Why the Holocaust Should Matter to You People tour the nation’s capital to be delighted by symbols of America’s greatness and history. They seek out monuments and museums that pay tribute to the nation state and its works. They want to think about the epic struggles of the past, and how mighty leaders confronted and vanquished enemies at home and abroad. But what if there was a monument that took a different tack? What if this museum was dedicated to memorializing one of history’s most ghastly experiments in imperial conquest, demographic expulsion, and eventual extermination, to help us understand it and never repeat it? Such a museum does exist. I lived in Washington, DC, when the Holocaust Museum was being built, and I vaguely recall when it opened. The answer is yes. The transformation the visitor feels is intellectual but also even physical: as you approach the halfway point you notice an increase in your heart rate and even a pit in your stomach. Misconceptions The museum is not maudlin or manipulative. What Can We Learn?
FBI Papers on the Jewish Plot To Kill Hitler “In 1933, I was approached by someone respectable, a Jew not involved in any criminal activity, and asked for my help. He wanted me to contact some of my underworld pals in a plan to kill Hitler.” I stared at the man sitting across from me. Still, I wrote down what he told me. My source’s nickname was “Dutch.” I recall Dutch as being about 5 feet 7 and of stocky build with thinning gray hair. Dutch looked at me for awhile. Dutch finished his story about the alleged scheme to kill Hitler by saying that after he had been approached, he “talked to some of the boys about it. When he finished, I asked him if he had hard evidence on this plot. “I’m talking about documents, letters; I’m a historian after all. He laughed. A year later I was doing research in the archives of the FBI building in Washington. The file, number 65-53615, details a plot involving one man. German diplomats demanded an immediate and full investigation of the threat. Attorney General Cummings turned to J.
President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points 8 January, 1918: President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points It will be our wish and purpose that the processes of peace, when they are begun, shall be absolutely open and that they shall involve and permit henceforth no secret understandings of any kind. The day of conquest and aggrandizement is gone by; so is also the day of secret covenants entered into in the interest of particular governments and likely at some unlooked-for moment to upset the peace of the world. It is this happy fact, now clear to the view of every public man whose thoughts do not still linger in an age that is dead and gone, which makes it possible for every nation whose purposes are consistent with justice and the peace of the world to avow nor or at any other time the objects it has in view. I. II. III. IV. V. VI. VII. VIII. IX. X. XI. XII. XIII. XIV.
neo-neocon » Blog Archive » Living under Hitler, living under Stalin Commmenter “Tom G” writes: …[N]on-Jewish “German life in Nazi Germany” before and thru the war was a heck of lot better than “Russian life in the USSR”. Knowing what I know now, if I had to choose how to live thru that time, I’d have chosen to live under Hitler rather than Stalin (being also non-Jewish).“German life in Nazi Germany” before and thru the war was a heck of lot better than “Russian life in the USSR”. It’s one of those choices that are interesting to talk about but something we can all be grateful we don’t have to actually make (not literally between Hitler and Stalin, anyway). Of course, attempting to compare even hypothetically is fraught with difficulties, because the analogy doesn’t really work. If you’d like to read an important book on the ways in which the Nazis consolidated their power in Germany step by vicious, insidious, and thuggish step, take a look at The Nazi Seizure of Power: The Experience of a Single German Town, 1930-1935 . ), which relate a similar tale.
Bernie Sanders Wants Me to Apologize for Something I Didn’t Do It’s hard getting old. Bernie Sanders is getting old and he’s not thinking straight. It doesn’t help that his political philosophy is out of whack. His latest scheme to get votes is demanding that white America apologize for slavery. Not to mention the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act, Affirmative Action, the expanding welfare system, the War on Poverty, naming streets after Martin Luther King, Jr., establishing the Martin Luther King, Jr. Slavery was evil from the get go. Let’s get a few things straight. First, I’ve never kidnapped anyone or enslaved anyone. Second, neither I nor any other non-slave holder should have to apologize for something they did not do. Third, my ancestors came from Italy and settled in the United States in the early part of the 20th century. Then there are the Chinese who were used like slave labor in building the railroads. Calls for apologies and reparations are all about money and the consolidation of political power. Comments comments
The 25 Most Evil People in History | 25 Most Evil People In History List of Presidents of the United States by age This is a list of United States Presidents by age. This table can be sorted to display United States Presidents by name, order of office, date of birth, age at inauguration, length of retirement, or lifespan. Age at inauguration is determined by the day a president assumed office, not the day of the election. Two measures of longevity are given; this is to allow for the differing number of leap days occurring within the life of each President. The first figure is the number of days between date of birth and date of death, allowing for leap days; in parentheses the same period given in years and days, with the years being the number of whole years that the President lived, and the days being the remaining number of days after his last birthday. Overview[edit] Age of presidents when assuming office approximately follows a bell curve (mean age marked by red line, c. 55 years) The average age of accession is 54 years and 11 months, which falls between Herbert Hoover (22nd) and Lyndon B.
An Account of the Leopold and Loeb Case A tragedy of three young lost lives, a dead fourteen-year-old victim and the imprisonment of two teenage killers, unfolded in Chicago in 1924. The murder trial of Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold that shocked the nation is best remembered decades later for the twelve-hour long plea of Clarence Darrow to save his young clients from the gallows. His summation, rambling and disorganized as it was at times, stands as one of the most eloquent attacks on the death penalty ever delivered in an American courtroom. Mixing poetry and prose, science and emotion, a world-weary cynicism and a dedication to his cause, hatred of bloodlust and love of man, Darrow takes his audience on an oratorical ride that would be unimaginable in a criminal trial today. The crime that captured national attention in 1924 began as a fantasy in the mind of eighteen-year old Richard Loeb, the handsome and privileged son of a retired Sears Roebuck vice president. Loeb and Leopold had an intense and stormy relationship.
Scholars Debunk ‘Times’ Article on Temple Mount History is too vast, and time too short, to waste on fool-proofing for nonsense, which is why you won’t find serious historians spending their time de-bunking late-night pseudo-documentaries about the alien landing in Nevada that set off the Cold War or the super-secret advanced society that ruled the lost continent of Atlantis. But what happens when a marginal, crackpot theory makes its way into a major media outlet, where it has been deployed, consciously or not, for insidious political purposes? From Thursday’s New York Times: Within Jerusalem’s holiest site, known as the Temple Mount to Jews and the Noble Sanctuary to Muslims, lies an explosive historical question that cuts to the essence of competing claims to what may be the world’s most contested piece of real estate. The second paragraph frames the issue of the temples’ location as a matter of legitimate difference—in fact, a bone of serious contention among experts. It appears that that they did no such thing. Magness added:
Constitutionally, Slavery Is No National Institution Photo THE Civil War began over a simple question: Did the Constitution of the United States recognize slavery — property in humans — in national law? Southern slaveholders, inspired by Senator John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, charged that it did and that the Constitution was proslavery; Northern Republicans, led by , and joined by abolitionists including , resolutely denied it. The war settled this central question on the side of Lincoln and Douglass. Continue reading the main story But as far as the nation’s founding is concerned, it is not a fact, as Lincoln and Douglass explained. Yes, slavery was a powerful institution in 1787. (himself a slaveholder) opposed the ardent proslavery delegates and stated that it would be “wrong to admit in the Constitution the idea that there could be property in men.” The property question was the key controversy. The South did win some concessions at the convention, but they were largely consolation prizes. Photo Continue reading the main story
Mises Daily Old people in Sweden say that to be Swedish means to supply for your own, to take care of your self, and never be a burden on anyone else's shoulders. Independence and hard work was the common perception of a decent life, and the common perception of morality. That was less than one hundred years ago. My late grandmother used to say something had gone wrong with the world. She was proud to never have asked for help, to have always been able to rely on herself and her husband, proud that they could throughout their lives care for their family. My grandmother, born in 1920, was of the last generation to have that special personal pride, of having a firm and deeply rooted morality, of being a sovereign in life no matter what — to be the sole master of one's fate. Their morality assured they could survive any condition. They would gladly offer to help those in need even if they only had little, but were not likely to accept anyone's help if offered. Decent morality is long gone.
Fidel Castro slaughtered his critics and brought the world to the brink of Armageddon While his modish Western admirers liked to call him ‘Fidel’, the despotic President Castro’s frightened subjects dared not speak his name. They feared they would be overheard by ever-present secret police spies who made East Germany’s Stasi look like amateurs. Glancing around nervously, they would mime either a beard or a set of epaulettes, before speaking in whispers about the tyrant who dominated every aspect of their hungry, censored lives. No wonder. Cuban Prime Minister Fidel Castro (right) with Argentine guerrilla leader Ernesto Che Guevara (Taken in the 1960s) Though this apparatus endures to this day, it was originally the sword and shield of the Communist system which Castro first embraced when he became the USSR’s ally in 1959. In this role, he nearly ended the world by welcoming Soviet nuclear missiles into Cuba, a few minutes flying time from Washington and New York. And the collapse of the USSR left Cuba without its main protector and source of cash. Who was he really?