Pathologies and Motivations of the Left

There are some very good posts out of late, trying to analyze the motivations, and in some cases, tactics, of the left wing our political spectrum. Both are correct. I would take them a bit farther in some respects.

At Bookworm Room, the author writes:

Near the end of his talk about American communists’ long-term plan (now coming to fruition) to flood America with a permanent Democrat majority through Hispanic amnesty, Trevor Loudon tossed in an interesting throwaway. When someone asked him why Leftists would want to reduce the US to the status of a Latin American banana Republic, he said that, in a conversation with Tammy Bruce (a former hard Leftist herself), she told him “They’re all damaged individuals.” That is, we have a powerful political movement made up of damaged people out for revenge.

The author goes on to flush out the point about damaged individuals. They are the footsoldiers of the left. The left invites them to embrace their grievances, nurse them, use those grievances to define themselves. Then they claim moral superiority as victims of society, for which they demand sympathy and obsequence. Woe be unto any person in society who does not provide both for, whenever possible, the left will enlist the police power of the state to punish them.

At American Digest, where Gerard Van Der Luen invariably looks at the oddities of life from a unique perspective, he opines that the left has taken the seven deadly sins and turned them into left-wing virtues:

Progressive PRIDE: It’s no accident that this word comes up again and again in their writings. It is essential for the Progressive to internalize extreme amounts of Pride. Pride in the self is the single most important element the freed will needs to move God out of the universe entirely and Self into the center. Once Self is in the center and the feeding of Self the most important element of existence, there is effectively no limit on what the Will can demand for the Self. . . .

Progressive ENVY: This is an ancient organizing tool that uses those with less than everything as tools against those who have, well, more. It doesn’t matter if “more” is an second goat, or an extra billion dollars. Thou shalt covet is the commandment here. . . .

Progressive SLOTH: One of the pleasures of being a Progressive is the one never has to actually produce anything of use in the form of innovation and invention. Progressives need only put in place things that impede innovation and invention in the form of excessive laws and continuing and complex regulations and false customs. It is remarkable in this century that one can spend a lifetime making these impediments to prosperity in the media, in academic life, in unions, and in a bureaucratic career, and only rise from reward to greater reward by making those and other careers safer for slackers and lay-abouts. . . .

Progressive LUST: . . . [T]here are endless fully-supported programs that enable sex without any chance of pregnancy and, should avoiding pregnancy prove to be beyond the mental capabilities of the betas, there are subsidized programs for terminating any inconveniences. . . .

Progressive AVARICE: The old joke of the two line IRS form that reads,

HOW MUCH DID YOU MAKE? __________________.
SEND IT IN.

seems less and less amusing as it becomes more and more clear that Progressivism is merely the stalking horse for the complete control of private property and assets of the middle class. (Graduation to the “political class” aka “The Party” or “Politburo” grants you and your family a waiver.)

Both BWR and van der Luen are accurate in their assessments of the left and the left's tactics. I'll go just a bit farther in trying to relate my own thoughts.

1. Victim Groups: Marx, in his magnum opus, The Communist Manifesto, claimed in his opening lines that all of history was nothing more than a "history of class struggles" between "oppressor and oppressed." It is an incredibly simplistic, distorted and myopic view of society and history, but it is the one the left has wholly adopted. Thus, the left seeks power by dividing the world into discrete victim's groups, and, as Bookworm Room points out, this draws the traumatized and those who feel wronged like moths to a flame. They become the foot soldiers and captains in the left's war on Western civilization.

2. Moral Superiority: The left claims for themselves moral superiority on behalf of the victim groups. The left uses that to justify harnessing the police power of the state, ostensibly in defense or furtherance of these victim groups. And in order to work fundamental change, the left seeks to punish not merely deed, but thought and speech through the police powers of the state.

Note here the corollary to all of the above. Once the victims groups have served their purpose and the left fully takes power, there are no more victims groups, only the state and enemies of the state.

3. Socio-Economics: The entire focus of the left is on socio-economics. From each according to his means to each according to his needs, as Marx once wrote. A leftist views perfection as equality of outcome, and more particularly, economic outcome. Thus does the left see societal problems and solutions as all rooted in economics. All problems of this nation and, indeed, the world, can be solved with better job opportunities and increased sharing of wealth. It is one of the reasons our modern left has failed in so many ways to actually help the victim groups they claim to champion, yet whose problems largely transcend economics. It's why you have Nicholas Kristoff at the NYT this week bemoaning the fact that the left ignored the Moynihan report half a century ago. And it is why the left is having so much trouble dealing with Iran and Islamic terrorism, none of whose motivations are rooted in economics.

4. Religion As The Enemy: The goal of marxism and the left is to rework society, to uproot it from its historical foundations, and to create a paradise of equality for all on earth. Since the inception of left wing philosophy in the French Revolution, it's adherents have sought, as absolutely necessary for achieving their ends, to drive the Judeo-Christian religion from the public square. The Judeo-Christian religions are inextricably linked to our governing systems, laws and societal structures and provide the basis for Western morality, elevating the sanctity of the individual human life above all. The left wants morality to be determined solely by Government. That can only be accomplished when the Judeo-Christian religion no longer influences our society.

The left relied on the Courts and a bastardized interpretation of the First Amendment to attack the Judeo Christian religion for the past near century. But their greatest weapon has come with "gay rights," given that both Judaism and Christianity view homosexuality as a sin. That tool has been coupled with an expansive version of "women's rights" to include forced taxpayer funding of contraception, to include abortifacients, as a means to attack and marginalize religion in society.

5. Education: Lenin once famously said ""Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted." And thus the left has long sought to dominate academia at all levels, to control the curriculum, and to teach left wing values.

6. Family: The basis for society since the dawn of Western civilization has been the family, with it being the parent's responsibility to teach their children values and morality. But the left seeks to intercede, and indeed, limit the role of the family in raising children. This desire to stand in loco parentis is nowhere more apparent than in regards to decisions regarding sex, abortion and birth control, where the left has long sought to completely disengage parents from these decisions, where issues, implicating as they do fundamental morality.

7. Emotion Over Reason: The left relies on emotion over reason, which is perhaps their greatest strength. Oh, left wing academics kill entire forests to add the patina of reason to justify left wing policies. But the reality is that the pull of the left is their emotional appeal to values we all share, even if those values are utterly perverted by the policies the left adopts.

8. Kulaks: The left must have their Kulaks, their groups of implacable enemies and oppressors. For race hustlers, it is white conservatives. For radical feminists, it's the patriarchy. When Obama was pushing Obamacare, it was the insurance companies. For people to feel emotion and certainty of moral purpose, the left must always have an evil oppressor to demonize.

9. Hatred of Western Civilization: Within the larger context of left wing ideology, since it is our nation and Western civilization that the left wishes to co-opt and change, it is our nation as well as Western civilization that is promoted as uniquely evil. Thus do women's rights advocates spend mountains of ink attacking such burning issues as man-spreading on the NY subway while wholly ignoring the complete lack of women's rights in the Islamic world. Thus can Obama excuse Muslim violence against the West by pointing back a thousand years in history to the Crusades. How often can the West be condemned for imperialism before it is noted that virtually every extant nation on earth has engaged in imperialism at one time or another, and that the Muslims have been the most imperialistic and expansionist force in history. When left wing academics condemn Americans for expanding into Indian territory in America, do they ever go back to look at the brutal wars the Indians themselves fought for territory? No, in every case, for the left, nothing excuses the actions of the West, nor does anything rise to the level of sin outside of the West.

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The "Do You Think Obama Love's This Country" Got'cha Question -- It's A Left / Right Issue

I attended the dinner in New York City last week during which Rudy Giuliani — an unexpected last-minute crasher — claimed President Obama “doesn’t love America.” The people there reacted the way you would when an angry uncle explodes at the Thanksgiving dinner table: with embarrassed silence. I had been told the dinner was off-the-record, so I didn’t write up his comments, but by midnight, the story was everywhere.

John Fund, National Review, 22 Feb. 2015

The left likes to sneer at “love of country” comments and, indeed, uses them to marginalize people who make them as tea party nutters. Their criticism rests on two unspoken propositions -- "How DARE You?" and "look at how stupid and unsophisticated this idiot is." This articulation of contempt does impact on those low information types in the middle, unfortunately. Proof of that is how quickly the left was to question Republican presidential candidates on whether they agreed with Guiliani. Dana Milbank at WaPo is making a cottage industry out of asking Got'cha questions of this type to Scott Walker than labeling him unfit for failing to answer.

Let me answer the question. One cannot be a leftie and love any country within Western civiization, all being based on the Judeo-Christian ethic and capitalism in its varied forms. Period. Lefties look to the history of their country and see it as either intrinsicaly evil as a whole or at least at its foundational level, because it was, ostensibly, founded on oppression and exploitation.

So how does a sophisticated leftie define love of country? It is not based on the past, it is based on a vision of the future. What the left has is a utopian “social justice” vision (Marx 2.0) for ______ (insert name of Western country here) that they love, and of course they love being in a society where they can gain the power to move it in that direction. Indeed, it’s their raison d’etre.

When a non-leftist like Guiliani says that he loves his country, he is basing that on it’s imperfect history, looking back realisticly and saying that the good has far outweighed the bad, and there is intense pride in being a part of it, warts and all. Questionable incidents are teaching points, not unforgivable sins that forever stain and corrupt.

Want an example, look to the U.S. Constitution. Most on the right revere the Constitution as being greatest foundation for liberty in the history of man. It was imperfect at the time, and in light of slavery and other ills, aspirational, but without the Constitution, we never would have joined and then advanced to correct those ills. That is not the way the left sees it. The battle cry of the race hustlers is the unforgivable sin of slavery and agreement to the Three/Fifths Compromise. The battle cry of the modern feminist movement is to see the Constitution as merely another document ensconcing patriarchy. How many on the left would like to see the Constitution done away with as being anachronistic and an impediment to progress? And don't forget a few years ago, when Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg recommended that any nation drafting a new Constitution not look to the U.S.

Unfortunately, few on the right pose their love of country comments in full historical context, and no one on the left is ever asked a love of country question posed in the proper context, such as “Looking back on all of our history, all that has happened, do you love this country? Actually that last bit would really trip up most leftists, since they don’t know their county’s history beyond the grossly superficial — just enough to chant slogans. Obama is the poster child of this group.

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The Most Insightful Line Of The Decade?

Karl Marx famously said that "religion is the opiate of the masses."

Screenwriter Robert Avrech has replied: "Marxism is the opiate of the elites."

One could easily write entire books in support of that position. It is the most insightful line I've read in years. Do read Mr. Avrech's entire post on his evolution from left to right.

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Shades of Solidarnosi?

In advance of his visit to Cuba, Pope Benedict XVI has made a rather stunning statement:

Pope Benedict said on Friday that communism had failed in Cuba and offered the Church's help in creating a new economic model, drawing a reserved response from the Cuban government ahead of his visit to the island next week.

Speaking on the plane taking him from Rome for a six-day trip to Mexico and Cuba, the Roman Catholic leader told reporters: "Today it is evident that Marxist ideology in the way it was conceived no longer corresponds to reality." . . .

Now if he would only stop on our side of the pond and pass that message to Obama and the rest of our far lefties. At any rate, as to Cuba, Pope Benedict XVI was perhaps Pope John Paul II's closest confidant during the 1980's when the Papacy played a crucial role in the Polish revolution that threw off the yoke of the Soviet Union. Perhaps the Pope sees a similar role for the Church in Cuba.

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The Professional Left's Collary To Classical Socialist Thought

From The Professional Left versus The Amateur Right at the superb Bolshevik site, The People's Cube.

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The Dysfunctional Mindset Of Europe - & A Part Of America

French writer and philosopher Pascal Bruckner has written a fascinating essay at City Journal. His topic is the modern - and dysfunctional - European mindset. It is a mindset that sees its own historic sins as unforgivable while forgiving the sins of (almost) all others. It is a mindset that refuses to acknowledge historical realities and indulges in dangerous fantasy. To give you a snippet from his essay:

. . . There is nothing more insidious than a collective guilt passed down from generation to generation, dyeing a people with a kind of permanent stain. Contrition cannot define a political order. As there is no hereditary transmission of victim status, so there is no transmission of oppressor status. The duty of remembering implies neither the automatic purity nor the automatic corruption of grandchildren and great-grandchildren. History is not divided between sinner nations and angelic ones but between democracies, which recognize their faults, and dictatorships, which drape themselves in the robes of martyrs. We have learned over the last half-century that every state is founded on crime and coercion, including those that have recently appeared on history’s stage. But there are states capable of recognizing this and of looking barbarism in the eye, and there are others that excuse their present misdeeds by citing yesterday’s oppression.

Remember this simple fact: Europe has vanquished its most horrible monsters. Slavery was abolished, colonialism abandoned, fascism defeated, and communism brought to its knees. What other continent can claim more? In the end, the good prevailed over the abominable. Europe is the Holocaust, but it is also the destruction of Nazism; it is the Gulag, but also the fall of the Wall; imperialism, but also decolonization; slavery, but also abolition. In each case, there is a form of violence that is not only left behind but delegitimized, a twofold progress in civilization and in law. At the end of the day, freedom prevailed over oppression, which is why life is better in Europe than on many other continents and why people from the rest of the world are knocking on Europe’s door while Europe wallows in guilt.

Europe no longer believes in evil but only in misunderstandings to be resolved by discussion and dialogue. She no longer has enemies but only partners. If she is nice to extremists, she thinks, they will be nice to her, and she will be able to disarm their aggressiveness and soften them up. Europe no longer likes History, for History is a nightmare, a minefield from which she escaped at great cost, first in 1945 and then again in 1989. And since History goes on without us, and everywhere emergent nations are recovering their dignity, their power, and their aggressiveness, Europe leaves it to the Americans to be in charge, while reserving the right to criticize them violently when they go astray. It is notable that Europe is the only region in the world where military budgets go down every year; we have no armies that would be able to defend our frontiers if we were so unlucky as to be attacked; after the Haitian crisis, Brussels could not dispatch even a few thousand men to help disaster victims. We are well equipped to calibrate the size of bananas or the composition of cheeses, but not to create a military force worthy of the name. . . .

Mssr. Buckner draws numerous contrasts with America, such as, for example:

[Europe] has a history, whereas America is still making history, animated by an eschatological tension toward the future. If the latter sometimes makes major mistakes, the former makes none because it attempts nothing. For Europe, prudence no longer consists in the art, defended by the ancients, of finding one’s way within an uncertain story. We hate America because she makes a difference. We prefer Europe because she is not a threat. Our repulsion represents a kind of homage, and our sympathy a kind of contempt.

I would add two thoughts to Mssr. Bruckner's essay. One, though he never mentions the word "multiculturalism," that is precisely what he is describing. It is deeply dysfunctional philosophy that will prove suicidal to Europe if allowed to follow its logical course.

Two, Mssr. Bruckner ignores the contribution of Karl Marx's philosophy to the development of the European mindset. Marx posited that all events should be viewed through the lens of oppressor and oppressed. It is a deeply distorting philophy that is at the heart of the European mindset. I explain this in more detail when writing on virtually the same topic in the essay, "Thoughts on Britain, Colonialism and Multiculturalism." I think it an important point to make as, if this scourge is ever to be vanquished from the national psyche of Europe, then one must understand the origins of the disease.

It is also of note that the dysfunctional mindset described by Mr. Bruckner precisely describes the mindset of the left wing intelligentsia in the U.S., a point made by Victor Davis Hanson in his latest offering at PJM:

. . . This is the most tolerant society in the world, the most multiracial and richest in religious diversity — and the most critical of its exceptional tolerance and the most lax in pointing out the intolerance of the least diverse and liberal.

It is market capitalism, unfettered meritocracy, and individual initiative within a free society that create the wealth for Al Gore to live in Montecito (indeed to create a Montecito in the first place), or for Michelle to jet to Marbella, or for John Kerry to buy a $7 million yacht. We know that, but our failure to occasionally express such a truth, coupled with a constant race/class/gender critique of American society, results in an insidious demoralization among the educated and bewilderment among the half- and uneducated.

In short, the great enigma of our postmodern age is how American society grew so wealthy and free to create so many residents that became so angry at the conditions that have made them so privileged — and how so many millions abroad fled the intolerance and poverty of their home country, and yet on arrival almost magically romanticize the very conditions in the abstract that they would never live under again in the concrete.

A final thought: given what we know of collectivism now and in the past, government in places like Mexico or Syria, multiculturalism in nations as diverse as the Balkans and central Africa, and the role of religion in most locales of the Middle East, how exactly could critics of the U.S. gain the security to protest, the capital to travel, and the freedom to criticize should the system that they find so lacking erode or even disappear?

Indeed, it would seem that the paradigm of the left is to push America towards Europe in all respects, including philosophical. All of the West can be thankful that, as of yet, our left has not been wholly successful in this endeavor.

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More Observations On The British Empire

Some time ago, responding to the avant Brit socialist line that its Colonial period was unforgivably sinful, I wrote a post on Britain's Colonial past, pointing out:

British Colonialism was Britain's gift to the world. A sizable chunk, if not the majority of the most prosperous and free countries in the world today have emerged from Britain's colonial empire . . . Indeed, as I pointed out in a post below, the U.S. not only adopted most of Britain's legal, governmental and bureaucratic systems, but the Bill of Rights itself is in large measure an amalgam of the rights of British Protestants at the time of our nation's founding. Our debt to Britain is deep and lasting. . . .

The Brits . . . brought a host of benefits to the nations they colonized, from education to the English language, from trade to capitalism, from government bureaucracy and democracy to the British legal system. . . .

David Cameron, Britain's new PM is now preparing to visit India, once the jewel of Britain's colonial possessions, and announced that he is doing so "with a spirit of humility." Nirpal Dhaliwal, the son of Indian immigrants to Britain, writing in the Daily Mail, has pointed out that Cameron does not need to be apologetic to India, as the gifts of Britain from the Colonial Period now form the basis for India's rapid growth and evolution:

Many have interpreted David Cameron's statement that he is visiting India in a 'spirit of humility' as a shame-faced apology for Britain's imperial rule there. But Indians require no apology for Empire and seek none, and nor do Britons need to feel especially guilty for it.

India is the world's second-largest growing economy, producing more English-speaking graduates than the rest of the world combined.
The use of English is the most enduring and profitable legacy of the Raj; without it, the boom in Indian call-centre and software industries could not have happened. . . .

Just as Empire opened the doors of modernity to India, a good relationship between Britain and India will be a mark of how prominent both countries are in the modern world.

All that is best about India - its tolerance, freedom and engagement with the world - has flourished due to the structures and ideas it inherited from British rule.

Despite the often callous profiteering of Empire, the modern Indian state simply would not exist without it. . . .

The attitudes of British intelligentsia towards the Colonial period is deeply distorted by the lens of Marxism and multiculturalism. The reality is that the British Colonial period has proven one of history's most positive influences.

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Standing At The Crossroads - Identity Politics, Multiculturalism & The Melting Pot (Updated)

Republicans ended slavery. The party of Jim Crow and the KKK was the Democratic Party. The 13th (slavery), 14th (privileges and immunities) and 15th (voting rights) Amendments to the Constitution were enacted by Republicans. The NAACP was founded in 1909 by three white Republicans who opposed the racist practices of the Democratic Party and the lynching of blacks by Democrats. In fairness, it was the Democrat Harry Truman who signed an executive order integrating the military - and that was a truly major development. (My own belief is that the military has been the single greatest driving force of integration in this land for over half a century.) It was a Supreme Court Chief Justice appointed by the Republican President Eisenhower who managed to get all nine justices to agree to the seminal decision on the illegality of separate schools in Brown v. Board of Education. After that came the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Act was championed by JFK - but it was strenthened in committee and passed by a Republican controlled Congress over fierce opposition from Democrats and their repeated attempts at filibuster. Women were added to the Act as a protected class by a Democrat who thought it would be a poison pill, killing the legislation. To the contrary, the Republican Congress passed the Act without any attempt to remove the provision. Martin Luther King, Jr., our nation's most recognizable and laudable civil rights proponent, was a Republican. Bull Connors was not.

Nothing that I say here is to suggest that racism and sexism could not be found in the Republican party or among conservatives in American history. But if you take any period in history and draw a line at the midpoint of racist and sexist attitudes, you would find far more Republicans than Democrats on the lesser side of that line. And you would find a much greater willingness on the part of Republicans, relative to the time, in favor of effectuating equality. That was as true in 1865 as in 1965.

Sometime about 1968, the far left wing took control of the Democratic Party and hijacked the civil rights movement. They made civil rights the very foundation of their politics.

While Republicans sought equality, what the far left sought when they hijacked the civil rights movement was something different entirely. The far left fundamentally altered the nature of the movement. They imprinted the movement with identity politics, grossly distorting its goals - a level playing field for all Americans - and creating a Marxian world of victimized classes entitled to special treatment. The far left has been the driver of reverse racism and sexism for the past half century. And as an aside, that is why it is no surprise that, with the emergence of a far left candidate for the highest office in the nation, Rev. Jeremiah Wright should also arise at his side and into the public eye preaching a vile racism and separatism most Americans outside the far left thought long dead in this country. Nor is it any surprise that the MSM, many of whom are of the far left, should collectively yawn at Obama's twenty year association with Wright. Wright is anything but an anamoly; rather, he is simply an outgrowth of far left politics.

The far left did not merely hijack the civil rights movement, they also wrote over a century of American history, turning it on its head. They managed to paint the conservative movement and the Republican Party as the prime repositories of racism and sexism. The far left has for decades played the race and gender cards to counter any criticism of their policies and to forestall any reasoned debate. It is their central narrative. It has done incalculable harm to our nation.

We are either a melting pot wherein "all men are created equal" - the ideal of our Founders for which we have long strived and are ever closer to succeeding - or we are to become a multicultural nation of pigeon holed special interests. We are to become a nation where groups are encouraged to remain apart, defining themselves by their victim class before defining themselves as Americans. Multiculturalism is unworkable - we can see it destroying Europe and Britain - but that has not stopped the far left in America from their embrace of the concept. Nor has it slowed their efforts to weave multiculturalism irrevocably into the fabric of our society.

The far left has been highly effective in painting the modern Republican Party as not merely an enemy of civil rights for women and minorities, but as an old white man's club with room for women, minorities, gays, etc. only in the back of the tent as tokens. The far left has long held themselves out as the true party of equality. They have done so falsely as, by its very nature, identity politics cements inequality.

The far left has long pushed forward minorities and women to prove that they are the party of inclusiveness. On the right, the process has been slower. You had the percolation of minorities and women to major positions through the natural process of time and selection of the fittest. Only the most jaded would ever argue that Colin Powell and Condi Rice did not earn their positions solely on merit. And love her or hate her, Kristi Todd Whitman was both well qualified and a very good governor.

I have long been waiting for a qualified woman or minority to rise to the very top in Republican politics. It is something that would expose the incredibly damaging canard that the far left has shrilly pushed for near half a century. I had hoped Colin Powell would be that man a decade ago. As to Condi Rice, had things worked out differently for the Bush administration and had she not selected the Sec. of State slot (a killer for anyone with Pres. aspirations) I thought that perhaps she would have a good shot at running in 2008. I've been waiting for Thomas Sowell to run for any elected office for decades - and yes, I would consider him for beatification. These are people for whom neither their skin color nor plumbing makes them a victim. These are people for whom neither their skin color nor plumbing sets them apart substantively from all other Americans. And these are people who earned their success by virtue of their excellence rather than the extent of their connections or the distortions of identity politics.

It is inevitable that one of the two concepts I earlier described - a melting pot of equals or a multicultural morass of victim groups - will gain ascendance in America. I have long felt that we are at a crossroads in our nation for precisely this reason, and that the ramifications of how we decide this issue will be existential.

You will note in a post below, I congratulated Obama for achieving the status of the first African American nominee for President. I meant that sincerely, though I have also said before that he is the product of identity politics. He is anything but the post racial candidate he held himself out to be at first. I believe that the policies he would institute in America would represent the victory of multiculturalism. It would alter our nation fundamentally to create not simply a house divided, but a house with many divides.

Will Sarah Palin represent the opposite choice? I think clearly she does. As Victor Davis Hanson said of her:

Sarah Palin is the emblem of what feminism was supposed to be all about: an unafraid, independent, audacious woman, who soared on her own merits without the aid of a patriarchal jumpstart, high-brow matrimonial tutelage and capital, and old-boy liaisons and networking.

And that really is all feminism should be about. Equality. What we have seen in shrill reaction from the far left to Ms. Palin shines a giant spotlight on their canard. Their goal is not equality for women, else the rise of Sarah Palin would be welcomed on its merits, irrespective of other political disagreements. There would be no need or attempt to delegitimize her. But the frothing and vitriolic reaction of the far left shows their goal not to be equaltiy, but to be a remake of Western society into a vision Karl Marx would recognize. By exposing the canard and threatening the true goal, Sarah Palin is by her very being an existential danger to the far left.

Thus Sarah Palin's ascendance is meaningful indeed. The rise of Obama and Hillary on the left have pushed us to the center of that crossroads, with the only option being of a turn in one direction or another. McCain's utterly brilliant selection of Gov. Palin as his running mate clarifies the issues completely and makes the choices stark. Because of that, my personal belief is that this election will have ramifications long beyond the next four years. This election holds the potential to be a referendum on the future foundation of our nation. I fear if the choice is Obama and his far left positions, we will never be able to unring the bell. The alternative of McCain and Palin will not bring total victory in this contest for the future of America, but it would be a big step in the right direction and a giant step back from the abyss.

Photo at the top taken from Gateway Pundit.

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Michelle Obama Quotes Saul Alinsky During Her Convention Speech

I missed this, but Gateway Pundit didn't. Michelle Obama, in her speech last night, borrowed some of her phrasing from the famous / infamous Marxist organizer Saul Alinsky. I knew that her speech sounded the socialist utopian themes that her husband has been advocating throughout this election, but I did not realize she had gone so far as to quote Alinsky.

This from Gateway Pundit:

Michelle Obama quotes lines some radical Far Left book in her DNC Convention speech.

What to make of Michelle Obama's use the terms, “The world as it is” and “The world as it should be?” From whence do they originate? Try Chapter 2 of Saul Alinsky’s book, Rules for Radicals. In last night's speech, Michelle Obama said something that peeked my curiousity. She said:

"Barack stood up that day," talking about a visit to Chicago neighborhoods, "and spoke words that have stayed with me ever since. He talked about “The world as it is” and “The world as it should be..." And, "All of us driven by a simple belief that the world as it is just won’t do – that we have an obligation to fight for the world as it should be." . . .

We really are at a crossroads in this country. Ever since FDR, socialists and marxists, far too often aided by the right, have been moving ever more towards the consolidation of power, the institution of large scale socialism and the institutionalization of identity politics. This once fringe element of the Democratic party is now its dominant force. With the nomination of Obama and the chance for a veto proof majority in the Senate, they are but a step away from realizing their goals of taking full control of the levers of power in America.

In all fairness, Marxism and socialism played a positive role at their inception. Women got the vote, the ills of the industrial revolution were blunted, and a minimum social safety net was put in place, all at a time when Marxism was in its infancy in the West, pushing these things. But Marxism is utopian and the palative it offered has long since changed to a poison for Western society. The changes it promises are fundamentally opposed to the millenia old traditions of Western Civilization and the centuries old traditions in the U.S. that have brought us to be the dominant power in the world.

We rose to that position of dominance on the bases of capitalism, freedom and individualism. Those on the Marxist left have been warring on these concepts as evil for decades, promising instead a utopian world with cradle to the crave socialism, the destruction of our existing societal structures, and their replacement by new structures based on the marxist vision of social equality. They would replace the melting pot with the multicultural. They would limit capitalism and freedom not on the margins to keep a level playing field, but at the center to insure "fairness." They would use the police powers of the state to enforce their vision of society - and there are far too many indications that they would use those same police powers to punish those who disagree.

In this context, for Michelle Obama to use her time at the DNC convention to dust off the phrasing of Saul Alinsky is not necessarily surprising, but it is very telling about how much of a radical change Obama represents. Saul Alinsky was a 1940's era marxist who quite literally wrote the book - Rules For Radicals - on how to effect the radical, left wing change we see going on within America. His philosophy and methods have been embraced by many on the left, most notably Obama and Hillary Clinton. Obama is advocating the institution of cradle to grave socialism in America and explictly followed in Alinsky's footsteps as a "community organizer." Hillary Clinton actually did her thesis at college on Alinsky, her populist rhetoric has sounded many of Alinsky's themes, and her first job offer after college was from Mr. Alinsky. Both have adopted Alinsky's tactics.

Update: I see some comments to this post at other cites claiming that Alinsky was not a marxist and the communists of the time hated him. The first is wrong. Alinsky was a dedicated Marxist. The latter is correct, however. Marxist radicals of Alinsky's era denounced Alinsky, but that was because of Alinsky's tactics, not his end goals. This from a 1972 interview of Alinsky in Playboy discussing why Alinsky always sought limited goals and incremental progress towards a Marxist utopia rather than a total and immediate revoultion such as occurred in Rusia and China:

PLAYBOY: Spokesmen for the New Left contend that this process of accommodation renders piecemeal reforms meaningless, and that the overthrow and replacement of the system itself is the only means of ensuring meaningful social progress. How would you answer them?

ALINSKY: That kind of rhetoric explains why there's nothing left of the New Left. It would be great if the whole system would just disappear overnight, but it won't, and the kids on the New Left sure as hell aren't going to overthrow it. Shit, Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin couldn't organize a successful luncheon, much less a revolution. I can sympathize with the impatience and pessimism of a lot of kids, but they've got to remember that real revolution is a long, hard process. Radicals in the United States don't have the strength to confront a local police force in armed struggle, much less the Army, Navy and Air Force; it's just idiocy for the Panthers to talk about all power growing from the barrel of a gun when the other side has all the guns.

America isn't Russia in 1917 or China in 1946, and any violent head-on collision with the power structure will only ensure the mass suicide of the left and the probable triumph of domestic fascism. So you're not going to get instant nirvana -- or any nirvana, for that matter -- and you've got to ask yourself, "Short of that, what the hell can I do?" The only answer is to build up local power bases that can merge into a national power movement that will ultimately realize your goals. That takes time and hard work and all the tedium connected with hard work, which turns off a lot of today's rhetorical radicals. But it's the only alternative to the continuation of the present system. . . .

Read the entire article.

Dianne Alden has an excellent essay on Saul Alinsky and how the fringe left has embraced his methods and ridden them to power. It is a few years old, but if you are unfamiliar with Mr. Alinsky, it is well worth a read. Suffice it to say, the only thing Ms. Obama could have done to be more open about the agenda of she and her husband is to have worked in the phrase, 'from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs.'

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Interesting Posts From Around The Web - 19 June 2008

Some of the most interesting posts from around the web, all below the fold.

Art: Pierrot in Criminal Court, Thomas Couture, 1870

AP’s War On Bloggers

AP is making a rather sinister effort to squeeze the blogosphere and limit criticism of its articles and photos, first by Take Down Notices and now by claiming rights to remuneration for quotes or pictures. The Whited Sepulchre does a good job of laying out the facts. AP is ignoring the federal fair use statute (US Copyright Act, Chapter 1, § 107. Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use). Tom Blumer at Bizzy Blog has a good piece on this with links and an open letter he has drafted articulating his own well founded objections.

Activist Courts

I wrote in Judicial Activism Run Amock that the Supreme Court decision in Boumediene was clearly a policy decision, not a reasoned legal opinion, and that Justice Kennedy’s treatment of the controlling authority was so disingenuous it would not have received a passing grade applying standards appropriate for a first year law school student. Debbie at Right Truth weighs in, asking if we can impeach Supreme Court Justices? Consul at Arms says it most succinctly – less habeas, more corpses.

Red Alerts notes an utterly despicable British judge who similarly needs to be cashiered.

Not to be left out from the tyranny of judicial insanity and overreach, the Covenant Zone that our suffering Canadian friends need to impeach a few of their own judges. Indeed, Rebellion has words of wisdom for his children in light of the inexplicable Canadian decision. Well, it is explicable really. Just understand that anyone with a leftist bent feels perfectly capable of ordering all aspects of your life better than you can and will hapilly do so if placed in any position giving them the power to do it.

From the Jawa Report, a federal court judge has now made it illegal to fire illegal aliens in California.

And on a related note, The Truth is not too happy with lawyers, either.

Wars Against Western Culture and Civilization

The secular marxist left are waging a war against religion and they are doing so enlisting the police powers of the state. I wrote here about how it is occurring in occurring in Britain and how it is severely impacting society. Per Redstate, we also see the same precise things playing out on this side of the pond.

Sunlit Uplands has the story of China persecuting its Christians. While in Sydney, Midnight Sun documents our intelligentsia celebrating the trashing of Christianity under the guise of art, noting both the hypocritical double standard being applied to Islam and wondering whether it is time Christians stopped ignoring the attacks.

Postmodern Conservative, guest blogging at Liberty Corner, has a fascinating post on several cultural topics of interest, including slavery and the culture clash between America and Europe.

Goracle

The hypocrisy of the Goracle is of such proportions that Eugene at A Western Heart can see it across continents.

Obama

Obama is no less hypocritical than the Goracle, though in his case, as Q&O points out, its to be found in his sudden reappraisal of NAFTA. The Conservative Cat has his fur up over Obama’s embrace of the Goracle’s plan for solving our energy crisis. As this unusually intelligent and articulate tabby observes, while Obama stands against drilling because it won’t immediately solve our problems and may take several years, his proposals are "still in the laboratory" and may well never solve our problems.

The Colossus of Rhodey points out that Obama is image conscious, refusing to allow two Muslim women wearing scarves to be seated behind him and thus visible to cameras. And, as Soccer Dad points out, let’s not forget his selective outrage and studied silence.

Rand Simberg at Transterrestrial Musings notes that Obama is "no Jimmy Carter" because Obama does not possess Carter’s ethics. True, perhaps, but as This Ain’t Hell notes, Obama does embrace many of Carter’s failed policies. Joshua Pundit points out that Obama’s "new" foreign policy team are all Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton retreads.

Discriminations has an excellent post looking at the intersection of identity politics, "post racial" politics, and racial quotas, all in light of the Obama nomination. And as Gay Patriot notes, Obama will "say or do anything to get elected."

No Oil For Pacifists gives an excellent discussion of why Obama’s embrace of a "9-10" policy to combat terrorism seems dangerously naïve. On the same topic, Bulldog Pundit is wondering how long it will be until Obama embraces neighborhood watches as the centerpiece of his plans to fight Islamic radicalism.

Sake White notes that the war crimes trials Obama plans will first be aimed at the prior administration. And Van Helsing at Right Wing News points out, that call has recently been seconded by Massachusetts School of Law who are convening a conference to discuss strategy for war crimes trials of the Bush administration with an eye towards hanging.

From Ironic Surrealism, AP is scrubbing their pages of references to Obama and his ‘alleged Kenyan cousin,’ Odinga on the heels of Raila Odinga’s Washington visit.

Economics - & Our Left Reveal Their Inner Marx

Very ominously, Brain Droppings notes that the Royal Bank of Scotland has issued a global stock and credit crash alert.

Stop the ACLU points out that our left has finally revealed their inner Marx with calls to nationalize our oil industry. As Dave at Four Right Wing Whackos notes, "Yes, they truly are the American Communist Party. Is there any other vital part of our economy that you would like to nationalize and destroy, Comrade Commissar?" As Vocal Minority points out, Democrats are following the tried and true method of repeating a lie often enough - in this case "drilling won’t work to solve the oil problem" - that people will start to believe it. Somehow, I don't think that will work this time.

From an excellent post at Under the Hill comes this new Democrat button [update: via Dutch Concerns]:



That happens to be right along the lines of Cheat Seeking Missle’s home of the future (after 4 years of an Obama administration).

And do see this short but utterly superb description of socialist reality from The Deleware Curmudgeon.

Republicans and Democrats

The more I hear of Jim DeMint, the more I would like to see him at the top of the Republican Party leadership. He is now leading the charge to stop the Countrywide bailout until the below market loans given to multiple Democrats, including the odious Chris Dodd, can be investigated. Vast Rightwing Conspiracy has the story.

Blogs of War has Senator John Cornyn’s video introduction to be played at the Texas GOP State Convention – and it has a few on the left going into "faux meltdown."

Iraq and Afghanistan Wars

From MK down under, during the past week, Iraq experienced the lowest number of security incidents since March 2004. And back at home, Blonde Sagacity notes that charges against the Marines over Haditha continue to crumble. Hillbilly White Trash posts on the plans of the Haditha Marines to sue Jack Murtha for defamation, noting "Murtha [smeared the Haditha Marines] not because he actually believed in the Marine's guilt but because he saw some short term political advantage in it."

Betsy’s Page notes the death of Bench Mark rage. "[N]ow that they have almost all been met, the Democrats somehow neglect to mention what before they had sworn were the crucial sign to see if the surge had succeeded."

Subadei ponders the conundrum posed by the Taliban’s safe havens in Pakistan and what that means for NATO, the U.S., Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Glittering Eye provides an update on Afghanistan.

Political Insecurity is still having difficulty believing that he found praise for George Bush’s conduct of the war on terror in the opinion section of the Guardian – a British paper known on occasion to make the NYT editorial board appear as neocons.

Don’t miss the continuing series, Wednesday’s Heroes, at A Rose By Any Other Name.

Radical Islam in Britain and Europe

Barking Moonbat EWS blogs on Britain’s release of bin Laden’s right hand man from prison on bail because the British courts are interpreting controlling EU law to mean that they cannot boot him out of the country. He will now live on benefits and the EU taxpayers will be paying well over the equivalent of a million dollars a year keeping him under protection and surveillance. So what is this man’s first public statement upon his release: "Terrorise the non-believers."

The above should be taken within the context of the much larger problem that all of Europe has with the spread of Muslims within their borders and the fact that they are pursuing domination rather than integration. See Sheik Yer’mami’s excellent post.

Indeed, per the Dhivehistan Report, it seems that Muslims in Europe are quite willing to intimidate and attack anyone who takes issue with their claim to be a religion of peace.

From Jammie Wearing Fools, it would seem someone in Palestine has a colorful opinion of our Sec. of State: 'Condoleezza Rice Is a Black Scorpion with A Cobra's Head Who Has the Blood of Palestinian Children Between Her Lips and On Her Fangs'

The BBC and Its Anti-Western Bias

Throughout Europe, there are free speech limitations on what a blogger can write – and several, including Lionheart in Britain, have been arrested under "hate speech" laws. But one would never know that from the BBC. Shield of Achilles points out that in their article discussing countries where bloggers are under fire for the pixeled word, the BBC identifies Iran, Pakistan, China and . . . the U.S. There is no more of an anti-American organization than the BBC. A further clue as to their attitude towards objectivity can be gleaned from one BBC’s reporter’s admission that the BBC prominently displayed a picture of Bush as Hitler in their newsroom.

Its par for the course for the anti-western multiculturalists at the BBC. The BBC regularly produce as entertainment dramas that portray Christians, Americans, etc. as terrorists while Muslisms are portrayed as peaceful. Fulham Reactionary has the story on that one.

Israel, the US and the IAEA

Elder of Ziyon posts on an article discussing the long history of U.S. support for a Jewish homeland. The canard that U.S. support is based on the strength of the "Jewish" lobby is, I think, far more the propaganda of the Wahhabi lobby.

Meryl Yourish and Le Monde think that the IAEA’s head, Mohammed el-Baridei is in "the mullah’s pocket."

Britain and the EU

An Englishman’s Castle notes that Scotland has passed a questionable law further limiting freedom of speech and now wants to impose its laws across national borders.

Acorns of Truth has an interesting tribute to the Irish in light of their rejection of the EU Constitution / Treaty of Lisbon. But, as EU Referendum notes, neither Britain’s Labour government nor the EU intend to let democracy stand in the way of their coup. As Hibernia Girl asks, in the wake of EU shennanigans to get around the Irish vote, "What part of NO do you suppose these eejits don't understand?"

Dave in Boca ponders what will happen when the pendulum swings – as it surely will – when Europe’s citizens decide they have had enough of the anti-democratic EU. I for one have never understood how this coup – for that is precisely what the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty is when taken with no referendum of the governed – could occur without blood in the streets.

History:

The Irish Elk posts with good links on Bunker Hill Day.

Cardinal Wolsey’s is hosting the Military History Carnival. The posts are fascinating.

At Got Medieval, an interesting look at how emoticons have their roots in medieval manuscripts.

Spinning Cleo has a tongue in cheek post on the return of medieval mass transit.

The BBC and Its Anti-Western Bias

Throughout Europe, there are free speech limitations on what a blogger can write – and several, including Lionheart in Britain, have been arrested under "hate speech" laws. But one would never know that from the BBC. Shield of Achilles points out that in their article discussing countries where bloggers are under fire for the pixeled word, the BBC identifies Iran, Pakistan, China and . . . the U.S. There is no more of an anti-American organization than the BBC. A further clue as to their attitude towards objectivity can be gleaned from one BBC’s reporter’s admission that the BBC prominently displayed a picture of Bush as Hitler in their newsroom.

Its par for the course for the anti-western multiculturalists at the BBC. The BBC regularly produce as entertainment dramas that portray Christians, Americans, etc. as terrorists while Muslisms are portrayed as peaceful. Fulham Reactionary has the story on that one.

Science & Technology

Power and Control has a fascinating report on fusion research – which I suspect will be the next giant evolutionary step in our energy paradigm.

KG at Crusader Rabbit posts puzzles for rocket scientists. See if you can figure it out. It overloaded my rather limited intelligence rather quickly.

Heh

From TNOY, Google’s new logos to commemorate holiday’s in response to questions about their political leanings. For example, here is Flag Day [Update: Yes, that is the flag being burned - tough to see on my site, apparently]:

And from Scott Ott, "As a goodwill gesture in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision to grant writs of habeas corpus to detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, al Qaeda today announced it would grant its beheadees what it called "writs of habeas corpse."

From Rhymes With Right, all is explained now about the MSNBC anti-American bent. Keith Olberman and Afghani war lord Gulbeddin Hekmatyar really do appear to have been separated at birth.

Callimachus goes retro with some old Iron Curtain humor.

Finish With The Feel Good Stuff

And thank God not all the news is bad. Sometimes, it’s a love story and, where such is found, it make an appropriate high note to end on. Happy 31st Anniversary to Seraphic Secret and his wife.

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Standing Truth On Its Head: Krugman on Obama and Racism

Paul Krugman is such low-hanging fruit that his inane rantings generally elicit little more than a yawn. Today, however, his intellectual dishonesty and projection of identity politics onto the right goes beyond the pall.

The one positive note coming out of the Democratic primary is that the selection of Barack Obama as nominee is a marker that mainstream America is firmly in the middle of post racial politics. And even though NYT columnist Paul Krugman is miles to the left of that mainstream, he too makes that connection:

Fervent supporters of Barack Obama like to say that putting him in the White House would transform America. With all due respect to the candidate, that gets it backward. Mr. Obama is an impressive speaker who has run a brilliant campaign — but if he wins in November, it will be because our country has already been transformed.

Thus does Mr. Krugman prove with his article today the broken clock theory - that even he, like said clock, can be right once or twice a day. And just like a broken clock, beyond that single moment of accuracy, Krugman immediately starts getting it wrong thereafter.

Mr. Obama’s nomination . . . [is] possible today only because racial division, which has driven U.S. politics rightward for more than four decades, has lost much of its sting.

And the de-racialization of U.S. politics has implications that go far beyond the possibility that we’re about to elect an African-American president. Without racial division, the conservative message — which has long dominated the political scene — loses most of its effectiveness.

Whoa. This is projection at its worst. The conservative message is simple and, indeed, can be summed up in a few bullet points: strong national defense, be fiscally conservative, less government regulation and interference in our lives, respect our Constitutional rights, law and order. Marxian identity politics, of which racial division is one subset, quite literally defines the left. While conservatives are about equal opportunity and equal treatment, the left defines people by their victim sub-group. Racial division in today's America is a construct of the left, from affirmative action to people like Jeremiah Wright and Al Sharpton and their enablers.

Krugman continues:

Take, for example, that old standby of conservatives: denouncing Big Government. Last week John McCain’s economic spokesman claimed that Barack Obama is President Bush’s true fiscal heir, because he’s “dedicated to the recent Bush tradition of spending money on everything.”

Now, the truth is that the Bush administration’s big-spending impulses have been largely limited to defense contractors. But more to the point, the McCain campaign is deluding itself if it thinks this issue will resonate with the public.

For Americans have never disliked Big Government in general. In fact, they love Social Security and Medicare, and strongly approve of Medicaid — which means that the three big programs that dominate domestic spending have overwhelming public support.

If Ronald Reagan and other politicians succeeded, for a time, in convincing voters that government spending was bad, it was by suggesting that bureaucrats were taking away workers’ hard-earned money and giving it to you-know-who: the “strapping young buck” using food stamps to buy T-bone steaks, the welfare queen driving her Cadillac. Take away the racial element, and Americans like government spending just fine.

Bush has spent like a drunken democrat and Krugman's assertion that it has been limited to defense contractors is so patently false - think the prescription drug program, etc. - as to defy belief. Indeed, defense spending, even with two wars going on, is 4% of the federal budget. McCain has been critical of Bush since day 1 of the Bush Presidency for lack of fiscal discipline. Bush failed to impose any fiscal discipline on Republican lawmakers who took their lead from him and have gone hog-wild with spending. Fiscal restraint is one of the three pillars of conservativism and thus is non-negotiable. That is why Republicans got slammed in 2006. When at least a portion of the base did not turn out, Republicans lost in close elections across the board.

Krugman's citation to Reagan and welfare is simply incredible. If a Republican challenges the socialist state, Krugman attributes to them racial animus. Indeed, it is hard to imagine a more clear example of the marxian identity politics to which Krugman and his ilk are wedded. In the 1980's, welfare was a huge problem and an incredibly abused system that promoted a non-working class. That was an issue that had nothing to do with race. Indeed, you can see what is occurring with an unreformed welfare system of similar ilk in Britain decades on, where there is today permanent, non-working underclass.

And while Reagan wanted to reform welfare, the person that ended up making that reform was none other than Bill Clinton, the first black President. As I recall at the time, he was not charged with racism for reforming welfare. Krugman actually lauds Clinton for making race less of an issue by reforming welfare. The incredible cycnicsm and hypocriticalness of his positions seems to pass him by:

But why has racial division become so much less important in American politics?

Part of the credit surely goes to Bill Clinton, who ended welfare as we knew it. I’m not saying that the end of Aid to Families With Dependent Children was an unalloyed good thing; it created a great deal of hardship. But the “bums on welfare” played a role in political discourse vastly disproportionate to the actual expense of A.F.D.C., and welfare reform took that issue off the table.

. . . It’s true that 9/11 gave the fear factor a second wind: Karl Rove accusing liberals of being soft on terrorism sounded just like Spiro Agnew accusing liberals of being soft on crime. But the G.O.P.’s credibility as America’s defender has leaked away into the sands of Iraq.

Let me add one more hypothesis: although everyone makes fun of political correctness, I’d argue that decades of pressure on public figures and the media have helped drive both overt and strongly implied racism out of our national discourse. For example, I don’t think a politician today could get away with running the infamous 1988 Willie Horton ad.

Wow. Is this idiot deaf? Somebody play the Jeremiah Wright National Press Club tapes for him. Or read the passage in Obama's book about the sermon that gave his life meaning - where he writes "white folks greed runs a world in need." What a "politician today" is getting away with is far different than the Willie Horton ad. Willie Horton, by the way, was released early from jail by Dukakis and committed an utterly brutal rape and multiple murder. That ad was only racist if you believe the truth itself is racist. What the left is allowing Jeremiah Wright and the left to get away with is overt racism that is not only accepted as a part of the left's marxian identity politics, but encouraged as a part of that mindset.

And apparently, Krugman hints that an Obama loss in November, should it come to pass, will come about in part from racism. Moreover, he states that raising the issue of Obama's twenty years in a Church preaching the vile racism of Black Liberation Theology will be a sign of racism by the right. Indeed, any criticism of a person is spun by the left as a criticism of the identify group that person has been assigned by the left:

Anyway, none of this guarantees an Obama victory in November. Racial division has lost much of its sting, but not all: you can be sure that we’ll be hearing a lot more about the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and all that. . . .

Krugman's intellectual dishonesty and his identity politics turn truth on its head.

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Nazir Ali - The Collapse Of Chistianity Is Wrecking British Society & Islam Is Filling The Void

Nearly two centuries after socialism was born in France and began its attack on Christianity, and about one and a half centuries after Karl Marx called religion the "opiate of the masses," socialism's war on Christianity, the foundaional element of Western civilization, is bearing truly malignant fruit. This is nowhere more true than in Britain, a country that firmly embraced socialism in the twentieth century to cure the social ills of a class based society only to find, today, that the cure is proving far more deadly than the disease. The majority of the problem is the inherent nature of socialism itself, with the utter rejection of moral limits growing out of the Judeo-Christian ethic, elevating in its stead narcissism, moral relativism, multiculturalism, and a firm belief that the evils in this world derive from Western oppression. Add to that the pressures from Salafi and Deobandi Islam, two deeply expansionist and triumphalist sects that are opposed on many points to Western values and that suffer no such internal angst, and you have, today, Britain in crisis.

Not only is Britian in crisis, but so too, of course, is the Church of England. As I wrote below, at the current rate of progression, Islam will overtake Christianity as the dominant religion in Britain within thirty years. It is fascinating that, at the head of the Anglican Church today, is a weak and incredibly misguided Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, an inveterate Marxist and multiculturalist who seeks to appease the Islamists.

At the other end of the spectrum is the man increasingly in the news as the voice of the Anglican Church - and the one man in Britain who speaks honestly on the virtues of Christianity, the malignant effects of socialism and the dangers of Islamism - the Pakistani-born Bishop of Rochester, Michael Nazir-Ali. Indeed, he is shouting all this from the roof tops. And he does so today, quite eloquently.
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This from the Daily Mail:

The collapse of Christianity has wrecked British society, a leading Church of England bishop declared yesterday.

It has destroyed family life and left the country defenceless against the rise of radical Islam in a moral and spiritual vacuum.

In a lacerating attack on liberal values, the Right Reverend Michael Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester, said the country was mired in a doctrine of 'endless self-indulgence' that had brought an explosion in public violence and binge-drinking.

In a blow to Gordon Brown, he mocked the 'scramblings and scratchings' of politicians who try to cast new British values such as respect and tolerance.

The Pakistani-born bishop dated the downfall of Christianity from the 'social and sexual revolution' of the 1960s.

He said Church leaders had capitulated to Marxist revolutionary thinking and quoted an academic who blames the loss of 'faith and piety among women' for the steep decline in Christian worship.

Dr Nazir-Ali said the ' newfangled and insecurely founded' doctrine of multiculturalism has left immigrant communities 'segregated, living parallel lives'.

Christian values of human dignity, equality and freedom could be lost as the way is left open for the advance of brands of Islam that do not respect Western values.

The Bishopric of Rochester is one of the ten most powerful positions in the Church of England.

Dr Nazir-Ali's attack on the decline of Christianity appears to put him in the opposite corner to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, and many of his fellow bishops.

But he holds some views in common with the Church's other widely-heard and popular prelate, Ugandan-born Dr John Sentamu, the Archbishop of York.

Over the past six months, Dr Nazir-Ali has made a number of criticisms of Islam and its influence.

Among them have been charges about the spread of no-go areas for non-Muslims and worries over the impact of new mosques.

Last weekend he was one of just three bishops who backed a move in the Church's parliament, the General Synod, to encourage the conversion of Muslims to Christianity.

His latest attack once again criticises Dr Williams's backing for sharia law, saying that 'recognising its jurisdiction in public law is fraught with difficulties, precisely as it arises from a different set of assumptions than the tradition of law here'.

Dr Nazir-Ali detailed his arguments in an article in the newly-launched political magazine Standpoint.

The bishop, himself an immigrant from Pakistan in the mid-1980s, admitted that he might be thought the least qualified person to discuss British identity. But he quoted Kipling: 'What should they know of England who only England know?'

The bishop said 'something momentous' had happened in the 1960s. He quoted historians who point to a cultural revolution in which women ceased to uphold or pass on the Christian faith and to the role of Marxist revolutionaries.

Dr Nazir-Ali pointed with approval to a finding that 'instead of resisting this phenomenon, liberal theologians and church leaders all but capitulated.

He said: 'It has created the moral and spiritual vacuum in which we now find ourselves.' In the place of Christianity there was nothing 'except perhaps endless self-indulgence'.

The bishop said the consequences were 'the destruction of the family because of the alleged parity of different forms of life together, the loss of a father figure, especially for boys, because the role of fathers is deemed otiose, the abuse of substances (including alcohol), the loss of respect for the person leading to horrendous and mindless attacks, the increasing communications gap between generations and social classes - the list is very long.'

Another result, he said, was that immigrants had been welcomed, not on the basis of Britain's Christian heritage, to which they would be welcome to contribute, but by the 'newfangled and insecurely-founded doctrine of multiculturalism'.

The bishop warned that views not founded on Christianity would not produce the same values. 'Instead of Christian virtues of humility, service and sacrifice, there may be honour, piety, the saving of face, etc'.

He questioned what resources were available for an ideological battle against radical Islamism, saying 'the scramblings and scratchings around of politicians for values which would provide ammunition' were hardly adequate.

. . . Born into a Roman Catholic family in Pakistan, the young Michael Nazir-Ali converted to Anglicanism at the age of 20.

As a young man, he suffered rough treatment of the kind regularly handed out to Christians in a country where failing to follow the official religion can sometimes end in murder.

He moved to Cambridge to study theology and then returned as a priest to Pakistan before being brought to London in the 1980s to serve as an assistant to the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Robert Runcie.

He is one of the bishops who has been called on by the Prince of Wales to give advice on Islam.

However, Dr Nazir-Ali does not share the prince's enthusiasm for Islamic values. He has warned Charles to give up his hope of being 'defender of faiths' because of the incompatibility of different beliefs.

Dr Nazir-Ali has accused Muslims of promoting double standards by looking for both 'victimhood and domination'; he has called for powers for officialdom to remove veils from Muslim women for security reasons; and he has warned repeatedly over the dangers of extremism.

In particular he has called on Islamic leaders to allow Muslims to abandon their beliefs and adopt other religions.

Dr Nazir-Ali has spoken up for an estimated 3,000 Britons under threat of retaliation for giving up their faith and he has condemned Islamic states that maintain the death penalty for apostasy.

His outspokenness has put him in the vanguard of opposition to hardline Islamism and made him one of the highest-placed enemies of the gay rights movement.

He angered the Archbishop of Canterbury by threatening to boycott this year's Lambeth Conference of Anglican bishops from around the world.

He has criticised civil partnerships and opposed the extension of IVF treatment to single women and lesbians.

Dr Nazir-Ali has much in common with the Archbishop of York Dr John Sentamu. Unlike him, however, he does not have a populist touch.

This may have contributed to his failure to win the post of Archbishop of Canterbury, for which he was once considered a leading candidate.

The 58-year-old bishop has now remained in Rochester for nearly 14 years.

Read the entire article. It is ironic indeed that the two most staunch defenders of Western values and civilization in Britain were both born in Asia, Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali and the Muslim author Ibn Warraq. If you have not read Ibn Warraq's eloquent defense of the West, I urge you to do so. You can find it here.

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Interesting Posts From Around The Web - 18 May 2008

Interesting posts from around the web, all below the fold.

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Art: The Knight, Death and the Devil, Albrecht Durer, 1513

A Happy 60th Birthday to Israel. Soccer Dad adds his views on this event to Charles Krauthammer’s. In the category of dark humor, TNOY has posted a birthday card to Israel from Iran.

Hamas, now armed with improved Iranian rocketry, continues its assault on Israel with a promise to wipe the country off the map. Seraphic Secret raises the salient questions about that situation – and but for his greater eloquence, they are precisely the same questions I have. Hamas had a choice to make two years ago, peace or war. They have chosen war. When will Israel actually join the war? Israel must fight back robustly and with no concern for the international Islamist echo chamber or it will, in the foreseeable future, it will mean the end of Israel.

Rick Moran has some brilliant analysis of Obama’s outrage after deciding that any discussion about appeasement had to be aimed at him. As Rick notes, we’re still waiting on Team Obama to actually address the substance of the argument that he’s a Chamberlain clone. In a related essay, Bookworm Room makes what I think is a fair assessment, that Obama is "either incredibly naive or, as I’m beginning to suspect, that – while he’s clearly academically quite bright — he is, in practical terms, an idiot." A point that I make here is that Obama views the world through a marxist paradigm which, by its nature is inherently flawed. He no doubt scored high under hard left professors, but his view of the world, its problems and workable solutions comes out of the collected works of Karl Marx. I believe that explains the disconnects that both Bookworm Room and I have noted.

The Covenant Zone and proof of pure evil. As the Shield of Achilles notes, Muslim apologists in the West, such as Juan Cole, have their work cut out for them.

From Bizzyblog, it’s the recession that never was. That said, the steady drumbeat of negative economic news by the AP over a period of years has worked wonders for the left to make the economy seem much worse than it is.

From JammieWearingFool, there is an "anti-war kook" visiting Iraq as we speak. I am waiting to hear the fallout from Pelosi when she returns. I have a sneaking suspicion that perhaps Pelosi is preparing to rehabilitate Iraq for the far left, thus making it much less of an issue in November. Nah.

One of the bedrock characteristics of the progressive left is an utter disdain for free speech or debate. Q&O has an example of the free speech. I have an example of the debate.

The Velvet Hammer has an excellent post showing how, when Obama does talk substance, he has an incredible problem with consistency. And there is a darkly humorous post at Vast Right Wing Conspiracy where Obama airs his a new poster detailing his many supranational endorsements.

Senator and phony soldier Tom Harkin is at it again, now criticizing the military service of John McCain. That this amazing hypocrite still holds an elected position above dog catcher mystifies. But for the left, who seemingly have no standards, he is still accpetable. The Democratic position on what constitutes acceptable military service to qualify for the presidency is ever changing, depending on the background of their candidate. Four Right Wing Whackos has the story.

Red Alerts finds it difficult to swallow that the UN plans to investigate the U.S. for racism and xenophobia. That is sticking in my craw also. As This Ain’t Hell colorfully describes the UN, it is a "steaming boil on the ass of humanity" – a characterization they back up with a bevy of facts.

Visit the excellent blog, Irish Elk, and help him celebrate his sixth year on the blogosphere. At that blog age, he has now attained the status of elder statesman.

Discriminations notes that the left is having an incredibly difficult time dealing with race and racism in any way that includes even a patina of intellectual honesty this campaign season. And as Fulham Reactionary notes, the problem is much the same across the pond.

Whited Sepulchre has a fascinating and thoughtful post up for National Human Rights Day that looks at America through the eyes of our nations iconic artist, Norman Rockwell, and compares and contrasts that with the brutal reality outside of our borders.

Subadei plumbs the depths of the net to find an individual in severe need of an attitude adjustment session with an airborne ranger.

I always knew that the EU was a bureaucratic nightmare, but I never imagined it could be this byzantine. An Englishman’s Castle touches upon the incredible complexity of being a farmer with sheep across the pond.

The 14th Military History Carnival is posted at Investigations of a Dog. It looks quite interesting.

Everything new is old. As Got Medieval points out, even break dancing is apparently medieval in origin.

I really don’t want to blog about McCain and his embrace of global warming. That said, No Oil For Pacifists has stepped into the breach with an excellent post on this depressing topic. The ever illuminating Aurora provides more thoughts. As much as I like McCain, and I would vote for him on national security and the judiciary alone, stuff like this is absolutely maddening. It is apparently shared by Simon at Classical Values. That said, Republicans need to heed the advice of the Barking Moonbats and GOP 2.0.

Dave of Arabia has led a fascinating life. I wait to hear more of his adventures in the Middle East.

Newsweek’s cover story of the past week was so outrageously partisan I had hoped it an anamoly. From what I read in Verum Serum, its not. There is more hyper left ventilating from News Week, a publication that seems to have taken a huge step to the left of the NYT – something I did not think possible. I was wrong.

Heh. From KG, pondering feminist chomskyesque academic musings beyond the level of human understanding: "For the love of God, someone take the keyboard from this idiot."

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