Islam rules Britain, okay? 130

London, capital of England and Great Britain, and for centuries the hub of the greatest empire in all history, has elected a Muslim named Sadiq Khan to be its mayor.

He advocates tolerance of terrorism. That is to say, Islamic terrorism.

And he will not tolerate criticism of Islam. So he has formed a special police force, under his personal command, to sniff out “Islamophobes”. He calls it his “Hate Crime and Hate Speech”  unit. We call it the Islamic Stasi. It does not confine its operations to London, but goes stalking far afield.

Our British associate, Chauncey Tinker, sent us this account of the London Islamic Stasi going about its oppressive business, by one of its victims. Not surprisingly, a Jewish victim. His website is titled Fahrenheit211.

On Tuesday the 22nd October, at approximately 07:15, whilst I was getting my four year old child ready for school, there was a rather aggressive knock at my front door. I opened the door and found a whole bunch of police officers who wanted me to come out and ‘talk to them’. Knowing what the modern day British police are like in too many cases, which is thuggish and dishonest, I shut the door in their faces. The police do not turn up mob handed merely to have ‘a chat’. Instead I picked up the handset for my entryphone, which is remotely recorded, and spoke to the officers via that method.

I politely requested that they state the reason why they were at my front door and they said ‘we just want to talk’ and ‘you must come outside to speak’. They refused my request that I would speak to them via the window and insisted that I come out. Whilst this was going on I was watching what was happening on CCTV, the footage of which is now secured off site. I could see at least six police officers swarming around my front garden and to my back garden to which they had gained access. There were, I observed, four officers in the front and two in the back.

The officer who appeared to be leading this mob of officers, kept saying ‘we want you to come outside so we can talk to you’. Of course I refused. This is because I know from other cases of a similar nature where the police have said this that this is a ruse to gain entry to a property so that they can later say that the occupier ‘invited’ them in. The lead officer, whom I later found out was PC Choudhury of Sidcup who is attached to Sadiq Khan’s ‘Hate Crime and Hate Speech’ unit, became ever more threatening and aggressive in his tone and refused to state exactly why he and the rest of the officers were there. He and the other officers kept shouting through the door that if I did not open the door then they would break it down. Because I did not want my son exposed to what the police were obviously going to do I sent him upstairs with my wife.

After about five minutes or so of these officers banging on the front door and issuing threats to break it down and officers menacingly patrolling my back garden, an officer brought up what looked like a battering ram. The officers were shouting through the door ‘we are going to break the door down now’.

As the officers said they would, they smashed the lock on my front door causing approximately £100 worth of damage. At least three officers, one of whom was PC Choudhury, rushed into the house and into the kitchen at the back of the house. PC Choudhury then cautioned me, arrested me for ‘malicious communication and racial and religious hatred’ and put me in handcuffs. They guided me out into the front garden where they searched me and then put me in the back of a police van and took me to the local police station. Whilst I was being searched in the front garden my son escaped from his Mum and ran downstairs to the front door, saying his Daddy is being searched and taken away by police. I turned to my son and said to him, ‘Don’t worry, it will be all right, Daddy loves you’. He’s been asking me, ‘Are the policemen going to come back again?’ I will never forgive or forget the trauma that these officers put my child through.

Before I was put in the police van I noticed that a considerable amount of police resources had been put into this arrest and there were at least two police cars present along with the van. I found out later that PC Choudhury and his Met Police civilian assistant had traveled up the night before, distance of 150 miles and had stayed, at the taxpayers expense, in one of my city’s poshest hotels at a roughly estimated cost including meals of at least £150 per night. It’s good to know that Sadiq Khan’s ‘Hate Crime and Hate Speech’ unit is spending Londoners’ money so sensibly isn’t it? Maybe the Met has run out of real crime? Do I need a sarcasm sign here, no I don’t think so.

The police then searched my property and took away all my IT equipment including phones in order to examine them to see if they were related to the ‘offence’ that I had been arrested for. They also took my wife’s computer which is more than little annoying as she needs this machine for her work.

When we got to the police station I was booked in under the catch all and increasingly misused ‘Malicious Communication and Racial and Religious Hatred’ acts, searched again and put in a cell. The custody sergeant, who incidentally said that I was one of the most polite detainees he had had in a long time, furnished me with paper copies of my rights whilst detained and a requested copy of the Bible, which I used in the cell to meditate upon Psalm 35, a psalm that was appropriate for this situation. I was removed from the cell, photographed, fingerprinted and had DNA taken. I was put back in the cell to await questioning and the arrival of the duty solicitor.

Before questioning by PC Choudhury I consulted with the duty solicitor, who luckily turned out to be far better than many who perform this function, and I told him that I was not going to answer any questions that the police put to me, as is my right. I also gave the police a written statement that I was merely exercising my right to speak freely. I was offered food but I refused on the grounds that the food is unlikely to be Kosher but I was offered and accepted hot drinks as there’s not much you can do to instant coffee that would make this item not Kosher or Treyf.

Eventually I was brought, along with my solicitor, to an interview room for questioning under caution. I gave the officer my pre-prepared statement about speaking freely and the interview commenced. Of course I answered nearly all questions with ‘no comment’ and refused also to identify the vast majority of the items that the police alleged that they had removed from my home. The police also claimed that they had in possession written correspondence that they believed was between me and others who have challenged both Islam and ‘hate speech’ laws and certain organizations.

Although I did not answer any questions, the questions themselves gave me an inkling into what the arrest was all about. From what I could gather both Mr Mughal, who is the founder of the Tell Mama organisation and London’s Mayor Sadiq Khan had complained about memes mocking them that the police allege they saw on the Fahrenheit211 website. They also asked me about an allegation made by Mr Mughal that I questioned the narrative surrounding the ‘punish a Muslim day’ case in which doubt was cast on the idea that this was the work of an organised group and rather, as it turned out, the work of a lone and deranged nutcase. The police asked me if I was an ‘Islamophobe’ to which I replied ‘no comment’. They also asked me to disclose my passcodes for the machines that they claimed they had seized to which I replied ‘no comment’.

Incidentally, if you want further information about some of the criticisms that have been levelled against the Tell Mama organisation and those involved in it along with the sad state of freedom of speech in the UK, then I can highly recommend that you read Nick Monroe’s article Escape from Big Mother” It is an article that makes for illuminating and indeed frightening reading, especially for those who live in nations that, unlike the UK, have a greater respect for freedom of speech and freedom of expression. It should encourage those in places like the USA to hold on tight to their First Amendment, because without it the average citizen may suddenly find that a whole load of subjects that they may wish to discuss are now ‘forbidden’.

I got the distinct impression that the police were trying to get me to make their job of prosecuting me for ‘hate speech’ easy by having me answer questions. This, knowing the parlous state of UK police forces, was not something that I was prepared to do. Basically, the Met are trying to prosecute me for memes and for criticism of those groups who are in receipt of vast amounts of public money, resources to which I and others do not consider them entitled.

After discovering that I was not going to answer any of the police’s questions, I was released without charge on unconditional bail pending investigation. I suspect that this case will go the way of many other similar cases of ‘malicious communication’ and ‘hate speech’ where the long drawn out process of investigation is the punishment or part of the punishment and also a way of intimidating those who engage in ‘wrongthink’.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the many people who have contacted me both privately and publicly to offer their support and those associates who have contacted various online ‘influencers’ in order to gain publicity not just for my case but also to support the cause of free speech in general. I have been truly heartened by those who have voiced their support and especially to those in the United States who are encouraging a letter writing campaign aimed at the British Embassy in Washington DC. I would also like to thank those (you know who you are) who have given me facilities to work ‘off site’ which is why I’m able to continue writing.

This case is likely to run and run, a bit like the West End play The Mousetrap, although hopefully not as long as that particular production. I have also been questioned by another government entity that has the misfortune to share initials with a security organisation that was operating in Germany between 1933 and 1945. This I believe is standard practice when a person who is arrested has children. But I have told this organisation the truth. That is that I am a centre rightist Jewish conservative who believes in equality between races, equality between men and women between different sexualities, along with civic nationalism, British values and who is not a member of any extreme party or political grouping. The last party that I was a member of was the Conservative Party who in no way could be called ‘extreme’ by any reasonable person.

This incident will not discourage me from standing up for the idea of freedom of speech, which includes freedom of speech for those with whom I vehemently disagree. I am also not discouraged in my view that ‘hate speech’ legislation has no place in a society that considers itself to be free as not only do ‘hate speech’ laws have a chilling effect on a citizen or subject’s speech, but also because they create a two tier system where one group is given virtually carte blanche to say what they want but others do not have this right. If I’m not fighting here, I will be fighting this fight elsewhere and I would encourage others to peacefully and politely protest against both the removal of free speech rights for Britons, but also the damaging and all too easily abused categories of ‘hate speech’ and ‘hate crime’ legislation. In these matters we should be treated as equals no matter what our skin colour or belief system, something that the plethora of ‘hate crime’ legislation does not do. I’m going to fight this case as hard as I possibly can as it’s not just my fight but the same fight as everyone who wants freedom of speech and the repeal of the increasingly hated ‘hate speech’ and ‘hate crime’ laws.

So though the battle is lost and the capital of the country has fallen, some fight on.

The struggle is heroic, but is there any chance it can succeed?

Posted under Britain, Islam, jihad, Muslims, Terrorism, tyranny, United Kingdom by Jillian Becker on Sunday, November 10, 2019

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Criminalizing the truth 206

In Europe, people are being prosecuted for saying what they think and for telling the truth.

It is being done by the ruling powers to help Islam overwhelm the West and destroy our civilization.

“Without the right to speak your mind, all other rights are worthless,” Pat Condell says – rightly.

This video was made unavailable by YouTube late on May 2, 2017, one day after it had been posted.

Does YouTube have a policy of censoring content it does not like?

Is YouTube punishing Pat Condell for speaking the truth about Islam?

How strong is Islam’s influence over YouTube?

We wait to learn the answers.

Posted under Austria, Denmark, Europe, Islam, jihad, Law, media, Muslims, Netherlands, Videos by Jillian Becker on Monday, May 1, 2017

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In defense of hate speech 18

Islam does its utmost to make us infidels afraid of it – and then complains of our “Islamophobia”, our (irrational!) fear of Islam. If we do not fear it, we haven’t been paying attention. We are wise to fear it. We are wise to hate it. It is an evil creed.

Still, it ought not to be silenced by law.

We quote from our post, It’s better to be free to hate than to be free of hatred (April 30, 2014):

When Britain was a free country (ah, yes, I remember it well!), you could insult anyone as much as you pleased short of slander (such as accusing him of a crime). It was called “common abuse”, and there was no law against it. Nor should there have been. Now, in Britain, it’s okay for you to insult white males as much as you like. And Jews. If you insult them loudly and often enough you may get a grant to do it professionally. But if you insult Muslims you will be arrested and charged with a “hate crime”.

It should not be the business of the law to monitor and censure personal opinion.

It is precisely when someone says something you don’t agree with – something you consider stupid, abominable, ugly, offensive, wrong – that you must uphold his right to say it. Argue with him, call him a cretin and a villain; despise him, hate him But do not call for him to be gagged.

Allowing people to say what you don’t like and don’t agree with is the whole point of constitutionally guaranteeing free speech.

The idea of “hate crime” is at the root of this nonsense. Nobody can know what another person feels. If a person  commits a crime, punish him for the crime, not  for the supposed emotion behind it. Such an arrogantly puritanical concept as “hate crime” was  bound to distort the law and threaten liberty. As it does. …

People must be free to be petty, to be prejudiced, to be malicious, to be insulting. They cannot be stopped by the law. To make a law against bad behavior won’t change it, and can only make a mockery of the rule of law itself.

Now that vast bureaucratic tyranny, the European Union, decrees that what it judges to be expression of hate on the social media is to be illegal, and punishable.

Although it insists that “freedom of expression is a core European value which must be preserved”, it also insists that if you say something it doesn’t like, you must be gagged and punished. And it is co-opting “social media platforms” to assist in its policy of repression:

The Framework Decision on Combatting Racism and Xenophobia criminalises the public incitement to violence or hatred directed against a group of persons or a member of such a group defined by reference to race, colour, religion, descent or national or ethnic origin. This is the legal basis for defining illegal online content. …

In order to prevent the spread of illegal hate speech, it is essential to ensure that relevant national laws transposing the Council Framework Decision on combating racism and xenophobia are fully enforced by Member States in the online as well as in the offline environment. While the effective application of provisions criminalising hate speech is dependent on a robust system of enforcement of criminal law sanctions against the individual perpetrators of hate speech, this work must be complemented with actions geared at ensuring that illegal hate speech online is expeditiously reviewed by online intermediaries and social media platforms … [Our emphasis]

The real, unspoken, pathetic purpose of the ruling is to protect Islam from criticism. It is not likely that a Muslim will be censored, let alone prosecuted, for publishing such typical statements as these:

“The Jihad for Allah is the way of the truth and the way for salvation and the way which will lead us to crush the Jews.”  (Yasser Ghalban, Hamas leader, in 2006.)

“The Jews deserved their annihilation by Hitler.” (Dr Wafa Musa, psychologist, in 2009.)

“Jews are bacteria, not human beings.” – (Al Aqsa TV, Deputy Minister of Religious Endowments, Abdallah Jarbu, in 2010), and “The Jews are the most despicable and contemptible nation to crawl upon the face of the earth.” (‘Atallah Abu al-Subh, in 2011.)

And (we repeat), nor should they be censored or prosecuted! Indeed, it would be an excellent thing if the media of every kind displayed such statements prominently as often as they were made (which is every day). Muslims might be pleased at first. But after a while the effect on public opinion could be to provoke contempt and hatred of Islam. And then they’d raise their habitual noisy and violent objections, calling the display of their own words a manifestation of “Islamophobia”, of course.

The following comes from an article at Spiked, by its editor, Brendan O’Neill:

Hatred is an emotion, and the state has no business policing emotion.

“The internet is a place for free speech, not hate speech.” This spectacularly Orwellian comment was made last week by EU commissioner Vĕra Jourová, as she unveiled a new EU code to tackle hatred on the internet. Following three or four years of agitation by officials, politicians, hacks and feminists, all of whom insist that hateful “trolling” online is turning the internet into a cesspool of foul ideas and rotten comments, the EU has decided to take action. It has got web giants YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Microsoft to sign a promise that they will hunt down and extinguish illegal hateful commentary, especially racist and xenophobic comments.

Which is to say, they will “hunt down and extinguish” criticism of Islam, warnings of its jihad, objection to the spread of its cruel sharia law – as some have already started doing with zeal.

Some have responded to the new code by asking if it represents overreach. There’s a danger, they say, that angry speech, or just zany speech, will be swept up in the clampdown on hate speech. This will no doubt happen. But we should take our critique of this new code, and of 21st-century censorship more broadly, a step further. We shouldn’t only say “relatively normal speech might be destroyed alongside hate speech” — we should call into question the whole idea of “hate speech”. The category of hate speech is as ridiculous, and abominable, as the idea of thoughtcrime. It represents the criminalisation, not only of racism and xenophobia — which would be bad enough — but of certain ideas, moralities and beliefs. We should bristle and balk as much at the idea of “hate speech” as we do at the idea of thoughtcrime.

Hate-speech codes are an ideological tool disguised as a force for moral good. Consider the recent history of the idea of hate speech … After the Second World War, the keenest proponents of controls on “hate speech” were the Soviets. There were various international gatherings in the 1940s and 50s to hammer out postwar international treaties, and at these the Soviets pushed for a global commitment to repressing “hate speech”, in particular far-right speech. They wanted stipulations against “hatred” and “incitement to hatred”. Amazingly, the West resisted. Eleanor Roosevelt represented the Western powers at some of these debates. She argued that it would be “extremely dangerous” to outlaw hate speech, since “any criticism of public or religious authorities might all too easily be described as incitement to hatred”. Indeed.

Eventually, the Soviets won out. In 1965, the UN Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination was adopted, and it included a proposal to criminalise “ideas based on racial superiority”. The keyword here was ideas. From the outset, treaties and laws against hate speech were about controlling ideas: obnoxious ideas, yes, but ideas nonetheless. It was clear very early on that the category of hate speech was an ideological tool for the repression of bad ideas, of certain convictions. Post-1965, Western countries introduced into their national laws this new commitment to repressing ideas based on racial thinking.

What’s more, the category of hate speech is an extremely elastic tool for the repression of ideas. It has spread from curtailing ideas of racial superiority to suppressing expressions of religious hatred. Some Scandinavian countries want to outlaw misogynistic speech. On campuses there are clampdowns on transphobic speech. Anyone who says that a person with a penis is a man can now be branded a “hate speaker” and find himself No Platformed. So even saying ‘men are men and women are women’ has been encapsulated in the ideological category of hate speech.

Normal, widely held beliefs are casually rebranded “hatred”. Criticise religion too harshly and you’ll be accused of religious hatred; oppose gay marriage and you’re homophobic; doubt gender dysphoria and you’re a “transphobe”. Shouting “that’s hatred!” has become the preferred means for suppressing beliefs we find difficult or uncomfortable. That’s thanks to hate-speech laws. They have sanctioned this rush to rebrand beliefs as hate and to try to crush them. Once you accept that some ideas are beyond the pale … then ultimately no idea is safe

Under the banner of tackling “hate speech”, people are being punished for their moral convictions. … We should feel as angry about state restrictions on hate speech today as we would have done about the Soviet Union’s arrest of political dissidents 40 years ago, because in both cases the same thing is happening: people are punished, not for anything they’ve done, but for what they think.

Hatred is an emotion. … And when we allow figures of authority to control emotion, to fine people for their emotions, to imprison people for their emotions, then we enter the realm of tyranny. It completes the state’s control of the individual. It expands state power from the public sphere of discussion into the psychic sphere of thought and feeling. It invites policing not only of political sentiment but of deep feeling. It is a profound assault on the freedom of the individual.

It’s time to get serious about freedom of speech. It is unacceptable to repress the expression of ideas. It is unacceptable to repress the expression of hatred. “Hate speech is not free speech!”, people say. But it is.

By its very definition, free speech must include hate speech.

Speech must always be free, for two reasons: everyone must be free to express what they feel, and everyone else must have the right to decide for themselves whether those expressions are good or bad. When the EU, social-media corporations and others seek to make that decision for us, and squash ideas they think we will find shocking, they reduce us to the level of children. That is censorship’s greatest crime: it infantilises us. Let us now reassert our adulthood, our autonomy, and tell them: “Do not presume to censor anything on our behalf. We can think for ourselves.”

orwell-freedom-of-speech

Posted under Commentary, liberty by Jillian Becker on Tuesday, June 14, 2016

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What they’re saying over there on the Left 12

Christopher Swindell is a professor of Journalism at Marshall University in West Virginia. He writes this in the Charleston Gazette (May 30, 2013):

Watching the celebration at the NRA [National Rifle Association] convention over the defeat of background checks was the most nauseating experience of the day.

I am not a New York gun control liberal, either. I support a shotgun for home defense, a handgun for limited conceal/carry, and an assortment of hunting rifles to balance West Virginia’s exploding deer population (as evidenced by hourly collisions with cars). So, I am hardly out of the mainstream.

But, the gun safety debate is B.S. This foaming at the mouth, Obamar is coming for the guns, Nanny Bloomberg is a bad billionaire, and most despicable of all, those survivors and victims are pawns in the liberal agenda is knuckle-dragging Cretan talk.

Is Obama not coming for the guns? Is Bloomberg not behaving like a nanny when he rules on how much soda people may buy in one cup “for their own good”? Are all Americans not pawns in the liberal – ie Obama administration’s – agenda?

And no matter how many times Sen. Joe Manchin tries to explain his compromise (a decent attempt thwarted by extremists), the hard right lies and foams. The repeated lies now seem like the truth, what with the likes of Sen. Kelly Ayotte telling them.

Apparently he only has to say the name of Senator Kelly Ayotte (for whose position on gun control see here) to conjure up a set of connotations at which his fellow liberals (though not those of the “New York gun control” type who are apparently too extreme for Mr Swindell) to nod in harmonious disdain.

Probably the most serious miscalculation opponents make is the guest list for the NRA speaker’s podium. To let the half-wit half-term quitter Sarah Palin have a microphone is to alienate the very people Republicans need to work with on future legislation. To say nothing of the other speakers.

Sarah Palin is an extraordinary (and beautiful) woman. She hunts and fishes to put food on her family’s table. She and her husband built their own house. She was an able governor of Alaska. Chosen by the lackluster John McCain to be his running-mate for the presidency in 2008, she energized his campaign and drew the eyes of the nation to her as the star she is. When  Obamacare was no more than a dark nebulous menace, she spotted that it would inevitably set up the “death panels” which it does. But because they do not agree with her; because she did not go to an ivy-league university; because she is not one of that class of intellectual snobs aptly called by Thomas Sowell the “self-anointed”, she is treated by them not only with most illiberal scorn, but is actively persecuted, bullied, maligned, libeled. The snobs have even sunk so low as to malign and libel her children. Every brave, moral, decent thing she does – such as deciding not to have an abortion when she knew her child would be born with Down Syndrome – is mocked and spat upon by those arbiters and models of good taste, refined sensibility, superior breeding and costly education. They confuse intelligence with the acquisition of university degrees. She did not go to Harvard, so she is a “half-wit”. As for her being a quitter – meaning that she left the governorship because a campaign of frivolous and cruel litigation was mounted against her – the critics should consider how little time Barack Obama devoted to anything in his life before he became president.

And how does choosing a white, rich old man with an offensive degrading speech about the war of “Northern Aggression” as NRA president forward a sense of reasonableness? History lesson: It was an awful Civil War won decisively some 150 years ago. Over slavery. The Confederacy wanted to keep African-Americans in chains and President Lincoln didn’t.

Ah yes, to be white is eternally unforgiveable (unless you are on the Left). To be rich is so nasty it ought to be criminalized (unless you are on the Left  – or believe in nanny government like billionaire Mayor Bloomberg).

The Civil War  was indeed “awful”. Some 620,000 people lost their lives in it. It was fought to keep the Union together. Whether  rightly or wrongly is still a subject of dispute, while nobody now supports slavery except Islam.

Sure, there were states’ rights issues, but nullification, secession, and treason were settled at Appomattox Courthouse. Sure, Reconstruction left a bad taste. But, resurrecting these same things, the way South Carolina is as we speak, is to invite a return to the whole concept of a Union.

Here it is. The NRA advocates armed rebellion against the duly elected government of the United States of America.

We did not hear and have not found NRA speeches advocating “armed rebellion against the duly elected government”. But if they were made, we doubt that the speakers meant now. If they meant that one of the reasons citizens should freely own guns is to defend themselves against a tyrannical government, they were surely right. And the trend of the Obama government is ever more towards dictatorship and tyranny.

That’s treason, and it’s worthy of the firing squad. The B.S. needs a serious gut check. We are not a tin pot banana republic where machine gun toting rebel groups storm the palace and depose the dictator.

We put the president in the White House.

A part of the electorate put this one there, making the biggest mistake in US history.

To support the new NRA president’s agenda of arming the populace for confrontation with the government is bloody treason. And many invite it gladly as if the African-American president we voted for is somehow infringing on their Constitutional rights.

There we go. Mentioning that he is “African-American” is the hint that all who are against him are motivated by race prejudice.

And that is followed by  a threat of overwhelming fire-power in defense of their immaculate values:

Normally, I am a peaceable man, but in this case, I am willing to answer the call to defend the country. From them.

To turn the song lyric they so love to quote [?] back on them, “We’ll put a boot in your —, it’s the American way.”

Except it won’t be a boot. It’ll be an M1A Abrams tank, supported by an F22 Raptor squadron with Hellfire missiles. Try treason on for size. See how that suits. And their assault arsenal and RPGs won’t do them any good.

So, to return to reality, all of us. Let’s make common sense gun safety a deciding issue for 2014 and beyond. The NRA certainly has. Let’s push back. We the People. The 85 percent who support more robust background checks. And when the next domestic terrorist with an assault rifle comes along, we can blame the leaders and fringe of the NRA for arming them.

So this whole rant was over less or more “robust background checks”. And whether less or more, if a mass murderer comes along with an assault rifle, the great thing is that the Left can blame the NRA for arming him. You only get reasoning like that among the brilliant self-anointed.

British values: ‘hatred and blood’ 121

From Canada Free Press, an article by Humberto Fontova:

For “fostering extremism and hatred “ Britain’s home Secretary has barred the immensely popular U.S. radio commentator Michael Savage from setting foot in the UK. “Coming to the U.K. is a privilege,” explained Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, “and I refuse to extend that privilege to individuals who abuse our standards and values to undermine our way of life. Therefore, I will not hesitate to name and shame those who foster extremist views as I want them to know that they are not welcome here.”

Fair enough, Ms Smith. But Che Guevara’s daughter, Aleida, will be in Britain next month for a hoopla titled Cuba50, which is billed as “the biggest European celebration in this 50th anniversary year.” In London’s expansive Barbican Centre, Britain will throw the continent’s biggest party commemorating fifty years of Castro’s Stalinist regime, which jailed political prisoners at a higher rate than Stalin’s, murdered political prisoners at a higher rate than pre-war Hitler’s, and came closest of anyone to plunging the world into nuclear war…

Aleida Guevara will visit Home Secretary Smith’s jurisdictional domain in order to promote, in her own words: “my father’s ideals, his concerns, and his ambitions. I believe that my father is a banner to the world!” adds Che’s well-fed (in sharp contrast to most Cubans) daughter.

Fine. Let’s have a look at Aleida’s father’s “ambitions,” keeping in mind that “hate speech” is a buzz-term beloved by the likes of Jacqui Smith and, for them, has an extremely elastic application.

Hatred as the central element of our struggle!” raved Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara in his 1966 Message to the Tricontinental Conference in Havana. “Hatred that is intransigent…hatred so violent that it propels a human being beyond his natural limitations, making him violent and cold- blooded killing machine…We reject any peaceful approach. Violence is inevitable. To establish Socialism rivers of blood must flow!…

We will bring the war to the imperialist enemies’ very home, to his places of work and recreation. We must never give him a minute of peace or tranquility. We’ll attack him wherever we find him. The imperialist enemy must feel like a hunted animal wherever he moves. Thus we’ll destroy him! These hyenas (Americans) are fit only for extermination. We must keep our hatred alive and fan it to paroxysm! The victory of Socialism is well worth millions of atomic victims!..My nostrils dilate while savoring the acrid odor of gunpowder and blood.”

And Aleida’s father made good on his boast. The “acrid odor of gunpowder and blood” rarely reached Che Guevara’s nostril from actual combat. It always came from the close-range murder of bound, gagged or blindfolded men (and boys.) “The Black Book of Communism,” written by French scholars and published in English by Harvard University Press (neither an outpost of the vast right-wing conspiracy,) estimates 14,000 firing squad executions in Cuba by the end of the 1960’s, the equivalent, given the relative populations, of over 3 million executions in the U.S.

Aleida’s father delighted in delivering the coup de grace to dozens of these. When office work (signing execution warrants) tore him away from his beloved execution pits, Che ameliorated his emotional deprivation by having a special window installed in his office so he could watch his busy firing squads at work, beaming at the spectacle. Among many others, Aleida’s father invited Ernest Hemingway as a spectator to the slaughter…

“Gay-bashing” seems to figure big in Jacqui Smith’s definition of hate speech. But apparently when this bashing comes in the literal form, involving Soviet gun-butts and bayonets bashing a gay’s head until he dies from massive cerebral trauma, it fails to fall under her definition of “Hate Speech.”

In the process of these tortures and murders Aleida’s dad helped his Cuban mentor establish a personal fiefdom that proved quite enduring. This totalitarian endurance is what Jacqui Smith’s London will celebrate next month.

Alas, when Aleida’s father finally found himself up against armed and determined enemies in Bolivia, all his bloodthirsty bluster vanished in a “poof.” “Don’t shoot!” he whimpered to his U.S. trained Bolivian captors as he dropped his fully loaded weapons, “I’m Che! I’m worth more to you alive than dead!”

His Bolivian captors viewed the matter differently. In fact they adopted a policy that has since become a favorite among Americans who encounter (so-called) endangered species on their property: “Shoot, Shovel and Shut up.” Justice has never been better served.

Posted under Commentary, News by Jillian Becker on Monday, May 11, 2009

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