In dealing with the sexual assaults and cover ups, the Baylor Board of Regents adopted a page right out of the Roman Catholic playbook.
When Cardinal Dolan of Boston was discovered to have been actively covering sexual abuse by clergy under his command, the Roman Catholic Church decided rather than impose an appropriate sanction of at least termination of his status as a cardinal and reporting his cover ups to the police to instead transfer Cardinal Dolan to a new position at the Vatican in Rome.
When Baylor President Kenneth Starr (who is a Baptist) was discovered to have been covering up sexual assaults by Baylor students, the Baylor Board of Regents rather than imposing appropriate sanctions such as termination and reporting the cover up to the police, instead gave Starr a transfer.
Baylor is a Southern Baptist university. The irony and hypocrisy is deepened as the Southern Baptist have been harshly critical of the Roman Catholic Church with some calling the pope the "antiChrist".
When it comes to cover up of sexual assault by its leaders, Southern Baptists behave no better than the antiChrist.
These posts are background research and talking points.
I would be honored if others found something useful for their work.My readers are free to use anything in this blog in any way without attribution.
If you wish to acknowledge me, please ask me me before doing so.
This is for me to practice my writing and blogging skills so please ignore grammar, spelling, formatting and other errors.
Thursday, May 26, 2016
Saturday, April 23, 2016
73rd Anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising: What I've Learned Over the Years
Yellow daffodils are the symbol of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and are being distributed in Warsaw in observance of the 73rd anniversary.
In the 1960s and 1970s I first learned of the WWII 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
Without realizing at the time, I was also learning the version being promoted in popular culture by anti-Polish Soviet propaganda. That version reported that Slavic Poles because of their anti-semitism and fascism abandoned the Polish Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto to the Nazis.
Since then as I have deepened my skills as an amateur historian here's what I have been learning:
What was the relationship between Slavic and Jewish Polish during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising?
2013 Israeli stamp commemorating the raising of Zionist and Polish flags over the Warsaw Ghetto during the Uprising.
Most of the Polish Jewish combatants in the Warsaw Ghetto were in units of the Polish Home Army, The Polish Home Army, the official underground armed resistance movement in Poland, was one branch of the Polish armed forces under the command of the Polish government-in-exile, the legitimate government of Poland.
When the Poles learned the Nazis intended to liquidate the ghetto, the Polish Jews discussed what to do with the Polish Home Army. The Polish Home Army reported they lacked the capacity to defend the ghetto but agreed to support armed resistance by the Polish Jewish combatants.
The Polish Home Army supplied weapons and explosives to the Polish Jewish units in the Warsaw Ghetto.
After the defeat of the Uprising, the Polish Home Army assisted Ghetto survivors to escape.
Some of the surviving combatants continued to served in the Polish Home Army and fought in the next year in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising.
Could the Western Allies Provided Support for the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising?:
Another part of popular culture history is that the Allies also did nothing to support the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. I am less clear if that is the result of Soviet propaganda or the post-Holocaust rage and grief at the horror of both the Holocaust and the many times the world failed to act to have prevented the Holocaust or to have rescued victims.
My assessment is that the Allies could not have done anything militarily effective to assist the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
In April, 1943, Warsaw was beyond the range of American and British air forces at the time based in Britain and North Africa.
The Polish air force units in the British air force and the Polish paratroopers in the British army were always willing and available for missions in Poland. They were under orders of the Allied command and were also restricted to the range of Allied long range aircraft.
Warsaw did not come within range of Allied long range bombers until the Allies had captured air bases in Italy later in 1943.
Raids that deep into Nazi held territory also required that the long range bombers be escorted by fighters. At the time of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising n 1943, the Allies were still working on extending the range of the their fighters. They did not have that capability until 1944.
Could the Soviets Have Provided Military Support to Warsaw Ghetto Uprising?
By the Soviet's pointing fingers at Slavic Poles and the Soviet's British and American Allies, the Soviets successfully diverted attention from their own role in the Holocaust and their own failures to support the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, to use military force against the Holocaust infrastructure, or to rescue Holocaust victims.
Warsaw was much closer to Soviet airbases than it was to Allie air bases.
But unlike the WWII history of the Allied long range bombers, no maps exists showing the range of Soviet long range bombers. That is because the Soviets had no long range bombers.
The Soviets destroyed their long range bomber capacity during their paranoid purges of their armed forces during the 1930s and did not recover that capacity until after WWII.
The Soviets did have medium and short range bombers.
Even if Warsaw was within range of Soviet medium range bombers, the Soviets would not have assisted the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
The Soviets did not use their short range bombers or artillery to assist the 1944 Warsaw Uprising when the Soviet armed forces were across the Vistula River in the Warsaw suburbs. The Nazis fighting the Polish Home Army were well within artillery range of the Soviets and within range of Soviet battlefield short range bombers.
The Polish Home Army was opposed to Soviet occupation of Poland. Among the reasons the Soviets did little to support the 1944 Warsaw Uprising is that the Soviets wanted the Polish Home Army destroyed. The Soviets let the Nazis destroy much of the Polish Home Army knowing that would make easier the Soviet destruction of the remanents after the Soviets drove the Nazis out of Poland.
The Soviets killed Polish Jews who were opposed to Soviet occupation. Among the 20,000 Poles killed by the Soviets in the Katyn Forest in 1940 were about 1800 Polish Jews in 1940. They were Polish POW officers, police, intellectuals religious and community leaders.whom the Soviets suspected of opposing Soviet occupation of Poland.
Because of both antisemitism and ideology, the Soviets did not care about Polish Jews. The Soviets deny or minimize the significance of the racial aspects of WWII, focusing instead on fascism.
These posts are background research and talking points.
I would be honored if others found something useful for their work.My readers are free to use anything in this blog in any way without attribution.
If you wish to acknowledge me, please ask me me before doing so.
This is for me to practice my writing and blogging skills so please ignore grammar, spelling, formatting and other errors.
Sunday, January 10, 2016
What is the Three Percent Movement at the Malheur Wildlife Refuge?
On October 19, 2015, 234th Anniversary of the Victory at Yorktown, the American Society of Le Souvenir Français, Inc. and others laid wreaths before the Monument to the French dead in Yorktown, Virginia.
Photo from Jean Lachaud's post on the Facebook Group of the American Society of Le Souvenir Français, Inc
Among the armed extremists at the Malheur Wildlife Refuge and in Harney, Oregon are a group called the III% (Roman numeral 3).
The III% refers to their historically inaccurate mythology that only 3 percent of the American colonists were active combatants in the war for independence (Oath Keepers and Three Percenters Part of Growing Anti-Government Movement, October 26, 2009, Anti-Defamation League).
The III%'s rhetoric is about armed defense against the "tyranny" of the Federal government.
Their assessment of Federal tyranny requiring armed defense coincides with the 2008 election of a Democratic African-American president. Almost identical Federal policies by previous Republican European-American presidents somehow did not rise to the level of "tyranny" requiring armed defense.
The percentage of colonialist who engaged in combat is irrelevant as we won our independence because of the decisive independence of France and the French armed forces.
Starting in 1778 the independence war was financed by France and our colonial troops were armed and equipped by the French.
In 1781 as many as 11,000 French soldiers, marines and sailors joined as many as 8,000 colonial troops on the ground at the decisive Battle of Yorktown.
In the waters off Yorktown in the Battle of the Virginia Capes (the Battle of the Chesapeake) the French Navy defeated the British Navy which was attempting to break the siege and rescue the trapped British troops.
The total of French troops on the ground and French sailors and marines offshore exceeded the number of colonial troops engaged at Yorktown.
The percentage of colonial combatants does not matter since in order to achieve victory and independence, those colonials need the assistance of a greater number of allied foreign troops.
Exactly which foreign nation does the III% movement expect to again intervene to insure their ability to overthrow the tyrannical Federal government? France?
The historical ignorance of these movements equals their legal illiteracy regarding the Constitution and the subsequent 228 years of legislative, judicial, and scholarly interpretation.
These posts are background research and talking points. I would be honored if others found something useful for their work.My readers are free to use anything in this blog in any way without attribution.
If you wish to acknowledge me, please ask me me before doing so.
This is for me to practice my writing and blogging skills so please ignore grammar, spelling, formatting and other errors.
Saturday, November 7, 2015
Ben Carson's Medical Career Could Have Begun at West Point
West Point graduates are eligible and allowed to apply for medical school,
Ben Carson could have begun his medical career at West Point then fulfilled his service obligation as a doctor.
He also had the option of having his civilian pre-med and medical studies funded by the Armed Forces. He should have known about that and that should have been readily available to him after his successful high school Junior ROTC career which Carson brags about.
All Carson did after high school was go to college and major in pre-med with no guarantee of admission to medical school.
Since the 1947 desegregation of the Armed Forces, the military has been a highly respected source for careers in the African-American community.
Ben Carson's misrepresentations disrespects:
My readers are free to use anything in this blog in any way without attribution.
I consider what I post to be background research and talking points. I would be honored if others found something useful for their work.
If you wish to acknowledge me, please ask me me before doing so.
This is for me to practice my writing and blogging skills so please ignore grammar, spelling, formatting and other errors.
Ben Carson could have begun his medical career at West Point then fulfilled his service obligation as a doctor.
He also had the option of having his civilian pre-med and medical studies funded by the Armed Forces. He should have known about that and that should have been readily available to him after his successful high school Junior ROTC career which Carson brags about.
All Carson did after high school was go to college and major in pre-med with no guarantee of admission to medical school.
Since the 1947 desegregation of the Armed Forces, the military has been a highly respected source for careers in the African-American community.
Ben Carson's misrepresentations disrespects:
- West Point graduates who went on to medical school,
- Doctors whose undergraduate and medical school education were funded by the Armed Forces, and
- African-American who choose a career in the Armed Forces because they assess that the equal opportunity in the Armed Forces is more of a reality than in the civilian world.
Ben Carson's misrepresentations now appear to be an attempt to promote himself as someone who heroically sacrificed a generous offer of a college education at West Point to pursue a medical career.
Carson's West Point story is not only pointless and meaningless, his misinformation can be confusing and harmful to others considering a medical career while seeking appointment to a military academy.
Carson's West Point story is not only pointless and meaningless, his misinformation can be confusing and harmful to others considering a medical career while seeking appointment to a military academy.
My readers are free to use anything in this blog in any way without attribution.
I consider what I post to be background research and talking points. I would be honored if others found something useful for their work.
If you wish to acknowledge me, please ask me me before doing so.
This is for me to practice my writing and blogging skills so please ignore grammar, spelling, formatting and other errors.
Monday, November 2, 2015
Paul Ryan's Refusal to Work with President Obama on Immigration: Why History Matters
New House Speaker Paul Ryan says he will not work with President Obama on immigration reform.
Extremists have said President Obama cannot be trusted.
However, these same extremists also refused to work with Republican President George W. Bush and Republican Senator John McCain when they proposed immigration reform.
Based on that history, the extremists are unwilling to work with anyone on immigration reform which means a continuation of the system we currently have.
That means the agriculture, construction, and other big money interests will continue to make huge profits by using a pool of undocumented workers whom they can continue to pay low wages and employ in unsafe working conditions.
Paul Ryan and other Republicans lack the courage to tell the extremists in their ranks that legalization is not "amnesty" and deporting 11 million undocumented immigrants would require:
My readers are free to use anything in this blog in any way without attribution.
I consider what I post to be background research and talking points. I would be honored if others found something useful for their work.
If you wish to acknowledge me, please ask me me before doing so.
This is for me to practice my writing and blogging skills so please ignore grammar, spelling, formatting and other errors.
Extremists have said President Obama cannot be trusted.
However, these same extremists also refused to work with Republican President George W. Bush and Republican Senator John McCain when they proposed immigration reform.
Based on that history, the extremists are unwilling to work with anyone on immigration reform which means a continuation of the system we currently have.
That means the agriculture, construction, and other big money interests will continue to make huge profits by using a pool of undocumented workers whom they can continue to pay low wages and employ in unsafe working conditions.
Paul Ryan and other Republicans lack the courage to tell the extremists in their ranks that legalization is not "amnesty" and deporting 11 million undocumented immigrants would require:
- Turning the U.S. into a police state to find the undocumented immigrants, Everyone will be required to carry proof of citizenship or their visa at all times. Police will be allowed to randomly demand "show me your papers" and to set up residency and citizenship papers checkpoints.
- To prevent harm to our economy from the loss of the deported workers, a new program to immediately issue massive numbers of work visas for new immigrants to replace those undocumented workers being deported.
- A massive tax increase to fund those programs.
Ironically Paul Ryan's extremist free market Ayn Rand libertarian ideology probably would advocate open borders to allow the free movement of workers to seek the best deal for their labor. But his same lack of courage cited above suggests that he will not be discussing that either.
My readers are free to use anything in this blog in any way without attribution.
I consider what I post to be background research and talking points. I would be honored if others found something useful for their work.
If you wish to acknowledge me, please ask me me before doing so.
This is for me to practice my writing and blogging skills so please ignore grammar, spelling, formatting and other errors.
Sunday, November 1, 2015
Celebrate Native American Heritage Month By Ceasing Undocumented Claims of Native American Ancestry
President Obama just proclaimed November Native American Heritage Month.
To celebrate I urge all who claim American Indian ancestry to review their family history.
If they do not have documentation, I urge them to state their claim is based on undocumented family oral history or to refrain from continuing to make such claims until ancestry is documented.
Claiming American Indian ancestry without documentation can be disrespectful of American Indians and is best discontinued.
Many claims are found to be family legend and not to be true.
I urge public figures who have claimed American Indians ancestry but have not provided any documentation to cease such claims.
Confirmation can be a family tree with supporting documents showing a direct descent from an American Indian.
Attempting to benefit from a claim of American Indian ancestry without documentation is a form of "white privilege" and needs to stop.
Europeans expropriated all American Indian land and almost completely exterminated them. Among the ways we can make amends is to cease falsely claiming to be descended from them.
Revised: November 1, 2015
My readers are free to use anything in this blog in any way without attribution.
I consider what I post to be background research and talking points. I would be honored if others found something useful for their work.
If you wish to acknowledge me, please ask me me before doing so.
This is for me to practice my writing and blogging skills so please ignore grammar, spelling, formatting and other errors.
To celebrate I urge all who claim American Indian ancestry to review their family history.
If they do not have documentation, I urge them to state their claim is based on undocumented family oral history or to refrain from continuing to make such claims until ancestry is documented.
Claiming American Indian ancestry without documentation can be disrespectful of American Indians and is best discontinued.
Many claims are found to be family legend and not to be true.
I urge public figures who have claimed American Indians ancestry but have not provided any documentation to cease such claims.
Confirmation can be a family tree with supporting documents showing a direct descent from an American Indian.
Attempting to benefit from a claim of American Indian ancestry without documentation is a form of "white privilege" and needs to stop.
Europeans expropriated all American Indian land and almost completely exterminated them. Among the ways we can make amends is to cease falsely claiming to be descended from them.
Revised: November 1, 2015
My readers are free to use anything in this blog in any way without attribution.
I consider what I post to be background research and talking points. I would be honored if others found something useful for their work.
If you wish to acknowledge me, please ask me me before doing so.
This is for me to practice my writing and blogging skills so please ignore grammar, spelling, formatting and other errors.
Saturday, October 31, 2015
The Anniversary of Martin Luther's 95 Theses and the Roots of the Holocaust
October 31 is the anniversary of Martin Luther's posting of his 95 theses and the start of the Protestant Reformation.
Remembrances of Martin Luther are incomplete without acknowledgement of his antisemitism and its relationship to the Holocaust.
For 1,000 year prior to Martin Luther's posting of his Theses Germany and Austria were dominated by Roman Catholicism.
Tragically Martin Luther failed to reform Roman Catholic antisemitism. Instead he continued it. His writings are filled with vile antisemitism.
Almost 100% of the Germans and Austrians who actively committed the Holocaust or passively enabled it were Christians in good standing with about 50% being Roman Catholics and 50% being Lutherans.
Fourteen hundred years of antisemitic teachings by the Roman Catholic Church together with 400 years of antisemitic teachings by the Lutherans created a very fertile ground for the Nazi ideology of the Holocaust to emerge.
In the 1960s Pope John XXIII made great progress in purging antisemitism from Catholic teachings.
His predecessors have done an extremely poor job of following up as antisemitism remains widespread among Roman Catholics.
With the number of Roman Catholics who actively and passively implemented the Holocaust, ending antisemitism among Roman Catholics should be one of the Roman Catholic Church's highest priorities (along with ending clergy sex abuse).
As an recovering ex-Catholic I am most familiar with Roman Catholicism. I am not familiar what the Lutheran Church has done to purge antisemitism from its teachings and deal with antisemitism among its members.
In my teens among the first times i had questions about the moral authority of the Roman Catholic Church was when I learned of the Pope Pius XII's silence in response the Holocaust.
My readers are free to use anything in this blog in any way without attribution.
I consider what I post to be background research and talking points. I would be honored if others found something useful for their work.
If you wish to acknowledge me, please ask me me before doing so.
This is for me to practice my writing and blogging skills so please ignore grammar, spelling, formatting and other errors.
Remembrances of Martin Luther are incomplete without acknowledgement of his antisemitism and its relationship to the Holocaust.
For 1,000 year prior to Martin Luther's posting of his Theses Germany and Austria were dominated by Roman Catholicism.
Tragically Martin Luther failed to reform Roman Catholic antisemitism. Instead he continued it. His writings are filled with vile antisemitism.
Almost 100% of the Germans and Austrians who actively committed the Holocaust or passively enabled it were Christians in good standing with about 50% being Roman Catholics and 50% being Lutherans.
Fourteen hundred years of antisemitic teachings by the Roman Catholic Church together with 400 years of antisemitic teachings by the Lutherans created a very fertile ground for the Nazi ideology of the Holocaust to emerge.
In the 1960s Pope John XXIII made great progress in purging antisemitism from Catholic teachings.
His predecessors have done an extremely poor job of following up as antisemitism remains widespread among Roman Catholics.
With the number of Roman Catholics who actively and passively implemented the Holocaust, ending antisemitism among Roman Catholics should be one of the Roman Catholic Church's highest priorities (along with ending clergy sex abuse).
As an recovering ex-Catholic I am most familiar with Roman Catholicism. I am not familiar what the Lutheran Church has done to purge antisemitism from its teachings and deal with antisemitism among its members.
In my teens among the first times i had questions about the moral authority of the Roman Catholic Church was when I learned of the Pope Pius XII's silence in response the Holocaust.
My readers are free to use anything in this blog in any way without attribution.
I consider what I post to be background research and talking points. I would be honored if others found something useful for their work.
If you wish to acknowledge me, please ask me me before doing so.
This is for me to practice my writing and blogging skills so please ignore grammar, spelling, formatting and other errors.
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