Source Many people who send letters to the first and last president of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, still write on the envelope: "To the Secretary General of the Communist Party, Kremlin." The Russian postal service is used to this and redirects the mail to the Gorbachev Foundation, headquartered in a modern building about seven kilometers north of the Kremlin.
Some of those letters are harshly critical of Gorbachev, who is regarded as a traitor by many Russians who regret the demise of the Soviet Union and the shocking economic transformation that followed. Some of the more vitriolic missives even encourage him to commit suicide. But at 83, Gorbachev is defiant and determined.
"I live and will continue to live according to my conscience and principles. Everyone else can go crazy," he told The Moscow Times in an extensive interview this week.
Despite saying he is "already a part of history," Gorbachev said he cannot simply observe passively what is happening in Russia today.
"I need to participate, and I will. Nobody will shut my mouth, even though people wanted me to emigrate. I don't want to leave, let those people leave," Gorbachev said, banging his hands on the table for emphasis.
Gorbachev, who in recent months underwent treatment at a hospital in Moscow, said he has been reported dead at least 10 times.
"I am called a traitor because I destroyed so many nuclear arms. The second treachery is that we built good relations with the U.S.," he said.
For those who address their letters to Gorbachev at the Kremlin, time has clearly stood still. And today, when President Vladimir Putin's Russia and the West find themselves at odds once again, the time when secretary generals in the Kremlin were engaged in an ideological rivalry with the West seems closer than ever.
Seeds of DiscordDuring the festivities marking the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall this month, Gorbachev warned that the world risks a new Cold War. As someone who worked his way up through the Communist Party at a time when the Soviet Union and the U.S. were ready to destroy each other in a nuclear war and who then worked hard to eliminate divisions in Europe and the world at large, Gorbachev is better qualified than most to offer insight into the strikingly similar issues the world faces now.
Today, Gorbachev argues that the problems in Ukraine and the world at large are in part due to errors made during the collapse of the old system. Read more at http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=92e_1416559318&safe_mode=off#sUdhxyfOVATRlVuG.99
In 1940 the Nazis released a propaganda film called The Eternal Jew. The film claimed to show the Jews in their “original state,” “before they put on the mask of civilized Europeans.” Stagings of Jewish rituals were interspersed with scenes of yarmulke- and caftan-wearing Jews shuffling down crowded alleys, all meant to show the benighted nature of Jewish life. Above all, the filmmakers focused on Jewish faces. They trained their cameras in lingering close-up on their subjects’ eyes, noses, beards, and mouths, confident that the sight of certain stereotypical features would arouse responses of loathing and contempt.
Der Ewige Jude
A poster for the film, Der Ewige Jude
The designer of the film’s poster evidently agreed, avoiding more obvious symbols of Jewish identity (skull-cap, sidecurls, Star of David) in favor of a single dark, hook-nosed, fleshy face. Indeed, the poster hardly needed the accompanying title. In Europe in 1940, this representation of Jewishness was widespread: similar depictions of Jews could be seen on posters and in pamphlets, newspapers, even children’s books.
This image of the Jew, however, was far from “eternal.” Though anti-Semitism is notoriously “the longest hatred,” until 1000 CE, there were no easily distinguishable Jews of any kind in Western imagery, let alone the stereotypical swarthy, hook-nosed Jew. Earlier monuments and manuscripts did depict Hebrew prophets, Israelite armies, and Judaic kings, but they were identifiable only by context, in no way singled out as different from other sages, soldiers, or kings. Even nefarious Jewish characters, such as the priests (pontifices) who urged Pilate to crucify Christ in the Egbert Codex (circa 980), were visually unremarkable; they required labels to identify them as Jewish.
Magistrates ordered West, who also admitted slashing her partner with a knife and assaulting a police officer, to carry out community service.
She was struck off after the General Dental Council ruled she posed a risk to patients and that her "appalling" behaviour had brought the profession into disrepute.
At a hearing on Friday, the council's professional conduct committee watched the YouTube clip, entitled My Tram Experience.
The footage, which lasts two minutes and 25 seconds, sees West holding her then four-year-old son on a tram from Wimbledon to New Addington.
She shouts at passengers: "What has this country come to? A load of black people and a load of f***ing Polish.
"You ain’t English. No, you ain’t English either. You ain’t English. None of you’s f***ing English.
"It’s nothing now. Britain is nothing now. My Britain is f*** all now."
West was arrested and charged with a racially aggravated public order offence within days of the footage becoming viral. >>>more at source<<<
On the evening of January 6, 2007, Christopher Newsom and his girlfriend Channon Christian made dinner plans and then were to go to a friend’s house to watch a movie. They would never be seen alive again.
When Chris went to pick Channon up at the apartment complex where Christian’s friend lived, they were carjacked by multiple assailants. What followed was one of the most heinous, gruesome and senseless crimes in Tennessee history.
The couple were taken to a house in East Knoxville and held against their will where they were brutally tortured for hours.
Christopher Newsom was gagged with a sock in his mouth, his ankles were bound with his own belt, his hands were tied behind his back, his face with covered with a bandana and his head covered with a sweatshirt that his five assailants had tied around his neck.
He was then violently raped with an object and beaten.
One can only imagine the horror Christopher experienced as he was then forced to walk barefoot to the nearby railroad track, where he was shot in the back of the neck and fell paralyzed to the ground.
Next the assailants then stood over him, placed the gun against his head and fired twice more, killing him execution style.
As if that wasn’t enough, the attackers then poured gasoline on his body and set him on fire.
Channon Christian was forced into a back room of the house where she was hog-tied with strips of fabric from a bedding set. She was brutally raped “in every possible way imaginable” for several hours as the assailants beat her viciously.
By the time Christian was taken in the living room, the five attackers realized they had left their DNA on their victim. In an attempt to cover their tracks, they poured bleach down her throat and on her body before they wrapped her body in black garbage bags and covered her head in a plastic grocery bag.
She was then placed in a garbage can in the kitchen of the house—all of this while she was still alive.
Channon Christian’s last minutes on earth were spent slowly suffocating in a garbage can after she had been savagely beaten and raped for hours.
All five suspects in the case had been charged and convicted for the crime when it was discovered that the judge, at the state level, had a drug addiction, allowing four of the killers to take advantage of the justice system.
The five attackers are Lemaricus Davidson, Letalvis Cobbins, George Thomas, Vanessa Coleman and Eric Boyd. After a second trial, all of the previous state convictions, except for Coleman and Thomas, were allowed to stand and the defendants remain in prison pending appeals.
Coleman had her sentence reduced by a third after a retrial!
Coleman went into prison with a 35 year sentence. However, due to prison overcrowding she has to serve only 30% of her sentence before being eligible for a parole hearing. In addition to her sentence being effectively reduced by 70% she has been accumulating additional time towards an early release, up to a possible 192 days per year for good behavior.
She is set to go before the Tennessee Board of Paroles in early October, 2014.
During the course of her trial for her part in the rapes and murders of Channon and Chris, evidence was presented from her diary entry dated 3 days after the murder. It read in part, “I’ve had one HELL OF AN ADVENTURE since I’ve been in the big TN. It’s a crazy world these days! But I love the fun adventures and lessons that I’ve learned. Its going to be a long interesting year! Ha! Ha!”
Please sign this petition and help the families of Christopher Newsom and Channon Christian keep Vanessa Coleman, Offender #473393 in prison for as long as possible.
To:
Tennessee Board of Probation and Parole
RIchard Montgomery, Chairman, Tennessee Board of Parole
Deny Parole to Vanessa Coleman, Offender #473393
To the Honorable Members of the Tennessee Probation and Parole Board:
We the citizens of the United States of America, and in particular, residents of the State of Tennessee request that you deny prisoner Vanessa Coleman, Offender # 473393 parole, convicted for six counts of facilitation of Rape, four counts to the facilitation of Murder,...
What makes just the Jewish so special and Why is so much money given to Just the JEWISH? Are any of the other survivor groups showered with money this way? Why does it cost so much more money for the care of an elderly Jewish Holocaust Survivor, then anyone elses Non-Jewish Grandma or Grandpa?
Legit question is all I'm saying. You do the math, and I'm only listing a little please forgive the mess! I'm going to start this post with the latest headlines from Germany. ~
German government has committed to pay nearly 800 million euros for the care of elderly Holocaust survivors as a result of negotiations in Israel between Berlin and a fund for Jewish victims of Nazi aggression. Nearly 60,000 people will benefit from the aid money.
'Open' Ghetto Survivors Now EligibleThe agreement also includes a notable shift regarding compensation for survivors of Nazi ghettos. Until now, regulations governing Claims Conference pension programs for ghetto survivors stipulated that only those who were in "closed" ghettos -- in other words, those surrounded by a wall -- were eligible for funds. Yet many ghettos, such as those in Czernowitz, Romania, and many throughout Bulgaria, were not walled in even though they were in many ways similar to closed ghettos. Jews lived under curfew, were deprived of jobs, were subject to persecution, were forced to wear yellow stars and lived in constant fear of deportation. 'Is this what Western Nations have to look forward to with all the Migrant, Illegal Border Jumpers, if and when they are deported?'
At the negotiations between German Finance Ministry and Claims Conference representatives, it was decided that two pension programs should be expanded to include Jews who lived in open ghettos under such conditions. The decision, which required the German government to commit an extra €7 million to €11 million, should bring compensation to an additional 2,000 to 3,000 survivors.
On July 10th, dignitaries from the U.S., German, and Israeli governments attended a curious ceremony at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. The gathering marked the 60th anniversary of the first agreement by the West German government with the Israeli government and the Jewish "Claims Conference"
to grant modest financial compensation for the
Holocaust.
Some of the Jews in the room had spent the years since the agreement in seemingly interminable haggling. The event had the character of a celebration and an exercise in self-congratulation. Ambassador Stuart Eizenstat, a prominent Jewish corporate lawyer who currently holds the offices of Special Advisor to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Holocaust Issues and Special Negotiator for the Jewish Claims Conference, was in top form. In the 1990s, as a sub-cabinet official in Bill Clinton's administration, Eizenstat headed the talks between class action lawyers for Holocaust survivors and German corporations that were accused of using slave labor during the Second World War. Bodies such as the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, the "Claims Conference," and the German government also participated. Eizenstat subsequently wrote a self-praising volume about his role and went on to receive the "Great Negotiator" award from his alma mater, Harvard Law School.
By Jessica Donath in Haifa, Israel Many Holocaust survivors living in Israel spend what should be their golden years in a state of poverty. A retirement home in Haifa that opened in 2010 is lending a helping hand to one of the country's neediest groups. The project is being largely funded by Christians, with the assistance of volunteers from Germany.
The Claims Conference is pleased to announce that the government of Hungary, after protracted and difficult talks over the course of several years, has agreed to release $5.6 million in previously committed funds for social welfare services for needy Holocaust survivors of Hungarian origin living outside of Hungary.
Millions of dollars meant to help survivors of the Jewish Holocaust instead were stolen and fraudulently given to thousands of people who were not eligible for the funds, Justice Department officials said.
The FBI said insiders who were responsible for verifying requests to the Conference On Jewish Material Claims instead helped commit a massive fraud. Investigators said in exchange for kickbacks, the employees signed off on bogus applications submitted in part by Russian immigrants who falsely claimed they had lost their homes and belongings during the Nazi era. Seventeen people have been charged in the outrageous swindle.
The passions and propaganda of wartime normally diminish with the passage of time. A striking exception is the Holocaust campaign, which seems to grow more pervasive and intense as the years go by. Certainly the most lucrative expression of this seemingly endless campaign has been West Germany's massive and historically unparalleled reparations payoff to Israel and world Jewry for the alleged collective sins of the German people during the Hitler era. Between 1953 and 1992, the Federal Republic of (West) Germany paid out more than $35 billion in reparations to the Zionist state and to millions of individual "victims of National Socialism."
How did this remarkable program get started? How lucrative has it been? What does it suggest about the "six million" figure? And what are its social and political implications?
Bowing to pressure
In September 1945, shortly after the end of the Second World War, Jewish leader Chaim Weizmann submitted a memorandum on behalf of the Zionist Jewish Agency to the governments of the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain and France "demanding" (in the words of the Encydopaedia Judaica) "reparations, restitution and indemnification due to the Jewish people from Germany" The western Allies lost no time in responding favorably to Weizmann's demands. /1 The American government was particularly eager to have the Germans pay up. /2 As a result, the German government set up by the western Allies at Bonn in 1949 never had any real choice but to acknowledge the alleged collective guilt of the German people during the Hitler era and pay what was demanded.
Swindler’s List: A Brief Look at the Holocaust Reparations Racket
After the conclusion of World War II did the Germans pay reparations of some sort to the Jews?
A lot of people would probably assume that, yes, some sort of redress did occur, but that whatever it was, most likely was paid out in one, two, three, or perhaps four lump sum payments, and that the matter was over, settled, and done with, oh, say maybe five years after the war, or ten at most. Few people—or at any rate few who aren’t Jewish, or who don’t make a regular habit of reading the Jewish press—would guess that today, fully 67 years after the war, Germany continues to pay reparations to Jews, or that the benefits doled out keep going up every year, rather than down. But this is indeed the case.
In July of 2012 observances were held marking the 60thanniversary of the Luxembourg Agreement. The event took place in Washington D.C., with ceremonies held at the Israeli Embassy, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, and the Hart Senate Office Building. So what, you may ask, is the Luxembourg Agreement?
