WFMU radio opens fire in the War on Christmas, by demonstrating the link between Nazism and Christmas in its function not only as a national holiday, but as a Nationalist holiday.
Jeb Bush has cast doubts upon his Presidential candidacy, telling reporters, “I have no future.” Praise the frickin’ lord!
According to Prof. Mark Taylor, there are more religious college students on campus now than in his entire three decade career. And with them arises a new phenomenon of tolerance for faith and intolerance for reason among university administrators: “religious correctness.”
Not unrelated to the preceding, The Economist reports on how modern neuroscience is throwing the concept of free will to the dogs and how “political correctness,” when applied to this issue, may result in the complete overturning of human social norms.
The NRA is working on a new comic book in which rich liberal Jews are shown to be responsible for the impending downfall of America.
Asher Weissgan, the West Bank settler who murdered four Palestinian workers in Shiloh in a supposed act of protest against the Gaza disengagement, hunghanged himself with his tefillin in Ayalon prison Friday.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (whose name I’ve typed so many times I can spell it properly from memory) suffered a humiliating setback in last week’s elections.
Iran has denounced a UN Security Council resolution imposing sanctions on the Islamic Republic for its failure to suspend uranium enrichment. Oh, and this is scary, though completely undocumented hearsay.
Speaking of Iran and dead Jews, a website was recently launched documenting Beheshtieh, an Iranian Jewish cemetery. Forgive the morbidity, I just find cemeteries fascinating. Particularly this one.
According to Middle East News Line, the US government has been blocking shipments of arms to Israel since September. “The halt reflected deteriorating relations between the two countries since the end of the war in Lebanon.” US officials are apparently dissatisfied with Israel’s performance in this summer’s war, in particular, its failure to attack Syria. No wonder the Iraq Study Group’s findings indicate a shift in gears… And maybe that’s a good thing.
15 thoughts on “Motzash Mishegaas”
mark taylor is a freaking genius. postmodern a/theology is wicked cool stuff. i just hope he comes back to columbia next year, so i can take a class with him.
The Nazi/Christmas story you linked from WFMU only strengthens traditionalist American Christian arguments about the holiday: in Germany the day was de-Christianized “and re-adapted into a celebration of the state.” And so the new fascist Christmas included “a time to celebrate national pride and the Winter Solstice, encouraging the traditions that harkened back to the early days of Germanic paganism, and all centered around a different sort of “savior” – der Führer.”
i.e. It was the secularization of Christmas–the neutralization and usurpation of its Christian religious message–that was the critical precursor that enabled the Nazis to then manipulate it for their own purposes.
As for the Economist article…..uh yeah. I think maybe we should all keep holding on to our minds for awhile (if that’s alright with the Economist of course). This quote was interesting, an old French proverb: “to understand all is to forgive all.” That’s really true. People who profess “understanding” of evil are usually the first to forgive it.
COEJL did a wonderful job getting the word out. I was proud of all of thier work.
Anyway… This is harsh and I would go so far to say the wrong use of tefillin…and grammar. It should read.
Asher Weissgan, the West Bank settler who murdered four Palestinian workers in Shiloh in a supposed act of protest against the Gaza disengagement, hangedhung himself with his tefillin in Ayalon prison Friday.
It was the secularization of Christmas–the neutralization and usurpation of its Christian religious message–that was the critical precursor that enabled the Nazis to then manipulate it for their own purposes.
Hey, that’s a good one! Clearly, it’s only Enlightenment-influenced, tolerance-minded liberals who make the outlandish claim that Christianity had anything to do with the endemic, rabid European tradition of anti-Semitism and Jew murder. Forget about events like blood libels from the Middle Ages or the Inquisition; it’s not as though the Russian Orhtodox Church lent indispensible support to the pervasive incidence of porgroms throughout the Pale of Settlement. And it’s not as though the Catholic Church were instrumental in breathing life into every ant-Semitic political party from the French Revolution froward, in an attempt to stamp out republicanism and restore morarchy and clerical privelege. And it’s not as though the Vatican was responsible for the fact that the Jewish Ghetto in the Papal States was the last to be dismantled anywhere in Europe.
Nope, it was all the Freemasons. And let’s not forget those Wiccans!
What the hell is it, anyway, that has instilled this attitude of unimaginable servility toward Christianity in conservative Jews. I guess the most far Rightwing Jews share the Cristian Right’s belief that the only moral principles that God really gives a shit about are making sure that women don’t have abortions or decide who they want to fuck. The only other thing I can think of is that rightwing Christians are the most rabid supporters of maintaining Israel’s colonial Torah empire in the West Bank. It’s just sickening that a whole portion of the Jewish world is willing to ignore basic hsitorical truth for such grubby rewards.
Well David in between your cursing and talk of “colonial Torah empires” (I would love to be in any band with that name!) I get the feeling you’re not one to stay very on-point. I’m definitely not clear on what the Nazis’ manipulation and dechristanization of Christmas (an issue that is practically 101 level in any study of the Nazi rise to power) has to do with “events like blood libels” or “the Inquisition” or “the Russian Orthodox Church” or the “Jewish Ghetto in the Papal States.”
It’s simply a fact that instead of abolishing christmas the Nazis hijacked it, emptied it of its Christian content and refilled it with their ethnocentric pagan mythos. The Nazis needed to evacuate the universalistic christian message out of the holiday (and out of German society) to refashion the new “post-jewish” and “post-christian” hierarchy they envisioned. The Nazis despised christianity because of its “Judaic”, universalistic, ethical and “feminized” content. It was a severe contradiction to the Nietzchean “ubermensch” idea that they practically worshipped and to the whole pre-Christian teutonic/aryan mythos that they also worshipped.
These are facts (and entry level facts at that). I don’t fully understand why they inspire such rage. In any event you’ve heard of the Protestant Reformation right? I’m getting the feeling there’re about 400 years of Euro/Christian history that youre not yet up on.
You also said: “It’s just sickening that a whole portion of the Jewish world is willing to ignore basic hsitorical truth.” Come on seriously. Exactly how much of the Jewish world do you think is “ignorant” of the murder sprees that took place during the crusades, the inquisition, Chmielnici, etc? I think virtually none, particularly the farther right on the spectrum you go (which you seem really angry at). But I don’t quite get what you want: do you want modern Jews to tell modern Chrisitians “Bug off you [bleepety bleepeties]! Your great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather thrice removed murdered my great-great-great-great-great-great uncle twice attached”???
May I suggest that somebody here is stuck in the past?
Don’t waste your breath.
It’s called a Reductio ad Hilterum. It’s an old school trick Mobius uses here.
Ethicist Leo Strauss lays it out, “Adolf Hitler (or the Nazi party) agrees with X, therefore X must be evil.”
Hilter loves Christmas. See how that works? It’s bullshit, everyone knows it, it’s a joke.
oh…and i wonder what leo strauss would say about the neocons here in israel and in america proclaiming ahmadinejad to be the new hitler plotting a holocaust against israel
I get the feeling you’re not one to stay very on-point.
My point was you’re full of crap. I think I stuck to it quite nicely. I never adovated that Jews tell the Church or its followers to fuck off. (Oh, pardon me; “bleepety-bleep.” I don’t mean to upset your delicate sensibilities too much.) Nor did I suggest they’re ignorant of its depradations. What I did suggest is that apologists like yourself stop ignoring the essential and immediate role played by the Church – and Christinaity – in creating the environment in which the Holocaust could and did occur. My “great-great-great-great-great-great uncle twive removed?” Count up the generations since the pogroms in the 1900’s. Or Boulangisme and Dreyfus, the dress rehersal for fascism. Or the Church’s enthusiastic cultivation of the brand new theories of racial anti-Semitism. I think someone with your iron grip on elementary demonstrable facts pertaining to the Reformation, Nietzsche, and European intellectual history can count better than that.
The motivation? I suppose it’s some vague combination of conservative’s inclination towrad servility, and the support of the Christian Right for the Occupation. Colonial Torah empire a real hoot, huh? I wonder if you’ll be giggling as much when the pariah status Israel has now achieved on virtually every college campus in America is translated into divestment and sanctions.
You gave that fluff piece attention. I think it’s bullshit wordplay in the way you presented it. The article doesn’t connect anything besides people using religion to further their own agenda.
“its function not only as a national holiday, but as a Nationalist holiday” – riiiiiiight, the Gestapo Santa (sounds like a great band name)…
It doesn’t mean I don’t think there are asshole Christians. I know better than you do that there are, I was raised by them, but when all I see here is ‘Christianity is bad’ across the board, how can I not speak up? Fuck that noise.
I could drop endless links that smear chanukah and judaism, but I know that both consist of more than ignorant, sweeping statements, or are all Jews represented by the actions of the neo-cons and the ultra-orthodox?
I’m probably asking for a shitstorm but I like this site. I want to say this: I think your crappy attitude towards Xtianity won’t foster dialogue or solve anything, it only creates further division, to hate and fear that which we do not udnerstand.
If you want to support a rift, continue with provocation…. it does draw a crowd, controversy puts asses in the chairs. Either way, it’s your move.
Also, Leo Strauss or no, Ahmadinejad is a shrewd psychotic (I’ve also read and typed his name so fucking much I don’t need to reference), thanks.
I’m totally feeling the having typed Ahmadinejad so many times thing. His name is on my album multiple times — more than any other world leader besides Bush.
Oh David, “My point was you’re full of crap. I think I stuck to it quite nicely.” Oh was that your point? Well why didn’t you just say so?! It’s certainly a valuable lashout contribution you’ve now made to the discussion. But perhaps you could make it even more valuable by pointing to exactly which facts or data you believe are wrong.
The topic of this thread was on the Nazis’ dechristianization of Christmas. I wrote about that and then you responded with a tirade about the evils of Chiristianity without even addressing my main point: “It was the secularization of Christmas–the neutralization and usurpation of its Christian religious message–that was the critical precursor that enabled the Nazis to then manipulate it for their own purposes.” Though utterly off point let’s talk then about the evils of the Church. The church and its folowers commited evil against the Jews for many centuries. Yep. Mmm-hmm. They sure did.
And that is relevant in practical terms today….why? You refer to fascism and Dreyfus and all of the other evils committed by Christian Europe (and you toss in some post-Christian sins like the case of Dreyfus), and then you condemn modern Christians for….what exactly? For being the descendents of the people who committed those sins? You apparently possess a strong drive for vengeance and reject the Torah’s teaching that children are not punished for the sins of their parents. Oh, anti-Jewish pogroms happened two generations ago and not just six? Well then, let the delayed intergenerational punishment go on…
The church and Christianity may have laid the groundwork of aggression and anti-semitism that Nazism took advantage of….or Europe may simply have retained the anti-Jewish orientation of pre Christian times (the ancient world certainly had no shortage of Jew-killers) or there was a fusion of those factors. Of course since then there’s been a Protestant reformation and American christianity–two developments that changed practical Chritianity enormously….and that you seem unaware of. In any event the Nazis obviously weren’t willing to rely on Christianity to further their policy of mass-murder–if they were, they wouldn’t have insisted on de-christianizing Germany prior to executing their program. (Isn’t this obvious? For just one interesting book on Nazism as a secular/pagan messianic religion see here.)
Anyway look David, you’re angry. I don’t know why but I hope you do. I’ll just repeat my observation that trying to foment anti-Christian animus because of the sins of past generations is both backward-looking and slightly irrational.
As for your rage against “Colonial Torah empires,” yes I find the phrase factually and grammatically laughable. “I wonder if you’ll be giggling as much when the pariah status Israel has now achieved on virtually every college campus in America is translated into divestment and sanctions.” Well the divestment train has moved about 12 inches since leaving the station six years ago. Sanctions have moved about that far too. If either of those measures are imposed (and I believe anti-Israeli sanctions will very likely be imposed at some point, so what?) it will certainly be due in no small part to the hysteria and emotionality of those persons on the far Left who have an unbounded fixation on Israeli “sins”. “(Oh, pardon me…I don’t mean to upset your delicate sensibilities too much.)” No need for pardon, we just seem to have radically different ideas of how to conduct an argument. I believe in maintaining a certain level of civility and dignity during a debate. I think ad hominem swipes and angry scatology are terribly cheapening to the discussion, destructive to the intellectual process and speak volumes about the person who engages in them. You apparently don’t.
mark taylor is a freaking genius. postmodern a/theology is wicked cool stuff. i just hope he comes back to columbia next year, so i can take a class with him.
The Nazi/Christmas story you linked from WFMU only strengthens traditionalist American Christian arguments about the holiday: in Germany the day was de-Christianized “and re-adapted into a celebration of the state.” And so the new fascist Christmas included “a time to celebrate national pride and the Winter Solstice, encouraging the traditions that harkened back to the early days of Germanic paganism, and all centered around a different sort of “savior” – der Führer.”
i.e. It was the secularization of Christmas–the neutralization and usurpation of its Christian religious message–that was the critical precursor that enabled the Nazis to then manipulate it for their own purposes.
As for the Economist article…..uh yeah. I think maybe we should all keep holding on to our minds for awhile (if that’s alright with the Economist of course). This quote was interesting, an old French proverb: “to understand all is to forgive all.” That’s really true. People who profess “understanding” of evil are usually the first to forgive it.
COEJL did a wonderful job getting the word out. I was proud of all of thier work.
Anyway… This is harsh and I would go so far to say the wrong use of tefillin…and grammar. It should read.
Asher Weissgan, the West Bank settler who murdered four Palestinian workers in Shiloh in a supposed act of protest against the Gaza disengagement, hanged
hunghimself with his tefillin in Ayalon prison Friday.It was the secularization of Christmas–the neutralization and usurpation of its Christian religious message–that was the critical precursor that enabled the Nazis to then manipulate it for their own purposes.
Hey, that’s a good one! Clearly, it’s only Enlightenment-influenced, tolerance-minded liberals who make the outlandish claim that Christianity had anything to do with the endemic, rabid European tradition of anti-Semitism and Jew murder. Forget about events like blood libels from the Middle Ages or the Inquisition; it’s not as though the Russian Orhtodox Church lent indispensible support to the pervasive incidence of porgroms throughout the Pale of Settlement. And it’s not as though the Catholic Church were instrumental in breathing life into every ant-Semitic political party from the French Revolution froward, in an attempt to stamp out republicanism and restore morarchy and clerical privelege. And it’s not as though the Vatican was responsible for the fact that the Jewish Ghetto in the Papal States was the last to be dismantled anywhere in Europe.
Nope, it was all the Freemasons. And let’s not forget those Wiccans!
What the hell is it, anyway, that has instilled this attitude of unimaginable servility toward Christianity in conservative Jews. I guess the most far Rightwing Jews share the Cristian Right’s belief that the only moral principles that God really gives a shit about are making sure that women don’t have abortions or decide who they want to fuck. The only other thing I can think of is that rightwing Christians are the most rabid supporters of maintaining Israel’s colonial Torah empire in the West Bank. It’s just sickening that a whole portion of the Jewish world is willing to ignore basic hsitorical truth for such grubby rewards.
Daily Kos has questioned whether the NRA story about the comic book is true. No response yet from the originator of the post, Wonkette …
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/12/23/11618/644
Well David in between your cursing and talk of “colonial Torah empires” (I would love to be in any band with that name!) I get the feeling you’re not one to stay very on-point. I’m definitely not clear on what the Nazis’ manipulation and dechristanization of Christmas (an issue that is practically 101 level in any study of the Nazi rise to power) has to do with “events like blood libels” or “the Inquisition” or “the Russian Orthodox Church” or the “Jewish Ghetto in the Papal States.”
It’s simply a fact that instead of abolishing christmas the Nazis hijacked it, emptied it of its Christian content and refilled it with their ethnocentric pagan mythos. The Nazis needed to evacuate the universalistic christian message out of the holiday (and out of German society) to refashion the new “post-jewish” and “post-christian” hierarchy they envisioned. The Nazis despised christianity because of its “Judaic”, universalistic, ethical and “feminized” content. It was a severe contradiction to the Nietzchean “ubermensch” idea that they practically worshipped and to the whole pre-Christian teutonic/aryan mythos that they also worshipped.
These are facts (and entry level facts at that). I don’t fully understand why they inspire such rage. In any event you’ve heard of the Protestant Reformation right? I’m getting the feeling there’re about 400 years of Euro/Christian history that youre not yet up on.
You also said: “It’s just sickening that a whole portion of the Jewish world is willing to ignore basic hsitorical truth.” Come on seriously. Exactly how much of the Jewish world do you think is “ignorant” of the murder sprees that took place during the crusades, the inquisition, Chmielnici, etc? I think virtually none, particularly the farther right on the spectrum you go (which you seem really angry at). But I don’t quite get what you want: do you want modern Jews to tell modern Chrisitians “Bug off you [bleepety bleepeties]! Your great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather thrice removed murdered my great-great-great-great-great-great uncle twice attached”???
May I suggest that somebody here is stuck in the past?
Don’t waste your breath.
It’s called a Reductio ad Hilterum. It’s an old school trick Mobius uses here.
Ethicist Leo Strauss lays it out, “Adolf Hitler (or the Nazi party) agrees with X, therefore X must be evil.”
Hilter loves Christmas. See how that works? It’s bullshit, everyone knows it, it’s a joke.
ah right, it’s a trick i’m using because after all, i wrote that wfmu piece
oh…and i wonder what leo strauss would say about the neocons here in israel and in america proclaiming ahmadinejad to be the new hitler plotting a holocaust against israel
I get the feeling you’re not one to stay very on-point.
My point was you’re full of crap. I think I stuck to it quite nicely. I never adovated that Jews tell the Church or its followers to fuck off. (Oh, pardon me; “bleepety-bleep.” I don’t mean to upset your delicate sensibilities too much.) Nor did I suggest they’re ignorant of its depradations. What I did suggest is that apologists like yourself stop ignoring the essential and immediate role played by the Church – and Christinaity – in creating the environment in which the Holocaust could and did occur. My “great-great-great-great-great-great uncle twive removed?” Count up the generations since the pogroms in the 1900’s. Or Boulangisme and Dreyfus, the dress rehersal for fascism. Or the Church’s enthusiastic cultivation of the brand new theories of racial anti-Semitism. I think someone with your iron grip on elementary demonstrable facts pertaining to the Reformation, Nietzsche, and European intellectual history can count better than that.
The motivation? I suppose it’s some vague combination of conservative’s inclination towrad servility, and the support of the Christian Right for the Occupation. Colonial Torah empire a real hoot, huh? I wonder if you’ll be giggling as much when the pariah status Israel has now achieved on virtually every college campus in America is translated into divestment and sanctions.
You gave that fluff piece attention. I think it’s bullshit wordplay in the way you presented it. The article doesn’t connect anything besides people using religion to further their own agenda.
“its function not only as a national holiday, but as a Nationalist holiday” – riiiiiiight, the Gestapo Santa (sounds like a great band name)…
It doesn’t mean I don’t think there are asshole Christians. I know better than you do that there are, I was raised by them, but when all I see here is ‘Christianity is bad’ across the board, how can I not speak up? Fuck that noise.
I could drop endless links that smear chanukah and judaism, but I know that both consist of more than ignorant, sweeping statements, or are all Jews represented by the actions of the neo-cons and the ultra-orthodox?
I’m probably asking for a shitstorm but I like this site. I want to say this: I think your crappy attitude towards Xtianity won’t foster dialogue or solve anything, it only creates further division, to hate and fear that which we do not udnerstand.
If you want to support a rift, continue with provocation…. it does draw a crowd, controversy puts asses in the chairs. Either way, it’s your move.
Also, Leo Strauss or no, Ahmadinejad is a shrewd psychotic (I’ve also read and typed his name so fucking much I don’t need to reference), thanks.
I’m totally feeling the having typed Ahmadinejad so many times thing. His name is on my album multiple times — more than any other world leader besides Bush.
Roses are Red, Violets are Blue
Ahmadinijad hates the Z’s, but I’m only a Jew
Just kidding folks.
Oh David,
“My point was you’re full of crap. I think I stuck to it quite nicely.” Oh was that your point? Well why didn’t you just say so?! It’s certainly a valuable
lashoutcontribution you’ve now made to the discussion. But perhaps you could make it even more valuable by pointing to exactly which facts or data you believe are wrong.The topic of this thread was on the Nazis’ dechristianization of Christmas. I wrote about that and then you responded with a tirade about the evils of Chiristianity without even addressing my main point: “It was the secularization of Christmas–the neutralization and usurpation of its Christian religious message–that was the critical precursor that enabled the Nazis to then manipulate it for their own purposes.” Though utterly off point let’s talk then about the evils of the Church. The church and its folowers commited evil against the Jews for many centuries. Yep. Mmm-hmm. They sure did.
And that is relevant in practical terms today….why? You refer to fascism and Dreyfus and all of the other evils committed by Christian Europe (and you toss in some post-Christian sins like the case of Dreyfus), and then you condemn modern Christians for….what exactly? For being the descendents of the people who committed those sins? You apparently possess a strong drive for vengeance and reject the Torah’s teaching that children are not punished for the sins of their parents. Oh, anti-Jewish pogroms happened two generations ago and not just six? Well then, let the delayed intergenerational punishment go on…
The church and Christianity may have laid the groundwork of aggression and anti-semitism that Nazism took advantage of….or Europe may simply have retained the anti-Jewish orientation of pre Christian times (the ancient world certainly had no shortage of Jew-killers) or there was a fusion of those factors. Of course since then there’s been a Protestant reformation and American christianity–two developments that changed practical Chritianity enormously….and that you seem unaware of. In any event the Nazis obviously weren’t willing to rely on Christianity to further their policy of mass-murder–if they were, they wouldn’t have insisted on de-christianizing Germany prior to executing their program. (Isn’t this obvious? For just one interesting book on Nazism as a secular/pagan messianic religion see here.)
Anyway look David, you’re angry. I don’t know why but I hope you do. I’ll just repeat my observation that trying to foment anti-Christian animus because of the sins of past generations is both backward-looking and slightly irrational.
As for your rage against “Colonial Torah empires,” yes I find the phrase factually and grammatically laughable. “I wonder if you’ll be giggling as much when the pariah status Israel has now achieved on virtually every college campus in America is translated into divestment and sanctions.” Well the divestment train has moved about 12 inches since leaving the station six years ago. Sanctions have moved about that far too. If either of those measures are imposed (and I believe anti-Israeli sanctions will very likely be imposed at some point, so what?) it will certainly be due in no small part to the hysteria and emotionality of those persons on the far Left who have an unbounded fixation on Israeli “sins”.
“(Oh, pardon me…I don’t mean to upset your delicate sensibilities too much.)” No need for pardon, we just seem to have radically different ideas of how to conduct an argument. I believe in maintaining a certain level of civility and dignity during a debate. I think ad hominem swipes and angry scatology are terribly cheapening to the discussion, destructive to the intellectual process and speak volumes about the person who engages in them. You apparently don’t.