Now that a Chicago politician has been elected to the presidency of the United States, and only now, the sewer that is Chicago politics is being investigated. 

The Chicago Sun-Times carries the story.

Was the President-elect involved in the corrupt  politics of Illinois?  He was not just casually acquainted with Tony Rezko. He had dealings with him which smell pretty bad. See this report in the Washington Times. Tony Rezko is in prison, where he belongs. Obama is heading for the White House.

From the Washington Post:

Rezko was a key supporter and donor throughout Mr. Obama’s political career, with the Illinois Democrat estimating that Rezko raised $250,000 for his various political campaigns, though not for his presidential bid. The two were friends [!] who talked frequently about politics and occasionally dined out together with their wives.

Rezko was convicted this summer on federal charges of using his clout with state government to squeeze kickbacks out of firms wanting to do business with the state. The charges did not involve Mr. Obama. [???] Rezko is now cooperating with federal prosecutors in a continuing probe of corruption in Illinois government.

Mr. Obama consulted Rezko, a real estate developer, before buying his home in 2005. [See the whole report to judge if this adequately sums up what happened.] 

As a state senator, Mr. Obama wrote letters endorsing government support of a Rezko housing project for senior citizens.

Obama aides say he was simply supporting a project that would help residents of his district, not doing a favor for a friend.[???]

Blind Spot: When Journalists Don’t Get Religion edited by Paul Marshall, Lela Gilbert, Roberta Green Ahmanson,  OUP  New York  220 pages

Notable for ignorance of religion are the atheist authors of several recent books (Richard Dawkins is one of the crop) who have written against it at length with less knowledge than they’d dare bring to any other topic. Their justifiable disdain for belief in the supernatural blinds them to the importance of this set of ideas that has  helped to shape history.  But a critic’s scorn is valuable only if he knows what he’s scorning.  (If you wanted advice on wines, would you consult a teetotaler?)  Atheists can make a perfectly good case for rejecting the idea of a deity without immersing themselves in theology; but if they want to criticize actual religions, they should study them.

Now comes a book by religious authors objecting, with justice, to the ignorance of journalists who fail to see the importance of religion in current world affairs. It is true that journalists don’t know enough about religion. But very few people do, actually, including the religious. Besides, most journalists don’t know much about anything, especially the stories they cover. 

One of the essays, Religion and Terrorism: Misreading al Qaeda by Paul Marshall of the Hudson Institute, concerns the essentially religious motivation of al Qaeda. It is true and clear. Every reporter and commentator on world affairs should know what it teaches.   

Very different is God is Winning by Timothy Samuel Shah and Monica Duffy Toft. It contains a message so at odds with Paul Marshall’s that I wonder why he, as one of the editors of the collection, included it.

Here we are told that religion has become increasingly influential of late in global politics. Well, yes and no. It is true of one religion only, Islam: and wherever the authors cite a true instance of what they are trying to prove, it is an example of Islamic activity. What they don’t say – or see? – is that this religious surge is a terrible aggression.

The attack of 9/11 was a profoundly religious act. It was perpetrated in the name of Islam, the religion that is steadily, determinedly, and all too successfully advancing through the world with the intention of dominating it. This dark threat by one of the old established ‘revealed’ religions  (which is the sort of religion the authors are talking about rather than the new kind such as Socialism or Global-Warmism) is a force that needs to be confronted and defeated. What makes it formidable is that it’s engaged in a victory-or-death struggle for survival. It is itself under existential threat because its time has long since ended. The plain truth is that this is not an age of religion. Religion is not a fertile field any more, nor has been for a long time.  The last ‘new’ idea in religion that affected the course of events on any significant scale was eighteenth-century Methodism, which was a revivalist movement rather than a real innovation. Religion now is sterile.  What characterizes our time chiefly, and in terms of its achievements uniquely, is scientific enquiry. This is the Age of Science. It makes no difference how many people believe in a god or gods, worship in temples, perform rites and ceremonies, or declare their faith to be important to them; or that certain creeds are gaining converts; the fact remains that religion is no longer a fertile field.  In such a time as this a set of irrational beliefs claiming to encapsulate all truth and knowledge, conceived in the Dark Ages, which is what Islam is, cannot but be engaged in an existential struggle; and unless it is totally victorious, so that it can impose its darkness on the whole earth, stop Science in its tracks, destroy all that Science has achieved along with the technologies it has fathered, and utterly expunge scientific discovery from memory and record (as the Catholic Church once tried to do), Islam is doomed to be a fossil in the museum of  archaic ideas.  

To the authors of God is Winning, religion is evergreen and intrinsically good: and any religion is better than none. This can only mean that they would rather Islam predominated over the whole globe than a religion-free secularism. Yet they do not declare themselves to be against freedom and democracy – which a triumphant Islam would certainly snuff out – but insist that ‘as the world has become more free, more enlightened, and more prosperous, it has also become more religious’; that ‘democracy and democratization have empowered religion’; that ‘believers in a “march by history” toward some secular end-state are headed for more disappointment than most’; and that ‘modernization, democratization, and globalization have made [God] stronger’. Yet the only examples of world-affecting religious acts that they refer to are Islamic, and to the danger of Islam they seem as blind as any journalist.

How informed are they in general about the world we live in? Has it become more free? It’s hard to see that it has. Most Africans are not free. The North Koreans cannot be described as free; nor the majority of nations under Islamic rule; nor China, the biggest nation, where the religious are persecuted. And as for Europe, it blatantly disproves the authors’ thesis, though they do not seem to understand this. They note that as Europeans have become increasingly enlightened and prosperous they have become not more but less religious. They also notice that Europe’s native populations are shrinking, which brings them to declare (with a touch of Schadenfreude?) that ‘secularization is its own gravedigger’. But their observation of the fact that a lethal secularism arose from freedom and democracy, not a fresh bloom of religious belief, does not negate, alter, or even qualify their wistful conviction.

Among the Western, educated, prosperous nations, the United States of America is an exception that the authors happily cite. Most people here (we are told authoritatively by pollsters and statisticians) are and always have been religious to some degree at least, and here – perhaps as a result – the birthrate is stable (so it’s not digging its own grave). Yet not even the US proves the author’s case: for the US, though shaped by the influence of Christian values, remains a secular state. Its past and present can be said to demonstrate that free people may continue to be religious in the Age of Science, but not that religion naturally arises out of freedom, democracy, enlightenment and prosperity. Archaisms, like antiques, can be enjoyed. They can be freshened up and displayed as ‘neo-orthodoxies’, to use an oxymoronic expression of Shah’s and Toft’s. What they cannot do is reverse the arrow of time.    

Shah and Toft repeatedly speak of  ‘vitality’ in contemporary religion, and claim that it has given rise to a ‘resurgence in prophetic politics’. What they mean by ‘prophetic politics’, it emerges, is any political movement with a moral cause, or a jumble of causes, some of them familiar as pretexts for left-wing activism. Certain nationalist movements are counted as ‘prophetic politics’ if the people concerned share a religion. ‘Hindu nationalism’ is mentioned. (Mentioning is deemed sufficient, discursive argument is lacking.)  They are probably referring to the territorial dispute over Kashmir that mainly-Hindu India, growing in wealth and power, has with its Muslim neighbor Pakistan. This dispute is certainly national, with origins in old and persistent religious conflict, but no new religious fervor is driving it.  ‘Jewish Zionism’ (is there any other kind?) is also thrown in. But Zionism has nothing to do with religion. It was conceived as, and continues to be, an entirely secular movement, concerned with the recovery of the ancestral homeland of the Jews as a people, albeit a people uniquely defined by a specific religion.

Even localized revolutionary movements that notoriously claim to be Christian but are actually Marxist, are adduced by Shah and Toft as proof of religious resurgence. Indeed many terrorist organizations, particularly in South America, have been encouraged and even led by priests and pastors, who sanctify their incitement to murder by calling their ideology ‘liberation theology’ (if they’re Catholic) or ‘liberal theology’ (if they’re Protestant). The authors of God is Winning imply, whether they mean to or not, that this is fine with them because anything done in the name of religion is a good thing. Logically then – contrary to Paul Marshall’s judgment – al Qaeda is a good thing! But no: it is part of the worst political evil of our time. A nod to God is not worth any price.

Jillian Becker  December 2008

Blind Spot: When Journalists Don’t Get Religion edited by Paul Marshall, Lela Gilbert, Roberta Green Ahmanson OUP New York 220 pages 

Shah and Toft repeatedly speak of a ‘vitality’ in contemporary religion.  To this vitality they ascribe a ‘resurgence in prophetic politics’.  What they mean by ‘prophetic politics’, it emerges, is any political movement with a moral cause, or a jumble of causes, some of them familiar enough as pretexts for left-wing activism.  ‘Sudan, sexual trafficking, debt forgiveness, AIDS, and North Korea’ are listed together as examples.  Certain nationalist movements are counted as ‘prophetic politics’ if the people concerned share a religion. ‘Hindu nationalism’ is mentioned. (Mentioning is deemed sufficient, discursive argument is lacking.)  What they are probably referring to is that while mainly-Hindu India is growing in wealth and power, it has a territorial dispute over Kashmir with its Muslim neighbor Pakistan. This dispute is certainly national, with origins in old and persistent religious conflict, but no new religious fervor is driving it.     

‘Jewish Zionism’ (is there any other kind?) is also thrown in. But Zionism has nothing to do with religion. It was conceived as, and continues to be, an entirely secular movement,  concerned with the recovery of the ancestral homeland of the Jews as a people, albeit a people uniquely defined by a specific religion.

Even localized revolutionary movements that notoriously name themselves Christian though they are in fact Marxist, are adduced as proof of religious resurgence. Indeed many a terrorist organization, particularly in South America, has been encouraged by priests who sanctify their incitement to murder by calling it ‘liberation theology’ (if they’re Catholic) or ‘liberal theology’ (if they’re Protestant).  But if the authors rejoice in this – and they imply that they do – on the grounds that anything done in the name of religion is a good thing because a nod to God is worth any price, all they are demonstrating is that much recent and contemporary religious activity is thoroughly undesirable to say the least. 

 Two books we recommend are CRY WOLF by Paul Drake and STEALTH JIHAD by Robert Spencer. 

They are both about the extreme danger to our civilization of infiltration by uncivilized aliens.  

‘Cry Wolf’ is modeled on George Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm’ but tells a new story for a new political era. The farm animals keep the farm going after the human owners have died. Fences, vigilance, and guard dogs keep the wild animals out.  But first an act of compassion – temporary shelter for a wounded deer – and then a professorial owl’s lectures on the merits of ‘Multi-Animalism’ and the sin of xenophobia induce them to let in more and more feral beasts, to their ultimate doom.

‘Stealth Jihad’ is about the step-by-step advance of Islam within the United States, towards the political end of transforming the country into an Islamic tyranny.  

The allegory and the factual account reinforce each other.  

 ‘What’s important for liberals,’ Burt Prelutsky points out (rightly in our opinion) in Townhall today, ‘is that they feel good about themselves.’ The whole column is worth reading.  Here’s a part of it, on how liberals evade examination of the issues they embrace: 

I have yet to have anyone on the left enumerate the rights he lost because of the Patriot Act. I have yet to have any of them explain how it is that we invaded Iraq for oil but failed to confiscate even a single drop. Also, I have never had a liberal name all those countries that hate America because of George Bush…

I have also never had a leftist explain his love affair with socialism and communism, forms of tyranny which have led to unparalleled human misery wherever they have been introduced. But, then, what sort of freedom lovers side with the PLO, Hamas and Hezbollah, against Israel and make cultural icons of Fidel Castro and Che Guevara?

Silence is the same response I get when I have asked liberals, who allegedly favor honest elections, why they have never spoken out against ACORN, and why, although they pay lip service to free speech, people like David Horowitz and Ann Coulter require bodyguards when they appear on college campuses. And why is it that liberals, who already control newspapers, magazines and TV, are pushing for the “Fairness” Doctrine in a blatant, fascistic, attempt to keep conservative voices off the radio? …

If I had to describe liberals in a single word it would probably be “feminine.” In most cases, I wouldn’t regard that word as a pejorative. In its best sense, it conveys sensitivity and an emphasis on the emotional. As it relates to liberals, it simply means that feelings trump everything else. So it is that liberals love the idea of the U.N., excited by the notion of a lot of nations sitting down and talking out their problems, as if to a marriage counselor. Unfortunately, when dealing with evil nations with evil intentions, the U.N. is nothing better than a bad joke. Partly that’s because it is inept and partly because it’s as weak as its weakest link and, for good measure, is as corrupt as Chicago politics.  

DETROIT (AP) – Worried about their jobs and warned that the cost of failure could be a depression, hundreds of leaders of the United Auto Workers voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to make concessions to the struggling Detroit Three, including all but ending a much-derided program that let laid-off workers collect up to 95 percent of their salaries.

"Everybody has to give a little bit," said Rich Bennett, an official for Local 122 in Twinsburg, Ohio, representing Chrysler workers. "We’ve made concessions. We really feel we’re doing our part."

Union leaders also agreed to let the cash-starved automakers delay billions of dollars in payments to a union-administered trust set to take over health care for blue-collar retirees starting in 2010.

In addition, they decided to let the Detroit leadership begin renegotiating elements of landmark contracts signed with the automakers last year, a move that could lead to wage concessions.

 

Question: Why not let the UAW take over the management of the Detroit Three and struggle to make the sort of profits that can keep them in gravy forever? 

 Wednesday, Dec. 3 

The Iranian navy and air force began a six-day maneuver of marine and air might which Tehran radio said would cover an area of 50,000 square miles of the Persian Gulf, the Sea of Oman and the Strait of Hormuz. Tehran has threatened to block the narrow strait if attacked.

Admiral Qasem Rostamabadi said its aim is to "increase the level of readiness of Iran’s naval forces and test domestically-made naval weaponry."

DEBKAfile reports Tehran is utterly convinced a US and/or Israeli attack is impending against its nuclear sites.

Scene from the Chabad Jewish center in Mumbai  

 

 Those conservatives who think that when Obama’s screwed up – which he will do, of course –  the GOP will make a big come-back;  America will have learnt its lesson and never again elect a Marxist leader;  the values which made America great will be embraced again by a sorry nation; and  every trace of the harm that four or eight years of Obama-Pelosi-Reid government will have done can be kicked over, should consider what Mark Steyn has to say:

“The contrast” today is not between America and Europe, but between the slightly-more-than-half of America at ease with the prospect of a Europeanized future and the considerably-less-than-half of America for whom our differences with Europe – the First Amendment, the Second Amendment, non-confiscatory taxation, a society that prizes individual opportunity over state protection – were a big part of the American success story.

If you’re a relaxed conservative, this is 1976. Let Obama & Co have their head and screw up, and we’ll be back in two or four years. But in two or four years there’ll be even more Acorn registrations, even more foreign campaign contributions, large numbers of amnestied illegals with de facto if not quite de jure voting rights, a new Unfairness Doctrine that consolidates Democrat dominance of the dinosaur media and banishes much of the rest. If the 2012 election is a rerun of, say, 2004 – an attempt to restore the big fat red-state “L” sweeping down the Rockies and east to the Atlantic that comes down to a few thousand votes in Ohio – Republicans will lose. If it’s a 50/50 nation, the Dems will have the edge when it comes to pushing up to 50.1 – as (at the time of writing) the Al Franken machine (of all unlikely phrases) is doing so cheerfully in Minnesota.

And beyond the operational upper hand is the psychological advantage: The push to socialized health care, the “spreading” of wealth that turns responsible citizens into grateful beneficiaries of government largesse, the remorseless propagandization of a school system all but entirely hostile to the heroic national narrative, a cumulative ratchet effect that “enervates both soul and body” and that the Republican leadership finds easier to accommodate than resist. Conservatives need a bigger picture than GOTV. This is not 1976, but 1932 – at minimum.

Read it all here. 

 Jaded Haven condemns Islam uncompromisingly: 

I find myself increasingly repulsed by Muslim practices and beliefs. Middle Eastern, African, Asian, American, the country of origin makes no difference. Women and children treated as chattel, genital mutilation, child brides, honor killings, culturally accepted pedophilia, the black drapes and head coverings, no rights, no votes, little to non-existent educational opportunities, no voice, no choices, no recourse. Persecution of homosexuals. Imprisonment, stoning and whipping for morality crimes. Lack of free speech. The foul treatment of non-Muslims in Islamic countries. The demented hatred of Jews. Sharia Law. Wahhabism. Madrasas. Blind obedience to Mullahs. Praying towards Mecca – a place on the map few will ever see. Individuality is shut down, originality and freedom of the mind discouraged. Islam pisses on human talents that fall outside the dark walls of its faith. Hell, I even dislike their dislike of dogs.

I don’t believe Mohamed was holy or a prophet. I think he was evil incarnate carrying the words of Satan himself to a crew of desert simpletons. Islam is a barbaric, unpeaceful, vile, unthinking distortion of worship. The fact that the majority of its adherents can’t even read the Koran smacks of mindless ignorance. I see no enlightenment elevating individual singularity or acknowledging gifted greatness in this corner of archaic darkness. My lip curls at their love of theocracies, a willingness to subjugate themselves to the whims of dissolute rulers along side an ancient text they can’t even begin to comprehend, subsuming their divine individuality to a tide of dogmatic mandates. I have no use, or respect, for the people who follow this religion. I’m past tired of their bombing, shooting, acid throwing, coup d’etat loving, rioting asses and it looks like the rest of the world could stand a break from these murdering bastards, too. According to a website that does nothing but track worldwide Islamic terrorism, there have been 12,328 [more – see our left margin] Islamic terrorist attacks since 9/11. Don’t tell me this isn’t an Islamic issue, the rest of us aren’t practicing murder on a worldwide scale in the name of religion.