Saturday, January 11, 2014

Counterpunch Defends Neo-Nazism

Counterpunch serves as a wax museum that displays 20th century totalitarianisms and the type of people attracted to it. For no entry fee at all an individual can recoil at a neo-nazi's praise for Pol Pot and denial of the Cambodian genocide. Tourists can also take in exhibits like Allison Weir's belief that the blood libel is historic fact to defend her claims of a non-existent Israeli organ smuggling ring. So many examples of human depravity and imbecility frozen in time to observe like any good freak show or horror museum.

The lunatic fringe are pathetically predictable; few people capable of creative thought join the far-left or far-right. Such ideologies attract mentally stunted people who seek meaning and find it in rejection of reason and morality. Any prominent action against logic and elementary ethics will inevitably receive vocal support from assorted degenerate ideological circles like counterpunch. Defenses of depravity are motivated by more than sympathy for savagery; exteremists are aware that they are a minority up against reality thus their clannish tendency to defend each other with ferocity rivaling outlaw motorcyle gangs. The average far-left or far-right ideologue will dismiss mass murder as a trivial issue that can be exonerated by pointing to something else but react with righteous fury against what he or she sees as a real inexcusable evil; a friend being criticized.

Hack comedian Dieudonné M'bala M'bala became the subject of controversy for inventing a covert third reich salute. Dieudonne's track record includes wishing that concentration camp gas chambers were still in operation and mocking the Holocaust with Robert Faurisson while wearing an SS officer's uniform. All of which makes Dianna Johnstone an ideal candidate to defend him. Johnstone's subcultural fame rests on her praise for Serbian fascism which includes denial of war rape. Her fame grew from a ridiculous campaign claiming that a rejection from a publisher violated her freedom of speech, it would be no exaggeration to say that she is the duck dynasty of the far-left.

Johnstone opened by denying the obvious about the quenelle and ridiculing the idea that a man who expressed desire for the Holocaust to be currently ongoing could be a nazi. She insisted that the gesture is simply an anti-establishment action that only means "F— the system." Except that Dieudonne defines the 'establishment' as a Jewish conspiracy to control France; by his own words it is an anti-Semitic symbol. (The notion of revolting against imaginary Jewish rules was central in NSDAP ideology.) Her denial prove nothing apart from her own racism she can be easily proven false by photos of people performing Dieudonne's gesture at Auschwitz. She concluded her denial by arguing that Jewish organization are part of the "system"; she defended an obvious anti-Semite by resorting to anti-Semitic Jewish control tropes.

Johnstone engaged in partial Holocaust denial of the Petain regime's role in the Shoah. She argued that French Jews "actually largely escaped the deportation during German occupation that expelled Jewish immigrants to concentration camps." Which is a boldfaced lie; the Petain regime actively sent native or immigrant Jews to their deaths without any pressure from the third reich. Johnstone only proved her anti-Semitism and nostalgia for French fascism.

Dianna described the Holocaust as a "state religion" calling the Shoah a religion is a classic neo-nazi trope, further affirming her Judenhaus. She bemoaned the "Gayssot Law" which "bans any questioning of the history of the Shoah, an altogether unprecedented interference with freedom of speech." There is a legitimate freedom of speech case to be made against laws criminalizing Shoah denial which is exploited by the far-right. Dianna has a long record of apologetics for dictatorships which crushed free speech; clearly her opposition to laws against Holocaust denial is rooted in sympathy for neo-nazism not free speech purism.

She whined that "France is the rare country where the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement against Israeli settlement practices can also be attacked as “incitement to racial hatred."" Vive le France! Thats one thing they got right! Johnstone attempted to legitimize anti-Semitism by arguing that " it is not hard for French people of Arab or African background to feel that the “communitarianism” that really has clout is the Jewish community." An example of the apologist tactic of painting Jew hatred as a legit expression of frustration against imagined Jewish prosperity or power.

After citing Norman Finkelstein who compared Hezbollah to anti-nazi resistance fighters she set the stage for further apologetics for Jew hatred. According to DJ the memory of the Holocaust has created a culture of self hating guilt which summarizes as "do you feel French?  Or German? You should feel guilty about it – because of Auschwitz." Utter nonsense: patriotic displays in Germany and France are common, its hard to avoid the impression that she conflated German and French fascism with German and French national identities.

Johnstone detailed how "Dieudonné transformed an old semi-racist “tropical” song, Chaud Cacao, into Shoah Ananas" which mocks and celebrats the Holocaust and "taken up en masse by Dieudonné fans." After having provided evidence that shreds her define of Dieudone she provided another example of her Jew hatred: she believes "that they are not making fun of the real Shoah, but rather of the constant reminders of events that are supposed to make them feel guilty, insignificant and powerless." Johnstone has only proved that she supports mocking and celebrating the Holocaust.

She concluded her wretched exercise in depravity with further justification for anti-Semitism by ranting that: "France has adopted laws to “punish anti-Semitism”.  The result is the opposite.  Such measures simply tend to confirm the old notion that “the Jews run the country” and contribute to growing anti-Semitism.  When French youth see a Franco-Israeli attempt to outlaw a simple gesture, when the Jewish community moves to ban their favorite humorist, anti-Semitism can only grow even more rapidly." Johnstone follows an anti-Semitic tradition by blaming Jew hatred on everyone but anti-Semites themselves and arguing that Jews bring anti-Semitism upon themselves. The true cause is human irrationality, bestial hatred and its proponents like Johnstone.