Rabbis Who Support Tehran

On the television news today I saw an interview with a Rabbi Weiss, who, with like minded rabbis, made the trek to Tehran to take part in the Iranian denial of the Holocaust. It was difficult for me to decide who was the bigger fool, Weiss for his presence or Ahmadinejad who smilingly embraced a man who belongs to a race that he declares sprang from pigs and dogs. Rabbi Weiss explained that Radical Islam was quite capable of distinguishing Zionism as a religion from Zionism as a political movement. If only Jews were to leave Israel, Weiss explained, then Radical Islam would cease persecuting all Jews worldwide. Such a naivete was breathtaking. Weiss claimed that he spoke for hundreds of thousands of Jews worldwide. I can assume only that Ahmadinejad hoped the same. This was the first time that I have ever heard anti-Semitic remarks come from Jews. I hope it is the last.

Islam as Tolerant: Three Dissenting Views

It has become fashionable for the American left to view Islam through the same lens by which the madrassas want all of America to share. Islam, these Moslem Imams preach, is a religion based on submission to Allah. All religions and races are equally respected. And anyone who says otherwise is a racist and an Islamophobe. There are three Islamic women who now say otherwise. Ayaan Hirsi in The Caged Virgin, Brigitte Gabriel in Because They Hate, and Nonie Darwish in Now They Call Me Infidel all detail what it was like to grow up in an Arabic culture and to be taught a philo of life that is markedly different from what most Americans hear on college campuses and from the major media. Each one admits that she is lucky to tell the tale of how she managed to escape the burning cauldron of feminine oppression tha marked her country of origin. Their tales intersect on telling points. They all assert that from childhood they were exposed to a virulent anti-semitism that had not been seen since Nazi Germany. Jews, they report, were born of pigs and dogs. Fiendish Jewish rabbis kidnap helpless Moslem babies to drink their blood in unholy rituals. Finally, the state of Israel does not exist on Arabic maps. This hatred for Jews is but the tip of the Islamic iceberg. Included in the Moslem frenzy of anti-semitism is a fierce hatred of America, all western countries, women in general, and anything and everything that is not in the Islamic fold. Brigitte Gabriel writes that the Islamic hatred of the west is not extremist as its American apologists would suggest. The filth that spews from American mosques is loud, clear and direct and must be seen as mainstream. Nonie Darwish spends much time touring American colleges to warn those female American-born head scarf wearing recent converts to Islam that had they been born in a Moslem country they would not have been in a college campus in the first place. They would have been forceably circumsised before having to marry a man of their parents' choice. And Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who now resides in Denmark, writes of the utter misery that faces Moslem women who are captives in a country that is not their own but from which they cannot escape. All three implore the west to look beyond the deceptive words of peace that the left blindly accepts as mainstream Islamic thought. All three suggest that we in the United States might wish to listen to the hate and vileness that pours out daily from every mosque in America before we discover too late that the purveyors of hate mean exactly what they say.

U. S. Deaths in Iraq: The Numbers Game Continues

Since the United States invasion of Iraq, the major media press has posted the daily death toll of American soldiers killed in action. The first milestone was one thousand. For weeks, the press anticipated with almost a ghastly glee on which day that number would emerge. One would have thought the press had a football over and under pool going. Then the next milestone was two thousand, then three thousand, with the same ghoulish fascination. There is a tragedy behind each death to be sure, with a grieving family in a world of pain. When anyone like me dares to criticize those who bandy about those numbers as a reason to redeploy our troops elsewhere, there is a tendency to look at those numbers not in historical context. During the Second World War, American casualties were often in the thousands every day. If it is true that huge numbers desensitize one's ability to see beyond each death that a grieving family has incurred a devastating loss, then it is also true that individual deaths reported in isolation bring those figures into grievously sharp contrast. Those in the media who seek only to portray the Iraq War solely as a bad thing use these deaths to shamelessly suggest that the very few deaths of this war are more to be felt than the infinitely higher death tolls of the two world wars and the Korean War. If critics of the War in Iraq want to make their case to end the war, then they ought not to parade a pie chart of American dead just to make their point.

Imperial Rome and America: PC is the Connection

Rome fell because it tried oh so hard to be politically correct. We like to think it fell because of economic decline, or population reduction, or barbarian invasion. All of these do factor into Rome's demise but the unifying glue amongst them all was a term that they would hardly recognize that was killing them: political correctness. They would not have called it that of course, but we in the 20th century have the advantage of historical hindsight. When Rome's economy went into the tank, there was a concommitant decline in the number of Roman citizens who used to make up the core legions of its armies. There was a hue and a cry for Rome to open its borders to the Vandals, the Goths, and other assorted barbarians so that all might bask in the glory of being a Roman citizen. And in they came, by the millions. They settled in Rome's best land, took over its economy, and began to fill the ranks of its legions with those who may have worn the tunic of the legionnaire but did not adhere to its inner core of Roman beliefs. When there were more of the barbarians in the ranks of the legions than in the ranks of the opposing hordes of invaders, that was the end of Rome right there. Today in the United States, we see much the same. Those who in ancient Rome who dared to speak out against what they saw as madness were silenced with calls of insults by the egalitarian press that we today call the liberal media. Little has changed in 2,000 years.

Donald Vs Rosie: Round I

When Donald Trump announced that the current Miss USA Tara Connor would not be fired, there was the usual controversy as to motive. Some hailed Trump as one who humanely gave an erring woman a second chance. Others suggested his cynically manipulating the media for much needed publicity for an ailing beauty contest. This two-pronged approach was expected. What was not expected was Rosie O'Donnel, who chose to take on Trump in a verbal street fight by basically calling him names. She referred to his hair, his divorces, his affairs, and his lack of moral authority. Trump predictably responded with a crunching avalanche of wrath that Rosie would have been well to heed. Instead, she counterattacked with further spleen on the View. Now this sort of catfighting brings to mind Linda Evans and Joan Collins scratching each other's eyes from DYNASTY. It is interesting in a train wreck sort of way. Rosie will probably continue to tweak Trump's hair bob until she finds out the hard way that Trump is one of the media's very select company that one ought not to provoke.

Teachers Carrying Guns in School: A Really Bad Idea

State senator Bob Beers of Nevada has proposed legislation that would allow teachers in his state to carry concealed firearms in class. He adds that such teachers would be required to undergo a thorough training program as a prerequisite. His rationale is that if potential terrorists are aware that teachers are armed, then a Beslan massacre simply could not happen. The lists of opposing reasons is convincingly long and logical. Teachers are not physical specimens and could easily be subdued by determined and trained terrorists. Further, in the event of a teacher-student confrontation, do we really want teachers to command order only by the sanctioned guns they wear? While it may be feasible to teach teachers the mechanics of gunplay, the safe and proper use of handguns is far more mental then manual. I fear that most teachers who pack heat will either not use them as intended as in a crisis situation, or what is worse, will use them inappropriately and thus tragically. Teachers ought to focus on the essentials of their craft and leave the safeguarding of it to trained professionals.

Iran and the Holocaust: Truth is Wasted

When Iranian president Ahmadinajab called for a conference to discuss whether the Holocaust truly happened, the western world was shocked. However, the west need not have been so shocked. Iran was not interested in an outcome that might normally emerge from a free and open symposium. The outcome of this conference was as rigged as the very election that gave Ahmadinajab his job. One need only look at the list of non-Iranians who were invited to attend. Every infamous anti-semite from the west appeared including ex-KKK David Duke. Somewhat more surprising was the appearance of anti-Israel Rabbis wearing full Jewish garb, all of whom were photographed as being hugged by a beaming Ahmadinajab. The mullahs of Iram remind me of Saddam Hussein who once was pictured stroking the head of a very young boy as if to show the world that Uncle Saddam was positively avuncular in his disposition. There is a little lightbulb that must flicker in the minds of men like Saddam and the mullahs that suggests that the west is quite as dense as they think. It is not. Iran stands revealed, for the upteenth time, that it is not fit to associate with decent folk. It is time to give Iran its walking papers from te United Nations. In fact, it is time to give the United Nations its walking papers from New York. Surely, Tehran would be more than willing to overlook the many parking tickets that foreign diplomats favor collecting from time to time.

Columbia University: I'm Still Waiting

It is too easy for a major bastion of liberal orthodoxy like Columbia University to pay lip service to freedom of expression. When a conservative speaker attempted to address a hostile and unruly crowd of leftist students, this speaker was hooted down and given the bum's rush from the stage. These students physically attacked him, warning him never to return. The President of Columbia, Dr. Bollinger, promised a thorough and immediate investigation, promising that the hooligans involved would face the direst of consequences. That was a month ago. Even though the faces of these "hooligans" were clearly recorded on video, nary a one was identified or punished. Dr. Bollinger's promise of freedom of expression seems limited only to those who espouse sentiments from the left. Those on the right would do well to avoid studying at a school that is little more than a front for an ideology that despises what an earlier generation would have termed patriotic.

Jimmy Carter: Round 2

For those who hold ex-President Jimmy Carter in high regard, one need look no further than his new book Palestine or Apartheid for evidence to the contrary. Carter stands accused of several literary sins ranging from historical revisionism to outright plagiarism. Dennis Ross directly accuses Carter or cribbing maps from his own book without giving proper sourcing. Further, other critics have seen Carter's blatant anti-Israel attitude throughout. Clearly, Carter's latest attempt at rehabilitating his woeful reputation as a weak kneed president was not helped by his latest book.

The Six Imams and Abraham Lincoln

When the six Imams were pulled from US Airways Flight 300 for actions that security personnel thought to be suspicious, the resulting cries from these Imams and their lawyers were predictably loud. Racism and Islamophobia, they cried, were the motivating factors for their ejection. Before boarding the aircraft the Imams had prayed loudly in the boarding area, making frequent repetition of Allah. When they boarded, they refused to take their assigned seats, choosing instead to sit near the various doors and exits, in a manner similar to what the 19 Saudis did on 9/11. Further, one of them asked for a seat belt extender, a device normally given only to the morbidly obesee. Such an extender could be rolled up and used as a weapon. When they were asked to leave the aircraft by flight attendants, they refused. Security personnel had to be called. There are only two possible logical explanations. One: they were truly innocent of murderous intent and were merely praying according to Islamic tradition. Or two: this entire fiasco was a staged event.

The first event if true is a microcosm of all that is wrong with political correctness and multiculturalism. There is a world of difference between respecting foreign culture and custom and allowing ourselves to be harmed by them. I cannot think of any other country in the world that would allow to pass such obvious and flagrant threats to airline security. Since the Imams were guests of this country, it was encumbent of them to refrain from actions that even smack of harm to an aircraft. To put matters into perspective, consider what would happen if a Westerner were to board an aircraft in Tehran chanting, "Long live Moses and George Bush."

The second event seems more logical. When the Imams were forcibly ejected, their attorneys were magically present to conduct a post-ejection press conference, loudly protesting such shameful behavior on the part of US Airways. It does not take great brains to realize that America was witnessing a preplanned and phony non-event whose sole purpose was to intimidate airlines into making ever greater concessions in the war on terror. I will not even consider a third alternative that they were really terrorists who were prevented in their perfidy by a watchful security team. For those who are tempted to agree with the Imams that it is better to be sorry than safe, they might consider a not dissimilar situation faced by Abraham Lincoln, who found it necessary to curtail the constitutional right of habeas corpus when national security and preservation of the union was at stake. Within the closed in space of a jet, there is no room for political correctness to help a ruthless and fanatical foe create yet another national emergency.

Trashing America: The Trend Continues

I am an adjunct professor of English at a community college in New Jersey. Two weeks ago, I happened upon a research paper assigned by another professor on the War on Terror. It became apparent to me that his topic was a typical left slant suggesting that America fully deserved to be attacked. I decided to write this response for all the world to see.

When the hijacked jets crashed into the Twin Towers in 2001, the collapse of these icons of American power acted as a flash point that focused attention on a trend that had been widespread throughout America and much of the west for the last thirty years. This trend is a carefully plotted attempt first to marginalize America then to render it impotent in ways that can only bring smiles to those who wish to include Israel in the cross hairs. When one realizes that the unholy nexus of anti-Americanism, anti-Semitism, and the inevitability of European demographics reaches a confluence in the need of the western Left and Islamofascism to trash America, then this three decade trend to demonize America both in its own eyes and in those of the rest of the world stands revealed in a crystal clarity that is breathtaking in its overtness and vitriol.
The current War on Terror is used so often by both sides of the American political spectrum that there is an understandable tendency to place war in the context of Islamic terrorism against the United States. Yet, the western Left has allied itself with Islamic fascists to reverse the equation so that terrorism is now to be seen as emanating from the United States toward an Islamic world. It has been no mean feat to swap cause and effect, but the socialist regimes of Europe in concert with the American left have managed quite nicely to do just this.
For those who claim that the source of Islamic animus toward the United States began only with American incursions into Afghanistan and Iraq, one need only look at the decades preceding 9-11. In Why the Left Hates America, Daniel Flynn punches a hole through the veneer of political correctness that nurtures and justifies the virulent pro-Marxist philosophy that has since become endemic in nearly all of America’s colleges and universities. When college teachers carefully couch their pedagogy using phrases that denigrate traditional American virtues of patriotism and national pride, then it is no wonder that a new generation of malleable minds has been inculcated with a viciousness of pro-Marxist and anti-Semitic thought that would have been unthinkable in previous decades. Consider for example, the prompt to which this author responds:
“What we call an Age of Terror is seen by some as an Age of Righteousness. On the extreme
ends of the spectrum, justice seems to be the magical word to justify a policy of violence and
revenge, and eventually culture and civilization. Just as democracy is the end of a means to
many of us, jihad, to some, is the means to an end.”
The phrasing of this quote implies a subtext that includes a number of political and sociological givens: (a) There is no need to refute the charge that Islamic terror bombings are not in fact acts of terror. One accepts that acts of terror while committed under the banner of jihad are righteous. A logical extrapolation is that any act of terror—whether nuclear or biohazard—would be equally righteous. (b) It is ironic—although perhaps not to those who already ascribe to the sentiments of this quote—that the alleged American policy of violence and revenge that might lead to the detriment of Islamic culture could apply equally well to the reverse. And then there is (c). The deliberately vague use of pronouns “many” and “some” well indicates the unspoken but clear arenas of authorial sympathy.
In 1993, when the first World Trade Center bombing occurred, there was an unfortunate tendency for many Americans to play the political ostrich and view the bombing less as an act of overt war and more as one of criminality. Both republicans and democrats placed the bombing in the context of law enforcement rather than as one that called for military response against an aggressor nation. The problem then—as now—was that for the first time in American history, America was attacked by forces grounded in ideology rather than in easily identified nation states. The rising sun on the wings of the Zeroes over Pearl Harbor had no modern equivalent tattooed on the foreheads of the nineteen suicide terrorists crashing into the Twin Towers. America’s dilemma of how to respond was clearly anticipated by the architects of Islamofascism. These turbaned thugs well knew that any attack on any Islamic country would be trumpeted by Al-Jazeera as an attack on the ideology of Islam, not as one on the host country that spawned that attack. Osama Bin Laden and his minions were correct in their belief that George Bush would find little popular support for forays into Islamic regimes. They were fatally incorrect, however, in their notion that their future as masters of a pan-world caliphate was based on what they saw as the inevitable triumph of demographics.
In recent bestsellers such as America Alone by Mark Steyn, While Europe Slept by Bruce Bawer, State of Emergency by Patrick Buchanan, Menace in Europe by Claire Berlinsky, and The West’s Last Chance by Tony Blankley, one notes the decline in the birth rate of European women has fallen far below the replacement rate needed to maintain current population levels while the birth rate for immigrant Moslem families has increased to the point that the pundits on Al-Jazeera can now openly brag about conquering a Europe that they believe is rightfully and historically theirs without the need to fire a single shot. History and demographics they conclude is on their side. What is more likely, however, to occur than merely connecting the dots on a population graph is to consider what caused the decline of western babies in the first place. This reduction is western births began after the end of the First World War when a demoralized western population saw the horrors of a self-inflicted internecine genocide reduce their need to believe in the vitality of a philosophy and a religion that had buttressed Europe through nearly two thousand years of Christian civilization that was bent but not snapped by the grim gaspings of trench warfare. The Second World War merely accelerated the reduction of a faith-based life to be replaced by a secular-based one that demanded gratification of the now over the postponement of that gratification for the benefit of the next generation. The wave of recent Moslem immigrants was the mirror image of the residents of the host country. In came increasing numbers of those gripped by a theology that demands strictly punitive protocols. Out and down went a population that refuses to give up its corrosive dependency on a welfare state that requires a growing base of tax payers who are willing to pay for the retirement years of a senescent European mentality that sees these immigrants only as commodities who in turn see Europeans merely as fumbling, stumbling, and morally bumbling weaklings that history seems ready to consign to the same trash heap that gobbled up the enervated Romans who allowed a barbaric but bustling race of Teutons to reside on Roman soil for much the same purpose. Yet, what happened to the Huns and Goths was that they became corrupted by the sensuality of a culture that readily promised the seventy two virgins right here on earth. There is no reason to think that the human race has over the centuries improved its moral fiber to the extant that the temptation of the flesh can be overridden by the asceticism of the soul.
And where does America fit in as Europe goes down the demographic drain? One need look no further than Arundhati Roy, Howard Zinn, and Noam Chomsky, all of whom are absolutely typical of the leftist mindset that sees America both as the Bad Guy of the Western World and the source of all of the world’s assorted ills. In “The Algebra of Infinite Justice,” Roy sees justice mostly as a punitive force to be exerted against what she deems a Zionist imperialist illegitimate non-state of Israel. In A People’s History of the United States, Howard Zinn views American history through the lens of a failed Marxist dogma and would rather call Marx a capitalist than to say even one kind word about the Founding Fathers. In Hegemony and Survival, Noam Chomsky sees George Bush as the most infamous terrorist of all time. The common link among them is their collective wish to denude America of its financial, its military, and its spiritual might and turn America into a clone of France, Germany, the Netherlands, and England, all of whom, coincidentally enough, are currently losing the demographic war of survival.
The recent democratic victories over the republicans in the House and Senate elections would seem to bode ill for those who seek to resist an Islamic conflagration. But any celebration of the next coming of the pandemic caliphate would be premature. George Bush still has two more years to convince an American people that the danger of mass cultural implosion of traditional American values is here and will not go away. If the political right maintains the White House in the next election, then the fate of the long defunct Roman Empire may yet be averted.

Affirmative Action: Another Nail in the Coffin

When a group of Boston University students recently decided to promote a “whites only” scholarship program, the response from the left was predictably long and loud. Cries of “racism” filled the airways and the blogosphere. Opponents thundered that if such a race-based program were to proliferate to other schools, then how could needy minority students contend for what they saw as an ever-decreasing portion of the economic pie? And that was precisely the point of the promoters. If race-based scholarship programs were acceptable and politically correct for all races but Caucasian, then why was it not equally correct for that one? The answer they claim lies in the fifty year old untested assumption that racial considerations as a means to redress grievances trump all other approaches and perspectives.

Back in the early 1960s, it made sense to tinker with the idea that the United States was a nation that paid no heed to race as a means by which any ethnic group could advance itself to the detriment of another. There was such a glaring need for a wide spectrum of racial inequalities to be placed on a level playing field that the Supreme Court ruled that it was permissible to use one’s genes as a reason for coming in the back door when the front door was shut.

Alan Bakke changed all that. You will recall that Bakke was a white medical school hopeful who was rejected from every medical school to which he applied solely because of his race. His grades in college and on entrance tests were far higher than those recorded by sanctioned minorities who were admitted. Bakke then sued to gain entrance to Temple University’s medical school on the grounds of reverse discrimination. He won his case, attended the program, and has since graduated to become a practicing physician. After the Bakke case, colleges and universities have found out that the Supreme Court has since reduced their flexibility in admitting students based on race. Quotas were out. In were dysfunctionalities. The same colleges and universities that used to use a number-based quota system now use applicant dysfunctions as a means to sneak in the back door. If a prospective applicant is a recovering drug addict, or a victim of abuse, or has a prison record, then that applicant will find that he has a spot reserved for him, one that is denied to a non-dysfunctional applicant. The condescension that these schools have in assuming that dysfunctions are a marker mostly of minorities is breathtakingly appalling.

What these Boston University students have done to upset the racial apple cart is to force America’s admissions committees to face some unavoidable but ugly facts concerning just how far these committees are willing to go in the name of racial equality if in so doing they use racial theories that are honorably applied to one race but not to another. As of this writing, no court or even Boston University itself has ruled on the legality, or even the ethicality, of Caucasian-based scholarship programs. How this plays itself out in Boston will go a long way toward defining just how far the United States has truly gone in setting limits as to the role that race may play in the squabble to be accepted into higher education.

A Word that Refuses to Go Away

When Michael Richards began to rant using racial profanity during his night club act, no one thought that they were witnessing anything more than a has been turning into a never was. Richards has apologized profusely and often, even to the point of face to face talks with Jessie Jackson. Now all this apologizing might help to restart a terminal career but what has emerged on a positive note is that society is once again having to confront the slippery meaning of the N-word. Bill Cosby hates that word under any circumstance, yet Afro-American comedians and rappers use it as an integral part of their acts. Most black users of the N-word agree that it is acceptable for blacks to use it but not whites. This racial nuance of the user brings in some tricky subtexts of content and context. If a word is told in a joking context by an Afro-American that brings down the house, why then can't a white comedian tell that same joke and not have to worry about being called racist? The answer, of course, is that the former can and the latter can't. And this brings in the larger question of the mutability of language. Words change faster than people do. The context of the N-word had only one meaning up until fairly recently. Now thanks to a generation of overuse by those who are very nearly one hundred percent black, its meaning has softened--so long as the user is black. There are plenty of reminders in our society and history to force us to continually confront the paradox of a word whose bestial beginnings we would like to banish to linguistic purgatory but popular culture demands that we use if for no other reason to reaffirm that what once began as beastly has now emerged as comic.

Britney's Underwear: The Less said the Better

When Britney Spears dropped her sleazy husband K-Fed, Hollywood applauded her for taking a long overdue action. There was an understandable wellspring of support for a woman who had been widely seen as the victim of a male golddigger. However, with the recent spate of pictures that show her as underwear deficient, Britney stands to lose far more than respect. If Kevin Federline chooses to go to court to complain that Britney is an unfit mother, some sympathetic judge may look at her raunchy photos and decide that Federline is the better parent. For all her talent, Britney is now seen as no more wise or mature than any other recently divorced woman who chooses to celebrate her new found freedom with equally witless bimbos rather than at home with two children who know only that their mother has been inexplicably absent.