The World Entertainment News Network seems to have an unusual notion as to what transpired during World War II. In a story about actor Will Smith's supposed positive remarks about Adolf Hitler, WENN offers the following:
Hitler's totalitarian leadership as Fuhrer during 1934 until his eventual suicide in 1945 resulted in the persecution of an estimated six million Jews in the Holocaust, and his invasion of Poland in 1939 led to the start of the Second World War.
Actually Hitler's totalitarian leadership as Fuhrer resulted in the murder of an estimated six million Jews in the Holocaust. But why get technical about accurate terminology, eh? Unbelievable.
Meanwhile, in case you're wondering about Smith's comments, Eugene Volokh says "give him a break":
It seems that "Will believes everyone is basically good" is just the reporter's characterization of Smith's statement. Nothing in the quoted material suggests that Smith was saying that Hitler was a good person. Rather, the quoted material simply reports Smith's quite plausible view that Hitler, like many other people who do evil (Smith must have used Hitler as a referent precisely because Smith acknowledges that Hitler did do evil), believe that they are doing good.
A reporter -- mischaracterizing what a [famous] person says? How can that be? At any rate, Smith must've sensed what was coming and made the following statement:
"It is an awful and disgusting lie. It speaks to the dangerous power of an ignorant person with a pen. I am incensed and infuriated to have to respond to such ludicrous misinterpretation. Adolph Hitler was a vile, heinous, vicious killer responsible for one of the greatest acts of evil committed on this planet."
—D. S. Hube is an educator and a member of the National Association of Scholars. He blogs regularly at The Colossus of Rhodey.
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Leave it to the media to
December 25, 2007 - 20:49 ET by wiwfLeave it to the media to blow everything out of proportion and make things up!
The Rocky Mountain Collegian: Illustrating Idiocy
No defense of Hitler
December 25, 2007 - 21:34 ET by Lame CherryNo defense of Hitler here, but one of the Truth to be defended. There is far too much making Hitler the epitome of evil as Stalin butchered at least 7 times the number of people or throwing around the Nazi term at Conservatives as Nazi's are socialists as in all Democrats in power now.
No one seems to ever like the Truth as the SAME MEDIA WHICH TELLS US 6 MILLIONS JEWS WERE MURDERED TELLS US AL GORE IS THE WORLD SAVIOR.
For the record, Hitler hated the communist movement. Most of the communist movement in Europe had announced the destruction of Germany before World War II in league with Stalin and the Soviet Union.
It just so happens that a sect of "Jews" from a converted Asian background to a form of Talmudic Judaism were all communists. The same "Jews" who helped invent communist Karl Marx to rule nations cheaply so they could be plundered easily. (Chavez and Castro are perfect modern examples of latino communists using economic fleecing of their people in centralized banks.)
Hitler when invading eastern Europe was cheered as his SS rounded up these communists and shot them.
The site World Tribune has very good archived Nazarov (sp) files on what appears to be Stalin was going to invade Germany, but Hitler beat him to the war.
None of this at this point had a whole lot to do with Jewish people, except in the instances of Hitler using them as propaganda to be a scapegoat for Germany's horrid economy brought on by the massive taxation of World War I penalties.
The far sighted predicted that the peace treaty had sown the seeds for a second world war and they were right as a people like Germans would revolt and Hitler was standing there to grab power like all socialists do.
One will notice that the underling communists were caught by the Nazi and excecuted, but the leaders were not. The leaders of the communist "jews" then gave Hitler THEIR real problem for the Nazi's to chew on and that was the Orthodox Judeans who did not have a communist god.
Getting rid of those Judeans gave the communists the seat at the table they lusted after. Hitler or the Nazi's did not "murder" 6 million Jews. Europe is revising numbers in Poland in the camps yet and Red Cross numbers show less in a range "around 1 1/2 million", but that includes Jewish people who died fighting in the war as soldiers.
The same MSM that lies to people today expaned the dead Jewish inmates who were worked to death in slave labor camps, because the communist Jewish sect was after the real prize of a Jewish state ruled by them. See the inflated numbers set better in the public guilt as when you added up numbers in most nations, they all had equal or greater deaths than the 1 1/2 million range.
I would suggest following Aaron Klein's great work in World Net Daily. No he does not touch on the World War II angle, but he does show often enough in his great pieces about how Judeans who are not of the communist Olmert pro European sect are now being considered to be paid to leave their homes. Imagine that, Jews being bribed to get out of Israel. Of course, that is better than 2 years ago when the world watched the Gush Katif Jews (aka, the American settler Jews) who were beat up, their girls molested and forcibly removed from their homes by RUSSIAN JEWISH ATHIEST IMMGRANT TROOPS and now reside in tent city trailer dumps.
This is not an issue of race which the communists have tried to make it to bring about an end and to keep fomenting wars. This is about communism still butchering people and still slaughtering Judeans today.
Just look at the facts, Putin's Bolsheviks are communists. His allies are all Islamocommunists. America's greatest terror threat is Zawahiri a Russian captured Banna Nazi converted to be al Qaeda's number 2. Who is hammering the Judeans in funding the PLO, it was European communist cartels investing and arming them with billions while America sits here trying to help Jews being attacked on all sides and being driven from their homes and built behind ghetto walls just like Hitler did.
So as Hitler is evil incarnate, why on earth is the MSM not exposing the brutalization of Judeans today? Simple, they are in on it just like they are in on all the original lies which promote world communism.
Where do you think "neocon" came from? It is from communist "Jews" who are furious with Reagan Jews as they support a strong and active American policy keeping America safe.
Neocon is an anti semite racist slur and yet all the MSM uses it, because it is against Reagan Jews. Nothing has changed in this in 75 years of propaganda.......the little worms still come out throwing terms around at people like Will Smith to keep the lies alive.
*HIC IACET ARTORIVS REX QVONDAM REXQVE FVTVRVS
"The site World Tribune has
December 26, 2007 - 00:37 ET by Carl Kolchak"The site World Tribune has very good archived Nazarov (sp) files on what appears to be Stalin was going to invade Germany, but Hitler beat him to the war."
I haven't seen any concrete evidence of this. I read "Stalin's Folly the Tragic First 10 Days of WW2 on the Eastern Front" by Constantine Pleshakov a Russian historian, and he speculates about it in this book, but doesn't have a smoking gun. He also says access to Russian archives is pretty limited nowadays, so he doesn't think there will be much chance to investigate further. The book is a good overview of the opening days of Operation Barbarosa,but I don't see anything that made me think the Soviets were going to attack first.
Also, many Jews weren't ever even sent to concentration camps. The SS and sometimes the Wehrmacht would execute them before sending them to camps, so there are obviously large numbers from that as well. "Stalingrad" by Antony Beevor seems to be a very non-biased well researched book, that shows atrocities by both sides. From the book "Stalingrad" by Antony Beevor page 20 "He(Hitler) turned the truth inside out, claiming that Germany was threatened by 'approximatley 160 Russian divisions massed on our frontier'. He thus started the European crusade against Bolshevism with a shameless lie to his own people and to his own soldiers." Here is also another good quote from this book from the book to a quote directed to Ribbentrop who was the German part of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact that had agreed to a non-agression agreement between the Soviets and the Nazis. This was given by a Russian diplomat in Berlin soon after Barbarosa was launched on page 8 of "Stalingrad" by Antony Beevor. "You'll regret this insulting, provactive and thoroughly predatory attack on the Soviet Union. You'll pay dearly for it!" If the Nazis hadn't invaded Russia, there is a very good chance they could have still controlled much of Europe, Scandanivia(except for Finland which the Soviets had defeated) and probably a great deal of N. Africa.
When reading about WW2 in Russia, you see that the whole Soviet system of Communism wasn't what saved Russia, it was the average person who rallied around patriotism and not Communism. Religous freedoms were more prevalant after the Nazi invasion, because Russia needed that to help improve a sense of patriotism that the Communists couldn't. However, after the war, religion was not as free again. As far as Smith, I think he isn't one of the stuck up actors, and it probably was a slow day in the media, so they decided to make him appear he was saying Hitler was a swell guy, just to make the media seem important.
"Well I got nothing against the press. They wouldn't print it if it wasn't true" 'Sunday Papers'
Focusing on Will Smith's
December 25, 2007 - 23:04 ET by Edward LeeFocusing on Will Smith's quote (what a concept), "Even Hitler didn't wake up going, 'Let me do the most evil thing I can do today'.
He's probably right. Hitler thought it was his destiny to set up his "master race" to be in charge of Europe and more later, and that slaughtering a few million Jews would help do that. Just because that *is* evil doesn't mean he knew it was. He may not even have believed in the concept of good and evil. Thinking of the world as immoral is a wonderful defense mechanism for rationalizing acts of evil. Now, how Wenn could interpret that to mean that Will Smith didn't think Hilter knew of the pain and suffering he caused is completely beyond me. Of course he knew.
Head in the sand works every time
December 28, 2007 - 00:05 ET by GrannyGrump42Read the excellent "Evil: Inside Human Violence and Cruelty" by Roy F. Baumeister.
http://www.amazon.com/Evil-Inside-Human-Violence-Cruelty/dp/0716735679/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1198817509&sr=8-1
When Carol Everett was running a string of abortion mills in Dallas, sometimes she'd be bothered by what she was doing. She sent a woman home to bleed to death. She forced her teenage daughter to work for her, even making the girl drive injured women to the hospital in her car. She sold abortions to women that weren't even pregnant, just suffering delayed periods for reasons Carol's staff never bothered to diagnose. She was wallowing in evil day in and day out.
Sometimes, standing at the sink, counting to see that the doctor had indeed removed two arms, two legs, a skull, a spine, etc., Carol would look at the tiny broken bodies and feel a stab of remorse. She'd start chanting a mantra to herself, "I'm helping women to have safe, legal abortions."
The fact that she was injuring women, had killed one, and was selling those abortions to women regardless of whether or not they were actually pregnant would vanish behind the puff of rationalization.
That's how evil works. You can always fool yourself into believing you're serving a greater good, that this good you're doing makes it excusable, even necessary, to do a bit of damage on the way. And you view yourself as brave for forcing yourself to do the distasteful things. Distasteful things like push the fetus down closer to the forceps while Harvey fishes about for a limb to pull off.
It's amazing what people can justify. Read Baumeister's book.
I guess this means Al qaeda
December 26, 2007 - 00:00 ET by mlongI guess this means Al qaeda only persecuted 3000 Americans on 9/11.
"I was in favor of Illegal licenses before I was
against them but before I was for them but after I was against them but
before I was for them......" Hillary Clinton
The radical enemy we
December 26, 2007 - 00:48 ET by drillanwrThe radical enemy we fight/face today doesn't believe it, or what they do, is "evil" either ... On the contrary, they believe we are evil. And then there are those who exist purely because of the freedom WE provide for them ... but still think we are the evil ones.
Are "good" and "evil" cyclical? I suppose there ARE those who would rationalize the distinction in that way.
As to Will Smith's interview interpretation pickle, far be it for me to explain or defend anything that someone who has done this sort of thing for a living (interviews), and should know better ... But I do find it delicious when someone comfortably out there in the public eye gets a bitter taste of the media's stinger.
Why Smith? Why now?
Because he has a very successful box office hit for the last couple weeks ... and the media HATES whoever is "on top".
Baumeister again
December 28, 2007 - 00:07 ET by GrannyGrump42Again, I gotta plug Baumeister's book, "Evil: Inside Human Violence and Cruelty"
http://www.amazon.co...
Part of where you step over the line is when you decide that your cause is so just, or your enemy so vile, that the rules of basic human decency no longer apply. Which the terrorists have done. Which we need to be careful not to do.
Post-modern sensibilities
December 26, 2007 - 01:29 ET by Richard RomanoPost-modern sensibilities aside, words DO mean something -- and it's pretty disgusting when they try to fudge words in order to suit their "who are we to judge" mentality.
You'd think Hitler would be the only mass-murdering tyrant left the MSM wouldn't appease in some way, but nope. What a shameful disrespect for murder vicitims of the Holocaust.
I'm with Eugene Volokh,
December 26, 2007 - 06:41 ET by motherbeltI'm with Eugene Volokh, giving Smith a break. I think the reporter went way too far in his "analysis" of what he actually said. Smith never did say that Hitler was basically a good person; he said he was sure Hitler thought he was doing the right thing.
So whoever wrote the WENN piece analyzes Smith's remark as a compliment of Hitler, and characterizes the slaughter of six million Jews as "persecution."
Time to play "Spot the Idiot."
}}---> And I'm with MB
December 26, 2007 - 07:09 ET by Cool ArrowIt's gonna take more than this to convince me Will Smith is a closet Nazi.
Looks to me like the Liberals' way of forcing Mr. Smith to say something condescendingly kneejerkingly stupid.
I ♣ My Seal
Will Smith merely made the
December 26, 2007 - 09:42 ET by Jack BauerWill Smith merely made the comment that those who we recognize as evil, don't themselves THINK they are evil.
This is hardly original, and Smith is correct Hitler, Stalin, Mao and other mass murderes didn't go round thinking "Oooo, how can I be evil today."
People tend to be the hero of their own story. All the above monsters were, for sure.
The banality of evil. Now that is an original and thought-provoking observation. Welcome to earth m***********.
I'm with MB, Will Smith was
December 26, 2007 - 15:36 ET by wiwfI'm with MB, Will Smith was simply misinterpreted, and is in no ways a closet nazi. Smith made a good point, and I agree with him.
The Rocky Mountain Collegian: Illustrating Idiocy
Wiwf, Smith was not simply
December 26, 2007 - 18:09 ET by MikeBWiwf, Smith was not simply misinterpreted, he was grossly, possibly maliciously, misinterpreted. No reasonable and prudent person could conceivably have interpreted Will Smith's statement in the way the "reporter" interpreted it.
There have been posters here with an acute reading comprehension problem. There are too many so-called reporters writing for news papers, magazines, and television news with an acute hearing comprehension problem. Then, instead of verifying what was said, they just go with it, and embellish it as they see fit, apparently to make the story more interesting.
"A communist is someone who reads Marx. An anti-communist is someone who understands Marx." Ronald Reagan
Give Will a break
December 26, 2007 - 15:44 ET by IamTinmanHe's a high school graduate and in Hollywood, that ranks him in the genius category.
If Will had prefaced his original comment with "Adolph Hitler was a vile, heinous, vicious killer responsible for one of the greatest acts of evil committed on this planet." WE likely wouldn't be having this discussion.
We humans haven't evolved that much ethically, we can almost always find moral justification for the evil we do as well as the good.
Mr. Tinman, you are almost
December 26, 2007 - 18:21 ET by MikeBMr. Tinman, you are almost correct in your statements. If Will had prefaced his original comment with his later unneeded clarification, I believe the reporter would have conveniently neglected to include that statement and misinterpreted Mr. Smith in the way he did.
Your last statement is almost spon on. Criminals always justify themselves: they left their door unlocked, they deserved to be stolen from, or she was just asking to be raped, etc. There are, however, a great number of humans who have enough ethics such that they either do not consider commiting criminal acts, or successfully resist temptation.
"A communist is someone who reads Marx. An anti-communist is someone who understands Marx." Ronald Reagan