Flattening the Waves in Canada

Intellectual fads sweep across nations and civilizations frequently. Some windy and heated blows leave behind a deposit of stupidity that get into the mental furniture of the population at large. It gets into everything eventually, down into the very cracks of culture at the lowest level. What was discussed in seminar rooms 30 years ago sometimes makes its way into discussion in the homeless drop-in centre committee rooms to be discussed by the lumpen-intelligentsia as the latest idea, the most important. Everyone seems to be imbued with the thinest layer of this nonsense and it floats as they walk and talk, clouding the air we breathe. Few even notice the pollution. Mention it on the airwaves though, and then, rather than clearing the air of stupidities, one might find the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council involved and irate. Who the Hell are they? And why does a nation like Canada have such a gang? I have no idea. Does anyone have any idea why a nation needs such creations?

Ottawa radio host chastized for making "abusive and discriminatory," but true, statements about Islam and Muslims

Free Speech Death Watch Update: "Ottawa radio station chastised for comments on Muslims," by Chris Cobb for the Ottawa Citizen,

February 6 (thanks to the indomitable and magnificent Kathy Shaidle, who asks, "Dear me: how all this 'words can rape, maim and leave you for dead in a ditch!!' alchemy operates is an awful big mystery to poor stupid rightwinger me... "):

OTTAWA — A veteran open-line radio host in Ottawa [Lowell Green] contravened Canadian broadcasting standards when he made "abusive and discriminatory" remarks against Muslims, the national broadcast watchdog ruled Friday.

According to the ,Canadian Broadcast Standards Council, Lowell Green launched an "uninformed and unfair" attack when he told his CFRA audience in early December that the majority of Muslims are fanatics, and extremist behaviour is symptomatic of the religion, not just a radical minority.

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/024764.php

Robert Spencer gives chapter and verse above. Read it while you can.

Stocking the Common Scold*.

Puerile culture. What better way to describe our Modernity gone stupid and infuriating?

How about malignantly puerile? Does it sum up a culture of spoiled children on a rampage of hostility to all and sundry for the sake of imposing ones vanities and stupid egotism on the world of fellow adults from the simple urge to bellow self-importantly? A culture of scolds. A culture of moronic complainers. A culture of idiot critics who have no ideas but complaint and complaint and complaint, and the unrestrained execize of scolding for the sake of vanity. Stupid people complaining constantly about anything that comes to mind, because they can, and because it feels good. Because it feels good, it must be good. So good in fact it must be based in law. Have a petty and stupid complaint? Then you'll find someone who will make that complaint a base for a law to regulate someone's or everyone's behaviour, and their speech, their very thoughts. Bitch, bitch, bitch.

Bitch? Isn't that against the law to write? Could be so. So sue me.

Everyone seems to want to bitch and nag and scold. We have a culture of childish scolds who cannot stop complaining because there is always something new to complain about. How could they stop? There is this or that to bitch about, and someone who needs nagging about. And the nagging feels good. The more one does it, the more powerful and righteous one feels. Why stop? Why not get in on it with everyone else? Bitch, bitch, bitch.

The scold is always in the right, for otherwise, why would the scold be scolding? You never can win. You will always be wrong. The scold will forever find new faults. And because it feels so good, there will be no self-willed end.

Those who know me know that I am an easy-going-laid-back-west-

coast-kind-guy. It's just who I am, dude. But I have my limits. My limit is the scold. My impulse, which I stoically restrain, is to shout obscenities and perhaps punch a nose or so.

But I'm cool, man. till I ain't cause I'm so sick of this crap that I could puke; till I'm so sick of the bitching and the complaining and the endless scolding that I want to tie these nagging fools to chairs and half-drown them in the nearest pond. But, hey, I chill. Like ice.

A. Millar, "The UK: Smothered into Submission," Brussels Journal. 3 Feb 2009.

If the communist and fascist revolutions embodied the abusive, psychotic father, New Labour's revolution is that of the overprotective, single mother, robbing her children of independence of thought, and monitoring their every action. The real world, after all, is a nasty, dangerous place, and everyone must be protected from it for as long as possible – preferably forever.

Big Mother – as we might call her – is terrified that any of her children should so much as graze their knee, and forbids "bad words." "Islamist terrorist"? No, that's just another "thug" committing more "anti-Islamic activity."

Did that three year-old say "yuk" to unfamiliar spicy food? Well that's one big indication that he'll end up like Adolf Hitler – note that down as a racist incident nursery assistant!

And, speaking of food, what if one of the little ones has a nasty reaction to something they eat? Don't worry: Cadbury has recently included a warning on the label of its Dairy Milk Chocolate bar that the product contains milk. Another UK company is selling eggs, with the warning "contains eggs" printed right on the box. And the Asda supermarket chain is now selling milk with "warning: contains milk!" printed on the clear plastic container.

Not sure what "sell-by date" means? It's a tricky one. Luckily six UK councils will be paying people to go into our homes, whether we like it or not, to explain it to us. They'll also be inspecting our fridges while they're there – just in case.

That may seem like smothering to you. But, there's an up side to 'Big Mother': she encourages creativity. And two thirds of teachers acknowledge allowing text speak instead that old-fascist English – and that's just "gr8!"

Sex is something to be celebrated – so why wait? Children under thirteen are already being given condoms by some schools in the city of Manchester. And watch out for those sex education lessons for five year-olds coming to schools all around the country.

And, one college for 14 to 19 year-olds recently hired poll dancers come in and show off their 'talent' – as part of their health and 'fitness' week. It's racy, and inappropriate, but Big Mother did love the Sixties with its wild dancing and free love. So get with the program.

Perhaps the only really bad thing about Big Mother is that doesn't really like other mothers, heterosexual marriages, or families – or grown-ups.

Of all government bodies, the "Social Services" is the most dreaded. (Though whoever created that authority had the foresight to make its initials SS.) While they have failed to take children into care that have been systematically tortured over months or years, they have nevertheless zealously taken others away from good homes, where no abuse has occurred. When a mother took her baby to hospital with a tiny bruise on his ear recently, Social Services came and threatened to have her arrested if she took her child home. According to The Daily Mail, a grandfather was imprisoned for two years because he spoke to his grandson. The boy had been placed in care, and had contacted his grandfather, saying he was being abused.

Now, it has emerged that Social Services has refused to allow two children, taken from their mother (recovering from heroin addiction), to be adopted by their grandparents. The authorities have refused despite fact that this is what the mother wants, and has pleaded for it. Despite the fact that she has said that they would make wonderful parents. At 46 and 59 the authorities consider them too old. She has diabetes (not a problem in this day and age), and he has angina (also manageable), so they're also too sick, according to Social Services.

The family has fought the authorities for two years, and have endured emotional hell during that time. But, broken, they have now conceded to allow the children to be adopted by another couple. At the very least, this heartbroken family believed, the children should grow up with a mother and father. As the mother said goodbye to her children, her son, emotionally distraught, told her, "But Mummy, I want to come and stay with you and Granny and Grandad."

Social Services have made the decision: Two married homosexual men – that the mother and grandparents have never even met – will be the children's new family.

And because in their desperation the grandparents went to The Daily Mail, the authorities have threatened them, saying that they will never see the children again.

You would complain to your local MP. But Big Mother believes that we, her children, should be seen, but never heard.
http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/3781

I chill like ice till I'm ready to scream. But I probably won't scream because it would offend someone. They'd then complain. They'd bitch and nag and file a suit or demonstrate on the streets and demand money from the government to compensate them for the mental anguish I've caused. They might riot. They might blow up planes full of civilians and say it was George Bush who made their lives so terrible they had to do it. They'd bitch, bitch, bitch. They'd nag. They'd scold. Am I sick of this to the point of puking? No, not me. I'm fine with all this. No complaints.

*"In the common law of crime in England and Wales, a common scold was a species of public nuisance—a troublesome and angry woman who broke the public peace by habitually arguing and quarrelling with her neighbours." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_scold

Neither illustrtion is of the stocks, but I'm not pedantic. Anything close is good enough. Don't bitch about it.

Pray for Obama

Once again at at Covenant Zone Thursday night meeting, we heard voiced the fear that Obama might be the first President to be so humiliated by reality, making a mess of his Messianic self-image and great inexperience, that he would commit suicide. I wonder is this VDH piece had something to do with that dark thread.
Works and Days » Hope He Can Change

Big Momma state

Apparently, to some it's now "sexist" and offensive to suggest aggressive male politicians might "shaft" their colleagues while having a metaphorical toss in the sack.
Mike Duffy refuses to apologize after 'offensive' remarks in first speech as senator

I was scratching my head trying to figure out this new use of "sexist", when it brought to mind this article Dag sent me:

If the communist and fascist revolutions embodied the abusive, psychotic father, New Labour’s revolution is that of the overprotective, single mother, robbing her children of independence of thought, and monitoring their every action. The real world, after all, is a nasty, dangerous place, and everyone must be protected from it for as long as possible – preferably forever.

Big Mother – as we might call her – is terrified that any of her children should so much as graze their knee, and forbids “bad words.” “Islamist terrorist”? No, that’s just another “thug” committing more “anti-Islamic activity.”

Did that three year-old say “yuk” to unfamiliar spicy food? Well that’s one big indication that he’ll end up like Adolf Hitler – note that down as a racist incident nursery assistant!

And, speaking of food, what if one of the little ones has a nasty reaction to something they eat? Don’t worry: Cadbury has recently included a warning on the label of its Dairy Milk Chocolate bar that the product contains milk. Another UK company is selling eggs, with the warning “contains eggs” printed right on the box. And the Asda supermarket chain is now selling milk with “warning: contains milk!” printed on the clear plastic container.
[...]
Sex is something to be celebrated – so why wait? Children under thirteen are already being given condoms by some schools in the city of Manchester. And watch out for those sex education lessons for five year-olds coming to schools all around the country.

And, one college for 14 to 19 year-olds recently hired poll dancers come in and show off their ‘talent’ – as part of their health and ‘fitness’ week. It’s racy, and inappropriate, but Big Mother did love the Sixties with its wild dancing and free love. So get with the program.

B'nai Brith waking up to the nature of their fellow "stakeholders" in the Canadian Human Rights Commission

B'nai Brith may be discovering another point of disagreement with the Canadian Human Rights Commission: the latter's labeling of the Canadian Arab Federation as a "stakeholder" (see Blazing Cat Fur and Covenant Zone: Canadian Human Rights Commission and Greg Felton: how many degrees of separation?).

Not only has the CAF been publishing the likes of Greg Felton and been involved in distributing antisemitic fliers at the 2006 Liberal party leadership convention, but its leader has lately taken to calling our politicians "professional whores".

And this is the organization that receives government funding to help "settle" immigrants and "fight" hate crime.

B'nai Brith has now sent out the following press release (received via email):

'Canadian Arab Federation on notice for dissemination
of pro-terrorist propaganda from abroad,' says B'nai Brith Canada

TORONTO, February 5, 2009 – B'nai Brith Canada has called for a full investigation of Canadian Arab Federation (CAF) activities, following the discovery that the organization disseminated pro-terrorist propaganda in a January 16th email sent to subscribers to its Gaza Daily Bulletin. Bloc Quebecois MP Maria Mourani had apparently unwittingly shared the CAF newsletter's video links that promoted terrorism in an email to her parliamentary colleagues, for which she was rebuked by her Party leader Gilles Duceppe and by Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

"This is a clear case of a Canadian-based organization actively involved in the promotion of pro-terrorist propaganda that should be of concern to everyone," said Frank Dimant, B'nai Brith Canada's Executive Vice President

"Links to video clips distributed by CAF featured prominently disturbing images of Hamas operatives undergoing terrorist training, photos of young children being indoctrinated into violence, and the image of Hamas leader Khaled Meshal, in exile in Syria, rallying his followers. The recurring images of the flags of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, two terrorist groups outlawed in Canada and many other countries around the world, smacks of the promotion of terrorist objectives, ideologies and methods.

"It is unconscionable that CAF, which bills itself as a mainstream Arab organization actively involved in the settlement of new immigrants to this country, has engaged in this type of activity.

"We call on CAF to accept full responsibility for its actions and to voluntarily come forward with the firm guarantee that the organization will refrain in future from the dissemination of hate propaganda that glorifies terrorism. Should it fail to do so, the Government must then step in and take appropriate steps to safeguard the Canadian public from the impact that such dangerous propaganda can have and its direct contribution to the ever-growing problem of radicalization and extremism, both at home and abroad."

While B'nai Brith does not raise the issue, those of us interested in the postmodern "human rights" world view must wonder if this latest incident is just another piece of evidence that either the Canadian Human Rights Commission (or BB for that matter) doesn't fully know what it is doing, doesn't know the logical end point of the left-liberal "human rights" world view, founded in reaction to the Holocaust: postmodern Political Correctness, when fully revealed, reveals itself as a new form of antisemitism, of rivalry over Jewish historical priority, in this case over the symbol of the unquestionable victim of the "Nazi/Jew" dynamic, the genocidal event that is remembered more than any other for revealing the unquestionably evil capacity of a modern Western society, implicating all its professions and most of its members. This postmodern competition over the most horrific revelation of Jewish historical centrality is why we now see the many incredibly hateful and insane comparisons of Israel with the Nazi state.

Or, does the Canadian Human Rights Commission and other PC elements in Canadian government know and accept its own latent antisemitism in pandering to this hate's Arab-"Canadian" avatars?

Don't agonazize! Organazize!

Daat Link Here.

Day Against Antisemitism and Terror - April 19 - website now up

D.A.A.T. - Home

In your HEART and in your MIND, you know it is time to MARCH to educate the world that Anti-Semitism and Terrorism cannot be tolerated. There are higher values than tolerance. Good must triumph over evil. Knowledge and understanding must triumph over ignorance and hatred. KNOWLEDGE can change history!

-------------

Daat means knowledge in Hebrew. In Kabbalah, it means so much more.

Daat is the bridge between intellect and emotion.

We need both.

We need you.
-----------------
In Kabbalah -

Da'at -is Knowledge, the bridge between the intellect and emotion

The Da'at is the mystical state of unity of the 10 Sephiroth, also called the Tree of Life.

The Sefirot in Jewish Kabbalah


DAAT is also the Day Against Anti-Semitism and Terrorism

We shall march.

We shall be non-violent.

We shall, we must, believe that knowledge and goodness will prevail over ignorance and hate.

Da'at is the bridge between intellect and emotion.

In your mind and in your heart, you know it is time to march against anti-Semitism and Terrorism. This is our opportunity to spread knowledge and goodness.

April 19, 2009.

(Source)

"Is This Real Life?"

I hear you, kid... I've asked myself the same thing many times over the years.

Roger Scruton shows the universally-applicable strengths of Judeo-Christian anthropology

Here is a very important article by Roger Scruton, which I will hopefully have time to comment on in a further post: Forgiveness and Irony by Roger Scruton, City Journal Winter 2009

U B U 2 U

Even now in the middle of a very long and eccentric life I find myself sometimes wincing and grimacing over the rise of unbidden memories from random experiences that just won't go away in spite of whatever discipline I use to keep them away. Some ugly memories are scars that won't fade. One such nasty memory is of a repulsive young woman at a dance hall whose tee-shirt bore the caption: "I wouldn't wanna be you."

I can appreciate the idea of not wanting to be you. Regardless of who I might be, I'd rather be me than not. I don't want to be you. Fair enough. But I don't want you not to be you. Islam, for all its obvious faults, at least understands that no one is ever going to be the Perfect Man, he being, according to Islam, Mohammed, not to be repeated, only imitated. Islam, for all its totalitarianism, doesn't attempt to make anyone into the kind of person "we all should be." Islam settles for orthopraxy, for outward ritual behaviour. For the totalitarian Leftist, this is not enough. He not only rejects you as you but demands that you conform to his vision of the Ideal Man as you. It's one thing not to want to be me; but it is something creepy to not want me to be me. That's me The Individualist writing. I value Privacy. Muslims and the Left value Publicity. No, I wouldn't want to be you, but that's not a problem for me. It is a problem for the communitarian.

For the communitarian, the idea of Another not being a conformist in all ways, body, mind and soul, is an outrage against Nature. Communitarians, Statists, Muslims, collectivists of all sorts, they hate individuals and individualism. Usually this is of no concern to most of us. Unfortunately, there is a growing movement of middle-aged hippies in government and areas of social control, e.g our universities, who are fanatical in their drive to make all others "not themselves." We must all be One.
I'm rereading Matthew Arnold today. I read Arnold as a young man, ( not, at the time, realizing that in the doing I was preparing myself for marriage in middle-age,) from a sense of duty rather than passion. Today, for me, he raises the question of the benefits of Culture, by which he means High Culture of the mid-Victorian era. He writes of others as in need of the education they lack, an education which makes their philistine lives "hole and corner." Like most people, he doesn't like people not like himself. He writes of others: "Consider these people, then, their way of life, their habits, their manners, the very tones of their voice; look at them attentively; observe the literature they read, the things which give them pleasure, the words which come from their mouths, the thoughts which make the furniture of their minds; would any amount of wealth be worth having with the condition that one was to become just like these people by having it?"1.

Good grief! Would I want to be a man like him? Not for all the money on Earth. Wouldn't even want to be Elvis. Nor does Arnold, for all his obnoxious snobbery, intend anyone to think others should be him or like him. In that he is ultimately far superior to the average Leftist. Arnold's snobbery begins and ends with himself. He did not kill anyone in a futile and hubristic attempt to make a New Man. Such cannot be said of the Death Hippies who today rule our many nations of Modernity, lands of Sweetness and Light, where ignorant Leftards clash on sight.

Who then is the Humanist? He who doesn't want to be you is probably fine with not being you. He who doesn't like you is probably fine with that too. It is he who doesn't want you to be you who is the man we must not tolerate. I wouldn't be someone else for all the money on Earth. Nor would I want to make another not himself even if that someone is someone I'd gladly hang from a lamp-post. People have rights, innately, and the most basic right is to be their own Lords. Sometimes others are so disgusting I can't shake the horror of the vision of them; but that's my problem, not theirs. I can live with it. Can our collectivist Culture Curators? Can we live with them?

1. Matthew Arnold, Culture and Anarchy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 1869; rpt. revised 1933 and19 50; p. 52.

On Plato, on Francis, on Ecology, On Donner und Blitzen.

Below, Thomas F. Bertonneau writes on some themes that preoccupy some of us at Covenant Zone.

http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/3780

Day Against Anti-Semitism and Terrorism (DAAT): April 19: March for Israel and Freedom: Change the narrative on the streets

Important news from Howard:
Day Against Anti-Semitism and Terrorism (DAAT) - April 19, 2009 « Howard Rotberg: Second Generation Radical:

This year Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day, falls on April 21, 2009.

The obscenity of Durban II - a hatefest of anti-Semitism in the guise of an anti-racism conference is scheduled right on Yom HaShoah, taking place from Aprtil 20 to 24 in Geneva.

I wrote about Durban I in my novel The Second Catastrophe and compared it, in its historical significance to the Wansee Conference during the Shoah.

There has been a severe increase in Islamic anti-Semitism following Durban I, which of course helped legitimize it.

Recent marches, supposedly in protest of the Gaza War have shown the anti-Semitic taunts, slogans and signs by the Muslim and leftist participants.

The internet is full of videos, and articles, about the horrible things being said and shouted at Jews, and the inevitable spill over into violent attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions.

The United Nations, of course, is not a solution, but in fact is a major part of the problem.

European nations, so disgraced by their actions and non-actions during the Shoah, today with Muslim populations ranging from 5% to 40%, see nothing wrong with the most hateful anti-Jewish speech and actions emanating from disaffected demographics, both Muslim and non-Muslim.

It is clear that the greater the Muslim population is in Europe, the more hostile life becomes for Jews. Many French Jews are convinced it is time to leave. English Jews are frightened.

As Barack Obama says one of the main themes of his Presidency will be to show the Islamic world how much America "respects" it and wants a "partnership", now is the time for Jews and their friends, worldwide, to stand up and say no to respect of anti-Semitic attitudes and actions. The Holocaust denial, and the use of Arab education systems, media and clergy to spread anti-Jewish sentiment is unacceptable.

We must demonstrate our view that this is unacceptable.

We must demonstrate on April 19, 2009, and show the world that we support the right of Israel to live in peace and not be threatened with genocide by Iran or its proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah.

We must demonstrate and show Obama that respect is given to those who "earn" respect; otherwise the attempts at respect are misinterpreted as weakness and submission to the alien values of Islamist supremacy.

This year as Iran closes in on the completion of its development of nuclear weapons that it has pledged to use against Israel, and as Israel is the one country in the world that is chastened for defending its citizens against terrorism and bombing directed solely at civilians, it is time to ACT!

Our intentiion is to mobilize hundreds of thousands of people world wide to take to the streets in solidarity with the world's Jews including the nearly six million Jews of Israel. We must not allow another six million to perish.

We shall soon have a web site up and running devoted to the organization of this important event. We solicit the support of every human being who recognizes that the Jews of this world have always sought to improve this world. The contributions of the Jews to this world are out of all proportion to our numbers.

Now is the time to demonstrate, before it is too late.

NEVER AGAIN means that at the very least we should march on April 19th and show the strength of our numbers and the strength of our morality.

Moral equivalency, cultural relativism, and political correctness is EVIL. The world must choose - life over death, peaceful co-existence over genocide, goodness over evil.

April 19th is the time that the average Canadian and American can stand up for what is right and voice his or her displeasure with what is so obviously wrong. We are not "racist" in our attitudes on Muslims, but neither are we so racist against Jews that we shall tolerate blatant acts of anti-Semitism and incitement by Muslims.

Acts by a liberal democracy to protect its civilians from murder by totalitarian entities are NOT equivalent to acts by totalitarians against their own people and neighbouring civilians. Those who claim such equivalency are perverse.

To the Muslims --come join us in our peaceful country, but only if you reject violence and racism against Jews, only if you reject terrorism and suicide bombing, and only if you can stand strong against the minority in your religion that is seeking to impose a fundamentalist and supremacist agenda to defeat Western liberalism, instead of participating in it.

March with us in the most important demonstration ever to ensure that our children and grandchildren will live in freedom and dignity.

These demonstrations are NOT against individual Muslims but only against totalitarian entities in the Middle East, and those confused Muslim spokesmen in North America who seek to impose alien values on a liberal democratic society.

Howard also notes:

Farewell, dear readers, as I leave you with nearly 170 posts from last August, many containing essays of mine.

The shunning of my work by the mainstream Jewish organizations continues.

The situation for Jews continues to deteriorate. I somewhat naively felt that my writing and my ideas could make a small difference in this terrible world.

But in our world, it is marketing, it is images, it is sound bites, it is PR that rules....

And so, as I take up the position as Chairman of the April 19, 2009 Day Against Anti-Semitism and Terrorism, I feel that I moving on to another stage in the battle; and make no mistake, a battle it is.

We shall take to the streets; we shall be peaceful, we shall be non-racist, we shall be respectful of all laws and regulations, but we shall be in the public eye, we shall be in the "face" of the public; and we shall get our message across - anti-Semitism in the guise of anti-Israelism is wrong and is unacceptable. Those who use double standards against Israel will be exposed. Those who think that freedom of speech is only a one-way road will be overcome; those who come to America to create sharia law and isolation and ghettos of jihadist militancy shall be addressed.

This is the natural evolution of my thinking as a Second Generation Radical.

Never again.

Radio Memories: Hope And Morale

"For fighting men, this grimmest of wars is in one small way also the gayest. Never before have the folks who entertain the boys been so numerous or so notable; never have they worked so hard, traveled so far, risked so much.”

So Time Magazine begins its 2-page story from September 1943, as it chronicled the summer tour that saw Hollywood comedian Bob Hope entertaining the Allied troops fighting in Sicily as well as those serving across North Africa.

This Sunday we continue our weekly Radio Memories series with a post that takes us back to a radio broadcast originally aired on October 11, 1943. Entitled simply "Bob Hope Reports", it dramatizes the remarkable story-behind-the-story of that busy summer.

The episode is from an amazing series called The Cavalcade Of America, a radio program offering historical drama which had its own rather dramatic behind-the-scenes story; COA was the creation of its beleaguered sponsor, the Du Pont company, who had been undergoing a morale problem of their own as a result of charges of possible war profiteering from armaments manufactured back during the First World War.

Starting in 1935, with this series a major part of its new public face, the company took major steps to repair the negative public image as munitions-making “merchants of death" that dogged it during the anti-big business era of the New Deal. Cavalcade began each episode with the new Du Pont slogan, “Better Things For Better Living… Through Chemistry”, before launching into an adaptation of morale-boosting stories from American history.

During WWII the focus shifted towards the war effort, and going through Cavalcade’s wartime broadcasts, from 1942 through ’45, makes for fascinating listening today… one really gets the sense of how global in scope that conflict became, as their stories swing from, oh, the Aleutian Islands one week, to the jungles of Burma the next, to submarine patrol in the Atlantic, to the Phillipines… and to this week’s offering, following Bob Hope’s morale-boosting tour of the then-recent battlefields of Algeria and Sicily.

Of the hundred or so wartime Cavalcade Of America shows I've heard over my years of listening to old radio drama, this particular episode has stayed with me, and remains a personal favorite. I think it contains an effective example of how to boost one's own morale, through trying times: look for ways to be of service.

Previous Radio Memories posts:

The March Of Time: Feb 10 1938 broadcast

Hear It Now: Coming Home From The Korean War

Escape: Vanishing Lady

Rogers Of The Gazette: Rewinding The Town Clock

Caption, anyone?

Let me have it...

Anarcho-tyranny (6) Hemlock for the Masses

Socrates was a public intellectual, and for his efforts he was executed. If he'd been a lesser man, one could almost cheer that. Public intellectuals are the menace of our time, that "time" being from roughly 1750. It's gotten worse by the decade. Public intellectuals have become the scourge of Life. Where is Cincinnatus? Well, in Wasilla, Alaska, now that you mention it. Somewhere in the Netherlands.

We in the West live, so we think, in democratic nations. Comparatively, yes. Ask Geert Wilders where he'd rather be: the Netherlands or Sweden. Obviously he'd rather be in the Netherlands where he faces criminal charges for speaking and making his short film Fitna; in the Netherlands where he's under 24 hour per day guard from jihadis who intend to kill him; in the Netherlands where he spends his nights in different locations out of reach of jihadis who want to kill him. In Sweden, no doubt the government would toss him onto the street and let him be killed. In his own way, Wilders is like Socrates: he asks questions that piss off the ruling classes. So far the Dutch aren't willing to kill him outright. Instead, they hope to toss him in prison or drive him out of the country. The intelligentsia hate Wilders. Rather than deal with the masses of murderers Wilders speaks of, they go after Wilders himself.

Sam Francis, "Mass Immigration + Feckless Feds = Anarcho-Tyranny," VDARE.com; 21 April 2003

"[A]narcho-tyranny": a combination of anarchy (in which legitimate government functions ... are not performed) and tyranny (in which government performs illegitimate functions....)

The result of anarcho-tyranny is that government swells in power, criminals are not controlled, and law-abiding citizens wind up being repressed by the state and attacked by thugs.

[....]

http://www.vdare.com/francis/patriot_act.htm

Socrates was a challenging and infuriating fellow who pissed-off his friends and enemies alike, being a genuine democrat in that sense. He lived off the labours of his wife and neglected his family to go into the agora and chat up people about morality. Today in the West it's unlikely he'd be sentenced to death for his efforts, but he'd definitely be hauled in front of a "human rights" commission of some sort. He'd find himself confronted by a dozen or so nasty little Platos. Nothing much changes. Except when you make it change. You could look at Jefferson and Madison to find out about that. You could look at the U.S. Constitution. Or you might take a peak at Geert Wilders.

Mark Steyn, "Dutch Courage," National Review Online. 21 Jan. 09.

[....]

The Dutch, like the Canadians, think they can maintain social peace by shriveling the bounds of public discourse and bringing what little remains under state regulation. But one notices that the coercive urge, which comes so naturally to Euro-progressives, only goes in one direction. The Swedish Chancellor of Justice shuts down the investigation into the Grand Mosque of Stockholm for selling tapes urging believers to kill "the brothers of pigs and apes" (ie, Jews) because that's simply "the everyday climate in the rhetoric". The masked men marching through the streets of London with placards threatening to rain down another 9/11 on the infidels are protected by a phalanx of Metropolitan Police officers. The PC nellies of the Canadian "Human Rights" Commission, happy to hound the last neo-Nazi in Saskatchewan posting to the Internet from his mum's basement, won't go anywhere near Abou Hammaad Sulaiman Dameus al-Hayitia, the big-time Montreal imam whose book says infidels are "evil people", Jews "spread corruption and chaos", and homosexuals should be "exterminated".

Instead, the state's response to explicit Islamic intimidation is to punish those foolish enough to point out that intimidation. You don't have to be as intemperate as Minheer Wilders can sometimes be: In the Netherlands even the most innocuous statement can get you into trouble. To express his disgust at Theo van Gogh's murder, the artist Chris Ripke put up a mural outside his studio showing an angel and the words "Thou shalt not kill". But the cops thought this was somehow a dig at the local mosque and so came round, destroyed the mural, arrested the TV news crew filming it, and wiped their tape. The Dutch have determined to commit societal euthanasia, and dislike fellows pointing out it might not be as painless as they've assumed.

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=N2UyZTQxMDg4MzMyMWM3MjFiYmFkMmJlM2Q3ODBlODA

The Spartan faction is ascendant in the West today. Our public intellectuals are Platonist fascists. Rule by cliques of "enlightened" thinkers, those who "know" and who will, out of their innate goodness, keep us from the horrors of the Truth. The Big Lie. It's all for us and the preservation of society, right up till the time everyone is dead.

Bruce Bawer, "Submission in the Netherlands, City Journal. 22 Jan. 2009

[....]

The same people who demonized Fortuyn have done their best to stifle Wilders. In April 2007, intelligence and security officials called him in and demanded that he tone down his rhetoric on Islam. Last February, the Minister of Justice subjected him to what he described as another "hour of intimidation." The announcement that he was making a film about Islam only led his enemies to turn up the heat. Even before Fitna was released early last year, Doekle Terpstra, a leading member of the Dutch establishment, called for mass rallies to protest the movie. Terpstra organized a coalition of political, business, academic, and religious leaders, the sole purpose of which was to try to freeze Wilders out of public debate. Dutch cities are riddled with terrorist cells and crowded with fundamentalist Muslims who cheered 9/11 and idolize Osama bin Laden, but for Terpstra and his political allies, the real problem was the one Member of Parliament who wouldn't shut up. "Geert Wilders is evil," pronounced Terpstra, "and evil has to be stopped." Fortuyn, van Gogh, and Hirsi Ali had been stopped; now it was Wilders's turn.

[....]
http://www.city-journal.org/2009/eon0122bb.html

Socrates was evil. Geert Wilders is evil. I'm a boatload of disgusting things. You're rotten, too, no doubt. We cannot be allowed to voice or write our opinions or the whole of society will fall into chaos. That's what happens when evil people speak or write. Better to poison the free-thinker than allow chaos and dissent. Yes, it means the jihadis and the fascists will tyrannize the world, but it'll be OK because the elite know... The Truth. Charge Wilders for disrupting the phantasy of multi-culturalism. Throw him in jail.

[T]he Netherlands allows private citizens to petition the courts to compel prosecution. In Wilders' case, eight parties, including a politician from an opposing party, asked the courts to force prosecutors to bring criminal charges.

A three-judge appeals panel on Wednesday ruled that Wilders' insults to Islam were so egregious that the principle of free speech was not sufficient defense.

"The court considers [Wilders' film] so insulting for Muslims that it is in the public interest to prosecute Wilders," a summary of the court's decision said. The court explained that Wilders' claims in "Fitna" and other media statements were "one-sided generalizations ... which can amount to inciting hatred."

[....]
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,481665,00.html

Of course, when one refers to the Truth, one must distinguish between truth as the helots live it and the Truth as the Gnostic Platonists "know" it. And the chaos? Well, again there is the chaos of the helots and the demos and the chaos of putting things right eternally and unchangingly for the good of all later. Right? It means the Will to Death. It's not just a Dutch Disease. It affects us all.

Melanie Phillips, "Britain's Surrender," Wall Street Journal. 19 Jan. 2009.

[....]

Years of demonizing Israel and appeasing Islamist extremism within Britain have now coalesced, as a result of the media misrepresentation of the Gaza war as an atrocity against civilians, in an unprecedented wave of hatred against Israel and a sharp rise in attacks on British Jews.

Throughout the war, London's streets have witnessed a hallucinatory level of violent and explicit support for Hamas from Muslims, members of the far left and supposedly progressive individuals.

Night after night, Israel's embassy in well-to-do Kensington found itself under violent siege. Demonstrators attempted to storm the building, howling their support for the terrorist body whose genocidal intentions toward Israel and the Jews necessarily includes killing every one of the occupants inside.

[....]

The police told pro-Israel demonstrators on at least one occasion to put away their Israel flags because they were "inflammatory." Yet officers allowed some anti-Israel demonstrators to scream support for Hamas -- and even to dress up as hook-nosed Jews pretending to drink the blood of Palestinian babies.

In general, the police have reacted passively to the violence. One recent video clip captured the astonishing spectacle of Muslims stampeding through London's West End hurling traffic cones and other missiles at the police, all the time shrieking "Allahu akbar" and "cowards." The police ran and stumbled backward rather than standing their ground and stopping the rampage.

[....]

It was Britain which took the lead in framing the United Nations resolution calling upon Israel to withdraw all its forces from Gaza while making no mention whatever of Hamas. And it was Britain which also drew a disquieting moral equivalence between Hamas terrorism and Israeli self-defense.

[A]lthough "middle Britain" is beginning to grasp that the Islamists in Gaza are the same as those rampaging through the streets of London, ministers are intent on appeasing Muslim extremism and intimidation both at home and abroad.

[....]

Across the spectrum, Britain's elites are terrified of dealing with militant Islamism. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that, in a pattern which goes back to the foundational Christian blood libel against the Jews, they are concealing their fearful inability to deal with Islamist aggression by displacing the blame onto its Israeli victims instead.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123240733254895655.html?mod=rss_opinion_main

Links above, except S. Francis, from Foundation for the Defense of Democracy.

Phillips writes: "Britain's elites are terrified of dealing with militant Islamism.... They are concealing their fearful inability to deal with Islamist aggression by displacing the blame onto its Israeli victims instead."

The Dutch bash Wilders. Every coward government has its favorite. That's not strange. That's totally normal. It's Human to pretend and to sacrifice someone expediently. What doesn't make sense is accepting ones own self as the sacrifice of others for no good reason. Yes, the psychology is there for all of us to grasp; but it's not universal: some will fight back. Some will struggle for the Will to Power against the Will to Death. Ask Geert Wilders.

Our ruling classes will sacrifice the people in small and unnoticed batches till they run out of batches. That's the nature of people. Most will accept death as the way things must be. Some, like Primo Levi, will survive. Some, like Adam Czerniakow, will sacrifice others till the shame drives them to suicide. Such is life. Not everyone is a Jabotinsky.

History isn't determined other than by the confines of Humanness, history being Will, the moment by moment making of the future. Accident is not history. Man's reaction to accident is history. History is Will. Anarcho-tyranny is Will. Revolution is Will.

Plato, Marat, Lenin: all public intellectuals. So too, Socrates, Jefferson, and Sarah Palin. Geert Wilders. What you will.

"Sweden: Muslim demonstrators attack Jews at peaceful pro-Israel rally."

See link for video: http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/024579.php

Sweden: Muslim mob attacks peaceful pro-Israel rally, chants "Hitler! Hitler! Hitler!"

See link for video: http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/024586.php

Criminal jihadis are not controlled, and law-abiding citizens like Wilders wind up being repressed by the state and attacked by thugs. That's not democracy. That's the Netherlands. It will be; and it will be worse-- unless by Will people rise up and reorganise the state.

The best laid plans

If I were a smart guy I woulda saved myself lotsa time and money and skipped the book in favor of the cartoons.
Hit the links while you still can:
http://mises.org/books/TRTS/

Smart people are economical with their time and their money, so I'm told.

My Neyes Ni Seen

I was at a concert at an Anglican church once when in the pew ahead of me a little girl asked her mother during the course of the service, "Do they believe in the Pope?" Her mother said, "Yes, dear, but not as much as we do."

Matthew Drake, "Silenced Christian soldiers: Sandhurst chaplain bans Creed 'so services won't offend minority religions', " Daily Mail. 30 Jan. 2009.

Sandhurst military academy has dropped the Church of England Creed from services over fears that it may offend religious minorities.

The move has outraged worshippers who say centuries of religious tradition have been sacrificed for the sake of political correctness.

Senior chaplain Reverend Jonathan Gough dropped the Christian declaration of faith in God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, when he took office earlier this month.

Mr Gough – nicknamed the 'Right On Rev' by some of his flock – says he wants avoid offending non-believers.

But Christian cadets and civilians were furious when the traditional Anglican service abruptly ended without the Creed being read last Sunday.

Although no official announcement was made, a fellow Chaplain said it had been removed 'to stop upsetting cadets who do not believe in God'.

[....]

This is despite the fact that it is not compulsory for any Sandhurst cadets to attend.

[....]

The Creed, found in the book of Common Prayer, begins: 'I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried'.

Theologian, Dr Richard Bell, from Nottingham University, said it was 'something that unites most Christians and for the vast majority it is the act of stating who you are'.

[....]

An Army said it was common practice to alter the service from time to time. 'The people who are angry should sit down with Reverend Gough for a cup of tea,' a spokesman said.

Thanks to Dhimmi Watch.

I dunno, buddy. Angry tea-drinkers bring images of horror to my mind. You know, one of them might say: "I say!" That'd be the end of all peace in the realm. Just start running and let the jihadis have the ruins. "My neyes ni seen nuttin'...."

Don't miss your chance to lecture Dutch freebooters!

Last(?)sign of "Dutch" life: on Manhattan, somewhere south of Harlem (GOV):

Bloomberg supports Wilders

Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York yesterday came to the aid of PVV leader Geert Wilders by making a strong stand for freedom of expression.

In the presence of State Secretary Frans Timmermans [PvdA, Socialist, Labour], the Dutch ambassador to the U.S. Renée Jones-Bos and Mayor Cohen of Amsterdam [PvdA, Socialist, Labour], Bloomberg said he was absolutely against any form of restriction on freedom of expression.

“Of course I do not appreciate everything I hear. But when you start restricting that, you step on a slippery slope. Before you know it, you can no longer say what you want,” Bloomberg said at the kickoff of NY400, a year of celebrations in which a central theme is the arrival of the ship “Halve Maen” (Half Moon, of the Dutch East India Company) with the explorer Henry Hudson, who founded a settlement on Manhattan.

Is this Christianity?

My interest in the church is presently that of an outsider who nonetheless has many reasons to believe the revival of Judeo-Christian ways of understanding the human are probably necessary to a revival of our shared Western freedom. One of the debates in today's church that interests me is whether a woman can properly play the role of priest. Of course a woman can be a priest or priestess, in general human terms - history has seen many - but can she be one in a specifically Christian context that will remain coherently and meaningfully Christian (not that I have any firm ideas about any necessary limits of Christianity in relation to any other possible religious positions)?

In other words, can a woman satisfactorily represent Jesus in relation to the church that has been traditionally figured as female (which, by the way, was a tradition continued when the at first Presbyterian and Anglican sons of a somewhat de-ritualized protestantism re-discovered their need for priestly ritual and created all-male priestly fraternities, starting in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. On the initial model of the Freemasons, the fraternal lodges that were, until the last few generations, ubiquitous in Anglo-American civil society were figured as feminine: e.g., one used turns of phrase like "our Mother lodge"; "our sister lodge" to refer to one's lodge's relationship to other lodges, though one's fellow priests were definitely fellows or brothers in the craft.)

While I believe we are primarily cultural beings, culture cannot eliminate or make insignificant certain underlying biological natures and these inevitably influence how we play any role, and how it was first "played" before it became the basis of a ritual. Anyway, this is just to explain why this story grabbed my interest:

Clergy Catwalk Show at Westpoint, showing off the cloths form the cloth is - Reverend Wiz Slater, curate at St Michael's CofE Stoke Gifford (Photo: SWNS)
The ecclesiastical event was a showcase of the latest designs of religious gowns in various colours, patterns, shapes and textures.

Several priests acted as 'models' to strut the cat walk in front of hundreds of clergy at the exhibition .

One model, The Rev James Hutchings, said: "I've done nothing like this before. It has certainly caused lots of laughs in the parish.

"My children thought it was hilarious. They probably won't ask me back. My pirouette was terrible."

Designers featured in the show including J Wippell Ltd, of Exeter, Juliet Hemingway and Shinglers of Sutton.

Ms Hemingway, who has designed vestments for George Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, told the Express and Echo: "Women clergy have brought a fresh look to garments.

"They are not as willing to put up with dirty, worn-out robes. I think this has rubbed off on male clergy."

Reverend Hilary Dawson, Church of England curate in the Netherexe Mission Community, near Exeter, modelled various designs. She told the newspaper she had bought four stoles from Juliet Hemingway.

"My stoles say something about my faith, the place in which I am serving and, most of all, point to the gospel of Christ," she said. "My green stole, for example, reflects the water and hills of my new home and parishes."

WWJD?

Caroline Glick on Geert Wilders: Europe's last man standing?

Caroline Glick on Geert Wilders, the latest scapegoat for a dying Europe (HT: Defend Geert Wilders)

"Fitna" ends with a call for Muslims to expunge Koranic verses commanding them to conduct jihad from their belief system, and with a call for Dutchmen to defend their country, their culture and their civilization from the rising current of Islam in Europe.

All the material presented in "Fitna" is accurate. And it is also explosive. But it is hard to see how it could be illegal. By presenting the material in the way that he does, Wilders is not demonizing Muslims, he is challenging - indeed he is practically begging - his countrymen to engage in a debate about whether or not his dim assessment of Islam is correct.

Wilders has been living under 24-hour police protection since a Dutch jihadist murdered filmmaker Theo Van Gogh in 2004. Van Gogh was murdered after he released his short film "Submission," which described the misogyny of the Islamic world and the systematic terrorization of women in Islamic societies. Since then numerous Muslim clerics have issued religious judgments, or fatwas, calling for Wilders to be murdered.

Last month Wilders visited Israel and was the keynote speaker at a counter-jihad conference at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem sponsored by MK Dr. Aryeh Eldad. Speaking to a standing-room only crowd, and under heavy guard, Wilders argued that Israel is a frontline state in the global jihad. The war against Israel, he claimed has nothing to do with territory, and everything to do with ideology. Israel, as the forward outpost of Western civilization in the Islamic world, stands in the way of Islamic expansion. Consequently, he claimed, when Israel defends itself by fighting its enemies, it is also protecting Europe and the rest of the free world.

As he put it, "Thanks to Israeli parents who see their children go off to join the army and lie awake at night, parents in Europe and America can sleep well and have pleasant dreams, unaware of the dangers looming."

Unfortunately, the Dutch court's decision to prosecute Wilders for calling attention to the threat of jihad in Europe demonstrates that the Europeans aren't particularly grateful to their defenders. Indeed, they despise them. Films like "Fitna," and Israel's use of its military to defend its citizens from Islamic supremacists, serve to remind them of the growing threat they desperately seek to ignore. Consequently, Europeans embrace every opportunity to blame any messenger.


THE RIPPLE effects of Wilders' indictment were immediately evident. In England, the British Muslim community mobilized to prevent his film from being screened in public. "Fitna" was scheduled to be shown at the House of Lords on January 29. But last Friday, with the threat of mass Muslim riots hanging thickly in the air, the House of Lords announced that it was cancelling the event.

British Lord Nazir Ahmed called the decision to prevent the thought-provoking, factually accurate film from being shown, "a victory for the Muslim community."


WILDERS' INDICTMENT is a textbook example of blaming the victim. Wilders has been forced to live a miserable life for the past four years. He has no home. Security forces move him from place to place every single day. Since Van Gogh's murder, Wilders' entire life has become one long attempt to dodge the bullet permanently pointed at his head by radicalized Muslims in Holland and throughout the world. These would-be killers wish to see him dead not to avenge any violence Wilders committed, but rather, they believe he must die for doing nothing more than talking about Islam and how he interprets its message and meaning.

Needless to say, the Dutch Muslims Wilders caught on tape in Fitna calling for an overthrow of the Dutch constitutional order and threatening homosexuals have not been arrested for inciting hatred.


AND THAT'S the thing of it. Increasingly, throughout Europe, those who point out the dangers of radical Islam are hounded - first by Muslims - and then by legal authorities. In contrast, those who seek to intimidate and physically silence them are embraced by the states of Europe as legitimate leaders of their Muslim communities.

This dismal state of affairs, where jihadists are supported and their victims are oppressed, is true not only of people like Wilders who actively fight radical Islam's encroachment on European freedom. It is also the case for people who are victimized solely on the basis of their ethnic identity.

At the same time Wilders and people like him are forced into hiding, Jews throughout Europe find themselves assaulted and under siege not because of anything they have done, but because they are Jews.

Incidents of anti-Semitic violence in Europe reached post-Holocaust record highs over the past month. Jewish children have been violently attacked in France, barred from schools in Denmark, and harassed in England, Sweden, Switzerland, Holland and Germany just for being Jews.

In Britain, Muslims have now taken to entering into Jewish-owned businesses and kosher restaurants to threaten the owners and patrons - just because they are Jewish. Synagogues have been firebombed and defaced. Calls have been issued in the US Muslim community on the Internet for Muslims in America to similarly intimidate Jews by entering into synagogues during prayer services and condemn worshippers for supporting Israel.

Jewish men have been brutalized by Muslim gangs in Britain and viciously stabbed in France, just because they are Jewish. In Sweden, pro-Israel demonstrators were attacked with stones by Muslims this week. Even in the US, anti-Semitic violence and intimidation has reached levels never seen before. And in almost all cases of anti-Semitic violence throughout what is commonly referred to as the free world, the perpetrators of the violence and intimidation are Muslims. They attack with the full backing of non-Muslim multiculturalists as well as neo-Nazis. The two groups, which are usually assumed to be at loggerheads, apparently have no problem converging on the issue of hating Jews.

And in almost all cases of anti-Semitic violence, the Islamic identity of the attackers has been de-emphasized or obscured by the media and by politicians, or used as justification for their crimes. In France, for instance, from the way government officials talk it, would be reasonable to assume that a dozen Muslim teenagers were provoked to viciously beat a ten-year-old Jewish girl by the IDF's operation against Hamas in Gaza.


HERE THEN, we arrive at the point that the cabinet missed on Sunday when it passed its decision to commit the government to providing legal assistance to any IDF veteran who runs afoul of European legal authorities during vacations in London and Brussels and Oslo and Stockholm. The point that was missed is that in the event that IDF veterans are charged with war crimes, even the best attorneys will be of little use. These veterans will not be defendants at legitimate trials. They will be the victims of politically motivated show-trials.

We know Britain is dying when a member of the House of Lords threatens to bring a mob into the streets if his fellow Lords listen to a speaker he doesn't like. And, when this happens, the thug Lord, a so-called "moderate Muslim" is not immediately put to a vote of expulsion from the House (and/or the nation). How unspeakably sad. But hope in the possibility of ordinary Europeans taking back their nations will only renew from such revelations of the utter failure of the present ruling class. I am confident it will happen. Here is one group trying to guilt what may remain of any conscience in the ruling classes of the once-liberal, now fascist, Netherlands. Consider joining their letter-writing campaign. I think we can assume that the Amnesty International letter-writing clubs around the world have yet to take up the Geert Wilders challenge.