And long before she was a blogger, she was writing columns for The Washington Times. Back in the Stone Age of the internet, before blogs existed, I used to buy actual dead-tree newspapers, mostly the WashTimes. Both Diana West and Michelle Malkin drew my attention, as well as other columnists who never made the transition to the blog world. Later I found her column online at the Jewish World Review.But today she sent us a brief note about her blog, drawing particular attention to a post from earlier this week about Gaza, cultural relativism, and Gen. George S. Patton. First she quotes from the columnist Isi Liebler, who talks about Israel’s greatest failure:
…its reluctance to expose to the world the criminal nature of our Palestinian neighbor, the PA no less than Hamas. To this day, we continue understating the barbaric culture of death and the ongoing anti-Semitic incitement which permeates every sector of society under the jurisdiction of our Palestinian neighbor: mothers joyfully dispatching their own children to Paradise as suicide bombers; schools (even kindergartens), mosques and media inciting to kill Jews; Mahmoud Abbas, our peace partner, providing pensions for families of terrorists; spontaneous street celebrations erupting whenever terrorists succeed in killing Israelis in restaurants or shopping malls. The failure by our government to internationally expose such barbaric behavior reflects its slavish denial of reality.
To which she adds her own thoughts:
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I feel the United States has played and plays a similar role in the denial of reality when it comes not only to the depredations of jihadis, but to the vast differences in Western and Islamic culture.
[…]
The other thing the video reminded me of were some unvarnished cultural observations Gen. George Patton made in his journal in 1943 — a long way away from politically correct speech codes, self-censorship, fears of “giving offense,” and, in Europe today, indictment and possible jail time for the “crime” of violating “hate speech” codes even in private writings.
Go over to Ms. West’s post to read what Gen. Patton had to say.
She also has a new book, The Death of the Grown-up. I’ve read the reviews, but I haven’t read the book itself. When I find the time…
6 comments:
I wnt over to read the General's journal. Another omg moment.
Here's what I could safely excerpt:
One cannot but ponder the question: What if the Arabs had been Christians? To me it seems certain that the fatalistic teachings of Mohammed and the utter degradation of women is the outstanding cause for he arrested development of the Arab. He is exactly as he was around the year 700 while we have kept on developing. Here, I think, is a text for some eloquent sermon of the virtues of Christianity.
Communism also started as a movement for freedom, but ended up as oppression. I wonder, why nobody notices some common spirit of Islam and feminism.
For those unfamiliar with Ms. West, no bettr starting place can be found in her works than "Burnt offerings on the altar of multiculturalism"
Here are the article's opening paragraphs:
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Only one faith on Earth may be more messianic than Islam: multiculturalism. Without it — without its fanatics who believe all civilizations are the same — the engine that projects Islam into the unprotected heart of Western civilization would stall and fail. It’s as simple as that. To live among the believers — the multiculturalists — is to watch the assault, the jihad, take place un-repulsed by our suicidal societies. These societies are not doomed to submit; rather, they are eager to do so in the name of a masochistic brand of tolerance that, short of drastic measures, is surely terminal.
I’m not talking about our soldiers, policemen, rescue workers and, now, even train conductors, who bravely and steadfastly risk their lives for civilization abroad and at home. Instead, I’m thinking about who we are as a society at this somewhat advanced stage of war. It is a strange, tentative civilization we have become, with leaders who strut their promises of “no surrender” even as they flinch at identifying the foe. Four years past 9/11, we continue to shadow-box “terror,” even as we go on about “an ideology of hate.” It’s a script that smacks of sci-fi fantasy more than realpolitik. But our grim reality is no summer blockbuster, and there’s no special-effects-enhanced plot twist that is going to thwart “terror” or “hate” in the London Underground anymore than it did on the roof of the World Trade Center. Or in the Bali nightclub. Or on the first day of school in Beslan. Or in any disco, city bus or shopping mall in Israel.
Body bags, burn masks and prosthetics are no better protections than make-believe. But these are our weapons, according to the powers that be. These, and an array of high-tech scopes and scanners designed to identify retinas and fingerprints, to detect explosives and metals — ultimately, I presume, as we whisk through the automatic supermarket door. How strange, though, that even as we devise new ways to see inside ourselves to our most elemental components, we also prevent ourselves from looking full-face at the danger to our way of life posed by Islam.
Notice I didn’t say “Islamists.” Or “Islamofascists.” Or “fundamentalist extremists.” I’ve tried out such terms in the past, but I’ve come to find them artificial and confusing, and maybe purposefully so, because in their imprecision I think they allow us all to give a wide berth to a great problem: the gross incompatibility of Islam — the religious force that shrinks freedom even as it “moderately” enables or “extremistly” advances jihad — with the West. Am I right? Who’s to say? The very topic of Islamization — for that is what is at hand, and very soon in Europe — is verboten.
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Although more than a year old, this piece still resonates with total relevance. I hope that GoV might consider posting the work in its entirety. There is much grist provided by Ms. West for current discussion.
YPP sorry but you are absolute off:
"Communism also started as a movement for freedom"
this statement is false. Communism started to crush and exterminate the bourgeois class and implement the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.
The slogan: “ The Proletarians have nothing to loose but their chain” - is not an ideology ...just a slogan.
At least, they wanted to liberate themselves from something. From obligations for example. From capitalist exploitation. How you choose what is real freedom and what is not, is a matter of discussion, but they definitely wanted to be free in their own definition.
I read Diana West's book, The Death of the Grown-up sometime prior to Christmas this past year, and it is easy reading, pleasant, informative, and exciting. It only took an evening to get through, not being heavily involved in theoretical speculations or high abstraction. To be plain, she comes across as the kind of mother any man who lives a wild and turbulent life would wish he'd had.
I followed it next evening with Lee Harris, another easy read, another good work; then Brigitte Gabriel; and so on up to this day. West stands out as a winner.
I come here seldom and comment even less often, mostly due to the old computer here staggering under the up-load; but now that you've rid yourselves of that fool Johnson I hope to find I look in more often.
I found out a few years ago that some wag had actually coined the term "Dagged" to describe someone banned from numerous blogs. Yes, that would be me. It doesn't hurt at all. Good to see you gone from that fool Johnson and his lot.
Best regards, Dag.
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