Jim Devine writes, among a lot of other stuff: >> Again, this is not the issue I was discussing with David. He asserted >> that because >> >> (a) I criticize Israel, and as he added later, >> >> (b) I'm a lefty, >> >> it must be true that (c) I equate Israel with Nazi Germany. >> >> Here's the background: in an earlier missive of mine: David B. Shemano >> referred to >> >Jim Devine contemporaneously calling Israel "one of the worst kinds >> of ethnic nationalist regimes currently on earth," which I think a >> reasonable reader [i.e., David Shemano] would interpret as a Nazi >> analogy. <
This discussion with you has been one of the more surreal email discussions I have ever had. I have learned that just because somebody self-identifies as a socialist, or libertarian, a reader of that person should not make any assumptions about that person or about the very words that person uses, because that person may have a subjective quirk that negates the objective meaning of a writing. Fascinating. Is this some radical twist on post-modern literary criticism that I missed? Just in case I am nominated by the Bush administration to be attorney general or other position and the opposition does their research, I did want to clarify that Jim Devine's logical argument cited above is such a complete mischaracterization of what I said that I have to believe it is intentional, especially from a guy who believes that you can never make an objective assumption about a writing and instead must carefully deduce the writer's subjective intent. To refresh, Doug Henwood made the point that isn't it awful that you can't criticize Israel without being called a Nazi. He was making a point about the use of rhetoric. I pointed out that it took Jim Devine about 30 seconds to then send a post in which he called Israel "one of the worst kinds of ethnic nationalist regimes currently on earth," which in my subjective world is heated rhetoric, and it is kind of silly to ask that the other side stop calling you a Nazi if you call the other side supporters of "one of the worst kinds of ethnic nationalist regimes currently on earth." So my point was about the use of rhetoric, not about whether Lefty + criticism of Israel = Nazi. In fact, how dare you assume that I don't believe Israel is a Nazi-like regime. Have I ever said that I don't believe it? I hate it when people make assumptions about me. Furthermore, in an example of unintentional comedy, Jim defended against my assertion that a reasonable reader would interpret "one of the worst kinds of ethnic nationalist regimes currently on earth" as a Nazi analogy by saying "Ethnic nationalism involves much more than the Nazis. Have you heard about the Hutus versus the Tutsis?" How is the reasonable reader supposed to interpret this statement? Well, I interpret it to mean that Israel may not be comparable to the Nazis, but its treatment of its Arabs is comparable to the Hutus treatment of the Tutsis, which was the genocidal execution of 800,000 people. Wow -- that really lowered the level of rhetoric. I await Jim's complaint how I am again misinterpreting him and failing to deduce his supersecret subjective intent. David Shemano
