H/t Power Line
What Should Americans Be Talking About? Gatestone Institute, Judith Bergman, October 17, 2016
Should Americans uphold the Judeo-Christian values, which have governed Western civilization until now? Or should they quietly allow the defeat of those values by a false liberalism — false, because it is anything but liberal — which will allow values, such as that of Islamic sharia religious law to settle over the United States? Will people willingly surrender their own culture in order to avoid becoming victims of intimidation?
Worse, these policies often come in the seemingly benign-sounding terms of “diversity”, “multiculturalism”, “peace”, “anti-racism”, and “human rights”; but are often used in an Orwellian way to mean their own opposites. “Diversity” means, “It is great to look different so long as you think the same way I do” and is also an acceptance of Islamic values. “Anti-racism” often means, in a racist way, anti-white or anti-Jew. “Human rights” now means a political agenda. “Peace” is used to mean the destruction of Israel. “Multiculturalism” means any culture except the Judeo-Christian one — regardless of whether that culture supports denigrating women, slavery, flogging, amputating limbs, murdering gays and the intolerance of all other religions and cultures. These inversions of language are having devastating consequences not only on university campuses, but also throughout the U.S. and abroad.
“The process of settlement is a ‘Civilization-Jihadist Process’ with all [that] the word means. The Ikhwan [Muslim Brotherhood] must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers…” — Muslim Brotherhood, 1991.
The question of whether to submit to these policies, as Europe is doing, or to uphold freedom, as Israel is doing, has arrived in the United States. The choice Americans make will immeasurably affect not just the US, but, despite sounding melodramatic, the future of Western civilization.
For the American voter, issues of immense urgency to the survival of the free world — such as individual freedom, dispassionate enquiry and freedom of speech and thought, which we dangerously have come to take for granted — are being derailed by crude language and behavior, when Americans need to be paying attention to serious threats to the United States, its allies and to the values of the West.
Internationally, these threats come from Iran, Russia, China, North Korea, and countless terrorist groups.
Domestically, they appear in the form of massive corruption — financial and otherwise — that is visibly hollowing out American institutions, such as the FBI (the failure to follow investigative procedure, followed by calls for FBI Director James Comey’s resignation); the Department of Justice (the “Fast and Furious” gun-walking scandal, and the Attorney General meeting with a former president whose wife is under investigation); the State Department (email leaks are still yielding up evidence of collusion between the Clinton Global Initiative and the State Department under Hillary Clinton); the IRS (targeting conservative non-profits, and raiding the businesses of private citizens, who disagree with policy); the Environmental Protection Agency’s attempt to acquire power over every puddle in America) and the Executive branch in the “I have a pen and I have a phone” president’s dealings with Iran.
There have also been attempts by outsiders to incite racial and religious anarchy. The entrepreneur George Soros, for example, donated $33 million to turn events in Ferguson, Missouri from a local protest into chaos.
There have been attempts by outsiders to incite racial and religious anarchy. The entrepreneur George Soros, for example, donated $33 million to turn events in Ferguson, Missouri from a local protest into chaos. (Image source: World Economic Forum)
Instead of helping Americans to create a safer, more prosperous way of life, the Ferguson events destroyed a community, devastated small business owners, and eroded security, the rule of law, and any hope for a better future. Who benefits? Creating chaos embeds a political dependency: rather than helping people to climb out of poverty, it keeps them voting for politicians to “rescue” them.
Jews and Israel are also targeted — often, regrettably, by other Jews, who appear naïvely to hope that they will thereby “immunize” themselves from attacks on Jews. Recently, for example, an article accused the U.S. Republican presidential election campaign of “significantly enhancing the presence of antisemitism in the public arena.”
Seriously?
While “conservative” radicals, such as white supremacists do exist, they are not even close to overtaking the mainstream discourse. That space, rather, seems to have been filled in the last decades by self-described “liberals” who now seem to dominate it to such a degree that the Dean of Students at the University of Chicago, John Ellison, felt obliged to write a letter warning prospective applicants not to expect a “safe space.” “Conservative” radicals are not the ones hunting down Jews — “liberals” and Islamists are victimizing and shutting them out.
Ironically of course, the liberals have not yet figured out that the agendas of these two groups are incompatible (as in gender equality); perhaps they are trying to “immunize” themselves, too.
Public debate in the US, particularly in the next few weeks, really needs to be about choosing what policies would actually improve the lives of Americans. Should they uphold the Judeo-Christian values, which have governed Western civilization until now? Or should they quietly allow the defeat of those values by a false liberalism — false, because it is anything but liberal — which will allow values, such as that of Islamic sharia religious law to settle over the United States? Will people willingly surrender their own culture in order to avoid becoming victims of intimidation?
American university campuses, which should proudly be championing debate of all ideas, have instead been rife with antisemitism for years, mostly because a “thought police” obsessed with identity politics — another way of saying my race, religion, skin color or sexual proclivity is good, yours is not — has overtaken campuses and turned them into embittered war-zones. It is postmodern Stalinism.
Worse, these policies often come in the seemingly benign-sounding terms of “diversity”, “multiculturalism”, “peace”, “anti-racism”, and “human rights”; but are often used in an Orwellian way to mean their own opposites. “Diversity” means, “it is great to look different so long as you think the same way I do” and is also and acceptance of Islamic values. “Anti-racism” often means, in a racist way, anti-white or anti-Jew. “Human rights” now means a political agenda. “Peace” is used to mean the destruction of Israel. “Multiculturalism” means any culture except the Judeo-Christian one — regardless of whether that culture supports denigrating women, slavery, flogging, amputating limbs, murdering gays and the intolerance of all other religions and cultures. These inversions of language are having devastating consequences not only on university campuses, but also throughout the U.S. and abroad.
The glue that brings “liberals” and Islamists, such as the Muslim Students Association (MSA) in the US (a front[1] for the Muslim Brotherhood), together in a common cause is the goal of eradicating Israel — of course always only under the euphemisms of “helping Palestinians” and “Peace,” even though Jihadi camps for children were organized first by Palestinians.
A 1991 official document authored by the Muslim Brotherhood outlines its strategic goals for civilizational jihad in North America. It depicts the Muslim Brotherhood’s plans for civilization jihad in the United States stating:
“The process of settlement is a “Civilization-Jihadist Process” with all [that] the word means. The Ikhwan [Muslim Brotherhood] must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and “sabotaging” its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers… [W]e must possess a mastery of the art of “coalitions”, the art of “absorption” and the principles of “cooperation.”
The question of whether to submit to these policies, as Europe is doing, or to uphold freedom, as Israel is doing, has arrived in the United States. The choice Americans make will immeasurably affect not just the US, but, despite sounding melodramatic, the future of Western civilization.
________________-
[1] In a 1991 official document authored by the Muslim Brotherhood, outlining its strategic goals for civilizational jihad in North America, the Muslim Students Association was mentioned as “one of our organizations and the organizations of our friends”, that is, a front group for the Muslim Brotherhood. The document was entered as evidence in the 2008 Holyland Terror Funding Trial.
Normative Behavior, PJ Media, Richard Fernandez, September 22, 2016
President Barack Obama pauses during a news conference following the G-20 Summit in Antalya, Turkey, Monday, Nov. 16, 2015. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
The devastation of Syria, according to the Guardian, will be Obama’s legacy but it won’t entirely be the story of naive neglect. Some pundits think active incompetence must have played a part too. After all, when the administration conceived of an alliance with Russia as a way the conflict could be shifted to the negotiating table, any reasonable person could have foreseen the possible dangers. Events proved the administration completely miscalculated the way in which Putin and Assad would act. How could they not have foreseen it?
“The crux of the deal is a US promise to join forces with the Russian air force to share targeting and coordinate an expanded bombing campaign against Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria, which is primarily fighting the government of President Bashar al-Assad.” To say Obama was stabbed in the back would only be to repeat Samantha Power’s belated regret at Putin’s “uniquely cynical and hypocritical stunt”.
Obama should have seen it coming but didn’t. All too frequently he never does. Noting this, Charles Lister, writing at Foreign Policy, headlines his piece “Obama’s Syria Strategy Is the Definition of Insanity.” He says “none of this should come as a surprise, even as the consequences are potentially devastating.
The Russian government, much less the Assad regime, has never been a reliable partner for peace in Syria. But even after Russia’s alleged bombing of the aid convoy, U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration is still plowing its energies into a deal that aims to work with the Russian government.
But Lister doesn’t accuse Obama of being actually a crazy person, just of acting like a one. Yet the suggestive evidence goes much further than Syria. Whether at social policy (which yielded riots), health policy (which resulted in Obamacare), or economic policy (which has created unemployment), the administration has shown a willingness to double down on failure. In many and varied contexts, it acts like it’s insane.
The explanation, as Michael Barone hints at, is the belief these setbacks are an acceptable price to pay for guaranteed re-election. Because liberal politics succeeds at electing candidates by promising impossible things, it promises them. That it fails to deliver is beside the point, because, quoting Dan McLaughlin at National Review, the Democrats believe their “party had unlocked the demographic code to a permanent majority.” Since misleading the electorate was the key to power, they would continue to turn it.
For all their blunders, “Republicans have lost four of the six presidential elections between 1992-2012” and Obama’s approval rating in the twilight of his term is over 50%. Since there’s no reason to hit the brakes and every incentive to step on the liberal gas, they do.
Two decades ago, lots of self-described moderates and even conservatives voted in Democratic primaries. Not so these days. The slump in Democratic primary and caucus turnout, from 38 million in 2008 to 31 million in 2016, was due to a sharp decline in turnout by self-described moderates.Hillary Clinton’s move from her husband’s 1990s triangulation to her near-total acceptance this year of Bernie Sanders’s left-wing platform was a rational response to changes in the Democratic primary electorate.
Hillary Clinton doesn’t say what she thinks but what her focus groups say the constituency wants to hear. She just channels the base, consequences be damned. Political catastrophe alone, argues Barone, can shock the system back into sanity. Absent negative feedback that hits politicians where they live, no changes can be expected from the party of Washington. Barone’s hypothesis reassuringly asserts that liberal politics is only optionally crazy and that after a few electoral defeats things could return to normal. Sleep tight: we can leave the asylum any time we want. However, he may have overlooked a crucial possibility. In his classic experiment, Yale psychologist David Rosenhan found it was easy to join the ranks of the insane but almost impossible to leave it on terms the asylum would accept.
Rosenhan’s study was done in two parts. The first part involved the use of healthy associates or “pseudopatients” (three women and five men, including Rosenhan himself) who briefly feigned auditory hallucinations in an attempt to gain admission to 12 different psychiatric hospitals in five different states in various locations in the United States. All were admitted and diagnosed with psychiatric disorders. After admission, the pseudopatients acted normally and told staff that they felt fine and had no longer experienced any additional hallucinations. All were forced to admit to having a mental illness and agree to take antipsychotic drugs as a condition of their release.
This raises the possibility that dysfunction is rather more permanent than Barone believes. The Rosenhan experiment provides an explanation for the what could be called “the liberal trap,” where there is no way out of an irrational policy regime except on terms that irrational people will accept. In that line of argument, the persistence of Obama’s “insane” foreign and domestic policy is partly the result of being unable to change his policy to anything his constituency can mentally follow. There is no workable escape from Syria, for example, on any self-consistent basis the left would accept and therefore there is no escape.
Being the head lefty doesn’t mean they’re in there with him. It means he’s in there with THEM.
And maybe he can’t get out. Having promised them a fantasy universe, he has to pretend to attain it. By that logic “Hillary Clinton’s move from her husband’s 1990s triangulation to her near-total acceptance this year of Bernie Sanders’s left-wing platform” will make her president yet will confine her as much as it did Obama. The reader will have noted there is of course yet another possibility which will not here be discussed. Our political leaders act crazy because they are. But if that were so, how would we know?
Scientist Names New Parasite After President Obama, Washington Free Beacon,
(Finally, an honor Obama deserves. — DM)
A newly-discovered parasite has been named after President Obama, and the scientist who discovered the new species says it is meant as an honor, not an insult.
The parasite is called Baracktrema obamai, a thin, two-inch long flatworm that lives in the blood of turtles, the Associated Press reported.
The scientist who made the discovery is Thomas Platt, who recently retired from his position as a biology professor at Saint Mary’s College in Indiana. He has a lengthy history of discovering new species, according to the AP.
Platt, who discovered and named the flatworm to crown his career before retiring, has more than 30 new species to his credit. In the past, he’s named them after his father-in-law, his doctorate adviser, “and other people I have a great deal of respect for. This is clearly something in my small way done to honor our president,” Platt said Thursday.
Platt is also a distant relative of Obama’s. He explained his decision to name the parasite after the president.
Parasites, which live in and get nutrients from host animals, get a bad rap. Platt says this one reminds him of the president: “It’s long. It’s thin. And it’s cool as hell.”
Platt says Baracktrema obamai “are phenomenally incredibly resilient organisms.”
“I hold them in awe and with phenomenal respect,” Platt says.
The presidential parasite was introduced to the world in a study published in the Journal of Parasitology. It does not cause any harm to turtles, according to Platt.
A spider, fish, and extinct lizard have already been named after Obama, the AP noted.
Enjoy the Internet, Before Obama Abandons It to the UN, PJ Media, Claudia Rosett, August 29, 2016
In Monday’s Wall Street Journal, columnist Gordon Crovitz sounds an urgent warning about President Obama’s plans, during his final months in office, to fundamentally transform the internet. It’s an intricate tale, but the bottom line is that unless Congress acts fast, the World Wide Web looks likely to end up under control of the UN.
That would be the same UN that serves as a global clubhouse for despotic regimes that like to wield censorship as a basic tool of power. Russia and China occupy two of the five veto-wielding permanent seats on the UN Security Council. Iran since 2012 has presided over one of the largest voting blocs in the 193-member General Assembly, the 120-member Non-Aligned Movement. Among the current members of the Human Rights Council are Venezuela, Vietnam and Saudi Arabia — where blogger Raif Badawi was sentenced in 2014 to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes, for blog posts the Saudi government considered insulting to Islam.
We’re talking here about the same UN which for generations has proven incorrigibly corrupt, opaque and inept at managing almost anything except its own apparently endless expansion and self-serving overreach. This is the UN of the Oil-for-Food worldwide web of kickbacks; the UN of the evidently chronic problem of peacekeepers raping minors they are sent to protect; the UN that can’t manage to adequately audit its own books, and offers its top officials an “ethics” program of financial disclosure under which they are entitled to opt out of disclosing anything whatsoever to the public.
This is the UN where a recent president of the General Assembly, John Ashe, died this June in an accident that reportedly entailed a barbell falling on his neck, while he was awaiting trial on fraud charges in the Southern District of New York — accused by federal authorities of having turned his UN position into a “platform for profit.”
So, how might this entrancing organization, the UN, end up controlling the internet? Crovitz in hisJournal column explains that Obama’s administration is about to give up the U.S. government’s longstanding contract with Icann, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which, as a monopoly, operates “the entire World Wide Web root zone.”
If that sounds like a good idea, think again. This is not a case of Obama having some 11th-hour 180-degree conversion to the virtues of minimalist government. It works out to the very opposite. Here’s a link, again, to Crovitz’s column on “An Internet Giveaway to the UN.” Crovtz explains that as a contractor under government control, Icann enjoys an exemption from antitrust rules. When the contract expires, the exemption goes away, unless Icann can hook up with another “governmental group” so as to “keep its antitrust exemption.” What “governmental group” might that be? Well, some of the worst elements of the UN have already reached out. Crovitz writes:
Authoritarian regimes have already proposed Icann become part of the U.N. to make it easier for them to censor the internet globally. So much for the Obama pledge that the U.S. would never be replaced by a “government-led or an inter-governmental organization solution.”
This is far from the first time the UN has cast a covetous eye at the internet. For years, there have been UN proposals, shindigs and summits looking for ways to regulate and tax the Web. Recall, as one example among many, the 2012 UN jamboree in Dubai. Or 2007 in Rio. Or the 2009 Internet Governance Forum gathering in Egypt, inspired by the 2005 conference of wannabe-be web commissars in Tunis.
All that hoopla pales next to the alarming reality of Obama’s plan to cut loose Icann this fall, and let the economic and political currents carry it straight into the waiting clutches of the United Nations. Crovitz notes that the Obama administration, while preparing to drop Icann’s contract, has already “stopped actively overseeing the group,” with dismal results inside Icann itself. Crovitz concludes, “The only thing worse than a monopoly overseen by the U.S. government is a monopoly overseen by no one — or by a Web-censoring U.N.”
Lest that sound hopeless, Crovitz adds: “Congress still has time to extend its ban on the Obama administration giving up protection of the internet.” But not a lot of time. The deadline is Sept. 30th.
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