News flash: politicians lie

"I have said this before, but I shall say it again and again and again: Your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars." 

Franklin D. Roosevelt, campaigning for a third term as US President, October 30, 1940, Boston

 "I am fighting to keep our people out of foreign wars. And I will keep on fighting."

Franklin D. Roosevelt, campaigning for a third term as US President, November 1, 1940, Brooklyn, New York

"Your national government ... is equally a government of peace -- a government that intends to retain peace for the American people."

Franklin D. Roosevelt, campaigning for a third term as US President, November 2, 1940, Rochester, New York

"Your President says this country is not going to war." 

Franklin D. Roosevelt, campaigning for a third term as US President, November 2, 1940, Buffalo, New York


"The first purpose of our foreign policy is to keep our country out of war."

Franklin D. Roosevelt, campaigning for a third term as US President, November 3, 1940, Cleveland

The election was held on Nov. 5. Within 14 months, the USA entered the war. By war's end, 291,557 American soldiers had been killed and 113,842 injured.

Should I add commentary? The quotes speak for themselves. You can't trust politicians,which is a sobering thought since we elect them to lead us. If we did our homework before electing them, if we gave them our votes for doing something more than being good looking or sounding, if we held them to account for their actions then we might find ourselves led by better people. But we as a group don't do that. FDR is the classic case. He lied his way into a war. Yet, the schools teach us that he was nearly a saint. 

FDR was re-elected by a landslide in 1944.

See this article by William Henry Chamberlin in the Institute for Historical Review. He gives a list of all the belligerent actions that FDR took during the next year, not actions that a nation would take if peace were its highest priority. Here are a few of them:

1. The exchange of American destroyers for British bases in the Caribbean and in Newfoundland in September, 1940. This was a clear departure from the requirements of neutrality and was also a violation of some specific American laws. Indeed, a conference of top government lawyers at the time decided that the destroyer deal put this country into the war, legally and morally.
2. The enactment of the Lend-Lease Act in March, 1941. In complete contradiction of the wording and intent of the Neutrality Act, which remained on the statute books, this made the United States an unlimited partner in the economic war against the Axis Powers all over the world.
3. The secret American-British staff talks in Washington in January-March, 1941. Extraordinary care was taken to conceal not only the contents of these talks but the very fact that they were taking place from the knowledge of Congress. At the time when administration spokesmen were offering assurances that there were no warlike implications in the Lend-Lease Act, this staff conference used the revealing phrase, "when the United States becomes involved in war with Germany."
4. The inauguration of so-called naval patrols, the purpose of which was to report the presence of German submarines to British warships, in the Atlantic in April, 1941.
5. The dispatch of American laborers to Northern Ireland to build a naval base, obviously with the needs of an American expeditionary force in mind.
6. The occupation of Iceland by American troops in July, 1941. This was going rather far afield for a government which professed as its main concern the keeping of the United States out of foreign wars.
7. The Atlantic Conference of Roosevelt and Churchill, August 9-12, 1941. Besides committing America as a partner in a virtual declaration of war aims, this conference considered the presentation of an ultimatum to Japan and the occupation of the Cape Verde Islands, a Portuguese possession, by United States troops.
8. The orders to American warships to shoot at sight at German submarines, formally announced on September 11. The beginning of actual hostilities may be dated from this time rather than from the German declaration of war, which followed Pearl Harbor.
9. The authorization for the arming of merchant ships and the sending of these ships into war zones in November, 1941.

He cites Professor Thomas A. Bailey who claims FDR had to lie to the American people because war was necessary and the ignorant masses would never step up to it if asked directly.

However, Chamberlain argues, correctly in my view, that war for the USA was not necessary and claims that Hitler, yimach shemo, was planning to attack the Americas have never been proven. "Not a single serious bit of evidence in proof of these sensational allegations has ever been found, not even when the archives of the Nazi government were at the disposal of the victorious powers." Even Great Britain was not in danger at that time.

Should some 18 year old boy from Ohio have to die in a conflict between European nations? I say no. You can say whatever you like (you of course were not the parent of that boy). Either way, we see what liars politicians can be. 

Remember that. It applies to every country, including the state of israel. They lie to you and the state 'historians'/propagandists lie after the fact. Be a fool at your own risk. Trust only the true gadolim.



Source: From The Journal of Historical Review, Nov.-Dec. 1994 (Vol. 14, No. 6), pages 19-21. This piece is excerpted from the anthology, edited by Harry Elmer Barnes, Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace (1953), Chapter 8, pages 485-491.

About the Author


William Henry Chamberlin (1897-1969) was an American historian and journalist. He was Moscow correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor in Moscow, 1922-1934, and Far Eastern Correspondent for the Monitor, 1939-1940. He contributed important reports and articles to leading American newspapers and periodicals, and for a time wrote a regular column for The Wall Street Journal.  Among his books were Soviet Russia (1930), Russia's Iron Age (1934), The Russian Revolution , 1917-1921 (in two volumes; 1935), Japan Over Asia (1939), The European Cockpit (1947), and America's Second Crusade (1950).

Remind you of anyone?

"What many Germans in their blindness or ill will did not want to see was recognized-by the foreign world: the German army was the mightiest weapon serving the freedom of the German nation and the sustenance of its children."

"He had not served in the army, even during the War he had not been a soldier, so that feeble and uncertain as he was in his whole nature, he lacked the only schooling which was capable of turning uncertain and soft natures into men."

"The People's State will have to consider the physical training of the youth after the school period just as much a public duty as their intellectual training; and this training will have to be carried out through public institutions. Its general lines can be a preparation for subsequent service in the army. And then it will no longer be the task of the army to teach the young recruit the most elementary drill regulations. In fact the army will no longer have to deal with recruits in the present sense of the word, but it will rather have to transform into a soldier the youth whose bodily prowess has been already fully trained."

"In the People's State the army will no longer be obliged to teach boys how to walk and stand erect, but it will be the final and supreme school of patriotic education. In the army the young recruit will learn the art of bearing arms, but at the same time he will be equipped for his other duties in later life. And the supreme aim of military education must always be to achieve that which was attributed to the old army as its highest merit: namely, that through his military schooling the boy must be transformed into a man, that he must not only learn to obey but also acquire the fundamentals that will enable him one day to command."

"The young boy or girl who is of German nationality and is a subject of the German State is bound to complete the period of school education which is obligatory for every German.
Thereby he submits to the system of training which will make him conscious of his race and a member of the folk-community. Then he has to fulfil all those requirements laid down by the State in regard to physical training after he has left school; and finally he enters the army. The training in the army is of a general kind. It must be given to each individual German and will render him competent to fulfil the physical and mental requirements of military service. The rights of citizenship shall be conferred on every young man whose health and character have been certified as good, after having completed his period of military service. This act of inauguration in citizenship shall be a solemn ceremony. And the diploma conferring the rights of citizenship will be preserved by the young man as the most precious testimonial of his whole life. It entitles him to exercise all the rights of a citizen and to enjoy all the privileges attached thereto. For the State must draw a sharp line of distinction between those who, as members of the nation, are the foundation and the support of its existence and greatness, and those who are domiciled in the State simply as earners of their livelihood there."

"The strength of the old state rested on three pillars: the monarchical form of government, the civil service, and the army. The Revolution of 1918 abolished the form of government, dissolved the army and abandoned the civil service to the corruption of party politics. Thus the essential supports of what is called the Authority of the State were shattered. This authority nearly always depends on three elements, which are the essential foundations of all authority."

Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf

R' Avigdor Miller - Calling a fool a fool

If people have wrong attitudes or wrong deeds, you have to say so, why not? Let say, if people in America, let’s say Modern Orthodox Jews, who come together with agunos – agunah conventions, so you say הני אמירקאנה טפשאי, “Those foolish Americans.” They come together and praise all the agunos. Some of these agunos are self-made agunos. How did they become agunos? She gets angry at her husband, and she calls in the police. So she drives drive her husband out of the house, and the police issue an order a protection. She throws her husband out of the house. Should he be happy? Certainly he doesn’t want to give her a gett. I don’t blame him. “It’s my house.” She drove him out of his house. So "הני עגונת טפשאי", and "בבלאי טפשאי" . Certainly, you have to condemn wickedness.

There’s a certain synagogue in Manhattan, where the rabbi hired two women as interns. Do you know what interns means? They spoke, and men were listening to them. Only bad things resulted from that. Later, after a couple of years, he stopped it, but it was too late already. It’s a terrible thing. A tipesh! A fool! That’s how you can describe that rabbi. What else should I say about him? He’s a shoiteh! Worse than a shoiteh! So we have to say clearly, the reformers are worse than shoitim. Some rabbis are even worse than shoitim. The ones who propose gay marriage - it’s hard to find adjectives even to describe that. We should say something about it. Absolutely!

Rabbi Avigdor Miller TAPE # E-234
transcription by TorasAvigdor.org

Pre-slichos kumztitz

Last night I sat in a pre-slichos kumztitz. There was a guitar and that usually means trouble. Whenever I see a guitar I know that the Zionism is close at hand. And sure enough, the rabbi went into a whole speech about the importance of living in Eretz Yisroel. He told us how he dreamed of this at a young age. He talked about having to give up materialism to do it. He seemed to think that everyone in America has a walk-in refrigerator. I don't know, maybe he lived like a king there. I didn't. The tuition payments alone soak up the income of most people I know. 

There are many idealistic people living chutz 'aretz. I know all kinds of kollel men in tiny apartments. I know Chassidic families in small homes struggling to feed their children. But this rabbi's remarks about people living chutz l'aretz were disparaging. To a rabid Zionist, these people are to be condemned because, you guessed it, they aren't living in the land. That's the most important mitzvah in the world to many Zionists. 

This is a black hat, black yarmulka rabbi. He would not call himself dati leumi. But he is dati leumi. He didn't talk about acquiring yiras shemayim before coming into Eretz Yisroel. He didn't talk about being punctilious b'mitzvos before coming into Eretz Yisroel. You have to be ready, be suitable, be on the level to come to EY.

Question: must one have a special spiritual preparation to go to Eretz Yisroel? And the an-swer is absolutely. (Yeremiah) HaNavi said,  וַתָּבֹ֙אוּ֙ וַתְּטַמְּא֣וּ אֶת־אַרְצִ֔י “You came and you defiled my land.” (Jeremiah 2:9) And therefore, it is of the most utmost importance that someone should be ready to behave, should learn how to conduct himself perfectly al pi HaTorah before he goes to Eretz Yisrael. And if he is good here, he must make a resolve to be even better there. There are no two ways about that. Well, it’s Eretz HaKodesh and it’s only for Jews who live b’kiddusah. Now if you’ll ask what about Arabs? And the answer is first of all Arabs don’t ask us any questions. And the second is an Arab we consider him just like birds. The birds that fly into Eretz Yisroel don’t have to have any kiddushah. An Arab or the gentile don’t have any tuma. They are like nothing to us. It’s like grass that grows there. But Am Yisroel they are pogem. When they do a sin, they cause great harm in the world. And therefore it’s of the utmost importance that a Jew before he goes to Eretz Yisroel, must make up his mind to be there b’kiddushah. Even just to visit. Nobody should go unless he’ll go b’kiddushah. If he takes along his wife, he must make sure that she is dressed completely properly because this is a land that vomits out the people who live there if they don’t suit her taste.  The land has to have something made to its taste. It’s אֶ֣רֶץ אֹכֶ֤לֶת יֽוֹשְׁבֶ֨יהָ֙ (Bemidbar 13:32) … Eretz Yisroel is finicky. It’s delicate. And only those people who behave properly can please the land.

Rabbi Avigdor Miller, “The Prophet Shmuel,” Tape #200 — 1:20 

Here is the order of life: first Torah, then Eretz Yisroel. If going into slichos, the rabbi talks only about the latter, then there is a problem. Don't we have teshuva to do? Isn't that the point of slichos? Maybe you want to say something about lashon hara, shmiras einayim, tznius, theft, selfishness, bitul Torah, or a 1,000 other sins. No, he talks only about living in the land. And weirdly, he did it to people who live there. It was like he was playing a tape from years ago, a speech he gave in some American city. Would have been better to say, now that you live here, be careful in mitzvos. Remember mitzvos? Does anybody remember mitzvos?

Here is how a proper rabbi talks:

It was not the land that Moses had been commanded to proclaim to his people at the outset of his mission as מורשה, as the inheritance they were to preserve (Ex. 6,8). The Law, to be translated into full reality upon that soil, was to be the true מורשה, the one true, everlasting inheritance, the one true center around which the nation and its leaders were to gather as one united community. Herein lay the goal and the destiny, the character and the significance of the people.

Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch "The Kehillah," Collected Writings, Vol. VI, p. 62

Who isn't a Jew?

"whosoever is not merciful to his fellow-men is certainly not of the children of our father Abraham" (Babylonian Talmud, Beitzah 32b)

מי שאינו מרחם על הבריות בידוע שאינו מזרעו של אברהם - ביצה ל״ב ב

Genuine Chassiduth

"Doubtless, the so-called German Jewishness with its "Torah im Derech Eretz" demand can stand up proudly before genuine Chassidism: to live up to the "Torah im Derech Eretz" precept in its true meaning is to follow the path upon which Chaassiduth greets us as the crowning glory of life. Thus, Rav Hirsch, and with him the great Torah leaders in Germany, were exemplary Chassidim sent to us by Divine Providence." R. Joseph Breuer