Today is the anniversary of the arrest of Rosa Parks after she refused to comply with racial segregation laws. She refused to give up her seat to a white passenger and move to the back of the bus. She wasn’t the first person to defy the law in that way, but the time had come, and the place was right, and Rosa had the drive and the inclination to make it an important issue.

Rosa Parks is regarded as an African-American, of course, but like all of us, she was actually a racial mixture. In fact, her great-grandfather was an Ulsterman. If defiance of authority is genetic, that would be a good place to start looking.

Rosa’s bus is preserved in a museum, although slighty incongruously, it’s the Henry Ford museum in Detroit. Not incongrous because it’s in Detroit instead of Montgomery, Alabama; but because Henry Ford’s record of antisemitism doesn’t fit well with commemorating a pioneer campaigner for racial equality.

Because it’s all the same. Picking any group of people to hate, on any critereon, for any reason, only shows a lack of rationality and a weakness of mind. Like the good citizens of Switzerland who voted to ban the building of minarets. Because the overwhelming presence of so many minarets already erected in Switzerland (four) showed how traditional Swiss culture was being swamped by something foreign. See what I mean? Weakness of mind.

But the Swiss Nazis who exploited the Swiss constitution to get a referendum and scared enough of the weak-minded to vote their way don’t really care about minarets. Their objective is power. Power obtained by fear and hatred. And there’s one good way to deal with that. Resist. Stand up for your rights. Like Rosa Parks.

(Yes, I know she sat down for her rights.)

One of the BNPs main activists in 1985 was Tony Lecomber. Lecomber was sent to prison for attempting to detonate explosives at the offices of a rival political organization. He was also caught with hand-grenades and was jailed for three years for assaulting a Jewish teacher (12). He was propaganda director at the time of the latter conviction (13).

Lecomber is not alone:  Many other BNP members  have been convicted for racially-motivated violence.  Kevin Scott, the BNP’s North East regional advisor, for example, has two convictions for assault and using threatening words and behaviour against ethnic minorities (14). In addition, Joe Owens, a former BNP candidate, has served eight months in prison for sending razor blades to Jewish people in the post, and another term for carrying CS gas and knuckledusters (15).

Other BNP members and supporters, that include Stephen O’Shea and Simon Briggs, have been convicted for violent racist attacks (16). In 1998, Nick Griffin received a nine-month prison sentence for inciting racial hatred (17). Griffin subsequently became leader of the party in 1999.

During the early 1990s, much of the BNP”s activities were focused on East London, where, in 1993, it secured a council by-election victory in the Tower Hamlets ward of Millwall. The price to pay was a massive rise in racial attacks (18).

At about the same time, the BNP spawned the violent Combat 18 (C18) as its security force. C18 later emerged as a Nazi terror group, responsible for a letter bomb campaign and a series of murders. C18 thugs, made up of football hooligans and Nazi skinheads, protected both BNP meetings and the BNP leadership during party marches.

In 1993, the BNP became increasingly embarrassed by Combat 18 violence. After its victory in Millwall, it decided it no longer needed the street thugs and banned dual membership. However, most BNP members ignored this plea. In September 1995, four of the five London BNP branch organizers attended a C18 meeting (19).

The Millwall seat was lost eight months later. The BNP lost momentum, with younger members going over to C18. Tyndall reversed the slide by adopting a more hardline strategy, which included bringing veteran US Nazi leader, William Pierce, to London.

William Pierce

Pierce penned the tract, The Turner Diaries, which inspired both the Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh and the politicised BNP supporter, David Copeland, who was convicted for the bombing of a London pub (20).

During this period in the mid-1990s, the organization began to adopt a more respectable image:

It campaigned on rural issues and, publicly at least, watered down some of its more overt racism, co-opting many of the policies which have traditionally been the domain of the political left (21).

In 1999, it  exploited the debate in relation to proportional representation as an opportunity to begin the biggest racist recruitment drive ever to have taken place in Britain, launching a new party political broadcast and delivering 15 million leaflets (22).

Since this apparent surface shift in strategy in the mid 1990s, the BNP’s support has relatively increased, albeit intermittently. In 2002, for example, the BNP won three council seats in Burnley, and averaged 28 per cent of the town-wide vote. In Oldham, the party came second in four of the five wards it contested, and took an average 27 per cent.

Across the country, the BNP averaged 16 per cent in the council wards it contested – the best election results in its history. However, this must be offset against the fact that it only challenged less than one per cent of all seats up for election. Since then, they have added further seats, a total that currently stands at 46 out of around a possible total of some 21,000.

In the 2005 General Election, the BNP stood 119 candidates across England, Scotland and Wales. Between those candidates, they polled 192,850 votes, gaining an average of 4.2 per cent across the several seats it stood in and 0.7 per cent nationwide – more than three times its percentage at the 2001 election (23). Of these votes, half originated from disaffected New Labour voters (the governing party) consisting of semi-skilled manual workers, pensioners and the unemployed (24).

However, it is important not to exaggerate the overall reach of the BNP: It did not stand nationwide, meaning its national share of the vote was substantially lower than that of other minor parties and exit poll predictions of 3 per cent (25).

Still, indications are that relatively the BNP is increasing its support amongst sections of the UK voting population (26) (27), against a background and climate of increasing racism (28). Consequently, the ugly face of racially-motivated violence appears to be never far away.

In October 2006, for example, Robert Cottage, an BNP candidate to represent Colne and Pendle Council earlier that year, was arrested under the Explosives Act on suspicion of possessing chemicals that may be capable of making an explosion (29).

Cottage was also reported has having in his possession the largest quantity of explosives of its kind found in the country (30).

On 31st of July 2007, Cottage was sentenced to two and a half years imprisonment for the charge of possessing explosives (31).

Electorally, the European elections of 2009 resulted in the BNP attracting one million votes, which translated into them winning two seats in the European parliament. One of these seats was won by Griffin, who was elected for the North West region with 8 per cent of the vote (32).

So, how can the current growing relative popularity amongst sections of the British people for the BNP, be reconciled with the organizations historical tendency for racially-motivated violence?

For the answer to that question we need to examine the specific socioeconomic circumstances and conditions which arguably provide the catalyst for such violence.

Historically speaking, the defining characteristic of fascist parties has been their apparent propensity to be able to exploit prevailing unstable economic conditions. To a large extent, fascism thrives on the support it receives from what are frequently perceived as the disenfranchised in society, who suffer disproportionately from any global downturn in the economic cycle.

Thus, the uneven growth or decline in the fortunes of fascist political parties such as the BNP, is mirrored by the economic conditions in society at any given time. In short, during periods of low unemployment and relative economic stability, workers are less likely to vote for, and support, fascist political parties. On the other hand, when workers feel socially and economically vulnerable during periods of economic downturn, then some people are prone to translate their internal frustrations and anger in an external way by terrorizing minority and immigrant communities and/or towards supporting fascist political parties who cynically channel this anger and frustration into violent actions themselves (33) (34) (35).

Moreover, support for parties like the BNP appears to be predicated on the perceived failure of mainstream established political parties in addressing many of the legitimate concerns that working people face in their everyday lives as evidenced by half of the BNP’s support (as of 2005) originating from the New Labour government as highlighted above. One of the main concerns is the lack of availability of affordable social housing in the UK, the construction of which have dropped by 99 per cent in the last 12 years of the New Labour government (36).

The BNP are a major beneficiary of this kind of disaffection which they are able to exploit electorally, as evidenced for example, by their by-election victory in Kent which stemmed from fears over unemployment and issues around immigration and race (37). In this regard, the BNP have been able to play on mainstream concerns about the economy, crime, housing and unemployment, while also exploiting more traditional far right subjects such as immigration and fears about Islamist extremism. Their use of the issue of migrant workers in particular, combines fears about immigration with the reality of rising unemployment (38).

So a direct correlation appears to exist between economic crisis or downturn, the inability of established governing political parties to address the legitimate concerns of a large proportion of the electorate, and the rise of political parties like the BNP. Given that the current global economic downturn is predicted by many experts to be a medium to long-term problem (39), the consequences for ethnic minorities who are the brunt of the BNP’s message (40), appears to be less than a rosy one. The growing popularity for the BNP is echoed in respect to the corresponding mainstream and corporate media coverage and publicity they have increasingly garnered in recent years – coverage that nevertheless, is seemingly disproportionate to the relatively small number of votes they receive (41).

In a democracy, ought not all views, no matter how potentially repugnant, be heard by the population at large, particularly if such views are apparently representative of an increasing amount of people?

If the level of support for the BNP has grown to the extent as to warrant their exposure on the popular television debating programme, Question Time, what possible grounds could there be to censor such views?

This might be a valid argument, if it was the case that the BNP are a political organization whose ideology was not fascist. As distinct from all other UK political parties, the BNP’s leader has denied the reality of the existence of the Holocaust in which 6 million Jews, alongside millions of others, perished (42). Further, unlike any other party, the BNP discriminate against people on the basis of their ethnicity over which they have no control, and openly advocate the repatriation of “non-whites” (43). Up until October, 2009, the BNP required that all members must be of the “Indigenous Caucasian” racial group (44). This requirement was challenged legally by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) who won their case against the BNP. Since October, 2009, ethnic minorities have been allowed to join the party (45).

It is for these, and other reasons, such as their use of intimidation and racial violence, that the claims for the legal legitimization of the BNP have been called into question – the case being that the agenda of the BNP is not a political, but a criminal one. All the evidence points to the fact that where the BNP have been politically active, have targeted its election campaigns or have otherwise had a presence, the resulting publicity has resulted in an increase in the amount of race attacks (46) (47).

In 1993, following their local council by-election victory in the Tower Hamlets ward of Millwall, for example, racial incidents increased by 300 per cent in the three months following the election (48). Barking in East London, has seen a 30 per cent rise in racist attacks since the BNP’s successful campaign in the borough (49). Two years ago, Griffin generated a significant amount of publicity following the controversy surrounding Oxford universities decision to allow him a public platform to address students at the universities campus. In the days following his speech, racist attacks in the Oxford area increased significantly (50).

At the time of  Nick Griffin’s appearance on Question Time, the BBC attracted an audience of almost 8 million viewers, three times its average (51). Following the publicity generated by Griffin’s appearance, The Daily Telegraph newspaper revealed the results of a UK Gov opinion poll which indicated that 22 percent of British people would “seriously consider” voting for the BNP (52). Moreover, the BNP claimed that 9,000 people applied to join them after the programme aired (53).

It is usual for the BBC to announce the line-up of the show one or two days prior to broadcast, but on this occasion it stated that Griffin would be appearing many months in advance of it going to air. This generated further interest from amongst others, BBC Radio One and Channel 4 News.

Was this a deliberate cynical attempt by the BBC to increase their viewing-figure ratings in the almost certain knowledge that such an increase would by turn increase the profile of the BNP?

What does appear inconceivable, is that BBC management would have been unaware of the consequences for Britain’s ethnic minority population of granting the BNP this “gift horse” amount of public exposure.

Was the decision by the BBC to invite Griffin on to the show based partly on the shared professional and educational backgrounds of those concerned?

Many of the individuals who were directly responsible for overseeing Oxbridge-educated Griffin’s appearance, had themselves been educated at one of two of Britain’s elite educational establishments – Oxford and Cambridge. For example, BBC director-general, Mark Thompson was educated at Oxford, where Griffin was granted a public platform to speak. Following his appearance on the show, Griffin, who graduated in law, told the Guardian newspaper that he admired Thompson’s “personal courage” by inviting him (54).

Nicholas Kroll, director of the BBC Trust – an organization that supposedly represents the interests of the viewing public – was educated at Oxford. At least three of the 12 members of the government-appointed trustees, were educated at either Oxford or Cambridge, while the remainder have a background in either law, business or economics (55).

So what were the grounds for the BBC inviting Griffin on the the Question Time programme?

BBC deputy director-general Mark Byford defended the BBC’s decision on the grounds of impartiality, insisting that Griffin’s invitation was not based on boosting viewing figures. Byford said it was “not for the BBC” to engage in censorship, echoing the views of his boss, Thompson, by saying that such issues were a matter for government (56). The Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who was also educated at an elite university, Edinburgh, responded that the responsibility to allow Griffin on to the programme was the BBC’s (57).

In words that would have been music to the ears of Griffin, Brown said:

“I think the days of Britain having to apologize for our history are over….I think we should celebrate much of our [imperialist] past rather than apologize for it, and we should talk, rightly so, about British values” (58).

The “values” that Brown was referring to were not made clear.

After having the ’buck’ passed back to them by Brown, the BBC were effectively compelled to pass the issue over to the government-appointed business-friendly and Oxbridge-educated BBC Trust, after cabinet minister Peter Hain and others, appealed against the decision to allow Griffin on to the programme (59).

Although in principle the BBC Trust is able to intervene in cases like this, in practice the body never interferes in individual programme content prior to transmission. A BBC Trust spokeswoman told MediaGuardian:

“The trust is the sovereign body of the BBC and could, in principle, intervene before a programme is broadcast. However, there is a long-established convention that it does not take a view on the editorial content of individual programmes before transmission, but only reviews them after transmission” (60) – cold comfort for Britain’s ethnic minorities, many of whom would have been verbally and racially assaulted as a direct result of the programme airing.

Does the decision to allow Griffin on to the programme on the grounds that not to do so, would break the corporation’s alleged impartiality guidelines, stand up to scrutiny?

The BBC frequently break their “impartiality” guidelines. This often takes the form of  BBC journalists  accepting the views and pronouncements of those in political power uncritically and as a given. In 2007, for example, Justin Webb, then the BBC’s North America editor, rejected the charge that he is a propagandist for US power, saying:

“Nobody ever tells me what to say about America or the attitude to take about the United States. And that is the case right across the board in television as well” (61).

Webb began a radio programme from the Middle East thus:

“June 2005. US Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice flies to Cairo and at the American University makes a speech that will go down in history: “For sixty years my country, the United States, pursued stability at the expense of democracy in this region, here in the Middle East; and we achieved neither. Now we are taking a different course. We are supporting the democratic aspirations of all people.”

Webb told his listeners in all seriousness:

“I believe the Bush administration genuinely wanted that speech to be a new turning point; a new start” (62).

Nobody had to tell Webb to say these words; he genuinely believed them.

Consider too, the pronouncements of one BBC correspondent, reporting from Iraq:

“This is not promising soil in which to plant a Western-style open society.”

And:

“The coalition came to Iraq in the first place to bring democracy and human rights” (63).

When investigative journalists challenged BBC news director Helen Boaden on whether she thought this version of US-UK intent perhaps compromised the BBC’s commitment to impartial reporting, she replied that such “analysis of the underlying motivation of the coalition is borne out by many of the speeches and remarks of both Mr Bush and Mr Blair” (64).

In March, 2009, BBC reporter Reeta Chakrabarti was asked why she had claimed that Tony Blair had “passionately believed” that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. After all, an alternative thesis – based on a mountain of compelling evidence – is that Blair was lying. Chakrabarti responded:

“I said Mr Blair passionately believed Iraq had wmd because he has consistently said so” (65).

In other words, for the BBC it appears to be a given that the unchallenged pronouncements of Western political leaders who speak on behalf of powerful economic interests, are the truth.

In 1999, the BBC  made the clear political decision to allow its own high-profile newsreader, Jill Dando, to present a DEC appeal for Kosovo at the height of NATO’s 78-day bombing campaign against Serbian “genocide” in Kosovo (claims that have since been quietly abandoned). Shortly after broadcasting the appeal, with bombing still underway, the BBC reported:

“Millions of pounds of donations have been flooding in to help the Kosovo refugees after a national television appeal for funds” (66).

This article linked to related reports on the conflict, which included comments from the Prime Minister, Tony Blair:

“This will be a daily pounding until he [the Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic] comes into line with the terms laid down by NATO” (67).

This contrasts with the BBC’s decision not to broadcast the Gaza Charity Appeal in response to Israel’s violent 22-day attack on Gaza late last year. The attack resulted in the killing of a minimum 1,300 people and the wounding of 4,200 others. Israeli forces repeatedly bombed schools, medical centres, hospitals, ambulances, UN buildings, power plants, roads, bridges and civilian homes. The BBC’s refusal to broadcast a national humanitarian appeal for Gaza, breached an agreement that dates back to 1963 and left “aid agencies with a potential shortfall of millions of pounds in donations” (68).

The BBC apparently had no concerns that this might damage its alleged reputation for impartiality. The BBC argument is made absurd by its consistent and very obvious pro-Israeli bias. An early version of January 28 BBC online article (since amended) commented:

“Israel has carried out an air attack in the Gaza strip and launched an incursion with tanks and bulldozers across the border….The incursion follows a bomb attack which killed one Israeli soldier and wounded three near the Gaza border” (69). As usual, the BBC presented the Israeli attack as a response to Palestinian violence in which it was falsely claimed that they (the Palestinians) had broken an earlier ceasefire. In fact, Israel forces had already violated the ceasefire at least seven times (70).

The BBC’s claims of impartiality, are further compromised in relation to the nature of their senior management appointments. These are made by the government of the day. At the time of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, both the BBC chairman, Gavyn Davies and his director-general, Gregg Dyke, were supporters of, and donors to, the Labour Party. Davies’s wife ran Gordon Brown’s office; his children served as pageboy and bridesmaid at the Brown wedding. Tony Blair has stayed at Davies’s holiday home. “In other words”, noted columnist Richard Ingrams, “it would be harder to find a better example of a Tony crony” (71).

BBC journalist, Andrew Gilligan lost his job after intense government flak in response to Gilligan’s report that the Blair regime had manipulated intelligence over Iraq’s supposed WMD (72).

Consider too, the establishment links of the members of the BBC Trust whose duty it is to uphold its public obligations, including impartiality. Notwithstanding the unrepresentative nature of the trust, as reflected in its members educational and professional backgrounds (see above), the BBC’s claim for impartiality cannot be sustained on the grounds of ideology alone.

One of these trustee worthies is Anthony Fry, formerly of Rothschilds and later the ill-fated Lehman Brothers where he was head of UK operations. Fry boasts on the BBC website:

“Having spent my career in the City as an investment banker, for over a decade specializing in the media industry, it’s a great privilege to bring my commercial understanding of the sector to help the BBC deliver value for licence fee payers in today’s rapidly changing broadcasting environment” (73).

Are we to believe that these individuals are independent of the government that appointed them and of the elite corporate and other vested interests in which they are deeply embedded?

Lord Reith, founder of the BBC, was honest in his assessment of the corporation and its relationship to the establishment:

“They know they can trust us not to be really impartial” (74).

What these clear examples of double standards and bias illustrate, is that the notion the BBC were obliged to invite Griffin on to the Question Time programme on the spurious  grounds that to deny him an invitation could conceivably undermine their claims for impartiality, are clearly bogus.

The BBC’s close ties to the British establishment undermines their credibility for impartiality at the first hurdle.

To recap: Many of their top executives were educated at one of the two elite universities Griffin was educated at and allowed to speak at. Moreover, having clearly made contradictory and politically-motivated decisions in the past – the latest of which was to invite the leader of a fascist political organization, whose existence is legally open to question, on to one of their flagship-political debating programmes - further undermines the BBC’s credibility.

The kind of cosy relationship the corporation has with the government of the day and with people like Nick Griffin and the BNP, makes sense when one considers the British establishments well documented historical links with the political far-right. The Daily Mail newspaper, for example, whose then owner Lord Rothermere, was both a supporter and friends of Hitler and Mussolini (75), propagated anti-Jewish sentiment at the end of the Second World War, as a catalyst for the then government to stem the flow of Jewish immigration into the country (76) (77).

This is the same establishment newspaper which, under the guise of the “war on terror”, regularly sensationalizes anti-Muslim stories on to its front pages, whilst relegating the relatively higher amount of terrorist activities of the far-right in its inside pages (78) (79).

Were the BBC justified in granting Griffin a slot on the programme on the grounds of freedom of expression?

This brings into sharp focus the concept of freedom in a liberal democracy like Britain. Unlike the First Amendment of the US Constitution, Britain does not regard unconditional freedom of expression as a right. In this sense, Britain (and most of Europe) regards such freedoms as necessarily restricted by the interventions of the state. The aim of such intervention is the restriction of some freedoms which are deemed to undermine the public good and society in general. In this regard, a persons freedom to shout “fire” in a crowded public space like a theatre, is limited by the right of other people not to be crushed to death in the resulting stampede.

In theory, existing UK law is designed to restrict the freedom of individuals like Griffin to publicly use inflammatory language that is intended to incite religious and/or racial hatred and violence. Perhaps the BBC thought Griffin’s arguments would be sufficiently ridiculed by the other panelists on the show?

Indeed, this kind of argument is often used by those who defend the right of people like Griffin to be heard. In theory, this might appear to be a plausible position to take. Clearly though, Griffin’s arguments were not adequately challenged by members of the panel on the Question Time programme (80).

Government minister Jack Straw’s performance, for example - whose position on race relations had itself been compromised by his refusal to meet with a female Muslim constituent at his Blackburn surgery - was regarded by many as inept and ineffectual (81) (82).

This begs the question as why it was the government hierarchy made the decision to use Straw as their representative (and therefore, by extension, the people) on the programme?

Could it of been that in the almost certain knowledge of Griffin’s arguments surviving the programme unscathed, they would have been aware of the likelihood of an increasing potential for racial tension and social conflict in the country?

The social policy objective of  ”divide and conquer” implied by such a strategy, has served various governments both past and present very well (83). Thus, there is no reason to believe why such a strategy would not be repeated.

But Straw was not the only guest on the show who failed to expose the policies of the BNP. Many of the audience would have felt alienated by what seemed to be an attack by the whole establishment on one individual. Griffin was attempting to tap into this alienation. The biggest problem with Question Time was the lack of a genuine workers’ representative that could have punctured this attempt. Instead, Griffin was on a panel with establishment politicians, all of whom support anti-working class and pro-big business policies (84).

Whatever the reasons were for the government and BBC establishment deciding on their choices to confront Griffin, the fact that the latter effectively side-stepped the laws relating to conditional freedom of expression by granting him the platform of Question Time, highlights the limitations of applying existing British law in what clearly is a legal ”grey area”.

Such a controversy would not be an issue in a country like the US, on the basis that one of the principles of the US constitution is the notion of unconditional or unlimited freedom of expression. Many people clearly remain convinced of the merits of unlimited freedom of expression and the First Amendment that overrides it, on the basis that all views in a “free” society, no matter how potentially offensive and repugnant, ought to be heard. The American, Michael Harrison, editor of “Talkers Magazine” is one such person.

When questioned by talk show host and British MP George Galloway on this subject, Harrison defended the rights of Nazis and their supporters to provocatively goose-step up and down the streets of a Jewish community in a major city, openly preach support of Hitler and to deny the Holocaust in which the relatives of the people living their would have probably been gassed to death (85).

For Harrison, the clear potential for civil unrest and violence resulting from the state legitimization of such behaviour, was a price he considered was worth paying in the defence of unconditional unlimited freedom of expression (86).

It is worth remembering that Hitler, under the guise of unlimited freedom of the kind espoused by Harrison, came to power as Chancellor in Germany in 1933 with one-third of the vote, only for him to abolish freedom altogether. Democratic freedom and the right to vote was only restored following the overthrow of the fascist regime by the allies over a decade later.

The philosopher Isaiah Berlin, in countering this unlimited notion of freedom from which emerged Hitler fascism, put it well when he said:

“One is free to move ones fist in the direction of my face, but ones freedom ends at the point at which the fist makes contact with it” (87).

Sadly, for many of Britain’s ethnic minorities, the price to be paid for allowing people like Nick Griffin on to programmes like Question Time, is an increase in the incidence of the fascist fist and jackboot to their faces.

Copyright: Daniel Margrain, 2009.

For details of specific references applicable to the above article, contact the author at: margrain.daniel@yahoo.co.uk

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It’s finally time for John Demjanjuk,former Nazi internment camp guard known as “Ivan the Terrible,” to face the music for the atrocities he committed at the jewish death camp known as Treblinka and Sobibor extermination camps.

During the period 1942–1943 Demjanjuk committed murder and acts of extraordinarily savage violence against camp prisoners,as an act of loyalty to Hitler.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Demjanjuk

The 89-year-old retired Ohio autoworker arrived at the opening of the trial in a wheelchair to face the final chapter of some 30 years of efforts to prosecute him, wearing a navy baseball cap and covered in a light blue blanket.

At 89, Ivan the Terrible looks…terrible.

He appears to be a slobbering, shaking, infirmed shell of a man, who is deserving of all the prosecutions efforts to convict him of the Nazi’s crimes against humanity, and more directly, the murder of 27,900 Jews at the Nazi death camps.

Lawyer Ulrich Busch said “How can you say that those who gave the orders were innocent … and the one who received the orders is guilty?”

“There is a moral and legal double standard being applied today.”

Well…he is a Nazi.

Source…

http://jta.org/news/article/2009/11/23/1009359/demjanjuk-nazi-trial-set-to-begin-in-germany

Bitte weitersagen: ab sofort kann man das beliebte V-Leute-Quiz auch online
spielen:

http://www.npd-verbot-jetzt.de/quiz/

Mit Sofort-Auswertung!

God. I don’t know what to be more upset about: turning in my grad app late because my adviser is completely incompetent  or this guy and what his defense attorney is saying. HE is a VICTIM? I’m sorry. I was under the impression that HE was on trial for slaughtering Jews for the Nazis. I guess I just misunderstood. Granted, I really don’t have all of the case information and I sure wasn’t there either. By golly, what do I know, I’m only graduating college in May for Christ’s sake. I don’t really…uhm…I feel like someone is trying to prove a point with this guy. I mean, come on, Nazi officials have been acquitted of more, and this supposedly fragile old man, who is not even a Nazi, is being deep fried by the Germans, in full view of the public (global) eye. whether he deserves it or not, I’m just saying, (even though he probably does).

I can totally see both sides of this, but why this one little old man? There are current terrorists who have plans in the works to kill people. are they being ripped to shreds in a globally publicized trial? There are corporate criminals who steal billions of dollars, and run off with life time savings of people–money that these people have given their entire life, in work and relationships to save.  They get the traditional sentence to Gitmo and are protected by the Geneva Convention and those corporate criminals get fined and a slap on the wrist.

Ok OK, so yea…there really isn’t a comparison between money and human life (tell that to the children in Africa starving to death because they have no money).

Anyway.

What are they trying to do by making such a big deal about this John Demjanjuk? (And I’m not discounting the many lives he ended) Are the German’s trying to set a precedent and do something that has never been done by focusing on a relatively low ranking Ukrainian, oh…..rather than, let’s say….the Nazi officials who forced him to carry out the deeds? Well, guess what. Low ranking people in gangs and drug cartels are tried all the time and take the fall for higher ranking people in their organizations every day. This is nothing new, it’s just the way the damn world works.

His attorney states there is a double standard being supported through this case. Is there a double standard? Or is this guy just caught in the cross-fire of a bigger agenda? Personally, I think that the Germans are up to something politically.  This guy has avoided the death penalty at the hands of the Israelis…come on now. He’s failing health! There is no one, NO ONE to testify against him personally and all they have is evidence that may or may not spell out g u i l t y.  He was mistaken as something he was not before, terrible ivan, who’s to say they have the wrong guy…who’s to say they haven’t got the wrong guy. I just think there’s more behind the push for this man’s conviction.

Anyway. I just wish that there would be more cheery things for me to find on the news.  I don’t like this whole thing as it is, I just feel like there are a bunch of inconsistencies and it bothers me. I am a proponent of justice and also of truth…I need the facts, and I feel like the coverage of this story leaves a lot to want and imagine.

I just hope I get my grad app in on time. That’s a little stressful. I need my mocha grande. One more class and I am done for the day, I’ll finish my paper on “Civil Disobedience” and head to the gym and study for my phys. test. oh god.

Por Mark Thomas.

Observador Juvenil/Kaos en la Red.

LA FÁBRICA DE LA FELICIDAD

“El lado Coca-Cola de la vida”

“Dentro de la fábrica de la felicidad,” ‘documental de The Coca-Cola Company

La mañana es jovialmente fría, un hermoso día sureño de invierno en Atlante; el sol no influye en nada en la temperatura pero brilla en el claro cielo azul. Unos pocos policías rondan por Pemberton Park en el centro de la ciudad, con sus chaquetas con cremallera cerrada y con gorros con orejeras que cuelgan por los lados de sus cabezas, reduciéndolos amablemente de representantes de la autoridad a parodias de Elmer Gruñón. Toman café, sonríen y saludan cuando paso. Es la entrada al Mundo de Coca-Cola y en algún sitio hay discretos altavoces tocando el más memorable jingle publicitario de Coke: “Quisiera comprar una Coke al mundo.” Lo que podría explicar las orejeras…

Prefiero pensar que la compañía toca esa canción como himno de gracias a la Autoridad de Desarrollo de Atlanta que le dio 5,4 millones de dólares para contribuir al hermoseamiento del parque y a la plaza de ingreso, o al Concejo de la Ciudad que redujo 1,5 millones de dólares del impuesto a las ventas de la compañía, o ciertamente el impuesto a la propiedad de 2 millones de dólares que Coca-Cola no tuvo que pagar por decisión de las autoridades municipales. Coke podrá valer miles de millones de dólares pero no es reacia a estirar la mano para recibir un poco de moneda, especialmente si esa moneda tiene seis ceros al final.

En el sitio de honor en Pemberton Park, subvencionado por el Estado, hay una estatua de bronce de casi dos metros de alto del homónimo del área, el padre fundador de Coca-Cola, el farmacéutico John Pemberton. Oficialmente, creó la bebida en 1886 y la vendió desde la farmacia Jacobs; ahora, más de 120 años después, su noble imagen enfrenta el parque, con una mano sobre una pequeña mesa victoriana. En su otra mano levanta un vaso de Coca-Cola, en parte en celebración, en parte inspeccionándolo, con su cara impasible examinando la bebida y ofreciéndola al mundo. Es la imagen de un pionero, de un héroe científico y de un benefactor a la humanidad. A Sir Alexander Fleming le hubiera gustado tener una estatua semejante, y descubrió la penicilina. La estatua representa a Pemberton más delgado que en las fotos que he visto de su persona, donde se ve un poquito regordete. Al parecer no es la única discrepancia con los hechos. Según Mark Pendergrast, uno de los autores más respetados sobre la compañía, John Pemberton volvió de la guerra civil de EE.UU. convertido en un adicto a la morfina. De modo que el fundador de Coca-Cola fue un yonki, aunque para ser justos, ¿quién erigiría una estatua de un drogui gordo frente a una atracción turística familiar – con la excepción de la casa de Elvis Presley?

De modo que por el bien de la imagen corporativa, el gordo Pemberton pierde unos kilos y se desintoxica. Y en el interior sigue el revisionismo histórico: extrañamente, no hay ninguna mención de uno de los ingredientes originales de la bebida: cocaína, que a posteriori no parece ser su mayor pecado, ya que hubo otras bebidas a fines del Siglo XIX que contenían diferentes cantidades de la exportación más famosa de Colombia. Reconocidamente, es un hecho ligeramente confuso: un instante quieres enseñarle al mundo a cantar, al siguiente quieres enseñarle a hablar verdaderamente rápido y a frotarse las encías con el dedo índice.

Son los ‘hechos confusos’ que al parecer la Compañía trata de ocultar por un deseo casi patológico. Son desviaciones de la narrativa de la Compañía, arenilla en la grasa de las Relaciones Públicas. Y a Coca-Cola no le gusta que haya arenilla en la grasa.

El control de imágenes del Mundo de Coca-Cola se extiende incluso a su selección de vecinos. Directamente al lado está el Acuario Georgia: En 2002 Coke entregó 3,6 hectáreas para el acuario. En 2006, Coke separó 1 hectárea para un museo de derechos civiles – una atracción que celebrara Atlanta como cuna del movimiento, con planes de albergar unas 7.000 páginas de escritos del doctor Martin Luther King Jr. Por lo tanto la historia corporativa y la de los derechos civiles se entrelazan en un solo sitio en el centro de la ciudad, para que podamos recordar la lucha por la dignidad humana y visitar los peces.

Los nuevos vecinos podrán o no exhibir detalles del último discurso del doctor King. Hecho el día antes de ser asesinado. En él llamó a los afro-estadounidenses a retirar su apoyo económico a compañías si ‘no han sido justas en sus políticas de contratación,’ es decir, si han favorecido a trabajadores blancos por sobre los trabajadores negros. Una de las compañías que debían ser boicoteadas era Coca-Cola. Las palabras exactas del doctor King fueron: ‘os pedimos esta noche, que vayáis y digáis a vuestros vecinos que no compren Coca-Cola en Memphis.’

De la misma manera puede o no que haya mención de la demanda judicial presentada contra la compañía por cientos de empleados de Coke, acusándola de discriminación contra trabajadores negros en la remuneración y los ascensos. La Compañía no admitió esas acusaciones, pero en noviembre de 2000 anunció que pagaría 192,5 millones de dólares para dirimir el caso. Si uno mide el racismo en dólares, representa un montón de racismo.

Otra pequeña historia que no es del gusto de la Compañía tiene que ver con los Juegos Olímpicos. La relación de Coca-Cola con los Juegos Olímpicos comenzó en 1928. Pero Coke minimiza su patrocinio de la Olimpíada de 1936, la Olimpíada de Berlín, en la cual un cierto pintor y decorador psicópata lanzó una ofensiva de relaciones públicas para promover su Estado nazi. A The Coca-Cola Company le gusta mencionar que uno de los miembros del equipo de remo estadounidense en la Olimpíada de 1936 posteriormente llegó a ser su presidente. También se enorgullece al mencionar que el corredor Jesse Owens hizo publicidad para Coke – aunque fue años después de ganar cuatro medallas de oro en Berlín, con lo que afectó en algo las teorías de la raza superior de su anfitrión. La Compañía prefiere colocarse junto a los que son vistos como ‘luchando’ contra los nazis o promoviendo el ‘ideal olímpico’, en lugar de mostrarse como patrocinadores de una plataforma olímpica para Hitler. Y, francamente, ¿quién no lo preferiría?

Pero la Compañía tiene unos pocos ítems nazis más en su desván. Por ejemplo, Max Keith, el director gerente de Coca-Cola GmbH, embotellador de Coke en Alemania durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial. Al avanzar la guerra, se acabó el suministro de ingredientes para hacer Coca-Cola, modo que Max inventó una nueva bebida para aliviar la sed alemana. La llamó Fanta. Y tenemos un eslogan para un anuncio: ‘Una Fanta, un Reich ¿Juegas?’

Los historiadores de la Compañía señalan que Max Keith nunca se unió al Partido Nazi, pero exhibió a Coca-Cola GmbH en una exposición organizada para abrazar el concepto del trabajador alemán bajo el Führer. En otro caso, Max Keith decoró su stand de Coca-Cola con banderas nazis. Esto fue confirmado por The Coca-Cola Company que dijo: ‘[Max] Keith en una convención de embotelladores exhibió esvásticas y terminó con un saludo a Hitler. Esto no hubiera estado fuera de lugar en EE.UU. al revés y el podio hubiera tenido una bandera estadounidense y los actos comenzarían o terminarían con el Juramento de Lealtad.’ Dejo que juzguéis por vuestra propia cuenta.

Lo que sé es que los archivos de The Coca-Cola Company tienen fotos del stand en la exposición ‘que muestran esvásticas utilizadas como decoración’ bajo el emblema de Coca-Cola. Sólo imagino que el archivista preferiría irse al infierno que exhibir esas fotos al público.

Seguramente no me equivoco si digo que estas historias no van a aumentar las ventas de Coca-Cola, con la excepción de uno que otro cliente del Ku-Klux-Klan. Ninguno de estos hechos, sea la traviesa aguja de Pemberton, el problemático parentesco de Fanta o la condena de King, presenta la historia que Coca-Cola quisiera que conociéramos ni es la historia que quiere presentar para vender su bebida.

Para escuchar la historia de Coca-Cola cobran 15 dólares por adulto, 9 dólares por niño entre tres y doce años. Pero antes de dejarse tentar por una visita al Mundo de Coca-Cola, hay que hacerse una pregunta: ¿qué es lo que muestran? Hacen gaseosas y las anuncian en todo el mundo para venderlas; todo lo que tienen son botellas y anuncios – no pueden hacer un museo con eso, ¿verdad? Sí, pueden. Es exactamente lo que es el Mundo de Coca-Cola: Coca-Cola, anuncios de Coca-Cola y una tienda de regalos que vende artículos publicitarios de Coca-Cola.

———

Mark Thomas es comediante, presentador, activista político y periodista del sur de Londres. Es mejor conocido por satíricas políticas en su The Mark Thomas Comedy Product, que ha causado inmensas controversias al denunciar crímenes políticos y corporativos. Figura en el Libro de Récords Guinness por realizar la mayor cantidad de protestas políticas en un solo día. Vive en Londres.

Del libro “Belching Out The Devil: Global Adventures with Coca-Cola” de Mark Thomas. Pasajes extraídos por acuerdo con Nation Books, miembro del Perseus Books Group. Copyright © 2009.

© 2009 Nation Books All rights reserved.

http://www.alternet.org/story/140917/

Esta obra está bajo una licencia de Creative Commons.

In the last days of World War II, in Hitler’s Germany, Eva Braun (Hitler’s long time lover, short time wife) is hidden away at Hitler’s home the Berghof. Hitler spent more time here in World War II than anywhere else.

Eva, whom Hitler left alone at the Berghof after July 1944, invited her cousin to come for a visit.

Thus the main character of this book finds herself in the middle of Hitler’s world as the Third Reich begins to crumble… In the beginning of the book, the author tells us that the book is the truth, but is also fiction. I found it intriguing. The last days of the high ranking Nazi’s (never Hitler who by this time was on the Eastern front and then in Berlin) and their greed and disbelief in the end of their stolen world…

As always, I try to describe the one part of the story that really spoke to  me, in this story that part involves a young Russian boy and his dog.  His dog becomes his analogy for his lost home and family.

This book gives a different perspective on the destruction of Europe and the displacement of its peoples. It takes you to the Nazis who were living in stolen homes drinking champagne…

Die Religionsfreiheit beinhaltet, daß niemandem Religiosität vorgeschrieben werden darf. Das heißt aber auch, daß jeder, der das möchte, für sich bzw. mit Gleichgesinten religiös aktiv sein darf.

Die konservative SVP in der Schweiz hat ein Referendum zustande gebracht, in dem die Schweizer über ein Bau-Verbot von Minaretten abstimmen dürfen. Dabei hatte sie sich nicht besonders schlau angestellt: so konnte man auf der Homepage der SVP in einem Flash-Spiel Minarette abschießen. Das und das umstrittene Plakat dazu hatten sicher ihren Anteil daran, daß Umfragen noch vor einem Monat ein Scheitern des Referendums vorausgesagt haben. Umso überraschender erscheint also dieses Ergebnis.

Offensichtlich gilt das Grundrecht der Religionsfreiheit nicht für Muslime. Und damit ist es kein Grundrecht mehr, sondern ein Instrument zur Ausgrenzung von Minderheiten: Christen dürfen beten, Muslime nicht. Das, was sich der Westen überheblich auf die Fahnen schreibt, also den gefühlten humanistischen Vorsprung in Kultur und Verfassung, ist hiermit ad absurdum geführt. Die SVP sieht in den Minaretten ein “politisches Symbol für einen Machtanspruch”. Soll das heißen, daß das alleinige Dasein der Muslime eine Bedrohung darstellt? Das gilt höchstens für jemanden, der selbst einen Machtanspruch hat. So kann das nicht funktionieren. Man erwartet von Moslems Integration, sieht sie selbst und ihre Religion aber als Bedrohung der eigenen Macht, die man auch auszuüben berechtigt ist.

Der Westen sägt hiermit an seinen eigenen Pfeilern. Die französische Revolution als Beginn der Demokratie in Europa folgte dem Wahlspruch: “Freiheit, Gleichheit, Brüderlichkeit“. Spätestens jetzt ist klar, daß auch die moderne Gesellschaft zu Rückschrittlichkeit fähig ist. Willkommen in der Postmoderne.

EDIT:

es geht auch anders. Hier ein paar Links zu Blogs, die sich in intelligenten, bewegenden und Hoffnung machenden Beiträgen dazu äußern:

Stoepsorama: La Suisse n’existe plus!
Redders Welt: minarett-verbot und unser platz in der geschichte
wahrscheinlich: Reaktionen auf Minarett-Verbot

There are a fair few ‘informal’ street markets specialising in antiques, bric a brac, junk and plain old rubbish. Some of which desperately needs to be placed unceremoniously in a rubbish bin. There’s a fairly famous one in Zona Rosa, and another in the rather iffy Lagunilla market in Tepito. I regularly go to the Alvaro Obregon market for a wander, but today I turned away from that one and went in a different direction. Only to come across another market just a couple of blocks away. This one running around the four sides of a public park.

You can almost always find some funky stuff at these markets. Old Atari 2600 consoles with games. Old paintings, books and magazine. Flea ridden sofas. Tables and chairs that are being feasted upon by woodworm. Phones from the ’60’s. Watches, glasses, spoons, medals, stamps, coins, posters, sunglasses, toys, rugs….the assortment of stuff that finds its way to market never ceases to amaze me.

But there are two types of ‘antique’ that always fascinate me. Firstly, the amount of Nazi memorabilia. Its just not something you come across that much in the UK. World War 2 and Hitler’s Nazi party were and are a distant and bizarre turn of events in a world far removed for most Mexicans. Nazi helmets are not a rare sight on motorcyclists. And today I came across a mint condition Adolf doll, in box. I was almost tempted to buy it, just as a sort of strange and unusual momento from my Mexican adventure.

There’s also a plethora of old cameras. Really old cameras. Of all sorts of makes. Kodak, Zenit, Pentax, Canon, Yashica cameras. Some of which may still work. Others which may not. However, even if you find one in the former category, they make require a film that’s no longer made. I am really tempted to take a punt on one of these ancient cameras one day, if I can get a fair price on it. Just to see if I can get it to work, and to see what sort of photos I can get out of it. One day….

In an article inspired by “What does Ray Nagin, Diane Downs and Richard Reid have in common?”, I decided to write what Lori Drew, Osama bin Laden, and Adolf Hitler have in common. If you are thinking that I am lumping all of them together, which they all have been subjected too, especially with Lori Drew. You are wrong. Well, no one is going to argue that Drew, Bin Laden, and Hitler are the most reviled figures in history and are rightfully regarded as public enemies. Let’s review who they are and their evil misdeeds.

Lori Drew, husband Curt, daughter Sarah, and Ashley Grills harassed a girl to suicide by using MySpace in Fall of 2006. Bin Laden masterminded the 9/11 Terrorist Attacks on the East Coast of America in 2001. Hitler was the leader of Nazis Germany from 1933 to 1945, which started World War II and Holocaust.

On the surface, what they did are dramatically different. One girl died from suicide after being mentally tortured; 3,000 people died on live television and many more could die from the toxic dust and smoke; 30 million died in genocide and left Eurasia in shambles. Beyond that, Drew, Bin Laden, and Hitler have a lot in common. What is it? They feel that they are being victimized and persecuted by imagined enemies. They are addicted to victimhood and maintain that feeling to assert dominance and control other people, by bullying, mass murder, terrorism, or genocide. They always see themselves as victims and blame the victim for their problems.

Recall the Secret Service study they conducted on school shooters after the Columbine Massacre. There was no one clear profile of a so called typical profile of a school shooter. However, they found that 71 percent of school shooters felt a sense of persecution. Few of them were actually bullied, contrary to popular beliefs. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold saw themselves as victims, when in fact they were bullies themselves with a laundry list of discipline problems and brushes with the law. Quite frankly, after the Columbine Massacre, I took great offense at the way the media portrayed Harris and Klebold as victims of bullying. This is the same mantra used after Columbine, 9/11, Seung-Hui Cho, Steven Kazmierczak, and Nidal Hasan. The media plays “blame the victim” game because the attackers were tormented. All the victims killed had no connection to the perpetrators.

One can say that Harris and Klebold were bullies because bullies bully because they feel they are being bullied themselves and have to lash out. They bully to feel “good” about themselves. Yes, it is generally true that bullies do not have any lack of self-esteem. They have high self-esteem, but having high self-esteem does not translate into success. In fact, high self-esteem is dangerous because people do not have to will to change. They are happy and content with their life as it is. People with higher self-esteem are more likely to be addicted to alcohol and drugs and commit crime. Ask any person who remembers the bully, chances are they will say they ended up as either drug addicts, in prison, or dead.

Lori Drew posed as “Josh Evans” to see if Megan Meier was talking bad about Sarah after Megan allegedly called Sarah a “ugly Lesbian”. Drew was motivated by protecting her daughter from bullies. The Drews were described as over involved and pushy parents, especially in regards with Sarah, which made people feel resentful. The Drews are a classic “helicopter parent”. Also, Lori Drew was described as sociable and clingy to a point of annoying. She was considered an outcast in her neighborhood. Drew wanted to snoop and teach Megan a lesson for not being friends and bullying Sarah. Drew scapegoated her for all problems in life because Sarah was not happy and was no longer a friend. Compounding it, Drew was upset that Megan was losing weight faster than Sarah and she bad mouthed her for that. Drew viewed herself and family as being repeatedly victimized by Megan. The Drews and Ashley Grills would later send ugly messages that called her “fat” and “whore” to Meier and she committed suicide on October 16, 2006. The case would be revealed a year later by Steve Pokin, which would make her one of the most hated persons in years.

The Megan Meier case is reminiscent of Gertrude Baniszewski, who was enraged after Sylvia Likens accused her daughter Paula and Stephanie of being prostitutes. Baniszewski felt the sense that Likens was persecuting her and her family and she needed to stop it at all cost. Baniszewski got her children and neighborhood children to torture Likens to death to teach her a lesson. Also, she wanted to protect her and her daughter’s reputation and tried to portray themselves as “virtuous” and “clean” and attended a fundamentalist church. In reality, Stephanie and Gertrude were sexually promiscuous and had a child out of wedlock. Baniszewski was often subjected to abuse at her live-in boyfriend and constantly felt victimized over and over and Likens pushed her over the edge. Baniszewski thought torturing Likens would be an act of redemption.

Osama bin Laden, the leader of Al-Qaeda, was behind the horrid September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attacks in New York, Arlington, and Shanksville. Four airplanes were hijacked by terrorists and they attacked the World Trade Center, Pentagon, and a failed one near Shanksville. The attack leveled the World Trade Center and left the Pentagon burning. 3,000 people died in the terrorist attack on live television, mostly from the collapse of the towers. Bin Laden was partly motivated by how Saudi Arabia allowed America to use the land to attack Iraq in the Persian Gulf War of 1990. He blames America for that, despite the fact that the Saudi Royal Family allowed and they could of denied that access to America. Bin Laden sees America and the West as being oppressive to Muslims and supporting Israel. He views Muslims as victims of “Western Imperialism” and “Islamophobia”. Bin Laden sees Palestinians being oppressed and victimized by the Jews, who are helped by America. This is despite the fact that the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is more political than religious.

Bin Laden believes that suicide bombers are courageous and should be employed to teach America and the West a lesson. Also, Bin Laden encourages that Muslims protect fellow Muslims from America and the West by engaging in Jihad or “Holy War”. Also, where Bin Laden is from, they have a revenge culture because the climate is desert, which is dry. Dry climate makes bodies decay less and people are more likely to remember.

Adolf Hitler took advantage of Germans’ desperation from the Great Depression. It was after World War I and the Treaty of Versailles imposed harsh punishment on Germany. They had to pay huge reparations. They had to print a lot of money, which led to hyperinflation during the Great Depression. Hitler blamed Jews for all of Germany’s problems from hyperinflation to Treaty of Versailles. Hitler saw Jews as backstabbers and traitors out to destroy the Germans. He viewed Germans and Germany as victims of “Jewish” control and it had to be stopped. Hitler believed that Jews “raped” Germany during and after World War I. Hitler is voted in the 1933 election and rose to power on the guise of “hope” and “change”.

Hitler wanted to protect the Germans from the Jews by passing laws that discriminated against Jews. Hitler wanted to teach Jews a lesson in every way possible. By the time World War II starts, Jews were rounded up and sent off to death camps to be killed. Hitler also went after Slavs, Gypsies, Jehovah’s Witness, and disabled people because he saw them as undesirable. In the end, 30 million people died and Eurasia was left a total mess with 80 million killed in World War II. Nearly 70 percent of the European Jews were wiped out.

Many genocidal maniacs are paranoid and obsessed with protecting people. They use their persecution complex to impose their tyranny on the people. Joseph Stalin was another paranoid psychopath like Hitler. He went after anyone who were enemies of the state. Stalin viewed the state and himself as being victimized by dissidents. He had those infamous show trials, caused famines that killed 7 million Ukrainians, and many untold number of people would be sent off to Gulags in Siberia to a life time of hard labor and death.

Another example of a dictator with a sense of constant victimization is Saddam Hussein. He believed in protecting the Arab people from the Persians. Hussein viewed Arabs as victims of “Persian” cultural imperialism. He invaded Iran after the 1979 Islamic Revolution because he was afraid of Shiites would spread their influence, which he saw it as Persian cultural imperialism. The 1980 Iran-Iraq War had Arabs of all religious background, Muslim and Christian, because they saw Persians as the common enemy worthy of destruction. When Hussein was executed in late 2006, his last words were “Down with Persians”, a testament to his hatred towards Persians.

Cult leaders are often paranoid and use that paranoia to maintain control on their followers. Cult leaders feel victimized. Jim Jones, Charles Manson, and Fred Phelps come to mind. Jones was an avowed communist and Stalinist and felt that the CIA was spying on him and People’s Temple. They would later flee to Guyana to establish Jonestown. Than Congressman Leo Ryan came to investigate that followers were held against their will. Jone’s men attack Ryan’s convoy and from their 909 people die from mass suicide and murder. Manson was paranoid about a race war called “Helter Skelter”. Manson’s cult went on a brutal killing spree that killed actress Sharon Tate and LaBianca couple in 1969. Phelps is the leader of the Westboro Baptist Church. They are notorious for picketing funerals and hating homosexuals. He always talks about how his so-called church is being persecuted and that picketing funerals is a way to stop the persecution. Phelps is clearly a closeted homosexual with serious issues of self hate. It is probable that Phelps might have illegitimate children because Shirley Phelps-Roper has an illegitimate son named Samuel.

Many so-called civil rights leaders, like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are very paranoid of racism and bigotry against Blacks and are addicted to victimhood. Victimhood becomes part of them. Any slighting that Blacks are subjected too will put them in the spotlight. In many ways, Jackson and Sharpton are addicted to victimhood. They feel that Blacks are denied equal access whether it is education or a job. In reality, Jackson and Sharpton are racists themselves and have expressed bigotry. Jackson called New York “Hymie Town” because of its largest Jewish population. Jackson is part of another underlying problem, anti-Semitism. A sad irony because Jews helped Blacks in the Civil Rights Movement.

What does this all mean? Feeling the sense of persecution and victim blaming are recurring theme among evil people. Does paranoia and feeling the sense of persecution lead to evil and violence. Not always. It is healthy to have some paranoia. It makes us human. It is common that we are all paranoid to some extent. We don’t like it when people talk bad about us. Who does? Of course we do not get so consumed with it to a point that it drives us to feel victimized. We all have felt victimized at some point. There are other factors as well to consider. Paranoid is a sign of a personality disorder, which is the hallmark of a psychopath.

The constant state of paranoia and feeling victimized day in day out and it becomes part of them. That is unhealthy and dangerous. Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Jim Jones, and Lori Drew come to mind. Also, their paranoia was mixed with anti-social, narcissism, and deviance, which is a dangerous mix. Hitler, Stalin, Jones, and Drew are considered psychopaths. However, feeling victimized and psychopathy need not to be the case. Bin Laden who lacks any psychopathic behavior is very focused on one thing. A psychopath usually lacks focus, which would be a bad thing for terrorist, especially in an organized one like Al-Qaeda.

Being paranoid and feeling victimized are not a bad thing in healthy doses. For some, being paranoid and feeling victimized is an addiction that can turn deadly. The very thing they fear and hate becomes them. Just look at Adolf Hitler, Osama bin Laden, Jim Jones, Eric Harris/Dylan Klebold, Jesse Jackson, and Lori Drew. They constantly felt victimized and needed to protect the very thing they feared and hated. It became them. In some cases, it turned deadly.

Enjoying a Peaceful Old Age

Quietly evading justice? The alleged war criminal takes a stroll.

The suspected Nazi war criminal Klaas F., who is number five on the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s most-wanted list, is enjoying a quiet retirement in Bavaria. While some alleged former Nazis are facing trial in their old age, the 87-year-old has managed to slip through the cracks in the German justice system.

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Full article and photo: http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,663832,00.html

Brooks won the Pulitzer in 2006 for her book March, so I felt obligated to try People of the Book when I saw it on display at the mega-bookstore that shall remain unnamed. I feel guilty that I didn’t spend my money at the local independent bookstore.  I had a gift card.  What could I do.

The book is about the Sarajevo Haggadah, a Jewish religious text that tells the story of the Jewish exodus from Egypt.  It’s believed that this Haggadah originated some time in the 14th century in Spain and made it’s way to Sarajevo, surviving Jewish expulsion, the Spanish Inquisition, World War II, and the Bosnian War.  The Haggadah contains some beautiful illustrations similar to Christian prayer books, and one of them includes a Moorish woman.  This raises several historical questions about why this Jewish text has Christian influenced artwork and a Moorish woman. Brooks’ fictional protagonist is a conservationist of ancient texts.  She finds several clues as to the Haggadah’s origins and history while restoring it for the museum in Sarajevo.  The chapters take the reader back in time to tell the fictional story behind each clue, which is pretty interesting, but several times Brooks uses corny plot twists along the lines of something from a Dan Brown novel. Most are in the present and involve the protagonist and her own little storyline. Overall, the book is about how multiculturalism is great and created this wonderful work of art, but I have to say I felt the Christians in this book took a beating.  I know, the Inquisition. I can’t argue with that.  I don’t want to give any spoilers, but there are several times Brooks could have gone in a different direction with certain characters. Again, the Dan Brown nonsense really turns me off.  It wasn’t a lot, but that’s my pet peeve, especially coming from a writer who won the Pulitzer.

People of the Book is good, and it kept my interest, but it’s not as good as I thought it would be. I guess that’s what I get for not buying March, but I figured her follow up to the Pulitzer could only be better…right?

[The following post is written by one my Animal Law students who prefers to remain anonymous --dnc]

I read an article recently that really offended me. The article was written on November 21, 2009 by Gary Steiner and was published in the New York Times Op-Ed section (Steiner’s piece has already been discussed  on this blog here).

The first line in this article that bothered me actually did not originate from him. He quotes Issac Bashevis Singer in his story “The Letter Writer” as saying that the killing of animals for food is the “eternal Treblinka.” For those of you who are not aware, Treblinka was a Nazi extermination camp. In one year there were 850,000 people killed there. The problem I have with Singer’s comparison is that there was no benefit whatsoever to the Nazis by killing these people. Of course many Animal Rights activists do not think it is right to kill animals for human benefit, but you would be hard pressed to find anyone who denies that the humans who do kill animals gain a benefit from them. In fact, I think the whole issue is whether it is right for humans to kill animals for their benefit. You may not feel the benefit is justified, but we are not talking about wanton slaughter like there was in Treblinka.

Please just read this short article about Treblinka at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treblinka_extermination_camp, and then I feel that you will agree that to even repeat this ridiculous comparison destroys any validity that could possibly have come out of this article. That is my problem with Steiner. What would possess him to read this ridiculous comparison and then quote it? Obviously he read it and said something to the effect of “hey, wait a second, that’s right. Slaughtering animals for a benefit to human’s is exactly the same as a mass extermination of humans for absolutely no reason.” And then he decided to quote it. All I can say to him is, well I think Abraham Lincoln said it best, sometimes it is “better to remain silent and be thought a fool then to open your mouth and remove all doubt.”

The next part of the article that bothered me was a line where he wrote “Let me be candid: By and large, meat-eaters are a self-righteous bunch.” I am sorry but that line is a bunch of baloney (soy baloney of course). We meat eaters are many many things, but self-righteous is not one of them. Gary Steiner spends the entire article telling us how we, as meat eaters, are trying to ease our guilt by buying free range turkeys and eggs and then proceeds to tell us that the few attempts we are making at putting our money where your mouths are is not good enough, and THEN he has the nerve to call us self-righteous. Excuse me Mr. Steiner, but how can you tell us that what we are doing is not good enough for you and in the same breath call us self-righteous. Maybe it is because of offensive people like yourself that there are not more people who care about your issues.

This reminds me of a situation where there is a pauper who goes to a rich person to collect money. As the rich person is about to give him the money the pauper starts yelling and cursing him, so of course the rich person does not give the pauper the money and the pauper then complains to anyone who will listen that the rich person doesn’t care for the poor. What you have to keep in mind is that for right or wrong, the animal rights cause is the pauper and if you are asking for the rich person’s help (i.e. the meat eaters) then insulting them is NOT the right way to go about it. We may be willing to help, but only if you can keep from insulting us long enough so that we will listen!!!

MINISTER OF DEFENSE, HUEY P. NEWTON- HE WON THE HEARTS AND MINDS OF THE PEOPLE

HUEY P. NEWTON: HIS REPUTATION HAD PRECEDED HIM

 

When I graduated from high school, I had been pretty much colonialized. I was a Manchild caught in a dilemma between being a street hustler, thug or a factory worker. My high school experience at a predominately white school had only reaffirmed and reinforced my interiority complex. Being Black, I truly believed that I had no other options.

I wasn’t a hustler. I truly loved my sisters. To me, my sisters were truly beautiful and fascinating. I didn’t have the heart or desire to live a life taking advantage of them.  I loved to read and write poetry rhymes. I was completely satisfied to find a dark counter at the public library with a stack of books and read my life away.

I couldn’t be a thug. I had gained a decent reputation as an accomplished street fighter, but I didn’t have the heart or desire to harm anyone. I was a good athlete too, but I didn’t have the money or resources to pay for a physical or the equipment to play high school sports.

I wasn’t a factory worker. Most of my in-laws made a pretty good living at the Chevrolet Plant in Fremont or other factories. I loved the outdoors. My favorite past time was being in the open air and basting in the sun at a local city park like Lincoln Square Recreation Center in Downtown Oakland. I loved exploring the shores of Jack London Square where I spent vast hours alone walking along the shores of the coastal waters. Growing up to be a self realizing Blackman wasn’t an option.  

After graduating from high school, I didn’t know what to do with my life. My dream was to be a railroad Pullman porter and melt away into a life of invisibility and interiority. I was hopelessly confused.

One day, I followed a couple of sisters that graduated with my class to a local college. They were twins, Brenda and Glenda. My cousin had married Glenda as a high school sweetheart joined the military and left for the Vietnam conflict in Southeast Asia. I had a puppy dog crush on Brenda. I had dreams of marrying Brenda and joining my cousin in Southeast Asia and returning home a decorated war hero. I had no idea what war was other than a stage show on a Hollywood set. I was in a fantasy and extremely naïve.

When I broke through the glass double doors of Merritt Jr. College at 59^th and Grove, my life changed. I had never been on a college campus in my life. There were girls of every description everywhere. It was another playground for a Manchild. I decided then that I wanted to be a college student.

I had absolutely no idea how to read a college schedule. I picked my classes regardless of the times, days, units or prerequisites. I picked my classes by looking at the titles, “hum-hum-this sounds good, this looks good, and this sounds good.” I had no idea what a prerequisite was. I had no idea what a class conflict was. One day, a couple of older sisters noticed that filling out a class schedule was beyond my understanding, and sat down with me and showed me how to fill it out properly. A white college counselor had signed my class schedule conflicts and all, like 25 class credit units. He didn’t care. He assumed that I wouldn’t be there long.

At Merritt, Brenda had found another brother as a suitor. I was somewhat broken hearted that I couldn’t join my cousin in matrimony and in Vietnam. My heart and attention then went to a beautiful young lady from Richmond named Johnnie. The word in the grapevine was that she was hard as rocks. She had come up hard, very hard actually fighting grown men off her. The amazing thing was she had been successful. Nobody got close to her. Johnnie was tough as nails, but we had a lot of laughs and good times.

A relationship with Johnnie was difficult if not impossible. She had been claimed by one of the most notorious thugs in Richmond. It was suicide to be caught anyplace near her. I found Johnnie regardless of her background, sweet, gentle, quiet and kind. Our affection was mutual. Our moments together were confined to campus. I wished that I could grow wings and fly her away from her troubles. I was a Manchild full of innocent fantasy and dreams and barely able to take care of himself.

It wasn’t long before Brenda, Glenda, and Johnnie dropped out. I found myself getting high, hanging out on campus and flirting with all sorts of young ladies of all races. The Manchild had found a new playground. I became a campus playboy, a campus clown.

One day, I had spent the day drinking and getting high with the brothers. That evening I was hanging out in the hallway in front of the campus cafeteria cutting it up with a couple of brothers.  One brother was giving me the campus lowdown.

That’s “Michael the Pimp.” Michael was a local fixture. Michael was a light skinned brother with a process hairdo. Michael was always good to stop, talk, laugh and for a conversation. He was a hapless heroin addict that hung around campus. I don’t think anyone took him seriously even the women found him harmless and most irrelevant.

“That’s Marcellus, he is a professional boxer.” Marcellus was a bully and a self centered individual with a head full of greasy Gerri-curls, God’s gift to women. He made a beeline straight to cafeteria to impress the young ladies without looking around.  

“That’s Huey.” Huey was a rather ordinary sized brother with an arm full of books. He was modestly dressed. I noticed that he buttoned his shirt all the way up to the neck. The brother suddenly straightened his back and became alert. He respectfully nodded, and the rest of us got the clue and straightened up real quick and nodded our heads in unison. In passing, Huey acknowledged us and nodded respectfully in return, and entered the cafeteria. “That’s Huey. Don’t mess with him!” 

Huey’s reputation had preceded him. From that day on, when Huey passed me in the hallway it always the same, straighten up and straighten up quick no matter how high you was. Huey didn’t talk much. He talked with his eyes. Huey’s girlfriend was a tall beautiful sister with long black hair named Laverne Williams. She was an opera singer and a serious music major. Huey was prelaw.

One day, Huey and Laverne passed me in the hall. As usual, I was holding up the wall in the hallway high. Laverne looked at me and whispered something to Huey about me. I wanted to blend into the woodwork to avoid his attention. Huey glanced at me for a moment and continued down the hallway. Here it was, one of the most bad-assed brothers on campus and his significant one didn’t like me. I wanted to disappear into the walls.

One evening, I rolled around to the brothers in the hallway in front of the cafeteria. One brother told me, “man, you just missed it. Huey and Marcellus just got in it.” My heart sunk to my stomach, Huey got beat down by a professional middle weigh boxer, I thought. The brother continued in utter amazement, “man, Huey cleaned out Marcellus.”  My mouth dropped wide open. I said to myself, “this Huey P. Newton cat is for real!”

From then on each time Laverne passed me, she continued to whisper something to Huey about me. It made me feel so little, miserable, and a failure not to be able to live up to her and now Huey’s expectations. I wasn’t serious about my education. I was at Merritt to get high, play and clown around with the young ladies. She could see right through me. 

One day she passed me in the hallway with Huey, she said something about me again. Huey talked with his eyes. He never looked at me in a despairingly manner. On his day he sort of nodded and with reassuring look in his eye said, “He will be all right.” I knew that I had to get serious about education, and straighten my life out from then on.

 Laverne didn’t know it, but I had decided that I wanted to be like Huey, manly, quiet, respected, and a serious student. I would ultimately win her respect and friendship. That really meant a lot to me.   

THE BEGINNING: SOUL STUDENTS ADVISORY COUNCIL   

It was 1966. A new awareness was breaking out all over campus, each day there were spontaneous groups of black and white students engaging in vigorous political debates about Civil Rights, and the Vietnam War. One of several Black students that stood out in the debates in regards to having an incredible cyclopedia-like recall of references and historical details was Bobby Seale. I had never seen Black men stand up to debate whites regarding any subject, whether history, psychology, philosophy, it didn’t matter. There didn’t seem to be subject that the brothers weren’t aware of. The heated debates lasted into the evenings, and I tried not to miss a moment.

There was Isaac Moore, Ken Freemen, Leo Bazile, Ernie Allen, and others. They were brilliant and beautiful in debate. Isaac Moore and Ken Freeman became my wise, faithful and patient mentors and teachers. Bobby, Ken and particularly Isaac Moore, took time to school and mentor me through the draft. I wouldn’t have made it without them. I subsequently discovered that Bobby Seale was Huey’s closest confidents. They were a prefect match. Bobby was charismatic, outgoing, boisterous, and an extremely fluent public speaker. Bobby had once been a comedian. Huey was intellectual, modest, and extremely reserved.    

The brothers and sisters on campus began to find a common cause among them, and agreed that there was a need to organize on campus around their causes, issues and needs. Some of brothers reasoned that there were numerous student groups with a common union funded by student fees, but none of them addressed the needs and issues of Black people. Why not organize a student group that would meet on campus around a common cause and union to regularly discuss and address issues important to Black students and people of color. It was Bobby Seale that always constantly emphasized the significance and uniqueness of the “soul” of people of color; soul music and soul food. It carried the day. The brothers and sisters formed Soul Students Advisory Council of the Associated Students of Merritt Jr. College. I believe that Leo Bazile became the first president of the new student union. I was in another world. It was a beautiful educational experience for me. I was like a fly on the wall. I tried not to miss anything.   

One issue was common and pressing to most the brothers and sisters on campus was the unjust Vietnam War, and the draft. Ernie Allen called a press conference on campus, and publicly declared his opposition to the war and became one of the first to refuse to be drafted into a war against his conscious and the Yellow brothers and sisters of Southeast Asia fighting the same enemy that people of color were facing in this country. I was absolutely in wonder of these brilliant, courageous, and worldly brothers. 

Huey and Bobby wanted to take the group further beyond intellectualizing to take concrete and direct actions to help organize the community around issues that affected them. They wanted to expand the scope of the union to address police brutality, but most of the other brothers and sisters didn’t want to go that far. Unfortunately, some of the brothers began to assume that Huey and Bobby were too far out and militant for a campus organization.

Things came to a boil when Huey and Bobby used some of the union’s funds as bail money in regards to arrests that occurred protesting a police shooting in Richmond. It wasn’t that they pilfered the money it was that the brothers and sisters of the union demanded a democratic process before using the council’s money. They demanded the right to vote on it. Huey and Bobby argued that it was a time of the essence emergency and a paramount and revolutionary right existed to use the money to come to the aid of the Black community. It was Huey and Bobby on one side and the intellectuals like my mentors, Moore and Freeman and other brothers and sisters of the council, on the other side.

My heart was for unity with all of them. We needed the intellectuals and revolutionaries united for one cause, the liberation of our people. It was like a dark cloud had formed over my head. I was torn between them. I truly loved all of them, but for pragmatic reasons my soul had to go with Huey and Bobby. I was a young mis-educated and poor Manchild. I felt I had little to contribute to further the movement among the brilliant intellectuals. I had nothing to give the movement to liberate our people, but my love, body and soul.       

THE SPLIT: THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY FOR SELF DEFENSE       

Huey and Bobby branched out of the Soul Students Advisory Council and formed an off campus organization, the Black Panther Party for Self Defense (BPPSD) in October of 1966. Huey, Minister of Defense,  and Bobby, the  Chairman, developed the 10 Point Plan as the party’s platform to rally the people around. [1] The intellectual criticism was that the man could meet all the demands of the 10 Point Plan and we still wouldn’t be free. However, I thought it was a brilliant idea. Bobby and Huey targeted population were the ordinary brothers and sisters of the Black Community that Bobby called the “Lumpen.” The party’s platform was straightforward, comprehendible, and easy to universally embrace.

I was a fly on the wall. Huey and Bobby was right. That 10-Point Plan platform drew into the ranks of BPPSD some of the baldest, fiercest street thugs, gang members, and ex-servicemen of color on earth under one cause, the liberation of our people. 

The other criticism was that Bobby Seale was weak. In my world, Bobby was one of the boldest brothers on the planet. I didn’t quite understand that point. A couple of years later, I would have learned exactly what they had meant.  

I was unable to participate in the early activities of party like the police patrols. The internal policy was that brothers had to equip themselves with their own personal guns. During this time, most of the community thugs and serious hustlers had the need for guns. I, the Manchild, never had the need or desire for a gun. For a time, I didn’t have the resources to obtain a gun.

I missed Huey’s infamous February 21, 1967 confrontation with the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) while escorting Betty Shabazz, the late wife of Malcolm X, from San Francisco Airport to the Ramparts office for an interview with Eldridge Cleaver. One of the young brothers of the escort told me that a SFPD contingent confronted Huey and brothers outside the Rampart’s office. One of the officers demanded the surrender of the escort’s weapons. An officer stepped forward as if to take Huey’s shotgun; and all that was heard was “click-click.” Huey locked and loaded a shell in his shotgun. Huey meant business and that just wasn’t going to happen. The SFPD backed down. On that day, I lot of people besides the police found out that Huey P. Newton was for real.

I also missed the infamous May 2, 1967 march on Sacramento that put the Black Panther Party for Self Defense on the international map in infinity. I learned a great deal about my life as a Manchild from Huey. Naturally at first, I didn’t have the courage that Huey and some of the other brothers had. I thought we needed more brothers. I thought that there might be safety in numbers if only for myself.

Once on campus, I was trying to convince a high school associate, Danny Crockett, to join the party. The grapevine was humming that Danny had ended a notorious thug’s, John Singleton, reign of terror with a bullet. It didn’t kill him, but from John’s own mouth it had slowed him down, and changed his life from random acts of senseless violence and hurting others needlessly.

While I was talking to Danny, Huey passed. I called Huey over and told him I was trying to recruit Danny. You couldn’t coach Huey to waste any words. Huey looked at Danny and asked if he had a gun. Danny said, “Yes.” Huey asked Danny if he was willing to protect his family with that gun. Danny said, “Yes.” Huey told Danny, “You’re a Panther,” and walked away.  

Huey was right. We didn’t need a lot of brothers in the party. We needed only the few dedicated brothers and sisters that we had to be examples of un-selfness, undying and supreme love, sacrifice and courage for our people. We will ultimately win the hearts and minds of the people. Huey had been the perfect example. I wasn’t wrong to want to be just like Huey P. Newton. Slowly, the de-colonialization process of my mind and spirit was jellying.  The BPPSD was molding into a fearless and internationally respected Black Liberation Warrior Clan. 

HUEY P. NEWTON & Chinese Thought Reform

On October 28, 1967, at about 4:51 a.m., Oakland Police Officer John Frey allegedly at random spotted an automobile moving along his assigned beat in West Oakland. Frey ran a check on the vehicle, and within a minute it was identified as a “known Black Panther vehicle.” [2] Frey decided to the stop the car at Seventh and Willow Street. Officer Herbert Heanes heard the transmission and joined Frey to provide cover.

After the stop, Frey found the vehicle driven for Newton by a passenger, Gene McKinney. Frey attempted to arrest Newton for two parking ticket violations belonging to the car’s owner, Huey’s significant one, Laverne Williams. During the arrest, there was an altercation. Frey was fatally shot and Heanes was wounded in a brief exchange of gunfire. 

That night, I had accompanied brothers to Hunter’s Point for a memorial celebration of its rebellion of September 28 to October 1, 1966 after the SFPD shooting of an unarmed Black youth. We got the word that Huey had gone down.

He was being held at Highland Hospital in Oakland. The word came down that we were going in. I had lost the fear of a Manchild. I was prepared. Sometime later, word came down that the entire hospital had been surrounded by what seemed to have been an army. It would have been suicide to go in. The brothers called the mission off.

By July 1969, the Black Panther Party for Self Defense had become the primary focus of the FBI’s COINTELPRO and the CIA’s OPERATION CHAOS covert programs, and was ultimately the target of 233 of the total 295 authorized “Black Nationalist” COINTELPRO actions. The October 28, 1967 assault on Huey was part of the government’s secret coordinated counterintelligence operations to neutralize Huey and the BPPSD.

At a meeting of Federal prison administrators in 1962, MIT Dr. Edgar Schein, social psychologist, suggested using Chinese Thought Reform on prisoners as a policy. James V. Bennett, then Chief of the Bureau of Prisons thought it was a good idea. Dr. Schein:

This [thought reform] “model” of behavior and attitude change is a general one which can encompass phenomena as widely separated as brainwashing and rehabilitation in a prison or a mental hospital. I would like to have you think of brainwashing not in terms of politics, ethics and morals, but in terms of deliberate changing of behavior and attitudes by a group of men who have relatively complete control over the environment in which the captive population lives. [These changes can be induced by] isolation, sensory deprivation, segregation of leaders, spying, tricking men into signing written statements which are then shown to others, placing individuals whose will power has been severely weakened into a living situation with others more advanced in thought reform, character invalidation, humiliations, sleeplessness, rewarding subservience, and fear [emphasis added]. [3]

In 1945, James Van Benschoten Bennett , President of the American Prison Association, was in Nazi Germany visiting concentration camps and setting up American Military Government German prisons that at that time was involved in the illusionary “denazification” thought reform.[4] It’s ironic that Bennett’s thought reform program was too drastic for the BEAST, The World’s Greatest Racial Mass Murderers, but good enough for thousands of Black and Brown inmates who were guilty of struggling for freedom, and mostly economic and drug related crimes.

Dr. Schein was an S factor (Stanford University) fiend. He earned his masters at Stanford, and Ph.D at Harvard University in 1952 in social psychology. Dr. Schein is yet another scientist that migrated to the United States from Nazi-dominated countries to set national policy more consistent with Nazi Germany racial policies than American values of freedom and justice for all. He was born in Switzerland and moved into the United States in 1938, when the German General Staff and Reichsfurhrer SS Heinrich Himmler were moving in Nazi agents, the Fifth Column, into the Americas.

Dr. Schein was a disciple of German Psychologist, Dr. Kurt Lewin, head of the Tavistock Institute. Tavistock was the center of trauma-based-mind control research and engineering human behavior for the military-industrial complexes.

Dr. Schein was also an important CIA/MK ULTRA military intelligence asset that worked with clandestine neutralization teams along with Dr. Fred Williams of the Air Force Psychological Warfare Division, Nazi Doctor Expert, Dr. Robert Jay Lifton, Albert Bideman, and Psi specialist Air Force Lieutenant Colonel James Monroe. [5]

Dr. Schein’s Los Angeles and Bay Area military intelligence and CIA/MK ULTRA mind control colleagues were Dr. Louis Jolyon West and Dr. Margaret Thaler Singer. They all had worked on top secret and classified programs involving Korean and Chinese “brainwashing, “mind control” and “thought reform” techniques for the government. [6] 

Dr. Schein suggested that physical, psychological, and chemical techniques could be used on prisoners to deliberately alter behavior and attitude. Schein also proposed isolation, sensory deprivation, to destroy socialization among prisoners as well as to sever the links prisoners had to the outside world. Because humans validate their existence, their personality, through contact with others, isolation has a significant impact on the human psyche. This form of psychological disorientation, the removal of others for validation of self, came to be known as the “Muttnik Principle” (so named by psychologist Nathaniel Braden) and was also called the “Psychology of Invisibility.” [7]

In 1968, Huey P. Newton was found guilty of voluntary manslaughter for the death of Officer Frey, and acquitted of assault on officer Herbert Heanes. After the 1968 conviction, Newton was committed to the California Corrections Department to carry out his sentence. Newton was placed at the San Luis Obispo Men’s Colony on the isolated central coast of California between Oakland and Los Angeles. It was hundreds of miles from Huey’s comrades and supporters in the Bay Area. Under the Dr. Schein’s “Muttnik Principle,” it was an idea location.

During his incarceration at San Luis Obispo Men’s Colony, which was a department of corrections medical facility, he was subjected to experimental behavior modification techniques that the brothers called “Chinese Brainwashing Procedures.” It was Schein’s classified Chinese Though Reform Program.

The word came down that brothers and sisters had to make regular visits to San Luis Obispo to keep Huey’s mind together. At that time, I don’t believe very many brothers and sisters knew exactly what “Chinese Brainwashing Procedures” or ”Chinese Though Reform” really meant; and the state of art of behavior modification and mind control programs; and the government’s active covert involvement. I know I didn’t truly understand what it had meant.

By January 1969, I along with most of the original panthers and the national and internationally respected revolutionary-intellectual controversial rank of brothers like Stokely Carmichael, H. Rap Brown, and James Forman from SNCC were purged from the BPPSD, and harnessed by “goon squads” and ex-prison zombies with a governmental “License to Kill” us.  

HUEY P. NEWTON & Clockwork Orange

I, among others, eagerly awaited the release of Huey. We expected Huey would be able to sort out the COINTELPRO, OPERATION CHAOS, OPERATION GEMSTONE, HUSTON PLAN and MK-ULTRA penetrations of the BPPSD that had caused the deaths, imprisonment, assassination attempts, and polarization of so many brothers and sisters.  

On May 29, 1970, the California Court of Appeals reversed Newton’s manslaughter conviction. [8]  Shortly after August 5, 1970, Huey P. Newton was released from prison. I was there along with thousands when Huey was freed at the Alameda County Superior Courthouse. The man that I once knew bolted from the courthouse jumped up and onto a top of a car. He snatched off his shirt and flexed his muscles. I knew instantly that it wasn’t the quiet and modest and quiet warrior that I once had idolized.

I wasn’t the only one that noticed. In 1973, Kathleen Cleaver was traveling throughout Europe, after Eldridge Cleaver’s California parole was revoked and escaped. During a cocktail party in Switzerland, a reporter for the magazine ‘The Christian Century’ interviewed her about Newton. [9] She reported told the reporter, “Everyone who knew Huey before he went to prison, knows that he is not the same man any more. No one changes his views so radically as he apparently has after such a short term in prison. In fact, prison life has historically tended to make political prisoners more militant, not less so.”  [10]

Cleaver characterized Newton’s recent about-face in regard to establishment institutions, drug use, drug dealing, pimping and pandering as result of the “Clockwork Orange” treatment to which he was subjected to in prison.

“A Clockwork Orange” refers to a movie in which a young man serving a long prison sentence for violent and sadistic criminal activity was offered an early release in exchange for his consent to undergo experimental behavior modification, aversion therapy. The treatment was so effective that the young man was unable to function to normal human reactions and impulses to sex, violence, and self-protection.

In an interview with the reporter, Newton denied undergoing aversion therapy or behavior modification. However, Newton claimed to have witnessed the effects of shock treatment, and stress therapy during his imprisonment. He said, “They were like vegetables.” [11]  The article also noted that the Urban-Black Center of the Graduate Theological Union of Berkeley directed a prison ministry program. Julius Thomas, director, said that he had observed several formerly strong-willed criminals come out of prison “acting like pussycats.” [12] The graduate union is linked to Dr. Schein’s military intelligence protégé, Dr. Margaret Singer.

PRISON STRESS THERAPY & THE CIA

There is little information exposed about the “stress therapy” at San Luis Obispo Men’s Medical Facility, but “Stress Therapy” is a code word for the CIA in other California prison medical facilities, particularly Vacaville.

Clifford Jefferson (Death Row Jeff) was confined with Donald Defreeze (Cinque) of the Symbionese Liberation Army at Vacaville. In a sworn declaration to Patty Hearst’s first lawyer, Terrence Harahan, he declared, “In the early part of 1971, Defreeze stated to me that the CIA was conducting tests to try out certain drugs…Defreeze stated to me that he gone through the tests and also knew of stress tests that were given to prisoners, in which they were kept in solitary, harassed and annoyed until they would do anything asked of them to get out; then they were given these drugs and would become like robots.” [13]

Columnist Jack Anderson further revealed the CIA’s “Stress Therapy” in the California men’s medical facilities, “CIA files confirm that this spy agency did indeed conduct drug experiments on Vacaville inmates. The experiments were designed to study the effects of stress and drugs on military prisoners of war, to determine the point which they would crack. Vacaville Superintendent T. Lawrence Clanon said that the CIA did not conduct any experiments after 1968. However, Superintendent Clanon acknowledged that Defreeze had volunteered for medical research in July 1970 and it is uncertain just when the agency ended its testing there.” [14]

The CIA Station Chief at Vacaville was Dr. James A. Hamilton, another S Factor (Stanford University) psychiatrist. Dr. Hamilton’s chief consultant at the Vacaville’s stress cohort group (Black Cultural Association) experiment was Dr. Schein’s military intelligence protégé, Dr. Louis Jolyon West of UCLA, the Maestro of Mind Control. 

INHUMANE TREATMENT & California’s Expermental Medical Psychiatric Diagnostic Units (MPDU)

At the time of Huey’s incarceration at San Luis Obispo, Raymond K. Procunier was head of the California Department of Corrections. Procunier was one of Governor Ronald Reagan’s fascist department disciples that turned the California prison system into little Auschwitzes to experiment on Black and Brown inmates by every imaginable scientific experimental method with mind altering bending drugs; psychosurgery and lobotomy; and electroconvulsive treatments to modify and engineer human behavior.

On November 19, 1971, the California Department of Corrections invited a group of psychologists, psychiatrists, researchers and prison officials to meet at the University of California at Davis to discuss prison violence and a possible new psychiatric unit at Vacaville. Dr. Edward Opton, senior research psychologist at the Wright Institute, attended the sessions.

At the meeting, corrections officials were vague about what treatments they had in vision for inmates confined at the new MPDU. The corrections research director was Dr. Lawrence Bennett, who refused to discuss moral or ethical questions in regards to MPDU. The head of MPDU was Dr. Stephen Sheppard.

After the Davis meeting, the press picked up the story that corrections officials were planning to carry out experimental brain surgery on inmates at the new MPDU. When this information was exposed, the corrections officials maintained that that it was considering only electrocauterization (by inserting needles into the brain).  However, inmate support groups obtained a copy of a letter, dated September 8, 1971, from Procunier, to the California Council on Criminal Justice, which would arrange the financing of the project. Procunier’s letter spoke of brain surgery for “aggressive”, destructive” inmates. The proposal was submitted on November 11, 1971, a week before the Davis meeting. Procunier proposal referred to “serious management problem inmates” as one of its main reasons for setting up the MPDU at Vacaville:

“The control and management of these segregated inmates have become a serious problem, as shown by the recent episodes of violence and disturbance in different prisons where Adjustment Centers had been inadequate and the problem remains unsolved. New ways and perceptions are now urgently needed to provide a better approach for handling of these cases.” [15]

Under Reagan and Procunier, the electric shock and aversion therapies that Huey witnessed at San Luis Obispo was common in California prisons. Electrical shock therapy was administered at Vacaville approximately 500 times in 1971; Prolixin was injected 1, 093 times in 1970. Drugs like Prolixin are described by users as “sheer torture” and “becoming a zombie”.

Shock treatment, a form of aversion therapy, is also torture. Bear in mind that one electrical shock therapy session may include up to 40 electrical shock charges per therapy session. Reports out of the California State Hospital for the Criminally Insane at Atascadero repeatedly mentioned that genital electroshock was used on sexual offenders as aversion therapy.  It was reported that inmates were shown movies of explicit sexual content. If they began to display sexual arousal, their genitals were shocked. The program was entitled, “Errorless Extinction of Penile Responses.”[16] 

The late Attorney Faye Stender, and the late prison activist Popeye Jackson and others viewed the MPDU as a laboratory of behavior “torture”, which in practice was designed to be performed primarily upon militant Black and Chicano organizers in prison populations.

Dr. George Bach-y-Rita, an electrocauterization specialist, was one of the research psychiatrist heavily involved in developing the MPDU. Dr. Bach-y-Rita said that the MPDU treatment would involve little more than intensive diagnosis through electroencephalogram and traditional doctor-patient and group therapy discussions; also perhaps training in Alpha-wave meditation.[17]

Dr. Bach-y-Rita was a Harvard trained psychiatrist who was a member of the American Psychiatric Task force on Violence. Dr. Bach-Rita was a Spaniard educated in Mexico. Dr. Bach-y-Rita had been slyly slipped into the department of corrections through the backdoor along with Dr. Frank Ervin to secretly advance CIA-MK ULTRA involved electrical stimulation of the brain (ESB) research.  

Dr. Bach-y-Rita and Ervin were part of the medical team of Dr. Vernon Mark, Dr. William Sweet of Massachusetts General Hospital and Boston General Hospital; and the notorious mind controller Spaniard, Dr. Jose Manuel Rodriguez Delgado. These doctors invasively implanted electrodes in the brain (ESB) to experimentally control and engineer behavior for the CIA and the military-industrial complex.  

In 1967, psychiatrist Frank Ervin and neurosurgeon Vernon Mark proposed to prevent (Black) urban riots by brain implants. The movie, The Terminal Man, was based on one of Dr. Mark’s psychosurgery victims. Their theory was that Blacks engaging in civil disobedience were suffering from damaged brain cells.

These doctors were also to be involved in Dr. Louis Jolyon West’s UCLA Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence funded by the Federal Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA), the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), the Bureau of Prisons, and the CIA that was to target children and inmates of color for secret eugenic based hideous and inhuman mind control and behavior modification medical experiments.

Dr. Bach-y-Rita sent a letter to his correction department superiors that exposed the shocking truth that the California Departments of Corrections under Reagan and Procunier were not only involved in psychosurgery, electroshock, Prolixin and Anectine therapy experimental research, but they were involved in torturing inmates with sex hormone injections, brain cauterization, sound-wave control techniques, and lithium carbonate. [18]

Dr. Joseph Tupin was alleged to have used lithium carbonate treatments on Vacaville inmates for years. Dr. Arthur Nugent administered Anectine (terror drug: a sensation “worse than dying”) to prisoners at Vacaville. The MPDU funding proposal read: “There has been, for example, a study in the California Medical Facility to determine the usefulness of lithium carbonate in treating hyperaggressive, acting-out patient. Further follow-up in this area would make a significant contribution.” [19]

They, the group of fascist men, like Reagan, Procunier, Doctors Schein, West, Bach-y-Rita, Delgado, Ervin, Mark, Turbin, Bennett, Sheppard and others had relatively complete control over Huey’s prison’s environment. They could have by electrical shock, aversion, sleep deprivation, etc., so radically in a short term, transform Huey P. Newton, the modest warrior, into flamboyant drug abuse, drug dealing, pimping, murder and pandering. They had the technology, means, opportunity, and COINTELPRO motive.

PSYCHOLOGICAL TORTURE OF HUEY P. NEWTON: A Crime Against Humanity   

DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS, Article 5:

No person shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treating or punishment.

In 1948, The United Nation’s Declaration of Human Rights was created following World War II. The horrific atrocities committed by Germany through the Nazi’s racial mass murder campaigns caused the world to cry out and demand for justice. The Nazis discredited and made a mockery of notions of absolute state sovereignty which the Hitler state asserted and used to commit mass genocide as a matter of sovereign state right. The Nazis and their allies’ massive inhuman transgressions and crimes against humanity changed the worldview on human rights.  

The Inter-American Convention to Prevent and Punish Torture goes the farthest of any human rights instrument in directly prohibiting the use of techniques aimed at the disintegration of the personality or reduction of physical or mental capacities, which would include psychotropic drugs and brain-damaging procedures like electroshock and psychosurgery. [20]

Pursuant to Operation Paperclip, 10,000 or more Nazis and SS (Knights of the Black Sun) fiends were brought to the United States to continue their campaign of racial mass murder and genocide, and pass on their hideous and baseless pseudo- racial medical theories and practices. The neophytes, apprentices, and apostles of the BEAST were Dr. Edgar Schein, Dr. Louis J. West, Dr. Jose Delgado, Dr. Bach-y-Rita, Dr. Frank Ervin and Dr. Vernon Mark. All of these doctors had direct and secret access to the American prison-inmate population at their disposal for crimes against humanity hideous pseudo-racial medical experiments.  

Even if Huey being the subject of psychological terror and a secret behavior modification/mind control program is discounted, then one must concede that while at San Luis Obispo, he had witnessed the effects of shock treatment and stress therapy during his imprisonment that turned inmates into “vegetables.” Who were the staff psychiatrists at the prison? Who was doing the shock treatment and CIA stress therapies? Who were torturing the men into vegetative states and for what reason and means?  What happened to these inmates? The behavior modification and mind control operations at San Luis Obispo’s Men Medial Facility has not been disclosed or been open to public scrutiny.

The California Department of Corrections’ torture, cruel, inhuman, degrading treatment and punishment of Huey P. Newton and inmates of color has to be exposed, disclosed and confronted. As with other human rights violations and crimes against humanity committed by a sovereign state, justice dictates prosecuting those responsible for the psychological rape and torture of inmates through the reinterpretation of existing laws and the establishment of peoples’ tribunals, and “truth commissions.”

Oakland has an ugly history and dark secret regarding the persecution of the BPPSD; and the setup, prosecution, transformation and assassination of Huey P. Newton. It has an ugly history and dark secret regarding the clandestine activities of the CIA and the military-intelligence complexes in assassinating and neutralizing prominent and independent men and women of color like Charles Alex Gregory, Dr. Marcus Foster, and Dorothy King that also has be to driven to the “Light of Day.”     

By the way, with Huey P. Newton and Laverne Williams as an inspiration to a Manchild Lost in the Promised Land, I graduated from Merritt Jr. College and two other colleges to earn a doctorate.

[2] People v. Newton (May 1970) 8 CA3d 359; 87 Cal Rptr 394, 367

[3] Schein, Man Against Man: Brainwashing, 8 Corrective Psychiatry & J. Social Therapy 90 (1962).

[4] http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resources/Archives/Archives+and+Manuscripts/fa_bennett.htm

[5] http://www.xs4all.nl/~sm4csi/nwo/MindControl/Search.for.the.Manchurian.Candidate.htm#_ftnref23

[6] http://www.freedomofmind.com/stevehassan/refuting/

[7] http://www.1union1.com/shucontrolunits.html

[8] Supra at Footnote 2

[9] Rogers, Cornish, ‘Clockwork Orange’ in California: Fact or Fancy?, The Christian Century, August 1, 1973

[10] Supra

[11] Supra.

[12] Supra.

[13] Jack Anderson, Strange CIA Tale, Oakland Tribune, October 1978

[14] Supra, footnote 9.

[15] Weiner, Bernard, The Clockwork Cure, The Nation, April 3, 1972, page 433

[16] Supra, page 434-435

[17] Supra, page 435

[18] Id.

[19] Id.

[20] See Organization of American States, Inter-American Convention to Prevent and Punish Torture, Sept. 12, 1985, O.A.S.T.S. No. 67, 25 I.L.M. 519.

Torture shall also be understood to be the use of methods upon a person intended to obliterate the personality of the victim or to diminish his physical or mental capacities, even if they do not cause physical pain or mental anguish.

The concept of torture shall not include physical or mental pain or suffering that is inherent in or solely the consequence of lawful measures, provided that they do not include the performance of the acts or use of the methods referred to in this article.

As a history student I’ve long been aware of the Kreisau Circle the anti-Nazi discussion group which formed one of the most interesting elements of the German resistance to Hitler.

However I was interested to discover today that the Kreisau Estate, which during the Second World War was owned by Helmuth Graf von Moltke, an inspiring German jurist who steadfastly opposed the Nazis, and was one of very few people to campaign for better human rights in the Third Reich, is now a Foundation, dedicated to commemorating the crimes of the Nazis, and to work for Peace and greater understanding between Nations. (As Kreisau is now in Poland, there’s a particular emphasis on promoting good relations between Germans and Poles.)

I was even more interested to discover that Helmuth von Moltke’s widow, Freya von Moltke is still alive and a patron of the New Kreisau Foundation. Her 60 year task of preserving the memory of her husband and the rest of the German Resistance, and educating people about why it’s important they’re remembered is inspiring in itself and well worth reading about.

It’s nice to hope that the members of the Kreisau Circle would have been pleased that something good eventually came out of their efforts.