The National Review Complains That Obama Was Too Hard On Nazis

[ashling]

If you’ve ever needed proof that for many conservatives, there is nothing the President can do right, this should put that question to bed forever. In a January 28th post in the National Review, their beef with the Commander-in-Chief was that he called the Holocaust “senseless violence.”

President Obama issued a statement yesterday to commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day. He noted that survivors who bore witness to “the horrors of the cattle cars, ghettos, and concentration camps have witnessed humanity at its very worst and know too well the pain of losing loved ones to senseless violence.” (We noted below how some in Europe chose to mark the day, which takes place each year on January 27, the day Soviet troops liberated Auschwitz.)

The idea that all violence is “senseless” violence is one that has taken deep root on the left; it’s also, unfortunately, one that poses a major impediment to understanding the world.

Nazism may have been an ideology to which the United States was — and to which the president is — implacably opposed, but it is hardly “senseless.” By the early 1930s, the Nazi party had hundreds of thousands of devoted members and repeatedly attracted a third of the votes in German elections; its political leaders campaigned on a platform comprising 25 non-senseless points, including the “unification of all Germans,” a demand for “land and territory for the sustenance of our people,” and an assertion that “no Jew can be a member of the race.” Suffice it to say, many sensible Germans were persuaded.

So, because there was organization behind the murder of six million Jews, it made sense? Or is it because it made sense to some people, the Holocaust wasn’t senseless? Yeah, my head is spinning too. If, as a country, we can agree upon one thing, let’s please agree that the attempted extermination of a large portion of the population makes no sense. Those who did follow the Nazi party, generally did so out of fear – not fear of the people who were trying to conquer all of Europe – fear of people who had very little, if any impact on their lives. That is misguided. That is deluded. That is dangerous. That is senseless.

***

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/02/01/the-national-review-complains-that-obama-was-too-hard-on-nazis/

[Enrique]

1. Newt Gingrich took exception to that ordinary phrase back in September

the GOP is running out of things to get outraged about, they're resorting to becoming semantics Nazis.

[daleo]

2. What Spock said applies to Nazis and their ilk

Madness has no purpose, but it can have a plan.

[maddiemom]

40. Yep. "senseless" to humane and sensible people. A "plan" to Nazis and the like.

[Ohio Dem]

3. Unbelievable

What a bunch of senseless asshats.

[arely staircase]

4. arguments as to whether or not all violence is senseless aside

that is clearly not the point the president made (clear even from the quote the NR used.) he was obviously referring to the violence of the nazis specifically, as it was a specific observation of what was was witnessed by survivors of the holocaust "cattle cars, etc.)

somehow this is and example of left-wing pacifism?

the commemoration is traditionally celebrated on the day the soviets liberated auschwitz. a great deal of the soviet counter offensive that liberated that camp and smashed the nazis for good did employ a certain amount of violence to do it. violence i would say that president obama and every president since FDR have praised.

[Demo_Chris]

5. "Senseless" as in it makes no sense to rational people

From Buckley they have fallen all the way to this. The intellectual leaders of the GOP are Limbaugh, Hannity, Palin, Levin, and Newt.

What the hell.

[AlbertCat]

11. "Senseless" as in it makes no sense to rational people

It all sound so Ayn Randian to me.... so no rational people are involved.

[freshwest]

6. Hey, National Review:

[Initech]

7. I'm convinced there is nothing Obama can do that would please these morons.

[FleetwoodMac]

8. This entire article is misguided. Deluded. Dangerous. Senseless.

And is a stark reflection of the Republican ideological bankruptcy.

[Kber]

9. Um - not sure the argument that the Holocaust "made sense" is a winning one

My free advice to the National Review - don't go there.

[Jerry442]

10. Near the end of the war....

...the Nazis were diverting resources from the battlefields to continue the Holocaust. Even by their standards, it was senseless.

[coalition_unwilling]

16. As Daniel Goldhagen exhaustively documents, in "Hitler's Willing Executioners," even as Germany

itself was being invaded on both Eastern and Western fronts, the German people kept marching concentration camp inmates from one facility to another. Almost psychotic behavior, although not sure one can use the word 'psychosis' for an entire people.

[appleannie1]

12. Very telling. History repeating itself.

quote

By the early 1930s, the Nazi party had hundreds of thousands of devoted members and repeatedly attracted a third of the votes in German elections; its political leaders campaigned on a platform comprising 25 non-senseless points, including the “unification of all Germans,” a demand for “land and territory for the sustenance of our people,” and an assertion that “no Jew can be a member of the race.” Suffice it to say, many sensible Germans were persuaded.

unquote

Reminds me of the Tea Party of today. Both done waving their nations flag. Both hating unions. Both hating different religions and races.

[JHB]

13. Was the writer below his quota on Obama-bashing, or...

...is he normally that dumb?

[Cartoonist]

14. Not defending the article here.

There is a point to be made, but the author does not make it. He misses blindly by attacking Obama, which is all these nuts do.

I am not eloquent enough to explain the point, but I have read similar opinions that do. It has to do with the human mind and the history of dictators and others. The sane among us need to find a way to deal with these people with real understanding rather than just dismiss them as senseless. As another poster wrote, see it Spock's way. This "senselessness" comes from the same human mind we all have. There is a method to the madness that possesses intelligence, not senselessness.

As I said, I am not eloquent enough to explain this difficult approach to madness. Do not take anything I say the wrong way. The author of the article is less eloquent than I.

[underpants]

15. Does the National Review hate Obama? Was the Pope a Nazi?

[coalition_unwilling]

17. Parsing the words of a madman (the NR author) - not to put too fine a point on it, but

Obama did not say that the Nazi violence or the Holocaust was\were senseless. What Obama was saying (quite eloquently) is that the victims of Nazi violence were well positioned to empathize with the victims of senseless violence.

As a leftist, I say that any violence that pits one working person against another is 'senseless.' But violence that pits workers against parasites? I may not approve of it as a tactic, but I would not say such violence is 'senseless.'

[JaneyVee]

18. Oh those poor Nazi's.

[alphafemale]

19. and the remainders of the party of Lincoln said...what?

No...say that again.

I'm not sure everyone heard you the first time.

Republicans are fucking done...nail...coffin. Die there.

If not now soon.

Very soon.

Sane people don't eat this shit.

[amuse bouche]

20. These cretins

are ..cretins

[SCVDem]

21. Prescott Bush

Nuff said!

[alfredo]

22. The Holocaust was not the first time the Germans slaughtered Jews. Here's a book I highly

recommend.

"Constantine's Sword."
http://www.amazon.com/Constantines-Sword-Church-Jews-History/dp/0618219080/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1359921391&sr=1-1&keywords=constantine%27s+sword


The Cross is a taunt directed at the Jews.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

23. They can't see past their hatred of Obama

That they're willing to defend Nazis if he happens to criticise them.

[TeamPooka]

24. Good golly Miss Molly, what will they say next?

[tclambert]

25. C'mon, Republicans, go back to saying stupid things about rape.

When you call Obama a Nazi, then complain he's too hard on Nazis, you sound even more stupid.

You know what, Republicans? Better yet, just Shut The Fuck Up.

[robbob]

42. No no; keep talking, keep talking

...all the way to 2014...

[GodlessBiker]

26. Doesn't modifying violence with senseless mean ...

... that not all violence is senseless, which is exactly the opposite of what the wing nuts claim the President meant.

[madrchsod]

27. it`s really a hard job for these folks at national review.

they fall on their collective faces when they muster all their intelligence and still can`t make a case against him.

[SoapBox]

28. ...sick.

[NewJeffCT]

29. The National Review is one of the Republican intellectual leaders

or, what passes for intellectual these days....

[heliarc]

30. At the risk of playing devil's advocate...

... and I think that the National Review is doing a piss poor job of making the following point:

Weber described two rational modes that apply here... the Zweckrational, and the Wertrational. The zweck is a rationalization of measured potential or a goal oriented rational projection without taking into account an irrational governing emotional or moral foundation. This is much like the comment... "well, you can rationalize anything" Whereas, the Wertrational represents a rational mode where there is a governing moral or foundational principle to actions taken rationally.

Consider the systematic and systemic way in which Hitler and his social programme conducted the mass slaughter of Jews... calculated, categorized and even catalogued. The endeavor was HIGHLY rational, but stemmed from a sort of dissociative madness that featured a primacy of nationalistic identity definition above all other forms of moral or principled action. It is a rational form that suffered from a founding principle (racial purity) that most of us would find abhorrent.

Do I believe that the National Review really intends to make that argument entirely? Not really, but it is important to say that the portrayal of Nazis for example as they are in Raiders of the Lost Ark, or Hogan's Heroes -- as comically senseless goons... who can be easily tricked or discounted, because of their irrationality, is not a real or pertinent interpretation of the Nazi project, and it also could artificially prop up this idea that we are so beyond this kind of rationalized genocidal murder, that it couldn't ever happen again. Well it can and it does.

[pasto76]

32. uh, no. your dime store philospophy holds no water

ra·tion·al
[rash-uh-nl, rash-nl]
adjective
1.agreeable to reason; reasonable; sensible: a rational plan for economic development.

2.having or exercising reason, sound judgment, or good sense: a calm and rational negotiator.

3.being in or characterized by full possession of one's reason; sane; lucid: The patient appeared perfectly rational.

4.endowed with the faculty of reason: rational beings.

5.of, pertaining to, or constituting reasoning powers: the rational faculty.


attempting to exterminate a race of people, along with 6-7 million additional offenders, is not 'HIGHLY rational'. Its pure insanity. The because the methodology was systematic and organized has nothing to do with rational. The reason they did this was purely irrational. Calculating, yes. rational. Never.

[Orrex]

31. First, Obama came for the Nazis

Those poor, poor Nazis! Won't someone think of the Nazis?!?

[RainDog]

33. that's a shout out to the neo nazis

Republicans are such bottom feeders they, starting with Reagan, reached out to American fascists. Well, actually, Nixon was the first to do this, along with the Southern Strategy that made it possible for Reagan to get into office after making a deal with the Iranian clerics to delay release of the hostages until after the American presidential election.

iow, it's just business as usual for the Nixon/Reagan/Bush Republican Party to embrace fascists and racists and misogynists to get elected. That's now the base of the party.

Russ Bellant wrote about the Republican outreach to far right groups in the U.S.

http://books.google.com/books?id=ZWAHmLuZeIoC&printsec=frontcover&dq=old+nazis+the+new+right+and+the+republican+party&hl=en&sa=X&ei=40APUZ2JGYWFyQGiFg&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAA

[sinkingfeeling]

35. Maybe TNR has too much sympathy for the Nazis.

[PD Turk]

36. Hmmm....

Throw a rock into a pack of dogs, the one that yelps is the one that got hit.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

37. TNR wants sensible Nazi violence to replace senseless Nazi violence: their idea of progress. nt

[McCamy Taylor]

38. National Review: "Holocaust Sensible Violence"

[drynberg]

39. MUST BE NEAR SPRING, THE RWers ARE DEFENDING

Freakin' Honest to God Nazis!

[Taverner]

41. Holocaust Sympathizers nt