Most literate adults (or at least those with access to the Internet) would probably know to avoid the opinions of David Duke.
Duke, ex-Grand Wizard of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, convicted fraudster and semiprofessional antisemite is hardly a reputable source.
Yet the “activist” Gilad Atzmon has a high opinion of Duke:
“…
Now there is something very interesting and it’s again the first time I’m saying it. The left is devastated by David Duke for instance. He was in the KKK when he was young. But here is something quite amazing: I read him and I was shocked to find out that this guy knows more about Jewish identity than I do! How could a supposedly ‘racist’ Gentile who probably never entered a synagogue knows more than I do about Judaism? The reason is in fact very simple : he is a proud white man. He’s interested in nationalism, in the culture of his own people, so he understands things that I am not even allowed to think about. Believe it or not, even as a Jew, I wasn’t allowed to think of myself as a racist. I was a racist, maybe I am still one, but I was not allowed to acknowledge it. Once he acknowledges the he’s talking about white people’s rights, in a way he thinks like Avigdor Lieberma ! But in fact, he is way better than Liberman. David Duke is a humanist because he says, «I want to celebrate my right and you should celebrate your rights» whether you are Muslim or black or whatever. He believes that all people should celebrate their rights, this is his current philosophy. Avidgor Liberman is not a humanist, because he wants to celebrate his rights at the expense of other people.”
Duke hasn’t, really, changed his views over the years, just polished them and tried to drag in the gullible or those seriously hung-up on the existence of Jews.
Bird of a feather flock together?
(H/T: Adam Holland)
Update 1: The SPLC on Former Klan Leader David Duke Expelled From Italy@
“No one wants David Duke.
The former Klansman, Holocaust denier and founder of a series of hate groups was expelled from Italy in early December after a court there deemed him “socially dangerous” for allegedly planning to create a pan-European neo-Nazi group. Duke, who has fled or been expelled from several countries before, was kicked out of Italy this time after a court upheld a finding that he had entered the country on false pretenses by using his middle name, Ernest, in place of his first.”
Update 2: Not forgetting Huff Post Crime’s coverage, David Duke Arrested In Germany, Ex-Klan Leader Faces Deportation:
“Since his release from prison, Duke has traveled and lectured widely, including a 2006 appearance at a Holocaust denial conference in Tehran, Iran. The conference featured numerous speeches denouncing the Holocaust as a “myth.” At the conference, Duke voiced support for discredited, fringe scholars imprisoned in Europe for denying the use of gas chambers against Jews during the Holocaust.
In the United States, Duke continues to speak regularly at gatherings of prominent right-wing groups and writes for Stormfront, a leading white-supremacist website.”
Update 3: Well worth a read, Ron Stallworth, Police Sergeant, Chronicles His Experience As Undercover KKK Member, particularly the slideshow “A day in the life of the KKK”
Ron Stallworth’s blog and his insights make very necessary reading.
Update 4: the SPLC looks at a new David Duke project, Anti-Semitism Illustrated: David Duke Working on New ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion’:
“White supremacist David Duke has a new book coming out, of sorts – a repackaged and “illustrated” version of the notorious anti-Semitic hoax, “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” But unlike previous editions of the text – all of which attempted to claim that the book was a genuine transcript of a gathering of wealthy Jews who conspired to bring about the enslavement of Western civilization – Duke is taking a different tack.
“The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” Duke now claims, is in fact a work of fiction – which means, he says, that the hoax issue is moot. Instead, as he explains in his promotional video for the book, the text is like all “great literature” – a work of art whose value lies in the greater truths it supposedly reveals about the world. ”
In all likelihood Gilad Atzmon will be endorsing that too!
Update 4: Last year the CST blog exposed Atzmon and some of his friends, Truth Movement – “Stupidest People on the Planet”??
Update 5: The SPLC takes on “Dr. Duke”:
“Former Klansman David Duke has made much of his academic credentials of late. On his website, he repeatedly refers to himself as “Dr.” David Duke, a reference to the supposed Ph.D. he “earned” in 2005 at an anti-Semitic Ukrainian institution described as a “diploma mill” by the State Department. Around the white supremacist world, excited accolades to Duke’s scholarship abound.
As the closest thing the radical right has to an intellectual today, Duke claims to uphold the high standards of academia. His website brims with criticisms of plagiarism — although they come, naturally, in the form of repeated attacks on civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., who is characterized as a “world-class plagiarist.” Plagiarism, Duke’s site adds piously, is “theft,” a rip-off that the site suggests amounts to “a serious felony.”
…
Duke, meanwhile, continues to boast of his “Ph.D” — his website, for instance, is now headlined, “The Official Website of Representative David Duke, PhD,” although he hasn’t been a Louisiana state representative for 17 years. As to the Ph.D., well, what Duke actually got at the Ukraine’s Interregional Academy of Personnel Management is a “Kandidat Nauk” degree, which ranks below a full doctorate. It was awarded to Duke for a thesis entitled, “Zionism as a Form of Ethnic Supremacism” and was the second degree given Duke by the university, which had earlier handed the former Klan boss an honorary degree.
Soupy One 