L is for Leftism  … M is for Marxism and Misery …  R is for Religion, Radicalism, and Revolution …  S is for Superstition, Socialism, and Serfdom … T is for Tyranny …

But that is not what children are being taught.

The religion of the Left has many names: Collectivism, Statism, Socialism, Communism, Progressivism, Marxism …

It is inculcated into children from their infancy, just as the various Christianities, Islamic faiths, Judaisms, Hinduisms, Buddhisms are drummed into little heads.

Where the Left is in power, the inculcation begins in kindergarten. At least in California.

No separation of church and state there. The Left will not admit that it is itself a religion.

This is from Townhall, by Kyle Olson:

Is your three-year-old preschooler chanting “union power” these days? She might, if author Innosanto Nagara has his way.

Nagara wrote A is for Activist, a book supposedly geared for the children of the “99 percent.” In other words, a new vehicle has been developed for leftists to begin indoctrinating children.

“It’s pretty awesome to hear a three-year-old saying ‘union power,’” Nagara said …

But union power and student activism aren’t the only goals. Consider these other letters and how they are applied in the book:

B is for banner, as in a protest banner hanging off a construction crane

L is for LGBTQ, as in Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual, Transgendered and Queer

T is for Trans, as in transgendered

Z is for Zapatistas, as in Mexican revolutionary leftists

Heady stuff for preschoolers, but the indoctrinators believe the tikes are old enough to learn the basics of revolutionary thought.

Nagara’s A is for Activist has been heralded by the likes of Code Pink’s Medea Benjamin, who said, “Many a thousand young activists bloom!”

“This is an amazing book for toddlers,” wrote Oakland teachers union activist Mary Prophet.

The Radical teachers group Rethinking Schools gave the book its hearty endorsement, offering it on its resources page.

“This beautifully illustrated alphabet reader brings a whole new vocabulary to board books,” the organizations wrote about the book. “For example, ‘Kings are fine for storytime/Knights are fun to play/But when people make decisions/we will choose the people’s way.’ As a spirited and humor-filled introduction to progressive values, A is for Activist is a book to grow on, and return to again and again for many years. It could also be used as a prompt for older students to create their own alphabet books with a conscience.”

One might ask how anyone with a conscience could even think about exposing little children to this sort of political garbage, or how any parents wouldallow it.

East Bay Express – an “alternative” Oakland news outlet – said the book is for “grooming your future activist.”

“Children’s entertainment comes with no shortage of messages: disobedient princesses learning to obey their parents; giant red dogs urging teamwork; purple dinosaurs imparting the wisdom of just being yourself,” the newspaper wrote. “But with a few exceptions, kids’ books, movies, and music highlight only a narrow range of voices and viewpoints. Most are an implicit endorsement of stratified wealth. … There’s an acute shortage of voices from queer folks and people of color. Many have outmoded gender norms.”

Who knew Barney [a purple dinosaur on a TV children's program] was endorsing the perpetuation of “stratified wealth”? …

There is a war on for the minds of our future leaders. And judging by Nagara’s book, they’re targeting children at younger and younger ages. …

As a parent, do you know what your student is learning?

From Bare Naked Islam:

58 Hindus were killed and 43 injured when Muslims attacked the Sabarmati Express and set afire four of its coaches at Godhra railway station in Gujarat on February 27th, 2002.

 

 

 

Hindu children killed by Muslims with machetes

 

Find more pictures of such atrocities committed by Muhammad’s faithful followers in the name of Allah the Merciful here – if you can bear to look at them.

Religion is the sickness of the world. It is a destructive force, profoundly evil.

If there was an excuse for dogmatic superstition in ages past – say, as an explanation by which people tried to understand and influence the forces of nature – there is none now. Irrational belief can only be harmful.

History is hugely about the clash of religions. And in our time millions of people are experiencing an eruption of religious strife as widespread and catastrophic as any that has ever occurred, possibly the worst ever considering the numbers involved. Right now religion is the major cause of wars, massacres, and vast movements of desperate refugees.

Islam, the most belligerent of the world’s religions, is waging war fiercely on the rest of the world. Its methods are savage and cowardly. Wherever the faithful of other religions are weakest and most at their mercy, Muslims are torturing, burning, dismembering, raping, and slaughtering them.

Most of their victims (other than fellow Muslims of a different sect) are Christians. In Arab lands, Christians are being forced to flee or die.

In particular the Coptic Christians of Egypt are victims of the Muslim revolutionaries who rose demanding “freedom” for themselves, but are unwilling to grant it to the Copts.

Barry Rubin writes at PajamasMedia:

Christians in most of the Arabic-speaking world may be on the edge of flight or extinction. All of the Christians have left the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip which is, in effect, an Islamist republic. They are leaving the West Bank. Half have departed from an increasingly Islamist-oriented Iraq where they are under terrorist attack. …

In Lebanon while the Christians are holding their own there is a steady emigration. …

Egypt has more Christians than Israel’s entire population. There have been numerous attacks, with the latest in Cairo leaving 12 dead, 220 wounded, and two churches burned. …

We of this website do not mourn for the buildings, only the people. To us, every church, every mosque, every temple is a monument to intolerance, oppression, persecution, and massacre.

The Christians cannot depend on any support from Western churches or governments. Will there be a massive flight of tens or even hundreds of thousands of Christians from Egypt in the next few years? …

Very likely – but where will they go? What country will grant them asylum?

Up until now, the strength of the Muslim Brotherhood has been badly underestimated in the West. But increasingly it is also apparent that the strength of anti-Islamist forces has been overestimated.

Like most Western commentators, Professor Rubin nervously makes a distinction between Muslims and “Islamists” – by which he can only mean more actively jihadist Muslims, such as the Muslim Brotherhood.

I have noted that even Amr Moussa, likely to be Egypt’s next president and a radical nationalist, has predicted an Islamist majority in parliament. That should be a huge story yet has been largely ignored.

He is not creating his own party, meaning that a President Moussa will be dependent on the Muslim Brotherhood in parliament. Rather than the radical nationalists battling the Islamists these two forces might well work together.

And who will they be working against? …

Christians certainly. Christians everywhere in the Muslim world. But not only Christians. No non-Muslim is exempt from Muslim animosity.

So what does the Western world, where the children of the Enlightenment have a civilization ordered by reason, try to do about it? How do Western leaders diagnose the problem? If they will not consider that religion itself might be the cause, what do they prescribe for a cure?

First they hold a discussion.

That could be a good start, if opinion would eventually agree on the real cause of the disease.

We confidently predict that will not happen.

At Front Page, Faith J.H.McDonnell writes:

On April 29, 2011, the State Department’s Office of International Religious Freedom (IRF) co-sponsored a 2011 Hours Against Hate event. Hosted by George Washington University, the event was billed as a “Town Hall Discussion on U.S. efforts to combat discrimination and hatred against Jews, Muslims, and others.” Hopefully, the 100 million-plus Christians experiencing persecution around the world today, along with Hindus, Sikhs, Baha’i, etc., are included in “and others.” The IRF office should be reminded that advocates for persecuted Christians played a major role in its creation, along with the creation of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). Both were mandates of the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act (IRFA).

Though outspoken in their denouncement of hurtful language, the folks at Foggy Bottom have been silent about the massacre of hundreds of Christians in Kaduna State, and several other states in northern Nigeria that took place after Nigeria’s federal elections last month. Angry that Christian President Goodluck Jonathan defeated Muslim candidate Muhammadu Buhari, Islamists in the Shariah-ruled north began rioting on Monday, April 18, 2011, after preliminary results of the April 16 election were announced. Soon newspapers featured grisly photos of charred bodies lining the streets.* Hundreds of churches were burned and thousands of Christian-owned businesses destroyed, according to the Christian human rights group, Open Doors. And International Christian Concern reported that the Kaduna-based Civil Rights Congress was still “discovering more details of massacres that have been carried out in the hinterland.” Upwards of 40,000 Christians have been displaced in the past few weeks.

In its comments about the situation in Nigeria, the U.S. State Department disregarded the religious aspect of the post-election mayhem. Secretary of State Clinton’s April 19 statement on the elections (available in Arabic as well as English) “deplored violence,” but ignored the targeting of Christians. …

Although some, including U.S. State Department officials, would paint the post-election violence as purely political, the head of the advocacy group Justice for Jos, attorney Emmanuel Ogebe, refutes this claim. … [He]  says that for the Islamists in northern Nigeria, “anything is used as an excuse to kill Christians — beauty pageants, lunar eclipses, school exams, political elections….” These are the sundry reasons in the last dozen years alone that have sparked violent, deadly attacks against Christians. …

Strikes on Christians took place simultaneously in rural districts of a dozen Nigerian states … Some initial attacks took place in the middle of the night, when the Christians were least able to defend themselves. And anti-Christian sentiment was inflamed in many of northern Nigeria’s mosques … Victims were made to quote the Quran, not identify for whom they had voted. …

Pastor Emmanuel Nuhu Kure … demanded, “How would you explain a spontaneous call to prayer on most of the loudspeakers of the mosques across the city at the same time, at 9 p.m. or thereabout in the night, with a shout of ‘Allah Akbar’ as Muslims began to troop towards the mosques and designated areas, to be followed at 10 p.m. with another call on loudspeakers – this time with a spontaneous shout of “Allah Akbar” from the mosques and most of the streets occupied by Muslims and the burst of gunfire sound that shook the whole city?” Kure said that these actions were repeated a few times, and then “the killings and burnings began.” And … Bishop Jonas Katung, national vice president of the North Central Zone of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, stated that the post-election attacks “were ‘a descent into barbarism’ in which northern Christians were targeted and subjected to horrendous and relentless acts.”

After performing the obligatory “deploring” of “the violence” in an April 28 press briefing, Assistant Secretary of State for Africa Johnnie Carson assured the media that “the president and the main opposition candidates both called on their supporters to not support violent activities and to work to restore peace as quickly as possible.” Yet the media has reported in the past that Buhari told his supporters “never again allow an infidel to rule over you” …

The US State Department, and the governments of the Western world generally, are propitiating Islam. That’s like treating the plague with soothing syrops. Islam is a symptom. The sickness is religion itself.

*For a picture of the lined up bodies of Christians burnt to death in Nigeria, see our post Acts of religion, November 6, 2010.

In his speech to a largely Muslim audience at a Ramadan dinner at the White House on Friday August 13, 2010 [transcript here], Obama stressed points of US law and the values that inspired them to justify his support for the building of a mosque at the site of the 9/11 attack in New York. The speech was a ringing endorsement of religious tolerance. These are some of the statements he made:

Thomas Jefferson wrote that “all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion.” The First Amendment of our Constitution established the freedom of religion as the law of the land.

Indeed, over the course of our history, religion has flourished within our borders precisely because Americans have had the right to worship as they choose – including the right to believe in no religion at all. And it is a testament to the wisdom of our Founders that America remains deeply religious – a nation where the ability of peoples of different faiths to coexist peacefully and with mutual respect for one another stands in contrast to the religious conflict that persists around the globe.

As a citizen, and as President, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country.

This is America, and our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakeable. The principle that people of all faiths are welcome in this country, and will not be treated differently by their government, is essential to who we are. The writ of our Founders must endure.

He implied that Islam  shares the American value of tolerance, custom of “diversity”, and principle of mutual respect:

Tonight, we are reminded that Ramadan is a celebration of a faith known for great diversity.

We can only achieve “liberty and justice for all” if we live by that one rule at the heart of every religion, including Islam—that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us.

That’s the so-called “Golden Rule”, holy writ for Jews and Christians. It’s also a sound principle for all civilized people to revere – and perhaps even to try and live by. But we doubt that you could find it stated or suggested in the Koran or any authoritative source of Islamic belief.

Obama, however, is not alone in alleging that the laws and values of America are compatible with the sharia law of Islam. One Muslim who supports his view, at least to some degree, is Feisal Abdul Rauf, the imam who is planning to build the mosque at Ground Zero.

In his book What’s Right With Islam is What’s Right With America: A New Vision for Muslims and the West, Chapter 3, America: A Sharia-Compliant State, Rauf writes:

What I am demonstrating is that the American political structure is Shariah compliant.

The principles of the Declaration and Constitution are consistent with divine ordinance, the particular method of government and a particular scheme of sociopolitical cooperation that follow from it are thereby invested with divine sovereignty and command an authority that comes from God.

But the claim is exposed as fiction by Dr Jal Maharaj. He has devised a questionnaire for Muslims seeking U.S. Citizenship, which illustrates the essential difference between American law and sharia. He lists the contradictions, and at the end of each item asks the imaginary Muslim applicant, “Do you repudiate this verse in the Qur’an [which contradicts US law]?”

Here is an abridged version of his document:

1. The Constitution of the United States requires equal legal rights for men and women. [Sharia does not.]

Qur’an, Surah 2: 282 says, in part: “call in to witness from among 
your men two witnesses; but if there are not two men, then one man 
and two women from among those whom you choose to be witnesses…” 
This is the basis for Shariah law which holds that in all cases of 
law the testimony of two women is necessary to equal that of one man.

2. US Law does not tolerate wife beating and regards it as a crime [while sharia orders it].

Qur’an, Surah 4: 34 says: “Men are the maintainers of women because 
Allah has made some of them to excel others and because they spend 
out of their property; the good women are therefore obedient, guarding the unseen as Allah has guarded. But as to those women on 
whose part you fear desertion, admonish them, and leave them alone 
in the sleeping-places and beat them …”

(3) Cruel and unusual punishment is illegal by provisions of the 
US Constitution.

This includes such retribution as physical mutilation and injury to 
the body.

Quran, Surah 5: 38 “As for the thief, both male and female, cut off 
their hands. … ”

Surah 5: 33 “The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger, and strive with might and main for mischief 
through the land is: execution, or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet from opposite sides, or exile from the land:”

(4) The age of marriage varies by state, but in all cases requires 
that a wife should be of child bearing age, that is, she should be 
post-pubescent, generally 15 or 16 years of age minimum, 17 or 18 in 
other jurisdictions.

Qur’an, Surah 65: 4 “As for your women who have despaired of further 
menstruating, if you are in doubt, then their waiting period is three 
months as well as those who have not yet menstruated. As for those 
who are pregnant, their term shall be the time they deliver their 
burden. Allah will ease (matters) by His order for whosoever fears 
Him.”

As a Muslim scholar named Maududi has said in his official [and incomprehensible! - JB] interpretation of this verse:

“Therefore, making mention of the waiting-period for girls who have not yet menstruated, clearly proves that it is not only permissible to give away the girl at this age but it is permissible for the husband to consummate marriage with her. Now, obviously no Muslim has 
the right to forbid a thing which the Qur’an has held as 
permissible.”

(5) The 13th Amendment to the US Constitution explicitly outlaws slavery in all forms, male or female.

Qur’an, Surah 4: 92 “And it does not behoove a believer to kill a 
believer except by mistake, and whoever kills a believer by mistake, 
he should free a believing slave, and blood-money should be paid, but 
he who cannot find a slave should fast for two months successively.” 
As scholars have pointed out, this verse assumes that Muslims will own slaves, or a significant number will, as did Muhammad, who owned slaves and bought and sold them. This is just one verse out of dozens that approve the institution of slavery and present in as an eternal condition of humanity.

(6) Hate speech is objectionable in American culture, and federal 
law regards such language as legally actionable, deserving punishment.

Qur’an, Surah 5: 60 – 65, says in part, speaking specifically of Jews 
as verse 59 makes clear, “Those whom God has cursed and with whom He 
has been angry, he has transformed them into apes and pigs, and those 
who serve the devil”

This is the source of Muslim demonstrators’ signs and chants that Jews are apes and pigs — the Qur’an itself. There are still other 
passages in Muhammad’s book which also are anti-Semitic — as the 
term is generally used in America to refer to anti-Jewish bigotry.

(7) War or any acts of physical violence, or threat of violence, with the intention of forcing people to convert to a religion is utterly abhorrent to American law and is explicitly outlawed by the 
First Amendment.

Qur’an, Surah 8: 12 “Thy Lord inspired the angels (with the 
message): “I am with you: give firmness to the Muslims, I will instill terror into the hearts 
of the unbelievers. Smite them on their necks and cut all their fingers off.”

This is one of 164 jihad verses in Muhammad’s book. Of this number 
approximately 100 are commandments to able-bodied Muslim men to physically fight against non-believers.

There is no reasonable doubt that the meaning of the 100 
jihad verses in question all promote violence against people of other 
faiths. The main objective is conversion but also important is 
terrorizing others so that they fear the wrath of Muslims.

(8) The First Amendment guarantees freedom of religion to all US 
citizens. No-one may prohibit someone from changing religion, or 
ceasing to belong to a religion. No-one may prohibit someone, in any 
appropriate setting, from seeking to convince someone else of the 
rightness of his or her faith and seeking to win converts. No 
believers of any faith are exempt from this provision of the First 
Amendment.

Qur’an, Surah 4:88-89 “Then what is the matter with you that you 
are divided into two parties about the hypocrites? Allah has cast 
them back (to disbelief )… Do you want to guide him whom Allah has 
made go astray?… They wish that you reject (Islam), and thus that 
you all become equal (like any other faith). So, take not… 
(friends) from them, till they emigrate in the way of Allah (to 
Muhammad). But if they turn away (from Islam), take hold of them 
and kill them wherever you find them.” One of several verses which 
deal with what Muslims characterize as apostasy. The penalty for what 
Americans insist is a God-given right, to free choice in religion, 
is death in an Islamic context.

(9) In America, free speech is sacrosanct and, while a people have 
the right to object to criticisms of their beliefs, and while others 
must obey libel or slander laws, everyone who so desires is free to 
make any criticisms of religion he or she wishes to make.

Qur’an, Surah 4: 140 “Allah will collect the hypocrites and those who defy faith – and put them in Hell.” This is one verse which is 
foundational to Shariah law penalizing all forms of what Muslims 
characterize as “blasphemy.” Depending on the “offense” and what 
country such law is enforced in, the punishment may be anything from 
jail time or banishment, to death.

What qualifies as blasphemy? A few examples–criticizing Islam making 
jokes about Muhammad or the Qur’an criticizing the Qur’an, … criticizing Muhammad, especially perceived insults 
of Muhammad criticizing such Muslim practices as saying prayers 5 times a day, … reporting objective facts that embarrass Muslims, such as the fact that Muhammad married Aisha, a 
girl of 6 and consummated the “marriage” when she was 9, creating an 
image of Muhammad or portraying him with an actor in a movie or stage play …

(10) The First Amendment guarantees freedom to worship any deity of 
your choice. Or freedom to be an Agnostic or Atheist. You may worship 
100 Gods or Goddesses, or just one, or none at all. All US citizens 
accept this principle but are free to express their opinions if they 
think someone else’s beliefs are wrong.

Qur’an 4: 116 “Verily Allah does not forgive setting up partners in 
worship with Him. But He forgives whom he pleases, sins other than 
that.” To be devoted to a Goddess, in other words, is, in Islam, the 
unforgivable sin. Also extremely serious is 2: 28, “How do you 
disbelieve in Allah, seeing that you were dead and he gave you life! 
Then he will cause you to die…”

In other words, Goddess worship [as in Hinduism] deserves death according to Islam, and Atheists also deserve death.

Dr Maharaj adds:

There are numerous other morally reprehensible passages in the 
Qur’an, all of which contravene American law and the freedoms 
guaranteed in the Constitution.

And declares that in his opinion:

Islam should be recognized for what 
it is, a subversive and criminal religion that functions in outright defiance of American law and which is based on principles which are totally incompatible with the US Constitution.

Quod erat demonstrandum.

Easter in our day disguises with its bunnies, prancing lambs, and chocolate eggs, an ancient savage ritual of religious superstition, when the fertility gods were propitiated by the sacrificial spilling of blood, so that the earth would yield crops to sustain human life. The living beings sacrificed were variously animals, children, priests who represented divinities in human form. The Christian idea of a god-man sacrifice in the Easter season is far from unique.

In 1875, Kersey Graves, a teacher and farmer born of a Pennsylvanian Quaker family, published a book titled The World’s Sixteen Crucified Saviors. He rejected Christianity but did not become an atheist. The book is not a scholarly work, but a literary curiosity.

Among his “sixteen crucified saviors”, the one whose legend bears most resemblance to that of Jesus Christ is Krishna – which he chooses to spell “Chrishna” in order to make it look more like “Christ”. He lists hundreds of similarities between the stories of Chrishna and Christ, among them these:

• Each is miraculously born of a virgin (Mary, Maia)
• Both have an adopted earthly father, in each case a carpenter
• Each new-born child is visited by shepherds and wise men, directed by a star
• In each story a tyrant orders all first-born sons to be put to death (Herod, Cansa)
• In each story mother, child, and adopted father escape by fleeing out of the tyrant’s reach
• Both in early youth dispute with learned men and win the argument
• Both when grown retire to a wilderness
• Both are baptized in a river
• They preach similar sermons about love, forgiveness, and humility
• Each has a favorite among his followers (John, Arjoon)
• Each heals a leper and many others
• Both cast out devils
• Both bring the dead back to life
• Each performs miracles including enabling his disciples to net a harvest of fish
• Both denounce wealth
• Both have a “last supper”
• Both are put to death by crucifixion as an atoning sacrifice (nailed to a cross, nailed to a tree)
• Both are crucified between two thieves
• In both legends the earth is darkened when they “die”
• Both resurrect and ascend to heaven
• Each is the cult figure of a new religion and declared to be a savior of mankind
• Both are believed by their followers to be God incarnate

One of the amusing parts of the book, and suitable for today – this being “Good Friday” – is his chapter on The Atonement, in which he writes:

No innocent person has a right to suffer for the guilty, and the courts have no right to accept the offer or admit the substitute. An illustration will show this. If Jefferson Davis had been convicted of the crime of treason, and sentenced to be hung, and Abraham Lincoln had come forward and offered to be stretched upon the gallows in his place, is there a court in the civilized world which would have accepted the substitute, hung Lincoln and liberated Davis? To ask the question is but to answer it. It is an insult to reason, law and justice to entertain this proposition.

In addition – we say – to its being a really nasty thing to do: to make others feel guilty by inflicting agonizing punishment on yourself when it is they whom you accuse of doing wrong.

Kersey Graves goes on:

The doctrine of the atonement also involves the infinite absurdity of God punishing himself to appease his own wrath. For if “the fullness of the Godhead dwelt in Christ bodily” (as taught in Col.ii.9), then his death was the death of God – that is, a divine suicide, prompted and committed by a feeling of anger and revenge, which terminated the life of the Infinite Ruler – a doctrine utterly devoid of reason, science or sense. We are sometimes told man owes a debt to his Maker, and the atonement pays that debt. To be sure! And to whom is the debt owing, and who pays it? Why, the debt is owing to God, and God (in the person of Jesus Christ) pays it – pays it to himself. We will illustrate. A man approaches his neighbor, and says, “Sir, I owe you a thousand dollars, but can never pay it.” “Very well, it makes no difference,” replies the claimant, “I will pay it myself”; and forthwith thrusts his hand into his right pocket and extracts the money, transfers it to his left pocket and exclaims – “There, the debt is paid!” A curious way of paying debts, and one utterly devoid of sense. And yet the orthodox world have adopted it for their God. We find, however, that they carefully avoid practicing this principle themselves in their dealings with each other. …

But we find, upon further investigation, that the assumed debt is not paid – after all.

When a debt is paid, it is canceled, and dismissed from memory, and nothing more said about it. But in this case the sinner is told he must still suffer the penalty for every sin he commits, notwithstanding Christ died to atone for and cancel that sin.

Where then is the virtue of the atonement? Like other doctrines of the orthodox creed, it is at war with reason and common sense, and every principle of sound morality, and will be marked by coming ages as a relic of barbarism.

We hope so. But let’s keep on with the chocolate.