From Eric London and David North (WSWS):
The intellectually bankrupt, historically false and politically reactionary character of Hannah-Jones’ race-fixated conceptions found its most disturbing and chilling expression when she turned to the subject of the anti-Semitism and genocide carried out by the Nazi regime in Germany. Hannah-Jones stated:
I’ve thought a lot about this. I’m reading this book now comparing what Nazi Germany did after the Holocaust to the American South or America. And one thing you realize is Germany, though they didn’t initially want to, dealt with a cleansing of everything that had to do with Nazism and in some ways had a reckoning of what the country did. But that’s also because there’s really no Jewish people left in Germany, so its easy to feel that way when you don’t have to daily look at the people who you committed these atrocities to, versus in the United States where we are a constant reminder.It is hard to know where to begin with Hannah-Jones’ head-spinning combination of ignorance, historical falsification and anti-scientific race theory. Failing to work through the implications of her opinions, Hannah-Jones came dangerously close to endorsing the conception that genocide, by ending the daily encounter of Germans and Jews, was a solution to inherent racism. Hannah-Jones does not, of course, support genocide. However, she argues that once the Nazis killed the Jews, it eliminated the source of the underlying racial problem and, therefore, anti-Semitism disappeared in Germany. In the United States, on the other hand, racism has persisted because whites still have to look at and interact with blacks. There is nothing in this twisted narrative with which a Nazi would disagree.
But it is a narrative that has nothing to do with real history. As a preliminary matter, Hannah-Jones’ assertion that there was “a reckoning of what the country did” is a grotesque distortion of post-war German politics. It is a well-established fact that the vast majority of Nazi officials were never held to account for their crimes. Many leading Nazis, including individuals who played a major role in the extermination of the Jews, led successful political, corporate and academic careers after 1945.
With the complicity of the United States, the denazification program initially implemented after Germany’s surrender was abandoned so that it would not interfere with the Cold War against the Soviet Union. The new federal government, established in 1949 under the leadership of Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, provided a safe haven for countless Nazis.
Adenauer’s principal adviser, Hans Globke, had played a central role in drafting the anti-Jewish laws of the Nazi regime. The new head of the secret police of West Germany, Reinhard Gehlen, had been SS-Fuehrer Heinrich Himmler’s second-in command. And from 1966 to 1969, a former Nazi, Kurt Kiesinger, was the country’s chancellor. The fight for a reckoning with the legacy of Nazism began in earnest only in the late 1960s, as a consequence of the political radicalization of German students and youth.
Hannah-Jones spoke flippantly about the Holocaust, tossing off her half-baked impressions about a crime of staggering dimensions. Condemnation of the vicious racism and oppression of African-Americans in the American South (and throughout the United States) does not require, let alone justify, facile comparisons to the Holocaust. In the span of six years, the Nazis mobilized the industrial power of an advanced 20th century economy to systematically exterminate, with bullets and poison gas, European Jewry. The Nazis murdered 6 million Jews, killing up to 90 percent of the total Jewish population in each of the countries they invaded.
Hannah-Jones’ explanation of the Holocaust, and the alleged absence of anti-Semitism in present-day Germany, proceeded entirely from racialist premises. The mass murder of the Jews, she implied, was the outcome of an inherent racial conflict between Germans and Jews. She accepts the fundamental framework of Nazi racial theory: that German Jews constituted a race and not a religious community, that Jewish existence and interests were organically antagonistic to those of Germans, that hostility to “the other” was inherent within both groups, and that violent conflict between the races was inevitable.
This explanation of the Holocaust is based, not on a study of objective facts and social forces, but on racialist mythology. German anti-Semites did not hate Jews because they could see them. The growth of anti-Semitism, as a political movement in the late 19th and early 20th century, arose not out of inherent racial differences between Jews and Germans (or, for that matter, the French). There is no such thing as a Jewish or Aryan race. Politically motivated anti-Semitic movements were a product of growing class antagonisms within capitalist society in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and efforts by the ruling elites to break up the growth of the socialist movement and the class struggle.
The main function of political anti-Semitism, as it developed in Germany, Austria-Hungary, France and other European countries, was to deflect growing social anger against capitalism in a reactionary direction, to eliminate the class struggle from politics and replace it with a mythologized struggle between the races. The concept of inherent “racial” differences between Germans and Jews, where none existed, was developed as a pseudo-scientific mythology –supported by the grotesque falsification of evolutionary theory known as Social Darwinism [i.e., “the survival of the fittest”]—to obscure the real economic, political and class structure of society.
It took a great deal of work by reactionary intellectuals in the nineteenth century to lay the theoretical foundations for the growth of anti-Semitic movements. The Hungarian Marxist philosopher Georg Lukács explained in The Destruction of Reason how the racial theorists of the late nineteenth century sought to “substitute race for class in sociology.” Lukács wrote: “This reversal of the relation between politics and economics was connected with the central issue in Social Darwinism, namely the endeavor to grasp biologically, and thus do away with, every social distinction, class stratification, and class struggle.”
It was not the case, as Hannah-Jones claimed, that the Nazis came to power due to a groundswell of anti-Semitism that arose organically from the masses of non-Jewish Germans.
Closing with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
Tuesday, November 26, 2019. More problems for Joe Biden and the protests continue in Iraq as another protesters is shot dead.
Starting in the US where the race for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination continues. What also continues? War Hawk Joe Biden's struggling campaign. As Kat noted, Joe's lost a key staffer. Vanessa Cardenas. Marc Caputo (POLITICO) reports:
Adrian Carrasquillo adds a few thoughts.
Starting in the US where the race for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination continues. What also continues? War Hawk Joe Biden's struggling campaign. As Kat noted, Joe's lost a key staffer. Vanessa Cardenas. Marc Caputo (POLITICO) reports:
A senior Joe Biden campaign staffer in
charge of outreach to Latino, African-American and women’s groups has
quit her post, telling two allies she was frustrated over her lack of
input and with the presidential candidate’s immigration rhetoric.
Vanessa Cárdenas, the most senior
Latina Biden staffer, had been serving as national coalitions director
since the campaign formally announced its existence April 25. She
resigned last week and has since changed her bio on Twitter to say she
was “formerly with @joebiden.”
Cárdenas did not return a call or text message, but two friends familiar
with her thinking told POLITICO that she felt the campaign wasn’t
heeding her advice on immigration as she tried to reach out to Latino
groups that have had longstanding concerns with the former vice
president’s rhetoric and record stemming from the Obama administration.
Adrian Carrasquillo adds a few thoughts.
Important scoop by @MarcACaputo. Here’s some additional context I just found out. 1/x
According to someone with knowledge of Vanessa Cardenas frustration from her time within Biden camp, there was concern the campaign is not welcoming on any suggestions on tone, immigration messaging, and they’re defensive on Obama deportations.
Again, there was mention of how frustrated they were with Jorge Ramos pummeling from September debate. The thing is Latino staff/activists know Ramos would ask Qs like this since he did of Obama.
A feeling from people who have spoken with Vanessa Cardenas was also the belief that Biden camp is taking Latinos for granted.
Biden telling a Latino immigration activist “You should vote for Trump” came after Vanessa Cardenas decided to leave but like Caputo said it underscored the reasons for leaving.
As it was said to me, you don’t have to hit Obama to say to activists “you’re right, DHS and ICE have been weaponized against Latinos, I will clean house and will review orders of deportation,” even if you won’t say you will end them all.
A source who knows Vanessa Cardenas well and has worked with her also underscored that she is not the burn it down kind of activist. She is a “put her head down and get to work on the side of the community” type of activist. For her to decide to quit is a big deal.
Worth noting that in recent days, Vanessa Cardenas liked 2 tweets. This one from @leedsgarcia, another activist and operative who is loathe to personally criticize a 2020 Dem, on Biden’s error saying “vote for Trump”
And this one from respected top Dem staffer (for Kamala Harris) @emmyruiz, which also resonates since Cardenas did not feel she was being listened to.
"Vanessa Cárdenas, the most senior Latina Biden staffer...resigned last week and has since changed her bio on Twitter to say she was “formerly with @joebiden.”
Wonder if there's any coincidence this shameful exchange happened last week too.
The problems never end for Joe Biden. Note this:
Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden
tangled with a Fox News reporter on Thursday when the former vice
president was asked about a recent report and court filing saying that
his son Hunter is the biological father of a baby whose mother he initially denied having sex with.
“I’m
wondering if you have a comment on this report, and court filing, out
of Arkansas that your son Hunter just made you a grandfather again,” Fox
News’ Peter Doocy asked.
“Only you would ask that,” Biden said. “You’re a good man. You’re a good man. Classy.”
No, it is not a private matter. Private matters do not require adjudication in a court. In three months, Hunter Biden turns 50. He got a woman pregnant and he wanted to lie about it. She and her child have suffered during this time -- during this time when Hunter should have been paying child support. This isn't a private matter.
Dead beat dads are not a private issue -- they are a scandal. And Joe can't talk about reproductive rights without owning what his trashy son has done. Reporductive rights include abortion, they include birth control. They also include birth. A woman gave birth to a child and her life and the child's life have been complicated by a man who doesn't want to responsibility for being a father.
Let's also remember that Hunter Biden's first wife has had to go to the court (again) because Hunter's not honoring a previous court agreement. That's not a private matter.
Beau Biden dying and Hunter deciding to chase after the widow? Trashy, but even that's not a private matter.
Hunter's not a child. And Joe declared this run knowing full well that there was a good chance Hunter had gotten a woman pregnant and was trying to walk out on his responsibilities. Joe entered the race knowing Hunter's ex-wife had already filed court papers about how Hunter wasted large sums of money on cocaine and hookers.
Joe doesn't get a pass on scandals. He wants to run for the White House, anything any adult in his family does is fair game. Let's stop pretending that covering Hunter's very serious problems is akin to it being 1978 and the press being mean to a child named Amy Carter. It is not the same.
Joe's got so many problems with his campaign. Kate Sosin (LOGO) points out:
Former vice president and 2020 presidential hopeful Joe Biden will sell you a t-shirt with his name and a transgender flag. What you can’t get from the former VP’s website, however, is a plan on what he would do for LGBTQ people if elected president.
Well, maybe if elected president, he'll come up with a plan three or four years after he's sworn in?
More than 300 people have been killed in protests in #Iraq since they began in early October. Several are reported to have died after being shot in the face with tear gas canisters, like 26-year-old Safaa al Saray bbc.com/news/av/world-… @BBCWorld VIDEO
#Iraq #StreetArt: Murals of Baghdad: the protest art – in pictures @guardian theguardian.com/global-develop…
In Iraq, the protests continue. AFP reports:
An Iraqi protester was killed on Tuesday in the capital Baghdad and dozens more wounded across the country's restive south as sit-ins turned violent, medic said.
The demonstrator died after being shot by a rubber bullet near Al Ahrar bridge, which has been sealed off by security forces as it leads to a cluster of government buildings on the west bank of River Tigris.
A further 18 demonstrators were wounded near Al Ahrar on Tuesday.
#IraqProtests | Dhi Qar
Unknown groups assault set-in protesters, in front of Dhi Qar oil company, in #Nasiriyah– unverified reports say those are tribal groups.
#IraqJournal
0:41
#IraqProtests | Civil Disobedience
Basri women leading chants, during the students strike.
#Basra
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