This email is VERY SAD and disgusting -- I don't know how to respond...

[geekgrrl]

I searched around on the DU to see if this email has popped up before. I tried googling parts of it. I searched snopes.com for it. Nothing. No info on this "Lori Kalner" and it is pretty convenient this email says her story is unknown.

My aunt sent it to me-- a distant aunt in Michigan. I figured she'd never vote for Obama-- she is VERY catholic and very anti-choice. But, this email just bugs me in so many ways, and I'd love to figure out a way to respond. If not to change her mind, but just to make her think. She is open enough to read my blog and email me about my life-- and she knows I'm gay and very liberal. I'd like to figure out a way to stop her from sending such hate-filled shit.

Here's snip-its of it. I don't feel like posting the whole thing:

-------------->>

Please read to the end with an open mind: HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR COMPARES B. OBAMA to 1930's GERMAN POLICIES

I realize this is from a blog of biblical/fiction writers BUT the lady writing is a REAL PERSON WHO WENT THRU THE HOLOCAUST and all the horrors of GERMANY and she feels so led to write to US today and warn us....so please read...and blessings.

Hymn to Hitler by
Lori Kalner

In Germany, when Hitler came to power, it was a time of terrible financial depression. Money was worth nothing. In Germany people lost homes and jobs, just like in the American Depression in the 1930s, which we have read about in Thoene’s Shiloh books. In those days, in my homeland, Adolph Hitler was elected to power by promising “Change.”

He blamed the “Zionists” around the world for all our problems. He told everyone it was greedy Zionist Bankers who had caused every problem we had. He promised when he was leader, the greedy Zionist bankers would be punished. The Zionists, he promised, would be wiped off the face of the earth.

So Hitler was elected to power by only 1/3 the popular vote. A coalition of other political parties in parliament made him supreme leader. Then, when he was leader, he disgraced and expelled everyone in parliament who did not go along with him. Yes. Change came to my homeland as the new leader promised it would.

The teachers in German schools began to teach the children to sing songs in praise of Hitler. This was the beginning of the Hitler Youth movement. It began with praise of the Fuhrer’s programs on the lips of innocent children. Hymns in praise of Hitler and his programs were being sung in the schoolrooms and in the playyard. Little girls and boys joined hands and sang these songs as they walked home from school.

My brother came home and told Papa what was happening at school. The political hymns of children proclaimed Change was coming to our homeland and the Fuhrer was a leader we could trust.

I will never forget my father’s face. Grief and fear. He knew that the best propaganda of the Nazis was song on the lips of little children. That evening before he said grace at the dinner table, he placed his hands upon the heads of my brothers and me and prayed the Living Word upon us from Jeremiah 1:4-5…

<...>

The government took over private business. Industry and health care were “nationalized.” (NA-ZI means National Socialist Party) The businesses of all Jews were seized. (Perhaps you remember our story in Berlin on Krystalnacht in the book Munich Signature) The world and God’s word were turned upside down. Hitler promised the people economic Change?

Not change. It was, rather, Lucifer’s very ancient Delusion leading to Destruction.

<...>

Yet with my last breaths I warn every Christian and Jew now in the name of the Lord. Unless your course of the church in America is spiritually changed now, returning to the Lord, there are new horrors yet to come.

I (Lori Kalner) trembled last night when I heard the voices of American children raised in song, praising the name of Obama, the charismatic fellow who claims he is the American Messiah. Yet I have heard what this man Obama says about abortion and the “mercy killing” of tiny babies who are not wanted.

<...>

There are so few of us (Holocaust survivors) left to warn you. I have heard that there are 69 million Catholics in America and 70 million Evangelical Christians. Where are your voices? Where is your outrage? Where is passion and your vote?

Do you vote based on an abortionist’s empty promises and economics? Or do you vote according to the Bible? Thus says the Lord about every living child still in the womb…“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you…”

I have experienced the signs of the politics of Death in my youth. I see them again now.
Christians! Unless you stand up now, you will lose your freedom of religion.

In America priests and preachers have already lost their freedom to speak openly from their pulpits of moral danger in political candidates. They cannot legally instruct you of which candidate holds fast to the precepts of scripture! American law forbids this freedom of speech to conservative pastors or they will lose their “tax exempt” status.

And yet I have heard the words of Obama’s pastor Damning America! I have heard the words of Obama damning and mocking all of you in small towns because you “Cling to your religion…”

But I am a woman whose name is unknown. My life is recorded as a work of fiction. I have no fear of reprisal when I speak truth to you from the pages of a book. (Though the Zion Covenant books are mocked and condemned by the Left in America.)

I am an old woman and will soon go to be with my Lord. I have no fear for myself, but for all of you and for your children, I tremble. I tremble at the hymns to a political leaders which your children will sing at school. (Though even now a hymn or a prayer to God and our Lord Jesus is against the law in public school!)

Your vote must put a stop to what will come upon America if Barrack Obama is elected.

I pray you will personally heed this warning for the sake of your children and your grandchildren. Do not be deceived. The Lord in Jeremiah 1:7-8 commands every believer to speak up!

“Do not say, ‘I am only a youth,’ for to all whom I send you, you shall go, and whatever I command you, you shall speak. Do not be afraid of them for I am with you, declares the Lord!”

[Higher Standard]

1. "Please remove me from your address book, Governor Palin"

[AlCzervik]

2. Bounce it back to her, that's what i would do along with a hearty "Fuck off" because

that's what she deserves, i understand she's a "Distant Aunt" but we all have asshole relatives that don't deserve the time of day.

[shifting_sands]

3. FDR

Hitler followed the depression in Europe, FDR followed Hoover in the US, I guess it just depends on what you want to see. Obama supporters believe he has the potential of Franklin Roosevelt, non supporters see Hitler, too bad

[bluestateguy]

4. From the same people that worshipped the ground George W. Bush walked on

and called anyone who disagreed a traitor and an Al Qaeda sympathizer.

[ej510]

7. My jewish grandfather would tell her to fuck off if he was alive.

[Faygo Kid]

5. Tell Lori Kalner to go f* herself, and ignore the rest. Insane rantings, and totally fake.

You don't need to respond intelligently to an unintelligible nutcase post. She's an "old woman" who will soon go to meet the Lord?

How many "old women" do you know named Lori?

What a pantload.

[donco6]

6. Bodie Thoene.

Christian author with a weblog comes up with this Lori Kalner crap. Rabid antiabortion whackos. But thanks for posting it again!

[Poseidan]

8. religious people are morons

They choose belief over fact. They choose faith over knowledge. They choose delusion over proof.

[MoonRiver]

9. I want the lunatics to be back in the asylum, and out of our government. n/t

[MrScorpio]

10. Well, unless Obama writes a manifesto advocating taking over some equivalent Sudetenland

for lebensraum and waxes arrogantly about the superiority of the Master Race, I wouldn't lend a grain of credence to that email

Hey, this isn't Fear Factor, it's an election!

[progressiveforever]

11. The sender does not respect you or they would not send you trash

[Bicoastal]

12. Who exactly will Barack Obama be rounding up for Auschwitz?

The angry white males who make up such a tiny, helpless minority of this country?

[FrenchieCat]

13. Send her this.....

300 rabbis form group to support Obama
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull&cid=1220802301062

Jewish World / Meet Michelle Obama's cousin the rabbi
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1019188.html

Israelis For Obama
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2VFRt5W4FM

‘The Great Schlep’
http://amygrindhouse.com/2008/09/sarah-silvermans-the-great-schlep-obama-video-tgif-random-ridiculousness.html

Story about ‘The Great Schlep’
http://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/breaking/110612.html

The Fight for the Jewish Vote
Obama was trailing, but Palin may hurt McCain.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/163348/page/1

The Ehrenreichs' reaction is hardly isolated. Many Florida Jews who had previously been open to McCain appear to share the couple's aversion to Palin, according to political scientists, polling data and anecdotal reporting. "She stands for all the wrong things in the eyes of the Jewish community," says Kenneth Wald, a professor at the University of Florida. Among the examples he cites: Palin seems to disdain intellectualism, she's a vociferous opponent of gun control and she attended a fundamentalist church that hosted Jews for Jesus, which seeks to convert Jews to Christianity. (Palin apparently sat through a speech by a leader of the group in which he said terrorist attacks on Israel were punishment for Israelis' failure to accept Jesus as the Messiah.) An American Jewish Committee poll taken in the weeks after Palin was picked found that 54 percent of respondents disapproved of her selection, compared to 37 percent who approved. And that was before the onslaught of withering criticism of her interviews with CBS's Katie Couric.

Such rejection of Palin could prove decisive on November 4. The Sunshine State has emerged once again as a key battleground, and "in a close election, Florida Jews could tip the scales," says State Rep. Adam Hasner, co-chair of McCain's Jewish steering committee there. Though Jews account for only 5 percent of Florida voters, they turn out reliably on election day.

Obama is also getting support from a recently announced campaign called The Great Schlep. Sponsored by the Jewish Council for Education and Research, its goal is to get young Jews from around the country to "schlep" to Florida to persuade their bubbes (grandmothers) and zaydes (grandfathers) to vote for Obama. The group enlisted comedian Sarah Silverman to shoot a humorous, expletive-filled video to promote its Web site, TheGreatSchlep.com. In it, she suggests that grandkids use threats if necessary. "If they vote for Barack Obama, they're going to get another visit this year," she says. "If not, let's just hope they stay healthy until next year."

Biden is one of the reasons Hannah Handler Hostyk, an Orthodox Jew who lives in Hollywood, Fla., is planning to vote for the Democratic presidential ticket—a first for her. But Palin was the deciding factor. "I was shocked," she says. "I watched some of the speeches at the convention and some of the debates. Each time, I was more and more appalled." Hostyk finds a number of Palin's traits disturbing: her hard-line position on abortion, her extreme religiosity and her apparent ignorance on economic and foreign-policy matters. "Basically, on every issue, Sarah Palin is not coming from where I'm coming from," says Hostyk. In the aftermath of the Palin pick, "Obama and Biden became the perfect ticket." If enough Florida Jews share such sentiments, they may help propel that ticket all the way to the White House.

[iamjoy]

14. This Is Disgusting

and, I will do my best to debunk it.

First of all, in troubled times, lots of politicians promise "change." OK, so Hitler did it. But then, so did FDR. So did JFK and so did that hero of the right wing, Ronald Reagan.

In times of financial strife, or other turmoil, people are vulnerable to a charismatic leader who seeks to consolidate power and advance his (or her) own agenda. Yes, Hitler took advantage of the horrible economic conditions in Germany. One could also argue that George W. Bush used the attacks of 9-11 to advance his own agenda. I don't say this to compare Bush to Hitler - leaders from all types of political persuasions have done things like this. However, other charismatic leaders have provided the inspiration and comfort we need to get through a trying time. Again - FDR did this, and probably Abraham Lincoln too.

We are far from children being forced to sing Obama's praises in school. In fact, the only words of praise that I know of children being required to recite in school is the "Pledge of Allegiance."

Please show me the quote of Obama claiming to be a messiah. Anyone running for President has a tremendous ego. They all believe that they alone are qualified to lead our country to further greatness (or to return to greatness). Obama is hardly unique in this attitude.

What has the Holocaust to do with abortion? You can say abortion is a holocaust of the unborn, but I could say that Hitler would not have allowed a good German woman to choose to end her pregnancy. It was her duty to produce children for the "Fatherland." Besides, Obama is hardly an abortionist. Recognizing that abortion is a painful decision some women feel compelled to make is different than performing abortions.

There is no threat to freedom of speech. Churches are welcome to endorse whom they please, but I don't think my tax dollars should subsidize partisan politics.

As for Obama's pastor damning America, I do believe many conservative pastors feel the same way. In the weeks following the attacks of 9-11, Reverends Falwell and Robertson seemed to blame it on the feminists, homosexuals and abortionists. Indirectly, they were saying America somehow deserved this, that it was divine punishment from God for our sins (or for tolerating sin). Why is it okay when a white reverend says it, but not an African American minister? Is it only because the latter used language you don't like (I admit, God damn America is more direct and inflammatory) ? Or is it because it is okay for God to "damn" us for abortion and homosexuality, but not for pursuing world dominance, even when it results in the death of children?

[Brazenly Liberal]

15. Tell your aunt this:

"I'm sorry Lori Kalner lived through such a traumatic time. I'm sure she means well, but it would be a kindness to her not to expose her to ridicule by spreading this farther.

It's very sad that the scars of that experience along with her advanced years have left her confused and unable to distinguish the words and deeds of a distinguished, honorable US Senator from those of her worst memories. What she describes Senator Obama saying just simply isn't true. He never said it. He never claimed to be the Messiah. He never describe abortion as mercy killing. Ms Kalner is, sadly, delusional. I hope she has friends and family to help her get by.

------------------------------

You can take the other route recommended, call her names and tell her to fuck off. But the only thing that will accomplish is whatever satisfaction it gives you. It won't convince anyone of anything. If she wasn't your aunt, I'd recommend sending a two sentence reply, "Please remove me from your list. I don't want to see any more of this garbage." Since she is your aunt, who knows? She might actually listen to you when you say it never happened and stop sending this around.

[HughMoran]

16. Vulgar monsters spewing their usual hate

God I hate seeing posts like this here - I don't even associate with people who would send filth like this my way (not blaming you, I try to insulate myself - maybe I'm fooling myself.)

[Borgnine]

17. Personally, I'd respond with a link to Goatse.

But hey, that's just me. I feel the classics never go out of style.

[Essene]

18. Listen. Folks are trying to rationalize their prejudices. Let them flail.

A lot of people aren't even thinking straight.

Confront it by just NAMING it. A simple "that's an immoral and insincere comparison" is fine.