Richard Land is in the worst kind of company. I expect he’s proud.

Let’s see if any of that advice does any good. There are always those with “foot in mouth disease”.

There is another easy cultural reference that bugs me. People use the proper noun, “Mecca” to refer to anyplace that is a center for gathering, as in a “shopping mecca”. That diminishes the importance of the city to a significant number of people. We don’t call it a shopping jerusalem or a theme park new york. So I have tired not refrain from using “mecca” as a common noun. By taking a significant proper noun and making it a generic reference we are, in effect, discounting the people for whom it is an important place or thing.
Awareness takes many forms. Sometimes all it takes is a little self awareness to make a little more peace in the world.

Grammatical oops – my posting above should say in sentence 4, “I have tried to refrain from…” Clarity is hard enough to come by, why make things worse.

I have a problem with the seeming appropriation of the word “Holocaust” to only one group’s historic experience–and the constant objection to ever see anything even remotely comparable anywhere as having happened –or possibly happening. What about the Armenian Holocaust??? A prominent Armenian writer complained a number of years ago that the publishers he normally dealt with wouldn’t publish his book on the Armenian Holocaust because he drew parallels to what later happened to the Jews. In exasperation he wrote that his people were the victims of another group’s “chauvinism of suffering” -as he called it. And what of the Irish famine??? There are plenty of documents existing that make it look like some Brits intentions toward the Irish weren’t much different –with very similar results– from the Nazis intents toward the Jews. And the idea we Americans are somehow immune from becoming as evil as the Germans of the 1930′s and 1940′s is just arrogant chauvinism.
My son-in-law is an American Indian. And it was every bit the equivalent of a Holocaust that many Americans were carrying out against them. Ever heard the All-American phrase: “The only good Indian is a dead Indian??”

There’s a world of difference between comparing some actual historical or modern genocide to the Holocaust (which btw in Jewish circles is refered to as the Shoah) and throwing the words Holocaust or Nazis against your political/ ideological opponents at the drop of the hat. This article is speaking out against the latter and not the former. In particular this article is decrying the way that the Right in America has been using acusations of being a Nazi or Holocaust comparisons against President Obama and the attempt at Health Care Reform. This usage belittles the very real tragedy of the Nazi’s attempt at genocide as well as every other such attempt that has or is happening.
Also, by my understanding the term Holocaust was specifically applied as a name of the Nazi’s attempt of genocide of the Jews, and it has only since been applied to other events/ groups by the way that the term has come to carry general connotations of genocide.

We need far more Nazi comparisons. That’s why Hitler succeeded, everyone was too pacifist, too cowardly, too willing to go along, as they watched others taken away.
Barack Hussein Obama, like many of his allies in the Moslem world, are Nazis, antisemitic, and ready to sacrifice millions to achieve his goals.
Obama is a Nazi. He wants a Holocaust of elderly Americans. That’s the purpose of his health care proposals to cut Medicare by a trillion dollars. It will save money, he says, to let the elderly die. After all, he thinks most are conservative Republicans who didn’t vote for him. A holocaust of the elderly is Obama’s proposal.
Obama is nothing but a Nazi, who is proposing a Holocaust that all the nice, “civil” people ignore. Just the way good Germans ignored Hitler. Obama supporters and the Democratic Party are good Germans. If Bush had proposed trillion dollar cuts in medicare we would have impeached him.

When, in fact, you SHOULD have impeached Bush for taking America to war based on lies. @sshole!

Deacon John I am in agreement of your observation there is genocide going on in parts of African that have no special name. Racism is racism to everyone but anti-Semitic is a special word for Jewish people alone. A lot of Jewish separatism is imposed by the Jewish people.

DH you live in a fantasy world. I wish it were your own little fantasy world but it’s way too big; too many people listening to Fox “News” and such.
In fact, a lot of us older folks are Democrats. I, for one, think the Fed should offer free health care for all and just suck up the cost. Lots of money saved on billing and such and no one has to worry about their health care or pay for health insurance (unless they want to supplement what the Gov. does.)
What do you think about that, DH. No cuts in Medicare costs, free insurance but of course a little higher taxes. I’d call that a good idea but what do you think?
Oh, and where did you get the idea Muslims were out to do in America’s old folks? Pretty strange thinking there DH.

Well, maybe CK its because Jewish isn’t a race so it can’t be called racism.

Kauko Jewish is only a part of Semitic, includes the ancient and modern forms of Akkadian, Amharic, Arabic, Aramaic, Ge’ez, Hebrew, Maltese, Phoenician, Tigre and Tigrinya among others. So you have only succeeded in expanding the lack of reasoning for the phrase.

DH: Sounds like you believe propaganda also, from the local radicals…. No one is out to kill off the Old People….maybe some who spread lies that are totally inaccurate, but not the “old people”. If that is the case, I’d be on that list and I’m not going anywhere any time soon. Get a real life.

“Akkadian, Amharic, Arabic, Aramaic, Ge’ez, Hebrew, Maltese, Phoenician, Tigre and Tigrinya”
Those are all languages, not races. And yes Semitic is a designation for a group of peoples, one of which is the Jewish people. If you have a problem with the definition of anti-semitism as refering only to the Jews you can take that up with the 19th century Europeans who coined the phrase as such. In the mean time would you please stop brow beating Jews over the head with ridiculous things like this and every thing else you constantly want to blame us for? You have very troubling views about Jews based on comments you’ve made on Bnet, and IMHO they border on bigotry.

K then it seems that yhou have the problem not me too bad for you.

DH, you would make a good propaganda Minister like Herr Gobels of the 30′s and 40′s; or at least a writer for Beck and Limbaugh.

Kauko quote, “You have very troubling views about Jews based on comments you’ve made on Bnet, and IMHO”
Everyone is allowed their opinion, mine is that this and many other articles on Jewish organizations occupy way more attention then they deserve and I am tired of seeing this stuff every five minutes when there are current atrocities the should command our attention. we cannot go a month without a movie about the Jewish Holocaust when events like the Armenian Holocaust the destruction of the Native American population, Dufar genocide, Rwandan Genocide, starvation crisis, education crisis and so on. And because I speak up about this I am anti-Semitic right ? the fact is I am for normalization of Jewish perception that it’s history does not overshadow other more current tragedies. .

” I am for normalization of Jewish perception that it’s history does not overshadow other more current tragedies. . ”
That’s one of the wiser things I’ve seen you say here. The Jews had some horrible experiences, the Holocaust foremost, but that’s been some time ago and other peoples are currently suffering horrible experiences that need attention. I don’t know that the concern over Jewish history has caused any of that needed attention to be withheld, but at least commentary on that Jewish history would be of more value if it also included references to the current tragedies.

The Jewish holocaust and the reasons for it are a blight on human history for everyone, the Jewish people have sworn to never let it be forgotten and they never will. If the people who have suffered so badly since then don’t take their own sufferings to the world and do what the Jewish people have they will be forgotten. Comparing sufferings helps no one, and only triggers arguments.

“If the people who have suffered so badly since then don’t take their own sufferings to the world and do what the Jewish people have they will be forgotten.”
Some people have better PR and more influence than others. I think the Darfurians have very little of either and they, for instance, are suffering now.
And what’s the value of remembering the Holocaust unless it’s to prevent something similar from happening to anyone ever again? I understand some Jews still feel endangered; I might also if I were one. But we might ask whether these frequent reminders of the Holocaust have other purposes as well, such for instance as to facilitate Israel’s continuing theft of Palestinian lands. I believe such reminders are most clearly useful (i.e. not self-serving) if they also remind us of the others who suffered then, e.g. gypsies, and of those suffering now.

WOW, amen nnmns well said.