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21 May, 2007

Accusers show their own bigotry

By STEVE CABLE (President, Center for American Cultural Renewal)

Bigot: a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices; especially: one who regards or treats the members of a group (as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance.

Hate: intense hostility and aversion usually deriving from fear, anger, or sense of injury.

Intolerant: 1: unable or unwilling to endure. 2: unwilling to grant equal freedom of expression especially in religious matters.

Slander: to harm the reputation of by libel or slander.

In Bill Lofy's shrill and distorted response to "The O'Reilly Factor"'s impromptu interview of Bill Lippert, he accuses both of his targets — Bill O'Reilly and local conservative radio host Paul Beaudry — of hate, intolerance, slander and bigotry without a shred of evidence ("O'Reilly's bigotry has no place in Vermont", commentary, May 17). Ironically, his own statements are a perfect template for all four repugnant behaviors. Alas, he is not alone.

Lofy's accusations are loaded with highly charged terms like "gay-bashing," "anti-gay vitriol," "hateful and threatening rhetoric," "anti-gay agenda," and "homophobia," even labeling Beaudry's show a "veritable hate-fest," yet Lofy offers no verifiable quote to substantiate his claims (this is slander). Lofy hypocritically accuses O'Reilly and Beaudry of "hate" speech, yet closes his attack with demands that O'Reilly "take Paul Beaudry and his gay-bashing bigots with you" (this is hate and intolerance). Pretty strong stuff from one who identifies himself as a "communications consultant" for the "leadership of the Vermont House and Senate."

Why the intolerant protest of O'Reilly and Beaudry? Simply put, they dare to ask questions and state facts the left simply cannot tolerate. The typical response? Bigotry, plain and simple.

Such deliberate twisting of the terms of debate has been prominent since civil unions were first publicly discussed. Rather than engage in civil, truthful dialogue with the majority who disapprove of homosexual behavior, homosexual advocates eagerly resorted to character assassination, employing terms and tactics identical to Mr. Lofy's. Such tactics intentionally silence rational debate and obliterate real freedom of speech: It is easier to dismiss someone as "hateful" than to listen to their reasoned arguments.

Lofy and Lippert wallow in the fact that Lippert has received ugly hate mail, and shamelessly characterize all of their opposition by the reprehensible behavior of a few truly hateful people — behavior which Lofy actually suggests O'Reilly invites. This behavior is hardly limited to those opposed to special homosexual rights. At the height of the civil unions debate, our organization was the object of a targeted attack by pro-homosexual militants. Examples include being repeatedly targeted by a man with a high-powered rifle, phone calls from people claiming that they were "coming to f—-ing kill" us, and feces and used condoms mailed to us with a note saying "I hope you die of AIDS." One of our female employees so feared for her life that she kept a can of Mace ready at all times. These acts necessitated police protection from people who eagerly labeled us as "intolerant bigots."

Emulating Lofy and Lippert by characterizing all pro-homosexual advocates by such behavior would be immoral and irresponsible. Honest criticism of O'Reilly's tactics and Beaudry's statements are fair game, but such yellow journalism is beneath the standards of even the Rutland Herald. Shame on Mr. Lofy for such underhanded tactics, and shame on the Rutland Herald for being a willing partner to such unsubstantiated slander. One must wonder how the Vermont Democratic leadership feels justified in retaining the services of a "communications consultant" so inclined to real hate speech.

Source



BLOGGER THREATENED BY ISLAMISTS

"Dear Robert, Brigette and Paul (Williams),

"Were any of you threatened in any way, specifically for carrying the Islamberg story?" asked a blogger, who copied Canada Free Press (CFP) last night. Robert is Robert Spencer, the director of Jihad Watch, a project of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, and author of two New York Times bestsellers on Islamic Jihad. Brigette is Brigette Gabriel, a Lebanese Christian and Middle East correspondent, who is Director of American Congress.

Paul Williams, prolific writer and author of the newly released Day of Islam, wrote a CFP cover story published May 11, detailing a radical Muslim paramilitary compound that flourishes in upper New York State. The story, posted by Michael Savage and carried by dozens of blogs, including www.littlegreenfootballs.com, was virtually ignored by the mainstream media.

Someone didn't like the story and that someone threatened the life of U.S. war veteran and blogger Scott Grayban. Grayban publishes blog.borgnet.us. in Spokane, Washington. CFP receives thousands of emails from readers. The one from Grayban's blogger friend caught our immediate attention. The blogger, whose name is being withheld by CFP, hoped flagging the Internet might protect Grayban's physical safety if someone publicized the two threats made on his life over the telephone. That is the reason for this story.

Grayban received two phone calls on Sunday night from a foreigner, threatening his life. "The caller used a hacked phone (or internet line) to disguise the location from which he was calling. (Please see jpeg of record/caller ID attached at bottom of page). "The caller told Scott the precise street on which he lives, that he lives across from an auto shop, that he has a solar panel in his apartment window and the make of the car he drove to the mall on Saturday." As the blogger pointed out, "These aren't details anyone could obtain from Google Earth."

Someone is following Scott Grayban in Washington State. Yet the local FBI office told him to call the police. The local police told him to call the FBI and his phone carrier (Vonage) said there's no way to trace the call. There might be a way to trace the call with a court order, but it's unlikely that Grayban could ever get one. Cold comfort for a man who's being stalked and threatened.

The blogger made the decision to "publicize this threat has occurred" and sent out an email to ask if anyone else who carried this story has also been threatened. No one at CFP, who originally ran the Williams' story, has been threatened. The writer of this article was unable to reach Paul Williams at his Pennsylvania home at press time and is convinced that she would have heard from the author if he had been threatened.

Williams and Northeast Intelligence Director and private investigator Doug Hagmann, scouted out a Jihadist camp dubbed Islamberg, at the foothills of the Catskill Mountains on the outskirts of Hancock, New York, last summer. "Islamberg is not an ideal place for a summer vacation unless, of course, you are an exponent of the Jihad or a fan of Osama bin Laden," Williams wrote in CFP on May 11, 2007.

Very few visitors come to Islamberg, where a sentry post has been established at the base of the hill. "Islamberg is a branch of Muslims of the Americas Inc., a tax-exempt organization formed in 1980 by Pakistani cleric Sheikh Mubarak Ali Gilani, who refers to himself as "the sixth Sultan Ul Faqr". Gilani has been directly linked by court documents to Jamaat u-Fuqra or "community of the impoverished", an organization that seeks to "purify" Islam through violence.

"Islamberg is not as benign as a Buddhist monastery or a Carmelite convent. Nearly every weekend, neighbors hear sounds of gunfire. Some, including a combat veteran of the Vietnam War, have heard the bang of small explosives. None of the neighbors wished to be identified for fear of "retaliation". "We don't even dare to slow down when we drive by", one resident said. "They own the mountain and they know it and there is nothing we can do about it but move, and we can't even do that. Who wants to buy a property near that?"

"Even though Jamaat ul-Fuqra has been involved in terror attacks and sundry criminal activities, recruited thousands of members from federal and state penal systems, and appears to be operating paramilitary facilities for militant Muslims, it remains to be placed on the official US Terror Watch List. On the contrary, it continues to operate, flourish and expand as a legitimate nonprofit, tax-deductible charity."

It seems that Williams and company raised a hornet's nest in their visit to Islamberg and some of the hornets went buzzing all the way to Spokane, Washington. Meanwhile the blogger who tipped off CFP about the threats to Scott Grayban, emailed to say a report was finally taken by Spokane Washington police. The SPD report number is 07-132-368. Let's hope that Grayban remains safe from harm.

Source



HOLLYWOOD "COURAGE"

There’s been much made recently about the vaunted Cuban medical system since propagandist Michael Moore traveled to Havana with 9/11 heroes in tow searching for "free" health care. It’s Mr. Moore’s idea of a clever way to criticize America and the capitalist system he exploits so brilliantly. Of course, it never actually occurred to him that while he was "free" to film in Cuba there were political prisons suffering in Castro’s gulags simply for doing exactly what Moore thinks is his sole universal right; speaking out. A big mouth coupled with a small mind is a dangerous combination.

That Moore would use his craft to spew the Castro party line isn’t surprising when you consider they are both geniuses at hypocrisy and self-promotion. Castro supposedly wanted power in order to depose a dictator and re-establish the "power of the people," but nearly five decades later without an election, he has become one of history’s most despicable tyrants, the full indictment of whom won’t be known until the inevitable fall of his particularly vehement brand of communism in Havana. Moore, for his part, pretends to care about social issues so long as he makes bundles of cash; only pathologically anti-American leftists don’t seem to notice or care.

Unfortunately for Moore, the totalitarian regime’s misinformation machinery doesn’t work quite as efficiently as it did when Castro was at the helm. So Thursday morning, in the middle of Moore’s defiant defense of Castro and his "accomplishments," Raul, perhaps in one of his notorious drunken stupors, ordered the detention of Gorki Aguila. For those unfamiliar with the Cuban punk rock scene, which would mean just about everyone, Mr. Aguila is the outspoken lead singer of "Porno for Ricardo," a punk rock band profiled recently by CNN. (That CNN would air any internal criticism of Castro is in itself incredible).

Gorki, an unlikely threat to the state, had the gumption to criticize the Cuban system so longingly worshipped by Michael Moore. Yet unlike Moore, who gets to challenge a former senator and likely presidential candidate to debate, Gorki gets a prison term. I guess the US system isn’t quite so terrible after all, Mr. Moore.

So now that Mr. Moore has decided to immerse himself into Cuban politics debate, when will he and the rest of the activist American left begin calling for the release of Gorki Aguila? The short answer is "never." Our elitist protesters are nothing more than self-serving narcissists who can only dream of having the courage of a Gorki Aguila.

Speaking out against America is cheap and easy but is far from courageous. America doesn’t have a secret police or nasty little military to anchor a leader’s repression regardless of the disturbed claims from an unhinged left to the contrary. Courage means facing consequences; real consequences not simply a dip in the popularity scale.

So despite the self-aggrandizing calls from a George Clooney to "keep making courageous films," these faux activists are cowards. While Clooney may ask for help in Darfur, he doesn’t dare criticize the biggest accomplice to the tragedy, China. He understands fully that the consequences of criticizing the Chinese government might mean a ban on his movies; so he walks a fine line instead calling on President Bush to "stop the genocide" as if the US had any control. But such is the modus operandi of the "courageous" Clooney who has always been outspoken and quick to criticize the US, where, of course, there are no consequences. So will George Clooney speak out for the release of Gorki Aguila and other political prisoners in Castro’s prisons? Not likely, at least not unless Raul cozies up to the wicked "big oil" cabal and its cohort, the CIA. Until then, the brave Clooney will take a "courageous" stand and rid the world of the evils of the ruthless paparazzi. Good luck with that, Captain Courage.

Perhaps Dixie Chick Natalie Maines will step up and demand for Gorki Aguila the same freedom she enjoys. Surely she must appreciate that criticizing your government is a fundamental right, if not for every citizen, at the very least for artists like her. There but for the grace of God go you, Natalie. His lyrics of protest are not much different than your own. Gorki is in prison merely for suggesting to others not to choose communism (as if Cuba had "chosen" communism). Luckily, or predictably, your nemesis was an American president and not the Castro brothers who would not have taken it well had Gorki made a similar suggestion of "shame" for their leader. Weak record sales and low attendance figures are the least of his worries.

Code Pinkster Cindy Sheehan won’t dare criticize Castro and his minions for incarcerating Gorki for simply speaking his mind. Cindy apparently believes it’s okay for her to stage very long, very public protests outside an elected official’s home and call for his execution but a Cuban resident, somehow her inferior, must shut his mouth or have it shut for him. What is even more hypocritically appalling is that Cindy must think that her loss of a son is much more tragic than the losses of "The Ladies in White" who she refused to meet with or even acknowledge on her recent publicity stunt to the island prison instead choosing to embrace the man responsible for the murder and imprisonment of their loved ones. Cindy Sheehan and Code Pink have a greater solidarity to a heartless repressor of human rights than to the mothers of his victims. So don’t wait for Cindy or the "elitist communists" of Code Pink to denounce Gorki’s imprisonment and call for his release, he and his opinions like the many lives of the relatives of the "Ladies in White" mean nothing in their political end game.

Regrettably, we will not hear a single American "activist" call for the release of Gorki Aguila or any other Cuban political prisoner for that matter. Regrettable because Gorki Aguila is just like them; an activist artist. Yet, unlike our Hollywood elite, Gorki faces real consequences. There is no courage without consequences and Gorki Aguila has shown more courage in a single interview than Michael Moore, George Clooney, Natalie Maines and Cindy Sheehan have shown in a lifetime.

Gorki Aguila is courageous; they are cowards.

Source

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of other countries. The only real difference, however, is how much power they have. In America, their power is limited by democracy. To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges. They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did: None. So look to the colleges to see what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way. It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH, EDUCATION WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.

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20 May, 2007

EUROPE'S "PHILOSOPHICAL" PROBLEM

Really a problem of government-enforced uniformity

France, England, Holland, Germany and some other countries are reeling from it now. It is the controversy over young Muslim women wearing the veil in schools. But I do not agree with a recent reviewer, David A. Bell, in The New Republic, who exclaimed, "This is one of the strangest, most philosophically rattling, controversies in recent European memory ..." He said this after observing that "Jack Straw, the leader of the British House of Commons, recently attacked the wearing of veils as a 'visible statement of separation and of difference,' and requested that women remove them when visiting him."

The reason this is little more than hyperbole is that a philosophically rattling controversy would have to be far more basic, bear on far more fundamental issues, than does the one about wearing veils in public. For example, "Is there a God?" or "Are human beings free?" or "Can the human mind understand things as they really are?" Now those would be philosophical.

This isn't to say that the veil issue is insignificant. But there is a plain enough solution to it and in America that solution has been tried in some areas of our highly diverse culture. This is to significantly diminish the public square. If one keeps much of society-church, home, work, recreation, travel and the like-within the private sector, there can be an unexpected measure of diversity about how people comport themselves without this posing any kind of controversy. Yes, in America we also face the (by no means philosophically but otherwise) bothersome controversy of what to do with young people who are herded into public schools as a matter of the nearly one-size-fits-all public policy of coercive and publicly funded education. But that's kind of a relic and all the fuss about school choice and charter schools and independent schools testifies to this fact.

In a bona fide free country different groups of people with their different religious and philosophical convictions, habits, rituals and such have no trouble following their own ways. That is because of the institution of private property rights! Yes, Virginia, the right to private property accommodates all such peaceful differences among a citizenry. Only when people are drafted, conscripted into some sphere, such as primary and secondary schools, do troubles arise. (Just ask the Amish about all this; they'll tell you a sorry story.) Indeed, ever since the U. S. military has eliminated conscripting young citizens into the services, they, too, no longer face this problem of the impossible, uncomfortable, often offensive mix. American society, with its innumerable ethnic and religious and other culturally divers groups manages to do quite well provided people aren't coercively made to mingle. Of course, when you extort money from everyone, via taxes, so as to pay for various practices that some object to, such as stem cell or climate change research, abortion, publishing propaganda in support of (or against) sex education and so forth, then trouble is not far away. That's because peaceful mingling is, well, peaceful but coerced mingling produces considerable acrimony.

If so-called public resources or public spheres are utilized for some purposes but not others, those among the public not favoring the purpose that benefits from such resources or is provided space in such spheres will be upset. To use what is "ours" for goals that are not in fact ours at all is naturally going to be found objectionable. Why should Roman Catholics, whose religion rejects abortion, have to pay for abortion clinics? It places them into a morally unacceptable situation, namely, funding what they consider morally wrong. Why should a school that wants to make it possible for all students to learn without distraction have to admit and make room for a few who insist on displaying their faith for all to have to confront?

In a free country, however, these problems are solved by the institution of the right to private property-different groups can practice their ways without imposing them on others within their own borders. In the very few public places, such as, say, a court house, the rules of the public realm would apply to all equally! And that is hardly a source of major displeasure. But the same isn't true when it comes to such phony public places as a community swimming pool. There, if one is coerced into some uniform practice of, say, wearing a certain kind of bathing garb, members of some groups will object and justifiably feel put upon.

So, it turns out Europe's main philosophically troubling controversy is manageable along lines shown by much of American society-place borders around groups so they can exclude those who refuse to conform and subject only the very few public spaces adhere to uniform policies.

Source



Before CAIR and the Flying Imams, the Islamic Society of Boston had already pioneered the use of lawsuits to silence their critics and the media

You are a graduate of Egypt's Al-Azhar University, the foremost religious school in Sunni Islam. You've grown up in Egypt, earned a BA, MA and PhD from the prestigious academy, and have spent your life as a believing and devout Muslim in the heart of the religious establishment. Your religion, and your belief that Islam is a force for good in the world, is something you've built your life around. You believe there is no contradiction between your faith, democracy, and modern standards of human rights, and you dedicate yourself to writing and speaking in support of your beliefs.

And it's for those beliefs that a canonical court expels you from Al-Azhar. You are imprisoned for a short time by the Egyptian Government. Finally a Wahhabist fatwa calling for your assassination forces you to flee the country. You flee to political asylum in America, where you can, you hope, continue to explore your beliefs and practice your religion without fear for life and limb at the hands of fanatics. Then one day you visit a local mosque..

In late 2003, after visiting the local Islamic Society of Boston mosque in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Ahmed Mansour and his wife emerged in what can only be described as a state of shock. Mansour's wife had attended a religious lesson and Mansour himself browsed the literature on display. According to the affidavit of Dennis Hale (PDF), Episcopal Lay Minister, Boston College Professor and founder of Citizens for Peace and Tolerance, Mansour informed him that "both the religious lesson and the Arabic newsletters inside the mosque were full of hateful references against the West and Jews." In particular, he noted that the mosque was touting a fund-raising endorsement for their new mosque project featuring infamous Wahabbi cleric and pitch-man for the Muslim Brotherhood, Sheik Yousef Al-Qaradawi.

Shocked to see that the poison he thought he had left behind, the poison he thought was an ocean away but was following him to America, Mansour spoke out about what he had seen. As thanks for stepping forward, Mansour has found himself a defendant in a wide-ranging defamation lawsuit, a lawsuit that has involved television and print media outlets, activist organizations, and individuals - anyone, it seemed, who had dared speak or repeat anything less than complimentary about the Islamic Society of Boston. What the Wahhabis had failed to do in Egypt, the exploitation of the American legal system threatens to do here - ruin the life of a moderate Muslim and anyone who stands with him.

A Flawed Founding

The Islamic Society of Boston was founded in 1982 by then university student Abdurahman Alamoudi, who became its first president. Ten years later, according to the Hale document, Alamoudi "appeared in a videotaped rally in Washington, D.C. where he publicly supported Hamas and Hezbollah." In "2003 and 2004, Alamoudi was indicted and pled guilty to a series of terrorist-related charges arising from a fraudulent scheme to assist Libya in raising money to assassinate Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia." This scheme included, according to a background piece appearing in The New Republic, "providing approximately $1 million to an organization that supports Al Qaeda." Alamoudi "was sentenced to 23 years in prison."

The ISB was organized under the tax exempt umbrella of the Islamic Society of North America, which was itself a spin-off of the Wahhabist Muslim Student Association, and has been called "an influential front for the promotion of the Wahhabi political, ideological and theological infrastructure in the United States and Canada."

"This is how it should be. Religion must lead the war. This is the only way we can win."

From humble beginnings came big plans. A 2003 Boston Herald article quotes an ISB attorney as saying their new project had been in the works for a decade. According to the article:

A project update in the Islamic Society of Boston's May 2000 newsletter reported that in the previous month alone, the group raised $2 million in Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf states.

One source familiar with the project who spoke on the condition he not be named said the leaders of the Islamic society have made it clear that virtually all the financing for the cultural center is coming from Saudi Arabia, Egypt and other Gulf states.

Many mosques and Islamic institutions in the U.S. are funded by wealthy individuals and foundations in Saudi Arabia. Those financiers are almost without exception followers of Wahhabism, a harsh Saudi-based fundamentalist interpretation of Islam, and they make sure the American mosques they bankroll adhere to the sect's anti-Western ideology.

In fact, the Boston Herald, with its two part special report (both articles available here, on the web site of The David Project: Radical Islam: Outspoken cleric, jailed activist tied to new Hub mosque, Under suspicion: Hub mosque leader tied to radical groups) was one of the first major media outlets to pick up on what was soon to become a burning controversy, pulling into the public consciousness something that had up until then been passing well under the radar.

The articles noted the involvement and history of terror-connected Abdurahman Alamoudi in the ISB, as well as, and just as disturbingly, the involvement of the Muslim Brotherhood's spiritual adviser, Sheik Yousef Al-Qaradawi. Qaradawi is quoted as supporting terrorist attacks against Israelis and Americans. He has boycotted interfaith efforts where Israelis were invited. He has justified the stoning of homosexuals. He has called for a "Day of Rage" following the Danish Cartoon Crisis. He has said the following:

"They fight us with Judaism, so we should fight them with Islam. They fight us with the Torah, so we should fight them with the Koran. If they say `the Temple,' we should say `the Al-Aqsa Mosque.' If they say: `We glorify the Sabbath,' we should say: `We glorify the Friday.' This is how it should be. Religion must lead the war. This is the only way we can win.".

"Everything will be on our side and against Jews on [Judgment Day]; at that time, even the stones and the trees will speak, with or without words, and say: `Oh servant of Allah, oh Muslim, there's a Jew behind me, come and kill him.' They will point to the Jews.

On and on like that goes Qaradawi's record. He is regularly referred to, without intentional irony, as a "moderate" in his Middle Eastern milieu. Qaradawi, according to the Herald, was listed as an ISB board member for at least three years, and was, and still is, a proposed trustee on the real estate trust as well. In a widely circulated response to the series, including in a comment on my blog, the ISB stated that his inclusion had been in effect an "administrative oversight," and that Qaradawi does not accept such positions in any case. The point, it seems to me, is that they wanted him. He was, according to the statement, invited due to his "popularity within the Muslim community."

The ISB maintains a page in response to the articles on their own web site. They claim no significant connections to either Alamoudi or Qaradawi. In fact, they claim no contact with Alamoudi since he left Boston in 1984, though discovery brought about by the ISB's lawsuit (more on that later) has uncovered a check on behalf of the ISB to pay Alamoudi's expenses for a speaking engagement in late 2000, and ISB Trustee Osama Kandil (himself targeted in the Herald series with accusations denied by the ISB) signed the "Free Abdurahman Alamoudi" petition - a petition that calls the terror-supporting Alamoudi "our community leader" - sometime in `03 or `04.

"Connections to radicals have plagued the Mosque."

Following the ISB's denial of a Qaradawi connection, the Herald uncovered the fact that the Sheik's endorsement was used in an Arabic-only fundraising brochure in 2003 which the paper obtained and had independently translated. Other apparent connections to radicals have plagued the Mosque. For instance, the group has invited the Muslim Brotherhood connected Dr. Salah Soltan as a speaker. Soltan is an advocate for suicide bombing, and has praised terrorist Sheik Al-Zindani among other things. Another society guest has been Imam Siraj Wahaj, a character witness for the "blind sheik" Omar Rahman, and a man who "calls for replacing the American government with a caliphate."

But perhaps the most embarrassing series of episodes involved Saudi Arabia-based ISB trustee, Dr. Walid Fitaihi. After an initial charm offensive targeted at Boston's Jewish Community which had prominent Rabbis singing Fitaihi's praises, disturbing facts soon came to light which had the community humming a different sort of tune. It emerged that Fitaihi, in more comfortable surroundings back home, had been more candid about his feelings. The Middle East Media Research Institute had found some of Fitaihi's writings. Shortly after September 11, Fitaihi had written:

"Despite the attacks of distortion coordinated by the Zionist lobby, to which it has recruited many of the influential media, there are initial signs that the intensive campaign of education about Islam has begun to bear fruit.Jewish institutions have begun to contact Muslim institutions and have called on us to hold dialogues with them and cooperate [with them]. They are afraid of the outcome of the Islamic-Christian dialogue through the churches, the mosques, and the universities."

"Thus, the Muslim community in the U.S. in general, and in Boston in particular, has begun to trouble the Zionist lobby. The words of the Koran [3:113] on this matter are true: `They will be humiliated wherever they are found, unless they are protected under a covenant with Allah, or a covenant with another people. They have incurred Allah's wrath and they have been afflicted with misery. That is because they continuously rejected the Signs of Allah and were after slaying the Prophets without just cause, and this resulted from their disobedience and their habit of transgression.'"

"The great Allah spoke words of truth. Their covenant with America is the strongest possible in the U.S., but it is weaker than they think, and one day their covenant with the [American] people will be cut off."

When confronted with this information, Fitaihi's response was to claim he was a victim of a false, "insulting," translation. The Herald, ever on the case, commissioned their own translation, and found MEMRI's interpretation of Fitaihi's writing to be correct.

"Jews will be `scourged' because of their `oppression, murder, and rape of the worshipers of Allah.'"

Fitaihi and the ISB retreated into embarrassed silence. Seven months later, the ADL got involved, sending a letter to the ISB with their concerns, calling upon them to "seize the opportunity to condemn and disassociate expressions of anti-Semitism," and noting that, "In the absence of such a clarification, other allegations against the ISB are gaining greater resonance, and there remains a contradiction between your values statement and your actions." The Boston Globe also noted that the ADL had a further translation of Fitaihi's writing, stating that he "wrote that Jews will be `scourged' because of their `oppression, murder, and rape of the worshipers of Allah.'"

The ISB finally responded with a clarification that still appears on their web site today, dated September 2004 (it's not clear why this pre-dates the ADL's October statement): ".the articles were intended to condemn particular individuals whom he believes were working to destroy one of Islam's holiest sites, killing innocent children, and thereby blocking the possibility of peace in the Middle East; the articles were not meant to incite hatred of an entire faith or people." In other words, "He wasn't talking about you GOOD Jews, he was talking about those BAD Jews." No better was ISB Board Chairman, Dr. Yousef Abou-Allabans response in a conversation with the Boston Phoenix about the incident:

Judging from Abou-Allaban's comments, its a stretch to say any repudiation actually took place."So how about Fitaihi's comments in the original Arabic? `We are against the statement as it was quoted in the paper,' he replied with a chuckle."

Ha ha.

More here



Australia: Muslim outrage at citizen test

MUSLIMS are outraged that prospective citizens will have to acknowledge the Judeo-Christian tradition as the basis of Australia's values system. Australia's peak Muslim body said the proposed citizenship question - revealed in the Herald Sun - was disturbing and potentially divisive. Australian Federation of Islamic Councils president Dr Ameer Ali said the "Abrahamic tradition" or "universal values" would be less divisive ways of describing the nation's moral base. Dr Ali said use of the term Judeo-Christian was the result of "WWII guilt", and before 1945 Australia would have been called only Christian. "That question must be rephrased," he said.

Dr Ali was backed by Democrats senator Lyn Allison, who said the answer to the question was highly debatable. But Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews stood firm on the merit of the question. Mr Andrews said Australia's Judeo-Christian heritage was indisputable historical fact. "We are not asking people to subscribe to the Judeo-Christian ethic," he said. "We are simply stating a fact that this is part of the heritage of Australia in terms of its foundation. "This is not an exercise in political correctness. It is trying to state what has been the case and still is the case."

But Health Minister Tony Abbott confused the issue, saying the modern Australian values system was secular, or of no particular religion. The Herald Sun yesterday revealed 20 key questions, developed in consultation with Mr Andrews, that are likely to be asked of would-be citizens. Mr Andrews said the test, to begin by September, would help immigrants integrate into society better. "We celebrate diversity and people are free to continue their own traditions, but we are also very insistent that we have to build and maintain social cohesion," he said.

Dr Ali said he would request a meeting with Mr Andrews to discuss the question. "It is the wrong message we are sending," he said. Senator Allison said the test was pointless. "I don't see what it's going to achieve," she said. "It doesn't say anything about people's character, whether they are going to be good citizens." Opposition immigration spokesman Tony Burke said Labor agreed in principle with the test, but wanted details.

Source

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of other countries. The only real difference, however, is how much power they have. In America, their power is limited by democracy. To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges. They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did: None. So look to the colleges to see what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way. It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH, EDUCATION WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.

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19 May, 2007

WITH JUSTICE FOR SOME

By Jeff Jacoby

Such is the state of education today that I guess I should explain that the heading above refers to what Abraham Lincoln said in his second inaugural address: "With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in"



By a vote of 237 to 180, the House of Representatives voted on May 3 to broaden the federal hate-crime law, extending it to violent attacks based on gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability. During the emotional debate on the bill, majority leader Steny Hoyer offered the familiar argument that crimes motivated by hatred are worse than other violent crimes and therefore deserve harsher punishment.

"Some people ask: Why is this legislation even necessary?" said Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat. "Because brutal hate crimes motivated by race, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation and identity, or disability not only injure individual victims, but also terrorize entire segments of our population and tear at our nation's social fabric."

When they introduced similar legislation in the Senate two years ago, Senators Ted Kennedy and Gordon Smith made a related argument: "Hate crimes . . . send the poisonous message that some Americans deserve to be assaulted or even murdered solely because of who they are. . . . These are crimes against entire communities."

But is a fixation with "hate" the right way to punish crime? Two days after the House vote, as if to drive home the brutal reality of hate crimes, the Associated Press reported on a recent surge in violent, sometimes lethal, attacks by young thugs against members of an exposed and vulnerable minority group. Among the incidents described were the fatal bludgeoning of August Felix by three teenagers in Orlando last year; the bloody assault by punks with baseball bats on 58-year-old Jacques Pierre in Fort Lauderdale; the murder in Spokane of a one-legged man who was burned to death in his wheelchair; and the drowning of a woman in Nashville by two men who shoved her off a boat ramp into the Cumberland River.

The sickening attacks recounted by the AP undoubtedly have the capacity to "terrorize entire segments of our population," as Hoyer puts it. The victims in these cases, to use Kennedy and Smith's formulation, were "assaulted or even murdered solely because of who they [were]."

Yet the hate-crime bill making its way through Congress wouldn't have done a thing about these attacks. In the four cases above, as in scores like them around the country every year, the victims were homeless people -- and not even the most horrific assaults on the homeless are covered by federal hate-crime legislation.

To be sure, it doesn't take a federal law to make it a crime to beat a homeless man to death with baseball bats. But that's true of every violent crime, including the ones that would be covered by the bill in Congress. So why should "hate crimes" motivated by racial, religious, or sexual bigotry be punished more severely than equally hateful crimes motivated by contempt for the homeless? If vicious hoodlums murder a man by setting him on fire in his wheelchair, what moral difference does it make whether they despised him for being disabled (covered by the new bill) or for being a street person (not covered)? Is it worse to douse a man with gasoline and strike a match while shouting, "We hate cripples!" than to do the exact same thing while shouting "We hate the homeless" -- or, for that matter, "We hate skinheads" or "We hate Communists" or even "We hate Yankees fans"?

It is indecent for the government to declare that a murder or mugging or rape is somehow more terrible when the murderer or mugger or rapist is motivated by bigotry against certain favored groups. The inescapable implication is that murders, muggings, and rapes committed against other groups are *less* terrible. In a society dedicated to the ideal of "equal justice under law" -- the words are chiseled above the entrance to the Supreme Court -- it is immoral and grotesque to enact legal rules that make some victims of hatred are more equal than others.

In fact, the law has no business intensifying the punishment for violent crimes motivated by bigotry at all. Murderers should be prosecuted and punished with equal vehemence no matter why they murder -- whether out of hatred or sadistic thrill-seeking or revenge or the promise of money. It is not the criminal's evil thoughts that society has a right to punish, but his evil deeds.

There are a host of other problems with the bill passed by the House -- it is of dubious constitutionality, it federalizes prosecutions that belong at the state level, and any act it would apply to is already illegal. But its most grievous failing is the one it shares with all hate-crime laws: By turning the criminal code into an affirmative-action schedule, they undermine social justice. They treat equal victims unequally. And they give too much weight to the beliefs of an attacker -- and too little to the brutality of his attack.



Bureaucracy

Three of most widely-covered recent news narratives revolve around the same fundamental issue: the failure of bureaucratic institutions to meet challenges involving their basic missions.

The British Navy, a force that embodies the term "legendary", was taken by surprise and humiliated by a militia in speedboats. Virginia Tech proved itself, despite years of warnings, unable to provide the minimal level of security necessary for the safety of its faculty and student body. The war on terror, worst of all, is hobbled by bureaucratic strictures and habits of mind.

What these problems have in common - apart from being disasters of various magnitudes - is that they are all bureaucratic in nature. The rules and habits by which each of the organizations operate came in conflict with events, and rather than adapting or reacting or even hollering for help, each of the organizations involved fell apart.

This, according to anthropologist Robin Fox, one of the more formidable intellects of our era, is inevitable. Some years ago Fox published "Why Bureaucracies Fail" (available in his essay collection Conjectures and Confrontations) an analysis of the faults of bureaucracy originally presented as a lecture to select military officers. And fail they do, constantly and without letup:

"They are indeed self-perpetuating and can bumble along for quite some time... But they do not work in the sense of fulfilling their purposes, aims, or goals."

The reason bureaucracies fail, Fox tells us, is "...because they are, in some sense, inhuman." By this he doesn't that they are vicious or cruel (although they can be), but that they are, by their very nature, at odds with human nature as it exists. Bureaucracies operate according to a certain fixed set of procedures. They are an attempt - heroic or otherwise - to force the world to conform to a rational system. But human beings, much as we pride ourselves on our rational thinking, are actually a grab-bag of instincts, intuition, and habit, with a handful of rationality thrown in to pull everything else together. This serves us well because it matches how the universe actually works, but it also means that there will always be a conflict between bureaucracies and human beings. The relationship starts out on the wrong foot and gets worse as it goes along.

And that's considering only normal, everyday individuals. What happens with people who deliberately kick the chessboard over? Or someone so monstrously twisted he can't even grasp the rules of the game?

The Royal Navy

The Royal Navy's duties in the Persian Gulf were utterly routine: inspecting shipping en route to Iraq to assure that no arms or other contraband was being smuggled in. More the mission of a coast guard than a navy, and that may well have been the root of the problem. Because everyone involved, including the crews, the naval hierarchy, and the government beyond, began viewing Gulf operations as routine. The Gulf was the "safe end" of the Iraqi theater. Nothing could be expected to happen there. It was okay to slack off.

But the Shatt al-Arab was in truth a war zone, one encompassing not one but two distinct conflicts: the Iraq war and against Al-Qaeda and friends, and the long cold war against the Iranian mullahs. As an endless parade of pacifists, philosophers, and diplomats have told us, nothing is more irrational than warfare. We practice it only because it can accomplish things that rational behavior can't. The British forgot this. The Iranians did not.

Following the ambush, the first action of the HMS Cornwall's commander, Jeremy Woods, was to call Whitehall to ask what to do. When told to do nothing, he obeyed. Years before he became a legend, Horatio Nelson received an order while in battle that he thought mistaken. So he put his telescope to his bad eye and pretended he didn't see it. He went on to do what he'd been planning in the first place, and he won that battle. "Turning the blind eye" has been an unacknowledged British naval tradition ever since. At least until the Shatt al-Arab, when Jeremy Woods acted as a bureaucratic cog rather than a sailor.

Bureaucratic functionalism had taken the place of the military virtues. Somehow the Iranians sensed this. Perhaps by observing the routine, perhaps by intercepting radio traffic. Perhaps simply through noticing that women were driving the boats. Seeing that they were not, in the strict sense, dealing with a military operation, they made their move, and they got away with it.

So there should be no surprise at how the British sailors behaved in captivity and afterward. (At least three and perhaps four of the Royal Marines acted much better, as an examination of the turnover photos clearly reveals. The fact that this has gone almost unmentioned speaks volumes about British attitudes.) A bureaucracy simply does not command the high loyalty that a military force does. And so a legendary navy, the navy of Gravelines, and Trafalgar, and the Falklands, the navy that destroyed the slave trade and the Nazi U-boats, is gone with scarcely a whimper.

Virginia Tech

Virginia Tech was not so fortunate. Cho Seung-hui had been shambling around the campus for years frightening everyone - students, faculty, administration - that crossed his path. So strong was the impression he made that when news of the shooting spread, everyone on campus immediately guessed who it must be. (Except for the local cops, who wasted their time tracking down an innocent third party who happened to be a legal gun owner.)

Cho had been thrown out of classes. He had been caught taking surreptitious photos of female classmates. He was discovered stalking two other girls, and in fact was kept overnight at a mental health clinic as a result. He was found to be obviously disturbed but was released the next morning on the grounds that he was "not an imminent threat". (A fine example of the bureaucratic mentality at work can be found in this debate on the meaning of "imminent" at James Taranto's "Best of the Web".)

What further response was there? Next to nothing. You see, there were rules. In this case, the "Buckley Regulations", after a law sponsored thirty years ago by Senator James Buckley, New York State's last conservative senator. The Buckley Regulations completely seal a student's record. Nothing can be revealed to any outsider - not even the parents - concerning a student's activities or behavior under any circumstances. In the past this has led to nervous breakdowns, suicides, and expulsions. Now we can add mass murder to the mix. (It's difficult to imagine, at this distance in time, what Buckley was thinking, or how such a law fits in with a conservative philosophy.

The single exception to the university's inertia was Prof. Lucinda Roy, a living monument to human decency who went out of her way not only to tutor Cho after he was dumped by another teacher (the world's greatest poetess Nikki Giovanni, whose contribution appears to have been to tighten the screws a notch or two), but to attempt some form of human contact. That she failed cannot be held against her - there appears to have been no one else willing to make the effort. Numbers count in these situations. Another person's interest may have lent enough weight to break through whatever barrier separated Cho from normal reality.

So with this human bomb in their midst, what did the administration of Virginia Tech decide to do? They declared the campus a "gun-free zone", apparently under the impression that stating the fact would make it so. This assured Cho that he could operate without being interfered with in any way whatsoever. (The legacy media has failed to grasp that "gun-free" also applied to the school's security forces, who were effectively disarmed.)

And when the day came, after whatever trivial incident at last set Cho off (what it was we can only guess, but as the street poet Charles Bukowski once wrote, "It's not the dead child but the broken shoelace that drives a man mad"), and the killing started with two lonely bodies, how did the campus elite respond? They turned to that most quintessential of bureaucratic actions - they called a meeting. After an hour's discussion - a talented playwright could turn out an extremely dark comedy with that material - they decided to e-mail a warning across campus. Why they didn't use fourth-class bulk rate mail is anybody's guess.

After Columbine, there is no excuse for second-guessing in this kind of situation. We live in a society where a first-grader can be suspended and forced into counseling for cocking a finger. So what was wrong with the VT staff? Simply this: they were thinking bureaucratically, according to the rules. They were attempting to pit rational thought against a lunatic with a gun.

In the meantime, Cho was able to make a final video, mail it to NBC, load up, walk across the campus untroubled by the cops, and fire over a hundred rounds into thirty-two innocent people.

Jack Dunphy, acting in the spirit of pure collegiality, has attempted to defend the Blacksburg police department's actions after the first murders. But it doesn't work. Anybody who has ever stumbled unknowing onto a crime scene vicinity and spent the ensuing fifteen minutes explaining themselves to one cop after another knows exactly what I mean. For some reason - one that we'll probably never hear - standard procedure wasn't followed at VT.)

The War on Terror

Air travelers have personally experienced so many examples of bureaucratic thinking and behavior that the point needs little elaboration. The problem is everywhere. Recall the Pentagon lawyer who refused to okay the attack on Mullah Omar in 2001. Recall that no military police officer ever got around to walking the short distance from headquarters to the Abu Ghraib prison to see for himself what was going on. Recall all the little PC rituals surrounding current airport security procedures.

If you want a capsule illustration of the effects of bureaucratic thinking, contrast Norman Minetta's boldness on 9-11 - "Bring all planes down immediately" - with his ineffectual pussyfooting in the ensuing months.

The problem is, we're depending on this form of organization for our survival - and it is failing us. Bureaucracy is a major tool of our civilization, to a greater extent than any other before us. We can't get by without it, but we're rapidly approaching a point where we can't live with it either.

It used to be understood that there were situations where you threw out the rulebook. When FDR wanted to start a covert operations service, he ignored the established bureaucracy and turned instead to "Wild Bill" Donovan, a Manhattan businessman (and Republican to boot). The result was the Office of Strategic Services, a ripe gaggle of New York socialites, lawyers, communists, homosexuals, and adventurers who got the job done while breaking every rule in existence. As soon as the war was over, the OSS was rolled up - there was never any hope it would fit in with a peacetime bureaucracy.

It appears that we've lost that capacity. As a society, we seem content to believe that bureaucracy is the only possible method of doing things, at least as far as governments go. And that could be fatal.

Short of the genius who will rework our entire concept of management (and who will appear eventually, though no one can say when), what can we do? There is no possibility of reform. "The `internal contradictions' of bureaucracy," Fox tells us, "are indeed chronic; they are incurable. No amount of social science tinkering is going to do more than cover the patient with bandaids."

Any attempted reforms will be carried out under bureaucratic procedure. They will meet all the criteria, they will be approved by every committee, and they will be perfectly satisfactory right up until the appearance of the next maniac with a pistol or gang of Jihadis attempting to flatten an American city.

Similarly, there's little point in asking for higher-quality, more spirited personnel. Such individuals will seldom attempt a career as a bureaucrat in the first place, and when they do, the bureaucracy often moves heaven and earth to stymie them. (See the recent adventures of Paul Wolfowitz.) In the end we'll simply have to depend on ourselves. Forget all the bureaucratic procedures, promises, and guarantees. Events have proven them empty.

There's a story that went unmentioned in the mainstream media (though covered elsewhere) involving Appalachian Law School, a campus only a stone's throw from Virginia Tech. In 2002, yet another lunatic attempted to shoot up the place only to be intercepted and disarmed by two students who happened to be gun owners.

That's what we need to return to -- the American taproot, the spirit of individualism in the service of community. It's the spirit of Flight 93, the spirit evident in Iraq and Afghanistan every single day. It's an element of the American character that has never failed us, one that will still be going strong long after all the study groups and committees have issued their statements and filed their reports and gone home. There is a reason, after all, why the Iranians didn't attempt their little tricks against our Navy.

Otherwise, we can look forward to still more deterioration, under the circumstances of war, where error leaves no room for second chances. A final thought from Robin Fox: "Good departments do not necessarily get better, but mediocre ones of necessity get worse." I believe we have been so advised.

Source

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of other countries. The only real difference, however, is how much power they have. In America, their power is limited by democracy. To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges. They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did: None. So look to the colleges to see what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way. It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH, EDUCATION WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.

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18 May, 2007

Political correctness marginalizes history

Being the editor of a magazine often gives me the opportunity to talk to publishing houses and their representatives about new book releases. At a recent meeting with one regarding the publication and release of a book dealing with a particular state's military history, I was told their company had enjoyed little success with "counter-culture" material and were being cautious as to how they approached marketing this new book. Now being a writer for most of my life, I was used to hearing phrases such as "there's no interest," "no market for it" or "not our specialty," but saying a collection of stories on the individual accomplishments of citizen-soldiers was "counter-culture" came as a shock to me.

How many generations were raised on stories of the biblical David, Samson and Gideon, the story of Alexander the Great, Hannibal, Al Saladin, Admiral Nelson, George Washington, Patton, and so forth? The stories of their individual accomplishments and lives have been rather definitive of the cultures we became or a result of it - not counter to it.

One could deduce this is a simple pacifist mentality that will fade in time, but this is a flesh and blood example of political correctness working itself into the marketplace. Reader Rick Williams came across this stunning definition of political correctness on the Yorktown University web site in Denver, Colorado. It states: "Political Correctness is an ideology that politicizes scholarship by holding it to standards other than the pursuit of truth, amazement in discovery of reality, and inquiry grounded in reason."

In short, it is an Orwellian prophecy come true that seems to be going viral and spreading like a cancer. If it was only a national phenomenon, it would not be of concern, but U.S. influence is felt around the world and the disease is worsening.

Last year Mongolia decided it wanted to erect a statue of Genghis Khan outside their embassies as a symbol of their nation. They take pride in Genghis Khan, whom they regard as Mongolia's most famous contribution to the world and, by all accounts, they are correct. After more than 60 years as a Soviet satellite, which was bent on revising and outright destroying the history of the Asian nation, Mongolia decided they wanted to reestablish themselves culturally in the world and create a viable, attractive tourist venue that told the Mongol story. The little nation had managed to hang on to it's precious past in darkened corners and, once the Soviet Union dissolved, they began the long road back to reclaiming their colorful heritage.

With that knowledge, who could deny this little nation in noting, with some measure of pride, it had once been a major world player and gave rise to a man, who will live forever in the annals of human history? The U.S. "P.C." machine is the short answer to that question.

It was a firestorm among supposedly dispassionate college and university professors inter-viewed by news organizations. They claimed it improper for Mongolia to choose "that man" as a national mascot because of Genghis Khan's "ruthlessness and imperialistic" attributes. They said he conquered and killed untold thousands of people and individuals such as that do not deserve recognition. The story of Genghis Khan, who started off in life completely impoverished and ended up controlling most of the known world of his time, is a story of incredible individual and military achievement. The Mongolians will hopefully ignore what's been said here in the states and move forward with their project.

The academic distaste for military heroes has been evident in this nation since the anti-war protesters of the 1960s and 70s started moving into the ivory towers and becoming professors and teachers. There has been some "scholarly" work over the years, but it has been marginalized in most corners. In fact, according to surveys, many modern professors of history and government believe and have instructed students in the philosophy "had there never been a Genghis Khan, a George Washington, a Thomas Jefferson or a George Patton, history would have created one. Therefore their stories are less important than the social movements of the era in which these men lived."

It is such a wonderful collectivist mentality that strips away the essence of individual achievement and truly strikes at the heart of this nation's identity, especially in matters of military achievement and history. It won't be long before this insidious historical philosophy is applied to artists, businessmen and women, scientists, statesmen, and inventors. We have even allowed the word "hero" to be redefined in this culture as anyone who puts on a uniform of any kind or has a good thought. It no longer describes a man or woman who faces adversity and overcomes incredible odds and circumstances to succeed.

The "P.C." mentality, which is so prevalent among modern scholars and their students, is dangerous and threatens this nation's existence by rewriting a glorious past to conform to a collaborative academic standard that almost seems embarrassed by America's success. It is time to end it and time for U.S. citizens to sit up and start putting our historical house back in order. We have one Hell of a story to tell the world and, if we let it sink into the mire of politics, posturing and academic intolerance, it will be lost forever.

Source



A religion of evil

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is arguably the bravest and most remarkable woman of our times. To understand why this 37-year-old woman is extraordinary, she must be assessed in the context of the forces pitted against her in her twin struggles to force the Western world to take note of Islam's divinely ordained enslavement of women, and to force the Islamic world to account for it.

A series of incidents this week placed the forces she battles in stark relief. Sunday Muslims shot up the Omariyah elementary school in Gaza. One man was killed and six were wounded in the onslaught. The murderers attacked because the UN-run school in Rafah had organized a sports day for the children, in which little boys would be playing with little girls. The idea that that boys and girls might play sports together was too much for the righteous believers. It was an insult to Islam, they said. And so they decided to kill the little boys and girls.

On May 3, in Gujrat, Pakistan, Muslims detonated a bomb at the gate of a girls' school. Their righteous wrath was raised by the notion that girls would learn to read and write. That too, they felt, is an insult to Islam.

On April 28, US soldiers in Iraq discovered detonation wires across the street from the newly built Huda Girls' school in Tarmiya, north of Baghdad. They followed the wire to its source and discovered the school had been built as a deathtrap. The pious Muslims who constructed the school had filled propane tanks with explosives and buried them beneath the floor. They built artillery shells into the ceiling and the floor. To save the world for Allah, they decided to butcher little girls.

And the brutality is not limited to the Middle East. Last month in Oslo, Norway, Norwegian-Somali women's rights activist Kadra was brutally beaten by a crowd of men piously calling out "Allah Akhbar." She was attacked for exposing the fact that inside their mosques in Norway, Norwegian imams praise female genital mutilation in the name of Allah.

LATE LAST year Hirsi Ali published her memoir, Infidel. In describing her own life, what she actually explains are the two competing human impulses - conformity and individualism. In her own life, the clash of the two has been played out on the stage of Islamic ascendance and Western cultural collapse. Hirsi Ali was born in Somalia to a politically active father who sought to free his country from Said Barre's Marxist dictatorship. Forced to flee the country with her family, Hirsi Ali's childhood in Arabia and Africa revolved along the axis of Islamic ascendance at the hand of the Saudi-financed Muslim Brotherhood and Khomeini's Iran.

Hirsi Ali's rebellion against Islam was personal, not political. As a young girl and later as a young woman, she found herself abused and stifled by the dictates of Islam just as her youthful spirit wished most to take flight. As a five-year-old in Somalia, she screamed in pain and shock when her grandmother tied her down and had a man with a knife mutilate her genitals. Living in Saudi Arabia she was struck by the oppressiveness of the "true Islam." Why, she wondered were she and her mother and sister prohibited from leaving their apartment without a male relative escorting them? As an adolescent in Nairobi she wondered why the enjoyment she felt in the company of boys was sinful.

Why did her mother need to suffer the humiliation of polygamy? Why could she not choose her own husband? Why was she told by one and all that her normal human impulses to seek love, respect and compassion and think for herself were sinful and evil?

More here



The Subjection of Islamic Women -- And the fecklessness of American feminism

The subjection of women in Muslim societies--especially in Arab nations and in Iran--is today very much in the public eye. Accounts of lashings, stonings, and honor killings are regularly in the news, and searing memoirs by Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Azar Nafisi have become major best-sellers. One might expect that by now American feminist groups would be organizing protests against such glaring injustices, joining forces with the valiant Muslim women who are working to change their societies. This is not happening.

If you go to the websites of major women's groups, such as the National Organization for Women, the Ms. Foundation for Women, and the National Council for Research on Women, or to women's centers at our major colleges and universities, you'll find them caught up with entirely other issues, seldom mentioning women in Islam. During the 1980s, there were massive demonstrations on American campuses against racial apartheid in South Africa. There is no remotely comparable movement on today's campuses against the gender apartheid prevalent in large parts of the world.

It is not that American feminists are indifferent to the predicament of Muslim women. Nor do they completely ignore it. For a brief period before September 11, 2001, many women's groups protested the brutalities of the Taliban. But they have never organized a full-scale mobilization against gender oppression in the Muslim world. The condition of Muslim women may be the most pressing women's issue of our age, but for many contemporary American feminists it is not a high priority. Why not?

The reasons are rooted in the worldview of the women who shape the concerns and activities of contemporary American feminism. That worldview is--by tendency and sometimes emphatically--antagonistic toward the United States, agnostic about marriage and family, hostile to traditional religion, and wary of femininity. The contrast with Islamic feminism could hardly be greater.

Writing in the New Republic in 1999, philosopher Martha Nussbaum noted with disapproval that "feminist theory pays relatively little attention to the struggles of women outside the United States." Too many fashionable gender theorists, she said, have lost their dedication to the public good. Their "hip quietism . . . collaborates with evil."

This was a frontal assault, and prominent academic feminists chastised Nussbaum in the letters column. Joan Scott of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton pointed out the dangers of Nussbaum's "good versus evil scheme." Wrote Scott, "When Robespierre or the Ayatollahs or Ken Starr seek to impose their vision of the 'good' on the rest of society, reigns of terror follow and democratic politics are undermined." Gayatri Spivak, a professor of comparative literature at Columbia, accused Nussbaum of "flag waving" and of being on a "civilizing mission." None of the letter writers addressed her core complaint: Too few feminist theorists are showing concern for the millions of women trapped in blatantly misogynist cultures outside the United States.

One reason is that many feminists are tied up in knots by multiculturalism and find it very hard to pass judgment on non-Western cultures. They are far more comfortable finding fault with American society for minor inequities (the exclusion of women from the Augusta National Golf Club, the "underrepresentation" of women on faculties of engineering) than criticizing heinous practices beyond our shores. The occasional feminist scholar who takes the women's movement to task for neglecting the plight of foreigners is ignored or ruled out of order.

Take psychology professor Phyllis Chesler. She has been a tireless and eloquent champion of the rights of women for more than four decades. Unlike her tongue-tied colleagues in the academy, she does not hesitate to speak out against Muslim mistreatment of women. In a recent book, The Death of Feminism, she attributes the feminist establishment's unwillingness to take on Islamic sexism to its support of "an isolationist and America-blaming position." She faults it for "embracing an anti-Americanism that is toxic, heartless, mindless and suicidal." The sisterhood has rewarded her with excommunication. A 2006 profile in the Village Voice reports that, among academic feminists, "Chesler arouses the vitriol reserved for traitors."

But Chesler is right. In the literature of women's studies, the United States is routinely portrayed as if it were just as oppressive as any country in the developing world. Here is a typical example of what one finds in popular women's studies textbooks (from Women: A Feminist Perspective, now in its fifth edition):

The word "terrorism" invokes images of furtive organizations. . . . But there is a different kind of terrorism, one that so pervades our culture that we have learned to live with it as though it were the natural order of things. Its target is females--of all ages, races, and classes. It is the common characteristic of rape, wife battery, incest, pornography, harassment. . . . I call it "sexual terrorism."

The primary focus is on the "terror" at home. Katha Pollitt, a columnist at the Nation, talks of "the common thread of misogyny" connecting Christian Evangelicals to the Taliban:

It is important to remember just how barbarous and cruel the Taliban were. Yet it is also important not to use their example to obscure or deny the common thread of misogyny that connects them with Focus on the Family and the Christian Coalition. . . .

In a similar vein, journalist Barbara Ehrenreich characterizes Christian evangelical movements as "Christian Wahhabism," using the name of the sect that is the state religion of Saudi Arabia and the inspiration for Osama bin Laden. Eve Ensler, lionized author of The Vagina Monologues, makes the same point somewhat differently in her popular lecture "Afghanistan is Everywhere":

We all have different forms of enforced burqas. Every culture has it. Whether it's an idea or a fascist tyranny of what women are supposed to look like--so that women go to the extremes of liposuction, anorexia and bulimia to achieve it--or whether it's being covered in a burqa, we all have deep, profound, ongoing daily forms of oppression.

On most American campuses there are small coteries of self-described "vagina warriors" looking for ways to expose and make much of the ravages of patriarchy. Feminists like Pollitt, Ehrenreich, and Ensler can cite several decades of women's studies research supporting the charge that our culture is ruinous for women. Many scholars--including Camille Paglia, Daphne Patai, Noretta Koertge, Diana Furchtgott-Roth, Christine Rosen, and myself--have questioned the quality of the findings and warned that the studies are twisted and unreliable. But academic feminists rarely engage with such criticism. They dismiss it as "backlash."

Soon after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Katha Pollitt wrote the introduction to a book called Nothing Sacred: Women Respond to Religious Fundamentalism and Terror. It aimed to show that reactionary religious movements everywhere are targeting women. Says Pollitt:

In Bangladesh, Muslim fanatics throw acid in the faces of unveiled women; in Nigeria, newly established shariah courts condemn women to death by stoning for having sex outside of wedlock. . . . In the United States, Protestant evangelicals and fundamentalists have forged a powerful right-wing political movement focused on banning abortion, stigmatizing homosexuality and limiting young people's access to accurate information about sex.

Pollitt casually places "limiting young people's access to accurate information about sex" and opposing abortion on the same plane as throwing acid in women's faces and stoning them to death. Her hostility to the United States renders her incapable of distinguishing between private American groups that stigmatize gays and foreign governments that hang them. She has embraced a feminist philosophy that collapses moral categories in ways that defy logic, common sense, and basic decency.

Eve Ensler takes this line of reasoning to equally ludicrous lengths. In 2003 she gave a lecture at the Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University in which, like Pollitt, she claimed that women everywhere are oppressed and subordinate:

I think that the oppression of women is universal. I think we are bonded in every single place of the world. I think the conditions are exactly the same [her emphasis]. I think the nature of the oppression--whether it's acid burning in one country, or female genital mutilation in another, or gang rapes in the parking lots in high schools of the suburbs--it's the same idea. . . . The systematic global oppression of women is completely across the globe.

Though Ensler's perspective is warped, her courage and desire to help are commendable. She went to Afghanistan during the reign of the Taliban and smuggled out now-famous footage of a terrified woman in a burqa being executed at close range by a man with an AK-47. Ensler has firsthand knowledge of the unique horrors of Islamic gender fascism. But her "feminist theory" obliterates distinctions between what goes on in Afghanistan and what goes on in Beverly Hills:

I went from Beverly Hills where women were getting vaginal laser rejuvenation surgery--paying four thousand dollars to get their labias trimmed to make them symmetrical because they didn't like the imbalance. And I flew to Kenya where [women were working to stop] the practice of female genital mutilation. And I said to myself, "What is wrong with this picture?"

A better question is: What is wrong with Eve Ensler? These two surgical phenomena are completely different in both scale and purpose. The number of American women who undergo "vaginal labial rejuvenation" is minuscule: There were 793 such procedures in 2005, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. By contrast, a World Health Organization 2000 fact sheet reports: "Today, the number of girls and women who have undergone female genital mutilation is estimated at between 100 and 140 million. It is estimated that each year, a further 2 million girls are at risk of undergoing FGM."

The women who elect laser surgery, moreover, are voluntarily seeking relief from physical irregularities that cause them embarrassment or inhibit their sexual enjoyment. The practitioners of genital mutilation, in countries such as Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, and Somalia, believe that removing sensitive parts of the anatomy is the best way to control young women's sexual urges and assure chastity. Genital cutting causes great pain and suffering and often permanently impairs a female's capacity for sexual pleasure. Thus, the intentions of the handful of American adults who choose labial surgery for themselves are exactly the opposite of those of the African parents and elders who insist on cutting the genitals of millions of girls.

Given her capacity for conceptual confusion, it is perhaps not surprising that Ensler cites "gang rape in a suburban high school parking lot" to show how women in America are menaced. Yes, that is an atrocity. But it happens rarely, and America's allegedly "misogynist" culture reacts to it with revulsion and severe punishments.

Happily, not all women's groups follow the lead of the Enslers, the Pollitts, and the women's studies theorists. The Feminist Majority Foundation (FMF) has been intelligently fighting the mistreatment of women in the Muslim world for several years. In 1997, in a heroic effort to expose the crimes of the Taliban, Eleanor Smeal, the president of FMF, with the help of Mavis and Jay Leno, created a vital national campaign complete with rallies, petitions, and fundraisers. It was a good example of what can be achieved when a women's group seriously seeks to address the mistreatment of women outside the United States. The FMF, working with human rights groups, helped to persuade the United States and the United Nations to deny formal recognition to the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. It helped convince the oil company UNOCAL not to build a pipeline across Afghanistan, and it brought the oppression of women living under radical Islamic law into clear relief for all the world to see.

But Smeal and her organization soon found themselves attacked by the same monitors of rectitude who disparaged Martha Nussbaum. Ann Russo, director of women's and gender studies at Chicago's DePaul University (writing in the International Feminist Journal of Politics), accused the FMF of practicing a kind of "imperial feminism." Said Russo:

The FMF's campaign narrative is one of colonialist protection rather than of solidarity. . . . [It] capitalizes on the images of prominent white Western women, like Mavis Leno, Eleanor Smeal and other women politicians and celebrity figures, who construct themselves as "free" and "liberated" and thus in the best position to "save" Afghan women.

Today, the Feminist Majority Foundation continues to support Muslim women around the world, but the effort has lost much of its momentum. Most of the foundation's current work is directed against what it perceives as injustices suffered by women in America.

On February 20, 2007, a Pakistani women's rights activist and provincial minister for social welfare, Zilla Huma Usman, was shot to death by a Muslim fanatic for not wearing a veil. And he had a second reason for killing her: She had encouraged girls in her community to take part in outdoor sports. The plight of women like Usman does not figure in NOW's "Six Priority Items," although Global Feminism is one of the 19 subjects it designates as "Other Important Issues." NOW hardly mentions Muslim women, except in the context of the demand that the U.S. military withdraw from Iraq. So what sort of issue does the flagship feminist organization consider important?

NOW has just launched a 2007 "Love Your Body" calendar as part of its ongoing initiative of the same name. The body calendar warns of an increase in eating disorders and includes a photograph celebrating the shape of pears. There is also an image of the Statue of Liberty with the caption, "Give me your curves, your wrinkles, your natural beauty yearning to breathe free." The calendar bears these inspiring words: "None of us is free until we are all free."

To breathe free, college women are encouraged to organize "Love Your Body" evenings. NOW suggests they host "Indulgence" parties: "Invite friends over and encourage them to wear whatever makes them feel good--sweat suits, flip flops, pajamas--and serve delicious, decadent foods or silly snacks without the guilt. Urge everyone to come prepared to talk about their feelings and experiences."

This is pathetic. To be sure, serious eating disorders afflict a small percentage of women. But much larger numbers suffer because poor eating habits and inactivity render them overweight, even obese. NOW should not be encouraging college girls to indulge themselves in ways detrimental to their well-being. Nor should it be using the language of human rights in discussing the weight problems of American women.

The inability to make simple distinctions shows up everywhere in contemporary feminist thinking. The Penguin Atlas of Women in the World, edited by geographer Joni Seager, is a staple in women's studies classes in universities. It was named "Reference Book of the Year" by the American Library Association and has received other awards. Seager, formerly a professor of women's studies and chair of geography at the University of Vermont, is now dean of environmental studies at York University in Toronto. Her atlas, a series of color-coded maps and charts, documents the status of women, highlighting the countries where women are most at risk for poverty, illiteracy, and oppression.

One map shows how women are kept "in their place" by restrictions on their mobility, dress, and behavior. Somehow the United States comes out looking as bad in this respect as Uganda: Both countries are shaded dark yellow, to signify extremely high levels of restriction. Seager explains that in parts of Uganda, a man can claim an unmarried woman for his wife by raping her. The United States gets the same rating because, Seager says, "state legislators enacted 301 anti-abortion measures between 1995 and 2001." Never mind that the Ugandan practice is barbaric, while the activism surrounding abortion in the United States is a sign of a contentious and free democracy working out its disagreements. Besides which, Seager's categories obscure the fact that in Uganda, abortion is illegal and "unsafe abortion is the leading cause of maternal mortality" (so states a 2005 report by the Gutt macher Institute), while American abortion law, even after the recent adoption of state regulations, is generally considered among the most liberal of any nation.

On another map the United States gets the same rating for domestic violence as Pakistan. Seager reports that in the United States, "22 percent-35 percent of women who seek emergency medical assistance at hospital are there for reasons of domestic violence." Wrong. She apparently misread a Justice Department study showing that 22 percent-35 percent of women who go to hospitals because of violent attacks are there for reasons of domestic violence. When this correction is made, the figure for domestic-violence victims in emergency rooms drops to a fraction of 1 percent. Why would Seager so uncritically seize on a dubious statistic? Like many academic feminists, she is eager to show that American women live under an intimidating system of "patriarchal authority" that is comparable to those found in many less developed countries. Never mind that this is wildly false.

Hard-line feminists such as Seager, Pollitt, Ensler, the university gender theorists, and the NOW activists represent the views of only a tiny fraction of American women. Even among women who identify themselves as feminists (about 25 percent), they are at the radical extreme. But in the academy and in most of the major women's organizations, the extreme is the mean. The hard-liners set the tone and shape the discussion. This is a sad state of affairs. Muslim women could use moral, intellectual, and material support from the West to improve their situation. But only a rational, reality-based women's movement would be capable of actually helping. Women who think that looking like a pear is an essential human right are not valuable allies.

More here

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of other countries. The only real difference, however, is how much power they have. In America, their power is limited by democracy. To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges. They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did: None. So look to the colleges to see what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way. It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH, EDUCATION WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.

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17 May, 2007

UNJUST BRITISH LIBEL LAWS

The libel laws are an abomination. They favour rich, litigious bullies at the expense of free expression. Even a website for mothers to chatter on is fair game to this draconian law. Last week mumsnet.com was forced to pay a five-figure sum for comments posted on its chat site. It stood by the comments but this law is such an ass that the burden of proof rests solely with the defendant. Meanwhile, claimants can make their allegations free from evidential proof. Their opinion is all that counts. They do not have to prove the comments are false. They don't even have to show any harm to their reputation. I can think of no other area in law in which an individual's spurious opinion outweighs the greater public good of truth and justice.

The Mumsnet case makes clear how libel affects everyone, not just journalists or those working in the traditional media. More and more of us, thanks to the growing ubiquity of blogs, chat groups and web forums, are vulnerable to this nefarious law. And while big media groups have deep pockets, the individual hasn't. If the damages don't get the writer, then legal costs certainly will. Most writers are not rich people and so they must settle. Result: vibrant debate is quashed, truth inevitably suffers. The law is so heavily weighted against freedom of expression that all writers (even those hosting blogs) are being urged to buy libel insurance; the freelance chapter of the National Union of Journalists is inundated with inquiries about its new policy.

No matter that the publishers of Mumsnet didn't even write the comments that the author Gina Ford claimed defamed her. Under the Defamation Act 1996 nonauthors can be held liable if they fail to expeditiously remove comments someone thinks are defamatory. But how quick is quick? The Mumsnet founder Justine Roberts said that the comments were taken down after little more than 24 hours. Yet the vagueness of the law means she would have to go to court to prove this was a reasonable time period.

As a result we now have a culture where the default position is not free speech but censorship. After the 2001 case Godfrey v. Demon Internet Ltd, all internet service providers became vulnerable to libel lawsuits if they failed to immediately censor comments that a person claimed were defamatory. Whether or not the words are true is irrelevant.

England's libel laws have never been about protecting individuals - at least not poor or helpless individuals. They are about protecting the rich and the powerful. A fair law would be one in which the claimant has to prove falsity, harm and malicious intention, while providing a defence for truth, reasonable care and the public interest. Then both reputations and freedom of expression could be protected. Until then, mum's the word.

Source



APA Panel Convened to Discuss Abortion After Effects is Stacked with Deniers

Does the fact that the American Psychological Association has agreed to examine the possible adverse effects of abortion on women's mental health mean the organization is reconsidering the issue? Warren Throckmorton, a psychology professor, counsellor and writer says, "Very likely, the answer is no."

The APA has convened a panel of experts to examine the possibility that women might be psychologically traumatized after abortion. Throckmorton points out, however, that each has gone on the public record saying there is no evidence that abortion has any long-term negative consequences for mental health.

Dr. Throckmorton warns that the APA's committee is necessarily biased, pointing to the APA's longstanding advocacy of abortion. In 1969, the Association declared that "termination of unwanted pregnancies" is a mental health issue, and resolved that "termination of pregnancy be considered a civil right of the pregnant woman."

The committee is charged with reviewing the published scientific literature on the impact of abortion on women's mental health and will report its findings in 2008. Given the APA's stated bias, however, it seems unlikely even to some of its members that an objective examination of the facts is possible. Dr. Rachel MacNair, an APA psychologist who calls herself a "pro-life feminist," told Throckmorton, "Although the APA included two experts on the trauma of domestic violence and an expert on methodology, three members have clearly stated ideological commitments to the `pro-choice' perspective."

MacNair said, "Only if the report comes out with conclusions opposite to what one would expect with the ideological commitment of half of its members would it have credibility; if it comes out as would be predicted, the absence of balance on the task force will be a problem for its scientific credibility." MacNair relates that she has experienced women who have claimed a connection between their abortions and subsequent psychological distress and been dismissed because of the APA's official pro-abortion position.

Source



Huge expansion of intervention in people's lives under Blair's "New Labour" government

From 'fetal ASBOs' to calorie-counting on the curriculum: the Blairites intervened in family life in ways the Tories never dreamed of

I was one of Thatcher's children. I started school in 1980 and did my GCSE exams in 1991; a childhood and adolescence spent entirely under that Tory prime minister's beaky nose, absorbing all the emotional anti-Thatcherism of the times. I remember Thatcher as a pantomime villain, like the child-catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, immortalised in the Spitting Image puppet that gave you nightmares. When she resigned, it seemed like a happy ending in the making.

But the Blair years have been worse. As a young person under Thatcher, at least you knew where you stood - you hated her, and you assumed that she hated you. Blair seems the opposite - a devoted daddy who wants to get down with the kids and help their parents, who professes to appreciate us and feel our pain. In reality, his reign has been a constant process of family-fiddling and therapeutic intervention, which has undermined parents and unsettled childhood. For example:

When Margaret Thatcher famously argued, back in 1987, that `there is no such thing as society; there are individual men and women, and there are families', this was understood as the apex of Thatcherite individualism. Forget the poor, the needy, the lonely - Eighties Britain was a place of sink or swim, and the family was seen as life-raft enough. That government's promotion of Victorian values and the virtues of home ownership, backed up by its intolerance of more `diverse' lifestyles or family forms (remember the ill-fated war on single parents?), have all entered the liberal lexicon as examples of just how bad the Tories were at looking after families. But Thatcher was more likely to leave us in peace and privacy than Blair's lot.

Blair's government had been in office a mere year when it published the consultation document Supporting Families. (One critique of the document had the apposite headline `Supporting Families like a rope supports a hanging man'.) As I have previously argued on spiked, the document's `message was clear: for too long, it has been assumed that families are best left alone to live their lives in private. Now the state should become more involved - through processes called supporting, helping and advising families - to encourage people to live their lives in the right way.' (See What future for the family?)

Under New Labour, the dynamic towards greater state involvement in everyday family life has intensified year on year. You can see this in initiatives such as the planned creation of a national database that effectively puts alls children under state surveillance (see Children: over-surveilled, under-protected), in the routine use of parenting classes and the more punitive parenting orders, and in the Sure Start scheme, which purports to be an anti-poverty childcare provision initiative but in reality is about sitting by the elbows of low-income parents and guiding them in the right way to bring up their kids (see A Sure Start for the therapeutic state). Parents under Blair are treated like irresponsible children, in need of constant guidance and monitoring by the state. If this is what is meant by society `supporting families', we'd be better off cut adrift.

One of Thatcher's most famous `nasty' moves was her decision, when education secretary in Edward Heath's government, to abolish free school milk: earning her the childish nickname `Thatcher Thatcher, Milk Snatcher'. But at least she never went down the Blairite route of demanding `Let them eat carrot sticks', and sending in a sort of Obesity Special Branch to check the contents of children's school lunchboxes.

The obsession with children's diet, formalised in New Labour's healthy schools initiative, is to me one of the most depressing aspects of bringing up children in today's society. Given a hysterically high profile by the celebrity chef Jamie `Parents Are Tossers' Oliver, the question of what children put into their mouths at breaktime is now considered of utmost political and educational importance. School prospectuses burble on about how keen they are to follow the government's healthy eating agenda and advise parents to ask themselves if their children really need a midmorning snack; reports by the schools inspection body Ofsted rate educational institutions on how well pupils are doing on their diet-and-exercise programmes and whether skinny-limbed kids come home refusing to eat their dinner because some teacher has told them that sausages are `bad foods' and chips `aren't healthy'.

Most parents are more concerned that their kids are eating enough than that they will turn into doughnuts, and we relish the enjoyment that children get out of eating the food they like. The Blair government's mean-spirited attitude to children's food is already poisoning the atmosphere around the dinner table and providing a bitter distraction from the fact that, when schools are not shoving the National Fruit Scheme down children's throats, they are filling their heads with junk. Yes, Thatcher messed about with the curriculum and got on the wrong side of most teachers. But she did not create a situation where calorie-counting was considered more important than maths.

Thatcher was hardly considered a teenager's best friend. Hers was the party of law'n'order as well as (unofficially) the party of youth unemployment, which would later, under John Major, push through the Criminal Justice Bill, widely perceived as a law against the `repetitive beats' of rave culture and other activities beloved of young people. But Thatcher never tried to give teenagers a criminal record while still in the womb.

In September 2006, Blair unveiled plans to identify and intervene in `problem families' at the earliest possible stage, to prevent their children becoming criminals later on in life. The UK media branded the scheme `fetal ASBOs' - a new extension of the Blair government's Anti-Social Behaviour Orders, which are used to whip teenagers into line for such offences as hanging out on the street. This has also been a government that issues on-the-spot fines for all manner of trivial misdemeanours and sends parents to jail if their children play hooky from school (see Parents: we are not the law). The politics of behaviour is promoted through a policy of `Respect' - as though the long arm of the law is any way to get teenagers to respect anything. (See Respect for what?)

Already it is reported that teenagers wear their ASBOS as a `badge of honour', and if they have stopped wearing hooded tops it is presumably not because of the government's sartorial advice on the subject. But it all creates a climate of conformity in which the young, typically more adventurous and energetic than the rest of society, might find themselves in counselling simply for wanting to cross the road.

Of course, none of this means that I pine for the Thatcher era. I remember it as being quite grey and bleak, with the sense of any political alternative crumbling before one's eyes. But the chrome-covered Blair years have been unable to disguise the mistrust, the lack of vision, and the narrow authoritarianism that has powered this government's regime. And now it's about to go Brown..

Source

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of other countries. The only real difference, however, is how much power they have. In America, their power is limited by democracy. To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges. They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did: None. So look to the colleges to see what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way. It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH, EDUCATION WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there are mirrors of this site here and here.

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16 May, 2007

Congressional Democrats prepare another assault on free speech

A recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll shows 6 in 10 Americans think the Democratic Congress "hasn't brought much change." Eager to change this impression, the Democrats are frantically trying to pass legislation before Memorial Day. First on the agenda is a bill restricting lobbying, which is heading for the House floor with lightning speed. The House Judiciary Committee is expected to pass it tomorrow, sending it to the full House for a final vote next Tuesday or Wednesday.

When a bill moves that quickly, you can bet an someone will try make some last-minute mischief. Hardly anyone objects to the legislation's requirement that former lawmakers wait two years instead of one before lobbying Congress. Ditto with bans on lobbying by congressional spouses and restrictions on sitting members of Congress negotiating contracts with private entities for future employment.

But the legislation may be amended on the floor to restrict grassroots groups that encourage citizens to contact members of Congress. The amendment, pushed by Rep. Marty Meehan of Massachusetts, would require groups that organize such grassroots campaigns to register as "lobbyists" and file detailed quarterly reports on their donors and activities. The law would apply to any group that took in at least $100,000 in any given quarter for "paid communications campaigns" aimed at mobilizing the public.

The same groups that backed the McCain-Feingold law, limiting political speech in advance of an election, are behind this latest effort to curb political speech. Common Cause and Democracy 21 say special-interest entities hide behind current law to conceal the identities of their donors, whom they would have to reveal if they were lobbying Congress directly. "These Astroturf campaigns are just direct lobbying by another name," says Rep. Meehan, who is resigning from the House this summer and views his bill as his last hurrah in Congress.

But the First Amendment specifically prohibits Congress from abridging "the right of the people . . . to petition the Government for redress of grievances." The Supreme Court twice ruled in the 1950s that grassroots communication isn't "lobbying activity," and is fully protected by the First Amendment. Among the groups that believe the Meehan proposal would trample on the First Amendment are the National Right to Life Committee and the American Civil Liberties Union. The idea goes too far even for Sen. John McCain, who voted to strip a similar provision from a Senate lobbying reform bill last January.

The possible outcomes are disturbing. For example, Oprah Winfrey operates a website dedicated to urging people to contact Congress to demand intervention in Darfur. If her Web master took in over $100,000 in revenue from Ms. Winfrey and similar clients in a single quarter, he might be forced to make disclosures under the law.

"It's huge," Jay Sekulow of the conservative American Center for Law and Justice, told The Hill newspaper. "It's the most significant restriction on grassroots activity in recent history. I'd put it up there with the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act"--the formal name for McCain-Feingold.

McCain-Feingold itself is riddled with loopholes, producing a slew of unintended consequences. Its provisions allowing candidates who compete against wealthy opponents who spend their own money to accept larger-than-normal legal contributions in order to compete inexplicably don't apply to the race for president. That means Mitt Romney and John Edwards, both of whom are independently wealthy, have a clear advantage should they run low on cash and need to inject funds into their campaigns quickly.

"Judged by the most visible results on promises like getting big money out of politics or cleaning up politics, campaign finance reform has been, to put it mildly, a disappointment," admits Mark Schmitt, a supporter of such reforms who has written a thoughtful essay in the journal Democracy. He urges reformers to now focus on expanding the "range of choices and voices in the system" and to take seriously the worries of those who fear that McCain-Feingold's restrictions on "election communication" have the potential to squelch important political speech. The Supreme Court is set to rule next month on a case addressing precisely that issue, and Justice Samuel Alito may be more inclined to view McCain-Feingold skeptically than was Sandra Day O'Connor, who was part of a 5-4 majority upholding the law.

Given the checkered history of campaign finance reform, its frequent use by one side of a political debate to hobble opponents, and the prospect that courts may yet find portions of McCain-Feingold unconstitutional, it would be a travesty for a Congress desperate for a quick-fix legislative accomplishment to circumscribe the First Amendment with little debate and even less understanding of what the consequences will be.

Source



British police madness government-driven

Police officers are being driven to make "ludicrous" arrests for trivial incidents to bolster government targets, the new Justice Secretary will be told. The leaders of 130,000 police officers have drawn up a dossier of "lunacy" on Britain's streets. They say that children are being arrested for throwing cream buns and bits of cucumber while adults are getting criminal records for offences that merit nothing more than a ticking-off. The pressure to get results is so bad, they say, that officers are criminalising and alienating their traditional supporters in Middle England and many are so disillusioned that they are considering quitting.

What police describe as a target-driven criminal justice culture will come under attack today as Lord Falconer of Thoroton, QC, who was appointed Secretary of State a week ago, faces a debate at the annual conference of the Police Federation, which represents rank-and-file officers in England and Wales. The conference in Blackpool will consider whether the drive to meet targets is destroying police officers' traditional discretion to deal with minor offences on the streets without fuss or bureaucracy. Officers say that ten years ago a minor incident involving someone without a criminal record would have led to "words of advice". Now, the federation says, performance targets mean that the people involved are becoming criminal statistics.

Jan Berry, the chairman of the federation, said: "We have police officers who are considering leaving the service over this because it is not the job they signed up to do. "These examples we have compiled are ludicrous, but when people are being pushed to show results they will use anything they can to demonstrate they are doing a good job." She added: "Just talking to people and giving them a few words of advice cannot be counted as easily as a ticket. But sometimes it is just as effective as taking someone to court."

A spokesman for the federation added: "We have got into the situation where everyone is so busy chasing targets and securing ticks in boxes we are on the verge of distancing ourselves from Middle England." He said: "The cases we have compiled show incidents where an officer has been under such pressure to deliver that it has resulted in an arrest or caution when even the officer themselves thinks it is ludicrous. Understandably, when the public hears about this they ask: `What the hell is going on?'." The spokesman added: "It is a government agenda that is going down this avenue. Officers are saying they are forced to make arrests or cautions because the Government believes they should be judged by what can be counted."

Chief constables have also complained about the increasing pressures to meet both national and local targets. Last autumn the Home Office issued 30 general targets that police must meet, as well as more specific figures. Earlier this year John Reid, the Home Secretary, who will be speaking at the conference on Wednesday, promised that he would cut some of the targets.

But last month officers in Greater Manchester were warned about issuing fixed-penalty notices to drunks for public order offences so that they would count towards their target of two detected offences a month. Home Office research last year found a nationwide increase in drunks being penalised for causing harassment, alarm or distress. Researchers concluded that the trend may have been driven by government target-setting. Notices issued for offences such as causing harassment, alarm or distress count as a "violent crime" and an "offence brought to justice" for the purposes of Home Office statistics. The alternative, lesser charge of being drunk and disorderly does not count towards police detection targets.

Source



Australian PM Howard shows the way on Zimbabwe

It's time somebody did, says Melanie Phillips:

JUST what was that ghostly and unfamiliar noise we heard over the weekend? Good heavens - it was the sound of a country's political leader actually exercising leadership. The Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, ordered his nation's cricket team to pull out of a scheduled tour of Zimbabwe in September and even threatened to suspend the players' passports if the sport's governing body did not abide by his decision. His reason was that the proposed tour would be an "enormous propaganda boost" to Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe, a "grubby dictator" who was behaving "like the Gestapo towards his political opponents". Despite the fact that for more than two decades the population of Zimbabwe has been starved and brutalised by Mugabe's tyranny, this is the first time a government has actually stopped its sportsmen playing there.

At a stroke, Mr Howard has thus exposed the supine hypocrisy of the rest of the world's leaders who, faced with Zimbabwe's escalating agony, have done nothing except wring their hands. What a difference, for example, from the behaviour back in 2004 of the British Government, whose supposedly "ethical" foreign policy did not stretch to stopping the England cricket team touring Zimbabwe.

Britain's cravenness is particularly shameful given that Mugabe is President of Zimbabwe only because the British put him there. A government that was intended to liberate people from repressive minority white rule has instead enslaved them through corruption, violence and tyranny.

In recent months, hundreds of Zimbabwe's opposition members, supporters and activists have been arrested, abducted or tortured. Earlier this month, a group of lawyers was beaten up by police in Harare outside the Ministry of Justice, where they were trying to present a petition against the unlawful arrest and detention of two of their colleagues. In March, the Opposition Leader Morgan Tsvangirai was arrested and beaten. In the same month opposition activist Nelson Chamisa was brutally attacked on his way to attend an EU-African, Caribbean and Pacific meeting in Brussels - while three regime members were allowed to attend despite an EU ban against Zimbabwe's Government travelling to Europe.

Moreover, Tony Blair recently told senior Labour colleagues that Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF party should be permitted to attend an EU-Africa summit in Portugal next autumn, again in flagrant breach of the EU ban - on the grounds it was better to "confront" Mugabe than exclude him.

The rest of the world has been similarly spineless. Despite South Africa's enormous influence over Zimbabwe, its President Thabo Mbeki has refused to exert pressure on Mugabe to relinquish power. Elsewhere in the sporting world, according to Zimbabwe's own state-run newspaper, football's governing body FIFA has given South Africa permission to allow visiting teams to base themselves in Zimbabwe during the 2010 World Cup. And to cap it all, Zimbabwe has recently been chosen - grotesquely - to head a key United Nations committee on the environment, while it so foully desecrates its own.

In such a morally degraded world, John Howard's initiative is so rare as to be utterly startling. Yet it is very much in line with his general political approach, in which he stands up for what he thinks is right without fear of any hostile reaction and simply calls a spade a spade. This confident outspokenness derives from a quality that is very rare in Western leaders -- being entirely comfortable in his own cultural skin.

So much of our political class is paralysed by guilt for what it perceives to be the West's original sin of colonialism. Indeed, the reason Mr Blair gave for suggesting Zimbabwe should attend this autumn's summit was that Britain's colonial past made it hard for the UK to criticise Mugabe's regime. Mr Howard, in sharp contrast, is entirely free of such absurd and crippling cultural cringe. He believes in Australia and its Western values. He thinks these values are superior to any alternatives. And it is this total absence of equivocation in upholding the national interest which explains his robust defence of both Australian identity and Western civilisation against attack.

He is an unwavering ally of America in Iraq and Afghanistan - while others are withdrawing troops from Iraq, he has sent more. He has introduced tough anti-terrorism laws, and has no truck with attempts to use human rights laws to weaken Australia's national security. And he and his senior ministers have spoken out against Islamic extremism in Australia, stating there will be no acceptance of sharia law, turning down a proposal to build a mosque with Saudi Arabian money and declaring that anyone who does not want to live by Australian values should go elsewhere. With the US presidential elections coming up next year, there is a vacancy for the leadership of the Western world. What a pity John Howard can't apply.

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Australia: Far too much government secretiveness

IT is a perverse fact of modern life that as technology dissolves the barriers to instant and limitless communication, the response of governments in Australia has been to increase the limits on what information can be made public. This ranges from a clampdown on simple public service information, such as which restaurants have failed council health checks, to the more sinister pursuit and prosecution of genuine whistleblowers who speak out for community good. It is a sobering statistic that Australia ranks 35th on a global index of media freedom by Reporters Without Borders, behind Latvia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, South Korea and Ghana, among others. The clampdown on the media's ability to report, and the community's right to know, reflects both a cynical manipulation of freedom of information regimes by successive state and federal governments and a power grab by law enforcement agencies under the guise of the war on terror. The combined result has been a trend that, allowed to continue unchallenged, threatens to undermine the foundations on which Australian democracy is based.

Concern has been raised formally by Australia's major news publishers and broadcasters, including News Limited. In an address to the Australian Press Council last week, Fairfax Media chief executive David Kirk outlined the pernicious way in which the anti-terror laws operate against press freedom. Federal police have been given the right to require any person, including journalists, to produce documents, based on the suspicion that they might assist the investigation of a terrorist offence, without having to produce a warrant.

It is a criminal offence to report that such a request has been made, punishable by up to two years in prison. Just as it is a criminal offence, punishable by up to five years in prison, to report that a preventive detention order has been made in relation to a detainee or any information conveyed by the detained person. While there will always be competition between public disclosure and secrecy when it comes to issues of national security, the increasing trend towards lessening the role of the judiciary in making that decision, such as the need for a warrant to be issued, is to be deplored. It is equally clear that neither national security nor public interest is always the prime concern of governments when it comes to keeping secrets. While Attorney-General Philip Ruddock has made public concessions to press freedom, promising shield laws to protect journalists from having to reveal their sources, the commonwealth's approach is flawed.

As the case of former Customs officer Allan Kessing demonstrates, giving protection to journalists from having to reveal sources is of little use to whistleblowers, who remain at risk of being rooted out and prosecuted within the public service. Mr Kessing is facing up to two years in prison after being found guilty of making public a classified report that the prosecution argued formed the basis of a series of reports in The Australian which led to a $212 million upgrade of national airport security. The report detailed near anarchy at Sydney airport. Mr Kessing was a contributor to the report, which was apparently shelved for two years after going through the appropriate chain of command for action. The newspaper has never revealed if Mr Kessing was its source. Under NSW legislation, a whistleblower would be protected for acting in the public interest in making such a report public if his