Recently in Human Rights Category

I saw this flick many times as a child and always enjoyed. However, until I chanced upon this article from Jewish World Review, I had no idea that my beloved Stooges were the the second in Hollywood to release a film mocking Hitler:

It turns out that the screen comedy trio of Moe Howard, Larry Fine and Curly Howard (Moe’s little brother) made the first Hollywood films to satirize and lampoon Adolf Hitler and his Nazi government. And these shorts, daring for their time, are included in the just-released DVD set “The Three Stooges Collection, 1940-1942, Volume Three” (two discs, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, $24.96, not rated).

“You Nazty Spy!” hit the theaters in January 1940, nine months before Charlie Chaplin’s “The Great Dictator.” It was a time when most of the Hollywood studios remained reluctant to address — dramatically or comedically — the Nazi state, its persecution of Jews and the war Germany had started in Europe in 1939.

The timidity of the studio heads was based on several factors — they didn’t want to close down the European market for Hollywood films, and they were being pressured from conservatives and isolationists in Congress who opposed U.S. involvement in the European war and were concerned about Hollywood making “propaganda” films attacking the fascists. Warner Bros. broke the ice with its 1939 production of “Confessions of a Nazi Spy,” but, as film historian Michael E. Birdwell writes in his book, “Celluloid Soldiers: Warner Bros.’s Campaign against Nazism,” the studio faced the opposition of the Production Code Administration (Hollywood’s censors). Its director, Will Hays, stated that given the nation’s policy of official neutrality, no studios could produce any more anti-Nazi films.

But that didn’t deter the Three Stooges and Columbia Pictures from making “You Nazty Spy!,” written by Clyde Bruckman and Felix Adler and directed by Jules White. Historian Lynn Rapaport, writing in the San Diego Jewish Journal, points out that film shorts were not as closely regulated or censored as feature films, so perhaps the Stooges’ efforts were unnoticed or ignored.

“You Nazty Spy!” was released with a disclaimer, “Any resemblance between the characters in this picture and any persons, living or dead, is a miracle,” which was patently ridiculous because the short depends on Moe’s physical resemblance to Hitler — particularly after he pushes his hair back on one side and gets a piece of black tape stuck to his upper lip.

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But at one particularly perilous time in history, these three Jewish comedians, these Three Stooges, fought back against the fascists with the only weapon they had — their sense of humor.

“Truth is the new hate speech.”

Pamela Geller, Atlas Shrugged, 2009

Though I’ve been following the saga of Geert Wilders, I have not blogged about the Dutch politician indicted for hate speech for speaking out about the violent Islamification of the Netherlands. If convicted, Wilders could be extradited to Jordan for punishment.

Pamela Geller at Atlas Shrugged has been speaking out against the persecution of Wilders. In fact, she has devoted a significant part of her amazing blogsite to covering Wilders’ situation. See her post from today, which also includes Wilders’ speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).

Wilders’ film Fitna — the putative source of this Muslim outrage — includes examples of how various Koranic verses are used by Muslim clerics and political leaders to incite Muslim populations to violence. And Fitna is entirely faithful to classical, mainstream Islamic exegesis on the Koranic verses cited in the film regardless of what cultural jihadists, and their witting or unwitting apologists and abettors, may claim. It is beyond Orwellian to vilify, let alone prosecute Wilders - who simply holds up a mirror to Islamic societies — for being in any way responsible for the Koranic incitement and Muslim violence his documentary faithfully records, and he appropriately condemns.

Wilders does not hate Muslims or Islam, nor does he object to Muslims who are not intolerant of other. Neither do I. I have several dear Muslim friends. Wilders’ speeks out against intolerance and is deemed intolerant. Lest you think this is a European thing, remember that Obama and the Democratic congress are even now plotting to destroy free speech — on the internet and talk radio — against those who merely oppose their foolish policies. They won’t call it the Fairness doctrine, but it will certainly be unfair.

Watch CNN’s interview of Geert Wilders. Note how CNN refuses to debate the facts but engages in slander and lies. Disgusting, but we do we expect anything more from the American mainstream media?

So what is Geert Wilders speaking out against? This video of a recent Islamic riot in Malmo, Sweden may help you: