Eine Rezension von Daniel Jonah Goldhagens „Das Böse stirbt nie aus”, Teil 2

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  1. Juni 2015—

Teil 1

„Antisemitismus” als „wahrhafte böse Ausgeburt des Christentums”

Statt dass Feindschaft gegen Juden ihre Ursprünge in der Gruppenkonkurrenz um Ressourcen hat, behauptet Goldhagen „Antisemitismus” sei „die wahrhafte böse Ausgeburt des Christentums.”[1] Er ignoriert passenderweise die Tatsache, dass Antipathie gegen Juden während der vorchristlichen Zivilisationen Ägyptens, Griechenlands und Roms weitverbreitet war und meint stattdessen, dass „Antisemitismus”

im damaligen Israel um Christi Geburt begann und sich wenig später nach Griechenland ausbreitete. Dort wurde er im Kontext der Sehnsucht der frühen Christen festgeschrieben sich die jüdische religiöse und messianische Tradition anzueignen, um also eigentlich ein Judentum in neuem Gewand zu schaffen. In Griechenland schrieben dann Leute, die Jesus nie gesehen hatten und nichts von den Ereignissen in seinem Leben wussten, die Evangelien erst 50 oder 100 Jahre nach dessen Tode im besten Falle gemäß dem nieder, was man vom Hörensagen kannte. Als Kaiser Konstantin zum Christentum übertrat und es im Römischen Reich zur Staatsreligion machte, feierte der Antisemitismus beachtliche Erfolge und schlug tiefe Wurzeln in Rom, dem damaligen Zentrum der westlichen Welt. Als sich sein Herrschaftsgebiet auf andere europäische Länder ausbreitete, brachten die säkularen und religiösen Behörden das antisemitische Evangelium mit sich. Nach dem Fall von Rom (den die Kirche überlebte) verbreitete sich dieses überall in Europa, sodass sich während des Mittelalters der Antisemitismus zusammen mit dem Christentum zu einem paneuropäischen Glaubenssystem entwickelt hatte, welches verschiedene Völker, Angehörige aller Klassen und Berufe und schließlich sogar unterschiedliche und sich untereinander bekriegende Formen des Christentum vereinte. Mit der späteren europäischen und christlichen Kolonisierung großer Teile der Welt verbreitete sich der Antisemitismus noch weiter.[2] Read more

Hit by a Hate-Quake: Brexit, Saint Jo and the Liberal Elite

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Guardian appeal for migrants

One of the most memorable stories in Boswell’s Life of Johnson (1791) is about Johnson “passing by a fishmonger who was skinning an eel alive.” Johnson heard the fishmonger “curse it, because it would not lie still.” Boswell said the story was a “striking instance of human insensibility and inconsideration.” Those traits are still flourishing. If you think of the eel as ordinary White Britons and the fishmonger as Britain’s liberal elite, the elite are horrified and indignant that the lower orders won’t “lie still” as their country is invaded, their incomes slashed and their futures destroyed. The victory for Brexit in the EU referendum has been greeted by a howl of liberal rage. The lower orders did not vote as their ethical and intellectual superiors wanted them to.

“What nobler vision?”

Worse still, the lower orders refused to be swayed by the murder of the Labour MP Jo Cox, despite being clearly told that she was one of the saintliest women ever to draw breath. A Guardian editorial described the murder as both an “exceptionally heinous villainy” and, “in a very real sense, an attack on democracy.” The editorial went on:

Jo Cox, however, was not just any MP doing her duty. She was also an MP who was driven by an ideal. The former charity worker explained what that ideal was as eloquently as anyone could in her maiden speech last year. “Our communities have been deeply enhanced by immigration,” she insisted, “be it of Irish Catholics across the constituency or of Muslims from Gujarat in India or from Pakistan, principally from Kashmir. While we celebrate our diversity, what surprises me time and time again as I travel around the constituency is that we are far more united and have far more in common with each other than things that divide us.”

What nobler vision can there be than that of a society where people can be comfortable in their difference? And what more fundamental tenet of decency is there than to put first and to cherish all that makes us human, as opposed to what divides one group from another? These are ideals that are often maligned when they are described as multiculturalism, but they are precious nonetheless. They are the ideals which led Ms Cox to campaign tirelessly for the brutalised and displaced people of Syria, and — the most painful thought — ideals for which she may now have died. (The Guardian view on Jo Cox: an attack on humanity, idealism and democracy, The Guardian, 16th June 2016)

Pass a sickbag, please. Elsewhere, Jo Cox’s family said that “she was a human being and she was perfect.” She was described by her local vicar as “a 21st-century Good Samaritan” and as “someone with whom Jesus would have been so pleased.” There was a schmaltzy memorial service at Parliament led by Rose Hudson Wilson, the Black female chaplain of the House of Commons. The Labour MP Emily Thornberry, notorious for her contempt for White working-class men, recited from “a poem by Kurdish writer Zeki Majid called Mother’s Day.” Read more

Brexit and the Jews

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Orthodox“Britain’s anti-EU ‘Leave’ campaign has helped create a public discourse of prejudice and fear, couched in a parochial nationalism, that Jews in Britain must challenge.”
Dr. Ilan Zvi Baron, Durham University, England

Although delighted by the advent of Brexit, I’ve forfeited participation in the celebrations and wistful speculations indulged in by many in our movement. I don’t deny that we’ve achieved a helpful success in the war to save our people. Nor do I deny that many of our enemies have been given a long-overdue dose of nationalist ‘shock and awe.’ Of more pressing interest to me, however, is the observation and anticipation of enemy counter-measures, as well as the assessment of just how much of a victory we have actually achieved. The following analysis of Jewish responses to Brexit will further illustrate not only the priorities of organized Jewry, but also the limitations of our achievement. It is hoped that this will result in a deeper understanding of the true significance of recent events in the context of the greater battle to reduce Jewish influence in our nations, and assist in the forward march to racial-national renewal.

It’s tempting at first glance to imagine that all Jews are against Brexit. This instinctive prediction arises in the nationalist mind due to the conflation of Jewish identity with liberalism and its modern globalist and ‘social justice’ corollaries. In many respects, of course, this is a helpful conflation that assists with accurate predictions. However, what the instinct neglects is a vast historical context in which the relationship of Jews with liberalism is very complex indeed, and in which such easy predictions lead to a facile and naive understanding of Jewish strategies. In brief, history indicates that Jews have fluctuated in their attachment to liberal and even globalist causes.

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Liberal Media Bias and How to Counteract it: Examples from Brexit and Benghazi

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Liberal bias is well known to exist within the mainstream media, including network news shows of CBS, ABC, and NBC, cable channels CNN, MSNBC, major newspapers, news-wires, especially CBS News, Newsweek, and the New York Times. In support of the notion of liberal bias of the major networks is the finding that the Democratic Party received a total donation of $1,020,816, given by 1,160 employees of the three major broadcast television networks (NBC, CBS, ABC), while the Republican Party received only $142,863 via 193 donations. Both of these figures represent donations made in 2008. I suspect that numbers for the 2016 election will dwarf these figures that already are weighted over 10:1 in favor of Democratic support.

Another more direct, but equally convincing means of assessing media bias is by canvasing media outlets immediately after an important politically charged event like the Leave-Remain vote for Brexit. The morning after the vote, I spent most of the day canvasing several liberal media depictions on TV (BBC, PBS, CBS) and via  the internet (NYT) and just one counterpoint on FOX resulting in unbelievable contrasts!

I was particularly struck with the rather extreme media bias of PBS which today appears to be the mouthpiece of the Democratic Party. Their staff interviewed lots of traumatized professional journalists. What impressed me was 1) the fact that every single commentator was completely negative; 2) only one view was represented, with no opposing commentary; and 3) the negative viewpoint expressed was somewhat hysterical and absurdly extreme. Like Chicken Little, these journalists were clearly upset by the democratic referendum in Britain and conjured up catastrophic cascades likely to follow it using terms like “dire, dark and disturbing,” with years of steep economic decline. The British majority were characterized unabashedly as old, angry, stupid and white — out to build walls instead of allowing free borders, a backlash against the more enlightened policy of globalization. There was literally no commentator who mentioned any other possible motive for the majority other than racism. Nobody expressed any notion that voters simply want back their freedom to elect their own officials and determine their own future. Read more

Brexit — the shockwaves continue: UKIP rising as Labour heads toward oblivion, Israel Lobby emerges triumphant

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Has Britain’s referendum victory been stolen?  The forces of darkness have quickly reasserted themselves and the portents are now very grave.  Both the outgoing prime minister David Cameron and his possible successor Boris Johnson are both now saying trade must come before immigration curbs.  Nigel Farage, the face of Brexit, has accused them of backsliding but may himself have been already “frozen out” out of the European exit negotiations by more establishment figures in the broad Brexit alliance.

This would only confirmed the growing suspicions about the real motives behind the Conservatives who had so belatedly joined the Leave camp. Boris Johnson was worryingly vague about any change of European freedom of movement rules saying “It is said that those who voted Leave were mainly driven by anxieties about immigration. I do not believe that is so.” If there is a stab in the back then it is an inside job.

But it is the statements made by two prominent UKIP members, two prominent Leave members, one UKIP one Conservative, that have really caused alarm.  Both Douglas Carswell and Dan Hannan are still committed to freedom of movement across Europe which essentially negates the entire point of the referendum in the minds of most voters.

Both Carswell, who is an MP, and Hannan, who is an MEP,  are prominent conservative writers with strong free market affiliations and City of London connections.

But in fact both men have been sniping at Farage and questioning his leadership long before the referendum. At the height of the campaign Carswell was pouring abuse on his party leader, not least for a gritty refugee poster, and he then went to opine that Farage was “not a serious person.”

The Offensive Ad

The offensive poster

But while both men are disloyal to Nigel Farage and worryingly “flexible” on the core issue of immigration, there are some causes to which they do display unquestioned loyalty. Both are staunch friends of Israel and have gone out of their way to reassure the Jewish community that, whatever happens, they do not need to worry.

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The Orlando Shootings: Talk, Reality, and the New York Times

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To put this writing in its context, it needs to be kept in mind that a thing is whatever it is, and it’s not any other thing.  In Orlando, Florida in the early morning hours of June 12th, 2016, 49 people were killed and 53 injured in Pulse, a gay nightclub, by, it appears at this writing, a lone gunman of Afghan ancestry by the name of Omar Mateen, who, three hours after the onset of his mass killing spree, was shot dead by police as he exited Pulse, bringing the death total to 50.  That event, that reality, is one thing.  What people say about that thing, that concrete reality, is another thing.  Reality and the words that depict it and give it meaning are two different things.

This distinction sounds obvious, but we sometimes lose sight of it, and sometimes we are encouraged to lose sight of it.   We come to believe that the words we use to made sense of, in this case, Orlando, are the reality, when in fact they never can be that.   We can try to get the words to align well with the reality, that would be good, but still, they aren’t the reality.

This is important to underscore because now, after the event, essentially, and most importantly, Orlando is what people say about it in the public realm.  Other than to the people immediately affected by this tragedy, Orlando is now about language, words, and verbal exchange. To make sense of what happened in Orlando, it is important to look at it from a linguistic angle, and that’s what I’m doing here.  This writing is about language and its implications. Read more

The Future of British Nationalism After Brexit

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Brexit-Grexit-EU-Cartoon

Brexit has come and gone, and like Wellington said of the Battle of Waterloo it was a “damn close run thing.” Indeed, that was one of the reasons I supported Scottish independence two years ago — to stop Scotland dragging England to the left on important issues like this. (My other reason was so that Scotland could discover on its own — and rather painfully I suspect — the limits of leftism when not buttressed by a larger non-socialist entity).

But what about the fallout from Brexit and its effect on British nationalism? Yes, it gets us out of the EU and shakes the foundations of the still incomplete Tower of Babel. But what lessons can we learn from it, and what directions should nationalists take?

Perhaps the most interesting point about the Brexit Referendum is the political vacuum it revealed. All the main parties, except UKIP, officially backed the defeated cause. That’s right — the Conservative Party, Labour Party, and Lib Dems, as well as the SNP and Plaid Cymru, supported REMAIN. But, even with a higher turnout than in a general election, they failed to get their way.

What does this mean? It means that practically the entire British political establishment was not aligned with the wishes of the majority of the British voting public. Read more