Some Thoughts on American Patriotism…

Written exactly 22 years ago for my personal website, Some Thoughts on American Patriotism was one of the very first texts I penned for the internet as a new-fangled blogger…

(And don't forget to check out Donald Trump's Outstanding Speech for America at 250.)

Some Thoughts on American Patriotism…

In France and around the world, July Fourth is a day like any other, i.e., one to complain, worry, moan, wail, and lament, not least over Uncle Sam's misdeeds as well as the distressing state of patriotism among Americans.

A good example of this was visible in a film review over two years ago. When Black Hawk Down opened in France, Le Monde's Samuel Blumenfeld let off a broadside, and, for good measure, fired a couple of shots at Behind Enemy Lines as well. Why? Because the movies were badly filmed? No. Because the actors did a lousy job? No. Because the filmmakers took liberties with the truth? Hardly, since both were based on actual events (one showed a battle on the background of the Somalia famine and the other described the Serbs' mass graves in the former Yugoslavia).

No, the films were lambasted because they presented a "questionable ideology" and had "propaganda designs". Of what type? You better sit down and hold on to your seat when you hear this: to give "a valorous image of the patriotism and the endurance of American soldiers". Ohlala! Isn't that shocking?!

The film reviewer went on to bemoan the fact that warlord Aideed's soldiers are shown as "sadistic, cheating, vicious […] the alter egos of the savage Germanic tribes […] in Gladiator, by the same Ridley Scott." A director whom the critic castigates for leaving something out. Oh, what is that, pray tell? For not showing…"the ordinary racism of certain American soldiers or questioning the African policies of President Clinton".

(Visibly, Blumenfeld has not been informed that part of the reason for the movie's existence was to criticize the Clinton administration's policies in the 90s and that a notice explaining this at the end of the film was removed only because of the shock of September 11. Incidentally, it has never seemed to inconvenience the film critic much that films criticizing Paris's African policies, or Jacques Chirac in the manner of Fahrenheit 9/11, do not exactly abound in France. As to the hypothesis (which I happen to share, I don't know why) that the two Hollywood movies present "a valorous image of the patriotism and the endurance of American soldiers" simply because… that happens to be the truth, let's not get into that, shall we, I don't think Blumenfeld would understand…)

In other words, American patriotism, in today's world, is so ridiculous, and so insidious, that even among the worst atrocities in Europe since World War II and even among the mass killings of a famished population, it is that treacherous danger which the world must fear and fight and denounce by any means available. The danger is so terrible that it eclipses the war crimes of Somali warlords and of Yugoslav butchers. Yes, you heard that right: That the militias in fact did machine gun the Somali crowds, what importance compared to the fact that a G.I. or two may have uttered racist words! At least the people shot dead by their own people did not suffer from any type of racism. What a relief!

Who cares about the Bosnia mass graves! Who cares about the Mogadishu massacres! Compared with the simple fact that Hollywood distributes films that might be called patriotic, and the terrible danger their content (along with that of McDonald's, Coca-Cola, etc) represents, those atrocities evaporate into nothingness.

To leave the film world behind for the international stage per se, Le Monde once asked if one shouldn't "fear the implementation of a Pax Americana" in Yugoslavia. I had to pinch myself to make sure I wasn't dreaming when I read that! The reason I find this accusation extremely offensive is that, for four years, Yugoslavia was beset by war, with murders, killings, and rape, with hideous crimes, mass graves, and genocide. Finally, the international community put an end to it. But because the Americans were the ones who were paramount in this undertaking, the French abstain from calling the end of the tragedy a positive event. The Serbs are the worst criminals to stage a war in Europe since 1945, and for now, at least, their killing is over. But what danger do some Europeans fret about? That peace came under the orders of Uncle Sam...

Yankee Doodle Dandy

Ironic comments, tch-tching, scorn, and horselaughter are inevitably the reactions when discussing American patriotism in many parts of the world. After all, they claim, isn't Washington the source of the main troubles of the world for the past 60 years? If that is correct, then it can be only true that U.S. patriotism is little more than a dangerous trap or some kind of disease or superstition, from people who believe — how ridiculous they are! — in something not unrelated to witches and fairy tales.

As everyone here in Europe knows: any society which does not offer the type of guarantees, equality, and social protection that the European models do is not worth living in, or believing in, and any government that does not try to implement same is not worth keeping in power. And anybody, in turn, who might believe differently can only be under the spell of a smoke screen, which deserves only to be deplored, scorned, and mocked. So, America, with its "itch to fight" and its "excess of testosterone" which has "inflamed the country" (the French verb, enfiévrer [to make feverish], suggests a disease) can only be of an object of ridicule and scorn, as well as a danger without precedent.

Following 911, I expected French friends and acquaintances of mine who came back from visits to the U.S. to return with some sense of respect or admiration. Don't kid yourselves! Many shared the same tone of exasperation and disbelief in their voices: How can one be so patriotic (that is, so superstitious)?

It was a rhetorical question, and some were surprised that I answered it. My answer was that I didn't know what they are talking about. What happens when one goes to the United States? One sees a lot of flags and… That's about it. Ain't that right? One does not see hysterical demonstrations walking down the avenues. One does not see signs reading "Down with the Taliban" or "Death to Iraq". One does not hear the "cowboys" shout "Vive la guerre!" I have not seen many Americans set fire to Iraqi or Afghan (or Vietnamese) flags. I don't remember seeing any throw tomatoes or molotov cocktails on the Soviet or Chinese embassies.

When one points out that George W Bush made a speech in an American mosque, or that he observed Ramadan, or that he spoke of a Marshall Plan for Afghanistan, the reaction is only horse laughter or scorn, because of course — of course! — it can only be a sham. (As it happens, it is not in America that mosques [or synagogues] are burnt down at alarming rates.)

In January 2002, the Council of American-Islamic Relations put the responsibility of eight murders on reactions to the events of September 11. The authorities could only confirm one of those, at the most two, as motivated by anti-Arab hatred. In any case, one is far from that fear (expressed in America as well as elsewhere) that Americans, as a people, would lump Muslims in general together with the terrorists (faire l'amalgame) and unleash a wave of terror against the Muslim population of their country. (Once more, the Europeans hold that without their precious advice, unthinking Americans could only act irresponsibly — how modest of those Europeans.)

We have seen many a time on this weblog that by simply doing a little digging, it appears that so-called humanistic activists (whether in the shape of intellectuals, groups, national leaders, or countries) are not as neutral, idealistic, and lucid as they seem to believe themselves, but present many an inconsistency, often more than the Americans they criticize. Thus it is with patriotism as well. In contrast to the irony expressed when dealing with American patriotism (and that of other Western countries), they seem often to lose all their marbles when confronted with the national pride of developing countries. They can only marvel when third-world countries (or, rather, their unelected leaders) evoke "national aspirations" and the construction and the future of their nations.

In the aftermath of 911, then, Americans unfurled the Stars and Stripes, voiced their support for the acting president, and pulled up their sleeves to go to work. Insofar as this character trait is supposed to provoke ridicule, I find it rather solemn and low key. And there is nothing new about this. In fact, the journalist Arthur Higbee, a Pacific War veteran, wrote in the International Herald Tribune that after Pearl Harbour, America's attitude was even more low key.

Very few people hung out flags, and nobody wore a flag lapelpin. No flag-waving was needed. The tone of the nation was one of grim determination. Recruiting offices were overflowing.

"Grim determination": there is a better description of patriotic America, today and in the past, than Dana Burde's pacifist caricature which was praised by Le Monde ("the loud cries demanding war and vengeance, combined with media censorship, have almost drowned out the few voices of the left" [the only voices filled with reason and understanding, of course, you realize]) — a caricature which has been eagerly repeated day in and day out in the French media, in the European media, and in the Arab media for years.

But it is not only in wartime that American patriotism is low-key. While many countries favor solemn military parades on their national holidays, or at least a predominant role for the military, the Fourth of July is, above all things, a party. Oh, of course there is the flag ceremony, with a handful of military people present from each service — army, navy, air force, marines — but it's above all a party, with barbecueing (hotdogs, burgers, spare ribs, etc), games, and fireworks.

And if the military — and veterans — have a special place at the festivities, whether on July Fourth or other holidays, they are only a piece of the puzzle which also includes bands, pompom girls, floats, ethnic pride groups, cowboys, Indians, and clowns — I've seen a parade where the marching soldiers were preceded, followed, and surrounded by dozens of clowns. (Try that on the Champs-Élysées, in Red Square, on at Tien An Men!)

As I write this — 4 juillet oblige — I am listening to the Jingle Cats sing The Star-Spangled Banner and Yankee Doodle Dandy. For some reason, I have trouble imagining a lucid Frenchman, a down-to-earth Russian, or a wise Chinese person setting their national anthems to cats' meows. Non, their wailing takes other, less enjoyable, directions.

Wailing Europeans and other Uncle Sam detractors ought to make sure they keep their droning continuous and never-ending. Because, if instead of endlessly lamenting the distressing state of Americans' patriotism, they were to shut up and try and study it a little more closely and a little more rationally, they might come to believe that Yankee patriotism is not so mystical, or frightening, or perilous, as is commonly believed. Then they would have less to wail about. Can you imagine that!? Wouldn't that be awful?!

As for me, for some reason, I prefer the laughter and the joy of the American spirit.

Happy Fourth of July, everybody!

July 4, 2004

Lire la version francaise
One of the World's Most Enduring Stereotypes

Update: Thanks to Sarah, who adds:

THE EUROPEANS HAVE ALLOWED THEMSELVES TO BE 
CONVINCED THAT NOT LOVING ONE’S COUNTRY IS A VIRTUE

Spain's Zapatero: Another Compassionate Leftist's Welfare Heroics Prove to Hide a World of Scamming, One of Hardly Believable Magnitude

It turns out that another one of Europe's patented humanists, a compassionate leftist who doubled as a valiant foe of ths United States, proves to be little more than a scammer, one of hardly believable (i.e., of criminal) magnitude (gracias a la Señora Sarah Hoyt de Instapundit). Washington Examiner's Jose Lev Alvarez breaks the story:

Spain’s National Court made history last week by placing former Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero under investigation for allegedly leading a criminal network engaged in influence peddling, money laundering, document forgery, and related offenses. 

(Filed in the Rules for thee, but not for me department.) Do you remember how Zapatero won his (dubious) victory as prime minister in the first place? Besides a horrific terrorist action that killed or injured 2600 people, anti-Americanism — and betrayal of the White House (in time of war) — was central to the socialist's victory (details below).

 … Investigators are also examining alleged links to Venezuelan regime money tied to PDVSA oil schemes and the CLAP food program, whose corruption devastated ordinary Venezuelans. … This scandal reveals Zapatero as one of former Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro’s most valuable international assets. 

 

 … Zapatero’s alleged ownership [of the Orinoco Mining Arc gold mine] implicates him in [an] ecological and humanitarian catastrophe. 

 

 … As prime minister, Zapatero supplied Iran with dual-use technology and authorized Spain’s largest-ever arms export 

 

 … The scandal indicts Spain’s Socialist establishment. As Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s government faces its own corruption controversies, Zapatero’s exposure underscores how “dialogue” and “progressive” internationalism [not to mention heroic anti-Americanism] can conceal both personal enrichment and willful blindness to dictatorship. 

I often say that the dream of the world's leftists is to make a world where all citizens are de facto welfare recipients (an update from the serfs and the peasants that they used to be during feudalism and in prior eras). 

 

This, far from incidentally, in turn explains why there is so much anti-Americanism in the world, since statists in the United States as well as in the rest of the world are enraged that Americans (i.e., common citizens) made a rich and successful country with the minimal involvement of politicians and bureaucrats — and not only that but indeed made it the richest and the most successful country on the planet.

 

Spain — and "the mafia that governs" the country  — provides one heck of a perfect example of that. Recall how Zapatero became Spain's prime minister in the first place. In August 2004 (most 2004 hyperlinks now broken), the International Herald Tribune's John Vinocur went back over his (dubious) victory while characterizing the mindset of the European press perfectly: "its logic running that since intelligent Europe hates [George W Bush] so, how could any decent, non-fascistic American contemplate voting Republican?"

• José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, Spain's prime minister, says he does not want to talk about Islamic terrorism. … "I never talk about Islamic terrorism, but international terrorism," Zapatero told Le Monde in an interview marking his first 100 days in office.

A couple of background details enter here. Zapatero's Socialists got elected in March after a murderous Madrid railway station bombing that was undoubtedly planned by Islamic terrorists to affect the election's outcome. An extreme long shot before the attack, the Socialists had campaigned on the theme that Spain would pay for José María Aznar's backing of the United States in Iraq. …

A bit like newspapers that avoid the word "cancer" in obituaries with the explanation that they are sparing sensitive readers, [the secularist] Zapatero is keeping Islamic fundamentalists out of the discussion of terrorism because, he says, Islam is a religion with hundreds of millions of followers "which, like all the religions in the history of humanity, involves an element of religious fanaticism."

The IHT's John Vinocur went on to describe Zapatero's first actions when the new PM reached La Moncloa, Spain's government house.

The detoxed Spain of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, it was pledged, was going to rush back into the family-like warmth of the European Union, and rush home its troops from Iraq. In a whoosh, it would rejoin the community of the just, and end what the new Socialist government called the country's miscast role as superpower-adjunct of the Americans.

Promise keepers, the new guys did what they said they would in their first full week on the job. For which they got something short of an international standing ovation.

Four years after his defeat, the incumbent José Maria Aznar, a vibrant supporter of Bush, had the following to say about the 2004 elections:

Frankly, the left exploited this tragedy. … All the polls were clear: without these attacks, which the left capitalized on, we would have won the elections. What's terrible is that instead of blaming the terrorists, they blamed the government! 

 

 … every day, it becomes clearer that the terrorists achieved their objective: to manipulate the electoral process. This is a crucial point for all democracies to consider—insofar as this phenomenon risks recurring. The decision to withdraw Spanish troops from Iraq, which was made in violation of Spain's international commitments and the promises Mr. Zapatero himself had made during the election campaign, was considered by the terrorists to be a significant victory. And when terrorists achieve a victory, they become stronger… 

 

If you ask me if Chamberlain resembles Zapatero, I would answer… that Chamberlain had more depth and even more courage than Zapatero! Indeed, after having collaborated with the Nazis, Chamberlain, at least, had the courage to leave with dignity. 

By standing up to the accursed Republican in the White House, Zapo, also known as Bambi and (on this blog) as El Zap and el caniche de Chiraque, was described as a totemic figure for the Spanish left, who, like his successor Pedro Sánchez, was/is hailed as a humanist champion, another paladin in Europe's pantheon of heroes giving lessons on civility and compassion and peace-making and humanity to America's neanderthals.

 

But also to Europe's neanderthals, it turns out: Likewise blinded to any problematics associated with Islam, Pedro Sánchez (following in the footsteps of Tony Blair and duly lionized in the New York Times for being "Trump's nemesis") has allowed half a million illegal aliens in Spain, many of them Muslims, to become regularized. At a Podemos party rally in Zaragoza, to "chilling" applause, a drama queen like Irene Montero bellowed at the top of her lungs: 

“We have obtained papers and regularization. And now we are going to go for citizenship or change the law so that they can vote, of course. Hopefully, replacement theory, hopefully we can rid this country of fascists and racists with migrants, with working people.”  

Cross the Atlantic: As California and other states seem to be heading in the direction of fraud-soaked Minnesota (the home for many Scandinavian immigrants in the 19th century), it appears that the various welfare systems throughout the American nation might be little more than a scam.

But for the statists, American and foreign alike — whether they turn out to be true believers or hypocritical conspirators — the international situation is far worse than that.

In view of the fact that the global left's major talking point — that leftists like the Democrats and all the Socialist-leaning Europeans — are far more tolerant and compassionate than the egotistical brutes in the capitalistic United States (or, at least, then the neanderthals of America's Republican Party), it would be highly problematic if the welfare systems throughout the rest of the West — and the rest of the world — proved to be a scam as well.

That is what might be happening in the region — Scandinavia — whose countries are often lauded as the very top model of a healthy government and a healthy nation. Certainly, Norway's reputation for honesty and humility, for good governance, and for “least corrupt in the world” rankings has been taking broadside after broadside in the wake of the Epstein Scandal.

And if Norway turns out to be so filled with (for want of a better word) corruption, can Sweden and Denmark be far behind?

 

At this point, a final question that comes to mind is: What is the international left (not excluding America's Democratic Party) if not a cult of irresponsibility filled with drama queens, Sophomoric Teens, Intrepid Cosplayers, and Would-Be Heroes?

More Details at: Scandalous News from Norway: What If All the Planet's Welfare Systems — Supposedly Proof of the Left's Superiority Over Capitalist America — Prove to Be Little More Than So Many Scams? including 

Rebecca Mistereggen

's stunning article titled The Habitus of Norway’s Elite: Lies, Corruption, and the Absence of Consequences.

 

Food for Thought About Canada: Should America Have a 51st State? 52 States? Or a Total of 60? How About Just the Current 50?

So Donald Trump has trolled Justin Trudeau, suggesting to the Canadian PM that his country become America's 51st state, one which he in turn could become the governor of.

Excluding more expansionist rhetoric, regarding Greenland and the Panama Canal (and as the Washington Free Beacon declares its 2024 Man of the year to be the Conservative Party's Pierre Poilievre (thanks to Instapundit's Ed Driscoll, eh?)), the thing about Canada is that it is a (con)federation of 10 sub-units (called provinces) in the same way that the U.S.A. is a (con)federation of 50 sub-units (called states).  

An Old Glory with extra stars
— via AI Magic Media

If Canada should be annexed, should it be as a single state/province, leading to an American total of 51, or as 10 states/provinces, leading to a total of 60 states in the newly enlarged nation?

There is much thought to be given to the matter. 

I actually gave it some thought decades ago, right after college, when I tried imagining what the new American flag might look like: should the Stars and Stripes be 60 stars or — what follows I knew was far-fetched — 50 stars plus 10 star-sized maple leafs on the bottom line of the canton?

It has been common throughout history to talk about Britain's 13 colonies in America, and all of said colonies uniting to become independent. This ignores that George III actually had 15 colonies in all, the 13 below the Saint Lawrence River, plus two above, then called Upper Canada and Lower Canada. The latter admittedly had a very different history, the former Nouvelle France being a conquered territory (and a conquered foreign people with a different language) by Britain a decade prior to the unrest further South. Being former subjects of the French Crown, why did Québec not join the 13, then? Should they not have the most fervent of les Américains resisting the hated roi des Anglais?

Many history scholars and teachers whom I asked this question to hummed and hawed. appearing to never have given a thought to the matter. The answer, I eventually fount out, were that the Québecois were Catholics and apparently, they trusted more in their British overlords than in the mainly Protestant radicals and hotheads of the lower colonies.

I wondered how history had been different had the 1775 invasion of Québec been successful, or had Britain's 14th and 15th colonies agreed to join the continental congresses in the early 1770s and agreed to provide a single united North American continent (down to Spain's Mexico border, anyway). How would the first half of the 19th century been different? Would the Civil War "four score and [about] seven years" years later — had it erupted at all — have been shorter, had the president (Abraham Lincoln or another commander-in-chief?) not needed to worry about an invasion from Queen Victoria's British America?

(An aside from down South: after the Mexican War, the U.S. annexed more than half of Mexico; however, there were plans in 1847 and 1848 to annex even more territory, with not the Rio Grande river serving as the U.S./(rump) Mexican border but the Sierra Madre mountain range. Anyway, the full name of the country is the Estados Unidos Mexicanos and if the 31 United Mexican States (plus the DF equivalent of DC) were also to join the US of A, it might lead to 81 stars on Old Glory, or along with Canada's provinces, 91.)

Population & Area

If Canada were to join as a single state, it would be far from a pushover; its 41 million inhabitants would surpass California's 38,000,000 as the most populous state of the (enlarged) Union. It would also — easily — become the largest state by area. Indeed, as the second-largest country on the planet by total area, the Great White North joining the U.S. would make the enlarged union jump to largest country on Earth, with its total 7.39 million square miles (19.3 million square km) surpassing Russia's 6.6 million square miles (17,000,000 square km).

Reminder: back in 1960, when Alaska became the largest state in the Union, some of The Last Frontier's inhabitants enjoyed provoking the previous largest state, Texas, telling its (very) proud citizens that their state (Alaska) was so much larger that they could split it it in two, making the Lone Star State only the third largest in the Union. By comparison, Canada might split into five, making Alaska the sixth-largest state and putting the proud Texans into (a humiliating?) 7th place.

But the fantasy of splitting Canada into five does not take into consideration that — as mentioned — the country is already split into 10 provinces — not to mention three territories.

Danger: Leftists Galore

The danger of having/asking/requesting (?) the 10 provinces join is that the second-most populous province (among others?) might not want to join at all. There are fewer more anti-American people on this planet than the Quebécois, proud to the Heavens of their French language and heritage, going so far as regularly lecturing the French population on the matter. 

Having worked for the Québec government in a Dallas office as my first summer job — it was a standing requirement that the name of the province always be written with its French accent, whatever the language (English or other) it was written in (as you can see in this very post).  With support from France, sometimes — notably when Charles de Gaulle shouted "Vive le Québec libre!" during his 1967 tour, leading him to cut his state visit short — the Québecois regularly hold referendums about splitting from the rest of English-speaking Canada and becoming independent.

The last time Quebec (no accent here for Search Result purposes) tried this, in 1995, I wrote about it in The Globe and Mail (an upgrade of a 1992 text in the International Herald Tribune), which got me a trans-Atlantic call from a Canadian radio station (since they would be interviewing a foreign observer in Paris), where they had trouble believing my view that the French population did not seem that interested in the issue at all.

The danger of having Canada join at all, whether as one or as 10 (9?) sub-units, is the leftist mentality that dominates (the media being worse than America's, as observed, say, during the truckers' Covid revolt).

Twenty years ago, indeed, the Canadian sanctimocracy ("rule by the holier-than-thou") was described during the Iraq War as a nation crippled by a dishonest pacifism, while No Pasarán quoted the International Herald Tribune as saying that Because Canadian Mentality Is Closer to That in Europe, They Are More Generous and More Security-Conscious than Dollar-Hungry American Capitalists Are.

The following year, in March 2005, one Michael Coren wrote in the Toronto Sun that it pained him to say it, but

I'm so very tired of the way … that we Canadians have come to define ourselves not by who we are but by who we are not. … With a malodorous stew of ignorance and malice, [publicly funded mediocrities screaming abuse at a great and noble nation] pump Canada at the expense of deflating the United States" 

The writer's mailbox was soon overflowing, with 1,000 letters from Canadians of all backgrounds and ages. To Coren's delight, over 90% "wrote to say that I had spoken for them."

Unsurprisingly, the remainder, filled with insults such as "collaborationist, double-crossing fifth columnist, fraternizer, quisling, saboteur, security risk, subversive traitor, treasonous turncoat, two-timing quisling", only served to prove… exactly what Coren had written the previous week, "deliciously [illustrating] Canadian hypocrisy and self-delusion": 

We flatter ourselves into a false sense of grandeur by flippant assumptions of our own tolerance and liberalism. 

 … Goodness me, I'm as bad as the Norwegian fascist who sold his country to the Nazis because I wrote that the United States is not the ugly bully so many Canadians make it out to be.

 … Conclusion? The chauvinistic neurosis of the Canadian liberal is in many ways even more repugnant than the insularity of some Americans. 

Back to the 2024 meeting at Mar-a-Largo: PJMedia's Robert Spencer mentions that

Someone at the meeting, according to Fox News, then warned Trump that as a state, Canada would be deep blue, whereupon Trump suggested it become two states, a leftist one and a patriotic one.

So, according to Donald Trump, that makes neither 51 nor 60 (59?), but a total of 52.

Note to Google Blogger: My Controversial Post on Blogger Was Not Reset to "Draft" Status; It Was Entirely Removed

Issue # 4 below: Regarding the
Preview/Save Drop-Down Menu

Message to Google Blogger concerning Blogspot's bugs and vexations:

Kindly look into the following: which seems to concern your "fact-checkers" not following your guidelines — your most basic guidelines — and that at your clients' expense.

I wish to address this in addition to last year's ban of a couple of No Pasarán posts and two other issues (for a total of four points on Blogspot bugs and vexations altogether).

1) An Allegedly Controversial Post Was Not Reset to "Draft" Status, But Unceremoniously Disposed of, Vanishing Completely

It is now almost 20 years since I, and at times my fellow bloggers, have been faithful to Blogger and used your services for No Pasarán.

The other day (November 10th?), I was shocked to see that a post of mine had been taken down, with the following explanation.

We have received a DMCA complaint for one or more of your blogs. Emails with the details were sent to you and all affected posts have been reset to "Draft" status (you may find them by selecting "Drafts" on the "Edit posts" page for each of the affected blogs). You may re-publish the posts with the offending content and/or link(s) removed. If you believe you have the rights to post this content, you can file a counter-claim with us. For more on our DMCA policy, please click here. Thank you for your prompt attention.

This post was unpublished because it violates Blogger Community Guidelines. To republish, please update the content to adhere to guidelines.

With 13,600 posts over, to repeat, almost 20 years, we have been banned I think no more than five times (certainly less than 10 times) — in addition to guest writers asking that their guest posts be taken down out of fear of their being cancelled by society at large. But that is none of our responsibility; that is the doings, direct or indirect, of a society failing in free speech and vigorous debate (sometimes known as: the First Amendment) which this blog (hardly wrongly) wishes to describe (and, frankly, to denounce).

As we are responsible writers and journalists, and feel we behave responsibly, we have not felt any guilt, and we have counter-claimed, or are going to counter-claim (see point nr 2 below), all of the bans, previous and present.

But the problem with the November 2023 post is that it was not "unpublished". And the post was not "reset to Draft status". It was entirely removed and has totally vanished.

Unless we are mistaken, moreover, we never received an email in our gmail inbox informing us of a ban or even of a problem, as is Google's custom.

Not only was, and is, filing a counter-claim impossible, as was/is updating the content to your "standards", there was a real risk of our not being able to find any part of the original text, thus losing it partially or completely. (Thanks for the Instalink, Ed Driscoll.)

The only reason that I was lucky enough to find the post (now duly edited) was that I happened to have a window open with my blog un-freshened since before the take-down. (Good thing I had not refreshed it!)  I could therefore "choose" the entire content of the post from the open public blog, press Copy, and paste said content into a freshly-opened and brand-new Blogger post (set not to HTML view, naturally; but to Compose view).

I now have the post up again, minus what I suppose was the offending segment (I suppose it had to do with references to the woman's contact information)

But of course, the new post's hyperlink is entirely different, whereas any hyperlinks linking to the old/first post (even if I had made a totally new title with totally different words) from elsewhere on the internet are now dead. Dead and broken.

The first post, Western Integration I: Sexy Westernized Middle Eastern Girl in France Mocks the Murder of an Israeli Baby in an Oven (VIDEO) ( https://no-pasaran.blogspot.com/2023/11/western-integration-i-young-westernized.html ), now brings us to an error statement: "Sorry, the page you were looking for in this blog does not exist."

The second post, Western Integration I: Sexy Westernized Middle Eastern Girl in France Mocks the Gruesome Oven Murder of an Israeli Baby (VIDEO) ( https://no-pasaran.blogspot.com/2023/11/western-integration-i-sexy-westernized.html ), is up as of this writing.

We hope and expect, Google Blogger, you to look into this matter and deal with whoever made this mistake (?), using this as an opportunity to press the message to all your (cough) "fact-checkers" that they follow the guidelines, so that it doesn't happen again, whether to me or to anyone else using your services.

(If there are any of your fact-checkers who operate more from ideology than from pure fact-finding, maybe it is time for them to move to a different department…)

Speaking of which… 

2) It Is Time to Un-Ban No Pasarán's Posts on the Nazis' Hostile Attitude Towards the Christian Religion

These two posts raising questions about Christianity in recent and ancient History were banned last year in spite of the fact that nobody complained about them for respectively 10 and 7 years (!).

• Adolf Hitler in Religious Surroundings: Is There Really Evidence That the Führer Was a Christian? (December 2012)

• By laying the crusades at the feet of Christianity, Obama was unwittingly laying ISIL's atrocities at Islam's feet  (December 2015)

Will your fact-checkers please wake up to the fact that (no matter what Stalin claimed) there is no controversy — none whatsoever — regarding the fact that Adolf Hitler was not representative of the bourgeoisie and that the founder of the Nazi party was opposed, as much as Vladimir Lenin and Che Guevara, to all religions (Christian as well as well as Jewish), and that he never ceased identifying as a socialist.

Therefore, it is high time for you to restore the two remaining banned posts on the subject of Christianity, both of which, again: are at least seven years old (!), meaning that for 10 years and seven years respectively, these allegedly hateful (?!) and guideline-violating (?!) posts bothered not a single soul; and both of which: are based on reports in, among others, the New York Times, The International Herald Tribune, Life Magazine, and The Daily Mail, along with Denmark's foremost historical publication. Google and Blogger: do you want to ban those periodicals as well?

For 10 years, or 7, nobody has had reason to complain about those posts for the simple reason that — like everything else we (try to) do at No Pasaràn since the blog was founded, 19 years ago — it is (or certainly tries to be) entirely fact-filled, it is entirely dispassionate, and there ought to be nothing controversial about its conclusions. 

Sources include: 

A) Kirchenkampf: Hitler Was Determined to Diminish the Number of Catholic Schools (The International Herald Tribune) 

B) How Hitler's Nazi propaganda machine tried to take Christ out of Christmas (The Daily Mail)

C) "Out With Jesus": During His 12 Years in Power, Hitler Tried to Ban the Tradition of Christmas (Denmark's Historie monthly)

D) Just for the record, Hitler detested Christianity (Jonah Goldberg)

E) Worshipping Little Else But the Aryan Race, Hitler Abhorred the Christian Faith and Wanted to Replace Christmas with the Pagans' Yuletide (Life Magazine)

F) "Hitler remained to the end a socialist"; he "was totally irreligious and" wanted to hang the Pope in St Peter's Square (Paul Johnson, Modern Times: A History of the World from the 1920s to the 1990s)

As for Barack Obama, the 44th occupant of the Oval Office may be a living saint — we do not dispute that (at all) — but it should still be permissible to raise questions about the Crusades (insofar, naturally, as there is supporting evidence) without alleged "Islamophobia" entering the picture.

Again (and as I wrote to you on September 18, 2022), here are No Pasarán's two posts that need to be un-banned and republished:

• Adolf Hitler in Religious Surroundings: Is There Really Evidence That the Führer Was a Christian? (December 2012)

• By laying the crusades at the feet of Christianity, Obama was unwittingly laying ISIL's atrocities at Islam's feet  (December 2015)

Update (December 4): both posts have been restored — thank you, Blogger

 

3) Major (Double) Bug: Loss of a Post's Entire Contents by One Innocuous Move

It is exasperating that one can suffer the loss of a post's entire contents that one has worked on for days, or even weeks or more, simply by innocently using the Ctrl+Z command. 

3.1) Two or three times, now, this has happened where I re-open a saved post to add some finishing touches, I make some tiny mistake, and without thinking, I press Ctrl Z once or twice to undo just a simple typo, and before you can say the word "blogspot", the entire contents have vanished completely, with the text field becoming entirely blank. 

3.2) Even if, in my horror, I refrain from Saving — the obvious solution — but simply close the tab (or press the Go Back button) to go to the main All Posts page, the contents are not recovered when I reopen the post! The content is still blank and empty, although the title is still there, the only part to survive. The last time this happened was in 2020 or 2021, but that does not necessarily mean that the bug has been fixed (deliberately or otherwise), because I have been extra careful (or extra paranoid!) since then. Is there nothing to do, and can Google/Blogger please fix this (double) bug as quickly as possible?!

 

4) Regarding the Preview/Save Drop-Down Menu

While we have you, we have a final matter to bring up, although one of lesser concern (albeit still of some importance).

It concerns the drop-down menu in the top right corner which gives you, prior to Publishing, the option to either Save or to Preview post.

However, the two are not equal: the option which stands out is the Preview button, in that it is the option which needs no drop-down manipulations but can be accessed (clicked) directly. Preview, in other words, is currently the default button.

In view of the fact that I rarely use Preview whereas I am constantly pressing the Save button (see item 3 above) — and that I assume that the vast majority of blogger users certainly use the Save button more often than the Preview one — I wish that you would invert the two commands, making Save the easiest to access, i.e., making Save the default button.

Uyghurs Awry: Words I Have Misprounouced (in My Mind, While Reading) for Most of My Life

A RINO like Francis Suarez is hardly someone I would usually wish to defend, but in the case of his inability to identify Uyghurs, I feel like cutting the “Republican” Mayor of Miami some slack and that, simply because I think that it is a word that, in an interview, may be hard to process in front of the cameras. Hugh Hewitt pronounces the word correctly enough, but to some body who may know the word mainly from written articles in newspapers, "Weegers" may sound quite unlike a population a member of whose name would more logically rhyme with the name of the valiant Ben Hur (an Oyg-Hur?). 

Francis Suarez has trouble figuring it out: "What did you call it, a Weeble?" Indeed, no matter how dire and tragic their fate, you can't deny that the pronunciation of China's Muslim population sounds a bit like a joke name, like like the word Boogers or like Hollywood's Fokkers.  Also, how is it pronounced in Spanish, by the way? What were they talking about immediately prior? Foreign relations? Or American society? And would Francis Suarez have figured it out if Hewitt had mentioned Beijing's communists in the question? What if, instead of asking "Will you be talking about the Uyghurs in your campaign?", Hewitt had asked "Will you be talking about China's Uyghurs in your campaign?"

It turns out that there are quite a number of (relatively common) words in the English language that I have mispronounced throughout my life, not in conversations, that is, I should add, but in my mind, for the simple reason that I would encounter them during my reading rather than during spoken interactions with friends or strangers. They include the following:

• Good Grief: Some of my earliest reading included opening the International Herald Tribune, albeit (a word also appears in this list, see below) only for the newspaper's comics page, along with book collections of Peanuts comic strips; it doesn't make sense but, as a 5-year-old kid, for some reason, I thought Charlie Brown's Good Grief (a word I understood more or less in context but had no idea regarding the definition) was pronounced Good Grafe (rhyming with Safe and — somewhat — with Grape).

• The Gild, the Gist, the Gig, the Gipper: to this day, I hesitate — I am never 100% sure whether these words start with a hard G (as in Gum) or a soft G (like a J, as in Gym): FYI, the gist is up: Gild and Gig "take" a hard G while Gist "takes" a J and I have heard Reagan's Gipper being pronounced both ways. By the way, I also believed that Gild rhymed with Build and Killed instead of Mild and Riled…

• Manger & Dr. Kissinger: Does the stable trough where Jesus was born, an evening that was the Harbinger of good news, rhyme with the final syllable in Anger and Finger (I wasn't sure about Linger's G either, by the way) or that in Stranger? Does the first syllable rhyme with Man and Ban and Ran or with Bang and Sang and Dang? Neither, it turns out, the entire word rhymes (i.e., both syllables rhyme) with Stranger. So does the G with regards to the name of Richard Nixon's secretary of state. Incidentally, until I expressly looked up the word for this post, I thought the manger was a synonym for a stable, or some variant thereof, and not the animals' trough… Speaking of which…   

• Trough: I was never sure about this word — I was (am) a city lad, not a country boy — which most looks like Through (which would make it a homophone of True, which did not seem likely), and figured that the ending rhymed with Row and Throw, not with Rough 'n' Tough.

• Route: Some say Root (rhymes with Suit, albeit [see below] not with Soot), other says Rout (rhymes with Out 'n' About); I regularly worry whether I am pronouncing the word incorrectly…

• Privy: same root as private, right? So, in my mind, I pronounced the first syllable likewise, to rhyme with Pry and Sigh, instead of the first syllable in RIver.

• Awry: This is the opposite wrong pronunciation. For years, for decades, I took it for granted the word rhymed with Wary or, rather, with Sorry (AW-ree); not until I watched a making-of a Game of Thrones episode or season did I hear it pronounced by some director and understand, to my surprise, that it rhymes with Eye, I, and Aye Aye (well, the Yes synonym can be pronounced two ways, so let's use Rye instead), with the stress not on the first syllable, but on the second. Soon thereafter, a-RYE was confirmed during a speech by none other than… President Donald Trump…

• Miami: With Miami, it was somewhat similar to awry. During part of my teen years, due to my father's job, I lived in eastern France. In French, the Southern city is not pronounced My-AH-mee but Mee-ah-mee (first syllable rhyming with me, with General Robert E Lee, and, indeed — most significantly, perhaps — in both languages with the final I in the very name of… that very Florida city). (If France's Mee-ah-mee is incorrect, why isn't My-ah-my the correct pronunciation?) While we're on the subject of American proper names and how they are pronounced in France, incidentally, you might be interested to know that the Marvel superhero known to American teens as SPYderman is pronounced SPEEdermann by most adolescents français.

• Albeit: Although this is a term I have always thought was smashingly cool, I never heard (not altogether surprisingly) this archaic word pronounced for decades, only seeing it on the printed page, and therefore assumed that it was two syllables rhyming with Bite, Sight, and Fight, instead of three. The correct pronunciation makes sense since, as I have since learned, the last four letters actually are formed by the two words "be" and "it" (although it be)… How 'bout that first syllable? Like Al Capone or like All ashore?

• Forfeit: Speaking of which, how on earth is that word pronounced? Forfight? Forfeet (rhyming with conceit)? Forfee-it (like all-bee-it)? Forfate (forfeight or forf8)? Who Knows? The truth, which I would never have guessed, is Forfit… I'll be darned… Likewise, Surfeit turns out to be neither SurFIGHT or SurFEET but SURfit.

• Caveat: Same as with Albeit above — For decades, I only saw this word in writing and did not hear it pronounced until after the turn of the 21st century, when it turned out that the word was not two syllables rhyming with Eat, Seat, and Magritte, but three. (Shouldn't there be an umlaut above the A, like century-old books have for words such as "reëlection"?) Fun fact: I may be mistaken (Comments section below, dear readers), but offhand, it seems that the true pronunciation of the word has no other terms in the English language (does the Spanish carmaker Seat come closest?) with which it rhymes. Same remark for Albeit (or albeït?)…

• Hyperbole: Same as with Caveat above — For the longest time, I took it for granted that the word was three syllables (instead of four) rhyming with Soul, Troll, and Hollywood Bowl, and with the stress on the first syllable instead of on the second. I believe it may have been a speech by Jonah Goldberg or Evan Sayet (a last name I mispronounced for years, by the way) that, to my astonishment, put me on the right track. Again, can anyone think of any words or phrases that rhyme with this word? (By contrast, the last four letters of Precipice form only one syllable and not two, unlike, say, Yosemite.)

• Infinitesimal: in like fashion, this words seem to take six syllables whereas I always thought it took four.  To be fair, and in my own defense, it hardly seemed illogical to conclude that the word came from a combination of Infinite (three syllables) and Small (one syllable) — which, after all, forms the exact definition of the word.

• Chow-chow & Chow time: Do they rhyme with Ciao and Meow or with Show and Joe? This is from reading Sgt. George Baker's Sad Sack comics where what characters like Slob Slobinski and the Sarge were most interested in was chow time. As for the appropriate name for a Sarge, I figured Sergeant rhymed with Surgeon with a T added at the end…

• McPherson: Finally, a family name — I took the middle syllable of the Scottish proper name McPherson (a Civil War general and a Civil War historian unrelated to each other, along with a top officer in the Blueberry graphic novel) to rhyme with Purr, Per, and Fur, leading to McFURson instead of McFEARson.

James Cagney: A Master at Making Gangsters Likable

An excellent book on a Hollywood star is Cagney by John McCabe who also wrote a biography of the Broadway man who was, in my view, James Cagney's best role of all time (and not only in my view since the biopic Yankee Doodle Dandy indeed earned the star the 1942 Oscar for best actor): George M Cohan.

I bought the biography 25 years ago after reading Wilborn Hampton's New York Times book review, A Master at Making Gangsters Likable, in the International Herald Tribune. The new biography "of John McCabe, the author of several celebrity biographies and an actor himself,"

emphasizes his work as an actor. Indeed, the best parts of ''Cagney'' are the tales and reminiscences from the more than 60 movies he made in a career that spanned more than half a century, from ''Sinner's Holiday'' in 1930 to ''Ragtime'' in 1981. This is a book that should be in the reference library of any serious film buff if only for the excellent indexes and appendixes, which include all Cagney's stage roles, radio plays, television appearances and feature films: complete with writer, director, cameraman and full cast.

 … Mr. McCabe provides a wealth of stories about every movie, from the squabbles and disagreements on the set to the actor's feuds with Jack Warner to how Cagney developed his characters in each film.

 … A bonus to Mr. McCabe's film-by-film commentary on Cagney's movies, especially for aspiring actors, is the informative digressions on how he approached his roles. Cagney told Mr. McCabe he could sum up his acting technique in three words: ''Just do it.''

He added: ''Don't think of doing it, or worry about doing it, or hold a post-mortem on doing it, or stand in front of a mirror, or get out a slide rule to do it. Just . . . do it.''

But Cagney also liked to add what he called ''goodies'' to a characterization. By that he meant finding something funny, or at least human, even in the worst and nastiest of villains, through which the audience could identify with the character. Cagney was a master at it. 

 … If there was a secret hidden in the Cagney formula, it was most likely in a reply he gave to Frank Sinatra, who once asked him how he could make gangsters so likable to audiences. ''Be as tough as you want,'' Cagney said, ''but sprinkle the goodies for laughs here and there. 'Cause anything they can laugh at, they can't hate.''

David Hajdu adds that 

Cagney drew upon his fighting experience to become a dancer. ''Fighters I admired'' were ''all the epitome of grace,'' Cagney explained. ''That is what got me into dancing. I learned how to dance from learning how to fight.''

Nothing but praise, then, for the author, John McCabe (''This is the actor I most admired. Revered.''), who has also written some definitive biographies on Laurel and Hardy (Stan and Babe), both as a team and individually, and who was friends with both Laurel and Cagney.

One has no choice, however, but to admit that Wilborn Hampton is far off the mark when he praises "the excellent indexes and appendixes", in view of the extent to which the editing leaves a lot to be desired.

Two of Jimmy Cagney's brothers (in his tight-knit Irish family), Edward and Harry, are listed in the index as appearing on pages 10 and 36 and pages 32 and 36, respectively, although both also appear on pages 166, 171, 227, 239-240, 275, 283 (Edward alone), 289 (Harry alone), 310, 326, and 327.

Oliver Hardy does not appear in the index at all, although he is mentioned at least four times in the book. 

And one actor's name is spelled differently every time his name is mentioned (including in the index, where one of his mentions likewise is not listed): Jack Halloran, Jack Hollaran, and Jack Holloran.

That can't be ascribed to the author, though. 

Editing. Proof-reading. And fact-checking. Those are the editor's jobs. (Who knows? Maybe the Kindle edition has addressed those problems…)

Nazi Caroling: The Extremes Hitler Wanted to Go To in Order to Replace Christianity with the “Religion” of National Socialism

EDITOR'S NOTE (4 paragraphs): In view of Ed Driscoll's multi-hyperlink post on How Nazis Stole Christmas & Turned Adolf Hitler into Messiah, I am again calling on Google to Immediately Un-Ban No Pasarán's Posts on the Nazis' (Hostile) Attitude Towards the Christian Religion — the oldest one of which I am choosing to reprint below.

It has been two and a half months since, without the slightest explanation, Google's Blogger blocked four posts, all of them at least seven (!) years old (one of which, however, was restored within 24 hours). The three which remain censored are:
• 卐mas Caroling: The Extremes Hitler Wanted to Go To in Order to Replace Christianity with the “Religion” of National Socialism (September 2012) • Adolf Hitler in Religious Surroundings: Is There Really Evidence That the Führer Was a Christian? (December 2012) • By laying the crusades at the feet of Christianity, Obama was unwittingly laying ISIL's atrocities at Islam's feet  (December 2015)

The content of all these posts is supported by facts — hard, cold facts. It is quite clear that there is not a single paragraph, sentence, or word in any of these posts (or in any part of the blog — which turned 18 last spring — or, for that matter, in any part of my brain and soul) that is in any way admiring of Hitler, Nazism, or fascism, as well as any other type of tyranny (not excluding communism — which may perhaps turn out to be the real problem in this case).

The first of these posts remained on the internet for exactly ten years (!): I am now proceeding to reprint the September 2012 post verbatim (except for the title where the X in Xmas is no longer replaced by the Swastika — which is what one reader (David Foster) says might have started the censorship).

Update: On Christmas Day 2022, Google restored the original post! Danke!

卐mas Caroling: The Extremes Hitler Wanted to Go To in Order to Replace Christianity with the “Religion” of National Socialism

You undoubtedly know the rumor — commonly accepted as uncontroversial truth — that while Soviet tyranny was atheistic, its German equivalent was based on such traditional aspects of capitalist society as traditional religion (a rumor undoubtedly nourished — and that, entirely plausibly, it must be admitted — by Nazism's persecution of the Jewish minority). (Aktualisierung: Danke für die Linke, Glenn Reynolds, Ed Driscoll, Sarah Hoyt, und der blog Instapundit.)

The alleged link between Christianity and Nazism is quickly debunked by a few seconds' thought. Think about it, indeed: how many times, in how many World War II books, in how many documentaries with 1940s footage, have you seen pictures — whether fake poses deliberately prepared for propaganda purposes or simply "innocent", matter-of-fact news shots — of Adolf Hitler or any high-level Nazi official in silent (Christian or other) prayer?  Hands joined and/or eyes closed with head down?

How many times have you seen photos of Hitler, Himmler, Göring, Goebbels, or any SS member seated in a pew or even simply appearing inside a church?

That's right, it's like snapshots, or films, of ostriches sticking their necks in the sand: there ain't any.

Pictures of Nazis honoring traditional religion and religious traditions simply do not seem to exist.

(Unless, of course, the presence of the high-level Nazi inside or in front of a given church has nothing to do with religion per se.  For instance, there may exist photos of der Führer in front of the Sacré-Cœur cathedral — just like when he poses at the Trocadéro with the Eiffel Tower in the background — but that is as a tourist visiting a foreign capital or, rather, as a war leader visiting a defeated city.)

Now, should the need for more confirmation really exist, we have the 75 Years Ago section of the International Herald Tribune.

It is edifying — to say the least.

1937 — ‘Neo-Pagans’ Target Carols

BERLIN — De-Christianization of famous German Christmas hymns, such as “Silent Night, Holy Night,” is the outstanding contribution to the current holiday season of the rapidly spreading German faith movement or “religion” of National Socialism. In the new versions of the old songs reference to Nazi tenets of race, blood and soil replace familiar words concerning Christ, Child and the like. The accepted English translation of Mohr’s “Silent Night,” stanza three lines two and three is: “The Son of God loves pure light, radiant beams from thy Holy faith.” Equivalent lines in the Nazified version are “German blood, O how laugh the lips of thy children, blessed with joy.”

Of course, another reason a Nazi leader might meet with a religious leader might be for reasons of diplomacy with an ally — but again, no pictures seem to exist with any Catholic priest or Protestant preacher, German or foreign.

As it happens, this photo and this video seem to show the only time Adolf Hitler has met any religious leader of note.

Update: Adolf Hitler in Religious Surroundings: Is There Really Evidence That the Führer Was a Christian? — an in-depth, dispassionate look at the evidence brought by a couple of commenters claiming that Christianity was an integral part of Nazism…

Update 2: Worshipping Little Else But the Aryan Race, Hitler Abhorred the Christian Faith and Wanted to Replace Christmas with the Pagans' Yule

Related: • Jonah Goldberg: Just for the record, Hitler detested Christianity

• Ray Comfort, whose “Hitler, God and the Bible” points out Hitler devised a master strategy to crush all Christian churches, explains that it would be either ignorant or disingenuous to call Hitler a Christian:

In a special Christian Broadcasting Network program, Comfort cites the head of Hitler Youth, Boldur von Schirach, who said, “Destruction of Christianity was explicitly recognized as a purpose of the National Socialist Movement.”

 … The CBN program explains how Hitler put on a religious, even Christian, façade, until he became powerful.

 … But later one of his inner circle acknowledged: “I’m absolutely clear in my own mind, and I think I can speak for the Fuhrer as well, that both the Catholic and Protestant churches will vanish from the life of our people.”

Update 3: How Hitler's Nazi propaganda machine tried to take Christ out of Christmas (danke zu Ed Driscoll)

 … the way Christmas was used by the atheist Nazis, who tried to turn it into a pagan winter solstice celebration.

 … 'Christmas was a provocation for the Nazis - after all, the baby Jesus was a Jewish child,' Judith Breuer told the German newspaper Spiegel. 'The most important celebration in the year didn't fit with their racist beliefs so they had to react, by trying to make it less Christian.'

The exhibition includes swastika-shaped cookie-cutters and Christmas tree baubles shaped like Iron Cross medals.

The Nazis attempted to persuade housewives to bake cookies in the shape of swastikas, and they replaced the Christian figure of Saint Nicholas, who traditionally brings German children treats on December 6, with the Norse god Odin.

The symbol that posed a particular problem for the Nazis was the star, which traditionally decorates Christmas trees.

 … The is a legacy of the Nazi Christmas. The wartime version of the traditional Christmas carol 'Unto us a time has come' is still sung. 'The Nazis took out the references to Jesus and made it into a song about walking through the snow,' Breuer said.

Surprisingly, German churches put up little opposition to the Nazification of Christmas. 'You would have expected them to protest loudly and insist that it was a Christian festival,' said Breuer. 'But instead they largely kept quiet, out of fear.'

Update 4: "Out With Jesus" — During His 12 Years in Power, Hitler Tried to Ban the Tradition of Christmas