From: mstern@wam.umd.edu (Michael Stern)
Subject: Re: Racial oppression and Fascism (was: Re: Jews For Germans)
Organization: University of Maryland, College Park
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 03:36:40 GMT

In article <1iq13iINNpqf@slab.mtholyoke.edu> jbotz@mtholyoke.edu (Jurgen Botz) writes:
>In article <1993Jan10.034935.3034@wam.umd.edu> mstern@wam.umd.edu (Michael Stern) writes:
>>To a certain extent that is true.  I would imagine that the blacks of
>>today have a hard time forgiving the whites for the crimes that were
>>once perpertrated on them.  However, the majority of whites in the US
>>have given up those outdated views, whereas a significant proportion of
>>the Germans still favour the Nazi ideas.
>
>How do you know that "the majority of whites in the US have given
>up those outdated views"..?  You are obviously white yourself...
>(yes, in the eyes of a Black American at least a Jew is as white
>as a WASP.)  Most Black Americans would not agree with you... in
>most parts of the country (yes, most) if a Black man walks into
>a bar that is frequented exclusively by white people, for example,
>he RISKS HIS LIFE.  That simple.
>
>I'm not denying that there's a significant amount of anitsemitic
>and generally racist sentiment in Germany... but to quantify it
>so simply and say "most Americans are fine, but most Germans are
>racist muderers" is complete BULLSHIT.
>
>>Does it surprise you that people who were once subject to mass
>>extermination (that is Jews) still hold a grudge against the 
>>former exterminators (that be the Germans), some of which have
>>led a comfortable existance in post-WW2 Germanies.
>
>No, it does not surprise me, and I do sympathise.  However...
>
>>When I was a child my grandfather used to tell me bedtime stories of
>>how he and a band of Russian partisans would fight the German
>>occupants by blowing up the tracks on which trains carrying the Jews
>>condemned to death camps would travel.  What do former German
>>soldiers tell their grandchildren - how they would torture and rape
>>Jewish women maybe?  Or maybe about how they would tear the newborn
>>Jewish babies limb from limb in front of their mothers?  Nice legacy.
>
>Yes, it is terrible... but it appears to be a human condition.  Suffering
>cannot be quantified... The Nazis took genocide to a terrifying extreme,
>but are those who only kill 1 million people better than those who kill
>12 million?  Are those who only kill a few hundered thousand better?
>Are those who kill smaller numbers of individuals but also persecute,
>oppress, deny basic services, beat children, destroy families' homes, deny
>people their education, and steal from them their water and their
>ancestral land better?
>
>What about the genocide currently being perpetrated by Serbs?  What
>about the genocide by white Americans against their native population
>(which is continuing even today, through economic warfare against the
>pitiful remains of the native population in the North, and in actual
>slaughter in countries such as Guatemala.)  What about the genocide
>against the Vietnamese perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge?  What about
>what is happening in India today, where the new Hindu fundamentalists
>are calling for "expulsion" of the 150 million Moslems?  (You can
>imagine a potential genocide of 10 times the magnitude of that
>perpetrated by the Nazis here!  Or is that not so bad because the
>target are the moslems?)
>
>These are just some particularly striking examples that came to mind
>just now... the list goes on endlessly.  Every day, somewhere in the
>world someone is being cruelly tortured and murdered simply because of
>their ethnic affiliation or religion.  Do you think that the
>perpetrators of all these crimes are less cruel and inhuman than the
>Nazis were?
>
>Face it, cruelty is part of human nature, and no particular ethnic
>group has a patent on it.  I am extremely concerned by what is
>happening in Germany today because I do believe that fascism is
>indeed the most despicable force on the face of the earth, and
>there are strong signs that fascism is returning as a force in
>many parts of the world, including Germany.  We must all do our
>best to prevent that, and when it comes down to it I will lay my
>life on the line fighting fascism (as many other Germans did during
>the Nazis' reign of terror half a century ago!)
>
>But to imply that Germans as individuals are more cruel or somehow
>more capable of ethnic violence than any other people is absolute
>utter hogwash, and anyone spreading such nonsense is indeed part of
>the problem, as this is precisely one of the roots of the ethnic 
>hatred that is so successfully exploited by fascist.  Fight fascism
>and racial oppression wherever you find it, in Germany, India, South
>Africa, Israel, Yugoslavia, Latin America, and everywhere else, or
>become a fascist yourself.
>-- 
>Jurgen Botz, jbotz@mtholyoke.edu
>Northampton, MA, USA

 It seems that Political Correctness is alive and well at Mt. Holyoke.
Been to a few indoctrination seminars lately?

Michael Stern	mstern@wam.umd.edu	UMCP.....USDA

Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish,soc.culture.german