Where they burn books, in the end, they burn people

"Dort wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am Ende Menschen." Translated as "Where they burn books, at the end they also burn people." This quote is from 1823 and was penned by the famous German poet Heinrich Heine. It was a frighteningly accurate forecast of the holocaust. What does that say for us now with the threat to burn Korans?

end up making sarcastic jokes about burning people.

..it is some wacko preacher with a whopping 50 person congregation looking for attention.

The only people threatening to burn actual people are religious fanatics who actually believe it is worth killing, maiming and destroying stuff because some nut half a world a way sets fire to a book.

The whole thing is stupid. Trying to stop this one guy from burning a Quran is idiotic. You can't stop people from lighting up a Quran on YouTube for media attention. The more attention this idiot pastor gets, the more copycats we will have.

Heine did not say "if the state burns books..."

What Heine seemed to be saying is that in a culture where it is OK for people to do this (burn books), it leads to horrors. Nothing in your response alters that.

Neither he, nor I made any suggestion that we should try to stop this guy from doing it. It would not matter anyway.

the general population.

This does not mean society is on the way to genocide.

First off, I did not say we were on our way to genocide. Yes, I added the part of how in one case it definitely did do that. I did not say we were heading that way.

But the interesting part of your post is regarding "A certain amount of support." This suggests to me that you are completely ignorant of history. You may want to try researching what it has taken in terms of popular support for revolutions, civil wars and insurgencies for those actions to be effective and/or successful. It does not take large percentages of the population. Probably 1-3% is enough. That is probably what we have in terms of Teabaggers and Freepers out there.

begun with small steps aimed at desensitizing the general populace so that incrementally bigger and more horrific acts would not meet much (if any) resistance. This unfortunately isn't about some Goober preacher with a divinity degree from the 'Close Cover Before Striking School of Theology' - it's one in a string of viciously anti-Islamist actions which have recently taken place in our country recently. Given the 24/7 Rethug Echo Chamber winding up the knuckle-draggers and mouth-breathers against 'Islan', we can certainly expect to see more of this crap. And, when 1/4 to 1/3 of the general populace believes that Obama is not an American citizen, don't count on the critical thinking of the 'people' to rise up against this. As "Blazing Saddles" so well put it -
'The plain people - the salt of the earth. Morons".

Thanks!

ONE whackjob pastor. Let me repeat that, ONE crank. We are a nation of 300 million people. You are getting worked up over ONE redneck preacher who can barely string a sentence together?

There is no movement to burn Quran's. Where is the evidence that this guy has any significant Republican base support? The fact that a majority of Republicans don't like Islam does not mean even a small percentage want to go around burning Quran's or support people that do. The guy has a 50 person congregation and has been condemned universally.

ONE guy. I am surprised actually that there aren't more people doing this now that the whole country sees how much attention can be gained from it.

This whole thing is utterly dumb. There is not a culture of burning books. It is ONE idiot out of over 300 million.

And lastly, the fact that so many people want to do virtually anything to stop this guy is downright disturbing. Ignore him and the buffoon will be forgotten quickly along with any copycat attention seekers.

Just an aside here, but if your really into drumming up the Democratic vote and getting all us progressives to the polls, I'm wondering why you are protesting this guys significance?

I'm usually pretty idealistic about these things but what are you arguing against here?

From a purely cynical political side pointing out the worst excesses of the opposition really doesn't hurt us at all.

And from an idealistic point of view I would have to say these things always start somewhere, whether its captured on or off camera. Wouldn't it be better if a bit of public shaming of this kind of behavoir occurred?

#1 - How hard do you think it would be for me to prove that this guy had massive support among the freeper/teabagger set? Do I need to do that and provide links? I'd rather not waste my time, but please let me know if I need to do that.

#2 - The point is, no one should feel comfortable burning books in a decent society. This isnt just "some nutjob". It is a nutjob who knows there is a massive amount of anti-muslim sentiment backing him up in this country and thus he feels comfortable doing this.

...by large numbers of people?

And don't give me some Freeper thread somewhere or a poll showing Republican's don't trust Islam as evidence. There is no movement even amongst the vast majority of righties to join this congregation, to join in the Quran burning, or to otherwise support it.

Many Republicans/conservatives are obviously obnoxious in their attempt to conflate what this preacher is doing with placing the Community Center/Mosque in its planned location in NYC, but there is no "huge number of people" out hankering to burn Quran's. Your just exaggerating badly in trying to conflate today's America with Nazi Germany.

Why did you post this?

There is nothing in this poll about large numbers of people wanting to burn Quran's. This has nothing to do with book burnings and you know it.

This is an article about a poll that details what pretty much every other poll shows - that most Americans oppose the Community Center/Mosque near ground zero. In fact, in the article you just posted it shows that 54% of Democrats oppose the planned Community Center/Mosque near ground zero as well.

This has absolutely nothing to do with some groundswell of support for burning Quran's and you know it.

And not much very different than this guy.

Seriously.

Hmm?

I don't care if they build a mega mosque directly on "ground zero" itself. In fact, if people have the money to buy/lease the land and want to turn the whole area into nothing but mosques, community centers, and Islamic shrines I wouldn't care at all.

But just because many other people (the majority infact) oppose the mosque/community center does NOT mean they are running around burning Quran's. There is not an epidemic of book banning and you know it. Stop getting hysterical over some nutbag preacher with a whopping 50 person congregation.

..and I explain why.

Same way I do people that I consider ignorant or misguided.

What I don't do is run around calling people Nazi's, play the tired old Hitler card, and conflate opposing a mosque in a certain location with some mass book burning movement.

Your getting hysterical about 1 nutcase preacher who has a tiny congregation and virtually no support.

By your logic, based on the very poll linked, your suggesting 54% of Democrats are Nazi's. And the Swiss who just passed a constitutional amendment to ban minarets are Nazi's too? Is everyone who disagrees with you a Nazi?

Seriously, calm down. It's one idiot preacher that virtually no one cared about till he got media attention with his little stunt.

Back during segregation, there were people burned down black churches. And there were people who were upset that black people sat at white lunch counters.

Often they were they same people.

Everyone who disagrees with you is not a Nazi.

In this case your actually implying that even over half of American Democrats are Nazi's.

It's just so tired and boring. At least wait for awhile to pull the Nazi card, it's no fun for Godwin's law to kick in too early.

By comparison, Sarah Palin has 2,190,321.

would support the Koran burning, and probably 80% would support Muslim burning. And yes, I am dead serious.

list of followers is much more dangerous than Jones with only a few hundred.

There is massive islamophobia and hate here in this country. That is why this guy feels comfortable enough to do this. As another responder pointed out, it is not an isolated incidence of hate against Muslims here. It is part of a series of events.

There are people here who prefer to stick their heads in the sand and insist that one nutjob isn't important. Just like those in Germany, including many Jews, who didn't believe that Hitler and his National Socialist Party were a real threat.

But thanks for trying, and keep up the good work.

Unfortunately, there have been several "Agains". Cambodia, Darfur, etc.

The key is seeing when a minority is being targeted for hate and watching as the acts against that group escalate.

The phrase "banned in Boston" comes to mind. Did people get banned in Boston also?

"Irish Need Not Apply".

Not that it has anything to do with this conversation.

if the pigs had thier way again. and i dont doubt they will before the lights go out, and after.

US fundamentalist pastor Terry Jones, who wants to burn copies of the Koran on Sept. 11, ran a church in the western German city of Cologne until last year when members of the congregation expelled him. Former members have spoken of his hate-filled sermons and insistence on "blind obedience."

Islamophobe's Past in Germany

Terry Jones Accused of 'Spiritual Abuse' at Cologne Church

By Yassin Musharbash and Dominik Peters

'Delusional Personality'

Former church members are still undergoing therapy as a result of "spiritual abuse," Schäfer said. According to Schäfer, Jones urged church members to beat their children with a rod and also taught "a distinctive demonology" and conducted brainwashing.

"Terry Jones appears to have a delusional personality," speculates Schäfer. When he came to Germany in the 1980s, Jones apparently considered Cologne "a city of Hell that was founded by Nero's mother," while he thought Germany was "a key country for the supposed Christian revival of Europe," Schäfer says.

Terry Jones used his powers of persuasion to expand the congregation. By the end, Schäfer estimates, it numbered between 800 and 1,000 people. They had to work in the so-called "Lisa Jones Houses," charitable institutions named after his first wife who has since died, under very poor conditions.

Increasingly Radical

Jones became increasingly radical as the years went by, former associates say. At one point he wanted to help a homosexual member to "pray away his sins." Later he began to increasingly target Islam in his sermons. A congregation member reported that some members were afraid to attend services because they expected to be attacked by Muslims. "Terry Jones has a talent for finding topical social issues and seizing on them for his own cause," says Schäfer.

Read more:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,716409,00.html

and his books and poems were burned.

with the hope that it would let him get a University professorship, to the Nazis he was just another Jew.

I wonder if, should we literally put our money where our mouths are, it would ease the pain and anger that the burning is engendering. And it wouldn't hurt a bit to actually read it and know for ourselves what it says.

The teachings of the Koran on women's rights, gay rights*, crime and punishment, religious freedom, slavery and a whole range of other subjects are deeply wicked and illiberal.


*This one is slightly open to interpretation, I believe, but the overwhelmingly vast majority of muslims interpret the verses in question as a condemnation of homosexuality.

But it's just that. A snappy historical quote -- just because it was applicable in the Holocaust doesn't mean it's applicable here. If 500,000 people were gathered to burn Qu'rans, that's one thing. But 50 jackasses, who will undoubtedly be outnumbered by media/security/police/gawkers etc. if this happens, does not a foreshadowing of mass murder make. 17 years ago in Harlem, Rev. Calvin Butts (who has a much larger congregation than Jones) drove a steamroller over a bunch of rap albums. Last time I checked, he has yet to drive his steamroller over an actual rapper.

I get what you are saying. Philosophically it is the same thing. But it is very different in terms of what it means is happening in a society.

Now they're about equivalent. It's just that books have, for some, retained their status as icons, symbols. With the advent of mass-market paperbacks, books should have lost that status. With the advent of the possibility of scanning and retaining copies of books, print-on-demand, and other such services books are nothing more than stacks of paper with ink splots on the pages.

Burning books destroys far fewer than pulping remainders and overstock, shoving them into landfill, etc., etc.

What's left is the emotional attachment. This is irrational, in the sense that it's not fully rational.

I have an English translation of the Tanakh downstairs. It's charred around the edges. It's hard to burn a book without opening it and rumpling its pages--oxygen doesn't get to the pages so it has to burn from the outside in. I retrieved it from the wastebin at a student center on a Friday evening long before 9/11 and the PR wars. Earlier that day the Muslim Students Association had an anti-Israeli protest. Guess what those ardent supporters of tolerance and respect of other religions did at the protest that they said was entirely anti-colonialist and anti-Zionist, not aimed at any ethnic group or religion? Hint: "Ardent". The Tanakh was one of the books they attempted to burn (coincidentally, the rest of them were also Old Testaments); of course, the books weren't the *only* thing they wanted to burn.

I kept the book not because I thought it sacred--considering the print to be sacred would be asinine, even if it is an idea widespread among some groups of idiots--but because it was a translation I didn't have.

in a supposedly "classless" society.

In March 2009 the US DOD, with permission from the WH, burned a pile of Dari/Pushto bilingual Bibles that had been sent to a soldier in Afghanistan. Fearful of being accused of allowing proselytizing--it's banned for military personnel--and aware of calls by local Muslim leaders to destroy them, the DOD burned them.

Obama, Gates, whoever was in charge of the military effort in Afghanistan, and a bunch of US soldiers are, apparently, not true Americans, if you follow that logic.

And, of course, if we are to believe many self-appointed spokesmen for Islam, a fair number of Afghans aren't Muslim because no Muslim would show such disrepect to the sacred writings of another religion. As I read today, since Jesus is in the Koran, to burn the Bible is to burn the Koran, so they called for the US DOD to burn Korans. (The level of sophistry and doubletalk on this issue is mind-boggling. "Say anything" is the catchword, so anything's said.)

Burning a book is an awful way of commenting on its content. Most book-burning protests are motivated by a desire to suppress the contents of the book being burned, and this is nearly always a bad thing - the way to rebut a book you disagree with is to read and critique it, not to try to destroy or supress it .

However, there is one good reason to burn books, and that is to preserve the right to do so.

The compelling case for burning the Koran was made not be Terry Jones, whose claim that "Islam is of the devil" is clearly nonsense, but by Robert Gates and president Obama, who claimed that burning the Koran would be met by largescale violence. If that's the case - and I think it may well be - then it creates a moral imperative to burn the Koran, so as to defend the right to do so.

A right which one agrees not to exercise under threat of force is effectively a right which has been taken away. If no-one was threatening me with violence if I exercised my right to burn the Koran I would be quite happy not to do so - I have no desire to offend the large number of Muslims who would respond merely with condemnation rather than with threats or intimidation to my doing so - but at present I think there are too many attempts to coerce people into not exercising that right for not doing so to be safe.

Many have burnt books; few have burnt people.

The US Army burned a pile of Dari/Pashto Bibles a year and a half ago. This was with Obama as commander in chief.

Apparently we have to believe that the threat is worse than the deed. And, as always, ignore intent. (In both cases, the intent really sucks.)