rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Arthur Pewtey) (05/04/85)
Believe it or not, I'm inclined to go against Bill Peter and fellow Jews in general and agree with (what?) Wingate and Reagan. The Germans who were duped into following down the path of Nazism alongside Hitler and his goons were indeed victims. Of course, there are varying degrees to which a victim may suffer, and being forced to serve in the army, or even having been swayed by vicious propaganda to go along with the Nazis, cannot be compared to being summarily rounded up and slaughtered. If there are people who actually think that the Nazi atrocities can be pinned on the German people as a whole, they are just as racist as the Nazis themselves. There were Frenchmen who didn't especially like Jews. And the Poles certainly weren't reticent about turning in Jews once the Nazis took over. But to blame *any* entire race of people as a whole for such action is ridiculous. A Hitler could just as easily have arisen in France, or Poland, or England, or America. And one may still do so. The anti-Semitism that was part and parcel of Christian (no quotes) teaching for thousands of years is well ingrained in the mindsets of millions. And a Hitler could just as easily sprout up again, anywhere, and exploit that. And that anti-Semitism is but a subset of a mindset of intolerance that permeates nationalistic and religionistic thought. From which Jews themselves are not immune. Not that my agreement with Wingate and Reagan is wholehearted. Both have shown remarkably cold insensitivity, despite their apparent sincerity. Something that never sunk in to Charley is that his actions contradicted his statements. He was proud to state his and his church's position on a number of issues. But his actions consisted of jokes about Jew-baiting, slanted comments about homosexuality, assumptions that anyone who defends blacks must BE black (remember Michael Ellis), and support of manipulative proselytizing as "OK". All of which Charley saw as non-contradictory to his stated positions. I never doubted Charley's sincerity about his positions. (I hope that was clear.) I was only trying to point out that if he was truly sincere, he'd be willing to admit that hundreds of years of Christian doctrine had taken its toll on the way he was taught and on the mindset that is still present in many people in many forms. And the prejudices that evince themselves were not something to deny with a flurry of articles containing random statistics for the purpose of deriding someone else, but rather something to admit to and work on. If one is truly sincere... -- "If you offend everybody, you're doing a good job." --David Steinberg on the subject of satire Rich Rosen ihnp4!pyuxd!rlr