Harry´s Blog

Herbert Kuhner

The Tenth Anniversary of the Schüssel-Haider Tandem Is Upon Us

Here They Are Taking Positions on Bygone Days:

Wolfgang Schüssel: Austria Victim not Perpetrator

Question: Does Austria consider itself as a perpetrator or victim 60 years after the war?
Wolfgang Schüssel: I believe that this question has been decided. The country (Austria) was a victim of aggression, specifically a military aggression. That was proven in the night after the occupation when thousands were arrested. If the Nazi leadership thought that all of Austria was cheering, these arrests would not have been carried out. The entire political elite was de facto cancelled out. There was resistance in all political groups. The allies recognized this…I will never permit Austria not be viewed as a victim. Our country was the first military victim of the Nazis in its identity. But I do not want to create the impression that we intend to minimize or erase the individual guilt of perpetrators in any sense
Question: Does the People’s Party intend to have post-war history researched, as the Social Democratic Party has done?
Schüssel: The entire leadership of the People’s Party (ÖVP) was in concentration camps and were victims.
- Wolfgang Schüssel, Austrian Chancellor, Neue Züricher Zeitung, Feb. 15, 2005; Austrian Federal Chancellory Online.

Otto Habsburg Comes into the Picture:

“Again and again there are shameful discussions concerning Austrians having been accomplices or victims. This makes it imperative for me to say that there is certainly no country in Europe that can more adequately describe itself as a victim than Austria!…When there’s a great commotion somewhere, many people will come to cheer. If you mention the
crowd of 60,000 at Heldenplatz (Heroes’ Square) - there are 60,000 fans at every soccer game.”
- Otto Habsburg, the Austrian Parliament Commemorates the „Anschluss”, March 11, 2008

Kurt Waldheim Presents His View:

Saying farewell to the concept of having been nothing but a victim is essential, yes that is a necessity for Austrians. It was the basis of our spiritual equilibrium after 1945, as well as for our reconstruction and our post-war identity.
- Kurier, March 5, 2006, p. 3

Jörg Haider on Our Soldiers:

“Our soldiers weren’t perpetrators. The perpetrators were elsewhere…. I have said that the Wehrmacht soldiers made democracy, as we find it today in Europe, possible. Had they not afforded resistance, had they not been in the East, had they not been in a confrontation, then we would have…  (Haider is interrupted by two astute Profil editors.)  (1)  I have stated that the struggle soldiers were engaged in helped stem the communist menace, and that is an undeniable fact.(2)   Their sacrifice must not have been in vain. Without their valor, we would not have the freedom in Western Europe that we take for granted. (3)   In these unsettling times there decent individuals with character, who stick to their beliefs despite strong opposition and remain true to them today as well. That is a good basis, my dear friends, for us younger people to inherit. (4)   Your sacrifice for the Europe of today, men and women of the military generation, should not have been in vain.(5)    It is incomprehensible to me that our grandfathers and fathers should have been criminals… I espouse this generation, the dead as well as the living. (6)  The Third Reich had managed to implement a competent employment policy.” (7)

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Tony Blair to Iraq Inquiry, Jan. 30, 2010:
“Frankly, I would do it all again….Blair’s cockeyed logic: “If Saddam hadn’t been removed “today we would have a situation where Iraq was competing with Iran both in terms of nuclear capability and in respect of support of terrorist groups.”
 

Thumbs Down on Blair!

Opposition to Blair (as President of the E.U.) centers on his support for the war in Iraq. The war was mishandled and misbegotten - but if Blair had abandoned the United States, there would be little left of the Trans-Atlantic Alliance that was the rock on which the E.U. was built.
- Roger Cohen, “Giving Europe a Voice,” New York Times, Oct. 19, 2009

Bush, Cheney and Blair liberated Iraq and tens of thousands of Iraqis from life, as well as thousands of American and British soldiers. They invaded a country that had nothing to do with 9/11, thus removing the buffer to Iran, making the United States and Israel more vulnerable. After pushing the Taliban back in Afghanistan, Bush & Co. let the country go to pot, increasing the danger to the Western World.

Blair did not simply go along with the invasion of Iraq. He passionately and eloquently made the case for it. He claimed that secular Saddam Hussein was in a tandem with sectarian Osama bin Laden, which was pure and unadulterated mendacity.

Those responsible for the senseless deaths of thousands belong in the dock in the Hague.
 

Buying from Blair

When Bush and Blair declared their aims concerning Iraq,
I wasn’t buying anything from Bush, but I lent my ear to Blair.
Blair’s eloquent casus belli was a rousing call
that brought King Harry’s Agincourt speech to mind.
I didn’t quite accept it, but I couldn’t quite reject it.
I was more than sceptical about the affiliation between bin Laden and Saddam
which Blair claimed was tightening.
But all-in-all, I could fathom the MPs voting for Blair’s resolution.
It would be hard not to.
Robin Cook’s resignation from the government got me thinking.
His actions look good in retrospect, and they look even better
after death silenced his voice.

At any rate, Blair threw me off track.
I sat on the fence.

I had Bush, Cheney and Condi figured out,
but I still didn’t have a handle on Blair.

He looks well meaning and sincere,
and he hasn’t tripped himself up with his own quotes.

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According to “Profil(e)”Austria is in the lead.
You’re Number One on the European Tally of Smokers.
Austria, you may be runner-up to Hungary on Suicide,
but you’re two up on Hungary in Smoking.

Harry Congratulates the Champion!

from The Grey Haze/Der blaue Dunst

There are thousands, millions, billions of chimneys
polluting the atmosphere of the world
that are producing nothing but inane expressions on faces.

The Man in the Windbreaker
The man in the Windbreaker became the symbol for the new activity. The cult poster showed James Dean walking through a Broadway puddle on the Boulevard of Broken Wind. The hit tunes were Wind is in the Air; All You Need Is Wind; I Can’t Give You Anything but Wind, Baby and Wind is Sweeping the Country. The Anthem became Today the Nation, Tomorrow the World. Men insisted that breaking was masculine and was part of the tough guy image. But women, not to be outdone, made it their own. Feminists declared that breaking represented liberation. Women not only smoke at kaffee klatsches but did is openly on the streets.

The new craze displaced chain-smoking, gum-chewing and -snapping as well as screeching walkman headphones. It simply became the thing to do. Intellectuals would look at you serenely and dreamily as they broke. It seemed to inspire high flights into the cerebral stratosphere. Workers broke on the job, claiming that it improved their speed and efficiency. In restaurants, breakers would come to sit at your table and break without asking, as if it were the most natural thing in the world to do (which it was). Some would even go as far as to break in your face.

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Herbert Kuhner

Some quotations by SS-colonel Walter Reder, who was the “last Austrian prisoner of war” until his release an January 24, 1985.

Telegram to the mayor of Marzabotto December 25, 1984: “Nothing lies farther from my heart than forgetting the sacrifice of the martyrs. I beseech the survivors to believe me when I say that I weep for those martyrs and bow my head before their memory in deep Christian remorse”

Walter Reder in May of 1985 concerning that telegram:
“They do not hesitate to use my Italian lawyer’s gambit against me. I have no intention whatsoever of ‘whitewashing’ and humbling myself.”

Telegram to “Comrade Jüttner,” May 9, 1980:
“The rats are very tough, as we know.”

In 1983 the Socialists formed a coalition, with the Freedomites. In 1985 when Walter Reder, the last Nazi war criminal incarcerated in Italy, was released, Friedhelm Frischenschlager Freedomite Minister of Defense, flew to Graz to welcome the “old soldier” with a handshake and received him with full military honors.

Frischenschlager asserted that Reder was merely the last prisoner of war. He was not aware of why Reder had not previously been released.” No minister of defense in the history of mankind, and there have been many lulus, could be deemed so naive.

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Herbert Kuhner

American “Conservative” Columnist and Tea Party Activist
Laura Ingraham Recites a “Poem” She Authored:

“First They Came”

“I am proud to stand with you,
and I am saying with great respect
First they came for the rich,
And I did not speak out because I was not rich.
Then they confiscated the property owners,
and I did not speak out because I did not own property.
Then they took away our right to bear arms,
and I did not speak out because I was not armed.
Then they came for me and denied me my medical care,
and there was no one left to speak for me,
and I couldn’t because my Medicare provider
wouldn’t’ treat my tonsillitis”

- Tea Party Rally Dec. 15th Capitol Hill,
CBS News (blog) and The Daily Show, Dec. 16, 2009‎

 Poor Laura Ingraham

Laura Ingraham, of Fox News, etc., is not rich.
Laura Ingraham does not own property.
Laura Ingraham does not bear arms
(But some of her Tea Party colleagues do)
Laura Ingraham does not have medical insurance.
She has nothing to lose except her tonsils.

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Here’s Senator Tom Coburn of the great state of Oklahoma on “the pink menace”:

“The gay community has infiltrated the very centers of power in every area across this country, and they wield extreme power … That agenda is the greatest threat to our freedom that we face today. Why do you think we see the rationalization for abortion and multiple sexual partners? That’s a gay agenda.” [1]

Not any more though! The “agenda’s” days are numbered.

Michael Schwartz, Tom’s invaluable Chief of Staff, however has gotten to the core of the problem, and has come upon a simple solution. Tom and Michael are going to “straighten” out gays before the gay bug bites them.

You don’t have to break your brain about the cause. Michael has ingenuously found it and it’s not genetic. So there, all you silly scientists!

All pre-pubescent boys are straight. What happens to make some of them gay? They get their sweaty little hands on pornography.

Here’s Michael at Family Research Council’s Values Voter Summit on Sept. 19 of 2OO9: “All pornography is homosexual pornography because all pornography turns your sexual drive inwards.” He goes on: “Now think about that. And if you, if you tell an eleven-year-old boy about that, do you think he’s going to want to go out and get a copy of Playboy?”

Christ no! That’s going to be the end of Playboy and the centerfold and all that. Every eleven-year-old will want to grow up to be a tough guy, a he-man, instead of a namby-pamby. All you have to do to “straighten” the world out is do away with pornography!

Thank you Michael for dealing the death-blow to gaydom!

- Herbert Kuhner

I started at the top and worked my way down.
- Orson Welles

Orson Welles often pulled the chestnuts out of the fire,
but he threw them in just as often.

I saw Citizen Kane in 1955 at the 55th St Playhouse, which is off Seventh Ave. At the time it was still an “art house.” Years later it was transformed into a porn theater, like so many art houses. Perhaps there is a connection, since the old art houses showed European films in which there was sometimes a glimpse of nudity, the only glimpses in those puritanical days. Now those venues show the blow-by-blow blow-ups of the real McCoy.

No doubt about it, Orson was a bit of a mountebank and a conjurer, not to say impostor. In young years, he learned the tricks of a magician. That’s how he won Rita Hayworth. He put on a magic show and she was the decoration. Orson sawed her in half, and when he put her together again, she was so dazzled that she married him. A Hollywood star married a Hollywood man. He may have been a maverick, but he started out as a Broadway maverick and became a Hollywood maverick. Yes, you can’t imagine Welles without Hollywood, nor can you imagine Hollywood without Welles.

Orson was a wheeler-dealer who could talk people into doing things for him. He sold Harry Cohn of Columbia the idea of buying a book that he had spotted in a pocket book rack in a drugstore while on the phone. Harry bought the book and forked over forty grand to Orson, which was a lot of dough in the Forties. When read, the unread Lady turned out to be so lousy that Orson had to write the script form scratch. The only part of the book that survived in the film was the title.

Welles had put Harry Cohn on, and Harry would get even with him. The question is: Did Orson Welles the magician, at times, put the public on?

Orson, prior to Citizen Kane, was the greatest juggler of the performing arts that the world had ever seen, but after Kane he dropped balls all over the place. Before the age twenty-five, you may be able to bat around from radio shows to the theater and to the film studio, but after that, juggling becomes more difficult, and you have to hang around to complete a job until it’s finished to your satisfaction. But juggling well or badly wasn’t the whole story. Lady Luck had been Orson’s constant companion up to Kane, but afterwards she abandoned him and the magic went with her.

Biting off more than you can chew invariably means ending up with a stomach ache.

In Kane, Welles went about “inventing” cinema. Here’s what Gregg Toland, the great cameraman, had to say: “I want to work with someone who’s never made a movie. That’s the only way to learn anything - from someone who doesn’t know anything.” In other words, being new at the game, Welles was bound to do things that you shouldn’t do.

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