.. which as has been explained, should be recognizable in principle to all parties, regardless of background ror experience: the Holocaust has unique aspects which should be signficant for all.

Now, I'll tell you something: I've discussed this issue with many folks over the last few weeks (since my original Prince Harry cartoon post). So - my father agrees with you: Hitler and Stalin are equivalent, when you're dead you're dead, and to hell with the lot of them. Then again, the reason why we're all here is that he managed, along with my mother, to get of Prague and emigrate here in 1948. .. Still, I don't quite agree with him, as is obvious by now ..

Also: even though you are right that personal background is best taken into account in interactions like this, I want to say (yet again) that I am uncomfortable with leaving an impression that I am demanding 'special consideration'. As I keep saying: I am not a victim, but a close and personal witness to a unique historical phenomenon. Sure I like sensitivity. But I was more upset with your insensitivity to the unique historical significance of Hitler and the Nazis, than with anything to do with my personal history - of which you could hardly have known anything anyway. It truly was an accumulation of frustration with what I regard GENERALLY as your obsessive ideological agenda . That's why, at the same time I was slagging you, I was also giving people like Gary (whom I respect hugely) such a hard time in the healthcare thread. I was just fed up with what I thought of as single-minded ideologues with no peripheral vision ..

So, kudos to you: you must be like that little toy soldier balancing on a ball (instead of feet) - when you knock it over, it just bounces straight back to the upright position, without any fuss. Good that you didn't take it too personally - although the criticism of your 'agenda-izing' is obviously still personal, up to a point.

I just saw an internet flash advert for some audio product with the byline: "join the revolution" - accompanied by a pic of Lenin with headphones. Too bad that people think this murderer and tyrant is still so cool. You are right there - no-one is going to place an advert of Hitler wearing headphones .. but having said that, there is an important distinction which I have been trying to make here. Hitler and the Nazis are dedicated only to one aim: the destruction of other races/religions, especially Jews. It may seem they were after world domination (WW2), but the fact that they diverted their resources from the warfront to the death camps even when they were losing, clearly shows their true agenda.

The agenda of Lenin, Stalin et al, on the other hand, is one of EXTREME SOCIAL DOMINATION, which is really following on from the character of Karl Marx, who even while alive was criticized and attacked as an intolerant tyrant. Some perceptive folks of his time - radicals themselves - are on record as describing the sort of dictatorship which must arise as a result of his 'prescriptions' and his own, already evident, dictatorial tendencies. Then Trotsky attacked Lenin for years as a future dictator, before capitulating and joining Lenin in 1917. My point ..? As you say, in the end, when you're dead you're dead, doesn't matter whether by the hand of Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, or Jim Jones. But historically, you need to understand that the reason Lenin et al are still tolerated whereas Hitler and the Nazis are not, is because the Nazis are recognized as symbolizing pure destructive evil, whereas the Communists are seen as evil and dictatorial idealists who mixed vicious megalomania with an attempt at social development.

You shouldn't compare the two. Communism is the modern world's best lesson lesson in the evils of extreme vicious ideology dressed up in good intentions, and implemented by lying, hypocritical sociopaths and psychopaths. Nazism is still again on another plane - beyond ideology altogether. It is more about the most pure destructive impulse that humanity has ever known, put into industrialized practice.

Please and consider my posts carefully - thanks for your persistence in general.