Dieses Blog durchsuchen

Posts mit dem Label Menschenrechte Vorläufer Debatten werden angezeigt. Alle Posts anzeigen
Posts mit dem Label Menschenrechte Vorläufer Debatten werden angezeigt. Alle Posts anzeigen

Sonntag, 2. September 2018

Neue alte Einflüsse in Bayern

"Eingebaute natürliche Eugenik"
Von der Webseite "Bayern ist frei",
Rubrik "Christentum"


"Gegen Menschenrechts-Dogmatismus und überbordende EU-Regelungskompetenzen zu opponieren, kann kaum falsch sein. Gegenüber unseren katholischen Freunden möchten wir zu bedenken geben, dass wir ein Dysgenik-Problem haben. Nach der Kindersterblichkeit und Armut sind Abtreibungen fast das einzige, was der Dysgenik (d.h. verstärkten Ausbreitung lebensuntauglicher Genome) noch entgegenwirkt. Frühere Gesellschaften hatten eingebaute natürliche Eugenik, und das Christentum wirkte dieser stets entgegen, was nicht besonders konservativ (volkserhaltend) aber bis ca 1800 auch nicht weiter gefährlich war. Die natürliche Eugenik ermöglichte zusammen mit anderen Kräften den zivilisatorischen Fortschritt, der Europa auszeichnete und zu dem das Christentum entscheidendes beitrug. Richard Lynn warnt in dem sehr fundierten Buch Dysgenik, dass die Erkenntnisse der Eugeniker des 19.-20. Jahrhunderts im wesentlichen richtig und wichtig waren und dass sie erst in jüngster Zeit sich besonders bedrohlich bewahrheiten."


"Bayern ist -frei" - auch in Gaststätten und Hotels"


https://bayernistfrei.com/tag/christentum/

Samstag, 28. Januar 2017

Malala appelliert an Trump

Trump executive order leaves Malala ‘heartbroken’

Colin Campbell
Jan. 28, 2017  

Pakistani Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai addresses delegates at a London conference on Syria in 2016. (Photo)

Malala Yousafzai, the youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, on Friday condemned President Trump’s executive order establishing new vetting measures for immigrants.
“I am heartbroken that today President Trump is closing the door on children, mothers and fathers fleeing violence and war,” Yousafzai said. “I am heartbroken that America is turning its back on a proud history of welcoming refugees and immigrants — the people who helped build your country, ready to work hard in exchange for a fair chance at a new life.”
Yousafzai, 19, issued the statement at about the same time that Trump announced his latest executive orders, including one that reportedly will suspend the U.S. refugee program for 120 days. The text of the order was not immediately available.
According to CNN, drafts of the order also bar “all persons from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Somalia or Yemen from entering the United States for 30 days.” ...

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-executive-order-leaves-malala-heartbroken-224304286.html#comments


Erster Kommentar dazu
Helpful Dan 12 hours ago
If they want sharia law it should be an automatic ticket home.

 

Dafür gab es innerhalb von 12 Stunden 1527 Likes
Die zahlreichen anderen Kommentare gehen ganz überwiegend in die gleiche Richtung.
 
Den meisten Lesern, zumindest den Kommentatoren, scheint gar nicht klar zu sein, wer Malala ist, und sie halten sich auch nicht damit auf, dies im Artikel nachzulesen. Sie halten Malala, die als Schülerin in Pakistan ein gegen sie gerichtetes Taliban-Attentat überlebte, für eine Vertreterin von Sharia-Gesetzen, Taliban-Herrschaft und Terrorismus. Mit ihrer Kritik an Trumps Initiative, die Einreise von Personen aus Ländern mit überwiegend muslimischer Bevölkerung pauschal nicht zuzulassen, wollen sie sich nicht auseinander setzen.
 
Ein vielsagendes und besorgniserregendes Stimmungsbild aus Trumps Amerika.


_____

Malala condemns Donald Trump call for Muslim ban in US

  • 16 December 2015
Malala Yousafzai has condemned a call by US presidential hopeful Donald Trump to ban Muslims from entering the US.
The Nobel Prize winner said his comments were "full of hatred" and blaming Muslims for terrorism would only "radicalise more terrorists".

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-35109350



______

Mit ständigem Widerspruch konfrontiert, resignieren wir erschöpft – und offensichtlich Falsches schleicht sich zunächst in den Bereich des Denkbaren und dann in den Bereich des Faktischen. Ist dieser Mechanismus erst einmal etabliert, fällt es leicht, auch bei größeren Themen zu lügen. Zum Beispiel: "Alle Muslime sind kriminell" – und plötzlich fangen wir an, uns über Kriminalitätsstatistiken zu streiten, anstatt die Errungenschaft zu verteidigen, dass Verdacht aufgrund von Geburt oder Religion keinen Platz in einer Demokratie hat. ...

Wenn ich Ihnen sage: "Der Himmel ist grün", dann ist es gar nicht so sehr mein Ziel, dass Sie mir auf Anhieb glauben. Mein Ziel ist es vielmehr, so häufig zu behaupten, der Himmel sei grün, bis Ihre Ressourcen, den Widerspruch auszuhalten, erschöpft sind und Sie einlenken und sagen: "Das ist Ihre Meinung. Ich denke, der Himmel ist blau. Es gibt wohl keine Möglichkeit, die Farbe des Himmels objektiv festzustellen." ...

Die neuen rechten Regierungen und Parteien zwingen demokratische Gesellschaften derzeit dazu, den Kampf um bereits ausgefochtene Werte noch einmal zu führen. Diesen Kampf zu verlieren wäre schlicht fatal.

Aus
"Alternative Fakten": Keine Macht der Lüge
Die Methoden der neuen US-Regierung ähneln jenen aus der UdSSR. Wir dürfen uns nicht auf sie einlassen.
 

Sonntag, 20. September 2015

Feindbild "Armutsflüchtlinge"


Es gibt zwei Sorten Ratten:
Die hungrigen und satten.
Die satten bleiben vergnügt zu Haus,
Die hungrigen aber wandern aus
.
 Sie wandern viel tausend Meilen,
Ganz ohne Rasten und Weilen,
Gradaus in ihrem grimmigen Lauf,
Nicht Wind noch Wetter hält sie auf
.
 Sie klimmen wohl über die Höhen,
Sie schwimmen wohl durch die Seen;
Gar manche ersäuft oder bricht das Genick,
Die lebenden lassen die Toten zurück.
...
So eine wilde Ratze,
Die fürchtet nicht Hölle, nicht Katze;
Sie hat kein Gut, sie hat kein Geld
Und wünscht aufs neue zu teilen die Welt.

Die Wanderratten, o wehe!
Sie sind schon in der Nähe.
Sie rücken heran, ich höre schon
Ihr Pfeifen - die Zahl ist Legion.
 
O wehe! wir sind verloren,
Sie sind schon vor den Toren!
Der Bürgermeister und Senat,
Sie schütteln die Köpfe, und keiner weiß Rat.

Heinrich Heine

 
 

Hass im Netz: Dagegen halten, Mund aufmachen

Im ARD-Kommentar (NDR) fordert Anja Reschke mehr Gegenwehr bei rassistischen Äußerungen im Internet. Einige Zitate aus ihrem Kommentar:


"Auf Sätze wie „Dreckspack, sollten mehr ersaufen“ bekommen sie auch noch begeisterten Zuspruch und eine Menge Likes."
"Die Hasstiraden im Internet haben ja längst gruppendynamische Prozesse ausgelöst. Die Zahl der rechstextremen Gewalttaten ist gestiegen."
"Wenn man also nicht der Meinung ist, dass alle Flüchtlinge Schmarotzer sind, die verbrannt, verjagt oder vergast werden sollten , dann sollte man das ganz deutlich kund tun, dagegen halten …"


Videoclip und Zuschauer-Kommentare auf
http://www.sueddeutsche.de/medien/ihr-forum-reschke-kommentar-lassen-wir-rassisten-zu-sehr-gewaehren-1.2599494                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    
 
 
Aus einer Besprechung in der SZ:
Ressentiments gegenüber den sogenannten Armutsflüchtlingen, von denen sich viele, nicht nur Hardliner, wünschen, dass sie unser Land auf schnellstem Weg wieder verlassen, werden von der gegenwärtigen Politik nicht etwa hinterfragt, sondern oft sogar verstärkt. Etwa durch die CSU, die
schon Anfang 2014 eine sachlich kaum zu begründende Kampagne gegen Einwanderer aus den EU-Ländern Rumänien und Bulgarien startete und zuletzt spezielle Abschiebelager für Flüchtlinge vom Westbalkan ankündigte.


Damit werden Stimmungen geschürt, von denen die CSU in Form von Wählerstimmen profitieren will, durch die sich aber auch Hassschreiber ermuntert fühlen. Vielleicht hätte [Fernsehjournalistin] Anja Reschke gut daran getan, in ihrem Appell [gegen Fremdenhass] auch die bayerische Regierungspartei direkt anzusprechen. Deren Vertreter bedienen sich mit ihren geplanten Lagern einer rassistischen Symbolik - und die trägt zu dem von Reschke kritisierten Klima von Missgunst und Ablehnung bei.

Aus:
Ressentiments gegen Armutsflüchtlinge
Paul Katzenberger
Süddeutsche Zeitung, 7.8.2015        
http://www.sueddeutsche.de/kultur/ressentiments-gegen-armutsfluechtlinge-viel-zu-tun-fuer-die-anstaendigen-1.2598358

 
_______


#230 verfassung1871   (20. Sep 2015 09:22)  

*Angela Merkel´s Abschiedsbrief (Selbstmord) an Deutschland*
Merkel: Deutschland muss „entdeutscht“ werden. Deutschland gehört nicht den Deutschen. *_Deutschlands Selbstmord_*? *_Kanadischer Journalist erklärt Merkels grenzenlosen Einwanderungsaufruf mit Merkels Nationaler Psychotherapie_*. [...]
Ich gehe davon aus, das Merkel keine Alkoholikerin ist.
Jedoch Ihr Selbsthass auf die Deutschen wegen den 30er und 40er Jahren und die Bedingslose Aufgabe Unserer Zukunft mit der Zuwanderung von 1.000.000 muslimischer Männer, scheint Ihren Selbsthass auf Deutschland aufzugeilen. […]
Der kanadische Journalist Ezra Isaac Levant berichtet über Angela Merkels Antworten auf kritische Fragen zur inneren Sicherheit. […]Levant spricht von einer Art nationaler Psychotherapie, einer ethnischen Strafe, Selbsthass und dem Entschluss, sich selbst auszulöschen wegen dessen, was Deutschland in den 1930ern und 1940ern war.Quelle: Deutschlands Selbstmord? Kanadischer Journalist erklärt Merkels grenzenlosen Einwanderungsaufruf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=8&v=sCWIv2z4HKw


Zur Psychiatrisierung politisch unerwünschter Entscheidungen durch Bewegungen der Neuen Rechten s. auch Stichwort "Lyle Rossiter"; auf diesem Blog auf http://guttmensch.blogspot.com/2011/07/ja-gutmenschen-ist-tatsachlich-die.html 




„Für uns alle ist die Zeit gekommen, Hass und Bigotterie abzuweisen – gegen jede Gruppe.“
Aus einer Anzeige des Kanadischen Jüdischen Komitees für Humanitäre Angelegenheiten
und Nothilfe in der kanadischen National Post.
Das Komitee richtete sich mit dieser Zeitungsanzeige gegen eine Hasstirade des
rechtsextremen Publizisten Ezra Levant, "The Jew vs. the Gypsies“
(„Der Jude gegen die Zigeuner“).
Levant hatte damit sein Judentum in Stellung gebracht,
um gegen Sinti und Roma zu hetzen, ohne sich dem Vorwurf auszusetzen,
er mache es den Nazi-Propagandisten nach.



Über Ezra Levant (s.o.; Lob bei PI):
Karriere als neu-rechter Meinungsmacher nach einem Praktikum im „Koch Summer Fellow Program“

Aus Wikipedia
(engl.; aus Zeitgründen ohne Übersetzung; gekürzt)
Ezra Isaac Levant (born 1972) is a Jewish-Canadian media personality, conservative political activist, lawyer, writer and broadcaster. […] In February 2015, he founded The Rebel Media website and YouTube channel and is its main contributor.
He has become involved in several legal and other controversies on free speech issues. Other issues that he has dealt with include multiculturalism, immigration, and economic deregulation. Levant has been successfully sued for libel on two separate occasions, while apologies and retractions were issued by him or on his behalf on three other occasions. […]
He spent the summer of 1994 in Washington, D.C., in an internship arranged by the libertarian Koch Summer Fellow Program. He worked for the Fraser Institute in 1995, writing Youthquake, which argued for smaller government, including privatization of the Canada Pension Plan. Levant saw "youthquake", the term he used to describe what he identified as a conservative youth movement of the 1990s, as similar to the 1960s civil rights movement except that instead of being enslaved by racism, his generation was "enslaved by debt" and, in order to liberate itself, society needed to dismantle elements such as trade unions, the minimum wage, universal health care, subsidized tuition and public pension plans. […]
In 2004 Levant co-founded the failed Western Standard, an Alberta-based magazine with an emphasis on Western Canada and political conservatism. […]
In February 2006, the Western Standard published the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons depicting Muhammad. Syed Soharwardy of the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada and the Edmonton Council of Muslim Communities complained about the publication to the Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission and a hearing was scheduled for January 2008. On the day of the hearing Levant republished the cartoons on his website. […]
From 2009 until 2010, Levant worked as a lobbyist for Rothman's Incorporated, a manufacturer and distributor of tobacco products. Levant has also worked as a lobbyist for the Alberta oil & gas industry, specifically for Achieve Energy Services Limited Partnership. […]
In March 2010, Levant accompanied fellow U.S. conservative personality Ann Coulter on a Canadian speaking tour. […]
In 1998, Levant wrote a Reform Party fundraising letter in which he criticized Alberta Progressive Conservative Senator Ron Ghitter. Ghitter sued for defamation and in 2000, Canadian Alliance MP Rob Anders and Levant admitted liability and issued a formal apology and undisclosed damages to settle the suit. […]
In September 2010, Levant wrote a column for Sun Media accusing George Soros of funding avaaz.org, a group lobbying to stop Sun Media being granted a license for Sun TV News Channel, and strongly attacking Soros's character and history by alleging that as a child he collaborated with the Nazis. Soros threatened to sue Sun Media for libel and on September 18, Sun Media issued a retraction and apology to Soros. […]
Ezra Levant was successfully sued for libel by attorney Khurrum Awan. According to his statement of claim and records of court proceedings, Awan claimed that Levant's blog writings had repeatedly described him as being: "Khurrum Awan the liar", "stupid, a “fool", “serial, malicious, money-grubbing liar,”, “unequivocally implied that he was an anti-Semite and perjurer.” Awan states that Levant also stated that Awan believes it is permissible to lie to further the cause of Islam. […]
In her judgement against Levant, Judge Wendy Matheson of Ontario Superior Court ruled there is “ample evidence before me demonstrating express malice on the part of [Mr. Levant],” especially the fact he “did little or no fact-checking regarding the posts complained of, either before or after their publication.” She found “that [Mr. Levant’s] dominant motive in these blog posts was ill will, and that his repeated failure to take even basic steps to check his facts showed a reckless disregard for the truth.” […]
On September 5, 2012, Levant broadcast a commentary that he titled "The Jew vs. the Gypsies" on The Source, in which he accused the Romani people as a group of being criminals. Levant said, "These are gypsies, a culture synonymous with swindlers. The phrase gypsy and cheater have been so interchangeable historically that the word has entered the English language as a verb: he gypped me. Gypsies are not a race. They’re a shiftless group of hobos. They rob people blind. Their chief economy is theft and begging. For centuries these roving highway gangs have mocked the law and robbed their way across Europe."[…]
Bernie Farber, former CEO of the Canadian Jewish Congress, Holocaust survivor Nate Leipciger and Avrum Rosensweig of Ve’ahavta: The Canadian Jewish Humanitarian and Relief Committee published an op-ed in the National Post which condemned Levant's commentary as a "contemptible screed" and argued that "[t]he time has come for all of us to reject hate and bigotry — against any group". […]
Writing in the Toronto Star, Haroon Siddiqui reported that Csanyi-Robah claimed that the police and crown attorney had recommended hate charges be laid against Levant under the hate speech provisions in Section 319 of the Criminal Code of Canada. However, in a subsequent meeting, Csanyi-Robah and another individual claimed that the Attorney-General of Ontario's office declined to lay charges because of fears that the trial would become a "bit of a [media] circus". […]
On January 23, 2013, Levant showed video of a protest that had occurred in front of the Sun News office in Toronto in which protesters objected to the Sun's coverage of the Idle No More movement. Levant replayed the clip on a subsequent show and proceeded to identify one couple by name claiming that they were "professional protesters." The couple subsequently contacted Sun to complain that it was not them in the clip, that they had not attended the protest nor even been in Toronto at the time and then complained to the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council when the Sun did not correct their story. "The CBSC’s National Specialty Services Panel concluded that Sun News Network breached Clause 6 of the CAB Code of Ethics for including inaccurate information in the talk show. […]
In 1996, Levant worked with David Frum to organize the "Winds of Change" conference in Calgary, an early attempt to encourage the Reform Party of Canada and Progressive Conservative Party of Canada to merge so that a united rightwing party could defeat the Liberal Party of Canada in the subsequent election. While unsuccessful, the conference anticipated future attempts at a Unite the Right movement which ultimately led to the formation of the Conservative Party of Canada in 2003. […]
Levant has called himself a libertarian, saying he is "basically someone who believes in freedom," although he says he is more "mainstream conservative" when it comes to social issues and foreign affairs. […]
In July 2008, Levant was invited to be a witness before the U.S. Congressional Human Rights Caucus "about the threat posed by radical Islam using Western legal mechanisms as weapons". [...]
In a column on the eve of the 2012 Presidential election, Levant wrote: "America is resilient. But four more years of Obama will change that country deeply — and not for the better." He urged readers to oppose President Obama's reelection. In the article, Levant stated about Obama's trips to Israel that, "alone amongst modern presidents he has not visited Israel during his presidency." Writer Chris Selley accused Levant of "making up one of his patented 'facts'" and noted afterwards, referring to a Washington Post article, that, in fact, the majority of the American presidents since the foundation of Israel have not visited during their presidency, with only Clinton and Carter visiting during their first terms. Levant predicted a Romney victory […]
Levant is a fierce critic of the Alberta Human Rights Commission […]
On January 20, 2013 Idle No More protesters confronted Ezra Levant at the Toronto Sun office as part of a larger protest against Sunmedia. They claimed Sun Media and Levant had a racist agenda […] Levant responded to protesters saying he supports reforming the Indian Act, which he called racist. Levant later said the protesters were a 'rent a mob' who were paid to attend any protest. […]

Bibliography [edit]
Youthquake. Fraser Institute. 1996. ISBN 0-88975-167-6.
Fight Kyoto: The plan to protect our economy. Essence Publishing. 2002. ISBN 1-55306-546-8.
The War On Fun. Western Standard. 2005. ISBN 0-9739541-0-8.
Shakedown: How our government is undermining democracy in the name of human rights. McLelland & Stewart. 2009. ISBN 0-7710-4618-9.
Ethical Oil: The Case for Canada's Oil Sands. McLelland & Stewart. 2010.
ISBN 0-7710-4641-3.
The Enemy Within: Terror, Lies, and the Whitewashing of Omar Khadr. McLelland & Stewart. 2011. ISBN 0-7710-4621-9.


 

Die Brüder Koch, US Milliardäre, deren Stiftungswesen auch Levant zugute kam, beteiligen sich seit Jahrzehnten an der Finanzierung von Lobbyismus für neu-rechte Politikgestaltung.
Siehe z.B. auf diesem Blog:
Erika Ferkel und die Muselfrage: Hassprediger vom "Counterdschihad" kapern den Zukunftsdialog der Bundeskanzlerin; http://guttmensch.blogspot.com/2012/04/hassprediger-vom-counterdschihad-kapern.html
“Tea Party darling Allen West is leaving Florida to become CEO of the Koch-funded National Center for Policy Analysis, a member of the State Policy Network ..”

Südstaaten-Blues; http://guttmensch.blogspot.com/2013/05/sudstaaten-blues.html
„Die Lobby-Gruppe ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) sponserte das “Stand-Your-Ground” Gesetz, wonach es zunächst kein Gerichtsverfahren zur Aufklärung der Tötung von Trayvon Martin geben sollte …“
“ALEC … has also received grants from two Koch family-backed foundations: Charles G. Koch Foundation, the Claude R. Lambe Foundation.”


Sie meinen die Last der Welt zu stemmen; http://guttmensch.blogspot.com/2012/08/romney-und-ryan.html?showComment=1443266520074#c5652695435206071823
“In July 2012, David H. Koch hosted a $50,000-a-person ($75,000 a couple) fundraising dinner for 2012 Republican Party Presidential candidate Mitt Romney …”




Henryk M. Broder äußerte sich ähnlich wie Levant; siehe
http://www.pro-medienmagazin.de/politik/detailansicht/aktuell/broder-erstaunliche-naivitaet-der-kanzlerin-93385/
("Pro Christliches Medienmagazin" - die Marke "Pro" ist offenbar auch in christliche Gemeinden eingedrungen.)
In einem der Leserkommentare wird denn auch das gleiche, von PI empfohlene Video mit Levants Tirade gegen Merkel ("Erzwungene nationale Psychotherapie?") verlinkt.
 

Dienstag, 22. Juli 2014

wären sie zuhause gewesen, wären sie nicht in Gefahr geraten ...


rokopf
  • 20. Juli 2014 23:15 Uhr

  • wären sie zuhause gewesen, wären sie nicht in Gefahr geraten und das mit der SMS hätte zuhause wenn nötig auch noch geklappt.

    Leserkommentar auf ZEIT ONLINE ueber den Tod von vier palaestinensischen Kindern, die in Gaza beim Spielen am Strand durch einen israelischen Bombenangiff getoetet wurden.


         Der Kodex des Tja?

    Das nonchalante "Tja ..." zum Tod Hunderter von Unschuldigen kommt wohl nicht von ungefaehr .
    Es gibt bereits zahlreiche Kommentare von Tja-Sagern, auch auf ZON. Einer berief sich ausdruecklich auf einen gewissen Asa Kasher. Google-Suche ergab, dass es sich bei Kasher um den Verfasser des Ethik-Kodex der israelischen Armee handelt.
    Es ist mir noch nicht gelungen, im Netz eine Originalversion oder volle Uebersetzung ausfindig zu machen. Aber es scheint, dass unter Berufung auf seinen "IDF Code of Ethics" routinemaessig das Schutzschild-Argument herangezogen wird, um guten Gewissens Unbeteiligte zu toeten.
     “Uri Avnery criticised Kasher for arguing in favour of targeted killing [..] on targets where civilians are present or nearby if enemy forces are also known to be present [..]"
    - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asa_Kasher
    “The army […] operated there not only with the backing of the legal opinion of the office of the Military Advocate General, but also on the basis of ethical theory, developed several years ago, that jus-tifes its actions. Prof. Asa Kasher of Tel Aviv University, an Israel Prize laureate in philosophy, is the philosopher who told the IDF that it was possible.”
    - Aus: The philosopher who gave the IDF moral justification in Gaza
    Prof. Asa Kasher: The army operated in accordance with a code of conduct developed for fighting terrorism. Feb. 6, 2009|
    http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/the-philosopher-who-gave-the-idf-moral-justification-in-gaza-1.269527

    Ein Kommentar von mir auf ZEIT ONLINE
    # 110 auf
    http://www.zeit.de/politik/ausland/2014-07/ramallah-fatah-hamas?commentstart=105#cid-3850834



    BloggerMagga
  • 27.07.2014      ZEIT ONLINE
  • http://www.zeit.de/politik/ausland/2014-07/gaza-israel-beschuss-bodenoffensive?commentstart=257#cid-3853793
     
    Perfide Nazi-Vergleiche gehören zum Repertoire des Antisemitismus. Auch deshalb wird die Schwelle, was als Relativieren von Nazi-Verbrechen gelten soll, mit guten Grund sehr niedrig angesetzt.

    Die Gefahr ist aber, dass alles, was aus der Geschichte des Holocaust gelernt werden darf, am Ende nur dieses eine ist: Manchmal müssen Bomben auf die Zivilbevölkerung eben sein, anders geht's nicht.

    Schon Hannah Arendt wurde angegriffen wegen ihrer Beobachtungen über die „Banalität des Bösen“. Als Beobachterin beim Eichmann-Prozess schrieb sie: „Dass eine solche Realitätsferne und Gedankenlosigkeit in einem mehr Unheil anrichten können als alle die dem Menschen innewohnenden bösen Triebe zusammengenommen, das war in der Tat die Lektion, die man in Jerusalem lernen konnte. …“

    „Das menschliche Verhalten hängt viel stärker von äußeren Umständen ab, als wir wahrhaben wollen“, schrieb der Psychologe Philip Zimbardo 2004 in einem Kommentar über den Folterskandal von Abu Ghraib. Zimbardo hatte 1971 mit Studenten das „Stanford Prison Experiment“ durchgeführt. Es war eines von mehreren Experimenten, die zeigten, wie leicht sich normale Leute zu üblen Taten hinreißen ließen. Dies geschah, wenn sie in einer Gruppe nicht mehr als Individuen wahrgenommen wurden oder wenn man sie in eine Situation brachte, in der sie andere Menschen als Feinde oder Objekte sahen.

    Quellen:



  •       27.07.2014
  • 147. Staat und Mensch
    Vielen Dank für Ihr Interesse. Auf die Geopolitik kam ich über die Eugenik, begründet von einem Vetter Darwins, Francis Galton. In Deutschland wurde diese Pseudo-Wissenschaft unter dem Namen Rassenhygiene eingeführt von Galtons Korrespondenzpartner Alfred Plötz. Eugenik-Anhänger in Deutschland und anderswo begrüßten die Einrichtung eines real existierenden Eugenik-Staats auf deutschem Boden. Die Eugenik verband sich mit dem antisemitischen Antibolschewismus; eine katastrophale Mischung.
    Die Geopolitik entstand aus dem Eugenik-Gedanken: Staat/ Volk/ Rasse seien eine Einheit. Der Staat sei wie ein lebendiger Organismus und unterläge biologischen Gesetzen im Sinne des sozialdarwinistischen Mottos „Survival of the Fittest“. Die darauf beruhende deutsche „Lebensraum“-Forderung und alles, was mit dem geopolitischen Institut von Karl Haushofer zu tun hatte, ist natürlich rundum diskreditiert. Die moderne Geopolitik ist quicklebendig, kann zwar Kjellén – auf den auch Haushofer sich berief - als Begründer nicht verleugnen, tut aber so, als sei von dessen Einfluss nur der Name geblieben. Herzl war ein Kind seiner Zeit, beeinflusst von den Ideen der Eugenik und der Geopolitik.
    Ein Staat ist kein biologischer Organismus. Er sollte den Menschen dienen, nicht mehr und nicht weniger.

    Quellen zusammengestellt auf
    # 134 (Kommentar zum gleichen Artikel) auf
    http://www.zeit.de/politik/ausland/2014-07/israel-nahost-konflikt-nouripour?commentstart=129#comments
    http://guttmensch.blogspot.com/2011/03/eugenik-sozialdarwinismus-biopolitik.html
    http://guttmensch.blogspot.com/2011/05/geopolitik-und-eugenik-die-forderung.html


    _____


    03.08.2014

    Maike.64

    "[..] Für Leute wie Sie hat die deutsche Geschichte eine (einfache) Antwort gefunden. Wenn Sie inhaltliche Auseinandersetzungen nicht aushalten, müssen Sie eben "geführt" werden. Leider."
    Antwort auf "Ist das Kind nun tot oder nicht?"  


    _____


    „ … Ich hab einen israelischen Patensohn, der heißt Omer und kämpft gerade in Gaza. Dem wurde in der Schule eingetrichtert, dass ein palästinensischer Kreißsaal eine Waffenschmiede ist – weil sie da ja gepresst werden, die ganzen kleinen Selbstmordattentäter.
    Das kann man so sehen. Ich sehe das nicht so, aber macht mich das schon zum Antisemiten? Es gibt Israelis, die meinen, ja; zum Beispiel mein Patensohn. Das ist traurig, aber was willste machen, da beißt sich die Katze immer wieder in den Schwanz. ..."
    TV Queue __count__/__total__
    _____


    Fragwuerdiger Einsatz des Antisemitismus-Begriffs


    "Eine Ausweitung des Staates Israels würde ich begrüßen. Sollten Gaza, Judäa und Samaria israelisch werden, wäre das Fortschritt für die dort lebenden Menschen. Unter diesen Umständen fände ich sogar einen israelischen Angriffskrieg zwecks Landgewinnung. Warum also die andauernde Kritik am Staate Israel? Es ist Antisemitismus."
    http://couponschneider.blogspot.com/2014/09/p-margin-bottom-0.html

    Siehe auch #67 auf
    http://www.zeit.de/wissen/geschichte/2014-09/nationalsozialismus-vernichtungslager-sobibor-gaskammern-gefunden?commentstart=65#cid-3980806


    _____


    Tundra Tabloids ("islamkritischer" Blog im Stil von weiland Fjordman), Honest Reporting (HR), Richard Landes sind sich einig: Israel wird dämonisiert. Kritik an Israels Umgang mit Palästinensern ist Antisemitismus

    Auszug aus

    The Untold Truth: 150 Million Europeans hate Israel
    July 1, 2013, by Simon Plosker
    Part IIIn the second part of our interview, Gerstenfeld talks further about the contents of his new book Demonizing Israel and the Jews

    HR: Another major source of Israel hatred comes from the extreme Left.
    MG: Indeed, this is addressed for instance by Angelo Pezzana who explains how anti-Israel Italians, primarily extreme leftists, abuse Holocaust memory. Simon Epstein discusses 60 years of French intellectual bias against Israel, giving much attention to the Communists. Ken Sikorski analyzes the Finnish scene, including the Socialists.
    HR: European Socialists and Social Democrats have also manifested strong anti-Israel attitudes.
    MG: The leading Norwegian non-fiction writer, Hanne Nabintu Herland tells about how the “politically correct” hatred of Israel is promoted. She said that the Labor Party plays a major role in turning Norway into the most anti-Semitic country in the West. Ilya Meyer discusses how Sweden’s third largest city Malmo, has become an internationally known hotbed of anti-Semitism. Part of this is due to the previous Labor Party Mayor Ilmar Reepalu, who has made frequent anti-Semitic remarks. Jehudi Kinar, former Israeli Ambassador to Belgium, details anti-Israelism in Belgian socialist parties.
     
    http://tundratabloids.com/europes-dynamite-file



    _____


    BloggerMagga #37  —  22.10.2015

    (Antwort auf #32.12
          auf http://www.zeit.de/politik/ausland/2015-10/israel-intifada-selbstschutz?page=8#comments )

    Den Einsatz eines Ermittlers hatten die IDF selbst im Radio angekündigt und m. W. auch zu keiner Zeit in Zweifel gezogen, dass die Kinder von der israelischen Luftwaffe getötet wurden (s. Link auf 32.11).

    Wenn die IDF hätten ermitteln wollen, wäre es ein Leichtes gewesen, festzustellen, welche Maschine wann an dem betreffenden Ort war, und die Piloten und ihre Vorgesetzten zu befragen. Die beiden Pressefotografen hätten befragt werden können. Und wenn man aus Angst vor Racheaktionen den Ort nicht aufsuchen wollte, hätte man einheimische Augenzeugen z.B. auch schriftlich befragen können.
    Der Ermittler hätte auch über nicht erfolgreiche Ermittlungen berichten können.

    Nichts von alledem. So kann man prima fabulieren ("den die Hamas übrigens präpariert haben könnte und das ein militärisch genutztes Hamas-Sperrgebiet gewesen sein soll in dem "Kinder" überhaupt nichts zu suchen gehabt hätten") .

    Die Journalistin Mira Bar Hillel, die zynische Sprüche kritisierte, wurde als Antisemitin und "selbst-hassende Jüdin" beschimpft (z.B. "Self-loathing pig of a woman. Hope she winds up playing bridge with Helen Thomas").
    http://www.independent.co...
    http://www.independent.co...
    http://www.algemeiner.com...
    Propaganda und Feindbild-Pflege statt Erkenntnisinteresse.



    BloggerMagga #4.8  —  23.10.2015      

    „Pallywood“ ist eine Wortschöpfung aus dem Umfeld des Hassbloggers, der sich "Fjordman" nannte.
    Dessen Hass-Propaganda war aufgrund des Bekennerpamphlets des Norwegen-Attentäters Breivik, der seitenlang von ihm abgekupfert hatte, 2011 ins Licht der Öffentlichkeit geraten. Fjordman war (u. ist wohl weiterhin, mit anderen Namen) Teil einer sogenannten „islamkritischen“ Bloggerszene, die sich „pro-israelisch“ stilisiert.

    „Pro-Israel“ steht genauso wenig für Israel oder das Judentum, wie die deutsche „Pro-“ Bewegung für Deutschland.

    Der Schöpfer des mittlerweile sehr verbreiteten Kampfbegriffs „Pallywood“ ist nach eigenen Angaben und m. W. auch unbestritten Richard Landes. Landes lehrt an der Boston University Geschichte u. betreibt gleichzeitig ein „islamkritisches“ Blog namens „Augean Stables“. - Siehe z.B. https://en.wikipedia.org/...

    „Augean Stables“ war und ist ein bedeutendes Forum für die Verbreitung von Fjordman-Texten (die sich z.T. auf „Eurabia“ von Bat Ye’or berufen). - Siehe z.B. http://www.theaugeanstabl... und Google-Suche https://www.google.com/?g...).

    Der Begriff wird eingesetzt, um Forderungen nach unabhängiger Aufklärung zum Töten palästinensischer Zivilisten durch israelisches Militär pauschal zu diskeditieren, und um Nachfrager routinemäßig als Betreiber oder Opfer palästinensischer Medien-Manipulation darzustellen.
     

    http://www.zeit.de/politik/ausland/2015-10/israel-gewalt-juden-jerusalem-palaestinenser?wt_zmc=sm.int.zonaudev.twitter.ref.zeitde.redpost.link.sf&utm_campaign=ref&cid=5435957&utm_content=zeitde_redpost+_link_sf&utm_source=twitter_zonaudev_int&utm_medium=sm#cid-5435957
     

    Donnerstag, 24. April 2014

    Anwalt und Menschenrechtler - Wolfgang Kalecks Blog auf ZEIT online

    Aus

    Recht subversiv
    Aus der Werkstatt eines Anwalts und Menschenrechtlers
    Menschen, Rechte, Subversion   
    Von 24. April 2014 um 7:08 Uhr
    ZEIT online
     

    "Wir bedienen uns des Rechts, sprechen die Sprache des Rechts, nutzen juristische Verfahren, um an vielen Orten der Welt zur Änderung der Verhältnisse beizutragen. Eben subversiv zu sein. Davon werde ich jede Woche in meinem Blog berichten.
    Griechische und spanische Anwälte haben sich übrigens des Falles der vor Ceuta und der türkisch-griechischen Küste ums Leben gekommenen Flüchtlinge angenommen. Wir unterstützen sie dabei, weil die menschenverachtende europäische Flüchtlingspolitik stark von Deutschland bestimmt wird. Gerichtsverfahren gegen Einzelne mögen zwar nicht unbedingt Strukturen verändern, uns nicht davon befreien, auch in Zukunft die Toten an den Außengrenzen Europas zu zählen. Doch subversiv zu agieren bedeutet eben nicht, auf den großen Wurf zu warten, sondern im Hier und Jetzt an all diesen finsteren Orten zu intervenieren."


    Wolfgang Kaleck ist Berliner Rechtsanwalt und Generalsekretär des European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR). Kaleck hat sich in den vergangenen Jahren mit Menschenrechtsverletzungen in Argentinien bis Abu Ghraib und Kolumbien bis Philippinen beschäftigt; aktuell ist der NSA-Whistleblower Edward Snowden einer seiner Mandanten.

    http://blog.zeit.de/recht-subversiv/

    Donnerstag, 2. Januar 2014

    Neujahr mit dem Hundertjährigen


    Ein gutes Neues Jahr wünsche ich allen Lesern und Besuchern dieses Blogs.

    In Schweden, wo ich den Jahreswechsel erlebt habe, hatten viele Kinos am Silvester-Nachmittag einen neuen, mit Spannung erwarteten Film im Programm:


    Während die Gratulanten, eine Torte mit 100 Kerzen balancierend und ein traditionelles schwedisches Geburtstagslied auf den Lippen ("100 Jahre alt sollst du werden") sich dem Zimmer im Pflegeheim nähern, entkommt das Geburtstagskind durchs Fenster der unerwünschten Fuersorge, und die Abenteuer nehmen ihren Lauf. Der Film ist offenbar - u.a. - von "Forrest Gump" inspiriert.

    Die Geschichte von den Abenteuern des Allan Karlsson ist durchsetzt mit Rückblenden aus den 100 Jahren seines bisherigen Lebens.
    Ganz unbedarft ist Allan, der sich, geprägt von Familientraumen im Ersten Weltkrieg, das Hantieren mit Sprengstoffen zum Hobby gemacht hat, irgendwie immer in die vorderste Front der Weltgeschichte gestolpert.

    Auch die Geschichte der Eugenik/ Rassenhygiene in Schweden ist nicht ausgelassen.
    Nach einem tödlichen Sprengstoff-Unfall, den der Teenager Allan verursacht hat, wird er einem "Dr. Lundborg" zur Begutachtung vorgefuehrt. Der misst seinen Schädel und sonstige Koerperteile aus und vergleicht seine Gesichtszüge mit Bildern aus seiner Sammlung. Schlussfolgerung: Allans Physiognomie gleicht am meisten der eines "Neger-Jazzmusiker" aus den USA, und er muss deshalb unters Messer: Eugenische Indikation zur Unfruchtbarmachung.

    Den Dr. Lundborg, der entschied, wer rassisch minderwertig und daher der Zwangssterilisation zu unterziehen sei, gab es wirklich.

    Wikipedia über Herman Lundborg: "Lundborg vertrat die Ansicht, dass bestimmte Volksgruppen rasseuntauglich seien, so z.B. Lappen, Schwarze und Juden. 1921 wurde Lundborg zum Professor und Leiter des neugegründeten Staatlichen Instituts für Rassenbiologie in Uppsala ernannt, dessen Ziel in der Erforschung der Kennzeichen wertvoller Rassen bestand." - über das Staatliche Institut für Rassenbiologie in Uppsala, Schweden (Statens institut för rasbiologi, Rasbiologiska institutet, SIFR):
    "Der Vorschlag für das Gesetz zur Gründung dieses weltweit ersten wissenschaftlichen rassebiologischen Institutes war von den Sozialdemokraten in den schwedischen Reichstag eingebracht worden."

    
    "Rassenbiologe" Professor Dr. Herman Lundborg
    Bild gefunden auf
    http://www.lakartidningen.se/Functions/
    OldArticle.aspx?articleId=9567

    Lundborg wird in einer Szene im "Hundertjährigen"
    treffend karikiert


    Auszug aus dem Buch von Jonas Jonasson, das dem Film zugrunde liegt
    (in deutscher Uebersetzung) auf
    http://xn----7sbb3aiknde1bb0dyd.xn--p1ai/index.php?id=126836&pages=9

    “ […] Doch Bernhard Lundborg gehörte nicht zu den Ãrzten, die sich mit ihren Patienten auf philosophische Diskussionen einließen. Stattdessen wiederholte er die Frage nach dem Negerblut. Allan antwortete, das könne man nicht wissen, aber seine Eltern seien ebenso weißhäutig gewesen wie er, und ob diese Antwort für den Herrn Professor nicht ausreichend sei? Er fügte hinzu, dass er unheimlich gern mal einen richtigen Neger sehen würde, ob der Herr Professor wohl zufällig gerade einen auf Lager habe?
    Professor Lundborg und seine Assistenten beantworteten Allans Gegenfragen nicht, sondern machten sich Notizen und brummten etwas in sich hinein, und dann ließen sie ihn wieder in Frieden […]
    Allan fühlte sich wohl in seiner Zwangsbetreuung. Nur einmal wurde die Stimmung getrübt, als Allan nämlich den Professor neugierig fragte, was denn eigentlich so schlimm daran sei, wenn einer Neger oder Jude war. Da antwortete der Professor ausnahmsweise nicht mit Schweigen, sondern brüllte, dass Herr Karlsson sich gefälligst um seinen eigenen Kram kümmern und sich nicht in die Angelegenheiten anderer Leute mischen solle. […]
    Die Jahre gingen ins Land, und die Befragungen wurden immer seltener. Dann gab der Reichstag eine Untersuchung zur Sterilisierung »biologisch minderwertiger Personen« in Auftrag, und als der Bericht veröffentlicht wurde, verschaffte er Professor Lundborgs Tätigkeit einen solchen Aufschwung, dass Allans Bett von anderen benötigt wurde. Im Frühsommer 1929 wurde Allan also für rehabilitiert erklärt und auf die Straße gesetzt. […]”
      


    Anders als die deutschen haben die schwedischen Sozialdemokraten sich schon vor Jahren der Auseinandersetzung mit den dunkleren Seiten ihrer Parteigeschichte gestellt. Dies war wohl eine wichtige Voraussetzung dafür, dass es weniger Verdraengung gibt und auch eine satirische Behandlung - wie in diesem Film - nun möglich ist.


     

    _______


    Wie die Eugenik verbreitet wurde: Der Fall Schweden
    Ein Fleck auf der Reputation des Wohlfahrtsstaates
    “For Lundborg, as for foreign colleagues from Galton to Günther, eugenics was something akin to a world view, a science deeply coloured by political ambition and ideology.”
    - Aus dem Artikel von Maria Björkman und Sven Widmalm; siehe Auszüge unten

    “Für Lundborg, wie für Kollegen aus anderen Ländern von Galton bis Günther, war Eugenik so etwas wie eine Weltanschauung; eine Wissenschaft, die zutiefst gefärbt war von politischer Ambition und Ideologie.”
    - Eigene Übersetzung des Zitats aus dem Artikel von Björkman und Widmalm 

    Wiedergabe der folgenden Auszüge mit ausdrücklicher Zustimmung der Autoren



    Aus

    Selling eugenics: the case of Sweden
    Maria Björkman and Sven Widmalm*


    + Author Affiliations
    Department of Thematic Studies, Technology and Social Change, Linköping University, 581 83 Linköping, Sweden
    *Author for correspondence (sven.widmalm@liu.se).
    http://rsnr.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2010/08/12/rsnr.2010.0009.full

     
    Abstract

    This paper traces the early (1910s to 1920s) development of Swedish eugenics through a study of the social network that promoted it. The eugenics network consisted mainly of academics from a variety of disciplines, but with medicine and biology dominating; connections with German scientists who would later shape Nazi biopolitics were strong. The paper shows how the network used political lobbying (for example, using contacts with academically accomplished MPs) and various media strategies to gain scientific and political support for their cause, where a major goal was the creation of a eugenics institute (which opened in 1922). It also outlines the eugenic vision of the institute's first director, Herman Lundborg. In effect the network, and in particular Lundborg, promoted the view that politics should be guided by eugenics and by a genetically superior elite. The selling of eugenics in Sweden is an example of the co-production of science and social order.

    Introduction

    The fact that Sweden was the first country where a government-funded eugenics (or ‘race biological’) institute was created has been considered a stain on the reputation of the emerging welfare state, made worse by the fact that a law that legitimized the forced sterilization of thousands was enacted in the 1930s. […]

    The paper discusses not only how Swedish eugenics was launched and in time institutionalized with the help of consciously devised media strategies and lobbying practices but also aspects of the biopolitical message contained in these campaigns. The newspaper articles, pamphlets, books and exhibitions in effect eulogized the very network that produced them. […] Also as in Germany, the politicized agenda of the eugenics movement was not imposed by politicians but rather evolved within, and was marketed by, the ‘biomedical’ community.6

    The Swedish eugenics network may have been relatively small but it was nevertheless historically significant because of its intimate ties with that part of the German eugenics movement that would shape Nazi biopolitics. Leading members of the Swedish network had close contacts with, among others, Erwin Baur, Fritz Lenz, Ernst Rüdin and Hans Günther. Baur was a friend of several Swedish geneticists7 and from time to time visited the country, sometimes lecturing on eugenics; Lenz likewise made lecture tours in Sweden; Rüdin had close connections with Swedish eugenicists, some of whom were visiting researchers at his Munich institute; Günther lived in Sweden for some years in the 1920s and lectured at the Swedish institute.8 Not all early supporters of eugenics in Sweden subscribed to the radical ideas that we associate with these scientists, but the fact that some of its most influential promoters did—not least the director of the race-biological institute—would in effect make Swedish eugenics in the 1920s an important contributor to the right-wing flank of ‘mainline’ or ‘orthodox’ eugenics that would eventually become a pillar of Third Reich biopolitics.9 The Swedish race-biological institute was in fact the model for the corresponding Kaiser Wilhelm Institute founded in 1927 with Fritz Lenz as Director; after 1933 the Swedes Herman Nilsson-Ehle, Herman Lundborg and Torsten Sjögren would support Nazi interests in international organizations such as the International Federation of Eugenic Organisations.10

    A main ambition of the network and its central character, the physician Herman Lundborg (1868–1943), was to institutionalize eugenics. With the creation of the Government Institute for Race Biology (Statens institut för rasbiologi) in Uppsala in 1922, the network, of which Lundborg became director and other leading figures in the network board members, was also in a sense institutionalized. These developments may be described using what Sheila Jasanoff has called the ‘idiom’ of co-production.11 This is a blanket expression for ideas underlying much work in the history and sociology of science over the past decades, in which the interconnectedness of scientific thought and practices on the one hand and of social order on the other is highlighted.  […] Furthermore the interconnection of eugenics and policy was underpinned by ideology production within the eugenic discourse. […]

    The network
    The Swedish eugenics network has been identified mainly through private correspondence between members and also through the study of archival sources from the Mendelian Society in Lund and the Swedish Society for Racial Hygiene in Stockholm (the latter being the first non-German national society to join the Internationale Gesellschaft für Rassenhygiene).

    In Sweden, Mendelian genetics was first practised in plant breeding, in which Herman Nilsson-Ehle achieved international renown for theoretical results publicized in his doctoral dissertation in 1909. Nilsson-Ehle's work also showed great practical promise, namely for the production of a hardy variety of winter wheat. […] Nilsson-Ehle, who became a great advocate of eugenics and whose views were in line with the ‘agri-eugenics’ of his good friend Erwin Baur, claimed that results similar to those achieved in plant breeding could also be expected if Mendelism were to be applied to human beings.14
    The Mendelian Society was founded in 1910 on the initiative of Robert Larsson, amanuensis at the Botanical Institution. The core members of the society were connected to this department. Besides Larsson, the plant breeders Nils Heribert-Nilsson and Birger Kajanus belonged to this group, of which Nilsson-Ehle—first chair of the society—was the intellectual leader. At the society's meetings various genetic topics were dealt with, and among these eugenics was prominent.15

    In 1909 the Swedish Society for Racial Hygiene was formed—the third of its kind in the world. It also endorsed Mendelism as a ‘solid ground’ on which to build eugenic reform.16 The society's goal was to influence public policy as well as public opinion by spreading knowledge about eugenic methods and results, and to support research. It was said that one wished to encourage ‘general support’ for eugenic reform, independently of political affiliation.17 […]
    Like contemporary eugenicists in the USA, the UK and Germany, the Swedes promoted both ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ measures. The positive measures were directed at increasing procreation among ‘fit’ elements of the population. Negative measures sought to ‘stem the flow of notoriously worthless individuals’.19 Sterilization was put forth as a superior tool to achieve the latter goal. It was, however, controversial and it was said that legal changes necessary to implement sterilization on eugenic indicators would have to be grounded in ‘popular opinion’, and that a pressing task for the society was therefore to influence general attitudes. […]

    Several of the society's board members were left-leaning liberals with a strong commitment to social reform. Among these were the society's secretary, Johan Vilhelm Hultkrantz, a physician and a professor at Uppsala University with a long-standing interest in physical anthropology who became a leading figure in the eugenics network. However, the central characters in the network, Herman Lundborg and Herman Nilsson-Ehle, were not liberals but radical conservatives. Hence, although the ideological interpretation of eugenics may have varied among its members, by choosing to promote Lundborg as director of the institute the network in effect promoted a right-wing interpretation of the emerging discipline. […]
    The Mendelian Society also functioned as a gateway to continental eugenics, for example by inviting Baur and Lenz to lecture on racial hygiene and population policies.22

    Lundborg also became a good friend of the above-mentioned Robert Larsson, a science writer and the network's foremost media strategist. He was an influential promoter of genetics in southern Sweden, became the first editor of Hereditas and published a Swedish translation of the famous eugenics textbook by Baur, Fischer and Lenz. The relationship soon became personal, in a way typical of social networks. […]
    Other important persons in the network were the physicians and professors of medicine Frithiof Lennmalm and the above-mentioned Hultkrantz. The former was Rector at the Karolinska Institute and a member of the Nobel Committee for Medicine and had been Lundborg's teacher. Another scientist central to the network from the end of the 1910s was the Uppsala zoologist Nils von Hofsten. He was pioneering genetics teaching at Uppsala University, publishing his lectures in 1919 as the country's first genetics textbook. […]

    The network's cause was helped by the war. […] In 1918 von Hofsten concluded that the eugenic effects [of war] were thoroughly negative: ‘Modern warfare cuts down the best and spares the worst elements’.25 Other members of the network argued that the war proved the necessity for stronger eugenic policies. Sweden, it was claimed, had been spared the worst effects of the war and could become a forerunner in eugenic matters, not least because leading politicians now seemed to realize that the question was urgent. In the final analysis this was a matter of maintaining the hegemony of western European civilization that—if eugenic measures were not implemented—risked being ‘overrun by other peoples’.26 Alarmist arguments about racial decline and economic arguments about the enormous costs caused by the ‘unfit’ became the two most important rhetorical elements of eugenic campaigning during the war and immediately afterwards. As in Germany the eugenics movement in Sweden stressed ‘technocratic logic and cost–benefit analysis’.27

    Eugenic pamphlets
    One campaign was the publication of a series of pamphlets in 1919–23 by the Society for Racial Hygiene. Eight titles edited by Lundborg were produced, discussing various aspects of eugenics and its importance for social and economic issues. The pamphlets were cheap, and many copies were given away free of charge; a notice printed on their back stated: ‘School teachers, clergy, doctors, and others are urged to distribute these publications.’ […]

    Although the pamphlets dealt with a variety of subjects, they focused on two main problems and offered two main solutions. The problems were those of degeneration and of the economic burdens of caring for the unfit. Sterilization was favoured, as a ‘vaccine’ that would help bring down social and medical costs associated with low genetic quality in a more humane way than internment.31 Several pamphlets argued for a parliamentary investigation concerning the sterilization question that one hoped would lead to legal changes.32 As for tracking the effects of degeneration, research based on Mendelian genetics, performed in specialized institutes, was offered as the only viable solution.33 The Swedes argued that (unlike in Great Britain and America) the government should finance such an effort and that this would soon pay off because costs associated with caring for the unfit would dwindle.34
    The reception of the pamphlet series was very positive, not least because members of the network tended to review each other's publications favourably. This was true not only of the pamphlet series; such reviewing practices were also part of the network's media strategy in general.35 The popularizer Larsson was important in these dealings. […] A typical comment from Larsson regarding media matters shows how he operated: Of course I shall gladly review both of your works that are being printed. As soon as I have copies of them I will write to the editorial office of SvD [the conservative daily Svenska Dagbladet]. You can most certainly count on Heribert-Nilsson. You will get good reviews [artiklar] by M. Phil. Erhard Bäckström in Social-Dem. [the Social Democratic daily Social-Demokraten]. Lännart Ribbing in Stockholms Dagblad [conservative] [and] Olof Swedeberg in Dagens Nyheter [liberal] may also be counted on.37 Of those mentioned, at least Heribert-Nilsson and Ribbing belonged to the eugenics network. The reviews were used for promoting the idea of an institute and of Lundborg as the perfect director of such an outfit.38 The production of promotional writing and the staging of a favourable reception of such writing were both central to the network's media strategy. This is also seen in the use of another medium of propaganda, namely the eugenic exhibition that was organized in 1919.

    The 1919 exhibition
    […] The exhibition ‘Swedish racial types’ (Svenska folktyper) in 1919, organized by Lundborg, seemed to show conclusively that eugenics had extensive popular support. The exhibition visited five Swedish towns, starting in Stockholm in March and ending in Gothenburg in September, displaying genetic and anthropological materials using photography, sculpture and portrait painting.39 According to Lundborg it was visited by 40 000 people.40

    Private individuals, publishing companies and newspapers donated money to help finance the exhibition. They represented a political spectrum from the liberal left to the conservative right and included the publishing company Albert Bonnier AB and its liberal broadsheet Dagens Nyheter, owned by the Jewish Bonnier family. The exhibition subscribed to the common notion that the Jewish ‘race’ was almost on a par with the Nordic ‘race’, qualitatively speaking. In private, Lundborg expressed anti-Semitic views, including the typical complaint about persecution by the ‘Jewish press’.41 As anti-Semitism was a somewhat controversial stand in Sweden at this time, the downplaying of this aspect of his eugenic views should be seen as part of the media strategy of, if not the network, at least Lundborg himself.42
    The exhibition presented anthropological material on ‘the Nordic type’ in Sweden including the distribution of long skulls and eye colour, seen as crucial racial characteristics. One part of the exhibition focused on individual members of the social elites, such as scientists, politicians and military men. Some academics put on display there were members of the eugenics network. Examples of low-quality race traits were also exhibited, for example criminals, gypsies and vagabonds, illustrating that ‘[m]oral degeneration is often accompanied by physical degeneration.’43 […]

    The exhibition was a public display of eugenic ideas and ideals staged by Lundborg with the help of some network colleagues as well as wealthy supporters from the Swedish middle class. Media coverage paralleled that of the eugenic pamphlets: it was overwhelmingly positive, not least because of friendly reviews from members of the network that endorsed the eugenic cause in a broad sense.45 Nilsson-Ehle wrote, in the leading conservative broadsheet Svenska Dagbladet, that the policies of a nation ought to be founded on eugenics and that only physicians could handle these matters in an expert and humane way. He finished this article—allegedly about the exhibition but in reality about the necessity of eugenic research and policies—by praising Lundborg and arguing that an institute should immediately be created with him as a leader.46

    Lobbying the rich and mighty
    The process of creating a eugenic research institute went through several phases before succeeding. In 1916 a failed attempt was made to obtain political support for the creation of an institute; in 1918 the network tried but failed to establish an association for Swedish culture with a eugenic agenda. Thereafter the network put great effort into the idea to create a eugenic Nobel institute. Finally a second attempt to create a government-sponsored institute eventually succeeded.

    Throughout this campaign the professional and cultural affinity between the network—dominated by academics and in particular biologists and physicians—and members of politically influential elites was of the greatest importance. When Larsson drafted a parliamentary bill proposing an institute in 1916, the initiative came from an MP who was the manager of an insurance company.47 The idea of creating a cultural association was promoted by Hultkrantz and others, who lobbied MPs, church leaders and academics at the universities. At least two right-wing MPs, K. G. Westman and Nils Wohlin—both professors at Uppsala University—promised to support the project. The university chancellor, a right-wing politician, was also in favour, as were the rector of Uppsala University and the archbishop (also a professor). After these initial successes Hultkrantz commented, ‘Negotiations with the “mighty” have thus been successful; let's hope things will go well also with the “rich”!’48 […]
    To gain government support, Lundborg and Larsson turned again to Parliament, using political contacts to make an MP write a bill proposing an institute. This time the network met with success, and in 1920 the bill was finally put forward by the psychiatrist and Social Democratic MP Alfred Petrén, a member of the Society for Racial Hygiene. […]

    As we have seen, Larsson ghosted the aborted bill in 1916 and when the new bill was to be written he again offered his services, recommending Lundborg to produce testimonies regarding the necessity of founding a eugenics institute by quoting experts that had written about the matter.54 Hence the bill contained extensive passages from the writings of several professors belonging to the network, including all the main characters mentioned above, recommending that an institute be created with Lundborg as director.55 The publishing of such testimonials was a central component in the network's media strategy, because they gave a powerful impression of authoritative scientific support. In effect the network was now summoned collectively to appear on the political stage, presenting its case for eugenic reform under Lundborg's leadership. The same was true of the ‘general public’, whose support had been stage-managed through the 1919 exhibition and other media exhortations by the network. The bill referred to the public's sense of ‘self preservation’ that had led to a mounting ‘public opinion’ in favour of political action to counter the threat of ‘degeneration’ by supporting eugenic research.56
    Political support was as strong as that from science. When the bill was put forward, in January 1920, it was signed by some of the country's most powerful politicians, including the leaders of the Social Democrats and the Conservative coalition, Hjalmar Branting and Arvid Lindman. Several politicians who were also scientifically well respected signed the bill. Wohlin, a professor of statistics, and Petrén have been mentioned above. The bill passed both chambers without much opposition. The Government Institute for Race Biology opened on 1 January 1922, with Lundborg as its director. Among the board members were those in the network who had been most involved in campaigning for the institute: Lennmalm, Nilsson-Ehle, Hultkrantz and Hofsten.57

    Lundborg's eugenic vision
    […] It cannot be said that the members of the eugenics network shared all aspects of Lundborg's thinking; on the contrary, there is evidence that they did not. […] But by making Lundborg a professor and institute director the network had in effect made him the legitimate spokesman for eugenics in Sweden. Hence Lundborg's eugenic vision became, for more than a decade, the officially sanctioned eugenic vision in Sweden. Furthermore, there is evidence that it was shared by some influential members of the network that continued to evolve around the eugenics institute, for example the physicians and Nazi sympathizers Gösta Häggqvist (a member of the institute's board) and Torsten Sjögren (whom Lundborg wanted as successor).

    After the institute had been founded, Lundborg continued to promote the scientific and professional standing of eugenics on both a national and a Nordic level. An early example of this was the campaign to wedge eugenics into the programme of the traditional Scandinavian science meetings. At the 1916 meeting in Copenhagen, genetics (arvelighetsforskning) was introduced on the agenda and drew large crowds.58 At the next meeting in Gothenburg in 1923 the genetics section included eugenics (‘race biology’), with Lundborg as the Swedish chair. This arrangement, which gave eugenics a more prominent role than earlier, depended on the support of Nilsson-Ehle, whose enormous scientific prestige again proved vital for the eugenic cause.59
    In the mid 1920s Lundborg wished to create some kind of royal academy for eugenics, an idea that was criticized within the network, not least because Lundborg thought that membership should be limited to those of Nordic descent and Christian faith.60 In 1925 Lundborg managed to organize a Nordic conference that resulted in the creation of a Nordic Association for Anthropology. The meeting at Uppsala became a manifestation of Nordic eugenic supremacist propaganda and of the political aspirations of the emerging profession.61 However, the association was a failure and did not reconvene.62

    Lundborg's efforts to organize Swedish and Nordic eugenics therefore had mixed results. Unlike Nilsson-Ehle, who was a charismatic leader with several devoted disciples, he never managed to create a strong research school or stable organizations (the institute itself turned out to be rather ineffective). Lundborg was, however, an untiring propagandist who continued to publicize the eugenic vision by extravagant means throughout the 1920s and early 1930s. For Lundborg, as for foreign colleagues from Galton to Günther, eugenics was something akin to a world view, a science deeply coloured by political ambition and ideology.

    In Lundborg's case the world view was radically right-wing, and he emphasized the genetic superiority of the ‘Nordic’ race and of social elites within that race (believing proletarians, for example, to be degenerate).63 As we have seen he was careful not to appear anti-Semitic, but in private he did flaunt anti-Semitic opinions and was, as early as 1924, clandestinely supporting a National Socialist group in Sweden, explaining to its leader that the only reason he had kept pretty ‘neutral’ so far was that he had consciously avoided the Jewish question for ‘tactical reasons’.64 In the 1930s both Lundborg and Nilsson-Ehle supported the Hitler regime. With his strong belief in the racial superiority of the Nordic peasant stock, and his antipathy to industrialism, Lundborg may be placed in the blood-and-soil tradition promoted by Walther Darré and Erwin Baur.65
    The idea of the racial superiority of social elites, including scientists, and of the peasant stock was promoted in what may be called ‘eugenic coffee-table books’. These books, adhering to an established anthropological tradition, were directed at a middle-class audience and were also given away during campaigns to summon support and funding for the cause. Several of them were published in English and German so as to reach an international audience, including potential donors (Lundborg hoped to attract philanthropists such as Henry Ford).66

    The eugenic coffee-table books were patterned on similar works, with plates displaying national culture or nature. His own publications, Lundborg claimed, only took this genre to the next logical level by displaying the population itself with focus on its racial characteristics.67 In these large books were images of people representing various racial mixtures and accompanying texts in which eugenics was explained and promoted. In Swedish racial types (Svenska folktyper) from 1919 (using imagery from the exhibition) Lundborg explained that eugenics had shown that there was a hierarchy among races, that the Nordic race was of better quality than the others, and that the Nordic element was more prominent in Sweden than in other countries.68 In this, Lundborg drew not only on popular eugenic conceptions from Britain, the USA and Germany but also on the chauvinism that was an integral part of national romantic Swedish culture. The emphasis on the special racial strength of the peasantry was nourished by the folkloristic elements of contemporary nationalistic clichés (see below). Furthermore, Lundborg's claim that the Swedish peasants constituted the racial backbone of the nation resonated with political sensibilities in the newly democratic state.69
    But Lundborg's views were mostly far from democratic. Time and again he returned to his theory of the biological evolution, in Sweden, of ‘a natural aristocracy … , a middle class, and a lower class’.70 The images of the rich and the mighty, and also of scientists and artists, that were displayed in the exhibition in 1919 (later also at the so-called Stockholm exhibition in 1930) and in the eugenic coffee-table books catered to political and economic benefactors and to academic colleagues by portraying them as members of a genetic and social and/or intellectual elite: ‘a natural stratification occurs everywhere in the world. Those individuals who have profited from a more favourable combination of genes tend to rise, whereas those who have less favourable genes sink deeper.’71 Lundborg saw this group, to which he himself belonged, as constituting a political leadership, proclaiming that ‘it behoves us to become advisers and helpers to races and peoples’.72

    This was what Lundborg wrote, but he also used imagery to promote his ideas, constructing a visual and textual discourse about the Swedish nation and its biological stratification. Photographic images were in a sense the bread and butter of Lundborg's research programme—he produced large number of them, using them as a complement to the biometric data also collected.73 In the eugenic coffee-table books such photographs were used to illustrate various racial groups, or (presumed) hereditary afflictions such as criminality or alcoholism. But in addition Lundborg used images in a more subtle way. The images are a running visual commentary on the texts, broadening the message beyond what was actually said in words.
    Figures 1 and 2 show images illustrating differences between racial groups, with some social categorizations mixed in as well. In figure 1 we see Nordic racial types and in figure 2 mixed racial types. These are represented by, on the one hand, a male and a ‘lady’ student, a ‘scientist’, and a ‘manufacturer’; and, on the other, a ‘manly’ woman ‘of low standing’ and two men of mixed race—one a ‘workman’ and the other a ‘criminal’. The difference in race corresponds to a difference in class, detectable not only in the verbal descriptions but in the subjects' general appearance, in which the Nordic types are presented in typical middle-class portraits and the mixed types in ‘mug shots’ characteristic of the tradition of eugenic photography. This correlation between race and class was in line with Lundborg's eugenic model that included the dogma that mixture between ‘higher’ and ‘lower’ races produces degenerate offspring. Hence the images show what the verbal descriptions and the genetic theory say.74

    Figure 1.
    These Nordic racial types are distinctly middle class. The ‘scientist’ is Professor Gustav Cassel, a well-known economist. (From Herman Lundborg and J. Runnström, The Swedish nation in word and picture (1921), plate IV.)


    Figure 2.
    The mixed-race types presented in Lundborg's work belonged to lower social strata and were sometimes, as in this case, ambivalent as to gender. (From Herman Lundborg and J. Runnström, The Swedish nation in word and picture (1921), plate X.)

    Figures 3 and 4 exemplify the glorification of peasants in the national romantic style common in early twentieth-century Swedish art. We see a fisher girl from the south and an old man and two young women from Dalecarlia, a part of Sweden with emblematic status in the national romantic tradition. This national romantic view was expressed visually not least in the paintings by Anders Zorn, who was perhaps the best-known artist in Sweden in the early twentieth century (and who happened also to be the most generous individual economic supporter of the 1919 exhibition). Art historians of the time liked to portray Zorn as the embodiment of the particular Swedish qualities that found expression in his many folkloristic paintings.75 In a more general sense art was identified with a ‘national spirit’ in which Swedish art critics in the 1920s tended to identify rural subjects with the ‘true’ character of the nation and urban subjects with twisted artificiality.76 This was also the view of the blood-and-soil eugenicist Lundborg, and his images of racial types made use of the visual rhetoric preferred by conservative art critics.


    Figure 3.
    Farmers or peasants are sometimes presented folkloristically by Lundborg. Such images alluded to positive values associated with Swedish national romanticism. (From Herman Lundborg, Svenska folktyper (1919), p. 95.)

    Figure 4.
    This ‘fisher girl’ illustrates the iconographical connection between eugenic and national romantic imagery. (From Herman Lundborg, Svenska folktyper (1919), p. 83.)
    These images show how the visual discourse managed to convey more information and broader connotations that the verbal descriptions. The pure Nordic types appear not only as thriving and strong individuals, from a salt-of-the-earth type of rural stock, as one would expect given the eugenic presuppositions. They also convey images of cultural heritage and national or regional tradition, in effect saying that the superior qualities of the Nordic race are reflected in its history and its culture.

    Figure 5 shows examples of solid peasant and fisherman stock from the south of Sweden, the province of Scania (Skåne), conveying an image of brawny strength more than culture. Here, however, an interesting thing has happened: among the fishermen and the peasants, Nilsson-Ehle—indeed of peasant stock—appears, representing not himself or his science but the finest elements of his race. This very same photograph was used also in a publication edited by Lundborg, illustrating Nilsson-Ehle as a scientist.77 The same man, even the same image, thus served the double purpose of illustrating the Nordic race and of lending scientific legitimacy to the eugenic cause. The subtext of this visual discourse is that eugenics was legitimate because it was supported by scientists with the finest racial qualities. The logic was as circular as the rhetoric was powerful. Portraits of other scientists were used in a similar fashion.78

    Figure 5.
    The geneticist Herman Nilsson-Ehle appears among anonymous fishermen and a farmer from southern Sweden as a representative of the Nordic race. (From Herman Lundborg, Svenska folktyper (1919), p. 84.)

    […] Lundborg and other mainline eugenicists tended, in the tradition from Galton, to identify scientific prominence with biological supremacy, making genius a bodily trait that would legitimize not only the very science that explored human biology but also its ambition to guide social developments.80
    The most elaborate example of eugenic portraiture in Lundborg's oeuvre was a book—the first in a planned series of which only one volume materialized—that he and a portrait artist produced towards the end of his career. Swedes today was a luxury edition produced in 450 numbered copies in a large folio format. It portrayed 45 men who represented various national elites, with short biographical notes containing biometric data, indicating racial characteristics.
    Again, the pedagogic purpose of the collection was to convince the reader of the national importance of eugenics. The people portrayed were of the kind that Lundborg constantly lobbied for resources, for instance the banker and Conservative politician Knut Wallenberg, who together with his wife was also the country's most important private financer of scientific research, including Lundborg's institute. There are several scientists in the book, among them Nilsson-Ehle, who now appeared simultaneously representing his race and his science, with the following description accompanying his portrait (figure 6): ‘Blue eyes. Soft, straight, light blond hair. Body height 1695, length of head 197, breadth of head 158, breadth of zygoma 145 mm.’81 The same measures were given for each of the subjects portrayed. Their accomplishments in science, art, politics, and so on, were thereby given a eugenic gloss that affected the visual message conveyed by their countenances. The imagery was depersonalized, not so much showing individual genius as genetic superiority, naturalizing the power of social and intellectual elites—to which many members of the eugenics network themselves belonged—in a manner similar to how national culture was naturalized in more folkloristic eugenic image production. This is as fine an example as any of the co-production of science and social order.


    Figure 6.
    In this portrait Nilsson-Ehle again represents the Nordic race, but now in company with other members of Sweden's cultural, political, economic and scientific elites depicted in the same volume. (From Herman Lundborg and Ivar Kramke, Svenskar i nutiden (1934), plate 31.)

    Concluding remarks
    The Swedish eugenics network sought to establish the legitimacy of the new specialty simultaneously in both a scientific and a political sense. In doing so it aimed to legitimize and naturalize the biopolitical power of eugenics and eugenicists. We may identify some important factors behind the network's initial success. First, it was situated at the interface between political and scientific elites, two groups whom Lundborg courted with his notion of ‘natural aristocracy’. Not only were most members of the network scientifically well respected and well connected, but they also had a number of colleagues in parliament and other high places whom they could approach on an equal social footing (probably exploiting established personal ties). This made it possible for the network's members to influence both science and politics simultaneously—in an attempt to reshape both.

    A second important factor was the skilful use of media strategies. Backstage political lobbying was supplemented by various forms of front-stage media exposure—sometimes directed towards the ‘general public’, sometimes towards more limited audiences. The meaning of the concept ‘general public’ in this case is complex. Obviously the network was interested in influencing the views and behaviour of the middle class. At the same time it is clear that the very idea of popular support was as important as gaining ‘actual’ popular influence (which was anyway not measurable). The exhibition in 1919, the press reports regarding this event and the network's publications all evoked the impression that there existed a popular demand for eugenic reform. This impression was translated into political demands through the bill in 1920, in which it was said that physicians and researchers who insisted that a eugenics institute be created were backed by ‘a strong public opinion that cannot be silenced in the long run’.82
    Third, the academic legitimacy of eugenics was strengthened with the creation of academic platforms nationally and on the Nordic level—mostly with the help of a close association with genetics, on which eugenics was riding piggy-back. This connection was made possible by the fact that leading geneticists—most importantly Nilsson-Ehle—were firm supporters of the eugenic cause and acted as pillars of the eugenics network. Here, however, the eugenicists were less successful once the institute had been founded and they had to prove their own organizational capabilities.

    Fourth, although this is as hard to measure as popular support, Lundborg and some network colleagues provided a coherent ideological framework exalting the racial qualities of the middle classes and parts of the rural population and naturalizing the power position of various mostly professional elites. However, full acceptance of Lundborg's vision would have entailed subsuming politics under biology, and in Sweden eugenics never came close to such a position.
    With the establishment of eugenics, science and policy simultaneously changed their aspects. Science now included mainline eugenics within its boundaries, whereas welfare policy could use eugenic concepts as scientifically legitimate foundations for reform. However, in the longer run Lundborg's eugenic vision became politically problematic, not least because of the developments in Germany. Continued political support was assured only after 1935, when Lundborg retired and was replaced by a left-wing geneticist opposed to mainline eugenics. This was a (Social Democratic) government decision overriding an academic evaluation committee that had recommended Torsten Sjögren, the Nazi sympathizer, as a successor to Lundborg. […]

    Acknowledgements
    We thank Professor Gunnar Broberg for valuable comments on a draft version on the paper.
     
    -----