your thoughtful and cogent response.

For myself, administering a board such as RI in this place and time, and contending with the antisemitic and national chauvinist legacies upon contemporary fringe thought, I cannot regard Jewish conspiracy postulated here as a benign thought exercise.

Because you've made a serious effort to understand where I'm coming from, I want to return the favor. I do understand. There's been a sustained effort for decades on the part of both anti-semites and zionists to blur the line between Jewish people and zionists, a blurring which effectively serves both of their abhorrent agendas. It is frightening to realize the extent to which they've been successful, as evidenced by the dense and boorish responses of some otherwise highly intelligent people on this very thread. I think they'll be very angry at me for pointing out that this "blurring" between ideology and membership in an ethnic/religious population, even when well-intentioned, is itself a form of racism merely disguised as its opposite.

I share (and have always shared, contrary to what some people think) your revulsion about Jewish conspiracy theories, which like all forms of racism, seek to reduce an entire group of highly complex and precious human beings to simple caricatures, dehumanized and demonized, subjected to collective blame, which can and all too frequently does, lead to the crime of "collective punishment". I do recognize the danger: once people are thus dehumanized and demonized, it becomes much easier for other people, claiming the purest motives, to do the most terrible things to them.

At the same time, I am equally revolted by zionist efforts to do the same to their victims. Anti-semites, White supremacists and zionists, to me, are simply different manifestations of the same disease of the mind and spirit. All of them are equally racist, and all of them are precursors of ugly crimes against humanity, regardless of whether the victim is one person, assaulted, humiliated or even murdered for the crime of belonging to this or that ethnic group, or whether an entire country is destroyed.

I find it appalling and outrageous that zionist ideologues are allowed to manipulate the rules in such a way that, to oppose their racist agenda is itself framed as racism against Jews. It's a very shrewd strategy, in that it relies on channeling the latent (and sometimes not so latent) racist predisposition of people in the West towards the "other". From the point of view of the zionists, it's a winning formula: re-direct and intensify the pre-existing xenophobia of Western people towards the people that zionists wish to dispossess and kill at will, at the same time flattering those same Western people that by neglecting to identify with the victims, they're exhibiting the highest moral standards.

In the same Western media that evinces such humanitarian feelings towards the victims of the Nazi Holocaust, I don't recognize myself or any other Arab I know in the insulting, contemptuous and one-dimensional images that fill movies, tv shows, novels and even news publications and broadcasts. Yet so many who base their knowledge on such sources genuinely believe they have us all figured out. The consequences of this have been and continue to be terrible, the suffering enormous, unbearable. And they threaten to become even worse.

It's not that I find your concerns incomprehensible, it's just that we're standing in different places, and this colors our perspective as well as our sense of urgency. Overall, I think our core values are very similar, as are those of most people here. But you're responsible for running a discussion board that that you want to ensure will not be infested by neo-nazi and fascist trolls. I'm trying to make people see beyond the pervasive demonization of people like me, to invite people to look through my eyes at the same world that we all inhabit, but where the clear and present danger to innocent lives has a different name.

Our perspectives are not incompatible, though, on the contrary. Fighting against one form of racism but not another is like spraying for roaches in one apartment of a building -- you end up creating a much bigger problem for the other tenants, even those who didn't have one before. Furthermore, even in that one apartment, if you let your guard down even once, they'll come swarming back, stronger than before.

To me, the Western media's obsessive anguish for the victims of the Nazi Holocaust, yet equally obsessive vilification of Arabs and Muslims represents this sort of selective "spraying" which, instead of being inclusive is on the contrary, creating a strong sense of exclusion and resentment at the double standard. There's not much to choose from between Zyklon B and phosphorous bombs or depleted uranium, from the point of view of the victim. The zionists' appropriation of the Holocaust as a propaganda weapon and in other ways has contributed to this perception that they're cynically exploiting the suffering of the Nazis' innocent victims to promote the rapacious interests of a very few, at the expense of many others, and perhaps even humanity as a whole.

That's the basis of my constant emphasis on the need to respect and uphold international law, and my conviction that unless it is enforced impartially and without exception upon all states, we will all pay a heavy price, just as so many are paying it today.

Sorry for being so long-winded, but all this is to say that I understand where you're coming from, Jeff, and I think you know where I'm coming from.

Since I think we agree on the basics, I'd be very interested in suggestions about how I can more concisely communicate my views without permitting any ambiguity about the crucial distinction between zionist supremacist ideologues and Jewish people.

[American Dream]

Alice, I very much like what you said and the way that you expressed it.

I'd like to add one point about Zionists that I think is important. This label can and does encompass a diverse swathe of humanity- everyone from little kids to the boss hog Israelis, including also people living exterior of Palestine who are politically inactive.

So my concern is how we can be completely honest about the hardcore perpetrators and planners and yet distinguish them from those who are somehow complicit but not as much, from those who are pretty much innocents- young children, for example.

Although people might sometimes paint in very broad brush strokes with regards to "Nazis", "Republicans" "Americans" and et cetera, the same kind of principle would apply to all these groups also. In this particular case it would have to encompass also "Christian Zionists" many of whom are a kind of sheeple guilty only of believing what some tele-evangelist told them, but having done little to actually hurt any Palestinians.

So- and this is a more than rhetorical point, I really don't have a quick and easy answer- how then can we talk about "the Zionists" as a group and still hold individual people responsible, to the degree that they really are responsible?

Because there really are some deep and dark conspiracies within the world of Zionism, but not everybody in that camp is in on them...

I hope my question is clear and is received in the spirit in which it is offered. Thank you for your thoughtful comments.

[lightningBugout]

Here's the thing: It becomes harder for such situations as the shootings at the Museum to command the same respect as Lessons For Us All when other Lessons For Us All are hypocritically minimized or ignored.

I could not agree less. As human beings, we are innately and completely sensitive to the harm and pain of others. It is our responsibility to strip away anything that clouds that, IMO. Even the most minute sense of tit-for-tat in our assessment of the meaning of violence against human beings is, IMO, vile.

We don't get back at the Octopus (even that has its Anti-Semitic taint, don't it) by withholding our empathy for others. We are endlessly responsible to make sure we never learn to minimize or ignore suffering and inhumanity.

And the holocaust --is -- unique. It is an archetype with all of its own particular ghosts still floating about the noosphere. The point is that -- so is -- Rwanda and the Great Lakes regions' genocide(s). They too have their own very particular ghosts. Ditto for the Cambodians, the Armenians, the Palestinians, the Native Americans. Sure Jewish exceptionalism sucks, but I'm sorry -- none of us will meet 6 million people in our lives. Imagine that every single person you have ever talked to in your entire life had been murdered. That is simply incomprehensible.

This is fucking preachy but I'm not gonna edit it.

ps -- Alice you are the only person who might be perceived as an AS that I would defend vigorously (rigorously) because you are brilliant and more dedicated than anyone else here. That said, it is nice to read everyone condemning AS, but I still think it creeps up here alot. I'm not worried about the fringe who believe in a Jewish Communist conspiracy -- that seems way outdated. I worry about the lefties and anarchists (like alot of people here) who are flirting with AS all the fucking time due to an initial outrage over the genocide of Palestinians, because many of them, again IMO, cross that line behind closed doors. I've heard that talk - alot. It is very very common.