De Ja Vu all over again. All over again

If you know your history, Neville Chamberlain will ring a bell. If you don't, let me share with you a story.

 

 

 

How the Allies responded to the persecution of the Jews and what might they have done differently...

The response of the Allies to the persecution and destruction of European Jewry was inadequate. Only in January 1944 was an agency, the War Refugee Board, established for the express purpose of saving the victims of Nazi persecution. Prior to that date, little action was taken. On December 17, 1942, the Allies issued a condemnation of Nazi atrocities against the Jews, but this was the only such declaration made prior to 1944.

Moreover, no attempt was made to call upon the local population in Europe to refrain from assisting the Nazis in their systematic murder of the Jews. Even following the establishment of the War Refugee Board and the initiation of various rescue efforts, the Allies refused to bomb the death camp of Auschwitz and/or the railway lines leading to that camp, despite the fact that Allied bombers were at that time engaged in bombing factories very close to the camp and were well aware of its existence and function.

Other practical measures which were not taken concerned the refugee problem. Tens of thousands of Jews sought to enter the United States, but they were barred from doing so by the stringent American immigration policy. Even the relatively small quotas of visas which existed were often not filled, although the number of applicants was usually many times the number of available places. Conferences held in Evian, France (1938) and Bermuda (1943) to solve the refugee problem did not contribute to a solution. At the former, the countries invited by the United States and Great Britain were told that no country would be asked to change its immigration laws. Moreover, the British agreed to participate only if Palestine were not considered. At Bermuda, the delegates did not deal with the fate of those still in Nazi hands, but rather with those who had already escaped to neutral lands. Practical measures which could have aided in the rescue of Jews included the following:

• Permission for temporary admission of refugees
• Relaxation of stringent entry requirements
• Frequent and unequivocal warnings to Germany and local populations all over Europe that those participating in the annihilation of Jews would be held strictly accountable
• Bombing the death camp at Auschwitz 

-Courtesy The Museum of Tolerance

You see, Neville is best known for his 'appeasement foreign policy', specifically for his signing of the Munich Agreement in 1938 conceding the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia to Adolf Hitler's Germany. And so, even if you don't know Neville, you are surely aware how this story ended.

Yesterday Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke before a joint session of congress pleading for America to understand the dangers of its current appeasement foreign policy, specifically with Iran. And what was our governments response? Nancy Pelosi summed up the Obama administrations feelings when she stated it was "insulting to the intelligence of the United States". Well, she might be right, at least with regards to the part of the US around San Francisco, CA. where banning impulse buys to protect goldfish is a sign of advanced intelligence. For the rest of us, not so much.

You remember Iran. Whose Supreme Leader  (really?) Ayatollah Ali Khamenei recently tweeted "Increasing global hatred of #Israel is a sign of divine help", and just this past November sent the following message:
Khamenei.ir@Khamenei    

"This barbaric, wolflike & infanticidal regime of #Israel which spares no crime has no cure but to be annihilated." 7/23/14 #HandsOffAlAqsa

6:15 AM - 8 Nov 2014 

 

There is so much more but I will not waste my time on his not so supreme or advanced intelligence. I will however, ask you dear reader, why our president - Barack Obama - would even consider negotiating with a man of such ideals.

 

“It’s a truism that love is blind; what’s less obvious is just how much evidence it can ignore.”

-Margaret Heffernan

 

Then there is Putin.

 

To date there are over 100 instances of enemies of Vlad winding up dead. That's right. Not one. Not two. And not ten. Over 100! This link identifies some of the more notable murders.

 

"There is already a list of unsolved political murders and attacks in Russia," Amnesty International said in a statement this week. "We cannot allow Boris Nemtsov to become just another name on this list."

 

With Putin already having annexed Crimea and fighting his way into Ukraine, the United States ignores yet another ally while the demographics of the world are changing. This is due in no small part to the Obama administration's appeasement foreign policy.

 

That there are madmen running countries which are devouring the world and building ever more dangerous weapons with the intent of not just harming all Westerners but ruling the world, seems to be of less concern to Obama than hurting said madmen's feelings by calling out their perversion of their religion and the use of that religion to inflict harm on non-believers. In Putin's case 'he' is the religion. And yet the president belittles, denigrates and admonishes republicans daily for their opposing perspective. Not to mention chiding Christians for their behavior in 1189AD. Oops, politically correct faux pas... Make that 1189CE.

 

We have a very serious problem.

 

And of greater concern is that a large percentage of Americans have no clue about the truth - since this information will receive little coverage from CNN, no coverage from NBC and TMZ doesn't even know what the hell is going on. Each of those networks gave plenty of coverage to Cindy Crawford's recent photo however, so at least we all know about and can debate whether her photo was real or fake. 

Let them eat cake... 

 

It has been 77 years since Neville Chamberlain made the mistake of attempting to appease Nazi Germany and Adolf Hitler.

 

All the signs are clear. Iran's leaders and Iranian history cannot be misunderstood and public statements by their leaders must not be ignored. We have to take them at their word:

"The only solution for Crisis is Israel's destruction."
-Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. 
 

If President Obama continues on his quest to sign a nuclear deal - at any cost - with Iran, what will history have to say 77 years from now?

 

“As long as it (an issue) remains invisible, it is guaranteed to remain insoluble.”

-Margaret Heffernan

 

Wake up America!

 

 

 

 

 

 

The march to socialism

"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction."
- Ronald Reagan

History is heaped with failed attempts to create a Utopian society. Included in those attempts are societies that began with no such intention, but, in pursuit of the concept of a socially enlightened, advanced and forward thinking people, shunned their initial values and fell victim to their ideology.

The collapse of a civilization is not a simple thing and in its analysis, history typically points out several contributing factors. Is it a stretch to suggest that changing values and government mismanagement occurring within the Senate played a part in Rome's fall?

That our societies demise might rise up from within is not a new idea in America either. In 1838, speaking to the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, IL Abraham Lincoln declared, "At what point... is the approach of danger to be expected. I answer, if it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us; it cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time, or die by suicide."

Utopianism has long promoted the idea of a paradisaical existence and advanced concepts of an ideal society in which a heroic despot, a benevolent sovereign, or an enlightened oligarchy claims the ability and authority to provide for all the needs and fulfill all the wants of the individual - in exchange for his abject servitude.

In Plato's Republic where the chronically ill are not beneficial to the city and will not be treated, and Thomas More's Utopia where bedtime for everyone is 8pm, we learn that the inhabitants of these ideal societies are necessarily constrained in their daily activities and behaviors in everything from their line of work to sexual reproduction. Indeed their is no  freedom of choice in exchange for all of their 'needs' being prearranged. In Marx's Communist Manifesto, the first sentence reads, "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles." If memory serves me well, neither Stalin or Castro did anything to improve class struggles. For that matter, what has Obama done for class struggles but make them worse?

The proponents of socialism claim that all past failures (and remember - every attempt has failed) are a result of the wrong people in charge. With that in mind, in 2008, candidate Obama stated "We are the one's we've been waiting for."

So - at this weeks Countering Violent Extremism summit we learned that (cannot say Muslim) violent extremists are killing Christians and Jews and Muslim's of dissenting beliefs because of "class struggles". They can't find a job. And we are to believe that one - despite Obama's inability to create jobs in America, he is going to help create them abroad - and two - the manager at the new Starbucks in Yemen will hire a barista whose previous employment includes rape, murder by beheading, and trafficking human slaves. Watch out if you don't leave a tip for that guy...

I find it interesting that after 6 years of implementing his socialism ideology, Obama's America is more divided racially, economically and politically than at any point in my lifetime and the very people who voted for his hope and change are madder now then they were before he took office. What happened?

Obama's attempt to march us to socialism is exposing the failures of previous experiments and while it is happening in ultra-slow motion, Americans are waking up to the consequences.

We want our government to be accountable to us - not for us.

We want the opportunity to advance our social and or economic position to be based upon our individual effort, not our groups list of grievances.

We do not want the government controlling our health care choices.

We expect our government to uphold and protect human rights around the world.

This last point, one which directly challenges the isolation tenets of the Utopian societies identified above, is extremely important. All Americans, regardless of political affiliation, are becoming weary of the cognitive dissonance displayed by the Obama administration towards the years long killings of hundreds of thousands in Syria and the recent brutal and savage killings by ISIS throughout the world. Obama seems willing to wait this one out and let the next president deal with it while he focuses on more important issues like how Fox News is responsible for making Islamic extremism a bigger deal than it really is.

Jeez - I thought the radical Muslim's were doing that. What do I know...

Civilization, the US government - Not ready for prime time!

According to Secretary of State John Kerry, today's massacre resulted not from a conflict between civilizations but rather, one between civilization itself and those who are opposed to a civilized world. Ok, I can buy that. But why didn't he name the "those" supposedly opposed to our civilized world? My guess is because he and his boss are still searching for more civilized terms for radical Islamists or Muslim extremists. They might check out CNN;  anchor Christiane Amanpour called the terrorists activists.

Unless history is corrected, according to the Obama administration we are to know these facts:

1. The 2009 massacre in Fort Hood, killing 13 and wounding 32, was workplace violence.

2. The 2015 massacre in Paris, killing 12 and wounding an as yet unspecified number, is being described as an act of terror but according to Homeland Security Secretary "we don't yet know the nature of the attack".

This despite the assassins pictured above stating, according to multiple witnesses, "Allahu Akbar", "We've avenged the honor of the prophet", and "we are Al Qaeda from Yemen". And just a reminder, Hasan Nidal also shouted Allahu Akbar during his killing spree. Oh, and his business card identified his occupation as a Soldier of Allah. Yeah, I guess in both instances it is hard to say with certainty that these killers were Muslim extremists.

In 1988 a 'fatwa' was issued by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Supreme Leader of Iran, calling for the assassination of Salmon Rushdie for his book The Satanic Verses. That event seems to have ushered in the current crusade of Muslim extremism and they have been out for blood ever since. Literally. Well, we can go back further. Thousands of years, actually. But the Christians appear to have become more civilized in their approach to their faith. In fact, if there is one significant difference between the way Christians and Muslims approach their faith, it is in the way they interpret their religious doctrines. How else can you explain it when the stories of the Bible and the Koran are so similar and many are actually intertwined? Think about the difference between the year 1600 and 2000 and consider what Muslims and Christians were doing then and now on these two issues: the treatment of women; the adaptation of faith to current accepted societal practices. One faith has advanced and one has not even budged.

Civilized (siv-uh-lahyzd)
 adjective

1. having an advanced or humane culture, society, etc.

2. polite; well-bred; refined.

3. of or relating to civilized people:

  -The civilized world must fight ignorance.

4. easy to manage or control; well organized or ordered:

  -The car is quiet and civilized, even in sharp turns.  

Our governments inability to identify or even recognize our enemy is dangerously undermining American freedom at home and around the world.

 



In a broader perspective, this same blame game is playing out on the very institutions put in place to protect us. They are under fire, rather than the real culprits, blamed by the current administration for the ills of society in general. All because the administration is unwilling to call a spade a spade. For you politically correct Oceanian's, before you contact Winston Smith to have me tried for "thoughtcrime's", there is absolutely no racial inference in my previous statement. Jeez. I can't believe I have to qualify that...

Consider the following:

Resisting arrest in two recent cases has, sadly, resulted in the death of those doing the resisting. Completely ignoring the fact that crimes occurred and police orders were not followed, government officials including President Barack Obama, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and Missouri State Senator (white privilege) Maria Chappelle-Nadal, have blamed the police, prematurely I might add, (as Obama did in what resulted in the now infamous Beer Summit with James Crowley). Apparently it was everyone else's fault they chose to attack the cops and resist arrest.

Dianne Feinstein recently outed the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques in what appears to be a parting shot as she exits stage left. Can anyone really blame our leadership (Bush) for giving orders to protect America from further attack, when after September 1st, 2001 the CIA was authorized by congress to use extreme measures? After the Justice Department finished it's "get out of jail free card" now known as the Torture Memos,  Condoleezza Rice told the CIA the harsher interrogation tactics were approved, in July 2002. Dick Cheney stated "I signed off on it; so did others." In 2010, Cheney said, "I was and remain a strong proponent of our enhanced interrogation program." In 2009 Rice stated "We never tortured anyone;" she maintained the abuse was "not torture," "legal", and "right". In addition, in 2002 and 2003, several Democratic congressional leaders were briefed on the proposed "enhanced interrogation techniques." By labeling the attack an act of war, we keep all options on the table; there is no final option or limit to our actions. Ultimately we must do whatever it takes to protect ourselves and insure the survival of America. Don't like it? Move to Cuba.

As been his wont, Obama continues to ignore American allies while encouraging and even propping up American and our allies' enemies. There exists considerable history...

A sampling of nations - all American allies - who have received a backhanded slap from the Obama Administration. We assisted in toppling the thoroughly intimidated neo-American ally Muhammar Gaddafi in Libya, and replaced him with a bloody Islamic extremist state. Obama insulted Britain by returning a Churchill portrait given to his predecessor by Tony Blair. He has double-crossed Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary on missile defense, and wonders why Vladimir Putin feels emboldened to threaten and pressure Ukraine. Obama has ignored Chinese aggression in the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean, to the consternation of our Japanese, South Korean, and Thai allies (and our former Vietnamese enemies, as well as the non-aligned Indians, and Burmese). In a fit of petulance, Obama balked at Iraqi requests on a Status of Forces Agreement, and thereby threw away a hard earned victory, and we are now witnessing the same type of fumble in Afghanistan. Most worrisome, two weeks ago the Chinese and the Russians agreed to bury the hatchet, and have in fact inaugurated a new Sino-Russian Alliance, aimed squarely at the United States of America. This is a geopolitical fact of stunning, and quite worrisome proportions...

This time the president was in Australia for the G-20 Summit in Brisbane. Unlike Britain’s David Cameron, China’s Xi Jinping and India’s Narendra Modi, he apparently had no interest in speaking to the Australian Parliament or making a formal, bilateral visit to Australia while in town.
Instead, Obama made a speech to the Australian version of his political core audience back home - undergraduates at a metropolitan university. Much of the speech at the University of Queensland in Brisbane was standard boilerplate. As usual it lacked a plot but hit the reliable notes, such as the U.S. commitment to Asia, defense of gay rights and the like. Actions often speak louder than words and in their absence, words, or the lack thereof, tell the story.

"In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."
-Martin Luther King, Jr.

Thus it appears that while much of the world trails America's civil growth, I caution you, dear reader, that neither are we where Big Brother will tell you we are. History has always been written by the winners and therefor cannot be factual. It is inherently subjective. Oh yes, I have seen the enemy and he is us!

1/12/15 UPDATE:

The silence is deafening...