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.

1 Corinthians 4 34-35

There is this perfectly idiotic bit from the Emory University website and I couldn't RESIST fiddling with it:

Margot Kässmann (Dr. Rev.), ex-lay-bishopette and as such former head of the Protestant* church in Germany, is culturally enriching Emory University during the fall semester, serving as Distinguished Theologian-in-Residence at the university’s Candler School of Theology, and as a Distinguished Fellow of the Claus M. Halle Institute for Global Learning, which lends a so far unknown meaning to the word "distinguished".

A theologian, pastor, prolific author and able to hold more booze than an entire troop of Russians, Kässmann is an influential leader in the international ecumenical arena and an enormously popular speaker in Europe, often drawing crowds in the thousands, specifically since she was caught in a drunk-driving incident with more than three times over the limit, which proves that we have become an undiscerning, sheepish breed with a knack for the sleazy.

“When I became dean at Candler, I issued her a standing invitation to join us for a semester at our rowdy stagettes whenever she could, and I’m delighted that she has accepted,” says Love, dean of Candler. “Candler faculty and students will be able to interact personally with an extraordinarily creative, charismatic and chadbandian Christian leader. Plus, with our new strategic emphasis on internationalizing the curriculum, whatever that is worth, the fit of having her on campus for a semester could not be better”, says Jan Love. Love is, who would have thought so, female.

Since Kässmann's election in 1983 as one of the youngest members of the board of directors of the WCC, she has broken age and (retch) gender barriers within the leadership of the Protestant church, and it shows. First in 1999 with her election as the first female bishop of the Protestant Church of Hannover — the largest worldwide, then in 2009, when she was elected chair (barf) of the Council of the Protestant Church in Germany (EKD), the governing body of 24 million Protestants. She enjoyed (you bet) a lot of media attention and even granted interviews about intimate matters to the sleaziest of all Caesarean media whores, BILD.

Kässmann’s February 2010 voluntary resignation from her roles as bishop and chair (barf) of the EKD after a drunk-driving conviction when she had always vocally condemned all forms of "excess", has not diminished her popularity, but, as it could be expected in a totally worth- and shameless society, enhanced it: She received several standing ovations at her first major appearance after her resignation, a Bible study for 5,000 people at the Ecumenical “Kirchentag” in Munich this May, which ought to teach Catholics what ecumenism is worth.

“I think the public see her as a leader who models honesty and integrity in the face of difficulty — a model of authentic leadership at a time when too few leaders own up to the consequences of their inappropriate actions,” simpered Love lovingly. Just imagine for a fraction of a moment what the slimy old bag would have said, had a Catholic bishop committed the same "inappropriate action".

Known for her administrative acumen, prophetic witness and pastoral ability to address complex dilemmas of everyday life (burp), Kässmann is the author of more than 40 books on spirituality, the quest for Christian unity, Christian social engagement and Bible study and about all other thinkable footling and fatuous attention whorish things with which a certain ilk of theologians, not all of them female, poisons the hearts and brains of the undiscerning.

During her semester at Candler, Kässmann will deliver lectures, participate in panel discussions, hen parties and preach, addressing such hilariously funny and utterly worthless topics as women’s leadership in the church, post-modern and secular challenges to the church’s mission, and Protestant spirituality, all of which are unbearable below a blood alcohol level of 1.5 o/oo.

Kässmann is the featured speaker at the following events, which are free and open to the public, which is self-explaining because otherwise she wouldn't attend anyway:

Lecture in the Luminaries Series, "The Challenges and Opportunities of Women's Leadership in the Church Worldwide," Sept. 21, 4:30-6:00 p.m., Cannon Chapel, Emory Campus. A reception will follow. Bring your own bottle because Margot will swig the lot. Lecture co-sponsored by Emory’s Office of the Provost, Luminaries Series, Candler School of Theology, la Veuve Clicquot and The Halle Institute.


Preaching, preening and presiding while pissed, Reformation Day Chapel Service, Oct. 19, 11:15 a.m., Cannon Chapel, 510 Kilgo Circle, Emory Campus.

Preaching at Emory University Worship Margot Service on Reformation Sunday, Oct. 31, 11:00 a.m., Cannon Chapel, 510 Kilgo Circle, Emory Campus. Drinks will be served.

Lecture, "Bible, Prayer and Confession: Anticipating the 500th Anniversary of the Reformation," Nov. 16, 4:30-6:00 p.m., Cannon Chapel, 510 Kilgo Circle, Emory Campus. A reception will follow. Bring your own bottle because Margot will swig the lot. Lecture co-sponsored by Candler School of Theology, The Halle Institute and Johnnie Walker. 


*I am not using "Evangelical Church", the literal translation of the German term "Evangelische Kirche", of which Americans are so fond. It is misleading, and so "Protestant" will have to do.

Now I was pointed at a recent bout of verbal diarrhoea of that woman, exactly one of those for which she is so widely revered in this country. She explains Americans how they ought to feel about the Ground Zero Mosque, which is, after all, ten whopping walking minutes away from Ground Zero. "Does this building of a mosque really hurts the feelings of Americans? Does it really have anything to do with the terrorist deed of September 11?" In a word: Don't make such a fuss, Amis!

How was that about the religion of the natives? It was considered inferior, dismissed, eliminated by forced baptisms, wiped out. Today there are Muslims, Jews, Sikhs, Buddhists here -- and they all define themselves as Americans. [No, NOT ALL do that, Margot.] And yet there is an undercurrent: An American is Christian.

If there is a single politically correct issue, however far-fetched, in the vicinity, that woman will grab it and twist it to fit her own shallow, vain, slimy and sleazy devices.

She then goes on to inform us about the evil Pilgrim Fathers and their rigid understanding of religion, and goes on -- as a German SHE CAN NOT HELP IT -- to wax lyrically about the Koran burning of that "fundamentalist" pastor in Florida that never happened and how hurtful this was for, yes, not just Muslims, but specifically for us as Germans -- the entire old schtick of the child molester who thinks he is especially qualified for a job as a kindergarden teacher.

She left out, I guess yet and just, the slavery issue, and I spare you the rest, Americans. Frankly, I've got neither the time nor the stomach to translate the rest of that totally predictable, hackneyed, undignified drivel. Here we have a woman, a woman who holds a doctorate in theology, a woman who used to head one of the largest Protestant churches worldwide, a woman who has supposedly taught for two months now at an American university, a woman who IS BOUND TO HAVE spoken to Americans, a woman who still doesn't know how Americans, her hosts, think, feel and define themselves. Why? Because she doesn't give a damn as long as she looks pretty in the process.

In a word: a woman.

She is supposed to come back to Germany later this year. Do me a favour: Keep her!

The West Is Done In

You don't need to understand the German dubbing, I'll explain all you need to know. This is a "professional dancer and choreographer" from India. But what makes this REALLY interesting is the fact that he is a Jesuit. No lie. His full name is Dr. Saju George Moolamthuruthil SJ. In the Bildungs- und Exerzitienhaus (a house for education and spiritual exercises) "Maria zur Sonne" of the Würzburg diocese, he held, in cooperation with the Catholic mission project Missio, a four-day clinic dubbed "Stretching the body -- stretching the soul". The first dance in this film is supposed to allegorize the Crucification of Christ. No lie. The attendees interviewed, one of them a Catholic priest, are over the moon about it. No need to say that it is no lie.

Pater Geurge SJ has given 200 odd (pun intended) performances in India and worldwide, adopting both, as he puts it, Hindu and Christian themes in his performance. He states that his art involves prayer and adoration, self-awareness and divine realisation, aesthetic delight (you bet) and cosmic integration, social service, the promotion of inter-religious peace and harmony, ecumenism as well as other dimensions. And I'd bet a couple of other politically correct themes as well.

Here he does it around the altar of the Schottenkirche in Vienna:



Not this obscene, heretic priest is the problem, but those who are embracing perversion in their futile search for "spirituality".

After it didn't manage to make the people practise what it teaches, the contemporary church decided to teach what they practise.
Nicolás Gómez Dávila translated by me from the German.

Hat tip: CCC!

The Serious Duty to Instruct and Improve Jews

The debased cruelty with which Israeli soldiers treat their prisoners to then have their photographs taken and published at Facebook is a historically unique crime of Jewry as such, reaching so far unknown proportions and not the brainfart of an abysmally dumb &%*$§. The history of the Holocaust will have to be re-written. Germans breathe a not-so-clandestine sigh of relief.

What does Google, always so helpful, say? If one googles for "trophy photos soldiers" one gets 531,000 hits, some as interesting as this one or this one. And no, they are not about Israeli soldiers.

Head of a Japanese, Burma 1945.

Life Magazine,May 22 1944

Arizona war worker writes her Navy boyfriend a thank-you note for the Jap skull he sent her.
Defense worker N. Nickolson writes to her sweetheart thanking him for his letter and "souvenir." This skull of a Japanese soldier bears the inscription: "Here is a good Jap -- a dead one!"

As it ought to be, and I am serious here, those pictures are put in a historic perspective by many contemporary and more recent commenters. It is an enlightening lecture about history and human nature. If one goes then on googling for "trophy photos soldiers -israel -jews" one gets 322,000 hits, for "trophy photos soldiers -israel -jews -iraq" only 242,000. What conclusion can be drawn from that? I'm not 100% sure, but a possible one would be that American war crimes, real or perceived, only started to become truly interesting for a wider public, and not even mainly in Germany, when America had mutated in the public eye to the Ersatz-Jew, acting as proxy for Israel, the Über-Jew.

This is the execution of Sergeant Len Siffleet of the Australian Z Special Force Unit on October 24, 1943, at Aitaoe beach, New Guinea, performed by a Japanese civilian. Such a duty was considered an honour. Japanese have immaculate manners.

The faded photograph was found in a Japanese soldier's pocket and yet still chills the heart of Australians.

I'm sure the Australians wouldn't have gotten their knickers in such a knot had they only known, what Israelis would do to their prisoners sixty-odd years later.

Not to forget the recent cases, but they are part of the culture of the performers and thus above criticism per se. Culture is wonderful, as long as it's not Western. Never forget, too, that they are deeply traumatized by the cruel treatment they received from the West. And who are we, anyway, with our past and present, capitalism, imperialism, White Supremacy, colonialism, not to speak of the Holocaust, to be arrogant enough to lecture them what is wrong or what is right.

That, we must only do to the Jews.

Americas Solidarity with the Jewish People Unwavering ...

... as long as they are well and truly dead:

KRAKOW, Poland – U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says the Obama administration will seek $15 million contribution to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation.

She made the pledge while visiting the Oskar Shchindler [sic!] enamel factory where the German protected Jews from the Holocaust.

“Today I am proud to announce the intention of the Obama Administration to work with Congress to secure $15 million in funding for the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation,” she said.

“We encourage other nations to join us in contributing to this fund. In just one year, 2009 alone, more than 1.3 million people from around the world visited the museum and memorial of Auschwitz,” Clinton added during a sombre speech.

“Our contribution will help preserve the camp so that future generations can see for themselves why the world must never again allow a place of such hatred to scar the soul of humankind,” she said.

So while the empathy for and solidarity with dead Jews is strong (and cheap), the same Obama administration that gets quite dewy-eyed and sombre over a world that must never again allow a place of such hatred to scar the soul of humankind, is blocking key weapons projects for Israel, rejecting requests for AH-64D Apache Longbow helicopters, while at exactly the same time happily approving advanced F-16 multi-role fighters for Egypt plus approving more than $10 billion worth of arms sales to Arab League states, including Kuwait, Jordan, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates who all have a key interest in the survival of the Jewish people and not to allow ever again a place of such hatred to scar the soul of humankind.

And to let no doubt whatsoever that this ilk is totally unembarrassable, she goes on:

“We see here the two realities of the Holocaust. One involves the cold, mechanized slaughter of millions of men, and women, and children, many of them wrenched from their communities, herded into boxcars by their neighbors and sent to die, including, not far from here, in the gas chambers of Auschwitz,” Clinton said.

“And yet we also see and are heightened by the stories of the righteous, the thousands who risked lives, fortunes, and reputations to rescue friends and strangers from the horrors of the Shoah,” she added.

“The courage of Oskar Schindler and Minister Bartoszewski gives us proof that, in the face of the worst that humanity is capable of, there are amongst us individuals who are defiant, and who are unwilling to accept that alternative reality.

“We have an obligation to remember both sides of that experience of the Holocaust,” she said.

First, dear Hillary, only Jews use the term "Shoa". Gentiles who do so show a deplorable lack of taste, distance, discernment and respect. And no, there are NOT "two realities of the Holocaust". It was NOT not about "scars on the souls of humankind", but about six million dead Jews. Rememberance isn't, either, about restaging "thousands who risked lives, fortunes, and reputations to rescue friends and strangers" who wouldn't have needed to do that in the first place, hadn't millions of others, the overwhelming majority, done nothing -- or gleefully complied. Trust anybody as debased as yourself and the faux Messiah in the White House to turn remembrance of the Holocaust into a feel good experience for gentiles.

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.

The Fascism of Enlightenment

Stealth Muslim Stefan Weidner is considered one of the most important mediators of Arab culture in Germany, which is, in a way, true. To summarise: The problem Germans have with Islam is that they are not able to appreciate the beauty of the koranic language and the problems they may have with Muslims are due to the fact that only few Germans are Arabic speakers. On the other hand, many Muslims are bilingual (which he ascribes to the legacy of European colonialism, considering the vast influence widespread German colonialism had in the Arab world) which gave them a knack for, and appreciation of, Western culture, which is felt by all of us recipients of Muslim cultural awareness.

Tomorrow, Weidner is scheduled to hold a lecture in the Berlin "Haus der Kulturen der Welt" about rage. Yes, rage.

With his lecture, Stefan Weidner makes a contribution to the programme “On Rage”. He will give his audience to understand his associations with rage and where he locates it within our society.

One important thought that Weidner has in mind for his lecture is the fact that Central Europe has not been spared the existential uncertainty caused by the global financial crisis of 2008. Yet a revolt against democracy does not seem to be an option; the forces of globalization are too difficult to grasp concretely.

Rage, fear and frustration are the face of discontent, and Islam proves to be the perfect screen on which to project this primary emotion. Even during the greatest crisis in its history, Islam has always been an easy target. Between home grown fundamentalism and Western Islamophobia, Muslims and their historically rooted culture have turned into a caricature image for extremists on both sides of the divide. What rhetorical patterns express this image of Islam engendered by diffuse rage? Why is the anti-Islamic movement gaining adherents, especially among older, educated and affluent individuals least affected by the prevailing economic uncertainty? Is Europe in danger of creating an anti-Islamic fascism of the Enlightenment?

When Weidner will then be brought to face the Un-Enlightened Activities Committee, he will finally become apart at the seams and profess that he used to be always against Islam and that all he wanted was, after all, a bit of enlightened tolerance. What remains is the question who will become the Enlightened Leader. Applications (in writing) can still be submitted. Arabic speakers need not apply.

Seeping-in Sharia

HuffPo knows what REALLY interests us:

Sheikha Mozah Meets The Royals In Fabulous Fashion
(PHOTOS, POLL)

Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser Al Missned of Qatar, normally known for her unapologetically monochromatic ensembles, really mixed things up during a meeting with Queen Elizabeth II at Windsor Castle on Tuesday.

But two days later, she returned to the monochromatic Mozah we know and love [sic!] when she and Prince Charles attended a reception and planted a Sidr tree to mark the opening of the Qur'anic Garden Exhibition at the Royal Botanic Gardens [sic!].

Quick Poll

Which look do you like best?

Look 1 (with Queen Elizabeth) for attending a stoning in Iran

Look 2 (with Prince Charles) for attending a beheading in Saudi Arabia

To be honest, neither. She'd even make a burqa look good, so why not?

Rest assured, this is gallow's humour!

Defining Down the Dangerous

My friend Gudrun Eussner has discovered Lawrence Auster's VFR and made me aware of this entry on Dutch novelist and writer Leon de Winter, whose oeuvre is well known to both of us:

My brain is running out of the neurotransmitters that transmit amazement. The Wall Street Journal has an article this week that calls on the Netherlands to cancel the trial of Geert Wilders--but not because it is wrong to put a man on trial for stating opinions; and not because it is totalitarian to send a man to prison for criticizing Islam. In fact, the author, Leon de Winter, does not actually find fault with the Netherlands' "hate-speech" laws under which Wilders is being tried, and his strongest criticism of the effort by Dutch prosecutors to put Wilders in prison for his opinions that it is "preposterous." He does not call it tyrannical Why, then, does de Winter want the trial to be stopped? Because the trial will expose the violent, hate-filled teachings of Islam, and that must be prevented at all costs. As he writes: "On trial is not so much Geert Wilders, but the Holy Book of Islam."

There's a secondary harm de Winter sees resulting from the trial: Wilders might be convicted. But, as de Winter makes clear, the reason he wants to prevent that outcome is not that Wilders would be fined or go to jail and that the people of the West would be scared into silence on the subject of the encroaching power of Islam. No, de Winter want to prevent the conviction of Wilders because it will make Wilders more popular and help advance his cause.

From de Winter's reasoning it is clear that if Geert Wilders had not declared at the opening of the trial on January 20 his intention to make the truth of his statements about Islam the basis of his defense, de Winter would not have called for the cancellation of the trial. He is doing so, not in order to protect Wilders and other besieged Islam critics from tyrannical leftist governments, but in order to protect Islam from the truth.

One last point. From a quick look around the Web, it appears that conservative websites think that de Winter's column is pro-Wilders, mainly because of its title, "Stop the Trial of Geert Wilders." They don't seem to realize that the column is anti-Wilders, and pro-Islam.

While de Winter's bigotry is indeed stunning, it's not all that unusual not to read past the headline and there seems to be such a dearth of followers for conservatives, that they seem to jump on any impossible partner, like a fortyish spinster desperate for a husband, or start drooling like Pavlovian dogs, only it's not the dinner bell but some random key words that match with their "conservative detection" nodes inside what is left of their grey matter. But there is more to this article, and about that later.

Again by Gudrun, I was made aware of this entry by de Winter at Pajamas Media: Obama Is Now Showing His True Colors as a Radical. No doubt that will push the salivary glands of the partner-starved conservative spinsters into overdrive. (Pardon the mixed methaphors!)

As a community organizer, Barack Obama was heavily influenced by the theories of Saul Alinsky, who was a non-partisan neo-Marxist focused on the non-violent transformation of civil society. In Germany, a similar model was called der Marsch durch die Institutionen — “the long journey through the institutions.”

This conventional Obama-critique, something I have read countless times before, and better argued, for that, is not particularly noteworthy. However, what IS, is de Winter's translation of the German word "Marsch" as "long journey". How a child of Holocaust survivors and neighbour to the German people can NOT know what the German word "Marsch" means AND IMPLIES, is beyond me. Besides, "Marsch durch die Institutionen" is an idiomatic term within political science with a defined meaning.

What about this, Mr. de Winter?

"After the violent suppression of the Jewish revolt, the Germans took a long journey into the Warsaw Ghetto."

Or this?

On September 1st, 1939, the German Wehrmacht embarked upon a long journey through Poland."

It doesn't seem to be totally off to say now that he probably doesn't know any German. Granted! But even if he doesn't know a smidgeon of that language, which I doubt (Dutch people are fond of pretending to, but usually they DO know, and even more than just a smidgeon), what about that:

English: "Right about face!"
German: "Rechtsum kehrt, marsch!"
Dutch: "Rechtsom keert, mars!"

So there! He uses a euphemism to exculpate the left, a left who purposefully chose that very military term, from any militant deportment. And in the same spirit he uses in the WSJ article Lawrence Auster quotes for the Koran the definition -- Listen well! -- "the Holy Book of Islam", as normally only a Muslim would and lo and behold, it is, like German radical leftism, not dangerous anymore. And all that by means of a linguistic little trick.

What makes somebody tick who sounds more like a disciple than a critic of Communist/Marxist fellow-traveller Saul Alinsky?

In the Alinsky model, "organizing" is a euphemism for "revolution" -- a wholesale revolution whose ultimate objective is the systematic acquisition of power by a purportedly oppressed segment of the population, and the radical transformation of America's social and economic structure.

So there again! And for that child of Holocaust survivors the German militant (and antisemitic) left didn't proclaim to "march" through the institutions in 1968 but to make "a long journey" through it, and for that Jew, whose iconic country of Israel is under threat by X million hateful Muslims, the Koran is "the Holy Book of Islam". Intellectual sluttery and moral cowardice won't take you very far, Mr. de Winter. Not that Pajamas Media will stop publishing you. After all, even Phyllis Chesler doesn't give them the creeps. Your (rather interesting) novels will go on selling well. But the Germans (in spite of enjoying your books), the left and the Muslims will go on hating you and your brethren, however much you will suck up to politically correct prescribed terminology and thinking.

High on Booze and One's Own Importance

The pastoral head of the umbrella organisation of Germany's Protestant churches has admitted drunk-driving after having passed a red light and being caught with a blood alcohol level three times over the legal limit. This is not the first time the church leader has made headlines. Criticising Catholic teachings on homosexuality, the ordination of women and celibacy come to mind. The calling for the withdrawal of German troops from Afghanistan in a sermon on New Year's Day became well known or, if you like, notorious, as well. The representative of Germany's 25 million Protestants, who revels in the role of a moral authority, who has in that capacity criticised bankers for their greed during the financial crisis and condemned all forms of "excess", vocally declared that "Nothing is good in Afghanistan" and urged a speedy withdrawal of the German troops.

Now I will let you in on a secret about German psychology. You can bet your last penny that, if a German opposes a war -- ANY war -- he is really, deep down, opposing WWII, where the evil Americans attacked a trusting and innocent Germany to prevent it from completing their great patriotic deed.

"There is no such thing as a 'just war.' I cannot legitimize it from a Christian point of view," the bishop had stated, and: "There is nothing right in Afghanistan. All these strategies have just obscured the fact that soldiers are using their guns and even killing civilians."

Asked whether that applies to the war against Nazi Germany as well, the reply was affirmative: "They always say, if the Allies hadn’t attacked there wouldn’t have been freedom. But I say — why wasn’t there a strategy to avoid war? Why wasn’t the German opposition to Hitler strengthened? Why weren’t the rails leading to Auschwitz bombed?" And who gives an aviating fornication for the fact that is was the "strategy to avoid war" in the first place that enabled Hitler to turn into a threat to the entire free world.

Predictably, such history-relativising and responsibility-misaligning statements evoked a groundswell of support from the leftist German mainstream, public and media.

And now for the really interesting detail: The bishop is, interest- but not really amazingly, a bishoppette.

That women, known for granting the disgusting German tabloid BILD (no links to BILD from my blogs) interviews about her love life and her theology, never misses a snide remark about the Catholic church, like, for example "I'm not an infallibe papette", which proves either that she doesn't deserve her doctorate in theology or that she is an intellectually dishonest hack and oughtn't to head a Protestant kindergarden, let alone the Protestant church. Papal infallibility is clearly defined, strictly limited and has been executed twice, namely by Pope Pius IX in 1854 regarding the Immaculate Conception and by Pope Pius XII in 1950, defining the Assumption of Mary. But that theologian can safely assume that BILD readers don't know that anyway and whatever if it only makes such a great point against that evil old man in Rome whose throne even SHE (SHE SHE!) won't be -- horribile dictu -- able to reach. All this, mind you, goes by the label of "improving ecumenism".

We have, incidentally, reported on Margot Kässmann already when she was shameless enough to equate the radicalism, religious zeal and potential danger of Muslim and Christian converts and about the big slime spot she left in the Scripture when she twisted it to justify the breach of her marital vows. This bishopette, notabene, is divorced.

But as usual, not the problem is the problem, but how people react to it. The entire leftist public and media have their Attends in a knot to protect this paragon of leftist, i.e. rotten-to-the-core and depraved, values. Her organisation explicitly "covers her back" and the online fora are atwitter with statements saying that this is basically a good thing because it proves that she is, after all, human. And that when we all thought, just like she did herself, that she is godlike. Just imagine for a fraction of a moment what had happened, had a Catholic bishop made the same "honest mistake".

I, personally, find it almost a relief that her statements can now safely be dismissed not just as the the unbalanced rantings of an unhinged woman drugged by the thought of her own importance, but as the unbalanced rantings of an unhinged alcoholic woman drugged by the thought of her own importance. With a blood alcohol level of 1.54 o/oo, a non-alcoholic would have been, at best, able to find the next lavatory in time, but not his car, let alone open it, start it and drive it. That is not bad in itself, she is neither the first nor the last alcoholic in such an office, what IS bad is that she thought that she could get away with it (and that, so it seems, she WILL get away with it) and didn't even bother to call a taxi. Being high on one's own inflated ego and being high on alcohol is, in the end, difficult to tell apart, or so I guess.

If Margot Kässmann was, so far, the first bishopette of the German Protestant church, she is now the first booze-bishopette of the same church. And the latter is only the to-be-expected consequence of the former.

Cross-posted at TMDSC.

Germans love Jews -- dead, that is!

I am probably the last person fit to comment on theological matters, so I refrained so far from saying anything in view of the ongoing discussion about the ex-excommunication of that Holocaust-denying renegate bishop by Pope Benedict XVI. However, the discussion here in Germany has become so strident, hysterical and impertinent, that I'd like to comment, even if only briefly.

While the statement, that the Pope hadn't known about the Holocaust-denial of Williamson (the much-publicized interview was, in fact, given AFTER the excommunication was revoked, but his stance wasn't new) shows that the information system of the Vatican leaves a lot to be desired, it wasn't in any way discussed, let alone the not entirely outlandish conspiracy theory that the pope was conned.

The instead ensuing anti-Catholic hate orgy in the media violated, and is still violating, any common standard of journalistic ethics (an oxymoron if I've ever heard one). I can not tell how many times I had to listen to the tale of the "rehabilitation of the Holocaust denier", and even the very last theological troll was allowed to let loose his inner child. Hans Küng, who called for the "resignation" of the pope and who is particularly qualified to comment on Jewish topics as he considers, for once on the side of traditional Catholicism, "the international law-violating occupation of the Palestinian territories by Israel since 1967" a reason for the deterioration of the Jewish-Catholic relations, concluded in an interview with the "conservative" newspaper Die Welt: "The number of Christians who have left the Holy Land is speaking for itself", conveniently forgetting that it isn't Israeli-Jewish "occupation" that does that but Palestinian-Muslim atrocities, lauding, eerily befitting, Islam's "forceful Monotheism" in the same interview.

And nobody laughed.

So what is the ex-excomunication really about? The four men may now attend again confession and receive absolution. They may receive communion and will not have to die without the solace of the sacraments of their church. That is all.

All, but very much for a Catholic.

But the public discussion is not really about that, it is about the authority of the pope and the Catholic church, who doggedly refuse to surrender their values to relativist secular ones. The world will stop despising Catholics once they've accepted the rules of political correctness as above the word of Jesus Christ, in other words, when they have ceased to be Catholics.

Germany is a secular country. Since the revision of paragraph § 166 StGB of the penal code in 1969, blasphemy has been abolished as a punishable crime. Holocaust denial, in contrast, has been elevated to a status where it is liable to prosecution, and the European Union, in the same spirit, refrained to include any reference to God in their constitution but made Holocaust denial a punishable crime as well.

Have superior ethics and morality been thus achieved?

Well, what can I say? There is certainly a difference between the importance that is given to the denial of the past Holocaust and the call for a future one.

If a Muslim-mob haunts the streets of our country chanting "Death to the Jews" it doesn't seem to be a big matter. If German politicians are rubbing shoulders with the Middle Eastern scum who are ready, willing and able to commit a second Holocaust, most of them deniers of the first one themselves, it's mostly a good thing. If a dialie dialogue with Islam is promoted, it's received with enthusiastic acclaim. Hasn't it, after all, been exceedingly fruitful in the past already?

Thus, the "Never Again" solemnly and hypocritically sworn at any Liberation-of-Auschwitz-Day, turns well-nigh into the precondition for the "Way to go" for the next one.

The Overall Balance of Well-Being and Human Life

The FAZ reports today that a new Swiss law spells out in 226 paragraphs on about 100 pages how animals are to be treated. For example, pets such as budgerigars or guinea pigs can no longer be kept by themselves, but only with a companion. Farm animals like sheep and goats must have at least visual contact with their fellow creatures and every owner of a dog (not just those of breeds that are listed as dangerous) will be obliged to take special classes to get some expertise, to name just a few items.

While searching for more information on the controversial ethicist Peter Singer mentioned in the article, who, to cut a long matter short, wouldn't have let his Alzheimer-suffering mother live had the decision about her life or death been his, I came across an entry in the blog Get Religion. While the entry itself was, as the entire blog is, about the missing religious angle when we are looking at cases of misanthropy and the love of animals, the really interesting points were made in the comments section.

1. Dave2 says:
   September 28, 2008, at 6:16 pm

   Mike Perry wrote:

   And to the previous post by Dave2, I’d suggest that the relativism lies in equating animal life to human life, or in the case of Peter Singer, of valuing some animal life more than some human life. Singer is, of course, careful to put Princeton professors high on his scale of value and that of happy children with Downs low. Relativists invariably tilt the scales in their favor.

   From what you’ve written, it looks like you do not understand what relativism is. Peter Singer, for example, is simply not a relativist. He is a utilitarian.

   Moral relativism is the view that the moral status of things is determined by and relative to human moral attitudes, either individually or as embedded in cultural norms. Thus, according to moral relativism, exterminating the Jews is morally right for an individual Nazi or for the German-speaking culture of the Third Reich, even though it is of course morally wrong for you or I or for mainstream American culture.

   Utilitarianism, on the other hand, is the view that the moral status of an action (or a practice or a social institution) is determined by the overall balance of well-being that is brought about by that action. So, if the Holocaust brought about an enormous amount of suffering, far greater than any happiness produced (as seems plausible), then utilitarianism will say that those who participated in the Holocaust were behaving wrongly. Note that utilitarianism gives an objective answer to questions of moral right and wrong, independent of human moral attitudes. Like most any ethical theory, utilitarianism has no time for relativism. I’m no utilitarian, but to assimilate utilitarianism to relativism is an egregious error.

   Moreover, there is zero relativism in the view that some animal life is more valuable than some human life. Indeed, such a view is flatly incompatible with relativism. For example, if I really think that a normal adult gorilla is far more valuable than a human zygote (a view I do in fact hold), I am not treating questions of value as a mere matter of opinion or of culture. No, I’m treating such questions as corresponding to actual moral truths: on my view, those who think human zygotes are more valuable than a normal adult gorilla are mistaken. In contrast, a relativist would say that I have my values and they have their values and that’s all there is to it.

   All this can be verified by consulting any Ethics 101 textbook.

   Finally, I believe you are wrong about Peter Singer’s views on children with Down’s syndrome. Here is a quote from his Practical Ethics: “Thus, though many would disagree with Baby Doe’s parents about allowing a Down’s syndrome infant to die (because people with Down’s syndrome can live enjoyable lives and be warm and loving individuals), virtually everyone recognises that in more severe conditions, allowing an infant to die is the only humane and ethically acceptable course to take.” As a utilitarian, Singer has no problem with genetic abnormalities as such. The question is whether they impair quality of life.

2. Imprimartin says:
   September 29, 2008, at 12:09 pm

   Relativism and Utilitarianism are both the same because the source of the values of both are decided by humans:

   Moral relativism is the view that the moral status of things is determined by and relative to human moral attitudes, either individually or as embedded in cultural norms.

   Notice how “human moral attitudes” and “cultural norms” are decided by humans.

   Utilitarianism, on the other hand, is the view that the moral status of an action (or a practice or a social institution) is determined by the overall balance of well-being that is brought about by that action.

   Here, the “overall balance of well-being” is also decided by humans.

   These theories are the same because of the source of “the rules” is the same. Disagreement among the parties does not determine difference.

   . . .those who think human zygotes are more valuable than a normal adult gorilla are mistaken. In contrast, a relativist would say that I have my values and they have their values and that’s all there is to it.

   Just because a person thinks someone is mistaken, doesn’t disqualify him as a relativist. A relativist says, “I have my values and they have theirs and mine are right because of the angle that I’m viewing from and his are right because of the angle he is viewing from. Consequently, we are both right and wrong at the same time. But make no, mistake, He is wrong because of where I’m standing and I choose to stand here.”

   In contrast, the natural rights arguments go something like this:

   -The source of natural rights are the observable, measureable, and verifiable laws that govern nature.
   -Humans are given some natural rights and animals are given others
   -If humans disagree with each other, someone is mistaken and investigation into the matter will discover who it is.

   A relativist will not acknowledge this governing law. An absolutist will.

   Ethics teacher,
   Martin

3. Mark Stricherz says:
   September 29, 2008, at 4:39 pm

   Imprimartin and Dave2,

   Your replies about relativism, utilitarianism, and the natural law are interesting but also tangential to my post. Please stop writing about those topics or your comments will be deleted.

   Mark

4. Dave2 says:
   September 29, 2008, at 6:26 pm

   Mark,

   Did you not write, “While America has long been an individualistic country, it has not considered some animals to be humans deserving of legal rights. Is the individualism carried to iconography related to the dictatorship of relativism that Pope Benedict XVI decried?”

5. Mark Stricherz says:
   September 29, 2008, at 8:28 pm

   Yes.

   Your replies, as well as those of others, deal with my question only glancingly.

6. Dave2 says:
   September 29, 2008, at 11:27 pm

   Well, I guess I’d still like to see any real connection between animal rights and moral relativism—i.e., something other than the fact that they’re both associated with the political left in American popular imagination.

7. The Editrix says:
   October 1, 2008, at 4:14 am

   I came here via a search engine looking for information on Peter Singer and found one of the most interesting, intelligent, informative and inspiring discussions I have ever come across in the comment section of a blog during the ten plus years I am online now. And what does the blog owner do? Instead of thanking the contributors for their time and effort, he threatens to delete their comments because they are ***screech*** “tangential” to his (mediocre) post.

   To misquote the Header of this blog: Get A Clue!

But however arrogant the attitude of the author of the entry (I take it that, different from my angry comment, he is not the blog owner) or how interesting the above discussion may be, when all is said and done, we can both, utilitarianism and relativism, safely file under Evil with a capital "E".

We have discussed matters "tangential" to the topic of "animal rights" here, here and here already.

We’ll do God, and you can do Baal!

I came across the following through the help of an excellent new blog-find, WI Catholic Musings. The full article appeared at The Jewish Press, who are, as they are putting it themselves, commenting from "from a centrist or Modern Orthodox perspective".

The Pope's Got A Point
By: Rabbi Yerachmiel Seplowitz

The pope has generated a bit of controversy.

First, he permitted congregations to go back to the old custom of praying in Latin. (More about that later.) Then he announced that only the Catholic Church qualifies as a real church. Protestants, as far as the pope is concerned, simply don’t make the grade!

And with that, over 40 years of ecumenical dialogue go down the tubes. Protestant leaders are offended. The churches whose founders long ago broke away from the Catholic Church feel they are considered less-than-Christian by an institution they previously rejected as “too Christian.”

No doubt, in short order, a multitude of Jewish leaders will express their own concerns over the pontiff’s lack of tolerance for those whose beliefs are different from his own. After all, a spirit of cooperation fostered by the Second Vatican Council back in 1965 has allowed people of diverse faiths to share their beliefs in mutual respect. Why, we’ve even witnessed the intriguing phenomenon of cardinals, in full “uniform,” visiting rabbinical students to observe the study of Talmud. How, many are asking, could the pope jeopardize this détente with his bigoted condemnation of non-Catholics?

I have one thing to say to the pope: “Hear! Hear!” What do his critics want from the man? He’s got a religion to run!

I, for one, am not at all put off by the fact that the leader of another religion sees that religion as primary. If he thinks his religion is right, he obviously thinks mine is wrong.

I’ve always found it curious that people of different religions get together in a spirit of harmony to share their common faiths. By definition, these people should have strong opposition to the beliefs of their “colleagues” at the table. The mode of prayer of one group should be an affront to the other group. Yet, for some reason it isn’t. Why is that?

I suspect the reason many representatives of diverse religious groups find it easy to pray together is that they don’t really believe very strongly in the uniqueness of their own beliefs.

If my religion is okay and your religion is okay, we can mix and match and share with mutual respect and admiration. Can you envision Elijah the Prophet conducting an ecumenical service on Mount Carmel? “Oh, would you like to have a joint prayer meeting? Great! We’ll do God, and you can do Baal!” I don’t think so!

What the pope is saying – and I agree 100 percent – is that there are irreconcilable differences, and we can’t pretend those differences don’t exist.

Christians believe we are all sinners and that there is only one way to achieve salvation. It starts with believing that the Messiah arrived about 2,000 years ago. I obviously don’t believe that premise to be correct. I can’t. Such a belief is, based upon the teachings of the Torah, theologically indefensible.

If you believe in something, if you really believe in something, you need to have the courage of your convictions and stand up for what you believe. I can respect the pope for making an unambiguous statement of what he believes.

We need to respect all people. All of us are created in God’s image. This does not mean, however, that we have to respect their opinions. Nor does it mean that we should go around trashing the beliefs of other people. What it means is that we don’t need to play games of “I’m okay, your okay” with beliefs we find unacceptable.

The Latin Mass that was dropped many years ago included a prayer for the conversion of the Jews. Now that the Latin Mass is once again acceptable to Catholics, the International Jewish Committee on Interreligious Consultations has written to the Vatican and expressed “profound concern … that the authorization may have allowed the return of this prayer.” They have requested confirmation that the conversion prayer will not be reintroduced.

I ask you, does this make sense? Where do we Jews get off making demands of Catholics that they only say prayers that meet with our approval?

Next week is Tisha B’Av. Have we forgotten that we are living in exile? The audacity of Jews dictating to Christians how they should pray is simply mind-boggling.

First off, the request implies that we can influence Catholic theology. Face it: Christians believe they are right and we are wrong. They think we should convert, and that attitude will not change until Moshiach comes.

And speaking of Moshiach, if we are going to sit down with the Vatican to negotiate liturgy, should we, l’havdil, offer to take out the second paragraph of Aleinu, in which we pray for the day when gentiles will stop worshipping idols? How about “sheheim mishtachavim” – the line that Christian censors removed from Aleinu, claiming it insulted Christians? Many of us have put it back. Should we allow the Vatican to dictate what we say in our prayers? Or should we, perhaps, do a line-by-line analysis of the Talmud to make sure there is nothing there that people may find offensive?

I don’t mean to suggest that we shouldn’t be talking to Catholic leaders. The pope needs to know, for example, that it is good to encourage his millions of followers to support Israel and that it is bad to hate Jews. There needs to be careful dialogue, but it needs to be a secular, common, needs-based dialogue. We should not be studying Talmud together and we should not be discussing prayer.

A Catholic doctor once came to visit me in my office. Someone had told him what I said in a sermon about the murder of pre-born children, and he determined that he and I were on the same page. He invited me to participate in a symposium on abortion, to be made up of doctors, lawyers, and clergy. He was looking for non-Catholics. “After all,” he reasoned, “we orthodox people have to stick together!”

I declined the invitation.

The rabbi's views are like a fresh breeze cleaning up the minds clogged by relativism and I-am-okay-you-are-okay drivel. Can you believe it! He is not taken aback by the fact that the pope is Catholic! This is a long-overdue slap in the face of all those who insist on their different-, precious- and uniqueness and who are then not content with discerning respect received from a distance, an attitude best defined as leftism, by the way.

Conflicting Values - Not

I mentioned the Michael Vick case earlier this month. Whereas I find the libertarian take on cruelty to animals, that places property rights above the suffering of a mammal, unethical albeit intellectually honest, I happened to come across a liberal take I find hypocritical and -- worse -- dumb. At a blog called Daily Kos, which is part of a liberal blogging network, I found the following statement:

Michael Vick is an All American, of this America more than any other time. He may have to go to jail, but surely he deserves the Medal of Freedom every bit as much as Donald Rumsfeld, L. Paul Bremer and the rest of the cast of characters who lead our country into our international arena of violence. Vick brutally wantonly and without empathy killed a hundred dogs, while these men destroyed the lives of hundreds of thousands of humans.

Vick is a product of our culture, in fact, he epitomizes it. He is a criminal because he picked the wrong species to torment. Pigs, chickens, and, of course, humans would have been just fine; but not man's best friend.

So he must pay for his mistake. But, let's not get too much satisfaction out of his punishment, since he is also the victim of a larger injustice, that most of us quietly condone every day of our lives.

Excuse me, WHAT is the tu quoque- (or rather iste quoque-) argument doing here? Should the fact that other people did criminal deeds (whether real or perceived is not relevant in this context) make Vick's treatment of dogs any less cruel?

And the "you are only denouncing Vick because it's about that soppy 'men's-best-friend' thing"-argument would be nothing but yawn-worthy if it weren't so vile. Of course there are people who give an aviating fornication for what happens to humans or to animals who are expressing their disapproval of dog fighting, but then, there are many who DO care for all that (myself included) and STILL find dog fighting and tormenting animals to death wrong. And again: Does the fact that hypocrites and morons are denouncing dog fighting and other cruelties make those cruelties any less repulsive?

And if the writer of the above REALLY thinks that an individual like Vick "epitomizes" his (and the writer's) culture, it should be considered a miracle that nobody has fastened electrodes to his balls yet and electrocuted him slowly to death as punishment for his drivel. [sarcasm on] That this did NOT happen must be one of the disadvantages of a free society. [sarcasm off]

But the last paragraph tops it all. What is wrong about getting "satisfaction" out of a punishment? Of course, the gloating of revenge is disgusting and detrimental to society, but what is punishment for? Deterrence? Theoretically yes, in practice a doubtful thing. Rehabilitation? The same applies here. Incapacitation is often mentioned, but that's a measure, not a punishment. A dangerous lunatic, who is not responsible, has to be incapacitated as well as the responsible dangerous criminal. Restoration can under certain conditions be part of it, but rarely is. However, I think that punishment is about honouring the values cast in law, values that mirror society. And any satisfaction based on that is not just appropriate, but necessary. But then, "values" are slowly becoming anathema anyway.

And the "victim of a larger injustice" bit? What "larger injustice" might that be? Because Vick is Black? Because (I presume) he grew up in less-than-privileged circumstances? Don't those bleeding-heart-apologists don't see how unjust and condescending their stance is towards the millions of Black and underprivileged people who do NOT torture dogs to death? Or do not turn to crime at all?

But I guess one needs values to see that.

Media Darlings of the Unenlightened Masses

... or: Sheer and Undiluted Shittyness

The release of the fifteen British soldiers triggered off the inevitable German media ritual to let the inexorable "Iran-experts" have their say. The most inescapable among those is the unavoidable Bahman Nirumand. His love affair with the German media beats the longevity of 98% of marriages in this country and he is always good for a howler. This time he sees the bizarre staging a "coming around" regarding the hostage-crisis, which is "a defeat for the president". And he even managed to keep a straight face.

The amnesty surely wasn't his [Ahmadinedjad's] will, but that of his adversaries who obviously managed to rein him in and thus to avert an imminent danger from the the country.

Which will, according to Nirumand, lead to a decision of crucial importance:

Iran is at the crossroads. Either the radical Islamists around Ahmadinedjad ... will succeed to monopolize the power or his critics, the moderates, the reformers, will manage to to take over the helm. This round goes to the moderates.

A superfluity of metaphors doesn't make the reasoning any more lucid and the fairytale of the "moderate" Muslim who needs nothing but support to bring peace to the world any less moronic. Following this logic from the nuthouse, the kidnapping was even a good thing because it somehow weakened Ahmadinedjad, Liza observes.

Nirumand was born in Tehran in 1936 and went to Germany as a student in the Fifties. He read German philology, philosophy and Iranic studies, his doctor's thesis was about Bertolt Brecht. He returned to teach in Iran, then had to flee the regime of the Shah, went back to Germany, where he became one of the leading members of the "Movement of 1968" at the German universities in the Sixties and early Seventies, which is still considered by the mainstream an anti-autoritarian revolt, while its main achievement was to firmly replace German historical guilt by that of America (famous chant: "USA -- SA -- SS") and to change America's role from that of a liberator to that of an oppressor, not just of Germany, but of the world.

The banners say: "Amis out of Indochina", "Class War intead of war between peoples" and "For the set-up of the IVth Internationale".

After the Shah's demise, Nirumand returned a second time to Iran to flee once again when the Mullahs came to power.

1989, Nirumand's book Leben mit den Deutschen (Life with the Germans) appeared. As a series of letters he writes to a relative in Iran who is considering to come to Germany about his experiences with the culture of the post-war Teutons, including gems like being invited for dinner, then being charged for his meal, or people being reprimanded for turning up for an appointment at 2:02 when it was scheduled for 2:00. Such clichés, bordering on the slanderous, come, mind you, from a confessing "lover" of German culture and almost lifelong resident in this country and are, in a culture of intense self-hatred, guarantors for adequate sales figures, specifically with multi-kulti appeal thrown in.

At this point it is, maybe, not all that amazing anymore to learn that this is the same Bahman Nirumand, who compares "Christian and Jewish fundamentalism" with Islamism, who are all (ALL!) "instrumentalising the faith to mobilise the unenlightened masses for their goals", notabene in the mouthpiece of the post-GDR-Communist PDS, Neues Deutschland, and Israel's ownership of nuclear weapons with that of Iran.

All that has nothing to do with neither, religion nor culture. That is naked safeguarding of interests.

Having learned now from Father Nirumand that the wish of the Jewish state to survive among a host of aggressive and armed-to-the teeth neighbours is more precisely described as "naked safeguarding of interests" (we are relieved!), Nirumand Daughter goes on -- Habemus Papam -- to explain us the nature of comparisons in even more detail:

Many Catholics who are trying to live with their church's guidelines, are shattered by the election of Cardinal Ratzinger. On the other hand, some intellectuals are revelling in submissive gestures and self-flagellation rituals that put a Shiite in Kerbala to shame ... What is supposed to be ethically relativist, and thus somehow arbitrary, about the stance that divorce is better than a broken down relationship? To some, the unborn life in the petri-dish is sacred, to others the freedom of individual decision -- why is one ethical and the other relativist? Some consider euthanasia hubris, others a deed of mercy -- where is here the indifference?

Whether this professed (albeit recent) "conservative" is really as dumb as she looks and really hasn't twigged what ethical relativism is about or whether she is spouting calculatingly Daddy's "Islamism Light" is beyond me.

But don't take Mariam Lau née Nirumand, who made the transgression from film editor at the leftist taz to chief correspondent for the "conservative" Die Welt seemingly without hangups and whom obviously nobody told that her time as a cheeky media brat had been outstayed decades ago, verbiage about our pope too seriously. She can be nice to us Germans as well. After all, didn't she do us the immense favour to call Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Executioners "pulp fiction with sociologic camouflage code" in an article headed "Little Historians" in taz vom 13./14. April 1996, and the Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Memorial for for victims of the former East German Ministry of State Security ('Stasi') an "educational shock treatment" in Die Welt, which each hit the center of the German Zeitgeist with stunning accuracy, regardless of the ten years between those two statements, the different media in which they appeared and the professed change of political stance of the writer.

Gosh, and there was I, thinking that Daddy Bahman's thingy about calling Israel's wish to defend herself "naked safeguarding of interests" was unbeatable in its sheer and undiluted shittyness!

My take on all that? Only in a country like Germany, with that dangerous mixture of self-hatred and denial and without any moral and ethical compass, phonies like Nirumand père et fille can become the media darlings of the unenlightened masses, while they are making up their bull, somehow arbitrarily, while they are going along. In any sane society they would have been laughed out of the door ages ago.

Guilt Is A Mighty Lever

I am not known to have feminist leanings. However, the (THE!) German feminist, publisher of the feminist magazine Emma, Alice Schwarzer didn't shun the truth yesterday in an interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE, at least not once one has discarded the politically correct hangups, mainly about gender, from which she is suffering. The interview was prompted by the court verdict against a 26-year old woman with two small children (as SPIEGEL ONLINE had reported on Tuesday), who was seeking an expedite divorce, something German divorce law allows under certain circumstances. Otherwise, the woman would have had to ride out the standard one-year waiting period. The police had already confirmed that the husband, a Moroccan (the wife was born in Germany to Morrocan parents), had beaten her. The husband was ordered out of the mutual dwelling, but went on terrorising and even threatened to murder her. The judge, notabene a woman, had, against everybody's expectations, denied the request because, so she argues, the husband is from Morocco and in Morocco (listen well!) the Koran allows men to beat their wives, so staying married to the wife-beater is, according to this judge, "no unreasonable cruelty within the meaning of paragraph 1565 BGB" [of the German civil law, which covers expedite divorce].

"Our Jurisdiction Is Being Undermined by Islamist Power"

[…]
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Ms. Schwarzer, a female judge* at the Frankfurt local court has denied the request of a woman for expedite divorce because the Koran allows physical violence as a disciplinary measure. A sad exception or are we watching some method here?

Alice Schwarzer: This reasoning is sadly all but an isolated case. In the past decades there have been many decisions – even in murder cases – where the perpetrator was convicted or even acquitted – in fact in cases of murder as well – in the name of "different customs" and a another "culture". Within the context of a recently growing sensitivity, honour killings come in here as well, but such an open violation of our jurisdiction by a German judge is startling all the same.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Do you see a general decay of the Grundgesetz [the German constitution] to the benefit of a religious appreciation of law?

Alice Schwarzer: Yes, and such an undermining process is not accidental. In fact, the currect legal system is being systematically undermined by Islamist powers for a long time now. Converts are involved here too and specifically.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Should the autonomy of the judge [German judges are, although part of the Beamten-hierarchy, not subject to directives by senior judges, which is considered one of the pillars of German jurisdiction] be taken as far as to a judge basing her verdict on the Koran?

Alice Schwarzer: A judge who relies on the Koran for her verdict administers the law based on Sharia and not based on the Grundgesetz. She has no place in a German courtroom.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: What should be the politicians' reaction? Does the case call for a change of the current divorce law?

Alice Schwarzer: No, I think our law is sufficient. But the federal minister for justice and the ministers of justice of the states ought to be alarmed by the fact that a German judge dares to administer "justice" this way. I am under the impression for some time now that there is a false "tolerance" rampant within the judiciary. Maybe there should be courses of instruction performed to clarify that human rights are not subject to relativation and that our law applies to male and female migrants as well.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: What is your advice for the Morrocan woman who is being threatened by her husband? Will we have to offer additional support for Muslim women in Germany? Maybe additional regulations as well?

Alice Schwarzer: The Germano-Moroccan needs help and protection – otherwise she would have to give up on Germany in despair. And that does not just apply to her, but to thousands of women from the Muslim culture as well, whose human rights, that goes without saying, must be protected equally to our own.

Interview: Anna Reimann

(Translation mine.)

Feminists living up their lives in dignity. (Photo from 2018.)

As an aside for my special American friends who have dubbed me a "self-hating German": To be honest, I am, at least in this case, quite a bit proud of that crone. Whereas American feminists are putting the Three Wise Monkeys to shame regarding the appaling brutality with which Islam is treating its women because they are too busy whingeing about the Western patriarchal cesspool that doesn't allow lesbians to live their lives in dignity they so much crave and the sex-discriminatory all-male membership of a golf club, this woman is alienating herself from her entire leftist infrastructure, if not putting her life at risk.

So back to Germany: The verdict of the German court has once again highlighted the danger cultural relativism holds for human rights and the rule of law. "Culture" has become a rewarding value worth protecting per se. Anybody who justifyies his (or her) actions with his (or her) "culture" can be sure to be judged with restraint, respect and awe.

The harm this post-colonial European trauma wrecked is hardly commensurable. What worth has a so-called civilised society that seems to have forgotten that it is their duty and theirs specifically to protect other individuals from submission under the inhuman demands of their own culture? Justice and humanity are indivisible.

Of course, this guilt-complex is being abused by those in power, the media, the politicians, whoever will profit from it. Guilt is a mighty lever! Multiculturalism as invariably portrayed as a positive, all-embracing lifestyle, which – and that is the crucial point – no reasonable person would reject. Denouncing multiculturalism has somewhat gained a sort of self-evident irrational wickedness akin to, for example, denying the Holocaust.

This is sad, dangerous and to use an, alas outmoded, epithet: Evil. With a capital "E".

The first aphorism I put up in the header of my blog was the (as far as I know) anonymous quote "Culture is to make a nice drinking bowl from one's enemy's skull -- Civilisation is to go to prison for that."

It is still there and it still says all that is to say about it.

---

* Translator's note: Throughout the interview, the term "Richterin" (female judge) as opposed to the generic term "Richter" is used. I have used the qualification "female" where it deemed important to me within the given context if the gender wasn't clear because of the personal pronoun anyway, otherwise I have omitted it. My apologies should I have violated Ms. Schwarzer's feminist sensitivities.

A mindset freed from bothering with reality

Rabbi David Gil Dalin is a Conservative rabbi, and author and co-author of several books on Jewish history. He is currently a professor of history and political science at Ave Maria University, and was previously associate professor of American Jewish history at the University of Hartford.

Dalin received a bachelor's degree from the University of California, Berkeley, a master's and doctorate from Brandeis University, and his Rabbinic ordination from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America.

He has recently published The Myth of Hitler’s Pope: How Pope Pius XII Rescued Jews from the Nazis.

I grew up with the picture Rolf Hochhut's (gentile, religious affiliation unknown to me) play "Der Stellvertreter" (The Deputy/Representative, 1963) painted, namely that of a cold cynic and a conniving politician who thinks that Communism is a far bigger threat to the Catholic Church than the Nazis. I would say that this picture is still the prevailing one in Germany, a country, which has never gotten over the Kulturkampf, the bitter struggle on the part of the German chancellor Otto von Bismarck to submit the Roman Catholic church to state control, which spanned much of the 1870's and 1880's. This "hot family feud" within German society dominated the formative period of the German party system and had a long-term impact on Germany's political culture well into the twentieth century and, as far as I can see, it is still very much alive and kicking.

Hochhuth's next play, "Soldiers, Necrology on Geneva" (1967) showed the Allied bombing campaigns as war crimes and Winston Churchill as a war criminal. The play was largely based on the work of the young historian David Irving. Since that time, Irving and Hochhuth have been close friends and in 2005 Hochhuth hit the headlines by defending his friend against being a holocaust denier, calling the allegation "simply idiotic" and Irving "an honourable man" in an interview with the "Junge Freiheit" (issue 08/05, February 18, 2005), the mouthpiece of the youth organisation of the NPD, the Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands. He later expressed a lukewarm apology, saying that he didn't know that his friend of many decades was just that.

So much for the antisemitic statement that only Jews are adverse to Pius XII, whereas the rest of the world would gladly embrace his sainthood. ("Jews Veto Sainthood for Pius XII"). Or even ALL Jews. Or even a majority of Jews.

One of Pius' shrillest critics, John Cornwell (Roman Catholic) informed us in his self-explainingly titled book "Hitler's Pope" that Pius XII was a willing collaborator with the Nazi policy. To do him justice, Cornwell has recently renounced (in his recent book "The Pontiff in Winter", a critical evaluation of the papacy of John Paul II) his hypothesis, a significant event of which, even more significantly, the media, have taken little note.

Significant is, too, that Daniel Jonah Goldhagen's shattering condemnation of Pius XII, "A Moral Reckoning: The Catholic Church during the Holocaust and Today", received widespread and altogether favourable attention, different from his controversial book "Hitler's Willing Executioners", which was, sometimes fairly but generally unfairly, torn to shreds by the media and his colleagues.

Go figure!

(Please note that Goldhagen's scholarship in his criticism of Pius XII was severely criticised by, among others, such a renowned historian of Germany as Columbia University’s Fritz Stern, a Jew.)

Cannibals for the Teabags

This article in the Daily Mail does not contain a single fact that could amaze anybody who has followed the recent development of Islam in Europe. I am just putting up excerpts here, because I like the picture of Mr Justice Munby and feel a bit relieved that at least one member of the British establishment seems to be, maybe, perhaps, possibly, not quite as infested with political correctness as the Leftist media, the politicians of the same ilk and the spineless middle classes.

Forced marriage is an intolerable abuse, says judge
By JAMES SLACK
09:09am 6th July 2006

A High Court judge yesterday attacked the 'intolerable' practice of forced marriage, which he said could not be justified by any religion.

Mr Justice Munby attacked the 'intolerable' practice of forced marriages

Mr Justice Munby spoke out while annulling the marriage of an English-born teenager made to marry her cousin, who was seeking a route into the UK.

He used powers that allow a wedding to be struck out if one of those involved was pressured into it.

The judge's attack is an acute embarrassment for the Home Office, which in a U-turn last month decided against making forced marriage illegal.

By contrast, Mr Justice Munby said it was 'intolerable', 'an abomination' and 'a gross abuse of human rights'.

The judge revealed the girl's brutal treatment by her family who 'lured her' to Pakistan with the promise of a holiday...

As soon as she arrived there in 2003, the girl - who cannot be named - was subjected to 'moral blackmail' by the parents, who said they would kill themselves if she did not marry the cousin she had never met before.

She was kept in a remote part of Pakistan for months and, despite begging her parents to be allowed to return to this country, she was subjected to unrelenting pressure from her mother, father and wider family.

While not suffering any physical violence, she had her passport taken from her and was told she would never return until she went through with the marriage.

She lived with her cousin for a while before returning to England with her parents.

The marriage was never consummated and her cousin admitted it was just a 'ploy' to allow him to get a visa.
[...]
The judge also revealed that he had previously dealt with a young British woman repeatedly raped by her husband in a bid to make her pregnant.

The husband believed he would not be stopped walking through UK border controls with a pregnant wife.

'Gross abuse of human rights'

The judge said: 'Forced marriage is a gross abuse of human rights. It is a form of domestic violence that dehumanises people by denying them their right to choose how to live their lives. It is an appalling practice.' 'No social or cultural imperative can extenuate and no pretended recourse to religious belief can possibly justify forced marriage. Forced marriage is intolerable. It is an abomination.'
[...]
Ministers unveiled proposals two years ago, suggesting that anyone arranging or encouraging a forced marriage should face jail sentences.

But last month the Home Office admitted it would not be pursuing the plans, and would instead encourage the police and courts to make use of existing laws, such as rape or kidnap.

The U-turn came after complaints from Muslim groups that the move would see children having to give evidence at their parents' trials, and could lead to the Muslim community being further 'stigmatised'.

Ministers said they accepted a new law would be 'resented as an intrusion into minority cultures and religions'.
[...]

I really like that stigmatising bit. What quaint little folkloristic detail will we be forced to accept next in the West in the name of non-intrusion into "minority cultures and religions"? Cannibalism?

And no, that is NOT over-simplistic.

It is notable, mind you, that as of now, more than five days after the publication of the article, nobody found it worthwhile to use the commenting section the Daily Mail kindly provides. Get devoured, Teabags!