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. 

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Concern About Police Use of Force is Not Advocacy of Violence Against the Police

Politicians and police leaders continue to falsely charge that citizens concerned over police use of lethal force are advocating violence against police, with Gov. Christie being the most recent.

An excellent report in the October 24, 2014 Washington Post on police use of force features the tragic death of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin Trooper Trevor Casper.

Trooper Casper was one of the 31 officers killed this year.

Trooper Casper was  murdered by a European-American bank robber and not by a politically motivated African-American.

How Trooped Casper died is probably how most of the other 30 died.

The only politically motivated murders of police this year of which I am aware are by right wing European-American extremists. (That is from my memory as I did not review the year's news for this post.)

This year two African-Americans who may be suffering from mental illness murdered police officers. If their psychotic delusions, hallucinations, and paranoia included political concerns, that does not change that their behaviors were related to their mental health problems and not to political ideology.

The Washington Post's data makes clear the central issues:

• 10 to 26% of the approximately 800 citizens killed by police this year were not have armed and were not have attacking either a police officer or civilians. 

• 25% of the civilians killed by police were African-American. African-Americans are 13.2% of the population. Their rate of death by the police is almost twice their percentage of the population.

Asking for changes in police procedures to end the police killings of unarmed citizens not attacking police or civilians and ending the racial disparity in law enforcement which is has resulted in African-Americans being killed by the police at twice the rate then their percentage of the population is not advocating violence against the police.

Misrepresenting our advocacy dishonors and disrespects the service and sacrifice of officers such as Trooper Trevor Casper.

When politicians and police leaders make such false allegations journalists need to ask them to cite specific attacks on police where such a link has been established. However a friend has repeatedly reminded me that may be expecting an awful lot of our current crop of journalists.

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A Wisconsin trooper faced down a gunman who planned to go out fighting

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2015/10/24/on-duty-under-fire/

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We Are All In This Together

The death of Master Sergeant Joshua Wheeler in the recent rescue of ISIS prisoners is a reminder that this is not a battle between Muslims and non-Muslims.

This is a battle between an extremist form of Islam and the rest of the world with most of the victims being Muslims.

Sergeant Wheeler died fighting side by side with Kurdish Muslims rescuing Kurdish and Arab Muslim captives from Islamic extremists.

Muslims such as the Kurds are our allies and fight alongside men women such as Sgt. Wheeler.

The anti-Muslim rhetoric in the U.S. is neither supportive nor respectful of the service and sacrifice of our troops such as Sgt. Wheeler.

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As much as I wish to share this in public, I am not emotionally up for the possible negative reactions.

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Sgt. Wheeler is from Oklahoma. I first learned his identity from the 45th Division Museum Facebook page in Oklahoma. While Sgt. Wheeler was not in the 45th, the 45th Museum covers stories about Oklahoma troops. 

Felix A. Cizewski, my late father, served in the 45th in WWII.

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I consider what I post to be background research and talking points. I would be honored if others found something useful for their work.

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This is for me to practice my writing and blogging skills so please ignore grammar, spelling, formatting and other errors.

Drug and Alcohol Testing Should be Mandatory in All Traffic Accidents Involving Injuries

An investigation has concluded that a bicyclist who was killed in collision with a car pulled into traffic and that the driver will not be charged.

However a careful reading of the news article indicates that the car driver shares responsibility.

The skid marks indicate that the driver was from 7 to 10 miles over the speed limit. Obviously that decreased the driver's ability to stop when a bicyclist pulled in front of them. The driver should have at least been cited for speeding.

The news reports that the officer assessed the driver did not appeared impaired nor smelled of alcohol. Subjective officer assessments of impairment are extremely unreliable and frequently inaccurate. They should be discontinued and replaced with science based breath and blood tests.

The driver apparently immediately contacted an attorney. On advice of the attorney, the driver refused a blood test.

That was the driver's Constitutional right. I have an equal Constitutional right to wonder why.

I hope the family brings a wrongful death suit against the driver.

Wisconsin law is notorious for enabling and shielding impaired drivers. That Wisconsin law allows a driver involved in what was ultimately a fatal accident to refuse a blood test may be another example.

Bicyclists should protect themselves by maintaining a high level of consciousness of the number of inattentive, speeding, and impaired drivers with whom they share the rode.

Wisconsin's implied consent laws should be amended to require blood tests of drivers involved in accidents that cause serious injuries or death.
Bicyclist in fatal Madison crash failed to yield to car, investigation concludes

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Has Senator McCain Forgotten How His POW Crimes Were Resolved?

The Army judicial process is deciding the fate of Sergeant Bernie Bergdahl, the soldier who was captured by the Taliban and released in a prisoner exchange.

Headlines report how outraged Senator McCain is that Army is recommending that sergeant Bernie Bergdahl not be charged with desertion, not be given a prison sentence, and not be given a punitive discharge.

While Lieutenant Commander McCain was a POW he was broken under torture. He then signed propaganda statements and made propaganda broadcasts for the North Vietnamese.

When he was released at the end of the Vietnam War, the Navy judicial system was very understand, generous, and forgiving.

Not only was he not prosecuted, he was so effectively shielded that during his presidential campaign his psychological fitness for office because of the trauma of being broken under torture was never raised as an issue not meaningfully discussed.

Instead of condemning the Army, Senator McCain should be commending them for showing Sergeant Bergdahl the same compassion the Navy showed Senator McCain.

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False Allegations Against Activist

After a Houston County sheriff's deputy was recently murdered, the sheriff and others blamed activists concerned about excessive use of police force for inspiring the murder. They specifically named Black Lives Matters.

Some reports suggest that the suspect has a history of mental health problems which is a more reality based explanation for his actions .

Over the last few days, reports have emerged that the murdered deputy, a married father, was with his lover when he was murdered. His lover is a witness.

The sheriff department's investigator started a sexual relationship with the witness during the investigation and has been suspended.

I hope this sufficiently compromises the prosecution case that they can no longer seek the death penalty.

I hope that this causes the Houston County sheriff's department to cease making false accusations against activists and focus on the very serious internal problems in their department.

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I consider what I post to be background research and talking points. I would be honored if others found something useful for their work.

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"Forward" Columnist Adds More Facts to the Correction of Carson's Remarks on Gun Control and the Holocaust

In the Forward columnist Jay Michaelson said that Ben Carson's statement is an antisemitic canard that blames the victims of the Holocaust rather than the perpetrators.

Michaelson adds historical facts to the Anti-Defamation League's correction of Ben Carson's statement about gun control and the Holocaust.

The ADL stated the absurdity of expecting the about 200,000 German Jews in 1938, less than 1% of the population, to have been able to effectively resist the Nazi state with handguns and hunting rifles.

Michaelson adds facts about the Polish Jews.

Michaelson cites the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising where Polish Jews resisted with firearms the Holocaust. The Polish Jews killed at most 24 Nazis. The Nazis killed at least 13,000 Polish Jews, most of them unarmed civilian residents of the Warsaw Ghetto.

To the ADL and Michaelson, I will add the resistance of the Polish Jews in the Polish armed forces in 1939. Polish Jews were about 10% of the population of Poland in 1939 and served in all positions including in combat and as officers.

In 1939 about 16,000 German and Austrian invaders were killed during their unprovoked war of aggression, conquest, and genocide against Poland.

From a statistical perspective as many as 1,600 were killed by Polish Jewish members of the Polish armed forces. (Art Spiegelman depicts the 1939 killing in combat of an invading Nazi soldier by a Polish Jewish soldier in his graphic novel Maus.)
Tragically, despite their best, gallant, heroic, repeated efforts, armed Polish Jews were not able to stop the Holocaust.

Acknowledgement: My friend Jeff Spitzer-Resnick shared Jay Michaelson's column with me. That allowed me to share my amateur historian's knowledge about subjects about which I care including the WWII history of Poland, the Holocaust, and relations between Slavs and Jews in Poland.

Why Ben Carson's Rant About Gun Control and the Holocaust Is So Dangerous

by Jay Michaelson, in Opinion, Forward, October 9, 2015

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Add the Holocaust to the List of What Ben Carson Knows Nothing

Headlines report Ben Carson claims the Holocaust would have been less likely if the Jews were armed.

That armed individuals could have successfully resisted the Holocaust is a propaganda lie used by American extremists to oppose gun regulations that the SCOTUS has repeatedly ruled Constitutional. 

To which Jews was he referring? 

The Jews of Germany? German Jews were less than 1% of the German population. 

Prior to the Holocaust, the Nazis destroyed all opposition in Germany, including potentially armed opposition.

Armed resistance by less than 1% of the German population would have not stopped their massacre. The Nazis would have shot them in their residence instead of taking them to death camps;.

The Jews of Poland? They were about 10% of the Polish population.

The Polish Jews were armed as members of the Polish armed forces. They resisted the Nazis from the first day of WWII. When the Nazis captured them, instead of being treated as POWs they were executed.

The Nazis together with their Soviet allies defeated the Polish armed forces which left all Poles, including Polish Jews, mostly disarmed.

After Poland's military defeat, armed individual Polish Jews had not more the ability to stop the Holocaust than did German Jews.

Polish Jews did their best to rearm themselves and resist the Holocaust. They were able to again resume armed resistance culminated in the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. As heroic as that was, the fighters knew that they had no chance of stopping the Holocaust and were instead choosing to die fighting rather than in death camps.

The only armed people who could have stopped the Holocaust were the armed forces of nations such as the United States in alliance with Czechoslovakia, Poland, Britain, and France. 

The only time those armed forces could have stopped the Holocaust would have been in 1938 or 1939 before the Nazis were at the peak of their military power and the victims of the Holocaust were still within reach of military rescue.

That misuse of the Holocaust dishonors the victims and those such as my late father who served in the fight to defeat the Nazis, liberate the camps, and rescue the surviving victims.

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Airport Level Weapons Screening at High Risk Locations

Seven years ago in 2009 a security guard at the entrance of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum gave his life stopping an armed European-American anti-semite from attempting a mass shooting.

When my wife Cheryl Robinson and I visited the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center we first passed through airport level weapons screening before entering.

I am not optimistic that we will soon find the political will to implement the gun regulations that the SCOTUS has repeatedly ruled to be Constitutional under the 2nd Amendment.

But we must do something now.

I very reluctantly suggest that we may need to use airport level weapons screenings at institutions assessed to be at risk for mass shootings. 

My reluctance is that will result in our schools, places of worships, museums, movie theatres, and other places at risk of mass shooting having secure perimeters with fences and barbed wire with one entrance with metal detectors, x-ray for our bags, and armed guards. Our nation will start to resemble a police state.

The reality is that may be one of the few effective ways to keep us safer in our nation that is suffering from an epidemic of gun sickness.

That is what kept safe the staff and visitors at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

That will also make people aware of the price we are paying to give a a handful of people a minimum of restrictions to purchase firearms. Perhaps that price will raise consciousness so we find our political will to deal with a problem that has resulted in over 400,000 non-terrorist deaths since 9/11.

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My readers are free to use anything from my private blog in any way without attribution.

I consider what I post as 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.

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As this is for me to work on my writing and blogging skills please ignore grammar, spelling, formatting and other errors.