"For just as in the case of Hitler and Goering, Bush, Rumsfeld and
Ashcroft designed these war crimes in deliberate and premeditated violation
of the Geneva Convention. Our military was indeed just following orders."
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A Kristallnacht Memorial Day
HISTORY REPEATS
Posted June 2, 2004 thepeoplesvoice.org
By: Ted Lang
Considering the monster he eventually turned
out to be, serious students as well as even casual observers of history reflect
a disbelief in the supportive political environment that brought Hitler to
power. They find it impossible to accept that the German people not only admired
and followed him, but actually saw him as some kind of a god, sent down from
heaven to vindicate their nation from the outrages forced upon them by Europe's
then-dominant powers: Great Britain and France.
Immediately after the Hitler regime passed the 1938 Gun Control Act, which was
imported into this country by Connecticut Senator Thomas Dodd and converted to
law via the Americanized 1968 Gun Control Act, Nazified goons and thugs roamed
the streets of many cities and towns in Germany looking for Jewish victims.
Hitler's 1938 Nazi Gun Control was created specifically to ensure that Jews and
Jewish shopkeepers were unarmed. It was good central planning, as the once-armed
Jews weren't able to protect themselves.
The thought that citizens with guns cannot stand up to tyrannical, Nazified
government police and military organizations was easily and resoundingly
disproven by the brave actions of the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto, who had only a
handful of handguns, a few machine-guns and some rifles. The Warsaw Jews also
used Molotov cocktails, and successfully stopped the Gestapo from herding them
into concentration camps where they belonged; after all, government is law and,
well, you know! But those pesky Jews held off not only Hitler's Gestapo, but did
a damned good job holding off Hitler's Army regulars as well.
But no sooner did the 1938 Nazi Gun Control Law take effect in Germany, than
roving gangs of propaganda-motivated, thugs, goons and common criminals took to
the streets to attack Jews and Jewish businesses. The incident that triggered
Kristallnacht was indeed a shooting. A seventeen year-old Jewish boy, whose
parents had been deported after a series of Nazi policies authorized their
relocation to a concentration camp through progressively anti-Jewish pogroms and
legalistics, shot a German official in Paris. That was the excuse needed. The
gun control laws were in place; now all that was needed was to take advantage of
them, and Kristallnacht was the event that did just that.
It is very similar to our own USA Patriot Acts I and II that our Congress
legalistically maneuvered into place, created to eventually give our government
supreme authority over our lives. And of course, the USA Patriot Acts rely
heavily, as they did for the Jews in 1938 Germany, on in-place gun control
regulations. Synagogues were burned. Innocent Jews were murdered, about 91 in
all. Hundreds were beaten, and German Jews had their homes and stores looted,
damaged, and in some cases, burned. It's kind of like the government-is-law
situation now perpetrated on the Palestinians in Gaza, or the beatings and
torturing of both civilian and military prisoners of war by the criminal Bush
administration.
Looking at only 91 dead Jews, just what was the big deal? And just some shops
and homes got ransacked and burned; come on now, why all this fuss over
Kristallnacht? But is it the actual numbers that died, or were persecuted, or
was it the immoral, legalized type of selectivity by "government
officials" that was the problem? Goering offered that retaliation against
all Jews was necessary because of the shooting murder of a German diplomat in
Paris by an armed Jewish boy. One death now justified 91 murders? And Hitler
blamed ALL Jews for the treachery of a few Zionist Jews and the international
Zionist Rothschild banking cartel that cheated the Germans out of a sure victory
in World War I, a victory that supposedly the Germans wouldn't exploit to extort
the hideous war reparations that were instead foisted upon them by our
involvement in that war urged by Zionist notables in Germany and America.
But just as the number of dead Jews will never be the issue, neither will the
number of Iraqis tortured and beaten to death while in the hands of the American
military as war prisoners. And criticism of our military should indeed not be
limited to the low-level rank and file members of our military. For just as in
the case of Hitler and Goering, Bush, Rumsfeld and Ashcroft designed these war
crimes in deliberate and premeditated violation of the Geneva Convention. Our
military was indeed just following orders.
In a nation of real individual freedom, citizens have a right to criticize their
own government. It is not only healthy; it is mandatory if we intend to continue
to live as a free and sovereign people. And free expression, to include creative
expression criticizing abuses by our government, or for that matter any
government, is always healthy. Think of Pablo Picasso's outrage over the Nazis
helping fascist tyrant Francisco Franco of Spain destroy the town of Guernica,
the title of his most famous political statement on canvas.
And now, another artist from Berkley, California, Guy Colwell, created a
painting entitled "Abuse," which depicts a scene showing the torture
and humiliation of Iraqi prisoners at the hands of American military abusers. In
an item I found on the Drudge Report of May 29th, an article by Associated Press
writer Lisa Leff entitled "SF gallery owner becomes target after showcasing
painting of Iraqi prisoner abuse," Leff writes: "After displaying a
painting of U.S. soldiers torturing Iraqi prisoners, a San Francisco gallery
owner bears a painful reminder of the nation's unresolved anguish over the
incidents at Abu Ghraib -- a black eye and bloodied brow delivered by an unknown
assailant who apparently objected to the art work."
Leff continues, "The assault outside the Capobianco gallery in the city's
North Beach district Thursday night was the worst, but only the latest in a
string of verbal and physical attacks that have directed at owner Lori Haigh
since the painting, titled 'Abuse,' was installed there on May 16. Last
Wednesday, concerned for the safety of her two children, ages 14 and 4, who
often accompanied her to work, Haigh decided to close the gallery indefinitely.
Painted by Berkeley artist Guy Colwell, 'Abuse,' the painting at the center of
the controversy, depicts three U.S. soldiers leering at a group of naked men in
hoods with wires connected to their bodies. The one in the foreground has a
blood-spattered American flag patch on his uniform. In the background, a soldier
in sunglasses guards a blindfolded woman."
Perhaps this un-American, indecent and immoral behavior helps to explain how an
Adolf Hitler can come to power. America wasn't disgraced explains Rush Limbaugh;
some of the troops were just having fun, and evil "libs" and Democrats
are making a big thing out of it to embarrass George Bush - for him, that's all
the Abu Ghraib prison scandal was about. Some Iraqis were killed - where's the
proof of that? Remember the photo of a male and female American soldier posing
with the corpse of a beaten, murdered Iraqi? So what? Isn't that what Limbaugh
would say - Iraqis are evil Muslims and Arabs, they're not real people; they're
subhuman. I guess Limbaugh and Hannity figure killing Arabs as the Israelis are
doing in Gaza, and we are doing even after they've been captured and disarmed,
is about the same as Hitler thugs killing 91 Jews. Who cares?
But then why have so many generations of American fighting men and women died?
Why do we "honor" them by setting aside one day a year to recognize
their sacrifices? Didn't they sacrifice to give us freedom as guaranteed in the
Bill of Rights just recently abolished in total by the USA Patriot Act? Didn't'
they fight and die to preserve and protect our Constitution from all enemies
domestic and private? Didn't they fight and die to prevent a war-mongering
tyrant from taking control of America's power and using it to steal the land of
other sovereign nations? Didn't they fight and die so that Lori Haigh and Guy
Colwell could express themselves without being attacked by goons and thugs
inspired by racist government propaganda? No?
What then did they fight and die for?
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© THEODORE E. LANG 5/29/04 All rights reserved.
Ted Lang is a political analyst and a freelance writer.
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