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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; faith</title>
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		<title>Army Chaplain Punished for Mentioning Faith</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/arnold-ahlert/army-chaplain-punished-for-mentioning-faith/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=army-chaplain-punished-for-mentioning-faith</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 24 Dec 2014 05:52:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[army]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Chaplain]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[faith]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[reprimand]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[suicide prevention]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=248031</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Spreading holiday fear.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="color: #232323;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Praying012807.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-248032" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Praying012807.jpg" alt="Praying012807" width="309" height="208" /></a>Apparently, the Obama administration’s ostensible determination to foster “diversity” in the military is a one-way street. Army Chaplain Joseph Lawhorn was <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014/12/09/chaplain-punished-for-sharing-his-faith-in-suicide-prevention-class/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">disciplined</span></a> for mentioning his faith and the Bible as part of a November suicide prevention training seminar with the 5th Ranger Training Battalion. “You provided a two-sided handout that listed Army resources on one side and a biblical approach to handling depression on the other side,” wrote Col. David Fivecoat, commander of the Airborne and Ranger Training Brigade at Ft. Benning, Georgia, in an official Letter of Concern. “This made it impossible for those in attendance to receive the resource information without also receiving the biblical information.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Lawhorn received the letter following orders to appear in Col. Fivecoat’s office on Thanksgiving Day. The letter <a href="http://www.armytimes.com/story/military/2014/12/10/army-chaplain-joseph-lawhorn-ranger-training-complaint/20213399/?sf34573836=%5B%22%5B'1'%5D%22%5D"><span style="color: #1255cc;">continued</span></a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p style="color: #232323;">As the battalion chaplain, you are entrusted to care for the emotional wellbeing of all soldiers in the battalion. You, above all others, must be cognizant of the various beliefs held by diverse soldiers. During mandatory training briefings, it is imperative you are careful to avoid any perception you are advocating one system of beliefs over another.</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="color: #232323;">The sequence of events leading to the action taken against Lawhorn should sound familiar. The session took place Nov. 20 at the University of North Georgia. Lawhorn handed out the two-sided document, recited some scripture, and explained how he used the Bible to cope with his <i>own</i> bout of depression. A single soldier was “offended” by Lawhorn’s presentation and reported him to the <a href="http://militaryatheists.org/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers</span></a> (MAAF). Writing on behalf the MAAF, former Army Captain Jason Torpy characterized Lawhorn’s presentation as &#8220;an abuse of power and a violation of regulations.” He further accused Lawhorn of engaging in “conscience protection” which he defined as &#8220;an insidious legal tool designed to allow military chaplains to use their power and authority to evangelize vulnerable military populations.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;"><span style="color: #1255cc;"><a href="https://www.libertyinstitute.org/take-action/give?gclid=CO7q9t_G3MICFYtr7AodBBUAqw">The Liberty Institute</a></span> is defending Lawhorn. Attorney Michael Berry contends the soldier who filed the complaint “exploited” the chaplain’s “vulnerability.” “It took a great amount of courage for Chaplain Lawhorn to discuss his own personal battle with depression,” Berry explained. “At no time did he consider himself to be in a ‘preacher’ role.” Berry further insisted the Letter of Concern violated Lawhorn’s constitutional rights. “Not only is it lawful for a chaplain to talk about matters of faith and spirituality and religion in a suicide prevention training class &#8211; but the Army policy encourages discussion of matters of faith and spiritual wellness,” he told Fox News’s Todd Starnes. “The fact that one person in the class was offended changes nothing.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Berry appears to be on solid ground. The passage of the last two National Defense Authorization Acts (NDAA), included provisions expanding the rights of service members and chaplains to express their religious beliefs. Despite that effort, a congressional hearing on the matter taking place the same day Lawhorn was doing the seminar <a href="http://www.military.com/daily-news/2014/11/20/pentagons-religious-guidance-spurred-tsunami-of-confusion.html?ESRC=eb.nl"><span style="color: #1255cc;">revealed</span></a> that a &#8220;tsunami of confusion” has been engendered among military commanders, chaplains and personnel attempting to determined the difference between religious practice and proselytization.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">It was a hearing that didn’t sit well with former marine pilot Tom Carpenter. In a <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-carpenter/religious-accommodation-a_b_6207764.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">piece</span></a> for the Huffington Post, he characterized it as a “set up,” where the outcome is “preordained.” He further insisted the expansion of religious rights is &#8220;an attempt by the ultra conservative Christians in Congress to allow chaplains to witness for Christ to all service members AT ALL TIMES, [emphasis original] without fear of accountability,” and that &#8220;accommodation being considered by this committee is clearly a subterfuge to allow criticizing of LGB service members and proselytizing of all non-Christians.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Ron Crews, a retired <a href="http://www.military.com/Community/Home/0,14700,ARMY,00.html"><span style="color: #1255cc;">Army</span></a> chaplain and executive director of the Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty, testified at the hearing, citing what he believes was evidence of a double-standard. He noted that an article written by an Ohio Air National Guard member mentioning the importance of his faith and Jesus Christ was removed from an online newsletter, even as no action was taken against an airman writing a piece on atheism for a Moody Air Force Base newsletter.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Crews was quick to defend Lawhorn. “The chaplain did nothing wrong,” he explained. “At no time did he say his was the only or even the preferred way of dealing with depression. And at no time did he deny the validity of any other method. His story involves his faith journey. He was simply being a great Army chaplain &#8211; in ministering to his troops and providing first hand how he has dealt with depression in the past. That’s what chaplains do. They bare their souls for their soldiers in order to help them with crises they may be going through.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Adding weight to that assessment is the fact that Lawhorn is a chaplain who wears the Ranger Tab, meaning his personal stories were more than likely an effort to help his fellow Rangers identify similar tribulations in their own lives.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">In an interview with the Daily Signal, Lawhorn <a href="http://dailysignal.com/2014/12/18/punished-referencing-bible-military-chaplain-tells-side-story/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">expressed</span></a> that idea, further insisting he was only doing his job. &#8220;What I had tried to communicate with my audience is that depression can be conquered, depression can be overcome, and there are a myriad of ways of dealing with depression,” he explained. “In this particular case, I had struggled myself personally with the issue at hand I was teaching.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">He pushed back against the disciplinary action taken against him. “When I spoke about faith in particular, and in particular my Christian faith, it was clear that I was speaking from first-person account,” he maintained. “In my particular situation, it was my faith that helped me to persevere and remain resilient in the face of depression. And I was very clear to my audience that that was one way to handle depression and thoughts of suicide, but it certainly was not the only way.” Lawhorn further maintained that “any handout or any resource I provided soldiers who might need help was completely optional. It was up to them whether to take it or leave it.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Col. Fivecoat was unmoved. On Dec. 12 he sent Lawhorn followup missive, “Letter of Concern Filing Determination,” in which he maintained he had “carefully considered” Lawhorn’s rebuttal, but still decided to file the Letter of Concern in the chaplain’s local file. Col. Fivecoat determined that Lawhorn’s assertions “did not disprove nor dissuade me that your actions made it impossible for those in attendance to receive the necessary resource information without also receiving biblical information.” He further insisted the Letter of Concern was a “professional development matter&#8221; and “an administrative action,” as opposed to a “punishment.” Nonetheless the letter will remain in Lawhorn’s file “for one year or until you are reassigned outside the Ranger and Training Brigade, whichever is sooner.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Part of Lawhorn’s rebuttal included 33 letters of support from soldiers who attended the session, and those who know him personally. &#8220;They all almost universally say that he said, &#8216;I&#8217;m not telling you that using faith or religion or spirituality is the only way to deal with it. I&#8217;m not telling you it&#8217;s the correct way to deal with it. I&#8217;m just saying this was what worked for me,&#8217;&#8221; Berry explained. Berry also noted the complaining soldier didn’t give Lawhorn an opportunity to address his concerns. &#8220;Had Chaplain Lawhorn known of this, he would have happily sat down with this soldier and answered any questions or concerns he or she had,” Berry wrote to Col. Fivecoat. &#8220;Unfortunately, Chaplain Lawhorn was not given this opportunity&#8211;a professional courtesy&#8211;because the soldier in question alerted a civilian advocacy group, the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers, who apparently then alerted a media outlet, the Huffington Post.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Rep. Doug Collins (R-GA), whose district includes the area where the seminar took place, also sent a letter to the Colonel, taking him to task. “I find it counterintuitive to have someone lead a suicide prevention course but prohibit them from providing their personal testimony,” Collins wrote.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">His consternation was <a href="http://cnsnews.com/news/article/lauretta-brown/gen-boykin-army-violated-its-own-regulations-punishing-chaplain-using"><span style="color: #1255cc;">echoed</span></a> by retired Army Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin, chairman of the Restore Military Religious Freedom Coalition (RMRFC). He insisted Lawhorn’s First Amendment rights were violated and the Col. Fivecoat’s letter was in violation of Army regulation. “You cannot either force a chaplain to do something that violates their conscience or prohibit them from following their faith,” Boykin explained referencing Section 533 of the 2013 NDAA.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">The RMRFC has pushed the matter up the chain of command, sending a letter to Secretary of the Army John McHugh. They want the Letter of Concern withdrawn, and Col. Fivecoat reprimanded. “I want somebody in the chain of command to sit him down and explain to him what the Constitution provides for in terms of freedom of religion as well as freedom of speech,” Boykin told CNS News.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Boykin is also vice president of the Family Research Council (FRC) that has created a <a href="https://www.frc.org/get.cfm?c=CHECKOUT&amp;dmy=7B14423A-FFB6-7971-6D293700BDA55783&amp;CFID=31113323&amp;CFTOKEN=7ad9faef490eb7d5-AE4A1494-DF8C-E938-F52FCE2FAD1CF48A">petition</a> requesting the same result. As of Dec. 18, it had 20,000 signatures. “We just simply cannot ignore this nor let it stand,” Boykin declared. “Even if there’s no long-term impact on the chaplain professionally, it can’t stand because commanders cannot abuse their power by abusing their subordinates over their conscience and their faith.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">The ultimate outcome remains to be seen, but the larger picture remains rather one-sided. The American left’s determination to socially engineer the military is as steeped in orthodoxy as any religion, yet the tenets of so-called Secular Humanism remain completely above challenge or reproach, irrespective of their effects on cohesion, morale and/or military preparedness. Moreover the notion that a <i>chaplain </i>should be disciplined for employing religion as <i>part</i> of the mix in a suicide prevention seminar is preposterous. It is clear that while the American left purports itself to be tolerant and non-judgmental, nothing could be further from the truth.</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>.</b></p>
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		<title>Does Glenn Greenwald Hate America?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/robert-spencer/does-glenn-greenwald-hate-america/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=does-glenn-greenwald-hate-america</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/robert-spencer/does-glenn-greenwald-hate-america/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 07 Nov 2013 04:35:12 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Robert Spencer]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[CAIR]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[faith]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Freedom]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[glenn greenwald]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[speech]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[There's no place the expat journalist would rather be than with terror-linked CAIR. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/greenwald_glennphoto.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-209842" alt="greenwald_glennphoto" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/greenwald_glennphoto-421x350.jpg" width="253" height="210" /></a>The Los Angeles chapter of the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2013/11/04/glenn-greenwald-will-return-to-us-to-address-cair-conference/" target="_blank">has announced</a> that Glenn Greenwald, the far-Left journalist who publicized Edward Snowden’s information about the astonishingly broad extent of NSA electronic surveillance programs, will be its keynote speaker at its Orwellian-named “Faith in Freedom” dinner on November 16.</p>
<p>This will be the first time that Greenwald, who now lives in Brazil, will return to the United States since the NSA scandal broke. It is not surprising that a CAIR event would be the occasion for his return, since he has said that “there really is no organization with which I’d rather be spending my time, or with which I feel more at home than CAIR.”</p>
<p>Yet CAIR is an <a href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/016754.php" target="_blank">unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror funding case</a> — so named by the Justice Department. CAIR operatives have repeatedly <a href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/014963.php" target="_blank">refused</a> <a href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/016017.php" target="_blank">to</a> <a href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/014790.php" target="_blank">denounce</a> Hamas and Hizballah as terrorist groups. Several <a href="http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2003/06/cairs-legal-tribulations.html" target="_blank">former CAIR officials have been convicted of various crimes related to jihad terror</a>. CAIR’s cofounder and longtime Board chairman (Omar Ahmad), as well as its chief spokesman (Ibrahim Hooper), have made <a href="http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53303" target="_blank">Islamic supremacist statements</a>. Its <a href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/2011/01/cairs-honest-ibe-hooper-admits-dont-talk-to-the-fbi-poster-crossed-a-line-but-those-who-noticed-that.html" target="_blank">California chapter distributed a poster</a> telling Muslims not to talk to the FBI. CAIR has opposed every anti-terror measure that has ever been proposed or implemented.</p>
<p>None of that means anything to Greenwald. “Despite malicious attacks and coordinated smear campaigns,” he has said, “including from our own government, and various other precincts [CAIR] has continued to devote itself relentlessly and really quite heroically to the fight for what I think is quite clearly, far and away, the greatest civil liberties crisis of our generation, at least, which is the persecution of Muslim Americans, and Muslims generally, in the post-9/11 era, which is really an assault on the liberties of everyone.”</p>
<p>He did not propose any way to defend ourselves against jihad terror without scrutiny of Muslim-Americans and Muslims generally.</p>
<p>At the CAIR dinner he will be speaking along with the imam Siraj Wahhaj, one of the most sought-after speakers on the Muslim speakers circuit in the U.S. Wahhaj was <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2011/03/07/jihad-at-the-university-of-central-florida/" target="_blank">designated</a> a “potential unindicted co-conspirator” in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing for taking the Blind Sheik to speak at mosques in New York and New Jersey in the early 1990s.</p>
<p>When Wahhaj spoke at the University of Central Florida in 2011, he was asked whether he would condemn Hamas and Al-Qaeda. Instead of answering directly, Wahhaj launched into a lengthy complaint against his having been designated a “potential unindicted co-conspirator.” With obvious annoyance in his voice, Wahhaj complained that that designation essentially meant nothing; an audience member drew sympathetic laughter when she asserted that it meant that Wahhaj was “innocent.” Wahhaj did not explain to his UCF audience that he earned the designation by sponsoring talks in the early 1990s by the Blind Sheikh, Omar Abdel Rahman, in mosques in New York City and New Jersey; Rahman was later convicted for conspiring to blow up the World Trade Center in 1993.</p>
<p>Wahhaj has also <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2011/03/07/jihad-at-the-university-of-central-florida/" target="_blank">warned </a>that the United States will fall unless it “accepts the Islamic agenda.” He has also asserted that “if only Muslims were clever politically, they could take over the United States and replace its constitutional government with a caliphate.”</p>
<p>Greenwald’s willingness to appear in such company is a telling indication of the core beliefs and assumptions that underlay his revelations of the scope of NSA surveillance. While there is no reason for the NSA to be conducting surveillance on such a massive basis, and it is a symptom of the pervasive refusal to face the reality and magnitude of the jihad threat, the chief foes of this surveillance have been Leftist and Islamic supremacist groups that have opposed every counter-terror measure that has ever been proposed, as well as libertarian groups that persist in the delusion that if American power is removed from Muslim countries, the jihad against the U.S. will cease.</p>
<p>That in itself is an indication that the NSA surveillance may hamper the activities of Islamic jihadists more than has been advertised. While its scope is still way too broad, it is noteworthy that in none of Glenn Greenwald’s many writings on the subject does he propose an alternative that would protect Americans’ civil liberties while also protecting them from would-be Islamic jihad mass murderers.</p>
<p>And so, as he prepares to return to America to hobnob with members of the notorious Hamas-linked Muslim Brotherhood front group CAIR, the question must be asked: does Glenn Greenwald hate America? Or does he just act as if he does?</p>
<p>*</p>
<p><em>Don&#8217;t miss <strong>Jamie Glazov&#8217;s</strong> video interview with <b>Steven Emerson </b>on The Sordid World of CAIR: <strong><br />
</strong></em></p>
<p><iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/SaNMPpgPCh4" height="315" width="420" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
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		<title>Americans Don&#8217;t Trust the Media</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/arnold-ahlert/americans-dont-trust-the-media/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=americans-dont-trust-the-media</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 24 Sep 2012 04:33:27 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Americans]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[faith]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Media]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Poll]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[trust]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=145234</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A Gallup Poll reveals three-in-five Americans have little faith in the Fourth Estate.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/MSNBClogo.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-145237" title="MSNBClogo" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/MSNBClogo.jpg" alt="" width="324" height="126" /></a>In a thoroughly unsurprising revelation, a Gallup Poll <a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/157589/distrust-media-hits-new-high.aspx" target="_blank">released</a> on Friday shows that 60 percent of the American public has &#8220;little or no trust in the mass media to report the news fully, accurately, and fairly.&#8221; Gallup further notes that the 20-point gap between negative and positive views represents an all-time high. And while Americans tend to pay more attention to the news during a presidential election year, only 39 percent are following the news closely this year, compared to 43 percent in 2008.</p>
<p>According to Gallup, most of the decline is driven by Republicans and Independents. Only 26 percent of Republicans and 31 percent of Independents express either a great deal, or fair amount of trust in the Fourth Estate. Both number represent record lows and a significant drop from last year. Independents are also far more negative this year than in 2008, implying they are very dissatisfied in their ability to get accurate and unbiased coverage of the election campaign. Overall, Democrats remain most trusting of the media and Republicans the least. Media trust by Independents fell below 50 percent in 2004, and has declined steadily ever since.</p>
<p>The key number here is the one reached by taking the opposite figure of those paying close attention to the news. If only 39 percent of the public is paying close attention, that means more than three-out-of-five Americans remain largely unaware of what is going on around them. As for mainstream media bias, the numbers are not <a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/149624/Majority-Continue-Distrust-Media-Perceive-Bias.aspx" target="_blank">even close</a>. For the 60 percent of Americans who perceive media bias, 47 percent of them say the media are too liberal, while only 13 percent say they are too conservative.</p>
<p>Who&#8217;s right? No doubt the fallback position for many Americans, especially those who work in media, would be that bias is in the eye of the beholder. Certainly that is true to some extent. Americans&#8217; experience with media is anecdotal by nature. No one watches every news show, reads every newspaper, or listens to every radio broadcast disseminated on a daily basis throughout the nation. Furthermore, there is something called the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_exposure_theory" target="_blank">&#8220;selective exposure theory,&#8221;</a> which is the idea that people tend to interact with media sources that reinforce their pre-existing views, and avoid those that conflict with, or challenge, those views.</p>
<p>Yet a 2005 <a href="http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/Media-Bias-Is-Real-Finds-UCLA-6664.aspx" target="_blank">study</a> conducted by Tim Groseclose, a UCLA political scientist, and co-author Jeffrey Milyo, a University of Missouri economist and public policy scholar, reveals that while coverage by public television and radio is conservative, compared to the rest of the mainstream media, almost all major media outlets tilt to the left. &#8220;I suspected that many media outlets would tilt to the left because surveys have shown that reporters tend to vote more Democrat than Republican,&#8221; said Groseclose. &#8220;But I was surprised at just how pronounced the distinctions are.&#8221; Milyo was equally adamant. &#8220;Overall, the major media outlets are quite moderate compared to members of Congress, but even so, there is a quantifiable and significant bias in that nearly all of them lean to the left,&#8221; he said.</p>
<p>The authors used 21 research assistants to examine 10 years of U.S. media coverage. They kept close track of the number of times each media entity referred to various think tanks and/or policy groups, such as the left-leaning NAACP, or the right-leaning Heritage Foundation. Of the 20 major media outlets studied, 18 scored left of center. CBS&#8217;s &#8220;Evening News,&#8221; The <em>New York Times</em> and the <em>Los Angeles Times</em> ranked the second, third and fourth most liberal media sources, respectively. Number one was the news pages of <em>The Wall Street Journal. </em> The only two sources on the right side of the equation were Fox News<em>&#8216;</em>s &#8220;Special Report With Brit Hume,&#8221; and <em>The Washington Times.</em> The most centrist outlets were &#8220;NewsHour With Jim Lehrer,&#8221; CNN<em>&#8216;s</em> &#8220;NewsNight With Aaron Brown&#8221; and ABC&#8217;s &#8220;Good Morning America.&#8221; The study focused on news, omitting op-eds and editorials from the equation &#8212; which is why <em>The</em> <em>Wall Street Journal,</em> whose editorial page is decidedly  conservative, got the top slot on the left side of the equation, the authors explain.</p>
<p>Another <a href="http://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/jesse.shapiro/research/biasmeas.pdf" target="_blank">study</a> conducted in 2010 by University of Chicago economists Matthew Gentzkow and Jesse Shapiro looked at the different language used by Democrats and Republicans in Congress to describe various issues as a means of determining which way newspapers lean, and why. They concluded that &#8220;consumer demand responds strongly to the fit between a newspaper’s slant and the ideology of potential readers, implying an economic incentive for newspapers to tailor their slant to the ideological predispositions of consumers.&#8221; That would seem to support a mutually-reinforced selective exposure theory. Yet unlike Groseclose and Milyo, they came to no conclusions regarding an overall slant of newspaper coverage.</p>
<p>Neither did David D’Alessio, a communications sciences professor at the University of Connecticut at Stamford, who reviewed 99 studies of campaign news coverage over 60 years. He <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/how-biased-is-the-media-really/2012/04/27/gIQA9jYLmT_story.html" target="_blank">wrote</a> a book, “Media Bias in Presidential Election Coverage 1948-2008: Evaluation via Formal Measurement,&#8221; in which he concludes that news reporting is evenly split “because that’s where the people are, and that’s where the [advertising] money is&#8230;There’s nuance there, but when you add it all and subtract it down, you end up with nothing.&#8221;</p>
<p>Nothing is an interesting word. Or more accurately &#8220;omission.&#8221; How does one quantify the stories the major media deliberately choose not to run at all? For example, as outlined in a previous <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/arnold-ahlert/a-hurricane-of-hatred-for-republicans/" target="_blank">c</a><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/arnold-ahlert/a-hurricane-of-hatred-for-republicans/" target="_blank">olumn</a>, in order to maintain the fiction that Republicans are a &#8220;racist&#8221; political party, MSNBC chose to omit from its coverage all the speeches made by minorities at the Republican convention. CBS News <a href="http://bostonherald.com/news/opinion/op_ed/view/20110217cbs_complicit_in_news_coverup" target="_blank">spiked</a> a story about its own reporter Lara Logan being sexually assaulted by a mob of Egyptian men in Tahrir Square, because it would have interfered with the &#8220;Arab Spring&#8221; narrative that the Obama administration desperately wanted to be true. As for the president himself, the same media that more than willing to <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mitt-romneys-prep-school-classmates-recall-pranks-but-also-troubling-incidents/2012/05/10/gIQA3WOKFU_story.html" target="_blank">dug up</a> a 47-year-old story about Republican Mitt Romney cutting a prep school classmate&#8217;s hair (implying Romney targeted the classmate because he was supposedly suspected to be gay), remains almost pathologically incurious regarding a president whose past remains a vague, even after nearly four years in office.</p>
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		<title>Heresy: Ten Lies They Spread About Christianity</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/jamie-glazov/heresy-ten-lies-they-spread-about-christianity/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=heresy-ten-lies-they-spread-about-christianity</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/jamie-glazov/heresy-ten-lies-they-spread-about-christianity/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 02 May 2012 04:38:59 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jamie Glazov]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[christianity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[faith]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[heresy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Lies]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Michael Coren]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=130492</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Author Michael Coren produces a handbook of Christian self-defense. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/heresy.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-130756" title="heresy" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/heresy.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="467" /></a>Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Michael Coren, a television host, radio personality, syndicated columnist, author, and speaker. His TV show <em>The Arena </em>airs on Sun News Network in Canada. He is the author of <em>Why Catholics Are Right</em>, which was on the Canadian best-seller list for three months. His new book is <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Heresy-Spread-About-Christianity-ebook/dp/B005KB0SYW" target="_blank">Heresy: Ten Lies They Spread About Christianity</a>.</em></p>
<p><strong>FP: </strong>Michael Coren, welcome to Frontpage Interview.</p>
<p>Let’s begin with you telling us why you wrote this book.</p>
<p><strong>Coren: </strong>The most direct and practical answer is that the publisher, Random House, asked me to do so. The last one, defending Catholicism, had sold more than 50,000 copies, and so a large, secular publishing house had realized what a hunger there was out there for books explaining the Christian position to a mass audience. I wanted to go beyond the Catholic Church, to the attacks on universal Christianity and Christians. There are lots of books about prayer for example – perhaps too many! – but very few that respond to all of the most common attacks on the Christianity. I always take an eclectic approach. So as well as history and theology, I cover science and abortion, the De Vinci Code and biographies of great Christian writers, and so on. It’s supposed to be a handbook of Christian self-defense if you like.</p>
<p><strong>FP: </strong>Share with us why and how Christians and Christianity are under attack in our culture. What are some of the lies and myths about Christianity and Christians?</p>
<p><strong>Coren:</strong> The book takes on the most common and toxic of the attacks on Christianity: Jesus didn’t exist, Christians oppose progress, are scared of science, they’re obsessed with abortion, they’re racist and supported slavery, Hitler was a Christian, and so on.</p>
<p>But the supportive premise is that Christians are not treated fairly. Take the example of the Norwegian murderer Anders Behring Breivik. After his arrest, it took only hours for the media to label him a Christian. He identified himself, they said, as a “cultural Christian”. Those of who understand religion, however, know that this is shorthand for “only a cultural Christian”. Then we had Breivik’s manifesto. “Regarding my personal relationship with God, I guess I’m not an excessively religious man. I am first and foremost a man of logic. If you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and God then you are a religious Christian. Myself and many more like me do not necessarily have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and God.”</p>
<p>But none of it mattered. Just as it doesn’t when we’re told that Timothy McVeigh was a Christian &#8211; he left the Church when he was a youth, and wrote that, “science is my religion.” The reason that so many in mainstream media are so hysterically eager to call Breivik and McVeigh Christians, or claim that abortionists are regular targets for armed pro-life fanatics is not only that they are opposed to Christianity, but that they are obsessed with relativism.</p>
<p>Commentators take every shape imaginable in their attempts to report Islamic terror as something other than Islamic. Because, they argue, all religions are the same, and all equally capable of producing violent fundamentalism. Yet Christian fundamentalism is extremely rare, and when it does occur leads to rejections of evolution rather than rejections of law and order, and snake rather than dynamite handling. For the media to admit that different religions lead to different assumptions about pluralism and different approaches to human dignity would lead to the invincible conclusion that there is a qualitative distinction and hierarchy. That, to the moral and intellectual relativist, is heresy itself.</p>
<p>The examples of anti-Christian behavior are legion. In the west it takes the form of ejection from the public square and the workplace, legal restrictions, mockery, and abuse. In the developing and Islamic world it is far more serious: persecution, arrest, torture, murder. Objective, secular sources agree that Christians are the most oppressed group in the world right now, and the number and intensity of attacks is staggering. A mere book cannot do very much for the millions of believers who risk life and limb, but it can empower and perhaps even embolden Christians in the west who feel weighed down every time a critical remark is made.</p>
<p>Being a book about Christianity, Heresy is in the forgiving business. But forgiveness does not mean forgetting the truth. We have to be resolute in what is and what isn’t, which is why I’ve taken on the most frequent arguments used against followers of Christ. Some of them are simply ludicrous, the stuff of internet wisdom and website philosophy. The notion that Hitler was a Christian is schoolboy stuff, and profoundly insulting to the Christians who opposed the man and who he in turn slaughtered. Of course there were people calling themselves Christian who were Nazis, but this says nothing at all about Christianity but a great deal about hypocrisy. Nazis were often street thugs, but National Socialism itself was an ideology, replacing Messiah with Fuehrer, Church with party, love with hate, soul with will, protection of the weakest with survival of the fittest. Even a cursory reading of Nazi theorists will reveal the sheer idiocy of the claim.</p>
<p>Similarly with the alleged Christian opposition to science and progress. The Christian Church has in many ways been the hand maiden of science, and the only reason opponents mention Galileo all the time is that he’s about the only scientist who Christianity didn’t always treat properly – mind you, his story is far from the caricature presented by Brecht and his comrades. The same applies to the claim that there is no evidence that Jesus existed, or that The De Vinci Code is credible, or that bad things happening to good people is somehow a difficulty for Christians. This one is especially annoying, because it’s so badly thought out. Not only do bad things happen to good people, but – just as annoying – good things happen to bad ones. But that’s a problem for the atheist, not the believer. We understand that God guaranteed not a good life, but a perfect eternity. The dying child, the cancer-stricken philanthropist is a dilemma for the materialist, not for someone who knows there is an immortal soul and that life does not end in the hospital sick bed.</p>
<p>Neither this nor any of the other atheist talking points that I dismantle in the book are terrors to anybody who know their faith. The problem is that too few Christians do fully understand it, and many of those who do have been cowered into silence if not submission by a culture that imposes uniformity in its purported lust for diversity. There’s irony for you.</p>
<p><strong>FP: </strong>A big double standard with how Muslims and the Islamic faith are treated right? How come?</p>
<p><strong>Coren: </strong>As I mentioned above, the hypocrisy is overwhelming. A lot of this is the racism of lowered expectations – the liberal elite assume such behavior is typical of black and brown people, and also that it would be ban manners and politically incorrect to judge them. Sickening!</p>
<p>White guilt is a terrible thing to waste. Something that became profoundly clear during the trial of Mohammad Shafia, his wife Tooba Yahya and their son Hamed. Although the case was shocking, it was in fact only the most recent of a dozen murders in the last twelve years, most involving Muslim patriarchs killing young girls who wanted to be horribly western by wearing nice clothes, doing nice things. Which brings us to the greater point here, with more long-term consequences than this single repugnant case. The authorities &#8211; be they police, politicians, social workers, media – are obsessed with appearing to be non-judgmental when Islam is concerned; partly out of a fear of being accused of Islamaphobia, but also because they genuinely believe that the white, Christian west has more to learn from Islam than the contrary. The Shafia girls had pleaded with their teachers for help, and while front line social workers acknowledged that the situation was potentially disastrous, the concerns evaporated as soon as they reached middle management. So Mohammad Shafia, who had written of his daughters that he hoped “the devil shits on their graves” was, effectively, permitted to commit mass murder.</p>
<p>Yet even months after the Shafia case, commentators are embarrassingly, cringingly, reluctant to link the crime in any way with Islam, and it is described as domestic violence. No! This was not domestic violence but yet another example of an Islamic psychosis that has its epicenter in Pakistan, but extends to most parts of the Islamic heartland, and many in the Muslim diaspora. It’s a self-evident truth that not all Muslims behave so brutally, but it’s also undeniable that Islam teaches that a woman is the property of a father, then a husband. Most fathers and husbands are kind, but if they are not they are empowered by Koranic teaching and the prism of Sharia law to behave pretty much as they like.</p>
<p>While it’s true that honor killings are not exclusively Muslim, Islam is the only faith that boasts textual defense and sacred justification for such grotesque acts. When 16-year-old Aqsa Parvez was murdered in 2007 honor killing by her Pakistani father and brother, CAIR Canada told the gullible that, &#8220;It&#8217;s important not to generalize. There are cases of violence across all faiths and all cultures.&#8221; That was rubbish, but worse than Muslim extremists hiding the truth, are non-Muslims embracing lies without question. We saw this during the Parisian riots, when mobs of overwhelmingly Muslim youths beat and torched their way through the city, often screaming “Allahu Akbar.” Yet they were almost never described as being Muslim by the media. So different from when the Norwegian killer Anders Behring Breivik, a freemason who wrote that he had no relationship with God and had not attended a church in fifteen years, was repeatedly defined as a “Christian fundamentalist” on international television.</p>
<p>In the United States, President Obama played this game of obscene hide-and-seek when he dealt with Major <a title="Nidal Malik Hasan" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nidal_Malik_Hasan" target="_blank">Nidal Malik Hasan</a>, the<a title="Major (United States)" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_%28United_States%29" target="_blank"> US Army psychiatrist </a> who killed 13 colleagues and wounded dozens more. Even though Hasan identified himself as a Muslim radical and told friends that it was the duty of a Muslim to wage war against the US Army, Obama refused to refer to the man’s religion.</p>
<p>He has gone further. Under the current administration, and to a degree even under his predecessor, moderate Muslims have been marginalized and almost excluded from the political establishment and halls of power. It’s the racism of lowered expectations. Fundamentalist organizations have convinced white liberals that only activists with beards or burkas are genuine Muslims, and to think otherwise is colonial and patronizing.</p>
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		<title>Islam’s Uninterrupted History of Forced Conversions</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/raymond-ibrahim/islam%e2%80%99s-uninterrupted-history-of-forced-conversions/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=islam%25e2%2580%2599s-uninterrupted-history-of-forced-conversions</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/raymond-ibrahim/islam%e2%80%99s-uninterrupted-history-of-forced-conversions/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 03 Oct 2011 15:58:05 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Raymond Ibrahim]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Muslim Persecution of Christians]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[conversion]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[faith]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[iron rods]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Kalma]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[monetary incentives]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[muslim civilization]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[muslim men]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[protection]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[uninterrupted history]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=107426</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Finding and connecting similar patterns of behavior throughout Islamic history is one of the most objective ways of determining whether something is or is not part of Muslim civilization. Consider the issue of forced conversion in Islam, a phenomenon that has a long history with ample precedents.  Indeed, from its inception, most of those who [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Finding and connecting similar patterns of behavior throughout Islamic history is one of the most objective ways of determining whether something is or is not part of Muslim civilization.</p>
<p>Consider the issue of forced conversion in Islam, a phenomenon that has a long history with ample precedents.  Indeed, from its inception, most of those who embraced Islam did so under duress, beginning with the <em>Ridda</em> wars and during the age of conquests, and to escape <em>dhimmi</em> status.  This is a simple fact.</p>
<p>Yet, when one examines today’s cases of forced conversions with those from centuries past, identical patterns emerge, demonstrating great continuity.  Consider:</p>
<p>Days ago in Pakistan, two Christian men were severely beaten with iron rods and left for dead by a group of Muslims, simply because they refused to convert to Islam.  According to <a href="http://www.compassdirect.org/english/country/pakistan/article_116947.html">Compass Direct News</a>, they were returning from a church service when they were accosted by six Muslims.  After they discovered they were Christian, the Muslims</p>
<blockquote><p>then started questioning them about their faith and later tried to force them to recite the <em>Kalma</em> [Islamic conversion creed, “There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is his messenger”] and become Muslims, telling them that this was the only way they could live peacefully in the city. They also offered monetary incentives and “protection” to Ishfaq and Naeem [the Christians], but the two refused to renounce Christianity.</p></blockquote>
<p>“After cajoling the two Christians for some time,” the Muslims pretended to go away, only to ram their car into the Christians: “The Muslims [then] got out of the car armed with iron rods and attacked Ishfaq and Naeem, shouting that they should either recite the <em>Kalma</em> or be prepared to die…severely beating[ing] the two Christians, fracturing Ishfaq Munawar’s jaw and breaking five teeth, and seriously injuring Masih…. [T]he two Christians fell unconscious, and the young Muslim men left assuming they had killed them.”</p>
<p>Contrast this contemporary account with the following anecdote from some 500 years past (excerpted from <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Witnesses-Christ-Christian-Neomartyrs-1437-1860/dp/0881411965"><em>Witnesses for Christ</em></a>, pgs.62-64):</p>
<p>In the year 1522, two Christian brothers in Ottoman Egypt were denounced by local Muslims “mostly out of jealousy and envy”; so the emir arrested them and “began flattering them and asking questions about their faith.”  The brothers made it clear that they were firm adherents of Christianity.  “The Muslims in the audience became enraged with the brothers when they heard their answers, and they began screaming and demanding they must become Muslims.”  The brothers responded by refusing to “deny the faith we received from our forefathers, but we will remain unshaken and very firm in it until the end.”</p>
<p>The Muslim judge deciding their case told the Christian brothers that if they simply said the <em>Kalma</em> and embraced Islam, they “would be given many honors and much glory”; otherwise, they would die.  At that point, the brothers’ mother came to support them, but “when the Muslims in court noticed her, they fell upon her, tore her clothing, and gave her a thorough beating.”</p>
<p>After rebuking them for their savagery, the brothers reaffirmed that they would never deny Christianity for Islam, adding “behold our necks, do what you wish, but do it quickly.”</p>
<blockquote><p>Hearing this, one of the Muslims in the audience became so angry that he took out a knife and stabbed Kyrmidoles [one brother] in the chest, while someone else kicked him as hard as possible, and another dropped a large stone on his head.  Finally, they plucked out his eyes.  Thus Kyrmidoles died.  As for Gabriel [his brother] they threw him to the ground and one of the soldiers severed his right shoulder and then proceeded and cut off his head.</p></blockquote>
<p>Now, consider the near identical patterns in the two accounts, separated by half a millennium:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">1)      The Muslims first begin by talking to the Christians about their religion, suggesting they convert to Islam.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">2)      Failing to persuade the Christians, the Muslims proceed to “cajole” and offer “monetary incentives and protection” (in the modern case) and “flatter” and offer “many honors and much glory” (in the historic case).  All that the Christians need do is speak some words, the <em>Kalma</em>, and become Muslim.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">3)      When the Christians still refuse, the Muslims fly into a savage rage, beating and torturing their victims to death (in the modern case, the Muslims assumed they had killed their victims).</p>
<p>Considering the Ottoman Empire and contemporary Pakistan are separated by culture, language, and some 500 years, how does one explain these identical patterns?  What binds them together?</p>
<p>Only Islam—Islam empowered, Islam in charge; Muslim majorities governing, and thus abusing their non-Muslim minority.  A fact of life, past and present.</p>
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		<title>Pakistan&#8217;s Bible Ban</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/frank-crimi/banning-bibles/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=banning-bibles</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/frank-crimi/banning-bibles/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 14 Jun 2011 04:10:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Frank Crimi]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[blasphemy laws]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Catholic]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Christian Bible]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[faith]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[government authorities]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[islamist party]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[JUI]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pakistani]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[persecution]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[persecution of christians]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=95797</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The climate for terrorized Christians becomes increasingly toxic.  ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/pak-christian.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-95804" title="pak-christian" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/pak-christian.gif" alt="" width="375" height="277" /></a></p>
<p>Pakistan’s Islamist party, Jamiat-Ulema-e-Islami (JUI), has <a href="http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/pakistani-christians-shocked-by-proposed-bible-ban/">petitioned</a> to have the Bible banned from Pakistan because it violates the nation’s notorious blasphemy laws. The move by the JUI is just the latest episode in the ongoing and increasingly deadly persecution of Christians in that Islamic nation.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.christianpost.com/news/now-bible-faces-blasphemy-charges-in-pakistan-50789/">According</a> to JUI leader Maulana Abdul Rauf Farooqi, the Bible contains passages that show biblical figures whom Muslims regard as prophets (such as Abraham and Solomon) to be engaging in “a variety of moral crimes.” As such, the JUI has called on Pakistan’s supreme court to have the entire Book banned from the country if the offending passages are not removed.</p>
<p>While the JUI acknowledged its petition was partially in <a href="http://jonathanturley.org/2011/04/muslims-protest-burning-of-quran-by-florida-preacher-by-killing-20-people/">response</a> to the Koran burning organized by Florida pastor Terry Jones in March 2011, it also <a href="http://www.pakistanchristianpost.com/headlinenewsd.php?hnewsid=2851">dismissed</a> the notion that banning the Christian Bible would cause additional trouble between Muslims and Christians.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, that is not what Pakistan’s tiny Christian community believes. Pakistani Christians have found themselves under continuous assault from both government authorities and Islamist mobs. That may explain why Pakistan’s Christian leaders urged <a href="http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/pakistani-christians-shocked-by-proposed-bible-ban/">restraint</a> in wake of the Bible suit, fearful of further antagonizing Pakistan’s more fervent Muslims.</p>
<p>For his part, Farooqi was confident that Pakistan’s highest court would side with the JUI petition. However, his certainty may have less to do with the merits of his case than with the fact that Pakistan’s blasphemy laws have proven to be a reliable legal cudgel with which to bankrupt, beat, jail and kill Christians.</p>
<p>As a <a href="http://www.pakistanchristianpost.com/communityarticlesv.php?editorialid=28">spokesman</a> for a Catholic advocacy group says the pervasive use of the blasphemy laws have ratcheted up Christian fears to unprecedented levels, leading them to “have no faith in the police or justice system.”</p>
<p>Evidence for their fears was on full display recently when a Pakistani anti-terrorism court <a href="http://www.indianexpress.com/news/70-people-accused-of-antichristian-violence-acquitted-in-pak/800621/">acquitted</a> 70 Muslims accused of attacking and setting fire to over 50 houses and two churches in a Christian colony in July 2009. In that assault, eight people &#8212; including a seven-year old child &#8212; were burned alive and 20 others wounded.</p>
<p>Perhaps more disturbingly, many Pakistani Islamists <a href="http://www.christianpost.com/news/now-bible-faces-blasphemy-charges-in-pakistan-50789/">believe</a> killing a blasphemous person earns a heavenly reward. As a result, extra-judicial killings are common. Since 2009, at least 30 Christians <a href="http://www.eurasiareview.com/pakistan-no-country-for-freedom-analysis-07062011/">accused</a> under Pakistan’s blasphemy laws have been killed by mobs of Islamist vigilantes.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.energypublisher.com/article.asp?id=54779">According</a> to a spokesman for the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Pakistan, “The problem is that all these extrajudicial killings remain unpunished. For religious minorities it is a crucial issue, since it affects the fundamental rights of every person.”</p>
<p>Unfortunately for Pakistani Christians, Pakistan’s blasphemy laws contain no provisions to punish a false accuser or false witness. Consequently, the laws have often been used to settle personal scores rather than to defend against perceived sleights to Islamic piety.</p>
<p>For instance, a Christian mother of five children has been in prison in solitary confinement since June 2009, after a verbal disagreement with some women in her village led to her being <a href="http://www.sbcbaptistpress.org/BPnews.asp?ID=35319">accused</a> of having blasphemed against Mohammad.</p>
<p>In November 2010, a Christian farm worker was <a href="http://www.worthynews.com/10258-pakistan-christians-forgive-church-attackers">accused</a> of uttering blasphemous words against Mohammad during an argument with fellow workers and sentenced to death.</p>
<p>In May 2011, a group of Muslims &#8212; at the behest of a former member of parliament &#8212; <a href="http://www.speroforum.com/site/article.asp?id=54135&amp;t=Pakistan%3A+++Punjab%2C+antiChristian+violence%3A+nurses+sequestered%2C+families+evicted+from+home">attacked</a> the houses of two Christians in order to force the owners to transfer the land ownership over to the politician.</p>
<p>Sadly, Christian children have not been spared the effects of this relentless persecution. For example, a young Pakistani woman claimed Christian children required to take Islamic studies in school are in <a href="http://www.sbcbaptistpress.org/BPnews.asp?ID=35319">danger</a> simply “if they write anything or misspell anything to do with the prophet Mohammad.”</p>
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		<title>Conscientious Tax-Cheats</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2011/mark-d-tooley/conscientious-tax-cheats/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=conscientious-tax-cheats</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 15 Apr 2011 04:02:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Mark D. Tooley]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[american empire]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[shane claiborne]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=90375</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Evangelical leftist protests the American "empire" by with holding federal taxes. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/shane_claiborne_edit_resize.gif"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-90385" title="shane_claiborne_edit_resize" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/shane_claiborne_edit_resize.gif" alt="" width="375" height="311" /></a></p>
<p>Self-professed “urban monastic” Evangelical Leftist Shane Claiborne has publicly announced his withholding 30 percent of his taxes to protest all U.S. defense spending.  A strict pacifist who was in Baghdad in 2003 to protest the U.S. liberation of Iraq from Saddam Hussein, Claiborne is an icon for young evangelicals opposed to the American “empire.”</p>
<p>“While I am glad to contribute money to the common good and towards things that promote life and dignity, especially for the poor and most vulnerable people among us, I am deeply concerned that 30 percent of the federal budget goes towards military spending, with 117 billion going to support the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq,” he explained in his recent letter to the IRS.</p>
<p>It’s not clear where Claiborne got the 30 percent figure.  U.S. military spending in 2011, including Iraq and Afghanistan operations, is supposed to be about $671 billion out of an over $3.8 trillion budget.  So the military will consume under 18 percent of federal spending.  Maybe Claiborne is playing the usual game of excluding “entitlement” spending from the total.</p>
<p>Claiborne, who sports dreadlocks and a frequent hoodie, is a very popular lecturer and author among especially hip, young evangelicals.  Operating a Philadelphia “Simple Way” commune in an impoverished neighborhood, he is understandably hailed for his concerns about the poor.  But he evidently does not want the poor or anybody else protected from terrorism or foreign aggression.  A pacifist absolutist, Claiborne represents the rising generation of neo-Anabaptists so popular today in America’s seminaries, where Utopian ideals often prevail over both reality and historic church teaching.</p>
<p>“My Christian faith and my human conscience require me to respectfully reserve the right not to kill, and to refrain from contributing money towards weapons and the military,” Claiborne told the IRS.  He added that if the military’s share of deficit spending were included, he would have to withhold about half his taxes, once again exaggerating defense expenditures.  “Entitlements” grab most of the federal budget, which the Left would prefer to ignore.  Defense of life and liberty in a chaotic world evidently does not qualify as an “entitlement.”</p>
<p>Claiborne earnestly informed the IRS that he will donate 30% of his tax bill to a “recognized US nonprofit organization working to bring peace and reconciliation,” which he did not name.  “My faith also compels me to submit to the governing authorities, which is why I am writing you respectfully and transparently here,” he added.  “May we continue to build the world we dream of.”</p>
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		<title>Losing Their Religion</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/william-kilpatrick/losing-their-religion/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=losing-their-religion</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 14 Jun 2010 04:35:34 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[William Kilpatrick]]></dc:creator>
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		<category><![CDATA[Ali A. Allawi]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[Why exactly are we treating Islamic theology like a protected species?]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/losing.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-62553" title="losing" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/losing.jpg" alt="" width="446" height="315" /></a></p>
<p>Although many won’t admit it, we are in the midst of an ideological war with Islam. And since the advantage goes to the side that fully realizes they are at war, the West is losing. The propaganda war is going in favor of Islam precisely because the West doesn’t realize it is supposed to be fighting one. The ability of Islam to rally much of the world behind its hatred of Israel is a telling indication of who is winning the war of ideas. As for war aims, it’s not clear that there are any. Even those who see the danger clearly rarely talk in terms of victory; they talk mainly in terms of resisting cultural jihad. You know you’re in trouble when your ideological opponent is a primitive seventh-century belief system, and yet the best that your top strategists hope for is to put up a good resistance.</p>
<p>As the Dracula-like return of Communist ideology demonstrates, an ideological war needs to be fought to complete and total victory. The enemy ideology should be so thoroughly discredited that no one—not even its former staunchest defenders, not even the most doctrinaire college professor—will want to be associated with it. In regard to Islam, then, our aim should go beyond simply resisting jihad; it should be the defeat of Islam as an idea. But, aside from inflicting crushing military defeats on Islamic powers, how do you accomplish that?</p>
<p>One answer is that you do all you can to force Muslims to question their faith in Islam. As Mark Steyn observes, “there’s no market for a faith that has no faith in itself.” He was speaking, of course, of the more mushy versions of Western Christianity—the post-Christian Christians who seem anxious to dialogue themselves into dhimmitude. But there’s no reason the concept can’t be applied to Islam. Surely the average intelligent Muslim has occasional doubts about the founding revelations. And just as surely he keeps them to himself, not only because he fears his fellow Muslims, but also because the rest of the world seems to be going along with the pretense that he belongs to a great religion. It may be time for the rest of the world to drop the pretense.</p>
<p>If one of your opponents’ core beliefs is that you need to be subjugated, why wouldn’t you want to foster doubts in his mind? Jihadists commit jihad because they correctly perceive that their religion calls them to it. As long as they are kept secure in the illusion that their faith is unassailable, they will continue the jihad by whatever means seem most expedient. They won’t question their faith—and neither will the majority of Muslims—unless they get used to the fact that it can be questioned and criticized.</p>
<p>One man who has done a lot to shake up the faith of Muslims is Fr. Zakaria Botros, a Coptic priest who hosts a weekly Arabic language TV program watched by millions of Muslims around the world. Among other things, the engaging Fr. Botros forces his Muslim audience to confront unflattering facts about their prophet. He also talks to them about the Christian faith—something that most Muslims know very little about, beyond some simple caricatures. Apparently he is very successful at what he does. According to reports he is responsible for mass conversions to Christianity.</p>
<p>Does such questioning of Muhammad’s character provoke anger among Muslims? Well, yes, it does. The elderly Fr. Botros has been labeled Islam’s “Public Enemy #1,” and a reported $60 million bounty has been put on his head. But, according to a recent piece by Raymond Ibrahim, “the outrage appears to be subsiding.” Ibrahim contends that Life TV (the satellite station that carries Fr. Botros’ program) “has conditioned its Muslim viewers to accept that exposure and criticism of their prophet is here to stay.” The first time a Muslim hears the moral flaws of the Prophet exposed, he may well be angry at the exposure. But how about the third time? The tenth time? The twentieth time? What initially provokes anger might eventually provoke doubts about Muhammad’s claims.</p>
<p>There are those who think that such efforts are doomed to failure—that Islam is too deeply rooted in the Muslim world. But deeply held beliefs are not always as deeply rooted as they seem. Thirty-five years ago it would have been non-controversial to say that the Catholic faith was deeply rooted in Ireland, but if you said it today you would be going out on a limb. More to the point, Islam itself was less “deeply rooted” 60 years ago in the Middle  East than it is now. Consider this recollection by Ali A. Allawi, a former Iraqi cabinet minister:</p>
<blockquote><p>I was born into a mildly observant family in Iraq. At that time, the 1950’s, secularism was ascendant among the political, cultural, and intellectual elites of the Middle East. It appeared to be only a matter of time before Islam would lose whatever hold it still had on the Muslim world. Even that term—“Muslim world”—was unusual, as Muslims were more likely to identify themselves by their national, ethnic, or ideological affinities than by their religion.</p></blockquote>
<p>Deeply rooted? Perhaps you’ve seen that sequence of photos of the University of Cairo graduating classes for the English Department. The women of the Class of 1959 look like college students anywhere in the Western world circa 1959. They wear Western style skirts and dresses and no head covering. Ditto for the class of 1978. It could be the class of ’78 at the University  of Chicago. But by 1994 half the women are wearing hijabs. By 2004 almost all the women are wearing hijabs and ankle-length clothing. So, sometime in the 1990’s educated Muslims apparently began to take their faith more seriously. They appear to take it very seriously now. But how “deeply rooted” is twenty years?</p>
<p>Given that the penalty for leaving Islam—or even criticizing it—can be death, we may be mistaking deeply rooted fear for deeply rooted faith. Moreover, the fact that Islam prescribes such harsh penalties for doubters suggests that the faith itself is not intrinsically convincing. As the Ayatollah Khomeini once said, “People cannot be made obedient except with the sword.” Any religion that needs so many external incentives—swords behind you, and virgins in your future—cries out to be questioned. Unfortunately, instead of exploiting its theological weaknesses the West insists on chivalrously shielding Islam from the kind of scrutiny that the West reserves for its own institutions and traditions. And with good reason. Because it’s generally understood, though rarely said, that Muhammad’s claims would not meet the tests of critical reason and historical evidence that we apply to the Judeo-Christian revelation. The much revered sufi theologian al-Ghazali wrote, “The dhimmi is obliged not to mention Allah or his Prophet…” You can see why. Curiosity didn’t kill Christianity, but curiosity would almost certainly kill the Caliphate—or, in our times, the hope for a resurrected Caliphate. Obliged not to mention the Prophet? Given the threat Islam poses to the world and to Muslims themselves, it’s beginning to look as though the obligation runs the other way. The world needs to take a much closer look at the Prophet and his claims. The Prophet is Islam’s main prop. If he is discredited, Islam is discredited. Hence, the mighty efforts by the OIC to make it a crime to blaspheme a prophet.</p>
<p>The Prophet’s integrity is not the only thing in doubt. Theologically speaking, Islam is a house of cards. The whole faith rests on the belief that Muhammad actually received a revelation from God. But where’s the proof? Were there any witnesses to this revelation other than Muhammad? Why should we take his word for it? Why were there so many revelations of convenience that worked directly to Muhammad’s personal advantage? Are there really dozens of renewable virgins awaiting young warriors in paradise, or was this revelation simply a clever recruitment tool manufactured by Muhammad to provide an incentive for following him? And why is the Koran, despite its flashes of poetic brilliance, put together like a soviet-era automobile? As an exercise in composition the Koran would not pass muster in most freshmen writing courses. Why can’t God write as well as the average college student?</p>
<p>Ordinarily it’s not a good idea to go around questioning other people’s firmly held beliefs. But these are not ordinary times, and Islam is no ordinary religion. As any number of observes have noted, it’s partly a religion and partly a supremacist political ideology—although no one seems to be able to say exactly what percent is political ideology and what percent is religion. Is it 50/50 or 60/40 or 80/20? Is it legitimate to criticize the political part of it, but not the religious part? How do you tell where the politics leaves off and the religion begins? Or are they so bound together that they can’t be separated?</p>
<p>If you remember “Joe Palooka,” the old comic strip series about a decent but not-too-bright heavyweight boxer, you might remember that one of Joe’s craftier opponents once tattooed his rather expansive stomach with the word “Mother” inscribed within a large heart. His midsection was his weak spot, of course, but he knew he could count on Joe to avoid hitting him there, Joe being too much of a gentleman to do otherwise. In <em>On the Waterfront,</em> Marlon Brando’s character refers to the place where failed fighters go as “palookaville.” Currently, our whole culture is in danger of ending up in “palookaville” because there are large areas of Islam we decline to examine out of a sense of delicacy that would be excessive in a Victorian matron. Islamic strategists are counting on polite Westerners not to hit them in their soft spot.</p>
<p>Islamic strategists invoke the supremacist principles of the Koran in order to stir up aggression against the Muslim world, yet any criticism of Islam is met with cries of, “No fair! You are blaspheming a prophet and his religion.” So far, the shame-on-you-for-criticizing-a-religion strategy has worked very effectively. Fortunately, a few, like Fr. Botros, aren’t buying into the ruse. He has enough respect for Muslims as individuals to realize that their religion should not be put beyond discussion. Many Muslims, especially Muslim women, suffer a profound sense of desperation: the feeling of being trapped in a 1400-year-old nightmare, with no way out. It’s difficult to see any convincing argument for propping up the system that oppresses them. On the contrary, it seems almost a duty to undermine that system—political and religious—and call it into question at every turn.</p>
<p>In past ideological struggles we wisely sought ideological victory—the discrediting of the belief system that inspired our enemies. Because the driving force behind Islamic aggression is Islamic theology, it makes no sense to treat Islamic theology like a protected species. Rather, we should hope that Muslims lose faith in Islam just as Nazis lost faith in Nazism and Eastern-bloc Communists lost faith in communism.</p>
<p>Of course, it would be all the better if, like Fr. Botros, we had something to offer them in its place. Winston Churchill once said that Greer Garson, for her role in <em>Mrs. Miniver</em>, was worth six divisions in the war against Hitler. It seems safe to say that Fr. Botros, for his role in instilling doubts about Islam and giving Muslims something solid in its place, is worth at least a couple of Departments of Homeland Security.</p>
<p><em>William Kilpatrick’s articles have appeared in FrontPage Magazine, First Things, Catholic World Report, National Catholic Register, Jihad Watch, World, and Investor’s Business Daily.</em></p>
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		<title>Israel: A Sin Against God?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/mark-d-tooley/israel-a-sin-against-god/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=israel-a-sin-against-god</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 19 May 2010 04:00:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Mark D. Tooley]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=60483</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Religious Left adds new weaponry to its call "for peace."]]></description>
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<p>Leftist church prelates in the United States continue to rally on behalf of the <a href="http://www.oikoumene.org/gr/resources/documents/other-ecumenical-bodies/kairos-palestine-document.html">Kairos Palestinian Document </a>of 2009. The document was crafted by Palestinian Christians bemoaning the <em>Nakba</em> (“catastrophe”) of Israel&#8217;s founding and condemning the West for not recognizing Hamas. At the same time, the document calls Israel&#8217;s so-called occupation a &#8220;sin against God&#8221; and urges partial divestment against the country.</p>
<p>Recent enthusiasts for the Kairos Palestinian Document (aka &#8220;Kairos&#8221;) include the heads of the United Church of Christ (UCC) and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), who together represent about 2 million U.S. church members. The Episcopal Church&#8217;s Peace Fellowship has also praised Kairos while some U.S. rabbis understandably condemn it.</p>
<p>&#8220;Palestinian Christian leadership have taken the bold step of declaring this a <em>K</em><em>airos </em>moment, a designation not of chronological time, but of opportunity ripe for momentous action, and a moment that can be lost if the opportunity is not seized,&#8221; rejoiced UCC and Disciples officials, including UCC President Geoffrey Black and Disciples President, Sharon Watkins. They gleefully compared the Kairos Palestinian Document to other ostensibly similar demands for social justice made in apartheid South Africa, Central America, and elsewhere.</p>
<p>Church prelates Black and Watkins hailed the Palestinian document as &#8220;powerful&#8221; and aptly responsive to the &#8220;painful reality of more than 40 years of Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.&#8221;  The UCC and Disciples chiefs declared their full concurrence with the Kairos Document’s supposed affirmation of &#8220;non-violence&#8221; and rejection of  &#8220;extremism.&#8221;  Of course, the &#8220;extremism&#8221; which concerns Kairos the most is Christian and Jewish, not Islamic.  Black and Watkins celebrated Kairos&#8217; call for Palestinian Christians to &#8220;resist evils, including, in their case, the occupation of Palestinian lands.&#8221;  They also urged, with Kairos, a boycott of &#8220;products that are produced in illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank,&#8221; which is essentially an incremental step towards the full anti-Israel divestment that hardcore religious leftists prefer, despite political defeats in recent years.</p>
<p>One such defeat was the Episcopal Church&#8217;s rejection of anti-Israel divestment.  But officials of the denomination&#8217;s unofficial but influential Episcopal Peace Fellowship (EPF) voted in early May to support divestment and the Palestinian Kairos proclamation.  The EPF, which includes Episcopal Minnesota Bishop Jim Jelinek, backed &#8220;an economic and commercial boycott of products linked to oppression of Palestinian people and occupation of their land.&#8221; Interestingly, EPF was founded in the 1930s to oppose military resistance to Hitlerism. (Read my associate Jeff Walton&#8217;s article <a href="http://www.theird.org/Page.aspx?pid=1485">here.</a></p>
<p>“Economic sanctions can inspire a more useful dialogue and negotiation towards a just and lasting peace in the Middle East,” intoned the supposedly peace-minded Episcopalians.  &#8220;Respect for the dignity of every human being, alongside a vision to put aside the violence of terrorism, oppression and military force is key to moving negotiations forward for a lasting peace for all involved.”</p>
<p>Not all EPF members agreed with the group’s latest anti-Israel push. Washington, D.C. Episcopal Bishop John Bryson Chane, who has himself helped host Iranian ayatollahs at the National Cathedral, still found EPF&#8217;s call for divestment too &#8220;flawed and dangerously unhelpful at this particular time in history.&#8221; He also told Episcopal News Service that sanctions would &#8220;further hurt the critical development of the economy of Palestine and increase the marginalization of the Palestinian people.&#8221;</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the Central Conference of American Rabbis (CCAR) recognized that Kairos&#8217; appeals to peace and impartiality are superficial covers for intensified anti-Israel campaigns. In their response to Kairos last month, the rabbis observed that Kairos &#8220;claims that leading Israel into isolation is the only way there can be a peaceful solution in the Holy Land.&#8221;  And while Kairos professes both to condemn Palestinian &#8220;terrorist bombing&#8221; and Israeli &#8220;economic and military violence&#8221; against Palestinians, its recommendations predictably demand action only against Israel.</p>
<p>Showing more perceptiveness than church leftists who claim they support Israel, the rabbis noted that Kairos &#8220;consistently objects to &#8216;the Occupation,&#8217; without making clear that it is referring exclusively to lands occupied by Israel and in dispute since the Six-Day War of 1967.&#8221;  The rabbis warily but logically observed that Kairos implicitly is &#8220;rejecting the very notion of a Jewish State.&#8221;</p>
<p>The astute rabbis also noticed that Kairos claims to reject violence but still offers &#8220;respect&#8221; and “high esteem for those who have given their life for our nation,” which seems to praise Palestinian suicide bombers. The rabbis likewise observed that Kairos carefully puts Palestinian terrorism in quotation marks.</p>
<p>Admitting that Kairos was endorsed by relatively few Palestinian Christians, the rabbis accurately observed that it has significantly gained high profile endorsements from mainline Protestant elites in the U.S.  The &#8220;acceptance and endorsement of this document by certain other individuals and church groups with which we have enjoyed harmonious interfaith relations has been surprising, disturbing and profoundly disappointing,&#8221; the rabbis declared.  They also warned that &#8220;CCAR would require serious reflection before continuing our common cause with any Church body or organization that endorses or continues to endorse <em>Kairos.&#8221; </em></p>
<p>The Religious Left in the U.S. does not care much for Israel&#8217;s survival but is generally concerned with the value of cordial interfaith relations with Jewish groups in the U.S.  Partly for this reason, anti-Israel divestment campaigns have met defeat in all major U.S. liberal-led denominations. Maybe the CCAR will help to caution the Religious Left away from its casual endorsement of often very raw anti-Israel rhetoric disguised as appeals for peace and mutual co-existence.</p>
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		<title>The Varieties of Liberal Enthusiasm</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/benjamin-a-plotinsky/the-varieties-of-liberal-enthusiasm/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-varieties-of-liberal-enthusiasm</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 11 May 2010 04:00:36 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Benjamin A. Plotinsky]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[The Left’s political zealotry increasingly resembles religious experience.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/ObamaHalo1.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-59899" title="ObamaHalo1" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/ObamaHalo1.jpg" alt="" width="407" height="410" /></a></p>
<p><strong>This article is reprinted from <a href="http://www.city-journal.org/">City Journal</a></strong></p>
<p>Cast your mind back to January 2009, when Barack Obama became the president of the United States amid much rejoicing. The hosannas—covering the inauguration was “the honor of our lifetimes,” said MSNBC anchor Chris Matthews—by then seemed unsurprising. Over the course of a long campaign, hyperbolic rhetoric had become commonplace, so much so that online wags had started calling Obama “the One”—a reference to the spate of recent science-fiction movies, especially <em>The Matrix</em>, that used that term to designate a messiah.</p>
<p>It all seems so long ago now, as one contemplates President Obama’s plummeting approval ratings and a suddenly resurgent Republican Party. Yet it’s worth looking closely and seriously at the election-year enthusiasm of media elites and other Obamaphiles, much of which was indeed, as the wags recognized, quasi-religious. The surprising fact is that the American Left, for all its claims to being “reality-based” and secular, is often animated by the passions, motivations, and imagery that one normally associates with religion. The better we understand this religious impulse, the better we will understand liberal America’s likely trajectory in the years to come.</p>
<p>The first signs of the spiritual zeal that would eventually play a significant part in Obama’s election came not from Washington or Chicago but from Hollywood. Our moviemakers are adept at measuring the zeitgeist of the nation—of its liberal half, anyway—and are a powerful force in shaping it. And for more than a decade, they’ve been churning out what critics call “black-angel” movies. These films feature a white protagonist guided to enlightenment by a black character, usually of divine or supernatural origin or, at the very least, in touch with spiritual experiences that the main character lacks. With the black angel’s help, the white hero finds salvation.</p>
<p>The genre includes, to name just a few,<em> The Legend of Bagger Vance</em> (2000), in which Will Smith—playing a caddie who is really, the film hints, God—restores Matt Damon’s golf game and love life; <em>Bruce Almighty</em> (2003), in which Morgan Freeman, as God, bestows his powers on a manic Jim Carrey; and the awful <em>What Dreams May Come</em> (1998), in which Cuba Gooding, Jr. is a wise soul guiding Robin Williams through the afterlife. These movies have been numerous enough, David Sterritt points out in the <em>Christian Science Monitor</em>, to confuse TV’s buffoonish Homer Simpson: in one episode, “Homer mistook a black man in a white suit for an angelic visitor, all because (according to his embarrassed wife) he’d been seeing too many movies lately.”</p>
<p>Far and away the best of the black-angel films is Frank Darabont’s <em>The Green Mile</em> (1999), based on a novel by Stephen King, whose knack for setting his finger on the cultural pulse has made him a multimillionaire. The basso profundo Michael Clarke Duncan plays John Coffey (note the initials), a gigantic black man wrongfully convicted of the rape and murder of two little girls in Depression-era Louisiana and sentenced to death; Tom Hanks plays Paul Edgecomb, a prison guard who discovers that Coffey is not only innocent but also a Christlike miracle worker. Coffey’s laying-on of hands restores a dead mouse to life, cures Edgecomb of a bladder infection, and heals the warden’s wife’s brain cancer. Shortly before he is executed—the jeering of the girls’ anguished parents and the weeping of the prison guards who know the truth recall the account of the Crucifixion in Luke—Coffey has this exchange with a tortured Edgecomb:</p>
<blockquote><p>Edgecomb. Tell me what you want me to do. You want me to take you out of here? Just let you run away? See how far you could get?</p>
<p>Coffey. Why would you do such a foolish thing?</p>
<p>Edgecomb. On the day of my judgment, when I stand before God, and He asks me why did I—did I kill one of His true miracles—what am I going to say? That it was my job? . . .</p>
<p>Coffey. You tell God the Father it was a kindness you done. . . . I want it to be over and done with. I do. . . . I’m tired of people being ugly to each other. I’m tired of all the pain I feel and hear in the world every day.</p></blockquote>
<p>The writer or director of a black-angel film recognizes the unspeakable injustices once perpetrated by his country on black people; he wants to be forgiven the sins of his fathers. If he is simply a comedian, he makes <em>Bruce Almighty</em>, casting a black man as God in a sort of lighthearted flattery. If his waters run deeper, he understands that no plum role can atone for the crimes that weigh on him. Instinctively, he realizes what thinkers from Aristotle to Marcel Mauss have known: that whenever a gift is given, the prestige of the giver increases and that of the recipient declines. So he tells a story in which a black man gives the greatest gift of all, suffering—like Jesus in Christian theology—for others’ sins, in fact demanding to suffer, and by demanding, forgiving. White America is pardoned its wrongs, while black America, by pardoning, is elevated to godhood.</p>
<p>Are these movies ultimately condescending to blacks? After all, the white protagonist, the person who will be saved or damned according to his decisions, is invariably more interesting than the serene black angel hovering nearby. Indeed, the condescension, if such it is, is a cinematic version of affirmative action—a denial to blacks of Everyman’s struggle for salvation; a magnanimous extension to them of paradise.</p>
<p>And this brings us to Barack Obama’s liberal support during the campaign, which was decidedly different from the regular media bias that conservatives often complain about. “I haven’t seen a politician get this kind of walk-on-water coverage since Colin Powell a dozen years ago flirted with making a run for the White House,” said <em>Washington Post</em> media critic Howard Kurtz on <em>Meet the Press</em> in February 2007, a day after Obama announced his candidacy. “I mean, it is amazing . . . a guy with all of two years’ experience in the United States Senate getting coverage that ranges from positive to glowing to even gushing.”</p>
<p>“Walk-on-water coverage” was exactly right, and though the media seldom framed their worship quite that explicitly, the exceptions were telling. Here’s S<em>an Francisco Chronicle</em> columnist Mark Morford on June 6, 2008:</p>
<blockquote><p>Many spiritually advanced people I know . . . identify Obama as a Lightworker, that rare kind of attuned being who has the ability to lead us not merely to new foreign policies or health care plans or whatnot, but who can actually help usher in a new way of being on the planet, of relating and connecting and engaging with this bizarre earthly experiment. These kinds of people actually help us evolve. They are philosophers and peacemakers of a very high order, and they speak not just to reason or emotion, but to the soul.</p></blockquote>
<p>San Francisco, you shrug. Consider, then, what Samantha Fennell, formerly an associate publisher of <em>Elle</em>, wrote on the magazine’s website a month later:</p>
<blockquote><p>Barack Obama must be elected President of the United States. . . . I have thrown myself into a new world—one in which fluffy chatter and frivolous praise are replaced by a get-to-the-point directness and disciple-like devotion. It’s intense and intoxicating. . . . When I attended my second “Obama Live” fund-raiser last week at New York City’s Grand Hyatt, . . . I was on my feet as Senator Obama entered the room. Fate had blessed me in this moment. . . . In a moment of divine intervention, he saw me,</p></blockquote>
<p>. . . grabbed my hand, and gave that brilliant smile of his. I literally said out loud to the woman next to me who witnessed my good fate, “I’ll never wash this hand again.”</p>
<p>Fashion writers, you say. But here is Evan Thomas, a <em>Newsweek</em> editor, on the show <em>Hardball </em>with Chris Matthews last June:</p>
<blockquote><p>Thomas: Reagan was all about America. He talked about it. Obama is, “We are above that now, we are not just parochial, we’re not just chauvinistic, we’re not just provincial, we stand for something.” I mean, in a way, Obama is standing above the country, above the world. He’s sort of God.</p>
<p>Matthews. Yeah.</p>
<p>Thomas. He’s going to bring all different sides together.</p></blockquote>
<p>True, Thomas wasn’t so much evincing Morford’s and Fennell’s giddy devotion as describing, perhaps too admiringly, one of the ways Obama elicited it.</p>
<p>The deifications and hagiologies were particularly overt in the remarks of prominent black figures. Filmmaker Spike Lee, predicting an Obama victory, implicitly compared the candidate with Christ: “You’ll have to measure time by ‘Before Obama’ and ‘After Obama.’ . . . Everything’s going to be affected by this seismic change in the universe.” Jesse Jackson, Jr. called Obama’s securing the Democratic nomination “so extraordinary that another chapter could be added to the Bible to chronicle its significance.” Louis Farrakhan went one better, according to the website WorldNetDaily: “Barack has captured the youth. . . . That’s a sign. When the Messiah speaks, the youth will hear, and the Messiah is absolutely speaking.”</p>
<p>The website <a href="http://www.ObamaMessiah.blogspot.com" target="_blank">ObamaMessiah.blogspot.com</a> has diligently chronicled many more instances of such talk, which seems positively cringe-making in 2010. It seems unfair to blame Obama himself for most of it, though he surely set the tone with a brand of mystical campaign rhetoric unfamiliar to presidential politics—in this country, anyway. In February 2008, a concerned Joe Klein of Time noted: “There was something just a wee bit creepy about the mass messianism—‘We are the ones we’ve been waiting for’—of the Super Tuesday speech and the recent turn of the Obama campaign.” (The full quotation: “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”) To this day, BarackObama.com displays at the top of its homepage the following words (attributed to Obama, though nobody seems to have been able to pinpoint the speech): “I’M ASKING YOU TO BELIEVE. Not just in my ability to bring about real change in Washington . . . I’m asking you to believe in yours.”</p>
<p>Whether or not the Obama campaign realized it, that demand for faith was an updated echo of innumerable passages in the Gospels: “Everything is possible for him who believes”; “Whoever lives and believes in me will never die”; and so on. If the first component of the Obama creed was faith, though, the second was surely hope—the audacious hope whose name famously adorns one of the president’s two autobiographies. We need only add charity to have what Catholics call the three Theological Virtues, which Paul mentions in <em>First Corinthians</em>. Perhaps we should not have been surprised, then, when a day before his inauguration, Obama breathtakingly upended the meaning of Martin Luther King Day, transforming a holiday devoted to the memory of a civil rights leader—and perhaps also to such ideas as equality, tolerance, and the evils of racism—into a day of public service. “It’s not a day just to pause and reflect—it’s a day to act,” Obama announced. “Today, ordinary citizens will gather together all across the country to participate in the more than 11,000 service projects they’ve created using USAservice.org. And I ask the American people to turn today’s efforts into an ongoing commitment to enriching the lives of others in their communities, their cities, and their country.”</p>
<p>An astute moviegoer could have predicted the candidate’s manner: confident but calm, eloquent but modest. Obama wasn’t a loud race-baiter like Al Sharpton; he was a deep-voiced, serious, almost sad, observer, a black angel come to forgive the iniquity of guilt-racked liberal America.</p>
<p>How can we explain this sudden, brief eruption of messianic fervor into our politics? Perhaps by looking at the religious climate of the country and the world, which have been witnessing a religious revival over the past 30 years. Whether you call this phenomenon the “revenge of God,” as the French scholar Gilles Kepel does, or “resacralization,” as the sociologists do, or echo the title of the recent book by <em>Economist</em> editors John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, God Is Back, the evidence is hard to ignore. In the United States, as everyone knows, the Religious Right has made huge advances since the 1970s. During the same period, what Kepel calls “re-Islamization” movements have appeared in the Middle East and beyond, aiming “to propagate Islam everywhere until humanity was converted into ‘ummanity.’ ” All over the world, Christianity is growing—in particular, Pentecostalism, a denomination just a century old that, along with “related charismatic movements,” now claims a stunning 500 million adherents, the <em>Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life</em> reports. To make a long story short, Peter Berger and Anton Zijderfeld’s <em>In Praise of Doubt</em> sees just one geographical exception to a “furiously religious world”—Western and Central Europe. And even there, Kepel tells us, a “significant re-Christianization movement” has appeared in France in the form of Pentecostal Catholicism.</p>
<p>In America, this revival is reflected in popular culture, too, and not just in black-angel movies. Recall the trend that the bloggers were referring to when they dubbed Obama “the One”: over the past few decades, a slew of science-fiction movies, from <em>E.T.</em> to the second <em>Star Wars</em> trilogy to <em>Superman Returns</em>, have drawn parts of their plots from the New Testament (<em>How Science Fiction Found Religion</em>, Winter 2009). Or look at the recent tattoo craze, in which the most popular designs are not the working-class hearts and arrows of yesteryear but mystical, so-called tribal, patterns. During the seventies and eighties, writes Margo DeMello in <em>Bodies of Inscription</em>, “tattooing began, for the first time, to be connected with emerging issues like self-actualization, social and personal transformation, ecological awareness, and spiritual growth.”</p>
<p>On what Matthew Arnold famously called the “sea of faith,” then, it may be that a rising tide raises all ships. If reawakened religious feeling can prompt people to inject messiahs into their movies and dyes into their skin, why shouldn’t it prompt them to vote for a black angel? Perhaps we should simply identify Obamaism as one more manifestation of a wider resurgence of spiritual enthusiasm—a manifestation that differs from the others merely in having a political component—and stop worrying about it.</p>
<p>Yet the political component is of immense importance. If twentieth-century history teaches us anything, it’s that political religions spell trouble. Soviet Communism, Italian Fascism, and Nazism aren’t just called “political religions” by scholars today. In all three cases, observers at the time recognized and worried about the movements’ religious natures. Those natures were no accident; Mussolini, for instance, called his ideology “not only a faith, but a religion that is conquering the laboring masses of the Italian people.”</p>
<p>One reason that observers saw the great totalitarianisms as religious was that each had its idol: Mussolini in Italy, Hitler in Germany, and Lenin in Russia, followed by Stalin. Take Grigory Zinoviev’s description of Lenin: “He is really the chosen one of millions. He is the leader by the Grace of God. He is the authentic figure of a leader such as is born once in 500 years.” Stalin’s cult of personality was far more developed and sometimes explicitly idolatrous, as in the poem that addressed the despot as “O Thou mighty one, chief of the peoples, Who callest man to life, Who awakest the earth to fruitfulness.” And in Italy, writes the historian Michael Burleigh, “intellectual sycophants and propagandists characterised [Mussolini] as a prodigy of genius in terms that would not have embarrassed Stalin: messiah, saviour, man of destiny, latterday Caesar, Napoleon, and so forth.”</p>
<p>To point out these words’ uncomfortable similarity to the journalists’ praises of Obama is not to equate the throngs who bowed down to totalitarian dictators with even the most worshipful Obamaphiles. But the manner of worship is related, as perhaps it must be in any human society that chooses to adore a human being. The widespread renaming of villages, schools, and factories after Stalin, for example, finds its modern-day democratic parallel in a rash of schools that have already rechristened themselves after Obama, to say nothing of the hundreds of young sentimentalists who informally adopted the candidate’s middle name during the presidential race. Even the Obama campaign’s ubiquitous logo—the letter O framing a rising sun—would not have surprised the scholar Eric Voegelin. In <em>The Political Religions</em> (1938), Voegelin traced rulers who employed the image of the sun—a symbol of “the radiation of power along a hierarchy of rulers and offices that ranges from God at the top down to the subject at the bottom”—from the pharaoh Akhenaton to Louis XIV and eventually to Hitler.</p>
<p>The worship of a charismatic leader was just one reason that twentieth-century intellectuals regarded the great totalitarianisms as inherently religious. Another was their immense scope, which included not just matters traditionally considered public—war, taxes, even the offices of the welfare state—but also the private lives and practices of individuals. “The totalitarian movements which have arisen since World War I are fundamentally religious movements,” wrote the political scientist Waldemar Gurian in 1952, in part because they “cannot conceive of realms of life outside and beyond their control.” Sixteen years earlier, the legal scholar Marcel Prélot had commented that “the totalitarian state, naturally extending its field of action far beyond the recognized domain of the conventional state, claims to constitute both a political entity and an ethical and spiritual community, . . . the state itself being a church.”</p>
<p>Obamaism is far narrower, and far more benign, than that. But another strand of modern liberal politics encroaches so far on the private sphere that it begins to resemble the political religions. On the excellent webcast <em>Uncommon Knowledge</em>, Czech president Václav Klaus recently compared “two ideologies” that were “structurally very similar. They are against individual freedom. They are in favor of centralistic masterminding of our fates. They are both very similar in telling us what to do, how to live, how to behave, what to eat, how to travel, what we can do and what we cannot do.” The first of Klaus’s “two ideologies” was Communism—a system with which he was deeply familiar, having participated in the Velvet Revolution in 1989. The second was environmentalism.</p>
<p>Klaus could have expanded his list. Environmentalism does indeed tell its adherents “what to eat” (pesticide-free organic food, preferably grown nearby to cut down on trucking) and “how to travel” (by public transportation or, better yet, bicycle). But it also lays down rules on nearly every aspect of life in a consumer economy: how to wash your clothes (seldom); how to wash yourself (take a shower, not a bath, and use a low-flow showerhead); how to light your house (with fluorescent bulbs); how to choose your TV (look for the Energy Star logo!); how to go to the bathroom (with high-efficiency toilets and recycled paper); how to invest, clean, sleep, and dress (in environmentally friendly companies, with nontoxic chemicals, on sheets made of “sustainable fibers,” and in clothes made of the same); and even how to procreate (Greenpeace has issued a guide to “environmentally friendly sex”).</p>
<p>Think about the life that a truly conscientious environmentalist must lead! Compared with it, the devout Muslim’s five daily prayers and the pious Jew’s carefully regulated diet are a cakewalk. What the British historian Alfred Cobban wrote about totalitarianism—that it “takes the spiritual discipline of a religious order and imposes it on forty or sixty or a hundred million people”—applies perfectly to environmentalism, except for the part about imposition. And there, one might give Jonah Goldberg’s answer in <em>Liberal Fascism</em>: “You may trust that environmentalists have no desire to translate these voluntary suggestions into law, but I have no such confidence given the track record of similar campaigns in the past.” Recycling mandates come to mind, as does the federal law that will impose silly-looking spiral lightbulbs on us all by 2014.</p>
<p>There’s also a close resemblance between the environmental and biblical views of history, as the late novelist Michael Crichton pointed out in a widely reprinted speech. “Environmentalism is in fact a perfect twenty-first-century remapping of traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs and myths,” Crichton said. “There’s an initial Eden, a paradise, a state of grace and unity with nature, there’s a fall from grace into a state of pollution as a result of eating from the tree of knowledge, and as a result of our actions there is a judgment day coming for us all.” That judgment day currently assumes the form of various global-warming disasters that will happen unless we immediately perform still more rituals. Never mind that the science so urgently instructing us to reduce carbon emissions—thus hobbling economic growth and prosperity around the world—is so young, and so poorly understood, that it can’t explain why global warming seems to have stalled over the last decade. Far more persuasive is the argument from faith: we’d better repent, because the End is nigh.</p>
<p>Barack Obama doubtless tapped into environmentalists’ spiritual longings when he accepted the Democratic presidential nomination. “Generations from now,” he proclaimed, “we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; <em>this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal</em>; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth.” Italics mine; grandiloquent prophecy his.</p>
<p>Religion has long been a powerful force in American politics, of course, for good and ill. The difference with the more traditional varieties of religion was the open acknowledgment that they were religious. The First Amendment promised that they could never become established churches; generations’ worth of jurisprudence closely regulated the way they could interact with government. And when a campaigning politician acknowledged forthrightly that he derived a policy from, say, his understanding of the Bible, his potential constituents understood that, however reasonable the policy might be, what underlay it was faith, not reason. The emerging liberal religions are very different: as emotionally captivating for some, at least for a time, as Christianity or Judaism, but untrammeled by any constitutional amendment; as grounded in faith, but pretending to dwell in the realms of reason and science.</p>
<p>Obama’s speedy fall from godhood since his election has been encouraging, perhaps a sign of America’s traditional reluctance to embrace a Great Leader. But it’s far too early in his administration to assume that the fall will be permanent. Radical environmentalism, moreover, will surely be around long after Obama has left the White House. And the threat of other charismatic leaders will remain as well—a troubling lesson that we can learn from no less a religious authority than the Bible. A nation that bends the knee once, as the book of Judges bleakly demonstrates, is all too likely to bend it again.</p>
<p><em>Benjamin A. Plotinsky is managing editor of </em>City Journal.</p>
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		<title>Christianity and Cultural Survival</title>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 04 May 2010 04:04:33 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[William Kilpatrick]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[If a weakened Christianity invites an aggressive Islam, what is the prognosis for America? 
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<p>The rise of Islam in Europe has been linked to a decline in Christianity and to a resulting loss of population. Does that mean that the U.S., a churchgoing nation with a healthy birth rate, is relatively immune to Islamization? Are we protected by our demographics?</p>
<p>Before answering that question, let’s review the situation in Europe. Church attendance in some European countries is down to five percent of the population. Polls in Denmark reveal that only nine percent of Danes say that religion is very important in their life. In Spain, 46 percent of Spaniards between the ages of 15 and 24 consider themselves atheists, and a poll of self-described Catholics in France found that 45 percent of them are unable to say what Easter celebrates. Meanwhile, in contrast to the empty Christian churches, the European mosques are overflowing.</p>
<p>The loss of faith seems to have brought with it a loss of cultural confidence. Increasingly, it is Muslims who dictate what can be published, what can be taught, and what can be said—even what works of art can be displayed. Now that the sign of the cross has been replaced by a relativistic shrug of the shoulders, the culture no longer seems worth defending. As Mark Steyn puts it, “You can’t help noticing that since abandoning its faith in the unseen world, Europe seems also to have lost faith in the seen one.”</p>
<p>There is also, of course, a direct link between loss of faith and loss of population. People who don’t believe they have anything meaningful to pass on to the next generation tend to stop generating—with the result that much of the next generation in Europe is being produced by people who are fond of naming their boys “Mohammed.” In a nutshell, the Islamic faithful were quick to fill the spiritual and population vacuums created by the decline of Christian faith.</p>
<p>If a weakened Christianity invites an aggressive Islam, what is the prognosis for America?  On the surface, Americans seem to have a strong Christian commitment. And on the surface America doesn’t seem to have a population problem.  But below the surface there are problems aplenty.</p>
<p>Here’s one indication of the problem: a recent study conducted by Georgetown shows that Catholic college students are less likely to pray and attend Mass after four years of exposure to a Catholic education. The study showed similar results for non-Catholic private religious colleges. Four years of education at Christian colleges and universities produced graduates who were less inclined to attend church, to pray, and to read scripture than they had been before college entrance.</p>
<p>The study is reinforced by several recent polls which reveal that America is less Christian than it once was. According to a <em>Newsweek</em> poll the percentage of self-identified Christians in the United   States has fallen from 86 percent of the population in 1990 to 76 percent today. In the same period the number of those who say they have no religion has nearly doubled from 8 to 15 percent. Among younger Americans, ages 18 to 29, a fourth classify themselves as agnostic, atheist, or of no religious faith.</p>
<p>How about that 76 percent that remain identified as Christians? Judging by the Georgetown study, you might not want to count on all of them, or even many of them, to stand shoulder to shoulder in resistance to cultural Islamization. In addition to cutting back on prayer, Bible reading, and church attendance, Christian students seem to acquire a more positive attitude toward activities—such as abortion and same-sex marriage—that were traditionally considered violations of the Christian moral code. Nowadays, the surest sign of your faith is a display of sensitivity to diversity. Education today—whether denominational or non-denominational—is mainly about learning the rules of relativism, and non-judgmentalism.  It seems safe to say that if they think about the matter much, students will tend to be non-judgmental about the Islamic faith, as well. Of course, a multicultural education more or less guarantees that people won’t give much thought to the matter because if all cultures, religions, and opinions are equal, what does it matter what people believe. Why bother to be better informed when you already know that all belief systems will turn out to be as innocuous and well-intentioned as your own?</p>
<p>This formation in relativism (which cuts across all age and class levels) also explains why the healthy American birth rate is not as healthy as it appears. Yes, it’s holding steady at the magic 2.1 replacement figure, but 41% of those births now occur out of wedlock. When applied to sexual morality the practice of non-judgmentalism produces tangible demographic results, and produces them in a relatively short period of time.  About 35 percent of white children are now born out of wedlock, as are 55 percent of Hispanic children, and 70 percent of black children.   And, as any cop, or school teacher, or single mother can attest, these trends quickly translate into trouble.  As they grow up, the boys in these fatherless families are particularly prone to school failure, delinquency, and gang activity. Sociologists say it has to do with the difficulty of establishing a masculine identity when there is no father in the home. Another way of putting it is that father absence tends to create an attraction to distorted masculine ideologies. Consider that the Nazi rise to power took advantage of the fact that a whole generation of German fathers had been lost in the First World War. Fatherless boys and young men growing up in the twenties and early thirties would have had a natural attraction to the exaggerated masculine ideology and trappings of the Nazi party.</p>
<p>Masculine identity, of course, is something that Islam specializes in. Sooner or later all these fatherless boys are going to notice that there’s a lot of hyper-masculine activity going on down at the local mosque. If you are going to join a gang, why not join the biggest, most powerful “gang” in the world. So, in the absence of traditional families, America’s respectable birth rate may only translate into more potential converts to Islam. Islamic activists, who are very savvy about such things, will no doubt devise ways to capitalize on rising illegitimacy rates—maybe something along the lines of:</p>
<blockquote><p>Send your boy to Shaheed Summer Camp. We’ll teach him discipline and give him a sense of purpose. Your boy will learn stealth infiltration, media intimidation, paramilitary maneuvers, and other exciting activities, all in a structured environment. Thanks to a generous donation from the Wahabbi Summer Camp Foundation we are able to offer free tuitions.</p></blockquote>
<p>Meanwhile, many Christians seem to be caught up in a pre-9/11 time warp in which gender experimentation is still thought to be on the cutting edge of progress. Thus, at Catholic  Seattle University last year the first week of Lent was “Transgender Awareness Week” featuring a “Criss-Cross Day.” Cross-dressing exercises are also not uncommon in religious classes for Christian middle-schoolers. On a more mundane level, Christian children tend to get their religious education mainly from women—many of whom are still stuck in the tell-me-about-your-feelings method of pedagogy. In other words, the Christian churches aren’t offering much that might appeal to a boy in search of his manhood.</p>
<p>But that’s OK. Apparently there’s nothing to worry about out there, nothing that might require a little masculine assertiveness. Another finding of the Georgetown study was that students were much more likely to favor cuts in military spending as a result of their college education. Arms are for hugging, after all. In the world view of the modern multicultural Christian there are no enemies out there, only people who haven’t yet realized how much we respect their diversity.</p>
<p>It may be that 76 percent of Americans identify themselves as Christians, but how many of those would be willing to take a stand against the Islamization of America? How many would even realize there is a threat? How many would understand that Islam requires the eventual subjugation of all other religions, and that resistance is therefore something of a Christian duty?</p>
<p>There are a lot of indications that the answer to both questions is “not many.” America has high rates of divorce, illegitimacy, and abortion. Popular entertainment is beginning to resemble the Roman circus, and sexual experimentation has become a national pastime. You would think that if the 76 percent were serious about their faith it would be reflected in the larger culture. Obviously, the numbers who are willing to resist the cultural tides must be fairly small. The question is, if American Christians can’t successfully resist abortion activists or the relatively small number of gay activists, and if they are unable to counter the steady sexualization of their children by the entertainment industry, how likely is it that they will be able to resist the efforts of dedicated and well-funded cultural jihadists—especially when those stealth jihadists know how to play on the typical American’s compulsive need to demonstrate his tolerance for differences?</p>
<p>In contrast to Europe, America has plenty of practicing Christians. It also has freer speech and a freer press. But not many of those Christians seem to feel a need to use their free speech rights to raise awareness about the threat from Islam. If Christian bookstores are any indication of their frame of mind, Christians seem more concerned about weight loss than loss of freedom. A remarkable number of Christian books are devoted to explaining God’s plan for you to shed your extra pounds—thus giving a whole new meaning to the term “Christianity Lite.” At the same time—once again, judging by the shelves full of books on the subject—God has plans for you to beef-up your finances, improve your marriage, and succeed in business. Islam, on the other hand, seems to be well down on the list of things that American Christians worry about.</p>
<p>I recently attended a seminar on the threat of cultural jihad sponsored by a large Jewish community center. The presentation contained some fairly scary information. Afterward, in the crowded foyer, I overheard a woman asking, of no one in particular, “Where are the Christians?” Answer: look for them on the treadmills in the gyms or in the diet aisles at Whole Foods. Well, not all of them, of course; a growing number of Christians and Christian leaders are waking up to the Islamic threat. Still, in regard to Islam, most Christians seem to be living in a comfortable dreamworld.</p>
<p><strong>William Kilpatrick’s articles on Islam have appeared in <em>Front Page Magazine, Jihad Watch, Catholic World Report, National Catholic Register, World</em>, and <em>Investor’s Business Daily.</em></strong></p>
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		<title>Excuses for Islamists</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/eric-golub/excuses-for-islamists/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=excuses-for-islamists</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/eric-golub/excuses-for-islamists/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 30 Apr 2010 04:00:40 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Eric Golub]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[UCLA’s "see no evil" approach to terrorism financing.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/aclu.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-59267" title="aclu" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/aclu.jpg" alt="" width="375" height="256" /></a></p>
<p>A conference at the University  of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) on April 16,  2010, offered “<a href="http://www.international.ucla.edu/calendar/showevent.asp?eventid=8022">Critical Perspectives on the Criminalization of Islamic Philanthropy in the War on Terror</a>.” Co-sponsored by the UCLA International Institute, the Critical Race Studies Program, and the <em>UCLA Journal of Islamic and Near Eastern Law</em>—and including speakers from UCLA’s Center for Near Eastern Studies (CNES)—the conference proffered the usual apologist fare.</p>
<p>It was also an echo chamber. Of the approximately 30 people in attendance, 20 of them were academics. Several students showed up, in addition to the usual assortment of aging leftist revolutionaries.</p>
<p>The thrust of the conference was simple: The war on terror has led to a crackdown on Muslim charities, which has had a chilling effect on Muslims by rendering them unable to engage in <em>Zakat </em>(charity), one of the five pillars of Islam.</p>
<p>Unmentioned throughout this eight-hour infomercial was that the majority of the charities that have been investigated for financially aiding terrorism were found guilty and that decent Muslims are capable of giving to charities that do not foment bombings and beheadings.</p>
<p>Asli Bali, acting professor of law at UCLA, organized the conference and acted as one of the principal moderators. She responded to challenging questions from the audience by stating: “We will take three questions from presenters; others will have to wait.”</p>
<p>Jennifer Turner of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Human Rights Program was the speaker over whom everybody seemed to be fawning. Her presentation was titled, “Blocking Faith, Freezing Charity,” and, in typical ACLU fashion, she made excuses for Islamists’ bad behavior while bashing America.</p>
<p>She began by stating: “I’m not a social scientist. I am not here to offer any statistical analysis”—a fig leaf she employed to make wildly unsubstantiated claims, as when she announced that “the conviction in the Holy Land Foundation case was based on faulty evidence.” She didn’t bother to elaborate.</p>
<p>It turned out her “research” that had the entire room in a swoon consisted of the following:</p>
<blockquote><p>I did 120 interviews with American Muslims in Michigan and Texas. People reported that they were unable to give<em> Zakat</em>. Some had stopped giving entirely. Some felt fear of deportation or denial of citizenship.</p></blockquote>
<p>Turner excused her extremely small sample size with more platitudes about not being a statistician. She insisted that she did not ask leading questions, although the process was clearly an exercise in promoting victimhood. She did not verify the accuracy of her respondents or analyze any tax returns. In short, she relied on her own biased views to justify a predetermined conclusion.</p>
<p>University  of Michigan, Dearborn, history professor Sally Howell actually found oppression in increased giving. As she put it:</p>
<blockquote><p>Since 2001, there have been 14 new mosques, and 17 mosques have doubled in size. This is proof that people are not donating overseas.</p></blockquote>
<p>Howell followed this with more bizarre commentary:</p>
<p>“The Arab charity LIFE [Life for Relief and Development] had their board resign one year after Israel invaded Lebanon.”</p>
<p>Foiled again!</p>
<p>“As a result of restrictive policies” a board member of another charity, according to Howell, “embezzled $10,000.”</p>
<p>Yes: and as a result of inconvenient and restrictive securities laws, Bernie Madoff was forced to steal. It was all America’s fault.</p>
<p>“Does government get to decide what is good Islam and what is bad Islam?,” she asked.</p>
<p>No, but it does get to decide what constitutes funding terrorism.</p>
<p>Howell concluded, “The FBI has to show results or lose resources.”</p>
<p>Erica James, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) anthropology professor, offered proof—of nothing:</p>
<p>“I have an anthropology background. I am here to theorize what is happening.”</p>
<p>Her solution to the supposed problems faced by Muslim charities? “Defiant giving.”</p>
<p>During the question and answer period of this panel, an audience member—resorting to the usual name calling directed at critics of Middle East studies— proclaimed that “well-known bigot Daniel Pipes wrote an article about ‘stealth Islamists.’”</p>
<p>The panelists all nodded in agreement. There was no word on <a href="http://www.danielpipes.org/1841/stealth-islamist-khaled-abou-el-fadl">Pipes’s findings</a> regarding UCLA law professor—and moderator at this conference—Khaled Abou El Fadl’s status as, in fact, a stealth Islamist.</p>
<p>Laila Al-Marayati, the chairperson of KinderUSA—a charity that terrorism analyst Matthew Levitt <a href="http://www.nysun.com/national/charity-drops-suit-against-terrorism-analyst/60635/">included</a> in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Hamas-Politics-Charity-Terrorism-Service/dp/0300122586/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1268664162&amp;sr=1-1">his book</a> on funding Hamas—portrayed the terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah as harmless. As she put it, “Hamas helps Palestinian children in Gaza. I don’t consider Hamas and Hezbollah as threats to me and my family.”</p>
<p>Jonathan Benthall of University College, London, gave a talk that can be summed up in one quote: “The United States is the key to the problem.”</p>
<p>Mona Atia, assistant professor of geography and international affairs at George Washington University, claimed that “Egypt has been a model of fighting terrorism.”</p>
<p>Meanwhile, McGill University political science and Islamic studies professor Khalid Medani demonstrated willful blindness by opining, “Somalia is a place where Islamic terrorism is not possible because they are not organized.”</p>
<p>When asked if the definition of a terrorist was hard to prove, Medani responded, “You’re right. I try to critique them based on their own terms. I’m not a lawyer.”</p>
<p>No UCLA conference would be complete without <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/6835">offensive</a> <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/8648">commentary</a> from a member of the Center for Near Eastern Studies faculty. This time, CNES director and anthropology professor Susan Slyomovics—speaking during a break with colleagues about a book she’s working on—said:</p>
<blockquote><p>If Jews can get reparations from Germany, then Palestinians should get reparations from Israel. After all, <em>what the Germans supposedly did to the Jews</em> [emphasis added] is what Israel is doing to the people of Palestine.</p></blockquote>
<p>All the while, she kept smiling and laughing. Nothing makes for a good academic sitcom like Holocaust denial from a prominent professor of Middle East studies.</p>
<p>Despite eight hours of groupthink, I was able to finally cut through the leftist clutter to determine why the U.S. is investigating Muslim charities: 9/11 actually did happen, and the majority of the charities accused of funding terrorism actually did.</p>
<p>Only a UCLA Middle East studies conference could deliberately fail to grasp this.</p>
<p><em>Eric Golub is the publisher of the <a href="http://www.tygrrrrexpress.com/">Tygrrrr Express</a> blog. He wrote this article for <a href="http://www.campus-watch.org/" target="_blank">Campus Watch</a>, a project of the <a href="http://www.meforum.org/" target="_blank">Middle East Forum</a>.</em><em></em></p>
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		<title>Should I Stay or Should I Go?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/timothy-radcliffe/should-i-stay-or-should-i-go/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=should-i-stay-or-should-i-go</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 15 Apr 2010 04:03:50 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Timothy Radcliffe]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[As a former Master of the Dominicans, I've decided the Church
is stuck with me, whatever happens.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/night.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-58190" title="night" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/night.jpg" alt="" width="375" height="250" /></a></p>
<p><strong>This article is reprinted from <a href="http://www.thetablet.co.uk/">The Tablet.</a></strong></p>
<p>Fresh revelations of sexual abuse by priests in Germany and Italy have provoked a tide of anger and disgust. I have received emails from people all around Europe asking how can they possibly remain in the Church? I was even sent a form with which to renounce my membership of the Church. Why stay?</p>
<p>First of all, why go? Some people feel that they can no longer remain associated with an institution that is so corrupt and dangerous for children. The suffering of so many children is indeed horrific. They must be our first concern. Nothing that I will write is intended in any way to lessen our horror at the evil of sexual abuse. But the statistics for the US, from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in 2004, suggest that Catholic clergy do not offend more than the married clergy of other Churches.</p>
<p>Some surveys even give a lower level of offence for Catholic priests. They are less likely to offend than lay school teachers, and perhaps half as likely as the general population. Celibacy does not push people to abuse children. It is simply untrue to imagine that leaving the Church for another denomination would make one’s children safer.  We must face the terrible fact that the abuse of children is widespread in every part of society. To make the Church the scapegoat would be a cover-up.</p>
<p>But what about the cover-up within the Church? Have not our bishops been shockingly irresponsible in moving offenders around, not reporting them to the police and so perpetuating the abuse? Yes, sometimes. But the great majority of these cases go back to the 1960s and 1970s, when bishops often regarded sexual abuse as a sin rather than also a pathological condition, and when lawyers and psychologists often reassured them that it was safe to reassign priests after treatment. It is unjust to project backwards an awareness of the nature and seriousness of sexual abuse which simply did not exist then. It was only the rise of feminism in the late 1970s which, by shedding light on the violence of some men against women, alerted us to the terrible damage done to vulnerable children.</p>
<p>But what about the Vatican? Pope Benedict has taken a strong line in tackling this issue as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) and since becoming Pope. Now the finger is pointed at him. It appears that some cases reported to the CDF under his watch were not dealt with. Isn’t the Pope’s credibility undermined? There are demonstrators in front of St Peter’s calling for his resignation. I am morally certain that he bears no blame here.</p>
<p>It is generally imagined that the Vatican is a vast and efficient organisation. In fact it is tiny. The CDF only employs 45 people, dealing with doctrinal and disciplinary issues for a Church which has 1.3 billion members, 17 per cent of the world’s population, and some 400,000 priests. When I dealt with the CDF as Master of the Dominican Order, it was obvious that they were struggling to cope. Documents slipped through the cracks. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger lamented to me that the staff was simply too small for the job.</p>
<p>People are furious with the Vatican’s failure to open up its files and offer a clear explanation of what happened. Why is it so secretive? Angry and hurt Catholics feel a right to transparent government. I agree. But we must, in justice, understand why the Vatican is so self-protective. There were more martyrs in the twentieth century than in all the previous centuries combined. Bishops and priests, Religious and laity were assassinated in Western Europe, in Soviet countries, in Africa, Latin America and Asia.</p>
<p>Many Catholics still suffer imprisonment and death for their faith. Of course, the Vatican tends to stress confidentiality; this has been necessary to protect the Church from people who wish to destroy her. So it is understandable that the Vatican reacts aggressively to demands for transparency and will read legitimate requests for openness as a form of persecution. And some people in the media do, without any doubt, wish to damage the credibility of the Church.</p>
<p>But we owe a debt of gratitude to the press for its insistence that the Church face its failures. If it had not been for the media, then this shameful abuse might have remained unaddressed.</p>
<p>Confidentiality is also a consequence of the Church’s insistence on the right of everyone accused to keep their good name until they are proved to be guilty. This is very hard for our society to understand, whose media destroy people’s reputations without a thought.</p>
<p>Why go? If it is to find a safer haven, a less corrupt Church, then I think that you will be disappointed. I too long for more transparent government, more open debate, but the Church’s secrecy is understandable, and sometimes necessary. To understand is not always to condone, but necessary if we are to act justly.</p>
<p>Why stay? I must lay my cards on the table; even if the Church were obviously worse than other Churches, I still would not go. I am not a Catholic because our Church is the best, or even because I like Catholicism. I do love much about my Church but there are aspects of it which I dislike. I am not a Catholic because of a consumer option for an ecclesiastical Waitrose rather than Tesco, but because I believe that it embodies something which is essential to the Christian witness to the Resurrection, visible unity.</p>
<p>When Jesus died, his community fell apart. He had been betrayed, denied, and most of his disciples fled. It was chiefly the women who accompanied him to the end. On Easter Day, he appeared to the disciples. This was more than the physical resuscitation of a dead corpse.</p>
<p>In him God triumphed over all that destroys community: sin, cowardice, lies, misunderstanding, suffering and death. The Resurrection was made visible to the world in the astonishing sight of a community reborn. These cowards and deniers were gathered together again. They were not a reputable bunch, and shamefaced at what they had done, but once again they were one. The unity of the Church is a sign that all the forces that fragment and scatter are defeated in Christ.</p>
<p>All Christians are one in the Body of Christ. I have deepest respect and affection for Christians from other Churches who nurture and inspire me. But this unity in Christ needs some visible embodiment. Christianity is not a vague spirituality but a religion of incarnation, in which the deepest truths take the physical and sometimes institutional form. Historically this unity has found its focus in Peter, the Rock in Matthew, Mark and Luke, and the shepherd of the flock in John’s gospel.</p>
<p>From the beginning and throughout history, Peter has often been a wobbly rock, a source of scandal, corrupt, and yet this is the one – and his successors – whose task is to hold us together so that we may witness to Christ’s defeat on Easter Day of sin’s power to divide. And so the Church is stuck with me whatever happens. We may be embarrassed to admit that we are Catholics, but Jesus kept shameful company from the beginning.</p>
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		<title>Why a Town in Iowa Sought to Abolish Good Friday</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/dennis-prager/why-a-town-in-iowa-sought-to-abolish-good-friday/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=why-a-town-in-iowa-sought-to-abolish-good-friday</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/dennis-prager/why-a-town-in-iowa-sought-to-abolish-good-friday/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 06 Apr 2010 04:01:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Dennis Prager]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[When a town in Iowa seeks to rename Good Friday "Spring Holiday," you know America has problems.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/goodfriday.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-57407" title="goodfriday" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/goodfriday.jpg" alt="" width="375" height="235" /></a></p>
<p>When a town in Iowa seeks to rename Good Friday &#8220;Spring Holiday,&#8221; you  know America has problems.</p>
<p>Those of us who affirm the  Judeo-Christian values that have constituted the basis of America&#8217;s values since before the founding of the  United  States expect such things on the two coasts.  The West Coast and the East Coast (at least down to Virginia) have largely  abandoned the God-based morality of the Declaration of Independence and all the  Founders.</p>
<p>Yes, all the Founders. Even the  so-called deists, while not theologically Christian, were ethical monotheists,  i.e., strong affirmers of ethics rooted in the will of the Creator. As Steven  Waldman, no conservative, writes in &#8220;Founding Faith,&#8221; a book that has been  praised by Left and Right, &#8220;Each felt religion was  extremely important, at a minimum to encourage moral behavior and make the land  safe for republican government.&#8221;</p>
<p>We have, therefore, looked to the  American &#8220;heartland&#8221; to keep the religious basis of American civilization alive.  That is why, Iowa&#8217;s history of &#8220;progressivism&#8221;  notwithstanding, it was disconcerting to learn last week that the city of  Davenport had  announced it would rename Good Friday &#8220;Spring Holiday.&#8221;</p>
<p>As reported by ABC  News:</p>
<p>&#8220;Taking a recommendation by the  Davenport Civil Rights Commission to change the holiday&#8217;s name to something more  ecumenical, City Administrator Craig Malin sent a memo to municipal employees  announcing Good Friday would officially be known as &#8216;Spring  Holiday.&#8217;</p>
<p>&#8220;The Civil Rights Commission said it  recommended changing the name to better reflect the city&#8217;s diversity and  maintain a separation of church and state when it came to official municipal  holidays.&#8221;</p>
<p>Given the importance of Good Friday  to Christians, when news of the recommendation became public, there was a  national as well as local outcry, and the recommendation was  rescinded.</p>
<p>In explaining the recommendation,  Tim Hart, the civil rights commission&#8217;s chairman, said, &#8220;We merely made a  recommendation that the name be changed to something other than Good Friday. Our  Constitution calls for separation of church and state. Davenport touts itself as  a diverse city and given all the different types of religious and ethnic  backgrounds we represent, we suggested the change.&#8221;</p>
<p>That the Davenport City Council did  not endorse the commission&#8217;s recommendation is important to note, but not  significant. What is significant is that the civil rights commission and the  city administrator of an American city &#8212; a heartland city &#8212; would recommend  that Good Friday be replaced by the meaningless &#8220;Spring  Holiday.&#8221;</p>
<p>It is significant for these reasons:</p>
<p>1. There really is a war against  Christianity.</p>
<p>Leftism functions as a secular  religion, and its adherents understand that the major obstacle to the dominance  of Leftist policies and values is traditional religion, specifically  Christianity. With the demise of Christianity in Western  Europe, Leftist ideas and values came to dominate that continent.  America, the most religious  industrialized democracy, remains the great exception.</p>
<p>2. Why not abolish Christmas?</p>
<p>If a religiously diverse population  and the separation of church and state demand abolishing government recognition  of Good Friday, why not treat Christmas similarly and rename it &#8220;Winter  Holiday&#8221;? This was asked of Mr. Hart, the civil rights commission chairman. His  response, in the words of ABC, shows the level of thought that is characteristic  of the Politically Correct: &#8220;The commission, he said, discussed changing  Christmas, but decided enough other religions celebrate Christmas too. Hart,  however, could not name one. &#8221;</p>
<p>3. Civil rights organizations are  not about civil rights.</p>
<p>The ACLU and other left-wing  organizations that have noble sounding civil liberties and civil rights names  have a problem similar to the one the March of Dimes had once polio was  conquered: What to do now? Civil liberties and civil rights are extraordinarily  well protected in America. If the ACLU and the  innumerable civil rights commissions ceased to exist, and a few smaller and  politically neutral groups took their place, civil liberties in  America would benefit. As is obvious  from the Davenport example, these groups do not really  function as civil rights or civil liberties organizations. They are  organizations that promote left-wing agendas. And no Leftist agenda is greater  than minimizing the influence of Judeo-Christian religions, specifically  Christianity, on American life.</p>
<p>4. Good Friday as an American  holiday reminds Americans that this is a religious  society.</p>
<p>Leftism opposes America&#8217;s three  great values &#8212; what I call the American Trinity (see, for example, my video on  the American Trinity at www.prageruniversty.com) &#8212; &#8220;E Pluribus Unum,&#8221; &#8220;Liberty&#8221;  and &#8220;In God We Trust.&#8221; The Left uses diversity and multiculturalism to undermine  E Pluribus Unum (&#8220;From Many, One&#8221;). It substitutes equality (of result) for  liberty, and the powerful state for the powerful free individual. And it seeks,  perhaps above all, to replace &#8220;In God We Trust&#8221; with a secular society and  secular values. If it had a motto, it might be &#8220;In Science (or Secularism) We  Trust.&#8221; The elimination of Good Friday as an American holiday is just one more  such battle in this war.</p>
<p>5. Non-Christians offended by Good  Friday as an American holiday are narcissists.</p>
<p>The Left tells us that  non-Christians are offended by the government celebrating Good Friday. As a Jew,  permit me to say that any non-Christian offended by Good Friday or Christmas  gives new meaning to the word &#8220;narcissist.&#8221; To seek to erase the name Good  Friday is an exercise in self-centeredness and ingratitude that is jaw-dropping.  We non-Christian Americans live in the freest society in human history; it was  produced by people nearly every one of who celebrated Good Friday, and we have  the gall to want to rename it?</p>
<p>6. PC (Political Correctness) should  be renamed OTL (Offends the Left).</p>
<p>Most Americans will characterize the  Davenport  attempt to rename Good Friday &#8220;Spring Holiday&#8221; as Political Correctness. That it  is. But the term itself is Politically Correct. Like everything PC, the term  itself hides its true meaning, which is Leftism. Political Correctness is  invariably produced by the Left. The term, therefore, should not be PC; it  should be OTL, &#8220;Offends the Left.&#8221; It is very unfortunate for  America that it isn&#8217;t. Americans  would have much greater clarity as to the Second Civil War now taking place &#8212;  from San Francisco to Boston to, yes, Davenport, Iowa.</p>
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		<title>World Council of Churches: The KGB Connection</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/mark-d-tooley/world-council-of-churches-the-kgb-connection/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=world-council-of-churches-the-kgb-connection</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/mark-d-tooley/world-council-of-churches-the-kgb-connection/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 31 Mar 2010 04:07:04 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Mark D. Tooley]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[A new book details how the Soviets exploited the World Council of Churches]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/BulgariaChurchVarna.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-56592" title="Orthodox golden domes" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/BulgariaChurchVarna.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="300" /></a></p>
<p>During  the 1970&#8242;s and 1980&#8242;s the Geneva-based World Council of Churches (WCC), to which  hundreds of Protestant and Orthodox communions belonged, routinely espoused  pro-Soviet and anti-Western stances. It even funded Marxist guerrilla groups.   Critics assumed that the WCC was simply naively captive to Liberation Theology,  which tried to exchange salvation for class warfare and revolution.</p>
<p>But  a new book by a Bulgarian author reveals that the KGB and its Bulgarian  intelligence affiliate exploited the Bulgarian Orthodox Church for direct  influence on the WCC and the Conference of European Churches.   In &#8220;Between  Faith and Compromise,&#8221; Bulgarian historian Momchil Metodiev chronicles how the  Soviets and their Bulgarian proxies employed the Bulgarian Orthodox and WCC to  promote Soviet strategic goals globally.</p>
<p>&#8220;Participation  of the Bulgarian church in ecumenical organizations was not inspired by the idea  of interdenominational dialogue and co-operation,&#8221; Metodiev reported amid his  book&#8217;s release this month.  &#8220;If, in popular perceptions, state security is  classified as a state within the state, then the ecumenical activity [conducted  by Soviet bloc representatives] could be classified as a church within the  Church,&#8221; wrote Metodiev, who has researched Bulgarian communist archives for  the  Cold War International History Project of the Woodrow Wilson Institute in  Washington, D.C.</p>
<p>According  to Metodiev, Bulgarian intelligence had already identified the WCC as an &#8220;object  of penetration&#8221; even before the Bulgarian and other East Bloc churches joined  the WCC in 1961. He also explains in his book how East bloc intelligence  services and communist committees on church affairs collaborated to influence  ecumenical groups like the WCC.  Metodiev writes that during the 1970&#8242;s, Russian  Orthodox Metropolitan Nikodim of Leningrad, at the KGB&#8217;s behest, led this  collaboration, while Bulgarian Metropolitan Pankratii of Stara Zagora did his  part in Bulgaria.  Nikodim, who unsurprisingly worked closely with the  Soviet-front, Prague-based Christian Peace Conference, became a WCC president in  1975 after browbeating Third World delegates with threats of a Soviet-aid  cut-off to their countries if they did not cooperate.</p>
<p>East  Bloc intelligence services, working through East Bloc churches belonging to the  WCC, helped to ensure that the WCC focused its critique on the United States and  its allies, while deflecting any attempted interest in human rights abuses in  the East Bloc.  Metodiev says a rare exception was the WCC&#8217;s debate at its 1975  Assembly in Nairobi, when some delegates tried to address Soviet repression of  religion.  At that gathering, a Swiss delegate named Jacques Rossel proposed  this brief stance:  “The WCC is concerned about the infringement of religious  freedom, especially in the Soviet Union.  The General Assembly respectfully asks  the government of the USSR to abide by Article 7 of the Helsinki Final  Act.”</p>
<p>Even  such a mild proposed criticism ignited a firestorm of controversy within the  reliably far-left WCC and failed to get the required two thirds votes from WCC  delegates.  A satire appeared in the WCC exhibition hall spoofing the conference  theme of “Christ Liberates and Unites” by opining:  “Christ has liberated  Jacques Rossel to make a motion, he united the East European delegates – but  will he divide the WCC movement?”</p>
<p>Amid  all this ruffling of normally calm pro-Soviet feathers inside the WCC, the  delegates approved a new compromise resolution the next day that nonchalantly  noted having “spent considerable time debating the alleged non-observance of  religious freedom in the USSR” and concluded that “churches in the different  parts of Europe live and work under greatly differing conditions.”   Even this  non-criticism of the Soviets was too much for the Russian Orthodox delegates,  who abstained in protest over the discomfiting “atmosphere” the discussion had  unpleasantly enflamed.  After that 1975 episode, the WCC would largely avoid any  attempt at even tacitly admitting to any lack of religious freedom in the East  Bloc.</p>
<p>Metodiev’s  book addresses the 1975 incident and also reveals that Soviet and Bulgarian  intelligence ensured the selection of Bulgaria&#8217;s Todor Sabev as the WCC deputy  general secretary.</p>
<p>Sabev  was a seminary professor in Sofia, Bulgaria and founded the Institute for  Church History and Archives of the Bulgarian Patriarchate for the Bulgarian church.  He  became almost immediately  involved with the WCC after the Bulgarians joined, serving on the WCC’s Central  and Executive Committees in the 1960’s and 1970’s.  In 1979 he became the WCC  deputy general secretary, focusing on WCC ties to Orthodox Churches and Roman  Catholics until he retired in 1993.  “A devoted friend and colleague, he  gained the trust and confidence of all those he has worked with,” recalled then  WCC General Secretary Samuel Kobia when Sabev died in 2008. “He will be  remembered for his kindness and openness, his readiness to serve all at all  moments and under all circumstances. Because of his personality combining moral  authority and human warmth, he played the role of bridge-builder between the  East and the West, between Orthodox and other member churches of the WCC,  between the fellowship of member churches and the Roman Catholic Church.”  Of  course, Kobia did not mention Sabev’s long service as an agent of East European  communism.</p>
<p>In  a report by Ecumenical News International (ENI), a WCC official tried to  minimize the revelations without explicitly denying them.  &#8220;These  allegations are not new,&#8221; insisted Martin Robra, a WCC program director. &#8220;Even  during the years of the Cold War, it was known that church representatives  coming from communist countries had the obligation to report about their  activities abroad to their country&#8217;s authorities.&#8221; Of course, during the Cold  War, the WCC never acknowledged this situation and preferred to pretend that  East Bloc churches were free agents no more manipulated by their governments  than were Western churches.  &#8220;WCC proceedings and policies were, as they are  today, public. There were no real &#8216;secrets&#8217; to be disclosed,&#8221; Robra claimed to  ENI.  &#8220;It was far more important to nurture relationships between the churches  across the &#8216;Iron Curtain&#8217; that divided the nations and to support them as much  as possible.”</p>
<p>Only after the  collapse of East Bloc communism did some WCC officials sheepishly admit they  should have said a bit more about religious oppression under communism.  But  they also disingenuously claimed that their cooperation with East Bloc churches  and even East Bloc governments had opened doors that facilitated the Cold War’s  peaceful conclusion.  “The stances taken by the WCC in favor of justice and  peace did not follow any KGB script, but the Gospel of Christ, the prince of  peace whom we meet among the most vulnerable and suffering people,” Robra  assured ENI.</p>
<p>Books like  Metodiev’s, based on research in communist archives, increasingly are confirming  that the WCC and other religious groups did follow the KGB’s script during much  of the Cold War.  The question is, as the WCC continues his far-left advocacy,  whose script does it follow now?</p>
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		<title>The Books that Change Us</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/david-swindle/the-books-that-change-us/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-books-that-change-us</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 30 Mar 2010 04:05:46 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[David Swindle]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[How does a "progressive" college student end up working at the Freedom Center?]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/radical.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-56560" title="radical" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/radical.jpg" alt="" width="375" height="296" /></a></p>
<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2010/03/29/hard-indoctrination-soft-indoctrination-and-the-books-that-change-us/" target="_blank">Yesterday, in Part 1 of this article,</a> I explained the difference between hard and soft indoctrination and expressed a hope that the latter could be combated if students had the knowledge and the courage to bring non-Marxist texts into their classroom discussions.</p>
<div>
<p>Any journey from Left to Right is going to follow two related, parallel paths. One is based on experiences and life events which challenge the <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/guideDesc.asp?catid=93&amp;type=issue" target="_blank">&#8220;progressive&#8221;</a> world view. The second is formed by way of an intellectual journey through key texts which provide for more accurate explanations of reality.</p>
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<p>Reading through David Horowitz&#8217;s autobiography <em>Radical Son</em> we can see this both in his personal experiences with <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=7375" target="_blank">the Black Panthers</a>, <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/guideDesc.asp?catid=157&amp;type=issue" target="_blank">the AIDS crisis</a>, and the Vietnam War and his engagement with books by thinkers like <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393329437?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=fronmaga-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0393329437" target="_blank">Leszek Kolakowski</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226320553?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=fronmaga-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0226320553" target="_blank">Friedrich Hayek</a>.</p>
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<p>My own journey follows a similar dual path of experiences and books though is not as dramatic as Horowitz&#8217;s.</p>
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<p>Many of the texts which would be instrumental in changing me I encountered while in college in  my political science classrooms, English courses, and independently. Most of these books could hardly be accurately described as &#8220;conservative&#8221; yet neither were they Marxist. In my defense policy course taught by Dr. Dan Reagan we analyzed and debated <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000BPG24M?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=fronmaga-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=B000BPG24M" target="_blank"><em>The Pentagon&#8217;s New Map: War and Peace in the Twenty-First Century</em></a> by Thomas P.M. Barnett. It was with Barnett&#8217;s book that I first began to doubt my anti-globalization dogmas. <em>The Pentagon&#8217;s New Map</em> makes a compelling case that as countries are knit together economically war will be decreased. Global Capitalism is a force for peacemaking, greater prosperity, and increased human rights.</p>
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<p>I took deeply seriously my father&#8217;s suggestion to &#8220;take the professor, not the course&#8221; &#8212; sound advice for any college student. In my literary courses I made a conscious decision to take every class I could taught by Dr. Pat Collier, a specialist in British Modernism &#8212; the works of T.S. Eliot, James Joyce, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&amp;location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2Fgp%2Fentity%2FVirginia-Woolf%2FB000AQ1T7W%3Fie%3DUTF8%26ref_%3Dsr%5Ftc%5F2%5F0%26qid%3D1269810663%26sr%3D1-2-ent&amp;tag=fronmaga-20&amp;linkCode=ur2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957" target="_blank">Virginia Woolf</a>, E.M. Forster and other authors from 1890-1940. The principle lesson that I formulated from my engagement with this literature was this: life is complicated, multiple perspectives on the world are vital, no one knows everything. Joyce&#8217;s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/8562022543?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=fronmaga-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=8562022543" target="_blank"><em>Ulysses</em></a>, the magnum opus of Modernism, is written not with a single all-knowing narrator but with dozens (hundreds?) of voices. We see how overwhelmingly complex just a single day in Dublin on June 16, 1904 can be. The universe is too big for us to truly grasp. In Woolf&#8217;s novels the view peered inward into the infinity of individual minds. Yet we think we can effectively legislate a better world into existence? We think we&#8217;re able to plan utopia in a world of limitless variables?</p>
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<p>On my own I discovered the novels and stories of gay Cuban dissident Reinaldo Arenas. In his memoir <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0140157654?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=fronmaga-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0140157654" target="_blank"><em>Before Night Falls</em></a>, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00003CXRG?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=fronmaga-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=B00003CXRG" target="_blank">filmed in 2000</a>, the <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=912" target="_blank">Castro brothers </a>and <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2054" target="_blank">Che Guevara</a>&#8216;s crimes against humanity are laid out beyond dispute. I could never forgive Castro for the tortures inflicted on an artist as brilliant and sensitive as Arenas. Arenas was amazingly prolific for having to live in a police state. Imagine how great he could have been if he could have spent his entire career in a capitalist country that rewarded and nourished his literary genius. And so even as a leftist I could never have any sympathy for <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2042" target="_blank">Stalinism</a>.</p>
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<p>It was when I emerged from college and began living in the &#8220;Real World&#8221; that the life events kicked in. After graduating in the summer of 2006 I gradually sought to disengage from politics. I&#8217;d grown weary of the &#8220;nasty tone&#8221; whose purpose I could never grasp. The only political job I ever applied for was as a researcher for <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=7150" target="_blank">&#8220;progressive&#8221; media &#8220;watchdog&#8221;</a> <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=7150" target="_blank">Media Matters</a>. I never heard back from them after submitting my resume and cover letter bragging about my 90-page Horowitz take-down thesis. So I resigned myself to call center jobs to pay the bills, freelance journalism on the side, and the hope of a novel.</p>
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<p>My first call center position was setting up repairs of cell phones and computers. After a year of this I had grown disgusted with the corporations for which I worked. Products were shoddy and poorly serviced. Customers received inadequate care. Government intervention was necessary to step in and correct big business&#8217;s excesses. Or was it? I tried to figure out how some legislation or government agency could fix things. And the conclusion I came to was that any government solution would be endlessly byzantine and in the end probably wouldn&#8217;t work. I also stumbled up against the idea of economic freedom. As a social libertarian I loathed the idea of government trying to impose the right way to live morally. Why then would I tolerate government dictating ethical business practices to a company? I did not have an answer. Perhaps a better solution might be another company doing a better job?</p>
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<p>My second call center position was as a debt collector &#8212; and later assistant manager &#8212; for federally-insured student loans. It was here where my love affair with capitalism began. What is the primary factor in getting people to work? Paying them. The collecting call center is a microcosm of the economy. And I could see how those who worked hard and developed their skills could succeed and earn enormous bonuses while those who were lazy would fail.</p>
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<p>In other words, capitalism works. Those who work hard and develop themselves have the potential to succeed. And history demonstrated this on a massive scale time and again. One of the essays form Horowitz&#8217;s <a href="https://secure.donationreport.com/donate.html?key=WOWRPR5ZNKR8" target="_blank"><em>Hating Whitey</em></a> drew on the research of Stephen and Abigail Thernstrom&#8217;s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0684844974?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=fronmaga-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0684844974" target="_blank"><em>America in Black and White</em></a> to demonstrate that from 1940 to the present poverty in the African-American community fell more than 50 percent &#8212; and mostly before and in spite of Great Society and affirmative action programs.</p>
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<p>It was also as a collector that I began to seriously understand the single most important difference between leftists and conservatives: the reality of human nature. Through my interactions with both those on the other side of the phone and my colleagues and bosses within the call center I realized the reality of how people actually are: we are evil, lazy, cruel, self-interested, and stupid. In other words we are broken. And we &#8212; people with our human nature &#8212; are the root cause of all social problems. It doesn&#8217;t matter if you pass laws, elect new politicians, or change to a new system of government. Our problems will still remain because <em>we</em> will still be here.</p>
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<p>This grasp of human nature has a corresponding economic philosophy: free market capitalism. Understand human nature in this fashion and it immediately becomes apparent why socialist policies fail. Create a system where people can take out more than they have to put in and the government will go bankrupt. (For a more sophisticated take on the folly of socialism read Horowitz&#8217;s <a href="https://secure.donationreport.com/donate.html?key=WOWRPR5ZNKR8" target="_blank"><em>The Politics of Bad Faith</em></a>, his single most important book.)</p>
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<p>Understand human nature and capitalism&#8217;s intrinsic worth and an individual can succeed &#8212; and so can a country. These were the founding fathers&#8217; ideas. And they based our government on them.</p>
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<p>W. Cleon Skousen&#8217;s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0981559662?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=fronmaga-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0981559662" target="_blank"><em>The 5000 Year Leap</em></a>, while somewhat hokey in its tone, is an effective summary of the founders&#8217; philosophy which was institutionalized in our founding documents. (And when you get it on <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0015T963C?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=fronmaga-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=B0015T963C" target="_blank">Kindle</a> it comes with free copies of Alexis de Tocqueville and the Federalist Papers.) Horowitz&#8217;s <a href="https://secure.donationreport.com/donate.html?key=WOWRPR5ZNKR8" target="_blank"><em>Uncivil Wars: The Controversy Over Reparations for Slavery</em></a> also focuses on the American Idea and articulates a compelling argument on its behalf.</p>
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<p>Driving toward this understanding of human nature (and the great value of the sole country on the planet that is built on this intellectual foundation) the emotional turning point on foreign policy could come. In the fall of 2008 Horowitz was staging another Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week at colleges across the country. At this point he and I had been dialoguing and debating about politics and Academic Freedom for about six months but I was not yet a genuine supporter of his work. As the promotions of the week came and Horowitz flew off to give his speeches I had a realization: it was not out of the realm of possibility that my friend could be killed for what he was doing. Theo Van Gogh. Salman Rushdie. It struck me at an emotional level and I called David to urge him to be careful. It was that emotional kick that could shatter my progressive illusions about the nature of <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/guideDesc.asp?catid=183&amp;type=issue" target="_blank">Islamo-fascism</a>.</p>
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<div>
<p>And so I began a study of the nature of the enemy facing us. I read Robert Spencer&#8217;s books on Islam, specifically <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1596981040?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=fronmaga-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=1596981040" target="_blank"><em>The Complete Infidel&#8217;s Guide to the Koran</em></a> (<a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2009/12/23/getting-to-the-root-of-understanding-islam-by-david-swindle/" target="_blank">see my review here</a>) and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1596985569?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=fronmaga-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=1596985569" target="_blank"><em>Stealth Jihad</em></a>. I learned about Sharia law. I read <a href="http://pajamasmedia.com/phyllischesler/" target="_blank">what the great Dr. Phyllis Chesler</a> had to say about Islamic misogyny. I watched the rise of Islam in Europe and the folly of the continent&#8217;s multicultural tolerance. I studied what Horowitz and Dr. Jamie Glazov had to say about the Left&#8217;s embrace of Islamists. (See <a href="https://secure.donationreport.com/donate.html?key=WOWRPR5ZNKR8" target="_blank"><em>Unholy Alliance</em> and <em>United in Hate</em></a>.) And it became clear that the threat was not just a few &#8220;extremists&#8221; &#8220;misinterpreting Islam&#8221; in some caves in Afghanistan while righteously responding to American &#8220;imperialism.&#8221; Islamo-fascism is far bigger and more dangerous as a problem than the vast majority of Americans are prepared to face.</p>
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<p>Throughout much of my leftist period I had cowardly avoided the whole Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Now, though, I investigated further &#8212; <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002YNS1RK?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=fronmaga-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=B002YNS1RK" target="_blank">Natan Sharansky&#8217;s <em>Defending Identity</em></a> was a crucial text &#8212; and came to understood how Israel was the victim and had reached out for peace only to be rebuffed many times. They were under assault by a totalitarian enemy. And I came to see that the reason to support Israel was this: it was a nation that shared our values of freedom, capitalism, and individual rights. Supporting Israel in its battle with Islamofascism was essential. As goes Israel so goes the Middle East so goes the world.</p>
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<p>And there you have it. A peace-loving, &#8220;progressive&#8221; college student is corrupted into a cynical, warmongering, &#8220;corporatist,&#8221; racist Neo-Con. He&#8217;s brainwashed by some evil books. And he&#8217;s more than happy to sell out his principles and &#8220;flip-flop&#8221; in exchange for a career in professional red-baiting. He is an intellectual whore for sale to the highest bidder. So many of my college fellow travellers are forced to conclude (so as not to have to challenge their own political faith.)</p>
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<div>
<p>Or not.</p>
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<div>
<p>Maybe with this new political understanding I just want to fix the world differently. Maybe I remain every bit as radical and committed to a better, more prosperous, more peaceful, more just civilization. From Horowitz&#8217;s <a href="https://secure.donationreport.com/donate.html?key=WOWRPR5ZNKR8" target="_blank"><em>Cracking of the Heart</em></a> I&#8217;ve imbibed the spirit of his daughter Sarah Horowitz. (<a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2010/01/12/the-radical-sons-progressive-daughter-by-david-swindle/" target="_blank">Read my review here</a>.) The lesson of her life was that we must fix the world one person at a time. From Howard Bloom&#8217;s <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1591027543?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=fronmaga-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=1591027543" target="_blank"><em>The Genius of the Beast: A Radical Re-Vision of Capitalism</em></a> I understand the boom and bust cycle of economics as an expression of nature going back to the formation of the universe. And capitalism reveals itself as a system which results in continual improvement to the human condition, both increasing the quality and the quantity of our lives. And from Douglas Rushkoff&#8217;s<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1400066891?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=fronmaga-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=1400066891" target="_blank"> <em>Life, Inc.: How the World Became a Corporation and How to Take It Back</em></a> (<a href="http://97.74.65.51/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=35663" target="_blank">see my review here</a>) I can see the shortcomings of the corporate order &#8212; which I witnessed firsthand in my own 3 year employment odyssey &#8212; but seek to improve it not through a change in government and a restriction of freedom, but in a transition of culture to rebalance economies so that both local and international commerce can thrive.</p>
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<p>And that&#8217;s how you fix the world: shift the culture, protect freedom, help the <em>individual</em>, focus on your own community. And it&#8217;s with that attitude that Academia too can be restored to what it once was and will be again.</p>
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		<title>Jihad Jane in the Classroom</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/mary-grabar/jihad-jane-in-the-classroom/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=jihad-jane-in-the-classroom</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/mary-grabar/jihad-jane-in-the-classroom/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 23 Mar 2010 04:03:06 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Mary Grabar]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Islamic Awareness Week returns to the American campus.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/niqab.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-55577" title="niqab" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/niqab.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="274" /></a></p>
<p>In the days after the 9/11 attacks, average Americans donated money and festooned American flags to vehicles in a show of unity and support.  Educators, in contrast, took advantage for further anti-American indoctrination and plastered school walls with “Understanding Islam” posters.  They did this at the University of Georgia where I was finishing up my Ph.D. program.</p>
<p>Since then, the Islamists have wormed their ways into our culture, reaching the most vulnerable: our children.</p>
<p>It is no surprise to me that blonde American women, <a href="http://www.texasgopvote.com/blog/jihad-jane-and-jihad-jamie-03171">like Jihad Jane and Jihad Jamie</a>, would be converting to Islam and supporting jihad.  The most depraved murderers on death row attract the support of soft-hearted and weak-minded women.  They are aided by educators and the propagandists they invite into the classroom.</p>
<p>In fact, proselytizing occurs in high schools and colleges without a peep from principals or college presidents, who fret about such Christian symbols as Christmas trees on their campuses.</p>
<p>For example, for the second year, the Muslim Student Association is holding their Islamic Awareness Week at the Clarkston campus of Georgia Perimeter College in the Atlanta area.  MSA Advisor Shyam K. Sriram, who teaches American Government and Political Science, in an email encourages faculty members to allow their students “to obtain extra credit for attending these myriad of events” and adds that he is “happy to sign off on any extra credit sheets.”</p>
<p>Not only is Sriram sending this to all instructors on campus through the e-mail list, but his Islamic Awareness Week provides the theme for the college’s home page and posters about the events plaster bulletin boards on campus.  The student who wants to learn more about the event can click on a link and see the following list and the note, “Faculty are encouraged to give students extra credit for attending.”</p>
<p>These events for the week of March 16-19 include:</p>
<p>“Islam 101” with Brother Abu Addisalam.</p>
<p>“The Sweetness of Faith” with Imam Ishmael ibn Paul Teasley.</p>
<p>“Sorry, Mama, But I Love Her: A Talk on Love, Patience and Relationships” with Imam Tariq Khan.</p>
<p>“Hijab for a Day” “Information Session for WOMEN only.”</p>
<p>“Converts Panel featuring Former Rapper Loon.”</p>
<p>“Young Muslim Collegiate Panel.”</p>
<p>The title “Sorry, Mama, But I Love Her” reminded me of a workshop I attended at the National Council for the Social Studies conference called “Muslim Perspectives Through [sic] Film and Dialogue: Understanding, Empathy, Civic Discourse.”   There, Barbara Petzen (a blonde woman), an academic specializing in Middle East studies, and employed by the Middle East Policy Council, which has received multiple donations from Saudi Arabian royalty, offered sheep-like high school social studies teachers free films for use in the classroom.</p>
<p>One, which she showed, <em>Allah Made Me Funny</em>, about three young Muslim comedians—a Palestinian, an Indian, and an African-American convert&#8211;fits in with the lessons on “tolerance” teenagers receive from television and the classroom.</p>
<p>Its producer, Michael Wolfe, knows what will appeal to teenagers, for he himself is a convert and comes from what <a href="http://www.islamfortoday.com/wolfe1.htm">he calls</a> a “mongrel” background of a mixed Jewish-Christian marriage.  What was especially disturbing in the film was the black convert, who bragged about his loss of attraction to white women since his conversion.  He had some tender-hearted bemusement for his poor, benighted old mother still stuck in the old Christian religion who was upset at his conversion.  He could see into her plot to get him back to her church, for an “intervention” on him.  (The camera panned to the wholesome Muslim audience of families in traditional and Western dress laughing good-naturedly.)</p>
<p>The talk by Imam Tariq Khan at Georgia Perimeter College (“Sorry, Mama, But I Love Her”) suggests a similar conflict between an adult child and parent. Converts are loving toward parents—although more enlightened.  In this age of tolerance and following your own path Islam is presented as just another alternative—and a better, more tolerant, and more hip alternative at that.</p>
<p>One wonders what would happen were the script reversed.  Would administrators allow a Methodist minister to put on a “Christian Awareness Week” at a community college?  Would Muslims tolerate a film being shown to Muslim students at a public school, titled <em>Jesus Made Me Funny</em>, that poked fun at their parents’ Muslim religion, that joked about seeing through a parent’s attempt to intervene?  Indeed, Muslim parents like those of <a href="http://www.floridasecuritycouncil.org/rifqa/">Rifqa Bary</a>, threaten and do kill children who convert to Christianity.</p>
<p>Of course, such facts never came up in the film or workshop.  Petzen said to teachers, “What I love about these guys is that they’re normal.”</p>
<p>When an inconvenient fact comes up—like the violence that Muslims have displayed—those like Petzen offer defenses through moral equivalency.  She gave lessons to social studies teachers to pass on to students about the rioting and murders after the publication of cartoons about Muhammad.  Well, Christians would get upset too, she offered.</p>
<p>Yes, they have, when their tax dollars go to support <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piss_Christ">artwork</a> that immerses a crucifix in urine.  But they don’t riot and murder over it.</p>
<p>Of course, educators are likely to present the Christians who opposed public funding of Andres Serrano’s “Piss Christ” artwork as close-minded and bigoted (as they have done in textbooks I’ve been required to use).  They are likely to invoke the First Amendment.</p>
<p>Petzen <a href="http://www.academia.org/as-the-third-world-turns/">objected</a> to my characterization of her “defense” in the report I wrote about the conference.  It was an “explanation,” she insisted.</p>
<p>Really?  Her moral equivalency <a href="http://www.academia.org/of-pedagogy-propaganda/">insults</a> the intelligence of the civilized world.  Everybody could <em>understand</em> being upset with the depictions in the cartoons.  What they could not understand was the barbarism of the response.  “Explanations” for violence, for behavior that defies every standard of Western civilization, makes every barbaric act more “normal.”  And, indeed, “normalization” of Islam is the goal of Petzen and Sriram, and every other proselytizer in the classroom.</p>
<p>In 1983, “A Nation at Risk,” stated famously, “If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.”</p>
<p>Some insist that “jihad” is misunderstood, that according to the Koran it involves moral cleansing and an intellectual effort. If so, we’ve got Jihad Janes in the classroom, proselytizing to already indoctrinated children and teenagers.  This is indeed a “war” on the hearts and minds of students.</p>
<p><strong>For my full report on the National Council for the Social Studies <a href="http://www.usasurvival.org/docs/Grabar_report.pdf">go here</a>.</strong></p>
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		<title>Jews Marked With Yellow Stars Again</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/pi-news-org/jews-marked-with-yellow-stars-again-2/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=jews-marked-with-yellow-stars-again-2</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/pi-news-org/jews-marked-with-yellow-stars-again-2/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 22 Mar 2010 04:00:07 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Pi-News.org]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Has Kristallnacht arrived in Scandanavia?]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/antis.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-55378" title="antis" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/antis.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="456" /></a></p>
<p>In the Copenhagen township of Nørrebro that has been solidly in Muslim hands <a href="http://www.pi-news.net/index.php?s=N%C3%B8rrebro" target="_blank">for a long time</a>, Jews must hide their faith in order to avoid persecution. <a href="http://diepresse.com/home/politik/aussenpolitik/546769/index.do?_vl_backlink=/home/politik/aussenpolitik/index.do" target="_blank">Yellow stars get stuck to the backs</a> of Norwegian schoolchildren, and the teachers don’t intervene. In the “enriched” Swedish town of Malmö, many Jewish families have already fled (<a href="http://www.pi-news.org/2010/02/hate-jews-fleeing-from-malmoe/" target="_blank">PI reported</a>).</p>
<p>In all of Scandinavia, the persecution of Jews by “persons from the Near East” has increased enormously. The <em>Frankfurter Rundschau</em> <a href="http://www.fr-online.de/top_news/2430283_Hass-auf-Juden-in-Skandinavien-Gelbe-Sterne-auf-den-Ruecken.html" target="_blank">reports</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>The attacks escalated in the previous year, when 200 Jewish demonstrators held rallies for peace and compassion for the civilian victims of both sides but were hounded out of the place by an even larger group of Palestinian counter-demonstrators with rocks, bottles and Molotov cocktails</p>
<p>Teachers and parents reported on Norwegian TV that the class instruction about the Holocaust was boycotted and statements like “The Jews were behind 9/11″ went unanswered. When one pupil complained that he was mortally threatened because he was a “Jewish pig,” the teacher dismissed him with the statement that these things could happen to anyone.</p></blockquote>
<p>Okaaaay. So, we are daily insulted with “Jewish pigs,” mortally threatened, and “halal-”murdered… The non-intervening teachers are simply fostering their own festering anti-Jewish sentiments and building themselves up in their own conceits with “acceptance of cultural distinctions” and their “tolerance.”</p>
<p>It’s better as a secret Jew hater to wash one’s hands in the innocence of Political Correctness, and let the Jews accuse “persons from the Near East” as fair game.</p>
<p><strong>To watch on a video on this subject, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fC-QjF9RKI&amp;feature=player_embedded#">click here</a>.</strong></p>
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		<title>A Profile in Courage</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/david-solway/a-profile-in-courage/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=a-profile-in-courage</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/david-solway/a-profile-in-courage/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 15 Mar 2010 05:05:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[David Solway]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=54465</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[An open letter to Geert Wilders.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/geert_wilders.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-54466" title="geert_wilders" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/geert_wilders.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="282" /></a></p>
<p>An open letter to Geert Wilders:</p>
<p>Though we have not met, I feel as if I know you well. I have followed your trials—and trial—closely and, like many who are engaged in the same fight against Islamic supremacism and the various forms of jihad that confront us, I endorse your campaign on behalf of the West and its traditional liberties in every way that I can.</p>
<p>Indeed, I wonder if you are aware of the extent of your <em>de facto</em> “support network,” a majority in America who, according to a <a href="http://people-press.org/report/564/islamic-extremism">Pew Research Center survey</a>, are “very concerned” about the rise of Islamic extremism, and certainly a significant minority of the increasingly vocal. The same may now be the case in your own country and in a number of other European nations as well—Switzerland and its <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/11/29/switzerland.minaret.referendum/index.html">minaret affair</a> come immediately to mind—as ordinary people gradually come to realize the threat they are facing.</p>
<p>Of course, we can write off the political and intellectual elites who, through laziness, timidity, adherence to the craven doctrine of political correctness, and no doubt the profiteering impulse, are in bed with the succubus who would guzzle their blood. And this is no blood libel. In addition, you probably strike these presumably more decorous sensibilities as too blunt, aggressive or politically ambitious, which is clearly what prompts their efforts at character assassination against you. But your passionate resistance to the creeping Islamization of Europe prompts me in turn to ask: Does this in Wilders seem ambitious? In any event, pay no attention to these tergiversators. As Andrew Bostom <a href="http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/qaddafi-wilders-and-the-jihad-against-switzerland/">writes</a>, “The transparent agenda in characterizations of Wilders is to demonize Western Europe’s most informed and courageous politician resisting the actual jihadism…But the Swiss minaret referendum, and even more emphatically, burgeoning Dutch support for Wilders and his PVV, indicate that ordinary Europeans reject the capitulation to Islamic supremacism their cultural relativist media and political elites deliberately abet.”</p>
<p>In your fine <a href="http://vladtepesblog.com/?p=20195">speech to the British House of Lords</a> on March 5, 2010, you established the principle, as you have many times before, that you and your Freedom Party do not “have a problem with Muslims as such.” You distinguish between law-abiding Muslims and the ideology of Islam based on the Koran. “There are many moderate Muslims,” you declare, “but there is no such thing as a moderate Islam.” The first part of your proposition is a socially appropriate sentiment, but the second part begets a conceptual problem which is decidedly unpleasant to address.</p>
<p>Forgive me for suggesting that you probably had no choice but to make this subtle discrimination between the faithful and the faith, which implies a certain disconnect between the wish and the reality, as you must surely realize. You tread on very delicate ground here, as you are doubtlessly constrained to do in order to avoid alienating both “moderate Muslims” and non-Muslims who regard themselves as unprejudiced.</p>
<p>When you rightly assert that “Islam is not merely a religion [but] a totalitarian ideology,” note that the Koran “commands Muslims to establish shariah law,” claim that “Islam is not compatible with our Western way of life,” and go on to compare the Koran with <em>Mein Kampf</em>, quoting Winston Churchill to reinforce your thesis, the distinction you adduce between individual Muslims and the collective institution of Islam tends to collapse. For what you are really saying is that moderate Muslims cannot be devout Muslims or, in truth, cannot be Muslims at all. What sort of Muslim remains after you have factored out shariah law, effectively compared Muhammed to Hitler, and contended that the Koran should be outlawed, or at least designated as a species of hate literature, as you proposed in your <a href="http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/3094">letter</a> to the newspaper <em>De Volkskrant</em> on August 8, 2007?</p>
<p>You now find yourself uncomfortably situated, so to speak, between the devil and the deep Red Sea. Not being a Muslim yourself, you don’t have the option of polemical emphasis that derives from rejecting the faith, becoming an apostate-on-principle or converting to another faith, like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Ibn Warraq, Wafa Sultan and Nonie Darwish, among others—all of whom took the second part of your logic to its inevitable terminus. They understood that one cannot honestly profess Islam without abiding by the decrees of the religion and its holy book, including the oft-repeated summons to kill or enslave the infidel, the structure of gender apartheid, the imposition of shariah, and a host of other draconian laws.</p>
<p>In other words, a “moderate Muslim” would have to live in a state of contradiction, and perhaps many do—as does, for example, freedom loving Tarek Fatah, Canadian author of <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Chasing-Mirage-Tragic-lllusion-Islamic/dp/0470841168/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1268418133&amp;sr=1-1">Chasing a Mirage: The Tragic Illusion of an Islamic State</a></em>, who <a href="http://www.nationalpost.com/related/topics/story.html?id=2673117">calls himself</a> a “hardened secular Muslim.” What exactly is a <em>secular</em> Muslim, whether hardened or soft? Similarly, what could a “secular Christian” conceivably be other than some sort of mythical chimera? (It is different for Jews, of course; a “secular Jew” remains a Jew because the world persists in regarding him as such. But that is another matter.) Fatah is a good man and an important voice in the ongoing debate concerning Islam, but he cannot extricate himself from a legendary infatuation or acknowledge disagreeable historical and theological facts. One cannot cherry pick the Koran or romanticize Islamic history, as so-called “moderate Muslims” are obliged to do, without falling into incoherence. As a character in Hanif Kureishi’s <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Black-Album-Hanif-Kureishi/dp/0684825406/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1268483288&amp;sr=1-1">The Black Album</a></em> says, “our religion isn’t something you can test out, like trying out a suit to see if it fit! You gotta buy the whole outfit!” There is, to put it another way, no such beverage as Islam Lite. One drinks in the real thing or nothing; there is no substitute.</p>
<p>Bangladeshi author and former Muslim Abul Kasem, in a <em><a href="http://97.74.65.51/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=29366">FrontPage Magazine interview</a></em>, defines the majority of Muslims as believers “in name only.” Kasem is shockingly direct: the existence of a “moderate Muslim” is contingent upon a moderate Koran “since the life force of Islam is the Qu’ran.” But the Koran happens to be an extreme and violent document, and even if it is selectively ignored by practitioners of the faith, its fissile core can be activated at any time. For Kasem, as for the dissidents mentioned above, the term “moderate Muslim” or “secular Muslim” is an oxymoron. The use of the term “moderate Muslim,” he argues, is “truly misplaced” and muddles Western thinking in the attempt to defeat Islamic terror. I’m presuming this is an argument you too would candidly advance if the sociopolitical context were not so precarious, and if your place in Dutch society and as leader of a respectable political party permitted you to do so.</p>
<p>Still, you were on the money when, in a <a href="../Application%20Data/Microsoft/Word/speech%20to%20the%20Dutch%20parliament">speech to the Dutch parliament</a>, you compared Islam in Europe to a Trojan Horse. Here you were being perfectly forthright. Your metaphor was both mythologically and historically accurate. In 1529, the armies of Islam were camped before the gates of Vienna. They were beaten back. Today they are camped <em>within</em> the gates of Paris, the gates of Oslo, the gates of Malmo, the gates of Berlin, the gates of London, the gates of Birmingham, the gates of Brussels, the gates of Marseille, the gates of Amsterdam, and counting. In fact, as you and many of the politically aware—Bruce Bawer, Christopher Caldwell, Walter Laqueur, Bernard Lewis, the late Samuel Huntington, Melanie Phillips, Bruce Thornton, Claire Berlinski, Denis MacShane, Bat Ye’or, to name only a few—point out, Islam is now a major demographic force within the gates of Europe <em>in its entirety</em>. Vienna was only a temporary setback, a lost battle in a long and possibly successful war. Our ostensible sophisticates seem to have forgotten that Islamic time is not Western time.</p>
<p>I began this letter by assuring you that you have a far wider community of supporters than you might at times suspect. True, several conservative <em>bien pensants</em> and generally astute observers of the ideological world, such as Bill Kristol, Glenn Beck and Charles Krauthammer, have lately <a href="http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/03/11/another-look-at-foxnews-hatchet-job-on-geert-wilders/">taken you to task</a> on Fox News and elsewhere for your supposed intransigence, your explicitness and your “radical” stance vis à vis Islam, that is, your refusal to differentiate between a peaceable Islam and violent Islamism. The critical perspective adopted by these otherwise excellent writers toward the leftist collaboration with, or appeasement of, militant Islam, their awareness of the demographic menace posed by unchecked immigration, and the weaponized prose they habitually flourish would indicate they should be your allies rather than detractors.</p>
<p>So unfortunate a dereliction is highly problematic and, at first blush, inexplicable—unless, as a commenter to an <a href="http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZDk2ODI2OGEwMjAzOWFlMzQxMzUxNTE3NmVkOWU3M2U=">article</a> by Mark Steyn <a href="http://www.steynonline.com/content/view/3016/59/">suggests</a>, “perhaps the recent purchase of a substantial portion of <a href="http://apnews.myway.com/article/20100117/D9D9GR0O0.html" target="_blank">News Corp.&#8217;s stock by a wealthy Saudi Arabian</a> might be a factor in Krauthammer&#8217;s and Beck&#8217;s negative statements about Geert Wilders.” Diana West <a href="http://www.dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/1307/Fox-News-Best-Investment-Saudi-Prince-Talal-Ever-Made.aspx">concurs</a>: “this anti-Geert pundit solidarity will only delight stakeholder Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal.” We have long known that Saudi money has infiltrated the media, the universities, the Hollywood illusion factory and the book publishing industry, with all the predictable consequences. But then, we also know that Kristol, Beck and Krauthammer are honorable men.</p>
<p>Maybe there is another explanation. <a href="http://pajamasmedia.com/rogerlsimon/2010/03/10/beck-krauthammer-and-the-geert-wilders-perplex/?singlepage=true">Roger Simon hazards</a> that Beck “is not particularly versed in European affairs”, which are plainly not his forte, and that Krauthammer may be subconsciously afraid that <em>you are right</em>, a likelihood “too depressing” to contemplate. For, Simon continues, “if Wilders is correct, and the line between Islam and Islamism is as blurred as the Dutchman posits, then we in the West are in very deep trouble indeed.” And this is a conclusion all too few of our intellectuals, “peace” constituencies, opinion shapers and power wielders, addicted to the ostrich syndrome and insulated from the mean streets of the real world, are willing to absorb. They have taken another route and are speeding down the highway to dhimmitude like Toyotas with stuck gas pedals. They would rather allow the approaching immiseration of the West at the hands of a resurgent Islam than stiffen their spines and act as they must if Western civilization is to survive. Which is why they do not want you in the game.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, despite such curious defections and betrayals, I think you may rest confident that you enjoy a stalwart following among those who have come to share both your fears and your salient assumptions. We monitor the court prosecution to which you have been subjected by a camarilla of judges who, as you say, “do not want to hear the truth about Islam.” As David Rusin shows in a compendious <a href="http://www.islamist-watch.org/blog/2010/03/objection-your-honor-european-courts-placate">summary</a> of “the growing deference to Islam in Europe’s courtrooms,” citing evidence of a most disturbing, if ludicrous, nature, “in the Netherlands, the bar association is leading the way to mollify Islamists.”</p>
<p>But there is a redeeming irony tunneling its way through these proceedings. You are in a win-win situation. A victory in court means you have been vindicated. A negative verdict also works in your favor, for a jail cell would give you an effective podium, though I doubt you would malinger there for long. It would then become glaringly obvious that your accusers are a pack of <em>soi-disant</em> anti-Dreyfusards, Vichy-type sellouts, cowards and hypocrites, and public demonstrations against your captors would be sure to follow. They are the ones in a self-inflicted bind, not you. Moreover, it is already common knowledge that your judges have substantially curtailed the number of expert witnesses you have called and are deliberating behind closed doors. Oddly enough, a bad day in court may translate into a good day at the polls. Indeed, according to some <a href="http://countercultureconservative.wordpress.com/2010/03/05/prime-minister-geert-wilders/">electoral prognostications</a>, you may shortly find yourself the prime minister of your country.</p>
<p>The cake appears ready for the oven. If all goes well, the next election may actually install you in the seat of power or, failing that, position you as a power broker. You have only to keep on being yourself and, of course, you need to stay alive. You have the courage and outspokenness of your murdered fellow Amsterdammers, <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1971462.stm">Pym Fortuyn</a> and <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3974179.stm">Theo van Gogh</a>, but you also have what they did not, 24/7 protection. And, to reiterate, you are not alone. A growing company of the likeminded stand behind you. One way or another, you cannot lose, at least not in the Netherlands.</p>
<p>So in conclusion, as the current idiom enjoins: Go for it!</p>
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		<title>Faith in Open Borders</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/mark-d-tooley/faith-in-open-borders/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=faith-in-open-borders</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/mark-d-tooley/faith-in-open-borders/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 11 Mar 2010 05:03:54 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Mark D. Tooley]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[The religious Left prays for amnesty and a borderless America. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Carcano.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-53993" title="Carcano" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Carcano.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="326" /></a></p>
<p>Joining with groups like ACORN, a wide coalition of Religious Left groups will march on Washington, D.C. on March 21 on behalf of eventual amnesty and largely open borders under the rubric of Comprehensive Immigration Reform (CIR).  The National Council of Churches (NCC) is even hailing CIR as a &#8220;divine mandate&#8221; and a &#8220;patriotic act.”</p>
<p>At least the NCC is acknowledging patriotism is a virtue of sorts. New York Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer is touting CIR, but no one believes it legislatively stands any chance in this year’s U.S. Congress.  Maybe the Religious Left is praying for a divine miracle to enact its dream of a borderless America.   The rally is titled “March For America: Change Takes Courage and Faith.”  Once again, the Religious Left is exploiting “faith” to advance and echo the secular Left’s hard core agenda.  Its irate activists will gather on the U.S. Capitol’s West Lawn to insist that God opposes well regulated borders for the U.S.</p>
<p>“We hope to show the moral urgency of repairing America’s broken immigration system,” explained an immigration spokesman for the National Council of Churches and its relief arm, Church World Service.  “It will be demonstrated in a dramatic display of unity among supporters of comprehensive immigration reform – people of faith, immigrant rights groups, labor groups, and others from all across the United States.” Reputedly, church immigration activists have already been “hosting prayer vigils and potluck suppers and meeting with members of Congress in their home districts for months,” laying the spiritual and political groundwork for the March 21 march on Washington. “&#8221;Help us keep this momentum by joining us for this great action in Washington,&#8221; he further implored.</p>
<p>United Methodist, Episcopal, and Presbyterian agencies, the National Council of Churches, Jim Wallis Sojourners types, the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), and left-wing Catholic orders are endorsing the march. Phoenix United Methodist Bishop Minerva Carcano will provide oratory to help to rev up the marchers, as will Sharon Watkins, President of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). “The event is expected to draw a crowd of 100,000 or more, including many evangelicals who have been inspired by the NAE’s resolution on immigration,” boasted the NAE’s website.  “This is a critical moment in the struggle for immigration reform this year.”</p>
<p>But the march’s co-sponsor is the decidedly less religious “Reform Immigration for America,” whose members include ACORN, CodePink, National Council of LaRaza, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, and People for the American Way, among many others, including labor groups, like the AFL-CIO.  Plus, of course, the Council on American Islamic Relations and Muslim Public Affairs Council are signed on.  The church groups are specifically urging support for Illinois Democratic Congressman <a href="http://grades.betterimmigration.com/testgrades.php3?District=IL04&amp;VIPID=267" target="_blank">Rep. Luis Gutierrez’s</a> Comprehensive Immigration Reform for America&#8217;s Security and Prosperity Act.</p>
<p>In their further attempt to camouflage a liberalized immigration political stance as a religious imperative, the National Council of Churches is asking its 35 member denominations to exploit the Christian pre-Easter season of Lent to mobilize for the Gutierrez CIR legislation.  This exploitation of a traditional time of prayer and self-denial, in memory of Christ’s suffering, for fairly crass political purposes is not new for the NCC.  Infamously, the NCC similarly exploited Lent in 1995 to rally churches against the new Republican Congress’ “Contract with America,” which of course the NCC saw as an assault on the Gospel.  The NCC even asked churches to display purple ribbons during Holy Week in solidarity with Clinton Administration resistance.</p>
<p>This time, in a February 2010 letter from the NCC’s General Secretary, and other liberal prelates, including the Episcopal Church’s Presiding Bishop, the Religious Leftists are citing Lent as the perfect season for immigration lobbying.  “As Christian leaders, we write to you on the eve of our shared Lenten journey about an issue of urgent concern to all of us in this nation:  Comprehensive Immigration Reform.”  They complain that “12 million immigrants living in the United States find themselves without the hope of becoming citizens, reuniting with family members or enjoying the legal protections that most of us take for granted,” without specifically admitting that these persons entered the U.S. illegally.  The NCC warned: “Unless there are major policy changes enacted by the U.S. Congress, many of these people will continue to languish in the shadows and be subjected to abuse, discrimination and hardships that are contrary to the Gospel values of love, unity and the affirmation of the dignity of all people.”</p>
<p>According to the NCC et. al., lobbying for CIR reminds is that “our interrelatedness and interdependence with every child of God, and are called not only to come to the aid of one another, but are commanded to rise to support those who are marginalized in our society.”   Apparently God’s support for CIR is very clear.  “In response to this divine mandate, and as a patriotic act in the spirit of our nation’s best values and traditions, we join together with our brothers and sisters from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, National Association of Evangelicals, National Hispanic Leadership Conference and millions of other people of faith throughout the country in calling for comprehensive immigration reform that will improve and protect the lives of millions of people, in accordance with the U.S. Constitution and international agreements.”</p>
<p>Of course, the NCC and crowd are unclear, or unconcerned, about how liberalized immigration and eventual amnesty will affect America’s unemployed, how it will affect millions of legal immigrants, how it will affect overall law enforcement, how it will affect countless millions overseas who endure persecution or greater poverty than most Mexican or Central American illegals but lack the ability to walk across the border, and how a virtually open border only undermines attempts at economic and political reforms south of America’s borders.</p>
<p>Most important, neither traditional Christian nor Jewish teaching specifically offers a political immigration policy.  Divine commands for fairness and justice do not automatically equal liberalized immigration, any more than they equate to socialized medicine, global warming alarmism, or American disarmament.   But the Religious Left, uncomfortable with the theology and moral teachings of its own traditions, prefers the supposed clarity and liberation of left-wing activism.</p>
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