Friday, August 20, 2004

Bush or Kerry: Our Straussian Future is Cinched

By Kurt Nimmo

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Posted 08/20 | Add a Comment

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  1. One way to have a shot at preventing Iran from being attacked AND making the anticipated draft impossible is to join hands with those of us who are planning to close down the Leno and Letterman shows several months from now. It will NOT be a “come and go” protest. See comment #101 under my Pilger/Zinn piece, please. My #1 comment under the recent posting for Joshua Frank’s brilliant interview with Jeffrey St. Clair touches upon the Shadow Gov’t proposal a reader recently submitted.  I submit that Kurt Nimmo should be sitting next to St. Clair august, alternative body.  Citizen Ox

    Posted by Citizen Ox from  on  08/20  at  10:30 AM

  2. “...should be sitting next to St. Clair on that august, alternative body.” THAT’S how it should have read.  Forgive, Ox

    Posted by Ox of Errors from  on  08/20  at  10:54 AM

  3. Unfortunately, instead of activism this election season, I’ll looking for a way to support myself in this society--on Sept. 1, I will be unemployed because Bush cares more about killing people than providing funds to educate New Mexicans, mostly Hispanic, Navajo, some poor Anglos. I live in the poorest state in the (dis)union, so it won’t be easy. Incidentally, I build distance educattion web pages, the last one (before Congress decided killing Iraqis--and soon enough, Iranians--is more important than teaching poor people how to read and write) can be found at:

    http://reta.nmsu.edu:16080/nmhrf/

    Posted by Kurt Nimmo from  on  08/20  at  11:06 AM

  4. There’s no reason why the Press Action community cannot consider supporting Kurt financially by looking into ways to fund The Shadow Gov’t...once it is discussed in these quarters...with the idea of not wasting Nimmo’s talents on something less than forcing change w/i this country.  I am totally serious.  Readers here need to wake up to the fact that --even with their limited resources-- they can change this world significantly.  Blessings in solidarity, Richard M. Oxman P.S.  And we can give Mick some part-time work to...at the very least, yes?

    Posted by Angel Ox from  on  08/20  at  11:39 AM

  5. The enemy is NOT Nimmo. Nor is the enemy...me.  Rather, the dangerous nincompoops can be found applauding the Tonight Show. I say we can make them all “wake up and smell the coffee” (to draw upon Kurt’s cogitation)...by severely interfering with their nightly entertainment. We’re talking serious “addiction” here, and I can tell you from having been married --formerly-- to a heroin addict...that you’re going to have the country’s attention (what WHATEVER purpose)...if you superimpose YOUR MESSAGE over the Jaybird’s monologue.  What gives?  The Puzzled Ox P.S. Surely someone knows someone w/i striking distance, yes?  And if not...the situation begs us to take NEW stock of our inventory, our activist’s arsenal.

    Posted by Puzzled Ox from  on  08/20  at  01:21 PM

  6. Thanks, Ox, for kind words.

    Posted by Kurt Nimmo from  on  08/20  at  04:01 PM

  7. Attack Iran? Great! We are infidel, so we are not supposed to do the moral thing, right? The Iranians know better.  After all, they’re treating all of their citizens, including women and children, better than any Western democracy. That’s why Iran can and should be trusted with the Nuclear Weapons. It’s not like the Muslims are not peaceful. Whatever happened in Uzbekistan and Sudan and pretty much any world conflict is a sheer conincidence, the Islamists were there at the wrong place and at the wrong time.  *Sigh*, yeah..let’s support them some more !!! Because we all know how much they have been loving us, even prior to 911.

    Posted by Steve from  on  08/20  at  04:07 PM

  8. I really hesitate to say this, Steve, but it surely seems like you’re destined to be one of the “reasons” --if we can use such language-- that we’re headed for more 9/11-type events.  The flip quip almost always betrays.... You’re too “well-done"/overcooked on one side and much too raw on the other...for my taste.  What cookin’? Chef Ox

    Posted by Chef Ox from  on  08/20  at  07:48 PM

  9. As if the Islamists have anything on the depradations of US capitalist imperialism.  Or as if they weren’t almost always supported by the US when it was covenient for the latter.  Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan in the late 1970s and early 1980, Saddam in his early career as chief thug in Iraq.  Then there’s US support of the murderous Shah and his secret police SAVAK, 1954-1979, Suharto in Indonesia, Pinochet in Chile, and sponsorship of the death squads in Central America for the last half of the 20th Century, to touch the surface.  Can’t understand why they hate us.

    Sorry about your losing your job Kurt.  You are more and a truer journalist than all the George Willses, the Charles Krauhammers, and Thomas Friedmans and their ilk in the world combined, and ought to make a like salary if they should.

    Posted by Tracy McLellan from  on  08/21  at  05:01 PM

  10. Coming from the Soviet Union, I believe your accusation of being well done on one side doesn’t hold any water.  I have seen things you probably never have, including wars in my town (Fergana pogrom 1989), empty ‘supermarkets’, and a systematic betrayal of people’s rights.  What did my country have in common with places mentioned by Tracy ? They weren’t democratic, they did not embrace capitalism with restraints (the best system yet), they did not allow free press ( you can thank uncle Sam for that).  In my eyes, you are predators, you are the Commie lovers, and you are cowards enough to utilize the same system you are fighting against.  You are obsessed with Jews, obsessed with CONSPIRACY theories, you probably masturbate to them every night. 
    PS.  Check out the article about Iran:
    http://www.iranmania.com/News/ArticleView/Default.asp
    ?ArchiveNews=Yes&NewsCode=21681&NewsKind=CurrentAffairs

    Posted by Steve from  on  08/21  at  07:13 PM

  11. I saw my share of the ravages of war quite a few years before you did, not that that’s relevant to the criticism I leveled in your direction. I don’t know what Tracy’s countries or a comparative study of your place of origin with those countries has to do with anything, but your abusive tone and language don’t help me to understand what you’re getting at.  I took your advice and consulted the Pahlavi site...and still don’t understand.  I do think that bringing up capitalism the way you do betrays a lack of knowledge about its ravages and rites. Communism?  Masturbation?  Jews?  They all came out in the wash.  I think...for the purposes of discussion...we can restrict ourselves right now to one issue that you brought up.  To wit, Iran as it’s presently constituted and the possession of nuclear weapons.  Let’s hope that you can see why Iran AND other countries should be left alone with their weapons as long as we continue to irradiate others and our own troops abroad as a matter of capitalistic routine.  Capitalizing on your openings, Ox

    Posted by Captain Ox from  on  08/21  at  07:36 PM

  12. Sorry, I don’t believe that statement below.  Kerry has called for “sensitive” understanding and to “try” and “repair” what Bush and his cartel has done to the middle east.  Open your eyes. 

    Kerry and Edwards have called for quite a different approach to understanding why terrorism even exists.  One cannot hate all of the US just because our religious and other beliefs are different.

    You can’t talk to Bush or any of his regime ... you CAN talk to Kerry and I think he WILL speak for the people ... not for personal self-serving interests.


    >--------------------------------

    “Kerry will continue the Zionist Master Plan for “reshaping” (destroying, impoverishing, stealing resources) the Arab and Persian Middle East and as a result the economy will continue its precipitous slide down the tubes and the ABBers will be in the street looking for work.”

    Posted by Karen from Maryland USA  on  08/22  at  05:29 PM

  13. Is Karen familiar with any of the Kerry criticism that come down from St. Clair and/or Cockburn?  Are you, Karen?  http://www.counterpunch.org to get you started, Karen.  Keep us posted on your progress, please.  Best, O’Xman

    Posted by O'Xman from  on  08/22  at  09:14 PM

  14. Dear P’Oxman, don’t be condescending.

    The article: good to read Kurt Nimmo’s anti-zionist tract. How far can we take this?

    Dare we go right back and question the holocaust? Were 6m Jews annihilated? Like those ‘mass’ graves in Iraq - hundreds of thousands. Oh, yeah? Turns out to be about 5,000.

    War is Propaganda. We can see that with the war on Iraq. Rewind the clock. WWII must have been the same. Anything to justify the destruction of Germany.

    Hitler: the butcher, tyrant, megalomaniac, beast of Berlin. Or was he a charismatic leader whom the Zionists have demonized for their own ends?

    So, is it to be ‘The Holocaust Never Happened’? To think the unthinkable. Have I gone one step beyond?

    Posted by Ed Strong from  on  08/25  at  05:40 AM

  15. For Ed’s edification:  Let me know where I’ve been “condescending” (using one short sentence, please)...and I’ll respond. Also, I don’t know why you’re going over all that business about WWII. Can you explain in, again, one concise sentence?  Finally, if this is the same Ed Strong who “condescendingly” told me to refer to Beckett (supposedly --I’m guessing-- to “tighten up” my prose)...please note that Beckett’s prose was much more along the lines of what seems to bother you regarding my style (VERY layered...with multiple allusions); but perhaps you’re only familiar with what most people are familiar with when it comes to Beckett...his plays of “sparse” dialogue...not knowing a thing about his short stories or novels.  Condescending?  I suggest you look at his WATT for starters so that you can put your own comments to me in perspective.  And THEN...you might want to look at Lucky’s speech in WAITING FOR GODOT...the play that’s on your mind, I believe...and think about...style...mine, his...and yours.  Blessings, Ox

    Posted by Samuel Lucky Ox from  on  08/25  at  10:04 AM

  16. >>Hitler: the butcher, tyrant, megalomaniac, beast of Berlin. Or was he a charismatic leader whom the Zionists have demonized for their own ends?<<

    Just curious if Ed is being facetious here, or in fact semi-serious. Why does being a critic of Israel and the dangerous politics involved in pursuing a semetically pure state, automatically require one be a holocaust-denier and Hilter appologist? Perhaps the sheer enormity of tripe on finds on the internet tends to exagerate this trend, but it sure is unscroupulus and counterproductive…

    Posted by CK from  on  08/25  at  12:37 PM

  17. To the Holocaust denier:

    I guess my relatives tatooed themselves with numbers, while a vast Zionist conspiracy brainwashed them - even though like most of Hitler’s victims, they were leftists- in my family’s case, Trotskyites - and decisively not Zionists, many of whom were busy making “Arrangements” with the Nazis.  As Ben Gurrion said “better to save 10,000 good Zionists than half a million idle Yids”

    Holocaust Denial has no place on the left, in the movement to help Palestinians or in human discourse in general.  If you sincerely want to bring justice to Palestine, heed the words of Edward Said who demanded no collaboration with Anti-Jewish forces.  In terms of the Holocaust, denial is laughable and arguably serves the interest of Ariel Sharon.  I think this should be beyond argument, and those who persist in reaching for such points should be ignored, tongue-lashed and forced to watch the most Zionist, hideous and fetishized holocaust films (like Spielberg’s egregious Schindler’s List, as opposed to Costas Gravas’s Amen or Polansky’s The Pianist) on a permanent loop, with Clockwork Orange style eye-opening devices, etc.

    I am not being facetious.  If you think you can assert holocaust denial, then you are objectively my enemy, and the enemy of Palestinians and Jews.

    To those who have as not yet responded to the holocaust denier:

    This is serious, and must be combatted.  It is Ariel Sharon’s best weapon.

    Posted by j cummings from  on  08/25  at  02:06 PM

  18. Who is talking in these quarters about Denial of the Jewish Holocaust?  Anyone worth responding to in detail?  Can’t seem to locate the person.  Archeologist Ox

    Posted by Archeologist Ox from  on  08/25  at  04:31 PM

  19. Ox, I was refering to what’s written in Ed.S’s post #14...As I said in post #16, I’m unsure as to what exactely was being said or insinuated here (or whether it was facetious), so I don’t want to prematurely ‘pin’ these views on him without cause...But certainly this is the type of stuff one usually sees as a springboard for a nuanced or full-fledged ‘denial’ arguement.

    Regaurdless, agree with Jordy 100% so far as this type of stuff serving the interest of Sharon…

    Posted by CK from  on  08/25  at  05:32 PM

  20. Oxman, you were condescending towards Karen in Comment 13.

    As for the ‘holocaust denier’. The line over which the radical/hard Left refuses to step. Part of Palestine was given to the Jews as a reward for the terrible atrocities.

    Arabs see things differently. I remember a teacher at Cairo University giving me his version of The Holocaust. His figure was 200,000 Jews massacred by the Germans.

    Still awful, but much less potent than the 6 million no one in the West doubts.

    I know the response. Of course, Arabs deny the holocaust. They’ve beeen programmed to hate Jews and question the so-called extermination.

    Just a minute...isn’t that a bit familiar? We’re programmed to believe Arabs/ Muslims are terrorists, fanatics and racially inferior. The new ‘niggers’.

    Why do Americans hate so much? Are they that insecure? It’s the Crusader mentality. Civilise the savages, convert them to Christianity.

    Today it’s consumer culture and individualism, wrapped in the moral self-righteousness of ‘freedom & democracy.’

    That American fear of the ‘other’... blacks, gays, commies, Arabs…

    If you accept that [probably] we’re programmed, then it throws everything into doubt...including most of the propaganda surrounding WWII.

    It’s so easy to sneer at the enemy’s crude propaganda. Ours is so sophisticated it’s taken to be the truth.

    Posted by Ed Strong from  on  08/25  at  05:39 PM

  21. You are ALL OVER the place, Ed...with regard to the “propaganda” line you’re trying to pursue here.  Sorry to disappoint you, but the documentation has been in for quite awhile regarding The Jewish Holocaust, the primary thrust of what came down.  That documentation is NOT to be confused with other “documentation” that is either intentionally doctored or ignorantly handled.  There are plenty of people on The Left --very respectable historians, etc.--who would have jumped on what you’re touching upon here...if it were at all tenable; I’m talking about scholars who would have loved to discredit what has been documented.  Your brush is much too broad here.  And so was Karen’s when she was running off at the mouth about something crucially important.  She not only had no basis for what she was saying, her presumption betrayed --also-- an inability to be open...to another view.  When I see that in a contributor here I’m unlikely to be as tactful as I ordinarily am when faced with mere ignorance.  Karen ventured into the Stupid Arena...which has to do with not wanting to know something.  I cite the fact that she hasn’t responded to my invitation to review Cockburn/St. Clair as substantiating at least some of what I’m saying in the character assassination above.  Let’s hope you prove to be more open --more of a potential ally in solidarity-- than she has turned out to be.  Her “Open your eyes” line opened the doors.  Closing (for now), Ox

    Posted by Condescending Ox from  on  08/25  at  07:25 PM

  22. Ed’s most likely either a neo-nazi or someone who unfortunately has read some material - even my own - despite my cease and desist orders - linked on white supremacist and anti-semitic websites...fear of the other indeed....  Use left stuff to piggyback the movement...I can’t tell you how many times, when I was seriously in the solidarity movement that we had to kick these folks out of meetings - Institute for Historical Review.  Perhaps he really believes what he is spouting.  Much like economists of the capitalist variety “true believers” cannot be convinced by facts.  And with the way history is taught, Ed is a sad testimony.  I know that Press Action readers and writers know better than this… I also know that in the past people who have started using White Supremacist material on this website have had their posting privileges taken.  Yes, I am in favor of censorship of hate speech...whether it is when we shut down Netanyahu or when Anti Racist Action goes around kicking the shit out of Nazis....

    I hope Ox is not asserting that the Judeocide(the best term for the episodic uniqueness - the I use the Holocaust since its victims were fifty percent not Jewish) was exxagerated.  Was it/is it used by Zionists for nefarious purposes?  Yes.  But I would hope that Ox is not suggesting that negates its historical importance as a benchmark of twentieth century evil.

    Ed, go out and get a copy of the Dialectic of Enlightenment by Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno...in fact - in terms of AntiSemitism, read everything by Adorno much of which is online…

    Posted by j cummings from  on  08/25  at  08:27 PM

  23. I’m not sure I understand your concern in paragraph 2 above, Jordy.  Did I give the impression somewhere that I’m not with you on something. Make your question simpler for me, if you will (with more “street” language), so that I’m sure not to misunderstand.  Then I’ll be glad to answer.  For one, “historical importance as a benchmark” is confusing to me.  “Episodic uniqueness” is another term that I’d like to have clarified concisely before commenting. Whatever you’d like to get feedback from me on...I’m very interested in providing.  Best, Ox P.S. I can say that I think there’s much too much attention devoted to The Jewish Holocaust of WWII relative to other holocausts which took place at the same time, since that time...and which are being perpetrated now.  For instance, Devinder Sharma of India constantly updates me on the farmers who commit suicide daily in India because of our policies.  This is just one example of a planned holocaust on a monumental scale perpetrated over a long period of time...which we hear something about now and then when people like Arundhati Roy mention it in passing (as they discuss larger issues/concerns).

    Posted by Vernacular Ox from  on  08/25  at  09:47 PM

  24. Hey I agree with you there.....and all I was saying is that I hoped you weren’t implying in
    “ There are plenty of people on The Left --very respectable historians, etc.--who would have jumped on what you’re touching upon here...if it were at all tenable; I’m talking about scholars who would have loved to discredit what has been documented” that there are actually people who “would have loved to discredit” the historical fact that Hitler cynically used AntiSemitism - and in frustration, eventual genocide - to consolidate his fight for Eastern Europe, much as Bush uses Anti-Arab policies - and capitalism itself uses the economizing of suicide....

    What I am saying is that the Holocaust, if at all historically unique (it is certainly not) is because it is a large part of people’s frame of reference.  Once can use the “never again” like Zionists, i.e. “to us” or “to the world”...this is a significant part of what radicalized me…
    I think that the overuse and misuse of the Holocaust - its very “enshrinement” has fulfilled Adorno’s prediction that to “enshrine” the notion of genocide is to normalize it.  Hitler was following in familiar footsteps (American white supremacist fantasists were his gurus, and his policies were specifically influenced by the Turks in Armeina), and it has certainly gotten a hellof a lot worsee....

    Its actual - as opposed to imagined and or manipulated “episodic uniqueness” or “The way it was different from other historical events - not worse but different” is that it marked the triumph of mechanized civilization “reason” over its very self....

    Posted by j cummings from  on  08/25  at  10:25 PM

  25. Thanks for the clarity, Jordy. Seems like we’re on the same page. Just was noting that it anything like what Ed was hinting at had any basis in realilty...there are misguided minds that would have jumped on it.  Oxenator

    Posted by Oxenator from  on  08/26  at  12:55 AM

  26. Why does casting some doubt on the holocaust figures cause such anger & hatred? It’s one of the last Great White Taboos, up there with incest and paedophilia.

    Look at comment 17. ‘I guess my relatives tatooed themselves with numbers, while a vast Zionist conspiracy brainwashed them...’

    It wasn’t that long ago when the prospect of liberating slaves was greeted with ‘genuine’ horror. ‘I know somone whose sister was raped by a nigger. They’re nothing but animals...’

    Taboos, prejudices, mindless acceptance of ‘truths’ must always be challenged. I think white supremacy lurks between the lines of many of the comments above.

    You refuse to question our own value system. How can any self-respecting provocateur ignore a ‘value’ that is held to be universally true? There’s no such thing.

    No wonder Arabs/Muslims hate us. They do because we don’t understand why they might hate us.

    I’m the relativist here. Most of you are fundamentalists. Long may you reign in your rightness.

    Posted by Ed Strong from  on  08/26  at  08:07 AM

  27. One of the lessons for leftists who want to make an impact...lies right here.  I only comment now on this entry to make an important point about organizing and getting somewhere with forcing significant change.  When you encounter this sort of thing you must acknowledge it as something that can only hold you back...by engaging in dialogue. Move ahead.  Say to yourself: “Next!” We don’t have enough heartbeats to go around this way.  Blessings in solidarity, Richard

    Posted by Expeditious Ox from  on  08/26  at  11:14 AM

  28. Very nice

    Posted by Gergana from USA  on  09/01  at  01:29 PM
    29. Commenting is not available in this weblog entry. {/if}

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