CALM 2006 HURRICANE SEASON SILENCES THE ECO-NUTSIES, FOR NOW...

Many eco-nutsies claimed that Katrina was a result of man-made global warming, and that because of MMGW we were gonna get more frequent and worse hurricanes. (A few links here and here and here and here. And here, too. I could link forever - since there is seemingly no end to the eco-nutsies hysterical analyses and prognostications. And let's not forget fat jet-setter Al Gore and his inconvenient truth.)

Well, er um... it just effin' didn't happen, now, did it! The current hurricane season was pretty effin mild. And since man-made global greenhouse gases increased last and this year - like the year before that and the year before that, and so on - that must mean that THERE'S NO RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE INTENSITY OR FREQUENCY OF HURRICANES AND MAN-MADE GREENHOUSE GASES. Period.

Al Gore's tirade turns out to have been nothing more than convenient demagoguery. The forecasters were ALL EFFIN WRONG WRONG WRONG!

So... ya think fat Al and the eco-nutsies will STFU?! YEAH: but only until there's another NATURAL disaster they feel they can blame on free markets, industrialization and the USA. SO: Let's enjoy the silence while we can!

UPDATE: OH NO! They're all ready predicting that 2007 will be worse! SHEESH!

11/27/06 - UPDATE #2 : TWO DAYS LATER: DRUDGE follows our lead, making this past QUIET hurricane season the lead story on his webpage today, with this link - proving once again that T.A.B. is the place to be!

UPDATE #3 / 11/28/06 - THE DOCTOR IS ON THE CASE: Dr. Sanity expounds on The Elders of the Protocols of Kyoto - with some great links!

YET MORE FRUITS OF APPEASEMENT IN THAILAND

When the Muslim Thai general, Sonthi Boonyaratglin, seized control of the Thai government in a military coup in September, he announced that the new government would take a far softer line towards the jihadist terrorists in the southern part of the country. [Reliapundit adds: The junta claimed they were adopting this softer-line in the hope that this would appease the jihadists and end the religious strife.]

Previous entries at The Astute Bloggers have documented how appeasing the terrorists has only added fuel to the fire. Now there's this: in reaction to the recent incendiary murder of a school principal in Pattani province, the Pattani Teachers Federation has decided to close all 322 schools in the province until further notice. And more attacks are in store, according to the Bangkok Post:

In Narathiwat's Rangae district, many business operators have decided to yield to insurgent demands to close their businesses every Friday and Sunday. Small businesses in the district have closed their stores on Fridays due to similar threats in the past. But yesterday, business operators received a letter signed by ''Terrorist Group,'' telling them to also close their shops on Sundays.

The letter says all businesses in Rangae district's Tambon Tanyongmas municipality must acknowledge that Sunday is also a holiday as well as Friday. Any business operators failing to comply with the announcement would have to bear the consequences on their lives and property, the letter threatened.

A grocery shop owner in Tambon Tanyongmas said the letter had been placed at her door yesterday. After reading the letter, she and her fellow grocery shop operators agreed to comply with the instructions in the letter for fear of attacks. The letter was handed to state officials for further investigation.

In Yala province, an insurgent group clashed with a unit of military rangers yesterday near a railroad in Yala's Muang district, a military source said. Insurgents ambushed the rangers at their operation base near Tambon Taseh railway station, prompting an exchange of gunfire for about 10 minutes. There was no report of casualties at press time when reinforcements from nearby police and military units were sent to the scene of the fighting.

Earlier last night, three Buddhists were killed and three others wounded in three separate gun attacks in Yala's Muang and Yaha districts. One of the injured was a 78-year-old woman.

Police said the attacks were believed to be the work of insurgent groups. An intelligence official in the deep South predicted possible simultaneous, coordinated attacks against state officials and public facilities by separatist groups in villages where members of militant groups are living. The militants are believed to be planning bombing attacks on local electricity generating facilities in the villages before hitting other targets.

Closing down the schools seems to be a prime goal of the terrorists; in the last 3 years, 59 school teachers and officials have been killed. By depriving children of an education, they will plunge this region of a modern, vibrant, 21st-century country back into their hellish 12th-century dystopia.

And is it too far-fetched to believe that facilitating the secession of Pattani province is part of Sonthi Boonyaratglin's plans for Thailand? After all, he was the military commander responsible for the southern part of the country during 2005, when the insurgency dramatically escalated, and he once improbably claimed that communists, not jihadists, were responsible for the insurgency. The local governors thought that was nonsense. [Reliapundit adds: Which means the junta's efforts are either ill-fated appeasement or treachery. Neither are any good.]

We should all pray for the safety and well-being of the Thai people, and for their King, Rama IX, Bhumibol Adulyadej, who was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and is an accomplished agronomist, a philanthropic humanitarian, a firearms enthusiast, and the proud biographer of his rescue-dog "Tongdaeng."

WHAT IS A 'HUDNA'?

Now that the Olmert government has agreed to a cease-fire with Hamas, it seems apropos to examine the concept of a "Hudna" in Islamic jurisprudence- particularly since Hamas recently offered a 10-year "Hudna" to Israel. Just what is a "Hudna" anyway? To start off with a relatively middle-of-the-road definition, we can use the Wikipedia article, which notes:

According to Umdat as-Salik, a medieval summary of Shafi'i jurisprudence, hudnas with a non-Muslim enemy should be limited to 10 years: "if Muslims are weak, a truce may be made for ten years if necessary, for the Prophet made a truce with the Quraysh for that long, as is related by Abu Dawud" ('Umdat as-Salik, o9.16).

The key to understanding the significance of the "Hudna" is in the phrase "if Muslims are weak, a truce may be made for ten years if necessary."

You have understood the "Hudna" when you realize that the problem it solves is not a problem for both parties in a conflict, but a problem unique to Muslims engaging in jihad. If jihad is truly a religious obligation incumbent on all Muslim believers, than to desist from continuing a jihad war, once commenced, would be a significant offense.

But what can the mujaheddin do, if the jihadis are in a weak military situation, and carrying the battle forwards would mean their destruction? Why, offer a "Hudna," of course! Once a "Hudna" is agreed upon by both parties, the jihadis are relieved of their pressing and immediate obligation to engage in warfare, and can rebuild their military strength while using diplomatic and propagandistic means to undermine their enemies. When that strength is renewed, and after a duration of no more than ten years, the jihad must be started up again.

The "Hudna" is not a cease-fire to which both parties agree, with the intention of ultimately and eventually resolving their differences in peaceful and binding negotiations. The "Hudna" is a one-sided cease-fire, the only purpose of which is to relieve military pressure on the jihad, when the jihad is in an untenable situation.

When Islamist fanatics such as Hamas offer a "Hudna" you can be certain that they understand that they are losing the war, and that they intend to regroup and re-arm while gulling their enemies into a false sense of security.

Hamas previously offered a "Hudna" in 2003, during which some 180 terrorist attacks occurred anyway. [The cartoon to the left is from 2003.]

In a recent op-ed in the New Duranty Times, a Hamas spokesman claimed that "a hudna extends beyond the Western concept of a cease-fire and obliges the parties to use the period to seek a permanent, nonviolent resolution to their differences."

That is clearly an example of taqqiya, or dissimulation.


As the moderate Muslim commentator Dr. Tashbih Sayyed points out:

Those who understand the Islamist ethos know that for political Islam, disengagement, a cease-fire, or a pull back on the part of the "enemy" is a sign of its weakness.

That is so because:

Political Islam finds a number of examples in the life of Prophet Muhammad that sanction the use of treaties as a tactical necessity. In explaining why he signed the Oslo Accord, Yasser Arafat cited a truce signed by Prophet Muhammad with the Meccan tribe Quraish at Hudaybiyah in 628 C.E. According to the PLO leader, Prophet Muhammad had signed the truce when he was not strong enough to win a war and it was to last for ten years. But when, within two years of the signing, the Muslims felt that they have gained enough strength to defeat the Quraish, they broke the truce, attacked the Quraish and captured Mecca.

A prominent Saudi sheikh, 'Abd Al-Muhsin Al-'Obikan, also referred to the same treaty while condemning Hezbollah's actions in Lebanon. He issued the edict against Hezbollah's actions not because he considered them wrong but because in his view Muslims, at the moment, are not strong enough to defeat Israel. He said that since the Muslims have no chance of winning this campaign against the Jews, a temporary solution is necessary - a truce similar to the temporary truce of Hudaybiyya.

According to the Saudi Sheikh, Islamic laws (Shari'a) also "place preconditions and constraints on the declaring of jihad, which must be considered in order to ensure the greatest gain for the nation and spare it loss - [that is,] in order to ensure the minimum possible damage and avoid greater damage.

One of the preconditions regarding jihad [states] that the [the jihad fighters] must have [sufficient] capability to inflict harm on the enemy and to repulse its evil, so as to ensure the lives, the property, and the honor of the Muslims and to safeguard them from aggression or harm, that is, [from] destruction of property, from violation of honor, and from bloodshed."

Accepting a "Hudna" from a committed Islamist adversary is inviting a viper into the nursery. If the West intends to defend itself from an unrelenting jihad, it must learn to recognize that when jihadis offer a "Hudna" is precisely when they must be pressed even harder.

Reliapundit adds: According to TIME, Hizballah (with the help of Syria and Iran) is using the HUDNA they received (courtesy of Bush and Rice and the UN) to rearm. As the song says: "WHEN WILL WE EVER LEARN? WHEN WE WILL EVER LEARN?"

THE FRUITS OF APPEASEMENT IN THAILAND

The German Press Agency reports:

Insurgents shot a school director Friday afternoon in southern Thailand, then set his vehicle on fire, killing him in the flames, the English-language Bangkok Post newspaper website reported.

Police said the director of a school in Pattani province, 750 kilometres south of Bangkok, was shot in his pickup truck while driving out of school. He was wounded but not killed in the shooting before insurgents set his pickup truck on fire. He was burned alive inside the truck.

Thailand's three predominately Muslim southernmost provinces have been increasingly restive the past three years, but no insurgent groups are claiming responsibility for the violence or making demands in exchange for stopping it.

Bangkok's new military-installed government has apologized to the people in the southern provinces for past injustices and is making a new approach to ending the violence peacefully a top priority.

It doesn't seem to be working out that way, does it?

HUDNA WITH GAZAN ARABS SEEMS TO HAVE FORGOTTEN SOMETHING

Well, Israel has agreed to another cease-fire with the enemy. The same enemy which is still holding Gilad Shalit, Ehud Goldwasser, Eldad Regev.

POWER LINE:

"The agreement apparently fails to mention kidnapped Israeli soldier Crpl. Gilad Shalit, who now has been held captive by the terrorists in Gaza for five months."

Hudnas and cease-fires are half-measures which only aid the enemy. It seems to me that we're fighting with one hand tied behind our back, and that every time we give the enemy a bloody-nose we give him a time out. DO WE WANT TO WIN OR NOT!? If we do, then we should fight that way.

PERETZ MAY NEED TO STEP DOWN, BUT THEN SO DOES OLMERT

It's true that the Labor party's chairman (for now), Amir Peretz, is responsible for not taking any proper steps to halt rocket attacks on Sderot. However, that does not mean that Ehud Olmert (and even foreign minister Tzipi Livni) doesn't have responsibility to share. For now though, Peretz is certainly guilty of irresponsibility on his own part:

By most accounts, Defense Minister Amir Peretz’s days in his senior cabinet post are numbered. His future as party leader is also in jeopardy as a result of his behavior. Labor Party leader Defense Minister Amir Peretz is not only battling to remain in his senior cabinet post, but for his future as party leader as well. His adamant refusal to "do the right thing" and step down in compliance with public opinion polls and expressed wishes of party leaders may land him a spot outside of the inner circle of the political arena.

Peretz’s party leadership victory last year was viewed as a brilliant political coup, leaving his post as head of the nation’s Histadrut labor federation to beat seasoned politicians for the party leadership. Vice Premier Shimon Peres, then still a leading Labor Party statesman, was among those who ran for the leadership spot, but in defiance of all odds, Peretz emerged the victor. Others he defeated included former party leader Infrastructures Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer and MK Matan Vilnai.

It did not take long for critics of the new leader to express concerns, warning he was a political novice despite being a seasoned labor negotiator. It was a sure bet that Peretz would be given the responsibility for the treasury, a natural senior position for the Histadrut veteran. To the surprise of all, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced a coalition deal with Labor, placing Peretz in the defense spot.

The announcement was met with grave warnings of ‘what if,’ that have since been realized, resulting - in the opinion of some analysts - in the IDF failures in this summer’s war in Lebanon. Supporters of Peretz, on the other hand, praised the move, complimenting Olmert on being the first prime minister to appoint a civilian to the post rather than a retired general. They believed the move would result in a less hawkish policy. However, regional realities vis-a-vis Arab terror continue to dictate Israel’s realities and the need for a retired general, most analysts agree.

[...] A poll released today shows that 78% of the country would like Peretz to step down and hand over the post to someone with experience in running of the nation’s defense/intelligence and security agencies. The most visible candidate to date is Ehud Barak, a former Prime Minister and IDF chief of staff who happens to be the nation's most highly decorated soldier/officer. This is based on the assumption that Labor is not planning to break away from the coalition and wishes to maintain control of the defense post.

Is that so? Because Barak is the one who led to much of this downslide to begin with when he was prime minister, and there's no telling if he'll do any better. In any case, while Peretz can certainly be held accountable, let us be clear here: Ehud Olmert is also responsible, as is even his foreign minister Tzipi Livni, and they too should leave office ASAP. They've been trying repeatedly to avoid genuine show of muscle against the terrorists, and ergo, are not qualified to be political leaders.

UN TRIBUNAL WILL INVESTIGATE THE GEMAYEL ASSASSINATION; THEY SHOULD ALSO INVESTIGATE THE POLONIUM CASE, TOO

Right now the UN Tribunal is investigating 16 political assassinations.

Gemayel's assassination has just been added to the list. The Litvinenko murder should be added to the list, too.

It is interesting to note that these two new murders - like the rest - all aided the Axis of Evil, to which we must surely now add Putin's increasingly ruthless, and increasingly totalitarian regime. He is aiding our enemies. He's aiding Iran with missiles and he's been helping them with nuke technology for years.

UPDATE: This post might as well be titled BIRDS OF A FEATHER - parts 29 & 30!

MORE ON TARIQ RAMADAN

Excerpt from my latest posting, a follow-up to this one ... from this source, quoting Tariq Ramadan:

"Only Islam can achieve the synthesis between Christianity and humanism, and fill the spiritual void that afflicts the West" ("Islam, le face à face des civilisations," Tawhid, 2001).

And again: "The Koran confirms, completes, and corrects the messages that preceded it" ("Les messages musulmans d´occident"). Some Christian personalities whose charitable works cannot be misconstrued - Mother Teresa, Sister Emanuelle, Abbé Pierre, Fr. Helder Camara - are exceptions who show only that all good people are implicitly Muslims, because true humanism is founded in Koranic revelation. Thus, both directly and through this humanism, the "Muslim City" can be founded upon the earth. "Today the Muslims who live in the West must unite themselves to the revolution of the antiestablishment groups from the moment when the neoliberal capitalist system becomes, for Islam, a theater of war..." ("Pouvoirs," 2003, n. 164).

Tariq Ramadan is the Islamic expert to whom Time Magazine turns and presents to its readers as the European voice of reformist Islam?

Read the entire posting at Always On Watch.

DETENTE/CONTAINMENT/APPEASEMENT/REALISM = SURRENDER

WEEKLY STANDARD (hat tip Prairie Pundit):

Surrender as 'Realism' -- Retreat would win us no friends and lose us no adversaries.

[EXCERPT]: So let's add up the "realist" proposals: We must retreat from Iraq, and thus abandon all those Iraqis--Shiite, Sunni, Kurd, and others--who have depended on the United States for safety and the promise of a better future. We must abandon our allies in Lebanon and the very idea of an independent Lebanon in order to win Syria's support for our retreat from Iraq. We must abandon our opposition to Iran's nuclear program in order to convince Iran to help us abandon Iraq. And we must pressure our ally, Israel, to accommodate a violent Hamas in order to gain radical Arab support for our retreat from Iraq.

This is what passes for realism these days. But of course this is not realism. It is capitulation.

What defeated the USSR was not detente, and not containment; it was Reagan's huge defense build up, SDI and straight-forward/"in your face" no-holds barred "TEAR DOWN THIS WALL!" rhetoric. IOW: confrontation.

So called realists would like you to believe that they are in a noble line of "Cold Warriors," and they'd like you to believe that containment won the Cold War, (and that Vietnam was a waste). They'd like you to believe that global jihad can be likewise contained - by engaging in detente with Iran and Syria, but they are just as wrong. FACT: From 1945 to 1980 -- the era of so-called containment, appeasement and detente -- the USSR grew and grew and grew. They did not stop growing and start collapsing until Reagan.

Actually, adopting the policies of containment and appeasement now would be WORSE than they were during the Cold War; it would be like appeasing Hitler in 1942!

UPDATE: It's NOT off-topic to include a photo-shopped pic' of John Forbes Kerry in a post about so-called realism. Kerry would like you to believe he is a "realist" just like Baker and just like his own father - Richard - a life-time bureaucrat in the State Department, and a lifelong member of the "realist school", (who opposed Reagan and attacked Wilsonian foreign policy). Here's a quote:

"Americans," he writes, "are inclined to see the world and foreign affairs in black and white." They celebrate their own form of government and denigrate all others, making them guilty of what he calls "ethnocentric accommodation -- everyone ought to be like us."

As a result, America has committed the "fatal error" of "propagating democracy" and fallen prey to "the siren's song of promoting human rights," falsely assuming that our values and institutions are a good fit in the Third World.

And, just as Americans exaggerate their own goodness, they exaggerate their enemies' badness. The Soviet Union wasn't nearly as imperialistic as American politicians warned, Kerry argues. "Seeing the Soviet Union as the aggressor in every instance, and the U.S. as only reacting defensively, relieves an American observer from the need to see any parallel between our use of military power in distant parts of the world, and the Soviet use of military power outside the Soviet Union," he writes. He further claims that "Third world Marxist movements were autonomous national movements" -- outside Moscow's orbit. The book culminates in a plea for a hardheaded, realist foreign policy that removes any pretense of U.S. moral superiority.

It matters not who promulgates so-called "realism" in foreign policy and national security - whether is Kerry or Hagel or Baker or Hamilton or Scowcroft or Brzezinski. "Realism" is an amoral policy which has never defeated an enemy, never liberated a people, and never brought lasting peace, either. In fact, it brought us 9/11.

ARE MOSQUES LEGITIMATE TARGETS?

We in the West generally believe certain sites are off limits for violent action: religious sites, schools, hospitals etc. In Iraq this is certainly not the case, as mosques are frequently targeted in the spiraling sectarian violence.

What could possibly bring an end to this violence? A strong Iraqi authority, or an external enemy? The problem is which enemy will the sunni and shia agree upon? Iran? NO: more likely the USA and the Zionists!

UPDATE: BBC: Mosques torched

A Sunni area in the once-mixed Hurriyah neighbourhood came under attack on Friday when gunmen rampaged through the area, setting four mosques and several houses alight.

MORE HERE.

THE WEST AGAINST THE REST: THE CLOCK IS TICKING!!!

Reports that Russia is exporting anti-aircraft missiles to Iran highlights the fact that the global struggle against anti-libertarian forces continues - and time is not on our side.

The struggle involves various configurations of alliances who are caring for their own global interests through the use of proxies. In this complex constellation of alliances it is sometimes difficult to judge who our true allies are. [Reliapundit adds: YES: An ally in one region is a competitor or a foe in another.]

Russia is interested in continued tension in the ME because that supports the price of their oil and gas. [Reliapundit adds: YES: And anyhting which ties down the USA intrinsically opens up things for Russian hegemony.] The Chinese, like the Russians, want to knock the US off the podium. We know the intentions of the Islamic Fundamentalists.

And whether or not the islamofascists are being supported by the North Koreans, the Chinese, or the Russians, I see no reason to delay decisive preemptive action directly or through our own proxies.

[Reliapundit: RIGHT ON! ALSO: Note that Putin's hegemonist Russia is killing journalists left and right, and just assassinated - with a rare radioactive substance, in London, a former Russian spy who had just defected. Russia is playing hardball; we should too: We should probably assassinate Kim Jong Il, Ahmadinejad, al Sadr and Assad.]

Fascist Fashion And Hitler's Home

In 1938, Homes and Gardens Magazine ran a spread called Hitler's Moutain Home. We learned that there was "no pretension" to Hitler's "chalet", and that it had lovely views, in a mountain setting. Herr Hitler's life was portrayed as one of luxurious glamour in a pastoral setting.

This past month Marie Claire fashion magazine ran a spread glamorizing the Burqa/Niqab, the fascist fashion of the Islamic world which enshrouds women in a black deathwrap from head to toe,

rendering them faceless

a total eclipse of their humanity.

Marie Claire portrays this as sexy. Marie Claire apparently has a morbid fascination with the Sado-Masochistic.

Burqas are the chains of modern slavery. The burqa is a portable concentration camp for women.

In Islam, women are slaves, and their slavery is enforced through threat of violence. Koran Sura 4, verse 34:

"And (as to) those on whose part you fear desertion, admonish them and leave them alone in the sleeping-places and beat them."

A woman who continuously disobeys her husband may be labelled un-Islamic, or an apostate. The penalty for apostasy is death by stoning. This why we have the phenomenon of "honor killings" in which a women, or girl, is murdered for having brought "dishonor" on her family, through disobedience.

The burqa is enforced through threat of physical violence, and Marie Claire believes this is sexy and glamorous.

Clearly, many women who call themselves feminists are nothing but fascists willing to exploit the masses of women for fun and profit. Marie Claire is simply feeding women through the meat grinder of the glamour process. And, women are buying it.

Ladies, your burqas are waiting for you.

BIRDS OF A FEATHER - PART 28: "ANTI-WAR" CANADIAN LEFTISTS AND JIHADISTS

THE TYEE - VIA MEMEORANDUM:

Canada's progressive Muslims wonder why left would embrace theocrats.

This is what it's come to: a disgraced, dictator-praising British MP [Galloway, pictured on the left] who dances around in red tights on reality-television shows is visiting Canada to commemorate the founding of a fascist movement known for its own distinctive swastika and Nazi-style uniforms and an anthem that's sung to the tune of Deutschland, Deutschland, Uber Alles.

And it's just another otherwise unremarkable day in the life of Canada's "anti-war" movement.

Just how things degenerated so badly, and so fast, is a long and sad story. The upshot is that Canada's anti-war movement has become not only the primary vehicle for an obscure, formerly left-wing group that attacks anyone who opposes Shariah courts in Canada, it's also now the main source of public respectability for a Toronto think-tank that advocates for the establishment of theocracies that hang gay people.

RTWT. TAB readers know why the Left and the jihadists are united: They both want to destroy Western Civilization and Judeo-Christian culture. And they will succeed if we don't fight back.

THE CUNNING MENACE OF THE BNP

Melanie Phillips warns that the British National Party is gaining ground in Britain - they know quite well how to take advantage of the situation there, what with radical Islam on the rise and mainstream politicians not doing their job well. But the fact remains that, whatever face they're putting on now, they are still a racist party to their rotten core, and you can't fight bigotry with bigots.

The BNP’s chairman, Nick Griffin, and another activist, Mark Collett, were accused of stirring up racial hatred. Griffin was accused of describing Islam as a ‘wicked, vicious faith’ and saying Muslims were turning Britain into a ‘ multiracial hell-hole’.

Earlier this year, a jury cleared the pair of similar charges but failed to reach verdicts on others. Last Friday, the debacle was all-too predictably repeated when Griffin and Collett were acquitted for the second time. Griffin had run rings round the prosecution by turning the proceedings into a purported trial of Islam, selecting passages from the Koran which he claimed justified terrorist attacks. There was never any chance of a conviction, for the simple reason that such statements were an attack on a religion rather than a race. It is perfectly legitimate, after all, to say that the enforcement of extreme Islamic precepts poses a threat to the lives of millions of Asians — including, in fact, many Muslims.

It didn’t take a genius to work out that this trial was a win-win situation for the BNP. If Griffin and Collett had been convicted, they would have posed as martyrs to free speech. Their acquittal, on the other hand, has provided a tremendous boost for their repellent platform.

The truly galling thing is that the BNP is indeed a rabidly racist and anti-semitic party, and its attacks on Islam are a fig-leaf for prejudice against all Muslims, Asians and minorities. Griffin is on record as saying that ‘non-whites have no place here at all’ and that he ‘will not rest until every last one has left our land’. In 1997, after he co-authored a pamphlet alleging Jewish conspiracies to brainwash people in Britain, he was given a two-year suspended prison sentence for inciting racial hatred.

If I didn't know better, I'd say that the mainstream politicians in Britain were actually helping the BNP to gain a foothold in politics by making them seem as though they were being discriminated against for protesting Islamic extremism while at the same time refraining from actually convicting them. Either way, it is clear that this is exactly what the BNP was hoping for, as it will enable them exploit it in and out, and try to trick people into legitimizing them much more than need be.

[Gordon] Brown is doubtless keen to burnish his credentials as a Prime Minister-in-waiting by displaying his toughness against all extremism. Hence his further statement that, as Prime Minister, he would take personal charge of the fight against terrorism. But he doesn’t seem to realise that outlawing hatred of religion would undermine this fight, by shutting down crucial debate about Islam and its role in global terror. Mr Brown said that most people would find some of Mr Griffin’s words offensive. Undoubtedly true. But criminalising those who give offence is oppressive. Religious believers across all faiths are offended virtually every day. Mr Brown’s view plays directly into the hands of those Muslims who try to stifle debate about Islamic terrorism on the grounds of ‘Islamophobia’.

And at the same time, this is undoubtably what the BNP is hoping to cash in on as well in future elections.

...although a Muslim was convicted last week of stirring up racial hatred at last February’s ugly demonstration against the Mohammed cartoons, others are still bafflingly allowed to continue preaching hatred of Jews, Americans or the West. Now Griffin is milking this for all he is worth. The BNP already poses as a respectable party, alarmingly pulling the wool over the eyes of increasing numbers of people. It exploits legitimate concerns that the public feel mainstream politicians are ignoring — which currently include militant Islamism.

In fact, the BNP is not respectable, but remains a deeply racist party with abhorrent views, and no decent person should have anything to do with it. But it is making headway because voters feel betrayed and abandoned by the entire mainstream political class. John Cruddas, the Labour MP for Dagenham in Essex, where the BNP won 11 council seats in last May’s local elections, has warned that it is ‘beginning to establish itself as a rival to Labour in many of our traditional heartlands’, drawing support not from hardcore racists but voters who have simply lost faith in mainstream politics.

It most certainly is disturbing. Unlike Jean-MarieDhimmi Le Pen, whose attempts to make his platform more friendly to Muslims and other anti-semites, including the black "comedian" Dieudonne, have backfired (already, he hinted in one news report that he may not run for presidency, because he couldn't get enough signatures from some sources), the BNP appears to be taking a much more clever approach, and frighteningly enough, it appears to be working. There is darkness awaiting the blighty alright. Look out.

MORE REASONS TO FEAR THE SOCIALIZED HEALTHCARE NIGHTMARE

BBC:

Paying for the cancer drug Herceptin means treatment for other cancer patients will have to be dropped to "balance the books", doctors warn.

ANANOVA:

To balance the books, providing the expensive drug may mean having to cut other effective treatments.

GUARDIAN:

Thousands of patients could be denied life-saving medicines if hospitals are to pay for the few to be given the breast cancer drug Herceptin, doctors warn today.

NO SPIN HERE, JUST FACTS: SOCIALIZED HEALTHCARE EQUALS INFERIOR HEALTHCARE. EVERYWHERE IT'S BEEN TRIED. GOOGLE THE SURVIVAL RATES FOR CANCER PATIENTS HERE IN THE USA VERSUS THOSE IN THE UK AND FRANCE. THE RESULT WILL SHOCK YOU. More Americans live longer after diagnosis and treatment than in the UK or the EU. FACT:

five year post-diagnostic cancer survival rates of England and Wales with the USA and eight European countries. The three lowest proportional GDP health expenditures over the period 1980-1990 were Denmark, England and Wales, and Spain. The USA had the highest proportional GDP expenditure, followed by France, Germany, and The Netherlands. Overall the USA had the best cancer survival rates in the 14 sites reviewed...

And then there's this from CAFE HAYEK:

Russell Roberts

I was speaking to someone yesterday who had lived in England. She said that the nationalized health system there is great for children, but as you get older and older, the attitude is "you've had your turn" so you have access to fewer medical resources.

A pretty horrifying way to treat human beings.

She said that the wait for an MRI is 4-6 months and that there was virtually no preventive care. If that is correct, it would help explain these data [from W.H.O.]:

Reliapundit: Might I add that any state which pays for older people's pensions/"social security" has an added incentive for NOT giving those older people expensive life-saving/lif-extending healthcare: they save the state from paying out those pensions as well as the cost of the healthcare. Everytime they let an older person go without care - and die - they have a double savings.

This is a very important reason everyone should want private pensions and private health insurance.

TIME MAGAZINE'S DHIMMITUDE

The day before Thanksgiving, the November 27, 2006 edition of Time Magazine arrived in my mailbox. Not wanting to spoil my appetite for the big feast, I decided to wait after Thanksgiving dinner to read this particular issue. But early on Thursday morning, as I was cruising the blogs over my first cup of coffee, I read this blog article by Pim's Ghost. She was all riled up....

Being the trust-but-verify type, I turned immediately to pages 42-43. Sure enough! Pim's Ghost had exactly reproduced what Time passes off as "Christianity and Islam: A History of Interaction." Something else jumped out at me from Pim's Ghost's essay — the author of one of the commentaries which Time included in this edition....

READ IT ALL AT ALWAYS ON WATCH.

WE ARE WINNING IN IRAQ

You still don't believe that we're winning in Iraq? The drive-by media is providing the Dems with the sound-bite trees they need to convince the American people that we've been beaten, but it is more important to look at the forest. Here's a report from Bill Roggio, who has been there, and done that:

Lost in the current debate over Iraq - civil war or sectarian violence, success or failure, increasing troops or strategic redeployment, victory or defeat - is the sea-change occurring in western Iraq. The U.S. military has coaxed a large majority of the Sunnis of Anbar province, perhaps one of the most sympathetic groups to al-Qaeda in the Middle East, to turn on al-Qaeda. The choice wasn't difficult after the tribes saw what al-Qaeda had to offer – death, torture, Taliban like sharia, humiliation, destruction of commerce. The relationship and intelligence gained form operating in western Iraq will benefit the west during the Long War – if the U.S. doesn't withdrawal precipitously and leave the Anbar tribes to the predations of al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Read The Whole Thing. Now.

Reliapundit adds: Great post and GREAT LINK! Let me frame the issue another way: If you were listening to a basketball game on the radio, and the announcers ONLY reported the points scored by one team, then HOW WOULD YOU KNOW WHICH TEAM WAS WINNING?! YOU COULD NOT.

This is how the drive-by MSM reports the war in Iraq: They only report US casualties and those Iraqis killed by 1400 year old sectarian strife. They do not report our successes, or the enemy killed - nor do they put the sectarian strife into perspective, (neither the 1400 year old perspective, or the fact that despite the horrific level of violence today in Iarq, FEWER Iraqis are being killed each year NOW than under Saddam). The result is that most Americans believe we are losing in Iraq and that we cannot win. Which is pure BS. And the MSM knows it. They're following the TET '68 MSM program: LIE; TELL THE AMERICANS WE LOST EVEN THOUGH WE WON.THEN, THEY WILL WANT TO PULL OUT.

I'm very angry with the Bush Administration for not adequately getting the truth out.

WASHINGTON: Our Duty to Acknowledge the Providence of Almighty God

Although it was President Abraham Lincoln who originated our custom of celebrating a solemn and joyous feast of Thanksgiving in late November every year, [and although it was not made a fedewral Holiday until 12/26/41], the Father of our Country, George Washington, also issued a Thanksgiving Proclamation -- in 1789. It reads:

By the President of the United States of America. a Proclamation.

Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor--and whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me "to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness."

Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be--That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks--for his kind care and protection of the People of this Country previous to their becoming a Nation--for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his Providence which we experienced in the tranquillity, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed--for the peaceable and rational manner, in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted--for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed; and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and in general for all the great and various favors which he hath been pleased to confer upon us.

and also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions--to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually--to render our national government a blessing to all the people, by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed--to protect and guide all Sovereigns and Nations (especially such as have shewn kindness onto us) and to bless them with good government, peace, and concord--To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the encrease of science among them and us--and generally to grant unto all Mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.

Given under my hand at the City of New-York the third day of October in the year of our Lord 1789.

Go: Washington

You can find a photograph of the signed original here. Some background information is here.

The next time an ACLU apparatchik or one of her useful idiots tries to tell you that the United States of America is supposed to be a godless, secular nation, remember this proclamation and Washington's assurance that "it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor."

Here's wishing all our our readers a healthy, happy, and above all thankful Thanksgiving Feast.

COLORADO'S ATTORNEY GENERAL MAKES A FOOL OF HIMSELF

John Suthers, attorney general for Colorado, went to Saudi Arabia recently to assure the dictatorship there that Homaidan al-Turki, (the Saudi student convicted for raping and enslaving his Indonesian maid), was being treated fairly; (via Dhimmi Watch).

This visit was uncalled for, because what al-Turki did was a crime, and no matter what "laws" they come up with in the House of Saud, that does not make it legal there either. Slavery is unacceptable at any place, and at any time, and Saudi Arabia's dictatorship should be made to understand that, and not appeased. Alas, Suthers attempted top appease them. Also appalling is that the Feds back Suthers on this.

Debbie Schlussel talks about this shameful display of dhimmitude in one of her latest op-eds, and one of her correspondents follows up with some more interesting observations.

GIVING THANKS FOR FREEDOM

The very first Thanksgiving in the New World was a celebration of the first great harvest of the Pilgrims. The prior harvests had all been poor because the settlement was run under a socialist compact and group ownership. When that was changed to private ownership, and concomittant personal incentives, the harvest was great! This is completely docymented by WIlliam Bradford who was governor of the Plymouth Colony. (And, this is exactly what happened in China in the 1980's. proiving that private enterprise and free markets WORK; socialism does not!) Much more HERE; EXCERPT:

Thus the real reason for Thanksgiving, deleted from the official story, is: Socialism does not work; the one and only source of abundance is free markets, and we thank God we live in a country where we can have them.

America was founded in liberty and justice, and has remained committed to the inalienable human rights that we are each endowed with by the Creator. When we are free to use the talents which God has blessed each one of us with, then and only then we are able to harvest the inherent bounty of Earth.

We must always remain thankful for our talents, the bounty of the Earth, and for living in a nation which doesn't deny us our innate rights.

LINCOLN: giving thanks "to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God"

Proclamation Establishing Thanksgiving Day - October 3, 1863

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God.

In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.

Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle, or the ship; the axe had enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years, with large increase of freedom.

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.

And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington, this third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the independence of the United States the eighty-eighth.

A. Lincoln

God Bless America! God Bless Our Troops! AND HAVE A HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!

EVEN MORE PROOF THAT SO-CALLED MAN-MADE GLOBAL WARMING IS PURE BS

VIA PJM: BRUSSELS JOURNAL:

Yes, the world is getting warmer, but the Earth does this roughly every 1,500 years, and we cannot stop it. The good news is humans and most other species tend to do better during the warm periods.

There is a wonderful new book, “Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years,” by distinguished climate physicist Fred Singer and award-winning environmental economist Dennis Avery. The conclusion of their book in a nutshell is that, yes, the world is getting a bit warmer, but this is just the natural cycle. They provide overwhelming evidence this warming would occur with or without mankind increasing CO2 emissions or doing anything else. The good news is that if we realize we cannot stop global warming, and concentrate on constructively dealing with the problems it causes – which are all manageable at reasonable cost – and then enjoy the benefits, mankind will do just fine.

We have already had two cycles in recorded history; the Roman warming (200 B.C. to 600 A.D.) which was a very prosperous period, and the medieval warming (900 to 1300) during which farms were created in Greenland and Iceland. The modern warming period began about 1850, well before mankind was producing massive amounts of CO2. ... The Singer-Avery book is meticulously researched and footnoted (unlike many of the presentations from the scaremongers), and, as they note: “The 1,500-year cycle is not an unproven theory like the model-based predictions for the Greenhouse Theory. The 1,500 year climate cycle is real, based on a wide variety of physical evidence from around the globe.” (It comes from ice cores, sediment layers, isotopes, etc.) ... Despite the general warming trend since 1850, we have had cooler periods, notably from 1940 to 1978, when many leading scientists were warning us we were rapidly heading for a new ice age.

FROM AN AMAZON REVIEWER:

Avery and Singer go further by providing an in depth expose of the fallacious research that alledgedly supports man made global warming. In particular the authors make an incisive investigation into the so called hockey stick hypothesis of unprecedented recent warming hoax widely enunciated by the UN's climate change panel. This hoax was first exposed by two skilled and courageous Canadian researchers - McIntyre and McKitrick.

Pseudoscientists and others with a vested interest in controlling the global economy by use of the global warming hoax will not like this work. However informed readers concerned with human welfare and human progress will find this book invaluable. This book should be read by all Amercians and really by everone else in the world.

I COULD NOT AGREE MORE. BUY THIS BOOK, AND GIVE IT AS A HOLIDAY GIFT TO YOUR FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD ENVIRO-KOOK.

UPDATE (Via ACE): Even MORE proof: the Antarctic ice sheet is growing, not melting.

WHY HEZBOLLAH HATES ISRAEL

The leftwing media want you to think that Hezbollah hates America only because America supports Israel. But that's not what Hezbollah says. Here's what is written in the Hezbollah Charter:

We see in Israel the vanguard of the United States in our Islamic world. It is the hated enemy that must be fought until the hated ones get what they deserve.

It sounds like they hate Israel because Israel supports America, no? (Hat tip: Camera. Read the entire dreary Hezbollah Charter here.)

ANOTHER WAY LEFTY LIABILITY LAWYERS ARE STRANGLING AMERICA

The biggest financial supporters of the Democrat Party nationwide are the personal liability litigating lawyers. They have fine-tuned the legal system to provide a constant stream of cash, and the devil take the hindmost.

Here's another example (hat tip: Matt Drudge) of how lawyers are destroying America: the situation across the country is so bad, that police officers are now more afraid of being sued than they are of being killed in the line of duty. As Insight reports:

U.S. law enforcement agencies are struggling with the threat of lawsuits regarding the conduct of officers. Officials said the threat has become so acute that many officers would rather die than be sued. They said this has seriously hurt law enforcement and endangered the lives of officers. "Some officers today are more afraid of being sued than being murdered," Olympia Fields, Ill. Police Chief Jeff Chudwin said.

Police officers across the country are placing their own safety at risk -- and placing the safety of honest, law-abiding citizens at risk -- because they are afraid of the way criminals' lawyers may sue them. (Read The Whole Appalling Thing.)

The net result is that the areas of the country where these lawsuits proliferate become more dangerous, less civilized, and less liveable. Yet another example of the Gramscian strategy of the hard left.

CHARLIE RANGEL: LYING WITHOUT SHAME OR COMPUNCTION

What is it about leftists? They don't seem to have the DNA for shame at all. Here's Charlie Rangel in black & white, in print, in the New York Daily News, with an outright and easily checked lie about the Armed Forces:

The great majority of people bearing arms for this country in Iraq are from the poorer communities in our inner cities and rural areas, places where enlistment bonuses are up to $40,000 and thousands in educational benefits are very attractive. For people who have college as an option, those incentives - at the risk to one's life - don't mean a thing.

As an elected Representative, he should know better. The facts are easily verified. Military recruits are better educated than the general youth population; they have higher average aptitudes; and they are not drawn from "the poorer communities in our inner cities and rural areas" -- they are solidly middle class:

In summary, the additional years of recruit data (2004–2005) sup­port the previous finding that U.S. military recruits are more similar than dissimilar to the American youth population. The slight dif­ferences are that wartime U.S. mil­itary enlistees are better educated, wealthier, and more rural on aver­age than their civilian peers.

Recruits have a higher percent­age of high school graduates and representation from Southern and rural areas. No evidence indicates exploitation of racial minorities (either by race or by race-weighted ZIP code areas). Finally, the distri­bution of household income of recruits is noticeably higher than that of the entire youth population.

Here's how to tell that Charlie Rangel is lying: his mouth is open, and speech is coming out.

On this Thanksgiving Day, let us pause to be thankful that our Nation's call for military volunteers is still being answered by the best, the brightest, and the bravest young men and women in the entire world. (Read more at Betsy's and Gateway.)

ANOTHER ASSASSINATION FORTY-THREE YEARS AGO TODAY

With all the news of yet another assassination in Beirut, the blogosphere seems to have overlooked that today, November 22, 2006, is the 43rd anniversary of the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, who was 43 years old when he was elected President in 1960. Rather than recall his death, I would prefer to take this opportunity to recall what I think is really the most important phrase from his Inaugural address, a statement that is far more deserving of an eternal inscription in our hearts, than the usually quoted peroration. Let us forever remember these words:

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

And let us also remember:

In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility -- I welcome it. I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it. And the glow from that fire can truly light the world.

Those words are as true now as they were then. They should guide us now, as perhaps they did not fully guide us, then. (The entire speech is worth reading and hearing. You can find it here. )

Islam Is A Political Organization - It Needs To Be Classified As Such

I have been saying, for awhile now, that Islamists, in that they advocate for the imposition of Sharia law around the world, are committing sedition. Sharia is the Islamic constitution (in fact, it is the constitution in Saudi Arabia), therefore, advocating for Sharia is advocating for the overthrow of the existing Constitution.

While, I believe this to be true, I recognize that few people would agree with me. However, I don't think people would be so inclined to disagree with the idea that Islam is a political force and not simply a religion. Ask any Imam, or Islamic academic and they will tell you straight out that, in Islam, there is no separation between religion and politics. Frank Hilliard, of Mesopotamia West, has a great idea:

One way to deal with Islam that hasn't been fully discussed is to reclassify it as a political organization. Since the major difference between Islam and all other religions is that it wants to establish its own laws, and since the establishment, administration and maintenance of laws is the sole purpose of government, it follows that what we have in Islam is a political project wrapped in the candy coating of a religious community.

Once we describe it for what it is, we can then require it to fund its activities in an open way, can more closely monitor its leaders and can tax is properly. Taking this a bit further, I think any close monitoring of any Islamic congregation would quickly find someone advocating sedition. Since this is a serious crime, we could then arrest, charge and convict these Imams of this crime. In other words, let's crack down on the source of terrorism, the heart of darkness, that is Islam.

WHY THE LEFT WANTS TO DESTROY THE FAMILY

In Reliapundit's well-documented post, below, you can read the sad consequences that befall children who grow up without fathers and without the structures of traditional family life that have been the bedrock of human culture since time immemorial.

In two recent articles posted at National Review Online, "The Confession" and "The Confession II," Stanley Kurtz shows how many advocates of same-sex marriage are actually committed to a radical program of undermining and ultimately destroying the traditional family. Writes Kurtz:

The Beyond Same-Sex Marriage statement is nothing if not radical. It calls for extending government recognition beyond traditional married couples to groups of senior citizens living together, extended immigrant households, single parent households, “queer couples who decide to jointly create and raise a child with another queer person or couple in two households,” unmarried domestic partners, polygamous/polyamorous households, and many other diverse family forms.

Advocacy of same-sex marriage is being used to create the conditions in which marriage itself will be superseded. This is not a new goal for the statist left. Plato, in his Republic, describes a society in which males and females of the appropriate social stratum reproduce like breeding animals, their children being raised communally, and without any family structure at all. Parents and children would not be permitted to know each other as such. Similar projects were conceived during the "War Communism" phase of the Soviet State, and the SS "Lebensborn" breeding program is also well known.

Remember the sad truth that Mark Alexander documented, (hat tip Reliapundit):

To wit, the truth -- and it is a hard truth for men who have abandoned their families, but a harder truth for their children: According to the CDC, DoJ, DHHS and the Bureau of the Census, the 30 percent of children who live apart from their fathers will account for

63 percent of teen suicides,
70 percent of juveniles in state-operated institutions,
71 percent of high-school dropouts,
75 percent of children in chemical-abuse centers,
80 percent of rapists,
85 percent of youths in prison,
and 85 percent of children who exhibit behavioral disorders.

In addition, 90 percent of homeless and runaway children are from fatherless homes. In fact, children born to unwed mothers are 10 times more likely to live in poverty as children with fathers in the home.

So why do the socialists advocate creating such dysfunctional social conditions? I think that the answer is because they feel that it will be possible for them to seize and maintain power only in such a dysfunctional society.

Remember, as I suggested last week in a discussion of why the theme of "global warming" is so important to the statist left, that Antonio Gramsci asserted that the survival of a free market society was based on "cultural hegemony," and that the communist vanguard had first of all to subvert that cultural hegemony in order to seize power. As the Wikipedia article puts it:

Gramsci therefore argued for a strategic distinction between a "war of position" and a "war of movement". The war of position is a culture war in which anti-capitalist elements seek to gain a dominant voice in mass media, mass organizations, and educational institutions to heighten class consciousness, teach revolutionary analysis and theory, and inspire revolutionary organization. Following the success of the war of position, communist leaders would be empowered to begin the war of movement, the actual insurrection against capitalism, with mass support.

The hard left understands that it must undermine, subvert, and liquidate traditional culture in order to replace all of the multitudinous relationships which form the dense network of family and community life with a univocal culture in which every nexus of human contact is mediated by the state. As the Gramsci biography puts it:

Gramsci stated that, in the West, bourgeois cultural values were tied to Christianity, and therefore much of his polemic against hegemonic culture is aimed at religious norms and values [umph added - Relipaundit]. He was impressed by the power Roman Catholicism had over men's minds and the care the Church had taken to prevent an excessive gap developing between the religion of the learned and that of the less educated. Gramsci believed that it was Marxism's task to marry the purely intellectual critique of religion found in Renaissance humanism to the elements of the Reformation that had appealed to the masses. For Gramsci, Marxism could supersede religion only if it met people's spiritual needs, and to do so people would have to recognise it as an expression of their own experience.

The destruction of the family will condemn millions of children to dysfunctional outcomes. The left would sacrifice those children - future drop-outs, wards of the State, prisoners, runaways, and suicides - in order to create a society in which everyone is essentially institutionalized from birth to the grave, and in which every decision affecting everyone's daily life is made by a bureaucratic elite and enforced by violence.

For further details, see The Road to Serfdom, the must-read and re-read book by the economist F. A. Hayek.

BASTARDS NOW 37% OF ALL BIRTHS IN USA

AP:

Out-of-wedlock births in the United States have climbed to an all-time high, accounting for nearly four in 10 babies born last year, government health officials said Tuesday. ... The increase in births to unwed mothers was seen in all racial groups, but rose most sharply among Hispanics. ... Out-of-wedlock births have been rising since the late 1990s.

This is a bad trend - for society and for the children. WHY?! Here:

Though many single moms do manage to bring up relatively well-adjusted kids with the help of extended families, churches and schools, the correlation between social deviancy and fatherless homes is irrefutably linked. "The lack of effective, functioning fathers is the root cause of America's social, economic and spiritual crises," writes Dr. Edwin Cole.

To wit, the truth -- and it is a hard truth for men who have abandoned their families, but a harder truth for their children: According to the CDC, DoJ, DHHS and the Bureau of the Census, the 30 percent of children who live apart from their fathers will account for

63 percent of teen suicides,
70 percent of juveniles in state-operated institutions,
71 percent of high-school dropouts,
75 percent of children in chemical-abuse centers,
80 percent of rapists,
85 percent of youths in prison,
and 85 percent of children who exhibit behavioral disorders.

In addition, 90 percent of homeless and runaway children are from fatherless homes. In fact, children born to unwed mothers are 10 times more likely to live in poverty as children with fathers in the home.

"[The causal link between fatherless children and crime] is so strong that controlling for family configuration erases the relationship between race and crime and between low income and crime," notes social researcher Barbara Dafoe Whitehead. David Blankenhorn, president of the Institute for American Values, adds, "[The absence of fathers] from family life is surely the most socially consequential family trend of our era."

MORE FACTS AND FIGURES HERE. What does this all mean? That we should be cracking down on the fathers of these kids. And that we should be promoting marriage and not denigrating it.

And we should amend the US Constitution which now makes children born here of ILLEGAL residents automatic citizens - so-called "anchor babies" citizens, and thus remove the motivation many ILLEGAL immigrants have for having children - married or not. (Since most of the ILLEGAL immigrants here today are Hispanic, I infer that this is effecting their sky-rocketing fatherless child birth-rate. I blogged on a solution to this problem HERE. Excerpt:

Section 1 of the 14th Amendment reads as follows:

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

[We should] AMEND THE 14th AMENDMENT SO THAT IT SAYS:

"ALL PERSONS BORN IN THE UNITED STATES TO LEGAL CITIZENS..."

Simple. The present interpretation is a vestige of an earlier time - when the borders were not as porous as they have been the last two decades, and it was written when many Americans were still alive who were born in the colonies, (1866).

IT IS TIME TO MAKE THIS AMENDMENT REFLECT TODAY'S NEEDS.

This shouldn't be controversial, or a problem for the Left; after all, the Constitution was meant to be a "living document" - evolving to meet the needs of the people. HEH.

More on so-called "ANCHOR BABIES" HERE. More on why current immigration levels are unsustainable HERE - in a must see video.

BOTTOM-LINE: If we really want to eradicate childhood poverty in this country we have to eradicate out of wedlock births, increase the marriage rate, and compel husbands and fathers to be more supportive. Because there is a public cost to this problem, we must remove the incentives the state offers which promote the creation of fatherless children. These mothers and their children do not need more public welfare; they need repsonsible husbands and fathers.