A crappy title, even crappier subtitles, but a great article on how the Dems are doing all they can to keep losing. It’s truly infuriating but if you look at what is happening at the local level wherever you are, chances are you’ll see something similar.
I’d so love to see this amazing exhibit but I’m not in New York. Those who are, don’t miss your chance to see it.
I had no idea anybody could strike me as even more vulgar and ridiculous than Melania Trump, but anything is possible, it seems.
Speaking of which, don’t you just love our President’s dedication to isolationism?
Clarissa's Blog 
The lower house of the Polish parliament’s bill calls for prison time for referring to “Polish death camps” and criminalizes the mention of Polish complicity.
The bill still needs approval from Poland’s Senate and president. Still, it marks a dramatic step by the nationalist government to enforce its official stance that the vast majority in Poland—a country that was terrorized by Nazi Germany’s occupation—acted heroically under those conditions. Historians say many Poles collaborated with the Nazis and committed heinous crimes.
The bill has sparked outrage in Israel and suddenly raised tensions with a close European ally.
On Sunday, the Foreign Ministry summoned Poland’s deputy ambassador, Piotr Kozłowski, to express Israel’s opposition to the bill.
https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5077639,00.html
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This is a dumb conflict due to poor legislation (a Polish specialty).
Essentially many people in Poland dislike the term “Polish death camps” applied to places like Auschwitz which is in modern Poland but which was set up and run by Nazis.
The Israeli reaction is overblown hysteria. Nobody denies that some Poles cooperated with or worked for the Nazis (some willingly, more forced) but in no way was Poland an architect of the holocaust and there is no way that most Polish people feel (or can be bullied into feeling) any special type of collective guilt regarding it.
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The Israeli Education Ministry devised a new lesson plan amid the controversy surrounding Poland’s new bill outlawing any mention of its part in the Holocaust. The plan, instructed by Education Minister Naftali Bennett, will teach students about “the involvement of the local populations, including Poland, in the Holocaust of the Jewish people.”
The ministry instructed Israeli schools to dedicate two lessons to holocaust studies during the upcoming week, with emphasis on the cooperation of Europeans in the murder of Jews during the Holocaust. The plan was devised together with the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial organization and will be taught to students aged 12-18.
http://www.jerusalemonline.com/news/in-israel/local/israeli-schools-to-teach-about-polands-involvement-in-the-holocaust-33970
Naftali Bennett is a religious, Right-wing politician who sees his chance to exploit the Polish law as much as possible, I am sure.
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I’m wary of the demonization of Poles that is currently under way. At least once a week I see an article with a scare-mongering headline about Poland in my news feed. And when I start looking for confirmation, it usually turns out invented, exaggerated, or mischaracterized. The geographical and symbolic margins of the EU have the right to be unhappy with a system that is not set up with their concerns and interests in mind. It’s a fact. The Poles are objecting to it, and they are being punished for it with these stories. That’s my opinion at this point.
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I suspect that Poles are demonized because it is in the interests of everyone, except perhaps the Chinese. I can think of many groups (broadly-defined) that are interested in that:
a) mainstream EU for reasons Clarissa mentioned
b) European right-wing groups and their supporters, especially in Germany… Diffusing responsibility, “such were the times, everybody was doing that, etc”… otherwise the shadow of Nazism is still interfering with their political prospects and ambitions too much for their liking.
c) Pro-Russian interests – both for weakening the EU and NATO and for the same reasons as German right-wingers (diffusing responsibility for Soviet-style totalitarianism, “those Poles just happily collaborated with whomever happened to be in power”)
d) Pro-Israeli interests. Do not think they are consciously trying to bully the Poles into some increased historic guilt, I suspect that at some point Israelis became the hostages of their own rhetoric, and just cannot not react to someone somewhere maybe sounding as if they are maybe trying to get away from the responsibility for the Holocaust. Even when that sounds quite insensitive, as in the case of the Poles who have suffered a lot from the Nazis.
e) Ukrainian nationalists (in the light of the current conflict between them and Poland re some historic events)? They are not nearly as influential as the first four groups, but they can produce a lot of noise for internal use and some of that noise may be amplified by the more powerful external players in their own interests.
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” I suspect that at some point Israelis became the hostages of their own rhetoric, and just cannot not react to someone somewhere maybe sounding as if they are maybe trying to get away from the responsibility for the Holocaust. ”
Another factor is the need of Germany to justify the current setup of the EU that favors it and harms those very margins of Europe that Poland represents. So yes, it’s a big, heavy push from different sides.
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— Plus, there is the need to appoint somebody else to the role of the racist margins of Europe because if it’s not Poles, then it’s Israel itself that will play this role.
do you think Israel is in danger of that already? And there are still the Ukrainians, the Russians and the Baltic people…
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Israel is already it. Hence the obsessive preoccupation with Palestinians.
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This makes it sound like the Polish government wants to fight Wikipedia:
<a href=”https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/my-grandma-was-murdered-in-poland-i-don-t-need-holocaust-education-1.5767630utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter>Haaretz
According to the law, which was approved on Friday by the country’s lower parliament, anyone who publicly attributes guilt or complicity to the Polish state for crimes committed by Nazi Germany, war crimes or other crimes against humanity, will be liable to criminal proceedings. Punishment will also be imposed on those who are seen to “deliberately reduce the responsibility of the ‘true culprits’ of these crimes.”
The new law will apply both to Polish citizens and to foreigners regardless which country the statement is supposed to have been made in.
The implication of the new law means that in theory, a Jewish Holocaust survivors from Poland who lives in Israel, who may make a statement such as “the Polish people were involved in the murder of my grandfather in the Holocaust,” or “my mother was murdered in a Polish extermination camp,” would be liable for imprisonment in Poland.
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“the Polish people were involved in the murder of my grandfather in the Holocaust,”
All due respect but such a statement should be corrected, the Polish people had no government at the time of the holocaust. Now if they said “Some Polish people….” that would be another matter.
“my mother was murdered in a Polish extermination camp,” would be liable for imprisonment in Poland.
They shouldn’t be liable for imprisonment but they shouldn’t be believed either….
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I had no idea anybody could strike me as even more vulgar and ridiculous than Melania Trump, but anything is possible, it seems.
Have you seen any episode of HTGAWM? Of course it’s vulgar and ridiculous. Fences isn’t ridiculous or vulgar though.
More ridiculousness:
Hillary Clinton got bored of hiking the woods & Nikki Haley has never dealt with any trolls in her life
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No, I don’t know this person and never watched the show. I just find the behavior to be bizarre. People seem to think it’s cure but it really isn’t.
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” I don’t know this person and never watched the show”
She’s a great actress and the show is a non-stop emotional roller coaster (I’ve just seen the first two seasons). But great performers are seldom good moral role models.
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Davis clearly doesn’t like Melania Trump, but what did she do wrong?
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I don’t know this actress so maybe she is 14 years old and just looks mature. But if she’s older than that, reacting like a hormonal teenager when somebody simply tells you that person X likes their show is not normal. It’s rude and ridiculous to be this way. I also hate it when women self-infantilize. She’s an actress, she’s supposed to be grateful that people like her show, not throw fits.
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“She’s an actress”
Exactly! Actors live off (and on the edge of) their nerves and expecting much in the way of exemplary behavior from them when they’re not performing is a loser’s bet.
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Even a bad actress should be able to perform dignity and self-respect for 5 minutes.
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The wonders of technology leave nobody safe:
Popular fitness app Strava publishes ‘heat map’ showing routes its users take while walking or jogging; map unintentionally reveals locations of known or classified IDF and American bases around the world; ‘Soldiers’ patrol routes also divulged,’ says programmer.
https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5077805,00.html
AND
Israel’s Military to Examine Use of Fitness Tracking Social Network Strava by Troops
…
Many soldiers worldwide and in Israel are Strava users and according to Mr. Bar-Zik, their activity on the social network brought to an unintentional exposure of sensitive data. If a soldier wearing a fitness tracker goes out on patrol, their data is integrated within the “heatmap”, he wrote in a blog post. “If several soldiers are doing the same thing you can see not only military sites but also patrol routes—which areas are more heavily patrolled and which are not,” he added.
https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3730652,00.html
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This is simply farcial :
Russia Recognizes First Same-Sex Marriage Due To Legal Loophole
Officials are already working to amend Russian family law.
http://www.newnownext.com/russia-recognizes-first-gay-marriage/01/2018/
The result:
Russia brings charges against same-sex couple who received landmark recognition of marriage
Two men face charges of ‘intentional damage to passports or negligence’
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russia-same-sex-couple-marriage-recognised-charged-damage-passports-eugene-wojciechowski-paul-a8181341.html
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The first link on the democrats’ terrible candidate choices ties in with this.
http://akinokure.blogspot.com/2018/01/trump-as-jimmy-carter-of-gop-and-bernie.html
My takeaway from both is that the ongoing realignment is still up for grabs and the party that can build a viable platform around shared nationalist and public interests (rather than atomized consumer choices or military expansion) will win it and be in charge for the next few decades.
Bernie was that candidate for the dems but they still seem intent on running Hillary again (and losing again unless he can reinvent herself as a progressive populist)
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The base is dumb, too. Finally, the Dems do something smart and reach an agreement to save CHIP and stop the government shutdown and the base wails like a bunch of crazed banshees. Ridiculous.
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Where I am, the local party and the DCCC have actually been trying to recruit the same quality Democrats that I’d try to recruit, and I’m sure that’s true many places. But nobody writes articles about that. It is truly disturbing that this idiocy is happening in Pennsylvania of all places; haven’t they learned their lesson?
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