Between 1939 and 1944 Franklin D. Roosevelt received stacks of letters from Jewish refugees pleading to open up the US border to Jews displaced by the rise of the Nazi party. The majority of these letters were rejected, as it was not US policy to accept refugee’s, especially after the economic collapse of the great depression. Albert Einstein wrote a letter in 1941 pleading to Eleanor Roosevelt to “…bring the matter to the attention of your heavily burden husband…”[1] -this letter was rejected. And the letter written by Vanessa Fica in 1939 asking for the US to take on the 669 displaced Czech Jewish refugees:
“Is it possible for anything to be done to help with this problem in America? It is hard to state our case forcibly in a letter, but we trust to your imagination to realize how disparately urgent the situation is” [2]
She was also rejected by the FDR administration, although her letter was intercepted by an altruistic stockbroker in London, by the name of Sir Nichols Winton and he eventually saved all 669 refugees. Another letter was written in 1941 by an organization that was trying to get displaced children out of Nazi occupied areas and this letter was read by Eleanor to FDR over the phone while he was on vacation, as she felt that hearing the appeal in her voice may motivate him to act. He did not- the request was rejected.[3]
With a challenging war in the Pacific, FDR signed executive order 9066[4] in 1942 to allow Japanese-Americans to leave the internment camps if they wanted to join the US military. This order was signed for two reasons: A) it was thought that sending Japanese-American soldiers to fight against Japan would be a blow to the morale of the Japanese military and B) to help dismiss the perception that the United States was racist and guilty of acts born in the same vein of the atrocities of human depravity that were occurring in Europe. The 442nd infantry regiment, which was comprised of mostly Japanese-Americans who volunteered from internment camps to fight, is, to this day, still the most decorated American infantry unit in the history of the US military.[5]
The United States is currently in a state of war against Hamas, yes the United States is at war. The United States is supplying weapons, cash and intelligence data to Israel[6]– we are not merely sympathizers, but an ally in war (you do not have to supply troops to be in war). When you hear about an attack of a UN school by the Israeli army, note that this precision attack was courtesy of US intelligence data, provided at gratis by American tax dollars. These attacks are a “criminal act” and the “madness must stop” says the UN secretary General Ban Ki-moon.[7] The UN recently voted to investigate Israel for breaking international law[8] for their acts in the Gaza Strip and only one country voted against the investigation, yes, yours truly- the United States. Why would we vote against investigations of war crimes? It’s not like we have a pony in the race or anything.
But of course this is nothing like World War 2, right? On August 2nd 2014, Moshe Feiglin, the deputy speaker of the Israeli Parliament (Knesset) wrote a letter to Prime Minister Netanyahu asking to define the task of the military as: conquer the Gaza Strip and annihilate the opposing military and all their supporters; then all Palestinian civilians shall be removed and “concentrated” in “encampments” near the Sinai border and forced to exile, unless they are willing to “publicly sign a declaration of loyalty to Israel”; then the remains of the formerly populated area of Gaza shall be “shelled” and completely “destroyed entirely, down to their foundation.” And all this, according to Feiglin, will be done “with God’s Help”. [9]
The FOX news pro-American narrative propaganda machine will argue over and over that we (meaning America & Israel) are fighting terrorists and people using women and children as human shields. First off, there is actually no evidence of children being used as human shields- this claim is speculative and conjecture. Second, terrorism is an abstract term and in modern political vernacular it is really just a term that defines an enemy of the state, but a term that is meant to dehumanize and make the enemy seem as objectively evil, insinuating that siding with a terrorist makes you evil by association. But please note, as Russel Brand poignantly stated[10], by these definitions of Terrorist both Gandhi and Nelson Mandela would have been considered terrorists today. There is no such thing as objective evil.
Why does all this matter now? There have been 21 different genocides attempt since World War 2, illustrating that, generally speaking, we learn nothing from history. I might as well stick my fingers in my ears, order a Starbucks coffee and passively dismiss the idea that America is Passively Contributing to a Genocide Attempt, yet again. Because who really cares anyway- whatever gets me cheaper gas is fine by me.
Moving on to other news, it seems as though the Tea Party wants to impeach Obama if he signs an executive order that grants amnesty to refugee children, but that may not matter, because it’s also impeachable for him to win a Nobel Prize[11] because, as we all know, altruism is not an American value.[12]
Terror is.
[1] http://www.cbsnews.com/news/1939-letter-found-plea-to-fdr-to-save-jewish-kids/
[2] http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/2013/12/13/albert_einstein_eleanor_roosevelt_1941_letter_asking_the_first_lady_to_help.html
[3] Takaki, Ronald T.. A different mirror: a history of multicultural America. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1993. Print.
[4] Roosevelt, Franklin (February 19, 1942). “Executive Order 9066”. U.S. National Archives & Records Administration. Retrieved 25 April 2014.
[5] Takaki, Ronald T.. A different mirror: a history of multicultural America. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1993. Print.
[6] https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/08/04/cash-weapons-surveillance/
[7] http://www.un.org/sg/statements/index.asp?nid=7904
[8] https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/08/04/cash-weapons-surveillance/
[9] http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/concentrate-and-exterminate-israel-parliament-deputy-speakers-gaza-genocide-plan
[10] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-v5WlY8Uf5U
[11] http://www.onenewsnow.com/politics-govt/2009/12/11/obamas-nobel-prize-unconstitutional#.U93PlahPLEY
[12] Rand, Ayn, and Nathaniel Branden. The virtue of selfishness. New York: New American Library, 19651964. Print.
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