I really am unhappy with the way that Christian Identity anti-Semites such as Stevertigo are being allowed to push hatred of Israel and Jews on this e-mail list, and on multiple Wikipedia articles.

I am even more unhappy about the way that several people are writing me privately, admitting to me that they too see huge amounts of anti-Semitism, but that they are publicly unwilling to say or do anything about this, especially in regards to Stevertigo.

This man is a violently hateful anti-Semitic racist, and the way that so many people consider him a valuble controbutor onl serves to further the impression that Wikipedia is becoming an internet haven for anti-Semites, as well as people who Catholics and others.

The following analysis of Stevertigo shows that he is a "Christian Idenity" style anti-Semite. What people do with this information will show whether or not anti-Semitism is considered acceptable or not on Wikipedia.

Just stop allowing him to edit articles on Jews, Christians, Israel, etc.

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Stevertigo's latest efforts have been to whitewash that much maligned beacon of academic integrity, [[David Irving]]. I immediately removed the text, only to start a minor edit war and provoke censure for the act, even from people I believe acted out of good intentions. You might also want to see the essay on Irving that SV posted on his personal page.

Before you react, here are some thoughts. SV is acting cleverly-so cleverly, in fact, that for a while I thought that SV was actually Irving himself. By the way, it's not that far off. Notice how, on the Talk Page, when I called Irving a Nazi apologist, he signed his response "The Apologist." I was up to three this morning, tracing his contributions, and their development is too sophisticated for the standard anti-Semitic gibberish that people post. In short, his argument over several weeks is leading somewhere. The points he is trying to make are as follows:

1. Anti-Semitism should be defined as taking extreme actions against Jews: killing them, maiming them, or hurting them in some other, physical way. Anti-Jewish sentiment is not anti-Semitism.

2. [[Henry Ford]] may have published anti-Semitic articles, but by this definition, he is not an anti-Semite. I call this stage, "testing the waters." He continues:

3. [[David Irving]] is a much-maligned academic. He is a "young and talented writer," who has simply, and misguidedly tried to point out that post the second generation of Germans after the Holocaust "were no less victims of Hitler than the Jews were." Irving then wants "to bridge the gap between victor and victim."

4. David Irving gave reasons why the numbers attached to the [[Holocaust]] could not be authentic. He repeats Irving's famous assertion: "more women died on the back seat of Edward Kennedy's car at Chappaquiddick than ever died in a gas chamber in Auschwitz."

By following this logic,

5. The Nazis could not possibly be anti-Semitic (point 1), because while they spoke about the Jews harshly, they did not actually do any harm.

Therefore:

6. Who is responsible for the supposed imbalance between Germany and the rest of the world if not the Jews?

As evidence for this, I quote Stevertigo's misquote of Chomsky on his homepage: "Those who express their fear and concern over manifestations of anti-Semitism among Blacks and others might be taken seriously if they were to pay even the slightest attention to what is said by their friends and associates. They do not." In other words, Blacks are justified for anti-Semitism because of anti-Black racism supposedly prevalent among Jews. In other words, anti-Semitism can be justified. Once again, we go back to "testing the waters."

This argument is remarkably sophisticated-more so than, for example, Clutch's rantings. Stevertigo is using quite a few techniques used in top-notch propaganda efforts:

* He is combining fact with fiction in sophisticated ways, so that readers immediately make the assumption that if one statement is truthful, the other must necessarily be truthful too.

* He is appealing to the innate sense of identification with the underdog that most people have: notice his quote from Thomas (originally in Psalms, but who is gonna check): "the discarded stone is the keystone."

* He presents as fact things that only people with specialized knowledge will know is wrong. In "Letter versus Spirit" last night, he wrote: The Hebrew word "Torah", in fact, similar to the Christian Old Testament, translates as "the Law." He got a little snide when I called him on that.

* He is trying to drive wedges between people involved in the debate.

* He is employing cynicism to fend off criticisms of him: "And due to my ties to the Neo-nazi Filipino hemp mafia…"

* He is citing NPOV as a justification for promoting his agenda.

* He is transferring guilt from the victims to the oppressors. For instance, "Even though they were only small children while Hitler was alive, they still shouldered the heavy hand of guilt - of War-raped mothers and sisters, of destroyed country, and a long lost sense of who they were." In other words, the poor German children watched their mothers raped by the Allies, their country destroyed by them, and their sense of identity "long lost."

Poignant, painful imagery, but what the fuck is "long lost?" "Long lost identity" is actually a Nazi phrase regarding the lost of German culture because of Jewish infiltration, but who the heck is gonna know that unless they actually studied the history.

* He is claiming to take a middle ground between two extremes: "I think Irving represents an important middle ground between victim and victim." In other words, Nazis should be rejected (or at least at this point, their arguments should be rejected), but so should Jews, because the two represent extremes.

Please understand that we will not change SV's mind. He is too steeped in his belief system for that. My concern is that he is fooling others.

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