Should Ratzinger apologize for being in the Hitler Youth + Luftwaffenhelfer?

robindch

Bannasidhe wrote: »

[...] he was part of the regime right up until they had no hope of victory.

Worse than that -- Ratzinger appears only to have formally surrendered/hung up his Hitler Youth hat/whatever only when his unit formally ceased to exist which I believe was around the same time the Americans walked into his parents' house and set up shop there.

Perhaps his moral equivocacy is informed and inflamed by the demons of his youth to which he has no wish to return to consider, let alone address, this late in his life. But I rather think not. Looking at him and listening to his tiresome, meticulous, deliberate, word-splitting, legalistic and utterly amoral approach to just about every topic he addresses, I suspect he simply can't see what he should have to apologize for.

Bannasidhe

robindch wrote: »

Worse than that -- Ratzinger appears only to have formally surrendered/hung up his Hitler Youth hat/whatever only when his unit formally ceased to exist which I believe was around the same time the Americans walked into his parents' house and set up shop there.

Perhaps his moral equivocacy is informed and inflamed by the demons of his youth to which he has no wish to return to consider, let alone address, this late in his life. But I rather think not. Looking at him and listening to his tiresome, meticulous, deliberate, word-splitting, legalistic and utterly amoral approach to just about every topic he addresses, I suspect he simply can't see what he should have to apologize for.

Nothing says 'your side lost' like a load of opposition troops sitting at your Mammy's kitchen table chewing gum and the suicide of your leader.

jank

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Why don't you educate yourself and stop trying to make excuses for Ratzinger?

I suggest Mosaic of Victims: Non-Jews Persecuted and Murdered by the Nazis by Michael Berenbaum as a good starting point. In it he discusses the State murder and persecution of Catholic activists, Jehovah's Witnesses, and pacifists.

As Robin has said without the support of people like Ratzinger the Nazis would not have been able to perpetuate their hate crimes. He may not have been in the SS (maybe he wasn't Aryan enough eh?) but he was part of the regime right up until they had no hope of victory.

'Jewry' I said it was an interesting term to use as usually it refers to Jewish ghettos or is employed by those of an anti-Semitic disposition to lump a diverse group of people into one convenient soundbite. Perhaps you were not familiar with it's negative connotations?

The Tudors used to refer to the 'Irishry' in similar negative ways during the conquest of Ireland.

I am well aware of the term Jewry and I used it in the context to illustrate the point of the SS men blitzing around Europe to kill off "Jewry" as they saw it. Maybe it went over your head.

The point you are trying to make, where he was an active part of the "regime" is deliberately trying to overstate his involvement. It is a historical emotional fudge. There were millions of people conscripted into various youth programs like the Hitler Youth. Do all of them have blood on their hands? By that extension alone are all Germans born before 1941 just as guilty as the top SS men? The Jews themselves policed themselves under SS guidance in the Ghettos, are they just as guilty?

As I said NOBODY here has lived under a totalitarianist regime, yet some are very quick to judge from a comfortable middle class suburb in 21st century Ireland from a laptop.

Lastly, you said plenty of 17 year old's resisted, I asked for stats, can you give them? Were they 10% of 17 year olds, 5%, 20%. What were the stats?

Bannasidhe

jank wrote: »

I am well aware of the term Jewry and I used it in the context to illustrate the point of the SS men blitzing around Europe to kill off "Jewry" as they saw it. Maybe it went over your head.

The point you are trying to make, where he was an active part of the "regime" is deliberately trying to overstate his involvement. It is a historical emotional fudge. There were millions of people conscripted into various youth programs like the Hitler Youth. Do all of them have blood on their hands? By that extension alone are all Germans born before 1941 just as guilty as the top SS men? The Jews themselves policed themselves under SS guidance in the Ghettos, are they just as guilty?

As I said NOBODY here has lived under a totalitarianist regime, yet some are very quick to judge from a comfortable middle class suburb in 21st century Ireland from a laptop.

Lastly, you said plenty of 17 year old's resisted, I asked for stats, can you give them? Were they 10% of 17 year olds, 5%, 20%. What were the stats?

So your use of a term with negative connotation was to illustrate a point - grand. As for your your dig about it going over my head - was that gratuitous dig really necessary or are you making another point? Perhaps that you tend to insult people who disagree with you or call BS when they see it?

How many other Germans who were willingly or unwillingly involved in the Nazi regime are now claiming to speak for God and consider themselves to be an absolute moral authority?

No matter how many 17 year olds died opposing the Nazi regime - Joseph Ratzinger cannot be counted among their number. He went along with it.

Newaglish

jank wrote: »

I am well aware of the term Jewry and I used it in the context to illustrate the point of the SS men blitzing around Europe to kill off "Jewry" as they saw it. Maybe it went over your head.

The point you are trying to make, where he was an active part of the "regime" is deliberately trying to overstate his involvement. It is a historical emotional fudge. There were millions of people conscripted into various youth programs like the Hitler Youth. Do all of them have blood on their hands? By that extension alone are all Germans born before 1941 just as guilty as the top SS men? The Jews themselves policed themselves under SS guidance in the Ghettos, are they just as guilty?

As I said NOBODY here has lived under a totalitarianist regime, yet some are very quick to judge from a comfortable middle class suburb in 21st century Ireland from a laptop.

Lastly, you said plenty of 17 year old's resisted, I asked for stats, can you give them? Were they 10% of 17 year olds, 5%, 20%. What were the stats?

I think the point is that if you want to go on to become the actual Pope, you are probably going to be held to a higher moral standard than other people your age.

robindch

jank wrote: »

[...] some are very quick to judge from a comfortable middle class suburb in 21st century Ireland from a laptop.

The man we're talking about has allowed himself to become the moral leader of around 1.5 billion people and despite the passage of almost seventy years, he hasn't apologized for playing his necessary, even if involuntary, part in the Nazi regime?

And -- seriously -- you see no problem with that?

jank

Ah finally we get to the nub of it. He is held up to a higher account by atheists of all people. Irony meter just exploded!!

If you cannot find stats that showed how many teenagers died in the Third Reich resisting the state then I cannot take it seriously that it was easy and many people did it.

I take it that he was a product of the times and was not a grown adult how had total control over his life at that age.

Personally I dont give a $hit about him and have stated before that he is a relic that is holding back the RC, but a man with Nazi blood on his hands is historically, rationally and logically false and emotionally convenient for many here.

Anyway, what has this got to do with "Hazards of belief"?

recedite

Bannasidhe wrote: »

No matter how many 17 year olds died opposing the Nazi regime - Joseph Ratzinger cannot be counted among their number. He went along with it.

^^ This is the point. Yet the man claims to have higher moral authority than the rest of us.

Bannasidhe

jank wrote: »

Ah finally we get to the nub of it. He is held up to a higher account by atheists of all people. Irony meter just exploded!!

If you cannot find stats that showed how many teenagers died in the Third Reich resisting the state then I cannot take it seriously that it was easy and many people did it.

I take it that he was a product of the times and was not a grown adult how had total control over his life at that age.

Personally I dont give a $hit about him and have stated before that he is a relic that is holding back the RC, but a man with Nazi blood on his hands is historically, rationally and logically false and emotionally convenient for many here.

Anyway, what has this got to do with "Hazards of belief"?

Dachau had a special "priest block." Of the 2,720 priests (among them 2,579 Catholic) held in Dachau, 1,034 did not survive the camp.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Nazi_Germany#Christians_imprisoned_or_died_under_the_Third_Reich

For someone you don't give a $hit about you are going to great lengths to exonerate him of any culpability - including claiming we was a very small boy.

What on Earth could the fact that the leader of the largest Christian denomination who is considered millions of people to be the absolute authority on human morality was an active participant in the Nazi regime - he did not object, he did not flee into exile, he wore the uniform, he gave the seig heil, he fired anti-aircraft guns at Allied aircraft = active - have to do with the Hazard of belief... gosh. I don't know...you have me stumped there. :rolleyes:

robindch

jank wrote: »

He is held up to a higher account by atheists of all people.

He holds himself to a higher account.

jank wrote: »

I take it that he was a product of the times and was not a grown adult how had total control over his life at that age.

Yes, this has been implied in -- I think -- just about every post that I've made. I'm not fully sure why you haven't been able to take this on board yet, other than to point you to this earlier post.

Anyhow, if you can't understand why some people might think that a man who allows himself to become the moral leader of well over a billion people should apologize publicly for his involvement, involuntary or not, with the Nazi regime, then there isn't any point in continuing this conversation.

An implication of that, btw, is that you'll have to admit that you now you accept the Nuremberg Defence, which is where we came in, and which states that people can avoid taking responsibility for any action they carried out, simply by saying that they were "only following orders". The Nuremberg Defence was rejected ex cathedra at the Nuremberg Trials and is now rejected, by international treaty, in most if not all courts of law. So you're in a rather solitary position on that too.

Cossax

robindch wrote: »

The man we're talking about has allowed himself to become the moral leader of around 1.5 billion people and despite the passage of almost seventy years, he hasn't apologized for playing his necessary, even if involuntary, part in the Nazi regime?

And -- seriously -- you see no problem with that?

Far be it for me to defend the Pope but despite the fact he's now the moral leader of X number of people, I find it hard to see why he should have to apologise because, as a teenager, he attempted to defend his homeland from bombing raids.
I don't know how severe the bombing raids were in his part of the country or how widely known the severity of the bombing was, but when you consider the casualties caused by the likes of Dresden I find it even harder to suggest he should apologise.

Bannasidhe

Cossax wrote: »

Far be it for me to defend the Pope but despite the fact he's now the moral leader of X number of people, I find it hard to see why he should have to apologise because, as a teenager, he attempted to defend his homeland from bombing raids.
I don't know how severe the bombing raids were in his part of the country or how widely known the severity of the bombing was, but when you consider the casualties caused by the likes of Dresden I find it even harder to suggest he should apologise.

Defending his homeland from people his country and it's allies had invaded/attacked in the first place.

I am not for a second defending the horrific Allied bombing raid - but Nazi Germany was reaping what it had sown so I think to say 'defending his homeland' is a bit disingenuous.

Italians defended their homeland - they hanged Mussolini.

Cossax

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Defending his homeland from people his country and it's allies had invaded/attacked in the first place.

I am not for a second defending the horrific Allied bombing raid - but Nazi Germany was reaping what it had sown so I think to say 'defending his homeland' is a bit disingenuous.

Italians defended their homeland - they hanged Mussolini.

I don't think it's disingenuous to say that a 16/17 year old who was shooting at planes which were dropping hundreds/thousands of bombs fairly indiscriminately across his country on a daily basis doesn't need to apologise.

Bannasidhe

Cossax wrote: »

I don't think it's disingenuous to say that a 16/17 year old who was shooting at planes which were dropping hundreds/thousands of bombs fairly indiscriminately across his country on a daily basis doesn't need to apologise.

Given what his homeland was guilty of and it's plans for the future would you prefer if the planes hadn't been there?

Lack of fuel due to the bombing was a serious factor in the collapse of the Nazi war machine.

Ratzinger was 18 years old in 1945, he was still in uniform, he had spent at least 10 years listening to the Nazi message of anti-Semitism, hatred of homosexuals, the disabled and 'lesser races' - not to forget the race superiorityof the German people - did he at any point stop and 'say this is wrong? I protest! I cannot be part of this!!!' as one would expect of a man who is now seen, and sees himself, as the ultimate moral authority second only to God by millions and millions of people. No. He did not. He chose to fire the gun and defend the Nazi regime - not his homeland - the Nazi Regime whose message he was very familiar with. In doing so, he participated up to the bitter end.

Cossax

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Given what his homeland was guilty of and it's plans for the future would you prefer if the planes hadn't been there?

Lack of fuel due to the bombing was a serious factor in the collapse of the Nazi war machine.

Ratzinger was 18 years old in 1945, he was still in uniform, he had spent at least 10 years listening to the Nazi message of anti-Semitism, hatred of homosexuals, the disabled and 'lesser races' - not to forget the race superiorityof the German people - did he at any point stop and 'say this is wrong? I protest! I cannot be part of this!!!' as one would expect of a man who is now seen, and sees himself, as the ultimate moral authority second only to God by millions and millions of people. No. He did not. He chose to fire the gun and defend the Nazi regime - not his homeland - the Nazi Regime whose message he was very familiar with. In doing so, he participated up to the bitter end.

Are you serious?

In one paragraph you build up the case for brain washing and then blame him for not being able to think for himself? :rolleyes:

But anyways, how do you know he was defending the Nazi regime rather than trying to protect civilians from, say, being fire-bombed?

Hotblack Desiato

This is getting as tiresome as the skepchicks thread.

Bannasidhe

Cossax wrote: »

Are you serious?

In one paragraph you build up the case for brain washing and then blame him for not being able to think for himself? :rolleyes:

But anyways, how do you know he was defending the Nazi regime rather than trying to protect civilians from, say, being fire-bombed?

Other's were able to not be brainwashed. All those objectors to the regime who died in Camps or fled the country failed to be brainwashed.

Some of those at the very heart of the regime managed to not be brainwashed and sought to kill Hitler.

Catholic priests died having failed to be brainwashed.

In some countries Roman Catholic bishops and even Catholics themselves had openly protested and attacked Nazi policies. For instance, in the Netherlands and Poland, where bishops and priests had protested the deportation of Jews, the clergy was either threatened with deportation themselves and kept in custody (as in the case of German bishop Clemens von Galen), or directly deported to concentration camps (as in the cases of the Dutch Carmelite priest Titus Brandsma and Polish Fr. Maximilian Kolbe, who was later canonized). The Catholic Church was particularly suppressed in Poland: between 1939 and 1945, an estimated 3,000 members (18%) of the Polish clergy, were murdered; of these, 1,992 died in concentration camps.

In the annexed territory of Reichsgau Wartheland it was even more harsh: churches were systematically closed and most priests were either killed, imprisoned, or deported to the General Government. Eighty per cent of the Catholic clergy and five bishops of Warthegau were sent to concentration camps in 1939; 108 of them are regarded as blessed martyrs.

Religious persecution was not confined to Poland: in Dachau concentration camp alone, 2,600 Catholic priests from 24 different countries were killed. Some dissenting German Protestant clergy, such as those who founded the anti-Nazi Confessing Church, were also persecuted. The Baha'i Faith, which teaches as its doctrine, the unity of humanity, was formally banned in the Third Reich.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_victims#Religious_persecution

Seems a lot of people in Germany resisted brainwashing - but the young man who would one day become Pope was unable to resist...did his deep faith not protect him? Did Jesus' message of brotherly love, charity and care for our fellow human beings not give him the strength to resist? - Apparently not.

Surely the way to help save his people was to aid the Allies or to work with the Youth Resistance groups

This is in response to those who are wishing to give the new Pope a free pass on his activities during WWII on the basis of his age. I mentioned yesterday in a few posts that I had known a few German immigrants who resisted Hitler during their youth, and this is a followup to those posts.

The four best known groups of young Nazi resistance are The White Rose, The Eidelweiss Pirates, The Swing Youth, and the Helmut Hubener Group.

The White Rose was a group of college students, ranging in age from eighteen to their mid twenties. They were active in raising consiousness and propaganda work until 1943, when they were rooted out by the Gestapo, and members were incarcerated and killed.

The Eidelweiss Pirates were a group of kids who stood in opposition to, and took on members of the Hitler Youth. Made up of working class kids, aged thirteen and above(I was personally aquainted with a member), the Pirates hated the conformity and mission of the Hitler Youth movement. Operating out of multiple cities, they would confront the Hitler Youth in massive brawls that sometimes involved gunfire. Many were imprisoned, and some perished at the hands of the SS.

The Swing Youth were similar in makeup and ideology as the Eidelweiss Pirates. Hooked on American jazz culture, they stood in direct opposition to the rigid ideology of the Hitler Youth, and confronted members of the HJ at any opportunity. On the personal order of Himmler, many Swing Youth members were incarcerated for the duration of the war.


The Helmut Hubener group, founded by Helmut Hubener ranged in age from fourteen to sixteen. Motivated by their faith(LDS)and their sense of moral outrage, the Hubener Group printed leaflets, tangled with the Hitler Youth, and passed on the broadcasts of the BBC to German people yearning to here the truth. Captured in 1942, three members of the group were incarcerated, while their leader, Helmut, was executed on the personal order of Hitler himself, at the age of seventeen, thus being only two years older than Ratzinger at the time.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3512353

If you do wish to insist poor Joseph is not responsible as he was 'brainwashed' this begs the question - is he still brainwashed?

I ask as the only person I have met who was in the Hitler Youth is my brother's ex mother-in-law - and she is an outrageous anti-Semite- and while she claims to 'hate' the Nazis, still spout their bile at every opportunity.

Bannasidhe

ninja900 wrote: »

This is getting as tiresome as the skepchicks thread.

NOTHING is as tiresome as the skepchicks thread.

fitz0

As understandable as it is for a young man to be pressed into military service and through propaganda and indoctrination embrace it, you'd think the all knowing creator of the universe would choose a creation of higher moral fibre and firmer character to be his sole representative on earth.

The Mad Hatter

Bannasidhe wrote: »

NOTHING is as tiresome as the skepchicks thread.

Oh, really?

fitz0

The Mad Hatter wrote: »

Oh, really?

Abort! ABORT!

Cossax

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Other's were able to not be brainwashed. All those objectors to the regime who died in Camps or fled the country failed to be brainwashed.

Some of those at the very heart of the regime managed to not be brainwashed and sought to kill Hitler.

Catholic priests died having failed to be brainwashed.

Seems a lot of people in Germany resisted brainwashing - but the young man who would one day become Pope was unable to resist...did his deep faith not protect him? Did Jesus' message of brotherly love, charity and care for our fellow human beings not give him the strength to resist? - Apparently not.

I said you built the case for a child being brainwashed in your paragraph, I never said he was.

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Surely the way to help save his people was to aid the Allies or to work with the Youth Resistance groups

Maybe it was but I'm not going to criticize a teenager for attempting to shoot down one group of war criminals bombing his country because said country was run by another group of war criminals.

Bannasidhe wrote: »

If you do wish to insist poor Joseph is not responsible as he was 'brainwashed' this begs the question - is he still brainwashed?

Take your mocking tone and strawmen elsewhere, I never insisted anything.

Bannasidhe wrote: »

I ask as the only person I have met who was in the Hitler Youth is my brother's ex mother-in-law - and she is an outrageous anti-Semite- and while she claims to 'hate' the Nazis, still spout their bile at every opportunity.

Have you ever heard Benedict XVI spout anti-Jew propaganda? I don't know if he has or not but if he did, attack him for that or any number of reasons (there are plenty) but because he was a teenager in Germany during WW2 is hardly a stick to beat him with.

As for the youth resistance groups, good for them. Not everyone has the courage as an adult to stand against the State and potentially die/be tortured/imprisoned for it, nevermind as a child.

Cossax

fitz0 wrote: »

As understandable as it is for a young man to be pressed into military service and through propaganda and indoctrination embrace it, you'd think the all knowing creator of the universe would choose a creation of higher moral fibre and firmer character to be his sole representative on earth.

I wonder if anyone can spot the flaw in that argument?

jank

robindch wrote: »

Yes, this has been implied in -- I think -- just about every post that I've made. I'm not fully sure why you haven't been able to take this on board yet, other than to point you to this earlier post..

Yet you are equating him to those who used the Nuremburg defense at the actual Nuremberg Trials. Therefore, as I said EVERYONE in Germany is guilty of the same if we follow that logic. It was never meant to be applied in that manner, it was not the Treaty of Versaille Mark II.

robindch wrote: »

Anyhow, if you can't understand why some people might think that a man who allows himself to become the moral leader of well over a billion people should apologize publicly for his involvement, involuntary or not, with the Nazi regime, then there isn't any point in continuing this conversation.
.

So in one hand you admit that he was a product of the envirnoment he was born in yet he should still aplogize for his involvment. Em, OK.
If something is involunatry then why should he applogise for it?

robindch wrote: »

An implication of that, btw, is that you'll have to admit that you now you accept the Nuremberg Defence, which is where we came in, and which states that people can avoid taking responsibility for any action they carried out, simply by saying that they were "only following orders". The Nuremberg Defence was rejected ex cathedra at the Nuremberg Trials and is now rejected, by international treaty, in most if not all courts of law. So you're in a rather solitary position on that too.

Again, you put words in my mouth. Did he ever stand trial for his crimes or his attempt to murder people? Was he ever implicated in being a key member of the regime, participated in genocide and so on?

The Nuremberg Trial was to prosecute the political, economic and military leadership of the Nazi state. It was not to afirm some collective guilt on the citizens of Germany.

To accept the Nuremberg defence one has to be charged with committing a crime in the first place. The Nuremberg defence is applied to those who actually committed wrong doing and were ordered by their superiors to murder people enemass and to plan war/genocide. If you think this extends to all German people that from the age and 5+ at that time, because by proxy they supported the Nazi state by not dying to stop it, then fine but historically its being deliberately dishonest and is not what the nuremberg defense was meant to mean.

jank

Bannasidhe wrote: »

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Nazi_Germany#Christians_imprisoned_or_died_under_the_Third_Reich

Was he a preist? No, he was 17 years old and was doing what all other german 17 year olds were doing.

Bannasidhe wrote: »

For someone you don't give a $hit about you are going to great lengths to exonerate him of any culpability - including claiming we was a very small boy.:

To compare him to those at the Nuremberg trial is historically, logically and factually false. Do you no agree or do you want to spin it another way?

Bannasidhe wrote: »

What on Earth could the fact that the leader of the largest Christian denomination who is considered millions of people to be the absolute authority on human morality was an active participant in the Nazi regime - he did not object, he did not flee into exile, he wore the uniform, he gave the seig heil, he fired anti-aircraft guns at Allied aircraft = active - have to do with the Hazard of belief... gosh. I don't know...you have me stumped there. :rolleyes:

People aren't perfect? The RC is full of hypocrites maybe? There are plenty of other examples to use here in the case of the present pope. But again, to say that he was a willing member of the Nazi Regime who was out to murder people is just dishonest and you know that.

By the way he did object according to his borther by refusing to attend Hitler Youth meetings but I know that wont be good enough for you.

sbsquarepants

jank wrote: »

Lastly, you said plenty of 17 year old's resisted, I asked for stats, can you give them? Were they 10% of 17 year olds, 5%, 20%. What were the stats?

I'm not aware of the stats for those who refused to co-operate. But i know for certain one who didn't and who remained involved right up untill the point where his unit ceased to exist. You can dress it up as a young boy forced into military action all you like, but forced or not he stuck with it till the bitter end. And as has been stated by others and ignored by you several times - this is the fúcking pope - gods right hand man - he should not be judged by the standards of other 17 year olds.
When i was 17 i was only concerned with taking ecstasy and bedding as many teenage girls as i could get my grubby little hands on, and that's fine for me cos i'm not the pope now! Would you brush off ratzinger doing that as a teenager, or do you think that as the foremost moral authority on the planet and what with being hand picked by the big man himself - he should have fúcking known better!!

jank wrote: »

Ah finally we get to the nub of it. He is held up to a higher account by atheists of all people. Irony meter just exploded!!


Anyway, what has this got to do with "Hazards of belief"?

And why should atheists not hold a man, who fronts the richest organisation in the world, on the very basis of his moral superiorty, up to high moral standards? The fact that christians don't is absolutely mind boggling!!

jank wrote: »

Was he a preist? No, he was 17 years old and was doing what all other german 17 year olds were doing.
.

Sorry jank - absolutely not good enough. He's the goddam pope ffs - not just the average wankaholic teenager. He claims to be better, he tells billions how to live morally (without so much as a giggle by the way). He's the steve jobs of religion, taking in tens of millions a day in the most audacious display of style over substance the world has ever seen. If you don't see the problem with him being just another teenage nazi then you need to have a another think about it! Seriously!!

robindch

Posts moved here for safe keeping

sbsquarepants

Yes.
Any more questions?

decimatio

I really dislike Herr Ratzinger and the CC as a whole but I can't hold him responsible for his participation in the Nazi regime. He was only a boy when they would have started brainwashing him. I think most of us here are aware of what brainwashing (like in religion) can do to people and we are also aware that some people are more susceptible than others.

It's one of the reasons that I dislike religion so much.

Noone would blame a dog that had been trained to attack if it attacked someone. They would blame the owner.

Regardless of our intelligence relative to other animals we should not forget that we are animals and we can be 'trained' just like an animal can.

doctoremma

This thread has made very interesting (and educational) reading. I haven't made my mind up yet about the culpability of the Pope during the war (will continue to read)....

....but might it be fair to suggest that his current position indicates him to be extremely susceptible to brainwashing on an almighty (pun intended) scale?