Showing posts with label Ghetto. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ghetto. Show all posts

Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Netanyahu Absolves Hitler of the Holocaust – It Was a Palestinian Plot – Not German




"Hitler didn't want to exterminate the Jews at the time, he wanted to expel the Jews," Netanyahu said in the speech. "And Haj Amin al-Husseini went to Hitler and said, 'If you expel them, they'll all come here (Palestine).'

"'So what should I do with them?'" Netanyahu said Hitler asked the mufti, who responded: "Burn them."

Netanyahu, whose father was an eminent historian, was quickly harangued by opposition politicians and experts on the Holocaust who said he was distorting the historical record.

They noted the meeting between Husseini and Hitler took place on November 28, 1941. More than two years earlier, in January 1939, Hitler had addressed the Reichstag, Nazi Germany's parliament, and spoke clearly about his determination to exterminate the "Jewish race".


"To say that the mufti was the first to mention to Hitler the idea to kill or burn the Jews is not correct," Dina Porat, a professor at Tel Aviv University and the chief historian of Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust memorial museum, told Israel Radio.


.

Saturday, March 1, 2014

Hipster – Honkey – It’s All Rock And Roll To Me




I have seen many comments made because rich “Ghetto Blaster” Director and Writer Spike Lee is not happy to see so many white people living in his old Fort Greene Brooklyn neighborhood.

As for gentrification, I for one don’t see how to stop it short of restoring a lot of old so-called obsolete Capital Gains Taxes and apply them to real estate.

In a way, a lot of the beauty of nineteenth brownstones restored is expensive and now upper class. In a way it is unfair that value is now given to a place that was devalued over time simply because African-Americans ended up there and inhabited the cast-offs of a bygone era. Spike in giving value to his own memories is entitled to his 140 character opinions without all the new rich white trash in Fort Greene getting into a tizzy and spreading it like Brie cheese and or dog shit all over the media. 

Who you calling rich white trash, boy? Who you calling boy, boy? Kind of like the giraffe calling the zebra "Zoo" as I see it. 

I can remember thirty-five years ago when some of the cheapest rents in New York City were advertised in the Village Voice in Fort Greene. And I also heard the horror stories of people seeking decent affordable housing in a decaying part of the city and not being able to live there in Fort Greene because of constant burglaries while at work in Manhattan.

I am sorry that Spike cannot open his eyes without getting a rosy glass filtered image of the place he grew up which was in fact a living hellhole by most middle class standards when America was allowed the luxury of middle class standards, of and by their own origins, and not standards now imposed on us from above by corporations.

I for one am jealous when I see photos of Spike courtside at a Knicks game and have to wonder how much money that kind of shit costs. But as J.P.Morgan once said to riff-raff and middle class trash (like me) – “If you have to ask, you cannot afford it.” lol

Spike’s bitter pill of words is sometimes reflected I think in the environment of his youth that is perhaps too candy coated in memory to touch reality compared to the new global culture.

I have also taken a lot of Spike Lee’s bravado over the years with a big grain of salt. I remember an interview of years ago about why there is no great slavery movie(s) and he responded that American Blacks were not ready for it. In other words not interested in digging up the nasty past. And or a middle class black POV? Valid point then or now?

I see that a front runner for the Oscars this weekend is “Twelve Years A Slave”. I have to wonder if Spike has in any way invested in such an old Brownstone of an idea as a producer in such a film. 

Your guess is as good as mine.



.

Monday, December 28, 2009

Failed States of Israel and Palestine ?

If God is an energy, then I perceive a connection of energy waves and in the same direction or at a same intersection at present.

A curious thing happened in Poland a little over a week ago. Somebody stole the infamous death camp sign over the entrance way to Auschwitz – “Arbeit Macht Frei” – “Work Will Set You Free”. The saying and the truth about Auschwitz are at two different ends of any communication spectrum. Over a million men, women and children died there at the hands of the Nazis – mostly Jews but also “Roma Gypsies, Poles, and Soviet prisoners of war.” No accurate count, only guesstimates of the numbers of this inhumane act toward humanity. The records were destroyed. Who would want to keep records of such things, such evil things.

Polish Police Find Stolen Auschwitz Sign

The thieves were caught. The sign was broken into three pieces. One story is that some collector was willing to pay two to three million dollars for this historic artifact. One has to wonder if the collector had an agenda whether it being admiration for the Nazi killing machine or for the up close and personal memento of the twentieth century holocaust. Or perhaps a billionaire needed to fill a space on the wall of his or her private art gallery in an east side Manhattan townhouse and thought the object a good investment. Once displayed, discerning wealthy guests could make an offer and a profit might be made. It, the sign, is representative of an impressive piece of human history – sad though that history may be.

All that aside, I have to wonder if perhaps the sympathy towards the Jewish entity as a faith and people has worn off in time. The Pope went there to Auschwitz and made a politically correct speech about how the Holocaust should never happen again. But did he mean it? Yes of course he did. But sometimes words and actions have opposing energies.

One has to wonder when the energy of a sacred object such as this stolen sign – when did it turn into secular energy and a prize to be carted away and sold. The death camp is a museum and visited by all people on an international scale. The thieves appear to have been local. Their parents or grandparents no doubt lived down the road and probably did not know what went on in Auschwitz. But human nature tells me that these locals in the 1940s no doubt heard rumors or made up stories. Making up stories or passing around rumors is one thing. The true horror of it all is something quite on a different scale and scope.

The present German born Pope recently signed off on Pope Pius XII and put him on the road to sainthood. Some, in fact many would disagree that Pius XII is saint material. Controversy still surrounds his knowledge and actions public or secret in reference to the rounding up of millions of European Jews during the first years of his rule. The Vatican Archives are not yet fully open to public scrutiny as to what the Pope knew and when he knew it or why he was so silent within his walled castle of the Vatican.

So too, the never complete, perhaps failed state of Israel reached an anniversary yesterday regarding the twenty two day pogrom – Operation “Cast Lead” - against the Palestinians in Gaza of one year ago. This attack on the next door neighbor of Israel cost the lives of 1,000 adults and 400 children. It all took place while America was paralyzed in an economic disaster and between the changing of the guard at the White House.

Sad that the Jews have built walls between themselves and their neighbors. Sad that walls keep others out – out of sight – and walls also traps those within. Is the walled state of Israel a giant Ghetto that replaces the historic presence of Jews in European culture to a place of confinement in the middle east? I hope not.

In any case, whether walled up in the Vatican or walled up in Gaza, who is to say who knew what and when they knew it. Who killed and who died and who pressed the buttons to agitate a response is subject to stories and rumors. Human nature being what it is, there is probably a little bit of truth in everything. Truth is perhaps an energy and a sign of the inner light and energy of God within both Jews and Arabs in the so-called Holy Land.

Perhaps the stealing and recovering of a sign from Auschwitz is not the energy of an angel but a true sign to look hard at the words, actions and historic content of things at hand as well as being a reminder of things past – bad things that got worse – because nobody took a stand and said – Enough is Enough!

Humanity must be recognized as humanity no matter what the propaganda or political agenda dictates. The value of every human being as a child of the light and energy of God must be recognized and respected by all. ALL.