Gay life in and outside of New York dominates this year’s Dokumente sidebar. Both Rock Hudson and The Boys in the Band are placed beneath the camera lens. But if camp reappraisal isn’t your cinematic bag, then perhaps a lost Nazi propaganda film or Iran on the eve of a momentous election will be more to the taste. Too grim? In fact, the overall mood is one of celebration, whether it’s being LGBT in Israel or simply pounding the Berlin pavements.

Read the first part of our Panorama Dokumente preview here.

Hazman havarod (Gay Days)

Israel once had a reputation as a homophobic country, with police quick to crack down on gays and transsexuals with violent enthusiasm. In the last decade or so, homosexuality has been decriminalized and Israel now celebrates its gay heritage. A transsexual singer, Dana International, even won the Eurovision Song Contest for Israel in 1998. Yair Qedars examines what he calls “the pink revolution.”
Fun fact lazily taken from Wikipedia: Dana International is now a judge on Israel’s equivalent of American Idol.

I Shot My Love

A funny thing happen when director Tomer Heymann screened his last film Paper Dolls (2005) at the Berlin Film Festival. He met a German dancer, Andreas Merk, and fell in love. Merk moves to Tel Aviv to be with Tomer, but finds life in Israel difficult. The couple’s future also depends on Tomer’s patriotic mother, who is reluctant to let her son leave the country.
Fun fact lazily taken from Wikipedia: Paper Dolls took as its subject Filipino transsexuals working in Israel as caretakers for elderly Orthodox Jews.

Making the Boys

A year before the Stonewall Riots, a play called The Boys in the Band opened in New York to rave reviews. Playwright Mart Crowley pulled the curtain back on a certain type of gay life and audiences couldn’t get enough. This film by Crayton Robey looks at the gestation of Crowley’s work and its impact on gay culture and the mainstream. Interviewees include Edward Albee, Tony Kushner and William Friedkin.
Fun fact lazily taken from Wikipedia: Crowley wrote Band while working as an assistant to Natalie Wood.

New York Memories

In 1990, Rosa von Praunheim premiered Uberleben in New York at Berlin. The film told of a trio of friends and their experiences in 1980s “Drop Dead” Gotham. His latest goes back to the scenes of the crime. Von Praunheim tracks down the stars of the movie and revisits the old haunts to see how they’ve weathered. Memories weighs up the effect of AIDS and Giuliani on the days of being wild.
Fun fact lazily taken from IMDB: A gay rights pioneer in Germany, Holger Mischwitzky changed his name to Rosa von Praunheim after the Nazis’ notorious pink triangle.

Postcard to Daddy

From the time he was eight until he reached 16, filmmaker Michael Stock was sexually abused by his father. Now he’s ready to confront the family with the crime, and he’s brought his camera along. Stock not only points fingers. He examines the impact his father’s actions had on his family and tries to figure out why he alone of his siblings was singled out for abuse. Finally, Stock turns the camera on himself.
Fun fact lazily taken from Wikipedia: The postcard was patented in 1861 by Philadelphia printer John P. Charlton.

Red, White & Green

The 2009 Iranian elections became a flashpoint when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s declaration of victory was met with skepticism by supporters of Mir-Hossein Mousavi. The people took to the streets for the biggest demonstrations since the Islamic Revolution. Nader Davoodi takes the temperature of the country in the run-up to the voting. Interviewees include director Jafar Panahi (Crimson Gold).
Fun fact lazily taken from Wikipedia: Mousavi’s candidacy ended a 20-year self-imposed exile from public life.

Rock Hudson – Dark and Handsome Stranger

Was there ever a more masculine name than “Rock Hudson”? Born Roy Scherer, Jr., he was the avatar of Hollywood manhood in the 1950s and 1960s, both in Douglas Sirk melodramas and romantic comedies opposite Doris Day. His announcement that he had AIDS blew the lid off one of Tinseltown’s open secrets: Rock was gayer than a maypole convention. Andrew Davies and Andre Schafer (Doris Day Superstar) examine the icon’s impact with the help of Armistead Maupin and Richard Dyer.
Fun fact lazily taken from Wikipedia: In his first film Fighter Squadron, Hudson needed 38 takes to deliver his one line right.

Shtikat Haarchion (A Film Unfinished)

Israeli filmmaker Yael Hersonski puts one of history’s most infamous films on the Moviola. In May 1942, Nazi soldiers spent a month shooting life inside the Warsaw ghetto for Joseph Goebbels. Months later, the residents would be sent to Treblinka. The film was never completed. Hersonski’s investigation tries to determine what was staged, why it was staged, and what it says about the reality of life in the ghetto.
“Fun” fact lazily taken from Wikipedia: The last remaining piece of the ghetto wall can still be seen at ul. Złota 62 in Warsaw.

Waste Land

Vik Muniz repurposes foodstuffs into art that’s been exhibited at New York’s P.S. 1 and museums in Seattle, Miami and Sydney. Lucy Walker’s cameras accompanied him on his latest project, which is to use the discarded materials found in the world’s largest landfill to help the residents of Rio de Janeiro. Muniz is assisted by the eccentric catadores, gleaners extraordinaire.
Fun fact taken from the largest landfill on the Internet, Wikipedia: In 2007, Muniz made portraits out of chocolate for the customers of Neiman-Marcus. A snip at $110,000.

Wiegenleider (Lullaby)

Tamara Trampe and Johann Feindt took their cameras out onto the streets of Berlin to see what they could find. They meet a variety of characters. Some are just passerby. Others have stories to tell, like the man who was born in prison and now works with an American jazz musician. Or the Chechen poet. The filmmakers are particularly interested in the difference between childhood dreams and adult realities.
Fun fact lazily taken from Wikipedia: Participant Apti Bisultanov is a former guerilla fighter and Vice-Premier of Chechnya who has been living in Berlin since 2002.

Snidely Whiplash

I just finished an article about the State of the Union debacle and it brings to mind some immediate thoughts that I just cannot let go of until I get them down in print.

Mr. President, you are an arrogant ass. You speak to those who do not agree with you as if it is we who have the problem. Our only problem is you! Poll after poll is clear – we do not want what you and your tiny following wish for. Yet the more we scream “no!” the more you insist we are just too obtuse to grasp the wit, wisdom and nuance of your big-brained intentions. Wrong!

We get it all too well. We know who the Hell Progressives are. They were quite clear in detailing their desires for our nation. Shame most of the self-proclaimed “well informed supporters” of yours in this nation do not know what a Progressive really is. I do – remember, I started studying Progressivism in college in 1989 – lemme tell ya who they are.

Progressives are the ones who advocated the concept of eugenics – the weeding out of the bad blood from our race by government sanction. They gave us Prohibition. They believe the individual is not fit to make sound judgments thus they want government to direct us. They raised the practice of political propaganda to an art form. Joseph Goebbels was clear in praising the American Progressive movement as teaching him how to use words to control the message, quiet the opposition by hook or crook and to destroy the spirit of a nation. No thanks – we’ve seen how that works out, ya dummies.

Progressive strategist Saul Alinsky laid out how Progressives could get what they want – he told them indeed the ends do justify the means. Add in the concept that violence will not yield the desired Progressive result, but financially collapsing the system sure will, and we have the perfect storm – an evil and duplicitous political ideology headed in this nation by a man who before he ran for national office made clear he allies himself with the “radicals . . . , and Marxists professors,” and all mind you, to ingratiate himself with his fellows.

Read his words for yourself:

“To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students.The foreign students.The Chicanos.The Marxist Professors and the structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets. We smoked cigarettes and wore leather jackets. At night, in the dorms, we discussed neocolonialism, Franz Fanon, Eurocentrism, and patriarchy. When we ground out our cigarettes in the hallway carpet or set our stereos so loud that the walls began to shake, we were resisting bourgeois society’s stifling constraints. We weren’t indifferent or careless or insecure. We were alienated.” (Original authors emphas)

To continue reading Snidely’s excellent article, please click the link HERE!

A very good defense of Pope Pius XII on the website of Israeli newspaper Haaretz yesterday. Emphases and notes mine.

Much-maligned pontiff

by Dimitri Cavalli

Some things never go away. The controversy over Pope Pius XII’s actions during World War II was recently reignited when Pope Benedict XVI signed a decree affirming that his predecessor displayed “heroic virtues” during his lifetime. When the pope visited the Great Synagogue of Rome on Sunday, Riccardo Pacifici, president of Rome’s Jewish community, told him: “The silence of Pius XII before the Shoah still hurts because something should have been done.”

This was not the first time the wartime pope, who is now a step closer to beatification, has been accused of keeping silent during the Holocaust, of doing little or nothing to help the Jews, and even of collaborating with the Nazis. To what extent, if any, does the evidence back up these allegations, which have been repeated since the early 1960s?

On April 4, 1933, Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli, the Vatican secretary of state, instructed the papal nuncio in Germany to see what he could do to oppose the Nazis’ anti-Semitic policies.

On behalf of Pope Pius XI, Cardinal Pacelli drafted an encyclical, entitled “Mit brennender Sorge” (“With Burning Anxiety”), that condemned Nazi doctrines and persecution of the Catholic Church. The encyclical was smuggled into Germany and read from Catholic pulpits on March 21, 1937.

Although many Vatican critics today dismiss the encyclical as a light slap on the wrist, the Germans saw it as a security threat. For example, on March 26, 1937, Hans Dieckhoff, an official in the German foreign ministry, wrote that the “encyclical contains attacks of the severest nature upon the German government, calls upon Catholic citizens to rebel against the authority of the state, and therefore signifies an attempt to endanger internal peace.”

Both Great Britain and France should have interpreted the document as a warning that they should not trust Adolf Hitler or try to appease him.

After the death of Pius XI, Cardinal Pacelli was elected pope, on March 2, 1939. The Nazis were displeased with the new pontiff, who took the name Pius XII. On March 4, Joseph Goebbels, the German propaganda minister, wrote in his diary: “Midday with the Fuehrer. He is considering whether we should abrogate the concordat with Rome in light of Pacelli’s election as pope.”

During the war, the pope was far from silent: In numerous speeches and encyclicals, he championed human rights for all people and called on the belligerent nations to respect the rights of all civilians and prisoners of war. Unlike many of the pope’s latter-day detractors, the Nazis understood him very well. After studying Pius XII’s 1942 Christmas message, the Reich Central Security Office concluded: “In a manner never known before the pope has repudiated the National Socialist New European Order … Here he is virtually accusing the German people of injustice toward the Jews and makes himself the mouthpiece of the Jewish war criminals.” (Pick up any book that criticizes Pius XII, and you won’t find any mention of this important report.)

In early 1940, the pope acted as an intermediary between a group of German generals who wanted to overthrow Hitler and the British government. Although the conspiracy never went forward, Pius XII kept in close contact with the German resistance and heard about two other plots against Hitler. In the fall of 1941, through diplomatic channels, the pope agreed with Franklin Delano Roosevelt that America’s Catholics could support the president’s plans to extend military aid to the Soviet Union after it was invaded by the Nazis. On behalf of the Vatican, John T. McNicholas, the archbishop of Cincinnati, Ohio, delivered a well-publicized address that explained that the extension of assistance to the Soviets could be morally justified because it helped the Russian people, who were the innocent victims of German aggression.

Throughout the war, the pope’s deputies frequently ordered the Vatican’s diplomatic representatives in many Nazi-occupied and Axis countries to intervene on behalf of endangered Jews. Up until Pius XII’s death in 1958, many Jewish organizations, newspapers and leaders lauded his efforts. To cite one of many examples, in his April 7, 1944, letter to the papal nuncio in Romania, Alexander Shafran, chief rabbi of Bucharest, wrote: “It is not easy for us to find the right words to express the warmth and consolation we experienced because of the concern of the supreme pontiff, who offered a large sum to relieve the sufferings of deported Jews … The Jews of Romania will never forget these facts of historic importance.” [Ironic, since many later did forget...]

The campaign against Pope Pius XII is doomed to failure because his detractors cannot sustain their main charges against him – that he was silent, pro-Nazi, and did little or nothing to help the Jews – with evidence. Perhaps only in a backward world such as ours would the one man who did more than any other wartime leader to help Jews and other Nazi victims, receive the greatest condemnation. [It shows the power of populaist theory. As long as it sound good, people will believe it, despite the evidence against it.]

Dimitri Cavalli is an editor and writer in New York City. He is working on books on both Pope Pius XII and Joe McCarthy, the late manager of the New York Yankees.

Good news!!! The AP is reporting that the 89-year-old man accused of a deadly shooting,James Von Brunn, at Washington’s Holocaust museum has died in a prison hospital in North Carolina,thank God!!!

The mother of slain Temple Hills guard said she hopes the racist Republican killer asked for forgiveness before his death, but I hope he goes to hell, literally.

Unfortunately, he is now out of the reach of the penal system.

Good Riddance,…and Thanks,…I needed a good laugh today!!!!

Source-http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,582195,00.html

Drones don’t attack anyone. Gum-chewing thugs sitting in an office chair at a computer terminal do.

These drones are armed with American Hellfire missiles, the same ones Israel uses when it typically kills a dozen innocent people in a bloody horror trying to get one target, some man who has never been charged or tried or condemned.

The guy at the terminal somewhere in a locked room in the Pentagon basement undoubtedly pumps his arm as the missile explodes, killing God knows who.

Then he goes out for some lunch in Georgetown.

Disgusting.

An absolute lack of ethics, only praised by the apologists for Israel’s bloody excesses.

Misery likes company, and the same goes for miserable criminal behavior.

_________________

Carrying the Olympic Torch would sure be a suitable suggestion, although I doubt the writer making this suggestion even understands why.

Few Canadians seem aware that the Olympic Torch relay was invented for the 1936 Olympics in Nazi Germany, invented by no less a figure than Doctor Joseph Goebbels to distract world attention in a very controversial Olympics from the stuff going on in Germany.

Yet we blindly carry on this stupid marketing scheme as though it were a hallowed tradition.

And we get brainless suggestions like this one concerning it.

En scen ur Inglourious Basterds.

Jag var rätt nyligen och såg Quentin Tarantinos nya film Inglourious Basterds (jo, titeln stavas faktiskt så) som handlar om en styrka amerikanska judar som får i uppdrag att sprida skräck i Tredje riket genom att brutalt mörda och skalpera nationalsocialister i naziockuperade Frankrike. Styrkan leds av löjtnant Aldo “The Apache” Raine, spelad av Brad Pitt, som kräver att var och en av de nio som ingår i gruppen skall avliva minst 100 tyskar och dessutom skalpera dem och överlämna skalperna till honom!

Under resans gång  knyts en tysk soldat som lustmördat 13 Gestapo-män till “The Basterds”, som gruppen kallas av tyskarna, och tar sig med nöje an sin nya uppgift. I Paris stiftar gruppen bekantskap med den unga judinnan Shoshanna Dreyfus, spelad av Melanie Laurent, som flytt från sitt hem på den franska landsbygden sedan hon så när blivit infångad av SS-officeren Hans Landa (Christoph Walz) som sänts ut av Hitler för att spåra upp alla judar i Frankrike; hela hennes familj mördas.  Shoshanna driver en biograf i Paris tillsammans med en färgad vän.

Det är när den tyske krigshjälten Frederick Zoller (Daniel Brühl), som blir förälskad i den tysk- och nazihatande Shoshanna, kommer in i handlingen som en utstuderad plan att spränga biografen innehållande hela nazitoppen tar form. Zoller lyckas nämligen övertala sin vän Joseph Goebbels, den tyske propagandaministern, att låta en nyinspelad film om honom själv och hans “hjältedåd” som prickskytt premiärvisas på Shoshannas biograf. Samtidigt jobbar Raine och hans mannar på att mörda nazitopparna på sitt eget kaotiska sätt.

Här skall inte filmens spektakulära slutfas avslöjas för den som tänkt se filmen medan den ännu finns på den svenska repertoaren, men nog blir det fyrverkerier i den högre skolan och en extra knorr på slutet. The Inglourious Basterds gör inte anspråk på att vara någon realistisk krigsfilm utan är en typiskt tarantinsk skröna, som för en gångs skull framställer judar under Andra världskriget som blodtörstiga slaktare och inte som viljelösa offer. Ombyte förnöjer som bekant, och nog är detta en mycket välgjord och en mycket underhållande film som jag gärna rekommenderar.

Brad Pitt som Aldo “The Apache” Raine.

Det fanns emellertid litet varstans i verkligheten militanta judar som bekämpade tyska nazister under Andra världskriget. Jag har redan (7 oktober) på min blogg skrivit om upproret i Warszawaghettot 1943, där polska judar visade för världen att de var både villiga och kapabla att ta sig an Tredje riket. Warszawas kämpande ghettojudar hämtade inspiration från en judisk gerillarörelse i Litauen och Polen, som leddes av den legendariske kommendanten Abba Kovner. Om detta har Rich Cohen skrivit en fascinerande bok som heter The Avengers. A Jewish War Story (Vintage, London 2000).

The Avengers är historien om  tre judiska ungdomar- ingen av dem hade fyllt 20 år – som lämnar sina hem i västra Polen och omsider hamnar i det judiska ghettot i den litauiska huvudstaden Wilna (Vilnius). De tre är Abba Kovner, Vitka Kempner och Rozka Korczak. Kovner utvecklas till en ledargestalt i ghettot medan de båda unga kvinnorna Kempner och Korczak blir hans ställföreträdare. 1943 flyr de tre ghettot i Wilna och ställer sig i spetsen för ett band gerillakämpar som gömmer sig djupt i de polsk-litauiska skogarna och utför sabotageaktioner mot de tyska stridskrafterna. Här stannar de tre under resten av kriget för att därefter småningom ta sig till vad som snart blev Israel.

Efter krigsslutet började Abba Kovner, sedan han anlänt till Palestina, med sina vänner bland motståndskämparna planera för en spektakulär hämndaktion mot den tyska nationen. Genom förgiftade vattenreservoarer i tyska städer skulle miljoner tyskar mördas: öga för öga, tand för tand. Kovner och hans grupp lojala judiska motståndskämpar kallade sig “Hämnarna” (avengers, på hebreiska Dam Yehudi Nakam). “Vi kanske inte kan förhindra en ny förintelse”, resonerade man, “men vi kan se till att den inte blir ohämnad.”

The real deal – Rozka Korczak, Abba Kovner och Vitka Kempner.

Av olika skäl inställdes denna aktion (plan A) men i stället genomfördes en plan B, då ett krigsfångeläger för tyskar nära Nürnberg utsattes för en giftattack med arsenik vilket enligt uppgifter i amerikansk press ledde till att 2238 man förgiftades och måste vårdas på sjukhus.  Om några av dessa dog, och i så fall hur många, är oklart. Det kan nämnas att sionistledaren Chaim Weizmann, som skulle bli Israels förste president, enligt Cohens skildring godkände plan B under ett samtal med Kovner.

Det dröjde inte länge efter sin ankomst till Israel innan Abba Kovner på nytt blev inblandad i krigshandlingar, nu som kämpe i den israeliska armé som betvingade de fem arabiska nationer som angrep staten Israel efter dess utropande i maj 1948.  Senare blev Abba Kovner (1918-87) rikskänd som poet, filosof, visionär och även arkitekt (han har designat Diasporamuséet i Tel Aviv).

Abba Kovner gifte sig 1948 med sin livskramrat Vitka Kempner (Kovner), född 1920, som när detta skrivs uppges fortfarande vara i livet och ha två barn och fyra barnbarn. Rozka Korczak (1921-88) dog, liksom Abba Kovner, i cancer.

Hitler, Hitler, Hitler… ist denn die ganze Welt verrückt geworden? Erst dieser Kriegsschuld-Schwachsinn im Internet, dann erzählt gestern der Kabarettist Ludger K., die größten Hingucker und Verkaufsgaranten für Zeitschriften seien erstens das Konterfei von Hitler und zweitens Titten, wonach Zeitschriften die Hitler mit Titten abbilden sofort vergriffen sein müssten, und nun auch noch das: Die beste Zeitung der Welt berichtet, dass englische Schüler glauben, Hitler war deutscher Fußballtrainer. Und was war dann die SS??? Der Stadion-Schutz??? Blöde Inselaffen! Sollen sich was schämen. Wir in Deutschland wissen, dass Hitler als Fußballtrainer zwar in Gestalt von Werner Lorant wiederauferstanden ist, aber niemals selbst am Spielfeldrand stand. Außer natürlich bei den Olympischen Spielen 1936 beim SSL, dem Schutz-Staffel-Lauf.

Immerhin, dank den doofen Angelsachsen (hier merkt man mal wieder den verwandschaftliche Bezug zu Sachsen) bekommt der Begriff  “Spielführer” nun eine völlig neue Bedeutung und auch die rote Armbinde, die heutzutage stolz von Michael Ballack getragen wird, geht vermutlich auf  Hitler zurück.

Endlich kommt die Wahrheit ans Tageslicht: Adolf Hitler wollte keinen Krieg!!! Auf dem politisch korrekten Blog “Deutschlandpolitik” wird nun endlich schonungslos und ohne Zensur durch “das System” offengelegt, wie unser großer Führer und Feldherr von anderen, dunklen Mächten in einen Krieg hineingelockt wurde, den er niemals wollte.

“Entgegen der offiziellen Geschichtsschreibung werden hier die Friedensangebote Hitlers und auch anderer Personen thematisiert und nicht, wie üblich, verschwiegen.”

Endlich werden hier die wahren Hintergründe beleuchtet, über unseren geliebten Führer und seine sozialromantischen Ideen von einem friedlich vereinten Europa. Endlich wird die Last der Kriegsschuld von uns genommen, die uns bis heute quält uns uns zu einem Volk der Duckmäuser gemacht hat. Ja, nun endlich dürfen wir aufatmen und wieder mit Stolz auf unsere Geschichte zurückblicken.

Denn hat nicht unser Befreier aus Österreich die Fesseln der Versailler Vertrages gesprengt? Hat er nicht Millionen Arbeitslose von den Straßen geholt? Hat er nicht dafür gesorgt, dass die Kriegspläne der anderen, uns schon ewig feindselig gegenüberstehenden Staaten, insbesondere Polen, Frankreich und die Sowjetunion, fehlschlugen? Existiert unser heiliges deutsches Reich…äh. Land nicht eben darum noch immer, da der große Führer uns mit seiner Rüstungspolitik auf diesen zermürbenden Vertedigungskrieg vorbereitet hat?

Es bleibt nicht mehr dazu zu sagen, als es bereits in einem Kommentar unter dembetreffenden Artikel gesagt wurde:

“Die deutsche Geschichte wird von den gegenwärtig Herrschenden zu ungunsten Deutschlands verfälscht, in dem sie nur einseitige Ansichten öffentlich betrieben werden können, ohne das die entsprechende Person Konsequenzen zu befürchten hat und keine wahre, freie Geschichtsforschung zulassen wird.

Dass das Deutsche Reich, oder gar das deutsche Volk, nicht an diesem hochkomplexten Krieg schuld ist, dürfte jedem habwegs weitsichtigen, ehrlichen und objektiven Historiker offensichtlich sein.”

Nun endlich ist schluss mit der ausländischen Greuelpropaganda von Kriegstreiberei und Völkermord! Nun endlich werden die kruden Theorien eines unseriösen Historikers wie Guido Knopp, dieser Marionette der Massenmedien, entlarvt. Der Führer ist rehabilitiert! Deshalb dürfen nun unter dem betreffenden Artikel auch frank und frei Gedichte veröffentlich werden, die der große Hitler selbst verfasst hat. Ein Beweis mehr dafür, dass es sich um einen zutiefst romantischen Menschen handelte, der bestrebt war zum Wohle der Menschheit zu handeln.

The US government released GDP figures showing rosy 3.5% growth in the third quarter. But don’t be fooled: the books were cooked. This time by the cash for clunkers boondoggle, the first time homebuyers tax credit, and other forms of useless stimuli.

According to The Wall Street Journal, “fully 2.2 percentage points of the third quarter’s 3.5% growth figure related to vehicle purchases and residential construction, both juiced by government support. Federal spending added 0.6%.”

Spending Trend

GDP Growth with & without Mortgage Equity Withdrawals (MEW)

The Bureau of Economic Analysis says, “car sales shot up 157.6% quarter on quarter.” That means cash for clunkers accounted for 1.66% of total GDP.

So subtract fake demand (1.66%) from the official GDP figure (3.5%), and you’re left with 1.84% GDP growth. Not so great after all…

And if you take away other forms of stimulus, the GDP picture appears even darker. According to David Rosenberg, GDP would have been flat or negative without stimulus.

“Don’t believe the GDP hype,” Dan Denning cautions. “The big problems in the economy – too much debt, too much leverage, too much government – are still there. They didn’t go anywhere overnight. We’d suggest that getting sucked back into stocks now because of the US GDP figure is a very bad idea.”

“Of course, we could be wrong,” Dan, continues. “Maybe stocks will go up another 20% from here, or 30%, or 50%. But it’s not likely. It’s more likely that the recession is over, but that the Depression has just begun.”

“It’s begun because what the US GDP numbers actually show is a private sector in full retreat as its income shrinks, its assets fall in value and the cost of servicing debt rises. Into that terrible breach the public sector has stepped armed with an arsenal of inefficient and stupid programs that give the illusion of economic activity, but actually prevent the economy from liquidating excess capacity and bad debt (the two conditions required for a real recovery).”

“Never before did a gap between a 3.2% consensus GDP forecast and an actual print of 3.5% manage to elicit so much excitement in the equity market. It just goes to show how speculative the stock market has become.” The question is why the economy couldn’t do even better?

GDP Fraud

“Historically, the auto sector adds 0.1-percentage point or 0.2-percentage point to any given GDP report. In the third quarter, courtesy of cash-for-clunkers, the sector added 1.7 percentage points to the headline figure, which is less than 1-in-10 event in terms of probabilities. Tack on the rebound in housing and government spending and the areas of GDP that received the most medication from public sector stimulus contributed almost all of the growth in the economy. You read this right. If not for the entire government incursion into the economy in Q3, real GDP basically would have stagnated.”

Rosenberg puts the US “recovery” into perspective by comparing it to the eerily similar “recovery” experienced by the Japanese in the 1990s.

“While it seems very flashy, 3.5% growth is far from a trend-setter. Let’s go back to Japan. Since 1990, it has enjoyed no fewer than 19 of these 3.5%-or-better GDP growth quarters. That is almost 25% of the time, by the way. And we know with hindsight that this was noise around the fundamental downtrend because the Japanese economy has experienced four recessions and the equity market is down more than 70% from the peak. What is important for the future is whether the U.S. economy can manage to sustain that 3.5% growth performance in the absence of ongoing massive government stimulus.” In other words, it may be a little early to uncork the champagne.

The big risk going into Q4 is a renewed contraction in real final sales. That is not priced into the various asset classes right now. When good news starts generating the same volume as bad, then one can start with the champagne nibbling. Until then, be very careful with the interpretation of presented results. Don’t think easily that official GDP figures can be trusted like China does; most figures are cooked in the US too.

Look at the data from railroad traffic. Just like electricity demand, this indicator can’t be doctored. Statisticians eager to please the boss can’t massage those ones. Published last week, the Association of American Railroads reported a steep decline in rail traffic:

“Rail traffic remains down year over year for the week ended Oct. 24, 2009. U.S railroads reported originating 276,357 carloads, down 14.8 percent compared with the same week in 2008 and 17.3 percent from 2007.”

A 14.8% decline should cause concern to any bulls out there. One need to look beyond the government sponsored green shoots to see weeds sprouting up everywhere.

And this to think about:
“ If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State. ” (Joseph Goebbels)

Truth is the mortal enemy of the lie. This is a profound observation from such an evil man. The definition of truth is being in accordance with fact or reality. The Nazis were masters of using propaganda to manipulate facts and produce the reality that suited their wicked purposes. Other states have attempted to repress dissent and rule by using the Big Lie. The Soviet Union and Communist China come to mind.

Jak wiadomo właścicieli światowych mediów można zliczyć na palcach jednej ręki. Jaki to ma wpływ na wybór wiadomości, niechaj świadczy przykład imperium Murdocha. Teraz coraz częściej słyszymy o Rosjanach. Podczas gdy oligarchowie, powiązani z byłą KGB, skupują Zachodnie media (dzienniki, TV, radio, itd), warto przypomnieć słowa specjalisty w tych sprawach:

[...] kupno koncernów prasowych za granicą. Wierzę, że powinniśmy kontynuować nasze kroki w tym kierunku, gdyż im więcej posiadamy mediów, zwłaszcza gazety, tym bardziej rośnie nasza czołowa rola w Europie.

Joseph Goebbels, Minister Propagandy Rzeszy, w: Dzienniki

As Russian oligarchs (tied to KGB) continue to buy out Western media (newspapers, TV, Radio, etc), it is timely to quote these words:

[...] the question of buying news concerns abroad. I believe we should continue to do so, for the greater the number of news outlets , especially newspapers, we own abroad, the better will this be for our future role of leadership in Europe.

Diaries of Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Minister of Propaganda

On October 29:

1618 English adventurer, writer, and courtier Sir Walter Raleigh was beheaded for allegedly conspiring against James I of England.

1740  James Boswell, Scottish biographer of Samuel Johnson was born.

1787 Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni receives its first performance in Prague.

1863 Twenty seven countries meeting in Geneva agreed to form the International Red Cross.

1886 The first ticker-tape parade takes place in New York City when office workers spontaneously threw ticker tape into the streets as the Statue of Liberty was dedicated.

1891 US singer and comiedienne,  Fanny Brice, was born.

1894 SS Wiararapa was wrecked on Great Barrier Island.

1897  Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Minister of Propaganda was born.

1923 Turkey beccame a republic following the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire.

1947 Richard Dreyfuss, American actor, was born.

1956  Suez Crisis began: Israeli forces invaded the Sinai Peninsula and pushed Egyptian forces back toward the Suez Canal.

1964  Tanganyika and Zanzibar united to form the Republic of Tanzania.

1969 The first-ever computer-to-computer link was established on ARPANET, the precursor to the Internet.

1971 Winona Ryder, American actress, was born.

1995 Forgotten Silver hoax was screened.

2004 In Rome, European heads of state signed the Treaty and Final Act establishing the first European Constitution.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia.

The above image is from an American TV programme called FlashForward . As you can see , a subliminal message has been put into the programme to persuade the American public to take the Swine Flu vaccine . For the full story go to PrisonPlanet.com . Putting aside the dubious involvement of ABC ’s collusion with the US government , this is manipulation of the worst kind . Here in Britain , I have recently watched a series by Derren Brown, the awesome illusionist and mentalist , and the subliminal message in FlashForward would not look out of place in his programme . In effect , the message bypasses the concious mind but is read by our subconcious mind . For some reason , the subliminal is more powerful if used as an order and , hence it is phrased as ‘ Take It Now ‘ .

This is rape . Only mentally challenged individuals attempt to persuade  others to act without their concious agreement . I am no expert on USA jurisprudence , but I would imagine the subliminal is illegal and that ABC may have broken the law . Governments , all over the world , have used TV programmes to put forward certain policies , but this is the first time I have actually seen a Government use this technique . Joseph Goebbel’s , Hitler’s propaganda Tsar would have approved and is further proof of the descent into an Orwellian society .

Only those with malevolent intentions use this type of persuasion . If you are confident , you do not need to hide your message in this manner and manipulate others in an underhand way . This is a further indication of the World’s governments ‘ desperation for the public to take the Swine flu vaccine and you can be pretty sure it is not for our benefit . The very concept of Government is in peril at the moment and the Swine Flu pandemic and vaccine are one of various survival measures (Climate Change ,the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars , The War on Terror ) that have been used in the past few years . This is part of a spiritual war , that is slowly coming to a climax . There can only be one winner and you can be certain it will not be the controlling , hateful Mind that lies at the heart of our Governments .

Oh and how the liberal lapdog press played right into the hands of their master manipulators! But what happens when they can’t control a player in the news arena?

Maybe the White House intent is to control the message, or destroy the messenger.

Off The Post found this slightly unexpected connection. One of the most innovative football lookalikes observations I’ve seen in years.

Här är en minst sagt skrämmande film om Klimathotet. Oberoende av vad vi anser om Klimathotet så blir vi garanterat uppskrämda av filmen ovan. Och då jag tillhör kategorin klimathotskeptiker så blev jag uppskrämd över hur skickligt våra ägare använder sig av propaganda för att nå sina mål, och hur man är beredda att föra oss alla bakom ljuset för att nå dit. Jospeh Goebbels hade varit mäkta imponerad med dessa oerhört skickliga domptörer. Jag tror inte att han själv hade kunnat göra en “bättre” film.