Displaying posts published in

June 2017

IMMIGRATION, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Bill Martin The Love Song of a Grateful ‘Wog’

By on June 20th, 2017

“Multiculturalism” — if there is such a thing — ought to end with the first-generation immigrant. The only honest alternative is to depart.
I came to this wonderful country from Hungary, fleeing my homeland one jump ahead of the Russians. Cricket, inedible bread, the bizarre ‘football’ codes — they were the negatives but didn’t amount to much cause for complaint. Australia, though, how much do I love you?

All the current controversy concerning immigration, multiculturalism and integration stirred in me a compulsion to share my firsthand experience with all and sundry. Having set foot on Australian soil just over 60 years ago as an unaccompanied 17-year-old refugee without a word of English should suffice as my qualification to do so.

When the Red Army of the Soviet Union crushed the Hungarian anti-communist revolution in the European autumn of 1956, tens of thousands of us fled to Austria, the only non-communist country bordering my homeland. As I was leaving, my wonderful father, with tears in his eyes, put his hands over my head in a gesture of blessing and after a brief pause said, “Go to Australia, it’s a young country”. I remain forever grateful for that propitious advice. He passed away some years ago, as did my mother, but both very much alive when I and my young family visited and stayed with them for nine months in 1971.

Having grown up under the brutal oppression of Soviet communism, I was woefully ignorant of the world at large. Even now it is difficult for me to recall that I didn’t know English was the language of the country I would make my new home until I was aboard the ship bringing me here. My introduction came in the language classes for beginners offered to us by Australian immigration officers. The only non-Communist history I had been taught was a bit of ancient history, a little about the French Revolution and some Hungarian history. The rest was all about the glorious Soviet Union. I realised only later, a little at a time, just how extremely ignorant I had been. I continue realising it to this day.

I can’t recall a single unpleasant experience after disembarking in Melbourne on the February 10, 1957, but it sure was a strange place. Nice and good but strange in myriad of ways, and some things were outright wrong. Nothing serious, mind you, more in the way of being amusing, although occasionally annoying and frustrating.

Like most New Australians – a very proper and fashionable term at the time – most of my social life for the first few years was within the expatriate community, in my case Adelaide’s, where I ended up courtesy of family friends already established there. I spent some time at the Bonegilla immigration camp and picking grapes in New South Wales, later boarding with Hungarian families, working for a Hungarian boss, playing in a Hungarian basketball team, barracking for my Hungarian soccer team and dancing at the annual Hungarian ball.

Even though we were happy and satisfied in our new country, amongst the favourite pastimes of the Hungarian fraternity was knocking Australia and Australians. Not in a viscous, nasty manner, just ridiculing their ways. Rugby, the carrying of an elongated ball under the arm and kicking it only occasionally yet calling it “football”, was the most hilariously ridiculous of all. Football was played primarily with the feet and the ball was round. All sensible people knew that! As for golf, the hitting of a tiny white ball, then walking after it in order to hit it again, was absolutely barmy. We called golfers the harmlessly insane. (Golf had been designated a degenerate pastime of the bourgeois by the Comrades). As for cricket, the inanity of that was beyond comprehension.

And, oh, the short-back-and-sides haircut! Wasn’t that risible? We only went to European barbers who knew how to cut hair properly. As for bread, you could have any sort as long as it was a white tank loaf inedible after 24 hours. No wonder it had to be freshly delivered every day. We got our bread, Vienna loaves, as well as many other food items, from the handful of specialty delicatessens selling “continental food”. The cuisine at the boarding house was strictly Hungarian, no greasy lamb and mutton for us. And we drank wine with dinner, supplied by a Hungarian wine merchant who home-delivered it in flagons. Australians called it “plonk” and considered it fit only for winos who then slept it off in the park. There was also the matter of imperial measurements and currency, topped off by traffic running on the wrong side of the road. Need I go on? I could, but no need. Suffice to say that Australia was a good country with good people who had an awful lot of strange ways about them. They had a lot to learn and we were here to teach them.

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

UPenn Students Study ‘Denial and Unconscious Bias’ in Summer Course By Toni Airaksinen

By on June 20th, 2017

Students at the University of Pennsylvania will learn to confront their “denial and unconscious bias” surrounding race, gender, sexuality, and other minority statuses during a new course offered this summer.

The class, “Diversity and Inclusion: Strategies to Confront Bias and Enhance Collaboration in 21st Century Organizations,” will be co-taught by Dr. Aviva Legatt, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and Harvey Floyd, an organizational psychologist who works in leadership development.

“In the workplace, it is inevitable that difference between individuals will cause conflict—whether explicit or beneath the surface,” the course description says. “Denial and unconscious bias will prevent issues from being addressed.”

While decades of pop-psychology has argued that unconscious bias is a major influence on how white people treat black people, or how heterosexual people treat the gay community, new research has actually found scarce evidence to prove this link.

Gregory Mitchell, a professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, reviewed the most current research on the issue earlier this year and concluded:

Seventeen years after introduction of the [test that measures unconscious bias], only a handful of studies have examined the influence of implicit bias on real personnel decisions, and those studies have provided inconsistent and at best weak evidence that implicit bias has any impact on employment decisions.

So, why is this Ivy League class predicated on an outdated theory that has been criticized by numerous researchers in the last few years? Good question.

Nevertheless, eager students will learn to fight their “denial and unconscious bias” through a number of tactics in the class, including through writing personal reflections about their own biases and talking to their classmates about them.

While Professor Legatt declined to share a copy of the syllabus with PJ Media, she previously co-taught an online course dedicated to “Optimizing Diversity on Teams,” which taught business leaders “specific strategies to get buy-in for their diversity initiatives” and how to fight the “biases that can harm these efforts.”

During the course, Legatt identified a variety of ways that “hidden bias” can creep up in the workplace, such as “offering to help women when the help is not asked for” and giving women easier, “less-challenging,” work assignments. CONTINUE AT SITE

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Is Syria Wagging the Russian Dog? By Stephen Bryen

By on June 20th, 2017

The U.S. has shot down a Syrian Su-22 near Ja’Din and close to the strategic dam at Al Tabqa. The Sukhoi 22M series, the model in the Syrian inventory, is an old and relatively slow aircraft primarily used for bombing targets. First produced in 1970, the Russians improved the model over the twenty years it was manufactured (until 1990). It is entirely noncompetitive against top U.S. jet fighters including the F-18 that shot down the Syrian Sukhoi.

It is unlikely the Syrian pilot had any warning before being shot out of the sky. Indeed, the warning issue is what is at the heart of the dispute between Russia and the United States, and it may tell us more than the Russians would like us to know about their unstable relationship with Syria.

According to the Combined Joint Task Force official report, at around 4:30 P.M. Syria time, there was a Syrian attack on Ja’Din which was held by the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF. The SDF is “multi-ethnic and multi-religious alliance of Kurdish, Arab, Assyrian, Armenian, Turkmen and Circassian militias.” The SDF took a number of casualties before Coalition aircraft chased the Syrians away. Immediately on the heels of the Syrian attack, the U.S. made use of what is called the deconfliction hotline and called the Russians. A little more than two hours later, another Su-22 was bombing in the same area and this is the plane that the U.S. shot down. There was no further call to the hotline, and while not precisely stated it is nearly certain that the Su-22 was not warned in any way by the approaching F-18.

The U.S. action is consistent with the agreements reached with the Russians. However, the Russians are claiming the U.S. did not use the hotline. Without saying so, they are likely treating the second incident as one that was separate from the first. Of course, this is something of a reach on their part, but it is probably the only response the Russians could have given under the circumstances because the Syrians went ahead with another airstrike on their own after the deconfliction warning was initially given.

Why would the Syrians do this? It boils down to an argument between the Russians and the Syrians over how to treat the Kurds. Last year, the Russians sponsored a peace proposal for the Kurds that would have given them autonomy inside a new Syrian constitution that ultimately would have divided the country into cantons, keeping the appearance of central Syrian Alawite control but in reality changing the nature of the existing unitary state into something different and perhaps acceptable to all sides in the conflict. Moscow flew in a delegation of experts from the Foreign Ministry and Defense Ministry to meet with the regime and Kurdish representatives. It appears to have been Moscow’s view, which is largely President Putin’s idea, that this solution would achieve a number of important goals: move the peace process forward and separate the Syrian Kurds from the Americans. Apparently, the Russians failed to do their homework, for while the Syrian Kurds appeared to be onboard, the Assad regime was contemptuously against the deal and rejected it out of hand, the result being the Moscow delegation was sent home emptyhanded or worse. The current Syrian regime attack on the Kurds near Ja’Din should be seen exactly in this context.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Gone with the wind? Victor Sharpe

By on June 20th, 2017

Winston Churchill repeatedly warned the British Nation of what would happen before that fateful act of appeasement towards Hitler and the Nazis by the British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, took place at Munich. As Churchill feared, it inexorably led to the catastrophe of World War Two.

Churchill’s words ring eerily true for all of us – be it in Britain, the United States or what is left of Western Europe – as we now face the rising peril of unbridled Islamo-Nazi supremacy and infiltration. His words most certainly rang unnervingly true as we witnessed and endured the appalling political correctness and appeasement towards Islam during the eight long years of the Barack Hussein Obama presidency.

It was desolating to witness the descent of the United States of America; a victorious nation that truly was – and is – a shining beacon in an often dark and frightening world but was fundamentally being changed for the worse by a foreboding presence in the White House.

But political correctness and the insanity of multiculturalism still continues, led by the European Union and by so many Western failed democracies as they act like dhimmies towards the barbaric Islamic scourge of jihad and terror that threatens to destroy all that is left of freedom and Judeo-Christian civilization.

We will soon mark the 16 year old anniversary of that other fateful day in September, 2001; the day when a horrific atrocity in the name of Allah was perpetrated against two of America’s icons: the Pentagon and the World Trade Center.

The barbarity of 9/11 in which so many innocents died was an act of utter evil. But an enfeebled world, shackled by the unholy trinity of political correctness, multiculturalism and diversity, largely failed then as now to confront that evil, giving future historians much to contemplate.

So here are Churchill’s words that now can so sadly be applied to what is left of much of the United States, Britain and the West:

“I have watched this famous island descending incontinently, fecklessly, down the stairway which leads to a dark gulf. It is a fine broad stairway at the beginning, but after a bit the carpet ends.

“A little farther on there are only flagstones, and a little farther on still these break beneath your feet … if mortal catastrophe should overtake the British Nation, historians a thousand years hence will still be baffled by the mystery of our affairs.

“They will never understand how it was that a victorious nation, with everything in hand, suffered itself to be brought low, and cast away all that had been gained by measureless sacrifice and absolute victory – gone with the wind!”

Donald Trump is now the duly elected president, a principled man, an American patriot, who desires to return America to that shining beacon in a world gone mad. But he is confronted by a veritable and relentless campaign of hate to remove him from office through the machinations of an increasingly extreme leftwing Democrat party and a mainstream media that spews fake news ad nauseam.

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WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

NATO’s Stronger Baltic Force Riles Russia A Canadian military deployment completes NATO’s buildup in the Baltic region, even as Russia says such moves undermine security By Julian E. Barnes

By on June 20th, 2017

ADAZI, Latvia—The North Atlantic Treaty Organization said its deterrent force is fully in place in the Baltic area with the addition of a Canadian-led battle group in Latvia, enhancing deployments criticized by Russia.

A ceremony on Monday, featuring parading troops from Latvia, Canada, Poland, Italy, Spain, Slovenia and Albania, marked complete deployment of the fourth and final alliance battle group to the Baltic region. In all, NATO has positioned some 4,500 troops in Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Poland.

Allied and Russian forces have both been building up in the Baltic region. The deployments have raised the risk of miscalculation, some analysts said, but both sides have said they are necessary defensive initiatives.

The U.S. has deployed a tank brigade to Central and Eastern Europe and is conducting exercises in the Baltic Sea region. This month, the U.S. flew B-2 stealth bombers to Europe for what American military officials called a demonstration of reassurance for allies. The U.S. has also deployed other bombers and Army units for exercises in the Baltic Sea area.

Russia, too, is enlarging its forces. It is creating a larger permanent military presence in the region, including missiles and new army units, moves it says counter the NATO deployments. Russia and Belarus are also preparing for a large military exercise in September.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said he didn’t see any “imminent threat” to NATO forces or the Baltic states. He also said he hoped to convene a meeting between NATO ambassadors and their Russian counterpart so the two sides could brief each other on coming exercises.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Victory for The Slants The Supremes defend speech that offends and rein in the trial bar.

By on June 20th, 2017

The Supreme Court has done some of its best work in recent years on the First Amendment, and that continued with an 8-0 decision Monday protecting unpopular speech. The Justices ruled that an Asian-American rock band called The Slants can’t be denied a federal trademark because the government fears the name might offend someone.

Simon Tam, front man for The Slants, sought to register the name with the Patent and Trademark Office as a rebuke to those who use it as a pejorative. The government denied the trademark, citing a Lanham Act provision that bans trademarks that “may disparage . . . persons, living or dead, institutions, beliefs, or national symbols.” The Court ruled that this clause is unconstitutional (Matal v. Tam).

The idea that the government has an interest in suppressing viewpoints that offend “strikes at the heart of the First Amendment,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote. “Speech that demeans on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, age, disability, or any other similar ground is hateful; but the proudest boast of our free speech jurisprudence is that we protect the freedom to express ‘the thought that we hate.’”

The government claimed trademark registration is a form of government free speech, but that was also dismissed by Justice Alito. “If a trademark qualifies as government speech,” he wrote, the government “is babbling prodigiously and incoherently,” endorsing competing products and making contradictory statements.

The effort to “cleanse” commercial speech of any offense is also a nonstarter since there are many kinds of merchandise that “disparages prominent figures or groups and the line between commercial and non-commercial speech is not always clear.” Think anti-Trump T-shirts.

Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote a concurrence making a useful point about how government could abuse such leverage over speech. “A law that can be directed against speech found offensive to some portion of the public can be turned against minority and dissenting views to the detriment of all,” Justice Kennedy wrote. “The First Amendment does not entrust that power to the government’s benevolence.”

In other good news, the Justices on Monday continued to police legal forum shopping. In Bristol-Myers Squibb v. Superior Court of California, the Justice ruled 8-1 that California courts don’t have jurisdiction to decide injury claims for some 592 out-of-state plaintiffs when the defendant company isn’t based there and the injuries didn’t occur there.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Watch Out: U.S. Trying to Criminalize Free Speech – Again by Judith Bergman

By on June 20th, 2017

The law already prohibits violence and threats of violence, and law enforcement authorities are supposed to prosecute those — intimidation, destruction, damage, vandalism, simple and aggravated assault. What “hate crimes” are not already covered by the law?

Why would the House of Representatives find it necessary to make such redundant statements, if not in order to redefine the concept of a hate crime? Perhaps by including “hate speech”? The current resolution includes most of the major ethnic and religious minorities in the United States, so it will have a far better chance of passing, as it will more easily fool Representatives into thinking that the contents of the resolution are harmless.

Would it not be appropriate for the politicians sponsoring and voting for these resolutions first of all to find out what drives the organizations responsible for drafting them? The Investigative Project on Terrorism has authored a damning 88-page report about the Muslim Public Affairs Council. American politicians do not seem to have taken much interest in it.

On April 4, 2017, the US Senate passed Senate Resolution 118, “Condemning hate crime and any other form of racism, religious or ethnic bias, discrimination, incitement to violence, or animus targeting a minority in the United States”. The resolution was drafted by a Muslim organization, EmgageUSA (formerly EmergeUSA) and the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC). On April 6, 2017, EmgageUSA wrote the following on their Facebook page:

“Thanks to the hard work of Senator Marco Rubio, Senator Dianne Feinstein, Senator Susan Collins and Senator Kamala Harris we have achieved the approval of Senate Resolution 118, an anti-hate crimes bill drafted by Emerge-USA. It is days like this that Americans are reminded of this country’s founding principles: equal opportunity, freedom, justice. We are proud to help support the protection of these rights #amoreperfectunion #theamericandream”.

Senate Resolution 118 calls on

“…Federal law enforcement officials, working with State and local officials… to expeditiously investigate all credible reports of hate crimes and incidents and threats against minorities in the United States and to hold the perpetrators of those crimes, incidents, or threats accountable and bring the perpetrators to justice; encourages the Department of Justice and other Federal agencies to work to improve the reporting of hate crimes; and… encourages the development of an interagency task force led by the Attorney General to collaborate on the development of effective strategies and efforts to detect and deter hate crime in order to protect minority communities…”

The resolution refers to hate crimes against Muslims, Jews, African-Americans, Hindus, and Sikhs and was sponsored by Senator Kamala Harris and co-sponsored by Senator Marco Rubio, Senator Dianne Feinstein, and Senator Susan Collins.

On April 6, almost the exact same text was introduced as House Resolution H.Res. 257, “Condemning hate crime and any other form of racism, religious or ethnic bias, discrimination, incitement to violence, or animus targeting a minority in the United States”. A House Resolution can be reintroduced as legislation.

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