In tribute to those “Greatest Hits” albums which used to be so popular in my rock and roll youth, I’ve published a profile of Roseanne Barr’s “Greatest Hates” at Alternet, in Max Blumenthal’s new Grayzone project. I hope you’ll give it a read, then sign Jim Harris’ petition to protest her Oakland gig. To register a further protest you might call Rabbi Mark Bloom at (510) 832-0936.
On February 27th, Temple Beth Abraham and StandWithUs will be hosting a fundraising gala featuring Roseanne, who has a checkered history of virulent anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism; and now an equally virulent history of Islamophobia, Obamaphobia, and Likud boosterism.
The Alternet piece delves deeply into her prior publications and offers a full picture of her pathology. But one passage came to light after I published at Alternet. So I’ll share it here. In 2010, she published a post at her personal website, . Though she has since scrubbed the web clean of any record of the post (she even had it deleted from the Wayback Machine!), other sites quoted the article and have maintained a record of it.
The salient passage:
In order to defeat euro socialism, Hitler leveraged the rich jewish industrialists against the working class jews. The Russian accounts say that the last trains to Auschwitz were first class, as that is all the leverage left to the jewish oligarchs within the ‘reich’, (other than the jews like Hitler, Goebbels, and Himmler at the top). The scientists of the Reich successfully created a mutant human–a hybrid of Jewish mentality and German Resolve, the Zionist– He who broke the back of the labor movements and socialism,— which is the goal of National Socialism—(different word for the American Southern Confederacy-the one Anne Coulter loves).
Something happened to Roseanne in 2013. Either it was a mental breakdown, Kabbalah classes kicked in, a Come-to-Zion moment, or perhaps sunspots. She converted from an anti-Zionist to a dyed-in-the-wool Likudist-Islamophobe. Not one to do things half-way, she because the worst, most virulent form of these already objectionable things. The result is a Twitter exchange like the following in which she calls Islam a “rape pedo culture”:
@richards1052 @StandWithUs @therealroseanne My interactions with her before she blocked me: pic.twitter.com/JqjS4AUMLL
— Alina Atash (@Firegal_01) February 17, 2016
When she isn’t accusing Muslims of being pedophiles or rapists, she’s accusing them of being Nazis. And before her conversion she, of course, called Zionists Nazis, as you can see above. She has the worst case of Godwin’s Law disease I’ve ever encountered.
OK, a few of you may wish to give an obviously disturbed individual the benefit of the doubt and say that she’s clearly so ill that she shouldn’t be held to account in the same manner that others would be in terms of meeting standards of historical accuracy, etc. Nevertheless, this is shameful, odious material. We may not be able to expect Roseanne to restrain herself given her condition. But why shouldn’t we hold Jewish institutions and organizations to higher standards? Why should they not be accountable for their exploitation of a deeply damaged Hollywood celebrity for political gain?
My latest article for Mint Press News, Palestinian MKs Suspended For Visiting Families Of Those Killed By Israeli Aggression.
Roseann Barr is a nutcase but no worse than StandwithUS. There are legitimate comparisons to be made between Zionism and Nazism, the master race mentality being only the more obvious, but she’s not capable of making it. Protesting her appearance is simply an indication that not only is StandwithUS taking her seriously, but you and Jim Harris are as well.
@ Jeff Blankfort: That’s nonsense. I’m not taking her seriously in the same way SWU is. I’m not engaging her to do fundraising. I’m not endorsing her views like SWU is. I’m educating the world about her views. I’m pointing out the hypocrisy of two major Jewish institutions which have embraced her. Whether you believe it or not, this is an important mission.
Instead of pleading the 5th, I suppose Barr could plead the comic, and claim that any such obtuse past comments were made in jest. Some of them are so far out there that one could claim that prima facie they are but a joke as no sane individual would utter them in earnest.
It would seem on the face of it that she hated just about everyone at some point.
I guess this is what you get when you try to recruit a B-list (does she rate a B? not sure she’s that high this far away from her TV show) celebrity for an event.
RS: you have a website malfunction which, on my screen, shows up to the right (right margin) opposite
the title
Passage from Roseanne Barr’s personal website (2010)
@pabelmont: it’s not an error. My theme displays prominently the image of the most recent post. In this case it’s Roseanne’s screed. It will change when I add a new post.
While not trying to diminish the heinous nature of her remarks, I think it’s important to note that she is off her meds. I believe the clinical term would be; “crazy as a shithouse rat”. The fact that SWU and the Israeli gov’t seem to be promoting their association with her is either a sign of a complete disconnect on their part or of their desperation to convince the world that white is black and up is down.
Richard thanks for this piece. I’ve been trying to figure Roseanne out for a while, ever since I “met” her on twitter.
I’ve been following your site and re-posting some of your pieces on fb , because in my opinion you add such a necessary insight to so many of the things I study, and several of my readers agree. As an anti communitarian researcher, Zionism is obviously one of the topics I have to study.
I don’t know that this proves RB is crazy, to me it’s a standard communitarian shift that happens often, and I think we’ll be seeing it a lot more from other players in the near future.
@ Niki: Have you seen my post on Amitai Etzioni? If not, google the name here & you’ll find it. I’m planning something new on him. But it won’t focus on his academic work, rather on his statements about Israel-Palestine, etc.
Does her gig in Las Vegas and possible ‘support’ from Adelson connected with her so called about face?