Obama condemns holocaust- predictably, National Review disagrees- Page 7

[Yawper]

Posted: 3/5/13 at 7:15pm

I'm not a white supremacist at all, tiny. But keep flinging your **** - it's like spitting into the wind.

I, personally, wish everyone would learn everything there is to know about the Holocaust, the wars, the genocides - the realities, the complexities, *everything* beyond the narrow, dumbed-down versions so widely promulgated.
there are good discussions here with international input

[Jane2]

Posted: 3/5/13 at 7:23pm

Yawper, many of us do not have to read those articles, and then believe what we read. Some of us got firsthand accounts from relatives and/or friends who LIVED IT. My mother had a friend who still had traces of the numbers branded on her arm. We heard plenty first hand. So thanks for your little recommendation, but no thanks.

[YouWantitWhen????]

Posted: 3/5/13 at 7:44pm

What exactly is the "narrow, dumbed-down versions so widely promulgated"?

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 3/5/13 at 7:47pm

You were right on the first point. If only you could contain yourself. And to preempt your dismissing my criticism as part of some grudge you have managed to create in your mind, I am responding to what you just posted. In this thread. Right above. Just now.

Namo, you made this clear yesterday. I won't mention a "grudge" again.

But I am sorry I annoy you so, because I actually agree with you more than 90% of the time! And I appreciate your witty way of making your points.

My approach is perhaps more analytical, but that is my nature and my training.

My point above about recognizing that genocide was also attempted in American conquest of the continent is not to say it was "the same" as the Holocaust, but that if we recognize similar impulses in our own history, it prevents us from dismissing the Nazis as an exotic, historical anomaly. It also might prompt us to examine our own behavior in the future.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 3/5/13 at 7:52pm

Typical White Supremecist comment...like I haven't heard this BS a zillion times. Almost comical in it's uncreative ignorance.

~tiny~, I hope you noticed I didn't mention the remark about ancient Israelis. I recognize the slippery slope. And I'm also loathe to compare what we know from post-Enlightenment history with what we only know from ancient legends.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 3/5/13 at 7:59pm

Yes, and you've mentioned that before. I would strongly recommend you resist the urge to play devil's advocate, even when all roads of your analytical nature and training point you in that direction. Many of us have been trained to do close readings and explicate textual meanings, but you are the only one I've ever seen in a public forum let himself publish (and I am paraphrasing here) "besides which it doesn't even make sense because the ovens were just used for cremation and not the systematic murder!! DUH JOAN RIVERS!!!"

Honestly, has there been any time since the mid-20th century when the narrative of the US was "cowboys and Indians" on a level playing field? Nobody anywhere has said that the Native American genocide isn't genocide. However, the slippery slope toward Holocaust denial always starts with the "ho hum, people kill each other all the time, what's so different about what the Europeans did to the Indians that the Holocaust gets all the special attention?". ALWAYS.

But go ahead and continue to play devil's advocate. Assume your place next to Jim Colyer in this thread.

[Yawper]

Posted: 3/5/13 at 8:05pm

Your option, Jane2, but realize that there are many aspects that you'll never know.

btw I, too, know survivors and many military vets of the period, including one among the earliest US medical unit personnel who arrived at Buchenwald

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 3/5/13 at 8:06pm

I know this girl who knows a lot of Papa John's franchisees.

[YouWantitWhen????]

Posted: 3/5/13 at 8:14pm

Again, what exactly is the "narrow, dumbed-down versions so widely promulgated"?

[~tiny~]

Posted: 3/5/13 at 8:15pm

Oh, now he knows "survivors", the "me, too" syndrome.....fling away, asshole, you make me laugh the more you talk. You outed yourself earlier in the thread, and now you try to defend your ridiculous comments. At least Colyer never backtracks in his racist comments. Be proud of yours, just like Jim! At least you'll be consistent.

I'm done. Insult me all you want. It makes me laugh, troll.

[Jane2]

Posted: 3/5/13 at 8:17pm

'Your option, Jane2, but realize that there are many aspects that you'll never know.'

How much does one have to know? I might be missing a marble here, but are you saying that if I knew a lot more than I know, it would somehow make it more understandable? Less heinous? Just the fact that you might be suggesting that is making me sick.

As they say on Shark Tank - "I'm out"

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 3/5/13 at 8:40pm

But go ahead and continue to play devil's advocate. Assume your place next to Jim Colyer in this thread.

That was grossly unfair, Namo, and you know it.

I'm not merely "playing devil's advocate" (at least not in this thread).

I acknowledge pal joey's argument against constructing superficial equivalences between atrocities. But I also worry that we misunderstand human nature if we think of genocide as something uniquely German.

It's still a leap from there to "it doesn't matter because everybody does it", something I also never said.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 3/5/13 at 8:59pm

You are clearly incapable of doing the same kind of minute analysis that you brought to the line "people whom have bad grammar" on your own posts or else you willfully refuse to see ways in which your "insights" reinforce the worst impulses in this thread.

In your short but annoying time here I have learned how you a) love to have lengthy, thread-derailing sidebar conversations and b) must -- but must -- have the last word. So, please respond again and have it. I am uninterested in feeding you lead-ins to your endless monologues.

[~tiny~]

Posted: 3/5/13 at 9:04pm

I always think he's from GALVESTON. At least his avatar is nice.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 3/5/13 at 10:54pm

But isn't there some value in recognizing that the conquest of Native Americans by Europeans was a systematic program of genocide not so very dissimilar to German efforts to rid their "lebensraum" of Jews and Slavs?

No, there is not. In that one characteristically wordy sentence, you minimize the lives and deaths of every Native American, Jew and Slav who was slaughtered.

Your simple, simplistic and simple-minded act of odious comparison reduces both programs of genocide, which were carried out under entirely different historical circumstances with entirely different goals, to some supposed "human condition," thereby exonerating all guilty parties and implying that it will undoubtedly "happen again" because "that's what humans do."

No. Genocide is NOT what humans do. It is what humans who become INHUMAN do, and the circumstances that drive them to become inhuman must be studied and understood individually, not lumped together under some facile definition like "SH*T happens."

Hannah Arendt's term "the banality of evil" does NOT mean "the commonality of evil." She would throw up on your shoes if she knew you were twisting her phrase into that.

Plus you use a foofy expression like "not so very dissimilar" that makes my skin crawl and a pretentious German noun (without even capitalizing it correctly), which only serves to make your point, which was objectionable to begin with, even more shallow, callow, callous and crass.

[~tiny~]

Posted: 3/5/13 at 10:59pm

Worth waiting for, PJ! Succinct, and perfectly stated.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 3/6/13 at 7:33am

Your simple, simplistic and simple-minded act of odious comparison reduces both programs of genocide, which were carried out under entirely different historical circumstances with entirely different goals, to some supposed "human condition," thereby exonerating all guilty parties and implying that it will undoubtedly "happen again" because "that's what humans do."

I'm very disappointed, joey. That you can call me out for a "wordy" sentence in the same post where you wrote the above shows a shocking lack of self-awareness.

I don't know why you have a such a large bug up your ass on this subject, but your argument is idiotic. Human beings are rarely able to understand anything without some point of comparison, which is why metaphor and simile are such common devices and why we still talk about the power of car engines in terms of "horse power".

So although your plea that we appreciate the horror of each atrocity in isolation may sound noble, it is actually preposterous and very much the sort of nonsense favored by the worst graduate seminars.

I never invoked Hannah Arendt, nor would I do so. Nor did I say the genocides of 19th century America and 20th century Europe were particularly alike. I merely said both involved, at times, systematic attempts to eliminate an ethnic group. (I do appreciate the reminder to capitalize German nouns. It's not a language I read or write, but I recognize that you are correct. I chose the word Lebensraum precisely because both the U.S. and Germany were "clearing the land" to make room for their own expanding populations. To that extent the two genocides shared one goal (though there were others); your insistence that they had "entirely different goals" is wrong.)

More important than sanctifying one atrocity with phony outrage at every comparison is reminding the "America is God's Country" crowd that America, too, has been guilty of unspeakable crimes. (And not just in the 19th century!)



Updated On: 3/6/13 at 07:33 AM

[ErikJ972]

Posted: 3/6/13 at 8:48am

"No. Genocide is NOT what humans do. It is what humans who become INHUMAN do, and the circumstances that drive them to become inhuman must be studied and understood individually, not lumped together under some facile definition like "SH*T happens."

Well said.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 3/6/13 at 9:48am

very much the sort of nonsense favored by the worst graduate seminars

Look. Who's. Mother. Effing. Typing. And typing. And typing. And typing. And typing. And typing. And typing. And typing. And typing.

[suestorm]

Posted: 3/6/13 at 9:49am

this thread is like the typical SNL skit that was good for the first 30 seconds... then dragged on and on and on....

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 3/6/13 at 9:52am

Proving gallstone's point that there are cretinous humans who need the stupidest similes to grasp something.

Posted: 3/6/13 at 10:25am

I must say, the acrimony in this thread makes me worried that we won't be able to have a sensible discussion after The History Channel airs "Mankind's Top 100 Holocausts!" during May sweeps.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 3/6/13 at 7:31pm

Look. Who's. Mother. Effing. Typing. And typing. And typing. And typing. And typing. And typing. And typing. And typing. And typing.

I was attacked in the most sanctimonious and condescending manner, so I responded. You would have done the same.

But here's a tip: your righteous indignation and hysterical tantrums in support of moral issues would carry more weight if you weren't such an ugly specimen of humanity yourself. I've never seen so much unkindness from one poster on any message board.

No, I'm not saying you are "the same" as Hitler, so don't even start.

[~tiny~]

Posted: 3/6/13 at 8:07pm

"In your short but annoying time here I have learned how you a) love to have lengthy, thread-derailing sidebar conversations and b) must -- but must -- have the last word. So, please respond again and have it."

"Look. Who's. Mother. Effing. Typing. And typing. And typing. And typing. And typing. And typing. And typing. And typing. And typing."

lmfao. Pls have THE LAST WORD - AGAIN!

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 3/6/13 at 8:30pm

Right?