The Mass Psychology of Anti-Fascism
By Guest Post • May 22nd, 2008 at 13:48 • Category: Analysis, Hasbara Deconstruction Site, Israel, Opinions and Letters, War, Zionism
(at the left, one of the cartoons circulating in the civilised US on Zionist and Conservative sites)
WRITTEN BY JAY KNOTT
Who could fail to be against fascism, the movement which drove Germany and Italy in World War II, which culminated in the murder of millions of civilians in concentration camps? But anti-fascism implies a lot more than simply being opposed to fascism
1. Before World War II, anti-fascism was used to persuade the working class to unite with the left wing of the capitalist state against its right wing opponents. This led to the Spanish Civil War. If the left had won, Spain would have become a puppet of Russia, but the most enthusiastic recruiting sergeants for the capitalist war effort were anarchists, and its best opponents were a group of Italian Marxist-Leninists.
2. During the war, anti-fascism was used to recruit working class people to die by the millions for the interests of the Russian and American ruling classes.
3. After the war, anti-fascism was the hypocritical standard by which the war crimes of the Allies were covered up, by emphasizing those of the losers.
4. Today, it exaggerates the importance of right-wing extremists, whereas the police are the main enemies of black people.
5. Anti-fascism is used to weaken opposition to Israel.
It is illogical to support Israel because of the Nazi holocaust. That is the point of this leaflet – not just to repeat once more the fact that the Allies committed crimes comparable to those of the Axis, the fact that murdering people by bombing them is just as bad as putting them in gas chambers, and that the treatment of German women by the Russian Army rivals anything done by the Nazis. If anti-fascism was always an ideology, today it is a neurosis. On the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by the Red Army, the prime minister of Israel made a speech explicitly stating that, if you oppose the murder of Jews, you must support Israel.
This nonsense is embedded in the emotions of millions of people, especially in the USA. The media consistently refers to the Nazi attempt to wipe out the Jews as ‘The’ Holocaust, a gratuitous insult to the survivors of numerous other such crimes. Even within the Nazi holocaust, other victims are generally forgotten – gypsies, gays, Poles, Russians and millions of German opponents of Hitler also died.
The growing number of holocaust museums in the USA, instead of remembering the murder and enslavement of millions of Africans and indigenous people, are almost exclusively dedicated to a crime committed by another country. The media and US leaders frequently talk of a ‘rise in anti-semitism’ in Europe. What they mean, of course, is a rise in opposition to Israel. Why do politicians from more powerful countries grovel to Israel? It cannot be explained by reference to their material class interests. They recently travelled to Israel to pay homage at the new holocaust museum, which is within sight of Deir Yassin, site of a major Zionist massacre in 1948. The message is clear: it is worse to kill Jews than other people. The constant reiteration of the uniquely evil nature of the Nazi crimes against Jews contributes to this message on a subliminal level. The left-wing Anti-Nazi League does as much to concentrate solely on these crimes, and de-emphasize other, similar crimes, as does the right-wing Anti-Defamation League.
It is arguable that the German holocaust was quantitatively the worst single crime in history, for its scale, its efficiency, its deliberateness, and its lasting consequences. One can believe this without accepting anti-fascism. But how can any sane person claim that German crimes were qualitatively different from those of America, Britain and Russia, which included burning cities to the ground using conventional and nuclear weapons, the murder of prisoners, ethnic cleansing, and mass rape? Yet this is effectively what we are being told, not only by the media, but by left wing anti-fascists. Anti-fascism means rejecting the view that the two sides in World War II were more-or-less equivalent. It means defending the official line that the Axis side was much worse; that murdering German and Japanese people is nowhere near as bad as murdering Jews. There is no point in anti-fascists saying they oppose Allied war crimes as well as those of Germany and its allies. If that were true, they would not be specifically anti-fascist.
Left wing writer Ward Churchill’s controversial On the Justice of Roosting Chickens unwittingly exposes the contradictions of anti-fascism. Given that Germans were responsible for the crimes of the Nazis, he argues, Americans are responsible for the crimes of their rulers, so they can’t complain about September 11th. Churchill takes anti-fascism to its logical conclusion; but its widespread influence has nothing to do with logic. Many people agree, on a rational level, with the contents of this leaflet, but will still act as if they do not. People who are capable of opposing the dominant society in every other way, half-believe that attempting to oppose Israel’s influence would be a sign of anti-semitism. San Francisco Indymedia collective censored contributions containing the word ‘Zionazi’ from its website, though this word is clearly a critique of a political ideology, not of an ethnic group. No other political movement is given such deference. The Zionist guilt trip is particularly effective at weakening the substantial radical milieu in Germany. There was some resistance to distributing this leaflet via the usual channels because of this guilt complex.
We need to reject guilt and victim politics
Morality, identity with victims, is endemic to Christian civilization. Produce a victim, and rational scepticism goes out the window. In the nineteen-twenties, German psychoanalyst Willhelm Reich asked why masses of people supported fascism, clearly against their own interests. Today, we should try to answer the same question about anti-fascism. The next step is to reject the political correctness which led Indymedia to censor critics of Israel. It is clear that opposing US policies in the Middle East involves opposing its relationship to Israel. The collapse of the war effort in Iraq is the best opportunity for the class struggle on the home front since the seventies, but this opportunity is being missed.
Notes
1. A critique of anti-fascism in the Spanish Civil War: www.spunk.org/library/antifasc/sp000833.html
2. The Destruction of Dresden, by David Irving: www.fpp.co.uk/books/Dresden
Some will be more upset that we have included this link to the site of ‘holocaust revisionist’ Irving than they are about the subject of the book – the massacre of the population of the German city of Dresden by Allied bombers in 1945.
3. Anyone who doubts that there was little to choose between the two sides on the Eastern Front should read this article about the Red Army’s invasion of Germany: www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,707835,00.html
4. On the Justice of Roosting Chickens, Ward Churchill, AK Press, 2003
5. The Mass Psychology of Fascism, Wilhelm Reich, Sexpol Verlag, 1933
6. The War for Palestine, eds. Rogan and Shlaim, Cambridge 2001
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Associating Zionism (a form of oppressive fascism against Palestinians) and all existing American ‘anti fascists’ (which is a category as diverse as the variations of policies within any political group) is so direly misleading that I am tempted to believe that it is intentional. This is red-bating at its worst, and to deceive the public in this manner is irresponsible if not malevolent. You fail to mention that most anti fascist groups existing in America are non- if not anti-Zionist (not to be confused with anti-semitism, a despicable form of hate and oppression), being that the illegal and violent occupation of Palestinians is one of the worst forms of racist, fascist oppression in history. Anyone who is actually involved in existing American antifascist groups will read the above paper and feel sick to their stomach. Blaming the entire indie media for suppressing anti-Zionist views almost made me fall out of my chair. I want to know, Mr. Knott, are you mistaken by lack of field experience or is this paper indoctrination? Groups like Portland AntiFa in Oregon are expressely opposed to Nazism, Zionism, patriarchy and all other power relationships which oppress people. They dedicate time and hard, very often dangerous work to opposing bigotry, with actual non violent confrontation often costing a member of the group injury by viscious hate mongers.
Again sir, are you mistaken by lack of field experience or is this paper indoctrination?
I’m grateful for this belated reply to my ‘Mass Psychology of Anti-Fascism’ leaflet of several years ago. In the meantime, I have produced a pamphlet – https://pacificaforum.org/mass – which goes much further than the leaflet. If you are upset by the leaflet, I can’t wait to hear what you think of the pamphlet!
I don’t exactly say that ‘the entire indie media’ suppresses criticism of Israel. However:
- German Indymedia nearly always deletes articles about protests about Israeli crimes
- Gilad Atzmon’s articles were made unreadable on London Indymedia because anti-fascists said he is anti-semitic (they covered them with a watermark so you can’t read them)
- London Indymedia did the same with my article about David Irving’s visit to Eugene
- Portland Indymedia deleted my article about Irving – they said it promotes anti-semitism – I wrote back and said ‘what part of it promotes anti-semitism?’ – no reply
- If you google Atzmon’s recent visit to America and ‘indymedia’, you’ll find pages of Zionist slander, and hardly any fair-minded accounts
- I was barred from the anarchist site http://libcom.org because some of the participants said that I am an anti-semitic troll who ’seethes’ with racial hatred
It’s touching that you try to defend anti-fascists by saying they believe the occupation of Palestine is one of the worst crimes in history. If that is so, why, when they organized a protest in a wealthy suburb of Portland, were they looking for imaginary ‘Nazi skinheads’ rather than Jewish racists who live in this suburb, who openly support this crime, take our money to support it, call those who oppose them racist, and so on? The answers are obvious:
1. Anti-fascists have white guilt, and
2. White youth are a lot less powerful than Jewish racists
So AntiFa is opposed to Zionism as well as fascism? In its dreams, yes. But it’s called ‘AntiFa’ and not ‘AntiZi’ for a reason. Just two weeks ago, the anti-fascists went postal over an extreme right-winger called Anelauskas speaking in Portland, and tried to stop the meeting. I don’t agree with his views, but they don’t do any harm, and this is freedom of speech. A month earlier, AIPAC, the wealthy and infuential Jewish supremacist group, met in Portland. This ISN’T freedom of speech – it’s Jews opposing freedom of speech in order to help continue Americas’ support for their genocidal program. There was a protest, but anti-fascists nowhere to be seen. The same is true of the protests against the 2006 invasion of Lebanon and this year’s Israeli attack on Gaza.
Among those attending the AIPAC meeting were some Zionists from Eugene who are trying to close down the anti-war discussion group, Pacifica Forum, because it started to discuss the Israel Lobby. The Eugene lefties make no bones about their alliance with the Zios.
Yes, Ben, I do have ‘field experience’. I know anti-fascism in all its varieties. I was an anti-fascist in the late seventies. I was raised under its shadow by refugees from German bombing. But I’ve managed to rise above my narrow background, and see things from a broader perspective. In a nutshell, I believe bombing Germans is just as bad as German bombing. This means I cannot be an anti-fascist. How can you be obsessed with the virtually non-existent threat of fascism today? Today, the main beneficiary of harping on about ‘THE’ Holocaust is Israel. Every week, it seems, president Obama has to mention it. Even he has white guilt!!!
But again, thanks for your reply – and do respond – Palestine Think Tank won’t censor you!
To say that this website does not censor opposing points of view is clearly untruthful when below what I am typing it states, “Comments containing Zionist propaganda, name calling religions (including Judaism), obscenity, and personal attacks will not be approved.” So any Zionist who challenges the points of view herein would not be afforded a platform. That’s selective free speech.
By the way, the anarchist site that banned you- well, “anarchist” and “anti-fascism” are not interchangeable words. They probably banned you based on your Holocaust minimalization and normalization arguments, which this site and your associates seem to consider their grail of reasoning. It’s really sad that the best you can come up with is to cross your arms, and say. “Nuh-uh. Didn’t happen.” And probably stomp your foot a little while you do it.
But I digress.
Nazi skins in Portland aren’t imaginary. That’s a ludicrous statement. But a natural one coming from someone who doesn’t live here.
I think there is purpose and intent in your deliberate ignorance of what antifa groups are and do. But I have to point out that, such as in my own case, you don’t have to belong to a group to be against fascism. bigotry, religious fundamentalism, hate- in other words, to propagate a philosophy of compassion and justice.
Pacifica is not an anti-war group, they are expressly anti-Zionist and against the war on Palestine. And let’s not be crude here, the only reason they would side with non-whites in a war is because of their anti-semetic views. You can dress it how you want to, but fear and hate still look the same to me. (I certainly have yet to hear them oppose any other war but that of Zion.)
I have yet to confer with my friends in Portland AntiFa about the recent visit by AIPAC, but I suspect that either they were indeed present or that they were not properly informed about the meeting. I must once again state that my friends in that group are expressly anti-Zionist. (I find it funny that you outright say that there was an opposition to the meeting but no anti-fascists were present. Then who showed up? Portland Bigots Against Zionism? If you ask me, one who opposes AIPAC is by very definition anti-fascist. That includes your little white power friends. It doesn’t make them the good guys, it makes them buffoons.)
Regardless, I don’t identify with group thought, or subordination to white guilt. The fundamental element of my belief lies in this: all power relationships must be examined. If upon examination any relationship of power cannot be legitimized, that relationship must be restructured or disassembled, being replaced by a legitimate structure or left to nonexistence. I’m sure you are familiar with (and possibly offended by) this argument, which frees us up from arbitrary or unrealistic rule making and allows all people to enjoy equal treatment and rights.
The one argument I do have against the antifa and other related anti-oppression movements is that white males are asked to compare their privilege to that of others and alter their behaviors in a manner that is supposedly sensitive to non-white, non-males. I think that this is an illogical, disguised form of bigotry, in that I am predicated to being an oppressor, as opposed to first being a “human being.” I am encouraged not to speak my mind if my ideas do not support these conditions. So you see, I’m not just a lamb for a movement, I simply disagree with you on fundamental levels about the truth to your argument.
In closing, you are either a pitiful fool or a sneaky propagandist ( I doubt the former ) when you portray the indie media as wanting to subdue anti-Zionist views. Because the plain truth is that a particular brand of anti-Zionism- that which is NOT awash in disguised anti-semetism- can be easily found anywhere in the indie media, from Turning The Tide publications, to Democracy Now.org, anti-Zionism abounds in the world of independent media. You simply choose to ignore it.
A Collaborator Speaks Out
Again, I thank Ben for his response. At least he is open to discussion. But instead of replying right now, I would like to comment on the continuing attack on freedom being waged by anti-fascists in Oregon.
In George Orwell’s novel ‘Coming up for air’, one of the characters visits an anti-fascist meeting. He describes the meeting in a way which should be familiar to us today:
“What he’s saying is merely that Hitler’s after us and we must all get together and have a good hate. Doesn’t go into details. Leaves it all respectable. But what he’s seeing is something quite different. It’s a picture of himself smashing people’s faces in with a spanner. Fascist faces, of course. I know that’s what he was seeing. It was what I saw myself for the second or two that I was inside him. Smash! Right in the middle! The bones cave in like an eggshell and what was a face a minute ago is just a great big blob of strawberry jam. Smash! There goes another! That’s what’s in his mind, waking and sleeping, and the more he thinks of it the more he likes it. And it’s all O.K. because the smashed faces belong to Fascists.”
This story is based on real anti-fascist meetings Orwell attended. Orwell actually fought fascism, on the side of Stalin and his useful anarchist idiots. This was a mistake. But his basic humanity showed – he felt sympathy for the men he was fighting, and was critical of his own side.
No such subtlety can be found in today’s anti-fascists. Today, they are more like the maniac described by Orwell – they want someone to hate, someone’s face to smash in. But they want to do it in a politically-correct way. The difference is that the anti-fascist speaker in the novel was part of the movement which led to World War II, the biggest holocaust in history. While British fascists were trying to avoid war with Germany, the left were agitating for it (except during the Hitler-Stalin pact, of course). All today’s anti-fascists do is scare people into supporting repressive hate-speech legislation, and undermine the fight against Zionism. They are more farcical than tragic, but they are motivated by the same hate as their predecessors in the thirties.
Here is a passage from a recent posting on Portland Indymedia in response to a meeting addressed by a right-wing Lithuanian intellectual called Valdas Anelauskas entitled ‘Statement on Anti-Semites and their Collaborators’, which tries to get those who organized the meeting fired from their jobs:
‘This statement is a beginning; other fascist collaborators should not consider themselves to have been let off the hook in any way. No compromise and no half-measures!’
Who do they think they are, the French Resistance? After the defeat of Germany, partisans in Holland and France captured women who had had relationships with German soldiers during the occupation, shaved their heads, and paraded them through the streets on the back of trucks.
American anti-fascists can’t easily employ violence against those they disagree with, though they would obviously like to. If they did, they would end up in prison. The first amendment, which guarantees freedom of expression, isn’t just a scrap of paper. The anti-fascists want to censor those who argue that ethnic groups are important categories in understanding how history works – they call them ‘racists’. How important races are is an empirical, scientific question, just like the question of the importance of economic classes. Freedom isn’t just another word for nothing left to lose – it’s the basic framework for understanding everything we know about the universe. This is why it is worth defending. Freedom means listening to people with whom you disagree. Anelauskas and other right-wing thinkers are good examples, and should be defended against the petty commissars who want to attack them and their ‘collaborators’.
The Indymedia article cites a comment by Anelauskas about Jewish ‘Talmudic hatred’. The anti-fascists miss the rather important point that the remark was in response to a letter to a newspaper from a Jewish woman who thinks the war in Iraq is a good thing, because she thinks it is in the interests of her ethnic group. Anti-fascists don’t oppose her freedom. Yet if you agree it’s in the interests of her ethnic group, but disagree that it’s a good thing, they try to suppress your freedom of speech, get your ‘collaborators’ fired, etc., Nothing could better illustrate the close affinity between anti-fascism and Zionism. The relationship between Judaism and Zionism is a complex one, just like the relationship between Christianity and Western imperialism. We should try to understand this relationship, and not be turned aside by threats and emotional blackmail.
¡Pasaremos!
Indymedia censors fair, non-racist criticism of Israel
Portland Indymedia helps the ‘antifa’ by publishing comments supporting them and deleting those that criticize them – and it’s getting worse. I put this in the Indymedia discussion, and they deleted it. As you can see, it contains nothing which breaks Indymedia’s guidelines. It is not racist in any way :->
The Jewish Holocaust is remote history. Nearly all of those who lived through it are dead, and now their decendants are perpetrating yet another Holocaust against the Palestinians, and for exactly the same reason that the Nazis perpetrated genocide against the Jews — the Israelis are motivated by greed to steal the Palestinians’ land and property, and out of Jewish supremacist racism and hatred for all nonJews.
Fifty highly-organized members of the Rose City Antifa showed up with banners and matching bandana masks to protest the appearance of the little-known David Irving, which was attended by barely more than two dozen people. What was the Rose City Antifa’s real agenda in drawing so much attention to the marginal nobody David Irving?
Where will the Rose City Antifa members be when the next rally is held in Portland to protest the racist Israeli Apartheid? Will they attend, more than fifty strong, carrying banners and wearing bandana masks, shouting “Down with Israeli Apartheid?” Since the Rose City Antifa members are terrified of being identified as individuals, I advise them to wear their bandana masks, since Mossad and ADL agents will probably be photographing the anti-Israeli protest.
The Jewish Holocaust happened a long time ago and it is no longer relevant to current affairs. Ignore David Irving and he will remain anonymous. Ignore the Israeli Holocaust against the Palestinians and its genocide will continue. Rose City Antifa, will you be there, fifty strong at the next anti-Israel Apartheid rally in Portland?
Never Forget the Israeli Holocaust against the Palestinians!
@pdx4truth – Let’s start with a distinct error presented in this ongoing debate- the idea that a Holocaust, no matter how distant in the past, could be irrelevant to contemporary issues. If the Jewish Holocaust is irrelevant to our world simply because of a shelf-life expiration on the significance of mass murder, then what exactly constitutes that statute? Do values have a statute of limitations? Is there a fifty year shelf-life on the significance of a tragedy? I quote your words- “Nearly all of those who lived through it are dead, and now their decendants are perpetrating yet another Holocaust against the Palestinians, and for exactly the same reason that the Nazis perpetrated genocide against the Jews….” This is a great example of distortion of facts and ideas. (For one thing, Zionism is not only motivated by power, but equally importantly we must remember that it is justified to Zionists by poisonous religious doctrines. Other than the Vatican’s endorsement of Adolf Hitler’s regime, Nazism was not motivated by or related to religious claims. This is clear distinction of reasoning.) Your claim is that history has no significance if victims or descendants of an event are no longer alive. This is irrational and glib. In a single sentence you claim that history has no value as well as arbitrarily giving significance to the genocide of one group over another. Holocaust minimizers are contradictory in logic when they even attempt to address Zionism. By no means has the number of Palestinians murdered by Zionists exceeded the number of Jews murdered by Nazis. So you have no logical ground to stand on. These are equally immoral situations of persecution. I don’t believe that someone who wants to justify mass murder in the past has any care for the lives of people in the present. But I do believe they are motivated by partisan politics.
It is impossible to plausibly ignore the similarities between the plight of Jews in the Holocaust and the plight of Palestinians being murdered by Zionist Israel. But an anti-Zionist is not an anti-Semite. That’s the difference between you and I. I am an anti-Zionist. I have no hatred or fear in my heart for Jews. The overwhelming majority of Holocaust minimizers such as yourselves are anti-Semetic, whether they will admit it or not. Let me show you how: the reason I am anti-Zionist is because I believe that hatred for, persecution of and power over any group/person by another is immoral. The reason you are anti-Zionists is because you have ethnic and/or racial hatred for a group of people. Genocide is genocide, murder is murder; I don’t care if the victim is a Nazi or a Jew- noone should be sanctioned by force for their beliefs, ethnicity, sexual preferences, etc. When you state your claims against Zionism, it is not a claim against an idea; it is an attack on an ethnicity. Why would I make this claim? Because people who minimize and rearrange history are motivated by a lust for power, whether it’s the media, a demagogue or the person down the street. In your minds, if you could prove that the Holocaust “never happened” then you could normalize ethnic hatred against Jews; it’s the reason you come back to that premise over and over again. You don’t want to prove a fact- you want to mold facts to fit your desires, empowering you to justify your bigotry. You don’t care about Palestinians at all.You misuse their plight to rationalize your hate for Jews.
(By the way, you have confused Israelis with Zionists- there are plenty of secular or non-Zionist citizens living in Israel; I think you mean to refer to Zionist Israeli citizens and the Israeli government. Not nearly every Israeli is a Zionist. National identity does not equate religious or political identity. For example, not every American is a Christian, despite what the impression of a person living elsewhere might be. But according to the hateful, anti-Israeli candor of your comments, being Israeli equates being a Zionist. Another proof of your lack of knowledge and reasoning, and your inclination to nationalism, hatred and ignorant claims.)
I’m not impressed by the claim, however true, that Indymedia, a specific firm based in Portland, would censor anti-Zionist points of view. It’s equivalent to claiming that PBS represents all television companies. I don’t give a damn what a single company endorses, it does not represent independent media as a whole. It is a glib generalization to claim that a single company’s actions represent an entire industry’s viewpoint and ethics. An equal claim would be that David Irving’s values represent all American writers. By proving that one company is biased, you have proven nothing. You are attempting to tautologically imply that all independent news sources are biased in favor of Zionism; it is false logic.
You asked a rhetorical question, “What was the Rose City Antifa’s real agenda in drawing so much attention to the marginal nobody David Irving?” Answer: to oppose bigoted and false minimalization of the Jewish Holocaust. I have a question for you: if you are so very concerned with how Rose City Antifa spends their time, why don’t you write them a letter concerning Zionist activities and prompt them to dedicate their time to opposing them? I won’t leave that as a rhetorical question; the reason is that you don’t care about RCAfa’s activities, and you don’t care about Zionist demonstrations. You simply want to make a case for hateful right-wing ideology. It’s not the fact that people get murdered that bothers you- it’s whether you can turn those murders to the advantage of your personal agenda.
In short, your comments said little if nothing at all. Most of the writing involved constructing a perception of RCAfa as a biased organization, trying to intimidate them, attempting to symbolically eradicate the value of history and incorrectly classifying Israelis as Zionists. A rational and unbiased person would conclude that the significance of the Holocaust has been forgotten, which precipitates the current persecution of Palestinians. If you eradicate the lessons learned from the Holocaust of the past, then we have no precedent to make a case against Zionism. You further the agenda of Zionists by negating the past- a history now doomed to repeat itself because of the lessons being ignored. Minimizing the Jewish Holocaust is preserving the power of the Zionist regime by wiping away the memories which once stood to serve as a lesson guarding against genocide of the powerless. Congratulations; you propagate the power of those who you claim to oppose by erasing any memories which would spur the public to prevent them from being allowed to commit mass murder. How does it feel to be a contradiction?
The Portland anti-fascists are playing the ‘hard cop/soft cop’ game.
On the one hand, we have the hard cops, who say:
“This statement is a beginning; other fascist collaborators should not consider themselves to have been let off the hook in any way. No compromise and no half-measures!”
“If an average person should kick one of their asses, we should applaud… These scum don’t deserve to exist”
“To the 911 Liars, and other Nazi enabling scum: If You support fascist organizing, you should be crushed along with your fascist friends”
“It is ludicrous that Rose City Antifa should be asked to have a dialog…”
and who publish the details of anyone who doesn’t agree with them, virtually urging their supporters to engage in a bit of community policing against anyone who even listens to ideas they consider offensive.
On the other hand, we have Ben, who attempts to engage us in reasoned debate about the significance of the Holocaust:
‘Let’s start with a distinct error presented in this ongoing debate- the idea that a Holocaust, no matter how distant in the past, could be irrelevant to contemporary issues.’
Notice he says ‘a Holocaust’. He really needs to decide whether he is prepared to engage us in debate, or stand with his anti-fascist comrades who want us ostracized (at a minimum) until we concur with every detail of their reading of history. You can’t debate, demand and threaten all at the same time. Ben does call us anti-Semitic Holocaust-minimizers, but he graciously concedes that we may not be conscious of it. Another day, another Holocaust thought crime: denying, revising, trivializing, minimizing, relativizing…
Finally, Ben accuses us of ‘trying to intimidate’ Rose City Antifascists. There’s a word for that: chutzpah.
Has the Oregonian acknowledged this fascist farce? I wrote columnist, Steve Duinn, but have heard nothing back. Keep up the good work. We must remind all of the corruption of Zionists. I will send you an item on Rachel Corrie, who MUST be remembered and honored. – George
@Ben –
Please excuse me for interfering. I’m not American, I’m East European and the crimes of communism appear to me big enough and at the same time awfully underrated. One doesn’t have to be ‘defending fascism’ in order to observe the following: that very little people know about the Dresden bombardments, about the behavior of the Red Army soldiers in the countries they ‘liberated’ during and after WWII, about the prisons and work camps in Russia, Romania, and so on; on the contrary, almost everybody knows about the Holocaust. Under these conditions discussing such a sensible matter as the Holocaust obviously means ‘minimizing’ it, as it has already acquired some incommensurate dimensions. The top argument for keeping anti-Zionist and anti-fascist movements together is that Israel itself be a fascist state. I don’t agree. I don’t think either communism, in its 20th century imperialist form, or fascism may occur again; we must therefore remember them, not fear them. What Israel is doing in Palestine is horrible, but is different. OK, if we want to thrust the term “fascism” to the Israelis’ face, that’s one thing, but we do this as a media strategy, as it is more efficient than the sheer presentation of the facts. On the whole, I think that this re-using of old concepts has more drawbacks than advantages. It keeps polarizing and de-contextualizing. As Mr. Knott says, no sooner than “anti-fascism” became a psychology, it started making its own victims. Why did Germany stay silent during the Israeli offensive in January? – because of its guilt trauma, still unhealed after sixty years. The Western countries were passive and silent along several crimes in history, still they proclaim only one of them – the Holocaust. Maybe we should inquire how much of the occidental reality today has been been shaped by the anti-fascist motivated support of Zionism.
We should not expect fascism to look the same in every instance. German, Italian, Argentine, Chilean, and Guatemalan fascism have each had some of their own peculiar characteristics and style. When compared to a list of common fascist characteristics, a particular fascist regime may possess a unique combination of those characteristics.
Israel is a fascist and a racist state that discriminates against its nonJewish citizens and perpetrates genocide against the Palestinians, whose land the Israelis have stolen. Fascism is alive and well in the Jewish State of Israel.
The Israeli genocide of the Palestinians is contextually an example of what psychologists call ‘kicking the dog’, a situation in which someone who has been abused (the Israelis), instead of seeking justice from their actual abusers (the Germans), commit abuse against a vulnerable and innocent third party (the Palestinians). The Israelis justify their abuse of the Palestinians by claiming that since they (the Israelis)were abused by the Germans, the Israelis are now entitled to abuse in turn who ever they choose.
As I sometimes prosaically remark, “The Israelis sure are kicking a lot of Arab butt for what the Germans did to them sixty-five years ago.”
Gregory Fegel
It is Illegal to acknowledge the “Armenian Genocide” in Turkey (or at least it was the last time I checked) One can deny it easily enough as some writers in Turkey have. Some have become quite popular doing so. But to insist that the “Armenian Genocide” did indeed take place has been grounds for prosecution in Turkey in the recent past. I don’t know what the Turkish Government calls this sort of “crime”. “Genocide Recognition”, perhaps?
an ashk’c or european with mosheic, or judaic- talmudic ‘faith’ [read, please, cult] may be genetically 95% polish or german and having no connection whatsoever with either israelites [who vanished w.o. trace] or judeans [mizrahic-shephardic peoples] reject their roots and accept a ‘quality’ called “jewishness”.
“jewishness”, i take it, is a supranatural ‘quality’ to ?all ‘jews’. No other cult had gone this far.
no cult gladhands another; in fact, each cult wants to utterly destroy all other cults.
the nazi cultishness cld not stand talmudic cult [differing in some aspects from mosheic cult]
this is good news. Even american plutos; not to metion japanese, chinese, with their own cult, will turn against mosheic-judaistic-talmudic cults.
devil of my own tells me “jewishenss” will utterly vanish just like israelishness and benjamino-judaishness had.
so, how long, oh my devil, before fourth shoah? tnx
@george beres – Have Oregonians recognized this effort to mislead with the word, fascist? I wrote Oregonian columnist, Steve Duin, but have nor heard back. We must remind all of how we are misled by Israel lobbies. The martyr in Palestine, Rachel Corrie, whose roots are in the state of Washington, must be remembered and honored. – G. Beres
THIS IS A PERSONAL INQUIRY, as I have submitted a revised comment at your request. But would you tell me why “Zionist propaganda” and reference to Judaism cannot be used? Both are realities in our national life, and need to be addressed, pro and/or con. – George Beres – 541-344-0282
We don’t encourage posters to flood this space with what can quite clearly be identified as Zionist propaganda. Why? 1) technical reason, after a first moderation, the comments go through and then often there are discussions full of insult to those who write and read here, and by then, the feelings of people have been hurt by the reason of no one being around to moderate someone’s game playing. 2) there are loads of places where the propaganda has its space and people can go there if they prefer.
Did NOT say no ref to Judaism, but no Name Calling of religions, including Judaism. For above reason.
@Mary Rizzo – Hi Mary – If I posted a long article about the recent events in Portland referred to above, would you consider giving it its own space outside this thread?
Sure Jay, send it and I will consider it.
mary
@GregoryFegel –
All Abrahamic religions are activist movements, with narcissistic expansionist tendencies.
I submit that the desire of some Jewish groups to have their own country have been present for centuries, as it is common among other dispossessed groups. All these groups, except for the Zionist, aspired to have their own country where they naturally formed a majority.
I submit that Jews have had designs on forming their own country long before the Holocaust. Their design on Palestine started before the first World Was.
Thus, it appears that you have subscribed to the Zionist victimhood propaganda to justify having their own county in a place where they were a tiny minority, and further justifying their claim of exclusive right to the target area. It is not, nor it has ever been about “seeking justice from their actual abusers (the Germans).”
The abuse is incidental. ‘ If only the Palestinians would vacate, with some agreeing to a temporary worker status, we wouldn’t abuse them at all..’. The Israelis have been “kicking the dog” because the dog refuses to obey and to submit.
This is eerily analogous to the U.S. using 9/11 to attack Iraq when it has been clear this is it’s goal long before 9/11.
Mike Knefaty
@ Mike Knefaty:
“All Abrahamic religions are activist movements, with narcissistic expansionist tendencies.”
I totally agree. The USA in some ways functions as a JudeoChristian theocracy.
Following WW2 the Holocaust became a major excuse for the Zionists’ creation and expansion of Israel, and the Israelis have also used the Holocaust to justify their treatment of the Palestinians.
I HAVE NOT “… subscribed to the Zionist victimhood propaganda to justify having their own county in a place where they were a tiny minority, and further justifying their claim of exclusive right to the target area.”
That’s the Zionists’ agenda, and I do not respect it.
“It is not, nor it has ever been about “seeking justice from their actual abusers (the Germans).”
I agree, and that is what I said in my previous post. If the victims of the Holocaust had sought justice from the actual perpetrators, they might have their own Jewish State in Bavaria today, not in Palestine.
“This is eerily analogous to the U.S. using 9/11 to attack Iraq when it has been clear this is it’s goal long before 9/11.”
I know that the Zionists had plans for Israel long before WW2. The Holocaust simply provided an excuse for the Zionists to become militant toward anyone who resisted them, such as the British occupiers of Palestine and the Palestinians.
I haven’t “… subscribed to the Zionist victimhood propaganda,” Mike. I have simply described how they use that propaganda.
Gregory Fegel