This is a very long piece over at dhimmiwatch, it’s worthwhile to read the whole thing.

An excerpt:

The problem with Plato is not that he used the shameful treatment of Socrates to demonstrate flaws in the democratic system and show that it does not automatically lead to individual liberty, freedom of speech and respect for private property rights, which is legitimate criticism. The problem with Plato is that he rejected these goals as desirable to begin with. He embraced what I would call “seductive authoritarianism,” where he argued that since democracy isn’t perfect, we should passionately embrace an authoritarian or indeed totalitarian system where all aspects of human life are controlled by the state with mathematical precision.

This appears to be what the leftists of today are yearning for; yet I’m surprised they haven’t looked back to history to see that the utopia they are blindly seeking doesn’t exist.

Although he is not uncritical of Sparta, the system Plato praises in The Republic is a lot closer to authoritarian Sparta than to Athens. In doing this, Plato conveniently forgot that there was no Socrates in Sparta, just like there was no Plato or Aristotle. While Plato was free to be in democratic Athens and praise the Spartan system, praising any state or system other than the Spartan one was quite literally a crime in Sparta. They produced good soldiers, but few if any scientists worthy of note. Plato thus praised a system in which no Plato could, or did, exist.

The same goes for the marxists and terrorists who are working for Barack Obama to win the election; they are praising a system under which they would probably be murdered. As Fontova said today, Jesse Jackson is against capital punishment, yet he supports Castro, one of the most notorious murdering communist thugs of all time.

As Henry Bamford Parkes puts it, “Any application of Platonic principles would have destroyed the social milieu that had made such dialogues possible. There could have been no Socratic discussions in the authoritarian state envisaged in the Republic and the Laws.” In his view, Plato’s influence was primarily negative: “In spite of his contempt for empirical observation, his emphasis on the value of mathematics helped to promote the scientific development of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.” Yet all in all, “his chief importance has been to provide philosophical support for the belief that order requires the denial of freedom.”

According to Henry Bamford Parkes, “Sparta represented the totalitarian solution to the political problem, and because of the admiration felt for it by the Athenian aristocrat Plato, it has had a lasting influence on Western thought.” One could thus argue that although freethinking is a golden thread running through the history of Western civilization, this legacy gave birth to a radical rejection of freethinking, which is also a part of the Western legacy. It is tempting to view Plato as an early forerunner of modern intellectuals with totalitarian longings, who use their freedom to praise political systems in which no freedom exists, be that Communist, Islamic or other.

When you read essays such as “The Peace Racket” by Bruce Bawer, the author of While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within, you get a very strong impression that many Western universities are now dominated by persons, many of them Marxists, who have no interest in using Socratic dialogue in search of truth. They already know the truth, or consider it irrelevant, and simply view the universities as a platform for ideological indoctrination of students. This ideological corruption has been infused with an element of financial corruption as well. As Ibn Warraq says in Defending the West: A Critique of Edward Said’s Orientalism:

“The West, in giving in to political correctness and in being corrupted by Saudi and other Arab money, is ceasing to honor the original intent of the university. In recent years, Saudi Arabia and other Islamic countries (e.g., Brunei) have established chairs of Islamic studies in prestigious Western universities, which are then encouraged to present a favorable image of Islam. Scientific research leading to objective truth no longer seems to be the goal. Critical examination of the sources or the Koran is discouraged. Scholars such as Daniel Easterman have even lost their posts for not teaching about Islam in the way approved by Saudi Arabia. In December 2005, Georgetown and Harvard universities each accepted $ 20 million from Saudi prince Alwaleed bin Talal for programs in Islamic studies. The Carter Center, founded by former president Jimmy Carter, is funded in part by bin Talal. Such money can only corrupt the original intent of all higher institutions of education, that is, the search for truth.”

In abandoning Socratic dialogue and the search for truth, the West has made itself more vulnerable to Islamic infiltration because it has in some ways become more like Islam. Only by insisting on our right to ask questions about anything can we restore what once was the purpose of our education system. We should start with rational criticism of Islam.

Christine, you have a lot of explainin’ to do.

I caught this article by Dan Rabkin called Londonistan Rising from the previously referenced Dhimmi Watch notation, here.

This letter was sent to a politician in the Jewish State: Moshe Feiglin, the head of the Jewish Leadership faction within the Likud party. He initially thought the letter was a prank, because he had no plans to visit the UK and had not applied for a visa. He was shocked to learn that the letter was indeed authentic and that Britain had become the first nation on earth that banned his presence.

“I am writing to advise you that following the London bombings in July 2005, the Home Secretary announced a list of particular activities that would normally lead to a person being excluded or deported from the UK … The list of unacceptable behaviours covers:

-writing, producing, publishing or distributing material;

-public speaking including preaching;

-running a website;

-using a position of responsibility such as a teacher, community or youth leader

To express views that:

-foment or justify terrorist violence in furtherance of particular beliefs;

-seek to provoke others to terrorist acts;

-foment other serious criminal activity or seek to provoke others to serious criminal acts;

-foster hatred which might lead to inter-community violence in the UK.

The Home Secretary has considered whether, in light of this list, you should be excluded from the United Kingdom. After careful consideration, she has personally directed that you should be excluded from the United Kingdom…”

In a complete twist of rational thought, the writer equates the London bombings with Jews. If I’m not mistaken, the London bombers were Islamists who carried signature backpacks of homicide bombers.

CCTV still, left, and a picture of Hasib Hussain released by police, right.

Three of the four bombers were British nationals of Pakistani descent from West Yorkshire

They were: Mohammad Sidique Khan, 30, of Dewsbury; Hasib Mir Hussain, 18, of Holbeck, Leeds: and Shehzad Tanweer, 22, of Beeston, Leeds

The fourth bomber was Jamaican-born Germaine Lindsay who lived in Buckinghamshire

The twisted justification anyone would use to attack Israel, or bar Israelis from entering their country when what they’re looking at are crimes committed by Islamists who yell “allahu akbar” is mind bending, and totally irrational.

In addition to the excerpt quoted above, the letter listed a few statements attributed to Mr. Feiglin as evidence of his ability to “foment and justify terrorist violence”. One of the quotes, “The Arab is not the son of the desert, but rather, its father”, pulled from one of Feiglin’s articles, was not even his at all. Ironically, Feiglin took that quote directly from the book The Desert Yesterday and Today written by none other than, British High Commissioner of Sinai, Sir Claude Jarvis in 1938. In other words, as Feiglin likes to joke, he is being barred from Britain for quoting a British official.

About whose “terrorist violence” were the Brits so worried? Did they think that after one of Feiglin’s trademark synagogue lectures, about the need for Jewish unity and the sanctity of an undivided Jerusalem, the elderly Jews in the audience would be so riled up that they would decide to blow themselves up on the Tube? Or were they more concerned about the violence of the over 2000 Islamists MI5 has under surveillance for being “actively involved in supporting al-Qaeda”?

Appeasement of radical Muslims and their leftist allies is nothing new to the British. The United Kingdom, a country that values its freedom of speech so much that it consistently lets Islamists protest chanting the vilest of expressions, has a long history of silencing Jews. Whereas Islamists in Britain are free to chant “May Allah and Osama Bin Laden bomb you!”, “Nuke, Nuke UK and USA, Blair and Bush you will pay!”, and “Europe is the cancer, Islam is the answer!”, Israeli officials are frequently denied visitors’ visas, threatened with arrest upon entry and worse.

Appeasement of radical Islamists and radical muslim organizations is going on everywhere, it seems…and will surely mean the death of the west unless we wake up from our destructive political correctness soon. What frightens me the most is the thought that a man propped by radical Islamists could one day soon become President of the United States.

Melanie Phillips has also written a book entitled Londonistan, which is available at Amazon.

A review from Amazon:

This is, in my opinion, the single most important book for Americans to read today. Phillips is a brilliant writer, and her book reads like a thriller, except that it most unfortunately contains nothing but shocking truth, not entertaining fiction.

The recent events in the U.K. are almost incomprehensible. It appears that a strong and consistent but maddenly unspoken policy of appeasement has been put into place by the elites of the U.K. It appears that Labor now believes that although Muslim voters are still a minority, they are the critical or crucial swing voters that Labor thinks it needs to win. Combine this position of Labor with the well-organized and well-funded campaign for Islamicification of Britain and you have the disaster that is Britain today.

Melanie Phillips deftly and with a surgeon’s precision describes how this diabolical state of affairs came about.

Americans date assume that they are immune from Islamification here in the U.S. It has begun to happen here from the collapse of noise control legislation in the face of Islamic demands for broadcasting the call to prayer 5 times a day, 7 days a week, to demands made for co-ed gyms to create separate exercise facilities for women, despite the fact that women only gyms already exist. This is how it started in the U.K. The slow and piecemeal establishment of sharia and the displacement of the local culture. It could happen here also. There certainly is plenty of Saudi money pumped into libraries, education and American mosques to see that it does just that.

More on this later.

‘Tis a sad story; the thought police are after Lionheart in Britain.

“I am currently out of the Country and on my return home to England I am going to be arrested by British detectives on suspicion of Stirring up Racial Hatred by displaying written material” contrary to sections 18(1) and 27(3) of the Public Order Act 1986.

This charge if found guilty carries a lengthy prison sentence, more than what most paedophiles and rapists receive, and all for writing words of truth about the barbarity that is living in the midst of our children, which threatens the very future of our Country.

The cultural weapon in the hands of the modern Jihad within Great Britain, silencing the opposition using our own laws against us - The Dumb Filthy Kaffir’s as the Moslem would say to his children behind closed doors.

What has become of my homeland, the land my forefathers fought and died for on the battlefields of the world when one of their children is forced into the position of facing years in prison for standing up for what is right and just within British society.

At least my words of truth have obviously now reached people’s eyes and ears, with the powers that be now intent on silencing me - Third World Tyranny in a supposed 21st Century democracy!

One might think this is something that would happen in Egypt or Iran, but certainly not Britain. But it does appear as though they’re enforcing PC in favor of Islamists.

Dumb John has more ridiculous news to report; puns are verboten but nobody can say who ordered this disgrace. Apparently, you can’t walk through a British airport dressed as a soldier, but you can dressed as Bin Laden. Hey, even I might start taking the ‘respectable left’ seriously if they devoted half the rage to this case that they’d express if some airport banned Islamic regalia.

PREMEDITATED MERGER - North American Union ‘a couple years away’ - Bilderberg author who 1st exposed plot in 1996 sees EU replication as imminent

WASHINGTON – The next giant step toward world government will be integration of the U.S., Canada and Mexico in European Union-style merger in the next few years, says the author of a best-selling book on the power of shadowy international organizations promoting the move.

“I would say [it’s just] a couple of years away,” reports Daniel Estulin, author of “The True Story of the Bilderberg Group.”

Estulin, a Canadian now living in Europe, says the original plans for a North American Union involved the U.S. and Canada as the prime participants. It was motivated primarily by the desire to harvest Canada’s abundant natural resources.

In his new book, Estulin reveals the first efforts in this plan date back to 1996 when the elite Bilderberg Group first discussed plans for the dismantlement of Canada as an independent nation and proposed its merger – minus Quebec – with the United States into a Greater North America.

The Flying Monkey Right is warning that we are just …

A few years away from Mexi-Can-America

This is absurd.
And dangerous thinking on the part of a Roman Catholic Bishop.

A proposal by a Roman Catholic bishop in the Netherlands that people of all faiths refer to God as “Allah” is not sitting well with the Catholic community.

Tiny Muskens, an outgoing bishop who is retiring in a few weeks from the southern diocese of Breda, said God doesn’t care what he is called.

“Allah is a very beautiful word for God. Shouldn’t we all say that from now on we will name God Allah? … What does God care what we call him? It is our problem,” Muskens told Dutch television.

“I’m sure his intentions are good but his theology needs a little fine-tuning,” said Father Jonathan Morris, a Roman Catholic priest based in Rome. Morris, a news analyst for FOX News Channel, also called the idea impractical.

“Words and names mean things,” Morris said. “Referring to God as Allah means something.”

In the civilized world where peoples are free, names and titles don’t mean too much. But in the world of Islam, names are everything. Allah is not my God. He was a pedophile. A drunk. A man who abused women. A freak. I will never bow to him; I will spit upon his BOOK and all mosques and anything else ISLAM. His followers have caused much of this world’s wars and destruction. ALLAH is no GOD. This Bishop is pandering. Like the Brits and food during Ramadan. Like the Brits and special hospitals for Muslims. Like all the silly and special laws given to this religion of Peace…it’s cowarding down to them.

I won’t be a coward.

Disclaimer: I am a Catholic, but I don’t actively practice my religion. I have never even read the Bible.

Only in Great Britain. For now.

DOCTORS and health workers have been banned from eating lunch at their desks - in case it offends their Muslim colleagues.

Health chiefs believe the sight of food will upset Muslim workers when they are celebrating the religious festival Ramadan.

The lunch trolley is also to be wheeled out of bounds as the 30-day fast begins next month.

Hmm…Why pander to the Muslims?

But staff and politicians branded the move political correctness gone mad and warned that it was a step too far.

Bill Aitken, the Scottish Conservative justice spokesman, said: “This advice, well-meaning as it may be, is total nonsense.

“It is the sort of thing that can stir up resentment rather than result in good relations.”

Yep…exactly. And more than that: What’s next? Forbidden meals in entire buildings where a Muslim might be working??– due to the scent of cooking food? Will they not allow people to eat pork chops or bacon?

The new guidance comes in the wake of the failed terror attacks on Glasgow and the death of suspect Kafeel Ahmed, 27.

Health chiefs in Lothian and Glasgow will give all employees time off to pray and to celebrate Eid, which marks the end of Ramadan.

Will they give the other employees, the doctors and nurses, time off to leave the premises to buy meals?

But Greater Glasgow and Clyde as well as Lothian NHS boards also issued the advice, warning workers not to take working lunches, and said all vending machines should be removed from areas where Muslims work.

One senior consultant said: “What next? Are we going to have advice on how to deal with Catholics during Lent?
“This kind of thing does more harm than good.”

The guidance, which was sent round many organisations, was produced by Glasgow consultancy Meem, which advises on Muslim issues and counts the Scottish Parliament among its clients.

Taking away vending machines? No. They’re pandering to low now. Muslims have no more special rights than any one else of any other faith. This giving IN will do nothing to fend off future acts of terrorism. Knowing this, if I were employed at a hospital that made these policy changes, I would not only eat at my desk, I would stand outside the nearest door barbecuing pork ribs and chops and would give them away to all my peers. Every single day of Ramadan. Offending to the Muslims? Tough shit. They offend me when they attack and blow up my fellow citizens.

Cross Posted @ ARS

Not all members of Britain’s Parliament agree with dropping the use of the words, Muslim and War on Terror:

In responding to Smith’s words, Tory backbencher Philip Davies wondered, “What purpose is served by this? I don’t think we need pussyfoot around when talking about terrorism.” As one reader asked on the Daily Express’ Web site, “Well, if they aren’t Muslims, what the hell are they? They sure aren’t Methodists or Quakers.”

It is true that not all Muslims are terrorists, nor should all be under suspicion. It’s also true that, save for the occasional convert, most terrorists have been young Muslim males of Middle Eastern or Asian descent. To some, this is profiling. In police work, it’s called a description of the suspects.

Now, we read this news of a new threat here in America:

PHILADELPHIA — Two doctors accused of plotting last weekend’s failed terror bombings in London and Glasgow inquired about coming to the United States to continue their medical studies, the FBI confirmed Friday.

FBI spokeswoman Nancy O’Dowd confirmed a report in The Philadelphia Inquirer that the pair took preliminary steps to apply for graduate medical programs in the U.S.

This is the first suggestion that any of the suspected Islamic terrorists in Britain wanted to come to the United States.

One of the doctors was identified as Mohammed Jamil Asha, 26, a neurologist from Jordan who was arrested in a car on the M6 Highway near Manchester, England, with his wife and 1 1/2-year-old son after the failed attacks.

The Inquirer could not determine the identity of the second doctor.

SO if we don’t profile, or even consider the nation these student doctors are coming from, how can we defend against a potential attack? Is watching and tracking young men of middle eastern decent SUCH a bad thing? I don’t think so. This War on Terror is not something we can describe as anything else; we can’t be politically correct about it. Too much is at stake. Britain can go soft and she will pay the price, but America is stronger than that.

Global warming. The scandal is forcing entire nations to do away with their national treasures- in this case, Sweden, and Volvo and Saab.

DANDERYD, Sweden — Perhaps more than most Europeans, Swedes have a love affair with big cozy cars.

And with good reason: Volvo and Saab, two of the world’s best-known brands for comfort and safety, are made right in their own backyard.

And a good many Swedes work at the factories that make these vehicles.

But as concern about global warming ripples across this country, the average Swede’s relationship with comfortable — and highly polluting — cars is becoming strained.

The most recent available European Union statistics show that Sweden has the highest-pollution-emitting cars in Western Europe. Many of those happen to be Volvos and Saabs, which tend to be roomy, high-horsepower models that emit a high count of carbon dioxide, a major greenhouse gas.

In 2004, when the average new car in the 15 countries that belonged to the European Union at the time spewed out 163 grams of carbon dioxide a kilometer, the equivalent number in Sweden was 196. According to a study by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, the biggest cars in all of Sweden are found here in Danderyd, a wealthy municipality with average emissions of 211 grams a kilometer.

Ahh…when the EU publishes it’s own stats, everyone must listen and trust the information. Does anyone dare question these stats? Of course not. The peasants have no right to do so.

The task was given new urgency in February when the European Commission proposed limiting emissions from new passenger cars to 120 grams of carbon dioxide a kilometer, or 6.8 ounces a mile, by 2012. And it is forcing Swedes to weigh a delicate trade-off between support for their cherished automakers and the nation’s rapidly greening attitude in which a fourth of their energy in 2003 came from renewable sources.

New urgency? Junk science is changing the way nations do everything.

Because Saab and Volvo make up a crucial part of the Swedish economy, the government — like others in the European Union — provides indirect support. The tax code is structured so that company employees receive the maximum tax benefit for driving big new Volvos and Saabs.

“The tax system is tailor-made for these national treasures,” Mr. Falkemark said. The result is that almost half of all new cars sold in Sweden are sold to companies — and half of these are Volvos and Saabs.

So what happens in a nation where government can force a business to change it’s product?

“This is where some of the biggest cuts will have to be made,” said Jos Dings, the director of the European Federation for Transport and Environment in Brussels, referring to government support for Saab and Volvo. “In the U.K., company cars are more fuel-efficient than private cars, instead of the other way around, because the tax system encourages fuel efficiency rather than size.”

The government takes away customers and levies huge taxes. Governments bully private industry…

Saab and Volvo are working on making more fuel efficient vehicles but the pace isn’t “fast” enough, according to the enviro freaks. They’re saying these things:

…the planet cannot wait that long and that Swedes need to learn to drive less comfortably.

And the latest tactic to find it’s way into this foolish debate? Shaming the peasants.

“As global warming becomes more evident,” said Mr. Maberg, the retired Volvo owner, “it will get more and more embarrassing to drive around in a big and heavy car like this.”

When will the peasants demand more information? Will they ever question the stats that are forcing all these changes? Do they except, wholesale, the arguments presented to them in this? Are they citizens or lemmings?

Rushdie had a fatwa of death against him for writing “The Satanic Verses” about the Koran, because you can get a death sentence for leaving Islam. It’s what they call being an ‘apostate’. The fatwa against Rushdie was issued in February 1989 by Iran’s revolutionary founder and Khamenei’s predecessor, the Ayatollah Khomeini. Although Khomeini is dead now, supposedly that doesn’t make any difference, the fatwa will always remain in effect.

In 2005, the Ayatollah Khamenei (the new guy) said in his message:

“They talk about respect towards all religions, but they support such a mahdour al-damm mortad as Salman Rushdie.” In Sharia, or Islamic law, mortad is a reference to someone who has committed apostasy by leaving Islam while mahdour al-damm is a term applying to someone whose blood may be shed with impunity.

So, the Queen of England knighted Rushdie, which is a little bit odd (for some of the reasons that Ed Brayton cites), but I’ll go with it. What’s particularly pleasing is that the Islamofascist nuts are going wild over it.

Loose Change is the Truthers’ ’schlockumentary’, along the same lines as Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11; a complete collection of paranoid delusions from leftist liars who borrowed the conspiracy theories from overseas:

The catalyst for most of the Pentagon attack sleuths can be traced back to the incendiary propaganda of French author and radical socialist Thierry Meyssan, president of the virulently anti-American and pro-Communist French think tank Reseau Voltaire. In his best selling book, L’Effroyable Imposture (the Frightening Deception), Meyssan launched the claim that American Airlines Flight 77 did not hit the Pentagon. It has been translated into English and is sold in the US as 9/11: The Big Lie. Meyssan has followed up with a second book, Pentagate.

Many of the organizations and websites “investigating” the 9/11 attacks promote and/or sell the Meyssan books, Dave von Kleist, narrator and producer of the video 9/11 In Plane Site, on of the most popular “exposes” of the September 11 events, explains in his video that it was Meyssan’s 9/11 website: “Hunt the Boeing” that got him started investigating the matter.

Mr. vonKleist strangely refers repeatedly to Meyssan’s books and website as information “released by the French”, as though it were released by the French people collectively. In reality, Meyssan represents only a small fringe on the far left of French politics and his 9/11 materials have been denounced as disinformation and hucksterism by political and media representatives spanning the spectrum of French political thought, including many of those who strongly oppose US policies in response to the 9/11 terror attack.

Now it would seem that along with Michael Moore’s anti-American films, we have Loose Change as an addition of more hateful anti-American lies.

Screw Loose Change overview

What the Truthers Influence has wrought

Journal of debunking 9/11 Conspiracy Theories

Screw Loose Change myspace page

Watch this video, pass it on. See all the vids at google, pick one, get the code, and pass the word. What a paranoid collection of BS Loose Change is, touting some of Hillary’s ‘it takes a village of idiots’ as experts.

Leftists are not all that bright and are completely happy drinking the truther koolaid…

Jawa report:

Contact Virgin, link the debunking sites and videos, and let them know what catastrophically idiotic nimrods they are.

Interesting.

The International Court of Justice has disappointed Bosnian Muslims by ruling that Serbia was not responsible for the massacre at Srebrenica during the Bosnian war.

The Hague court ruled that Serbia did fail to prevent the killings of the 8,000 men and boys in 1995.

But in the landmark case in which a state rather than an individual was on trial for genocide, it found that the government it was not directly responsible.

Cramer and Cafasso must be disappointed.

Aisah Azmi refused to remove her niqab in front of male colleagues

A Muslim teaching assistant suspended by her school for refusing to remove her niqab in front of male colleagues has said she will appeal against an employment tribunal’s decision that the local authorities did not discriminate against her.

The tribunal today ruled that Kirklees council had not indirectly or directly discriminated against Aishah Azmi, nor had it harassed the English and maths classroom assistant.

However, Mrs Azmi was awarded £1,100 in damages for victimisation, which includes a ten per cent mark-up owing to the local education authority’s failure to comply with the correct procedure.

What procedure would that be. The law of political correctness? It seems as though this woman wants to behave as though she’s living under sharia law. But isn’t that their goal? They want everyone to behave that way.

She’s using the victim angle that a lot of muslims are picking up. She’s a young teaching assistant refuses to take off her veil, claiming victimhood because people aren’t accepting that. And according to the media, this is opening an untested ‘new area of law’.

Straw said he would prefer women not to wear veils because they acted as a “visible statement of separation and difference.”

Social Exclusion Minister Hilary Armstrong backed that view on Thursday evening when she told BBC’s Question Time: “I think it is very difficult to actually wear a veil and participate in everything in our society.”

Anna Politkovskaya was an outspoken journalist, a critic of Vladamir Putin. On October 7th she was bringing in groceries from her car when a masked gunman shot her execution-style in the elevator of her apartment building.

Her parents were Ukrainian Soviets who worked as diplomats at the United Nations. She was born in New York, and was writing about ‘human rights’ issues in Chechnya. The piece she was working on before she died will be published shortly.

She was even honored at a dinner for the Committee to Protect Journalists in New York. I guess the only people who are honored by that organization, and protected by that organization, are the ones whose politics are ‘politically correct’. She chronicled killings, torture, rape, kidnappings and disappearances of Chechen civilians at the hands of Russian troops and security forces. So it would appear that if you’re complaining about ‘human rights violations’, you’re in the right camp to belong to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Although in retrospect their honoring her had little to do with her protection, as it turns out.

The Times Online has a piece called “The Woman Who Shamed Moscow”, probably the best piece I’ve read on this thus far.

At the height of the war in Chechnya, Politkovskaya was detained by Russian security forces for three days. She was held in a pit without food and water and endured a mock execution

There was also an attempt on her life when she was heading to Beslan around the time of the Beslan terrorist attack on the school. Politkovskaya was apparently poisoned but survived.

No word from the Kremlin on her death, which isn’t surprising, considering that in one of her books called “Dirty Russia”, she claimed Vladamir Putin was rolling back democracy and clamping down on media freedom.

Oleg Panfilov, director of the Moscow-based Centre for Journalism in Extreme Situations, said that a few months ago unknown assailants had tried to break into a car being driven by her daughter, Vera.

At a time when most of Russia’s press has been muzzled by the Kremlin, Politkovskaya was a relatively rare dissenting voice.

She delivered regular warnings that the country was drifting back to a Soviet-style dictatorship. She also wrote critically about the arrest and trial of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the oil tycoon jailed after falling out with the Kremlin.

I’m not certain of her politics, or her parents’ history at the United Nations, but I am certain of the political climate in Russia at present. As much as we want to think that the iron curtain fell, there are many indicators which show us what is really going on there. The surgical removal of critics of Putin’s regime is but one.

Oriana Fallaci passed away from breast cancer at a private clinic in Florence, Italy, having returned to the Tuscan capital earlier this month from New York to spend her last days.

She was a vehement and outspoken critic of Islam and Europe’s dhimmitude. She was being sued by a muslim activist at the time of her death for her 2004 book, “The Strength of Reason”. Her main contention in that book was that Europe had sold its soul to Islam and political correctness, which would ultimately mean its demise.

The Islamic Anti-Defamation League expressed “relief” at her death.

“It’s almost impossible to feel pity for somebody like Oriana Fallaci,” Dacia Valent, a spokeswoman for the Islamic Anti-Defamation League, told the Apcom news agency.

From the Washington Post:

During her journalistic career she became known for challenging interviews with such world leaders as former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
Her work both interviews and books was translated across the world.

“Fallaci’s manner of interviewing was deliberately unsettling: she approached each encounter with studied aggressiveness, made frequent nods to European existentialism (she often disarmed her subjects with bald questions about death, God, and pity), and displayed a sinuous, crafty intelligence,” The New Yorker wrote in a profile this year entitled “The Agitator.”

Fallaci’s recent publications including the best-selling book “The Rage and The Pride,” which came out weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks drew accusations of racism and inciting hatred against Muslims.

How about she was just telling the truth about an ideology that the advocates of ‘political correctness’ deny?

“The Rage and The Pride,” sold more than 1 million copies in Italy and found a large audience elsewhere in Europe. But Fallaci was also accused of racism.

“Racism”, a well-known leftist accusation to keep certain ideas out of the realm of political debate.

In the book, she wrote that Muslims “multiply like rats” and said “the children of Allah spend their time with their bottoms in the air, praying five times a day.”

Can anyone really debate the truth in the statement ‘multiply like rats’ when, for example, Osama Bin Laden is one of his father’s 54 children? How many people do you know who have 53 siblings?

A group in France unsuccessfully sought to stop distribution of the book, while two other associations have requested that it carry a warning notice.

Her next essay, “The Strength of Reason,” accused Europe of having sold its soul to what Fallaci described as an Islamic invasion. It also took the Catholic Church to task for being what she considers too weak before the Muslim world.

I have to agree with her, considering the picture that is being circulated regarding the pope on the jihadi message boards. (Picture courtesy Michelle Malkin et al from this post at her blog)

This article demonstrates what exactly Fallaci is talking about where the Catholic church and Islam is concerned. They’re simply too soft on terrorism and Islam, IMO. In response to the Pope’s speech on Tuesday, the jihadis have the nerve to begin a campaign calling for his head.

The script in red calls for the Pope’s beheading. The rest of the translation:

“Swine and servant of the cross, worships a monkey on a cross, hateful evil man, stoned Satan, may Allah curse him, blood-sucking vampire.”

The pope, however, has not come out like Bush has, declaring it’s a ‘religion of peace’. See more on the Pope’s position in Islam here. (I will put up a separate post on the Pope’s speech from Tuesday which apparently brought this on). After Friday prayers the muslims took to the street protesting what the Pope said, and the Vatican immediately issued an apology. So Fallaci was totally correct in her interpretation of the Catholic church’s actions in response to terrorist acts and propaganda. It’s a shame.

Describing Europe as “Eurabia,” Fallaci said the continent “has sold itself and sells itself to the enemy like a prostitute.”

“Europe becomes more and more a province of Islam, a colony of Islam,” she wrote.

She will be missed. She had no husband and no children. She told it like it is, which is no small feat.

From the Wall Street Journal

“La Fallaci,” as she liked to call herself–yes, immodestly; but Italian divas don’t do self-deprecation–became in her last years a fierce, even apocalyptic, critic of Islam. She feared the unassimilated–and, she believed, unassimilable–Muslim immigrants in the West, and she feared them to distraction. Above all, she despised Europe’s political and cultural elites who were responsible–in her view–for turning Europe into “a colony of Islam.” In a Spenglerian interview for this page last June, she told me: “The moment you give up your principles, and your values . . . the moment you laugh at those principles, and those values, you are dead, your culture is dead, your civilization is dead. Period.”

“France has neither winter nor summer nor morals. Apart from these drawbacks it is a fine country. France has usually been governed by prostitutes.” –Mark Twain

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“I would rather have a German division in front of me than a French one behind me.” –General George S. Patton

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“Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without your accordion.” –Norman Schwartzkopf

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“We can stand here like the French, or we can do something about it.” –Marge Simpson

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“As far as I’m concerned, war always means failure.”

–Jacques Chirac, President of France

“As far as France is concerned, you’re right.”

–Rush Limbaugh

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“The only time France wants us to go to war is when the German Army is sitting in Paris sipping coffee.” –Regis Philbin

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“The French are a smallish, monkey-looking bunch and not dressed any better, on average, than the citizens of Baltimore. True, you can sit outside in Paris and drink little cups of coffee, but why this is more stylish than sitting inside and drinking large glasses of whisky I don’t know.” –P.J. O’Rourke (1989)

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“You know, the French remind me a little bit of an aging actress of the 1940s who was still trying to dine out on her looks but doesn’t have the face for it.” –John McCain, U.S. Senator from Arizona

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“You know why the French don’t want to bomb Saddam Hussein? Because he hates America, he loves mistresses and wears a beret. He is French, people.” –Conan O’Brien

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“I don’t know why people are surprised that France won’t help us get Saddam out of Iraq. After all, France wouldn’t help us get Hitler out of France either.” –Jay Leno

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“The last time the French asked for ‘more proof’ it came marching into Paris under a German flag.” –David Letterman

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“Only thing worse than a Frenchman is a Frenchman who lives in Canada.” –Ted Nugent

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“War without France would be like World War II.”

–Unknown

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“The favorite bumper sticker in Washington D.C. right now is one that says ‘First Iraq, then France.’” –Tom Brokaw

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“What do you expect from a culture and a nation that exerted more of its national will fighting against DisneyWorld and Big Macs than the Nazis?” –Dennis Miller
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“It is important to remember that the French have always been there when they needed us.” –Alan Kent
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“They’ve taken their own precautions against al-Qa’ida. To prepare for an attack, each Frenchman is urged to keep duct tape, a white flag, and a three-day supply of mistresses in the house.”
–Argus Hamilton
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“Somebody was telling me about the French Army rifle that was being advertised on eBay the other day — the description was, ‘Never shot. Dropped once.’” –Rep. Roy Blunt, MO
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“The French will only agree to go to war when we’ve proven we’ve found truffles in Iraq.” –Dennis Miller
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“Raise your right hand if you like the French, raise both hands if you are French.” –Unknown
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Q. What did the mayor of Paris say to the German Army as they entered the city in WWII?

A. Table for 100,000 m’sieur?

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“Do you know how many Frenchmen it takes to defend Paris? It’s not known, it’s never been tried.” –Rep. R. Blount, MO

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“Do you know it only took Germany three days to conquer France in WWII? And that’s because it was raining.” –John Xereas, Manager, DC Improv

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The AP and UPI reported that the French Government announced after the London bombings that it has raised its terror alert level from Run to Hide. The only two higher levels in France are Surrender and Collaborate. The rise in the alert level was precipitated by a recent fire which destroyed France’s white flag factory, effectively disabling their military.

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French Ban Fireworks at Euro Disney

(AP), Paris, March 5, 2003

The French Government announced today that it is imposing a ban on the use of fireworks at Euro Disney. The decision comes the day after a nightly fireworks display at the park, located just 30 miles outside of Paris, caused the soldiers at a nearby French Army garrison to surrender to a group of Czech tourists.

Michelle Malkin’s roundup is here and here.

The riots in France are spreading; and this is due, in part, to the “salad bowl” mentality that Terry Dillard pointed out at Right Track Blog; where instead of viewing your country as a “melting pot” where people come from other countries and assimilate, they’re instead NOT encouraged to assimilate, learn the English language, respect the police and other authorities figures–even the government. Individual pieces in a salad bowl; green onions, tomatoes, iceberg lettuce and romaine; each with their distinctive characteristics that make them unique…and we must treat them “with understanding and accommodation rather than expect them to assimilate”. This pervasive attitude will one day wreak havoc on our soil if we don’t wake up.

The violence that has erupted from the accidental electrocution of two teenagers who fled police and hid in a power station is the symptom of a larger problem, as Robert Spencer points out:

But of course, all these problems are exacerbated by the non-assimilation policy that both the French government and the Muslim population have for so long pursued: the rioters are part of a population that has never considered itself French. Nor do French officials seem able or willing to face that this is the core of their problem today. It is likely that the riots will result only in intensification of the problems that caused them: if French officials offer an accommodation to Muslims, it will probably result only in further intensification of the Islamic identity, often in its most radical manifestations, among French Muslims. The French response to the riots is likely to unfold along the lines of a decision by officials in Holland last May: they declined to ban a book called De weg van de Moslim (The Way of the Muslim), even though it calls for homosexuals to be thrown head first off tall buildings. The Amsterdam city council did not want to contravene “the freedom to express opinions.”

This is a most disturbing happenstance, in view of the fact that in many ways, we are modeling the same multicultural liberalism here in the United States.

LaShawn Barber says it eloquently:

Paris is reaping what it’s sown, and if we don’t heed the warnings (as if the murder of thousands and destruction of two buildings in New York City weren’t enough), we can expect the same.

Lax immigration policies, prostration to the god of multiculturalism, and the refusal to fight fire with fire are three reasons why Muslim “youths” in Paris are rioting in the streets.

As I see it, the religion of Islam is inherently incompatible with the concept of individual liberty, a crucial component of western countries. It’s no accident that a culture like the West and a nation like the United States were envisioned and created by people who were either Christians and/or biblically literate and/or respected the Christian tradition. In countries under Islamic law, there’s no such idea as “individual liberty.” You’re either a Muslim or in danger of having your throat sliced open.

Recommended reading:

Know Islam

Islam Unveiled

The Crisis of Islam

The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam

The ongoing and apparently uncontrollable riots in France, which have claimed one life as of this writing, would appear to be hordes of disaffected youths unhappy with their lot in life in the “French Model” of civilization, and that would be partially correct.

For more in depth analysis one would have to understand the “French Model”, socialism, True Freedom, racism, arrogance and “French Pride”.

At one time, the French had a sparkling country, full of possibility and True Freedom. That time was directly after the French Revolution, an historic event that showed the raw power of the people unleashed, when hordes of French Citizens took back the country from an elitist government that kept them poor and subservient. (Much as the French government is doing to the immigrants living in the slums now) I am proud to say that the French Revolution was inspired by the American Revolution, when the Patriots who founded the United States of America tossed off the yoke of oppression imposed by the British Crown and undertook the grandest experiment in the history of the world by creating a government BY the PEOPLE, FOR the PEOPLE, and OF the PEOPLE.

But then the French cocked it all up. With the grand cry of “liberty, equality, fraternity”, the French strove to create a country of true equality, where color didn’t matter, and creed was a matter of personal belief, never once understanding that the world doesn’t work that way, no matter how badly one wishes for it.

Creating a false level playing field through socialist policies that have taken deeper root after WW2, the French refused to believe that their system wasn’t thought out well enough, or that “liberty, equality, fraternity” could not be legislated into life. In practice the French really didn’t try too hard, as Chirac has “admitted” that the French Government was to blame for its suburban mayhem because it had relegated its immigrants and their descendants to ghettos….

The funny thing about that last remark is it is the exact premise that Chirac campaigned on in ‘95;

He promised to remedy “these difficulties that threaten to grow into a fracture that is urban, ethnic and even religious”.

One thing is for sure, with Chirac’s utter failure to repair the social fabric of a seemingly racist France, and being unable to stop a bunch of kids from burning up thousands of cars and buses, destroy who knows how many buildings, wounds cops and beat a man to death, all in a country that puts forth a face of tolerance and love on the world stage, the French paper Liberation had it correct when it said;

…”Chirac’s reign has been a tragic farce.”

(funny name for a paper in France eh? “Liberation”? Well, they HAVE had a lot of experience with liberation, so maybe naming a paper Liberation is a good idea. Maybe the U.S. should put out a paper called “Saved Your Ass….TWICE”)

You know what’s even funnier? The fact that Villipin is blaming EVERYONE IN FRANCE for the “unrest”. The Prime Minister:

… lectured citizens on the “republican responsibility” that each bore for the social ills.

By far the most telling item about the riots and the way that France views herself comes from the French Paper France Soir:

“The helplessness of the Government to restore order and to propose a political solution is shaking citizens trust in the republican pattern. Can republican fraternity still win, or is our country turning to social apartheid, which we thought was the privilege of US society?”

“Social Apartheid”? In America immigrants like that truly have the chance to better their lot in life, and wouldn’t be shunted to ghetto’s dependent on the government for every little thing. That is the major difference between the U.S. and socialist governments. When will the French wake up and realize that SOCIALISM DOES NOT WORK?????

Anyway.

What we are seeing with the riots in France are the failures of the French Model. There are some people in France, thankfully, that see this failure and are willing to buck the system of “political correctness” and appeasement to point it out.

One such man is the French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, who has said;

France’s “republican model” falls short and that the U.S. or British “melting pot” approach could help break the cycle of minority exclusion, unemployment and revolt.

He may very well be one of the last honest and intelligent Frenchmen left in that country, although he is not alone. Michel Wieviorka, one of France’s leading sociologists, has stated the riots indicated;

“the decline — perhaps historic — of the so-called French model of republican integration”.

The fact is that the French are racist, but they don’t use color as a barometer for their racism, but rather country of origin, economic status and even skill sets. Take for example this article, which states:

Such factors include attempts by France to protect its own particular brand of welfare state at the expense of new entrants to the job market, particularly those belonging to ethnic minority groups, who tend to be poorly educated and low-skilled and therefore less employable. Relegating poor minorities to the outer suburbs hardly make fermenting problems go away, as the current violence has shown.

By the above one can see that the French Model, and it’s resultant socialism, simply is NOT working. Add in the factor of inherent racism on the part of the French, especially White French citizens, and a dangerous situation has been created over decades that is not going to go away when the riots end. These issues are going to need to be addressed once the city streets are quiet again, and it is going to be a painful process.

About now you may be asking what does “arrogance” and True Freedom have to do with this, Kender? And what about that “French Pride” you spoke of earlier? To that we need to understand first what True Freedom is, why the French don’t possess it, and how their pride is going to keep them from rising to anything but a shadow of the greatness they once knew.

It is no secret that the French are arrogant, to the point that they cannot admit their mistakes. America can be arrogant at times, but that arrogance is fleeting. Never mistake Pride for arrogance. American’s are a proud people, because they realize the inherent superiority of their system, and realize that it needs to be tweaked from time to time. The American Way is an ever changing system that evolves with the times, rooting out injustice, albeit sometimes slowly, and making the necessary changes to bring about the values that America was founded on.

Those values include the knowledge, (note; I did NOT use the word “belief”, because it is NOT a “belief” but is FACT) that “All Men Are Created Equal”. (note for the feminists out there; the use of the term “men” means “mankind”, so just shut up about it).

Americans know that all men are CREATED equal, but also realize that life isn’t fair, so not all men END UP equal. To that end the American Way allows one to use their brains, ambition, and sometimes luck to create a better set of circumstances for themselves and their family, which carries over naturally into their community.

This gives rise to True Freedom. True Freedom is socio-economic mobility, which means that one can move through the strata of society (the “socio” part) through economic success (the economic part) and that your lot in life is NOT tied to your birth circumstances, but rather on your ABILITY as a human to be successful or not. At this point I want you to think about this tidbit, Capitalism is Economic Darwinism.

Under a socialist society, with policies of resource redistribution (i.e. THEFT) you cannot rise above your socio-economic status, as in the interest of “parity” you are taxed at ever increasing rates once you attain a certain income level, using the justification that you only need so much to live on, and since another guy only makes so much money compared to what you make, he is going to need more help to stay close to you economically. That is the antithesis of True Freedom. A socialist government decides what level you can attain by the level of society as a whole, thereby stealing not only your earnings, but your Freedom to Succeed, all because there are people that may not be as capable or driven as you are.

French Pride causes the majority of French people, whether in the street or parliament, to believe that their system is perfect the way it is, and only needs to be applied more forcefully. In this article is a very telling sentence:

When Sarkozy says the best social system is the one that produces jobs and that the French model is not doing that, his comments are met not with approval but retorts that the French model is fine and needs only to be better applied.

Proof positive the French cannot admit failure. Indeed, French animosity towards the U.S. is legendary, and I suppose throwing it in their faces that we kept them speaking French and not German twice doesn’t help, but the fact remains that the French are regarded on the world stage as has-been’s, a joke, a country of people too fearful to stand up for themselves or what is right for fear of “offending” somebody.

That the French have not been able to see clearly for decades is, of course, no surprise, and I suppose with their appeasement of radicals that these riots are simply the expected results of failed policies in the French government, but insight is provided not only to the French incapability to understand True Freedom, but the inability of the French to understand America.

What catches many French leaders in a bind is their belief that the alternative to their strong state intervening to ensure colour-blind equality is the cut-throat capitalism and ethnic segregation they say prevails in English-speaking countries.

In America, ethnic segregation does not exist as the French understand or interpret it. In America segregation is self imposed, as people tend to stick within their comfort zone, which is generally with people like themselves. Segregation is America is also, by and large, not predicated on color, religion or national origin, with the exception of the above mentioned caveat, but rather is an economic indicator. Any segregation in The U.S. is based in Economics, as people that can afford to move to better neighborhoods where the houses are bigger, the average income higher and mainstream values of hard work are evident by the success of the area are free to do so.

If anything America has replaced the old system of social strata by birth or lineage, where one could not move between classes due to long standing traditions or societal taboos, with a new system based on economics, and in the process has always worked to assure that the possibility of attaining that socio-economic mobility is there for anyone that has the ability and drive to reach for it.

French Pride keeps them from realizing that they have a system based in the noblest goals of creating a utopian paradise which will never work, and have hewed to a system born of idealism, without regard to reality.

An honest assessment of the Capitalist system of the United States of America will show that even with all of the faults we have here, we continue to march ever forward into the future with one eye on the past, to learn from our mistakes, and remembering that we must stay grounded in the fact that life is not fair, and we can only address real inequalities, not imagined wrongs and pipe dreams.

That is the difference between The American Way, and The French Model.

Those are the reasons that France is withering on the vine, both internally and on the world stage, while America stays strong.

Capitalism?
Or Socialism?
Growth and Opportunity?
Or Stagnation and Devolution?

You tell me which country you want to live in.

XPOSTED@ Kender’s, and The Wide Awakes in full and shortened versions @MadTech’s and Conservative Angst