Alabama Democrat Candidate Exposed as Shoah Denier
A Democratic candidate for Alabama’s attorney general’s office has been exposed as a Holocaust denier less than a month before the state’s June 6 primaries.
Larry Darby believes that there were no more than 140,000 Jewish deaths during World War II — most of them having been brought on by typhus — and that the historically accepted figure of 6 million killed is a lie promoted by the “Holocaust industry,” The Associated Press reported last week.
The revelation about Darby, who failed to capture the Libertarian nominaton for attorney general in 2002, has sent the state’s Democratic Party scrambling to keep him out of the two-way primary, which also includes Mobile County’s district attorney, John Tyson Jr…
Darby, a self-described Dixiecrat, reportedly favors the imposition of martial law to stop illegal emigration from Mexico.
“Someone needs to speak up for the white man,” he told the Decatur Daily News. “It’s been a long time since someone took up that bat and took a swing for the white man.”
When did the Holocaust become “the Shoah”? I don’t know why, but “Shoah” just sounds so goddamned maudlin and p.c. Can’t we just stick to one name and stop changing it every few decades? It’s sort of like the way that black leaders suddenly decided that they wanted to be called “African American.”
The etymology of the word holocaust: The term holocaust originally derived from the Greek word holokauston, meaning “a completely (holos) burnt (kaustos) sacrificial offering” to a god.
The biblical word Shoa (ùåà ä), also spelled Shoah and Sho’ah, meaning “calamity” in Hebrew, became the standard Hebrew term for the Holocaust as early as the early 1940s.[4] Shoa is preferred by many Jews and a growing number of others for a number of reasons, including the potentially theologically offensive nature of the original meaning of the word holocaust.
So yes, I use Shoah b/c I don’t think what happened is a holy burning!!!
And as for your last comment, outside of the fact that PC has become a “dirty term” since the 60s when it was originally invoked as a radical progressive act, it’s too bad that you can’t see the value in oppressed communities self-determining their own language and definitions for themselves — after years of having been defined by outsiders, and people who have power over them — I’m sorry you don’t see the value in people defining for themselves who they are on their own terms, but bottom line, it’s called self determination, and it’s a damn good thing.
I use both terms, but I agree with Cole above. And RM, I think that it’s really beside the point to discuss what terminology is used anyway when confronted with a story like this.
I’m curious to know what it wasa the drew attention to this guy last week (according to the article, ” Darby’s antisemitism did not draw widespread attention until last week.”) Was it a particular statement? What about his other noxious views? We’re talking about a guy who has said that “”Someone needs to speak up for the white man,” and who “reportedly favors the imposition of martial law to stop illegal emigration from Mexico.” And in addition to denying the Shoah, he has said that Alabama National Guard troops in Iraq “are fighting for Israeli interests and not for Alabama or United States interests.”
I doubt that he made all those statements AND attendeda National Vanguard (a neo-Nazi group) meeting all last week. So what was it that finally woke the local Democratic Party up to how reprehensible he is? And why, oh why, did they not disavow him as soon as any of these comments or associations came out? Was it an incredible capacity to rationalize that which can’t be rationalized away?
Anyone know anything about it?
Good questions Matt–I’m, unfortunately, not surprised that Dems didn’t do anything until this latest report (and I have a feeling you aren’t either)–to me it resolidifies the good work folks are doing in building coalitions across these issues because we definitely need it–what’s even more interesting to me is that I’m not sure how large Jewish communities are in Alabama that this would be the clarion call to the dems there (since i’m pretty damn sure it’s small), but it does demonstrate the importance of how and why Jewish groups can and do stand in solidarity with other oppressed people to speak out against potential and current political leaders like this.
Paul Aronsohn who is running in my district against one of the most conservative republicans in the house is going to look into it. I sent him the news article about why the local party didn’t dump him, and he says it’s reprehensible. so who knows where it goes from here, but those assholes in Alabama are just that…so what about the absentee ballots? Cancel the election and throw the bum out. All they seem to care about is the money….
“So yes, I use Shoah b/c I don’t think what happened is a holy burning!!!”
Just because that may have been its original meaning does not necessarily mean that it still possesses that meaning or that we must all suddenly start using another word because someone discovered that its etymological root is “contaminated” by an unpleasant connotation. What I don’t like is when so-called “leaders” decide that they speak for an entire group and that they have decided that now we want to call the Holocaust the “Shoah” or now we want to be known as “African Americans” instead of blacks. Who appointed them anyway? For the last 60 years, the killing of 6,000,000 Jews during WWII has been known as the Holocaust. No one cares about the etymological root. Most of the words that we use today have etymological roots that are completely different from their current meaning. Calling the Holocaust the “Shoah” sounds pretentious and reeks of p.c. sentimentality.
As for Holocaust denier Larry Darby, the poor man is obviously a crack-pot and I don’t think he stands much of a chance of being elected to state-wide office in Alabama. Voters there are certain to reject him, though not because he is an anti-Semite and a Holocaust denier, but rather because he is an atheist and Alabama, which is in the heart of the Bible Belt, has a population that is almost entirely comprised of religious Christian fundamentalists. Believe me, they don’t vote for atheists down there.
outside of the fact that PC has become a “dirty term†since the 60s when it was originally invoked as a radical progressive act,
The term PC didn’t start getting used heavily until the 1980s, and it was used by right-wingers to paint mainstream liberals with more unpopular radical views that the liberals didn’t necessarily hold.
BTW, some PC is ridiculous: The term “native Americans” is BS, and ,ost of the members of the various Indian nations I know refer to themselves as “Indians.” Only the guilt-tripping so-called “progressive” are so wimpy as to use the wimpy PC term. Usualy I try to refer to these people by the nameof their nation: Navajo, Hopi, tec.
it’s too bad that you can’t see the value in oppressed communities self-determining their own language and definitions for themselves — after years of having been defined by outsiders, and people who have power over them
Well then why aren’t we referring to that country whose capital is Berlin as “Deutschland?” Bu then, if the Deutsch don’t get too bent out of shape when we call them “Germans,” why should anybody else?
Oy gevalt. This is an important story; could people not turn it into a chance to soapbox about “political correctness”?
Oy gevalt. This is an important story; could people not turn it into a chance to soapbox about “political correctness�
Not it’s not. So a crackpot gets on the Democratic ballot in a primary in Alabama, where Democrat’s haven’t been doing so well in recetn decades. Whatever support the Dems have come from blacks. So how can a meshuganner who says “Someone needs to speak for the white man” be taken seruously in a Democratic primary.
Persoanlly, I think the whole thing smells of Karl Rove.
The same way that numerous other awful democratic candidates are taken seriously, and the same way that, even though numerous people said not to take George Bush seriously–look where we are today.
Don’t be so quick to write people off–that’s exactly how folks ends up getting elected.
Wow, I’m glad someone in Alabama is speaking up for white Christians, cause you know, they’ve been SOOO persecuted there in Alabama. No white Christians in the government, white Christians not being allowed to eat in the good restaraunts, white Christians going to crappier public schools, white Christians working the same jobs for less money…
Talk about stuff that REALLY never happened.
somebody ought to mail this dude some history books
Just checked the election results on this out of curiosity–it occurred to me as I was looking to see who’d won Cunningham’s old seat in California.
According to this article, Larry Darby is losing, but with 37% of precints reporting, he has 46% of the vote for the Democratic nomination. That’s 79601 votes thus far.
I wish that he’d just been dismissed as a crackpot, but apparently, that isn’t what happened.