Stombo The Historian

Of all the people on the CBC roster that management could have chosen to host a series of historical documentaries, how they decided upon George Strombopolis boggles the mind. Seriously, the glorified disc jockey with all the piercings, that's your chosen educator on matters of world history? In his WWII doc, he kept talking about Hitler and Mussolini with frequent references to "right wing ideology". In the latest history lesson, we learn that Ronald Reagan was one of the true villains of the Cold War. Did the world really need more documentaries on WWII and the Cold War? What we needed was history according to Stombo...

I'd be very curious to know how much these Love-Hate docs cost to make, and how much they paid George to read the cue cards. Sound like an idea for an Access to Information request. They should not have cost much to make because there was no original research and they just recycled the same historical footage used in every other documentary. I'm willing to wager that they spent more than they should have. For those of you considering buying the Love, Hate, and Propaganda box set for $35 at the CBC Shop, be aware that they play these with great frequency on CBC TV. You'll probably get about 500 opportunities to watch it for free in the next year. This is not something you want to spend money on, though since your tax dollars helped pay to make it, you already have. That's sad.

I Remember the Rape of Nanking

I would like to take a moment to remember the fallen victims of the Japanese invasion and subjugation of the Chinese city of Nanking in December of 1937. After capturing the city, the Japanese sought to pacify hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians by killing them. They were not shipped off secretly to forced labour camps, although I am sure some were. The majority of the victims were shot dead in the streets or on the shore of the Yangtze river. While the Germans took mass genocide to a new level of efficiency, the Japanese did their genocide with swords and bullets. Thousands of women were raped in what can only be described as one of the most horrifying episodes that any major city has ever experienced.

In University I read the book the Rape of Nanking. Reading a book like that is disturbing, but at the same time it does serve to remind you that there are evil people in the world, and that sometimes it is necessary to send our brave soldiers into war to fight them. It is just a shame that Mao usurped power so soon after the end of the war and embarked on several missions to expand Chinese Communist influence into South Asia, Tibet, and Korea.

To Chinese-Canadians who had relatives die in the Rape of Nanking, I remember.

Did Neville Chamberlain win the Nobel Peace Prize in 1939?

Does anyone know who was set to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 1939? The Munich Agreement was signed to appease Hitler in September 1938, which the Germans broke in March of 1939 by invading the rest of Czechoslovakia. Wouldn't the Nobel committee have already voted on the 1939 award if not debating nominees? As best I can tell the Nobel people did not issue a Peace Prize during WWII. I suppose it is silly to hand out a peace prize when the entire world is at war, much less as Panzer tanks are rolling into Oslo. When Hitler invaded Poland the Scandinavian countries all declared complete neutrality. Hitler thought "great, this will be easy" and invaded Vikingland less than a year after the Munich Agreement was violated. Did Goebbels even allow them to vote on the Nobel Prize during WWII? The question is, had Hitler not pounced so quickly on Allied appeasement, who would have won the 1939 Nobel Peace Prize?

Gandhi never won a Nobel Peace Prize, but Arafat did. That says all you need to know about the validity of the award. There have been recipients who were/are amazing people, but the act of winning the award does not instantly put you on a level with Aung San Suu Kyi or the Dalai Lama.

By the way I didn't look it up, but have any historians investigated who was being selected to win the 1939 prize before global war broke out? Surely somebody has looked into this! Or did the Nobel association burn the documents that they penned in those five dark months between September 1938 and March of 1939? The Scandinavians have a flawed judgment in the business of war and peace if you ask me. I suspect many of the Nobel voters were pumping Chamberlain. I am drawing that inference based on some of the recent recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize.

Jesus Christ, I'm almost starting to miss George Bush! Many around the world did not like him, but they were afraid of him. If Mr. Obama is serious about doing this "we have been evil, I am sorry, how can I make it up to you" routine with totalitarian rulers who have acquired their power through brute force, just watch how this plays with these aggressive and forceful world leaders. They eat kindness for breakfast.

"An appeaser is a man who feeds a crocodile hoping it will eat him last..."

-Winston Churchill

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it"

-Something someone said once

Can we bust this "Holocaust never happened" myth?

I will refer you to a rant that I wrote in September 2006, in and around the time that Iran was hosting their "Holocaust never happened" conference. How do I feel about the Jews? Well as someone who is 1/4 German (my great grandparents left Germany for the New World 20 years before World War One); I feel guilt watching Schindler's List. I don't know any Jews, I can scarcely recall ever meeting any Jews, but I strongly support Israel. My 1/4 German guilt is a factor, but my 3/4 Scottish Protestant side empathizes with the atrocities that the Romans inflicted on the old Jewish State. Romans invented the Catholic Church, and the Counsel of Nicaea wrote religious history. The Protestant dominant part of me looks at the Jews and says "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" which ironically enough is an old Muslim saying. Look, the Holocaust happened. If you don't believe me, take Hitler's word for it. Watch the interviews with the Allied soldiers who liberated concentration camps. Their words alone should tell you everything that you need to know.

Here is my 2006 rebuttal to allegations that the Holocaust never happened:

Holocaust: Fact or Fiction?
Wednesday September 6, 2006 - 06:13pm

Iran will be hosting an international conference on the Holocaust in the coming weeks, asking the question of whether or not it ever happened, or was greatly exaggerated. This is an opinion expressed by Muslims, hardcore Catholics, and other assorted bigots and idiots around the world. The Arab hatred of the Jews is a no-brainer. Jews hail from the same region, and both claim Jerusalem as a cultural capital. Catholic hatred of Jews is also a no-brainer. Romans had Jesus killed, turned him into a Martyr, then made him the center of their religion and blamed the whole thing on the Jews.

Why Hitler hated the Jews so much, I am not exactly certain. I'm sure religion had something to do with it, but whether he was manipulating the prejudice of the German people or he himself had some reason to hate them, history does not know. This is what we do know for sure; Hitler preached hatred of the Jews. Between his election in 1933 and the five year build up to WWII, his government seized Jewish assets and began arresting prominent Jews. I think that the prominence of the Jews in the banking community, and the fact that the Jewish collection of precious metals shielded them from the brunt of the Great Depression created animosity between them and the majority. Think about it. The stock market crashed because people borrowed too much money without real assets to back it up. The people that survived the Depression unharmed were the people with precious metals and tangible assets to back up their holdings. Jews did that.

So imagine everyone in a country is driven into poverty, but a culture of people originally exported as slaves from their ancestral homeland to your homeland had protected themselves from the collapse? Might this upset you? Might you be easily roused by an elected government preaching their demise? I believe that the majority of Germans in WWII supported the seizure of Jewish assets, but not the genocide of the entire race. Why did the Third Reich kill so many Jews? Well, imagine that you committed terrible crimes involving forced labour, and murder and torture designed to increase the efficiency of your labour force. The order to kill as many Jews as possible was not executed until it looked like the Germans might lose the war. Instead of leaving millions of people alive who witnessed how fucked up you were, why not try and kill them all to leave no witnesses? I have actually had a number of conversations with Catholics about religion and world politics who were convinced that I am Jewish. My answer; I am a Celtic Protestant, so I have more beefs with the Catholic Church than the Jewish people...

To anyone who tries to tell me that the Holocaust did not happen, to them I say lets dig up the earth surrounding these forced labour camps and do a CSI Poland. Oh wait, historians already did that. After debating facts that we already know to be true, there will not be any doubt that the Holocaust was indeed fact, not fiction. The President of Iran is playing political chess, trying to forward a view that discredits his enemy. This comes not long after he put further restrictions on freedom of the press, and fired a number of teachers and professors at some of Iran’s most prominent schools and universities who oppose his power. Using force to eliminate the opposition of your own people in your own country to your power is counter-productive to the well being of your nation. Iran had their "Night of the Long Knives".