David B. Shemano refers to >Jim Devine contemporaneously calling Israel "one of the worst kinds of ethnic nationalist regimes currently on earth," which I think a reasonable reader would interpret as a Nazi analogy. <
If so, the "reasonable reader" is being unreasonable. Ethnic nationalism involves much more than the Nazis. Have you heard about the Hutus versus the Tutsis? In any event, "ethnic nationalism" is a more general phenomenon. It's not always violent. It's one way of creating a base for unifying capitalism or any other class system or of unifying minority groups across class lines. The architects of the Versailles Treaty's division of W. Europe after WW1 followed ethnic-nationalist principles. The French, the Italians, and the English used or tried to use ethnic-nationalist principles to create what we now think of as "modern nation-states." The late Yugoslavia was divided following ethnic-nationalist principles. Etc. (I try to avoid Nazi analogies, because they're almost always off-base. This case is no exception.) By the way, the US goes back and forth on ethnic nationalism. Sometimes, it leans more toward "melting pot" or "heterogeneity" nationalism (not emphasizing WASP power but stressing the US as the Best Country on Earth). Other times, it's like the current anti-immigrant movement, which has a strong admixture of ethnic nationalism. >So apparently it is unfair rhetoric for somebody to call your side Nazis, but okay rhetoric to call the other side Nazis, and if anybody calls you a Nazi for calling them a Nazi, that proves they are a Nazi.< Since your premise was wrong, David, your conclusion is wrong. -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante.
