Well, that was certainly interesting, if not very enlightening or uplifting, when it comes to on-line discussion.
I see that some blogs are continuing to mischaracterize my post as saying that Buchenwald was "not as bad" as Auschwitz. First, I didn't say that. My point was never about whether one camp was "better" or "worse" than another. They obviously were all horrific, in different ways, and there's no sensible or universal way to make such an assessment. As some commenters have pointed out, it's perhaps better to be gassed immediately than worked to death (on the other hand, in Buchenwald, you had a much better chance of survival).
My point was, and remains, despite all the idiotic straw men (like the above) and insults, that Auschwitz was more notorious, to the point that it almost came to be an icon of the Holocaust. While Buchenwald was certainly one of the more well-known camps, I'd be willing to bet that many more people know the word Auschwitz and what it represents than they do Buchenwald. And among those people is, apparently, Barack Obama. Auschwitz is like Holocaust 101, which it would appear to be as far as Senator Obama ever got in his education on the subject.
From Rand: Buchenwald, on the other hand, while atrocious beyond normal human understanding, was merely a slave labor camp, and not historically abnormal in a time of war.
From a survivor of Buchenwald:
I never forgot how General Eisenhower kept rubbing his hands together as we spoke of the horrors inflicted upon us and the piles of our dead comrades. He insisted on seeing it all, hearing it all, learning it all. He knew!! General Eisenhower knew. He wanted to have it recorded and filmed for the future. He said that sometime in the future there may come a time when people will say it never happened that way -- it's an exaggeration, it's propaganda, it was just the end results of war.
You must be so proud, Rand.
"They Died 900 a Day in 'the Best' Nazi Death Camp" by Edward R. Murrow, 1945
We proceeded to the small courtyard. The wall adjoined what had been a stable or garage. We entered. It was floored with concrete. There were two rows of bodies stacked up like cordwood. They were thin and very white. Some of the bodies were terribly bruised; though there seemed to be little flesh to bruise. Some had been shot through the head, but they bled but little.
I arrived at the conclusion that all that was mortal of more than 500 men and boys lay there in two neat piles. There was a German trailer, which must have contained another 50, but it wasn't possible to count them. The clothing was piled in a heap against the wall. It appeared that most of the men and boys had died of starvation; they had not been executed.
But the manner of death seemed unimportant. Murder had been done at Buchenwald. God alone knows how many men and boys have died there during the last 12 years. Thursday, I was told that there were more than 20,000 in the camp. There had been as many as 60,000. Where are they now?
I pray you to believe what I have said about Buchenwald. I reported what I saw and heard, but only part of it. For most of it, I have no words.
If I have offended you by this rather mild account of Buchenwald, I'm not in the least sorry...
You, sir, are a terrible, ignorant person. Were I you, I would shutter my blog in shame.
Were I you, I would shutter my blog in shame.
And if I were you, I would educate myself on the history and horror of warfare.
I see that no one wants to read what I actually write. They prefer to live in some fantasy world in which I wrote something else.
"You, sir, are a terrible, ignorant person. Were I you, I would shutter my blog in shame."
And both of you are liars, bigots and ignorant fools who are incapable of comprehending the english language as Rand clearly and precisely stated what he ment.
But please, continue with your ass-rapery of strawmen........
And if I were you, I would educate myself on the history and horror of warfare.
I'm pretty sure Dwight Eisenhower, quoted in the section above, was educated on the horrors of war, Rand.
You can keep repeating the Mel Gibson/Holocaust denier line about "that's what happens in war," but the Nuremberg court saw it differently.
The dead of Buchenwald are listed on the Holocaust Memorial, right along with the dead of Auschwitz.
Please, keep telling us, especially those of us who quote you, how much trouble we have reading.
Since I've never said that what happened at Buchenwald wasn't horrible, you apparently continue to argue with someone other than me, who lives in some fantasy world of yours. Repetition of illiterate arguments doesn't render them sensible.
I wouldn't want to cop to what I'd written either, Rand, but it's right there in black and white. You wrote that what happened at Buchenwald was
and not historically abnormal in a time of war.
You went on to describe it as the horrors of war.
No, you creep, it wasn't "not historically abnormal." It wasn't "the horrors of war."
It was the Holocaust, Rand, in all of its glory. It was a war crime, the worst ever committed. It was genocide. It was what the Nazis did to Anne Frank once they got their hands on her.
And you continue to minimize it, for your own political purposes. THAT, and not some misreading of your point, is why decent people are going to perform the cyber equivalent of flinging rotted vegetables at you.
Shame on you. Shame!
Good luck with that.
I wouldn't want to cop to what I'd written either, Rand, but it's right there in black and white. You wrote that what happened at Buchenwald was
and not historically abnormal in a time of war.
You went on to describe it as the horrors of war.
No, you creep, it wasn't "not historically abnormal." It wasn't "the horrors of war."
It was the Holocaust, Rand, in all of its glory. It was a war crime, the worst ever committed. It was genocide. It was what the Nazis did to Anne Frank once they got their hands on her.
And you continue to minimize it, for your own political purposes. THAT, and not some misreading of your point, is why decent people are going to perform the cyber equivalent of flinging rotted vegetables at you.
Shame on you. Shame!
Only a moron could think that I am "minimizing" what happened at any of the Nazi camps.
If you have nothing new to say, please stop wasting my disk space and bandwidth with your verbal graffiti.
"Only a moron could think that I am "minimizing" what happened at any of the Nazi camps."
.......Or a Jimmy Carter Jr. Kool-Ade drinker but then I repeat myself.
Really? Let's go to the tape:
"...merely a slave labor camp, and not historically abnormal in a time of war"
"I was simply pointing out that in the historical context of war, in which civilians were generally enslaved or killed, and disposed of when they could no longer work, it was hardly abnormal."
Nothing to see here, folks. Just the ordinary horrors of war. Not like Auschwitz.
"I was simply pointing out that in the historical context of war, in which civilians were generally enslaved or killed, and disposed of when they could no longer work, it was hardly abnormal."
Hell, Russia did it in peacetime.
Ever hear of a "Gulag"?
Joe from Lowel said "It was genocide".
Rand, I think that's the part that I think you still haven't acknowledged -- that Buchenwald was part of a genocide, and as such, it was historically abnormal. An industrially inefficent contribution to a genocide is still a contribution to a genocide.
The medical "experiments" at Buchenwald also seem historically abnormal.
I'll drop it if you like, since I like your blog and I want to be a commenter and not an irritant, but I would be sad if you came away from this thinking that the problem was only with the word "merely".
To prove that Buchenwald was not historically abnormal, all Rand has to do is to show that another nation - any other nation - treated people the same way that the Nazis treated people in Buchenwald.
I don't know if such a thing is possible, since, for all I know, the Nazis could have been worse than anyone else. But if I were to research it, I'd probably start looking at the practices of the Assyrian Empire, the Soviet Union, and the city-state of Sparta.
(Or, if I were a kool-aide drinking liberal, at the U.S.'s practices at Guantanamo Bay. After all, according to liberals, Bush is worse than Hitler.)
Eisenhower "wanted to have it recorded and filmed for the future. He said that sometime in the future there may come a time when people will say it never happened that way -- it's an exaggeration, it's propaganda, it was just the end results of war."
You, Rand, are denying that what happened at Buchewald was the Holocaust, the unique horror of mass-extermination carried out by the Nazis at their concentration camps.
You, Rand, are saying instead that it was "merely a slave labor camp," "not historically abnormal in a time of war," and "the horrors of war."
What went on in that camp was the Holocaust, and just like Eishenhower predicted, you are saying that it never happened that way, at least not there, but Eisenhower himself had the horrors of that camp filmed, specifically because he knew that people like you would try to distort what happened there, to claim that it was just the end results of war, for their own political purposes.
Holocaust deniers have given up on arguing that the whole thing never happened, and have turned to more subtle arguments. For example, Mel Gibson's statement (and now, your statement about Buchenwald) that what happened in those camps was just the consequences of war.
You are wrong in this, both in the factual sense, and the moral sense.
What joe seems to not understand is this proposition; if the atrocities at Buchenwald and Auschwitz is equal, then why didn't the Senator from Indiana, running for President of the US, get his facts straight about what his family member told him?
Look, my father served in the Vietnam war. Now, I won't tell you my father survived the Battle of Khe Sanh or the Gulf of Tonkin, because my father was in the USAF. He flew in B-52's out of Guam and Okinawa. I know the difference between Guam, Okinawa, and Vietnam.
Rand's point was clear. None of Obama's ancestry could have possibly freed anyone from Auschwitz, unless they were part of the Soviet Red Army. So the question is, why did Obama state that his uncle fought with Patton and liberated Auschwitz, when that didn't happen? Rand's supposition is that apparently Obama doesn't consider Buchenwald to be at the same level as Auschwitz in the public conciousness (or Obama's own), so Obama said Auschwitz, which is wrong.
The question is why does Obama say Auschwitz? If this is the story of his family, then shouldn't Obama have his facts straight? Even if it wasn't his family, shouldn't Obama, the man running for US President, know history well enough to know it was the Soviets that liberated Auschwitz? I guarantee you, President Eisenhower knew the difference between Patton's Third Army and the Soviet Red Army.
No, Kevin, pointing at Charles Manson does not prove that Ted Bundy was not "abnormal."
People wearing our nation's uniform know damn well what the difference is between war, and what happened to the 12 million who died in German concentration camps.
This has litigated, you know. They convened a court at Nuremberg. People made your argument. And then, they were hanged.
Rand, no amount of clarification will appease these goons. Your original post was fine. It was obvious to the non-sanguinary that your point concerned the difference between Buchenwald and Auschwitz in popular memory, and the calculated use/misrememberance of the more widely recognized emotionally charged word - truth and honesty be damned. Further clarifications just egged them on, as they perceived they were getting to you.
They aren't posting here for education or clarification, they're here for your blood. Hence the many lame attempts at shaming you into closing your blog - quite laughable.
You shouldn't have wasted your time. All they ever really accomplished was making themselves look like idiots.
Leland,
if the atrocities at Buchenwald and Auschwitz is equal, then why didn't the Senator from Indiana, running for President of the US, get his facts straight about what his family member told him?
Probably, because that's the way he heard the story. Who fact-checks their momma?
^^ was me
Leland asked "why didn't the Senator from Indiana, running for President of the US, get his facts straight"
Leland, was that intentional or unintentional humor? Here in Illinois, we do notice when someone calls our state "Indiana" or "Iowa"!
You continue to betray a profound ignorance of the history of warfare. I see that I have to repeat from yesterday:
Emphasis mine. He built pyramids of the skulls of the inhabitants of the cities he conquered. This was not an anomaly of warfare--it was typical. Throughout history, losers of a war could generally expect to be killed, raped, and/or enslaved.
What was different about the Holocaust was the desire to wipe out an entire race of people (though the Romans essentially did this to Carthage). Buchenwald played a role in that evil design, but it had other war purposes. Auschwitz-Birkenau had this as its sole purpose.
BTW, for all your yammering about who can and cannot read, and how utterly empty my objections are, you have not written a single word in response to the main point, which is that what happened in Buchenwald was not "the horrors of war" or "not abnormal in a time of war" or somehow different from the unique nature of the Holocaust.
It WAS the Holocaust, just as much as at Auschwitz, contrary to your claim. Which is why the names of the victims of Buchenwald are right there next to the names of the victims of Auschwitz on the memorial.
BTW, Auschwitz had slave labor camps, too.
Please, guy who doesn't realize there were slave labor camps at Auschwitz, tell me more about my profound historical ignorance. *rolls eyes*
Your little description of Tamerlane, as fascinating as it is, does nothing whatsoever to make your point about Buchenwald being different from Auschwitz, since what you describe is MORE SIMILAR TO WHAT HAPPENED IN AUSCHWITZ.
There is a long history of massacres in warfare...therefore, a camp where a higher % of the dead were worked as slaves before being murdered is different from a camp where a lower % of the dead were worked as slaves before being murdered. I'm sorry, Rand, that doesn't come within 1000 miles of making sense.
Leland asked "why didn't the Senator from Indiana, running for President of the US, get his facts straight"
Don't worry about it, Leland.
So you mixed up two place names?
It's no big deal.
Well Rand, you made one fatal mistake. You tried to use historical fact to make a logical argument. Silly boy don't you know it is all about what people Think happened not what really went on. :-D
I haven't been watching too close to this whole brewha but I feel that there is only a few likely explanation:
1. Obama is lying for political gain. (Seems to fit the Democrat MO.)
2. His Uncle was in the Red Army. (Seems to fit with his mothers side of the family.)
3. Obama doesn't know what he is talking about. (Seems to fit with precedent data.)
Your basic point is valid: I've studied WWII a bit (mostly battle strategy, tactics and weapons as opposed to the whole "German home front issues." It always seemed to me that if the bad guys are bad enough to need killing then arguing about how bad they are is pointless. Was one bad thing they did worse then another? As my father would say, "Who cares! Less talk more shooting, Pass the ammo if you aren't using it."
"I'd be willing to bet that many more people know the word Auschwitz and what it represents than they do Buchenwald. And among those people is, apparently, Barack Obama."
Seriously? You think that's "apparent"? I think its apparent that he used the wrong name in a speech. I think your continued attempts to draw deep insights from that fact are beyond ridiculous.
"I see that no one wants to read what I actually write. They prefer to live in some fantasy world in which I wrote something else."
Meanwhile, I'll enjoy watching you explain to joe from Lowell and others how his taking your remarks out of context and drawing big conclusions from them is totally unfair and unjustified. How many of your blog posts on Obama would be left if you gave him even half the interpretive charity that you claim for yourself?
I think its apparent that he used the wrong name in a speech.
He did it in at least two speeches. In his 2002 Iraq speech, he talked about how his grandfather heard tales from his fellow soldiers about liberating Auschwitz and Treblinka. It was no slip up.
Joe,
Yeah, he's from Illinois. Glad you can tell the diffence. Now perhaps we should all start writing how insensitive you are about the people of Indiana?
Robert,
It was intentional. Joe's should just now be understanding that.
Here's what he said in 2002:
"He saw the dead and dying across the fields of Europe; he heard the stories of fellow troops who first entered Auschwitz and Treblinka."
Are you saying that it is impossible that his grandfather heard stories about the Soviet troops that entered Auschwitz? I have heard such stories; there's no reason his grandfather couldn't have. I expect that stories about Nazi atrocities spread like wildfire near the end of WW II. They were probably intentionally picked up and distributed as part of the war effort.
BTW, the Tamerlane example you keep using is pretty silly. Tamerlane was by all accounts one of the most brutal and bloodthirsty conquerors in history. Using him as example of what is historically "typical" is at best a distortion.
Are you saying that it is impossible that his grandfather heard stories about the Soviet troops that entered Auschwitz?
The Soviets were "fellow troops" of his grandfather? Who knew?
It would explain a lot, though, now that I think about it... ;-)
Ah, so now the issue is the word "fellow." Let us examine this deeply. I predict the argument goes something like this:
"It is quite revealing that he would use a word that is so linked with communism in the popular imagination--perhaps his grandfather was a "fellow" traveler. Apparently, Obama's family is full of communist sympathizers."
Give me a break.
"Primarily, however, it was a day for the little man of the armies -- for the GI and the junior officer -- and each made it a merry one, forgetting war while toasting the United States and Russia, swapping insignia and watches, snapping pictures and trying out one another's weapons amid noise, danger and laughter reminiscent of the Fourth of July at home." - Catherine Coyne of the Boston Herald writing at the time about the meeting betwen the Soviets and the Americans after crossing the Elbe.
That was the 69th Infantry Division on the US side. I wonder how much Soviet - American commraderie there was amongst the average soldiers over the days and months following that meeting . Although I'm not expecting Obama's Auschwitz story to be accurate (since, after all, the campaign said that he named the wrong camp), I do wonder whether the 89th Infantry Division ever bumped into Soviet soldiers. The 89th website mentions that the Soviets were camped 15 miles away from the 89th after V-E day, but also mentions that passes were often given and recreational activities were enthusiastically pursued. It does seem reasonable that someone from the 89th would know someone who had swapped stories with the Soviets, although of course, perhaps not the Soviets who had liberated Auschwitz.
"It is quite revealing that he would use a word that is so linked with communism in the popular imagination--perhaps his grandfather was a "fellow" traveler. Apparently, Obama's family is full of communist sympathizers."
No, actually that was a joke (though in fact his mother was pretty clearly a communist sympathizer, not that I would hold that against him per se).
The point is that if he was hearing the stories from his fellow (American) soldiers, it couldn't have been about Auschwitz and Treblinka, since they didn't liberate those places. He's just invoking well-known Holocaust place names, because he doesn't know about the German ones (likely) and/or he thinks they'll make his point better rhetorically, not knowing that it makes him come off as historically ignorant. Not to mention his staff. I find it interesting that no one pointed out the Messiah's gaffe at the time.
That last anonymous comment was me. If anyone has references, particularly books, on Soviets - American meetings, I'd be appreciative. Right now, it is harder than usual to do research via Google because all the keywords are tied to the Obama controversy!
Ah, I see. "Fellow" means "American." I guess I must have been using an outdated dictionary.
I do wonder whether the 89th Infantry Division ever bumped into Soviet soldiers.
I certainly wouldn't discount it, but that still doesn't really explain Obama's words, unless you torture their meaning. He doesn't talk about his grandfather's "fellow soldiers" (I'm assuming that he's referring to US troops here, and not their Soviet allies) hearing tales of the Soviets liberating Auschwitz and Treblinka. In any clear reading, he talks about their tales of doing so.
I think that Occam's razor would indicate that these two (I wonder if there are more?) gaffes are evidence that to him, "Auschwitz" is an all-purpose term to attempt to demonstrate his historical and military-loving bona fides.
He's a fast learner, though. I don't expect him to make that mistake again.
Ah, I see. "Fellow" means "American."
??
Well, he was an American. What else would it mean?
Are you saying that he was referring to Soviet troops as his "fellow soldiers"? If so, when did he meet and talk to them? Who did he use for a translator?
If not, what are you saying?
"(I'm assuming that he's referring to US troops here, and not their Soviet allies)"
Oh, "assuming." I'll have to add that to the list.
Here's one: I'm assuming that Rand knows that Tamerlane is universally regarded as one of the most exceptionally brutal and bloodthirst conquerors in history. Given that, I find it quite revealing that he would continue to use that example. Apparently, Rand is attempting to wilfully distort history in order to cover up his own Nazi apologism.
That was me.
"[H]e heard stories of fellow troops who first entered Auschwitz and Treblinka."
He didn't have to meet the Soviets for this to be true. He just had to hear stories of the first troops to enter Auschwitz. Do you think he never heard any stories about the first troops to enter Auschwitz?
BTW, the Tamerlane example you keep using is pretty silly. Tamerlane was by all accounts one of the most brutal and bloodthirsty conquerors in history. Using him as example of what is historically "typical" is at best a distortion.
Stalin, Mao, Chiang Kai-shek, Tojo, Pol Pot, the Hutus in Rwanda, the Sudanese in South Sudan and Dafur, the Serbs in Bosnia, the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda, Mugabe and both Kims (mainly via starvation). Plenty of examples of people who behaved like Hitler in the twentieth century alone. The biggest difference between them is how systematically they behaved this way and how many resources they could bring to bear. Both Stalin and Mao exceeded Hitler in terms of numbers. Pol Pot far exceeded Hitler in terms of percentage of his own people killed (one quarter to one third).
I'm against treating the Holocaust as a wholly unique event far above and far apart from other democides. I believe that makes it too easy to say 'Never again' without actually doing anything to stop other democides. That's the main form of Holocaust denial which leads us to do nothing, not the one which says the Holocaust didn't happen.
BTW, did you know that 20 to 30 million people perished in the Taiping Rebellion? Twenty. To. Thirty. Million. Few westerners know this.
Does it really matter how those millions died?
Yours,
Wince
He didn't have to meet the Soviets for this to be true. He just had to hear stories of the first troops to enter Auschwitz. Do you think he never heard any stories about the first troops to enter Auschwitz?
I have no idea whether or not he heard stories about the first troops to enter Auschwitz. But I doubt if, in the telling, they were called his fellow troops. Unless you're saying that Americans called Soviet troops their fellow troops. That seems quite unlikely to me.
And this line of argument doesn't seem tenuous to you Rand? It doesn't seem at all silly to be drawing broad conclusions about Obama's historical literacy based on whether allied Soviet soldiers who battled into Germany from the East can be regarded as "fellow troops" of American soldiers who battled in from the West?
And this line of argument doesn't seem tenuous to you Rand?
No, not at all. I can see why someone losing the argument might want to think that, though.
I've only skimmed through the last 90 or so comments in the thread that caught fire, skimmed because it's too depressing to see just how deeply the ignorance runs among what I can only assume to be mostly leftist Americans. Some claimed to be this or that but that doesn't matter at all.
By failing to recognize what was particular to Auschwitz and extermination camps those people are also failing to recognize the history and motivations behind it. Intentional or not the sum of that results in a kind of denial by obfuscation: they've already forgotten a lot.
Sorry about the double post. I knew about the commenting issue but didn't think carefully enough about what the forward button might do.
And this line of argument doesn't seem tenuous to you Rand? It doesn't seem at all silly to be drawing broad conclusions about Obama's historical literacy based on whether allied Soviet soldiers who battled into Germany from the East can be regarded as "fellow troops" of American soldiers who battled in from the West?
Tenous might be a good description. Demanding is much better. The level of historical literacy being demanded is rare. We don't prequalify our candidates with mandarin style exams. We just vote. One problem with Obama is that the elections he has experienced before these primaries have not been rigorous. But if we did prequalify our candidates via exams, would any of the current crop pass? Would any of the commenters here pass?
Yours,
Wince
Really, you aren't embarressed to be making these arguments at the same time you are begging dozens of people to give you the benefit of the doubt about what you have written?
I, frankly, think there is no reason that Soviet troops cannot be called "fellows" of their American counterparts. There is a well documented history of feelings of comaradarie and fellowship between soldiers of different nations, and the final victory over Germany was certainly an occasion where such feelings flourished (as the Anonymous poster pointed out above). More to the point, I think a single ambiguous word choice in a speech is an insufficient basis for any claim about the general knowledge level of anyone. There must be hundreds of hours of Obama speaking on the record available. There are bound to be many mistakes in that body of work, because that's how people are.
You, of course, are interested only in taking the least charitable interpretation you can come up with--that this was a mistake by Obama--and drawing the most damaging possible conclusion from that interpretation--that this demonstrates his ignorance of the Holocaust. Yet simultaneously you will howl if anyone applies the same rules to you. You are participating in a feeding frenzy over a single mistaken word, yet you marvel that your one little mistake in your prior post could cause such outrage.
Your entire argument throughout these two posts has been a study in hypocracy. And I think you know that, even if you won't admit it.
He did it in at least two speeches.
Really?
I've seen others point out that these were anecdotes told to press in Q&A after the speech.
Do you actually have the texts of the speech so we can settle this?
you aren't embarressed to be making these arguments at the same time you are begging dozens of people to give you the benefit of the doubt about what you have written?
I've never "begged" anyone to "give me the benefit of the doubt about what I have written."
People have made outrageous and insane comments about me, calling me a Nazi apologist and Holocaust denier, and I have justly pointed out that they are idiots.
I, frankly, think there is no reason that Soviet troops cannot be called "fellows" of their American counterparts. There is a well documented history of feelings of comaradarie and fellowship between soldiers of different nations, and the final victory over Germany was certainly an occasion where such feelings flourished (as the Anonymous poster pointed out above).
Of course you do. You have to think that, or your argument falls apart. Regardless of the amount of "camaraderie and fellowship," this was George Patton's Army, that had no love for the Soviets or the Soviet Union (he wanted to keep the tanks rolling all the way to Moscow), even if they could get on well with individual Soviet soldiers. The notion that they would refer to them as "fellow troops" is ludicrous.
And the notion that I'm drawing "the most damaging possible conclusion" about Obama from this is equally ludicrous. I could, for example, draw the conclusion that his grandfather marched with the Soviets, or that he was (as you said) a "fellow traveler," or that he is lying but thinks that Auschwitz would go over better than some other camp name and is just fooling the rubes again.
But no.
I merely draw the (I think obvious) conclusion that he was unfamiliar with the location of Auschwitz (as he was over the weekend), and he is unfamiliar with who liberated it, though it's certainly been drilled into him by now. He is simply not familiar with the history of the war in any detail, or he would never have said such a thing.
Your laughable notion that "fellow troops" means Soviet troops is what is tenuous.
Do you actually have the texts of the speech so we can settle this?
We have video of him this weekend in a Q&A saying that his uncle liberated Auschwitz. This is easily googlable (I suspect it's on Youtube). We have his Iraq speech (quoted above) from 2002 in which he said: "He saw the dead and dying across the fields of Europe; he heard the stories of fellow troops who first entered Auschwitz and Treblinka."
Neither of these instances is in dispute. All that is in dispute is how to interpret them.
"People have made outrageous and insane comments about me, calling me a Nazi apologist and Holocaust denier, and I have justly pointed out that they are idiots."
They have drawn conclusions from out of context quotes and preconceptions of the right wing, just as you insist on continuing to maintain an absurd focus on single words and phrases and that you find "revealing."
As for the merits:
"Regardless of the amount of "camaraderie and fellowship," this was George Patton's Army, that had no love for the Soviets or the Soviet Union (he wanted to keep the tanks rolling all the way to Moscow), even if they could get on well with individual Soviet soldiers. The notion that they would refer to them as "fellow troops" is ludicrous."
Did Patton write Obama's speech? Did he choose the word fellow? If not, why does it matter whether Patton viewed communists as his fellows? The speech was written by Obama, and it is his meaning that you are obsessing over. If he meant "fellow" to evoke a sense of larger human fellowship (which, afterall, was a big part of the goal of that passage in the speech), your argument falls apart. But rather than acknowledge that possibility, you dismiss it with irrelevant evidence.
Did Patton write Obama's speech? Did he choose the word fellow? If not, why does it matter whether Patton viewed communists as his fellows? The speech was written by Obama, and it is his meaning that you are obsessing over.
OK, so now your theory is that Obama was not relaying his grandfather's words (and no, I really don't believe that his grandfather would have called the Soviets his "fellow troops" for reasons already stated), but Obama himself is calling troops that he knows to be Soviet troops fellow troops to his grandfather?
Ummmm...OK. Could be, I guess.
I think that it flunks Occam's Razor. But if true, it's an interesting insight into Obama's thinking in itself. And actually a much worse one than simply being ignorant about the war.
Of course, another problem with your theory (it's making me laugh, really) is that it takes away any excuse he had for saying that his uncle liberated Auschwitz, if he knew that Auschwitz was liberated by the Soviets.
Either these are war stories passed down to a naive Barack and relayed, or he has historical knowledge of the liberation of Poland. You have to choose one or the other, but you're not allowed both.
You're really tying yourself up in logical knots here, with your single-minded defense of Obama.
My goal here isn't defending Obama. It's point out your obsession with gleaning deep insight from trivial events, and your hypocritical insistance that you not be held to the same standard.
"[I]f true, it's an interesting insight into Obama's thinking in itself."
Oooh. An interesting insight. Pray, tell us more. Do you find it revealing? Is Obama, apparently, a commie symp? Spin it out for us, don't hold us in suspense.
"Either these are war stories passed down to a naive Barack and relayed, or he has historical knowledge of the liberation of Poland. You have to choose one or the other, but you're not allowed both."
How about this: when speaking off the cuff on Monday, he mistakenly misrecalled a European place name. And his grandfather actually did hear stories about the first troops to enter Auschwitz.
"Either these are war stories passed down to a naive Barack and relayed, or he has historical knowledge of the liberation of Poland."
Um, no. Your choices are poor "either/or" examples. The stories could very well have been passed down to him by family members who said Auschwitz--because that's the one they remembered--when they meant Buchenwald.
I'm not sure why you're still arguing and not simply apologizing for the fact that your ideology ran away with your brain?
Also, you keep saying "Occam's Razor" over and over again, but you don't seem to know what that actually means, because the "simplest solution" to this whole kerfuffle is that Obama misspoke and you're a douchebag.
My goal here isn't defending Obama.
No, not, of course not. [rolling eyes]
How about this: when speaking off the cuff on Monday, he mistakenly misrecalled a European place name. And his grandfather actually did hear stories about the first troops to enter Auschwitz.
As I said, that seems exceedingly unlikely, for reasons already stated.
See, the difference between me and Obama is that a) I'm not running for president, and b) all of the moonbats in the belfry that is the leftist blogosphere have been over here grilling and insulting me on this issue for the past couple days with over two hundred comments, and at this point anyone who continues to think that I'm a Holocaust denier or Nazi apologist has to be a serious whack job. If we had the opportunity to similarly ask Obama a few questions, perhaps this could be clarified, but to date, no one has ever asked him what he meant in that 2002 speech, so all we can do is speculate. I continue to think your theory nonsensical, again for reasons already stated.
The stories could very well have been passed down to him by family members who said Auschwitz--because that's the one they remembered--when they meant Buchenwald.
And if he relayed them uncritically in speeches, it means that he does not know where Auschwitz is, or who liberated it. As I said, either he knows his history, or he doesn't. If he knew it, he would have questioned the family to clarify the issue, but he wouldn't go out and make a fool of himself on the stump. Which is exactly what he did.
And you can call me all the nasty names that you want, but it doesn't change that cruel reality. Which obviously frustrates the hell out of you, and your childish response is to call me names.
I don't think you're a Holocaust Denier.
I think you're echoing their arguments for reasons very different from a desire to deny the Holocaust; because it's convenient for you to do so in your jihad against Barack Obama, and because you've argued yourself into a corner and your stubborn pride refuses to allow to exit gracefully.
I see your argument has now degenerated to "Barack Obama doesn't know as much about World War Two as I do." You're right, he doesn't. You or I would never make that mistake, Rand.
But so what? Most people don't know as much about World War Two as I do. Do you really think you would clinging to this lame argument if you hadn't decided you were going to hammer Senator Obama over this "gaffe," and saw all of your initial reasons for doing so evaporate?
"[T]hat seems exceedingly unlikely, for reasons already stated."
What were those reasons again? Oh yeah, it fails Occam's Razor and it provides you with an "interesting insight."
I'm still waiting on the "interesting insight." But I will briefly address Occam's Razor. You see, Occam's Razor doesn't work very well when you cherry pick data points to fit a preexisting conclusion. But you already knew that, didn't you?
As for the difference between you and Obama:
"a) I'm not running for president"
Now we are getting somewhere. I understand that you think different rules of logic apply to presidential candidates than to you; that's pretty obvious. Some might take the more traditional view that bad reasoning is bad reasoning, even if that reasoning advances a particular political viewpoint.
"b) all of the moonbats in the belfry that is the leftist blogosphere have been over here grilling and insulting me on this issue for the past couple days with over two hundred comments"
Ah. And I suppose there has been no feeding frenzy over Obama's remarks? It's just been calmly reasoned contemplation, perfectly proportional with the alleged offense, which was put immediately to rest by Obama clairification.
I think you're echoing their arguments for reasons very different from a desire to deny the Holocaust
I'm not echoing their arguments at all.
And I suppose there has been no feeding frenzy over Obama's remarks?
Not with any interaction with Obama. As I said, no one has even asked him what he meant in his Iraq speech.
"[N]o one has even asked him what he meant in his Iraq speech."
In other words, you have no clue what he meant, so you feel free to interpret in the way that fits your preexisting frame.
Let us find more single words we can obsess over! Leave no non-issue unexplored! It would be irresponsible not to speculate!
In other words, you have no clue what he meant, so you feel free to interpret in the way that fits your preexisting frame.
No [laughing], I think I have a very good clue what he meant. His words provide it. He had no idea where Auschwitz was, or who liberated it. Any other interpretation is quite strained.
As I said, either he knows his history, or he doesn't. If he knew it, he would have questioned the family to clarify the issue, but he wouldn't go out and make a fool of himself on the stump. Which is exactly what he did.
He did not make a fool of himself on the stump. He made a truly minor and insignificant mistake.
Which you, Rand, have blown all out of proportion. At great length. What an interesting and entertaining waste of time! I'd say you have made a noticeably bigger gaffe than Obama.
He has made major gaffes. Just not this one.
Yours,
Wince
"I think I have a very good clue what he meant."
Take me through that reasoning again, Rand. Does it have something to do with this:
"I'm assuming that he's referring to US troops here, and not their Soviet allies"
Perhaps you should assume a bit less and try to expand your dataset beyond single sentances.
Take me through that reasoning again, Rand. Does it have something to do with this:
"I'm assuming that he's referring to US troops here, and not their Soviet allies"
Of course, as would most people listening to that speech, who weren't grasping for straws. I have to work with the available data so, as in much of life, assumptions are unavoidable.
Very few Americans would think that "fellow troops" meant Soviet troops. If Obama thought that they would, he's quite politically tone deaf. Of course, there is actually quite a bit of evidence for that proposition, so perhaps I should rethink my position, but either way, the speech doesn't reflect well on Obama with most of the electorate, if someone were to point out the gaffe.
I'm still going to kindly interpret it as historical ignorance of the location and liberators of Auschwitz, given that he is an American politician.
Let me step in and remind Rand's critics that they are engeging in both anti-semetic and anti-semantic activities in this thread.
Oh, I see. We're back to the "interesting insight."
The available data, by the way, is hundreds or thousands of pages of writing and speeches. That's the dataset that you need to look to if you want to draw broad conclusions about Obama's historical literacy and knowledge.
If your only concern is whether he had carefully compared and vetted his grandfather's stories against the historical record, I suppose the dataset would be somewhat smaller. But that isn't your only concern. You aren't obsessing over these incidents because you think it is crucially important to know whether he had really thought through and considered the implications of his grandfather's stories. No, you concluded that this gaffe is important "because it reveals a profound ignorance of history and/or geography."
If you want to reach that conclusion, Rand, you need to review a lot more than the world "fellow."
I'm still going to kindly interpret it as historical ignorance of the location and liberators of Auschwitz, given that he is an American politician.
There we go! That's not blown out of proportion. Instead of concluding Obama was making a fool of himself, the conclusion is he's just ignorant in the same way most American politicians are.
It's been an awful lot of drama and effort to reach that conclusion.
Yours,
Wince
The available data, by the way, is hundreds or thousands of pages of writing and speeches. That's the dataset that you need to look to if you want to draw broad conclusions about Obama's historical literacy and knowledge.
Now you're the one making assumptions. You assume, without basis, that my assumption arose from a vacuum, with no other data than these two incidents, rather than the totality of the Obama campaign so far...
Instead of concluding Obama was making a fool of himself, the conclusion is he's just ignorant in the same way most American politicians are.
Wince, you misinterpreted my remark (because it was probably clumsily worded). I wasn't saying he was ignorant about Auschwitz because he was an American politician (that, as you point out, goes almost without saying). I was saying that it was unlikely that he thought (or at least said) that Soviet troops were his grandfather's "fellow troops" because he is an American politician.
Hmmm...unless, of course, he's a leftist American politician. With a political tin ear. So maybe Leo is right.
I think it would be quite entertaining to hear him attempt to explain that section of the speech, six years later.
Really Rand? Because someone reading over your blog enteries recently might get the idea that you were obsessively focused on this issue. I'm just sayin'.
...someone reading over your blog enteries recently might get the idea that you were obsessively focused on this issue. I'm just sayin'.
That could only be a statement made by someone who hasn't been paying much attention to my "blog entries." Most of them have been about space, and the International Space Development Conference. If you mean blog entries related to Obama (including comments) consider that it's because I've been having to waste a lot of time fending off idiotic charges from the nutroots that I'm a Holocaust denier and a Hitler sympathizer.
It's almost (but so far, not quite) enough to make one want to give up blogging.
I'm not echoing their arguments at all.
As a matter of fact, you are. You are claiming that what went on in Buchenwald was not the industrial slaughter of the Nazi murder-state, but merely "the horrors of war."
That is precisely the argument that such people as Mel Gibson and his father make. "Jewish people died. Russian people died. German people died. It's the horror of war."
This is where you find yourself. How proud you must be.
I was saying that it was unlikely that he thought (or at least said) that Soviet troops were his grandfather's "fellow troops" because he is an American politician.
Hmmm...unless, of course, he's a leftist American politician. With a political tin ear.
It's still unlikely, considering the known language barrier. Although Obama is quite left, and his political ears, if cast in The Wizard of Oz as the Tin Woodsman, would not be playing against type.
If you mean blog entries related to Obama (including comments) consider that it's because I've been having to waste a lot of time fending off idiotic charges from the nutroots that I'm a Holocaust denier and a Hitler sympathizer.
It's almost (but so far, not quite) enough to make one want to give up blogging.
It's entertaining, though. Like boxing. I can see why boxers might get tired of people trying to hit them in the head.
Yours,
Wince
That is precisely the argument that such people as Mel Gibson and his father make. "Jewish people died. Russian people died. German people died. It's the horror of war."
Yes, if one totally ignores the fact, in my post, in which I acknowledge that Auschwitz-Birkenau was an industrial extermination camp. Which (what a shock!) you do.
By the way, Wince (and Nod), if you want to use the <em></em> tag, you have to do it on every paragraph.
joe from Lowell,
You have a dramatic underappreciation for the horrors of war. One might reasonably at this point label you a 'horrors of war' denier. Democides like the Holocaust are basically warfare by a government against their own unarmed and unorganized citizens. Part of "Never again" should be understanding that the Holocaust was not even close to unique. Not only can we not effectively prevent the next Holocaust unless we understand this, we've missed preventing several since 1945. The Killing Fields. The Cultural Revolution. Rwanda. North Korea. Iraq under Hussien. Burma. Dafur.
And really, why don't you care about the 10 million who died in WWI? Or the other 54 million who died in WWII? How about the 10 million who have died in the Congo Wars in the past 15 years? Do you have any idea how horrible the horrors of war are?
Try to get the start of a clue, dude.
Yours,
Wince
Wince, if you want to make the claim that the Holocaust wasn't even close to unique, and list then various atrocities to make your case, I suggest making it clear that you reject a narrow definition of genocide. (You can read all about the travails of defining genocide on the web.)
Joe from Lowell wrote:
"I think you're echoing their arguments for reasons very different from a desire to deny the Holocaust..."
I think there must be some confusion in that and similar statements/comments as to what neo-nazis, white supremacists, and some other anti-Semite hard left socialists (particularly in Germany itself) argue. To my knowledge their argument in relation to the camps (if they even acknowledge their existence at all) usually is that they were all slave labor camps and more or less insignificant.
What Rand, others and I are pointing out is the opposite: they weren't all slave labor camps, they weren't all identical in their purpose or implementation, and none of them were in any way insignificant nor were all the slave labor and extermination that went on outside the camps all across Europe in any way insignificant either (as an example there are graveyards dedicated to the mostly eastern European victims of slave labor in just about every part of Norway, growing in frequency and size as one goes north).
At least in Europe the simple fact that there were different kinds of camps is uncontroversial (never heard anyone take any offense at it) and taken as self-evident facts.
Two more comments.
Mike Puckett is right.
Rand I hope you don't let any of this shut you down or shut you up; you are right and they are horribly wrong and probably don't even realize what they've ended up saying/arguing or what would ultimately follow from their arguments if taken to their logical conclusions. One can only hope at least some of them will realize as time passes.
Robert,
I don't reject a narrow definition of genocide. I just don't find genocide to be as useful a category as democide. I'm not sure why anyone would want to claim that killing a quarter of all Cambodians in order to remake them in some adsurd image of so called natural man is to be any less discouraged than trying to kill all the Jews in order to serve some twisted Aryan fantasy. Each of the dead Cambodians was as unique a human as any of the dead Jews.
Yours,
Wince
Other than your first sentence, I'd say that's exactly what someone who rejects a narrow definition of genocide would say. I think it is a perfectly moral position to take - your last sentence about the uniqueness of each individual is undeniable. The difference you ask about is akin to the difference between killing a very large number of individual animals versus making a species go extinct. When an extinction occurs, the universe loses a pattern that goes beyond any one individual. For people, for a successful genocide, what gets lost is a living culture, which includes many aspects of life which books and artifacts can't completely record and preserve. You might find that insignificant next to the horror of killing even one human being, but from a political perspective, if you are trying to prevent governments from becoming too powerful, it might be worth considering genocide as a distinct crime with distinct punishments.
Wince, I just realized I misread your comment. If I could edit my already posted comment, I would. I'll stop and think about what you wrote.
So, what if I reworked your paragraph in a reductio ad aburdum (except, perhaps it isn't absurd at all): "I just don't find democide to be as useful as category as "killing an innocent person". I'm not sure why anyone would want to claim that killing one innocent person in order to prop up a repressive regime is to be any less discouraged than trying to kill a quarter of all Cambodians.... Each individual person is as unique a human as any of the dead Cambodians."
Maybe categories like "genocide" and "democide" have uses that go beyond discouraging those in power. For example, they can be a way for those who live on to describe the magnitude of the loss.