RUTHFULLY YOURS

Looting the Egyptian Currency: Democracy in Action Posted By David P. Goldman

URL to article: http://pjmedia.com/spengler/2011/11/25/looting-the-egyptian-currency-democracy-in-action/

The ugly denouement of the so-called Egyptian Spring is visible in the collapse of Egypt’s stock exchange (down 11% in the first three days of this week) and the impending collapse of the Egyptian pound, as residents and foreigners flee to hard currency. A unique sort of brutality characterizes Egypt’s currency crisis: banks cannot meet the demand for currency because it is impossible transport bank notes. Mobs hijack the armored cars, as Al Ahram reported today:

“Demand on the dollar increased by 100 per cent since Saturday,” said Bilal Khalil, deputy head of the exchange division of the Federation of Egyptian Chambers of Commerce (FCC).

Khalil went on to say that many people prefer to convert pounds to dollars in times of crisis. “The exceptionally high demand on the American dollar resulted in a shortage of supply and a higher cost,” he said.

Promoting Moderate Islam: An Interview with Holland Taylor Posted By Ruthie Blum Leibowitz

http://pjmedia.com/blog/promoting-moderate-islam-an-interview-with-holland-taylor/?print=1

“Our goal is to marginalize, discredit and defeat the ideology of radical Islamism,” says C. Holland Taylor, the chairman and CEO of the LibForAll Foundation, “and to transform the understanding that Muslims have of their religious obligations.”

Taylor is a Christian-turned-Universalist — a South Carolinian expert in Islam residing in Indonesia — who left the cushy corporate world for more spiritual pastures. These involve “helping ensure the global triumph of a pluralistic and tolerant understanding of Islam, at peace with itself in the modern world.”

This, he argues, is the only way that the West and Muslims themselves will be able to eradicate the evil of those who have been politicizing and exploiting Islam for pernicious aims at global hegemony.

A close friend of Abdurrahman Wahid, the late president of Indonesia and leader of the world’s largest Muslim organization, Taylor believes that the West has been dropping the ball where confronting the Wahabbi-Muslim Brotherhood lobby is concerned. Rather than making a distinction between its false agenda and the true nature of Islam as a religion, Taylor claims, both the West and Muslims are being seduced into its orbit and lulled into submission.

Indeed, argues Taylor, radical Islam is a “danger to all of humanity.” And the only way to counter and conquer it is for Muslims and non-Muslims to join forces.

To this end, the LibForAll Foundation, established in 2003, is working to educate these forces in what Taylor asserts is the true pluralistic and spiritual nature of Islam versus the totalitarian ideology of the extremists. One project the foundation undertook was the publication — and translation into English — of The Illusion of an Islamic State, a book exposing the infiltration of Islamist extremists into Indonesia. The book was a sensation there and derailed the candidacy of the Muslim Brotherhood vice presidential contender in the 2009 elections. Another is the establishment of the International Institute of Qur’anic Studies — a global network of top Muslim scholars and leaders working to initiate a systematic reform of Qur’anic studies that “promotes freedom of thought, conscience, and religion in the Muslim world.”

BLUM: Is it not the task of Muslims to behave in such a way that others will have a “tolerant understanding” of Islam? Is it not the duty of their own religious leaders to “transform their understanding of their religious obligations,” to extricate themselves and the rest of us from the Wahabbi-Muslim Brotherhood ideology?

Taylor: During WWII, the United States and the United Kingdom were fighting against a national socialist ideology; during the Cold War, we were opposed to a totalitarian, Marxist-Leninist international ideology. Each was relatively easy to confront, because the Nazi ideology was tied to German racial supremacy, and the Communist ideology was tied to atheism and materialism.

http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/ ROMNEY, GINGRICH, PERRY AND IMMIGRATION One reason I never spent much time taking Perry to task on immigration is that none of the candidates were very good on it. And that’s true of the recent list of Republican presidents as well. Perry was worse than most but unfortunately none of them are much good […]

http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/ THE TIMES THEY ARE A CHANGING There was a time long ago when Americans were sad and unhappy, when the world hated us, people were forced to work for a living and there were no inspiring leaders. But today in this wonderful age of free health care, free mobs and freedom for Islamists, there […]

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=246925 The underpinnings of Israeli democracy are being imperiled by those purporting to be its staunchest defenders. Religion, nationalism and a people’s complex of ethical habits and customs have traditionally been interpreted as obstacles to the establishment of successful democratic political institutions. But the truth is considerably more complicated, for the success of liberal politics […]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204630904577055863900368528.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Amid the slaughter, a quiet house was singled out, solely because the residents were Jewish.

Three years ago this weekend, believers of two religions came face to face, with horrific results. It is remembered as the Mumbai Attacks. Over the course of four days, 10 terrorists from the Islamic group Lashkar-e-Taiba perpetrated coordinated attacks on 10 different locations across India’s financial capital. In addition to three hotels, a cinema, and a hospital for women and children, four of the terrorists traveled to the Nariman House, which served as the city’s Chabad Jewish community center.

In all, 164 people were killed in Mumbai and 308 were wounded. What stands out in the horror of those days is the particular viciousness of the attack on the defenseless people inside Nariman House. The Holtzbergs—a young couple, emissaries from the Chabad-Lubavitch movement—along with four other Jewish visitors were all killed. But Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his pregnant wife Rivka were first tortured, the details of which are too gruesome to recount. (Their 2-year-old son was rescued by his Indian nanny, who grabbed the blood-spattered child and ran outside when the attackers weren’t looking.)

Why did the attackers specifically target Chabad and why with such viciousness? Lashkar-e-Taiba, or the Army of the Pure, is South Asia’s largest and most militant terror network. It is based in Pakistan, where it reportedly received planning assistance for the Mumbai operation from Pakistan’s secret service agency. The group’s founding aim was to reclaim the disputed Kashmir region for Muslims, but in recent years Lashkar has expanded to global scope, with particular animus toward India and Israel, declaring Hindus and Jews to be enemies of Islam.

Hence the attack on Nariman House, one of 3,000-plus Chabad Houses around the world that provide assistance, religious services, food, lodging and Torah study to local and visiting Jews. “Chabad,” an acronym for the Hebrew “wisdom, understanding, knowledge,” is another name for the Lubavitcher movement, named after the city in Russia where this particular movement of Orthodox Jewish Hasidism was founded in the 18th century.

Chabad would probably be unknown to the outside world had it not been for Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, its charismatic leader from 1951 until his death in 1994. Known as the “Rebbe” to his followers, he took a small group ravaged in the Holocaust and electrified it with a vision. Based in its new home of Crown Heights, Brooklyn, the Jewish movement grew rapidly, and today there are Chabad Houses from Morocco to Cambodia to Santa Fe.

While the Rebbe was a great Talmudic scholar, he was also an electrical engineer who studied at the Sorbonne and did work for the U.S. Navy during World War II. Perhaps because of his varied background, the Rebbe infused the Lubavitchers with entrepreneurialism. “This was not a man who was interested in creating followers,” says Jonathan Sacks, the chief Rabbi of the British Commonwealth. “This was a man who was passionate about creating leaders.”

Sending out emissaries was part of the program from the start, in 1951. “These extraordinary people could have achieved enormous personal gain in business or as professionals, but instead dedicated their lives to a higher purpose,” says Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky, chairman of the movement’s educational and social services arms.

Chabad’s model sounds more like that of Christian missionaries than what most people expect of Jews. But Chabad couples are not sent out to proselytize. They are meant to act as role models for other Jews, in order to create a better world. Lubavitchers believe that every mitzvah (commandment) performed—whether it is helping someone in need or lighting the Sabbath candles—brings us all closer to the coming of the Messiah. “Love of God, of Torah and of every Jew—all three are really one and they cannot be separated,” said the Rebbe upon assuming leadership of the movement in 1951…..READ MORE AT SITE

“Civilization and profit go hand in hand.” “Collecting more taxes than is absolutely necessary is legalized robbery.” “Don’t expect to build up the weak by pulling down the strong.” “Economy is the method by which we prepare today to afford the improvements of tomorrow.”

Calvin Coolidge

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/print/284052

IT TAX POLICY WERE THE ONLY THING ABOUT NORQUIST….THIS WOULD SATISFY…BUT KRAUTHAMMER OMITS NORQUIST’S NASTY AND SHADY ASSOCIATIONS WITH RADICAL MOSLEMS BROTHERHOOD. FRANK GAFFNEY IS FAR MORE CREDIBLE…

“Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy has repeatedly called for the conservative movement to purge Grover Norquist from the ranks, and even accused Norquist of “credentialing the perpetrators of this Muslim Brotherhood influence operation” during the controversy over CPAC. Norquist, the head of the highly influential Americans for Tax Reform, was a speaker at The Awakening despite his membership on the board of GOProud, a gay conservative group, and Gaffney’s charges of promoting Sharia law. In fact, Gaffney spoke during “Sharia Law and the Constitution” in the same room of the Thomas Road Baptist Church immediately following Norquist’s talk on “America’s Economic Condition.” During his panel, Gaffney claimed that Norquist, who co-founded the Islamic Free Market Institute, is helping advocates of Sharia law penetrate the right-wing and said it was his “personal burden for the past last twelve years to be trying to warn conservatives that one of their own has been actively involved, both enabling and empowering, Muslim Brotherhood influence operations against our movement and our country.”

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.10898/pub_detail.asp Looking at the Atlantic Ocean off the Virginia Beach coast, I occasionally see US Navy ships on the horizon, F-18 Hornets flying in formation, the Coast Guard helicopter overhead, and porpoise darting in and out of the waves; it’s just a part of the scenery.  Having lived in Glenview, Illinois, in the years prior […]