Hatewatch Tweets
Hatewatch is managed by the staff of the Intelligence Report, an investigative magazine published by the Alabama-based civil rights group Southern Poverty Law Center.
Islamophobe Geller, in New Book, Accuses SPLC of Being ‘Communist Front’
Pamela Geller is the nation’s most charismatic purveyor of wild-eyed allegations that Muslim fanatics – which, in her mind, include every Muslim who hasn’t categorically renounced Islam itself – will topple the Constitution and impose Shariah law any day now, unless freedom-loving Americans heed her warnings. Her new book, “Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance” – meaning, the “counterjihadist” resistance – purports to instruct Americans on how to stand heroically against this entirely ridiculous scenario.
Most clear-thinking Americans can tell the difference between the real but limited threat posed by Islamic terrorists and the utterly insane theory that an entire religion is conspiring to take over the Western world. But then, Geller has a hard time separating facts from imagination.
Take, for example, the reference in her book to the Southern Poverty Law Center, whom she despises for having designated her organization, Stop Islamization of America (SIOA), as a hate group. The passage, reprinted from a February post on Geller’s Atlas Shrugs blog, creates an entirely fictitious history of the SPLC (which publishes this blog).
It reads, “Before the collapse of the Soviet Union, the SPLC was designated as a Communist front. [Geller doesn’t say by whom.] It was essentially run by a couple, Anne and Carl Braden, who were Community Party USA members. They had been identified in sworn testimony, and they made no attempt to deny the allegations. They would be proud that their legacy remains intact today: their “heirs” – destroyers and America-haters — continue their work to subvert and destroy America.”
Heretofore, no one has disputed that the SPLC was founded in 1971 by Alabama civil rights lawyers Morris Dees and Joe Levin, both of whom remain active in the organization today. The Bradens, though renowned as courageous white champions of black civil rights in the heart of a racially intolerant South – and by no definition “destroyers” or “America-haters” – were never associated with SPLC.
“They didn’t have anything to do with the Center,” Levin reiterated Tuesday.
Heidi Beirich, the SPLC’s director of research, politely asked Geller for a correction. Beirich wrote, “Hi there. I just thought you might want to know that the section of your book on the founding of SPLC is completely wrong. Our founders are Morris Dees and Joe Levin. The Bradens have never played a role in the SPLC. I think you have confused us with someone or something else. We’d appreciate a correction.”
Geller, however, insisted her tall tale was accurate. She replied, “Hi there. SIOA is not a hate group. I think you have confused us with someone or something else. We’d appreciate a correction. As for the Bradens, they were formally affiliated with the Southern Conference Educational Fund, which was a Communist front group. Both of the Bradens, and particularly Annie, worked with the Southern Poverty Law Center also. I have this on good authority from a Communist Party insider who was told not to mention outside of Party circles their work with the SPLC, but who passed it on to me. That insider believed that their presence was supposed to be under the radar, and that while they may not have been involved in the SPLC’s founding, they latched on to it and made common cause. The Party loved to appeal to Black Americans by asserting a strong anti-Klan stance – that was their entering wedge. The Southern Poverty Law Center, as I am sure you’re aware, was a perfect tool for that. I am confident in the veracity of my sources for this, and hence no correction is needed. However, I look forward to your retraction and correction of your libelous smear of SIOA.”
Geller has a secret “informant” inside the Communist Party? How convenient – a source with a story no one can verify. Furthermore, Geller claims this source “was told not to mention outside of Party circles their work with the SPLC” – but then violates that directive by telling all to a woman known for posting all manner of hokum on her blog, including such whoppers as President Obama’s mother having once been an exotic dancer and that Obama is the love child of Malcolm X. (In the book, Geller refers to all those who voted for Obama as “morons.” Classy.)
Geller’s response to Beirich walks back from the book’s assertion that the SPLC was “essentially run” by the Bradens, to their “working with” the SPLC and “making common cause.” Historically, the Communist Party was indeed a strong proponent of racial equality during America’s Jim Crow years. As a result, it became a common tactic of white segregationists to accuse civil rights proponents of being in the thrall of communists. Geller appears to be relying on a similar canard here.
Beirich wrote to Geller again, reasserting that the Bradens played no role at SPLC. In her next reply, Geller tattled more about her supposed confidential source: “My informant worked for a Communist Party bookstore between 1978 and 1983. My informant learned there directly and with certainty that Anne Braden was a Communist Party member and that she also had worked with the Southern Poverty Law Center. Perhaps your superiors have lied to you.”
Or, perhaps Geller is just chronically impaired when it comes to plain reality – especially those parts of it that deviate from the reality she creates in her head.
on September 21st, 2011 at 4:42 pm
“Libellous smear,” eh? To constitute libel, a published statement must be 1. defamatory (i.e., damaging to the person or organization’s reputation) and 2. false. So if Geller wants to claim libel, she’ll need to prove that her SIOA is not the kind of hate-inciting group the SPLC says it is. That may be a little difficult, especially when everything she says or writes just seems to support the SPLC’s analysis. Good luck, comrades!
on September 21st, 2011 at 5:06 pm
The Communist Party hardly needs to “make common cause” with the SPLC in order to establish its credentials as an advocate for civil rights. It was deeply involved in the Alabama Sharecroppers Union before Morris Dees was a gleam in his father’s eye. I highly recommend All God’s Dangers, the fascinating biography of a man who was imprisoned for confronting white’s who were attempting to dispossess black farmers. http://www.amazon.com/All-Gods.....najourn-20
Of course Morris was born about the time the communists stopped backing the ASCU so perhaps, if you believe in reincarnation,…
on September 22nd, 2011 at 2:22 am
Geller is pathetic (I suppose she considers that “libelous”, too!)
on September 22nd, 2011 at 2:43 am
It is a well-known fact that Communists were uncomprimising fighters for civil rights in America going back far beyond the 60′s(when the cause started to become popular among more whites). People like Geller, on the other hand, were those who shouted epithets and threw things at black Americans who asserted their basic rights.
Which side won, Pamela?
on September 22nd, 2011 at 5:58 am
you communists at SPLC ARE NOTHING BUT A BUNCH OF FREAKING HYPOCRITES!
WHAT ABOUT MUSLIMS KILLING CHRISTIANS IN EGYPT
on September 22nd, 2011 at 8:41 am
Hey there Mr. White, interesting writing style there. Usually it’s all-caps and nothing but all-caps, but you kinda build up and then go full throttle. Not bad.
Anyway, what about “Muslims killing Christians in Egypt”? Are you referring to that bombing which happened last year, which was condemned by Egypt’s top Islamic authorities?
on September 22nd, 2011 at 11:01 am
Communist ? When you have nothing else,
bring out that accusation .
Yuk!
on September 22nd, 2011 at 12:15 pm
Glad to see more people pointing out how corrupt at the core the Southern Poverty Lie Center is. It is ironic to see you cray about this author when you put out hit pieces on innocent Americans you disagree with each week.
Live by the sword…..
on September 22nd, 2011 at 12:19 pm
Let’s not forget, too, that from 1924 until 1959, the Communist Party’s platform called for “the right of self-determination for Negroes in the Black Belt” (as in the belief that blacks, being an “oppressed minority” in Communist thought, were entitled the “natural right” to establish a sovereign “national homeland” within such areas of the South where the black population was dominant).
J. Edgar Hoover, longtime head of the FBI, makes note of this in his 1959 book Masters of Deceit, as illustrated Communist Party prolefeed tactics and how trick, deception and fraud were thus commonplace (as example, through “front groups”).
on September 22nd, 2011 at 12:21 pm
She’s nuts. And she should stop bleaching her hair and take out those blue contact lenses — she looks ridiculous.
on September 22nd, 2011 at 12:57 pm
I wonder what kind of genetic heritage and/or upbringing produces such a psychologically unstable person as Pamela Geller. She would be a fascinating subject for a psychoanalyst.
on September 22nd, 2011 at 1:00 pm
@Mr White: I guess you missed seeing the Christians protecting the Muslims praying in Tehrir square…? It was a beautiful sight to behold…and I wept like a child, just seeing them together.
on September 22nd, 2011 at 1:10 pm
@Mitch Beales: Thanks to you, I just ordered the book. We’re never too old to learn….even the painful truth. Thank you.
on September 22nd, 2011 at 1:12 pm
Pamela Geller claims to have a secret “informant” inside the Communist Party, that would be Robert Spencer.
PAMELA GELLER SAYS….“My informant worked for a Communist Party bookstore between 1978 and 1983, yeah that would be her good pal and partner Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch, another unhinged counter-jihad nut.
“Robert Spencer of Jiahd Watch worked at Revolution Books a Communist bookstore in New York City founded by Robert Avakian”.
on September 22nd, 2011 at 1:13 pm
Pamela Geller’s new book, “Stop the Islamization of America” a practical guide to the resistance of islam, is written in the same vein as Norway right-wing mass murderer Anders Behring’s political manifesto.
Popular hate blogger Pamela Geller has received scrutiny in recent days as the public became aware that the right-wing mass murderer terrorist in Norway, Anders Behring Breivik, had praised her blog and thoroughly cited her writing in his political manifesto.
on September 22nd, 2011 at 1:18 pm
Damn I nearly forgot; while it’s not in Egypt of course, the doors of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem have been kept by the same Muslim family for generations going back several centuries.
As for Geller; she likes attention, and Fox news gives it to her. She speaks to ignorant people who have a perverse addiction to fear.
on September 22nd, 2011 at 1:40 pm
There is another possibility for how Geller received this information, one that I really like. She says her informant told her that he/she was not supposed to release this information outside the Communist Party. Therefore a reasonable conclusion would be that Geller herself is a member of the Communist Party! Consider that one of the CP’s favorite tactics was to sow discord and dissension, just as Geller herself does. A perfect fit!
on September 22nd, 2011 at 1:46 pm
Ah Robert Spencer, another “former” Commie of course!! The thing is, Bob Avakian is the chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, not the CPUSA.
on September 22nd, 2011 at 1:58 pm
I don’t really think this was worth writing about. This is just getting to be personal tit for tat and is really beneath your more noble mission. Thanks for wasting my time.
on September 22nd, 2011 at 3:37 pm
“I am confident in the veracity of my sources for this, and hence no correction is needed.”
Ms. Geller, I can see that you are willing to run with what your source has to say on faith alone; he/she has earned your trust. Fair enough. But for the benefit of those of us who are not acquainted with this person, why not obtain some more detailed information? Your source has already spilled the beans anyway, so what harm could there be in giving us some concrete examples of how the Bradens were involved with SPLC? Moreover, why not explain why you and/or your source believe this to be a bad thing? Help us to see that this individual is as trustworthy as you say.
on September 22nd, 2011 at 3:48 pm
Erm, as the Soviet Union has been defunct for twenty years coming this December(along with presumably its “front”organizations), I fail to see the point in Miss Geller’s ludicrous assertion!
Terry
on September 22nd, 2011 at 3:57 pm
It boggles the mind how in the space of a couple of years, North America is now obsessed over a non-existent “”Sharia Law”" threat. I find it very scary that so many ordinary people are allowing themselves to be whipped into a state of frenzy by demagogues, who obviously have an agenda. No wonder Mencken thought so poorly of Democracy.
on September 22nd, 2011 at 4:56 pm
I just love the demeaning and dismissive “Annie.” Apparently Geller couldn’t resist.
on September 22nd, 2011 at 6:26 pm
Rather glad the hysterical fool tried to use that particular smear, because it opens up the fact that equally hysterical claims and paranoid plots were voiced by anti-communist propogandists. The extreme right in the USA did not want to see the US return to a purely defensive posture after WW2 just as the Pentagon DPG for ’92 – ’93 revealed a similar desperation for many militarists to relevant in the world without a Soviet Union to justify their hyperbole and love of spending. And like the post-WW2 militarists who assured us of an awful fate should we draw our military down to pre-war levels. the threat of terrorism today requires we use torture against them despite no need for it to bring down the Commie nukes! Oh, my…..Could it be really possible there are people that evil? (Terrorists and/or the DHS liars who now use the threat of terrorism by other groups to get what they want for themselves)
If the cycle and pattern isn’t evident already, then look at the authors of a leaked Defence Planning Guidance paper were when it came time to issue the very first DPG** after Soviet death —-one that would be used by the entire US MIC to ascsertain the US response to a public desire for spending it on higher education, issueance of health insurance to all like every other developed nation in the world, and put scientsts to work on constructive projects for a change. **(DPG is a paper the Pentagon quietly sends out to major players in the military-industrial complex to set their budgets and direction around.)
To basically enter the 21st century. IOW
But no. Paul Wolfowitz and Scooter Libby wrote the thing,. ‘Nuff said.
But wait! After its leak to the NYTimes caused a uproar over its martial tone, the GOP felt compeled to tone it down by asking none other than Dick Cheney to do that little trick.
But thankfully, Clinton gets elected before they could declare war on Canada or something…anything…to maintain their beloved military machine at full capacity.!!
But refusing to die a natural death, LIbby, Wolfowitz, Cheney and help from Armitage, Bolton, Abrams, Rumsfeld, Kristol, Feith, Jeb Bush, Steve Forbes, Francis Fukayama (of legal torture decision infamy)Dan Quayle and several others formed the PNAC. There they took the Cheney rewrite of the “too militaristic” Wolfowitz Doctrine and expanded it into a more grandiose, even Napoleonic vision using terms like “Pax Americana” to describe their vision of the “New American Century” they felt was theirs to enjoy by divine right I suppose.
In one of those classic blunders that happens only in movies or Dubya in office, Bush asks old family friend Dick Cheney to choose his VP, unaware of how deeply complicit Cheney and many powerful people were in their plan to hijack US Middle East policy so the status quo Us, Israel and the Palestinians all remained. This curious focus on Israel (for a US think-tank) comes as a result of the many major figures in PNAC with deep connections to Israel,Likud , the IDF, Israeli arms manufacturers, Even Perle was editor of the Jerusalem Post at the very time he was also a WH advisor,
To make a long story short, Cheney elected himself to VP, brought PNAC out of the closet and turned the Wolfowitz Doctrine into the Bush Doctrine.
Oh, the irony!. And the shame….if the PNAC had any.
on September 22nd, 2011 at 6:41 pm
Gee! I guess I’ll be more than a moron for voting for Obama, because I’ll be voting for him again!
on September 22nd, 2011 at 9:00 pm
My question is for Mr. William Gheen:
Mr. Gheen, how exactly does the Southern Poverty Law Center “live by the sword” ?
on September 22nd, 2011 at 9:04 pm
How people like Geller gain popularity? This is very sad for our society that we nothing better to do to pick pick and fear mongring and hate mongring this kind of people have no heart and soul they are blinded by hate and money and fear in their mind and only God can take care peole like these and have been in the past and their supporters.
on September 22nd, 2011 at 9:07 pm
I dont follow the rightwing blogosphere but enough of her crazy rants unfortunately make it to the mainstream media, like her most recent one about how loyal Americans should murder people. It sounds like schizo homicidal talk to me and she should be locked up.
She hasn’t learned her lesson about plastic surgery and she hasn’t learned her lesson about inciting violence. She starts off with Muslims, then turns to “communists.” I am surprised she hasn’t declared war on China yet. The last man that listened to her went and killed 100 Norwegian kids.
on September 23rd, 2011 at 4:15 am
I support much of the SPLC’s work, but I also support the work of intellecutals like Geller and Robert Spencer who pro-Israel, fighting anti-semitism and against the bigotry of Islam
I view Islam as being extremely reactionary and espousing homophobia, sexism, racism and anti-semitism. Muslim leaders constantly call for wiping Israel off the map and killing gays or Jews.
This is not to say that she is always right, but we need to give credit where credit is due.
on September 23rd, 2011 at 9:58 am
What’s your point, IludiumPhosdex? You want black people to sit in thee back of buses again? Do you want separate water fountains?
William Gheen, would you care to be more specific? Oh, what am I saying? People like you like to make a hit-and-run move: make a comment that is general and not come back.
on September 23rd, 2011 at 10:48 am
Shaun, you should be ashamed of yourself. Geller is a proven liar, as is Spencer, who claims to be a scholar of Islam even though he has no such background. Spencer in particular uses tactics which were once used against Jews against Muslims.
If you are really against bigotry you’d be against ALL bigotry.
on September 23rd, 2011 at 10:52 am
Shaun Goldstein it’s great to see that you hedge your bets by supporting hate groups as well as the work of the SPLC. Personally I think it’s time for a Grand Unified Conspiracy Theory about communist Jewish bankers hiring Muslim terrorists to fly black helicopters from Mexico, Africa, and Asia carrying pregnant women who will bombard the USA with anchor babies. I view you “as being extremely reactionary” and suspect that you consider Palestinians or anyone else who opposes Israel’s racist expansionism as something less than human. Giving “credit” to “intellectuals like Pam Geller and Robert Spencer” will certainly allow you to file for moral bankruptcy.
on September 23rd, 2011 at 11:35 am
Shaun,
No one with even a grain of sense will deny that there are some extremists who are Muslims — or that there are some extremists who are Christians and even some who are Jews, including Geller and also the egregious ultra-Orthodox Rabbi Yehuda Levin, who (since you mentioned homophobia) declared that the recent east coast earthquake was God’s way of rebuking New York for allowing gay marriage.
The fallacy is the unjustified generalization that all Muslims are extremists and Islam inherently and inevitably causes extremism. This is the same kind of enabling concept that has been used for centuries as a justification for anti-Semitism, so it’s a little shocking to see Geller adopting it.
As a species of intellectual dishonesty, it certainly disqualifies her (and her cheerleaders) from being considered “intellecutal.” It doesn’t ultimately matter whether she’s merely irrational and really believes the bigoted things she says or is being deliberately dishonest in the pursuit of a geopolitical goal — either way, the result is to make it harder for everyone to have a constructive conversation about these issues.
on September 23rd, 2011 at 2:28 pm
I agree with Mr. Goldstein. Ms Geller isn’t all bad. Too bad
60 Minutes’ Scott Pelley only granted Ms. Geller two minutes out of twenty in the mindless propaganda put out by the left why they thought it was okay to built a mosague at ground zero last year. Perhaps. It should be okay if Nazis wants to build a shrime in honoring of Adolph Hitler in one of the nazi concentration camos like Daucau, Triblinka or Auswitz. Neither one is beter than the other. Bot are bad. That’s the point of reason.
Ms Geller does care enough to save America from Islamic extremists just as the SPLC wants to protect America from right winged extremists. Let’s salute and respect both sides.
on September 23rd, 2011 at 2:34 pm
Apparently demonizing entire groups of people allows a blogger to become “an intellectual.” Let me remind people here that this is a woman who read about a minor car accident in Arizona where a Muslim driver accidentally plowed into several parked cars, and then immediately attempted to claim it was a “jihadist practice run.”
http://onepeoplesproject.com/i.....;Itemid=13
This woman is a either a certified moron, or like most right-wing pundits, is aware that her audience consists of ignorant morons who will swallow any kind of nonsense like this.
On the plus side, these people make me feel like the ultimate badass for visiting so many Muslim countries without getting a scratch on me. I’m sure it’s just because all the suicide bombers see me coming and go into hiding,
on September 23rd, 2011 at 2:40 pm
At the SPLC you would not accept the argument that because the Communist Party USA supported civil rights for Blacks, that this invalidates the civil rights movement. Yet, this is exactly the same kind of fallacious argument that you use against the scholarship of Dr Kevin MacDonald. You demonize Dr. MacDonald because of some of the people who cite his works without refuting his actual work.
Dr. MacDonald is an advocate for Christian European ethnic people, which you seem to believe is an illegitimate stance, though you partner with various Hispanic groups, the Anti Defamation League, Black groups etc. How is this right?
I’m Jewish myself but don’t understand the SPLC stand against any Christian European ethnic people looking out for their group’s rights as any other ethnic group does. Isn’t this a kind of bigotry in itself?
on September 23rd, 2011 at 8:25 pm
JeffB,
Can you please explain “the SPLC stand against any Christian European ethnic people looking out fo their group’s right as any other ethnic group does?”
I’m just asking, because it seems the blacks, latinos, gays, muslims need help due to the constant badgering of these groups. The constant stereotypes of the entire group of people that doesn’t look white, is white, or act white, but more specifically is white. I’m sure you have seen the ‘news,’ it is a problem when latinos are ridiculed about being of 3rd world status, unable to speak English, won’t assimilate. It is a problem when blacks are ridiculed that they are violent, lazy, and can’t survive without whites – yet, in this country the whites with this thinking have decided to make this a reality by controlling everything, and refusing to hire blacks and going after public sector jobs because that’s where a lot of blacks work, since they have been discriminated against in working in the private sector (but, this also happens in public sector – re: fire dept, police dept…) Then you have the Muslim population, according to whites with this type of thinking, they label all Muslims as being dangerous, and trying to implement Sharia’h law.
One more question, do you agree that these type groups are right in wanting to separate themselves from other minority groups? If so, then it sounds as if the ‘Christian European ethnic people’ don’t want to assimilate – this is America, not Europe. I specifically say this is America, because in Europe, the Europeans don’t want minorities there, and the Europeans don’t want minorities in North America (this includes Canada) – the Europeans are not, and do not belong to the ‘First Nation’ tribes. Oh, don’t know about them! Well, they were the first here, and the English/British took the land because they said the First Nation tribes couldn’t prove they own the land, same as Australia, eh!
on September 24th, 2011 at 2:56 am
@Concerned- You DO realize that no “mosque” was being built on Ground Zero right? Also, your poor analogy suggests that you believe all Muslims are terrorists, just as all Nazis hated Jews. Is that what you’re suggesting? I need to know if I should label you powerfully ignorant or incredibly stupid, so help me out here.
@Jeff Kevin MacDonald’s scholarship is quite poor. He has relied on faked sources, and he is notorious for cherry-picking things that support his claim while ignoring, and sometimes editing out those things which contradict it. MacDonald’s theories are riddled with logical fallacies of every sort, and one must not be cowed by his academic background as much of his theory is based on his historical claims. MacDonald, of course, is not a historian and many of his claims are laughably wrong or easily explained.
“Christian European ethnic people” is not a real ethnic group. “White” Americans are not Europeans, culturally, nor are they all Christians. In any case, all manner of studies show that “European Christians” are doing pretty well in America compared to other groups, especially when it comes to studies of institutional discrimination.
on September 24th, 2011 at 8:27 am
This JeffB guy is a real dummy. Are you saying because the civil rights movement allegedly received support from a group of self-identified communists, black folks should not have civil and human rights? Are you saying black folks who organized the Montgomery Bus Boycott should have been defeated in some way and black folks should still be forced to sit in the back of buses? Separate water fountains should still exist? You mean to tell me a movement to recognize the civil and human rights black folks have was stupid? Wow. I thank you for showing your colors concerning that. Tell me, if Kevin MacDonald received support from a group of self-identified communists, would you say he’s invalid?
As for the SPLC being against what you think they’re against, they’re against people who demonize and scapegoat an entire group of people. Love your ethnicity all you want, but you don’t need to love your ethnicity by going on a demonizing, hateful tirade against others because of who they are, where they come from, and what they look like. To me, that’s an excellent example of playing the victim and having a victim mentality many conservatives love to use against so-called “minorities.”
As for Kevin MacDonald, you should know that since you are supposedly Jewish, Mr. MacDonald has said some very unflattering things about Jewish people.
http://www.splcenter.org/get-i.....-macdonald
on September 24th, 2011 at 12:41 pm
According to “skinnyminny”:
IIBC, the main argument that the Afrikaner had in justifying apartheid as they did was not so much to keep the races separate, but also to keep the Afrikaner (which, in their Calvinist-influenced worldview, was seen to be the “elect”) separate from other White Europeans resident in South Africa.
As also explains their desire to create a “national homeland” in form of what they call a Volkstaat (“people’s state”), the better to “preserve and maintain Afrikaner culture, heritage, faith and values,” as well as the “endangered” Afrikaans language (itself a byproduct of Middle Dutch, and hence Germanic linguistically); witness Die Volkstaat Orania in the Eastern Cape.
on September 24th, 2011 at 3:03 pm
JeffB,
BTW, I am agnostic, and have been for the better part of about 10 years. This is all thanks to the highjacking of religion in this country by people who are selfish and greedy, most of all liars. The only person who makes me have doubts about my decision of being agnostic is new gospel singer Leandria Johnson. Yes, that’s right, Ms. Johnson! This lady has a message and a story. She was homeless, losing her home to the hurricanes, a single mother. She went and audtioned for Sunday’s Best, and because of her homelessness, showed up in ‘house shoes…’ first appearance almost caused her to not be selected, well, she won. And just watching her youtube videos and hearing her sing, it really moves me, and makes me feel like maybe I shouldn’t be on the fence. Other than that, I have moved away from christianity.
on September 25th, 2011 at 3:41 am
Commenting here as a British citizen of American descent, I’d like to say that SIOA and Tea Party activists’ attempts to poison British politics are not appreciated. These fools have even less understanding of British culture than they have of American political history and they really need to leave us alone. If people really want to counter Jihadi extremism what’s needed is accurate intelligence, not the hair-brained fantasies of right-wing extremists
on September 25th, 2011 at 4:01 am
The birth of the modern PC movement hitched a ride on civil rights. To criticize the left – or communists was to criticize civil rights and thus, makes the critic a bigot. Communists have always championed the downtrodden basically using them as the useful idiot army to overthrow the powers that be.
PC has been around quite awhile evidenced by the fable, “The Emporer’s New Clothes” whereby people refuse to believe their own eyes in favor of the false assertions of the crowd around them.
I don’t need anyone to point out a communist sympathy from the SPLC. It’s in these blogs and their own rhetoric. It’s self-evident.
The left never considers itself radical and cannot see itself as it really is. They see themselves as moderate advocates of the downtrodden in the struggle against the powers that be. But in the end, if they are successful, the radicals expect to rule their useful idiots as well as those the idiots helped conquer.
on September 25th, 2011 at 9:47 am
Hello again, Dick the Oblivious. Let’s point out all your hilarious misconceptions.
“The birth of the modern PC movement hitched a ride on civil rights.”
Please present evidence that there is something called the “PC movement”. I want names of organizations and such. Also, you are an advocate of political correctness yourself, you just have different things you are over-sensitive about. Admit it.
“To criticize the left – or communists was to criticize civil rights and thus, makes the critic a bigot. ”
Well that was sure mean of the leftists to monopolize the civil rights movement. Where are all those conservative champions of civil rights anyway?
“whereby people refuse to believe their own eyes in favor of the false assertions of the crowd around them.”
Cite examples please.
Also, are you aware that the term “useful idiots” does not appear in any of Lenin’s speeches or collected works, and comes from a fabricated quote meant to tie liberals to Communists? In fact the very concept is stupid. Lenin supposedly blows the whole plan, and yet the “useful idiots” never find out about it. Typical conspiracy theory.
Thanks for being my intellectual heavy bag, yet again.
on September 25th, 2011 at 5:52 pm
Hi Skinnyminny,
You seem to be suggesting that the problems and challenges of Blacks, Latinos, gays, Muslims etc. are all caused by White people – I just don’t buy that or believe that blaming Whites for all the problems of other races/ethnic groups is accurate or useful. Or that Whites are worse than everyone else.
You ask about whether it is right for Whites to want to separate themselves from other groups but I don’t believe they are any different in that regard than Blacks, Jews, Hispanics etc. But tell me, what countries of other races/ethnic groups have been as accepting of other races/ethnic groups as the Christian European ethnic countries have been?
Hi Ruslan Amirkhov,
Kevin MacDonald raises the taboo subject of Jews (of which I’m one) and their influence on Christian European ethnic societies, and he does this at great cost to himself. Just claiming that his level of scholarship is not high (and I don’t agree with that), doesn’t mean the issues he raises don’t deserve a response.
In my opinion, your assertion that the “Christian European ethnic people” is “not a real ethnic group” is a bigoted statement that reflects a hateful agenda, and a claim I doubt you would make against any other people. It reminds me of the claim that many Jews seem to be making now about the Palestinians – that they don’t exist and are really Jordanians (with the implication they should leave their homeland of Palestine).
Hi A.D.M.,
Yes, I’m a real dummy. I never stated or nor do I believe what you say I said so I don’t know how to respond to your post. Did you actually read what I wrote? Yes, it is true that Kevin MacDonald has documented some unflattering things about Jews. I am proud and pleased to be Jewish, as I believe everyone should feel about their birth ethnic heritage. Unflattering things could accurately be said about any racial/ethnic people. To the extent people say negative things about Jews that are untrue, I ignore them. To the extent there is actually some truth in what they say, I see it as an opportunity to consider how we can improve.
on September 26th, 2011 at 9:25 am
Oh Jeff, nice try:
“Kevin MacDonald raises the taboo subject of Jews (of which I’m one) and their influence on Christian European ethnic societies, and he does this at great cost to himself.”
First of all, Kevin MacDonald still teaches so clearly it hasn’t costed him much. Second, Kevin MacDonald deliberately distorts and overstates the influence of Jews in Christian European ethnic societies(which of course, are ALL the same, right?).
” Just claiming that his level of scholarship is not high (and I don’t agree with that), doesn’t mean the issues he raises don’t deserve a response.”
Sorry but it’s a little deeper than that. He outright lies in his claims, and accepting many of his claims means we must buy into a world based on his assumptions.
“In my opinion, your assertion that the “Christian European ethnic people” is “not a real ethnic group” is a bigoted statement that reflects a hateful agenda, and a claim I doubt you would make against any other people.”
Please provide proof of the existence of an ethnic group known as “Christian European people.” Does that exclude non-European “white” people who are Christians? What about European atheists, Buddhists, Muslims, etc.?
” It reminds me of the claim that many Jews seem to be making now about the Palestinians – that they don’t exist and are really Jordanians (with the implication they should leave their homeland of Palestine).”
Palestinians do exist, whether they are Muslim or Christian. “Christian European people” is just an arbitrary group thought up by an American.
on September 26th, 2011 at 9:36 am
“Hi A.D.M.,
Yes, I’m a real dummy. I never stated or nor do I believe what you say I said so I don’t know how to respond to your post. Did you actually read what I wrote? Yes, it is true that Kevin MacDonald has documented some unflattering things about Jews. I am proud and pleased to be Jewish, as I believe everyone should feel about their birth ethnic heritage. Unflattering things could accurately be said about any racial/ethnic people. To the extent people say negative things about Jews that are untrue, I ignore them. To the extent there is actually some truth in what they say, I see it as an opportunity to consider how we can improve.” – JeffB
Yes, I read your comment, and I stand by what I typed. You think the civil rights movement, a movement to give blacks civil and human rights, was or is wrong or invalid because some communists allegedly gave their support. I fully understood the comment and it reinforced my conclusion earlier. As for your other sentence, how can someone have pride in something they had no control over? You had no say in when you were born, where you were born, who your parents were going to be, and what you would look like. It all happened by chance. I’m not saying you should love yourself. Loving yourself is natural. I love me, and no one loves me more than I do. But love and pride are two different things. Pride is for actual, individual accomplishments like getting a college degree. What you look like, who your parents are, when you were born, and where you were born are not accomplishments.
on September 26th, 2011 at 10:49 am
It’s nice to know that Mr. MacDonald has chose to inflat “alleged facts” to suit his propaganda. He’s no different than anyone else in the propaganda business as a way to make money and to have people fall prey to his nefarious propaganda trap. All organizations wheter liberal or conservative are good at inflating information. It’s hard to believe to what we see, hear or read these days.
on September 26th, 2011 at 7:50 pm
JeffB,
Okay, I will ask this question again. Are you American or European? Where do your loyalties lie, Europe or America? This is the problem I have, either you are European or American. It seems that people from Europe think that their roots should dominate everyone else. Meaning, people from Europe can brag all day and all night that they are of European heritage, yet, if a Latino from South or Central America wants to raise their flag to show or be proud of their heritage, it is said, that if they are so proud of their country, that they should go back.
Don’t try to say that I am blaming whites for all of the problems experienced by these folks. It is the truth! These peoples have their own culture, language…but, whites go into these countries and try to change their religion, culture, language…meaning, they always find some kind of fault with the people and their countries, even to the point of calling them ‘stone-age…’ it is the whites that go in and try to control their elections. It is the whites that go in and offer them loans/grants, i.e., imf…knowing these countries can’t really foresee paying these loans back, and it places an even bigger burden on a already stressed/poor country. It is the whites that go in and contaminate the water systems – read about the latest oil spill in an African country that is alleged to take at least 30 years to clean up.
Let’s look at Turkey, for instance, they may not have the type of shopping that Western countries have, but, they are still vibrant. Look at most Middle Eastern countries, and India, milk is fresh, cheese is fresh…you go directly to the person that has the animals and get your goods, pay for your goods (without having to pay for all the expensive packaging here, and the prettying up of the products, and the preservatives, pesticides that mark of the price). They have very experienced rug makers, carpenters…but, someone always go in to tell them they are not good enough.
Call it what you want, but, I find it a double standard when people have their own way of life, in their own country, and Europeans come in to tell them that way of life is wrong, and are made to be a image of what Europeans want, even though they will never fully be accepted, even in their own countries – this is what I call lost history.
on September 27th, 2011 at 8:27 am
“Let’s look at Turkey, for instance, they may not have the type of shopping that Western countries have, but, they are still vibrant.”
Trust me skinny, Turkey has wonderful shopping AND it’s vibrant.
on September 27th, 2011 at 1:23 pm
Concerned Citizen in my opinion building an Islamic center in New York is less like building a monument to Hitler at a concentration camp than it is like the monument to Dietrich Bonhoeffer and others at Flossenbürg concentration camp http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F.....morial.JPG
Hitler was much worse (or at least more effective in his evil) than any of the men who hijacked planes on September 11. Bonhoeffer was a German who drew strength from his religion to fight against nazi terrorism. Fox News reporting on the photographic exhibit that recently opened at the Park51 Islamic center http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011.....ound-zero/ said that:
Afsana Khundkar, a native of Afghanistan whose 12-year-old son, Waseem, was one of the children photographed for the exhibit, said her family was honored to participate in the project.
“It’s promoting good things in the world,” she said. “The most important thing is to involve the children in the good things.”
This sounds a lot more like Bonhoeffer than Hitler to me.
on September 27th, 2011 at 4:26 pm
Ruslan,
They don’t have the type of shopping we have – meaning, for example, everything is right there. In Western countries, nine times out of ten, if we purchase things, or want to purchase things the store doesn’t have, it takes a special order. In places like Turkey (even as far as China), they have people who can make it on the spot – everything is in one place. Most of the things they sell is real, here we have a lot of immitation, synthethic materials – not saying they don’t have the same stuff – but we have more of it fake stuff. We are overcharged in order to pay for upscale shopping malls, oh, and I’m well aware of the upscale shopping like in Kuwait, that will and can put our exclusive shopping (like Beverly Hills) to shame.
Me, I prefer open markets, and smaller businesses. I prefer dealing with the owners or close confident/family member of the owner. I prefer to shop at farmer’s market type that are out in open. Please don’t get me wrong on trying to explain myself – I know more than you think I know, it’s just the trying to explain to people who really believe that people in other countries live in straw and mud huts – well, let’s use the phrase, “we’re the best in the world,” type mentality. But again, that’s our ‘news’ that never show the best of most minority groups, yet, always seem to show the bad or worse – for instance, the news never really show the upper class neighborhoods, but, will show the poor neighborhoods as if the entire country live like what they’ve shown.
on September 27th, 2011 at 7:21 pm
Ruslan,
I’m not mad at you. I know the type of things these countries have. If you look at my past comments, I’ve actually said I prefer the foods/spices from these countries, this includes Israeli foods/spices, I have purchased goods – which the prices here are more – such as linens, pillows…I guess we, at times, have differing opinions – I do know quite a few people from different countries, Turkey, Iraq, Lebanon, Egypt…they are all different, yet, they are the same in friendships, meaning, if they like you- you will know it, if they don’t like you – you will know that too – they don’t beat around the bush. The ones I know, very few drink alcohol, the others, they don’t drink at all yet they do smoke cigarettes.
I did have two other comments that didn’t post. I’m not complaining about this, but, just so you’ll know (you are my ally) there are some things I said that didn’t get posted – guess it didn’t pass the muster from the computer program that moderates the comments.
on September 28th, 2011 at 11:01 am
“In my opinion, your assertion that the “Christian European ethnic people” is “not a real ethnic group” is a bigoted statement that reflects a hateful agenda, and a claim I doubt you would make against any other people. It reminds me of the claim that many Jews seem to be making now about the Palestinians – that they don’t exist and are really Jordanians (with the implication they should leave their homeland of Palestine).”
No, it’s just the truth. There is no ethnic group called “Christian European”. Rather, it is classification of people by a religion (Christianity) and a continent (Europe).
Religion does not determine ethnicity. Unlike religion, membership in ethnic group cannot be changed after birth. If there was an ethnic group comprising Christian Europeans (and their descendants), then for one of them to convert to a religion besides Christianity would exclude them from the group. This is not possible with a real ethnicity.
Ethnic groups are formed by common genetics, and there are several of them in Europe (such as Welsh, French, Norwegian, Slovak, Chechen). The Christians living on that continent and their descendants do not form a single ethnic group. The difference between that and the Palestinians is that the Palestinians are a unified ethnic group (rather than the hodgepodge of European peoples with Christians as ancestors), and if a Palestinian decides to no longer be Muslim or Christian, it does not make her/him any less Palestinian. Not so with Christian Europe.
on September 28th, 2011 at 11:55 am
Hi Ruslan Amirkhanov,
Yes, Kevin MacDonald still teaches, because he has tenure, but his stand has had a high cost. He has had activists show up in his courses and disrupt classes, he has had people try to physically intimidate him, he has been treated as a pariah by some of his colleagues, he is an outcast in his department etc. Believe me, he has paid a price for breaking the taboo of a gentile writing about Jewish influence on Western Civilization.
As far as your comments about the accuracy and level of his scholarship, the simple fact is that if the subject of his research had been oppression of Blacks and Hispanics by White people, there would have been little or no controversy. As far as your accusation that he “deliberately distorts and overstates the influence of Jews” in Europe and the US, I have never seen an in-depth analysis that documents this. If you can point me to such a study that shows the “outright lies in his claims” (your words) or inaccuracies in his methods and conclusions, I would appreciate it. I’ve looked but never found one.
By Christian European ethnic people, I meant those with Christian heritage, as opposed to those with Jewish or Muslim historic ancestry. Such people may indeed today be Buddhists, Muslim, atheists etc. The Christian heritage European ethnic people do exist. What would YOU call such people?
Hi ADM,
In my original post I clearly called FALLACIOUS (and used that exact word) the argument that because Communists supported the Civil Rights Movement that this in some way invalidates it. How in the world can you claim that I said the opposite? As far as my pride in being Jewish, my point was simply that people should love and appreciate whatever ethnic group they were born into. You can take pride in, say, the country of your birth, even though you had no choice in picking it. I don’t see a problem with this. Nor do I see such pride as in any way belittling other people’s ethnic origin.
Hi Skinnyminny,
I was born in Philadelphia 65 years ago and grew up in Camden, New Jersey, a most wonderful place in the 1940′s and ‘50s. If I had to pick my favorite ethnic group, it would probably be Bengali Hindu (which my wife is, by the way). I love and appreciate India, its culture and religious heritage, but that is another story. I don’t at all feel that the American or European civilization is superior or inferior to others. Every culture has its gifts and drawbacks. I’m not at all a chauvinist about America or Europe.
on September 28th, 2011 at 1:56 pm
Kevin MacDonald’s research is indeed very poor and it is driven by his deep seated hatred for Jews. In fact, his research served as a blueprint for avid anti-Semite David Duke’s book Jewish Supremacism (see here). His teaching job is protected by tenure, which he earned because most of his anti-Semitic material was published long after the legitimate academic research that earned him that protection. Even so, his colleagues at Cal State Long Beach have been active in the past few years in condemning his work (something that was first reported on this blog). MacDonald’s anti-Semitism has become much more public as of late as he has taken on a high profile role in the racist political party, American Third Position, which is staffed by well known white nationalist figures.
Heidi Beirich
Director of Research
Southern Poverty Law Center
on September 28th, 2011 at 2:22 pm
“Yes, Kevin MacDonald still teaches, because he has tenure, but his stand has had a high cost. He has had activists show up in his courses and disrupt classes, he has had people try to physically intimidate him, he has been treated as a pariah by some of his colleagues, he is an outcast in his department etc. Believe me, he has paid a price for breaking the taboo of a gentile writing about Jewish influence on Western Civilization.”
Wow, when you demonize other people, people get UPSET and criticize you? I’m betting that if I blame many of “Western Civilization’s” problems on say, Croats, I’m probably going to get a lot of attacks from the Croatian community.
“As far as your comments about the accuracy and level of his scholarship, the simple fact is that if the subject of his research had been oppression of Blacks and Hispanics by White people, there would have been little or no controversy.”
Sorry but your hypothetical “would have” doesn’t fly here. Afrocentrism, for example, was easily discredited by the academic community. And even if your claim was true, it would only be a ‘tu quoque’ argument.
The fact is that MacDonald cherry-picks, he uses unreliable sources, he deliberately edits so as to distort things, and he foists upon his audience several MAJOR logical fallacies.
He also seems to understand little about US immigration law, particularly the law of 1924 in comparison to 1965. MacDonald’s basic premise is “Jews wanted this”, so that’s supposed to be the reason it passed. He also forgets that the law it superseded banned a great deal of European immigration, and the main reason why this did not rise after the change in 1965 is that a large part of Europe could not emigrate(behind the Iron Curtain), and others had little reason to, as opposed to in the late 19th and early 20th century.
MacDonald also wants to have his cake and eat it too. For example, he is fond of pointing out real and alleged “overrepresentation” of Jews among Communists, for example in the USSR. Apparently he was unaware that the Bolsheviks had the lowest number of Jews(out of the revolutionary parties) in 1917. He also fails to account for several facts. First, why does he assume that Jews support the Communists for Jewish ends, while other nationalities seem to be true believers? Jews were also not the most overrepresented ethnicity in the Soviet leadership; that honor goes to the Latvians. So we must ask, why isn’t he writing a book on Latvian conspiracies against Western Christiandom? Lastly, even ethnic Russians were overrepresented in the Bolshevik leadership. Why does MacDonald expect all the nationalities of the former Russian empire to be proportionately represented when entire nationalities lived in nomadic(Kyrgyz, Kazakhs) or in many cases isolated and medieval conditions(North Caucasians)? In short, Kevin MacDonald doesn’t know Soviet history.
Next, MacDonald is fond of finding Jews any way he can. If a Jew is in charge, say leading a country(like Rakosi or Bela Kun), that’s evidence of Jewish power. But when the leaders aren’t Jewish, e.g. Stalin, Gottwald, Dmitrov, etc., he can claim that they put a “gentile face” on things. MacDonald’s writings make it painfully clear that he has absolutely no idea how socialist governments were chosen and how they operated.
He also pulls the same thing by claiming that Jews try to conceal the “reality of race”, yet many of the so-called “academic racists” are of Jewish heritage, including the Bell Curve authors.
” As far as your accusation that he “deliberately distorts and overstates the influence of Jews” in Europe and the US, I have never seen an in-depth analysis that documents this. ”
You haven’t seen one? Have you even looked?
“If you can point me to such a study that shows the “outright lies in his claims” (your words) or inaccuracies in his methods and conclusions, I would appreciate it. I’ve looked but never found one.”
You need to look harder it seems: http://www.h-net.org/~antis/pa.....tz_01.html
“By Christian European ethnic people, I meant those with Christian heritage, as opposed to those with Jewish or Muslim historic ancestry. Such people may indeed today be Buddhists, Muslim, atheists etc. The Christian heritage European ethnic people do exist. What would YOU call such people?”
The question is why I should even group those people together. Yes they have a somewhat common faith but you are talking about many radically different cultures. If I approach some Russian and start talking about how we are brothers due to our “Christian European heritage”, he would probably see me as insane. Many other Europeans would as well. Of course I’m sure Dr. MacDonald will simply chalk that up to Jews.
on September 28th, 2011 at 6:34 pm
JeffB,
Okay, back to what country would accepting of Christian Europeans…well, here is something that you should look into, the allegations that the co. Rio Tonto started a civil war in Papua New Guinea that lasted over 10 years – in order to take the land and definitely to take the copper and gold out of the land, hiring mercenaries to kill the locals including the children.
People keep thinking that African nations with black citizens are just violent and have just been fighting, same as ME countries – yes, most of the people are very vocal about not wanting any western people in their countries, the news will have people thinking they are just hateful (shame on the news) towards the Western peoples. One thing the media have right, they say ‘they hate us for our freedoms.’ They are right in a sense, that corporations go into these countries and run havoc – much like, what is happening in Peru and Brazil right now. When you look at what is happening in El Salvador, Colombia, India…with our corporations, and the people don’t benefit, I think you have to ask yourself. But, please do, I really think you should see the ‘human rights abuses,’ i.e. The Keno Study in Nigeria, kids were used for drug study, children died, suffered blindess, paralysis, brain damage…it’s coming out now the Syphyllis experiment in Guatemala…the Roma is experiencing forced/secret sterilizations – much like what happened in Puerto Rico. So, before you out and call me a racist, call it what you want – either way, as I said a while back, when it comes to important or certain issues everybody can be or appear to be racist. I will tell you though, I am angry and saddened that this country is taking a turn backwards – promises that weren’t kept, and spreading of lies about minorities. And please, don’t say that anyone can make it in this country – some people have been in this country, like, forever, and work just as hard as anyone else, sometimes working 2-3 jobs and never become rich. It seems, the old saying, ‘working is for suckers,’ just may be true – seems you almost always have to do something wrong to make it rich. And, depending on who you are, it will determine what happens from, i.e. wall street.
on September 28th, 2011 at 7:57 pm
JeffB,
to add to my comments I posted a few minutes ago, as far as MacDonald, I live in Califas, L.A. in fact, which is just a hop, skip and a jump from LBC. I can say, that, it appears that MacDonald has also gotten the support of a lot of skinheads, and they are not ashamed to let it be known now (meaning they won’t hide who they are), especially in Huntington Beach and Costa Mesa areas.
But, back to what I was saying before, it saddens me that what is being given a bigger platform is not right. I am angry that hate speech is given such a big platform, including the history revisionists, who are denying the holocaust. Information is being recycled and sold to people – i.e., Obama didn’t get congressional approval for Libya, well, didn’t Clinton bypass congress and instead get UN approval for Haiti in 1994, saying to ‘spread democracy,’ but, isn’t that what was said for Iraq – spread democracy! Did Reagan get congressional approval for Grenada in 1983, or, let’s say Libya? Or, how about Bush for Panama in 1989 or the Gulf War 1990? Then when you look back at Vietnam, it was allegedly said ‘we had to fight to keep our freedoms,’ well isn’t that the same thing said for Iraq?
You’re older than me, I’m not even old enough to get anything from AARP yet – not saying this is a bad thing, but can you name a period when we are not in other countries? In addition, most of the time we, or at least most of us, are looked down upon by people who visit this country, or move to this country, and ridiculed about how we’re the super power, the most rich…but most dumb – I know this, because I’ve met some Africans (black) that openly say, “you have so many opportunities in this country and don’t take advantage of it, you have the best education…” I’ve also met some people from India and Pakistan that ridicule us about lack of Math. But most of all, immigrants come to this country and openly has disrespect towards the blacks and latinos in this country – almost as if they have been pitted against us before they got here, yeah, some will use the excuse that we are too Americanized, or that we don’t speak any of their native tongues.
Me, I’ve met people from a wide variety of countries. In Califas, this is where people go (besides NY…) and most of all, this is where most first live or open their businesses because it is cheaper where the minorities live.
on October 1st, 2011 at 10:14 pm
When you posit enemy it has to grow. There are no enemies. People who have “enemies” want to kill. Love is the power and the way. There is no other way.
on October 2nd, 2011 at 12:38 am
“Information is being recycled and sold to people – i.e., Obama didn’t get congressional approval for Libya, well, didn’t Clinton bypass congress and instead get UN approval for Haiti in 1994, saying to ’spread democracy,’ but, isn’t that what was said for Iraq – spread democracy! Did Reagan get congressional approval for Grenada in 1983, or, let’s say Libya? Or, how about Bush for Panama in 1989 or the Gulf War 1990? Then when you look back at Vietnam, it was allegedly said ‘we had to fight to keep our freedoms,’ well isn’t that the same thing said for Iraq?”
After 78 days, a war becomes illegal without congressional approval (War Powers Act). It still isn’t false that Obama violated the War Powers Act and did not get congressional approval for the war in Libya, despite the fact that other American imperialist actions around the world didn’t either. It is the same thing Clinton did to Yugoslavia and the same bullying this country has engaged in the world over.
on October 2nd, 2011 at 3:38 pm
Hi Ruslan Amirkhanov,
Thank you for sending me the link to “Scholarship as an Exercise in Rhetorical Strategy: A Case Study of Kevin MacDonald’s Research Techniques” by David Liebernan, which I read with interest. Lieberman looks at how Kevin MacDonald used information in The Generation: The Rise and Fall of the Jewish Communists of Poland by Jaff Schatz in his work, The Culture of Critique.
Lieberman argues that MacDonald does not use the content of Schatz’s work in an objective, scholarly way. He gives such examples as that MacDonald when remarking on the high percentage of Communists among the Polish Jews does not take into account that the great percentage of Jews emigrated from Poland after the Communist Party came to power and thus those remaining were much more likely to be Communists.
Where MacDonald makes the point that, while the Catholic Church was suppressed by the Communists, collective Jewish life flourished and Jewish cultural and social welfare organizations were permitted and encouraged, along with Jewish economic cooperatives, Lieberman points out that MacDonald did not report that the Communist government encouraged Polish Jews to emigrate and also disputes the claim that Jewish life was really “flourishing”. Though Lieberman does make some points, he does not pretend this article is a scholarly work itself or that he is not promoting his own views on MacDonald’s writings and perspectives. You can’t legitimately claim that Lieberman’s article destroys the validity of MacDonalds work.
You make the point that it is false to blame on Jews the debacle of the Bolshevik Revolution and the vast violence and tens of millions of murders it perpetrated. Fine, I agree. But Norman Finkelstein makes the argument that some Jews seem to claim that all Germans (and by some extension, all Christian heritage Europeans) share profound guilt for what happened to the Jews under the Hitler regime, and yet want to deny Jews share any guilt whatever for the murder of millions of Europeans under Communism. I believe that neither Germans nor Jews should be collectively condemned for these historical tragedies.
Hi Skinnyminny,
You raise various points, which would take me pages to fully reply to. I’ll just say that yes, you can find historic instances of Christian heritage European ethnic people acting badly towards other ethnic groups. Isn’t this just as bad as dredging up every bad thing Amerindians, or Arabs, or Muslims, or Africans have done as a way of trying to demonize them? Why is it only OK to demonize White people? Anyway, thank you for your comments.
on October 3rd, 2011 at 3:03 am
Jeff, the link clearly shows how MacDonald cuts out information which doesn’t support his theory. On the subject of Communism, regardless of what telephone number body counts one believes can be attributed to socialist revolution, the idea that Jews should be associated with it is ridiculous given the fact that in no country with a socialist revolution(attempted or successful) were Jews the majority of Communists. The best MacDonald and his ilk can possibly come up with is “over-representation”, which is worthless because we have no reason to assume that the amount of Communists in say, the USSR, would be proportional. As I said before, in some regions of the Russian Empire there were millions of people living a nomadic or otherwise medieval existence, and the Communists in these areas tended to be Russian for a number of reasons. Therefore, Russian Communists were actually over-represented.
Your analogy with the Holocaust is a complete and utter failure for a few reasons. First of all, few respected scholars today insist on blaming the entire German nation for the Holocaust, and virtually none blame all Europeans. As a side note, I refuse to use your contrived and arbitrary “Christian Heritage European peoples” simply because Europeans do not identify themselves as such. The analogy also fails because in the case of Nazi Germany, we are not speaking about a movement or state wherein at some times, Germans were “over-represented”. We are speaking of Germany, a popular movement in Germany, and the German state, at one time. Trying to compare this with Jews in the USSR is as ridiculous as blaming say, Georgians for the murder of all those “Europeans”(I notice you don’t seem to give a damn about all the non-Europeans allegedly killed by Communism).
The idea that the Holocaust is routinely blamed on Europeans as a whole is a fantasy that exists only in the paranoid minds of MacDonald and his ilk.
Also, perhaps you can explain how you came to the conclusion that it is only “OK” to demonize white people? You might also consider that “white” people had the run of the world for the last two centuries. Prior to that, much of the world might have been grumbling about the Mongols, and before that, Romans, Greeks, or Persians.
on October 4th, 2011 at 4:04 pm
JeffB all of humankind shares “profound guilt for what happened to the Jews under the Hitler regime.” The USA did its part in the genocide with immigration laws that excluded Jews seeking refuge from nazi Germany and the territories it had occupied.
on October 6th, 2011 at 8:27 am
Pamela Geller is completely divorced from reality.
on October 7th, 2011 at 10:06 pm
“mr white,” I wonder what Egyptians killing Christians has to do with whether or not the SPLC is a Communist front organization. The fact is that they are NOT in any way associated with that bunch. The Communists lost the cold war and with the exception of a few whaco countries such as North Korea and Cuba, Communism is pretty much dead.
Many years ago my father took my brother and me to a town hall meeting. My dad spent 12 hours a day welding submarines in Groton, Connecticut. We are Jews and had gone to Connecticut to work on the submarines. During a headed discussion as to whether or not a sidewalk should be poured in order that school kids like us would not have to walk on the shoulder of the road. Several kids had been hit that year.
Some jackass turned around and called my father a “goddamned New York Jew Commie.” That was the only time I ever saw my dad HIT someone with the intention of doing bodily harm. The borough’s constable saw what was about to happen and just turned away. When the idiot started screaming that he had been hit, the constable said that he hadn’t seen anything and none of the people in the meeting would back him up.
Two days later, he tried to run me over with his car. No Jew bastards were going to play with his kids. He was arrested and convicted on attempted murder with a vehicle and was sent away for 15 years.
THAT is what people need to do when they hear other people maligned. The SPLC is one of the ONLY organizations I support financially (when I can) because they cause JUSTICE to prevail. I am proud to be affiliated with that courageous group of people. “mr white,” take a chill pill.
on October 8th, 2011 at 12:07 pm
Ruslan, we just have to agree to disagree on these matters: Kevin MacDonald and the validity of his work and the quality of his scholarship, whether the promotion of the Holocaust through movies, articles, museums etc. is an unwarranted attack on the German people as a whole as well as implicitly on all non-Jewish White People, whether the “Christian heritage European ethnic people” is an ethnic group, whether there is a lack of balance in blaming all Germans for the Holocaust but claiming Jews bare no responsibility whatever for the catastrophe that was the Bolshevik Revolution, and other such matters. We aren’t going to resolve them in this thread! But I was interested in your views and appreciate your taking the time to respond to my posts.
on October 9th, 2011 at 2:59 pm
Jeff, I can see this is a really difficult concept for you. The Bolsheviks were a multi-national, multi-ethnic movement in a country which had literally hundreds of different ethnic groups. In 1917, the Bolshevik party had the smallest number of Jews compared to the other parties of that time. The NSDAP was a German party, and in its own words it claimed to fight for German people. Nazi Germany was to be a racial state, based on the Germanic “race”, and to some extent, they created this. The USSR on the other hand, was at best a state controlled by Muscovite Russians from the death of Stalin onward. There is absolutely no reason to highlight Jewish involvement above say, Latvian or Georgian involvement.
Bottom line- blaming Jews for the Bolshevik revolution is ahistorical, and plainly ridiculous, much like MacDonald’s historical research.
Having said that, there are very few serious intellectuals today who claim that the entire German people are responsible for the Holocaust. So you’re basically complaining about nothing.
on October 15th, 2011 at 11:56 am
Ruslan, you seem to be saying in your last post that there is no reason to “highlight Jewish involvement” in the Bolshevik Revolution and its excesses, but that “Nazi Germany was to be a racial state, based on the Germanic `race`, and to some extent they created this”, in your words, and therefore Germans share some blame. I do not agree that average Germans bare more guilt for the murders under the Nazis than average Jews bare for the murders under the Bolshevik Revolution. But to go into this would involve a long discussion that this thread is not the proper place for. The same for your statement, “… there are very few serious intellectuals today who claim that the entire German people are responsible for the Holocaust. So you’re basically complaining about nothing.” We have a different perspective about this – I’ll just leave it at that.
Like I said, it’s probably best for us to just agree to disagree. Not that I am trying to assign historic guilt to Japanese, Germans, Jews or any other people. Long memories and grudges over past “wrongs” tend to not be useful at all is what I believe.
Regards, JeffB
on November 10th, 2011 at 5:15 pm
Robert Steinback,
I’m beginning to wonder if Pamela Geller is actually mentally disturbed or is just desperate to demonize anyone who opposes her.