Thursday, February 4, 2010
The New Republic's Jeffrey Herf reviews a new book on antisemitism, focusing primarily on the last few decades although the title implies focus on a broader span of time.
Regardless, the book apparently confirms our deepest fears - the sense that hatred of Jews didn't die with Hitler but rages on, taking new forms, with a dangerous new focal point in the Middle East.
A snippet of the review:
Lethal Obsession: Anti-Semitism from Antiquity to the Global Jihad by Robert S. Wistrich Random House, 1200 pp., $40
Robert Wistrich's vast and important book is the most comprehensive account in print of the history of anti-Semitism since 1945 in Europe, the Middle East, and Iran. The reference to antiquity in the title is unfortunate: its treatment of its dark subject before 1945 is very brief; 810 of its 938 pages and twenty-three of its twenty-five chapters deal with the past seven decades. Wistrich is one of the world's leading historians of the subject, particularly of the continuities and discontinuities in the history of this lethal prejudice, in Europe but also beyond it, particularly in the Arab and Muslim world.
A Lethal Obsession is an encyclopedic--and genuinely alarming--compendium of the new anti-Semitism. Wistrich gathers a massive amount of evidence to drive home the point that we are witnessing yet another significant chapter in the history of anti-Semitism, one that the conventional focus on the history of anti-Semitism before and during Nazism and the Holocaust does not address. Every historian must decide what the proper balance is between argument and evidence. No one can criticize Wistrich for paucity of evidence. The examples are plentiful, overwhelming, at times excessive. And the plenitude of scholarship here is more than is necessary to make Wistrich's argument, which is that the history of radical and potentially genocidal anti-Semitism did not end with the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945.
Hitlerism, understood as hatred of the Jews and of liberal modernity, persisted beyond the destruction of Hitler, in Wistrich's account, and acquired new political, cultural, religious, ideological, and geographical coordinates. The terminology of the new post-1945 Jew-hatred was no longer predominantly Christian, fascist, or racist. Instead it draws on neo-Marxist, Islamic, or anti-globalist ideologies. Unreconstructed neo-Nazi groups persisted, to be sure, but largely on the margins of European politics, and they ceased to be the most important source of radical anti-Semitism. Instead, the anti-Semitism after Hitler consisted of a mixture of the "old anti-Semitism" with "the new anti-Zionism." It was expressed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War, by the radical left since the 1960s, and above all in the mix of secular and Islamist politics of the Middle East and Iran.While the rallying cry of the old anti-Semitism was the attack on "world Jewry," the core of anti-Semitism has been the attack on "international Zionism" and on the state of Israel...
It's precisely this shift of emphasis, from Jews per se to Israel and "Zionists" per se that make antisemitism in our time so difficult to combat. Racism in general isn't fashionable any more - we've made enormous strides in that direction and I think the West is genuinely progressing toward a greater acceptance of people who are "the other" -- at least in public.
But Jews remain targets -- regardless of the assertion that anti-Zionism comes from these other sources, traditional Western antisemitism lurks below the surface and it's easy to arouse -- that's why you'll see British and American "progressives" overlapping with KKK or traditional neonazi tropes -- and "anti-Zionism" creates a perfect mask. It combines deniability with examples of less than perfect behavior by an admittedly embattled state -- which just so happens to be the world's only Jewish state -- and which receives a media, UN, NGO and university focus vastly out of proportion either to its tiny size or to the (so far) relatively manageable nature of the Arab/Israeli conflict.
Simply by pre-emptively stating, "We are not antisemitic because we want to criticize Israel," antisemites then feel free to attack.
Jews and other supporters of Israel are constantly on the defensive - realizing of course that not all criticism of Israel is antisemitic and much is warranted and plenty comes from inside Israel, nevertheless the criticism is often vicious and over the top. It appears in state media so biased it's hard to believe that official TV and press outlets, the respectable press, would be so lacking in objectivity, so shameless.
Even in the case of Haiti, where Israelis performed real miracles, in which Jews would like to take pride, Israel was bashed for having helped. And all of a sudden, the truly horrible situation in Haiti, where probably 200,000 will be dead and countless others homeless, maimed and bereaved, becomes equivalent to Gaza just as horrible wars in Sudan, Congo, around the world somehow vanish -- no human rights are violated except by Israel, nobody suffers except the Palestinians... Gaza becomes the Warsaw Ghetto -- Jews become Nazis. Arabs become Jews, just as "Israel" has vanished in the eyes of the Church -- the true Israel is the Church and G*d has abandoned Jews because they remain -- Jews.
Thus Israeli imperfections attain the stature of violent acts of nature, huge, awesome and unprovoked -- while real genocides are just ignored -- at the same time people like Mearscheimer and Walt blithely assure the world that the mighty powers of the West are stage managed by "The Israel Lobby" and heads of state and religious leaders clamor for Israel's destruction. Thus "criticism of "Israel" morphs back into straight up judenhaas.
In the Middle East, it isn't even hidden. Der Sturmer type cartoons and TV shows promoting blood libels and even The Protocols are popular. This is reinforced by imagery of actual warfare, thus reinforcing myth with the loss of real lives -- and to this toxic mixture incitement comes from the West and even places where there are no Jews -- like Malaysia. Naturally this results in yet more war.
Hatred of Jews has once again taken on a religious dimension as well as a political aspect; right-thinking people obviously must destroy Jews who are clearly evil, and Israel -- clearly misbegotten, must vanish.
This isn't "criticism". It's antisemitism.
What can we do about it? I confess I'm baffled. We see it all the time, from the Left, from the Right - from Muslims, from Christians, even sometimes from Jews - we see if from students and from powerful professors and we hear it from heads of state.
This really doesn't make sense.
Has it ever?
It's never made "sense," if by "sense" you mean "something rational." It's a major mental disorder of civilization. When it surges, you can be sure that society or civilization at large is suffering from a crisis, or that some powerful but threatened group is seeking to rationalize its own failures.
http://kavanna.blogspot.com/2008/04/century-later-dreyfus-case.html
"Antisemitism of course has moved on since 1945 to new forms. Within the Western world today, its main carriers are to be found on the Left, who, like those displaced and resentful French aristocrats of a century ago, resent the nature and evolution of modern capitalist society and global civilization. As always, it's starts with a need for scapegoats and reaches its climax with a general crisis of society or civilization - it's really not about Jews. It never is."
Gaza becomes 1945 Berlin.
Both have nazi ideologies, do nazi salutes, praise SHITler, hate "the other", brainwash children to fight and die for their regimes.
Gaza must SURRENDER UNCONDITIONALLY.
Embedded link is wrong. It should be
http://www.tnr.com/book/review/it-will-not-go-away
Not all that crud that prefixes it.
Dear Solomonia,
The second sentence of your blog introduction contains a spelling error. You can't spell the word "perennial." I recommend you go back to school and master the basics of writing, before venturing forth into the blogosphere.
Robert Silverman
Mr. Robert Silverman, that's a nasty, low-level shot which has nothing to do with the important issues being discussed here.
Now - do you have opinion on these matters or do you just want to be nasty?
Both issues fixed. If only Mr. Silverman had been here to warn me off 6 1/2 years ago.
Make that 7 years ago.
Binah, with respect - there continues to be a great deal of antisemitism on the Right too. I do think much "anti-Zionism" is coming from the Left but hardly all.
Jews are routinely blamed for Zionist/Communist World Domination Conspiracies and globalism, war, and of course the Left in general. Mearscheimer and Walt are from the Right. One could name many other examples; most of the stuff about the Liberty comes from right wingers who see Israel as a threat to the US. Of course Pat Buchanan is right wing, so are the neonazis.
One reason I was so shocked to see antisemitism on left wing and "progressive" blogs the past few years is that they precisely echoed the old right wing memes - dual loyalty, global conspiracies, supposed vast and secret Jewish power - left and right have overlapped on this issue and come to echo each other.
The difference with the so-called anti-racist Left is that Israel is portrayed as the poster child of colonialism/imperialism, without any context let alone Jewish history, as though Israel, size of New Jersey, is a stand-in for the British Empire.
This is nominally less racist or religiously biased but it comes from the same Western culture - the Western Left and the Western Right grew from the same roots. I think it's impossible to separate left wing antisemitism from the old right wing stuff, and I think they cross-fertilize each other.
Therefore I think this needs to be taken out of a right/left political discussion although the contributions of Leninism to judenhaas can't be underestimated.
This includes the view of The International Jew as a stand-in for imperialism in general, just as The International Jew was a stand-in for socialism, unions, attempts to "infect whites" with "orientalism", etc, in the not-so-distant past.
Weirdly Jews/Israel in post-colonial philosophy are now "white" in the pejorative sense whereas we of course are "not white" and "oriental" in the pejorative sense on the far Right.
The fact is, both the Western Right and the Western Left evolved from the same ethos, and the underlying culture that created both has to be taken into consideration. A lot of antisemitism is specifically misojudaic, in addition to being political and racist, both in Christendom and in Islam.
I think it is much worse in the former though.
Only very recently have some Christian groups begun to deal with religiously-based antisemitism. Up until very recently contemporary Jews were held guilty of "killing Jesus" in formal theology and I think some Christians still believe this, not least in the Orthodox tradition and in the Middle East.
Of course people will wriggle and say the Nazis weren't "Christians" and ignore the fact that the Soviet Union was built in the world of the Eastern Orthodox.
In both cases, left and right wing politics evolved from the same belief system in which Jews were outsiders, "orientals," a very small minority which had been oppressed, damned for the death of Christ; thus religiously guilty.
That's why a study of Western antisemitic memes and their importation to the East and the contribution of antisemitism in the Arab/Israeli conflict are so important.
It's made things way worse and some Muslim scholars think it's the nexus between Nazism and radical factions of Islam which have created the modern jihad, which is extremely antisemitic, not just "anti-Zionist".
Sophia,
There is no Left and Right at opposite ends.
They are all spread out on one side of the Socialist ideology with conservative seekers of individualfreedom and liberty on the other side..
The Nazis were socialists - see Hitler's 1927 Mayday speech.
The only difference between Stalin and Hitler was that Hitler was more industrialised and created production lines for killing whereas Stalin used crude medieval techniques of starvation and hard labour to kill.
Cynic, I agree with you that there's no Left/Right at the far ends of political spectrum, which often overlap especially when it comes to antisemitism and they mirror each other in terms of extremism.
I would disagree however, with respect, that the Nazis were socialists.
This is a common misunderstanding because they co-opted the term "Socialist" to describe a political system that was actually anti-socialist and definitely anti-Communist. In fact one reason both the Nazis and the British Empire were antisemitic is because they associated communism with the Jews.
On the other hand Jews are also traditionally associated with banking (capitalism) so we can't win.
Economically the Nazis were anything but socialist but rather extremely capitalistic.
They were a totalitarian state, a police state, but they were fascist rather than socialist: power was vested top down, not in the workers, but rather in political leaders, the military and very importantly, in corporations.
Also they maintained a class system including an aristocracy. That is contrary to socialist principles, and they were aggressively capitalist; indeed many stockholders in major German/Nazi corporations were Americans and other Europeans, and also they were very active in South America and influential in the Middle East - this remained true after the war also, with disastrous results.
Nazi Germany was kind of a capitalist totalitarianism, very dangerous in part precisely because it was able to create such high-end technology and extremely efficient mass production - as you point out.
I think also it had broad based popular support. I don't think the Nazis could have done what they did had the people not been enthusiastically involved. Also though they were scared - people saw what happened to dissenters so they just kept their heads down and their mouths shut. That said people were just about all part of Hitler Youth - even the present day Pope - they were indoctrinated early so when the war came the machine functioned just about flawlessly.
The Soviet Union was coming from much farther back - Russia had been a feudal system, an Empire in the classic sense, with vast numbers of illiterate peasants who were oppressed by the aristocracy until the revolution, but even so it's a mistake to assume the Soviets didn't accomplish much technologically.
In fact they did - even under the paranoid Stalin their aircraft designers did incredible work and their army and industrial machine turned out to be a match for the blitzkrieg although the costs in human terms were enormous. And, in fact, after WWII they beat the US into space.
That said, in practice, communism didn't work out so well economically at least in part because it was imposed violently on the people rather than evolving democratically.
And, it was oppressive. The most creative people often wound up in Siberia - even during WWII Stalin imprisoned some of his best aircraft designers.
Socialism on the other hand isn't necessarily totalitarian at all, it's an economic system based on empowering little people.
Its ideology theoretically empowers the workers, so it's a bottom-up idea which can co-exist with democracy as long as it isn't imposed via revolution or a police state.
It's also the opposite of fascism, which puts so much power in corporate and political chiefs rather than in the people, who are nevertheless vital to the success of the system - so conformity is demanded, sometimes through subtle means.
I think people fear socialist ideas because they confuse socialism with revolutionary Communism, which is what happened in the Soviet Union and which is also a totalitarian system, also demanding conformity.
In fact though, many democratic states are either socialist or have socialist aspects including the US. It's a way of sharing resources to prevent people from going without basics and also to alleviate some of the polarities of wealth that appear otherwise and which ultimately result in unstable or oppressive systems that limit opportunity and invite the abuse of the powerless.
That's completely different from fascism which was the Nazi philosphy, also Mussolini's, etc. and it is also different from Communism that's imposed by revolution rather than by consent.
There are examples of communist enclaves for example on collectives in free societies like Israel, where there are kibbutzim - communist or socialist communities where people freely choose to belong. Some of these are actually very successful and innovative.
Fascists aren't necessarily right wing, and there's a lot that classical progressives share with authoritarians and that is at odds with what used to be called liberalism.
It's confusing because today's liberals call themselves progressive, and because liberals in American politics generally favor big government rather than the free-market approach of Liberal parties in Europe or Israel, where the Likud bloc was formed mainly by a merger of the Liberal Party (organized around economic liberalism) and Herut (lit. freedomJewish independence and nationalism after Jabotinsky.
Jonah Goldberg's book Liberal Fascism does a good job of elucidating the history and common heritage of authoritarian, totalitarian movements whether from the left or the right. Naturally enough, today's liberals and progressives are in denial, despite the thorough and heavily documented research Goldberg presents. Reviews from the left call it absurd or an alternate reality Bizarro-history, but they don't refute the arguments he makes.
Christopher Hitchens doesnt get it either. There are distinctions to be made between Nazism and Sovietism, Hilterism and Stalism, but they are both of the Left.
A Nation of Racist Dwarfs
http://www.slate.com/id/2243112/
The early 20th century US Ku Klux Klan were also progressive Leftists. They were supporters of FDRs New Deal. They held high government office and considerable power as a party in several mid western states.
The eugenicist racist Magaret Sanger was progressive Leftist. Her legacy continues in Planned Parenthood, which disproportionately aborts black children, offspring of the poor, aborting mentally retarded or physically disabled children and so on and so forth.
As an aside..
I wanted to include this quote by William F. Buckley...where he uses liberals in the late 20th century US sense meaning progressives and Western Leftists.
“Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views.”
Nappy, thank you for your comments. You are certainly correct about the confusion! and I think in the matter of "liberal fascism," ie liberals or leftists who try to quash dissent, who won't even listen to other ideas, there's a point to that. And of course there's always the shining example of Stalin in case people forget that the Left can go badly wrong - now Chavez is apparently attempting to stifle dissent also.
Also it's obvious that some supposedly left wing politicians have lost their marbles (like George Galloway) and support oppressive theocracies.
I don't get it. I'm trying to figure out why this is. It seems contrary to humanist values for one thing - and also it totally ignores human rights within these societies, in the name of defending the underdog, which makes it doubly wierd.
EV, I'm a little baffled. How exactly are the KKK either "left" or "progressive"?
It is true that they were influential and virtually ran many state governments, also that up until quite recently the Democratic Party was the dominant party of the South and proudly "the party of White Supremacism".
Lincoln's Republicans were the party fighting that and they would have been the progressives, the KKK were IMO racist reactionaries and the fact that they supported the New Deal would have been due to the dreadful suffering of the Depression rather than to any sort of political affinity for FDR or progressive politics in general.
Right or wrong?
Or do you consider reactionary racism and white supremacism, laced with antisemitism, progressive virtues?
And, do you consider FDR to have been wrong under the circumstances? I don't know how old you are but I grew up with Depression stories and FDR was a hero to my parents, both of whom experienced great poverty.
I can tell you something that should be obvious: he saved countless lives, helped countless people and his legacy lives on in ways that mean everything to countless Americans.
As far as the KKK is concerned vis a vis FDR - well even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
Also, your characterization of Margaret Sanger is grossly unfair and biased. Agreed, her opinions on race were reactionary and unfair, and we have come a long way since those days.
Correct?
It was only a few years ago in fact since our President would have been unable to eat at the lunch counter or ride in the front of the bus.
That said, Margaret Sanger was anti-Nazi, is a person who did wonders for women and was held in high esteem by African-American leaders like Marin Luther King.
Please give her biography a more fair reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Sanger
Also, you can blather on all you want about the Nazis being "left wing" but they assuredly were not.
I don't know why you insist on that. It's as though you are more interested in dissing the Left than discussing the topic of this thread, which is antisemitism.
Now, why is that?
Correction, obviously I meant "Martin" Luther King.
Sophia said...
"some Muslim scholars think it's the nexus between Nazism and radical factions of Islam which have created the modern jihad"
Hence, Islamofascism.
"Right or wrong?"
Wrong, I suggest you study the history of the KKK. They were for the little guys, by your definition socialist and therefore Leftist. They supported public education, redistribution of wealth, and other government involvement to ease the lives of the poor and small timers. As with Hitler and Stalin, they beleived in progressive eugenicist policies with regards to improving society.
The post Civil War, Klan was reactionary. They died out, and a new Klan came into being in the early 20th century.
"Or do you consider reactionary racism and white supremacism, laced with antisemitism, progressive virtues?"
It doesnt matter what you or I consider progressive virtues, it is what Hitler, Stalin, Sanger, FDR and the KKK considered progressive virtues at the time. They were not conservatives. They were progressives.
You have a definitional problem, labeling any group that you dont like as of the right.
"Agreed, her opinions on race were reactionary and unfair, and we have come a long way since those days.
Correct?"
Her opinions werent reactionary, they were progressive.
What the hell was she reacting to? She was well educated and enamored with improving society in new ways with government programs for improving the genetic and social fabric of society by isolating and limiting the procreation of undesireables....in "humane" ways.
To this day, Planned Parenthood and the Pro Abortion groups continue to argue that abortion benefits society, by elimination of undesirables that would have been born into difficult circumstances and likely turned out to be criminals and societal monsters.
"That said, Margaret Sanger was anti-Nazi, is a person who did wonders for women and was held in high esteem by African-American leaders like Marin Luther King."
This is what I hear when reading that paragraph. That said, Stalin was anti Nazi, is a person who did wonders for women and was held in high esteem by African American leaders like Paul Robeson.
EV, let's look at this a little more carefully ok?
A. Not everybody I disagree with is "right wing" and sometimes I agree with the Right, at least moderates, for example on national security issues.
I have plenty of issues with the left also especially when they stray into oppressive, reactionary territory like supporting oppressive regimes abroad. Obviously, Marxism was totally perverted by people like Stalin who disappeared millions of the people he was supposed to be protecting, and he oppressed millions more - it is inexcusable - BUT - without Stalin Hitler might well have conquered Russia and gotten through to the oil fields in the East.
Both are true - isn't it possible to see things in toto and not just in a black/white, either/or dichotomy which doesn't being to reflect reality?
B. I've actually spent a lot more time arguing with my fellow leftists than with the Right especially on this issue. It frequently seems to me that the Left can be progressive at home but reactionary when it comes to people abroad.
In the interest of "preserving indigenous cultures" for example they can be brutally indifferent to human rights within those cultures and also, don't seem to respect their own - taking for granted the rights we enjoy in the West.
C. The "little guy" represented by the KKK SHOULD logically favor the left but in fact, especially in rural areas and in the South, even if they vote Democratic, they don't. Southern ie Blue Dog Dems are really very conservative.
And, for example many of the Tea Partiers who are stridently fighting against health care that would help little people are "little guys" who probably need health care.
This doesn't really make sense, in fact frequently I think little guys are being used by big guys, rich Republicans, who get the little guys all wired up against "banks" and "gov'mint", using scare tactics like the "Obama Death Panels", so forth and ridiculous arguments against a cleaner environment, even bringing religion into the argument.
That's silly. The oil industry is making big bucks while simultaneously polluting the environment and OF COURSE they don't want to change - but people's belief in the Bible is being used to support airborne filth and the pollution of the seas, which is going to cost us bigtime, trust me.
D. Rural and Southern ie Red State people often have a different view of things than coastal, big city people, it doesn't matter the economic class.
That's ok. But, it doesn't make it any the less silly to refer to the KKK as "progressive".
E. As for Margaret Sanger - some of her views were very progressive, way ahead of their time - and others, on eugenics - were disgusting but very much of their time.
Nowadays we'd call them reactionary, racist, and they were. Racism was actually more common than not, which is why people like President Obama, Harvard education and all, couldn't sit in the front of the bus.
Fortunately, we have made a lot of progress since then.
F. Many - most people - have ideas that are all mixed - that's not unusual and what is progressive in one era might seem reactionary in another (ie eugenics).
G. As far as women's rights are concerned: Sanger did not want to promote abortion to create racial superiority but rather to help women.
Women frequently died and still die not only from botched abortion but in childbirth. This is particularly true in poor communities and in developing nations abroad but it happens here too.
Promoting birth control and allowing choice as a last resort empowers women and saves their lives.
H. In any case, a woman's body isn't your business and it isn't the government's either, and you should not read pro-choice as meaning "use of abortion to get rid of undesirables" because that isn't the object at all and you know it.
In any case, Planned Parenthood's primary objective is to provide information and BIRTH CONTROL, not to get rid of "undesirables".
Sheese EV, I think you know this, you just want to make an argument where there isn't one.
Now - what about the topic of this thread? Do you have any opinions?
Sophia,
Also, you can blather on all you want about the Nazis being "left wing" but they assuredly were not.
You need to do a lot of reading. Assuredly they were socialists and they agreed with Marx more than you imagine.
You should pay more attention to Mr Byrd and co. The American Democrats were, and some still are, the worst racists and not just white on black.
Sophia, I cant straighten you out on those multiple fronts in this one discussion...but at least please give Jonah Goldberg which covers pretty thoroughly the gist of his book Liberal Fascism in this video discussing it at the Heritage Foundation...(especially as regards the Nazis).
This is the first part...there are 3 or so parts.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsFoiVZDSRs
To save some of your time, start the first video at about 6 minutes and 30 seconds in.
Not obviously. Many other Leftwing experiments in socialism have been just as horrid and murderous. Social Democrats want to get to the same place, but just more gradually. The idea, that they just haveing gotten it right yet is ludicrous.
You just opened the door for defense of the KKK and the Nazis.
Hitler did wonders for the German People, and was held in high esteem by African American leaders like W.E.B. DuBois.
In the interest of "preserving indigenous cultures" for example they can be brutally indifferent to human rights within those cultures and also, don't seem to respect their own - taking for granted the rights we enjoy in the West."
Double standards. Furthermore, this is evidence of anti Westernism as well. They dont treat the indigenous Europeans and their cultures for example with any respect, and villify them, denigrate them, and hold them in contempt. All the while effusing about how wonderful tribes with bones through their noses in jungles are....and need to be respected...and the ancient wisdom of these tribesman. When they head to rural America (or Alaska) they scoff at the ignorant bigoted yokels and their crass culture.
They did, as I have pointed out. The KKK is not a large or well respected group in the South. Furthermore, are you presuming to tell Southerners what is in their own interests and how they should vote? As if those ignorant rural rednecks are too dumb to understand what is in their best interest? I know that you think that they do so simply because they are terrified of "the other". Shame on you.
Many on the Right, Conservatives, and Tea Partiers support Health Care Reform and have offered up great ideas and plans to address the problems...which are more effective, less costly, and more practical, which involve less government and more competition. So you are just plain wrong on that score.
Do you think that Leftist often use scare tactics to promote their agendas. Such as Global Environmental Catastrophe Fearmongering (unsupported by evidence) and racial fearmongering, in order to motivate little guys to vote against their best interests? Did you know that the Slavery Abolitionists used religious arguments against slavery and furthermore that Civil Right's activists like Martin Lurther King used appeals to Christian religion (which was the brilliance of King BTW). It wasnt the Jews and other groups that brought the Civil Rights legislation to be about, it was Christians who were shamed into upholding their own professed beliefs....who ultimately decided that segregation and discrimination was wrong and sinful, in the eyes of God.
What is silly is your simplistic argument. Oil industry provides a very useful product. No one is for destroying the planet or environmental pollution. But every hair brained foolishness that the Left pushes isnt the last word on that issue, you know. Nuclear power for example, was legislated and lawfared out of existance by the Left in the late 70s and 80s. Now those same yahoos are admitting that nuclear is better than oil and coal, and where once we were world leaders in the nuclear power industry are now 30 years behind the French and even the Chinese for Christ's sake.
Clearly they were progressives...by your own definitions applied to them and their policy advocations and agendas.
You can make the same arguments for Hitler. Yet I dont see you hedging for Hitler. You think Sanger was good for women, others see Hitler as good for white people and make the same arguments in favor of Hitler that you are making for Sanger. Yet they are evil and you are progressive and a good person.
I agree, but we also have made a lot of big mistakes...and furthermore the agenda has been corrupted into tribalist favor seeking, and not universal rights and equality before the law, equality of opportunity. The power of government is being abused to social engineer to the utopian vision, which means that some peoples equality and rights are being trounced on in order to promote that utopian agenda...as always, time and again. Furthermore with the policy of no enemies on the Left, people and groups that arent interested in your utopian visions, are gaming the system for their own tribalist interests. The most odious of groups like the Black Panthers as just one example have been coddled and apologized for...while their opponents are denigrated as reactionary haters. See also Islam.
No doubt. One would think that you could recognize the odiousness of Sanger, by now. But I guess not. What odiousness of today's Left will the future Left be apologizing for or conveniently forgetting as they applaud Galloway as a great humanitarian, who did a lot of great work for empowering Muslims over the racist white Euro Christian patriarchy.
You may want to look into that. Her advocations for birth control were heavily influenced by her desire to improve society and social aspects.
Its like you are saying, hey, if we look past Hitler and the Nazis murder, racism and war making, then those Nazis were really progressive guys, they should be hailed as progressive heros!
Mindboggling.
Yes, but a defenseless child whose rights are being abused are my business, because I make them my business. I oppose the abuse of their civil and human rights, and them being treated like sub human or non human garbage. It is THE human rights issue of our time in this country and around the world. The unborn are being slaughtered. You claim to champion the rights of the oppressed, well here is your chance to prevent the indiscriminate mass murder of the most vulnerable group on the planet. (and if you are just interested in your own myopic view or your own groups self interest, then you should know that more baby girls are aborted than boys worldwide.)
This isnt about women's bodies, this is about the worst sort of human rights abuse of the most vulnerable human beings on the planet.
You know it isnt a crime for men to kill their wives, or girlfriends, or female relatives in many Islamic countries because women are seen as property and having less human rights than men. Well you cant make the argument that they are human rights abusing cretins, while you claim the same rights to kill your children in the womb.
EV