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Saturday, May 31, 2008

The War on Existence

Recently I had the honour to be invited by a member of the political and philosophical opposition to join a FaceBook group of deluded Troofers named "The War on Consciousness". Their very lengthy introduction piece is transcribed for non FB members in "The War on Reality."

Troofers suffer from a form of paranoid obsessiveness which leads them to see BusHitlerCheney conspiracies behind every bush. It is therefore known as Bush Derangement Syndrome (BDS). My usual approach is: least said, soonest mended - but in this case it might be interesting to have it on record, just to show the grand-children how far this madness during the first few years of the millennium actually went.

Frankly, I was momentarily shocked by the whole affair for a number of reasons.

For starters, because the Troofer in question had been in our Aristotelean discussion group, "Profoundly Modern" for over a week. For good understanding it may be noted that the law of Aristotle excludes contradictions. The postmodern Troofer movement belongs to a philosophical brand of reality-dodgers for which the groundwork was laid by the German anti-modern thinkers Kant and Hegel. Their philosophical speculations made possible the war on reason, of which the current onslaught is but the latest battle. The movement is also known as the Counter-Enlightenment.

As Kant put objective knowledge beyond human reach, Hegel thought up a dialectical system for the express purpose of accommodating contradictions, a common by-product of the war on reason. The mutual exclusiveness of the two approaches to the nature of thought apparently failed to register with our member. The irony of the subject of his paranoia that is reflected in the title of his FB group, can hardly be put into words: it's like renaming World War II, The War on Germany!

Unless he was a mole all along, in which case he can't have gleaned much joy from the illicit membership: the group isn't a particularly active one.

The best bet is that the tolerance level for contradictions is so appallingly high in the subjectivist-relativist camp that our mutual exclusiveness hadn't triggered any cognitive dissonance in the man, at all! It is the most plausible explanation: in his defense he sent this piece of Platonian wisdom.

The second reason I was shocked is that the paranoid rantings of the real believing Troofer never fail to astound. Now, I could of course flag the group as offensive - which they are - but freedom of speech demands our defence of the liberties of even our most vicious opponents. We'll leave the bans and the prohibitions to them.

A recurring exclamation over the last few years has been one of 'as you thought it couldn't get any worse, it just did.' Blogging spychologists "Sigmund, Carl & Alfred" in "FDR, George Bush And Scott McClellan" explain that President Franklin D. Roosevelt lied to Congress to get the U.S. to join World War II, a war many Leftists believe was ‘unnecessary,’ and conclude that George Bush isn’t even in his league as far as lying over the casus belli is concerned.

"Sigmund, Carl & Alfred" go on to relate another keepsake for posterity - the Scott McLellen sell out to the enemy camp for a sack full of silverlings - quoting an investigation by "Little Green Footballs" into the esoterics of the McLellen publisher, Public Affairs Books.

The owner of Public Affairs Books is a company called Perseus Book Group, which is owned by Perseus Funds Group, which is held by Perseus LLC, a capital management firm that grew from about $20 million in 1995 to over $2 billion now. Time for "Cherchez Soros!" Is there any pestilential pie this man hasn't got a finger in?

Perseus is the publisher of six more books in the self-help department for those afflicted with BDS. They've got good news for the unrestrained paranoid: you do not even have to think up your own justifications anymore: they're handing them to you on a platter. You can now even indulge in BDS even if chronically brain-dead. That's right, no discriminating against the intellectually challenged!

That the approach is undoubtedly pathological as well as a menace to society is beyond them. Just wondering when the malefic Soros is finally gonna meet his Nemesis.

- Filed on Articles in "The Political Pathology Page" -

Friday, May 30, 2008

Celebrating the Conquest of Byzantium

Today in History ...

Turkish Daily News: "Conquest celebrations depict Istanbul as a Muslim city"

As Istanbul's municipality and governorship celebrate the 555th anniversary of the conquest of Istanbul, academics believe the significance attached to the celebrations has been increasing over the last decades due to a rise in Islamist sentiments in Turkey. (...) Nilüfer Narlı (an academic at Bahçeşehir University) (...) argued that, though the conquest has significance in Turkish history in general, the idea of Istanbul becoming a Muslim city is particularly important to Islamist segments of the population. The municipality and government have also been criticized for choosing to highlight the importance of the day, and its Islamic elements in particular. It is celebrated with the same fervor as the conquest and the Youth Day for the first time this year." (...) >>>

- Caption: Golden Horn building showing its Greek heritage, now housing a private college -

Here are some YouTube images of the large scale celebrations last year.

Jihad Watch has the story of Constantinople's fall, narrated in part by historian Steven Runciman:

"Today marks the anniversary of the real Nakba, or perhaps more precisely the καταστροφή -- the Catastrophe: on this day in 1453, the armies of the Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II entered Constantinople, marking the end of the Eastern Roman Empire, more commonly known as the Byzantine Empire.

If anything deserves to be called an occupation, and a nakba, it is this, although it has, like so many other bloody conquests in human history, been legitimized by time. Still, if the descendants of the Christian inhabitants of Constantinople and Anatolia were to demand, and receive, a right of return, rapidly-Islamizing Turkey would look vastly different from how it looks now.

On this day in 1453, the conquerers were extraordinarily brutal. Historian Steven Runciman notes that the Muslim soldiers "slew everyone that they met in the streets, men, women, and children without discrimination. The blood ran in rivers down the steep streets from the heights of Petra toward the Golden Horn. But soon the lust for slaughter was assuaged. The soldiers realized that captives and precious objects would bring them greater profit." (The Fall of Constantinople 1453, Cambridge University Press, 1965, p. 145.)

Some jihadists "made for the small but splendid churches by the walls, Saint George by the Charisian Gate, Saint John in Petra, and the lovely church of the monastery of the Holy Saviour in Chora, to strip them of their stores of plate and their vestments and everything else that could be torn from them. In the Chora they left the mosaics and frescoes, but they destroyed the icon of the Mother of God, the Hodigitria, the holiest picture in all Byzantium, painted, so men said, by Saint Luke himself. It had been taken there from its own church beside the Palace at the beginning of the siege, that its beneficient presence might be at hand to inspire the defenders on the walls. It was taken from its setting and hacked into four pieces." (P. 146.) The jihadists also entered the Hagia Sophia, which for nearly a thousand years had been the grandest church in Christendom. The faithful had gathered within its hallowed walls (...) >>>

- Caption: clay farm figurines from the Athens Byzantine and Christian Museum -

A tutorial on the Eastern Roman Empire is available on the site of Paul Stephenson.

And here are the poems by W.B. Yeats: Byzantium and Sailing to Byzantium

- Filed on Articles in "History Compiled (another catastrophe)" -

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

The Medina Precedent for Holocaust and Genocide

An article by Alyssa Lappen in World Net Daily reviewing Andrew Bostom's book "The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism: From Sacred Texts to Solemn History" shot back into memory the matter of our as yet unsubstantiated theory on the origins of antisemitism.

The figure linking Islam, Nazism and mass murder is Haj Amin al Husseini, who was an uncle of Yassir Arafat and Grand Mufti of Jerusalem until 1974.

Pearls of Wisdom has done a great job in compiling a biography which we have reproduced here in a separate post for fear is losing it.

Like so many the blogger subscribes to the line that Nazism introduced antisemitism and anti-Western Jihadism into Islam. Rather, given the sequence of events it must have been the other way around. Bostom's book also aims at repudiating that claim. The historical perspective needs adjustment beyond the last century.

- Caption: The infamous cover of the "Wiener Illustrierte" Magazine, of Al Husseini inspecting a division of Bosnian Storm Troopers , known as the Handzar -

It would seem that the Jews of Medina's rejection of Islam and their subsequent slaughter at the hand of Mohamed was used as a fateful precedent. The actions by Mohamed may well have been invoked by Al Husseini to justify the Ottoman genocidal persecution of Greeks and Armenians in the aftermath of World War I.

Also it may have inspired the Nazi Holocaust during World War II. The common denominator on the scene is Al Husseini, and the Muslim view how proper dhimmis are expected to behave: either die, convert, or pay under the condition of strict loyalty to the master religion.

An important part of Adolf Hitler's justification of the persecution of Jews was his accusation of treasonous behavior during World War I, the so-called Dolchstoss Legend which has as much reality status as the Russian Czarist "Protocols of the Elders of Zion," both having the status of Sorelian myths (see posting "At it again: Political Myths - God nor Reason", of which Leonard Peikoff writes in "The Ominous Parallels": "A 'myth,' in the Sorelian-Fascist-Nazi sense, is not a deliberate falsehood; it is an ideology concocted for the purposes of action (...) it is addressed not to man's capacity for reason, but to a mob's lust for faith, not to the fact-seeking intellect, but to the feeling-ridden, action-craving 'will.' [p. 58]).

The Greeks, Armenians and Assyrians were likewise accused of acts unbecoming their dhimmi status in the Ottoman Empire, during World War I when the Turks fought on the side of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria.

Here's Lappen on Bostom:

World Net Daily: "Exposed: Innate Islamic loathing for Jews," by Alyssa Lappen

(...) several Middle East and Islamic scholars have repeatedly asserted that 20th and 21st century Islamic anti-Semitism sprang solely from Nazi and European Christian influence. Even now, Islamophiles like Bernard Lewis preach (as it were) that virulent Jew-hatred is not inherent to Islam – but rather, anti-Semitism migrated to the Middle East with European colonialism. The Quran uses "hard words ... about the Jews," even Lewis admits. Yet under Islamic rule, he claims they were "only rarely subject to persecution" and "their situation was never as bad as in Christendom at its worst. ..." (...)

Dr. Andrew G. Bostom's extensive, scientific and largely unprecedented new book, "The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism: From Sacred Texts to Solemn History," definitively disproves such claims. (...) they can no longer shamelessly blame Christianity as the sole source of anti-Semitism – or more importantly, that Islam does not and never had its own innate brand of loathing for the Jewish people. Islam detests non-Muslims generally – whom sharia laws institutionally oppress and tax as underclass "dhimmis" – but inveighs especially intense odium against Jews. (...) >>>


- Filed on Articles in "The Unholy Alliance" -

Monday, May 26, 2008

Pomo Exegesis For Dummies

It is not a foregone conclusion that Reed Dunn, pastor of Christ the King Presbyterian Church in Joplin (USA) has successfully resisted the siren call of the Emergent Pomo Church. His words are just a little too relativist. It passes for politeness these days.

He may still believe in that embarrassingly absolute Biblical truth and - possibly - an objective account of Christianity. Who's to say? His narrative is too woolly to be certain, yet he explains very well in lay terms what the deliberately obfuscated approach to the faith, as revealed by the early Emerging Church Fathers actually is: a subjective story in which everyone reads whatever works for him. The result is so-called 'narrative' (browse this file for a crash course in Pomo lingo).

- Caption: Deceptive 'rhetoric' - pretending agnosticism on truth, whereas in fact, postmodernism excludes it. -

For a feel of what we are up against note that in the pomo version of truth, science is a so-called Western 'meta narrative.' Nothing objective there of course ... but then, objectivity itself is also but a Western meta narrative. Confused? You won't be, after exegesis by the pastor of Joplin.

Evangelicals are frequently categorized by skeptics as postmodernists on account of their emphasis on revelation rather than official doctrine. The dishy Dunn sheds light:

"(...) one of the most confusing things for evangelicals to grasp is how he (Jeremiah Wright) draws such wild conclusions from the same Bible we study every week. How does Wright take something like the crucifixion of Christ and say that it is about the oppression African-Americans have experienced here in America? Certainly the Bible applies to all of our lives, but how can he make a jump that seems so illogical?" ... ah, the blessings of postmodernism ...

Skeptics are on a mission of their own. These dogmatic materialists can frequently be found in the company of Leftists and postmodernists. Among the emotionally incontinent Platonists they find themselves in a constant state of cognitive dissonance, and they know not why!

Under the false dichotomy of faith versus ratio skeptics claim to be the absolute and sole custodians of reason. But after the pre-Renaissance catharsis led by the Aristotelian Scholastic Thomas of Aquinas, Catholics have shed the irrational self-image.

What's good for Catholics, is good for evangelicals too! The pastor: "Modern evangelicals are deeply impacted by the Enlightenment. That means that evangelicals place primary importance on the original meaning of the text — whatever it meant to St. Paul is what it should mean to us today."

At this point he spills the beans. "
And before you throw too many stones at Wright’s postmodern methods, you should know that most of mainstream Christianity is up to its eyeballs in it. Whether it is the Emergent Church, the Purpose Driven Life, or the Contemporary Church Movement, almost all of us are trying to make our story the central theme of the Bible in some way or another."

Which is why only evangelism, Roman Catholicism and the Eastern Churches may survive the Pomo onslaught. Laugh what you will at their moonbatting: in respect of Operation Western Deconstruct they've been exceedingly successful in relatively no time.

Update:

Here's a suggestion for Americans ...

- Filed on Articles in "Postmodernism" and "Christendom Resisting Emergence" -

Saturday, May 24, 2008

The True Name and Mission of Obamessiah

Bit by bit snippets of the real B. Barack Obama alias Barak Hussein Muhammed Obama are emerging from a well-covered past. Pieces of facts about the new 'American' cult figure are finding their way through the global pipe-line. Trickles at first, now the promise of a torrent!

It was about time some serious questions were asked of who seems to be, the Dems last remaining candidate. The blind admiration of an adoring public is regrettably a common feature elsewhere in the world - specifically in the less enlightened regions - but it is not becoming a country based on Lockean ideals, arguably the most important nation in the world (to the envy and chagrin of the aforementioned).

- Caption: Hat Tip "The People's Cube" -

The author of the essay "Obama's Character and the Kenya Association," Jerry Max Bunyard has made it his mission to inform the American public in an honest way about the Postmodern candidate. And - thanks to Christian ethics - he does so in a fairer way than the candidate probably deserves. Regarding the latter, the term 'taqqiyah' springs to mind.

In the eyes of quite a few the author's background disqualifies him and his findings in advance. No matter. Reasonable objectivity being lost on the postmodern Dems, whatever the critique or whoever the opponent, he is up front suspect and put away as a member of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy. We live in sad times; there is no place for grown-ups on the play-ground of public debate.

It is no use debating or even trying to talk to those inflicted by the debilitating psychopathy of Bush Derangement Syndrome (BDS), so let's not. President of the United States of America is the world's top job, full stop. Although progressive academia have already thrown his presidency on the scrapheap of history - it would have been a surprise if they hadn't - it remains to be seen how the Bush tenancy will be judged from the respective of long-term history.

- Caption: Obama and Odinga - Hat Tip: Atlas Shrugs -

Given the circumstances it is safe to assume that the information will be wasted on those who need it most. There's no known cure for BDS. That said, since the esteemed MSM are well-steeped in postmodern subjectivism, it is up to the blegophere to keep the information going.

Thanks to all who work so hard to keep the lights on. Sit tight for the true name and mission of Obamessiah. The hors d'oeuvre is served to you by Snopes of Kenya, desert by WaPo's "Obama As You've Never Known Him" (Hat Tip: Armiger Cromwell Center). Here's the link to "Obama's Character and the Kenya Association."

Of course you can find all posts and articles compiled on the Articles dossier.

- Filed on Articles in "The Pomo White House" -

Ban Prop, Support Indy!


Friday, May 23, 2008

Today on Articles: of Heroes, Revelation and Left & Right Hegels

Quebec has had it with the auto-erasure of Western civilization. Jean Charest is fighting back at politically motivated 'insult.' N. very B. the last paragraph of that post: that's how far this has bl*@!dy gone!

"Cultural Marxism/Multicult: fighting theofascism" - BBC: "Quebec Rejects Removed Crucifix"


What conclusion can we draw about Sharia law when a Saudi judge drops charges against a Saudi couple who systematically, willfully and most cruelly wrecked the life of a woman they used as a slave? This is the brand of justice the multicultis want us to 'get used to.' Equivalizers will no doubt point to instances of Western rough justice. Point taken. Does that make this acceptable?

"The Unspeakable File: justice by Islamic Revelation" - BBC: "Saudi Maid Verdict 'Outrageous'"


The Pomo German English Language site Signandsight chronicles on the Fascist appreciation movement in Italy. The Frankfurther Allgemeine has some frightening examples. Far more frightening examples of clear and present danger are registered here on the Leftist Socialist side (we'll get to it presently):

"Join the Nazi Appreciation Movement: frightening examples" - Signandsight: feuilletoning the Frankfurther Allgemeine


Ah, is that what it's called these days ... soccer riots? I think the blessings of the multiculture have by now become overly apparent. We ain't seen nothing yet. That's what you get if your mission is the obliteration of reality.

In the meantime the Dutch PM last night gave evidence of the gulf that separates him from the real world. The Dutch, he opined, are naggers and whiners! They shouldn't complain so much, and instead be a little more proud of their fine country!

Let's put this in some perspective. Greeks ar
e habitual naggers and whiners ... they don't get that if you keep on taking to the streets in demand of higher wages, this will ultimately translate in higher prices and inflation - but the nation is still basically in tact, bless her.

The Dutch on the other hand are light-years removed from that! They have seen their entire nation being taken over by subjectivist relativos who have nestled within the tiniest niches and capillaries of the national system. All ties with the past have been severed, all cultural connections equivalenced out of existence, and its morality crushed. And this pea wit has the guts to talk about 'negative self-perception'?

People understand very well that something has gone terribly and horribly wrong, but they are unable to pinpoint the problem and its source. The frantic desire to belong, to lose oneself in a raving crowd or in trance sounds is nothing less than a dash for the safety of the tribal collective. They are psychologically ready for the next guru, witch doctor or neotot demagogue with a plausible story. As long as he has the sense to leave Islam out of the equation because that would make him 'fasc!' But any other vacuous mantra on change to progress is just fine.


"The Assault of the New Storm Troopers: soccer riots?" - Elsevier: "Brussels Police Fear Large Scale Racial Rioting

> Here's the update on 'the day after': 193 arrested, homes, shops and cars destroyed, 14 wounded riot police, two seriously.


Let's wrap up today's inrides of Pomo with a promise of stitches ... and a rather serious must-read article on The Man's supporters by the ever hilarious Oleg Atbashian, writer, graphic artist and creator of the priceless The Peoples Cube:

"The Pomo White House: comrad Obama" (worse by the day) - Pajamas Media: "Communists for Obama"

Thursday, May 22, 2008

A Busy Day on Articles: update on Paliwood fall out

We've had so much breaking news and important matters on blog and press items on Articles that perhaps it's a good idea to catalog them:

Just in: Augean Stables reporting on the verdict in the much exploited al Dura/Paliwood case.

- "The Demise of the Press from Hell: justice" - Augean Stables: "Karsenty Wins Court Decision!!"

Update:

Pajamas Media: Karsenty: "French Court Vindicates al-Dura Hoax critic"

In a stunning reversal, a French appeals court today dismissed France 2's defamation charges against Philippe Karsenty in the controversial Mohammed al-Dura case. (...) Our victory today was a victory for freedom (...) The al-Dura lie is an assault on our ability to think, to criticize, to evaluate, and finally to reject information (...) polls conducted in Europe have identified Israel as the greatest threat to world peace, greater than Iran and North Korea, Pakistan and Syria. The al-Dura hoax is one of the pillars on which these assumptions rely (...) One need only look at France 2’s own footage to realize that the “death” scene was faked. (...)

It’s the responsibility of the French government and, ultimately, the responsibility of the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy — who is, for all practical purposes, the chief executive of French public television — to finally reveal the truth.

Philippe Karsenty is the founder and president of Media-Ratings, an agency that closely monitors French media outlets for anti-American and anti-Israeli bias.

Read it all >>> - Second Draft explain the case on Pajamas video >>>

Updated: 22nd May 2008

Update on the update on the Paliwood fall out: there's no fall out, the MSM are ignoring the matter altogether.

Updated: 28th May 2008
~

A number of old tots still want a finger in the EU financial pie. Also the first Rousseau clarion call of this year ... the gap between rich and poor is growing (of course: it's the natural state of the universe since 1712 - we will keep tally).

- "The Economics and Monetary Dossier: grand 'ol men stirring" - Elsevier: "Old men sound alarm in open letter"

On the day it was disclosed that Israel and Syria are holding peace talks, the German postmodern English language website Signandsight experiences a paradigm shift in its standards of objectivity (in the classical sense of the word) by carrying an article by exiled Iraqi writer Najem Wali:

- "The Middle East Peace Process: paradigm shifts all round" - Signandsights: "A Journey into the Heart of the Enemy"

The Newest World Order

Steven Martinovic on Enter Stage Right reviews Robert Kagan's latest book, "The Return of History and the End of Dreams;" the cover like "Of Paradise and Power" a work of art, the title a wink at Francis Fukuyama's new world order bestseller from a decade ago, "The End of History and the Last Man."


"Kagan argues that the short-lived era of nations competing with each other economically has once again given way to the old game of geopolitics – back to a world of clashing national interests. Instead of communism, liberal democracies have to deal with the threat of autocratic regimes – Russia and China primarily – who view the expansion of an international liberal order as aggression. Concern for democracy and human rights, the autocrats believe, threatens the old notion of Westphalian sovereignty. And while they don't export an ideology per se, autocracies export their example of strong central government combined with limitations of freedom – all to preserve "order" and continuation of power – to their client states."
Indeed, the retreat from Kantian teleological notions does not mean a farewell to Hegelianism in international affairs. The current cohort cannot be expected to be very responsive to calls to let go of the post-democratic ideals of world government.

Steven Groves on Spero News outlines U.N. plans to force autonomous nations (notably the U.S.) to go along with international interventionism, opposed to the principles of Westphalian sovereignty (or what's left of that). Just how far these post-democratic initiatives go is proved by the R2P pressure group made up of 'private citizens,' a supposedly grassroots movement but actually manned by an international intellectual elite. Let's put it this way: it's highly unlikely you'll find your grocer to be a card-carrying member. Read Groves and shiver over the banality of Byzantian intrigue in the corriders of global power at the expense of democratic principles!

In the neo-conservative context, which views the spread of democracy as the best answer to evil empires, Martinovic notes: "So how does the West deal with a new pragmatic autocracy – one which has kept the lid on political aspirations while still bringing a measure of material wealth – which doesn't fear organizations like NATO for its military power, as Kagan argued in a recent Washington Post essay – but rather the spread of democracy it represents?"

"Kagan's 21st Century agenda for democracies is one that largely draws from the Cold War years. He proposes an alliance of democracies like Canada, the U.S., Japan and India, among others, which would complement NATO and the United Nations. He argues that liberal nations need to continue promoting democracy for nations like Russia and China and to intervene to promote the same in the Middle East, even if that means assisting in the overthrow of regimes friendly to the United States."

"Critics will likely either praise or dismiss "The Return of History and the End of Dreams" as a "new" or more "realistic" neoconservatism, perhaps demonstrating that they never fully understood what that conservative strain's founders were really arguing. Regardless, what Kagan's latest truly represents is a clarion call to those who believe that it is possible to peacefully coexist with autocracies, that negotiation and trade are the only tools necessary to bring autocracies into the fold of democracy."
"If Kagan isn't convincing enough, perhaps the words of Sergei Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister, will be. In an essay last year he argued that, "[F]or the first time in many years, a real competitive environment has emerged on the market of ideas for the future world order that are compatible with the present stage of global development" one that sees competition between different "value systems and development models." They don't sound like the words of someone open to accepting liberal democracy and human rights."
Lavrov's words give pause for thought and enquiry: what precisely is the value system and the development model prevailing in Russia today? Who knows is kindly requested to elaborate. On a scale of subjective totalitarianism we might rate it a post-Communist dysfunctional empire with a bent for personality worship, less virulent than Milosevic's fascistoid nationalism - but certainly not shades removed from post-democratic transnational progressivism.

Update:

Pajamas Media: "The Glenn and Helen Show: Robert Kagan" (audio file)

- Filed on Articles in "Transnational Progressivism" -

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Of Christian Ethics: Muzzles and Jackboots

In a last week's post "Deeper Under the Eurofascist Jackboot" we reported the plight of a Dutch cartoonist, Gregory Nekschot. The name is an uncannily apt pseudonym considering the circumstances. Nekschot means 'a shot in the neck', the tots' choice of execution for enemies of the state. Nekschot's home was searched and the artist had his means of living confiscated by the overwhelming power of a ten men police squad. He himself was arrested, interrogated and thrown in jail.

A public discourse ensued. The intimidating circumstances were subject of a parliamentary debate yesterday, a number of MPs to their credit expressing worry and outrage. It was also debated if the prosecution service have performed their duties as is expected of them. It is fairly obvious a number of 'technical' mistakes were made. The Minister of Justice, while defending the action as a whole, has tacitly admitted as much. Surprisingly, promising more answers he's still in office today!

The investigation was triggered by an unborn Dutch Muslim known by the name of Abdul-Jabbar Van de Ven, a 'calvinist' imam moonlighting as chairman of the Islamic Propagation Centre International (IPCI), which is financed by bin Laden. The investigation of Nekschot had taken three years to complete because the police were unable to pinpoint the identity behind the Nekschot pseudonym. The computer needed confiscating to establish if the offensive drawings were uploaded from this particular apparatus. Never mind the details of this load of bovine manure.

But in a country where the rule of law reigns supreme no one is supposed to question cases in public while a trial is pending. Which is all very well, but isn't the rule of law itself in danger here by state censorship and intimidation, and by enforced 'self'-censorship of the press and the public at large?

Nekschot doesn't advocate the extermination of individuals or groups of people, nor does he call for entire nations to be driven into the sea, a common fixture on social networking sites such as FaceBook. Nekschot draws cartoons, pen and satire are his weapons (Pomos, this is what is commonly referred to as 'metaphor,' so don't even think of pressing charges for illegal carrying).

One of the parties in government, to which also the Justice Minister belongs - the Christian Democrats (CDA) - have embraced the interests of Muslims as their own on the basis of them being all 'believers.' A few months ago we had another episode with a CDA party member screaming "fasc!" at Libertarian Wilders for speaking out against encroaching Islamization.

The ethics of this party are getting more questionable by the day. In the Dutch political landscape the CDA party has historically a pivotal role between the Leftist Labour and the 'Rightist' free-market Liberals. No party can govern in its own right and the Christians have the choice of going 'either way.'

They have governed for years with the Liberals, backing free-market policies, less rules and regulations, a small(er) government, curbing benefits and discouraging asylum. At present in government with the Socialists, they have effortlessly performed an U-turn on essentials, backed down from their own past policies and started catering to the forces of darkness, which apparently includes muzzling Islam-critical cartoonists.

On the other hand - let's not kid ourselves. In the European Union of today the sovereign nation is a thing of the past. Thanks to political obscurantism and contempt of democratic principles in the face of Hegelian historical events, we have no way of knowing to what extent the unelected Commission is actually in power, by proxy of national governments.

-Caption: cartoon by Nekschot: "The faithful are allowed more than others - I am allowed to set up camp in public places." -

It is the new-found duty of parliaments to rubber-stamp whatever is pouring through the Brussels pipe-line. And national governments bear the brunt of the neotot policies without ever implicating the Brussels behemoth, because too much criticism might endanger 'the project,' which - as we know - foresees in expanding Europe into Turkey, the African Maghreb and the Middle Eastern Mashriq. The implications of such plans might be obvious to any realistic observer.

- Filed on Articles in "In Defence of Liberty" -

Sunday, May 18, 2008

At it Again: Political Myths - God nor Reason

Discerning readers may have noticed the blue Simon Says link in the sidebar recently. It leads to an excerpt from Lee Harris' book "Civilization and Its Enemies: the Next Stage of History." Although already published in 2004 regrettably it has only just now caught our attention. The e-book deals with the background of the events on 9/11 and posits a theory on the ideological origins of Islamism. It has some very important observations which are in line with the main content matter of present blog. We'll go through the text and comment where the two converge.

The description couldn't introduce the matter more poignantly, quoting the opening sentences of the actual e-book: "Forgetfulness occurs when those who have been long inured to civilized order can no longer remember a time in which (...) there has ever been a category of human experience called the enemy."

"That, before 9/11, was what had happened to us. The very concept of the enemy had been banished from our moral and political vocabulary. An enemy was just a friend we hadn't done enough for yet. Or perhaps there had been a misunderstanding, or an oversight on our part -- something that we could correct...." This 'evolved' attitude is still the default mind-set in international politics and is entrenched in global Leftist thought processes in the shape of Communist memes.

Harris continues: "Our first task is therefore to try to grasp what the concept of the enemy really means. The enemy is someone who is willing to die in order to kill you. And while it is true that the enemy always hates us for a reason, it is his reason, and not ours (...) our enemy -- for the first time in centuries -- refuses to play by any of our rules, or to think in any of our categories. (...) Most of us cannot give up the myth that (...) we can somehow convert the enemy to our beliefs."

So far the introduction. The excerpt of Chapter 1, "The Riddle of the Enemy" observes that a psychological mechanism kicks in when people are confronted by a culturally exotic enemy. "Our first instinct is to understand his conduct in terms that are familiar to us, terms that make sense to us in light of our own fund of experience. We assume that if our enemy is doing x, it must be for reasons that are comprehensible in terms of our universe." Let's ignore the subjectivism here as not relevant to the story.

Harris illustrates his point with the fatal coincidence resulting in the Spanish conquest of Mexico, as Cortes happened to fit the Aztec myth of the white-skinned god, Quetzalcoatlin in an uncanny kind of way. By the same mechanism native populations in Europe and America today are trying to fit Islamic features into their own frames of reference.

And so, the Koran becomes the Muslim Bible, Mohamed a Prophet in the line of Moses and Jesus (the latter no Prophet, but whatever ...), mosques fit the concept of churches, and violent scenes in the Bible are 'the same' as violent calls to conquest contained in the Koran. This ads to the already all-pervasive false equivalence with which the West is so well saturated.

Back to 9/11 Harris isolates two typical reactions to the terror attacks. On the one hand there's the Postmodern Left and a massive slice of public opinion, veering to 'solving the causes of terrorism', an intellectually lazy approach that couldn't be further off the mark, but which follows so comfortably the pattern of the dialectic.

On the other side there's the modernist reaction represented by classicist author Victor Davis Hanson: "it is irrelevant what grievances our enemy may believe it has against us; what matters is that we have been viciously attacked and that, for the sake of our survival, we must fight back."

And here we reach a more fascinating level in reduction: the assumption of the political rationalization behind the terror attacks. Harris: "Behind this shared assumption stands the figure of Clausewitz (1780-1831) and his famous definition of war as politics carried out by other means.

The whole point of war, on this reading, is to get other people to do what we want them to do: it is an effort to make others adopt our policies and/or to further our interests. Clausewitzian war, in short, is rational and instrumental. It attempts to bring about a new state of affairs through the artful combination of violence and the promise to cease violence if certain political objectives are met."

Enter irrational acts of the will as precursed by Rousseau and in Harris' argument set out by Georges Sorel (1847-1922). In other words theories how to manipulate and whip up the masses into violent eruption against the 'power structure': the now familiar meeting point of Left and Right Socialism in 'irrational acts of the will' through theme or myth-building. Harris concentrates on the Rightist side i.e. on Fascism and National Socialism, using the term 'fantasy ideology.' He highlights the psychological aspects how people can be made susceptible to the forces of anti-reason.

Sorel by the way may have laid the anti-reason ground-work for the idea of science being reduced to what Postmoderns today refer to as 'a meta-narrative': nothing to do with objective truth, but just another Western version of reality (tell that to the world's children who survive today thanks to the scientific invention of inoculation and the technological advancement of refrigerators).

Harris explains the mechanism very well, but stops short of reducing it to the philosophical root: "A fantasy ideology is one that seizes the opportunity offered by such a lack of realism in a political group and makes the most of it. This it is able to do through symbols and rituals, all of which are designed to permit the members of the political group to indulge in a kind of fantasy role-playing. Classical examples of this are easy to find: the Jacobin fantasy of reviving the Roman Republic; Mussolini's fantasy of reviving the Roman Empire; Hitler's fantasy of reviving German paganism in the thousand-year Reich." This set of examples lets the Marxist dialectic of the historically 'oppressed' nicely off the hook once again.

"This theme of reviving ancient glory is an important key to understanding fantasy ideologies. It suggests that fantasy ideologies tend to be the domain of those groups that history has passed by or rejected - groups that feel that they are under attack from forces that, while more powerful perhaps than they are, are nonetheless inferior to them in terms of true virtue; they themselves stand for what is pure." This is fitting the Islamist fantasy myth to a T.

All this presumes a population that is fairly divorced from Aristotelian reason and a political elite willing to exploit it. In the West today these conditions exist thanks to the anti-modern philosophers of the Counter-Enlightenment movement, the familiar horror gallery made up of Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Feuerbach, Marx, Heidegger, and so on to the irrational postmodernists of today, who unseated the Aristotelian logic of shoppe-keepers and schoolmasters and replaced it with relativist and subjective principles.

They have transformed philosophy from a reality-check, a precision instrument to explore the world, into a pseudo religious, speculative parlor game in the hands of intellectuals who set themselves the task of transforming the world - by force, case need - into an image to their liking. It is that which made possible the grandiose disasters in modern history, and many more besides if we are not vigilant. A political ideology that has abdicated God as well as reason, can only be expected to portend trouble on a major scale.

Just how far the current crop have managed to deviate from the rational is exemplified by two creative productions. Earlier this week in "Pomo's Inside-Out, Upside-Down World of Moral Inversion"we presented the readers with a review of Nicholson Baker's pacifist endeavour, "Human Smoke."

It is a seemingly random jumble of statements and quotes related to modern history. There's no apparent commonality that holds the 'verses' together, other than an atmosphere of innuendo and staged indignation directed at any kind of war, full stop. Divorced from context, the isolated compilation becomes an irrational weapon that blindly, without rhyme or reason, stabs away at what we assume must be 'Western hegemonism.'

A video equivalent is currently making the rounds on Movies Found Online. Categorized as a Documentary, "Zeitgeist" is yet another "9/11 The Real Troof" conspiracy theory vid. Originally a German product, it consists of three unrelated parts, like its literary counterpart "Human Smoke" weaved together by faked outrage and contextless accusation.

It similarly lashes out at Western culture, that is based on lies and the false authority of organized religion. The producers have the viewer know in arrogant, exalted tones that typify the wannabe esoteric initiate, that Judeo-Christianity is actually plagiarized from noble, pre-biblical, sun-worshipping pagan minorities. This is accompanied by the usual theatrical caveats that the makers have no intention to 'hurt anyone,' but that failure to go all the way with their real truth, amounts to "messing with divine justice."

Part 2 deals with loose footage, street interviews with disoriented eye-witnesses, and the odd expert, who in the confusion characterize the 9/11 attacks as 'explosions;' which is why 9/11 was really a controlled explosion carried out by the CIA, see? Elementary, really! And whereas it is underscored that the Twin Towers were built to resist "probably several plane impacts," the real cause for their collapse was 'an explosion.' Least said, soonest mended.

Part 3 - dare I say it out loud - deals with shady American financiers to which I refuse to devote any more of my valuable time. And it is a public secret that George W. was actually born with horns and that Dick Cheney has moles shaped 666 on his ass.

Amusement aside, the omens are written all over the wall. Vast numbers of people are willing to believe anything the right kind of fantasy spinner is willing to serve up to them. The Middle East version is already well in place. It is up to The Man (now probably a committee) to galvanize the attention of the Western counterpart for the latest fantasy ideology to strike once more.

- Filed on Articles in "The Dystopia of Paradise" -

Saturday, May 17, 2008

Your Guide to Acting Irresponsibly Yet Never Go to Jail

Yesterday in this blog in a post "Pomo Goes to Washington DC" - dedicated to the Postmodern approach of American President-in-waiting B. Barack Obama - we discussed the Leftist favorite branch of surrogate ethics known as deontology - or the morality of good intent. Whatever the outcome, if intentions are good this is designed to get you out of jail, permanently.

Today we have the misfortune to address the matter once again, this time accompanied by an example of yet the latest nightmare currently unfolding on the world stage.

Leftists live in a permanent state of offence about the lousy job that God (or Nature) did in creating this imperfect world. Instead of wonder, they find fault and injustice everywhere. As a consequence they never cease remedying error, stopping the gaps left by reality: regulations, bans, controls, legislation, harmonization, rules, compulsion, prohibition, redistribution of just about everything - from capital to speech rights, no tool is shied in the cause of real progress.

Such a furious flurry of activity calls for some impunative mechanism. Just so, that should things turn sour - as they invariably do - progress to perfection can be carried to full fruition nevertheless. Fortunately some critical theorist thought up the notion that if we do away with judgments about Good and Evil, the problem would be solved. Much like burning the law-books would solve crime.

The result is deontology - or the good-intent-bad-result-never-mind principle. This means that good intent is for ever beyond suspicion: all Leftist initiatives are the result of working towards the greater good and for mankind's own best interests; should unintended results ensue these could not be foreseen at the time.

The latest episode in a long history of politically motivated sins of this kind, is the scandalous starvation as a result of the current 'food crisis'. Once again, intent is beyond reproach - fixing the environmental crisis, even if so many independent scientists have repeatedly warned not to approach this too dogmatically.

Bradley Doucet has the story in Le Québécois Libre: "Going Hungry: Why Biofuels are Bad for People, Prosperity, and the Planet." The reader is reminded that one of the composing cohorts of the Postmodernist movement is an anti-human branch of environmentalists, followers of evolved NatSoc exponent Heidegger.

Blogger-psychologist Dr Sanity looks at the real Heroes and Villains of the piece.

By the way, the UN's IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) has finally seen its monopoly crashed by some healthy competition. Here's the Heartland Institute's report. - Hat Tip: De Klimatosoof.

- Filed on Articles in "The Food File" -

Friday, May 16, 2008

Deeper under the Eurofascist Jackboot

In a post yesterday EURSOC reported on an inside-out, upside-down case of moral inversion in the UK. A couple of years ago a Channel Four documentary crew smuggled cameras into a number of English mosques and recorded footage of extremist preachers at work. The footage was broadcast under the title 'Undercover Mosque.'

"The documentary caught the attention of the Crown Prosecution Service and the West Midlands Police. Frenzied clerics preaching fundamentalist hatred in the heart of Britain? Surely these are the sort of people anti-hate speech laws ought to be protecting us against. Perhaps the culprits could be deported, as their counterparts are in France? Unfortunately not. The CPS and Police investigated the film makers, accusing them of selective editing, distortion and "undermining community relations."

The police took what newspapers describe as the "highly unusual step" of referring the programme-makers to OFCOM, the media watchdog; OFCOM rejected their complaint.
The production team and Channel Four then brought legal action against the police and CPS."

They won the case, and yesterday both the West Midlands Police and CPS were making public apologies in the High Court. Read all about it here.

In The Netherlands meanwhile cartoonist Gregory Nekschot is not so lucky. He's been arrested and might well be prosecuted and convicted under the new Euro legislation covering 'hate crimes.' Here's the case as reported by De Telegraaf newspaper:

"Cartoonist Gregory Netschot is fearing for his life after he was arrested by police at his house last Saturday. "Got you", he was told by arresting officers. The cartoonist was working at his home when a ten men squad entered the premises.

"Immediately on arrival they began photographing and searching", Nekschot told a local newspaper. At the police station he was interrogated twice and thrown in jail overnight.

"When I returned home I found my computer, CDs, memory stick and cell phone had been confiscated. All the stuff I need to work," says Gregory. He says Islam is a regular subject. Last year a book on his controversial work was published. There wasn't much response, but my work goes further than the Danish cartoons.

"That's what the officers told me: "What you do is much worse than what they did in Denmark. Do you realize what it means if your identity became known?" "I replied that in that case he was loading a heavy responsibility on himself."

The cartoonist doesn't feel safe anymore. "What I do is not trivial, I know what the consequences might be. That is why I fear a conviction. In jail my life is at risk," he told the newspaper."

Only just now parliament are crying foul over the legal muzzling! While criminals and hoodlums are terrorising entire city boroughs with impunity, this 'hate crime' investigation would appear to have been in the works for the last three years.

As present blogger is facing a return from glorious exile in Greece back to the native Netherlands, we might well be next. In fact, all who refuse submission might sooner or later expect an overnight visit from the Eustapo.

Here's a link to Nekschot's blog (in Dutch) (caution: not for sensitive souls).

And here's an interview he had with Danish television back in February (in Danish and English). Most cartoonists are practising self-censorship these days. We are getting deeper and deeper under the Eurofascist jackboot every day!



Update:

The problem is Postmodern relativism, which falsely equivalences all with everything. It is summed up in a comment by 'a voice of reason' on Elsevier: "If there are no limits to the freedom of expression soon even Hezbollah propaganda will have to be allowed." Why, oh why would the Netherlands ever have to allow Hezbollah propaganda? It calls for the destruction of Israel. Is Nekschot propagating the destruction of Jews, Muslims or any other group? Isn't Hezbollah a terrorist organization based in the Middle East? And wasn't the subject the freedom of expression in the Netherlands? As long as this is the line of 'thinking people' the defence of the realm is doomed to failure. I'd like to talk to Mr Lucas, should this post ever reach him by a twist of fate.

- Filed on Articles in "In Defence of Liberty: muzzle 'em" -

"Pomo goes to Washington D.C."

The reactions to President Bush's "Munich" speech at the Knesseth are an indication that the Postmodern position prevailing in the Democrat camp is badly understood. It goes unnoticed, is spin-doctored out of consciousness, or is remedied by the method the Dems know best these days, denial. Some Republicans, like Ann Counter make a second career out of Democrat Pavlovian knee jerks.

This is especially surprising as B. Barack Obama is a typical and rather vocal exponent of the pseudo philosophy - or more precisely - the malignant political ideology based on false axioms. His rhetorical style, his choices, and the people he is surrounding himself with, all betray true intentions.

Those who cannot get a grip on what all that means might be helped by visualizing a more revealing term: cultural Marxism. Postmodernism is nothing short of Marxist theory with a contemporary slant, a form of evolved Communism by the back-door.

Obama is also heavily influenced by the theology of black liberation, based on the call to revolution by Frantz Fanon's "Wretched of the Earth." Whereas Islamism has incorporated it in its theofascist doctrine, a succession of Popes have thrown it out as heretic (the corruption of religion by Marxist dialectical theme-weaving). Another softer variety of this religious dialectic is circulating these days around the pulpits of the Emergent Churches.

The Left have thoroughly radicalised over the last decade and reverted to pre-revolutionary mode. We do well to remind ourselves that the long road through the institutions is now over and that the boomer fellow-travellers are currently arriving at the corridors of power.

If their position at times seems a little erratic, one is reminded who is The Enemy. Keeping in mind that the classical, traditional, Western 'white, heterosexual male' edifice of power as symbolized by capitalism and liberal democracy is the ultimate target, things usually fall nicely into place.

Those who delude themselves that the inauguration of President B. Barack Obama will not cause a paradigm shift in favour of a global Utopian collective, had better think again. If the likes of Ahmadinejad and Assad c.s., and Messrs Chavez and Castro aren't adorning the steps of the White House come November, this is entirely due to keeping up appearances.

Postmodern philosophy is not based on life in the actual world, but on a fantasy how life should have been hadn't God (or Nature) done such an imperfect job. Instead of wonder, they find fault everywhere.

Just how essential the rift is, is voiced by Ayn Rand's foremost interpreter Leonard Peikoff: "The battle for the world is not a battle between two political ideals. It is a battle between two views of the nature of thought." Here we have the false Left-Right dichotomy to a T.

One result of anti-modern thought is for example that the ethics of objective good and evil have been relativized out of existence and have been replaced by the ethics of deontology - or good-intent-bad-result-never-mind morality, the Left's permanent get-out-of-jail card.

This means that whatever evil flows from their collectivist actions (100 million dead for example), this will nevertheless be referred to as 'highly ethical', seen perhaps as a freak accident of specific circumstances, or blamed on a leader who 'misinterpreted' the otherwise perfect theory.

Parley with evil-doers is simply pragmatism in the good cause of a political settlement. A compromise with Hitler, on how many might partake in the Holocaust - six million or only half that number - views negotiations with evil for the least bad option as a positive virtue. The false axioms lead them away from the truth that the good has nothing to win from the bad, and that evil has everything to gain from the good.

On that note leaving you with today's Times Online article on the subject of the 'appeasement speech' and a prediction that the presence of the aforementioned dictators will be felt well before President Obama's first year in office is out. Vote wisely.





Long overdue! - Filed on Articles in "The Pomo White House" -

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Today's Ramirez


The Postmodern Thuggism of the New Storm Troopers

Last week saw the latest gathering of the blogging Counter-Jihad movement, this year in Vienna (data collection point on the Mission Europa Netwerk). There's some cause for pause. Some speakers and attendees pronounced the wish to move on after the rift that developed about a year ago between the publisher of Little Green Footballs, and everybody else in the Counter Hirabah. Scouring the paperwork doesn't allow for much optimism in that department. We'll go over some texts produced in the meeting in the coming days.

Essayist Fjordman cannot help himself either in that respect and has a part retrospect running up on The Brussels Journal. After initially harking back what follows is a shocking expose about the state of affairs in Scandinavia. He describes the almost institutionalized thuggism in Sweden by what might accurately be termed the new Storm Troopers.

Our own investigations on the philosophies contained in Postmoderism meanwhile have hit rock-bottom. Scraping the base of that particular pond reveals that the dichotomy of political Left and Rightism is in essence artificial and non-existent. We've all been had by the wrong markers.

Just as an American once queried me on the subject, arguing that the Left cannot be identified with the Right 'as they do not do antisemitism,' just as wrong-footed is the notion that the Left is Socialist, whereas the Right isn't. Then, what is the Right? Is it a movement entrusted with the interests of royalty, the elite, or capitalism? Evidently not!

Much as it must never be trivialized or belittled, the antisemitism of Nazism is not a typical marker of the Socialist Right. Mussolini's Socialist Republic of Italy didn't have race laws until Hitler pushed their implementation much later, when very reluctantly and halfheartedly some antisemitic measures were put in place.

In the insightful book "Explaining Postmodernism" (p. 106) Objectivist philosopher Stephen Hicks writes: "By the early twentieth century (...) the dominant issues for most continental political thinkers were not whether liberal capitalism was a viable option - but rather exactly when it would collapse - and whether Left or Right collectivism had the best claim to being the Socialism of the future. The defeat of the collectivist Right in World War II then meant that the Left was on its own to carry the Socialist mantle forward. Accordingly, when the Left ran into its major disasters as the twentieth century progressed, understanding its fundamental commonality with the collectivist Right helps to explain why in its desperation the Left has often adopted 'Fascistic' tactics."

Coming as both do, from the anti-modern German Idealism based on the musings of Swiss-French agitator Rousseau, the Left versus Right dichotomy is highly artificial and arbitrary, and post World War II a means used by the Left to differentiate from their opponents.

For example the Left (or Young) and Right Hegelians differed and fell out over in the acceptance of the role played by religion within the state. What sets Communism apart from Fascism and National Socialism is argued to be public versus private property, but the prestigious Von Mises Institute has successfully argued that - since private property was up for confiscation by the all powerful state at any time - private property existed only nominally in Nazi Germany and the Socialist Republic of Italy.

The far Left keep emphasizing the Fascist nature of their opponents in an effort to put some distance between themselves and their own resort to thuggism. In so far as it's attributable to psychology, it's a clear case of projection. The fact is, on the philosophical level Left and Rightism belong to one and the same group of ideologies that developed from anti-modernism. The new Leftist brown shirts are no mystery.

The false dichotomy has fathered the erroneous reasoning that since the Marxist Left catered for the proletariat, the Socialist Right must be a party of and for the elite. This cannot be the case. But it is true that throughout, both have been violently attacking the middle class and bourgeois values. And barely noticed, they still do. And that's your main marker to watch out for!

For more read the compilation in "The Dystopia of Paradise." Here's the Fjordman story:

The Brussels Journal: "To the Readers of Little Green Footballs"

(...) Also in Sweden, Antifascistisk Aktion (AFA), a group that supposedly fights against "racists," openly brag about numerous physical attacks against persons with their full name and address published on their website. How come AFA gets away with their violent, extra-legal activities for years without being stopped by the authorities? Is it possible that the political elites find them to be a useful tool against dissidents who criticize mass immigration?

The thugs of AFA in the spring of 2008 destroyed the car of a 90-year-old woman and wrote "nasse" (Nazi) on top of it. As it turned out, they picked the wrong car, but who cares? It's all for a "good cause."Leading national newspaper Aftonbladet has close ideological ties to the Social Democrats, the country's dominant party for most of the past (...) >>>


- Filed on Articles in "The Assault of the New Storm Troopers" -

 
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