A beautiful line of English prose

[Dave Grubb]

Last Nov. the rino candidate for governor was soundly beaten and sent packing---back to the state Senate. The man is simply despicable, a Jan 6th participant and worshipper of trump.

Today in one of my news aggregators was this short piece---profoundly written

NO ENTRY: State Rep. Dan Frankel (D., Allegheny) cited state Sen. Doug Mastriano (R., Franklin)'s 2022 bid for governor as the impetus for the creation of the first Pennsylvania Legislative Jewish Caucus. Then, Spotlight PA reports, Mastriano tried to join the group, leading to him being denied entry. The caucus "will not launder the dangerous antisemitism out of your past," read his emailed rejection.

Added in edit: The candidate, now governor of PA who soundly beat mastriano is Jewish

[Truckman]

As an aside, and for those interested in the subject, I'm currently reading Hitler's Willing Executioners...It covers a topic I've long pondered over: How did so many thousands of Germans blatantly ignore, and participate in, directly and indirectly the murder of millions simply because of their religious beliefs?...Yes, I know they tried to bend it into racial lines which did not exist...The book is actually a doctoral treatise written by Daniel Goldhagen for his Doctorate...I recommend it for its thoroughness, and because it has forced me into having to look up definitions for words I never even heard of...That, and its more than 500 page length, makes it the most involved and enlightening reading project I have ever undertaken......Ben

[Sandman]

I learned that the early Jewish immigrants to the US were from Western Europe, they were educated, blended into society and were referred to as Hebrews.. later Eastern European Jews arrived.. they were less educated, they isolated.. lived in groups with their own language and store signs in Hebrew alphabet.. and dressed differently..

Mainline America didn’t understand.. lack of understanding led to fear.. fear led to hate..

And the freedoms and acceptance that the early Western European immigrants experienced now disappeared as they were excluded from places and grouped in with the new arrivals..

That’s what I had been taught..

BTW.. I saw a similar situation with Middle Easterners.. before the Iran hostilities it was different than after..

[Kevin]

What is interesting about that book, Ben, is the detail with which he examines each argument people have made to excuse regular Germans and systematically demolishes them. Each argument is examined from every conceivable angle, which adds to the heftiness of the tome but also showed me that Goldhagen was up to something more than just a refutation - he was after obliteration of the arguments. He is pretty thorough.

Reading that book and seeing the process that Germany went through to eventually arrive at a point when people were pretty much OK with genocide, it made me shudder at how easy it is for a consistent campaign of vilification and suspicion to drive a country into the heart of darkness.

[Truckman]

Yes, those exact details have impressed me also, Kevin...The entire book is thoroughly researched, and he does refute every conceivable argument that I can think of...I could nitpick it by rewriting a few parts to be a little more clear in my mind, but his conclusions are rockbound......Ben