Facts About Holocaust

Things do take a different turn, when we see Muslim demonstrators in London, Paris, Berlin and Rome holding up signs proclaiming “EXTERMINATE THOSE WHO MOCK ISLAM?and chanting “WAIT FOR THE REAL HOLOCAUST TO COME?

Wait For The Real Holocaust To Come!
By Luigi Frascati

The publication in the Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten some time ago of cartoons depicting and satirizing the Prophet Mohammed has resulted in a widespread, sometimes violent and always astonishing uproar in the Muslim world. Even worse, the foreign ministries of eleven Islamic countries have demanded action from the Danish government, and several Arab countries eventually closed their embassies in Denmark in protest after the government initially refused to intervene or to apologize.

Among the various acts of reprisal organized throughout the Islamic world, some are worth mentioning ?if not for their levels of excess:

Muslim leaders say, that the cartoons are not just offensive - they are sacrilegious and blasphemous. This is so, because Islam forbids any visual depiction of the Prophet Mohammed ?an absolute taboo in Islamic secular theology. Personally, I neither accept nor condone the virulence of those manifestations, especially since blasphemy is more than sanctioned by Arab governments. The Muslim media, in fact, routinely run cartoons depicting Jews and symbols of Judhaism with icons and images that closely ?too closely ?resemble those used in Nazi Germany. However, be as it may be, it is their faith and Muslims are entitled to express observance and abidance to their religion any which way they choose, in their own countries.

But only in their own countries!

Things do take a different turn, when we see Muslim demonstrators in London, Paris, Berlin and Rome holding up signs proclaiming “EXTERMINATE THOSE WHO MOCK ISLAM” and chanting “WAIT FOR THE REAL HOLOCAUST TO COME”.

Holocaust – a European word par excellence.

All Europeans are fully aware of that infamous date, November 9, 1938, known to the world as Die Kristallnacht or The Night of the Broken Glass – officially the beginning of the Holocaust. I know for a fact that they know it. I used to be a European myself.

The Holocaust was geographically widespread and systematically conducted in virtually all areas of Nazi-occupied territory, where Jews were targeted in what are now 35 separate nations of the European Union. Names like Auschwitz, Dachau, Mauthausen, Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen, Belzec, Sobibór, Treblinka, Birkenau, Chelmno, Majdanek, and Bergen-Belsen have become an integrant part of European contemporary history, and their ruins are there in Europe for every human being to see, including Muslims.

They constitute together a testament to the deepest abyss ever reached by human beings of any kind in the past one million years.

The Holocaust is so ingrained in modern European ‘civilization’, so cast into stone, that for the citizens of the country that perpetrated it, the Holocaust has become the equivalent of their second original sin – no matter when they were born !

The Egyptian Ambassador to Denmark, in a recent interview, has dismissed the Western innate right to exercise freedom of speech and expression. He has stated that exercising freedom of the press in this instance means that the cartoons will be reprinted, so that the European governments will never appease the Muslim world.

Excuse me?

So what, if European governments will never appease the Muslim world? Freedom of speech is an integral concept of modern liberal democracies, and guaranteed under international law through numerous human rights instruments, one of which being the European Convention on Human Rights. In fact, it seems to me that it should be up to Islam to appease the West, seeing as to how Islamic scholars have such a long tradition of threatening the free discussion of their religion in the West. And be it either for fear of political instability, threats to their own personal lives, social unrest or ... oil, European leaders have always acquiesced to Islamic radical demands at the Saint-Siège.

Leaders of the European Union should stop prostituting themselves to each and every Arab sheik that comes into town.

European leaders have a moral duty imposed upon them to make clear, that although Muslims are more than welcome to come, live and exchange ideas with their European counterparts, they must leave their religious fanaticism, intolerance of free speech and policies of intimidation at home. European leaders have an additional duty towards their own citizens to stand tall in the defense of civil liberties, to the creation of which Europe has contributed so much throughout the course of two millennia. And they have a further moral obligation to set the record straight, by making absolutely loud and clear that also we, in the West, have our own taboos – the Holocaust being among the primary. Ultimately, Islam needs European money just as much as Europe needs Islam’s oil.

All reasonable men will agree, that there is no reason to offend people of any faith arbitrarily. We owe all faiths deference and respect. But the Danish cartoons were not arbitrarily offensive. And those who have found them offensive should be informed that freedom – the very essence of it – means learning to deal with being offended.

And as much as Muslims may find it utterly blasphemous, a cartoon depicting the Prophet Mohammed with a bomb over his head does not even remotely come close to the blasphemy of the Holocaust.

Luigi Frascati

Luigi Frascati is a Real Estate Agent based in Vancouver, British Columbia. He holds a Bachelor Degree in Economics and maintains a weblog entitled the Real Estate Chronicle where you can find the full collection of his articles. Luigi is associated with the Sutton Group, the largest real estate organization in Canada, and is based with Sutton-Centre Realty in Burnaby, BC.

Luigi is very proud to be an EzineArticles Platinum Expert Author. Your rating at the footer of this Article is very much appreciated. Thank you.

The Worst Holocaust In Human History

For more than 400 years, black people were victimized in the worst holocaust in human history, in which between 50 to 100 million perished, millions were enslaved, and Portuguese conquerors even established “color hierarchies.?From the 14th century to the 19th century
The Color Stigma: Still a Reality in 21st Century America
By William Sutherland

“I have low self-esteem cuz I’m dark skinned [and] that’s not accepted in the black community. I mean I’m not bad lookin? I have hair past my shoulders [and] I can dress my tail off! So why do [sic] it matter the color of my skin. I’m just as good as light-skinned girls right??a high school junior asked in 2005 before adding, “I don’t kno[w] anymore. I’m about to jus[t] give up. What’s the point in tryin?when no one’s gonna give me a chance.?/P>

Back at a small real estate firm, a 36 year-old black receptionist noted that the staff treated her children differently than those of her white coworkers. “They showed less warmth and friendliness,?she stated in 2002.

Anecdotal statements are not the only evidence that that the color stigma still exists with its negative perceptions and stereotypes. Furthermore they are not indicative of a few isolated cases. Instead they point to a widespread problem.

When black and white people were asked “who has a better chance of getting ahead in today’s economy??in a February 2000 CBS poll, 62% of white respondents answered that blacks and whites have an equal chance while only 38% blacks agreed. 57% of black respondents stated that white people had the best chance while 7% of whites felt the same about blacks. Most startling, 0% of blacks gave themselves the advantage while 29% of whites responded that they had the best chance.[1]

Major causes of this “skin-color complex?are:

500 year Historical Perspective:

For more than 400 years, black people were victimized in the worst holocaust in human history, in which between 50 to 100 million perished, millions were enslaved, and Portuguese conquerors even established “color hierarchies.?From the 14th century to the 19th century, “expropriation of African labor was the great engine of Europe’s [and America’s] wealth?Over time, Africans?status in the English colonies of North America shifted?to a highly stigmatized permanent?full-scale lifelong enslavement.?B>[2]

Colonial American legislation decreed black[s] as 3/5 of a person “institutionalizing [them as] part human and part property?as producers of wealth for others.?The inception of “inscribing [this] inferior status began in the 1640s when Virginia courts referred to “black men, women and their children as property.?That state’s “Slave Codes?(1680-1705), which “limited the political rights of free blacks?and South Carolina’s 1670 founding with the establishment of “institutionalized slavery in its charter?further exacerbated the situation. A further deterioration occurred in 1787 following the U.S. Constitutional convention. In anticipation of the 1808 slave importation ban, black women were stripped of control over their own bodies. They were then “regarded as breeders?and often raped or forced into cohabitation with male slaves “to produce more slaves for the owner.?
Prelude to Destruction
The writer, Sir Martin Gilbert, is a British historian with more than seventy volumes and Kristallnacht is his seventy-seventh book. He is well known as Churchill's historian. Among his other works are: The Churchill Biography, Jerusalem, Holocaust, British History, European History, Atlases, World History, Jewish History and several 'Books on Tape' like Aushwitz. the Allies, In Search of Churchill, Israel and Zionism.
The American Founding Fathers who often eloquently spoke about freedom and individual liberties, supported slavery, reinforcing the color stigma. Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), the third President justified slavery “by asserting the superiority of whites and inferiority of blacks” while at the time of his death, George Washington (1732-1799), the first President “owned 123 slaves, [and] rented 40… [At the same time] his wife’s estate had [held] 153 [slaves].”[4]

Gradually from 1660 to 1776 southern “free” blacks “lost the right to vote, to join militias, to hire white [laborers], and to testify in court” until they also “carried the stigma of the enslaved,” a stigma which ultimately became associated with color and race. As a result “it was difficult for them to obtain property, education, [and] jobs.”[5]

A century of discrimination followed the American Civil War (1860-1865). The U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Civil Rights Act of 1875 ruling in 1883 that the 14th Amendment did not prohibit individual discrimination. Thirteen years later, that same court ruled in favor of segregation, the basis of Jim Crow laws, declaring that the south’s “separate but equal” concept was constitutional. Before long, southern blacks were barred from voting, deprived of a quality education (leading to greater socioeconomic disadvantages), from testifying in court cases involving non-black parties, and even from quitting their jobs. One Jim Crow law decreed that blacks “could be arrested and imprisoned for breach of contract” if they were “absent from work” or quit their jobs.[6]

During the post Civil War period up to the culmination of the Civil Rights movement with passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, blacks were also terrorized by white organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) to “ensure submission.” During this era, “violence against African Americans actually became worse in some areas than under slavery [with] 4,742 documented lynchings between 1890 and 1960” and countless undocumented cases.”[7]

Economic Realities:

When comparing mean net worth (the average of everyone’s wealth divided by the number of households) the average black family has less than 17 cents for every dollar the average white family owns.

In 2001 the mean value of African American retirement accounts was $12,247 versus the $65,411 figure for whites.

“In 2001 only 10% of African Americans owned shares of stock and “for [the] many who did, those shares… were worth very little.”[8] In addition, the mean asset ownership of stocks, bonds, mutual funds, IRAs and other financial securities was $18,082 for African Americans versus $146,567 for whites. At the same time, the average black business owned $3,014 in assets versus the $91,913 figure for the average white-owned business. Furthermore, the average value of African American primary residences compared to those whites was $45,476 versus $141,769.
In 2003 the median family income for blacks was approximately $29,250 versus $53,100 for whites.

Today, black farmers own less than one million acres of land and blacks continue to suffer from disproportionately high unemployment and poverty. Presently, only 52% of black males are employed. In addition, studies have found that African American workers “are more likely to be in jobs with pay too low to lift a family of four above the poverty line.”[9]

Society:

With the color stigma deeply ingrained in today’s generation, including African Americans, facts and perceptions “assign human worth and social status, using whites as the paradigm [or standard].”[10] Throughout the world, “society is prejudiced against those with dark skin… [As a result], the desire for lighter skin is nearly universal. [Accordingly] for light-skinned blacks, it simply remains easier to get ahead.” In research conducted by sociologists Veran M. Keith and Cedric Herring (1991), it was found that “compared to light-skinned blacks, those with dark skin had less income and a lower standing [including] in the black community.” In addition, a 1990 study by sociologists Michael Hughes and Bradley Hertel found that for every dollar earned by a light-skinned black, a dark-skinned black earned only 72 cents. Taken together, both studies demonstrate that “those who are light-skinned have a better chance at succeeding in politics and business, achieving a higher education, and gaining social status than those who are dark.”[11] This is clearly evident in the film, music, and performing arts industries, in which the top stars, especially among women, when it comes to African Americans, are overwhelmingly light-skinned. Media coverage and the advertising industry further reinforce the “white paradigm” with their absence of stories and portfolios featuring dark-skinned blacks. Tragically dark-skinned blacks receive the most exposure only when it comes to sports and criminal justice stories.

Research by sociologist Ozzie Edwards indicates that dark-skinned blacks are significantly more likely to report being victims of race discrimination. This is not surprising due to the low self-esteem that plagues them, which are reinforced by today’s social structures (e.g. dark-skinned blacks have been confined to projects, slums, and other poor neighborhoods, been incarcerated, and/or lived existences of un-or-underemployment in disportionate numbers). Therefore, even when not the victims of overt racial discrimination, they still perceive themselves as victims, magnifying feelings of hopelessness and despair (e.g. when a dark-skinned black was turned down for a supervisory role at a major security firm in 2006, he reasoned, “they wanted a white supervisor” when unbeknownst to him, another dark-skinned candidate was selected) as echoed by the despondent high school junior above.
The color stigma impacts dark women especially hard. According to the authors of “The Color Complex,” “[a] dark-skinned black man can use his intelligence to compensate for his ‘unfortunate coloring,’ and if he is financially secure, he may marry a light-skinned woman, thereby improving his own social position and that of his children. [At the same time] a dark-skinned black woman who feels herself unattractive… may think that she has nothing to offer society no matter how intelligent or inventive she is.”[12] Accordingly sales of skin-bleaching products such as Nadinola, Ambi Fade Creme, Esoterica, etc. exceed $50 million per year and some black women even opt for costly plastic surgery to lighten their complexions.

Hair is another issue for black women. Many continue to “straighten” their hair, utilize products to enhance hair growth, and use weaves and wigs to “improve” their looks per to mimic the white “straight hair” standard. Sadly, per psychiatrists William Grier and Price Cobbs, “every American black girl experiences some degree of shame about her appearance”[13]

Worst of all, the misconception still exists that “dark-skinned blacks, especially men, are [the most] criminally dangerous.”[14] Statistics clearly portray the disproportionate number of black inmates held in U.S. prisons without dwelling on the implicit factors that may contribute (e.g. blacks are more likely to be arrested than whites for like-kind infractions due to illegal profiling, misconceptions, lack of connections to ranking individuals, and low net worth (e.g. they have to settle for lower quality legal representation, a vehicle may not be inspected as required by law, etc. due to a lack of funds).
When historical, economic and social contexts are viewed separately and in conjunction with each other, skin color remains a stigma, despite advances made over the last hundred years – end of slavery, success of the Civil Rights movement and implementation of affirmative action to redress past ills, especially in the education (in 1990 1 out of every 8 college students was black versus the 1 out of every 20 figure in 1964) and employment sectors (from 1970 to 2000, the number of black doctors doubled and number of black lawyers and engineers tripled). With affirmative action currently under attack, the negative relationship between skin color and self-esteem (the darker the skin, the lower the self-esteem) and continued racial discrimination and perceptions of such discrimination, feelings of low self-worth and inferiority remain deeply ingrained in African American society, adversely impacting the psyche, freedom, and ultimately the true potential of blacks per se. In fact, it remains so bad in some sectors that sociologists view black relationships in four contexts: Cash Connection (in which mothers tell their daughters to look for someone who can “take care of them” in lieu of love), Flesh Connection (the pursuit of sex for self-gratification without regard to love and potential consequences such as unexpected pregnancies and contraction of sexually-transmitted diseases), Force Connection (acts of domination by one partner, predominantly the male, to subvert the other, usually the female), and Dependency Connection (the “logical and inevitable result of others,” in which a woman is “transformed into a commodity, reduced to parts of her body and physically or ideologically” molded into a compliant state to such a degree that she loses her independence and even remains in a bad relationship filled with threats, violence and infidelity).[15] At the same time, black society also discourages social advancement through criticism and stereotyping – “…we have continued to pass judgment on each other… it is not fair to criticize black people – ‘they are trying to be white’ – who want to move out of rural, urban or ghetto areas for the betterment of their personal future… to provide a better life for their children… whose vocabulary lacks certain slang [and who work] hard [and] take advantage of education,” Shavon Reed wrote in “Defining Blacks.”[16] Not surprisingly, when viewed through this prism, only 48% of blacks indicated that there had been progress in ending discrimination since the success of the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s, according to a 2000 New York Times Poll.[17]
Therefore, in conclusion, even though discrimination is illegal and 21st century American society likes to say and believe that it is “color-blind,” in which all people share equal opportunities and freedoms, such an idealistic, utopian society remains a myth. The color stigma remains, tenaciously clinging to all facets of daily American life, despite great strides such as affirmative action and increased black net worth, home ownership (the greatest example being Queens, NY where according to the October 1, 2006 edition of The New York Times, black income surpassed that of whites by almost $1000 per year) and participation in the workplace, from 1965 to 2006. As a result, progress remains to be made and will only be achieved when a color-blind society is established in which no one feels the desire to surrender and give up, and all can truly know and believe they are beautiful and can accomplish anything if they work hard, embrace every educational opportunity, and pursue their dreams, regardless if their skin is light or dark.

Each person is born beautiful, each has the chance to make the world a better place depending on personal choices and actions, and most importantly, each is unique and thus without their dark or light skin or any other difference for that matter, the planet we live on would be a worse place. In short love yourself and who you are and be proud of everything you are, even if you have dark skin. Only then can the tentacles of the color stigma be pried away and cutoff.

_____________

[1] Joseph Lelyveld. How Race Is Lived In America. (Times Books: New York. 2001) 372.

[2] Meizhu Lui, Barbara Robles, Betsy Leondar-Wright, Rose Brewer, and Rebecca Adamson. The Color of Wealth. (The New Press: New York. 2006) 78.

[3] Meizhu Lui, Barbara Robles, Betsy Leondar-Wright, Rose Brewer, and Rebecca Adamson. The Color of Wealth. (The New Press: New York. 2006) 73-74, 79, 83.

[4] Meizhu Lui, Barbara Robles, Betsy Leondar-Wright, Rose Brewer, and Rebecca Adamson. The Color of Wealth. (The New Press: New York. 2006) 80.

[5] Meizhu Lui, Barbara Robles, Betsy Leondar-Wright, Rose Brewer, and Rebecca Adamson. The Color of Wealth. (The New Press: New York. 2006) 82.

[6] Meizhu Lui, Barbara Robles, Betsy Leondar-Wright, Rose Brewer, and Rebecca Adamson. The Color of Wealth. (The New Press: New York. 2006) 84.

[7] Meizhu Lui, Barbara Robles, Betsy Leondar-Wright, Rose Brewer, and Rebecca Adamson. The Color of Wealth. (The New Press: New York. 2006) 87.

[8] Meizhu Lui, Barbara Robles, Betsy Leondar-Wright, Rose Brewer, and Rebecca Adamson. The Color of Wealth. (The New Press: New York. 2006) 77.

[9] Meizhu Lui, Barbara Robles, Betsy Leondar-Wright, Rose Brewer, and Rebecca Adamson. The Color of Wealth. (The New Press: New York. 2006) 120.

[10] Maulana Karenga. Introduction to Black Studies. (University of Sankore Press: Los Angeles, CA. 2002) 306.

[11] Kathy Russell, Midge Wilson, and Ronald Hall. The Color Complex. (Anchor Books: New York. 1993) 37, 41-42.

[12] Kathy Russell, Midge Wilson, and Ronald Hall. The Color Complex. (Anchor Books: New York. 1993) 41-42.

[13] Kathy Russell, Midge Wilson, and Ronald Hall. The Color Complex. (Anchor Books: New York. 1993) 43.

[14] Kathy Russell, Midge Wilson, and Ronald Hall. The Color Complex. (Anchor Books: New York. 1993) 38.

[15] Maulana Karenga. Introduction to Black Studies. (University of Sankore Press: Los Angeles, CA. 2002) 335-337.

[16] Shavon Reed. Defining Blacks. Ezine Articles. 02 August 2006. 6 October 2006.

[17] Joseph Lelyveld. How Race Is Lived In America. (Times Books: New York. 2001) 372.

William Sutherland is a published poet and writer. He is the author of three books, "Poetry, Prayers and Haiku" (1999), "Russian Spring" (2003) and "Aaliyah Remembered: Her Life & The Person behind the Mystique" (2005) and has been published in poetry anthologies around the world. He has been featured in "Who's Who in New Poets" (1996), "The International Who's Who in Poetry" (2004), and is a member of the "International Poetry Hall of Fame." He is also a contributor to Wikipedia, the number one online encyclopedia.

Prelude to Destruction

The writer, Sir Martin Gilbert, is a British historian with more than seventy volumes and Kristallnacht is his seventy-seventh book. He is well known as Churchill's historian. Among his other works are: The Churchill Biography, Jerusalem, Holocaust, British History, European History, Atlases, World History, Jewish History and several 'Books on Tape' like Aushwitz. the Allies, In Search of Churchill, Israel and Zionism.
Kristallnacht: Prelude to Destruction (Book Review)
By Joy Cagil

Most of us are familiar with the bleakness and the general connotation of Kristallnacht. It takes some courage, however, to face the poignant, agonizing, and tragic personal stories of the survivors of that "night of the broken glass."

This book has put humanity's face on the history of one of the most atrocious nights of the world's recent past with the startlingly detailed accounts of those who lived it. The author, through his microscopic focusing ability, has amassed eye-witness accounts and has told the history of a horrifying night and its repercussions through the several years that followed it.

At least for me, "Kristallnacht: Prelude to Destruction" was very difficult to read without getting profoundly moved and deeply saddened; however, I read the book to the end without putting it down and without losing attention, because this book proved to be much more significant than any other piece of writing I had come across on the subject.

Kristallnacht occurred while people in the world watched powerlessly, although they understood what was happening. Some recorded the details; others shrugged it off; and most, even if threatened by it, froze in action. "Night of the broken glass" was mob behavior encouraged and abetted by the Third Reich.

The anti-Jew sentiment or rather the actions stemming from that sentiment had begun as early as 1933 at the onset of the Nazi Germany and grew to monstrous dimensions by November,1939. The German nation's each imperfection was blamed on its Jewish population with an attempt to swing the public opinion against the Jews. Thus, the deportation of the Jews from Germany had begun quite a few years before November 10, 1939, the date of the Kristallnacht.

The impossibility for all the Jews to leave Germany had many reasons. Some thought the homeland they fought for in World War .I. would never betray them. Others could not find passage to other countries. Most countries had immigration quotas and they allowed only so many people. The Jews, therefore, found themselves locked in a threatening situation and in a dangerous place they had come to love and respect as their homeland.

During these forced deportations of the Semites, Herschel Grynszpan, a seventeen year-old Jewish boy--after getting word of his family's plight--shot and mortally wounded the Third Secretary to the German Ambassador in Paris. This became the spark to inflame the hatred of the German masses against the Jews.

On the "night of the broken glass," almost every synagogue was burned; Jewish cemeteries were desecrated; private homes and stores belonging to Jews were broken into and every single item demolished or confiscated; and men and women--rich or poor, young or old, healthy or infirm--were beaten, killed, or terrorized. Vienna, known as the "Jewish City," was mostly burned, and in other cities, all Jewish neighborhoods were wrecked.

In one of the personal stories, then-six-year old Lea Weems remembers, after the Nazis came in and broke everything her family owned, "they pushed my father and grandfather down the stairs. I was screaming and pulling on my father's sleeve trying to keep him from leaving."

The book is made up of similar hair-raising remembrances of the survivors of Kristallnacht through their escape or destiny. The writer has also noted the generous and kind actions of the few Germans who were human enough to see the wrong in their fellow citizens, for some of them helped the Jews as much as they could.

The writer, Sir Martin Gilbert, is a British historian with more than seventy volumes and Kristallnacht is his seventy-seventh book. He is well known as Churchill's historian. Among his other works are: The Churchill Biography, Jerusalem, Holocaust, British History, European History, Atlases, World History, Jewish History and several 'Books on Tape' like Aushwitz. the Allies, In Search of Churchill, Israel and Zionism.

The book, Kristallnacht: Prelude to Destruction, is 314 pages, in hardcover and with ISBN:0060570830.

The lessons to be learned from Kristallnacht is best said in Sir Martin Gilbert's words as: "It taught those who were the source of prejudice that a whole people can be demonized; that a whole nation can be turned totally and obscenely against a decent, hard-working, creative, loyal and integral part of its own society. This point was made on 19 August 2005 when Pope Benedict XVI, on his first visit to his native Germany after becoming Pope, went to the Roonstrasse synagogue in Cologne…"

Kristallnacht: Prelude to Destruction is an irreplaceable book and it deserves a good deal of attention from history buffs and all readers alike.

Joy Cagil is an author on www.Writing.Com/ which is a site for Writers. Her education is in foreign languages, linguistics, psychology, and humanities.

Holocaust Concentration Camps

All of these things lead to the ease of what happened after 1939 where Jews were put into Ghetto's, where the Vansee conference took place and where Jews were transported to death camps. The Nazi's had successfully created a place, in Germany, where people supported the ideas of Nazism and didn't object to law passed against them, discriminating or de-humanising them even further.
The Holocaust
By Sharon White

Even those in a position of power and influence, who could have prevented the seriousness of the discrimination, chose not to. Teachers especially, could have helped prevent the younger generation from developing this type of discrimination in schools, out of schools and in later life. However, both German schools and the Hitler youth discriminated against Jews by teaching lessons that were designed to do this and to teach that Aryans were the superior race. One of the main areas of teaching where discrimination took place was in racial science where students were taught how Jews had a different skull shape/size to Aryans and other races and taught how they could identify a Jew by their physical features; this created a lot of discrimination towards Jews among the young people of Germany.

One of the events to describe and demonstrate how Jews were discriminated against in Germany is the April Boycott; for one day Germans all over the country were told not to buy from shops and business' owned by Jews. SA men stood by the doors of these shops to discourage anyone from going inside. The SA men would have discouraged business, leading business away from the Jews and back into Aryan owned businesses and shops. This is discriminating against the Jews and while it was probably very beneficial to the Aryans working at the time, the Jews would have lost business, and would be looked at differently by Germans.

In many places in Germany, there were signs that read 'Jews not welcome here'. These could be put on park benches, outside places of public interest, or even where it means that Jews are not welcome in the village, city or town. This separates Jews from the rest of the population, by discriminating against them, making Germans feel like they are different people to them, so they should be treated differently!
On the 9th November 1938 a very big event occurred which was the result and cause of more discrimination towards Jews. Kristallnacht was a night of violence across Germany and Austria, 91 Jews were murdered, synagogues were burned down, Jews were "dragged from their beds" sacred objects were desecrated, shop windows were smashed and 20 000 Jewish men were rounded up and sent to concentration camps. Yet in all of this the German police did nothing to stop the attacks "such actions were not to be discouraged", so the discrimination grew to a point where it was acceptable to kill a Jew.

Throughout the period 1933 to 1939, many laws were passed by Nazi's to further discriminate against the Jews, and to separate them from Aryans, and the 'normal life in Germany'. This started as restricting their job opportunities, so that Aryans could benefit from an increase in business, for example a law that was passed in early 1933 is that Jews were forced out of jobs in the law, the civil service, dentistry, journalism, teaching and farming. Thus, this means that Jews are being discriminated against to benefit others. Later in 1935 a law was passed to say that Jews were banned from the armed forces, as the war is drawing nearer, with no Jews allowed to be in the war, more discrimination goes on, in towns and cities where Aryans identify that Jews are doing nothing to help what might be the war effort, even though, they have no choice but to find another, legal, occupation. This discrimination separates Germans from Jews. In early 1935 it was announced that Jews were no longer citizens of Germany, and had lost their right to vote as written down in the Nuremburg laws, 1935 "Jews have no vote". This was a big step in discriminating Jews. It had separated Germans and Aryans completely, so now they could not still be equal, they were different, and this meant that their reaction to eachother had changed.
Laws that had a real effects on any Jew at that time that dealt with their daily lives had was a massive discrimination on them. For example in late 1933 Jews were banned from all sports and athletic clubs, and in late 1935 Jews: were no longer allowed to marry Aryan, nor to have sexual relations with them; who had married Aryans no longer had a valid marriage; were banned from parks, restaurants and swimming pools; and finally it was passed that Jewish leaders were stopped from preaching or speaking publicly. Afar from this sort of discrimination, there is also the fact that Jews were banned from having electrical and optical equipment, bicycles, typewriters, or records and were ordered to hand them over to the authorities. This discrimination meant that many Jewish families went without the opportunities and comforts that Aryans lived with, thus separating them even further, while discrimination becomes easier.

All of these things lead to the ease of what happened after 1939 where Jews were put into Ghetto's, where the Vansee conference took place and where Jews were transported to death camps. The Nazi's had successfully created a place, in Germany, where people supported the ideas of Nazism and didn't object to law passed against them, discriminating or de-humanising them even further.

Jews were discriminated through making them unwelcome, to having laws passed against them, and later, to death, where they were seen as different people who should be treated differently and deserved what they got. Jews were restricted in everything they did, and because of this they became easy to discriminate against.

The article was produced by the member of masterpapers.com. Sharon White has many years of a vast experience in essay writing and custom essays writing consulting. Get free samples of essays and courseworks and buy essays.

A Dangerous Temptation

On the plus side, I may be extra ready to notice counter-prejudice because deep inside me I know how much it can hurt. So when the Western media in general made it seem that Muslims were justified to rage against a Danish cartoon when Muslims were not outraged by Muslim murders in the name of their religion (new car bombs in Baghdad almost daily
A Dangerous Temptation - The Lure of Hating Back, Hurting Back
By Elsa Schieder

My parents grew up in Nazi Austria. My father was nine in 1939, when the Nazis came to power in Austria (part invasion, but local support as well). After the war, he found out what had happened to the Jews ?including to the lone Jewish family in his village. Death.

In 1955, he emigrated to Canada. By then he had a wife and two small daughters. To show he wasn't anti-Semitic, my father chose an apartment in the middle of an Orthodox Jewish community.

As you may well imagine, my sister and I were not welcomed with open arms. My father could not hear that at all ?it was out of his range of understanding. According to him, people who have been the victims of prejudice know all too well how much prejudice hurts, and so could never do unto others what has been done to them.

My sister and I survived.

****

My unusual experience has had a lifelong impact, however ?an acute sensitivity to how wrong and hurtful prejudice is, for one thing. Anti-racist movements, feminism, gay rights movements ?the importance of these movements was so very obvious to me.

But there was more I took with me, though this further impact took far longer for me to acknowledge and express.

I grew up just as the separatist movement was gaining momentum in Quebec ?a time when many French Canadians were against anyone not French Canadian. It didn't matter that I spoke French (with an accent), or that my ancestors were thousands of miles away when the British conquered the French, or that I had no English background at all. It mattered that I wasn't one of "them." Counter-prejudice, once again.

Now, looking back, I am amazed that it took me decades to recognize counter-prejudice as a powerful and damaging force. As a child I identified with the Jewish perspective. I felt, deep inside myself, that Jews had the right to be prejudiced against all Germans and Austrians. I knew I had not been born during the Holocaust. I knew even more deeply that six million Jews had been murdered. In high school, I completely understood the Jewish classmate who told me that he could not possibly take me home to his parents. It had nothing to do with religion. I was one of "them."

****

Quebec has changed over the past several decades. It's a mellower place. I no longer feel (very rarely, anyway) hostility coming at me from French Canadians because I am not French Canadian.

But I have become more and more aware of what I call the rage of the so-called righteous. Muslims in rage against anyone who dares do or say what they don't done or said. Blacks contemptuous of whites as "crackers". And so on.

I taught Women's Studies for years. It's relatively easy in our society to support the rights of the oppressed. True, many people don't want discrimination to change, and even more people deny it exists. But by and large, when one talks about prejudice and discrimination, one is talking about something where one gets a lot more support than if one also pays attention to counter-hostility.

There are, of course, those ready to find counter-hostility anywhere and everywhere, whether it exists or not. "Watch out. They just want to put the shoe on the other foot." A common charge leveled at anyone who works against discrimination. People on the hunt for slightest hint of counter-prejudice aren't people I want to align myself with. In my experience, they don't want equality. Instead, they're hunting for anything that could be a weapon to use against people who want a fair deal.

On the other hand, the people against discrimination are often ready to attack if one alludes to anything like counter-prejudice.

So one is tredding into a tangled messy patch of thorns and brambles if one brings it up.

Those least eager to hear about counter-prejudice, in my experience, have been black students caught in the grip of it against whites. And those most eager to pounce on any suggestion of it, again in my experience, have been male students with their antennae out for any hint of female anger at males.

Recently I've been thinking and writing about the rage of the righteous – meaning the rage of people very sure that their anger is justified, that they have been hurt and have every right to strike back. Over the past half year, Muslim rage has most caught my attention. Everyone has wronged them; everyone deserves whatever they can dish out.

****

More generally, I've been intriqued by the shell against perception around so many people.

The shell. In my mind's eye I see an egg. A very hard shell. Necessary to shelter a chick, so it can develop until it's strong enough to peck its own way out.

One needs shells, filters – or one would be overwhelmed by all the information coming in. But the shells I'm referring to aren't protection from an overdose of information. They're a defense against reality, against something that would disturb beliefs, feelings, a learned way of being. This shell wards off with anger, hatred, fear, warped thinking patterns. It gets thicker and thicker.

It isn't like an eggshell, with a smooth surface. Nasty barbs, poisonous darts, and so on are often all to ready to defend the shell – whether it's the shell of prejudice or counter-prejudice. It rarely just melts away like ice cream in the sun. And rarely is a heatlhy chick pecking its way out.

****

An egg shell can shatter with the right kind of blow.

I'm still trying to figure out the best strategies for dealing with the Shell-Spell of Righteousness, whether it's the shell of self-righteous prejudice or self-righteous counter-prejudice.

****

I had a hard time figuring out what to call this piece. What was I describing, I ended up asking myself.

The Feel-Good Part of Hating Back and Hurting Back -

because that's something else I've noticed, how good it seems to make people feel, having this legitimized, socially sanctioned right to anger;

Crazy Justifications for Counter-Hostility -

particularly the self-rghteous anger at a whole group, whether or not an individual has done anything, when the same people would be outraged at the thought of putting a child in jail for the crimes of a parent;

The Pain of Being Hurt for the Wrongs Done by Others;

The Lure of Self-Righteous Anger.

In the end I went with, A Dangerous Temptation. This anger is tempting and dangerous, both tempting and dangerous for those caught in it, and just plain dangerous for those who are the target. I remember it from childhood. I still carry within me vestiges - I am much more tolerant of Jewish anti-German sentiments than of any German or Austrian prejudices. I have my own antennae out when I meet Germans and Austrians.

Weird, the legacies we carry from childhood.

On the plus side, I may be extra ready to notice counter-prejudice because deep inside me I know how much it can hurt. So when the Western media in general made it seem that Muslims were justified to rage against a Danish cartoon when Muslims were not outraged by Muslim murders in the name of their religion (new car bombs in Baghdad almost daily, it seems - thirty dead here, fifty dead there), everything in me said, this makes no sense, this is wrong, totally wrong.

In no way was I tempted to go along. The spell of the raging righteous had no hold on me.

Maybe soon ever fewer people will go along.

****

UNDERLYING IDEA:

"It is a fact readily acknowledged, that for humans, an idea is much more powerful than a fact." I don't know who said that - but I remember how those words struck me when I read them. One idea: just as ideas can close our minds, they can open them to new worlds and visions. Ideas pull things togheter or keep them apart. They help us organize experiences, help us make sense of things - or block us from making sense of things. So I hope you got something from what I've written. Comments and further thoughts welcome.

****

Something else I look at, quite different but linked, is STUPID OPINONS, meaning opinions that don't make sense, like the opinon that all opinions are equal, or that we are all exactly where we are meant to be:

Poor thinking - it can make me gnash my teeth.

****

Elsa Schieder, Ph.D., prof, writer, visual artist, thinker, performer. One of the most important things, I hold, is being able to live and think well and creatively, imaginatively. All too often, I have found that people (including many people who pride themselves on being open-minded) are not able to think outside their "box of ideas" and hold onto rigid ideas as if their lives depended on it. Good thinking, good creativity draws on as much info as possible, is open to perceiving.

During The Holocaust.

Spielberg has directed, produced, or executive produced eight of the top grossing films of all time. In 1997 he had back-to-back blockbuster hits with The Lost World: Jurassic Park which he directed, and Men in Black, which he executive produced.

The Great Spielberg
By Sharon White

Steven Spielberg is one of the greatest directors in the filmmaking history. He did not graduate from a university, did not take any film classes. Spielberg is a self-taught director whose films totaled 2 billion dollars in domestic market only. He contributed to the modern movie industry a lot. He created his first movie in 1969.

However it was his next film that truly cemented Spielberg's reputation as a rising star. Jaws came out in 1975, andproved to be a tremendous success. It quickly established Spielberg's reputation and fame, also heralding a new era of blockbuster films with large gross revenues. When Jaws was released not even Spielberg himself could have imagined the impact it would have on contemporary cinema. The release of Jaws and shortly after George Lucas' Star Wars was a move towards big budget blockbusters and as many called it 'New Hollywood.'

"Hollywood itself was in the midst of an aesthetic, cultural, and industrial reorientation, which was signalled most dramatically by the unprecedented box office successes of Jaws and Star Wars."

Spielberg's follow up, 1977's Close Encounters of the Third Kind was another staggering success, employing state of the art special effects to document its story of contact with alien life. In 1981 Spielberg's teamed up with Producer George Lucas and actor Harrison Ford and introduced the world to Indiana Jones, an archaeologist and intrepid adventurer that became the most popular screen hero since James Bond. The film Raiders of the Lost Ark went on to be one of the biggest hits of the decade and later sequels The Temple of Dome (1984) and The Last Crusade (1989) were launched, as well as a short-lived television series. Shortly after Raiders of the Last Ark, Spielberg released ET - The Extra Terrestrial in 1982. This science fiction classic about a boy, who befriends an alien, is often regarded as his Spielberg's greatest artistic achievement. ET became one of the most commercially successful movies of all time and at the time of its release was the highest-grossing film ever made

After 1984's Raiders of the Lost Ark sequel, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Spielberg directed a film called The Color Purple. It was an adaptation of Alice Walker's much honoured novel exploring the lives and struggles of a group of African-American women during the Depression years. The film went on to gross over 100 million dollars at the box office, later securing 11 Academy Award nominations.

A 1987 dramatisation of J.G. Ballard's novel Empire of the Sun was Spielberg's next picture, and was one of his few box-office disappointments, but Spielberg returned to form with 1989's Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Hook (1991) was Spielberg's long-awaited return to fantasy material. It was a lavish yet quirky update of the Peter Pan story starring Dustin Hoffman, Robin Williams, and Julia Roberts. Budgeted at over $60 million, the film received mixed reviews and although doing better than original thought at the box office, Spielberg fell victim to a lot of criticism.

However in 1993 Spielberg returned with a vengeance with Jurassic Park, a $70 million adaptation of Michael Crichton's dinosaur disaster novel, represented a return to the kind of muscular adventure that had served him well in the past. This film consisted of superb special effects, which ranked among the most aggressively marketed films of all time. The result was a global blockbuster, with receipts coming in at over one billion dollars.

In the same year as Jurassic Park, Spielberg released Schindler's List. For once, he went against his instincts and made an impressively restrained black-and-white epic docudrama set during the Holocaust. The film achieved widespread critical praise and won two Academy Awards for best director and best picture. This was Spielberg's first Academy Award for best director, although the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences had honoured him with the Irving Thalberg Award in 1987. The film also collected Best Picture honours from the major critics organisations, in addition to seven British Academy Awards, including two for Spielberg. He also won the Golden Globe Award and was honoured by his peers with his second Directors Guild of America (DGA) Award, the first having come for The Color Purple. In February 1997, Schindler's List was seen by a television audience of 65 million people in NBC's unprecedented airing of the film in its entirety, without commercial interruption.

In 1994, Spielberg announced the formation of the new studio DreamWorks SKG, the first new film studio in nearly 50 years, in partnership with Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen. Amistad (1997) was the first film directed by Spielberg under the new studio banner.

Spielberg has directed, produced, or executive produced eight of the top grossing films of all time. In 1997 he had back-to-back blockbuster hits with The Lost World: Jurassic Park which he directed, and Men in Black, which he executive produced.

Continuing to challenge himself artistically, Spielberg turned to World War II for another based on fact story, Saving Private Ryan (1998), about a team of soldiers selected to rescue a paratrooper, the only surviving member of a family of four who had served in the same unit.

Apart from the re-release of ET Spielberg's most recent Spielberg film was Artificial Intelligence staring ………

As well as directing all these films mentioned and many more Spielberg's has also served his own production company, Amblin as producer or executive producer on more than a dozen films. These films include such successes as Gremlins, The Goonies, the Back to the Future trilogy, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, An American Tail, The Land Before Time, The Flintstones and Casper.

As you can see Spielberg has help make some of all time most popular and most successful films and has made a massive contribution to contemporary cinema. Considered one of the world's most famous living filmmakers, as a producer and director, Spielberg has become a household word and brand name. Many of Spielberg's films as a director are among the highest grossing in film history. What he has accomplished is perfecting the successful combination of the intimacy of a personal vision with the epic requirements of the modern commercial blockbuster.

The article was produced by the member of masterpapers.com. Sharon White is a senior writer and writers consultant at term papers. Get some useful tips for thesis and buy term papers .

Document The Holocaust

To say that the spirit that is in a man and from which he gets his inspiration and unction is the Devil when it is in fact Gods Spirit is blasphemy according to scripture.
Live from New York's U.N. Theatre - The Devil and the Dancing Dictators
By Michael Bresciani

Iran’s Prime Minister Mahmoud Ahmadinejad addressing the UN said things that betray his ignorance of protocol, truthfulness and history. In one breath he said “I respect the Jews?but made no effort to explain his previous cry to wipe them off the map. In a typically uninformed world view he asked why the Palestinians were not allowed to determine their own fate as it pertains to their own ancient homeland. Prior to 1948 Palestinians never used the phrase “homeland?and were not looking for one even in the remotest sense of the word.

His contorted view of history ignores a 4000 year long history of Jewish ownership of Israel as do almost all Muslims around the world. This view gives new meaning to the cliché “don’t confuse me with the facts.?But here is a dictator who doesn’t believe there was ever a holocaust. For all of the faults of the Third Reich poor record keeping was not one of them. The holocaust is without exception the most well documented slaughter in history. One could say it may be easier to document the holocaust than to document Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. This dictator leaves credulity blowing in the wind and makes anyone wonder how he ever came to power. Perhaps ranting is all that’s needed to take power in Iran. The bottom line is that this is not the kind of man that needs to have a nuclear arsenal at his disposal by any stretch of the imagination.

Next is Hugo Chavez to the UN floor with name calling and metaphoric reference to odors of burning sulfur left behind by the recent visit of President George Bush. Chavez may see himself as the modern counterpart of South America’s most renowned statesmen Simon Bolivar but that comparison resides only in the mind of Mr. Chavez. Not even his own countrymen would dare to stretch things that far.

Venezuela may not see baseball the way Americans do but there is something in that game that seems all too well suited for Mr. Chavez, namely “three strikes and your out.” What were those three strikes? Let’s examine each briefly.

The first strike against Mr. Chavez came as a result of his complete and utter abandonment of gentility, propriety, respect and protocol. To blast the leaders of a host country unashamedly while enjoying every courtesy and advantage available to him as a visiting statesman is pure unbridled indecency. That President Bush did not respond in kind or at all only gave greater honor to the presidency and Mr. Bush. The rest of us would have liked to give Mr. Chavez the bums rush, with the exception of Danny Glover. Perhaps for Glover and Chavez that liaison might be their version of “Dancing with the Stars.”

The second strike came when Chavez decided to take to the neighborhood church and from a pulpit cover his lack of refinement with offers of help for America’s poor. Oh please.

Spreading around some cheap oil is only a cheap trick in disguise. Let’s not forget that spreading money and benevolence around the neighborhood is not a new idea in the quest for followers and adherents. Jim Jones paid peoples mortgages, rent and bills but in the end fed them poison cool aid. Hezbollah helps people all over Lebanon with the hope that this once proud and independent country will not bite the hand that feeds them even while the other hand is lobbing bombs at Lebanon’s neighbors. Al Capone and other mobsters were sure to give favors to the immigrants and neighborhoods in various cities at the same time they bred corruption and murder at will. Let’s throw in the drug cartels of Columbia who are well known for dumping multi millions of dollars around that nation to gain an army of silent but compatriot ally’s among the common people. Some have called it a political stunt but regardless of what its called…that’s strike two.
To see how Chavez made strike three requires a little knowledge of the Bible. Even as Chavez was blessing himself with the (catholic) sign of the cross he repeatedly called President Bush the devil. Perhaps Mr. Chavez could find an excuse in the fact that Catholicism depends more on ex-cathedra and patristic teachings rather than the Bible. Maybe it is the fault of those who taught Mr. Chavez his brand of Christianity. In any case even while he invoked God by the sign of the cross he was committing what the Bible calls the one and only unforgivable sin, blasphemy of the Spirit.

To say that the spirit that is in a man and from which he gets his inspiration and unction is the Devil when it is in fact Gods Spirit is blasphemy according to scripture. See Matthew 12: 31-32 If Mr. Chavez did this ignorantly or not is for God alone to judge but either way Mr. Chavez is stuck with either the guilt of blasphemy or the guilt of wholesale ignorance. Strike three, your out.

Volumes could be written on the two dancing dictators but suffice it to say less may be more. Taking a cue from President George Bush we won’t go any further than to say these boys may be able to dance to the applause of the UN but they couldn’t make it through the national anthem in a simple game of baseball.

Rev Bresciani is the author of two Christian books one that is entirely on the second coming of Christ. He is a contributing columnist for several online news and commentary sites. His articles are read throughout the world.

Thermonuclear Holocaust

Certainly, nobody wants to take casualties. But there will be casualties in any case. Better to take them sooner and win the war than to take them in a fruitless endeavor.

Taking It Personally
By Warren Graham

I don’t know about anyone else, but recent events in the world, and the stunningly stupid reactions to them by many of our so-called world leaders are making me wonder whether it is possible to continue living among our species, or whether we are simply so determined to self-destruct that the continued existence on this planet is pointless.

This visceral response is, I know, at odds with everything I have been taught since childhood. God, we are told, has a plan, and in the end, all will work out right for humankind. It goes without saying that I, like any right-thinking, peace-loving person hope that this is so. I want, badly, to believe that the current spate of international difficulty and stress is, consistent with Biblical prophecy, a mere prelude to a perfect Messianic paradise on Earth.

But candidly, retaining this as an article of faith is proving increasingly challenging, to say the least. On the (almost) Eve of the Jewish New Year, we face the prospect of war with worldwide Islamic Fascism, which unapologetically aims for the reinstatement of a Caliphate and the destruction of Western Civilization as we know it. The insipid responses of the world’s leaders, in a near-perfect echo of Neville Chamberlain, is that we need dialogue with the likes of Iran, North Korea, Al Qaeda, Hezbollah and Hamas. These “governments?and terror cells have made perfectly plain their intentions for us, and so far as I am aware, have never wavered from them.

Even Hitler had the good manners to lie to Chamberlain’s face and tell him that, in exchange for Britain turning a blind eye to his annexation of the German Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia, he would have no further territorial designs in Europe.

But these guys? Why are our leaders so determined to deny the truth which is staring them in the face—that the implacable foes of the West mean for us, and our way of life, to disappear from the planet.
Of course, we’ve come to expect this kind of response from Jacques Chirac and the French, who suffer from national amnesia, seeming perennially unable (or unwilling) to learn ANY lessons from their own history. In 1914, they fought the Franco-Prussian War of 1871. In preparation for Hitler’s invasion, they ignored the German war strategy of World War I, and hid behind a Maginot Line, which the Germans simply circumvented. Now, France’s enemy is behind the lines; an indigenous, hostile, unassimilated population consisting of a Muslim underclass which the French “natives” despise, but which they invited in, as a menial labor force. To a lesser extent, other European countries face the same problem. We also expect similar reactions from Kofi Annan and his Turtle Bay cohorts, who cannot seem to grasp that there is a not-so-subtle distinction between peacemaking and appeasement.

Unfortunately, the worst part of all this, is that people who do (or at least should) understand the very real threat to the future of this planet, and who say that we MUST prevent rogue countries and terror organizations from developing nuclear capability, also tell us that we must strive for a diplomatic solution, that we need to achieve an international consensus, backed up by sanctions, “if necessary,” and that the U.S. cannot “go it alone,” as we are already overtaxed and overextended militarily. Or, we have the Pat Buchanan isolationists, who tell us—astonishingly—that these matters are, in essence, none of our business.

We, as a nation, need to face certain painful realities:

--We will NEVER achieve an international consensus for action against rogue states. So long as France, Russia and China whose principles and material wealth are openly for sale to the highest bidder, sit as permanent members of the Security Council, and with veto powers, for that matter, this is an immutable law of international politics.

--Iran, North Korea, Al Qaeda, Hezbollah and Hamas are not interested in diplomatic solutions, nor will they ever be. They are interested in victory. And they are, alas, well on their way to achieving it, for one simple reason. They BELIEVE in their cause, however horribly misguided. We, on the other hand, look to cynicism, apathy and the politics of “surrender-ism” as our guideposts. This weakness of ours is well-understood and skillfully exploited by our enemies.

--While we may be challenged militarily, we are a long way from being unable to respond to additional world problems. And more to the point, if the imminent destruction of humanity is not enough of an incentive to get past our reticence, I’m sure I don’t know what might do the job. As it stands, Iran and North Korea stand at the brink of being nuclear powers. North Korea may already be one. But it appears that they lack a reliable delivery system. How is our situation going to get better? In five years, and perhaps less, we will be unable to take military action for fear of triggering a thermonuclear holocaust. Can anyone really articulate a cogent case for delay, aside from the failure of will?

--It is unfair, and outrageous that the U.S. has to carry the ball alone (or perhaps with the help of a very small circle of REAL allies). But that is our reality. The cynicism, cowardice and fecklessness which infect Europe, Russia and China will not disappear anytime soon. And if the threat were only to them, I would gladly argue that they should be allowed to fall, as the dead, useless weights that they are. But our country, and our way of life is at risk, and there is nothing on earth more worth the fight. Certainly, nobody wants to take casualties. But there will be casualties in any case. Better to take them sooner and win the war than to take them in a fruitless endeavor.

So far, there is no indication that anyone, even in this Country, is ready to do what is necessary. And the clock is ticking. Delay works only to the advantage of the enemy.

So I despair. I get angry. And I take it personally. And while I pray with all my heart that we all be inscribed in the Book of Life for a Happy and Healthy New Year, I know that even God Almighty has got his work cut out for Him in the face of the enormity of the task. I pray that he does have a Plan and that it will soon, and in our time, become apparent to all of us.

Warren R. Graham Copyright 2006

NAZI and the Jews

At these extermination camps the mass extermination of the Jews and inhumane treatment of them would occur. The gas chambers were disguised as showers surrounded by well-attended gardens. The most renowned was Auschwitz, which averaged the extermination of 6,000 Jews per day.

NAZI and the Jews
By Sharon White

Christianity became the main religion of Europe in the 4th century, thus Judaism became hated by everyone on the simple basis that it “killed Jesus Christ? This is how Anti-Semitism originated in Europe, and stayed there all the way through to the 20th century. Jewish extermination In Spain in 1400s, Russian “pogroms?in the 19th century. Hitler picked up this trend and perfected it, spreading anti-Semitic hatred to the rest of the world.

Jewish business and professionalism had been very successful in Germany after 1871 due to German Jews gaining civil rights making jealousy and anti-Semitic hatred increase in Germany especially amongst the white-collar workers. Hence, a popular political policy since 1918 has been anti-Semitic policies. The Jews became the focus for every problem of Weimar Germany, i.e. inflation, unemployment, economic weakness and the treaty of Versailles.

When Hitler came to power in 1933, his anti-Semitic policy/aims were indecisive except he wanted them removed from German society explained in his book, Mein Kampf. There was no direct hint towards the creation of extermination camps. The evolution of the Final Solution in regards to the Jewish question involved a number of stages.

Between 1933 ?37, certain government legislations were passed withdrawing civil rights from Jews leading a mass exodus of Jews from Germany. The first Nazi racial law that was passed (April 1933) was the categorising Jews as “non-Aryans? stripping Jews from a number of civil rights including the prohibition of working in civil service, the army and other professions. In that same month, Jewish businesses were boycotted with the aim of making the move permanent. However, economic weakness and foreign pressure caused it to last for a single day.

The formalising of Nazi anti-Semitic law was enacted under the Nuremberg Laws on 15 September 1935. Hitler chose the most moderate version of the Nuremberg Laws and wrote up the conditions that made people eligible to be affected by them, which was basically any person with a direct or indirect connection to a Jew. The second major law was “For the Protection of German Blood and German Honour? which prohibited marriage between Germans and Jews, resulting in the abolishment of Jewish political rights, defining Jews as non-citizens. The Nuremberg Laws made Jews officially second-class citizens.

Due to the Olympic games in Berlin in 1936, Jewish treatment actually improved because although their anti-Semitic attitudes to the German Jews was known world-wide, actually seeing it would cause the failure of the Second Year Plan, which Hitler believed and therefore, discouraged prejudice towards the Jews.

There was increasing persecution of the Jews during 1937-39 resulting in Jews being driven out of certain towns that claimed themselves Judenfrei (“free of Jews”). The Jewish society was isolated from German society, encouraged by most Germans without disapproval. From this point we can see that Nazi treatment of the Jews as a society was worsening, as the German population is appearing to encourage their racial policies. Exemplified by random attacks on Orthodox Jews and verbal and physical attacks by the German community, largely Nazi activists. This was largely common especially in Austria where Jewish hatred was common, when after Anschluss, extremely violent acts against the Jewish population occurred including waves of attacks on Jewish property. By 1938, further Jewish anti-Semitic legislation was passed i.e. Jews were prohibited from being doctors, lawyers or dentists, which meant that Jews were being excluded from German economic life, a crescendo of increasing discrimination and maltreatment by the Nazis. These anti-Jewish laws meant that open acts of Jewish prejudice resulted in one of the most openly violent acts pre-1939, Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass) on 9-10 November 1938. This resulted in the destruction of many Jewish businesses and synagogues and the deaths of over 90 Jews, all spearheaded by Goebbels. Acts like these emphasised the increasing poor treatment of the Jews and by 1939, they had been outcast from all aspects of German life.

The euthanasia programme established in 1939-41, although not aimed at Jews, paved the way towards the creation of gas chambers constructed for the mass extermination of European Jews. The euthanasia programme was directed towards the extermination of the “racially inferior”, or in other words, the mentally ill or physically disabled. It was carried out in secret in 6 mental hospitals without the consent of either the patient or their relatives.
The Nazi expansion into Europe marked the increased abuse of the Jews. Due to the invasion of Poland (1939) and Russia (1941), there was a mass influx of Jews under German rule. Hitler gave the role of dealing with them to Himmler (SS) and Heydrich (SD) both fierce anti-Semites. It was decided that Poland, a country with 2 million Jews would be rounded up and be placed into Ghettos, most notably Warsaw. The Nazis believed that by placing them into these fenced cages many would starve to death or die of “natural causes”. The conditions were appalling, starvation and disease were rife leading to many uprisings against the Nazis, namely the Warsaw Uprising (1943), which involved an uprising numbering 60,000 and although it was bold and brave it was severely crushed by the SS. People living in these ghettos and other Jews were forced to wear to Star of David so that they could be recognised easier. This degradation and inhumane treatment of the Jews is an example of the ill treatment that they were experiencing under Nazi control. The mass influx of Polish and Russian Jews especially forced the final decision to be made on the “Final Solution” because the ghettos were becoming inundated with inhabitants that there was not enough space to house them all. A number of ideas were put forward, e.g. the Madagascar Plan, which would involved the transportation of European Jews to the island of Madagascar, where they would be worked as slave labour to death. However, this proved impractical because the British Navy controlled the seas, but the solution would involved the slave labour and extermination. These plans obviously spelled a worsening of treatment for the Jews and by June 1941, Himmler was given the order supposedly by Hitler to begin the construction of gas chambers and crematoria for mass extermination, no official documentation was found of the order. The invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 saw the beginnings of the mass killings and murderous treatment of the Jews. Behind the Nazi advance, 4 action squads (A-D), consisting of SS men, police forces and other ordinary Germans were deployed to begin systematic execution of Russian Jews, called Einsatzgruppen. These extermination squads caused the deaths of 1.2 million Russian Jews, but this method proved mentally taxing on the men and was not achieving the figures the Nazis wanted. Hence, more emphasis was put into the construction of the gas chambers.
The Wannsee Conference in 1942 meant that the European Jews would receive their worst treatment post-1933. This meeting involved the mapping out of a coherent and efficient programme for the extermination of the 11 million European Jews. By spring 1942, the programme was officially put into practice. Adolf Eichmann controlled this and the co-operation of many civilian services e.g. the booking of trains for the transportation of the Jews and the use of I.G. Farben for the production of Zyklon B. Despite the horrific treatment the Jews were to receive, the Nazis attempted to keep the camps secret from the public and Jews, claiming that they were being “resettled” to ensure compliance.

At these extermination camps the mass extermination of the Jews and inhumane treatment of them would occur. The gas chambers were disguised as showers surrounded by well-attended gardens. The most renowned was Auschwitz, which averaged the extermination of 6,000 Jews per day. By the end of the war, camps such as Auschwitz (e.g. Chelmno, Treblinka and Belzec) contributed to the deaths of millions of European Jews coming from countries as far as Greece. Himmler described the Holocaust as a “glorious page in history, which has never been written and never can be”, emphasising that in his eyes this was a great thing that the Nazis were doing, but saying that it could never been written exemplifies the fact that this was horrifying and atrocious treatment of a the Jewish population. From 1933 – 45, the Jews experienced a crescendo of increasing maltreatment from the Nazi regime resulting in the deaths of 6 million, a page in history that has to be told and understood in order to prevent another catastrophe like this occurring again.

Holocaust Victims

Accordingly the long wait and many denials must end so that accruing damages can be mitigated and healing can begin. Slavery reparations must be made as soon as possible to establish greater unity with improved standards of life for all, including African Americans. Only then can racism, even if predominantly de facto in nature, be extinguished for once and for all.

Slavery Reparations: Past Overdue
By William Sutherland

The annals of history are stained by an undeniable era of darkness; though the genocide remains unspoken, trivialized and sanitized ?Africans and persons of color were the victims of an unimaginable holocaust that spanned 400 years costing between 50 and 100 million lives.

Cities and villages were burned and razed, cultural treasures and technological contributions were ravaged and destroyed; a continent was raped ?her youth and potential stolen, her resources exploited, a history was erased and a people denied their purpose and worth.

Born royalty, princes and princesses were stripped of their birthright, and they with their people robbed of God’s priceless gifts of freedom, dreams and aspirations.

With their dignity stripped, their beauty and worth denied, and families cruelly torn apart, a proud people were made outcasts in hostile, foreign lands and reduced to material property to labor and toil by an unenlightened society. Bound in chains, an innocent people were stuffed in squalid ship holes to die of hunger and sickness, to drown in ferocious storms or to survive to live an existence of degradation and hell?/I>[1]

When Union forces captured the South in 1865 and put a formal end to slavery and its cruel and degrading practices, President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) and the federal government focused on restitution and reconstruction. The earliest reparations plan offered each freed slave 40 acres of land and a mule to work this land.

Under the auspices of this plan, General William Sherman (1820-1891) “set aside tracts of land in the sea islands around Charleston, SC?B>[2] exclusively for freed slaves. Within a short time, about ?0,000 freed slaves [had been] settled on 400,000 acres in Georgia and South Carolina.?B>[3]

However, when President Lincoln was assassinated, his successor, Andrew Johnson (1808-1875), a southerner from North Carolina, rescinded the federal government’s promise and reversed the reparations program. Former slaves were then evicted from their new lands that reverted back to white ownership. Despite Johnson’s opposition, Congressman Thaddeus Stevens (1792-1868) made a feeble attempt in 1867 proposing an unsuccessful bill that again called for distributing land to freed slaves.

Ten years later, when reconstruction ended followed by the passage of repressive, restrictive laws (e.g. Jim Crow) and the formation of white terrorist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) in the south, plans to address “the atrocities of slavery?and compensate its victims were forgotten. Afterwards, African-Americans saw little justice, were denied their constitutional rights, and subjected to terrorism (e.g. the entire town of Rosewood, FL was destroyed in January 1923 by white mobs while local officials sworn to uphold the law watched and even participated, leaving up to 80 black men, women, and children dead) and illegal lynching for nearly 100 years until the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s finally liberated them.

By the time Lincoln’s “Emancipation Proclamation” was implemented through force, four million Africans and their descendants had been enslaved in the U.S. and its colonies from 1619 to 1865, which played an integral role in leading to and accelerating America’s rise in becoming the “most prosperous country.” With this fact, the original promise implemented by General Sherman, calculations of the “sum total of the worth of all the Black labor stolen through means of slavery, segregation, and contemporary discrimination” ranging from $5 to $24 trillion, and estimates of the original plots given to and then stolen from freed slaves being valued at about $1.5 million each,[4] the time for slave reparations is past overdue when the concept of “unjust enrichment” is pursued as advocated by Randall Robinson, the author of “The Debt: What America Owes to Blacks.”

Accordingly, despite many obstacles, including legal and low support among whites, the slavery reparations movement has been revived and is “gaining momentum.”[5] In 1989, Congressman John Conyers (b. 1929) introduced H.R. 40 “to examine the effects [that slavery and its remnants –] Jim Crow have had on African-Americans since emancipation,”[6] which to date lacks the necessary support required for passage. Next in 2000, based on careful research by Deadria Farmer-Paellmann (b. 1965), an Adjunct Professor of Law at Southern New England School of Law, who discovered evidence that Aetna wrote “policies on the lives of enslaved Africans with slave owners as the beneficiaries,” the company issued an “unprecedented apology” giving birth to the “corporate restitution movement.”[7]

By 2002, nine lawsuits had been filed, the most notable in the federal courthouse in Brooklyn, NY against FleetBoston Financial, CSX (a major railways firm) and Aetna for direct involvement in the slave trade. Currently cases are pending “against 20 companies from the banking, insurance, textile, railroad, and tobacco industries.” At the same time, California and twelve other states have enacted disclosure laws requiring insurance companies doing business within their boundaries to reveal “their role in slavery,” while boycotts are being staged against firms named in the Farmer-Paellmann litigation that are challenging restitution demands.[8]

Despite critics, the case for slavery reparations is convincing and strong:

The disparity between African Americans and Whites ($6000 vs. $88,000 net worth) would have been significantly smaller had President Johnson not rescinded Lincoln’s original promise or if the 1867 Reparations bill would have passed giving freed slaves “an economic foothold before waves of European immigrants poured into the U.S. during the latter decades of the 1800s.[9]

The United States has already given land away in its 230-year history. Approximately 246 million acres of “productive” land was given to about 1.5 million people through the Homestead Act. Ironically out of the 1.5 million beneficiaries that included many white immigrants, there were only 4000 native African Americans.

Internationally, land has also been awarded to compensate victims of injustices. The most notable example is the creation of Israel, which has benefited countless Holocaust (1938-1945) victims and their families.

Precedents also exist for monetary payments to victims of injustices. Since 1952, the German government and corporations (along with those of Austria and Switzerland, to name others) have paid more than $120 billion to fund early Israeli projects and compensate Holocaust survivors. Presently about 120,000 Holocaust survivors (once about 275,000) are still receiving lifetime reparation payments. At the same time, “Japanese-Americans interned during World War II are receiving reparation for their loss of property and liberty during that period” after filing a lawsuit under the Federal Tort Claims Act, which “waives the government’s ‘sovereign immunity’ in some situations,”[10] and American Indian tribes have and continue to receive compensation for “lands ceded to the U.S. by them in various treaties.”[11]

Many ask, “Would reparations for slavery be just?”[12] arguing that the practice was originally legal, “[n]ot a single person directly affected by slavery remains alive,”[13] the cost of tracing lineages to slaves would be unbearable, the process next to impossible, “no one alive today owned slaves,” and that “payments based on race alone would be perceived… as a monstrous injustice… setting back race relations”[14] without healing “the ills of the black community.”[15]

Considering that, while every slave and his/her direct family are deceased, African Americans continued to suffer disproportionately from segregation, discrimination, and barbaric attacks into the late 20th century, and at times continue to be the victims of bias (e.g. racial profiling when it comes to jobs, shopping, law enforcement and voting despite equal opportunity and equal protection laws and the 1964 Civil Rights Act), remain disproportionately disenfranchised when it comes to net worth and home ownership and still suffer from a sense of a lack of self-worth versus today’s black immigrants, slavery reparations are not only just but necessary.

Holocaust reparations continue to be paid even though the genocide that murdered more than 7 million, predominantly Jews along with opponents of Adolf Hitler’s (1889-1945) regime and other “non-Aryans” (persons with fair-skin, light hair, and blue eyes), was legal under the democratically elected Third Reich (1933-1945) government. Thus arguments that corporations should not be punished for “legal” acts are baseless. In reality, slavery was as morally repugnant as the Holocaust and “corporations that benefited from staling people, from stealing labor, from forced breeding, from torture, from committing numerous horrendous acts,” in the words of Farmer-Paellmann “should [not] be able to hold onto assets they acquired through such horrendous acts.”[16]

Back in 1999, more than 50 years after the end of the Holocaust, Jewish groups seeking at least $20 billion in new reparations called a $3.3 billion offer made by a German delegation representing the country’s government and corporations “disgusting.” They later agreed on a $5.2 billion “Nazi slave [compensation] fund” that was approved by the German Parliament in 2000. However, while these negotiations were being held, “the World Council of Orthodox Jewish Communities filed a[nother] lawsuit in the U.S. against Deutsche Bank, Germany’s second-largest bank, alleging that it funded and profited from Nazi atrocities.”[17]

Based on these two cases alone, the passage of time and existing “legalities” of the prevailing era, are irrelevant when it comes to redressing inhuman acts like the Holocaust and slavery if justice is to be served. “Slavery harmed slaves and thus, indirectly, their descendants.”[18] Furthermore, as there is no statute of limitations when it comes to the Holocaust, it can also be argued that none should exist when it comes to slavery especially since “African Americans were not allowed access to the courts in any meaningful way – even long after the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery was passed [in December 1865].” Also, consistent with California’s legislation that revised existing statutes of limitations to ensure that “certain Holocaust suits would not be time-barred,”[19] legislation can also provide extensions to African Americans so as not to perpetuate past injustices that were every bit as evil as those committed by the Third Reich.

Therefore, arguments that slavery reparations are illogical and “that tax dollars [and corporate holdings] should not be used for [this] compensation”[20] are equally as “disgusting.” Per Dr. Martin Luther King (1929-1968), the only practical route is for “all citizens [to] engage as full participants in a dialogue examining what is the cost of repairing our society to make it equally accessible to everyone”[21] rather than dismissing and denying the need for past due reparations to the African American community.

In addition, the commentary offered during the 1999 Holocaust compensation fight regarding monetary payments is as appropriate to slavery reparations as it was during these negotiations when it was stated, “how to quantify this in financial terms is a difficult question… Money itself cannot bring back the dead, nor can it erase the memory of years of forced labor, but those seeking compensation say it may be the best system there is.”[22] While no amount of money nor steps can redress the sins of slavery, such reparations with a formal national condemnation of and apology for the practice can bring justice and healing, boost the self-esteem of African Americans, reduce current racial net worth and private property ownership gaps, improve standards of life for black Americans, and provide them with new opportunities that might otherwise remain unattainable for generations to come.

Although it may be impossible to give direct compensation to most slave descendants, every effort should be made to locate and compensate those with confirmed direct lineages and to African Americans who had suffered under segregation. In addition, slavery reparations funds should contribute to black foundations, black scholarships, and black community projects aimed at improving infrastructure and standards of life, especially since precedents already exist for the latter. When Germany began Holocaust reparations payments, Bonn “funded about a third of the total investment in Israel’s electrical system… and nearly half the total investment in [Israel’s] railways, [consisting of] diesel engines, cars, tracks, and signaling equipment [along with] equipment for [agriculture, construction, expanding the country’s] water supply, for oil drilling, and for operating the [country’s] copper mines.”[23]

Based on the examples of national corporate and government contributions to Holocaust reparations funds, it is not impractical, nor unfeasible for the governments and corporations of the United States, United Kingdom and other European states that benefited from slavery to make payments to slavery reparations funds. When the United States is considered, many of the named firms that have directly and/or indirectly benefited from slavery have sufficient assets and annual profits while the national government has millions of acres of federal land and holdings to utilize for slavery reparations.

Furthermore, the federal government could add a line underneath the “Presidential Election Campaign” section that reads “Slavery and Civil Rights Reparations – Check here if you, or your spouse if filing jointly, want $3 to go to this fund” on every federal tax return while states, especially those in the south that benefited the most from the slave trade and labor, most of which already have contribution lines for causes ranging from breast cancer research to wildlife, could also add such a line.

In conclusion, the African American community and advocates for justice must stand united and demand slavery reparations as stridently as the Jewish community and advocates for justice have for Holocaust compensation. Both abominations require reparations and redress since they share great similarities – morally repugnant brutal treatment and forced labor considered legal in their respective times under ruling governments that perpetrated and encouraged them, and each has cost millions of lives. As the BBC states in “The long fight for Holocaust compensation” reparations are “particularly pertinent for a generation that has little direct memory of the Holocaust [since these financial payments are] akin to acknowledging the horrors of the past and the responsibility of the present generation for ensuring that it does not happen again” such payments are equally applicable for the past practice of slavery.

In the accurate and eloquent words of Kimberley Jane Wilson, “American slavery was a sin… The principles of liberty, justice and equality didn’t apply to the millions of Africans brought to America against their will. Our history is full of racial ironies. When Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) wrote, ‘All men are created equal,’ he owned 187 slaves. Patrick Henry (1736-1799) owned over 90 slaves when he shouted the famous words, ‘Give me liberty or give me death!’ Union General Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885) fought the Confederacy, but didn’t free his own slaves until Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. Even after slavery ended, America – the beacon of freedom to people all over the world – still treated black Americans with indignity and, on occasion, savage cruelty.”[24]

Accordingly the long wait and many denials must end so that accruing damages can be mitigated and healing can begin. Slavery reparations must be made as soon as possible to establish greater unity with improved standards of life for all, including African Americans. Only then can racism, even if predominantly de facto in nature, be extinguished for once and for all.

__________

[1] William Sutherland. The Unspoken Holocaust. The International Who’s Who In Poetry. (The International Library of Poetry. Owings Mills, MD 2004) 3.

[2] Reparations for slavery. Wikipedia. 4 September 2006. 16 September 2006. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reparations_for_slavery

[3] Reparations for slavery. Wikipedia. 4 September 2006. 16 September 2006. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reparations_for_slavery

[4] William Reed. Blacks worth $6k; whites $88k. Insight News. 12 September 2006. 16 September 2006. http://www.insightnews.com/business.asp?mode=display&articleID=2617

[5] Making Amends: Debate Continues Over Reparations for U.S. Slavery. NPR. 12 September 2006. 16 September 2006. http://www.npr.org/programs/specials/racism/010827.reparations.html

[6] William Reed. Blacks worth $6k; whites $88k. Insight News. 12 September 2006. 16 September 2006. http://www.insightnews.com/business.asp?mode=display&articleID=2617

[7] Reparations for slavery. Wikipedia. 4 September 2006. 16 September 2006. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reparations_for_slavery

[8] Reparations for slavery. Wikipedia. 4 September 2006. 16 September 2006. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reparations_for_slavery

[9] William Reed. Blacks worth $6k; whites $88k. Insight News. 12 September 2006. 16 September 2006. http://www.insightnews.com/business.asp?mode=display&articleID=2617

[10] Anthony J. Sebok. Should Claims Based On African-American Slavery Be Litigated In The Courts? And If So, How? FindLaw. 4 December 2000. 16 September 2006. http://writ.corporate.findlaw.com/sebok/20001204.html

[11] Reparations for slavery. Wikipedia. 4 September 2006. 16 September 2006. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reparations_for_slavery

[12] Would Reparations for Slavery be Just? The Claremont Institute. 5 May 2002. 12 September 2006. http://www.claremont.org/writings/020505erler.html

[13] Even if Millions Rally on the Mall, Reparations Won’t Heal Black America. Project 21 Press Release. 15 August 2002. 12 September 2006. http://www.nationalcenter.org/P21PRReparations802.html

[14] Civil Rights: Should Black Americans Receive Reparations Payments Because of Slavery? The National Center For Public Policy Research. 23 August 2004. 12 September 2006. http://www.nationalcenter.org/P21PRReparations802.html

[15] Even if Millions Rally on the Mall, Reparations Won’t Heal Black America. Project 21 Press Release. 15 August 2002. 12 September 2006. http://www.nationalcenter.org/P21PRReparations802.html

[16] Peter Viles. Suit seeks billions in slave reparations. CNN.com. 27 March 2002. 16 September 2006. http://archives.cnn.com/2002/LAW/03/26/slavery.reparations

[17] World: Europe Nazi slave offer ‘disgusting.’ BBC News. 7 October 1999. 12 September 2006. http://nws.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/468248.stm

[18] Civil Rights: Should Black Americans Receive Reparations Payments Because of Slavery? The National Center For Public Policy Research. 23 August 2004. 12 September 2006. http://www.nationalcenter.org/P21PRReparations802.html

[19] Anthony J. Sebok. Should Claims Based On African-American Slavery Be Litigated In The Courts? And If S

[20] Making Amends: Debate Continues Over Reparations for U.S. Slavery. NPR. 12 September 2006. 16 September 2006. http://www.npr.org/programs/specials/racism/010827.reparations.html

[21] Civil Rights: Should Black Americans Receive Reparations Payments Because of Slavery? The National Center For Public Policy Research. 23 August 2004. 12 September 2006. http://www.nationalcenter.org/P21PRReparations802.html

[22] The long fight for Holocaust compensation. BBC News. 26 January 2000. 12 September 2006. http://nws.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/619896.stm

[23] Norman G. Finkelstein. Lessons of Holocaust Compensation. 2001. 12 September 2006. http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=4&ar=14

[24] Kimberley Jane Wilson. Reparations, Anyone? Project 21 New Visions Commentary. August 2001. 12 September 2006. http://www.nationalcenter.org/P21NVWilsonReparations801.html

William Sutherland is a published poet and writer. He is the author of three books, "Poetry, Prayers & Haiku" (1999), "Russian Spring" (2003) and "Aaliyah Remembered: Her Life & The Person behind the Mystique" (2005) and has been published in poetry anthologies around the world. He has been featured in "Who's Who in New Poets" (1996), "The International Who's Who in Poetry" (2004), and is a member of the "International Poetry Hall of Fame." He is also a contributor to Wikipedia, the number one online encyclopedia.

Hitler and Holocaust

He believes, amongst other things, that Hitler was talked into the Holocaust by a group of Jews who then bankrolled the whole thing, that he himself is the son of God, and that the whole world is secretly run by a group of giant lizards from the constellation Draco.

Sunday Morning Beaming Down
By Luke Haines

It’s September 11th, as I write this. Or it will be for a few more hours, anyway.

To be more precise, it’s September 11th 2006, so it’s five years since the September 11th we all think of when we hear that date.

I refuse to call it 9/11, as I’m British and as such, 9/11 is the ninth of November, and as far as I recall, nothing happened on that day.

However, being the fifth anniversary of the World Trade Centre attacks, the newspapers today were understandably filled with memorial pieces, and one editorial in particular caught my eye. I’m not entirely sure how freely I’m allowed to name-check other publications on this website, so I won’t name the paper, but suffice to say it rhymes with “Splindependent.?/P>

Anyway, a columnist in the Splindependent (which happens to be my favourite source of news after the TV channel that features the second letter of the alphabet twice and the third letter once, and isn’t the BCB or the CBB) wrote today about how all the ?/11 conspiracies?are ridiculous.

I agree.

I’ll say it again, nothing happened on November 9th. (I’m sorry, but if we start using this Americanism for one date, pretty soon the rest will follow. This is how it starts!)

My paranoia about the way we phrase a date actually leads me neatly to what I do want to talk about though, and that is the business of paranoid conspiracy theories.

First and foremost, I do not believe that the September 11th conspiracy theories are at all ridiculous. There are a number of deeply troubling and worrisome questions which have been neatly ignored. One of the biggest, for me, is that most of the 19 named hijackers have since come forward and made themselves known to authorities, which is a pretty neat trick for anyone who should logically be comprised mostly of smithereens by now.

What the world doesn’t need, however, is one more internet crank ranting on and on about how there’s something going on that we don’t know about when it comes to 9/11. (Like, what exactly DID happen that mysterious day, and what does it have to do with events in Sept-… oh, alright, I’ll let it go.)

The thing that does interest me, however, is the lighter side of conspiracy theories. In the Splindependent editorial, the writer mentions David Icke. The name rang a vague bell, so I looked him up.

I don’t think I’ve ever found a more diverting article.

Essentially, and I admit I’m a little hazy on the details, David Icke is a former footballer who received a message from the beyond through a medium in 1990. I personally receive most of my messages through a small, but as a former goal keeper, he is presumably taller than me. He believes, amongst other things, that Hitler was talked into the Holocaust by a group of Jews who then bankrolled the whole thing, that he himself is the son of God, and that the whole world is secretly run by a group of giant lizards from the constellation Draco.

I don’t know why space reptiles come from a constellation that sounds like the Russian guy in Rocky IV, but then I haven’t had a chance to ask them, yet.

According to the startlingly earnest Mr. Icke, these reptilian overlords have successfully bred with humans to create a race of hybrids who can shape-shift after drinking human blood, and who are now all in positions of power. A by-no-means exhaustive list of these hybrids includes the British Royal Family, George W. Bush and presumably the rest of his family, Tony Blair, the Rothschild family and Kris Kristofferson.

Now, there’s a name that leaps out at me there right away.

If there was (and by “if there was” I mean “there isn’t”) a huge, global conspiracy by space reptiles, I can understand most of those choices. You would want lizard-men in keys places, such as Government (check) Royalty (check) and country music. No, wait…

How in the blue hell did Kris Kristofferson, or, more accurately, Ma Kristofferson, end up involved with the lizard people and give birth to their unholy spawn?! Spawn may be an unfortunate choice of words, given the topic, but still, it’s a question that seriously bears some looking at. I love Kris Kristofferson, but I’m willing to bet that I don’t know more than five people who could reliably tell you who he is.

For those who don’t know, he’s a sorely under-rated singer songwriter and a B-movie actor, probably best known as Whistler in the “Blade” movies. How exactly he fits into the global domination by lizards plot has never been made clear by ol’ Dave.

In possibly the worst idea in history, on a trip to Brazil in 2003, some local people gave Icke a mind altering plant to try. This was perhaps a skit in an aborted reality series called “Drug the Loony”, but I’m just speculating. Either way, this man is a long, long way down the list of people who should ever have his mind tamped with any more than nature has already done. Speaking of the experience he reportedly said, oh-so-coherently: "[It] is a plant – a rain forest plant – which they turn in to what they call a turn and Shaman in South America have been using it for centuries at least to take people into other realms of reality. ... I took it twice and it was an experience – particularly on the 2nd night – that completely transformed my view of life. What it did was take my intellectual understanding that the world is an illusion into the realms of knowing it’s an illusion and there’s a difference between intellectually understanding it’s an illusion and this level of knowing it because you’ve experienced it. I got to the age of 50 without taking a single magic mushroom and I never even had one smoke of pot or anything." I don’t wish to stereotype, but this is exactly what you get when you listen to what a professional footballer thinks about the world.

Apparently, Mr Icke actually IS listened to, as well. He makes some money on the lecture circuit (apparently he does quite well with radical right-wing groups like Combat 18 and other such beacons of intelligence and reason) and was considered for inclusion in a recent series of Celebrity Big Brother.

As anyone who knows me can attest, I don’t watch Big Brother. I won’t. I’ve vowed to have horrible, graphic things done to soft parts of my body before I will watch it, but I have to say: If this guy was included, I’d be tempted.

The scariest part of all is that in a recent poll in BBC Homes and Antiques Magazine, he was apparently voted only the Third Most Eccentric Star, being beaten by Bjork and Chris Eubank.

(I checked, apparently his being “beaten by Chris Eubank” was just in the sense of where he placed in the poll, and not an engaging centrefold.)

Perhaps that’s overly harsh. I’m torn when it comes to people like this. On the one hand, they detract from genuine conspiracies. We still don’t know who shot Kennedy, or why Osama Bin Laden was mysteriously wearing a gold ring in the video where he admitted responsibility for the 9/11 attacks (gold rings are forbidden under Islamic law), but at least some of the reason why we may never find out is that there is a lot of background noise from the Giant Lizard corner of the room that drowns out the real questions.

At the same time, I think we need people like this for entertainment value. Realistically, nobody this stupid or blind could ever have a serious impact on the way the world is run anyway. Unless their name is George.

[Note: on 9th of November, Ambrose Burnside, best known for his facial hair, assumed command of the Army of the Potomac in 1862, the Great Fire of Boston began in 1872, Jack the Ripper killed Mary Jane Kelly, his last confirmed victim, in 1888, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany Abdicated in 1918 having lost a rather well publicised war of the time, Albert Einstein was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1921, the “Beer Hall Putsch” is thwarted in Germany in 1923 and, ironically, Kristallnacht occurred exactly 15 years later, and in 1961 Neil Armstrong set a new airspeed record in a rocket plane. 6,587km/h, for those taking notes.]

Grave of Casey Sheehan

I'm sorry also to tell some that believe we live in a "democracy" that we don't! We live in a Republic! And the difference is; In a Democracy, what is good for one is good for all! (much like burying your loved ones the way you want to!) (sorry, couldn't resist) In a Republic, the individual rights are paramount.

About the Grave of Casey Sheehan
By DAn Bunch

About the grave of Casey Sheehan

(first written as an email in answer to veterans about how Cindy Sheehan buried and marked her son's grave)(the governement will give you a marker for a veterans grave. etc.)

(look at the grave. No marker! But she goes on vacations; and travels the world; meets with Jessie Jackson; etc.)

I am sorry guys, I have to disagree on this!

I will reserve (reads-not-a-going-to:) my judgement unto myself of this woman's actions. I do not agree with them at all!

However; having made note of that; why is it any business of mine/yours/the public; how; why; where; she buries her loved ones?

Something is amiss here.

What happened to the rights the man died for? I guess he would die for the right of his or any other mother to bury a son in peace?

One can only hope.

If she is escaping; traveling in style; going on vacation; or; (you didn't mention this and it is only an example of some persons' life) pulling drunk binges; what has that got to do with the fact that obviously there is no marker on her dead sons' grave?

I don't see any connection!

Have you ever thought about what you are doing in this act? You are discriminating against her rights to bury, mark or not mark, her loved ones' grave! How cruel!

Anyone of course has the right to criticize or belittle what she is trying to do, as long as it is in public. She is fair game for, lets put it this way; "a shot across her bow". But to act in this way, "shooting her full of holes" is only a political stunt. And not a good one at that!

Politics is dirty. But I don't have to be a party in anything this sordid. Not the messing in a dead military veteran's mothers' action, as it concerns the burial of loved ones. That is going more than a bit too far!

I know I am biased. I am. I don't think that is wrong. I think that is not only patriotic, but dutiful. I think I don't like the way the government is acting to severely curb our rights. I think it is going too far. In "keeping us safe"! this is not a correct move now. The "move" has become something else entirely!

I should know. For I am a Melungeon. A people once denied rights to the point of not being able to vote, hold political office, nor marry with or testify against, a "white" person! It was so bad thousands were castrated in an effort to rid the earth of the (as I call them) "Mud-People! Hitlers henchmen loved this idea! And attended a conference in New York, where a lot of realy big, important, and wealthy people in this country also attended, in order to give thought and applause to this outrage! You know them today! As leading citizens from leading families in political life!

So my people fled the mountains of TN and other places. To immigrate to Texas; Oklahoma; Missouri; and Arkansas. And on the way, they took a vow. Having fought always on the governments side, even when that was only the British government in power, these Civil War Union Veterans decided not to ever tell anything that was done to them! In other words; they forgave! They didn't keep it from their children as they had wanted to, to distance the stigma (that we now wear with pride, along with the name "Melungeon", a one-time word for the "boogy-man!) Not with today's Internet.

But soon that will be gone, replaced by a U.N. controlled "Outer-net", where both you and I cannot take different sides on any issue, without doing time in prison! It almost that way now! If you think not, tell me why military reverends are not allowed to say the word "Jesus Christ" during any service outside and inside the united states? Why is the Canadian mis-conception of a persons right to say and think any way he pleases, without going to prison! You say anything about the holocaust, denying it, or saying it might have been "this way", and you will do time in prison. Speak anything other than French, in places, will earn you a fine, or jail time or both. This crud is coming to America right now! This is what you should be talking and concerning yourself with!

Instead, you are fooled into a "democratic vs. republican" exchange of barbs that has no real meaning or affect upon our lives! This too is planned!

I'm sorry also to tell some that believe we live in a "democracy" that we don't! We live in a Republic! And the difference is; In a Democracy, what is good for one is good for all! (much like burying your loved ones the way you want to!) (sorry, couldn't resist) In a Republic, the individual rights are paramount. The good of all is considered, but not to the point where all other persons rights are placed upon any individual.

Think about that. Don't think upon the pabulum the parties and government is feeding you! It is ruining your countries health!

Instead, think about the many rights you once enjoyed in your youth, and the fact that your kids will not be able to enjoy them!

Later,

Dan Bunch