Counter-Currents
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Well, the Holocaust is back in the news. How long has it been — twelve hours? Six? As I’ve said many times, “Boy, when they said, ‘never forget,’ they weren’t kidding!”
This time around, the person who dragged the Shoah back under the heat lamps by uttering comments that she failed to get pre-approved by the network censors was Roseanne Barr, best known for her sitcom Roseanne (1988-1997).
Although she’s one of the most successful comediennes in history, I’ve never laughed at anything Roseanne Barr has said or done. I don’t like her delivery, I find her personality and voice to be grating, and I don’t think she’s particularly clever. Then again, unlike a lot of people, I realize that humor is an entirely subjective topic. Beyond that, I will not — nay, I cannot — forgive Roseanne for introducing the world to that aggressively untalented beet-red cokehead Tom Arnold.
On June 14, the amiably folksy Louisiana-born comedian Theo Von — who may be the last man on Earth who still has a mullet haircut — had Roseanne on his podcast for over two hours. It took nearly two weeks for the Usual Suspects to whittle the whole episode down to a minute and 22 seconds where it looked as if Barr said no one died in the Holocaust and that six million Jews actually should be killed. After the predictable hubbub, Theo Von tweeted a nearly four-minute segment that provided a smidgen more context, adding:
Here is the full clip of Roseanne Barr obviously using sarcasm and satire. She is a mensch and one of the funniest people i’ve [sic] ever met.
Ignoring the fact that Theo clumsily appropriated Yiddish to misgender Ms. Barr, the longer clip shows Barr going on an extended jag about how people are addicted to bullshit these days and how the officially mandated “truth” about the 2020 presidential election was that Biden won more votes than any candidate in history while winning the fewest counties. She also said that one risked social excommunication for denying this “truth”:
BARR: And don’t you dare say anything against it, or you’ll be off YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and all the other ones, because we have, you know, there’s such a thing as the truth and facts, and we have to stick to it. And, um, you know . . .
THEO VON: It’s scary.
BARR: And that is the truth. And nobody died in the Holocaust, either.
THEO VON: No?
BARR: That’s the truth.
THEO VON: Yeah.
BARR: It should happen. Six million Jews should die right now, ’cause they cause all the problems in the world, but it never happened.
THEO VON: [laughs]
BARR: But it never happened.
THEO VON: Yeah.
BARR: Mandated.
THEO VON: Well, you’re— [clears throat] ‘Cause you’re part Jewish, right? Part of your family’s Jewish?
BARR: I’m all Jewish.
THEO VON: You’re all Jewish.
BARR: A hundred percent.
THEO VON: And a lot of Hollywood is Jewish, yeah? It’s like, a, it’s like, a lot of Hollywood is a Jewish business, really. Well, they started Hollywood.
BARR: Yeah. . . . And people should be glad that it’s Jewish, too, because if Jews were not controlling Hollywood, all you’d have was fucking fishing shows.
Placed in context, it should have been obvious to everyone but the most easily triggered Jew-worshipper that through her cynically deadpan delivery, Barr was trying to convey that the 2020 election was rigged and that the Holocaust did happen.
You can buy Jim Goad’s ANSWER Me! here.
Where it gets extra-confusing — and this is one of those rare cases where I can see how people got confused — is that the officially mandated truth these days is that the 2020 election was not rigged and that the Holocaust unquestionably happened. It happened so unquestionably that you can face criminal penalties in 16 countries for questioning it. So Barr disagreed with the “official” truth about the election, but agreed with the “official” truth about the Holocaust.
Everyone on the planet — Jews, non-Jews, Jew-haters, Jew-lovers, and the Jew-indifferent — seemed to blithely skip over Barr’s comments about the 2020 election and instead focused entirely on the Jew stuff. This, despite the fact that only real ethnic disparagement Barr made came at the end, where she implied that white people are boring and uncreative and couldn’t run an entertainment industry if their lives depended on it.
But even though she wasn’t denying the Holocaust and was only trying to tell a funny, Professional Spokesjews weren’t havin’ it.
If you’ve ever seen a picture of the Anti-Defamation League’s Jonathan Greenblatt, you can tell he’s a barrel of laughs. He defiantly tweeted:
Sarcasm or not, Roseanne Barr’s comments about Jews and the Holocaust are reprehensible and irresponsible. This isn’t funny. And shame on Theo Von for letting it go unchallenged and instead diving into conspiracy theories about Jews and Hollywood.
Ed Krassenstein — another Professional Spokesjew who, along with his brother Brian, manages to pull off the miraculous feat of possibly being even more humorless than Jonathan Greenblatt — used his cyber-shofar to blast out the following gust of digital flatulence:
To all of the people defending Roseanne Barr’s comments saying: “Nobody died in the Holocaust. It should happen. Six millions [sic] Jews SHOULD die right now, because they cause all the problems in the world.”
I don’t care if it was a joke.
I don’t care if it was sarcasm.
I don’t care if Roseanne is Jewish.
I don’t care if Roseanne were to be God.
Joking about Jewish people dying in the holocaust and sarcastically saying that Jewish people should die, is NOT OK. It never is and never will be. PERIOD.
If you think it is, then you need to reevaluate your sense of humor and your respect for humanity.
I’m being utterly sincere when I say that there’s nothing funnier than being lectured by a congenitally unfunny person about how I need to reevaluate my sense of humor. PERIOD.
Not that I thought Barr’s comments were funny — but again, it wasn’t in the sense of “that’s not cool and will never be cool,” but in the spirit of, “I personally don’t find her to be very witty.” The same applies to her try-hard 2009 photo spread in Heeb magazine where she dressed as Hitler and baked some burnt “Jew cookies.” It simply didn’t have the same oomph as, say, Mel Brooks’ “Hitler Rap.” Even funnier were Michael O’Donoghue’s “Children’s Letters to the Gestapo” in National Lampoon, but O’Donoghue wasn’t Jewish, so I’m not sure if that disqualifies him.
Again and again, we hear that anti-Semitism and the Holocaust, just like rape, “are never funny” and “aren’t remotely okay.”
Is that true?
I hate having to explain this until I’m Zyklon Blue in the face, but there are no right or wrong answers to that question.
Diligent reporter that I am, I searched for “Holocaust jokes” online. I found some here and here. I’m sure there are more, as horrible as that sounds. I’m also aware that if there’s anything less funny than trying to explain why something’s not funny, it’s trying to explain why it is funny.
I’ve heard a couple of these before, and a couple of them are new to me. I tightened up the grammar just to give them an extra spritz of chutzpah.
I may be wrong here, but I’m fond enough of Jewish humor to think that the punchline in this one is uniquely Jewish:
Two historians are discussing about the Holocaust.
“The holocaust wasn’t that bad,” says one of them.
“Are you out of your mind?” the other one replies.
“What if I were to kill 6 million Jews and one actress?”
“But why the actress?”
“See, nobody ever cares about the Jews.”
The nifty thing about this one is that you can substitute Amy Schumer with anything you think is severely unfunny:
Q: What’s funnier than Amy Schumer?
A: The Holocaust.
This one’s the harshest, and it’s also historically inaccurate, because I don’t even think Yad Vashem says that Jews were placed into the ovens alive, but for me the kicker is the surreal image of a pizza screaming:
Q: What’s the difference between a Jew and a pizza?
A: Pizzas don’t scream when you put them in the oven.
And finally:
Q: What’s the difference between the Holocaust and a cow?
A: You can’t milk a cow for 75 years.
Some people might file that one under “It’s funny ’cause it’s true.”
Jew or non-Jew, there’s a lesson in this for all of us: If you’re really concerned about not being hated, the simple fact is that people will like you a hell of a lot more if you can take a joke than if you can’t.
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22 comments
Remember when George Carlin told his audience you could tell a joke about anything, and then said he would tell them a rape joke? The audience was psyched and with him, but when he told the joke, no one laughed, because it wasn’t funny. A surreal moment in standup comedy.
Dana Gould admired Carlin and must’ve had that bit in mind when he set out prove a rape joke possible: “You know, when you think about it, any whistle can be a rape whistle…except maybe a slide whistle. Aaaah! Weeewp. Aaaah! Weeewp.”
“This, despite the fact that only real ethnic disparagement Barr made came at the end, where she implied that white people are boring and uncreative and couldn’t run an entertainment industry if their lives depended on it.”
Great point. Anti-white sentiments are always glossed over. Reminds me of the Nick Cannon antisemitism incident.
Anyway, here is a video from a friend of Barr. He’s much funnier.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4FTxBdWZcv4
Agreed on picking up on the white disparagement. It’s all so petty, except we are being replaced in our homelands and systematically dispossessed.
Fitting, given that the very same Nazi Party which perpetrated the Holocaust advanced exactly the same viewpoint on the relationship between Jews and Aryans: that the former could exclusively pervert the achievements and artistic accomplishments of the latter.
And the general response provided by those who mock Whites in a comedic setting follows 2 common lines:
That the ancestors of the victim inflicted an injustice upon the racial or ethnic group to which the culprit belongs. (Eye-for-an-eye comedy, as I imagine it. The same principle which previously substantiated affirmative action.)
That “it’s just a joke”. (Which presumably should also apply to jokes concerning minority racial or ethnic groups, but seemingly never does.)
Ooh ooh Mr. Kotta, ooh ooh pick me I got one!
Q: How did Hitler really die?
A: A heart attack when he saw his gas bill.
Ba-dum tisssh.
Ha!! That joke gave me a little smile. First corny joke I’ve ever heard about the so-called (Jewish) “Holocaust”.
I don’t know, maybe it was the mostly Irish Catholic neighborhood I grew up in, but the few Jewish kids seemed ashamed of the holocaust thing. Like it made them look weak. Now it’s all that matters, the whole reason for WW2 and even the guys who freed the campers were actually Nazis. I can’t believe anyone actually buys into this collective guilt nonsense, but it never stops. Between my Negro fatigue and holocaust fatigue, I need a nap.
I couldn’t loathe these people more. They might be arrogant now but they should be fearful. And just for anybody here who is still clueless: no, the ‘holocaust’ did not happen, not even a little bit!
Q) What’s the difference between George Floyd and Anne Frank?
A) Anne Frank didn’t deserve her fate.
How was copper wire invented?
Two Jews found the same penny.
Why did the Jews wander in the desert for 40 years?
Someone dropped a quarter.
An elderly Jewish man was hit by a car and taken to the ER.
The nurse came by to check on him and said “Sir are you comfortable?”
He shrugged and replied “Meh…I make a living.”
My German mother who adopted me, and who worked in the Los Angeles garment district, often used the phrase: “Oy, vey, Abi, come take your lessons on the cash register!” And she had the New York Yiddish accent down perfectly. And again, this is not a mean thing to say, just an observation and a statement of the truth.
Why do Jews play football?
To get the quarterBACK!
That Hitler’s Rap by Brooks is the funniest thing I’ve seen in ages.
A lot of fun to read this. I think Roseanne’s remarks were designed to confuse people. Really, all of the media, the stories, controversies, the LGBTQ, trans, etc., are to spread confusion and uncertainty. They don’t want you to think clearly. Saying the election was fake…”but sure, I believe it wasn’t fake”…I see the point of getting some truth out, but to not openly say it makes everything a gray zone. as it is, Roseanne was acerbic. I think that’s her schtick.
I remember when I went to library school in the 90’s, one woman in class said she hated books (going for a master’s in library science!), and she didn’t like Shakespeare or Homer, but she “worshipped” Roseanne. That was the word. “Worshipped.”
I felt Roseanne, while funny, seemed to give us smart ass remarks, tattoos, and fat women. I recall she said Mormons were Nazi Amish. Acerbic, crude, but funny, and this was when Mormons were always the white people you could mercilessly attack. It probably culminated in the musical The Book of Mormon.
That comes from being “worshipped.”
And yeah, I never saw the point to Tom Arnold. Must have been some kind of business deal or something. As for her statement we whites would just make shows “about fucking fishing.” Yeah, I agree. Edison invented movies, and he just threw it away because he didn’t see any potential in it. It recalls the comment in Fitzgerald’s The Last Tycoon about the Hollywood producer Starr who controlled his studio, and admitted he didn’t have a lot of talent, but he knew best how to use the ones who had it. I think Jews believe they know how best to use us goyim. I don’t say that to be hateful…that’s just how it is. Much like the Chinese see themselves as the center of the universe…The Mandate of Heaven. if you’re not Chinese, that’s just too bad.
In the 60’s, the Jew thing was more humorous. You thought of Jews as being comics, and the ultimate Nazi thing was The movie The Producers. I think by the 70’s, they had their niche, and could go on to serious stuff from Norman Lear’s semi-propaganda to Holocaust, and I noted how after Holocaust they became solemn, serious, and… demanded money for reparations. From everyone. Then came the Clintons, and they started openly going for power.
My Jew joke: In the film To Be or Not to Be, a Nazi commander admits his nickname is “Concentration Camp Mueller.” As he put it, “I do the concentrating, and the Jews do the camping.”
Oh, one more: Jews never have sex. It interferes with their suffering.
That accidental moment of Jewish honesty from Roseanne in that Tweet some years back about that woman who look liked Planet of the Apes – which actually happened to be entirely correct I remember causing a total meltdown.
This was not part the plan and apparently got Barr cancelled for years. At least cancelled enough, she was fuming about it and trying to backtrack, saying she thought the woman was white, and “she has done more for blacks and gays in entertainment than anyone else” and she was a victim of antisemitism. It was hilarious. Nothing better than the left eating itself.
And the system will even punish a Jew over comparing blacks to apes – which is perhaps the most sensitive taboo of all. Maybe even more than the whatever happened or didn’t in those camps in WWII.
I remember that one – I wrote about it here:
Did Roseanne Barr Deserve For Her Career To Be Destroyed For Mocking Obama Adviser Valerie Jarrett? | Return of Kings (theredarchive.com)
‘Theo Von — who may be the last man on Earth who still has a mullet haircut…’
Have you not seen Gen Z lately? They are sporting a ‘Best of’ remix from the 80s and 90s. Everything from the hairdos to the short-shorts, mom jeans, Amerindian feather piercings.
Yes, I will agree that exactly 6 million Jewish people were killed in Germany and environs, during Hitler’s reign, give or take another 10 thousand or so, but when compared to the total body count of WWI and WWII — even the body count of White Europeans and White European-Americans, vastly out-count the 6 million. And then (!) there are the uncounted millions upon millions in Russian gulags and on communist collective farms throughout Soviet territories captured during the wars. Read the statistics and demographics — the truth — then STFU.
..thanks! But, don’t forget to mention Yugoslav butcher, Josip Broz Tito (aka Walter Weiss, Joseph Mayer, General Nikolai Lebedev..!?), who murdered over 1,500,000 citizens (mostly Croatians!), during & after WW2…..
I was highly entertained by this article and the comments. {tears of laughter emoji}
What’s the difference between a black Jew and a white Jew?
A black Jew goes to the back of the oven.
Anyway, I never found Roseanne funny, either. I would go so far as to say her laugh is more obnoxious than that of Fran Drescher, who at least was quite fuckable in her prime, and tolerably entertaining in films like Dan Aykroyd’s Doctor Detroit. Roseanne, on the other hand, was always just an obnoxious cow.
Also, as an Iowan, I am embarrassed to share a home-state with Tom Arnold. I honestly don’t know anybody who is happy to claim “Mr. Stupid” as a fellow Iowan.
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