“Am I sometimes exasperated by the barmier entries, including by those who appear to believe that all terrorism is always false flag? Yes, I am sometimes. But no more than I am exasperated by those who swallow the entire war on terror agenda and the associated wars and attacks on liberty at home.”
I am having an interesting dialogue with angrysoba in comments on his blogpost about one of my blogposts. Some people don’t seem to get the concept of open debate. Angrysoba appears to be angry because he believes it is wrong for anyone to be allowed to express views which he deplores.
http://angrysoba.blogspot.com/2009/12/british-ambassador-and-his-loony.html
jaded and ,
you do not seem have any shadow of doubt about these assertions you are making.
But is that any excuse for your panic attacks?
Let people engage and exchange opinions freely without this belligerence.
What are you afraid of?
Jaded: “Give hime some credit. He called one thing right:
angrysoab:
‘Feasting off Craig’s liberal approach to free speech.'”
I didn’t even write that.
“angrysoab:
no one gives a flying rats ass about your anonymous blogger site.
you ooze despair, and your comments on this thread shows it. you apparently must have a last word, so feel free to reply with more “9/11 twoooooofers hate jooooos” comments…”
What’s the name of this thread?
All you Israel brown-nosers who haven’t worked out the malign agenda of the masonic state and its involvement in 9/11 should do some research here:
http://jewishcriminalnetworkdid911.blogspot.com/
Wake up you dumb goyim!
Angrysoba- thanks for admitting that Goldhagen’s ‘Willing Executioners’ is ‘flawed’.
I’m all the more perplexed, therefore, about why you recommended him to Hawley jnr in one of your early comments. Perhaps you’re neither a fool or a facilitator, just a provocateur !
As well as blowing hot and cold about Goldhagen, you appear to do the same about Koestler; in one post you call him erudite, but in another, you dismiss his thesis about the Khazar origins of Ashkenazi jewry as ‘bullshit’. Koestler’s stuff about the paranormal was certainly bullshit, but ‘The Thirteenth Tribe’ wasn’t, and more reputable scholars than him reckon that the historical and genetic evidence makes the Khazar case, at the minimum, a defensible one.
In another one of your posts you give the great Theodore Dalrymple some deserved praise- at least 1 can agree with you 100% on that one.
“Angrysoba- thanks for admitting that Goldhagen’s ‘Willing Executioners’ is ‘flawed’.”
Well, I don’t feel like it is an “admission” I would have willingly agreed to that from the beginning.
You may have missed out why I mentioned him in the first place. I was responding to a few posters here who were whining and moaning about the Holocaust is set in stone because debate is not allowed.
I said this isn’t true. There is plenty that is debated and then asked:
“The Holocaust is open to scrutiny, you fool! There are all kinds of different interpretations of it. For example, which side, MS, do you fall on the Christopher Browning-Daniel Jonah Goldhagen debate, I wonder?”
I pointed out that just about the only thing criminalized in some countries is outright denial – usually denying that there were gas chambers, or vastly lowering the numbers or that it was intentional – and that I don’t approve of criminalizing Holocaust denial. I was still set upon by numerous weirdos and cranks who placed the word Holocaust in inverted commas or had what they thought were devastating questions which really only revealed their own ignorance, including Hawley Jr who seemed to suggest that those involved in the Holocaust wouldn’t have realized the rising increments of their own behaviour until they were completely complicit. I suggested then…
“Hawley Jr.
Maybe you should read a few of those I have mentioned earlier. Browning, Goldhagen…perhaps Hilberg or others.”
…especially given that Glenn had linked to Rense.com – which is a Holocaust denial site among other loony conspiracies. I am sure you would agree even Goldhagen is preferable to Rense.
On Koestler, I didn’t call him erudite – that was Steelback – another budding fascist who I was quoting. Of course Darkness At Noon was a great book but the Thirteenth Tribe is considered about as useful as scholarship as Holy Blood, Holy Grail.
In fact Theodore Dalrymple is also dismissive of the Thirteenth Tribe in his otherwise complimentary essay on Koestler:
http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_2_oh_to_be.html
@angrysoba: ‘…including Hawley Jr who seemed to suggest that those involved in the Holocaust wouldn’t have realized the rising increments of their own behaviour until they were completely complicit. I suggested then…
“Hawley Jr.
Maybe you should read a few of those I have mentioned earlier. Browning, Goldhagen…perhaps Hilberg or others.”‘
Seemed to suggest? I was not speaking of the Holocaust, nor have I done so in any comment.
I was commenting on Larry from St Louis’ remark:
“If I thought that I were living in Hitlers’s Germany, I would be resisting every day. I would be ethically compelled to blow up train tracks and destroy government buildings, and perhaps do even worse. At a minimum, I would exploit today’s free speech rights to protest every single day.”
I commented:
‘Do you think you would notice?
“To live in the process is absolutely not to notice it – please try to believe me – unless one has a much greater degree of political awareness, acuity, than most of us ever had occasion to develop.
Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, ‘regretted.’… Believe me this is true. Each act, each occasion is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next. You wait for one shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join you in resisting somehow… Suddenly it all comes down, all at once… You remember everything now, and your heart breaks. Too late. You are compromised beyond repair.”
German professor describing the arrival of Nazism in Europe to American journalist Milton Mayer.’
You responded to that with:
‘Breaking in the shops of Jews or stripping them naked and shooting them in the back of the head may seem like “increments” to you but if that is the case then maybe you should be more on the lookout. After all, if those aren’t increments, maybe ranting about “usury” or “Zionism” or “global banking” is where it starts.’
Please note, I have not posted any comments, or otherwise ranted, about “usury” or “Zionism” or “global banking”. But I understand the motivation of those who do post such comments. Perhaps if you were not so obsessive you might understand more and be less inclined to twist meanings to suit your purpose.
Angrysoba writes- ‘Of course Darkness At Noon was a great book but the Thirteenth Tribe is considered about as useful as scholarship as Holy Blood, Holy Grail.
In fact Theodore Dalrymple is also dismissive of the Thirteenth Tribe in his otherwise complimentary essay on Koestler:’
I have Dalrymple’s City Journal article. You are clearly dismissive of the Thirteenth Tribe, but Dalrymple (in a brief passing reference to it)is silent on the merits of the work itself; he merely observes that it is a work ‘still cited by anti-Zionists’. That is a plain, neutral statement of fact, and not the value judgement on the book’s merits that you would like it to be.
Hawley Jr. I’m sorry if I misunderstood you, but I also still think you are making a mistake to confuse the US (even under the Bush administration) with the Nazis. It was pretty clear what the Nazis were about from even before they were elected. Hitler implemented the policies he ran on as spelt out in Mein Kampf and there were some genuine protests that were successful – for a short time. But many of those who knew what was in store for them if they stayed, left the country during the 30s.
“I have Dalrymple’s City Journal article. You are clearly dismissive of the Thirteenth Tribe, but Dalrymple (in a brief passing reference to it)is silent on the merits of the work itself; he merely observes that it is a work ‘still cited by anti-Zionists’. That is a plain, neutral statement of fact, and not the value judgement on the book’s merits that you would like it to be.”
Ha ha! I don’t think it’s a ringing endorsement to say that it is cited as propaganda. In fact saying that it is cited as propaganda and nothing more about the book sounds like he’s dismissing it.
Anyway, I’m looking around to see which respectable writers acutally endorse his central thesis and one of the first pages I come across is by non-other than Eric Hufschmid, the virulently anti-semitic 9/11 Truther. Okay, lets read some reviews at Amazon. Oh look! If you buy this book you could buy it for a bargain price with “Synagogues of Satan” and Martin Luther’s “The Jews and Their Lies”.
Well, I think that tells us plenty about the target audience.
@angrysoba :”Hawley Jr. I’m sorry if I misunderstood you, but I also still think you are making a mistake to confuse the US (even under the Bush administration) with the Nazis. It was pretty clear what the Nazis were about from even before they were elected. Hitler implemented the policies he ran on as spelt out in Mein Kampf and there were some genuine protests that were successful – for a short time. But many of those who knew what was in store for them if they stayed, left the country during the 30s.”
For fuck’s sake! You’re still attributing to me words that I did not write. And now you have the conceit to suggest you would have done better than the German professor I quoted and the majority of the German people – you, an apologist for the atrocities and greed of today’s power-grubbers.
Correction to my previous comment to you –
I said I had not posted any comments, or otherwise ranted, about “usury” or “Zionism” or “global banking”.’
That’s not correct. I recall that some months back I posted a comment with a link to the video, ‘The Money Masters – How International Bankers Gained Control of America’. If you have the time to watch the video (it’s three-and-a-half hours long), I’d be interested to know whether you think it conspiracy theory or conspiracy fact.
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-515319560256183936&ei=kHtDS9uvNsyP-Aby8t3eBQ
“And now you have the conceit to suggest you would have done better than the German professor I quoted and the majority of the German people”
I am still not entirely sure what your point is.
Are you or are you not making a moral equivalence between the US of today and Nazi Germany from 1933 onwards?
Would I have “done better” than the German professor you quoted? I don’t know because the quote is somewhat decontextualised. I don’t know if the professor is talking about soon after the Nazi takeover during which the Nazis merely called for a boycott of Jewish industries or from 1935 when the Nuremburg laws called for a boycott of Jewish academics and had professors stripped of their titles or refused positions in universities.
Do I think I would have noticed?
Hmmm…Do you think if they had asked, say, Victor Klemperer whether he noticed when he lost his university job he would say that it was all too gradual to know?
Well, maybe Klemperer did hope things would get better even as they got progressively worse.
But ask yourself this, is there anything like that happening now? Whose shops are being targetted and their windows smashed in? Whose shops is a rabble-rousing demagogue urging to have shut down? Whose academics are being boycotted by universities?
Do you notice?
angrysoba,
I think, perhaps, you’ve agreed the point the German professor was making, by saying, “Well, maybe Klemperer did hope things would get better even as they got progressively worse.”
As far as I can tell, in the quoted statement the professor was discussing the general aspects of Nazism in Germany. You brought the subject specifically to the treatment of Jews and to the Holocaust.
The way the Jews were treated, and the manner in which it came about, appals, shocks and frightens me. It also makes me awake to the techniques used to demonise a people and thus to make it acceptable to murder them in large numbers. And, yes, in answer to your question, I do notice there is something like that happening now.
‘Well, I think that tells us plenty about the target audience’.
Angrysoba- I notice that the focus of your attention has shifted from the intrinsic merits of ‘The Thirteenth Tribe’ to the demerits of what you call its ‘target audience’. Nice try, but that simply won’t do. Have you actually read the book, or have you just been programmed to anathemise it at the drop of a hat ?
My ancient paperback version of the book includes the following appendix by Koestler,from which I quote below-
‘While this book deals with past history, it unavoidably carries certain implications…I am aware of the danger that it may be maliciously interpreted as a denial of the State of Israel’s right to exist. But that right is not based on the hypothetical origins of the Jewish people…Whatever the Israeli citizens racial origins, and whatever illusions they entertain about them, their state exists de jure and de facto, and cannot be undone except by genocide… The Jews who inhabit it, regardless of their chequered origins, possess the essential requirements of a nation: a country of their own, a common language, government and army. The Jews of the diaspora have none of these requirements of nationhood. What sets them apart as a special category from the gentiles amidst whom they live is their declared religion, whether they practice it or not. Here lies the basic difference between Israelis and Jews of the diaspora.’
I concur 100% with the views expressed here by Koestler . With which of these statements do you disagree ? And again, have you actually read the book ?
I think we should be told, particularly as you are so insistent in on comparing The Thirteenth Tribe with tosh such as Holy Blood, Holy Grail.
Barbara:
‘Let people engage and exchange opinions freely without this belligerence.’
Babs, Craig’s blog has been under sustained attack and you call ‘me’ belligerent? Ha, ha, ha. Good one you daft wally… ;-0
Mark, I haven’t read the book. I have only read about it and I have only made observations about those who claim it is worth anything.
From my observations I can see that no serious scientist or historian appears to give it much credence (even Tony Judt who, almost alone, praises Shlomo Sand calls the Thirteenth Tribe as “bizarre, misguided attempt to demonstrate the Ashkenazi’s descendence from the Khazars”)
I also think that its target audience, at least by those who currently sell the book, are those interested in psuedohistory or pseudoscience and that it is not irrelevant who reads it today.
Many people thought that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion was real. Even the Times of London once speculated that it was real. Now, all but a few purchasers of “Synagogues of Satan”, “The Jews and Their Lies” and, well… “The Thirteenth Tribe” think there is any credence to this hoax document. I haven’t read that either. Have you?
The point being we must have a criteria for what is worth reading without always having to read something first and to sometimes trust those who are more experienced about these things. (Dalrymple says this in an essay too, specifically about the Protocols).
Angrysoba- no I haven’t read ‘Synagogues of Satan’ or ‘The Jews and Their Lies’, as an elementary smell test is enough to put me off such malevolent rubbish. ‘The Thirteenth Tribe’ isn’t malevolent rubbish, and although some of it’s conclusions are dated in the light of some recent studies, it was well received on publication in 1976 by, inter alia, George Steiner. It was actually one of the last of Koestler’s works to garner some favourable reviews- and not just from rabid anti-semites, as you seem to believe.
“‘The Thirteenth Tribe’ isn’t malevolent rubbish, and although some of it’s conclusions are dated in the light of some recent studies, it was well received on publication in 1976 by, inter alia, George Steiner.”
Sure. I know that Koestler was well-meaning and I am sure that it came across as an intriguing thesis to some at the time. But, as you said, its main thesis has been pretty much debunked and no genuine scholars see it as having much value.
So, what value does it have these days? Well, it may be well-written and it may have some extraneously interesting history, I don’t know. But going to Amazon.com and finding it sold combined with the malevolent rubbish means that an elementary smell test puts me off it.
Again, I am not impugning Koestler’s motives and I think he’s a good novelist but his ventures into other fields were almost invariably cranky, the Thirteenth Tribe looks, in retrospect to be early in that descent into crankiness (although a case could be made for saying he’d always been attracted to “the big idea” that explained it all.)
Anyway, just to be clear. I am not accusing you or Koestler of anti-semitism or of him writing “malevolent rubbish”.
It could be said I am playing a double standard with Koestler and Goldhagen here, but I am not. The discussion on Koestler was about his central thesis which I think has been discredited, whereas my recommendations of Goldhagen have been to do with the subject matter of the Holocaust itself rather than his central thesis but also to point out that debates and revisions occur within the standard scholarly Holocaust literature.
I’ve looked back through our exchange here and I THINK I have been civil to you throughout. There are some I haven’t been civil with but then I think the reasons are clear enough.
So, no hard feelings I hope.
‘So, no hard feelings I hope.’
Angrysoba-the sentiment is reciprocated at my end
Angrysoba, you say that Arthur Koestler’s central theisis (about the genetic/racial origins of the Askenazim) has been discredited. Please explain in your own words what that thesis is and why it is discredited.
Also, please stop using expletives and being borish when posting on other people’s sites. If you don’t lick this sort of filthy habit, it becomes your character, and then somebody is going to smack you in the face again just like that Christian fundamentalist did a while back in Osaka, and once again you won’t know why they did it.
Angrysoba: “For example, I don’t think Ernst Zundel should be in jail for denying the Holocaust but I think he’s a nasty piece of work as pretty much anyone who denies the Holocaust is. I think it’s deplorable to call him “Europe’s No.1 Political Prisoner”.”
Have you ever met Ernst personally? Have you given his opinions and claims about the Holocaust your serious consideration? On what basis do you consider him “a nasty piece of work”?
Also, who do you consider to be Europe’s No.1 Political Prisoner, given that they don’t lock people up for selling apples by the pound anymore?
“Have you ever met Ernst personally? Have you given his opinions and claims about the Holocaust your serious consideration? On what basis do you consider him “a nasty piece of work”?”
I don’t have to have met Ernst Zundel to know that he’s a nasty piece of work. He’s a neo-Nazi who dresses in concentration camp uniforms during his free-speech demos.
You might find that perfectly acceptable, maybe even comic, but I think it’s nasty at the very least.
Oh, and I’ve never met Charles Manson either. Does that mean I can’t say he’s not a nasty piece of work?
“Also, please stop using expletives and being borish when posting on other people’s sites. ”
Who made you the referee? And why do you single me out? There are plenty of people using expletives here and plenty using them at me. Craig Murray appears to be fine with that and has said I am welcome (and not just tolerated) to post here despite any number of commenters calling for my comments to be deleted and for me to be banned.
“If you don’t lick this sort of filthy habit, it becomes your character, and then somebody is going to smack you in the face again just like that Christian fundamentalist did a while back in Osaka, and once again you won’t know why they did it.”
Always sticking up for thugs, congratulations. You don’t know what happened in that incident so stop making threats. And stop acting like you own the place.
“Angrysoba, you say that Arthur Koestler’s central theisis (about the genetic/racial origins of the Askenazim) has been discredited. Please explain in your own words what that thesis is and why it is discredited.”
That the Ashkenazim descended from the Khazars, as you said. It is discredited on the basis of lack of evidence.
Angrysoba:
“let’s debate it. Did the Holocaust really happen?”
I make it a general rule not to debate that question. But in your case I’ll make an exception. My short answer is, yes, the Holocaust really did happen.
Do you agree?
Angrysoba,
“The only kind of “debate” that the use of the term “denier” rules out when studying the Holocaust is whether it happened or not.”
In principle perhaps, but not in practice. One only has to ask questions about how many victims there were, whether they were made into soap, whether there were gas chambers at this or that particular camp, whether Hitler knew, or whether Ellie Wiesel fabricated his recollections, to be labeled as a “holocaust denier”, which can loose you your job in Britain and your liberty in Germany.
“I make it a general rule not to debate that question. But in your case I’ll make an exception. My short answer is, yes, the Holocaust really did happen.
Do you agree?”
Of course.
“In principle perhaps, but not in practice. One only has to ask questions about how many victims there were, whether they were made into soap, whether there were gas chambers at this or that particular camp, whether Hitler knew, or whether Ellie Wiesel fabricated his recollections, to be labeled as a “holocaust denier””
And by Holocaust I am talking about an intentional system of genocide aimed at a number of groups in which somewhere between 5 and 6 million Jews were killed and in which the gas chambers were used.
And the idea that soap was made of the victims has been discredited. At least on any mass scale.
“I don’t have to have met Ernst Zundel to know that he’s a nasty piece of work. He’s a neo-Nazi who dresses in concentration camp uniforms during his free-speech demos.”
In what sense is he a neo-Nazi? Please tell us about his political philosophy if you are privy to it.
What’s wrong with dressing in a concentration camp uniform as part of a demo? Hollywood actors do it all the time. Would you prefer he dressed like a Stormtrooper a-la Prince Henry?
“Oh, and I’ve never met Charles Manson either. Does that mean I can’t say he’s not a nasty piece of work?”
You can say what you like. It’s your reputation on the line. I was just inquiring into whether you had any reasonable grounds for your opinion, but it seems from your answer that it’s based more on black propaganda accounts and an over-productive spleen than on anything Mr. Zundel has written or done.
“Who made you the referee? And why do you single me out? There are plenty of people using expletives here and plenty using them at me.”
I volunteered. And I single you out because most of the other offenders here are beyond hope of salvation. It’s a sign of serious moral failings when a young lad’s excuse for bad behaviour is that other people are doing it too. Grow a spine and stop whinging.
“Always sticking up for thugs, congratulations. You don’t know what happened in that incident so stop making threats. And stop acting like you own the place.”
I’m interpreting the incident because I know you. In all my decades of disagreeing with Bible bashers, none has ever bashed me – and that includes a US marine I had a passionate disagreement with about how to interpret Genesis while on flying from Narita to Anchorage.
And I wasn’t threatening you, just observing that you have an edge on your tongue that is bound to provoke people, unnecessarily in my view. If you could could give your opinion about the ideas you are ostensibly arguing for or against without attacking the character of people you disagree with… Oh well, perhaps you’ll learn when somebody challenges you to a jewel with battle axes and spikey balls.
“That the Ashkenazim descended from the Khazars, as you said. It is discredited on the basis of lack of evidence.”
Hon maa kaa naa! as they used to say in Kansai.
I think you’ll find the origins of the Ashkenazim is still very much a vexed question. Undoubtedly there is some Israelite blood in them and some Khazar blood and some other blood too including good Christian blood too, but what inquiring population geneticists want to know is what’s nature of the mix.
http://www.khazaria.com/genetics/abstracts-jews.html
“And by Holocaust I am talking about an intentional system of genocide aimed at a number of groups in which somewhere between 5 and 6 million Jews were killed and in which the gas chambers were used.”
Well, the devil is in the details, they say. Systems of genocide are like snowflakes. Every one of them is different.
“And the idea that soap was made of the victims has been discredited. At least on any mass scale.”
And if you’d said that back in the eighties, we’d have had you marked down as a “Holocaust denier”.