RUTHFULLY YOURS

Time was when the charge of racism packed a genuine punch, but that was before the word’s meaning was turned on its head by mis-use, over-use and those who insist, in the vile tradition of Nazism and the Klan, that race and ancestry are the key determinants of who and what we are.

Back in February, The Australian published a news item detailing how an Aboriginal community leader in the Pitjantjatjarra lands of north-west South Australia was alleged to have called a senior administrator and other staff members “white c***s” and “white pieces of sh**” for not following his orders. One suspects this might not have been a new experience. Indeed, I have even been so described myself on occasions, for example in conversations like:

“Got a cigarette?”

“Sorry mate, I don’t smoke.”

“Racist white c***.”

What you will observe is that the term “racist” being used exactly in the same way as the word “c***”. It no longer has any real meaning, except as an expression of abuse intended to promote offence. If we were to be entirely honest, the practical definition of both words would be something like: ‘A person who stands in the way of what I want.’

These days, the word “racist” appears to be used most commonly in accord with that definition, so most would fail to be offended by having that term flung at them. Incidentally, since most people do not invoke race as the primary and defining attribute of their identities, the term “white” can hardly be considered offensive. On the mining sites where I have worked one meets people of all races, nationalities, religions, and ethnicities, but almost universally people tend to identify themselves by their occupations and professions, not their ancestry.

Prince Charles, Putin and Hitler: Dangerous references Nazi Germany was not a traditional, expansionist power. Its expansionism was directly tied up with a genocidal, totalitarian ideology. Putin is bad, but he’s not like Adolf Hitler

It is all over the British media. Prince Charles, on a visit to Halifax, in the Canadian Maritime province of Nova Scotia, has stirred controversy by comparing Vladimir Putin to Adolf Hitler over Russia’s recent annexation of Crimea. That, at least, according to the Daily Mail.

“And now Putin is doing just about the same as Hitler,’ the Prince of Wales is alleged to have said. It’s not being denied, so having let it run in the public domain for this long, we are entitled to assume that the quotation is accurate.

Back in Britain, opinions range from suggesting the Prince had missed a good opportunity to keep quiet and stay above the political fray, domestic and international, to the view that he’s entitled to his opinion.

Either way, it was a silly and irresponsible remark which serves as a timely reminder of the dangers of trivialising who Hitler was and what he stood for.

To be fair to Prince Charles, he is not alone in making this comparison. Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and others have made reference to Hitler’s use of German minorities outside Germany’s borders — in the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia for example — and compared that with Putin’s use of Russian minorities in places such as Ukraine, Georgia, and also (without military aggression as yet) in the Baltic states.

It’s a seductive comparison, but it is deeply flawed.

For one thing, we should be smart enough to have other historical (and contemporary) reference points for bad things that happen in the world without resorting to the use of incendiary references to Adolf Hitler, unless it is absolutely necessary and unless it is accurate, which it isn’t in this case.

You can’t claim that liberals and other statists aren’t industrious. They are tirelessly diligent in their quest to find more ways to infringe upon or abridge our freedoms.
Many of our freedoms are embodied in the Bill of Rights, and have been regularly targeted for amendment or excision, from gun ownership, to freedom of assembly (or association), to freedom of speech vis-à-vis criticizing Islam and campaign finance law restrictions. No right today is sacrosanct or beyond the government’s wish to curtail or abolish.
Only just recently, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), in the wake of his defeat at the Cliven Bundy Ranch in Nevada, introduced a bill to abridge political speech. Breitbart’s Big Government reported on May 18th:
On May 15, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) announced the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on June 3 on amending the U.S. Constitution to limit political speech. If ultimately adopted, it would mark the first time in American history that a constitutional amendment rescinded a freedom listed as among the fundamental rights of the American people.
The proposed amendment was introduced by Sen. Tom Udall (D-CO) as S.J.R. 19 and if ratified would become the Twenty-Eighth Amendment. It provides in part that “Congress shall have power to regulate the raising and spending of money and in-kind equivalents with respect [to] the Federal elections … [and] State elections.” The proposed amendment includes a provision that “Nothing in this article shall be construed to grant Congress the power to abridge the freedom of the press.” So Breitbart News, The New York Times, and the mainstream media would be able to say whatever they want, but citizens and citizen groups such as the National Rifle Association could not.
It seems like Harry Reid and his cronies have been reading retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens’s book, Six Amendments: How and Why We Should Change the Constitution, which I reviewed in “Justice Stevens’s Liberty-Destroying Amendments,” in three parts, the relevant Part here. Stevens recommended adding another amendment that would accomplish Reid’s purposes and vitiate any freedom of speech protections. I wrote:
Stevens writes that there is nothing to fear from his proposed amendment:
“A constitutional amendment authorizing Congress and the states to place “reasonable” limitations on campaign expenditures would allow corporations to make public announcements of their views but would prohibit them from engaging in the kind of repetitive and excessive advocacy that the candidates typically employ. It would also repudiate both the holding and the reasoning in the Citizens United case, giving corporations an unlimited right to spend their shareholders’ money in election campaigns.” (p. 78)
Do the shareholders want a corporation to spend their money advocating issues? To Stevens, their wishes are irrelevant. Do individuals who encounter “repetitive and excessive” advocacy mind such encounters? That’s irrelevant, too. Of course, those on the opposite side of an issue might mind it, but, like Muslims who object to critical things being said and written about Islam, they can just ignore it. Speech, written, oral, or visually, after all, is not a form of physical aggression or force. But Stevens doesn’t want the champions of big government and incremental socialism to be subjected to limitations on “hate speech” that he wishes to impose on financed counter-arguments. Democrats should be free to repeat their “excessive” and “repetitive” messages over and over again. It’s the other guy who must be shut up. Stevens’s suggested amendment, which requires force or the threat of force, reads:
“Neither the First Amendment nor any other provision of this Constitution shall be construed to prohibit the Congress or any state from imposing reasonable limits on the amount of money that candidates for public office, or their supporters, may spend in election campaigns.” (p. 79

The Price of Oslo – 933 Billion Shekels ($250 million US Dollars) and Counting
Jewish Leadership faction of Likud is shocked to find that failed ‘peace’ attempt cost twice as much as previously thought.
The failed attempt at regional peacemaking known as the Oslo Process has cost the state of Israel over 900 billion shekels – more than $250 billion – since 1993, and the costs keeps rising, according to a study by the Likud party’s Jewish Leadership faction, which is headed by MK Moshe Feiglin (Likud-Beytenu).

By comparison, the total state budget for 2014 has been set at about 400 billion shekels, or about $115 billion.

The numbers came as a shock to the researchers, who recently gave a much lower estimate of the total financial costs of the botched endeavor.

Jewish Leadership’s report on the study’s results note that the same amount of money would have sufficed for ensuring that 3.5 million Arabs receive the same income that they currently enjoy, for a period of 50 years, in exchange for voluntary repatriation to Arab countries.

Instead of turning Gaza, Judea and Samaria into arms depots and terror hotspots, Israel should apply its sovereignty to all of these areas, settle them, make them flourish, and adopt a policy of reducing the size of the Arab population and isolating it.

The research, which was led by Jewish Leadership’s R&D Head, Michael Fuah, examined nine fields of expenditure and tallied up what it said were the minimal costs of the Oslo process to date, as follows:

New York

On a cold wet day in April, a small crowd of protesters stood outside the United Jewish Appeal-Federation headquarters in New York to oppose the inclusion of anti-Israel groups in the Celebrate Israel parade. This year is the 50th anniversary of the parade, one of the most prominent displays of American support for Israel.

On June 1, around 30,000 people are expected to march down Fifth Avenue. It is a vibrant affirmation of Jewish unity. Except when it isn’t. Over the past few years, the parade has become a source of friction as pro-Israel activists have objected to the participation of groups involved with the Boycott, Divest, and Sanction (BDS) movement. That’s the pernicious global campaign that calls for governments and businesses to wage diplomatic and economic warfare against Israel. The BDS movement speaks the language of nonviolence and human rights, but seeks Israel’s destruction.

The protesters against the participation of BDS groups in the parade are led by Richard Allen, an accidental gadfly, a businessman who says he never considered political action until he joined the Manhattan Jewish Community Center (JCC) to use its gym. It’s supposed to be an apolitical gathering place—Hebrew classes and bake sales and jewelry-making workshops. Instead, Allen would walk through the lobby and see groups that supported BDS setting up tables, distributing flyers, and giving lectures.

“The JCC were not just letting them debate,” he says. “They were hosting them.” Since the JCC runs largely on donated money, he says, “It’s using Jewish communal dollars to push BDS in the community. The JCC was trying to legitimize a movement that wants to delegitimize Israel.”

So Allen formed a group called JCC Watch, dedicated to calling out anti-Israel extremism that tries to pass itself off as part of the Jewish mainstream. Allen has had some successes—he’s gotten links to BDS groups, like Adalah (that’s Arabic for “Justice”) and the Mossawa Center, removed from the JCC’s website. His group has picketed events hosting supporters of the BDS movement, Roger Waters and Alice Walker, at the 92nd Street Y.

“And I haven’t seen any BDS in the lobby of the JCC lately, either,” he says. “They’ve koshered themselves up a little bit.” His next goal: get the pro-BDS groups kicked out of the Celebrate Israel parade.

Theoretically, this should be no problem. The Jewish Community Relations Council (JCRC), the parade’s host committee (which is funded by the UJA-Federation), says that BDS groups are not allowed to march in the parade. The thing is, JCC Watch and the parade committee disagree on what it means to be a “pro-BDS” group. The groups that have raised the hackles of Allen and his supporters are the New Israel Fund, Partners for a Progressive Israel, and B’Tselem, which insist that they are not supporters of the BDS movement. They’ll even condemn it.

But these groups have ties to groups that are full-fledged members of the BDS movement, and—here’s the sticking point—they support boycotts of Israeli products that are manufactured in the West Bank. They argue, passionately, that there’s a difference between full-on BDS and targeted boycotts of products like SodaStream, whose factory is located in an Israeli town just over the “Green Line,” or 1949 armistice line.

“We do not ourselves support the boycotts, but we don’t exclude groups that support the boycott of settlement products from our funding,” says Naomi Paiss, the New Israel Fund’s vice president for public affairs. “It’s not our job to do that.”

“People on the hard left and the hard right both try and conflate these two for their own purposes,” she says, “but we profoundly disagree.”