Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2008/09/17

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Subject: [Leica] The KKK: Kaiserliche und Koenigliche Kaffeklatsch
From: glehrer at san.rr.com (Jerry Lehrer)
Date: Wed Sep 17 17:39:13 2008
References: <C4F6EE56.3626%manolito@videotron.ca> <A7481BC1-13AC-4076-84F4-90FBD4CE7490@pix-that-stimulate.com> <200809172213.m8HMDYDQ038554@server1.waverley.reid.org>

Marc,

Just because a statement is insulting and a stupid remark does not make 
it less true. I remember what my wifes father called me
after I married his daughter and before he disinherited her.  The words 
were insulting,, stupid and true!

Jerry


Marc James Small wrote:
> At 05:33 PM 9/17/2008, Tarek Charara wrote:
> >Wow. That's a) insulting and b) a very stupid remark
> >
> >
> >Le 17 sept. 08 ? 23:26, EPL a ?crit :
> >
> >> Germany = Racism R Us.
>
> Hmm.  Germans are particularists to a fault -- those in Pomerania look 
> down on those from Bavaria, and all Germans seem to sneer at "those 
> crazy Swabians", the Newfies of the Fatherland.  But trying to assign 
> to the Germans a special state of  disfavor for "racism" is just 
> silly.  The French are equally silly on such points as are the 
> Russians and the British seem to viscerally believe that "wogs begin 
> at Calais".
>
> I agree that Lee has probably had a shitload of culture shock to 
> accommodate -- US management has trouble getting past the serving of 
> beer in lunchrooms.  And I suspect some of his subordinates probably 
> do have a bias against him because of his origin but, I suspect, this 
> might perhaps be more due to his USian roots than his Oriental genetic 
> background.  The Germans and Chinese had an extremely close 
> relationship in the Interwar period, after all, and many German firms, 
> from Mauser to Leitz to Zeiss Ikon, marketed there extensively.  To be 
> fair, it did take Zeiss more than twenty years to find an Oriental 
> capable of serving as a final inspector in the "Round-Eye Room" at the 
> Contax SLR lensworks in Kyoto, and he was a Chinese national from Hong 
> Kong.
>
> The accusation that the Germans are racist is neither stupid nor dumb 
> but it is a meaningless statement as it ignores the reality that most 
> of us are racists and most of us live in racist nations.  So what?  
> Don't wait for others to do it but think for yourself.  Shucks, I will 
> admit to having some German friends (though I rarely repeat this in 
> polite company) and, on several occasions, contrary to my Highland 
> roots, I've even had actual ENGLISHMEN and ENGLISHWOMEN -- folks from 
> the southern part of Britain, mind you, REAL Anglo-Saxons -- SLEEP 
> UNDER MY ROOF!  If I can rise to this, surely an occasional German can 
> rise above particularism and, perhaps, there will come a day when a 
> Parisian acknowledges that France includes Languedoc.
>
> For that matter, to most of those who live in the Western Hemisphere, 
> we in the US and Canada are either "Nordamericanos" or "Anglos".  Go 
> figure.
>
> Marc
>
>


Replies: Reply from octabod at gmail.com (Luis Miguel Castañeda Navas) ([Leica] The KKK: Kaiserliche und Koenigliche Kaffeklatsch)
Reply from photo.forrest at earthlink.net (Philip Forrest) ([Leica] The KKK: Kaiserliche und Koenigliche Kaffeklatsch)
Reply from philippe.amard at tele2.fr (Philippe AMARD) ([Leica] The KKK: Kaiserliche und Koenigliche Kaffeklatsch)
Reply from stasys1 at cox.net (Stasys Petravicius) ([Leica] The KKK: Kaiserliche und Koenigliche Kaffeklatsch)
In reply to: Message from manolito at videotron.ca (EPL) ([Leica] Re: In depth article on Leica - Slow to Refocus)
Message from tarek.charara at pix-that-stimulate.com (Tarek Charara) ([Leica] Re: In depth article on Leica - Slow to Refocus)
Message from marcsmall at comcast.net (Marc James Small) ([Leica] The KKK: Kaiserliche und Koenigliche Kaffeklatsch)