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Anelka's quenelle

That's not what Johnstone does though. She doesn't say that the holocaust is not unique as far as I know. She has defended some very very dodgy political positions though.

To give some idea of her politics she was part of the 'committee to defend slobodan milosevic' and wrote that the srebrenica massacre did not happen or was greatly exaggerated.
Ok. I know nothing about her, tbh. Sounds like she has fallen into the trap of feeling the need to defend one side in order to point out the wrongs of the other side. There are plenty of things to be said about the KLA and their nastiness, but you don't have to deny Milosevic's nastiness in order to say them.
 
Ok. I know nothing about her, tbh. Sounds like she has fallen into the trap of feeling the need to defend one side in order to point out the wrongs of the other side. There are plenty of things to be said about the KLA and their nastiness, but you don't have to deny Milosevic's nastiness in order to say them.

Its more than that. Her views are regularly published on right-wing Serbian websites.

http://www.newleftproject.org/index...a_fools_account_a_response_to_diane_johnstone
 
Why would that be a very silly thing to do? Denying the space to make the argument (and the argument is surely there to be made) that the Holocaust is sadly far from unique is a very dangerous thing to do. Shutting down that argument by screaming anti-Semitism at it is a very wrong thing to do.

I wouldn't say that it's necessarily anti-semitic to deny the unique status of the Holocaust.

But it is certainly an argument of which anti-semites are very fond.

The truth is that the Holocaust was indeed a unique event, for the following reasons (among many others): its victims were entirely civilian; it was rationalized on pseudo-scientific grounds; it aimed at the extermination of every Jew in the world; it took place in a self-consciously "advanced" society; it was conducted by highly-organized bureaucratic means; and above all its sheer scale dwarfs any remotely comparable event.

There's plenty more, but I imagine this will suffice.
 
http://greatersurbiton.wordpress.com/tag/diana-johnstone/

Another one

without being able to produce a single piece of evidence that Ramic was either anti-Semitic, or that he supported jihad [since the articles in question are extremely libellous, I'm not going to link to them].

The basis for the accusation was the claim that Ramic was a member of the editorial board of a Bosnian journal called Korak, that has published some viciously anti-Israel articles. The articles in question were, indeed, viciously anti-Israel. But Ramic is not a member of the editorial board of the journal in question, so the accusation is totally false. The second basis for the accusation is that Korak‘s editor, Asaf Dzanic, is a member of the IRGC’s board of directors. Yet, as anyone can see from the IRGC’s website, its board of directors is very large and diverse, numbering over 120, and includes several eminent Jewish members, including the famous Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel. Most of these members, including Dzanic, are in the capacity of an ‘International Team of Experts’. The website also carries a powerful defence of the IRGC from the smears of Trifkovic and the ‘Lord Byron Foundation for Balkan Studies’, written by the Israeli writer Marjan Hajnal – also a member of the IRGC’s board of directors. The smearing of the entire institute as ‘Jew-hating’ and its director as ‘jihadi’ is, therefore, a desperate clutching at straws on the part of the Srebrenica deniers.

The ‘Lord Byron Foundation for Balkan Studies’ has also accused Ramic and the IRGC of ‘Holocaust denial’. Again, not a single piece of evidence was produced to substantiate this very serious charge. In fact, the charge of ‘Holocaust denial’ was made after the IRGC had weeks earlier published, and prominently displayed on its website, an article marking Holocaust Memorial Day and paying tribute to the victims of the Holocaust, which made clear ‘The Holocaust of World War ll was the despicable, systematic process of torturing and murdering nearly six million European Jews, by German Nazis. Approximately two-thirds of nine million European Jews were murdered throughout that particular Holocaust.’

The irony of such smears is all the greater in that Trifkovic himself, unlike Ramic, is on record as having made anti-Semitic statements. Trifkovic has stated:

‘To claim that the traditional Right is “anti-Jewish” is to imply that it is gripped by an irrational prejudice. Such accusation is untrue and unfair.

It is true, however, that the traditional Right is inevitably antipathetic to certain modes of thought and feeling, to a peculiar Weltanschauung and the resulting forms of public and intra-communal discourse, which are quite properly perceived as specifically Jewish.

Historically, Talmudic Judaism’s insistence on the Jews’ racial uniqueness — emphasized by the ritual and dietary laws of Talmudic Judaism and on its view of Christians as idolaters — has ensured that a Jew steeped in his own tradition could not view traditional European or American conservatism with sympathy. His tradition was a form of elaborate survival mechanism based on the zero-sum view of a world divided into “us” and “them.” The Gentile was “the Other” ab initio and for ever.

In addition, since the late 1800’s the Jews have had a disproportionate impact on a host of intellectual trends and political movements which have fundamentally altered the civilization of Europe and its overseas offspring in a manner deeply detrimental to the family, nation, culture, racial solidarity, social coherence, tradition, morality and faith. Spontaneously or deliberately, those ideas and movements — Marxism (including neoconservatism as the bastard child of Trotskyism), Freudianism, Frankfurt School cultural criticism, Boasian anthropology, etc. — have eroded “the West” to the point where its demographic and cultural survival is uncertain. The erosion is continuing, allegedly in the name of propositional principles and universal values, and it is pursued with escalating ferocity.’
 
I wouldn't say that it's necessarily anti-semitic to deny the unique status of the Holocaust.

But it is certainly an argument of which anti-semites are very fond.

The truth is that the Holocaust was indeed a unique event, for the following reasons (among many others): its victims were entirely civilian; it was rationalized on pseudo-scientific grounds; it aimed at the extermination of every Jew in the world; it took place in a self-consciously "advanced" society; it was conducted by highly-organized bureaucratic means; and above all its sheer scale dwarfs any remotely comparable event.
.
It was an attempt to systematically wipe out a particular group of people. Such attempts had been made before and have been made since. Have you bought into Turkish Armenian genocide-denial?
 
Josh Mason, a former editor at In These Times, explains in an online PEN forum (April 8, 1999) that the magazine stopped using Diana Johnstone's articles on the former Yugoslavia because they didn't meet the publication's journalistic standards:

We felt we couldn't publish her stuff not only because she was insisting that there was no Serb role in the slaughter of Muslims in Bosnia after the facts were long in, but because her friendship with Milosevic's wife Mirjana Markovic, going back to her time as student in Yugoslavia in the '60s, colored her writing to the point of dishonesty. For instance, in a piece on the Serbian opposition, she presented Ms. Markovic's party as Serbia's main democratic opposition.

Markovic's Yugoslav Left party was actually allied with Milosevic's ruling Socialist Party of Serbia, and she was held as intellectual mastermind of her husband's "Greater Serbia" ideology.

Johnstone on European fascists:Johnstone describes the 2nd-generation French neo-fascist Marine Le Pen as "basically on the Left." Johnstone is one confused person.

http://balkanwitness.glypx.com/articles-deniers.htm

Idris2002 butchersapron
 
"I certainly understand how jokes can be made about extermination. In “Defamation”, a documentary on Norman Finkelstein and Abe Foxman made by an Israeli filmmaker, we see Norman in the stairwell of his building raising his arm in a Nazi salute as unexpectedly as Dr. Strangelove. That’s his way of showing that he refuses to bow down to the Israel lobby. There’s also Larry David who provokes a Zionist neighbor into a screaming fit after he hires a string quartet to play Wagner on his front lawn on the occasion of his wife’s birthday. I know for a fact that my rich uncle Mike wanted to spite my mostly Jewish and Zionist village in the Borscht Belt by buying my cousin Louis a Mercedes-Benz roadster on his 16th birthday back when German goods were verboten. Who are they to tell me what car to buy, he insisted.

There’s only one problem in trying to apply this type of joking across the board. It is one thing for a Jew to make jokes about six million killed; it is another for someone like Dieudonné. As an analogy, when Black rappers use the word “nigger” in a song, it has a different character than when a Klansman would."

http://louisproyect.org/2014/01/25/thoughts-on-diana-johnstone-and-dieudonne-mbala-mbala/#comments
 
Irony, eh?
Such a challenging device to communicate effectively on board threads; it can so easily be read as a weak trolling defence.

You're right.

What I was trying to say was that Dieudonne is not right-wing. As evidence I adduced the fact that he is being defended by left-wingers.

My wider point is that the terms "left" and "right-wing" are useless in describing today's political positions.

A more appropriate dichotomy for the C21st would be pro- and anti-capitalist.
 
It was an attempt to systematically wipe out a particular group of people. Such attempts had been made before and have been made since. Have you bought into Turkish Armenian genocide-denial?

We've been through this before. Since you ask however...

I think it's important to distinguish the Jewish Holocaust from all other instances of mass murder, including the massacres of the Armenians.

I know that those who try to erase such distinctions are often motivated by anti-semitism.
 
"I certainly understand how jokes can be made about extermination. In “Defamation”, a documentary on Norman Finkelstein and Abe Foxman made by an Israeli filmmaker, we see Norman in the stairwell of his building raising his arm in a Nazi salute as unexpectedly as Dr. Strangelove. That’s his way of showing that he refuses to bow down to the Israel lobby. There’s also Larry David who provokes a Zionist neighbor into a screaming fit after he hires a string quartet to play Wagner on his front lawn on the occasion of his wife’s birthday. I know for a fact that my rich uncle Mike wanted to spite my mostly Jewish and Zionist village in the Borscht Belt by buying my cousin Louis a Mercedes-Benz roadster on his 16th birthday back when German goods were verboten. Who are they to tell me what car to buy, he insisted.

There’s only one problem in trying to apply this type of joking across the board. It is one thing for a Jew to make jokes about six million killed; it is another for someone like Dieudonné. As an analogy, when Black rappers use the word “nigger” in a song, it has a different character than when a Klansman would."

http://louisproyect.org/2014/01/25/thoughts-on-diana-johnstone-and-dieudonne-mbala-mbala/#comments

So let me get this straight.

It's alright for Finkelstein to make a Nazi salute because he's Jewish. But it's not OK for Dieudonne to do his querelle because he's not Jewish.

Is that a fair summary of Proyect's argument? If so, it's rubbish.
 
you thick cunt. it's not ok for dieudonne to do his quenelle because he's an anti-semite being anti-semitic.

So why is OK for Finkelstein to do a Nazi salute?

And speaking of anti-semites, you are the one who always seems so concerned to deny the unique status of the Jewish Holocaust. Why exactly is that such an important point for you?
 
Who said it was? Louis P. says that the meaning is different when Finklestein does it - it has "a different character" to quote Louis P.

Yes. He says it's OK for Finkelstein to do it. Just as I said.

Or rather, that's what he says in the extract quoted. My question was whether this is an accurate reflection of his views. My opinion is that, if it is accurate, then his views are rubbish.
 
We've been through this before. Since you ask however...

I think it's important to distinguish the Jewish Holocaust from all other instances of mass murder, including the massacres of the Armenians.

I know that those who try to erase such distinctions are often motivated by anti-semitism.

do you know that? Why do you mention it though to someone who is not so motivated? Bit like people bringing up antisemitism when you talk about usury.
 
"I certainly understand how jokes can be made about extermination. In “Defamation”, a documentary on Norman Finkelstein and Abe Foxman made by an Israeli filmmaker,
Defamation was not on Norman Finkelstein and Abe Foxman exclusively at all..it was an investigation into evidence of how widespread contemporary anti-semitism is...these people featured, but were not the focus IMO.

Perhaps you mean the difference between anti-Zionism and anti-semitism?...there is after all a difference.
 
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do you know that? Why do you mention it though to someone who is not so motivated? Bit like people bringing up antisemitism when you talk about usury.

Yes I do know it. I also know that you are not so motivated. I brought it up here because I'm not only talking to you.
 
So why is OK for Finkelstein to do a Nazi salute?

And speaking of anti-semites, you are the one who always seems so concerned to deny the unique status of the Jewish Holocaust. Why exactly is that such an important point for you?
pls quote post where i deny unique status of j.h.
 
Quick one here - I'm (slowly) working through butchers' and froggy's recent links here - a lot of info to take on board and digest properly for me.

As for talk on whether Dioudonne is left wing/right wing/whatever: whilst I take on board what everyone has said here, I'm also inclined to blunder in (in classic Melly style) and yell "Who fucking cares? He's anti-Semitic scum, isn't that what counts?". My own personal view on this one at present, though? Well, his link ups with the FN, Third Positionists, the Batskin mob and Holocaust deniers of every stripe imaginable would certainly see him cementing relations on the "right"/far-right etc for many a year now. Dioudonne himself? At the very least, a left/right convergenist whose own brand of "anti-Zionism" sees him trying to position himself as an "anti-establishment" candidate. However, he's about as "anti-Zionist" as John Tyndall was, and his "anti-establishment" "credentials" are a complete and utter joke.

So there you have it. Any thoughts/comments/general abuse on this one are welcome as always.
 
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Dioudonne himself? At the very least, a left/right convergenist whose own brand of "anti-Zionism" sees him trying to position himself as an "anti-establishment" candidate.

I suppose that's fair enough. But I still wouldn't desribe him as a "convergenist" or whatever, because the two things he's supposed to be converging aren't real. I'd say that he takes some ideas from what has traditionally been called the "right" and others from what has traditionally been called the "left." With the emphasis on "traditionally."

However, he's about as "anti-Zionist" as John Tyndall was, and his "anti-establishment" "credentials" are a complete and utter joke.

Why do you think he isn't a genuine anti-Zionist? Why do you think his anti-establishment credentials are a joke?
 
I suppose that's fair enough. But I still wouldn't desribe him as a "convergenist" or whatever, because the two things he's supposed to be converging aren't real. I'd say that he takes some ideas from what has traditionally been called the "right" and others from what has traditionally been called the "left." With the emphasis on "traditionally."



Why do you think he isn't a genuine anti-Zionist? Why do you think his anti-establishment credentials are a joke?

Re. Dioudonne's "anti-Zionism"? Well, his appalling Shoah-themed "song", him describing the Holocaust as "memorial pornography", and him making "gas chamber" comments towards a (Jewish) opponent of his certainly count as "three strikes and you're out" for me as far as he's concerned, and that's just for starters. And for his "anti-establishment" stuff? Well, hanging around with the "respectable" (ha fucking ha) Front National, and the fact his "career" has made him a wealthy and (God knows why) popular figure, certainly has little (if anything) to with any genuine anti-establishment stuff for me. He may wish he was "anti-establishment", but his views and actions are as tiresomely predictable as they are abhorrent. Let's face it, he's as middle class as they come, isn't he? Hardly anyone who can claim to represent the geniunely dispossesed of his own nation.

And on your first paragraph? Whilst I don't quite agree with you there ("...converging aren't real"), I certainly see where you coming from on this one.
 
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