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Mention the holocaust in an Interview - Bad Idea

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  • 20-11-2019 7:03pm
    #1
    riemann
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,063 ✭✭✭


    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/20/extinction-rebellion-founders-holocaust-remarks-spark-fury

    So apparently saying the holocaust was bad, but lots of other bad stuff also happened will get the outrage crew out in force.
    In the interview with the weekly Die Zeit, in which he referred to the Holocaust several times, Hallam said: “The fact of the matter is, millions of people have been killed in vicious circumstances on a regular basis throughout history.”

    He listed other mass killings in the past 500 years, including the Belgians’ slaughter in the Congo. “They went to the Congo in the late 19th century and decimated it.” He said that seen in this context, the Holocaust was “almost a normal event … just another ****ery in human history.”

    This is a link to a summary of what the Belgians did in the Congo:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atrocities_in_the_Congo_Free_State
    According to Edmund D. Morel, the Congo Free State counted "20 million souls". Other estimates of the size of the overall population decline (or mortality displacement) range between two and 13 million. Ascherson cites an estimate by Roger Casement of a population fall of three million, although he notes that it is "almost certainly an underestimate". Peter Forbath gave a figure of at least 5 million victims of the Congo Horrors, while John Gunther also supports a 5 million figure as a minimum death estimate and posits 8 million as the maximum.

    Not that it's a competition, but what happenned in the Congo was also absolutely horrendous. Surely it's not controversial to mention it in the same breath as the Holocaust.


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    #2
    Aint Eazy Being Cheezy
    Registered Users Posts: 4,629 ✭✭✭Aint Eazy Being Cheezy


    I thought you meant a job interview. Fella applying to be a gas fitter, or something.


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    #3
    is_that_so
    Registered Users Posts: 32,136 ✭✭✭✭is_that_so


    He's Extinction Rebellion, anything he says is scrutinised. Not sure why he thinks comparing them is in any way illuminating.


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    #4
    o1s1n
    Registered Users Posts: 34,541 ✭✭✭✭o1s1n
    Master of the Universe


    Aint Eazy Being Cheezy wrote: »
    I thought you meant a job interview. Fella applying to be a gas fitter, or something.

    'Let me tell you about a fitting that went wrong and I almost turned the house into a gas chamber befitting Auschwitz.'


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    #5
    James Brown
    Closed Accounts Posts: 16,015 ✭✭✭✭James Brown


    riemann wrote: »
    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/20/extinction-rebellion-founders-holocaust-remarks-spark-fury

    So apparently saying the holocaust was bad, but lots of other bad stuff also happened will get the outrage crew out in force.



    This is a link to a summary of what the Belgians did in the Congo:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atrocities_in_the_Congo_Free_State



    Not that it's a competition, but what happenned in the Congo was also absolutely horrendous. Surely it's not controversial to mention it in the same breath as the Holocaust.


    I think downplaying the holocaust and playing whatabout is the issue TBF.
    If your family gets butchered, but several families up the road got butchered you should stop whinging about it ;)


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    #6
    Quantum Erasure
    Registered Users Posts: 8,221 ✭✭✭Quantum Erasure


    It was the worst in terms of genocide, but that doesn't include other incidents of non-genocidal mass slaughter

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_genocides_by_death_toll


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    #7
    Eric Cartman
    Registered Users Posts: 26,282 ✭✭✭✭Eric Cartman


    Quantum Erasure wrote: »
    It was the worst in terms of genocide, but that doesn't include other incidents of non-genocidal mass slaughter

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_genocides_by_death_toll

    How is the soviets communist mass extinction of any detractors not the highest on that list.


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    #8
    is_that_so
    Registered Users Posts: 32,136 ✭✭✭✭is_that_so


    Someone needs to teach him how to structure arguments without the blunt shock. Even reading his defence it is absolutely baffling that he needed to mention any of them. There is no way to draw any analogy between CO2 output and wholesale deliberate slaughter.


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    #9
    Quantum Erasure
    Registered Users Posts: 8,221 ✭✭✭Quantum Erasure


    Eric Cartman wrote: »
    How is the soviets communist mass extinction of any detractors not the highest on that list.

    I suppose it was non-discriminatory, ie. not against a specific ethnic / religious / racial group.


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    #10
    Eric Cartman
    Registered Users Posts: 26,282 ✭✭✭✭Eric Cartman


    Quantum Erasure wrote: »
    I suppose it was non-discriminatory, ie. not against a specific ethnic / religious / racial group.

    Suppose, they just murdered anyone who disagreed with them


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    #11
    One eyed Jack
    Registered Users Posts: 23,695 ✭✭✭✭One eyed Jack


    The German publisher Ullstein announced on Wednesday it was pulling out of publishing Hallam’s book Common Sense for the 21st Century, which had been due to appear in German bookshops next Tuesday.


    Probably for the best, given the author hasn’t a clue :pac:


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    #12
    Irish Guitarist
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,736 ✭✭✭Irish Guitarist


    This sounds like the kind of thing Mengele would have been interested in.

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/jan/29/vw-condemned-for-testing-diesel-fumes-on-humans-and-monkeys


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    #13
    gozunda
    Registered Users Posts: 18,996 ✭✭✭✭gozunda


    Yer man Hallam is a self declared anarchist who apparently promotes the general idea of taking down existing western governments through protest. His co-founders of ER - didn't do much better tbh - with one of the others having previously jetted off to South America to sample mind altering hallucinogenics to help her define the future path of modern society. Hallams latest rabid mutterings about the Holocaust really come as no surprise....


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    #14
    Tony EH
    Registered Users Posts: 18,958 ✭✭✭✭Tony EH


    Quantum Erasure wrote: »
    It was the worst in terms of genocide, but that doesn't include other incidents of non-genocidal mass slaughter

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_genocides_by_death_toll

    That wiki entry leaves and awful lot to be desired.


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    #15
    Quantum Erasure
    Registered Users Posts: 8,221 ✭✭✭Quantum Erasure


    This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it


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    #16
    jmayo
    Registered Users Posts: 13,114 ✭✭✭✭jmayo


    is_that_so wrote: »
    He's Extinction Rebellion, anything he says is scrutinised. Not sure why he thinks comparing them is in any way illuminating.

    Says it all doesn't it.
    And he is a founder of that bunch of gobdaws.

    Does he not know that the holocaust kind of stands alone in not just sheer numbers, but in the industrialised mechanism and methodological nature in which it was carried out which was never really seen before or since.

    Yes lots of other genocides have taken place, yes lots of other mass butcherings have taken in place, yes some others have ended up with greater death tolls over a longer term, but his argument and his reasoning looks plain idiotic.


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