Tuesday, July 01, 2008
And Now: The Puppy Jihad
Puppies offend the religion of the perpetually outraged:
"A postcard featuring a cute puppy sitting in a policeman's hat advertising a Scottish police force's new telephone number has sparked outrage from Muslims.
Tayside Police's new non-emergency phone number has prompted complaints from members of the Islamic community.
The advert has upset Muslims because dogs are considered ritually unclean and has sparked such anger that some shopkeepers in Dundee have refused to display the advert."
Hat tip: Weasel Zippers
Ralph Luker and Cliopatria Can't Handle the Truth
Earlier this month I received an email from the editor of History News Network, Rick Shenkman:
Cliopatria is a group history blog operated by Ralph Luker under the auspices of HNN. Cliopatria has the tendency of smearing all critics of Islam and Jihad as "Islamophobes." A case in point is Manan Ahmed's two posts on a New York Times article by Edward Luttwak, "President Apostate?." The subject of Luttwak's article is that under Islamic Law Senator Obama is an apostate:
Ahmed's responses are classic examples of the ad hominems and appeal to authority used by Jihad apologists. In his first post of 12 May 2008, "Once a Muslim," he begins with an attack on Bernard Lewis and then rants about Luttwak's "claptrap" that is "incredibly offensive." Of course, to Ahmed, and his ilk, all criticism of and open discussion about Islam is "incredibly offensive," so it is no surprise that Luttwak is attacked on that score.
On 1 June 2008, Ahmed posted a follow-up titled "Luttwhack," so much for dispassionate discussion. In it, Ahmed cites a New York Times "Public Editor" mea culpa for publishing Luttwak's thoughtcrime.
It was my comments on the 1 June post that raised Luker's ire. I asked two questions neither of which were addressed by Luker, Ahmed or their numerous "experts" on Sharia Law. My first question was, given all this expert opinion on the benign nature of Islam and its fluffy bunny treatment of apostates, then why is Ayaan Hirsi Ali in hiding? No answer, except a response from Luker claiming that I was off topic.
My next question was how is it that so many Moslems don't understand their own religion. I cited numerous examples from recent news reports, with links, on the treatment of apostates and non-Moslems in the dar al-Islam. Luker responded by calling me an "ignorant troll" and trying to have me banned from his electronic faculty lounge.
Luker and Cliopatria's behavior represents academia's standard treatment of "conservatives" and all other thoughtcriminals. First they evade the issue and if that doesn't work their next step is to silence the apostate.
Update, 1 July 2008: I just received an email each from Ralph Luker and Rick Shenkman. Ralph wrote/typed:
Ralph's crack about me being "a Randy atheist" stems from his hostility for a philosophy based on reason. On 3 June 2005, Luker posted his list of the "ten most harmful books of the 19th and 20th century." Along with Mein Kampf, The Clansman and Protocols of the Elders of Zion appears Ayn Rand's novel The Fountainhead. When challenged by several readers, including professional philosophers, Luker refused to state his reasons for including The Fountainhead on his list. The comments of one of Luker's critics, Irfan Khawaja, disappeared from Cliopatria. This is typical. All the comments on Ahmed's post "Luttwhack" have also been stuffed down the Memory Hole.
Shenkman's email reads:
Shenkman's new book is on the dumbing down of American voters. He doesn't seem to understand that this is the work of his colleagues whose closed mindedness he defends.
Subject: Clio Boards
6/19/08
Hi Grant,
Ralph Luker is objecting to your posts. He insists that your recent comments have been off-topic and distracting [heh]. I do not want to ban you from HNN; in any case your posts haven't been in violation of our civility rules. But I would like to request that you not post on Clio anymore.
Rick
Cliopatria is a group history blog operated by Ralph Luker under the auspices of HNN. Cliopatria has the tendency of smearing all critics of Islam and Jihad as "Islamophobes." A case in point is Manan Ahmed's two posts on a New York Times article by Edward Luttwak, "President Apostate?." The subject of Luttwak's article is that under Islamic Law Senator Obama is an apostate:
As the son of the Muslim father, Senator Obama was born a Muslim under Muslim law as it is universally understood. It makes no difference that, as Senator Obama has written, his father said he renounced his religion. Likewise, under Muslim law based on the Koran his mother’s Christian background is irrelevant.
His conversion, however, was a crime in Muslim eyes; it is “irtidad” or “ridda,” usually translated from the Arabic as “apostasy,” but with connotations of rebellion and treason. Indeed, it is the worst of all crimes that a Muslim can commit, worse than murder (which the victim’s family may choose to forgive).
Ahmed's responses are classic examples of the ad hominems and appeal to authority used by Jihad apologists. In his first post of 12 May 2008, "Once a Muslim," he begins with an attack on Bernard Lewis and then rants about Luttwak's "claptrap" that is "incredibly offensive." Of course, to Ahmed, and his ilk, all criticism of and open discussion about Islam is "incredibly offensive," so it is no surprise that Luttwak is attacked on that score.
On 1 June 2008, Ahmed posted a follow-up titled "Luttwhack," so much for dispassionate discussion. In it, Ahmed cites a New York Times "Public Editor" mea culpa for publishing Luttwak's thoughtcrime.
It was my comments on the 1 June post that raised Luker's ire. I asked two questions neither of which were addressed by Luker, Ahmed or their numerous "experts" on Sharia Law. My first question was, given all this expert opinion on the benign nature of Islam and its fluffy bunny treatment of apostates, then why is Ayaan Hirsi Ali in hiding? No answer, except a response from Luker claiming that I was off topic.
My next question was how is it that so many Moslems don't understand their own religion. I cited numerous examples from recent news reports, with links, on the treatment of apostates and non-Moslems in the dar al-Islam. Luker responded by calling me an "ignorant troll" and trying to have me banned from his electronic faculty lounge.
Luker and Cliopatria's behavior represents academia's standard treatment of "conservatives" and all other thoughtcriminals. First they evade the issue and if that doesn't work their next step is to silence the apostate.
Update, 1 July 2008: I just received an email each from Ralph Luker and Rick Shenkman. Ralph wrote/typed:
Grant,
The tender mercies of a Randy atheist for Christian converts from Islam are deeply appreciated. Cutting and pasting every story you come across, however remote from the subject of Manan's post at Cliopatria, is *not* intelligent discussion. You are acting like a troll and, until you change your behavior, I will ask Rick Shenkman to remove every comment you make at Cliopatria. You are simply being a rude, ignorant troll.
Ralph
Ralph's crack about me being "a Randy atheist" stems from his hostility for a philosophy based on reason. On 3 June 2005, Luker posted his list of the "ten most harmful books of the 19th and 20th century." Along with Mein Kampf, The Clansman and Protocols of the Elders of Zion appears Ayn Rand's novel The Fountainhead. When challenged by several readers, including professional philosophers, Luker refused to state his reasons for including The Fountainhead on his list. The comments of one of Luker's critics, Irfan Khawaja, disappeared from Cliopatria. This is typical. All the comments on Ahmed's post "Luttwhack" have also been stuffed down the Memory Hole.
Shenkman's email reads:
Hi Grant,
In June I asked you to voluntarily stop commenting on Cliopatria. Apparently, you decided to continue. Bloggers at HNN have the right to ban people from their corner of HNN. Ralph wants you banned. From now on do not post comments on Clio's discussion boards. You are welcome to post elsewhere at HNN. If you insist on posting at Clio your privilege to post anywhere on HNN will be revoked.
Rick
Shenkman's new book is on the dumbing down of American voters. He doesn't seem to understand that this is the work of his colleagues whose closed mindedness he defends.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Galileo and Oil
Guest Commentary by Edward Cline:
As too brief a respite from the turmoil on Earth – from the politics, from Islam, from the diminishing scope of men’s concerns and the consequent meanness of their goals – I will go to Mars, to Venus, to the planetary systems of other stars via the Internet, but chiefly to planets and bodies in the solar system where Man has sent querying spacecraft and robotic investigators, just to see some evidence of success in his long-range endeavors.
Of course, I do not think our government should be conducting any kind of space exploration, except for military purposes, to maintain the nation’s security. Since every potentially habitable body beyond Earth is uninhabited and therefore absent of any property status, space exploration rationally should be a private enterprise to develop a body’s potentiality, and not just focus on mere “pure” scientific investigation and the acquisition of knowledge that can never be applied to sustain human life. But the magnitude of thought, planning, technological finesse, and commitment to achieving a rational goal required to put a single satellite in Earth orbit, never mind around Mars or Jupiter or Saturn, is something for which, for me, the words appreciation and admiration seem inadequate.
Launched during a space shuttle mission in October 1989, the Galileo probe reached its destination, Jupiter, in December 1995. Even though the craft was hampered by a faulty communications array, for almost a decade it transmitted data and pictures of Jupiter and probed the nature of some of its moons. The catalogue of Galileo’s accomplishments is astonishing.
So, it saddened me to read late in 2003 that Galileo’s mission was nearing an end, because, among other minor problems, its propellant, used to maneuver it in orbit around the planet, was nearly depleted. NASA announced that it was going to use the last of it to send the craft into Jupiter. The newspaper article reporting the decision said that this was to prevent Galileo from possibly crashing onto any of Jupiter’s moons, especially Europa, and contaminating it with terrestrial organisms.
Why? I asked myself. Why not let Galileo remain in orbit around Jupiter as evidence of Man’s achievement? I emailed the Galileo team that question. I received a brief iteration of the concern about contamination. I replied: Aside from the unlikelihood of Galileo falling onto one of the moons, so what if it crashed on Europa or Io? Given how thoroughly these probes and landers are scoured of all microscopic life before launch, “contamination” of another planet or moon would be as likely as algae growing in the super-hot oven of Venus or on sun-blasted Mercury as on frigid Europa or sulfurous Io. And that is not factoring in the fourteen years Galileo was exposed to life-ending solar radiation and cosmic rays coupled with the inhospitableness of a vacuum.
Further, why the bias against terrestrial life in favor of extraterrestrial, even if the latter were proven to exist on any of those bodies? Why the bias against it even if no life existed on them? If Western civilization lasts long enough to land men on Mars, will they be expected to immolate themselves to protect and ensure the existence of Martian microbes, or the pristine lifelessness of the Martian deserts?
I received no reply. Shortly after that exchange, Galileo was sent plunging into Jupiter, where it disintegrated and its parts were presumably vaporized by Jupiter’s heat and their atoms sublimated into the roiling, lifeless atmosphere. I recall a Jet Propulsion Lab manager announcing, “Galileo is now a part of Jupiter.”
Evidence erased.
What prompted me then to ask the Galileo team was something I remembered Ayn Rand wrote in 1969 at the end of her article on Apollo 11:
If the United States is to commit suicide, let it not be for the sake and support of the worst human elements, the parasites-on-principle, at home and abroad. Let it not be its only epitaph that it died paying its enemies for its own destruction. Let some of its lifeblood go to the support of achievement and the progress of science. The American flag on the moon – or on Mars, or on Jupiter – will, at least, be a worthy monument to what had once been a great country. [1]
What moved NASA to deliberately destroy one of its most successful probes when there was no demonstrable point to it, or for any “earthly” value or reason?
In a word: environmentalism. Or an infection from it. Extraterrestrial life, hypothetical or real, benign or virulently destructive, had acquired the same elevated status as spotted owls, whales and wolves on earth, possessing some extra-human value equal to or above human existence. And in any conflict between human existence and other “life forms,” it is human existence which is imperiled. Logically, ultimately, it is man who would be expected to erase himself from existence in such a conflict in deference to the defenseless, non-volitional species.
Of all the “life forms” that exist on earth (or in the solar system), man is the only one with the capacity for reason, and if he chooses to discard it, act on faith, and religiously commit suicide in conformance with that Kantian “virtue,” it is because he is convinced that the “right” of other life forms to exist overrides that of man. If the meek shall inherit the earth, environmentalists want to guarantee that they will be animals, plants and rocks. There is a crucial link between religion and environmentalism. The environmentalists mean it. To them, man is a contaminator and a contagion. Their theological ancestors are the proponents of Original Sin.
And if men exhibit reluctance to commit slow or immediate suicide, environmentalism’s vituperative priests and thuggish altar boys are here to remind them of their “duty,” or to make sure that they perish even if it means committing murder. To claim otherwise, that man has no such duty to defer or die, is to commit apostasy and heresy vis-à-vis conventional “wisdom.” Observe, for example, how scientists who “deny” man-caused global warming are shunned, ostracized, and ignored by the political and scientific establishments and the news media, and how the unthinking religious position on global warming is propagated and perpetuated in schools, in the press, in politics, in the face of all the evidence to the contrary.
What has the fate of the Galileo to do with rising gas prices and the oil industry here on earth? Environmentalists wish to destroy the oil industry – and Americans’ standard of living – in the name of their god, a nature unaltered and undisturbed by man. To say that they wish to reduce Americans to the standard of living of the Dark Ages is to grant them a partial life-premise; actually, they would prefer that “nature” reclaim the entire North American continent, and the whole globe, and that man, together with his ruins and all evidence of his existence, be sublimated and made one with nature – as a corpse.
No sooner had someone ventured that perhaps federal and state governments were responsible for rising gas prices because of taxes, environmental regulations, restrictions, and prohibitions, than the “greens” screamed foul.
Four-plus dollar gasoline is forcing Americans to realize that increased domestic oil production is needed to meet our ever-growing demand for affordable gasoline. But even if the Greens lose the political battle over drilling offshore and in places like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), they’re nevertheless way ahead of the game as they implement a back-up plan to make sure that not a drop of that oil eases our gasoline crunch.
So wrote Steven Milloy on June 12 in a Junk Science report, which describes just how dedicated the environmentalists are to squelching any expansion of drilling for oil and of any new construction of refineries or the expansion of existing ones. For example:
The Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) successfully pressured the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to block ConocoPhillips’ expansion of its Roxana, IL gasoline refinery, which processes heavy crude oil from Canada, reported the Wall Street Journal (June 9). The project would have expanded the volume of Canadian crude processed from 60,000 barrels per day to more than 500,000 barrels a day by 2015.
Meanwhile, in California, Green groups are working through the state attorney general’s office to block the upgrade of the Chevron refinery in the city of Richmond. The $800 million upgrade would essentially expand the useable oil supply by permitting the refinery to process lower quality, less expensive crude oil.
According to Milloy, the state attorney general (leftist ex-governor Jerry Brown) and the city of Richmond are pulling an expensive “carbon credit’ extortion scam on Chevron. Its purpose, as he quotes an official saying, is to “protect low-income minority communities in the Richmond area, which already suffer disproportionate pollution impacts.”
Long before gas prices in the U.S. began to climb this year, a Peak Oil News report of September 2006, “Oil Refinery Capacity Bottleneck,” reported that “high oil prices [then at $63 a barrel] are still being propped up by a shortage of refinery capacity and there is little sign of the bottleneck easing until 2010, industry executives and officials discussing OPEC’s future have warned.”
“The need for downstream capacity is just as important as other issues,’ said Claude Mandil, executive director of the International Energy Agency at a two-day conference….”
Which proves that even bureaucrats are minimally connected to reality. That article chiefly discusses the concerns of OPEC members, most of whom want oil companies to build sixty-six new refineries. Of course, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Venezuela and other oil “producers” have no environmentalists obstructing their plans, nor are they much concerned about carbon emissions or environmental “impacts.” These are tyrannies or dictatorships that seized Western oil fields and refineries and are now lecturing especially the U.S. on the need to “conserve.”
Democratic presumptive presidential nominee Barack Obama has advocated a “windfall profits tax” on oil companies “profiting” from rising oil and gas prices, thus revealing his ignorance of – or indifference to – the state of the oil industry.
In 2005, the head of the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association testified at a House hearing that the rate of return on investment in refining averaged just five and a half percent from 1993 to 2003.
Regardless of the rate of return that the oil companies earn, here, for example, is Exxon’s tax bill for 2007: $30 billion. That’s just Exxon.
Furthermore,
Existing refineries have been running at or near full capacity since the mid-1990’s, but are failing to meet daily consumption demands. Yet there hasn’t been a new refinery built in the U.S. since 1976.
The Wall Street Journal of June 20 carried two interesting editorials that underline the environmentalist obstacles facing the oil companies and the nation. The first, “Bush’s Drill Bit,” discusses President George Bush’s reluctant concession that “’leaving most of America’s immense offshore oil-and-gas resources off-limits was ‘outdated and counter-productive,’ and he called on Congress to end its quarter-century ban.” But the editorial also describes the natural and man-made obstacles to drilling for untapped oil:
Federal law stipulates that an oil company must sink a producing well within 10 years or lose the lease; it often takes nearly a decade to navigate the geography, not to mention the long process of environmental and regulatory review. Or coping with multiple lawsuits from the green lobby.
The second editorial, “Judge Ahab and the Whales,” reports that Secretary of the Navy Donald Winter has been sued by the NRDC “for conducting training exercises off the coast of California, as the Navy has done for 40 years.”
The NRDC claims the use of medium-frequency active sonar – a type of sonar especially useful for anti-submarine warfare – might harm whales, or at least confuse them.
Two courts have upheld the suit and the injunction against further training, thus hamstringing the Navy. The editorial stresses that both the suit and the courts are not only jeopardizing U.S. readiness, but also nullifying the Constitution’s separation of powers for the sake of whales. As absurd as it may sound, would it not be an exaggeration in today’s political climate to foresee the day, if the U.S. were attacked by China or Iran, when our military would not be allowed to respond before submitting an environmental impact statement for committee review? Of course, before the Navy or Air Force could even order its lawyers to compose a statement, we would be dead.
The environmentalists would not mind. Just as Muslims the world over cheered when the World Trade Center towers collapsed on 9/11, environmentalists would welcome the destruction of the U.S., and through lawsuits and “eco-terrorism” are working to bring it about. One does not ever hear them commiserate with the survivors of natural catastrophes, when tens of thousands die in earthquakes, tidal waves, and typhoons. One would not hear them wail over the destruction of New York, or if Islamists invaded Washington, dynamited the Jefferson Memorial, and put a match to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution (as they are doing now through financial jihad). Environmentalism is as much a religious ideology of nihilism as Islam.
Their mutual goal is to put an end to all Galileos.
1. “Apollo 11,” in The Voice of Reason: Essays in Objectivist Thought, by Ayn Rand. Meridian-Penguin softcover, 1990, p. 178. See also her “Epitaph for a Culture,” p. 179, in the same volume, in which she discusses the beginnings of the environmentalist movement and the “theology of the earth.”
Friday, June 20, 2008
Liberal Fascism in Canada
Ezra Levant on the Michael Coren Show on Canada's Pre-Crime policy that is destroying free-speech in the Great White North. Needless to say, the Stealth Jihad is making full use of these fascist thought-crime laws everywhere in the West:
The entire show is available for viewing at Ezra Levant's website.
The entire show is available for viewing at Ezra Levant's website.
New Jihad Watch Video
Robert Spencer has this report on the stealth Jihad's attack upon free speech in the West and how "liberal" useless idiots are abetting them:
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Great Summer Reading: Sparrowhawk by Edward Cline
Originally posted at Hawaii Reporter:
On October 18, 2004, Chris Matthews interviewed ex-President Jimmy Carter. During the discussion Carter stated that the American Revolution "was an unnecessary war...and of course now we would have been a free country now as is Canada and India and Australia, having gotten our independence in a nonviolent way."
Unfortunately, this attitude is not unique to the former president. In the article for the May 1995 issue of Commentary, Walter A. McDougall catalogs many of the problems with the train-wreck known as the National Standards Project. One of his complaints about the Standards was "how Tory it is. Students are repeatedly asked whether the English Parliament’s position on taxation was not in fact reasonable, whether the colonies’ resistance was really justified…" I have to agree with McDougall; in the name of "balance" many American textbooks denigrate, or minimize, the historic achievement of the Founders. This attitude demonstrates that the American Revolution is not a forgotten event, but rather an unknown one. Edward Cline’s series of novels, Sparrowhawk, is an antidote to shelves of cynical history textbooks.
In a letter to Hezekiah Niles, John Adams articulated the meaning and cause of the Revolution. "The Revolution was effected before the war commenced…This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people, was the real American Revolution." Edward Cline’s Sparrowhawk series dramatizes this change in colonial attitudes towards the mother country. The Fourth of the series, Empire, was published in 2005. The final two volumes, Revolution and War are also now available. The previous three are: Jack Frake, Hugh Kenrick and Caxton. Caxton ends by establishing the central conflict of Empire:
Cline superbly dramatizes this revolution in Empire, the plot of which revolves around the passing of the Stamp Act in Parliament and the Virginia Resolves in the House of Burgesses.
Empire is a self-contained masterpiece and can be read alone. But don’t, you will be missing out on five first-rate historical novels. Jack Frake and Hugh Kenrick introduce the two main characters of the series. Both novels describe the moral development of Jack, the commoner, and Hugh, the aristocrat, into independent spirits, two variations of the same theme. The events of both books take place entirely in England. Cline, apparently, wants to emphasize the point that although the ideas of the American Revolution originated in Europe, it was Americans who gave those ideas life and spirit. One of the highlights of these two books is the tour of Samuel Johnson’s London they provide. The action in Caxton takes place towards the end of the French and Indian War. The third volume introduces Jack and Hugh to each other and colonial Virginia to the reader.
Caxton also introduces a third character, Etain McRae, daughter of a Caxton, Virginia merchant. Etain will have to make the unenviable choice between Jack and Hugh as her "beau-ideal of Virginia manhood." This is a decision that Cline will save for her until Empire:
As noted, the central event of Empire is the passing of the Virginia Resolves. Their historical importance can hardly be overestimated. After the Boston riot of 14 August 1765, Governor Bernard of Massachusetts wrote to Lord Halifax, Secretary of State, stating that: "I thought that this People would have submitted to the Stamp Act without actual Opposition. Murmurs indeed were continually heard, but they seemed to be such as would in time die away; But the publishing the Virginia Resolves proved an Alarm bell to the disaffected." The Virginia Resolves had lit the fire of colonial rebellion to Crown taxation:
These novels have to be read to appreciate the wealth of research Cline has put into this series. One example is the exchange between Patrick Henry and Hugh Kenrick in which Henry points out "Young man, I note here in the act that even papers necessary in ecclesiastical courts must be stamped to have any legal force…However, there are no ecclesiastical courts in this or any other colony on these shores." And it is there, buried in the turgid text of the Act, "For every skin or piece of vellum…or renunciation in ecclesiastical matters in any such court, a stamp duty of six pence."
Cline’s style is clear, yet evocative. To open a Sparrowhawk novel is to step onto the streets of Enlightenment London, Colonial Williamsburg or the deck of a sailing ship. The heroes are men of action. Yet, the theme is the values and ideals that give meaning to their actions.
Empire is the most daring of the series to date. This is because historical figures, such as Patrick Henry, interact with the fictional characters. Cline is able to create a seamless integration between a plot based on a historical event, his fictional characters and the historical characters. This type of fiction strikes me as much harder to write, and more fun to read, than "counter-factual" history.
Cline does take some "artistic license" with the historical characters. By doing so he brings vividly to life the issues at stake at Empire’s climax, the debate in the House of Burgesses over the Virginia Resolves. He defines the dilemma of the House "moderates" from the perspective of Peyton Randolph:
This is no hyperbole on Cline’s/Randolph’s part. If Parliament had not repealed the Stamp Act in 1766 there was the real possibility that the American Revolution would have started ten years early. Cline has one of his fictional heroes answer the smarmy calls for accommodation on the House floor:
There are actually two climaxes in Empire. There is the debate and passing of the resolves; there is the crisis of conscience of the above speaker as his price for colonial victory.
The book ends with Governor Fauquier dissolving the House of Burgesses and the Patriots making plans to further oppose the Stamp Act. Also, towards the end of Empire, Cline quotes from the poem "The Heroic Mind" by Thomas Browne, which is also the moral theme of the series:
On October 18, 2004, Chris Matthews interviewed ex-President Jimmy Carter. During the discussion Carter stated that the American Revolution "was an unnecessary war...and of course now we would have been a free country now as is Canada and India and Australia, having gotten our independence in a nonviolent way."
Unfortunately, this attitude is not unique to the former president. In the article for the May 1995 issue of Commentary, Walter A. McDougall catalogs many of the problems with the train-wreck known as the National Standards Project. One of his complaints about the Standards was "how Tory it is. Students are repeatedly asked whether the English Parliament’s position on taxation was not in fact reasonable, whether the colonies’ resistance was really justified…" I have to agree with McDougall; in the name of "balance" many American textbooks denigrate, or minimize, the historic achievement of the Founders. This attitude demonstrates that the American Revolution is not a forgotten event, but rather an unknown one. Edward Cline’s series of novels, Sparrowhawk, is an antidote to shelves of cynical history textbooks.
In a letter to Hezekiah Niles, John Adams articulated the meaning and cause of the Revolution. "The Revolution was effected before the war commenced…This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people, was the real American Revolution." Edward Cline’s Sparrowhawk series dramatizes this change in colonial attitudes towards the mother country. The Fourth of the series, Empire, was published in 2005. The final two volumes, Revolution and War are also now available. The previous three are: Jack Frake, Hugh Kenrick and Caxton. Caxton ends by establishing the central conflict of Empire:
Some historians date the first serious articulation of revolution to Otis; others, to Henry. This is a moot point. Their words, verging on the received definition of treason, were not "shots heard ‘round the world," but rather presageful alarms that stung the restive consciousness of any man accustomed to thought. They set the tone and terms for everything that was to follow. Jack Frake and Hugh Kenrick, rebels from two distinct strata of English society, and moved by differing visions of liberty, would now become dedicated revolutionaries: one imbued with a steady, quiet certitude; the other, with an articulate, impassioned patriotism…
Cline superbly dramatizes this revolution in Empire, the plot of which revolves around the passing of the Stamp Act in Parliament and the Virginia Resolves in the House of Burgesses.
Empire is a self-contained masterpiece and can be read alone. But don’t, you will be missing out on five first-rate historical novels. Jack Frake and Hugh Kenrick introduce the two main characters of the series. Both novels describe the moral development of Jack, the commoner, and Hugh, the aristocrat, into independent spirits, two variations of the same theme. The events of both books take place entirely in England. Cline, apparently, wants to emphasize the point that although the ideas of the American Revolution originated in Europe, it was Americans who gave those ideas life and spirit. One of the highlights of these two books is the tour of Samuel Johnson’s London they provide. The action in Caxton takes place towards the end of the French and Indian War. The third volume introduces Jack and Hugh to each other and colonial Virginia to the reader.
Caxton also introduces a third character, Etain McRae, daughter of a Caxton, Virginia merchant. Etain will have to make the unenviable choice between Jack and Hugh as her "beau-ideal of Virginia manhood." This is a decision that Cline will save for her until Empire:
Etain, too, knew the histories of Jack and Hugh. For her, their scandals were acts of heroism…She shared with them some special approach to life. She was certain of this; it was felt by her as an emotion, yet she knew that its root was a knowledge whose words eluded her. There was Jack, who had risen and grown and triumphed in spite of a society that had repeatedly knocked him down. He was a living, incurious contradiction of that society. There was Hugh, who had rebelled against that same society, yet who seemed to be a purified symbol of it…
As noted, the central event of Empire is the passing of the Virginia Resolves. Their historical importance can hardly be overestimated. After the Boston riot of 14 August 1765, Governor Bernard of Massachusetts wrote to Lord Halifax, Secretary of State, stating that: "I thought that this People would have submitted to the Stamp Act without actual Opposition. Murmurs indeed were continually heard, but they seemed to be such as would in time die away; But the publishing the Virginia Resolves proved an Alarm bell to the disaffected." The Virginia Resolves had lit the fire of colonial rebellion to Crown taxation:
Colonel Barre warned insensate and indifferent minds in the Commons, "jealous of their liberties…ready to vindicate them if ever they were violated." Those minds chose not to believe him. But across an ocean the flambeaux and the candles joined together to create a conflagration. The brightest and most fiery flambeau burned in the Virginia House of Burgesses, spread to the other colonies, and imparted a new color to the flames that roared up in those venues of the empire. The ferocity of the conflagration took both England and its loyalists in the colonies by surprise. Parliament counted on familiar docility in the colonials; the colonials counted on recognition of injustice and an admission of their appeals to reason. Neither was forthcoming. The result was a test of wills…Except to a very few discerning observers among them, the hand that lit the flames was as invisible to the English and the Continental as was the modest colonial capital from which they rose. The hand had a name: Patrick Henry…
These novels have to be read to appreciate the wealth of research Cline has put into this series. One example is the exchange between Patrick Henry and Hugh Kenrick in which Henry points out "Young man, I note here in the act that even papers necessary in ecclesiastical courts must be stamped to have any legal force…However, there are no ecclesiastical courts in this or any other colony on these shores." And it is there, buried in the turgid text of the Act, "For every skin or piece of vellum…or renunciation in ecclesiastical matters in any such court, a stamp duty of six pence."
Cline’s style is clear, yet evocative. To open a Sparrowhawk novel is to step onto the streets of Enlightenment London, Colonial Williamsburg or the deck of a sailing ship. The heroes are men of action. Yet, the theme is the values and ideals that give meaning to their actions.
Empire is the most daring of the series to date. This is because historical figures, such as Patrick Henry, interact with the fictional characters. Cline is able to create a seamless integration between a plot based on a historical event, his fictional characters and the historical characters. This type of fiction strikes me as much harder to write, and more fun to read, than "counter-factual" history.
Cline does take some "artistic license" with the historical characters. By doing so he brings vividly to life the issues at stake at Empire’s climax, the debate in the House of Burgesses over the Virginia Resolves. He defines the dilemma of the House "moderates" from the perspective of Peyton Randolph:
Not a single truth in the resolves could be denied, thought Randolph. He was even willing to concede the truth contained in the fifth. But it was a dangerous truth, a truth which, if uttered to the Governor, or written in a formal protest, would directly challenge Parliamentary authority. It was a truth that contradicted the entire apparatus of the Empire. It was a truth that could bring war, if it were allowed to emerge from the House as a conviction...
This is no hyperbole on Cline’s/Randolph’s part. If Parliament had not repealed the Stamp Act in 1766 there was the real possibility that the American Revolution would have started ten years early. Cline has one of his fictional heroes answer the smarmy calls for accommodation on the House floor:
We who endorse these resolves are neither ignorant of the difference between foolishness and wisdom, nor oblivious to the virtues of those who have trod the earth before many of us came into it…In these circumstances, the virtue which that gentleman accuses us of lacking has become a vice. Call it moderation, or charity, it will not serve us now. We exercise the virtue of righteous certitude, for it alone has the efficacy that conciliation and accommodation have not…Moral certitude is a virtue itself, and in this instance is a glorious one, because it asserts and affirms, in all those charters and resolves, our natural liberty and the blessings it bestows upon us…!
There are actually two climaxes in Empire. There is the debate and passing of the resolves; there is the crisis of conscience of the above speaker as his price for colonial victory.
The book ends with Governor Fauquier dissolving the House of Burgesses and the Patriots making plans to further oppose the Stamp Act. Also, towards the end of Empire, Cline quotes from the poem "The Heroic Mind" by Thomas Browne, which is also the moral theme of the series:
…Where true fortitude dwells, loyalty, bounty, friendship, and fidelity may be found…. Small and creeping things are the product of petty souls…. Pitiful things are only to be found in the cottages of such breasts. But bright thoughts, clear deeds, constancy, fidelity, bounty, and generous honesty are the gems of noble minds….
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
The Year of the Long Knives: A Postscript
Guest Commentary by Edward Cline:
Here are some observations I did not think appropriate to include in Part IV of these commentaries on Barack Obama, or which I omitted for length considerations.
In the New York Magazine article, “Money Chooses Sides,” note the composition of the photograph that accompanies it. I do not think it is accidental. I do not know if the photographer (or even Obama himself) intended the tableau, but of all the pictures doubtless taken of the event, this was the one selected by the magazine’s editors to illustrate Obama’s influence. Their motive may have been mockery of the guests or unintended adulation of Obama. That is irrelevant. The picture captures the essence of Obama’s appeal.
Obama seems to descend the stairs, microphone in hand, looking very preacherly as he brings the “gospel” to the mortals below. All the mortals gape up at him with undisguised worship, as though he were indeed a messiah or savior, and are hanging on his every word. Remember that these are all Park and Fifth Avenue millionaires there by RSVP. A good political cartoonist could render the photograph to show Obama in Moses-like robes, one hand raised with an instructive finger pointed in the air, the other arm cradling two stone tablets with the Ten Commandments of socialism (the words, however, would be fuzzy and nearly illegible).
The only person not gaping at Obama is George Soros, seated directly behind Obama’s left. He looks vaguely bored but also smugly content with what he is hearing and with the undivided attention of the other guests.
Then, another point I did not dwell on, for I wished to leave the reader to make his own inferences, is why so many wealthy people are throwing their money and support behind Obama. Basically, and this is connected to his making them feel good, it is a form of penance for and expiation of the “sin” of wealth, not unlike that being performed by Bill Gates and Warren Buffet. This picture was taken long before Obama “resigned” from Jeremiah Wright’s church, but one cannot help but suspect that he and his campaign managers were consciously but subtly instituting the Obama Church of Hope, Change, and Salvation.
I end this postscript with a brief excerpt from Book II: Hugh Kenrick, of the Sparrowhawk series (pp. 115-116). Political and charity events to raise money from the wealthy and the politically influential are nothing new. The place is London, the time, 1755:
The Year of the Long Knives: Part I; Part II; Part III; Part IV
In the New York Magazine article, “Money Chooses Sides,” note the composition of the photograph that accompanies it. I do not think it is accidental. I do not know if the photographer (or even Obama himself) intended the tableau, but of all the pictures doubtless taken of the event, this was the one selected by the magazine’s editors to illustrate Obama’s influence. Their motive may have been mockery of the guests or unintended adulation of Obama. That is irrelevant. The picture captures the essence of Obama’s appeal.
Obama seems to descend the stairs, microphone in hand, looking very preacherly as he brings the “gospel” to the mortals below. All the mortals gape up at him with undisguised worship, as though he were indeed a messiah or savior, and are hanging on his every word. Remember that these are all Park and Fifth Avenue millionaires there by RSVP. A good political cartoonist could render the photograph to show Obama in Moses-like robes, one hand raised with an instructive finger pointed in the air, the other arm cradling two stone tablets with the Ten Commandments of socialism (the words, however, would be fuzzy and nearly illegible).
The only person not gaping at Obama is George Soros, seated directly behind Obama’s left. He looks vaguely bored but also smugly content with what he is hearing and with the undivided attention of the other guests.
Then, another point I did not dwell on, for I wished to leave the reader to make his own inferences, is why so many wealthy people are throwing their money and support behind Obama. Basically, and this is connected to his making them feel good, it is a form of penance for and expiation of the “sin” of wealth, not unlike that being performed by Bill Gates and Warren Buffet. This picture was taken long before Obama “resigned” from Jeremiah Wright’s church, but one cannot help but suspect that he and his campaign managers were consciously but subtly instituting the Obama Church of Hope, Change, and Salvation.
I end this postscript with a brief excerpt from Book II: Hugh Kenrick, of the Sparrowhawk series (pp. 115-116). Political and charity events to raise money from the wealthy and the politically influential are nothing new. The place is London, the time, 1755:
Bucklad House had undergone lengthy renovations, and the Pumphretts wished to mark their completion with a concert, to which were invited a list of London worthies. Lady Chloe, wife of Sir Henoch Pannell…was the mover behind this event. A donation of five guineas per person was levied, the receipts to be given to Lady Chloe’s own organization, the Westminster Charity for London Waifs. “She’s doing her penance early,” confided Sir Henoch with sly derision to friends in the Commons who had been invited to the concert, “so that she may enjoy the rest of the season without the encumbrance of conscience. She is essentially a moral woman.”
The Year of the Long Knives: Part I; Part II; Part III; Part IV
Monday, June 16, 2008
The Development of the Fighter Plane Over the Western Front
At the beginning of World War I all the major belligerent powers had air forces of various strengths. Of the combatants only Britain, France, Germany and to a lesser extent Italy, had the industrial capacity to maintain large air forces at a competitive level of technological development. Russia, for example, was greatly hindered by the lack of aircraft engine manufacturing capability. Therefore, this paper will focus on the Western Front where the most advanced air forces were concentrated, where the greatest air battles were fought and where the most rapid fighter development occurred. This paper will discuss how, on the Western Front, there was a seesaw war for aerial dominance: the key to success was the maintenance of a technological advantage over the enemy. Fighters would be introduced, gain a measure of ascendancy and be obsolete in a matter of months. Prior to World War I, aircraft had been used in war. In 1911 Italy invaded Libya to wrest it from the Turks. The Italian army brought along nine aircraft and two dirigibles. The aircraft were used fro reconnaissance, including photo reconnaissance, and to bomb the Turk’s Arab allies. Aircraft were also of limited use for reconnaissance in the fighting during the Mexican Revolution. The first air combat was between two American mercenaries, fighting for different factions in 1916.
At the beginning of WWI the main purpose of aircraft was also reconnaissance. Even in this capacity aircraft were considered experimental and many generals preferred to rely on the traditional cavalry. Aircraft were not to be used beyond this role as an adjunct to cavalry reconnaissance:
This attitude is understandable, given the level of technological development at the time; it was still extremely hazardous just flying, much less fighting. Besides, the information carried by the aviators was too important to risk with derring-do.
There is still debate on the effectiveness of aerial reconnaissance during the Battle of the Marne: “Early accounts, the official history, and the Air Ministry’s official synopsis of the wartime aerial effort praised the RFC’s [Royal Flying Corps] regular, rapid, and accurate reconnaissance in the retreat.” However, “more recent historians David Devine and Malcolm Cooper have emphasized the RFC’s flaws in August and September 1914.”[2] Other historians disagree, “The Battle of the Marne finally validated the importance of aerial observation.”[3] At the end of August General von Kluck, commander of the First German Army, shifted his army east: “This change in direction was duly noted on September 2 by Louis Breguet, the aircraft designer, who volunteered his services and his latest prototype to the cause of defending the capital. His report of ‘von Kluck’s turn’ was reconfirmed by planes from Escadrilles REP 15 and MF 16.”[4]
The Supreme Commander of all French forces, General Joffre, believed the aviator’s reports and issued his famous order: “Gentlemen, we will fight on the Marne.” What was to be a quick war of movement, became after the Race to the Sea a war of position and attrition. In any event, the generals recognized the value of aircraft for reconnaissance and artillery observation: “Following the Battle of the Marne, Sir John French praised the British squadrons for ‘the most complete and accurate information which has been of incalculable value in the conduct of the operations.’”[5]
Trench warfare had made the cavalry obsolete on the Western Front; aircraft would replace it. Indeed, many a cavalryman became a flyer: “But when Ulanen-Reg Nr. 1 [Prussian Light Cavalry Regiment No. 1] was transferred from Belgium to Verdun, Richthofen saw the dissolution of an old order of battle and the emergence of a new one…Where was the glorious 19th century war for which Manfred and Lothar had trained?”[6] They would find it, in part, over the trenches.
Continue reading "The Development of the Fighter Plane Over the Western Front"
At the beginning of WWI the main purpose of aircraft was also reconnaissance. Even in this capacity aircraft were considered experimental and many generals preferred to rely on the traditional cavalry. Aircraft were not to be used beyond this role as an adjunct to cavalry reconnaissance:
Even the great German General Staff, a body less hostile to new ideas than its English and French counterparts, had reported in September of 1914 that: ‘Experience has shown that a real combat in the air such as journalist and romancers have described, should be considered a myth. The duty of the aviator is to see, not to fight.’[1]
This attitude is understandable, given the level of technological development at the time; it was still extremely hazardous just flying, much less fighting. Besides, the information carried by the aviators was too important to risk with derring-do.
There is still debate on the effectiveness of aerial reconnaissance during the Battle of the Marne: “Early accounts, the official history, and the Air Ministry’s official synopsis of the wartime aerial effort praised the RFC’s [Royal Flying Corps] regular, rapid, and accurate reconnaissance in the retreat.” However, “more recent historians David Devine and Malcolm Cooper have emphasized the RFC’s flaws in August and September 1914.”[2] Other historians disagree, “The Battle of the Marne finally validated the importance of aerial observation.”[3] At the end of August General von Kluck, commander of the First German Army, shifted his army east: “This change in direction was duly noted on September 2 by Louis Breguet, the aircraft designer, who volunteered his services and his latest prototype to the cause of defending the capital. His report of ‘von Kluck’s turn’ was reconfirmed by planes from Escadrilles REP 15 and MF 16.”[4]
The Supreme Commander of all French forces, General Joffre, believed the aviator’s reports and issued his famous order: “Gentlemen, we will fight on the Marne.” What was to be a quick war of movement, became after the Race to the Sea a war of position and attrition. In any event, the generals recognized the value of aircraft for reconnaissance and artillery observation: “Following the Battle of the Marne, Sir John French praised the British squadrons for ‘the most complete and accurate information which has been of incalculable value in the conduct of the operations.’”[5]
Trench warfare had made the cavalry obsolete on the Western Front; aircraft would replace it. Indeed, many a cavalryman became a flyer: “But when Ulanen-Reg Nr. 1 [Prussian Light Cavalry Regiment No. 1] was transferred from Belgium to Verdun, Richthofen saw the dissolution of an old order of battle and the emergence of a new one…Where was the glorious 19th century war for which Manfred and Lothar had trained?”[6] They would find it, in part, over the trenches.
Continue reading "The Development of the Fighter Plane Over the Western Front"
Sunday, June 15, 2008
The Year of the Long Knives: Part IV
The Messiah Descends: "Obama at fund-raiser at Steven and Judy Gluckstern's home, April 9, 2007. George Soros is seated to the right of the stairs. (Photo: Michael Edwards)"Guest Commentary by Edward Cline:
The knives came out and flashed to sink into the very fresh corpse of Hillary Clinton’s bid for the presidency. The occasion was the National Conference for Media Reform in Minneapolis on June 7. According to Cliff Kincaid, writing for Accuracy in Media on June 8, the conference was more a “Barack Obama for President rally” than a conference.
Clinton’s offense was having voted for the war in Iraq. Also, she is perceived by the far-lefties attending the conference as a part of the Washington establishment they believe Obama wants to “change.” The fact that she conceded defeat and endorsed Obama in the name of party unity counted for nothing with many of the conference speakers.
Kincaid might have subtitled his report, “They Smell Blood.” While Clinton earnestly wishes to enslave the medical profession and shackle all Americans to universal health care (as does Obama, else why would Ted Kennedy endorse him?), the “progressives” at the Media Reform conference wish to sink their shivs into the First Amendment and shackle American minds. Obama as president, they believe, will be completely amenable to such a policy, and there is no reason to doubt their confidence in him. (In a premonitory echo of how the would-be wardens of our minds will seek to scuttle freedom of speech, see The New York Times article of June 12 here.)
Kincaid errs when he claims that “media reform,” such as disinterring the so-called Fairness Doctrine, would target conservatives and Republicans exclusively for statutory gagging. The gauleiters of the various tribes and warring factions and the judicial sensitivity police would gag everyone but the politically correct.
“’It’s time to put a cop back on the beat,’ demanded Democratic FCC commissioner Copps, in framing the ‘media reform’ debate. With Obama in the White House, Democrats would have a majority on the commission,” and the new chairman of the commission would be an Obama appointee. Couple that with the predicted majorities of Democrats in both houses of Congress, and de facto censorship would be guaranteed (besides much other horrific socialist legislation; see FrontPageMagazine’s “The Democrats’ Platform for Revolution” of May 5).
The fine-print catch is that federal regulation of the Internet (or of any venue of speech or expression) would be, in practice, neither “neutral” nor “free.” Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, and other “public” Internet carriers already cooperate with totalitarian governments in limiting or blocking access to the Internet. How much resistance do you think they would offer a “changed” Washington against performing the same policing service in the U.S.?
Which brings us to Wall Street and the support its denizens are giving Obama. The AIM article reveals:
Unlike Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, who have elected to perform penance for their financial success by pouring their fortunes into the bottomless pits of altruist humanitarianism with the conscious, stated goal of dissolving their wealth, Soros is actively funding by the millions of dollars the conversion of this country from a semi-free welfare state into a full-scale, totalitarian one. Given the rabid, virulently anti-freedom, anti-man, anti-capitalist nature of the organizations he subsidizes (and which would not exist but for his money), such as MoveOn and Media Matters, such behavior cannot stem from anything but a burning malice. He is their chief “angel” and Barack Obama’s major financial enabler.
Soros calls the U.S. “fascist,” and has likened President Bush to Hitler, but it is fascism his so-called philanthropy is fueling in the U.S If one reads his biography or any of his political books, it would appear that he does not know the difference the Nazism he survived in Hungary and the communism he escaped in 1947. Or rather, he disapproves of tyranny imposed by one country on another, but an indigenous democratic tyranny receives his blessing. If the “people” vote for it, then it must be okay.
The Investor’s Business Daily (IBD) on September 20, 2007, ran an excellent exposé on Soros, “George Soros: The Man, the Mind and the Money Behind MoveOn.” About the man who boasts of giving away $400 million a year, it stresses that:
Naomi Klein need not worry that support for Obama by Wall Street financial interests will corrupt her messiah. A man with no first-hand convictions, or who is a patchwork quilt of second-hand beliefs, can be influenced, but not corrupted. How can one corrupt a vacuum? And George Soros is not Obama’s only enabler.
A New York Magazine article of April 16, 2007, “Money Chooses Sides,” reveals the kinds of men and their money who have funded the Obama and Clinton campaigns. It drools over the pecking order of fund-raisers among the wealthy and the politically connected, in a sliding scale that begins with Soros and descends to the mere millionaires. Most of them are investment bankers, hedge fund managers, or executives of financial institutions. The article focuses on Obama’s and Clinton’s efforts to raise enough to fund their primary campaigns.
It is a disgusting exposé of the low caliber of men – every one of them a people-oriented, amoral pragmatist – who would loose a dictator on the country without a second thought. Most of the men who are willing to donate to Obama’s campaign or work to raise millions for it do it because Obama makes them feel good. He’s against the war in Iraq, he’s for “change,” he’s for “elevating” the tone of politics. Not once in the entire article does any one of them express an idea.
The New York Magazine article offers several portraits. Here is one of Robert Wolf, CEO of UBS Americas:
When Wolf had a private dinner with Obama, Wolf gushed: “I felt so honored to be sitting down with him for two hours on an occasion like that [when Bush announced the troop surge in Iraq.], knowing that he was going off to be interviewed on television later.”
Translation: “The rock-star messiah touched me! He deigned to dine with me! He loves me! He won’t hurt me when he’s in office!”
Wolf might sing a different song if Obama and his “changed” Washington decide that the government should regulate all commercial investments and speculation. Hitler “loved” his industrialist and banking supporters, too, but, as Leonard Peikoff notes in The Ominous Parallels: The End of Freedom in America, he proceeded to fit them with the fetters of National Socialism when he assumed power. (See p. 247, Stein & Day hardcover.) I say might, because Wolf and his fund-raising colleagues, including George Soros, may on the other hand feel very comfortable with the arrangement.
Comfortable, but keeping a wary eye out for the long knife that is always, and necessarily – given the nature of power politics – somewhere behind someone’s back, one reserved especially for friends, supporters, and other useful and thoughtless idiots.
Several speakers, including Federal Communications Commissioner Michael Copps, used the Obama campaign slogan, ‘Yes, we can,’ as they urged the thousands of ‘progressives’ in the audience to bring ‘change’ to Washington, D.C.
Clinton’s offense was having voted for the war in Iraq. Also, she is perceived by the far-lefties attending the conference as a part of the Washington establishment they believe Obama wants to “change.” The fact that she conceded defeat and endorsed Obama in the name of party unity counted for nothing with many of the conference speakers.
Meanwhile, a Canadian, Naomi Klein, who writes for the British Guardian and The Nation magazine, told the conference that Hillary Clinton’s endorsement of Obama was ‘a partial victory for the forum gathered here tonight.’ She said that Clinton was the candidate of the establishment and that her ‘coronation’ had been derailed….Referring to Clinton’s loss, Klein said, ‘Somebody paid a price (for Iraq) at last.’From all appearances, however, the criticisms of Clinton were mere rationalizations of resentment that she was not left-wing enough. The attendees preferred Obama because he is as far left as anyone could get without being the nominee from Communist Cuba.
Kincaid might have subtitled his report, “They Smell Blood.” While Clinton earnestly wishes to enslave the medical profession and shackle all Americans to universal health care (as does Obama, else why would Ted Kennedy endorse him?), the “progressives” at the Media Reform conference wish to sink their shivs into the First Amendment and shackle American minds. Obama as president, they believe, will be completely amenable to such a policy, and there is no reason to doubt their confidence in him. (In a premonitory echo of how the would-be wardens of our minds will seek to scuttle freedom of speech, see The New York Times article of June 12 here.)
Kincaid errs when he claims that “media reform,” such as disinterring the so-called Fairness Doctrine, would target conservatives and Republicans exclusively for statutory gagging. The gauleiters of the various tribes and warring factions and the judicial sensitivity police would gag everyone but the politically correct.
“’It’s time to put a cop back on the beat,’ demanded Democratic FCC commissioner Copps, in framing the ‘media reform’ debate. With Obama in the White House, Democrats would have a majority on the commission,” and the new chairman of the commission would be an Obama appointee. Couple that with the predicted majorities of Democrats in both houses of Congress, and de facto censorship would be guaranteed (besides much other horrific socialist legislation; see FrontPageMagazine’s “The Democrats’ Platform for Revolution” of May 5).
As they see it, of course, the ‘cop’ on the beat is going to be the FCC, regulating and dictating media ownership rules, enforcing broadcaster compliance with the ‘public interest,’ and control over the flow of news and information over the Internet. The latter is euphemistically and misleadingly called ‘net neutrality’ or ‘Internet freedom.’
The fine-print catch is that federal regulation of the Internet (or of any venue of speech or expression) would be, in practice, neither “neutral” nor “free.” Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, and other “public” Internet carriers already cooperate with totalitarian governments in limiting or blocking access to the Internet. How much resistance do you think they would offer a “changed” Washington against performing the same policing service in the U.S.?
Klein, a critic of what she calls ‘disaster capitalism,’ said that Obama’s support from Wall Street financial interests was a problem and griped that Democrats, rather than Republicans, were now getting more campaign dollars from the ‘arms industry.’She and her appreciative audience also want Obama to get the U.S. out of Iraq now, and to create a “Green New Deal.”
Which brings us to Wall Street and the support its denizens are giving Obama. The AIM article reveals:
The ‘media reform’ movement has been funded by Democratic moneybags George Soros, a billionaire and convicted inside trader, and liberal foundations such as the Wallace Global Fund, named for FDR’s pro-communist Vice President Henry Wallace.
Unlike Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, who have elected to perform penance for their financial success by pouring their fortunes into the bottomless pits of altruist humanitarianism with the conscious, stated goal of dissolving their wealth, Soros is actively funding by the millions of dollars the conversion of this country from a semi-free welfare state into a full-scale, totalitarian one. Given the rabid, virulently anti-freedom, anti-man, anti-capitalist nature of the organizations he subsidizes (and which would not exist but for his money), such as MoveOn and Media Matters, such behavior cannot stem from anything but a burning malice. He is their chief “angel” and Barack Obama’s major financial enabler.
Soros calls the U.S. “fascist,” and has likened President Bush to Hitler, but it is fascism his so-called philanthropy is fueling in the U.S If one reads his biography or any of his political books, it would appear that he does not know the difference the Nazism he survived in Hungary and the communism he escaped in 1947. Or rather, he disapproves of tyranny imposed by one country on another, but an indigenous democratic tyranny receives his blessing. If the “people” vote for it, then it must be okay.
The Investor’s Business Daily (IBD) on September 20, 2007, ran an excellent exposé on Soros, “George Soros: The Man, the Mind and the Money Behind MoveOn.” About the man who boasts of giving away $400 million a year, it stresses that:
He calls himself a philanthropist and has given away $5 billion of his now $8.5 billion fortune through his principal vehicle, the Open Society Institute. The institute, in turn, has passed cash on to far more radical groups, such as MoveOn.org.In one of its closing remarks, the IBD editorial concludes:
He has handed $3.1 million to the left-wing Tides Foundation, which funds organizations such as the Sea Shepherds, Earth First! and the Ruckus Society, that have condoned or engaged in eco-terrorism.
He also gave at least $150,000 to ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), the left-wing group best known for pushing minimum wage hikes, for illegal-immigrant amnesty and harassing Wal-Mart.
Soros additionally finances groups best described as helpful to terrorists. Since 1998, he has given the American Civil Liberties Union $5 million to empower criminals, including lawsuits on behalf of terrorists’ ‘civil rights.’ Soros’ Open Society Institute gave $20,000 for the legal defense of radical attorney Lynne Stewart. She was convicted in 2002 of abetting jailed terrorists after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
…[P]ick any cause that seeks to weaken the U.S. and it’s not hard to find Soros’ name on its list of financial backers. Most of these causes are financed by relatively small amounts, but that’s all that’s needed to make trouble. And without the cash, countless bad ideas would have no presence in American political debate at all.Nor would there be any Barack Obamas to tout such bad ideas with a “passion” and “sincerity” that disguises their fundamental evil. Obama would have no presence in that debate if it were not for the gifts that keep on hurting the U.S. from the likes of Soros.
Naomi Klein need not worry that support for Obama by Wall Street financial interests will corrupt her messiah. A man with no first-hand convictions, or who is a patchwork quilt of second-hand beliefs, can be influenced, but not corrupted. How can one corrupt a vacuum? And George Soros is not Obama’s only enabler.
A New York Magazine article of April 16, 2007, “Money Chooses Sides,” reveals the kinds of men and their money who have funded the Obama and Clinton campaigns. It drools over the pecking order of fund-raisers among the wealthy and the politically connected, in a sliding scale that begins with Soros and descends to the mere millionaires. Most of them are investment bankers, hedge fund managers, or executives of financial institutions. The article focuses on Obama’s and Clinton’s efforts to raise enough to fund their primary campaigns.
It is a disgusting exposé of the low caliber of men – every one of them a people-oriented, amoral pragmatist – who would loose a dictator on the country without a second thought. Most of the men who are willing to donate to Obama’s campaign or work to raise millions for it do it because Obama makes them feel good. He’s against the war in Iraq, he’s for “change,” he’s for “elevating” the tone of politics. Not once in the entire article does any one of them express an idea.
The New York Magazine article offers several portraits. Here is one of Robert Wolf, CEO of UBS Americas:
What Wolf, 45, was looking for was a candidate who could change the tenor of our politics. ‘I’d like my children to soon see a president give a State of the Union address and have both parties applaud,’ he tells me. But Wolf was looking, too, for a campaign where his presence would be ‘impactful,’ for a candidate who would take his calls, listen to his ideas. He wanted to feel the love. And while Wolf refuses to speak ill of Clinton, it’s clear he doubted that, no matter how much dough he raised, he’d ever be feeling it from her. (Italics mine.)
When Wolf had a private dinner with Obama, Wolf gushed: “I felt so honored to be sitting down with him for two hours on an occasion like that [when Bush announced the troop surge in Iraq.], knowing that he was going off to be interviewed on television later.”
Translation: “The rock-star messiah touched me! He deigned to dine with me! He loves me! He won’t hurt me when he’s in office!”
Wolf might sing a different song if Obama and his “changed” Washington decide that the government should regulate all commercial investments and speculation. Hitler “loved” his industrialist and banking supporters, too, but, as Leonard Peikoff notes in The Ominous Parallels: The End of Freedom in America, he proceeded to fit them with the fetters of National Socialism when he assumed power. (See p. 247, Stein & Day hardcover.) I say might, because Wolf and his fund-raising colleagues, including George Soros, may on the other hand feel very comfortable with the arrangement.
Comfortable, but keeping a wary eye out for the long knife that is always, and necessarily – given the nature of power politics – somewhere behind someone’s back, one reserved especially for friends, supporters, and other useful and thoughtless idiots.
Update by Grant: USA Today has a report on disagreements between McCain and Obama on the format for proposed presidential debates. The most interesting part of it admits that the media and academia's anointed candidate is afraid of reason:
"Obama on Friday rejected McCain's proposal for 10 joint town-hall appearances, question-and-answer gatherings before small audiences that the Republican senator tends to favor. The Democrat has performed best at massive, emotional rallies drawing tens of thousands of people."
Just like any other demagogue.
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Infidel Review
Bruce Thronton has posted "Clarity, Courage and CultureFew defend the West like Somali-born Hirsi Ali." It is an excellent review of Ali's book Infidel:
"As gripping as the story of her life is, the lessons of her journey are what make Infidel required reading. The fashionable multiculturalism that idealizes non-Western cultures as more meaningful and fulfilling than our own is exploded by Hirsi Ali’s memoir. Those Westerners who grow misty-eyed over the presumed boons of communal cultures, for example, need to read Hirsi Ali’s exposure of the dysfunction, intolerance, and bigotry of the sort of clan mentality that destroyed Somalia and contributes to the current disorder in Iraq. Each of the many Somali clans was defined in terms of stereotypes that swallowed any individuality and determined how people were treated: Kikuyu “had a right to rule,” Kamba were adept at making money but “stingy,” and the Luo “considered themselves smarter than the others.” At the Muslim girls’ school Hirsi Ali attended in Kenya, she discovered that other Muslim countries were stratified by the same sorts of categories: “every ethnic group was clearly distinct and splintered along lines of class and tribe.” A Yemeni Sharif is superior to a Yemeni Zubaydi, and “any kind of Arab girl considered herself superior to anyone else.” Indeed, in Saudi Arabia, Hirsi Ali and her sister were called “slaves” and scorned because of their black skin.
This bigotry is reinforced by the ignorance and superstition rampant in the Muslim Middle East. Hirsi Ali describes how in Riyadh an eclipse of the moon caused widespread panic, as many people thought the Day of Judgment had arrived. Muezzins across the city called for prayer, and “neighbors came knocking, asking us to pardon past misdeeds.” Hirsi Ali’s father had to explain to his panicked children that a shadow had covered the moon. After she moved to the West, Hirsi Ali began to see that the affluence and freedom taken for granted by Europeans were the fruits of a rational world-view sadly absent in the Muslim world.
The death of Theo van Gogh and the threats against her own life crystallized for Hirsi Ali the deadly consequences of tribal and religious intolerance when it collides with a self-loathing, guilt-ridden Western culture too timid to defend its own values and beliefs. And when someone like Hirsi Ali or Dutch politician Geert Wilders do defend the West, they are met not just with death threats from Muslim fanatics, but with criticism and calumny from other Europeans who believe in nothing other than their own suicidal “tolerance.” In contrast, those who believe in the superiority of the Western way of individual freedom and autonomy — and who want it to survive — should be grateful that Ayaan Hirsi Ali has the courage to defend the West."
"As gripping as the story of her life is, the lessons of her journey are what make Infidel required reading. The fashionable multiculturalism that idealizes non-Western cultures as more meaningful and fulfilling than our own is exploded by Hirsi Ali’s memoir. Those Westerners who grow misty-eyed over the presumed boons of communal cultures, for example, need to read Hirsi Ali’s exposure of the dysfunction, intolerance, and bigotry of the sort of clan mentality that destroyed Somalia and contributes to the current disorder in Iraq. Each of the many Somali clans was defined in terms of stereotypes that swallowed any individuality and determined how people were treated: Kikuyu “had a right to rule,” Kamba were adept at making money but “stingy,” and the Luo “considered themselves smarter than the others.” At the Muslim girls’ school Hirsi Ali attended in Kenya, she discovered that other Muslim countries were stratified by the same sorts of categories: “every ethnic group was clearly distinct and splintered along lines of class and tribe.” A Yemeni Sharif is superior to a Yemeni Zubaydi, and “any kind of Arab girl considered herself superior to anyone else.” Indeed, in Saudi Arabia, Hirsi Ali and her sister were called “slaves” and scorned because of their black skin.
This bigotry is reinforced by the ignorance and superstition rampant in the Muslim Middle East. Hirsi Ali describes how in Riyadh an eclipse of the moon caused widespread panic, as many people thought the Day of Judgment had arrived. Muezzins across the city called for prayer, and “neighbors came knocking, asking us to pardon past misdeeds.” Hirsi Ali’s father had to explain to his panicked children that a shadow had covered the moon. After she moved to the West, Hirsi Ali began to see that the affluence and freedom taken for granted by Europeans were the fruits of a rational world-view sadly absent in the Muslim world.
The death of Theo van Gogh and the threats against her own life crystallized for Hirsi Ali the deadly consequences of tribal and religious intolerance when it collides with a self-loathing, guilt-ridden Western culture too timid to defend its own values and beliefs. And when someone like Hirsi Ali or Dutch politician Geert Wilders do defend the West, they are met not just with death threats from Muslim fanatics, but with criticism and calumny from other Europeans who believe in nothing other than their own suicidal “tolerance.” In contrast, those who believe in the superiority of the Western way of individual freedom and autonomy — and who want it to survive — should be grateful that Ayaan Hirsi Ali has the courage to defend the West."
Friday, June 13, 2008
Another Obama Endorsement
Moonbat judge, James Burge, opposes death penalty for convicted killers, honors mass murdering Stalinist, and supports Obama. Obama probably can hardly wait to get this Comrade on the federal bench.
"ELYRIA, Ohio (AP) — A judge in Ohio says the state's method of putting prisoners to death is unconstitutional because two of three drugs used in the lethal injection process can cause pain."
"ELYRIA, Ohio (AP) — A judge in Ohio says the state's method of putting prisoners to death is unconstitutional because two of three drugs used in the lethal injection process can cause pain." Unlike the pain his hero Ernesto "Che" Guevara caused before CIA trained Bolivian forces put the evil bastard to death. And yes, I hope The Che suffered a great deal.
The Year of the Long Knives: Part III
Guest Commentary by Edward Cline:
Describing the political climate of Weimar Germany in Hitler, 1889-1936: Hubris, Ian Kershaw notes that Germany was “a Republic without republicans.” One could just as well say that of the United States today, our republicans being of the intellectual and moral caliber of the Founders but who are entirely absent from the modern American political universe. No politician today advocates life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness; the Declaration of Independence and the original Constitution, sans the statist amendments to it, may as well be indecipherable Turkish runes.
A friend noted that while the Democrats wish to destroy the American Revolution, the Republicans seem to have forgotten it ever happened, which explains not only why they have never been able to defend it, but have been complicit in its steady destruction. Republican presidential candidate John McCain is not any kind of reactionary alternative to Barack Obama. If the current political environment can be likened to a coin, heads it is altruist, tails it is collectivist, and McCain is simply the ridged edge on its side.
Noting the appeal of Hitler early in his career, Kershaw writes:
To date, has there been any measurable difference between that and what has passed for “debate” between any of the current presidential candidates? Other than the usual bromides, clichés, and populist tripe widely circulated in our schools, the news media, and in the culture in general (e.g., universal health care, taxing corporate profits, “fighting” global warming), has Clinton, Obama or McCain enunciated a single idea?
I challenge anyone to find any substance in the following excerpts from Obama’s speech to Virginia’s Jefferson-Jackson Dinner in Richmond, on February 9:
What policies of Bush have been disastrous? What detailed plans and good ideas would end them? Would more controls and regulations of the economy correct Bush’s and Congress’s controls and regulations? Would the Democrats have fought the “war on terror” any differently from the Republicans? Would our foreign policy have meant more or less appeasement of our committed enemies? As Ayn Rand would put it: Blank out.
Are not many voters drawn to Obama’s “passion and fervor,” are they not “predisposed” to “change,” do they not want to help “make it happen”? Have so many been brainwashed and indoctrinated into believing they are “little” enough to deserve the protection and guidance of the state? Is listening to Obama a form of religious “rapture”? As for the “restoration of liberty,” what the Germans got in exchange for “helping to make it happen” certainly was not liberty. Doubtless the concept of liberty is as empty and meaningless to Obama as it was to Hitler (as it was to countless Germans).
Senator Ted Kennedy wielded his own “long knife” and stabbed Hillary Clinton in the back by endorsing Obama. Unless one thought this was Kennedy’s perverted way of bolstering Clinton’s chances, his knowing that his endorsement was the kiss of death – given Kennedy’s known reputation for collectivist elitism, venality and corruption – the endorsement made sense. If there was one way he could punish America for not going socialist at his beck and call, it was to back the man he believes could deliver on that vengeance. Kennedy’s endorsement was a major signal to other prominent Democrats that they should follow suit. And they did.
Another “kiss of death” endorsement came from ailing Fidel Castro of Communist Cuba. In a newspaper column he stated that he had “no personal rancor” toward Obama, but “if I defended him I would do a huge favor for his adversaries.” Shrewd policy. Keep the cat in the bag.
Yet another “kiss of death” endorsement came from Ahmed Yousef, a political advisor to Hamas, the terrorist organization and now government of the Palestinians, who last month opined:
“Barack Obama appears to be winning the faculty lounge straw poll – his presidential campaign is cultivating academics and pacing the field in collecting cash from them,” reported the Politico site last August in a report, “Professors have a crush on Obama.”
In the Politico report, Larry Sabato, a University of Virginia political science professor, said that Obama seems to have “a special appeal among academics, particularly those at four-year institutions. Even at places like UVA, which are more conservative than most, it’s overwhelmingly Obama.”
Sabato went on to explain that the Democrats can always count on academics to contribute money and to vote the straight Party ticket, and so are not courted as vigorously as are wealthy donors.
On April 2, Michael Barone, a political commentator, in an exhaustive analysis of the Democratic primaries, “In Terms of Geography, Obama Appeals to Academics and Clinton Appeals to Jacksonians,” provided a clue to why academics are so reliable:
There is no need to burden most American academics with “refined theories,” either. They will settle for a vulgar slogan over a syllogism any day. They are already committed to “remodeling” and “changing” America, and have been imparting those imperatives to students for decades. Barack Obama was one of those students.
The last and fourth part of this commentary will focus on the capitalist “big money” behind Obama.
Links for Part I and Part II
Describing the political climate of Weimar Germany in Hitler, 1889-1936: Hubris, Ian Kershaw notes that Germany was “a Republic without republicans.” One could just as well say that of the United States today, our republicans being of the intellectual and moral caliber of the Founders but who are entirely absent from the modern American political universe. No politician today advocates life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness; the Declaration of Independence and the original Constitution, sans the statist amendments to it, may as well be indecipherable Turkish runes.
A friend noted that while the Democrats wish to destroy the American Revolution, the Republicans seem to have forgotten it ever happened, which explains not only why they have never been able to defend it, but have been complicit in its steady destruction. Republican presidential candidate John McCain is not any kind of reactionary alternative to Barack Obama. If the current political environment can be likened to a coin, heads it is altruist, tails it is collectivist, and McCain is simply the ridged edge on its side.
Noting the appeal of Hitler early in his career, Kershaw writes:
The crowds that began to flock in 1919 and 1920 to Hitler’s speeches were not motivated by refined theories. For them, simple slogans, kindling the fires of anger, resentment, and hatred, were what worked. But what they were offered in the Munich beerhalls was nevertheless a vulgarized version of ideas which were in far wider circulation. (p. 137)Ideas, however, notes Kershaw, “held no interest for Hitler as abstractions. They were important to him only as tools of mobilization.”
To date, has there been any measurable difference between that and what has passed for “debate” between any of the current presidential candidates? Other than the usual bromides, clichés, and populist tripe widely circulated in our schools, the news media, and in the culture in general (e.g., universal health care, taxing corporate profits, “fighting” global warming), has Clinton, Obama or McCain enunciated a single idea?
I challenge anyone to find any substance in the following excerpts from Obama’s speech to Virginia’s Jefferson-Jackson Dinner in Richmond, on February 9:
Each of us running for the Democratic nomination agrees on one thing that the other party does not – the next President must end the disastrous policies of George W. Bush. And both Senator Clinton and I have put forth detailed plans and good ideas that would do just that.
What policies of Bush have been disastrous? What detailed plans and good ideas would end them? Would more controls and regulations of the economy correct Bush’s and Congress’s controls and regulations? Would the Democrats have fought the “war on terror” any differently from the Republicans? Would our foreign policy have meant more or less appeasement of our committed enemies? As Ayn Rand would put it: Blank out.
But I am running for President because I believe that to actually make change happen – to make this time different than [sic] all the rest – we need a leader who can finally move beyond the divisive politics of Washington and bring Democrats, Independents, and Republicans together to get things done. That’s how we’ll win this election, and that’s how we’ll change this country when I am President of the United States.What change? Isn’t “divisive” politics a good thing, as opposed to one-party rule with no dissension or opposition permitted? Is everyone supposed to put aside his principles and convictions and mobilize for “national unity”? In all of his rhetoric, Obama employs the same appeal to emotion that Hitler employed all throughout his career. The similarities are spine-tinglingly ominous: Kershaw writes:
While Hitler basically appealed to negative feelings – anger, resentment, hatred – there was also a ‘positive’ element in the proposed remedy to the proclaimed ills. However platitudinous, the appeal to restoration of liberty through national unity, the need to work together of ‘workers of the brain and hand,’ the social harmony of a ‘national community,’ and the protection of the ‘little man’ through the crushing of his exploiters, were, to go from the applause they invariably produced, undeniably attractive propositions to Hitler’s audiences. And Hitler’s own passion and fervor successfully conveyed the message – to those already predisposed to it – that no other way was possible, that Germany’s revival would and could be brought about; and that it lay in the power of ordinary Germans to make it happen through their own struggle, sacrifice, and will. The effect was more that of a religious revivalist meeting than a normal political gathering. (p. 150, Italics mine)There are no substantive differences between Obama’s rhetoric and Hitler’s. Or even between Hillary Clinton’s and Hitler’s. Hillary also views society as an organic whole ripe for “remodeling.” All three regard the individual as a part of that “social organism” who would be permitted his few peccadilloes but otherwise answerable to society or the State. Substitute a few appropriate words, and Kershaw’s description could just as well be of Obama’s rhetorical technique.
Are not many voters drawn to Obama’s “passion and fervor,” are they not “predisposed” to “change,” do they not want to help “make it happen”? Have so many been brainwashed and indoctrinated into believing they are “little” enough to deserve the protection and guidance of the state? Is listening to Obama a form of religious “rapture”? As for the “restoration of liberty,” what the Germans got in exchange for “helping to make it happen” certainly was not liberty. Doubtless the concept of liberty is as empty and meaningless to Obama as it was to Hitler (as it was to countless Germans).
Senator Ted Kennedy wielded his own “long knife” and stabbed Hillary Clinton in the back by endorsing Obama. Unless one thought this was Kennedy’s perverted way of bolstering Clinton’s chances, his knowing that his endorsement was the kiss of death – given Kennedy’s known reputation for collectivist elitism, venality and corruption – the endorsement made sense. If there was one way he could punish America for not going socialist at his beck and call, it was to back the man he believes could deliver on that vengeance. Kennedy’s endorsement was a major signal to other prominent Democrats that they should follow suit. And they did.
Another “kiss of death” endorsement came from ailing Fidel Castro of Communist Cuba. In a newspaper column he stated that he had “no personal rancor” toward Obama, but “if I defended him I would do a huge favor for his adversaries.” Shrewd policy. Keep the cat in the bag.
Yet another “kiss of death” endorsement came from Ahmed Yousef, a political advisor to Hamas, the terrorist organization and now government of the Palestinians, who last month opined:
We like Mr. Obama and hope that he will win the election. I do believe that Mr. Obama is like John Kennedy, a great man with great principles. He has a vision to change America, to make it in a position to lead the world community, but not with domination and arrogance.None of these dubious endorsements has troubled Obama, the news media, or the Ivy League. One large segment of the American population that finds Obama just as compelling and attractive is academia. There are few “republicans” in this venue, but plenty of Marxists, existentialists, left-liberals, deconstructionists, and multiculturalists who also condemn the U.S.’s “domination and arrogance,” and the U.S. as a free country as a matter of habit.
“Barack Obama appears to be winning the faculty lounge straw poll – his presidential campaign is cultivating academics and pacing the field in collecting cash from them,” reported the Politico site last August in a report, “Professors have a crush on Obama.”
Obama, whose website features an ‘Academics for Obama’ page, raised nearly $1.5 million in the first half of the year [2007] from people who work for colleges and universities, according to an analysis of campaign finance data by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.
In the Politico report, Larry Sabato, a University of Virginia political science professor, said that Obama seems to have “a special appeal among academics, particularly those at four-year institutions. Even at places like UVA, which are more conservative than most, it’s overwhelmingly Obama.”
Sabato went on to explain that the Democrats can always count on academics to contribute money and to vote the straight Party ticket, and so are not courted as vigorously as are wealthy donors.
On April 2, Michael Barone, a political commentator, in an exhaustive analysis of the Democratic primaries, “In Terms of Geography, Obama Appeals to Academics and Clinton Appeals to Jacksonians,” provided a clue to why academics are so reliable:
Academics and public employees (and of course many, perhaps most, academics in the United States are public employees) love the arts of peace and hate the demands of war. Economically, defense spending competes for the public-sector dollars that academics and public employees think are rightfully their own. More important, I think, warriors are competitors for the honor that academics and public employees think rightfully belongs to them.
There is no need to burden most American academics with “refined theories,” either. They will settle for a vulgar slogan over a syllogism any day. They are already committed to “remodeling” and “changing” America, and have been imparting those imperatives to students for decades. Barack Obama was one of those students.
The last and fourth part of this commentary will focus on the capitalist “big money” behind Obama.
Links for Part I and Part II
