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.