From: Lawrence DeBivort (debivort@umd5.umd.edu)
Date: Sat 27 Sep 2003 - 12:36:03 GMT
Greetings, Scott,
Yes, there are those who would like to limit the meaning of the term
'anti-Semitism' to Jews, disregarding the fact that the majority of Semites
are not Jews at all. Perhaps I should modify my characterization of Joe Dees
to something like "tribal anti-Semitic" in that he does blindly side with
Israel while displaying his bigotry to all the other Semitic 'tribes' and to
others beyond.
A similar appropriation of meaning attaches sometimes to the Holocaust. The
Holocaust museum in Washington DC focuses on the horrid plight of Jews in
Europe prior to and during WWII, who accounted for about half of the deaths
caused by Hitler's racial insanities, and makes only passing reference to
the other half: Slavs, Gypsies and homosexuals, IIRC. So the terms
'anti-Semitic' and 'Holocaust' are sometimes and mistakenly used to refer to
'Jews' and 'Jewish WWII victims of Germany', but in fact they refer to much
larger experiences. This mistake, in my experience, is more prevalent in the
US than in Europe and elsewhere.
This is a very interesting phenomenon, and I imagine we could identify other
examples of kidnapped terminology.
I am intrigued with your questions re. Indochina, and would like to hear
more, whether on this list or in private email, whatever you deem
appropriate. By long-running, do you mean deleterious influence that still
obtains, today?
We can add Saddam Hussein to the list of people the US elevated and then
found itself fighting. In reaction and narrow-band focus on the Iranian
deposition of Muhammad-Reza Pahlavi in Iran, his welcome by Carter to the US
(a humanitarian act in US eyes, but a political one in Iranian ones), and
seizure of the US Embassy and its personnel by Iranian students, the US
encouraged Saddam to invade Iran, a war which was to last 8 years and cost
hundreds of thousands of lives, and be marked by the use of chemical weapons
by Saddam. Some assert (I do not know whether truthfully or not) that the US
provided Saddam with these chemical weapons, which, is true, must be one of
the great and shameful ironies of our modern times.
Cheers
> -----Original Message-----
> From: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk [mailto:fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk]On Behalf
> Of Scott Chase
> Sent: Sat, September 27, 2003 2:28 AM
> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Subject: RE: Roger Scruton Weighs In
>
>
>
>
>
>
> >From: "Lawrence DeBivort" <debivort@umd5.umd.edu>
> >Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> >To: <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
> >Subject: RE: Roger Scruton Weighs In
> >Date: Fri, 26 Sep 2003 19:05:45 -0400
> >
> >Is Joe up to his old anti-semitic attacks and bigotries again? I thought
> >the moderators had warned him, and acted on their warnings....
> >
> Although Arabic is a Semitic language (as is Hebrew), you are
> distortng the
> meaning of the word anti-Semitic as coined. Joe hasn't expressed
> a hatred of
> Jews that I can recall. It's questionable that he's expressed an actual
> hatred of Arabs, just a dislike of militant or extremist forms of
> Islam. I
> agree that he has gotten unidimensional.
>
> Joe's anti-Islamist diatribes are passe'. Given my present interests I'd
> rather focus on long running and deleterious colonial French influence in
> Indochina and also how the US wound up seeing Uncle Ho as an intelligence
> and strategic asset in WWII (via the OSS) and an enemy after the
> Communist
> takeover of China and the French defeat at Dienbienphu and how this
> "blowback" (read Vietnam War) with Ho Chi Minh *slightly*
> parallels that we
> (via CIA intrigue) suffered from a proxy war in Afghanistan against the
> Commies (read the Islamic militant mujahideen, rise of Taliban and bin
> Laden), but this is a memetics list.
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk
> [mailto:fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk]On Behalf
> > > Of joedees@bellsouth.net
> > > Sent: Fri, September 26, 2003 3:37 PM
> > > To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> > > Subject: RE: Roger Scruton Weighs In
> > >
> > >
> > > From: Vincent Campbell <VCampbell@dmu.ac.uk>
> > > To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'"
> > > <memetics@mmu.ac.uk>
> > > Subject: RE: Roger Scruton Weighs In
> > > Date sent: Fri, 26 Sep 2003 15:33:28 +0100
> > > Send reply to: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> > >
> > > > Just a bit of trivia (oh and an idea of the kinds of sources Joe
> > > > thinks is viable),
> > > >
> > > > Roger Scruton once described my field as 'sub-Marxist gobbledegook'
> > > > taught by 'talentless individuals who can't get jobs in the media.'
> > > >
> > > > More recently he got chucked off several newspapers after it turned
> > > > out he'd been given money by tobacco companies to write puff pieces
> > > > for them in his newspaper columns.
> > > >
> > > > As you can imagine I'm not too open to his views on these or other
> > > > matters.
> > > >
> > > Scruton does seem to be something of a curmudgeon, but it is only
> > > logically credible to discredit his ideas on their merits, not to ad
> > > hominem attack their author. I could not fail to notice that
> you did not
> > > condescend to do so as far as the article is concerned.
> > > BTW, apropos of some ad hominem thing, I guess, what are your
> > > complaints concerning Bernard Lewis, Lee Harris, Robert Kagan,
> > > Fouad Adjami, Ibn Warraq, Kenneth M. Pollack, Ronald D. Asmus,
> > > Daniel Pipes, Graham E. Fuller, Barry Rubin, Robert S. Litwak, Jeffrey
> > > Goldberg, Christopher Hitchens, Lawrence Wright, Richard W. Bulliet,
> > > Samuel P. Huntington, Robert D. Kaplan, Mark Bowden, etc., etc.?
> > > Published by such rags as FOREIGN AFFAIRS MAGAZINE, FOREIGN
> > > POLICY, POLICY REVIEW, THE WILSON QUARTERLY, THE NEW
> > > YORKER, THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY, etc.?
> > > > > ----------
> > > > > From: joedees@bellsouth.net
> > > > > Reply To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> > > > > Sent: Thursday, September 25, 2003 2:01 AM
> > > > > To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> > > > > Subject: Roger Scruton Weighs In
> > > > >
> > > > > Go to:
> > > > >
> > > > > http://www.morec.com/hyperion/scruton.htm
> > > > >
> > > > >
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> > > > > http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > > ===============================================================
> > > > This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
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> > >
> > >
> > >
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> > > This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
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> >
> >
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> >This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
> >Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
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> This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
> Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
> For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
> see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
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This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
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