Sunday Post

Prior to the Second World War, then Liberal prime Minister William Lyons MacKenzie King wrote this of Hitler:

To understand Hitler, one has to remember his limited opportunities in his early life, his imprisonment, et cetera. It is truly marvelous what he has attained unto himself through his self education. ... 

He has a very nice, sweet and, one could see, how particularly humble folk would come to have a profound love for the man. He never once became the least bit restless during the talk of an hour and a quarter which we had together. ... 

As I talked to him, I could not but think of Joan of Arc. He is distinctly a mystic. Hewel was telling me that the German people, many of them, begin to feel that he was a mission from God, and some of them would seek to reverence him almost as a God. He said Hitler himself tries to avoid that kind of thing. He dislikes any of them thinking of him as anything but a humble citizen who is trying to serve his country well. He is a teetotaler and also a vegetarian. Is unmarried, abstemist in all his habits and ways. Indeed his life as one gathers it from those who are closest to him would appear to be that very much of a recluse, excepting that he comes in contact with youth and large number of people from time to time. ... 

That the outside world has misrepresented his religious view. That his talks about the race relate to trying to keep the blood of the people pure. That he believes strongly in the physical and mental sides of human natures and necessity for developing both. What he is striving most for is to give to every man the same opportunities as others have in matters of physical development, industrial development, enjoyment, leisure, beauty, et cetera. He is particularly strong on beauty, loves flowers and will spend more of the money of the State on gardens and flowers than on most other things.

Indeed, when Parliament reconvened in February 1938, King refused to condemn Hitler whom he had visited and gushed over months before:

The next day, Bennett rose and admonished King for not condemning the German leadership.

The Right Honorable Richard Bennett (Calgary West): The right honorable gentleman spoke of the dangers that threaten the body politic from communism, on the one hand, and from fascism on the other. My recollection is that he found the chief fascist in the world, Herr Hitler, a most entertaining person and a man who is doing great work. You cannot have it both ways. You cannot have it, as a distinguished guest, that he is a very great man, and at the same time try to arouse the fears of the public with respect to him. After all, it was not necessary for the right honorable gentleman to travel all the way to Germany to see what he regards as a dictator because I recall that during the election in 1935 he pointed to me sitting opposite as a combination of Hitler and Mussolini.

By September of 1939,  the gooey feelings were gone after Canada declared war against the man King once called "... a mystic".


But prior to this great undertaking, King did his part to secure his name in the annals of infamy:

On May 15, 1939, nine hundred and seven desperate German Jews set sail from Hamburg on a luxury liner, the St. Louis. ...

 

In Canada, Prime Minister Mackenzie King felt, that this was not a "Canadian problem," ignoring the pleas of many influential Canadians. Frederick Charles Blair, director of the Immigration Branch of the Department of Mines and Resources said, "No country, could open its doors wide enough to take in the hundreds of thousands Jewish people who want to leave Europe: the line must be drawn somewhere.

An unidentified immigration official replied when asked how many Jews would be let into Canada:

"None is too many."

Something Justin Trudeau, whose father raced around on a motorcycle giving the Nazi salute in support of the fascists, repeated and was criticised for when he attacked the Tories' immigration plan, a plan that prioritised religious minorities escaping ISIS' butchery, a plan Trudeau later called "disgusting". 

The same Justin Trudeau who made it a point for Canada to no longer be Israel's "special friend" and never once mentioned the Jews during a Holocaust memorial.

Now, Trudeau has outdone himself thusly:

Every year, he finds the journey more difficult, physically and emotionally. But, even after 15 years sitting on the international board of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, Leipciger thinks the march is the Shoah’s best education program. Hearing the stories first-hand from a survivor, in the very place where they happened, has a chilling impact. He is determined to touch as many hearts as he can.

So when he got a call from the Prime Minister’s office, asking that he accompany Justin Trudeau on his first visit to a Nazi death camp this Sunday, he agreed to return once again to Poland.

The death of Nobel Peace Prize winner and iconic Auschwitz inmate Elie Wiesel last weekend has heightened his sense of urgency. Survivors are running out of time to teach the march’s lessons: never forget and never again.

Never forget what happened to the Jews, for in Wiesel’s words, that would be to kill them a second time. Never again will Jews be slaughtered without a vigorous defence by Israel. And more broadly, never again should humanity stand by as innocent people are murdered by their neighbours, their occupiers or their government.

Except the world has stood idly by many times since the Holocaust. It stood by as Hutus slaughtered Tutsis in Rwanda, and it is doing so again as Syrian President Bashar Assad targets hospitals and primary schools with missiles.

Trudeau’s government has been sensitive to the plight of Syrian refugees, bringing 25,000 to Canada within four months of his party’s election last fall. But that number is minuscule compared with the more than one million refugees and migrants who poured into Europe last year alone.

But a backlash is growing. Last March, Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydlo publicly announced her country was closing its doors to refugees.

Openly racist and anti-Semitic groups parade in cities across Europe, while governments like Szydlo’s remain muted.

So what does the March of the Living mean in the face of rising xenophobia and nationalism — the Shoah’s deadly twin ingredients?

It’s a question Leipciger asks regularly. And which Trudeau may well ponder.

The very people who hate Israel, Jews and other religious minorities are equated with the victims of the Holocaust whom Trudeau refused to even name and just so that he can justify his rotten and failed immigration policy.

Trudeau is an opportunistic piece of sh--.

(Paws up)

The Trudeau government promises to waste more money on Afghanistan:

The Liberal government is renewing more than $150 million per year for aid projects in Afghanistan and to help the country’s security forces. The new money will kick in once Canada’s existing commitment, pledged by the previous Conservative government in 2012, ends next year. It will continue to 2020.

As long as there is a functioning Taliban, Afghanistan is a lost cause.

More lip service and wasted money.


Also:

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will sign a long-awaited free trade deal with Ukraine on Monday before paying his respects to those who fought and died in the country's revolution, known as the Euromaidan, two years ago.

I'm sure there is a hockey joke in there somewhere.





Stephen Harper has emerged from obscurity to endorse Jason Kenney:

Former prime minister Stephen Harper gave an impassioned speech Saturday night supporting his long time friend and political colleague Jason Kenney in his quest to unite-the-right in Alberta.

"He has demonstrated time and again that he is a principled, thoughtful and highly capable conservative," Harper said to hundreds of supporters at the annual Stampede barbecue held in his southwest Calgary riding.

"And friends I would ask all Alberta members of the Conservative Party of Canada to join me and to work to elect as the next leader of the PC Party of Alberta the Honourable Jason Kenney."

It's always something:

The Dallas sniper had been sent home from Afghanistan after being accused of sexually harassing a female, and was described as a loner who followed black militant groups on social media.

Micah Xavier Johnson, who fatally shot five officers and wounded seven more before police killed him with a remote-controlled bomb on Friday, lived with family members in the blue-collar suburb of Mesquite, where he played basketball for hours at a time.

Friends there said the 25-year-old black man didn't seem interested in politics, but his Facebook page suggests otherwise: He "liked" black militant groups including the African American Defence League and the New Black Panther Party, which was founded in Dallas.

His photo showed him wearing a dashiki and raising his fist over the words "Black Power," and his cover shot carried the red, black and green Pan-African flag.

It is believed that ISIS is hording oil reserves in holes in the ground:

Aerial photos taken near the northern Iraqi city of Mosul show scores of tiny, makeshift refineries popping up in oil fields controlled by the Islamic State, evidence the jihadists are finding workarounds after losing much of their oil infrastructure to airstrikes.

The micro-refineries — sometimes called “teapots” — consist of little more than a ditch or pit for storing crude and a portable metal furnace used to distill raw petroleum into fuel. Thousands of such systems have long been in operation in ISIL’s Syrian strongholds, but now they’re sprouting up around the more established, though heavily damaged, Iraqi oil fields, said Omar Lamrani, a senior analyst for Stratfor, a private, Texas-based intelligence company.

Well, now that one knows where they are...





After days of speculation, the head of the Labour Party in Australia concedes defeat while the remaining parties may form some sort of coalition:

Eight days after Australia’s general election ended in uncertainty, the prime minister finally claimed victory Sunday for his conservative coalition, bringing an end to the country’s political paralysis — at least for the moment.

Though the question of who won the July 2 election was answered, the question of exactly how the conservatives will rule the fractured Parliament was not. With official results still days or even weeks away, it was unclear whether Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s Liberal Party-led coalition had won enough votes to govern in its own right, or whether it would need the support of independent and minor party lawmakers to form a minority government.

Either way, Turnbull faces a rough road ahead with a divided party, a splintered Senate and a politically weary public that has endured five changes of prime minister in as many years.

Though millions of votes still need to be counted, there was no way for the opposition centre-left Labor Party to win a majority of seats in the House of Representatives, where parties form governments. That prompted opposition leader Bill Shorten to formally concede the race on Sunday, which in turn triggered Turnbull to announce that the coalition had won a second three-year term.

Speaking of elections...

The Liberal Democratic Party-led ruling coalition scored a sweeping victory in the Upper House election Sunday that gave the Diet’s pro-revision forces the two-thirds majority needed to initiate Japan’s first constitutional referendum, final results showed Monday morning.

Four parties in favor of constitutional revision, including the LDP-Komeito ruling bloc, won a combined 76 seats, adding to the current 88 held by pro-amendment forces in the uncontested half of the 242-seat Upper House.

Sunday’s election will increase the grand total of pro-revision forces in the Upper House to a supermajority of 164, a critical benchmark that will bring Prime Minister Shinzo Abe a huge step forward toward his longtime goal of amending the Constitution.

 No word yet on Satoshi Shima and his useful cat.





Oh, my:

George Takei has talked of his disappointment over the decision to reveal that Sulu is gay in the new ‘Star Trek’ movie, ‘Star Trek Beyond’.

Writer and star Simon Pegg, who plays Scotty, had the idea to put Sulu in a same-sex relationship as a homage to Takei, who played the role in the original TV series, and who came out in 2005.

It was also meant as a tribute to Takei’s activism in the realm of LGBT rights.

But he’s not taken the news well, adding that he tried to persuade the filmmakers not to change Sulu’s sexual orientation after he learned the plans, but was ignored.

He told The Hollywood Reporter: “I’m delighted that there’s a gay character.

“Unfortunately, it’s a twisting of Star Trek creator, Gene Roddenberry’s creation, to which he put in so much thought. I think it’s really unfortunate.”

“I told him, 'Be imaginative and create a character who has a history of being gay, rather than Sulu, who had been straight all this time, suddenly being revealed as being closeted’,” he said.

So much for that convoluted story-line.

Perhaps if writers actually did their jobs and told stories as opposed to create a palette of one-note characters that are forever pigeon-holed to very few plots and then disappear people might find movie-watching actually enjoyable and not be unimpressed with all the whiz-banging that passes for cinema these days.




And now, just when you thought it was safe to go back into the teapot: