The Next Europe Trip: Will Obama Apologize for WWII?
The president's impending trip to Dresden may prove to be his most controversial yet.
The rhetoric employed by Friedrich went so far as to suggest an equivalence between the Allied bombing of German cities and the genocidal conduct of Nazi Germany itself. In keeping with this rhetoric, the publisher’s original blurb for the volume described the Allied bombing campaign as a “campaign of extermination [Vernichtungskampagne] that was systemically planned and carried out by the British and Americans.” In the meanwhile, the publisher has toned down the formulation. The current version of the blurb “merely” speaks of a “terror campaign against German cities and their residents that was systematically planned and carried out by the British and Americans.”
As a result of the passions provoked or released by Friedrich’s book, the expression “Bombing-Holocaust” has passed into the German lexicon. Although especially favored by so-called “extreme right” circles (i.e., more-or-less openly neo-Nazi ones), the term merely expresses what is implicit in ostensibly more mainstream discourse.
It is virtually unthinkable that Obama could give a speech in Dresden and not allude to the bombing of the city. Most of the city’s historical monuments — which Obama’s advance team were apparently inspecting — were severely damaged or destroyed in the bombing and had to be rebuilt. Moreover, for Obama to visit both Dresden and Buchenwald would suggest precisely the sort of outrageous parallels that have become commonplace in Germany at least since the publication of Friedrich’s The Fire.
(As so happens, although tens of thousands of persons died there, Buchenwald was not one of the camps specifically devoted to the extermination of Jews. But far be it from Obama to know that. When, during the election campaign, he first referred to his Uncle Charlie’s WWII exploits, he said that his uncle had helped to liberate “Auschwitz.” Moreover, Charlie Payne did not really participate in the liberation of Buchenwald either, but rather in that of Ohrdruf: a lesser-known, affiliated camp some sixty kilometers away.)
As discussed in my earlier PJM report here, the principal sponsor of Obama’s literary career has been Germany’s Bertelsmann Corporation, which offered him a reported $2 million advance when he was still largely unknown. Obama’s 2004-2008 tax returns list over $6 million in income from the Bertelsmann subsidiary Random House (and over $2 million in what appears to be indirect income from Random House). This would not be worth mentioning here, were it not the case that the “in-house” historian of Bertelsmann and the Mohn family, which controls the corporation, is none other than Dirk Bavendamm. As likewise discussed in my earlier report, Bavendamm is an openly revisionist historian of the Second World War who, among other things, describes WWII as “Roosevelt’s war.”
As bizarre as it may seem, President Obama’s impending trip to Dresden suggests that German revisionists have a friend in the White House.
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John Rosenthal’s writings on European politics and transatlantic relations have appeared in English, French, and German in such leading publications as Policy Review, Les Temps Modernes, and Merkur. He holds a PhD in philosophy and he taught political philosophy and classical German philosophy before turning to journalism. More of his work can be found at Transatlantic Intelligencer.
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146 Comments
1. Formwiz:Of course, after Dresden, he’ll arrange a trip to the Philippines to beg forgiveness for all the nice Japanese soldiers the US killed in the Pacific. The Death March was, of course, our fault.
May 12, 2009 - 4:10 am 2. Diego Alvarez:Killing thousands deliberatly despite knowing the war is already won and won’t last for more than some weeks is a crime, nothing else.
May 12, 2009 - 4:14 am 3. don:There is no comparison between the Dresden bombing and the camps. The bombing of German cities (my family is German and they lived through it, so I’m no fan) is an example of mid 20th century total war, nothing more. Our historical revisionists write their opinions in the context of modern “smart” weapons and low casualties . . . (why else the hysteria when artillery or airstrikes kill innocents collaterally). It’s becoming more and more evident that Mr Obama has no real commitment to any belief system, or concept of right and wrong except within certain ideological boundaries. On his continuing “apologia” tour he bathes in the pool of moral equivalency, thereby washing the “sins” of the past from the American body . . .
Dresden was also the home of many POW camps, some of the victims of the bombing were American, French, British and Russian POWs, you get a small taste of the impact and aftermath in Vonnegut’s book “Slaughterhouse 5″. The numbers I’ve always read were between 65 and 75K killed, though horrible it was not up to the level of the bombing of Hamburg (the Hamburg fire storm).
May 12, 2009 - 4:24 am 4. DAT:Whats next? being blamed for Germany invading Poland or the Bombing of Rotterdam? You reap what you sow and Nazi Germany got exactly what they sowed. The untold millions who perished at the hands of the Nazis are rolling in their graves. I guess it is true but history will be doomed to repeat itself.
May 12, 2009 - 4:34 am 5. Terry Gain:As bizarre as it may seem, President Obama’s impending trip to Dresden suggests that German revisionists have a friend in the White House.
Bizarreapalooza in spades. Everything about this man is upside down.
If Obama were intent on destroying America what would he be doing differently?
May 12, 2009 - 4:54 am 6. eon:While The One is at it, he could give a speech at Hamburg, as well, which was destroyed as nearly completely as Dresden on one night in 1943. (cf the book “The Night Hamburg Died” by Martin Caidin.)
And on the way back, in the interests of the “fairness” he is always talking about, he could give a speech at Coventry, England, and another in Birmingham (not the one in Alabama). Or, if he wanted to do another “Grand Tour”, he could visit Lidice, Nanking, Hong Kong, Singapore, Manila, etc. Or just stop by Malmedy’, Belgium.
Not that he will. Or probably even is familiar with the names. His “grasp” of history is fundamentally narrow, partisan, and almost defiantly anti-Western. Although, considering where and when he matriculated, this should not surprise anyone.
Oh, and just FYI, Oh Self-Exalted One;
The concentration camps liberated by U.S. and Commonwealth forces on the Western Front, as horrific as they were, were not the extermination camps, with the exception of Bergen-Belsen, which was the prototype for the rest. The rest of the camps specifically built for wholesale and rapid execution of Jews and other such “inferiors” by the Nazis were Treblinka, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Chelmno, Majdanek (Lublin), Belzec, and Sobibor- all in Poland, and liberated by the Red Army. Your father, and several of my relations who served in the U.S. Army at the time, never saw a genuine extermination camp.
What two of my uncles saw at Buchenwald when they helped liberate it in 1945 was more than enough for them.
clear ether
eon
May 12, 2009 - 4:57 am 7. Old Soldier:“You rotten National Socialists were damn lucky that the war in Europe ended before we finshed the A-bomb.”
There is my apology.
May 12, 2009 - 5:08 am 8. Tobi:You’ve got to pick up the pieces C’mon, sort your trash
You better pull yourself back together Maybe you’ve got too much cash
Better call, call the law When you gonna turn yourself in? Yeah
You’re a politician Don’t become one of Hitler’s children.
My brain is hanging upside down I need something to slow me down
My brain is hanging upside down I need something to slow me down
May 12, 2009 - 5:24 am 9. Another Chuck:I smell something worse than an apology, a renunciation. Dresden and Hiroshima are the two most suitable locations for some grand gesture such as a pledge to unilaterally abolish our nuclear arsenal. You can imagine the highflown cornball rhetoric he’ll spew forth about how herewith the United States repudiates war forever and embraces peace, which is the only sure foundation for national security yadda…yadda…yadda…
In short we have put a fool and a lunatic in the Oval Office.
May 12, 2009 - 5:29 am 10. misanthropicus:Putin said that the collapse of the Communist syste/Warsaw Pact was the greates geopolitical catastrophes of the 20th century – my bet is that Obama shares Putin’s view, since simply cannot remember any of his pronouncements concerning history in which America wasn’t mentioned as the villain.
May 12, 2009 - 5:31 am 11. misanthropicus:Oh, by the way – I just read that Obama has asked the French officials to stop the public access in the areas of American military cemetries in the day he is there, this for safety reasons.
May 12, 2009 - 5:36 am 12. Fosterdad:So there isn’t any safety risk for him when he plunges in the midst of thousand of admirers in Germany or elsewhere, while the people who might be around an American military cemetry in Europe could pose serious risks for him – an outtake from Monty Python.
I met a man who flew P-38s in the Dresden bombing. He said that most people think that Dresden was undefended. He went on to say that for a city that was undefended, it sure had an awful lot of anti-aircraft guns.
If there hadn’t been an invasion of Poland, France, Russia, Belgium, Holland, Yugoslavia, etc… there wouldn’t have been a Dresden. If you slaughter millions of innocent people, don’t be surprised if someone gets upset.
May 12, 2009 - 5:51 am 13. logdon:Maybe he needs a new tea service. Or a nice cake stand? Joking aside what has Dresden got to do with this US surrender president? I am British. We did it! Ah, maybe that’s the new o-ploy. Apologise for things you didn’t do, thus insulating yourself whilst blaming the ones that did do and simultaneously siding with the doees. He’s Blair Mk II whose vapid airy apologies are quite famous here.
May 12, 2009 - 6:10 am 14. Fragmentarian:Diego, you are out to lunch on this one. Hitler and the Nazis started a war, attempted to conquer the world, tried to exterminate an entire race of people with the fanatical support of the German military and almost the entire German people and now they cry because they lost and due to the intransigence of your leaders suffered severely in the process. Dresden was part of the Gotterdammerung that Hitler welcomed. If Germany could not win, then it should be completely destroyed. You should read some history. The world is not the way you wish it to be.
May 12, 2009 - 6:14 am 15. Kurt:Apologizing for the bombing of a city, situated in the country of the masters of war crime at that time, will be a smart desicion against freedom, peace and humanity. It will give more power to the new nazis in germany and their disgusting discussions. Maybe it is the time, that we germans can also give a “sorry” to the russian, ukrainians etc., and all will be forgotten?
@don: the new nazis compare the Lager Buchenwald and the Dresdenbombing because of the russian POW-camp with german inmates after their victory. it is really disgusting.
I am knowing, what we are talking about, because im from Dresden and my mother was surviving that special night in a suburb.
May 12, 2009 - 6:46 am 16. RE:So you americans, don’t be stupid. Stop apologizing for freeing (in company with the red army) us germans from our own plague and pest.
Thanks for your attention.
Obama’s goal is demoralize Americans and kill the American spirit.
May 12, 2009 - 6:47 am 17. sheesh:Yeah . . . As if that last apology tour wasn’t bad enough. You know, when he said, oh, what was it . . . I know I heard it somewhere, him saying “I’m sorry” or “I apologize for America.” . . . it was all over Fox News and talk radio . . . what was the quote again? Well, I’m sure someone here can remind me. There are some very good researchers here. Anyway, it was awful, that’s all I remember. Why doesn’t the world know that America has never done anything wrong? It’s like every other country on earth thinks we’ve made some terrible mistakes, and we’re the only ones who know the truth.
And this time it’s gonna be even worse!
I have an uncle who knows an auto mechanic who changed a motor mount on the car of Raum Emanuel’s barber and he told me that Obama was planning to make a side trip to Rome where he would step out on the papal balcony over St. Peter’s Square and apologize to the people of the world for being a Hitler Youth. No wait, that’s not quite right. Let me check my source about things that haven’t happened yet . . . and I’ll get back TO ya.
May 12, 2009 - 7:15 am 18. Tom Mix - Germany:Obama, the communist chic, is selling out the Jew; and the German, the evil doer with the good manners, is delighted and cheering him. Finally, they will get the Jew served in a silver plate and there will be no need to hide anymore.
May 12, 2009 - 7:19 am 19. Middleman:Yes, while he’s there he and the Chancellor of Germany will publicly feast on the blood of Jewish children and pledge their allegiance to Satan.
Get some form of exercise other than jumping to conclusions people.
May 12, 2009 - 7:20 am 20. waltc:It’s not us Americans Kurt, it’s the socialist we elected. Maybe we should have vetted him a little better.
May 12, 2009 - 7:24 am 21. Alex Bensky:Frederick Taylor’s book, “Dresden,” is a useful corrective to all this. He establishes clearly that within the parameters of the war Dresden was a legitimate military target–yes, it had factories turning out porcelain, but it also had a number of war-related factories, especially in electronics and optics.
It was also a transportation center, important in amassing troops for use against the Red Army, which is one reason why the Soviets indicated an interest in having it bombed.
What distinguishes it from many other raids is that, as someone put it, for a number of reasons such as weather everything went horribly right. And, by the way, it is true that by February, 1945 most people figured the war would be over and with an Allied Victory. But barring secret weapons or mountain redoubts, both of which were genuine and legitimate fears, the question was not whether the war would be won but when and at what cost.
In stating otherwise, implying that everyone knew that the war would soon be over without heavy casualties, Deigo is simplyf actually wrong. The US and Britain took meaningful losses between February 12 and the end of the war and the Soviets suffered, and inflicted, hundreds of thousands of casualties during that period.
I’d like to say that no president of the United States would go to a German city and beg forgiveness for carrying out the war vigorously–and at Dresden most of the destruction was at the hands of the RAF. Alas, I have a dread suspicion that Obama is going to do just that. What I find morbidly interesting is whether he will accept the figure of 135,000 dead. This is the one given in “Slaughterhouse-Five, and I wonder if anyone notices that the historian Vonnegut quotes at length about the raid is none other than David Irving.
The actual casualty figure is almost certainly much lower. The Nazis embraced the higher one as a means of instilling terror of the Allies in itheir populace, and the Communists followed suit as a means of showing supposed western barbarism.
If Obama does apologize for the Dresden raid…especially if he doesn’t try to make the British follow suit…I would suggest that this blog start a contest for “most disgraceful statement ever made by a sitting president.” Such a pronouncement by Obama might well win. We can only hope this is overblown.
May 12, 2009 - 7:26 am 22. jerryofva:Japan, Germany and the Soviet Union started the human catastrophe known as the Second World War. Anything that happened to them during the war was just by any standard.
If President Obama chooses to apologize and excuse Nazi behavior and responsibility for whatever befell them from 1939-45 he is showing a level of ignorance and indifference to evil that is unfathomable.
May 12, 2009 - 7:27 am 23. Another Chuck:Dresden as well as many of the other beautiful old German cities belonged to the common heritage of Western Civilization. Their destruction was the price of getting rid of the HItler regime. I’d compare the bombings to a hideously brutal but necessary cancer operation. So I neither apologize for nor take any satisfaction in what we did.
I still think that The Ø is using Dresden as the scene for a big announcement about stripping our defenses that will make some regions of the the world feel all warm and cuddly and make others salivate.
May 12, 2009 - 7:42 am 24. Meryl:22.Jerry “If President Obama chooses to apologize and excuse Nazi behavior and responsibility for whatever befell them from 1939-45 he is showing a level of ignorance and indifference to evil that is unfathomable.”
Well, fasten your seatbelt.
May 12, 2009 - 7:43 am 25. Dr. Strange:No one at the time “knew the war was won.” Since the Allies were dedicated to total victory (eg no negotiated, partial surrender that would leave the current German leadership in place), they could only continue until Germany surrendered totally. To believe otherwise is foolish, ahistorical revisionism.
May 12, 2009 - 7:59 am 26. YOLO:One thing I like about this site is that for the most part people do not cuss out the people that disagree with them. All are allowed there say. Quite unlike the leftist blogs wher the vitriol is so thick I can barely read the response.
May 12, 2009 - 8:03 am 27. D-wah:If there’s a revisionist to be outed and another screw-ball book to be touted, our little upstart wanna be Pharoah will find it..as long as it undermines current societal norms…and rebels without a clue like sheesh and the others will think it’s cool and goose-steppingly defend it. We should let him take his little Scare Force 1 trip, do his apologies, genuflect to his bretherren the revisionists, globalists, progressives, fascists, etc., once again show his true colors (since so many STILL can’t see him for what he is..) stir up more anger here at home, and then we decide to close the border and he can stay there where he belongs. If you want to be a socialist European, why change us, Obambam? “Get back..get back….get back to where you once belonged.”
May 12, 2009 - 8:06 am 28. BettyBlue:Middleman, snark isn’t reasoned debate. It’s just snark.
If Obama does apologize—well, it won’t be drinking Jewish blood, but it will be dishonoring the memory of those who were systematically murdered by the German government, as well as all the Poles, Dutch, Gypsies and others slaughtered, in a highly systematic manner, by the Nazis. Reagan got savaged by the press on his visit to Germany, just for visiting a German cemetery believed to contain Nazi remains.
Also, as Kurt pointed out, such an apology will give encouragement to Germany’s current crop of plagues, and pests.
May 12, 2009 - 8:10 am 29. Tom Mix - Germany:19. Middleman:
http://www.stern.de/politik/deutschland/zwischenruf/:Zwischenruf-Obamas-Krieg/651618.html
What? No German speaking? Well, then… You found your new exercise too
May 12, 2009 - 8:20 am 30. Bill:“Killing thousands deliberatly despite knowing the war is already won and won’t last for more than some weeks is a crime, nothing else.”
If the tens of thousands of Allied soldiers killed February-May 1945 battling into “collapsing” Germany could speak, I suspect they would dispute that the war was “already won.”
Let’s look at the casualty numbers from World War II, shall we? Three out of every five people killed in that war was an Allied civilian.
Allied civilian: 58%
Allied military: 24%
Axis military: 13%
Axis civilian: 4%
Kinda puts the moral balance into perspective.
Allied ‘war crimes?’ Just the number of Allied POWs, alone, murdered or starved to death by the Germans is *double* the number of German civilian deaths (3M vs 1.5M, approx).
May 12, 2009 - 8:20 am 31. Barry 0351:I’m personally waiting for the apology for Sherman’s march through Georgia.
May 12, 2009 - 8:32 am 32. Locomotive Breath:Does Obama not understand that if Africans rather than Jews were the troublesome minority in Germany, it’s the Africans that would have been sent to the extermination camps?
May 12, 2009 - 8:32 am 33. Frog:—-
WW One had been fought in countries other than Germany. Afterwards, even though the Germans were defeated militarily, they had not been occupied and defeated psychologically. In WW Two that got fixed. Too bad for Dresden, but I suspect the Germans will never start another war.
As far as I know, bombing Dresden (by both the RAF and the USAF) was intended as a morale blow to the German population, so that they’d stop supporting the Nazi regime, or believe the indoctrination that they were wining. However, the Goebbels propaganda spinned it into a moral accusation of the allies.
Change, anyone?
May 12, 2009 - 8:35 am 34. Pastor of Muppets:You cannot consider Harry Truman anything but a war criminal.
He deliberately killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people.
That’s exactly what neo-con Republicans do.
May 12, 2009 - 8:48 am 35. Tom Mix - Germany:Anthology of a professional Sycophant:
http://www.stern.de/politik/ausland/:Wahl-USA-Barack-Obama-John-McCain/602299.html?s=0
May 12, 2009 - 8:51 am 36. misanthropicus:RE #17/sheesh: “[...] Yeah . . . As if that last apology tour wasn’t bad enough. You know, when he said, oh, what was it . . . I know I heard it somewhere, him saying “I’m sorry” or “I apologize for America.” it was all over Fox News and talk radio [...]”
TO EVERYBODY WHO’S POSTING IN GOOD FAITH ON PJM:
Don’t make the mistake and answer or engage “Sheesh”(kebob)
He is an acknowledged Soeterotroll out on the PJM site to disrupt and obfuscate any discussion which might touch Caliph Soetero – bellow is his own post regarding this on the Jennifer Rubin thread on May 5th:
# 103/ sheesh.:
You idiots think you can defeat me but you cannot because I will come back with new usernames to toy with your tiny little minds and there is nothing you can do about it. Yes I get paid to post here and so what…are you jealous? My gay friends and I are going to kick all your butts at the polls next election because gay power is going to put you hetero dinosaurs into extinction. Gay power!
If you answer/engage him you waste your time and actually encourage him or others to continue this -
May 12, 2009 - 8:59 am 37. Войска ПВО:..why is this POTUS making such a big deal out of touring Europe with the possibility of apologizing for past U.S. “transgressons”? Didn’t he piss and moan that he was glad that Daniel Ortega “did not blame me for things that happened when I was 3 months old.”
Maybe he feels guilty because his Uncle was a little late in freeing the pruisoners atr Auschwitz.
May 12, 2009 - 9:02 am 38. BettyBlue:PJM who?
(Pssssst, PJM, Elmo’ paging you!)
May 12, 2009 - 9:06 am 39. Pastor of Muppets:Pastor of Muppets: “You cannot consider Harry Truman anything but a war criminal.
He deliberately killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people.
That’s exactly what neo-con Republicans do.”
Are you seriously kidding me? You morons can’t argue on facts, so instead you steal my identity? What a bunch of idiotic children. What a cesspool of retarded thought this place is. If I weren’t being paid $10 a post, I would have left a long time ago.
May 12, 2009 - 9:10 am 40. Bill:Muppet Pasturbator:
“You cannot consider Harry Truman anything but a war criminal.He deliberately killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people.”
The mental and moral midget exposes his knee-jerk idiocy and ignorance yet again.
Watch this: http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/the-true-story-of-the-atomic-bombs/
May 12, 2009 - 9:13 am 41. BettyBlue:Whoops, sorry! Shouldn’t have said PJM, should have said Sheesh.
Elmo’s still paging him, whatever name he’s going by this week. Pastor of whoever, Sheesh or (*(*&^&^! Whatever.
May 12, 2009 - 9:15 am 42. Middleman:Tom,
I’m a product of American under-funded public schools. Translate.
Betty,
Snark is what 90% of the comments on this site are. If I had a nickel for everytime Obama was compared to Stalin..
I seriously doubt Obama is going to apologize for Dresden. Considering he is also visiting Buchenwald, if anything he’ll use the visit as a backdrop about talks in working together, peace, so on and so forth.
By the way, would Germany’s current crop of plagues and pest also include the German neo-nazi far-right NPD party that currently enjoys massive support and holds several government seats in Saxony, the state Dresden is located?
May 12, 2009 - 9:18 am 43. Blackwell:Pastor of Muppets:
Ha, ha, ha! You crack me up, as you Americans say. Would you have offered your life to save a japanese soldier or civilian? Or are you just one of those preening moralists that offer someone else’s life to make yourself feel good?
Have you done it to save anyone else from the US that you seem to despise so much? Or is needlessly dying to save someone else in an enemy country something you expect OTHER people (like 18 year old kids from Iowa)to do? (probably like you insist that other people use smaller cars, smaller houses and eat less welll to protect the environment while you drive a hummer to your “important” environmental meetings)
Are you-a moron? There is no doubt zat the japanese would haff resisted a US invasion with ze same ferocity they did on Iwo Jima und Okinowa. Our Wermacht was tough, but ven the situation was hopeless, we surrendered (even ven de fuhrer said not to). Not ze japanese! Invading japan vould have been a bloodbath for the 18, 19 and 20 year old kids who hadn’t lived yet, not to mention their fmailier at home. But you would cheerfully sacrifice them and all that would have died as the war dragged on to make your warped morality at ease.
Not invading would have left ze military clique in control. But…you (from ze safety of the soft US und mit no relatives at risk), say zat truman vas a war criminal for ending the war asap!
You idiot! You haff no idea vat a war criminal is! Ze japanese zat beheaded helpless prisoners, raped and murdered zeir way through China for almost a decade (vhile people like you sat on your commodious ass und didn’t wish to be bothered)–zey were war criminals! Ze japanese that attacked the United States to consolidate zer hold on the gains zey had acquired by invading other countries–zey were war criminals!
Ze US that poured blood and treasure to free ze ungrateful frenchies und belgies, und who pushed the japanese to surrender–zey were ze heros! The US was not morally obligated to send its kids to be slaughtered on beaches to ease your weird idea of morality–losing hundreds of thousands of its soldiers for the benefit of ze Japanese! (any more thahn a homeowner with a gun is obligated to fight a burgular bare handed to avoid being charged with manslaughter). Do you think the GI’s and their families desereved to die in place of the enemy? Why? Have you put your life in place for an Iraqi? offered to switch places? I thought not.
Do you think the people in SS extermiantion camps would agree with you that Dresden homeowners should have been treated better and the war delayed while we fought a bit more to your liking? Do you think the comfort women in Korea would agree with you? How about the chinese being killed and assaulted daily by the japanese?
You are a morally obtuse, intellectually shallow, pompous blowhard.
PS: make sure to tell any police officer that sees you mugged not to use any overpowering weapons on the thug. Your life is worth no more than his you know.
PPS: again: you are a pompous blowhard.
May 12, 2009 - 9:24 am 44. Ms. Attitude:I hope and pray Obama doesn’t dishonor our WWII vets. If he does he will be spitting on all of our miitary!
May 12, 2009 - 9:26 am 45. Elle:#37
Indeed, he can feel guilty for the delay. Had uncle freed Buchenwald and its surrounding camps a little earlier, my husband (same age as O) might actually have met his grandfather, not just been named after him by the son who survived the camp.
May 12, 2009 - 9:28 am 46. Войска ПВО:Pastor of muppets..a kinder, gentler steaming load of liberal guilt.
I suggest you flush out your headgear, new guy.
Also, I don’t suppose it’s too much to ask you to do some reading to determine the circumstancesa at that time. You know, like Europe and Asia bathed in blood by the Axis powers, a world plunged into war, a serious threat to the free world, Nazi death camps (known by then), Pearl Harbor, the rape of Nanking, scientific experimentation by the Japanese on Chinese prisoners, The Bataan Death March, similar brutal treatment of the allies by their Japanese captors who had little regard those who surrentered — including alleged cannabilism if the book, Hellcats can be believed.
Add to this, however, the fact that an invasion of the Japanese main islands would cost millions (you know, as in more than thousands) of lives on both sides.
Sit down and play nice with the Japanese while at war? Not hardly. Painful decision? Yes! The correct one under the circumstances? Yes!
Particularly when you had the Soviets itching to get their hands on everything they possibly could in a crumbling Eastern Europe and disintegrating Asia. The atomic bombs not only served as the means to bring the end to the war with Japan, it served as a warning to the USSR to keep their hands off of Hokkaido (which they wanted).
U.S. cruelty to Japan after it surrenteded? Hardly. MacArthur oversaw a military occupation of Japan that helped the Japanese people get back on their feet, write a constitution, and otherwise rebuild a nation that was to return to peaceful prominence so quickly, they hosted a Summer Olympics some 18 years later.
MacArthur did this by respecting the Japanese culture, insisting that the Emperor retain his position (if not his exalted power), and mandating that his occupying forces treat the Japanese people with the utmost of respect.
Now, I don’t have a lot of references here, it’s pretty much what was taught to me in schools before your creepy liberal teachers started revising history.
May 12, 2009 - 9:28 am 47. Marie Claude:#11 misanthrope
Oh, by the way – I just read that Obama has asked the French officials to stop the public access in the areas of American military cemetries in the day he is there, this for safety reasons.
So there isn’t any safety risk for him when he plunges in the midst of thousand of admirers in Germany or elsewhere, while the people who might be around an American military cemetry in Europe could pose serious risks for him – an outtake from Monty Python.
I still can’t find sources for this supposition, OK it was an article from a Hollywood rewever a few days ago, again, where did he found out that O requested that no crowd would be allowed around the cemetary in Colleville ?
May 12, 2009 - 9:30 am 48. Marie Claude:test
May 12, 2009 - 9:31 am 49. jerryofva:Middleman:
Your public school education is showing. You said “…neo-Nazi far-right NPD…” If you had a proper education you would have written “…neo-Nazi far left NPD…” Nazism was socialism adapted to local condictions.
May 12, 2009 - 9:32 am 50. D-wah:Misanthropicus—tx–I assumed as such on the grease kabob and have said so–good to see in his own flaky words. MOP same tripe. Oh, well–”teachable moments” at the least, bothersome distractions at the worst. Flies at the barbecue.
May 12, 2009 - 9:43 am 51. Bilgeman:Let’s wait until the Alleged Hawaiian is actually in Dresden and see what comes out of his soup-cooler.
Whatever his motives for going there, it’ll do no good to jump to conclusions.
May 12, 2009 - 9:46 am 52. misanthropicus:RE #47/Marie Claude RE #11/misanthrope: [...] I still can’t find sources for this supposition, OK it was an article from a Hollywood rewever a few days ago, again, where did he found out that O requested that no crowd would be allowed around the cemetary in Colleville? [...]
Marie Claude, there is no insult or disparagement towards “la douce France” intended in my post, and I am certain that the French government will deal properly in this matter – also, while I specifically remember the article (of yesterday morning) and the very beautiful photo topping it, I simply can’t remember the source. I think it was on the CNN ticker, though -
Best regards – yours, Alceste.
May 12, 2009 - 9:57 am 53. Blackwell:Aside from the Good Pastor of Muppets, I see no problem with Obama expressing genuine regret at the number of people that died in Dresden. It does not and should not equal an apology: it reflects the unease of a lot of people at the time it was done even it it was determined that it was best to do. The US and Britain ultimately got more bang for the buck by bombing synthetic oil plants, but it was a “live and learn” process. Its so easy to condemn in hindsight when Hitler isn’t in control of all continental europe and threatening to enslave you too. But Obama ought not to be gratuitously rocking this boat. There was a “bad guy” in WWII and it wasn’t us or the Brits.
The germans were level-headed about the war overall, and while intensely interested in Dresden as well they might be, they never insisted they were “victims” in the process. They are good people and some appropriate expression -not of regret that we did it but of regret at the death of so many-is not a big deal. I’d certainly rather say something about Dresden to long time allies, than about waterboarding thugs captured in Iraq.
May 12, 2009 - 9:57 am 54. Terry Gain:When I see the words Pastor of Muppets I SCROLL TO THE NEXT COMMENT
May 12, 2009 - 10:01 am 55. Another Chuck:I imagine that right now there’s more than one American commander out in some Shitistan who is wishing the Germans hadn’t been quite so thoroughly cured of their joie de guerre.
May 12, 2009 - 10:11 am 56. wayne:Well, one has to wonder where Der ObamanFuhrer is going to disgrace America next.
Our Pharaoh wannabe is also headed to Cairo to make a speech.
I’m sure it will be filled with Islamo-code speak to let them know he is really on their side (like his “visited 57 states” comment before the election and saying he;d side with them in the advent of another terrorist attack) along with something that will hint to them that we apologize for the crusades and for not surrendering to Islam despite all the wonderful opportunities the Islamic world has given us to volunteer for dhimmitude (like after 911).
At the very least Pharaobama will be selling Israel down the river in some particularly humiliating manner that informs Netanyahu that his Oneness – Barry the First is going to hold his foot on the collective neck of the Jews whilst the Islamic world rips the life out of their butts the way they’ve always wanted but have been unable to.
May 12, 2009 - 10:36 am 57. Juvenal:Wonder how long it’ll be before he offers an apology for the very existence of the United States?
I could say that based on his last trip, the Europe Apology Tour, alone. But what if, as some have suggested, Rosenthal really is jumping to conclusions?
I say jump away, and let him prove us wrong. This particular jump has past experience of Obama’s behavior on its side. There’s nothing at all that I’ve seen written about this guy that’s not a small logical jump from what he’s already done. If it weren’t for the last eight years, with all the bitching, whining and outright LYING about a different president, I’d probably feel differently, but as it is, let’s say what we feel like, and apologize IF he proves us wrong.
May 12, 2009 - 10:36 am 58. Juvenal:#39 Pastor of Muppets: “Are you seriously kidding me? You morons can’t argue on facts, so instead you steal my identity?”
If you ever, even once, said something intelligent or that made sense, I’d start to be concerned that someone was “stealing your identity.”
As it is, I think you’re just arguing with yourself as a sneaky way to cheat more 10-spots out of Soros.
May 12, 2009 - 10:42 am 59. Albert:Pure paranoid nonsense. Want to know the truth? Why isnt Germany able to stand up for western values and mature enlightenment? Because its ressentimental since 200 years, that means a psychologically sick collective(no tears here). Thats why its still so anti-semitic/american/capitalist. The Ant-X factor shows that it cant take reality as it is – reseentimental. if the mass of the german people would find a possibility to grow up to some sane form of patriotism, they could get more enlightenment affirming, thus would also be a much better partner of Israel, GB and the US. Bertelsmann f.ex. is always pro-American, proISraelian and pro-Capitalist, and proNeoCon.
May 12, 2009 - 10:53 am 60. Middleman:You absolutly didnt do your homework, kid.
jerryofva,
May 12, 2009 - 11:02 am 61. Juvenal:National Socialism is a far-right concept, as Communism is a far-left concept and National Socialism opposes Communism.
#59 Albert:
Your comment is extremely difficult to make heads or tales of but, as far as I can tell, you’re not finding anything to disagree with in the article, though I admit I have no idea what “proISraelian” or “proNeoCon” mean.
May 12, 2009 - 11:09 am 62. Sonja:Could it be that The One is testing the faith of his followers by appeasing blue-eyed, blond Nazis?
May 12, 2009 - 11:14 am 63. Sherab Zangpo:As discussed in my earlier PJM report here, the principal sponsor of Obama’s literary career has been Germany’s Bertelsmann Corporation, which offered him a reported $2 million advance when he was still largely unknown. Obama’s 2004-2008 tax returns list over $6 million in income from the Bertelsmann subsidiary Random House (and over $2 million in what appears to be indirect income from Random House). This would not be worth mentioning here, were it not the case that the “in-house” historian of Bertelsmann and the Mohn family, which controls the corporation, is none other than Dirk Bavendamm. As likewise discussed in my earlier report, Bavendamm is an openly revisionist historian of the Second World War who, among other things, describes WWII as “Roosevelt’s war.”
As bizarre as it may seem, President Obama’s impending trip to Dresden suggests that German revisionists have a friend in the White House.
It doesn’t sound bizarre at all.
All the extremists, commies and nazis, are on the same side against Freedom.
And the German extremists have the revenge against America as a mission, THEREFORE it makes perfect sense for them to support American subversives who will presumably greatly weaken America.
Perfect sense.
Now I am seriously worried.
Thank you for the opportunity to comment.
May 12, 2009 - 11:17 am 64. Paul M Hupf:He becomes more dangerous to the people of the United States every day.
May 12, 2009 - 11:18 am 65. Marie Claude:# 52 Alceste, no problem !
___________________________________
“During the election campaign Mr Obama sought regularly to deflect any suggestion that his exotic multinational background meant that he lacked patriotism by pointing out how his maternal grandfather, Stanley Dunham, had “marched with Patton’s army” after the Normandy landings” Times on line
I think that Obama chose to go to Germany before France, is still in his line, when he wrote a letter to Chirac instead of Sarkozy, this trip says the same thing to Sarkozy, that he isn’t in his first consideration, becuz he is viewed as having endorsed Bush policy first.
Also making the trip to Dresden means to the Americans who see him as a “foreigner”, that his family has a past of patriot and defenser of liberties too. Dresden was a starting line until Leizig, from where the two Germany were separated, as so last year his discourse in Berlin was ment to symbolise his future policy, rally of all the Americans, he is still saying the same thing. Dresden was also the capital of the former Saxe kingdom, with Berlin, state at the origin of the nowadays Germany.If Germany was able to forget her nazy past and to forgive the anglo-saxons bombings, this implies that any other belligerent nations could do the same, ie his policy of peace.
BTW, the Brits had the biggest responsability for bombing Dresden, (assisted by the Americans), Churchill said it was in retaliation on the Germans for having bombed London
May 12, 2009 - 11:26 am 66. Juvenal:Who is Pat Buchanan’s publisher?
May 12, 2009 - 11:26 am 67. Juvenal:#60 Middleman: “National Socialism is a far-right concept, as Communism is a far-left concept and National Socialism opposes Communism.”
That’s an awfully concrete and simplistic way of thinking about it, and not how most historians of WWII, Left and Right, have thought about it at all. Could be you haven’t read them?
May 12, 2009 - 11:33 am 68. jerryofva:Middleman:
You have put your p**s poor public education is on display for all to see.
Only in the Stalinist lexicon is Nazism different then Communism. To someone like you anybody who opposes Communism is a Fascist or a Nazi. Howeveer, both Nazism and Communism are subspecies of Fascism. Before Stalin so decreed, Fascism was considered to sit on the socialist left and not on the right. The roots of Fascism are found in Radical Syndicalism which could be described as Marxism with a better economic model.
Today the Chinese Communists talk about creating Socialism under local conditions as a way of explaining their historic trade of Lenin for Mussolini in 1978. You will notice that nothing in the Chinese political structure has changed since they abandoned Marxist economics. Socialism under local conditions is nothing more then another term for Fascism. Nazism, like all Fascist doctrines is a far-left political movement.
May 12, 2009 - 11:50 am 69. Pastor of Muppets:Middleman: “jerryofva,National Socialism is a far-right concept, as Communism is a far-left concept and National Socialism opposes Communism.”
But-but-but-how could that be, when Jonah Goldberg and Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh have clearly explained to me that Nazis were actually liberals?? How is it possible that a movement of violent xenophobic reactionaries who targeted intellectuals, minorities, unions, communists and homosexuals were right wing? That just doesn’t make any sense to me!
May 12, 2009 - 11:55 am 70. misanthropicus:39. Pastor of Muppets:
OK, I admit it. I stole your identity. And yes, it’s because I can’t make an argument of my own. I wouldn’t be admitting this if I hadn’t slipped up on my own post #36. You see, it’s not the first time I’ve resorted to such cowardly behavior. In post #36 I referred to a sheesh comment in which he admitted to being a paid gay poster. Of course there were three parts of my strategy that didn’t quite hold up. Part #1 – I can’t write like sheesh, which was probably obvious to all who read my fake post. Part #2 – This is where I really didn’t think things through . . . who else but the source of that fake post would recall it with such facility? Part #3 – I used my fake post to suggest that no one respond to sheesh thus avoiding his relentless demand to see an Obama quote apologizing for America.
What can I say, you’re on to me. At least I think it’s me. Sorry.
May 12, 2009 - 12:10 pm 71. Juvenal:#69: Pastor of Muppets: “How is it possible that a movement of violent xenophobic reactionaries who targeted intellectuals, minorities, unions, communists and homosexuals were right wing? That just doesn’t make any sense to me!”
How did the “targeting” of Martin Heidegger work out?
Your pathetic attempt at shoring up leftist dogma in the face of people who can both read and think is only revealing your ignorance all the more.
May 12, 2009 - 12:32 pm 72. DavidN:This is a truly bizarre discussion. Whenever, these days, I’m confronted with some accusations of war crimes aimed at American servicemen or someone I don’t feel deserves to be prosecuted, I’m always reminded of a scene in the show “The West Wing”. There was discussion of someone being charged as a war criminal, and one of the characters (in just that episode) was a general played by the actor Gerald McRaney. He wound up, at the end of the show, saying that “all war is a crime”. I don’t think that’s exactly true, but I am certain that all war can be spun as a crime, if you are unscrupulous and stretch, bend, and misinterpret the facts energetically enough.
Most of the other points have been addressed well enough here, with #21 Alex Bensky outlining Taylor’s book on Dresden pretty well. For those who don’t want to bother, Taylor’s book debunks the larger casualty figures, rejects the idea that fighters strafed the refugees, and generally places the incident in the larger context of the war, making it more a part of the Allied bombing campaign as opposed to something unique.
I do wonder how they’re going to handle this, though. Obama, in Dresden, will have to be very clear that what happened there isn’t the equivalent of what happened to the Jews. I don’t read German, but I have read books recounting the history of German historiography with regards to World War II. For decades now, German historians have been absolving the country of any blame for war crimes during the war, piling all of the blame on a small clique of insane people who somehow got control and then ordered everyone else to do horrible things, which they didn’t want to do. They’ve also been simultaneously insisting that the Allied bombing of German cities was a war crime as serious as those death camps. The Allies, of course, were pursuing area bombing (most notably the British, who bombed at night) with the idea of crippling German industry by killing or “dehousing” the workers. The Germans killed the Jews because they *perceived* a threat from them, one born in their own paranoia and weird anti-Semitic fantasies. There was no actual threat, whereas those factory workers actually were building tanks and airplanes and so forth. I’ve never been sure of the morality of bombing civilians under such circumstances, but I am *certain* that killing a large proportion of your population due to your own paranoia is completely wrong, and reprehensible.
One thing we’ll have to watch for. The other U.S. President who visited Germany and made a famous speech (besides Reagan’s famous “Tear down this wall!”) was Kennedy. Hopefully Obama will have the sense to not say “I am a jelly doughnut” when he gives his speech.
May 12, 2009 - 12:36 pm 73. Pastor of Muppets:68. jerryofva:“Nazism, like all Fascist doctrines is a far-left political movement.”
This pathetic argument is pinched out like a stinky turd every time the right wing tries (unsuccessfully) to distance itself from its legacy as a xenophobic, anti-minority hate party. When it starts to become patently obvious that the logical extension of many of the American right’s policies would push us right into Nazi territory, and when hatemongers like Michelle Malkin pose for photos with fans holding swastika flags, the right shifts into high gear to deflect from their own filthiness by, what else, blaming liberals.
Any actual student of history knows that the Nazis specifically targeted liberals, homosexuals, minorities, and intellectuals, which are the same groups demonized by the American right wing today. And to call any of the xenophobic nazi filth that comes out of cesspool that is Stormfront “far left” is absurd and laughable.
But of course, people like jerryofva are not students of history, they are just apologists for their own hate, and, like jonah Goldberg and his ilk, will do or say just about anything to hide the very many similarities between their modern day hate movement and its very noticable parallels to the Nazi hate movement.
May 12, 2009 - 12:41 pm 74. kenny komodo:I wonder when Obambi is going to visit Japan to apologize for the fire bombing of Japanese cities during WWII. The number of Japanese civilian deaths caused by the horrific firestorms that subsequently grew completely out of control made the number of deaths cause by nuclear explosion seem trivial by comparison. Is this what we’ve come to now? Our President, the Commander in Chief, going round the world and apologizing for everything American? I’m going to barf.
May 12, 2009 - 12:47 pm 75. Ms. Attitude:70. misanthropicus:
I think it’s about time that PJM required us to register to keep stupidity in check and allow for the grownups to converse.
May 12, 2009 - 12:54 pm 76. AThinkingPerson:Yet more hate speech from a liberal (Re: #73). Funny how he uses such hate to tell the GOP how much they “hate” everyone. The liberals are desperate to distance themselves from their military hating, US hating, freedom hating, capitalist hating track record, but as shown by poster # 73, it’s impossible. They always slip up and reveal their seedy underbellies.
“Apologists” for our own hate are we? I’d say an apology for your hate might be in order.
May 12, 2009 - 12:58 pm 77. Ms. Attitude:Muppet Boy, evidently you are the one who is not a student of true history.
Nazism and Communism were both totalitarian systems, that is they sought to control all aspects of the economic and cultural life of the country as a whole and of the individual citizen. In order to achieve this they both used a combination of populist enthusiasm built around a cult of personality for the leader, and sheer terror. Communism got started first but the Fascists learned from the Communist experience and put their methods into practice. Stalin and his henchmen then studied the Nazi methods and borrowed from their ideas. I think there were two significant differences. First that Fascism was nationalist, basing its ideology on the glory and superiority of one people over the others whereas Communism was, at least nominally, internationalist, claiming to seek to spread it’s “benefits” to all peoples of the world. Second, whereas communism siezed all private property in the name of the state and put all industrial and economic production under the direct control of the government, Fascism left farms and large industries in the hands of their owners and let them run them as they saw fit so long as they provided the output the government demanded.
The truth of the matter is that in actually ideology the differences between Communism and nazism are very small. Nazi fascists are often mislabeled as “right wing” and anti-communists because during the rise of Stalin all ideas different from the main Moscow approved, line of Communism were dubbed “right-wing.” Trotsky, who was by no means a Nazi or Conservative, was accused of trying to stage a Nazi coup and called a right winger by hardliner Stalinist after his fall from favor. Programs enacted by the Nazi party and Fascisti in Italy were, guaranteed employment for all citizens, confiscation of WWI profits, shared profits of labor; expanded old age pensions, communalization of department stores, out lawing of child labor, universal health care and anti smoking programs, to name a few. None of these programs can be called right wing or anti Communist. Hitler himself said, “We have endeavored to depart from the external, the superficial, endeavored to forget social origin, class, profession, fortune, education, capital, and everything that separates men, in order to reach that which bind them together.” To a communist the struggle is international and as Marx put it, “working men have no country” to fascists they said that the dreams of Communism can be made INSIDE a country, and did not need to be an international struggle. That was the principle difference, as all communist regimes have embraced corporatism in some aspect in their history. Hitler and Mussolini both wanted to create Volksgemeinschaft or “peoples (workers) communities.” Communism and fascism are two sides of the same coin, with fascism not being as controlling to private business as communism was but still very totalitarian. Keep in mind the Nazi part was called the National SOCIALIST party, if that is any indication of their true leanings.
May 12, 2009 - 1:06 pm 78. Skandalos:Antiamericanism started in the US itself. And it wasnt Reagan or GWBush who provoked it to spread all over the world but “be-nice-to-everybody-so-everybody-will-be-nice-to-us” presidents like Carter or Bush Sr., as well as the worldwide hysterical hatred against GWBush had its prototype in the USA itself.
Anti-Americanism starts with measuring Americans on special standards. “We Germans have done bad, just ordinary bad stuff, but you Americans you have to be totally clean of sins or you are totally evil!” is what the typical German antiamericanist is thinking, or better feeling like. And antiamericanists are about 80% of the Germans today. Id like to be proud of my country and the German people but I simple have one too many reason to be not.
May 12, 2009 - 1:06 pm 79. jerryofva:PoM:
You said: ““How is it possible that a movement of violent xenophobic reactionaries who targeted intellectuals, minorities, unions, communists and homosexuals were right wing? That just doesn’t make any sense to me!”
You mean people like Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Kim Chong Il, etc?
For years Progressives repeat the old Stalinist canard about Fascism. I’ve got news for you. You don’t get to define what Fascism is, Mussolini does because he created it. Fascism is nothing more then a collectivist political philosophy built around a central organizing principal or myth. Fascism is nothing more then what Hu Jintao calls Socialism under local conditions.
Nazism is socialism built around the myth of Aryan Supremacy and hatred of the Jews. Where do we find most Jew-haters today? Among the so-called Progressives. People who accuse others of being haters are themselves the biggest haters.
Knowledge of history indeed.
May 12, 2009 - 1:08 pm 80. steeple:44 Ms. Attitude, Obama should not go anywhere near the line of being potentially disrepectful to our vets. Totally agree.
For all of the other trolls who come to PJM for a bit of intellectual stimulation , I just ask you why Obama would pick Dresden over any other suitable site in Europe to commemorate the anniversary of the Allies efforts to liberate Europe? What does Dresden of all places have to do with that liberation? Why not Anzio, Cherbourg, Rotterdam, Bastogne, Antwerp,…?
May 12, 2009 - 1:21 pm 81. Middleman:“Only in the Stalinist lexicon is Nazism different then Communism. To someone like you anybody who opposes Communism is a Fascist or a Nazi. Howeveer, both Nazism and Communism are subspecies of Fascism. Before Stalin so decreed, Fascism was considered to sit on the socialist left and not on the right. The roots of Fascism are found in Radical Syndicalism which could be described as Marxism with a better economic model. ”
Oh really? So if they are in fact the same why would the Nazi SA regularly have street fights with German Communists in pre-Nazi Germany? Communism is NOT a subset of fascism. Both are totalitarian but that’s as far as it goes. Fascism has always been linked to the far-right. Probably the best modern day example is the far-right in Italy, particularly the new mayor of Rome, who admits to being a fascist, and whose followers use the Roman/Heil Hitler salute. The only thing not making them full blown nazis is their lack of anti-semitism.
Your argument that the sky isn’t really blue doesn’t hold any weight.
May 12, 2009 - 1:23 pm 82. Fragmentarian:The differences between Stalinism and Hitlerism are so insignificant, it shouldn’t be too difficult to see them as manifestations of the same thing. Unless you can convince yourself that to go far enough in opposite directions, leads you to the same destination, collectivist totalitarianism by any other name is a left wing phenomenon. They didn’t fight each other over ideology but over power and land and old fashioned Russian and German nationalism. The same sort of collectivist ideology that gave absolute control to the state allowed both Stalin and Hitler to consolidate power and made a clash between them inevitable.
May 12, 2009 - 1:39 pm 83. Blackwell:75:
Hardly. Its boring and self-important when grownups converse alone. Attend any school meeting with kids and parents if you don’t believe me. I don’t know about you, but when my kids have school events, its a lot more interesting to talk to the kids.
Where did the grown ups get us? Hank Paulsen taking $700 billion (seems so small now doesn’t it?) for AIG, to compensate for Greenspan’s low rates and the grownup’s interest-default credit-swaps I was to childish to understand. If the republicans had asked 50 high school kids to turn thumbs up or down on lending ARM’s to people that couln’t afford them if rates rose, they’d have responded differently than the fuds that proposed it. Or the snoozing time servers at the FDIC that allowed it. And a lot of grownups wanted to stay out of WWII-hey we were making money! Its was the feisty youth that was over volunteering in the RAF and that signed up after December 7.
PJM would die off in a month w/o posters poking holes in the platitudes and lancing the puffed up people. Me included.
May 12, 2009 - 1:53 pm 84. Steve:Hey Puppetthing, it’s time to put on the news….what channel is Comedy Central on your cable system?
You & Jon Stewart…..not even half a brain between you both.
May 12, 2009 - 2:00 pm 85. jerryofva:Ms. Attitude:
Your take down of our Village Idiot was quite good. I do wish to correct one misconception about the founder of Fascism, Benito Mussolini, that you seem to accept. Mussolini was not a conventional nationalist like Franco, Salazar or Peron. He built his Fascist state around the myth of resurrecting the Roman Empire. His concept of citizenship and race can be traced back to the universalism of Rome. Mussolini’s views on race were quite the opposite from Hitler’s. He was a firm believer in race mixing because he felt it would lead to the gathering the best traits into the population. His was not personally anti-Semitic and adopted Nurenburg-style laws as sop to Germans whom he hated. He never seriously enforced them and Jews were only deported from Italy from the areas under German occupation after he fell from power.
May 12, 2009 - 2:13 pm 86. jerryofva:middleman:
First of all, get your salutes right. The Nazi salute is different then the Fascist salute. The Fascist salute is the Roman salute. It’s the same one that the Gladiators used when they greeted Ceasar in the Arena.
Why did the Nazis fight with Communists? Duh Because each grouped wanted be the thugs that the ran the country. Once the Nazis gained power most of the Communist streetfighters were all to happy to join the ranks of the Brown shirts.
You said “Probably the best modern day example is the far-right in Italy, particularly the new mayor of Rome, who admits to being a fascist, and whose followers use the Roman/Heil Hitler salute. The only thing not making them full blown nazis is their lack of anti-semitism.”
Get a clue most Fascist movement weren’t anti-Semitic. Both Franco and Salazar gave Jews refuge and as mentioned above, Mussolini wasn’t really into the final solution. On the other hand the Soviets were not bigs fans of the Jews. Stalin was planning to finish the job Hitler started when he died. (See “The Doctors Plot”)
Here’s a deal for you. You lefty Progressives can have your Communists and we righties can take responsbility for the others. According to the “Blackbook of Communism” Communist regimes murdered over 100 million of their citizens and left the rest in poverty. Take away the Nazis and the rest of the Fascists murdered about the same number of people as Stalin and Mao did in slow couple of months. And of course, economic perfomance was much better under the Fascists. You might not be aware of this by the Soviet’s murder totals exceeded those of the Nazis before Hitler took power. Notice what happend when China dumped Lenin for Mussolini. They became an economic powerhouse and although maintain a highly repressive society citizen no longer live in daily fear of the knock at the door.
Your public school education is showing again.
May 12, 2009 - 2:57 pm 87. Larry:Think this to be so, believe I read it in Paul Fussel’s anthologized essays: the Allies casualties were 7000 per day on average until the Japanese surrendered. Nippon got the bomb the old fashioned way: they earned it.
“Fraid that’s the case for the Reich, too.
May 12, 2009 - 4:51 pm 88. Banned by Huffpo:Of course Obama is going to apologize.
He’s going to grovel and posture; perhaps even with a few tears. He may even apologize for our awful involvement in WWI, and the tragic losses that our imperialist country caused. And, to show he’s sincere, offer up a trillion (mostly valueless now) American dollars to prove it.
Followed up with a promise to destroy all our nuclear weapons, to set the example for the rest of the world. With Napalm thrown in for good measure.
All the while secretly laughing at the useful idiots who voted him into office as he plans to subjugate them in ways that would make Hitler, Lenin, Mao, Pol Pot, Castro, and Stalin green with envy.
May 12, 2009 - 6:20 pm 89. Delia:Yaknow what would be refreshing? 0bama apologizing for being 0bama who is not fit to represent America past, present or future.
May 12, 2009 - 6:29 pm 90. John Bates Thayer:President Obama could apologize for the genocide bombing of Germany and Japan by American a British forces. We had no business getting involved in Europe’s conflicts in the first place.
May 12, 2009 - 6:57 pm 91. Ms. Attitude:83. Blackwell: I was complaining about the ability to type something as someone else..it gives zero to the conversation. In no way would I want PM to block any comments. Most are very enlightening!
85. jerryofva: thanks for the information I enjoy learning new things.
89. Delia: That would be more refreshing than a cool rain on a hot summer day!
May 12, 2009 - 7:23 pm 92. shaui-jan:muppet;ten dollars a post?i am starting to get the impression that you are not entirely truthful all the time……
May 12, 2009 - 8:29 pm 93. shaui-jan:muppet;if your still confused about the way hitler swayed,try reading his book.
May 12, 2009 - 9:05 pm 94. Middleman:it should clear things up for you….he was not very subtle about it.
jerry,
The Roman salute, Nazi salute, and Bellamy salute are all one in the same. There is no difference. Americans used the Bellamy salute to salute the US flag up until World War II.
You’re dead wrong about the situation between Nazis and Communists. I happen to have a good friend from Leipzig whose grandfather was a Communist and had no choice to join the Wermacht and go to the Eastern Front because he was tipped off by a police friend that he and his comrades were going to be rounded up and sent to Buchenwald. He join the Wermacht to escape. The irony was that he was captured by the Soviets and spent several years in a gulag.
You’re also dead wrong about me being a lefty.
May 12, 2009 - 9:35 pm 95. JasonS:For the usual idiots:
Why Nazism Was Socialism and Why Socialism Is Totalitarian>
May 12, 2009 - 10:34 pm 96. silversurfer:Middleman,Pastor Muppets, Shees, etc. etc.
You now what’s great? The 200 students I teach every year learn that Fascism and Communism were similar forms of socialism that sought to eliminate individual freedoms through collective control. That’s at least 6000 people who will learn the truth over the span of my career.
“If you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles.” – Sun-Tzu
May 12, 2009 - 10:49 pm 97. BPT (Australia):I hope this trip is about the veterans and not Obama.
May 13, 2009 - 4:32 am 98. sheesh:Lots of predictions here. Lots of people waiting to say “I told you so.” How many of you are willing to say, “I was wrong.” We’ll see.
May 13, 2009 - 5:37 am 99. jerryofva:Middleman:
I see that you have been reduced to picking a few nits which always a sign that your ignornance has been exposed.
Your friend’s grandfather sounds like typical german of the era. “I was not a Nazi, I just got drafted and sent to the Eastern Front’”
A little more history for you. The Wehrmact was the German Natiional Army, not the SA/SS. Was he an active communist streetfighter? If he was he would have either been sent to a concentration camp for re-education or he would have simply transferred his allegience to the Nazis on his own.
May 13, 2009 - 5:45 am 100. JFM:Diego Alvarez says
Killing thousands deliberatly despite knowing the war is already won and won’t last for more than some weeks is a crime, nothing else
Allegedly the war was won the very minute the first japanese plane dropped a bomb on Pearl Harbor. Or on the night of D-Day when it became obvious that the landings had succeeded. So with your logic teh Allies had only to sit and wait for Axis surrendering without doing anything to hasten it. And let the Germans shoot at them. And let them gas people: on average over 4,000 Jews a day were being murdered, not to mention the Gypsies, Poles, Czechs, Serbs, Russians. So shortening the war by three days (I assume 6,000 civilian victims overall per day) already saves lives assumming the low hypothesis or 20,000 dead and five days if you assumme the high one of 30,000 dead (there are higher ones but those are only taken seriously by pro-Nazi or Chomskian “historians”. Also one side effect of Dresden is that it, along with the large air parades the Allies organized after VE day deterred Stalin of starting a war with the Allies: Allied pilot memories tell of too many incidents Soviet planes to have been accidental, more like as if the Soviet generals had
been checking how the Soviet Air Force would fare against the Allies.
While we are at it, if you say that bombing an industrial center of the enemy is a war crime, what do you say about the atrocities the Red Army perpetrated not only ion Germany but in all of East Europe. What do you say about the fact that the rape of women in Poland or Czechoslovakia was tolerated while the rape of German women was encouraged by the Soviet authorities with radio broadcasts calling to “shatter the racial pride of the German woman”. Wasn’t that a war crime? Or is it a war crime only if perpetrated by Americans?
May 13, 2009 - 6:02 am 101. Bill:Jerry:
A nit to pick: The Wehrmacht, properly, referred to all the non-SS German armed forces: the Heer (Army), Luftwaffe (Air Force) and Krigsmarine (Navy).
But a good comment. It’s always been the Leftist goal to tar conservatism with the Fascist brush- coming to fruition with the Bush=Hitler crap. The irony of course is that Saddam (a socialist) came closer to Hitler than any leader of modern times.
May 13, 2009 - 6:16 am 102. Kurt Nicklas:My mother worked at a defense plant during WWII inspecting bombs. In 1996 we visted Berlin. While on a tour of Nazi-related sites in the east part of the city, we noticed some obvious bomb damage on the side of the building. To my observation that bombs she inspected may have been responsible for the damage, her answer was a shrug and the words, “They asked for it”.
That sums it up for me too.
May 13, 2009 - 7:12 am 103. Pastor of Muppets:Right wing reason: A fascist movement, regardless of its socio/political ideology, seeks totalitatian control over the populace and economy. Because the modern day right-wing movement is opposed to totalitarian control, then it must follow that any and all previous right wing movements throughout history were also opposed to totalitarian control. Therefore, all totalitarian movements throughout history must be left wing movements because they cannot be right wing. Any similarities of any modern right-wing movement to previous totalitarian governments, such as the use of swastikas and white supremacy rhetoric, must therefore be instances of the right wing adopting left wing tactics.
Faulty logic much?
May 13, 2009 - 7:28 am 104. misanthropicus:RE 69/Pastor of Muppets: [...] when Jonah Goldberg and Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh have clearly explained to me that Nazis were actually liberals?? How is it possible that a movement of violent xenophobic reactionaries who targeted intellectuals, minorities, unions, communists and homosexuals were right wing? That just doesn’t make any sense to me! [...]
POM, tiny mind:
1) Goldberg, Beck & Limbaugh never described the Nazis as liberals – they described the Nazis as a left-wing party/movement which is correct (add in the picture nationalism and xenophobia which are also good bed fellows to communism)
2) you’ll find in the left and in the right pretty much the same amount of intellectuals, fellow travelers and gross opportunists (my suspicion is that you consider y/self an intellectual),
3) German unions were huge nazi supporters, buddy – main recruiting field for them;
4) as far as commies, no normal person would complain about extremists devouring each other, like commies and nazies (love the Barcelona May). However POM, little mind, let me remind you that Stalin and Hitler (respectiv Molotov/ Ribentropp) signed a huge pact of alliance before WWII started;
5) as far as homosexuals, fabulous, since this is what really torments you – plenty of them among Nazis, buddy, exactly like today amongs liberals. Check under SA/Rohm, then next time when you go to fancy gay places, look for Tom of Finlands drawings you cherish so much, those guys with bulging crotches, sailors, soldiers, leather types – there always are a couple of SS black leather officers among them.
It is also true, that lately the SS types are airbrushed from pictures – still, the truth is that homosexuals found a nice niche for themselves among the SS & Gestapo people.
Don’t try to deny this, and eat it POM fabulous, little yet overheated mind -
May 13, 2009 - 8:15 am 105. Middleman:Jerry,
I’m well aware that the Wermacht and SS were two different entities and there are no love lost between the two groups typically. However the Wermacht had both nazi and anti-nazi elements within it’s rank and many Germans joined because it was either the army or the concentration camp. It’s been documented many German Jews in fact “hid” in the Wermacht to escape the camps. Communists did the same.
I’m not going to criticize what they did. As much as I love my country, I would expect my many of my countrymen to sell themselves out for much much less.
May 13, 2009 - 8:35 am 106. JFM:A nit to pick: The Wehrmacht, properly, referred to all the non-SS German armed forces: the Heer (Army), Luftwaffe (Air Force) and Krigsmarine (Navy).
The, or at least a sizable number, of the Einsatz batalions who carried the Final Solution in Soviet Union before it thing was industrialized through gas chambers, were Wehrmacht not SS.
But a good comment. It’s always been the Leftist goal to tar conservatism with the Fascist brush- coming to fruition with the Bush=Hitler crap. The irony of course is that Saddam (a socialist) came closer to Hitler than any leader of modern times
Allegedly the complete name of the iraki Baas (Renewal in Arabic) was “National Socialist Party for an Arab renewal”. Also let’s not forget that it was neither moderate right (in European terms) Roosevelt or rconservative Churchill who allied himself with Hitler but Stalin and that west Europe communists actively undermined the armies of their countries alongside with sabotaging their weapons and disrupting war production.
May 13, 2009 - 8:38 am 107. JFM:The Roman salute, Nazi salute, and Bellamy salute are all one in the same. There is no difference.
Nazi salute is with arm and hand at 45 degres (except for Hitler who extended his arm nearly horizontally) . In the Roman salute arm is at 45 degrees but hand is held vertically.
May 13, 2009 - 8:46 am 108. misanthropicus:RE #107/JFM: [...] The Roman salute, Nazi salute, and Bellamy salute are all one in the same. There is no difference. Nazi salute is with arm and hand at 45 degres (except for Hitler who extended his arm nearly horizontally) . In the Roman salute arm is at 45 degrees but hand is held vertically. [...]
True – also, the Nazis, great admirers of the Greek-Roman athleticism & military things picked up the salute from Italian fascists. Later, the salute became pretty common all over Europe, particularly in sports & mass things openings. As psychological roots/ practice selfenforcement, see Leni Reiffenstahl movies; also Janacheck “Simfonietta” (which I adore), initially composed for a sports event has very interesting military conotations for that age -
May 13, 2009 - 9:07 am 109. jerryofva:Misanthropicus:
The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was the key enabler to Hitler’s plans. If Stalin had just said no then Hitler would have been finished and he would have been a mere black footnote in German and European history. If Stalin remained hostile Poland, which despite the mythology, put up one hell of fight and without the Soviet stab in the back the Poles probably could have hung on another month inflicting severe losses on the German Army. After subduing Poland, Germany would have had to keep large forces on its new border with the Soviet Union reducing the number of divisions left for action in the West. However, the most important impact would have been the loss of access to Soviet resources necessary to complete mobilization. Germany could not have been ready to attack France until late in 1940 by which time the French military, now unencumbered by strikes and sabotage organized by the French Communist Party, would have been fully mobilized. A German invasion in the fall of 1940 would have been a disaster for Germany. A victory would have been Pyrrhic and a stalemate would have led to a quick overthrow of Hitler by the Army. There is a simple equation for WWII. No Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, no holocaust.
May 13, 2009 - 9:13 am 110. jerryofva:JFM:
And the Roman salute is given and then released, not held as in any conventional salute.
May 13, 2009 - 9:14 am 111. shaui-jan:muppet; it is not right wing vs. left wing here,it’s individualism vs. statistim.
May 13, 2009 - 9:24 am 112. Afraid for the country:the right/left thingy applies to countries without a constitution and a bill of rights.
people who realize and except this are concerned,for a good reason.
you will probably live long enough to to be bitter and very dissappointd about which side you chose to fight on.
assuming you do not have ‘a moment of clarity’ at some point.
one can only hope.
The thing Obama should apologize for is his ignorance and his audacity of presenting himself as the one thing his is not: a leader of the american people. When does this nation realize the horrible mistake they made by election this eternal apologizer and supporter of all that will harm this country. He is loved in Germany and France by all these extremists because he is supporting their cause.
May 13, 2009 - 9:26 am 113. JFM:Its time to impeach Obama who thinks he is the Almighty before he sells this country down the “Islamic/Nazi/Communist river. Or maybe all we need to do is take away his Teleprompters and he wont have anything to say anymore anyway.
jerryofva
Given that the invasion was started on September 1st, we could wonder if, had not Soviet Union backstabbed it, the Polish Army couldn’t have held until the autumn rains when Poland, a country who had relatively few paved roads becomes the same kind of muddy trap who stopped the Germans in front of Moscow: Napoleonic soldiers in the Pultusk/Eylau campaign sunk to well above the ankle and frequently lost their shoes. This would have ended the Blitzkrieg and transformed the triumphal march into a bloody and messy crawl who would have weakened and exhausted the Wehrmacht for its 1940 campaigns. Not to mention that during the campagn of Poland, in the west border the Germans were 1 to 3 against the French and while historically the steamrolling of Poland deterred the French from doing anything there is a good chance they would have taken the offensive had they seen the Wehrmacht in trouble.
May 13, 2009 - 9:35 am 114. misanthropicus:RE # 109/jerryofva: [...] Misanthropicus: The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact was the key enabler to Hitler’s plans. If Stalin had just said no then Hitler would have been finished and he would have been a mere black footnote in German and European history. [...]
Completely agree.
1) Also, here I’ll add some (interesting) trivia – Hitler and the SS weren’t really liked by the Wermacht (situation resembling with the Soviet Army vs. NKVD), and while propaganda describes all Wermacht officers or troopers as being bent of murdering anyone in sight it ain’t exactly so – and here is the trivia I mentioned: just before the invasion of Poland, a communications snafu between OKW and the tank units lined up at the Polish borders occurred, and since Guderian (I think he died later, in Normandie), believed that Hitler rescinded the marching orders, he happily called for champage because “this absurdity will not happen”.
2) you said: “If Stalin had just said no then Hitler would have been finished and he would have been a mere black footnote in German and European history.’”
Agree, and I (not the only one) find in this another disturbing precedent: is it really a stretch of imagination to view that America is the only one able (& willing) to stop the Iranian madness, but sabotaged by the “world community” and all other Iranian enableres will be defeated? Some very, very ugly consequences soon ensuing?
Will the people acknowledge how the next conflagration has been quietly midwifed from… the Nobel Prize Committee sanctifying El Baradei to… yes, the Obama administration’s mindless, if not outright seditious internationalist policies?
Yes, another tin hat wearer -
May 13, 2009 - 10:33 am 115. Pastor of Muppets:misanthropicus: “POM, tiny mind:
1) Goldberg, Beck & Limbaugh never described the Nazis as liberals – they described the Nazis as a left-wing party/movement which is correct (add in the picture nationalism and xenophobia which are also good bed fellows to communism)”
Talk about a tiny mind. Communism is contrary to both nationalism and xenophobia. Communism cannot survive economically in a vacuum; it must spread to other countries to survive; that’s why America feared the ‘domino effect’ of southeast Asian countries falling to communism during the Vietnam war, and South American countries falling to communism after the Cuban Revolution. Communists have never been xenophobic; to the contrary, their ideology compels them to assimilate other nations and cultures to add their resources to the “hive”. If this was not the case, then how can you explain networks of Russian, Latin American, African and Asian communist nations cooperating with each other?
“2) you’ll find in the left and in the right pretty much the same amount of intellectuals, fellow travelers and gross opportunists (my suspicion is that you consider y/self an intellectual),”
I agree completely. The Stalins, Hitlers, Maos, Pol Pots, Chavezs, Mussolinis and others can be characterized most by a desire for absolute power at any and all cost. It’s my belief that these people are opportunists rather than ideologues; perhaps early in their careers some of them were ideologues, but once in power, ideology came second to preserving power, and consequently power became an end in itself. These opportunists only adhere (or claim to adhere) to a certain social/political ideology because they understand that embracing and embodying such ideologies can be used as a tool to rally other members who share the ideology.
3) “German unions were huge nazi supporters, buddy – main recruiting field for them;”
Yes, they were, until the Nazi party purged them, just like they purged everyone who was not either the Aryan ideal or else a useful puppet. Fringe parties will reach out to any group that will offer them support; this is why the Nazis used the term “Socialist” in their party name despite the fact that they were not socialist, they were xenophobic Aryan nationalist; however they wanted to attract socialists to vote for them because there were many socialists in Germany at the time. But really, tell me, what ultimately happened to the socialists in the Nazi party? Same thing that happened to the union members.
“4) as far as commies, no normal person would complain about extremists devouring each other, like commies and nazies (love the Barcelona May). However POM, little mind, let me remind you that Stalin and Hitler (respectiv Molotov/ Ribentropp) signed a huge pact of alliance before WWII started;”
Yes, they signed a non-aggression pact that fell apart when Stalin realized that Hitler would not honor it. If Hitler and Stalin were socialist allies, why did not the treaty last? Additionally, American has signed plenty of non-aggression pacts with various tyrannical governments in its history. By your logic, does that make America a tyrannical dictatorship?
“5) as far as homosexuals, fabulous, since this is what really torments you – plenty of them among Nazis, buddy, exactly like today among liberals. Check under SA/Rohm, then next time when you go to fancy gay places, look for Tom of Finlands drawings you cherish so much, those guys with bulging crotches, sailors, soldiers, leather types – there always are a couple of SS black leather officers among them. It is also true, that lately the SS types are airbrushed from pictures – still, the truth is that homosexuals found a nice niche for themselves among the SS & Gestapo people.
Don’t try to deny this, and eat it POM fabulous, little yet overheated mind -”
So your argument is that because gays typically are liberals (not in the least surprising, given the right wing’s general view of them as diseased and Satanic) and because the art world is overwhelmingly liberal (also not surprising, given the right-wing’s view of the creative arts as inconsequential and meaningless), therefore, controversial art that incorporates Nazi imagery is evidence that liberal gays are involved in, or condone, Nazi activity?
What a baseless, pathetic argument.
May 13, 2009 - 10:37 am 116. stevo:Interestingly, none of the comments are being written by people who were in German at the time of events being written about. Well, I was, If the writers think the war was over at the time of the bombing, try and tell that to the men of my infantry unit that died in about three hours out side of Dortmund Germany,- – at the time the war had been won and was over.
I well remember when Dresdan was bombed. Even then the stories about the bombing was not necessary, were circulating in our unit.
Whether the bombing was justified or not, lets leave that to the people who have been educated by our political correct education system.
But when we do so [those of you still around] will pay the price of lose of freedom, control of your finances, and lower standard of living as you pay for the ever larger and larger type of government the people have selected today in the USA.
We elected “Change we can believe in.”
Well, you are looking at some of the change and must decide if it was what you voted for.
Have a great day.
May 13, 2009 - 10:50 am 117. Marie Claude:JFM you forgot to mention that the battle occured in Belgium, that the Brits, Belgians Neederlanders and French were defeated ! So it is n’t only the French that made the “wrong” battle there !
May 13, 2009 - 11:04 am 118. jerryofva:Marie Claude:
The Allied defeat did not occur on the Belgium plain. They did quite well against the Germans there. It happenned because the Ardennes forest was not defended and third line French reservists manned the “quiet” sector on the Meuse River line. This is where the main German thrust was located.
Aside: I see that our resident adolescent is still with us.
May 13, 2009 - 11:17 am 119. shaui-jan:muppet;do you mean religious ‘right’ or secular ‘right’?because there are some major differences between the two.
May 13, 2009 - 12:19 pm 120. misanthropicus:i love art….spent alot of my time and money in galleries and shows.i just don’t see the need for the goverment to underwrite it.meaningless?hardly.
gays….yawn,could care less.
do you know who criticizes gay men the most as far as carrying/spreading communicable diseases is concerned?those HOMOPHOBES at the cdc.quick,go wield your mighty keyboard and shower them with your righteous indignation!
RE #115/Pastor of Muppets & his/her/its (your pick) apology for all things lefty:
POM’s contortion: [...] Communism is contrary to both nationalism and xenophobia. Communism cannot survive economically in a vacuum; it must spread to other countries to survive; that’s why America feared the ‘domino effect’ of southeast Asian countries falling to communism during the Vietnam war, and South American countries falling to communism after the Cuban Revolution. Communists have never been xenophobic; to the contrary, their ideology compels them to assimilate other nations and cultures to add their resources to the “hive”. If this was not the case, then how can you explain networks of Russian, Latin American, African and Asian communist nations cooperating with each other? [...]
Misanthropicus’ rebutal: POM, blockhead: the greatest enemy of communism is internationalization, since internationalization introduces economic competition which at its turn invariably dooms communism. The networks you are talking about are strictly money laudering schemes, terrorist aiding & abeting arrangements, etc. You’re such an idiot POM – talk now in glowing termns about Soviet Union helping African or S. American lefty states! Mozambiq? Angola? Rhodesia? Cuba? Kampuchea? POM, pathetic you are buffoon!
Misanthropicu’s prior statement: “2) you’ll find in the left and in the right pretty much the same amount of intellectuals, fellow travelers and gross opportunists (my suspicion is that you consider y/self an intellectual),”
POM’s contortion: “The Stalins, Hitlers, Maos, Pol Pots, Chavezs, Mussolinis and others can be characterized most by a desire for absolute power at any and all cost. It’s my belief that these people are opportunists rather than ideologues; perhaps early in their careers some of them were ideologues, but once in power, ideology came second to preserving power, and consequently power became an end in itself. These opportunists only adhere (or claim to adhere) to a certain social/political ideology because they understand that embracing and embodying such ideologies can be used as a tool to rally other members who share the ideology.
Misanthropicu’s comment: I’m impressed. A good description of what keeps Arturo Obama and his coterie ticking – again, I’m impressed.
3)Misanthropicus’ prior statement: “German unions were huge nazi supporters, buddy – main recruiting field for them [nazis];”
POM’s gymnastics: “Yes, they were, until the Nazi party purged them, just like they purged everyone who was not either the Aryan ideal or else a useful puppet. Fringe parties will reach out to any group that will offer them support; this is why the Nazis used the term “Socialist” in their party name despite the fact that they were not socialist, they were xenophobic Aryan nationalist; however they wanted to attract socialists to vote for them because there were many socialists in Germany at the time. But really, tell me, what ultimately happened to the socialists in the Nazi party? Same thing that happened to the union members.”
Misanthropicus’ comment: Wrong – evereybody fared pretty well (except Jews) in the 3rd. Reich ’till the military situation went kaput.
Misanthropicus’ prior statement: “as far as commies, no normal person would complain about extremists devouring each other, like commies and nazies (love the Barcelona May). However POM, little mind, let me remind you that Stalin and Hitler (respectiv Molotov/ Ribentropp) signed a huge pact of alliance before WWII started;”
POM’S flailing: “Yes, they signed a non-aggression pact that fell apart when Stalin realized that Hitler would not honor it. If Hitler and Stalin were socialist allies, why did not the treaty last? Additionally, American has signed plenty of non-aggression pacts with various tyrannical governments in its history. By your logic, does that make America a tyrannical dictatorship?”
Misantropicus’ comment: Crappy logic workshop you attend at your MoveOnOrg, sessions, POM, little mind.
Imediately after WWII started, there were suspicions (later soundly confirmed) that it was the Soviet Union that was preparing a strike against Germany, and the Germans took advantage by the Soviets pre-assault concerns & preparations and hit them right between the eyes – those suspicions have been confirmed for long, yet these facts haven’t reached the exalted layers of ignorance in which libs like you wallow.
As far as you splendid “Additionally, American has signed plenty of non-aggression pacts with various tyrannical governments in its history. By your logic, does that make America a tyrannical dictatorship?” – comparing the US acts with the Soviets’ is another act illustration of how unhinged you and your Dem pals are.
Misanthropicus prior statement: “as far as homosexuals, fabulous, since this is what really torments you – plenty of them among Nazis, buddy, exactly like today among liberals. Check under SA/Rohm, then next time when you go to fancy gay places, look for Tom of Finlands drawings you cherish so much, those guys with bulging crotches, sailors, soldiers, leather types – there always are a couple of SS black leather officers among them. It is also true, that lately the SS types are airbrushed from pictures – still, the truth is that homosexuals found a nice niche for themselves among the SS & Gestapo people.
Don’t try to deny this, and eat it POM fabulous, little yet overheated mind -”
POM’s splendid answer: “So your argument is that because gays typically are liberals (not in the least surprising, given the right wing’s general view of them as diseased and Satanic) and because the art world is overwhelmingly liberal (also not surprising, given the right-wing’s view of the creative arts as inconsequential and meaningless), therefore, controversial art that incorporates Nazi.”
Misanthropicus’ comment: POM, minuscule mental giant – no conservative sees gays as satanic. Conservatives, and most people see homosexuality as an aberration, and that’s it. And don’t insert the Satanic term here, i.e. don’t try to draw christianity in this affair, since it’s under EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY’S LIGHT that homosexuality shows as an aberration, an evolutionary cul-de-sac, or a terminal mal-adjustment. POM, fabulous, your enemies are not the christians, but biologists.
Also, here you haven’t answered my question regarding the airbrushing of Tom of Finland’s works, about Rohm/SA affair, and of the large number of homosexuals among the SS and Gestapo personnel.
As far as the rant trying to connect creative arts (are there un-creative arts? My! POM you sure deserve a trophy!) with homosexuality, you’re again dead-wrong – there simply are so few! so few! authentic artists who were/are homosexuals (we’re not talking here about make up artists, purse of fashion designers, etc.)
Yeah, Tchaikovsky was gay – and exactly that’s why he committed suicide. But no one should mention him as great composer.
POM, fabulous – stop posting because you only amplify the “prejudice” that gays are vacous, fleeting, superficial and quarrelsome. Quarrelsome – by the way, isn’t your name Perez Hilton?
May 13, 2009 - 2:49 pm 121. JFM:Pastor of Muppets writes
Talk about a tiny mind. Communism is contrary to both nationalism and xenophobia.
That is when it is not in power. Ever heard about the cult of the Rodyna? About Mao or Pol Pot’s xenophobia. Of course satellite nations weren’t allowed to develop nationalism; in Esat German text books East German Army units ever lost in sports or shooting contests to Red Army units.
Yes, they (Geramn unions) were (Nazi supporters), until the Nazi party purged them, just like they purged everyone who was not either the Aryan ideal or else a useful puppet
Nazis never had no problems when trying to recruit personel for the fianl solution in socialist/communist strongholds like Hamburg. Contrast this with the string negative correlation between Nazi vote and rate of Catholicism.
Yes, they (Hitler and Stalin) signed a non-aggression pact that fell apart when Stalin realized that Hitler would not honor it.
Say that two thieves tried to back stab one anothezr and that Hitler got it first: according to German generals and to Soviet archives the Red Army was deployed for an offensive and that is one of the reasons it pêrformed so poorly when it was forced to defend. Also Soviet Union began sending friendly signals to Geramny as soon as 1937.
Additionally, American has signed plenty of non-aggression pacts with various tyrannical governments in its history. By your logic, does that make America a tyrannical dictatorship?
The thing you push under the rug is that the Molotov Ribbentrop pact was not a mere non-agression pact but one to share Europe: joint attack on Poland, free hands for Soviet Union in Finland, the Baltic countries and Romania while Germany got the other half of Poland, influence over Romania, Hungary and Yugoslavia plkus free hands in the west and loooots of oil and raw materials it needed for building the tanks and planes who overran France. The only comparble thing America eve did was the Yalta treaty.
About gays. The SS who killed Rohm and the SA cadre were homosxeuals and there are good reasons to think that Hitler himself was one. Also in many reels of ” Deutesche Wochenschau” you will find scenes who are to say the least, ambiguous: naked soldiers bathing and the ones selected looked like they had been selected more for their attractiveness to men than to women.
What Nazis hated was passive homosexuals and they considered themselves more masculine than straight males. Besides they killed 80% or more of German Jews and only 1% of Geramn gays: this proves it was never an attempt to eradicate gays but a pretext to eliminate people who were too stro,ng and influent so their social position had to be undermined before they were arrested.
May 13, 2009 - 3:23 pm 122. macko:Boobama might not apologize. He’ll probably just remind everyone that he wasn’t born yet. Unless of course someone actually wants to thank America.
May 13, 2009 - 6:34 pm 123. sheesh:120. misanthropicus . . . Sorry, mishwateveritis . . . I was eating cereal. Could you repeat that?
May 13, 2009 - 10:20 pm 124. vivo:Paranoids.
May 14, 2009 - 3:11 am 125. misanthropicus:RE #123/ sheesh: [...] misanthropicus . . . Sorry, mishwateveritis . . . I was eating cereal. Could you repeat that? [...]
TO ALL PJM READERS: don’t make the mistake to answer or engage Sheesh-kebob – he is an acknowledged troll whose aim here is to disrupt or obfuscate anything that might imperil Soetoro’s aura.
Bellow is his post of a few days ago on Jennifer Rubin’s “On the lawless president”
“#103. sheesh.:
You idiots think you can defeat me but you cannot because I will come back with new usernames to toy with your tiny little minds and there is nothing you can do about it. Yes I get paid to post here and so what…are you jealous? My gay friends and I are going to kick all your butts at the polls next election because gay power is going to put you hetero dinosaurs into extinction. Gay power! May 5, 2009 – 7:59 pm.”
Sad lot you are Sheesh.
May 14, 2009 - 4:04 am 126. RIChris:Treason is defined as an act of betrayal or disloyalty. If the shoes fit, Obama’s got himself a pair.
May 14, 2009 - 9:41 am 127. shaui-jan:#125.misanthropicus.please do not ignore sheep[sh].i have a bet going on who can utter the most profoundly idiotic statement on the comments section of pjm.my money is on him,and he is at his best when baited.
May 14, 2009 - 11:09 am 128. Geoff:clock is ticking sheep[sh]….don’t dissapoint.you have until friday.
“Yes I get paid to post here and so what…are you jealous?”
Glad to know that my tax dollars are subsidizing such brilliant witticism on the net. Aren’t you late for your government-dole sponsored video game tournament son?
May 14, 2009 - 2:30 pm 129. misanthropicus:125. misanthropicus:
I can’t live with myself anymore. I’m full of shit. There, I said it. You see, in that post I referred to a sheesh comment in which he admitted to being a paid gay poster. Yes, I wrote that post using his name. Of course there were two parts of my strategy that didn’t quite hold up. Part #1 – I can’t write like sheesh, which is obvious to anyone who read it. Part #2 – I used my fake post to suggest that no one respond to sheesh thus avoiding his relentless and stinging rhetorical victories on his mission to defend truth, justice, and the “real” American way. I should have known better.
I feel better. Thank you.
May 14, 2009 - 3:22 pm 130. Jack Olson:I just hope that when Obama talks to the Dresdeners, he doesn’t offer them a bailout.
May 15, 2009 - 8:39 am 131. Blackwell:130: He better not: we need it here in California.
May 15, 2009 - 1:14 pm 132. Thomas:German National Socialism was a Leftist ideology
Who Said This?
“We are Socialists, enemies, mortal enemies of the present capitalist economic system with its exploitation of the economically weak, with its injustice in wages, with its immoral evaluation of individuals according to wealth and money instead of responsibility and achievement, and we are determined under all circumstances to abolish this system!”
A quote from?
Adolf Hitler in his May Day Speech, Berlin, 1 May 1927
(quoted by John Toland in his book Adolf Hitler, 1976, p. 306.
The Ribbentrop-Molotov pact –
“In addition to stipulations of non-aggression, the treaty included a secret protocol “dividing Eastern Europe into spheres of influence.” In effect, this opened the door for the Soviet Union to conquer most of Eastern Europe and absorb the independent countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
Fascism – according to Mussolini:
“All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.”
May 16, 2009 - 10:42 pm 133. Kevin Jackson:(tutto nello Stato, nulla fuori e contro lo Stato – “La Dottrina del fascismo,” by Benito Mussolini)
Obama the apologist! This blogger explains how we need to interpret Obama, give the lamesteam media’s lovefest. http://theblacksphere.blogspot.com/2009/04/obamas-triumphant-return.html If you enjoy wit and satire, then you will find this guy HILARIOUS!
May 17, 2009 - 11:09 am 134. Oscar the Grouch:Obama really doesn’t know history. When the Nazis came to power and later marched on the Rhineland, which was occupied by the French, they ran into something that really upset them. The French had used Sudanese soldiers as part of their occupying force. These soldiers did what comes naturally to most soldiers and copulated with the local Frauliens. The result was about 2 to 300 mixed blood children. These children were the very first victims of Nazi genocide.
Wouldn’t be ironic if Obama would apologize to the very people who murdered mixed blood children, half white-half African, like himself.
May 17, 2009 - 8:06 pm 135. Stratomunchkin:The Rhineland was not occupied when the Wehrmacht retook it in 1936. It was a demilitarized zone.
May 22, 2009 - 4:47 am 136. The Editrix:“These children were the very first victims of Nazi genocide.”
You are an idiot. Starting in 1937, “Rhineland Bastards” were recorded, arrested and sterilized. All in all, some 400 children. This was only performed in the Rhineland with the children of the black French soldiers as targets. Other African-Germans, for example those with a colonial background, remained unaffected until the end.
Germans, including Nazis, are not any more “racist” than anybody else on this earth. They are into ANTISEMITISM, and racism and antisemitism have nothing (but NOTHING!) in common.
And yes, the Rhineland wasn’t “occupied”. Oh yes, did I say you are an idiot?
May 22, 2009 - 1:38 pm 137. The Editrix:“German National Socialism was a Leftist ideology
Who Said This?
“Balah blah blah yabber yabber yack yack plogh plough rabbit rabbit blah yabber yack yack…!”
A quote from?
Adolf Hitler in his May Day Speech, Berlin, 1 May 1927
(quoted by John Toland in his book Adolf Hitler, 1976, p. 306.”
Yeah right. Nazism was really leftism because… Bubba Adolf said so. Since when is Adolf Hitler a reliable witness for ANYTHING?
While there were collectivist elements in the Nazi ideology, a kind of “egalitarian” view of all “racially pure” Germans, the core, the glorification of the “Aryan” race, has nothing whatsoever to do with any leftist ideology.
I don’t know why you are spouting this mantra. Should you feel, as a conservative, uncomfortable with the thought of, as Lawrence Auster put it, a “continuum between traditional, moral racialism, consisting of the normal and legitimate desire of a people to preserve and carry on its existence, and the fascistic and demonic racialism of Nazism” it doesn’t make sense trying to escape that predicament by stating quasi ex cathedra that Nazism is, deep down, really, at the end of the day, leftism, because it isn’t.
Sorry, you’ll have to look for something better than that.
May 22, 2009 - 3:14 pm 138. Thomas:#137 The Editrix
Anyone whose reply to historical fact on a political forum consists of sentences like this:
May 22, 2009 - 4:48 pm 139. Stratomunchkin:“Balah blah blah yabber yabber yack yack plogh plough rabbit rabbit blah yabber yack yack…!” or calling other posters as idiot for their opinion should crawl back to Erich Honecker ass and join the Der Schwarze Block or the Antifa goons.
You deserve nothing more than ridicule and contempt.
You arrogant Übermensch mannerism belongs to your favorite beer-hall: hopefully the Türks will teach you few things you will always remember in your coming future.
Besides, I am European.
National Socialism was, ideologically, a mix between the Italian corporatist fascism and the stalinist system in Russia. It had highly regulated markets, and instead of direct state control often did not have to assert its control over Germany’s heavy industries because their strategic interests correlated with the industry’s business interests. The “socialist” aspects of National Socialism were more of an indirect approach, resulting from a social and economic experiment whose goal was the formation of a closer “Volksgemeinschaft” and an independence from the world markets to create the foundations for a largely self-sufficient war economy.
May 23, 2009 - 5:08 am 140. Donny:Well,the German people were certainly quilty as they followed the designs of an inexperienced narcicistic self-worshiping charismatic leader. Dwight Eisenhower did the right thing when he forced the residents of townsto the death camps to come in and take part in the cleanup. It makes me wonder what horrers await us as we seem to tread down thesame road with our own modern stereotype leader. A radical much as Hitler was. What will the world be like after even more terror, conflict, poverty and suffering at the hands of the social experimenters who want to do it all over again to see if they can make it work. Will the 21 be a century even worse than the 20th? Was a 100 million deaths and the suffering of billions not enough? “When will they ever learn?”
May 23, 2009 - 1:39 pm 141. Andy:Obama apologizing for actions by the Allies during WWII is like us apologizing for criticizing his apology.
May 29, 2009 - 6:53 pm 142. Jim:Let’s remember also that the bombing of Dresden was consistent with the Sherman Doctrine of all out war. It was accepted at the time that armies should not be unnecessarily hampered by civilian causalities though they should be avoided if possible. Also, there would have been some degree of revenge sought for the horrible bombings of London.
May 31, 2009 - 9:37 pm 143. Ken Cluck:Diego, no it’s war. War is dirty, ugly and terrifying. After all is said and done the reports are written and the investigations are done by the victor. If Obama apologizes he will be giving fuel to the fire in this discussion and belittling the real crime (the murders in the camps) to apologize to the criminals. I know the argument that it was the Nazis who did all this, but it was the German people who empowered them to do it. Had the German people been so innocent they would have risen up after Krystalnacht. The war was brought terribly home to the German people in Dresden.
Jun 1, 2009 - 3:33 am 144. dan:i believe Obama will be his own downfall. pride always goes before a fall. the german people blindly followed his promise to bring their country back from total bankruptcy. they needed an answer to their failed country and he took advantage of their fear. he took control of the banks and industry and banned guns, is this starting to sound familiar. he promised CHANGE and man did he ever give it to them.
Jun 1, 2009 - 11:51 am 145. jh:Now that Obama has actually been in Dresden and has held his speeches, I’m eagerly awaiting your follow-up article on the matter. I expect it to be something along the lines of: “I was wrong on all accounts. I’m sorry for wrongly accusing and smearing the President…”
Jun 5, 2009 - 8:23 am 146. Woloh:Don’t know about Dresden, but an apology to Nagasaki would be nice
Oct 4, 2009 - 6:49 am