Barack Obama - the toast of the intelligentsia from Malibu to Hollywood.
I used to find his oratory impressive and commanding, his message of hope persuasive and compelling.
Now I find my attention to his rhetoric wanes with every repetitive exhortation for change. Independents seeking political satisfaction come away frustrated with what they see as "Obama Lite:" the supposed anti-politician pandering to the voters, short on details, flexible on principles.
Why this metamorphosis? Has Obama really gone from being a scintillating intellectual powerhouse to a manipulative rabble-rouser? From being the Messianic harbinger of inspired change to a purveyor of Machiavellian politics as usual, intent on winning at all costs?
With a few Athenian exceptions, human societies have normally been led by controlling minorities that define directions and policies for the whole. One generally finds good and just people on the one hand or authoritarians and extremists on the other, all passionately and actively dictating positive or negative pathways for the passive majority to follow.
Either way the majority at the center gets swayed, whether by persuasion or by fear. Either way those leaders with the requisite charisma to inspire crowds, with enough power to motivate individuals, move the populace to their side, interjecting their beliefs along the way. Whether Kennedy or Hitler, Moses or Mao Tse Tung, Lincoln or Stalin, the psychology of conformity, of adoration, often remains the same.
The middle majority inevitably seeks answers to the unanswerable, to the incomprehensible, to their particularly insecure future. It desires hope and faith with which to fill the void, and in its fear and angst this majority latches on to any and all guarantees that posit positive change, that promise the actualization of their fantasies. It is here in this fertile ground that Obama feels most comfortable, working his genius, hugely negative about the recent past, spreading his limitless optimism for the future.
Our election zeitgeist is one of political immaturity and immediate gratification, one of self-indulgence and needy egocentricity. The limitations imposed by reality, by likely sacrifice and realpolitik, by needed compromise and tough planning for the unknown - these are all anathema to the majority. They all fade into irrelevance besides the soaring rhetoric of promised change, change that Obama assures us he will usher in, come November, at the start of his "Golden Era."
Do we, as the emperor's newly blessed children, follow the allure of Obama's sweet candy floss, his endless toffee apple; or do we visit the ever unpopular dentist? Do we as adults confront our enemies and balance the budget? Do we plan and make the necessary sacrifices, accepting pain now, as Joseph did in biblical Egypt, to survive the future's likely seven lean years?
"Bush's Third Term" - The Wall Street Journal: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121495450490321133.html
Published on The Absurd Report: http://www.theabsurdreport.com/2008/obama-the-talk-of-the-town-by-leslie-j-sacks/
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Friday, July 18, 2008
Appeasement Politics - Again
Negotiating with terrorists and with authoritarian regimes is often in the news these days. Opinions fly fast and wide about the relative merits of sitting down with this or that unsavory character.
Yet we have only to glance at the latest news to receive a litany of reality checks.
Robert Mugabe came to power using the gun some 28 years ago. After a brief period of stability and growth, he has set about destroying Zimbabwe, a country that used to be called the "bread basket" of Africa. He has devastated the economy by recklessly expropriating land and has emasculated the opposition by beating, killing or jailing many of his opponents. With increasing violence, Mugabe has stamped his authoritarian rule throughout the country. The West has recently opened its blind eye whilst the U.N., his trading partners (i.e. China), and Africa tread cautiously. For the latter, it appears as though Mugabe's credentials as a freedom fighter warrant unlimited loyalty, as though his decade's long violence and mayhem will one day transition to tolerance and peace. What is that memorable saying about a leopard and its spots?
As the one-man run-off presidential election held June 27 makes perfectly clear, Mugabe has reconfirmed his disinterest in democracy, freedom and the will of the people. Never mind that Mugabe's opponent, Morgan Tsvangirai, won the first round ballot. According to Mugabe, "We fought for this country, and a lot of blood was shed. We are not going to give up our country because of a mere X. How can a ballpoint [pen] fight with a gun?" [1]
It seems years of accommodation, understanding and negotiation by the West have only hardened the geriatric Mugabe's determination to forcefully hold onto power, to break the back of any and all opposition. Could not the West have foreseen this outcome; were there not enough signs along the way?
In Lebanon, Hizballah has only tightened its stranglehold on the Lebanese government. Its unqualified veto power gives it total control over policy and change whilst shrewdly sidestepping responsibility, as the minority party, for the government's future mistakes. We have known and still know that Hizballah is an unabashed terrorist group with political, educational, and financial wings.
Just a few weeks ago, in a bloody confrontation with Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, Hizballah took control of the capital, Beirut. In 2006, they provoked a war with Israel through kidnappings and assorted border provocations. They have a more effective fighting force than the Lebanese army and are reported to have 40,000 rockets aimed at Israel. Furthermore, they are responsible for the deaths of more Americans than any other terrorist group apart from Al Qaeda. And yet Condoleezza Rice has stated that she welcomes the new power-sharing arrangement in Lebanon [2] as if it was reached democratically and peacefully. Apparently, we in the West now (tacitly) allow violent blackmail on a countrywide basis and support terrorist groups in power. Is there no end to our "pragmatism," is there always a deal with the devil worthy of our imprimatur? Even though we surely know that the "pragmatism" of these militants has been and will remain worthless? Is our fear of confrontation, our dislike of going it alone and our need for peace at any cost so deep that we hope where there is no justification for hope? Do we endlessly put off the day of reckoning (ignoring the cost of our freedom, the ultimate price of our peace) at the expense of oppressed peoples everywhere, at the expense of honesty and truth?
In the Middle Ages the church sold "indulgences" to their wealthier sinners who would thereby ensure their key to heaven by greasing the proverbial palm of the local parish. Do we open our myopic eyes a little more and confront the real enemies of our civilization rather than devoting ourselves exclusively, as many in the left are wont to do, to Kyoto and global warming, to whales and moose, to distractions from ensuring our survival?
So now we must negotiate with Iran's President Ahmadinejad, a man who has often stated that he has no interest in Israel's survival, peace with America, or in reaching any accommodation with his internal opposition? Are there no limits to our appeasements, to our self-flagellation, to our ability to fool ourselves?
Many in the world support these anti-Western rogue regimes, terrorist groups, fundamentalists and tin pot dictators. They do so not necessarily because they objectively find an accurate melding of their own views and wishes with those of these bombastic extremists. Rather, they are motivated by a desire to see America cut down to size, its power and dominance reduced, its government (mostly Republican) and its companies (mostly multi-national) humiliated. It's mostly a case of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." So—as revealed by the (often ornate) signs of protestors from San Francisco to Stuttgart to Seoul--Bush and Hitler are two sides of the same coin. Chavez, to whom most would not trust a second hand Prius at the valet, is now a poster boy for a myriad of causes and receives a standing ovation from the UN General Assembly after an anti-American speech so vitriolic it put Geobbels to shame. And Ahmadinejad, whose rants and insipid insights we would normally attribute to the world of insane asylums, becomes worthy of our understanding, our liberal largess and our Third World sympathies. In the interest of "dialogue," the venerable Council of Foreign Relations has Ahmadinejad over to the Upper East Side for a chat; not to be outdone, Columbia University soon invites him across town.
Being anti-American gets one a free pass, it seems, whether in the lofty towers of the United Nations or from the erudite professorships of our most acclaimed universities.
Without America as whipping boy, the elite's most politically correct scapegoat—without Shakespeare's modern day Shylock—most of these terrorist groups and dictatorships would likely dissipate and implode from a paucity of outside support and attention, their raison d'être dissolved, the transparency of their own viciousness and incompetence exposed. [3]
We seem to have a bizarre predilection for tolerating tyrants at home as well, passionately banning mangers in the park at Christmas time, cartoons of Mohammed, and cost effective and practical yet politically incorrect profiling at airports.
We seem to insist on repeating the mistakes of the past as though history can be rewritten by our fanciful optimism and our dangerous penchant for negotiating even when there is nothing left to negotiate.
The West is war weary and confrontation averse. Most of us prefer to sweeten with gifts those who wish us ill, to mollify tyrants with our endless words of conciliation. Is there ultimately no politically viable path between endless war and interminable accommodation?
[1] (Wall Street Journal 6/17/08 World Watch p. 13)
[2] (Wall Street Journal 6/17/08 World Watch p. 13)
[3] See Jean Francois Ravel's book on the subject entitled "Anti-Americanism" Encounter Books Sept. 25, 2004
"Mugabe Vows to Hold Power" by Roger Bate (Wall Street Journal 6/19/08 Opinion p. 15):
http://online.wsj.com/article_print/SB121383425044786737.html
Military occupation mars Hezbollah reputation:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/jun/13/occupation-mars-hezbollah-reputation/
Original item available at: http://www.investigativeproject.org/article/724
Posted on Unity Coalition for Israel: http://www.israelunitycoalition.org/news/article.php?id=3049
Yet we have only to glance at the latest news to receive a litany of reality checks.
Robert Mugabe came to power using the gun some 28 years ago. After a brief period of stability and growth, he has set about destroying Zimbabwe, a country that used to be called the "bread basket" of Africa. He has devastated the economy by recklessly expropriating land and has emasculated the opposition by beating, killing or jailing many of his opponents. With increasing violence, Mugabe has stamped his authoritarian rule throughout the country. The West has recently opened its blind eye whilst the U.N., his trading partners (i.e. China), and Africa tread cautiously. For the latter, it appears as though Mugabe's credentials as a freedom fighter warrant unlimited loyalty, as though his decade's long violence and mayhem will one day transition to tolerance and peace. What is that memorable saying about a leopard and its spots?
As the one-man run-off presidential election held June 27 makes perfectly clear, Mugabe has reconfirmed his disinterest in democracy, freedom and the will of the people. Never mind that Mugabe's opponent, Morgan Tsvangirai, won the first round ballot. According to Mugabe, "We fought for this country, and a lot of blood was shed. We are not going to give up our country because of a mere X. How can a ballpoint [pen] fight with a gun?" [1]
It seems years of accommodation, understanding and negotiation by the West have only hardened the geriatric Mugabe's determination to forcefully hold onto power, to break the back of any and all opposition. Could not the West have foreseen this outcome; were there not enough signs along the way?
In Lebanon, Hizballah has only tightened its stranglehold on the Lebanese government. Its unqualified veto power gives it total control over policy and change whilst shrewdly sidestepping responsibility, as the minority party, for the government's future mistakes. We have known and still know that Hizballah is an unabashed terrorist group with political, educational, and financial wings.
Just a few weeks ago, in a bloody confrontation with Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, Hizballah took control of the capital, Beirut. In 2006, they provoked a war with Israel through kidnappings and assorted border provocations. They have a more effective fighting force than the Lebanese army and are reported to have 40,000 rockets aimed at Israel. Furthermore, they are responsible for the deaths of more Americans than any other terrorist group apart from Al Qaeda. And yet Condoleezza Rice has stated that she welcomes the new power-sharing arrangement in Lebanon [2] as if it was reached democratically and peacefully. Apparently, we in the West now (tacitly) allow violent blackmail on a countrywide basis and support terrorist groups in power. Is there no end to our "pragmatism," is there always a deal with the devil worthy of our imprimatur? Even though we surely know that the "pragmatism" of these militants has been and will remain worthless? Is our fear of confrontation, our dislike of going it alone and our need for peace at any cost so deep that we hope where there is no justification for hope? Do we endlessly put off the day of reckoning (ignoring the cost of our freedom, the ultimate price of our peace) at the expense of oppressed peoples everywhere, at the expense of honesty and truth?
In the Middle Ages the church sold "indulgences" to their wealthier sinners who would thereby ensure their key to heaven by greasing the proverbial palm of the local parish. Do we open our myopic eyes a little more and confront the real enemies of our civilization rather than devoting ourselves exclusively, as many in the left are wont to do, to Kyoto and global warming, to whales and moose, to distractions from ensuring our survival?
So now we must negotiate with Iran's President Ahmadinejad, a man who has often stated that he has no interest in Israel's survival, peace with America, or in reaching any accommodation with his internal opposition? Are there no limits to our appeasements, to our self-flagellation, to our ability to fool ourselves?
Many in the world support these anti-Western rogue regimes, terrorist groups, fundamentalists and tin pot dictators. They do so not necessarily because they objectively find an accurate melding of their own views and wishes with those of these bombastic extremists. Rather, they are motivated by a desire to see America cut down to size, its power and dominance reduced, its government (mostly Republican) and its companies (mostly multi-national) humiliated. It's mostly a case of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." So—as revealed by the (often ornate) signs of protestors from San Francisco to Stuttgart to Seoul--Bush and Hitler are two sides of the same coin. Chavez, to whom most would not trust a second hand Prius at the valet, is now a poster boy for a myriad of causes and receives a standing ovation from the UN General Assembly after an anti-American speech so vitriolic it put Geobbels to shame. And Ahmadinejad, whose rants and insipid insights we would normally attribute to the world of insane asylums, becomes worthy of our understanding, our liberal largess and our Third World sympathies. In the interest of "dialogue," the venerable Council of Foreign Relations has Ahmadinejad over to the Upper East Side for a chat; not to be outdone, Columbia University soon invites him across town.
Being anti-American gets one a free pass, it seems, whether in the lofty towers of the United Nations or from the erudite professorships of our most acclaimed universities.
Without America as whipping boy, the elite's most politically correct scapegoat—without Shakespeare's modern day Shylock—most of these terrorist groups and dictatorships would likely dissipate and implode from a paucity of outside support and attention, their raison d'être dissolved, the transparency of their own viciousness and incompetence exposed. [3]
We seem to have a bizarre predilection for tolerating tyrants at home as well, passionately banning mangers in the park at Christmas time, cartoons of Mohammed, and cost effective and practical yet politically incorrect profiling at airports.
We seem to insist on repeating the mistakes of the past as though history can be rewritten by our fanciful optimism and our dangerous penchant for negotiating even when there is nothing left to negotiate.
The West is war weary and confrontation averse. Most of us prefer to sweeten with gifts those who wish us ill, to mollify tyrants with our endless words of conciliation. Is there ultimately no politically viable path between endless war and interminable accommodation?
[1] (Wall Street Journal 6/17/08 World Watch p. 13)
[2] (Wall Street Journal 6/17/08 World Watch p. 13)
[3] See Jean Francois Ravel's book on the subject entitled "Anti-Americanism" Encounter Books Sept. 25, 2004
"Mugabe Vows to Hold Power" by Roger Bate (Wall Street Journal 6/19/08 Opinion p. 15):
http://online.wsj.com/article_print/SB121383425044786737.html
Military occupation mars Hezbollah reputation:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/jun/13/occupation-mars-hezbollah-reputation/
Original item available at: http://www.investigativeproject.org/article/724
Posted on Unity Coalition for Israel: http://www.israelunitycoalition.org/news/article.php?id=3049
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Exchange of Prisoners – An Absurd Imbalance
I read that Israel is giving up five prisoners including Samir Kuntar, the convicted Lebanese terrorist who received a sentence of 542 years in prison for his infamous role in the 1979 infiltration into the quiet coastal town of Nahariya where he butchered a young Israeli father, Danny Haran, in front of his four-year-old daughter, then smashed her skull against a rock with his rifle butt, killing her too. Tragically, her two-year-old sister was accidentally smothered to death while her mother tried to keep her quiet so that Kuntar would not discover them. Kuntar has now claimed that on his release he would return to terrorism.
The only problem is we are now given to understand by Israel's intelligence services that the two kidnapped Israeli soldiers, Regev and Goldwasser, who are the subject of the exchange, are no longer alive, whether because of their possibly serious wounds at the time of their abduction or because of torture or intentionally deficient medical care by Hezbollah. (Hezbollah has always refused all contact and any information about the two Israelis - apparently, giving comfort or closure to the families concerned is not a pressing priority for Hezbollah.)
The exchange would make both pragmatic, political and moral sense if the Israelis were to ensure that their prisoners were transferred to Hezbollah in the same state and condition as the two Israelis being received. A body for a body, a corpse for a corpse. Perhaps then in future these terrorist regimes might be better tempted to follow the Geneva Convention and take the most rudimentary care of their prisoners.
Posted on Bruce's MidEast Soundbites:
http://brucesmideastsoundbites.blogspot.com/
"Descent From Entebbe" by Bret Stephens July 15, 2008; The Wall Street Journal Pg A17
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121607791452752543.html
The only problem is we are now given to understand by Israel's intelligence services that the two kidnapped Israeli soldiers, Regev and Goldwasser, who are the subject of the exchange, are no longer alive, whether because of their possibly serious wounds at the time of their abduction or because of torture or intentionally deficient medical care by Hezbollah. (Hezbollah has always refused all contact and any information about the two Israelis - apparently, giving comfort or closure to the families concerned is not a pressing priority for Hezbollah.)
The exchange would make both pragmatic, political and moral sense if the Israelis were to ensure that their prisoners were transferred to Hezbollah in the same state and condition as the two Israelis being received. A body for a body, a corpse for a corpse. Perhaps then in future these terrorist regimes might be better tempted to follow the Geneva Convention and take the most rudimentary care of their prisoners.
Posted on Bruce's MidEast Soundbites:
http://brucesmideastsoundbites.blogspot.com/
"Descent From Entebbe" by Bret Stephens July 15, 2008; The Wall Street Journal Pg A17
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121607791452752543.html
Monday, June 23, 2008
The Last Year of the Pig
We may have seen the Year of the Pig fully celebrated in accordance with the Chinese calendar for the last time. References to pigs were banned in China's television advertising in 2007, the official Year of the Pig, to prevent offending the Muslim population. In Taiwan citizens were put on notice about using 'pig' postage stamps for mailings to Muslim countries or recipients.
Janet Levy in FrontPageMagazine.com writes comprehensively of the multitudinous ways in which today's Muslims are offended and spurred to protest, and how communities around the world are accommodating this veritable plague of Muslim religious demands.
Piggy banks, those charming inducements to fiscally conservative children (or maybe "youth"), are objects many of us remember very fondly. They have now been banned in the United Kingdom as marketing gifts by certain financial institutions. Pig calendars, toys and objects are increasingly disappearing from public offices and institutions. We are on our way to becoming a 'pig free' society, echoing other, far more extreme attempts to cleanse society of offending objects and subjects (see Caesar's burning of the incomparable Royal Library of Alexandria, Hitler's Juden-Rein vision for Europe, Pol Pot's evisceration of Cambodian intellectuals and China's effective decades-long dilution of Tibetan traditions and monasteries).
Target department stores in the United States have, in specific instances, allowed their Muslim check-out employees to excuse themselves when pork products are presented at their counters. Yet these same employees were well aware of Target's product selection when they applied for their jobs.
As I understand it, Jews, Hindus and vegetarians have little interest in pork products: many exclude pork from their daily diet with the same proficiency and commitment as many Muslims. How do they operate checkouts at supermarkets, drive taxis, receive piggy banks as gifts and visit government offices replete with pig paraphernalia without protest? How have they managed for decades at our schools and universities without kosher and meatless cafeterias? Why are they not insulted by the many references to pigs in our multicultural society? Are they any less serious about their religion, any less observant and sincere in their beliefs? Of course not.
It seems, in a kind of reverse idolatry, that the Islamists have imbued the pig, in all its physical and symbolic manifestations, with a kind of mystical evilness, a negative energy of boundless proportions. It's not only the ingestion of the pig that is now taboo - it is also its very existence in any manifestation of this inverse deity from hell.
It is not yet scientifically proven that the solid molecules of pig meat can migrate from inside hermetically sealed packages onto the hands of the employees at the checkout counters. Are Target's Hindu employees unknowingly walking around with contaminated hands - are they irrevocably compromised? Will they forever be impure in the eyes of the Muslim community?
Seemingly, these offended Muslims not only want to distance themselves from pork and other disagreeable pig-issues, they are also refusing to allow non-Muslims their own beliefs, their own preferences. This imposition of personal views onto others is more clearly a (rather fascistic) political statement than a religious one. Indeed, radical Islam is becoming, in its various expressions, a far more political ideology than the private and personal religion that is typical for the average orthodox Jew, Christian or observant Hindu.
The old adage "Live and let live," an eminently civilized tenet of the Western World, is a concept that seems to have no place among the more radical Muslim communities, both inside and outside the West.
Is this because these Islamists believe that only their views have any validity, that only their religion has any value? Is it because only their god inhabits this world, or that their concern is only for their own people, religion, or domination? The Western World is bending over backwards in a multi-cultural orgy of inclusiveness to welcome all people, all sects and all religions. In particular Muslims are to be treated with exceptional sensitivity and understanding in a (vain) attempt to defuse anticipated protests.
It seems however, to be a one-sided love affair. Radical Islamists by contrast want very little to do with our world. They would impose their beliefs on us, forcing ever-increasing changes and accommodations. Yet they prefer to live and keep apart, remaining un-integrated and separate until such time as Islam becomes dominant and all non-Muslims are subverted to the overpowering will of Islam. Where is the reciprocity, the appreciation of a free, modern and democratic society? The Irish, the Vietnamese, Koreans and Russians have all integrated, have all respected us as we now respect them and their traditions. They were aghast at the tragedy of September 11th. We still await however any declarations of sympathy for the victims, any castigations for the perpetrators, from the Radical Islamists and their representatives.
Does it have to remain one-sided? Why is it that our liberal preferences have to be subverted to the will of an illiberal minority? Why does it remain highly problematic for a mini-skirted woman with a Pekinese and a bottle of scotch to hail a taxi, a Muslim taxi, at the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport?
The Three Little Pigs, that traditional English story, has now been banned in a primary school in England. Another school in the United Kingdom specifically excluded stories about the talking pig "Babe" and other pig stories. These and other incidents represent, in fact, expressions of potentially self-destructive cultural hypersensitivity on behalf of Muslims. Buddhists are not catered to, neither are Orthodox Jews, Animists, Baha'is, Shintos, Hindus, vegans, nor every other ethnic, cultural or religious minority, many of whom also have strong views and delicate sensibilities. Who decided that Muslim sensitivities were deeper and stronger than all others? Perhaps the vociferousness of the complaints, perhaps the fear emanating from the many media reports of suicide bombers in New York, London and Madrid, has patently colored our motivations, our compromises and our accommodations.
It seems that we are ever more focused on healing the emotional wounds of the angry rather than formulating pragmatic practices to cope with increasingly dangerous "creeping Shariah," Islamic radicals and Jihadist coalitions. Appeasement may be defined - given the actions of many of our politicians listed above - as the rewarding of others for their bad behavior.
It is ironic that the Koran itself is replete with references to pigs, often in a particularly derogatory light where Jews are concerned. For example:
Verse 5:60: "those who incurred the curse of Allah and His wrath, those of whom some He transformed into apes and swine, those who worshipped evil"
The 10th Century commentator Al-Tabari, referencing Verse 5:112-115, says of those who commit blasphemy that they were turned into apes and pigs. [3]
In April 2002, Sheik Tantawi, the highest ranking cleric in the Sunni Muslim world called the Jews "the enemies of Allah, descendants of apes and pigs." [1]
Sheik Al-Sudayyis, imam at the Al-Haraam mosque, the most important in Mecca, sermonized that "Jews are the scum of the human race, the rats of the world, the violators of pacts and agreements, the murderers of the prophets, and the offspring of apes and pigs whom Allah cursed and turned into apes and pigs." [2]
If Jews are pigs, is it inconceivable to imagine a world where stories about Jews and Zionists are banned since they certainly offend much of the Muslim population? Israel already has ceased to exist on many Muslim and Arab world maps and in many of their school textbooks.
Orthodox Jews have never marched for kosher cafeterias. They privately and quietly arrange their dietary habits without voluble demands. In contrast, we in America now know that a youngster in Maine was suspended from school in early 2007 for the 'hate crime' of placing a lunch box with ham in front of Muslim students. It used to be that the label hate crime was reserved for beatings, rapes, murders and the like. No more - ham sandwiches and Danish cartoons rank in the pantheon of hate crimes with lynchings by the Ku Klux Klan and the July 2006 shootings by a Muslim at a Jewish community center in Seattle.
FeedthePig.org is an innovative new website designed by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). It encourages 40 million Americans age 25-34 to take control of their personal finances through a savings campaign, courtesy of Benjamin Bankes, the website mascot. Is AICPA aware of the provocative insult their website presents to some Muslims; are they prepared for future attempts by Shariah proponents to ban Benjamin from the web?
Will the Quran replace George Orwell's Animal Farm as required reading, as Janet Levy fears? What would the Super Bowl be without pork rinds? As Levy further notes in her FrontPage article, pork products include heart valves and skin grafts for burn victims, never mind $40 billion in contributions to the US GNP. Would these heart patients and burn victims be banned from Muslim communities - would Muslims refuse to do business with them? The implications would be most comedic if they weren't in fact frighteningly realistic. Sharia law or democratic law - the choice remains ours.
Footnotes:
[1] http://www.memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Area=sr&ID=SR01102#_
[2] http://www.memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Area=sr&ID=SR01102#_
[3] http://www.memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Area=sr&ID=SR01102#_
Published on Canada Free Press: http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/3656
Published on The Absurd Report: http://www.theabsurdreport.com/2008/the-last-year-of-the-pig-by-leslie-j-sacks/
Published on The Investigative Project on Terrorism: http://www.investigativeproject.org/article/683
Janet Levy in FrontPageMagazine.com writes comprehensively of the multitudinous ways in which today's Muslims are offended and spurred to protest, and how communities around the world are accommodating this veritable plague of Muslim religious demands.
Piggy banks, those charming inducements to fiscally conservative children (or maybe "youth"), are objects many of us remember very fondly. They have now been banned in the United Kingdom as marketing gifts by certain financial institutions. Pig calendars, toys and objects are increasingly disappearing from public offices and institutions. We are on our way to becoming a 'pig free' society, echoing other, far more extreme attempts to cleanse society of offending objects and subjects (see Caesar's burning of the incomparable Royal Library of Alexandria, Hitler's Juden-Rein vision for Europe, Pol Pot's evisceration of Cambodian intellectuals and China's effective decades-long dilution of Tibetan traditions and monasteries).
Target department stores in the United States have, in specific instances, allowed their Muslim check-out employees to excuse themselves when pork products are presented at their counters. Yet these same employees were well aware of Target's product selection when they applied for their jobs.
As I understand it, Jews, Hindus and vegetarians have little interest in pork products: many exclude pork from their daily diet with the same proficiency and commitment as many Muslims. How do they operate checkouts at supermarkets, drive taxis, receive piggy banks as gifts and visit government offices replete with pig paraphernalia without protest? How have they managed for decades at our schools and universities without kosher and meatless cafeterias? Why are they not insulted by the many references to pigs in our multicultural society? Are they any less serious about their religion, any less observant and sincere in their beliefs? Of course not.
It seems, in a kind of reverse idolatry, that the Islamists have imbued the pig, in all its physical and symbolic manifestations, with a kind of mystical evilness, a negative energy of boundless proportions. It's not only the ingestion of the pig that is now taboo - it is also its very existence in any manifestation of this inverse deity from hell.
It is not yet scientifically proven that the solid molecules of pig meat can migrate from inside hermetically sealed packages onto the hands of the employees at the checkout counters. Are Target's Hindu employees unknowingly walking around with contaminated hands - are they irrevocably compromised? Will they forever be impure in the eyes of the Muslim community?
Seemingly, these offended Muslims not only want to distance themselves from pork and other disagreeable pig-issues, they are also refusing to allow non-Muslims their own beliefs, their own preferences. This imposition of personal views onto others is more clearly a (rather fascistic) political statement than a religious one. Indeed, radical Islam is becoming, in its various expressions, a far more political ideology than the private and personal religion that is typical for the average orthodox Jew, Christian or observant Hindu.
The old adage "Live and let live," an eminently civilized tenet of the Western World, is a concept that seems to have no place among the more radical Muslim communities, both inside and outside the West.
Is this because these Islamists believe that only their views have any validity, that only their religion has any value? Is it because only their god inhabits this world, or that their concern is only for their own people, religion, or domination? The Western World is bending over backwards in a multi-cultural orgy of inclusiveness to welcome all people, all sects and all religions. In particular Muslims are to be treated with exceptional sensitivity and understanding in a (vain) attempt to defuse anticipated protests.
It seems however, to be a one-sided love affair. Radical Islamists by contrast want very little to do with our world. They would impose their beliefs on us, forcing ever-increasing changes and accommodations. Yet they prefer to live and keep apart, remaining un-integrated and separate until such time as Islam becomes dominant and all non-Muslims are subverted to the overpowering will of Islam. Where is the reciprocity, the appreciation of a free, modern and democratic society? The Irish, the Vietnamese, Koreans and Russians have all integrated, have all respected us as we now respect them and their traditions. They were aghast at the tragedy of September 11th. We still await however any declarations of sympathy for the victims, any castigations for the perpetrators, from the Radical Islamists and their representatives.
Does it have to remain one-sided? Why is it that our liberal preferences have to be subverted to the will of an illiberal minority? Why does it remain highly problematic for a mini-skirted woman with a Pekinese and a bottle of scotch to hail a taxi, a Muslim taxi, at the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport?
The Three Little Pigs, that traditional English story, has now been banned in a primary school in England. Another school in the United Kingdom specifically excluded stories about the talking pig "Babe" and other pig stories. These and other incidents represent, in fact, expressions of potentially self-destructive cultural hypersensitivity on behalf of Muslims. Buddhists are not catered to, neither are Orthodox Jews, Animists, Baha'is, Shintos, Hindus, vegans, nor every other ethnic, cultural or religious minority, many of whom also have strong views and delicate sensibilities. Who decided that Muslim sensitivities were deeper and stronger than all others? Perhaps the vociferousness of the complaints, perhaps the fear emanating from the many media reports of suicide bombers in New York, London and Madrid, has patently colored our motivations, our compromises and our accommodations.
It seems that we are ever more focused on healing the emotional wounds of the angry rather than formulating pragmatic practices to cope with increasingly dangerous "creeping Shariah," Islamic radicals and Jihadist coalitions. Appeasement may be defined - given the actions of many of our politicians listed above - as the rewarding of others for their bad behavior.
It is ironic that the Koran itself is replete with references to pigs, often in a particularly derogatory light where Jews are concerned. For example:
Verse 5:60: "those who incurred the curse of Allah and His wrath, those of whom some He transformed into apes and swine, those who worshipped evil"
The 10th Century commentator Al-Tabari, referencing Verse 5:112-115, says of those who commit blasphemy that they were turned into apes and pigs. [3]
In April 2002, Sheik Tantawi, the highest ranking cleric in the Sunni Muslim world called the Jews "the enemies of Allah, descendants of apes and pigs." [1]
Sheik Al-Sudayyis, imam at the Al-Haraam mosque, the most important in Mecca, sermonized that "Jews are the scum of the human race, the rats of the world, the violators of pacts and agreements, the murderers of the prophets, and the offspring of apes and pigs whom Allah cursed and turned into apes and pigs." [2]
If Jews are pigs, is it inconceivable to imagine a world where stories about Jews and Zionists are banned since they certainly offend much of the Muslim population? Israel already has ceased to exist on many Muslim and Arab world maps and in many of their school textbooks.
Orthodox Jews have never marched for kosher cafeterias. They privately and quietly arrange their dietary habits without voluble demands. In contrast, we in America now know that a youngster in Maine was suspended from school in early 2007 for the 'hate crime' of placing a lunch box with ham in front of Muslim students. It used to be that the label hate crime was reserved for beatings, rapes, murders and the like. No more - ham sandwiches and Danish cartoons rank in the pantheon of hate crimes with lynchings by the Ku Klux Klan and the July 2006 shootings by a Muslim at a Jewish community center in Seattle.
FeedthePig.org is an innovative new website designed by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). It encourages 40 million Americans age 25-34 to take control of their personal finances through a savings campaign, courtesy of Benjamin Bankes, the website mascot. Is AICPA aware of the provocative insult their website presents to some Muslims; are they prepared for future attempts by Shariah proponents to ban Benjamin from the web?
Will the Quran replace George Orwell's Animal Farm as required reading, as Janet Levy fears? What would the Super Bowl be without pork rinds? As Levy further notes in her FrontPage article, pork products include heart valves and skin grafts for burn victims, never mind $40 billion in contributions to the US GNP. Would these heart patients and burn victims be banned from Muslim communities - would Muslims refuse to do business with them? The implications would be most comedic if they weren't in fact frighteningly realistic. Sharia law or democratic law - the choice remains ours.
Footnotes:
[1] http://www.memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Area=sr&ID=SR01102#_
[2] http://www.memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Area=sr&ID=SR01102#_
[3] http://www.memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Area=sr&ID=SR01102#_
Published on Canada Free Press: http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/3656
Published on The Absurd Report: http://www.theabsurdreport.com/2008/the-last-year-of-the-pig-by-leslie-j-sacks/
Published on The Investigative Project on Terrorism: http://www.investigativeproject.org/article/683
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Obama's Latest Gaffe
If Obama had his way he would replace the incomparably successful cult movie "Star Wars" with "Mary Poppins," a sentiment clearly evinced by his recent video posted on his website http://www.BarackObama.com and by the Center for Individual Freedom (CFIF) on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7o84PE871BE
He seems determined to weaken our military as though that will appease our enemies and convert all to pacifism and universal tolerance. Were it to be so! Obama states that he will "cut investments in unproven missile defense systems" (unlike Russia), that he "will not weaponize space" (unlike the Chinese) and that "unnecessary" spending will be eliminated (unlike with Chavez, Iran and Syria).
Most worrying is his promise to "slow development of future combat systems" (which is exactly what we need to combat more dangerously asymmetrical warfare) putting at risk our modernization and our superiority. Other aspiring nations seek to match our prowess, but so far fortunately without success.
The CFIF cited new satellite technology that "allows us to pinpoint and eliminate the enemy, unmanned drones that promise amazing advances in battlefield safety and effectiveness, bunker-buster weapons that penetrate deep into the caves in which remote terrorists hide and communications systems that allow lightning-quick troop deployment and rescue missions." These technologies "ultimately protect the lives and health of our troops, just as they protect us."
This precision-guided weaponry saved not only American lives but those of all combatants.. Iraq was the least lethal military takeover of a major army and country in living history. In no small part American superiority also helped force Gorbachev's hand and contributed to ending the Cold War.
Obama seems to feel comfortable in leveraging his children's future based on his bucolic fantasies - I don't believe Michelle Obama would do likewise (she may not respect much of America as she pointedly stated but I doubt she'd wager her family's safety) and I certainly would be mightily uncomfortable going forward in this world of nuclear proliferation and increasing terrorism, if I were not able to hedge my bets, if I had to rely on the left's belief in the munificence of Ahmadinejad.
Obama has expressed willingness to meet, without any preconditions whatsoever, the autocratic leaders of Iran, North Korea and Syria, all amongst the world's most reprehensible regimes. Yet he never clarifies what he would do if the talks failed, he never seems motivated to leverage America's unrivaled strength and power to achieve his laudable goals.
Obama has not visited Iraq since January 2006 nor since the all important surge. Neither has he met with General Petraeus who was responsible for the surge, or with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki. Yet Democratic Senator Biden and Republican Senator John McCain have been to Iraq 10 and 8 times respectively. Is Obama so dogmatic, so stubborn and confident in his own personal theories, his own isolated judgment that he is astonishingly disinterested in the facts on the ground and in talking to the soldiers, the citizens, the commanders in Iraq? It is these people whose reality must necessarily be a crucial and truthful cog in the wheel that is now post-surge Iraq and is also at the center of America's and Al-Qaeda's primary strategies in the war.
What remains perplexing is Obama's similarity to Jimmy Carter's childlike worldview and his decimation of the military, certainly not a position I imagine the center of America will knowingly support.
Obama has stated that he will set a goal for a world without nuclear weapons. Will he be so kind as to first wait for Iran, Syria, North Korea, Pakistan and other rogue nations to first disarm (weapons and research) and verify beyond any doubt? Furthermore, according to Harvard national security expert Graham Allison, if the U.S. and other governments just continue to keep doing what they are presently doing today, then more likely than not a nuclear terrorist attack in a major city is going to happen by 2014.
Obama's anti-military passion seems certain to supercede even Jimmy Carter's in undermining our military forces. He seems to be allergic to the possibility that the military may still have a role to play in the 21st Century (see Bret Stephens' incisive view on the subject in his Wall Street Journal article "There is a Military Solution to Terror"):
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121244926833339577.html
And what if Al Qaeda or another well financed terrorist group or regime ever develop such nuclear weapons - do we all convert immediately to Islam or do we emigrate to Mars or other more hospitable environments? After all the radical Islamic nations have shown such admirable ability to honor agreements and to tolerate our separate and very different existences.
We would thus do far better to ensure the eternal city of Jerusalem (which literally means "Vision of Peace") remains safe and free than to follow Obama's advice if we ever want to achieve penultimate peace, for it is indeed Jerusalem that is at the center of the world, at the center of the Middle East and not Obama's temporal visions. We will need to stand unusually tall and free, bending to no one, no matter what, if we are to allow our children to inherit the wondrous freedoms and liberties we take so for granted.
It seems that Obama and the substantially left-leaning Democratic Party leaders need very much to learn the lesson outlined by Dean Acheson, that great Democratic Secretary of State who once warned that "no people in history have ever survived, who thought they could protect their freedom by making themselves inoffensive to their enemies."
Posted on Doc's Talk: http://docstalk.blogspot.com/2008/06/obamas-latest-gaffe.html
Posted on Weekly Blitz: http://www.weeklyblitz.net/index.php?id=237
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7o84PE871BE
He seems determined to weaken our military as though that will appease our enemies and convert all to pacifism and universal tolerance. Were it to be so! Obama states that he will "cut investments in unproven missile defense systems" (unlike Russia), that he "will not weaponize space" (unlike the Chinese) and that "unnecessary" spending will be eliminated (unlike with Chavez, Iran and Syria).
Most worrying is his promise to "slow development of future combat systems" (which is exactly what we need to combat more dangerously asymmetrical warfare) putting at risk our modernization and our superiority. Other aspiring nations seek to match our prowess, but so far fortunately without success.
The CFIF cited new satellite technology that "allows us to pinpoint and eliminate the enemy, unmanned drones that promise amazing advances in battlefield safety and effectiveness, bunker-buster weapons that penetrate deep into the caves in which remote terrorists hide and communications systems that allow lightning-quick troop deployment and rescue missions." These technologies "ultimately protect the lives and health of our troops, just as they protect us."
This precision-guided weaponry saved not only American lives but those of all combatants.. Iraq was the least lethal military takeover of a major army and country in living history. In no small part American superiority also helped force Gorbachev's hand and contributed to ending the Cold War.
Obama seems to feel comfortable in leveraging his children's future based on his bucolic fantasies - I don't believe Michelle Obama would do likewise (she may not respect much of America as she pointedly stated but I doubt she'd wager her family's safety) and I certainly would be mightily uncomfortable going forward in this world of nuclear proliferation and increasing terrorism, if I were not able to hedge my bets, if I had to rely on the left's belief in the munificence of Ahmadinejad.
Obama has expressed willingness to meet, without any preconditions whatsoever, the autocratic leaders of Iran, North Korea and Syria, all amongst the world's most reprehensible regimes. Yet he never clarifies what he would do if the talks failed, he never seems motivated to leverage America's unrivaled strength and power to achieve his laudable goals.
Obama has not visited Iraq since January 2006 nor since the all important surge. Neither has he met with General Petraeus who was responsible for the surge, or with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki. Yet Democratic Senator Biden and Republican Senator John McCain have been to Iraq 10 and 8 times respectively. Is Obama so dogmatic, so stubborn and confident in his own personal theories, his own isolated judgment that he is astonishingly disinterested in the facts on the ground and in talking to the soldiers, the citizens, the commanders in Iraq? It is these people whose reality must necessarily be a crucial and truthful cog in the wheel that is now post-surge Iraq and is also at the center of America's and Al-Qaeda's primary strategies in the war.
What remains perplexing is Obama's similarity to Jimmy Carter's childlike worldview and his decimation of the military, certainly not a position I imagine the center of America will knowingly support.
Obama has stated that he will set a goal for a world without nuclear weapons. Will he be so kind as to first wait for Iran, Syria, North Korea, Pakistan and other rogue nations to first disarm (weapons and research) and verify beyond any doubt? Furthermore, according to Harvard national security expert Graham Allison, if the U.S. and other governments just continue to keep doing what they are presently doing today, then more likely than not a nuclear terrorist attack in a major city is going to happen by 2014.
Obama's anti-military passion seems certain to supercede even Jimmy Carter's in undermining our military forces. He seems to be allergic to the possibility that the military may still have a role to play in the 21st Century (see Bret Stephens' incisive view on the subject in his Wall Street Journal article "There is a Military Solution to Terror"):
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121244926833339577.html
And what if Al Qaeda or another well financed terrorist group or regime ever develop such nuclear weapons - do we all convert immediately to Islam or do we emigrate to Mars or other more hospitable environments? After all the radical Islamic nations have shown such admirable ability to honor agreements and to tolerate our separate and very different existences.
We would thus do far better to ensure the eternal city of Jerusalem (which literally means "Vision of Peace") remains safe and free than to follow Obama's advice if we ever want to achieve penultimate peace, for it is indeed Jerusalem that is at the center of the world, at the center of the Middle East and not Obama's temporal visions. We will need to stand unusually tall and free, bending to no one, no matter what, if we are to allow our children to inherit the wondrous freedoms and liberties we take so for granted.
It seems that Obama and the substantially left-leaning Democratic Party leaders need very much to learn the lesson outlined by Dean Acheson, that great Democratic Secretary of State who once warned that "no people in history have ever survived, who thought they could protect their freedom by making themselves inoffensive to their enemies."
Posted on Doc's Talk: http://docstalk.blogspot.com/2008/06/obamas-latest-gaffe.html
Posted on Weekly Blitz: http://www.weeklyblitz.net/index.php?id=237
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
ACLU's Dream Team
Just in.
The ACLU has recruited a "dream team" of more than 30 lawyers, including powerhouse Janet Reno, Ex-President Clinton's former Attorney General, to protect from conviction and execution all of the alleged 9/11 conspirators incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay.
These defendants include Khalid Sheikh Mohammed who many view as the mastermind of the attacks that murdered in the most monstrous way 3,000 of America's innocents of all ages, genders and political beliefs. This is the same Sheikh who has boasted of his actions, who has admitted his culpability and who has shown no remorse.
The world, apart from those who may hate or envy the United States, awaits the long-delayed carrying out of justice, the imposition of the military tribunal system and additional closure for the 3,000 families and communities of the victims.
Yet the ACLU is not at all concerned about the rights of the victims. The ACLU is not suing the government for additional protection from terrorist attacks for America’s citizens. They are not suing the Islamic nations that harbor these terrorists or the many charities and organizations in the United States, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere that provide effectively billions of dollars of funding for these Radical Jihadists and their support groups.
The ACLU, however is more concerned about America’s international image (as Ms. Reno states, “the United States need not abandon its principles”) and is committed to ensure the most fair, expert and powerful defense for these 9/11 conspirators. George Soros’ foundations are also considering additional support.
Just why the ACLU does not apply as well its considerable monetary and professional assets to many of America’s and the world’s gross injustices is not anywhere explained.
The genocide in Sudan is entirely ignored. Rampant Black-on-Black violence and rape in our inner cities is sidestepped.
The hostages held by FARC in Colombia’s border jungle are not an issue.
The unrivalled tragedy of hundreds of millions of disenfranchised Muslim women, treated like chattel, third-class citizens with little or no rights, does not prick the interest of the ACLU’s army of attorneys.
Tibet, Myanmar, Zimbabwe, Iran, North Korea remain more dark spots of ignored human degradation on the world map.
Excessive pollution in China, in Russia, causing epidemics of cancer and other poisonous diseases for millions of unsuspecting citizens, is clearly not the central concern of the ACLU’s laser-like agenda. Neither is the proliferation of child pornography and prostitution now sweeping the modern world, more extensive than even illicit drugs.
All these inequities and the tens of millions of G-d’s children who suffer daily, who live with endemic injustice, without the protection of law, without the basic and inalienable rights we take for granted, do not clearly deserve the delicate moral and surely incontestably ethical focus of America’s upstanding ACLU. This is the same ACLU whose charter provides for the protection of the downtrodden, the weak, the victims of injustice.
Yet the 9/11 conspirators clearly deserve the ACLU’s collective attention. These ‘alleged’ murderers volunteered for this brave and courageous holocaust. They trained and patiently waited for years in order to incinerate what they hoped would be tens of thousands of innocents arriving unsuspectingly at their normal work day in the Twin Towers, towers that included Muslims, Buddhists, African Americans, people in wheelchairs, visitors, janitors - a representation as broad as the United Nations itself.
These are the conspirators for which the ACLU feels their intense and unrivalled legal support will help ensure justice for the world, will protect the rights of the presumed innocents, will send a meaningful and important message to the universally downtrodden and further endear ourselves to all those authoritarian regimes and dictatorships that so comfortably inhabit the United Nations.
And as for the millions of our world’s citizens, still debased and dehumanized – well, they will just have to wait – the ACLU have bigger fish to fry, they have powerful political statements to make and certainly many complex agendas to fulfill.
For the many women incarcerated, often on ‘death row,’ in Pakistani, Afghani and Iranian jails, for the unique crime of insulting Islam by having allowed themselves to be victims of rape; for these female “adulterers” as judged by the “courts” divinely chauvinistic and inventive Shariah laws, we regret to inform them all that the ACLU is exceptionally busy at this time with Sheikh Mohammed and his co-defendants, and if they could be a little more patient, a little more understanding……………….
Wall Street Journal Article on this topic: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120726400995288065.html
American Civil Rights Union article: http://www.theacru.org/acru/aclu_aiding_americas_enemies_again/
Posted on MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/aridavid
The ACLU has recruited a "dream team" of more than 30 lawyers, including powerhouse Janet Reno, Ex-President Clinton's former Attorney General, to protect from conviction and execution all of the alleged 9/11 conspirators incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay.
These defendants include Khalid Sheikh Mohammed who many view as the mastermind of the attacks that murdered in the most monstrous way 3,000 of America's innocents of all ages, genders and political beliefs. This is the same Sheikh who has boasted of his actions, who has admitted his culpability and who has shown no remorse.
The world, apart from those who may hate or envy the United States, awaits the long-delayed carrying out of justice, the imposition of the military tribunal system and additional closure for the 3,000 families and communities of the victims.
Yet the ACLU is not at all concerned about the rights of the victims. The ACLU is not suing the government for additional protection from terrorist attacks for America’s citizens. They are not suing the Islamic nations that harbor these terrorists or the many charities and organizations in the United States, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere that provide effectively billions of dollars of funding for these Radical Jihadists and their support groups.
The ACLU, however is more concerned about America’s international image (as Ms. Reno states, “the United States need not abandon its principles”) and is committed to ensure the most fair, expert and powerful defense for these 9/11 conspirators. George Soros’ foundations are also considering additional support.
Just why the ACLU does not apply as well its considerable monetary and professional assets to many of America’s and the world’s gross injustices is not anywhere explained.
The genocide in Sudan is entirely ignored. Rampant Black-on-Black violence and rape in our inner cities is sidestepped.
The hostages held by FARC in Colombia’s border jungle are not an issue.
The unrivalled tragedy of hundreds of millions of disenfranchised Muslim women, treated like chattel, third-class citizens with little or no rights, does not prick the interest of the ACLU’s army of attorneys.
Tibet, Myanmar, Zimbabwe, Iran, North Korea remain more dark spots of ignored human degradation on the world map.
Excessive pollution in China, in Russia, causing epidemics of cancer and other poisonous diseases for millions of unsuspecting citizens, is clearly not the central concern of the ACLU’s laser-like agenda. Neither is the proliferation of child pornography and prostitution now sweeping the modern world, more extensive than even illicit drugs.
All these inequities and the tens of millions of G-d’s children who suffer daily, who live with endemic injustice, without the protection of law, without the basic and inalienable rights we take for granted, do not clearly deserve the delicate moral and surely incontestably ethical focus of America’s upstanding ACLU. This is the same ACLU whose charter provides for the protection of the downtrodden, the weak, the victims of injustice.
Yet the 9/11 conspirators clearly deserve the ACLU’s collective attention. These ‘alleged’ murderers volunteered for this brave and courageous holocaust. They trained and patiently waited for years in order to incinerate what they hoped would be tens of thousands of innocents arriving unsuspectingly at their normal work day in the Twin Towers, towers that included Muslims, Buddhists, African Americans, people in wheelchairs, visitors, janitors - a representation as broad as the United Nations itself.
These are the conspirators for which the ACLU feels their intense and unrivalled legal support will help ensure justice for the world, will protect the rights of the presumed innocents, will send a meaningful and important message to the universally downtrodden and further endear ourselves to all those authoritarian regimes and dictatorships that so comfortably inhabit the United Nations.
And as for the millions of our world’s citizens, still debased and dehumanized – well, they will just have to wait – the ACLU have bigger fish to fry, they have powerful political statements to make and certainly many complex agendas to fulfill.
For the many women incarcerated, often on ‘death row,’ in Pakistani, Afghani and Iranian jails, for the unique crime of insulting Islam by having allowed themselves to be victims of rape; for these female “adulterers” as judged by the “courts” divinely chauvinistic and inventive Shariah laws, we regret to inform them all that the ACLU is exceptionally busy at this time with Sheikh Mohammed and his co-defendants, and if they could be a little more patient, a little more understanding……………….
Wall Street Journal Article on this topic: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120726400995288065.html
American Civil Rights Union article: http://www.theacru.org/acru/aclu_aiding_americas_enemies_again/
Posted on MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/aridavid
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Susan Sarandon's Threat
Actress Susan Sarandon has now said she may leave the country if the chosen Republican candidate John McCain wins the office of the Presidency. My only humble retort is to suggest that if she ends up having the distinctly bad judgment to choose to not leave the country then indeed by her staying in the USA she may in turn motivate myself and others who are not enamored with Sarandon's political acumen to consider leaving ourselves. Either way I wonder how can we possibly help persuade her to convert her tentative threat into a reliable guarantee?
PS: Sarandon claims to be considering moving to Italy. Is she not aware, in her refined activist ivory tower, that the new Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi supports Bush and the war effort?
Alternatively, perhaps Sarandon should consider Nuuk, the fast-growing capital of Greenland which has a history of varied occupation (Viking exploration). The Arctic climate and night skies often lit up by the Aurora Borealis would be better suited to Sarandon's sense of escapist fantasies.
As published on The Absurd Report: http://www.theabsurdreport.com/2008/susan-sarandons-threat-by-leslie-sacks/
PS: Sarandon claims to be considering moving to Italy. Is she not aware, in her refined activist ivory tower, that the new Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi supports Bush and the war effort?
Alternatively, perhaps Sarandon should consider Nuuk, the fast-growing capital of Greenland which has a history of varied occupation (Viking exploration). The Arctic climate and night skies often lit up by the Aurora Borealis would be better suited to Sarandon's sense of escapist fantasies.
As published on The Absurd Report: http://www.theabsurdreport.com/2008/susan-sarandons-threat-by-leslie-sacks/
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