Epa, How do you feel about the fact that some in the counter-Jihad movement use the germ trope with regards to Muslims, the more subtle couching it in the language of memetics?
I think that you're comparing different phases of the very same repeating phenomenon. Before the historic posters that you selected, wasn't there the "Protocols...," and Ford's "The International Jew"? It's much easier for the second phase of demonization to take place if it's seen in light of retribution for what a supposed powerful devil had done before a deserved fall.
In regards to Past. question of Epa, we have some dangerous elements in our midst that by folly, or malice, say some damn stupid things. IBA is sometimes shuned, for both denouncing the intemperant speech of, and for remaining engaged with, the foolish and malicious. But, for my part, I think you're asking important questions, with perhaps even a niave, but certianly noble expectation of getting answers.
The germ theory, is useful in demonstrating how contagoius an idea can be, but is too often conflated with the assumed spotaneous generation of such ideas from a specific carrier.
You are correct, ad infinitum. But the basic underlying antipathies, remain. If jews could be picked on, especially since 135 AD as a minuscule minority in many nations, then today they are a minuscule NATION among nations ..or as one of the arabs put it recently ..if they all spit on the jews one by one they would drown the lot.
What Edward I, the Almohads, Louis of France, Spain, Portugal YADDA could do to their minority, so today via the UN and media, the nations at large suspect they can do to Israel ..and the risk is only a little different, and NO different if the Jews can be stopped form using their nukes.
It is also hard to distinguish how much of the anti-Israeli / Jewish rhetoric is anti-American rhetoric. Professors and jihadists are in bed together. But it is hard to tell how close they get at night. But that may not matter.
Both Jihadists and some professors sympathize with terrorism. Bill Ayers is a fine example. But if Israel is undermined, the Muslims will not stop at "liberating" Gaza. They will go for mass murder.
Academics' reactions will tell us if they were anti-western or anti - Jewish or anti - Israeli. I suspect more professors are for weakening the West than destroying Israel or mass murder.
But at that point it will be - as they say - academic. Their rhetoric, whatever its ends, will have led to its natural conclusion; The anti-Israeli propaganda will have proven to have been, not just anti-American, but anti-Jewish too.
Past. I think you've mistaken my comments. I was refering to how the Vlaams Belang, Jorg Haider, and BNP have been more fully discussed here than elsewhere in the blogosphere. The flow of information here being unhindered by presumptive censorship, at the same time that Past. and Epa have made clear their positions on such issues.
I was speaking more broadly of the counter-jihad when refering to "dangerous elements within our midst." And not knowing who speaks in malice, or ignorance, the best attack is directly at the dangerous ideas rather than the personalities advancing them.
maccusgermanis.. yah..I'm not even sure that when I read "right wing" in Der Spiegel, or Brussels Journal it means the same thing, or if it means the same thing it does here. Which might mean Rush Limbaugh to some, or Pat Buchanan to others (and that is two VERY different things). Worse still is my impression that the EU is SO FAR LEFT that the middle looks like right to them(which is what the left side of the dem party is like today).
No matter what we think of VB (for me... white superiority but not necessarily neo nazi) or anyone else like Jaider, disingenuous smears in order to control what others think are RAMPANT and should be recognized.
Excellent post. Thank you. Although, I offer strong disagreement to the assessment that "There are two distinct strains of Jew hatred. Unfortunately, our society is still fixated on fighting the one that went out of style four decades ago."
"Classic" Anti-Semitic paradigm is still strong in the modern world, while may have gone underground and may not be as pronounced. The battle against it merely lends itself as a lip service for most of the "opposition" of the state of Israel. However, what is faced on the front lines today (including media broadcasting and social activism) is continuous battle of public opinion.
All too often I'm both puzzled and appalled that many anti-Israeli perceptions are fueled and vigorously defended by nothing more than misconception or lack of facts. That is inexcusable in our modern society that has literacy level and resources to gain access to this basic information and course of events in history.
Also, looking at the history of the conflict, one has to ponder the main contribution to the World Dictionary. While Jewish culture can be credited with terms like "pogrom", "antisemitism", "Holocaust", and "Zionism"; from the Arab-Israeli conflict we gain terms such as "hudna", "tahdia", "fateh", "qassam" and "intifada" that irreversibly become part of our global and diplomatic vocabulary. This is far more than merely alarming in my opinion.
Wednesday, March 04, 2009 12:58:00 am
People speak of anti-Semitism as if it were a monolithic evil. But it's not. There are two distinct strains of Jew hatred. Unfortunately, our society is still fixated on fighting the one that went out of style four decades ago.[Image] The difference between the two begins with the way Jews are depicted. Look at the images on this page. The one on the left, a poster published in German-occupied Poland in 1941, exemplifies the Jew-hatred spouted by the Nazis. (The caption reads: "Jews and Lice: They cause typhus.") The image on the right, a poster circulated on Canadian campuses this week to mark "Israel Apartheid Week," typifies the more recent variant. Aside from the obvious -- the language and style of illustration -- what crucial difference do you notice? In the Nazi poster, the Jew is a piece of filth -- a rogue pathogen within gentile society. The image perfectly captures Hitler's view of Jews as a "bacillus infecting the life of peoples." Now look at the image on the right. Aside from retaining the general sense that the Jew (or, to give the fig leaf its due, "the Jewish state") is a scourge upon the world, everything has changed. The Jew is no longer diseased and wretched. Just the opposite: He is an omnipotent, teched up superman, murdering a defenseless Palestinian child from above. [Image] In this latter detail -- the use of a child victim to communicate the extent of the Jew's evil -- the anti-Israeli propaganda of today is similar to the posters and textbooks of the Nazi era, which often showed shadowy Hebrews menacing German children. [Image] Every grudge held against JEWS by the left finds it's root because Israel has decided to live, if nothing else, as an ultimate refuge for the Jews, whose history in this world has been but one thing.
As in the Nazi era, the Jew isn't fully human -- but now he's an all-powerful Nazgûl instead of a pitiful Gollum.
What explains this radical transition in the presentation of anti-Semitic propaganda? Three factors. The first is ideology: When the Nazis went down to defeat, they took with them the intellectual basis of "germ-theory" anti-Semitism -- the toxic notion that certain races or groups are genetically inferior or parasitical. In our era, to compare Jews to leeches is to announce oneself as a bigoted creature from society's discredited fringe. The second reason is tied up with the history of Israel itself: After the Jews established their own state in 1948, it became impossible to typecast them as mere parasites contaminating foreign hosts. This was especially true after the Six-Day War of 1967, in which Israel scored a crushing military victory against Egypt, Jordan and Syria -- not the sort of maneuver you'd expect from typhus-stricken old men. The third reason is political: The leaders who find anti-Semitism useful today aren't extreme nationalists such as Hitler, Stalin or Mussolini (though Hugo Chavez admittedly has been wandering into that territory). Instead, they are radical Muslims -- and their allies in Western activist groups, who speak the tropes of anti-colonialism, anti-imperialism, anti-Americanism, anti-racism and all the other fashionable antis. In this left-wing intellectual climate, disparaging any race or religion per se is off limits. The preferred tactic is to disparage the allegedly colonial, imperialist, racist etc. nature of their actions.It also must be admitted that the anti-Semitism of today is a lot more subtle than the old-fashioned variety: Except in clear cases of blood libel such as the IAH poster, it's often hard to tell where legitimate criticism of Israel ends and Jew-hatred begins. As a result, Jews themselves -- middle-aged university professors and career feminists, most typically -- are often drawn into radicalized campaigns against Israel, and sometimes even can be seen marching gullibly arm-in-arm with Kafiyeh-clad protestors chanting for Jewish blood in Arabic. It's a disgusting spectacle, especially when you hear their maudlin rhetoric -- "massacre," "crime against humanity," "genocide," "holocaust," etc
[Image] There can be no mistake that those on the left today who buy into the idea that Israel is a colonialist, murdering western power guilty of state terrorism, are more than naively culpable. These people may be idealistic fools (perhaps like our president), but they are smart enough to figure out the truth, and have the means to do so.
These are, in the end, moral and physical cowards, afraid to face, argue down, and turn away those whose untrammeled consciences insist on harming us, and every value handed to us.
There MAY have been a time when Israel's struggle was not ours, but that time is long, long gone, and it's expiration may have been ordained by the very NATURE of the Arab/Muslim rejection of the Jews in their midst, of their one and a half millennium long treatment of them, and of their Quranic insistence of their racial view of Jews which finds its match today on the left.
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14 Comments
Close this window Jump to comment formEpa,
How do you feel about the fact that some in the counter-Jihad movement use the germ trope with regards to Muslims, the more subtle couching it in the language of memetics?
Tuesday, March 03, 2009 12:41:00 pm
Any item that gives the slightest fuel to those who claim that counter jihad is peppered with racism should be condemned and ostracized.
No room at the inn for those people. No matter how tempting the language is.
Jihadists are smart, dedicated enemies who think god, history and the nature of men is on their side...that does not sound like 'vermin' to me
Tuesday, March 03, 2009 1:35:00 pm
This comment has been removed by the author.
Tuesday, March 03, 2009 1:44:00 pm
I think that you're comparing different phases of the very same repeating phenomenon. Before the historic posters that you selected, wasn't there the "Protocols...," and Ford's "The International Jew"? It's much easier for the second phase of demonization to take place if it's seen in light of retribution for what a supposed powerful devil had done before a deserved fall.
In regards to Past. question of Epa, we have some dangerous elements in our midst that by folly, or malice, say some damn stupid things. IBA is sometimes shuned, for both denouncing the intemperant speech of, and for remaining engaged with, the foolish and malicious. But, for my part, I think you're asking important questions, with perhaps even a niave, but certianly noble expectation of getting answers.
The germ theory, is useful in demonstrating how contagoius an idea can be, but is too often conflated with the assumed spotaneous generation of such ideas from a specific carrier.
Tuesday, March 03, 2009 1:46:00 pm
Definition of America: "naive, but certainly noble expectation of getting answers."
Of course, then if we don't get them .. it's B-52's.
maccusgermanis ..take a look HERE
You are correct, ad infinitum.
But the basic underlying antipathies, remain. If jews could be picked on, especially since 135 AD as a minuscule minority in many nations, then today they are a minuscule NATION among nations ..or as one of the arabs put it recently ..if they all spit on the jews one by one they would drown the lot.
What Edward I, the Almohads, Louis of France, Spain, Portugal YADDA could do to their minority, so today via the UN and media, the nations at large suspect they can do to Israel ..and the risk is only a little different, and NO different if the Jews can be stopped form using their nukes.
Tuesday, March 03, 2009 2:10:00 pm
Good post!!!
It is also hard to distinguish how much of the anti-Israeli / Jewish rhetoric is anti-American rhetoric. Professors and jihadists are in bed together. But it is hard to tell how close they get at night. But that may not matter.
Both Jihadists and some professors sympathize with terrorism. Bill Ayers is a fine example. But if Israel is undermined, the Muslims will not stop at "liberating" Gaza. They will go for mass murder.
Academics' reactions will tell us if they were anti-western or anti - Jewish or anti - Israeli. I suspect more professors are for weakening the West than destroying Israel or mass murder.
But at that point it will be - as they say - academic. Their rhetoric, whatever its ends, will have led to its natural conclusion; The anti-Israeli propaganda will have proven to have been, not just anti-American, but anti-Jewish too.
Tuesday, March 03, 2009 2:38:00 pm
MacusGermanis,
Would you mind telling me who you think IBA is still allied with who is a destructive influence?
I've tried to weed out all the exposed racists and nutcases.
If you want, you can get my email from AOW, and send your answer to me in email form.
Tuesday, March 03, 2009 3:49:00 pm
MacusGermanis,
Would you mind telling me who you think IBA is still allied with who is a destructive influence?
I've tried to weed out all the exposed racists and nutcases.
If you want, you can get my email from AOW, and send your answer to me in email form.
Tuesday, March 03, 2009 3:49:00 pm
Culturist John,
I do not share your opinion that these people don't really want to see the destruction of Israel and the West/America.
9/11 convinced me they really hate us, because EVEN ON THAT DAY THEY WERE BLAMING US AND EXPLAINING TO US HOW WE DESERVED IT.
That was very shocking to me, but I accepted it.
Now, I could be wrong about this.
But, it is my opinion, you simply have not been able to accept the truth.
And, part of the ugly truth is there are Jews who do not care about Jews.
Tuesday, March 03, 2009 3:51:00 pm
By the way, CJ, the lesson I took from 9/11 is that the Jihadists would do anything they could to kill as many of us as possible.
I think that was obvious.
if others do not, then I consider them to be painfully naiive.
In other words, stupid.
The lesson is, Jihadists would use nuclear weapons on us if they had them.
For anyone to have engaged in any anti-American speak on that day is evidence they truly do hate America, IN MY OPINION.
Tuesday, March 03, 2009 3:57:00 pm
Past.
I think you've mistaken my comments. I was refering to how the Vlaams Belang, Jorg Haider, and BNP have been more fully discussed here than elsewhere in the blogosphere. The flow of information here being unhindered by presumptive censorship, at the same time that Past. and Epa have made clear their positions on such issues.
I was speaking more broadly of the counter-jihad when refering to "dangerous elements within our midst." And not knowing who speaks in malice, or ignorance, the best attack is directly at the dangerous ideas rather than the personalities advancing them.
Tuesday, March 03, 2009 4:10:00 pm
maccusgermanis.. yah..I'm not even sure that when I read "right wing" in Der Spiegel, or Brussels Journal it means the same thing, or if it means the same thing it does here. Which might mean Rush Limbaugh to some, or Pat Buchanan to others (and that is two VERY different things). Worse still is my impression that the EU is SO FAR LEFT that the middle looks like right to them(which is what the left side of the dem party is like today).
No matter what we think of VB (for me... white superiority but not necessarily neo nazi) or anyone else like Jaider, disingenuous smears in order to control what others think are RAMPANT and should be recognized.
Tuesday, March 03, 2009 4:24:00 pm
MacusGermanis,
Thanks for the clarification.
Tuesday, March 03, 2009 4:30:00 pm
Excellent post. Thank you. Although, I offer strong disagreement to the assessment that "There are two distinct strains of Jew hatred. Unfortunately, our society is still fixated on fighting the one that went out of style four decades ago."
"Classic" Anti-Semitic paradigm is still strong in the modern world, while may have gone underground and may not be as pronounced. The battle against it merely lends itself as a lip service for most of the "opposition" of the state of Israel. However, what is faced on the front lines today (including media broadcasting and social activism) is continuous battle of public opinion.
All too often I'm both puzzled and appalled that many anti-Israeli perceptions are fueled and vigorously defended by nothing more than misconception or lack of facts. That is inexcusable in our modern society that has literacy level and resources to gain access to this basic information and course of events in history.
Also, looking at the history of the conflict, one has to ponder the main contribution to the World Dictionary. While Jewish culture can be credited with terms like "pogrom", "antisemitism", "Holocaust", and "Zionism"; from the Arab-Israeli conflict we gain terms such as "hudna", "tahdia", "fateh", "qassam" and "intifada" that irreversibly become part of our global and diplomatic vocabulary. This is far more than merely alarming in my opinion.
Wednesday, March 04, 2009 12:58:00 am