Author: admin

This work argues that the primary causes of the second world war are imperialism, and the craving of the nations who previously lost the war (germany, italy, japan) for power, predominance, and revenge against the other countries for depriving them of their “fair share” and “[their] place in the sun.” After the anti-comintern pact, fascist states became more and more aggressive. the US and england turned a blind eye to northern China, where Japan was invading. They did this because they hoped that Japan would invade the Soviet Union, which would have been beneficial, because it would be two problems taking care of each other. However, this did not happen. Fascist states in Europe also began to become more aggressive. Germany and Austria unified. Czechoslovakia was in peril: their independence was at stake, but they still refused to accept help from the Soviet Union. The conflict of interest between the two imperialist groups only served to benefit the Fascist states.

A novel by William Pierce in which a violent revolution leads to the overthrowing of the government. Then nuclear war occurs, and finally a race war occurs in which all non-white people are completely wiped out. It has been described as being racist and anti-semitic. This work inspired many hate crimes, hence its presence among banned texts. It inspired the bombing of Oklahoma city and the assassination of Alan Berg, among other things. Personally, what comes to mind when reading this book is anarchism and the set of ideals associated with it. Also heavily pushed in this work is the right to bear arms and the potential result of banning guns and other weaponry. Additionally, the philosophy behind Jews in power is similar to the work we read previously, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Basically, people assume that Jews have this secret vendetta against all non-Jewish people and plan to take over the world.

Basically this text is an advocacy text for the mail-bomb policy. The mail-bomb policy is a campaign promoting the idea of blowing up important pieces of technology, because the text argues that modern technology (universities, airlines) is ultimately a detriment to society. He argues that the industrial revolution has merely created a society that prioritizes individual need over the need of a society. He argues that this is destroying nature and inhibiting personal freedoms. He argues that technology destroys small societies and groups of people. Ultimately, he argues that the kind of society promoted by technology is a society that goes against the tide of human potential. Although Kaczynski didn’t commit any crime himself, his manifesto urges readers into committing crime. He argues that the society technology promotes encourages drug usage, expansive police powers, etc. It was interesting to see this work dabble into drug usage and police power: I definitely wasn’t expecting that when I initially looked at/heard of this work.

Research question: Is PETA an extremist organization? What are the policies of PETA, and do they live up to what they say their values are?

Methodology: I will use Questia, among other sources, to find scholarly articles related to PETA’s behavior, as recent as I can find them. I will also make sure to mention noteworthy events in PETA’s history, regardless of whether they paint PETA in a positive or negative light.

Abstract: PETA, also known as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, is the most well-known animal charity to date. PETA is an organization of the stance that animals should not be used for farming, entertainment, experimenting on, or killing for clothing items. Some sources say that less than 1% of PETA’s funding goes to animals. PETA has made a lot of bold campaign choices, which some people find highly distasteful and a waste of donated money. Additionally, although PETA’s aim is to help animals, they still euthanize a lot of animals, some going as far to say that they kill more animals than regular animal shelters. Some of their most offensive ad campaigns include: comparing pregnant women to fattened sows, a person dressed as a giant vanilla condom, comparing animal use to the death of millions of jews in the holocaust, urging Ben and Jerry’s ice cream to use human milk instead of cow milk, etc.

Potential conclusions: PETA, as an organization, makes radically offensive and inaccurate ad campaigns, and a majority of the money risen from PETA doesn’t even go to funding measures against animal cruelty. PETA is definitely an extremist organization, but not the best organization to donate to in an attempt to prevent animal cruelty.

Sources:
https://greatnonprofits.org/org/people-for-the-ethical-treatment-of-animals basic information on peta’s stances
https://speakingofresearch.com/2011/01/18/where-do-petas-donation-dollars-go/ bold campaign choices
https://www.activistfacts.com/organizations/peta-people-for-the-ethical-treatment-of-animals/ Less than 1% goes to animals
https://zoos.media/media-echo/peta-shelter-2021-death-rate-increases-significantly/?lang=en euthanization rates

When I first heard of this book, my first instinct was that calling it a “cookbook” would be, all in all, a misnomer. For being so controversial, surely the work contained more than recipes for baking/cooking foods. However, the misnomer wasn’t in the title; it was in its definition of being an anarchistic book. It’s more accurately nihilistic. The book references drugs like they’re a cure-all to the current set of laws. The author knows a suspiciously high amount of information about drugs. The author details 3 different kinds of pot, and 2 methods of growing it. They also manage to incorporate every part of a marijuana plant into a recipe of some sort. Before this, I had never heard of hash. It’s apparently just a block of marijuana plant extract. The author guides the reader through the process of making hash. The author mentions a man named Antonin Artaud, whose life was drastically changed for the worse after taking LSD, and romanticizes his experience as “[finding] his own truth.” There are rules about buying off the black market: never buy from a stranger or on the street, don’t front money, don’t hold large amounts of money with people you don’t trust around, etc. He also mentions LBJ, which is a mix of acid, belladonna, and heroin, describing the trip as “the freakiest, worst, most fucked-up trip you will ever go on.” He then quotes a patent on how to make acid. During the peyote segment, he goes off on a tangent, telling a story about the first time he tried it. After reading the peyote segment, I don’t understand why people would get high off of it. It smells bad, tastes bad, and makes one vomit. How is that desirable? The rest of the drugs listed follow a similar pattern of: where it comes from in nature, origin of usage, people who can use it to get high legally, preparation of drug to ingest, recipes for drug ingestion, and how to grow some in a lab setting or from home.

To start my blog post about this book, I will first write the things I found interesting about the introduction. It was shocking to see that a lot of Hitler’s speeches and writings were recorded and preserved. An interesting comparison is made: Hitlerism and Mein Kampf are said to be equal to christianity and the bible; both texts having beliefs that come from wildly misconstrued or out of context pieces of the work of their origin. I’d like to think this point is a good preface for the rest of the work; it allows the reader to better understand the differences between what is said in the book and the beliefs of the axis powers as a whole. It’s also quite interesting that it’s possible Hitler himself was partially jewish, but this is not known for certain. I had known that Hitler was a failed artist, but I didn’t know that he was homeless for a long period of time after failing to get into art school. Hitler came to hate his father, and in doing so, came to also hate the people he worked for: the Habsburgs. Hitler joined the army, and was recommended the Iron Cross by, ironically, a jew. Hitler was said to have been a natural orator. He was very convincing and was extremely good at demoralizing enemies and creating propaganda. Hitler soon took leadership of the Nazi party in Germany, and he bought the newspaper. Although briefly in jail, Hitler was able to use his position and beliefs to manipulate the judges into giving him a lighter sentence. Hitler also stirred up great animosity between the Weimar Republic and the German Government. Although bits and pieces of Hitler’s ideology can be traced to (possibly) certain people, there was no one man who “gave Hitler his ideas.” His political stance was unique to him.

Now, I will comment on chapter 4. He starts talking about Munich, a place where “one does not know German art if one has not seen Munich” (Hitler 116). He mentions the German alliance policy, mentioning that though he disagreed with it at the time, it was merely “self-deception.” He shows clear anger at the difference between the speeches of statesmen and the content of the press. He calls people stupid for thinking that Italy would stay on Austria’s side. He says that the only option for Italy was either to pretend to be allied with Austria to prepare for a war with them, or skip it and immediately go to war with them. Hitler then says that Germany is growing at an unsustainable rate, and that there are four key ways to stop this: birth control by humans/nature, internal colonization, acquiring of new land, or buying all needed supplies from other countries.

Next, chapter 5. The chapter begins with Hitler lamenting the period of time he was born in, wishing there was more violence and war. Hitler was eager to enlist when the war actually started. He mentions it’s unreasonable to “identify the German worker with Marxism” (Hitler 154). He continues, saying that one can’t be rid of people with certain ideologies by using brute force.

In chapter 6, Hitler talks about propaganda. He mentions that, on his side, the usage of propaganda was so unskillful that it had negative impacts. He takes on the “the ends justify the means” mindset. The target audience is the masses, rather than the educated few at the top. It must be simple.

In chapter 7, Hitler discusses the demoralization of troops at the front line over time. He discusses his time fighting the war. He describes the terrible conditions in Germany as a whole, especially Munich. He describes how “toxic” the Jewish people were to Germany at this time. He talks about the munitions strike. He talks about the vain sacrifices, and what motivates him to begin to get into politics.

Finally, in chapter 8, Hitler returns to the army after getting sick. He found himself unable to join existing political parties, but still wanted to arouse change in the nation. He listens to Feder’s lecture, and finds himself agreeing with all of his points. Hitler mentions that the most influential works of times always come in an era of misunderstanding and overlooking, which I find highly ironic.

There were a lot of unexpected things I encountered whilst reading Bambi. First, the Disney version of the text and the actual text are vastly different. The messages delivered by the Disney version are more to the theme of animal hunting being inhumane, whereas the novel itself is about the weak and powerless being hunted by others. The author himself had a forest under his name, and although he spent a lot of time in it peacefully, he also hunted animals there. The Disney film vastly misinterpreted the main point of the novel. It was shocking that the author only got $1,000 for the movie rights of Bambi, and never really made more off of the book. The Disney movie completely eradicated the characters of the old prince and Gobo, which is possibly why the meanings of the two are so different. As sad as the Disney movie is, I didn’t feel much emotion when reading the book. In retrospect, that’s probably due to the fact that I’m kind of resistant to that after reading 120 Days of Sodom. It was interesting how the author himself, though born jewish, didn’t see himself as a jew but rather an austrian. Despite this, he made the perfect book to represent the unlawful and unjust hunting of minority groups. I can kind of understand why this author wasn’t popular: not only did he argue a scarcely agreed upon subject, he also had little to no variation in his works. Almost all of his works were about animals, and I can understand how one would get tired of it.

Although I had taken a trip to the holocaust museum a few years ago, it was interesting to come back and see the new exhibit. I found the portion of the museum with the shoes of the slain Jewish populace especially impactful. The new exhibit, with the polls that you could physically flip over to see, was shocking. I figured that the decisions regarding the treatment of Jewish people were hated by people in other countries, and that the USA was eager to go to war against the axis powers. Unfortunately, I wasn’t feeling well on that particular day, so I spent a lot of my time there sitting down and didn’t go through the exhibits as thoroughly as I would have liked to.

It was fascinating to read such an extensive plan on world-domination. Even more shocking is that it was written for Jewish, by Jewish, to Jewish people. The work was very controversial and didn’t shy away from saying shocking things such as “WE SHALL DESTROY GOD” (Protocol No. 4, 3). One of the main themes in this work was that non-Jewish people are subservient to Jewish people, and that these non-Jewish people were born to serve as proletariats paid in breadcrumbs for hard, rigorous work. Alongside this, the work encourages the form of a secret government run by only Jewish people, that rules over pretty much all freedoms one can think of. Religion, press, authority, beliefs, what’s taught in schools, etc. There’s no shortage of outrageous phrases in this writing. It’s horrifying to think that this work isn’t fictional. When reading this work, I was struck by the minor comparison of this writing to The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli. Both share a central theme of preferring to be feared rather than loved, but this work specifically focuses more on where The Prince focuses on arousing only fear from the subjects. Although this book isn’t a solid justification for what happened against the Jewish people during the world wars, I can see where people would read this book and irrationally assume it to be fully truthful, and thus gain a fear of Jewish people. They have everything part of a plan to take over the world present in this work, even things less commonly thought about like the financial means in which to take over the world.

There are many things in this book that are considered controversial, both in the past and now. In the context of when the book was published, there were definitely more things considered taboo than there are today. For example, the act of anal sex (sodomy) was considered indecent and immoral back then, but is now commonplace and widely accepted. During the period this book was written, medical knowledge wasn’t as advanced as it is now. People didn’t know a lot of the things we know about medicine today, such as how germs spread. Looking at the vomit chapters now, one is greatly disgusted and concerned for the spread of disease from this activity, but back then they didn’t know that this is directly linked to an increased chance of illness and death. Also during this period was the peak of commonplace Christianity; almost all of Europe believed in God and were devout in their faith more than almost any time in history. That being said, that only makes the anti-Christianity themes of the book (and the upside down cross on the cover) more controversial and potentially upsetting to the masses.