Havel Hits One Out Of The Park

Europe bears special responsibility for Nazism, communism

Europe bears special responsibility for Nazism and communism and their consequences as both totalitarian systems were first established in it, former Czech president Václav Havel told an international conference, The Conscience of Europe and Communism today.

Havel said Europe had special responsibility also for man's freedom worldwide.

The EU should more radically support those who fight for freedom in countries like Cuba, Belarus and Burma irrespective of any political and economic interests.

Havel warned against pacifism as a step towards appeasement policy.

Good luck! Old Europe is unclear on the concept. New Europe must lead the way.

The communist and Nazi regimes had many things in common, including similar ways of manipulation with the public, establishment of special non-military guards, extensive secret police structures, supervision of people, biased judiciary, executions and censorship, Havel said.

Not to mention that both were representative of Leftist ideology.

Under communism, everybody was somehow the system's victim and also one of its creators.

Ivonka Survilla, head of the Belarusian exiled government, said Russian communist propaganda had devastating effects on her country where many people continue to believe it.

Belarus has become a victim of the Soviet imperial politics, Survilla said.

Russian journalist Alexandr Podrabinek warned against the restoration of communist practices in Russia.

The two-day conference, opening in the Senate today, proposed that August 23 be declared the international day of totalitarian systems' victims.

Via ČeskéNoviny

Pining Away For Paradise Lost

Proposal to abolish Czech totalitarian regimes institute at court

Brno- The Czech Constitutional Court (US) has received a proposal to abrogate the law on the basis of which the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes has been established, CTK has learnt.

The proposal to abolish the state-established facility that is to research into Nazism and communism in Czech history was signed by 57 opposition deputies from the Czech Social Democratic Party (CSSD) and the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSCM).

They say the institute could politically influence the interpretation of history.

By all means, let us not forget about the influences that stem from the political interpretation of history.

They also object to labelling the whole period of communist rule as totalitarian, it ensues from the proposal.It is difficult to say when the Constitutional Court will rule on the proposal.

The left-wing deputies fear that people will consider the results of the research conducted by a state-established institution as the "official" and sole possible interpretation of history.

"This will factually restrict the constitution-guaranteed freedom of scientific research," the proposal says.

This is beginning to smell of George Soros.

The deputies also object to what they call ideological terminology.

"The law authoritatively describes the section of Czechoslovak history between February 25, 1948 [when Communists seized power in then Czechoslovakia] and December 29, 1989 [end of communist regime in Czechoslovakia] as a period of communist totalitarian power. It does not consider the fact that the period was changeable from the point of view of ways of exercise of state power and was not compact in this respect," the deputies write.

They write that the 1950s saw a real totalitarian regime while in the 1960s the regime was gradually democratised, and they say that it did not fully return to the repressive practices from the times of the cult of personality in the 1950s even after the occupation of Czechoslovakia by Warsaw Pact troops in 1968.

That's why so many Czech ex-pats returned home; overwhelming the borders, just to see the 5000-7000 Soviet tanks that were now in the Czech Lands to guarantee their freedom.

"This state also carried out a number of measures that were generally positive for society, particularly in the social sphere," the deputies write.

They use as "a partial example the deepening of the practical equalisation of women in political, economic and family life, as well the abandoning of the practice of making differences between children according to their origin."

The left-wing deputies recommend to the Constitutional Court to abrogate the law as a whole, or to at least delete the words "totalitarian" from a number of passages of the law.

Nácek a komunista svině would work.

The right justified the establishment of the institute by an effort to concentrate and process the written documents of all security forces of the communist regime.

It said the processing of data and making them available should contribute to the comprehension of the communist regime and at the same time to the prevention of a biased interpretation of history.

The institute's activities will be supervised by a council that has elected historian Pavel Zacek as the institute's first head. He will formally assume his post on January 1.

David Irving was unavailable for comment.

Via ČTK

Here A Nazi, There A Nazi

Blinded by an accumulation of years of their own barnyard excrement, the Germans didn't see this one coming.

Social Democrats Behind Neo-Nazis in Saxony Survey
That Germany's Social Democrats (SPD) are in free fall is nothing new. The center-left party, despite being Angela Merkel's coalition partner in Berlin, is overshadowed by the popularity of the chancellor. SPD leader Kurt Beck is unpopular and has a hard time even keeping his own party in line. And party membership is lower than it has been in half a century.

But on Thursday, the party hit a new low. A survey in the eastern German state of Saxony shows that, were voters to head to the polls on Sunday, more people in the state would mark the box next to the neo-Nazi party National Democratic Party (NPD) than would vote for the center-left SPD. The poll, carried out by Forsa, has 9 percent of those surveyed supporting the NPD with just 8 percent for the SPD.

The NPD celebrated the result in a press release, calling the numbers "really sensational." The poll comes just three weeks after Saxony was in the news after a xenophobic mob chased eight Indians through the town of Mügeln shouting "Foreigners Out!" before beating them up. The NPD on Thursday said the most recent poll is a result of the fact "that we didn't join the media-driven witch hunt against our own countrymen as happened in Mügeln." The press release also said the coverage of the Mügeln attack was "racist" and ended with the words: "Don't worry, the next elections are coming for sure."

Of course, in der Fatherland, Bush is evil.

via der Spiegel

Graphic/DDP

UPDATE: 09/09/2007 @ 7:00 AM - ISRAEL didn't see this one


Israeli Neo-Nazi Ring Busted
In a case that would seem unthinkable in the Jewish state, police said Sunday they have cracked a cell of young Israeli neo-Nazis accused in a string of attacks on foreign workers, religious Jews, drug addicts and gays.

Eight immigrants from the former Soviet Union have been arrested in recent days in connection with at least 15 attacks, and a ninth fled the country, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said, in the first such known cell to be discovered in Israel.

All the suspects are in their late teens or early 20s and have Israeli citizenship, Rosenfeld said. A court decided Sunday to keep them in custody.

"The level of violence was outrageous," Maj. Revital Almog, who investigated the case, told Israel's Army Radio.

Gang members were arrested in recent days, and a gag order on the case was lifted early Sunday.

News of the arrests came as a shock in Israel, which was founded nearly 60 years ago as a refuge for Jews in the wake of the Nazi Holocaust and remains a most sensitive subject. Any forms of anti-Semitism around the world outrage Israelis, and the discovery of such violence in the country's midst made the front pages of newspapers and dominated talk on morning radio shows.

The gang documented its activities on film and in photographs. Israeli TV stations showed grainy footage of people lying helpless on floors while several people kicked them, and of a man getting hit from behind on the head with an empty bottle.

Police found knives, spiked balls, explosives and other weapons in the suspects' possession, Rosenfeld said. One photo that was seized showed one suspect holding an M16 rifle in one hand and in the other, a sign reading "Heil Hitler," he added.

Police discovered the skinhead ring after investigating the desecration of two synagogues that were sprayed with swastikas in the central Israeli city of Petah Tikva more than a year ago, Rosenfeld said.

Police computer experts have determined they maintained contacts with neo-Nazi groups abroad, and materials seized include a German-language video about neo-Nazis in the U.S.

The group planned its attacks, and its targets were foreign workers from Asia, drug addicts, homosexuals, punks and Jews who wore skullcaps. In one case they discussed planning a murder, Rosenfeld said, without providing details.

Under Israeli law, a person can claim citizenship if a parent or grandparent has Jewish roots. Authorities say that formulation allowed many Soviets with questionable ties to Judaism to immigrate here after the Soviet Union disintegrated. About 1 million Soviets moved here in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Rosenfeld said all the suspects had "parents or grandparents who were Jewish in one way or another."

Israel doesn't specifically have a hate crimes law, and suspects in past cases have been tried as Holocaust deniers, he said.

The Anti-Defamation League, a U.S.-based group that fights anti-Semitism, condemned the neo-Nazi cell, but urged Israelis not to stigmatize the entire Russian immigrant community based on the acts of what appeared to be a marginal group.

"The suspicion that immigrants to Israel could have been acting in praise of Nazis and Hitler is an anathema to the Jewish state and is to be repelled," the statement read. "The tragic irony in this is that they would have been chosen for annihilation by the Nazis they strive to emulate."

Amos Herman, an official with the semiofficial Jewish Agency, which works on behalf of the government to encourage immigration to Israel, said the phenomenon was not representative of the Russian immigration.

He called the gang a group of frustrated, disgruntled youths trying to strike at the nation's most sensitive core.

"We thought that it would never happen here, but it has and we have to deal with it," he said.''

via AP

Carl in Jerusalem has more.

Gloating Jew-rant from the depths of the premier cesspool of progressive groupthink in 5...4...3 ....

Just don't question their commitment to Tolerance and Diversity.

Maybe They'd Prefer Political Whore

Congressman Tom Lantos (D-CA) has caused a royal shitstorm to break out --- for telling the truth.

Just as trans-Atlantic relations appeared to be nearly normal again, a top US congressman stirred controversy Tuesday by saying former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's close business ties to Russia amounted to "political prostitution."

The remarks invoked the divisive atmosphere of four years ago, as the US prepared to go to war in Iraq unilaterally after Western Europe refused to support US President George W Bush.

For Congressman Tom Lantos, a Holocaust survivor who chairs the House of Representatives foreign affairs committee, that rebuff apparently still stings.

Speaking at the dedication ceremony for a victims of communism memorial in Washington, Lantos attacked both Schroeder and former French president Jacques Chirac for failing to support the United States in its fight against what he called the next wave of tyranny - Islamic fascism - after all the US had done in saving Europe from Nazism and communism.

Lantos said their exit from office opened the way to a better era of trans-Atlantic relations, adding he would like to call Schroeder "a political prostitute, now that he's taking big cheques from (Russian President Vladimir) Putin."

"But the sex workers in my district objected," he quipped.

His remarks provoked gasps not only of surprise from the crowd of survivors of communism gathered for the dedication in Washington, but also of anger in Germany.

I can't help but wonder if that anger is fueled in part by the inconvenient truth that Lantos is a Jew?

Now, it's nice that Congressman Lantos has called out the French and Germans for their lack of action. However, Lantos was a member of the recent Pelousi tour that included a visit to Damascus to confab with human rights activist Bashir Asshat. As such, Mr. Lantos bears a degree of responsibility for the results of that visit.