So What’s New?
We begin 2010 with a national debt of over twelve trillion dollars and rising. That’s roughly 40 thousand dollars per taxpayer. Should we continue paying for the phony war on terror which started in Afghanistan, moved to Iraq, returned to Afghanistan, is spreading to Pakistan and has lasted longer than World War Two? Or should we put an end to the terror war on tax payers in the USA? Guess which costs us more : our military budget to murder thousands of innocent people and maintain puppet regimes in foreign countries, or our national budget to help citizens find jobs, housing, health care and education? Political lies and moronic bigotry can make it seem that immigrants, the poor and hypochondriacs are sinking us into deeper debt, but morons can also show that the moon is made of green cheese, flying saucers regularly visit earth and the Democratic and Republican parties truly represent the interests of all americans. Yeah, right.
It’s time we face the reality of a crumbling empire that still seems to provide freedom and opportunity, but only for a shrinking minority. And the burden of supporting that minority falls on a majority which picks up the deadly tab in a world growing more politically treacherous, economically desperate and ecologically dangerous. Each day we expect change to result from rhetorical reform offered by the ruling minority’s hired help makes it more difficult to create the radical transformation we must bring about to help save our nation and our world .
Anyone who still thinks the new model hybrid presidential brand represents a difference in anything more than style suffers from wishful thinking disorder. Some are finally shaking the cobwebs out of their heads and organizing to force him to do what they voted for, rather than expect him to voluntarily disobey his financial and political owners. He did not miraculously come to us from the heavens but was selected, shaped and packaged to be sold as an all new product at a time when the system could no longer continue under the old brand name. But his job description is the same as the previous national CEO : represent corporate capital, Wall street and Israel first, and the rest of us, if at all, second .
Those still in denial need to face the global death, destruction and debt that have not only continued but are getting worse under this new regime. What our consciousness controllers tell us are great speeches are merely rhetorical stunts to dull our senses to the substantial continuity with the last regime’s most murderous policies. Denial is difficult to shake given our near total control by corporate media in its job as stenographer for power and mass sleeping pill for its subjects . But there are more alternative outlets for news , analysis and political organizing than ever before that need to be used and strengthened and they are not only on the internet.
Countless small struggling print journals - like The Coastal Post and The Independent Monitor - need the support of citizens interested in change for the better in the lives of previously silenced and manipulated minorities. But whatever the ethnic, religious or other special identity observed, we need to ultimately become the great majority who face lethal problems that need common solutions. The increased warfare in the middle east, rhetorical and military hostilities in latin america and general disrespect by the developed world leaders for the rest of humanity are a call for supporters of real peace and social justice to confront the root causes of war and ecological destruction before it is too late.
Long before he took office this president made it clear that he would protect corporate capital’s global domination and maintain its major branch office in Israel. His induced perception as unique - being only half white instead of all white - played a major role in making him seem truly different. But people with sincere hopes and ideals have had them crushed so often in the past that this latest farce will hopefully be the last lesson needed. No matter what rhetorical pomp and political circumstance are offered , no matter what ethnicity, race , sex or sexuality is claimed by the candidate, financial backing and ownership are far more important. The party of individual wealth , corporate capital and Israel remains in charge, with only minor cosmetic and stylistic adjustments that make no difference at all to foreigners being threatened, embargoed or invaded, or americans left homeless, jobless , uneducated, in debt and denied health care .
Anti-social techniques of mind management remain persuasive among a public trained to worship individual responsibility and show near contempt for governmental action in the name of all the people. This will continue as long as we accept our dysfunctional union as something called a democracy and ourselves as subdivisions of humanity . Global society’s class divisions become obvious when we see which countries invade and which are invaded. And where the consumption frenzy leads directly to the increased debt of the middle class and further suffering of the poor. But whether they are colonized natives, oppressed peasants or exploited workers, the previously submissive are demanding change in their status by organizing as one people with common interests.
When lacking clean water, sickened by chemical foods and polluted air or suffering drought, warfare or hurricanes , it is humanity which is in torment, not simply nationalities. 2010 will hopefully bring us closer to acting as a people with common racial origins , universal bonds and a desperate need to create social solutions to problems that will get worse the longer we allow them to be trivialized as combat between mythological good and evil, simple individual concerns or special identity group dilemmas. All of us or none of us? Indeed. Happy New Year? Make it so.
Copyright (c) 2009 by Frank Scott. All rights reserved.
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frank scott
email: frankscott@comcast.net
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
News from " The Garlic"
President Announces Invasion After Peace Speech
After giving one of his weekly stirring speeches on peace which bring tears to the eyes of admirers, detractors and those suffering Mental Antagonism Disorder(MAD) the president called for a massive military attack on the third world nation Oblivia.
“The Oblivians who are rising up to demand that the west repay them for past plundering of their people and other resources fail to understand the nature of Western domination. We are higher orders of humans, regardless of race, creed or mental status, while they represent a deadly threat to the well being of all Americans whose pets desperately need the animal foods our nation relies on and which come from the remains of Oblivia’s livestock and children. Especially during this cherished holiday season, we must do the smart thing and kill for peace.”
Many of the assembled press joined in tearful appreciation of the president’s rhetorical ability to cloud minds and morals with his soaring rhetoric. Spin doctors, political analysts, congress and day care workers united in support for this smart new war to save humanity from a stupid old culture.
Oblivians Delighted At Invasion By Multicultural Forces
The newly invaded people of Oblivia have expressed grateful satisfaction at being devastated by an attacking army of diverse persons. “My home was bombed by afro-asian-american bisexual jews and my daughter was raped by a latino-arab-american lesbian” said a smiling, if distraught, native of the third world nation which provides dog and cat food to the developed world. “Of course I am sad to lose my home and my family, but at least I can grieve knowing that they were murdered by a truly integrated, socially diverse force of invaders and killers. In a strange and confusing way, I am almost happy that I have suffered for the good of affirmative action in the developed world. Thank you so much for the drug injection you gave me before conducting this interview. Why is my skin making faces at me?”
Tiger Woods named Stud of the Millennium
After the entire female population of Concord, New Hampshire revealed that they had slept with Tiger Woods, raising the alleged total of woman he has had to upwards of fifty seven thousand, PlayWithYourSelf magazine nominated him for Stud Of the Millennium, with aging publisher Hugh Betcha offering Woods accommodation at the world famous PlayWithYourSelf mansion, constructed in the shape of male genitalia.
Woods would not answer calls from the press but his publicist said that while he appreciates all the tasteful attention given his alleged sexual escapades in a nation which sees 100 people killed on its highways every day , he would soon leave organized major sports and enter miniature golf competition out of respect for all the envious white men , angry black women and other unfortunate citizens living lives of such incredible emptiness that only sordid gossip about celebrities could hold their attention.
Attack on Department of Clichés Headquarters
A bloody attack on Cliché Central was claimed by the Clarity in Speech Liberation Front. Three media workers were shot dead while saying that a decade long study had proved that the envelope was being pushed towards transparency by sources which could not be revealed at the present time. A message released to major media and minor online gossip sites said:
“We will not tolerate any further evasions of language, distortions of speech or refusals to call a spade a spade for political reason. Death to the speakers of obfuscatory cliché ridden, uh, inarticulate empty repetitious talk that goes on and on, with interruptions of inarticulateness that, um, like, you know, mess up our minds and like, make it very difficult to , um, get a point across, which has been a problem for the one one hundredth of a decade during which this comment has been in the process of, um, getting across or trying to, like, make clear.”
The group was thought to be affiliated with the international terrorist communist islamic rosicrucian illuminati front and, um, was seen as the biggest threat to peace since the attacks of, uh, 911.
Obamanation Called Abomination by U.N. General Assembly
After the United Nations In-Security Council supported a U.S. - Israel resolution censuring Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and the Little sisters of the Poor as supporters of International terrorism, child molesting and puppy dog and kitty cat beating, the General Assembly voted unanimously to move U.N. headquarters far from the abomination of the Obamanation. The new headquarters will be in a place more representative of the hopes and sentiments of the global majority: a cave on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
Leading Banks To Pay TARP With CARP Funds
Major financial institutions which borrowed hundreds of billions of dollars of public money from the TARP fund (troubled asset relief program) have promised to pay their debts early, using money from the CARP fund ( criminal asset relief program). The president, congress and federal reserve thanked them for their early payment and agreed to loan them several trillion more dollars if CARP isn't enough to assure them another record profit making year.
Speaking for the average American taxpayers, former homeowners and unemployed workers, a minority of congress renounced their citizenship and escaped to the West Bank and Gaza, where they hoped to find higher morality if not peace or justice.
Hate Crimes Definition Expanded:
Six billion more Covered
Under pressure from groups which felt they were left out, hate crimes will be considered in cases of discrimination judged to be based on taunting or harassing because of height, weight, region of birth, membership in Crips, Bloods, Elks or Masons, style of dress, being clean shaved or bearded , being overweight, underweight, weightless, unstylish and unfashionable in attire or treated as stupid by people who think they are smart.
Liberal groups threatened to sue conservatives for Hate Crimes under the new definition because conservatives call them wimpy but Conservatives had already filed suit because liberals call them rednecks. That case may reach the Supreme Court after it is featured on the Daily Show, The Onion and the new online sensation from Legalienate, The Garlic. All these groups have been accused of hate crimes in the past or will be in the future, along with countless millions of individuals who will finally have the opportunity to get even with society for making them, uh, members of, uh, groups which are really, like, hated.
Stay Tuned
After giving one of his weekly stirring speeches on peace which bring tears to the eyes of admirers, detractors and those suffering Mental Antagonism Disorder(MAD) the president called for a massive military attack on the third world nation Oblivia.
“The Oblivians who are rising up to demand that the west repay them for past plundering of their people and other resources fail to understand the nature of Western domination. We are higher orders of humans, regardless of race, creed or mental status, while they represent a deadly threat to the well being of all Americans whose pets desperately need the animal foods our nation relies on and which come from the remains of Oblivia’s livestock and children. Especially during this cherished holiday season, we must do the smart thing and kill for peace.”
Many of the assembled press joined in tearful appreciation of the president’s rhetorical ability to cloud minds and morals with his soaring rhetoric. Spin doctors, political analysts, congress and day care workers united in support for this smart new war to save humanity from a stupid old culture.
Oblivians Delighted At Invasion By Multicultural Forces
The newly invaded people of Oblivia have expressed grateful satisfaction at being devastated by an attacking army of diverse persons. “My home was bombed by afro-asian-american bisexual jews and my daughter was raped by a latino-arab-american lesbian” said a smiling, if distraught, native of the third world nation which provides dog and cat food to the developed world. “Of course I am sad to lose my home and my family, but at least I can grieve knowing that they were murdered by a truly integrated, socially diverse force of invaders and killers. In a strange and confusing way, I am almost happy that I have suffered for the good of affirmative action in the developed world. Thank you so much for the drug injection you gave me before conducting this interview. Why is my skin making faces at me?”
Tiger Woods named Stud of the Millennium
After the entire female population of Concord, New Hampshire revealed that they had slept with Tiger Woods, raising the alleged total of woman he has had to upwards of fifty seven thousand, PlayWithYourSelf magazine nominated him for Stud Of the Millennium, with aging publisher Hugh Betcha offering Woods accommodation at the world famous PlayWithYourSelf mansion, constructed in the shape of male genitalia.
Woods would not answer calls from the press but his publicist said that while he appreciates all the tasteful attention given his alleged sexual escapades in a nation which sees 100 people killed on its highways every day , he would soon leave organized major sports and enter miniature golf competition out of respect for all the envious white men , angry black women and other unfortunate citizens living lives of such incredible emptiness that only sordid gossip about celebrities could hold their attention.
Attack on Department of Clichés Headquarters
A bloody attack on Cliché Central was claimed by the Clarity in Speech Liberation Front. Three media workers were shot dead while saying that a decade long study had proved that the envelope was being pushed towards transparency by sources which could not be revealed at the present time. A message released to major media and minor online gossip sites said:
“We will not tolerate any further evasions of language, distortions of speech or refusals to call a spade a spade for political reason. Death to the speakers of obfuscatory cliché ridden, uh, inarticulate empty repetitious talk that goes on and on, with interruptions of inarticulateness that, um, like, you know, mess up our minds and like, make it very difficult to , um, get a point across, which has been a problem for the one one hundredth of a decade during which this comment has been in the process of, um, getting across or trying to, like, make clear.”
The group was thought to be affiliated with the international terrorist communist islamic rosicrucian illuminati front and, um, was seen as the biggest threat to peace since the attacks of, uh, 911.
Obamanation Called Abomination by U.N. General Assembly
After the United Nations In-Security Council supported a U.S. - Israel resolution censuring Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and the Little sisters of the Poor as supporters of International terrorism, child molesting and puppy dog and kitty cat beating, the General Assembly voted unanimously to move U.N. headquarters far from the abomination of the Obamanation. The new headquarters will be in a place more representative of the hopes and sentiments of the global majority: a cave on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
Leading Banks To Pay TARP With CARP Funds
Major financial institutions which borrowed hundreds of billions of dollars of public money from the TARP fund (troubled asset relief program) have promised to pay their debts early, using money from the CARP fund ( criminal asset relief program). The president, congress and federal reserve thanked them for their early payment and agreed to loan them several trillion more dollars if CARP isn't enough to assure them another record profit making year.
Speaking for the average American taxpayers, former homeowners and unemployed workers, a minority of congress renounced their citizenship and escaped to the West Bank and Gaza, where they hoped to find higher morality if not peace or justice.
Hate Crimes Definition Expanded:
Six billion more Covered
Under pressure from groups which felt they were left out, hate crimes will be considered in cases of discrimination judged to be based on taunting or harassing because of height, weight, region of birth, membership in Crips, Bloods, Elks or Masons, style of dress, being clean shaved or bearded , being overweight, underweight, weightless, unstylish and unfashionable in attire or treated as stupid by people who think they are smart.
Liberal groups threatened to sue conservatives for Hate Crimes under the new definition because conservatives call them wimpy but Conservatives had already filed suit because liberals call them rednecks. That case may reach the Supreme Court after it is featured on the Daily Show, The Onion and the new online sensation from Legalienate, The Garlic. All these groups have been accused of hate crimes in the past or will be in the future, along with countless millions of individuals who will finally have the opportunity to get even with society for making them, uh, members of, uh, groups which are really, like, hated.
Stay Tuned
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Morales Accuses The U.S. of Terrorism - Rejects Hillary Clinton's Warnings
December 12, 2009
La Paz
Bolivian President Evo Morales rejected Saturday the declarations of U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, who said that relations between Bolivia and Iran "weren't a good idea" and could have consequences.
Exporting terrorism
In a press conference in the central region of Cochabamba Morales referred to Clinton's declarations on Friday about Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's November visit to Bolivia and Venezuela. "If people want to flirt with Iran, they should look at what consequences there could be for them. And we hope that they will think twice about it," warned the Secretary of State.
"They say that Iran exports terrorism. Do you know who really exports terrorism? It's those people who send troops from their countries to other countries, those who install military bases in other countries. They are the ones who plan and carry out terrorism. It's the government of the United States that plans and carries out terrorism," declared Morales.
"In solidarity Cuba sends 'troops' abroad, they're doctors who save lives. Do you suppose the (U.S.) soldiers are going to save lives? The armed soldiers are going to take lives, like in Afghanistan, like in Iraq, like with the U.S. military bases in South America," explained Morales upon rejecting "emphatically those words coming from the United States."
Bolivia is better off
He added that Bolivia is a "proud and sovereign" country that "doesn't accept warnings or threats, they are pointless and we categorically reject them because the United States has no moral standing, since they are the ones who export terrorism."
The indigenous leader likewise maintained that "without imperialism and without capitalism Bolivia is better off," and that since in his country economic sovereignty is respected, things have improved.
Vice-Chancellor Hugo Fernandez rejected Friday what he characterized as interference on the part of the United States, and said that in the negotiations to improve relations between Bolivia and that country they are working "precisely on the point of non-interference in internal matters, that has to remain very clear."
In 2008, Morales expelled the U.S. Ambassador Phillip Goldberg for suspicion of conspiring with the opposition, and later suspended operations of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, which he accused of espionage, and at the beginning of 2009 he ordered the expulsion of another diplomat.
Tense relations
In response, Washington also ordered the expulsion of the Bolivian ambassador.
However, both countries are seeking to normalize their relations and the Bolivian Chancellor David Choquehuanca announced the arrival of a Mission from Washington for a third round of negotiations, without specifying the date of the meeting.
Bolivia and Iran established diplomatic relations at the end of 2007, but they still haven't exchanged ambassadors, among other reasons because the Senate, dominated by the opposition, didn't ratify the agreements between the two countries.
Source: "Evo acusó a EU de terrorismo," Univision en línea, 12 de diciembre de 2009
La Paz
Bolivian President Evo Morales rejected Saturday the declarations of U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, who said that relations between Bolivia and Iran "weren't a good idea" and could have consequences.
Exporting terrorism
In a press conference in the central region of Cochabamba Morales referred to Clinton's declarations on Friday about Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's November visit to Bolivia and Venezuela. "If people want to flirt with Iran, they should look at what consequences there could be for them. And we hope that they will think twice about it," warned the Secretary of State.
"They say that Iran exports terrorism. Do you know who really exports terrorism? It's those people who send troops from their countries to other countries, those who install military bases in other countries. They are the ones who plan and carry out terrorism. It's the government of the United States that plans and carries out terrorism," declared Morales.
"In solidarity Cuba sends 'troops' abroad, they're doctors who save lives. Do you suppose the (U.S.) soldiers are going to save lives? The armed soldiers are going to take lives, like in Afghanistan, like in Iraq, like with the U.S. military bases in South America," explained Morales upon rejecting "emphatically those words coming from the United States."
Bolivia is better off
He added that Bolivia is a "proud and sovereign" country that "doesn't accept warnings or threats, they are pointless and we categorically reject them because the United States has no moral standing, since they are the ones who export terrorism."
The indigenous leader likewise maintained that "without imperialism and without capitalism Bolivia is better off," and that since in his country economic sovereignty is respected, things have improved.
Vice-Chancellor Hugo Fernandez rejected Friday what he characterized as interference on the part of the United States, and said that in the negotiations to improve relations between Bolivia and that country they are working "precisely on the point of non-interference in internal matters, that has to remain very clear."
In 2008, Morales expelled the U.S. Ambassador Phillip Goldberg for suspicion of conspiring with the opposition, and later suspended operations of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, which he accused of espionage, and at the beginning of 2009 he ordered the expulsion of another diplomat.
Tense relations
In response, Washington also ordered the expulsion of the Bolivian ambassador.
However, both countries are seeking to normalize their relations and the Bolivian Chancellor David Choquehuanca announced the arrival of a Mission from Washington for a third round of negotiations, without specifying the date of the meeting.
Bolivia and Iran established diplomatic relations at the end of 2007, but they still haven't exchanged ambassadors, among other reasons because the Senate, dominated by the opposition, didn't ratify the agreements between the two countries.
Source: "Evo acusó a EU de terrorismo," Univision en línea, 12 de diciembre de 2009
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Nobel, No Brains, Obama's Surrealist "Peace" Speech
"Never underestimate the Scandinavian sense of humor."
------------Gore Vidal
Now Barack Obama has added his name to the list of previous American Nobel peace prize winners: Henry Kissinger, the Butcher of Indochina whose bombing campaigns killed hundreds of thousands of people, maybe millions; Woodrow Wilson, the Apostle of Self-Determination who invaded Panama, Haiti, Mexico (twice), the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Nicaragua, the USSR (twice), and restored segregation to Washington D.C.; Teddy Roosevelt, who exulted in the slaughter of war and saw the elimination of indigenous peoples as the righteous fulfillment of “Manifest Destiny”; President McKinley’s War Secretary Elihu Root, who directed the U.S. slaughter in the Philippines starting in 1898, dismissing Filipino independence hero Emilio Aguinaldo as a “Chinese half-breed” and Filipinos in general as "children" who were “but little advanced from pure savagery"; and Dr. King, who surely must have wondered what he had ever done to deserve such degrading company.
More suitable for a Ripley's believe it or not collection than a peace address, Obama's acceptance speech is the familiar attempt to construct a self-serving mythology that deflects all blame from the U.S. onto its official enemies. For example:
"America led the world in constructing an architecture to keep the peace: a Marshall Plan and a United Nations, mechanisms to govern the waging of war, treaties to protect human rights, prevent genocide, restrict the most dangerous weapons."
As noted before on this blog, Washington unveiled the Marshall Plan to avert economic, social and political chaos, prevent the collapse of U.S. exports, achieve "multilateralism," and dissipate the growing strength of indigenous communist parties (i.e., not Moscow-directed) in post-war Europe. In the absence of massive U.S. aid, American strategic planners feared, war-ravaged Europe might forsake capitalism for experiments with socialist enterprise and government controls, which could have jeopardized "free enterprise" even in the United States. There was major elite concern over the "dollar gap," which prevented Europe from being a market for U.S. manufactured goods, threatening to produce a glut of unbought merchandise that could plunge the U.S. economy into economic chaos. Europe was thus subordinated to a considerable degree to the designs of U.S. corporations, with a corresponding narrowing of the European political spectrum. A prime element of the plan called for the exclusion of "Communists" from power, a broadly defined Satan class that included major elements of the wartime anti-fascist resistance and trade union movements. Secretary of State George Marshall, after whom the Marshall Plan is named, made it clear that U.S. aid was contingent on not voting what Washington considered political undesirables into power.
The United Nations began by discarding the guarantees of the Atlantic Charter and the Four Freedoms. It accepted coolie labor and cheap raw materials as the basis of the world economy. It redefined colonies as "dependent territories" and placed them under Great Power trusteeship until they demonstrated they were sufficiently deferential. It denied representation to blacks, Puerto Ricans, Hawaiians, Guamanians, and Alaskans. India's delegation was completely British. The USSR flatly refused to participate in the "parliament of democracy" sham.
Attending the opening session as a spokesman for the N.A.A.C.P., W. E. B. DuBois protested the continued abuse of 750 million oppressed people around the world, complaining that there was no provision “even to consider the aggression of a nation against its own colonial peoples,” which meant that in the U.N.'s ostensible planetary democracy “at least one-fourth of the inhabitants of the world have no part in it, no democratic rights.”
Meanwhile, Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov declared it essential that “dependent countries are enabled as soon as possible to take the path of national independence,” and Washington announced it would neither propose nor support a declaration of universal human rights. When Latin American delegations resisted the continuation of Great Power rule, a U.S. delegate urged Nelson Rockefeller, Assistant Secretary of State For Latin American Affairs, to give them a spanking: “Your goddamn peanut nations aren’t voting right. Go line them up.”
Three years later (1948), Washington opposed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights' call for economic security to be a basic entitlement, dismissing the proposal as socialist heresy. Any notion of a right to subsistence was anathema to the U.S. State Department, which successfully lobbied to have economic, social, and cultural rights split off from civil and political rights, thus creating a divided U.N. covenant. Believing that a right to eat was an intolerable limitation on "free enterprise," Washington never ratified the Covenant calling for guaranteed economic security, and relegated it to inferior status ever after.
On the U.S. commitment to preventing genocide, Washington has never owned up to its genocidal or quasi-genocidal treatment of indigenous peoples, let alone atoned for it. There is a U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington dedicated to Jewish suffering in WWII, but not one commemorating the wiping out of indigenous nations here in the U.S.
In 1998, Amnesty International offered this rather unflattering portrait of the U.S.'s record vis-a-vis preventing genocide:
"The first U.N. Human Rights treaty ratified by the U.S.A. was the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. It ratified the Convention in 1988, 40 years after signing it and after 97 other states had already ratified it. The U.S.A. took 28 years to ratify the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, after 133 other states had already ratified it. At least 71 other states ratified the Convention against Torture before the U.S.A. It was only in 1992, after 109 other states, that the U.S.A. ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), 26 years after its adoption by the UN General Assembly. The ICCPR is one of two principal treaties protecting human rights as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The other - the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights - has still not been ratified by the U.S.A."
On war and weapons, Washington is far and away the world leader in producing armaments and war, is the only country to have ever used nuclear weapons, and refuses to renounce a first-strike nuclear policy. It maintains thousands of U.S. military bases around the world while allowing no country to have a base in U.S. territory. Its Latin American officers graduating from Fort Benning Georgia have tortured and murdered all over Latin America for decades.
"Only a just peace based on the inherent rights and dignity of every individual can truly be lasting. It was this insight that drove drafters of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights after the Second World War . . . a just peace includes not only civil and political rights - it must encompass economic security and opportunity. For true peace is not just freedom from fear, but freedom from want."
But the United States opposed (and still opposes) the likely large world majority favoring economic security as a human right!
Furthermore, economic security and economic opportunity are not the same thing. No one works harder than workers eager to prevent their families from starving. If there were economic security this kind of desperate earnestness would disappear, and with it a good deal of productivity and profit. On the other hand, for the owners of the system, the security of being "too big to fail" encourages the runaway speculation that has crashed the system into disaster on a regular basis. The only way to prevent the kind of economic pain the world is currently experiencing (for the umpteenth time) is to place worker security and well-being above the profit motive. But that means an entirely different kind of economy and a fight to the finish with the private owners of the present economy. It is difficult to believe Obama is calling for that.
Freedom from want? Obama has gone along with shoveling trillions of dollars of public money to the swindlers who almost destroyed the world economy, and may yet do so. He has done little or nothing for the millions who have lost homes, jobs, pension funds, and hope for the future. Having run up an astronomical budget deficit to provide "economic security" for those designated "too big to fail," he now speaks of cutting the deficit rather than directing government spending to meeting the needs of Wall Street's long-suffering victims. He cannot have it both ways. Either there is economic opportunity for all, which means that corporations, no matter how large, must be allowed to fail just like smaller businesses when their performance merits that, or there is economic security for all, which means government spending must be directed toward meeting the needs of the American people, not subsidizing Wall Street firms, which are not supposed to need such help in a "free enterprise" economy where all are said to rise or fall in accordance with their merits.
"For make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler's armies. Negotiations cannot convince al Qaeda's leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force may sometimes be necessary is not a call to cynicism - it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason."
Evil exists in "the world," but not in U.S. leaders and institutions. How can that be? It is self-serving to assume, as Obama does, that the U.S. is free of evil, while its official enemies are defined by it. Nowhere does he concede that "rogue states" have legitimate grievances that must be addressed, or that the U.S.A is guilty of evil acts that must be atoned for. Only others are wicked; the U.S. makes mistakes, but is incapable of evil. This is an attitude more characteristic of a juvenile delinquent than a great diplomat.
The false dichotomy of pacifism vs. force is equally self-serving. The alternative Obama overlooks - real diplomacy, real problem-solving, an end to demonization in favor of cooperative engagement around issues that threaten human extinction - is ruled out in advance.
Hitler's armies might never have done any damage if not for the huge surge in U.S. investment in Germany that occurred between 1929 and 1940 - the years the Nazis rose to awesome power. It seems likely that a non-violent movement of U.S. investors might very well have insured that Hitler never achieved the heights of power that allowed him to do so much damage. In short, "stopping" Hitler by force is far less impressive when seen from the perspective of having helped him for a decade prior to the U.S. entering the European war. Furthermore, the U.S. put fascists back in power repeatedly in the wake of its victories in WWII, so the presumed U.S. commitment to "stopping" fascism is dubious at best.
Ditto for getting Al Qaeda to "lay down its arms" - or shall we say box cutters. Here Obama seems to forget that Al Qaeda is "armed" primarily by a desire for revenge against U.S. crimes in the Muslim world, especially Palestine. Osama bin Laden, or whoever speaks using that name, has made it very clear that what the U.S. has primarily to do in order to achieve peace with "Al Qaeda" is end its support for a Jewish apartheid state on Palestinian land. Israel is far and away the leading grievance in the Arab world and it is understandable why it would be. But Obama doesn't get it, cannot get it. He's committed to Jewish supremacy, not peace.
Yes, force is sometimes necessary. Force was necessary to expel the U.S. from Nicaragua in the 1930s, from Cuba in the 1950s, from Vietnam in the 1970s, and from Lebanon in the 1980s. But Obama is oblivious to the need for force to be applied against the United States. He can only think of the United States as a victim of unjust force, never the perpetrator. His ideological blindness is total on this score.
"The world rallied around America after the 9/11 attacks, and continues to support our efforts in Afghanistan, because of the horror of those senseless attacks and the recognized principle of self-defense."
The great majority of the world in fact did not support the U.S. bombing of Afghanistan in 2001, with international public opinion strongly favoring diplomatic and judicial measures over military action. An international Gallup poll in late September 2001 asked, "Once the identity of the terrorists is known, should the American government launch a military attack on the country or countries where the terrorists are based or should the American government seek to extradite the terrorists to stand trial?" Among Europeans support for the application of U.S. force ranged from 8% in Greece to 29% in France. In Latin America, support went from 2% in Mexico to 11% in Colombia and Venezuela. Panama was an exception, with public support for the military option favored by 16%. Even in Israel, a majority opposed responding with force. Meanwhile, Taliban overtures to extradite Bin Laden were rejected by Washington, which also refused to provide evidence for its accusations.
If the world didn't support the U.S. attack at the beginning, what are the chances that it supports it eight years later?
------------Gore Vidal
Now Barack Obama has added his name to the list of previous American Nobel peace prize winners: Henry Kissinger, the Butcher of Indochina whose bombing campaigns killed hundreds of thousands of people, maybe millions; Woodrow Wilson, the Apostle of Self-Determination who invaded Panama, Haiti, Mexico (twice), the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Nicaragua, the USSR (twice), and restored segregation to Washington D.C.; Teddy Roosevelt, who exulted in the slaughter of war and saw the elimination of indigenous peoples as the righteous fulfillment of “Manifest Destiny”; President McKinley’s War Secretary Elihu Root, who directed the U.S. slaughter in the Philippines starting in 1898, dismissing Filipino independence hero Emilio Aguinaldo as a “Chinese half-breed” and Filipinos in general as "children" who were “but little advanced from pure savagery"; and Dr. King, who surely must have wondered what he had ever done to deserve such degrading company.
More suitable for a Ripley's believe it or not collection than a peace address, Obama's acceptance speech is the familiar attempt to construct a self-serving mythology that deflects all blame from the U.S. onto its official enemies. For example:
"America led the world in constructing an architecture to keep the peace: a Marshall Plan and a United Nations, mechanisms to govern the waging of war, treaties to protect human rights, prevent genocide, restrict the most dangerous weapons."
As noted before on this blog, Washington unveiled the Marshall Plan to avert economic, social and political chaos, prevent the collapse of U.S. exports, achieve "multilateralism," and dissipate the growing strength of indigenous communist parties (i.e., not Moscow-directed) in post-war Europe. In the absence of massive U.S. aid, American strategic planners feared, war-ravaged Europe might forsake capitalism for experiments with socialist enterprise and government controls, which could have jeopardized "free enterprise" even in the United States. There was major elite concern over the "dollar gap," which prevented Europe from being a market for U.S. manufactured goods, threatening to produce a glut of unbought merchandise that could plunge the U.S. economy into economic chaos. Europe was thus subordinated to a considerable degree to the designs of U.S. corporations, with a corresponding narrowing of the European political spectrum. A prime element of the plan called for the exclusion of "Communists" from power, a broadly defined Satan class that included major elements of the wartime anti-fascist resistance and trade union movements. Secretary of State George Marshall, after whom the Marshall Plan is named, made it clear that U.S. aid was contingent on not voting what Washington considered political undesirables into power.
The United Nations began by discarding the guarantees of the Atlantic Charter and the Four Freedoms. It accepted coolie labor and cheap raw materials as the basis of the world economy. It redefined colonies as "dependent territories" and placed them under Great Power trusteeship until they demonstrated they were sufficiently deferential. It denied representation to blacks, Puerto Ricans, Hawaiians, Guamanians, and Alaskans. India's delegation was completely British. The USSR flatly refused to participate in the "parliament of democracy" sham.
Attending the opening session as a spokesman for the N.A.A.C.P., W. E. B. DuBois protested the continued abuse of 750 million oppressed people around the world, complaining that there was no provision “even to consider the aggression of a nation against its own colonial peoples,” which meant that in the U.N.'s ostensible planetary democracy “at least one-fourth of the inhabitants of the world have no part in it, no democratic rights.”
Meanwhile, Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov declared it essential that “dependent countries are enabled as soon as possible to take the path of national independence,” and Washington announced it would neither propose nor support a declaration of universal human rights. When Latin American delegations resisted the continuation of Great Power rule, a U.S. delegate urged Nelson Rockefeller, Assistant Secretary of State For Latin American Affairs, to give them a spanking: “Your goddamn peanut nations aren’t voting right. Go line them up.”
Three years later (1948), Washington opposed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights' call for economic security to be a basic entitlement, dismissing the proposal as socialist heresy. Any notion of a right to subsistence was anathema to the U.S. State Department, which successfully lobbied to have economic, social, and cultural rights split off from civil and political rights, thus creating a divided U.N. covenant. Believing that a right to eat was an intolerable limitation on "free enterprise," Washington never ratified the Covenant calling for guaranteed economic security, and relegated it to inferior status ever after.
On the U.S. commitment to preventing genocide, Washington has never owned up to its genocidal or quasi-genocidal treatment of indigenous peoples, let alone atoned for it. There is a U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington dedicated to Jewish suffering in WWII, but not one commemorating the wiping out of indigenous nations here in the U.S.
In 1998, Amnesty International offered this rather unflattering portrait of the U.S.'s record vis-a-vis preventing genocide:
"The first U.N. Human Rights treaty ratified by the U.S.A. was the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. It ratified the Convention in 1988, 40 years after signing it and after 97 other states had already ratified it. The U.S.A. took 28 years to ratify the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, after 133 other states had already ratified it. At least 71 other states ratified the Convention against Torture before the U.S.A. It was only in 1992, after 109 other states, that the U.S.A. ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), 26 years after its adoption by the UN General Assembly. The ICCPR is one of two principal treaties protecting human rights as enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The other - the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights - has still not been ratified by the U.S.A."
On war and weapons, Washington is far and away the world leader in producing armaments and war, is the only country to have ever used nuclear weapons, and refuses to renounce a first-strike nuclear policy. It maintains thousands of U.S. military bases around the world while allowing no country to have a base in U.S. territory. Its Latin American officers graduating from Fort Benning Georgia have tortured and murdered all over Latin America for decades.
"Only a just peace based on the inherent rights and dignity of every individual can truly be lasting. It was this insight that drove drafters of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights after the Second World War . . . a just peace includes not only civil and political rights - it must encompass economic security and opportunity. For true peace is not just freedom from fear, but freedom from want."
But the United States opposed (and still opposes) the likely large world majority favoring economic security as a human right!
Furthermore, economic security and economic opportunity are not the same thing. No one works harder than workers eager to prevent their families from starving. If there were economic security this kind of desperate earnestness would disappear, and with it a good deal of productivity and profit. On the other hand, for the owners of the system, the security of being "too big to fail" encourages the runaway speculation that has crashed the system into disaster on a regular basis. The only way to prevent the kind of economic pain the world is currently experiencing (for the umpteenth time) is to place worker security and well-being above the profit motive. But that means an entirely different kind of economy and a fight to the finish with the private owners of the present economy. It is difficult to believe Obama is calling for that.
Freedom from want? Obama has gone along with shoveling trillions of dollars of public money to the swindlers who almost destroyed the world economy, and may yet do so. He has done little or nothing for the millions who have lost homes, jobs, pension funds, and hope for the future. Having run up an astronomical budget deficit to provide "economic security" for those designated "too big to fail," he now speaks of cutting the deficit rather than directing government spending to meeting the needs of Wall Street's long-suffering victims. He cannot have it both ways. Either there is economic opportunity for all, which means that corporations, no matter how large, must be allowed to fail just like smaller businesses when their performance merits that, or there is economic security for all, which means government spending must be directed toward meeting the needs of the American people, not subsidizing Wall Street firms, which are not supposed to need such help in a "free enterprise" economy where all are said to rise or fall in accordance with their merits.
"For make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world. A non-violent movement could not have halted Hitler's armies. Negotiations cannot convince al Qaeda's leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force may sometimes be necessary is not a call to cynicism - it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason."
Evil exists in "the world," but not in U.S. leaders and institutions. How can that be? It is self-serving to assume, as Obama does, that the U.S. is free of evil, while its official enemies are defined by it. Nowhere does he concede that "rogue states" have legitimate grievances that must be addressed, or that the U.S.A is guilty of evil acts that must be atoned for. Only others are wicked; the U.S. makes mistakes, but is incapable of evil. This is an attitude more characteristic of a juvenile delinquent than a great diplomat.
The false dichotomy of pacifism vs. force is equally self-serving. The alternative Obama overlooks - real diplomacy, real problem-solving, an end to demonization in favor of cooperative engagement around issues that threaten human extinction - is ruled out in advance.
Hitler's armies might never have done any damage if not for the huge surge in U.S. investment in Germany that occurred between 1929 and 1940 - the years the Nazis rose to awesome power. It seems likely that a non-violent movement of U.S. investors might very well have insured that Hitler never achieved the heights of power that allowed him to do so much damage. In short, "stopping" Hitler by force is far less impressive when seen from the perspective of having helped him for a decade prior to the U.S. entering the European war. Furthermore, the U.S. put fascists back in power repeatedly in the wake of its victories in WWII, so the presumed U.S. commitment to "stopping" fascism is dubious at best.
Ditto for getting Al Qaeda to "lay down its arms" - or shall we say box cutters. Here Obama seems to forget that Al Qaeda is "armed" primarily by a desire for revenge against U.S. crimes in the Muslim world, especially Palestine. Osama bin Laden, or whoever speaks using that name, has made it very clear that what the U.S. has primarily to do in order to achieve peace with "Al Qaeda" is end its support for a Jewish apartheid state on Palestinian land. Israel is far and away the leading grievance in the Arab world and it is understandable why it would be. But Obama doesn't get it, cannot get it. He's committed to Jewish supremacy, not peace.
Yes, force is sometimes necessary. Force was necessary to expel the U.S. from Nicaragua in the 1930s, from Cuba in the 1950s, from Vietnam in the 1970s, and from Lebanon in the 1980s. But Obama is oblivious to the need for force to be applied against the United States. He can only think of the United States as a victim of unjust force, never the perpetrator. His ideological blindness is total on this score.
"The world rallied around America after the 9/11 attacks, and continues to support our efforts in Afghanistan, because of the horror of those senseless attacks and the recognized principle of self-defense."
The great majority of the world in fact did not support the U.S. bombing of Afghanistan in 2001, with international public opinion strongly favoring diplomatic and judicial measures over military action. An international Gallup poll in late September 2001 asked, "Once the identity of the terrorists is known, should the American government launch a military attack on the country or countries where the terrorists are based or should the American government seek to extradite the terrorists to stand trial?" Among Europeans support for the application of U.S. force ranged from 8% in Greece to 29% in France. In Latin America, support went from 2% in Mexico to 11% in Colombia and Venezuela. Panama was an exception, with public support for the military option favored by 16%. Even in Israel, a majority opposed responding with force. Meanwhile, Taliban overtures to extradite Bin Laden were rejected by Washington, which also refused to provide evidence for its accusations.
If the world didn't support the U.S. attack at the beginning, what are the chances that it supports it eight years later?
Monday, December 7, 2009
Interview with Gullible Skeptic Editor Michael Schlermer - “Official Holocaust history is objective, scientific, and infallible.”
Legalienate: What is a skeptic?
Schlermer: A skeptic is a person who looks for the logic, reason, and evidence for a claim.
Legalienate: This makes you, in general, quite distrustful of conspiracy theories, no?
Schlermer: Absolutely. The more elaborate a conspiracy theory is, and the more people that would need to be involved, the less likely it is true.
Legalienate: So how do you respond to the claim of A. S. Marques posted on your website, to wit: “So how about the great ‘Holocaust’ conspiracy? . . . You know, the vast German plan to secretly exterminate an entire race in the hope future historians would be at a loss to determine what had happened to it, allegedly resulting in 6 million murdered Jews, with no procedural plan, no written orders at any level, no assigned method of mass murder or bureaucratic control, leaving it to the imagination of a whole bunch of telepathic improvisers who came up with mass execution by such methods as steam, electrocution, non-toxic Diesel exhaust and Zyklon B pesticide. And, of course, not leaving the slightest vestige of such a carnage accessible to forensic examination in any of its precisely located alleged sites.”
Schlermer: I’m a believer.
Legalienate: Really? So much for skepticism, right? Well, let’s take this one step at a time. Just how do we know that homicidal gas chambers existed in WWII?
Schlermer: From the death camp remains for one thing.
Legalienate: You mean things like a small unsealed room with an unlocked door that opens outwards and has a window in it and is called a “gas chamber” by those with a huge vested interest in demonizing everything German?
Schlermer: Well, not only that. We also have eyewitness testimony that swears people were gassed in such places. This corroborates the physical evidence.
Legalienate: I see.
Schlermer: We also have tons of documents from the Nazi archives.
Legalienate: But none of them mention homicidal gas chambers.
Schlermer: They do indirectly. Experts have determined that when the Nazis spoke of eliminating the Jewish problem they actually meant physical extermination in gas chambers. I’m talking about very rational, scientific researchers who wear white coats.
Legalienate: Impressive. Is there any other evidence?
Schlermer: Yes. There are speeches by Hitler and other Nazi officials venting their hatred for Jews and their desire to rid Germany of their presence.
Legalienate: Do they mention homicidal gas chambers?
Schlermer: No. But we have photographs, too.
Legalienate: Of mass gassing chambers?
Schlermer: No. Distant shots of the outside of buildings said to contain mass gassing chambers.
Legalienate: What about the eyewitness testimony?
Schlermer: Very credible.
Legalienate: Like claims that 800 people were packed into a space the size of a file cabinet?
Schlermer: Every bit of evidence doesn’t have to be right for the general conclusion to be sound.
Legalienate: Like 42,000 gassings a day at a single camp?
Schlermer: Ballpark figures aren’t necessarily dishonest . . . .
Legalienate: Like the floor of the mass gassing chambers opening up and depositing the corpses in a “subterranean chamber” that is nowhere to be found in the concentration camp where this event allegedly happened?
Schlermer: Look, anecdotal samples can’t disprove a general proposition . . .
Legalienate: So could you give us the systematic evidence for mass gassing chambers?
Schlermer: With pleasure. Hitler hated Jews and gave anti-Semitic speeches. Nazi documents allude to permanently solving the Jewish “problem” in Europe. There are Zyklon B pesticide traces in former German concentration camps. Eyewitnesses swear mass gassings occurred in these camps. There are also photographs of burning bodies from the camps. And we have architectural blueprints for cremation ovens, as well as gas chambers, which Holocaust deniers say are merely fumigation chambers. There are photographs of the outside of buildings in former concentration camps showing prisoners lined up as though waiting to be gassed. All this evidence converges on the conclusion that the gas chambers existed and were used for mass murder.
Legalienate: Converges?
Schlermer: It all points to the conclusion that they must have existed.
Legalienate: Must have existed? I thought we were proving what did exist.
Schlermer: We are. The evidence says they must have existed, therefore they did.
Legalienate: Is that really the same thing?
Schlermer: Yes.
Legalienate: I see. A customer on Amazon who reviewed your book “Denying History,” says this: “I learned this concept (convergence) under a different name in religion class. It was called ‘leap of faith.’”
Schlermer: But the Holocaust is science. Official Holocaust history is objective, scientific, and infallible.
Legalienate: I see. Isn't it interesting that whenever someone wants to use false or unrelated evidence to support a favored conclusion he talks about how it “converges” on that conclusion? Theology professor David Ray Griffin used that method to “prove” that the twin towers in New York were brought down by pre-planted exposives.
Schlermer: That’s not really fair . . . I oppose Griffin . . .
Legalienate: But not his method. Now how do the existence of cremation ovens carry implications of murder? Aren't dead bodies cremated in every country?
Schlermer: Of course.
Legalienate: So can I ask why cremation ovens are always mentioned in the same breath as gas chambers, as though cremating corpses were the same as murdering people?
Schlermer: You certainly may.
Legalienate: That’s all you have to say?
Schlermer: Yes.
Legalienate: You accept that Zyklon B gas was used to fumigate the camps?
Schlermer: Yes.
Legalienate: So there were fumigation chambers and mass gassing chambers?
Schlermer: Yes.
Legalienate: How come there are no physical remains of the enormous gas chambers that supposedly executed 2000 Jews at a time?
Schlermer: The Nazis destroyed them.
Legalienate: Why were no photographs of the homicidal gas chambers taken by Nazi guards? After all, there are many photographs of American lynch mobs proudly smiling after their grisly deeds were done, why no celebratory Nazi pictures of the gas chambers?
Schlermer: Because the Nazis wanted to keep the final solution secret.
Legalienate: So how come there are roughly a million survivors churning out endless Holocaust testimonials? If they were really determined to maintain secrecy, shouldn’t the Nazis have shot them all, so they couldn’t tell their story to the world?
Schlermer: No conspiracy is perfect . . .
Legalienate: I should say not . . . . Now on the objectivity issue, isn’t it self-serving of you to claim that your side in the debate is the product of scientific historiography, while that of your opponents is the fruit of prejudice?
Schlermer: No. Deniers only seek to confirm their biases. They doggedly look for evidence to substantiate their preconceived views. The mark of intellectual honesty is the willingness to subject one’s favored hypothesis to vigorous attack.
Legalienate: So why won’t Holocaust true-believers debate their opponents?
Schlermer: They don’t want to legitimize them.
Legalienate: But if their opponents’ arguments are hopelessly flawed, wouldn’t demonstrating this in front of a mass audience lead to their delegitimization?
Schlermer: One would hope so. But people tend to believe a lot of weird things, no matter how much they are reasoned with.
Legalienate: Indeed. . . . Like Jewish bodies were converted to soap by the Nazis?
Schlermer: Yes, but that doesn’t mean the rest of the story is wrong.
Legalienate: And Jewish skulls were converted to shrunken heads?
Schlermer: Some of the particulars may be wrong, but . . .
Legalienate: And Jewish skin was made into lampshades?
Schlermer: Look, I’ve already pointed out that a general proposition can’t be invalidated by anecdotal evidence.
Legalienate: What’s the general proposition here, that Holocaust historians are brain-damaged?
Schlermer: Not exactly, but . . . .
Legalienate: Now, as for dealing with Deniers, you say that censorship is no way to handle them.
Schlermer: Right. I’m a firm believer in free speech.
Legalienate: How do you react to the beatings, torchings, bombings, book shreddings, heresy trials, blasphemy laws, and jailings inflicted on Holocaust deniers?
Schlermer: They’ve invited this, so there’s really nothing to be done.
Legalienate: In other words, “I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to your death your right to be given summary justice by a howling mob.”
Schlermer: Well put.
Legalienate: Thank you. You say Holocaust Deniers are “ideological.”
Schlermer: Yes.
Legalienate: Their fondness for fascism leads them to minimize or deny crimes of the Nazi state?
Schlermer: Exactly.
Legalienate: And how about the other side? Doesn’t the Holocaust Industry’s incestuous relationship with the state of Israel predispose it to distortions and fabrications that favor the interests of that state?
Schlermer: Not that I’ve noticed.
Legalienate: I see. Why are political affiliations relevant to the Holocaust debate in the first place? You go to considerable lengths to point out the “right wing” associations of Holocaust Deniers.
Schlermer: Because they establish that Deniers have an ideological axe to grind, which interferes with their ability to objectively assess history.
Legalienate: I see. And the political affiliations of the Holocaust Industry don’t have a prejudicial effect?
Schlermer: Not all historians who accept the Holocaust are part of the “Holocaust Industry.”
Legalienate: They are if they intend to continue publishing.
Schlermer: In truth, there is no “Holocaust industry,” just honest researchers seeking truth against a rising tide of obtuse Deniers motivated by racism.
Legalienate: I see. Your co-author Alex Grobman is a founding editor-in-chief of the Simon Wiesenthal Annual. That doesn’t interfere with his objectivity?
Schlermer: Not in the least.
Legalienate: O.K. let’s continue. You say that the moral superiority of the Allies in WWII is demonstrated by the fact that the killing stopped the moment the Allies won.
Schlermer: Yes.
Legalienate: But the U.S. firebombed Tokyo and nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki while the Japanese were trying to surrender. The Purple code had been broken and Washington knew they were petitioning the Soviets for surrender. After the war, the U.S. War Department announced that there was no military necessity to the atomic bombings.
Schlermer: But all that occurred on the road to victory . . .
Legalienate: So a lost war is the only crime . . . .
Schlermer: No. The Axis powers would have gone on killing had they won.
Legalienate: How do you know that?
Schlermer: It was part of their ideology. Aryan supremacy. They were committed to killing off their racial inferiors.
Legalienate: Like Teddy Roosevelt and Manifest Destiny?
Schlermer: Look. I’m talking about the racism in WWII.
Legalienate: Right. So let me read you a quote about how bad it got: “We shot prisoners in cold blood, wiped out hospitals, strafed lifeboats, killed or mistreated enemy civilians, finished off the enemy wounded, tossed the dying in a hole with the dead, and . . . boiled the flesh off enemy skulls to make table ornaments for sweethearts, or carved their bones into letter openers.”
Schlermer: That’s exactly the ideology of hatred I’m talking about. It needed to be defeated militarily.
Legalienate: But it wasn’t. That’s a quote from war correspondent Edgar L. Jones, describing the U.S. war in the Pacific.
Schlermer: Well, in that case it was an unfortunate excess caused by the stress of battle.
Legalienate: You say that the Axis “killed for geography, for political control, for economic power, for racial purification, and for pleasure.”
Schlermer: Yes.
Legalienate: The United States doesn’t do such things.
Schlermer: Of course not.
Legalienate: Did the indigenous nations of North America voluntarily disband to make way for the United States?
Schlermer: No, but . . .
Legalienate: Weren’t they physically eliminated through genocide, or something very much like it?
Schlermer: Maybe, but there was no poison gas involved . . .
Legalienate: Didn’t the United States launch war with Mexico in 1846 in order to take California?
Schlermer: Possibly, but . . .
Legalienate: Isn‘t that killing “for geography?”
Schlermer: Perhaps, but . . .
Legalienate: When Thomas Jefferson shared his aspirations for founding a country “without blot or mixture” and urged that the Indians be "exterminated" or driven “with the beasts of the forest into the Stony mountains,” was he not endorsing killing for racial purification?
Schlermer: Look, we were talking about Europe . . .
Legalienate: When U.S. troops exulted in their “turkey shoot” in the Gulf War in 1991, were they not “killing for pleasure?”
Schlermer: We are not Nazis!
Legalienate: In 1898, when the U.S. began slaughtering a couple of hundred thousand Filipinos to gain a “gateway to the Orient,” were they not killing “for economic power?”
Schlermer: I really don’t know . . . .
Legalienate: By establishing slavery did the U.S. not kill “for political control” of people they reduced to chattel? And who is in political control in the dozens of countries where Washington maintains military bases to this day? Aren’t the deaths of dissidents that occur in those countries in large part Washington’s responsibility? Isn’t that, too, “killing for political control?” How many of those countries are permitted to have military bases inside the United States?
Schlermer: We are a democracy, we stand for human rights . . . .
Legalienate: Thank you for your time.
Schlermer: A skeptic is a person who looks for the logic, reason, and evidence for a claim.
Legalienate: This makes you, in general, quite distrustful of conspiracy theories, no?
Schlermer: Absolutely. The more elaborate a conspiracy theory is, and the more people that would need to be involved, the less likely it is true.
Legalienate: So how do you respond to the claim of A. S. Marques posted on your website, to wit: “So how about the great ‘Holocaust’ conspiracy? . . . You know, the vast German plan to secretly exterminate an entire race in the hope future historians would be at a loss to determine what had happened to it, allegedly resulting in 6 million murdered Jews, with no procedural plan, no written orders at any level, no assigned method of mass murder or bureaucratic control, leaving it to the imagination of a whole bunch of telepathic improvisers who came up with mass execution by such methods as steam, electrocution, non-toxic Diesel exhaust and Zyklon B pesticide. And, of course, not leaving the slightest vestige of such a carnage accessible to forensic examination in any of its precisely located alleged sites.”
Schlermer: I’m a believer.
Legalienate: Really? So much for skepticism, right? Well, let’s take this one step at a time. Just how do we know that homicidal gas chambers existed in WWII?
Schlermer: From the death camp remains for one thing.
Legalienate: You mean things like a small unsealed room with an unlocked door that opens outwards and has a window in it and is called a “gas chamber” by those with a huge vested interest in demonizing everything German?
Schlermer: Well, not only that. We also have eyewitness testimony that swears people were gassed in such places. This corroborates the physical evidence.
Legalienate: I see.
Schlermer: We also have tons of documents from the Nazi archives.
Legalienate: But none of them mention homicidal gas chambers.
Schlermer: They do indirectly. Experts have determined that when the Nazis spoke of eliminating the Jewish problem they actually meant physical extermination in gas chambers. I’m talking about very rational, scientific researchers who wear white coats.
Legalienate: Impressive. Is there any other evidence?
Schlermer: Yes. There are speeches by Hitler and other Nazi officials venting their hatred for Jews and their desire to rid Germany of their presence.
Legalienate: Do they mention homicidal gas chambers?
Schlermer: No. But we have photographs, too.
Legalienate: Of mass gassing chambers?
Schlermer: No. Distant shots of the outside of buildings said to contain mass gassing chambers.
Legalienate: What about the eyewitness testimony?
Schlermer: Very credible.
Legalienate: Like claims that 800 people were packed into a space the size of a file cabinet?
Schlermer: Every bit of evidence doesn’t have to be right for the general conclusion to be sound.
Legalienate: Like 42,000 gassings a day at a single camp?
Schlermer: Ballpark figures aren’t necessarily dishonest . . . .
Legalienate: Like the floor of the mass gassing chambers opening up and depositing the corpses in a “subterranean chamber” that is nowhere to be found in the concentration camp where this event allegedly happened?
Schlermer: Look, anecdotal samples can’t disprove a general proposition . . .
Legalienate: So could you give us the systematic evidence for mass gassing chambers?
Schlermer: With pleasure. Hitler hated Jews and gave anti-Semitic speeches. Nazi documents allude to permanently solving the Jewish “problem” in Europe. There are Zyklon B pesticide traces in former German concentration camps. Eyewitnesses swear mass gassings occurred in these camps. There are also photographs of burning bodies from the camps. And we have architectural blueprints for cremation ovens, as well as gas chambers, which Holocaust deniers say are merely fumigation chambers. There are photographs of the outside of buildings in former concentration camps showing prisoners lined up as though waiting to be gassed. All this evidence converges on the conclusion that the gas chambers existed and were used for mass murder.
Legalienate: Converges?
Schlermer: It all points to the conclusion that they must have existed.
Legalienate: Must have existed? I thought we were proving what did exist.
Schlermer: We are. The evidence says they must have existed, therefore they did.
Legalienate: Is that really the same thing?
Schlermer: Yes.
Legalienate: I see. A customer on Amazon who reviewed your book “Denying History,” says this: “I learned this concept (convergence) under a different name in religion class. It was called ‘leap of faith.’”
Schlermer: But the Holocaust is science. Official Holocaust history is objective, scientific, and infallible.
Legalienate: I see. Isn't it interesting that whenever someone wants to use false or unrelated evidence to support a favored conclusion he talks about how it “converges” on that conclusion? Theology professor David Ray Griffin used that method to “prove” that the twin towers in New York were brought down by pre-planted exposives.
Schlermer: That’s not really fair . . . I oppose Griffin . . .
Legalienate: But not his method. Now how do the existence of cremation ovens carry implications of murder? Aren't dead bodies cremated in every country?
Schlermer: Of course.
Legalienate: So can I ask why cremation ovens are always mentioned in the same breath as gas chambers, as though cremating corpses were the same as murdering people?
Schlermer: You certainly may.
Legalienate: That’s all you have to say?
Schlermer: Yes.
Legalienate: You accept that Zyklon B gas was used to fumigate the camps?
Schlermer: Yes.
Legalienate: So there were fumigation chambers and mass gassing chambers?
Schlermer: Yes.
Legalienate: How come there are no physical remains of the enormous gas chambers that supposedly executed 2000 Jews at a time?
Schlermer: The Nazis destroyed them.
Legalienate: Why were no photographs of the homicidal gas chambers taken by Nazi guards? After all, there are many photographs of American lynch mobs proudly smiling after their grisly deeds were done, why no celebratory Nazi pictures of the gas chambers?
Schlermer: Because the Nazis wanted to keep the final solution secret.
Legalienate: So how come there are roughly a million survivors churning out endless Holocaust testimonials? If they were really determined to maintain secrecy, shouldn’t the Nazis have shot them all, so they couldn’t tell their story to the world?
Schlermer: No conspiracy is perfect . . .
Legalienate: I should say not . . . . Now on the objectivity issue, isn’t it self-serving of you to claim that your side in the debate is the product of scientific historiography, while that of your opponents is the fruit of prejudice?
Schlermer: No. Deniers only seek to confirm their biases. They doggedly look for evidence to substantiate their preconceived views. The mark of intellectual honesty is the willingness to subject one’s favored hypothesis to vigorous attack.
Legalienate: So why won’t Holocaust true-believers debate their opponents?
Schlermer: They don’t want to legitimize them.
Legalienate: But if their opponents’ arguments are hopelessly flawed, wouldn’t demonstrating this in front of a mass audience lead to their delegitimization?
Schlermer: One would hope so. But people tend to believe a lot of weird things, no matter how much they are reasoned with.
Legalienate: Indeed. . . . Like Jewish bodies were converted to soap by the Nazis?
Schlermer: Yes, but that doesn’t mean the rest of the story is wrong.
Legalienate: And Jewish skulls were converted to shrunken heads?
Schlermer: Some of the particulars may be wrong, but . . .
Legalienate: And Jewish skin was made into lampshades?
Schlermer: Look, I’ve already pointed out that a general proposition can’t be invalidated by anecdotal evidence.
Legalienate: What’s the general proposition here, that Holocaust historians are brain-damaged?
Schlermer: Not exactly, but . . . .
Legalienate: Now, as for dealing with Deniers, you say that censorship is no way to handle them.
Schlermer: Right. I’m a firm believer in free speech.
Legalienate: How do you react to the beatings, torchings, bombings, book shreddings, heresy trials, blasphemy laws, and jailings inflicted on Holocaust deniers?
Schlermer: They’ve invited this, so there’s really nothing to be done.
Legalienate: In other words, “I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to your death your right to be given summary justice by a howling mob.”
Schlermer: Well put.
Legalienate: Thank you. You say Holocaust Deniers are “ideological.”
Schlermer: Yes.
Legalienate: Their fondness for fascism leads them to minimize or deny crimes of the Nazi state?
Schlermer: Exactly.
Legalienate: And how about the other side? Doesn’t the Holocaust Industry’s incestuous relationship with the state of Israel predispose it to distortions and fabrications that favor the interests of that state?
Schlermer: Not that I’ve noticed.
Legalienate: I see. Why are political affiliations relevant to the Holocaust debate in the first place? You go to considerable lengths to point out the “right wing” associations of Holocaust Deniers.
Schlermer: Because they establish that Deniers have an ideological axe to grind, which interferes with their ability to objectively assess history.
Legalienate: I see. And the political affiliations of the Holocaust Industry don’t have a prejudicial effect?
Schlermer: Not all historians who accept the Holocaust are part of the “Holocaust Industry.”
Legalienate: They are if they intend to continue publishing.
Schlermer: In truth, there is no “Holocaust industry,” just honest researchers seeking truth against a rising tide of obtuse Deniers motivated by racism.
Legalienate: I see. Your co-author Alex Grobman is a founding editor-in-chief of the Simon Wiesenthal Annual. That doesn’t interfere with his objectivity?
Schlermer: Not in the least.
Legalienate: O.K. let’s continue. You say that the moral superiority of the Allies in WWII is demonstrated by the fact that the killing stopped the moment the Allies won.
Schlermer: Yes.
Legalienate: But the U.S. firebombed Tokyo and nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki while the Japanese were trying to surrender. The Purple code had been broken and Washington knew they were petitioning the Soviets for surrender. After the war, the U.S. War Department announced that there was no military necessity to the atomic bombings.
Schlermer: But all that occurred on the road to victory . . .
Legalienate: So a lost war is the only crime . . . .
Schlermer: No. The Axis powers would have gone on killing had they won.
Legalienate: How do you know that?
Schlermer: It was part of their ideology. Aryan supremacy. They were committed to killing off their racial inferiors.
Legalienate: Like Teddy Roosevelt and Manifest Destiny?
Schlermer: Look. I’m talking about the racism in WWII.
Legalienate: Right. So let me read you a quote about how bad it got: “We shot prisoners in cold blood, wiped out hospitals, strafed lifeboats, killed or mistreated enemy civilians, finished off the enemy wounded, tossed the dying in a hole with the dead, and . . . boiled the flesh off enemy skulls to make table ornaments for sweethearts, or carved their bones into letter openers.”
Schlermer: That’s exactly the ideology of hatred I’m talking about. It needed to be defeated militarily.
Legalienate: But it wasn’t. That’s a quote from war correspondent Edgar L. Jones, describing the U.S. war in the Pacific.
Schlermer: Well, in that case it was an unfortunate excess caused by the stress of battle.
Legalienate: You say that the Axis “killed for geography, for political control, for economic power, for racial purification, and for pleasure.”
Schlermer: Yes.
Legalienate: The United States doesn’t do such things.
Schlermer: Of course not.
Legalienate: Did the indigenous nations of North America voluntarily disband to make way for the United States?
Schlermer: No, but . . .
Legalienate: Weren’t they physically eliminated through genocide, or something very much like it?
Schlermer: Maybe, but there was no poison gas involved . . .
Legalienate: Didn’t the United States launch war with Mexico in 1846 in order to take California?
Schlermer: Possibly, but . . .
Legalienate: Isn‘t that killing “for geography?”
Schlermer: Perhaps, but . . .
Legalienate: When Thomas Jefferson shared his aspirations for founding a country “without blot or mixture” and urged that the Indians be "exterminated" or driven “with the beasts of the forest into the Stony mountains,” was he not endorsing killing for racial purification?
Schlermer: Look, we were talking about Europe . . .
Legalienate: When U.S. troops exulted in their “turkey shoot” in the Gulf War in 1991, were they not “killing for pleasure?”
Schlermer: We are not Nazis!
Legalienate: In 1898, when the U.S. began slaughtering a couple of hundred thousand Filipinos to gain a “gateway to the Orient,” were they not killing “for economic power?”
Schlermer: I really don’t know . . . .
Legalienate: By establishing slavery did the U.S. not kill “for political control” of people they reduced to chattel? And who is in political control in the dozens of countries where Washington maintains military bases to this day? Aren’t the deaths of dissidents that occur in those countries in large part Washington’s responsibility? Isn’t that, too, “killing for political control?” How many of those countries are permitted to have military bases inside the United States?
Schlermer: We are a democracy, we stand for human rights . . . .
Legalienate: Thank you for your time.