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The War of Ideas in the Middle East
"would revive the Westphalia ‘cuius regio eius religio’ principle. I would not like to see this"
the 'crer' principle dates back to the Peace of Augsburg (1555), I think, not the Peace of Westphalia (1648). And yes, there was not much peace in Europe during the century between.
That principle also seems to be the model for the equally disastrous idea of the homogenous ethnic nation state of the 19th/20th c, and a disastrous 30yrs+ war (WW i and II)
Speaking of falsehoods: The Nuremberg race laws of 1935 did NOT strip Jews of German citizenship (a common but nevertheless false claim):
"The centerpiece of the anti-Jewish legislation was enacted in September 1935 as the Reich Citizenship Law and the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor, together known as the Nuremberg racial laws. [...] The Reich Citizenship Law ... did not alter the status of Jews as citizens (Staatsangehörige), conceding citizenship (Staatsangehörigkeit) to all German nationals, including Jews, and thus retaining for Jews the rights and protections traditional citizenship conferred. Instead, the law stigmatized Jews as citizens of lesser worth by creating the elevated position of Reich citizen (Reichsbürger), which only those with German or related blood could hold. Reich citizens were to be the sole bearers of political rights, but those rights were not defined and, considering the centralization of dictatorial political power, were basically meaningless. In fact, the Reich citizenship warrants were never issued."
Henry Friedländer: The Origins of Nazi Genocide (1997), p24
Artile 2 of the Reich citizenship law:
1. A citizen of the Reich is that subject only who is of German or kindred blood and who, through his conduct, shows that he is both desirous and fit to serve the German people and Reich faithfully.
2. The right to citizenship is acquired by the granting of Reich citizenship papers.
3. Only the citizen of the Reich enjoys full political rights in accordance with the provision of the laws.
So yes, Jews (as well as Roma, Sinti and African Germans, but not Danes, Poles, Greeks etc) were excluded from full citizenship and political rights (including voting rights). But so were all German citizens/subjects who did not exhibit the right "conduct". This is why article 116 of the Basic Law of the FRG reads, as you quote:
"The above mentioned group of people mainly includes German Jews and members of the Communist or Social Democratic Parties."
Obviously, most members of the German Communist or Social Democratic Parties weren't Jews.
As far as I can tell, Israel does not link full citizenship to "conduct", or no more so than do other democracies, including the US
interesting article on sanctions/psychological warfare against Iran
link to openchannel.nbcnews.com
"What’s so hard about that to understand?"
It's not complicated. One of the prerequisites for recognition of statehood is effective government. So obviously Palestinian unity is a threat to peace as defined and mapped by the Israelis. It's the old divide and conquer trick
------
These criteria were enumerated in the 1933 Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States:
The State as a person of international law should possess the following
qualifications: (a) a permanent population; (b) a defined territory; (c)
government; and (d) capacity to enter into relations with the other States (Article 1).
It is generally agreed that these conditions represent customary international law. More or less the same criteria were adopted in 1992 by the Arbitration Commission (the Badinter Commission) established by the European Conference on Yugoslavia.
[...]
The third condition for statehood is the existence of an effective government with control over the population and the territory. No particular system of government is required, and what counts is the effectiveness of the governing body. When the state is established as a consequence of decolonization, sometimes the requirement of effectiveness is less stringent (e.g., the Congo in 1960). If the new state has been recognized by many other states, the effectiveness requirement may become less stringent.
link to israelcfr.com
I agree, sardelpasti. I would also say that the aversion 0f the secularized and Americanized 'Tel Aviv Jews" against the Haredim in Israel - apparently a major factor in the recent Israel elections - is strongly reminiscent of Polish (as well as Russian/Soviet and Western European plus American) anti-semitism in the early 1900s
"Eastern Jews would be Ostjuden in German, and only in German it makes sense"
100 yrs ago this distinction made perfect sense in the US as well. You can read about 'Germans' and 'Russians' (Ostjuden) in Cohen's excellent book on Jacob Schiff
review article here
link to h-net.org
or Birmingham's "Our Crowd" (search for "Russians")
As Birmingham notes, because the surnames of the Russian and Polish Jews (who arrived in great numbers in the late 19th and early 20th c in NYC) often ended in -ki, they were called 'kikes' by the established and assimilated German-American Jews who were greatly concerned about the new arrivals increasing anti-semitism among gentile Americans
link to books.google.ca
"If he thinks Morsi’s a good leader, does he at least concede that others might disagree?"
If you think Bush or Obama, or Netanyahu, are good leaders, do you at least concede that others might disagree?
Why not just abolish democracy? That would solve the problem of people electing the wrong leaders
"read the rest of the comment for context, pleease!"
read the book I posted below for context, please
" people held without charge"
hardly a specific Palestinian problem
"Our prayers! There but for the grace of God go I....amen"
For Christ's sake: Is everybody nuts around here? Does every national/political conflict and humanitarian crisis have to be cast as a holy war and struggle between good and evil, between a collective of superhuman, suffering innocents and subhuman, sadistic villains, each side assigning the role of villain to the opponent and the role of victim to themselves? The settlers chain themselves to their outposts, the Palestinians to their olive trees. Grow up already
"May the meek inherit the earth."
There is nothing "meek" about irredentism, nor is it in any way compatible with the teachings of Christ (a prophet held in high esteem by Muslims).
Neither humans nor animals are plants or trees with roots in the ground, unable to move, or be moved, without dying.
Book tip (contains a chapter on Palestine and Palestinian national poets, and the olive tree/crucified nation motif)
link to sussex-academic.com
One should also ask about softer tactics and "rich revolutions" typically employed against foreign countries/geopolitical enemies with nukes (Russia), and leftists/humanitarians/democracy worshippers at home
link to sott.net
“an awful lot of the people in Israel, even ostensible Zionists, are better classed as victims.”
sure, and Americans are victims, too. Democracy is tough. Only Germans are collectively guilty because they voted for Hitler. As are their children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren
"who funds this rightwing Bulgarian government… any similar type of lobby as AIPAC in the US?"
No. All Bulgarian Jews survived the Holocaust (even though Bulgaria was an ally of Nazi Germany the country resisted deportation of Bulgarian Jews). Also unusual: 90 % of Bulgaria's Jews emigrated to Israel in 1948, with no objections from the Communist government. Bulgaria is one of the poorest (but fiscally healthy and not a member of the Euro zone) countries in the EU, and its remaining small Jewish community is substantially funded by American Jewish groups.
Tourism is a major industry, and Bulgaria benefitted greatly from a sharp increase in tourism from Israel after the deterioration of Turkish-Israeli relations in the wake of Cast Lead, the low-chair incident, and the Flotilla disaster. The Turkish/Muslim minority in Bulgaria has not in any way benefitted from the alleged old tradition of religious tolerance in Bulgaria
link to en.wikipedia.org
link to en.wikipedia.org
Tourism from Israel dropped 20% in the wake of the Burgas attack that killed several Israeli tourists. So Bulgaria has a vested interest in countering any fears that Israeli tourists are less safe there than they would be in Turkey, or Greece - where tourism is also a major industry, hampered by being in the Euro zone (more expensive than Bulgaria or Turkey)
link to greece.greekreporter.com
Is this why the Greek Jewish Council has filed a complaint at the UN about a year ago, regarding Bulgaria's unacknowledged role in the Holocaust (Bulgaria did deport several thousand Sephardi Jews from the northern part of Greece which it occupied during WW II and sought to annex as originally Bulgarian territory)
The Bulgarian parties opposed to and doubting the claim that Hizbullah was behind the Burgas attacks -- the socialist far Left and xenophobic far Right - are also united in their anti-American and pro-Russian stance
link to balkaninsight.com
Remember the USS Maine?
link to en.wikipedia.org
Ynet published this just after the Burgas attack in July 2012:
"Anybody with eyes in their head can see we are in the middle of an escalation orchestrated by various elements, and where occasionally, we are the instigating side. We hurt Imad Mughniyah a few years ago and mostly we are in a battle against Iran," former National Security Advisor Uzi Arad said Thursday
Arad, speaking with Army Radio in reaction to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pointing a finger at Iran over Wednesday's terror attack in Bulgaria, was referring the alleged Israeli connection to Mughniyah's death, as alluded by foreign media sources.
"All the signs are pointing to Iran. Only in the past few months we've seen Iran try to target Israelis in Thailand, India, Georgia, Cyprus and more," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said following the deadly terror attack on a bus in carrying Israeli tourists in Burgas, Bulgaria.
In the interview Arad was asked whether those who are privy to intelligence information can say who was responsible for attacks hours after the incident. He explained that this was not the state of things.
According to Arad, "We are in a battle against Iran. We are an active side. We are not passive. The opposing side, which is of course deserving of the campaign we are running against it, is a defensive side, it deters, it is also an attacking side…You don't need intelligence for that. Any person with eyes in their head understands that this is what is behind us and ahead of us."
Arad addressed the Iranian responses to Israeli operations: "They did it before, they have proved that they have better operational capabilities and less successful capabilities. They work in the field and both intelligence and strategic logic say that this is how Iran will act.
"And the closer the sword gets to its neck, the more it will need to both deter and say that these acts are acts of retaliation which it will take."
He warned: "This is why we need to prepare strategically otherwise, without saying 'we'll wait for the golden piece of intelligence that will come at the last minute.' The strategic intelligence alert is on the wall. Now the question is, when is it Iran itself, when is it Iran using its ally Hezbollah and when is it a third party that joined the party and could be Hamas or (a source in) Sinai."
link to ynetnews.com
"Within hours (of the Burgas attack], Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blamed Iran and Hezbollah, justifying his brilliant conclusion on the fact it had occurred on the anniversary of the 1994 AMIA bombing, which was blamed by Netanyahu’s predecessors on Iran and Hezbollah. The foolishness of this deductive technique is better illustrated by 9/11. One could claim that the date of the event—September 11—was chosen carefully. In the USA, 9/11 is the police emergency call number. From that day onwards, every American will connect both events, emphasizing its terror, allowing the fear to transcend time and space. This is true in America. Few countries use 9/11 as an emergency code (for example, Israel uses 100). Thus, using Netanyahu’s innovative methods, one could claim the 9/11 event was planned by an American, the only one likely to immediately recognize the additional value of the date. [...] What we must look is who is profiting politically from the event; obviously, neither Iran nor Hezbollah enter this category. The initial statement by Netanyahu was followed by truly odd declarations. Yoav Limor told to Yisrael Hayom that the attack is “another reason, along with the steady collapse of the Assad government, to justify an Israeli offensive in Lebanon to stop Syrian chemical weapons falling into Hezbollah’s hands.” Government Minister Yaakov Katz told the Jerusalem Post that he thinks the government will take its time before deciding how to retaliate: “Above all, it will first work to create an intelligence dossier to prove to the world that Iran really was behind the bombing.” The verb “create” perfectly fits the minister’s intentions. Similar astonishing declarations were said by others. Israel is seeking for a justification to open a war; any other attempt to solve its inner social problems has failed. If its declared enemies won’t provide it, be it through a false flag operation. It worked on 9/11, didn’t it? Let me be absolutely clear. If Mr. Sherlock Netanyahu thinks that he can blame Iran based on a an anniversary date, we, the people, have the right to blame him for 9/11. After all, he has double citizenship, American-Israeli. "
link to deliberation.info
Who remembers that ground was broken for the construction of the Pentagon on September 11, 1941?
Lindbergh delivered his Des Moines speech on the same day. It is widely seen as derailing of the largest anti-war movement in American history: the America First Committee
link to en.wikipedia.org
"Governments sacrifice their own all the time under the ideas that is it best for god and country"
a few examples
link to original.antiwar.com
link to en.wikipedia.org
link to salon.com
"Even our Canadian foreign minister is now into it"
Hardly surprising. Canada has long outlawed Hizbollah as a terrorist organization. From 2006/Ottawa Citizen:
______
There is "no way" Hezbollah will be taken off Canada’s list of terrorist organizations, Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day said yesterday.
"We see no chance of Hezbollah being de-listed," Mr. Day told CTV’s Question Period.
"We’ve got this organization that is one of the most vicious, murderous groups in the world today and they’re stating clearly that they want the genocide of all Jews and the annihilation of an entire nation, being Israel. There is no way we can (delist a group) that has those kind of horrific plans."
link to vigile.net
keep in mind that any such foreign policy decision requires unanimous consent in the European Council (liberum veto).
"In order to add Hezbollah to the list of terrorist organizations, consensus must be found among all 27 EU members. The European Council, comprised of representatives of all member states, must unanimously agree on a “common position.” Achieving consensus is, not surprisingly, a more difficult endeavor as the EU continues to expand.(8) Furthermore, the proceedings of the designation process are kept secret, and so it is difficut to know exactly each country’s position, except for those countries that have voiced their opposition forcefully, such as France. "
link to ajc.org
One reason why an economic boycott of Israel is unlikely to pass. At least one of 27 countries could be bribed to vote no. Usually the Czech Republic, long time Zionist supporters (Benes), and one of the most corrupt countries in the EU.
"Its very clear from the quote that she is talking about what the US would do if Iran attacked Israel with a nuclear weapon, and that she considers such an explicit warning to Iran about the consequences of an Iranian attack to be a deterrent, not a forecast of things to come."
I would say Clinton's 'warning' comes down to business as usual, and practically negates any 'special' consideration of Israel's security. Surely the US (and not just the US) would not look the other way if North Korea dropped a nuke on South Korea, or consider ANY country attacking another country with a nuclear weapon as not being any of their business? Iran know this, of course, and to suggest that such warnings need to be voiced at all is insulting, suggesting that the Mullahs are extremely stupid, aggressive, genocidal and suicidal, or all of the above.
Sure, you can get different effects or interpretations by selective quotation, or surrounding the delivery with huge Israeli flags and other pro-Israel or anti-Iran messages, but what it all comes down to is not very much at all.
Election blather
"basically a huge kiss to the far-right Likudniks."
Since when is political/state 'diplomacy' about honesty, or even values? Seriously. FDR blew huge kisses to Stalin, as did Churchill. What does that mean? That they actually believed he was a democrat? Ridiculous. They both had a clear objective: defeat Germany and pacify Europe, let the Soviets do the dying in the ground war, or most of it.
No one in Washington wants to defeat Israel (whatever for? Israel is no economic rival or trying to be a global power), and 'shared values' have always been a matter of construction (and reconstruction, as need be).
"How about nazism?"
How about Stalinism? Is it a "less evil" ideology because it beat Nazism? And was that victory due to a morally superior ideology? More likely it was "about smashing your enemy physically and without mercy on the battlefield", and having more human and material resources (and more powerful allies). It's all barbarian warfare as far as I'm concerned
"How about nazism?"
Exactly. Hardly the first to die on the battlefield.
My impression is that you think of Zionism as an ideology as evil as Nazism.
Not the first to die on the battlefield either. 1948? 1967?
US empire is still very much around and kicking. Do you think it is less evil? Well, excuse me, I don't.
"Evil ideologies die first on the battlefield."
do you have any historical evidence for this claim, taxi?
It's difficult to imagine a more hypocritical, arbitrary and absurd application of the religious good and evil dichotomy than the one promoted by US foreign policy over the past 120 yrs or so.
POTUS no 6 John Quincy Adams:
"America goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy."
POTUS no 7
link to en.wikipedia.org
"How come France gets a pass when they invade Mali? "
Good question. What happened to the determined French opposition against the WOT/Iraq? And now France is waging war on terrorists?
Same with Germany: no support for Iraq or Libya - but now Germany is sending troops and Patriot missiles to Turkey to defend against an attack from Syria?
link to dw.de
And, after Netanyahu has been beating the 'Syrian chemical weapons pose a threat to Israel'-drum, Israel bombs Syria
link to nytimes.com
I smell another 'humanitarian imperialism' intervention the democratic, humanitarian West will swallow hook, line and sinker as being in line with their 'values'. Assad is not allowed to fight terrorists (are they all local and Syrian?) in his country, but the French can fight terrorists in Africa with UN approval?
"Hanin Zoabi remains stoic, calm and resilient in the face of aggression and that is what makes Israeli MKs furious because they don’t know how to deal with that. "
that makes a lot more sense than the sexist/racist explanation
she's not jewish either. My point was that the sexist/racist line of argument is not convincing
"she’s the wrong ethnicity and the wrong sex."
So is smart and uppity Hillary Clinton. Israeli men/politicians have no problem with her, do they?
"Perhaps most of the citizens of the world should vote in American elections, since what America does has a considerable influence over their lives. "
I thin that's a perfectly valid point, hophmi. However, given the choices, much of the world would most probably have voted like Americans did in the last presidential election - for Obama.
Another question is: why do Israeli Arabs who do have the right to vote in Israel's election not make much use of this right?
Arab Israeli voter participation appears to be rather low.
"It is sort of reverse Nuremberg Laws."
not quite. The citizenship laws (it was a series of laws passed in the mid-30 -early 40w, and the Nuremberg race laws actually did not yet abolish citizenship for German Jews) passed during the Third Reich did not only affect Jews: full citizenship (and voting rights) were explicitly granted to Germans/Aryans (not synonymous but excluding Jews, or all Jews who were not exempted on the basis of 'honorary' Aryan status) only as long as their behavior demonstrated their loyalty and service to the Fatherland. This would exclude all Germans/Aryans who did not share the view of what was in the best interest of Germany as defined by the Party/Führer.
There were no elections for anyone in Germany from 1933 - 1949 - although Nazi Germany did use direct democracy devices such as plebiscites.
I see no evidence of either a one-party system or discrimination against Jewish voters in Israel. False analogy
W. Jones
sure, some Nazi leaders (Rosenberg, Himmler) were occultist, others (Hitler, Göring) were not. There's plenty of occultism in Christianity, for that matter. It's an ecclectic religion, and Nazism also fed on all kinds of ideas, many of them contradictory. Like Communism or Zionism, Nazism was no coherent ideology or homogenous movement - hence its broad appeal. Let's remember that Bavaria, a very Catholic country (by then: a federal state and member of the German Reich/Weimar Republic), was the birthplace of the Nazi movement in Germany. Both Hitler and Streicher employed plenty of Christian imagery to promote the Führer as the savior of Germany and Messiah of a new age of peace in Europe - under German leadership, of course
You're perfectly correct about Hitler's comparison of Christianity and Bolshevism, though.He called Stalin a 'Christian', and did not mean it as a compliment but as a criticism of the idea of equality and homogenous mankind. Then again, he also praised Stalin as the greatest leader/politician/strategist the Russians ever had. So did Churchill, btw.
27 April, 2010
VOTE FOR JERUSALEM AS ENGLAND’S NATIONAL ANTHEM
Category: England — By: Andy Newman at 10:04 am
from Waking Hereford
Commonwealth Games England announced on St George’s Day that they will let the nation decide which anthem is to be played at this year’s Commonwealth Games in Delhi by allowing the public to vote for the song of their choice.
Voters can choose between God Save The Queen, Jerusalem and Land of Hope and Glory – with the winner becoming the official anthem of the England Team to be played on the podium in Delhi when a Gold medal is won as well as at the Welcoming Ceremony when the St. George’s flag is raised. The public can cast their vote by visiting
link to start.yougov.com
Duncan Lewis, Marketing Director for Commonwealth Games England, said, “We’re really excited that the nation will be deciding our anthem for the Games. Everybody has their own opinion on what should be played, and having the public actively involved in the team’s decision making is great. Their involvement represents everything that we’re trying to achieve with our inclusive ‘We Are England’ brand – bringing the whole of the country together”.
As Hereward correctly states:
There are only 3 candidates – and only one that is England-specific – so it should be a no brainer.
Option 1: God Save the Queen. British anthem and hence really nothing to do with England….. Gordon Brown take note: England is not Britain. Apart from that, the tune is about as uninspiring as a tune can be.
Option 2: Land of Hope and Glory. British imperialistic Edwardian anthem which gloried in the ever-expanding British Empire (especially in Africa) during the country-collecting activities of the late Victorian and early Edwardian eras. Irrelevant to England as the ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ referred to is Britain. Erroneously used in the past as England’s victory anthem at previous Commonwealth Games – in our view totally inappropriately. It really does need to change in favour of option 3.
Option 3: Jerusalem. This scores on all fronts. For a start, it actually mentions and is about England. Also, opinion polls have consistently shown it to be by far the nation’s favourite choice for an English anthem. The words by William Blake are nothing to do with invading anyone, nor are they disparaging to any of our neighbours – they just embody what a vision of England could be.
link to socialistunity.com
"You think Christians invented the Nazis or what?"
Well, the overwhelming majority of Nazis were Christians, as were the Western Allies who fought them. The latter clearly preferred destroying Nazi Germany to saving the Jews. WW II was definitely NOT fought to save the Jews. That's just post-war propaganda to justify the slaughter of Europeans and destruction of Europe by non-European/non-continental powers
the satanic "cold, cold heart of Zionism"?
Give me a break.
A War Song to Englishmen
Prepare, prepare the iron helm of war,
Bring forth the lots, cast in the spacious orb;
Th' Angel of Fate turns them with mighty hands,
And casts them out upon the darken'd earth!
Prepare, prepare!
Prepare your hearts for Death's cold hand! prepare
Your souls for flight, your bodies for the earth;
Prepare your arms for glorious victory;
Prepare your eyes to meet a holy God!
Prepare, prepare!
Whose fatal scroll is that? Methinks 'tis mine!
Why sinks my heart, why faltereth my tongue?
Had I three lives, I'd die in such a cause,
And rise, with ghosts, over the well-fought field.
Prepare, prepare!
The arrows of Almighty God are drawn!
Angels of Death stand in the louring heavens!
Thousands of souls must seek the realms of light,
And walk together on the clouds of heaven!
Prepare, prepare!
Soldiers, prepare! Our cause is Heaven's cause;
Soldiers, prepare! Be worthy of our cause:
Prepare to meet our fathers in the sky:
Prepare, O troops, that are to fall to-day!
Prepare, prepare!
Alfred shall smile, and make his harp rejoice;
The Norman William, and the learnèd Clerk,
And Lion Heart, and black-brow'd Edward, with
His loyal queen, shall rise, and welcome us!
Prepare, prepare!
William Blake
De facto, the US has a one party system, esp. wrt foreign policy.
"When Are the Albrights Going to Return their Prague War Booty?"
link to morula.net
link to freerepublic.com
link to tnr.com
link to jta.org
Baghdad was not the first city destroyed and plundered by the US. Here is a long article on the subject, including the plunder and destruction of Native American and Filipino artefacts:
link to historynet.com
Predictably, the Nazis and Soviets are portrayed as the worst offenders in history. The Anglo-American bombing of hundreds of German, French, Italian and Belgian cities during WW II is, of course, not mentioned. It clearly represents one of the biggest acts of destruction of cultural property in history. Irrelevant, of course, compared with the horrendous loss of the World Trade Center as the central icon of American identity
And, as one comment notes, the Vatican and the British Museum house some of the greatest collections of stolen art.
‘mainstream anti semitism threatens world peace.’
of course it's a nonsense, but what are they going to say? AS is no major problem, the Nazis are dead or 95 years old and no threat either - but do keep funding our Nazi-hunter organization? It would be like church leaders saying the decline of religion poses no problem to world peace.
"Number 9 was a prominent German journalist, Jakob Augstein, whose late father Rudolf was a leading Nazi-exposer. Jakob Augstein's crime is that he has several times criticized Israel."
If this is supposed to mean that Augstein sr exposed the Nazis, and Augstein jr the Zionazis it only shows how out of touch Americans are with European/German reality and history.
Augstein sr was a much harsher critic of Israel, and compared to the vitriol Rudolf Augstein launched against Israel under PM Begin Jacob Augstein is a rather tame version of his father.
The classic example is this 1981 Spiegel edition where Augstein goes nuts on Begin who had pushed the collective guilt envelope wrt German chancellor Schmidt's (who had served in the Luftwaffe) 'Nazi past'
link to spiegel.de
see also the article on/against Broder, who's still beating his old drums. Nobody in Germany takes him seriously anymore. He is merely a contributor to the media circus without any political relevance. But this stuff sells newspapers, of course
"we finally won a political battle against the Israel lobby"
Since you asked me a few days ago: "what has the Polish Lobby been up to lately?" -- congratulations to APAC.
link to en.wikipedia.org
I'm sure the old geopolitician and Russophobe Zbig who has been pushing the Polish issue for decades, is delighted. His sons are hyperactive in APAC, Hagel their honorary advisor. All bipartisan, of course. You can make a donation here, or on Facebook
link to apacouncil.info
"Oppression certainly existed before the Nazis and the Communists, but they systematized it, and left very little space in their societies free from it"
Let's remember that one of the historical models Hitler liked to cite for his version of Gleichschaltung and societal control was the Roman Catholic Church
"It is coming, incarceration without charges or trial, detention camps are fully operational, the president can order the murder of a US citizen, etc. It sure sounds familiar if you have an idea how the communists and the nazis took power."
Neither the Communists nor the Nazis invented it. This is nothing new in the US but a century old practice launched by the Nativists, fueled by the powerful ASL (Anti-Saloon League) Lobby, and culminating during WW I when Americans had to be brought in line to serve the original "special relationship", the Anglo-American alliance. It hit German Americans particularly hard, but also the Irish and anyone else who did not feel obliged to go to war to presumably serve the interests of a foreign country: Britain (and her allies/former enemies in WW I and against the Central Powers Germany and Austria-Hungary).
Have a look at the prologue of Feldman's book.
link to amazon.com
And how about a little Chomsky to set you straight on who invented those evil methods with which the Communists and the Nazis seized and maintained their power?
link to chomsky.info
"Christmas tree is not particularly Christian"
true enough, it's all rooted in pagan fertility/winter solstice rites.
"at least it is a German tradition from XIX century"
It becomes a British tradition during the 19th century, imported from Germany (Prince Albert). In Germany Christmas trees were sold in the Alsace (then part of Germany/the Holy Roman Empire) in the early 16th c., then spread to other regions
"In sum, the after of the Holocaust cannot simply assert Jewish innocence. As Jews, we come after the Holocaust and after Israel. What Jews have done to the Palestinian people has to be included in the broader Holocaust narrative."
The Holocaust narrative is fundamentally flawed, and obscuring it's unique aspects, by cutting off the BEFORE in a misguided attempt to assert a collective Jewish innocence, thus casting the genocide as a good-versus-evil-morality tale rather than a complex historical event that needs to take into account the rational and psychological motives of the perpetrators, the strategy and logic behind their actions, rather than dismiss them as fundamentally evil and incomprehensible.
Stephen - mentally retarded people need beds, too, whether it's a hospitl or institutional bed or whatever. The outbreak of war did not break enough cover because the program for the metnally ill had to be stopped when it became known what was going on
Jews were a different victim group, for various reasons. One of them being the "hostages for world jewry" logic. Substitute Sinti and Roma or gypsy for "international Jewish financiers" or "Jewish warmongers", the "Jew-ridden Churchill, Roosevelt" etc.
The prophesy speech: "If international Gypsies unleash yet another world war, the result will not be the Bolshevistion of Europe, but the destruction of the Gypsies in Europe"
Sounds mentally retarded.
"rejecting the notion of “another planet” or “inexplicability” "
so do I. Ill have a look at Wistrich, thanks. I know Heinsohn' contributions to the explaining the European witch hunts, which caused scholarly controversy and objections to his monocausal approach. I'd agree and would expect controversy about his contribution to the Holocaust along similar lines.
I do think that looking at Nazi racial ideology as an explanation gets us no further than blaming religion/Catholocism for the witch craze
not just in the US. The Holocaust appears to b everybody's favorite fig leaf, to hide their own shame
link to commondreams.org
the first victims of the euthanasia program were, as genocide-researcher Gunnar Heinsohn points out in this interesting article, were Aryans, i.e. the mentally and physically disabled, and soldiers wounded severely during the attack on Poland. Were they killed for what they did or what they were? Or merely for the pragmatic reason that hospitals/ beds were needed during the war, resources were limited. The timing would suggest the latter. Why not kill the disabled much earlier if racial improvement was of great importance?
Would a Jewish communist or criminal be killed for what they did or what they were? It's not like a person is limited to being a Jew and nothing else. What do we make of the Jewish soldiers in the Wehrmacht, more than during WW 2? Was Hitler even a racist? Not uncontroversial either:
link to migs.concordia.ca
"How dare these hacks and lobbyists jeopardize our future in the best home Jews have ever had?"
Well, it was the best home Native Americans ever had before "hacks and lobbyists" settled the allegedly 'promised land' and erected the 'shining city upon the hill"
JFK 1961:
"we are setting out upon a voyage in 1961 no less hazardous than that undertaken by the Arbella in 1630. We are committing ourselves to tasks of statecraft no less fantastic than that of governing the Massachusetts Bay Colony, beset as it was then by terror without and disorder within."
Who were the terrorists attacking Puritan refugees from England?
us.history.com:
"The Puritans of Massachusetts Bay were Calvinists, but with their own points of emphasis. They held the traditional belief that all mankind merited eternal damnation, but a merciful God had graciously granted salvation to a few, the Elect. However, they believed that salvation came at a price — God’s chosen people were bound by a covenant (contract) to see to the enforcement of God’s laws in society.
Failure to do so would result in stern punishment, much as the Biblical Hebrews, an earlier chosen people, had been disciplined. Good behavior would not win salvation for the Massachusetts Puritans, but it would help them in their current lives to avoid wars, famines, and other forms of divine wrath. This concern about proper behavior resulted in an abiding interest in the activities of one's neighbors.
Wikipedia
"Although the colonists initially had decent relationships with the local native populations, frictions arose over cultural differences, which were further exacerbated by Dutch colonial expansion. These led first to the Pequot War (1636–1638), and then to King Philip's War (1675–1676), after which most of the natives in southern New England had been pacified, killed, or driven away."
Ward Churchill at Columbia:
"
During the discussion period, someone asked what the policy toward the American Indian tells us about American civilization, especially its foreign policy. Ward Churchill was very succinct. He stated that the best analogy is to think of the Axis as victors in WWII and Hitler, or his successors, ruling over a worldwide empire. Taking advantage of my prerogatives as chairman, I added that imagine what Jews would feel like if they were living in such a Europe under Axis rule, in which they were still in ghettoes. Furthermore, they were poverty-stricken, addicted to drugs or alcohol, and were committing suicide out of despair in numbers all out of proportion to the rest of the population. To add insult to injury, a number of the leading soccer teams were called the "Hebrews" or "Jewboys" and had mascots with big noses. That is what American represents to the indigenous peoples.
.... For the European descendants, it is possible to be seduced by notions that this country is democratic and civilized. In reality, it is a country that is based on conquest and genocide."
link to columbia.edu
Also of interest is the outlandish theory of the Native Americans as the Lost Tribes of Israel - another holocaust?
"In the 8th century BCE, the Assyrians dispersed the Kingdom of Israel, giving life and legend to the Lost Tribes. The repatriation of these lost tribes eventually became an integral part of the Jewish--and Christian--messianic dream, and there have been Lost Tribe speculations about numerous "discovered" populations. One the most fascinating--and unfortunately forgotten--such discussions centered on the Native Americans. How did American Jews respond to this? Why and how did Jews accredit or discredit it? What did these theories signify about American Jewish agendas and anxieties?
.... James Adair, a 40-year veteran Indian trader and meticulous chronicler of the Israelitish features of Native American religion and social custom wrote The History of the American Indians...Containing an Account of their Origin, Language, Manners, Religion and Civil Customs in 1775. Even Epaphras Jones, an American Bible professor engaged the theory in 1831, claiming that anyone "conversant with the European Jews and the Aborigines of America… will perceive a great likeness in color, features, hair, aptness to cunning, dispositions for roving, &s."
Some of these writers were interested in Native American history, but most of them were just interested in the Bible. Indeed, the Lost Tribe claim should be seen as part of a general 19th-century fascination with biblical history. Explorations of Holy Land flora and fauna, the geography of the Holy Land, the life of Jesus-the-man, were very much en vogue. A close identification among some 17th and 18th century Americans with the chosen people of Scripture helped Christian settlers see their colonization of New England as a reenactment of Israel's journey into the Promised Land.
It also contributed to a more general religious mythmaking scheme that helped define the national identity of the United States. To cite just one example, in a 1799 Thanksgiving Day sermon, Abiel Tabbot told his congregation in Massachusetts: "It has often been remarked that the people of the United States come nearer to a parallel with Ancient Israel, than any other nation upon the globe. Hence, 'OUR AMERICAN ISRAEL,' is a term frequently used; and common consent allows it apt and proper."
A curious incident that drew considerable attention and "proved," at least to some, that Native Americans had ancient Israelite origins unfolded when tefillin (phylacteries) were "discovered" in Pittsfield, Massachusetts in the early 19th century. Their discoverer wrote that this "forms another link in the evidence by which our Indians are identified with the ancient Jews, who were scattered upon the face of the globe, and to this day remain a living monument, to verify and establish the eternal truths of Scripture."
Around the time of the Pittsfield tefillin incident, Mordecai Manuel Noah, the journalist, playwright, politician, and Jewish American statesman, began spilling ink about the subject. Noah wrote a play She Would be a Soldier; or, The Plains of Chippewa (1819), that resolved the tension between the Yankees and the British by identifying the Indian Great Spirit with the God of the Bible. Noah's ideas about Jewish-Native affinities grew in a distinctly political manner when he invited Natives Americans to help settle "Ararat," the separatist Jewish colony he hoped to establish on Grand Island on the Niagara River around 1825.
Noah's writings on Jewish Natives came to their full expression with his Discourse on the Evidences of the American Indians Being the Descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel (1837). The work documented a host of theological, linguistic, ritual, dietary, and political parallels between Jews and Native Americans. Most importantly, he identified several essential character traits shared by the two peoples, all of which were, of course, highly laudable. For Noah, the conflation of Indians and Jews sanctioned the latter as divinely ordained Americans.
Another notable Jewish-Indian incident occurred in 1860, when stones hewn with Hebrew inscriptions were found near Newark, Ohio. The story unfolded over the course of many months and was followed closely by The Israelite, The Occident, and The Jewish Messenger, whose respective editors represented the intellectual vanguard of American Jewry. Isaac Mayer Wise, the leader of the Reform movement in America, employed philological proofs to undermine the stone's authenticity. He rejected any connections between Jews and Native Americans, though it's notable that he bothered to engage the story at all. Isaac Leeser, a traditionalist, sided in favor of the Lost Tribes theory. Reviewing the relics in question, The Occident, Leeser's newspaper, concluded, "The sons of Jacob were walking on the soil of Ohio many centuries before the birth of Columbus."
[...]
Many of the major figures in nineteenth-century American Jewry weighed in--in one manner or another--on the Jewish-Indian controversy. The practical stakes were never high, but the claim--so ubiquitous and so fluid (since it was used for so many different functions by so many different people)--was taken seriously and fretted over by Jewish leaders of very different orientations. The Lost Tribe theory had significant symbolic stakes--for Jews, Christians, and Native Americans. Linking America and its earliest inhabitants with the Bible and its theology, meant staking a claim on America--and championing God's plan for the New World.
link to myjewishlearning.com
If you think that's an absurd claim to title, the Supreme Court came up with this:
"In 1823, Chief Justice John Marshall handed down a Supreme Court decision of monumental importance in defining the rights of indigenous peoples throughout the English-speaking world. At the heart of the decision for Johnson v. M'Intosh was a "discovery doctrine" that gave rights of ownership to the European sovereigns who "discovered" the land and converted the indigenous owners into tenants. Though its meaning and intention has been fiercely disputed, more than 175 years later, this doctrine remains the law of the land. In 1991, while investigating the discovery doctrine's historical origins Lindsay Robertson made a startling find; in the basement of a Pennsylvania furniture-maker, he discovered a trunk with the complete corporate records of the Illinois and Wabash Land Companies, the plaintiffs in Johnson v. M'Intosh. Conquest by Law provides, for the first time, the complete and troubling account of the European "discovery" of the Americas. This is a gripping tale of political collusion, detailing how a spurious claim gave rise to a doctrine--intended to be of limited application--which itself gave rise to a massive displacement of persons and the creation of a law that governs indigenous people and their lands to this day."
link to oup.com
Special relationship, indeed. Israel is in good hands with her 'honest broker'. The Palestinians - not so much, and not even if they could prove some connection to the Lost Tribes
"there is a district air of the Protocols about the Lobby and when that gets some light shone on it ..."
The Protocols allege a secret meeting of the Elders of Zion seeking world control by nefarious means. There's no secret whatsoever about Israeli/Zionist/Jewish strategies to ensure the future of Israel and the Jewish people as maintaining a Jewish identity: it's an anti-assimilationist, pro-Israel agenda that strongly encourages ethnic allegiance and some sort of Judaism, cultural or religious.
The strategies are openly discussed here:
link to jppi.org.il
"Let’s start with Adolph Hitler. If he called you Jewish, then you’re Jewish. "
True, but if he called you an honorary Aryan, then you were an honorary Aryan, even if you were Jewish. Also the entire Japanese people.
I quite agree, mooser. I just read somewhere (forgot where) that, on average, each day 30 children and teenagers are killed by guns in the US . That's an entire classroom full of kids wiped out on a daily basis. If the IDF would do this in Palestine, or the Hamas in Israel -- what would be the reaction in the US and elsewhere? Or what if a proportional number of Palestinian kids were shot by Palestinians. You wouldn't hear the end of "there will be no peace until the Palestinians love their children more than they hate the Israelis/Jews etc"
With all the wars and drones flying about in the ME, people forget that the US is a most dangerous country for Americans. The best way to avoid being shot may well be to go abroad and shoot other people, usually "fanatics" who could pose a threat to Americans? From your link:
"Since... 1997, at least 427 000 people have died of gunshot wounds in the United States, including more than 165 000 who were victims of homicide.1 To put these numbers in context, during the same time period, 4586 Americans lost their lives in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan."
And that's just guns. Compare to statistics cited here
link to tmh.floonet.net
"The piecemeal, unspectacular death of hundreds of thousands of Americans in accidents of all kinds during the war years of 1941-1945 produced hardly any notice. .... According to a New York Times calculation two months after the end of the war, American loss of life in military operations during the entire war totaled 262,000 while accidents in the United States took the lives of 355,000; the logic of this suggested that the American civilian scene, even without bombing, was somewhat more dangerous than the armed services, averaging in all combat losses."
"They don’t even keep lists."
You Jews are lucky. No Gentile could pull that off. If I waver for a second from my secularism I'm on the Pope's list, or the Jehova's Witnesses hunt me down, not to mention dozens of other denominations. They only back off if I tell them I'm Jewish. Works like a charm
"Most American Jews who go on a Birthright tour will likely be either secular or reformed. They will assume that most of the religious Israeli Jews are more or less just like them"
So what? Most American Christians who visit the Holy Land as tourists, pilgrims or Christian Zionists will wonder what they have in common with the various stripes of Christians or Jews who actually live there.
decline as in "little Eichmanns"?
see also:
Outdated National Identity
America is mourning, weeping, and praying. People are speaking of fate, tragedy, and the devil. But this was no uncontrollable natural disaster that befell the US, as has so often happened in its past. It is once again the unavoidable result of a national culture that isn't just embraced by the easily dismissed fringe. It is also embraced by nice, harmless people like Mrs. Lanza, who had a military-grade assault rifle in her closet.
Once again, the United States is debating its gun laws, even if the discussion is likely to be short and inconclusive. But the real thing that must change (though it hardly will), is the misunderstanding that America's formative myth of "freedom" allows for weapons to be as widespread as smart phones.
"I came to realize that, in essence, this is the way we in America want things to be," writes Gregory Gibson, whose son Galen was killed in a 1992 shooting rampage, in a sad essay for The New York Times.
Why? Because guns have long been a part of America's national identity. This may have been appropriate in times when colonial powers, the frontier and the myth of the evil central state still threatened the people. Since then, however, it has become fatally counterproductive, regardless of the Second Amendment's guarantee of "the right to keep and bear arms."
Today the gun seems like a relic from an era that will soon have slipped away. But the faster it disintegrates, the more desperately people reach for the relic. That's likely what then Presidential candidate Barack Obama meant in 2008 when he described the existential fears of mainly white working class voters, who he said "cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them, or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."
An Empty Catchphrase
It was an unfortunate, misunderstood formulation, though one that is still quite apt. America remains mired in a deep upheaval that has unsettled many. The "American Dream" of the country's former days is now just an empty catchphrase abused most prominently during election campaigns. The uneasiness felt by many was exposed by the recession that destroyed the illusion that prosperity was available to all. And it was revealed by Obama's re-election, the result of a new America in which the majority will soon be in the minority.
Self-assertion through armed force: This is the increasingly attractive fantasy adhered to by both sides -- both among perpetrators and among those who see themselves as potential victims. After every shooting rampage, a chorus of voices reliably invoke the argument that the crime may have been prevented had only everyone been allowed to carry a weapon.
No, not stricter, but more lenient laws would have prevented the Newtown massacre, Republicans say. It can mean the "difference between life and death for innocent bystanders," said the spokesperson for Michigan House of Representative speaker Jase Bolger regarding a law just passed in the state that would make carrying concealed weapons in schools easier....
link to spiegel.de
"If they had been born in Gaza or the West Bank, shaped by terrorist organizations’ hateful propaganda, would they have strapped bombs around their waists and blown themselves up? I’m afraid the answer is yes."
Sigh.
What if they had (as they were) been born in the US "shaped by terrorist organizations hateful propaganda"? I hear Obama's approval ratings have shot (pun intended) up and beyond his high approval ratings after the OBL assassination, also known as Operation Geronimo. Go figure.
Somehow it only matters if the worship of violence hits home and kills American children.
Nice theory about German Gründlichkeit, libra. The real story has more to do with location than national character or scientific aspirations. The name Giessen is first mentioned in connection with the Comtessa von Giezzen, in the 12th century , and her name contains a geographical reference to lakes and small streams that 'pour' into the major river in town. The university was founded long before the 18th c, and long after Giessen got its name (in the early 1600s)
The "Holocaust-inversion of the Left" surely is no more culpable when it comes to selectively or exclusively insisting on 'human rights' and 'international law' than the 'uniqueness of the Holocaust' and Holocaust-denial mental acrobatics which posit a collectively innocent victim group (Jews, and ONLY Jews) against a collectively guilty group of Gentiles: Germans first, but also including Europeans and practically everyone who did not risk his or her life during WW II to save one or more Jews, thus gaining Righteous Gentile status at Yad Vashem. That , too, is "very revealing". It suggests that underlying the whole 'Never Again!' campaign is a thinly veiled attempt to disproportionally lay a Jewish claim to human rights and international law. Do you see any special mention of Jews here?
_________
Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,
Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people,
Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law,
Whereas it is essential to promote the development of friendly relations between nations,
Whereas the peoples of the United Nations have in the Charter reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and women and have determined to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,
Whereas Member States have pledged themselves to achieve, in co-operation with the United Nations, the promotion of universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms,
Whereas a common understanding of these rights and freedoms is of the greatest importance for the full realization of this pledge,
Now, Therefore THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY proclaims THIS UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction.
________
Violations provoke outrage and, granted, there are plenty of them around the globe. It could make you a misanthrope. Surely it would be absurd to expect a misanthrope to be worried about anti-semitism?
"Some nasty people suddenly decided on a whim that they didn’t like the US?"
yeah, right, that's what I obviously think. I'm well known on MW s a staunch defender of US policy in the ME and elsewhere. Greatest country in the world, always fighting for freedom and democracy. Feel free to check my previous posts
"You may not yet have worked this out, but popularity is usually a response to one’s behavior."
I get it, now you work it out.
"Why do the Israelis keep empowering them? Why do they succumb to the racist notion that one Arab Muslim speaks for every Arab Muslim? Are they stupid? Or just racist?"
I would say "the Israelis" are no more speaking in one voice than the "Arab Muslims". So let's say the haters, maximalists, rejectionists on either side empower each other, drowning out and marginalizing the moderates and the peace camp. This is not a minor point but the root problem, and it has been fueling the conflict from the very beginning.
There is a stark imbalance of power, of course, between Israelis and Palestinians. But Israel does not look that strong in the larger context of the ME. This too is an old problem. Add to this the fact that Israel's closest and most powerful ally, the US, is not exactly popular in the ME. The 'Bomb Iran'-campaign is just as stupid and inflammatory as the 'Zionist entity'/ 'Great Satan'-campaign
"Does that fact mean that the Thirteen Colonies had no right to secede from the British Empire, and that it was the British government that was in the right in that war?"
Whether they had the right or not -- if the 13 Colonies had not seceded but had followed the British model of abolishing slavery they would not have had to fight the Revolutionary War and Civil War. Unless neither war was about enslaving or not enslaving Africans
"That comparison is historically inaccurate, misleading, and offensive. Where to begin? First, white slave-owners were a privileged elite group who owned human beings as property solely out of desire for economic gain and racism towards the minority"
When did slavery in the colonies begin? Not all slave-owners were white, not all black slaves were owned for live in the early colonial period either.
link to en.wikipedia.org
Nor was (or is) privilege or the desire for economic gain restricted to white people. Nor feelings of racial superiority:
______
The question of how Massaquoi came to be raised in Nazi Germany is one he has been asked "millions of times." Grandson of the Liberian consul general to Hamburg, Mr. Massaquoi was born in 1926 to a well-to-do African father and a German mother. His early life was one of privilege, befitting the grandson of a diplomat.
"I associated black skin with superiority, since our servants were white," said Mr. Massaquoi. "My grandfather was 'the man,'" he joked.
His circumstances changed dramatically when his father and grandfather returned to Liberia in 1929. Refusing to expose her sickly son to a tropical climate, Mr. Massaquoi's mother chose instead to raise her son in Germany as best she could on her meager wages as a nurse's aide."
link to loc.gov
As for tropical climates: There may well be a genetic component (malarial resistance) to the development and persistence of African slavery in the American South
link to malaria.com
So maybe white slave owners did feel "in danger of disappearing" (dying of malaria) vis a vis the more robust Africans?
"i think we’ve had decades of playing ‘broker’ and should stand out of the way"
More like "a century" and longer. I think you should have stayed out of WW I and WW II would never have happened
"I [Spielberg] have been an ardent defender of Israel. [Defender of land theft, occupation, oppression and ETHNIC CLEANSING.]"
I'm looking forward to Spielberg's next movie: "FDR" -- defender of land theft, occupation, oppression and massive ethnic cleansing in Europe -- and his dramatization of the Yalta and Potsdam conferences. And I'm sure he'll find a place for this FDR quote
I have read with interest and a good deal of dismay the decisions of the British Government regarding its Palestine policy.... Fra nkly I do not believe that the British are wholly correct in saying that the framers of the Palestine Mandate "could not have intended that Palestine should be converted into a Jewish state against the will of the Arab population of the country."... [W]hile the Palestine Mandate undoubtedly did not intend to take away the right of citizenship and of taking part in the Government on the part of the Arab population, it nevertheless did intend to convert Palestine into a Jewish Home.... Certainly that was the impression that was given to the whole world at the time of the Mandate."
Read more at link to quotes.dictionary.com
"I’m talking about before the war"
When did 'the war' start in Palestine? Who or what started it?
Never mind.
I quoted Mencken on self-determination, not democracy
There a few unabashed fans of democracy. Here are some examples for you:
link to en.wikiquote.org As Churchill put it:
'The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter"
Which is the best argument against your illogical defense of democracy next to defending the right of Israel to defend itself and a way of life that not only includes apartheid but also denies self-determination to the very same people they oppress, imprison, blockade, segregate and kill with impunity. How is that better than slavery?
As we know, the ancient Hebrews (or Egyptians) had no objection to slavery as long as they were not the ones being enslaved. It's always the same problem: Do not do to others... It's really simple. why don't you get it???
"Wondering Jew – you know nothing about Lincoln."
Well, neither do you, apparently. Yonah is perfectly correct calling Lincoln a racist who contemplated sending Blacks back to Africa (or resettling them in reservations, apartheid-style). Your ignorance or denial of Lincoln's "White Dream" may suit your need of sentimental wet-dreaming about this and other 'great presidents' but is a far cry from historical fact
___
"Who freed the slaves? To the extent that they were ever ‘freed,’ they were freed by the Thirteenth Amendment, which was authored and pressured into existence not by Lincoln but by the great emancipators nobody knows, the abolitionists and congressional leaders who created the climate and generated the pressure that goaded, prodded, drove, forced Lincoln into glory by associating him with a policy that he adamantly opposed for at least fifty-four of his fifty-six years of his life."
Lerone Bennett, Jr., Forced into Glory: Abraham Lincoln’ s White Dream, p. 19
[...]
Bennett documents that Lincoln stated publicly that "America was made for the White people and not for the Negroes" (p. 211), and "at least twenty-one times, he said publicly that he was opposed to equal rights for Blacks." "What I would most desire would be the separation of the white and black races," said Lincoln (Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, vol. 2, p. 521).
Reading through Forced into Glory, one gets the clear impression that Bennett got angrier and angrier at the non-stop excuse-making, lying, cover-ups, and fabrications of the "Lincoln scholars." He never takes his eye of the ball, however, and is relentless in throwing facts in the faces of the Lincoln cultists.
As a member of the Illinois legislature Lincoln urged the legislature "to appropriate money for colonization in order to remove Negroes from the state and prevent miscegenation" (p. 228). As president, Lincoln toiled endlessly with plans to "colonize" (i.e., deport) all of the black people out of America. This is what Bennett calls Lincoln’s "White Dream," and more recent research of the very best caliber supports him. I refer to the book Colonization after Emancipation by Phillip Magness of American University and Sebastian Page of Oxford University that, using records from the American and British national archives, proves that until his dying day Lincoln was negotiating with Great Britain and other foreign governments to deport all of the soon-to-be-freed slaves out of the U.S.
The Lincoln cult, which has fabricated excuses for everything, argued for years that Lincoln mysteriously abandoned his obsession with "colonization" sometime around 1863. Magness and Page prove this to be the nonsense that it is.
In Illinois, the state constitution was amended in 1848 to prohibit free black people from residing in the state. Lincoln supported it. He also supported the Illinois Black Codes, under which "Illinois Blacks had no legal rights. White people were bound to respect." "None of this disturbed Lincoln," writes Bennett.
Bennett also points out the clear historical fact that Lincoln strongly supported the Fugitive Slave Act which forced Northerners to hunt down runaway slaves and return them to their owners. He admittedly never said a word about slavery in public until he was in his fifties, while everyone else in the nation was screaming about the issue. When he did oppose slavery, Bennett points out, it was always in the abstract, accompanied by some statement to the effect that he didn’t know what could be done about it. And as a presidential candidate he never opposed Southern slavery, only the extension of slavery into the territories, explaining that "we" wanted to preserve the Territories "for free White people" (Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, vol. 3, p. 311). In Bennett’s own words: "One must never forget that Lincoln always spoke in tongues or in a private code when he was talking about slavery or Negroes. And although he said or seemed to say that slavery was wrong, he always qualified the assertion in the same speech or in a succeeding speech, saying either that slavery was wrong in an abstract sense or that it was wrong in so far as it sought to spread itself." He was a master politician, after all, which as Murray Rothbard once said, means that he was a masterful liar, conniver, and manipulator.
All of these truths, and many more, have been ignored, swept under the rug, or buried under thousands of pages of excuses by the Lincoln cult over the past century and more in books and in films like the new Lincoln film by Steven Spielberg. After spending a quarter of a century researching and writing on the subject, Lerone Bennett, Jr. concluded that "Lincoln is theology, not historiology. He is a faith, he is a church, he is a religion, and he has his own priests and acolytes, most of whom have a vested interest in ‘the great emancipator’ and who are passionately opposed to anybody telling the truth about him" (p. 114). And "with rare exceptions, you can’t believe what any major Lincoln scholar tells you about Abraham Lincoln and race." Amen, Brother Lerone.
November 10, 2012
Thomas J. DiLorenzo is professor of economics at Loyola College in Maryland and the author of The Real Lincoln; Lincoln Unmasked: What You’re Not Supposed To Know about Dishonest Abe, How Capitalism Saved America, and Hamilton’s Curse: How Jefferson’s Archenemy Betrayed the American Revolution – And What It Means for America Today. His latest book is Organized Crime: The Unvarnished Truth About Government.
link to lewrockwell.com
Harry Jaffa, the dean of what DiLorenzo calls the "Lincoln cultists," has more than once compared the Southern cause to that of Nazi Germany. DiLorenzo embarrasses Jaffa in this book by pointing out passages in Hitler's Mein Kampf in which the German leader expressed both his support for Lincoln's war and his unwavering opposition to the cause of states' rights and political decentralization (which, as a dictator seeking absolute power, he naturally sought to overturn in Germany). Hitler even adopted Lincoln's fanciful retelling of American history in which the states were creatures of the Union rather than vice versa.
In Germany, Hitler promised that the Nazis "would totally eliminate states' rights altogether: Since for us the state as such is only a form, but the essential is its content, the nation, the people, it is clear that everything else must be subordinated to its sovereign interests. In particular we cannot grant to any individual state within the nation and the state representing it state sovereignty and sovereignty in point of political power." Thus the "mischief of individual federated states…must cease and will some day cease…. National Socialism as a matter of principle must lay claim to the right to force its principles on the whole German nation without consideration of previous federated state boundaries." Which side was the Nazi one again, Professor Jaffa?
link to lewrockwell.com
Compare:
"What are the similarities between Adolf Hitler and Abraham Lincoln?"
Answer:
"They both ran a country through a war, and were both hated by most members of the apposing side. Of course, Lincoln was a great man who fought to end slavery, while Hitler tried to commit genocide."
link to wiki.answers.com
So the bad guys (racists) in 19th c American history were the Southerners who were forcefully brought to their senses by the great Lincoln who never ever supported genocide, and certainly not in the context of Lebensraum expansion all the way to California? Let's remember that Hitler's Lebensraum-plan in the East was modeled on the American conquest of the West
BOOK REVIEW
Murder State: California's Native American Genocide, 1846-1873
BY STEVEN NEWCOMB/AUGUST 10, 2012
Lindsay uses the UN Genocide Convention, Rafael Lemkin (who coined the term “genocide”), and genocide studies as key aspects of his framework of analysis. He has provided a meticulously detailed and comprehensive account of the murderous treatment of the original peoples of California by Euro-Americans who poured onto Indian lands during the gold rush days. White citizen groups utilized democratic processes as a means of committing genocide against the original nations and peoples of California.
It was methodical, it was well-planned and it was well-executed—with lethal and ghastly results.
For the sake of dead cattle, sometimes killed by starving Indians, and often for the sake of dead cattle not killed by Indians at all, thousands of Indians were wantonly murdered. Vigilante groups were democratically formed, financed by local citizens, to hunt Indians down and kill them as if they were animals destined to be slaughtered. The lives of cattle were deemed much more valuable than the lives of Indians, who were considered to be a nuisance that needed to be removed permanently, “by death or deportation,” so the whites could help themselves to valuable Indian lands and resources.
It was all done in the spirit of Manifest Destiny, yet, ironically at times a few U.S. Army officers tried to defend Indian people, to no avail.
During that time, the kidnapping and rape of Indian women was treated as a sport or a readily available form of entertainment for white men who could not be punished for such egregious conduct under white laws. The kidnapping of surviving Indian children by whites was rampant. Forced Indian labor became a way of life to fuel the white economy.
In the chapter “Advertising Genocide,” Lindsay recounts the description of the Indian Island Massacre, as published in Northern Californian Union in 1860, by a twenty-four year old newspaper guest editor named Francis Bret Harte. Lindsay states that “Since the women and children were unarmed, the volunteers mostly saved their ammunition, instead hacking them to death with axes and knives.” Harte, the guest editor, explained what happened to Wiyot people under a doctrine of extermination:
Little children and old women were mercilessly stabbed and their skulls crushed with axes.... Old women wrinkled and decrepit lay weltering in their blood, their brains dashed out and dabbed with their long grey hair. Infants scarce a span long, with their faces cloven with hatchets and their bodies ghastly with wounds.... No resistance was made, it is said to the butchers who did the work, but as they ran or huddled together for protection like sheep, they were struck down with hatchets. Very little shooting was done, most of the bodies having wounds about the head.
Lindsay goes on to explain that because he “tried to demonstrate the monstrosity of Euro-American actions, Harte seemed to local people to be a traitor to his own race.” A grand jury convened to look into the matter ended its proceedings without concluding anything. “No evidence existed, the jurors claimed, to bring charges.” Lindsay explains that one editor of the Humboldt Times claimed that people who “lamented the massacre” and “‘shed crocodile tears over the poor Indians’” were “fools.”
In his preface, Lindsay explains that during his seven years of graduate work, and as a university lecturer, “I encountered many students colleagues, and faculty unwilling to accept the argument that genocide had been committed upon Native Americans in California and the United States during the nineteenth century.” Such people had the impression, he explains, “that the tremendous loss of lives was instead an unintended consequence or even a necessary evil of the advance of Western civilization or national progress.”
That the history of the treatment of Indian nations and peoples is a history of domination, dehumanization, and genocide is the inevitable conclusion to draw after reading Murder State. As Peter H. Burnett, governor of California put it in an 1852 “Address to the Legislature”:
That a war of extermination will continue to be waged between the two races until the Indian race becomes extinct, must be expected; while we cannot anticipate this result with but painful regret, the inevitable destiny of the race is beyond the power and wisdom of man to avert.
When the carnage was over, white Euro-Americans had successfully reduced the Indian population of California by some 90 percent.
Some scholars have brilliantly referred to history as “a history of the present.” The genocide unleashed on the Indians of California in the nineteenth century is a key aspect of that history of the present. One of the lessons we can bring away after reading Mr. Lindsay’s book is that genocide is the wider historical context of contemporary issues in California and elsewhere, issues such as Indian nation sovereignty, land into trust, water, and the taxation of Indian nations by two institutional perpetrators and beneficiaries of that genocide, the state of California, and the federal government of the United States.
link to indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com
Once in a while a book comes along that is transformative. Murder State, by Brendan Lindsay, is such a book. Recently released by University of Nebraska Press, Murder State is heart- wrenching and deeply informative. I see it as one of the most important works ever published on the history of American Indians in California in the mid-nineteenth century. It ranks up there with David Stannard’s 1992 masterpiece American Holocaust, in the context of overall Indian history.
Lindsay uses the UN Genocide Convention, Rafael Lemkin (who coined the term “genocide”), and genocide studies as key aspects of his framework of analysis. He has provided a meticulously detailed and comprehensive account of the murderous treatment of the original peoples of California by Euro-Americans who poured onto Indian lands during the gold rush days. White citizen groups utilized democratic processes as a means of committing genocide against the original nations and peoples of California.
It was methodical, it was well-planned and it was well-executed—with lethal and ghastly results.
For the sake of dead cattle, sometimes killed by starving Indians, and often for the sake of dead cattle not killed by Indians at all, thousands of Indians were wantonly murdered. Vigilante groups were democratically formed, financed by local citizens, to hunt Indians down and kill them as if they were animals destined to be slaughtered. The lives of cattle were deemed much more valuable than the lives of Indians, who were considered to be a nuisance that needed to be removed permanently, “by death or deportation,” so the whites could help themselves to valuable Indian lands and resources.
It was all done in the spirit of Manifest Destiny, yet, ironically at times a few U.S. Army officers tried to defend Indian people, to no avail.
During that time, the kidnapping and rape of Indian women was treated as a sport or a readily available form of entertainment for white men who could not be punished for such egregious conduct under white laws. The kidnapping of surviving Indian children by whites was rampant. Forced Indian labor became a way of life to fuel the white economy.
In the chapter “Advertising Genocide,” Lindsay recounts the description of the Indian Island Massacre, as published in Northern Californian Union in 1860, by a twenty-four year old newspaper guest editor named Francis Bret Harte. Lindsay states that “Since the women and children were unarmed, the volunteers mostly saved their ammunition, instead hacking them to death with axes and knives.” Harte, the guest editor, explained what happened to Wiyot people under a doctrine of extermination:
Little children and old women were mercilessly stabbed and their skulls crushed with axes.... Old women wrinkled and decrepit lay weltering in their blood, their brains dashed out and dabbed with their long grey hair. Infants scarce a span long, with their faces cloven with hatchets and their bodies ghastly with wounds.... No resistance was made, it is said to the butchers who did the work, but as they ran or huddled together for protection like sheep, they were struck down with hatchets. Very little shooting was done, most of the bodies having wounds about the head.
Lindsay goes on to explain that because he “tried to demonstrate the monstrosity of Euro-American actions, Harte seemed to local people to be a traitor to his own race.” A grand jury convened to look into the matter ended its proceedings without concluding anything. “No evidence existed, the jurors claimed, to bring charges.” Lindsay explains that one editor of the Humboldt Times claimed that people who “lamented the massacre” and “‘shed crocodile tears over the poor Indians’” were “fools.”
In his preface, Lindsay explains that during his seven years of graduate work, and as a university lecturer, “I encountered many students colleagues, and faculty unwilling to accept the argument that genocide had been committed upon Native Americans in California and the United States during the nineteenth century.” Such people had the impression, he explains, “that the tremendous loss of lives was instead an unintended consequence or even a necessary evil of the advance of Western civilization or national progress.”
That the history of the treatment of Indian nations and peoples is a history of domination, dehumanization, and genocide is the inevitable conclusion to draw after reading Murder State. As Peter H. Burnett, governor of California put it in an 1852 “Address to the Legislature”:
That a war of extermination will continue to be waged between the two races until the Indian race becomes extinct, must be expected; while we cannot anticipate this result with but painful regret, the inevitable destiny of the race is beyond the power and wisdom of man to avert.
When the carnage was over, white Euro-Americans had successfully reduced the Indian population of California by some 90 percent.
Some scholars have brilliantly referred to history as “a history of the present.” The genocide unleashed on the Indians of California in the nineteenth century is a key aspect of that history of the present. One of the lessons we can bring away after reading Mr. Lindsay’s book is that genocide is the wider historical context of contemporary issues in California and elsewhere, issues such as Indian nation sovereignty, land into trust, water, and the taxation of Indian nations by two institutional perpetrators and beneficiaries of that genocide, the state of California, and the federal government of the United States.
Steven Newcomb (Shawnee,Lenape) is the co-founder and co-director of the Indigenous Law Institute, author of Pagans in the Promised Land: Decoding the Doctrine of Christian Discovery, and the Indigenous and Kumeyaay Research Coordinator for the Sycuan Band of the Kumeyaay Nation.
_______
I'm looking forward to Native Americans joining the Herero and Armenians in filing lawsuits and demanding billions in reparations. Maybe it can all somehow be blamed on German or Turkish Americans? Or Zionists?
"You would like to force a solution on the region that is against the consent of governed. You’re no Lincoln."
sure he is. Because that's precisely what Lincoln did.
"not beholden to the lobby"
and then he or she will free Palestine? How?
Note on the Gettysburg Address
by H.L. Mencken
The Gettysburg speech was at once the shortest and the most famous oration in American history...the highest emotion reduced to a few poetical phrases. Lincoln himself never even remotely approached it. It is genuinely stupendous. But let us not forget that it is poetry, not logic; beauty, not sense. Think of the argument in it. Put it into the cold words of everyday. The doctrine is simply this: that the Union soldiers who died at Gettysburg sacrificed their lives to the cause of self-determination – that government of the people, by the people, for the people, should not perish from the earth. It is difficult to imagine anything more untrue. The Union soldiers in the battle actually fought against self-determination; it was the Confederates who fought for the right of their people to govern themselves.
"There was no rash of Northerners killing Southern children and glorifying the violence by dancing in the street."
You're kidding, right? The Civil War was the deadliest war in American history, killing close to a million soldiers (10% Northerners and 30% white Southerners) and God knows how many civilians. You really should see "Gone with the Wind" , or read this:
link to nytimes.com
As for celebrations: How about Thanksgiving?
"Since you are comparing us to the old American south and we all know how that story ended"
As far as I can tell only the Americans needed a bloody and destructive civil war to abolish slavery. Nobody else did. The British just abolished it by legal reform.
So obviously there were other issues in play here. Secession and independence. Lincoln made it quite clear that his primary objective was to save the Union, at any cost, not to abolish or not abolish slavery. Just happened to be one of the most divisive economic issues, dressed up as a humanitarian crusade in the name of Christian values. It was not intended to extend equal rights to Black Americans, and certainly did not achieve any such thing until more than a century later. Were Blacks better off after the Civil War?
Slavery as it existed in the South is not the only kind of slavery.
Wiki:
"Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation. Historically, slavery was institutionally recognized by many societies; in more recent times slavery has been outlawed in most societies but continues through the practices of debt bondage, indentured servitude, serfdom, domestic servants kept in captivity, certain adoptions in which children are forced to work as slaves, child soldiers, and forced marriage. There are more slaves in the early 21st century than at any previous time but opponents hope slavery can be eradicated within 30 years."
Perhaps a bit optimistic.
At any rate, Lincoln was as much of a racist as the Southern slave owners, and not just wrt to Blacks. To cite Lincoln as a model for dealing with the I/P conflict is outright bizarre. I'm sure the Israelis, in view of the 'special relationship', are well versed in Mount Rushmore philosophy re indigenous people:
________
The founding fathers on that rock shared common characteristics. All four valued white supremacy and promoted the extirpation of Indian society. The United States' founding fathers were staunchly anti-Indian advocates in that at one time or another, all four provided for genocide against Indian peoples of this hemisphere.
George Washington...
In 1779, George Washington instructed Major General John Sullivan to attack Iroquois people. Washington stated, "lay waste all the settlements around...that the country may not be merely overrun, but destroyed". In the course of the carnage and annihilation of Indian people, Washington also instructed his general not "listen to any overture of peace before the total ruin of their settlements is effected". (Stannard, David E. AMERICAN HOLOCAUST. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. pp. 118-121.)
In 1783, Washington's anti-Indian sentiments were apparent in his comparisons of Indians with wolves: "Both being beast of prey, tho' they differ in shape", he said. George Washington's policies of extermination were realized in his troops behaviors following a defeat. Troops would skin the bodies of Iroquois "from the hips downward to make boot tops or leggings". Indians who survived the attacks later re-named the nation's first president as "Town Destroyer". Approximately 28 of 30 Seneca towns had been destroyed within a five year period. (Ibid)
Thomas Jefferson...
In 1807, Thomas Jefferson instructed his War Department that, should any Indians resist against America stealing Indian lands, the Indian resistance must be met with "the hatchet". Jefferson continued, "And...if ever we are constrained to lift the hatchet against any tribe, " he wrote, "we will never lay it down till that tribe is exterminated, or is driven beyond the Mississippi." Jefferson, the slave owner, continued, "in war, they will kill some of us; we shall destroy all of them". (Ibid)
In 1812, Jefferson said that American was obliged to push the backward Indians "with the beasts of the forests into the Stony Mountains". One year later Jefferson continued anti-Indian statements by adding that America must "pursue [the Indians] to extermination, or drive them to new seats beyond our reach". (Ibid)
Abraham Lincoln...
In 1862, President Abraham Lincoln ordered the execution, by hanging, of 38 Dakota Sioux prisoners in Mankato, Minnesota. Most of those executed were holy men or political leaders of their camps. None of them were responsible for committing the crimes they were accused of. Coined as the Largest Mass Execution in U.S. History. (Brown, Dee. BURY MY HEART AT WOUNDED KNEE. New York: Holt, Rinehart, Winston, 1970. pp. 59-61)
Theodore Roosevelt...
The fourth face you see on that "Stony Mountain" is America's first twentieth century president, alleged American hero, and Nobel peace prize recipient, Theodore Roosevelt. This Indian fighter firmly grasped the notion of Manifest Destiny saying that America's extermination of the Indians and thefts our their lands "was ultimately beneficial as it was inevitable". Roosevelt once said, "I don't go so far as to think that the only good Indians are dead Indians, but I believe nine out of ten are, and I shouldn't like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth". (Stannard, Op.Cit.)
link to greatdreams.com
"Before there were Kohl, Stoiber, Koch, Wulff, Sarkozy, Berlusconi, and many more – they are all done, and they all laughed at her when she made that expression."
she does seem to suffer much more than usual from having to deal with Netanyahu. Maybe Westerwelle had just slipped her a note saying that Berlusconi, also known as the 'Mummy', is back?
"As an atheist, I view Maher (and Hitchens) the way most Christians view Fred Phelps and most Muslims Anjem Choudary–as an embarassment."
Ha - completely agree.
But I would add that Maher simply plays on the somewhat valid point that Judaism, unlike Islam and Christianity, has erected significant barriers to proselytism - one of several factors (next to voluntary and forced assimilation/conversion, pogroms, ethnic cleansing and genocide) that has kept numbers small. How many Palestinians would voluntarily convert to Judaism if this would solve the 'demographic problem' and ROR issue?
Zionists conquering the Middle East converting Muslims into Jews and proceeding to the gates of France?
No matter how many nukes Israel has, and notwithstanding the relative powerlessness of the Palestinians, the larger picture always puts them into the role of David rather than Goliath
link to en.wikipedia.org
"what does the fact that such a blatant moron can be a major star in America say about that country?"
It says what I've been saying on numerous occasions to counter the neurotic and hyper-emotional Israel-haters and projectionists on MW: he is a typical and perfectly honest American adoring Israel as the mirror image of the American way of fighting wars, which is: the stronger country (US) kicking the ass of a weaker country/adversary.
"It proves once and for all that Maher is just like THE most fascist hawks in Israel. "
Like there are no fascist hawks in US history who were/are neither Jewish nor Republican?
Restraint, from the US perspective, is not dropping nukes.
Where they did, they eventually even apologized, sort of, to Japan.
Dropping the bomb on Japan was neither necessary nor in any way proportional.
Both Japan and Germany (in WW I or II) were much weaker countries that were already fighting for survival and had in fact already collapsed when the US bombed their cities into rubble, and the devastation in Tokio achieved by conventional weapons was as substantial as the one in Hiroshima. I see no other reason for dropping the bomb on Japan than to facilitate a test case for the purpose of studying short- term and long-term effects, and to provide a deterrent emphasizing the message that all resistance to vital US interests and hegemony was futile and suicidal not just for the aggressor but possibly the entire globe
"Uri Avnery, for example, and many U.S. Jews?"
Uri Avnery is the perfect example of the point Keith made ("Liberal interventionists and neoconservatives are essentially two sides of the same coin. They appeal to different constituencies, hence, rely upon different pretexts for the same imperial aggression.")
link to zope.gush-shalom.org
Interventions Past: Getting the Record Straight
April 5, 2011 by Tom Gallagher
The jumbled accounting of the 1999 events in Kosovo that respected Israeli journalist and peace activist Uri Avnery musters in support of the current Libya bombing campaign illustrates just how far the fog of war may extend. In reviewing the recent history of what he considers humanitarian interventions, including NATO’s in Kosovo, Avnery writes:
Slobodan Milosevic was committing an act of genocide – driving out a whole people, committing barbarities along the way.
Leaving aside the question of the appropriateness of the word “genocide,” Avnery describes things accurately enough. In his book, Kosovo: War and Revenge, journalist Tim Judah wrote:
In the end almost 850,000 were either deported or fled Kosovo and hundreds of thousands were displaced inside.
The problem is that Judah here describes events that actually happened after the start of the NATO bombing campaign that Avnery thinks was aimed at stopping them.
link to demockracy.com
What does the extreme Left say?
link to bolshevik.org
some videos for you that feature Madame Blavatsky
link to youtube.com
link to youtube.com
enjoy
MHughes -
the conventional term is 'perfidious Albion', I think. 'Forked tongue' is a Native American trl of the same idea ;)
Stephen -
If Israel "collapses from within" and can no longer rely on US - EU - Nato support (diplomatic, economic, military) we're talking 1SS and an Arab majority. That means the entire military arsenal of Israel, including nukes, will be controlled - by whom? Against whom?
By or against Iran? Or: by or against "The Great Satan" and his disciples in Europe and elsewhere?
Everyone who believes the US needs to be coaxed by some powerful anti-Arab Israel Lobby to maintain an interest in protecting the "Zionist entity" is in serious need of a reality check.
"The Norwegian Nobel committee has seen better days…"
from nobelprize.org:
Examples of nominated individuals who did not receive the Nobel Peace Prize (1901-1950)
The three most common searches on individuals in the Nobel Peace Prize nomination database, are Adolf Hitler, Mahatma Gandhi and Joseph Stalin.
Joseph Stalin, the Secretary General of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1922-1953), was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1945 and 1948 for his efforts to end World War II.
Mahatma Gandhi, one of the strongest symbols of non-violence in the 20th century, was nominated in 1937, 1938, 1939, 1947 and, finally, shortly before he was assassinated in January 1948. Although Gandhi was not awarded the Prize (a posthumous award is not allowed by the statutes), the Norwegian Nobel Committee decided to make no award that year on the grounds that "there was no suitable living candidate".
Adolf Hitler was nominated once in 1939. Incredulous though it may seem today, the Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1939, by a member of the Swedish parliament, an E.G.C. Brandt. Apparently though, Brandt never intended the nomination to be taken seriously. Brandt was to all intents and purposes a dedicated antifascist, and had intended this nomination more as a satiric criticism of the current political debate in Sweden. ( At the time, a number of Swedish parliamentarians had nominated then British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlin for the Nobel Peace Prize, a nomination which Brandt viewed with great skepticism. ) However, Brandt's satirical intentions were not well received at all and the nomination was swiftly withdrawn in a letter dated 1 February 1939.
________
I don't see why Stalin's nomination should be less "incredible" than Hitler's? After all, they both invaded Poland in Sept. 39, and Stalin also attacked Finland in the Winter War 39/40. Churchill was nominated as well, but never got the Nobel Peace either (he got the Nobel Prize for Literature). Giving the award to Gandhi would have offended the Brits. Churchill deplored both Gandhi and Hitler as his chief adversaries
I wasn't defending Obama when I cited his concerns about the Russian justice system, which no doubt doesn's cause him any sleepless nights either
Obama voiced "disappointment", and the White House had "serious concerns about the way that these young women have been treated by the Russian judicial system."
Maybe you can get the Christian Right up in arms over male nudity in a US army setting?
Update on Nuremberg principles: Following orders is no excuse for complicity in crimes or their cover-up and may lead to proper disciplinary action. Not following orders will get you locked into a cage, subjected to day and night torture
Obama expressed "disappointment", and the White House announced "serious concerns about the way that these young women have been treated by the Russian judicial system."
Maybe you can get the Christian Right all up in arms over male nudity in an US army setting?
I'd put up with anyone to help this man, and get the story on cnn
Sophistry knows no bounds in the legal world. Insufficient evidence may be used for or against the defendant in war crimes trials.
"We don't know exactly who fired the shots, but to be criminally guilty that plays no role," said Dortmund prosecutor Andreas Brendel in the most recent trial against a Dutch member of the Waffen SS.
Everyone who fought on the Nazi side is criminally guilty, period. Everyone who committed the same crimes fighting against the Nazis (or Palestinians) is automatically innocent. Hence, any Allied soldier, or member of the Jewish Bridgade, who shot German civilians or partisans at the end of WW II is openly celebrated as a hero in Jewish, American and European WW II hagiography. Justice at Nuremberg, continued in Palestine
link to haaretz.com
So this guy runs Israel's social media propaganda war machine, posing as Obama. Then removes the picture because of accusations of racism. Did I get that right?
Of course there is no other possible interpretation but racists denying their racism
In fact, Obama and his propaganda machine could be accused of racism (anti-semitism) if they did not defend Israel's right to defend itself by any means, including propaganda.
Obama is just so much cooler than Netanyahu, and only Nixon could go to China
link to youtube.com
link to counterpunch.org
"another way of highlighting the indifference and callousness of Israel towards the people it kills and injures is to look at how many children, who are presumably wholly innocent, are affected."
Singling out Israel is anti-semitic, isn't it? In my view, the tiresome moral outrage of Americans, Jewish or not, about the allegedly singular callousness of Israel/Israelis killing innocent children is nothing but projection and deflection, and especially rife among American liberals. They can't do a damn thing about their country behaving worse than Israel, no matter for whom they vote, so they are pointing fingers at Israel, demanding, absurdly, that Obama must get Israel in line with 'American values', liberal values, Christian values, international law, and what not. I hate to burst your bubble, and you can shoot the messenger as long and hard as you want, but Israel has always been in line with what the US has very consistently PRACTISED, not PREACHED, for the past 2 centuries and longer:
"In responding to the current attack, Arthur Silber also points to this this deeper look (from the 2009 slaughter in Gaza) at the template behind these spasms of atrocity -- a template much used not only by the "light unto the nations" but also "the shining city on the hill":
For a very long time, the United States government has specialized in the pattern pursued by Israel. The vastly more powerful nation wishes to act on a certain policy -- almost always territorial expansion, for purposes of access to resources, or to force itself into new markets, or to pursue the evil notion that economic and ideological success depend on brutality and conquest -- but a specifically moral justification for its planned actions does not lie easily to hand.
So the powerful nation embarks on a course designed to make life intolerable for the country and/or those people that stand in its way. The more powerful nation is confident that, given sufficient time and sufficient provocation, the weaker country and people will finally do something that the actual aggressor can seize on as a pretext for the policy upon which it had already decided. In this way, what then unfolds becomes the victim's fault.
And so it goes, and on it goes: the curse of violence, hatred, estrangement, fear. Madness snaking in and out of the only place where the universe is: in the electrics of our brains."
link to chris-floyd.com
Those whose brains are on fire about the slaughter of innocent children in Gaza by a right-wing 'racist' Israeli government should take a close look at this child killed in the vast and ever expanding area of Droneland by the recently re-elected liberal 'non-racist' US government:
link to chris-floyd.com
"The opinions of the American Jewish Establishment are meaningless in this context. But let us never forget that it was the American Jewish Establishment, perhaps more than any other solidified political force, that acted as Host for our new politics, which many describe as American Fascism"
The American Jewish Establishment was always meaningless and never acted in any other interest but the interest of the Empire, whether they realized it or not. American Fascism is nothing new and was already a big topic during the presidency of FDR whom American liberals worship - he defeated Fascism/Nazism, saved the Jews etc. All complete nonsense. It's just as easy to demonstrate the opposite as the truth.
"I can’t imagine he has forgotten all the slights, minor or major, delivered to him and his administration by Natanyahu over the past years."
So the only likely motive for change and hope for the Palestinians is that Obama got his feelings hurt and summons the strength to exact some personal revenge on Netanyahu? Cool. There's hope for humanity then.
"There seems to be no rational way of reconciling precedents in International Law set by the US before Israel was declared, how Israel was recognized by the US and the current US stance on Israel, other than …. the tail is wagging the dog."
It is strictly beyond me how people can draw such conclusions based on the US record wrt International Law before and after 48. Could you name one or more examples that would demonstrate that the US did not violate their own set precedents before 48?
In view of what's happening Gaza and Israel, and reading the posts and comments on MW, I'm starting to believe in the Mayan calendar business. So maybe we won't have much more than a month to go here
"A terrible war. Followed by a major redrawing of the map, to Palestine’s advantage."
I wouldn't count on Palestine's advantage in that scenario. Redrawing of the map could just as likely result in a 'no state solution', with Israel/Palestine being divided and its parts annexed by neighboring countries. Like the gradual partition of Poland in the late 18th c. (not the result of war, though), or the gradual partition and de facto elimination of Prussia (after 2 terrible wars)
Thanks for the clarification. I'm waiting for the "self-referrals" from the "regimes" that contribute most to the million-dollar budgets of the UN and ICC
Unlike you, the 'regime' in Jordan appears to be in touch with reality. Wow, one conviction at the ICC in The Hague the last 10 years, and, wouldn't you know it, it's a guy from the Congo who has recruited child soldiers.
I suggest the Netherlanders chop his hands off for this. Because that's what the former Netherlanders (Belgians) used to do to the Congolese, including their children. How fitting that they now parade a descendant of their former victims as the only war criminal worth convicting in the first decade of the 21st century.
The entire war criminal trial saga of the past and present century is nothing but a charade of projections and hypocrisy
mooser - I appreciate the point you make about - how shall I say - 'honeytraps'? But I would doubt that the Christian Right I was targeting is getting THAT point, or would refer him to a career in the ministry
How are "Christian values" compatible with a "warrior culture"? Was the 30 year campaign of Charlemagne against the obstinate Saxons to save their pagan souls/ unify Europe anything but genocide? Were the Christian warriors of this beatified figure in Christian/European history any gentler than the Romans before them? Did later Holy Roman emperors and the warrior popes of the Renaissance skip the Sermon on the Mount, or something? As Obama noted (only to be slammed as anti-Christian, a Muslim etc): The Sermon is central to Christian ethics and perfectly compatible with the concept of gay marriage but not the US Department of Defense. The Christian Right, of course, hates abortion, gay and extramarital sex -- but loves war!
It doesn't matter what Petraeus did in open or covert CIA warfare. But adultery? UNACCEPTABLE
To Christ? See pericope de adultera
The Mountain Jews of Daghestanm, among other Jewish warriors, are turning in their graves. Here's their song:
And we, the Tats
We, Samson warriors,
Bar Kochba's heirs...
we went into battles
and bitterly, heroically
struggled for our freedom
More info:
link to en.wikipedia.org
Is it worthwhile, for the purpose of deflecting the stain of Zionism and Israel, to resort to old anti-semitic stereotypes and dual loyalty charges such as: Jews are migrants who try to avoid frontline military and defending their country of because they can always move on, to Canada or wherever?
German Jews who fought and died in WW I were outraged at such fantasies, and rightfully so.
link to en.wikipedia.org
"if they'll dare to strike the US, we'll wipe the whole place out"
I would just like to express my utter contempt for any American, Jew or Gentile, who sheds crocodile tears for the victims of Israeli retaliation in Gaza, and points fingers at the untermenschen in Israel.
3000 completely innocent victims of a completely unprovoked attack on the WTC and the Pentagon, universally known as symbols of freedom and democracy, on 9/11. How horrible! How unprovoked! How inhuman! Arabs are barbarians, obviously. A bunch of terrorists.
"They hate us for our freedom" George W. Bush, 2001
gamal:
I meant 'raison d'etat', in your definition, going back to Machiavelli who also coined the phrase "New World Order", first used by Bush sr during the Gulf war. But I do have to wonder why chancellor Merkel's address to the Knesset in 2008, in celebration of Israel's 60th anniversary (one year older than her German state) reads "Israel's security is part of Germany's raison d'etre" (as posted in the English trl on the Knesset website) when the German version she actually delivered reads "Staatsräson" (raison d'etat), as posted on the German government website.
Do you think they can't affort a competent trl in either Israel or Germany?
Merkel also admits that her electorate does not support her unconditional support for Israel. L'etat, c'est moi?
You ask:
"when does yearning become coveting, when you just gotta have that ox?"
The Poles were yearning for a restoration of a Polish state since the 18th century, and were coveting East Prussia long before they were thrown out of Eastern Poland to be resettled in East Prussia by Stalin at the end of WW II.
No German chancellor from Adenauer to Merkel could, with a straight face, take the side of the victims of ethnic cleansing and genocide, UNLESS they were Jews or other victims of Germany. Not to support Israel, or questioning Israel's legitimacy and arguing for a right of return, would be like not supporting their next door neighbor: Poland (among others). All hell would break loose in the EU
Read this, also the comments. It is amazing how people can justify even the worst crimes against humanity by saying, for instance: The Germans voted for Hitler, so all Germans, including those who didn't vote for Hitler and those who were not even citizens of Germany and therefore had no vote when Hitler won the election, and even babies and children - they all DESERVE being thrown out of their homes, their homeland, being killed, tortured, starved to death and raped . One commenter defines this as the logical consequence of democracy. So the Palestinians voted for Hamas, not all of them, of course, but that doesn't matter, according to that logic
What if that logic was applied to the citizens of the country who voted 3 times for FDR, and 3 times for 2 Bushes?
No, I don't get it either
link to chronicle.com
citizen: why is it nonsense?
It is both anachronistic and ideologically and conceptually off the mark to relate Zionism and the I/P conflict to the Holocaust
Weizmann, 1917:
"We have never based the Zionist movement on Jewish suffering in Russia or in any other land. These suffering have never been the mainspring of Zionism. The foundation of Zionism was, and continues to be to this day, the yearning of the Jewish people for its homeland, for a national center and a national life."
If persecution was the raison d'tetat for Israel, Helen Thomas would not have been attacked for telling Jews to "go home" to countries where anti-semitic persecution no longer exists
"the Germans can’t shaft the Palestinians for what their grandparents did to the Jews forever"
How often will you repeat this nonsense, seafoid?
forgot link
link to metromonctonnews.com
'The Language Police are out in full force again, I see. ;-) -- In Quebec, they bring their yardsticks to make sure the French signage words are bigger than the foreign (English, Vietnamese, Chinese, etc) words"
Can you blame them? The "language police" in Quebec is certainly no worse than the Anglo language police - from Theodore Roosevelt and Nativism to FDR -- which opposed and frequently outlawed all immigrant languages other than English. Let's remember that it was the American boy-scouts who burned German books in Cincinnati (just before the US entered WW I), and thus long before the Hitler youth burned German, but not foreign language books in Nazi Germany. The following letter, written in May 1942 by FDR to Canadian PM Mackenzie King (an Anglo native of Berlin, Ontario, renamed after, of all people, the infamous Lord Kitchener, of concentration camp fame during the Boer wars) has been spread by Quebec nationalists and separatists for years. Good old melting pot politics, in line with definitions of genocide (not always referring to mass murder, but also replacing one identity by another, as in forced assimilation):
"When I was a boy in the [1890's] , I used to see a good many French Canadians who had rather recently come into the New Bedford area, near the old Delano place, at Fair Haven. They seemed very much out of place in what was still an old New England community. They segregated themselves in the mill towns and had little to do with their neighbours. I can still remember that the old generation shook their heads and used to say, “this is a new element which will never be assimilated. We are assimilating the Irish but these Quebec people won’t even speak English. Their bodies are here, but their hearts and minds are in Quebec”.
Today, forty or fifty years later, the French-Canadian elements in Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Rhode Island are at last becoming a part of the American melting pot. They no longer vote as their churches and their societies tell them to. They are inter-marrying with the original Anglo Saxon stock; they are good, peaceful citizens, and most of them are speaking English in their homes.
All of this leads me to wonder whether, by some sort of planning, Canada and the United States, working toward the same end, cannot do some planning – perhaps unwritten planning which would not even be a public policy – by which we can hasten the objective of assimilating the New England French Canadians and Canada’s French Canadians into the whole of our respective bodies politic. There are of course, many methods of doing this, which depend on local circumstances. Wider opportunities can perhaps be given to them in other parts of Canada and the U.S.; and at the same time, certain opportunities can probably be given to non French Canadian stock to mingle more greatly with them in their own centers.
In other words, after nearly two hundred years with you and after seventy-five years with us, there would seem to be no good reason for great differentials between the French population elements and the rest of the racial stocks.
It is on the same basis that I am trying to work out post-war plans for the encouragement of the distribution of certain other nationalities in our large congested centers. There ought not to be such a concentration of Italians and of Jews, and even of Germans as we have today in New York City. I have started my National Resources Planning Commission to work on a survey of this kind."
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
And do google: "US war plan Crimson", declassified in the 1970s
LeaNder,
I grew up in Baden-Württemberg in the 60s and 70s and moved to Canada in the 80s, but still spend several weeks or months each year 'over there', in various locations, including Berlin and the 'neue Bundesländer'
I have the same recollections as you do about the 'whore' aspect wrt sexual, including marital, relations with Italians or American GIs, and I also remember the attractions of hanging out with GIs among people of my generation, i.e. speaking English, music, also drugs.
I don't understand why you think German re-militarisation was NOT an American idea. That would certainly be my historical understanding (not that I was alive then)
I also remember that in my circle of friends it was absolutely unacceptable to serve in any military, including the Bundeswehr. All staunch pacifists and Kriegsdienstverweigerer. And yes, my first demo was against the Pershing business. I remember one of my girlfriends being practically shunned for falling in love with a voluntary Bundeswehr soldier who turned up in army uniform on several occasions. Who, other than a Nazi, would join an army? And why would you love such a guy? Then she went completely crazy and married the guy. She's divorced now, and I'm still married to a US army veteran who is even more of a pacifist than I am. C'est la vie.
So yes, it's complicated. And I didn't like the terrorist attacks of the RAF either, regardless of the target. I suppose you mean Schleyer with the "special target that survived de-Nazification" and therefore deserved death? Please. De-Nazification, like the Nuremberg trials, was a travesty of a mockery of a sham.
Let's not forget that the Allied occupation of Germany before 1948 was a brutal military dictatorship and not even remotely comparable to what you and I grew up with. There was a joke circulating in the immediate post-war period about a man going to the police station asking to join the Nazi Party. "You should have come 6 months ago", he's told, "the Nazi Party no longer exists." To which he replies: "I wasn't a Nazi then."
Klaus:
"“Ami go home” was a slogan from Communist East Germany.
Jürgen Elsässer belonged originally to a Communist-Maoist student group."
You were referring to "we" as in "we Germans". Are the East Germans Germans only as long as they are anti-communists, or what? In fact, you are arguing along the same lines you criticize wrt 'World Jewry", i.e. that there is a political/ideological agenda attached to ethnicity. The truth is that a German communist is no more unusual than a Jewish anti-Zionist.
I know who Elsässer is. That's why I used the term "political red light district" for the Communist Left he represents. In sexual terms, the Social Democrats stand for marital sex, pre- and extramarital sex, and, at the extreme fringe, same-sex marriage but NEVER sluts like Lenin or Mao.
"The socialist-left’s anti-Americanism was/is ideologically understandable. But it was/is also shared by the far right (including the Neo-Nazis)."
Surprise. Was the Hitler-Stalin Pact "ideologically understandable"? Sure, Hitler and Stalin were ideologically opposed in many ways but they did share a common enemy: Western Imperialism, and their opposition to the 'dictate' of Versailles, esp wrt the reestablishment of Poland within borders that were unacceptable to both Russia/SU and Germany/Austria. There was a Polish delegation at Versailles, demanding (in Wilson's words) "half of Europe". Germans, Austrians and Russians were supposed to just bow under whatever was decided at Versailles, and they didn't like the new Polish state any more than the Arabs liked the new Jewish state. I find that perfectly understandable.
"Most West Germans think of (and learn in school) the ‘American occupation’ as the Marshal Plan that got us the post-war ‘economic miracle’ in West Germany"
God forbid we should ever question what we learned in school. Seriously.
I'm perfectly aware of the fact that most Germans, this side of 48 (the Marshall plan, Berlin airlift etc) saw the US army presence in Germany and Europe as a guarantee against Soviet expansion and continued prosperity (lacking in the Soviet block, obviously). That does not mean that most Germans supported the insane arms race during the Cold War, the hot proxy wars in Korea or Vietnam, not to mention the more recent wars of choice in the ME. That's when the "Ami go home" sign come up, in one form or another.
And I also realize that US army bases mean business and jobs in Germany, and not just in the red light district.
Well, I was thinking more of the political "red light district" in Germany than the economic impact of GI dollars on the Frankfurt etc sex industry. And no, I don't think it's "fair to say the Amis weren't seen as occupiers" - unless you generalize your own opinions and project them across the German political spectrum, and simply deny reality
link to juergenelsaesser.wordpress.com
In fact, "Ami (or Yankee) go home" was a slogan known well enough across Europe (not just in Germany) to be parodied in Monty Python's "Life of Brian" (as "Romans go home" , of course, in Latin graffiti)
link to de.wikipedia.org!
"We miss them"
and who is "we"? You and your wife? The Germans? If the latter, that sounds a bit 'essentialist' to me. Are you a spokesman for Germans and Germany? I remember lots of "Ami go home" signs in Germany. They were, after all, occupiers. I suppose Mooser would suggest that those signs were all put up by Neo-Nazis, you know, the guys who actually run Germany, when everyone knows that most Neo-Nazis are roaming free in the US, or sitting in German jails.
innana-
I'm not trying to "convince" you or anyone else of anything. I made a point, take it or leave it. And I'm naturally suspicious and always a little amused about the "Try to look at the world as it really is, not what you wanna see". Tends to be a pot-calling -kettle- black projection, imho
"Yes, antisemites have often organized their hate propaganda around images of “world Jewry” and “the international Jew” (think Henry Ford and Adolf Hitler). But the worldwide Jewish establishment itself has aggressively and conspicuously presented itself to the world as a unified ideological, political and organizational bloc. Antisemites have exploited this meme, but they didn’t invent it."
To me, what you write sounds both reasonably correct and completely off the mark. First, defining who is or is not a Jew has always been a bit tricky. Second, Ford and Hitler were not attacking Israelis (and not all of them are Jews anyway) but diaspora Jews whose ethnicity/nationality/religion was not simply or exclusively 'Jewish'.
To give an example: Kipling, a leading Germanophobe and defender of the British Empire ("white man's burden", Boer wars etc) wrote about the dangerous (to British interests) "Hun element in American finance" in his letters. He means the same very rich and influential people who come up in Ford's "The International Jew- The World's foremost problem".
Excerpt:
"The great Jewish banking houses of the United States are foreign importations, as perhaps everyone knows. Most of them are sufficiently recent to be considered in their immigrant status, while the thought of them as aliens is stimulated by their retention of oversea connections. It is this international quality of the Jewish banking group which largely accounts for Jewish financial power: there is team-play, intimate understandings, and while there is a margin of competition among themselves (as at golf) there is also a wiping out of that margin when it comes to a contest between Jewish and "Gentile" capital. Four conspicuous contemporary names in Jewish-American finance are Belmont, Schiff, Warburg and Kahn. All of them, even the most recent, are of foreign origin.
August Belmont was the earliest and arrived in America in 1837 as the American representative of the Rothschilds in whose offices he had been raised. His birthplace was that great center of Jewish international finance, Frankfort-on-the-Main."
Schiff(s), Warburg(s) and Kahn (a German born British citizen prior to his naturalization on the eve of WW I) -- but not Belmont -- are listed on the Wikipedia page "List of German Americans", as are the Rockefeller family, and even Obama (cross-listed on several pages of hyphenated Americans). Does a Jewish or German ancestor make you a German or Jewish American, or both? Were Schiff or Kahn Jewish or German? What 'ethnic agenda' did the American Warburgs have (financing Britain and Russia/the SU in WW I and II), and how does that square with the German Warburgs who financed the Kaiser and Hitler? Were they Jews or Germans?
I could go on, but I hope you get the point
@Chu
You're "not the same"? LOL
How did the US become a "giant empire"? By starting out as "a half crazed racist enclave" in North America, "raging for war and occupation" and against the giant empire of the day. The Brits eventually recognized "that when you feed a criminal state with guns and pork, it will eventually come back to bite you in the ass"
seafoid: you could say that the US had half the world's Germans during WW I and II, and no history of tensions with any of the German states or the unified Reich. And a powerful "German Lobby"
The dual loyalty charge works like a charm on any group
link to tandfonline.com