You and me knew life itself is

[sovay]

I think it was at Lunacon this weekend that I was saying to spatch that people don't think about chemical weapons being used in World War II. They are so much a part of the Tarot of World War I, especially the Western Front—Trenches, Poppies, Shells, and Gas—that just because they were not widely employed in combat between 1939 and 1945, in the popular imagination they might as well not have been part of the war at all. Which is one of those weird gaps of definition, I remember saying, because the Nazis used fucktons of chemical warfare, it just wasn't directed against Western Allied troops. It was used chiefly on non-combatants. And being thus compartmentalized off the battlefield, when people around here say "chemical weapons," for many of them I suspect Zyklon B falls into a kind of memory hole. If you have any sense of the Holocaust, however, you think for a minute and the compartmentalization collapses; the memory hole closes. It's not rocket science.

Dammit, Sean Spicer.

(My mother, by contrast, looked at Spicer's remarks and did not think the issue was an unexamined separation of World War II and Holocaust: she thought it was an older problem of definitions. Of course Hitler didn't use chemical weapons on his own people. The Jews weren't his own people. That was kind of one of the key points of National Socialism. So nothing about Spicer's initial statement was wrong, if you take Hitler's word for it. You should just never take Hitler's word for anything. Especially not if you're speaking for the White House.)

So, yeah. I spent most of today away from the internet and then I find out that happened. It does not feel to me as deliberate or as boundary-testing as this administration's earlier omission of Jews from Holocaust Remembrance Day—I think it's more likely that Spicer, who has so far manifested the approximate historical understanding of a turnip, got flustered and tried to bluster his way out of the question and instead just blurted his foot even farther into his mouth—but he's still thrown another bone of garbage to the Holocaust deniers and done nothing to improve the ignorant racist image of the current administration, though truly at this point I believe they are more or less projecting what they intend to, they just don't want to have to get called on it. I'm just amazed that apparently they want to project an image of that level of flailing incompetence.

I'm probably slandering turnips. They're older than Linear B. They're not even unique to Europe. I'm not even going to touch "Holocaust centers." It wasn't like daycare, you know?

Comments

[asakiyume]

You're definitely slandering turnips. (And the icon is not because there's anything to smile about in the entry or my comment--it's because it's a turnip)

That remark about Hitler and "his own people" was evil in two ways. The first was the one your mother was talking about--the denial to Jews of the status of Germans. Since that's what fell out of Spicer's mouth, one has to wonder what groups of Americans he's deny the status of Americans. Only wait, never mind: we know. But beyond that, or underneath that, is the tribalism that says that what you might do to others you'd never do to "your own people." There are two standards of treatment: one for people in the tribe, and one for people out of it. If you kill an "us," the punishment is grave; if you kill a "them," you might get a slap on the wrist, or maybe a blind eye turned, or maybe a commendation. Similar with torture, or infringement of rights.

[kore]

"Holocaust centers" was just really....yeah.

And, not that we need to dwell on this, but with really hardcore Holocaust deniers, a huge thing is "there was no gas, there were no gas chambers," and even "the concentration camps are later fakes," altho from what little I've read about them, saying there is 'no evidence' that nobody was ever gassed in concentration camps is a big, big thing. So when he said "Hitler didn't use chemical weapons" I was like HOOOOOOOOOOOooooooly crap is he saying what I think he's saying?

I'm still not quite sure if it was coded denialism or if he's just.....absolutely fucking moronic. Of course it could be both. Trump certainly is surrounded by enough "alt-right" and neo-Nazi and anti-Semitic asshats that I wouldn't be surprised if members of his staff believed such crap.

And it was the first time since Obama organized a Passover Seder in 2009 that the President (and this one has actual Jewish relatives even!) didn't go, nor did his family, and it wasn't held in the White House, either.

Not a good sign. So many of the signs of this man are so not good.

[rydra_wong]

I'm not even going to touch "Holocaust centers." It wasn't like daycare, you know?

Permission to metaquotes?

[phi]

I share your mother's analysis of Spicer's comments.

[rinue]

I like all your analysis here. Is there an actual WWI tarot deck, or is that a metaphor? (Either way, I approve.)

[kenjari]

Sean Spicer's college newspaper once "accidentally" dubbed him "Sean Sphincter", and I think they were spot on considering what is coming out of his mouth these days.

[gwynnega]

I'd say that "Holocaust centers" is the epitome of the banality of evil, but I think that would be giving blundering Sean Spicer too much credit.

[dhampyresa]

And here I thought Marine Le Pen's comments would be hard to top :/

(I went to the Vel d'Hiv memorial today, because I felt like I had to and someone had put flowers in the statues' hands, which made me feel better.)