Thursday, March 30, 2006

Katrina vanden Heuvel in Washington Post:"Stop Using Hitler analogies"

A group of scholars of the Holocaust -- myself included -- have sent a letter to the Washington Post supporting an op-ed by Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of the liberal political newsweekly The Nation, who offered what she called “A modest proposal for improving national political discussion”: a “cease-fire” on Nazi analogies.

4 comments:

Epaminondas said...

I'm for that with a question ....does that apply to folks like Qaradawi and Qutb, ond others who objectively wish(ed) to accomplish those same ends by other means?

Sergey Romanov said...

Comparisons with Hitler and Nazis in general cannot do justice to history. But comparisons with Hitler's and Nazi party's early years CAN be legitimate. Otherwise, what are the lessons of the Holocaust, and how such events in the future can be prevented, if one cannot even compare certain trends the led to the Holocaust with specific trends in today's world?

Uriah Robinson said...

The verdict in the trial of RAF Fl Lt Malcolm Kendall-Smith for disobeying orders was given today. Kendall-Smith had compared the US forces in Iraq and their actions with the Nazis.

He was found guilty and "The judge told him: "You have, in the view of this court, sought to make a martyr of yourself and shown a degree of arrogance which is amazing."

Kendall-Smith a medical officer age 37 was apparently only a Fl-Lt a low rank, perhaps his apparent lack of historical knowledge was not his only weakness.

enneamuse said...

Rather than Hitler, let's start talking about Stalin and Stalinism and the torture and terror of that regime. Might have been a worse monster than Hitler even.