But that is exactly what John Mackey did when he told NPR that he would like to change his previously controversial statement that Obamacare is a form of socialism.
Back in 2009, Time Magazine wrote: “In a Wall Street Journal editorial titled, ‘The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare,’ John Mackey, the founder and C.E.O. of Whole Foods – one of the world’s biggest retailers of ‘natural’ and organic foods – stirred up furor among his left-leaning customer base by denouncing Obama’s health care plan as likely to ‘move us much closer to a government takeover of our health-care system.’ “
Mr. Mackey, in a January 13 interview with NPR, explained: “Socialism is where the government owns the means of production. In fascism, the government doesn’t own the means of production, but they do control it, and that’s what’s happening with our healthcare programs and these reforms.”
ThinkProgress noted, “Mackey seems to have forgotten that [fascist states] usually utilize warfare, forced mass mobilization of the public, and politically-motivated violence against their own peoples to achieve their ends.”
Whatever one thinks of Mr. Mackey’s statement or the accuracy of it, the point is that making it is bad business sense. After all, if you are running a natural and organic foods store, the people that you are serving tend to be liberals who are likely to be offended by the notion that providing health care to people who are currently without access is tantamount to fascism.
And Mr. Mackey apparently did not learn from his previous mistakes, when a number of previous Whole Foods enthusiasts vowed never to shop there again.
As ABC News reported back in 2009: “The op-ed piece, which begins with a Margaret Thatcher quote, ‘The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money,’ has left some Whole Foods loyalists enraged. Many say Mackey was out of line to opine against the liberal base that has made his fortune possible.”
ABC quoted a 34-year-old New Jersey shopper who said, “I will no longer be shopping at Whole Foods… I think a CEO should take care that if he speaks about politics, that his beliefs reflect at least the majority of his clients.”
In 2009 he wrote: “Many promoters of health-care reform believe that people have an intrinsic ethical right to health care – to equal access to doctors, medicines and hospitals. While all of us empathize with those who are sick, how can we say that all people have more of an intrinsic right to health care than they have to food or shelter?
“Health care is a service that we all need, but just like food and shelter it is best provided through voluntary and mutually beneficial market exchanges. A careful reading of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution will not reveal any intrinsic right to health care, food or shelter. That’s because there isn’t any. This ‘right’ has never existed in America.”
When Whole Foods came to Davis, we questioned the need for yet another competitor into the organic and natural food market.
At the time, the Vanguard wrote, “The loss of Borders, which was very profitable in Davis, was a huge blow when the company quickly collapsed nationally, entering bankruptcy in February and beginning liquidation a few months later.”
“The closure of Borders was another key blow to retail and the lifeblood of sales taxes to Davis. The replacement with a store that will largely sell products exempt from sales tax figures to push Davis into a worse fiscal hole than it was before.”
“Worse yet, it [Whole Foods] figures to be another national chain competing against local grocery businesses such as the Davis Food Co-Op and Westlake IGA. Trader Joe’s already represented a blow to the bottom lines of those stores.”
“The Davis Food Co-Op may be most directly threatened, as Whole Foods provides selections of natural and organic goods that will put it in direct competition.”
Whole Foods already found itself in the middle of controversy when the dropped their opposition to Monsanto’s Genetically Engineered (GE) products. The issue of GMO’s (genetically modified organisms) has been one of increasing visibility, particularly in light of Prop 37, the measure that was voted down last November that would have required food product labels to disclose whether they utilized GMO’s.
In the end, Mr. Mackey, a self-professed libertarian, has the right to his opinions about the Affordable Care Act, but customers will have the right not to frequent his store.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
Mr. Mackey made the first Socialist Obamacare statement in 2009 and the stock has done nothing but explode up since then. Obviously it’s not hurting sales.
[url]http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=WFM+Interactive#symbol=wfm;range=5y;compare=;indicator=volume;charttype=area;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=off;source=undefined;[/url]
Let’s try this chart as that one wouldn’t come up:
[url]http://money.cnn.com/quote/quote.html?symb=WFM[/url]
In 2009 the stock averaged near $20/share now it’s at $90/share. So much for Mr. Mackey harming his base.
How do you think Davis customers will respond to the fascism comment? Do you think this will help or hurt business?
I don’t think it will hurt business much at all. There might be a few who will boycott for a while but Whole Foods offers a good product and in the end that wins out.
In my opinion these revelations will have no impact on Whole Foods in Davis. There may be a few people who boycott but it will not go far. I say this because I have been intentionally asking friends and acquaintances about their food shopping preferences over the past couple of years. While this is not a systematic research project some interesting things come out: People shop at food retail “chains” for the same reason they shop at any chain: a standardized, predictable shopping experience. Stores and offerings are similar whether you are in Washington or Davis. Places like the Co-op (until you try them out) feel just the opposite: different rules (you buy a share?), different feel, different offerings. The experience is not repeatable. Recently I listened in to a group of about 10 people talking about these things and one person said something like “The Co-op is for certain kinds of people. All my friends are excited about Whole Foods coming to Davis because they LOVE it and won’t have to drive to Sacramento anymore.” Brand loyalty trumps ideology. That is why companies spend significant resources creating, maintaining, nurturing and protecting their brands.
It might affect the habits of a few highly intolerant people who can’t stand it when anyone doesn’t agree with their views.
Ah yes, the intelligentsia (a social class of people engaged in complex mental labor aimed at disseminating culture). Otherwise known as the thought police. These are our truly intolerant people. They have so much in common with the people responsible for historical movements of oppression and carnage that belies their soft purring nature.
The few that would boycott are probably already shopping at the Food Coop.
[i]”Mackey seems to have forgotten that [fascist states] usually utilize warfare, forced mass mobilization of the public, and politically-motivated violence against their own peoples to achieve their ends.”[/i]
The first step is for the fascist state to disarm their own people.
[quote]There are only two things I can’t stand in this world: People who are intollerant of other peoples’ cultures, and the dutch.[/quote]
Nigel Powers
I don’t know why someone discussing healthcare policy would prompt a boycott. The Davis Food Coop has had its own periods of controversy. Business owners may object to the government directing changes regarding healthcare, but it is because the current voluntary system is doing such a piss-poor job of it. I would expect a little whining about it from CEO’s but, this is not the same thing as promoting discrimination.
Whole Foods is insanely expensive. I mean, over-the-top expensive. Everything that Whole Foods does can be gotten at the Davis Food Coop at much more reasonable prices. After one visit out of curiosity, I will probably never do it again. I’m hoping that competition from Whole Foods will encourage the Davis Food Coop to increase the quality of some areas of the store. (Another mark against Whole Foods is that they pulled out of sponsoring 20 STEAC families right before the holidays at the 11th hour “due to a technicality,” they said. Who picked up the slack? Davis Food Coop members, who pulled together to cover the 20 extra families on top of the number they already committed to!)
Ryan – I find the Food Coop to be as expensive if not more expensive. Just compare the meat and fish prices and the deli prices.
I would be interested in the explanation of the “technicality” reasons, and I would be very careful demonizing Whole Foods over a small charitable mishap given what they do as a corporation.
[url]http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/mission-values/caring-communities[/url]
Because my curiosity visit to Whole Foods didn’t include buying meat or fish, I don’t have a comparison. However, their deli is extremely expensive. It is cheaper to eat at a nearby restaurant.
Regardless, the conversation here is whether the CEO’s comments will cause a backlash from customers. I don’t think so. I think that comments like his are to be expected as we move forward on making changes to how Americans access healthcare.
Clarification: (Don if this is veering off-topic and I apologize) I shop exclusively at the Co-op. As a “super-worker” volunteer I get 16% off the shelf price, get a chance to meet and work with great people at the Co-op and purchase food of high quality. I am one of those “Co-op people” I guess but that moniker really says nothing about the diversity of people who shop and work there.
In relation to this article I think that most people develop certain shopping habits and those decisions are not merely about convenience or price. Shopping is “an experience” whether it takes place in an open air market in Nouakchott, Mauritania or a supermarket in Napa, California. Stores like Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods spend significant amounts standardizing and marketing an “experience”. The CEO’s statements about health care are not going to make a difference for those who “identify” with the Whole Foods brand. I have “bought into” the Co-op experience not only because of the quality of the food there but also because I believe deeply in what the Co-op means and does for this community. It would take a lot to get me to switch to another store.
David wrote:
> Many say Mackey was out of line to opine against the liberal
> base that has made his fortune possible.
I’m betting that most Whole Food shoppers are more like me in that they don’t follow the “official liberal-progressive party line” and think for themselves and don’t really care if a Libertarian/Basically Left Leaning former hippy CEO is not 100% in line with Obama on the health care issue.
David also wrote:
> The loss of Borders, which was very profitable
> in Davis, was a huge blow
Did you see audited books of the Davis Borders that broke out the cash flow of the local store? Just curious since when a business is “very” profitable it is also “very” profitable to sell rather than close down.
[quote]ThinkProgress noted, “Mackey seems to have forgotten that [fascist states] usually utilize warfare, forced mass mobilization of the public, and politically-motivated violence against their own peoples to achieve their ends.”[/quote]
Typical example of how liberals argue. They side step the valid point and run straight to something that incites an emotional response in people who are not smart enough to see the sleight of hand. Think Progress should have just gotten a soundbite from Al Sharpton claiming Mackey only made the statements because black people are going to get free healthcare under Obamacare.
I’ve been to Whole Foods a couple of times since it opened. (Not to shop, just to check it out.) I was pleasantly surprised in most respects. Although on the small end, it is packed with a lot of variety and it looks like a nice store. It was also very full of shoppers both times I was there, once in the middle of the afternoon on a weekday and the other time early in the morning, also on a weekday.
One thing I really liked that Whole Foods has done with its design is to put in a seating area near the windows which look out over the Davis Commons lawn. I used to enjoy sitting in that area in Border’s, especially on a cold day, drinking coffee and watching the activities going on out doors. Unfortunately, Whole Foods did two things really wrong with that part of its business: 1) the seats they have are horribly, terribly, unforgiveably uncomfortable. Who the eff wants to sit on a steel bench with no padding, no back support and no curvature to support the sitter?; and 2) the cup of coffee I bought from them was inarguably the worst tasting, most wretched cup of coffee I’ve had in Davis since Sambo’s changed its name to Denny’s at 2nd & B. I don’t know if the problem was that it was some organic crapola that was meant to taste bad or it was just one bad cup. I will not go back there ever again for coffee. There is just too much good coffee in downtown Davis at Peet’s, Mishka’s, Cloud Forest and Pantera Bread.
My expectation prior to seeing how well Whole Foods appears to be doing in Davis was that it would fail for a few reasons: 1) Because its natural clientele shops at the Co-op (which is also a very nice store in terms of selection and layout and so on); 2) Because the parking situation at Davis Commons would discourage shoppers much of the time; and 3) Because that location does not serve a residential area of town, the way all other supermarkets do in Davis which are successful. (The Co-op, by contrast, not only serves the hippies who drive over to G Street from farflung parts, but it is the supermarket for most people who live within walking distance. For them it is their neighborhood store.)
Yet, having seen Whole Foods in action, it looks to me like my prediction was wrong. Unless its current success is all based on newness–a lot of others going there one time to see what it has–it looks to me like there are customers (perhaps some who for personal reasons don’t like the Co-op) who will make Whole Foods a success in Davis.
SOD: [i]”Did you see audited books of the Davis Borders that broke out the cash flow of the local store? Just curious since when a business is ‘very’ profitable it is also ‘very’ profitable to sell rather than close down.”[/i]
South, I never saw any audited books. However, based on what I read–I don’t have any links at hand to prove this–that store was generating a substantial amount of sales tax for Davis.
Also, I used to go there frequently, and my anecdotal observation was that the store always had a lot of customers milling about, and the checkout line was always 4 or 5 deep and moving fast, except during the period leading up to Christmas, when there were twice as many customers and the check-out lines were even greater.
I think if Borders had been a franchised operation, that store would have stayed open under a different name. Unfortunately, every store was ultimately liquidated in response to the demands of the holders of Borders massive debts.
Further, the long-term problem for every bookstore is the same: 1) Very few people under 40 read anything at all. They don’t read newspapers or magazines or books. And thus, they don’t buy the product, books, that keep bookstores afloat. As a result, bookstores of all brands are closing up, just as record stores have been closing all over the country and the world; and 2) To the extent that there still are readers who buy books, I am one of them, they buy online.
So while the Davis Borders store may have been profitable, its future outlook was likely not so good.
[i]”… people under 40 read anything at all.”[/i]
A myth is that this group of illiterates is reading books in electronic form. I have seen no evidence of that. There are stories in the press all the time about the decline of reading, and most (here is one ([url]http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-201_162-628194.html[/url])) suggest that the time old-fogies like me use reading books, younger farts instead use to play video games, surg the Internet and mostly watch TV shows, more and more so on their computers.
The great irony is that there are so many great books being published now. Sadly, no one is reading them.
Rich wrote: “My expectation prior to seeing how well Whole Foods appears to be doing in Davis was that it would fail for a few reasons:… 2) Because the parking situation at Davis Commons would discourage shoppers much of the time…”
One thing I want to analyze more (I have been doing this serendipitously but not systematically) is examine the amount of bike traffic going into Whole Foods off the bike path behind the store. That path is increasing in ridership and carries significant numbers of people from South Davis into downtown and (mostly) the campus. I have been amazed at how many students biking up and down Sycamore seem to stop in at Trader Joe’s leaving with paper bags balanced on handlebars. I think TJ’s was brilliant in holding out for that spot and I would not doubt that WF thought about the bike traffic. The “grab and go” nature of both stores makes it perfect for this kind of shopping and, while we don’t talk about it much in Davis, there is a growing body of research (which I assume both stores are reading) about how bikers purchase less per trip at local establishments but shop more often. Some studies (I have the references somewhere) show that bikers purchase more per month in this way than those coming by car.
These are all hypotheses for now but we should not let the constrained parking at WF lead to a conclusion that they will do poorly. Cyclists shop too.
BTW – I was told by a reliable source that the interior of WF in Davis (not referring to the hard benches here but the layout, etc.) was designed by the same person who consulted on the remodel of the Co-op. I walked through WF when it opened and sensed an eerie similarity.
[i]”… the interior of WF in Davis … was designed by the same person who consulted on the remodel of the Co-op.”[/i]
I know that Maria Ogrydziak was the architect of the Co-op redesign/expansion. However, I don’t know if Maria had anything to do with the interior layout.
I remember when also that when Maria’s work was unveiled, there were complaints from its residential neighbors. I, however, very much like its look–and I think it still looks good. I especially like Gerald Heffernon’s tomato sculpture.
[i]”They side step the valid point and run straight to something that incites an emotional response in people who are not smart enough to see the sleight of hand.”
[/i]
I think that saying that the Affordable Care Act is ‘like fascism’ might have been the first ‘inciting of an emotional response’.
I don’t see it as being to incite an emotional response. His explained his thinking on it.
Sometimes we need to use labels. It seems there is a collection of people that believe they have a right to label others not in their collection, and then block others not in their collection from doing the same.
Just ask those evil gun murders that belong to the NRA.
C’mon Jeff – We know that in public parlance “fascism” is linked to Hitler (less so Mussolini) and we all know Godwin’s law. Mr Mackey is free to say whatever he wants and boycotting WF because of them will accomplish nothing. I agree with you on that. But his comments are not designed to create dialogue and mutual understanding. As a conservative (you are one, right?) you would agree that any right–including the right to free speech–comes with responsibilities. I just don’t find his comment enlightening of the issues around Obamacare or the problem with the US health care system. I would expect a man of his stature to try to engage in a meaningful discussion of the issues. He is being irresponsible in my view because he could use his position so much more effectively.
I think Mr. Mackey is using a pretty loose definition of fascism. [url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitions_of_fascism[/url]
Ryan: agree with your comments.
Robb, I don’t know. I got schooled by DT Businessman for my lack of textbook application of the socialism, Marxism and communism labels. So it seems that we should not allow the having of cake and eating it to.
From a textbook explanation of fascism, Mr. Mackey is pretty much on target. Was he demonstrating Godwin’s law? I think that claim is as loose as is any claim that fascism does not apply.
Think of it this way… activists do all sorts of extreme things and say all sorts of extreme things to get media attention. If Mr. Mackey used only politically and socially sensitive language, we would not be talking about this.
If your problem is hyperbole, then I am sorry but our political leaders and the mainstream media have set the table and served the meal already. I would love it if only civilized and rational dialog would get the job done, but when our President is ramping up the labeling (“those Republicans sure cling to their guns and religion”), and the past Democrat Speaker of the House was calling conservatives Nazis and the media jumped to blame Tea Party members for Gabby Gifford’s shooting, and the left and media keep claiming conservatives are racist, hate gays, hate… hate… hate… well then, the gloves are off.
I get really tired of the one-sided moral outrage over language… the only difference is the level of “intelligent” nuance and snarky creativity. That slimy backdoor exit tactic of being able to say “it depends on what the definition of the word is is.”
Conservative dialog is more direct and honest. I tend to respect it much more than fake, one-sided, PC-correct sensitivity.
Fascism: my take.
John Mackey’s use of the term was a mistake, almost entirely because he is a public person running a public company and he has a responsibility to the shareholders (and to a lesser extent the “stakeholders”) in Whole Foods to not offend the customers or potential customers of Whole Foods with any public comments.
That said, it’s silly to think that Mackey’s hyperbolic association of Obamacare with real fascism is anything but loose talk.
When I was a sophomore in high school (long time ago, of course), Ronald Reagan was running for president. A very bright classmate of mine told me “Reagan is a fascist.” She did not say it was her opinion that he was a fascist. Rather, she knew that to be the case. The problem for me was that, although I knew a bit about Mussolini–“he made the trains run on time”–I didn’t really know much about fascism when I was 16 years old. I was clear, however, that her label on Reagan was intended to be a slur. That fascism was bad and right-wing, and thus he was bad and right-wing.
Back then, and still somewhat today, when liberals or lefties want to slur a conservative, they say he is a fascist. The right-wing equivalent has long been to slur a liberal by calling him a socialist or a communist.
The historical irony of right-wing fascists, including Mussolini, Franco, Hitler and many of the others who rose to power, is that they started out as socialists. They did believe in big government and state power.
As a consequence, modern conservative-libertarians (which is probably what John Mackey is), who are against all sorts of big government and very often subscribe to conspiratorial thinking about big government (such as believing that their political opponents intend to form a one-world government and give power to the U.N., etc.), use the term fascist as a hyperbolic slur against liberals the way liberals have used it hyperbolically against conservatives like Reagan.
Thus, to my mind, what Mackey did was what a lot of people who hold strong political beliefs do: he engaged in common, everyday hyperbole. No one really should be too offended by that. I know, of course, some people will choose to be.
Rich: [i]”It’s more like fascism,” Mr. Mackey recently told NPR. “In fascism, the government doesn’t own the means of production, but they do control it — and that’s what’s happening with our health care programs and these reforms.”[/i]
Was it hyperbol?
Was it an incorrect definition of fascism?
[i]John Mackey’s use of the term was a mistake, almost entirely because he is a public person running a public company and he has a responsibility to the shareholders (and to a lesser extent the “stakeholders”) in Whole Foods to not offend the customers or potential customers of Whole Foods with any public comments.[/i]
He did not offend me. I am more likely to shop there knowing the CEO is an outspoken, free thinker, and concerned about the country and the impacts to the economy.
Do you want every public figure to be so completely politically neutral so as not to offend anyone? What about Warren Buffet? What about all those Hollywood actors and entertainers that came out supporting Obama and with an advertisement demanding more gun control? If you don’t have the same opinion of them, then it seems you are politically biased in this view.
Regardless, I disagree 100%. It is MORE than appropriate for any CEO who’s business, and hence who’s stockholders, will be impacted by Obamacare. In fact, I would say it is a CEOs responsibility to have a strong opinion of it. If Obamacare impacts Whole Foods bottom line and the CEO stayed quite like the rest of the hypersensitive sheep, he might get sheared by his stockholders.
[url]http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/17/whole-foods-fascism_n_2496603.html[/url]
Well, now he regrets it.
[i]After all, if you are running a natural and organic foods store, the people that you are serving tend to be liberals[/i]
I just noticed this statement. Since “you are what you eat”, maybe this explains some of our political divisions. If so, then I should be growing more liberal every day as I have taken a greater liking to organic products since I discovered my sensitivity to wheat and gluten.
[quote]Conservatives and liberals may have one less thing in common: neurology.
ProCon.org has gathered 13 peer-reviewed studies of behavioral and neurological studies and come to the conclusion that differences between Republicans and Democrats are more than skin-deep.
“Basically, the different sides have been yelling at each other for millennia, and we’re trying to figure out what could be the root cause of this,” said Steven Markoff, ProCon.org’s founder.
The studies looked at things like differences between groups’ perception of eye movement, and aversion to threatening noises. Researchers also noted that Democrats had larger anterior cingulate cortexes, which are associated with tolerance to uncertainty, while Republicans had larger right amygdalas, which are associated with sensitivity to fear.
“Everybody seems to basically agree, and these are people that have scientific backgrounds,” Markoff said of the repetition in the studies. “That to me is probably the biggest eye-opener.”
Although Markoff concluded the studies combine to mean that the different groups communicate in different ways, psychiatrist Greg Appelbaum said the studies point toward conservatives’ tendency to avoid something called self-harm, while liberals avoid collective group harm.
That said, Appelbaum the studies are not representative of all Republicans or Democrats, given that researchers are weaving different small studies together to draw conclusions, and several different opinions designate whether someone is liberal or conservative.
“It’s important to keep in mind that this is a big, multidimensional space,” Appelbaum said.
He also said someone’s brain makeup doesn’t necessarily predispose that person to think one way or another politically, calling it a “chicken or the egg issue.” In fact, it’s possible that a person’s political thinking can change their physiological traits.
It makes sense to consider a person who plays video games and has good reaction times, he said. Does that person play the games because he (or she) is good at them and gets positive reinforcement or does that person hone the abilities by playing video games?
Regardless of the caveats, Markoff said the collection of studies generate an interesting discussion.
“The real reason ProCon is here is to foster critical thinking, and I can’t think of anything more interesting from a critical thinking standpoint,” he said.[/quote]
RR: [i]”John Mackey’s use of the term was a mistake, almost entirely because … he has a responsibility … to not offend the customers or potential customers of Whole Foods with any public comments.”[/i]
JB: [i]”He did not offend me.”[/i]
That is beside the point, Jeff. Mackey’s responsibility is also to not offend those his customers who don’t share your worldview. He could have easily said that the Obamacare program will harm his company, and thus he opposed it for that reason. But since many of his customers, though not all, are Obama voters, it does not help Whole Foods for its CEO to say that Obama is, in effect, a fascist, which he surely intended to be a slur.
Think of it this way: Even if the vast majority of the customers of Whole Foods are agnostics or atheists, do you think it would serve the best interests of that company to have its CEO express a view in public such as, “Christians are delusional. The fake god they believe in, Jesus, is a fairy tale.”
Certainly, many Whole Foods customers would not be offended. But how is his company served by offending even a minority of them, such as you?
JB:[i]”Do you want every public figure to be so completely politically neutral so as not to offend anyone? What about Warren Buffet?”[/i]
I don’t recall Warren Buffet ever intentionally slurring the politics of a large segment of the customers of a company that he was running. If he used language like ‘fascist’ or ‘dumbsh!ts’ or ‘commies’ then I stand corrected.
It’s not a question of holding political or religious views. It’s a question of being tactful and, in the case of a specific government policy, being clear how the policy in question will harm the bottom line of the company that the CEO speaks for, and making it clear that is why you, the CEO oppose that policy. Your customers might not agree with you in a case like that. But they should understand your basis. And you will not have used language which is clearly meant to offend.
One thing to make clear: I don’t think you or I or Rush Limbaugh or most ordinary Americans need to couch their opinions in the same way. There may be a price to be paid by you or me or some Hollywood celebrity for using offensive or potentially offensive language, or for simply expressing an unpopular viewpoint here and there. But we pay that price as individuals. It is different when you are employed as the CEO of a major public company and you are beholden to the stockholders of that company. In a case like that, your responsibility is to say what is or is not good for your company, if you must, without using language that many of your customers will find patently offensive.
Rich, you are a word guy. I am a picture guy. That might be where I struggle with this hypersensitivity to certain words, phrases and terms. I’m sure it will cause me career pain one day.
However, I seek the context and content of the idea, and don’t really get too hung up on the fact that someone selected a word that some might find offensive. I am not so quick to demonize a person because of the mistake of a choice of words. Last time I checked, there are a lot of words to choose from. And for words like fascism, even the experts cannot agree what the true meaning is.
I was raised with the “sticks and stones may break my bones…” principle. I think it is a sign of mental and moral weakness to get all wee wee’d up over the use of a word that has valid context and isn’t a direct slur. But we do it now more than ever. We create entire national scandals over some stupid word used. We analyze it to death… each of us projecting what we think it really meant or did not mean… even if we only heard it second or third hand.
If we are afraid of each other, we cannot talk to each other. And if we are afraid that some word is going to become a great national scandal, we will just stop talking.
My guess is that is what will happen to John Mackey. He will just stop talking. Is that what the left and media want… for everyone to stop talking except for those that move in lockstep with the left worldview? Frankly, seems like word fascism to me.
I blame your industry for this state. There is an irresponsible infotainment news cycle that exploits and sensationalizes social, cultural, political, group… you name it… anything that can be divided.. strife. Conflict sells…. so, let’s jig some up!! Mr. Mackey’s statements would not even be on his stockholders radar had not the media… primarily the left media… made so much artificial hay out of it. I would light a match to Huffington Post if I could and it was legal.
Let’s just be intellectually honest here. We know the points Mr. Mackey was trying to make. Let’s just focus on that instead of falling apart over the word. Why can’t that happen?
In terms of Mr. Mackey’s responsibility running a public company… I get your point. But, I don’t think it is that simple. He would piss people off not making a comment. He would piss people off saying he supports Obamacare. He would piss people off saying he does not support Obamacare without using the word fascism. The best thing he could do to limit the number of people he would piss off is to just say nothing. That is wrong. I blame the media and those prone to be pissed off that someone else does not think the same way for causing fear that reduces honest and open discussion.
“I was raised with the “sticks and stones may break my bones…” principle. “
A lot of people consider that the biggest lie we teach to our kids.
Jeff wrote:
> I was raised with the “sticks and stones may
> break my bones…” principle.
Then David wrote:
> A lot of people consider that the biggest lie
> we teach to our kids.
A lot of people consider the people that tell their children that names can hurt them bad parents. Even worse are the parents (like the parents that sued a school that did not make them happy by calling their handicapped kid “handicabable”) that take people to court every time they say a word they don’t like (and ask for millions since the word “hurt”)…
P.S. I just heard that the London Times is going to try and get the $500K settlement they gave Lance Armstrong a while back after he sued them for calling him a “doper”…
I completely disagree – words can hurt, if not cripple even kill. There is bullying, there is emotional abuse. Words are incredibly powerful. I plan to teach my children that the words they use can hurt others and they must be considerate.
Perhaps we need a Constitutional Convention…
We could establish a one line Constitution that reads: Obama shall have the power to rule all.
David: A word will never cause material harm unless the recipient, reader or listener lets it. However, the intelligentsia will not hesitate to destroy a life over a word they dislike.
What power does someone have over another if that person falls apart over a word? I would not let someone have that power over me.
Bullies generally will not bully if they don’t get the reaction they desire. Physically bullying or outright verbal attacks are different. I am not talking about that. I am talking about words used in normal dialog.
The “sticks and stones…” principle is to help develop strength of character and self-confidence. If I am a self-confident person, words will not harm me. If I am not a self-confident person, then rules to protect me will only reinforce that my weak self-confidence is a natural state… and I will continue to get hit.
We are much better off developing self-confidence in our kids than we are designing institutions of artificial protection from hyper sensitivity. Because the real world is always going to be much crueler than school… and school is damn cruel.
The simple fact is that you cannot change others, you can only change yourself. I hope you take that into consideration teaching your kids.
By the way, if my kids ever bullied another they would have gotten in BIG trouble from their parents. We demanded the top in ethical and moral behavior. My oldest got in two fights in middle school (the absolute worst time in terms of childhood cruelty) and in both cases he was protecting another kid that was being picked on. He did not get in trouble at home.
However, if either of those fights were because another kid called him a name, he would have gotten in trouble.
The asinine thing is that the school could have punished him for returning the name calling if he used a wrong word, or the kid was of some protected class and made claims that my son was hateful.
And with that fear, my son and other kids might just decide not to interact with the other kid. In fact, we observed that sort of thing. Talk about a recipe for bullying and hurt!
Again, if we are afraid of each other, we cannot talk to each other.
[i]”He would piss people off not making a comment. He would piss people off saying he supports Obamacare. He would piss people off saying he does not support Obamacare without using the word fascism. The best thing he could do to limit the number of people he would piss off is to just say nothing.”[/i]
Maybe he could just state his specific objections to the Affordable Care Act, describe its impact on his business, and avoid inflammatory characterizations of dubious accuracy.
“David: A word will never cause material harm unless the recipient, reader or listener lets it”
You’ve obviously never worked with children of abuse.
Remember, Karl Marx once said, “First you socialize medicine and
everything else follows like night follows day.
No he didn’t. Show me the quote.
“The first step is for the fascist state to disarm their own people.”
Actually Jeff, Hitler armed his own people, first with shovels then with guns.
[quote]
01/17/13 – 06:30 PM
…
No he didn’t. That’s an internet myth
[/quote]
Thanks for the correction.
Actually, Hitler disarmed the Jews.
It wasn’t the German people that were armed, it was the Nazis.
[i]You’ve obviously never worked with children of abuse.[/i]
I’m not talking about abuse, I am talking about words used in normal dialog where the intent is communication, not abuse.
Do you think the use of the word “fascism” was abuse?
I think John Mackey is an interesting man with a unique business philosophy. I urge you to read the transcript of the interview so you can focus on the other things he said.
[url]http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=169413848[/url]
[i]Maybe he could just state his specific objections to the Affordable Care Act, describe its impact on his business, and avoid inflammatory characterizations of dubious accuracy. [/i]
He would still alienate some of his stockholders and customers. Although, the media might not have enflamed the topic as much without the word, and hence fewer stockholders and customers would have known.
Come on Don. You don’t think that people care about the use of that word. The word issue is just a proxy attack for displeasure over the fact that the CEO of a good grocery store that sells organic food came out against Obamacare.
If you doubt that, then what word did Sam Cathy say to warrant such uproar?
Admit it… we are just seeing the work of the thought police and left media. The word is nothing. The opinion is everything.
[i]Although, the media might not have enflamed the topic as much without the word, and hence fewer stockholders and customers would have known.
[/i]
Bingo.
JB: [i]”It wasn’t the German people that were armed, it was the Nazis.”[/i]
With few exceptions, they were one and the same ([url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler’s_Willing_Executioners[/url]).
One thing which is not well nderstood by most contemporary people about the Holocaust: Most of the Jews who were murdered did not die in ovens or in death camps. The majority were just shot with guns by German soldiers, or by Lithuanians and Poles and Romanians and French and Hungarians and Austrian and so on who hated Jews, and who, in most cases, had inherited a hatred of Jews which had been taught to them for many generations by their Christian churches. Anti-semitism in Europe was not in any way unique to Hitler and those who wore the Nazi uniform. It was official policy for hundreds of years of the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox churches and the Lutheran Church.
Rich, I don’t read any history that makes this claim that the extermination of European Jews in WWII was a Christian crusade of some type. Where do you back this claim that it was Christian churches teaching hatred of Jews? Certainly you would find a few, but your post seems a bit fantastic and frankly news to me.
It is almost like you are rewriting history to give the Nazis a pass and replacing them with Christians.
Unless you have some good evidence… this seems to trump the use of the word fascism in the sensitivity field by a mile.
Hey kids, this is your history teacher speaking. The Germans and Nazis did not kill all the Jews in the 30s and 40s, it was the Christians.
I don’t think so.
Without wishing to take this too far afield, I will tell you that the version of the Jewish genocide history that I heard from my father was the standard ‘it was the Nazis, not everyone’. Then a very widely discussed book in the 1980’s demonstrated that attacks on the Jews, turning them in, and participation in the anti-Jewish activities was widespread. Not just in Germany, but throughout Europe, and among citizens across the demographic and ethnic spectrum. It was a very detailed, well-annotated book and I really wish I could remember the name. It sparked a lot of controversy, because my father’s generation had told a different story: essentially that the SS troops, the individuals closely allied with Hitler, a small percentage of the population did the deeds that horrified the world.
Nobody is ‘giving the Nazis a pass’. But anti-Semitism was obviously, clearly, unequivocally supported by Christian churches over a very long period of time.
Rifkin: [i]It was official policy for hundreds of years of the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox churches and the Lutheran Church.[/i]
Constantine’s Sword ([url]http://www.amazon.com/Constantines-Sword-Church-Jews-History/dp/B002WTCA1Y/[/url]) by James Carroll is a book that had some modest popularity when it came out in the early 2000’s. Its thesis tends to support Rifkin’s assertion, but it focuses more on the historical Catholic Church.
Mackey is vehemently anti-union that to me is the worst thing about Whole Foods. Aside from his personal ideas do Whole Foods employees have a health care option? I know Starbuck’s employees have health care because the CEO insists upon it.
“Whole Foods spokeswoman Libba Letton said part-time workers, with a minimum of 20 hours per week, and full-time workers become eligible for health coverage after 400 hours of work when they pay the full cost cost of coverage. After 800 hours of work, full-time employees are eligible for health care coverage at minimal cost. They can also qualify for dependent coverage, including domestic partners, at an additional cost.
Of the company’s total 73,00 total employees, 70 percent to 75 percent were considered full-time employees. “We are really proud of the benefits we offer. It’s not the norm,” Letton said. Whole Foods has been named one of the “top 100″ places to work by Fortune magazine for the last 16 years.”
A few comments to stimulate yet more debate:
1)”Very few people under 40 read anything at all.” Fortunately, I made the cut and still enjoy reading.
2)”C’mon Jeff – We know that in public parlance “fascism” is linked to Hitler (less so Mussolini)…” This comment surprised me quite a bit. In my interactions and in the literature I read fascism is generally linked to Hitler, Franco and Mussolini (the first of the 3 fascist dictators), not just Hitler.
3)Socialized medicine is generally linked with socialism and liberal versions of democracy, not with fascism, which is what makes Mackey’s quote odd. Indeed, Germany has socialized medicine, while fascist parties are illegal as are fascist symbols.
4) “Actually Jeff, Hitler armed his own people, first with shovels then with guns.” Point of clarification. Toad, I believe you meant his followers, i.e. Nazis, not his own people, i.e. Germans.
5) “With few exceptions, they were one and the same.” i.e. Nazis and Germans were one and the same. This is true…not. That’s like saying all Americans are Republicans.
6)” Rich, I don’t read any history that makes this claim that the extermination of European Jews in WWII was a Christian crusade of some type. Where do you back this claim that it was Christian churches teaching hatred of Jews? Certainly you would find a few, but your post seems a bit fantastic and frankly news to me.” Geez, Jeff, have you ever heard of a pogrom? The Spanish Inquisition? These were not isolated incidents. Antisemitism was widespread throughout Europe and other continents for centuries extending back before Roman times. There is no doubt antisemitic teaching was widespread in Christian churches. I was recently reading an account of certain nobles and tradesmen in medieval Newcastle borrowing money from Jewish moneylenders and then inciting crowds to kill the Jews, so that the tradesmen would not have to repay the debt. Being Jewish has historically been extremely hazardous and regrettably still the case in our times in many places.
-Michael Bisch
DS: [i]”Then a very widely discussed book in the 1980’s demonstrated that attacks on the Jews, turning them in, and participation in the anti-Jewish activities was widespread. Not just in Germany, but throughout Europe, and among citizens across the demographic and ethnic spectrum. It was a very detailed, well-annotated book and I really wish I could remember the name.”[/i]
Don, if we are thinking of the same thing, I linked to it above. It was published in the ’90s, though. It is called “Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust” by Harvard Prof. Daniel Goldhagen.
JB: [i]”I don’t read any history that makes this claim that the extermination of European Jews in WWII was a Christian crusade of some type.”[/i]
I never said that the Holocaust was a Christian crusade. I said that European anti-Semitism for hundreds and hundreds of years was taught and spread by the official Christian churches, notably the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Lutheran Church (which was in nordic countries an official church).
Without Hitler and his Nazis, you don’t get something so dramatically evil as the Holocaust. But with Hitler and the Nazis, ordinary Europeans, not just members of the Nazi Party, and not just soldiers in the German Army, conducted the Holocaust. Those ordinary Germans inherited their anti-Semitism. And they inherited from Christian teachings going back hundreds and hundreds of years.
FWIW, most American Christians — even though we had no official church, and even though the low-churches*, like the Baptists or Methodists, never officially preached hatred of the Jews — held wildly anti-Semitic views right up to the eve of World War 2. Ironically, it was our fight with Germany in WW2 which more-less ended American anti-Semitism as an acceptable belief system in our country.
Back when a vicious anti-Semite like Henry Ford was actively calumnying the Jews in the United States and around the world, his hatred did not make him an outlier. It did not hurt the sales of Ford automobiles that the man whose name was on every car was a vitriolic anti-Semite. He was preaching to the converted for the most part**.
*It should be said that many of the liberal low-churches, like the Quakers, the Unitarians, the Adventists, and some others, actively preached against hatred of the Jews. As a result, I suspect, even 100 years ago members of those faith groups were likely not anti-Semites. But American Lutherans, Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, etc., probably were mostly Jew-haters at that time in U.S. history.
**A minor Davis historical footnote: Davis was not immune to anti-Semitism or other race-hatreds, of course. So when “exclusive” neighborhoods like College Park were built, every homeowner had to sign a covenant saying he would not sell his house or property to a Jew or a racial minority. That was in effect right up to WW2. And covenants of that sort were all over the United States up until 1964, when the Civil Rights Act outlawed them. Don Shor can tell you how those agreements were in place in the community he grew up, La Jolla, and how it caused his neighborhood to be something of a Jewish (or maybe half-Jewish) enclave (not really a ghetto).
[i]I was recently reading an account of certain nobles and tradesmen in medieval Newcastle borrowing money from Jewish moneylenders and then inciting crowds to kill the Jews, so that the tradesmen would not have to repay the debt. Being Jewish has historically been extremely hazardous and regrettably still the case in our times in many places.[/i]
Last I checked the medieval period ended sometime between the thirteenth and fifteenth century. Not the 20th century. Lots of nasty stuff happened in the dark and middle ages.
Yes, I am familiar with pogroms mostly as a Russian thing before and during the civil war and revolution, but in the 20th century, it was the Nazis that were responsible for inciting mobs to attack and kills Jews.
I really think we need to put some statute of limitations for blaming Christians for every modern malady. And even “a vitriolic anti-Semite” is not automatically someone that would participate in, or condone, the killing of Jews.
I’m having a real hard time with that reach… that religious and/or cultural bias – something that has always existed and will always exist – is even equated with what the Nazis did to the Jews mid-twentieth century. Certainly there is plenty of genocide and religious-based exterminations in our global history… but the Western world was a relatively civilized place after the turn of the century.
I will need to read the book, because the blaming Christianity for the Holocaust is a new one for me.
[i]Mackey is vehemently anti-union that to me is the worst thing about Whole Foods.[/i]
Toad, you have union-itis. Might want to see a doctor about that.
Nugget Market is union-less too. That is another of Fortune’s 100 best companies in the nation to work for.
I keep looking at the list and I don’t see any companies with unionized labor that show up as the best places to work.
There’s no lack of Christian holocausts in the last 100 years, which have mainly been neglected in the mainstream press, while the Jewish holocaust is vigorously trumpeted and marketed in media, book and film.
(1) Stalins genocides in the Ukraine; in which he starved tens of millions of Christians.
You can argue that this was not religiously targeted; however note the main religion of the victims as compared tp the apparatchniks and bureaucrats responsible for detailing and enforcing the food distribution orders.
(2) The Armenian genocide. If memory serves me right; over half of the Christians in Armenia were slaughtered by those of another religious and cultural tradition.
I think polls show that most Christians in USA, particularly Catholics, support zionism and the rights of Israel.
Rather than casting the situation in pre-WW2 Germany as Christian vs Jew; some of the more immediate feelings of ill-will are likely attributable to tensions between debtors and banks (after WW1 staggering war reparations were on the backs of the German people; who resented working to pay off debt while the bankers were living pretty darn comfortably; made it easy to scapegoat Jewish bankers).
Bravo to Mr. MacKey! Like Jeff, his comments make me more likely to shop there, not less (take note, stockholders)
I don’t know much about corporate by-laws, and while I agree that the CEO does have a responsibility to shareholders to return profit on investment; I don’t agree that this need be his only or all-eclipsing responsibility. So many corporations have become somewhat monstrous in their pursuit of profit, which naturally happens when there is an unbalanced Cyclopean one-eyed fixation on the bottom line.
I hope that there will be a growing number of CEOs who act in a more socially responsible manner and who are not afraid to speak their views frankly, even when non-pc views might have some effect on–holy-of-holies–market share and the bottom line. Furthermore, it may not impact the bottom line that much; since so many people are so weary of pc-speak. In this regard I agree with Jeff that we seem to have become so sensitized that people are afraid to express their views for risk of offending someone; and many areas of debate on matters that affect the public interest are effectively stifled.
And furthermore I agree with Mr. McKay that stealth-facism is what is actually taking place in this country, with people like Obama installed to make noises such that a cloak of populism is created. Whatever else you might say about Obamacare, it’s certainly good for the health insurance industry–better pay up or else. Again I defer to the bottom line–in Obama’s first four years the very rich continued to get richer (% share of national assets increasing) and the number of poor people has grown–does anyone see indications that the continuing consolidation of wealth by the very wealthy will reverse course over the next few years?
“-in Obama’s first four years the very rich continued to get richer (% share of national assets increasing) and the number of poor people has grown–“
What bench mark are you using for comparison? Slack employment always softens up labor demands. Judging Obama by tradition economic growth standards denies the intense economic contraction under which he took office.
Aside from it being wrong interesting logic is in play with the idea that Hitler only armed the Nazis. If Obama were to disarm only people who don’t support his supposed totalitarian objectives who would he be disarming and to what end?
Look no further than the Sound of Music. In real life the Nazis offered a naval commission to Baron Von Trapp, a famous WWI submarine hero of the Austria-Hungarian Navy. Van Trapp turned it down because he didn’t like the Nazis.
Mackey’s response: [url]http://youtu.be/4shfPSL1nD0[/url]
“but the Western world was a relatively civilized place after the turn of the century.”
This assertion turns history on its head. Most of he 20th century was a period when the Western world was at war, barbarous wars, that killed millions of people. The aftermaths of WWI and WW2 were periods of retribution, atrocities, and forced migrations. Following that were all the brutal colonial wars. Keeping in mind that prior to the colonial wars, Europeans had conquered and subjected virtually the entire globe. The most successful colonization was that of the Western hemisphere where the native cultures were for the most part entirely replaced by European culture and in many areas the native peoples were almost entirely replaced by Europeans.
There was nothing at all civilized about any of this. If you sat on your fathers lap as a child, or at family get-togethers and heard these first hand accounts, you would have an entirely different world view.
-Michael Bisch
[quote]Last I checked the medieval period ended sometime between the thirteenth and fifteenth century. Not the 20th century. Lots of nasty stuff happened in the dark and middle ages. [/quote]
I don’t think the poster was suggesting we are still in the medieval period, but rather that the attitudes and beliefs that started there (or even earlier) became so entrenched to the point that they are still harmful today, and played no small part in the Holocaust.
When there’s a long-time, entrenched belief that Jews killed Christian babies and used their blood in their religious celebrations, it’s not surprising that permutations of this belief hang on several hundred years after the fact, and make things like the Holocaust and other pogroms just that much easier for some people to carry out.
[i]”I will need to read the book, because the blaming Christianity for the Holocaust is a new one for me.”[/i]
I have never blamed Christianity for the Holocaust. However, hundreds and hundreds of years of teaching a hatred of the Jews by the official Christian churches caused a large percentage of European Christians to be anti-Semites. And it was that rabid and widespread anti-Semitism which allowed Hitler to rise to power and allowed ordinary people, not just Nazis, to participate in the Holocaust. As I pointed out, most of the Jews who were murdered from 1935-45 were not killed in death camps, work camps or gassed in ovens. They were shot with guns by ordinary civilians who hated Jews. That happened in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, the Ukraine, Lituania, Latvia, Poland, France, Yugoslavia, Italy and even in places like Spain, where there were almost no Jews who lived there (but had fled from Hitler).
[img]http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8dJ451XwaK8/UILxVZyBSjI/AAAAAAAAA_w/EapPUYTTK0s/s1600/The+Spanish+Holocaust,+by+Paul+Preston,+jacket+image.jpg[/img]
I’m reading a disturbing history now called The Spanish Holocaust by Paul Preston. It has almost nothing to do with the massacre of the Jews. It is about the mass murder of Spanish Republicans by the fascists before and during Spain’s civil war.
Spain did not have Jews when the fascists rose to power under Franco. But what is interesting with respect to the philosophy of the Falange is that their anti-Republican ideas were all based on the notion that the Jews were out to destroy their country. Many of the Catholic priests in Spain
preached that to them. The priests wrote books preaching hatred of the Jews. The Spanish right saw Spanish democracy as a Jewish trick designed to ruin their country. Because Spain had no Jews, the conspiracy theory designed by right-wing priests was that Sapnish freemasons and socialists and capitalists were all doing the bidding for Jews in England, France and Russia. It’s bizarre, now, to realize what men like Franco thought. But it’s worth knowing that soldiers like Franco had beliefs he had because he was taught those beliefs by the official church in his country.
Let’s make an important distinction here. Preaching hatred (without getting into the subjectivity for defining that word) is not killing. In fact, I would argue that it is not even materially harmful in and of itself.
I really don’t care if radical extremists and religious fundamentalists preach dislike of other cultures or religions. I believe that is their human right. Jews did deliver Jesus to the Romans to be murdered, so maybe we should accept that a little Christian anger is warranted. Kind of like US whites and slavery… some things are not very well forgiven even though we should have moved on. Regardless though, it is only the actions of material harm that should be given attention.
I do not accept this rewriting of history from our modern hypersensitivity-twisted perspective that Christian anti-Semites have any culpability for the death of Jews or any other people unless they were actually calling for the death of Jews and/or doing the killing.
I think I have come full circle back to the “Sticks and Stones” principle.
Also, much historical anti-Semitism was the equivalent of the what we see today with the Occupy movement and their anger at “banksters”. If future mobs start pulling bankers from their offices and tossing them from the windows of their skyscrapers, will history some day look back and blame all those unwashed hippies camping in parks screaming hatred at bankers?
It takes a lot for me to get offended by religious bigotry but Jeff Boone you have succeeded. I honestly hope that you will take a look at the hatred you excuse and perpetuate when you say “Jews did deliver Jesus to the Romans to be murdered, so maybe we should accept that a little Christian anger is warranted.”
Whoa dude that unbelievably retro. Then you go on:
“I do not accept this rewriting of history from our modern hypersensitivity-twisted perspective that Christian anti-Semites have any culpability for the death of Jews or any other people unless they were actually calling for the death of Jews and/or doing the killing.”
Vatican Gives Formal Apology for Inaction During Holocaust 3-17- 1998
By William Drozdiak
The Washington Post
BERLIN
“The Roman Catholic Church formally apologized Monday for failing to take more decisive action in challenging the Nazi regime during World War II to stop the extermination of more than 6 million Jews.’
“But in a long-awaited document on the church’s role in the Holocaust, the Vatican defended Pope Pius XII, who headed the church during the war, from accusations that he turned a blind eye to the systematic killing of Jews. Some critics say Pius was motivated by church religious prejudices dating from the death of Jesus Christ.”
You can see where this line of reasoning has led in the past. Of course that is why it must be challenged in the present.
By the way Jeff, the industrialization of genocide leading to the death of 6,000,000 mostly non-combatants can’t really be considered what you so offensively dismiss as “A little Christian anger.”
Toad, have you read Mark 15:1?
[quote]Very early in the morning, the chief priests, with the elders, the teachers of the law and the whole Sanhedrin, reached a decision. They bound Jesus, led him away and handed him over to Pilate.[/quote]
[i]The Roman Catholic Church formally apologized Monday for failing to take more decisive action[/i]
Ok Toad, so now we are going to hold people and groups responsible for their inactions… or more specifically, their lack of decisive actions. Great, that will open up a whole bunch of good stuff for my people who tend to demand personal responsibility.
You know as well as I do that hypersensitivity knows no bounds, and “sorry” is a cheap tonic to feed those so afflicted.
[i]By the way Jeff, the industrialization of genocide leading to the death of 6,000,000 mostly non-combatants can’t really be considered what you so offensively dismiss as “A little Christian anger.” [/i]
No, it was facism, Marxism and communism.
Christian anger had little to do with it. That was/is my point.
What I do not think has been mentioned is 1) What one might not do on one’s own can escalate when group-think takes over, such as killing or condoning killing 2) The seeds were planted in the antisemitic ideology so when the actions were promoted the die was already cast.
[i]Christian anger had little to do with it.
[/i]
Then why, one wonders, did they happen to choose those particular 6 milion people.
dlemongello: I think there is a dangerous slipper slope with this line and it is why we have and value our First Admendment rights. But I do agree that there is a line. Any religious leader preaching “death to Jews” or inciting violence of any kind is culpable.
[i]Then why, one wonders, did they happen to choose those particular 6 milion people.[/i]
Who is “they”
I was going to point out the last paragraph as a reason – it has been one of the common theories and backed up by the additional evidence that Hitler was abused by his father and was basically a mamma’s boy – but I remembered reading this other theory at one point and found this small article on the web.
[quote]Adolf Hitler’s hatred of Jews stemmed from his belief that they “stole” victory from the country in the First World War, according to a newly published book titled “November 9: How World War One Led to the Holocaust.”
“The core of his hatred lies at the defeat of Germany in WWI,” the book’s author Joachim Riecker told the Daily Telegraph, “where Hitler blamed the Jews for defeat of the country, the collapse of the monarchy and the ruination of millions.”
“Hitler saw the state ‘poisoned’ from within. Hitler lived in Munich, where Jews played a leading role in the revolution against the monarchy on Nov. 9, 1918. So suddenly the delusion came to his mind, that the Jews where the reason for the ‘inner poisoning’ of Germany and that they had stolen the victory from Germany,” Riecker told the British paper.
Riecker discounts previous claims that Hitler began hating the Jews after a Jewish doctor, Eduard Bloch, unsuccessfully treated his mother Klara who was stricken with breast cancer and died from the disease in 1907.[/quote]
The question isn’t why Hitler (along with many others) hated the Jews, Jeff. The question is why the entire German bureaucracy, along with a large segment of the German population — across all demographics — participated willingly in their slaughter. Why a significant majority of the German public supported killing the Jews. Why that occurred at varying levels, following a similar pattern, in many other countries in Europe. What level of ethics and morality had become the norm that allowed a broad sector of each country to support it? What acts of commission and omission by the supposed moral leaders in those countries abetted or failed to act decisively against it?
Don, we cannot analyze this through our rose colored glasses of the current time.
However, continue down this road of economic decline, and we may create the same or similar testbed for human behavior.
It was economic and social misery and failures of governance that began before the unification of the German empire under Bismarck.
Interesting that during that time, Bismarck smacked down the Catholic church (“Kulturkampf”). He tried to leverage his power with Protestants and liberals (what strange bedfellows by today’s standard, huh?) to futher isolate the minimize the power of the church. It wasn’t successful in the end. Protestants and liberals suffered as a result.
Basically, there was an eb and flow of political-religious power grabs going back to before medieval times.
But extermination of jews? That was 100% Nazi. Why did Germans and other Europeans participate? Liberals, Muslims, Imperialists, socialists, communists, secularists… you name it… they all had a hand in it. They didn’t just kill Jews though. 5 million Christians were killed. Out of the 11 millions killed, 6 million were Poles and half of them were Christians.
So, if Christians caused this Don, then how do you explain 5 million Christians also killed during the Holocaust?
Never mind, Jeff. I’m definitely going to bow out of this conversation now.
JB: [i]”Jews did deliver Jesus to the Romans to be murdered, so maybe we should accept that a little Christian anger is warranted.”[/i]
Even though this is likely not historically true* let’s stipulate for argument’s sake that in fact it was absolutely true, that Jews, even let’s say all Palestinian Jews of that time, delivered Jesus (and let’s pretend he was not a Palestinian Jew) to the Romans to be murdered**. The question becomes: Is there any rationale, given our modern sensibilities about culpability, to blame or otherwise hold accountable Jews of later generations for that crime? In my opinion, there is none. And that only an anti-Semite would think that “the Jews” who lived 1,900 years after Christ was crucified should in some way have guilt over what “the Jews” who lived 19 centuries earlier had allegedly done.
A lot of racism or ethnic prejudice or in this case religious bigotry is based on the pre-modern notion of group guilt. If, for example, some black guy robs a bank, the idea of blaming “the blacks” for that one individual’s crime is, to my mind, and I think to any modern mind, racist and illogical.
All anti-Semitism revolves around this same sort of thing. Just for example, in the 1980s, almost all of the corrupt bankers on Wall Street who went to prison for financial crimes were Jewish by heritage, if not by practice. (Michael Milken was perhaps the most famous, but also the least dastardly of them.) A highly prejudiced response, but not a rational response, would be to say “Just goes to show you can’t trust the Jews.” In other words, that is an assignation of group guilt. Never mind that the prosecutors who found the evidence of those crimes were mostly Jews, too. And where there were victims, they were largely Jews. The group blame idea is itself the basis for such prejudicial feelings.
Just like your suggesting that because “the Jews” were culpable for the murder of Christ is one which involves group blame passed down over generations, a lot of inter-ethnic hatreds include that same sort of remembrance blame. The Serbs and the Croats (those who are prejudiced) hold it against the others for supposed crimes which happened 300 or 400 or 800 years ago.
I think the American tradition of not assigning group blame for the actions of an individual, now or in yesteryear, is a part of the reason why Americans, despite our severe history of racial hatred (mostly directed against blacks) has allowed us in so short a period of time (mostly post-WW2) to become (in my opinion) the least prejudiced, least racist society among socities which have multiple races and ethnicities living together. We have, to borrow MLK’s phrase, finally lived out the true meaning of our crede.
If you go to France and see the overt racism there (principally against Arabs, but also against black African immigrants and some other minorities), you will hear group blame in their arguments which to our modern American ears sounds very ancient.
_________________________
*See, for example, Christian Biblical scholars such as Bart Ehrman of the UNC-Chapel Hill for a full history.
**We need to also pretend that Jesus did not actually have the omnipotence of a God, because if he did, he could have just avoided the entire crucifixion if he had wanted to.
[i]”A lot of racism or ethnic prejudice or in this case religious bigotry is based on the pre-modern notion of group guilt.”[/i]
One reason to oppose some affirmative action–to wit, group preference standards for admissions to universities or group prefence for hiring new employees–is because it inherently punishes individuals, who were never guilty of any crimes and who never benefited from anyone else’s crimes, for someone else’s historical crimes.
That African-Americans for hundreds of years were victims of racist beahvior and crimes, racist governmental policies and racist social attitudes is beyond all doubt. What is far less clear is why it is then fair to have a policy of group discrimination which favors a contemporary African-American because of what happened to his ancestors* at the expense of a white or increasingly an Asian-American who had no relation whatsoever to the racist past. Such policies are, to my mind, wrong because they are based on the very same illogic that so much group prejudice is based on: that an individual cannot be treated as an individual, but rather he has to be treated, for good or bad, as one who is part of the group he did not choose to be born into.
*Or did not actually happen to the ancestors of blacks who immigrated here in the last 50 or so years.
“So, if Christians caused this Don, then how do you explain 5 million Christians also killed during the Holocaust?”
Not to mention the Ukranian and Armenian mass slaughters of Christians in first half of last century.
Jeff, glad to see a voice standing up for the Christians. Somewhat mystified why other bloggers tend to bow out and seem to ignore and not address these other historical facts.
I suppose these historical events can be framed in terms of one ethnic/religious/cultural group going after another; with social disparities and other sources of tension between the groups left out.
[i]Even though this is likely not historically true* let’s stipulate for argument’s sake that in fact it was absolutely true, that Jews, even let’s say all Palestinian Jews of that time, delivered Jesus (and let’s pretend he was not a Palestinian Jew) to the Romans to be murdered**.[/i]
Note, I am not saying that it is true. Nor am I saying that I believe it is true, or that I support anti-Semitism for this or any other reason. My point was simply that there is a history of some Christians holding a grudge about that. But why does that grudge have to be used as evidence of culpability for the Holocaust? The Jews have blasted the Christians, and the Christians have blasted the Jews. 6 million Jews died in the Holocaust, and 5 million Christians died similarly. Were the Jews culpable for the death of 5 million Christians?
[i]One reason to oppose some affirmative action–to wit, group preference standards for admissions to universities or group preference for hiring new employees–is because it inherently punishes individuals, who were never guilty of any crimes and who never benefited from anyone else’s crimes, for someone else’s historical crimes.[/i]
That and the harm of the reality, and/or even the stigma, for those beneficiaries of affirmative action that they didn’t quite measure up to the performance standard. Lowering the bar for racial quotas does more harm than good.
[i]”Jeff, glad to see a voice standing up for the Christians. Somewhat mystified why other bloggers tend to bow out and seem to ignore and not address these other historical facts.”[/i]
Jimt – Christian-bashing is in vogue. When a person stacks up his bad and good pieces on his worldview game board, it is difficult to accept any changing sides. They will keep looking for evidence to hold on to their view. I do it too. I am still convinced that the Nazis were bad pieces.
When turning the other cheek also means turning a blind eye it ought to change one’s mind.
Forgot to mention,
The many millions of soldiers who fought the Nazis during WWII were mainly Christians, were they not? Any thanks to the Christian community by the Jewish community for fighting their oppressors? I believe over a million allied soldiers died (I forgot the body count) fighting the German army in particular; again mostly Christian.
Although many more American soldiers were Christian rather than Jewish due to relatively small number of Jews in USA; I wonder among young men of eligible age; what % of eligible Christian young men volunteered to join the armed forces, and what % of eligible Jewish young men volunteered? I really don’t know the answer to this, I suspect the percentages were comparable (correct me if I’m wrong here).
[i]”But why does that grudge have to be used as evidence of culpability for the Holocaust?”[/i]
The “grudge” is itself group blame and is itself anti-Semitism. Anyone of any faith who blames “the Jews” writ large for killing Christ is an anti-Semite.
But, not all anti-Semites are guilty of the largest mass murder in world history. No one has said they are. Nor are all Christians, now or in the past, guilty of anti-Semitism or crimes against Jews.
Yet without a long history of official Christian anti-Semitism, encouraged for hundreds and hundreds of years by official churches, the Holocaust could never have happened. It is a crucial aspect of the story.
[i]”The Jews have blasted the Christians, and the Christians have blasted the Jews.”[/i]
This is a purely ignorant statement. There is no equivalency in any sense at all. It is as if you equate the culpability for the enslavement of Africans in the United States as much on the slaves as the slaveholders, the victims as much as the guilty. That is just stupidity.
[i]”The many millions of soldiers who fought the Nazis during WWII were mainly Christians, were they not?”[/i]
Yes, they were. No one has suggested otherwise. But those Allied soldiers did not join up to “save the Jews.” They were simply fighting for their countries. And by winning the War, they ultimately did save the lives of the Jews who had not been murdered yet.
[i]”Any thanks to the Christian community by the Jewish community for fighting their oppressors?”[/i]
Officially and unofficially, Jews who survived the Holocaust due to the favor and beneficence of individual gentiles have worked tirelessly to thank and honor them. You would do well to visit Yad Vashem ([url]http://www.yadvashem.org/[/url]) to learn about these efforts, which go on to this day.
A good example of this is the extraordinary promotion of the efforts of Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish (Christian) diplomat who saved Jews. Another of great fame is, of course, Oskar Schindler.
Likewise, once Israel was created, it officially thanked the U.S., the U.K., the Soviet Union, etc., for defeating the Nazis.
There are some Jews (and gentiles) who have raised questions about the Allies not liberating the death camps sooner or not bombing the rail lines which the Germans were using to send Jews to their deaths in 1944 and 1945. I don’t share this criticism of the Allied leadership. My view is that their number one priority had to be to win the War first and foremost, and it did not make sense to get sidetracked for humanitarian causes.
[i]”I believe over a million allied soldiers died (I forgot the body count) fighting the German army in particular; again mostly Christian.”[/i]
The Soviet Army alone lost about 10 million soldiers fighting Germany. (Stalin deserves a lot of blame for the high number. I won’t go into why here.) Of those, almost 7 million were Russians.
The US, UK and France, combined, suffered abut 1 million military dead. Other European allies (mostly Poland and Yugoslavia) lost about 1 million more. And then China, which was sort of an allied nation, lost another 3.5 million military deaths.
[i]”I wonder among young men of eligible age what % of eligible Christian young men volunteered to join the armed forces, and what % of eligible Jewish young men volunteered? I really don’t know the answer to this, I suspect the percentages were comparable (correct me if I’m wrong here).”[/i]
I don’t know, either. However, when the War broke out in 1939, 2 years and 2 months before Pearl Harbor, thousands of American Jews voluntarily joined the British military in order to fight the Nazis. I don’t think many non-Jews in the United States did that.
FWIW, I have read that the ethnic group in the U.S. which had the highest rate of dying while fighting for the United States in WW2 were the Japanese-Americans in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team.
My friends father, Joe Landon, a Jew born in New York flew something like 50 missions as a navigator on a B-24 over Germany and Italy enlisted to fight the Nazi’s. When he returned home he wrote the screenplays for Stagecoach, Von Ryan’s Express and Finian’s Rainbow.
On my father’s 80 birthday I remember my father and his friends swapping war stories. They were all jewish kids from Chicago. Skinny had been in a bomber over Europe and Ike was at D-day. My father fought in the Pacific.
They all knew why they were fighting although at the time they didn’t know how bad it was. It appears many people still don’t.
Charlie Chaplin wrote in his Autobiography that if he knew how bad it was he would have never made The Great Dictator.
[i]”My friend’s father, Joe Landon, a Jew born in New York flew something like 50 missions as a navigator on a B-24 over Germany and Italy enlisted to fight the Nazi’s.”[/i]
[img]http://cepco.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/davis_fred.jpg[/img]
Notice any resemblance to me?
My uncle, Fred Davis, who was the longest serving city manager in California (in Chico) when he retired, was also a navigator on a bomber, in his case a B-26 Marauder. I know that most people on larger bombers were limited to 25 missions. But Fred told me recently there was no such limit for the B-26, which was not a very large aircraft. He said he flew “dozens” of missions. His unit was based out of England up to D-Day. They bombed behind the frontlines in Normandy on D-Day. And then they moved their base to France and bombed the heck out of Germany until VE-Day, May 8, 1945. … I had a number of other uncles, and my dad and my mom and her sister (both nurses) in the military, also, during WW2.
[i]A lot of people consider that the biggest lie we teach to our kids. [/i]
Not us… we have elementary school age kids and we teach them that believing that everything happens for a purpose is the biggest lie. Our view is that bad thing happen for random reasons, and our response to setbacks is the key to success. On the other hand, we tell them to ignore the taunts of other children and to treat others as they would wish to be treated. IMO, this is much better than teaching them to strike out at those who say things we don’t like.
“Why a significant majority of the German public supported killing the Jews.”
I was a bit surprised when I read this comment and had to reflect upon it awhile. The comment may be true for all I know, but it doesn’t comport with my own personal experience. I have never me a German from the WWII generation who stated or alluded to supporting the killings let alone participated in the killings. No one from my extended family, no acquaintances, no relatives of acquaintances, nada. I never even heard of someone that new second or third hand of such things. Perhaps they’re all suppressing their support or participation, who knows? What I have heard a number of times from older individuals are bigoted comments such as the Jews are like this or the Jews are like that, which really caused me to cringe (I have heard nothing of the kind from my acquaintances born after WWII).
Yet, there is no denying the Holocaust did happen, one of the most horrific acts, perhaps the most horrific act, perpetrated in human history. I can’t even wrap my mind around it.
The following quote does comport with what I have heard from family and acquaintances. It’s from a web page claiming to be The Simon Wiesenthal Center’s 36 Questions About the Holocaust:
“As far as the Jews were concerned, it was common knowledge in Germany that they had disappeared after having been sent to the East. It was not exactly clear to large segments of the German population what had happened to them. On the other hand, there were thousands upon thousands of Germans who participated in and/or witnessed the implementation of the “Final Solution” either as members of the SS, the Einsatzgruppen, death camp or concentration camp guards, police in occupied Europe, or with the Wehrmacht.”
-Michael Bisch
Rich–thanks for the response. You have a lot of good info. at your fingertips, as usual–I had forgotton to include the huge number of Russians who had died (I agree largely as a result of Stalin) in the war, I guess a large percentage were eastern orthodox christians.
I think I understand your main point about some long-standing cultural prejudices against the Jews, that extended to the pulpit in Christian churches on many occasions, and likely helped to pre-dispose many Germans to heed the strong anti-Jewish propaganda and scapegoating by the Nazi regime. I just felt I needed to defend the Christian Church and christians, who lately have gotton a bad rap (as Jeff has pointed out), mainly due to the disgraceful and despicable sanctioned cover-up of child molestation by priests. Over the long-haul I think the Catholic church and other christian churches, like any other human institution, have had their share of laudable and condemnable activities; but overall have acted as a civilizing influence. Perhaps there is nothing unique about christian leaders occasionally criticizing rival religious and cultural groups, I think all religious and cultural groups tend to highlight the good points about their own group and the bad points about rival groups. Don’t know how this can be resolved without redefinition of tribal membership (tribal membership has historically been found to have large plasticity); I don’t think tribalism itself can ever be uprooted and don’t know it would be wise to try; it is a deeply rooted part of being human to belong to a tribe.
Jeff Boone: “No, it was facism, Marxism and communism. “
Among many reprehensible statements made here this is the most ignorant of them all! While I will rarely defends the Reds 20,000,000 Russians died at the hands of and fighting the Nazis in WWII. The idea that Marxists and Communists were responsible for the Holocaust is so devoid of any truth it leaves me breathless.
Mr. Toad: please try to catch your breath.
Go back and read what I wrote and then consider a less myopic view of the history of that time. Marxists and communists certainly did have a role in the killing of the 11 million Jews that died in that period of time. Just look up Stalin’s Great Purge in which 1 million people were exterminated including many old Bolsheviks… that included a large percentage of Russian Jews. I believe those Jews are included in the 11 million count.
What bothers me here is yours and other’s modern re-writing of history to blame Christians for every conceivable evil against humanity. This is more than breathtaking, it is sickening. Religious intolerance has existed in all religious groups. However, it is only those that exploit it for political and economic pursuits that turn it into a deadly force.
My main point was to argue against this general tendency that you and others have for integrating Christianity into the blame for 20th century European carnage… I think to deflect from the truth that the ideologies of fascism and the various forms of collectivism, were the cause.
What lesson would you teach children recounting the history of the world at that time? I would teach them that religious intolerance and discrimination is not acceptable from a moral ground… especially including the current trend for demonizing Christianity. I would also teach them that fascism and all the forms of collectivism have resulted in undisputed human misery, suffering and death; and to recognize the tricks of those continuing to support these ideologies for deflecting blame to other groups and actors.
[i]”Marxists and communists certainly did have a role in the killing of the [b]11 million Jews[/b] that died in that period of time …”[/i]
For what it is worth, no one really knows how many Jews were murdered. The usual estimate is in the 6 million range, not 12 million. However, there is some good scholarship in recent years that the actual number is closer to 5 million, not 6.
I am not sure where you got the 11 million figure. However, most studies of the Shoah estimate that almost half of the total number of civilians murdered in Europe (outside of the context of combat-related casualties) were non-Jews. So if there were 6 million Jews killed, then perhaps another 5 million were Christians who resisted the Nazis, Gypsies, gays and other societal “misfits,” and various left-wing types who were targeted for their politics.
*My understanding is there were a lot of high profile communists and trade-unionists and other left-wing type people of this sort murdered by the Nazis early in their Reich, but out of the total civilians killed in the Holocaust, very few were killed due to their specific political leanings. The murders were much more generalized: to kill whole groups, like Jews or Gypsies or Slavs who lived in German-speaking regions. Where individuals who were not in those groups were murdered, it was normally because they resisted the Nazis.
[i]”What bothers me here is yours and other’s modern re-writing of history to blame Christians for every conceivable evil against humanity. This is more than breathtaking, it is sickening.”
[/i]
Yeah. Nobody has done that here. But it is precisely because of your distortions and off-the-wall comments that I decided not to continue this conversation.
You would do well to read some of the books that have been mentioned. Rich linked the book I was referring to. It sparked a lot of discussion, quite a catharsis in Germany actually. Historians were critical of the analysis, so by looking at the reviews you can find some links to others who discuss the actual participation of ordinary Germans and others in the atrocities. The history of the Catholic Church during that period is a subject of robust debate; just Google “Hitler’s Pope” and you’ll get started.
[i]”Over the long-haul I think the Catholic church and other christian churches, like any other human institution, have had their share of laudable and condemnable activities; but overall have acted as a civilizing influence.”[/i]
I need to make clear the fact that I don’t blame Christianity for the Holocaust. The Christian religion had nothing to do with it. Certainly American, British, Canadian, Australian and so on Christians have no culpability in it (though pro-Nazi Americans like Charles Lindberg deserve scorn for being pathetic idiots, if not criminals).
I only blame the individuals who took part in or facilitated the killings or passively allowed them to happen. And I believe that a long history of sanctioned anti-Semitism by the state-sponsored churches is why so many ordinary people were anti-Semitic and why they took part in the murders or let their neighbors die.
Since the Holocaust, anti-Semitism in the Christian world has largely disappeared. That horrific event made all people of good conscience realize what hatred for the Jews could lead to. Today, it is not just the Quakers, Unitarians and Adventists who preach goodwill and so on, but today’s Lutheran Church and the Roman Catholic Church and most Eastern Orthodox* churches have reversed course. The low-church Protestants, like the Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, American Episcopalians, etc., and others like the Mormons, who never had a history of officially sanctioning such group prejudice, today have open goodwill toward Jews as Jews. It’s a different and to that extent better world, post-Hitler.
I don’t believe any of that had to do with changing Christianity. It is still the same religion. The religion was not at fault. There was, especially in Europe, and especially among the state-sponsored churches, a cultural fault, which no longer exists.
A related and today a more relevant question is … what is wrong with Islam? In my view, there is nothing wrong with Islam as a religion. However, I believe there is a very serious cultural problem that is widespread in Muslim countries. They do tend to have a lot of serious anti-Semitism, and in some, serious anti-Christian cultures. Their cultures are very often tolerant of or encouraging to repression of women, repression of free speech, repression of literature and science and many forms of inquiry. There is also a repression of gays and in some cases a repression of individual creative outlets. Etc.
I don’t think any of those things are inherent in Islam. Look at American Muslims. The vast majority are indistinguishable from non-Muslim Americans in terms of their respect for democracy and civil rights and so on. I think the real problem, which has produced the hateful rise of radical Islamism, is cultural backwardness in a world which keeps progressing. These backward preachers and followers of those preachers want the world to go back to the 7th C.
Today’s Christian faith is basically the same as the Christian faith in the time of John Locke. Christianity did not need to change, but the culture in many Christian countries did need to change and it has.
Now the Muslim cultural world, not the Muslim religion, needs to change. It probably won’t happen in our lifetimes. But I suspect that 100 or 150 years from now, the culture in the Arab and Muslim world will be very different from how it is now, and most of the anti-democratic, anti-modern and anti-Western beliefs that are now dominant will be gone.
[i]You would do well to read some of the books that have been mentioned. Rich linked the book I was referring to.[/i]
Don: I will consider it. But I have read, and do read, quite a bit on this general topic. And the books you and Rich refer too are not part of the mainstream accounts and theories. They are also in the minority for how the stories of the history of this time are shaped. They are compelling for those of us that like a new twist on an old story.
Rich, thanks for that last post. Regardless of your motivating to write, it has calmed me down a bit in understanding your perspective. I think maybe our difference here is covered by the following question: Did the Christian religion in the late 19th and early 20th Century materially contribute to the slaughter of 6 million Jews, or was it the politics of people attempting to exploit religious difference to foment violence that served their pursuit of power that materially contributed to the slaughter of 6 million Jews?
I see a fundamental and important distinction. And this point is echoed in your comment:
[i]Christianity did not need to change, but the culture in many Christian countries did need to change and it has.[/i]
It was/is culture. It was/is politics. It was/is economics.
I think religion in a free and open democratic culture, where the rights and freedoms of the individual are protected and tyrannical and collectivist impulses are rejected; is practiced in a more pure, safe, non-violent and introverted spiritual manifestation. It is the populist uprisings that have the stain of deadly religious extremism and intolerance… both done against and done by the members of one religion over another.
From my perspective it is culture that has corrupted religion and not the other way around. Hence it is wrong and illogical to even infer that Christianity was any source of blame for the Holocaust. Christians were victims of governance gone wrong, just as Jews were. Culture matters. Politics matter. Economics matter. As long as they are all healty, the message of peace that permiates all great religious scripture will dominate the practices of their followers.
[i]I am not sure where you got the 11 million figure[/i]
I have read may books and articles that has the number of people killed in the Holocaust as 11 million with 6 million of them Jews. I include another 1 million of Stalin’s Great Purge to get to the 12 million.
However, I made a mistake writing “12 million Jews”. I meant to write 12 million (but probably should stick to the 11 million number that is common… and because I’m not 100% sure historians agree that the Great Purge was to be considered part of the Holocaust) total killed.
“I only blame the individuals who took part in or facilitated the killings or passively allowed them to happen. And I believe that a long history of sanctioned anti-Semitism by the state-sponsored churches is why so many ordinary people were anti-Semitic and why they took part in the murders or let their neighbors die.”
Assigning the blame only get us so far. It’s entirely understandable that the victims are perhaps more motivated than others in identifying the perpetrators, the accomplices, and the enablers. Much energy has been devoted to the effort, perhaps not enough, that’s not for me to say. That said, I don’t think enough effort has been invested in identifying the societal/cultural causes. Or if it has, I don’t think the results of such effort have been disseminated sufficiently. We still have genocides and/or attempts at genocide (Bosnia and Rwanda for example). We still have wars and other very hostile actions being driven by government or other institutional propaganda.
It would be well worth the while to have identified cultural or societal markers akin to genetic markers that tips observers off that a nation or a people are approaching a tipping point. Perhaps I’ve gone off the idealistic deep end here.
PS: A personal recollection from the aftermath of 9/11. There were some government proposed actions, government propaganda, and intolerance of probing questions that were for me very worrisome.
-Michael Bisch
[i]Why a significant majority of the German public supported killing the Jews.[/i]
MIchael, I just realized you were quoting me. I actually meant a significant [i]percentage[/i], not majority.