Today I have three different perspectives about the Joerg Haider fuss. I actually had four, but my hard disk has swallowed the Chosenite one, and I am left with three.
The first one, mildly politically correct, comes from my favorite Portuguese fellow who goes by the name ASMarques. The second one arrived from Australia and is definitely classified as politically incorrect. The third one offers balance and solid food for thought.
First Portugal:
This is in reply to those who asked what happened during the EU reunion in Portugal.
Nothing much happened. The French and Belgian ministers (both women) walked out as the Austrian lady got ready to deliver her speech and the larger festivities were cancelled. The Belgian lady, a very silly-sounding (and silly-looking) person, said she couldn't bring herself to exchange words with a fascist, although she was only asked to hear, not talk. Then, they went for dinner at the old castle city of Palmela, where the order of St. James of the Sword used to have its medieval seat. The second day collective "social engagements" were cancelled as previously announced and the whole thing ended with everybody looking rather unhappy (I'm trying to avoid over-repeating the word "silly").
We weren't shown who was dinning at what table. The TV people kept asking, but all of this was a very well-hidden state secret. I don't think they really shoved the lady into the kitchen. Anyway, this time, besides the Belgian and French lady ministers, the German, British and Spanish ministers alleged tight agendas at home and "couldn't make it". If that's all they had to say, they might as well have shut up. One doesn't see very well why a protest walkout would be diguised in order for the protest not to be noticed. What a comedy...
The Austrian lady minister was asked some questions by TV reporters and she came across as a very likeable person, moderate in outlook and physically attractive . She was the only one with a "Portuguese presidency" scarf. We didn't see the proceedings on TV, but we heard an account by the Portuguese labor minister. This is a guy with an extreme leftist "intellectual past" who seems to have claimed in his speech that he had felt fascism "in his own flesh", but, as far as I know he never really did. He has a peculiar silly look about him worse than the Belgian minister, but nevertheless he did sound rather moderate when he talked on TV. He said that he had saluted the lady in his host role only, and that other delegations were free to do as they pleased. One really wonders what other role he might have been thinking of for himself; some Portuguese papers called him and his colleagues "errand-boys for the Socialist International"; some of us thought of other "internationals" as well.
There were a few (not too many, alas) angry editorials in Portuguese papers, claiming the left-wing fanatics that create this sort of disturbance in normal relations betweeen members are the only danger to democracy within the EU. Most media people -- including TV comentators -- looked either disapproving or (for the most part) genuinely nonplused. A very few ones looked absolutely radiant, sort of re-capturing the bygone days of the great leftist causes and so on. They were very much a minority and came across as sillier than the EU labor ministers plus the young "anti-fascist" demostrators and their silly bills, all put together.
I guess some people were expecting a sort of right-wing Passionaria, and were a little surprised at her looks. Once or twice she looked a little anguished by all the fuss and she repeated the sort of "give us a chance please" that I personally feel a little irritated with, but she came across very well. Most people identified with her, not with those who were doing all the fuss.
The general public impression left by all of this is one of silly sensationalist exploitation, rather than any political confrontation having taken place at all.
An anti-fascist demonstration, consisting of 20-30 people was promoted on TV as very significant, rather against the grain of individual commentators. This left a sort of surrealistic ambiance floating over the news coverage, but that's hardly news...
The second Joerg Haider reaction was sent to me from "down under":
Up until the mid 60's Australia was almost a mono-cultural nation, the occassional Chinese we saw walking around were nice, polite and integrated, but since the United Nations put our lilly-livered Politicians on the spot and forced Multi-criminalism on us, life in the 'melting pot' Australia has earned us the nickname of "The Nation of Tribes" Our children are being driven Schizophrenic by trying to solve the riddle of how to be a unified country while 'celebrating' their diversity.
Yesterday I took my video and a still camera and drove to the Austrian Embassy where the local Khazars were holding an anti-democracy rally against Joerg Haider.
This demo was part of a well organised world-wide series of demos, purposefully held on a Sunday and proving to all those people who scoff at the thought..... that world-wide Jewish CONSPIRACIES do exist!!
For the first half hour, until the major TV station filmcrews turned up, I was alone and got some great footage and photos. The Khazars fielded around 400 teenage demonstrators all waving or wrapping themselves in Israeli flags and screaming hysterical HATE slogans at the top of their lungs.
Around two dozen 'survivors' (flashing their tattoos) stood around on the edges of the demo. Signs with the words . "Learn from the past" or "Not another 6 million" "Get rid of Haider" "Australian Bethar against Haider" were hung up or waved.
A group of about 8 Police and 6 Private security guards stood around discretely, I said to a large bear-like security guard, "Not too many Aussie flags in there mate!"
This guy looked at me and in a heavy foreign accent said. "Vy don't Zey all go live in Israel!"
I thought ....Whoa, a Friend!!
In the ensueing conversation I learnt this man's father had been in the Latvian SS, we had instant rapport. I had to laugh to myself, wondering if all those screaming kids were to ever realise that this guy and I were standing there discussing how nice it would be to see the whole group of hysterical haters on their way to Madagascar!
I'm glad to say the Latvian SS tradition is alive and well in Australia. The Austrian Embassy remained closed and locked during the whole demo, it was Sunday
And, finally, balance is provided by Canadian commentator Kevin Michael Grace, <kmgrace@home.com> whose pen does his name ample justice. The excerpts below come from the February 28, 2000 Eclectica Report, <report.ca/magazine/eclectica.html> but when I checked, it hadn't yet been posted. Be sure to visit and bookmark that website - from what I have seen, his essays are well-crafted. Here are some sample paragraphs:
If it is accepted that Hitler's crimes were uniquely evil, then Nazism must be the most evil political ideology ever promulgated, and furthermore, any person, party or nation that can be linked, however tenuously, to Nazism must be expelled from the civilized world. Did somebody mention Joerg Haider?
Mr. Haider is the leader of Austria's Freedom Party and the governor of Carinthia. Earlier this month he entered into a federal coalition with the People's Party, displacing the Social Democrats from power. Eight Freedom Party ministers (though not Mr. Haider) entered the government, and the civilized world swooned. The European Union moved to suspend Austria's membership. Israel and the United States recalled their ambassadors. Canada's foreign minister, "soft power" advocate Lloyd Axworthy, declared softly that Austria was "on probation." Economic, cultural and tourism boycotts have begun.
The Freedom Party, which won 26% of the vote in the federal election, campaigned against Austria's corrupt post-war duopoly of the "left" and "right." Mr. Haider opposes globalism and immigration and supports free-market reforms. Most important, he is a "neo-Nazi." Says who? In the February 8 New York Press, George Szamuely summarizes the evidence: "First: 'Our soldiers were not criminals, at most they were victims,' he is alleged to have said [of the Waffen SS] in October 1990. This is staggeringly innocuous stuff. Haider may be wrong, but his use of the word 'victims' hardly suggests an ardent Nazi. Second: 'In the Third Reich they had an orderly employment policy.' This was uttered in the middle of a June 1991 debate in the Carinthian state legislature. Taken out of context, it is hard to know what Haider meant. Is an 'orderly employment policy' a good or a bad thing? Either way, Haider later apologized for the remark. Third: Haider once allegedly referred to Mauthausen as a 'punishment camp.' He later corrected himself, saying he meant 'concentration camp.'
And that's the case against Haider. Not one phrase--and people have been searching assiduously--that sounds remotely anti-Semitic. Not one remark that denies the Holocaust. Not a single defense of Nazism. Not a single defence of the Anschluss. Yet from the screeching of U.S. officials you would have thought the swastika had been hoisted over the Hofburg palace." (...)
(T)he Austrians have been spiritual Nazis since at least the 17th century. For what was the Ottoman "invasion" of Europe but an early example of multiculturalism? And what was "Christian Europe" but an inchoate version of Hitler's New Order?
VIENNA CALLING
And he who controls the past controls the future. In the February 8 New York Times, Thomas L. Friedman hears Mr. Haider's siren song echoing in America: "[He] has two sides to him--he's a neo-Nazi and a high-tech free-marketer, an advocate of the Waffen SS and the flat tax. He's Pat Buchanan and Steve Forbes." All the civilized world knows that Pat Buchanan is a Friend of Adolf--but Steve Forbes? Well, you see, Mr. Forbes, who withdrew from the Republican presidential race last week, is, like Mr. Haider, an advocate of the flat tax, which, of course, is as redolent of Nazism as lederhosen, waltzes and cream cakes. Does the Canadian Alliance know about this? (...)
(A)s Mr. Szamuely points out in a February 8 www antiwar.com column, "Liberals do not bring up the subject of Hitler at the drop of a hat in order to settle historical debates. The point is to intimidate people into signing on to the contemporary liberal agenda. Austrians, like everyone else, must abandon any sense of nationhood, cultural identity and historic tradition. They must open their borders to more and more immigrants. And they must get over the idea that they are part of a Christian civilization." Joerg Haider, meet John Rocker.
Several commentators have noted the hypocrisy of Europeans screeching genocide at Joerg Haider, while conveniently ignoring that their governments are rife with Communists. But one does not have to cross the Atlantic to find examples of this double standard. In a February 10 CBC Vancouver Radio Early Edition profile, Chris Brown notes blandly, "In his early twenties, [B.C. premier-in-waiting Ujjal] Dosanjh dabbled with Communism." Does Mr. Dosanjh believe, like French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, that the 1917 Russian Revolution was "one of the greatest events in history"? The souls of 54 million dead cry out for an answer.
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Thought for the Day:
"World War II, the Holocaust, and Hitler remain topics of interest to most people, with interest varying, by degree, from obsession to mild curiosity. We even have a TV channel devoted to killing Hitler, daily - sometimes two or three times a day.
I call it the "All Hitler Channel, All Hitler, All The Time." They call it The History Channel."
(Letter to the Zundelsite)