The Eternal Nit Picking Anti Semitism / Fascism Related Thread

by Felix Quigley Tue Nov 15, 2011 12:08

From the introductory article above:

The rank and file benefit from this skewed filter on reality and become willing to bend the truth to share in the rosy feelings of group self-adulation and ego-inflation. This kind of fakery results in an absence of any real, authentic connection between comrades. The whole group must tacitly collude to maintain their shared illusions.

Yes, indeed! In many ways that does sum up the position in the whole of the Irish “Left” of today.

But that has nothing to do with Marx, Lenin, Trotsky or real/potential Trotskyism. That is the point. A great degeneration has happened. It is “how” this has happened is the more difficult thing to answer.

William Engdahl has provided a great service (just Google his name with perhaps the additional word Libya) in that he gives a global outlook on this Libya issue. We are certainly dealing with a global issue and not a bunch of rebels from the East of Libya who are associated with Al Qaida and the Muslim Brotherhood of Qaradawi.

Engdahl has pinpointed that the direction of the Global War is driving in essence against China, and he warns that in a very short time the forces of Empire, such as Human Rights Watch, such as the Media (say The Guardian, The Independent, The Irish Times…where is Maggie O’Kane when the Empire needs her?!!!) can turn on a sixpence and China becomes the Number One Enemy. That after all was the great lesson of Muammar Gadhafi. He had created an alliance against Qaradawi and the Muslim Brotherhood, but he found that in the space of days the Empire had shifted and had joined in with Qaradawi, the Muslim Brotherhood, Sharia and all that it entails including even clitoris removal from baby girls.

Furthermore, and here I separate from many, and all on the present Irish so-called left, anti-Semitism was the main ideology in the Hitler Empire, and it is and will be the main ideology in this New Empire.

Furthermore, bourgeois Zionism, as opposed to Trotskyist Zionism, is a major threat to the Jews and to Israel, because bourgeois Irish so-called Zionists like Mark Humphrys, snuggles up behind the Fascist Nazi and American/US/French Empire and thus poses a serious threat to the Jews and the Jewish Homeland. In fact only Trotskyism can fight for the Jewish Homeland and Mark Humphrys and all the rest of these pro-Fascist Empiricists have showed this clearly in recent months over the Gadhafi and Libyan issue, as indeed have Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs and of Robert Spencer of Jihadwatch.

Engdahl himself is very incomplete in his analysis because he omits the crucial factor of anti-Semitism in the Fascist Nazi Empire which destroyed Libya and murdered so cruelly Muammar Gadhafi, itself a kind of metaphor of what capitalism will do to all who oppose it. The 99 per cent of Oakland, and their friends in Ireland, must learn the sharp lessons of Libya.

But the SWP, what can you say? It is not a mistake on their part, it is a lethal degeneration!

by Felix Quigley Wed Nov 16, 2011 09:59

Correction...I meant to write "Empireists"

This takes up some of the points made by Opus

And Felix.
...you dont have to be Trotskyist, or any other ism, to recognise China as the only real contender against the Project for a New American Century...its sort of wallpaper at this stage.

You are right. I would go easy on the terminology actually. My main points were that there are many calling themselves “Trotskyists” but their political positions are in opposition to the struggles of Trotsky himself. That must mean a lot, worth dealing with. No?

And if you're going into antisemitism you'l have to recognise the major manifestation of this subset of racisms is the anti-Arabism rampant across the 'west'.

I have seen this argument a lot. But “anti-Semitism” has come to mean hatred of the Jew. Can we not even settle on that?

And your 'Jewish homeland' is the greatest promoter of this racist psychosis, possibly because it is posited on the dispossesion of the homeland of the Palestinian semitic people by the Europeans using the colony to further their hegemonic ends since its nineteenth-century racist foundation, in parallel with the various pseudo-scientific academic interpretations of incipient genetics, that also incuded the Aryan nonsense which went on to its well documented delusionary distopia.

Fine! That is your opinion obviously! But the essence of the lead article at the top is these and other things in this sinful world are not taken at face value, but are discussed. I began myself with those ideas but as I  went into it I learned a lot of things, one of which was the history of the Arab leader from Palestine called Hajj Amin el Husseini, also known as the Mufti of Jerusalem, and the interconnection of our friends the Brits with that gentleman. There is another narrative Opus! Follow the thread of the link between the Nazis and the Arabs. At least discuss it!

And Gadaffi did not last so long without his realpolitik ability to know when to collaborate with the empire..not least(correct me if you know better)by his reported inclusion among the coalition of the willing special renditionists.

This touches on how you see Islam (but you ignore also the left and Haile Selassie in the 1930s, a valuable part of our heritage) and the practitioners of those who wish for Sharia. There is a fundamental difference here between us. Muammar Gadhafi was opposed for a very long time to the Muslim Brotherhood type of politics. He remained a Muslim. But his orientation was towards Africa and Africans, and the Africans as far as I understand were historically oppressed by the Arabs, even enslaved by the Arabs. This set up a conflict in the mind of Gadhafi which was always unresolved. I hold that the alliance which Gadhafi made with the Imperialists was against the practitioners of Sharia. The point I made is that he did not break this alliance, the Imperialists of Obama (drawing closer to the Neo-Con Conservatives inside American Imperialism). Cameron and Hague (the Brits always to the fore in reaction), and French Imperialism (who have a history here) BROKE WITH GADHAFI AND SIDED WITH THE FASCISTS, WHOM GADHAFI CALLED “RATS”.

In the spirit of the essay Opus you need to open your mind up a little. It is you who is holding on to the old Irish leftist type slogans.

This leads you to not address this central issue, which is that these Imperialists have created an alliance with the most reactionary forces on earth, that is the forces of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Also my point is that Humphrys rightly recognizes this reaction of the Muslim Brotherhood (he can think clearly because unlike you he is not tied to "leftist" dogma) but because he and others of that ilk in Ireland are so much part of the US and Neocons US political system they did not see the above.

In fact if you read Humphreys on Libya (and everybody should) you can see just what a role he played. He was from February calling for the head of Gadhafi, (along with William Hague to use just one example) and only at the end (with the foulest of murder scenes possible) did he realize that he was in fact calling for the victory to the Muslim Brotherhood.

In conclusion I think that “anti-imperialist” has got it in this respect:

Saying that I havent (sic) really done that much study on Freud, so I could be off the mark on that one Opus, if so please correct me.

Freud is indeed very interesting. There has been much work done on Freud, not least by Trotsky. But you will notice that the writer has stated that he himself has not done much work on Freud, with the implication that he will if given the chance.

That is the spirit and that is the method that we need to go forward with.

Nothing here is set in stone. Yes Opus there certainly needs to be a new party, however small (it will be small!). But it is the spirit that it is based upon that is so important for the future.

We really do not need set opinions about Palestine or Israel. We do need though to go into the history of these phenomena.

But on an emotional level it does make me angry when I hear people like Opus attacking the Jews in Palestine as being colonial etc., and calling the Jews "racist" etc., but what about our Irish struggle against the British? Why is the struggle of the Irish good, which it was and is, but the struggle of the Jews for THEIR Homeland somehow evil?

Keep the balance.

Precisely Opus!

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Wed Nov 16, 2011 11:15

But I'm afraid the quality of the consistency sags a bit.

For starters your presumptions about my stance dont hold water. You label me 'left', where I merely try to be objective, though I can accept some of my values would socially be in that end of the spectrum(I was called a commie not too long ago in an argument for simply stating that the government should manage the economy, not Ibec manage the government.

You appear to regard yourself as Trotskyist, while slating those calling themselves "Trotskyist". Think a little on that one.

The Arabs are a semitic people according to my Oxford reference dictionary...in the interests, again, of consistency and acceptable standards I will stick to that yardstick...otherwise we are into the Alice in Wondereland flexibility of language that allows the very double-think you display by refusing to accept that the Zionist project is the displacer of the Palestinian people, and is part of the imperial WASP strategy you obviously recognise, but seem somewhat confused about.

And, again, antisemitism is a manifestation of generalised racism(I lived in South Africa under apartheid, and have given the subject a little thought). I have also travelled in Islamic countries, from Indonesia to Morocco, so have a little knowledge of the facts on the ground regarding the people and their cultures.
For clarification, I do have academic qualifications in both history and psychology, but am wise enough to realise they confer no infallibility, and to realise that such qualifications can be handicapping blinkers of self-certainty. I follow Freud in so far as I agree with his focus on self-analysis as the prime route to insights. His bourgeois status is not an impediment to my appreciation of his intelligence.

And yes, I am aware of the use of antisemitism in your more generally accepted sense, and even of the Arab links to Naziism, but think your smearing of all Arabs is as irrational as equating all Irish with William Joyce or other Irish sympathisers.
Nor am I unaware of the anti-jewish strain of this antisemitism in those emotionally angered by the Zionist treatment of Palestine; again the generalised racism that is often a reaction to its mirror form(I am constantly reminding people who lapse into this dangerous but understandable reaction to Israeli brutality).
Are you aware of the colaborations of leading Zionists and US and British antisemites with Naziism?( Churchill was a thoroughgoing racist imperial thug, thats why he recognised his challenger in Hitler long before the posse caught up)

Nor can I accept your equation of Zionist return to spurious homeland Israel with the Irish struggle for independence from British imperial rule(need I remind you of Balfour)which I see as an inversion of historical reality, possibly due to your 'sinful' analysis of the human predicament, an odd and anomalous 'Trotskyist' analytic stance. Are you extending the credence of biblical claims(and manipulation)to colour your historiography?

I could continue, but I hope you will reconsider some of your own inconsistencies before making a response.
If I have ignored anything you consider central, do point it out. But try to restrict the response to a particular rather than so general a scatter.

by Felix Quigley Thu Nov 17, 2011 09:38

From the piece on top: "Because a narcissist group is hypersensitive to criticism they only wish to hear selective data to support their doctrine. They will always prefer to preach than to listen. A healthy narcissistic leader would be open to criticism and reality-checks"

That makes sense!

I am not sure how the SWP in Ireland found themselves in the camp of assisting the “new” turn made by US and British/French Imperialism in assisting the Muslim Brotherhood, inspired by Qaradawi, who is promoted by Ken Livingstone, into power in Libya. Some of you have been following them more closely than I have. But I suspect that they have become a vehicle for Imperialist ideology just as Mark Humphrys was, as I explained above. But there is a difference to Humphreys because in reading his material on Libya he came to ask himself had he been making a terrible mistake, placing into power the Muslim Brotherhood and Sharia, but since he had been carried along on the wave of his pro US imperialism, he came to realize that when the damage was done. Fat lot of use Humphrys is then!

But the SWP are worse by far, because as far as I can judge the SWP is in league WITH the Muslim Brotherhood. Can you imagine Marx, Lenin or Trotsky being in league with the Muslim Brotherhood?

But I do not want to just single out the SWP. This is a disease of the whole of the Irish left, and even of the leaders of the ICTU.

Where did this alliance between the left and the Muslim Brotherhood come from? Is it a product of anything that Marx to Trotsky said or taught? No! Show me where?

So then it is something new? And are they Trotskyist? And is the left in Ireland Marxist?

Just hearing selective data to support set opinions is crass dishonesty, the very opposite of the scientific method, pick up any creationist document and it is the same dishonest method, you cannot go forward an inch using that method, and of course the SWP and the Irish left have not been going forward, but backwards, and into the hell hole of anti-Semitism in fact.

The Irish left will address the issue of the Jews and Israel in a truthful and historical manner or they will never create any movement of principle.

This is after all the country whose leader, Eamon DeValera, trailed his sorry “republican” ass down to the Dublin German Embassy in 1945 to offer condolences on the death of Hitler. And that has never been addressed by the Irish left here, nor the fact that Ireland stood by and did not issue a murmur during the Holocaust, even worse, parts of the republican movement were anti-Semitic during the Holocaust.

Ireland has a history on this issue and if the left in Ireland do not pick it up and deal with it then it has no future talking about anything.

The SWP in Ireland is only a symptom of this Irish left degeneration on the issue of the Jews.

The Irish left have followed the pattern explained by the writer above to a tee, in that they have not examined the issue of the Jews and the Arabs historically.

Worst of all they have accepted that the Irish people can have THEIR nationalism, but that the Jewish people cannot have THEIR nationalism.

How does the nationalism of the Irish compare with the nationalism of the Jews. The Irish national struggle against Britain is the stuff of great glory and struggle. But it is as of nothing in comparision to the mammoth struggle of the Jews which in at least 3000 years is ten times longer than that of the Irish.

(With a thousand times and counting more suffering by the Jews than the Irish, even though the suffering of the Irish at the hands of the British was enormous.)

Is it not? Prove me wrong on this!

As regards the situation in Libya. The situation has moved on. This was a real defeat, and this defeat was largely thanks to the lies of the Media, just as the lies of the Media were decisive in the real defeats in Yugoslavia.

But in the face of these lies the left was hamstrung by groups like the SWP, which had become as bad as the Sun newspaper, or the Guardian.

The situation does not stop and has moved on to especially Syria. I stand in defence of Assad, even though he is an out and out anti-Semite, because I stand also in defence of the religious minorities in Syria, such as the Christian Arabs in Libya, who will be terrorised and killed by Islam if Assad is defeated. Same as in Libya, where the lone Jew who tried to reopen the synagogue in Tripoli was run out of town by the forces around the new Government. What a fool that guy was! Just like Humphrys in fact!

When I look at Iran I see a set leadership which as far as I can judge is obsessed with the return of the Twelfth Iman and is quite prepared to have a chaos in the world in order to hasten that return. I see Iran as a very non rational force, while I see US and other Imperialisms as very rational, in THEIR plans also for world dictatorship. The Iranian leadership is Jew Hating to the very core. This absence of rationality is the key to the danger facing the Jews of Israel from the Iranian Nuclear Bomb, and the fear of the Jews of Israel that Iran will have FIVE of these Nuclear Bombs by next April. Is this true? At least take it seriously by investigating it. Not accepting anybody's word and investigation is the essence of the writer at the start of this.

By the way Freud and Jung were psychologists. Why kick our great history of Marxism and its true continuation in Trotsky into touch, before you have even understood it? Just because you have run up against the SWP activism does not mean that you have met Marxism, quite the opposite is the whole essence of the essay above. You have not.

Finally I do not understand the allegation that Jewish leaders or activists collaborated with the Nazis. Where, when, who precisely and in what context?

by Felix Quigley - www.isill.blogspot.com Thu Nov 17, 2011 09:49

Correction!

That should be "Christian Arabs in Syria"

Also in fact Christian Arabs in Lebanon, Gaza, Iraq, Yemen...everywhere the Christians are being driven out. Is this not fact?

In the spirit of the lead article is this not an issue for the left in Ireland, and if not why not? Why is this not being given any publicity, the wholesale destruction olf these minorities in these Arab countries?

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Thu Nov 17, 2011 11:03

...you bomb us with quantity, and totally refuse to address points raised.

' A healthy narcissism..', makes sense to you.

Just to keep on topic, the psychological definition of the condition is: excessive or erotic interest in oneself, one's physical features, etc.

That seems to preclude psychological health, and as such confirms my observation about Alice in Wonderland sloppiness of terminology...and the remainder of your fantasy history reconfirms your loss of historic compass. I'm not about to waste time or space deconstructing the edifice you erect on your false premises, I'll leave it to readers to provide their own grains of saline scepticism, something you seem to have abandoned in your dogmatic embrace of your deified Trotsky, which excudes all but your own puritanical interpretations into dismissive parenthesis.

Equally your antisemitism is an invention of your own(or some hasbara feed)as is your idealised Jew and Israel. E£choes of Aryan special pleading ring throughout, betraying the origins of Hertzl's fantasy. I suggest you read the enclosed letter from Zionist Albert Einstein in 1948 to get some grasp on the complecity of the multiple issues you insist on cramming into yoour Trotsyite glass slipper.

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Thu Nov 17, 2011 11:11

failed to load. I'll retry. meantime, if it fails again, just google Einstein Letter, 1948, Decemebr 4, New York Times, Warning of Zionist Fascism in Israel.

Then come back on that and refute. And note the JEWISH signatories.

by Felix Quigley Thu Nov 17, 2011 12:54

You know Opus in the spirit of the above introductory piece, which is a good piece, Einstein was a physicist, and he was not a politician. What he had to say about anything in 1948, well I would not say it was worth nothing, but it is worth just the same as any other Tom, Dick or Harry, it has to be weighed up in a scientific manner. In other words you need to not take Einstein´s word for the Irgun, or his word for Begin, or his word for Dir Yassin, same with Hannah Arendt who also signed that letter to the NYT. It means precisely nothing or little in that light. It is necessary to make an objective and a scientific analysis of the period, before the period and after the period.. THAT is the spirit of the introductory article at the top of this.

I repeat, when I came into left wing politics, I also thought that the Palestinians were a great cause, and that Israel was unfair to the Palestinians, but as I read around the subject I began to change my mind. A big factor in changing my mind was information which became available about the history of the man called Hajj Amin el Husseini, who did play a big and active role in The Holocaust of the Jews, an Arab from Palestine,and every time that I have raised the name of this man there is an immediate attempt to silence the issue. This has been consistent down through the years. And I have met this silence from Jewish people also who do not wish this history to be made known because it would cast the Arabs in a bad light, and it is so necesary to reach an agreement with these Arabs (is their only aim).

The world is changing very fast indeed. When I raise these issues about this fast changing world you Opus attack me because there is too much "quantity" and not enough "quality"

I disagree my posts are like that. If we are to have a new leadership along some of the lines hinted at in the introductory article, then ALL issues are on the table.

Look back to one of my posts and I refer to Engdahl´s take on Libya in the light of the US taking on Muammar Gadhafi as a step towards isolating China, and what did we have on the news last night, but Obama driivng to war with China by means of this "Pacific" initiative.

I also refer to the ganging up asgainst Syria, and the role of Al Jazeera in this as the mouthpiece of this new US Imperialism alliance with The Muslim Brotherhood. Like I said defend Muammar Gadhafi and even though I like Asssad not a bit I also say defend Assad against this reactionary cabal, and I draw attention to the plight of the Christian Arabs in many countries, not least in Lebanon and Iraq, of which the Catholic Church is completely silent on.

Israel should publicly support Assad, Humphrys as a supporter of Israel should defend Assad, but Israel will not, Humphrys will not.

That is the crisis of leadership once more among the Jewish people.

The same kind of crisis of leadership as existed in 1933 in the face of the menace of Hitler and the Nazis.

The Jewish people if they are to survive need a new leadership. This means a definite break from US and all forms of Imperialism. If the Jews do not break from US Imperialism then they will be defeated.

The Jews have made the same mistake that was made by Muammar Gadhafi. At no time should Muammar Gadhafi have given up his Nuclear Programme on the basis of a "deal" with US Imperialism. Those snakes destroyed Gadhafi and they will destroy the Jews of Israel too.

By the way I am not an "ist", not a "Trotskyist". I read, I think things out for myself.

We as socialists have a GREAT tradition, and that tradition is contained there in Marx and Engels, the leadership of Lenin to build the Bolshevik Party, and the whole of the life of Trotsky who did take some wrong turns but overall was magnificent.

I said Freud was interesting. An interesting figure. But we are talking here, I hope, about the tradition of revolutionary socialism.

In other words are these fighters in the sit-ins etc. going to fight to destroy capitalism or will they be led by wrong leaders to try to reform capitalism.

When people start talking about Freud and Jung as socialist leaders then you know they are not really serious about socialist revolution.

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Thu Nov 17, 2011 16:34

Stop analysing it from racist bases.

When the Jewish tribe, and the rest of us, recognise our common ground in our common humanity we might just start to stop waving weapons at each other and tackle the common pre-human enemies who are, as you say re Obama's 'Pacific Century' shite, marching us up to the nuclear precipice.

That you defend these idiotic instruments for ANYONE, on any grounds, baffles me. As for 'capitalism' it cannot be eliminated..unless you want to bomb us back to barter...

We either tame it and tame ourselves and establish a culture that recognises the warrior culture as a throwback to our animal competition instincts(which manifests itself in modern finance domination of real resource economics, war by other means), accept Marx et al as prisoners of pre-industrial warfare interpretations, and move on to the psychological and cyber/informatics wars of the twenty-first century.

We cannot establish a better civilisation by equally savage means to the one currently extant. Perhaps it cannot be done at all.
But it cannot be done with repeated iterations of the same vicious cycle, that just convinces the next generation of contenders the same bad lesson.

Job 1: Get human. Form your primary identity on the human race(there is only one biological race, catch up with twentieth, if not twenty-first century genetics): and drop the nineteenth century race paradigm of pseudo-scientific rationalisation of tribal affinity based on animal survival instincts.

Job 2: Stay human(despite the multiple provocations; no easy number). Get out of the cul-de-sac. Men, and women, were struggling for freedom and justice before the word 'socialism' was coined.

by Felix Quigley Fri Nov 18, 2011 09:20

That is a vital point made by Libertarian. The issue is not just the SWP and he makes the interesting point that SP and SWP are united in a love affair in ULA, and that explains the absence of any probe into the role of the CIA agent inside the SWP in Ireland, the same fella appearing on the boats heading to Gaza, thus implicating what the US intelligence is really up to, and bearing out the Jews who often talk about how the CIA and US State Department are enemies of Israel. These things have to be probed. They also lead into the whole of the Palestinian Arab posturing in Ireland because the IPSC are obviously implicated. Nobody has said that here. What are you hiding?

Tourish who wrote this article is himself a deserter of the Irish class struggle and he does this in the form of equating democratic centralism with cultism. But democratic centralism is NOT cultism. Why should it be? The whole premise of Militant was that the British Labour Party could be reformed and changed into something of use to the British working class. And they were claiming to be Trotskyist. Just read any of the reams of attack that Trotsky and Lenin made against the British Labour party and you will find the real root of the problems of Peter Taffe et al!  

Also…If you read carefully what he says you will see that he attacks political groups on the left for warning about the crisis in capitalism. But the crisis in capitalism has (As we speak) actually come through with a vengeance. They were right on that score. Tourish wrong.

The crisis in the system of capitalism is what has been driving groups into activism. This crisis is ever present because capitalism is in terminal crisis.

Activism is a real problem but if you want to escape activism you have got to go to sleep somewhere.

Every morning the crisis develops in leaps. Yesterday it was Obama on this Pacific conference thing, but this morning the focus shifts to Burma, where it appears from my meagre knowledge that the US is getting fully behind the military dictatorship, and the election last year which was controlled by the military, is used by Mrs Clinton as the fig leaf for the US getting behind the generals.

And all this is vindicating Engdahl who despite his basic anti-Semitism must be taken seriously, because he giver an overall understanding of the secret strategy of US Imperialism.

Jews and Israel if they are to survive as a nation must understand this overall US and EU (German especially) strategy, but they are prevented from doing this by leaders who snuggle up to US Imperialist leaders. Thus there are great lessons indeed in following how Mark Humphrys in Ireland, who claims to support Israel, was doing the very opposite by calling for the defeat of Ben Ali, of Mubarak and of Muammar Gadhafi. I stand in opposition to Humphreys because he seeks to tie the Jews to capitalism and to Imperialism and thus threatens the very existence of the Jewish people and race because it is from Imperialism that the biggest danger to the Jews comes.

On the issue of Iran I insist that that leadership which surrounded Khomeini is irrational. All religions can be said to be so, but this Iranian leadership is different. Israel has got to act alone against Iran, seek allies where it can, but essentially act alone, because the Iranian leadership from Khomeini onwards has been explicitly threatening Israel with destruction. But Israel IS the Homeland of the Jews and the ONLY Homeland that they have got.

Tourish may be smug in his ivory tower but these are pressing issues and I would just love to know what he has to say on these.

by Felix Quigley Fri Nov 18, 2011 09:48

Opus Diablos...you talk about Jews as a "tribe" and about Jews joining with humanity. What has this so-called "humanity" ever done for the Jews. We have just passed the date (November 1938) of the Kristalnacht event when over 1000 synagogues were destroyed by the Nazis and the world stood by and did not a thing.

To be honest I am getting a bit pissed off talking to you. You keep straying off the topic above and you keep making me respond to what are in essence Gilad Atzmion political positions.

Even on the issue of defence of Muammar Gadhafi against Imperialism/Sharia alliance you could not make an unconditional defence of Gadhafi.

On the issue of the Einstein letter to the NYT, note that Einstein has been challenged on every assertion he made in that letter. He was a brilliant physicist but politics too is a science. But how can I answer here, it is a whole historical period that must be studied in a scientific manner, with attention to sources especially important in that study.

There were Jews who collaborated with the Nazis that is well known and is accepted by Jews today.

But remember that the Jews were doomed from about 1933, especially the year 1933, when the German Stalinists and the German Social Democrats allowed Hitler to take the power of the German state WITHOUT A SHOT BEING FIRED despite the huge organized strength of the German working class movement. It was paralysed by Stalinism and Labourism.

From that point on millions of Jews in Germany and central and eastern Europe were scrambling to survive.

The Nazis wanted first of all the Jews to leave through emigration. This policy changed to one of extermination roughly at the time in 1941 that Hajj Amin el Husseini appeared in Berlin and signed on to the Nazi programme of extermination of the Jews. I do not know if he was the cause of the change but without a doubt he was involved in the change to gassing etc.

Opus, perhaps you are not Gilad Atzmion, but you seem to have NO IDEA how offensive your assertions and jibes about "Aryan" etc are to the Jewish people. You kind of mirror the crisis in the left in Ireland, whether or not you are of the left, that is my point.

The article above is interesting to me because it can open up a questioning and a debate about present political positions being held on a wide scale in Ireland.

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Fri Nov 18, 2011 10:08

..so democratic centralism is not cultism, we have that much.

Any chance now you might actually tell us what you understand by the term?
It sounds to me like another of those oxymoronic buzzwords can be used, as I said already, in Lewis Carrol fashion to baton anyone who doesn't conform to your line. Like dictatorship of the proles, or national socialism or the multitude of pat phrases the PR skyscrapers brainstorm each other with over their snowcapped frosties.
Only other time I encountered it is in a reference to the crew currently steering yet another Labour coalition up shit creek with a neo-con paddle.

And its still about your pet endangered tribe, the Jews..who have no homeland other than the one they continue to pillage from its resident owners, the untermentioned Palestinians. Funny thing, the Jewish neighbours I grew up with in Dublin considered themselves as Irish as us, just as we did.

As for Jewish leaders snuggling up to US imperialists....is it not AIPAC dictating the imperial program??

At first I thought you were honest but mistaken. I'm beginning to think you are more premeditated in  your disinformation distribution.

by Felix Quigley Sat Nov 19, 2011 10:30

I am no apologist for Fascism, the very opposite, do not make such absurd and outlandish claims, not backed up by any evidence.

Also I have no credibility on Indymedia. I have commented very seldom here. All I have is what I am saying now and the words just stand or fall as they are. I care little about what anybody "thinks" of me.

I have indeed got an emotional and a politically motivated attachment to the Jewish people, and I am proud of that attachment, and I think the Irish left have got to reconsider many things, including this.

And on the issue of democratic centralism, who am I to lecture, but I am sure that Google search will turn up the basic definition. The idea is sound. You need full democracy inside the movement. Then you need strict discipline in carrying out the action. We need this because we face such serious enemies. The practice of this historically is another matter. When many talk of this they are really talking not about the principle but about the historical practice of Stalinism, which is a truly evil phenomenon.

In other words minds must be opened in Ireland. That is the meaning of the introductory article here and is its great strength.

All things are up for discussion in Ireland. Only in that way can the working class find a way forward and even with that it will not be easy, but without opening up the discussion we cannot even get going!

I do think the Jews are threatened from many sides and not least of these sides is the leadership which the Jews at present have got.

The first side that they are threatened from is from anti-Semitism. The second is the main lesson: that the Jewish leaders in the 1930s were unable to put forward a political programme that could save them. But having said that I have emphasised above that it was all over for the Jews as early as 1933 and that after that date the Jews were scrambling for survival.

by Felix Quigley Sat Nov 19, 2011 10:46

Funny thing, the Jewish neighbours I grew up with in Dublin considered themselves as Irish as us, just as we did.

And what did they do, these “Jewish neighbours” so Irish when their people the Jews were being gassed and their remains despatched so cruelly in the Nazi ovens. Are you familiar with the Wannsee Conference when the Nazis drew up a programme for murdering all Jews in Europe. The Irish Jews were on the list. (Google Wannsee and you will easily see the list)

What were your “Jewish neighbours” prepared to do about that?

As for Jewish leaders snuggling up to US imperialists....is it not AIPAC dictating the imperial program??

Jewish leaders do snuggle up to American and other Imperialism, and this is especially so with American Jewish leaders. These leaders will lead Jews to destruction.

But NO, AIPAC controls nothing! That is just "Protocols of Zion" conspiracy rubbish!

At first I thought you were honest but mistaken. I'm beginning to think you are more premeditated in  your disinformation distribution.

There is No disinformation on my part. This is not the forum but I want all of the historical issues of the past opened up for the Irish workers and the Irish youth, and this opening up conducted in a scientific manner with very close attention paid to sources.   In a way that is the essence of the article above...                                                                                                                                                

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Sat Nov 19, 2011 11:06

..to have an honest exchange when you keep shifting the goalposts. What my former neighbour did between '39 and '45 is not the point.

My point is that Jewish exceptionalism is in itself racist, as surely as white exceptionalism. Can you not see that simple fact?

The only way to defeat antisemitism is to challenge ALL racisms, and their sectarian divisive cousins, in all manifestations. Zionist puritanism is such a manifestation, and will generate by its nature counter hatred. But the exclusive nature of the zionist project is the disease, as surely as white supremacist SA or Aryan teutonic ubernationalism.

Imperialist military expansionism of a corporatised state is fascism, whether under a union jack, swastika or stars n stripes...or star of david. If you have a different definition, post the difference, and if I'm wrong correct mine. My basic premise is the fascism of Mussolini. Other trappings can be evident in other manifestations of the form, but that would be my understanding of the term. As such it fits Israel as currently constituted, and as it is acting.

by Felix Quigley Sat Nov 19, 2011 14:14

I really cannot continue this Opus. You are bereft of the most basic formulations of political science and socialist history.

...to have an honest exchange when you keep shifting the goalposts. What my former neighbour did between '39 and '45 is not the point.

It is the point. It is the central point. The Jews were totally helpless between 1933 and 1945, and this was because the Nazis were allowed take the power of the German state into their hands. From that point on the Jews were helpless, scrambling against impossible odds to survive. The Jews in Ireland were especially helpless, could not do a single thing to help their people, the Jews.

My point is that Jewish exceptionalism is in itself racist, as surely as white exceptionalism. Can you not see that simple fact?

Not quite like that Opus at all! I am Irish and I am very proud to be Irish. Where is the difference? A Jew is proud to be a Jew!

The only way to defeat antisemitism is to challenge ALL racisms, and their sectarian divisive cousins, in all manifestations. Zionist puritanism is such a manifestation, and will generate by its nature counter hatred. But the exclusive nature of the zionist project is the disease, as surely as white supremacist SA or Aryan teutonic ubernationalism.

As I have often said, Jews do not cause anti-Semitism. Not even one tiny atom of anti-Semitism. Never. A Jew is not in the slightest manner responsible for anti-Semitism. Period! The Irish by being Irish did not cause anti-Irish bigotry. Period!

Imperialist military expansionism of a corporatised state is fascism, whether under a union jack, swastika or stars n stripes...or star of david. If you have a different definition, post the difference, and if I'm wrong correct mine. My basic premise is the fascism of Mussolini. Other trappings can be evident in other manifestations of the form, but that would be my understanding of the term. As such it fits Israel as currently constituted, and as it is acting.

Again, total rubbish! Fascism is NOT that. The great expert on Fascism was Leon Trotsky because he examined and wrote about the phenomenon of Fascism, Mussolini and Hitler as leaders of fascism, as it emerged. Google it and start from there.

There was nobody who examined this phenomenon as closely as did Trotsky, as it emerged.

People may disagree with his analysis of Fascism but what people cannot do is ignore his analysis.

I do not wish to quote big pieces of his writing on this. But put it like this in a very simple way. If you were living in Germany, say you were a trade unionist, or a member of an independent woman’s group, in the year of 1933, then you would have found out very concretely what fascism was.

You cannot speak. You cannot organize. Fascism stops all independent activity.

Note you do not have that in America at present, in Ireland, in Britain etc. etc. The place that it comes closest to Fascism is in say Libya, if you are black, or in Egypt, if you are a Coptic Christian.

Opus I hold no bad personal feelings towards you. But I am somewhat amazed at how the most basic political formulations pass you by. Believe me if you had been in Germany in 1933 you would be grasping this issue much better.

On a general level you seem lost in your words and seem to be unable to deal with the specific. This draws me back to the initial article which began this discourse. The Irish left has to think clearly and independently because every issue has to be faced up to and dealt with. This is especially poignant on the day that Saif Gadhafi has been captured by the FASCISTS....

I defend Saif unconditionally against these Fascists. I rest my case on what I have written so far.

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Sat Nov 19, 2011 15:46

...if you had been in germany in 1933 you would be grasping tthis issue much better.'

Did you, Felix, live there then?

If not, your argument implodes.

If so, I will try to explain where I differ, without pretending I have the total picture.

Being proud to be anything you had no part in deciding is alien to reason. How does it differ from being proud to be Aryan?

by JoeMc Mon Nov 21, 2011 10:02

This is from a Reuters report of a speech made by Gaddaffi on Feb 13 this year shortly before the NTC/ CIA colour-coded revolution .

* Libyan leader says refugees should mass on Israel's shores

* 'This is a time of popular revolutions': Gaddafi

* Accuses Western powers of being enemies of Islam

(Updates with more quotes in paragraphs 11-13)

By Ali Shuaib and Salah Sarrar

TRIPOLI, Feb 13 (Reuters) - Palestinian refugees should capitalise on the wave of popular revolts in the Middle East by massing peacefully on the borders of Israel until it gives in to their demands, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi said on Sunday.

Gaddafi is respected in many parts of the Arab world for his uncompromising criticism of Israel and Arab leaders who have dealings with the Jewish state, though some people in the region dismiss his initiatives as unrealistic.

He was giving his first major speech since a popular uprising in neighbouring Egypt forced President Hosni Mubarak to resign, an event which electrified the Arab world and prompted speculation that other Arab governments could also be toppled.

"Fleets of boats should take Palestinians ... and wait by the Palestinian shores until the problem is resolved," Gaddafi was shown saying on state television. "This is a time of popular revolutions."

"We need to create a problem for the world. This is not a declaration of war. This is a call for peace," he said in a speech given to mark the birthday of the Prophet Mohamed, a holy day in the Islamic calendar.

He also said: "All Arab states which have relations with Israel are cowardly regimes."

Palestinians have long demanded that refugees who fled or were forced to leave in the war of Israel's creation in 1948 should be allowed to return, along with their descendants.

Israel says any resettlement of Palestinian refugees must occur outside of its borders.

ISLAMIST MILITANTS

Gaddafi also issued a call to Muslim countries to join forces against Western powers. He said the world was divided into white, denoting the United States, Europe and their allies, and green for the Muslim world.

"The white colour has decided to get rid of the green colour," Gaddafi said. "These countries should be united against the white colour because all of these white countries are the enemies of Islam."

He said violent acts committed by Osama Bin Laden's al Qaeda network went against Islam because they killed innocent people. But he said there was a political explanation for the emergence of militant Islamists.

"Why did this movement emerge? Regardless of its behaviour, in my analysis this movement appeared in response to the American arrogance towards the Islamic nation and in response to its hegemony of the Islamic world," Gaddafi said.

"It was a response to ... the submission of rulers in the Islamic world, the subservience of rulers in the Islamic world to this arrogance from Europe and the United States," he said.

Gaddafi has for decades challenged what he describes as Western imperialism. His oil exporting country spent years under international sanctions for seeking banned weapons and sponsoring militant groups.

These were lifted in 2004 when Gaddafi renounced his previous activities, though he still frequently deploys his colourful rhetoric against the West. (Additional reporting by Souhail Karam in Rabat; Writing by Christian 

 Felix , wiki isn't always reliable I know ,  but would you care to comment on this extract from its entry : "History of Jews in Libya ."

 By the time Colonel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muammar_Gaddafi came to power in 1969 only about 100 Jews remained in Libya. Under his rule, all Jewish property was confiscated, and all http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debts to Jews were cancelled. Despite emigration being prohibited, most Jews succeeded in escaping the country and by 1974, only 20 Jews remained in Libya.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Lib...lds-4 In 2002, the last known Jew in Libya, Esmeralda Meghnagi, died. In the same year, however, it was discovered that Rina Debach, a then 80-year old woman, who was born and raised in Tripoli, but thought to be dead by her family inhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rome, was still living in a /Nursing_home in the country. With her ensuing departure for Rome, there were no more Jews in the country.

In 2004, Gaddafi indicated that the Libyan government would compensate Jews who were forced to leave the country and stripped of their possessions. In October of that year he met with representatives of Jewish organizations to discuss compensation. He did, however, insist that Jews who moved to Israel would not be compensated.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Libya .Some suspected these moves were motivated by his son Saif_al-Islam_Gaddafi, who was considered to be the likely successor of his father. In the same year, Saif had invited Libyan Jews living in Israel back to Libya, saying that they are Libyans, and that they should "leave the land they took from the Palestinians"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Libya