#battle over nuremberg

[publicdomainreview]

OnThisDay in 1561, as the sun rose over Nuremberg, the residents described seeing an aerial battle take place in its glare — the erratic dance of orbs, crosses, cylinders and a crash-landing beyond the city. An early sighting of alien #UFO? https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/celestial-phenomenon-over-nuremberg-april-14th-1561 #OTD

[eretzyisrael]

Benjamin Ferencz was born on March 11, 1920, to a Jewish family in the Carpathian Mountains of Transylvania. He was only 10 months old when his family moved to the United States and settled in the Lower East Side. In 1943, Ferencz graduated from Harvard Law School and enlisted in the U.S. Army as America was preparing to invade France. He served under General Patton and was awarded 5 battle stars. Towards the end of WWII, Ferencz was appointed as a war crimes investigator in the newly established War Crimes Branch of the U.S. Army. He gathered proof of Nazi brutality to convict individuals of international war crimes. Ferencz was a first-hand witness of the atrocities committed by the Nazis and was among the U.S. forces that liberated several concentration camps.  When asked about what he had witnessed, Ferencz said, “My mind would not accept what my eyes saw. … I had peered into hell.” By the end of 1945, Ferencz returned to New York and was soon recruited by the U.S. Government to join the team for the Nuremberg Trials. At just 27 years old, Ferencz was appointed Chief Prosecutor in the Einsatzgruppen Trial, which is considered the biggest murder trial in history. Ferencz and his team were responsible for the convictions of 22 Nazi death squad commanders, guilty of genocidal war crimes and crimes against humanity and were charged with the murder of over one million people. Here is a photo from this time last year on his 103rd birthday, reminding us to “do something that you love.” 

Ferencz passed away just a few weeks later on April 7, 2023. May his memory be a blessing.

humansofjudaism

[mads-nixon]

100th Bomber Boys: Major Robert 'Rosie' Rosenthal: Pt. 1

Ahead of the show's release, I bought Donald Miller's book and am reading it! Here is a little bit about Major Robert 'Rosie' Rosenthal (played by Nate Mann) from the prologue of Masters of the Air (pg. 13-14)!

Lt. Robert "Rosie" Rosenthal had not trained with the Hundredth's original crews. He and his crew had been assigned to the group that August from a replacement pool in England, to fill in for men lost on the Regens-burg raid. "When I arrived, the group was not well organized," Rosenthal recalled. "They were a rowdy outfit, filled with characters. Chick Harding was a wonderful guy, but he didn't enforce tight discipline on the ground orin the air." Rosenthal didn't fly a mission for thirty days. "No one came around to check me out and approve me for combat duty. Finally, my squadron commander, John Egan, had me fly a practice formation. I flew to the right of his plane. I had done a lot of formation flying in training and I was frustrated; I desperately wanted to get into the war. I put the wing of my plane right up against Egan's, and wherever he went, I went. When we landed, Egan told me he wanted me to be his wing man." Rosenthal had gone to Brooklyn College, not far from his Flatbush home. An outstanding athlete, he had been captain of the football and baseball teams, and later was inducted into the college's athletic hall of fame. After graduating summa cum laude from Brooklyn Law School, he went to work for a leading Manhattan law firm. He was just getting started in his new job when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. The next morning he joined the Army Air Corps. He was twenty-six years old, with broad shoulders, sharply cut features, and dark curly hair. A big-city boy who loved hot jazz, he walked, incongruously, with the shambling gait of a farmer, his toes turned inward and there wasn't an ounce of New York cynicism in him. He was shy and easily embarrassed, but he burned with determination. "I had read Mein Kampf in college and had seen the newsreels of the big Nazi rallies in Nuremberg, with Hitler riding in an open car and the crowds cheering wildly. It was the faces in the crowd that struck me, the looks of adoration. It wasn't just Hitler. The entire nation had gone mad; it had to be stopped. "I'm a Jew, but it wasn't just that. Hitler was a menace to decent people everywhere. I was also tremendously proud of the English. They stood alone against the Nazis during the Battle of Britain and the Blitz. I read the papers avidly for war news and listened to Edward R. Murrow's live radio broadcasts of the bombing of London. I couldn't wait to get over there. "When I finally arrived, I thought I was at the center of the world, the place where the democracies were gathering to defeat the Nazis. I was right where I wanted to be." Rosie Rosenthal didn't share these thoughts with his crewmates, simple guys who distrusted what they called deep thinking. They never learned what was inside him, what made him fly and fight with blazing resolve. Later in the war, when he became one of the most decorated and famous fliers in the Eighth, word spread around Thorpe Abbotts that his family was in a German concentration camp. But when someone asked him directly, he said "that was a lot of hooey." His family-mother, sister, brother-in-law, and niece (his father had recently died) were all back in Brooklyn. "I have no personal reasons. Everything I've done or hope to do is strictly because I hate persecution... A human being has to look out for other human beings or else there's no civilization."

Rosie was part of the 'Bloody 100th' Bombardment Group of the 13th Combat Wing, of the 'Mighty Eighth' Air Force with John 'Bucky' Egan and Gale 'Buck' Cleven (played by Callum Turner and Austin Butler) His plane was called Rosie's Riveters, and him and his crew were an integral part of the bombardment group.

On October 8th, 1943, the 100th went on a bombing run to Bremen, Germany, and Buck Cleven was shot down. Two days later, Egan and the rest of the 100th went on a supposedly "easy" mission to Münster, accompanied by P-47 Thunderbolts almost all the way to the target. Rosenthal and his crew were not flying their beloved Rosie's Riveters due to damage from their two previous missions in Bremen and Marienburg. Instead, they flew Royal Flush.

Rosie's crew was worried about flying a brand new plane, and became incredibly nervous. Bringing them together under one of the wings, he calmed the boys down and lifted their spirits. This mission proved disastrous, and Royal Flush was the only one in the 100th to make it back to Thorpe Abbotts (the 100th's air-base in East Anglia).

Needless to say, I love Rosie already!! I've read up to chapter 6, and I feel like my brain is going to explode with all the information I've taken in :3

lmk if y'all want more posts like this one or would like to be tagged in them!!

[dresden-syndrome]

Whumpers of the state:

1) How did you acquire your whumpee? How hard it was?

14) Your favorite torture method?

Whumpees (class IV):

8) How would you describe your whumper?

36) What does your whumper usually force you to do? Which of these things do you hate the most?

1) How did you acquire your whumpee? How hard it was?

14) Your favorite torture method?

" There's nothing complex in getting a class 4 traitor for personal use. If your position is high enough and you want to take a more... personal approach to breaking the enemy, you choose a subject, file a request and he's yours; he will be stated in the list of your State-supplied personal belongings along with your home, car and radio. And unlike a house or a radio, the State grants you the right to use him however you want. Those traitor boys can be obtained either at a facility using class 4 subjects or a class 4 detention unit - in that case you'll need to wait before the detention time ends. I've picked mine at detention; I needed exactly him so the wait was worth it." "Favorite method of torture? First, I appreciate your language, comrade. You don't seem like one of those humanists pitying the most vicious enemies of our socialist order; those have no place in State Security. Their barbaric actions are a torture to our peace and prosperity, torture is what they rightfully deserve. Ever since the old days of firing squads and bourgeoise vermin left from the past and battles for West Berlin, I've done my help at bringing the counter-revolution to my knees. One of my favorite ways was exactly that: bringing to their knees. Then lay them down and press my boot over their head. Step at them. Make them kiss it. They need to know for sure who's in power. They need to know their place." "Now I don't interrogate at our detention prison that much; I have my own pathetic traitor boy struggling to learn who he belongs to. Same method with him. He knows how our new military boots feel like, even when he acts like he doesn't. Wait there, comrade. I can bring him for you to see." -Erhardt Wilhelm Günther, Minister of State Security 28/X-1963.

8) How would you describe your whumper?

36) What does your whumper usually force you to do? Which of these things do you hate the most?

"Scumbag. War criminal scumbag. Look, if anyone, except our allies, saw what he's doing it's gonna be a new war crime trial for all Europe to see. Can't wait for that. Can't wait for that sicko tyrant in cuffs for crimes against humanity, like they did in Nuremberg back when I was in my momma's stroller. This fucking country needs it again, really. Look what he's done to me. It's so... I'm sick of it. Look at that dog collar, look at that fucking branding tag like on a cow... I'm trapped with him and everyone's fucking glad he's torturing me here. Honestly for now it's the worst, he's the worst..." "You know what he forces me to do? Ok, ok, I know I'm a piece of garbage, I'm helping those sadists and making them happier when I should fight for our people to be independent and make them free... No? Just because I'm forced to? You're kidding me. They wouldn't have anyone to fall on his knees and sitting on anyone's lap at parties if I wasn't there. Can I not tell what's the worst they've been doing to me please? Just beat me up for being a fucking collaborator if you want. Next time that sicko demands something - whatever, lay under the table, get on the knees, sit still when he pets and kisses me, wear those disgusting kiddie pants, talk in German, read "The State and Revolution" or something - I won't do that, I'll run, I'll bite if anyone touches me. It won't end well, I'll have to do that. But I need to try again. Maybe I'm a collaborator but not the easy one to break." -Class 4 subject SB-7067 (Radím Štušek) 28/X-1963.

[seriously-mike]

History Was Written by the Victorians

or: How Our Image of the Middle Ages Is (Mostly) Bullshit

Close your eyes and imagine a medieval executioner. Without effort, I can tell you imagined someone more or less like this:

Man in a red or black face-covering hood. Most probably fat and shirtless, or wearing some kind of black tunic or apron. Wielding a big-ass axe. Tell ya what, it's bullshit.

This post was supposed to explain how that image came from one Jan Mydlář, a Czech executioner from 17th century, but that claim, stated by one Czech website and repeated on Wikipedia with no actual verification, is also bullshit. And rather obvious one, because Mydlář is famous for executing 27 Czech nobles in the aftermath of the Battle of Bila Hora in 1621 - an event presented in several illustrations, and in none of the contemporary ones the headsman is wearing anything resembling a hood. Better yet, most supposed facts about Mydlář's life come from four novels written by Czech novelist Josef Svátek and published between 1886 and 1889 - even the Czech Wikipedia notes the difficulty in telling fact and fiction apart in them, which kinda proves my point.

I recently mocked the modern historiography as tainted by fanciful 19th century interpretations and outright fabrications, saying that the history was written by the Victorians, and the entire imagery of a hooded executioner is such a fabrication. Along with the supposed torture implement called the Iron Maiden, by the way. So how did the actual executioners dress over the ages? I do recall a post by someone on Tumblr with "history" and "POC" in the username that I can't find right now, and there's also a thread on Quora that answers "Why did medieval executioners wear hoods?" with a long explanation that begins with a paraphrase of "LOL no, they didn't", but let's have a go at it one more time. Particularly that there will be pictures. Yay.

Let's start with this 14th century miniature from Les Chroniques de Froissart, that I picked on purpose: in this one the executioner is wearing a hat that isn't red (by some odd coincidence, three other illustrations from the same book depict executioners as wearing red or brown hats, but still, no hoods in sight). No rule about clothing either - also on purpose, I didn't pick the image where the executioner is wearing a black shirt and grey hose either. Iconography from other sources also has executioners wear all kinds of rainbow pimp gear including slitted shirts and pants not unlike the Landsknechts (and I do remember that the Tumblr post I can't find now also contained several of those images).

This one comes from 19th century, sure, but is supposed to depict the clothing of the Cologne judiciary of 16th century. Now, pick the executioner out of the lineup.

Nope. Not the guy on the right, that one is just a herald. The executioner is the guy in brown coat and red pants. Which also lines up with the contemporary depictions.

Next up, we have a name: Franz Schmidt, the executioner of Nuremberg who worked in the late 16th and early 17th century, shown here beheading a woman for "harlotry and lewdness". In both this illustration and the better-known sketch that shows up if you google "Franz Schmidt executioner", he's wearing fairly spiffy clothing like this blue and gold number or all frills everything in the sketch, and someone quotes books by historians Anna Sunden and Ulinka Rublack that an executioner was allowed to take his victims' clothes unless expressly forbidden (for example, the city council of Augsburg forbade the executioner from taking the clothes of an infamously flamboyant guildmaster he executed).

Even closer to the Victorian age, the executioners still had no intention of wearing hoods, like this illustration that I already made fun of. According to @bizarrepotpourri's research, this is the official executioner of Wrocław, one master Thienel, performing his first job in 1800, which gives me even more ridiculous ideas for a caption, again stemming from the guy on the left tipping his hat. But still - no mask, no hood, not even a hat or a coat.

Similarly, this illustration that @petermorwood brought to my attention depicts the 1820 beheading of Karl Ludwig Sand, a student who assassinated writer and diplomat August von Kotzebue. No hood at all, again.

If anything, the only hint is this display of the gear of Giovanni Battista Bugatti, the Executioner of the Papal States - we have a white hooded robe that would not be out of place in the American South and a red one along with an axe. Curiously, contemporary depictions of Bugatti show him in ordinary work clothes and I wouldn't be surprised if the white robe was intended for some kind of processions or didn't belong to Bugatti at all - it turns out that the confraternity of penitents of the Santa Lucia di Gonfalone in Rome who were tasked with burying the dead back in the day do wear white hooded robes like this, and where an executioner works, there are always enough bodies to bury.

This piece by our national artist Jan Matejko, famous for his portraits of the kings of Poland and the absolutely fuckhuge epic painting of the battle of Grunwald, looks like video game concept art, and of The Settlers slash city builder kind. From left to right, we have two builders, a butcher peeking out from behind an executioner, a senior city guard, two city guards carrying polearms and two trumpeters of which one is wearing armor for some unspecified reason. Okay, so the executioner is wearing a gugel and a cloak, all red everything, but much like the more faithful illustration of the officials of Cologne above, still no mask.

And then, we have this drawing from the June 25th, 1864 issue of the British magazine Once a Week, depicting the execution of King Charles I. Forty years from the last example and what the fuck is this? The guy is wearing an unbelted tunic and some weird-ass handkerchief with holes for eyes that just floats in front of his face. What.

And that's not even the weirdest take of the era. Look at this 1840 colored engraving by caricaturist George Cruikshank, depicting the execution of Lady Jane Grey. WHAT IN THE FUCK. The headsman looks like Dr Neo Cortex in a gas mask and even if we blame it on a bad photocopy, the lighter black-and-white version you can also find online is even worse, because with more details revealed, he's apparently wearing blackface.

"Artistic invention" continues in those two images from cigarette cards - on the left we have a 1887 card from the US, and on the right a 1925 British one based on the costume from Gilbert & Sullivan's Yeomen of the Guard, which kinda absolves the artist as stage costumes tend to be ridiculous like this. On one side, we have a domino mask, on the other a stiff black mask of some kind, both still remaining in separation from reality because it wasn't working out.

You might find similar masks to the one on the right on the internet, either displayed in museums or being sold as former museum exhibits, but curiously they never show up in contemporary art, and neither do some of the more curious torture implements. It's like the Victorian historians and artists misinterpreted old stuff they found, had no clue what it even was (much like the Roman glove knitting helpers) or pretended to have no clue because stating the actual purpose outright was considered indecent (imagine all the well-worn dildos throughout history). This head-up-the-ass tendency continues to this day, as Peter Morwood's post points out in an example of an executioner's sword being described on an American museum's website with several incorrect assumptions, the worst being a claim that it must have been ceremonial because it's pretty - engravings, gilded hilt and pommel, the works. Well, shit. There are tens of extant executioner's swords photographed and most of them are engraved with fairly typical phrases and execution-related iconography, a lot also have gilded or silvered hilts and/or pommels, and museum curators don't usually discount that as "proof" that the swords in question weren't used.

[girlactionfigure]

CONDOLENCES: Sgt. Benjamin Ferencz was the last surviving prosecutor of the Nuremberg Trials. Born in 1920 to a Jewish family in Transylvania, Ferencz was 10 months old when his family arrived in the US. After graduating Harvard Law School in 1943, he enlisted in the U.S. Army, landing in Normandy and fighting in the Battle of the Bulge. Ferencz was later transferred to a newly created War Crimes Branch and tasked with collecting evidence of Nazi brutality. He joined the forces that liberated a number of concentration camps, including Buchenwald and Mauthausen. When asked about the haunting scenes he witnessed, Ferencz said he “had peered into hell.” He and his team collected indisputable evidence in Berlin, including the actual death registries. Ferencz was later appointed Chief Prosecutor in the Einsatzgruppen Case, in which 22 members of Himmler’s Einsatzgruppen death squads were charged with murdering over a million Jewish men, women, and children. At age 27, the young attorney’s first case was what many call the biggest murder trial in history. All 22 defendants were convicted and 13 were sentenced to death. Mr. Ferencz, a lifelong advocate for international justice, passed away yesterday at the age of 103.

May his memory be a blessing.

Contributor: Jill G. Mundinger

Humans of Judaism

[hjohn3]

Sh*t Show at the F**k Factory*

Sunak Loses his Party and the Plot

Source: conservatives.com

By Honest John

WHEREAS NO Conservative Party Conference in recent years can be described as entirely sane, the gathering in Manchester this month, if it is actually remembered at all, will surely go down as one of the most weird. On display we had open leadership bids by swivel eyed partisans of various right wing persuasions; performative politics by Ministers taking place in a world that seems to exist entirely in the fevered imagination of the Tory faithful and GB News, and probably one of the most bizarre conference speeches ever heard (and by one of the alleged Conservative “grown ups” to boot). And, oh yes, we had Rishi Sunak gamely, if wanly, smiling throughout a barely concealed car-crash of a conference, attempting to wield authority no one believes he actually possesses and presiding over one of the biggest political unforced errors in recent years (and that’s saying something). Welcome to the F**k Factory.

Perhaps there was a clue that all might not be going according to plan when one of the most feted politicians at Conference turned out not to be a member of the Conservative Party at all. Like a reanimated Ghost of Brexits Past, Nigel Farage hove into view, allegedly as a GB News anchor. In typical Farage style, the newsman swiftly became the story, with Tory delegates queuing up for selfies and journos interviewing the architect of Britain’s singular act of self harm, seemingly for the job of Conservative Party leader. Just about disguising the twinkle in his eye, the predatory populist opined he would be very happy to lead the Tories if only they could become a little bit more right wing, thereby putting forward his candidature for a vacancy that doesn’t exist. The excruciatingly embarrassing video footage of Farage later bopping with a breathless Priti Patel to Robbie Williams’ Angels will have been small comfort to Sunak, seemingly upstaged on day one.

Altogether more serious were the ideological challenges thrown down at Conference by a curiously unrepentant Liz Truss and an entirely repellent Suella Braverman. Truss, seemingly unaware that she and Kwasi Kwarteng permanently crashed the British economy as well as the Conservative brand during their disastrous tenure as Prime Minister and Chancellor this time last year, swaggered into Manchester Central to address a packed fringe meeting of the “Great British Growth Rally”, which sounded like a cross like Brands Hatch and Nuremberg. Her speech was peppered with the same hubristic nonsense that brought the bond markets crashing down around her ears last autumn and which saw her ludicrous premiership end after just 49 days. Without insight, contrition or political intelligence, Truss nonetheless signalled that the Chicago Economics wing of free market Leninism remains in contention for the post election battle for the soul of the Conservative Party and Truss herself clearly believes her tax-cutting zealotry will find an audience in a party that has almost entirely lost its way. Truss 2.0 cannot be ruled out - at least in opposition.

If Truss’ ego trip had an element of the comic about it, the Home Secretary’s speech entered altogether more sinister territory. One of the many catastrophes of Brexit was the infiltration of the Conservative Party, once the political expression of bourgeois civic values and British business, by rank English nationalism as Boris Johnson purged the party of its Macmillanite liberal wing in order to force through the hardest Brexit deal he could. What Braverman’s speech revealed was that tendency on full display - paranoid, dishonest, divisive, racist and filled with fear and hatred, made all the more ironic by the fact its standard bearer is a woman of colour and the daughter of immigrants. It would take a panel of psychiatrists to truly get inside Suella Braverman’s head, but what her speech articulated, with its talk of a ‘hurricane’ of immigrants heading to the U.K., was the essence of English fascism, now safely ensconced in the formerly respectable colours of Tory blue, but as intolerant, nativist, authoritarian and hate-filled as it has ever been. This, I fear, is the rising tide within Toryism, and Braverman, with her nasty following congregating within the National Conservatives, is likely to be the coming woman.

Braverman’s speech perhaps indicates a dark future for British Conservatism, but there were other Ministers to remind us what a literal joke the Tories have become under Rishi Sunak. In his desperate attempt to win a General Election on culture wars issues alone, his cabinet were encouraged to excoriate “policies” (implemented by whom was not always clear, seeing as the Tories are allegedly the government) that don’t exist or “crack down” on situations that, equally, don’t exist, turning the conference into even more of a theatre of the absurd than it was already. We had Steve Barclay bizarrely assuring a British public, infuriated by lengthening elective waiting lists, despairing of ever getting to see a GP and terrified at the non-arrival of ambulances, that there would be no admission of trans women to female wards. We watched bemused as Jeremy Hunt promised that benefits claimants who turned down a job offer would have their benefits reduced (they already do, Chancellor), and Transport Secretary Mark Harper promise to save us from the controlling malevolence of “fifteen minute cities” (an urban planning idea to place city centre facilities within in walking distance of each other) despite the fact that, as yet, they don’t exist anywhere in the world. Perhaps the most idiotic contribution was by the unfailingly unimpressive Energy Security and Net Zero Secretary, Claire Coutinho, who told us to much hearty Tory laughter, that Labour was keen to introduce taxes on meat. Coutinho was later ridiculed into silence by the conference press pack who repeatedly and gleefully demonstrated to her that she had made her meat story up. Finally, the most unintentionally hilarious contribution to this sh*t show of ridiculous posturing, was the toe-curling speech of Penny Mordaunt who stood on the stage, waving her fist heroically and urged the assembled Tories to “stand up and fight” - continually. Quite who the Blue Army was intended to come to blows with, Penny didn’t make particularly clear apart from some vague exhortation to “freedom”. It is hard to believe Mordaunt is considered the great centrist hope of Toryism and the potential future leader Labour allegedly fear. On the evidence of that speech, Mordaunt seemed not only to lose Conference, but most of her marbles too.

But perhaps the best was saved for last. With probably little more than twelve months to go before a General Election, this conference speech, his first as Tory leader, was Rishi Sunak’s opportunity to provide some direction, principle and purpose to what has seemed like an exhausted and rudderless government, out of ideas. Instead what we got was a bizarre concoction of unrelated intentions that seemed to owe more to Sunak’s own personal wish list than any re-launch of Conservative philosophy. There was a promise to scrap A-Levels and replace them with a Baccalaureate, for what reason, Rishi never got round to telling us; he wants to ban children from smoking; he loves his family and the last 30 years (eighteen of them under the Conservatives) have been a political failure. He sounded much of the time like a really cross parish councillor. But the denouement of this plotless speech was Sunak finally confirming the scrapping of the northern branch of HS2. This was announced in the city it was designed to benefit most, a short sighted decision of monumental proportions that neutralises any further network expansion in the north and turns high speed to low speed once the trains get north of Birmingham. If Labour needed any further proof of the systematic Tory failure to deliver “levelling up” to the Red Wall, Sunak provided it to them in Technicolor. The whole sorry saga is political naivety and weakness at its most miserable - an announcement that was meant to show the public the Prime Minister can make “tough” financial decisions in the national interest has pleased virtually nobody. Sunak’s keynote moment was to tell the country what he was not going to do. Nothing sums up Sunak’s failed premiership better than the dog’s dinner of the cancellation HS2 for the north.

Sunak’s speech was weak and vision-free, but to be fair, what else could it be? There is a reason why Rishi’s showpiece was an embarrassing combination of personal dislikes, tired populism and broken promises. The British people are paying the highest personal taxes for seventy years because Hunt’s budget is trying to fill a £40bn hole in the public finances recklessly inflicted by Liz Truss, the context also to the HS2 decision; Britain’s public services are now collapsing as the consequences of a decade of needless and destructive austerity under David Cameron are finally felt, and the inflation-wracked British economy barely grows, fatally and permanently held back thanks to folly of Boris Johnson’s Brexit. That is the real story of over 13 years of Tory rule, but Sunak’s problem in Manchester was that he couldn’t possibly tell it.

*With acknowledgements to Series 1 of the HBO TV drama Succession

7th October 2023

[bonefall]

Blackfoot’s Reckoning

This is a very popular novella for a reason. It’s definitely among the most competent ones produced, and it has a clear story to tell without any filler. The way it cuts between Blackfoot’s leadership ceremony and his past war crimes is compelling. It filled in a gap that the main series didn’t, where the fans had been frustrated by a lack of consequences for Blackfoot’s actions in TPB.

But I don’t like it.

First all all, BFR decides that Blackstar didn’t really WANT to do those war crimes. He was usually lied to, or mislead.

How is it a RECKONING if his flashbacks try to take the responsibility off of himself for his actions? In one breath it says,  “Blackstar needs to change” and in the other,“Blackstar was a misguided person who wouldn’t have done any of those awful things if he wasn’t being commanded to by bad people“

BFR takes a character who could have been very complex and reduces him to an insecure sad sack who wasn’t really so bad-- he was just following REAL evil guys. ONLY ONCE it is mentioned that he was ‘happy‘ to follow Brokenstar’s orders,

Those exact words-- “Just Following Orders,“ is also known as the Nuremberg Defense, in a book where Blackstar ultimately gets a slap on the wrist for his war crimes. The Erins do not deserve enough good will for me to think the phrasing was unintentional. Yuck.

"Happy to Follow Orders” is quickly buried in a barrage of scenes where Blackfoot Frown When He Do Bad. This novella is trying to tell me that he totally never thought about having power over other people, and definitely did not enjoy it one bit, as if to rehabilitate his image,

Yeah. Sure. I definitely believe he wanted to help his clanmates when he brought children into battle, drove a clan out of their home, killed a grandma, tried to steal kits, and committed a Meow Meow Hate Crime against a starved Prisoner of War.

Nope! Good guy all along! Lead astray by worse actors!

God forbid there be a character who was actively malicious, ever had bad intentions, and had to make meaningful change to be a better person.

So let me state my discomfort with this story clearly; My problem is not that BFR is trying to show Blackstar justifying his actions, or that it’s depicting a character that did bad things.

My problem IS the way it cowardly tries to soften a punch by making Blackstar a witless pushover who didn’t really have hatred or malice in his heart. He didn’t ACTUALLY have to change or repent, because he was good all along!

The idea that ShadowClan was going to repeat its mistakes a THIRD time so StarClan had to intervene? Forget it. He was always going to be fine because he wasn’t really a bad person to begin with.

His only problem was listening to bad people. And the kicker? STARCLAN FAILED. They FAILED. Because he DID repeat this mistake with Sol! The ONE bad personality trait the writers graciously let him keep!

There was one lesson Blackstar could take from this whole stupid reckoning and he failed that too.

What a waste!

[mariacallous]

In mid-October, Russia, China, and a coalition of other autocratic countries sent a furious letter to a top U.N. diplomat expressing their “shock” at the maneuverings of other countries in the United Nations over a major new piece of international law. An unusual coalition of smaller U.N. powers led by Mexico, Gambia, and Bangladesh found a way to jump-start the process of creating a first-ever U.N. convention on crimes against humanity over the fierce objections of Moscow, Beijing, and their allies—who had stalled the process for three years straight.

But this time, Moscow and Beijing got outfoxed. And they knew it.

With Mexico in the lead, a coalition of countries bucked the normal procedures and traditions of consensus in a key U.N. committee that oversees international law, opening the door for the eventual adoption of the first-ever U.N. treaty addressing crimes against humanity. No such treaty exists currently, something that human rights advocates and legal scholars describe as a gaping hole in international law.

The process for finalizing a draft treaty on preventing crimes against humanity and getting world powers to adopt it is still years off, and the fight is far from over. But as former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill said in a different context, if it’s not the beginning of the end, then it’s the end of the beginning. This story is based on internal U.N. documents and interviews with nine U.N. diplomats and experts, all of whom agreed that Russia and China face an uphill battle to stymie a new U.N. treaty seen as crucial to human rights.

“To all of us who work in the trenches, there’s a sense of excitement among legal experts at the U.N. that there will actually be steps forward on this issue now,” said one U.N. diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity to candidly discuss sensitive internal U.N. matters.

The diplomatic battle is playing out against the backdrop of a surge in crimes against humanity in the past year, from Russian war crimes in Ukraine to Myanmar’s brutal crackdown on pro-democracy movements to the devastating conflict in Ethiopia that has killed an estimated 600,000 to 800,000 people. A U.N. convention on crimes against humanity could create a legal framework for countries to coordinate with one another on finding and bringing to justice perpetrators of crimes against humanity, whether they take place on or off a battlefield.

“Especially since the war in Ukraine, there’s been a real refocusing of international efforts to ensure justice and accountability for crimes,” said Akila Radhakrishnan, president of the Global Justice Center, a nonprofit advocacy group.

The origins of a U.N. convention on crimes against humanity can be traced back to the Nuremberg trials prosecuting Nazi war criminals in the aftermath of World War II, when the Geneva Conventions on humanitarian treatment during war and the U.N. Genocide Convention were first adopted. International legal experts for decades have called for the United Nations to create a new convention on crimes against humanity to fill the legal gap not already covered by international conventions addressing genocide, torture, war crimes, enforced disappearances, or apartheid. Crimes that could slip through these international legal cracks include murder, enslavement, rape, forced sterilization, unjust imprisonment, and others that take place outside of war zones or genocides.

“Crimes against humanity is the only Nuremberg crime that’s not codified yet in international law in an interstate treaty,” said Leila Nadya Sadat, an international law professor at Washington University in St. Louis. “So it’s a very important missing piece of the international legal architecture.”

Human rights advocates point to Iran as one example. Iranian officials involved in the brutal crackdown in recent months on protesters demanding basic rights for women may not have committed genocide or apartheid, but they committed something, and human rights advocates said those officials could face accountability in some form if there was a widely adopted international legal framework on crimes against humanity.

“It’s really important because there shouldn’t be a ‘hierarchy’ of atrocity crimes where genocide gets prevention and punishment and crimes against humanity don’t,” said Shannon Raj Singh, co-chair of the International Bar Association’s War Crimes Committee. “At a fundamental level, a victim is a victim, regardless of whether a perpetrator intends to destroy a group or not.”

In 2013, the International Law Commission (ILC), a body of legal experts charged with drafting proposed new conventions for the United Nations to consider adopting, added crimes against humanity to its ever-growing to-do list. In 2017, it drafted an initial set of articles for such a convention, and in 2019, it formally sent the draft to the U.N. Sixth Committee, the body that oversees international legal issues.

The Sixth Committee runs by a peculiar set of arcane traditions and wonky legalistic processes. Russia and China hoped to effectively kill any chance of a U.N. convention on crimes against humanity by bogging it down in an endless carousel of procedural hurdles, debates, and diplomatic heel-dragging, U.N. diplomats and experts tracking the issues said. They pulled it off in 2019, 2020, and 2021.

But a new coalition of countries decided to buck that trend in 2022. When the Sixth Committee met in October, its initiative caught Moscow, Beijing, and its allies off guard. Instead of following a ponderous procedure, Mexico and its allies took the draft resolution already written up by the ILC and introduced it into the committee immediately, assigned coordinators from the outset without waiting for approval from the states that opposed the initiative, and set a timetable for debating the resolution before Moscow and Beijing could mount any opposition to the process.

“We are shocked that through the Secretariat of the Sixth Committee, delegates from certain Missions announced themselves to be the coordinators for the draft resolution on Crimes Against Humanity,” Russia and China’s U.N. envoys wrote in an internal October letter to Pedro Comissário Afonso, Mozambique’s ambassador to the United Nations, who held the rotating chair of the Sixth Committee. “It is obviously contrary to the transparency, democracy and legitimacy of the long-lasting working methods of the Committee.” The letter was co-signed by U.N. envoys from North Korea, Iran, Belarus, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, Eritrea, and Nicaragua.

But what Mexico did was all aboveboard, if untraditional, according to the rules of the Sixth Committee. In another internal U.N. letter obtained by Foreign Policy to those delegates, dated a week later, Afonso wrote that the Sixth Committee “carefully considered the concerns” in their letter, but “the procedures and practices of the Sixth Committee are being followed and honoured.”

From there, support for Mexico’s initiative snowballed. The resolution initially had eight co-sponsors: Mexico, widely seen as the leader of the initiative, Bangladesh, Costa Rica, Colombia, Gambia, the United States, the United Kingdom, and South Korea. Then, dozens of other countries signed on.

“​​It went from one to eight to 86 co-sponsors,” said Richard Dicker of Human Rights Watch, an international nonprofit organization.

The Sixth Committee traditionally operates by consensus—meaning if one state opposes a motion, the motion effectively fails without needing to trigger a vote. But by that point, U.N. officials and experts said, Beijing and Moscow knew they were checkmated. They could either declare their opposition, trigger a vote on the resolution, and lose—by a wide and very diplomatically embarrassing margin—or grudgingly go along with it. After weeks of angry behind-the-scenes warnings and handwringing, they chose option number two.

“It really upset Russia and China, but at the end of the day, it was a smart strategy that got the resolution to actually move forward for once,” Radhakrishnan said.

U.N. diplomats and experts said the unusual coalition of countries backing the new U.N. convention—from Gambia to Bangladesh—also undermined a common accusation from Russia and China that human rights initiatives at the United Nations only serve to advance the interests of Washington and its European allies.

“You had many states from different regions joining on as co-sponsors with the effect of negating the claim that, ‘Oh, these are just Western countries that care about this and are going to use it against us on account of the invasion of Ukraine,’” Dicker said.

From here, a committee will convene to debate the substance of the draft articles and present them to the U.N. General Assembly in the autumn of 2023, with an eye toward turning it into a full treaty for U.N. powers to adopt. No legal expert believes that a new U.N. convention on crimes against humanity would stop such crimes from being committed overnight. But it would be the first of its kind to explicitly hold states and individuals accountable on such crimes and help grease the wheels on international cooperation for documenting and prosecuting crimes against humanity.

More importantly, it would present states with a legal duty to prevent such crimes regardless of whether those crimes happened in that country or not—similar to what is laid out under the Genocide Convention. It would mandate that states that signed onto the treaty incorporate preventing and prosecuting crimes against humanity into their own national legal system. (Even advanced democracies don’t always have such laws on the books. The United States, for example, has large loopholes in its laws for prosecuting perpetrators of crimes against humanity, something senior U.S. lawmakers are currently working to fix.)

Over time, legal experts and human rights advocates hope, such a U.N. treaty could strengthen accountability and prosecution as well as have a broad, if difficult to measure, deterrent effect on governments that otherwise would commit crimes against humanity with impunity.

“We’re in a difficult moment globally now because of rising authoritarianism and conflict,” Sadat said. “And so I think it’s easy to become really cynical about the power of international law. But it’s also important to remember that without international law, you literally have no basis to combat it.”

[publicdomainreview]

OnThisDay in 1561, as the sun rose over Nuremberg, the residents described seeing an aerial battle take place in its glare — the erratic dance of orbs, crosses, cylinders and a crash-landing beyond the city. An early sighting of alien #UFO? https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/celestial-phenomenon-over-nuremberg-april-14th-1561 #OTD

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 4.14 (before 1940)

43 BC – Legions loyal to the Roman Senate, commanded by Gaius Pansa, defeat the forces of Mark Antony in the Battle of Forum Gallorum. 69 – Vitellius, commanding Rhine-based armies, defeats Roman emperor Otho in the First Battle of Bedriacum to take power over Rome. 966 – Following his marriage to the Christian Doubravka of Bohemia, the pagan ruler of the Polans, Mieszko I, converts to Christianity, an event considered to be the founding of the Polish state. 972 – Otto II, Co-Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, marries Byzantine princess Theophanu. She is crowned empress by Pope John XIII in Rome the same day. 1395 – Tokhtamysh–Timur war: At the Battle of the Terek River, Timur defeats the army of the Golden Horde, beginning the khanate's permanent military decline. 1471 – In England, the Yorkists under Edward IV defeat the Lancastrians under the Earl of Warwick at the Battle of Barnet; the Earl is killed and Edward resumes the throne. 1561 – A celestial phenomenon is reported over Nuremberg, described as an aerial battle. 1639 – Thirty Years' War: Forces of the Holy Roman Empire and Electorate of Saxony are defeated by the Swedes at the Battle of Chemnitz, ending the military effectiveness of the Saxon army for the rest of the war and allowing the Swedes to advance into Bohemia. 1775 – The Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage, the first abolition society in North America, is organized in Philadelphia by Benjamin Franklin and Benjamin Rush. 1793 – The French troops led by Léger-Félicité Sonthonax defeat the slaves settlers in the Siege of Port-au-Prince. 1816 – Bussa, a slave in British-ruled Barbados, leads a slave rebellion, for which he is remembered as the country's first national hero. 1849 – Hungary declares itself independent of Austria with Lajos Kossuth as its leader. 1858 – The 1858 Christiania fire severely destroys several city blocks near Stortorvet in Christiania, Norway, and about 1,000 people lose their homes. 1865 – U.S. President Abraham Lincoln is shot in Ford's Theatre by John Wilkes Booth; Lincoln dies the following day. 1865 – William H. Seward, the U.S. Secretary of State, and his family are attacked at home by Lewis Powell. 1881 – The Four Dead in Five Seconds Gunfight occurs in El Paso, Texas. 1890 – The Pan-American Union is founded by the First International Conference of American States in Washington, D.C. 1894 – The first ever commercial motion picture house opens in New York City, United States. It uses ten Kinetoscopes, devices for peep-show viewing of films. 1895 – The 1895 Ljubljana earthquake, both the most and last destructive earthquake in the area, occurs. 1900 – The world's fair Exposition Universelle opens in Paris. 1906 – The first meeting of the Azusa Street Revival, which will launch Pentecostalism as a worldwide movement, is held in Los Angeles. 1908 – Hauser Dam, a steel dam on the Missouri River in Montana, fails, sending a surge of water 25 to 30 feet (7.6 to 9.1 m) high downstream. 1909 – Muslims in the Ottoman Empire begin a massacre of Armenians in Adana. 1912 – The British passenger liner RMS Titanic hits an iceberg in the North Atlantic and begins to sink. 1928 – The Bremen, a German Junkers W 33 type aircraft, reaches Greenly Island, Canada, completing the first successful transatlantic aeroplane flight from east to west. 1929 – The inaugural Monaco Grand Prix takes place in the Principality of Monaco. William Grover-Williams wins driving a Bugatti Type 35. 1931 – The Second Spanish Republic is proclaimed and king Alfonso XIII goes to exile. Meanwhile, in Barcelona, Francesc Macià proclaims the Catalan Republic. 1935 – The Black Sunday dust storm, considered one of the worst storms of the Dust Bowl, sweeps across the Oklahoma and Texas panhandles and neighboring areas.

[bloghrexach]

🇵🇸 … if you think about it, this is a mirror for ALL of us!! — I know exactly where I stand!!

By: Colin Tiyani Anderson, Artis/Digital Fabricator, from LinkedIn …

“Gaza is not just a southern region in the beautiful country of Palestine. Gaza is also a mirror in which we see our own values reflected.

Gaza is a struggle between good and evil. Gaza is a battle between the powerful and the just. Gaza is a momentous fight for the soul of Mankind.

There are no “human animals”. There are only peaceful, native people and the racist, White men that covet their land. Like a morbid, historical re-enactment society, these greedy Berzerkers are intent on stealing everything from the native people just like our ancestors did in Australia, India, Africa and the Americas. Gaza is a one-sided struggle between the colonial, White, would-be slave-owners and the indigenous people of colour.

Whose side are you on? Where do your values lie? Do you want to live by the genocidal values of the West or do you appreciate the broad spectrum of humanity in all its colours? Should we continue to allow our malign politicians to support the tyrannical, White ethnic cleansers?

When are we going to be mature enough to say, enough is enough? The time of colonialism is surely over. As Yanis Varoufakis stated, “Zionism is the most toxic alliance between anti-Semitism and White Supremacism.” How do we let self-confessed Zionists like Genocide Joe know that he deserves nothing from us but revulsion and new Nuremberg trials?” … 🇵🇸

#neveragain … #istandwithpalestine … #gaza

@hrexach

[bobmccullochny]

History

November 20, 1789 - New Jersey became the first state to ratify the Bill of Rights.

November 20, 1910 - Francisco Madero launched the social revolution in Mexico, exposing Mexico's political dictatorship and called for honest elections. Dubbed the "Apostle of Democracy," he was elected president in 1911, but was hampered by a lack of practical political experience. He was ousted by a military revolt in 1913, and was then assassinated while in police custody.

November 20, 1917 - The first use of tanks in battle occurred at Cambrai, France, during World War I. Over 300 tanks commanded by British General Sir Douglas Haig went into battle against the Germans.

November 20, 1943 - The Battle of Tarawa began in the Pacific War as American troops attacked the Japanese on the heavily fortified Gilbert Islands. It took eight days for the 5th Amphibious Corps, 2nd Marine Division and the 27th Infantry Division to take Tarawa and the Makin Islands. Over 1,000 Americans were killed with 2,311 wounded. The Japanese lost 4,700 men.

November 20, 1945 - The Nuremberg War Crime Trials began in which 24 former leaders of Nazi Germany were charged with conspiracy to wage wars of aggression, crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.

November 20, 1947 - England's Princess Elizabeth married Philip Mountbatten. Elizabeth was the first child of King George VI and became Queen Elizabeth II upon the death of her father in 1952.

November 20, 1962 - The Cuban Missile Crisis concluded as President John F. Kennedy announced he had lifted the U.S. Naval blockade of Cuba stating, "the evidence to date indicates that all known offensive missile sites in Cuba have been dismantled."

November 20, 1980 - In China, Jiang Qing, the widow of Mao Zedong, went on trial with nine others on charges of treason.

November 20, 1992 - Fire erupted inside Queen Elizabeth's residence at Windsor Castle causing extensive damage.

Birthday - Swedish author Selma Lagerlof (1858-1940) was born in Varmland Province. She was a member of the Swedish Academy and in 1909 became the first woman to receive the Nobel Prize for literature.

Birthday - American astronomer Edwin Hubble (1889-1953) was born in Marshfield, Missouri. He pioneered the concept of an expanding universe. The Hubble Space Telescope was named in his honor. It was deployed from the Space Shuttle Discovery in 1990, allowing astronomers to see farther into space than they had ever seen from telescopes on Earth.

Birthday - Robert F. Kennedy (1925-1968) was born in Brookline, Massachusetts. He was the younger brother of President John F. Kennedy and served as his attorney general. Following the assassination of President Kennedy, Robert Kennedy became a U.S. Senator from New York. In 1968, he sought the Democratic nomination for president and appeared headed for victory, but was shot and killed by an assassin in Los Angeles, just after winning the California primary.

[jowensauthor]

The Amazing Medieval Aerial Battle Over Nuremberg

“On the morning of April 14, 1561, at dawn, a dreadful apparition occurred in the sky. This was seen in Nuremberg in the city, before the gates and in the country, by many men and women.” So begins a broadsheet news article printed in April 1561. illustrated with a woodcut engraving and text by Hans […]The Amazing Medieval Aerial Battle Over Nuremberg

[girlactionfigure]

At 102, Benjamin Ferencz is the last surviving prosecutor from the Nuremberg trials. Born on March 11, 1920 to a Jewish family in the Carpathian Mountains of Transylvania, Ben Ferencz moved with his family to America when he was ten months old. After graduating Harvard Law School in 1943, he enlisted in the U.S. Army. As a member of an artillery battalion, Ferencz landed on the beaches of Normandy and fought in the Battle of the Bulge. He was later transferred to a newly created War Crimes Branch and tasked with collecting evidence of Nazi brutality. As part of his efforts, he joined the forces that liberated a number of concentration camps, including Buchenwald and Mauthausen. When asked about the haunting scenes he witnessed, Ferencz states that he “had peered into hell.” While scouring Nazi offices and archives in Berlin with researchers, he collected indisputable evidence, including the actual death registries. Soon after, Ferencz was assigned as Chief prosecutor in the Einsatzgruppen Case, in which 22 members of Himmler’s Einsatzgruppen death squads were charged with murdering over a million Jewish men, women, and children. All 22 defendants were convicted and 13 were sentenced to death. Who could have imagined that this 27-year-old’s first case would be what many call the biggest murder trial in history!

Contributor: Jill Goltzer

Humans of Judaism

[thestoryreadingape]

The Amazing Medieval Aerial Battle Over Nuremberg

The Amazing Medieval Aerial Battle Over Nuremberg