KRAKOW, Poland – U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says the Obama administration will seek $15 million contribution to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation.So while the empathy for and solidarity with dead Jews is strong (and cheap), the same Obama administration that gets quite dewy-eyed and sombre over a world that must never again allow a place of such hatred to scar the soul of humankind, is blocking key weapons projects for Israel, rejecting requests for AH-64D Apache Longbow helicopters, while at exactly the same time happily approving advanced F-16 multi-role fighters for Egypt plus approving more than $10 billion worth of arms sales to Arab League states, including Kuwait, Jordan, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates who all have a key interest in the survival of the Jewish people and not to allow ever again a place of such hatred to scar the soul of humankind.
She made the pledge while visiting the Oskar Shchindler [sic!] enamel factory where the German protected Jews from the Holocaust.
“Today I am proud to announce the intention of the Obama Administration to work with Congress to secure $15 million in funding for the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation,” she said.
“We encourage other nations to join us in contributing to this fund. In just one year, 2009 alone, more than 1.3 million people from around the world visited the museum and memorial of Auschwitz,” Clinton added during a sombre speech.
“Our contribution will help preserve the camp so that future generations can see for themselves why the world must never again allow a place of such hatred to scar the soul of humankind,” she said.
And to let no doubt whatsoever that this ilk is totally unembarrassable, she goes on:
“We see here the two realities of the Holocaust. One involves the cold, mechanized slaughter of millions of men, and women, and children, many of them wrenched from their communities, herded into boxcars by their neighbors and sent to die, including, not far from here, in the gas chambers of Auschwitz,” Clinton said.First, dear Hillary, only Jews use the term "Shoa". Gentiles who do so show a deplorable lack of taste, distance, discernment and respect. And no, there are NOT "two realities of the Holocaust". It was NOT not about "scars on the souls of humankind", but about six million dead Jews. Rememberance isn't, either, about restaging "thousands who risked lives, fortunes, and reputations to rescue friends and strangers" who wouldn't have needed to do that in the first place, hadn't millions of others, the overwhelming majority, done nothing -- or gleefully complied. Trust anybody as debased as yourself and the faux Messiah in the White House to turn remembrance of the Holocaust into a feel good experience for gentiles.
“And yet we also see and are heightened by the stories of the righteous, the thousands who risked lives, fortunes, and reputations to rescue friends and strangers from the horrors of the Shoah,” she added.
“The courage of Oskar Schindler and Minister Bartoszewski gives us proof that, in the face of the worst that humanity is capable of, there are amongst us individuals who are defiant, and who are unwilling to accept that alternative reality.
“We have an obligation to remember both sides of that experience of the Holocaust,” she said.
9 comments:
This $15 million for Auschwitz is clearly an insurance policy to ward off accusations of antisemitism as Obama and Hillary twist the thumbscrews on Israel and poor PM Netanyahu.
That was my second reaction to this bit of news. My first reaction was why can't the habitual export-surplus Germans maintain Auschwitz by themselves since they are more flush with cash than anyone else at the moment. The WSJ reported that the German Trade Lobby reported German exports up 8% in 2010, but then they complained about increasing trade restrictions. Now I wonder why other countries would slap on tariffs on German goods?
What Americans need is a weak parliamentary government as is found in most countries. That way, our politicians could say we'd like to help, but if we spend too much cash or have too many soldiers overseas too long, the government will fall at any moment (rather than at set times every four years). This worked for Merkel who put off bailing out Greece until a minute before midnight after everyone else pledged a lot of cash. It also worked for most NATO countries who said they can'd send troops anywhere lest the govt fall.
http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20100620-702972.html?mod=WSJ_latestheadlines
FRANKFURT (Dow Jones)--German industry lobby Bund der Industrie Sunday said it expects German exports to rise about 8% this year, calling on the Group of 20 industrial and developing nations to cut trade barriers.
"BDI estimates that an 8% rise of exports in 2010 is likely," said BDI Director Werner Schnappauf. "The German export motor has started...the demand for 'Made in Germany' can help Germany to overcome the crisis."
Schnappauf said it is alarming that as many as 73 new trade barriers have come into force between November and April, while 18 have expired or have been abolished.
Of course dead Jews are easy to deal with. The fact that Obama has not dealt with eliminationalist policies
from Hamas is just another detail. Everyone is expected to do as Obama says because he is above common sense.
I guess here's how Hillary plans to raise the $15 million for Auschwitz--a tariff on German imports:
US may raise tariff on German imported cars
http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,706043,00.html
excerpt: ...US politicians are concerned it has more to do with EU trade policy. In conversation with German auto industry leaders, political leaders from Washington pointed to the fact that Europe charges a 10 percent tariff on cars imported from the US. Automobiles heading into the US from Europe, however, are only taxed with a 2.5 percent levy.
It's a power play, and a matter of who can live better without the other's cars.
Power play is right. Or better, every man for himself.
No government is doing what the others want, but instead are trying to shore up their finances to maintain their credit worthiness, and get lower longterm interest rates from lenders. They no longer care whether lack of govt spending will lead to a longer, deeper global recession. Taxing imports will shore up US govt finances.
Anyway, it's hard to believe the US had such a low tax rate for German cars in the first place, since usually there's reciprocity in rates. It's as though Germany had a one-way free trade agreement with the US!
Here's my explanation as to why luxury cars from Germany were not taxed much. Ever since 1974 and the Roe vs Wade abortion decision, the religious have overwhelmingly voted Republican. Before that, the religious vote was split between the two parties. That gave Republicans and the business sector enormous political power they never had before. Reagan capitalized on this (he got the Pro-Life religious vote) and he lowered the maximum tax rate to 29%, which meant the poor got poorer and less educated, and the rich got richer (see the Gini Index).
Since the Republicans were in power so long, there are many built in inequities that Americans are slowly finding out about. For instance, every American has 3 companies tracking their credit scores (Equifax, etc), yet there's no national e-health records at all, much less national health care. The US-Mexican border is never secured because the rich want their cheap drugs and day laborers. The rich can import luxury cars near tax and duty free, etc., etc.
That is to say, religious people are naturally ill-educated. Well, try me for size, friend, and you might think again. As for ignorance, try those University of Illinois students who forced the university to sack a professor because he was teaching them that Catholic doctrine opposes homosexual activity. I take it that that represents education, not the reinforcing of ignorance by aggressive prejudice?
I didn't take Bruce's comment as a statement saying that religious people are less educated.
The case of the University of Illinois professor of which you made me aware is quite telling: ""Teaching a student about the tenets of a religion is one thing," the student wrote. "Declaring that homosexual acts violate the natural laws of man is another."
Howell said he was teaching his students about the Catholic understanding of natural moral law.
"My responsibility on teaching a class on Catholicism is to teach what the Catholic Church teaches," Howell said in an interview with The News-Gazette in Champaign. "I have always made it very, very clear to my students they are never required to believe what I'm teaching and they'll never be judged on that."
Howell also said he makes clear to his students that he's Catholic and that he believes the church views that he teaches."
So a teacher of theology must not believe -- or must not SAY that he believes -- in the faith the structures of which he is teaching. Given that, we can safely assume that the next Ratzinger won't come from an American university.
Hi FPB,
I'd never say the religious are ill-educated since here in the US at least, regular churchgoers have college degrees at twice the rate of the general populace, and are wealthier on average--plus I'm religious and (others would say) well educated, but I would say I was mis-educated. (The education system in the US is bad compared to Europe. For example, people take math, language, music, etc, classes for years here, and never develop any skill set, much less marketable skill set, and are never expected to unless they are a "natural" at something. Education here is mostly a waste of time and money. Many (most?) can't even spell well, or know good English grammar!). The situation has only improved a little since No Child Left Behind dealt with the egregiously mis-educating schools.
The reason that more religious people are voting Democratic is because the number of abortions actually went down during the Clinton years when the Democratic party was most irreligious (and in power after Gulf War I). Evidently it was because more welfare was provided, and support to unwed mothers.
Also, lately, the Democratic party has become less antagonistic toward the religious--but only because they are tired of being out of power, and they finally figured out why they were out of power. They only got in power again after Gulf War II (Iraq). (Wars often usher the party in power to the sidelines.)
Now the reason the Democratic Party was out of power is until Fox News and the internet came along in the 1990s, the Big Three Networks (ABC, NBC, CBS) and other news outlets would always under-represent how religious Americans were. So the evolution believers (which includes most Catholics) would actually scoff at people who they found out were creationists, not realizing how many people/voters they were scoffing at. Even though there were polls started in the 1980s showing that 48% of Americans were Biblical creationists, and only 12% believed in Darwinianism, and the rest held some notion in between, the media (which saturates society with its opinion) presented creationists as being Hillbilly types who represented a small and dwindling portion of the population. Now that the truth is known, it caused the atheists to wake up and go on a crusade, and now they are known as the New Atheists, but they aren't convincing very many.
"The situation has only improved a little since No Child Left Behind dealt with the egregiously mis-educating schools."
Actually I might disagree with you there Bruce. My wife is a teacher and I was on the local school board for nine years. After all the hurrah, the only thing that really seemed to change with the act was that there was more federal paperwork to file. It also seems to take the old "one size fits all" approach to education. Consequently, our little rural school had to comply with the same rules that large inner schools had to follow. I do agree with you about mis-education in the public schools. History and social studies seems to have been dropped off the board in the public school system. When Jay Leno does his "man on the street" questions about American history, it may be funny to the viewers but it scares the heck out of me. If people don't know their history and culture, anyone can sell them a bill of goods. There is a breakdown in discipline in schools but its not just their fault: there is a breakdown in family discipline as well.
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