Well, this brute, chicken-hearted continent can learn something from the Italians.
In the wake of the Thanksgiving "Hiobsbotschaft", as we say in German - meaning roughly "the triste message out of the Book of Job" - we get this happy little snippet. Not all is lost as yet. This is exactly what the doctor ordered - as sent to us from an Italian correspondent via a French correspondent.
Cheer up!
I give you now one man with lots of courage. Before one judge, refusing to pay tribute to special interest groups:
"Handing out anti-Jew leaflets is no crime", writes -Il_Messagero_Veneto_ of November 19, 1998.
"Freedom of thought, yes; racial hatred, no", writes _Il_Gazzettino_ of November 20, 1998, reporting about a sentence just pronounced by a Pordenone (Italy) Court.
The city of Aviano (near Pordenone) is an important NATO air base of the US Air Force. It is the place from where, during the Gulf War, fighter-bombers were sent to the various air bases in the Middle-East in order to attack Iraq and Baghdad.
In February last, as a new crisis was developing, the American base in Aviano was under great pressure again.
A Mr De Meo, a man of 60 - who had lived many years in the States - fearing so much that another war might start and that the poor Iraqi people might endure cruelty again, wrote a leaflet, signed his name, wrote down his phone number and distributed copies, in full daylight, to all the American cars he could see in Aviano.
Here is what the leaflet said:
"Free America from the Zionist occupation! USA, please wake up and get rid of the Stockholm Syndrome curse! Don't let yourselves be handled by the Jews any longer! The issue, for the States and for the whole world, is not Iraq or Palestine! The great issue is the conquest of the world by the Jews!"
Of course the man was prosecuted right away for incitement to racial hatred, in accordance with law #654 of October 13, 1975.
His lawyer, Maître Edoardo Longo, managed to have him acquitted.
Not only did he argue that the defendant had distributed those leaflets out of sheer compassion for the Mesopotamian populations and that the man had done so all by himself, in full daylight, and in a peaceful and courteous way, but he also argued that law #654 was unconstitutional, since it is a breach of section 21 of the Italian Constitution which ensures freedom of speech for all.
Distributing such a leaflet was not a crime, the Court said - just free expression.
For those of you who can read Italian, please find a summary of the whole affair sent to us by Dr Longo, which is of interest for revisionists from the legal point of view, in particular because it infringes more or less the UNO Agreement signed in New York in 1966. Such a sentence should be of great help to Italian revisionists in the future.
If you don't read Italian, you'll find a quick French translation next. Sorry I am not competent enough to do so in English."
I am not shipping the Italian and French translations since I don't speak either language, but if you are curious, e-mail me.
Just so you know: You're not alone, and peaceful street activism still works quite well where people have retained their sanity.
Ingrid
"Duty is the sublimest word in our language. Do your duty in all things. You cannot do more. You should never wish to do less."
(Inscribed beneath Robert Edward Lee's bust in the Hall of Fame)