And who appointed Prager to the Holocaust Council? That's right. The Great Decider.

http://samthornton.blogspot.com/

I forgot --James Madison also put the following into Article VI of the Constitution:

"but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States"

Thanks, Stephen.  The ADL could have made their strong statement even stronger had they included such data in their press release.

The idea that a bigot sits on a body designed to commemorate victims of genocide is appalling.

Unfortunately, if you put empathetic people on the committee they might want to talk about geneocide in general and that wouldn't make those in power happy.

I've talked to Muslims who make a good case that, even though a lot of non-Jewish gypsies were victims of the halocaust, people assume that every victim was Jewish.

When scholars dive into these questions, they're called anti-semetic, etc... which is unfortunate but those situations illuminate why people like Prager are choosen-- they have the instinct to embelish the "big lies" of the past.

In my opinion, "nazi germany" wasn't a case of anti-semetism or anti-zionism but, moreso, one example, of many, that illustrates how cruel humans can be to each other.

mcs,

In my opinion, "nazi germany" wasn't a case of anti-semetism [sic] or anti-zionism but, moreso, one example, of many, that illustrates how cruel humans can be to each other.

What is your point in presenting this as an either/or case?

mcs,

I've talked to Muslims who make a good case that, even though a lot of non-Jewish gypsies were victims of the halocaust [sic], people assume that every victim was Jewish.

When scholars dive into these questions, they're called anti-semetic [sic], etc... 

This statement reeks of the FoxNews style "some people say..." strawman.

As MJ has already informed us... 

It is worth noting that the charter of the Holocaust Council makes specific reference to the homosexual victims of the Holocaust, along with Jews, gypsies, and others. Prager is one of the right's most outspoken gay-bashers. See the council's mission statement to understand how inappropriate Prager is to serve in this position.

So, who exactly refers to scholastic assertions of non-Jewish victims of Nazi Germany as antisemitic?  Who are "those in power" who would be unhappy with "talk about geneocide [sic] in general"?  How would Prager's embellishments of "big lies" please those who chose him for the Holocaust Council? 

Where are you going with this?

I am afraid your history is a bit off. 11 million or so people died in concentration camps at the hands of the Nazis. Of these about 6 million were Jews. There is no doubt that the Nazis were monstrous to more than just Jews.

However, the Nazis had set up plans for a museum of a lost people, the Jews. Jews were not just to be killed but to be exterminated as part of Nazi ideology. It is also not just the German's who joined in. Croats, Hungarians, Poles, Ukranians even French and other Western Europeans helped murder Jews in large numbers.

This history is one reason why the Pragers of the world are so distasteful. Non-Jews were certainly targetted by the killing machine created by the Nazis. The Jews were a special victim of it.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

Good post, MJ!

I also want to bring up the case of that
notorious bigot, Glenn Beck, speaking to Ellison on CNN:

"I have been nervous about this interview with you, because what I feel like saying is, 'Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies.' "

The NYT called that "brash."

Brash? Oh yeah, and Michael Richards was what? Uncouth?

And Mel Gibson was cheeky?

Give me a break.

Dear cdblue77

Read the following copied from Keith's campaign website. He will see that his values are certainly MAIN STREAM in a positive sense. There are many traditions in our country including racism, lynching, anti-Semitism, anti-Catholism and so on. These traditions are negative traditions and we should turn our back on them. Read Keith's statement and tell me if he is a person you might be proud of. Again, what follows is taken from his campaign webpage. I should mention that I have met Keith on numerous occasions and know that he believes what he says. And as I have said before, Frank Hornstein -- my of representative in the Minneosta House -- nows him well and believes in him. So do a host of state representatives including many Republicans (here in Minnesota, they are almost all fairly conservative) and when he was endorsed, many came across the isle to congradulate him. He is mainstream Minnesota. He is mainstream American. So what's your concern?

Note: his statement was printed the Minneapols STAR TRIBUNE.
___________________________

Keith: The value system that's behind my candidacy
It's about family, faith and a need to work for
social justice and the common good.

Star Tribune
Published July 19, 2006

A great deal has been written about me in the press and on political blogs recently. I would like to take this opportunity to speak directly about who I am, rather than have others tell my story.

My passion for social justice comes from my family. My parents worked hard to instill a sense of purpose and pride in me. I grew up hearing the stories of my grandfather who worked with the NAACP in Louisiana, organizing for voting rights at a time when those who stood up could be lynched, and sometimes were.

Our family proudly tells of the time when a young attorney, Thurgood Marshall, stayed in their home, long before he became a Supreme Court Justice.

My grandfather's work helped to inspire my commitment to justice and equal rights. I have always tried to live up to his example as an attorney representing the poor and as a state legislator from north Minneapolis.

As a young man I was outraged and frustrated by the racism and injustice I saw in my community and the world around me. Those experiences propelled me to become a social activist, using my words and actions to draw attention to the very serious problems of inequality, racial injustice and poverty in our society.

As I matured, I had to confront my anger and face it down. I eventually realized that it is easy to be a critic pointing out problems and failings, but it is a far more difficult thing to be part of creating the solution.

As my father used to say, "Any jackass can kick a barn down; it takes a carpenter to build it back up."

Eventually I understood what my father had been telling me, and I committed to being one of the carpenters.

I began to help create a world where everybody counts and where there are no throwaway people.

I am still outraged by the direction of our country, but now I channel that outrage into renewing our democracy. I reject the value system that insists it is every man for himself.

Family is the center of my life. I have been married for 19 years to Kim, my high school sweetheart and closest friend. We have four children, the oldest in college, one at Blake, and two in the Minneapolis public schools. My mother and father live three blocks away from my wife's parents in Detroit. When we visit our hometown, our children are lucky enough to run back and forth between the houses of their grandparents.

People draw strength and moral courage from a variety of religious traditions. Mine have come from both Catholicism and Islam. I was raised Catholic and later became a Muslim while attending Wayne State University. I am inspired by the Qur'an's message of an encompassing divine love, and a deep faith guides my life every day.

I believe in a value system that invests in people and asks citizens to work for the common good. I decided to run for office because I believe our government has a positive role to play in creating a better future for all people.

We need leaders who are committed to peace, a clean and sustainable environment, strong public schools and a health care system that works for all people. I am that leader and will continue to be that leader as a congressman from Minnesota.

Rep. Keith Ellison of Minneapolis, is the DFL-endorsed candidate for Congress in Minnesota's Fifth District.

The Jews were a special victim of it.

Daniel, I'm not challenging you statement, but I am interested in your views about it. Why special? I'm very curious.

Let me explain the source of my curiosity a bit. In a conversation I had with an old family friend, who was Jewish. several years ago, I was telling her about my involvement with California Indian tribes and the miserable history they endured. 95% of the California Indian population (the figures are contested) that existed in 1850 had been exterminated by 1870, which the eminent California historian, H. H. Bancroft, called "The most brutal man-hunt in history" or words to that effect.

When I compared it to the Holocaust, my friend strongly disagreed. And her argument pivoted around the concept of the cold inhuman rationality such as we see in, say, the Wannesee conference. In other words, institutionalized killing. And it was an important difference - in California the US Congress simply decided that it would be too expensive to treat with California Indians and refused to ratify the 18 treaties that had been negotiated (they were only discovered in the Congressional Archive 50 years later). The treaties represented 8.5 million acres of Indian land in the state, which the Indians never enjoyed. But with the unratified treaties, Congress simply left the dirty business of genocide to the miners and settlers of the new state. Ironically, the best source of history of this grim period are the records of the 6th Army - most military action of the period was a matter of soldiers protecting Indians against depredation by citizens of the state.

So that's an important difference, of course. I can also imagine how Jews could be thought of as "special" because of the significant contribution they have made to European civilization - not to disparage other groups who became victims. I can probably think of other reasons, but I would appreciate reading your views on this topic.

Neoboho

If I may interject.  Both are examples of genocide.  The US government certainly went through the motions of respecting the national rights of native Indian tribes, but the historical record reveals no substance to the terms in the treaties ratified by native Indian nations and the US government.

The Nazis did not even pretend.  Unless, that is, to pretend to the International Red Cross and to those Jews not yet rounded up that their eventual destinations were something other than death camps (ie, the model of Thereisenstadt).

The big difference, from where I sit, is that the US was more successful with its genocidal policy and got away with it.

Yes, there are enormous difference between the Native American experience and the Jewish experience. Perhaps it was a bad choice of examples on my part - I was trying to illustrate my curiosity about why you say that the Jewish victims of the holocaust were "special" among all the victims of the holocaust.

But now I'm curious about something else. In the past few years some scientist discovered that there is a strong liklihood that the terrible mid-16th C. epidemics that killed a million or so natives was caused by an indigenous hantavirus, and not an imported disease. So it begs the question why Spaniards were not affected to any significant degree by a disease that they would have no immunity to. One hypothesis was that the Indian population was particularly vulnerable due to the deplorable conditions they were forced to live in in Colonial Mexico.

Neoboho

I haven't read Mann's 1491, but I understand he was quite good at presenting ideas that contradicted his own in his book. The mass death epidemic notwithstanding. But consider the Black Death (which some now are claiming was brought on by the stress of climate change) which seems to have reached every nook and cranny in Europe, the kill rate is estimated to have been around 30%. So of course early Americans experienced disease epidemics and plagues. What human society hasn't?

Consider the example of California's Indians I gave. The extermination rate is estimated to have been 90 - 95 percent by some researchers, between 1850 and 1870. California Indians had already been exposed to European diseases for over 300 years by that time. There are historical records of early epidemics, but none of them amounted to a mass-death rate, although it was high, and concentrated among the "Mission Indians" who lived in close proximity to Europeans and under deplorable conditions. So disease cannot explain the extermination that happened during the first 30 years of California's statehood. The most comprehensive book I've ever read on this topic is Chad Hoopes' Domesticate or Exterminate: California's Indian treaties unratified and made secret in 1852. Redwood Coast Publications (1975). It is out of print - and probably never sold more that 1,000 copies. It's a very unpopular topic in the US, it seems.

The Pit River Rangers, for example, were a group of vigilantes who organized for the express purpose of exterminating Indians. Here's an account of one of there field trips in the Achomawi (Pit River Indians) territory:

The attacking party rushed upon them, blowing out their brains and splitting open their skulls with tomahawks. Little children in baskets, and even babes, had their heads smashed to pieces or cut open. Mothers and infants shared the common fate. The screams and cries of the victims were frightful to hear, but no supplications could avail to avert the work of devilish butchery. It will be scarcely be credited that this horrible scene occurred in Christian California, within a few days travel on the State capital. Humanity sickens at the thought of it. Many of the fugitives were chased and shot as they ran. Where whole families had been butchered was indicated by heaps of bodies composed of the mother and her little ones. The children, scarcely able to run, toddled towards the squaws for protection, crying with fright, but were overtaken, slaughtered like wild animals, and thrown into piles. From under some haycocks, where some of them had taken refuge, they were dragged out and slain. One woman got into a pond hole, where she
hid herself under the grass, with her head above water, and concealed her papoose on the bank in a basket. She was discovered, and her head blown to pieces, the muzzle of the gun being placed against her skull, and the child was drowned in the pond. The ground was covered with blood, and the brushwood ranches of which there were fifty or sixty, were filled with dead bodies. Old decrepit squaws, young girls, and infants, none were spared. Guns, knives, and hatchets were used; but the favorite method appears to have been staving in the head with tomahawks. The blush of dawn shone upon this fearful spectacle, and still the massacre went on.

Federal Concern about Conditions of California Indians 1853 to 1913: Eight Documents, Selected and Edited by Robert F. Heizer, Socorro, New Mexico: Ballena Press, 1979, p.35.

Neoboho