Displaying posts published in

September 2016

The Flaws in Both Universalism and Nationalism Two political alternatives, each susceptible of deformation.Walter Russell Mead

Yoram Hazony’s “Nationalism and the Future of Western Freedom” is a bold and fiery piece. In what follows, even as I intend to question and complicate his argument, I remain grateful for its genuinely refreshing spirit of intellectual combat. http://mosaicmagazine.com/response/2016/09/the-flaws-in-both-universalism-and-nationalism/

Hazony characterizes the idea behind modern nationalism, what he calls the “Protestant construction,” as at root a biblical idea. Although he doesn’t specifically mention it, I can’t help being reminded of the familiar story in Genesis of the tower of Babel (or “Baybul” as I was taught to pronounce it in the American South). That story perfectly encapsulates how I think about nationalism and universalism. On the one hand, the ambition of the tower’s builders was a noble one: they wanted to reach heaven. What could be a more appropriate human aspiration? On the other hand, that ambition challenged the majesty of God, trying to take for all mankind something that by right belonged only to the Creator, to the Transcendent.

The result of this human initiative is that God scatters the people into different nations and “confuses” their once-single language into many. Again: on the one hand, you might think of this as a kind of reward: independent nations, each able to determine its own unique identity and pursue its own purposes. On the other hand, you might—along with the displeased God of Genesis—see it as a punishment, and as a caution.

What this story powerfully suggests to me is that, as is often and perhaps usually the case in human affairs, we have here two alternatives—let’s call them, respectively, cosmopolitan universalism and national self-determination—and they’re both flawed. Really, deeply flawed: vulnerable not just to mistaken impulses but to vile and ugly deformations.

Thus, in the case of cosmopolitan universalism, you can get to the point where a king or emperor or supreme leader like Nebuchadnezzar decrees that anyone who doesn’t pay obeisance to the realm’s designated idol will be subject to punishment up to and including execution. That has surely happened more than once in human history, and there are significant numbers of people today who would like to make it happen again.

‘Aid and Comfort’: Clinton Suggests Trump Committed Treason By Robert Spencer

Jennifer Epstein, a reporter for Bloomberg and clearly the very model of a modern Leftist journalist, asked Hillary Clinton today:

Are you concerned that this weekend’s attacks or potential incidents in the coming weeks might be an attempt by ISIS or ISIS sympathizers, or really any other group, maybe the Russians, to influence the presidential race in some way, and presumably try to drive votes to Donald Trump?

In response, the former secretary of State for a president who has given billions to the Islamic Republic of Iran — a country which ordered its people to chant “Death to America” every Friday in their mosques — accused Trump of treason.

She said Trump was being used as a “recruiting sergeant for terrorists,” and that “the kinds of rhetoric and language that Mr. Trump has used is giving aid and comfort to our adversaries.”

Giving “aid and comfort” to the enemy is not a simple colloquialism. The phrase is part of the legal definition of treason.

Trump was a traitor, in Clinton’s view, because:

[W]e know that a lot of the rhetoric we’ve heard from Donald Trump has been seized on by terrorists, in particular ISIS, because they are looking to make this into a war against Islam, rather than a war against jihadists, violent terrorists, people who number maybe in the maybe tens of thousands, not the tens of millions, they want to use that to recruit more fighters to their cause, by turning it into a religious conflict. That’s why I’ve been very clear. We’re going after the bad guys and we’re going to get them, but we’re not going go after an entire religion and give ISIS exactly what it’s wanting in order for them to enhance their position.

How she proposed to distinguish the “bad guys” from the larger population of Muslims, Clinton didn’t say.

Nor did Clinton mention that hardly any Muslim organizations or authorities around the world have declared that someone who believes in the Islam of ISIS or al-Qaeda is not welcome in their mosques and Islamic schools.

“We’re going after the bad guys,” she said, on the same day the following was revealed:

[The Obama administration] mistakenly granted citizenship to at least 858 immigrants from countries of concern to national security or with high rates of immigration fraud who had pending deportation orders.

Mistakenly awarding citizenship to someone ordered deported can have serious consequences because U.S. citizens can typically apply for and receive security clearances or take security-sensitive jobs.

Hardly a promising indication of how effectively the Obama administration has been “going after the bad guys.”

Clinton likewise did not address the point of Trump’s proposed temporary moratorium on immigration from countries with a high incidence of jihad terror. Trump has not looked to demonize all Muslims or Islam as a whole, or to blame all Muslims for the crime of a few. In reality, Trump’s proposal is a recognition that there is no other means of preventing jihadis from entering the U.S. among peaceful refugees. There is no way to distinguish one from the other.

Obama: Prospect of Electing a ‘Powerful Woman’ President ‘Troubles’ Many Americans By Debra Heine see note please

Also, he’ll consider it “a personal insult” if black people don’t vote for Hillary.Also, he’ll consider it “a personal insult” if black people don’t vote for Hillary. He will never change…he is hopeless…..rsk

President Barack Obama, speaking at an event in New York City on Sunday, suggested that sexist attitudes are the reason why the most qualified person in American history does not have a commanding lead in the polls.

The “Lecturer-in Chief” told liberal donors at a fundraiser in Manhattan that Americans are trying to “grapple” with electing a “powerful woman.” But he expressed confidence that the American people will make “the right decision” and elect Hillary Clinton.

“There’s a reason why we haven’t had a woman president,” Obama lectured. “We as a society still grapple with what it means to see powerful women. And it still troubles us in a lot of ways, unfairly, and that expresses itself in all sorts of ways.” He concluded, “The good news is, despite all that, I have confidence in the American people that we’re going to make the right decision and we’re going to win this thing.”

See, there’s always a good explanation for why a Democrat might struggle to win over certain “deplorable” segments of society. In 2008, it was because the deplorables were bitter and clung “to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

In 2016, it’s because we are grappling “with what it means to see powerful women. And it still troubles us in a lot of ways, unfairly, and that expresses itself in all sorts of ways.” Okay, we get it. These are the Neanderthals who are voting for Trump.

Merkel Says Germany Won’t Stop Accepting Refugees, Muslims Chancellor disappointed by her party’s losses in Berlin state electionBy Anton Troianovski

BERLIN—German Chancellor Angela Merkel reacted to her party’s latest electoral loss by sticking to her migration policy on Monday but acknowledging, more explicitly than before, that she had made mistakes along the way.

Ms. Merkel described her center-right Christian Democratic Union’s second-place performance in Sunday’s election in the city-state of Berlin as a “very unsatisfactory, disappointing” result. She acknowledged widespread public discomfort with the influx of more than a million asylum applicants to Germany this year and last and said that she heard voters’ concerns.

“If I could, I would turn back time many, many years to be able to better prepare myself and the whole government and all those in positions of responsibility for the situation that met us rather unprepared in late summer 2015,” Ms. Merkel said at a news conference at her party’s headquarters in the German capital.

Nevertheless, Ms. Merkel—whose steadfast refusal to close the German border to asylum seekers has become a focal point in the global debate over how to treat refugees—said she would stick to her current policy. She said she was guided both by a conviction that Germany has a duty to take in people in need but also that the sort of chaotic, mass influx of people as this country experienced last year had to be prevented.

The processing of asylum requests and deportation of those rejected needed to be sped up, she said, while conditions in Africa, Syria, and elsewhere needed to be improved to reduce the numbers of refugees.

“No one wants this to be repeated, and I don’t either,” Ms. Merkel said of last year’s refugee influx at Germany’s borders. “We have learned from history.”

The Alternative for Germany, an upstart, anti-immigrant party that took 14.2% in Sunday’s Berlin vote, has called for the country to turn away asylum seekers at the border and to limit immigration by Muslims. Ms. Merkel’s sister party in the state of Bavaria, the Christian Social Union, has sought an annual cap on how many refugees Germany accepts and called for precedence to be given to immigrants from Christian countries.
ENLARGE

Ms. Merkel rejected those calls in her remarks on Monday. Blocking all refugees or all Muslims, she said, would contradict not only “the German constitution and our country’s duties under international law, but also above all the ethical foundations of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany and my personal convictions.”

The center-left Social Democrats won Sunday’s election in the city-state of Berlin with just 21.6% of the vote—the worst result for any winner in a state election in German postwar history. Both the Social Democrats and the Christian Democrats, who came in second with 17.6%, saw their worst results in a Berlin state election and lost more than 5 percentage points compared with the previous Berlin election, in 2011. CONTINUE AT SITE

Life During Wartime As terrorist attacks become more common, public tolerance for liberal pieties will wane.Bret Stephens ****

Long after I returned to the U.S. after living in Jerusalem I kept thinking about soft targets. The peak-hour commuter train that took me from Westchester to Grand Central. The snaking queue outside the security checkpoint at La Guardia Airport. The theater crowds near Times Square.

All of these places were vulnerable and most of them undefended. Why, I wondered, weren’t they being attacked?

This was in late 2004, when Jack Bauer was an American hero and memories of 9/11 were vivid. Yet friends who were nervous about boarding a flight seemed nonchalant about much more plausible threats. Maybe they expected the next attack would be on the same grand scale of 9/11. Maybe they thought the perpetrators would be supervillains in the mold of Osama bin Laden, not fried-chicken vendors like Ahmad Khan Rahimi, the suspected 23rd Street bomber.

Life in Israel had taught me differently. Between January 2002, when I moved to the country, and October 2004, when I left, there were 85 suicide bombings, which took the lives of 543 Israelis. Palestinian gun attacks claimed hundreds of additional victims. In a small country it meant that most everyone knew one of those victims, or knew someone who knew someone.

To this day the bombings are landmarks in my life. March 2002: Cafe Moment, just down the street from my apartment, where my future wife had arranged to meet a friend who canceled at the last minute. Eleven dead. September 2003: Cafe Hillel, another neighborhood hangout, where seven people were murdered, including 20-year-old Nava Applebaum and her father, David, on the eve of her wedding. January 2004: Bus No. 19 on Gaza Street, which I witnessed close-up before the ambulances arrived. Another 11 dead and 13 seriously injured, including Jerusalem Post reporter Erik Schechter.
Living in those circumstances had a strange dichotomous quality. Things were absolutely fine until they absolutely weren’t. Memories of bombings mix with other memories: jogs around the walls of the old city, weekend outings to the beach, the daily grind of editing a newspaper. The sense of normality was achieved through an effort of will and a touch of fatalism. Past a certain point, fearing for your own safety becomes exhausting. You give it up.

But it wasn’t just psychological adjustment that made life livable. Israelis recoiled after each bombing, mourned every victim, then picked themselves up. Cafe Moment reopened weeks after it was destroyed. CONTINUE AT SITE

Ahmad Khan Rahami, Suspect in New York Bombing, Known as Reserved Suspect seen as quiet young man who served fried chicken at father’s fast-food restaurant By Dan Frosch, Kate King and Zolan Kanno-Youngs see note please

“He’s just an ordinary guy”…the usual narrative….maybe it’s potty training gone wrong….nothing to do with Jihad…..rsk

ELIZABETH, N. J.—Until recently, Ahmad Khan Rahami was best-known in this blue-collar neighborhood as a quiet young man who served fried chicken at his father’s fast-food restaurant.

But on Monday morning, the 28-year-old Afghan immigrant, who some customers called “Med” or “Mad”—a nickname short for Ahmad—was on the run, suspected of planting two bombs in New York City’s Chelsea neighborhood and placing several more explosive devices around New Jersey.

After a gunbattle with police, Mr. Rahami, shot in the leg, was taken into custody in Linden, just several miles from where he grew up in the immigrant enclaves of North Jersey.
Late Monday, Union County Prosecutors charged Mr. Rahami with five counts of attempted murder of a law enforcement officer and weapons charges. Bail was set at $5.2 million.

What motivated Mr. Rahami, a naturalized U.S. citizen whose family came to this country from war-ravaged Afghanistan when he was a young child, is still murky, and authorities were trying Monday to puzzle together clues.
U.S. officials said Mr. Rahami traveled more than once to Afghanistan, but he wasn’t on a terrorist watch list. Investigators have also found he traveled to Pakistan, where he had family ties and married Asia Bibi Rahami. CONTINUE AT SITE

Israeli and American researchers have found an important link to a treatment that prevents breast cancer metastasis. By: Hana Levi Julian see video

A study led by Tel Aviv University’s Dr. Noam Shomron of the Sackler School of Medicine has discovered that delivery of a combination of genetic therapy with chemotherapy to a primary tumor site is extremely effective in preventing breast cancer metastasis.http://www.jewishpress.com/news/breaking-news/israeli-scientists-discover-link-to-prevent-breast-cancer-metastasis/2016/09/19/

The research was carried out at TAU in collaboration with Massachusetts Institute of Technology, led at MIT by Dr. Natalie Artzi, and the students of both principal investigators. Data on human genetics were provided by Prof. Eitan Friedman of TAU’s Sackler Faculty of Medicine and Chaim Sheba Medical Center.

In a TEDxTalk event in August of this year, Dr. Shomron discussed the study with a group of colleagues.

The findings were also published in the September 19, 2016 online issue of Nature Communications.

One in eight women worldwide are diagnosed annually with the disease. Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death among women.

Hana Levi Julian

About the Author: Hana Levi Julian is a Middle East news analyst with a degree in Mass Communication and Journalism from Southern Connecticut State University. A past columnist with The Jewish Press and senior editor at Arutz 7, Ms. Julian has written for Babble.com, Chabad.org and other media outlets, in addition to her years working in broadcast journalism.

A Stew Pot of Notable News : Edward Cline

I could not pass this up. It is one of the dumbest, most politically correct, and insulting pro-immigration ads that has passed my desk. It has appeared on German TV. Paul Joseph Watson reports on Infowars: A television ad currently airing in Germany invites blonde-haired, blue-eyed women to embrace “tolerance” by wearing the Muslim hijab head dress.

The commercial begins with the text “Turkish women wear the hijab,” as a veiled woman is seen with her back to the camera.

However, when she turns around it immediately becomes clear that the woman is a white, blonde-haired German, before she states, “Me too! It’s beautiful!”

“Enjoy difference – start tolerance,” states the woman.

The campaign is funded by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, as well as German taxpayers, who are forced to obtain a state television license or face prison time.

Instead of reversing its suicidal immigration policy, it appears as though Germany is now encouraging its female population to avoid the mass sex assaults committed by Muslim migrants in numerous major cities by submitting to Islam and covering themselves up.

The outfit worn by the model is about as Sharia compliant as a Halloween gypsy costume you might see at a college sorority party. Frankly, it is quite fetching. It is distinctly not Turkish or any style resembling approved Islamic norms. The woman is not wearing a hair-covering hijab. It is definitely an invitation to rape, as she is decidedly “uncovered meat,” to judge by Sharia measures of “modesty.”

If any woman appeared in Germany (or in France, or in Sweden, or in any Muslim conquered or invaded Continental country) in that kind of outfit she would be immediately surrounded by Muslim men, groped, and thrown to the ground and given the Lara Logan Cairo treatment. The costume would be ripped from her body. Then she could “enjoy the difference” and do her bit in “enjoying tolerance.” Right? If she complained, she could be punished by Merkel’s tolerance police and accused of “racism” or “Islamophobia.” “You did not start tolerance!” they’d shout.

You have to ask yourself what possessed the minds of the producers of the ad to turn out such a putrid piece of propaganda. Well, it could not have been sanity. Speaking of Turkish dress, Turks in Germany are especially brutal as they like to disfigure their European victims after the gang rapes. I’ve only seen Turkish belly dancers so attired in movies.

Please note that it is not Muslims or any of those Muslim male adult “refugees” who are being asked to “start tolerance,” although they may, as criminals, “enjoy the difference” in the act of sexual assault. It is German women who are being urged to submit to Islam by voluntarily covering themselves up and staying out of sight. I would be as welcome to an Obama or Hillary Clinton rally dressed as Uncle Sam or sporting a “Make America Great Again” cap. A German woman would stand a similar chance of non-molestation in any Muslim “no-go” neighborhood. I’d be beaten up by #Never Trump morons and social justice warrior thugs.

On another front, “refugee” champion George Clooney, who owns about a dozen million-dollar mansions around the world, including at Lake Como, Italy, is reluctant to allow migrants anywhere near that personal refuge from reality. As with other members of the establishment “elite,” Clooney wishes to insulate himself from the destructive consequences of his policies. Dealing with the rapes, robberies, and other culturally “enriching” habits of savages is not for him, just for the hoi polloi, otherwise known as the “deplorables.” Hillary Clinton unintentionally handed Donald Trump the perfect meme by calling his supporters “a basket case of deplorables.”

Breitbart reported on July 13th:

The migration of hundreds of people from Arab nations, Africa, and Asia was triggered following the Swiss government’s decision to close its southern border with Italy.

Now, waiting for smugglers to lead them into northern Europe, groups of migrants are camping out in tattered tents around the Lake Como resort.Flimsy dwellings, clothes and trash are scattered around the Northern Italian town’s railway station, where dozens of new families and refugees have flocked….

The migrant camp is, oddly enough, just steps away from the front door of immigration activists’ George and Amal Clooney’s multi-million dollar lakeside mansion in Lake Como, according to the Daily Mail.

The couple was recently pictured drinking tequila while watching fireworks on a boat near the property alongside their close friend Bill Murray.

The Clooneys have taken refuge from the Hollywood spotlight in their summer home in Italy for years. Last year, Page Six reported that Clooney was mulling putting his Lake Como villa on the market due to ever-present and intrusive paparazzi.

It is unclear if the recent deluge of refugees pouring into town will have an affect on Clooney’s decision to sell or not.

The power couple has spent some time talking about the migrant crisis. The Clooneys met privately with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in February and praised and thanked her for her leadership during the crisis….

George has previously described Trump as a “xenophobic fascist” who wants to “ban Muslims from the country.”

I guess Clooney is hoping we don’t label him as a “xenophobic fascist,” as well, for thinking about selling his Lake Como mansion to put some distance between him and his adopted “children.” No, we won’t call him that. Instead, we’ll call him a hypocritical pull-peddler and social justice warrior who is reluctant to rub shoulders with the “refugees” or risk having Amal groped or worse by other culture “enrichers.”

Amal Clooney, the British-Lebanese human rights attorney who married George in 2014, slammed Republican presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump this past April, saying his immigration stance and promise to build a wall on the Mexican border do not represent “U.S. values.”

George and Amal know as much about “U.S. values” as I do about phrenology or dialectical materialism.

That also goes for the MSM. It has abandoned all pretence of reporting any news concerning Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton and adopted a “what we say goes” philosophy of slander and puffery. It may not pass as “truth,” but who’s to say what truth is? It’s whatever we want it to be, and if you don’t believe it then you’re a racist, xenophobic, anti-Islam pig. Never mind that Hillary is sodden with corruption, chargeable felonious offenses, and treason, we, the MSM, believe she knows all about “U.S. values” and we want this beast to sit in the White House and guide this country to the oblivion it so richly deserves, to continue the destruction implemented by Barack Obama. We stick our tongues out at objectivity and truth.

Justin Raimondo of the LA Times reported in his August 2nd article, “To fight Trump, journalists have dispensed with objectiviity.” He asks:

Why are the rules of journalism being rewritten this election year?

At The UN War Is Peace By Herbert London

As part of United Nations Week in New York there is a much heralded Day of Peace. This day has been announced at the moment weapons are converted into plowshares. The problem, however, is no one mentioned this to militant Palestinians. These people welcomed the week with four terror attacks: two stabbings, one car ramming, and an incident in which rocks and glass bottles were thrown at an Israeli bus.

More than 300 terror attacks have taken place in Israel this year, killing 40 and wounding more than 500. A spokesman for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas reacted to the attacks by condemning Israeli soldiers for shooting the attackers. P.A.’s criticism of Israeli self-defense raises obvious questions about everything from real motivation to any commitment to stability. Abbas has consistently refused to condemn terror attacks. In fact, he has visited the families of terrorists and told one group of mothers, “your sons are martyrs.”

Despite a movement afoot among several member states in the Security Council to reorganize an independent state of Palestine in Samaria and Judea, normalization is routinely condemned by P.A. leaders and those who advocate peace are denounced as traitors. Even though the Oslo Accords “called for the end of incitement and the encouragement of a process of normalization,” it has been ignored in practice by Abbas and his followers. Any overture at reconciliation has been rebuked.

Alas, the Palestinians are held hostage by the militants. Children are educated to hate Jews and Arab cities in the West Bank have become centers for destructive plots against Israel. Hamas extremists intimidate any overtures for moderation, despite their hatred of the P.A. For the extremists there is only one solution, a Palestinian state from the Jordan to the Mediterranean.

Recently the Israeli Defense Force, recognizing the stockpiling of 150,000 missiles in Lebanon, issued a report indicating that as many as 10,000 missiles could evade anti-missile defenses killing as many as 400 Israelis citizens. Should Hamas, Hezbollah and Fatah attack simultaneously dozens of missiles could strike Tel Aviv, notwithstanding David’s Sling and other sophisticated anti-missile defenses.

The Mulish Stupidity of Clinton-Obama Counterterrorism By Andrew C. McCarthy

As Rich notes, Hillary Clinton is essentially accusing Donald Trump of treason on the theory that his rhetoric aids and abets ISIS in recruiting Muslims because it affirms their narrative of a war between Islam and non-Muslims. This is as stupid as would be a claim that Mrs. Clinton is guilty of treason — as opposed to mere idiocy — because, by refusing to acknowledge the Islamic doctrinal roots of jihadist terror, she and her policymaking cohort blind us to the motivation, objectives, and strategies of our terrorist enemies.

As I have previously recounted, when I prosecuted the Blind Sheikh’s terrorist cell in the mid Nineties, the defense lawyers for the jihadists – who sounded just like today’s anti-anti-terrorist progressives – claimed that their clients had been lured into terrorist activity by U.S. government policy and by the enticements of a government informant who spouted Islam-against-the-world rhetoric. In response to this fatuous contention, we put a very simple question to the jury: “What would it take to turn you into a mass-murderer?” What policy could be so bad, what rhetorical us-against-them flourishes so inspiring, that a person would join the terrorist cause and commit acts of barbarism?

When a person with a modicum of common sense considers such a question, he or she knows that there could be no such policy. There is no controversial policy or figure that could cause a person to become a terrorist – not Gitmo, not harsh interrogation tactics, not Bosnia, not Abu Ghaib, not torched Korans, not anti-Muslim videos, not Donald Trump . . . or George Bush . . . or Dick Cheney . . . or Bill Clinton . . . or Pope John Paul II (the latter two of whom jihadists plotted to kill in the mid-Nineties).

Of course, all of these policies and people are exploited pretextually by jihadists in order to justify themselves and to play the West like a fiddle. But it’s all a side show. A person joins the jihad only if the person adopts jihadist ideology. A person is moved to commit mass-murder – an act that requires depraved indifference to the lives and the humanity of his targets – because there is no ideology as powerful as religious ideology, as the notion that God Himself has commanded the aggression because the infidels offend Him by their infidelity.