Reply #38: please read my post # 30

[iverglas]

The use of the Holocaust analogy by the anti-choice brigade is not a casual, vague reference to some awful event that killed a lot of people.

It is a calculated bit of anti-Semitic *and* misogynist rhetoric. It's quite amazing how it does manage to hit the two birds with the one stone, in the ears of different audiences. (And yeah, he managed to up the ante by mixing racism into the recipe, too.)

To the bleeding hearts, "the Holocaust" invokes an image of innocent human beings being tortured by evil doers. In this case: women.

But the anti-choice brigade doesn't like doctors who perform abortions either, and is usually at pains to focus attention on them, one suspects in part so that the obvious consequence of their proposals, that millions of women in the US are unpunished murderers and should be subject to the penalty for murder, is less obvious. But do they hate those doctors because they perform abortions ... or because many of them are Jews?

The Christian church has a very long history of inciting hatred against Jews by propagating tales of the horrific things that Jews allegedly do to little Christian babies. Google "blood libel".

Huckabee is an adherent of right-wing / fundamentalist Christianity. If he is not an anti-Semite at heart (I'm a foreigner and not sufficiently familiar with the personalities here), he is at least hugely insensitive to Jewish concerns:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/10/11/politics/main3357807.shtml

When radio personality Don Imus interviewed Huckabee last year about his 110-pound weight loss after a diabetes diagnosis, the governor joked that he had spent time in a concentration camp. Huckabee dismissed a Jewish group's criticism, saying he hadn't made a reference to Jews or the Holocaust.

But hmm. He DOES make explicit reference to the Holocaust when talking about abortion.

I hold no brief for exceptionalism -- that the Holocaust and Nazi persecution stand forever apart from all other atrocities committed in human history past and future. Rejection of exceptionalism does not mean not acknowledging the obvious fact that the rhetorical use of the Holocaust by right-wing Christian politicians is calculated to convey a particular meaning to those who know what is being said.

And there really is just no way that Huckabee does not know the code he is speaking in.


Another comment on his comments -- referring also to the concentration-camp incident:
http://dsadevil.blogspot.com/2007/10/huckabees-holocaust.html


I'm going to quote something here without giving the link; it can be found by anyone who needs any more of this sort of thing (Dr. Henry Morgentaler, as I mentioned in the other post, is the Cdn physician and Holocaust survivor who put his freedom on the line in the fight for women's reproductive rights):

Re: Jewish Ritual Murder

Quote:
The next thing you know , these mean old anti-semites will be saying that Jewish doctors are predominant among the abortionists

C'mon Mr Farrell , give us a break , we all know these " celebrities" are working and experimenting for our well being

Dr Rosen
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4180592.stm

Dr Morgentaler ( Jewish "holocaust" survivor , another one! )
http://thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1ARTA0005437

Quote:
Once you start unravelling the web of deceit , you realize that you need to deconstruct the whole thing .

Virtually the whole edifice of our moral value system built up over the last century is a mistake , built on crumbling , Jewish foundations