I found another creepy (VERIFIED) Podesta email while searching for the word, "SMUGGLING." The email contains information on U.S.-Cuba relations and it mentions an upcoming meeting in which "Senior military officials from 16 Caribbean countries, the U.S., UK and others will participate in the three-day conference, which will focus on cooperation to combat the drug trade, human trafficking, and weapons smuggling."
The email's link is here - https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/12267
From - Sarah (Stephens?) of Democracy in the Americas - http://democracyinamericas.org/?page_id=47
To - John Podesta
Date - 2016-01 - 15 20:45
Subject: Stop and Smell (the Cuban) Coffee (or what would Goethe say?)
This is a lengthy email from Sarah (Stephens) of the "charity" called Democracy in the Americas. Stephen's bio is here: http://democracyinamericas.org/?page_id=47.
It seems like a very creepy email because in it, Sarah Stephens seems to be salivating over the prospects of Obama lifting the decades-old U.S. - Cuba embargo, and she not only quotes Goethe, but mentions him in the Subject Line of this verified email. That's significant because of who Goethe was and what he practiced (described below).
Who is Goethe? The only "Goethe" whom I could find online who is frequently quoted is Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, a "widely quoted" German Poet, novelist, playwright, natural philosopher, diplomat, and civil servant who lived from 1749 until 1832 (according to the Wikipedia entry on him, seen here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Wolfgang_von_Goethe)).
MOST NOTABLE in that Wikipedia entry is the section on Goethe's "EROTICISM," which I think is so significant (in the context of this email) that I am quoting the whole section here:
EROTICISM:
Many of Goethe's works, especially Faust, the Roman Elegies, and the Venetian Epigrams, depict erotic passions and acts. For instance, in Faust, the first use of Faust's power after literally signing a contract with the devil is to fall in love with and impregnate a teenage girl. Some of the Venetian Epigrams were held back from publication due to their sexual content. Goethe clearly saw human sexuality as a topic worthy of poetic and artistic depiction, an idea that was uncommon in a time when the private nature of sexuality was rigorously normative.[48]
Goethe wrote of both boys and girls: “I like boys a lot, but the girls are even nicer. If I tire of her as a girl, she’ll play the boy for me as well” (Goethe, 1884).[49]
Goethe also defended pederasty: "Pederasty is as old as humanity itself, and one can therefore say that it is natural, that it resides in nature, even if it proceeds against nature. What culture has won from nature will not be surrendered or given up at any price."[50]
What is "pederasty," you ask? I didn't know, either. I had to look it up. According to Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pederasty))
"Pederasty or paederasty (US /ˈpɛdəræsti/ or UK /ˈpiːdəræsti/) is a (usually erotic) homosexual relationship between an adult male and a pubescent or adolescent male."
So now the email seems even creepier, in light of Sarah Stephens's apparent gushing over the prospects of a lifted embargo, her encouragment to "smell the Cuban coffee," and her pondering of "What would Goethe say?"
WTF? IF ANY VOATERS HAVE TIME TO ARCHIVE AND DIG, PLEASE DO. I'm quoting a portion of the email and pasting
Sarah Stephens's Bio below.
PARTIAL EXCERPTS OF EMAIL BELOW:
From - Sarah (Stephens?) of Democracy in the Americas - http://democracyinamericas.org/?page_id=47
Date - 2016-01-15 20:45
Subject - Stop and Smell (the Cuban) Coffee (or what would Goethe say?)
Defining the challenges of his final year in office, President Obama used his last State of the Union address to make his most forceful appeal (link to speech) to Congress to "lift the embargo" on Cuba since he announced the new U.S. policy toward Cuba in December 2014. . . .
Congress should begin the work of ending the embargo. Tuesday night he hit it harder - making it two years in a row that he urged Congress to take down what presidents dating back to Eisenhower had built up. Everything is happening so fast. Our compassion, concerns, and anxieties are pulled in a dozen different directions. But, isn't this a time when we could stop and admire the beauty of this historical moment? Two years in a row a U.S. president actually said the state of the union would be stronger by ending the embargo against Cuba.
"The mere knowledge that such a work could be created makes me twice the person I was," Goethe said.
Tuesday night we felt that way, too; even more, after dozens of Members of Congress heard what the president said and rose from their seats to applaud.
Stop for a minute and smell that coffee!
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madmanpg ago
Sorry. From the Wikipedia article you linked, I see nine paragraphs about his literary work, eight on his scientific work, and two on his eroticism. He clearly has far more history as a poet and scientist than as some arbiter of eroticism, and so it's reaching to claim a citation of Goethe necessarily brings up the small part of his work. Further, he's the author of Faust, one of the most acclaimed German plays of all time. You might as well accuse someone citing Shakespeare as being a pedophile because the protagonists of Romeo and Juliet were teenagers.
SecondAmendment ago
I see your point, but in the context of Pizzagate I couldn't ignore this email that popped up when I simply entered the word "SMUGGLING" into the Wikileaks search engine. I respectfully disagree with your conclusion that since Wikileaks wrote only 2 paragraphs on his pederasty (adult men having sex with minors) it wasn't a big deal in Goethe's life.
Before I found this email I had not even heard of "pederasty," and I have a hunch that if everyone in the USA had a Wikileaks page, only a tiny fraction would have paragraphs devoted to their support of pederasty. Probably most would not have any paragraphs on their "eroticism."
I'll be honest. I never even heard of Goethe until I saw this email to Podesta. But the mere two paragraphs from Wiki include the following chilling sentence written by Goethe:
“I like boys a lot, but the girls are even nicer. If I tire of her as a girl, she’ll play the boy for me as well.”
I don't know about you, but if I were a little Cuban girl (or a girl in Honduras, El Salvador, Venezuela, or Ecuador) I certainly would not want to "play the boy" for an adult man who "tired of [me] as a girl."
So to me, since Wikileaks verified this email from Sarah Stephens to John Podesta, I think Sarah Stephens and the Center for Democracy in the Americas are worth some digging by all the awesome researchers here, who will do it far more justice than I could ever do. Thank you.