Summer Fundraiser 2012, Day Four
Hah! Friday already!
Did you think you could escape our summer fundraiser, just because the weekend is almost here? Fat chance!
The theme of this week’s bleg, as most readers already know, is Discontent. As the week progresses, it seems that Dymphna is specializing in political discontent, while I am concentrating on “other” — whatever happens to catch my peregrine fancy when the clock strikes twelve and the witching hour arrives.
A variety of people are discontented with what we do here. And not just the left-leaning folks — their disenchantment with our “hate” may be taken for granted — but also various elements of what is commonly considered the Right. The opponents of “Zionism”, for example — as I mentioned on Wednesday, we remain unpopular with right-wingers who are preoccupied with opposition to Israel. And the subset of that group that is manifestly statist — those we would call “national socialists” if we were sticklers for accurate nomenclature — finds Gates of Vienna particularly problematic, what with our support for Israel and our libertarian-leaning conservatism.Oddly enough, libertarians who believe in open borders — another faction in what is commonly considered the Right —bridle as a matter of principle at our resistance to mass immigration.
So we take grapeshot from all sides at once. A battlefield of raging discontent, coming at us from all directions.
I’m more interested in finding common ground than in fighting over doctrinal differences, so all this manifest discontent tends to make me impatient.
If I can agree with someone on a small range of crucial issues — resistance to Islamization, opposing mass immigration, and the preservation of Western Civilization and its core values — I’m willing to agree to disagree on the rest. Abortion, socialized medicine, Robert Mapplethorpe, the gold standard, demographic implosion, the corrosive effects of pop culture: all of these subjects are worth debating, but only after the Great Jihad has been stopped in its tracks, when the West can pause to catch its breath.
This is what the Brussels Process is all about.
The luxury of doctrinal purity is only an option for those not attempting any practical political action. If you don’t have to build an effective coalition, you can afford to be a stickler on all issues of principle you hold dear. Otherwise, you are obliged to compromise on matters of lesser importance, so that you and your coalition partners can keep the main goal in sight.
The risk, of course, is that compromise and coalition-building become ends in themselves. The imperative becomes the maintenance and increase of one’s power and influence by whatever means necessary. Under such conditions, there is no principle that cannot be bargained away in return for the privilege of keeping a hand on the tiller.
Those of us who toil and sweat in the quotidian tasks of the Counterjihad are fortunate to avoid such existential dilemmas. Effective power is not available to any of us, and won’t be within my lifetime. So what we do remains focused on longer-range goals. Compromise and coalition are necessary to work towards eventual effectiveness, which may come a generation or two from now.
Thus we put aside our differences of opinion today in order that the younger participants in our common endeavor may have a shot at the goal when they become the éminences grises of the movement two or three decades hence.
The Brussels Process focuses on the issue of free speech because that is something that everyone involved can agree on. The Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights basically say the same thing concerning free speech. Regardless of any repugnance for the UDHR (which I definitely feel), this is something we can come together on, an issue where we share common ground. And our agreement stands in fundamental opposition to the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam, which defers to sharia, and is thus antithetical to everything Western Civilization considers non-negotiable.
Sticking to the principle of free speech implies resisting Islamization. This is where we all come together. We put aside our differences of opinion on other issues, and concentrate on what is most important.
Some principles are timeless, and essential, and worth fighting for. These are the things we can agree on.
Yesterday’s donors hailed from the following places:
Stateside: California, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania
Near Abroad: Canada
Far Abroad: Australia, Germany, Israel, and the UK
To those who donated to our common endeavor, despite any differences of opinion they might have, we remain profoundly grateful.
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9 comments:
"So we take grapeshot from all sides at once. A battlefield of raging discontent, coming at us from all directions."
It's from the center that one can see in all directions and consider all things. And it's the center from which civilization emanates. As well as being interesting, it is also informative that the centrifugal force is also known as the fictional centrifugal force. You find yourself in a most auspicious position I think – it's what recommends you to so many.
George Pal
- Hate...?
hate = anything not pro-sharia
Here in Europe we have always viewed America as tending towards extremes. Most British - and Europeans in general - believe in a mixed economy and would welcome the renationalisation of our railways. When an American stands up and demands total free enterprise then we tend to shudder as it implies ruthless capitalism, no workers' rights etc.
Even though we are Christian, we find the American brand of fundamentalist Christianity with its refusal to believe that evolution could have taken place once God had set the whole thing in motion, as rather stomach-churning.
However, we are now in a dilemma. Faced with an American president and his foreign secretary who are either closet muslims or muslim sympathisers then we have no choice but to hope that the Republicans reverse the islamification of America and restore Christianity to the heart of the nation even if it is a form of Christianity that we find difficulty with. Perhaps the same is true of Putin and Holy Russia. We deplore the jailing of the members of Pussy Riot but we want Christianity in Russia to withstand the onslaught of Islam.
You find yourself in a most auspicious position I think – it's what recommends you to so many...
The email correspondence I read (and I can't read it all, unfortunately) is mostly in agreement with you, Mr. Pal.
One crippling aspect - something perhaps common to people who are afraid of not "fitting in" - is the internecine warfare arising out of the Left's attacks on the Right's alleged "bad associations".
This contamination by contact is a clever move by the left; it sows fear & discord in the ranks of those who ought to be in close alignment. And those who find themselves being singled out are required to waste a lot of time & energy on futile "I did not" counterpoint.
For instance, Pamela Geller suddenly erupted one day last June with an attack on the EDL because of purported “neo-fascists that had infiltrated the administration of the group”...Since the EDL couldn't disprove this condemnation, why they should just leave & join Roberta Moore. At any rate, that was the gist of Ms. Geller's advice back then.
Yet strangely enough, Roberta Moore had disappeared down the memory hole by the time those "fascist" EDL were starring in Stockholm w/ Ms. Geller recently.
Thus, a damaging, heedless & needless shot amidships against a brave UK org attempting to return to England's ancient liberties. And to what end??
Needlessly divisive? You bet.
A great deal of energy wasted in refuting those charges? Indeed.
A more recent example of schizoid right wing behavior: when RINO John McCain spit from the Senate floor across to the five Congressmen in the House for their principled and legal stand against the inroads the Muslim Brotherhood are making in US govt.
His main saliva stream was directed at the only woman among them. This former "officer and gentleman's" conduct was particularly egregious since McCain had given an interview in the recent past about the MB not being the good guys, particularly because of their treatment of women.
I will never understand sabotage within the ranks; it is deeply grievous for those on the receiving end. Ms. Geller herself had experienced the endless attacks of Charles Johnson, and certainly must have remembered that energy-sucking nightmare. But any recollection didn't translate into compassion for those in a similar plight.
Likewise, the current GOP campaign's avoidance of 'phobe politicians - obviously afraid of getting the dirt of 'bad' associations on their skirts. I read somewhere that Allen West is gonna sell hotdogs at the GOP convention. One thing fer sure: they won't be giving him a voice at the confab. Yet they WILL honor a former co-chair of Obama's 2008 campaign because he's on "our" side now. I can see welcoming a former antagonist to the fold, but any honor and homage ought to go first to those who are already serving.
The Left knows it can count on the Right's invertebrate DNA to keep it crawling.
Baron,
It’s nice to see you writing such things on your blog here. Now if only we all (each of us, this blog, and a number of others (Jihad Watch, Atlas Shrugs, etc.)) could be consistent in refraining from the constant ideological bashing and even using any terms of ideology at all (in all directions) against people of ANY political stripe, we MIGHT have a chance to change the current of the path of Islamization.
We have some enormous problems. This movement is defeating itself. The only way to defeat Islamization, however, is if we always frame the Counter-Jihad Argument in terms of our Common Freedoms (e.g. universal human rights) ALONE. If we do that people on the unconvinced Right, the unconvinced Center, and the unconvinced Left might actually begin to pay attention to our message and quit writing off this entire movement and all of the associated political parties as “Extreme Right” and “Far Right” the entire time.
The true birth of this approach and the absolute leading voice in all of this is a well-connected and well-informed, non-partisan analyst named Peter Carl, who bases his approach in his own high-level insights into international affairs, his expertise in message formulation, as well as the path taken by Sir Winston Churchill in World War II (See http://www.brusselsjournal.com/user/21099 ).
Peter Carl’s excellent presentation of all of this can be found in a six-part series of essays that were published by our friends over at The Brussels Journal in November/December 2011:
http://www.brusselsjournal.com/blog/21099
If we all quit screaming and whining about the “Left” in general (they are merely unconvinced at this point and truly believe they are defending human rights, as do we and everyone else); if we quit bashing the numerous unconvinced components of the “Right” that you refer to above; if we all do that, then soon enough it will give reason for ALL PEOPLE – Right, Left, and Center – to begin listening to our message about the REAL issue here – the imminent loss of our Common Freedoms (e.g. universal human rights) and the institutions that support them. As far as the National Socialist you mention, we’ll take care of them when, where, and if they try to mix themselves into any of our efforts to preserve human rights and democratic institutions.
Constant raving about the unconvinced “Left” and bashing the unconvinced Right – or better said constant ideological raving and bashing because people of all political stripes are NOT CONVINCED by our arguments – as opposed to always and simply focusing on human rights – is only causing the entire movement to be written of as the “far-right”, “extreme right”, “bigots”, “hateful”, “Nazi”, etc. By our own raving, we ourselves are killing this movement by delegitimizing our message, our Counter-Jihad political parties, and are making anyone concerned about Islamization look like a bunch of loons.
Comments from EDL members on Peter Carl’s essays are instructive:
http://englishdefenceleague.org/forums/topic/brussles-journal-on-islamisation-part-1-and-2-94737/
As one of the EDL members says of Peter Carl’s essays at The Brussels Journal: “…this is the stuff that our own MP’s should be reading to the masses!”
Perhaps there is one hopeful sign that we have all overlooked. I was puzzled as to why Iran was supporting President Assad against the revolutionaries. I then discovered that the revolutionaries were sunni muslims and Iran and Assad presumably, are shias.
Isn't this what is happening in Iraq now? Perhaps all the Christians in the Muslim world just need to leave and retire to a safe distance and wait for the Arab Spring to become a great sunni versus shia war. Is Pakistan sunni or shia? If the former then perhaps Pakistan and Iran could engage in an exchange of nuclear weaponry.
All the muslims in Europe and America would needs must return to their countries of origin to take part in the fight. Once they have all killed one another the world can return to how it was 1500 years ago. Somebody suggested that Israel was behind the Arab spring. Perhaps they are. What a clever idea. Divide and conquer.
BC said...
It’s nice to see you writing such things on your blog here. Now if only we all (each of us, this blog, and a number of others (Jihad Watch, Atlas Shrugs, etc.)) could be consistent in refraining from the constant ideological bashing and even using any terms of ideology at all (in all directions) against people of ANY political stripe, we MIGHT have a chance to change the current of the path of Islamization...
We have tried to form alliances with many counterjihad folks. To sme extent we've succeeded. The two you mention delinked us and in general won't use any material we post.
That's a one-way hostility street. We still link to them, cover their stories on occasion, and have never "bashed" anything except sharia, sharia behavior, and destructive leftist behavior - that includes things which endanger our sovereign security, many of them enumerated by the Center for Security Policy.
CSP's stand against the incursions of sharia in our government are singularly courageous. You won't find many non-proft orgs doing the depth or breadth of work they perform.
Sometimes when attacked we ignore it. The stakes have to be important enough - as they were fo the EDL - for us to respond to animosity. Heaven knows what drives that kind of thing - e.g., Bruce Bawer stiff-arming and dismissing Fjordman in print, in his book, because of Fj's "associations". To give you some context on BB's understanding - he cites Charles Johnson's "research" as definitive but advises the reader to search over there for this information. IOW, he didn't source his claim, just threw Charles' name out there.
That's what I mean by the fear of associations. And we don't bother answering the watch sites or the spurious claims about us. Opinions aren't worth much unless they're sourced and substantiated. BTW, the Congressmen asked Sen McCain to examine their fully substantiated and legal requests of the Inspectors General. McCain simply shrugged them away. He's too important for that trivia -and he's a consummate expert at the one-off sound bite.
When you care about the people involved - Fj, or Tommy Robinson - and those inside the tent are beating on them, then simple integrity demands a response, even if ppl who refuse to read the issues want to frame it as making trouble.
When Charles Johnson mounted that major smear, no one cared. Until he came after them. And even at that, they never reached back to look at his record, they simply protected themselves. When you're big enough, that's all you have to do.
Brussels Journal's editor -since you nmention BJ - went thru hell because of what Johnson did to his reputation. It was evil, plain and simple.
Lectures about "only one way to defeat Islam" are wrong on the merits. There are LOTS of ways to defeat it and if you'll pay attention to those efforts you'll see that this is the case.
This is a distributed network of information and it grows all the time. Not even the OIC can keep up, though Allah knows they and Hillary Clinton are giving it the old taqiyyah try.
Thus, some "one way" philosophy ain't gonna cut it.
You said a mouthful, including that the risk is that compromise and coalition building become the end in itself.
Profoundly true. Many are not asking for ideological purety, or perfection as it were, but a cordial respect would be welcome. That seems to be the missing ingredient, namely on the left. They have no respect outside their political all-encompassing agenda.
Statists are willing to go to any degree to silence opposition. And principle means nothing to them. On the right, principle matters but why must it always be the first casualty even among allies? Those in the anti-Zionist camp are the stone throwers who don't consider the results of their actions, and sound bites rule. But enuf.
Unless we preserve this now endangered spies of western freedom, not much else matters. What you won’t see much of is compromise from the left who preach it constantly.
Yes, Ms. Geller made several radical assertions about the EDL, and suggested that Brits abandon the organisation and the leadership both, and instead follow someone called Roberta Moore who had already tried to align the EDL with a known American terrorist.
She certainly made a bad call on that occasion.
Blogs like this one defended the EDL - and they've been proven right, at the end of the day.
Of course now that the boys at the top of the EDL are making some kind of headway, and her chosen one is nowhere to be seen, ol' Pammy G is all for the English lads, and what she said about them is forgotten, not to be mentioned on her blog or anywhere else, no way, no how - just mention what she herself has said about the EDL on her blog, and your comments will be deleted.
She's spent a lot of time criticising the MSM and that guy Johnson, but some of the stunts Pammy G pulls herself are quite something.
I hope the EDL lads keep their stab vests on around her, so they don't get another knife in the back.
Pammy G is quite switched on in some areas, and does some good, valuable work. There's no question about that. But she's terribly flightly; that ego of hers can get in the way of the overall cause, which is what this is supposed to be all about.
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