Re: Is white racism nec. all bad?

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Donald Edwards (warrl@blarg.com) wrote:
[snip]
: What I said was that Hitler would be a mostly-forgotten-about
: despot if the Jews hadn't "demonized" him. And that is all I
: said. Nothing less -- and nothing more.

One of the nice things about the manner in which 'Jews demonized Hitler'
is that they didn't stop with Hitler. Jewish groups, including the ADL,
have been among those most responsible for publicizing other genocides
and mass murders. Jewish groups lobbied strongly for action on Bosnia (in
fact, Israel took as hard a line as many Islamic states). Hitler probably
would not have been "forgotten," there was this little thing called WW2
which began when Hitler invaded Poland. Lots of people (includin Germans)
died in it. Besides, do you blame Jews for wanting to keep the memory of
the holocaust alive? I don't have any relatives in Europe anymore: they
all died. The memory of the holocaust, when used properly, is a lesson to
condemn *all* systemic attempts to eliminate people because of race,
color, creed, or religious persuasion.

This is a *very* good idea for everyone. Hitler supposedly said, when
talking abou getting rid of the Jews: "Who remembers the Armenians?" If
people had kept the memory of what the Young Turks did alive, the
Holocaust might never have happened, nor might Stalin's campaign against
the Kulaks (sp?), etc.

[snip]
: Ah, no. It's rather reminiscent of the way Stalin treated a
: number of people, and the Khmer Rouge as well. Less thoroughly
: documented is that a military commander and national leader
: by the name of Joshua offered the same warm greeting to the
: residents of several cities in Canaan. There are, I am quite
: certain, other instances.

All of these arguments are true, except perhaps the Joshua one. As far as
anyone can discern, all the places he was supposed to destroy were
already gone when the Jews arrived. The Bible has plenty of awful stuff
in it, but that doesn't mean it happened. While, if Joshua did eliminate
the inhabitants of Canann, that would have been an awful thing, most
evidence also indicates that Judaism at the time waas *not* a
monotheistic religion. El is in fact the name of a Canannite god. The
story of Joshua is probably a myth which developed out of political
events contemporaneous with the period after their was an Israelite
state. Besides, anyone remember what happened to the lost tribes of
Israel? If biblical history is to be believed, they got pretty much
eliminated to. . .

Btw, what distinguishes genocides (from the Armenians on) in the 20th
century is their scale. Even in biblical history, the Jews never tried to
wipe out all the Canannites. Pogroms in Eastern Europe never
systematically intended to wipe out the Jews. Modern technology, and
modern racial and political ideology (like Stalin's) have given man the
means and the will to carry out atrocities on a scale which were simply
not conceivable before.

[snip]
: You can assu anything you like about what I meant. But you only
: make an ass of u, not me -- because I meant only what I said.
: The Jews have good reason for preferring to remind people of Hitler's
: atrocities -- but the Gypsies and others have equally good reason,
: and don't seem nearly as interested in constantly resurrecting
: the memory of a horror that is, in fact, over. In my own case,
: I am quite undecided whether the world would be a better place,
: or a worse place, if the whole matter had been dropped in 1950.

A good example of how important historical memory is can be found in the
Japanese case. The Germans had a comprehensive exploration of the
holocaust put into their educational system, and it is hard to find a
German who has not thought through the horrors of genocide. Most Germans
are content to have a great country which does not seek the demonization
of the other (although right wing extremists have reappeared there two).
While I don't want to make blanked statements about the Japanese, they
had no such historical exploration, and anti-Korean and anti-Chinese
feelings run high. It is still a raging political debate about whether
Japan should apologize for the rape of Nanking, and some even deny it
happened. The comfort women issue a few years ago was one of the first
times Japan began to actually own up to its history as a collective unit.

Regards,
Dan

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