From: Chris Kennedy (email suppressed)
Date: Mon Jan 19 2009 - 18:27:18 PST
I'm sorry. It seems like I wasn't as precise as I had hoped. My statement
was in response to your:
"And secondly, because Jews can be at least as judeophobic as anybody else."
I agree that judeophobia is still prevalent. But my post was calling this
one statement by you "ridiculous". Perhaps my post will make more sense if
you re-read it with that in mind.
best,
Chris
> Chris,
>
> You are putting up an ill-defined strawman and then fighting it. When
> you say
>
>>However, when you go into ³judeophobia², you are getting ridiculous.
>>Itıs a lot like when Bill Oıreilly questions the patriotism of an
>>American who does not believe in waterboarding or the war in Iraq.
>
> , I don't think that whatever it is that you call "ridiculous" and
> refer to as "it" can be found in any of my posts in this thread.
> You're second-guessing me, which is an instant recipe for a boring
> non-event.
>
> But OK, I'll engage with some of what you say. First, judeophobia is
> not per se about race (as it was cast by the Nureberg laws or the
> laws of Tzarist Russia), or religion (as it was cast by the
> Inquisition), or ideology (as it was cast in the Soviet block).
> Judeophobia is Jew-hatred - however it is cast, it is simply and
> solely about hating Jews. Many Jew-haters have never seen a Jew,
> couldn't articulate what they mean by "Jew", and wouldn't recognize
> one of they saw one; nonetheless they "know" that "Jews" are rats and
> pigs, that they commit ritual murders, that they conspire to take
> over the world, that they are responsible for all the world's woes,
> that they defile and ruin whatever comes near them, and so on.
>
> Second, judeophobia is very much alive in the world, and is in fact
> on the rise. And, as anybody who follows current events knows very
> well, it is very, very present in the current protest demonstrations
> "against the war in Gaza". Slogans like "Go back to the ovens" or
> "Hitler didn't finish the job"; attacks on Jews, boycotts of stores
> owned by Jews - these are NOT criticisms of, or protests against, the
> errors of a state or a nation - these are, plain and simple,
> abominablel expressions of Jew-hatred. And you can see a large array
> of such events reported in, for instance
>
> http://www.zombietime.com/zomblog/?p=230
>
> Given these realities, which have persisted for centuries and should
> be well-known to any "cultured" individual, I would say that YES
> (bingo!), anobody who thinks that it is acceptable to discourse on
> the matter by burping out slogans like "Abolish the state of Israel"
> or "A replay of the Warsaw ghetto" is ipso facto aligning hirself
> with judeophobes. These burps are not "critiques" and they are not
> "subject positions" - they are either thoughtless, ignorant
> regurgitations or something worse. And usually, if you scratch,
> it's precisely something worse. Always the same old worse thing.
>
>
>>You argued before that you like to keep things on the level of
>>³facts². But then you decide via Foucault that the other argumentıs
>>subject position is unable to speak towards facts because their
>>context either puts them outside of the argument altogether or, even
>>worse, is some self-hating paradigm that creates an added level of
>>victimization (³you canıt agree with me because your historical
>>context has made you hate your own people²).
>
> I never said any such thing.
>
>>The problem with throwing perceived subject positions into the
>>arguments is that it makes it impossible to discuss because both
>>sides assume that the other person is saying something because of a
>>hidden position. We then make conjectures about the otherıs subject
>>position that, honestly, if actually spoken, would smack of racism.
>>Me saying, ³you take this position b/c of this & this & this² and
>>you saying, ³you take this position b/c of this & this & this² would
>>be rather insulting and juvenile. Itıs why some of the discussion on
>>this listserv has gotten out of hand.
>
>
> Well, the remedy to this is: either speak from, and with, knowledge,
> thought and understanding, or don't speak. People who speak from
> knowledge, thought and understanding don't speak in slogans. And
> with those who insist on speaking in slogans, there can be no
> pactuation. They put themselves in a position to which the only
> response is "No passaran".
>
>
>>I would hope that one would be able to transcend oneıs
>>historical/Foucauldian subject position to potentially see the other
>>side (rather than bomb it).
>>But even if one canıt, then I would stretch the argument to say that
>>not only is the violence in Gaza (on both sides) killing bodies, but
>>itıs really f*cking up future subject positions for the both of
>>them. Clearly it is not the appropriate solution to the problem.
>
>
> It is not a solution to any problem, but I am afraid it is precisely
> what's happening.
>
>
> -m
>
>
> __________________________________________________________________
> For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.
>
__________________________________________________________________
For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.