The Holocaust Memorial of Thessaloniki, in northern Greece, was vandalized with swastika and anti-Semitic slogans.
Unidentified perpetrators daubed the bronze plaque in memory of the 50,000 Jews killed during the Holocaust with the words "That's a lie", a Star of David and a swastika.
This act coincides with the decision of the City Council of Thessaloniki to bestow on Monday the City’s highest decoration to 30 Holocaust survivors still living in Thessaloniki.
...and...
The city's memorial service for the about 30 survivors still living in Greece's second city was said to be the first in 65 years.
Jewish community of Salonika being registered for deportation by SS, July, 1942.
Lew Rockwell, longtime chief aide and advisor to Ron Paul, has published a column claiming that the Rothschilds were responsible for assassinating President Kennedy. According to Rockwell's website, a secret conspiracy of "Illuminati" with the Rothschilds at its top started the grand conspiracy when it "planned" the creation of "our consumer society" in 1832. The article cites as indication of this the founding of Yale's "Skull and Bones" fraternity, an organization which has somehow become the focus of many such conspiracy theories. According to Rockwell, Kennedy was shot by the "Illuminati" because of a speech Kennedy gave in 1961 which purportedly obliquely referred to this conspiracy.
Here's the Rockwell website's take on American history:
Our consumer society didn’t just happen; it was planned. Not in 1910, or 1954, but in the year 1832, the year William Huntington Russell and fellow classmate Alphonso Taft founded the Skull and Bones society at Yale University, a branch of the Bavarian Illuminati.
Members, known as “Bonesmen,” include Rockefeller, Kuhn, Loeb and Morgan all connected to the House of Rothschild’s global financial empire. They are founders of the Federal Reserve, the Bank of England, France, and Germany or, for that matter, any central bank anywhere in the world. In theory, the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, one of the most important domestic acts in the nation’s history, took the power to create money from the people and gave it to the Bonesmen for profit.
Yes, that's a pretty weird take on the origins of the central banking system, but it's just the start. According to LewRockwell.com, Kennedy was alluding to this whacked out theory when he made the following statement in a speech.
(W)e are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence--on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system that has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations.
Its preparations are concealed, not published. Its mistakes are buried not headlined. Its dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, and no secret is revealed."
That's pretty clearly a standard Cold War era denunciation of Communism. But not in Lew Rockwell world. Here's how his website would have it:
It was hard to miss the veiled reference to The Illuminati (House of Rothschild), Bilderbergers, CFR and the other secret societies that rule the world from behind the scenes.
The proof of this connection? The following unsourced alleged quote from Kennedy:
“Things do not happen. Things are made to happen” JFK
Yeah. That seals it. An alleged statement by Kennedy that history doesn't just happen without the will of powerful people behind it -- that pretty much cries out "The Rothschilds, Illuminatti and Bilderbergs are secretly controlling the world!" You just have to read between the lines.
By this logic, it makes perfect sense that the Rothschilds had to have JFK killed. They clearly feared that, 50 years later, LewRockwell.com would decode JFK's secret message.
That column is not an original, it's a repost from a really wacky blog called thepeoplesvoice.org. The column's author, Katherine Smith, who describes herself as a retired research professor of history, has an unhealthy fascination with the Rothschilds. Smith considers the Rothschilds to have been the leaders of a number of international conspiracies. She even goes so far as to argue that they, working with the Nazis, who were responsible for the Holocaust. But her take on the Holocaust is bit unusual. Here's how she describes it:
Hundreds of thousands of Jews were killed and otherwise perished during the Second World War as a direct and indirect result of the harsh anti-Jewish policies of Germany in concentration camps.
The gist of that Holocaust denying column is that Hitler was a secret agent of the Rothschilds -- in fact, that he was secretly brainwashed by them to lose the war on their behalf. According to Smith, this was all part of a conspiracy which was designed to pave the way for the creation of Israel. That, Smith says, was Hitler's secret goal. Smith claims that Hitler was secretly motivated by Zionism.
So it seems that Katherine Smith, the Holocaust denier and promoter of insane, anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, is the retired research professor of history that Lew Rockwell turns to when he wants to know who really killed JFK. Thanks for that, Lew Rockwell.
Over the years, the question of whether Mel Gibson is a bigot has been raised in several contexts. First, when he made his film version of the Passion Play, he and his defenders portrayed this as merely the act of a devout Catholic, not an act of anti-Semitism. Next, when he spewed anti-Semitic statements ("the Jews are responsible for starting every war") at a Jewish police officer who was arresting him for drunk driving, his defenders claimed that he was so drunk that he didn't know what he was saying. Now, with the publication of extensive audio apparently of Gibson using abusive, misogynist and racist language, threatening his girlfriend with death and defending his having punched her in the face as being justified, those prior defenses are wearing pretty thin. (Of all these offenses, his alleged punching of his girlfriend is by far the worst, so I am reluctant to list it in the same category as the others. A violent attack on a woman holding a child is a crime of a much high order than hate speech.)
With respect to his views concerning Jews, I have doubted Gibson's good intentions from the time of his Passion of the Christ, first because of the Jewish-Christian conflict its release and publicity campaign deliberately set up, second, because of the contents of the film, and third, because I know a bit about the traditionalist Catholic movement. That movement, in spite of its name, does not advocate a return to a familiar Catholicism (at least to those old enough) of Latin masses and fish dinner on Friday. In fact, it is a cult-like reactionary group which opposes the Vatican, promotes bizarre conspiracy theories and has ties to extremist, sometimes violent, political movements.
One important clue as to Mel Gibson's world view in general and his feelings about Jews in particular is provided by who he chose to serve as the priest of the traditionalist church he had built in Agoura Hills, near his home in Malibu. (That church, which is private and not associated in any way with the Roman Catholic archdiocese or any other recognized Catholic denomination, has been funded extravagantly by Gibson , reportedly to the tune of $64 million dollars [read here and here.] Gibson is solely in charge of what takes place within it.). Gibson chose a priest named Louis Campbell (read here), an activist within the far-right traditionalist movement who had previously served as priest at Hutton Gibson's church in Stafford, Texas. Father Campbell advocates extreme anti-Jewish and anti-modernist views, as evidenced by his "Sunday Sermons", which are published on a traditionalist website called DailyCatholic.org. These sermons are presumably of the same sort as the ones he gave at Mel Gibson's church.
In one outrageous sermon (read here), Campbell goes so far as to state his opinion that the Holocaust is a myth promoted by Zionists and an absurd list of "prominent Jews", designed to undermine the church, negate the message of Christ and absolve the Jewish people for deicide. ("Zionist interests have flooded the world with the concept that the real holocaust took place in the 1940's.") Campbell contends that the antidote for this myth was provided by Mel Gibson:
"The Holocaust myth is now being challenged mightily by the movie 'The Passion of the Christ.' The Jews (and we do not speak of all Jews, but of many influential Jews such as Abe Foxman and the ADL, Rabbi Schmuley Boteach and Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Museum, and those who have control of the media) had almost succeeded in blotting out the name of Jesus from the consciousness of the people. The public had been carefully programmed through a relentless round of movies, documentaries and books, so as to have the guilt of the Holocaust constantly in mind. 'Schindler's List' and the abominable book "Hitler's Pope" in so demeaning and desecrating Pius XII's good name, are perfect examples of this. They had turned the tables on us. Rather than the Jews being reputedly responsible for the death of Jesus Christ, we now had Christians, especially the Roman Catholic Church, bearing the guilt for the Holocaust.
"But with one fell swoop, this marvelous movie struck a nearly fatal blow to their carefully executed plan of convincing the world that the Holocaust is the pivotal event, the defining moment in human history, thus displacing the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ from that exalted position. This is the real explanation for their rage against Christ, and against this movie. They are afraid that Christians will begin to realize once again that the true Holocaust, the one perfect and acceptable sacrifice to God our Father, took place two thousand years ago on Calvary's hill, when Jesus Christ shed His Precious Blood for the sins of the world. All human beings, whether Jews or Gentiles, of every place and of every time, must go to the foot of the Cross of Jesus and acknowledge Him as the Messiah, if they are to be saved.
"The Holocaust myth and the Sacrifice of Christ on Calvary are unalterably opposed to one another. If the Sacrifice of Christ on the Cross is the one perfect Sacrifice acceptable to God, the true Holocaust, and the one defining moment in human history, the Jewish Holocaust cannot be the unique event they claim it to be. It was a terrible atrocity, a great human tragedy, but not a perfect sacrifice offered to God; it was not redemptive; it cannot save anyone; it was not a holocaust, certainly not The Holocaust.
"But even the Vatican II church cooperates, resulting in its own demolition. John Paul II has apologized to the Jews for the sins of Christians against them, and has absolved them from the necessity of believing in Jesus Christ. Much was made of his "historic" trip to Jerusalem where his visit to the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Museum was celebrated by the media. 'The awful truth is this--that John Paul II and the New Vatican accept the myth of the Holocaust, thus denying the uniqueness and efficacy of the Sacrifice of Christ on Calvary, and of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.'"
In this sermon, Campbell cites a column on the Lew Rockwell website written by Christopher Manion (read here) as the source of his thinking on this subject. (Manion is a paleo-conservative blogger associated with a group called Catholics for Ron Paul. Read here.) After reading both, I see why he cites Manion. Campbell was essentially restating Manion's idea of comparing the Holocaust to Christ's death in terms more suited to a fire and brimstone sermon than an opinion column, and taking Manion's idea of Jews denying "Christ's Holocaust" to a higher level of hate. Here's Manion, purportedly warning Jews not to do what Campbell, after reading this, accuses them of doing:
"(E)very Jew who does not proclaim Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior is denying the Christian view of the Holocaust – in other words, Jews might fear that Christians view them with the same virulent scorn that many Jews heap on "Holocaust Deniers" like Gibson’s father.
"Hence, when Gibson, the son of a modern Holocaust denier, makes a film about the perfect Holocaust of Christ’s Passion and death, contemporary observers – and not only Jews – might be tempted to consider "The Passion of the Christ" a blasphemous affront to the modern Holocaust and an insult to the suffering and death of six million Jews under Hitler.
"If Jews think we Christians hate them for not loving Jesus, no wonder they’re upset! That would mean that we want to punish them as the perpetrators of the perfect Holocaust – Christ’s Passion and death on the cross."
So Campbell, after reading that, actually does call Jews Holocaust deniers for their disbelief in Christ's "Holocaust", then complains that Jews are using the "myth" of the Nazi Holocaust to negate their collective guilt for killing Christ. Campbell uses this rationale as a way to praise Gibson's Passion as an effective counter to this Jewish conspiracy. He then goes on to somehow connect this bizarre conspiracy theory to the promotion of both Communism and abortion:
Why is the death of the Jews a uniquely horrible event, an unspeakable atrocity beyond all others throughout human history? Why will they not allow the term "holocaust" to be applied to the deaths of millions of innocent children who die in their mothers' wombs as victims of abortion? Why do we not see museums dedicated to the Ukrainians, or to the tens of millions of Christians and others who died in the Soviet Union?
Even when attempting to strike a moderate, compassionate tone with respect to Holocaust victims, Campbell can't help but add a disquieting note of uncertainty as to the actual historicity of their fate:
If six million Jews died in the death camps under the Nazis we must have compassion for them.
If Campbell doesn't know that the Holocaust occurred, I must conclude that he doesn't want to know.
Reading some of his other "Sunday sermons" on the Daily Catholic website, one finds Campbell promoting bizarre conspiracy theories alleging Jewish interference in the Catholic Church. In one, he actually claims that Cardinal Augustin Bea, who was one of the church leaders responsible for liberalizing church teachings at Vatican II, was secretly a Jew himself. (Read here.) Campbell absurdly cites (via another source) an obscure Egyptian newspaper called Al Gomhuria which made this claim and alleged that Bea's true family name was "Behar".
Another of Campbell's sermons lashes out against the very idea of religious freedom, one of the fundamental principles of the U.S. Constitution, implying that the nefarious unseen hand of the Masons is behind its promotion, and that it intrinsically opposed to Christianity (read here):
"Religious freedom as a fundamental human right - it sounds like something from the Declaration of the Rights of Man of the French Revolution, something you would expect from the U.N., and not from the Vatican. Actually it is a Masonic doctrine, which has overtaken the true Catholic doctrine on religious freedom. But it is one of the most important pillars of the pontificate of our putative pope, John Paul II, without which his ambitious ecumenical and inter-faith program would collapse."
In his sermons, Campbell repeatedly promotes an ardent anti-Zionism rooted in an opposition to the existence of Israel in particular, and to Jewish power in general. He considers both to be part of an anti-Christian holy war. Even while using sometimes violent imagery, he connects his anti-Zionism to his purported desire for peace, which he differentiates from John Paul II's peace activism:
(A)lthough he never fails to promote his famous "civilization of peace and love," John Paul II supports the false claims of Jewish Zionism, thus contributing to the cause of war in the Middle East. For if, as the Church has always taught, the Scriptures say that the promises were fulfilled in Jesus Christ and His Church, how can it be said at the same time that God promised Jerusalem to the Jews? To affirm one interpretation is to deny the other. To support the false claims of the Jewish Zionists is to deny the Church its inheritance and to scandalize the little ones-faithful Catholics.
He follows this odd plea for peace with a prayer to bring on Armegeddon and punish Zionists and their supporters, who he depicts as defying God's will:
Yes, God has something to say to presidents, prime ministers and potentates who ignore His laws and have an exaggerated sense of their own power and importance:
"And now, O kings, give heed; take warning, you rulers of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice before Him; with trembling pay homage to Him, lest He be angry and you perish from the way, when His anger blazes suddenly. Happy are all who take refuge in Him!" (Ps.2:10-12).
St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in the day of battle!
Campbell's peace activism seems to have its limits. In a sermon he gave on Passion Sunday, 2004, Campbell predicted a holy war in which Jews would be violently punished for rejecting Christianity:
"Israel's ultimate act of defiance against God was its rejection of Jesus Christ as the promised Messiah, which broke their Covenant with God and merited for them the seven-fold covenant curses. Jesus Himself foretold this when He thundered woes against the Scribes and the Pharisees, declaring that upon them would come "all the just blood that has been shed on the earth" and that "all these things will come upon this generation" (Mt.23:33-36).
"The Apocalypse of St. John, the last book of the Bible, gives us an account of the struggle between those who hold to the Old Covenant, symbolized by the harlot dressed in purple and scarlet, riding upon the scarlet beast, and the holy and immaculate Bride of Christ, the Church of the New Covenant. The Old Covenant fails as the covenant curses described in Leviticus fall upon unfaithful Israel, initiated by the opening of seven seals by the Lamb, the sounding of seven trumpets by the angels, the roar of seven thunders (although St. John is commanded not to write what they spoke), and the pouring out of seven bowls of wrath upon the earth by the angels. Jerusalem, called Babylon in the Apocalypse, is utterly destroyed. St. John echoes the words of Jesus: "And in her was found blood of prophets and of saints, and of all who have been slain upon the earth:" (Apoc.18:24)."
Campbell connects this prophecy to the post-Vatican II Catholic church, alleging that it is largely illegitimate because of its acceptance of the legitimacy of Judaism:
"(B)ecause of widespread infidelity and apostasy within the Church, the bowls of God's wrath are already being poured out anew upon the earth, in particular because the Modernists who have taken over the Vatican have nullified God's judgments by recognizing the apostate Jews as "the people of the covenant," and "our elder brothers in the faith." They tell them that there are two valid Covenants, theirs and the Christian Covenant. Thus they deny Jesus Christ and make Him out to be a liar..."
While couched in the language of biblical texts and traditional Catholic teachings, Campbell's views, and those of the Gibsons and many other traditionalists, are actually a thing apart from what most would think of as traditional Catholicism. The traditionalist movement, which is entirely a reaction to external threats which they believe to have infiltrated the church to destroy it from within, devotes itself to a very great extent to promoting conspiracy theories about this perceived attack. Thus, in the name of promoting traditional Catholicism, traditionalist Catholics instead promote a sort of cult designed to counter Jewish and Masonic conspiracies, crypto-Jewish cardinals and secretly Communist popes. To call that "traditional" is a stretch. The stuff that the Gibsons believe is not a return to an earlier form of Catholicism, but a descent into pseudo-religious paranoia.
In a sermon called "The New Judaizers", Campbell writes (read here):
"The Modernists at the Vatican have denied their heritage as the true heirs of Abraham by pretending that Catholics have some kind of spiritual relationship with the Jews and the Muslims because we are all 'children of Abraham.' This is deceitful and scandalous, confusing Catholics, and leading the conciliar church deeper into the darkness 'where there will be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth' (Mt.8:12). "
The Gibsons and their brand of traditionalism pray for the destruction of the modern Catholic Church with its acceptance of Jews and rejection of Jewish collective guilt. They not only pray for the "perfidious Jews" to be converted, they also pray for those who refuse conversion to be destroyed among other agents of the Antichrist. They glorify the Crusades and Spanish Inquisition, and await something comparable, only much much larger, to finish the job.
That these horrible, hateful views have the seal of approval of his father, his priest and his faith must play a role in Mel Gibson's belief that his expressions of hate are acceptable.
The Daily Paul, a blog associated with the Ron Paul campaign, has published a column defending neo-Nazi publisher Ernst Zundel. Zundel was recently released after serving several years in prison in Germany. He was convicted of crimes connected with his decades-long campaign of disseminating neo-Nazi propaganda in Germany. Promotion of race hatred is a crime under German law, although the standards for proving such crimes are stringent. Starting in the 1970s, Zundel published countless books and pamphlets promoting Nazism and Holocaust denial through his publishing house Samisdat Publishing, which was located in Canada. He was convicted in connection with his shipping massive amounts of this material to Germany, where it played an important role in organizing the contemporary neo-Nazi movement. Titles he published included pro-Nazi works such as The Hitler We Loved and Why; UFOs -- Nazi Secret Weapon?, German Secret Weapons of World War II; Secret Nazi Polar Expeditions; and Holocaust denial works such as The Hoax of the Twentieth Century, by Arthur Butz; A Straight Look at the Third Reich and The Six Million Swindle, by Austin App; and Auschwitz, Dachau, Buchenwald: The Greatest Fraud in History, by Richard Harwood. Zundel and his supporters continue to publish anti-Semitic material via a website called Zundelsite.org. (Read more about Zundel here and here.)
The Ron Paul supporters at the Daily Paul have a different view of things. In a post headlined Holocaust Denial is a Crime? (read here), they've concluded that the answer to that question should be no. Here's what the post's author "sempiternal" writes:
This is insane. Apparently if you question or don't believe the Holocaust story, then you are a criminal in multiple countries.
A criminal for not believing something? Am I missing something? I've never even heard of this ridiculousness before, which probably shouldn't be a surprise given the horribly corrupt state of America media. The story checks out though, it's surreal - 1984 for real;
In several European countries, including Germany, Austria, Belgium, Poland, Spain and France, Holocaust denial is a specific criminal offence. In Canada, Holocaust denial can be prosecuted as a hate crime.
Zundel released from German prison
Ernst Zundel, who was freed on Monday after serving five years in a German prison for denying the Holocaust, said he did not know whether he would try to return to Canada.
I saw this today and couldn't believe the irony and absurdity of sending people to jail for what they say and believe, especially since the very subject is about the imprisonment and killing of Jews for believing in Judaism.
Was anyone else here even aware of this?
Contrary to what the Ron Paul campaign website claims, Zundel was not imprisoned for "not believing something", but for promoting racial hatred in a decades long campaign in which he was a key organizer. This involved publishing and distributing many thousands of copies of books and pamphlets devoted to falsified history and hate speech. Zundel worked in this crusade with an international network of fellow neo-Nazis with the intention of promoting that cause. He was not convicted of not believing in somthing, but of campaigning to promote racial hatred in a country where they know first hand where ignoring such a threat can lead.
While the Daily Paul is anxious to defend the neo-Nazi Ernst Zundel as being innocent of any crime, they are more than happy to convict others. Take President Obama, who they have convicted of war crimes (here), treason (here) and unnamed offenses purportedly stemming from promoting immigration amnesty, a position which he has not actually taken. They have also organized a campaign to impeach President Obama based on -- well, I read the petition but the actual charges are a little difficult to discern. They involve absurd allegations that Obama was born in Kenya and has committed immigration and election fraud by claiming to have been born in Hawaii. (Read here.) Please read these columns before you write me to say that the Daily Paul's charges against Obama are hyperbolic, ironic, or otherwise not to be taken literally. This website is filled with absurdly strident columns literally charging that President Obama should be convicted of various crimes.
It's not only the president who gets this treatment from the Daily Paul. Check out the post headlined "the real patriot act" authored by a Ron Paul supporter calling himself "patriot till death". (Read here.) Here it is in it's entirety:
exposing,identifying,arresting,prosecuting and upon conviction of treason, executing zionist traitors is not anti-semitic.it is however our lawful, constitutional and patriotic duty as americans to preserve, protect and defend our constitution and the republic it defines against all enemies foreign and domestic.
We also have a moral obligation to past, present and future generations of a truly free and independent people.
for more information on how you can help please contact your local police,state police and or county sheriff.
also please visit these very informative web sites.
the international jew/the worlds foremost problem by henry ford
war is a racket by usmc general butler
pawns in the game by admiral william guy carr
youtube........911/zionists ............wake up america!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
this needs to be printed out and passed to all americans asap!!!!!!!! get to work!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Since September 2008, the Daily Paul has had that anti-Semitic screed advocating killing Zionists on their website, where it's attracted a large number of supportive comments. This as the Daily Paul defends one of the world's most influential neo-Nazis against his conviction for committing real and very harmful crimes.
There continues to be some very troubling things about the Ron Paul campaign.
Helen Thomas has been roundly criticized for her statement (subsequently retracted) advocating that Jews be ethnically cleansed from Israel. But this is not that case at the Daily Paul, the house organ of the the Ron Paul campaign. (Read here.) As you can read below, the Ron Paul supporters who commented on this subject at the Daily Paul expressed support for Thomas' comment that Israeli Jews "go back to Germany and Poland". (NOTE: I shouldn't have to point out, but I do, that more than half of Israel's Jews were born in Israel, and most of the rest were born in North Africa or the Middle East). The people who read the Daily Paul not only agreed with Thomas' bigoted comment, claiming her as a part of "the liberty movement", they went on to up the ante and use it as an opportunity to promote the myth of Khazar descent, then segue directly into Holocaust denial. They also took the opportunity to post links to several bigoted YouTube videos in the process. Nice crowd at the Daily Paul.
Submitted by cactus1010 on Sat, 06/05/2010 - 16:20.
For anyone who knows their history on how modern day Israel got to be modern day Israel...Helen is right.
If it weren't again due to the U S meddling via Harry Truman there would be no modern day Israel. It would still belong to the Palestinian people.
Instead the Palestinians have been pushed off their land and relegated to a small patch of earth controlled by the Israeli government who decide what they are allowed to have and what they are not allowed to have.
How many Americans would put up with this treatment?
Submitted by RonPaulholic on Sat, 06/05/2010 - 16:33.
and they then determined million would be the right amount afterward. WW2 was not the first time it was attempted.
Be careful, if you are writing from certain EU countries, you can do felony prison time for what you just said. Did you know that? When they make discussing scientific evidence about the Holocaust a felony, you know they are SCARED about the truth getting out. So many lies were exposed after the Nuremberg trials, and Soviet controlled territory was the only thing that prevented the rest of the camps to be examined earlier and proven that the #'s were way exaggerated.
Oh why not, I know in my heart some of you are ready and can look beyond me and my antics, and I know the more learned of you knew before me. By the way, this video has Alex Jones and other names in it, but whomever posted the video must have put them there just for hits. Good research for anyone who hasn't seen the this, called "One Third of the Holocaust", and if you haven't seen enough evidence yet, I'm fairly sure you will after this. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9174186302325317179#
correct me if I am wrong but didn't the 6 million number get floated around after WWI along with the notions of human skin lamps and soap made of human fat?
I started watching your video though I don't know if I have time to watch the whole thing.
"History teaches us that the most universally inspiring Jews, I mean, those who contributed something to humanity rather than merely to their own people or even just themselves, were motivated by some form of self hate." --Gilad Atzmon
It's not exactly news that jazz musician and blogger Gilad Atzmon advocates anti-Semitism by both Jews and non-Jews -- he's been playing that tune for several years. But his advocacy has become both more blatant and more pathetic recently, as evidenced by his promotion of the Israeli organ theft libel. The products of his fervid imagination on that subject have now been broadcast around the world, along with the twisted fantasies of Israel Shamir, T. West, al-Manar, and Alison Weir (read here and here and here), and thanks to those like Baroness Jenny Tonge who take those fantasies to be reliable information.
Bigots are said to use their targets as scapegoats for shortcomings they fear having themselves, projecting their sins onto those they hate. But the self-hater has a special problem which calls for extraordinary measures. When he looks in the mirror, his scapegoat stares back. The self-hater feels a need to continually prove that he is different from -- better than -- the others of his group. For Atzmon, this need to differentiate compels increasingly extreme demonizing of the Jewish community; and as his critique becomes stronger, it verges on overt opposition to Jewish existence.
Atzmon recently wrote a review of the film "Defamation" which is noteworthy for both for its anti-Semitic opposition to Jewish participation in public life and its attempt to blame Jews for European anti-Muslim sentiment. (Read here.) That review includes the following defense of anti-Semitism:
"Unlike Uri Avnery and Norman Finkelstein who appear in the film and argue that anti-Semitism is exaggerated, I actually believe that resentment towards Jewish politics is rising rapidly and constantly. However, I do differentiate between the Judeo-centric notion of anti-Semitism and political resentment towards Jewish ideology. I do not regard anti-Jewish activity as a form of anti-Semitism or racial hatred because Jews are neither Semites nor do they form a racial continuum whatsoever. The rise of hatred towards any form of Jewish politics and Jewish lobbies is a reaction towards a tribal, chauvinist and supremacist ideology."
Atzmon first admits that he sees that anti-Semitism is on the rise, then that he supports it, although he would prefer that it not be called anti-Semitism. Atzmon writes that he supports opposition to "Jewish ideology", a vague term which can mean virtually any manifestation of Jewish existence in public life. This is an extraordinary limitation to which no ethnic or religious group should be subjected. Opposition to "Jewish ideology" comes very close to opposing Jewish existence itself. Atzmon goes on to deride the term "anti-Semitism" as a "Judeo-centric notion", as if opposition to this particular brand of bigotry (his brand) is itself a form of bigotry.
Atzmon justifies this form of discrimination by saying that he merely wants to protect the rest of the world from the "tribal, chauvinist and supremacist" Jews. What could possibly be wrong with that?
The musician, jazz writer and blogger David Adler wrote about Atzmon in Jazz Times in October 2005. (Read it in pdf here.) David wrote in that article that, in spite of Atzmon promotion of Holocaust denial literature and other manifestations of extremism on his part, music writers tended to portray Atzmon's activism in polite terms, such as, amazingly, "a plea for understanding". David has emailed to tell me that the journalist John Pilger has written recently in support of Atzmon, citing him outrageously as "being at the heart of a battle for a better world"! Adler provided me with a link to Oliver Kamm's column on this. (Read here.) Kamm writes of Atzmon that
(h)e wrote (in a passage on his website that he later partially sanitised):
"American Jewry makes any debate on whether the 'Protocols of the elder of Zion' are an authentic document or rather a forgery irrelevant. American Jews (in fact Zionists) do control the world.. So far they are doing pretty well for themselves at least."
The least objectionable aspect of this remark is that Atzmon regards it as an open question whether the Protocols, a notorious Czarist antisemitic forgery, are an authentic document. And the whole sentiment is quite moderate when you compare it with the rest of Atzmon's output. Consider his belief that Hitler has been unfairly maligned:
"To regard Hitler as the ultimate evil is nothing but surrendering to the Zio-centric discourse. To regard Hitler as the wickedest man and the Third Reich as the embodiment of evilness is to let Israel off the hook."
That says it all, doesn't it? According to Atzmon, Jewish discussions of the worst forms of anti-Semitism are part of a "Zio-centric" plot to expunge their own, far worse, crimes. That is pathetic.
UPDATE: David Adler writes about this on his blog here.
Pat Buchanan, in a London debate timed to coincide with the 70th anniversary of the British and French declaration of war against Germany, has blamed Winston Churchill for starting the Second World War. (Read about it here: U.S. politician puts blame on Churchill for Second World War.) This follows close on the heels of Buchanan's widely published essay blaming the Poles for provoking the Nazi invasion.
"I never expected to hear Pat Buchanan backing up Vladimir Putin's idea that somehow the Brits were responsible for World War Two.
"Pat Buchanan's arguments during the debate were quite bizarre. At times people didn't know whether he was sympathising with Hitler or just being anti-British."
Historian Richard Overy said: "I thought what Pat Buchanan said was a load of historical nonsense that was all completely out of context."
Justin Raimondo's neo-isolationist website Antiwar.com has prominently featured both Buchanan's earlier column (read here) and a new one consisting of Buchanan's opening statement at the London debate (read here). Antiwar.com published the latter under the headline "Churchill Spurred the Decline of the West".
Raimondo agrees with these views pretty strongly, as evidenced by his own recent column supporting and elaborating on Buchanan's pro-Nazi historical revisionism. (Read here.) Raimondo starts by (completely unconvincingly) defending Buchanan against the charge of white-washing Hitler's record, then goes on to express his own opposition to the Spanish Republicans and to U.S. efforts to stop Japanese imperialism. (For some reason, some Google News' search results list Antiwar.com as "satire". Sadly, it is not.)
In Buchanan's earlier column, entitled "Did Hitler Want War?", he asserted that Hitler did not want war with Poland, but an alliance of the sort he had with the fascist regimes of Spain, Italy, Hungary and Slovakia -- this in spite of the long documentary record of Hitler's intention to conquer and subjugate Poland and the other Slavic nations.
"Hitler had never wanted war with Poland, but an alliance with Poland such as he had with Francisco Franco’s Spain, Mussolini’s Italy, Miklos Horthy’s Hungary, and Father Jozef Tiso’s Slovakia."
It is also worth noting that the Nazi-allied regimes touted by Buchanan were very obviously far from innocent, each having committed massive war crimes in concert with the Nazi regime.
This column also bizarrely asserted that Hitler, in attempt to reach out to Britain with a show of good faith, allowed British forces to escape from Dunkirk. I use the word "bizarre" deliberately. His argument implied that Britain's subsequent self-defense against Nazi aggression was somehow unappreciative of Hitler's good will.
In his current column, Buchanan blames Churchill for starting the Second World War, and for his role in the First World War, claiming that Churchill's actions resulted in the deaths of tens of millions of Europeans, and opened the door for what Buchanan believes to be inferior races to ascend to world power. This argument's connection of racism, isolationism, belief in the decline of the western civilization and sympathy for Nazism echo those of earlier generations of the far-right, including figures such as Lindbergh and Charles Coughlin, both of whom Buchanan has expressed admiration for. Buchanan's dire predictions of the impending end of western civilization, which he sees in racial terms, seems to derive from Madison Grant's 1921 book The Passing of the Great Race, which viewed geopolitics through a lens of racial eugenics. (Buchanan's 2001 book The Death of the West also evidences the influence of Madison Grant's theories.) Buchanan shares his apparent regard for Grant's racism with Hitler himself. Karl Brandt, the physician who helped provide the "scientific bias" for the Holocaust, cited it's influence on Hitler in his own defense at the Nuremberg Trials (read here), claiming that the intellectual roots of Nazi war crimes were American.
Buchanan's views about who's to blame for World War II, though extreme, should not come as a surprise. They're nothing new; his support for fascism is long-standing. He has admitted his admiration for Francisco Franco. Moreover, Buchanan published a column in 1977 (read here) which advocated some of the same distorted view of Hitler currently at issue. It included the following:
"Though Hitler was indeed racist and anti-Semitic to the core, a man who without compunction could commit murder and genocide, he was also an individual of great courage, a soldier's soldier in the Great War, a political organizer of the first rank, a leader steeped in the history of Europe, who possessed oratorical powers that could awe even those who despised him. But Hitler's success was not based on his extraordinary gifts alone. His genius was an intuitive sense of the mushiness, the character flaws, the weakness masquerading as morality that was in the hearts of the statesmen who stood in his path."
In the 1980's, Buchanan expressed support for the neo-Nazi leader David Duke and advised conservative voters looking beyond his Nazi uniform and swastikas. While working in the Reagan White House, Buchanan pushed President Ronald Reagan's trip to Bitburg's military cemetery to pay tribute to members of the Wafen SS, at which Reagan described the SS dead as "victims", a word perhaps put in Reagan's mouth by Buchanan. In response to opposition to Reagan's tribute to the SS dead, Buchanan advocated against "succumbing to the pressure of the Jews", and issued a public statement to American Jews that they should start thinking of themselves as "Americans first". (Read here.)
Buchanan is the United States' most public advocate of Holocaust Denial, having falsely argued in several television broadcasts that the use of mobile gas chambers and crematoria to carry out the Holocaust was technically impossible. Buchanan has, in at least six cases, campaigned against the deportation of accused Nazi war criminals, even going so far as to compare one to Jesus. (Read here and here.) Although he claims that he only defends these individuals because he believes them to be innocent (read here), this is plainly false. For ideological reasons, Buchanan has singled out only Nazi war criminals out of all accused criminals for this special attention. He has not mounted similar defenses in any other type of case.
What ideological reasons might be behind his defense of accused Nazi war criminals? He has written in support of the views of the British fascist author F.J.P. Veale, whose Advance to Barbarism equated Nazi war crimes with those of the Allies and opposed the Nuremberg Trials, views parroted by Buchanan in his recent columns and debate. Buchanan cited Veale's book in his Churchill, Hitler and the Unnecessary War, a book which promoted at great length the same ideas Buchanan is now publicizing. Whether or not he is currently willing to admit so publicly, Buchanan shares Veale's opposition to prosecuting Nazi war criminals regardless of their guilt.
Perhaps the most flagrant of Buchanan's attempts to whitewash Nazi war crimes, and the one which had the greatest potential to impede legitimate prosecutions, occurred when he working for President Reagan. Buchanan vigorously campaigned within the Reagan administration to close down the Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations, the office which successfully investigated and prosecuted numerous Nazi war criminals. Buchanan publicly wrote disparagingly that this office was only "running down 70-year-old camp guards."
Speaking of F.J.P. Veale, the following quote from Graham Macklin's biography of Oswald Mosley called Very Deeply Died in Black (Taurus, London, 2007; page 133) seems appropriate to Pat Buchanan as well as Veale.
"(R)evisionists played a crucial role in fostering an intellectual amnesia that spread far more widely than the study of ephemeral fringe publications might suggest and, in doing so, provided a prism through which mainstream political figures could refract their own strident anti-Communism and political concerns regarding the Nuremberg Trials and German war guilt."
Neither Veale nor Buchanan could possibly undo the memory of the barbaric nature of Nazism, but both, motivated by pro-fascist and anti-Semitic sentiments, have contributed to a selective amnesia among a range of people on the right who find this particular form of selective memory loss politically useful.
NOTE: Speaking of Justin Raimondo, like Pat Buchanan, his brand of neo-isolationism all too often glides almost effortlessly into paranoia and neo-McCarthyism. (Funny how the new version of isolationism follows the patterns laid down by the original.) Check out his column defending the original isolationists called "They fought the good fight: the legacy of the America First movement". (Read here.) Here's a quote from that piece, which I offer without comment:
"perhaps (the) most important theme of the America First movement was an acute consciousness of a raft of common enemies, first and foremost the British."
Raimondo goes on to unintentionally identify one of the unnamed other groups he considers U.S. enemies when he uses the unusual phrase "perfidious Albion" with respect to the British. That's what poker players call a "tell", an unusual mannerism which unwittingly reveals what's actually on a player's mind.
Raimondo's column then follows Murray Rothbard down the road to John Birch Society style paranoia when it comes to the subject of who was really behind the war:
(T)he Rockefeller interests were pushing for war with Japan throughout the 1930s on account of competition for rubber and oil resources in Southeast Asia and "the Rockefellers' cherished dreams of a mass 'China market' for petroleum products." The Morgan group, on the other hand, "as usual, deeply committed to their financial ties with Britain and France, once again plumbed early for war with Germany, while their interest in the Far East had become minimal." World War II, says Rothbard, "might therefore be considered, from one point of view, as a coalition war: the Morgans got their war in Europe, the Rockefellers theirs in Asia."
This is not the only evidence of the politics of paranoia on display in the column. In the last several paragraphs, Raimondo makes the completely unsupported assertion that a conspiracy involving FBI infiltration of America First "allowed" Lindbergh to make his anti-Semitic speech blaming "the Jews" for leading the U.S. towards war. Yes. Raimondo believes that Lindbergh's infamous speech was part of an anti-isolationist conspiracy.
Raimondo's neo-McCarthyism comes into play when he describes the America First opponent and anti-fascist activist Rev. Leon Birkhead. Here's what Raimondo says:
Reverend Leon Birkhead (was) a liberal clergyman who never had a bad word to say for the Soviet Union but was quick to label anyone who questioned the need for war as an agent of Hitler.
On the contrary, Rev. Birkhead was a liberal who opposed both fascism and communism. A 1949 article in TIME (that notorious pro-Soviet mouthpiece) quoted Birkhead on the subject of a publication called The Churchman which was then under fire for supporting what were then called "communist fronts" (read here):
"The Churchman has become so involved with the Communist party line that it is quite impossible for me any longer to participate in its activities."
Contrary to Raimondo's assertions, Birkhead was vocally anti-communist. Also contrary to Raimondo, the isolationists Birkhead fought were not innocent, harmless and without connections to fascist regimes.
Among those Rev. Birkhead opposed (to great effect) was the so-called Jayhawk Nazi, Rev. Gerald Winrod, who ran for the U.S. Senate from Kansas in 1938, and might have won the Republican nomination if not for the intervention (pardon the expression) of Rev. Birkhead. (Read here.) Birkhead issued a widely read pamphlet titled "What's wrong with Winrod", and helped spur a former Republican governor of Kansas, Clyde M. Reed, to enter the Republican primary and defeat Winrod, who had been leading in the polls. It can be argued that Winrod was the most prolific anti-Semitic and pro-Nazi activist in the United States in the 1930s. His newspaper, called The Defender, had a circulation of 100,000. There is strong evidence that Winrod received material assistance in publishing this paper from the Third Reich in the form of bags of cash. Those payments reportedly amounted to in excess of $50,000 -- a tidy sum in those days. I for one am very glad Rev. Birkhead rose to the occasion and helped prevent the Nazi-supporting and Nazi-supported Winrod from winning a seat in the U.S. Senate.
With respect to some of the others whom Raimondo apparently believes were wrongly accused by Rev. Birkhead, read this:
In 1939 Birkhead resigned his Kansas City ministry and opened a Friends of Democracy office in New York City. He spent the remaining fifteen years of his life directing "pitiless publicity" at purveyors of anti-democratic propaganda. In this category he included the radio priest Father Charles Coughlin, the anti-semitic preacher Gerald L. K. Smith, the American Nazi leader Fritz Kuhn, and Elizabeth Dilling, whose Patriotic Research Bureau published "The Red Network," a book that smeared hundreds of liberals and moderates...
Justin Raimondo, like Pat Buchanan, chooses his historical allies very poorly. He also has a similarly distorted view of history, and an almost comically contentious way of expressing it. Here's how he describes the reaction of American liberals to the German offenses which were compelling U.S. involvement in World War II:
"As the liberals gave up their noninterventionist principles and joined with the Stalinists in the Popular Front and FDR's drive to war..."
And, like others on the far-right, Raimondo has a way of describing those who oppose fascism and racism using terms best deployed upon fascists and racists themselves. The term "smear Bund", by which Raimondo repeatedly refers to anti-isolationists, really sticks in the craw. How obviously and deliberately offensive to call those who opposed fascism a "Bund"! For what reason would Raimondo use such an expression? The man is nothing if not consistent: he can't resist a certain sort of outlandish expression, even when they reveal his biases. He seems to be completely unashamed of his shameful belief that the anti-fascists were the real fascists and the isolationists their victims.
Glenn Beck's opposition to health care reform, which started as a campaign of deceptive fear-mongering, has descended into an insane attempt to grossly distort the history of the Holocaust and spread an anti-liberal libel. In one shocking hour, of which the following is a highlights reel, he implicated as Nazi fellow-travelers the Progressive movement, environmentalists, Democratic presidents, and a range of individuals whom he considers liberal. He literally blamed them for the Holocaust, then stated unequivocally that liberals intend to put Nazi eugenics policies into place in the United States.
This extremist propagandizing clearly puts Glenn Beck beyond the pale of rational political discourse. Fox News simply must remove him from the air and apologize for broadcasting this.
Bishop accuses Vatican of 'excessive sensibility' towards Jews
Head of ultra-conservative Catholic sect says he is 'embarrassed' by Holy See's reaction to Holocaust comments
The head of an ultra-conservative Catholic sect has attacked the Vatican for the "excessive sensibility" shown to the Jewish world following comments made by a Holocaust-denying priest.
Bishop Bernard Fellay, superior general of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Pius X (SSPX), told the Italian news agency Apcom that he felt "embarrassed" about the Holy See's behaviour when it emerged last January that Richard Williamson, a member of the conservative sect, denied that millions of Jews were murdered in Nazi concentration camps, as well as denying the existence of Nazi gas chambers.
Fellay also said Jews should not concern themselves with church affairs, referring to an outcry over a prayer that called for their conversion to Roman Catholicism.
In the wide-ranging interview, given last Friday, he said: "It is not their religion. Leave us alone. They are matters which concern the Catholic church. If we wish to pray for the Jews, we will pray for the Jews in the manner we see fit. I do not know if they pray for us, but I would say that this is their problem."
My coverage of this radical anti-Semitic group is available here. I'm working on an extended piece outlining the background of the so-called "traditionalist Catholics" and their extensive ties to fascism and anti-Semitism. These are people with a long history of putting their ideas into action with horrific results.
SSPX anti-Semitism is a large cross for Bernard Fellay to bear
SSPX Bishop Richard Williamson carrying the cross to the tomb of Pope St Pius X, St. Peter's Basilica, Rome
In a comment responding to two recent posts about anti-Semitic material on Ron Paul's websites (read here and here), I've heard from someone called Dan Hansen. He writes:
Adam,
You went looking for anti-semites on open political forums and (surprise) you found them.
You could do the same using any common search engine. You can find plenty of anti-semitic rants using google, yahoo, it does not matter.
But you didn't. You went to C4L (i.e. Campaign for Liberty, the official Ron Paul campaign website) and other sites affiliated with Ron Paul. After finding anti-semitic rants and forums on those sites you then disparage the small government, pro-liberty, anti-interventionist wing of the Republican party.
I say disparage. "Oldguy" speaks of nuts. "Beth" speaks of Paultards (and more nuts). Another fellow speaks of a cult. (NOTE: Dan refers here to reader comments to the post.)
I don't know if this means much to you but you are engaging in a rhetorical fallacy given the rather over-the-top name of "Affirming the Consequent". The attempt to smear politicians using guilt-by-association with unattractive supporters is old. I discuss it a bit in a (too) longish blog of my own - see http://web.me.com/dhansen/Site/Blog/Entries/2009/7/5_Poor_Logic_in_Politics_(I).html
Ron Paul is no anti-semite. Several core economists of the movement were and are Jewish (Rothbard, von Mises, Block). And you will find plenty of people in the community that find the message of individual freedom and small government to be very compelling.
"Oldguy" basically asks - "Why does Ron Paul attract these types?". The answer is simple - they find something attractive in the message. For example, they may like the anti-Fed message.
Regardless, Paul's reason for disliking the Fed is based solely on reasons deriving from his views on monetary policy and his political philosophy.
Why do your anti-semites dislike the Fed? You've been spending some quality time reading (and cutting and pasting) their comments. I think you can figure it out. It doesn't have much to do monetary policy, does it?
So they may support him - but for their own reasons that generally have nothing to do with the movement as a whole.
Presuming that you are trying to have a serious discussion of the small government wing of the Republican party then you do Dr. Paul and yourself a disservice by engaging in this sort of poor logic. It turns your article into a simple ad hominem hit piece.
Now, if that's actually your intent then I've wasted my time. Hopefully not. Hopefully you'll take a look at what the political movement is all and see if there is some common ground that we can work together towards. Say, getting the Fed transparency bill passed.
Dan:
Contrary to what you write, I did not "disparage the small government, pro-liberty, anti-interventionist wing of the Republican party". In fact, I never mentioned those issues at all. I looked at two Ron Paul websites, neither one of them "open political forums" as you assert. Both are moderated by administrators who can approve or disapprove content as they decide to. Those who run the two Ron Paul websites which I looked at have the ability to delete material they deem inappropriate. What I found there was extremely troubling.
As you must be aware as a Campaign for Liberty blogger yourself, registering to post at the blog requires providing your name, address, phone number, and a working email address. (Read here.) The Ron Paul Forums registration is a bit more basic, but does require revealing a working email address. (Read here.) Those who abuse the forum can be readily identified and their accounts suspended. Website administrators also have the power to delete individual blog posts and comments on both websites.
The Ron Paul Campaign for Liberty bloggers I wrote about have, for the most part, been writing for the website for years, some with hundreds or even thousands of contributions, much of it of a similar ilk to that which I wrote about. The Ron Paul Forums website is set up for briefer comments with a more conversational tone. The troublesome material I found there was similarly put there by long-time "senior member" users, and was frequently supported by other Ron Paul in the subsequent give and take. Those who run both the blog and forum have had more than an ample opportunity to deal with this matter appropriately.
Your comment that it is very easy to find the sort of anti-Semitic hate speech and conspiracy theory I found on the Ron Paul website elsewhere on the internet is undoubtedly true. Have you asked yourself what sort of website publishes that sort of stuff? It is very largely published by extremist groups and individuals. When a mainstream politician (to the extent Ron Paul is that) publishes this stuff, it is very obviously noteworthy. At the very least, it calls into question just how mainstream he is.
The obvious question (the one you're avoiding) is: why does the Ron Paul campaign provide a forum for hate speech? Your argument that these are completely open forums without any limitations on content is demonstrably false. While the websites include hundreds, perhaps thousands, of pages of hate speech and conspiracy theory, you would be hard pressed to find that volume of material advocating positions in opposition to Ron Paul -- for example, supporting President Obama. I'm not advocating that the Ron Paul campaign should have to publish such material, only demonstrating that they do limit what is said on their websites. They choose to allow the sort of hate speech I found -- massive amounts of it. Moreover, when compared to some real political issues I searched for comparison's sake, I found much more concern with terms such as "Illuminati" and "Rothschild". How do you explain this focus?
Why do you think the campaign attracts those who believe in these conspiracy theories? Your argument implies that any blog or internet forum would attract a similar pool of racist conspiracy nuts, but I don't believe that to be true. These people are not trolls or agents provocateur, writing offensive material to hurt Ron Paul. They are Ron Paul supporters with very troubling beliefs.
Your argument that the candidate cannot be judged by his supporters is partially true, but has limits. It was raised during the Republican primaries after I found that one of the people on Ron Paul's slate of delegate candidates in Tennessee was a neo-Nazi and Klan leader named Will Williams (aka "White Will"). This guy also served as the county organizer for the Paul campaign in his home county and organized several internet meetups on his behalf. Williams actually used his position in the Paul campaign to attempt to spread his racist beliefs. Ron Paul supporters claimed that Paul had no power over who ran as a delegate on his behalf. Sadly for that argument, the law in Tennessee requires presidential candidates to sign a statement approving of these delegates, so Ron Paul did have a say. Now you claim that Ron Paul has no say over what he publishes on the internet. That argument is also false. If he wants to stop this, he can.
When Ron Paul was found to have published for many years a newsletter with racist content, he first defended that material, then denied any knowledge it in spite of the fact that the columns were signed by him, published in the "Ron Paul Newsletter" and even referred to details of his personal life. (Read here and here and here.) That was taking plausible deniability into the realm of the implausible. Do you believe that the same elves who wrote the parts of his columns he now disavows also administer his websites? Would you argue that, just as a candidate can't be held responsible for his supporters, he can't be held responsible for columns written, signed and/or published by him, or for the material published on his websites? Why do you want to hold your candidate to this absurdly low standard?
If a candidate maintains websites with the massive quantity of offensive content of the two in question, this really does say something about who he is and what his candidacy means. Ron Paul supporters need to confront these issues head on and stop using the sort of obfuscations you resort to, Dan.
Political leaders have some very basic responsibilities, one of which is not to promote hate and conspiracy theory. Ron Paul has failed this very basic test.
A Note About the "Rothbard Defense"
One last thing: let me address the "Rothbard Defense". That's what I call Ron Paul's usual response to charges of anti-Semitism. Paul says (as you did) that his mentor Murray Rothbard was Jewish and that, therefor, Paul can't be anti-Semitic. The logical fallacy of this defense should be very apparent to a logical fallacy debunker like you, Dan. To those naive enough to take this defense at face value, and to those with no knowledge of Rothbard's views, this defense may be convincing; however, Murray Rothbard was an advocate of extreme and very troubling views concerning Jews and other minorities. He started young, as a supporter of Strom Thurmond's run for president on a segregationist platform in 1948. (Read here.) Later in his career, Rothbard advocated that the Libertarians work with the racist far-right including David Duke, leader of the Klan and American neo-Nazis, and wrote approvingly of Duke's runs for offfice in Louisiana. (Read here and here.) Rothbard was a strong long-time proponent of the views of Harry Elmer Barnes, the original Holocaust denier and Pearl Harbor conspiracy theorist. (I also discovered, in one of his Barnes columns, that Rothbard approvingly quotes the fascist author F. J. P. Veale's Advance to Barbarism, a book written in opposition to the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials. Read here.) Rothbard published columns claiming that FDR allowed Pearl Harbor to be bombed because he and the "interventionists" in his administration wanted the U.S. to be forced to enter the war. Rothbard saw this as part of a Roosevelt plan to expand the federal government. He was also a supporter of Charles Lindbergh's isolationism. (Read here.) And here's a Rothbard obit by the anti-Semitic author Mark Weber.
The fact that Rothbard was of Jewish background hardly makes Ron Paul's friendship with him evidence of friendship with Jews. There's every evidence that Rothbard was no friend of the Jews himself. The fact that Ron Paul has to resort to citing his association with Rothbard to prove his friendship with the Jewish people really says a lot, doesn't it?
[NOTE: For those who want to read it, the Ron Paul Campaign for Liberty webpage of Dan Hansen, author of the comment this post replied to, is available here. It features a cartoon comparing Republican Senator Lindsay Graham to Mao. I thank Dan for his comment and hope he continues reading and commenting here.]
UPDATE: While this was being written, I received a comment from a person calling himself "Join the Ron Paul Revolution". JTRPR writes that he opposes food having kosher certification because this is a tax on gentiles. He also writes that I am lumping together legitimate criticism of Israel with bigotry to disparage Israel's critics. The fact that JTRPR has taken an anti-Semitic position himself really makes my point, doesn't it? It's not me who is lumping anti-Semitic and anti-Israel statements together; it is he and the other Ron Paul supporters I quoted in the posts. (Read here and here.)
This was