Eloquence
Thought for the Day. Via Deborah Lipstadt’s blog History on Trial, from a correspondent…
Although I am not anti-semitic, your Jewish greed is overbearing and crippling.
Tip Jar
Thought for the Day. Via Deborah Lipstadt’s blog History on Trial, from a correspondent…
Although I am not anti-semitic, your Jewish greed is overbearing and crippling.
I had no idea that one could ethnicise (is there such a word? There is now!)greed.
Precisely how is Jewish greed more reprehensible than, say, Calvinist greed?
Completely off topic — but I’m certain B&W fans will enjoy this Doonesbury cartoon on ‘those pesky scientific facts’.
(Hat tip: Real Climate via Pharyngula)
“Precisely how is Jewish greed more reprehensible than, say, Calvinist greed?”
Well…because it’s Jewish, obviously.
Lipstadt writes:
In fact, I would have assumed that even virulent antisemites would try to distance themselves from this terribly gruesome act [the murder of Ilan Halimi]. It reveals a side of the antisemites that does their efforts no good.
Presumably Lipstadt means that some antisemites are so dumb they can’t even write high-quality propaganda, which is obviously the case.
But who are the other, non-dumb, ‘nonvirulent’ antisemites (who presumably do their efforts some good by distancing themselves from gruesome acts, etc.)?
Judging from ‘Denying the Holocaust’, Chapter 11 (The Future Course of Holocaust Denial), Lipstadt places all non-‘singularist’ German historians in the non-virulent or ‘borderline’ antisemite category (i.e. historians who create what Lipstadt calls “immoral equivalencies” between the Holocaust and other atrocities, such as Stalin’s Gulag, the Khmer Rouge’s massacre of their fellow-countrymen, etc.). Lipstadt claims that these historians “ignored the dramatic differences between these events and the Holocaust”.
So what’s an antisemite then?
Anybody who doesn’t fully agree with Lipstadt’s interpretation of German history?
Suggested categories:
– Low-IQ virulent Jew-haters who can’t spell properly and pepper their postings with exclamation marks;
– Mean IQ virulent Jew-haters who can spell properly and do not pepper their postings with exclamation marks;
– High IQ virulent Jew-haters who can write well and in such a way as to appear non-virulent and who are presumably the most pernicious class of antisemites in existence, precisely because they are non-embarrassing and seductive;
– High IQ historians who are keen to discover ‘wie es eigentlich gewesen’ and like to follow the data wherever it goes, even if not all of their conclusions tally with those of Deborah Lipstadt in every respect.
Discuss.
Also sprach OB:
“Well…because [Jewish Greed is] Jewish, obviously.”
Oh no, OB! You’re not going to baffle me with the old “Comprender, c’est tout pardonner” routine.
As a “belief system”, an important part of the self and cultural identity of many individuals, and an historically important feature of a number of major religions, shouldn’t anti-semitism be afforded sensitivity and respect? How dare you ridicule something so many care so much about.
Yeah, OB. “Have you no intellect?”
Cathal Copeland.
You are far far too witty and clever for most of us.
Could you please explain your feverish problem? I don’t see how you connect the dots. i.e. your post is only understandable by a foot of interpretation.
(And don’t worry, if you explain it clearly as if for an idiot, I’ll have the brains to understand.)
I believe that Cathal is trying to point out that Deborah Lipstadt, while possibly noble in many ways, may, at points in her writing, have stretched the definition of ‘anti-semitic’ beyond what some others would consider reasonable bounds. As to whether this vitiates any of her other thoughts, or indeed has any relevance to the abject idiocy of the message we began with, I certainly would not care to comment. But I didn’t open this thread…