A few years ago, I read a short book about the events that transpired in Hungary in 1956 entitled the The Bridge at Andau. Here we are now upon the fiftieth anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution and its destruction by Soviet forces. President Bush’s recent praise of the Hungarian rebels inspires me to pen a few of my own reflections.
The event is important for a number of reasons. First, it publicized what should have been obvious by 1956; namely, that the Soviets were murderous, that their unpopular system was enforced in Eastern Europe through force, and that earlier events in Poland, East Germany, and the Baltics were not, as the Soviets explained, actions directly chiefly against Nazi collaborators and other criminal elements.
Second, the events in Hungary would prove prophetic of later Soviet interventions in Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan. Client states of the Soviet Union stood to be crushed the minute they deviated from Marxist orthodoxy. In Hungary, the reformist regime did not denounce Moscow, imprison communists, or expel Soviet forces. It only released certain political prisoners, expressed an interest in a multiparty regime, and also expressed solidarity with the reformist regime in Poland, which had recently reemerged in the post-Stalin era. None of this was acceptable, because the least deviation might expose the utter corruption, brutality, and parochial pro-Russian policies of Soviet-backed communist regimes. Later events in 1989 suggest that their paranoia may have been well founded; the glue that held together the communist world was an amalgam of political violence and official propagnada.
Third, the crushing of the more liberal Hungarian regime of 1956 should scandalize those that blame Soviet atrocities of the 1930s and 1940s on some peculiar “cult of personality” of Joseph Stalin. While Stalin’s regime undoubtedly had uniquely atrocious features, communist violence predates him and persisted after his death, as demonstrated by the Hungarian episode. In the early stages of communism, the Bolsheviks murdered millions, including so-called Kulaks, property owners, supporters of the Romanovs, much of the Orthodox clergy, ethnic and religious minorities, and anyone else that stood in the way of the Bolshevik revolution. The rivers of blood that flowed in this era through atrocity and summary “justice” are undeniable and well documented. Awareness of these early atrocities, and later episodes such as Soviet violence in Hungary, stand as major rebuttals to those that would blame communist violence from the 1930s as 1940s on Stalin and describe such actions as “Stalinist.”
Finally, this story should be known and remembered because it, like so many twentieth-century atrocities, has been forgotten, eclipsed by current events and the overarching place of the Holocaust in historical memory. The relative historical import of one event over another is a complicated and controversial question. The commission of orgiastic violence by the Germans, a people long regarded as the paragon of European civilization, truly is troubling and worthy of serious study. It deserves a central place in any study of world history and the history of the twentieth century. But it does not deserve the sole place; it does not deserve to crowd out to the point of irrelevance the mass murders of Armenians, East Prussians, Ukrainians, Poles, Christians, Cambodians, and others in the name of communism and other ideologies. For those killed by fanatics of other stripes, their blood was just as real, their victimization just as worthy of memory and memorialization as that of the Jewish victims of the Nazis.
In addition to the inbalance caused by the prominent position of the Holocaust and the exclusive focus on Nazi atrocities, there is another, more important reason for the disregard of Soviet and Communist violence. It does not fit the script. For liberals, our history is a story of progress, where the evils emanate from the death gasps of retrograde forces, such as racists, monarchists, fascists, Catholics, etc. Communists have rhetorically positioned themselves on the liberal side as the vanguard of progress, heirs of the French Revolution. Under this view, at most their sins were those of too much enthusiasm and ill-planning, or as vestiges of right-wing artifacts like nationalism. Yet, upon examination, so much communist violence flows directly from its ideology, which demands the exchange of the “bourgeois” ideal of individualized justice and individual rights for the ideal of class justice and a proletarian triumph. Everyone from a Romanov child to a Hungarian teenager seeking to form an independent labor union were all equally “guilty” because they all acted against the supposed historical inevitability of communist progress.
For western liberals, until the fall of the Soviet Union, apologies, excuse-making, and enforced amnesia of Soviet atrocities was an essential component of their own push to move the western world closer to communist values of equality, secularism, and socialism. Pointing to Nazi atrocities to the exclusion of all others allowed liberals to peddle a myth: that political violence chiefly emerges from right-wing forces and that the Nazis were the most right-wing of them all. (There is a strong argument to be made that the Nazis were a peculiar variant of leftist nationalism). We should not forget that there was a time when liberalism was not only naive in its treatment of foreign influences and anti-western ideologies–as it is now in response to Islamic fundamentalism. There was a time when western liberals and liberal philosophy actively supported a murderous anti-western ideology, thought its triumph would be more good than bad, and took steps to conceal or minimize its numerous sins, including the mass murder of the Hungarian people. Until liberals admit and atone for this sin, their credibility should always be in the gutter.
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Over the years I’ve met several ex-Communists who resigned their Party membership over Hungary. (Yes, it’s reasonable to ask what took them so long, but enlightenment is enlightenment.) I think the Hungarian Revolution together with Khrushchev’s Secret Speech lay the groundwork for the regime’s ultimate collapse, though they managed to stave things off pretty well.
The suppression of the Revolution is one of those things, like the suppression of the Tienanmen movement, that is terrible but in some way unavoidable. Totalitarian rulers may play with the idea of taking the lid off the pot – they’re not necessarily monsters – but quickly realize the resulting explosion will destroy their whole dining establishment. So they slam it back on – they generally understand the realities of power better than we do. It took a couple of decades of moral and ideological collapse to make possible the revolutions of 1989-91, and even then, Russia was lucky to have a Gorbachev, who bowed to the inevitable with minimal bloodshed.
Jewish Communism or Jewish Capitalism is not supposed to be worse then German Nazism. Hitler killed 6 million Jews, but the Jews don’t consider the slaughter of 10 Million Ukranians by Lenin to be be a true “Holocaust”. 20 Million Russians—1/5th of the population–were slaughtered in the iron storm of WWII, as FDR ran a war of attrition with Hitler’s Nazis, with the Russians doing almost all of the attritioin. Let us give thanks for the “gifts of the Jews” to the 20th Century: nationalism, communism, and laissez faire capitalism. Political correctness and academic hypocrisy reigns today among the sons and daughters of Lenin and Stalin’s apologists during the 1920′s-to-1950′s. Until we remove them from our public discourse, none of us are safe.
I’ve never heard Jews denigrating or minimizing the terrible things that Stalin did to his own people, or what Mao did to his. The main difference is that only Hitler was nakedly caught and exposed for trying to wipe out an entire targeted race of people. The others managed to keep it mostly under wraps until sterile books like “The Black Book of Communism” could be researched and published.
Amazing…Jews are responsible for communism AND laissez-faire capitalism! Oh, and nationalism too, even though it was nationalism and racism that has been used to oppress Jews since, well, the days of the Old Testament. Yes indeedy, not only do the Jews advocate and spread diametrically opposing economic systems (all part of the master plan!), but all the bad things that have happened to them have been THEIR FAULT! Why, it’s practically brilliant.
Mr. “Markets”: Amazing…Jews are responsible for communism AND laissez-faire capitalism! Oh, and nationalism too, even though it was nationalism and racism that has been used to oppress Jews since, well, the days of the Old Testament.
As usual, Mr. “Markets” likes to mis-intrepret things from the perspective of his self-centered view of the world.
Try reading some modern Jewish history, starting with “The Jewish Century” by Yuri Slezkine. If you’re too impatient (as I suspect you are based on your superficial commentary) to read the book, try Orlando Figes’ indepth review in the NYRB, “The Fiddler’s Children”.
Also acquaint yourself with the ADL’s views toward Communist mass-murders of Civilian populations during reign of terrors under Lenin, Stalin and Mao. To this day, the Holacaust Museum contains not a single reference to Communist mass-murders, such as Lenin’s calculated starvation of the Ukranian rural population.
Gee, and why would that be? Maybe because…the Holocaust Museum has a dedicated subject already! Duh. And perhaps the museum for Salvador Dali should have a wing for Monet? For Christ’s sake.
Suffice to say, you have not read anything you have cited to, nor have you investigated anything of actual substance regarding the topic at hand. You’re just making bald, unsubstantiated accusations and then pretending that you have factual back-up when, in fact, you have nothing of the kind. Your offhand assertions have been debunked repeatedly herein and elsewhere, and you have no credibility. Hell, you still insist on not calling me by my real name, instead relying on this “Markets” bit, which only underscores your juvenile trollish essence. Booo-OOOO-ring! If I’ve “misinterpreted” something, by all means correct me. Use your own langugage to show how I have misconstrued your comments. Of course, it’s kind of hard to misconstrue “Let us give thanks for the ‘gifts of the Jews’ to the 20th Century: nationalism, communism, and laissez faire capitalism.” Perhaps, Joe, if you stopped saying such idiotic things, then people wouldn’t be attributing those idiotic comments to you. Just a thought.
It’s not very useful to speak in too broad of generalizations: Jews did this, Germans did that.
That said, there is a strong current of leftism among many Jews worldwide. And Israel, undeniably a Jewish enclave I hope we can agree, held a memorial service upon Stalin’s death in 1953. What does this prove? Only that groups mostly are indifferent to the suffering of others, particularly when the perceive those others as a threat. We should be reminded by episodes ranging from the Holocaust to the crushing of the Hungarian Revolution that political violence of all kinds, especially in the names of totalitarian ideologies, carries with it great inhumanity and evil. Even groups who have been victimized often have a blind spot for the suffering of others, particularly when those other can be labeled as deserving of mass violence.
Stalin memorial service article:
http://www.geocities.com/eproceeding/purimfest1953/html/introspection.html
P.S. Mr. Populist, your sweeping generalizaions and negative tone do little to advance conservatism, populism, or any other ideology. You often sound like a fool, and every time you agree wih me I’m compelled to see if I’ve said something wrong. Please refrain from insulting James or anyone else on my blog. If you need me to explain further, I fear my point is beyond comprehension.
Mr. Markets: “Gee, and why would that be? Maybe because…the Holocaust Museum has a dedicated subject already!”
Actually, the Holocaust Museum has extended the defination of holocaust to gays, so why not Ukranians under Lenin?
Mr. “Markets”: “If I’ve “misinterpreted” something, by all means correct me. Use your own langugage to show how I have misconstrued your comments. Of course, it’s kind of hard to misconstrue “Let us give thanks for the ‘gifts of the Jews’ to the 20th Century: nationalism, communism, and laissez faire capitalism.”
I’m not sure how you can “misconstrue” Israel and Zionism, Lenin & Trotsky, and the modern triumphiant: Ayn Rand-Alan Greenspan-Milton Friedman.
Roach: “You often sound like a fool, and every time you agree wih me I’m compelled to see if I’ve said something wrong. Please refrain from insulting James or anyone else on my blog. If you need me to explain further, I fear my point is beyond comprehension.”
Insulting Mr. “Markets” is not the purpose of my comments, so I apologize if I have offended.
Mr. “Markets” might think that a dose of cold water on his overheated and ill-conceived commentary FEELS like an insult, but that’s not my intention at all.
BTW, Rest assured, I don’t agree with you on half of the things you write, so you can sleep soundly tonite. I certainly will.
Roach: Remember, though, that in 1953 there still wasn’t much known about the gulags and the full extent of the suffering and death that Stalin had perpetrated. All people saw was the state-sponsored exterior. Do people in Israel still cast fond rememberences of Stalin? No. They know the truth now. Stalin and other communist nations, like Castro today, have suckered a lot of otherwise good-intentioned people by covering up their oppression with platitudes and lies. Yes, people should have been able to see through it, but I don’t think that should be held against them forever.
“We should be reminded by episodes ranging from the Holocaust to the crushing of the Hungarian Revolution that political violence of all kinds, especially in the names of totalitarian ideologies, carries with it great inhumanity and evil.”
I completely agree. Which makes things like Somalia and Darfur difficult to deal with. Do we intervene, or do we let them “work it out?” How do we choose?
Joe: “Actually, the Holocaust Museum has extended the defination of holocaust to gays, so why not Ukranians under Lenin?”
A very interesting allegation, easily investigated. One only need go to the Holocaust Museum’s encyclopedia (http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/) to see how it defines all sorts of things. One thing that is very clear is that there is not one link regarding homosexuals in the encyclopedia. If one clicks on the definition of “genocide,” you get the etymology of the word, coupled with the United Nations’ definition of it (which many argue is woefully inapt, but it’s not like the Museum has imposed the meaning, as Joe suggests), and then a timeline of genocide that states, starting in 1950, that, “Massive crimes against civilian populations were all too common in the years after World War II and throughout the Cold War.” Doesn’t sound like they are just ignoring what happened in China and Russia.
Two minutes clicking around the Holocaust Museum website would have confirmed all of this. So, uh, why is Joe spouting this drivel? Lord knows.
Joe: “I’m not sure how you can ‘misconstrue’ Israel and Zionism…”
Just wanted to make sure that when you were actually challenged to make good on your accusation that I misconstrued your statements, you’d have nothing to offer. Run, boy, run!
If Joe really thinks that it isn’t insulting to refuse to use my real name in responding to me, to suggest that I should have sex with Andrew Sullivan, and other such things, then I’m sure Joe will see it as being perfectly gentlemanly for me to, hereafter, refer to him only as “Hoe.” After all, rank unthinking “populism” as Hoe claims to follow is a rather whorish proposition anyway — whatever the so-called “majority” thinks, so goes the populist.
A very large proportion of Israel’s population was made up of emigrees from the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe who would have seen the deportations, public executions, and other atrocities first hand. Since many were Red Army and NKVD veterans, many would have participated or known others who participated in these atrocities first hand. Stalin’s murderous ways were not a major mystery in 1953; why else did the American right spend so much energy before, during, and after World War II preaching against too much trust for Stalin.
I agree with this statement, “Stalin and other communist nations, like Castro today, have suckered a lot of otherwise good-intentioned people by covering up their oppression with platitudes and lies. Yes, people should have been able to see through it, but I don’t think that should be held against them forever.” But there should be some acknowledgement and repentance, no? When have major organs of the American left–with the exceptions of neoconservatives, Bertolt Brecht, and a few other defections–ever acknowledged and repented for their communist apologies as leftists. When has Israel ever done anything to acknowledge Soviet atrocities or to punish former NKVD mass murderers living within its borders?
Let’s not ignore the elephant in the room. There is a long history of anti-semitism in Eastern Europe. Many Jews, particularly secular Jews, were Communists or sympathized with Communists and perceived their ideology as a universalist one that would protect Jews from the threat of revanchist nationalism among the various slavic peoples of Eastern Europe. Some Jews were also communists for the same reasons others were; they liked the ideology, and the predecessor Romanov regime was not exactly a bed of roses. At the same time, during World War II, Ukrainians and others often collaborated with the Nazis who perceived them as liberating them from the Communist nightmare, which a decade earlier had been murdering and starving the Ukrainians and other Soviet ethnic minorities. There is a long history of enmity and mistrust between Slavs and Jews. Many Jews were indifferent to the suffering of these peoples, just as these people were indifferent to the suffering of the Jews. This mutual indifference, competition for publicity, and jousting over the meaning and relative priority of various historical events continues to this day.
Consider the letter that Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center wrote to Mel Gibson during the controversy about the Passion of the Christ. The letter specifically criticized any attempt to suggest other mass atrocities were akin to or equal to the Holocaust, even when they involved the killing of greater numbers of people. He wrote, “Given the controversy stirred by your forthcoming film, I had hoped that your remarks on the Holocaust during your interview with Peggy Noonan for Readers’ Digest would be an opportunity to take us in an entirely new direction. Sadly, according to the excerpt I read, I was mistaken. Rather than showing understanding for what historians regard as the most telling example of man’s inhumanity to man in the history of civilization, you diminish the uniqueness of the Holocaust by marginalizing it and placing it alongside the horrors and suffering of people caught up in conflict and famine. You say in your interview, ‘I have friends and parents of friends who have numbers on their arms. The guy who taught me Spanish was a Holocaust survivor. He worked in a concentration camp in France. Yes, of course. Atrocities happened. War is horrible. The Second World War killed tens of millions of people. Some of them were Jews in concentration camps. Many people lost their lives. In the Ukraine, several million starved to death between 1932 and 1933. During the last century, 20 million people died in the Soviet Union.’”
In other words, the Ukrainians need to suck it up, their deaths were just caused by “conflict and famine.” (Of course, deliberate starvation was one of the chief means the Nazis used to kill Jews and othes both inside and outside the camps; just read about the Warsaw ghetto where the alotted rations were pitiful).
It is telling that Simon Wiesenthal himself lived and worked in the Ukraine as an engineer during the 1930s but has never had anything whatsoever to say about the Soviet mass murders. If we’re to believe it ridiculous the entire German nation did not know about Hitler’s atrocities and bears a certain amount of collective guilt for its silence and acquiescence and profit from this episode, what do we make of folks like Wiesenthal and others who lived and worked and thrived in the Soviet Union while Ukrainians, Tatars, “Kulaks,” and others were murdered.
The priority of the Holocaust and Hitler is an interesting question of historiography, not least because larger-scale mass murders have taken place elsewhere in the name of communism. I have a few theories, but I think the central reason is as follows: The Holocaust is the central symbol of the left. It is portrayed as a right-wing, nationalist, and extreme (though not entirely surprising) expression of typical European/Western/White/Christian violence. It supposedly shows that the West is inferior to the “Other,” that it must abandon its pretentions to cultural and civilizational pride and superiority, that it must embrace all forms of universalism (including the wiping out of its ethnic stock in mass immigration), that it must repent and grovel before all of the non-white, non-Christian, and non-western world, that it must rework its theology lest notions of “supercessionism” create latent feelings of superiority and evangelism, and that it must ultimately destroy itself to atone for its sins, of which the Holocaust was just the most prominent and recent.
Other events from other peoples–mass killings in Rwanda, mass Soviet atrocities–are either explained away as in Hier’s letter above or somehow, boomerang-style, also blamed on the West. At the heart of leftism is hatred of the West and a belief that its destruction is necessary for the advancement of justice and world peace. But this destruction is not openly or even frequently called destruction, it’s sometimes called multiculturalism, economic justice, or some other euphemism. But it’s call for atonement by destruction and dispersion all the same.
Roach: “A very large proportion of Israel’s population was made up of emigrees from the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe who would have seen the deportations, public executions, and other atrocities first hand. Since many were Red Army and NKVD veterans, many would have participated or known others who participated in these atrocities first hand.”
I’m not too sure about this. My reading of The Black Book of Communism indicated that the deportations, while huge in number, were somewhat targeted on problem areas, and so people outside of those areas would not necessarily know much about them, or grasp the full extent of what was going on. And while the public executions would be known about, the reasons behind the executions would not. Everybody was being executed for being a traitor, a tsarist sympathiser, or some other political dissident, when in fact the pogroms were wiping out people for all sorts of reasons. And most of the camps where the deportees were dying were in remote areas, carefully papered over by state propaganda. I really don’t think that these people really knew what was really going on. After all, if they did, they’d know that Stalin was eager to wipe out Jews along with any other religious elements.
In the same vein, while Germans certainly knew about Kristalnacht and other public displays of anti-Semitism, the average German just had no idea what went on in the concentration camps, and indeed the German public was aghast to learn what had been going on in their country. Nationalism helped them believe in what their leaders told them, and their leaders were lying. They ultimately had to face up to the truth. Communists, on the other hand, had an easy excuse: The U.S.S.R. wasn’t a truly “communist” nation, so Stalin’s horrible acts should not be attributed to communism. Of course, it is easy to see how communism inevitably leads to Stalinesque horrors, but communism as a theory has always insisted that the failings of tyrants should not be held against it. It’s the typical intellectual fig leaf.
I think you go a bit too far to assert that the Left desires the destruction of Western civilization. Maybe the hacks at The Nation and their Sheehanites want that, but most lefties in America seem pretty Western to me in the sense that they cheered for Clinton to use force in Kosovo and have been demanding action in Rwanda and Darfur for similar reasons. They view American power as a blessing to be used to combat atrocity wherever it may lie. Remember Madeline Albright’s comment to then-Gen. Powell, asking what the point of a great military was if it couldn’t be used. The only reason they have balked at Iraq is because a Republican president was at the helm. Aside from that, they are very thankful for the Western culture that has built such a powerful country that can then be used to address their favorite societal ills — through public action, of course.
I think a more accurate description, James, would be that they view American power as a resource to be employed as an altruistic gift – that is, American power should be used only when it doesn’t advance American interests. Except for the basic humanitarian impulse in Americans’ breasts that it would satisfy, Darfur, Rwanda, and Kosovo meet that criterion. (I recognize that there is some disagreement about whether Kosovo was in the American interest, but I’m not persuaded.)
I can see that. Perhaps it would be more fair to say that leftists see their myriad causes as being more important than the lines that divide nations. Recognize, though, that many argue that these interventions DO advance American interests through the nation-building rhetoric that spreading democracy spreads peace and prosperity for all — something Bush has glommed onto as well. I generally agree with the sentiment, although I disagree often with the means to effectuate it.
Mr. “M”: If Joe really thinks that it isn’t insulting to refuse to use my real name in responding to me, to suggest that I should have sex with Andrew Sullivan, and other such things then I’m sure Joe will see it as being perfectly gentlemanly for me to, hereafter, refer to him only as “Hoe.”
Boo hoo hoo. You’re going to make me cry.
Mr. “Markets”: After all, rank unthinking “populism” as Hoe claims to follow is a rather whorish proposition anyway — whatever the so-called “majority” thinks, so goes the populist.
Only the ignorant believe that “populism” was a style of rhetoric, rather then a coherent set of principles or a coherent political agenda.
Even in this simple point, you’re a wrong. Populist rhetoric doesn’t mean the “majority” viewpoint, it is directed against oligarchy and elitism.
Everytime you open your mouth, you stick your foot in it.
Mr. “M”: “One only need go to the Holocaust Museum’s encyclopedia (http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/) to see how it defines all sorts of things. One thing that is very clear is that there is not one link regarding homosexuals in the encyclopedia.”
Wrong again.
If you put “gay” in the search engine, you get an long article, “The Persecution of Homosexuals in the Third Reich”.
NO documents are found if you do a search for “Ukranian”.
I dare you to find a single article in the Holocaust Encyclopedia that refers to any genocide done by Communist dictators.
Hitler killed 6 million Jews, but he killed 20 million Russian. Even more Poles, and other ethnic Eastern Europeans. Stalin killed more then Hitler, so did Mao, so did Pot Pol.
The fact that the Holocaust Museum does’t think that Stalin Mao or Pot Pol engaged in “genocide” certainly undermines their moral position.
Your hypocrisy slip is showing again, Mr. “M”.
Mr. “M”: “a timeline of genocide (in the Holocaust Encylopedia) that states, starting in 1950, that, “Massive crimes against civilian populations were all too common in the years after World War II and throughout the Cold War.” Doesn’t sound like they are just ignoring what happened in China and Russia.
The fact is that the Holocaust Museum has a long article on the so-called “gay holocaust” and not a single article on the slaughter of the Ukranians by Lenin, or any other specific genocide incidents by Communist dictators, disproves your point.
What’s REALLY sickening about this, is that there was no “gay” holocaust at all…in fact the Nazi movement was full of gays…Ernst Rolm, “Fraulein” Rudolph Hess. Paragraph 175 the anti-gay statue–was enacted in 1871, over 75 years before the Nazis came to power. The so-called “persecution” of gays was merely a tool in the battle for power between Rolm and Himmler, and later on a way for Hitler and the Nazis to get rid of people they didn’t like by accusing them of homosexuality.
It really undermines the moral credibility of Jews and the Holocaust Museum that there is for all intents and purposes, not a single reference to Communist led holocausts.
Populism isn’t a style of rhetoric? Please read: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Populism But hey, nice try.
That the Holocaust Museum admits that homosexuals were also thrown in the concentration camps doesn’t mean that “the Holocaust Museum has extended the defination [sp] of holocaust to gays,” as you claimed. The purpose of the concentration camps was to kill all sorts of people, but primarily it was about killing off all Jews. It’s not like the Holocaust Museum backs covering up any of the deaths, or deaths anywhere, like you seem to be implying.
And again, the Holocaust Museum DOES mention other mass killings. The Holocaust Museum already has its focus, and it is up to other museums to address other genocides. You seem to want the Museum to actually be the Genocide Museum, and then criticize it for not being such, trying to gin up some kind of moral issue out of it. Lots of flash, but no substance.
Mr. “M”: “You seem to want the Museum to actually be the Genocide Museum, and then criticize it for not being such, trying to gin up some kind of moral issue out of it. Lots of flash, but no substance.”
Okay, Mr. “M”, it’s all about the Jews. But we already knew that.
Again, you’ve missed the point.
Mr. “M”: “You seem to want the Museum to actually be the Genocide Museum, and then criticize it for not being such, trying to gin up some kind of moral issue out of it. Lots of flash, but no substance.”
Okay, Mr. “M”, it’s all about the Jews. But we already painfully aware of that arn’t we?
Oh, I’ve got the point. The Jews are targeted for extinction by the Nazis. Afterwords, that event is termed “The Holocaust” and Jews (and others) recognize the inherent evil of that event and seek to memorialize it to ensure that it does not happen again. They acknowledge others who died, but it is widely accepted that Jews bore the brunt of the devastation. Then you come along and accuse them of being morally suspect for not including every other instance of genocide when it’s already been made clear by the Holocaust Museum that their focus is The Holocaust as opposed to every other comparable event. The answer to that, as already given to you, is obvious: They’ve already chosen their subject. Go start another museum about the Ukranians if you’d like. Nobody is saying it didn’t happen or that it wasn’t bad. Why you’re blaming Jews for the lack of such a museum is quite beyond comprehension, aside from the possibility that you just like blaming Jews for things.
I’d say that Joe does like blaming Jews for nearly everything, and he does so in a crude manner. That said, his anger does have a foundationa in a legitimate observation.
There is an organized effort by various factions to downplay communist wrongs, partly because of sympathy for communism and partly out of effort to always make Hitler’s crimes against the Jews the most prominent genocide to modern minds. (As I discuss above, focusing on this event is a way to discredit the western, Christian world as a whole. Other violence, against other peoples shows that something else is at work besides the evil of the West.)
This promotion of the Holocaust to the exclusion of other genocides has been documented in a few good books, including Peter Novick’s “The Holocaust in American Life” and Norman Finkelstein’s “The Holocaust Industry.” Both argue that there is something inconsistent in the notion the Holocaust is so unique among genocides as to put it in a special category and the notion that it is of universal historical significance to other contemporary events, particularly as they relate to Israel’s relationship with the Arabs. In other words, something so singular as to be incomparable to other events also has no ability to teach us by analogy and example about current events.
I’ve only read the Novick book, but I recommend it. He does point out the inconsistent treatment of other genocides in our cultural life and also in the rhetoric of various Jewish activists. He discusses at length how mutual hostility and suspicion of Jews and Slavs have prevented the crimes done to the latter from being given their deserved attention in our culture and media. And he discusses how an emerging secular Jewish identity has given Holocaust awareness excessive importance as the Torah and community life have declined as defining marks of Jewish life.
I do believe it’s unfortunate that the Holocaust Museum, which purports in part to place the Holocaust in historical context, instead treats it as sui generis, with noting in common with the massive state violence before during and after the Hitler regime by its Soviet neighbor.
Mr. “M”: “…it is widely accepted that Jews bore the brunt of the devastation. Then you come along and accuse them of being morally suspect for not including every other instance of genocide…”
Yes, that’s the point. Mr. “M”, the Holocaust Museum is all about the Jews.
On the other hand, we all know that WWII was a war of attrition with Germany, with Russia doing most of the attrition. It’s highly doubtful that the Nazi state would have fallen, and consequently the war criminals prosecuted without the deaths of 20 million Russians.
The implication of your insistance and your refusal to give equal sympathy to the Russian people in their holocaust museum just confirms my point of view.
You’re so obviously partisan Jewish that you can’t even imagine how bad this makes all Jews look.
Mr. Markets: “The Jews are targeted for extinction by the Nazis.”
No Mr. “Markets”–you are wrong again.
For the record, it was not only the Jews who were ‘targeted for extinction’…it was very plainly Hitler’s intention in the conquoring of the Ukraine, was to eliminate the native population and resettle it with ethnic Germans. In other words, Hitler’s intention in the invasion of Russia was pure unadultrated “ethnic cleansing.”
The history of WWII is full of incidences when the Waffen SS took civilian populations and executed them, and buried them in mass graves.
I largely suspect that the Holacaust Museum has deteriorated into a money grubbing effort to extract reparations from Europe and America. It’s one reason we have this constant barrage of PBS shows on the holocaust, and other media publicity to the exclusion of the complete history of WWII.
The suffering of the Russian people that ended that war is virtually unknown in the public mind, aside from a few Eastern Europeans like myself, and political conservatives.
I think the main problem that the Ukranians have is simply that knowledge of their plight came long after evidence of the Holocaust was widely known. As I mentioned before, the true measure of crimes perpetrated by communist regimes has only recently been made known due to the sophisticated secrecy of those governments. The Black Book of Communism was really the first effort to catalogue the toll, and that didn’t come out until 1999. I don’t see any Jews seeking to deny these terrible events, and I think it is wrong to interpret their focus on the Holocaust as an attempt to minimize the suffering of others. Hoe can believe what he wants, but I see nothing wrong in Jews being interested in those events that affected them personally.
After all, it’s a little-known fact also that Japanese internment camps were actually deadlier than the German concentration camps. As in, you were more likely to survive as a Jew in German hands than as anybody in Japanese hands. I don’t see Jews denying this fact or of trying to ignore it. Why it’s little-known is not the fault of Jews.
Now, I will agree with Novick’s observation that “an emerging secular Jewish identity has given Holocaust awareness excessive importance as the Torah and community life have declined as defining marks of Jewish life.” I am dating a Jewish woman (cue Hoe’s hysterics), and one thing I have noticed about Jewish religious events I have attended is a focus on rememberance and less or no attention paid to moral guidance. As an atheist (cue more of Hoe’s hysterics), you’d think that moral guidance is of no importance to me, but in fact I think it is of tremendous importance. I might disagree with what a particular church or denomination preaches, but it’s essential to at least have some kind of moral conversation going on. Isn’t that supposed to be a primary product of religion, after all? Yet one thing that has always stood out to me about the Jewish ceremonies I’ve attended (and they’ve all been Reform, so this may very well not apply to the other denominations) is the absence of moral guidance. The Reform synegogue, at least, seems very focused on the long litany of abuses that Jews have suffered throughout history and on traditional rituals. This is certainly important stuff, and it’s no question that the Jews have suffered more targeted abuse than just about anybody else, but it should not squeeze out important conversations on what it means to be a good person. Otherwise, being Jewish means little more than simply acknowledging the history of Judaism and following all these little dietary laws (that, for the life of me, I just can’t imagine any God really caring about). That doesn’t make you a good person, it just makes you an observer.
These are just my observations, and I do not mean offense to Jews or even to Reform Jews. Perhaps I’m being taken to the wrong synegogues. Reform Jews I have talked to have, so far, been pretty uniformly unable to answer this question as well. And this bothers me, because even casual observers of other religions are generally pretty good about conveying the central moral precepts of their religion when asked.
Anyway, this long detour aside, I have seen some evidence that some Jews put Holocaust rememberance above more fundamental precepts of their religion. And I think that is not a good thing. However, I don’t know how widespread this is, and I’ll note that Jewish suffering was already a focus of the religion long before the Holocaust came around. The Holocaust was merely a vivid, immediate, and large-scale reminder of the history of suffering, and for that I think it makes sense that they give it prominence. Perhaps too much. But I admit it’s hard for me to gauge these things as an outsider.
Mr. “M”: As I mentioned before, the true measure of crimes perpetrated by communist regimes has only recently been made known due to the sophisticated secrecy of those governments. The Black Book of Communism was really the first effort to catalogue the toll, and that didn’t come out until 1999. I don’t see any Jews seeking to deny these terrible events, and I think it is wrong to interpret their focus on the Holocaust as an attempt to minimize the suffering of others. Hoe can believe what he wants, but I see nothing wrong in Jews being interested in those events that affected them personally.”
HUH??? YOu’re trying to tell us that the publication of the Black Book was the first documentation of mass murder under Communist regimes? No…we’ve known about Communist Crimes long before the Black Book was published.
SEE: Dead Souls: Tallying the Victims of Communism
http://www.anneapplebaum.com/communism/1999/12_16_weekst_blackbook.html
Mr. “M” is so ignorant of American history he isn’t aware that the Black Book is just the latest update of information that has been available for 40 years!
Roach was completely right about the suppression of Communist atrocities—”it’s just didn’t fit the script”.
Back then, it was called “appeasement”. Our Government and our Liberal Elite just didn’t want to hear about it. American Foreign Policy was based on the premise that Eastern Europe was not worth the trouble of confronting the Soviet Union. Our policy was the abandonment of Eastern Europe to Communism. Containment and deterrence, never liberation.
If Mr. “M” was really a conservative like he says, he’s know that opposition to Communist Appeasement was the main banner of the Conservative movement since Yalta.
Which brings us to Mr. “M”‘s contention that he “doesn’t see any Jews seeking to deny these terrible events.” No Jews denied the Communist mass murders???? Are you kidding? What a completely idiotic, self-serving statement!
There a literally hundred’s of thousands of examples of Jews who were Communist holocaust deniers. Shees…Jews formed almost the entire cadre of the early American Communist Party! Of the disarmament movement in the 50′s and 60′s, and even today! As a community the Jewish People formed the core of Democrat Liberal establishment that condoned the conspiracy of silence!!! Go to any pinko-peace meeting today, and it was filled with Jewish kids, wild-eyed and ignorant of Communism’s true nature.
I wish I had a dollar bill for every academic or liberal I’ve met who still thinks that Hitler killed many many more then Lenin or Stalin or Pot Pol or Mao. Despite the publication of the Black Book and other documentation, the conspiracy of silence continues.
It’s not any wonder why public remains so ignorant of Communist atrocities. That the Holocaust Museum talks about the “Gay Holocaust” and not a single word about the atrocities committed by Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Mao, Pot Pol….well, it fits the pattern doesn’t it?
NOTE: Yes, not ALL Jews were complicit in this conspiracy of silence..There were quite a few brave souls who broke with their own community…I known several personally. I knew some personally when I was in college who were YAF members. But they were few and far between, and very brave to break with their community to join the Conservatives in denouncing Appeasement of Communism.
Joe: “YOu’re trying to tell us that the publication of the Black Book was the first documentation of mass murder under Communist regimes?”
No. Read what I wrote. The Black Book was the first to catalogue the toll. The other books noted in the link you provided only gave bits and pieces, and mostly from personal accounts. The Black Book was the first book to have the benefit of the voluminous records in Russia after the fall of the communist government. It was not a personal account, it was an actual tabulation based on government recordkeeping. That is what made it so new to the debate.
Joe: “If Mr. “M” was really a conservative like he says…”
Never said I was a conservative. I’ve always been open about being a libertarian. You just have this nasty habit of claiming people are whatever you apparently want them to be.
This quote was priceless: “There a literally hundred’s of thousands of examples of Jews who were Communist holocaust deniers. … Go to any pinko-peace meeting today, and it was filled with Jewish kids, wild-eyed and ignorant of Communism’s true nature.”
Aside from being full of hyperbole and overstatement, you prove my point: there’s a difference between being ignorant and lying. You’ve been trying to claim that Jews strove to cover up Communist acts, when now you admit that they were really ignorant of them. Good to see you coming around.
Again, your argument that Communist atrocities have been hidden from the public just falls apart. Communist atrocities have gotten wide media play and are out there. The real problem, in your mind, is that the Holocaust gets more attention, and therefore the Jews must be blamed (and held to be morally suspect, to boot!). But again, the Holocaust had the benefit of being completely exposed to the public in ways that Communist atrocities simply were not. That’s not the Jews’ fault. That’s more to the testament of the secrecy of Communist governments and the power of their propaganda. You’re just looking to blame Jews for things beyond their control.
Mr. “M”: “You’ve been trying to claim that Jews strove to cover up Communist acts, when now you admit that they were really ignorant of them.”
No. YOU said: “I don’t see any Jews seeking to deny these terrible events…”
As Roach pointed out, it’s not that no-one didn’t know what was going on…it was that we did WANT to know. Information coming out of Eastern Europe was ignored, if not outright censored.
The real culprits though were Communist Party members and Communist sympathizers. They led public relations efforts to DENY Lenin and Stalin’s atrocities. It is a fact that Jews filled the most prominant roles in the the Communist Party.
Of course, not ALL Jews were deniers—I knew many personally. But most Jews were not interested in what was happening in Eastern Europe for a variety of ideological and personal reason.
Mr. “M”: “Again, your argument that Communist atrocities have been hidden from the public just falls apart.”
The fact that you are basing your argument around the proposition that the Black Book was the first and ONLY documentation of Communist atrocities is so disingenous and factually incorrect, that it casts doubt on the rest of your argument.
Part 2…
Mr. “M”: The real problem, in your mind, is that the Holocaust gets more attention, and therefore the Jews must be blamed…”
No. The “real” problem is that the Holocaust Museum is all about the Jews, and not about all holocausts and authoritarian atrocities. By refusing to seek an enlargement of it’s mission to be inclusive of other ethnic groups, it makes the Jews look self-serving and disingenous. This undermines the mission of the museum.
Hoe: “The fact that you are basing your argument around the proposition that the Black Book was the first and ONLY documentation of Communist atrocities…”
A flat-out lie. I’ve already repeated what I’ve said once, that the Black Book was the first to catalogue the toll, not that it was the first to talk about atrocities of any kind. Anyone who reads what I wrote will see that you are completely misrepresenting what I said, which at this point amounts to nothing more than you lying because you do know better.
Hoe: “The ‘real’ problem is that the Holocaust Museum is all about the Jews, and not about all holocausts and authoritarian atrocities.”
The term “The Holocaust” was coined to refer specifically to what happened in the German concentration camps during WWII, which disproportionately affected Jews. Why a museum dedicated to that singular event must be made to broaden its subject is beyond me, other than you’re, once again, looking for any excuse to tar Jews unfairly.
Hoe: “As Roach pointed out, it’s not that no-one didn’t know what was going on…it was that we did WANT to know. Information coming out of Eastern Europe was ignored, if not outright censored.”
I will assume, despite your poor grammar, that you mean that Jews didn’t want to know about anything bad coming out of Russia or other communist dictatorships, or that evidence of communist atrocities were ignored. First off, communists of all stripes, whether Jewish or otherwise, had a blind eye toward communist atrocities. Why you have decided to blame only Jews on this makes no sense other than you have a problem with Jews as a race. You recognize that many Jews did not share in this approach, and I think you’ll find that those Jews who were not communists tended to be that way. So, again, what’s the cause? Is it particular to Jews to ignore communist atrocities, or is it actually particular to communists to be so blind? The truth is the latter, of course, and you admit as much when you say, “The real culprits though were Communist Party members and Communist sympathizers,” but the fact that you continually harp on Jews is quite revealing as to your biases, indeed. Unless you have some actual evidence as to a so-called Jewish cabal behind the communist movement, then you have no business trying to tar Jews with something that belongs solely to communists, regardless of their religion. That some Jews were communists doesn’t mean that Jews strove to ignore the plight of Ukranians, as you have tried to argue.
Mr. “M”: I’ve already repeated what I’ve said once, that the Black Book was the first to catalogue the toll, not that it was the first to talk about atrocities of any kind.”
Sorry, Mr. “M”, but you’re caught in your own lie.
This is what you said: “the true measure of crimes perpetrated by communist regimes has only recently been made known due to the sophisticated secrecy of those governments. The Black Book of Communism was really the first effort to catalogue the toll, and that didn’t come out until 1999.”
Obviously, you’re trying to slime your way out of what’s obvious–that you are a ignorant dope when it comes to the history of conservative and libertarian thought, on the cold war.
Or, more likely, you share with the Liberal LEFT that the Eastern Europeans weren’t worth saving from the iron storm of Communist Tyranny.
And now you’re caught in the contradiction, and you’re too arrogant to admit that you’re wrong.
Obviously, from the way you change your argument every 2 minutes, you have no personal ethnics, nor any really deep seating ideological commitment to anything other then gilding your own lily.
Now Mr. “M” goes off the deep end.
Mr. “M”: “Why you have decided to blame only Jews on this makes no sense other than you have a problem with Jews as a race.”
Oh pooh. More rant and rave, bluster and blow. I said no such thing. Where did I say that I said all the Jews were holocaust deniers?
Obviously, you are trying to make me the bad guy for YOUR thoughtless and ignorant statement that no Jews were holocaust deniers.
This is what YOU SAID: “I don’t see any Jews seeking to deny these terrible events…”
I merely pointed out that it was obviously not true since Jews made up the vast majority of the Communist Party, and the Liberal Establishment.
Now, YOU are the one caught in your own mistatement, and you’re trying to distract from the fact that look like a FOOL by making some insinuation about me!
I forgive you for your ignorant and stupid statements, as you are obviously brought up to treasure the “Guldn Gelt” above all.
It’s clear from my own comments that you’ve misrepresented me, Hoe. The other books that came before the Black Book did not catalogue the toll of communism — they provided isolated accounts and bits and pieces. What made the Black Book special is that it was the first book that tabulated the losses using the communist governments’ own records. Thus, it was the first true catalogue of the toll of communism, which is why it was different from the books before it. Yet all you can do is sit there with your fingers in your ears, la-la-la-la-ing yourself into insisting that my words say something other than what they plainly say. Which is what makes you a liar.
Hoe: “Obviously, you are trying to make me the bad guy for YOUR thoughtless and ignorant statement that no Jews were holocaust deniers.”
Which, of course, I never said. I said that I don’t see any Jews denying the atrocities, which is true because these days everybody knows what really happened behind the Iron Curtain. You were asserting that Jews were trying to deny the atrocities today, such as through the Holocaust Museum (a stupid argument, as already explained), yet I see no present evidence of such things. I readily admitted that communists denied such reports, at least until the evidence became overwhelming (to which now they argue that “real communism” has yet to emerge), and that some of those communists were Jews. But why this makes it a Jew-only thing rather than a communist-only thing remains unexplained by you. Why are you so focused on Jews, Hoe? And why do you insist on twisting people’s words? Oh wait, I know: You have no argument otherwise.
You can sit there and say that you’re not focused on blaming Jews, Hoe, but your refusal to shift the blame anywhere else tells us all we need to know.
Mr. “Moan-ie”: “You were asserting that Jews were trying to deny the atrocities today, such as through the Holocaust Museum…why this makes it a Jew-only thing rather than a communist-only thing remains unexplained by you.”
The Holocaust Museum does DENY any other holocaust but the Jewish holocaust—oh yeah, and the “Gay” holocaust.
Yes, the Holocaust Museum is all about the Jews to the exclusion of anyone else. Yes, we are all in agreement with that. Even more so, it’s about the money, which you would rather ignore.
That you can’t see how this diminishes the Jewish people says a lot about you, and your ideas. And why anti-semitism reigns in most of the world.
As for the “Communist” thing, everyone knows not all Jews were communists, but most communists were Jews.
Wow, you’re really reaching in your attempts to corrupt my name, eh?
Hoe: “The Holocaust Museum does DENY any other holocaust but the Jewish holocaust—oh yeah, and the ‘Gay’ holocaust.”
Except it doesn’t. See my link above. Ho-hum. You’re lying again.
Hoe: “Yes, the Holocaust Museum is all about the Jews to the exclusion of anyone else.”
No, it’s not. Have you ever BEEN to the Holocaust Museum? I have. It chronicles everything that happened in regards to the concentration camps run by Germany during WWII. Jews happen to factor into a lot of it because the extermination of Jews was the primary reason for those camps being created, but in no way does the Museum only focus on the Jewish loss of life. You lie again.
Hoe: “That you can’t see how this diminishes the Jewish people says a lot about you, and your ideas.”
That you keep lying about what the Museum does and stands for tells us what an anti-Semite you are.
Hoe: “As for the ‘Communist’ thing, everyone knows not all Jews were communists, but most communists were Jews.”
Provide proof. I want proof to back up this outrageous statement. Show it, or admit that you’re just lying again.
Hoe: “Provide proof (that most communists were Jews.) I want proof to back up this outrageous statement. Show it, or admit that you’re just lying again.”
Well, you want proof of the obvious. The list of sources of this is long and tedious. But I’ll start with the original ethnic makeup of the original Bolsheviks and the Communist International: 1) Leon Trotsky–real name was Lev Bronstein–headed the Red Army and, for a time, was chief of Soviet foreign affairs; 2) Yakov Sverdlov–real name was Solomon– was both the Bolshevik party’s executive secretary and — as chairman of the Central Executive Committee — head of the Soviet government 3) Grigori Zinoviev—real name Radomyslsky–headed the Communist International (Comintern), the central agency for spreading revolution in foreign countries 4) Press Secretary Karl Radek—real name Sobelsohn, 5) foreign affairs commissar Maxim Litvinov—real name Wallach; 6) Lev Kamenev–real name Rosenfeld; and Moisei Uritsky.
Lenin himself was only also one-quarter Jewish. His maternal grandfather, Israel (Alexander) Blank, was a Ukrainian Jew who was later baptized into the Russian Orthodox Church.
SOURCE: The Good Old Orange County Conservative Republican organization, IHR.
http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v14/v14n1p-4_Weber.html
Mr. “MOANIE”: “…the Holocaust Museum…chronicles everything that happened in regards to the concentration camps…the extermination of Jews was the primary reason for those camps being created…in no way does the Museum only focus on the Jewish loss of life. You lie again.”
Huh? What we were talking about? We were talking about the refusal of the Holocaust Museum to embrace ALL holocausts, not just the Jewish one.
We’ve been talking about the Communist holocausts for the last half hour.
You keep changing the subject because you keep losing the argument based on the facts.
Mr. “Moan-ie”: “That you keep lying about what the Museum does and stands for tells us what an anti-Semite you are.”
No, you just been defending the right of the Holocaust Museum to focus on the Jewish Holocaust to the exclusion of everybody else.
Now you’re trying to claim that the Holocaust Museum embraces everyone else.
You keep switching your position, because you’re obviously WRONG.
But the final proof that you’ve lost the argument is “anti-semitism” charge—always the last resort of the coward.
In point of fact, it is a ZIONIST argument that ANY criticism of Jews and Judaism is “anti-semitism”.
My argument is that the Holocaust Museum looks disingenuous because of it’s unwillingness to embrace ALL holocausts. That is meant as constructive criticism.
You on the other hand, have NO argument, except to call people names.
Hoe: “Well, you want proof of the obvious. The list of sources of this is long and tedious. But I’ll start with the original ethnic makeup of the original Bolsheviks and the Communist International…”
Um, no, giving us the names of seven people does not even come close to supporting your statement that “most communists were Jews,” unless somehow there were only 13 or 14 communists ever. And I’m sorry, but that someone might have Jewish ancestors or a “Jewish name” doesn’t come close to proving that a given person is actually Jewish, either in a practicing sense or in the sense that they adopted that ethnic identity. There are studies of the religious affiliations of communists — I’ve seen one, and the big majority were atheists. Yet again, your attempts at proof are pathetic.
Hoe: “We were talking about the refusal of the Holocaust Museum to embrace ALL holocausts, not just the Jewish one.”
My goodness, how quickly you forget your own words. I responded to this stupid statement of yours: “Yes, the Holocaust Museum is all about the Jews to the exclusion of anyone else.” No mention of “communist holocausts” there! Looks like you can’t even keep up with your own stupidity.
And let’s be clear, there’s a difference between “Holocaust” and “holocaust.” The former is the term ascribed particularly to what occurred in the German concentration camps during WWII. There is a Museum dedicated to that. The latter is a descriptive word for other similar events. You seem to want to get rid of the former for some reason, as if it is morally repugnant for the original Holocaust to be set apart from those that follow. The only reason that’s apparent from your ranting is a simple hatred of Jews, if one takes together all of your desperate attempts to slander the whole ethnicity with unfounded accusations of being communists and somehow enjoying the persecution of non-Jews. It’s quite sad, really.
Hoe: “No, you just been defending the right of the Holocaust Museum to focus on the Jewish Holocaust to the exclusion of everybody else. Now you’re trying to claim that the Holocaust Museum embraces everyone else.”
See above. What I’m saying is that the Museum focuses on the Holocaust, but does not pretend that there have not been other, similar events elsewhere. I’ve already pointed you to a link where the Museum described such things. Yet you continue to ignore it because it does not suit your anti-Semitic argument.
Hoe: “In point of fact, it is a ZIONIST argument that ANY criticism of Jews and Judaism is ‘anti-semitism’.”
Of course not any criticism of Jews and Judaism is anti-Semitic. But your black-helicopter-ranting about them certainly is. See above where I engage in criticism of Reform Judaism — notice the difference? I don’t make stupid accusations like “most communists were Jews” and other nonsense.
Hoe: “My argument is that the Holocaust Museum looks disingenuous because of it’s unwillingness to embrace ALL holocausts.”
Ho-hum. See above. The Holocaust Museum, per the link I’ve already given, does describe other, similar events. You just ignore it because it suits your biases. What has you so peeved is that there is a Holocaust and there are holocausts. There’s nothing wrong with that, naturally, as the Holocaust was a distinct event. There’s nothing keeping anyone else from creating museums about other events, and the Holocaust Museum wouldn’t criticize them in the least. The only thing that makes sense out of all of this dumb-boy anger is that you have a prejudice against Jews. It’s not surprising…prejudice springs from stupidity, after all.