UPDATE: 2/27 6:30AM PST It seems the person making the attack, Shelley Rose, is part of a climate activist group, see below.
UPDATE: 2/27 2:50PM PST, The ADL Atlanta website has deleted comments on the issue, and has closed the press release to further comments. See below.
Boy, this is ugly, and I hope this boils down to simply an error in judgement by a lower tier administrator because this is like some bizzaro-world episode; on one hand the Anti-Defamation League is coming down against the “…type of comparison diminishes and trivializes the Holocaust.“, while on another they are giving a “get out of jail free card” to the people who have repeatedly done that very thing over several years.
Two telephone calls and two emails today requesting comment from ADL’s Southeast Interim Regional Director Shelly Rose have gone unanswered. She’s aware of my calls. I asked for her directly, gave my name and affiliation, and after a pause on hold her assistant asked if it would be OK to “send you to voice mail”. Ms Rose did provide a copy of the press release below, after I queried the main organization in New York after receiving a tip about this release, but found no evidence of its existence on the ADL Press Center website. The press release below still isn’t on the website as of this writing at 6:15PM EST well after close of business there. All of my requests were done during normal business hours for both the Atlanta and NYC office.
I have to wonder if the main organization is endorsing this press release, or if this is some regional director who went rogue.
Here is the press release.
==============================================================
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Shelley Rose (404) 262-3470 work; 678-938-1399 cell
ADL Condemns Spencer’s Nazi Analogy
February 25, 2014, Atlanta, Georgia … The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today denounced remarks by University of Alabama – Huntsville professor Roy Spencer who wrote on his blog that those who refer to him as a climate change “denier” should be called “global warming Nazis” and that they “are supporting policies that will kill far more people than the Nazis ever did — all in the name of what they consider to be a righteous cause.”
He also claims those who advocate for policies to slow global warming are “like the Nazis” in that they are fascist and anti-capitalist. The post is also accompanied by an image of a swastika.
Shelley Rose, ADL Southeast Interim Regional Director issued the following statement:
University of Alabama Professor Roy Spencer’s analogy of proponents of global warming to Nazis is outrageous and deeply offensive. This analogy is just the latest example of a troubling epidemic of comparisons to Hitler and the Holocaust.
It has become too common to use comparisons to the Holocaust and Nazi imagery to attack people with opposing views, whether the issue is global warming, immigration or stem-cell research.
The six million Jewish victims and millions of other victims of Hitler deserve better. Their deaths should not be used for political points or sloganeering. This type of comparison diminishes and trivializes the Holocaust. There is no place for it in civil discussions.
Shelley Rose |Interim Regional Director
Anti-Defamation League | 3490 Piedmont Road; Suite 610 | Atlanta, Georgia 30305
Phone: 404-262-3470 I Fax: 404-262-3548 I Cell: 678-938-1399 I srose@adl.org
ADL website I our blog I facebook I twitter I youtube I pinterest I google+ I linkedin
==============================================================
I queried Ms Rose for a comment on the last paragraph, asking:
Wouldn’t that also apply to the use of “denier” to denigrate people, including Dr. Spencer. whose research has nothing to do with the holocaust or denial of it?
I also asked her to comment on the “green light” as a working title, asking if it was an accurate representation of their position. It was clear to me from the lack of response to two emails and two telephone calls was ” no comment”.
From their website, apparently slurs in major league football rate higher in concern than comparing climate skeptics to holocaust deniers for the purpose of denigration:
ADL Welcomes NFL’s Willingness to Address Hate Speech
The League welcomed reports that the NFL is considering how to discourage the use of offensive slurs during the course of games and said that “the question of how to address offensive speech and the best ways to counter it on playing fields and in locker rooms is an important conversation.”
And that’s why I think this is bizarre. The selective hypocrisy is stunning. I’m hoping the main office in New York will come to their senses and disavow the press release from the “Interim Regional Director”. Surely they must see the ugly conundrum they’ve manufactured for themselves.
Dr. Roy Spencer responds:
Hypocrisy at the Anti-Defamation League?
He asks exactly what I was thinking; where was ADL all these years when such ugly and hateful comparisons were being made:
Ms. Rose, where was your organization when journalists, politicians, and even some scientists, chose to call us skeptics “deniers”?
We don’t deny either “global warming” or “climate change”. Yet, we are called “deniers”. Ms. Rose, do you have any inkling why the term “denier” (which is a lie) might be used against us, rather than the term “skeptic” (which is accurate)? I think you know why.
I’d really like to know how ADL can turn a blind eye the use of “denier” for the purpose of denigration while at the same time calling out a victim of the denigration for fighting back after years of abuse.
There’s also a newspaper article about it:
UAH climate expert Roy Spencer calls critics ‘global warming Nazis’; Anti-Defamation League objects
http://blog.al.com/breaking/2014/02/uah_climate_expert_roy_spencer.html
UPDATE: The PR is now posted on the Atlanta ADL website here
http://atlanta.adl.org/news/adl-condemns-spencers-nazi-analogy/
Comments are allowed there. Be civil if you leave comments please.
The only thing that makes sense to me is that this person simply doesn’t know the history, and committed a terrible error in judgment.
UPDATE2: 2/27 6:30AM PST It seems the person making the attack, Shelly Rose, is part of a climate activist group, see photo and caption.
The caption reads:
Congregations Caring for the Climate – Atlanta, GA
Bill Witherspoon, from Congregation Bet Haverim writes: This was taken Friday evening before Erev Shabbat Services. We had about three times this many for services eventually, but these were the ones who arrived in time for the photo. As part of our second week of the Omer to Honor the Earth, Shelley Rose (third from right, just right of our Torah scrolls) gave the d’var (sermon) on acting with awareness that we all breathe the same air, and Tovah Melaver (second from right) led a breathing meditation.
April 13, 2007
Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stepitup2007/464126698/
You can read all about this organization at http://stepitup2007.org
Of note is the list of “Friends and Allies” which reads like a who’s who in climate activism.
This whole episode makes a lot more sense now.
UPDATE3: 2/27 2:50PM PST, The ADL Atlanta website has deleted many comments on the issue, and has closed the press release to further comments. About an hour ago, I noted 90 comments were posted, now it is down to 50. See below.
Meanwhile I’ve drafted and sent a letter by email and by fax to ADL National Director, ABRAHAM H. FOXMAN asking if ADL plans to comment on the issue, and to ask id they plan to apply their condemnation equally, along with examples of what climate skeptics have been subjected to over the years. I think they simply have been caught unaware in a conundrum created by their Atlanta Interim Director.
I ask that if anyone makes communications with this organization, please be factual and respectful – Anthony
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It sure is getting out of control with these warmists. Nazis and USSR communists did the same thing… Obama and others are calling us names…
Betcha she is a dyed in the wool liberal.
ADL is a Communist organization first and foremost. All of their posturing and condemnations are a part of a Communist agenda. So this really isn’t bizarre at all.
Spencer was a bad if justified move , as for Anti-Defamation League well its selective plenty of defamation statements are made against people like AGW sceptics without them showing any concern .
rule one its not the nature of victim nor the nature of their plight that matters , what matters is the nature of who can be blamed.
In case you ever wonder how the left can show such great ‘concern’ for one group of people but none for others even if their situation is worse ,. or how they can suddenly take people from being ‘victims ‘ that have to be helped to people they care nothing about , rule one is the reason.
responding to the denier word is the mistake imo. they call people names on purpose to provoke a response and so move the debate away from THE EVIDENCE.
Upon what foundation do organizations such as ADL base their moral convictions?
I suspect there is a Common Core shared with adherents of the CAGW ideology.
The games begin, these righteous citizens will, in their blindness, now proceed to defend the indefensible.
If they had any ethics, they would have objected to the holocaust smears some years back.
Especially the use of denier by public officials and public figures.
Now they just portray themselves as pompous asses.
[snip – we aren’t going to get into that historical debate here, please stick to the topic at hand -mod]
PMQs: Our witchfinder-general, aka Ed Miliband, wants to burn climate change deniers at the stake
The long-fingered witchfinder-general began the inquisition quietly. This was one of those weeks in which the Labour whips had thrown the switch in their office to Wall of Noise: Off. There was no mistaking the menace in the young inquisitor’s questions, however. Monsignor Miliband brushed aside the defence by the heretic of his spending on flood defences as “phoney”. He demanded to know “the truth” about climate change. The defendant, who had been calling himself the Prime Minister, tried to change the subject. He accused the inquisitor’s assistant, Ed Balls, of carrying out a “zero-based spending review”. This is a kind of papal indulgence that allows anyone under interrogation to refuse to answer questions.
Unfortunately for the defendant, who declared bravely that he would be Prime Minister for all of five years, the inquisitor foiled this attempt to close the windows into a man’s soul. Monsignor Miliband asked the defendant to “set out for his party and the country his views” on climate change.
A sudden change came over the suspected heretic. “Man-made climate change is one of the most serious threats for this country,” he recited, with a great show of passion. Monsignor Clegg, supposedly the friend of the defendant in the papal court, nodded slowly and deliberately.
“Excellent, excellent,” said the inquisitor. “We’re getting somewhere.”
Now that the defendant had confessed, the next stage in the interrogation was to get him to name his fellow heretics. “There are people in the most important positions,” said Miliband, who do not “believe” in man-made climate change. He put the names of two suspects to the defendant, referring to them by their code names in the organisation. The Environment Secretary and the Energy Minister, he said, and he quoted sermons they had delivered that his spies had reported back to him. Everyone in the court knew who he meant. Owen Paterson and Michael Fallon. They had failed to recite the holy catholic and apostolic creed of environmentalism. They had to be cast into the fire eternal unless they, too, could be persuaded to confess.
It is no use leaving it up the consciences of individuals as to “whether you have to believe in man-made climate change” or not. “We cannot have doubt and confusion,” said the inquisitor-general. These people are “climate change deniers”.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/pmqs-our-witchfindergeneral-aka-ed-miliband-wants-to-burn-climate-change-deniers-at-the-stake-9155037.html
Edward Samuel Miliband
He is the first Jewish leader of the British Labour Party.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Miliband
David Cameron: man-made climate change is one of the ‘greatest’ threats to UK
Man-made climate change is one of the greatest threats to the UK and the rest of the world, David Cameron has said.
The Prime Minister risked a backlash from climate-sceptic Conservative ministers and MPs by insisting that humans are responsible for climate change
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/david-cameron/10662654/David-Cameron-man-made-climate-change-is-one-of-the-greatest-threats-to-UK.html
Is this the first time the ADL has weighed in on the “climate change” discussion? If so, to not have a balanced condemnation of the use of both “Denier” and “Nazi” seems out of place.
A group called ‘anti defamation’ gives the green light for defamation.
With the wintery weather that they have had in Atlanta this year, you’d think that there wouldn’t be that many true AWG believers left in that city. But I guess Ms. Rose is holding down the fort. I’ll bet that news release will never see the light of day once NYC headquarters gives it some thought Anthony.
If the Anti Defamation League objects to a skeptic comparing the global warming movement to the Nazis, it should equally object to the use of the term “denier” for global warming skeptics, an obvious attempt by the global warming believers to tar the skeptics with the same brush the establishment uses against “holocaust deniers” (in some countries, by imprisoning them).
But a defender of freedom should not be appealing to one of freedom’s foremost opponents. Greenpeace’s opposition to freedom of speech for “climate change deniers” is in the same category as the ADL’s opposition to the same thing for “holocaust deniers”. The fact that Anthony (and most readers here, including me) happen to agree with the first bunch of “deniers”, and not the last, is beside the point. Freedom isn’t just for people you agree with.
Bullies like the ADL are too cowardly to go after the popular kids because they have powerful friends. Instead, they go after the nerds and outcasts who are safer bets. But occasionally they misjudge and make the mistake of picking on someone with lots of protective friends. This is one of those times.
“The six million Jewish victims and millions of other victims of Hitler deserve better. Their deaths should not be used for political points or sloganeering. This type of comparison diminishes and trivializes the Holocaust. There is no place for it in civil discussions.”
HUH?! Calling people ‘Nazis’ denigrates Nazi victims?
[snip – a bit over the top -mod] Or they may just be a pack of morons who have lost track of the founder’s goals. No matter – Time for them to review their charter and vision statement or to admit their mission is a fraud.
As a Jew, I’ve considered donating to the ADL, but they’re not a good organization IMHO. It doesn’t surprise me a bit that they would stand up for those who denigrate climate skeptics as “deniers.” I will be happily surprised if their national office overrules this regional decision.
Did the ADL have any comment on Hansen and his use of the term “death trains” ?
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2007/11/26/202133/hansen-stands-by-coal-traindeath-train-analogy/#
they only use the word denier because they cannot use the term ‘counter revolutionary’.
Where was the ADL when Cook and his warmist buddies over at SS were putting on their Gestapo fashion show?
Evidently, calling someone who engages in Nazi roleplay a “Nazi” is worse than being someone that fantasizes at being a Nazi. Bizarre indeed.
Every organization that was set up for public benefit or as an altruistic measure has been attacked, infiltrated and taken over to varying extent by the left.
If you look at the pronouncements of older established charities these days they could all have been written (and often HAVE BEEN written) by lazy superficial Marxists.
Any exceptions to this rule?
It’s obvious that the ADL has become an organization that serves no useful purpose. I’m not so sure that it ever did, or why an anti-defamation organization would be so completey focused on the Halocaust. Perhaps it time to remove the “anti” component from their name – they seem to have morphed into what they supposedly were against for the past half century. There is a strong tendency for an organization (actually,its officials) to keep the thing going, regardless. The NAACP
is in the same predicament. Meantime, might want to correct the ADL’s obvious ignorance about exactly what skeptics generally believe. They seem pretty clueless at this point. Perhaps their mental leaders have already departed for want of something to do
For those who don’t think Dr. Spencer’s comparing the CAGW/Global Warming/Climate Change advocates to the Nazis is appropriate, I suggest you reread your history about Hitler’s rise to power.
Don’t know about that, but even suggesting they “seem like” Nazis without actually saying they are Nazis will get your post snipped. See above or see here if it gets snipped in this context, too. And I’m not suggesting there is over-moderation. It really is a hot button term even when soft pedaled, and great care is needed in these times to avoid the hate speech Naz.., er, net nannies.
[Reply: Sometimes there IS over-moderation. ~another mod.]
Discussion > Global warming Nazis
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/discussion/post/2298000