You may have already heard about the email sent to 75,000 Jewish voters that if they vote for Obama they risk a second Holocaust. According to the RNC, this was an unauthorized email sent out by a low level staffer. Read the news release here
The staffer claims that he was authorized to send it out.
I doubt that it went very high up the chain of authority in the RNC because someone would have stopped it and said this is beneath contempt. But what it does show is that some people think that all you have to do is mention the Holocaust and Jews lose their brains.
We saw the same thing when McCain and Palin both referred to a "second Holocaust" in reference to Iran having nuclear weapons. Believe me, the last thing I want is Iran to have such weapons. And as readers of this blog know, I am no fan of Ahmadinejad.
However all these references to the Holocaust are distasteful and are something that should be opposed. You can express absolute opposition to Ahmadinejad having a bomb without linking it to the Holocaust.
It simplifies what the Holocaust truly was and it makes it sound like all you are doing is fishing for Jewish votes.
I acknowledge that it was Jewish leaders who first began to speak of a second Holocaust and to compare these times to 1939. So, on some level, it is hard to just skewer the McPalin team.
The situation may be bad but cheap comparisons to the Holocaust are out of place
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
Everyone on the planet except for 68 million Iranians oppose the mullahs getting the bomb.
However, like Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, they are making a national mission of it.
He famously said he would see the entire nation EAT GRASS rather than give it up.
It's my personal judgment that there is nothing which will stop them from developing nuclear weapons.
Since we all agree that they should not have them, and since nothing will stop them from getting them, the only relevant question is what are we willing to be responsible for to stop them.
Attach this to the fact that in 1944 it took the USA, with the technology of that time 10 months to use gaseous diffusion to produce a U235 weapon so reliable it's testing was never needed, and it was simply built, and exploded over Hiroshima (the test in July 1945 was of a plutonium implosion device). In fact Pakistan had a U235 weapons stockpile long before they actually tested their weapon.
Many people DO BELIEVE that Iran cannot be deterred from using nuclear weapons. After all Achmadinejad is saying what every single leader of Iran has said, including the "moderate" Rafsanjani, and his well known blood curdling quote. We also of course have Nasrallah's well known quote about how it is better for all the jews to gather in Israel.
Personally, I cannot decide if Iran can actually be deterred. But the risk benefit ratio is heavily weighted to one side.
And we have this week's news that replacing Mr. Mugniyah in Hizballah is an IRANIAN.
For these people it is quite reasonable to equate Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon with second holocaust.
That it is distasteful is not a function of these jews who recognize the nature of the Iranian regime, it is a function of another modern state, harnessing science and industry to kill the jews for more of the same old reasons, just compressed in time from 6 years plus, to several minutes + 2 generations or more of mutations and leukemias. And if that is not a description which fits the word holocaust, I cannot imagine what does
"...the only relevant question is what are we willing to be responsible for to stop them."
Pakistan and Iran are the two most dangerous countries in the world. And what attribute do both these countries have as a common denominator? Both are Islamic regimes.
"Many people DO BELIEVE that Iran cannot be deterred from using nuclear weapons. After all Achmadinejad is saying what every single leader of Iran has said, including the "moderate" Rafsanjani, and his well known blood curdling quote. We also of course have Nasrallah's well known quote about how it is better for all the jews to gather in Israel."
Exactly, Epaminondos. And isn't it shameful that most of the mainstream Western media and acacemia considers it taboo to publicly opine that the religion of Islam is the driving force behind both these regimes, the reason for their hatred of the Jews and Israel. This would be politically incorrect. Responsible? Don't make me laugh.
I commend Barak Obama for having the courage to suggest publicly that the West begin a sort of dialogue with these religious savages. However, I think the element of dialogue with these people would be fruitful as throwing snowballs at tigers.
"It simplifies what the Holocaust truly was..."
I see a similarity between Ahmadinejad's genocidal hatred of the Jews, a hatred effectuated by the religion of Islam, and Hitler's genocidal hatred of the Jew, a hatred effectuated by the religion of Christiainty. I think our contemporary interpretations of Ahmadinejad's past promises of wiping Israel off the map is the reason we refer to "another Holocaust." I think this Iranian Muslim is simplifying the Holocaust more than our interpretations of his genocidal statements.
However, I do agree that McCain has no business using the word Holocaust in reference to Iran in order to garner media and voter favour. Such statements sound like shameless political swilling and propagandist. He should be just as worried about Pakistan, but I haven't heard him refer to Pakistan with the term "another Holocaust." He's simply trying to denigrate Barak Obama because Obama suggested beginning a dialogue with Iran. As I said, this is political swilling, and this certainly does "simplify" the immeasurable tragedy of the Holocaust.
Post a Comment