© UnknownThose who fail to learn from history. . .
In her book,
Eichmann in Israel, Hannah Arendt coined the phrase the "banality of evil." On wonders though, how banal was that evil?
Among the defendants at Nuremberg were eight jurists, one university professor and one dentist. All of them were very well educated. It is important to know who they were and their specific functions within the Nazi government. A brief sketch of the principals and the sentence each received is presented below:
Hermann GoeringGoering was perhaps the most influential person, next to Hitler, in the Nazi organization. He was one of only 12 Nazis elected to the Reichstag in 1928. He orchestrated the Reichstag fire on February 27, 1933 and, with Goebbel's assistance, used the fire as a propaganda tool against the communists. In the mid-1930's Goering was in charge of the Aryanization of Jewish property, a policy which extended to Jews throughout Europe following
Anschluss. After the events of
Kristallnacht, November 8 and 9, 1938, Goering (under instructions from Hitler) called a high-level meeting of the party, on November 12, to assess the damage done during the night and place responsibility for it. Present at the meeting were Goering, Goebbels, Reinhard Heydrich, Walter Funk and other ranking Nazi officials. The intent of this meeting was two-fold: to make the Jews responsible for
Kristallnacht and to use the events of the preceding days as a rationale for promulgating a series of antisemitic laws which would, in effect, remove Jews from the German economy. (An interpretive transcript of this meeting is provided by Robert Conot,
Justice at Nuremberg, New York: Harper and Row, 1983:164-172):
Comment: Blair thinks it is "sad" that people want to disrupt his little ego trip. What is inexpressibly sad is the 1 million+ Iraqi civilians that were murdered as a direct result of his lies about the threat from Iraq and his pathological drive to invade and occupy Iraq at all costs.
Notice how Blair attempts to dismiss the demonstrators as members of the extremist "BNP" (British National Party) and how his spokesperson labels protest against war crimes as "unpleasant". How unfortunate for poor Tony that members of the public would dare stand up and shove the truth of his monstrous crimes back in his face. The reality is that those who have and plan to protest this particular war criminal's attempt to slip into the role of 'elder statesman' are ordinary people who happen to still possess a conscience (a rare quality in these times). They should therefore be applauded for their efforts in standing up for justice and against the predations of psychopaths in power like Blair.