The Word “Genocide” Has Lost All Meaning

Sasha Stone (0:00)

Hi, this is Free Thinking Through the Fourth Turning. My name is Sasha Stone. The word genocide has lost all meaning. Words have become weapons of war.

I always knew growing up half Jewish meant hiding. I figured out early on that it wasn't something you were supposed to be. My mother isn't Jewish, and if anything has never been a fan of Jews, especially now. It's just the kind of thing you know growing up, even if you don't talk much about it.

Hollywood rarely presented Jewish people to American audiences, even if Hollywood was run by Jews. That left me wondering why not? Did I look Jewish? Was that bad? As a young woman, I knew it meant I didn't fit either place. I didn't fit in the Jewish community and I didn't fit outside of it.

But somehow, I just knew the shame that came with being born half Jewish or Jewish enough for the camps. A boyfriend once said, they have to have done something, meaning why were they so hated and persecuted? I can't say I ever knew the answer, because I never knew the history. I didn't think much about it because my heroes, many of whom were Jewish, also didn't talk much about it. Bob Dylan, Woody Allen, Leonard Cohen, or the Coen brothers. Steven Spielberg would finally address it in Schindler's List, and that movie would help keep the memory of the Holocaust alive. But that was 1993, a lifetime ago.

SPEAKER_2 (1:40)

The unconditional surrender of Germany has just been announced. At midnight tonight, the war is over. Tomorrow, you will begin the process of looking for survivors of your families. In most cases, you won't find them. After six long years of murder, victims are being mourned throughout the world. We've survived. Many of you have come up to me and thanked me.

Thank yourselves. Thank your fearless stern and others among you who worried about you and faced death at every moment.

I'm a member of the Nazi Party. I'm a munitions manufacturer. I'm a profiteer of slave labor. I am a criminal. At midnight, you'll be free and I'll be hunted. I shall remain with you until five minutes after midnight, after which time, and I hope you'll forgive me, I have to flee. I know you have received orders from our commandant, which he has received from his superiors, to dispose of the population of this camp. Now would be the time to do it. Here they are. They're all here. This is your opportunity.

Or you could leave and return to your families as men instead of murderers.

Sasha Stone (3:55)

How is it that it could be 2026 and we'd be living through a moment in history where they've turned Zionist into a slur? Was it always? And how easy it is now to see the word Jew curled on social media as an insult so casually?

How could it be that Tucker Carlson, like so many others, could be so soft on Hitler now? He assumed wrongly that it was not Hitler's fault we went to war.

SPEAKER_3 (4:23)

We should learn from history that if your enemy thinks you are weak, then you find you get into war by accident. If you show that you are strong, then the invasion doesn't take place. And if Hitler had thought we were strong, then Poland would not have been invaded.

SPEAKER_4 (4:40)

Hitler did not want to go to war with the UK.

SPEAKER_3 (4:42)

He thought we wouldn't do anything about Poland as we'd done nothing.

Bill Maher (4:44)

He repeatedly said, I do not want to go to war with the UK.

SPEAKER_2 (4:47)

Did we acknowledge that?

SPEAKER_3 (4:48)

As we'd done nothing about Czechoslovakia, he thought we'd do nothing about Poland.

Bill Maher (4:52)

But Hitler said repeatedly in public and through diplomacy, I do not want war with the UK.

SPEAKER_3 (4:55)

You seem to be putting more trust in Hitler than I would. He said all sorts of things. Just saying, he said that. He signed an agreement with Neville Chamberlain. Did he say that? I really don't care what he said because he signed a piece of paper with Neville Chamberlain saying he would not invade. I'm very surprised you're verging on defending Hitler. I think this is not really what you want to be doing.

Bill Maher (5:11)

Yeah, I guess I'm just a secret Nazi.

Charlie Kirk (5:14)

I'm actually not a secret Nazi.

SPEAKER_3 (5:15)

I'm reassured.

Bill Maher (5:16)

And hardly a public Nazi. I'm someone who tries to think clearly about cause and effect.

SPEAKER_3 (5:22)

Yes.

Sasha Stone (5:23)

Here is Victor Davis Hanson.

Victor Davis Hanson (5:25)

The United States was not in the war. The Soviet Union was on the side of Germany de facto in a non-aggression supplying 20 percent, 30 percent of their food and fuel. Why they bombed, firebombed Coventry and began firebombing London, etc. It was only Britain. And Britain was the only country, he makes fun of it because he said, well, you went to war when you weren't invaded.