Fighting Ignorance - 'What is Genocide'
Buckdog has had first hand experience in the last few days dealing with ignorance on the meaning of the Holocaust and genocide. We took exception on Friday to a thread on the Canadian Taxpayers Federation blogsite (which has now disappeared). Discussion continued on Buckdog and we still have a blogger contributing his ignorance to the reasons why the Holocaust cannot - should not and will not be diminished. For the ignorant, take a moment and get informed by reading the following excerpt which we thank the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum for providing:
What is Genocide?
The term "genocide," which did not exist before 1944, is a very specific term, referring to massive crimes committed against groups. Human rights, as laid out in the U.S. Bill of Rights or the 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, concern the rights of individuals.
In 1944, a Polish-Jewish lawyer named Raphael Lemkin (1900-1959) sought to describe Nazi policies of systematic murder, including the destruction of European Jewry. He formed the word "genocide" by combining geno-, from the Greek word for race or tribe, with -cide, from the Latin word for killing. In proposing this new term, Lemkin had in mind "a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves." The next year, the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg charged top Nazis with "crimes against humanity." The word “genocide” was included in the indictment, but as a descriptive, not legal, term.
On December 9, 1948, in the shadow of the Holocaust and in no small part due to the tireless efforts of Lemkin himself, the United Nations approved the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. This convention establishes "genocide” as an international crime, which signatory nations “undertake to prevent and punish.” It defines genocide as:
[G]enocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
* Killing members of the group;
* Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
* Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring
about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
* Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
* Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
While many cases of group-targeted violence have occurred throughout history and even since the Convention came into effect, the legal and international development of the term is concentrated into two distinct historical periods: the time from the coining of the term until its acceptance as international law (1944–1948) and the time of its activation with the establishment of international criminal tribunals to prosecute the crime of genocide (1991–1998). Preventing genocide, the other major obligation of the convention, remains a challenge that nations and individuals continue to face.
With thanks to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
http://www.ushmm.org/conscience/history/
What is Genocide?
The term "genocide," which did not exist before 1944, is a very specific term, referring to massive crimes committed against groups. Human rights, as laid out in the U.S. Bill of Rights or the 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, concern the rights of individuals.
In 1944, a Polish-Jewish lawyer named Raphael Lemkin (1900-1959) sought to describe Nazi policies of systematic murder, including the destruction of European Jewry. He formed the word "genocide" by combining geno-, from the Greek word for race or tribe, with -cide, from the Latin word for killing. In proposing this new term, Lemkin had in mind "a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves." The next year, the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg charged top Nazis with "crimes against humanity." The word “genocide” was included in the indictment, but as a descriptive, not legal, term.
On December 9, 1948, in the shadow of the Holocaust and in no small part due to the tireless efforts of Lemkin himself, the United Nations approved the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. This convention establishes "genocide” as an international crime, which signatory nations “undertake to prevent and punish.” It defines genocide as:
[G]enocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
* Killing members of the group;
* Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
* Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring
about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
* Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
* Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
While many cases of group-targeted violence have occurred throughout history and even since the Convention came into effect, the legal and international development of the term is concentrated into two distinct historical periods: the time from the coining of the term until its acceptance as international law (1944–1948) and the time of its activation with the establishment of international criminal tribunals to prosecute the crime of genocide (1991–1998). Preventing genocide, the other major obligation of the convention, remains a challenge that nations and individuals continue to face.
With thanks to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
http://www.ushmm.org/conscience/history/
Out of curiousity, were you dropped on your head when you were young?
Posted by
Anonymous |
9:13 am, May 10, 2006
You really should consider some post secondary education; I would recommend some classes in political science and history. You are really starting to embarrass yourself here now - (it is obvious to everyone who reads your posts). If you aren't going to pursue some higher education, then I urge you to apply for employment with the CTF!!
Posted by
leftdog |
9:40 am, May 10, 2006
Your 'Zundel facts' and 'Keegstra facts' are SO extreme they are almost funny (if they weren't so pathetic dm).
Posted by
leftdog |
9:58 am, May 10, 2006
With all of the EXTREME nonsense you have been spewing here, you have done a pretty good job of putting yourself on the same page as Zundel. You are also digging yourself in deeper and deeper. A wise man/woman knows when to get out of an argument. "You cannot save both your ass and your face at the same time."
Posted by
leftdog |
1:25 pm, May 10, 2006
Haven't your employers fired you over there yet? (you KNOW of what I speak) hahaha
Posted by
leftdog |
5:00 pm, May 10, 2006
UPDATE:
The persons posting on this thread as 'moneybags4me' was eventually disclosed to be DAVID MACLEAN ... employee of the CTF and the person who put the offending post on the CTF site in the first place.
AFter being exposed, Mr. MacLean eventually had to leave the Canadian Taxpayers Federation!!
What a fraud!!!
Posted by
leftdog |
11:30 pm, December 30, 2008