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1/1024
Author: TriSec    Date: 10/20/2018 10:16:21

Good Morning.

It's been a bit of time now since Senator Warren released the results of her DNA testing. Somewhat out-of-context, here is the official Presidential Response to that:


"Pocahontas (the bad version), sometimes referred to as Elizabeth Warren, is getting slammed," Trump tweeted of his potential 2020 challenger.

"She took a bogus DNA test and it showed that she may be 1/1024, far less than the average American. Now Cherokee Nation denies her, "DNA test is useless." Even they don't want her. Phony!" Trump said.



I don't know about you, but from where I sit, ancestry isn't that big a deal among political candidates. We've just had a local special election here in Waltham for an open City Council seat (I did not run). The winner is Waltham's first elected African-American Councilor....and nobody even blinked.

Waltham's elections are officially non-partisan, but of course we're deep in Blue Massachusetts, so you do the math.

Percentages of ancestry seem to matter only to the GOP. It's just another one of the many things they grasp upon to divide us. Elizabeth Warren being a "fake Indian" has no political purpose, and in a normal world, such accusations would carry no weight.

But this is Trumpistan, and all bets are off. Anything and Everything that can be used as a wedge will be driven between any group of people to separate them. It's an ancient technique..."divide and conquer", that has been seen repeatedly since ancient times.


Divide and rule (from Latin dīvide et imperā), or divide and conquer, in politics and sociology is gaining and maintaining power by breaking up larger concentrations of power into pieces that individually have less power than the one implementing the strategy. The concept refers to a strategy that breaks up existing power structures, and especially prevents smaller power groups from linking up, causing rivalries and fomenting discord among the people. It was heavily used by British Empire in India and elsewhere.

Traiano Boccalini cites "divide et impera" in La bilancia politica as a common principle in politics. The use of this technique is meant to empower the sovereign to control subjects, populations, or factions of different interests, who collectively might be able to oppose his rule. Machiavelli identifies a similar application to military strategy, advising in Book VI of The Art of War (Dell'arte della guerra), that a Captain should endeavor with every art to divide the forces of the enemy, either by making him suspicious of his men in whom he trusted, or by giving him cause that he has to separate his forces, and, because of this, become weaker.

The maxim divide et impera has been attributed to Philip II of Macedon, and together with the maxim divide ut regnes was utilised by the Roman ruler Caesar and the French emperor Napoleon.


But that's not even what I find most disturbing about this entire affair. Again, while I may not care what percentage "Correct" your ancestors were, vast swaths of the electorate apparently do. It took me several days to track down the research, but you should be well aware that a certain Teutonic Regime of the early 20th century actually codified their ancestry requirements regarding what they considered "pure"...and very nearly exterminated an entire race of peoples based on those principles.


On 11 April 1933 the regime promulgated the First Supplementary Decree for the Execution of the Law of Restoration of the Professional Civil Service, colloquially known as the First Racial Definition. This implementing decree stipulated that a person would be regarded as a racial Jew for purposes of the law if he had one Jewish parent or one Jewish grandparent, i.e. if the ancestor was "of the Jewish faith."

Under the law, Jews were to be discharged from the civil service, unless they had been employed since before World War I or unless they had fought on the front lines in the war, or had a father or son who had been killed in the war.

The "one Jewish grandparent" rule was predominant for a period of time in the Third Reich, and had typically been the test incorporated into the Aryan Paragraph, which had been in currency before Hitler's assumption of power on 30 January 1933. However, various social and political factions militated in favor of a new set of discriminatory laws, which were forthcoming at the NSDAP party rally in 1935 in Nuremberg.

The Nuremberg Laws, as originally promulgated in September 1935, used the term "Jew" but did not define the term. The definition of the term was problematic for the Nazis and it was not until the issuance of a supplementary regulation in mid-November 1935 that a legal test that was specific to the Nuremberg laws was formally published.

The original draftsmen of the Nuremberg Laws, puzzled over the problem and pressed for a quick solution, solved it by the simple expedient of limiting the meaning of the term to encompass only "full Jews" (German: Volljuden). This test was relatively easy to state and apply, but Hitler vetoed the idea, without stipulating what he wanted as a replacement.

Meetings among Government and Party officials after the September 1933 annual Nuremberg party rally revealed the existence of two factions:

the radicals, generally non-government party officials, who wanted a broad meaning of the term "Jew," with the concomitant effect of a stricter standard for having "German blood." Their focus was ideological and their justification was the extreme Hitlerian rhetoric of the last ten years. The radicals wanted "quarter-Jews" classified as "Jews": a person with one Jewish grandparent would be deemed "Jewish." Persons with less Jewish ancestry would be considered "Mischlinge."

the pragmatists, generally government officials, who were concerned with foreign policy and international implications, including possible economic sanctions at a time that the economy of Nazi Germany was still fragile. Their view was that only persons with three or four Jewish grandparents would be classified as "Jewish," with others considered "Mischlinge."

Obviously there was a considerable divergence of opinion. The resulting compromise was implemented by the First Supplementary Decree. The practical application of "mischling" first and second degree were further elaborated in the Wannsee Conferences and meetings on the "final solution".


Every dictatorship begins with baby steps...it's the old "frog in the pot" conundrum once again. It's getting warmer in here.




 
 

2 comments (Latest Comment: 10/21/2018 00:14:10 by BobR)
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