The Divine Genesis

This is a really terrific article. Very legit references and more. I think you will be surprised.

Constructing Faith

This is a post I wrote back in September. It is as much needed in the world of politics as in the world of spirituality, so I thought I'd add it to this blog.



We are lost without it.

Reality holds a catch-22 of the most profound sort. I look at the world around me and see grim despair, corruption and conspiracy. It seems like the scope of the negative is so vast that one can't, even by the most optimistic standards, find any reason for hope. The whole of reality sometimes seems an endless tunnel . . . and someone clearly already blocked up the other side, so we aren't ever gonna see light from that direction. How can I hope?

Wake up! God tells me. That's what faith is for. When there is reason for hope, we don't "need" faith---we have reason, after all...!

Faith is both a construction material and a dynamic. Faith itself can create new tunnels and shift circumstance toward finding a light at the end of one we're in. With faith, we see paths we might never have seen otherwise. It is the ultimate "management perspective on reality."

I have a sense that the monks, nuns etc. who pray continually and work to "hold and anchor" faith and such in our world, are critically important, and we have no idea what our consensus reality might be like without that. Anybody who believes in prayer ought to wonder what our world might be like without what has been and is done constantly. And maybe consider how little effort it takes to ask for help for our world.

Faith is like being happy: it takes work. It doesn't just fall on you out of the sky. You can't buy it, and it doesn't have anything to do with circumstance. It seems a talent in some, although that has more to do with their innate connection to God/Self. It is a genuine skill, and one critical for development in times like these.

Anybody can develop faith; but it usually takes work: It takes asking for help. If you're confused, try "To Whom it May Concern." The human ignorance about God and the confusion over which pretty label to use only confuses humans... it does not confuse the myriad identities ready to help if asked. (I am not referring to multiple Gods. I am referring to the fact that in my experience, God has a multitude of identities--be they Angels or whatever things beyond my understanding--which intervene with joy to assist at his directive.)

There is no point to moaning a lack of hope. Hope is directly tied to faith, and faith is directly tied to God. Ask for it.


The world isn't going to get prettier. We were warned about this ahead of time. Why do we act surprised? Why do we sit and moan like victims? "Oh, the world's so bad! Things are so dark! People are so corrupt! Waaaaaa!" Oh get over that! It is TIME for the people capable of holding faith in God, in love, in positive things, to begin doing so!

Archangel Michael and others Of God are anchored in personalities all over this planet. Some of the most unlikely and unsuspecting people have immense inner strength---some born of experiences of this world, but perhaps known by their soul before their entry, and accepted so they would have the strength to live during these "interesting" times. It's not enough to survive here in body. You are here during this time for a reason, and it is your spiritual duty to figure it out.

When did it become "uncool" to pray?! Have the maturity, courage and fortitude to find who you are and be that potential.

Build your faith like a bridge you construct one prayer at a time. Ten seconds of prayer, a few times a day. Would 5-10 minutes total time invested per week be too much? How much is really being asked of you here? You have the potential. Step up to your responsibilities already.

Everything is just.... okay. That doesn't mean it is acceptable and we should be passive, not at all; we are here, with our feelings and our experience and our insight, for a reason. It means that there are larger patterns beyond our ken. The world is happening as it will, and on the surface it's going to be worse before it gets better, but it's OK. If we live in "The Center" as I call it--grounded in faith in God, and whatever that inspires in us internally and externally -- everything is going to be alright... eventually.

There is more at stake here than governments and bodies. There are levels of commitment and loss that we can't even begin to conceptualize.


We have faith each according to his willingness to ask for it, allow it, and hold it.

Cynicism is not cool; it's pathetic. Ask for faith. Stand up and be counted.

Be part of the spiritual solution here. It sure beats the alternative.

Blognotes

I wish this bleepin' blog software had 'categories'. :-( I mean, the software it uses is WordPress which DOES allow for that, yet, in the blogger.com interface it doesn't allow them.

I have decided that obvious media bias is already well covered in the blogosphere. If I have something to say about the really egregarious events, bias and situations that are to be found on many blogs far better than mine, I will say it with a comment to support theirs instead. I'm going to take what blogtime I have to go through articles which to 'general public' readers might seem normal, harmless and unbiased. I want to point out things that apparently are not "apparent" to those who are not already spin-savvy media/politics readers.

Even apolitical Americans can see 'screaming bias' when it exists. You don't have to be a conservative to have eyes in your head. But it takes a little context to observe the more subtle bias and I want to address that. There are many things politicians should be openly called on the carpet about, and they are not because the way they said it isn't as noticeable as the more "on fire" insults that fly in the political arena, so a whole lot 'gets by' that is unfair and shouldn't.

I also am interested in social politics so I will probably blog about gender, race, income, education, childrearing, gardening and my personal life. The blog evolves but since I began it, I think I have been gradually moving into more of what I want to do with it.

Those Poor Misguided Murderers

I fault myself for being stupid enough to think that Sheehan's motherly grief had simply "Unhinged" her. I fault myself for being stupid enough to think that the recent surreal mentality of the anti-Freedom group that got some of its members kidnapped by sending them to Iraq in the middle of a warzone, was somehow unique. Let's see a local, American example of these two mentalities combined: Yahoo News carries a NY Post article with a haunting psychological relationship.

The tragic background:

"Two years ago, Kimberly Hill lost her 8-year-old son, Daesean, when he was shot and killed by drug dealers battling over turf on her block."

Terrible. Tragic. I grieve vicariously. Although, despite the heartache many people I know have suffered like this, most don't continue the "public" part of the suffering indefinitely (the private is eternal of course), as Sheehan, or this poor woman's example:

"MY son Daesean would have turned 10 this year. He would have loved the party we threw him. My whole East New York neighborhood was there. We closed off the street. The kids played and rode their bikes. At the end, we let a flock of balloons rise into the air."

And another American decides to live in terror, rather than proactively do something:

"Every day, my son and daughter sit at our window and look at other kids playing in the street, riding their bikes. "Please let us go outside," they say. But I don't let them. It's too dangerous."

And here's where we go back to "blame anybody but the criminals and terrorists" chorus:

"I don't have bitterness toward those young men who took my son from me. I even know two of them. One of them grew up with me in the neighborhood. It was just a bunch of young men with no direction trying to prove themselves."

Ah, yes. No direction. Need to prove yourself. Hey, I shot an innocent 8 year old by accident while trying to murder someone else! I've just proved I deserve a noose.

But wait, there's more: if the MURDERERS aren't culpable, who could be?? And here's our Blinded By the Light¹ optimism for the day:

"The real problem, I think, is the guns. If those kids hadn't had guns, they could have had their fight without killing my son."

But of course. Just like if islamic terrorists didn't have dull machetes and bomber-vests, they could have their fights without murdering anybody. Because it's not the killers' fault, of course! They are not evil.

They just have a different perspective.

^{1 If we make things illegal like guns, all criminals will miraculously be converted like Saul, blinded by the light of reason and compassion, and start obeying the law.}

When The Enemy Is Someone You Love

Here's a charming editorial note written by a fellow in Oregon (so not surprised by the locale) that seems to well sum up the liberal opinion I see not only all over the internet, but newspapers as well:

Most Americans now realize we were duped into supporting an unjust invasion of Iraq. It took a long time to realize there were no weapons of mass destruction, no nuclear weapons, no mushroom cloud threats, no uranium from Niger, no link to al-Qaeda. Today, most Americans have figured it out. Some will tell us mistakes were made, but most of us recognize a lie when we see one. We are in Iraq based on lies, and our military men and women are dying. This is President Bush's war, not America's war. There is no dishonor for the United States in stopping Bush's war. There is, however, enormous dishonor for America if we don't stop killing, given that we now can conclude the Iraq war is based on lie after lie after lie.

I realize that the majority of the population is under the illusion that the mainstream mass media is free and unbiased. Americans today have a rather unique problem: our government has no nationwide media of its own, because it trusted the market--and anti-sedition laws--to use existing media sources to transmit information from the government to the people.

But in today's post-McCarthy world, America has become like the sad loser of a Copyright case: having so failed to defend the nation's right to non-seditious (and even non-treasonous) media, it would now be difficult to suddenly begin enforcing such basics without screams about freedom of speech being violated.

That freedom of speech allows dissent, anger and even outright name calling, and that this is not sedition--yet much of the behavior from politicians and media personalities of today is sedition--is hardly worth the breath to point out. The MSM is so disingeniously obtuse about even the simplest issue already, and this is a collective, empirical, judgement call requiring actual brain cells (...not to mention that missing-from-media quality of "good judgement").

TASS

The Russians with TASS always had it good, we can now see; the government-run media was known to be biased. Many locals would hear the news and then turn to their buddy and say, "So Ivan, what do you think is really going on?" My husband escaped from behind the iron curtain of Czechoslovakia in the early 1980's. He taught 8th grade, which was significantly more advanced than most college work in this country. It was no secret that their media and the more local-history and local-political aspects of media and education were propaganda. As a result, any person with a brain knew better than to accept it without question. Alas, in the USA we have been raised to believe that speech is free, that the media is unbiased, and that since there are many different papers and channels, it seems if most of them agree this would de facto prove it must be the truth.

CALLING IT LIKE I SEE IT

The mainstream mass media of the USA today is to free speech what the mafia is to a family business. It's a lot of different people with relationships ranging from friendly, to influential, to affectionate, to naked in bed together. They may seem separate, but as I've said before, I consider today's USA mass media a loosely collusive, seductive sedition by the "govern-by-media" coalition. The fact that this coalition has not formally registered as a business together (does the mafia?) let alone a competing-government (unless you count "The Democratic Party") does not prevent it from operating.

SAME PLANET, DIFFERENT WORLD

But here's a real twist: The liberal mass media and conservative share the same core problem: the enemy is often someone we love.

In the case of the media, they love our political enemies; terrorists who bomb innocent people, even children, are 'freedom fighters' (even when they were doing this long prior to 9/11 or Iraq, and later in countries which openly opposed the US going into Iraq, and in countries where they are killing other Muslims). If I began listing the comments even by major U.S. Democratic politicians that are provably outright contradictory lies, as well as many comments and behaviors clearly seditious (and even likely treasonous), we would be here all day, so I'll skip that, it's been done to death.

The bottom line is that the media is not even covert, subtle or inconsistent about it anymore: they now openly work to exploit the democratic process of the United States to overthrow not just the government individuals but the very style of government and primary premise of our nation, by mass propagandizing the public into fear and to revile our leadership and our values, during a time of war; they are marketing experts, and they attempt to leverage the fear and rage they create in the public, to persuade them to vote for the media's representatives, rather than America's representatives.

LOVE HURTS

In the case of conservatives, we have a different love with the same problem: the people we love are often those very people indoctrinated and stirred by the govern-by-media sociopolitical networks. They watch TV, they read the paper, they went through a lifetime of institutionalized schooling that more than left its mark.

They are well intentioned. They are also usually incapable of holding a single coherent conversation and sticking to one point during it. I spent months online and with family members in an experiment that grew out of my frustration with political discussion but eventually became a psychological case study: the search for even one person who could hold up their end of an intelligent discussion without quickly devolving to
(a) catchy jingles promoted by the Left and the media on their behalf, which ignored facts entirely in lieu of slogans and 5-second sound-bytes;
(b) emotion reducing them to completely irrational, and/or
(c) instant wandering into many completely unrelated topics when it's clear that they cannot demonstrate any logic or reality about the one at hand.

To the degree that people have a different opinion, they are free to do so. To the degree that people rant and rave with opinion, that is free in this country also. But in the last couple of years, the unofficial "govern-by-media" coalition has moved the political left and right so far left and right that they have finally circled around the back, run smack into one another, and climbed into bed with each other, and are now working against the "common enemy" of the founding tenets of America herself.

The ignorant and propagandized, and their resulting irrationalism, has created an entirely new kind of American: the Stepford Americans, who use the ideals (and permissions) of freedom to do active harm to the real ideals and freedoms in our country.

Sometimes, hopefully not often but sometimes, they are friends and family. We love them. But some of them, by accident or design, have literally become tools of the enemy, right inside our nation. Not because they are bad, but because they are ignorant--and having been properly whipped up into an emotional frenzy incapable of rational thought on the subject, no amount of education can dent their slogans.

How do we deal with that? What do you do when someone you honestly love, is not only just "really dense," and is not only "completely in disagreement," but may in some fashion be so entwined in what amounts to actual sedition that were any self-respecting government in place today they'd already be in jail?

THAT COLGATE PLAMEGATE SMILE

Ironically in a way, the Stepford Politics are often advertised by the big white smiles of rich celebrities, that Accidental Monarchy created by the market of media, ever-selling us The Perfect World. The real world, unfortunately, has a massive number of people with a fairly organized and overt agenda--no secrets, no conspiracy, it's out in the open in writing and in repeated actions and statements for decades--to literally take over the world and kill everybody who doesn't bow to their extreme religio-political fanaticism, and to use every means possible (including pretending they are friendly and peaceful) to infiltrate, subvert and consume from within every other culture.

The bright smiles of the Perfect World's Stepford Representatives, of course, would have the public believe that all is happy in Barbie's Funhouse, that fashion merits more seriousness than international politics. It doesn't matter what is going on all over the world--much of which the media ignores entirely, the rest of which they present in tiny unrelated pieces while carefully removing the most critical point of commonality so Americans won't accidentally notice what is going on. According to the Stepford Americans, they seem to figure that anybody who take millions of murdering maniacs bent on the utter obliteration of democracy, freedom, etc. seriously is just grumpy and paranoid--and, they figure, probably rooted in the evil of George Bush, who in a convincing act, helped liberate tens of millions of people to freedom just to make it look like he cares about freedom. Hmmmn. That Poser.

**

Having your family fall in propaganda-based delusion with the mainstream media is rather like having your wife fall in love with a movie character. How can you compete with something that isn't real? With great throwaway one-liners and an entire presentation designed start to finish to "win her over" -- if not for a movie ticket, for a voting ticket.

Can we shake awake the innocently-obsessed, wake them to reason and rationalism, make them understand that the root-rot of America from within is our greatest danger?

It's easy to want to defeat the enemy. But what happens when someone you love becomes a tool of the enemy itself?

Counting the Killing

A great summary at Logic Times puts the smackdown on the hysterical allegations (and ridiculous presentations) made by the Left, which usually make it sound like we have entered Iraq only to annihilate their entire population (an odd thing, given we went there to save them). Article Here (from lgf)

...since the fall of Baghdad the U.S. has been directly responsible for only 3.8% of fatalities reported, as many deaths over almost two years as Saddam averaged in 10 days. ... this figure is a 93% decline from the monthly average piled up by Saddam Hussein over 24 years.

Backsliding into Jesus

The "extremism" of my country has, I believe, driven me to be more extreme than I would have been otherwise. If the political and religious fringes seemed more reasonable, I suspect I would feel more passive. I can only thank them, I suppose, for waking me up.

Today reality hit home with spirit, and I couldn't be more surprised.

I brought myself up as a Christian; my parents weren't religious, I went to church on my own. I was the model good girl, memorizing entire psalms, singing at every opportunity. Later, I studied theology quite intensely for years beginning when I was 15, after I'd realized all my assumptions about what was self-evident about spirituality were actually heretical to the church I was sitting in. All that time I'd thought me and the church were on the same page. I don't know who was more astonished and disappointed, me or my pastors.

I became an Agnostic for awhile, which didn't keep me from talking to God in my head as I'd done since early childhood. My confusion wasn't not believing in God so much as not knowing what framework to use. I literally prayed "To Whom it May Concern" for awhile. Then I tried to 'do it right' and be an Athiest for about a year, but I kept apologizing to God for not believing in Him so I finally gave that up as a lost cause. A relationship with God was innate and no amount of wanting to seem more "intelligent and rational" by pretending that since it didn't fit in a test tube, it couldn't be real, was reasonable in the end. Eventually I discovered that God doesn't have an identity crisis. That's our problem, not His.

Finally I began studying the Qabalah, and studying metaphysics as some call it. Most of my "intuitive/innate" understandings even as a child fit better in that category. Not the braindead mush that is some hyper-oxygenated baby drool version of what liberals think Hinduism or Buddhism is, that one hears so much in the 'new age' world. More like a framework that fully believed in spiritual insight and active workings; best labeled a "Christian Mystic". I obsessed on reading the Bible, and the fascinating 'insight' one could get while doing so.

And then I settled down to not give a damn about anything to do with the religion subject for some years.

(Well except for Archangel Michael of course. But that's sort of a no-brainer for me. He is present when I am capable of being 'present' enough in my awareness. Which isn't very often the last few years, I confess.)

Normally I am on spiritual auto-pilot, probably heading neither for heaven nor hell nor some glorious hollywood-wishful, reincarnative body-wide botox, all of which would at least be definitive, but rather, some endless purgatory where the passive go while they think about maybe someday kinda sorta making up their minds about something spiritual, while maybe God thinks about maybe someday kinda sorta making up His mind about them, who knows.

**

The last few weeks I've been changing inside. All the anti-Christian BS being inflicted country-wide offends me. Maybe it's like when your family really makes you mad because of personal politics or dysfunction, but then someone ELSE attacks them and well, hey, that's a different story, now you're defending them! That's how I'm starting to feel about Christianity .

In my little city, the big holiday signs now say SEASONS GREETINGS. I always thought the baby-in-Manger lawn displays were hokey, but every day I am tempted to buy a gigantic American flag to put right out front and, since it's the season, something that has CHRIST all over it. I don't care about the Romans and Mithra; the Mass of Christ is a Christian holiday, no matter how we try to make it a spiritual deadzone by substituting Santa and the tree. What part of Christ-Mass don't people understand involves Christ?

Christian. Yes, that means JESUS THE CHRIST and can you imagine how people would cringe in horror if I actually said that loudly in the middle of Wal-Mart? Despite that probably 85% of the people in the store at the moment probably profess themselves Christians and at least 40% of 'em go to church at least weekly? It would be, you know, irrational. Kinda crazy. To be talking really loud and you know, saying THAT name. I mean hey if it's church let's sing power in the blood and Glory and Hallelujiah and git down for Jesus YAY-UH! but if we're not in church or Sunday is days away, who openly and publicly loves God?

I see the same issues of subversion and suppression by peer pressure and propaganda in politics. They are dovetailing, and I am beginning to wonder if all the stories about the novelty of end times are playing out right in front of my eyes, the drama of the ages, and maybe I have been dismissing too much as myth and tale and not seeing the parallel right in front of me. Not even when Rushdie named it. Not even when little Christian schoolgirls got their heads hacked off. How much does it take to get someone's attention? It took until now to get mine.

I want to know: Who made love of God -- or Country -- an embarrassment? Since when is Faith for the stupid, or Patriotism for the Dim? What has happened to the culture of America at large that the things people believed in, that built this nation into the fantastic opportunity it is, is now passe, we are so blase, it is gone with the wind, gone with the Culture of Cool that elevates child molestors to godlike cult status and buries Jesus in the $1 bin since they're phasing out that stock for "Have a Happy Day, as long as your culture, religion, or mental distortion is not offended by daylight".

The marketing shift of Christmas never offended me this much, to be honest, because that seemed like "a shame, but the way the world is" -- it seemed like a natural progression, unfortunate but, you might say, honest forgetfulness brought on by the mental assault of neon consumerism. But the deliberate atheist/ leftist-attacks to remove all Christian references from everywhere, that is not ok.

It is literally a form of spiritual warfare. People are afraid to use that term because it sounds just as extreme as saying "Islam is the #1 problem in the world right now". Yeah, sounds extreme to people who don't think too hard about the basic reality of it, I guess. That doesn't make it not true. And I know: it isn't new, it isn't news. For some reason, I guess the world had to get to a certain point of corruption and danger before I finally opened my eyes well enough to see.

I think a lot of my passive, more middle of the road, don't be extreme, things aren't that bad, 'inured American inertia' is actually leaving and I am changing, not because the conservatives influenced me, not because the Christians converted me -- but because communism, fascism, sedition, treason, and godless immorality offend me.

**

When I was around 18, at which time I had about 300 songs in a notebook, I wrote in one of them:

Time, about
Well it's about time
'Cause you spend half your life
Just finding out
What you don't want to do
And what you've
Come to doubt...

Part of defining what something IS, is defining what something is NOT. That something can be a person, and a spiritual or political stance, or anything else. Sometimes, I think people have to go through a lot of stuff and learn the hard way what they do not want, do not believe in, and will never do again.

Looking at what I consider pathologically promiscuous prevarication by the Left, and the loosely collusive, seductive sedition by the "govern-by-media" coalition, as well as the consistent de-God-ing of an entire nation founded and grown under God (by God!) has actually put in front of me, more clearly than ever, what I can see and feel is not OF me.

And is not OF the God I have a relationship with when I get my act together.

And is not of any legitimate spirit to preserve America's tenets or freedom.

How many 'passive-on-politics' (and former liberal) Americans are going to wake up over the next year and see what the Hell--excuse my French, but I believe Hell on earth is involved [and the French of all folks oughtta see it coming...]--is going on in our country?

How many other "calm, inattentive moderates" are going to realize that the exploitation of our indecision may imperil the entire nation?

The media, for all its efforts to indoctrinate the mind and subjugate the spirit of this nation, has instead given me a day of prayer and rereading Patrick Henry quotes and others of our founders. In the end, it didn't require years of theology, and it didn't require a degree in political science.

It just required reading, thinking, praying, and feeling inside me what is RIGHT.

The Family of Politics

In one way of looking at it, the root of all politics is fear.

The enterprise tendency of the capitalist fears that government will marginalize his efforts, prevent his production or usurp his profit, and otherwise interfere with his freedom to determine his own destiny. He demands a personal, business and religious environment free from the imposition of others: to be left alone, to do as he will, to sink or swim on his own merits.

The victim mentality of the socialist fears that his efforts will not be enough to sustain him; he fears to be alone. He demands a government that will impose a "safety factor" upon personal, business and religious environments, not just his own, but everybody else's as well, to be sure he is safe, not only from food-starvation but from love-starvation (such as hurt feelings).

One is an adult's mentality. One is a child's mentality.

In a political sense, the dynamics are the same: it is up to the adults to "care for and subsidize the helpless children." Except unfortunately, when those children age but never mature, the middle-class adult burden that should pass on as the children grow, instead becomes a life of indentured servitude.

The children take for granted their conditions, which are light years better than that their parents had; they take for granted the efforts of the parents to supply for them, and complain mightily about the restrictions and the unfairness of it all when expected to be even a little bit responsible. This is a learning curve most humans go through.

Then the children grow up, and they are forced to get a job "in the real world," or they trudge off to soldier, or they begin to raise children and work the farm, and they learn something about responsibility and personal accountability and, we hope, integrity, to finish the job of maturity that parenting had begun. As they raise children, the cycle of building-maturity begins again.

When one encounters an adult who operates politically from the base of childish fear from internal insecurity, rather than adult fear of external tyranny, what is the solution?

Can we call their life a do-over and ask them to please go through childhood again and get it right this time? Alas, we can't.

So what then? Do we just pretend to not notice that they are in desperate need of therapy and allow them to "play adult" with everybody else, to make them feel better?

Out of sheer pity (and lack of options) I might agree, if the chutzpah of their ignorance did not push so many of the worst examples of political childishness into actual political leadership.

It is not the blind leading the blind. It is the immature leading the insecure.

Vigilante 'Net?

I posted this comment on LGF and I need to post it here in case anybody actually HAS an idea or interest and wants to say something about it.

I think here in the USA we can see the problem, and we can see our weaknesses as well; the "citizen rights" we have made and upheld for our countrymen, actually indirectly assume that those countrymen are not, in large mass, attempting to subvert the entire national culture and overthrow the government--which is what Islam comes down to since they only recognize their own law.

This becomes similar to the issue of people thinking we should treat international foreign terrorists with all the rights that we would treat a local who had committed a crime. Note: many courts, such as those for family services, or those for taxation, do NOT include all the rights of America such as "innocent until proven guilty"; those are reserved for "the criminal justice system," a huge surprise to folks who end up in the others and expect what they thought were "their basic rights" to matter. Yet, people demand that rights not even applied to all Americans depending on the trial, be given to foreign terrorists.

Now, rather than spending another 5 years ranting about it (which we'll do anyway), I think it is the time for conservatives at the grassroots level -- because I am pretty much considering politicians nearly useless at this point -- to come up with some specific and helpful ideas about how to combat the constant and deliberate manipulation being practiced by muslims within the USA even as I type.

The recent Giants stadium issue is a PERFECT example of this. This is a deliberate, systematic, ongoing "pushing the limits from inside" that local muslims are doing, which is basically just setting the country up to gradually be taken over by their theocratic form of government. By using our own freedoms, they constantly convert people (particularly poor blacks) to their cause for their 'vote' (and for the first time in my life, I totally understand why we have a Republic).

I believe there needs to be a grassroots, loose consortium of loyal americans that can share ideas about how to combat this within the system the islamics are abusing, as well as ideas on how to combat it in other ways (no, I am not suggesting counter terrorism, but there are other things besides publicity and contact-campaigns that can be done).

Sigh. I have other demands on my time. But I'm a dynamic web developer and I could set up a variety of database/dynamic web tools to allow this kind of thing, if anybody has ideas or interest. Feel welcome to make a comment on my blog if you are.

Wow, the more things change...

The more they stay the same. Patrick Henry was speaking of England's rulers "pretending to be nice and not up to anything" while they quite obviously were, and yet, while political correctness made saying anything outright about it difficult, and while many in the early government actually deluded themselves that it shouldn't be taken seriously and it would be ok and there would not "really" be war. How well does most of this speech from one of the greatest American patriots read even about today's world?


Patrick Henry, March 23, 1775.

No man thinks more highly than I do of the patriotism, as well as abilities, of the very worthy gentlemen who have just addressed the House. But different men often see the same subject in different lights; and, therefore, I hope it will not be thought disrespectful to those gentlemen if, entertaining as I do opinions of a character very opposite to theirs, I shall speak forth my sentiments freely and without reserve. This is no time for ceremony. The questing before the House is one of awful moment to this country. For my own part, I consider it as nothing less than a question of freedom or slavery; and in proportion to the magnitude of the subject ought to be the freedom of the debate. It is only in this way that we can hope to arrive at truth, and fulfill the great responsibility which we hold to God and our country. Should I keep back my opinions at such a time, through fear of giving offense, I should consider myself as guilty of treason towards my country, and of an act of disloyalty toward the Majesty of Heaven, which I revere above all earthly kings.

Mr. President, it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and, having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it.

I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past. And judging by the past, I wish to know what there has been in the conduct of the British ministry for the last ten years to justify those hopes with which gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves and the House. Is it that insidious smile with which our petition has been lately received? Trust it not, sir; it will prove a snare to your feet. Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss. Ask yourselves how this gracious reception of our petition comports with those warlike preparations which cover our waters and darken our land. Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled that force must be called in to win back our love? Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are the implements of war and subjugation; the last arguments to which kings resort. I ask gentlemen, sir, what means this martial array, if its purpose be not to force us to submission? Can gentlemen assign any other possible motive for it?

... And what have we to oppose to them? Shall we try argument? Sir, we have been trying that for the last ten years. Have we anything new to offer upon the subject? Nothing. We have held the subject up in every light of which it is capable; but it has been all in vain. Shall we resort to entreaty and humble supplication? What terms shall we find which have not been already exhausted? Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves. Sir, we have done everything that could be done to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and Parliament. Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded; and we have been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the throne! In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope.

If we wish to be free-- if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending--if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained--we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms and to the God of hosts is all that is left us!

They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. The millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave.

Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable--and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come. It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace-- but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have?

Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!

Awesome Graph: Vietnam vs. Iraq

Is Iraq another Vietnam? How do they compare? THEY DON'T. Here's the numbers.

http://armor.typepad.com/bastardsword/2005/11/a_fresh_look_at.html

Quote of the Day

"More people are killed by Islamists each year than in all 350 years of the Spanish Inquisition combined."

theReligionOfPeace.com


"Our task, your task... is to try to connect the dots before something happens. People say, 'Well, where's the smoking gun?' Well, we don't want to see a smoking gun from a weapon of mass destruction."

Donald Rumsfeld

The Rich and the White

One of the things I find most fascinating about the current leftist politics in the USA are the staggeringly patronizing assumptions made toward non-whites.

Apparently they assume that if you aren't white, you are also deaf, blind and stupid. How many times have I heard or read someone saying to a given group of people (such as the poor, or the black, or whatever), "Those *rich white* Republicans are NOT your friend, trust me!"

I've been poor. Me and my mom lived in 'the projects' when I was a kid, and were even homeless for awhile. I've been lower middle class and 'working poor', depending on the year, much of my life; now I am 'middle class', after 20 years of working 80 hours a week to be more qualified (and to make up for not having been able to afford college). I have several blacks, mexicans, and natives in my family, not to mention other liberal-favorites such as gay/lesbians, handicapped persons, former felons, etc. (it's really quite a family!). That's aside from being 15 nationalities myself, which makes me a little cynical about the whole divide-by-race issue. So when I hear all these rich white celebrities and so on talking about how they relate to everyone, it just makes me laugh.

I agree, most poor people and non-white people do not consider "rich white people" to be their friend.

But they have brains. It has not escaped all of them that the leaders of the Democratic party are just as "rich and white" -- if not moreso, and usually from fairly gratuitious means (e.g., singing songs vs. having spent a life building a business in the real world) -- than the leaders of the Republican party.

They may be poor, they may be black or mexican or chinese or native, but it has not escaped them that even those who state they are communist (ala Fonda) aren't sharing all their millions.

It has not escaped them that the people who "so relate to them," are "feeling for them" from homes in Beverly Hills, from limousines and Lear jets.

While the liberals made fun of Bush for having been the son of a wealthy man, they glossed over the detail that the man worked for a living, while Kerry's primary riches came from his wife inheriting money from her father's empire. His second wife, that is... who like his first was also incredibly rich. (Some men know how to pick 'em.) For some reason, a businessman who passed on some of the business to his son was bad-money, but a playboy who got it from his wife who got it handed to her, a homely old version of Paris Hilton Gone Political, that is ok-money? What nonsense is that?

How deaf, blind and stupid do the liberals really expect people to be? And why is that they only seem to expect people who are poor or non-white to be that stupid?

You don't see them doing much campaigning in say, middle-class Kansas. They know that people who work for a living--and they are all races--are not stupid. But they certainly want to be sure that people in the cities--the poor, the minorities--are well indoctrinated into the "republicans are all rich and racist" propaganda. Apparently they think that those people will believe it. Interesting.

Want to check what's real? It's easy. Get on a train or plane to anywhere in middle-class, typical America. Go to a city of say, 50,000 people or so (not a small town, not a metro). Walk through a mall. Visit a few businesses. Stop by a few schools. You know what you'll find? You'll find something that every day gets closer to Dr. King's great "dream": a world where people of all races play and study and work and socialize together. That is the middle class down into the upper layers of the poor (the working poor). These are most of the red spots on that 2004 Election Map. These are the people who do not think it's ok that religious zealots declared war on all democracy decades ago and have been bombing innocents around the world ever since--only one of many incidents of which was 9/11. These are the people who think that the Constitution and its freedoms matter. These are the people who think that if the people in a state want or don't want something, they should vote on it--rather than have some people in robes on the other side of the country decide for everybody.

Liberals attempting to leverage the inner-city and non-caucasion "dislike of rich people" and "dislike of whites" and use it against the Republicans, treat those voters like fools. Anybody who can read more than the propaganda in the paper, anybody who doesn't accept without question what the TV tells them, can see for themselves that nobody in today's world of politics -- nobody -- is poor. So casting that stone, especially when it is cast by billionaires and white people, is totally ludicrous. Do they think black people (as one example) can't SEE?

The Hypocrisy of Liberals for Minorities

When the current Republican President appointed someone black, and someone female, and someone mexican (must I say 'hispanic'?) to some of the top positions of responsibility in the entire country, the people who were conservatives were not surprised. Why should they be? The people nominated were intelligent and competent. Who cares what race or gender they are? Yes, it's nice that there have been so many firsts like that in the Bush administration but hey, we can all see, it's certainly about time.

Every person of race or gender nominated in any Democrat administration damn near gets a month-long party as the media extolls the wonder of someone who is Not White having actually gotten into an important job. Yet look squarely at the numbers and the positions of greatest import and you can easily see that the Republicans are far more promotive of people without regard to race.

Yet still the Democrats try to pull the "race card" out, expecting the slavish vote-devotion of anybody who isn't white.

They may think they 'relate' to the poor barrio kids but I'm pretty sure those kids don't relate much to them.

It took a magnifying glass and tweezers to find the single (count them: 1) minority-race person in a minor position in the entire vast Kerry campaign a couple years ago. After that got publicized, the campaign was overcome with jobs for minorities, of course. That the media and liberals constantly equate being conservative with being a racist is the ultimate irony, as it is pretty much the opposite, as this makes clear. Still, it's not about what is true; it is about what gets said loudly enough, often enough. The liberals expect minorities to be like children, and to believe whatever they say, no matter what obvious evidence to the contrary exists.

The Democrats can say over and over, directly and indirectly, on TV, in movies, in magazines, in newspapers, that they are the "defenders" of the poor, of the minorities. That somehow, the Republicans are out to get ya, so you better vote for the Dems to defend you!

They expect the poor and minorities to believe this. They apparently think that if the education is bad enough and the TV is loud enough, they are home-free to capture all those votes for their side, because all those non-white folks out there will say, "Gosh and golly! Why, you're right! I'm voting for you, Mr. Rich White socialist! 'Cause you feel sorry for me and I need that!"

It's amazing. Now, I have met people of all races who are tuned out regarding these details, sure. That's just human nature. Not everybody is into politics.

But I have yet to see any evidence that non-whites or poor people of any race are as across-the-board stupid as the liberal left and its govern-by-media assume.

The Ghetto and the Barrio: the Last Defense?

There are barrios and ghettos in the big cities that nobody who isn't local--and definitely, nobody of a different race than the locals--can walk out of alive. Is there resentment against white people? You bet. Is there resentment against every other race which is not their own? You bet. Most genuinely prejudiced people are not really that selective: they hate everybody. White people are the poster race for the resentment of the world, but if you look at actual comments and crime rates you will see that those who most hate whites, hate everybody else as well. So? The reality is that they don't like any of the politicians. There is no rich white boy attorney who is going to make the people in the subcultures of America stand up and cheer because he's running for president.

That does not mean they are blind to the issues. That does not mean that just because they don't like whites, that they are happy to let islamic-nazis come into America and blow up innocent people and force them and their wives and children into rule by religious extremism. While the white liberals fall all over themselves to avoid ever calling a muslim a muslim, and the mass media makes a staggeringly collusive attempt to not let on that events all over the planet are directly derived from or carried out by islamic terrorists (lest Americans get the right idea that we are actually at war with a people who are at war with the world), most the non-white people I know have far less problem calling it like they see it.

In the multi-culturalist politically correct world of liberal politics, we are not allowed to say that the religion of islam is filled with homicidal and subversion commands, and that the only muslim you can actually co-exist with, is one that is such a poor muslim by those standards that the same islamic jihadists killing everybody else would kill them, too. (And they are, in many parts of the world.) The white liberals are too scared to say this out loud. They don't want killers who blow up whole schools, mosques, hospitals, airplanes, and manually saw off the heads of christian schoolgirls for fun, to be angry at them. The liberals in America will be as passive about allowing religious and racial extortion by muslims as they are in France and other parts of Europe.

Because they are frightened children. They will cover under the covers.

But wake up America. The people in the barrio don't give a shit about that white boy politically correct multicultural mecca of bureaucratic do-gooders who pity rather than promote. The blacks in the ghetto may not like white people, but they are not the weak-spined wimps that liberal academia seems to breed into everybody. They are tough, and and while they may not be fond of any politician here (no matter what the party), that doesn't mean they're going to stand by idly and let stupid white people allow our country to be attacked from the outside or usurped from the inside. They are just as much Americans as anybody else. They have just as much desire to see their wives and children have good lives, and not to be forced BACK into slavery and "dhimmi" servitude status to live under islamic law. America is not perfect and not always good but it's a helluva lot better than THAT alternative.

You go to chinatown and other similar areas and you find tens of thousands (at least!) of people who came to this country on a boat, on a plane, who escaped regimes as horrible as Hussein's. You will find a whole long list of 'subcultures', people who worked their butts off to send their kids to school, and saved money to open a small business and work their way into at least a little bit of opportunity. These people are not so much 'against' whites as simply apart from them much of the time (though most I have met, have no illusions about whites--at all). They are definitely not stupid. They are not remotely weak. They know more about politics, thanks to their own escapes or their parents', than most Americans will ever know. And they will not stand around and let ignorant liberals hand this country off to fear and political correctness. They did not escape to this land and spend their life building something in this land and raising their kids here, only to see it fall like a great tree whose roots were poisoned by the socialist subversion and childish political-fear from within.

On the East coast there are whole regions of italians, poles, chinese, blacks -- many of whom are relatively organized (often by family) -- and they have weapons. If liberals so pacify our image abroad that this war gets brought to the streets of America--and this well may happen--it won't just be soldiers fighting for their territory and to protect their people, it will be anybody who has a brain, a weapon, and knows how to use them. Thank a conservative that you're allowed to have a gun and defend yourself. And if you don't have one, get a gunsafe, a gun, and some training--now, while you are sure you can. Many Americans won't put up with the murderous kill-everybody crap from jihadists.

The colleges of America may be filled with whining leftists, but the streets of America are filled with people so tough it'd make a liberal sleep with the lights on.

I'm counting on that. Our whole nation is counting on that.

All the non-white people don't come with a built-in guilt complex, and as a result, many of them are a little more honest about the obvious. I believe that as time goes on, far more people from the minority groups are going to get bent out of shape about the islamic-nazis waging war against literally the entire planet of any democracy--including us, and this long BEFORE 9/11 and before Iraq, much as the media and leftists try to portray it otherwise--and maybe they will be less afraid to speak their minds, and less cowardly than the liberals who won't even ADMIT there is a war and it is against us and was in place long before 9/11, who will not even admit that we have an enemy, because they are trying to "see the point of view" of people whose clearly stated sole purpose in life is to destroy and kill every "infidel" -- including even their own people who aren't fanatical "enough".

Let the liberals go live with the jihadists as their dhimmi infidels. I will not give up freedom, democracy and America, and I am willing to bet that no matter how much the liberals can convince minorities and poor to believe what they put on TV and to vote for them, that when it comes down to the wire, that Americans are going to stand up and be counted and we might be surprised just how patriotic a lot of those folks really are. They haven't had the soft life a lot of whites have had, particularly those whose daddy paid for endless college and who then got jobs in a college, ensuring a whole generation of professors with absolutely no relationship to the real world. You won't see an italian neighborhood or a chinese neighborhood putting up with violent jihadist behavior--or the carefully, politically planned, exploitation of American freedoms by muslims acting locally to--as the religion commands--subvert, convert and destroy.

I am willing to bet that ALL the races in the USA have more courage than the gutless wonders currently running the leftist mass govern-by-media, academia and liberal politics. The liberals think they speak for them. The insanely rich and generally white people running the Democratic party believe they speak for all the people who are "not rich and white" but I think they assume too much. I think they have done nothing for these people, and these people owe them nothing as a result. That includes their votes.

The current leftist faction is essentially trying to take over the government by means of voting in socialism and eventually communism. Alas, one irony of a true democracy is that if you let people vote, they can eventually vote to destroy their right to vote, or to allow/prohibit things which have the same end result.

But to pull this off, they need the help of the massive votes that belong to people of 'minority' races. And so far, they've gotten a lot of them, in part by assuring them that Republicans are rich and white and don't like them so they'd best vote for the Democrats. But as they say, you cannot fool all of the people all of the time. More people who are black and chinese and mexican and female and everything else, are starting to speak out, and point out that the Democrats are literally DANGEROUS to America.

Free speech is one thing, but actually doing harm to your country is another. Race is one thing, but nationality is another. We are all Americans. I have faith that when it comes down to the wire, the people in this country who are currently the minorities will more than make up for the seditious (and often even treasonous) liberal democrats who would sacrifice our freedom for their fear.

Unbelievable, the reversals

This is a perfect example of how one event can be presented as the exact opposite of what it is in the media, and go on to take on a whole life of its own, as the ultimate in irony.

The Photo That Started It All
http://tinyurl.com/5qava

Quote of the hour

"Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled, or hanged."

President Abraham Lincoln

Political Conversion

You know, it's really weird when a former Democrat like me doesn't feel like anything really changed in me, aside from the fact that I now read more and think more than I did when young of course, but when I find articles I think state things well and appropriately, they are on "right wing" blogs?!

Since when is respect for self and country 'right wing'? Who made patriotism a four letter word?

I really liked these articles -- I couldn't agree more...

Like we WANT to be the world's babysitter? Get real...
http://rightwingnews.com/john/iso.php

Proud to be an American, any day of the week
http://www.rightwingnews.com/john/proud.php

Basic rules of politics in the USA
http://www.rightwingnews.com/john/ruleofthumb.php

Did Bush 'steal' the '00 election?
http://rightwingnews.com/john/tantrum.php

Is ignoring terrorism optional?
http://www.rightwingnews.com/john/theory.php

Common peeves about the mainstream media
http://www.rightwingnews.com/john/petpeeves.php

These 'worst debate' tricks go for the media a bit too --
http://www.rightwingnews.com/john/stupiddebate.php

A few politically correct fairy tales, heh
http://rightwingnews.com/humor/tale.php

A Dem senator on why he supports Bush for president (nice article for many reasons)
http://www.rightwingnews.com/category.php?ent=2394

This thanksgiving, I am thankful that I am not a moronic ingrate with a massive guilt complex and psychological distortion that makes me hate my self, country, and national holidays like thanksgiving, such as this dude:
http://www.alternet.org/story/28584/

And here's an interesting interview on the psychology of certain political situations, worth reading.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=20222

Priorities

I've been rethinking the blog idea. You know, I could spend time every day--several times a day--ranting about things I feel like ranting about. But then, I wouldn't be spending enough time on the things that matter to me. Like my little girl, or some of my personal pursuits.

I am more interested in social politics than international politics. And both are already done well in the blogosphere. I'm not sure what I have to contribute that is unique at this point, and I can talk on other blogs for the occasional urge.

I am leaving this blog up, occasionally posting something, but not daily. Next summer I will revisit it and decide if I want to make it a substantial project. In the meantime I might make it more useful by limiting my commentary to poetry and prose. Then at least I would be getting in some practice!

Changing culture from the inside

I posted this as a way-too-long comment on another blog about a week ago, and thought I ought to post it as an entry on my own blog.


I think the responsibility for integration into a culture lies with those immigrating, because it cannot be done any other way.

Any culture such as America is the sum total of its population. America has been strong not just because we had a hell of a set of founders, or the grand background of European culture, but also because basic human survival skills caused the Irish and Italian and English and German and Russian and a zillion other immigrant cultures to explore whatever strengths their person and culture had in order to succeed.

It isn't that people who were English and Italian had to like each other; they often didn't. They didn't even have to respect each other. They just had to avoid overstepping objective boundaries of law, which would get them imprisoned, or subjective boundaries of behavior, which might get them harmed or killed if the other guy didn't take it lying down. They both set up shops and bred animals and became scholars and learned to create products and established churches and wrote songs and everything else, and competed with each other to do well at it. The "larger culture" of America was forced to grow from the inside out by its members making a place for themselves within it.

The "larger" culture of America came to tolerate, accept and then respect its people and cultures gradually, because they showed themselves worthy of it over time and in sufficient numbers. It didn't come easy. It didn't come fast. Ask any North-Irish immigrant like some of my ancestors, who on discovering they were starving because they were Irish and nobody would hire them, changed their name to a respectable English "Hayes" and did just fine. (They could have changed it back later, but the land rush lost the detail, leaving them as mysterious to me as my non-roll Cherokee ancestors.) I am also Polish, German, French, English, and about nine other nationalities, all with their own cultures. I got the parts of those cultures that their people chose to keep in the family and the upbringing of their children, and not the parts they didn't. No government determined what being German in America was going to mean to my German family; they determined it.

Women in the USA did not come by their current right to vote (they couldn't until 1971 in Switzerland) because of European culture, nor did they come by it because of Multiculturalism. They came by it because as Americans they demanded their own space within American culture, they pursued it for years, and eventually they made it happen. Our whole culture is broader now; our country is stronger. As a woman, I look back on fairly recent history and the situation of women and I am aghast. Yet as a woman and an American, I look on those claiming to be feminists and representatives of my gender and I feel just as aghast. To quote a famous guy, A house divided against itself will fall.[1] What women accomplish in the culture of America--which is to be clearly differentiated from the government--is based on what women will strive to accomplish and what they example to others as they do so and when they do so. The culture will be forced to expand from within to accommodate women being what they wish to be, because as part of the culture we have the power to change it.

Like anybody else, when I was growing up, we simply learned to adapt to and accept what was around us. Grandfather came from Texas to California in a covered wagon in 1904 when he was four years old. When he came of age (which was much younger back then) he worked his butt off to eventually buy a tiny piece of land in the Ojai Valley, and planted two of every kind of fruit and nut tree he could get his hands on. He did any kind of work he could get. He did a lot of laying asphault as I recall, and making homemade lead weights and lures for fishing. Mother grew up with a dominant culture of english-german-french-other mix, overlaid with cowboy attitude, southern and texas-mexican foods. This is all I would have known, if all the other cultures of people around me had flatly refused to integrate. But they didn't close themselves off and sulk, lucky for both of us. The Danish, the Chinese, the Mexican, the Japanese -- as well as the American blacks -- that were around me lived like they pleased, pursued what they found of value, and built the businesses sometimes entire families worked their butts off in while living in a tiny house together for years--the same family that 15 years later was in a middle class tract home with a kid who was a top student headed for a good college. I learned to accept them as part of American culture not because someone told me I should, not because it was legally mandated, but because they accepted themselves as part of American culture and as a result, would not allow anybody else--even if those anybody-else's were biased--to prevent them succeeding.

I could not deny the fact (and had no reason to) that these cultures were worthy of respect, and had traditions and music and holidays quite interesting even to many others. They were part of my world, and hence, they were an extended part of my culture. True multiculturalism--I mean in spirit, not the political social-silicon creation currently touted under that label--is a natural side-effect of "the physical integration of self-respecting people." When you have only one of those two factors in place, you have discomfort. When you have neither of those factors in place, you have disaster.

The Islamic culture in particular takes great pride in "not integrating" with any other nation or culture. Under their openly stated tenets, they become a cultural Trojan horse when they do: they do not assimilate to join, to add to strength, but to subvert and/ or stamp out everything else. This is not an insult to say about them, this is what their own leaders and teachings say about them. Hence, they are not assimilated into any culture--starting with that of the French, but extending to that of nearly every other culture they exist within planet-wide. Unfortunately, the mind set of the religion taken 'literally' is pointedly incompatible with the existence of anybody who doesn't wish to be one of them. This is why when you remove the larger culture of non-Muslims from the equation, you still end up with the same war, terrorism and situations--carried out against other Muslims who "are not Muslim enough". Islam is a jihad without a cause--and so any cause, culture, people or situation will fill that need.

When any group--and this could include women, and American blacks as well as the French Islamics--set themselves apart from others, they deny themselves the opportunity to interact with others. They could bring understanding of all they are to the larger culture, but that cannot happen except by positive interaction. Shouts from a distance, complaints from a podium or forced-change through a law are not interaction. I've met men who were well educated about "culture," and walking encyclopedias on business law and its endless thou-shalts about race/religion/gender, who were so ignorant and biased about race/gender on a personal level it was breathtaking. But, show me a man who respects his "brainy" little sister, or whose best basketball buddy is a devout catholic, or whose favorite advising professor was a Jewish woman, or whose fearless Sergeant was Mexican, and you will know a man who understands their race, their religion, their gender, and their related cultures, as much as anybody not part of them can.

Respect is not a tithe, it is an emotion. You cannot "make" a person respect another any more than you can make a person love another. The only way to win someone's respect is not much different than the only way to win someone's love: you must interact with them. If a group refuses to interact with others, and hence the others have no particular reason to respect the group in general let alone its people in specific, that is the responsibility of the group.

Every "nation-culture" has its biases in favor of the majority race, religion, etc. Yet any person such as myself who has grown up in the melting pot of America, in a melting pot of race and culture and religion not just in others but even in myself, can see the dynamics of how integration works (and doesn't). Changes in a culture must come from inside its walls. Culture is the personality of the collective soul: you cannot change it by the restriction of law; it must grow by expansion from within.

[1] No, not Lincoln! -- Jesus, per Luke 11:17

Nice article on the Crusades

When I was in school, I was taught that the Crusades were basically a shining example of how messed up religion was, because all those Catholics just tromped on over to the middle east and brutally murdered everybody and stole their gold. The primary lesson was that religion was stupid and dangerous, and that Saladin (one of the Crusades' leaders) was a Noble guy.

An actual historian puts the Crusades in a nutshell: worth reading.
http://www.crisismagazine.com/april2002/cover.htm

Why McTANK?

A friend asked me why I call the blog McTANK (my real name is on the copyright). Well, because me ranting here reminded me of that silly old joke:

A young man is drafted into the army and shows up near the front line. There isn't enough equipment to go around and the captain hands him a stick and says, "Pretend this is a gun. Just go, Bangety-bangety-bang!--it works." The terrified private finds himself on the front line and, having no other option, grabs the stick and shouts, Bangety-bangety-bang! and several advancing enemy soldiers fall down. Wow, he thinks, it works!

He continues throughout the battle, rolling into foxholes and taking up strategic positions and Bangety-bangety-bang! always seems to work. Hours later an enemy soldier is coming slowly but grimly toward him and he keeps shooting but it's not working! And the guy just plows right over him and as he goes down hollering into the dirt he hears the soldier muttering to himself, Tankedy-tankedy-tankedy...

I'm sure the joke started based on the equipment issues often seen in the military, but to me it humorously represents bloggers like me who haven't any way to apply real weapons to The Good Fight, so we live in our heads, and our tankedy mutterings. Ya do what ya can.

We're with you in spirit boys.

Find Me Somebody To Love

* updated *

One by one, people I liked, respected, admired, have proven themselves to be totally media-led imbeciles.

Springsteen broke my heart. Now one of my favorite actors, John Cusack, too. The list is so long that I'm beginning to wonder if there is any person in Hollywood that I can continue to have any respect for.

Here's one: James Woods (on the Clintons) [ thx cb]:

"....acted absolutely true to form. ... They are the most sociopathic, destructive people who have ever set foot in the White House. We will look back on these eight years as the most corrupt and debilitating abuse of power in the history of the presidency."

Wow. An actor with a brain. I'm going to make a point to see his stuff more.

Update: here's one I missed. From tLT (thanks to Rantburg):

Bruce Willis, the American film star, has offered $1m to any civilian who turns in Zarqawi or Bin Laden.

Thank God. If Bruce turned out to be a liberal guppy I think I might have just sat down and cried. I own nearly every movie he's made.

The Death of Debate

I keep reading. But I have yet to see a single person of liberal political persuasion who can have an intelligent discussion online without either devolving into assumptive/BigLie tactics or without deceptively spinning into side-topics and different aspects of a topic in order to evade directly addressing the subject at hand.

I've been forcing myself to read blogs and news sources from all political points. But I'm beginning to wonder why even the most seemingly bright and credentialed people on the left seem to lose all discernment or critical thinking when it comes to politics. They assume on criminal intentions from anybody conservative as a given, which right off profoundly skews everything, and then they overlook even garishly obvious and proven lies and distortion from their own side, and they present a 'case' that sounds more like an emotional 14 year old than someone of their seeming age and achievements.

I wrote about this a long time ago on a listserver, and a week later editorialist John Leo published a column saying nearly the same thing. I guess a lot of people can SEE it. But how can we understand it?

Aside from say, posession, or more likely "attachments" as some say, I'm at a loss to explain the consistency of this phenomenon. I suggested this some time ago and someone else just sent me an email suggesting that -- hilarious -- and neither of us are particularly religious. I guess it just goes to show how bewildering it really seems.

I'm collecting blogs and links I think are cool to add to this site in a few days. I'm joining a local gun club. Donating to some of the good causes for soldiers, renewed my NRA membership, and made several icons of personal slogans that I put on this page. I can't change the world, but I can better-focus in my little corner of it.


McTANK
http://mctank.blogspot.com

Targeted Vote Marketing

I once had the idea that the last election was 'close'. It was, in terms of electoral votes. But when you consider that all the liberal and outright (openly) communist money and efforts are made in the cities, the highest-density areas, to recruit and propagandize, it's almost as if this map makes real clear where their marketing money is being spent.

The map is too wide for this display - click on it to see the full size version.

Square miles of counties won:
Bush = 3.28 million, Kerry = 741,000

Population (2003) of counties won:
Bush = 150.9 million, Kerry = 103.6 million

Silver Linings

I was reading on lgf a comment were someone said, "Islam will harvest France" and I thought to myself, "Yeah, heh, good thing they aren't cannibals!" Then I thought, "Well on the bright side, they couldn't eat us--we're capitalist pigs!" Heh!

A long, long way from home

California acts like an immature college student. They have a fantastic situation, yet still manage to get themselves in majorly deep ____ regularly. They finally realize they are on the verge of doom, they have maxx'd the credit card and mashed a fender and are in big trouble, at which point they are happy for some strong daddy personality to come along, like Reagan or Schwartzenegger, to bail their butts out of the economic holding cell. They agree, yes daddy, that's what I want, I want to fix it. But once a little time passes, they relax... kick back, man... and suddenly the party is more important and daddy's "budget plan" is just some unfair imposition of authority to rebel against.

I was born in Ojai and my heart will ever reside there, despite the hollyweird crowd that molested it until it is now unrecognizeable. But I am so glad to be half a continent away. I know he can't, but on a moral level, I think Arnold should tell them to get stuffed and go on to do something more constructive with his time.

Meanwhile in San Francisco, land of the beautiful, home of the depraved, they passed a bill yesterday banning all handguns -- no owning, buying, selling, manufacturing, or trading them for any reason in any form, nor ammunition.

They could not, of course, ban the criminal element from having firearms. Ironically, not others, either:

The law does not bar nonresidents from lawfully possessing handguns within city limits. [AP]

I see. So San Francisco may still be filled with weapons from criminals and from visitors but, rest assured, the law abiding citizens will not have any.

McTANK
http://mctank.blogspot.com

Worthy Causes, here's one

There's a formalized project to collect donations from the grassroots to purchase "voice enabled" laptops for U.S. soldiers to use, who've had their hands severely injured or worse, so while they are in the hospital recovering they can read, blog, send email to their family, etc. This is a great cause, since even reading isn't much of an option when you can't hold or move anything. The site home is Project Valour IT (click that link to donate). They take even tiny donations (even $5, anything), and it's a great cause. The official text is:

Project Valour-IT, in memory of SFC William V. Ziegenfuss, provides voice-controlled software and laptop computers to wounded Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines recovering from hand and arm injuries or amputations at major military medical centers. Operating laptops by speaking into a microphone, our wounded heroes are able to send and receive messages from friends and loved ones, surf the 'Net, and communicate with buddies still in the field without having to press a key or move a mouse.

All funds received go directly to our wounded troops; 100% of your donation to Project Valour-IT will be used to purchase the laptop, software and accessories that will provide independence and freedom to wounded Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines.

A neat sketch from a site with great political cartoons:

McTANK
http://mctank.blogspot.com

To Work or Not To Work

Some say that in France, Muslim immigrants flatly refuse to 'integrate' with society, and insist on carving out territories that are not only all-muslim but are dangerous or deadly to the entry of anybody who isn't. They also say that as they have a lack of both capital and ambition, there are few jobs in their Islam-only pseudo-cities, which only increases poverty---and money the entire country pays to support them. It's expected that at some point they will demand the land they essentially stole-to-own and bring violent insistence they be "given" it officially.

(Used to be you had to bring in a foreign Army for all-out war literally capture the land of another country. Then again... we're talking about France, here.)

In the recent and ongoing riots in France, one of the things that keeps getting reported is how unemployment is so high in those areas and how lack of jobs is such an issue--assumed to be the government's fault in this case--and behind the rage of the rioters. I just saw something that made me wonder if there aren't other factors regarding that lack of a job issue. Over on lgf quoting df they posted:

...a booklet distributed by the Saudi Embassy in Washington offers instructions on how to “build a wall of resentment” between Muslims and infidels, said Nina Shea, director of the Center for Religious Freedom.

Among the book’s directives: “Never greet the Christian or Jew first. Never congratulate the infidel on his holiday. Never befriend an infidel unless it is to convert him. Never imitate the infidel. Never work for an infidel,” Shea quoted during a committee hearing.

So it's actually a common tenet or encouragement to "not work for an infidel"?!

No wonder these people have such a high rate of unemployment compared to the rest of France. Maybe a good number of them are not willing to work for anyone in "the rest of" France.

McTANK
http://mctank.blogger.com

McTANK Miscellany

In the category of stuff we knew but liberals won't wonder about: The Dept. of Defense says it has a problem recruiting from urban schools (ip) because the students are so undereducated they don't qualify even for the lowest standards of military entrance. (And to think, throughout history and around the world, the Army was always a last resort job option even for those whose only skill was breathing and marching well enough to be cannon fodder.) Twice as many young adults from rural areas as from urbania qualify to make it into the military. So the fact that the military is heavily skewed conservative apparently isn't because only conservatives join, but because so many people from the heaviest liberal zones are too stupid to get in. Gee that changes the perspective a bit, doesn' t it.

Especially when it's liberals always bragging about how conservatives are morons because the higher education in this country is held by a greater percentage of people who are liberal. Of course, the lowest education is also held by a greater percentage of people who are liberal, but for some reason that doesn't count.

This reminds me of how the Left is always saying that republicans are 'the rich' and they give admonition to everybody who is female, non-white, or poor that "believe me, republicans are not your friends" (because they are 'the rich'). Yet the Democratic leaders (John Kerry anyone?) and the people who most fervently drive the Left's propaganda and mass political efforts (Soros, Streisand, Fonda) are also obscenely rich.

What part of "you can't be a socialist-communist unless you share your OWN money with others who are poor" don't these people get? And what part of, "Those claiming to share your pain are living in a $20 million home in Beverly Hills, and the people who say they exist to help you clearly pity you and after 50 years you're still in poverty so remind me how they're helping again?" don't the voters understand?

Humor: It's nice to know that in the contrast between another day in mundania and the insanity of world affairs, someone, somewhere, is doing something interesting (db). It's nearly 7am here. Do you know where your goat is?

You know about that bizarre tendency to label every American with their racial background prefixed. I think only the activists for African-American cared at first, but this got pushed on everybody, so now my buddy Lynne is Italian-American, for example, though she's never even been to italy, nor have her parents, and has no desire to label her nationality with her race. (In fact that is the one thing that America always had that almost no other country did: a national or country label that had no denotion to race. Personally I think that's a good thing.) To think that as a country we made this massive effort to remove "racial labels" and then came the campaign to sticky-note them all back on again. I am 15 nationalities, a true melting pot American. Can you imagine me trying to hyphenate myself in an introduction?

We now hear the insistence that "gay" not represent gay women (the term "lesbian" must be used). But wait, this comes in a funnier context or I wouldn't mention it: Safire, mascot for the NY Times, also says that the word "homosexual" is not to be used anymore, in part because, would you believe, "the term has been associated with deviance." Hello? Isn't this like saying "it's ok to be deviant from the norm because you're not really deviant from the norm."? So... instead of people being openly however they are and asking for acceptance of that (and I accept that!), they want to be repackaged in PR terms so they don't strike anybody as different? Now this would make perfect sense to me on a basic level, that all humans are equal so why fret about such differences, but this makes NO sense coming from special interest groups and publications which exist solely to define and support the difference between 'their' people and 'everybody else'.

To me that's like saying, "On behalf of the Conservatives For Oklahoma association, I request that you no longer use the term "conservative" in connection with our members, because it might give people the idea that we are conservative." (Moreover, calling us Okies is definitely biased!)

But wait, there's so much more. Safire continues to note that being gay is "not about sex" but about "attitudes and culture." It's not about sex? WTF?! If I marry a man, I can have the identical attitude and culture as a woman who is living with a woman, so should I call myself a lesbian? What if my husband shares that attitude and culture? Is HE a lesbian? And what about that culture comment, does that imply that growing up with or living in a neighborhood with lesbians makes me a lesbian? The entire point of lesbians "singling out" themselves as their own group isn't because they share a love for jazz, or a liberal mindset, or a neighborhood, but because they innately mate with other women, and I don't see how pretending that is NOT the case is any service to them at all. To me this is the same kind of "we speak for you and we are helping you as your leaders" insulting BS that gets perpetuated on the black community by some of their leaders. I side with the mentality that says, "I am/do/feel X and I'm proud to be me so get outta my face about it!" Apparently if we call someone homosexual because they are homosexual, we are now insulting them. Alrighty then. I'll expect the Dykes With Bikes parade to show a solid representation of humans who are not female-loving-females [...who are not gay...] now, since we've established that it ain't about sexuality.

Meanwhile in the land of the free, home of the occasionally stupid, the Mayor of Las Vegas must have been having an Out-of-Jihadi experience during a recent interview when he first suggested they mutilate people for graffiti and then used as his backing logic the Guillotine in old France. (db) I'm trying to decide which of these associations is the worse example at this moment in world events.

The New York Civil Liberties Union vehemently opposes bag-searches on subways, which the city wants to implement to reduce the chance some terrorist will take a bomb onto a train. (Of course, if this is not done and a subway is blown up, it will be all George Bush's fault, for having dared wake up that morning.) They feel this is "an unjustifiable erosion" of personal rights. Ironically, if you would like to visit them to discuss their presentations, you have to be searched before getting in the door. (nys, cd) Boy that's walking what you talk eh. I admit I am a little confused about why (a) if it's injust on the subway, it isn't injust on planes, and (b) if it's injust even for legal or governing authorities, it wouldn't be injust for anybody (e.g., those who run rock concerts, or lead White House tours).

An American who grew up in Holland writes a nice essay in her blog about the change in political foundations that her family back in Europe seems to have gone through (worth reading):

Europeans reject the individualistic, direct, confident, and uncomplicated American that is George Bush, that is Ronald Reagan. Why? Because that is the person that left the Old World to seek a better opportunity across the Atlantic. Europeans could never really deal with these far-flung family members that came back with stories of big houses, big cars and an abundance of food that many in Europe did not know existed. Resentment, probably yes, self-reproach for not having been adventurous enough? Maybe. America represents a level of success and makeability that Europeans never had and to the extent they had it we will have to go back to the industrial revolution and before, to find it. That spirit has somehow left them and those left behind will go as far to jeopardize their own security in order to prove their point about America.

Humor: As any devout cat servant knows (as they say, dogs have owners--cats have staff), this poor German cat was simply stealing it so he could play it with for awhile before eating it. (db)

McTANK
http://mctank.blogger.com