> As Yoshie has argued, that makes pretty bad politics -- but not I think
> as bad politics as the somewhat sticky moralism or almost-Victorian
> purism of those on this list who are hastening to prove their purity by
> damning Churchill as "crap" or "as bad as the imperialists" et cet. I
> hope none of these politically chaste polemicists dare, ever, to use
> the
> charge of purism against other leftists.
"Sticky moralism"? "Almost-Victorian purism"? Are these expressions supposed to refer to the view that a Colorado professor cheering on the indiscriminate slaughterers of thousands as heroic freedom-fighters and using the cliched Nazi smear against their victims might perhaps have stepped a bit beyond the realm of reason?
And is Churchillian (Ward Churchillian, that is) rhetoric actually at all preferable politically to the "sticky moralism" that dares to raise an eyebrow at this "little Eichmann" stuff? If by politics one means building a large, strong, effective movement of average, workaday Americans, a rhetoric which shows such disregard for their feelings about this horrific event (yes, it was horrific, not -- *not* -- a "heroic deed" by any means) would hardly seem a practical approach. You will notice that Paula Zahn and everyone else on the right who has lit out after Churchill starts out by bringing up the Eichmann thing; he would obviously have had a lot better chance of getting people to pay attention, at least, to his basic idea if he hadn't dragged in this old Nazi reference, which was indeed "crap."
Once and for all, it is time to put an end to this knee-jerk, counterproductive screaming about Nazis and Hitler and Eichmann by lefties, or would-be lefties. It cheapens the memory of the Holocaust and demeans anyone who uses it, besides automatically condemning them to being ignored by most of the people they are talking to.
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________ Misery, mutilation, destruction, terror, starvation and death characterize the process of war and form a principal part of the product. -– Louis Mumford (from "Technics and Civilization")