Imagine my surprise when in the spring of 1939 a letter arrived at my house inviting me to dinner at the Old Chancellery with the world’s most reviled man, Adolf Hitler. I had been a vocal critic of his on the radio from the beginning, pretty much predicting everything he was going to do on the road to dictatorship. No one I knew encouraged me to go. “He’s Hitler. He’s a monster.” But eventually I concluded that hate gets us nowhere. I knew I couldn’t change his views, but we need to talk to the other side....
Read the whole thing. I gave you the free link. Now, I do think what Larry wrote there is funny. It just violates a rule of taste: You shouldn't compare anything to the Holocaust.
We can talk about why that rule fell out of fashion. But whether Larry David is violating a strict and important rule or just going with the flow of the current taste within his hyper-elite stratum of society is a separate question from whether it's funny.
There is edgy comedy, and it's often considered the very best comedy. Just yesterday, I was listening to some of the old Lenny Bruce recordings on Spotify.George Carlin said it best: "Lots of people — lots of groups — in this country want to tell you how to talk, tell you what you can't talk about — well, sometimes they'll say, well, you can talk about something but you can't joke about it say you can't joke about something because it's not funny comedians run into that shit all the time. Like rape...." He said it best. Not saying it works in transcript form. And I don't want the text of the Lenny Bruce material on the blog either. Go to the links. It's edgy. You have to be a comic genius to break the strongest rules and come across as funny.
But let's get back to Dershowitz's version of the dreaded "That's Not Funny": "Larry David... stopped being funny... because I know they're not jokes — that's who he really is, so they're not jokes." Is this a general rule? Whenever the speaker is sincere, what he is saying is not a joke. Well, often we say That's no joke as a way to establish that the speaker means what he is saying, but can't you really mean something and simultaneously joke about it? David really means to condemn Maher's dining with Trump and he's using the exaggerated hypothetical of dining with Hitler to make his point.
Dershowitz just used the same method to earlier in that very podcast, which is largely about Harvard's lawsuit against the Trump administration. He said:
We're not going to see... the Supreme Court declare[] that universities... don't have to comply with anti-discrimination laws.... Look, I'm a law school professor so for the last 60 years I've been using what's called the Socratic method, and... you come up with hypothetical cases and you test your students commitment to principles based on the hypothetical cases you vary the facts to test their commitment to principle. So here's the hypothetical. It's such a simple and obvious one: 1955, 1956, I'm in college a year or two after Brown versus Board of Education that required all public schools to desegregate, and so you have Old Miss and you have the University of Alabama, and you have George Wallace and they're all saying... we have academic freedom, you can't make us integrate, you can't make us treat black students equally, we have our traditions.... we believe in our First Amendment right to allow Klansmen to come on the campus wearing hoods and masks and berate black students.... Where would all the liberals be?... The professors at Harvard... would be... on the side of the federal government saying "Shut down that goddamn university — stop funding University of Alabama, stop funding Old Miss...."... What's the principle? What's the principle?... The principle that you can discriminate against Jews but not blacks? No, that's not the principle!
Dershowitz made the hypothetical as strong as he could. So did Larry David. If what Larry David did counts as shameful Holocaust denial, then isn't Dershowitz guilty of denying the legacy of slavery? What's the principle?
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114 comments:
How come this "hyper-elite stratum of society" never picks Stalin as the worst person who ever lived? Oh right, because FDR had dinner with Stalin.
Was Hitler the "most reviled man in the world" in 1939?
Perhaps but remember, during much of the 30s he was viewed with admiration by much of the world. Including the Fdr administration.
John Henry
Three old Jews walk into a bar . . .
Which part of that is funny? My wife is making me watch Curb Your Enthusiasm right now and it's like a never ending SNL skit. He's got one joke--Larry David is a clueless jerk. He thinks he's a truth teller but he just pisses people off for no good reason. Over and over and over again.
Turns out, that's because that's who and what Larry David is. It's really not funny.
It violates a more important rule: it is simply *tired* at this point. Half the country has made the comparison - there is nothing new, nothing fresh, nothing original there.
Oh, look. He said Hitler. How original. And probably stunning and brave, and stuff.
(yawn)
When wasn't Larry David stupid?
I never found David's brand of comedy funny, but.... isn't David just making a study of entryism? Because 'entryism' often uses 'othering' to isolate the scapegoat class, contrasting their differences in order to emphasize that the speaker belongs to the preferred group. David is just making this emphasis, of his membership to the Group - by 'othering' Bill Maher and portraying him as a MAGA supporter, which is deeply dishonest.
Look, we all know Hitler had his faults, and deserves criticism. But comparing him to Trump is just going too far.
Maybe Larry David is aiming his criticism at RFK and his wife - a member of his cast. If dining with Trump is bad what about being a part of his administration or being married to someone who is. David is just mean enough to try to hurt their marriage.
It's the Holocaust card that Dershowitz always plays. There is antisemitism everywhere, and Jews are trained to spot it. It keeps them alienated, the advantage of that being that Jews don't assimilate, which preserves the religion. It's a non-evolution strategy that the religion developed.
Islam has a similar thing - it's okay to deceive non-Muslims. A form of alienation for the same reason.
Every academic catalog in the 80s that had a Jewish Studies section had a Holocaust for Children subsection.
Someday it will stop working as a political card, if it hasn't already when confronted with the Palestinian holocaust card on campus. Two groups arguing over the wrong thing.
There was "Springtime for Hitler" which suffered just from not being funny beyond the title.
Algore has an "exclusive" at Politco today where he compares Trump to Hitler and our government to Nazi Germany. The Democrat party is fresh out of ideas and unadulterated brain cells. It's no wonder college students don't believe the Holocaust was all that bad given the elder statesmen in the party of university worshipers also denigrate the second worst genocide in history (Mao still holding the record, of course.)
"Larry David had one of the stupidest op-eds in today's New York Times in which he compares Bill Maher having dinner with Donald Trump with having dinner with Adolf Hitler.”
I agree, that was a stupid comparison. Bill Maher is no Adolf Hitler.
Das Deutsche Lichtbild, a photography annual, has lots of nice orthochromatic photos, many of which were quite positive on Hitler as a public photo subject. 1930s
Biden said the hamas supporters had a point, Quo Hitler,
The Times is restricting comments these days, only 926 on this one. Their lefty commenters look more and more like WaPo’s wackos. They did publish mine:
“ Maher seems to understand that some atonement from the left may be in order after years of concealing Biden’s dementia, facilitating the entry of 20, or so, million unvetted, illegal immigrants, profligacy, unbridled defamation of the “unwoke,” etc. Unfortunately, it is apparently too much to expect that to manifest as anything other than support for more of the same.”
From my point of view Dershowitz didn't toast Larry David enough. I'd also take issue with our host's assertion that Dershowitz's hypothetical is "denying the legacy of slavery". The federal government acted to end segregation in the 50s and 60s. And if segregation is the legacy of slavery, I'll be danged if woke universities aren't installing segregation these days. Time for the federal government to act again.
"And the one thing: about Larry David he stopped being funny, I don't laugh at his jokes anymore because I know they're not jokes. That's who he really is, so they're not jokes"
This has been true since at least the Seinfeld era, but then again Epstein had to go to jail before Dershowitz stopped hanging out with him.
And we shouldn't compare anything to the Holocaust? Wake up, Professor. The major media trend of discussing "climate denial" is a term designed to invoke the Holocaust. Except it may have backfired, because now people are talking about the Gazacaust everywhere it isn't a firing offense to do so. American Jews hate President Trump, which would ordinarily not be a problem except now the Tucker Carlsons are asking "but really, why are we doing these people any favors?" Things are proceeding at speed.
You are way off base here. Are you not aware of what the "protesters" were doing on campuses after 10/7? Their behavior is not that different than what Dershowitz describes. Also, these universities are actually running segregated events, segregated graduations, even segregated housing! Their defense is it's okay this time because it is disadvantaging whites and asians. OTOH, as Dershowitz points out, what Trump has done doesn't even come close to the atrocities of Hitler, unless you deny the holocaust. I have rarely seen such an oblivious take from our host.
its easy to laugh at the stupidity of the left. Especially those in the Entertainment Industry. But its really not a laughing matter. If larry David thinks Jewish Comedian Bill Maher having dinner with a Republican POTUS is "Just like having dinner with Hitler", then what do think happens when David decides to hire someone, or work with someone?
I'll tell what happens, David would refuse to hire anyone who was a Republican or work with them (unless he absolutely had to). that means Leftwing conformity in the Entertainment Industry.
I think we are weeks away from mainstream media stories and TikTok videos that feature montages of businesses that create signs citing Trump tariffs for their price hikes.
How long it's going to take to burn through whatever inventory is already in the country is a matter of intense speculation among people I talk to. Businesses that could not front run are of course first up and many might not survive.
@Immanuel Rant nails it. This isn't funny because it's tired. Lenny Bruce and George Carlin were edgy because their humor was fresh and unique.
If I had a dime for every Trump=Hitler riff ...
As soon as somebody says, "You can't say that!" I reply, "You just lost your argument." Consider it analogous to Godwin's Law, except generalized to all censorship of speech. The best answer to bad speech is more speech. I'd say the only reasonable answer to bad speech is more speech, better speech than the bad speech.
I'll make an exception for Blood Libels, and incitements to violence, such as masked protesters being violent to others on college campuses and calling for the eradication of an entire country's population. Call me sentimental if you must.
Years ago, Leftwing Jewish Mike Wallace decided to have to have dinner with WF Buckley. As a result, according to wallace, many of his "friends" cut him dead, and sent him notes/letters saying so.
This is how the Left has always operated. And going "wow, just wow" or "They're just cutting off their noses..." ignores that its a method of social control that works.
So Maher is Hitler? DEI, Planned Jewhood, Levine's Dreams of Herr Mengele, ethnic Springs, redistributive change, environmentalism, liberal arts, class-disordered ideologies, secular state, progressive principles... wicked solutions. Maybe, baby.
Thank you, Ann. Exaclty.
Also -that many on the left support Hamas - who actually ARE Jew Killing Nazis - noted.
Talking with people is better than talking to people.
"I don't know, I wouldn't say Hitler, but certainly Goebbels. It was like a little holiday with Hitler."
And this is where we are as a country. We have one Jew attacking another Jew for attacking another Jew for having Dinner with Goy POTUS. And 2 of the 3 are quoting Hitler and/or the Holocaust. And the 98 percent of us who aren't Jewish are supposed to be all worked up about it.
As somone who's not Jewish and doesn't think its 1945 anymore, its getting a little tired. And old. What about the rest of us? Y'know the ones who don't think about Hitler every day?
On the other hand, maybe David is insulting the hysteric leftists constantly comparing Trump to Hitler.
And, the left being the left, they don't get that the joke is on them.
Read the comments there. Those people are so dumb, they think that is the greatest peice ever. Just makes it more funny.
Larry David is closer to being a nazi than Bill Maher.
Jews don't assimilate
That's bullshit, offered with no evidence. There are a very small set of Jewish Americans who live fairly apart from the culture, similar to the Amish apartness without the extreme simplicity, but the vast majority of Americans with Jewish heritage or religion are not only fully immersed in American culture they had a huge part in building the America we grew up in, making the movies, writing the songs, portraying the characters, teaching, advertising, higher ed, law and medicine. Every facet of American life. Some retaining their cultural identity, some not.
Maybe you need a new definition for assimilate.
RCOCEAN II said...
And this is where we are as a country. We have one Jew attacking another Jew for attacking another Jew for having Dinner with Goy POTUS. And 2 of the 3 are quoting Hitler and/or the Holocaust. And the 98 percent of us who aren't Jewish are supposed to be all worked up about it.
4/22/25, 11:32 AM
Western Jews are just fine with sponsoring Nazi successor militias in Ukraine, if it grants a minor advantage to destroying the Russian state. For that matter, they're fine with reducing the average daily caloric intake in Rafah to sub-Treblinka levels.
So comparing President Trump to Hitler isn't merely irritating, it invites extended comparisons to policies encouraged by globalists generally and American Jews in particular.
Norm’s 911 bit is just funny.
The trouble with calling Trump Hitler is that that makes everyone who supports him at least Nazi adjacent and you don't have reasoned discourse with Hitler and Nazis. You oppose them by any means necessary and feel good about yourself for doing so. Which is why the left does it.
this is the guy who came up with Seinfeld, oy vey,
the history of the Bloodlands like the Balkans is bloody enough to really cast blame, the OUN, like the Ustache like the Cagoule of pre War France, the last was funded by Schundler, the L'Oreal magnate,
Darkisland said...
Was Hitler the "most reviled man in the world" in 1939?
Perhaps but remember, during much of the 30s he was viewed with admiration by much of the world. Including the Fdr administration.
John Henry
Hitler was quite popular with the Eugenics movement and Sanger met with National Socialist officials.
This of course became Planned Parenthood and her picture is up on many walls.
Keep that all hush hush though.
Who is Larry David and why should I read his opinion on Bill Maher's dinner with Trump? Trump Derangement Syndrome made manifest.
Years ago, I experienced Trump 2nd hand through a coworker who Trump was mentoring; their relationship was both professional association and personal friendship, and all the stories characterized Trump as a brash but likeable fellow. Still think Trump is that brash but likeable fellow, with a lot of deranged haters offended by his brash likeability.
So it's finally safe now?
Guess it is.
Everybody I hate is Hitler.
Low-hanging fruit from a low-hanging fruitcake.
Saul says right here, when everything has been tried and you're out of thoughts, Hitler! Hitler! Hitler!.
It's The Rules!
Smilin' Jack at 10:59 AM wins the internet for this week! Maybe even this year
More to the point, none of these people compare Trump to or associate him with Stalin or Mao or even Tojo, all of whom killed far more people.
As Scott Jennimgs opines, accurately; (from Twitchy) " Scott Jennings says Larry David’s attack on Bill Maher wasn’t about dinner—it was the modern left threatening the next person into silence.
Larry David just dropped a venom-laced op-ed in the New York Times titled “My Dinner With Adolf,” unleashing on Bill Maher for one thing: having dinner with President Donald Trump.
But as @ScottJenningsKY pointed out, this wasn’t really about Maher at all.
It was the modern left doing what it does best—weaponizing public shame to keep others in line.“The message of this is not to——because Bill Maher, first of all, I totally agree. He's totally in the right to do it,” Jennings said.
“And I loved his monologue, even though I disagree with most everything he believes politically, he was right to do this and he was right to speak out about it.”
Then he exposed the real playbook.
“But this isn't about that dinner. It's about the next one. Because this is the modern left. It's an attempt always to intimidate people into not ever doing it again.”
“It's to silence yourselves or we'll do it for you. That's the purpose of this op ed, so that the next comedian or the next person on the American left chooses not to speak to Donald Trump.”
“This is all an effort to get people not to do what you just said, which is to talk to each other and our political leaders.”
This is how the modern left enforces obedience: torch one person in public—so no one else dares step out of line."
"But this isn't about that dinner. It's about the next one."
Exactly.
Look. Say what you like negative about Hitler, but on the plus side: he *did* kill Hitler, one of History's greatest monsters.
So he has that is his favor.
If Trump is Hitler why is Larry David writing supposedly funny things in a newspaper about him? Why isn't he working, below the radar, with others, to overthrow the Nazi regime? And if Trump is Hitler why is Larry David not being dragged out of his mansion for publishing this?
I disagree, Tim, based on my direct knowledge. I've met hundreds of Jewish Americans who had little to no trace of the self-apartness you allege. Many where members of our non-denominational Christian church when I was growing up. (Far more than the Jews for Jesus contingent that trained at Campus Crusade for Christ, which used to be headquartered at Arrowhead Springs, the place in the San Bernardino mountains where that bottled water came from.)
My best friend from High School was an actor and singer and through him I met dozens of stage and film actors with Jewish names who were secular and assimilated. Same in the music industry. My own son-in-law is an Ashkenazi by genotype but came from a family that had no attachment at all to Jewish culture or religion.
Maybe it's the case that people descended from Jews all around you are so fully assimilated that you don't even know they are "Jews" and so don't lump in with the stereotypical Jews of your imagination.
I don't think much of Maher, he's just upset the Dems can't pull off a more clever con, then again he lives in the chaos that Brown and Newsom wrought and there isn't much he really calls out about them,
“Try to marry a Jew if you are not Jewish.”
I know more couples where one partner is Jewish and the other is not than I do where both partners are Jewish or for that matter when both partners are of the same religion.
Maybe it would be better if both partners were of the same faith for a marriage to be long lasting.
A certain segment of the left is just out of any ideas except Nazis. You'll notice they all stopped talking about "stochastic terrorism" cause that is literally what all this Hitler/Nazi talk is about.
Larry David is the reason California is the mess it is. There are too many ignoramus wiseguys who think they're brilliant because they hate Republicans.
Orson Welles claimed to have sat next to Hitler before the Nazis took over: “The man sitting next to me was Hitler, and he made so little impression on me that I can’t remember a second of it. He had no personality whatsoever. He was invisible. There was nothing there that anyone would remember.” It's a little suspicious, though, since Hitler took power when Welles was only 17 or 18. By the time Welles did visit the European continent (briefly) Hitler was already famous in Germany and wouldn't have been sitting next to Welles.
Bill Maher isn't exactly Jewish (and possibly not exactly not Jewish). It's complicated.
“According to the 2020 Pew Research Center survey, 42% of currently married American Jews have a non-Jewish spouse. For those who married since 2010, the intermarriage rate rises to 61%. Among non-Orthodox Jews, the rate is even higher, reaching 72%, while intermarriage is nearly nonexistent among Orthodox Jews, at just 2%.”
"Try to marry a Jew if you are not Jewish. All but the most secular Jews will insist that you convert (and for most observant Jews, even that isn't good enough)."
**************************
More bullshit, at least according to AI Claude:
"According to available research, approximately 58-60% of Jews who married between 2010 and the early 2020s chose a non-Jewish spouse. This means that interfaith marriages represent more than half of all marriages involving Jewish Americans.
The intermarriage rate has increased significantly over time. In 1970, the rate was about 17%, but by the 2010s it had more than tripled. This trend reflects broader changes in American society regarding interfaith relationships."
But nah, Jews don't assimilate. They keep to themselves, all the better to conduct their practices of murdering goyim childen, poisoning wells and desecrating Christian communion wafers.
SNORT
You would have thought that the Democrats would have come to the realization by now that comparing Trump to Hitler makes them look irrational. Most people know Trump and they know that Trump is no Hitler. People ask themselves, "If this person is falsely comparing Trump to Hitler, anything else they say is probably false, too."
Welles probably didn't feel that way about Uncle Joe, who probably pave the way for the Nazis by attacking the social democrats,
I don't understand why so many on the Trump-supporting side think that Judaism has anything to do with it. Surely "Trump=Hitler" just ("Just!" she laughs hysterically) means "Trump wants to be a fascist dictator-for-life who will imprison and/or kill all dissenters," not "Trump has it in for Jews."
Yet for some reason, Trump supporters are quick to point out that Trump has a Jewish son-in-law, daughter, and grandchildren. Who cares?! That's not the claim. The claim is that it starts with Kilmar Abrego GarcÃa (did I get that right? Going from memory, which you'd think would be sufficient thanks to his ubiquity in the news) but ends with YOU, Gentle Apathetic Reader. When they come for you, no one will be left to stand up... You know the drill.
We need to address the slippery slope argument that underlies Trump=Hitler; Judaism is a meaningless cul-de-sac here. We all know that the tactic in use is conflating immigrant and illegal immigrant, citizen and resident. In trying to secure our borders, is Trump behaving in ways that other left-approved heads of state are not? In deporting illegal immigrants, is Trump behaving in ways that Obama, the Deporter-in-Chief, did not? In insisting that non-citizens who seek temporary residency here abide by the rules of their green cards or visas, is Trump being more repressive than any Democrat president of the past hundred years or more?
So Larry David violates unwritten rules about Hitler and The Holocaust for which he is soundly criticized here while Donald Trump violates the rule of law daily which is never ever criticized on this blog.
Whatever and whoever chisles your gouge, I guess.
so Welles has Kane, alongside Hitler in 1933, but the real Hearst published Gareth Jonesaround the same time when
the Times was covering up the Holomodor,
one thing i can say with certainty is that Dershowitz was not denying the legacy of slavery. but I also think he was insufferable for calling S\David a Holocaust denier. But I also agree David is overrated as a comedian. But i also agree that Maher should be taken down a peg for dining out on his measly dinner with Trump.
"As somone who's not Jewish and doesn't think its 1945 anymore, its getting a little tired."
Plus, it's all a pack of lies. Nobody threw any babies in any ovens. Nobody set up any gigantic gas chambers and marched people into them. A lot of people got killed, because there was a war going on, but all that Judgment at Nuremberg crap was lies ginned up to extort reparations. Confessions obtained by torture. Victor's justice.
Jews, like every other group of humans, follow the First (and only) Law of Sociology:
1. Some do. And some don't.
There are no other universally applicable laws of human behavior, and anyone who believes there are will do a lot of harm to him or herself, and very likely to others.
I will admit that Godwin's Law comes very close to being universally applicable, but there must have been at least one exception.
The George Kostanza character on Seinfeld is a vain, narcissistic, idiot.
He is based on Larry David.
I'll try again.
It's *Ole* Miss.
If someone wants to drag us through the dirt over 70 year old facts then they can at least get the name right.
We're all victims... given the correct analogy.
What does it say about the modern world-view, that 80 years after the end of WWII two of the prominent Jews are arguing about whether Trump is Hitler reincarnated? Godwin's law is beginning to emerge as some kind of Kantian or Hegelian law of History. Can it really be that a thousand years from now, long after Churchill FDR, even Stalin are forgotten, politics will still be consumed with Hitler comparisons, Hollywood movies will be endlessly spooling ever more preposterous narratives centered on Nazis and their foes, time-traveling forward and back. God may be dead, but we'll always have our new Satan.
Larry is a clown that makes people laugh. When you take everything he says and does in that context as you should it's all quite harmless...
Mike (MJB Wolf) said...I disagree, Tim, based on my direct knowledge. I've met hundreds of Jewish Americans who had little to no trace of the self-apartness you allege. Many where members of our non-denominational Christian church when I was growing up.
Hmm...Christians, you say?
I refer you first to Eva Marie: intermarriage is nearly nonexistent among Orthodox Jews, at just 2%.”
And then to me:
Q: What's the difference between Donald Trump and a Reform Jew?
A: Donald Trump has Jewish grandchildren.
Judaism survives because observant Jews don't assimilate. Jews in name only do fade into the larger culture and lose their Jewish identity.
Jupiter, if you’re being sarcastic then whatever. But if you were being serious, you’re wrong.
If Trump is Hitler, where are the trains, the camps with nice showers and ovens? Where are the death squads and ravines being filled in with dead people like Babi Yar? Where is the equivalent of Treblinka, Dachau, Bergen Belsen and all the others?
If Trump is Hitler, how is that Larry is still walking around a free person?
How can thr likes of David and many others continually assert that Trump is Hitler? The Nazis were socialist (National Socialist German Workers Party, sort of gives the game away) not the Right. He was viscerally, demonically, anti Jewish (and anti Christian), so the idea that he'd have eaten, in power, with someone who is actually Jewish is laughable. More, Trump's daughter is Jewish, a convert. Hitler was determinedly expansionist, starting wars after wars. How many wars has Trump started?. Even before WW2 the Nazis has started the T4 programme, of killing off those unworthy of life. Where has Trump done this? Then we get to the real actual Holocaust. 6 million Jews deliberately murdered. Men, women children and babies. Where has Trump done anything like this? And the papers who publish this kind of stuff are meant to be serious?
I admit, there are times I wish Trump acted like Hitler just so these stupid fools could see what Hitler was REALLY like.
If he was Hitler you'd know it, asshole. And you'd be dead.
...the man even has clown hair...
Jamie hits the nail on the head, a bullseye, on why Larry David is so offensive to Jews, i.e., those Jews who know something about being Jewish!
Larry David was born Jewish, but he doesn't care one iota about being Jewish. He's not offended by the Holocaust, as Jamie pointed out, he's only repeating the Democrat talking points about how the US is turning into an authoritarian state under Trump. That's why Trump is like Hitler.
Larry David has said nothing publicly about the slaughter of Jews on 10/7/23, or about the crazy pro-Palestine protests starting on 10/8/23 calling for the destruction of Israel, nothing of the obscene harassment of Jewish students on college campuses. Larry David has expressed zero appreciation for Trump's support for Israel or Trump's actions to curtail antisemitism on campuses.
Larry David has no appreciation for Judaism. Lenny Bruce was even worse, it's not a surprise he died from a morphine overdose. Both represent pathetic self hating men, and are not funny at all once you see them for who they are. George Carlin was a brilliant comedian who did not hate himself, his comedy was about society, it was biting and is still funny. I am sad that Althouse finds Lenny Bruce's disgusting characterizations of Jews edgy and "funny."
A lot of us are very tired of the moronic claims that rhhardin continually makes about Jews, and I am grateful for the commenters who point out the complete absurdity of his beliefs. However after you've been here for a while you realize he's never going to give up his hatred for Jews, no matter how many times he's been proven wrong. His hatred is very deep and entrenched, probably something he learned as a child. When you learn something as a child it sticks with you. I'm not sure what he means by assimilation, and I doubt he does either.
To assimilate doesn't mean to completely reject your own faith or traditions. I've met a lot of adult Jews who never had a Jewish education because their parents didn't think that was important, you could say they are "assimilated." And they regret it and know they are much poorer for it. I could say the same is true about Christians who know nothing about their faith. Would you praise them for being "assimilated" -- into atheism? Imagine a world of empty egotists who have no appreciation for anything more important or higher than themselves.
It's about the survival of Judaism.
In the hands of scholars, alienation is a creative resource. In the hands of the mob, it's a way to keep the religion separate. Dual purpose.
In the hands of scholars, it's attachment to prophets more than to early Greek philosophers, particularly as to style of reasoning. Whole attitudes instead of propositions.
In the hands of the mob, it's protests against company Christmas decorations, when nothing else is at hand to alienate.
Curious where you get hatred of Jews as a characterization. At bottom I'd say Judaism is more Christian that Christianity. It's not taught that way apparently.
Jupiter, if you’re being sarcastic then whatever. But if you were being serious, you’re wrong.
Jupiter is a 9/11 Truther. Keep that in mind whether or not he/she is being sarcastic.
Basketball Player Charlie Ward long ago in a Bible Study group said that Jews killed Jesus. The next day sports talk radio WFAN was all abuzz with charges of antisemitism and pushback between the various hosts. Imus came in the next day and set all the hosts against each other on the telephone, which is the Imus thing. It was battled out for an hour until at the end an engineer/rabbi settled it in what I'd call a scholarly way. The two kinds of alienation.
Imus show . It's an hour but sort of interesting.
"Now, I do think what Larry wrote there is funny. " To each her own, I suppose. The Hitler thing is the worst kind of cliche (and they're all best avoided) -- Orwellian in the sense that it's an image so worn out that it's lost all force. And it makes no difference who is being offered as the reincarnated fuhrer. The kind of rhetoric, or joke if you insist, that makes you want to stop reading past its first appearance.
David’s piece can just as easily be read as satire of the glib superficiality that would liken the Short-Fingered Orange Menace to the man who killed six million Jews.
From commentary on Sanhedrin 98b-99a
“We have just seen that the Messiah is the just man who suffers, who has taken on the suffering of the others. Who finally takes on the suffering of others, if not the being who says “Me”?
“The fact of not evading the burden imposed by the suffering of others defines ipseity itself. All persons are the Messiah.
“The self as self, taking upon itself the whole suffering of the world, is designated solely by this role. To be thus designated, not to evade the point of responding before the call resounds – this is precisely what it means to be Me. The self is one who has promised itself that it will carry the whole responsibility of the world … the one who invests himself with responsibility.”
Which is why sick Palestinians are treated in Israeli hospitals. The teaching that everybody is the Messiah strikes me as more to the Christian point than Christianity is.
As for alienation, the mob's feeling is that everybody is against them. That discourages joining.
Hegel called alienation "unhappy consciousness."
Projection and cognitive dissonance are everywhere.
"Alienation is the feeling of being estranged or disconnected from oneself, others, or one's environment. It can manifest as a sense of powerlessness, meaninglessness, or social isolation."
What rhhardin understands as alienation has nothing to do with Judaism or the survival of the Jewish people. No one is stopping him from open hearted learning about Judaism from Jews, he chooses to stay in his position. I think he is displaying his own alienation, projecting his dis-ease onto Jews.
Knowing that Christianity is based on Judaism, although greatly modified to the point of losing awareness of the connection, is an intellectual understanding and does not extirpate deep seated animosity, learned hatred of Jews, or the need to accuse Jews of killing Christ.
Yes Hitler sucked. But there have been as many lies told about hitler that truths, just read about the Allied propaganda manufactured by psychologists of the day. He only has one ball! He was a housepainter! Due to this contamination we don’t know what is correct. Regardless, you would need to be an utter moron to contend that Trump is anywhere near as evil as Hitler.
Either you express your opinion or you tell jokes. If you are a joke teller then i’m not going to listen to your opinions because you are a joker, not an honest broker of information. The expression clown nose on clown nose off is apt, except you never can tell the true position of the nose.
In addition characteristically Jewish music is sort of whiney Bloch Suite Hebraique, but that's a genre thing. I happen to like the piece.
Kakistocracy said...
I think we are weeks away from mainstream media stories and TikTok videos that feature montages of businesses that create signs citing Trump tariffs for their price hikes.
Hell, Kak, we're about a week away from folks like you having Chinese flags in their profiles.
How Larry Learned to Curb His Enthusiasm.
Larry told the story this way:
"Imagine my surprise when in the spring of 1939 a letter arrived at my house inviting me to dinner at the Old Chancellery with the world’s most reviled man, Adolf Hitler. No one I knew encouraged me to go. 'He’s Hitler. He’s a monster.' But eventually I concluded that hate gets us nowhere. I knew I couldn’t change his views, but we need to talk to the other side.
When I arrived I was led into a rather pretentious room, at least I thought it might be pretentious but as it happened I had no time to look about me. Hitler began talking at once. It was boring as it was straight out of Main Kampf. So tedious.
"At one time, I thought that the Jews were persecuted on account of their Faith. I considered that the tone adopted by the anti-Semitic Press in Vienna was unworthy of the cultural traditions of a great people. Then I noticed that in the Press, in art, in literature and the theatre the Jews were dominant. One needed only to look at the posters announcing the hideous productions of the cinema and theatre, and study the names of the authors who were highly lauded and see that they were Jewish. You, Larry, as an Aryan, have no doubt had similar experiences.
I was strugging against the Social Democrats at the time. The tactics of Social Democracy consisted in opening, at a given signal, a veritable drum-fire of lies and calumnies against the man whom they believed to be the most redoubtable of their adversaries, until the nerves of the liberals gave way and they sacrificed the man who was attacked, simply in the hope of being allowed to live in peace. But the hope proved always to be a foolish one, for they were never left in peace. The same tactics were repeated again and again, until fear of these mad dogs exercised, through suggestion, a paralysing effect on their liberal victims. The Social Democrats praised every weakling among their adversaries. They highly commended those who are devoid of intelligence and will-power.
But who or what began did this destructive tactic, I then asked myself? I had presentiments and feared something evil.
I had before me a teaching inspired by egoism and hatred, mathematically calculated to win its victory, but the triumph of which would be a mortal blow to humanity.
I came to an understanding only when I discovered the relations existing between this destructive teaching and the specific character of the Jews. Knowledge of the Jews is the only key whereby one may understand the inner nature and therefore the real aims of Social Democracy. And this is exactly what I wrote down in Mein Kampf, my book, which so few understand."
As this point I interjected a minor point. "Curb your enthusiasm, Herr Reich Chancellor," I said, "I myself have a few Jewish ancestors but obviously I think your book and your plans are a bit of a joke, don't you feel that way? Can't we have a laugh together. Anyhow on certain issues, I suppport you as unwaveringly as you support Hamas and ..."
"You're not an Aryan publisher, Larry? There's been a mixup. Say no more," said Adolf quietly, "Just wait a moment here."
"And that is how I came to be on this train," continued Larry. "Where are we headed? Auschswictz? I can't even spell it? What is this? Ring the conductor. Where's my phone. My Dinner with Adolf! Wait till the New York Times hears how it went."
But the New York Times merely published a short paragraph, written by Walter Duranty, saying the dinner had been cancelled due to Larry's sudden illness from which he never recovered.
And later his grandson wrote an article about dinner with Adolf which was more of a joke than anything else.
I don't care what anyone says, Mel Brooks did it better. "Springtime for Hitler and Germany. Winter for Poland and France." "Let me tell you this! And you're getting it straight from the horse. Hitler was better looking than Churchill, he was a better dresser than Churchill, he had more hair and he told funnier jokes and he could dance the pants off of Churchill!" Etc.
"Jupiter is a 9/11 Truther. Keep that in mind whether or not he/she is being sarcastic."
Yeah, in pretty much any controversy, I tend to come down on the Truther side. WTC 7 did not fall down because of a couple of wastebasket fires, and the only gas chambers at Auschwitz were for fumigating clothing.
BTW, the Poles currently running Auschwitz as a tourist attraction have admitted that the "gas chamber" was built after the war. I'm not sure what the people running the World Trade Center as a tourist attraction say about WTC 7, but here is what a whole lot of NYC firefighters say about it.
David's been like this the past few years. I guess he's entitled to be a cranky old man - he was a cranky young man after all.
The last few seasons of CYE have been regrettable, and this is just another example.
Jupiter
Eisenhower, as Supreme Allied Commander, visited the Ohrdruf concentration camp (a subcamp of Buchenwald) on April 12, 1945, and was horrified by the atrocities he witnessed. He ordered extensive documentation of the camps to counter potential denial of Nazi crimes, inviting military photographers, war correspondents, journalists, and even members of Congress to record and witness the scenes. This resulted in photographs from camps like Ohrdruf, Buchenwald, Dachau, and others, taken by U.S. Army Signal Corps photographers, press correspondents (e.g., Margaret Bourke-White, Lee Miller), and individual soldiers.
Here are some of the images at the Eisenhower library
https://www.eisenhowerlibrary.gov/research/photographs/world-war-ii-holocaust-images
I don’t know if it makes a difference but I personally have known (they have all passed now) men and women who had tattoos on their arms and whose families perished in the holocaust.
our Professor said..
"There is edgy comedy, and it's often considered the very best comedy."
it's GOOD to hear, that we can joke about Niggers again!
we CAN, right? Or is it still Just JEWS that we can insult?
The Polish authorities, through the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, have consistently maintained that the gas chamber in Auschwitz I is a partially reconstructed historical site, not a fully original structure. They have never “admitted” to it being a “fake” or a complete fabrication, as some Holocaust deniers claim. Instead, they provide transparent information about the reconstruction process (Grok)
Jupiter, when I say I knew holocaust survivors, in my age bracket that’s not unusual. Approximately 135,000 to 140,000 Jewish Holocaust survivors immigrated to the United States between the end of World War II in 1945 and the early 1950s. (Grok)
When they talked about their experiences (which was rarely) their accounts matched up with each other. They could not have been lying because then their stories would have all been all different.
I think they both overdid it.
"Lighten up, Francis."
People who don't follow it closely, will probably be amazed at what a "Holocaust survivior" is. It is not, someone who was in a concentration camp. Or someone who fled the Nazis and lost relatives to the Nazis. Nope. A holocaust survivor is anyone who lived in an Axis country or a country occupied by Germany or allied to Nazi Germany from 1933-45.
So, for example, the hundred of thousands of german/Austrian Jews who left those places before 1939, are "Holocaust survivors" even though Hitler didnt start killing large numbers of Jews until 1941.
"When they talked about their experiences (which was rarely) their accounts matched up with each other."
Did any of them mention being marched into a gas chamber and executed?
Same principle that has always existed. Whether satire or not; was their malice behind what was being stated? I think Dershowitz point is he has had a personal relationship with Larry David and known him long enough to recognize then his comments have malice behind them. Others can pick up on it, because as noted previously by several people, the "[Republican in power] is Hitler" is a worn and always one-sided trope. Let's face it, Tim Walz, Anthony Fauci, and Merrick Garland were far more fascist with their power than Trump, and no one joked about them being Hitler.
The reality is that Auschwitz was a labor camp. Numerous German industrial firms set up factories nearby to take advantage of what was essentially slave labor. No one denies this, the records are abundantly clear. But does it really make sense that they would put people on trains, take them hundreds of miles to a slave labor camp where they were expected to contribute to war production, and then gas them to death as soon as they got there?
Eva Marie; in 1945, the German railroad network was largely destroyed by Allied bombers, and the camps were being evacuated ahead of the oncoming Red Army. Many inmates died of disease and hunger. That's what Eisenhower found when his troops liberated the camps. But there are also numerous accounts by people who spent years in multiple camps. They were not death camps.
“Did any of them mention being marched into a gas chamber and executed” No, their families were.
Don’t forget these were the days before email and texts. So people couldn’t have fabricated stories and the shared them. Too many similar accounts to say they were all lies.
Auschwitz’s labor camps produced minimal output: virtually no synthetic rubber or fuel (Buna-Werke), 10,000–20,000 munitions/month, 50–100 km of roads/rails, and 10,000–20,000 garments/year, contributing <0.5% of Nazi GDP. Inefficiencies (30–50% productivity, 50–70% mortality, sabotage) and extermination priorities limited production.
(Grok) These statistics are based on Nazi records. In other words, aside from those people who were gassed, there was a huge mortality rate in the parts of the camp that could be classified as a labor camp.
My cousin and her mother were sent to a labor camp in Siberia - also in packed rail cars. Although those camps were highly inefficient, ( Production was much lower than by non prisoners) the purpose of the camps was not extermination of the prisoners. As a result death rates were lower - approximately 20% (per Grok). So the Gulags were labor camps. In Auschwitz the labor camp was a side line to the main purpose of the extermination of undesirables.
So thrilled to have an anonymous self-declared authority here to correct us all on the forged history that has been fabricated by some 'unnamed post-WWII group', in order to deceive us on the extent of the real holocaust, the one that totally didn't happen at all. Couldn't be more persuasive /s.
Most of the Trump hatred is because he was a Democrat who switched teams. Maher is just getting a warning from "The Family" that he faces the same.
This is what happens when you don't have anyone left with first-hand memories of being an adult while living under actual Nazi rule.
I'm disgusted that you find it amusing that Larry David called many of your readers and possibly your husband Nazis.
Freedom of speech only for a select few is the opposite of free speech. Larry David used the words Nazi and Hitler in his essay to slur Trump and those who voted for him, but commenters in the article's open thread have their comments automatically blocked if they use those words -- or in some cases any words at all -- to object to being called a Nazi. It's ignorant to equate such behavior by that influential forum with real advocates for real free speech. The entire spectable isn't edgy or cool: it's despicable and pathetic.
Eva Marie, very accurate information about the camps. I was lucky to have as K-12 teachers a few displaced Jewish, Russian, and non-Jewish war refugees who had been intellectuals and professors but took the work they could get here and did it well. Outside the classroom, I learned a great deal from them about fascism, communism, and the Nazis. I still have the copy of Gulag ArchiIpelago given to me by a grade school teacher whose family had fled Germany early to Madagascar, then here (he had no illusions about that route). They planted a seed in my mind that slowly innoculated me to liberalism's rapid descent. My husband grew up in Squirrel Hill surrounded by elderly survivors of actual death camps. I learned more in grade school than in grad school. Go figure.
Why does everything come back to Hitler? I guess this thread started out about "Hitler," but still ...
Auschwitz was at least 3 camps. Auschwitz-Birkenau was indeed a killing center. In addition to those who died from disease, hunger, mistreatment, or execution in the labor camps, over a million were gassed at Birkenau, mostly on arrival.
"does it really make sense that they would put people on trains, take them hundreds of miles to a slave labor camp where they were expected to contribute to war production, and then gas them to death as soon as they got there?"
No it doesn't, but they did it anyway. You might want to ask yourself why.
Why are mostly intelligent people like Larry David so easily duped into the "Trump is Hitler" narrative? Are they just lazy? Every Republican going back to Nixon was called Hitler or a Nazi by the Left. So, it seems lazy.
I can understand the claims of "he's a tyrant" because Trump is definitely a Alpha personality, but Hitleresque? No wonder it's so easy to out-meme the Left.
"No it doesn't, but they did it anyway. You might want to ask yourself why."
And you might want to ask yourself how you know they did it.
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