My head is pounding because I've been reading too many Boston Globes.
"As German leaders try to stave off global economic crisis, they’re trapped between conservative impulses and a situation that appears to require radical solutions....
Doesn't it sound like the paper is saying they still have some Nazi in 'em?
Aaaah, go hoist a brew!
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You can drink it out of one of these (no offense to the Namibians):
"Skulls returned, but Namibians still angry" October 05, 2011|Associated Press
WINDHOEK, Namibia - Human skulls taken from Namibia by German colonizers returned home yesterday after more than 100 years, but the reconciliatory gesture instead has ignited anger and renewed demands that Germany pay for its sins in this corner of Africa, where more than 60,000 people were killed.
Yesterday’s return of 20 skulls taken to Germany more than a century ago for racist experiments also has fueled anger about current injustices by a people decimated when they rebelled against German colonizers.
Historians say the genocide committed by German soldiers in what they called South West Africa was a precursor to the Nazi Holocaust of the Jews.
And others, but.... hey, every colonial government was doing such things way back when (I feel like a drunk reminiscing over old times).
The Herero people numbered more than 85,000 and were the most powerful and richest, with herds of tens of thousands of cattle when Germany began its colonial adventure here.
When the Herero rose up, the slaughter began. Within three years, 85 percent were dead, their land and cattle stolen, some bodies beheaded.
Today, the Herero make up perhaps 10 percent of Namibia’s population of 2.1 million, and some still dispossessed of land are threatening to invade farms being worked by the descendants of white settlers.
Hoze Riruako, an adviser to the paramount chief of the Herero, warned that the tribe’s patience is running out.
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"Namibians welcome home skulls taken to Germany" October 04, 2011|Michelle Faul, Associated Press
With warriors on horseback and teary-eyed women ululating their joy, hundreds of Namibians on Tuesday welcomed home the skulls of ancestors taken to Germany for racist experiments more than a century ago.
The skulls are “testimony to the horrors of colonialism and German cruelty against our people,’’ Prime Minister Nahas Angula said at an airport ceremony. “The Namibian nation accepts these mortal remains as a symbolic closure of a tragic chapter.’’
I'm all with that. I'm happy the Namibians are happy, and want to move on to STOP CURRENT SLAUGHTERS. I love history, but we can ONLY ALTER what is CURRENT!
German Ambassador Egon Kochanke said he welcomed home the skulls but also indicated it was time for the two countries to move forward.
Gee, my printed copy was really a pos.
Some Herero and Nama people made clear they are not so willing to forget the past and waved banners demanding reparations from Germany for what some historians call the first genocide of the 20th century. Historians say German troops killed and starved to death some 60,000 of the 85,000 Herero people from 1904-1907.
Have they been talking to Israel?
“We are ready for battle! We are going to fight!’’ Herero warriors in military uniform chanted as a leader, chest covered in animal skins, led a cleansing ceremony watched by tribal chiefs in red and yellow hats.
Please, no more war.
Hundreds of people in ceremonial dress were at the airport — Nama women in white dresses with gathered skirts, Herero women in scarlet and emerald green Victorian robes topped by headdresses shaped like the horns of cows that are the traditional source of wealth. They sang hymns and traditional praise songs.
Tears poured down the cheeks of one wrinkle-faced Nama woman as a cortege set off with the boxed skulls escorted by warriors on horseback.
At Parliament Garden later Tuesday, in the shade of mauve jacaranda and flame-red flamboyant trees, people processed past two of the 20 returned skulls on display in glass cases as tribal leaders recalled the tragic history of their people. The two skulls are to be displayed again Wednesday at a ceremony to be addressed by government leaders.
Some communities hope to hold special rites in their traditional areas, though Hereros complain that much of their land remains in the hands of white farmers descended from German and South African settlers.
After much discussion about whether to bury the heads, officials said their final resting place will be a gold and black tower in the final stages of construction that is to be a museum of the country’s history.
It is not known how many hundreds more skulls may remain in Germany.
Years of acrimonious negotiations led to Tuesday’s return. Nama Chief David Fredericks said his people still want all the skulls sent to Germany returned, and they demand to know the names of the people whose skulls have come home.
“I am happy that the skulls have been returned, but we know some have been deliberately made to disappear … the skulls of chiefs,’’ he said.
Germany only apologized for the massacres in 2004, during ceremonies marking the centenary of the start of the Herero uprising against German colonizers. But the German government does not acknowledge that there was a genocide of the Herero in what it then called German South West Africa.
Those rotten Germans!
Germany also has refused Herero demands for reparations, saying it gives generous aid to Namibia’s government for all the country’s 2 million people.
They wouldn't refuse Israel (actually, they did and I suspect this is behind the theme of the AmeriKan media.
Angula, the prime minister, said Germany’s Christian Democrat-led government appears to have retreated from promises made by the Social Democrats, who were responsible for the apology.
“The current German government is not as liberal and appears to be in denial (of the genocide), and that is also what is angering people,’’ he said in an interview.
In other words, holocaust deniers.
The Germans appeared to be retreating from “a process of restorative justice through economic empowerment’’ agreed to under the Social Democrats.
“That is a provocation to the people. I think there is a need for a dialogue on that issue,’’ he said.
The skulls of four females and 16 males, including a young boy of about 3, came from Berlin’s Charite University. The heads had been removed from their bodies and preserved in formaldehyde intact with faces, skin and hair. Researchers say the skulls do not show any sign of violence, and it is not clear how the people died, though they were possibly victims of German forces in Namibia at the time, or died in a German-run concentration camp.
Once the remains arrived in Berlin, between 1909-1914, scientists tried to prove the “racial superiority’’ of white Europeans over black Africans by analyzing the facial features of the heads, according to Thomas Schnalke, head of the Berlin Medical Historical Museum.
In the 1920s, the heads were further dissected until only the skulls remained.
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Related: German museum returning Namibian skulls
Think the Globe is tying to drill something into your skull?
"Germany reopens Nazi cold cases" October 06, 2011|Associated Press
BERLIN - In a final quest to bring Holocaust participants to justice, German authorities have reopened hundreds of dormant investigations of Nazi death camp guards - men who are now so old that time has become the enemy for prosecutors hurrying to prepare cases.
The efforts could result in new prosecutions nearly seven decades after World War II.
Special Nazi war-crimes investigators reopened the files after the conviction of former US autoworker John Demjanjuk, whose case set a new legal precedent in Germany.
See: Germany Long Ago
It was the first time prosecutors had been able to convict someone in a Nazi-era case without direct evidence that the suspect participated in a specific killing.
In other words, they really have no proof he did anything, but he was convicted anyway.
Welcome to "justice" in the "free" West.
Now authorities are considering whether the same approach to pursue others, prosecutors said....
All to satisfy Israel.
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Time to get out of Germany:
"Bombs target German rail services" October 11, 2011|Associated Press
BERLIN - An attack at Berlin’s main train station was thwarted yesterday when workers found a hidden device before it could explode, police said. Earlier yesterday, a similar device exploded near a high-speed train line west of Berlin, causing some damage but no casualties and halting train traffic there for the day.
An unknown leftist group claimed responsibility for the device that exploded, saying it wants to protest Germany’s role in the war in Afghanistan. Police were examining the message’s authenticity and trying to determine if the same group was responsible for both attacks....
Could you intelligence agencies stop it with the false flag attacks please?
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"Firebomb attacks disrupt German railways" October 13, 2011|Associated Press
BERLIN - German authorities sent scores of police officers to secure the nation’s rail system yesterday after a series of firebombs disrupted train traffic for thousands of passengers.
Authorities have detected 15 firebombs in seven locations since Monday. Hundreds of trains have been delayed due to partial shut-downs, but no one has been injured in any of the attacks.
The attacks “are criminal, terrorist acts,’’ said Germany’s transport minister, Peter Ramsauer.
The Federal Prosecutors’ Office announced it was taking over the investigation from local authorities, conducting it on suspicion “of anticonstitutional sabotage.’’
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A previously unknown leftist group has claimed responsibility for one of firebombs, saying that it hopes to cause widespread disruption, and that it opposes Germany’s roles in the Afghanistan war.
The fact that they are NOT IDENTIFIED by my AGENDA-PUSHING INTELLIGENCE ORGAN called a newspaper darn near confirms my analysis. I'm sure Germans know what Gladio means.
So WHO would want to make ANTIVIOLENT, ANTIWAR PROTESTERS LOOK BAD when the PRESSURE is on the German government to WITHDRAW from Afghanistan because they are being asked to bailout the EU?
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I know I'm not going to feel good in the morning.
