Federal Government Deficit On Track As Second-Highest Ever
The Associated Press 
Why I Believe Simon Wiesenthal Was a Fraud
Guy Walters -- Daily Mail (Britain)
... In my view, Simon Wiesenthal was a liar and a fraud. In fact, I'd go so far as to say he was one of the biggest conmen of the 20th century. I spent four years working on a history of Nazi-hunting that was published last year, and the material I gathered on Wiesenthal was enough to make me scream out loud. When I started my book, I too believed that the great man was just that -- great. But when I looked at all his memoirs, biographies and original archive material, I realised that, like so many others, the image I had built up of Simon Wiesenthal was hopelessly incorrect. Irving Defends Plans for `Nazi Travel' Tour of Poland
Daily Mail (Britain)
Controversial historian David Irving has hit back at claims his guided history tours of Polish death camps are 'sick'. Claiming that it is the Polish authorities who are 'tasteless' for their promotion of Auschwitz as a 'Disney-style' tourist site, Mr Irving defended his own trip which is fully-booked with American and British tourists. Critics have slammed the trip Mr Irving is organising to Hitler's headquarters and the notorious death camp Treblinka, referring to it as 'Nazi Travel'. However, the historian, who was convicted of Holocaust denial in Austria in 2006, has said his critics have clearly not read his books on the Second World War. Tour of Poland May Upset Some Revisionists, Says Irving
David Irving
In response to recent criticisms of his upcoming visit to several Nazi sites in Poland, including the Treblinka death camp, David Irving says, "I shall be saying nothing anywhere which violates any laws; on the contrary, I am mildly worried I may upset the more revisionist of our guests with my statements." Popular journalistic beliefs notwithstanding, Mr Irving does not deny that many people were murdered in the Operation Reinhardt camps, of which Treblinka is the most notorious. On recent visit to Treblinka in July of 2010, he said "There can be no doubt at all that the Nazis did murder hundreds of thousands of Jews by machine gunning them into pits all along the eastern front and in the Aktion Reinhardt camps, of which this camp, Treblinka, is one."
Broke, But Building the Most Expensive School in U.S. History
The Wall Street Journal
At $578 million -- or about $140,000 per student -- the 24-acre Robert F. Kennedy Community Schools complex in mid-Wilshire [Los Angeles] is the most expensive school ever constructed in U.S. history. To put the price in context, this city's Staples sports and entertainment center cost $375 million. To put it in a more important context, the school district is currently running a $640 million deficit and has had to lay off 3,000 teachers in the last two years. It also has one of the lowest graduation rates in the country and some of the worst test scores. The K-12 complex isn't merely an overwrought paean to the nation's most celebrated liberal political family. It's a jarring reminder that money doesn't guarantee success -- though it certainly beautifies failure. On the Nation's Paper Trail: Large-Scale Theft of Items From US National Archives
Los Angeles Times
When Paul Brachfeld took over as inspector general of the National Archives, guardian of the country's most beloved treasures, he discovered the American people were being stolen blind. The Wright brothers' 1903 Flying Machine patent application? Gone. A copy of the Dec. 8, 1941, "Day of Infamy" speech autographed by Franklin Roosevelt and tied with a purple ribbon? Gone. Target maps of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, war telegrams written by Abraham Lincoln, and a scabbard and belt given to Harry Truman? Gone, gone and gone. In Austria, Two Years Added to Prison Sentence of `Thought Criminal' Honsik
The Associated Press
A jailed right-wing Austrian author has been found guilty of violating a prohibition on glorifying Nazi ideology and sentenced to an additional two years in prison. Gerd Honsik is already serving a four-year term, which began last year after he was found guilty of "Wiederbetaetigung" -- "re-engaging" in Nazi-era beliefs. The crime is punishable by up to 20 years in prison. The previous sentence was for articles Honsik wrote in a right-wing publication praising the Nazi era. The judgment and sentence pronounced Thursday arose from two books by him that contained similar pro-Hitler and anti Jewish sentiments. China to Build Two Billion Dollar Railway for Iran
The Telegraph (Britain)
China is poised to sign a $2 billion deal to build a railway line in Iran in the first step of a wider plan to tie the Middle East and Central Asia to Beijing. China's railways minister, Liu Zhijun, is expected to visit Tehran this week to seal the deal, according to his Iranian counterpart, Hamid Behbahani ... China is rapidly expanding its own high-speed rail network and has unveiled plans for lines that will connect Beijing with London, both through Russia and through central Asia. China Railway Group, the largest railway construction company, has also recently revealed it has had "early stage contact" with South African companies about undertaking rail projects in South Africa. Anti-Israel Economic Boycotts Are Gaining Speed
Haaretz (Israel)
... There's another boycott, an international one, that's gaining momentum - an economic boycott. Last week the Chilean parliament decided to adopt the boycott of Israeli products made in the settlements, at the behest of the Palestinian Authority, which imposed a boycott on such products several months ago. ... The world is changing before our eyes. Five years ago the anti-Israel movement may have been marginal. Now it is growing into an economic problem. Puberty Age for Some Girls in US May Still be Falling
Los Angeles Times
Doctors and parents were stunned when research published more than a decade ago found American girls were beginning puberty at much younger ages, some as early as 7. A new study released Sunday suggests the average age at which puberty begins may still be falling for white and Latina girls ... By age eight, 27 percent of the girls had begun puberty: 18.3 percent of whites, 42.9 percent of blacks and 30.9 percent of Latinas ... There are numerous potential explanations for why puberty is starting earlier. Excess body weight, is thought to increase the blood levels of estrogens that promote breast development. But other studies suggest that body fat may not be the only cause.
Demjanjuk Health Issues Taking Over Trial
The Associated Press
John Demjanjuk attends most sessions of his trial in a hospital bed set up in the courtroom, wearing dark sunglasses and a hat pulled down over his face. The case of the retired Ohio autoworker accused of serving as a Nazi death camp guard -- which resumes next week after a monthlong summer break -- broke potentially precedent-setting ground when it opened last year. But it has become increasingly dominated by the 90-year-old defendant's failing health. Nazi hunters have taken keen interest in the Demjanjuk saga because it's the first time German authorities have prosecuted such a low-ranking suspect on the premise that, even without evidence of a specific crime, simply working at a death camp was enough to be an accessory to murder.
Israeli Settlement Construction Booms Despite Ban
Der Spiegel (Germany)
In Washington, the Israelis and Palestinians are discussing peace, but in the Jewish settlements in the West Bank, construction is proceeding at full speed. A legal ban is being ignored and the government is looking away. The thousands of new homes could hinder reconciliation. America's Faltering Search for Peace in the Middle East
Amb. Chas. Freeman
... For more than four decades, Israel has been able to rely on aid from the United States to dominate its region militarily and to sustain its economic prosperity. It has counted on its leverage in American politics to block the application of international law and to protect itself from the political repercussions of its policies and actions. Unquestioning American support has enabled Israel to put the seizure of ever more land ahead of the achievement of a modus vivendi with the Palestinians or other Arabs. Neither violent resistance from the dispossessed nor objections from abroad have brought successive Israeli governments to question, let alone alter, the priority they assign to land over peace. David Irving Tour of Wartime Sites in Poland Prompts Criticism
The Telegraph (Britain)
David Irving, the controversial historian, has outraged war veterans and survivors' groups with a tour of sites related to the Nazi occupation of Poland. Irving will be shadowed by the Polish secret service as he takes a week-long guided trip round various sites related to the German occupation of Poland, including a trip to the notorious SS-run camp Treblinka, where more than 800,000 Jews died between 1942 and 1943. The 1,500 pound-a-head tour, organised by Irving's Focal Point Publications website, will also visit Heinrich Himmler's bunker in Hochward as well as Adolf Hitler's Wolf's Lair headquarters in Ketrzyn, as well as a series of lectures, and screening of the German film Downfall, about the last days of Hitler, featuring commentary by Irving. European Trade Chief Accused of Anti-Semitism
The New York Times
The European Union's chief trade negotiator was accused on Friday of "outrageous anti-Semitism" after comments made in an interview about Israel's role in Middle East peace talks. Karel De Gucht, the European commissioner for trade, told a radio station in his native Belgium that the "average Jew" had a belief that they are right, which was "difficult to counter with rational arguments." ... Mr. De Gucht also said the Jewish community wielded its influence in the United States. "Don't underestimate the power of the Jewish lobby on Capitol Hill," he added. "That is the best organized lobby; you shouldn't underestimate the grip it has on American politics -- no matter whether it's Republicans or Democrats." German Banker Earns Popular Support for Controversial Book on Immigration
AFP
Politicians have rushed to condemn a board member of the German central bank for a new book tackling immigration, but his views have found considerable support among the population at large. Thilo Sarrazin's book "is not convincing, but it has convinced many people," said the influential Spiegel magazine, which this week has the Bundesbank executive on its cover, calling him a "people's hero." His publisher is rushing to print more copies of "Germany Does Itself In" to meet demand ... In the book, Sarrazin says Europe's top economy is being undermined, overwhelmed and made "more stupid" by poorly educated, fast-breeding, badly integrated and unproductive Muslim immigrants and their offspring. Thomas Mann's War-Time Radio Speeches and the Genesis of the Mass Gassing Allegations
Thomas Kues - Inconvenient History
... From 1940 to the end of the war Mann recorded a number of speeches in German which were sent to the BBC and broadcasted from London in order to reach German radio listeners ... As Mann proceeded to declare, the reports on mass killings of Jews were not simply "stories", but history in the making.[30] This is highly ironic, considering that most of the supposedly authentic and reliable reports on mass killings relayed by Mann to his listeners have been quietly thrown down the memory hole. The speeches made by Mann during the war years are actually mythology in the making, and reading them gives us more insight into how and when the mass gassing allegations arose and provides us with leads to follow up in future research into this issue. Dresden Mayor Against Memorial to World War II British Bombers
The Telegraph (Britain)
The mayor of the German city of Dresden has flown into London under pressure from fellow politicians to try to get a planned memorial to Second World War bomber crews scrapped. Helma Orosz, 57, is officially in Britain to open an exhibition on the bombing of London, her city and that of its twin, Coventry, during the war. She is under pressure however to get the memorial, which is to recognise the courage of RAF bomber crews, scrapped. The East German city of Dresden was turned into rubble over two days nights in February 1945 by British and American bombers. Some 25,000 people, mostly women and children, died in savage firestorms whipped up by the intense heat of 2,400 tons of high explosive and 1,500 tons of incendiary bombs. The raid was controversial because the war was almost over and Dresden had no strategic value as a military target. World War Two Era Mass Grave Discovered in Slovenia
The Associated Press
The bodies of about 700 people killed in the wake of World War II have been discovered in a mass grave in Slovenia, 65 years after they were herded into the woods and slain by antifascists seeking revenge on Nazi collaborators, an official said Tuesday. Marko Strovs, who heads the government's commission for exhuming mass graves, told The Associated Press that researchers examined a pit in a forest near the town of Prevalje in the country's northeast last week and found the remains. "Based on what we've heard from local people and what we've seen so far, there could be about 700 bodies buried inside," Strovs said. Thousands of Nazi collaborators were executed by communist-backed antifascists after the war; in many cases, victims also included innocent civilians.
Orange County is No Longer Nixon Country
The New York Times
... It was the latest sign of the demographic, ethnic and political changes that are transforming the county and challenging long-held views of a region whose colorful -- its detractors might suggest zany -- reputation extends well beyond the borders of this state. At the end of 2009, nearly 45 percent of the county's residents spoke a language other than English at home, according to county officials. Whites now make up only 45 percent of the population; this county is teeming with Hispanics, as well as Vietnamese, Korean and Chinese families. Its percentage of foreign-born residents jumped to 30 percent in 2008 from 6 percent in 1970, and visits to some of its corners can feel like a trip to a foreign land. Third World America: 'Fast-Tracking to Anarchy'
Janet Tavakoli
... Among the future consequences of not fixing our national problems will likely be an increase in social unrest and an increase in crime. A look at Chicago's problems may serve as a call to action for America's middle class. Chicago's city budget is in dire straits. That's also true of the state of Illinois, California, New York and other areas. In Chicago, the same mismanagement that deepened our fiscal crisis has caused a crisis in essential city services ... Thugs, gangs and renegade groups run the streets and neighborhoods, intimidating and victimizing the decent citizens of this city. They go mostly unchallenged and unchecked by a totally demoralized police force that is dangerously understaffed and still out-gunned on the streets. America's Little Wars are Draining Us in a Big Way
Georgie Anne Geyer
... In Iraq and Afghanistan, it was the inner group of neocons, originally leftist Trotskyites who then switched to the right, bringing their war propensities with them, when they saw the left turning against Israel. They are still very much around in the right wing of the Republican Party, and they are always the people to watch ... The bigger question we now face is whether the American people really want 800 American bases all over the world "projecting power," and whether we want to invade other countries and bring back body bags instead of rebuilding our bridges and highways and ports. We Owe The Troops An Exit
Bob Herbert -- The New York Times
... In addition to the terrible physical toll, the ultimate economic costs of these two wars, as the Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz and his colleague Linda Bilmes have pointed out, will run to more than $3 trillion. I get a headache when I hear supporters of this endless warfare complaining about the federal budget deficits. They're like arsonists complaining about the smell of smoke in the neighborhood. There is no silver lining to this nearly decade-old war in Afghanistan. Poll after poll has shown that it no longer has the support of most Americans. And yet we fight on, feeding troops into the meat-grinder year after tragic year -- to what end?
'I Did Nothing Wrong': German Gulag Prisoners Recall Their Postwar Ordeal
Der Spiegel (Germany)
Thousands of Germans, including teenagers, were forced to toil in Stalin's labor camps after World War II. When they were finally released, their country had been divided into east and west. Karl Heinz Vogeley and Lothar Scholz recall how no one was interested in their fate when they returned ... Between 15 million and 18 million people were imprisoned in Soviet gulags between the mid 1920s and the beginning of the 1950s. German War Dead Find Final Resting Place in Czech Soil
DPA
The remains of 5,600 Wehrmacht soldiers and ethnic Germans who died on Czech territory during and shortly after World War II now have a final resting place there. The place is the town of Cheb, known in German as Eger, in the Sudetenland region near the Bavarian border. The new war cemetery, the largest and last burial site for German war dead on Czech territory, will be officially opened on September 11, some 65 years after the war. Hundreds of plain granite crosses mark the graves. The people buried in them include 473 civilians who died either in internment camps or during the expulsion of ethnic Germans after the war.
Jewish Moral Deception, Free Speech, and the Israel Lobby
Prof. Kevin MacDonald - Video
Dr. MacDonald explains how Jewish intellectuals promote policies to advance Jewish group interests while deceitfully justifying them on the basis of "universal values" and humanitarian principles that appeal to non-Jews. This video presentation, made by James Williams, lasts 4:53 mins. As part of what psychology professor MacDonald calls a "group evolutionary strategy," Jews frame polices that are good for Jews as beneficial for everyone. These policies include: Mass immigration and multiculturalism for the US and Europe, but not for Israel, which are justified on "humanitarian" grounds; and, Wars waged by the US against Israel's enemies, which are justified as promoting "freedom" and "democracy." What's The Difference Between President Ahmadinejad And Rabbi Yosef?
Alan Hart
Short answer. Iran's President Ahmadinejad did NOT call for Israeli Jews to be annihilated. Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the spiritual leader of Israel's Shas party, HAS called, more than once, for the Palestinians (and, in fact, all Arabs) to be exterminated. As reported by the mainstream Western media, Ahmadinejad called for Israel to be "wiped off the map". What that meant, it was asserted, was the destruction, the driving into the sea, of Israel's Jews. What Ahmadinejad actually called for was the de-Zionization of Palestine. His actual words were to the effect that he wanted the Zionist state to disappear as the Soviet Union had done. Red and Green: Israel and the World
Uri Avnery (Israel)
... But the belief that "the whole world is against us" is rooted deep in our national psyche. It enables us to ignore the world reaction to our behavior. It is very convenient. If the entire world hates us anyhow, the nature of our deeds, good or bad, doesn't really matter. They would hate Israel even if we were angels. The goyim are just anti-Semitic ... One could answer that since Israel demands special treatment in all other matters, we are measured by special standards when it comes to the occupation and the settlements. But logic doesn't matter. It's the national myths that count.
London in the Blitz: How Crime Flourished Under Cover of the Blackout
The Observer / The Guardian (Britain)
The first people to be liberated by Britain in the Second World War were our own criminals. As the declaration of hostilities was announced in 1939, the gates of the country's prisons swung open for any inmate with less than three months left to serve and all the Borstal boys who had completed six months. Next month sees the 70th anniversary of the start of the blitz and there will be, quite rightly, many celebrations of the courage and stoicism displayed during it. What may receive less publicity are the activities of those who took advantage of the confusion to make their criminal fortunes because, as most of the nation pulled together to help each other, others were very busily helping themselves. A Trillion-Dollar Catastrophe: The Iraq War
Simon Jenkins -- The Guardian (Britain)
Today the Iraq war was declared over by Barack Obama. As his troops return home, Iraqis are marginally freer than in 2003, and considerably less secure. Two million remain abroad as refugees from seven years of anarchy, with another two million internally displaced. Ironically, almost all Iraqi Christians have had to flee. Under western rule, production of oil - Iraq's staple product - is still below its pre-invasion level, and homes enjoy fewer hours of electricity. This is dreadful. Some 100,000 civilians are estimated to have lost their lives from occupation-related violence ... The Iraq war will be seen by history as a catastrophe that did more than anything else to alienate Atlantic powers from the rest of the world and disqualify them as global policemen. The Iraq War in Figures
BBC News
The US formally ends its combat operations in Iraq at the end of August, marking a new phase in the seven-year conflict which has cost billions of dollars and many thousands of lives ... The respected and non-partisan Congressional Research Service estimates that the US will have spent almost $802 billion on funding the war by the end of fiscal year 2011, with $747.6 billion already appropriated. However, Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard's Linda Bilmes put the true cost at $3 trillion once additional impacts on the US budget and economy are taken into account.Making Soldiers Fit to Fight, Without the Situps
The New York Times
... This year, a group of retired generals and admirals released a report titled "Too Fat to Fight." "Between 1995 and 2008, the proportion of potential recruits who failed their physicals each year because they were overweight rose nearly 70 percent," the report concluded. Though the Army screens out the seriously obese and completely unfit, it is still finding that many of the recruits who reach basic training have less strength and endurance than privates past. It is the legacy of junk food and video games, compounded by a reduction in gym classes in many high schools, Army officials assert. America's Culture of Overwork: Comparing US and German Workers
Alex Jung -- Salon.com
... Compared to our German cousins across the pond, we work 1,804 hours versus their 1,436 hours - the equivalent of nine extra 40-hour workweeks per year. The Protestant work ethic may have begun in Germany, but it has since evolved to become the American way of life ... European social democracy - particularly Germany's - offers some tantalizing solutions to our overworked age. In comparison to the U.S., the Germans live in a socialist idyll. They have six weeks of federally mandated vacation, free university tuition, nursing care, and childcare. Wiesenthal Worked for Israeli Spy Agency, Says Israeli Historian
The New York Times
Simon Wiesenthal, a Holocaust survivor who gained worldwide fame for decades as a one-man Nazi-hunting operation, was in fact frequently on the payroll of the Mossad, Israel's spy agency, a new biography asserts. The assertion, based on numerous documents and interviews with three people said to be Mr. Wiesenthal's Mossad handlers, punctures not only a widely held belief about how he operated; it also suggests a need to re-evaluate the standard view that the Israeli government took no interest in tracking down Nazis until the 1960 capture in Argentina of Adolf Eichmann, and little thereafter. Simon Wiesenthal: Fraudulent `Nazi Hunter'
Mark Weber
... Wiesenthal's reputation as a moral authority is undeserved. The man whom The Washington Post has called the "Holocaust's Avenging Angel" has a little known but well-documented record of reckless disregard for truth. He has lied about his own wartime experiences, misrepresented his postwar "Nazi-hunting" achievements, and has spread vile falsehoods about alleged German atrocities
French Teacher Suspended For Holocaust `Brain-Washing'
AFP
A Jewish French history teacher said Tuesday that she had been suspended for spending too much time teaching her pupils about the Holocaust and for organising trips to former Nazi death camps. A lawyer acting for Catherine Pederzoli, a 58-year-old secondary teacher in the eastern town of Nancy, said her client had been accused by administrators of teaching the World War II massacres with insufficient "neutrality". ... The report, compiled last month, alleged the teacher took up too much time preparing pupils for annual school trips to Poland and the Czech Republic to visit sites like the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp. A copy of the report, seen by AFP, accuses Pederzoli of "lacking distance, neutrality and secularism" in teaching the Holocaust and of manipulating her charges through a process of "brain-washing". The `Beatification' of Anne Frank
Anne Karpf -- The Guardian (Britain)
... From the spring of 1944 onwards Anne rewrote her diary as she updated it, to turn it into a more eloquent piece of writing. After the war her father, Otto Frank, drew on versions A (the original) and B (Anne's revision) to produce C - the standard edition, until both the critical edition (1989) and the definitive edition (1995) supplemented C with hitherto omitted passages from A and B. ... Her posthumous beatification - the remaining few frames of film of her have almost the status of a relic - rests mostly on those lines in her diary about still believing that people are good at heart. (The ones about people's innate "urge to destroy . . . to kill . . . murder and rage" have curiously never found equal fame.) Samuel Konkin: An Influential Libertarian and Revisionist
Revisionists.com
Samuel Edward Konkin III (1947-2004) was an influential libertarian writer, publisher and activist. ... In keeping with his outlook, he fervently opposed US military interventionism in foreign countries, and all forms of state collectivism. He was an ardent defender of free speech and free intellectual inquiry. He was a good friend of the Institute for Historical Review. He addressed the Third IHR conference (1981), contributed to the IHR's Journal of Historical Review, and for years was a member of the IHR Journal's Editorial Advisory Committee. Military Spending: Start Cutting Overseas
B. Friedman and C. Preble -- Los Angeles Times
... The truth is that the U.S. no longer has a "defense" budget. The adjective is wrong. Our military forces' size long ago ceased to have any meaningful attachment to the requirements of protecting Americans ... Our military spending is nearly equal to half the world's, and our allies spend most of the other half. Russia, China, North Korea, Syria and Iran collectively spend about a fourth of what we do on defense, according to statistics compiled by the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Even if we cut our military in half, it would still be far bigger than that of any conceivable rival ... Our deficit problem is an opportunity to surrender the pretension that we are the world's indispensable nation, preventing instability, shaping the international system and guiding history. More US Schools `Infested' With Drugs, New Teen Survey Shows
Reuters
Millions of U.S. teens attend "drug-infested schools" where students routinely see drugs used, sold or kept on schools grounds, according to a national survey of attitudes on substance abuse released on Thursday. Thirty-one percent of high school students -- more than four million -- see drug dealing, illegal drug use or students high or drunk at least once a week on their school grounds, said the annual survey by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University ... Since 2002, the proportion of students who attend schools where drugs are used, kept or sold soared 39 percent for high school students and 63 percent for those in middle school. Prominent Israeli Rabbi Calls For Death To Palestinians
Reuters
An influential Israeli rabbi has said God should strike the Palestinians and their leader with a plague, calling for their death in a fiery sermon before Middle East peace talks set to begin next week. "Abu Mazen and all these evil people should perish from this earth," Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, spiritual head of the religious Shas party in Israel's government, said in a sermon late Saturday, using Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' popular name. "God should strike them and these Palestinians -- evil haters of Israel -- with a plague," the 89-year-old rabbi said in his weekly address to the faithful, excerpts of which were broadcast on Israeli radio Sunday. German Banker's Remarks on Jews and Muslims Spark Outrage
Daily Mail (Britain)
A leading member of Germany's central bank has caused outrage by claiming that Jews are identified by a particular gene. Thilo Sarrazin, who is on the board of the the Bundesbank in Frankfurt, said in a newspaper interview: 'All Jews share a certain gene. Basques (Spanish separatists) have particular genes, that distinguishes them from others.' ... In the book he claims the country is on the road to ruin because of the influx of immigrants from the Middle East which would overwhelm the indigenous population and create a nation of 'dunces'. In particular he singles out Muslims for failing to integrate and having low IQs. This influx, he claims, has been going on virtually since the war while the birthrate of native Germans has been steadily falling. World War Two West Coast Camps for Japanese-Americans
Mark Weber -- Institute for Historical Review
In the months following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, many [Americans] expected an immediate attack against the West Coast. Fear gripped the country and a wave of hysterical antipathy against the Japanese engulfed the Pacific Coast ... The Japanese were sent to concentration camps not by a group of West Coast racists seeking economic advantage, but by a popular and powerful government run by democratic liberals. At the top of the list of those responsible for not only authorizing the program, but also for keeping it in operation was President Franklin Roosevelt. On the Way Down: The Erosion of America's Middle Class
Der Spiegel (Germany)
While America's super-rich congratulate themselves on donating billions to charity, the rest of the country is worse off than ever. Long-term unemployment is rising and millions of Americans are struggling to survive. The gap between rich and poor is wider than ever and the middle class is disappearing. ... Even more unsettling is the fact that America, which has always been characterized by its unshakable belief in the American Dream, and in the conviction that anyone, even those at the very bottom, can rise to the top, is beginning to lose its famous optimism. According to recent figures, a significant minority of US citizens now believe that their children will be worse off than they are. Hateful Images of Germans and Japanese in 1950s British Comics
Robert Fisk -- The Independent (Britain)
.... Only now, 12 years after her death, have I found the box in my garage, containing dozens of volumes published by the Amalgamated Press (now IPC), in which a generation of schoolboys learned that Germans and Japanese were subhumans, and that we, the Brits - and occasionally Frenchmen and Americans, even Soviets - were fighting courageously against these "hordes" ... At their most racist, the comics cover the Allied-Japanese war. "The Emperor ... has ordered us to show these low-natured curs ... that we are the sons of Japan," a Jap says of the Brits in Malaya. But fear not, a plucky Tommy is there to "mow down the oncoming Japs" while screaming: "Come and get it you grinning little monkeys." Britain Carried Out Cold War Assassinations, Says Former Agent Le Carre
AFP
Britain carried out assassinations during the Cold War, novelist and former secret agent John le Carre told The Sunday Telegraph newspaper. The espionage writer worked for Britain's domestic and external intelligence agencies during the 1950s and 1960s. "Certainly we did very bad things. We did a lot of direct action. Assassinations, at arm's length. Although I was never involved," said the 79-year-old, whose real name is David Cornwell. He drew a distinction between Western spy agencies and their Soviet bloc counterparts in the way they went about it. The novelist, who worked in Berlin in his Cold War days, denied that both sides were as bad each other. French State Rail Company To Open Wartime Files, Bowing to Pressure
The Telegraph (Britain)
France's state rail operator, SNCF, has pledged to open its wartime archives to the state of California to prove it has "nothing to hide" over transporting French Jews to Nazi death camps. The pledge came a week after California passed legislation making full disclosure on involvement in taking people to work, concentration, prisoner of war, or extermination camps between January 1942 and December 1944 a requirement for bidding to build a high-speed railway in the state. Under the Holocaust Survivor Responsibility Act details of any reparations paid must also be disclosed. The new legislation is specifically aimed at SNCF, which is making a joint bid with French construction firm Alstom to build a $45 billion high speed link between Los Angeles and San Francisco. British Pilots Relied on German Sea Rescue Service During World War II
The Telegraph (Britain)
RAF [British air force] pilots shot down over the Channel during the Battle of Britain had to rely on German search and rescue services to save them from drowning, new research has unveiled. The problem became so severe that British aircraft were ordered to try to avoid travelling over the sea because too many being drowned, it has emerged. Amid the 70th anniversary commemorations this summer it can be disclosed that at least 200 pilots died "needlessly" in 1940 after bailing out over water. Once they hit the water there was very little chance of survival with only the occasional flier being picked up by a passing destroyer or fishing boat. How Much Is Enough?: Runaway Military Spending
Lawrence S. Wittner
... When it comes to military appropriations, the U.S. government already spends about seven times as much as China, thirteen times as much as Russia, and seventy-three times as much as Iran. Is this really necessary? During the Cold War, the United States confronted far more dangerous and numerous military adversaries, including the Soviet Union. And the U.S. government certainly possessed an enormous and devastating military arsenal, as well as the armed forces that used it. But in those years, U.S. military spending accounted for only 26 percent of the world total. America's Biggest Jobs Program: The U.S. Military
Robert Reich
... Having a giant undercover military jobs program is an insane way to keep Americans employed. It creates jobs we don't need but we keep anyway because there's no honest alternative. We don't have an overt jobs program based on what's really needed ... The Pentagon's budget -- and its giant undercover jobs program -- keeps expanding. The President has asked Congress to hike total defense spending next year 2.2 percent, to $708 billion. That's 6.1 percent higher than peak defense spending during the Bush administration. This sum doesn't even include Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs, nuclear weapons management, and intelligence. Add these, and next year's national security budget totals about $950 billion. World War II, the Third Reich and Hitler: A Witness of History Remembers
Otto Ernst Remer - Institute for Historical Review
... The initial successes of our forces against the Soviets were due to the fact that the Russians were not stationed in defense positions, but were instead positioned right at the front for attack, which made it possible for us to quickly encircle large Soviet forces. Thus, in the first weeks of the war, we were able to capture more than three million prisoners of war as well as enormous quantities of war equipment, all of which was on the frontier, positioned for attack. That's the truth of the matter, which can be proven. Boxed Into a Corner on Iran
Philip Giraldi
... To be completely and cold bloodedly serious about the respective positions being staked out by Iran and its chief antagonists in Washington and Tel Aviv, one must first of all remember that Tehran does not currently have a nuclear weapon and there is no real evidence that it even has a program to produce one. It has been basically compliant with the UN inspection regime mandated by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to which it is a signatory. A New Look at the Ottoman Empire's Last Great Sultan
Sami Moubayed -- Asia Times
For the past year, sporadic articles have appeared in the Arabic press debating the life and policies of Sultan Abdulhamid II, the last absolute monarch of the Ottoman Empire, who ruled from 1876 until forced to abdicate in 1909 ... Once seen as the source of all things evil, Abdulhamid is now revealed as a farsighted ruler who suffered his throne because of his defiance of Zionist ambitions in Palestine. The passing of time has enabled scholars to quietly take a long hard look at their history away from emotional bolts of Arab nationalism. The warming of Arab ties under Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a man who very clearly is proud of his Ottoman past, has also contributed to this revisionist history. Turks See Ottoman Legacy in New Light
The Associated Press
... For most of the last century, Turks were told to look askance at the Ottoman Empire. Nostalgia for the 1453 conquest of Constantinople and other early triumphs was fine -- but the excesses of the sultans were the stuff of decay, no model for modern Turkey. Today, the legacy of the Ottomans is enjoying a makeover. Turkey is a regional power that no longer sees itself as a junior partner of the West. Its diplomats and entrepreneurs reach out to Iraq, Iran, Syria and other lands once ruled from the Ottoman court.
Israel: An Apartheid State
Francis A. Boyle
... If you take a look at the definition of apartheid here found in Article 2, you will see that Israel has inflicted each and every act of apartheid set out in Article 2 on the Palestinians, except an outright ban on marriages between Israelis and Palestinians. But even there they have barred Palestinians living in occupied Palestine who marry Israeli citizens from moving into Israel, and thus defeat the right of family reunification that of course the world supported when Jews were emigrating from the Soviet Union. Forgotten Christians
The American Conservative (2004)
... A key tenet of Christian Zionism is absolute support for Israel, whose establishment and existence, it is believed, heralds Armageddon and the second coming of Christ. The politically relevant upshot of this is that without Israel's expansion there can be no redemption, and those who subscribe to this interpretation are only too eager to sacrifice their Palestinian fellow Christians on the altar of Zionism. They do not want to hear about coreligionists' suffering at the hands of Israel. John Maynard Keynes' Little-Known Anti-Jewish Views
The Telegraph (Britain)
Did you know that John Maynard Keynes was a venomous anti-Semite who could have given Richard Wagner a run for his money? Me neither. Yet the evidence has been out there for decades. Here are a couple of extracts from his writings, courtesy of Chris Dillow via Clive Davis's Spectator blog: "[Jews] have in them deep-rooted instincts that are antagonistic and therefore repulsive to the European, and their presence among us is a living example of the insurmountable difficulties that exist in merging race characteristics, in making cats love dogs. And: "It is not agreeable to see civilization so under the ugly thumbs of its impure Jews who have all the money and the power and brains." In Australia, School Apologizes for Hitler Costume Prize
BBC News
A Catholic school in Australia has apologised to parents after teachers awarded a costume prize to a child dressed as Adolf Hitler. The class of nine- and 10-year-olds had been asked to dress up as famous people at the school in Western Australia. Teachers declared the winner to be a boy who dressed as the Nazi leader, who was wearing an outfit featuring the swastika. The principal said in hindsight the school would have done it differently.
Becoming a Victorian: Churchill and the British Empire
Dan Jones -- Spectator (Britain)
Winston Churchill was a racist. He said things like 'I hate people with slit eyes and pig-tails. I don't like the look of them or the smell of them'.... The Churchill we salute as a lover of freedom and hater of tyranny muttered about kaffirs and blackamoors, and bore a lifelong commitment to subjecting swathes of the world to unwelcome British rule. How so? For answers, we may turn to Richard Toye's excellent new book, Churchill's Empire: The World That Made Him and the World He Made ... Sadness largely dominated Churchill's views on Empire following the War. Towards the end of his life he told his private secretary Anthony Montague-Brown: 'I have worked very hard all my life, and I have achieved a great deal - in the end to achieve nothing.' French Writer Reynouard: A `Prisoner of Conscience'
To sign a petition in defense of Vincent Reynouard's right to free research and expression, please visit the petition site (in French) ... A 41-year-old father of eight is currently in prison for his historical research, because of the Gayssot Act.
Vincent Reynouard: A Profile
Revisionists.com
Vincent Reynouard, born in 1969, is a French historian specializing in the Second World War who has been punished for violating France's controversial "Gayssot" law by expressing dissident views about twentieth century history.
How Facts Backfire: A Surprising `Threat to Democracy'
Joe Keohane
... In reality, we often base our opinions on our beliefs, which can have an uneasy relationship with facts. And rather than facts driving beliefs, our beliefs can dictate the facts we chose to accept. They can cause us to twist facts so they fit better with our preconceived notions. Worst of all, they can lead us to uncritically accept bad information just because it reinforces our beliefs. This reinforcement makes us more confident we're right, and even less likely to listen to any new information. And then we vote. The Ecstasy of Empire: How Close Is America's Demise?
Paul Craig Roberts
... If the wars are not immediately stopped and the jobs brought back to America, the US is relegated to the trash bin of history. Obviously, the corporations and Wall Street would use their financial power and campaign contributions to block any legislation that would reduce short-term earnings and bonuses by bringing jobs back to America. Americans have no greater enemies than Wall Street and the corporations and their prostitutes in Congress and the White House. The neocons allied with Israel, who control both parties and much of the media, are strung out on the ecstasy of Empire. The United States and the welfare of its 300 million people cannot be restored unless the neocons, Wall Street, the corporations, and their servile slaves in Congress and the White House can be defeated. Without a revolution, Americans are history. Wilhelm Furtwängler and Music in the Third Reich
Antony Charles -- Institute for Historical Review
... The National Socialists regarded art, and especially music, as an expression of a society's soul, character and ideals. A widespread appreciation of Germany's cultural achievements, they believed, encouraged a joyful national pride and fostered a healthy sense of national unity and mission. Because they regarded themselves as guardians of their nation's cultural heritage, they opposed liberal, modernistic trends in music and the other arts, as degenerate assaults against the cultural-spiritual traditions of Germany and the West. America Cannot Go to War for Israel
Ahmed Moor
... Benjamin Netanyahu is a dangerously delusional man. His mind is encumbered by a fixation on the holocaust and Hitler. He zealously reanimates Hitler at every opportunity, thrusting him onto real world objects. Hitler is among us, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is his present day incarnation, or worse ... We have a responsibility to stop this hysterical march to war. Iran does not pose any threat to America. The men pushing this war lied to us about Iraq, and they're lying now about Iran. The warmongers and profiteers must be forced back into their kennels. They must be discredited and shamed. America cannot fight another war built on lies. America cannot afford another war for Israel.
Germany's Nuremberg Laws Transferred to US National Archives
AFP
The Nuremberg Laws signed by Adolf Hitler that set the legal groundwork for the Holocaust will be transferred from California's Huntington Museum to the Washington-based National Archives, the institutions said Wednesday. The typewritten pages bearing Hitler's signature and dated September 15, 1935, were whisked out of [stolen from] Germany after World War II by US General George Patton, who donated them to the Huntington Museum, in San Marino, near Los Angeles, in 1945. Last Moments of World War II British Pilot's Life Revealed in Letters
Daily Mail (Britain)
They were arch enemies, fighting each other for their very survival. But five years after bomber pilot William Ross was shot down and killed in the Second World War, it was a German soldier who showed compassion to the fiancee left behind. Gernot Knop had witnessed the 28-year-old RAF sergeant's death in anti-aircraft fire as he attacked a Nazi fuel ship. And writing in English to Dorothy Bird, he told her of Sergeant Ross's heroic last mission and returned to her the few possessions he had with him when he died at a seaport in eastern Libya in 1941. Showing the respect troops on opposing sides had for each other, the letter told how he was buried by his enemies with 'military honours' and was saluted for his bravery by Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, leader of the German forces in the North Africa campaign.
Blonde Ballerina Spy Helped German Victory in Norway, Newly Released Files Suggest
BBC News
A glamorous Nazi spy may have been behind one of the biggest setbacks suffered by Allied forces during World War II, newly released files suggest. The secret government papers suggest that Marina Lee, a blonde ballerina, stole battle plans which led to the fall of Norway to Germany in 1940 ... Born in St Petersburg, Russia, Lee was married to a Norwegian communist and had trained as a ballerina before becoming "a highly valued and experienced German agent", according to the files. She is described as "blonde, tall, with a beautiful figure, refined and languid in manner" and reportedly spoke five languages. Tales From the Northwest Frontier
Philip Giraldi
... The false narrative we are hearing in America today is that constant war is both necessary and manageable, not to mention a safeguard of the US Constitution and our way of life. The Founding Fathers would not agree and would be horrified if they returned to America today. They saw clearly that foreign entanglements would bring about the death of the Republic and granted only to Congress the power to declare war. In spite of that, however, the United States has sent its soldiers into combat situations more then seventy times since the defeat of Japan in 1945, all without a declaration of war by Congress, and the president has acquired pretty much a free hand to initiate military action. The Guns of August: Lowering the Flag on the American Century
Chalmers Johnson
... Thirty-five years from now, America's official century of being top dog (1945-2045) will have come to an end; its time may, in fact, be running out right now. We are likely to begin to look ever more like a giant version of England at the end of its imperial run, as we come face-to-face with, if not necessarily to terms with, our aging infrastructure, declining international clout, and sagging economy. President Roosevelt's Campaign To Incite War in Europe
Mark Weber
A detailed look at President Franklin Roosevelt's secret campaign to provoke war in Europe prior to the outbreak of hostilities in September 1939. Highlights his efforts to pressure Britain, France and Poland into war against Germany in 1938 and 1939. Franklin Roosevelt not only criminally involved America in a war that had already engulfed Europe, he bears a grave responsibility for the outbreak of the most destructive war of all time. This paper relies heavily on secret Polish documents that fell into German hands when Warsaw was captured in 1939. These revealing docu ments also confirm the crucial role of Jewish power and in fluence on US foreign policy during these years. Dismantling America
Thomas Sowell
... To get their way, the elites must erode or dismantle the Constitution, bit by bit, in one way or another. What that means is that they must dismantle America. This has been going on piecemeal over the years, but now we have an administration in Washington that circumvents the Constitution wholesale, with its laws passed so fast that the public cannot know what is in them, its appointment of "czars" wielding greater power than Cabinet members', without having to be exposed to public scrutiny by going through the confirmation process prescribed by the Constitution for Cabinet members. Now there is leaked news of plans to change the country's immigration laws by administrative fiat rather than congressional legislation ... Bad News on Home Sales Adds to Recession Fears
The Associated Press
It's starting to feel like another recession. Businesses are ordering fewer goods. Home sales are the slowest in decades. Jobs are scarce, and unemployment claims are rising. Perhaps most worrisome, manufacturing activity, which had been one of the economy's few bright spots, is faltering. "The odds of a double-dip are rising and uncomfortably high," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, referring to the possibility that the nation will tip back into recession. "Nothing else can go wrong. There is no cushion left." On Wednesday, the government offered the latest dose of grim news about the economic recovery: Companies cut back last month on their investments in equipment and machines. US Existing Home Sales Fall To 15-Year Low, Clouding Recovery Prospects
AFP
US home sales are plunging despite rock-bottom mortgage rates as high unemployment prevents people from buying houses and threatens to curtail economic recovery. Existing-home sales plunged for the third straight month by a whopping 27.2 percent in July to levels unseen in more than a decade, an industry group said Tuesday. Sales of single-family homes, townhomes and condominiums dropped to 3.83 million units from 5.26 million units in June, said the National Association of Realtors (NAR). The slide was more than double the 12.1 percent expected by most economists, with sales at the lowest level since 1999.
Debating the Dieppe Raid: Recalling a Failed Allied Landing in France
Postmedia News (Canada)
A debate still smoulders over one of the most ambitious, and disastrous, military endeavours in Canadian history that took place here [in northern France on Aug. 19, 1942] 68 years ago Thursday. The Dieppe raid, to be marked here by Canadian and local French officials and some veterans with a series of wreath-laying events and an outdoor mass, is still viewed by some as a useless waste of lives. But Antony Beevor, considered by some the most prominent military historian in the world, supports the argument that the Canadians mowed down or blown apart by overwhelming German firepower didn't die in vain. US Military 'Overwhelmed' by Mental Health Problems of Soldiers
USA Today
... About every fourth soldier here, where 48,000 troops and their families are based, has been in counseling during the past year, according to the service's medical statistics. And the number of soldiers seeking help for combat stress, substance abuse, broken marriages or other emotional problems keeps increasing. A common refrain by the Army's vice chief of staff, Gen. Peter Chiarelli, is that far more soldiers suffer mental health issues than the Army anticipated. Nowhere is this more evident than at Fort Hood, where emotional problems among the soldiers threaten to overwhelm the system in place to help them. Wikipedia Editing Courses Launched by Zionist Groups
The Guardian (Britain)
Two Israeli groups set up training courses in Wikipedia editing with aims to 'show the other side' over borders and culture / Since the earliest days of the worldwide web, the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians has seen its rhetorical counterpart fought out on the talkboards and chatrooms of the internet. Now two Israeli groups seeking to gain the upper hand in the online debate have launched a course in "Zionist editing" for Wikipedia, the online reference site. Yesha Council, representing the Jewish settler movement, and the rightwing Israel Sheli (My Israel) movement, ran their first workshop this week in Jerusalem, teaching participants how to rewrite and revise some of the most hotly disputed pages of the online reference site. Don't Scorn Germany and Japan: Learn From Them
Steven Hill -- Los Angeles Times
... Japan's economy has been and remains successful. So is Germany's. They have reached an economic steady state in which they don't need roaring growth rates to provide for their people. But for the economic Cassandras, apparently it doesn't matter if people's needs are being met; what matters is whether their theories and equations balance ... This is not an easy challenge, yet it is the path that Japan, Germany and others have chosen. Americans would be wise to learn from them. None Dare Call It Tyranny
Sheldon Richman
The national government -- specifically the executive branch -- can do pretty much what it wants. It could bomb Iran tomorrow without a declaration of war from Congress. It can -- and does -- conduct secret wars and covert operations against countries that have done nothing to us. Of course, they are secret only to the ignorant taxpayers who must finance them and perhaps suffer when the provoked retaliation occurs ... Now we are being softened up for the next war, against Iran. As in 2002 with Iraq's phantom WMDs, the empire advance men tell us Iran is building nuclear weapons, and Obama and Secretary of State Clinton say "all options are on the table," which phrase includes hydrogen bombs. Once again a Big Lie is repeated without proof.
World War Two: A `Just War'?
BBC News
... The conflict which ensued spread across the world, and by the time it ended in 1945, an estimated 50 million had died. But the way in which the war is remembered varies around the world. In Britain, it's generally seen as a righteous battle against the forces of totalitarianism. In many of Britain's former colonies though, the picture is very different. Professor Richard Overy from the University of Exeter and Prof Tapan RayChaudhuri, an expert on Indian History at Oxford University, discuss the different perspectives. --
Being happy–is it good for the Jews? "Before Professor Dershowitz accused me of being an anti-Semite (news to me), I was a happy person. Since then, I'm still a happy person". –Michael Santomauro
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Tuesday, March 9, 2010
