Happened across this article on The Telegraph . . . do y'all think this is as offensive as it is being portrayed?

Yes.

What utter bullshit. Geographically at least (which I'm sure is what Obama meant) it was a Polish death camp. Sikorski and Tusk are fucking assholes.

Curt

A death camp in Poland, run by the nazis, who were busy attempting to exterminate their polish neighbors, both jewish and non-jewish. To say that is it "Polish" implies a modicum of ownership other than the ground on which it was built.

A death camp in Poland, run by the nazis, who were busy attempting to exterminate their polish neighbors, both jewish and non-jewish. To say that is it "Polish" implies a modicum of ownership other than the ground on which it was built.

Stupid controversy. This is only offensive to people who focus on words and not the meaning behind them.

Nah...you've focused on shit just as stupid because it came from a conservative.

You're certainly entitled to that opinion, but I think it's a real stretch to add any sort of other meaning to Obama's words--except to indicate where the camp was located.

Edited to add:

I'm also fairly sure other pundits would have been critical of Obama if he would have used the term "German death camp," claiming that Obama didn't realize the camp was located in Poland. Sometimes you just can't win.

Curt

Have to go with curt on this. As I recall, many of the guards used were Poles. The Poles, the French and many of the other occupied European nations were overtly anti-semitic and had little issue with seeing their Jewish neighbors shipped off to death camps.

Of course, the Nazis weren't even the ones that invented the concept of concentration camps. I believe the English were, during the Boer War. The US also made good use of the concept with the internment of innocent Japanese American citizens, too. Not to mention the reservation policies implemented on Native Americans.

It is arguable that the concentration camp was invented in the good old USofA during the Cherokee removal.

That is why the term Nazi death camp is so apropos. While Obama certainly did not intend to depict the Poles as harshly as the commentator is portraying, it is a major historical oversight to refer to the camps as "polish", and does a disservice to the memory and legacy of both the Polish resistance and the victims of the Nazis.

This is spot on. Furthermore, being careless about language is a huge part of what makes people from other countries think of us as stupid Americans--and they have a point! We can't be bothered to learn other languages or other cultures or care what might be offensive to a certain nation given its history. It's just embarrassing...

Any examples?

http://www.rockclimbing.com/...d;page=unread#unread

It was only a matter of time until you did it again.

http://www.rockclimbing.com/...d;page=unread#unread

It was only a matter of time until you did it again.

A new projection of political spending by the Koch brothers puts their organizations’ anticipated expenditures at $400 million, doubling previous expectations and bringing the total for independent conservative groups to about $1 billion.

Q. I’m going to come back to this. But I want to touch on two more areas first. What do you think in general about the influence of people with your means on the political process? You said shame on the politicians for listening to the CEOs. Do you think the ultrawealthy have an inordinate or inappropriate amount of influence on the political process?

A. I think they actually have an insufficient influence.

An urgent plea to political reporters

Let's all stop pretending imaginary "gaffes" are real

Let’s all agree to just not pretend the president made an “oral sex joke” at his gay fundraiser last night, because that’s stupid. It’s stupid, and most of the people with jobs as political reporters are at least literate, and understand that this thing did not happen. So don’t repeat it, or even write that “some say” they thought it maybe happened. This would’ve been fodder for one 200-word Wonkette post back in 2006, maybe. “Funny pool report says crowd tittered at unintentional double entendre” is not actually the sort of thing that the INSIDERS and political junkies who read Politico should concern themselves with. (And let’s also agree to stop just adding question marks to headlines when the headline without a question mark is not supported by the content of the story, maybe?)

I honestly don't think this topic has anything to do with American politics. It has everything to do with international politics and cultural sensitivity...

#5. The Headline Contains the Word "Gaffe"


Basically, It's ...
A politician accidentally misspoke in a way that made him or her look silly, and the opponents are pouncing on it.

If you're new to following politics, trust me when I say you will grow to absolutely hate the word "gaffe." Go to a news portal or a politics blog and search for the word "gaffe" and watch the server nearly burst into flames trying to serve results. ...

"Obama gaffe," "Romney gaffe," "Perry gaffe," "Biden gaffe" -- every party gets it equally. The word just means "embarrassing mistake," and I have literally never heard it used outside of the context of a meaningless, bullshit filler political news story. I'm not normally an angry man, but it's such an obnoxious word that if somebody at work used "gaffe" in a sentence I would fling my goddamned coffee into his face.

So for instance, during the health care reform debate, President Obama gave approximately 9 million speeches outlining how his plan supposedly would make the system more efficient. Then, in one speech, he stumbled, and instead of saying that the plan would rid the system of inefficiencies, he accidentally said it would bring inefficiencies. This slip of the tongue unleashed a torrent of headlines and blog posts and talk radio rants. On the other side, at a Mitt Romney campaign event, John McCain accidentally mixed up two words that implied Romney liked wasteful government earmarks. Boom! Gaffe!