Monday, May 04, 2009

THE POLITICS OF MARILYN SHEPHERD

I first came across Marilyn Shepherd when reading the readers' comments that appear at the foot of some articles in Israel's Haaretz Newspaper. The posters in this section are an eclectic group who mostly correspond in strident fashion pushing various points of view - many of them particularly extreme. Included in this group are some mean and nasty types with axes to grind and they push their agendas with … shall we say … an unhealthy disregard for the truth.

Haaretz apparently moderates its readers' comments and I suppose it's a tribute to Israel's democracy that a newspaper gives space to a diverse group of anti-Semitic types, Holocaust deniers, Hamas mouthpieces (as well as extremists on the Israeli side) to express their views. After all, they do have Amira Haas and Gideon Levy on the payroll. In any event, you won't see such tolerance and openness in any equivalent Palestinian publication.

Marilyn always seems to stand out: not only because she's an Aussie but because of the systemic and pervasive racism that drips largely from her acidic computer keyboard. I can imagine her skulking in some cellar, tapping gleefully away inventing another imaginary crime perpetrated by those nasty Jews against those poor Palestinians.

Since she first came to my notice, I've followed Marilyn's vicious, racist hyperbole through a variety of media and internet outlets. Hatred of Jews has become her virtual trademark. I have also discovered that Marilyn Shepherd is one of very few people to have been banned from blogs at both extremes of the political spectrum as well as plenty in the middle.

Based in South Australia, Marilyn visibly has anger management issues. Scarcely a post of hers isn't peppered with swear words, calling others "wankers", telling them to "piss off" or similar comments which would make the most foul-mouthed brickie blush but are standard for the 56 year old "lady".

Marilyn, (who will no doubt insist she isn't an antisemite) is a blatant Holocaust denier.
Official figures for the Jewish populations of Germany in 1933 were 450,000, two thirds whom fled before the holocaust.

IN Austria it was only 180,000 and two thirds of them escaped. Where the 6 million comes from is obviously another load of bunkum.
[Posted by Marilyn Shepherd, Saturday, 31 May 2008 2:43:26 AM]

On New Matilda, where she goes by the name MaryJ she had this to say:
It is pretty fair to say that historians have shown that 6 million jews did not die in the "holocaust", maybe 1 or 2 million among 70 million other people.
Note New Matilda saw fit to delete her comments (and a raft of others) though perhaps not for the right reason:
We have been following the comments on this article and as you may be aware, deleted some over the past few days.

We have been very concerned at the number of personal attacks and comments which do not contribute to the discussion.
Calling Marilyn a dole bludging wanker, is a personal attack. Holocaust denial is a whole different story. Marilyn is one of those people who will insist ad nauseum that "criticism of Israel isn't antisemitic". As antisemites go however, Marilyn is almost a walking cliche even to the point where she suggests that some of her best friends are Jewish.
... the Palestinians I know well in Australia and gorgeous, gracious, decent, hard working and honest people. My jewish friends love them.

The only "Jewish friend" Marilyn has, if you can call him "Jewish" and retain a straight face, is Antony Loewenstein. Her comments regularly appear on his blog - anyone who disagrees with him is automatically censored.

Marilyn wouldn't know "hard work" however, having been on a disability pension for years. As it happens, her "disability" doesn't prevent her from sitting in front of a computer for ten or more hours a day like most people in offices.

Marilyn was described by one well known columnist as "Australia's most unhinged moonbat", and another dedicated a whole day's blogging to her, noting that "The hate mail for her alone makes up half the traffic" to his blog.

Fluent in Dogalog, Marilyn has a mailing list of politicians and journalists that most PR flaks would kill for. The recipients of her almost daily emails would probably be just as happy however if someone would kill her instead. Rather like Keysar Trad, Marilyn Shepherd actually does her enemies a favour every time she opens her mouth. Feel free to subscribe - msh56712@bigpond.net.au.

Once upon a time, she was obsessed with John Howard. Her mini auto-biographies at Online Opinion notes she was: "In forced 'retirement' due to severe ill health until the Tampa arrived, decided there was no time to be idle and became active after the horrific drownings on what she called 'the drowned refugee boat' to hundreds of politicians and newspaper editors, all to no avail."

It's nice to know some things would get her "active". Your tax dollars at work!

With Howard's departure however, she turned her sights to the world's only Jewish state.

Marilyn's debating style can be summed up as: telling the same lie over and over again until people believe it. Some of her classics:
I don’t want to hear a single word about the naughty Hamas people and their teensy little rockets that have not managed to hit anything.

On the Jewish question:
Now let's ask this question. If being jewish is so damn wonderful why are there so few still?

And one of the finest pieces of irony ever to appear on the screen:
Why do we have to continue on endlessly talking about Israel and Palestine?

This from someone who has posted, literally tens of thousands of comments on precisely that, often to blogs which didn't even mention Israel in the first place.

Yesterday's edition of the Age published a Marilyn Shepherd letter that seemed to buck her usual spiteful trend.

In 1938, we as a nation made one of our most shameful decisions — we refused to accept Jewish refugees and forced them to stay and die. Those who did escape used people smugglers, and I know we would not think of jailing them.
Is this a new sweet Marilyn showing sympathy towards Jews?

Hell no, she's only working on her tarnished image!

Marilyn surely must be aware that the British, at the behest of Palestine's Arab leadership, put an end to the migration of Jews from Europe before the War and that, as a result thousands and possibly millions of Jewish boat people and would-be boat people were forced to stay back in Europe and die. She also knows that the same Palestinian Arab leadership plotted with Hitler to enable his final solution. The same Arab leadership were also members of the Muslim Brotherhood which ultimately spawned Hamas and inspired Yassir Arafat to a corrupt life of terrorism that has caused countless deaths to Jews and Arabs alike. But then again, Marilyn is one of those Holocaust deniers who doesn't think Hitler butchered that many (or enough?) Jews and others during his dirty little war, so she's not really sincere in her sympathy for Jewish boat people.

I don't know why I wasted so much of my time on a verminous piece like Marilyn. It must be a slow day.

32 comments:

Gulliver_on_tour said...

Marilyn comes from the same family of vermin who would brand Elie Wiesel a 'Zio-Nazi'.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1079949.html

Anonymous said...

Marilyn has extended her coverage of posting her anti Semitic and Muslim groveling racist propaganda from The Australian to the Australian Jewish News.[AJN]

I know it sounds far fetched but how would it be if the Palestinian/Arab /Muslim community ever had a mainstream English newspaper that allowed every body to post criticism of their people on line like the Jewish Community's AJN ,I know that sounds unrealistic but hey that's the difference between us and them.

Marilyn has a Jewish audience at her disposal that she can freely post her racist, and Palestinian/Arab propaganda views whilst her people are a closed shop.

Faygale.

Anonymous said...

Aaargh.

You didn't warn me.

i opened up one of those links and saw what she looks like... now i'm going to have nightmares...

Anonymous said...

This is a sample of what Marilyn sends around to our politicians I imagine much of it would go into their spam..........


What makes me really sick is the way Australia is so deluded and deranged where the criminal state of Israel is concerned that we were one of only two countries cheering this on and we have never bothered to apologise to the innocent Palestinians caught up in the filth of it all.

msh56712@bigpond.net.au

Anonymous said...

i opened up one of those links and saw what she looks like... now i'm going to have nightmares...Marilyn was married for less than 2 years, in the late seventies and hasn't been able to hook one since. Unsurprisingly. Her poor husband is probably still having counselling.

I've heard she has even offered to sleep with inmates at Baxter detention centre.

Personally, I would far prefer a weekend in Saddam Hussein's Abu Ghraib Prison, with the genital electrodes. I expect they would too.

The horror...

By the way, some my comments above will probably inspire sympathy towards her. Spare me. She is an absolute leech on society, who contributes nothing, and the sooner she's dragged off in the white van, the sooner I'll be convinced our taxes are being well spent. Right now, it is staggering to think that I get up at 6am and go to work, so my taxes can pay for the lifestyle of this awful, awful troll.

Daniel Lewis said...

Excellent post, referred to me by quite a few online friends. I think you were too kind.

Marilyn had another clanger, in today's Australian (blog), saying:

"There was not a single suicide bomber in Afghanistan, Pakistan or Iraq until we invaded their countries. "We invaded Pakistan?

Three huge errors in a single sentence. Yup, that's Marilyn...

Ian Strode said...

Honest Reporting has just covered the same phenomenon of Hate Speech - http://www.honestreporting.com/articles/45884734/critiques/new/Hate_Speech_Thriving_on_Internet_Message_Boards.asp

It's not surprising that it festers in certain media outlets such as The Independent, The Guardian the Scotsman and our own Age over here. The publication of those letters in the wake of Durban 2 was a prime example of the nasty undetone of antisemitism that we're getting from Fairfax.

Anonymous said...

this person is arrogant and ignorant... in kurdish part of irak suicide bombers kill many kurds

Anonymous said...

This woman is the classic anti- semite & like the new age anti semites uses Israel as the cover...

Gravelly said...

She can say what she likes on any ABC forum, that's for sure. But that's not suprising, the folk at the ABC are as deluded as she is!

Daniel Lewis said...

I brought this blog post to the attention of Mad Marilyn (via the ABC's Q&A Program discussion website).

She denies everything. Of course.

Her money quote: "You really ought to get a life instead of spewing out hateful bile."

Uh huh... Good one Marilyn.

Jihad Stadium said...

More shit from Marilyn,

"The attack on Gaza was a war crime, the Gazans had not lobbed any bloody rockets on anyone but were being starved to death and even the Israeli media know that Israel were and are in the wrong."

Once upon a time she used to tell her ignoramus mates (both of them) that the rockets were home made and not harmful to anyone. No she's changed her lies to saying the rockets never existed.

Dan Lewis said...

Yes. And look at all these poor, starving Palestinians. Forced to eat candy-floss lest they starve to death while they queue up for the Ferris Wheel.

It's just like Auschwitz I tell you!

Dan Lewis said...

Marilyn's hit the bigtime, being personally mentioned in an editorial over at The Australian:


Adelaide busybody Marilyn Shepherd's hysterical emails to editors also point the finger at The Australian. Her brand of reasoning claims that "people are dead, people are injured, more might die because the Australian Government and media would not stop whining".

Forget the tragic fire on the boat off Ashmore Reef. The deaths are "on our heads", she shrills, for ignoring her "increasing alarm about illegals and so on".

She asks: "Are you journalists hard of reading and hearing?" No, we value mature, reasoned debate over reems of drivel.
Congratulations, Marilyn. Even our National broadsheet has now called you an idiot, and they didn't even need to mention your Holocaust Denial.

Are you Convinced yet?

Dan Lewis said...

More Marilyn classics over at New Matilda, on an article by up and coming idiot, Michael Brull, who seems to style himself as a diet-Loewenstein.

Marilyn spews:

"Yet when I merely pointed out that authors in the last years have discovered that many of the jews who were supposedly killed actually escaped Germany, Austria and Russia long before the war Brull lambasted me as anti-semitic. I personally thought it was a great triumph that people had the good sense to leave, but then what would I know.

Another holocaust never spoken of without me being accused of being anti-semitic by Richard Silverstein in the US and banned from his site is the murder of between 9 and 13 million German civilians by the allies under the revolting Morgenthau plan led by Eisenhower from 1946-50.

The books are "After the Reich" by Giles MacDonogh and "Crimes and Mercies" by James Bacque. In Bacque’s book it was shown that the plan was to murder all of the 40 million Germans in revenge for the murder of jews - one reviewer pointed out that it wa no accident that Morgenthau was a jew.

Wow - kicked off Silverstein’s blog for sending him a book review.

Let’s get this clear. I am not anti-jew, I don’t even know what anti-semitic is supposed to mean because the zionists have appropriated that word to mean only jews and ignores the reality that arabs are semites.

And Syd I think it is becoming more in your question because Hollywood has been ruled by jews for decades and they decide the films to make so we have to have new holocaust films every year to keep the world’s sympathy for Israel ticking over.

Can’t go having the world’s peoples remembering that the war was over 64 years ago and can’t have people realising that Israel and the basis for Israel is a massive lie.

The claim is always that the European jews were escaping persecution from nazi Germany in 1947."

What a stupid bitch.

Dan Lewis said...

Later, on the same New Matilda article, Marilyn Shepherd (who posts as MaryJ) engages in Holocaust Denial Denial...

Maryj 05/06/09 3:35PM

Name or show one place I have ever denied that millions of jews were slaughtered Michael or hang your head in shame.


She goes on to add:

Michael is spouting a blatant lie about me while I am simply point out an [sic] historic fact.

Such a short memory, Marilyn. Apparently she forgot this (single) example:
"It is pretty fair to say that historians have shown that 6 million jews did not die in the "holocaust", maybe 1 or 2 million among 70 million other people."

Marilyn Shepherd is not just an anti-Semite, but obtuse!

I wonder if her antisemitism will get worse, with the apparent onset of dementia.

thefrollickingmole said...

Shes "special", a close confidant of the revolting "Mulga Mumblbrain" who also smears his poo on various letters and opinion pages.

I was involved in a incident MaryLoon wrote about once and corrected her on about 7 errors she made. By the end of it she agreed she was wrong.

About 3 days later she repeated all her lies again on another site.

A foul tax leech.

Anonymous said...

More madness from Maz, and it appears, an admittance that she once had a drinking problem. No surprise there.

Marilyn
Aug 14th, 2009 at 3:44 am

"A new report from HRW shows the IDF gunning down civilians holding white flags and these freaks reckon Likud are not facists?

Adhaleff should go back to South Africa or Israel because his own facist views are enough to drive a girl back to drink.

They nearly got away with the persecution of Hanan Ashrawi thanks to the Turnbull mob but Pilger is one of ours and Adhaleff is not."

So Vic Alhadeff is not Australian? Dear me.

Anonymous said...

Pot. Kettle. Black.

'It’s amazing how such a tiny group of people can be so noisy and why don’t they just stop screaming in our faces.'

http://antonyloewenstein.com/2009/08/13/jew-urges-australia-to-stick-head-in-the-sand/

Anna said...

I made a mistake of reading her post once in full and for the first time in my life felt literally sick from reading. Since then I've been skipping her posts - all of them. I have only one life... Disability pension - I wonder whether it is a certain mental disability. Then everything suddenly seems to fit - hatred, complete lack of even elementary logic, ridiculous lies which she herself believes, uncontrolled anger... And I wonder how she ended up having a child and a few grandchildren with Hebrew names.

Dan Lewis said...

I found another (ahem) wonderful Holocaust denying quote by Marilyn Shepherd at a Palestinian propaganda site:

"One of the [b]so-called holocaust[/b] survivors was 4 years old at the end of the war and living safely in Siberia during the war.

She did not survive anything. [b]What a sick and disgusting hoax this was[/b]."

It appalls me that the Australian taxpayer fully funds this woman's lifestyle.

Anonymous said...

Hello. And Bye.

Ergot Bullwinkle said...

I note quite a few comments about Ms Shpherd's physical appaearance, suposed sexual habits and her life on a disability pension. What have these things to do with her opinions or her right to express them?

I don't know her, though we do overlap on a couple of blogs etc. We actually agree about this country's shameful treatment of asylum seekers. I am of Jewish background, and I find nothing wrong with criticising the policies of the government of Israel.

Your other correspondents would be better to focus on her actual opinions, and judge those on their merits than to focus on her personal characteristics. As it is they erode the credibility of their own points of view.

Anonymous said...

Beyond any doubt blog with useful informations.

Dan Lewis said...

Ergot Bullwinkle,

You write: "Your other correspondents would be better to focus on her actual opinions, and judge those on their merits than to focus on her personal characteristics.

Well, she's an outspoken Holocaust denier, and a tireless anti-Semite. Where would you like to start the discussion on her opinions?

Sorry. She is a completely ugly person on the inside, as well as out.

In relation to her disability, as far as I am concerned, she is a dole bludger. Her "disability" doesn't preclude her from spending hours a day in front of a computer vilifying Jews, harassing journalists and politicians and generally pissing people off.

There are no shortage of jobs which involve sitting in front of a computer. Admittedly she'd probably spend most of her employer's time bludging on blogs, ABC unleashed etc. At the moment, she's only wasting taxpayers money...

I've always admired the audacity (Chutzpah) of Shepherd to slag off the government of the day, whilst happily collecting a cheque from them each week. She is a complete waste of oxygen and contributes nothing whatsoever to Australian society. I'd be happy for this country to take in five of the most bogus "refugees" it can find, in exchange for dumping her in the middle of Gaza.

Anonymous said...

I was always sure Marilyn was a he. The whole demeanour is so unhinged, it sounded like it came from an overdramatic transvestitie. Now I know she has a disability, I can understand that he's a she, but you must have noticed her latest issue-du-jour: refugees. The sheer nastiness of here unending postings is appalling, but as always, she does her critics a favour by being hysterical, emotive and downright horrible to people, all in a selective- or fact-free environment. Long live Marilyn!

Anonymous said...

Honest question, is speaking against Israel inherently anti semitic? Whilst Marilyn is clearly antisemitic (and a greens voter to boot) I'm sitll not sure that anyone who speaks out against Israel is anti semitic. Its a democratic country filled with many races and religions. Is speaking out against Gadhafi anti arab or anti African?

James In Melbourne said...

Couldn't agree more with you on Marilyn Shepard. I once wrote a letter to the Age saying it was crazy to suggest we never hear the Palestinian viewpoint in the media, and she somehow tracked me down and rang me at home (and abused my partner)!

However, can I suggest you are really undermining your argument - and any goodwill - with sarcastic comments like 'those nasty Jews against those poor Palestinians'. The Palestinians are doing it tough, and to mock their suffering is really bad form.

James In Footscray said...

Hello Blank Pages! Could you please not publish the comment I posted yesterday? It alleges Marilyn Shepherd did something, probably high risk!
Thanks very much
James

Anonymous said...

I look with big eyes at you people dwelling in the shit of yesteryear.
But there is a reason, because if one looks at the far its easy to forget the shit one is standing in.
I don't care about the nazis, the jews, slavery, killing of the christians, the crusades, the holocaust.
I live today and todays lies give me the creeps not the lies of yesteryear.

Anonymous said...

I always thought Marilyn was a he too: the bile just seems too masculine or something. That she's on a disability pension is completely unsurprising. She's still going at it each day, posting so many comments to blogs like The Drum you'd think that disability extends to a colostomy bag to save her the non-typing time sitting on the bogger.

Anonymous said...

So she was a Dumocrat. Says it all. Would probably be a Green now. They worry about extinctions. I now see why.

H the B