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June 6, 2009
Links June 6 09

Please add your links, views and news in the comments.

Posted by b on June 6, 2009 at 06:24 UTC | Permalink
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WRT Buchenwald :
You gotta be kiddin me B.
For god’s sake, it was a place of death, despair, and lost hope.
Why would you fucking quibble over semantics WRT to the deaths that took place there, as part of the HORRORS that Nazi Germany propagated upon so many millions of people?
Buchenwald was a place of death, death IMPOSED upon people’s by the Nazi German Country.
Whether they were gassed or not, is really a bullshit needle in a haystack.
I’m embarassed you’d pull the needle. Yer usually spot on.
Harumph.

Posted by: larue | Jun 6 2009 6:44 utc | 1

what I meant when I posted that link and I suppose b meant:
the Nazis killed communists, social democrats, anarchists and any decent German who did not agree with their regime, Russians, Poles, Sinti and Roma, Jews and some Christians who took their religion serious enough to object.
Buchenwald above all was a “political” concentration camp. To transform this to a story of Germans and Jews and Holocaust denial is ahistorical to say the least.
Angela Merkel – to her merit – quotes what Buchenwald really stands for before she pays lip service to Obama’s political agenda:
“On the 25th of January, the presidents of the associations of former inmates at the concentration camps presented their bequest to the public, and this bequest closes with the following words, and I quote:
“The last eyewitnesses appeal to Germany, to all European states, and to the international community to continue preserving and honoring the human gift of remembrance and commemoration into the future.
“We ask young people to carry on our struggle against Nazi ideology and for a just, peaceful and tolerant world, a world that has no place for anti-Semitism, racism, xenophobia and right-wing extremist.” End of quote.

Posted by: outsider | Jun 6 2009 8:14 utc | 2

@larue – just like outsider says.
The holocaust is a distinct event marked by industrial killing of a perceived race. Remembrance of the holocaust is today used as political tool to justify Israel’s existence as a “Jewish state” and behavior.
Buchenwald had a totally different function. It was a camp for killing (mostly by working to death) political prisoners.
To use Buchenwald as an example for the holocaust is indeed false. While it is important to point out the holocaust using Buchenwald to do so is wrong. It diminishes the important lesson Buchenwald tells of the resistance against the Nazis.

Posted by: b | Jun 6 2009 8:45 utc | 3

While agreeing that it is a mistake to claim Buchenwald as part of the industrial scale killing that constituted the Holocaust as it gives support to Holocaust deniers***, I think it quite ironic (and tragic) that about a quarter of the deaths at Buchenwald were Soviet pisioners of war who were denied protection under the Geneva Convention by the Germans – a lesson to all, especially the US, of how dangerous that slippery slope is.
And yes, I know that Soviet treatment of German PoWs was also terrible but the Soviet Union (contrary to what some conservative historians now argue) did not invade Germany until after the Soviet Union was attacked.
*** Immediately after the war, the idea that all concentration camps had gas chambers became widely believed. Except for Dachau, which had a small gas chamber largely for development purposes, the only camps that really had gas chambers were the extermination camps in eastern Europe. This fact was duely trotted out by Holocaust deniers.

Posted by: blowback | Jun 6 2009 9:36 utc | 4

yes, and Auschwitz was freed by the Soviet Union, not the US …
history does not consist of simple stories

Posted by: outsider | Jun 6 2009 9:53 utc | 5

actually apart from history the politics of this visit are interesting. It is a far cry from Ronald Reagan’s Bitburg visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitburg
and the word is that the Dresden visit was a concession by the US administration who wanted the symbolism of Buchenwald and the US base.
Right wingers and conservatives tend to prefer to be proud of their country to discussing the dark side of nationalism and patrotism, they are Angela Merkel’s constituency and Angela Merkel is in an election year, however should the left win this election – and they are in no shape to do so, they are likely to be more anti US interests than the conservatives …

Posted by: outsider | Jun 6 2009 10:51 utc | 6

Well, everyone above is concerned with the damned Holocaust which, yes, did occur, but I’m frankly sick of its abuse by the descendants of its victims.
I thought the piece on Bush’s announcement that he was “going to invade Iraq” to be much more relevant to what’s going on today than endless discussions about the Holocaust. Don’t Americans always say to Iran: “Sure, we overthrew your government, installed our own dictator, destroyed your democracy, helped Iraq invade you with a million dead and 5 million walking wounded, but gee: This is a new dawn, Obama’s here to put things right, so get over it, stop dwelling in the past and learn to ‘move on'”.
“Get over it”??? I wish domeone would tell that to the damned Holocaust-worshippers and to the Nazi Jews who are trying to exterminate the Palestinians, including Fascist leaders Netayahu and Lieberman who has officially laid claim (see the Likud Charter) to the entire West bank and Gaza as part of Greater Israel.
Fuck the Holocaust, fuck the Jews, Muslims, Christians and all the other loonies who ‘prey’ instead of ‘pray’.

Posted by: Parviz | Jun 6 2009 12:13 utc | 7

Now that I’ve let off some steam, let me comment on the Iran Election link, in case anyone’s interested. Since I mistakenly forecasted a Khatemi victory several months ago you may as well take my comments with a pinch of salt — Of course, I can now wiggle my way out of it by arguing that Khatemi has joined forces with Ahmadinejad’s prime opponent Moussavi and that his picture and Moussavi’s often appear on the same poster 😉
1. The Ahmadinejad-Moussavi debate
Ahmadinejad may have committed political suicide by attacking, live on national television, the second most powerful family in Iran (the Rafsanjani family) and another powerful cleric (Nategh-Nouri) as totally corrupt. Some say this was planned, but everyone I have spoken to down here agrees it was a mental meltdown by Ahmadinejad who thinks that confrontation and provocation are ALWAYS the keys to success. The 2 candidates threw accusation and counter-accusation at each other, with Ahmadinejad even attacking Moussavi’s wife, a definite no-no in Iranian culture. = 5 minus points for Ahmadinejad.
2. Moussavi-Rezaie debate (June 4th)
This was a love-fest, with both speaking graciously of each other’s courageous efforts to save Iran from the Iraqis (Where was Ahmadinejad at the time?) and slamming Ahmadinejad on the horrific state of the Iranian economy. Since former Revolutionary Guards Commander Rezaie is a definite hardliner he may have swung votes against Ahmadinejad and simultaneously legitimized Moussavi. = 2 minus points for Ahmadinejad.
3. Ahmadinejad-Karroubi debate (tonight, June 6th)
Karroubi is a clerical firebrand who has claimed that the first round of voting 4 years ago was rigged and that he should have faced the powerful but unpopular Rafsanjani in the run-off (in which case it is widely acknowledged Karroubi would have won the presidency). I believe Karroubi tonight is going to be exceptionally provocative to maintain (and even surpass) the enthusiasm generated by the Ahmadinejad-Moussavi debate, thereby guaranteeing a high turnout. = Probably 5 minus points for Ahmadinejad, and maybe more if he loses his temper again.
THE MEANING OF ALL THIS
Amadinejad won 4 years ago because he stood (in the 2nd round of voting) against the most unpopular and allegedly corrupt person in Iran. Even then Ahmadinejad gained only 15 million votes (including the rigged ones)and Rafsanjani 10 million. Almost 20 million people didn’t vote because of apathy, boycotts and whatever.
Today, if the reformists can bring out even half the 20 million who didn’t vote 4 years ago they will win handsomely, because it is generally recognized that the Information Ministry can rig up to a maximum 5 million votes but not more, especially as this time the other candidates (especially Karroubi) will have their own monitors looking out for voter fraud.
I predict a Moussavi victory. But don’t put any money on it 😉

Posted by: Parviz | Jun 6 2009 12:39 utc | 8

The Baker book cited in the first link is phenomenal. Everyone in America should be forced to read it at gunpoint.

Posted by: …—… | Jun 6 2009 13:11 utc | 9

weren’t only 58,000 killed at Buchenwald? Isn’t this something like traffic fatalities, death via McDonalds or something? Hell, we nearly lost that many due to excessively hot coffee.
Truly, 58K isn’t many when we hear charges that this wasn’t one percent of the Jews that were killed. If this was a “killing camp” they weren’t very efficient.
How many Americans die in prison each year? I seriously would bet that we lose 15k per yr. That is the same number of death in 4 yrs.

Posted by: scott | Jun 6 2009 13:47 utc | 10

Parviz
I think that it’s also worth emphasizing that in 2005 a fair portion of the Iranian electorate felt that the election didn’t matter; I doubt that this factor will play this time around, as it’s now clear that the Iranian presidency is – as it should be – an office of real political heft and substantive executive power, both domestically and internationally.
FWIW, until the first debate, my best guess was that Ahmadinejad would win. Critiquing/Attacking powerful clerics is fair enough – in the end they’re big boys who can take care of themselves; dissing Madame Moussavi, however, is going to be seen in retrospect as Ahmadinejad’s “there you go again” moment.

Posted by: dan | Jun 6 2009 13:58 utc | 11

And I guess leave it to the goof to weigh-in on the Pizza video… Anything that can make me laugh is worth a watch – (even O’Reilly getting waterboarded.) But funny feces.
Personally I’d have to agree with Parviz on the whole Holocaust bruhaha. I’m sick and tired of hearing about it. NPR manages to get at least two references to it each day in their four hours of news and those two references are magnified because of how NPR repeats their stories from each hour.
Yet we don’t hear about the genocide committed upon our very own native americans, union workers and any of the others whom the powers-that-be thought of as a nuisance.
I’m not sure what to really believe about the events of WWII, there are too many inconsistencies in the various accounts of what happened in the camps for me to feel assured that I know the “truth.” That the war was a horror is obvious; that we haven’t learned shit since is also painfully obvious: Korea, Vietnam, South America, Panama, Granada, Iraq, Afghanistan, just to name a few that stand out in my mind.
War sucks as much now as it ever has. The Po’ Folk always get shafted and the rich assholes grow into even richer assholes. The only reason wars have happened in modern times is that the bankers have stood to make money from both sides, otherwise I doubt any war would have been allowed to escalate.
Go Bankers!

Posted by: DavidS | Jun 6 2009 14:33 utc | 12

Another thought to the holocaust and Buchenwald.
I do not want to diminish the holocaust, one of the biggest crimes of the 20th century.
But if one studies the history of the third reich there are several phases one should see that there is a difference in the camps and that one can learn from that.
1933 – Nazis taking power after the Reichstags fire. Imprisonment of communists and socialist. First concentration camps usually as “working camps” for people in “protective custody”.
1933 – 1936 – economic rise out of the mess of the 1920s and depression peeking in the Olympics in Berlin. This phase gave Hitler backing in the population. Lots of indoctrination but internal suppression was rather light.
1936 – 1941- The “consolidation phase” – attaching Austria , Czechia etc. – internal pressure turns to “anti-socials” (gays, bums etc) and the Jews. Chrystal night pogrom in November 1938. Attack on Poland to reattach the former German areas of Gdansk. Still the concentration camps were working camps usually dedicated to special projects like drying a swamp or building a tunnel (with lots of people dying from working and to little care and food) and for political suppression of all upcoming criticism.
Then the maniac phase.
1941 – Start of the war against the Soviet union. Building of the first killing camps in the far east (from Germany.) These were the holocaust camps which first also used working to kill but because of the number of incoming prisoners were turned into industrial killing machines.
Camps like Buchenwald never had the primary role to kill (that is why the numbers killed in Buchenwald is rather small) but were political suppression camps.
Looking at that history one will recognize that the maniac phase would not have been possible without the other phases.
The lesson for me is if one wants to prevent another holocaust one must prevent the first phases as they happened in Germany.
There was a mental/intellectual slide in the various involved government departments (police, justice) downhill into hell and over several years from the very first “protective custody” of opposition politicians through the encampment of “unwanted persons”, race pogroms and into the hell of the holocaust.
Stop the first phase and the likelihood of the last phase to ever happen will be much smaller.
That is the lesson from Buchenwald.

Posted by: b | Jun 6 2009 15:22 utc | 13

One thing we learn from history is that people prefer to be led down the ramp to hell rather than climb-up the few steps to heaven. Why are humans predisposed to destroy?
Isn’t odd that it is easier to find people who want to “punish” bad people than it is to find people who are willing to help keep people from becoming “bad” in the first place?
The masses have become so poisoned by ideology they forget those “others” are almost exactly the same as them. Our bodies are polluted and our minds have turned to mush from sitting in front of televisions and eating crap and yet we in the west are so quick to judge people who just want to eat and have water to drink.
The West has faucets and indoor toilets… imagine the typical Westerner having to shit under the stars when nature calls in the middle of the night. And the first day without a shower would drive them insane, let alone weeks of washing in water their civilized self would consider unfit for the sewer lines removing their squeaky-clean feces from their suburban shit houses.
These bastards will vote wars and preach hate as long as it keeps their shit flowing downhill… but I sense they’re flushing too much crap and their pipes are starting to back-up… hence all the brown-eyed politicians.

Posted by: DavidS | Jun 6 2009 16:17 utc | 14

dan, you’re absolutely right about Madame Moussavi who holds 2 doctorates and is a leading campaigner for women’s rights. Ahmadinejad lost a lot of women’s votes with his scornful mocking of Madame Moussavi’s genuine qualifications (unlike Ahmadinejad’s ‘traffic’ Ph.D. about which he is so proud).
However, you underestimate the danger the incumbent placed himself in by accusing Iran’s 2nd most powergful clinic of corruption on state television, at the same time mentioning the cleric’s ‘corrupt children’ by name. This is unprecedented since the Revolution. He’s made more powerful domestic enemies in 90 minutes than he did during the preceding 3 years and 350 days.

Posted by: Parviz | Jun 6 2009 16:37 utc | 15

The ritual observation of the holocaust is now a ceremonial obligation for the western world, from presidents to school children. To question the accepted story is a sign of moral depravity and evil intentions punishable by a prison stay in some parts of Europe. Would have been nice if Obama had visited Gaza but that might have brought up the issue of “moral equivalency” and that is forbidden. Believe, belong and behave.

Posted by: MeanMrMustard | Jun 6 2009 16:39 utc | 16

It’s half an hour after midnight down here and I just witnessed sparks flying between presidential contenders Ahmadinejad and Karroubi who spent 90 minutes accusing each other of serial corruption and gross incompetence!!! I’m too tired to provide details but I’m sure there’ll be a huge write-up in the mainstream media tomorrow.
A huge turn-out on June 12th is virtually guaranteed, which should benefit Moussavi who is corruption-free, experienced and also highly competent.

Posted by: Parviz | Jun 6 2009 20:04 utc | 17

The NYTimes seems to need better editing: This article by Ethan Bronner has an inflammatory lede, but there’s no “there there” to back up the assertions.

Iran seems to be hurtling toward nuclear weapons capacity, Hezbollah could win Sunday’s election in Lebanon and Hamas is smuggling long-range rockets into Gaza again. So why is President Obama focusing such attention on the building of homes by Israeli Jews in the West Bank?

However, the next paragraph says these are reasons for Bibi’s pushback against Obama’s new policies toward Israel. Of course, a reader just skimming, who might not go beyond the first paragraph, will not see that.

That, in essence, is the question being angrily posed by the Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and underscores one of the biggest shifts in American policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in three decades. While every administration has objected to Israeli settlement building in occupied lands, the Obama administration has selected it as the opening issue that could begin to untie the Gordian knot of the conflict.

Well, at least the first paragraph is attention grabbing, sort of…. Misleading, absolutely. So, perhaps it meets AIPAC’s objectives–get the ideas out there, even if not factbased.

Posted by: jawbone | Jun 6 2009 20:16 utc | 18

Is Obama rewriting history for D-day?
“It was unknowable then, but so much of the progress that would define the 20th century, on both sides of the Atlantic, came down to the battle for a slice of beach only six miles long and two miles wide,” Obama said.
The D-day invasion was a sideshow, the main event, the Eastern Front where the German Army sufferred 80% of its casualties. Perhaps, in three years time, world leaders should descend on Volgagrad to celebrate the real turning point of the war and honour the 29 million citizens of the Soviet Union who died to rid this world of the Nazis.
Maybe he is recognizing that without success on D-day, the USA would never have achieved hegemony in Europe as the Soviet Union would have most likely occupied the whole of mainland Europe and the Americans would have had to sit out the Cold War on a shitty little island off the north-west coast of Europe.

Posted by: blowback | Jun 6 2009 20:32 utc | 19

as alway this time of year, hostory thrown out the windo – or is non existant at all
65 years ago d-day was a sideshow & that is reflected by the number of german divisions in the west & what was the make up of those forces(old men, young recruits, wounded men from the eastern front etc etc)
the real liberation of europe occurred in moscow, in stalingrad, in kursk & almost everywhere else in the east
& it is sad the france must be reminded that the first lights of resistance/liberation was from armenians, german & polish jews, spaniards who had fought in the civil war – all those who formed ‘l’affiche rouge’ who were never honoured for the courageous & exemplary acts
& it is sad to remind france that the bloodiest fighting was done at their behest by algerians, by morrocans, by africans – whether it was in clomar or the pocket of st nazaire
the fabrication of history is something that has always deeply disgusted me & the way the elites drown themselves in this fabrication is just one more obscenity that makes life seem like a shadow

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 6 2009 20:42 utc | 20

@20,
At least the French have a Stalingrad stop on the Metro in Paris. No Normandie one though.

Posted by: biklett | Jun 7 2009 3:42 utc | 21

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