November 9th 1938 Kristallnacht

[ViolentPanda]

I have to agree. Fascism pre-Hitler wasn't inherently racist. Indeed a significant number of early Italian fascists were Jewish.

Which kind of elides the whole North/South divide and the various racist attributions made by each party to the divide that were inherent to Italian fascism.

 

[ViolentPanda]

You can't say that he didn't answer every single point put to him, though. Even, as someone else said on another thread, posters who just wandered into the thread to throw drunken abuse at him.

This kind of depends on how you quantify the act of "answering the point".
What's very clear is that Rachamim often didn't do so, except in a desultory way via telling you you were wrong and that his truth was the truth.

 

[Spymaster]

Agree with all of Phildwyers posts.

Ah well, you can all go back to agreeing with each other now.

Well done.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Agree with all of Phildwyers posts.

Which only goes to show that you lack all sense of judgement.

Ah well, you can all go back to agreeing with each other now.

Yeah, because everyone agrees with each other, don't they?
Actually though, it's more accurate to say that they don't and that you're misrepresenting a multiplicity of views in order to attempt to score a VERY cheap point.

 

[phildwyer]

Agree with all of Phildwyers posts.

Steady on old chap.

 

[Spymaster]

Actually though, it's more accurate to say that they don't and that you're misrepresenting a multiplicity of views in order to attempt to score a VERY cheap point.

Whatever. Rachamim was by far the most informed person posting in the M.E. forum regardless of what you thought of his vews and his posts got me reading and researching stuff I'd never have looked at otherwise.

He was a better debater than all of his opponents.

Steady on old chap.

Only on this thread!

 

[coccinelle]

Whatever. Rachamim was by far the most informed person posting in the M.E. forum regardless of what you thought of his vews and his posts got me reading and researching stuff I'd never have looked at otherwise.

He was a better debater than all of his opponents.

Only on this thread!

Good grief! He was an obfuscating, propagandising verbal torrent of nonsense.

 

[scifisam]

Can you point me to the post where he proudly identifies himself as a fascist? I can't find it on this thread.

You missed this because he mis-spelled the word. I didn't quote the mis-spelling because that would have been petty.

On those grounds I proudly call myself a Facist, a Jewish -Facist. The Nazis were unqique in that they combined Fascism with unorthadox economc policies, as well as pseudo-scientific nonsense like eugenics. It is interesting how "Facist" has become a vile insult in such a short time (since WWII).

That's pretty unequivocal.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

I've thought about it, and I know what the answer is, for me.

I don't care that Rachamim was banned.

For awhile there, I was getting worked up. Then I remembered. This is an internet bulletin board. It's not like we're doing something important. It's not as if we're somehow solving world problems, or convincing anyone of anything.

What we're doing, is typing responses to nameless, faceless people located who knows where, who at any time can stop posting in order to make a sandwich, fart, scratch their balls, etc.

It's an amusement, a meaningless diversion. The banning of some poster who seemed to be able to add something, fits well with that.

So: what the fuck - it doesn't really matter. Who gives a shit?

 

[Paulie Tandoori]

I've thought about it, and I know what the answer is, for me.

I don't care that Rachamim was banned.

For awhile there, I was getting worked up. Then I remembered. This is an internet bulletin board. It's not like we're doing something important. It's not as if we're somehow solving world problems, or convincing anyone of anything.

What we're doing, is typing responses to nameless, faceless people located who knows where, who at any time can stop posting in order to make a sandwich, fart, scratch their balls, etc.

It's an amusement, a meaningless diversion. The banning of some poster who seemed to be able to add something, fits well with that.

So: what the fuck - it doesn't really matter. Who gives a shit?

it mattered enough for you to come back and post that.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

it mattered enough for you to come back and post that.

I'm typing on my keyboard. That's what we do here.

 

[Paulie Tandoori]

I'm typing on my keyboard. That's what we do here.

i don't see what you're getting at tbh. i agree with you that misguided characters like our banned friend should be allowed to become hoist by their own petard rather than subject to arbitary decisions as to their ability to spout absolute bollocks.

but then, i don't think firky should have been banned so what do i know?

 

[scifisam]

I've thought about it, and I know what the answer is, for me.

I don't care that Rachamim was banned.

For awhile there, I was getting worked up. Then I remembered. This is an internet bulletin board. It's not like we're doing something important. It's not as if we're somehow solving world problems, or convincing anyone of anything.

What we're doing, is typing responses to nameless, faceless people located who knows where, who at any time can stop posting in order to make a sandwich, fart, scratch their balls, etc.

It's an amusement, a meaningless diversion. The banning of some poster who seemed to be able to add something, fits well with that.

So: what the fuck - it doesn't really matter. Who gives a shit?

Please note my post above. He did say he was a fascist, and proud to be one.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Good grief! He was an obfuscating, propagandising verbal torrent of nonsense.

Just look at how he dealt with well-sourced evidence that didn't suit him. Basically he just pretended it didn't exist or claimed, without providing equally well-sourced counter-evidence, that it was nonsense and that his view was the sole and incontrovertible truth of the matter. Good debater my arse.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Just look at how he dealt with well-sourced evidence that didn't suit him. Basically he just pretended it didn't exist or claimed, without providing equally well-sourced counter-evidence, that it was nonsense and that his view was the sole and incontrovertible truth of the matter. Good debater my arse.

This was indeed my impression. As you said earlier, done systematically, it is a technique that can effectively stifle debate.

This would be a good reason to ban him, I think. To ban someone for declaring themselves to be a fascist is not.

 

[phildwyer]

Whatever. Rachamim was by far the most informed person posting in the M.E. forum regardless of what you thought of his vews and his posts got me reading and researching stuff I'd never have looked at otherwise.

He was a better debater than all of his opponents.

Absolutely true. There have been few other posters on this or any other forum who have actually changed my opinion about anything. Rachamin did. He didn't win me over to his position by any means, but he made me question some of my fundamental assumptions about the state of Israel. It was almost always him alone against ten or fifteen abusive antagonists, and I never saw him lose his cool. I've a lot of respect of him in spite of his politics. I hope he comes back.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Come on Phil, I know you like to stir up controvery for fun but really, rach was an unpleasant fascist/zionist propagandist who ignored all evidence contrary to his position. That does not make for any sort of intellectual stimulation. It's like arguing with bigfish or some other obsessive loony. Totally fucking pointless.

 

[phildwyer]

I've thought about it, and I know what the answer is, for me.

I don't care that Rachamim was banned.

For awhile there, I was getting worked up. Then I remembered. This is an internet bulletin board. It's not like we're doing something important. It's not as if we're somehow solving world problems, or convincing anyone of anything.

What we're doing, is typing responses to nameless, faceless people located who knows where, who at any time can stop posting in order to make a sandwich, fart, scratch their balls, etc.

It's an amusement, a meaningless diversion. The banning of some poster who seemed to be able to add something, fits well with that.

So: what the fuck - it doesn't really matter. Who gives a shit?

I do. Precisely *because* it is all silly and meaningless entertainment. Rachamim was a hugely entertaining poster, with a wealth of fascinating anecdotes about everything from copping dope in the South Bronx to dodging Commie patrols in Mindanao, to being shot in the chin by a 14 year-old Arab. He was *interesting,* that's why I'm sorry he's banned. Almost everyone else is boring as fuck innit.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Nah. His thread 'exposing' Yasser Arafat as a homosexual had precious little to do with debate, and everything to do with nasty, narrow-minded bigotry.

 

[phildwyer]

Come on Phil, I know you like to stir up controvery for fun but really, rach was an unpleasant fascist/zionist propagandist who ignored all evidence contrary to his position. That does not make for any sort of intellectual stimulation. It's like arguing with bigfish or some other obsessive loony. Totally fucking pointless.

Got to disagree Bernie. I don't care if I wasn't able to persuade him or make him see my point of view. That's not what I come hear for. I come here to read interesting and entertaining people, and if they have varied political views and life experiences, so much the better. And quite frankly most people here tend to have identical political views and life experiences, and he didn't. Did you ever meet anyone like him before?

 

[Paulie Tandoori]

Nah. His thread 'exposing' Yasser Arafat as a homosexual had precious little to do with debate, and everything to do with nasty, narrow-minded bigotry.

it was certainly a bit of a low point for many reasons. but is it fair to continue to discuss our dearly departed friend's opinions when he has no right of reply? i'm not so sure.

 

[phildwyer]

Nah. His thread 'exposing' Yasser Arafat as a homosexual had precious little to do with debate, and everything to do with nasty, narrow-minded bigotry.

So what? You have to be a nice person to be on U75 now? You probably saw how I went after Rachamim over Edward Said: obviously I didn't agree with what he said. I just enjoyed hearing him say it, and hearing other people arguing with him about it.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

So what? You have to be a nice person to be on U75 now? You probably saw how I went after Rachamim over Edward Said: obviously I didn't agree with what he said. I just enjoyed hearing him say it, and hearing other people arguing with him about it.

No, I don't see it as a banning offence either. It wasn't the thread of an expert debater, though. But as Pauli says, best to stop slagging him off (and indeed eulogising him).

 

[Paulie Tandoori]

One of the interesting things about Italian fascism compared to German Nazism. is that the latter was largely based around defence of an existing race, whilst the former talked endlessly of the construction of a new race on the ruins of bourgeois society. And that race was very definitely white and very definitely not Jewish (see the harsh penalties for sexual contact with colonials -1-5 years minimim, even in Italy - for how concerned with the racial purity of this new race the Fascists were) There was of course backwards glance to Rome as well, but that really was a central motivating factor only in the early days.

In the immediate decades after WW2 the historical consensus was established by the work of Renzo de Felice (primarily) and Meir Michaelis. It went along the lines that Italian Fascism wasn't racist or anti-Semitic, legislation passed in 1938 and after didn't reflect public opinion, it only reflected Mussolini's opportunist foreign policy, the normal person neither supported nor acted in line with this official discrimination, during the war the Italian people and state protected the Jewish population as far as possible, until the German invasion, then they hindered and sabotaged the Germans plans to deport the Jews. That was the story and one of the founding myths of the republic.

The generation after this successfully challenged this consensus though and here's currently a massive ongoing debate on just this issue in Italy right now with revisionist studies arguing that the previously generally accepted consensus of a non-racist, non-anti-Semitic fascism is just a face-saving myth put about by the Italian establishment. (It's almost the reverse of the German debates where opposition and resistance found a new centrality after decades of the crudest sort of collective guilt type history.)

For example, studies detailing unforced Italian participation in the transports to the death camps began to appear (Fargaino estimated that 27% of the total transportation involved Italians alone, and 4% Germans and Italians), and the resistance to Jewish transportations has been explained as being a fortunate side result of the bureaucratic chaos following the fall of Mussolini, rather than a deliberate response - they resumed as soon as local authority was re-established.

There have also been extensive investigations of the pre-war public institutions that suggest they were rife with anti-Semitism (only two people in 150 state bodies resigned their posts and refused to comply with the discriminatory legislation passed in 1938). Anti-Semitism within the fascist movement has been pushed back further and further to well before the 1938 opportunism - although clearly not on the same level as in Germany - for instance The Italian fascists still had a Jewish fascist weekly newspaper in 1934, but were even at that early date isolated and forced to engage in constant self-defence against attacks on them from within their own movement.

Mussolini wasn’t personally anti-Semitic and his polices towards the Jews were purely opportunistic, welcoming their support and money in the early days and discarding them when it became expedient to do so. His "three punches to the stomach of the bourgeoisie" campaign served notice that he was going to sell them down the river, because he simply wasn't politically committed to the defence of them, or of any group that didn't constitute the new future race, a race that it goes without saying, would be white. In fascist imagery the Jew then became the exemplar of the bourgeois society that had to be destroyed so this great white rae could be born - they were portrayed as beneficiaries and moving spirits of all that the new state and the new race was to be built against.

blimey, i've only just spotted this. good stuff, very thought provoking, cheers old bean.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Nah. His thread 'exposing' Yasser Arafat as a homosexual had precious little to do with debate, and everything to do with nasty, narrow-minded bigotry.

I think that was my thread.

 

[N_igma]

He deserved to get banned, not for his views but because he didn't know how to use the quote button.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Over here, radio programming tends to come in certain formats. One is known as MOR, or 'middle of the road'.

Here's a definition:

Middle of the road or MOR is a broad term encompassing a number of musical styles. Not technically a genre in its own right, it was, and in some places still is, a popular radio format. Music classed as MOR is broadly popular in outlook, but not cutting edge; it is generally strongly melodic and frequently uses vocal harmony techniques and arrangements involving orchestral instruments. Such music is rarely (if ever) aggressive or abrasive. The Beautiful Music stations of the 1960s and 1970s can be regarded as a form of MOR radio, as could today's Smooth Jazz and Soft AC formats.

Conceived as a format that would include music of broad and almost universal appeal due to its pool of bestselling performers and its gently inoffensive sentimentality, it is often the format of choice for doctors' offices, stores, and other public and semi-public places of business

http://www.answers.com/topic/middle-of-the-road

I was thinking about a couple of West Coast publications, and how they've changed: a local one, the Georgia Strait, and Rolling Stone.

With the Strait, it was founded by a guy called Dan McLeod.

Here he is then.

An article about them then:

Dan now:

And a fairly recent article about their one million dollar tax bill:

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2003/10/09/georgiastraight031009.html

I suppose it's in the nature of things that start off as radical, or revolutionary, or ground breaking, to move toward the MOR format, as time passes. It takes less struggle, it's more comfortable to do so.

So if a place that started as a bunch of 'baby eating anarchists' swimming in current and controversial issues, finds itself becoming a place where one goes to discuss the best way to tat a doily, or to discuss the best siding for one's garden shed, one could say that it is simply following the ways of the world.

I personally have nothing against there being a place where people can discuss doilies, or whether or not the presence of a red wart on one's penis makes one odd; but at the same time, it's nice to see those discussions leavened with some that maybe aren't quite so MOR, if you see what I mean. It would be nice if every once in awhile, the spirit of the 'baby eating anarchists' was allowed to resurface, just a for a bit.

 

[phildwyer]

I have to say that at times like this the phrase 'monothought clique" swims uncomfortably into view...

 

[rollinder]

so does another phrase....

 

[phildwyer]

so does another phrase....

Come on man, you're in no fucking condition for this sort of thing, and I haven't got the heart to do it to you. Go to bed eh?