The Chairman Mao resembling, Monarchy hating, threat to Britain, Labour Party thread

[blandy]

2 hours ago, magnkarl said:

the closer the people are to Corbyn's past, the less likely they are to be punished after Labour's code of ethics.

Bang on.
Now you could say that kind of reluctance is something that all leaders tend to exhibit - not wanting to have to remove their close allies/fellow believers, or you could say that leaders are generally much quicker to oust people who have been critical of them, than those who have been "loyal" and you'd probably be right.

The best leaders, however tend to be consistent in the way they treat people - to leave aside differences of outlook or policy and to have and to exhibit consistent standards of behaviour.

Corbyn definitely seems to protect those of a like mind, and for example May tends to veer towards any excuse to get rid of those with whom she disagrees.

Perhpas that reflects their personalities - May vindictive, Corbyn cliquey. They're both awful leaders. 

[bickster]

1 hour ago, magnkarl said:

In Livingstone's case using well known Holocaust deniers as sources for any sort of serious debate is beyond ridiculous. Don't you agree?

 

 

Name these holocaust deniers, please. As far as I'm aware Lenni Brenner and Norman Finkelstein are not Holocaust deniers, in Finkelstein's case, his parents were Holocaust survivors. Both of them are from Jewish parentage.

[magnkarl]

43 minutes ago, bickster said:

Name these holocaust deniers, please. As far as I'm aware Lenni Brenner and Norman Finkelstein are not Holocaust deniers, in Finkelstein's case, his parents were Holocaust survivors. Both of them are from Jewish parentage.

Brenner is one of the most disreputed Jewish scholars of our time who panders to the alt-right and idiots like Livingstone.

Linky

Quote

The “Nazi-Zionist Collaboration” line entered further into the mainstream in 1983 with the publication of Zionism in the Age of the Dictators, by the American Trotskyist Lenni Brenner. Like the Holocaust denier Faurisson, Brenner affected a “scholarly” style. By arguing that the Zionists collaborated with the Nazis, he intended to establish that Israel was a fascist and Nazi state. This book also used Polkhen’s article a source.

The neo-Nazi right was delighted with Brenner’s book. An article that Brenner originally wrote for the London magazine Middle East International was subsequently reprinted by the American neo-Nazi publication Spotlight. The Australian far right also approved. Eric Butler, Director of League of Rights, wrote a long letter quoting Brenner’s work.

It's hardly a misnomer.

Where do I start with Norman Finkelstein? He's a guy that used to be one of the hardest critics of holocaust deniers. He's written several books on how the Israeli state is "the same" as Nazi Germany. Lately his hate for Israel has turned to praising historians like David Irving who has said that Auschwitz had no gas chambers and that this is a story made up to make it a tourist attraction. He's gone mad. 

Both of the above idiots are bedtime books for either the hard left or insane neo-nazis that want to find any shred of evidence that there was no holocaust.

By all means, read Lenni Berner's books, look at his language on how he draws parallels between race in German concentration camps and Israel. He's one of the most debunked "historians" of this era.

Again, if Nick Griffin had quoted that "lots of historians say that the "zionists" (what the hell does this mean in a country where Jews were 4th rate citizens without the right to form any sort of group) in Germany collaborated with Hitler." would you believe it? 

The fact that a whole swathe of students and respectable people like Livingstone take any sort of credit out of the books of people like Brenner and Finkelstein is beyond me. They might as well read mein kampf and quote it as credible.

Edited August 25, 2017 by magnkarl

[snowychap]

21 minutes ago, magnkarl said:

Lately his hate for Israel has turned to praising historians like David Irving

Could you point us towards this praise, please? So we can know what you are referring to.

[magnkarl]

27 minutes ago, snowychap said:

Could you point us towards this praise, please? So we can know what you are referring to.

Source

Quote

In a six-page essay in The New York Review of Books published on 19 September 1996 the American historian Gordon A. Craig, a leading scholar of German history at Stanford University, noted Irving's claims that the Holocaust never took place and that Auschwitz was merely "a labor camp with an unfortunately high death rate".[18] Though "such obtuse and quickly discredited views" may be "offensive to large numbers of people", Craig argued that Irving's work is "the best study we have of the German side of the Second World War" and that "we dare not" disregard his views. Craig called Irving a "useful irritant"; a devil's advocate historian who promoted what Craig considered to be a twisted and wrong-headed view of history, with a great deal of élan, but his advocacy of these views forced historians to make a fruitful epistemological examination about the current state of knowledge about the Third Reich. In his 2000 book The Holocaust Industry, Norman Finkelstein cited Craig's estimation of Irving as a person who has made an "indispensable contribution to our knowledge of World War II"

Indispensable Irving knowledge:

• “There is no doubt at all that the Nazis in their twelve-year rule inflicted nameless horrors on large segments of their population, including the Jews, and other people whom they disliked. There's no doubt about that at all. What I do question are the methods...”
• "I am not anti-coloured, take it from me; nothing pleases me more than when I arrive at an airport, or a station, or a seaport, and I see a coloured family there — the black father, the black wife and the black children… When I see these families arriving at the airport I am happy, and when I see them leaving at London airport I am happy."
• “I'm not going to say it was 'only' a hundred thousand Jews that were killed in Auschwitzs because even if one Jew is murdered that's a crime. ”
• Mr. Irving's constant references to archives, diaries and letters, and the overwhelming amount of detail in his work, suggest objectivity. In fact they put a screen behind which a very different agenda is transacted… Mr. Irving is a great obfuscator…Distortions affect every important aspect of this book to the point of obfuscation… It is unfortunate that Mr Irving wastes his extraordinary talents as a researcher and writer on trivializing the greatest crimes in German history, on manipulating historical sources and on highlighting the theatrics of the Nazi era.
• “The terrible thing is that Hitler's enemies know him better than anybody, and the press – which is of course wholly in Jewish hands – has defamed and ridiculed the man. An old trick: first a deathly silence, then scorn, then all-out war – and then annexation. (There are Jewish firms that manufacture swastikas.)” source

A credible source indeed. Hitler is his self professed hero. I don't think I need to go on. Livingstone should be removed, expelled and publicly shamed.

I'm glad my grandfather never met the guy. After escaping from a concentration camp he fled for England and joined the RAF. His tattoo saying 140717 would probably be the last thing David Irving saw before being punched in the face if they ever met.

Edited August 25, 2017 by magnkarl

[snowychap]

15 minutes ago, magnkarl said:

Source

Quote

In a six-page essay in The New York Review of Books published on 19 September 1996 the American historian Gordon A. Craig, a leading scholar of German history at Stanford University, noted Irving's claims that the Holocaust never took place and that Auschwitz was merely "a labor camp with an unfortunately high death rate".[18] Though "such obtuse and quickly discredited views" may be "offensive to large numbers of people", Craig argued that Irving's work is "the best study we have of the German side of the Second World War" and that "we dare not" disregard his views. Craig called Irving a "useful irritant"; a devil's advocate historian who promoted what Craig considered to be a twisted and wrong-headed view of history, with a great deal of élan, but his advocacy of these views forced historians to make a fruitful epistemological examination about the current state of knowledge about the Third Reich. In his 2000 book The Holocaust Industry, Norman Finkelstein cited Craig's estimation of Irving as a person who has made an "indispensable contribution to our knowledge of World War II"

 

Is there any particular reason why you didn't quote the full paragraph from that Wikipedia page?

For reference, here it is:

Quote

In a six-page essay in The New York Review of Books published on 19 September 1996 the American historian Gordon A. Craig, a leading scholar of German history at Stanford University, noted Irving's claims that the Holocaust never took place and that Auschwitz was merely "a labor camp with an unfortunately high death rate".^[18] Though "such obtuse and quickly discredited views" may be "offensive to large numbers of people", Craig argued that Irving's work is "the best study we have of the German side of the Second World War" and that "we dare not" disregard his views. Craig called Irving a "useful irritant"; a devil's advocate historian who promoted what Craig considered to be a twisted and wrong-headed view of history, with a great deal of élan, but his advocacy of these views forced historians to make a fruitful epistemological examination about the current state of knowledge about the Third Reich. In his 2000 book The Holocaust Industry, Norman Finkelstein cited Craig's estimation of Irving as a person who has made an "indispensable contribution to our knowledge of World War II".^[19]Finkelstein favourably quoted Craig's testament to Irving's value in part thus: "His book Hitler's War remains the best study we have of the German side of the Second World War and, as such, indispensable for all students of that conflict..."^[20] In a speech at Yale University in 2005, Finkelstein said of Irving that "personally, I don't like the fellow...I think he is a Nazi", but that he thought Irving was useful as a devil's advocate.

 

[magnkarl]

1 minute ago, snowychap said:

Is there any particular reason why you didn't quote the full paragraph from that Wikipedia page?

For reference, here it is:

 

No particular reason. David Irving has been discredited more than most other historians in recent times. If Finkelstein doesn't like the fellow, and actually paid attention to all the "notes" that Irving seems to be finding wherever he goes he wouldn't praise him.

[snowychap]

Just now, magnkarl said:

No particular reason.

Of course not.

[magnkarl]

Just now, snowychap said:

Of course not.

Got anything to contribute with that isn't personal?

[snowychap]

41 minutes ago, magnkarl said:

Got anything to contribute with that isn't personal?

The post wasn't 'personal'. My post was critical of the claim you made about an important omission that you made in your previous post.

Edit: It didn't need the explanation and certainly not the clunkily worded explanation I gave.

 

Edited August 25, 2017 by snowychap
Edited first line and cut out repeat of quote.

[chrisp65]

3 minutes ago, snowychap said:

Is there any particular reason why you didn't quote the full paragraph from that Wikipedia page?

 

Just now, magnkarl said:

No particular reason. 

 

 

[bickster]

Still waiting for this evidence of Holocaust Denial... I think we've established that both are critical of Israel but that's not the question I asked nor was it the accusation that was lain at their door

[NurembergVillan]

29 minutes ago, magnkarl said:

No particular reason.

[Chindie]

Barring his parents, Finkelstein's entire family was killed during the Holocaust. He's quite open about that. To say he's a denier is nuts.

[magnkarl]

26 minutes ago, bickster said:

Still waiting for this evidence of Holocaust Denial... I think we've established that both are critical of Israel but that's not the question I asked nor was it the accusation that was lain at their door

Both historians Livingstone "quoted" are the inspiration for most of the holocaust denial movement. They're two people that are held up as "clean" people, rather than Irving and the rest of them. They both draw heavily on Irving and friends' work. The problem here is that Livingstone didn't do research further than the first two books he came across, if he'd done that he'd found that both Finkelstein and Brenner are widely discredited and not considered proper historians by any means.

I'm sure I could find a book that says Stalin didn't commit any atrocities in Ukraine, but we all know better. Livingstone should've as well.

I'd love to see any source of this so called Zionist movement working with the Nazis when Jews weren't even allowed to own property. It's incredibly short sighted and idiotic. If Brenner and Finkelstein (who widely use Irving - who is wanted in Austria for holocaust denial - as their sources) are Livingstone's only inspirations for said quotes I'd suggest he read some other works too. Maybe try to read something that is written from a neutral perspective rather than from two people who hate Israel with a fervor.

Edited August 25, 2017 by magnkarl

[HanoiVillan]

1 hour ago, snowychap said:

Is there any particular reason why you didn't quote the full paragraph from that Wikipedia page?

Do keep up, this is a new referencing system. It's famed for its ability to produce concise quotes that really capture the essence of the quoted text, while reducing word count. 

Maybe you don't know about it because you don't work in the further education sector, where quoting people accurately is so important ()

[magnkarl]

Here's Finklestein showing how solid his historical knowledge is by the way. It also shows that he's a guy that likes to say sensational things.

Link

Quote

“President Obama clearly doesn’t believe a word he’s saying [on Israel-Palestine], and that’s probably the most troubling or disconcerting thing about listening to him … [When] he says we have Israel’s back, what he actually means is rich American Jews have me, Obama, in their pocket and I have my hands in their pocket.”

Again, the line crosses where the words go from criticizing Israel to it being about "American Jews". Livingstone used two of the most discredited historians on Germany's role with Jews to say something idiotic. 

[snowychap]

10 minutes ago, magnkarl said:

Livingstone used two of the most discredited historians on Germany's role with Jews

No longer 'well known holocaust deniers', then?

[NurembergVillan]

16 minutes ago, snowychap said:

No longer 'well known holocaust deniers', then?

Surely anyone who has written a book about "The Holocaust Industry", suggesting some people trade on and benefit out of the Holocaust (as some say about Man Utd and Munich), can't in turn be a Holocaust denier?

[NurembergVillan]

Quote

Raul Hilberg, the leading scholar on the Nazi holocaust, has called Finkelstein's The Holocaust Industry "a breakthrough" and states that Finkelstein "was on the right track" in his documentation of how the World Jewish Congress, with the aid of the Clinton administration, extorted billions of dollars from Swiss banks in the name of Holocaust survivors, only to pocket the money for Jewish organisations.

And, although The Holocaust Industry is Finkelstein's most frequently cited book in defamatory attempts to cast him as a "Holocaust denier" and a "denier of justice to Holocaust survivors", Image and Reality in the Israel-Palestine Conflict - a thorough criticism of the central political and philosophical tenets informing Zionism - is his most scholarly and substantial work. But Finkelstein's detractors avoid discussion of Image and Reality for exactly that reason: it is considered a first-rate piece of scholarship.

Just leavin' this here...