To Honour The Day

My friend Duni attended the rally in The Hague. He informs me that the pro-Israel crowd was very dignified, quite a few Germans had been there as well, mainly "Antideutsche" from the left and a couple of Jesus-freaks and even a tiny delegation from Poland, which is nice.

The following article was written a couple of months ago, but I think it won't sadly go out of fashion in a hurry and it's specifically befitting today.

An Open Letter to the World’s Anti-Semites
by Isaac Kohn
Nov 18, '03 / 23 Cheshvan 5764
Arutz Sheva

Dear World:

Now that you have all reassembled here (only a few years after the Holocaust) in order to re-promote the one, universally accepted, unifying theme, eternally known as anti-Semitism, I'd like your attention for a moment or so, in order to deliver my short yet absolute defiance. Point blank and without much ado, let me greet you with the following, correctly-spelled, simple statement:

Go to Hell!

Oh, don't look so shocked! I know that it's impolite, both politically and socially, to speak in such foul manner to distinguished representatives of the human race. However, I feel that, at this juncture, as the universe is quickly hurtling towards the conclusion of the prophecy of Gog and Magog, perhaps some honest words ought to be heard. The lies that are thickly engulfing your combined lives, the duplicity that runs through your collective veins, needs a dose of truism and revelation. The thick skin of evil inventions and fabrications you are comfortably wallowing in, needs to be peeled aside; the true face of your hate and animosity must be unmasked.

Dear World:

There in front of me sit the creme-de-la-creme leaders of today's humankind; despots and murderers, dictators and oppressors. Sitting in the seat of power, to mention but a few, are the crazed Islamofascists in Iran, the lunatic Khaddafy, the blood-soaked, mental-midget of Syria, the iron-fisted tyrants of China. Yet, the world's agenda and schedule of events is limited in its focal concentration. It is this immensely popular focal point that I would like to address. I beg your indulgence.

Dear World:

I have come to the conclusion that you hate me because I am, and you hate me because I'm not. You hate me for what you think I ought to be, and you hate me that much more when I try to be that which you imagine me to be.

You hate me when I succeed, you hate me for not failing; when I fail, you rejoice. You hate me for being poor and hate me even more if I'm rich. The wealth I have was stolen, you say; honesty is not part of me. So you proceeded to steal from me, to rob, to plunder and pillage.

You lament: 'Why do you stay apart from all of us? Why don't you try to come closer, to adapt.' But if I do, you hate me for 'stepping over the line', which your hate for me has long-ago drawn in the sand. You hate my unshakable faith in my religion and you do whatever you can to reach my soul. And if, at times, you succeed with one or two of my fellow Jews, you hate them even more for not being true to their own religion, for being traitors to their own faith.

Dear World:

Only recently, your hate-poisoned minds devised the most gruesome methods and inventions in order to vent your hate for me; you gassed and hanged and shot and bludgeoned me. Your hate, filled the rivers with my blood, the crematoriums turned the skies black with my ashes. You hated me for my imagined complacency in the face of such unimaginable atrocity and you hate me now for no longer willing to be complacent in the face of your continuing, unwarranted hate.

You hated me long before the State of Israel was even a dream; 'Go to Palestine, that's your land!' your crazed, rampaging mobs screamed as government-sanctioned, Church-sponsored, pogroms raged through my villages and towns. So I did. I left your miserable, evil-infested shores and returned to my own land, the lands you admitted are mine. And you hate me for doing exactly that, and 'Get out of Palestine, you stole the land!' the new placards of incitement and hate are screaming now.

And because I survived against your wishes, against all odds, you hate me even more. You hate my ability to rise again and again from the inferno your hate keeps igniting. You hate my resilience, my perseverance; you despise my capacity to outlive, outsmart, outperform. I have outlived every one of my detractors and tormentors; the Romans, the Greeks, the Crusaders and the infamous Nazis are merely pages in the annals of history. They no longer exist as anything more than artifacts in a museum and as archeological diggings and remnants, but I survived and I flourished. My fingerprints are visible in every facet of daily living in science and medicine. Yes, I lead in medical research and innovations; and, yes, many of the medicines you administer and the inventions you heal with have my imprint on them. You use and employ and utilize all of my successes. And for having achieved, you hate me, too.

Dear World:

I am here, today, alive and well, in spite of your wishes, against all logical odds. After two thousand years of unrelenting persecution, I am still here. I have resisted and survived every imaginable atrocity your evil minds could possibly conjure, and I survived your unimaginable torture and starvation. The gallows were never high enough, the Auto-de-Fe never hot enough, the Inquisition's torture never gruesome enough. The Nazis invented new ideas and methodology in order to eradicate me, the Jew. You did your best to force me to convert, broke my body and spirit, yet never touched my soul. And as punishment for having survived, you confiscated my property, denied me basic human rights and expelled me from your land. And having done all you can to promote and assist the Nazis in my eradication, you hate me enough to deny it.

You hate me, for the sake of hate itself. And if I, the Jew, were to somehow disappear, what shall become of your hate? Should I disappear, one in my image would have to be created. For imagine how boring life would be; where will all your hate be directed? Imagine, if you will, a Durban Conference Against Racism, without the 'Kill The Jews' signs and placards? How empty and silent would the Security Council chambers be, if there was no Jew to condemn? After all, tyrannies, dictatorships and self-appointed, murdering despots don't provide the enthusiasm needed as does another hate-filled motion to blindly convict me. How listless and boring would the General Assembly of the United Nations be if the ever-present punching-bag ceased to exist? You hate me, dear world, and I, the Jew, despise you.

Dear World:

I have only touched the surface of your deep hate; three-thousand-three-hundred years of hate can not be analyzed in a mere few pages. Let me, therefore, end this letter on a positive note:

You can positively go to Hell!

PLEASE *DO* READ THIS !!!

I have put the German translation on top, because I think more Germans than English speakers need to read this.

For the original please scroll down.

Die Geschichte von zwei Zäunen

Von Gal Luft

Die I’s und die P’s bekämpfen sich seit mehr als einem halben Jahrhundert. Während der letzten paar Jahre war das Misstrauen, die Feindschaft und die Paranoia zwischen den beiden präzedenzlos stark. I(....) war das Ziel von Terrorkampagnen islamischer Terroristen, die auf sein Territorium eingedrungen sind und schreckliche Attentate gegen Soldaten und unschuldige Zivilisten begangen haben. I beschuldigt P, es bilde diese Militanten aus und tue nichts um sie zu stoppen.

Nach einer langen Serie von gescheiterten Versuchen ein Friedensabkommen oder sogar eine provisorische Feuerpause zu erreichen, BESCHLIESST DIE REGIERUNG VON I, SIE MÜSSE EINEN ZAUN ALS SICHERHEITSABSPERRUNG ERRICHTEN, DER ES VON P SEPARIERT.

Das I Projekt eines Zaunes macht die P’s wütend. Ihr uniformierter Führer verlangt von der Regierung von I sofort den Bau einzustellen.

DOCH TROTZ STARKEM INTERNATIONALEM DRUCK SCHEINT I SICH NICHT ZU BEUGEN UND SEIN WEISSHAARIGER MINISTERPRÄSIDENT RIEF SOGAR DAZU AUF DAS PROJEKT ZU BESCHLEUNIGEN UND DEN ZAUN BIS ENDE 2004 ZU VOLLENDEN.

Wenn Sie jetzt dachten, die obigen 156 Wörter beschreiben den kontroversiellen Zaun, der zur Zeit auf der Westbank zwischen Israel und den Palästinensern errichtet wird, dann sind Sie in guter Gesellschaft.

DOCH SIE HABEN SICH GEIRRT,

I IST NICHT ISRAEL UND P IST NICHT PALÄSTINA.

Die obige Geschichte beschreibt einen anderen Zaun, der sich drei Zeitzonen entfernt vom Nahen Osten im umstrittenen Gebiet von Kaschmir zwischen Indien und Pakistan befindet. Tatsächlich seit dem pakistanische Militante im Dezember 2001 versucht haben das indische Parlament zu erstürmen, hat Indien mit diesem ambitionierten Projekt begonnen, dessen Ziel es ist die Grenze zum Feind zu sperren.

DIESER ZAUN IST NUR TEIL EINES MEHRERE REIHEN UMFASSENDEN SYSTEMS, DAS MINEN, SENSOREN, GRÄBEN UND IN EINIGEN TEILEN EINE HOHE MAUER UMFASST.

NUN, FRAGEN SIE SICH SELBST WESHALB SIE DIE OBIGE GESCHICHTE MIT DEM NAHEN OSTEN ASSOZIIERT HABEN UND NICHT MIT SÜDASIEN.

Weshalb gewinnt die Aktion einer Nation von sechs Millionen in ihrem Bewusstsein mehr Gewicht als die von ungefähr einer Milliarde von Menschen?

Letzten Endes dauert der Indien-Pakistan Konflikt genauso lang und er ist genau so heftig.

DER INDISCHE ZAUN IST ZWEIMAL SO LANG WIE DER ISRAELISCHE UND ER SCHAFFT EINSEITIG FAKTEN, ER BRINGT MIT EBENFALLS BESCHLAGNAHME VON LAND UND DIE SEPARIERUNG VON UNSCHULDIGEN BAUERN VON IHREM BODEN MIT SICH.

Ganz anders als der israelische Zaun, entgeht der indische Zaun der Medienaufmerksamkeit. Suchen sie schnell im Internet „Israel Palästina Zaun“ und dann „Indien Pakistan Zaun“ und sie werden den Unterschied merken.

Während der erste Zaun von allen westlichen Medien von der „New York Times“ [und bis zum Wiener „Der Standard“ K.P.]bis zum geht nicht mehr behandelt wurde, wird über den indischen Zaun fast zur Gänze nur in den Südasiatischen Medien berichtet.

UNSERE MEDIEN WIDMEN DIESEM KEINE LEITARTIKEL, DIE NACHRICHTENAGENTUREN BRINGEN KEINE SONDERMELDUNGEN UND AUCH IM FERNSEHEN IST EIN DOKUMENTATION ÜBER DEN ISRAELISCHEN ZAUN MEHR SEXY ALS EINE ÜBER DEN INDISCHEN.

ZU KEINER ZEIT HABEN EUROPÄISCHE MEDIEN DEN INDISCHEN ZAUN ALS “APARTHEID-MAUER“ ODER „BERLINER MAUER“ BEZEICHNET.

Wahr ist, der indische Zaun ist kein Thema aus dem gleichen Grund, wie ein israelisches Eindringen in den Gazastreifen und Töten von drei Militanten an jedem gegebenen Tag mehr Aufmerksamkeit der Medien erregt als das Massakrieren von 400 Menschen im Kongo.

Der Grund dafür ist zum Teil, dass im Verlauf der letzten Jahre das Interesse der westlichen Medien am arabisch-israelischen Konflikt bereits ein Niveau der Besessenheit erreicht hat.

Jerusalem ist für Journalisten ein bequemer Zufluchtsort. Es ist eine Kriegszone ohne einen wirklichen Krieg, der einzige Ort im Nahen Osten wo sie ihre Geschichte senden können, während sie sushi essen. Deswegen werden israelische Angelegenheiten in einem unverhältnismäßigen Ausmaß behandelt. Die nichtbeabsichtigte Konsequenz ist, dass die öffentliche Meinung und die Fähigkeit genügend Ressourcen anderen, nicht weniger herausfordernden Teilen der Welt zu widmen, beeinträchtigt ist.

Diese übertriebene Belichtung Israels hat auch politische Folgen.

ES IST KEIN ZUFALL, DASS DER INDISCHE ZAUN INTERNATIONAL NICHT VERURTEILT WIRD, WIE DAS IM FALLE ISRAELS GESCHIEHT, DASS DIE VEREINTEN NATIONEN EINE BESONDERS DRINGENDE SITZUNG DER GENERALVERSAMMLUNG EINBERUFEN HAT UM DEN BESCHLUSS ZU FASSEN DEN BAU ZU STOPPEN, WÄHREND ES ZU INDIEN STUMM BLEIBT; DASS MENSCHENRECHSAKTIVISTEN ZUSAMMENSTRÖMEN, UM SICH UNTER ISRAELISCHE BULDOZER ZU LEGEN.

All das liefert großartiges Material für sogar noch mehr Geschichten.

Die Medien sind das Periskop mit dem wir die Welt betrachten und unsere Meinung über die Welt formen. Als Medienkonsumenten brauchen die Amerikaner und die Europäer weniger Israel und mehr Welt, anderenfalls werden auch wir von einem Zaun umgeben, der unsere Sicht der Angelegenheiten der wirklichen Welt blockiert.

Gal Luft ist Executive Director des Institute for the Analysis of Global Security (IAGS) in den USA.
http://www.iags.org/
Aus dem Englischen übersetzt von Karl Pfeifer


A TALE OF TWO FENCES
BY GAL LUFT

The I's and the P's have been at war for over half a century. Over the past several years the level of suspicion, hostility and paranoia between the two has been unprecedented. I(....) has been the target of a terror campaign by Islamic terrorists who infiltrated its territory and conducted horrific attacks against both soldiers and innocent civilians. I accuses P of training and arming these militants and not lifting a finger to stop them.

After a long series of failed attempts to reach a peace deal or even a temporary cease fire, THE GOVERNMENT OF I DECIDED IT MUST ERECT A FENCE AS A SECURITY BARRIER SEPARATING IT FROM P.

I's fence project infuriates the P's. Their uniformed leader called the government of I to immediately halt the construction.

BUT DESPITE STRONG INTERNATIONAL PRESSURE I DOES NOT SEEM TO BEND AND ITS WHITE HAIRED PRIME MINISTER RECENTLY CALLED TO EXPEDITE THE PROJECT AND FINISH THE FENCE BY THE END OF 2004.

If you thought the above 160 words describe the controversial fence currently being erected in the West Bank between Israel and the Palestinians you are in good company.

LOOK AGAIN.

I IS NOT ISRAEL AND P IS NOT PALESTINE.

The story above describes another fence, three time zones away from the Middle East in the disputed area of Kashmir between India and Pakistan. Indeed, since Pakistani militants tried to storm the Indian Parliament in December 2001, India has embarked on an ambitious project aimed to seal its border with its enemy. THE FENCE IS ONLY PART OF A MULTI-TIERED SYSTEM THAT INCLUDES MINES, SENSORS, TRENCHES AND, IN SOME PARTS, A HIGH MUD WALL.

NOW, ASK YOURSELF WHY YOU ASSOCIATED THE ABOVE STORY WITH THE MIDDLE EAST AND NOT WITH SOUTH ASIA.

Why does the action of a nation of six million people loom larger in your consciousness than that of one billion people?

After all, the India-Pakistan conflict is just as enduring and fierce.

It threatens world peace no less than the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

THE INDIAN FENCE IS AT LEAST TWICE AS LONG AS THE ISRAELI. IT TOO CREATES FACTS ON THE GROUND UNILATERALLY; IT TOO ENTAILS LAND GRABS AND SEPARATION OF INNOCENT FARMERS FROM THEIR LAND.

Unlike the Israeli fence, India's project has been under the radar screen of most American media outlets. Run a quick internet search for "Israel Palestinian fence" and then "India Pakistan fence" and see the difference.

While the first fence was covered by all main western media outlets from The New York Times to Time Magazine over and over again ad nauseaum, the debate over the Indian fence features almost exclusively in the south Asian media.

AMERICAN NEWSPAPERS DEDICATED NO EDITORIALS TO IT, NEWS NETWORKS DID NOT DO SPECIALS ON IT. 60 MINUTES DID NOT FIND IT INTERESTING ENOUGH. TOM FRIEDMAN FOUND THE ISRAELI FENCE TO BE A MORE SEXY TOPIC TO DO A DOCUMENTARY ON THAN THE INDIAN FENCE. AT NO POINT DID THE EUROPEAN MEDIA CALL THE INDIAN FENCE "APARTHEID WALL" OR "BERLIN WALL."

In truth, the Indian fence has not been covered for the same reason an Israeli incursion into Gaza and the killing of three militants receives on any given day more media attention than the massacre of 400 people in Congo.

The reason being, in part, that over the years western media's interest in the Arab-Israeli conflict has reached a level of obsession.

Jerusalem is a haven for journalists. It is a war zone without real war, the one place in the Middle East where they can file stories while eating sushi. As a result, Israeli affairs are being covered at a disproportionate scale. The unintended consequence is that the public judgment and ability to dedicate sufficient resources to other, no less challenging, parts of the world is compromised.

This over exposure of Israel also has policy implications.

IT IS NOT AN ACCIDENT THAT THE INDIAN FENCE HAS NOT BEEN CONDEMNED INTERNATIONALLY THE WAY ISRAEL'S HAS BEEN; THAT THE UN CONVENED A SPECIAL EMERGENCY MEETING OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY TO APPROVE A RESOLUTION, DEMANDING A STOP TO THE CONSTRUCTION WHILE BEING MUTE ON INDIA; THAT HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVISTS FLOCK TO THE WEST BANK TO LIE UNDER ISRAELI BULLDOZERS.

All of these make great material for even more stories. And so it goes.

The media is the periscope with which we look at the world and form our worldview. As media consumers Americans need less Israel and more world, otherwise we will find ourselves surrounded too by a fence, blocking our view of the real world issues.

Gal Luft is executive director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security (IAGS)
http://www.iags.org/

Sex sells!

Wibke Bruhns, then one of the first female news presenters of German network television and a well-known journalist, has written a book about her family, specifically her father, Hans Georg Klamroth, who was sentenced to death by the Nazis in 1944. In "Meines Vaters Land" (My Father's Country) Bruhns tells us against the backdrop of German history of the time the story of her family, how her father grew up, about her parents' marriage, how he got to know about the unsuccessful assassination attempt of Hitler on July 20, 1944 and how, after it failed, he, too, was arrested, sentenced to death and executed.

She tells about the military acid tests her father underwent during his childhood, the war games, and how the 17-year-old boy enthusiastically took up arms at the outbreak of WWI.

1918 the "puffed-up little lieutenant" takes part in the persecution of Russian soldiers in the Baltic countries. "Each one of the Jew rascals of the Red Guards who has the good fortune to fall in our hands will be stringed up", the father writes in a letter. Later he expresses his pride and relief at the fact that his family is of "pure race" and becomes an ardent follower of Hitler until the Germans are starting to lose the war.

Different from the enthusiastic reception in the media, I am not all that thrilled by that book. Nothing Bruhns tell us is exactly unusual. Every German boy, specifically but not exclusively, of that class and of that generation was brought up in a chauvinistic and military spirit, as were, so I suspect, boys of other nationalities as well. So that doesn't explain much, the more as our contemporary pacifist do-gooders are in no way more agreeable or less dangerous.

The book is full of truisms, starting with his martial upbringing via the oh-so-extraordinary observation that her father was a womanizer and ending with the discovery that people who opposed Hitler to the degree of being murdered for it were anti-Semites as well.

Do I, of all people, really have to tell Ms. Bruhns that the people who actively opposed Hitler did it all for their own and very different reasons, among which the Nazi's treatment of the Jews was certainly not a major issue, if an issue at all? So why should they NOT be anti-Semites? And why should that throw a new light on the resistance against Hitler, as Die Zeit implies? They were brave, they gave their live for their political convictions, they were heroes. And they were Germans and thus anti-Semites. Very simple, very sad.

It is part of the typically naïve and dangerous German concept of idealism that men of the resistance against Hitler, that "heroes", must be fault- and blameless in every respect AND -- much more important -- that the treatment of the Jews played a major role for the opposition against Hitler. Yes, it is a sad fact that -- otherwise -- decent people can be anti-Semites as well.

Does anybody remember the appaling statement of Klaus von Dohnanyi re Jews and what they would have done hadn't they been persecuted? And as far as I know does the Dohnanyi family still own their "Aryanized" villa in Berlin (I may be wrong) YET the father bravely paid for his conviction with his life.

A reckoning with the past like Bruhns' reminds me of the Holocaust memorial gaffe. What did the initiators of that megalomaniac project EXPECT? OF COURSE there are no major companies in Germany WITHOUT a tainted past! Similarly, what did Ms. Bruhns EXPECT? OF COURSE her father was an anti-Semite. He was GERMAN.

I am convinced that almost every child of almost every political opponent against Hitler, be they aristocratic, middle- or working class with the affiliated political convictions, would sadly have to tell a similar story.

You don't get it? Okay, I'll repeat: Yes, the labour movement and leftist ones as well!

The lie that anti-Semitism was just a matter of the Nazis and has died out with them poisons and pollutes our political culture since WWII and it will go on to do so until we stop thinking of books like Wibke Bruhns' as amazing revelations.

But then, the enthusiastic reviews are probably nothing but the usual German self-congratulatory and -admiring auto-erotic backslapping because "we like nobody else know how to deal with our past". Hold on while I rummage for my sick-bag!

One last remark: Were I ever to get knowledge of any extramarital rompings of my own father and had I any reason to believe that this might be of any interest for anybody but my mother, I would still not tell it. But I suppose sex sells.

The new German Normality

Recently, shortly before it went to print, Rowohlt, one of the leading German publishers, withdraw "Endstufe" (Final Step), a book based on a scenario taken from the secret porn industry of the Third Reich and cancelled the contract with author Thor Kunkel.

Since 2000, when his prize-awarded first work "Das Schwarzlicht-Terrarium" about the Frankfurt drug and disco milieu in the Seventies appeared, Kunkel is considered as somewhat of an up-and-coming talent in literary circles in Germany.

Rowohlt's managing director, Alexander Fest, stated that one of the reasons for the cancellation was the fact that publisher and author were not able to bridge dissimilarities about questions of "aesthetic and subject matters" in central parts of the book. The manuscript, to which the newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung had gotten access, was not only filled with scenes of sex and brutality, but made questionable comparisons between the violence of the Allied armies in WWII and those of the Nazi crimes.

Kunkel came across the topic for "Endstufe" after watching a TV-documentary in 1991 that looked into the then unknown porn industry during the Third Reich. He eventually got copies of the so-called Sachsenwald films, which are reportedly filled with scenes of sex, power relations and violence. The plot runs around a group of Nazi scientists who produce porn films as a sideline, whilst being blissly unaware of the horrors of concentration camps or war, so to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.

Kindler, a Rowohlt subsidiary, has recently cancelled "I too, had to kill" by the French who calls herself Nina Zamar, an alleged Mossad agent, because the evidence that it might be a fake had become overbearing.

On February 4, in an interview with the newspaper "Die Welt" , the author said that one of Fest's reasons for the rejection of the book was that he, Kunkel, stands for a "biologism, which sees the world as a result of carnal protoplasm", an accusation, Kunkel refutes because, so he reasons, the younger generation doesn't have such reservations about technology anymore. He, so the author, sees the positive aspects of biotechnology.

Let's be realistic: In the USA and England research similar to that the eugenic scientists of the Third Reich performed, is made. People Mendelize and perform experiments… Germany is a totally normal European country. I don't think we should be brought up as shame-faced, intellectual garden gnomes. We are democrats and Europeans... Endstufe is written in a very modern language. It's not a historical novel. Instead, you have the feeling that the Third Reich is just around the corner. We will have to face the thoughts and ideas of those days -- not in the political, but in the scientific field."

Last Monday, the leading German newsmagazine Der Spiegel published in its print- as well as in its online edition an article by Henryk M. Broder, who is well known for never shying away from a good brawl, headed "Steckrüben der Stalinisten" (The Stalinist's Turnips) with extensive quotes from the controversial book.

He [Kunkel] says, for example, about the Soviet soldiers approaching Berlin: "More than two and a half million semi-stiff and increasingly stiffer cocks are advancing the Reichshauptstadt like an arrow rain from a rabid Cupid... The Second World War ended with the largest sex crime in world history as a barbarian rape final, whose 'live' transmission to New York, London and Paris was just not possible for technical reasons... The German cunt, shaggy or shaved after delousing, is the only remnant of the Third Reich, which still counts. Without this much called-for payment in kind, the losers would have fared even worse."

Kunkel describes the sexual excesses of the Soldateska [gang of soldiers without any humane or ethical inhibitions] with badly covered gusto and specifically with a lot of imagination, when he reveals details that were, so far, rather unknown: "Some of the victims are forced to sing the Internationale while, irony of the fate, they get laid by soldiers of several nations." The Red Army soldiers bring along their "own microcosm" to Germany, "on the Stalinists' dirty turnips the stowaways are travelling and get out in the humid climate of a sore cunt. Soon a persistent, Asiatic version of the syphilis is rampant."

A little later, Kunkel lets his character Karl Fußmann reason at length why the US Americans are predisposed, "to come into our inheritance" to thus resume the work the Nazis had to interrupt, because they "got their current turned off": "The result of the genetic Gleichschaltung will be a milk coffee-coloured plebeian with flat nose and blond curly hair, the product of Zionist policy: White coal, after all. Exactly the right thing for heating purposes, because the Americanisation of the planet will be even more bloody and long-lasting than the Second World War."
[…]
To such sentences any presumption of innocence for theatrical prose [where the author projects thoughts or feelings on a character who expresses the same in a monologue for dramaturgical reasons] cannot apply. The subtext equals the plain text. Kunkel speaks of the "Americans", who bring "their foreign exchange like venereal diseases into healthy national economies", and he complains about the fact that the Germans, after the end of the Second World War, "were presented a hefty gas bill". Revisionism pure. The search for the lost porno films of the Nazis serves only as an alibi for his insufferable resentments.
[…]
One particular discussion with Kunkel remembers Schieder [the Rowohlt editor in charge of him] specifically well. He said: "What happened to the German women by the Allied, specifically the Russians, was the worst happening during the entire Second World War. She asked: "The worst? But the Jews... " Kunkel stated that death in the gas chamber was preferable to rape by Russians. Those who went through it had to deal with it for life, while the Jews were "spared" from this. Kunkel did not want to talk with the Spiegel about all that. But to the publisher he admitted quite freely that he is concerned about "a long overdue paradigm change in Germany". And like all of those who feel called to higher things, he is of the opinion that he is unfairly judged. "If I were an American author people in Germany would have said: What a bold plan of the spirit." Because he is, however, a German writer he will have to get his affirmation elsewhere. At the end of the dedications he demands: "Hey, you dogs from the thought police : Read and despair."

Last Friday, it became known that the Eichborn Verlag will publish Kunkel's "Endstufe". Hello, Eichborn editors! Read and despair!

Immediately after the appearance of Broder's article on Monday, Kunkel published an "open letter" to the Spiegel on his new publisher's website of which I quote a sentence, which has annoyed me particularly for reasons I will reveal later.

To clarify: as a German European with Polish and French roots, married to a Dutch woman whose father was a resistance fighter, I condemn the horrors of Nazi regime, just like any fellow human being with a mediocre intelligence. I am neither an Auschwitz denier, nor am I into any form of revanchism.

I left a brief note in their guestbook, saying something like "Was that really necessary?", or words to that effect. Literally minutes later, an email from Eichborn, namely a Ms. Nadine Krischker, arrived who commendably pointed me towards Kunkel's 'open letter' on Eichborn's website (which I had already read) and informed me furthermore that "the Eichborn Verlag desires a constructive discussion about the topics "Endstufe" covers. But we believe that this will be only possible, once the book is published."

I liked that!

Dear Ms. Krischker,

Who told you that I did NOT read the open letter?

In fact, it was that very embarrassment, which let me write my brief sentence in your guestbook.

"To clarify: as a German European with Polish and French roots, married to a Dutch woman whose father was a resistance fighter, I condemn the horrors of Nazi regime, just like any fellow human being with a mediocre intelligence. I am neither an Auschwitz denier, nor am I into any form of revanchism."

Resistance-fighter-status has never stood in the way of being an anti-Semite, Friedrich Goerdeler is just ONE (prominent) example and as far as I know, the Dohnanyi-family does still live in their 'aryanized' mansion in Berlin. (I may be wrong!)

Similarly has a 'Leftist ethos' or a non-German pedigree never immunized anybody against being an anti-Semite, or did it?

The only thing missing are Kunkel's "many Jewish friends" to dole out even the very LAST anti-Semitic cliché.

Isn't David Icke* looking for a German publisher? Surely his books, too, will kick off a desirable constructive discussion about the many topics they cover.

Best regards
-NB

* http://www.davidicke.com/

To be quite honest, my own father was what Kunkel, pompous old fart that he is, would call a "resistance fighter" but in our family nobody would have ever stooped as low as to abuse that fact as an inheritable certificate for always being on the right side.

Sure Kunkel has asked the girl before he became deeper involved with her: "Now this is crucial, darling! Before I take matters with you any further: Has your father been a resistance fighter or not? Just Yes or No!" And of course he is not just a profiteer from the insuppressable German desire for a "paradigm change" (read: a re-writing of history) to sell his lousy prose!

And of course it won't help to fill the coffers of the Eichborn Verlag, which is in the red since 2000, either.

Constructive discussion my behind!

Why Jimmy Carter got the Nobel Prize

The riddle is solved, thanks to my friend Dear Dick!

As for Jimmy Carter...I thought he got the Nobel for being the first...or at least being AMONGST the first ... Annapolis graduates able to write complete sentences.

Well, I suppose that is a better reason than quite a few others I know of.

Oh yes, and I have a hunch that Dick might be a West Point man himself...

Update @ 15:18 :
I asked and HE IS INDEED !!!

Get laid more often, Americans!

An event of earth-shattering proportions shook America lately. Was it a second attack on a major landmark by Muslim terrorists? Did the Iraqi "insurgents" invent the atomic bomb? Nothing of that sort. It was worse. A show-biz-whore exposed a part of one of her breasts publicly.

Dear America, do you have to go out of your way for it or does hysteria and obtuseness come naturally to you as soon as the three letters "s", "e" and "x" are mentioned in consecutive order?

For heaven's sake, there is a war on in Iraq, people are dying on a daily basis and save old Teabag-Country you are quite alone to lead it. That is an abomination against all standards of decency, justice and fairness and a shame for the whole rest of the "Free World" -- at least so I think. And YOU are worrying about a tit some some creepazoid slut exposed publicly!

One doesn't bring up children as decent human beings by banning the sight of bare breasts from them. What about your drug and violence problems? Your disgusting prom-and beauty-contest cult, which teaches young women to be just as disgusting as Jackson, just not as obvious at selling one's physical assets? Isn't THAT something to worry about instead about a bare boob, which children won't probably not even notice if they haven't been prematurely sexed by their parents' fears and obsessions and hadn't those very parents screamed "murder" at its sight and thus gave it an importance it clearly doesn't had.

Go and get your priorities right.

God help America, and I am being NOT sarcastic!



(AP photo: Ms. Jackson's [whoever that is -- did I spell the name correctly?] clearly "inadvertently" exposed tit! After all, we ALL wear nipple adornments like that ALL the time, right, Girlzz?)