It Needs Occasional Reiteration

This was forwarded to me in an email chain the other day – one of those “please forward to your friends” kinds of things.

Now, I never, ever forward email.   I probably don’t even forward email that I should, sometimes.

But this, I figured, was worth forwarding to a lot more people than I could ever pick out of my email address book:

Holocaust denial isn’t exactly mainstream today – but since I first interviewed high-profile revisionist Ernst Zündel in 1987, it’s gotten a lot less outlandish, too.

And that’s bad; the worst evils are the ones that have become banal and commonplace.

12 thoughts on “It Needs Occasional Reiteration

  1. Unfortunately, everything needs a context. In this case, without it, this is a great and powerful cartoon. However, anyone familiar with Non Sequitur will tell you that Mr (or Ms) Wiley is a rabid libeRAT and there is absolutely no question that he is comparing Conservative politics to “Political Extremism” of a bygone era.

    So, please, DO NOT pass this along. Everything is in the context. And in this case, rose is not a rose and it smells like manure.

  2. Well, as far as libs go, saying that you will ‘fundamentally change America’ and that this ends justify its means is the mark of a ‘moderate’.

  3. When our family visited the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, not a one of us left unaffected. I know antisemitism is unfortunately, still alive and well today – even in the United States – I had no idea how powerful it was in the years leading to World War II. This played a terrible role in the systematic destruction of the Jewish people – not only by the Nazis – but also through the cold-hearted or apathetic at best response by the rest of the world.

  4. It’s almost impossible to remind people the Holocaust happened – particularly, when there are so many who won’t even acknowledge 9/11 or Sandy Hook.

    Humanity seems to have fallen down and it can’t get up.

  5. Isn’t it interesting that many of the people who think that there is no connection between 9/11 and Islam believe that Sandyhook was a predictable result of an American ‘gun culture’ and the NRA.

  6. Two points.
    First. The most significant impact of 9/11 on America is that Americans have learned not to trust Muslims, and more generally any outsiders. In the midst of a world growing closer through globalization, a world following a model best articulated by Americans, America has become more xenophobic, and less confident on the world stage. Much as the rest of the world resented the pushy cocksure America of the 20th century, 21st century America is still powerful, but less confident, and less generous. 21st century America is capable of cynical acts that 20th century America would have rejected on principle. Americans are harder and more cynical. The American enthusiasm for free people, free trade, and ‘the American way’ led the world past communism and into the great economic expansion that has taken billions out of poverty. That kind of naive enthusiasm will not be present in the 21st century. In large part thanks to the shock of 9/11, America has come to realize that the world doesn’t much like America, and America has discovered that it has, at best, mixed feelings towards the world. America will be a more cynical, world-weary, self-interested leader in this century. I hope some of the countries becoming rich and powerful in the new century will contribute some of the youthful enthusiasm that American no longer has to give, because America is unlikely to return to its old self, and the world needs a little youthful enthusiasm to solve its many problems.

    Secondly, yes, 9/11 changed our world.

    Just as an event 70 years ago changed the world and led to the United States becoming the preeminent power in the world.

    The question is, In 2081, will people remember 9/11 the same way we remember Pearl Harbor today?

  7. Emery wrote:
    The most significant impact of 9/11 on America is that Americans have learned not to trust Muslims, and more generally any outsiders.

    So Americans elected Barack Hussein Obama. Twice.
    Where do you come up with this stuff, Emery? Seriously?
    In my opinion the 21st century is marked by greater levels of mistrust between American citizens and the American government than in the 20th Cent. Those TSA lines aren’t just for Muslims, you know.

  8. /So Americans elected Barack Hussein Obama. Twice./

    I’m not so sure I make your connection.

    Are you implying American voters elected a Muslim as it’s President?

  9. The most significant impact of 9/11 on America is that Americans have learned not to trust Muslims, and more generally any outsiders.
    Obama attended a Muslim school, had a Muslim father, was raised by a Muslim step-father in Indonesia, and spent most of his youth living outside of the United States mainland or the United States itself.
    He ran as an outsider, for God’s sake.
    There is no sign that Americans began to trust outsiders any more after 9/11. There has been no reduction in legal immigration since 9/11. 2000 Census shows 11.1% of U.S. residents were foreign born. 2010 census shows 12.9% were foreign born.
    Your thesis is crap, Emery.
    You should thank me for correcting your error.

  10. There are, however, ample signs that Americans distrust there government more and hold it in lower opinion than they did before 9/11:
    New Poll Finds a Deep Distrust of Government
    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/26/us/politics/poll-finds-anxiety-on-the-economy-fuels-volatility-in-the-2012-race.html?_r=0
    And a poll from a year earlier:
    Poll: Americans’ distrust of federal government is deepening
    http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/04/18/92394/poll-americans-distrust-of-federal.html
    And yet another, more recent, poll:
    Majority Says the Federal Government Threatens Their Personal Rights
    http://www.people-press.org/2013/01/31/majority-says-the-federal-government-threatens-their-personal-rights/

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