Tuesday, January 1, 2008

Huntsville, Alabama, and NASA's Germans

I was pleased that this NYT article reported on the wonderful things the German rocket scientists did for Huntsville, Alabama. After recounting the accomplishments of the German scientists and engineers in reaching the moon, it's not surprising in today's world that the story then tars both Alabamians and Germans by inference. It says the Germans were bad because they were Nazis, and the Alabamians were bad because they were racists. So, they got along well together. But nevertheless, it does say that it was pretty remarkable that we got to the moon, thanks to Werner von Braun.

Jews are primarily responsible for fomenting hatred of former Nazis and Southerners. Hey! Let's hear about the Holocaust; we haven't heard about it for five minutes! It's unfortunate that Jews are coming to be defined by hatred: in this case, hatred of Germans who served Hitler, even if they became good Americans who won the space race with Russia after arriving here. And of course Israel is a country defined by its hatred of Palestinians, Nazis, Arabs, Muslims, Persians, and many others. Because of this attitude, the Times could not run just a straightforward story about the accomplishments of the Germans who came to live in Huntsville. It's nice that the people of Huntsville don't seem to hate the Germans like New Yorkers do.