On August 9, 1936, Jesse Owens won the last of his four gold medal at the Olympics.

Hitler declined to congratulate him.

That's the story you're told.

The stories you aren't told paint a far more strife-filled picture, and one well worth looking at in the infancy of another already-controversy-filled Games.

That the Harry Potter stories are primarily about good and evil is undeniable, and no fictional character since Darth Vader has embodied the latter quality as thoroughly as Lord Voldemort. The rapidly growing psychological literature on psychopathy can provide some insight into Voldemort’s evil nature. But what of his followers?  Are the legions of Death Eaters similarly psychologically disturbed? This paper uses scholarship from Holocaust Studies and Psychology to argue that the Death Eaters and their supporters are neither mentally ill nor morally corrupt but are ordinary and possibly even decent wizards caught up in unusual circumstances out of their control.

[UPDATE: Made the Rec List! Thank You everyone!]

John McCain's campaign is becoming a "target rich environment."

The latest attack levelled by the Three Stooges John McCain's crack campaign staff is that Barack Obama is soft and hypocritical on genocide. [More after the jump]

IOWA CITY, IA - In spite of general revulsion at the McCain campaign's latest broadside against Barack Obama, in which it called Obama disingenuous and a flip-flopper for his short empathetic missive in the guest book of an Isreali holocaust museum, insiders say this actually represents a new tactical imperative by the Republican National Committee.

"We have a story to tell about some of the unconscionable stances Democrat candidates take that might seem kind of good but really aren't," an RNC staffer said on condition of anonymity. "They're undermining our way of life, millimeter by millimeter, and the voters need to know this."

A new ad breaking in support of businessman Chip Swanne, vying for a congressional seat in southeast Wisconsin, shows the Democratic incumbent Rob Tavernas in obviously hand-held cam footage from the recent funeral of his beloved aunt, Dedra Tavernas. Pulling in on a mourning Tavernas's face to show him weeping openly, the ad then puts up a simple block of copy: "Rob Tavernas. Wrong About the Surge. Plus, he's a Pussy."

In scrolling through several hundred photos of today's visit to Israel, I came across one of the Senator Obama's hand written message in the Yad Vashem guest book.

A transcription after the jump...

On his trip today to Israel, Barack Obama visited the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum and Memorial, where he laid a commemorative wreath.

From the Washington Post:

At Yad Vashem, which sits on a hillside overlooking Jerusalem, a solemn Obama paid tribute to the 6 million Jewish victims of the Holocaust by laying a wreath in the Hall of Remembrance, which sits on the highest spot in the museum. "Despite a record of monumental tragedy, ultimately this is a place of hope," he said.

In the guest book, Obama wrote that the museum was "a reminder of man's potential for great evil but also our capacity to rise from tragedy and remake our world," adding, "Let our children come here and know this history so they can add their voices to proclaim never again."

And thanks to Muzikal203 for the excellent post with pictures.

It's too early to make me tear up, and I usually don't, but for some reason reading the article about Obama's visit brought tears to my eyes. I also have some more pictures over the jump.

JERUSALEM — Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama toured Israel's Holocaust memorial Wednesday, laying a wreath in memory of the 6 million Jews who died and saying, "Ultimately, this is a place of hope."

Obama toured the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial on a Jerusalem hillside as he moved through a busy day of meetings with Israeli and Palestinian officials, including Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

jump

All I can say is what in the world. McCain, trying to be a spoiler before Barack Obama's visit to Israel, has an interview with an Israeli TV station. He is asked about the possibility of Israel attacking Iran.

Asked about Israel feeling the need to attack Iran, McCain replied, "I would hope that would never happen, I would hope that Israel would not feel that threatened, " saying the U.S. and Europe could impose "significant, very painful sanctions on Iran which I think could modify their behavior."

Then, McCain went off on the deep end.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/...

A personal note: I have seen children dying of AIDS and hunger; I have had malaria and been chased through the jungle by militias. I want the G-8 to address all the aspects of global poverty, yet nothing affects me as much as what I have seen in Darfur.

I tilt obsessively at the windmills of Darfur because, quite simply, its people haunt me: the young woman who deliberately made a diversion of herself so the janjaweed would gang-rape her and miss her little sister running in the opposite direction; the man whose eyes were gouged out with a bayonet; the group of women beaten with their own babies until the children were dead.

After what you have just read, there is only one sentence left in the column by Nicholas Kristof entitled The Pain of the G-8’s Big Shrug.   I will add a few words of my own.

Yes, I'm aware that it's supposed to be a blog no-no to make comparions between right-wing excesses and Nazi Germany, but as a media member and media junkie, with a side interest in the history of the holocaust, it seems a sin of ommission not to point out the paralells when Fox news pulls a propaganda whopper worthy of Goebbels, and as obvious as the nose on my face.

The backstory: Fox News channel, while still pulling in an overall audience just under that of CNN and MSNBC combined, had experienced a slower growth rate in viewership in the second quarter of 2008 (10%),  than both MSNBC and CNN's galloping growth rate of more than 50% each in viewers.

How much more do we need?  Do you see the stakes being raised as this goes on?  It is going to be harder and harder to explain to future generations why we let them get away with it.  I was born in 1936.  I saw the news reels of the American forces entering the concentration camps at the end of the war.  I'll never forget seeing the human skeletons expressing joy as they realized it was over.  But was it?  Their children and grandchildren had to go through some pretty rough times living with them.  The damage was huge and lasting.  Things like that do not just go away.  The Effects of the Holocaust on the Children of Survivors

According to studies, the long-term effects of the Holocaust on the children of survivors suggest a "psychological profile." Their parents’ suffering may have [led to]a second generation 'complex' characterized by processes that affect identity, self-esteem, interpersonal interactions and worldview.

 Why is it necessary to point this out in the context of the present day attrocities?  Look below the break to find out.

We all have heard how awful is when Ahmedinejad denies the Holocaust, but we almost certainly never hear when our own government does so with regards to the Armenian Genocide.

Why have I chosen to write, with such intensity over the last two years, about Pastor John Hagee and his developing political machine, CUFI ? Why should you care ? - see the second blockquote box of this post for a quick summary of why John Hagee matters.  

Below is the explanation for that which I put on my application for a DFA/Netroots Nation scholarship and I'm writing this to ask for your help in promoting a story I've just put up on the Huffington Post, which concerns the push to politically rehabilitate John Hagee.

If you want to cut to the chase, your vote for my Huffington Post story on Digg would be very welcome. Best, Bruce Wilson

The ADL just accepted, last Friday, a so-called "apology" from Pastor Hagee but Hagee's apology letter to the ADL cited a 1999 sermon as the source of the "God sent Hitler" controversy and that's flatly wrong:

Comments made on Memorial Day by Barack Obama concerning his uncle's role as a liberator of a concentration camp in World War II have attracted considerable attention.  Obama told the story of his great-uncle being among the liberators of a death camp he erroneously identified as Auschwitz (read here).  Republican blogs (read here and here) immediately pounced, stating correctly that Auschwitz was liberated by the Red Army, and charging Obama with lying .  Fox News followed suit, absurdly claiming that the fact that the uncle was in fact a great-uncle was scandalous (read here).  The Obama campaign replied that, in fact, the story was true and that the concentration camp involved was a satellite camp of Buchenwald.

Hat tip to Sadly, No! for finding this.

You know it's silly season when Republican wingnuts start questioning the service of veterans, and start arguing that some Nazi concentration camps weren't all that bad (since the deaths were merely in the tens of thousands).

And now it's become even funnier.  This idiot right winger Steve Gilbert, hot on the trail of the "truth" regarding Obama's great uncle's service liberating Buchenwald, wrote to WWII vet Raymond Kitchell and his son Mark Kitchell, who together run a site dedicated to the 89th Infantry.

What has ensued is a total pwning and smack-down the likes of which only a WWII vet can deliver.

After reading the exemplary diaries on the Recommended list  JeffLieber and Geenius at Wrok wrote in response to the faux outrage Obama's opponents are trying to stir up concerning his misspeaking and claiming his grandfather helped liberate Auschwitz when in fact it was Buchenwald, I then read an article at Huffington Post by  Menachem Rosensaft called Using the Holocaust to Smear Obama, which takes Obama's critics to task for their imbecilic attacks. As I was reading it, I realized that these say-anything demagogues were probably doing more to heal any rifts that might have existed between Obama and the Jewish community than Obama himself has been able to do himself:

ACTION ITEM coming. (plus links, asap)

Please return periodically, every 15 minutes, if you are interested in helping to pressure US Senator Joseph Lieberman to distance himself from CUFI, an organization that appears to incite terrorist attacks against the national security interests of the State of Israel, acts that are widely believed would trigger a Mideast regional war or even a World War. I am conferring with some relevant Jewish organizations on an appropriate course of action to publicly censure Senator Lieberman for his association with CUFI and John Hagee, who has publicly blamed Jews for the Holocaust and stated that God sent Hitler.

United States Senator Joseph Lieberman has called for banning "terrorist videos" from YouTube but Mr. Lieberman has failed to recognize that he has closely associated and allied himself with a group that has repeatedly and very publicly incited acts, against Israel, which the state of Israel considers acts of terrorism posing a security threat of the highest magnitude.

This diary springs from reading an obituary.  Irena Sendler died on May 23.  She was 98.  During the Holocaust, in Poland, she saved Jews.  A lot of Jews.  Probably more than the better known Oscar Schindler.  We need a Thomas Kenneally or a Steven Spielberg to tell her story, too.

More below the fold