For those who emigrated from authoritarian regimes and came to America, what is transpiring here right now is frighteningly familiar. They have experienced and heard it before in their ex-homelands and don’t want to see the same pernicious transformation occur here.
The catch-phrases, racial propaganda issues and benign sounding social slogans that Obama and other “socialists” deviously insert in their rhetoric are Trojans that have all been insidiously used in the past as a part of a lethal package for revolutionary changes.
Like Nazi Germany in the 1930’s. The U.S.S.R. for decades. China. North Korea. And in those countries based on Marxism like Cuba.
This is not a path down which America must never travel. Millions are being duped including many of the intelligentsia.
Obama and his cronies must be stopped!
Perspectives Of A Russian Immigrant (No. 9)
By SVETLANA KUNIN 05/18/2010
In May 2008, Sen. Barack Obama delivered a commencement address at Connecticut's Wesleyan University that called for sacrificing in order to build a fair and socially just society.
"We may disagree on certain issues and positions," he said, "but I believe we can be unified in service to a greater good. I intend to make it a cause of my presidency.
Two years later, at this month's commencement at the University of Michigan, President Obama talked about the role of government as a solution to the problems facing America. He complained about a lack of civility in our public debate.
"Throwing around phrases like 'socialist' and 'Soviet-style takeover' and 'fascist right-wing nut' may grab headlines," he said, "but it also has the effect of comparing our government, or our political opponents, to authoritarian and even murderous regimes."
The president's rhetoric mesmerized the students at Wesleyan and persuaded supporters to join his cause for change. But to me and other immigrants from socialist countries, this rhetoric sounded familiar.
American college students, in awe of their new leader and excited about ideals such as social justice, a fair society, equality and the transformation of greedy capitalist systems in which workers are exploited, do not realize these progressive ideas are identical to what students in socialist countries were taught 40 years ago in required classes such as "political economics" and "Marxist-Leninist dialectical materialism."
The pleasant platitudes that make up leftist rhetoric are not new.
The policies and actions of this government are almost identical to what took place in countries moving toward socialism throughout the 20th century.
Government appropriation of banks, other financial institutions, medical care, education, natural resources and regulation of speech is what came of centralized power in young socialist societies, leading to totalitarian regimes such as those in the USSR, China, Cuba and North Korea.
When House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, other Democrats in Congress and the media portray critics of this government as racists, right-wing nuts, Nazis or terrorists, it is more than lack of civility; it is a deliberate, Soviet-style authoritarian tactic to impose conformity on people who happen to disagree with the government's definition of the greater good.
In the Soviet Union, those who dared to criticize the government were called vragy naroda, which translates as enemies of the people.
At his commencement address in Michigan, Obama said we have the option to get our information from any number of blogs, Web sites and cable news shows. This of course requires that we all agree on a certain set of facts to debate from, and that is why we need a vibrant and thriving news business that is separate from opinion makers and talking heads.
At his next commencement address at Hampton University in Virginia, Obama further aired his concerns about uncontrolled information, which: "becomes a distraction, a diversion. It's putting new pressure on our country and on our democracy."
It was much easier to manipulate and direct public opinion in the Soviet Union, where the state apparatus had complete control of all sources of information. Centralized government propaganda and draconian suppression of free speech created an enforced conformity no one could escape.
That is why Obama wants to regulate the Internet and cable news shows so they are "neutral" as defined by the government.
The Soviets demonized the opposition as enemies of the people; American leftists simply define any opposition to them as racist or extremist.
"The press should be not only a collective propagandist and a collective agitator, but also a collective organizer of the masses," said Vladimir Lenin. "He who now talks about the freedom of the press goes backward and halts our headlong course toward socialism."
Young, educated graduates, born in the freest society, figure Obama is not a socialist; he is something new and somehow uniquely qualified to enact tired, old ideas that will result in a new, fair and equal society.
The Rev. Al Sharpton, in a recent sermon in Danbury, Conn., summed it up well: "Dr. King's dream was not to put one black president in the White House. The dream was to make everything equal in everybody's house. President Obama is in the White House to help us get there, but we're not there yet."
An old Soviet joke defines socialist equality as follows: If your neighbor has a cow and you do not, kill your neighbor's cow.
Where has the American work ethic gone? Our nation was founded on the principles of liberty, freedom, hard work and self-reliance but all of these are present in unacceptably low levels today. Thanks to the indoctrination of our children with ubiquitous progressive ideology, motivation and a strong work ethic are sadly lacking … and getting worse.
Not surprisingly, a record high percentage of these “future leaders” of America believe that socialism as opposed to capitalism is the better system. This belief combined with apathy and complacency will mean far less future productivity, a lower standard of living, relatively fewer individuals supporting far more, overall high taxation rates and big government/nanny state.
Such a scenario can and must be averted but it will take a spectacular reversal of political fortunes and the imbuing in the younger generation or the important principles of motivation, responsibility and self-reliance rather than dependency, victimization and “guaranteed economic fairness” leading to wealth redistribution philosophies.
Once Self-Reliant, Now A Nation Of Takers
Scott Hodge 04/07/2010
Are you a giver or a taker? No, that is not a bad pickup line from an Internet dating site — it's a question every American should be asking themselves these days. "Do I take more than I give?"
I'm sure most of us want to be considered givers, not takers. After all, we grew up with the old adage that "it is better to give than receive." But we all know people who are more takers than givers.
We've all seen someone who brings a small salad to the potluck but piles lots of your casserole on his plate. Or, there is always one person in the lunch group who orders the most expensive meal on the menu because she knows you are all splitting the check.
The same thing happens with government. A growing number of Americans are contributing little but taking a lot, and a shrinking number are giving a lot but taking little.
Recent IRS data for 2008 reports that a record 52 million Americans — or 36% of all filers — filed a tax return but had no income tax liability because of the generosity of the credits and deductions that have been enacted over the past 15 years.
The tax code has always had exemptions to protect the poorest Americans from paying income taxes, but the new credits — such as the child tax credit, Making Work Pay credit, and First Time Homebuyer credit — are now exempting middle-class families from the income tax.
Remarkably, a family of four earning up to $52,000 can expect to pay no income taxes because of these various tax credits. That too is a record.
Many more of these taxpayers are now getting checks back from the IRS even though they pay no income taxes. The IRS paid out $70 billion in "refundable" checks to non-payers in 2008. In essence, lawmakers have turned the IRS into an ATM machine for welfare benefits — and ATM now stands for Another Taxpayer's Money.
Sadly, millions of people now see April 15 as payday, not tax day.
President Obama's policies, from health care to taxes, are all intended to increase the number of takers in America while reducing the number of givers. Our analysis of Obama's FY 2011 budget plan shows that it would increase the amount of redistribution from the top 10% of families by nearly $100 billion per year — to a total of $854 billion — while expanding the amount of government benefits targeted to the middle and upper-middle classes.
Economists have identified a phenomenon they call "fiscal illusion." When people perceive the cost of government is less than what it really is, they will demand ever more government. The real danger today is not just that we have so many non-payers, but that the $1.5 trillion deficit is making the cost of government look cheap for all of us. So much spending is raining down on us that it now seems like "free money" in a sense.
Every marketing guru will tell you that people love free stuff and that they will take as much as they can get whether they need it or not. But for a nation, this is a recipe for fiscal disaster.
Once upon a time, Americans took pride in being self-reliant and there was a stigma about taking handouts from government. It is time we renewed that sense of pride and reject the notion that we are entitled to handouts from government.
Repeat after me: "I will no longer be a taker ... ."
• Hodge is president of the Tax Foundation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research and educational organization that has monitored fiscal policy at the federal, state and local levels since 1937.
A significant majority of college students and young people were mesmerized by Obama's cool yet disingenuous campaign rhetoric and marketing and therefore voted for him. If they really stopped and analyzed the situation, they probably would have reached an opposite conclusion.
This video is a succinct explanation of the advantages of Capitalism over Socialism that even a college student can understand. Those of us who are very knowledgeable about this should make concerted efforts to educated and enlighten the younger generations who have been largely indoctrinated to a far-left way of thinking. It is our duty otherwise America, the land of the free and of opportunity, may be forever lost.
Incredibly and without little fanfare or news exposure, Obama is appropriating more than $100 billion of our taxes for indoctrinating our youth into the far-left ideology. This includes teaching the Saul Alinsky method of radical community organizing such as used by ACORN and re-educating these modern day “Hitler youths” to ascribe to Marxism, anti-American and anti-capitalism sentiment, etc. These individuals will also serve to recruit more voters to the Democratic Party and try to influence election results.
Now you know that our hard earned tax dollars are being used for a far-left agenda aimed at undermining our country and turning our youth against us.
Gov't Organizing Radicals In Our Schools
By PHYLISS SCHLAFLY 02/26/2010
President Obama's budget has added more than $100 billion in federal taxpayers' money to what is called "education," so that means it will be spent by alumni of the Saul Alinsky school of radical community organizing and/or the Chicago Democratic machine. We're indebted to Pamela Geller of AtlasShrugs.com for exposing the shocking use of some of these funds.
Obama is using the public schools to recruit a private army of high-schoolers to "build on the movement that elected President Obama by empowering students across the country to help us bring about our agenda." We now know Obama's "agenda" is to move the U.S. into European-style socialism.
Obama's Internet outreach during his campaign, Obama for America, has been renamed Organizing for America (OFA) in order to recruit students to join a cult of Obama and become activists for his goals.
Stirring It Up
Geller discovered that the teacher of an 11th-grade government class in Massillon, Ohio, passed out the sign-up sheet, headed with Obama's "O" logo, asking students to become interns for Organizing for America.
These interns will get an intensive nine-week training course using comprehensive lesson plans. Assigned readings include Saul Alinsky's notorious "Rules for Radicals," "Stir It Up: Lessons From Community Organizing and Advocacy" by left-wing activist Rinku Sen, and parts of "Dreams From My Father" dealing with Obama's days as a Chicago community organizer.
Republican students will be filtered out of the intern program by requiring applicants to answer questions that reveal their politics. One example: "What one issue facing our country is important to you and why?"
Geller said the purpose of this training to become Alinsky-style community organizers is, "of course, to elect more Democrats." The program is specifically geared to get the kids working in the 2010 elections.
Change Agenda
The sign-up sheet for Organizing for America starts with this instruction: "Organizing for America, the successor organization to Obama for America, is building on the movement that elected President Obama by empowering students across the country to help us bring about our agenda of change."
The application explains that this national internship program is "working to make the change we fought so hard for in 2008 a reality in 2010 and beyond."
This is not the first time Obama has tried to enlist schoolchildren into an Obama cult.
Last fall, the instructions mailed to every school by Secretary of Education Arne Duncan added a very political dimension to Obama's speech that was broadcast to public school children on Sept. 8.
Geller explained the extensive political dimension of the intern program. The OFA student interns will be trained in the goals and language of the left: "anti-war agitation, anti-capitalism, Marx, Lenin, (Bill) Ayers, LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) agenda promotion, global warming, soft-on-jihad and illegal immigration."
Also on OFA's reading list is "The New Organizers" by Zack Exley. It brags about "an insurgent generation of organizers" inside the Obama campaign that has "almost without anyone noticing ... built the Progressive movement a brand new and potentially durable people's organization, in a dozen states, rooted at the neighborhood level."
The 10-page "National Intern Organizer Curriculum" is very specific in describing the tactics that interns will be taught. It includes these components: "Using Story as an Organizing Tool, Building Relationships and Building Teams, Mobilizing to Win on the Issues (issue advocacy), Health Care Service Project."
Passage of ObamaCare is one of this intern project's major goals. The curriculum promises to provide "insight on the strategy and plan behind the health care campaign" and "further motivate them to work on the issue."
The sign-up sheet states that the "purpose" of training these students is "to build community" among the interns and teach them "to be leaders in OFA's organizing work." After all, Barack Obama knows a great deal about being a community organizer — that was his only real job before he got into politics.
Acorn Support
Job prospects may be bleak for many Americans, but they will be rosy for alumni of Obama's intern program.
After the students have been fully trained as Alinsky-style community organizers, they will be eligible for jobs in Senior Corps, AmeriCorps or Learn and Serve America.
Those three so-called "service" organizations, which annually dole out millions of dollars to left-wing groups, are overseen by the Corporation for National and Community Service.
The U.S. Senate just confirmed this corporation's new chief executive, Patrick Corvington, who was a senior official of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, which has given over a million and a half dollars to the Acorn network of organizations.
Cass Sunstein, Obama’s Information and Regulatory Affairs czar is in the news again for a radical article he had written recommending Big Brother Government infiltrating and manipulation groups whose ideas are not in concert with the “Government’s”. His proposed oxymoron(ic) “libertarian paternalism” in its extreme form translates into having the “Government” purging you of your impure opinions and then teaching (indoctrinating) you the correct ones (what the Government wants you to think).
Another radical Obama appointed nut job czar who must be outed, neutralized and ousted!
Stealth Propaganda
John Stossel January 18, 2010
An obscure 2008 academic article gained traction with bloggers over the weekend. The article was written by the head of Obama's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Harvard Law Professor Cass Sunstein. He’s a good friend of the president and the promoter the contradictory idea: "libertarian paternalism". In the article, he muses about what government can do to combat "conspiracy" theories:
...we suggest a distinctive tactic for breaking up the hard core of extremists who supply conspiracy theories: cognitive infiltration of extremist groups, whereby government agents or their allies ... will undermine the crippled epistemology of those who subscribe to such theories. They do so by planting doubts about the theories and stylized facts that circulate within such groups, thereby introducing beneficial cognitive diversity.
That's right. Obama's Regulation Czar is so concerned about citizens thinking the wrong way that he proposed sending government agents to "infiltrate" these groups and manipulate them. This reads like an Onion article: Powerful government official proposes to combat paranoid conspiracy groups that believe the government is out to get them...by proving that they really are out to get them. Did nothing of what Sunstein was writing strike him as...I don't know...crazy? "Cognitive infiltration" of extremist groups by government agents? "Stylized facts"? Was "truthiness" too pedantic?
Salon.com's Glenn Greenwald explains why this you should be disturbed by this:
This was written 18 months ago, at a time when the ascendancy of Sunstein's close friend to the Presidency looked likely, in exactly the area he now oversees. Additionally, the government-controlled messaging that Sunstein desires has been a prominent feature of U.S. Government actions over the last decade, including in some recently revealed practices of the current administration, and the mindset in which it is grounded explains a great deal about our political class.
... What is most odious and revealing about Sunstein's worldview is his condescending, self-loving belief that "false conspiracy theories" are largely the province of fringe, ignorant Internet masses and the Muslim world.
It's certainly true that one can easily find irrational conspiracy theories in those venues, but some of the most destructive "false conspiracy theories" have emanated from the very entity Sunstein wants to endow with covert propaganda power: namely, the U.S. Government itself, along with its elite media defenders. Moreover, "crazy conspiracy theorist" has long been the favorite epithet of those same parties to discredit people trying to expose elite wrongdoing and corruption.
It is this history of government deceit and wrongdoing that renders Sunstein's desire to use covert propaganda to "undermine" anti-government speech so repugnant. The reason conspiracy theories resonate so much is precisely that people have learned -- rationally -- to distrust government actions and statements. Sunstein's proposed covert propaganda scheme is a perfect illustration of why that is. In other words, people don't trust the Government and "conspiracy theories" are so pervasive precisely because government is typically filled with people like Cass Sunstein, who think that systematic deceit and government-sponsored manipulation are justified by their own Goodness and Superior Wisdom.
Andrew Bostom, the author of The Legacy of Jihad (Prometheus, 2005) and The Legacy of Islamic Antisemitism (Prometheus, November, 2008), posted the following on his website on September 28, 2008. This is a speech delivered by Geert Wilders who is the chairman of the Party for Freedom in the Netherlands regarding the threat to the world that Islam presents. The Netherlands is one of the main European countries at the forefront of this cancerous Islamization invasion that threatens the freedoms and liberties of peaceful peoples of other religions and cultures.
With the dramatic worldwide rise of terrorism almost exclusively perpetrated by Muslims and a multitude of Islamic attacks of various degrees affecting the United States over more than the last decade, this speech is eminently pertinent, insightful, and significant. There should be no doubt in anyone’s mind that we are dealing with an enemy that is relentlessly intent on destroying non-believers and imposing Sharia law, an enemy that is indoctrinated by a religion founded on violence, hate, intolerance, and total abrogation of human rights and freedoms except for a select few.
Excuses, “politically correct” doctrines, actions and legislation espoused and supported by liberals including their transfer of billions of dollars away from security related issues and intelligence gathering renders us even more vulnerable to attacks, violence and losses of our personal freedoms and rights. Barack Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder, Janet Napolitano and other ideologues of the Democratic party are the main facilitators of this, jeopardizing the security and lives of over three hundred million Americans.
We must understand this metastasizing Islamic enemy and stop it before it obtains world domination.
We must also oust our politicians who are placing this country at far greater risk than necessary.
Geert Wilders: Wisdom and Courage
…liberty is the most precious of gifts. My generation never had to fight for this freedom, it was offered to us on a silver platter, by people who fought for it with their lives. All throughout Europe American cemeteries remind us of the young boys who never made it home, and whose memory we cherish. My generation does not own this freedom; we are merely its custodians. We can only hand over this hard won liberty to Europe’s children in the same state in which it was offered to us. We cannot strike a deal with mullahs and imams. Future generations would never forgive us. We cannot squander our liberties. We simply do not have the right to do so.
Geert Wilders, chairman Party for Freedom, the Netherlands
Speech at the Four Seasons, New York
September 25, 2008
Dear friends,
Thank you very much for inviting me. Great to be at the Four Seasons. I come from a country that has one season only: a rainy season that starts January 1st and ends December 31st. When we have three sunny days in a row, the government declares a national emergency. So Four Seasons, that’s new to me.
It’s great to be in New York. When I see the skyscrapers and office buildings, I think of what Ayn Rand said: “The sky over New York and the will of man made visible.” Of course. Without the Dutch you would have been nowhere, still figuring out how to buy this island from the Indians. But we are glad we did it for you. And, frankly, you did a far better job than we possibly could have done.
I come to America with a mission. All is not well in the old world. There is a tremendous danger looming, and it is very difficult to be optimistic. We might be in the final stages of the Islamization of Europe. This not only is a clear and present danger to the future of Europe itself, it is a threat to America and the sheer survival of the West. The danger I see looming is the scenario of America as the last man standing. The United States as the last bastion of Western civilization, facing an Islamic Europe. In a generation or two, the US will ask itself: who lost Europe? Patriots from around Europe risk their lives every day to prevent precisely this scenario form becoming a reality.
My short lecture consists of 4 parts.
First I will describe the situation on the ground in Europe. Then, I will say a few things about Islam. Thirdly, if you are still here, I will talk a little bit about the movie you just saw. To close I will tell you about a meeting in Jerusalem.
The Europe you know is changing. You have probably seen the landmarks. The Eiffel Tower and Trafalgar Square and Rome’s ancient buildings and maybe the canals of Amsterdam. They are still there. And they still look very much the same as they did a hundred years ago.
But in all of these cities, sometimes a few blocks away from your tourist destination, there is another world, a world very few visitors see – and one that does not appear in your tourist guidebook. It is the world of the parallel society created by Muslim mass-migration. All throughout Europe a new reality is rising: entire Muslim neighbourhoods where very few indigenous people reside or are even seen. And if they are, they might regret it. This goes for the police as well. It’s the world of head scarves, where women walk around in figureless tents, with baby strollers and a group of children. Their husbands, or slaveholders if you prefer, walk three steps ahead. With mosques on many street corner. The shops have signs you and I cannot read. You will be hard-pressed to find any economic activity. These are Muslim ghettos controlled by religious fanatics. These are Muslim neighbourhoods, and they are mushrooming in every city across Europe. These are the building-blocks for territorial control of increasingly larger portions of Europe, street by street, neighbourhood by neighbourhood, city by city.
There are now thousands of mosques throughout Europe. With larger congregations than there are in churches. And in every European city there are plans to build super-mosques that will dwarf every church in the region. Clearly, the signal is: we rule.
Many European cities are already one-quarter Muslim: just take Amsterdam, Marseille and Malmo in Sweden. In many cities the majority of the under-18 population is Muslim. Paris is now surrounded by a ring of Muslim neighbourhoods. Mohammed is the most popular name among boys in many cities. In some elementary schools in Amsterdam the farm can no longer be mentioned, because that would also mean mentioning the pig, and that would be an insult to Muslims. Many state schools in Belgium and Denmark only serve halal food to all pupils. In once-tolerant Amsterdam gays are beaten up almost exclusively by Muslims. Non-Muslim women routinely hear “whore, whore”. Satellite dishes are not pointed to local TV stations, but to stations in the country of origin. In France school teachers are advised to avoid authors deemed offensive to Muslims, including Voltaire and Diderot; the same is increasingly true of Darwin. The history of the Holocaust can in many cases no longer be taught because of Muslim sensitivity. In England sharia courts are now officially part of the British legal system. Many neighbourhoods in France are no-go areas for women without head scarves. Last week a man almost died after being beaten up by Muslims in Brussels, because he was drinking during the Ramadan. Jews are fleeing France in record numbers, on the run for the worst wave of anti-Semitism since World War II. French is now commonly spoken on the streets of Tel Aviv and Netanya, Israel. I could go on forever with stories like this. Stories about Islamization.
A total of fifty-four million Muslims now live in Europe. San Diego University recently calculated that a staggering 25 percent of the population in Europe will be Muslim just 12 years from now. Bernhard Lewis has predicted a Muslim majority by the end of this century.
Now these are just numbers. And the numbers would not be threatening if the Muslim-immigrants had a strong desire to assimilate. But there are few signs of that. The Pew Research Center reported that half of French Muslims see their loyalty to Islam as greater than their loyalty to France. One-third of French Muslims do not object to suicide attacks. The British Centre for Social Cohesion reported that one-third of British Muslim students are in favour of a worldwide caliphate. A Dutch study reported that half of Dutch Muslims admit they “understand” the 9/11 attacks.
Muslims demand what they call ‘respect’. And this is how we give them respect. Our elites are willing to give in. To give up. In my own country we have gone from calls by one cabinet member to turn Muslim holidays into official state holidays, to statements by another cabinet member, that Islam is part of Dutch culture, to an affirmation by the Christian-Democratic attorney general that he is willing to accept sharia in the Netherlands if there is a Muslim majority. We have cabinet members with passports from Morocco and Turkey.
Muslim demands are supported by unlawful behaviour, ranging from petty crimes and random violence, for example against ambulance workers and bus drivers, to small-scale riots. Paris has seen its uprising in the low-income suburbs, the banlieus. Some prefer to see these as isolated incidents, but I call it a Muslim intifada. I call the perpetrators “settlers”. Because that is what they are. They do not come to integrate into our societies, they come to integrate our society into their Dar-al-Islam. Therefore, they are settlers.
Much of this street violence I mentioned is directed exclusively against non-Muslims, forcing many native people to leave their neighbourhoods, their cities, their countries.
Politicians shy away from taking a stand against this creeping sharia. They believe in the equality of all cultures. Moreover, on a mundane level, Muslims are now a swing vote not to be ignored.
Our many problems with Islam cannot be explained by poverty, repression or the European colonial past, as the Left claims. Nor does it have anything to do with Palestinians or American troops in Iraq. The problem is Islam itself.
Allow me to give you a brief Islam 101. The first thing you need to know about Islam is the importance of the book of the Quran. The Quran is Allah’s personal word, revealed by an angel to Mohammed, the prophet. This is where the trouble starts. Every word in the Quran is Allah’s word and therefore not open to discussion or interpretation. It is valid for every Muslim and for all times. Therefore, there is no such a thing as moderate Islam. Sure, there are a lot of moderate Muslims. But a moderate Islam is non-existent.
The Quran calls for hatred, violence, submission, murder, and terrorism. The Quran calls for Muslims to kill non-Muslims, to terrorize non-Muslims and to fulfil their duty to wage war: violent jihad. Jihad is a duty for every Muslim, Islam is to rule the world – by the sword. The Quran is clearly anti-Semitic, describing Jews as monkeys and pigs.
The second thing you need to know is the importance of Mohammed the prophet. His behaviour is an example to all Muslims and cannot be criticized. Now, if Mohammed had been a man of peace, let us say like Ghandi and Mother Theresa wrapped in one, there would be no problem. But Mohammed was a warlord, a mass murderer, a pedophile, and had several marriages – at the same time. Islamic tradition tells us how he fought in battles, how he had his enemies murdered and even had prisoners of war executed. Mohammed himself slaughtered the Jewish tribe of Banu Qurayza. He advised on matters of slavery, but never advised to liberate slaves. Islam has no other morality than the advancement of Islam. If it is good for Islam, it is good. If it is bad for Islam, it is bad. There is no gray area or other side.
Quran as Allah’s own word and Mohammed as the perfect man are the two most important facets of Islam. Let no one fool you about Islam being a religion. Sure, it has a god, and a here-after, and 72 virgins. But in its essence Islam is a political ideology. It is a system that lays down detailed rules for society and the life of every person. Islam wants to dictate every aspect of life. Islam means ‘submission’. Islam is not compatible with freedom and democracy, because what it strives for is sharia. If you want to compare Islam to anything, compare it to communism or national-socialism, these are all totalitarian ideologies.
This is what you need to know about Islam, in order to understand what is going on in Europe. For millions of Muslims the Quran and the live of Mohammed are not 14 centuries old, but are an everyday reality, an ideal, that guide every aspect of their lives. Now you know why Winston Churchill called Islam “the most retrograde force in the world”, and why he compared Mein Kampf to the Quran.
Which brings me to my movie, Fitna.
I am a lawmaker, and not a movie maker. But I felt I had the moral duty to educate about Islam. The duty to make clear that the Quran stands at the heart of what some people call terrorism but is in reality jihad. I wanted to show that the problems of Islam are at the core of Islam, and do not belong to its fringes.
Now, from the day the plan for my movie was made public, it caused quite a stir, in the Netherlands and throughout Europe. First, there was a political storm, with government leaders, across the continent in sheer panic. The Netherlands was put under a heightened terror alert, because of possible attacks or a revolt by our Muslim population. The Dutch branch of the Islamic organisation Hizb ut-Tahrir declared that the Netherlands was due for an attack. Internationally, there was a series of incidents. The Taliban threatened to organize additional attacks against Dutch troops in Afghanistan, and a website linked to Al Qaeda published the message that I ought to be killed, while various muftis in the Middle East stated that I would be responsible for all the bloodshed after the screening of the movie. In Afghanistan and Pakistan the Dutch flag was burned on several occasions. Dolls representing me were also burned. The Indonesian President announced that I will never be admitted into Indonesia again, while the UN Secretary General and the European Union issued cowardly statements in the same vein as those made by the Dutch Government. I could go on and on. It was an absolute disgrace, a sell-out.
A plethora of legal troubles also followed, and have not ended yet. Currently the state of Jordan is litigating against me. Only last week there were renewed security agency reports about a heightened terror alert for the Netherlands because of Fitna.
Now, I would like to say a few things about Israel. Because, very soon, we will get together in its capitol. The best way for a politician in Europe to loose votes is to say something positive about Israel. The public has wholeheartedly accepted the Palestinian narrative, and sees Israel as the aggressor. I, however, will continue to speak up for Israel. I see defending Israel as a matter of principle. I have lived in this country and visited it dozens of times. I support Israel. First, because it is the Jewish homeland after two thousand years of exile up to and including Auschwitz, second because it is a democracy, and third because Israel is our first line of defense.
Samuel Huntington writes it so aptly: “Islam has bloody borders”. Israel is located precisely on that border. This tiny country is situated on the fault line of jihad, frustrating Islam’s territorial advance. Israel is facing the front lines of jihad, like Kashmir, Kosovo, the Philippines, Southern Thailand, Darfur in Sudan, Lebanon, and Aceh in Indonesia. Israel is simply in the way. The same way West-Berlin was during the Cold War.
The war against Israel is not a war against Israel. It is a war against the West. It is jihad. Israel is simply receiving the blows that are meant for all of us. If there would have been no Israel, Islamic imperialism would have found other venues to release its energy and its desire for conquest. Thanks to Israeli parents who send their children to the army and lay awake at night, parents in Europe and America can sleep well and dream, unaware of the dangers looming.
Many in Europe argue in favor of abandoning Israel in order to address the grievances of our Muslim minorities. But if Israel were, God forbid, to go down, it would not bring any solace to the West. It would not mean our Muslim minorities would all of a sudden change their behavior, and accept our values. On the contrary, the end of Israel would give enormous encouragement to the forces of Islam. They would, and rightly so, see the demise of Israel as proof that the West is weak, and doomed. The end of Israel would not mean the end of our problems with Islam, but only the beginning. It would mean the start of the final battle for world domination. If they can get Israel, they can get everything. Therefore, it is not that the West has a stake in Israel. It is Israel.
It is very difficult to be an optimist in the face of the growing Islamization of Europe. All the tides are against us. On all fronts we are losing. Demographically the momentum is with Islam. Muslim immigration is even a source of pride within ruling liberal parties. Academia, the arts, the media, trade unions, the churches, the business world, the entire political establishment have all converted to the suicidal theory of multiculturalism. So-called journalists volunteer to label any and all critics of Islamization as a ‘right-wing extremists’ or ‘racists’. The entire establishment has sided with our enemy. Leftists, liberals and Christian-Democrats are now all in bed with Islam.
This is the most painful thing to see: the betrayal by our elites. At this moment in Europe’s history, our elites are supposed to lead us. To stand up for centuries of civilization. To defend our heritage. To honour our eternal Judeo-Christian values that made Europe what it is today. But there are very few signs of hope to be seen at the governmental level. Sarkozy, Merkel, Brown, Berlusconi; in private, they probably know how grave the situation is. But when the little red light goes on, they stare into the camera and tell us that Islam is a religion of peace, and we should all try to get along nicely and sing Kumbaya. They willingly participate in, what President Reagan so aptly called: “the betrayal of our past, the squandering of our freedom.”
If there is hope in Europe, it comes from the people, not from the elites. Change can only come from a grass-roots level. It has to come from the citizens themselves. Yet these patriots will have to take on the entire political, legal and media establishment.
Over the past years there have been some small, but encouraging, signs of a rebirth of the original European spirit. Maybe the elites turn their backs on freedom, the public does not. In my country, the Netherlands, 60 percent of the population now sees the mass immigration of Muslims as the number one policy mistake since World War II. And another 60 percent sees Islam as the biggest threat to our national identity. I don’t think the public opinion in Holland is very different from other European countries.
Patriotic parties that oppose jihad are growing, against all odds. My own party debuted two years ago, with five percent of the vote. Now it stands at ten percent in the polls. The same is true of all smililary-minded parties in Europe. They are fighting the liberal establishment, and are gaining footholds on the political arena, one voter at the time.
Now, for the first time, these patriotic parties will come together and exchange experiences. It may be the start of something big. Something that might change the map of Europe for decades to come. It might also be Europe’s last chance.
This December a conference will take place in Jerusalem. Thanks to Professor Aryeh Eldad, a member of Knesset, we will be able to watch Fitna in the Knesset building and discuss the jihad. We are organizing this event in Israel to emphasize the fact that we are all in the same boat together, and that Israel is part of our common heritage. Those attending will be a select audience. No racist organizations will be allowed. And we will only admit parties that are solidly democratic.
This conference will be the start of an Alliance of European patriots. This Alliance will serve as the backbone for all organizations and political parties that oppose jihad and Islamization. For this Alliance I seek your support.
This endeavor may be crucial to America and to the West. America may hold fast to the dream that, thanks tot its location, it is safe from jihad and shaira. But seven years ago to the day, there was still smoke rising from ground zero, following the attacks that forever shattered that dream. Yet there is a danger even greater danger than terrorist attacks, the scenario of America as the last man standing. The lights may go out in Europe faster than you can imagine. An Islamic Europe means a Europe without freedom and democracy, an economic wasteland, an intellectual nightmare, and a loss of military might for America – as its allies will turn into enemies, enemies with atomic bombs. With an Islamic Europe, it would be up to America alone to preserve the heritage of Rome, Athens and Jerusalem.
Dear friends, liberty is the most precious of gifts. My generation never had to fight for this freedom, it was offered to us on a silver platter, by people who fought for it with their lives. All throughout Europe American cemeteries remind us of the young boys who never made it home, and whose memory we cherish. My generation does not own this freedom; we are merely its custodians. We can only hand over this hard won liberty to Europe’s children in the same state in which it was offered to us. We cannot strike a deal with mullahs and imams. Future generations would never forgive us. We cannot squander our liberties. We simply do not have the right to do so.
This is not the first time our civilization is under threat. We have seen dangers before. We have been betrayed by our elites before. They have sided with our enemies before. And yet, then, freedom prevailed.
These are not times in which to take lessons from appeasement, capitulation, giving away, giving up or giving in. These are not times in which to draw lessons from Mr. Chamberlain. These are times calling us to draw lessons from Mr. Churchill and the words he spoke in 1942:
“Never give in, never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy”.
A minority of radicals including Obama, his non elected czars and America loathing Democratic politicians are not so stealthily hijacking our country and inflicting near fatal wounds. We, as still partially free citizens, must relentlessly and vehemently oppose by whatever means the perversions of our culture, the unconscionable fiscal irresponsibility and imposition of legislation that will ultimately enslave us in a corrupt far left dictatorship.
The latest attack involves Obama’s personally appointed safe school czar who has already been at the center of controversy, Kevin Jennings. A staunch, outspoken and adversarial gay lifestyle supporter, he has actively promoted and not condoned gay sex between older men and significantly under aged boys. He now has also been associated with recommending essentially pornographic pro-gay books in schools through the group he headed for nineteen years, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN).
Peter Sprigg, a senior fellow at the Family Research Council assessed the situation by noting that:
"This is material that, if portrayed visually, would be a triple-X hard-core porn film, and quite possibly meet the legal definition of obscenity. In fact, I think the homosexual content is the only thing preventing the outcry from being even greater, because some people fear being labeled as 'anti-gay.' If the content were heterosexual in nature, there would be no one defending it at all."
The following article exposes the extremely age inappropriate depraved nature of this lewd material which we suspect few parents are aware of or would approve. It is another example of the inexorable efforts by the far left to expose and indoctrinate our children to their radical ideologies without obtaining explicit parental consent.
Obama's Safe Schools Czar Tied to Lewd Readings for 7th Graders
Maxim Lott FOXNews.com December 14, 2009
Obama adviser Kevin Jennings is under fresh attack after it was revealed that the pro-gay group he formerly headed recommends books his critics say are pornographic.
President Obama's "Safe Schools Czar," already a target of social conservatives for his past drug abuse and what they say is his promotion of homosexuality in schools, is under fresh attack after it was revealed that the pro-gay group he formerly headed recommends books his critics say are pornographic.
The group under fire is the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), which Kevin Jennings, now the assistant deputy secretary for safe and drug-free schools in the Department of Education, founded and ran from 1990 to 2008.
GLSEN says it works to create a welcoming atmosphere for homosexual students in schools, and that effort includes recommending books for students of all ages.
But critics say many of the books, particularly some that are targeted for children between Grades 7 to 12, are inappropriately explicit. A full list is available at the blog Gateway Pundit, which has published dozens of controversial passages from the books.
One recommended book is titled "Queer 13: Lesbian and Gay Writers Recall Seventh Grade." On pages 43 through 45, writer Justin Chin tells of how as a 13-year-old, he went along with "near-rapes" by older men, but "really did enjoy those sexual encounters." Chin also recounts each sexual action he performed with an "ugly f*** of a man" he met on a bus.
In another book, "Passages of Pride," the author writes about a 15-year-old boy's relationship with a much older man.
"Near the end of summer, just before starting his sophomore year in high school, Dan picked up a weekly Twin Cities newspaper. Scanning the classifieds, he came upon an ad for a "Man-2-Man" massage. Home alone one day, he called the telephone number listed in the ad and set up an appointment to meet a man named Tom.... Even though Tom was older, almost twice Dan's age, Dan felt unthreatened by him. Dan admits Tom was a 'troll' in every sense of the word -- an older closeted gay man seeking sex with a man much younger. But Dan says he was not intimidated by the discrepancy in their ages. 'He kind of had me in a corner in that he knew I didn't have access to anything I wanted.' says Dan. 'But everything was consensual.'"
On Page 13 of a third book, "Reflections of a Rock Lobster," the author recounts his sexual encounters in first grade.
"By first grade I was sexually active with many friends. In fact, a small group of us regularly met in the grammar school lavatory to perform fellatio on one another. A typical week's schedule would be Aaron and Michael on Monday during lunch; Michael and Johnny on Tuesday after school; Fred and Timmy at noon Wednesday; Aaron and Timmy after school on Thursday. None of us ever got caught, but we never worried about it anyway."
"Reflections of a Rock Lobster" was recommended in 1995, the year Jennings became GLSEN's first executive director; "Passages of Pride" made the list in 1997 and "Queer 13" in 1999. Those are just three out of over 100 books that GLSEN has recommended for students in grades 7-12 since 1990, and all three remain on GLSEN's recommended reading list.
Peter Sprigg, a senior fellow at the Family Research Council, says the content of the books is shocking, and it raises concerns about Jennings' judgment.
"The graphic sexual content of these books is so extreme that I think any average parent or citizen, regardless of how they feel about homosexuality, would be shocked at these books being recommended to young people," Sprigg said.
GLSEN Executive Director Eliza Byard defended her group's recommendations, telling FoxNews.com in a written statement:
"Some of the books that might be used with young adult audiences contain mature content, as is true of many memoirs and works of literature. Because of the presence of mature content in some of the works, GLSEN provides very clear guidelines throughout, recommending that adults review each book to make sure the book is suitable."
Those guidelines, listed on each book recommendation page, read: "All BookLink items are reviewed by GLSEN staff for quality and appropriateness of content. However, some titles for adolescent readers contain mature themes. We recommend that adults selecting books for youth review content for suitability."
But critics say the guidelines themselves are damning, because they confirm that GLSEN staff have checked the books for appropriateness. And Jennings, they point out, was in charge at the time.
"It's like Jennings just doesn't realize he's working with kids here.... You need a totally different set of rules when you're working with kids," said Peter LaBarbera, president of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality.
LaBarbera said the books should be seen in light of other recent controversies surrounding Jennings.
In September it came out that, when he was a teacher in Massachusetts, Jennings did not report an incident in which a 16-year-old boy told him that he was having sexual relations with an older man he met in a bus station bathroom. After that, 53 Republican members of the House publicly called for Jennings to be dismissed.
But Alvin McEwen, who runs a blog called "Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters" and has commented extensively on the Jennings case, said GLSEN's book recommendations should be seen in a different light.
"GLSEN is saying that parents should decide. They are saying these books may be a good idea to read, but ultimately it is up to parents," he told FoxNews.com.
McEwen said that even though Jennings was the director of GLSEN when the books were recommended, there was no evidence that he personally selected the books.
"This is ridiculous guilt-by-association ... just another moral panic thought up by people who don't have any legitimate reason to oppose Jennings, so they've made a mountain out of molehill," he said.
Department of Education spokesman Justin Hamilton declined to comment about Jennings' role in recommending the books.
But critics say Jennings, as GLSEN's first full-time employee and first executive director, must be held responsible.
"He was at GLSEN from the beginning and was in charge during the time when these books were approved," said Warren Throckmorton, a professor at Grove City College.
The blogger at Gateway Pundit, Jim Hoft, wrote elsewhere concerning a "black book" that contains a gay bar guide and explicit sexual references that was handed out at a GLSEN event.
But McEwen said it's not clear that Jennings -- or GLSEN -- knew about the guide, which was distributed by Fenway Community Health officials at a GLSEN event, which they later said had been a mistake.
Hoft has also alleged that Jennings and GLSEN were involved in Planned Parenthood's purported distribution of "fisting kits" [fisting involves forcing one's hand into another person's rectum or vagina] at at least one GLSEN event. The kit was actually for making a "dental dam" -- designed to prevent STD transmission during oral sex.
McEwen said that the attacks on Jennings and GLSEN were motivated largely by homophobia.
"There are a lot of heterosexual books that are just as explicit. In the first page of 'The Color Purple' [a 1982 novel that has caused controversy when assigned in schools], the character talks about being raped in graphic terms... what's in [GLSEN's] books is no different from what's in The Color Purple."
But Sprigg disagrees that books like "The Color Purple" are comparable to those recommended by GLSEN.
"We are not talking about 'The Great Gatsby' or 'The Grapes of Wrath' here," he said. "A lot of people who have only read the news and opinion pieces on this story, without reading the actual excerpts, may think that we are talking about the kind of sexual content that might, in a film, earn a PG-13 or R rating. We are not.
"This is material that, if portrayed visually, would be a triple-X hard-core porn film, and quite possibly meet the legal definition of obscenity. In fact, I think the homosexual content is the only thing preventing the outcry from being even greater, because some people fear being labeled as 'anti-gay.' If the content were heterosexual in nature, there would be no one defending it at all."
Colorado State University's William Gray, who has been labeled as the most famous hurricane expert, indicated that the Climategate scandal is evidence of a conspiracy among a group of global warming adherents who feel that human actions may precipitate catastrophic changes in the earth’s climate.
He stated that "There has been an unrelenting quarter century of one-sided indoctrination of the Western world by the media and by various scientists and governments concerning a coming carbon dioxide … induced global warming disaster."
Gray’s assessment of those behind this unsubstantiated claim is that "These warming scenarios have been orchestrated by a combination of environmentalists, vested interest scientists wanting larger federal grants and publicity, the media which profits from doomsday scenario reporting, governmental bureaucrats who want more power over our lives, and socialists who want to level-out global living standards.
Famous weather scientist: Climategate 'tip of iceberg'
Bob Unruh in WorldNetDaily December 08, 2009
The Colorado scientist described by the Washington Post as "the World's Most Famous Hurricane Expert" says the "Climategate" e-mails from the United Kingdom that revealed possible data manipulation are evidence of a conspiracy among "warmists," those who believe man's actions are triggering possibly catastrophic climate change.
"The recent 'ClimateGate' revelations coming out of the UK University of East Anglia are but the tip of a giant iceberg of a well organized international climate warming conspiracy that has been gathering momentum for the last 25 years," said Colorado State University's William Gray.
His annual hurricane forecasts are the standard for weather prognostications. His work pioneered the science of forecasting hurricanes, and he has served as weather forecaster for the U.S. Air Force. He is emeritus professor of atmospheric science at CSU and heads the school's Department of Atmospheric Sciences Tropical Meteorology Project.
Gray was referring to e-mails and other information obtained by a hacker and posted on a Russian web server that included interactions among the world's most influential climate-change scientists.
One e-mail said: "I've just completed Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) amd (sic) from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline."
Another expressed internal doubts: "The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't. The CERES data published in the August (Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society) 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate."
Further, an e-mail exchange suggested the suppression of information: "Can you delete any e-mails you may have had with Keith re (Assessment Report 4)? Keith will do likewise. He's not in at the moment – minor family crisis."
Gray said, "This conspiracy would become much more manifest if all the e-mails of the publically funded climate research groups of the U.S. and of foreign governments were ever made public."
His comments are posted at Climate Depot.com as world leaders are conferencing in Copenhagen to discuss taking drastic economic measures to curb "global warming."
Gray warns that the likely agreements coming out of Copenhagen, the cap-and-trade bill before Congress and the Environmental Protection Agency's decision announced this week to treat carbon dioxide as a pollutant "represents a grave threat to the industrial world's continued economic development."
"We should not allow these proposals to restrict our economic growth," Gray said. "Any United Nations climate bill our country might sign would act as an infringement on our country's sovereignty."
He said he probably would have been concerned about the possibility people are causing serious global climate degradation "had I not devoted my entire career of over half-a-century to the study and forecasting of meteorological and climate events."
"There has been an unrelenting quarter century of one-sided indoctrination of the Western world by the media and by various scientists and governments concerning a coming carbon dioxide … induced global warming disaster," he said. "These warming scenarios have been orchestrated by a combination of environmentalists, vested interest scientists wanting larger federal grants and publicity, the media which profits from doomsday scenario reporting, governmental bureaucrats who want more power over our lives, and socialists who want to level-out global living standards.
"These many alarmist groups appear to have little concern over whether their global warming prognostications are accurate, however. And they most certainly are not. The alarmists believe they will be able to scare enough of our citizens into believing their propaganda that the public will be willing to follow their advice on future energy usage and agree to a lowering of their standard of living in the name of climate salvation."
Gray said there still hasn't been an "honest and broad" scientific debate on the influence of CO2 on global temperature, contending the present models presented by scientists are flawed.
He cited a global warming of about 1 degree Fahrenheit over the last century, and that's "not a consequence of human activities."
"The disastrous economic consequences of restricting CO2 emissions from the present by as much as 20 percent by 2020 and 80 percent by 2050 (as being proposed in Copenhagen) have yet to be digested by the general public. Such CO2 output decreases would cause very large increases in our energy costs, a lowering of our standard of living, and do nothing of significance to improve our climate," he said.
Gray launched the practice of seasonal hurricane forecasts. After the 2005 Atlantic season, he said he was stepping down from the primary authorship of the CSU report, turning over those duties to Philip J. Klotzbach.
He's long described global warming as a hoax, telling the Post three years ago, "I am of the opinion that this is one of the greatest hoaxes ever perpetrated on the American people."
Myron Ebell of the GlobalWarming.org website, where "cooler heads prevail," said the e-mails obtained from the University of East Anglia were "shocking."
"It's kind of interesting to learn that petty politics seems to be more prevalent in the scientific community than in the political community," he said.
The documents, he said, "raise a huge number of questions about the integrity of a lot of people in the alarmist community."
"What I've seen there is a very strong effort to manage the issue by scientists and not as a scientific issue. It's very improper," he said. "One of the criticisms is that we need scientists to be scientists, and policy can be handled in public debate."
Phil Jones, head of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit, confirmed the documents appeared authentic. He has temporarily stepped down while an investigation is taking place.
Despite the advocacy of a financially vested former vice president, Al Gore, and others, public opinion about whether mankind is causing an ultimately catastrophic rise in global temperatures is shifting.
U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, has urged members of Congress to consider the joint opinion of nearly 32,000 scientists, including more than 9,000 Ph.D.s, who believe humans likely have little or nothing to do with any "global warming."
The Petition Project, launched some 10 years ago when the first few thousand signatures were gathered, has steadily grown without any special effort or campaign.
But in the last few years, and especially because of the release of Gore's movie "An Inconvenient Truth," the campaign has been reinvigorated.
"Mr. Gore's movie, asserting a 'consensus' and 'settled science' in agreement about human-caused global warming, conveyed the claims about human-caused global warming to ordinary moviegoers and to public-school children, to whom the film was widely distributed. Unfortunately, Mr. Gore's movie contains many very serious incorrect claims which no informed, honest scientist could endorse," project spokesman and founder Art Robinson has told WND.
Robinson, a research professor of chemistry, cofounded the Linus Pauling Institute of Science and Medicine with Linus Pauling in 1973, and later cofounded the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine.
Paul later cited the petition results in statement to Congress.
"Our energy policies must be based upon scientific truth – not fictional movies or self-interested international agendas," Paul said. "They should be based upon the accomplishments of technological free enterprise that have provided our modern civilization, including our energy industries. That free enterprise must not be hindered by bogus claims about imaginary disasters."
The petition states: "There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth."
Robinson has warned of serious political and economic consequences of assuming "global warming" results from mankind's actions.
"The campaign to severely ration hydrocarbon energy technology has now been markedly expanded," he said. "In the course of this campaign, many scientifically invalid claims about impending climate emergencies are being made. Simultaneously, proposed political actions to severely reduce hydrocarbon use now threaten the prosperity of Americans and the very existence of hundreds of millions of people in poorer countries," he told WND.
The myriad attempts by liberals to indoctrinate our children by a variety of means are well known with some discussions of this in past posts (Aug. 2 and Oct. 2). Some of these methods are overt such as singing songs of reverence about Obama. Other methods may not be quite as obvious to these impressionable children such as by employing reinterpretation and misrepresentation of history, de-emphasis of conservative thought, individuals and topics and overwhelming concentration on items of liberal ideology (such as: socialism is good – capitalism is bad or praising Islam while at the same time denigrating Christianity). As parents, we must be ever vigilant to protect our children from this institutional and stealth liberal indoctrination.
The following story appearing in the Columbia Daily Tribune from Columbia, Missouri details how school supplies with Obama slogans and logos were being sold in several schools in the area. Though it doesn’t appear that the schools specifically ordered these partisan paraphernalia and the supplier intimated that it was just an error but not their fault, the issue still remains that partisan political material was distributed to the impressionable. Was this an honest error or a consequence of some intentional and larger scheme? Fortunately in this situation, a few involved and concerned parents complained about these inappropriate supplies which were then removed.
Supplies with Obama logo surprise school
By Jonathon Braden December 3, 2009
Columbia Daily Tribune
A notebook sold to a student out of a supply machine at Mill Creek Elementary School bears a logo and slogan similar to those used in the Obama campaign last year. The supplier also distributed pencils with a similar theme.
Pencils and notebooks resembling President Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign ads have been sold in at least one Columbia school and other public schools, causing the company that distributes the materials to travel around the state yanking the supplies out of machines.
“Don’t be mad at us,” said Greg Jones, a sales representative with Pencil Wholesale. “It was a total accident.”
Pencil Wholesale distributes supplies to six Columbia schools: Parkade Elementary, Cedar Ridge Elementary, Paxton Keeley Elementary, Mill Creek Elementary, Smithton Middle School and Hickman High School, said Linda Quinley, the district’s chief financial officer.
At Mill Creek, at least one pencil and a notebook with designs similar to Obama campaign advertisements have been sold out of a supply machine. Two families have complained about the politically tinged materials.
Three Missouri schools have contacted Jones since the beginning of the school year asking that the materials be removed, and Mill Creek Principal Mary Sue Gibson this week said she also planned to call Pencil Wholesale.
“I just don’t want to get into that political arena at all,” she said.
The bound three-ring notebook bears a photo of literal change — pennies, quarters, dimes and nickels stacked into piles. Above the photo, white text reads “CHANGE” over a navy background.
Below the photo, “WE CAN BELIEVE IN” sits above a logo similar to Obama’s campaign image — three red stripes separated by white stripes in front of a white circle with a blue background arching over the circle.
The supplies were designed by the art department of Harcourt Pencil Co., based in Milroy, Ind., Jones said.
“The art department was trying to be cutesy,” he said.
There was no response this morning to a phone message to Harcourt.
Jones delivers the supplies to about 800 schools. He remembers seeing the Obama-esque notebook when it was first designed, but “I didn’t think one thing about it,” he said.
Jones has agreed to go to schools that might have received the supplies and remove them.
“I wish I could do it over,” he said. “But, for now, I can just make it right.”
Harcourt plans to give Jones a refund on the supplies as well, he said.
But first, Jones has to find the supplies. Out of a case of 72 notebooks, three of the controversial notebooks can be found, he said.
“It’s turned out to be really ugly,” Jones said. “We’re trying to get them out of the schools as fast as we can.”
He also wants to be clear that neither he nor his company created the design. In fact, he said, he’s a registered Republican who voted for John McCain in last year’s presidential election.
History repeats itself. Those who don’t learn from it are doomed to repeat the same mistakes. In our present situation in America, all the warning signs have been there and couldn’t be any clearer yet many either refuse to believe them or are just plain apathetic, lazy or corrupt.
USSR, 1959: I am a "young pioneer" in school. History classes remind us that there is a higher authority than their parents and teachers: the leaders of the Communist Party.
The story of young pioneer Pavlik Morozov is required reading. Pavlik reported his father to the secret police for disobeying government regulations. His life exemplified the duty of all good Soviet citizens to serve their government.
From the first year in school, all of us are made aware of our ethnicity (ethnic Russian, Jewish, Asian, etc.) and class (proletariat, intelligentsia), around which society is structured. This inherent divisiveness makes it easy for the government to stir ethnic and class tension and in this way distract from economic failure.
Newspapers and TV transmit government-approved news. Any critical voice is immediately suppressed and publicly denounced.
My parents, as all citizens of the USSR, work for state-run companies. All workers are unionized — another way the state controls the citizens. There is no private enterprise in USSR.
Whatever small private farms or shops that existed before 1930 have been taken over by the state. All medical care and schools are state entities. The government regulates what kind of technology, service and compensation are allowed.
From school age through adulthood, citizens are called to public service four to five times a year. Activities such as farming, cleaning places of work, and paper/metal scrap collections are mandatory.
Religious symbols are forbidden in schools or on state property. Most old religious buildings are transformed for secular use.
The Soviet government imposes the Iron Curtain. The state has strict control over our ability to travel abroad. This prevents us from realizing the discrepancy between the media's image of the great socialist country and the reality of our low standard of living.
USA, 2009: "Progressives" control the government. Children in some public schools sing songs about the president and study his directives.
Progressives view people not as unique individuals, but as groups. They play on class envy, or divide people by ethnicity (African-American, white, Hispanic, etc.). From early childhood they remind children of their ethnic identity. The idea of a color-blind society united under the American flag is not politically correct.
The mainstream media are aligned with the government. Those media outlets critical of government policy are publicly criticized by government officials and are in danger of suffering repercussions.
Government seizes a majority stake in two major auto companies and, through TARP money, has control over major banks.
Congress discusses capping salaries in private businesses and is in the process of increasing its control over the health care industry.
Big labor union leadership is fully aligned with the progressives in government. There is strong pressure to eliminate the secret ballot in order to increase union membership.
Cap-and-trade, if passed, will drive a lot of small businesses into bankruptcy and create a fruitful soil for favoritism and government control over private entities.
Sept. 11 is declared a day of national service by the administration. It is no longer a day of remembrance for the horrific attack perpetrated by terrorists.
The American Constitution protects the separation between church and state. Atheist zealots pervert this ideal in order to force out religious symbols and traditions from public space. It is fashionable in progressive circles to ridicule religion and religious people. "Tolerance" is applied only to anti-religious values.
As a former citizen of the USSR, I heard and experienced all of this before. I listen to the speeches by the president asking people to sacrifice and serve. So what are we to sacrifice? For what? And to whom? I think I get it now.
Citizens of America, sacrifice your elders and forget your selfish aspirations of prosperity for yourself and your family! Sign onto Service.gov and serve your government!
• Kunin lived in the Soviet Union until 1980 and now lives in Connecticut.
The following editorial, written by Thomas Sowell, should serve as a clarion call to all Americans that our country, rights, freedoms and way of life are on the precipice of annihilation due to the inimical ideologies combined with contemptuous, nefarious, imperious politicians who desire unfettered power. In a very comprehensive yet succinct and persuasive manner, he states his case … which we must act on immediately and decisively before the situation becomes even more dire.
Dismantling America — Piece By Piece
By THOMAS SOWELL
Just one year ago, would you have believed that an unelected government official, not even a Cabinet member confirmed by the Senate but simply one of the many "czars" appointed by the president, could arbitrarily cut the pay of executives in private businesses by 50% or 90%?
Did you think that another "czar" would be talking about restricting talk radio? That there would be plans afloat to subsidize newspapers — to create a situation where some papers' survival would depend on the government liking what they publish?
Did you imagine that anyone would even be talking about having a panel of so-called "experts" deciding who could and could not get lifesaving medical treatments?
Scary as that is from a medical standpoint, it is also chilling from the standpoint of freedom. If you have a mother who needs a heart operation or a child with some dire medical condition, how free would you feel to speak out against an administration that has the power to make life-and-death decisions about your loved ones?
Does any of this sound like America?
How about a federal agency giving schoolchildren material to enlist them on the side of the president? Merely being assigned to sing his praises in class is apparently not enough.
How much of America would be left if the federal government continued on this path? President Obama has already floated the idea of a national police force, something we have done without for more than two centuries.
We already have local police forces all across the country and military forces for national defense, as well as the FBI for federal crimes and the National Guard for local emergencies.
What would be the role of a national police force created by Barack Obama, with all its leaders appointed by him? It would seem more like the brownshirts of dictators than like anything American. How far the president will go depends of course on how much resistance he meets. But the direction in which he is trying to go tells us more than all his rhetoric or media spin.
Barack Obama has not only said that he is out to "change the United States of America"; the people he has been associated with for years have expressed in words and deeds their hostility to the values, the principles and the people of this country.
Jeremiah Wright said it with words: "God damn America!" Bill Ayers said it with bombs that he planted. Community activist goons have said it with their contempt for the rights of other people.
Among those appointed as czars by Obama have been people who have praised enemy dictators like Mao, who have seen public schools as places to promote sexual practices contrary to the values of most Americans, to a captive audience of children.
Those who say that the Obama administration should have investigated those people more thoroughly before appointing them are missing the point completely. Why should we assume that Barack Obama didn't know what such people were like, when he has been associating with precisely these kinds of people for decades before he reached the White House?
Nothing is more consistent with his lifelong patterns than putting such people in government — people who reject American values, resent Americans in general and successful Americans in particular, as well as resenting America's influence in the world.
Any miscalculation on his part would be in not thinking that others would discover what these stealth appointees were like. Had it not been for the Fox News Channel, these stealth appointees might have remained unexposed for what they are. Fox News is now high on the administration's enemies list.
Nothing so epitomizes Obama's own contempt for American values and traditions like trying to ram two bills through Congress in his first year — each bill more than a thousand pages long — too fast for either of them to be read, much less discussed.
That he succeeded only the first time says that some people are starting to wake up. Whether enough people will wake up in time to keep America from being dismantled, piece by piece, is another question — and the biggest question for this generation.
Internationally, Obama has made every mistake that was made by the Western democracies in the 1930s, mistakes that put Hitler in a position to start World War II — and come dangerously close to winning it.
At the heart of those mistakes was trying to mollify your enemies by throwing your friends to the wolves. The administration has already done that by reneging on this country's commitment to put a missile defense shield in Eastern Europe and its lackadaisical foot-dragging on doing anything serious to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons. That means, for all practical purposes, throwing Israel to the wolves as well.
Countries around the world that have to look out for their own national survival, above all, are not going to ignore how much Obama has downgraded the reliability of America's commitments.
Iraq, for example, knows that Iran is going to be next door forever, while Americans may be gone in a few years. South Korea likewise knows that North Korea is permanently next door, but who knows when the Obama administration will get a bright idea to pull out?
Countries in South America know that Hugo Chavez is allying Venezuela with Iran. Dare they ally themselves with an unreliable U.S.A.? Or should they join our enemies to work against us? This issue is too serious for squeamish silence.
Sand Hill Venable Elementary School in North Carolina
Though not as egregious and saturated with pro-Obama reverence as the songs in the Burlington, N.J. elementary school case, this situation is entirely unacceptable. This is partisan and political abuse of children, unwarranted liberal indoctrination for those who are most vulnerable.
How many hundreds or thousands more of these “stealth” brainwashing are occurring that we don’t know about and haven’t been captured on video. We do know that from elementary school through graduate schools there is a preponderance of liberal teachers/professors many whom infuse their partisan attitudes unfettered in classroom discourse irrespective of course matter. Even worse is when conservative thought by students is silenced and even penalized by these “educators”.
Every concerned parent must remain vigilant and aggressively take action when needed!
In an egregious example of leftist political indoctrination in school, 20 young children in a Burlington, N.J. elementary school were taught several songs that exalted Barack Obama. They contained praise of his ideas, plans and “accomplishments”. There were also campaign slogans thrown in as well for more adulation. One outraged father who has two children at the school stated that he "felt this was reminiscent of 1930s Germany, and the indoctrination of children to worship their leader (sic – Adolf Hitler)."
Despite the warranted outrage from both parents and the public, the involved teachers indicated essentially that this was entirely appropriate and they would have no issues doing this again. The response of the school’s superintendent was wretchedly unapologetic. This partisan favoritism and indoctrination has no place in schools at any level. You can be absolutely sure that if these same songs were about George Bush, Al (the Charlatan) Sharpton and Jesse Jackson would be leading vilifying protests claiming racism and most of the news media would be camped outside the school with round the clock coverage.
The following are lyrics to two of the songs.
Song 1:
Mm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama
He said that all must lend a hand
To make this country strong again
Mmm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama
He said we must be fair today
Equal work means equal pay
Mmm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama
He said that we must take a stand
To make sure everyone gets a chance
Mmm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama
He said red, yellow, black or white
All are equal in his sight
Mmm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama
Yes!
Mmm, mmm, mm
Barack Hussein Obama
Song 2:
Hello, Mr. President we honor you today!
For all your great accomplishments, we all doth say "hooray!"
Hooray, Mr. President! You're number one!
The first black American to lead this great nation!
Hooray, Mr. President we honor your great plans
To make this country's economy number one again!
Hooray Mr. President, we're really proud of you!
And we stand for all Americans under the great Red, White, and Blue!
So continue ---- Mr. President we know you'll do the trick
So here's a hearty hip-hooray ----
Hip, hip hooray!
Hip, hip hooray!
Hip, hip hooray!
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