Ideological Hotchpotch -- I told you so!

At the sound of the word "freedom" Americans tend to react with an appreciative Pavlovian drool. Recently, a new German party named "Die Freiheit" (Freiheit=freedom/liberty) is triggering this effect. The party hold its inaugural meeting on October 28 in Berlin. Chairman is René Stadtkewitz, a member of the Berlin parliament who used to belong to the parliamentary group of the Christian Democratic Union until his expulsion some weeks ago for hosting the Dutch politician Geert Wilders. (We reported.)

Stadtkewitz is clearly modeling his party after Geert Wilders' "Partij voor de Vrijheid" (Party for Freedom) with a strong focus on the threat an ever-increasing Islamisation poses to the West and a pronounced solidarity with Israel.

For what else does it stand? 28 "core demands" (Kernforderungen) taken from the party platform, may shed some light on it:

1. for a direct democracy after the Swiss model

2. for a new constitution for Germany -- decided directly by the people

3. for better voting rights by referenda

4. for the election of the President by the people

5. against exertion of political influence by the political parties via the media

6. for the sanction of tax-wasting by politicians

7. for the protection of the unborn life

8. for a salary for the parent who stays at home to look after the children

9. for a child-related bonus to the pensions of parents

10. for a flexible retirement age, depending on health and job performance

11. for a national school system and national education standards

12. for the support of teachers by so-called co-teachers

13. for performance-orientated dole-money with the entire career as assesment base

14. for the introduction and realisation of the "workfare concept", i.e. charitable work instead of welfare money without return service

15. against local business tax, for a reform of the municipal budgets

16. against car tax, for car toll

17. for the inviolable dignity of the animal - no cruelty and killing out of religious and traditional reasons

18. for non-discrimination of complimentary treatment methods -- recognized by the health insurance

19. for traffic light labelling on food products to make it easier for the consumer to identify the ingredients

20. for a modernisation of the health insurance system aimed at a statutory insurance for all citizens with freedom to choose (i.e. private insurance)

21. for the establishment of the Kirsten-Heisig-Scheme in all federal states

22. for better infrastructure for and against staff cuts of the police force

23. for a zero-tolerance strategy in the case of Islamic influence, no creeping sharia

24. for a stop of immigration now, at least until a solution to the integration problems has been found

25. for new guidelines for residence permits for family members of migrants

26. for strict public participation at mosque building projects

27. for the deprivation of the German citizenship in cases of terrorist activities and felony

28. for Europe as a contract between independent partners, against EU-dictatorship from Brussels

From the laudable, via the indispensable to the sensible to the superfluous to the ridiculous and finally to the potentially dangerous. See Americans? They are NO "conservatives". Everybody who demands "animal rights" has lost any credibility, generally and specifically as conservative. As far as points 18 and 19 are concerned, one could as well vote "green". And if I see a demand for "no cruelty and killing out of traditional reasons" all my alarm bells start ringing and I smell a hunting/shooting ban. It's the old German besottedness with "nature", pretty pictures, romanticism, idealism, rising ity ugly head again. "Conservatism" has no place here.

At least a third of those "core demands" have no place in a party platform anyway and one wonders whether Stadtkewitz (who is a decent enough fellow) and his team are unable to pay an editor or whether they REALLY think this is something on which some common understanding can be built.

The Slave Driverette of Modernity

Margot Kässmann, ex-bishopette of Hannover and ex-"chair" of the council of EKD and thus the highest-ranking of Protestant bishops of both sexes in Germany, retired in February, following a drunk driving incident.

The -- inevitable -- demise was taken as a sign of human strength as well as the drunken joyride was taken as an endearing sign of being "just human". She is an expert of and always appealing to basic human stupidity and laziness, for example when she was shameless enough to equate radicalism, religious zeal and potential danger of Muslim and Christian converts and when she draw a big slime trail right through the Scripture when she twisted it to justify the breach of her marital vows. This bishopette, notabene, is divorced, another matter that proves to her adoring followership how cute and endearingly human she is.

Three months and presumably one withdrawal treatment later, the demoted bishopette-soon-to-be-papette made a triumphant return to public life and was received at the oecumenic church congress (Kirchentag) at Munich last week with standing ovations. Serves the Catholic Church right for supporting something that starts with "oecumen". As a staunch opponent of the war in Afghanistan, she spoke about the transformation of a weapon of war into a sign of hope, long bow, rainbow and all that. Yes, we yawned too.

At a sermon in the gallant Cathedral of Our Dear Lady, Munich Archbishop’s own cathedral, no less, Kässmann warned against "demonising" birth control. "We may, however, see it as a gift from God as well" and, with her very own idiosyncratic ability to travel on a slime trail through theology, concluded "for it is about the preservation of life, of freedom, which doesn’t have to degenerate at once into pornography, as much as the sexualisation of our society is, of course, a problem." Can you stomach more? "It’s about love without fear and about responsible parenthood. And for women "it’s about concern for their own lives and those of their own children." Well, whatever. You get the general idea.

Cheers! (Yes I know, that was cheap.)

Dear Catholic Church, your son G. K. Chesterton once said: "The Catholic Church is the only thing which saves a man from the degrading slavery of being a child of his age." If you want to survive, spiritually and physically, run for the hills at the first sound of "oecumen...", and let the rest have a jolly good time with Ms. Kässmann.

Cross-posted at TMDSC.

What will happen if an atheist makes moral judgements?

This:

Pat Condell is an atheist, who makes factually accurate and acerbicly witty videos about Islam and its threat to the West which can be found at YouTube. In one of his latest he tells us that he finally read the Koran to find that there is a sura saying something like (I paraphrase) "You have your religion and I have mine". On the strength of that, after three years and 65 of angry videos, he states at 5:32 that Islam "could have been beautiful" weren't it for those evil "Islamic scholars". If any Muslim would only read the Koran "what a different and vibrant religion it might be".

I am sorry that Condell has lost my respect, sorry for myself, that is, because it doesn't matter to him, even if he knew. It was my mistake to think here we have an atheist who is not intellectually, morally and ethically corrupt. If he was brought up as a Catholic, as he tells us, he is bound to have read the New Testament, but obviously, the many passages there that would have told him about the INHERENT, if not always practised, beauty of the Christian faith escaped his attention. Why?

How can he believe "scholars" have "twisted" Islam into what it is. Why did he overlook all the violent content in the Koran, yet cherrypicked one, seemingly tolerant, passage. How is it possible that "something ... could have been beautiful" that was created by a rapist, child molester and murderer. How can Pat Condell, with all his shrewd analysis, use the cliché of the many peaceful Muslims who have been betrayed by radical Islam?

I haven't read "Mein Kampf". I tried to, but it bored and embarrassed me, and as I don't think one can learn anything from it (the mechanisms of the Nazi movement are quite clear and well researched) and as I don't share the average German's fascination with The Beloved Führer, I haven't to this day. However, I am perfectly sure that there will be the odd short passage that, taken out of context, makes good advice. Now what about cherrypicking that, to then state that National Socialism "could have been beneficial" weren't it for those evil "Nazi party people". If any German had only read "Mein Kampf", "what a different and vibrant society Germany might have been".

Far fetched? But no! Different of Mohammed, Hitler didn't even set out as a murderer already (in fact he never personally killed anybody).The comparison is perfectly apt and reveals the entire madness, not just of Condell, but of all the "many peaceful Muslims who are being betrayed by Islamism" delusionists.

About 'amour propre' and 'faire référence'

Or: Where Are The Thinking Little Blogger's Role Models

A week or so ago Gudrun Eussner made us aware that Andrew Bostom accuses his erstwhile friend Robert Spencer of plagiarism. Shortly after, Lawrence Auster picked it up at VFR and added a photo to his entry where the three Eternal Pillars of Islam Critique look like what they finally turned out to be, a bunch of trolls. Any doubts we may have had about that so far have been safely removed.

The funny-ha-ha level on which Bostom deals with such a grave accusation is something we might expect at a blog like -- say -- this one, but not at a paragon's of serious Islam critique. When all is said and done, the only concrete accusation boils down to Spencer using a Maimonides-quote without crediting Bostom, who had found and used it first. Some of the other alleged, and rather unspecified, transgressions happened, mind you, in 2008.

All this said, there can't be the slightest doubt that the reason for Bostom's undignified, unsubstantiated and over-the-top attack on a former friend and ally is something totally and utterly unrelated to "Islam critique", and that is where this blog entry could end. "Andy" is certainly not the first and not the last paragon of something who unmasks himself in the end as an assclown. However, Lawrence Auster makes us aware that there are further aspects to this when he chides Spencer of narcissism (the pathological variant, no less!) because the latter stated that what Bostom did to him was akin to "give fuel to the Islamic supremacists and their enablers". Frankly, I fail to see that, and while Spencer is not the epitome of Islam critique, he is for many, and for many little bloggers as well, a figure to look up to as an expert and to go to for reference. Whether that is merited or not is a different question. It just is so and such a vile, basically unfounded and unfair attack might indeed give fuel to jihadists. Auster then goes on to add a hefty dose of Luke 18:9-12 to his criticism, which is a pity.

Si tacuisses, and all that, looking further into the matter, it becomes patently clear that Spencer (Geller isn't even in the picture) is really painfully miscast for this role, at least for a little blogger who does his (or her) homework. Case in point:

This is a common species of wishful thinking and willful blindness. Its proponents imagine that Islam is a Religion of Peace(TM) with no anti-Semitic elements (you know the drill, Islam reveres the "People of the Book," etc.), but it was corrupted by the Nazis. Thus all one needs to do to solve this problem is to eliminate the Nazi elements and call Muslims back to the true teachings of the Qur'an, and the jihad will end. How wonderful! Except it's completely fictional, and based on ignorance or denial of the jihad doctrine, Islamic supremacism, and Qur'anic anti-Semitism.

Note also what my estimable and indefatigable colleague and collaborator Pamela Geller has revealed about the Mufti of Jerusalem's role in the Holocaust, and his own radio broadcasts.

I am not a native English speaker, so my first thought was that is MUST BE my fault. He really wouldn't have said that Pamela Geller revealed something about the Mufti of Jerusalem's role in the Holocaust, and his radio broadcasts. So did he? Lets have a closer look:

Note also what my estimable and indefatigable colleague and collaborator Pamela Geller has revealed about the Mufti of Jerusalem's role in the Holocaust, and his own radio broadcasts

So she didn't publish it, she didn't make it known to a wider public, she didn't introduce the Mufti, his doings and his role in the Holocaust to her readership, no -- she REVEALED it. Merriam Webster informs us about the meaning of the verb "to reveal":

1 : to make known through divine inspiration
2 : to make (something secret or hidden) publicly or generally known
3 : to open up to view : display

Yes he did.

Fact is, this little blogger introduced the Mufti Hadj-Amin El Husseini and his role in the Holocaust to her readership, first on Friday, May 19, 2006 (Child Molesters Comparing Notes) then again on Saturday, May 20, 2006 (A Very Practical and Attractive Religion for Soldiers) and later repeatedly, the last time on December 17, 2009.

I relied on, and quoted, several sources already existing in the Internet, among them Tell The Children The Truth, La bibliothèque proche-orientale or Kosovo and the Holocaust: Falsifying History and ISLAM UNDER THE SWASTIKA: The Grand Mufti and the Nazi Protectorate of Bosnia-Hercegovina, 1941-1945, both by Carl Savich. At the time of my first entries about the Mufti, I advised my readers, too: "... or do a simple Google search, as the sources are too numerous to mention here." Here are the results of a Google search performed today including the parameters "mufti" and "broadcast". "Revealed", eh?

So what did Geller say? The link Spencer provides above leads to one of her usual shrill, PMS-ing and self-serving posts. Her (uncredited) quotes can be traced back, for example, to the website "The Empress' ooops... The Emperor's Clothes", and to the books "The Nazi Connection to Islamic Terrorism: Adolf Hitler and Haj Amin Al-Husseini" by Chuck Morse and "Icon of Evil: Hitler's Mufti and the Rise of Radical Islam" by David Dalin, John Rothmann and Alan Dershowitz.

Right! Pamela Geller "revealed" the truth about Hadj-Amin, invented the wheel and devised the Wonderbra. (Sorry, I couldn't resist!) And what that Robert Spencer makes I better don't say because even this blog has a lower bound to its tone, besides, we don't want to give fuel to jihadists and their enablers (ha ha). Is this "plagiarism"? Of course not. A term like that would lead us in the realms of academia or at least serious journalism. It is plain, simple and unabashed Internet attention whoredom on a par with some pimpled teens' bragging at an Internet social network about their sexual derrings-do. What little bloggers need is not a role model to look up to, but some clay-feet detector and a lot more self-reliance.

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Here are some of my earlier Foo Foo (or is it Kermit?) and Miss Piggy posts:
Foo Foo and Miss Piggy Go Islam Critics
'German Patriot' Converts to Islam
Loose Apes with Razors
The Unembarrassables
Innocents Abroad

More (de) Wintry Linguistics

In response to my blog entry Defining Down the Dangerous, which was cross-posted at Politically Incorrect (English version), Leon de Winter sent a comment to the PI team that merits further attention. As the incriminated bit (the critique of LdW's article at WSJ) was neither authored by the PI team nor by me, who only quoted it, I passed the comment on to Lawrence Auster who wrote it. He replied:

Leon de Winter denies that he defended Islam in his article on the Wilders trial

Nora Brinker (the Editrix) writes from Germany:

I recently wrote a blog entry about the Dutch writer Leon de Winter, which was triggered by your critique of his article at the Wall Street Journal on the Geert Wilders trial but went beyond it. My blog entry was published by the English section of the biggest of all German blogs (overall, not just the biggest among political blogs) Politically Incorrect, to which I am a regular contributor. Today, the PI-Team forwarded de Winter's reply to me (see below).

I do not communicate out of principle with people who write "r u" when they mean "are you" (isn't it amazing that even supposed intellectual heavyweights resort to "kiddie" Internet jargon?), but I thought the reply might be interesting to you because it was your interpretation to which he objected. I guess the rest of the article went over his head.

De Winter writes interesting novels, I even liked one or two of them. How that man can be quite that bigoted and plainly stupid (he seems to think that PI is a monolithic block) is a revelation for me.

Best regards,
Nora Brinker

Leon de Winter comment at blog PI:

Leon de Winter

Message

I stumbled upon this blog--you are totally incorrect in interpreting my piece as pro-islam--r u nuts? You know my pieces, you know my points of view--so don't try to bend this piece in the WSJ. In my piece I defend the premise that you cannot condemn a historical text like the Koran in a modern court of justice--is that weird, pro-Islam? Grow up! I've written dozens of pieces about the Koran--you know where I stand ...

LA replies:

Thanks for writing and sending this. De Winter is contemptuously dismissive of my charge that his article was defensive of Islam rather than defensive of Geert Wilders, but he fails utterly to respond to what I actually said. So I'll repeat it. In his WSJ piece, dramatically (and misleadingly) titled, "Stop the Trial of Geert Wilders," he said nothing against the tyrannical Dutch hate speech laws, nothing against prosecuting a man for stating an opinion about Islam, nothing against making it a crime for Netherlanders to criticize Islam. Rather, he said that the Wilders trial should be terminated because the trial would put Islam itself on the docket.

And indeed, putting Islam on the docket was and is precisely Wilders's defense. His defense is that the statements he has made about Islam are true. De Winter wants to avoid any public procedure that discusses whether it is true that Islam commands its followers to wage Holy War aimed at subjugating all non-Muslims. The fact remains: de Winter said nothing against the indictment and trial of Wilders. He was only opposed to the trial because the Wilders defense would examine the teachings of Islam.

A person who responds to an article critical of himself, an article that quotes his own statements and shows their meaning, by retorting, "r u nuts?... Grow up!... you know where I stand," is a person who has never thought critically about the meaning of his own statements--and may be unwilling to do so.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at April 07, 2010 03:06 PM

Lawrence Auster's reply was gentlemanly and fair. But then, he doesn't know the entire background. How can he? It is worse, MUCH worse than just an intellectually dishonest and cowardly interpretation of the Wilders trial and a rude reply to the PI team. So here it is again:

I stumbled [So it is clear that he doesn't read it regularly!] upon this blog - you [Not PI is, I am, quoting Lawrence Auster.] are totally incorrect in interpreting my piece as pro-islam - r u nuts? [What an insufferable, juvenile, sneering, contemptuous tone!] You know my pieces, you know my points of view - so don't try to bend this piece in the WSJ. [The great intellectual considers himself above reproach based on his past merits.] In my piece I defend the premise that you cannot condemn a historical text like the Koran in a modern court of justice - is that weird, pro-Islam? [Well, yes.] Grow up! [Again incredibly rude, juvenile, contemptuous and putting himself above criticism.] I've written dozens of pieces about the Koran - you know where I stand... [He seems to think that he is immune to intellectual inconsistency and that puts him in his own mind above criticism.]

Here is the great master, the serious intellectual, the internationally acclaimed novelist, sneeringly and contemptuously talking down from a great height in Internet jargon to the despised street urchins of "Islam critique". One doesn't play with children from the wrong side of the tracks, to whom serious "Islam critics" usually don't even talk.

You go, PI! You MUST do something right.

Divided by a Common Language

Lawrence Auster writes at VFR about his technical support problems:

Despite the fact that earlier tech support guy, whose name was Muhammad, gave a wrong prognosis, I don’t want to put him down, as he was trying to do a good job. But the language problem, or rather pronunciation problem, was something. Not only did I have to keep asking him to repeat himself, but on a couple of occasions when I still didn’t understand him I had to ask him to spell the word. Once he was telling me to look at the “landbots” on the back of my wireless router. I had no idea was he was saying (“bots? what is a bot?”), and finally asked him to spell the word. It was “ports.” Talk about being separated by a common language.

Of course, this is THE opportunity to post the absolutely hilarious, side-splittingly funny "Cleopatra Jefferson" video from jtf.org here:



Since I am living in Saxony I have been asked countless times when it came to spelling my family name (which starts with B): "With B or with B?" The Saxon dialect is somewhat painful to listen to. P becomes B, T becomes D, K becomes G and all vowels become umlauts. I once met a man who walked his Beagle. Beagle was called "Gölümbö". I twigged much later that it was actually "Columbo". However, the Saxons, the lovely people they are, are totally unchippy about it and don't mind if you can't help laughing. I always say then: "B like Berta", which clarifies the matters.

Foo Foo and Miss Piggy Go Islam Critics

Pamela Geller ("Fearless, intelligent, beautiful -- Pamela Geller wears her Supergirl costume well ... is a dynamo of energy and a paragon of courage and fearlessness." Spencer about Geller) and Robert Spencer ("Robert Spencer is the leading voice of scholarship and reason in a world gone mad. If the West is to be saved, we will owe Robert Spencer an incalculable debt." Geller about Spencer) -- Yes, we cackled too! -- are showing backbone again. Their self-effacement and humility is legendary:

A Statement from Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer of the Freedom Defense Initiative

It has come to our attention today that Martin Mawyer, who had been scheduled to appear with us at the premiere of Mawyer's film [I guess that is Wilder's film] Islam Rising in Los Angeles on May 1, has had attributed to him a series of offensive anti-gay statements made in 1997. While we don't expect to agree on all issues with those with whom we collaborate on anti-jihad efforts, we do not wish to give the impression that we endorse, agree with, or approve of in any way the statements attributed to Mr. Mawyer. Nor do we wish to give the impression that Geert Wilders or the Freedom Defense Initiative approves of such statements.

The Freedom Defense Initiative, like Geert Wilders, stands for the human rights of people of all creeds, colors, and sexual orientations against the global jihad, which works daily to impose the discriminatory and brutal strictures of Sharia upon free people. Sharia denies basic rights to women, non-Muslims, and gays, and exalts its brutal and inhumane system as divine law. In standing for human rights in this way, we consider it of utmost importance that our message not be clouded by other agendas, as we labor to build a broad coalition of free people who hold a wide variety of perspectives on other issues, united against the slavery of Islamic law.

In order, then, to avoid creating any false impressions about our agenda and goals, or those of Geert Wilders, we have decided to cancel the event in Los Angeles on May 1.

Well, what can one say? First, that this is so embarrassingly pompous, blantantly self-serving, mind-bogglingly dumb, and flatulently bumptious that it merits a full re-print here.

Second, it is interesting to notice that the Innocents Abroad, who had had no compunctions about rubbing shoulders with European fringe-Nazis, are getting their underwear in a knot about a homophobic slur. What did Mawyer say exactly? A Google search containing "Martin Mawyer anti-gay statement 1997" leads to this:

In 1997, after Ellen Degeneres came out as a lesbian on her TV sitcom, Mawyer accused her of "DUMPING HER FILTHY LESBIAN LIFESTYLE RIGHT IN THE CENTER OF YOUR LIVING ROOM!! ... If we allow the tidal wave of gay and lesbian smut to continue to pour into our homes, it will utterly consume us in no time at all!"

Mawyer had been unknown to me so far, which makes it easier for me to reduce my statement to what he said. Every word is true and amply proven over the thirteen years since Mawyer spoke them out, which leads to point three and the question in which world Geller and Spencer are living. Have Tweedledum and Tweedledee never twigged that there is a world of difference between not stringing homosexuals to cranes on one hand and letting them corrupt and insult our values, tastes and sensibilities by the swinish, aggressive public displays of their sexuality on the other?

Those ostentations are not "vibrant", "colourful" or the expression of an "alternative lifestyle", they are debased, rotten to the core, degenerated and shameless and a culture that tolerates, even lauds, something like that as an expression of progress deserves to vanish from the face of the earth.

Have Tweety and Sylvester never sensed a whiff of how purpose- and successfully the "gay" lobby seeks to abuse the repressive powers of the state to silence all expressions of opposition to their agenda? How every concession is met with new complaints and demands? That "equal rights" are the last thing they want? How an unremarkable majority silently endorses an aggressive political leadership? How frighteningly similar that strategy is to the way Muslims reach their goals?

Fourth, something fishy may be going on there. Even Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels can't really be QUITE that dumb and dumber and believe that their Freedom Defense Initiative will have the slightest influence of the Dutch elections and that anybody will notice favourably that they threw for Wilders' sake an obscure American right-wing Christian conservative under the bus. So Martin Mawyer made 13 years ago some pretty outspoken anti-"gay" statements. He should have made quite a few since, or at least that is the impression I got from my brief acquaintance with that man. Why the 1997 quote? Why side with him in the first place? His general views are well known or so it seems.

But then, maybe it is really just another sort of arse-and-elbow-confusing gaffe, like the Pro-Köln one, when Pamela Geller, Geert Wilders' great confidante, must have failed to ask him why HE did NOT attend the rally. Possibly, she finally and too late, namely after she had consented to attend, had a word with him and that made her and Spencer cancel their attendance, and not the fear of dreadful Charles Johnson of LGF-infame. Somehow, things like this tend to end in some sort of terrible stupidity-induced cataleptic ennui.

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The pictures above are from "Love Parades" and "Gay Pride" events all over the world.

I recommend the following reading from this blog for some background information:

About the 2009 "Pro Köln" dustup:

• 02/17: What Americans don't twig
• 04/26: Innocents Abroad
• 04/30: The Unembarrassables
• 05/10: Loose Apes with Razors
• 05/10: Shameless Cologne
• 05/13: The "Fission Fungus"
• 05/15: Rent-A-Nazi
• 10/02: German Patriot now Muslim

About a crucial American fallacy:

Dear American conservative! Did you know that there is a 99,9% probability that somebody you call appreciatively a German (or Austrian, for that) patriot will hate your guts?


"Gay" politicking:

• Islam's Intolerance Is the Fault of the West
• Volker explains what makes the world go round
• All Rights for Everybody
• Importance they don't possess and attention they don't deserve

Islamists Are Counting on Converts V

This is from my German blog. The header reads "The Call of the X-Chromosome", picking up the headline of an article in the German newspaper "Tagesspiegel", which is, notabene, considered "conservative". Under the headline "The Call of The Muezzin", one Claudia Keller, always out to explain to unappreciative Germans the virtues of Islam, writes something that is "so abysmally dumb, shit-for-brain-bottomless stupid, self destructive, undignified and footling that it must have been written by a woman about women." The quote from the Tagesspiegel says:

Convert? To Islam? Unthinkable for many. But every year it is done by thousands in Germany. Most of them are women. Three encounters.

Sonja did it, to be recognized as a mother and homemaker. Franziska, because she was enthusiastic about the romantic, fateful element in it. Ulrike wanted to escape the achievement-oriented society.

I then, truthfully, added: "And they all did it because they are *umb *unts."

One may approve of such vulgarity or not, but true it is. They embrace Islam because they associate the role of a mother and homemaker with the humiliating, undignified and ultimately pornographic status Islam assigns to women, they are good for nothing and rationalize their justified feeling of inadequacy by "wanting to escape the achievement-oriented society" and, at least to me, worst, they consider a medieval death cult with doubtful aesthetics, that cultivates a sick image of masculinity where homosexuality is as strictly taboo-ed as widely practised, "fateful" and "romantic". Well, at least now I know why "romance", this pukeworthy Americanism for "love", disgusts me so much. For heaven's sake! Look at that woman. The word "simpering" must have been INVENTED to describe her!

(She) doesn't feel completely at home in the Wedding [a Berlin suburb] mosque. The Macho ways of many Arab men go on her nerves. She won't concentrate so hard on her work for the mosque in the future.

My guess is that she won't stay for ever a "Muslima" and embrace wicca, satanism or Bach flowers next, which will be a good thing, because otherwise one of those romantic Muslim men will apply a fateful beating to her to wipe that smug smile off her face.

Apropos beating!

... that the husband is allowed to beat his wife if she doesn't obey him and goes astray, applies only to "extreme circumstances", when nothing else helps. She herself wouldn't be in for anything like that anyway [We are relieved!], she as a convert, is much more devout than her husband who doesn't take religion all that serious anyway and doesn't visit the mosque. "I am very worried because of that, Jasmin [That's the one who wants to escape the achievement-oriented society!] says. She would like to save her husband from hell, but so far all discussions led to nothing.

Maybe that is because he considers her the moron she is. Maybe Islam HAS a point, after all. (That was sarcasm!)

The article says, too (and appreciatively, by the way), that the Muslim organisation "Islamarchiv in Soest" estimates the current number of German converts to be 25,000, two thirds of them women. And now the incredible part: Previous to 9/11 between 200 and 250 Germans converted to Islam, post-911 1,000, 2,000, once even 4,000, a year. Should those figures be authentic (and I think they are, more or less) the mixture of oestrogen-addled brains, anti-Americanism, self-hatred and anticipatory obedience is stunning!

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My earlier Islamists Are Counting on Converts entries may be interesting as well.

And no, my most avid reader! (You know who you are, dumb cunt!) I know you are obsessed with me in a rather unhealthy way, but I do NOT make a difference between Islamists and "good" Muslims. Never have, don't, never will. You may browse through all my posts back to 2003, which you have very probably done anyway. In that case you will have noticed that I, for example, gave the now hailed paragon of Islam-criticism credit already when "conservative" American bloggers considered "Geert Wilders", if they had heard the name at all, to be a sort of cheese or cultivar of tulips.

Oversexed, Overpaid and Over There with the Noble Savages

Or: Joanie Making Politics on Her Back

I admit I hate the Dutch. I hate the way one, being German, is treated in that pokey little country (it has become a bit better over the years, but I still hate them), I hate that they nevertheless have no compunctions about taking our money, and I hate that sanctimonious post-war attitude even more because the valiant Dutch had been the only people raided by the Germans in WWII that surrendered without firing a single shot and who delivered their Jews gratuitously and free platform edge. I hate their ugly, pink, fat and blonde royals whom even two generations of inordinately goodlooking German husbands weren't able to prettify and I hate, once again, their sanctimoniousness which showed, impressively although not exclusively, when they disinvited the future father-in-law of the future fat, pink and blonde king from the wedding because he (the father-in-law) had once hold a mediocre office in the Cabinet of a third-rate, long forgotten South American dictator, whereas same future king's German grandfather had only been in the SS.

And BOY! DO I hate that unspeakable slag that made headlines recently because Geert Wilders (whom the Dutch don't deserve and whose only shortcoming is that he looks irritatingly Dutch) had cited her as a prime example of the moral decline of the elites in his country.

Joanie de Rijke is a Dutch journalist who was kidnapped in Afghanistan last November when all she wanted was to do some serious research on on the deaths of ten French soldiers hacked to pieces by the Taliban for the arse-and-tits magazine she is working for. Joanie looks painfully Dutch and exactly like the simpering silly bitch she is.

When she met the Taliban to 'hear their side of the story', the valiant freedom fighters, who would have thought so, kidnapped and the commander frequently raped her but not nearly enough because she wrote a book about it later and regurgitated it in chat shows (see picture) too. She still thinks (if one can call it that) that she was not taking unnecessary risks.

“This story” Wilders said, “is a perfect illustration of the moral decline of our elites. They are so blinded by their own ideology that they turn a blind eye to the truth. Rape? Well, I would put this into perspective, says the leftist journalist: the Taliban are not monsters. Our elites prefer to deny reality rather than face it. Our elites, whether they are politicians, journalists, judges, subsidy gobblers or civil servants, have dumped common sense in order to deny reality. It is not just this raped journalist who is suffering from Stockholm syndrome, but the entire Dutch elite. The only moral reference they have is: do not irritate the Muslims - that is the one thing they will condemn.”

So what did Joanie say:

"It's not black and white. It was the commander who raped me. I wanted to give vent to my hatred, to chop his head off and kick it off the cliff. He was schizophrenic: the following day, he said he was sorry. In that sort of situation - no matter how awful - you develop a bond with those people. You have to, if you want to survive. You could say the hatred and that bond go side by side."

"Just let me make one thing clear: I hate him for what he did to me. I hate him because he raped me. I was very, very mad and I wanted to kill him right away. But the day after it happened, he more or less asked me to forgive him. That was very confusing for me. It was a very schizophrenic situation because he had mood swings. I just had to cope with that. Normally you can show that you are angry but I couldn't of course. I had to get on with them. I just couldn't say to this commander what I was really thinking because then he would have killed me right away."

Very very mad Joanie said, too, that she was nevertheless shown respect.

Which eerily recalls the old joke, where the lady of the house is one female short for a proper dinner placement and, desperate, puts good clothes on a pretty maid and hopes for the best. When she asks her afterwards whether she's been respected, the girl replies: "Yes ma'am. Once on the balcony and twice in the garden."

And now Joanie is angry - not at her rapist but at Geert Wilders: "Geert Wilders bedrijft politiek over mijn rug." "He makes politics on my back." To make politics on her back is something to which Joanie can rightfully claim exclusive rights.

It may be a measure of the decline of our culture that even the attention whores have no class anymore. Many years ago Oriana Fallaci delivered a piece of memorable journalism and later recalled:

... that she found Khomeini intelligent, and “the most handsome old man I had ever met in my life. He resembled the ‘Moses’ sculpted by Michelangelo.” And, she said, Khomeini was “not a puppet like Arafat or Qaddafi or the many other dictators I met in the Islamic world. He was a sort of Pope, a sort of king—a real leader. And it did not take long to realize that in spite of his quiet appearance he represented the Robespierre or the Lenin of something which would go very far and would poison the world. People loved him too much. They saw in him another Prophet. Worse: a God.”

And nobody laughed or expressed embarrassment after it appeared in The New Yorker in 2006. It was, after all, by "La Fallaci".

It was a doubtful thing, anyway, to give Khomeini publicity to begin with, but Fallaci didn't really do research to inform but was collecting scalps and thus couldn't resist.

She, too, cashed in on matters which had better remained private. What does one call a woman who had an, as an uncritically adoring media called it, "tempestuous" affair with a much younger man who then kicked his unborn child out of her womb, a woman who didn't leave that man and rather wrote two books about it?

And exactly like that was her criticism of Islam, shrill and PMS-ingly hysterical. She stomped her little foot and wrote not what Islam is, but how "La Fallaci" found it.

But to do her justice, at least Fallaci was seriously attractive, did not write for crappy men's mags AND ABOVE ALL SHE WAS NOT DUTCH.

But what makes a serious journalist and writer like Fallaci and a floozy like Joanie de Rijke tick when putting themselves in harm's way to then write books about it? What made the ageing Fallaci swoon and drool over an old billy goat like Khomeini? Shameless lucre? Yes, but not JUST that. Attention whoredom? Yes, and again not just that. I think it's boredom. Boredom with their lifes, with the "good" men they meet, boredom with the little things in life, with a normal, ordinary life, with ordinary, everyday human decency. An able, clever woman like Fallaci goes and interviews Khomeini and Kissinger and writes well-received books about an unsavoury relationship with an unsuitable man, a silly bitch like de Rijke goes to Afghanistan to be raped by a Taliban, then writes a book about it to be totally overwhelmed by the brouhaha she caused and which to understand she is too pathetic. And at the bottom of the barrel, yes at the absolute bottom of the very same barrel we find those females who go and marry death row inmates. Our only hope remains that they'll never find out how to write books.

Hat tip: VFR.

---

Edited to add: To end this on a conciliatory note, I'd like to say finally something nice about the Dutch. There IS after all, something that is bigger than their dhimmitude and that's their tightfistedness. Which shows that they are not totally without principles. I overlooked that when I first read the article in the Brussels Journal from which I took the Wilders-quote.

As Joanie put it so endearingly:

“The Belgians have done nothing. They said it was a matter for the Dutch. And the Dutch authorities said they never pay ransom. In Afghanistan they know well enough that Western governments pay up after an abduction. Germany, Italy and France have all paid ransoms.”

Which may not be a terrific argument, but it at least reminds of another one of those vacuous, thrill-addicted women, the German archaeologist Susanne Osthoff, who was kidnapped in Iraq and whom I will now take up from the blog bilges in the next entry.

Edited to add: Done!

Idealism Kills

Or: The Voluntary Re-GDR-fication

I am currently tackling the problem of our garden, a bigg-ish affair. While the entire property covers 1,500 m², the lawn covers "only" 1,000 m² because there is the house, a garden shed, several big trees, various flower beds and vegetable patches. We have decided to do most of the gardening ourselves (or rather: I will do it myself) instead of paying somebody to do it, and I had no idea how much there is to learn about lawn mowers and how expensive the high-performance ones are. I had no idea either how quickly a garden turns into a weedy mess without care.

The garden, although it used to be well tended until we took over and, strictly speaking, not ugly, is uninspired. It's the garden of somebody who had little money to spend, didn't care and had no sense for beauty (but for order) and plenty of use for some additional self-grown grub. (It just occurs to me that this is a fair description for the former GDR.)

Yes, I am slowly coming to the point now: I haven't the faintest about and I am not keen on gardening so I did an Internet search (in German), first for plants that are pretty to look at, uncomplicated to grow and in need of little care, and second how to turn a vegetable patch into a flower- (or other ornamental) bed. The result let me immediately rummage for my beta-blockers: While there are countless hits on how to turn a flower- (or other ornamental) bed into a vegetable patch, the reverse is almost non-existent. Why? I soon found out why. At the website of one of the public radio stations, under the header "Tips for Hobby Gardeners" we are informed that:

Michelle Obama, the wife of the American president, shows us how to do it: Instead of growing flowers she turns the flower beds around the White House into vegetable patches. Thus, the ornamental beds are put to their best use and the vitamin-supply is ensured.

This let me not just rummage for my beta-blockers but curse the fact that I had no emetic available or at least a stiff drink.

Frankly, that couple in the White House disgusts me so much that I always try to skip the ubiquitous information about them, so I had no idea whether that is true. Another Internet search later, I know it is only partly true. Not THE flower beds around the White House are turned into vegetable patches, but a sizeable bit of the South Lawn. (Which proves once again that if anything ought to convince even the last American that his current president is deeply anti-American, it ought to be this extracerebral, bowel-located adulation by the German masses.)

But let's forget blissfully about the charade in the White House and focus on all those many little Germans who do not grow, lile Michelle O., vegetables in their garden as an opportunist PR-gag, but as a lifestyle choice. Why would people want to turn a perfectly nice patch of grass or flowers into an ugly pile of dirt and manure to harvest some deformed, bug-infested lumps of vegetable DNS? This is, mind you, one of the most densely populated countries in the world and gardening has not, like in England, any "snob value". I am not talking either about people with REALLY big gardens, time and knowledge how to grow useful plants effectively. Also, this is a country, where staple foods, fruit and vegetables in season are cheap. So again: Why?

Although hardly anybody of those wannabe self-sufficients is a militant "Green" with a capital "G". They are following an ideology, just as the housewife, who stridently demands that her breadwinning husband has to take down the dustbin after a long day at the office does not see herself as a feminist. Still, behind their activities are the claims of a political movement that rejects modernity. The list of statement-making labels that are furthering a set of relative moral values behind different sorts of food is ever-growing. Fair Trade, "Bio", organic, non-gm are only some of them and what they all share is the rejection and vilification of modern farming practices, farming practices without which millions in the third world would starve to death. Idealism kills people.

An old joke exemplifies quite well the "green" image of men:
Meet two planets:
"You are not looking well. Are you ill?"
"Yes, I've caught Homo Sapiens."
"Don't worry, that's just a nuisance and will pass."

Men as bugs.

In the Sixties, people here in Germany started to turn their vegetable patches into gardens because they could now afford beauty and enjoyed it together with their freedom. That was when the old-fashioned farmers' cooperation trading posts, soon to be turned into "garden centers", ceased to sell horse- and cattle feed to sell bulbs, lawn seed and outdoor furniture instead. Now we are going the opposite way. People are prepared to victimize pleasure and beauty for a totalitarian world view and really believe against all reason that the ugly, bug-eaten lumps they are harvesting from their towel-sized patches are truly "healthy". In the former GDR people did it to improve their uninspiring staple diet, now they do it voluntarily and that gives them a warm and fuzzy feeling of a vague "goodness" and moral superiority. Idealism kills pleasure too.

Cross-posted with pictures at The Evil Style Queen.

The Unembarassables

Pamela Geller ("Fearless, intelligent, beautiful -- Pamela Geller wears her Supergirl costume well ... is a dynamo of energy and a paragon of courage and fearlessness." Spencer about Geller) and Robert Spencer ("Robert Spencer is the leading voice of scholarship and reason in a world gone mad. If the West is to be saved, we will owe Robert Spencer an incalculable debt." Geller about Spencer) (Yes, we cackled too!) have cancelled their trip to Cologne.

Politically Incorrect says that the withdrawal was due to Charles Johnson’s of LGF infame attacks on Pro-Köln, as a "fascist" organization. Wow!

What could have cyber-Charlemagne done to them? Send them a cyber curse for cyber-fascists? Cyber-clobber them with a cyber-fascism-cudgel? Cyber-drown their cyber-rubber duckie? Seriously, there is only one sensemaking reason for them to continue to defend their wannabe-hosts when they have cancelled their attendance, namely that they've gotten cold feet in the face of the many information on Pro-Köln they have gotten from serious Islamcritics in Germany (some of which I have seen) who know a thing or two more about their own country than our Innocents Abroad. And being the unprincipled attention seekers they are, they are now blaming CJ for it, so as not to close any doors to potential future appearances. (Yes, I know, the latter is an assumption.)

DISCLAIMER START

At this point, a disclaimer is called for: We do NOT deny Pro-Köln the right to host such an anti-Islam event. The way the city of Cologne is handling this shows that they have not yet arrived at democracy and probably never will. They do everything to marginalise, even foreclose, Pro-Köln's, a legal party's, activities, for example by banning a march to the building site of the gigantic DITIB-mosque, while they are tolerating next to the magnificent Cologne cathedral a permanent vile Israel-baiting exhibition. Such a march can not be "protected", or so Cologne police chief Klaus Steffenhagen says, which is unquestioningly repeated by the media. Gudrun Eussner says: Many events licensed by the authorities, which do not need to be protected, take care that the anti-Islamisation congress can not be protected." And:

Is it radical Left anarchists who are deciding now who is allowed to rally here and who isn't? Are they allowed to break the monopoly of the state on the use of force and does the police take it for granted?

The answer is: yes.

DISCLAIMER END

However, legal as Pro-Köln may be, a few questions regarding their legitimacy may be in order.

First and above all, their criticism of Islam is opportunist. Markus Beisicht, co-founder and chairman of Pro-Köln and Pro-NRW confirms in an Interview with the Junge Freiheit that "Islamkritik" is for Pro-Köln and Pro-NRW not more than part of a right-wing party project. Islamisation has become such a crucial topic for so many people and basically fits into a catalogue of "rightwing" issues that they picked it up and had been amazed how well it was received. "Specifically in big cities one can score here." They have, as Beisicht puts it, claimed a "market niche" and thus reached voters who wouldn't have elected them otherwise.

In other words and as Gudrun Eussner puts it: While looking for befitting issues for a party-project, Pro-Köln has found Islamisation. Therefore it might have been a different topic as well, had it only served the purpose of attracting voters.

Many "nationalist" European parties are, also, not quite the knights in shining anti-Islamic armour as which American Islam critics are fond of seeing them. Front National and FPÖ, for example, have nothing against Islam as such as long as Muslims are safely staying in their own countries. The Pro-movement shares this point of view, therefore their catchphase is "Against Islamisation and Überfremdung(1)", two terms, often used together. It is typical that both, left- and rightwing extremists, have nothing against Islam as such because of their natural affinity to a totalitarian polit-ideology like Islam. If it comes push to shove, rightwingers will club together with Muslims, be it against the Serbs or against the Jews, thinly veiled as anti-Zionism. Case in point: March 1999, Manfred Rouhs, later to become a Pro-Köln co-founder, supports the terrorist UCK in the Kosovo, who are - for him - liberation nationalists.

What says Robert Spencer in his own words at Jihad Watch?:

Meanwhile, I am not going to the Cologne conference, contrary to Johnson's claims; still, however, he is trying to defame me with it. From here is the claim that I am "defending" Manfred Rouhs of Pro-Köln, whom Johnson claims is a Nazi, because I posted his pro-Israel statement here. (You know you're in Johnson's Bizarro world when posting a pro-Israel statement gets you accused of being a Nazi.) Rouhs, says Johnson, is a Nazi who sells Nazi literature at his website -- and therefore I must be a crypto-Nazi, right? (Buckley's sage advice to Gore Vidal comes to mind at this point.)

Anyway, about Rouhs' book selection at his website: Rouhs sells material, as you can see, by the noted neo-Nazis Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore, Samuel Huntington, Norman Finkelstein, and Clausewitz.

Ah, but all that is just a cover for the Nazi literature that he sells, that Charles has found, right?

This is so incredibly, intransigent, rock-hard, impermeably and unforgivingly dumb that it almost left me speechless. That and the fact that it saves a lot of gastric acid to be prepared for either, those innocent, wide eyed requests for "proof" from those who then nick my information to post it as their own wisdom elsewhere (you know who you are), or those who think that Europe is just the 51st state of the US of A and are miffed when told that "right wing" has a somewhat different meaning at this side of the Atlantic, makes this entry a bit belated, but the open questions are still as topical as they were a week ago.

Such as: Does Spencer really not know for what Chomsky, Moore and Finkelstein stand? No, they are not "Nazis". In that he is right. Two of them are even Jewish and don't we all know that Jews can't be Nazis? They don't wear a black or brown uniform and they are not goosestepping around, brandishing swastika-ed banners. Should the truth be really too subtle to be understood by Robert Spencer and his likes?

Maybe. Let's start with Noam Chomsky. Maybe it was really too much trouble to find out that he is published by the Italian Neo-Nazi-publisher Barbarossa, right between the vilest Nazi scum, such as Jacques Isorni, the lawyer of Robert Brasillach:

Il Processo Brasillach - Jacques Isorni - € 6,20

More from Barbarossa:

Il Controllo dei Mass Media. Le spettacolari conquiste della propaganda - Noam Chomsky - € 7,00

La Menzogna di Giuda. I perché di un libro scomodo - Centro Studi Orion - € 5,16

Rivolte e Guerre Contadine. Storia non romanzata degli Stati Uniti d’America - Aa. Vv. - € 13,00

La Rivoluzione Fascista. Antologia di scritti politici a cura di A. Cucchi e G. Galante; in appendice articoli di J. Evola e R. Farinacci - Berto Ricci - € 8,00

You got the gist?(2)

Now Norm Finkelstein: The German translation of this upright anti-fascist's oeuvre is, for example, sold at the Neo-Nazi online shop Weltnetzladen, between books that reveal the genocidal and perverted nature of the bible, or those of Dr. Claus Nordbruch ("Machtfaktor Zionismus") who is fond of drooling over Germans as genocidal targets of Britain and America when he isn't stridently demanding "reparations" for a wronged Germany who was dealt a marked card in WWII and next to titles like "Ami go home!" or "Zwölf gute Gründe für einen Antiamerikanismus" (i.e. twelve good reasons for, you've guessed it, antiamericanism).(3)

But without doubt, Chomsky and Finkelstein are no Nazis and we all know how much Michael Moore loves America.

Even a superficial dig like this reveals such a cesspool of totalitarianism, antiamericanism, antisemitism, history revisionism and God knows what -isms, that it seems -- and indeed is -- totally irrelevant whether one labels it Nazi, or left or right or center or whatever. It is a kraken with countless tentacles obsessively feeding on its sole fodder, the hatred for America, the Ersatz-Jew and Israel, the Über-Jew. And it reaches far into the realms of other groups and parties as well, groups and parties much more respected and important than hapless Pro-Köln.

I have written about it countless times. It is the core topic of this blog. So what else is new?

The question remains whether it is asked too much from Robert Spencer to do some research. Brief, basic research, as I just did, in the Internet, would suffice. Nobody expects a crash-course of twothousand years of European and German history and culture from him. His Wikipedia entry tells us that he holds a Master's degree in the department of Religious Studies from an American university, so we can assume (or is it hope?) that he knows how to do research, to tell apart the important from the unimportant, not to let his personal opinions get in the way of the truth, and that he is able to perform a critical appraisal of his sources. That is not even intellectual integrity, that are the very basics of academic armamentarium, science 101. But the urge to be right when Charles Johnson is wrong is so overwhelming that Spencer, dumb and dull like the moron he isn't, happily commits intellectual suicide just not to be thrown out of his fool's paradise of feeling superior to Charles Johnson.

What an achievement.

---

(1) "For years Austrians have been warned about foreigners, indeed, about an inundation of foreigners. In 1993 the word "Überfremdung" - being overrun with foreigners - was declared the non-word of the year in Germany. Yet in 1999 a successful election campaign could be conducted in Austria with the slogan "Stop the excessive immigration." The word "Überfremdung" is hardly translatable, because the German language does not know the differentiation found in English, Italian, or Spanish between stranger and foreigner." See here.

(2) It is all available on the web. Dr. Gudrun Eussner, a political scientist, writes about it at her invaluable website for years now.

(3) Or, for example, a "conservative" book on bringing up children by Christa Müller, the wife of one of the leaders of the post-Communist party DIE LINKE, Oskar Lafontaine. By Spencer's logic, the entire shop would be above board on the strength of such immaculate leftist credentials.

Innocents Abroad or Fool's Paradise

There is a major brouhaha going on among "Islam critics" because Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer have announced that they may attend the Anti-Islamization Congress of the German Pro-Köln movement in May. Invectives are bandied about liberally and there is little room left between "Poster Girl for Eurofascists" resp. "publisher of the anti-Islam Internet hate site "Jihad Watch"" on one side, and "dynamo of energy and a paragon of courage and fearlessness" resp. "the leading voice of scholarship and reason in a world gone mad" on the other.

Whatever they are, neither Geller nor Spencer are doing themselves a favour by posting inane statements like the one claiming that one of the leading members of Pro-Köln isn't a Nazi because . . . he says so.

Manfred Rouhs, a Pro-Köln member of the city council, is not a neo-Nazi. Here is a statement from Rouhs:
"blah blah yabber yack yack..."

Unbelievable!

I have blogged about Pro-Köln and other branches of the "Pro"-movement before. They are not "Eurofascists" (what sort of hollow epithet is that anyway) and, as I said before, they are attracting quite a few wellmeaning, decent citizens who are just desperate because the mainstream parties are exposing them helplessly to the Islamic threat. But they are not, by no stretch of the imagination, either, the clear-cut democrats, freedom lovers and defenders of Western values as which American conservatives doggedly insist to see them.

I am committing a major transgression now. I am quoting -- horribile dictu -- from LGF, the blog of Charles Johnson, ring leader in the open season on Geller and Spencer. And appreciatively to boot, which makes me now a liberal pinko commie leftist and ally of Evil Charles. But whatever. In a comment, the German blogger Gegenkritik states:

Hey all. Something more about pro Köln: their "pro-Israel"-stance is relatively new, it's mainly PI-news-founder Stefan Herre, who appears at their demonstrations with israeli-flags. He was also the one to interview former CDU deputy mayor of district Cologne-Ehrenfeld (where the mosque will be built), Jörg Uckermann, who is now one of the leading figures of pro-Köln, and it was Herre who convinced him to to take a "pro-Israel"-stance.

Some years ago, pro-Köln was openly hostile towards Israel: here's a leaflet (Google translated) that was handed out by pro-Köln's student-organization, entitled "Solidarity with Palestine!". You'll find the typical anti-zionism in it: Israel is waging war against the Palestinians, Ariel Sharon is seeking for cruel vengeance, the German Goverment should not deliver weapons but put pressure on Israel.
Two years ago, pro-Köln defended the stance of the German Bishops, who compared the situation of the Palestinians with the Jews in the Warsaw-Ghetto (Here is a LGF-post about this).

To be fair, all this is still not a real Nazi-position, and it is the common stance of 90% of Germans. But there is more: their agitation against the planned Jewish museum in Cologne. The background: after the destruction of most Jewish buildings in Cologne in the Nazi-era, a private foundation was fundraising for a museum about the Jewish history in Cologne. The foundation got the building permission, but suddenly, nearly all media as well as the city council were against the museum.

The only newspapers that were still in favor of the planned museum, were those of the Axel Springer AG, who are often attacked by leftists, muslims and Neonazis alike because of their Corporate principles ("To promote reconciliation of Jews and Germans and support the vital rights of the State of Israel"). Neonazis and other Anti-semites often take this point to lament about the "jewish controlled media" ("Verjudete Presse" was the original slogan in the Nazi-era) and it's very clear that pro-Köln is referring to this.

All this shows, that pro-Köln's pro-Israel-attitude is essentially a fake.

The only thing that is wrong with this is that it was published at LGF and will so inadvertently support Charles Johnson's unconsidered, uncalled-for and crude smearing of everybody and his pet ferret of whom he doesn't approve as a "fascist". Had Gegenkritik sent this statement to some conservative bloggers it might have triggered off some second thoughts.

Might. But I doubt it.

Anyway, now, as it appeared at the dreaded LGF, it CAN NOT BE RIGHT in the eyes of those who know everything already. Wanna bet? Not facts count, but where they appear and whether one likes them.

My blog has a fair ranking at Technorati, specifically for a one-woman-effort, at one time it used to be in the fortythousands, but I am not complaining. My SiteMeter count varies greatly, depending on how much blogging I do. My best result ever was well over 400 page views a day. That was, interestingly, for this entry. So I know I am at least read. I am decrying for years now the grotesque, hysterical (but strategic) exaggeration of the "rightwing danger" in Germany. In fact, it is one of the main topics at this blog. I decry as well the fact that people who stand for politically non-correct ideas are denounced as "right wing populists" (ever met a "left wing populist", by the way?) or "right wing extremists". Believe me (but you won't) I know a Nazi when I see one and if Charles Johnson says so too, he is STILL right, although his may be the factuality of a broken clock.

I believe I have established over the years the reputation of an intellectually honest blogger and a diligent researcher, and, as the Gegenkritik-blogger proves, I am not the only one who dares to question the wishful thinking of only too many conservative Americans who seriously think that Germany, that little country from which went out so much good and so much evil, Germany, with its almost twothousand years of history, Germany, with its multitude of age-old people, cultures and traditions within such a limited territory, Germany, which therefore never achieved true national unity, Germany, shaken in its foundations by the Reformation, something from which it is still suffering, Germany, that, historically, always took a different path from other West European nations, is just as easily comprehensible as their own relatively recently colonialised empty slab between two oceans. They seriously think that, because they know yodelling and Panzerlied, that they have a grasp of the German culture and mind and that they know better than educated, thoughtful, native Germans. There is, after all, Babelfish or Google to deliver quality translations of German copy from which one can then cherrypick what one would like to believe. THIS ARROGANCE MAKES ME SICK!

Not that the LGF-blogger is any more hot on fact-finding. The other day he informed us that Politically Incorrect, the major Islam-critic among the German blogs is a "pro-fascist German website". How he can know that without any knowledge of German is beyond me, but it would be presumptuous to presume presumptuousness only in the conservative camp. PI is blog number one among ALL political blogs in Germany, which shows how dearly in need we are of that sort of information. As I am contributing to its English section, I will now carry the title "Euro Fascist" awarded by one of the biggest jerks in all of the Internet with pride.

While I was writing this, one of the people at PI sent me an email with the link to an entry, reporting that Geller and Spencer have cancelled their participation in the Pro-Köln event. Egads! I wish Geller and Spencer (and a host of other American conservative Islam-critics) were able to read what the scummy rabble followers of Pro-Köln in PI's comment section, freedom-loving clear-cut democrats and defenders of Western values all of them, are saying about those two innocents and life in general.

But lucky for them, they can't. As it is, dream on!

The Ruthless Egotism of Do-Gooders

Has anybody asked himself what business that French party, now partly saved, partly killed by their rescuers, had to be in pirate-infested waters WITH AN EFFING TODDLER ABOARD?

Now we know:

Francis Lemacon, the skipper's father, issued a statement paying tribute to his son and thanking the French state and the soldiers "who risked their lives" to rescue the hostages.

Yes, and the only good thing about all this is that a dangerous egomaniac, and not one of those soldiers died.

"We have lost more than a son. We are crushed by grief," he wrote in a statement.

Which sets them, of course, apart from all other people who have lost a son.

"Florent [the victim] and his wife, with Colin [the toddler] on the Tanit [the yacht], chose a lifestyle. In their own way, they fought for their beliefs: in peace, ecology, tolerance and the right to live differently, solidarity and the value of sharing," he said.

And in their own way, with all their tolerance, right to live differently, solidarity and value of sharing they might have killed many more people.

"With his moral sense, a pacifist is dead. With his love for Africa and Africans, a traveller is dead. With his rejection of comfort, of the world of money, a dreamer is dead.

"With his passion for, and knowledge of the ocean, a sailor is dead. With his taste for freedom, a philosopher and musician is dead."

And with his ruthless egotism and disregard for other people's (including his own family) safety and lifes, a dangerous moron is dead.

I wish I had something nice to say, but I haven't.

By the way, I am wondering what the media had had to say, had the travelling family and the friendly-fire-prone rescuing party not been French, but American.

The Banalization and Infantilization of Women Redux

... or once a troglodytesse lactation consultant, always a troglodytesse lactation consultant

I hate to say "I told you so" more than once in a month, but didn't I tell you just nine days ago that Sarah Palin was bound to flop because women are jealous of her? I did? Fine!

Now I came across a website (cum blog) of the "questions have been raised", "claims have been made" and "rumors ran rampant" sort where the attempt is made to "prove" that not Sarah, but her daughter Bristol Palin gave birth to Trig, the youngest Palin offspring. No link from me. Please google for "palin deception". There we have one (are we amazed?) woman who has bothered to register a domain to then lumber it with endless proof of how clever she is.

My husband and I are not "left wing bloggers," "conspiracy theorists," or otherwise fruitcakes. I am a childbirth labor coach, a published author in the childbirth field, and a lactation consultant; my husband is a physician who has, until this election, always voted Republican. So we're hardly coming from left field.

People hate to be found out about what makes them tick. Any catty old Ms. Stiletto Heel is adamant that she is not just a vile lump of jealousy, but really "cares" about some higher cause and every antisemite has "Jewish friends". What would YOU call a woman ("I am a lactation consultant...") who browses through virtual piles and piles of photos to gawp at another woman's breasts? A woman whom she doesn't know and will never meet? So Palin's doctor refused to make a statement? I realize that things are handled differently in America, but in Germany she'd be stripped off her licence as quickly as she could say "Sarah Palin" should she dare making a "statement". Maybe, just maybe, there are doctors in America as well who adhere to a minumum code of professional ethics? And there are no birth pictures? "OB floors routinely keep disposable cameras for families that might come in unexpectedly and not have one." Maybe the Palin family isn't into that sort of cute-ism? Maybe it took them some time to cope with the reality of a handicapped child?

No one is expecting to see explicit videos [Really not?], but just ONE spontaneous "family" photo of the Governor, looking a bit less perky than normal [That's the heart of the matter, isn't it?], in a hospital bed holding her new baby, surrounded by her family would have shut this entire thing down instantly.

Why the Palin family should want to refute such a preposterous claim, a claim not logically impossible but so improbable by any standard of common sense that it makes the mind boggle, is beyond me.

And no, this is not just one woman who has too much empty hours to fill, this is a big matter. Just go and google for "palin deception" or "palin lies". What a pity Google Trends does not deliver the sex of an online searcher together with his location and language. As it is, my theory of women as "the silly sex" sadly remains a theory, albeit a pretty credible one.

Ilana Mercer elaborates in an article with that title plus a question mark about women's cultural and scientifical achievements or the lack thereof:

In fairness, the legal emancipation of women only began in earnest in the 19th century—a situation that parallels the predicament of the Jews.
[...]
But where have women been since 1950? Over the last five decades women, who make up roughly 50 percent of the world's population, have claimed only 2 percent of the Nobel Prizes in the sciences. In literature, women have claimed only 8 percent. No woman has won a Nobel in economics.

During that period Jews, who comprise less than 0.5 percent the world's population, have claimed 32 percent of the Nobel Prizes for medicine, 32 percent for physics, 39 percent for economics and 29 percent of all science awards.

One possible explanation for this discrepancy: the alleged greater variability in men’s intelligence. The “Bell Curve” of their IQ distribution seems to be less bunched around the median IQ than that of women...

[...]

However, Professor Richard Lynn, co-author of IQ And The Wealth Of Nations, argues that men enjoy an advantage in average IQ—their median may be as much as five points above that of women...

The other popular but less credible explanation involves the equal-but-different approach to aptitude. Men are better at math, spatial and mechanical reasoning; women at verbal skills. Women’s mathematical reasoning might not be as good as men’s on average but women, according to this theory, make up for it with superior verbal fluency and artistic flair.

My following observations, if accurate, may simply be a matter of lesser intelligence, but I think there is more to it. As much as by a lower IQ or an "equal but different" (which has a painfully politically correct whining to it) status, women are, I think, held back by their inability to see things detached from their own point of view. If THEY haven't experienced it, it doesn't exist. If THEY have suffered it, it's the issue mankind has to tackle first and foremost. Their judgement is driven by personal likes and dislikes and they tend to be deeply jealous of other women. Of women who are, like Palin, goodlooking, healthy, happy and successful and they spend a lot of time, energy and intelligence -- time, energy and intelligence that could be used for more productive causes -- to change that. To the women not as lucky, they "relate". The Internet is full of it and the epithets "drama queen" and "attention whore" do not carry for nothing a female connotation. All this may be rooted in some primeval self-preservation instinct, but ... so?

The old troglodytesse is still alive and kicking, and most in those who consider themselves most refined.


Women DO.

"Sarah Palin's Lies" found at Lawrence Auster's View from the Right.