The Myth of the “Moderate” Democrat

The original plan for this post was to feature an essay written last week by Robert Tracinski, editor of “The Intellectual Activist”. From there it would have broadened out with a more detailed look at the website itself and the depth of Mr. Tracinski’s experience (which is considerable).

However, in the process of unearthing further information about the subject of Mr. Tracinski’s essay, it became too disheartening to think about much else beyond our thorough betrayal by the Democrats. Thus, the material gathered from and about “The Intellectual Activist” will be put aside for a more propitious time. Instead this post will be limited to what Mr. Tracinski encountered and the subsequent research I did on the subject of his essay.

Ahead of time, though, I admit my failure to perform due diligence in the summer of 2008, while there was still time to make a difference. Like many others in my Congressional district I failed to pay attention. We were sure that the very able conservative Congressman who had served us well would be easily re-elected, despite the machinations of the Democrat Party in Charlottesville. My opinion in that regard didn’t differ much from the experts, for example, here:

“Perriello has a great profile in a very liberal district in Boulder, Colo., but that’s not Virginia’s Fifth,” says David Wasserman of the Cook Political Report, who nonetheless has reclassified the race from “solid Republican” to “leaning Republican.” “Voters in this district are hurting and don’t consider Darfur activism to be a qualification for Congress.”

How wrong we were. And what a difference we might have made had we known back then what the man who defeated our Congressman really was, or to whom he was beholden.

In the end, Thomas Perriello sidled by to win by 727 votes — that’s 727 out of the total 316,893 votes cast; a ‘victory’ with a margin of 0.229%.

Since Charlottesville is blue enough to qualify as indigo (or perhaps you could call it cyanotic given the deep hue in Jefferson country), it’s no surprise that the town has a long history of Democrat dominance. In a Congressional district (VA- 5) geographically larger than New Jersey, Charlottesville is one of just a few blue spots in the Red Sea of Central Virginia political life; in contrast to urban, wealthy Charlottesville, the rest of the district tends to be poorer, rural, conservative, and not impressed by the fast lane Mr. Perriello travels.

Given that he rode into Washington on Obama’s coattails, the Honorable Thomas Periello is not likely to make a return trip past 2010. Many of the voters who showed up for Obama in 2008 won’t be there this November for this elitist transnational who sold us down the river.

During his time in office Perriello has been a straight Democrat Party voter; not a scintilla of originality or rebellion has he shown. Perhaps he believed what the money people told him? Perhaps the Democrats were so euphoric to finally have a Representative for District Five unleashed in the halls of power that it didn’t matter how he actually performed or where his campaign chest originated? Whatever. It looks to be shark-jumping time, even this far inland.

Perriello is now considered vulnerable, at least according to the polls. On the other hand, Larry Sabato, burned last time by Perriello’s win, has District Five as a toss-up — i.e., it could go either way.


Okay, now you have some context about this piece and about its subject. If you find the current confusing flux in American politics interesting, then this sample will be worth your while. If not, simply scroll down to the next post.
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Mr. Tracinski went to a public forum hosted by the Jefferson Area Tea Party last week, held in Charlottesville, VA. What made this particular meeting of interest is that the featured attraction was an appearance by Tom Perriello.

The essay isn’t written in Mr. Tracinski’s usual coolly analytical style. Not that he doesn’t do justice to the subject; it’s simply that his heart and his head are both evident in this one. His essay demonstrates just how strongly local conservatives feel the betrayal. Perriello didn’t betray their expectations — no one imagined him to be other than what he is: a very liberal activist Democrat. However, back in November 2008 none of us could imagine the gargantuan slabs of meretricious legislation that Perriello and his ilk would ram through the House without a qualm or a by-your-leave. Those thousands of pages of bumf and pork politics are a blot upon the soul of our Political Class. Not that they care. Worse, these laws trail a whiff of future serfdom for many people in the rural, poverty-level areas of our District (and of other places like it).

Thus, upon coming come face-to-face with a person who bears some direct responsibility for our diminished future, a man reacts to the immediate heat of that welling sense of treachery.

Tracinski’s title sums up ahead of time what he found:

Tom Perriello and the Myth of the Moderate Democrat

[note: any emphases or bracketed information below are mine — D]

Thursday night [August 26th] I witnessed an unusual sight: a Democratic incumbent speaking to a local Tea Party group. Tom Perriello, the congressman for Virginia’s Fifth district, spoke to a monthly meeting of our local Charlottesville group, the Jefferson Area Tea Party.

I almost had to give Perriello credit for courage, for having the guts to venture into the lion’s den while other Democratic congressmen are scrambling to evade their constituents. Almost.

Hmm…that was my thought, too, when I heard Periello was going to speak to the JATP. Considering that someone had cut the gas line of the barbecue grill at his brother’s house (mistaking it for his), Perriello had to know he was in a venue where his political views are anathema to those who invited him. Perhaps hope was springing eternal on both sides; maybe Perriello hoped that if he went into their den, it would head off the likelihood of having them publicly demonstrate against him. Or perhaps he knew a refusal to meet would follow him all over the District. Did the JATP hope to inch Perriello a bit toward a more centrist position?

Mr. Tracinski watched the performance and took back any points for courage he’d been willing to allow:

But when I saw Perriello at work, I realized that this wasn’t the courage of a principled leader who is willing to go forthrightly into the enemy’s camp and defend his principles. It’s the brazenness of a practiced card-sharp who is confident he can shuffle the deck fast enough to fool the suckers.

I took the opportunity to ask the congressman one simple question that, in my mind, cuts through to the core issue, reveals the real radicalism of Democrats’ attack on liberty, and exposes the myth of the moderate Democrat.

Ah, that mythological creature, the one-horned Democratus Moderatus, garlands of flowers around his neck. Why, I know him! Exemplars of his type even show up in our comments at Gates of Vienna on occasion. When asked for evidence of their “moderate” creds, they’re as hard put as Perriello was to come up with pertinent examples.

Perriello’s whole method was not to answer our questions or address the ideological differences between us. His method was to evade our questions and defuse any sense of confrontation, to mollify us with soothing sounds while disguising his real intentions. I found myself chuckling part-way through his opening presentation when I realized how crudely, childishly obvious his method is. The formula is to emphasize areas of seeming agreement with his audience-even with a Tea Party audience — but always to keep his answers vague, general, up in the clouds. After all, if he was forced to get down to specifics, the illusion would vanish.

Liberals are always reduced to generalizations. Obama’s “talking points” during the 2008 election were quintessential examples of vague airy-fairy bonbons. Who can forget the vapid Obama signature line, “we are the ones we’ve been waiting for”?

Tracinski fisks Periello quite well, pointing out the things about Democrat speeches which render the words nothing more than vacuous sound bites that leave one hungry for real thought or principle:

For example, his opening statement stressed his opposition to the TARP bank bailouts. [These occurred before Perriello arrived in Washington, thus they were an easy target.] He expanded this with some populist Main-Street-versus-Wall-Street rhetoric and then ended with a hint at pseudo-patriotic protectionism, talking about keeping jobs in the US and the need for an economy that was “making things" again.

Later on you’ll see Perriello’s career so far, one that has been devoid of anything so gauche as “making things”.

So we’re going to get that kind of economy from precisely which of Perriello’s legislative initiatives? There are plenty of closed-up buildings in District Five. Which ones is Perriello spending his legislative energy trying to get open again? What businesses are expanding as a result of his vote on that ruinous Cap ’n’ Tax bill he enthused over after voting ‘yea’ on it?

Tracinski says:

Notice how he hit some notes that are calculated to resonate with the Tea Partiers: no corporate handouts, more American jobs, and an appeal to patriotism. But if you ask “what did he say specifically,” he mentioned only one actual policy: “closing a tax loophole for companies that ship jobs overseas.” “Closing a tax loophole” is a code phrase for “raising taxes.” Leave it to a Democrat to look at a struggling economy and the long-term strangulation of American manufacturing, and to fall back on the only solution he can think of: whose taxes can we raise?

But of course, if he had just said “my solution to the economy is to raise taxes,” that would have given the game away. So the rest of his presentation was there as protective camouflage to hide his actual, concrete meaning.

“Closing a tax loophole” is also code for taxing the rich — you know, those “wealthy” business owners who were already regulated past reason or justice before Obama showed up with his knee-jerk dislike of the business world. Perriello never had a real job in his life. He has worked for governmental and quasi-governmental groups, some of them in hellholes far from his upper middle class childhood in Ivy, Virginia.

Tracinski moves in:

Then I got a chance to ask my question. For obvious reasons, I’ve been working for a long time on the art of asking questions to politicians. The main challenge is to keep them from floating off into the safe zone of vague generalities and instead to pin them down to concrete, specific reality. In other words, a good question has to short-circuit Perriello’s whole methodology.

Here was my question. (I’m writing this from memory; the exact wording, as I asked it to Perriello, may have been slightly different.) “You hear us talk a lot at Tea Party events about the Constitution, and the reason is that we view the Constitution as granting limited power to government. But part of what started this movement is that we look at the Democratic Congress, and they don’t seem to think that there are any limits to their power. I could cite recent quotes here from Charlie Rangel or from Pete Stark, but basically their interpretation of the Constitution is that they have the power to do anything they like to us, so long as they say it’s for the ‘general welfare,’ which is no limitation on anything. So my question for you is: what limits does the Constitution place on the power of Congress-and can you name anything that Congress has done, since Democrats have held a majority, that you think goes beyond those limits?

Tracinski knew that his question would require Perriello to get real or to make tracks outta there. No way was he going to reveal the real Perriello to a bunch of conservatives who think his programs are poison for the American commonweal. So he’s got his back to the wall here, as Tracinski well knows:

…If he is allowed to speak in empty generalities, he could tell us that, sure, he thinks there are limits on government. But ask him to name, from his own thinking, real examples of specific legislation, and you’re likely to get a much more revealing answer.

And that’s precisely what we got. As I expected, he confirmed that there are limits on the power of Congress — in theory. But even there, he talked in terms of the authority of federal government versus state governments, and the division of power between the legislative and executive branches. But he made no mention of the essential issue, the one that has the Tea Parties up in arms: the government versus the people. The limits imposed on government by the rights of the people were not even on his radar screen.

…as for the specifics, Perriello paused for a moment and confessed that no, nothing came to mind. He couldn’t think of a single thing — not one piece of legislation — that the Democrats had proposed in the past four years that might go beyond constitutional limits.

That was the answer I expected, and though it might not seem like it, that was the “gotcha” moment I was looking for.

Yes, that is indeed the “gotcha” moment for many socialists like Perriello. As Tracinski reminds us, regarding the “frenzy of legislative activity”:

• Democrats voted overwhelmingly for TARP [this was before Perriello was in Congress], which disbursed massive borrowed funds for no specific use and with virtually no direct control by Congress.
  
• Then there was the giant stimulus bill, with its now-broken promise of low unemployment.
  
• There was the health care bill which imposes massive new controls on health care, dictating whether we buy insurance, what we buy, what it must cover, what it costs.
  
• There is the cap-and-trade takeover of the entire energy industry, dictating what we can drive and how much we will have to pay to heat our homes. [And how, if we ever wish to sell our homes, we must retrofit them to pass an impossible green standard, one for which the technology isn’t currently available.]
  
• There is “card-check” legislation that would eliminate the secret ballot for union elections.
• And there was the DISCLOSE Act, an attempt to impose controls on political speech that specially targeted opponents of the Democratic agenda.

These highlights of a massive move to the Left, a move that most Americans despise in its totality (though the electorate can be depended upon to hold out for their own favorites) are extremely disturbing. It is still hard to believe they managed to destroy so much in so little time. And we know with certain dread that they haven’t finished with that wrecking ball yet. Already they’re planning on how much more they can get done in the few lame duck months left between the election in November and the new Congress in January. These folks are committed ideologues. What their constituents want isn’t relevant to their program.

Tracinski observes:

And those are just the highlights of a genuinely gargantuan, sweeping agenda. But nothing strikes Perriello as having gone over the line. And if that’s the case, then there is no line.

And I don’t think Perriello was trying to evade the question. I don’t think that he realized there was some legislation that was iffy, and he was trying to avoid mentioning it. He really seemed to be trying to come up with an example, and he genuinely drew a blank. But this is not how you would react if you were actually in the habit of thinking about the constitutionality of legislation. If you were in the habit of asking, about every bill that comes up: where is the authority in the Constitution for this bill? — then you would have that knowledge stored away as an important fact about any particular piece of legislation. Even if you didn’t think any proposal violated the Constitution, you would at least be prepared to talk about why it was constitutional.

Perriello’s response is the reaction of someone who clearly doesn’t spend a lot of time thinking about the Constitution. It doesn’t figure in as a consideration in drafting, debating, and voting for legislation.

Hmmm. Just think about Perriello’s training at Yale Law School. How much of his law education was devoted to a consideration of the limits of the Constitution? After all, he had his future set as a social entrepreneur, ready to take government money, NGO funding, leftist foundation gleanings and UN slush funds and use them to build a better world. That world might be in Sierra Leone or Kosovo, but like the other elitists in the Political Class, he already knew what was best for the hoi-polloi below him and he was full of energy to bring that “best” into being.

Tracinski returns to an earlier question from another attendee at that Tea Party Forum:

This fits with his response to an earlier question from a tea partier who asked about the state lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of ObamaCare. He did the usual tap-dance: he was glad, he said, that those suits had been filed, but he was confident they would be rejected in the courts, and this was the way the question should be settled, by arguing it out before the courts. But he just asserted that the law would be found to be constitutional, providing no argument for why that is so. That is the typical method of this Congress. It’s not their job to think about the Constitution. Their job is to charge full steam ahead, grabbing as much power for government as they can, and finding out later how much the Supreme Court will allow them to get away with. It is the policy of leaders for whom the Constitution is not a moral law to be taken seriously, but an annoying roadblock to be overrun.

Tracinski reminds us where this meeting took place and how much times have changed:

Since we’re in Thomas Jefferson country here in Charlottesville, it’s appropriate to contrast this attitude to that of Thomas Jefferson, who rejected the idea that guarding the Constitution was a task to be outsourced to the courts. Instead, he held that each branch of government had the responsibility to enforce constitutional discipline on itself. He took this so seriously that he almost decided against the Louisiana Purchase on the grounds that the Constitution gave him no explicit authority to acquire new lands for the United States. He went ahead with the purchase on the grounds that it was an emergency — he didn’t know how long the French would be willing to sell — and he then asked Congress to pass a constitutional amendment authorizing his action after the fact. Since it was already a moot issue, and because the purchase had overwhelming support, Congress didn’t bother. But has one ever seen such solicitous concern for constitutional limits from our current leaders?

All of this highlights the reason why, for all of his glib political skills, Perriello didn’t win any friends Thursday night. Perriello’s method is intended to make him look like a reasonable “moderate.” But there is a reason he votes with the Democratic leadership on all of the really important pieces of legislation, and that is because he accepts the Democrats’ radicalism on one central issue: their view of the unlimited power of government and their contempt for constitutional restraints.

Tracinski says he thinks people are beginning to catch on to the extreme makeover of our country at the hands of radical Democrats, of which Perriello is a prime example:

The public is learning that the “moderate Democrat” is a myth. It’s a myth because the actual choice is between two radical alternatives: limited government, or unlimited government. If you side with unlimited government, as Perriello does, then the flood gates burst open, and it doesn’t matter whether you support every little bit of the left’s agenda: you have let that agenda loose in the world by denying the constitutional limits that were intended to restrain the government from taking our precious liberty.

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Back at the beginning I mentioned not having paid much attention to Periello during the campaign. Our former Congressman had won time after time because he lived in and knew this District so well. Not just the money people, but everyday folks, too. Like Perriello, Virgil Goode was born here, but unlike Periello, Virgil didn’t leave for college without looking back. He graduated with honors from the University of Virginia and he returned home to begin his professional, and eventually his political career.

I knew how much Charlottesville hated Virgil Goode and how hard they’d tried to unseat him, without success. I’d quit paying attention to his opponents a number of campaigns back. My big mistake was in believing that Tom Perriello, son of a popular local pediatrician and thus a Charlottesville boy, was just one more effort by the Republic of Charlottesville to unseat their nemesis, the hated conservative Virgil Goode. In other words, I fell for the package in which Perriello wrapped himself. Like many others, I never looked inside.

After he won, I still didn’t look inside to see the real person. I figured he’d won by riding on Obama’s coattails, and that’s true as far as it goes. However, the fuller truth is far more threatening than the commonplace misperception about Tom Perriello. He’s a new breed of socialist, so it’s no wonder we didn’t recognize him.

Here’s a look at Perriello from a report in the Christian Science Monitor back in July 2008. Titled “Social activists hunt for congressional seats … in G.O.P. districts“, the article laid everything out for us:

Tom Perriello — a netroots “social entrepreneur” — doesn’t look like a close fit with the rural Virginia district he hopes will send him to Congress.

He’s not donning hunting garb or endorsing a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. His credentials are not in elected office or business, but mainly in creating social-action groups over the Internet, working for reform in places that aren’t exactly top of mind in Virginia’s Fifth Congressional District, such as Sierra Leone, Kosovo, and the Sudan.

“It’s not a traditional profile for a political candidate, but … it is playing very well,” says Fred Hudson, chairman of the Democratic Party Committee in Virginia’s Fifth.

Perriello’s ability to raise a campaign war chest over the Internet drove out all primary contenders, he says. At the end of March, Perriello reported $500,000 cash on hand, compared with $593,000 for six-term incumbent Rep. Virgil Goode (R). Next week Perriello’s campaign will report more than $900,000, much of it raised out of state over the Internet.

Raised out of state? I’ll say! Raised “over the internet”? Not unless getting your goodies from George Soros’ many pockets is “over the internet”.

Look at his résumé, taken from that Monitor article:

Born and raised in the district, Perriello graduated from Yale with a major in humanities, then consulted on youth and environmental campaigns in Washington at the Center for a Sustainable Economy (now part of Redefining Progress). After graduating from Yale Law School, he cofounded Res Publica, a Net-based organization of public-sector professionals; Catholic Alliance for the Common Good; and, most recently, Avaaz.org (avaaz means “voice” in many languages), a global Web movement on issues ranging from human rights to climate change. With 3.4 million on-line members, Avaaz.org is the largest on-line organizing movement in the world, says cofounder and executive director Ricken Patel.

Okay, there you have it. All his ducks (at least the ones we know about) are lined up in a row, or at least most of them. But look at his résumé from Res Publica, which is a bit more revealing:

Before co-founding Res Publica, Tom served as Special Advisor to the Prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone, a United Nations tribunal, and as a Yale Law School/OSI Teaching Fellow in West Africa. He has worked for the US State Department, the International Centre for Transitional Justice and others on human rights and legal reform efforts in Afghanistan, Sudan, Kosovo, Argentina, Chile, India, and the United States. Prior to law school, he worked as Assistant Director of the Center for a Sustainable Economy (now part of Redefining Progress) and as a consultant on youth and environmental campaigns, elections. Tom is also a founder of the Catholic Alliance for the Common Good. He holds a BA in Humanities from Yale College and a J.D. from Yale Law School and is a member of the New York State Bar.

That’s quite a paper trail. Let’s line up his succession of jobs and see if there are any common denominators here.

• Special Advisor to the Prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone, a United Nations tribunal.
  
• U.S. State Department [no job description there]
  
• International Center for Transitional Justice [notice that this group worked on “human rights and legal reform” in many places, including the United States.]
  
• Yale Law School/OSI Teaching Fellow in West Africa.
  
• Center for a Sustainable Economy/Redefining Progress [Assistant Director]
  
• Admitted to the New York State Bar
  
• Res Publica [co-founder]
  
• Catholic Alliance for the Common Good [founder]
  
• Avaaz [founder]

Notice that he’s a member of the New York State Bar. Doesn’t say anything about Virginia, though. Why would it? He’d never planned to return here at all. It was probably Obama’s selection as the Democrat contender in the presidential primary that propelled Periello to grab the main chance while he could. After all Soros was in on Obama’s dealings from the beginning, and Periello could count on lots of contributions from Soros operatives to fill the coffers:

Soros’ ties to Obama date back to 2004, when the multi-billionaire hosted a fundraiser for Obama during the latter’s 2004 campaign for the U.S. Senate. In December of 2006, as Obama contemplated making a run for the presidency in 2008, Soros met in his New York office with the Illinois senator. Then, on January 16, 2007, Obama announced the creation of a presidential exploratory committee. Within hours, Soros sent the senator a contribution of $2,100, the maximum amount allowable under campaign finance laws.

But that was pennies. Through his proxy groups, Soros donated millions to the Democrats, especially activists like Perriello, those “social(ist) entrepreneurs” who descended on Congress in 2009 and left a wide swath of ruin in their wake. So wide, in fact, that people finally noticed how awful they were.

But back to the list:

Res Publica, anyone? You can look at the website for yourself and see if you can figure out what they’re up to. It sounds like Leftist bumf to me:

Res Publica is a community of public sector professionals dedicated to promoting good governance, civic virtue and deliberative democracy.

We work as “public entrepreneurs”, choosing our location and projects based on assessments of threats to the public good and opportunities to maximise our impact. While many public and public-interest bodies restrict themselves to particular roles and means, Res Publica pilots a new model: rapid, flexible, project-specific responses to problems, focused on results and emphasising effectiveness, creativity and innovation.

Res Publica is Latin for “the public thing” and refers to what individuals in a community hold in common or place above their self interest.

Through its work and among its membership, Res Publica tries to heed Gandhi’s call to “be the change you wish to see in the world”. It operates internally and with partners on the basis of fellowship and deliberation.

How’s that for Obama-esque blather? Who isn’t for “good governance, civic virtue and deliberative democracy”? Hmm… the Taliban, maybe?

Take a look at their Advisory Board. The woods are thick with Soros connections over there and the code words for “socialism” abound.

The same goes for their list of references. “Progressive faith” is key on that page of glowing recommendations:

“Res Publica has been extremely helpful in energizing the progressive wing of the faith community. Res Publica’s work reflects clarity of vision, organizational capacity, and great energy and all of us who have been privileged to work with Res Publica are very grateful.”

So says the indebted head of the National Council of Churches, that Castro tool. That’s bumf squared. Stupendously magnificent are the Emperor’s Clothes.

If that weren’t enough, Our Boy was busy helping to found two other Soros fronts. The first is Avaaz. The wiki information on the sources for this one is quite plain:

The name Avaaz…was derived from the Persian word for ‘voice’ or ‘song’. Avaaz.org was co-founded by Res Publica, a global civic advocacy group and non-profit organization, and MoveOn, an American non-profit progressive public policy advocacy group and political action committee. The organization is also supported by Service Employees International Union, a founding partner, and GetUp.org.au. Avaaz’s individual co-founders include Executive Director Ricken Patel, Virginia congressman Tom Perriello, Australian progressive entrepreneur David Madden, Jeremy Heimans, Andrea Woodhouse, Tom Pravda, and MoveOn Executive Director Eli Pariser.

Here’s how they operate:

Avaaz is managed by a team of campaigners working from Switzerland, Brazil, the United States, Argentina, and the United Kingdom. They communicate with members via email, and employ campaigning tactics including online public petitions, videos, and email-your-leader tools.

They forgot to mention candlelight vigils. Perriello’s groups shine on that one.

But social entrepreneurs aren’t against making a profit while they save the world. Meet Purpose, a money-making arm of Avaaz:

Purpose creates 21st century movements. We look for ways that movements can help solve major global problems. To do this, we work with some of the most exciting players in the new green and social economy to help them get to scale faster and some of the world’s biggest brands to mobilize their consumers for significant social impact.

We are also a home for movement entrepreneurship. Our principals co-founded Avaaz.org, the world’s largest online movement with 4 million members operating in 13 languages, and Australia’s GetUp.org, an internationally-recognized political phenomenon with more members than all that country’s political parties put together. Right now, we’re working on launching a ground-breaking transnational gay rights movement and creating a consumer movement to lay the groundwork for the transition to electric cars. We’ve helped to create significant new global efforts to fight cancer and eliminate nuclear weapons.

21st century problems like the climate crisis require both huge global policy change and rapid, large-scale consumer change. Our work is deploying huge numbers of people, online and offline, in scores of countries, to impact the political process. At the same time, we are working with brands to create the consumer demand and behavioral shifts required to bring about the kind of change that politics alone cannot.

I hope our Australian readers can tell us about GetUp.org — obviously it’s got a connection to MoveOn. Clever, these progressives. I’m waiting for the founding of GetOut.org, which will no doubt find a new place on the reservation for corrupt capitalist pigs and their conservative minions.

From wiki again, here’s what Avaaz does:

At the 2007 G8 conference, Avaaz.org protested against the “U.S. administration [for its] ‘wrecking tactics’ and failure to agree to specific, binding global goals” when it came to the mitigation of global warming. At the event, Avaaz.org presented a petition signed by 355,000 people from 193 countries that supported its position.

Give me a break. 355,000 people from 193 countries is… (wait I have to use my toes for this one)… is less than 2,000 citizens per country. Busy work. Potemkin People.

In March 2008, Avaaz launched a global petition to Chinese President Hu Jintao on Tibet, calling “restraint and respect for human rights” and the opening of “meaningful dialogue with the Dalai Lama.” This petition passed 1 million signatures in seven days, and has now reached more than 1.4 million signatures, making it among the largest and fastest-growing online petitions in history. The petition was delivered in protests and events at Chinese consulates and embassies around the world on March 31, 2008.

You can’t get much more 1960s than that. And it made such a difference, didn’t it? 1.4 million signatures is what percentage of the Chinese population? And since when did signatures from nobodies in the outside world make a dent in the thinking of China’s leaders?

The wiki lists Avaaz’ ‘current’ campaigns. Though these were last year they’re still worth looking at:

On 21 September 2009, Avaaz.org staged a ‘global wake-up call’ to press world leaders to take action on climate.

On 12 December 2009, Avaaz.org organized 3241 candle-lit vigils in 139 countries, again to press those attending the United Nations Climate Change Conference 2009 to reach a “Real Deal”.

I suppose Soros cornered the candle market for that one.

Predictably, anything run by Soros has its anti-Israel component and this one’s no different. They’ve got a petition going to investigate the Israeli interception of Turkey’s “aid” flotilla, and another to demand an investigation of the situation in Gaza.


So, if you didn’t know before, you are up-to-date with the job description for a “social entrepreneur”. Find someone to fund your existence and then get other organizations to buy your services which include candlelight vigils and petitions. So much for Perriello’s ignorance about “making things” (if you can remember back to that speech to the Tea Party). I’ll bet he can make dandy paper airplanes out of some of the pages of his endless petitions.

I’ve saved the worst for last. That’s his “Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good”. It’s simply another Soros-funded anti-abortion group. Soros hates fetuses more than he hates Jews.

This group was created to push the abortion agenda in that misbegotten ObamaCare bill. Back in March of this year, Gateway Pundit, prior to the disastrous vote on health care, wrote about them:

REMEMBER: DEMOCRATS WILL STOP AT NOTHING… to deceive the American public in order to take control of one-sixth of the US economy with their health care suicide pact.

Today, a far left pro-abortion group that calls itself a “Catholics in Alliance For the Common Good” published a dishonest letter that suggested that a Catholic organization backed the democrat’s pro-abortion takeover of the health care industry. This supposed Catholic group is a who’s who of far left radicals. The group includes non-Catholic leftists and even has non-Catholic pro-abortion democrat Hillary Clinton listed as one of its leaders. [links appear at the original post]

When I went to the Alliance website, the first thing I saw was a baby. Figures. Lots of anti-Catholic bumf on this website, too. And pro-illegal immigration, pro-union — all the usual talking points. Unironically, they call the blog part of their website “Just Words”. A most fitting name for what Tom Perriello represents. Just words.

The man is obviously a member in good standing of the Transnational Elites, lately of the NGO class, now of the Political Class, at least for the moment.

When Perriello rode over our Congressional District in his Soros steamroller, he did a grave injustice to us and to a public servant of great integrity. Even the Monitor called Virgil “[an] incumbent well-known for high-quality constituent service.”

Now it looks like Perriello is finished here. At least I pray so. Like an unthinking spoiled child, he will leave a ruin in his wake and never look back. His vaunted “social entrepreneurship” will continue apace, with petitions and candles and earnest world-changing rhetoric.

I didn’t pay attention to that election in 2008. If I had, if even a few people had done so, Perriello might not have won by 700 votes. A “majority” of 0.0029% is a crime, and I and others like me were guilty of complacency. No wonder the Tea Parties are forming in such numbers. There must be a great many other people who have the same feeling.

Our district has lost Virgil for good. He won’t be running again and I don’t blame him. Washington is an ugly place now and it will be a long time before it gets better. If it ever does.


By the way, recent reports say that Soros is opening up against the Tea Parties. He sees them as a threat, which means they must be having a salutary effect in the efforts to fight back against the Socialism Machine into which he has poured billions:

Soros and the foundation left have launched a website designed to go after the growing Tea Party movement. Teapartytracker.org will post video interviews and blog entries gathered by folks on the false left who never grow weary of demonstrating their outrage over the very idea of a grassroots political effort overthrowing establishment Democrats and Republicans in the district of corporate criminals.

Teapartytracker.org will be sponsored by the NAACP, Think Progress, New Left Media and Media Matters for America. Think Progress is a George Soros operation connected to John Podesta’s Center for American Progress. Podesta is Clinton’s former chief of staff. Media Matters for America is the brainchild of a MoveOn consultant and Podesta’s Center for American Progress…

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Poll: The PVV Gains Another Three Seats

The latest polls show that Geert Wilders’ party, the PVV, has forged even further ahead of the other political parties in the Netherlands. The leftist dissenters within the CDA (Christian Democrats) have done nothing to improve their party’s standing; it remains at an all-time low.

If the election were held today, the PVV would hold almost a quarter of the seats in parliament. Matters seem abundantly clear, and yet the parties are unable to form a government, thanks to the cordon sanitaire around Geert Wilders.

According to NIS News:

Poll: PVV Now Biggest Party by a Long Way

THE HAGUE, 07/09/10 — In the latest poll by Maurice de Hond, the Party for Freedom (PVV) has won three seats. The party of Geert Wilders has become the biggest by some way.

The PVV would have risen to 34 seats from 31 if elections were held last week. This puts it nine seats ahead of both the conservatives (VVD) and Labour (PvdA) who would be neck-and-neck with 25 seats each. For the VVD, this is a drop of three seats from the previous week.

The Christian democrats (CDA) are at the same — historically low — level of last week: 15 seats. The CDA currently has 21 seats in the Lower House, already a huge drop from 41 before the 9 June elections. The VVD was the biggest party on 9 June with 31 seats, followed by PvdA with 30 and PVV with 24.

De Hond carried out his poll on Friday last week, after the row within the CDA party, and on Saturday, when the PVV pulled out of the formation talks with CDA and VVD. On both days, he surveyed over 2,000 people via the Internet.

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Nearly half of the respondents (47 percent) said on Saturday they found it a pity that the formation talks between VVD, PVV and CDA had collapsed. This included around 90 percent among PVV and VVD voters and 66 percent among CDA voters. Among voters on the left, the proportions taking this view were below 10 percent except in the case of the Socialist Party (SP), 14 percent of whose voters regretted that the right-wing cabinet talks had flopped.

PVV and VVD voters lay the responsibility for the breakup of the formation of a rightwing minority cabinet firmly at the doorstep of CDA dissident Ab Klink. Among CDA voters, half name Klink and the other half, Wilders. Voters on the leftwing side consider the blame lies mainly with Wilders.

Among all respondents, 53 percent would consider it a good idea now for VVD leader Mark Rutte to be allowed to write a draft coalition accord by himself, while 36 percent do not consider this the right approach. Thirty-nine percent of respondents consider that Rutte should write an accord with PvdA leader Job Cohen while 55 percent are against this.

Hat tip: TB.

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Violence Against Gays in Amsterdam

Growing violence against gays in the Netherlands prompted gay rights organizations to mount a demonstration in Amsterdam yesterday. It is a well-known fact — although not always a publicly-acknowledged one — that most of the anti-gay violence comes from Muslim immigrants or their Dutch-born descendents.

Our Flemish correspondent VH has compiled a report about yesterday’s incidents based on Dutch-language sources. He includes this explanatory note:

The protest was a response to the continuing wave of anti-gay violence in Amsterdam. In recent weeks, gay and lesbians were abused on the Zeedijk, in the Reguliersdwarsstraat and the Muiderpoort-Station. [source]

First, from Het Parool:

Gays threatened during demonstration

AMSTERDAM — A demonstration of two thousand gay and lesbians against anti-gay violence Sunday was ruined by a series of incidents. In one of them a demonstrator^[1] was injured at the hands of two women of 18 and 19 years. Afterwards the demonstrator reported the perpetrators to the police. They were both subsequently detained, but set free on Monday.

The two women wanted to get through a group of demonstrators on the Westermarkt with their bikes, shortly after the march had ended. When the man said something about it, they shouted insulting remarks at him. This resulted in a fight in which the man was hit by the two women. When one of the woman hit him with a bag, he was wounded in the head. The man and bystanders managed to hold the girls until the police arrived.

[Note: Shortly after the demonstration against anti-gay violence a boy was beaten up by two Moroccan girls. This was reported by eyewitnesses who were present. (source) — VH]

But there were more incidents. On Monday, the reports poured in to a gay-rights organization, the foundation “Right to Feel Safe”, as spokesman Fya Hopelezz said.

For example, there were boys on scooters [see article below; these may have been Moroccans] who repeatedly drove onto the protesters. A group of lesbians was threatened, verbally abused and pelted with beer cans [see also the article below], and several fights had to be calmed down.

“This makes me very sad. It shows how rock-hard the situation is now in Amsterdam,” says Hopelezz. “The anger sits deep in the gay community. Anger over the violence, but also because everyone keeps saying that anti-gay violence is not that bad within the city.”

[1]

Update 2: A police spokesperson made it known to Gay.nl that the incident was unrelated to the demonstration. However, police did report that the perpetrators had expressed anti-gay statements and then beaten up the victim till he was bleeding. It is not clear whether the victim is gay; according to police he was not part of the demonstrators. Police said they take the matter seriously. The perpetrators have been arrested [and released on Monday]. [source]

Photos:

• The wounded man
  
• From Het Parool: [caption] Activists demonstrated in Amsterdam against gay violence on Sunday. The protest was an initiative of the pressure group “Right to Feel Safe”.
  
• Demonstration at the Dam square in Amsterdam

VH adds the following article from Gay.nl:
- - - - - - - - -

More reports of violence during demonstration

According to the organizer “Right to Feel Safe”, yesterday’s violence — during and after the demonstration — was not confined to a single homophobic incident.

Yesterday Gay.nl reported that a boy was beaten up by two girls. Today “Right to Feel Safe” has issued a press release stating that more than that happened.

During the demonstration, two boys drove into the crowd several times with their scooter, “and on purpose flew narrowly past Dolly Bellefleur, who is beloved by the gay community,” writes Right to Feel Safe. Furthermore, a group of lesbians were hit by beer cans that were thrown at their heads, and Right to Feel Safe this morning received four additional reports of verbal abuse and threats.

According to Right to Feel Safe, this represents the ninth reported anti-gay incident in four months. The action group has announced that it will continue to demonstrate as long as there is an increase in incidents. Fya Hopelezz of Right to Feel Safe says: “The incidents during the protest once again show how serious the situation is.”

The politician Ahmed Marcouch [PvdA MP, Labour Party, Socialists], who was present, twittered yesterday that his impression was “that the police had a minimal presence”. According to Marcouch, this was a sign that “our administrators are not yet deeply aware of the seriousness of hate against gays”.

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Gates of Vienna News Feed 9/5/2010

A prominent Francophone Socialist politician in Belgium warns that the country may soon break apart. She says that the realistic prospect of separating Flanders from Wallonia is something that everyone should face up to.

In other news, France says that Turkey is not a safe destination for refugees, and has taken it off the list of countries qualified to receive them.

Meanwhile, the Pakistani Minister of State for Industries says that the Muslim world urgently needs Barack Hussein Obama to take the opportunity of an Eid celebration at Ground Zero to declare himself Caliph of all the world’s Muslims.

To see the headlines and the articles, open the full news post.

Thanks to Andy Bostom, C. Cantoni, Gaia, Henrik, Insubria, JD, JMH, KGS, TB, TV, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.

[This post is a stub — nothing further here!]

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Feiz Mohammad: As Extreme as Geert Wilders

I reported on Friday that an “Australian” imam named Feiz Mohammad had issued a fatwa calling for the beheading of Geert Wilders. Needless to say, this is bad for business as far as the Religion of Peace is concerned.

Now the “moderate” imams of Australia are rushing to try to put out the fire lit by Mr. Mohammed. And what are they saying? Why, that imprudent and headstrong young fellow, he’s… he’s… he’s as extreme as Geert Wilders!

Here’s a report from The Sydney Morning Herald, kindly sent to us by our Danish-Australian correspondent Anne-Kit, who follows it with her own commentary:

Preacher’s call for beheading condemned by Muslim leaders

A CONTROVERSIAL Australian Muslim preacher, Feiz Mohammad, has refused to comment on reports he called for the beheading of the Dutch anti-Islamic politician Geert Wilders, as Muslim leaders in Sydney condemned his comments.

Sheikh Feiz yesterday declined to confirm or deny to the Herald that he made the threat that anyone who “mocks, laughs or degrades Islam” like Mr Wilders should be executed “by chopping off his head” in a speech at a sermon in Campbelltown last week.

However, senior Muslim sources said there was some doubt whether the speech, which has been posted on the internet, was made in Sydney or in Malaysia several years ago.

Sheikh Fedaa Majzoub, the vice-president of the NSW branch of the National Imams Council, said that wherever the comments were made, they were “completely rejected by us as Islamic authorities” and were just as extreme as those made by Mr Wilders.

“I have no doubt that greater Australian society would not be at all welcoming to Wilder’s [sic] Islamophobic rants,” Sheikh Fedaa said. “Addressing Wilders should only take place through dialogue … within the legal framework that governs our fair nation.”

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The comments were reported in a Dutch newspaper, De Telegraaf, late last week after Dutch intelligence officials were tipped off about the threat to the politician. The circulation of the comments by Sheikh Feiz follows the broadcast of a recent interview with Mr Wilders on SBS TV’s Dateline in which he revealed he was planning to visit Australia.

Sheik Feiz was investigated after the discovery of DVDs of his sermons in which he urged children to become holy warriors and made derogatory comments about Jews.

He was also condemned for a speech in Bankstown in 2005 when he said a rape victim had no one to blame but herself for wearing “satanic skirts”.

Sheik Feiz left Australia later that year and has spent the intervening years living and studying in Malaysia and Lebanon. He is believed to have returned to Australia this year.

The outspoken Sheikh Taj el-Din al Hilaly, the former mufti of Australia and imam at the Lakemba mosque, said that the comments were stupid and idiotic and only caused harm to the Muslim community.

“These stupid threats from Feiz will unfortunately only serve to draw more Islamophobic people to Wilders’s hate-filled cause, giving it value when it has none,” he said.

A spokesman for the Islamic Friendship Association, Keysar Trad, said the comments were appalling and only “gave oxygen” to Mr Wilders.

Anne-Kit has a few thoughts of her own on the matter:

“ … senior Muslim sources said there was some doubt whether the speech, which has been posted on the internet, was made in Sydney or in Malaysia several years ago”

Does it really matter?? He is unlikely to have changed his mind.

“Sheikh Fedaa Majzoub, the vice-president of the NSW branch of the National Imams Council, said that wherever the comments were made, they were ‘completely rejected by us as Islamic authorities’ and were just as extreme as those made by Mr Wilders.” (emphasis mine)

Now, let’s see: Mr Wilders wants to stop immigration from Muslim countries and ban the burqa.

Feiz Mohammed, on the other hand, wants to chop off the heads of people who disagree with him.

In PC la-la-land, one is apparently as extreme as the other. Stop the world, I want to get off!

“Sheik Feiz left Australia […] and has spent the intervening years living and studying in Malaysia and Lebanon. He is believed to have returned to Australia this year.”

Surely from immigration records we should be able to tell if the nutter is here or not? We do have to fill in immigration cards whenever we return from a trip abroad …

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Teaching Sweden About Islam

Sweden will be holding elections in two weeks, and the Powers That Be are doing everything in their power to keep the anti-immigration Sverigedemokraterna (Sweden Democrats) out of parliament. As the German establishment did to Thilo Sarrazin, so its Swedish counterpart has done with the Sweden Democrats. The full wattage of the state media apparatus has been brought to bear to demonize them, and TV4 refused to air their “racist” campaign commercial.

Since fair and balanced discussion about Islam is at a premium in Sweden, Sverigedemokraterna sent abroad for some helpful experts on the topic. Henrik Ræder Clausen has written a report on the event for Europe News, and with his permission it is reposted below.


Teaching Sweden about Islam
by Henrik R. Clausen

In Denmark, it is well known that the Swedish public debate about immigration, and Islam in particular, hardly exists. The established political parties have a tacit agreement not to discuss the developments, and a compliant press is very helpful towards achieving that goal. Only one political party, the nascent Sverigedemokraterna, is seeking to open the discussion in anticipation of the September 19th general elections.

On August 30th they hosted an evening conference with guests from abroad invited to teach interested Swedes about Islam, the connection to crime and the possible implications for freedom of speech and other civil liberties. This packed the hall with just under 100 in attendance. The speakers were:

Nicolai Sennels, Danish psychologist. His extensive professional experience with criminal Muslims has taught him important reasons why the cultural differences between Western and Islamic cultures makes traditional crime-preventing methods ineffective.

Farshad Kholghi, Iranian-born, non-Muslim refugee in Denmark. Now a professional actor and debater, his personal experience of living in an Islamic society has motivated him to speak out now, in order that we may know the dangers of Islam and Sharia, and defend our Western ideals of freedom.

Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, daughter of an Austrian diplomat. Having lived and worked in several Islamic countries, her extensive experience and studies earned her an invitation to teach the Austrian political party FPÖ about the dangers of radical Islam. For her assessment of Islam, she was reported to Austrian police for ‘hate speech’, but continues to stand up for women’s rights, freedom of expression and other Western values.

Nicolai Sennels:
How do we deal with immigrant crime?

The first speaker, Nicolai Sennels, was armed with an array of slides with examples and statistics regarding immigrant crime. A handful of Antifa-style youth was watching from a distance, but apparently found the charts, bars and numbers presented by Nicolai Sennels to be not worth their time.

Sennels pointed out that crime rates are not falling over time (as one might expect), that quite to the contrary crime is more extensive among second and third generation immigrants. Thus, we cannot expect immigrant crime to level off in the foreseeable future, unless new methods are found and applied.

With his documentation he burst several other myths, including the one that the high crime levels were due to the traumatic experiences of coming from a war-torn country. This is countered by way of example, as crime rates among immigrants of Turkish background are at the very top of the statistics, beaten only by those of Moroccan background. Neither of these countries have suffered major military conflicts for many decades. In contrast, immigrants from Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan have much lower crime rates. War trauma simply isn’t a plausible explanation, but rather a diversion from the real problems.
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An important cultural difference is how we handle anger. Here in the West, raw expressions of anger are one of the fastest ways to lose face, whereas among Muslims it is a commendable display of strength. The obvious consequence is that our usual approach of making criminals reflect and understand the damaging nature of acting out anger is ineffective. In fact, statistics show that among criminal Muslims, the frequency of falling back into crime is marginally higher among those receiving psychological treatment, as opposed to those simply serving jail time.

Nicolai assessed integration as such and noted that in contrast with immigrants of other cultural backgrounds, integration of Muslim immigrants does not seem to be proceeding at the present time, and the criminal gangs are getting stronger. In Copenhagen alone, Danish police estimate that criminal gangs have a net gain of some 700 members a year, mainly among/from Muslim youth.

Articles by Nicolai Sennels:

Among criminal Muslims
Muslims and Westerners: The Psychological Differences
The one thing Muslim immigrants fear is being deported
Symposium: Islam’s War on Women’s Pleasure

Farshad Kholghi:
Islam in Iran and in Europe

The second speaker, Farshad Kholghi, briefly recounted his life story. Born in Iran, he remembers the time before the Islamic Revolution, when Shah Reza Pahlavi reigned supreme and the country was moving in a staunch Western direction, with extensive developments in infrastructure, industry education and health care.

Various opposition groups, communists, human right activists and others sought to overthrow the monarchy and replace it with Western-style democracy. Seeking a leader able to effectively unite their efforts, they naïvely chose Ayatollah Khomeini, then based in Paris. Khomeini promised democracy (as outlined in the Quran), women’s rights (as outlined in the Quran), and all necessary freedoms (as outlined in the Quran).

With riots spreading throughout Iran in 1978, the monarchy collapsed like a house of cards, and in January 1979, Khomeini was able to enter the country in triumph. For a year or so, the opposition groups held out, assuming that free elections would soon be held. Demonstrations pushing for those elections were countered with brutal violence. Demonstrations for proper citizens’ rights were met with brutal violence. Demonstrations protesting the brutal violence were met with brutal violence.

One year later, Ayatollah Khomeini was able to alter the course and implement the Islamic Republic of Iran, under which the Iranian people have now been suffering for 30 years. The regime is a primary sponsor of anti-semitism and terrorism around the world, and has no intention whatsoever of returning Iran to a Western-style democracy. On the contrary, it seeks to extend its influence abroad through mosque construction projects and funding terrorist organisations like Hamas and Hezbollah.

Farshad Kholghi is a well-known figure from the public debate in Denmark. As is the case for most everyone debating Islam, he has been accused of ‘racism’ (which, given his ethnicity, is rather silly), and of presenting ‘right-wing’ political views, which is more interesting. Farshad rhetorically inquired: “Is it ‘right-wing’ to stand for women’s rights? Is it ‘right-wing’ to criticize religion? Is it ‘right-wing’ to defend freedom of expression? Is it ‘right-wing’ to defend the right of the individual over that of the ideology? If so, then yes, I present right-wing political views.”

Returning to the topic of Iran, the domestic reaction to the regime is that of an intense weariness of everything Islamic. The word is that a million Iranians have converted to Christianity, which according to classical Islamic law is tantamount to deserting the army and thus subject to capital punishment. Although it requires substantial courage to abandon Islam, Farshad predicts that the Iranian people will soon reject Islam entirely, instead return to their own cultural roots augmented by Christian influence.

On the other hand, Arabic countries, where corrupt secular leaders have kept Islam at bay bolstered by US support, may still proceed with a yet deeper Islamization until the direct experiences of implementing Sharia in actual life has caused too much pain and suffering to be bearable.

Farshad strongly encourages participating in the public debate, to not fear religious fanatics, but rather to ridicule them and their abuse of power through the application of the best of Western values, including open discussion, scrutiny of Islamic organisations and our healthy tradition of satire and ridicule of hypocritical, corrupt and exploitative religious leaders.

Articles by Farshad Kholghi:

My name is Farshad Kholghi and I am a free man
A letter to Kurt from the Prophet
The Iranian Dream
Dear Idiots

Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff:
Islam and freedom of expression

The third speaker, Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, recounted her experiences about living in Iran up to the Revolution, her father catching the last plane out of the country. In 1990, she worked at the Austrian diplomatic mission to Kuwait, only to be caught up and held hostage by the invading Iraqi army. Later she worked in Libya as well, without immediately reflecting on the connection between Islam and the high level of conflict that surrounded her.

Only when she returned to Vienna in 2001 and noticed a rising Islamic influence in her own country did she start to study Islamic theology and thinking, to find that radical Islam is intolerant and totalitarian. Increasing participation in public debate led her to find like-minded people in the Wiener Akademikerbund, where she is now a board member.

The Akademikerbund is committed to Western values, our Christian-Hellenic cultural roots, Austrian economics and genuine democracy. And while Islam can of course be practiced as any faith, the implementation of Islam in our political life and legal systems is not acceptable.

The Akademikerbund has been subject to a dramatic assault from the press and politicians, who found its recent position paper deeply unacceptable and held it comparable to national socialism. The fact that there can hardly be found any political position further from national socialism than the libertarian ideals of the Akademikerbund was ignored, as was the fact that the chairman of the WA, Mr. Müller, was personally a victim of national socialism during WWII.

Apart from her activities in the Akademikerbund, ESW was invited to teach the workings of radical Islam and Islamism to the FPÖ political party. Due her critical and thus negative analysis of Islam, she was reported to the Austrian authorities for “hate speech” by a journalist who had infiltrated the seminar for the leftist magazine “News”. The case is still pending with the authorities, who so far have taken four months to decide if the case should be taken to court, or abandoned due to lack of substance.

Upcoming Austrian municipal elections have taken an interesting turn in Vienna. Whereas debate about immigrants, Islam and integration has usually been avoided by the dominating political parties, FPÖ is now large enough to challenge that Sweden-style Wall of Silence. But some provocative election slogans broke that silence, leading to a breakdown of the usual, ehm, civility of election campaigns to a point where Vienna mayor Michael Häupl claimed that voting for FPÖ would lead to violence in the streets of Vienna.

Articles by Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolf:

Seismic Shifts in Vienna: Part 1, Part 2
My Warning to America
ESW and the Wiener Akademikerbund
Report from OSCE
OSCE: Straight talk about women’s rights in Islam

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The United States of Sharia

As far as Islamization goes, Europe is ahead of the United States by about a decade. The proportion of Muslims in our country is no more than a fifth of that of the most enriched nations of Western Europe, such as the Netherlands, Britain, and France. And many of the Muslims in this country are “black Muslims” — the Nation of Islam and similar race-based organizations — which constitute a problem in their own right, but not the same as the one posed by the substantial seditious Turkish, Algerian, Moroccan, and Pakistani minorities found in various European countries.

The main difference, however, lies in the manner of Islamization. Europe is heading for sharia from the bottom up — its leaders betrayed their people thirty or forty years ago, allowing in the masses of immigrants who became de facto colonizers via intensive breeding and “family reunification” policies. Demands for Islamic law in Europe are driven by demographic pressure, and some countries are already bowing to what they consider the inevitable. A case in point is the official support in France for métissage, the melding of races, or the fact that Nicolas Sarkozy is willing to get tough on gypsies, but not on Muslims.

In America, on the other hand, Islamization is proceeding from the top down, even though the Muslim population is not large enough to give the Ummah the required clout. CAIR and ISNA routinely claim there are 6-7 million Muslims in the USA, but this is nonsense — it’s propaganda designed to make them outnumber American Jews. The correct figure is more like 1.5 to 2 million.

The Islamic lobby is able to punch well above its weight by buying off large portions of the media and the policy-making elite with petrodollars. With the help of Saudi money, the Muslim Brotherhood has managed to control most of the mosques in the United States and infiltrate the government at all levels. American media outlets — whether as a result of fear, or because of their major Muslim shareholders — are even more dhimmified than the state media in Europe. Sharia finance, Ramadan-sensitive rules, Muslim holidays, halal food — all these things are being imposed by federal, state, and local governments as well as the universities and the major corporations.

The federal government continues to consult with organizations like CAIR, ISNA, MAS, MPAC, and all the other alphabet soup of Islamic advocacy groups, despite the fact that almost all of them are fronts for the Muslim Brotherhood and were named as unindicted co-conspirators in the Holy Land Foundation case. They are officially identified as having links to Hamas and other terror organization, yet their infiltration of our national security establishment is so complete that the government continues to recruit their members as advisors, chaplains, and “diversity trainers”.


Bearing all this in mind, take a look the “Islam and Muslims in America” conference coming up in Chicago at the end of this month. It is sponsored by ISNA (the Islamic Society of North America) and the American Islamic College in Chicago, but it is presented by the Organization of the Islamic Conference — that is, the fifty-seven nation conglomerate that identifies itself as the representative body of the global Ummah.

So Interim Caliph Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu is coming to America in person to take action against all that wicked, wicked Islamophobia that keeps manifesting itself here, most recently in the racist opposition to the mosque at Ground Zero. Take a look at the agenda and the list of the usual suspects that were sent out in ISNA’s newsletter:

Free Conference: Islam and Muslims in America

ISNA Secretary General Safaa Zarzour will join leaders in education, community outreach, government, civil rights, communications, economics, and more for a free conference, open to the public, to discuss “Islam and Muslims in America.”

The Organization of Islamic Conference, in cooperation with the American Islamic College in Chicago, present the event, to be held September 28-30 in Chicago, Illinois. The Conference also features a concert by world renowned singer-songwriter, Sami Yusuf.

“This noteworthy event provides a unique opportunity to the Muslim community. Some of the leading minds in the country will meet in one place, free of charge, to discuss issues of American foreign policy and the Muslim world, the future of Muslims, Islam in the American context, and much more,” said ISNA Secretary General Safaa Zarzour.

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The event will host distinguished guests such as the Honorable Secretary General of the OIC, Dr. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu; Dr. John Esposito, Georgetown University; Rashad Hussein, Special Envoy of the White House to the OIC; Sherman Abd-l-Hakim Jackson, Michigan University; Magali Rheault, Gallup Center for Muslim Studies; Sada Cumber, the First Envoy of the White House to the OIC; Ahmed Rehab, CAIR-Chicago; Marcia Hermansen, Loyola University; Aminah McCloud, DePaul University; among other influential speakers.

The conference will be held at the American Islamic College located at 640 W. Irving Park Road, Chicago, IL. 60613. Dr. H. Ali Yurtsever of the American Islamic College reminds the community “Not to miss the unforgettable Grand Opening of the AIC Dormitory & Auditorium and Welcoming Reception on Sept. 28th at 7pm.”

For more details please visit AIC online and Register Today!

CAIR repeatedly emphasizes the need for Americans to learn more about Islam. Only when we discover the whole truth about the Religion of Peace will our ignorant Islamophobia begin to abate.

In furtherance of this goal, I encourage interested readers to sign up for the Islam and Muslims in America Conference on September 28-30. Take your video cameras and tape recorders with you so that you don’t miss something or forget any of the useful material that is presented to you.

It’s time to become informed!

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *
The Muslim Brotherhood’s long-term plans for the United States are no secret. They are quite public, and were even documented by the U.S. Government when it released the Holy Land Foundation’s “Memorandum of Understanding” (pdf):

4- Understanding the role of the Muslim Brother in North America:

The process of settlement is a “Civilization-Jihadist Process” with all the word means. The Ikhwan [al-Ikhwan al-Muslimeen, or the Muslim Brotherhood] must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and “sabotaging” its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions. Without this level of understanding, we are not up to this challenge and have not prepared ourselves for Jihad yet. It is a Muslim’s destiny to perform Jihad and work wherever he is and wherever he lands until the final hour comes, and there is no escape from that destiny except for those who chose to slack. But, would the slackers and the Mujahedeen be equal.

5- Understanding that we cannot perform the settlement mission by ourselves or away from people:

A mission as significant and as huge as the settlement mission needs magnificent and exhausting efforts. With their capabilities, human, financial and scientific resources, the Ikhwan will not be able to carry out this mission alone or away from people and he who believes that is wrong, and God knows best. As for the role of the Ikhwan, it is the initiative, pioneering, leadership, raising the banner and pushing people in that direction. They are then to work to employ, direct and unify Muslims’ efforts and powers for this process. In order to do that, we must possess a mastery of the art of “coalitions”, the art of “absorption” and the principles of “cooperation”.

The OIC — the nascent Caliphate — has emerged into the open in its attempt to influence what happens in the United States. With the Husseinization of America proceeding apace, there isn’t as much need to skulk along in the shadows as there was on — to pick a date at random — September 12th, 2001.

Consult the CAIR Observatory for information about the OIC funding for CAIR. One of the reasons why CAIR is in violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act is that the OIC funded them to create this anti-“Islamophobia” campaign in the USA. The process has legitimated the OIC and provided a platform for attacking all the critics of sharia.

The OIC’s success after decades of infiltration in the United States is being imperiled by a greater public awareness of what is happening in this country. For many years they had the elites in their pockets. They had the federal government on a bejeweled Saudi leash. They even had a good portion of the Congress, and quite a few think tanks.

All those liberal churches. All those liberal Jews.

What is wrong with the ignorant American public? Don’t they know that their leaders have been properly bullied and bought? Is there no respect for authority, properly purchased?

A popular insurrection is stirring against the elite consensus that a little sharia with a lot of baksheesh for the right people is not so bad — something Mayor Bloomberg, with his investments in Sharia finance and apparent conflicts of interest can help us all understand so much more completely.

The Ummah is fed up with letting CAIR and ISNA and MPAC and Imam Rauf run its local American franchise. The OIC is coming to take care of business personally.

It’s the United States of America vs. the United States of Sharia.

See the OIC in action on September 28 in — where else? — Chicago.

For that weekend at least, it’s just the United States of Sharia.

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Gates of Vienna News Feed 9/4/2010

A Jewish teacher in France has been suspended for spending too much time teaching her charges about the Holocaust. The school authorities say that her focus on the issue violates the principle of laïcité as it applies to education.

In other news, 30% of personal income in the United States now comes from the government, in one form or another.

To see the headlines and the articles, open the full news post.

Thanks to DS, ESW, Henrik, heroyalwhyness, Insubria, JD, JP, KGS, Mary Abdelmassih, McR, TB, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.

[This post is a stub — nothing further here!]

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The People Are Sovereign

In this French television debate from late last fall, Radu Stoenescu of Riposte Laïque and Soli Pardo of the Swiss People’s Party debate the famous Swiss philosopher Tariq Ramadan on the issue of the Swiss minaret ban.

Notice that Mr. Stoenescu keeps his focus on Islamic law, and repeatedly brings the discussion back to the topic of sharia — which is not where Mr. Ramadan would like to see it go:



Hat tip: Rebellious Vanilla.

[Post ends here]

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Totalitarian Sweden

Out new Scandinavian correspondent Bogiman sends an analysis of the current Swedish political crisis, and traces its origins back almost a century to Sweden’s Folkhemmet.


Swedish Democracy in crisis

by Bogiman

Sweden has been a byword for a modern, liberal and progressive country since the middle of the last century. The ‘Swedish Model’ welfare state set a glowing example for the rest of Europe to emulate. But behind the facade of this idyllic Scandinavian nation lurks a dark past and the promise of a very bleak future indeed.

In recent years the spotlessly clean stainless steel and glass cities have been slowly transforming into shabby, crime-ridden third world hellholes surrounded by ghettoes where the police, fire brigade and ambulance services dare not go except in force.

Riots, arson and pitched battles with the police have become a feature of Swedish city life and wise Swedes keep well away from the ghettos. The less wise who do venture too close can find themselves beaten and robbed. Women who walk the streets alone or innocently wander into one of the once peaceful parks and gardens that are a feature of many Swedish cities can find themselves violently attacked, beaten and raped. Swedish rape statistics are the worst in Europe and one of the worst in the world.

The transformation that has taken place in Sweden in just a few decades is startling and in order to understand what has gone wrong it is necessary to look into Sweden’s past.

In 1928 the politician and future prime minister Per Albin Hansson introduced the concept of the ‘Folkhemmet’ or ‘Peoples Home’ into Swedish politics. His revolutionary vision was to transform Sweden from a poor and class-ridden country into a model society where all citizens were equal and everyone worked together for the common good. And Hansson’s vision succeeded far beyond his dreams.

Sweden was rapidly transformed into the most modern and progressive country in the world. With everyone, from labourers and cleaning ladies to technicians and managers feeling they were all part of the same great enterprise, poverty was all but banished from Sweden. Free health care for all and a comprehensive benefits system was paid for by rapidly expanding industry as standards of living rocketed.

Sweden truly became the envy of Europe. But there was a dark side to the success story.

Throughout the periods immediately before and after the Second World War Sweden was in the grip of a racial mass hysteria. There was to be no place in the Folkhemmet for inferior races who would pollute the Swedish stock or for degenerates and non-conformists who would upset the harmony. Dark hordes of sub-humans were seen as a threat to the Nordic ideal.

To protect themselves from this threat, the Swedish parliament in 1935, without protest or opposition and with the blessing of the State church, passed laws calling for the sterilisation of inferior racial types, vagabonds, gypsies and the socially undesirable.
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Perhaps even more chilling, if that is possible, ‘showing opposition to authority’ was considered evidence of ‘feeble mindedness’ and could lead directly to the operating table.

The racial purity policy continued until 1976 and during this time the health service apparatus, doctors, nurses and officials, complied without question or complaint in the forced sterilisation of 60,000 people, mostly young women and girls.

Thoughtless submission to authority and a weakening of individual identity was one of the results of having been raised in the Swedish Folkhemmet. It came to be regarded as a virtue. Swedes became terrified of being thought different and their highest ideal was to be like everyone else. If any unfortunate person went against the consensus and questioned or, even worse, opposed authority he was immediately branded a dangerous idiot. He would be shouted down by all and everyone, who by doing this could show their solidarity and identification with the ‘sensible’ majority. What constituted ‘sensible’ could never be questioned, since anyone who did so, by definition, was not ‘sensible.’

This mindless conformity is a very dangerous state of mind and can lead to catastrophic social and political consequences. It is a state of mind that is now leading to the destruction of Sweden as a nation.

After the racial purity sterilisation programme was abandoned in 1976, Sweden, suffering from pangs of guilt, did a 180 degree turn and decided to become the world’s conscience. Sweden was to become the most tolerant country on Earth. The gates were opened wide to third world immigration.

From being one of the most homogenous countries in Europe, Sweden was to become multicultural and the whole nation enthusiastically embraced the new ideology as only Swedes can do.

As immigrants and asylum seekers flooded into the country in massive numbers to enjoy the bonanza of lavish benefits a generous Swedish government showered upon them, the nature of Sweden began to change. Ghettos sprang up around the main cities and parts of Sweden began to be more like Mogadishu, Algiers and Baghdad than Sweden. But this did not deter the Swedes. United behind the new national project, newcomers were enthusiastically welcomed in however large numbers they came.

Dissenting voices were shouted down with howls of ‘racist’ and ‘xenophobe’ even ‘Nazi.’ No criticism was permitted as Swedes competed with each other to show who was the most tolerant and multicultural. In a remarkable display of national debasement and commitment to the new diverse Sweden, the Swedish Parliament even abolished Swedish history.

In a motion to Parliament in 1997 the Swedish Government declared that: ‘Because a large group of people have their origin in another country, the Swedish people do not have a common history. Being a part of modern Sweden and identification with its basic values therefore has more relevance for integration than a common historical origin.’^[1]

Inevitably, as the quality of life in Sweden has deteriorated and as its economy and social services groan and creak under the burden of massive immigration, some dissenting voices are beginning to make themselves heard.

But in ultra-conformist Sweden, no dissent is tolerated.

In a climate of repression more reminiscent of the old Eastern European Communist states, the entire Swedish establishment has mobilised to neutralise all critics. Democracy itself is coming under threat in Sweden and free speech is being closed down.

The situation in Sweden has become so intolerable that Sweden’s neighbours are becoming uneasy. Fears have been expressed in Denmark and Norway about the coming Swedish elections, in which the small immigration-critical party, the Sweden Democrats, are facing censorship and exclusion more worthy of a Communist dictatorship than a Scandinavian country.

Representatives of the governing parties in Denmark have said that freedom of speech and the electoral process are under threat in Sweden and have called for election observers to be sent there to ensure that democracy is upheld. In Norway a spokesman for the second largest party in the Norwegian parliament has said that there is something seriously wrong with Swedish law if it supports such censorship.

The Swedish elections to be held on 19-9-2010 are of immense importance not only for Sweden, but for the rest of Europe. The unheard of criticism of a fellow Nordic country by Sweden’s neighbours, together with the Sweden Democrats possibly gaining some seats in Parliament, might just break the hypnotic spell of multiculturalism that has held Sweden in its grip for over two decades. If it does not then Sweden will likely disappear forever as a modern, European nation.

[1]

Regeringens proposition 1997/98:16 Sverige, framtiden och mångfalden — från invandrarpolitik till integrationspolitik — Author’s translation.

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It Must Be Permissible to Say…

The Thilo Sarrazin debacle has caused BILD — a major German MSM outlet — to come out unconditionally in favor of freedom of speech. The following article is part of that trend. Henrik Ræder Clausen posted a translation at Europe News, and it is reproduced below with his permission.


It must be permissible to say…

BILD Zeitung 4 September 2010

These are sentences most Germans would sign without hesitating. Sentences that formulate misunderstandings, frequently catastrophic, in our country. In spite of this, they are sentences that in Germany trigger anguish, strife and furious discussions. BILD is of the opinion: We need NO ban on free speech! Especially not for inconvenient sentences such as these!

“German should be the language we hear in our schools”

Fact: Children and youngsters who do not speak proper German have no chance to rise in society and tend to descend into violence and crime. Among repeat offenders (five offences or more), youth of Turkish origin have a prominent share of 8.3 percent. Where Turkish immigrants are well integrated, the rate of violence falls remarkably. Foreign youth have an unemployment rate twice that of Germans. One of the main reasons: Lack of ability to speak German.

“Whoever rejects work, deserves no support”

Fact: Whoever rejects “reasonable employment”, should count on a loss of support. Government support (€359 a month) can be reduced by 30%, and in repeat cases fall away entirely. However, the employment agencies rarely use this clause. Countrywide only 2.5% of the unemployed are hit by this sanction. Most frequently in Bavaria, where up to 6.2% are sanctioned, and most infrequently in the East German areas, at places only 0.6%—0.8%).

“Child molesters should be put away for good”

Fact: Back in 2001, prime minister Gerhard Schröder said: Child molesters “lock them up — forever!” However, legal precedent has hardly changed. In 2009 11,319 cases of child abuse were reported in Germany, with significantly higher unreported numbers, probably in the range of 100,000 cases. Over and over, repeat molesters are set free. Every second child molester is a repeat offender.

“I will not apologize for being German”

Fact: “Potato”, “F***ing German”, “Pork eater” — this is how Germans are being abused in Germany, in schools, in the subway, in the streets. Berlin youth judge Kirsten Heisig (died in July 2010) described in her book: “The End of Patience” the rampant hostility towards Germans that many immigrants nurture. She relates cases where young women of Turkish origin call young Germans “German whores”, and said: Germans “should be gassed”. Heisig makes clear: “If Germans were treating foreigners like that, we would call it ‘Racism’“. Furthermore, Germany is also a fine country that immigrants can also be proud of. Example: the German-Lebanese family in Berlin, who during the recent soccer world championships wrapped their entire house in the Black-Red-Golden colours of the German flag.

“Too many young immigrants are criminals”
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Fact: In some districts of Berlin, the rate of violent crime among Muslim youth is, as estimated by youth judge Kristin Heisig (†2010), three times that of German youth. District prosecutor of Berlin Roman Reusch said in 2007: Roughly 80% of serious repeat offenders… are of immigrant background. And: Since 1985, the share of foreigners in German prisons has almost doubled. For instance in Hessen, 45% of the some 6000 prisoners are foreigners. Of these, Turks constitute the largest groups with 19,2%. To compare, the share of foreigners in the population at large is currently 8.9%.

“Whoever is working should not be the stupid one”

Fact: Many are working hard, but remain working poor — yet hardly receive more than welfare recipients. This includes care and cleaning staff, guards and waiters. The German Ministry of Labour has calculated: A waiter (married, 3 children) has an average disposable income of 1745 Euros, including child support. A family on unemployment support has, including housing support, almost 1980 Euros per month. The waiter may get promoted to earn close to 2290 Euros per month. This 310 Euros more than the family of the unemployed — but he has to work really hard each day for this.

“Foreigners who do not respect our laws have nothing to gain here”

Fact: Convicted criminals without German passports who have served their time (or part of it) in jail can then be deported. But: Criminal foreigners with a valid permit of residence can only be deported if they constitute a “clear and sufficiently serious threat to public order or security”. As this is usually not possible to prove, even for violent criminals, seemingly repentant criminals are frequently permitted to stay in Germany.

“We do not need to adapt to the foreigners, they should adapt to us”

Fact: More than two billion euros are spent by Germany each year for the purpose of ‘Integration’, according to calculations by Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. An entire industry is making a living from “Immigrant counselling” or courses to “Further intercultural competence”. An proverb goes: “When in Rome, do as the Romans do”. Thilo Sarrazin writes in his book: “It would suffice if Muslims would respect our laws, stop suppressing their women, do away with forced marriages, keep their youth away from crime, and make sure they support themselves. This is what matters.”

“Those who have not learned anything should not complain about not getting a job”

Fact: According to “Vocational Training Report 2010”, around 15 percent of young adults (20 to 29 years) have no vocational training, one out of five traineeships are aborted rather than completed. Businesses complain about an increasing number of young who are impossible to educate. Approximately 80,000 of the young aged 15 through 24 abandoned school in 2009 alone.

And this usually leads is straight to unemployment: Of the currently registered 3 million unemployed, 472,000 have not completed primary school, and many of these are long term unemployed.

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