Following is just another of my usually opinionated posts. Feel free to ignore, or to read then ignore:
Concerning Gil White's book Crux of History, the only chapter I found mostly okay was the one Viren posted. Except the bit about the Zoroastrians being the early Leftists - there was no Left then (and does that make the Hindus, from whom the Iranians split, the early Rightists - which in Gil's view automatically defaults to 'fascism'.)
I also have a bone to pick with the following sweeping 'conclusions' of his:
- Romans were supposedly anti-semites, like Hitler.
The first time, and only other occasion, when I came across this accusation was at emperor's clothes (one of the tell-tale signs the two sites were related)
According to Gil the Romans genocided 2 out of 7 millions of Jews in the empire and thereabouts. Taking the number as fact, even though I haven't checked it, Gil glances over facts like how the Romans also helped cause the extinction of the Picts (who had to leave the region, and were then persecuted by the Celts and presumably destroyed by the Vikings). The Romans also killed innumerable numbers of Germanic tribes in their wars (hundreds of thousands or more), and the same case in their dealings with the Gauls and Thracians.
The armies of the Roman Empire dealt ruthless blows at many peoples, and the Roman genocide of the Jews was not aimed at Jewry in a way more particularly and peculiarly than that which they perpetrated against other peoples whom they could not assimilate into the empire. If you as a people stood against the Roman Empire, they'd kill you all or try to do so anyway. This wasn't the case under all the emperors, but certainly under several who were known for dealing absolutely unmercifully against foreign tribes and nations.
Likewise, Alexander and his army also genocided the populations of entire cities (at that time, cities embodied the concept of country - most of the people lived in the city.) On the other hand, Alexander let other people go, for whatever reasons.
- Gil White's 'Judaism was the early Left' and since for the communists and other leftists, the whole world consists of a Left and a Right, Gil too needs to find his Right. He finds it in Rome and Greece. And as a typical communist, he thinks all non-Left (hence clubbed as Right) are 'fascists'. Also typical, Gil thinks Left means egalitarian, and all the other good things. Whereas the Romans were supposedly all about power in the hands of few (what about the Roman trade Unions), and what about the democracy in Greek states - although only the male citizens could vote. This was early times for these ideas amongst Romans and Greeks.
So here comes Gil's proof:
1. assertion: 2 millennia and more ago, there existed one or more ideologies that were consistently Left with no hint of Right (and vice-versa)
2. assertion: early Judaism is Left
3. assertion: Left needs Right, Right always opposes Left with infinite hatred
4. assertion: Left is all the good stuff in the world. Right is evil and all the things every sane person hates. (What about the centre?)
5. assertion: all non-Left (auto-dubbed Right) is fascist
6. assertion: Rome particularly and peculiarly hated and opposed Jews
(assertion: probably something similar about Greece)
7. Conclusion: Ancient Rome and Greece were fascist
Communists see the whole world as either communist <i>or</i> fascist/capitalist (depending on which one they consider the current number one nemesis). You are either for or against them; and if you are against them, it could not possibly be because you hate communism and fascism (and aren't a great fan of capitalism) - Oh no, they'll tell you it's because you're a fascist. Don't protest, they'll decide.
Besides this non-logic, they'll tell you history was full of leftists and rightists (that is, communists and fascists) too. It has to be for them: their ideology, like muslims claim about Islam, stretches backwards in history to the dawn of man. Forget how Marx and that other dude started it. Communism was there from the start, and by default, so must fascism have been. They can't imagine history without the current streams of thinking, so they believe people always thought the same way, with the same paradigms and world views as today. Same 'cosmogony', if you will.
Personal view: Judaism was not Left. It is the unwilling and accidental ancestor of all the Abrahamic heresies: christoislamism (a kind of fascism, so RIGHT), fascism (RIGHT), communism and other socialisms (LEFT), racism (RIGHT), psecularism (LEFT), and the rest. That means that the ancestral Judaism either was neutral and that's why it gave rise to such opposite extremist ideologies, <i>or</i> it always had both left, right and centre present in it from the start and its unwanted offspring only took up one extreme or other.
Just a question, how is Zoroastrianism Left? It's a one-God only religion. More importantly, how is Judaism some 'free, tolerant, all-accepting' Left? A very strict one-God ideology- historically it said Boo when hearing of those who worship many Gods.
Gil White to me seems to be someone who is trying to reconcile two irreconcilables: his communism and his Judaism. The result of his attempt at harmonising the two is The Crux of History - the usual communist hobby of rewriting history. Contains bits of truth, lots of wishful thinking and twisting.
<- end of Can Ignore This warning ->
<b>EDIT:</b> About Emperor's Clothes. Some really good stuff on there about how the christofascism against Jews and Israel continues today, as well as about how Serbia is much put upon with many false allegations of warcrimes against it. Not sure I accept all of the bits written about Serbia, but I'd seen most of it confirmed elsewhere, so those portions get a tick.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Emperor's Clothes editor Jared Israel was a founder and, for two years, co-Chair of Milosevic's defense committee. He was expelled from the committee when he refused to sanction keeping Ramsey Clark as the committee's honorary President. Jared Israel argued that Ramsey Clark was an apologist for Islamism (not to mention that Clark had publicly supported the media accusation that the Bosnian Serb leaders are war criminals) and that linking to him would dis-honor the Serbian people. Israel prepared a lengthy brief on Ramsey Clark, which Mr. Milosevic read. When it became clear that Milosevic would not dissociate from Clark, Israel wrote an open letter to Milosevic.
http://emperors-clothes.com/analysis/smear.htm<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Unfortunately for Jared Israel of Emperor's Clothes (and the Serbs), that committee he founded was taken over by fascists (probably infiltrated by those who stood to gain from it). This was used as a publicity campaign to smear all those who had been involved earlier, and the Serbs too: more guilt by indirect association.
Pages with links to informative content (don't know how true, how reliable or whether somewhat motivated):
http://www.tenc.net/classic.htm - other domain name of Emperor's Clothes. Has links to interesting stuff, particularly noticed things on Russia ( http://emperors-clothes.com/analysis/encircle.htm ) and Central Asia
http://emperors-clothes.com/yugo.htm - on Yugoslavia
One of the other authors at Emperor's Clothes is Petar Makara. I think he is associated with the extensively documented site "srpska-mreza" on the history and present of the Serbs (especially his WWII pages are very informing, at http://www.srpska-mreza.com/library/facts/ww2.html )
The Serbs are accused of being leftists (yes they are for the most part, their country has been socialist for a long while), but America likes to accuse them of fascism also. However, Serbs (who are orthodox) are the only christians who get along well with Jews as far as I can tell.
Concerning Gil White's book Crux of History, the only chapter I found mostly okay was the one Viren posted. Except the bit about the Zoroastrians being the early Leftists - there was no Left then (and does that make the Hindus, from whom the Iranians split, the early Rightists - which in Gil's view automatically defaults to 'fascism'.)
I also have a bone to pick with the following sweeping 'conclusions' of his:
- Romans were supposedly anti-semites, like Hitler.
The first time, and only other occasion, when I came across this accusation was at emperor's clothes (one of the tell-tale signs the two sites were related)
According to Gil the Romans genocided 2 out of 7 millions of Jews in the empire and thereabouts. Taking the number as fact, even though I haven't checked it, Gil glances over facts like how the Romans also helped cause the extinction of the Picts (who had to leave the region, and were then persecuted by the Celts and presumably destroyed by the Vikings). The Romans also killed innumerable numbers of Germanic tribes in their wars (hundreds of thousands or more), and the same case in their dealings with the Gauls and Thracians.
The armies of the Roman Empire dealt ruthless blows at many peoples, and the Roman genocide of the Jews was not aimed at Jewry in a way more particularly and peculiarly than that which they perpetrated against other peoples whom they could not assimilate into the empire. If you as a people stood against the Roman Empire, they'd kill you all or try to do so anyway. This wasn't the case under all the emperors, but certainly under several who were known for dealing absolutely unmercifully against foreign tribes and nations.
Likewise, Alexander and his army also genocided the populations of entire cities (at that time, cities embodied the concept of country - most of the people lived in the city.) On the other hand, Alexander let other people go, for whatever reasons.
- Gil White's 'Judaism was the early Left' and since for the communists and other leftists, the whole world consists of a Left and a Right, Gil too needs to find his Right. He finds it in Rome and Greece. And as a typical communist, he thinks all non-Left (hence clubbed as Right) are 'fascists'. Also typical, Gil thinks Left means egalitarian, and all the other good things. Whereas the Romans were supposedly all about power in the hands of few (what about the Roman trade Unions), and what about the democracy in Greek states - although only the male citizens could vote. This was early times for these ideas amongst Romans and Greeks.
So here comes Gil's proof:
1. assertion: 2 millennia and more ago, there existed one or more ideologies that were consistently Left with no hint of Right (and vice-versa)
2. assertion: early Judaism is Left
3. assertion: Left needs Right, Right always opposes Left with infinite hatred
4. assertion: Left is all the good stuff in the world. Right is evil and all the things every sane person hates. (What about the centre?)
5. assertion: all non-Left (auto-dubbed Right) is fascist
6. assertion: Rome particularly and peculiarly hated and opposed Jews
(assertion: probably something similar about Greece)
7. Conclusion: Ancient Rome and Greece were fascist
Communists see the whole world as either communist <i>or</i> fascist/capitalist (depending on which one they consider the current number one nemesis). You are either for or against them; and if you are against them, it could not possibly be because you hate communism and fascism (and aren't a great fan of capitalism) - Oh no, they'll tell you it's because you're a fascist. Don't protest, they'll decide.
Besides this non-logic, they'll tell you history was full of leftists and rightists (that is, communists and fascists) too. It has to be for them: their ideology, like muslims claim about Islam, stretches backwards in history to the dawn of man. Forget how Marx and that other dude started it. Communism was there from the start, and by default, so must fascism have been. They can't imagine history without the current streams of thinking, so they believe people always thought the same way, with the same paradigms and world views as today. Same 'cosmogony', if you will.
Personal view: Judaism was not Left. It is the unwilling and accidental ancestor of all the Abrahamic heresies: christoislamism (a kind of fascism, so RIGHT), fascism (RIGHT), communism and other socialisms (LEFT), racism (RIGHT), psecularism (LEFT), and the rest. That means that the ancestral Judaism either was neutral and that's why it gave rise to such opposite extremist ideologies, <i>or</i> it always had both left, right and centre present in it from the start and its unwanted offspring only took up one extreme or other.
Just a question, how is Zoroastrianism Left? It's a one-God only religion. More importantly, how is Judaism some 'free, tolerant, all-accepting' Left? A very strict one-God ideology- historically it said Boo when hearing of those who worship many Gods.
Gil White to me seems to be someone who is trying to reconcile two irreconcilables: his communism and his Judaism. The result of his attempt at harmonising the two is The Crux of History - the usual communist hobby of rewriting history. Contains bits of truth, lots of wishful thinking and twisting.
<- end of Can Ignore This warning ->
<b>EDIT:</b> About Emperor's Clothes. Some really good stuff on there about how the christofascism against Jews and Israel continues today, as well as about how Serbia is much put upon with many false allegations of warcrimes against it. Not sure I accept all of the bits written about Serbia, but I'd seen most of it confirmed elsewhere, so those portions get a tick.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Emperor's Clothes editor Jared Israel was a founder and, for two years, co-Chair of Milosevic's defense committee. He was expelled from the committee when he refused to sanction keeping Ramsey Clark as the committee's honorary President. Jared Israel argued that Ramsey Clark was an apologist for Islamism (not to mention that Clark had publicly supported the media accusation that the Bosnian Serb leaders are war criminals) and that linking to him would dis-honor the Serbian people. Israel prepared a lengthy brief on Ramsey Clark, which Mr. Milosevic read. When it became clear that Milosevic would not dissociate from Clark, Israel wrote an open letter to Milosevic.
http://emperors-clothes.com/analysis/smear.htm<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Unfortunately for Jared Israel of Emperor's Clothes (and the Serbs), that committee he founded was taken over by fascists (probably infiltrated by those who stood to gain from it). This was used as a publicity campaign to smear all those who had been involved earlier, and the Serbs too: more guilt by indirect association.
Pages with links to informative content (don't know how true, how reliable or whether somewhat motivated):
http://www.tenc.net/classic.htm - other domain name of Emperor's Clothes. Has links to interesting stuff, particularly noticed things on Russia ( http://emperors-clothes.com/analysis/encircle.htm ) and Central Asia
http://emperors-clothes.com/yugo.htm - on Yugoslavia
One of the other authors at Emperor's Clothes is Petar Makara. I think he is associated with the extensively documented site "srpska-mreza" on the history and present of the Serbs (especially his WWII pages are very informing, at http://www.srpska-mreza.com/library/facts/ww2.html )
The Serbs are accused of being leftists (yes they are for the most part, their country has been socialist for a long while), but America likes to accuse them of fascism also. However, Serbs (who are orthodox) are the only christians who get along well with Jews as far as I can tell.