I TEND TO AGREE THAT WEALTHY COUNTRIES ARE UTILIZING THE RESOURCES OF THIRD-WORLD NATIONS, AND AT TIMES, LYING TO GET WHAT THEY WANT.
So call me crazy, but I think the remarks, detailed in the article below, are NOT that outrageous. The fellow who made them obviously used the example to illustrate how horrifying the decption can be. I feel certain that no disrespect was meant towards anyone who has suffered as a result of the Nazi era. Again, this fellow was comparing the current lies and misrepresentations to yet another dark chapter in history, that's all. Tell me what you think....Attention: In the reprint below, I put in bold italics what I feel is important to note--the actual quote from Brazil's Foreign Minister Celso Amorim.
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Brazil official's Nazi reference rocks WTO talks
By BRADLEY S. KLAPPER, Associated Press Writer
Some pre-negotiation jabbing turned into a potentially damaging diplomatic incident Saturday when Brazil's foreign minister said rich countries' deception in trade talks reminded him of tactics used by Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels.
His comments drew a sharp rebuke from the United States, whose chief trade negotiator, Susan Schwab, is the daughter of Jewish Holocaust survivors. Her spokesman described the reference to Goebbels as "incredibly wrong."
The controversy threatens to overshadow next week's last-ditch effort to save seven years of frustrating talks on a new global trade pact toward alleviating poverty around the world.
The so-called Doha trade round is already teetering on the brink of collapse. President Bush has made a Doha deal a key part of his trade agenda.
Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim said the U.S., Europe and other wealthy economies have so frequently misrepresented the talks launched in Qatar's capital in 2001 that public perception has become totally warped.
"Goebbels used to say if you repeat a lie several times it becomes a truth," Amorim told reporters at the World Trade Organization, where top negotiators from over two dozen countries are expected Monday for the official start of the talks.
Poorer countries have demanded cuts in the farm tariffs and subsidies used by wealthy countries, saying they hinder Third World development. In exchange, rich countries have insisted on better market access in developing countries for their manufacturers and service providers.
Amorim implied that rich countries were employing Goebbels' lying tactics in describing the agricultural concessions they claim they are willing to make, while criticizing poorer countries for refusing to liberalize their industrial markets.
"I am reminded of Goebbels," said Amorim, whose country has co-led with India a broad coalition of developing countries at the WTO talks.
Later, his spokesman qualified the remarks and apologized to Schwab.
Sean Spicer, spokesman for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, said he was horrified by the "personal venom" of Amorim's words.
"We came here to Geneva to negotiate on substance," Spicer told The Associated Press. "For him to make remarks like this is so incredibly wrong. They are insulting."
Spicer noted that Schwab visited Amorim to soothe tensions immediately after negotiations collapsed in acrimony in 2006.
In an interview with the AP, Amorim's spokesman Ricardo Neiva Tavares said the minister "regrets if Susan Schwab or anyone else was upset by his comments on a historical fact. He certainly did not intend to hurt anyone's feelings, which he deeply respects."
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Associated Press writer Eliane Engeler contributed to this report.
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Gee, "Repeat a lie enough times, and it becomes the (widely-accepted, largely unchallenged) truth". I think anyone who reads this blog knows what I'm talking about(this Administration), and the list of lies repeated, and quickly swallowed as truth, are unfortunately, legion.
(See also: the slandering of/"swiftboating" of, at least one true American hero(Senator John Kerry, who after serving three tours in Vietnam, and losing five best friends over there, and becoming a multi-decorated officer, had the courage to say before Congress, over 30 years ago, "How do you ask a man, to be the last man, to die--for a mistake?"; the "reason(s)" for invading Iraq; WMD's; Valerie Plame's outing as a special agent; no images of coffins of dead soldiers allowed to be shown; illegal wire-tapping; the demise of Habaeus Corpus; the rewriting of/complete ignorance of, the U.S. Constitution; failure to rescue our own people from natural disasters, and the subsequent "help" in the form of toxic trailers; torture of prisoners condoned & encouraged, then euphemistically called "advanced interrogation techniques"; the hypocritical, irrational fear of LGBT persons, as evidenced by proposed "Marriage Amendments"; I could go on & on, but you get the idea....all of these tactics are meant to rewrite history. Something Goebbels and the Nazis tried to do, too.