xandrames,
An interesting post. One thing I think important to consider is the nature of ideas like "we" and "them" to begin with. By this I mean that they are constructed. E. E. Schattschneider offers an analysis of conflict that I think could prove useful in our discussion here. The idea of an "us" and a "them" is caused, primarily, by a rift in a previously whole entity. It is a conflict, Schattschnedier says, that creates this rift and causes two formerly united groups to consider themselves different from each other. In your example of the Holocaust, it seems safe to say that prior to WW2, the distinction between Jews and non-Jewish Lithuanians was hardly an issue worth talking about. However, the concern of elements of their society being united with the Communists was enough to create an artificial separation between the two groups. From my own reading of history, these separations have been made with political or economic interests as their basis. To use your example of the woman at the laundromat, an[unnecessary as I see it] enmity has been recently constructed between the U.S. and "the Muslim world," merely as a pretext for waging a war in the Middle East. Does this war have at its foundations an interest in oil? Perhaps a desire for stability and influence in a region of the world slowly being dominated by Russia and China?

It also seems prudent to note that this sort of conflict is always subject to change. Who "we" are and who "they" are are by products of heavily influential interests that dominate mainstream thought. For example, in WW2 the Soviet Union was seen as a friend to the United States (indeed they were crucial to stemming Hitler's advancement in Eastern Europe). However, post-war their growth was seen as threatening to the dominance of the U.S. and they were ultimately cast in a negative light (this could be seen as a foreshadow to the Cold War). "We" cast away the Soviet Union into "them" because of a conflict of interest, precisely the type Schattschneider describes.

These ideas underscore a deeper issue. "We" and "they" are ideas that serve only to create false enemies. At the dawn of the Iraq War, many people conveniently forgot that the U.S. had supplied arms to the Taliban during the Cold War to stymie their advancement into Afghanistan. Our reverence of Nelson Mandela casts a shadow on the US's dark involvement in apartheid. While we are busy hurling bombs at those next to us, those who create Schattschneider-esque fault lines in the social continuum reap the benefits.

Thoughts?

Tangent alert!

People get really riled up about this and related topics. This is because it is really easy for so many people to claim descent from an ethnic/religious group which became insulted in WWII, the conflicts in the Middle East, and European colonialism. Somehow, every person claims that their modern action is justified by historical insult.

I am not claiming that the Holocaust was the basis of Israel's founding. However, it added to the insult. If it wasn't for Americans' discovering Dachau (the Holocaust only became so well-known due to films and photographs released around 50's and 60's -- the veterans didn't immediately talk about it when they came back), would there be as much widespread sympathy/support for Israel (unperturbed by certain unheroic actions by the IDF) by common presumably "Judaeo-Christian" Americans?

Back to Helen Thomas -- she had/has the freedom to say whatever. I am not entirely happy with her "go back to America/Germany/etc." nonsense. Would Native American groups be taken seriously if they proclaimed to everyone else, "go back to Europe" or "go back to Africa"? These words may be very insulting to some (I'm somewhat apathetic). But some of the things she alluded to need to be discussed, not just categorically condemned as anti-Semitic. And I'm also not too happy with her untimely retirement because unlike her young capricious and pretentious opponents, she has the wisdom of experience.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/06/06/ari-fleischer-helen-thomas-fired/

So according to Ari Fleischer (press secretary for W), Helen Thomas, the mastermind journalist who has covered every president since Eisenhower, should be fired for her "anti-Semitic" comments.

Even Obama called her comments "offensive." The Anti-Defamation League derided her, etc. 

Her controversial comments (for which she has since apologized for) were: "Tell [Israel] to get the hell out of Palestine. Remember, these people are occupied and it's their land -- not German, not Polish. So they should just go home -- to Germany, Poland, and everywhere else." She is referring to the Jews claiming aaliyah to return to the Promised Land (promised first by God, and then promised by the British to at least two large "meta-ethnic" groups). See the video of the comments: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQcQdWBqt14.

The Huffington Post blog item (by MJ Rosenberg) on this is slightly more intelligent: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mj-rosenberg/why-did-obama-diss-helen_b_165544.html. He asks (and I presume he is Jewish), what does Obama feel when he sees the horrible murder and destruction in Gaza? (Is it the categorical answer, "Israel has the right to defend itself"? Or is it, "if I was there, then those kids would have been my own children"?)

I will make a more controversial leap. Even Ahmadinejad has been saying similar lines: "Israel should be [politically] wiped off the map" ; "why did they [the Jews] start occupying Palestine, when they were wronged by the Nazis (if they was 'Holocaust' at all)? Why couldn't they colonize Germany or some other European party to the 'Holocaust'?"

Of course, we should take the usual caution against someone who questions the Nazi Holocaust, but isn't the rest equivalent to Thomas's comments.

(This is completely unrelated and may even be a trollism, but Helen Thomas has Arab heritage.)

No this is not out of touch at all.

You should understand that James Carville, being a news analyst, is required to rail on these things, otherwise he wouldn't exactly have a job during the non-election years.

I'm not sure what kind of response Obama has actually made to BP, but it is interesting to me how Bobby Jindal, governor of Louisiana, is reacting to it. He is saying (through the media of course) to BP that if they won't fix the oil spill, then "we" (Louisiana) will do it, just give us the money (an empty bluff, because I doubt he has the capacity that the engineers at BP, who are already working on the spill, have). So, the onus is again on BP - if this oil disaster turns out to become even worse, then Jindal could say, "you should've given us the money, we would have done it" - even if he really couldn't.

I suppose Obama's reaction should've been to summon as many as possible of the engineers and scientists who have an idea as to how to solve this problem. Perhaps they can formulate an answer and implement it with money that can be charged to BP (and then there is all this legal red tape).

But you are correct in that a lot of anti-Obama people are letting lose their hatred in an unnecessary way - but it is surprising that non-birthers and presumably normal people (Carville) are joining the bandwagon. It is a dumb blame game after all... and it is a nice way of distracting us from the problem at hand.

Occasionally even CNN has intellectually interesting articles. Paul Frysh's "The Holocaust in Lithuania: One man's crusade to bring justice" (http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/06/03/lithuania.nazi.prosecutions/index.html) discusses Efraim Zuroff's efforts to bring to trial those non-Jewish Lithuanians associated with the mass killings of Lithuanian Jews (up to 95% of the Jews in the country) and the current Lithuanian government's counter-efforts to (allegedly) stall the trials.

At one point, Jews constituted 7% of the entire population of Lithuania and up to 30% in some cities (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithuanian_Jews). Now there are too few for even the modern Lithuanians to notice. As one Lithuanian mentions (in Frysh's article), "we have to learn our own history, before we learn their [the Jews] history." So to this person, his neighbors, by virtue of following some "other" religion, do not qualify as fellow countrymen.

Two weeks ago, I was in a laundromat. There I witnessed an old woman insulting ("you people need to go back to your own country; we don't want any Muslims here") a family, who were presumably from India.

In these cases and more, I wonder what constitutes "our own history," "we/us/our-ness," etc. Common religion? Common lineage? Common current residence? Or what?

When "we" have examined what "we" even means, we should examine what "they" means in the following sentence I recently heard as a justification for the war in Afghanistan: "They came to our country and attacked us, so we need to go to their country and destroy them." I suppose the speaker was referring to 9/11/2001.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/06/04/gaza.raid.autopsies/index.html?hpt=T2

Israeli commandos raided a flotilla off Gaza (which is illegally/immorally blockaded by Israel) and murdered 9 peace activists including one 19-year old Turkish-American dual national. And this passes as acceptable behavior by a so-called civilized nation for the reason that the ethnic group represented by this nation had at one time suffered the Holocaust in a far-off country.

Of course, Israel can and will "defend its territory" -- after all, our dear USA has backed Israel's "right to defend" for decades now.

And somehow we ought not to wonder why "terrorists" are born and especially among Middle Eastern countries.

And somehow Iran is the bad guy in all of this because they sympathize with the "antagonists" as far as USA and Israel are concerned.

The live feed for the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is available on the Huffington Post website at
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/26/bp-oil-spill-live-feed-vi_n_590635.html.

There are also quite a few people railing on Obama for not being sensational enough in his encounters with BP's disaster. One of them is the Democratic commentator James Carville (http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Politics/bp-oil-spill-political-headache-obama-democrats-slam/story?id=10746519 -- see the video). The dissatisfied Carville asserts are Obama ought to  declare to BP, "I'm your daddy."

How has Obama's being unsensational anything to do with finding and exercising a solution to the disaster (which mind you is a problem for engineers/scientists, not politicians)?

Why can't Americans accept a calm and rational response? Why must the response also be laced with anger? Haven't we learned anything from Yoda's "anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering."

Or am just being out of touch with the Joe Six-Packs, Hockey Moms, and Quisling Democratic Commentators?

(Note, in 2008-9, I was a McCain supporter and didn't even vote for Obama. But since Obama did everything right during the BP disaster, I am morally obligated to defend him.)