“Time to fight back against Islam”, writes a Progressive! 46
An anonymous and anomalous self-styled Progressive has come flying into our attention on a winged pig.
We paid attention to what he [?] had to say because he is also an Atheist. And we were very pleasantly surprised.
Calling himself only ‘The Candid Progressive” he posted an introduction to his Handbook for Infidels with most of which – to our astonishment and delight – we agree.
We wonder how many Obama-voters he will win over with his Handbook. If on the issue of Islam alone he were to bring about the enlightenment of the Democratic Party there would be a great rise of hope for America.
Here are extracts from his introduction, all the parts we agree with. He starts off speaking of himself in the third person:
The Candid Progressive is too happy to be a hater. But not so blissed-out as to be unperturbed by a barbaric, woman-hating, freedom-squelching ideology with hordes of violence-prone True Believers, who are just aching to drag us all back into the Seventh Century and make us slaves to ancient superstition. That sort of jangling, in-your-face insanity does manage to puncture my cozy little bubble of bourbon-fueled bonhomie from time to time — and from my (relatively) civilized, femme-loving, liberty-addicted perspective, that whole scenario seems more than a little f’d up.
Toss in the fact that I consider religious superstition to be the greatest impediment to intellectual, moral, and spiritual enlightenment, and the result is a politically incorrect book [his Handbook] that treats Islam with exactly as much respect as it deserves, and gives faint-hearted multiculturalists the “vapors”. …
This is a critique of an ideology — an ideology that is inherently hostile to democracy, free speech, freedom of the press, women’s rights and other fundamental human rights — principles that all progressives should support wholeheartedly.
Do progressives stand for freedom of speech and freedom of the press, or freedom at all? Perhaps it is because he thinks they do that so clear-sighted an observer of Islam continues to think of himself as a progressive and a liberal. As he goes on, he expresses more thoughts that are out of harmony with the Left in general.
Islam’s brutal subjugation of women should be reason enough to make all liberals unite in heated opposition to it. (And the fact that this has not happened indicates that something very strange and unlikely is going on here, between Islam and the political left.)
The idea that Muslims should somehow be exempt from having their ideology criticized (in a way that Catholics, or Christian Creationists, for instance, are not) is a bigoted position, because it’s based upon the assumption that they are too uncivilized, or too immature, to handle it. It’s actually more respectful to treat them as adults, like everyone else, and expect them to deal with criticism without reacting violently, just like everyone else.
Some cultures are clearly far more enlightened and humane than others. A brief look at what goes on in Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan makes this fact obvious. Cultural relativism is a lie …
Political correctness is totally counter to the spirit of free speech, and prevents the discussion of important truths. It might make superficial people feel more comfortable, but it has serious, real-life consequences. Political correctness is an unacceptable hindrance for serious people who want to see the world become a better place.
It emerges that it is his atheism – the rational part of his bundle of beliefs – which has guided him aright in his understanding of how evil an ideology Islam is:
Ultimately, the problem here is religion in general — a problem of people accepting “revealed” truths without sufficient evidence, and confidently acting upon those beliefs, regardless of the consequences. Magic-thinking still causes a vast amount of misery around the world, and prevents the development of more enlightened intellects and moral codes. That being said, no other religion in the 21st Century continues to promote medieval barbarism on such an epic scale as Mohammed’s “spiritual” legacy. Islam is religion taken to its most diabolic extreme. …
Yes, yes.
There’s a lot of confusion in the West regarding Islam — especially among progressives, because we’re only programmed to distrust religious fanatics of the Bible-thumping, evolution-denying, queer-hating American variety.
So he knows progressives are “programmed”. But he clearly thinks for himself. He could easily come to the realization that those religious fanatics are only a fringe minority among conservatives and Republicans.
The others, we’re told, are really just victims of something or other. But somehow the evidence confronting us from around the world doesn’t seem to match up with the bland reassurances of the politically-correct types, or the passionate denials of dissembling Muslims. …
If you get your info regarding Islam from NPR, CNN, the BBC, and other PC venues, you’ve heard repeatedly since 9/11 that the violence, misogyny, and mayhem are not inherent to the religion itself, but are the results of unrelated “cultural” quirks. … We’re told that the suicide bombings, the “honor” killings, the stonings, the female genital mutilations, the acid attacks, the forced marriages of underage girls, the slavery in royal households, the judicial amputations, the murderous rioting over cartoons, the virulent anti-Semitism, the hostility towards outsiders, the Sunni/Shiite massacres, the public hangings of homosexuals, the beheadings of blasphemers and apostates, and the murder of outspoken infidels in Western cities are all the results of, well…something else. Maybe it’s poverty. A lack of education. “Cultural” hangovers from a barbaric past. “Tribal” traditions. Political oppression. European and American imperialism. The PC types have all sorts of theories. The only thing they seem to agree upon is that it has nothing to do with Islam. Or, at most, they’ll tell us that these horrors are the products of a tragic (and apparently commonplace) misreading of what is actually an enlightened, peace-loving religion. A religion that rejects these nightmarish behaviors in the strongest possible terms…but, regrettably, can’t seem to go five minutes without being hijacked by brutal, misogynistic thugs.
But in reality, Islam is a nightmare religion. (If it’s being done properly, anyway.) In fact, the more you study it, the more horrifying it becomes. And the more obvious it becomes that the “radicals”, “extremists”, and “fundamentalists” are practising Islam exactly the way the prophet Mohammed intended. The way he himself practised it, only without the aid of modern weaponry or fuel-laden jetliners. And the more you learn about it, the more apparent it becomes that this barbaric, maladaptive religion should no longer be allowed to maintain the air of respectability it currently enjoys in the more PC venues of Western society. It’s time for all of us to start being brutally honest regarding this brutal ideology.
We’re in for a fight, whether we want it or not, and whether it’s to be fought with words or bullets. So we might as well get busy trying to neutralize our enemy’s perverted program with vocal, determined opposition. With an informed public that values basic freedoms more than platitudes and political correctness. With governments that vigorously defend free speech and freedom of the press against hostile, intolerant, would-be theocrats. With a sensible program of foreign policy, based upon a realistic appraisal of Islam and the threat it poses …
All good. But we pause our applause when, in the next breath, his unthinking leftism seems to be popping out:
With alternative energy sources that allow us to stop funding the enemy. …
If by “alternative energy sources” he means American oil rather than Middle Eastern, then yes. If he means “green energy” from sun and wind, then we hope he’ll think harder about it.
We need to get serious about putting a halt to the Islamization of Western Europe, and other parts of the infidel world. And to do this, we have to abandon political correctness and openly put our ideological foes on notice.
If the Left were really to abandon political correctness, wouldn’t most of their ideological teddy-bears and comfort blankets have to go into the incinerator? Such as green energy, affirmative action, nuclear disarmament, community organizing, tolerance of illegal immigration, letting Iran become nuclear armed, regulating business, Keynesian economics, embracing Russia, aiding North Korea, intoning that anyone who objects to what Obama is doing to America is a racist … a full list would be very long. The Department of Homeland Security would have to go, as the people who run it don’t believe in a “homeland” and are not keeping it secure. The Department of Justice would have to start prosecuting the Black Panthers when they break the law, and stop breaking the law itself by selling guns to the Mexican drug cartels. The White House would have to stop issuing executive orders that break the law … Again a list of what needs to change would be very long.
But soon we feel moved to applaud again:
Instead of helping Muslims to feel more comfortable in their hellish religion, by pretending to respect it, we need to hang out a great big sign that reads:
Barbaric Iron Age ideologies are not welcome here!
This has nothing to do with “racism”. This is about a hostile ideology … It’s not about “bigotry” or “prejudice” or “Islamophobia”, either. It’s about the survival of the most enlightened cultures the world has ever produced. Cultures that some very clever people went to a lot of trouble to develop and foster over the last few centuries — braving the fiery wrath of our own native brand of religious zealotry, until Christianity could finally be defanged. It’s about defending the progressive ideals we supposedly stand for …
If only he would drop that word “progressive”! Instead of “progressive ideals”, why not “the ideals on which the Republic was founded”?
… against a threat that’s very real. Against enemies who are very, very determined. And well-funded. And willing to kill, and die, for the most retrograde ideology on earth.
If ever there was a “good fight”, this is it. Not even World War II involved such a clear-cut case of good vs. evil – or had so much hanging in the balance, in terms of the future well-being of mankind. … We need to halt the steady erosion of our essential liberties…
Right! The liberties the Founding Fathers enshrined in the Constitution …
… and vigorously re-assert our right to speak plainly and openly about important issues, even if this means “offending” our ideological enemies — who have no qualms about giving offense to us, on a regular basis.
But, ultimately, we need to laugh this absurd religion right off the face of the earth. We need to tell the True Believers exactly what we think, and why we think it.
This life-sucking ideology has survived for fourteen centuries because it’s been sheltered from criticism by the combined forces of violence (on their part) and [in recent times] political correctness (on our part). …
We need to create an environment in which myth-based religions such as Islam are constantly being confronted by reason, skepticism, and reality. These religions have bullied, brutalized, and befuddled mankind for centuries. It’s time to fight back!
And Islam, the biggest, meanest bully of them all, is just begging to get its ass kicked. So, let’s make that happen, on a global scale. Let’s show the True Believers that we infidels still have a little grit and determination [and] … armed with reason and science, and firmly grounded in reality, [we] can prevail, over ignorant zealots motivated by ancient superstition.
Well and fearlessly spoken!
If you visit his website here, you will find more pictures of this sort which help make his case.
Pat Condell, saying what must be said 34
Here’s Pat Condell, our fellow atheist, indignant about things that ought to rouse indignation in everyone, and as eloquent as always, protesting against (inter alia) the persecution of Christians in Arab countries.
It would be nice if someone could get Janet Napolitano (see the video immediately below) to watch this one.
DHS head protects a jihadist 110
How secure does Obama’s Secretary for Homeland Security make you feel when you watch this?
Against the cultivation of victimhood: an iconoclastic essay 169
“I’m not to blame for any wrong I’ve done, because I’m a victim.”
It’s a statement often implied in defense of criminals. The accused may have murdered in cold blood, but he or she was maltreated as a child, subjected to sexual abuse perhaps, so is more to be pitied than blamed. It has proved to be an effective defense.
To ask “Can a victim not also be a villain?” is to ask an unintelligible question. What would be the use of a victim in our value scheme if he or she were also a villain? A victim, the prevailing sentiment implies, is innocent. Is pure. He or she is Pure Innocence personified.
It is not difficult to explain why being a victim has become a popular choice. Victimhood, even if entirely spurious, is commonly regarded now as a qualification for privileged treatment; routinely when it is claimed by persons identifying themselves with groups genuinely victimized in the past – certain ethnic minorities, homosexuals, or (ever less credibly) women. Victims are held in higher regard than achievers.
Besides which, it is a logical accompaniment to the popularity of compassion. In the West, nowadays, compassion is generally held to be the highest moral good.
Why? Well, to feel it is a quick fix, a drug for the ego. Little else makes one feel as good as immediately and reliably. And it can be bestowed in vast quantities without the bestower becoming any the poorer. Compassion is a supremely selfish emotion – which would be fine if only the selfishness of it were frankly acknowledged.
As it makes people feel good to show they are compassionate – by saying so, or in some cases by acting compassionately, gifting their energy, time, or possessions to their neighbors or even to remote strangers – it also makes people crave it. The need to give it stimulates the need to receive it. It’s abundant availability is a powerful inducement to neighbors and strangers to demand it; to put out their hands to receive it; to plead their superior neediness; to insist that they are pitiable; that they are victims.
Not that Western populations are divided into the pitying and the pitied; not at all – everyone can be both: everyone compassionate and charitable, everyone a victim. Everyone can have the kudos of being a pitier and at the same time the innocence of being pitiable. And with everyone getting double satisfaction, being most good and most innocent, the pitiable-pitying society is surely the happiest.
And surely, you might say, it is a truly good society? Everyone being nice to everyone, and no sufferer going unaided. A utopian Gemüthlichkeit. A mutually supportive community. Isn’t it the ideal, and hasn’t it been the ideal ever since St. Paul invented Christian morality? A universal economy of “love”?
Well, yes, it could make for pleasantness – if it were true; if the well-preened ego could rest with its philanthropy; if there were no evil in the human heart.
But because there is evil in the human heart, a feeling that everyone should be nice to everyone, however widespread, however popular and praised, will not in real life be quite enough to make it happen. In fact it seems that whenever and wherever compassion, pity, charity are most piously preached, just there are cruelty, humiliation, oppression most mercilessly practiced.
Christianity taps deep into the sentiment of pity with a God who (so the Christian myth runs) had himself tortured to death as a man in order to save mankind from innate sin, thus (the Christian myth fails to notice) planting harrowing guilt in its devotees. To cover if not to expiate that guilt, Christians are adjured to love their fellow human beings. Yet have any institutions inflicted as much mental anguish and physical agony on as many people for as many centuries as have the Christian Churches? Islam is a candidate, but Islam doesn’t preach universal love: it preaches mass murder, enslavement, and sadistic vengeance, so it escapes the charge of hypocrisy, at least in this regard.
What happens when victimization is idolized; when, as a result, there is competition in being more-victimized-than-thou; and when as a result of that, a perverted envy is born if someone is perceived as being the more victimized?
Let’s examine an actual case. I’ve said that Islam does not preach compassion. But Islam is intent on conquering the West, and to do so it is using all the opportunities that the West affords it. The very values, freedom and tolerance, that the West most esteems and embodies in its law, and that Islam would destroy, provide Islam with the means to destroy them. Muslims move into European countries and live freely. (Freely in more ways than one, as disproportionately large numbers of Muslim immigrants live on welfare handouts that the indigenous population pay for with their taxes.) They set up their mosques to preach, and their madrassas to teach their children, to hate the values of their host countries, and to love submission and intolerance. They can do so because the host countries are tolerant. If any of the indigenous people protest that Islam is manifestly incompatible with their values, their own law-courts in the name of tolerance punish them and not the Muslim immigrants. Much encouraged by this policy, some of the newcomers kill their new neighbors in acts of terrorism, intending to instill fear of Islam. But if any of the indigenous people consequently express fear and dislike of Islam, the Muslims cry that they are being subjected to irrational “Islamophobia”. Which is to say, they draw on Western compassion.
The starkest instance of this is what has happened in America since the destruction on September 9, 2001, in a profoundly religious act of hatred, of the World Trade Center in New York, when Muslims piloted two airplanes into the Twin Towers and killed close on 3000 people.
Time passes. The scar remains on the face of the city. For most Americans it is a place of tragedy. But for Muslims it is a place of victory. And certain Muslims propose to build a mosque as close to it as they can. While many on the political Left are in favor of the project – citing freedom and tolerance to support their view – there is an outcry of passionate opposition from many more.
Daisy Khan, the wife of the imam who is the front man of the plan to build the mosque and Islamic Center on the sacred site, was interviewed on ABC TV (22 August, 2010) about the mounting opposition to the project. She ascribed it to hate of Muslims which, she said, went “beyond Islamophobia”, and was ““like a metastasized anti-Semitism”.
By “metastasized” she meant, presumably, that hatred for Muslims in America was more widespread, more threatening, more potentially lethal than the hatred for Jews (the existence of which her declaration acknowledged). “Islamophobia” is a lie that reveals a twisted envy of anti-Semitism.
There is in fact little evidence of “Islamophobia”. FBI reports of recent years show that hate crimes against Muslims are rare; that there are more hate crimes against Christians than against Muslims; and there are about nine times as many against Jews as against Muslims. (See here and here.)
Regardless of the facts of the matter, Ms Khan wanted to make the point that Muslims were the victims of prejudice and bigotry. As the terms “Islamophobia” and “anti-Semitism” carry connotations of irrationality, her words implied that any feeling against Muslims is wholly irrational. But is it?
Antagonism towards Islam since 9/11, however emotional much of it may be, is not reasonless. Reasons for it abound. The attack on the World Trade Center was carried out in the name of Islam, as many other violent attacks, murders, and plans for murderous attacks have been, both before 9/11 and after. Muslims fit the role of victimizers far better than that of victims. So while anti-Islam feeling may be felt as unfair by many Muslims, it is not irrational; and Ms Khan’s analogy with anti-Semitism is wide of the mark. Tactically, however, claiming victimhood to bolster her cause was a shrewd move. Building permission for the mosque and Islamic Center has been granted by the authorizing bodies, including the Landmarks Preservation Commission.
I wonder … Are these authorizing bodies dominated by the Left? And were their arguments legal or emotional? If emotional, did they appeal to tolerance and compassion? If so, why no compassion for the feelings of those who were outraged by the very idea of the mosque in that place? I wonder about these questions because the Left in general claims moral superiority and asks for political power on the grounds that compassion is its highest value and the guiding principle of its policies. As with Christianity – from which this piety derives – it proves over and over again, wherever the Left is in power, to be an empty ideal.
Earlier in this essay I asked, rhetorically, “has any institution inflicted as much mental anguish and physical agony on as many people for as many centuries as have the Christian Churches?” The answer must be, “none over as many centuries”, but take out that phrase and even the Christian establishments are out-matched by the collectivist/leftist regimes of the twentieth century, some of which are still extant. To elect a collectivist government, to trust the Left’s claim to be the guardian of victims, to believe that voting for the Left proves your compassion, is to fall for the Great Political Lie.
Jillian Becker July 21, 2012
Trying to stop submission to Islam 80
A brave stand against the dhimmification of the West, using the law.
We applaud the effort, and the 13 successes in stopping mosques being built. But we are sorry to say that in our deeply pessimistic view …
Like a finger in a breaking dyke, it will not keep the tide of Islam out.
Too little, too late.
Gavin Boby talks about his campaign.
Sweden (silently) submits to Islam 48
We take these extracts from a speech to be found in full at Front Page. It was delivered by Ingrid Carlqvist, founder of Sweden’s Free Press Society, at the 2012 International Conference for Free Speech and Human Rights held in Brussels on July 9, 2012.
Ladies and gentlemen. My name is Ingrid Carlqvist and I was born in Sweden in 1960, when the Social Democrats were gonna rule forever and ever and our country was the nicest and safest and most progressed in the world. Now I live in Absurdistan – a country that has the highest figure of reported rapes in the world, hundreds of so called “exclusion areas” where people live outside the Swedish society and with newspapers that hide all these horrible facts [from] the people. …
When I grew up our prime minister was Tage Erlander, a Social Democrat. In 1965 he said in parliament, after violent race riots in America:
“We Swedes live in a so infinitely happier situation. The population in our country is homogeneous, not just according to race but also in many other aspects.”
Now I live in a nation that is not homogeneous in any respect. Olof Palme that came after him decided that homogeneous was a bad thing and opened up our borders for people from all over the world. And from right to left the politicians told us that there was no such thing as a Swedish culture, no Swedish traditions worth mentioning and that we Swedes should be grateful that so many people with REAL culture and REAL traditions came to us.
Mona Sahlin, a later leader of the Social Democrats, said in an interview [in] 2002 with the magazine Euroturk, when asked what Swedish culture is:
I’ve often had that question, but I can’t think of what Swedish culture is. I think that is what makes us Swedes so envious of immigrants. You have a culture, an identity, something that ties you together. What do we have? We have Midsummer’s Eve and such corny things.
She also said: The Swedes must integrate into the new Sweden. The old Sweden is not coming back.
In this New Sweden we have more reported rapes than any other country in the European Union, according to a study by professor Liz Kelly from England. More than 5 000 rapes or attempted rapes were reported in 2008 (last year it was more than 6 000). In 2010 another study reported that just one country in the world has more rapes than Sweden, and that is Lesotho in South Africa. For every 100,000 inhabitants Lesotho has 92 reported rapes, Sweden has 53, The United States 29, Norway 20 and Denmark 7.
In 1990 the authorities counted 3 exclusion areas in Sweden, suburbs where mostly immigrants live, where very few have a job to go to, almost all of them live by welfare and the children don’t pass their exams. In 2002 they counted 128 exclusion areas. In 2006 we had 156 and then they stopped counting. In some cities, like Malmö where I live, a third of all inhabitants live in an exclusion area.
What sort of immigrants would those be? What sort of people now dominate Malmö?
Interesting that she doesn’t say. It’s highly likely that if she did, she would be prosecuted, condemned, fined, even jailed.
What did Tage Erlander mean when he said that the Swedish population was homogeneous, not just according to race but also in many other aspects? I think he meant things like norms, values, culture and traditions. A feeling of fellowship. That we all, in the Old Sweden, had a similar view of what a good society is and how we solve conflicts. He KNEW what the Swedish culture was all about, in contrast to Mona Sahlin.
In the New Sweden we need armed police officers at our hospitals because rivalling families fight each other in the hospital rooms. They gun each other down in open streets and they rob and beat old people up. The crime rate grows by the minute, but the Swedish politicians and journalists tell us that it has absolutely nothing to do with immigration. The fact that our prisons are full of foreign people is just a coincidence or is explained by socio-economic factors.
For many years I was a journalist in the mainstream media. But I was always a bit of a troublemaker, always suspicious of what people said was THE TRUTH. When everybody ran in one direction, I turned around in the other direction to see what was there.
In January 2011 something happened to make me loose my last hope about Swedish journalists. I was the vice chairman of The Society of Publicists in Malmö and had invited the Danish journalist Mikael Jalving to talk about his coming book “Absolute Sweden – a Journey in the Country of Silence.” One day the chairman phoned me and said: We must cancel Mikael Jalving because he is going to talk at a meeting arranged by a newspaper called National Today.
It didn’t matter to him, or to anyone else on the board of this society for journalists that Jalving was going to talk about his book. If he went to that meeting he would be infected by nationalist ideas and probably he would become a Nazi. …
That’s the way it works in the New Sweden, the country I call Absurdistan. The country of silence.
I was furious and left the board of that society. That led to my being invited to The Danish Free Press Society to talk about the strange country of Sweden and that led to my founding of The Swedish Free Press Society.
That is how Lars Hedegaard* and I found each other. But we didn’t settle for running one Free Press Society each; since we both have a solid background as journalists we decided to start a newspaper. …
To break the silence. A risky project!
It will be called Dispatch International “because our vision is that this newspaper will become worldwide one day.”
Dispatch will be printed in two versions – one Danish and one Swedish – but all the stories are the same. And on the internet you will be able to read our stories in English and German as well. We will write about politics in our countries and in the world. We will write about all those things that mainstream media have been hiding for so many years now. We will distinguish between news stories and commentaries and the tone will be subdued. We will let the facts talk, the facts that mainstream journalists hide from people.
And at last she comes to speak the almost forbidden words:
In Sweden NOBODY talks about immigration problems, the death of the multiculti project or the Islamisation/Arabisation of Europe. If you do, you will immediately be called a racist, an Islamophobe or a Nazi. That is what I have been called since I founded the Free Press Society in Sweden.
She concludes by asking for support for International International, by taking a subscription or becoming a shareholder or just donating money. If you do, she says –
You will take me one step closer to home. To the Sweden that once was, the Sweden I want back.
We sympathize with her optimism, and admire her project, but we do not believe she will ever have back the Sweden that once was.
* Lars Hedegaard, President of the Danish Free Press Society, brought to trial for “racism”, because he said that Muslim men maltreat women. See our posts: The new heresy, January 11, 2011; Protecting Islam from criticism, December 18, 22011; The most important struggle of our time, April 16, 2012; The last days of Europe, June 9, 2012.
Britain submits to Islam 84
In Britain, a toy farm set called HappyLand Goosefeather Farm was sold without pigs.
The pig removal came to public attention after a British mother bought the toy as a present for her daughter’s first birthday. Although the set contained a model of a cow, sheep, chicken, horse and dog, there was no pig, despite there being a sty and a button which generated an “oink” sound. After the mother complained, the Early Learning Centre (ELC), which manufactures the toy, responded: “Previously the pig was part of the Goosefeather Farm. However due to customer feedback and religious reasons this is no longer part of the farm.”
Which religion was it that had to be pandered to by the removal of the pig itself, though the oink of the pig could still be heard in the land?
You guessed it!
But for the generally ever more craven British public the removal of the pig from the toy farm was more than could be borne. There was “a public outcry”.
And it worked! The manufacturers relented and put the pigs back. Bravely, nobly, they announced that in Britain they would “reinstate the pig”, and stop exporting the set.
“We recognize that pigs are familiar farm animals, especially for our UK customers. We have taken the decision to reinstate the pig and to no longer sell the set in international markets where it might create an issue.”
But there is no outcry by native Britons against the conquest of their land by soft jihad. So although a toy pig gets a reprieve from the tyranny of sharia, the children themselves will not be spared.
Beyond the oink and the fury, when the tumult and the shouting die, Islam’s triumph overall cannot be denied.
So we learn from this Gatestone Institute report by Soeren Kern, where we found the story of the toy pig:
In Cheshire, two students at the Alsager High School were punished by their teacher for refusing to pray to Allah as part of their religious education class.
In Scotland, 30 non-Muslim children from the Parkview Primary School recently were required to visit the Bait ur Rehman Ahmadiyya mosque in the Yorkhill district of Glasgow. At the mosque, the children were instructed to recite the shahada, the Muslim declaration of faith which states: “There is no god but Allah and Mohammed is his messenger.” Muslims are also demanding that Islamic preachers be sent to every school in Scotland to teach children about Islam, ostensibly in an effort to end negative attitudes about Muslims.
And in order that Muslims be not offended, many a true fact of history must be suppressed:
British schools are increasingly dropping the Jewish Holocaust from history lessons to avoid offending Muslim pupils, according to a report entitled, Teaching Emotive and Controversial History, commissioned by the Department for Education and Skills.
British teachers are also reluctant to discuss the medieval Crusades, in which Christians fought Muslim armies for control of Jerusalem: lessons often contradict what is taught in local mosques.
In an effort to counter “Islamophobia” in British schools, teachers now are required to teach “key Muslim contributions such as Algebra and the number zero” in math and science courses, even though the concept of zero originated in India.
And algebra in Islam-conquered Persia.
Children’s minds may be be fed on porkies, but not their bodies on pork:
In the East London district of Tower Hamlets, four Muslims were recently jailed for attacking a local white teacher who gave religious studies lessons to Muslim girls; and 85 out of 90 schools have implemented “no pork” policies.
Schools across Britain are, in fact, increasingly banning pork from lunch menus to avoid offending Muslim students. Hundreds of schools have adopted a “no pork” policy …
The culinary restrictions join a long list of politically correct changes that gradually are bringing hundreds of British primary and secondary education into conformity with Islamic Sharia law.
The London Borough of Haringey, a heavily Muslim district in North London, is the latest school district to switch to a menu that is fully halal (religiously permissible for Muslims). The Haringey Town Council recently issued “best practice” advice to all schools in its area to “ban all pork products in order to cater for the needs of staff and pupils who are not permitted contact with these for religious reasons.”
Local politicians have criticized the new policy as pandering to Muslims, and local farmers, who have pointed out that all schools in Britain already offer vegetarian options, have accused school administrators of depriving non-Muslim children of a choice. Following an outcry from non-Muslim parents, the town council removed the guidance from its website, although the new policy remains in place.
At the Cypress Junior School, in Croydon, south London, school administrators announced in the school newsletter dated June 1, 2012 that the school has opted for a pork-free menu “as a result of pupil and parental feedback.” The announcement states: “Whilst beef, chicken, turkey and fish will all feature, as well as the daily vegetarian and jacket potato or pasta option, the sausages served will now be chicken rather than pork.”
In Luton, an industrial city some 50 kilometers (30 miles) north of London where more than 15% of the population is now Muslim, 23 out of 57 schools have banned pork.
In the City of Bradford, a borough of West Yorkshire in Northern England where there are now twice as many practicing Muslims that there are practicing Anglicans, 24 out of 160 schools have eliminated pork from their menus. In Newham (East London), 25 out of 75 schools have banned pork. Other pork-free schools include Cranford Park Primary School in Hayes (Middlesex), and Dog Kennel Hill Primary in East Dulwich (South London).
The Borough of Harrow in northwest London was among the first in Britain to encourage halal menus. In 2010, Harrow Council announced plans to ban pork in the borough’s 52 state primary schools …
According to the UK-based National Pig Association, which represents commercial pork producers, “It is disappointing that schools cannot be sufficiently organized to give children a choice of meat. Sausages and roast pork are staples of a British diet and children enjoy eating them. If products can be labeled with warnings that they contain nuts and vegetarian dishes can be made and kept separate from meat dishes, [we] don’t see why the same can’t apply to pork.”
They’re merely disappointed, not outraged? They don’t see why? Tell them: because the Muslims say no.
The Muslims say that childhood in Britain must be changed in all sorts of ways.
Lunch menus are not the only area in which “cultural sensitivity” is escalating in British schools.
In West Yorkshire, the Park Road Junior Infant and Nursery School in Batley has banned stories featuring pigs, including “The Three Little Pigs”, in case they offend Muslim children.
In Nottingham, the Greenwood Primary School cancelled a Christmas nativity play; it interfered with the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha. In Scarborough, the Yorkshire Coast College removed the words Christmas and Easter from their calendar not to offend Muslims.
Also in Cheshire, a 14-year-old Roman Catholic girl who attends Ellesmere Port Catholic High School was branded a truant by teachers for refusing to dress like a Muslim and visit a mosque.
In Stoke-on-Trent, schools have been ordered to rearrange exams, cancel swimming lessons and stop sex education during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. In Norwich, the Knowland Grove Community First School has axed the traditional Christmas play to “look at some of the other great cultural festivals of the world.”
Soon all English literature will probably have to be sifted for references to pigs, and the books re-written without them, in the probably vain hope that they won’t be burnt anyway when Paliament is won by the Sharia Party.
When that day comes, there will be no more pigs anywhere on the British islands, not in stories, not on farms, not as toys.
Will there be music and dancing? Wine and beer?
Pictures in the galleries? Statues in Trafalgar Square?
Football?
Who’s buying the wine? 113
Daniel J. Mitchell writes at Townhall about American tax-payers paying the OECD to subvert America.
The $100 million that American taxpayers send to Paris every year to subsidize the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development is – on a per-dollar basis – the most destructively wasteful part in the federal budget.
The video below will give you some evidence.
But the video also is a couple of years old, so it doesn’t even include some of the more recent and most outrageous examples of OECD perfidy.
The OECD has allied itself with the nutjobs from the so-called Occupy movement to push for bigger government and higher taxes.
The OECD, in an effort to promote redistributionism, has concocted absurdly misleading statistics claiming that there is more poverty in the US than in Greece, Hungary, Portugal, or Turkey.
The OECD is pushing a “Multilateral Convention” that is designed to become something akin to a World Tax Organization, with the power to persecute nations with free-market tax policy.
The OECD has endorsed Obama’s class-warfare agenda, publishing documents endorsing “higher marginal tax rates” so that the so-called rich “contribute their fair share.”
The OECD redistributes tax dollars to “corrupt and dictatorial regimes”.
Richard Rahn excoriates the statist swamp in his Washington Times column:
“The OECD was formed in 1960 to promote trade and investment among the developed countries. Over the years, it has morphed into an organization promoting higher taxes and the redistribution of income. … U.S. taxpayers are supporting high-salaried international bureaucrats who are advocating higher taxes on others, most notably U.S. taxpayers, but do not pay income taxes themselves.”
Dennis Kleinfeld wrote for IFC [International Finance Corporation] Review. He starts with a bit of history and explains how OECD bureaucrats live a good life at our expense:
“The OECD Secretary General, Deputy Secretaries, and heads of the Directorates are non-elected administrators and policy-makers, who live in Paris tax free (except for the Americans), travel first class, live first class, and whose every expense is paid for by the member states from taxes or money borrowed.
They keep a well-stocked wine-cellar at their headquarters too. Nice! But also paid for largely out of US taxes. (See the picture of it in the video.)
These are the guys who tell everyone else to pay their fair share of taxes and share in making sacrifices for the greater good of all. … I am quite convinced that the OECD functionaries have proceeded under the fixed ideological beliefs that global social happiness and economic prosperity can only be achieved when individuals subordinate their economic freedom and liberties to the interests of the collective, a utopian view of society. They are wrong. The state of the world proves otherwise.”
Removing American-financed subsidies from the OECD won’t necessarily put an end to this corrupt and statist bureaucracy. But at least American taxpayers won’t be violated to subsidize the pampered officials who drive the OECD’s biased agenda. And without America support, it is highly doubtful that the OECD would have any ability to bully nations into expanding the burden of government. That’s a win-win situation for America and the world.
Here’s his video:
The terrorist conference 259
Did you hear the one about a crowd of terrorists holding a conference in the name of counter-terrorism? Sponsored by the Obama administration? What’s painfully funny about it is that it really happened.
Diana West writes at Townhall:
The Washington Free Beacon reported this week on the continuing omission of Israel from a U.S.-sponsored organization called the Global Counterterrorism Forum (GCTF). At a recent forum meeting in Spain, Maria Otero, U.S. undersecretary of state for civilian security, democracy and human rights, delivered a speech titled “Victims of Terrorism,” but, in her roll call of victims, she didn’t mention Israel. The conference at which she spoke was described as a “high-level conference on the victims of terrorism,” but Israel wasn’t a participant.
It bears repeating because it is so fantastic: At an international conference devoted to victims of terrorism, the world’s leading victim or, better, leading target of terrorism — Israel — was nowhere in sight, or mind.
Welcome to the GCTF — U.S. counterterrorism’s new “normal.” This 30-member organization got its official start last September as a “major initiative” of the Obama administration when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced its launch in New York.
It was quite an occasion; Hillary curled her hair. Seated next to her Turkish co-chairman, ensconced amid ministers from Algeria, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Morocco, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates …
All of which are or have been breeding-grounds of terrorists, and some of which – Turkey, Algeria, Egypt, Pakistan – are or have been active state sponsors of terrorism …
… and 18 other miscellaneous member-states plus the European Union, she then said the magic words: “From London to Lahore, from Madrid to Mumbai, from Kabul to Kampala, it’s innocent civilians who have been targeted …”
Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Ashkelon? Poof, gone. And that’s the point: This new counterterrorism organization, with its related counterterrorism center coming soon to Abu Dhabi, is Judenfrei. Not coincidentally, it is also heavily Islamic. Eleven member-states — slightly more than one-third of the organization’s membership — also belong to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), a bloc of 56 Islamic countries working to impose Islamic law (Shariah) on the world. Six of those 11 members additionally belong to the Arab League. Both groups have defined “terrorism” to exclude Israeli victims (sometimes U.S. soldiers), and “terrorists” to exclude groups dedicated to the destruction of Israel, such as Hamas and Hezbollah. It is no wonder the Arab-Islamic members would now unite in “counterterrorism” without Israel.
What is both shocking and shameful, however, is that the U.S. would, too. It shows that the U.S. has implicitly but clearly accepted the Arab League/OIC definitions of terrorism and terrorists. …
Their implied definition of terrorism is: “Israel defending itself”. Their implied definition of terrorist: a Jew.
Under the Bushes … while Israel was not permitted to fight alongside coalition forces, at least it was still recognized for withstanding more than 60 years of Islamic terrorist attacks. Today, under the auspices of the Obama administration, Israel no longer rates mention even as a victim. “Big Satan” has thrown “Little Satan” to the sharks. Which says two things about Big Satan. Our institutions now see the world from the Islamic perspective, and, as far as the sharks go, we’re next.
And this is from politicalmavens.com by Rachel Raskin-Zrihen:
So, there’s this Global Counterterrorism Forum comprised of 32 countries, including the United States, Columbia, Canada, South Africa, Nigeria, Australia and New Zealand. It also includes the European Union, nine European countries, 10 Arab/Muslim countries and three Asian ones.
This group was formed last year, under the United States’ leadership, for policymakers and experts in the counterterrorism field to share insights and best practices.0
Great idea, right?
Inexplicably, however, not included in the forum is Israel, easily in the top three on the list of the world’s most frequent terror targets and likely the most skilled at fighting the scourge. …
Inexplicably? Not at all. It could not be more obvious: Obama loves Islam and hates Israel.
Since no explanation has been offered by our government, we are left to speculate about why this is happening, and I suspect that were they to deign to explain their actions, Obama Administration officials would likely say it’s about getting the nations where the terrorists are spawned to help fight them, without pissing them off by inviting the Jews. It’s the only thing they can say, really. But I’m not buying it. And I’m not the only one.
After it was learned that the United State’s “best friend and closest ally” was excluded from this forum, our country’s officials assured those expressing concern that “a way would be found” to include it.
I find it peculiar, since we created the forum and Israel is among our closest allies and an expert on the issue, that a special way must be found to include it, different from the way the others came to be on the panel, but, evidently, it does.
However, it’s been a year and nothing has changed. Maybe they thought no one would notice.
But, at least two U.S. Senators did notice and wrote to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who attended this forum, and demanded to know why this glaring omission remains uncorrected.
Also, the Simon Wiesenthal Center took exception to the blatant insult, not to mention the stupidity of failing to include the player with the most direct experience with the phenomenon and the best track record at fighting it, and fired off an urgent letter of protest to Ms. Clinton.
The center’s founder, Rabbi Marvin Hier, reportedly wrote of his awareness that Turkey and some others “oppose an Israeli presence,” but notes that – SO THE EFF WHAT?
Are we trying to fight the most deadly dangerous threat to humanity to ever have slithered out of hell, or are we trying to appease the Arabs?
Answer: Obama and Hillary Clinton are trying to appease the Arabs.
Rabbi Hier also said that “having a Global Counterterrorism Forum and not including Israel, is like having a global technology conference and excluding the United States of America.” And, noting “there is no one with more experience at combating terrorism or educating civilians about it, than the State of Israel,” he said, “I think the time has come for the United States to make it very clear why Israel continues to be excluded.”
Me, too. But, I’m not sure we’ll get an honest answer, or, if we do, we’re prepared to hear it.
The first, and most obvious explanation, is that the Arab/Muslim contingent “objects” to the Jewish state’s inclusion. In other words, the bully objects to the victim’s presence at a discussion ostensibly designed to stop bullying.
Bullying is too mild a word, of course, but her point is good.
It’s a phenomenon similar to the so-called Anti-Racism conference in Durban, South Africa, which was actually an officially sanctioned, international Jew-and-Israel-bashing free-for-all, with a name that really only served to add insult to injury.
It’s another act of bullying, right in our face, and we – and by we I mean the United States and the rest of the free, normal-thinking world – is afraid to set the crazies off by defying their demands. …
This is unfortunate, obviously, because it’s proof certain that terrorism is working to cow even the world’s greatest powers.
In the light of this, the appointment of an Israeli as the UN Security Council’s top counterterrorism lawyer is simply astounding.
The Washington Post reports:
The United Nations has promoted a former Israeli government attorney to a job as the Security Council’s top counterterrorism lawyer, making him the only Israeli national serving in a senior security position within the U.N. Secretariat … David Scharia has been appointed legal coordinator for the Counter-Terrorism Committee executive directorate, where he will oversee a team of 12 international legal experts who advise the 15-nation Security Council on its counterterrorism efforts. The appointment would not typically be notable were it not so uncommon for Israelis to reach the upper levels at the United Nations. … Of the more than 44,000 international employees within the United Nations, only 124 are Israeli, according to the U.N. None serve in the top ranks of the most sensitive political jobs, which are responsible for maintaining international security, mediating peace deals and coordinating humanitarian assistance.
Why suddenly is an Israeli appointed to such a job at the UN?
A plausible explanation may be that the UN fears a cutting off of funds by the US Congress. (See here and here and here and here.)
Our preference would be for Congress to cut off all funds to the disgusting UN. The UN should be wiped off the face of the earth. See our post Why the UN must be destroyed, June 12, 2012.