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Showing posts with label Anti-Defamation League. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Anti-Defamation League. Show all posts

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Anti-Defamation League tells GOP to knock off the Holocaust imagery

This is the letter the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) sent to Minority Leader John Boehner. Rightardia had pointed out in prior articles that the GOP has more in common with the Nazis than the Democratic Party.

When the US was fighting the Nazis in Europe, the US had FDR as president. Many Republicans had an isolationist policy and did not want to fight the Nazis. Some conservative US companies even traded with the Nazis during World War 2.

Traditionally, Republicans were "Isolationists" who generally opposed foreign wars. Abraham Lincoln opposed the Mexican War, but waged the Civil War to "save" the Union. The Spanish-American War was largely opposed by right-wingers, but it was justified by the Republican president on the grounds that it was in response to a Spanish attack on an American ship (which we now know didn't happen) and that it served American interests. 

Republicans opposed World War I and the League of Nations and loathed Woodrow Wilson, the first Neo-"Conservative" president. During the Era of Normalcy, the Republicans embraced the idea of America First. 

When FDR began the push to war, the right-wing led the largest anti-war movement in American history, the America First Committee (although the Right had a diversity of views on what to do during that time; many were "Isolationist," but others sought to stop Communism or Fascism).

Rightardia agrees with the ADL. The use of Holocaust imagery is inappropriate in the health care debate. 





 
November 10, 2009


The Honorable John A. Boehner
Minority Leader
House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515


Dear Minority Leader Boehner:

We write to urge you to condemn forcefully the invocation of Holocaust imagery such as photos of Nazi concentration camp victims in the current health care debate. We were appalled that such images were held up by protesters at a press conference called and organized by Republicans at the United States Capitol last week, and deeply disappointed at the failure of the Republican leadership to speak out against such comparisons.

As the world’s leading organization fighting anti-Semitism and all forms of bigotry, the Anti-Defamation League is non-partisan and has no position on the issues underlying the health care debate. However, we believe that the use Nazi symbols and pictures of Nazi victims to advance a political agenda under any circumstance is inappropriate and profoundly offensive. It cheapens the suffering of survivors and causes keen and unnecessary pain to the families and friends of those murdered by the millions at Nazi concentration camps. Such imagery is also deeply upsetting to the Jewish community, and to people of good will across this nation who understand the profound evil that Nazism represented.

Reasonable people can and do differ about health care reform. However, as divided as our nation may be on the best way to effectuate such reform, there should be absolutely no division when it comes to condemning the use of the Holocaust and Holocaust imagery for domestic political purposes.

ADL has consistently objected to the use of the Holocaust in this way, no matter who is invoking it, and no matter for what political purpose it is being invoked. We cannot and will not in good conscience stand by and allow the enormity of the Holocaust — the death of six million — to be invoked in a way that trivializes the memory of those who perished.

We urge you to use your stature and platform as a national political leader to reject and condemn the use of Holocaust imagery for political purposes, and to urge your supporters to find other ways to communicate their views.

Sincerely,


Abraham H. Foxman
National Director
Anti-Defamation League

source: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20091031181222AATPrsX

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Friday, September 4, 2009

Why is Pat Buchanan Defending Hitler?


MSNBC conservative commentator and former Republican presidential candidate Pat Buchanan has a history of insensitivity to issues surrounding the Holocaust. On the 70th anniversary of World War II, Buchanan posted a column on his own website that blames Poland for World War II.

Of interest the Russian government recently released documents that suggest Poland wanted to attack Russia. The  Polish leadership’s had plans for the partition and subsequent annihilation of the Soviet Union, informs RIA Novosti news agency. Hitler seemed to be more interested in expanding German territory to include German speaking Poles than developing a more logical alliance with Poland to attack Russia. Of course, Hitler viewed Slavs as an inferior race, so perhaps such an alliance was impossible.

    

In a piece titled "Just how crazy is Pat Buchanan," Ethan Porter writes that Buchanan's latest comments reflect "revisionism that comes perilously close to denial:"

Despite his current position, as a friendly sparring partner with Rachel Maddow and in-house winger on MSNBC, the guy has been a very-thinly veiled fascist sympathizer for decades. And in his column this week, he all but removes that veil.

Buchanan wrote a column entitled "Did Hitler Want War?" Buchanan believes the answer to be no. Many historians would argue otherwise. The Russians had infiltrated the Gestapo and knew the exact date when the Nazis were going to attack.

Buchanan pins the blame for World War II on Poland, and Britain's guarantee of protection to it. As evidence, Buchanan points to a string of inexplicably dumb decisions made by Hitler . . .

Buchanan has the sort of history that has earned him an entire page on the Anti-Defamation League's (ADL) website. The ADL goes so far as to describe Buchanan as one who "publicly espouses racist, anti-Semitic, anti-Israel and anti-immigrant views."

The site features a sampling of more than 2,000 of Buchanan's own words, but maybe more telling are the thoughts of the late conservative intellectual William Buckley, who was included in a Newsweek's article "Is Pat Buchanan Anti-Semitic:"
Buchanan also wrote that if the United States went to war, the fighting would be done by "kids with names like McAllister, Murphy, Gonzales, and Leroy Brown." Buckley, in his usual opaque writing style, argues that this amounts to charging Jews with starting a war they wouldn't fight in a genuine slur against them.
These are rough words coming from Buckley, who took great pains to distinguish between anti-Semitism and simply voicing criticism of Israel.

However, what may be most surprising is why Buchanan still has a job.

UPDATE II: Within an hour of our press release, MSNBC has removed Buchanan's column, "Did Hitler Want War," from their website.

David A. Harris, NJDC's President: "MSNBC took the responsible action and removed Pat Buchanan's column defending Adolf Hitler from their website, but no worthy news organization should employ and promote a commentator who engages in such vile fiction."

Buchanan, however, is to the center of the other conservative commentator on MSNBC,  Joe Scarborough, on many issues. Buchanan did , at least, admit there were no WMDs in Iraq. Many other conservative commentators still in denial that that the Iraq War was unnecessary.

Follow Aaron Keyak on Twitter: www.twitter.com/akeyak
MSNBC conservative commentator and former Republican presidential candidate Pat Buchanan has a history of insensitivity to issues surrounding the Holocaust. Yet again, with the 70th anniversary of the...
MSNBC conservative commentator and former Republican presidential candidate Pat Buchanan has a history of insensitivity to issues surrounding the Holocaust. Yet again, with the 70th anniversary of the...

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