Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Pro-Life Policies in Nazi Germany



by Peach Pie

Peach State Voice (Atlanta)

July 27, 2010



Dr. Ernst Rudin


The term "Freedom of Choice" as it pertains to abortion was invented by a Nazi SS propagandist as a means to entice Polish women to have abortions and use contraceptives. The Nazis wanted to ensure that there were less births of what they considered “untermensch” or unfit for life.


The Nazis came to power in 1933 and one of Hitler's first official Acts was to legalize abortion. While abortion rights were liberalized during the Weimar Republic the Nazis purposefully identified those they felt unfit to reproduce. Two years later in 1935 Germany a nation of 65 million people was performing 500,000 abortions each year on German women deemed healthy and fit to reproduce. The Nazis encouraged Aryan women to produce children and subsequently made it illegal for a healthy German woman to receive an abortion.


The Nazis left the dirty little matter of abortion and all its facets in the hands of a decidedly pro-abortion medical establishment set up in April 1933 by Dr. Ernst Rudin the head of the Nazi Society for Racial Hygiene. During the Weimar Republic [inter war years] marriage, sex and eugenic counseling centers were established. The Nazis used these files to target certain people for sterilization. Within a year of coming to power, the Nazis had started some 250 eugenic courts whose function was to decide who was worthy to procreate. These eugenic courts took applications from social workers and physicians urging sterilizations. These social workers and physicians were given the right to determine what female was unfit to reproduce and sterilized or a child that was unfit to live and destroyed.


On July 22, 1942, Hitler embraced the idea of abortion as an indispensable method of dealing with the non-German populations in countries under Nazi control. Hitler stated;


They may use contraceptives or practice abortion--the more the better. In view of the large families of the native population, it could only suit us if girls and women there had as many abortions as possible. Active trade in contraceptives ought to be actually encouraged in the Eastern territories, as we could not possibly have the slightest interest in increasing the non-Germanic population."1

On November 25 1939, the Reich Commission for the Strengthening of Germandom (RKFDV), an SS organization, issued this following decree in Poland:


"All measures which have the tendency to limit the births are to be tolerated or to be supported. Abortion in the remaining area of Poland [which was illegal under Polish law] must be declared free from punishment. The means for abortion and contraceptive means may be offered publicly without police restriction. Homosexuality [which was illegal under Polish law] is to be declared legal. The institutions and persons involved professionally in abortion practices are not to be interfered with by police."2


This order was put into place immediately upon occupation in all countries deemed un Aryan composed of mostly Slavs to the east. The Nazis were particularly brutal after they forced millions of Jews into ghettos throughout Poland. In a diary of a Polish Jew living in the Shavli Ghetto named E. Yerushalmi this entry was made for 13 July 1942:


"In accordance with the Order of the Security Police, births are permitted in the ghetto upon up to August 15, 1942. After this date it is forbidden to give birth to Jewish children either in the hospitals or in the homes of the pregnant women. it is pointed out, at the same time, that it is permitted to interrupt pregnancies by means of abortions. A great responsibility rests on the pregnant women. If they do not comply with this order, there is a danger that they will be executed, together with their families."3 All pregnant Jewish women arriving at concentration camps were immediately sent to the gas chambers.

During the Nuremburg Trials after the war, almost all the Nazi defendants were accused of "crimes against humanity" and part of those 'crimes' were promotion of abortion.


The most outspoken German critic of the Nazis was Dietrich Bonhoeffer; a German Lutheran pastor, theologian, and pro-Life advocate wrote:


"Destruction of the embryo in the mother's womb is a violation of the right to live which God has bestowed upon this nascent life. To raise the question whether we are here concerned already with a human being or not is merely to confuse the issue. The simple fact is that God certainly intended to create a human being and that this nascent being has been deliberately deprived of his life. And that is nothing but murder."
4

Bonhoeffer wrote this poem:


"They came for the Jews,
and I [Germany] did not object, as I am not a Jew.
They came for the Catholics,
and I [Germany] did not object, as I was not a Catholic.
Finally, they came for me, and there was no one left to object."


Dietrich Bonhoffer was executed by the Nazis on April 19, 1945, in the shadows of Berlin burning and a mere three weeks before the war ended.


In conclusion, the Nazis were not anti-abortion. They converted entire hospitals to abortuaries. They were just selective on who should get an abortion and who should not. We must ask constantly what the terms “Freedom” of “Choice” actually mean.


Abortion prevents a life that has already happened, because the unborn is the second life to consider in any pregnancy. The Nazis, experts in killing, knew this and exploited it. When you make exceptions on what child may or may not be aborted, you are picking and choosing what life has value and what has none. No human has the right to pick and choose what life has value.


1 Harvest of Hate, 1954, pp. 273-4

2 Secret Nazi Plans for Eastern Europe, 1961, p.171

3 Pinkas Shavli, 1958, p.88

4 Ethics, pp.175-6

Saturday, July 10, 2010

The Great Picture Hunt - Where's Waldox?


by Peach Pie

Peach State Voice (Atlanta)

July 12, 2010







It is no accident that John Oxendine, Republican Candidate for Governor seems to be hiding from the electorate. It is a cold calculated strategy to reinvent this candidate and his handlers are hunting for the best pictures.



The first inkling we read of this was in the Political Insider Blog in the piece The new, improved John Oxendine campaign, 3:00 pm June 5, 2010, by Jim Galloway. Galloway wrote; "But one of the biggest changes in the Republican race for governor in the past three months has been the quiet transformation of the John Oxendine campaign." Oxendine brought in campaign manager Stephen Puetz, who had been political director of the Tom Foley gubernatorial campaign and Jeff Roe, the man who focused on getting out the vote for Mike Huckabee’s presidential campaign in ‘08 throughout much of the South, including Georgia. Why do this when Oxendine has been the front runner in the race from the beginning? Simply put Oxendine had been running all over the state and his message was stale and tiring.
When consumers get tired of a celebrity that celebrity risks overexposure.



In High Visibility: The Making and Marketing of Professionals into Celebrities (NTC, 1997), professors Irving Rein, Philip Kotler and Martin Stoller argue that overexposure of celebrity endorsers may come about: When consumers get tired of the celebrity; or When the product and celebrity conflict. John Oxendine's product his message prior to March was the same old and disjointed Conservatism promised for decades by pandering politicians from the Republican Party. That message conflicted too with allegations of corruption and insider contributions. John Oxendine needed to reinvent himself to an electorate that is growing more and more Conservative if he had any chance of winning the Governor's race.



To illustrate lets take the reinvention of the Miller Beer brand. In the late 1970's Miller Beer executives recognized their brand needing reinventing if they were to be successful marketing to baby boomers with increased wealth and a penchant for "tony" brands. This commercial is from 1977 and featured four hard hat working men.







Miller ran ads from 1978-1980 featuring a bottle in a fresh babbling brook not associated with people. The idea was to let the public forget the hard hat image Miller had become. By the mid-1980's Miller had successfully transformed itself into a brand that baby boomers identified with.






It all comes down to exposure management. The basic challenge in exposure management is balancing the amount of energy (money) that goes into generating an audience (voter) against the rewards that can be expected from that audience. Will they vote for the candidate?


Authors Rein, Kotler, and Stoller identify five kinds of celebrities. There are one-day celebrities — the hero who rescues a boy from drowning; one-week celebrities — the politician immersed in a scandal; one-year celebrities — Time’s “Person of the Year”; one-generation celebrities — Elvis Presley; and finally, legends — Winston Churchill. There is no question John Oxendine is a one-year celebrity having started his campaign before any other candidate.


Sociologist Chris Rojek of Nottingham Trent University in Great Britain feels it is primarily the celebrity of the year who must be concerned about overexposure. Noting the large number of rising and falling first-year stars, he feels that the greatest risk of over-exposure probably occurs during the first year of the celebrity’s ascent. “I guess the antidote is to have a clever manager who rations your appearances accordingly.” says Rojek. During this absence the candidate can reinvent himself credibly.


According to Professor Rein, who teaches at Northwestern University, “One of the big themes now in terms of brand management is reinvention — looking at a tired brand and asking how it can be freshened. It’s possible to reinvent a one-year celebrity," says Rein, "but it might take speech lessons, walking lessons, music lessons, exposure to a different kind of crowd or audiences, or building a much broader base."


John Oxendine is broadening his base to include Conservatives with a strong Pro-Life message, tough on Illegal Immigration, fiscal soundness with the Fair Tax, smaller government, and local control of schools. According to the independent candidate rating agency Elect the Right Candidate John Oxendine scores perfectly as a Constitutional Conservative in the race for Governor.


When you ask the question Where is Waldox? He is quietly reinventing himself to appeal to a broader base of support outside the traditional Liberal Republican base.


Will the run-off be between the two most Conservative Candidates Ray McBerry and John Oxendine or two RINO candidates? Time will tell.