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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; memorial</title>
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		<title>Dept. of Ed. Supports Classroom Memorials to Michael Brown</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/mark-tapson/dept-of-ed-supports-classroom-memorials-to-michael-brown/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=dept-of-ed-supports-classroom-memorials-to-michael-brown</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/mark-tapson/dept-of-ed-supports-classroom-memorials-to-michael-brown/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 05 Dec 2014 05:39:02 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Mark Tapson]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Department of Education]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[memorial]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Michael Brown]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[school]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Teaching for Change]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=246747</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Lynch mob justice trumps education.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/53f7dd490fbb5.preview-620.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-246748" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/53f7dd490fbb5.preview-620-436x350.jpg" alt="53f7dd490fbb5.preview-620" width="283" height="227" /></a>If you are mystified as to why the left strives so hard to make martyrs out of such unlikely role models as Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin, both killed in self-defense, just keep in mind Rahm Emanuel’s credo: “Never let a serious crisis go to waste.”</p>
<p>Within days of the shooting of Brown in August, a “Professor of Science and Education” named Christopher Emdin posted (and then updated in October) a piece for <i>Huffington Post</i> entitled “<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christopher-emdin/5-ways-to-teach-about-michael-brown-and-ferguson-in-the-new-school-year_b_5690171.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">5 Ways to Teach About Michael Brown and Ferguson in the New School Year</span></a>.” That article was given new life when a link to it was <a href="https://twitter.com/AfAmEducation/status/538433447945961473"><span style="color: #0433ff;">tweeted</span></a> by the White House Am-Af Ed just after Thanksgiving. It included the acronym for “in case you missed it” – indicating that the administration thought the article’s content important and valid enough to bring to people’s attention once again.</p>
<p>What is <a href="http://www.ed.gov/edblogs/whieeaa/about-us/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Am-Af Ed</span></a>? It is the U.S. Department of Education’s Initiative on Educational Excellence for African Americans, an Obama creation designed to improve educational opportunities for blacks in America. But of course, educational excellence doesn’t mean the same thing to the Alinsky protégés in the White House as it does to most Americans. To the radical left, education is about mobilizing, galvanizing, and deploying armies of social justice warriors.</p>
<p>The Am-Af Ed tweet also included Twitter links to: left-leaning PBS; Teaching for Change, whose motto is “Building Social Justice Starting in the Classroom”; and <a href="http://www.rethinkingschools.org/index.shtml"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Rethinking Schools</span></a>, whose mission is “social justice teaching and education activism… to build broad democratic movements for social and environmental justice.” See a pattern developing there?</p>
<p>Teaching for Change devotes an entire page to “<a href="http://www.teachingforchange.org/teaching-about-ferguson"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Teaching About Ferguson</span></a>” to help indoctrinators – I mean, educators – enable students to “be proactive in their own communities” – because apparently it’s less important to give students of color an education than it is to pump them up for community action. The page is replete with items about the history of racism in America, along with positive references to Malcolm X, radical historian Howard Zinn, and the Black Panthers. That would be the same Black Panthers whose recent plot to bomb the Gateway Arch and murder the Ferguson police chief and a St. Louis prosecutor was stalled because <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2014/11/27/two-black-panther-members-unable-to-buy-bombs-because-ebt-card-didnt-have-enough-money/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">the racist thugs ran out of EBT credit</span></a>. What a standard for academic excellence they set.</p>
<p>Emdin’s <i>Huffington Post</i> piece urges that educators “set the appropriate tone for the school year” by focusing on “events and issues that mean something to students,” especially “youth of color” – by which he means the Michael Brown shooting and what he calls “the recent events in Ferguson.” Those “events” now have expanded beyond Ferguson and include rioting, burning, looting, and murdering, and the <a href="http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/11/29/absolutely-terrified-young-christmas-carolers-burst-into-tears-as-michael-brown-protesters-surround-them-shut-down-show/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">harassment</span></a> of Christmas-caroling children for good measure. It is “imperative that teachers find a way to bring this issue into the classroom,” he writes, otherwise “we are loosing [sic] opportunities to make powerful connections” – because successful community organizing depends on ramping up racial grievances and victimhood. Never mind the powerful connections that a good education would instill in students’ minds.</p>
<p>His 5 steps to not letting this crisis go to waste begin with asking students what they have heard or know about Brown and Ferguson. From there the indoctrinators – oops, there I go again – are to connect the Brown shooting to other, similar controversial black deaths such as those of Trayvon Martin and Eric Garner, to make students “more sociopolitically aware” and to develop “emotional awareness, empathy, and other skills necessary to be informed citizens.” Actually, emotional awareness, whatever that is, and empathy are unnecessary to be an informed citizen; they are, however, necessary in order for youth to be manipulated by progressive race-mongers into believing that <i>feeling</i> trumps <i>facts</i>.</p>
<p>Third, Emdin recommends that students “write letters to all those who are involved in the shooting. This includes politicians, police officers, the families of victims of the violence, and even the deceased.” This apparently helps “students lean [sic] how to write while conveying emotion” – because again, emphasizing emotion is a critical element in community organizing. And while the students devote all this time to writing emotionally-charged letters to everyone involved in a case in which the evidence supports the white officer’s story and demolishes the racially self-serving lies initially spread about the shooting, the rest of their education languishes on the sidelines.</p>
<p>Emdin’s fourth proposal would ordinarily beggar belief, except that by now, nothing that emerges from leftist propagandizing in the American educational system should surprise anyone. He recommends that students <i>create a memorial to Brown</i> on a classroom bulletin board, to “honor Michael Brown and other people who have been victims of police and other violence.” That’s an actual memorial to a man who <i>initiated</i> violence against a cop after strong-arming a local storekeeper in the commission of a crime. That is the man that Emdin and the Department of Education want to hold up as an inspiration to youth of color. This, Emdin claims, helps teachers to “<i>form classroom solidarity</i>” [emphasis added] – because classroom solidarity, and not the development of individual critical thinking skills, is crucial to “rethinking schools.”</p>
<p>Finally, Emdin wants teachers to “carry the theme for the rest of the year” to get the students “beyond meaningless assignments like writing and talking about what they did over the summer&#8230; [They] begin to see the classroom as a space where the teaching affects real life, and where assignments have meaning” – because without the transformative goal of racial payback and social justice, readin’, writin’, and ‘rithmetic obviously have no real life applications.</p>
<p>Are such recommendations really ways in which Af-Am Ed intends to produce educational excellence in students of color? For all of Christopher Emdin’s lip service to the “critical thinking skills” he claims his plan promotes, it will produce not academic excellence but more dumbed-down youth animated by racial anger – just the way the Alinsky protégés want it.</p>
<p>*</p>
<p><em>Don&#8217;t miss Shillman Journalism Fellow <strong>Mark Tapson</strong> on the <strong>Glazov Gang</strong> discussing<strong> Fighting the Culture War</strong>:</em></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/v5gR4E5UPB8" width="460" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></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>
<p><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://horowitzfreedomcenter.us1.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=caa6f67f1482e6214d83be62d&amp;id=c761755bdf" target="_blank"><b>Subscribe</b></a><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;"> to Frontpage&#8217;s TV show, <i>The Glazov Gang</i>, and </strong><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang" target="_blank"><b>LIKE</b></a><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;"> it on </strong><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang" target="_blank"><b>Facebook.</b></a></p>
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		<item>
		<title>9/11 and the Fog of Denial</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/robert-spencer/911-and-the-fog-of-denial/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=911-and-the-fog-of-denial</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 11 Sep 2014 04:58:25 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Robert Spencer]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[9/11]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[anniversary]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ISIS]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jihad]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[memorial]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[PC]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Peace]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=240722</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Today's reminder of the heavy price we pay when our leaders succumb to delusions on Islam.  ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Screen-Shot-2014-09-10-at-6.29.46-PM.png"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-240725" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Screen-Shot-2014-09-10-at-6.29.46-PM-450x340.png" alt="9/11" width="295" height="223" /></a>Thirteen years after 9/11, there is one thing that virtually all our politicians, law enforcement officials, and mainstream media guardians of opinion know: that attack had nothing whatsoever to do with Islam, and neither does any other jihad terror attack, anywhere, no matter how often its perpetrators quote the Qur’an and invoke Muhammad. Islam, we’re told again and again, is a good, benign thing – indeed, a positive force for societies, and to be encouraged in the West. Jihad terror is an aberration, an outrage against the Religion of Peace’s peaceful teachings. These lessons from our betters are coming more and more often in light of the advent of the Islamic State.</p>
<p>The caliph Ibrahim, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10939235/Rome-will-be-conquered-next-says-leader-of-Islamic-State.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">has a PhD in Islamic Studies</span></a>. But Barack Obama <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/transcript-president-obamas-remarks-on-the-execution-of-journalist-james-foley-by-islamic-state/2014/08/20/f5a63802-2884-11e4-8593-da634b334390_story.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">is unimpressed with his Islamic erudition</span></a>: “ISIL speaks for no religion. Their victims are overwhelmingly Muslim, and no faith teaches people to massacre innocents.” State Department spokesperson Marie Harf <a href="http://cnsnews.com/news/article/brittany-m-hughes/state-dept-beheading-us-journalist-not-about-united-states"><span style="color: #0433ff;">emphasized</span></a> that Obama meant what he said: “ISIL does not operate in the name of any religion. The president has been very clear about that, and the more we can underscore that, the better.”</p>
<p>Secretary of State <a href="http://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2014/09/231377.htm"><span style="color: #0433ff;">John Kerry</span></a> said that for some members of the international coalition he hopes to build against the Islamic State, joining it “will mean demolishing the distortion of one of the world’s great peaceful religions.”</p>
<p>British Prime Minister David Cameron <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/11038121/David-Cameron-Isil-poses-a-direct-and-deadly-threat-to-Britain.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">chimed in</span></a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>What we are witnessing is actually a battle between Islam on the one hand and extremists who want to abuse Islam on the other. These extremists, often funded by fanatics living far away from the battlefields, pervert the Islamic faith as a way of justifying their warped and barbaric ideology – and they do so not just in Iraq and Syria but right across the world, from Boko Haram and al-Shabaab to the Taliban and al-Qaeda.</p></blockquote>
<p>Where is “Islam” actually battling these “extremists who want to abuse Islam”? Cameron didn’t say.</p>
<p>Showing as much grasp of the situation as Kerry, British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond <a href="http://www.channel4.com/news/iraq-philip-hammond-james-foley-beheading-isis-is-isil"><span style="color: #0433ff;">declared</span></a>: “Isil’s so-called caliphate has no moral legitimacy; it is a regime of torture, arbitrary punishment and murder that goes against the most basic beliefs of Islam.” On the opposite side of the aisle, Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/killing-of-james-foley-an-utter-betrayal-of-britain--foreign-secretary-philip-hammond-9687959.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">complained</span></a> that Islamic State “extremists are beheading people and parading their heads on spikes, subjugating women and girls, killing Muslims, Christians and anyone who gets in their way. This is no liberation movement — only a perverted, oppressive ideology that bears no relation to Islam.”</p>
<p>Unfortunately, for every Islamic State atrocity she enumerated, there is Qur’anic sanction:</p>
<p>Beheading people: “When you meet the unbelievers, strike the necks…” (Qur’an 47:4).</p>
<p>Subjugating women and girls: “Men have authority over women because Allah has made the one superior to the other, and because they spend their wealth to maintain them. Good women are obedient. They guard their unseen parts because Allah has guarded them. As for those from whom you fear disobedience, admonish them and send them to beds apart and beat them” (Qur’an 4:34).</p>
<p>Killing Muslims: “They wish that you reject Faith, as they have rejected (Faith), and thus that you all become equal (like one another). So take not Auliya’ (protectors or friends) from them, till they emigrate in the Way of Allah (to Muhammad SAW). But if they turn back (from Islam), take (hold) of them and kill them wherever you find them, and take neither Auliya’ (protectors or friends) nor helpers from them” (Qur’an 4:89).</p>
<p>Killing Christians: “Fight those who believe not in God nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by God and His Apostle, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued” (Qur’an 9:29).</p>
<p>Even if the Islamic State is misinterpreting or misunderstanding these verses, it is doing so in a way that accords with their obvious literal meaning. That should, at very least, lead to a public discussion about the possibility of Islamic reform, what is being taught in mosques in the West, and related issues. But such a discussion is not forthcoming; it would be “Islamophobic.”</p>
<p>And why does it matter, anyway? Why does it make any difference whether or not what the Islamic State is doing is in accord with Islamic texts and teachings?</p>
<p>It matters for many reasons. Aside from all the vague condemnations of the Islamic State that American Muslim groups have issued, how closely the Islamic State actually hews to the letter of Islamic law will help determine how much support it will ultimately get from Muslims worldwide. Two American Muslims have already been killed fighting for it; how many more will there be? Only by examining the Islamic State’s actions in light of an honest assessment of Islamic teachings will we be able to estimate to what extent we can expect to see its actions replicated by other Muslims elsewhere.</p>
<p>These dismissals of the Islamic State’s Islam, of course, are designed to assure us that we need not have any concerns about massive rates of Muslim immigration and the Muslims already living among us. One problem with this is that it prevents authorities from calling upon Muslim communities to teach against the doctrines that the Islamic State acts upon, and to work for genuine reform. And so the door remains open to the possibility that the actions of the Islamic State <i>could</i> be repeated in Western countries.</p>
<p>Barack Obama, David Cameron and the rest would do far better to confront the Islamic State’s Islamic justifications for its actions and call on Muslims in the U.S., the U.K. and elsewhere to teach against these understandings of Islam that they ostensibly reject. But they never do that, and apparently have no interest in doing it. Instead, they foster complacency among the people of the West. For doing so, they may never pay a price, but their people will almost certainly have to pay, and pay dearly.</p>
<p><span style="color: #0433ff;"><a href="http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/two-men-face-terror-charges-as-police-raid-islamic-book-store-at-logan/story-fnihsrf2-1227053771259?nk=1c1ce3e56ea095ea4048bcf141edc942">On Wednesday</a></span>, Australian police raided an Islamic bookstore and arrested two Muslims on terror charges relating to their activities in recruiting Muslims for the jihad in Syria. Australian Federal Police National Manager Counter Terrorism Assistant Commissioner Neil Gaughan insisted: “This has got nothing to do with Islam, this is criminal behaviour by Australians involved in terrorist activity.&#8221;</p>
<p>Gaughan could have uttered the epitaph of the West: “This has nothing to do with Islam.” As the jihadist’s knife slices through their necks, Western officials like him will use their dying breaths to gasp it out one more time: “This has nothing to do with Islam.”</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>Saluting Barry Rubin</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/davidhornik/saluting-barry-rubin/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=saluting-barry-rubin</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/davidhornik/saluting-barry-rubin/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 05 Feb 2014 05:45:17 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[P. David Hornik]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[America’s Middle East studies establishment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Barry Rubin]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[memorial]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Middle East]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tel Aviv]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=217996</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A protean intellectual and loyal son of Israel.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/barry-rubin.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-217997" alt="barry-rubin" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/barry-rubin.jpg" width="280" height="200" /></a>On a night a few years ago, I sat by my computer well past the witching hour, emailing rapidly and copiously with Barry Rubin. The subject was a couple of American Jewish “peace” organizations and what could be done to counteract them, to expose their ignorance and dangerous folly.</span></p>
<p>I finally—I think it was getting on toward two—had to type, “Barry, got to close up shop” or something in that vein. I’m not, as Barry was, a person of infinite energy and if I don’t get my five hours (preferably more) of sleep, I feel lousy and sub-par the next day. For Barry, the hour was not an issue. We were discussing something potentially important, something that might help Israel, the Jewish people, and truth, and when it came to that—and a lot of other matters—his energy was boundless.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Barry Rubin, the American Israeli scholar and commentator who died in Tel Aviv this week at 64, published close to 20 books in his lifetime on subjects running from Egypt, Turkey, Syria, and Iran to anti-Americanism to Jewish dilemmas in the modern era—and much else, and two more books are forthcoming. He was also director of an Israeli research institute, editor of two scholarly journals (one on the Middle East, one on Turkey), Middle East editor of PJ Media—and again, much else as well.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">By which I mean that, in recent years in particular, Barry Rubin was simply the most prolific writer of high-quality articles I was aware of in the world. If you were among the many thousands of people on his email list, you received—on almost every single day of the year—at least two, often three articles by him, lively, brilliant, and insightful, mostly on the Middle East but ranging widely into other topics as well. Reading all of them, for me at least, was impossible, but so was knowing which ones to pick, since they were uniformly excellent and worthwhile.</span></p>
<p data-tabpoints="[{&quot;id&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;point&quot;:&quot;2.0833333333333335in&quot;,&quot;leader&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;align&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}]"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">And to that one has to add still more—his constant vivacity on Facebook. I would stare in disbelief, not comprehending how he had time for <em>this</em>, too. Posting, drawing large numbers of comments, responding to the comments, and—my impression was that this was just about what he loved best—sharing his knowledge and insights with whoever wanted to look beyond the headlines, clichés, and distortions and get some real understanding of Israel and the Middle East.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Barry Rubin was a cosmopolitan intellectual who had, at the same time, a pure and total loyalty to the Jewish people and Israel. Though never considering himself a conservative, not enamored of settlements, not opposed in principle to a Palestinian state, he moved toward positions associated with the Israeli right because he knew the deeply troubled Middle East so well and refused to entertain illusions about it. He cared about Israel and truth, not about having an identity as a writer and thinker that may have been more comfortable and more propitious for him.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Things would be a lot better if there were more like him.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">My last communication from him came a little less than a year ago. Having seen an article of mine in a personal vein, not at all related to Israel, the Middle East, or larger issues in the political sphere, he emailed me: “Absolutely magnificent and moving. Thanks.”  </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">It’s something to treasure, a token of his huge generosity and connectedness to others.</span></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>Veterans Break the Obama Blockade</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/matthew-vadum/veterans-break-the-obama-blockade/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=veterans-break-the-obama-blockade</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 14 Oct 2013 04:55:17 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Matthew Vadum]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[barricade]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[memorial]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Protest]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[veterans]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=207350</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[There's only so much of the president's pettiness Americans can tolerate.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/VETMARCH0171381683911.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-207351" alt="VETMARCH0171381683911" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/VETMARCH0171381683911-450x271.jpg" width="270" height="163" /></a>Thousands of World War Two veterans fed up with President Obama&#8217;s needlessly cruel closure of national shrines in order to put pressure on his political enemies, yesterday stormed the cordoned-off open-air Washington, D.C., memorial that was created to honor them.</span></b></p>
<p>In a touching moment that ought to warm every red-blooded patriots&#8217; heart, nonviolent protesters <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/10/13/vets-march-on-washington-roll-into-wwii-memorial-protest-outside-white-house/">removed</a> barricades on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., erected by the National Park Service to keep veterans and other members of the public from enjoying the National World War Two memorial that was built with private funding.</p>
<p>In the middle of the day veterans carried some of the &#8220;barrycades,&#8221; or &#8220;barackcades,&#8221; as some are calling the metal hurdles used as barriers, a few blocks away to the White House to register their disgust with the petty-tyrant ways of President Obama.</p>
<p>Although many of the flag-carrying veterans were octogenarians who came to the demonstration in wheelchairs, they were met with a massive show of force by baton-wielding local police.</p>
<p>This was quite unlike the treatment afforded left-wing pro-immigration amnesty protesters whose demonstration on the National Mall last week authorities bent over backwards to accommodate. Police even let the activists erect a stage in the area that was supposed to be off-limits to the general public.</p>
<p>In an incident staged for the media, eight socialist pro-open borders members of the U.S. House of Representatives acted out last week in order to make police arrest them for disorderly conduct. Democratic lawmakers arrested included the usual suspects such as Islamist ally Keith Ellison (Minn.), Jan Schakowsky (Ill.), Charles Rangel (N.Y.), and John Lewis (Ga.).</p>
<p>After police massed Sunday to intimidate the assembled veterans, actor James Woods seemed to speak for normal Americans who are aghast at Obama&#8217;s tactics as he does</p>
<p>petty, irritating things like shutting down national parks, scenic lookouts on highways, and bicycle paths in order to rankle voters in the hope they&#8217;ll project blame for the ongoing government shutdown onto Republicans.</p>
<p>Woods tweeted sarcastically, &#8220;Thank God we have baton wielding riot police to protect us from 85 [year] old vets in wheelchairs. Thanks, Mr. Obama.&#8221;</p>
<p>Some prominent Republicans showed up at the protest to address the crowd.</p>
<p>“This is the people&#8217;s memorial,” said Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas). “Simple question: Why is the federal government spending money to keep veterans out of the memorial? Why did they spend money to keep people out of Mount Vernon, Mount Rushmore? Our veterans should be above political games.”</p>
<p>Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said veterans won&#8217;t be bullied into silence.</p>
<p>“Veterans have proven they are not timid. And we will not be timid in calling out anybody that uses the military as pawns,” Palin said. “We can only be America, home of the free, if we are America, home of the brave.”</p>
<p>Protesters chanting “U-S-A.” and “Tear down these walls” denounced Obama and Democratic congressional leaders.</p>
<p>“In a mean-spirited fit of selfish anger, Barack Obama has shut down our nation’s war memorials,” the organizers of the rally said in a statement.</p>
<p>“And he has declared open war on our honored veterans. The World War II memorial, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the Korean War Veterans Memorial, Obama has shut them all down to force his will on the House of Representatives and, frankly, to get revenge on the American people who oppose ObamaCare and his other naked power grabs.”</p>
<p>One speaker urged <a href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/2013/10/speaker-at-dc-veterans-rally-calls-on-obama-to-put-the-quran-down.html">urged</a> President Obama to &#8220;put the Koran down.&#8221; While politically incorrect, the comment isn&#8217;t entirely off the mark given how Barack Hussein Obama has gone out of his way to accommodate and help advance Islamic theocratic totalitarianism, even aiding the terrorist group al-Qaeda that killed almost 3,000 Americans on Sept. 11, 2001.</p>
<p>Almost on cue, CNN tried <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2013/10/13/CNN-derides-million-vet-march">to portray</a> the veterans as kooks and fringe-dwelling lunatics and downplayed the size of the veterans&#8217; gathering. The cable TV network&#8217;s website reported:</p>
<p>&#8220;The rally, billed as the &#8216;Million Vet March on the Memorials,&#8217; drew far fewer than a million people and evolved into a protest that resembled familiar tea party events from 2009, with yellow &#8216;Don&#8217;t Tread On Me&#8217; flags throughout the crowd and strong anti-Obama language from the podium and the audience.&#8221;</p>
<p>CNN focused on misbehaving people in the crowd, noting one protester shouted that Obama was a &#8220;punk&#8221; and that several carried &#8220;Impeach Obama&#8221; signs. Another sign that seemed to be directed toward Republicans, read &#8220;You can&#8217;t be a conservative and a pussy too.&#8221;</p>
<p>As Ben Shapiro observed, &#8220;CNN never covered Occupy Wall Street or the &#8216;Million Muslim March&#8217; on September 11 in such fashion.&#8221;</p>
<p>Shapiro is right.</p>
<p>And during the ongoing shutdown saga, there was no media outrage when Obama likened Republicans to arsonists, falsely claiming GOP lawmakers were unwilling to compromise with his side on funding the federal government.</p>
<p>It is unreasonable, Obama lectured, for Republicans to say, “If you don’t give me the price, I’m going to burn down your house.”</p>
<p>There was no media outrage when Obama mouthpiece Dan Pfeiffer called Republicans suicide bombers and compared them to arsonists and kidnappers.</p>
<p>“We are for cutting spending, we are for reforming our tax code, we are for reforming entitlements,” Pfeiffer said. “But what we are not for is negotiating with people who have a bomb strapped to their chest.”</p>
<p>There was no media outrage when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/harry-reid-government-shutdown-obamacare-delay-repeal-medical-tax-2013-9">smeared</a> Tea Party movement supporters, calling them &#8220;anarchists.&#8221;</p>
<p>There was no media outrage when Rep. David Scott (D-Ga.) called Republicans traitors. &#8220;Your hate for this president is coming before the love of this country because if you love this country you would not be closing it down,&#8221; he said.</p>
<p>In the age of Obama, accusing Republicans &#8211;especially Tea Party supporters&#8211; of being violent sociopaths is a standard leftist smear. Tea Party rallies are orderly and peaceful, filled with decent, honest, hard-working Americans who pick up the trash.</p>
<p>By contrast, when the public defecators that constitute today&#8217;s Left get together people get mugged, murdered, and raped, as Occupy Wall Street showed the nation as it rapidly transformed protest sites into biohazardous disaster areas.</p>
<p>Yet the good guys on the side of limited government and fiscal responsibility get labeled &#8220;terrorists.&#8221; Why?</p>
<p>Because the Tea Party, the right-wing populist movement sparked by Obama&#8217;s various transgressions, is an existential threat to the Left, so leftists are throwing every chunk of mud they can find.</p>
<p>To emotion-driven left-wingers, successful Republican tactics are by definition <i>unfair</i>. If the tactics are particularly effective, the progressive mind labels them <i>terrorism</i>.</p>
<p><i>Rules for Radicals</i> author Saul Alinsky recognized this human foible to which leftists are particularly susceptible in his <a href="http://matthewvadum.blogspot.com/p/saul-alinskys-24-rules-for-radicals.html">ninth rule</a> of “the ethics of means and ends”: “[A]ny effective means is automatically judged by the opposition as being unethical.&#8221;</p>
<p>Obama&#8217;s serial shutdowns of public facilities is called the &#8220;Washington Monument Strategy.&#8221; The theory is that such minor annoyances amplify the consequences of budget cuts, or in this case, of the government shutdown. The goal is to force congressional Republicans to surrender their principles and agree to fund Obamacare and raise the national debt ceiling &#8212; and in the process look wimpy and lose the support of their grassroots.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Obama has tendered <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2451626/Arlington-graves-stripped-personal-momentoes-controversial-clean-up.html">yet another insult</a> to America&#8217;s veterans and fallen military heroes. Arlington National Cemetery has been removing mementos such as photos and notes placed on the gravestones of more than 800 soldiers killed serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.</p>
<p>Even our war dead can&#8217;t escape politics during Obama&#8217;s presidency.</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>Elderly Veterans Feel Obama&#8217;s Wrath</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/matthew-vadum/elderly-veterans-feel-obamas-wrath/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=elderly-veterans-feel-obamas-wrath</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 03 Oct 2013 04:45:50 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Matthew Vadum]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Government]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[memorial]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[national park]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[shutdown]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[world war ii]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[The president's twisted ploy to turn the shutdown battle in his favor. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/523420289.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-206122" alt="523420289" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/523420289-438x350.jpg" width="263" height="210" /></a>President Obama&#8217;s Machiavellian drive to hurt and irritate Americans to win the budget fight kicked into high gear this week as jackbooted police refused to allow World War II veterans to make a pilgrimage to the open-air Washington, D.C., memorial that was created to honor them.</span></b></p>
<p>As a whiff of fascism blows through the nation&#8217;s capital, the president is demonstrating to the whole world how revoltingly out-of-control the hyper-bloated U.S. government is. Obama is doing petty, irritating things like needlessly shutting down national parks in order to rankle voters in the hope they&#8217;ll blame Republicans for the ongoing government shutdown. Liberals, in typical fashion, predict apocalypse because of the shutdown. In reality, Americans are barely noticing that Uncle Sam is taking a nap.</p>
<p>Around two dozen members of Congress, including Rep. Louis Gohmert (R-Texas), have been ignoring the guards and conducting their own tours of the National World War Two Memorial on the National Mall. They&#8217;ve been leading the &#8220;Honor Flight&#8221; veterans around the barriers now popularly called &#8220;barrycades&#8221; to show them the national shrine that honors them for their service. Many of the veterans are making these trips for the first time but they are so advanced in age it may also be their last visit to the site.</p>
<p>The National Park Service claims the memorial and the entire National Mall area had to be closed because of the ongoing government shutdown.</p>
<p>In reality, it&#8217;s a case of the eminently impeachable President Obama punishing the American people, sadistically causing them pain for no reason other than to get them mad at his political enemies.</p>
<p>Blogger Doug Ross <a href="http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2013/10/quite-possibly-saddest-photo-ive-ever.html?m=1">deconstructs</a> Obama&#8217;s nonsense, likening the president &#8220;to a petulant six-year old throwing a temper tantrum when he doesn&#8217;t get his own way.&#8221;</p>
<p>Obama has &#8220;intentionally shut the door on veterans visiting &#8212; for perhaps the last time in their lives &#8212; under the &#8216;Honor Flight&#8217; program,&#8221; Ross writes. &#8220;Now, for those who aren&#8217;t aware, this memorial is in an open-air park, it was paid for with private funds, and it is unattended. According to its website, it is open to the public 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.&#8221;</p>
<p>Obama, who can barely conceal his white-hot hatred of the military, has also ordered that veterans entering the grounds be arrested.</p>
<p>Good-government group, Judicial Watch, Ross notes, &#8220;filed a Freedom of Information Act request to get to the bottom of this outrageous act on the part of an administration that is completely out of control. Governor Sarah Palin also called for civil disobedience.&#8221;</p>
<p>President Obama&#8217;s favorite union, Service Employees International Union (SEIU), sent an ACORN-style rent-a-mob to the World War II memorial to intimidate the elderly veterans who risked their lives for their country.</p>
<p>As Patrick Poole <a href="http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2013/10/02/exclusive-video-mcdonalds-employee-admits-being-paid-15-to-protest-ww2-veterans/">reports</a> at PJ Media, around &#8220;20 SEIU protesters arrived on the scene chanting &#8216;Boehner get us back to work&#8217; and claiming they were federal employees furloughed because of the shutdown.&#8221;</p>
<p>The protesters refused to provide proof they actually worked for the federal government. One of the protesters admitted he was paid $15 to show up and protest.</p>
<p>That wasn&#8217;t the only federal landmark President Obama has targeted across America.</p>
<p>As Lachlan Markay of the Washingon Free Beacon reports, the National Park Service <a href="http://freebeacon.com/shutdown-theater/">shuttered</a> a Virginia tourist attraction &#8211;its first closure to the public in 40 years&#8211; that happens to be located on federal land, even though Uncle Sam does not financially contribute to its maintenance or operation.</p>
<p>Anna Eberly, managing director of the Claude Moore Colonial Farm, said yesterday that NPS ordered the historical-reenactment site to close until Congress begins funding the federal government again. Law enforcement agents marched staff and volunteers from the property on Tuesday, she said.</p>
<p>“You do have to wonder about the wisdom of an organization that would use staff they don’t have the money to pay to evict visitors from a park site that operates without costing them any money,” Eberly said.</p>
<p>“In all the years I have worked with the National Park Service … I have never worked with a more arrogant, arbitrary and vindictive group representing the NPS,” Eberly said.</p>
<p>The farm begged the Obama administration to let it continue to operate. “Every appeal our Board of Directors made to the NPS administration was denied,” she said, referring to their repeated refusals as “utter crap.”</p>
<p>“We have operated the Farm successfully for 32 years after the NPS cut the Farm from its budget in 1980 and are fully staffed and prepared to open today. But there are barricades at the Pavilions and entrance to the Farm,” she said.</p>
<p>Closing the farm is part of the Obama administration&#8217;s drive to use taxpayers and tourists as political pawns in a propaganda maneuver aimed at expanding the size and scope of government.</p>
<p>This approach is called the &#8220;Washington Monument Strategy.&#8221; The theory is that such minor annoyances amplify the consequences of budget cuts, or in this case, of the government shutdown. The goal is to force congressional Republicans to surrender their principles and agree to fund Obamacare &#8212; and in the process look wimpy and lose the support of their grassroots.</p>
<p>The Washington Monument Strategy just as easily fits into the world of community organizing. Anyone familiar with the methods of modern-day leftist agitators could have seen all of this coming.</p>
<p><i>Rules for Radicals</i> author Saul Alinsky taught that the community organizer’s first job is “community disorganization” by which he meant the manufacture of crises designed to inflame the community. The organizer must “create the issues or problems.” He must “rub raw the resentments of the people of the community” and “fan the latent hostilities of many of the people to the point of overt expression.”</p>
<p>The organizer must “agitate to the point of conflict” because without friction and controversy “people are not concerned enough to act.” Having harangued the community out of its feelings of complacency, the organizer then directs its rage at specific targets and scapegoats, providing “a channel into which the people can angrily pour their frustrations.”</p>
<p>Obama is on a drive to turn America into a one-party state so naturally his wrath is directed at Republicans. The GOP makes for an easy target because Obama knows the mainstream media won&#8217;t blame him for anything bad that happens no matter how painfully obvious his culpability may be. Useful left-wing idiots including NBC&#8217;s David Gregory, MSNBC&#8217;s Chris Matthews, British expellee and disgraced yellow journalist Piers Morgan of CNN, and all-around fraud Paul Krugman of the <i>New York Times</i> have been parroting around the clock the party line that the shutdown is wholly the fault of Republicans.</p>
<p>Republicans themselves are far from united. Many Republicans are haunted by an inordinate fear of being blamed for the shutdown. Discussions of strategy and tactics between these tormented souls nowadays are like episodes of <i>Seinfeld</i>, filled with invented, silly rules and extended debate about the niceties and interstices of etiquette.</p>
<p>They also ignore the fact that congressional Republicans won the shutdown battle with President Clinton in 1995. Contrary to media myth, the Republicans in that conflict got largely what they wanted and did fine in the following congressional election, even gaining Senate seats.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the ever-fearful Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) may already be preparing to cave in after only a few days of pressure. There has been talk that GOP leadership will soon use the shutdown conflict as cover to force the unpopular immigration amnesty through Congress.</p>
<p>Alarmingly, Robert Costa of National Review Online <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/360234/boehner-gop-grand-bargain-works-robert-costa">reports</a> that Boehner &#8220;wants to craft a &#8216;grand bargain&#8217; on fiscal issues as part of the debt-limit deliberations, and during a series of meetings on Wednesday, he urged colleagues to stick with him.&#8221;</p>
<blockquote><p>The revelation came quietly. Boehner called groups of members to his Capitol office all day, taking their temperature on the shutdown and the debt limit. It became clear, members say, that Boehner’s chief goal is conference unity as the debt limit nears, and he’s looking at potentially blending a government-spending deal and debt-limit agreement into a larger budget package.</p></blockquote>
<p>“&#8217;It’s the return of the grand bargain,&#8217; says one House Republican, who requested anonymity to speak freely. &#8216;There weren’t a lot of specifics discussed, and the meetings were mostly about just checking in. But he’s looking hard at the debt limit as a place where we can do something big.&#8217;”</p>
<p>Boehner spokesman Michael Steel refused to shed much light on the situation. “The speaker has always said we’ll need substantial spending cuts and reforms in order to raise the debt limit, like in the debt-limit bill we’ve been discussing, but let’s drop the phrase ‘grand bargain.’ Right now, there’s nothing grand, and there’s no one to bargain with.”</p>
<p>There may, however, be some cause for optimism.</p>
<p>Yesterday Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus offered to have the RNC pay all costs associated with keeping the memorial open.</p>
<p>It was a move of unusual courage and brilliance for the RNC and it may signal that the GOP&#8217;s resolve to dig in and fight against the horrendous, nation-destroying program that is Obamacare is stiffening.</p>
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		<title>The Next Generation Searches for Answers for 9/11</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/david-paulin/the-next-generation-searches-for-answers-for-911/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-next-generation-searches-for-answers-for-911</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 12 Sep 2013 04:20:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[David Paulin]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[9/11]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Children]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[memorial]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[parents]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terrorism]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[What one memorial tells us about the children of the fallen.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/111229095637-9-11-memorial-story-top.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-203722" alt="111229095637-9-11-memorial-story-top" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/111229095637-9-11-memorial-story-top-450x319.jpg" width="315" height="223" /></a>It&#8217;s been a heartbreaking scene at 9/11 ceremonies in recent years: children honoring mothers or fathers they can&#8217;t remember – yet desperately want to know.</p>
<p>Emma Kathryn Hunt is one of them. On Tuesday, she attended a 9/11 ceremony at Sherwood Island State Park in Westport, Connecticut &#8212; near where hundreds of horrified onlookers gathered 12 years ago and watched smoke billow from the Twin Towers, some 50 miles away.</p>
<p>Emma, a middle-school student, joined her mother, grandparents and hundreds of others at the state park, the site of a 9/11 memorial that includes 154 stone plaques on the manicured grounds. Each bears the name of a 9/11 victim who had ties to Connecticut. One is Emma&#8217;s father, <a href="http://www.legacy.com/sept11/Story.aspx?PersonID=103350">William Christopher Hunt</a>. Emma was 15 months old when her dad died with nearly 3,000 others at the World Trade Center. A 32-year-old vice president of Eurobrokers, he had worked on 84th floor of the South Tower.</p>
<p>&#8220;What do I remember about my dad? Nothing. Absolutely nothing,&#8221; Emma told a reporter covering the event. Even so, Emma said that when she goes to bed at night, she gazes at a photo of her dad and herself taken on her first birthday. “It&#8217;s on my bedside table. It&#8217;s the last thing I look at night. And I tell him, &#8216;Good night, daddy. I love you. I love you always.&#8217;&#8221;</p>
<p>She explained, &#8220;Everything I know about my dad I know because someone in my family tells me things about him. Mostly, it&#8217;s my grandma. She tells me stories about him when he was a kid. Or how I&#8217;m like him. But I don&#8217;t really know, because I can&#8217;t remember him.&#8221;</p>
<p>Emma remained composed during the first part of Tuesday&#8217;s ceremony, according to Marian Gail Brown&#8217;s <a href="http://www.westport-news.com/news/article/Tears-remembrance-for-state-s-9-11-victims-4803596.php">article</a> in the Westport News. Emma, Brown wrote, “tucked her bright orange-red hair away from her freckled face&#8221; as she listened to each speaker: Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, Lt. Gov. Nancy Wyman, and a local minister and rabbi. But “then came the reading of the names of the 161 victims of 9/11 with Connecticut connections in alphabetical order. &#8216;Laurence Abel&#8217;&#8230; &#8216;Allen Patrick Boyle&#8217;&#8230;&#8217;Sandra Campbell&#8217;&#8230;&#8217;Judith Florence Hofmiller&#8217;&#8230;Emma grabbed her mother by the knee and squeezed. Two more names before the 71st name. Emma leaned into her mom. Her shoulders shook. &#8216;William Christopher Hunt.&#8217; Her body convulsed. And the tears poured out. Her mom rubbed her back and pulled her adolescent half-girl, half-woman body toward her, whispering to Emma.”</p>
<p>As heartbreaking as that moment was, it wasn&#8217;t as heartbreaking as other things that Emma revealed; specifically, that her teachers don&#8217;t talk much about 9/11. Emma, however, said she wishes they did discuss the terror attack &#8211; even though she worries about what might be said about why her father died.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s a troubling revelation. Does she perhaps worry she might be taught the version of 9/11 told by the anti-American left by people like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ward_Churchill_September_11_attacks_essay_controversy">Ward Churchill</a>, the former ethnic studies professor who infamously called people like Emma&#8217;s father “little Eichmanns”? That characterization delighted the left, whose members believed that America got what it deserved on 9/11 because of the evils it had visited on foreign lands.</p>
<p>Emma is perhaps too young to learn about the nuances of why they hate us; yet her question goes to the heart of the matter: “I&#8217;d like someone to really, really explain why this happened.”</p>
<p>Why hasn&#8217;t anybody told her?</p>
<p>Connecticut’s 9/11 ceremony was indeed sad &#8212; though not in the way that those who didn&#8217;t talk to Emma might have thought.</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>More Than a Memorial Day</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/lloyd-billingsley/more-than-a-memorial-day/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=more-than-a-memorial-day</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/lloyd-billingsley/more-than-a-memorial-day/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 11 Sep 2013 04:16:34 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Lloyd Billingsley]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[9/11]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Government]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jihad]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[memorial]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terrorism]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=203719</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Why we should demand more from the political class on the anniversary of 9/11.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Twin_Towers-NYC.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-203778" alt="Twin_Towers-NYC" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Twin_Towers-NYC-434x350.jpg" width="260" height="210" /></a>September 11 is more than a memorial day for the thousands who perished, including a friend of this writer, a passenger on American Airlines flight 77, the Pentagon plane. Potential victims might also observe what has <i>not</i> happened on September 11 in the following 12 years.</p>
<p>Given the magnitude of the attacks, American leaders would have been justified in using the anniversary to launch major strikes on terrorists and their national sponsors, a target-rich environment. While the United States held back, terrorists did not hesitate to exploit the anniversary of their greatest victory.</p>
<p>During 2012 Islamists prepared an attack on U.S. diplomats in Libya, where the United States had helped overthrow Muammar Qaddafi. The terrorists cleverly front-loaded a story that this was all part of widespread protests against an Internet movie trailer about Mohammed. On September 11, 2012, the Islamists attacked the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, killing four Americans, including ambassador Christopher Stevens.</p>
<p>No U.S. forces rushed to the rescue or mounted a retaliatory attack. Beyond that abandonment, the President of the United States, Barack Obama, the most powerful man in the world, and his entire administration, parroted the propaganda about a movie protest. Only later, when the evidence could not be denied, did the administration concede that terrorism was involved.</p>
<p>No president had ever done anything remotely comparable, and it emboldened terrorists worldwide. That’s why terrorists, and terrorist states such as Iran, can be expected to strike hard while this man remains in power. As Rudolf Giuliani, major of New York during 9/11, noted in recent testimony, <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/lloyd-billingsley/tsarnaev-hasan-and-deadly-political-correctness/">“you can’t fight an enemy you don’t acknowledge.”</a> For Obama, the problem does not stem from Islam but “Islamophobia,” i.e. anything that is less than worshipful of the stereotype that Islam is a “religion of peace.”</p>
<p>That’s why the nation stands in more peril now than it did on September 11, 2001. But potential victims should not forget the troubling realities that made the original attack possible. Consider, for example, the ease of entry for terrorists.</p>
<p>Not a single one of the perpetrators, Saudi nationals, should have been admitted to the United States. Aside from red flags about their backgrounds, their <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=130051&amp;page=1">visa applications were “incomplete and often incomprehensible.”</a> But 15 got their U.S. visas, including Mohamed Atta, who listed his U.S. destination as “Hotel.” Once stateside, Atta and others moved on to flight school, skipping the classes on landing.</p>
<p>As Lawrence Wright observed in <i>The Looming Tower</i>: <i>Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11</i>, U.S. officials knew something was afoot but bureaucracies such as the CIA and FBI, always protective of their own turf, were not talking to each other. The U.S. military was not prepared to deal with attackers using commercial aircraft, and had no rules of engagement. So the terrorists were able to pull off the biggest aerial attack on the United States since Pearl Harbor. Only the heroism of passengers aboard United Airlines flight 93 prevented a direct hit on the White House or Capitol building.</p>
<p>The United States later made some headway against the Taliban, but did not close the deal on Bin Laden, who escaped to Pakistan. The American focus then shifted from Afghanistan to Iraq, and terrorists could not help but notice that the domestic response was highly bureaucratic.</p>
<p>The nation created the Department of Homeland Security, a massive new federal agency. The federal government also deployed the Transportation Security Administration, an army of new federal employees, to shake down citizens at airports and transportation hubs. Government became bigger, clumsier and more expensive, and life more unpleasant for ordinary citizens – though not necessarily more secure. The TSA could not prevent shoe and underwear bombers from boarding flights, and it was only a matter of luck that they did not succeed.</p>
<p>U.S. borders remain porous, and criminals <a href="http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/california-has-a-drug-boat-problem">land boats with human cargo on California’s central coast</a> with the greatest of ease. And in some ways the nation is still holding the door open. The Tsarnaev brothers, for example, found it easy to gain asylum in the United States, despite warnings from Russian intelligence. For its part, the massive 16-agency U.S. “intelligence community,” with a budget of some $50 billion, could not prevent the Boston Marathon attacks.</p>
<p>U.S. intelligence was aware that Maj. Nidal Hasan, an open jihadist, was emailing terrorist <i>capo</i> Anwar al-Awlaki about killing American soldiers. But U.S. officials did nothing to prevent Hasan from killing 13 at Fort Hood, more victims than the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993. The government called this “workplace violence,” which as Rudy Giuliani testified is both preposterous and dangerous.</p>
<p>Absurd denial, government obesity, bureaucratic bungling and blatant passivity all make for conditions more dangerous than 2001. Those who want to be the next president should start charting the changes they would make. Whoever gains the White House in 2016 should consider making every September 11 a more pro-active day.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
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		<title>$#!+ Biden Says</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/bosch-fawstin/biden-says/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=biden-says</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/bosch-fawstin/biden-says/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 25 Apr 2013 04:00:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Bosch Fawstin]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Cartoon Corner]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[biden]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[bombing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Boston]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[marathon]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[memorial]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[speech]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=187050</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Biden, the Stupidiot of the United States of America.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>I think Obama appointed Joke Biden to be his Vice President because he knew he would never challenge him &amp; he could carry out Obama&#8217;s destructive plans, by accident if necessary. Not to mention the fact that Biden makes Obama feel smart.</p>
<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/bosch-fawstin/s-pelosi-says/">Here</a> was my $#!+ Pelosi Says cartoon.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Biden-Says-small.jpg"><img class=" wp-image-187056 aligncenter" alt="Biden-Says-small" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Biden-Says-small.jpg" width="600" height="816" /></a></p>
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		<title>Britain Remembers Its &#8216;Finest Hour&#8217;</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/mark-d-tooley/britain-remembers-its-finest-hour/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=britain-remembers-its-finest-hour</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/mark-d-tooley/britain-remembers-its-finest-hour/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 14 Sep 2012 04:04:55 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Mark D. Tooley]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Allied Forces]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hitler]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John Sentamu]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[memorial]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Winston Churchill]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[world war ii]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=144025</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Ugandan-born Archbishop of York displays touching patriotism.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/John-Sentamu_1544394c.gif"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-144047" title="John-Sentamu_1544394c" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/John-Sentamu_1544394c.gif" alt="" width="375" height="254" /></a>Seventieth anniversary celebrations of various World War II anniversaries continue to slip by in what is maybe the last time that large numbers of veterans from that conflict will be able to participate.  Most of our current global struggles pale in scale and in importance next to the last world war, which killed over 50 million, and on whose outcome rested the fate of decent civilization.</p>
<p>Often enthralled by pacifism, many of today’s Western clergy prefer not to remember that war too closely. Otherwise they would have to explain how peaceful resistance to Hitler and Tojo would have looked, or justify non-violently standing by as millions of innocents were incinerated.  They are also loath to honor military valor or patriotic zeal, which they often regard as idolatrous.</p>
<p>A notable exception to this reluctance is the Church of England’s Archbishop of York, John Sentamu.  Himself native to Uganda, he is usually un-intimidated by the demands of political correctness and often bold in affirming Western and British culture.  He often honours Britain’s military veterans, especially from World War II, which Churchill rightly recalled as his nation’s “finest hour” when standing alone against Nazi Germany.  Sentamu’s father served in the King’s African Rifles, as did his uncle, who died fighting the Japanese in Burma.</p>
<p>Last Sunday, Archbishop Sentamu observed a military procession and presided over worship at Allied Forces Memorial Day, marking the 70<sup>th</sup> anniversary of the Royal Air Force’s Bomber Command in Elvington, which had housed both RAF bombers and the Free French Air Force.  A military band performed “When the Saints Go Marching In.”  He was joined by a dozen elderly veterans of the original 77 Squadron, who were the first RAF group stationed at the base.  During 18 months the squadron lost 600 men.</p>
<p>“The service took place in the hangar, where guests were surrounded by aircraft, which was a fitting tribute to the men who fought and died in the fight against tyranny,” explained a spokesman for the Yorkshire Air Museum, which organizes the annual commemoration, and one of whose vice presidents is Sentamu.  Other vice presidents include the chiefs of the RAF and the French Air Force.</p>
<p>Before the event, Archbishop Sentamu explained:  “It’s wonderful to be back at Elvington to remember the important contribution and sacrifice made by Allied Air Forces during the Second World War. We are reminded of the heroic personal struggles of those who worked together to combat evil during this time in our history. We are in their debt. It is right that our service on Sunday will remember the brave and those who made the ultimate sacrifice.  In Churchill’s words: ’Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.’”</p>
<p>Archbishop Sentamu presided over stirring English hymns like “I Vow to Thee My Country” during the worship. “We are reminded of the heroic personal struggles of those who worked together to combat evil during this time in our history,” he preached. “We are in their debt. It is right that the service today remembers the brave and those who made the ultimate sacrifice.”  Afterwards there were also flyovers by the RAF’s vintage Lancaster Bomber, Spitfire and Vulcan, which once flew missions over Nazi occupied Europe, targeting the German war machine.</p>
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		<title>Getting Over 9/11</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/mark-tapson/getting-over-911/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=getting-over-911</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/mark-tapson/getting-over-911/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 11 Sep 2012 04:51:36 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Mark Tapson]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[9/11]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[al Qaeda]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jihad]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[memorial]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terrorism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Victims]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=143501</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Behind the "Day of Service" rebranding of the fateful day. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/mayhome615x380.gif"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-143592" title="mayhome615x380" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/mayhome615x380.gif" alt="" width="375" height="253" /></a>Eleven years ago, nineteen fanatical Muslims turned hijacked aircraft carrying hundreds of terrified passengers into missiles targeting symbols of American economic might. Nearly 3000 innocents died horribly that day, including hundreds of courageous, selfless first responders making a superhuman effort to rescue their fellow citizens. And for years, when the anniversary of that day rolls around, <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/09/2011910125513799497.html">progressives</a> and their <a href="http://www.theblaze.com/stories/cair-america-needs-to-move-on-from-911-attacks/">Islamic allies</a> have been rolling their eyes and urging Americans to “get over it.”</p>
<p>They’re weary of being bummed out by reminders of 9/11. They wish we’d forgive and forget that it happened. Stop bringing it up and “<a href="http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=harsh%20my%20buzz">harshing their buzz</a>.” Move on, move forward. Some of those people simply don’t grasp that we must not forget because we are still at war with the enemy that attacked us that morning; the rest are very much aware that we <em>are</em> still at war, and they want us to forget because they are <em>siding</em> with that enemy.</p>
<p>It may seem impossible for many to believe that that morning could be forgotten – just as it once seemed impossible to believe that our government could erase words like “jihad” and “Islamist” from our national security lexicon, preventing us from even naming or describing the enemy; or that our government could deem a terror attack on our own soil to be “<a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/12/06/military-growing-terrorist-target-lawmakers-warn/">workplace violence</a>” and whitewash it of its Islamic motivation; or that an American President could <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-cairo-university-6-04-09">announce</a> that one of his duties was to “fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear”; or that he could proclaim us one of the world&#8217;s largest Muslim countries.</p>
<p>President Obama signed a <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/09/07/presidential-proclamation-national-days-prayer-and-remembrance-2012">proclamation</a> last week designating Friday, September 7 through Sunday, September 9, 2012 National Days of Prayer and Remembrance. “Those who attacked us sought to deprive our Nation of the very ideals for which we stand,” the proclamation states. He is referring to al Qaeda, but the <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6386">Muslim Brotherhood</a> too seeks to deprive us of our ideals. The Brotherhood seeks the end of a free, capitalist, democratic America no less than al Qaeda does. And yet the President has literally invited them into our White House and has supported them in Egypt throughout the Arab Spring, including a $1 billion aid package to the new Egyptian regime.</p>
<p>So September 7-9 are National Days of Prayer and Remembrance. What about 9/11 itself? In a quiet, seemingly innocuous gesture three years ago, President Obama <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/President-Obama-Unveils-United-We-Serve-Calls-on-All-Americans-to-Commit-to-Meaningful-Volunteer-Service-in-Their-Daily-Lives/">designated 9/11</a> as “The National Day of Service and Remembrance.” But the “Remembrance” part seems to be an afterthought, because the idea was to get Americans to “engage in meaningful <em>service</em> to create change&#8230; in four key areas”: education, health, energy/environment and community renewal. None of those seems to have anything to do with honoring 9/11, but that was the point: Muslim-American playwright Wajahat Ali (and one of the writers behind the <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=977">Soros</a>-funded “<a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2011/mark-tapson/smear-inc-silencing-the-critics-of-islamic-supremacism/">Fear, Inc.</a>” report that smeared anti-jihadists as Islamophobic bigots) <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wajahat-ali/the-redefining-of-muslim_b_271863.html">wrote</a> in the <em>Huffington Post</em> at that time that “we are trying to move away from focusing on 9/11 as a day of horror, and instead make it a day to recommit ourselves to national service.”</p>
<p>Why? Because in order for Islamists and the radical left to advance their agenda of dismantling American exceptionalism and recasting America as the villain in our history books, they need Americans to put 9/11 behind us, let the victims slip from our memories, ignore that we are still at war with an enemy that danced in the streets to celebrate the attacks, and turn a blind eye to the fact that our civilization is under assault by a subversive <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Stealth-Jihad-Radical-Subverting-America/dp/B005CDV22U/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1347251793&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=stealth+jihad">stealth jihad</a>.</p>
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		<title>Trashing New York&#8217;s September 11 Memorial</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/bruce-bawer/trashing-new-yorks-september-11-memorial/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=trashing-new-yorks-september-11-memorial</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/bruce-bawer/trashing-new-yorks-september-11-memorial/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 07 Sep 2012 04:40:49 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Bruce Bawer]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[9/11]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jihad]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[memorial]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terrorism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[tourist]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[vandalize]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[world trade center]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=142891</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Do you know what your children are being taught about 9/11? ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/IMG_2245.gif"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-142959" title="IMG_2245" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/IMG_2245.gif" alt="" width="375" height="265" /></a>It wasn&#8217;t a big deal – but it was a small sign that time moves on.</p>
<p>The other day I went online to buy airline tickets.  I looked at several websites, typed in the dates on which I wanted to fly, found the cheapest available fare, booked it, scribbled down the flight information, printed out the travel documents, made notes on my calendar, and then resumed my work.  Not until a few hours later did I glance at the printout and realize that my departure date was September 11 – the eleventh anniversary of 9/11.</p>
<p>Yes, I&#8217;d known throughout my ticket-booking procedure that the date was September 11, but somehow it hadn&#8217;t registered in my mind as <em>September</em> <em>11. </em>All along, I&#8217;d thought of it as if it were, well, just another date.</p>
<p>I was stunned by this, and a little – or maybe more than a little – saddened.  I was immediately put in mind of Wordsworth&#8217;s sonnet “Surprised by Joy,” in which the poet, after a long period of mourning for his young daughter, is appalled to catch himself experiencing pleasure and even forgetting, for a moment, that his beloved little girl is dead.  “Through what power, / Even for the least division of an hour,” he wonders, “Have I been so beguiled as to be blind / To my most grievous loss?”</p>
<p>It was not ever thus.  A year or two after 9/11, I happened to fly on September 11, and was intensely aware of the date from the moment I booked it – not worried about a repeat, but very mindful of the monstrous, previously unimaginable chain of events on that world-changing day that had begun with ordinary people boarding airplanes.  But now – well – time has done its work.  Does my unexpected forgetfulness have anything to do with the fact that the the number of years between that terrible day and now has ticked into the double digits?</p>
<p>The passage of time would appear to have had other consequences.  In June, a <em>New York Daily News </em><a href="http://articles.nydailynews.com/2012-06-24/news/32385218_1_group-of-brooklyn-students-terror-attacks-kids">headline</a> blared: “School kids trash 9/11 memorial.”  A group of middle-schoolers from Brooklyn, it appeared, had been thrown out of the memorial at the site of the Twin Towers in downtown Manhattan after being caught tossing empty soda bottles and other rubbish into the fountains.  It wasn&#8217;t an isolated incident.  The other day, the <em>New York Post </em><a href="http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/it_play_ground_zero_now_qAzM19XpnqwuoAbdwOmC9J%20%20%20">reported</a> that many “first responders and victims&#8217; families” are “appalled” by the conduct of some visitors to the memorial – not just kids, but grown-ups – who reportedly act as if they&#8217;re at a “Disney attraction.”  These visitors, most of them apparently tourists from out of town, laugh, take pictures, consume food and beverages, let their toddlers sit on the plaques bearing the names of the dead, and generally behave as if they&#8217;re at a Fourth of July picnic.</p>
<p>One reason for this behavior is, presumably, time&#8217;s passage – for most, the wound is no longer as sore as it was.  Another reasons is that the signals are not entirely clear as to what exactly this place downtown is: <em>is </em>it intended to be a park of sorts, where most of this kind of activity (though certainly not the littering) is acceptable, or is it more like the U.S.S. <em>Arizona</em> memorial at Pearl Harbor, where, as the <em>Post </em>points out, “visitors are shown a video explaining the significance of the site before entering” and a sign reads: “Please conduct yourself with dignity and respect at all times. Remember this is hallowed ground.”  According to the <em>Post, </em>visitors to the <em>Arizona </em>site actually do obey the video and signs, exhibiting suitable respect for the dead.</p>
<p>This last is actually pretty impressive, given that millions of members of the present generation of young American adults weren&#8217;t brought up with any manners whatsoever, let alone anything remotely resembling a concept of solemnity or <em>gravitas, </em>and certainly haven&#8217;t raised their own kids to know how to behave appropriately in various situations<em>.</em>  (One of the guilty Brooklyn kids told the <em>Daily News, </em>apropos of his and his pals&#8217; use of the memorial fountains as a garbage dump:<em> </em>“No one was disrespecting&#8230;.No one was being serious. Everyone was kind of bored and it was just something to do.”)  Still, the anecdotal evidence from the <em>Arizona </em>would seem to suggest that if you give people a clear and forceful indication of what kind of conduct is expected of them, most of those who aren&#8217;t totally lacking in couth will be, more or less, cooperative.  One problem with the 9/11 memorial is that it&#8217;s not an old-fashioned monument like, say, the Lincoln Memorial, where the temple-like architecture, the imposing sculpture of the Great Emancipator, and the noble words carved into the marble all clue visitors into the fact that this is, indeed, no amusement park.  Postmodern monument design tends to be more ambiguous: the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Denkmal_f%C3%BCr_die_ermordeten_Juden_Europas_.jpg">Holocaust memorial</a> in Berlin, completed in 2005, consists of hundreds of concrete blocks of varying heights which suggest, on the one hand, gravestones, and, on the other, benches.  Every time I&#8217;ve walked past it, I&#8217;ve seen adults sitting on the stones and children running among them.  Once or twice, around sunset, I&#8217;ve seen young couples making out.  The atmosphere is always one of play, never solemnity.  Such may also be the fate of the 9/11 memorial.</p>
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		<title>What is Memorial Day?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/paul-vallely/what-is-memorial-day/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=what-is-memorial-day</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/paul-vallely/what-is-memorial-day/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 31 May 2010 04:14:02 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Paul Vallely]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=61461</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Remembering our heroes' ultimate sacrifice.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/mem.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-61542" title="mem" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/mem.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="266" /></a></p>
<p>Memorial Day is a great and wonderful way to remember our patriotic heroes who sacrificed their lives to help us breathe the air of freedom. This day is observed with families and friends visiting cemeteries and memorials to pay homage to their loved and forgotten ones.</p>
<p>“Your silent tents of green<br />
We deck with fragrant flowers;<br />
Yours has the suffering been,<br />
The memory shall be ours.”<br />
–Henry Wadsworth Longfellow</p>
<p>Memorial Day was first celebrated on May 30, 1868. It was observed by placing flowers on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers during the first national celebration. Gen. James Garfield made a speech at Arlington National Cemetery, after which around 5,000 participants helped to decorate the graves of the more than 20,000 Union and Confederate soldiers who were buried there.</p>
<p>Three years after the Civil War ended, on May 5, 1868, the head of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) established Decoration Day as a time for the nation to decorate the graves of the war dead with flowers. Maj. Gen. John A. Logan declared that Decoration Day should be observed on May 30. This date was chosen because flowers would be in bloom all over the country.</p>
<p>The alternative name of “Memorial Day” was first used in 1882. It did not become more common until after World War II, and was not declared the official name by Federal law until 1967. On June 28, 1968, the United States Congress passed the Uniform Holidays Bill, which moved three holidays from their traditional dates to a specified Monday in order to create a convenient three-day weekend. The holidays included Washington’s Birthday, now celebrated as Presidents’ Day; Veterans Day and Memorial Day. The change moved Memorial Day from its traditional May 30 date to the last Monday in May. The law took effect at the federal level in 1971.</p>
<p>Red Poppies are a tradition inspired by a poem in 1915, &#8220;In Flanders Fields,&#8221; Moina Michael replied with her own poem:</p>
<p>We cherish too, the Poppy red<br />
That grows on fields where valor led,<br />
It seems to signal to the skies<br />
That blood of heroes never dies.</p>
<p>Memorial Day is a day of remembrance of those who have died serving our country. I tear at the sound of “Taps” played at ceremonies on Memorial Day. &#8220;We come, not to mourn our dead soldiers, but to praise them.&#8221; &#8211;Francis A. Walker.</p>
<p>It is the VETERAN, not the preacher, who has given us freedom of religion.<br />
It is the VETERAN, not the reporter, who has given us freedom of the press.<br />
It is the VETERAN, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech.<br />
It is the VETERAN, not the campus organizer, who has given us freedom to assemble.<br />
It is the VETERAN, not the lawyer, who has given us the right to a fair trial.<br />
It is the VETERAN, not the politician, Who has given us the right to vote.</p>
<p>I will tear up as well. We will be with our son, Scott, at his gravesite in Bigfork, Montana in memory of his service to our country.</p>
<p>Have a fun, safe, and memorable Memorial Day.</p>
<p>God Bless America and our great United States.</p>
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		<title>A Memorial to the Victims of Communism</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/barbara-kay/a-memorial-to-the-victims-of-communism/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=a-memorial-to-the-victims-of-communism</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/barbara-kay/a-memorial-to-the-victims-of-communism/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 18 Mar 2010 04:04:06 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Barbara Kay]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=54921</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A long-sought monument in Canada will thankfully soon be completed.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<div id="TixyyLink">
<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/gulagwire.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-54922" title="gulagwire" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/gulagwire.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="313" /></a></p>
<p><strong>[This article is reprinted from the <a href="http://www.nationalpost.com/">National Post</a>]</strong></p>
<p>In 1968, naive anti-establishment American and Canadian students considered  themselves courageous for locking supine university presidents in their offices,  throwing computers out of windows and even burning out-of-favour academics’  research work. They knew that in the free, indulgent West, their childish parody  of a revolution would result in nothing more than a suspension from their  studies.</p>
<p>In the same year truly courageous Moscow academic <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2010/03/11/remembering-a-dissident/">Yuri Glazo</a>v signed the  famous “letter of the twelve,” protesting illegal arrests and trials of  dissidents, knowing full well that this real act of revolution would result in a  suspension of his human rights.</p>
<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/dad2.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-54936" title="dad" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/dad2.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="281" /></a></p>
<p>Glazov was predictably fired, meaning he was henceforth unemployable and  deemed a “parasite” on the state. Warned by a friend, he narrowly avoided  imprisonment on a trumped-up narcotics-dealing charge. Finally, through a stroke  of luck, Glazov came with his family to the West, and in 1975 took up residence  in Halifax as chair of the Russian Studies department at Dalhousie University, a  position he held until shortly before his death in 1998.</p>
<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/leaving21.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-54937" title="leaving2" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/leaving21.jpg" alt="" width="450" height="288" /></a></p>
<p><strong>[Yuri Glazov's family shortly before departure from Russia. From left to right: son Greg, Yuri, daughter Elena, wife Marina and son Jamie.]</strong></p>
<p>An outstanding Canadian, Glazov deserves recognition, and so do many other  brave dissidents for whom Canada has been a refuge. Nine million Canadians —  that’s almost a third of us according to the 2006 census — came to these shores  from communist-ruled countries. Many are now dead or very old. Their descendants  deserve to see their sacrifices acknowledged and Canadians exposed to the full  panoply of communist atrocities.</p>
<p>Prospects for educating Canadians about the human toll exacted by communism  through their stories will brighten when a long-sought Ottawa Memorial to the  Victims of Totalitarian Communism is completed, a project singled out for  endorsement in the recent Throne Speech.</p>
<p>This memorial isn’t just a good idea, like an also-promised national  Holocaust memorial, it is a necessary idea.</p>
<p>The exhaustively researched Holocaust is in no danger of being forgotten. The  highest term of opprobrium in Western culture, whether from leftists or  rightists (rightly or wrongly) is “Nazi,” not “communist.” That’s not because  Nazis and communists have been compared and Nazis found to be worse. It’s  because people don’t know how bad communism was and is.</p>
<p>In 2006 the Swedish Ministry of Education initiated programs teaching the  crimes of communism because a poll had revealed only 10% of Swedish youth could  identify the Gulag. Canadian youth would not fare better. All educated Canadians  associate the word “Auschwitz” with “genocide.” The equally horrific “Holodomor”  is more likely to draw a blank stare.</p>
<p>Why has communism escaped the moral condemnation Nazism attracts in such  exuberant degree? In recent years several scholars have addressed the question  and provided a litany of reasons, amongst them:</p>
<p>z  Stalin was a war ally and therefore escaped the postwar censure he  deserved;</p>
<p>z  Only since the fall of the Berlin Wall has the most damaging data emerged;  by then witnesses were aging and focused on economic priorities;</p>
<p>z  There was no Nuremburg, no Truth and Reconciliation moment for communism  as there was for other genocidal regimes;</p>
<p>z  Communist propaganda machines are extremely efficient at positive branding  (Trudeau bought in; his fawning patronage of Fidel Castro was beyond  contemptible).</p>
<p>But all reasons pale beside the glaring failure of left-wing intellectuals to  admit — and to teach — that communism isn’t simply an unfortunate contingency of  socialist passion but an ideology as immoral and implacably ruthless and  dramatically consequential as Nazism.</p>
<p>Actually it is more than intellectuals’ failure, which suggests passivity; it  was, and is, active avoidance. Yuri Glazov was proud to become a Canadian  citizen, but was shocked and chagrined at the ignorance and even denial of  communism’s crimes he found amongst his fellow academics. As his son Jamie  Glazov noted in his 2009 book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/United-Hate-Romance-Tyranny-Terror/dp/1935071076">United in Hate: the Left’s Romance with Tyranny  and Terror</a>, “[W]hile we were cherishing our newfound freedom, we encountered &#8230;  intellectuals in the universities who hated my parents for the story they had to  tell &#8230;”</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">Left-wing intellectuals’ laundering of the truth about communism has  translated into a vast lacuna in the teaching of 20th century history in our  schools — one we can only hope the new memorial will help to fill.</p>
<p>The word “memorial” is somewhat misleading, though, suggesting that communism  is a closed historical chapter. The fall of the Berlin Wall notwithstanding,  communism in one guise or another still determines the fate of millions of  hapless people around the globe. Victims in communist regimes are still starved,  imprisoned, tortured and denied the most basic of human rights.</p>
<p>“Centre”? “Testament”? It is not too late to find a word to remind  communism’s ongoing victims that right-thinking Canadians know the truth and  will not abandon them.</p>
<p><strong>To learn more about Yuri Glazov and the Yuri Glazov Memorial Award, <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2010/03/11/remembering-a-dissident/">click here.</a></strong></p>
</div>
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		<title>Former Texas Rep. Charlie Wilson dies at 76 &#8211; washingtonpost.com</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jlaksin/former-texas-rep-charlie-wilson-dies-at-76-washingtonpost-com/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=former-texas-rep-charlie-wilson-dies-at-76-washingtonpost-com</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/jlaksin/former-texas-rep-charlie-wilson-dies-at-76-washingtonpost-com/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 10 Feb 2010 22:11:32 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jacob Laksin]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=49732</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[DALLAS &#8212; Charlie Wilson, the former congressman from Texas whose funding of Afghanistan&#38;apos;s resistance to the Soviet Union was chronicled in the movie &#8220;Charlie Wilson&#38;apos;s War,&#8221; died Wednesday. He was 76.Wilson died at Memorial Medical Center-Lufkin after he started having difficulty breathing while attending a meeting in the eastern Texas town where he lived, said [&#8230;]]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/10/AR2010021002564.html?hpid=topnews"><img src='http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/PH2010021002680.jpg' alt='' /></a></p>
<p>DALLAS &#8212; Charlie Wilson, the former congressman from Texas whose funding of Afghanistan&amp;apos;s resistance to the Soviet Union was chronicled in the movie &#8220;Charlie Wilson&amp;apos;s War,&#8221; died Wednesday. He was 76.Wilson died at Memorial Medical Center-Lufkin after he started having difficulty breathing while attending a meeting in the eastern Texas town where he lived, said hospital spokeswoman Yana Ogletree. Wilson was pronounced dead on arrival, and the preliminary cause of death was cardiopulmonary arrest, she said.Wilson represented the 2nd district in east Texas in the U.S. House from 1973 to 1996 and was known in Washington as &#8220;Good Time Charlie&#8221; for his reputation as a hard-drinking womanizer.Actor Tom Hanks portrayed Wilson in the 2007 movie about Wilson&amp;apos;s efforts to arm Afghani mujahedeen during Afghanistan&amp;apos;s war against the Soviet Union in the 1980s. Wilson, a member of the House Appropriations Committee, helped secure money for weapons.In 2007, Wilson had a heart transplant at a Houston hospital. Doctors had told Wilson, who suffered from cardiomyopathy, a disease that causes an enlarged and weakened heart, that he would likely die without a transplant.&#8221;Charlie was perfect as a congressman, perfect as a state representative, perfect as a state senator. He was a perfect reflection of the people he represented. If there was anything wrong with Charlie, I never did know what it was,&#8221; said Charles Schnabel Jr., who served for seven years as Wilson&amp;apos;s chief of staff in Washington and worked with Wilson when he served in the Texas Senate.</p>
<p>via <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/10/AR2010021002564.html?hpid=topnews">Former Texas Rep. Charlie Wilson dies at 76 &#8211; washingtonpost.com</a>.</p>
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		<title>A Memorial to Communism’s Victims &#8211; by Jamie Glazov</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2009/jamie-glazov/a-memorial-to-communism%e2%80%99s-victims-by-jamie-glazov/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=a-memorial-to-communism%25e2%2580%2599s-victims-by-jamie-glazov</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 15 Dec 2009 05:08:41 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Jamie Glazov]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[A new group seeks to build a monument in Ottawa, Canada.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong> </strong></p>
<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-41856" title="stalin_gulag" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/stalin_gulag.gif" alt="stalin_gulag" width="450" height="316" /></p>
<p>Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Alide Forstmanis, the chair of <a href="http://www.tributetoliberty.ca/" target="_blank">Tribute to Liberty</a>, a new organization based in Toronto that seeks to have a memorial built in Ottawa to the Victims of Communist Crimes, by November 2010.</p>
<p><strong>FP: </strong>Alide Forstmanis, welcome to Frontpage Interview.</p>
<p><strong>Forstmanis: </strong>Thank you, I am grateful to FPM for this opportunity to inform its readers about Tribute to Liberty.</p>
<p><strong>FP: </strong>Tell us about this memorial you are planning.</p>
<p><strong>Forstmanis: </strong>We want a memorial built in our nation&#8217;s capital Ottawa to the victims of communism, a commemoration to the more than 100 million who were subject to the denial of their fundamental rights and freedoms, to torture, to deprivation, and to murder.</p>
<p>We are doing our utmost to have it ready next year. You might ask, why the rush? It took 15 years to complete a similar monument in Washington DC. The answer is very practical: we do not have those years available here. The fact is that many of the Eastern European victims of communism have passed on and those who are still alive are getting very old. We would like as many as possible of them to have a chance to see the monument.  The 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall in November has re-inspired our cause.</p>
<p><strong>FP: </strong>What is your own personal background that explains your dedication to this issue?</p>
<p><strong>Forstmanis: </strong>Both my parents are Latvian, but I was lucky to grow up in Sweden. Almost all of our relatives stayed in Latvia and some were also sent to Siberia. Living in Sweden I envied those that had cousins or other relatives living nearby, as we were just the four of us &#8211; my parents, my brother and me. I missed growing up with an extended family. Although that family lived on the other side of the Baltic  Sea, only about 150 km away, it seemed very far, one could really sense a wall. I remember my parents listening to &#8220;Voice of America&#8221; and the other news sources that were being jammed by the Soviets – so our relatives in Latvia wouldn’t hear them. Our correspondence with Latvia was censured by the Soviets, and telephone calls were complicated to make, due to Soviet technical backwardness.  In sum, communication was difficult.</p>
<p>For us in Sweden, very little, if anything was taught in the Swedish schools about the Baltic  States, and to us it seemed as if to Sweden and the rest of the world these states hadn&#8217;t ever existed. Balts where often called &#8220;Russians&#8221;. And if you were not a Swedish citizen you were a &#8220;stateless Soviet Russian&#8221; citizen, and needed a visa to be able to travel internationally.</p>
<p>These experiences left me with a strong sense of my Latvian roots, and with a feeling of urgency to respond to what was going on. I then became involved in the Latvian communities in the various places I lived &#8211; Sweden, the UK, Germany and Canada &#8211; and I have seen the passion and conviction the survivors, including my parents, have had and the need they felt to inform the world about communism&#8217;s evils. The least I can do is try to get their suffering recognized here in Canada.</p>
<p><strong>FP: </strong>What is the importance of monuments such as these?</p>
<p><strong>Forstmanis: </strong>A monument like this will be a recognition by Canada of the determination of millions to come to a country like ours that celebrates liberty and opposes the oppression of totalitarian communism. This recognition will also help us remember the suffering that many of those Canadians endured, as well as the suffering of the millions who couldn’t come, and of the many millions that perished in the Gulag. Further it is also important for Canada&#8217;s future generations, to understand different Canadians&#8217; backgrounds and history and bring a better understanding of each other. This monument will hopefully generate curiosity about communist crimes and through studies teach Canadians to be aware of and vigilant about them, and of the capacity for such evil in the world when our liberties are not protected.<strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>FP: </strong>Why a memorial in Canada?</p>
<p><strong>Forstmanis: </strong>According to 2006 Census almost 9 million of Canada&#8217;s 33 million inhabitants come from either former or current communist led countries. This is close to a third of the Canadian population. That’s an incredible number of people who can establish some kind of personal connection to lives under communist regimes. By building this memorial, Canada will show that it recognizes these connections. It will also underscore the seriousness with which we take our freedoms, our democracy, and the rule of law we are privileged to have.<strong> </strong></p>
<p><strong>FP:</strong> Why do you think there is so much resistance in our society to talking/educating about the crimes of Communism?</p>
<p><strong>Forstmanis: </strong>The resistance has been there for a long time. Make no mistake: communist regimes have consistently been imperialistic, genocidal, brutal, murderous, aggressive, discriminatory, destructive, oppressive, cynical &#8211; there is no end to the negative descriptors that can be used. This has frightened both governments and ordinary citizens.</p>
<p>Many families in the west did not dare talk openly about their families in their homelands, because it could hurt them there. Fear is a great and often very understandable motivator. In addition, communist propaganda machines like that of the former Soviet Union have been incredibly efficient around the world at hiding the evils of communism and spreading myths about the good life offered under it.  Many in the west bought this rhetoric – naivety, duplicity, ignorance – who knows the reasons. Many still refuse to acknowledge the truth about communism. And then there are those that say such extreme oppression is dead and that these crimes happened a long time ago so why dwell on them.</p>
<p>Luckily, in the last 20 years, archives have opened up and truths have been revealed. We must continue to bring this evidence to light however, to educate people about the monumental human suffering of the last century.</p>
<p><strong>FP:</strong> How do you explain this monstrous evil of communism and how it has manifested itself &#8212; and continues to manifest itself? And even after massacring more than a hundred million people and causing unspeakable pain and suffering to millions of others, there are still myriads of believers. What are your thoughts on this phenomenon?</p>
<p><strong>Forstmanis:</strong> Communism has existed for well over a century as an ideology and still maintains significant power in some countries. Ideologies can keep hold for a very long time.   But many wonder why communism – which was in part the inspiration for Nazism, managed to survive its brutal offspring for so long.   I think part of the reason was that the West had to make the communists our allies in the Second World War.   This was a necessary evil at the time, but the result was that Stalin emerged largely unscathed from public criticism in the West.   This despite his horrific abuses – the Holodomor genocide of Ukrainians, the Katyn slaughter of Poland’s senior officer ranks and intellectuals, to name just a couple.</p>
<p>Add to that the naive romanticism associated with communists – the legacy of the fight in the Spanish civil war against the fascists, the popular portrayal of Castro and Che Guevera, the popular portrayal of Mao (despite incredible slaughter) and you see a kind of branding that is extraordinarily positive. Finally, when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, things begin to change, but people who had witnessed many of the worst horrors were older, and all were so focused on addressing economic anarchy that there simply wasn’t the kind of attention paid to the crimes of communism that there might have been otherwise.</p>
<p>There was no Nuremburg, there was no Truth and Reconciliation commission – that kind of public engagement still needs to occur. But when so many were caught up in the romanticism and are embarrassed by having to confront the realities, it makes it very hard to contemplate such engagement. After all, George Bernard Shaw himself denied the Ukrainian Holodomor – saying no famine was occurring.   So did New York Time journalist Walter Duranty. Such high profile endorsements are hard to ever shake free.</p>
<p>And then, recognize the continuing power of communism.   Speak to Chinese-Canadians about the fear – the still pervasive fear – about speaking out, when you have family and friends back home. Cuban Canadians understand it, so do Vietnamese, and Koreans and Tibetans. East Europeans understand constant fear of reprimand and reprisal – they all lived it.</p>
<p>So all of these factors combine to create an atmosphere where there is incredible ignorance. Here in Ontario the Ministry of Education decided to include teachings of genocide into its high school curriculum. They chose to include the Armenian and Rwandan genocides, ignoring the genocides communism has committed.</p>
<p>But things are starting to change. For example, in Sweden, the alliance government elected in 2006 is concerned about it. The Swedish minister of education has included teachings about communist crimes in his government declaration. This was done because a poll result a few years ago showed that only 10% of people aged ~15-25 knew about the Gulag.</p>
<p>I believe Hollywood has done a tremendous job in exposing and teaching about the Holocaust and its victims. It is time for Hollywood to make a few movies about life in the Gulag. It&#8217;s my understanding that there has been talk about making a film about the poisoned ex Soviet spy in London UK, however for some reason that production has come to a standstill, and the film might not be completed. I mentioned Shaw before.  Think about how many public figures were enamored with communism – the legacy of that remains hard to shake, and people are inclined to say oh why don’t we just move on. And today, when every one wants more trade with China, criticizing communism has economic consequences that many are afraid to deal with.</p>
<p><strong>FP:</strong> Is there any opposition to your efforts? The Left must not be very supportive.</p>
<p><strong>Forstmanis:</strong> We recently received approval from the National Capital Commission of both projects for the concept and its name. To our original title “Memorial to the Victims of Communism” we added the adjective Totalitarian, in response to an early concern by NCC officials that the title might target legitimate political views in support of a communist party. With this, the NCC officials took the proposal forward to their decision-making body for a monument.   That body agreed to the project in principle but still found objection to the revised name, arguing that it might offend communists, that it was not politically correct, and that it should mark all forms of oppression.</p>
<p>Needless to say this sparked derision when it got out. The media had a field day with it, and we think the NCC suddenly recognized how absurd their complaints were.   I don’t bear malice towards them: they like many others were oblivious – I go back to my earlier point about ignorance. We were able to convince the NCC that the scope and scale of abuse by communism – directly and indirectly against Canadians &#8211; was deserving of public memorial.   We agreed to an amended title of “Memorial to the Victims of Totalitarian Communism; Canada, A Land of Refuge”.</p>
<p>We have not encountered much other resistance. I would note that we have written endorsements from Members of Parliament in the Conservative Party, the Liberal Party, and the New Democratic Party. The Communist Party of Canada has written a letter to NCC asking them to reverse their decision, but this letter itself has sparked responses already – including a recent letter from the Vietnamese community. I can not imagine NCC reversing its decision.   When you think that approximately 25% of Canadians trace connections to countries currently or formerly under the fist of communism it is hard to imagine this memorial being rejected now.</p>
<p><strong>FP:</strong> What do you hope the monument will help achieve?</p>
<p><strong>Forstmanis:</strong> I hope it will give an incentive to people to explore and learn about communism. To see it for what it was and still is. It supposedly died 20 years ago for the West, although ByeloRussians will tell you that isn’t the case yet. And certainly its remaining outposts – particularly China – are not to be treated as of little consequence. There are several lessons I think.</p>
<p>First, that this was an extraordinarily evil ideology that took hold of incredibly large parts of the world and subjugated – and still subjugates – hundreds of millions to its oppression. People need to know this history and this reality – it is a part of knowing what we are and where we come from.</p>
<p>Second, the excesses of communist authority can exist under another name: the undermining of democratic processes by various regimes around the world – in Russia, in the middle east, in Latin America – looks awfully like communism by another name. By understanding communism and its terrible affects better, we are better able to address other oppressive regimes.</p>
<p>Third, I would like this monument to be a recognition for the many, many refugees from communist countries that arrived in Canada. It acknowledges and memorializes what they endured, and what those who could not follow them endured.</p>
<p>And fourth, and related to that last point, I would like the monument to help us remember that Canada is a land of liberty. Our great country took people in from around the world, and still does, because it believes in the fundamental dignity and worth of every individual. This liberty is to be vigilantly guarded– memorials like this can help us do that. It is important every new generation gets informed so that past mistakes are not repeated.</p>
<p><strong>FP: </strong>Alide Forstmanis, thank you for joining Frontpage Interview.</p>
<p>Frontpage encourages all of our readers to visit <strong><a href="http://www.tributetoliberty.ca/" target="_blank">Tribute to Liberty</a></strong>.</p>
<p>*</p>
<p><strong>[To get the whole story on why the Left ferociously opposes a true account of, and final verdict on, communism&#8217;s crimes, read Jamie Glazov’s new book, <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/United-Hate-Romance-Tyranny-Terror/dp/1935071602">United in Hate: The Left’s Romance with Tyranny and Terror.</a></em>]</strong></p>
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