Reply #50: Perhaps so that we know how the discourse is sometimes affected by hateful attitudes

[LeftishBrit]

I agree that there is little point in pointing out material from obvious hate-sites: everyone knows that Stormfront is bigoted, and no one needs to be pointed to it.

But it is very easy for people to accept material from apparently mainstream or progressive or simply unfamiliar sites as at least worth considering - when on further examination it turns out to be hateful.

Just a few examples, which I came across over the last couple of years - and I'm sure I'm not aware of everything:

(1) A left-winger, finding quotations in support for partly-genuine criticisms of Israel, quoted an article by Andy Martin. My anti-RW-xenophobe radar went off at some of his remarks, and I checked and found that he was a RW Republican. A year later this - and his frank antisemitism AND connection with some more mainstream Republican groups, that shouldn't have given him the time of day (but did of course) - became clear. Perhaps if he had been exposed a bit earlier, and his writings discussed more, he could have been more marginalized?

(2) But my radar doesn't always work that well. When the subject of Phil Tourney came up, I knew he was RW, but had no idea of his links to the far-right and some very nasty views indeed. I had to be pointed to these by a couple of other members of the forum. Then I was shocked.

(3) A moderate Zionist quoted Reuven Koret, who in one article said something that might have seemed reasonable. He is VERY far-right on the Israeli spectrum, and I pointed this out, and gave some examples of truly hateful things he'd written. This is not because I wanted to quote hate for the sake of doing so, but because I wanted to point out why Koret should be discredited. Same as those who needed to point out to me how Tourney was connected to the right.

(4) During the primaries, someone linked to a 'Jewish' organization that implied that Obama's views would not be good for Israel. Well, it was a 'Jewish' organization in the way that the Ku Klux Klan is a 'Protestant' organization! - one of the Kahanist groups. Some of us pointed this out - again, not because we wanted to encourage hate, but becuase we wanted to *discourage* it.

Well, these are just a few examples of both Zionist and anti-Zionist people/sites/groups that preach hate and that might not be instantly obvious as such. And I think it needs to be pointed out that such things exist AND that they are not confined to the very obvious and well-known hate-groups.