Islamism as the new Communism: Both offer an illusory hope of a paradise to come for dissatisfied people

Excerpt below from an article by Tanveer Ahmed, a Bangladeshi psychiatrist living in Sydney:

The 20th century saw the demise of communism, despite its attraction to millions of people who felt poor or downtrodden. It was exposed as a totalitarian system that stifled the aspirations of man. But its stain is spreading within the casing of Islamic fundamentalism. This does not seem obvious, especially considering Osama bin Laden himself was instrumental in defeating the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan more than two decades ago. And the Iranian revolution of 1979 was in part a reaction to the perceived godlessness of communism knocking at its doorstep. This was mimicked to a lesser degree throughout the Middle East, from Egypt to Jordan.

But the old Marxists are extending their influence in many of the Islamic political parties that are rapidly rising in popularity, in response to inept, autocratic Arab governments. Arab governments have closed off opportunity to such an extent that secular forces such as communism or liberalism have minimal outlets. One of the few places for a political voice is at the mosque and through religion. Religion provides the cloak for what is essentially politics.

As a result, political Islam is on the rise throughout the Arab world. The first municipal election in Saudi Arabia delivered wins for Islamic parties and, of course, there was the election of Hamas by the Palestinians. Many of the leaders representing political Islam have previous ties to Arab socialism. This is particularly true in Egypt, where the Muslim Brotherhood won one-fifth of the vote in elections last year. Veteran foreign correspondent Mary Ann Weaver writes in her book A Portrait of Egypt: "A number of my former professors from the American University of Cairo were Marxists 20 years ago: fairly adamant, fairly doctrinaire Marxists. They are now equally adamant, equally doctrinaire Islamists." The developments in Egypt are potent for it has long been a leader in the region.

The similarities of communism and Islam are considerable. Both are egalitarian and advocate radical economic change. They both demand a domination of the public space and share a dogmatic, ideological view of the world. Political Islam is also supplying the social services in a collective context that communism promised, and the status of groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah depends on this. Their facilities are often described by locals as superior to those provided by the ruling governments.

Islam also promises to deliver the poor masses from oppression, but there is a difference: instead of the working class rising up against the bourgeoisie, the uprising to be encouraged is by hapless, impoverished Muslims against their oppressive Western masters or puppet Arab leaders. And like communism, Islam believes the collective must be preserved at the expense of the individual. We are social beings first, individuals second. Like communism, Islamism promises a better life for the poor, oppressed and alienated. It is cloaked in God, but its essence is strongly secular. Unless the West fights the war of ideas at this level, offering a competing vision of morality as well as economics and technology, the lure of Islamic extremism will continue to flourish.

********************

Brookes News Update

US economy, war and manufacturing: When Japan attacked the US in 1941 she awakened a sleeping economic giant. Let us hope that 2041 will not see an attack that will destroy what remains of what was once the envy of the world
The Australian economy is showing marked signs of recession: The Reserve Bank's loose monetary policy has wreaked havoc on Australia's manufacturing base and is driving the Australian economy into recession. This has resulted in renewed calls for an industry policy
Australian economy: Employers' groups cave in on the minimum wage: Why is it that employers' group fail to put up convincing argument against minimum wages? This article explains the problem and the nature of the effective minimum wage
Muslim bigot smears Australians: Waleed Aly, executive committee member of the Islamic Council of Victoria, thinks Australians are bigots. However, his refusal to condemn Hezbollah's terrorism and his role in the persecution of two Christian pastors tells us who the real bigot is
The Islamic deception: Islamic regimes have been responsible for major human rights violations, especially against religious minority groups and women. Even some Muslims openly admit the religion has a history of violence
Israel's war against Hezbollah must not be in vain: Since the Israel's withdrawal from Gaza it has become a launching pad for various Arab terror groups. Over 1,000 rockets and an uncountable number of mortar shells were fired toward Israel
The Melbourne Age peddles terrorist propaganda: The media's outrageous pro-terrorist reporting of the Qana bombing reminds me of another phony massacre our truth-loving journos tried to frame Israel for - Jenin
Castro and the ACLU v Miami's Book 'Ban': A Castro supporter wrote a children's school book titled Let's Go to Cuba. It depicts Castro's fiefdom as a paradise on earth. Parents complained about their children being fed Stalinist propaganda. So the ACLU did what it always does - it sided with the tyrant, telling parents they should shut up and take it
The US should lift the embargo if Castro is dead: Lifting sanctions would also have the very satisfying effect of stifling the protests of Castro's coke-snorting Hollywood friends and would expose as hypocrites moral poseurs like Ed Asner, Oliver Stone and Danny Glover

***************************

ELSEWHERE



If you like music videos, there is an Israeli one here with some good comments about the Lebanon situation.

Scott Burgess is still capable of outrage at the way the Western Left suck up to the Islamofascists. He draws attention to a particularly egregious example of it in Australia.

The latest post on Strange Justice draws attention to the utter incompetence of Britain's new politically correct police force.

Les Bates is rejoicing in the death of a cyclist. I must say that many of them do seem to be egomaniacs. I said as much to a man who manufactures specialist cyclist clothing once. He said: "Yes. It's great. They only want the best and I charge accordingly".

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

**************************

"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.

****************************

ONE REASON WHY LIEBERMAN LOST

Post excerpted from Astute Blogger

I think that the fact that Joe is Jewish really hurt him with the base of the Democrats. HERE'S WHY: the Dems are no longer Israel's best friend; here's an excerpt from Michael Barone, commenting on a recent poll by the LAT and Bloomberg:

"[The poll asked:] Should the United States continue to align itself with Israel, adopt a more neutral posture, or align more with Arab countries?

By a 50 to 44 percent margin, respondents said we should stick with Israel rather than take a more neutral posture; only 2 percent want us to side more with Arab countries.

But there's a big difference between respondents of different parties. Here's a table showing the results, including independents.

Continue with Israel: Reps 64; Inds 46; Dems 39

More neutral posture R-29 ; I-49; D-54

We see a similar split on assessments of the current conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. The poll asked whether Israel's action was justified and not excessively harsh, justified but excessively harsh, or unjustified.... A majority, 56 percent, of Democrats think Israel did not act properly, while an even bigger majority, 64 percent, of Republicans think Israel did act properly. That's a pretty sharp difference."

I hope Jews still clinging to their Democrat Party affiliation are looking and listening - and rethinking their affiliation. After all, the majority of Dems think the USA should be neutral in dealings between Hizb'allah - (which until 9/11 had murdered more Americans than any other terrorist organization in the world, and which is a fanatical Islamofascist terrorist group - and Israel, (a staunch ally and a pluralistic democracy).

This is amoral, if not NUTS! Favoring neutrality toward any group of jihadomaniacs is at the very least appeasment. And I would argue it is anti-Semitic at its core - after all, Sheehan has repeatedly argued that her son Casey died for Israel. The Democrats who, like her, blame Israel, and the neocons, the Likud and/or Israel Lobby are the very same Democrats who comprise the netroots groups, who powered the Lamont victory. It is time for most Jews to vote GOP. The Dems don't trust you, or like Israel.

***************************

ELSEWHERE

There is an absolutely appalling first-hand account of antisemitic bias in the French media here. At least since the Dreyfus case in the 19th century, antisemitism has been very French.



Some justice at last: "After six years and three trials, Gloria and Richard Taylor finally saw justice done for their son Damilola yesterday when two brothers were convicted of killing the ten-year-old boy. The couple walked from the Old Bailey leaving Danny and Ricky Preddie, two teenage street robbers with a long history of violence, facing possible life sentences after being found guilty of manslaughter. The jury took little more than six hours to reach their verdict. Damilola bled to death after being stabbed in the thigh with a broken bottle on a South London street in November 2000... The case has cost an estimated 16 million pounds and left question marks over the efficiency of the once highly respected Forensic Science Service. Within an hour of the verdicts the Home Office announced a review by a QC into the service and how key bloodstains, which should have convicted the two brothers five years ago, were missed"

New "neighborhood watch" for Google: "Google is building a new "traffic cop" layer into its search engine to help internet users dodge websites containing spyware and malicious code. When web users click on a link from Google's search results to a site that is known to contain malware, they will soon be directed to a page that reads: "Warning - the site you are about to visit may harm your computer!" The sites that Google identifies as harmful are based on reports from the StopBadware coalition, which was set up by Harvard Law School's Berkman Centre for Internet & Society and Oxford University's Oxford Internet Institute. Google, Lenovo and Sun Microsystems are partners in the scheme. The coalition describes badware as "malicious software that tracks your moves online and feeds that information back to shady marketing groups so that they can ambush you with targeted ads".

Public sector unions rip off the public: "If your local, state or federal government spending is on the rise, as are calls to hike your taxes to pay for it all, odds are you can thank your friendly government employee unions for the privilege. From the teachers union to the cops union to the firefighters union to the janitors union, the cost of public employee contracts is exploding. These 'public servants' are now enjoying wages and benefits far superior to similar workers in the private sector. And those juicy contracts are putting a lot of governments at all levels on the Highway to Fiscal Hell."

Minimum wage evils: "In the United States, the group hardest hit by minimum wage laws are black male teenagers. Those who refuse to admit that the minimum wage is the reason for high unemployment rates among young blacks blame racism, lack of education and whatever else occurs to them. The hard facts say otherwise. Back in the 1940s, there was no less racism than today and black teenagers had no more education than today, but their unemployment rate was a fraction of what it is now -- and was no different from that of white teenagers. What was different back then? Although there was a minimum wage law on the books, the inflation of that era had raised wage rates well above the specified minimum, which had remained unchanged for years. For all practical purposes, there was no minimum wage law. Only after the minimum wage began to be raised, beginning in 1950, and escalating repeatedly in the years thereafter, did black teenage unemployment skyrocket."

Fuel Vendor Can't Charge Less Without Breaking Law: "An ethanol-pump owner says he wants to lower his prices but the state won't let him. Badger Ethanol in Monroe [Wisconsin] charges around $2.22 for a gallon of E-85, an alcohol-fuel mixture that is 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline, by volume. Badger's owners wanted to cut the price to $2 but said they had to artificially hike prices after some competitors complained Badger wasn't meeting the state's minimum markup laws."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

**************************

"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.

****************************

HATE MOTIVATES THE LEFT

If you know that, all their "inconsidencies" fall into place. A small excerpt from here below

In her book "The New Anti-Semitism" (2005), American feminist academic Phyllis Chesler writes: "The American and European Left have made a marriage in hell with their Islamic counterparts. The same Left that has still never expressed any guilt over its devotion to communist dictators who murdered millions of their own people in the service of a Great Idea has now finally, fatefully, joined the world jihadic chorus in calling for the end to racist Zionism and to the Jewish apartheid state."

This is an especially interesting comment in view of the fact that, immediately after World War II, this same political Left lent support to the Jewish people and favoured the creation of a homeland for them in Israel. Even the Soviet Union voted in the UN Security Council for the establishment of the state of Israel, albeit for its own political ends. So what went wrong?

To understand why the Left has done a U-turn on this issue, one needs to appreciate that activists such as Noam Chomsky, John Pilger and Antony Loewenstein feed on a constant diet of victims and define the progressive cause by hatred of whichever group they hold responsible for victimisation. Hatred has always been an essential characteristic of leftist ideology, providing the motivating force for its theory of dialectical materialism.

Traditionally, the Left's favoured victims were the proletariat or working class who were oppressed by the hated bourgeoisie, aristocrats, landholders, factory owners, small businessmen and managers. Only recently, with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the shrinking of the working class in developed economies, have numerous other groups become the Left's favoured victims. These include indigenes, welfare dependents, homosexuals, refugees (especially if they are illegal immigrants) and displaced populations of dysfunctional states primarily in Africa and South America. Failure, in addition to class, has become a desired prerequisite for joining the Left's brotherhood of victims. Through its support of those it deems less fortunate, the Left assumes a moral high ground from which it feels self-righteously justified in attacking those it designates as oppressors. At the conclusion of World War II, the Jewish people were added to the Left's list of stereotypical victims....

Designated a victim-state by the Left, Israel did not live up to expectations. To begin with (and despite being under constant Arab attacks from the day of its foundation in 1948), Israel has been internally stable and politically mature. Unlike most post-war emerging states that followed decolonisation, it did not experience widespread corruption, dictatorship or military takeover. From the beginning it was the only democracy in the Middle East, and through hard work, planning and foreign aid its people built a thriving economy. Worse still, the Left's stereotype of Jews was proved wrong. Jews were prepared to fight back and defend their lives and homes. Paradoxically, the state's success has been the reason the Left turned against Israel. Within a few years of its foundation, Israel had broken the first commandment of the Left's ideology: "Thou shalt not succeed." Success is anathema to the Left because it puts an end to victimhood; without victims the Left has no reason to exist....

*****************************

AN IDEALISTIC LEFTIST ENCOUNTERS LEFTIST HATE

My brief and unhappy experience with the hate and vitriol of bloggers on the liberal side of the aisle comes from the last several months I spent campaigning for a longtime friend, Joe Lieberman.... The far right does not have a monopoly on bigotry and hatred and sanctimony. Here are just a few examples (there are many, many more anyone with a search engine can find) of the type of thing the liberal blog sites have been posting about Joe Lieberman:

"Ned Lamont and his supporters need to [g]et real busy. Ned needs to beat Lieberman to a pulp in the debate and define what it means to be an AMerican who is NOT beholden to the Israeli Lobby" (by "rim," posted on Huffington Post, July 6, 2006).

"Joe's on the Senate floor now and he's growing a beard. He has about a weeks growth on his face. . . . I hope he dyes his beard Blood red. It would be so appropriate" (by "ctkeith," posted on Daily Kos, July 11 and 12, 2005).

On "Lieberman vs. Murtha": "as everybody knows, jews ONLY care about the welfare of other jews; thanks ever so much for reminding everyone of this most salient fact, so that we might better ignore all that jewish propaganda [by Lieberman] about participating in the civil rights movement of the 60s and so on" (by "tomjones," posted on Daily Kos, Dec. 7, 2005).

"Good men, Daniel Webster and Faust would attest, sell their souls to the Devil. Is selling your soul to a god any worse? Leiberman cannot escape the religious bond he represents. Hell, his wife's name is Haggadah or Muffeletta or Diaspora or something you eat at Passover" (by "gerrylong," posted on the Huffington Post, July 8, 2006).

"Joe Lieberman is a racist and a religious bigot" (by "greenskeeper," posted on Daily Kos, Dec. 7, 2005).

A friend of mine just returned from Connecticut, where he had spoken on several occasions on behalf of Joe Lieberman. He happens to be a liberal antiwar Democrat, just as I am. He is also a lawyer. He told me that within a day of a Lamont event--where he asked the candidate some critical questions--some of his clients were blitzed with emails attacking him and threatening boycotts of their products if they did not drop him as their attorney. He has actually decided not to return to Connecticut for the primary today; he is fearful for his physical safety.

More here

**********************

ELSEWHERE

The L.A. Slimes has a big eulogy here for a dedicated Communist. Odd that John Birch Society people never get eulogized. I am sure that fellow Birchers could praise their own. Excerpt: "Dorothy Healey, a onetime labor organizer, civil rights activist and Marxist radio commentator who was chairwoman of the Southern California district of the Communist Party USA from the late 1940s through the 1960s, has died. She was 91." [Interesting to note that Comrade Healey admitted to being filled with hate -- though rationalized, of course]

U.K.: Closing the front door while the back door is open: "Home Secretary John Reid yesterday proposed slapping quotas on immigration for the first time. He said an advisory body would recommend “optimum” levels for the number of foreigners allowed to settle in the country. And he called for a “mature discussion” on action to stem the flood of illegal workers coming here. He said there must be an end to the “daft so-called politically correct notion that anybody who wants to talk about immigration is somehow a racist”.

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

**************************

"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.

****************************

CANADA GETS REAL

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has led a major change in Canadian foreign policy by fully supporting Israel in its conflict with Hezbollah, diplomats and observers say. After 13 years of Liberal Party rule in Canada, a minority Conservative Government led by Mr Harper took office in January and closely aligned itself with the US, especially concerning Middle East policy. The alignment is in sharp contrast to the lead-up to the Iraq war, when then prime minister Jean Chretien fell out with George W.Bush over his strident opposition to the war.

Mr Harper's Government "is voicing for the first time in many many years a clear-cut position toward the Middle East and toward fighting terrorism", said Ofir Gendelman, a spokesman for the Israeli embassy in Ottawa. "That is definitely welcome by Israel."

Mr Harper has said Israel's military response to the abduction of two of its soldiers and repeated rocket attacks into Israel was "measured", while Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay has described Hezbollah as a "cancer". Canada supports the idea of an immediate ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel, as long as the Lebanese Shia militia first return two kidnapped Israeli soldiers unharmed and stop rocket attacks on Israel.

More here

***********************

The Left's Inability to Confront Evil

"There's no such thing as right and wrong" after all

On July 28, 2006, a Muslim entered the building of the Seattle Jewish Federation and shot every Jew he saw, murdering one woman and wounding five others. On the same day, Mel Gibson was arrested on DUI charges and while intoxicated let loose with anti-Semitic invective at the Jewish police officer who arrested him. Question: Which story has most troubled the Left? The answer is known to any American who can hear or read.

So, the real question is: Why? Why has the shooting and murder of Jews elicited less angst from the Left than the anti-Semitic statements made by Mel Gibson when drunk? The answers are very troubling. As Time magazine said about global warming (but never about Islamic terror), "Be worried, very worried." We should be worried about this: The liberal world fears -- and much of it loathes -- fundamentalist Christians considerably more than it does fundamentalist Muslims. This is as true of most Jewish liberals -- even though conservative Christians are Israel's and the Jews' most loyal supporters and even though Nazi-like anti-Semitism permeates much of the Muslim world -- as it is of most other liberals, certainly including the mainstream media....

This is one more example of the greatest flaw of contemporary liberalism -- its inability to recognize and confront the greatest evils. Since the 1960s, when liberalism became indistinguishable from the Left -- e.g., when New York Times positions became indistinguishable from those of The Nation -- liberals tended to attack opponents of evil far more than those who actually committed evil. The Left (around the world) was far more antagonistic to Ronald Reagan than to Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, and far more disturbed by anti-Communism than by Communism....

The antipathy toward Christian fundamentalists and conservatives is why Mel Gibson's anti-Semitic statements trouble the Left more than Naveed Haq and the genocidal anti-Semitism permeating the Muslim world. And what is it about those Christians that most disturbs the Left? That they talk in terms of good and evil and believe the former must fight the latter, precisely the area of the Left's greatest weakness.

More here

*****************************

ELSEWHERE

A different Hispanic problem: "Spain is battling a new influx of immigrants from Africa, igniting a political firestorm in a country unused to large-scale immigration. More than 300 African immigrants washed ashore in the Canary islands over the weekend, adding to the 13,000 that have so far arrived on this route this year. Tourists on the beach in Tenerife rushed to give them water, clothes and food, before they were taken in by police. Many were taken to hospital, suffering from dehydration and hypothermia after eight days at sea. The routes to mainland Europe have become longer and more dangerous since Spain and Morocco bolstered efforts to stop migrants from crossing the narrow Straits of Gibraltar. Untold numbers have died trying to make the journey. Boats are sometimes caught up in unpredictable currents, and have turned up as far afield as Barbados, their passengers long-since dead. This weekend, police found the corpse of an African man washed ashore in Lanzarote. Immigrant numbers have been boosted by Spain’s thriving economy over the past decade, and the fact that many use it as a gateway to the rest of Europe. Including legal immigration, a recent analysis of regional registers showed that nearly 9 per cent of Spain’s population is foreign, with Ecuadorians, Romanians and British topping the list of new arrivals. The opposition conservative party has estimated that there are 1.6 million illegal immigrants living in Spain, a country of less than 45 million people. Polls show that Spaniards are becoming increasingly concerned about the level of immigration

Dancer's suit puts corrupt lawyers on their toes: "What would you do if a lawyer threatened, 'Give me a million dollars or my client and I will publicly brand you as a rapist and destroy your life?' On July 27, the California Supreme Court expanded the range of choices possible to one man who was presented with that threat. The dance phenomenon Michael Flatley of Riverdance fame can proceed not only with a lawsuit for defamation against his accuser but also with one for extortion against her lawyer. The very fact that the attorney faces possible civil liability may impact how aggressively attorneys proceed in lawsuits that allege sexual misconduct."



FAA clearing the way for mini jets: "A new light, cheap and fast jet is expected to be certified for flight Thursday. Eclipse Aviation's E500 will be the first 'very light jet,' or VLJ, to receive a provisional certification by the Federal Aviation Administration. Thousands more are expected to take wing over the next decade. The announcement, at the annual AirVenture air show in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, is one of the biggest things to happen to general aviation in years."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

**************************

"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.

****************************

Hey, I'm Anti-War, Too!

By Arlene Peck

Just because I am against war, doesn't mean that I can't see the necessity of fighting one... especially when I realize that I am watching a wave of savage 7th century barbarians climbing over the hill ready to kill everyone in sight. I just happen to be a little more basic in my thinking than what I am seeing in most of the press and for sure the political pundits in the EU and United Nations. We have an enemy that wants to kill us. And, when I say "us" I, am talking about our entire western culture. Israel doesn't have a thing to do about it except that they are a modern democratic country living in a bad neighborhood, surrounded by a savage culture that has been carefully nurtured on hatred and survives on submission. Do you remember when we lived 'normal' lives and were not consumed 24/7 with pictures of raging savages with fists raised shouting "Jihad" "Jihad?" ....

Maybe because I have actually been to the area a couple of dozen times and visited many of the Arab countries. including Lebanon in June of 1982, as a journalist covering the IDF and again in 1993, that I was able to see with my own eyes what a sick society the Jewish state is actually fighting. Now, I don't have to go so far to see what the Israelis live with every day. All one has to do is walk into any of your local mosques and listen to what they are saying... here! In America!

Last year, I spent a few hours listening to what this "gentle" nation was saying at a mosque here, in Los Angeles. Granted, they did not tell their well-dressed western audience to go out and kill everyone who is not one of them, as, I have no doubt, is the case with Imams in Arab countries. They were more sophisticated than that. They gave "sermons" telling the audience that their job was to go back to their homes and channel their "American" children into educational tracks leading to occupations such as journalism and politics , because those are the areas they need to `infiltrate' to get their point across. Folks, that is what scares the living bee-gees out of me! Because a lot of our media reporting looks like they have done just that!

I have a friend who told me about her return last year to her hometown of Dearborn, Michigan for a class reunion. She even went back to her school for the obligatory visit. Rhona was astounded! Gone were the cheerleaders and girls in tight jeans. Headscarves and clothes that completely covered the female students have now replaced them. Dearborn Michigan! That was her moment of truth....

More here

***********************

ELSEWHERE

A good fatwa?: "A top Saudi Sunni cleric, whose ideas inspired Osama bin Laden, issued a religious edict Saturday disavowing the Shi'ite guerrilla group Hizbullah, evidence that a rift remained among Muslims over the fighting in Lebanon. Hizbullah, which translates as "the party of God," is actually "the party of the devil," said Sheik Safar al-Hawali, whose radical views made the al-Qaida leader one of his followers in the past. "Don't pray for Hizbullah," he said in the fatwa posted on his Web site. The edict, which reflects the historical stand of strict Wahhabi doctrine viewing Shi'ite Muslims as heretics, follows a similar fatwa from another popular Saudi cleric Sheik Abdullah bin Jibreen two weeks into the conflict with Israel. "It is not acceptable to support this rejectionist party (Hizbullah), and one should not fall under its command, or pray for its victory," bin Jibreen said at the time"

Official discrimination against whites in Britain: "Companies that bid for multimillion-pound Government contracts will be rejected if they do not employ enough black and Asian workers, under new proposals seen by The Times. A powerful committee that includes seven ministers has drawn up plans to question competing companies about their attitudes to race before choosing which to employ. Firms will be asked to provide figures showing the numbers of their black and Asian employees. This figure will be compared with the proportion of people from ethnic minorities living near the company's offices and will be a factor when deciding the winning bid.... A spokesman for the British Chambers of Commerce said that the plans would hinder the competitive tendering process and make it more difficult and expensive. "Public tenders are already complicated enough," he said. "Lengthening the applications will only further dissuade businesses from applying for public work. "This will do nothing to ensure that government contracts go to the firms with the most competitive bids."

The latest excuse for government meddling: "Based on such findings that people often behave irrationally, some commentators suggest that the government could perhaps frame laws and regulations so that more of us tend to choose more 'rationally.' University of Chicago law professor Cass Sunstein and economics professor Richard Thaler call this strategy 'libertarian paternalism.' Citing the work of Tversky and Kahneman, Sunstein and Thaler point out that 'in many domains, people lack clear, stable, or well-ordered preferences. What they choose is a product of framing effects, starting points, and default rules, leaving the very meaning of the term 'preferences' unclear.'"

Wal Mart wins a Democrat heart: "Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen wants the state to do a better job at preparing students for careers at Wal-Mart. But he's not talking about stocking shelves or checking out customers at the retail giant. Instead, Bredesen wants to tailor community college programs to offer courses on retail management. Bredesen, a Democrat, pitched his proposal on how to address a management shortage at big-box retail stores on a recent trip to Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s headquarters in Bentonville, Ark. While no formal arrangement has been struck, Bredesen and Wal-Mart officials agreed to work on developing a curriculum. Bredesen told The Associated Press he would consider an arrangement where community colleges teach Wal-Mart-specific skills, if the company would agree to guarantee jobs for graduates with good grades. Wal-Mart spokesman Dennis Alpert said Bredesen's proposal came after hearing from company officials talk about a shortage of managers. The program would be a first for the world's largest retailer"

NM: Battle brewing over land theft: "A three-year-old land dispute between a Clovis property owner and the city grew more tangled last month when the owner declined the city's offer to purchase a strip of his land. His decline allows the city to seize the strip under the law of eminent domain, which gives government entities the right [sic] to acquire private lands for public use, with or without the owner's consent. City officials intend to construct a 30-foot open drainage channel across 1.3 acres of Daniel and Pauline Griego's 15-acre farm .... The Griegos earlier this year asked the city to consider building an underground drainage ditch instead of an open channel, acknowledging its higher cost but contending it would require less maintenance and offering to contribute land to the city."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

**************************

"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.

****************************

New research has shattered a favourite left-wing myth about race relations

Excerpt below from here

Dear me, another political illusion shattered. Every time some new research comes out, it seems to destroy yet another of those firm foundations on which we build our political assumptions. One of those foundations, to put it bluntly, is that conservatives are racist. This argument is advanced by the Left as if it were some sort of unchallengeable truth....

But some recent research shows a different picture. Shanto Iyengar, a professor of communications at Stanford University, has just completed some experiments in partnership with The Washington Post on the attitudes of people to giving aid to victims of Hurricane Katrina... Democratic voters, of course, voted to give more money to hurricane victims and for a longer period. Hardly surprising, that: Democrats, like Labor voters here, are keen on giving away other people's money and, for them, a natural disaster is as good an opportunity for doing so as anything else.

But wait, what's this? The research shows Democrats were prepared to give $1500 more to victims if they were white than if they were black. What, give less money to innocent victims just because they were black? I'm afraid so. Moreover, Democrats would give more money to whites than to other minorities such as Asians and Hispanics. So it was left-wingers who used race as the big test.

Republicans, on the other hand, were not influenced by race at all. The Republicans' view, as Iyengar put it, was more principled, as they supported individualism instead of handouts: "Independents and Democrats, on the other hand, are more likely to be affected by racial cues." Even The Washington Post, on June 23, had to concede that this evident bias was disturbing.

But it gets worse. Iyengar's study matches perfectly with an earlier study by Franklin Gilliam Jr of the University of California, Los Angeles, that shows although Republican voters support tough treatment of criminals, Democrats and others "support harsher measures when the criminal suspect they encountered was non-white". Now that's not the way things are supposed to be. But if left-wingers and liberals use race in a way that right-wingers do not, in crime and now in something as deserving as hurricane relief, how about their attitudes on, say, social welfare? Surely, the Left would not discriminate on the grounds of race in that essential field?

Disturbingly, to use that ominous word, it turns out that Gilliam has done another study that looks at whether attitudes on welfare bludging are influenced by race and, you guessed it, they are influenced by it, but only if they are liberals. His exact words: "Depictions of white welfare queens also seem to induce whites who describe themselves as having liberal views about gender roles to arrive at extremely harsh views of African-Americans."

This has to stop. Unbridled research such as this will end up destroying all our cherished myths. Why, before you can say "chardonnay", we will be using facts and reality before we make political assumptions.

***********************

A SMALL ANNOUNCEMENT

I am at it again, I am afraid. I have created yet another blog -- called Food & Health Skeptic. Together with one of the contributors to Wicked Thoughts, I have for over a month now been crossposting there articles that take a look at the latest food and health news, including the current "obesity" war. So far, all the articles there have also appeared either on Political Correctness Watch or on Wicked Thoughts but as from today, the postings there will mostly be original -- i.e. they will now be new postings rather than crosspostings from elsewhere. So if the ups and downs of what is said to be good and bad for you in foods and medicines are of interest to you, you now have a skeptic's view of it all. Links to stories that might be posted there are of course very welcome.

***********************

ELSEWHERE

Free enterprise escaping the regulators: "One hundred workers count on Betsy Briones for their paychecks. But not one of them works for her. Briones is a so-called nonemployer, relying exclusively on contract or temporary workers. This arrangement, which allows employers to avoid the soaring costs of health insurance and other benefits, is booming in California, according to a Census Bureau report to be released today. The 63-year-old Briones runs a busy referral agency for in-home care workers out of her Los Angeles residence, placing caregivers with elderly or disabled clients. All of her caregivers are independent contractors and are responsible for obtaining their own benefits, she said. Los Angeles County - a hotbed for small business - seems to be the capital of this "free agent nation." It has more nonemployers than any other U.S. county, although their ranks are now growing even faster in the Inland Empire, according to the census report. California businesses have been hiring contract and temporary workers in construction, administrative and high-tech jobs for years, and the practice appears to be spreading to industries such as real estate brokerages, beauty salons and insurance agencies, the report said."

Two groups of haters join up -- Marxists and Muslims: "A radical anti-war coalition is joining forces with a U.S. Islamic lobby organization to stage a demonstration in front of the White House to protest "the current predicament of Muslims abroad and at home." A.N.S.W.E.R., a coalition led by socialist and communist activists, and Muslim American Society's Freedom Foundation are co-sponsoring the "National Emergency March" Aug. 12 at Lafayette Park at 12 noon. A third co-sponsor is the National Council of Arab Americans. A number of leaders for A.N.S.W.E.R. - Act Now to Stop War and End Racism - were members of the Workers World Party and now belong to the Party for Socialism and Liberation , a Marxist-Leninist organization founded in 2004. Along with the "plight of the Palestinian people and the recent atrocities in Gaza and Lebanon," the Muslim group says it will focus on the war in Iraq and "the continuous violation of civil rights and civil liberties within the American Muslim community."

U.N. logic: "A Geneva-based agency charged with eliminating world racism added its name yesterday to the growing list of U.N. organs denouncing Israel's war against Hezbollah. Members of the agency argued that Secretary-General Annan expected them to condemn Israel. To critics who wondered how the charge of racism could be applied to a war between two groups of Semites, one panel member - also known as an "expert" - of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination said Israel would not have "reacted with the same violence if there was no racism involved"

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

**************************

"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.

****************************

FUMBLE-FINGERED RESEARCH ABOUT ANTISEMITISM MEANDERS TO A CORRECT CONCLUSION

There is an academic paper here that has recently (August 2006) found publication in the Journal of Conflict Resolution -- a peacenik journal containing articles of very "uneven" (polite academic word) quality. I myself had one article published in the same journal years ago but that article was essentially a reply to an incredibly stupid article that had previously appeared in the journal.

The authors of the recent study (by Kaplan and Small) had available to them a large body of survey data that allowed them to show whether people with anti-Israel attitudes also had generally antisemitic attitudes. No prizes for guessing what they found. But, obviously, neither of the authors concerned has ever done a proper course in statistics. If they had they could have expressed their findings in both a more informative and vastly simpler way -- by a single correlation coefficient. Instead they have categorized their data in a variety of arbitrary ways and presented cross tabulations of it in a whole series of tables and figures that take a lot of brain-strain to decipher even for me -- and I used to teach statistics at university level.

Unfortunately, their report does leave open the conclusion that the underlying correlation coefficient between the two variables may in fact be rather weak. They certainly need to clarify that.

Note that the research concerned comes from Yale! Just another episode in the dumbing down of American education. When even Harvard has to give 20% of its freshman intake remedial courses in the "3rs", one wonders how low standards can go. Maybe we have to be thankful that Kaplan and Small can at least read and write.

**************************

THE POISONED FRUIT OF LEFTIST HATE SPEECH:

(Lifted from John Gibson)

How much hate is there for George Bush in the country today? A ton. Just look at the drubbing Rumsfeld took today at a Senate hearing. This was all about the war. Hillary Clinton had to bash Rummy - Bush's proxy for this war - even though she voted for the war and still supports it. But even a war supporter has to show he or she doesn't like Bush and his cohorts.

Then there is the new poll from Scripps Howard, the news chain. It shows that one-third of Americans now believe the U.S. government had something to do with the 9/11 attacks. This madness has long been afoot among the America haters in Europe and Canada and Arab nations. A best-selling book in France started it. Another in Germany contributed to this notion that the 9/11 attacks were not the work of Usama bin Laden, but instead it was George Bush. This notion has gained considerable currency despite the fact that bin Laden has admitted he did it.

Now they say, "Hey, the bin Laden tapes were faked." They also say the Twin Towers couldn't have been brought down by the two hijacked jets, that it must have been demolition explosives planted in the building by the U.S. government. They say the attack on the Pentagon was U.S. missiles, not American Flight 77.

You say, "Well, where is Flight 77? Where are the people that were on board?" I have personally interviewed every major purveyor of this garbage. None of them have an answer to the Flight 77 question - just more empty-headed questions that lead to truly sick conclusions that somehow Bush attacked his own country on 9/11. The truth is: People don't believe the 9/11 story because they hate George Bush and don't believe anything he says. If he says Usama did 9/11, they don't believe it. If he says the Twin Towers were felled by two hijacked jetliners, they don't believe it. If Bush says there were 19 hijackers and they took four airliners and crashed all four in the largest attack on American soil ever, they don't believe it.

So now we have one-third of the American people as blinded by hate as many Europeans and many Canadians and many Arabs. They're so blinded they cannot see or hear the hundreds if not thousands of experts who have told them exactly what happened on 9/11. Instead they rush to so-called evidence and so-called investigations that are much closer to alien spaceships than they are to observable and verifiable fact.

***************************

ELSEWHERE



Nobody seems to know who drew the above brilliantly accurate cartoon. Any ideas? It sure sums up what scum most Arabs seem to be.

There is an amusing example here of Leftist "debate". Prolonged abuse with hardly a shred of rational argument in it. The egotistical motivation that underlies so much Leftism is extremely evident, though.

British ID card in trouble: "MPs attacked plans for identity cards as inconsistent and lacking clarity yesterday and called for a rethink of the technology to be used. The Commons Science and Technology Committee published a report expressing incredulity that the Home Office claimed to be able to produce firm estimates of the costs of running ID cards when fundamental technical decisions were still unclear. The Home Office has said that running costs would be 584 million pounds a year, whereas the London School of Economics, in a controversial report, has put the total costs of setting up and running ID cards at between 10.6 billion and 19.2 billion. The report called on the Government to disclose more information about how the scheme would operate, particularly the database on which personal details would eventually be held. The criticism comes after the admission by the Home Office last month that the introduction of identity cards as a voluntary measure was likely to be delayed past the target date of 2008 because of practical difficulties in implementing a scheme of that size".



Thanks for the sanctions: "A quick survey: We began our economic embargo against North Korea in 1950. We've had one against Cuba since 1962. We first applied economic sanctions to Iran during the hostage crisis in 1979 and are currently trying for international sanctions aimed at getting the government there to suspend uranium enrichment. We attached trade sanctions to Burma beginning in 1990 and froze the assets of Sudan beginning in 1997. President Bush ordered sanctions against Zimbabwe in 2003 and against Syria beginning in 2004. We have also led major international sanctions campaigns against regimes since brought down by force of arms: Milosevic's Yugoslavia, Saddam's Iraq, and Taliban Afghanistan. America's sanctions policy is largely consistent, and in a certain sense, admirable. By applying economic restraints, we label the most oppressive and dangerous governments in the world pariahs. We wash our hands of evil, declining to help despots finance their depredations, even at a cost to ourselves of some economic growth. We wincingly accept the collateral damage that falls on civilian populations in the nations we target. But as the above list of countries suggests, sanctions have one serious drawback. They don't work."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

**************************

"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

Comments? Email me here (Hotmail address). If there are no recent posts here blame Blogger.com and visit my mirror site here or here. My Home Pages are here or here or here.

****************************