..ummm, I think I mentioned to both Sol and Robert Spencer that I would be offline for a few days.

Here's a quote taken directly from the correspondence/email on this subject, cc.'d to Sol and Robert Spencer (and repeated many times in within many responses) titled "Note Also":

Hi Robert, Martin - Sorry for the late reply. I was offline yesterday and I'll probably be offline most of this week, traveling to and from Mojave.

What part of "offline most of this week" didn't you understand?

I'm visiting Mojave, a trip I've been looking forward to for a long time, doing some research on the aerospace industry here and enjoying the desert views. I have been involved in these discussions in the past, and I know that responding properly will use up most of my time. If I take the time to properly respond, I will ruin my trip.

I have no idea why this was published when I cannot respond.

Looking over our correspondence, (and spending more time in a little hotel room staring at a computer), I see that I said this:

I'm just about to head down to Mojave, and I'm not really sure about the connections out there, so I probably won't be able to respond for at least a couple of days, but if you think that this would quiet the storm, do whatever you think is best.

This is what you think is best. I was mistaken.

I don't believe this to be an unfortunate blog fight at all. One side is fighting honestly. The other isn't. These are battles that should be fought. Hopefully, honesty will prevail.

But Madigan quoted Geller in a way so as to imply that what she meant was, "Let's work with the Nazis to defeat the jihadists, because the Nazis are just fine people who will help us defeat the Muslims."

That is not how I understood it.
I thought it meant the blind eye to a serious threat.

It is not enough to say, "I don't like Nazis, but if they are pose as Antijihadist, what can I do?"

Naziparties all around Europe use Antijihadist rhetoric to get people to vote for them. They destroy the Antijihadist movement and at the same time channel its energy to racist, fascist and antisemitic aims. When you let those people pass voters will believe they are voting for freedom while they really help to abolish exactly that.

Nazis in Europe are only a small percentage of the population, but they are organized. They have their organizations ready. They can and they do pose as the Antijihadist solution without even being sincere.

True and humane Antijihadists have a hard stand to build up serious parties. Existing parties and MSM label them as racists. Nazi parties use that by stating: "They call us racists. They call them racists. We are the only ones who can move anything, because the other parties are so tiny. Vote for us."

Nazis are a problem. People who do not see that or who push Geert Wilders into the same category as Nazis are only making things worse.

You know what isn't a problem?
Mary is not a problem!

I don't agree with every word, but most of the time when I read an article here that I really liked it was Mary who wrote it. Her articles differ from the rest of the blogging sphere.
And that is a good thing.
Diversity is a really good thing!

Madigan the Smear Merchant and her witless acolyte "obsy" are devoid of any historical or contemporary perspective about the longstanding (and ongoing) alliance between REAL NAZIS and REAL JIHADISTs--cemented together by REAL JEW HATRED--as opposed to the calumnious guilt by association fantasies they promote.

I discussed the ACTUAL phenomenon of alliance between Nazis and Jihadists in an essay published this past October:

http://frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=32831

Hitler and Jihad
By: Andrew G. Bostom
FrontPageMagazine.com | Friday, October 24, 2008

A recent report (summarized in translation here) by the Hamburg intelligence service —the Office for the Protection of the Constitution [Verfassungsschutz]— stressed the hostility of the neo-Nazi North German Action Office toward “Anti-Islamification” efforts in Cologne. At the North German Action Office’s [Aktionsbüro Norddeutschland], “campaigns” page website, links are featured with titles such as “National Socialists in Lower Saxony,” “Free! Social! National!,” and “May 1 — Day of struggle for national Socialism.” The Hamburg domestic intelligence report noted the neo-Nazi group’s repeated allusions—commonplace in Nazi “analyses”—to the American “east coast,” which are meant to characterize “Jewish” domination of America and, by extension, the world. And in a statement published on its website (German link) September 25, 2008, five days after an “Anti-Islamification Congress” was banned by Cologne municipal authorities, the North German Action Office elucidated its solidarity with the global jihad:

Inasmuch as it is a determined opponent of the western-plutocratic one-world policy, we regard Islam, globally considered, as an ally against the mammonistic dominance of the American east coast. The freedom of nations is not threatened by Islam, but rather by the imperialism of the USA and its vassals from Jerusalem to Berlin.

Such concordance between Nazism and jihadism reflects an historical continuum evident since the advent of the Nazi movement. This nexus was already apparent in Hitler’s own observations from 1926, elaborated upon over the following decades by both the Nazi leader, and other key Nazi officials, and ideologues. Not surprisingly, there are two predominant, recurring themes in this discourse: jihad as total war, and the annihilationist jihad against the Jews.

Perhaps the earliest recorded evidence of Hitler’s serious interest in the jihad was provided by Muhammad ‘Inayat Allah Khan [who adopted the pen name “al-Mashriqi”—“the Orientalist” or “the Sage of the East”]. Born in the Punjab in 1888, al-Mashriqi was a Muslim polymath who attended Cambridge on a government scholarship, and excelled in the study of oriental languages, mathematics, engineering, and the sciences.

Not only did Mashriqi translate the standard abridged version of Mein Kampf (then commonly available) from English into Urdu, during one of his sojourns in Europe, which included time spent in Berlin, he met Hitler in the early years of the Fuehrer’s leadership of the National Socialist [Nazi] Party. Their meeting took place in 1926 at the National Library. Here is the gist of Mashriqi’s report on his interaction with Hitler as described in a letter to the renowned scholar of Indian Islam, J.M.S. Baljon:

I was astounded when he [Hitler] told me that he knew about my Tazkirah. The news flabbergasted me. . . I found him very congenial and piercing. He discussed Islamic Jihad with me in details. In 1930 I sent him my Isharat concerning the Khaksar movement with a picture of a spade-bearer Khaksar at the end of that book. In 1933 he started his Spade Movement.

Mashriqi also wrote this independent summary of his 1926 encounter with Hitler on May 31, 1935:

If I had known that this was the very man who was to become Germany’s savior I would have fallen around Hitler’s neck, but on the occasion I was engaged in small talk and tried to find out what he understood about Germany’s weakness at the time. Professor [Weil, the host] said, introducing Hitler to me: “This is also a very important man, an activist from the Worker’s Party.” We shook hands and Hitler said, pointing to a book that was lying on the table: “I had a chance to read your al-Tazkirah.” Little did I understand at that time, what should have been clear to me when he said these words!

The astonishing similarities—or shall we say the unintentional similarity between two great minds—between Hitler’s great book and the teachings of my Tazkirah and Isharat embolden me, because the fifteen years of “struggle” of the author {Hitler] of “My Struggle” [Mein Kampf] have now actually led his nation back to success. But only after leading his nation to the intended goal, has he disclosed his movement’s rules and obligations to the world; only after fifteen years has he made the means of success widely known. It is possible that he has arrived at those means and doctrines by trial and error, but it should be absolutely clear that Mashriqi [referring to himself in the third person] has identified those means and doctrines in al-Tazkirah a full nine years and in the Isharat a full three years before the success of the Nazi movement, simply by following the shining guidance of the Holy Koran.

Mashriqi founded the Khaksar Movement, an Indian Muslim separatist (i.e., promoting the Pakistan “idea”), and global jihad supremacist organization. Its ethos is revealed in Mashriqi’s writings (for example, his Qaul-i-Faysel): “…we {Muslims] have again to dominate the whole world. We have to become its conqueror and its rulers.” His widely circulated pamphlet Islam ki Askari Zindagi further declared: “The Koran has proclaimed in unequivocal words to the world that the Prophet was sent with the true religion and definite instruction that he should make all other religions subservient to this religion [Islam]…”

Mashriqi emphasized repeatedly in his pamphlets and published articles that the verity of Islam could be gauged by the rate of the earliest Muslim conquests in the glorious first decades after the Muslim prophet Muhammad’s death (Mashriqi’s estimate is “36,000 castles in 9 years, or 12 per day”). He asserted “Nearly three-quarters” of the Koran concerns conquest, jihad (holy war), and related themes. And Mashriqi reminded that the Koran promises hellfire to all those who do not participate in Jihad bi-l-saif (“jihad with the sword”), or object to it. Mashriqi also believed the Koran’s jihad verses confirmed that if a Muslim fought for the cause of Islam, this action alone was sufficient for his salvation, requiring no other good deeds. According to Mashriqi, Islam’s “five pillars”—the confession of the oneness of Allah and Muhammad’s prophetic mission, the ritual prayer five times daily, the pilgrimage (haj) to Mecca, the giving of alms, and the fast in the month of Ramadan—were all aspects of military exercise: the confession of faith actually meant that the true Muslim had to forsake all worldly gains in the interest of military revival, prayer (to be performed in uniform and in a regimented way) was a kind of military drill, the haj was something like a grand counsel of Muslim soldiers where plans against enemies could be formulated, the fast was a preparation for the deprivations of siege warfare, the giving of alms, lastly, was a means of raising funds for Muslim re-armament. In short, he stated, “To leave the martial way of life is tantamount to leaving Islam.”

But it was the “Ten Principles” Mashriqi elucidated in the Tazkirah—the work Hitler discussed with him in 1926—which produced a quintessential message of Islam enshrining the ideals of militaristic nation-building. This vision sounded almost identical to sections of Hitler’s Mein Kampf (compare to Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, pp. 169-179, Reynal and Hitchcock trans, 1941)—certainly in the following paraphrase from al-Tazkirah prepared by some of Mashriqi’s colleagues for foreign consumption:

A persistent application of, and action on these Ten Principles is the true significance of

“fitness” in the Darwinian [sic] principle of “Survival of the Fittest”, and a community of people which carries action on these lines to the very extremist limits has every right to remain a predominant race on this Earth forever, has claim to be the ruler of the world for all time. As soon as any or all of these qualities deteriorate in a nation, she begins to lose her right to remain and Fitter people may take her place automatically under the Law of Natural Selection.

Albert Speer, who was Hitler’s Minister of Armaments and War Production, wrote a contrite memoir of his World War II experiences while serving a 20-year prison sentence imposed by the Nuremberg tribunal. Speer’s narrative includes a discussion which captures Hitler’s effusive praise for Islam, “…a religion that believed in spreading the faith by the sword and subjugating all nations to that faith. Such a creed was perfectly suited to the Germanic temperament.” Hitler, according to Speer’s account, repeatedly expressed the conviction that, “The Mohammedan religion…would have been much more compatible to us than Christianity. Why did it have to be Christianity with its meekness and flabbiness?” These sentiments were also expressed by Hitler to Dr. Herman Neubacher, the first Nazi Mayor of Vienna, and subsequently, a special delegate of the Nazi regime in southeastern Europe. Neubacher wrote that Hitler had told him Islam was a “male religion,” and reiterated the belief that the Germans would have been far more successful conquerors had they adopted Islam in the Middle Ages. Additional confirmation of Hitler’s very favorable inclination towards Islam is provided by General Alexander Loehr, a Lutwaffe commander (executed in 1947 for the mass-murders of Yugoslav civilians). Loehr maintained a smiling Hitler had told him that Islam was such a desirable creed the Fuehrer longed for it to become the official SS religion.

Hitler appears to have viewed the uniquely Islamic institution of jihad as an appropriate model for waging genocidal, total war. During the mid to late 19th century, jihad total war campaigns—adapted to the conditions of modern warfare—were waged by the Ottoman Empire against its Bulgarian and Armenian Christian minorities. The Ottoman tactics included innumerable atrocities, mass slaughter, and extensive, murderous deportations. Official Ottoman jihad declarations during World War I assured that the genocidal aspects of Islamic doctrine were “updated” by the application of modern total war offensive doctrines, and directed at the Armenians, in particular. This jihad-inspired policy begot razzias (raids), massacres of villagers, massacres of Armenian conscripts in work battalions, and mass deportations—all representative of an overall total-war strategy implemented by the Ottoman state, and military high command.

And the disintegrating Ottoman Empire’s World War I jihad genocide against its Armenian minority, specifically, served as an “inspirational” precedent to Hitler. During August of 1939, Hitler gave speeches in preparation for the looming invasion of Poland which admonished his military commanders to wage a brutal, merciless campaign, and assure rapid victory. Hitler portrayed the impending invasion as the initial step of a vision to “secure the living space we need,” and ultimately, “redistribute the world.” In an explicit reference to the Armenians, “Who after all is today speaking of the destruction of the Armenians?,” Hitler justified their annihilation (and the world’s consignment of this genocide to oblivion) as an accepted new world order because, “The world believes only in success.”

Vahakn Dadrian—the foremost scholar of the Armenian genocide—observes that although Hitler’s motives in seeking to destroy the Jews were not identical with those of the Ottoman Turks’ in their attempts to eliminate the Armenians, “…the two victim nations share one common element in Hitler’s scheme of things: their extreme vulnerability.” Moreover, Hitler emphasized the urgent task, “…of protecting the German blood from contamination, not only of the Jewish but also of the Armenian blood.” Predictable impunity—the ease with which the Armenian genocide was committed and how the perpetrators escaped retributive justice—clearly impressed Hitler and his henchmen, considering a similar action against the Jews. Indeed, the German Jew, Richard Lictheim who as a young Zionist leader had negotiated with Ottoman leaders in Turkey during World War I, characterized the “…cold-bloodedly planned extermination of over one million Armenians…[as] akin to Hitler’s crusade of destruction against the Jews…” And as historian Abram Sachar noted, “…the genocide was cited approvingly twenty-five years later by the Fuehrer…who found the Armenian ‘solution’ an attractive precedent.”

Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS (Nazi Secret Service), and eventually all German police forces, was another champion of Islam’s singular bellicosity. Accordingly, Himmler foresaw that within the framework of the Waffen-SS, several Muslim divisions would be created to wage jihad “shoulder to shoulder” with Nazi and Axis power soldiers. Himmler was the guiding force behind the establishment of a Waffen-SS 13th (later dubbed Handzar) Division—comprised exclusively of Muslims from Bosnia and Herzegovina. He argued in support of the creation of this Muslim division that the global Islamic community (umma) was very sympathetic to Nazism, and that the targeted Balkan Muslims had a special consciousness of their Muslim Bosnian-Herzegovinian identity. Indeed, Himmler and his collaborators believed that these Balkan Muslims were ideally suited to forge a nexus between the Nazi Germanic “racial north,” and the Islamic east. SS General Gottlob Berger described how Himmler’s creation of the Handzar division was the apotheosis of this vision:

For the first time a connection is being established between Islam and National Socialism on an open, honest base, since it will be ruled from the North where blood and race are concerned, and from the East ideologically and spiritually.

As the ultimate fulfillment of his vision, Himmler also strove to re-create a contemporary version of the Ottoman Muslim devshirme levy, and form a modern janissary corps, not only in Bosnia-Herzegovina, but the Sanjak (regions in Serbia and Montenegro), most of Croatia, and the major part of Srem (which includes provinces in Serbia and Croatia between the Danube and Sava rivers). Historian Jennie Lebel describes this effort:

In order to supply the Reich on time with a “loyal population” for this planned SS border area [i.e., as outlined above in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, and Serbia], Himmler gave orders to collect children, male and female, who had been left without one or both parents and send them to Germany in order “to create a kind of Janissaries” and the “future soldiers and soldiers’ women of the old military border of the Reich.” The collection of the children was to be taken care of by the commanders of the Waffen-SS divisions. They had to report once monthly to Himmler personally on the number of children collected. This was stated in two letters by Himmler, one addressed to General Arthur Phleps on May 20, 1944, and the other to General Gottlob Berger on July 14 of the same year. Copies were sent to General Kammerhofer, SS representative for the NDH [Croatia], to General Erwin Rosener in Slovenia, General Hermann Behrends in Serbia and General Herman Foegellein, liason officer of the Waffen-SS with Hitler.

Hajj Amin el-Husseini—the pre-eminent Arab Muslim leader of the World War II era—was viewed by Hitler (and also the Waffen-SS)—as a “Muslim Pope.” For example, the Nazi regime promoted this former Mufti of Jerusalem in an illustrated biographical booklet (printed in Berlin in 1943) which declared him Muhammad’s direct descendant, an Arab national hero, and the “incarnation of all ideals and hopes of the Arab nation.”

On June 30, 1922, a joint resolution of both Houses of Congress of the United States unanimously endorsed the “Mandate for Palestine,” confirming the irrevocable right of Jews to settle in the area of Palestine—anywhere between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. The Congressional Record contains a statement of support from New York Rep. Walter Chandler which includes an observation, about “Turkish and Arab agitators… preaching a kind of holy war [jihad] against…the Jews” of Palestine. During this same era within Palestine, a strong Arab Muslim irredentist current—epitomized by Hajj Amin el-Husseini—promulgated the forcible restoration of Shari’a-mandated dhimmitude for Jews via jihad. Indeed, two years before he orchestrated the murderous anti-Jewish riots of 1920, i.e., in 1918, Hajj Amin el-Husseini stated plainly to a Jewish co-worker (at the Jerusalem Governorate), I.A. Abbady, “This was and will remain an Arab land…the Zionists will be massacred to the last man…Nothing but the sword will decide the future of this country.”

Despite his role in fomenting the1920 pogroms against Palestinian Jews, el-Husseini was pardoned, and subsequently appointed Mufti of Jerusalem by the British High Commissioner, in May 1921, a title he retained, following the Ottoman practice, for the remainder of his life. Throughout his public career, the Mufti relied upon traditional Koranic anti-Jewish motifs to arouse the Arab street. For example, during the incitement which led to the 1929 Arab revolt in Palestine, he called for combating and slaughtering "the Jews", not merely Zionists. In fact, most of the Jewish victims of the 1929 Arab revolt were Jews from the centuries old dhimmi communities (for eg., in Hebron), as opposed to recent settlers identified with the Zionist movement. With the ascent of Nazi Germany in the 1930s and 1940s, the Mufti and his coterie intensified their anti-Semitic activities to secure support from Hitler's Germany (and later Bosnian Muslims, as well as the overall Arab Muslim world), for a jihad to annihilate the Jews of Palestine. Following his expulsion from Palestine by the British, the Mufti fomented a brutal anti-Jewish pogrom in Baghdad (1941), concurrent with his failed effort to install a pro-Nazi Iraqi government. Escaping to Europe after this unsuccessful coup attempt, the Mufti spent the remainder of World War II in Germany and Italy. From this sanctuary, he provided active support for the Germans by recruiting Bosnian Muslims, in addition to Muslim minorities from the Caucasus, for dedicated Nazi SS units. The Mufti's objectives for these recruits, and Muslims in general, were made explicit during his multiple wartime radio broadcasts from Berlin, heard throughout the Arab world: an international campaign of genocide against the Jews. For example, during his March 1, 1944 broadcast he stated: “Kill the Jews wherever you find them. This pleases God, history, and religion.”

Hajj Amin made an especially important contribution to the German war effort in Yugoslovia where the Bosnian Muslim SS units he recruited (in particular the Handzar Division) brutally suppressed local Nazi resistance movements. The Mufti's pamphlet entitled, “Islam and the Jews”, was published by the Nazis in Croatian and German for distribution during the war to these Bosnian Muslim SS units. This incendiary document hinged upon antisemitic motifs from the Koran (for example, 5:82), and the hadith (including Muhammad’s alleged poisoning by a Khaybar Jewess), and concluded with the apocalyptic canonical hadith describing the Jews’ annihilation. And Jan Wanner has observed that,

His [the Mufti’s] appeals…addressed to the Bosnian Muslims were…close in many respects to the argumentation used by contemporary Islamic fundamentalists…the Mufti viewed only as a new interpretation of the traditional concept of the Islamic community (umma), sharing with Nazism common enemies.

This hateful propaganda served to incite the slaughter of Jews, and (Serb) Christians as well. Indeed, the Bosnian Muslim Handzar SS Division was responsible for the destruction of whole Bosnian Jewish and Serbian communities, including the massacre of Jews and Serbs, and the deportation of survivors to Auschwitz for extermination. However, these heinous crimes, for which the Mufti bears direct responsibility, had only a limited impact on the overall destruction of European Jewry when compared with his nefarious wartime campaign to prevent Jewish emigration from Europe to Palestine. Wanner, in his 1986 analysis of the Mufti’s collaboration with Nazi Germany during World War II, concluded,

…the darkest aspect of the Mufti’s activities in the final stage of the war was undoubtedly his personal share in the extermination of Europe’s Jewish population. On May 17, 1943, he wrote a personal letter to Ribbentrop, asking him to prevent the transfer of 4500 Bulgarian Jews, 4000 of them children, to Palestine. In May and June of the same year, he sent a number of letters to the governments of Bulgaria, Italy, Rumania, and Hungary, with the request not to permit even individual Jewish emigration and to allow the transfer of Jews to Poland where, he claimed they would be “under active supervision”. The trials of Eichmann’s henchmen, including Dieter Wislicency who was executed in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia, confirmed that this was not an isolated act by the Mufti.

Invoking the personal support of such prominent Nazis as Himmler and Eichmann, the Mufti's relentless hectoring of German, Rumanian, and Hungarian government officials caused the cancellation of an estimated 480,000 exit visas which had been granted to Jews (80,000 from Rumania, and 400,000 from Hungary). As a result, these hapless individuals were deported to Polish concentration camps. A United Nations Assembly document presented in 1947 which contained the Mufti's June 28, 1943 letter to the Hungarian Foreign Minister requesting the deportation of Hungarian Jews to Poland, includes this stark, telling annotation: “As a Sequel to This Request 400,000 Jews Were Subsequently Killed.” Moreover, in the Mufti’s memoirs (Memoirs of the Grand Mufti, edited by Abd al-Karim al-Umar, Damascus, 1999) he describes what Himmler revealed to him during the summer of 1943 regarding the genocide of the Jews. Following pro forma tirades on “Jewish war guilt,” Himmler told the Mufti that “up to now we have liquidated [abadna] around three million of them.”

According to historian Howard M. Sachar, meetings the Mufti held with Hitler in 1941 and 1942 lead to an understanding whereby Hitler's forces would invade Palestine with the goal being “..not the occupation of the Arab lands, but solely the destruction of Palestin(ian) Jewry…” And in April, 2006, the director of the Nazi research center in Ludwigsburg, Klaus-Michael Mallman, and Berlin historian Martin Cueppers, revealed that a murderous Einsatzgruppe Egypt, connected to Rommel's Africa Korps, was stationed in Athens awaiting British expulsion from the Levant, prior to beginning their planned slaughter of the roughly 500,000 Jews in Palestine. This plan was only aborted after Rommel’s defeat by Montgomery at El Alamein, Egypt, in October/November 1942.

The Mufti remained unrelenting in his espousal of a virulent Judeophobic hatred as the focal tenet of his ideology in the aftermath of World War II, and the creation of the State of Israel. And the Mufti was also a committed supporter of global jihad movements, urging a “full struggle” against the Hindus of India (as well as the Jews of Israel) before delegates at the February 1951 World Muslim Congress: “We shall meet next with sword in hand on the soil of either Kashmir or Palestine.” Declassified intelligence documents from 1942, 1947, 1952, and 1954 confirm the Mufti's own Caliphate desires in repeated references from contexts as diverse as Turkey, Egypt, Jerusalem, and Pakistan, and also include discussions of major Islamic Conferences dominated by the Mufti, which were attended by a broad spectrum of Muslim leaders literally representing the entire Islamic world (including Shia leaders from Iran), i, e., in Karachi from February 16-19, 1952, and Jordanian occupied Jerusalem, December 3-9, 1953. Viewed in their totality these data do not support the current standard assessment of the Mufti as merely a “Palestinian Arab nationalist, rife with Jew hatred.”

During an interview conducted in the late 1930s (published in 1939), Karl Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist and founder of analytical psychiatry, was asked “…had he any views on what was likely to be the next step in religious development?” Jung replied, in reference to the Nazi fervor that had gripped Germany,

We do not know whether Hitler is going to found a new Islam. He is already on the way; he is like Muhammad. The emotion in Germany is Islamic; warlike and Islamic. They are all drunk with wild god. That can be the historic future.

Although now, inexplicably, almost ignored in their entirety, writings produced for 100 years between the mid-19th through mid-20th centuries, by important scholars and intellectuals, in addition to Carl Jung—for example, the historians Jacob Burckhardt and Waldemar Gurian, Protestant theologian Karl Barth, and most notably, the renowned 20th century scholar of Islamic Law, G.H. Bousquet—referred to Islam as a despotic, or in 20th century parlance, totalitarian ideology.

Being imbued with fanaticism was the ultimate source of Muhammad’s great strength, and lead to his triumph as a despot, according to the 19th century Swiss historian Burckhardt:

Muhammad is personally very fanatical; that is his basic strength. His fanaticism is that of a radical simplifier and to that extent is quite genuine. It is of the toughest variety, namely doctrinaire passion, and his victory is one of the greatest victories of fanaticism and triviality. All idolatry, everything mythical, everything free in religion, all the multifarious ramifications of the hitherto existing faith, transport him into a real rage, and he hits upon a moment when large strata of his nation were highly receptive to an extreme simplification of the religious.

The Arabs, Burckhardt emphasizes, Muhammad’s henchmen, were not barbarians and had their own ingenuities, and spiritual traditions. Muhammad’s successful preaching among them capitalized upon an apparent longing for supra-tribal unification, “an extreme simplification.” Muhammad’s genius, “lies in divining this.” Utilizing portions of the most varied existing traditions, and taking advantage of the fact that “the peoples who were now attacked may also have been somewhat tired of their existing theology and mythology,” Muhammad

…with the aid of at least ten people, looks over the faiths of the Jews, Christians, and Parsis [Zoroastrians], and steals from them any scraps that he can use, shaping these elements according to his imagination. Thus everyone found in Muhammad’s sermons some echo of his accustomed faith. The very extraordinary thing is that with all this Muhammad achieved not merely lifetime success, the homage of Arabia, but founded a world religion that is viable to this day and has a tremendously high opinion of itself.

Burckhardt concludes that despite this achievement, Muhammad was not a great man, although he accepts the understandable inclination,

…to deduce great causes from great effects, thus, from Muhammad’s achievement, greatness of the originator. At the very least, one wants to concede in Muhammad’s case that he was no fraud, was serious about things, etc. However, it is possible to be in error sometime with this deduction regarding greatness and to mistake mere might for greatness. In this instance it is rather the low qualities of human nature that have received a powerful presentation. Islam is a triumph of triviality, and the great majority of mankind is trivial…But triviality likes to be tyrannical and is fond of imposing its yoke upon nobler spirits. Islam wanted to deprive distinguished old nations of their myths, the Persians of their Book of Kings, and for 1200 years it has actually prohibited sculpture and painting to tremendously large populations.

University of Notre Dame historian Waldemar Gurian, a refugee, who witnessed first hand the Communist and Fascist totalitarian movements in Europe, concluded (circa 1945) that Hitler, in a manner analogous to the 7th century precedent of Muhammad, had been the simplifier of German nationalism.

A fanatical simplifier who appeared as the unifier of various German traditions in the service of simple national aims and who was seen by many differing German groups—even by some people outside Germany—as the fulfiller of their wishes and sharer of their beliefs, with some distortions and exaggerations—such, as long as he had success, was Adolf Hitler.

Based upon the same clear understandings, and devoid of our era’s dulling, politically correct constraints, Karl Barth, like Carl Jung (cited earlier), offered this warning, also published in 1939:

[Karl Barth] Participation in this life, according to it the only worthy and blessed life, is what National Socialism, as a political experiment, promises to those who will of their own accord share in this experiment. And now it becomes understandable why, at the point where it meets with resistance, it can only crush and kill—with the might and right which belongs to Divinity! Islam of old as we know proceeded in this way. It is impossible to understand National Socialism unless we see it in fact as a new Islam [emphasis in original], its myth as a new Allah, and Hitler as this new Allah’s Prophet.

Investigative journalist John Roy Carlson’s 1948-1950 interviews of Arab Muslim religious and political leaders provide consummate independent validation of these Western assessments. Perhaps most revealing were the candid observations of Aboul Saud, whom Carlson described as a “pleasant English-speaking member of the Arab League Office.” Aboul Saud explained to Carlson that Islam was an authoritarian religio-political creed which encompassed all of a Muslim’s spiritual and temporal existence. He stated plainly,

You might describe Mohammedanism as a religious form of State Socialism…The Koran give the State the right to nationalize industry, distribute land, or expropriate the right to nationalize industry, distribute land, or expropriate property. It grants the ruler of the State unlimited powers, so long as he does not go against the Koran. The Koran is our personal as well as our political constitution.

And after interviewing Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan al-Banna himself, who “preached the doctrine of the Koran in one hand and the sword in the other,” Carlson observed:

It became clear to me why the average Egyptian worshipped the use of force. Terror was synonymous with power! This was one reason why most Egyptians, regardless of class or calling had admired Nazi Germany. It helped explain the sensational growth of the Ikhwan el Muslimin [Muslim Brotherhood]

In a brilliant, dispassionate contemporary analysis, Ibn Warraq describes 14 characteristics of “Ur Fascism” as enumerated by Umberto Eco, analyzing their potential relationship to the major determinants of Islamic governance and aspirations, through the present. He adduces salient examples which reflect the key attributes discussed by Eco: the unique institution of jihad war; the establishment of a Caliphate under “Allah’s vicegerent on earth,” the Caliph—ruled by Islamic Law, i.e., Shari’a, a rigid system of subservience and sacralized discrimination against non-Muslims and Muslim women, devoid of basic freedoms of conscience, and expression. Warraq’s assessment confirms what G.H. Bousquet concluded (in 1950) from his career studying the historical development and implementation of Islamic Law:

Islam first came before the world as a doubly totalitarian system. It claimed to impose itself on the whole world and it claimed also, by the divinely appointed Muhammadan law, by the principles of fiqh [jurisprudence], to regulate down to the smallest details the whole life of the Islamic community and of every individual believer… the study of Muhammadan Law (dry and forbidding though it may appear)… is of great importance to the world of today.

Thirty-fours years ago (1973/74) Bat Ye’or published a remarkably foresighted analysis of the Islamic antisemitism and resurgent jihadism in her native Egypt, being packaged for dissemination throughout the Muslim world. The primary, core Antisemitic and jihadist motifs were Islamic, derived from Islam’s foundational texts, on to which European, especially Nazi elements were grafted. Nazi academic and propagandist of extermination Johannes von Leers’ writings and personal career trajectory—as a favored contributor in Goebbel’s propaganda ministry, to his eventual adoption of Islam (as Omar Amin von Leers) while working as an anti-Western, and antisemitic/anti-Zionist propagandist under Nasser’s regime from the mid-1950s, until his death in 1965—epitomizes this convergence of jihad, Islamic antisemitism, and racist, Nazi antisemitism, as described by Bat Ye’or. Upon his arrival in Egypt in 1956, it was Hajj Amin el-Husseini who welcomed von Leers, stating, “We are grateful to you for having come here to resume the struggle against the powers of darkness incarnated by international Judaism.” The ex-Mufti oversaw von Leers’ formal conversion to Islam, and remained one of his confidants. And von Leers described the origins of the Muslim “forename,” Omar Amin, that he adopted as part of his conversion to Islam in a November, 1957 letter to American Nazi H. Keith Thompson,

I myself have embraced Islam and accepted the new forename Omar Amin, Omar according to the great Caliph Omar who was a grim enemy of the Jews, Amin in honor of my friend Hajj Amin el Husseini, the Grand Mufti.

Already in essays published during 1938 and 1942, the first dating back almost two decades before his conversion to Islam while in Egypt, von Leers produced analyses focused primarily on Muhammad’s interactions with the Jews of Medina. These essays reveal his pious reverence for Islam and its prophet, and a thorough understanding of the sacralized Islamic sources for this narrative, i.e., the Koran, hadith, and sira. which is entirely consistent with standard Muslim apologetics.

Von Leers’ 1942 essay, for example, concludes by simultaneously extolling the “model” of oppression the Jews experienced under Islamic suzerainty, and the nobility of Muhammad, Islam, and the contemporary Muslims of the World War II era, foreshadowing his own conversion to Islam just over a decade later. And even earlier, in a 1938 essay, von Leers further sympathized with, “the leading role of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem in the Arabians’ battles against the Jewish invasion in Palestine.” Von Leers observes that to the pious Muslim, “…the Jew is an enemy, not simply an ‘unbeliever’ who might perhaps be converted or, despite the fact that he does not belong to Islam, might still be a person of some estimation. Rather, the Jew is the predestined opponent of the Muslim, one who desired to bring down the work of the Prophet.”

Until his death in 1965, von Leers remained unrepentant about the annihilationist policies towards the Jews he helped advance serving Hitler’s Reich. Indeed he was convinced of the righteousness of the Nazi war against the Jews, and as a pious Muslim convert, von Leers viewed the Middle East as the succeeding battleground to seal the fate of world Jewry. His public evolution over the course of three decades illustrates starkly the shared centrality to these totalitarianisms—both modern and ancient—of the Jews as “first and last enemy” motif. Finally, an October 1957 US intelligence report on von Leers’ writings and activities for Egypt and the Arab League confirmed his complete adoption of the triumphalist Muslim worldview, desirous of nothing less than the destruction of Judeo-Christian civilization by jihad:

He [Dr. Omar Amin von Leers] is becoming more and more a religious zealot, even to the extent of advocating an expansion of Islam in Europe in order to bring about stronger unity through a common religion. This expansion he believes can come not only from contact with the Arabs in the Near East and Africa but with Islamic elements in the USSR. The results he envisions as the formation of a political bloc against which neither East nor West could prevail.

Fifty years later ignorance, denial, and delusion have engendered the sorry state of public understanding of this most ominous conversion of hatreds, by all its potential victims, not only Jews. This lack of understanding is little advanced by the current spate of analyses which seek “Nazi roots” of the cataclysmic September 11, 2001 acts of jihad terrorism, and see Nazism as having “introduced” antisemitism to an otherwise “tolerant”, even philosemitic Islamic world beginning in the 1930s. Awkwardly forced, and ahistorical, these analyses realign the Nazi cart in front of the Islamic steed which has driven both jihad and Islamic antisemitism, since the 7th century advent of the Muslim creed, particularly during the last decade of Muhammad’s life.

But even if all vestiges of Nazi militarism and racist antisemitism were to disappear miraculously overnight from the Islamic world, the living legacy of jihad war against non-Muslim infidels, and anti-Jewish hatred and violence rooted in Islam’s sacred texts—Koran, hadith, and sira—would remain intact. The assessment and understanding of the uniquely Muslim institution of jihad, and Islamic antisemitism, begins with an unapologetic exposure of both the injunctions sanctioning jihad war, and the anti-Jewish motifs contained in these foundational texts of Islam. Yet while the West has engaged in self-critical mea culpa, acknowledging its own imperialistic past, shameful role in the slave trade, and antisemitic persecution—taking steps to make amends where possible—the Islamic nations remain in perpetual denial. Until Muslims acknowledge the ugly realities of jihad imperialism, and anti-Jewish persecution in their history, the past will continue to poison the present, and there will be no hope of combating resurgent jihadism, and Islam’s unreformed theological hatred of Jews in modern times, from Morocco to Indonesia, and within Muslim communities living in Western, and other non-Muslim societies across the globe.

Solomon, I sympathize with your mid-way position on this but you are at risk of making yourself an enemy to people in a fight you didn't start, most likely with LGF since you reprinted Spencer and Geller at the same time.

Not that I think there will be consequences for you. It seems most have been heading in the other direction anyway. And it probably helps site traffic. Let me just state I was reading stuff here before you got involved though. :P

Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer are neofascists because we once attended a conference at which Filip Dewinter was present?

No, not by any means but because of the situation one finds oneself in you will be tarred with the same brush by the Leftist fascist liberals and that means the MSM and to a large extent Academia and all those Jews - Pappe, Judt, Robinson et al, which will detract, with scurrilous accusations, from your effort to get the majority of people educated about what is going on.
It is no good just preaching to the choir.

Coming from the States you people have to be aware of PR and images and sound bites and innuendo to destroy reputations especially in this politically charged atmosphere. You have also to make sure that your credibility remains intact and that you don't allow certain groups to use your names as whitewash.
So far it seems that this has been blog centric.
Had Roger Cohen (look he's Jewish) run with it in the NYT .....
Given a MSM as hypocritical as it is and without integrity you are on your own in guarding your reputations.

Thankfully Martin invited a response which has cleared up a lot of things.

Not knowing you two I was an agnostic about an opinion, but when when Andrew Bostom's name was brought up I knew it was a load of cods wallop.
But then I'm part of the choir.

So Karel Dillen was what, misunderstood? Roland Raes was a closet Zionist, who knew?

And what's the deal with that Confederate-Serbian minister dude anyway?

===

Are Spencer-Geller calling for an ethnic cleansing of all Muslims from the West, or not?

Because it sure smells that way, and their friends Fjordman, Brussels Journal, Gates of Vienna, and the entire leadership of Vlaams Belang certainly seem to agree.

30 SECONDS
OVER GOOGLE,
R

Lets face it, the Left loves to tar anyone to the Right of Tony Blair with the fascist label.

The Decent Left is going to have to understand that the fascist and racist label lost power long ago, for thinking folks.

Its better to concentrate on the things that bring us together, anti shariah, anti jihad, anti Islamization....because we are going to need every ally we can get in this battle.

It reminds me of the old spat about Pinochet...he was better than the alternative. He deserved Western support, although not perfect, he preserved the institutions of democracy from Leftwing Communist destruction, and the Chileans are the better for it. You are going to have to get your hands dirty in this fight if you are to be successful. My reading of the Decent Left is that they will overseas, but they wont have the stomach closer to home....they will prefer to stay pure, but essentially sideline themselves from the fight. Whereas the Indecent Left will be actively the enemy of freedom loving Western people.

The grand inquisitor pronounces, or rather renders, his verdict; thus we are told within what parameters we are allowed to think, and we're told what to think.

Glad that's cleared up. Now that the judgements and verdicts have been rendered, we can proceed apace with the executions, therein rendering obeisance to the lord of realm, Charles Johnson himself, with the hope of receiving his kindly blessing.

Render. Fitting.

Btw, I very much agree with Kae Gregory: this brouhaha per se is difficult to conceive as very unfortunate. The telling irony here is that it's Johnson and his goons and sock-puppets who are using brown-shirted tactics in order to help insure conformity to their view of the world. That doesn't make them fascists, it more simply lends insight into the tactics they've chosen to use.

What's unfortunate is that Johnson and clan has chosen to use the tactics they have now long evidenced. Most of this little blog war is more simply a by-product of that underlying fact.

http://www.tau.ac.il/Anti-Semitism/asw98-9/belgium.htm

http://www.tau.ac.il/Anti-Semitism/asw2007/belgium.html

Holcaust denial.

Keep using your screen names to defend it.

NOTED,
R

With very occasional exceptions only, guilt by association does not work, it reflects a crass, grossly condemnatory approach.

Robert Spencer, Andrew Bostom and Pam can be exciteable and can over-react and employ unseemly tactics themselves - and they should be willing to take that criticism to heart and more conscientiously be willing to review their own tactics and re-actions at times. Otoh, Charles Johnson does in fact apply a very large scythe with large, sweeping motions, and he has done so now for a protracted period of time.

Fact is, this set of issues, other issues as well, absolutely requires not guilt by association and similarly crude tactics, but a much more finely attuned and "nuanced" set of apprehensions, assessments and judgements about a wide array of issues. A great deal more tentativeness, more hesitancy, even charity, is called for.

One and all might take a step back. Compiling enemies lists, holding grudges for extended periods, de facto or otherwise, is not a prudent course by any measure, not on a scale that appreciates the problems the west is facing, nor on a simpler inter-personal or inter-blogospheric scale either.

All - as in all - might take a deep breath and take a step back, and be willing to look inward as much as outward on occasion.

Andrew,

I'm very sorry about my witlessness. I hope that I can balance that by being polite to you.
Therefore I will ask you some questions instead of insulting you:

1. Do you really think that your text about REAL NAZIS and REAL JIHADISTs disproves Mary's or mine about some Nazis?

2. Do you think that National Socialism is a diverse movement?
If not, how would you explain that no movements have split of in all that time?
Clearly struggle for power and individual characteristics of its members lead to diversification. What is that really strong force that prevents it from happening so long?
In case you accept that there are diverse movements: might that "hostility of the neo-Nazi North German Action Office toward “Anti-Islamification” efforts in Cologne" have something to do with a struggle for power between different drifts and the need to bind the members?

3. I know Germany personally and even speak the language to some degree. Have you ever been there?
Have you ever been to Europe?
From which books do you get your superior wisdom?

4. Have you ever talked to at least one Nazi?
I don't mean just a racist, but are real National Socialist. Have you tried to understand what moves him?

5. I value history very high and even know some contemporary things. Therefore I prefer it when people use history in a correct way. How about you?
Might there have been other reasons why the Nazis played nice to Muftis?
Do you think Hitler was attracted to communism, because he made a pact with Stalin?
How sincere are your sources, given that we talk about a time when truth was not valued much? Could reading of selective sources from that time lead to completely wrong conclusions?
Do you think that in that short time interval after 1957 that you skipped with the words "Fifty years later" some important things could have happened that you have missed?

6. Do you think that it is possible that Mary might sincerely believes in what she writes and does not want to smear or insult anyone?

I believe that by answering all those questions you can improve the impression greatly that you have given here.

I suggest an exercise to a different topic so that you stay smart. Type "druze" or "alevi" into google and try to learn something.

Mr. Bostom is either historically challenged on the subject of Waffen SS divisions, or is knowingly lying to his readers.

===

1: The first operational Muslim Waffen SS division was the Ostturkischen Verbande der SS, formed with Turkistani Russian volunteers. It never reached divisional size.

2: 13th Waffen SS Handschar had a requirement that 10% of its members had to be Croatian Catholics.

3: None of the Waffen SS Muslim divisions (13th, 21st, and 23rd) ever reached full divisional size. The 23rd was disbanded in the face of the oncoming Soviets and its remaining members folded into the 13th.

All facts sourced from the collected works of Antonio J. Munoz (including his excellently reseached book "Forgotten Legions") and Bruce Quarrie.

===

Mr. Bostom, the next time you attempt to quote historical facts to support your case, you might consider consulting with an expert in the field.

Wiki does not qualify.

DOCUMENTATION,
R

Sockpuppets? Do you know what the term means?

Michael B, aren't you the same Michael B that posts at Gates of Vienna?

And...

Michael B, aren't you also the commentor known as InterResSys that posts at Gates of Vienna?

If not, you should probably have a talk with the person using your Hotmail account.

IN
YOUR
HEAD,
R

Whoa - wait a second.

With respect Michael B. - et.al., - comparing Johnson's blogosphere complaints about people associating with neonazis in Europe to "brownshirt tactics" is an appalling misuse of the term.

Please look up "brownshirt".

Since when is freedom of speech on the internet, including a discussion about real neonazis and people who should know better anywhere near the same thing as what the real brownshirts actually did or would do again, should they acquire power?

This is all getting ridiculous.

Folks - we're all on the same side generally speaking are we not? We support Western civilization, America, our values - freedom of religion, freedom of speech and expression - freedom of dissent - respect for education and for history - human rights - respect for life itself around the world.

Therefore when out of "excitability" or whatever people associate with individuals or groups who are truly outside our ethical and moral sphere it behooves one of us to speak out about it.

Shouldn't we listen and consider what clearly principled people have to say?

I'll be honest, I used to consider LGF beyond the Pale. However during the Hezbollah war Johnson exposed scurrilous misuse of the media and that was impressive. I've been further impressed by his arguments on behalf of reason, science and political moderation.

Since the election of Obama it seems to me that elements in the US have lost their heads (just as the nutty Left lost its collective mind during the Bush Administration).

People have repeatedly asserted that Obama is the love child of Malcolm X.

Some far right wingers have threatened to overload the Department of Homeland Security's communications systems, as if that were in any sense an intelligent or patriotic act.

We are seeing a rise in anti-science both on the Left and the Right, all of which is counterproductive - Huffpo is publishing anti-vaccine articles and some folks on the Right want to ignore evolution and human effects on the environment.

Oy.

Meanwhile all-white parties are rising in Europe again and so is vicious antisemitism. We have the same kind of groups here in the US, armed. Neonazi imagery and rhetoric mesh with same kind of dreadfulness in elements of the "progressive" left.

Have we forgotten what this insanity wrought a few short decades ago?

Comparing Johnson's warnings about these outfits to "brownshirt tactics" is just wrong. That's the kind of inversion of language and fact that characterizes Massad's definition of "antisemitism" in which the Arabs are the semites - and the Jews are the Nazis.

Please. Think about what you're saying!

It's also wrong to damn people for dissenting especially when they're arguing a principled position that deserves at least to be heard.

I lost a lot of friends recently for arguing that some of my acquaintances were letting their fear of Arabs lead them to stereotypes that were a darn good imitation of racism. Rather than listen to my arguments and try to see that Arabs too are human beings, as unique and diverse as anyone else, I was viciously attacked.

But seriously I do not see how anybody can argue against antisemitism/antizionism or any other form of racist whilst simultaneously sounding like a racist.

And regardless of how afraid we are we mustn't lose sight of our principles and our ethics - otherwise we're already lost, are we not?

Please people, try to remember that extremism has led to disaster more than once in recent memory and is threatening the state of Pakistan now not to mention the future of Iraq, Lebanon, Israel, the P.A. - so many millions of people around the world.

We ourselves are not invulnerable to meshugas from extremists both foreign and domestic.

Can we try to walk a moderate path whilst respecting honest differences in opinion?

By the same token some groups of people are over the line and they shouldn't get our support or our apologies.

For example there is no way Roger Cohen, however well-meant his arguments - can support or apologize for the Iranian regime without sounding like an idiot imo.

There is no way I am reassured by Hamas' recent assertion that we should simply ignore their Covenant and there is no way we should allow ourselves to be seduced by fascists in Europe, simply because they are apparently anti-Islamist and thus reassuring to some of us.

There is no way REAL brownshirts should get a pass, however seductive their surface appearance, however fearful we are of other threats.

So please - let's try to listen to each other and not just get angry.

Sol -
What's up with my comments (1 long and 1 short) from last night?
Mike Nargizian

#15 "Render" This:

From historian Jenny Lebel’s, “The Mufti of Jerusalem and National Socialism,” pp. 190-191, regarding the 13th Waffen SS Mountain Division ‘Handzar’ (Dagger):

In the beginning there were Croats of Moslem and Catholic Faith in order to justify the primary name of the division—Croat Volunteer Waffen-SS Division. At that time a small group of Catholics was actually accepted, in order to create the illusion of a ‘Croat’ division…However it had already been decided in the Reich that the division be purely Moslem. General Herbert von Obwuerzer, Commander of the Waffen-SS armed units in Croatia, was aware of this when he stressed in one of his first speeches: “You [the Muslims] are the sons of a people that has for centuries demonstrated its fighting qualities…”

Himmler explained the idea of forming the Waffen-SS divisions exclusively from Moslems from Bosnia and Herzegovina with the following arguments:
a) Islam as a whole felt great sympathies for National Socialism;
b) All Moslems in the NDH [i.e., Croatia] had developed a special conscience of a Bosnian-Herzegovinain’ individuality; and
c) The traditions of the regiments from Bosnia-Herzegovina in Austro-Hungary were still present in the Moslems’ memories

Sol -
What's up with both my comments (1 long & 1 short) from last night being deleted?
Mike Nargizian

Mike, They're not deleted. You left them on this other thread:
http://www.solomonia.com/blog/archive/2009/04/nazis-i-hate-these-guys/index.shtml#comment-46578

I rarely delete comments (though sometimes they get flagged as spam and I never see them so if they don't appear you should email me and alert me to it so I get in there and approve it).

Charles Johnson has done some very sound and very commendable work in other areas and in the past, but he's become an obsessive/compulsive in some areas more recently. As pertains to the issue at hand, he doesn't simply "complain" (eyes roll), he's sought to traduce and browbeat others, via guilt by association and otherwise, too often in lieu of a more transparent, a more rationally invested exchange. Too much heat and poorly founded initiatives; not enough light.

Render,

Take it outside, not here. I do read GoV but haven't commented there in well over a year or two, if memory serves. But yes, InterResSys is an email address I use. And, your point would be .....? Is that suppose to be - vaguely, incoherently - an attempt to suggestively or somehow smear yours truly? A dramatic and cattish preamble of some kind? Good grief.

(I'll very happily take Charles Johnson on as pertains to this or any subject we might have a substantial disagreement over and an interest in. All you need to do is persuade him to man-up and expose himself to a transparent debate on a level playing field, also where he's not going to delete my comments or logon-ID on some arbitrary basis. Otherwise, I'm not at all prone to carry on an extended, third-party oriented discussion, most certainly not at this present site, at Solomonia, whose host has been over-kind and far too indulgent, attempting to serve as something of a neutral crossroads here.)

Too much heat, not enough light. This cattish inference or suggestive thing about Gates of Vienna is but one example.

Btw, following is one of the more recent posts at Gates of Vienna I've read and bookmarked, it contains a simple, youTube video:

The Bloody Borders Project Revisited

Does that make me a fascist, or whatever is was that was being suggested?

But seriously I do not see how anybody can argue against antisemitism/antizionism or any other form of racist whilst simultaneously sounding like a racist. -- Sophia

Aparently you havent seen the Left in action with racist laws, while villifying white Europeans.

And that tactic BTW, is driving people to the All White Parties. The non whites have their racist law purveyors already.

Perhaps you will wake up one day and realize that colorblind policies, equality of opportunity and equality before the law are the superior universal principles that you should be supporting, instead of anti white racism.

some folks on the Right want to ignore evolution and human effects on the environment. -- sophia

I think that you have just slandered the Right with your strawmen. ID in the classroom, anti persecution of scientist and academics which produce work supportive of ID or critical of aspects of Evolution, respect for human life, and Anthropogenic Global Warming skepticism do not jive with your little description there.

Sorry for posting this off topic querry, but...

Is Harry's Place down? I havent been able to access the website for going on 2 days now. Anybody else having trouble? Is there a problem? Have they been silenced again?

Funny: #19 Andrew Bostom

Took a look at historical accounts that do not fit in his point of view.

Picked out one issue (Render's point 2) that might be compatible with his view and explained why.

And rejected the rest.

That is the way to use history!

Wrong "expert" Mr Bostom...

General (SS-Oberführer) Herbert von Obwuerzer was commander of the Latvian 15th Waffen-Grenadierdivision der SS (lett. Nr. 1) from July 21, 1944 to January 26, 1945.

The 15th SS fought exclusively in the Baltic region and was destroyed in Pomerania.

That doesn't leave much time for Oberfuhrer von Obwuerzer to have been commander of all SS units in Croatia, does it?

http://www.waffen-ss-combattants.fr/division/15_SS_DIVISION/15_DIVISION.htm

Antonio J Munoz - "Forgotten Legions" pg 321 appendix J

John Keegan - "Waffen SS" pg 104-105

Jennie Lebel's “The Mufti of Jerusalem and National Socialism" while quite correct in its overall viewpoint of the Mufti, was chock full of historical inaccuracies like that.

Was there a valid reason you skipped my other two points?

===

"Take it outside"? This is outside. However...

Mr. Bostom, I have a little bloglet of my own, perhaps you'd like to continue your historical education there?

===

Mike B, Mike JB, InterResSys, or whatever handle you're using at the moment - the point was you quite obviously used the term "sockpuppet" without having the slightest knowledge of what the term means.

Your response is a classic example of "epic fail" and disqualifies you from further attention. Piss off.

CHOSEN,
R

The point here is not about minutiae of the Waffen SS. The point here is whether it is just to defame Pamela Geller and me, relentlessly and repeatedly, as fascist sympathizers because we were once at a conference that was also attended by a man who is accused of being a fascist.

I expect Charles Johnson and Mary Madigan to begin denouncing Hillary Clinton as a fascist sympathizer forthwith, since Ms. Clinton and I once spoke at the same event.

Translations...

Jewish News Response to letter of Filip Dewinter

Dear Mr. Dewinter,

You say “surprised” to have been the article last month in Jewish News. I would like my own - and that of many fellow believers - amazement and dismay even willing to share with you about decisions and actions of you and your party. We have drawn up a list of the ten most flagrant of them.

From the VB are always justifications and arguments that have to prove that the party is not anti-Semitic. There are too many events and serious facts to make this credible.

I know personally as members of the Vlaams Belang, which Israel and the Jews wear a high priority. They assure me that you’re certainly not anti-Semite. One argument that I too would like to accept. But it is up to you to do this to prove, it is up to you to draw a clear line. Behavior that is unacceptable must not be longer be tolerated or minimized. It is time for this to mention by name and fully away from it.

You claim in Lommel are going to argue because the then mayor had refused access to German families. Why you just feel called to defend German families is a question aside. From TV pictures is to see that German relatives were admitted. There interrogated by Jewish News, is a former mayor Louis Vanvelthoven formal, he speaks your version of the facts against. So this is word against word. But this discussion is not what is at stake. The heirs to the whole affair is that you and Gerolf Annemans troepten together with a crowd of neo-Nazis of the worst kind. You literally stood shoulder to shoulder with skinheads who unceremoniously uitbrachten the Hitler greeting. As a politician you know only too well the impact of such images. Just above his apology necessary.

Your comment that I just Jewish youth outside the European civilization instead, is, I must admit, underhanded attempt. Of course I stand by my position: the Jews are a perfect example of how different cultures can live and next to each other. Why was sixty years ago Judaism in Europe almost completely eradicated? Not because we as a part of European culture, we are integrated but not necessarily assimilated.

Finally, I wish to add that those who seek a pro-Jewish attitude is trying to combine with intolerance against any other population group, clearly did not understand what Jewish life means, and does not realize how much this ambiguous attitude that goes diametrically against.
Sincerely,

Michael Zevi Freilich
Editor

===

Joods Actueel, a Jewish weekly in Antwerp attacks Filip de Winter and Vlaams Belang, in a report called “the 10 sins of Vlaams Belang” that shows that Vlaams Belang is still a party where antisemitism and sympathy for the nazi’s thrives.

Then the interview:

W:Your question to the party was very clear. Shouldn’t the party (VB) expel people?

M: That was not the question. The reason was a letter we got from Filip DeWinter in which he said, “The jewish community does not have to be scared for Vlaams Belang, vote for us we are your best friends. VB is joined with the jews in a war against islam.”

W: But then you investigated?

M: Yes, then we investigated that. Is this the truth? And then we found a number of facts. We saw people of Vlaams Belang that give the Hitler salute that are still welcome in the party, and that people of Vlaams Belang go to Nazi meetings in Austria or buy and sell Nazi books.

And then we said, Mister DeWinter if you really want to be our friend we ask of you some elementary politeness. Then you can’t tolerate people bringing the Hitler salute or people going to Nazi meetings. Get rid of them. And give us your excuse for their behaviour. Only after that we can start talking. As long as you don’t get rid of those people you are deceiving us. You can’t say you are our friend when you have Holocaust deniers in your party.

W: But are you going to be active against VB in Joods Actueel now?

M: i think we already did with our investigation. But we are not going to give VB too much attention.

W: But DeWinter shouldn’t say he is a friend of the Jews?

Laughter.

===

That IS the point Mr. Spencer. Karel Dillen, Roland Raes, and open Holocaust denial are the point Mr. Spencer. David Duke is the point Mr. Spencer. What part of that are you having difficulty understanding? Why are you defending them?

HOLY
LAND,
R

Dr. Bostom, apologies for the incorrect title before your name. That was an unintended disrespect.

NOTHING
ELSE,
R

One last thing...

Just to let you off the hook ever so slightly Dr. Bostom, Oberfuhrer von Obwuerzer was the first commander of the 13th SS Handschar from March to August, 1943.

The overall SS commander for Croatia was SS Major-General Konstantine Kammerhofer.

http://www.feldgrau.com/croatia.html

http://www.nizkor.org/ftp.py?imt/nca/nca-06//nca-06-3842-ps

Yes, those little details do matter. And with that I'm out of here.

END
OF
LINE,
R

Render,

So that was "THE POINT"??? Such a perspicacious and insightful critique. And that's classified as an "epic fail"?

Btw, you're also: WRONG. Urban dictionary, sockpuppet.

My points, all of them, stand. That includes the challenge, to Charles Johnson. But not here.

Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer are neofascists because we once attended a conference at which Filip Dewinter was present?

Robert, I did not, at any point in time, say that you or Pamela Geller were neofascists.

I have never said that you and Pamela Geller are neofascists because I know that you are not neofascsts. I'm also stating for the record that, in my opinion, you and Pamela Geller are not: fascists, Nazis, Nazi sympathizers, brownshirts, goose-steppers, proto-Nazis or proto-fascists.

If you find the above statements difficult to understand, I could provide the same information in an easier to read format, perhaps with bulleted points and illustrations.

Since I do not believe and have never said that you are fascists, and since I have never said that you were fascists, what kind of 'guilt' would I be trying to prove by association?

The gist of my anti-fascist article was this:

If you follow the links and ignore the right/left controversies, the blogwars and the offbeat comments, this is the message you will get. All of these bloggers provide an essential service, combing through the international news for information that Fox News and CNN fail to provide. The differences between them tend to based on whether the blogger is anti-Islam or anti-fascist.

I tend to agree more often with the bloggers who oppose all forms of fascism on principle, rather than with the bloggers who oppose "Islam" But all of these bloggers provide a useful service by linking to sources that major media sites ignore.

But in that context, what kind of service, help or information is your post providing? Will it help people develop a more reasoned view of the problems that Israel faces? Will your unnecessarily cruel comments about Dean Esmay's problems with alcoholism give your readers a deeper understanding of the issues that affect Islam's role in the growth of terrorism worldwide?

Or is the purpose of your post an announcement to the world at large that if you support Charles Johnson, Spencer and his Heathers won't let you play their reindeer games?

This high-school style catfighting isn't worth the time and agita involved. We should all find better things to do.

I think Harry's is down, in response to the query above.

I haven't been able to access it either.

Now - anti-white racism as the cause of all-white political parties? Since when?

Can somebody please point me to a piece of anti-white legislation or show me where any Western nation has truly discriminated against white people?*

Or where there is endemic social bias against white people? Or where whites are considered inferior?

There is however endemic social bias against dark people, Jews, gypsies, and now immigrant Muslims and people from Africa and the Caribbean.

Against Jews and gypsies this has gone on for centuries.

What is happening in Europe, I think, is this: neither Britain nor France have successfully integrated immigrant communities.

I don't know as much about other European nations, but the melting pot idea we have in the US has in some cases in Europe created immigrant enclaves in Britain and France. In either case I don't see how this can be blamed on anti-white racism.

?????

Of course this happened here too - every immigrant group wound up to some degree - sometimes to a great degree - separate and on the bottom. Look at Irish-American history for a very pointed example. Irish-Americans are white and they were discriminated against because they were newcomers.

Over time, though, people joined the "melting pot". Even black/white racial issues are gradually softening and the economic divide for black people isn't as daunting as in the past. American society is lively and diverse but our national motto is "e pluribus unum" and I don't think we see that as much in Europe. Britain for example was nearly 100% white until after WWII.

European people and nations even treated Jews and Rom (gypsies) who'd lived there for many centuries, as aliens and ultimately Europeans tried to exterminate their own Jewish and Rom (and other "inferior") people. This happened repeatedly. Jews were expelled from Britain at one point, often abused, frequently blamed for economic and social calamities.

To claim now that anti-white racism is creating the BNP and other all-white political parties, in view of this history, is absurd and ahistorical.

In fact bias against outsiders - any outsiders - even people from Ireland, or Catholics, or Protestants, depending - is sadly common in European history.

This doesn't get the radical elements within the immigrant communities off the hook of course. The fact that Western values are being challenged is real.

But how does that in itself result in the creation of all-white parties? It doesn't.

*Note I don't consider attempts to help black people discriminatory - they have long been victims of racism and in the US are on the bottom economically and are disproportionately represented in prisons and among the unemployed - for centuries they were enslaved - so if you're referring to Affirmative Action - how does that create neonazis?

Isn't the cart in front of the horse in that and similar cases?

Again to mention racist parties in Europe - hello? They exterminated most of the Jews, hundreds of thousands of gypsies - discrimination against both groups has been horrendous for centuries - is it really surprising they're rising now against the Muslims, many of whom are dark?

How on earth can anybody claim this is the result of anti-white discrimination?

I do think there's a major component of fear, some of it justified in the case of extremists, and there is economic pressure on everybody - so it's doubly important not to get paranoid and not to shut our eyes to our common humanity.

All-white political parties do not address issues affecting diverse populations - they do nothing to help ameliorate cultural, economic and racial or religious conflict - rather they reflect the bad old days when "the other" - lest we forget - was enslaved, impoverished, brutalized, segregated and even exterminated - by "civilized" people - in sophisticated Western cultures.

And it wasn't that long ago.

Sophia, you were the one using the term All White Parties...and I will agree to that term, though I have problems with it.

Its clear that in the US we have all Black organizations, and all Latino organizations...yet these are not villified as racist or fascist....think NAACP and La Raza among many other such identity politics groups. Now these groups are pandered to by the Left with racist, sexist, ethnicist, legislation which doles out preferences in exchange for political support...votes. This is an abomination...this is what you rail against when whites do it. Yet you wave away discrimination against whites that were born after Jim Crow and dont have a racist bone in their body....but they must be discriminated against legally as collective punishment for some past wrong....of which they never participated. This is just flat out wrong....and it creates resentment and that drives people to parties that offer to protect them from unfair discrimination. I myself am an individualist, who believes in colorblind policies and equality before the law and of opportunity. The correction to racist law and policy is to remove racist law and policy and no longer pursue it....not reversing racist law and policy and placing state sanctioned discrimination on other groups. That keeps the injustice and just transfers it to another group.

Anyways, its clear that certain groups not allowed to particpate in identity politics according to the new PC mob....are on the recieving end of discriminatory policy and law, partially because they are not allowed to organize politically to advocate for their rights, fair treatment, preferences, equality, and empowerment. Now to you that may all well be good.....but this is just fomenting another group of oppressed, disempowered, and now minoritized via immigration group.

You seriously need to think about what is going on, instead of what you percieve as righting past wrongs via social engineering and groupist identity politics. Creating a new class of oppressed discriminated against indigenous peoples is not the answer.

Can somebody please point me to a piece of anti-white legislation or show me where any Western nation has truly discriminated against white people?*

Or where there is endemic social bias against white people?

In Europe their are now many laws permitting Muslim behaviour that is forbidden for the Whites.
I don't think I have to expand on everything being curtailed to appease Muslim sensibilities.

Why hate speech laws have been taken to such a degree that politically incorrect jokes can lead to 7 years in prison in Britain; but those hate speech crimes are not applied to Muslims.

Further to
What is happening in Europe, I think, is this: neither Britain nor France have successfully integrated immigrant communities.

They cannot because the immigrants didn't arrive wanting freedom of speech, yadda, yadda, yadda but were sent and that's why the Saudis invested many billions of dollars since the 70s setting up their religious institutions to manage this transfer of populations.
The silent jihad has been a Muslim Brotherhood tactic for many years now.
America still has to wake up to how successful the integration has been when sufficient numbers will start bending Americans to the other culture by force of law if necessary.

First, the term "all white parties" is accurate in regard to the BNP and other European racist organizations, posing as defenders of the West.

In fact they are simply reflecting the ugly politics of the past.

I think the issue of La Raza and so forth is interesting but I don't think they were created to discriminate against white people - rather to shore up the often battered sensibilities of "second class" people as well as celebrate their cultures.

Particularly in the case of African-American organizations (or Native-Americans) these are groups who are a) minorities b) historically oppressed minorities and the white community deliberately, on the basis of race, enslaved and killed millions of them.

In Mexico, the history of Europeans vs the native population is something that must be read and studied. The Native Americans were oppressed, pure and simple, and became the underclass. This affects us here in the US because of our shared history with Mexico and of course because of large population transfers between Mexico and the US, but also because of our own history with the Native Americans here.

I agree the term "La Raza" has upsetting overtones, however I urge study of the situation throughout the Americas, #1, and #2, understand that the term is a celebration of the Native American people and their history - in the case of Mexican and South American groups in particular these were great civilizations that created remarkable, complex societies and have left us incomparable artifacts - yet the people live on in bitterly reduced circumstances.

Only relatively recently did specifically race-based discrimiation change legally in the US - it wasn't until the 1950's - with Brown v Board of Education - and the subsequent Civil Rights Movement - that the law itself reflected the degree to which African-Americans had been treated as second-class at best.

In fact the Democratic Party quite recently took pride in being the party of whites and it wasn't long ago that the KKK had effective political control of, for example, Colorado.

Thus, it would be great if we could be "color blind" but in fact the history and condition of people who are not white precludes that.

And, there is the other side of that equation - doesn't "color blindness" to some extent actually mean ignoring the history, culture and accomplishments of people who are not European? We'd be missing a great deal if we didn't study and learn about others and respect the fact that they have much to offer us, just as we have created brilliant art, science and technology and open political systems that have much to offer too.

Regardless I think we're moving more and more in that direction - in the direction of a blended culture and real "color blindness" and certainly it is an ideal under the law - but as long as people are effectively an underclass as a result of racial discrimination - legal and otherwise - we can't ignore it nor the fact that whites, because they are white, have been more powerful than the Native and African-Americans.

This is however a sore point with white people in the US who are poor and powerless themselves or who have been victims of reverse discrimination - there are cases where qualified people have lost jobs or educational opportunities because of their "white" color - I wonder if in cases of affirmative action rather than cutting somebody out additional places can't be made to accomodate more people?

The issue of Islam is separate. This is philosophical and religious though many Muslim immigrants do happen to be dark - and people who believe our values are threatened by it or by radical elements within Islam, by any system with totalitarian goals for that matter, or which threaten liberal values, can address it on that basis, by really looking at what we value within our own culture and celebrating and reinforcing it.

Instead what we're seeing in some cases is a return to the bad old days that were anything but color-blind but which in fact inflicted serious harm on people simply because they were different.

I concur that damaging essential rights to freedom of expression is a problem (ditto especially women's rights - the idea of imposing sharia in Britain for example really upsets me not to mention a lot of Muslims who came to West to flee it!) and I don't think Europe in particular has reacted well to its influx of immigrants.

Certain immigrant communities have been segregated and oppressed in some ways, pandered to in others, and nobody seems to recognize extremist philosophy even when it's right out in front, on the tube or in the public square.

In some cases the worst extremists find support with the locals - for example, reading the Guardian on the subject of Israel can be a nauseating experience. George Galloway, Lauren Boothe - Caryl Churchill - Seamus Milne - even the bias on the BBC - all have echoed some pretty awful impulses that in the past segregated and violated the Jewish community in Europe and helped attack the Jews in the Middle East - and which imo feed conflagrations there by inspiring more hate.

In the case of the proPalestinian movement common cause has been made with openly fascistic movements like Hezbollah and Hamas.

This is a problem at least as much within European/Western culture as between it and the most radical of the Muslim immigrant community and it's cloaked in the guise of concern for human rights, which makes it worse.

And, there is an essential conflict in the idea of "freedom of expression". There is a problem with the nature of diversity within our culture - we speak of it, praise it - but how exactly do we manage "salad bowl" diversity in which groups do not truly mingle or assimilate and how do we confront our own fears of artistic and sexual expression?

We have internal limits, internal conflicts, and these are playing a role in dealing with the very freedom we want to support.

We want freedom of expression theoretically - yet what about people who want to wear burkas? Or walk down the street covered in piercings and tattoos?

We want freedom of expression yet refuse to fund artists because a tiny few of them offend certain religious sensibilities.

We want to be "color-blind" and also have freedom of expression - thus are uncomfortable with expressions of historical and present-day realities that reflect the effects of color-based oppression; at the same time many white people feel threatened, that they'll lose power relative to others.

In short, I think the way to deal with real threats to our democratic and liberal (in the sense of 'free') ideals is to shore up our own culture.

We can confront without fear the facts of our past. We can invest in education, openly support our own creativity and open our arms to others - really share what is great about Western civilization - learn what is great and valuable about other cultures, other peoples - not react out of fear, not betray our values by abandoning our respect for freedom and equality, nor revert to the racist policies of the past.

Who the hell is afraid?

Reacting rationally in opposition to discrimination against yourself on the basis of race and sex and also to the threat of a really nasty supremacist ideology that subjugates the other, is not fear or hate. Its protection of your freedom and liberty.

Barack Obama's kids get special priveleges and preferences over poor white children and you are harping on about past injustice....lets talk about todays injustice.

Unfreakinbelieveable.

Ill state it again for you Sophia. The correct response to discrimination based on race, ethnicicy, sex etc is to end discrimination based on those things, not promote different groups with new racist sexist laws.

If you feel obligated to right past wrongs then by all means, you are free to do so....but dont make it policy of the state to shit on todays whites for crimes and injustice they had no part in.

If you want to stop the rise of the so called "All White Parties" and groups then you are going to have to give up your well intentioned though terribly misguided social engineering via the auspices of the state and racist laws. Additionally, open borders as a policy must be stopped NOW, and addressing the problem of the Islamic Right with effective policy that probably means that some inncoent and harmless folks may be unfairly treated.

Just like we allied with the totalitarian mass murdering dictator Stalin in order to confront the Nazis effectively, we are going to have to make less than perfect choices in the real world in order to confront the Islamic Right. My sense is that most of the decent Left is willing to fight the battle overseas, but unwilling to do what is necessary closer to home...they being unwilling to deviate from their purity of correct thought and policy in a perfect world of their imaginings. The Indecent Left will ally with the Islamic Right and any other violent revolutionary in their war against the terrrible Western White Racist Imperialist Nations and People.

The Left is also compromised by its reliance on immigration for voters in order to maintain power. The Left like the Cold War, isnt going to be a reliable ally. It could be that they snap, and pursue Communist style purges and great terrors when it becomes clear that they are under deep threat that they cant manage. But its imperative that we(the West) nip this problem in the bud, at home especially, but also abroad, sooner rather than later, because the longer you wait the nastier its going to be to try to solve it.

Just as Sweden criticize(d) Israel from their peaceful monocultural paradise surrounded by monocultural paradises of Christians and Secularists....soon much of Europe is going to be the new Israel, following policies that Isreal pioneered as effective counters to the Islamic Rightist Radical enemy among them. These countries will become that which the Western Indecent Left is extremely critical of Israel for. Its almost poetic justice...if it wasnt so sad.

Just like we allied with the totalitarian mass murdering dictator Stalin in order to confront the Nazis effectively, we are going to have to make less than perfect choices in the real world in order to confront the Islamic Right...

The Indecent Left will ally with the Islamic Right and any other violent revolutionary in their war against the terrrible Western White Racist Imperialist Nations and People.

The Indecent Left allies with violent revolutionaries because they also believe that they "are going to have to make less than perfect choices in the real world in order to confront" imperialism and capitalism

The "indecent left" doesn't merely ally with "violent revolutionaries" for the reason stated. Good grief. In one succinct, momentous, historic representation, Lenin & Co. revolted against Kerensky, not against the Czar, who had been deposed and entirely marginalized several months previously. It would be difficult to enlarge upon what the reflects more fully still throughout the 20th century and to this day, but the Marxist/Leninist historic juncture and revolt - against the democrat Kerensky and not the Czar - is in fact a historic encapsulation, a momentous one, and does serve as parallel and analogy with other events of the 20th century.

correction: It would not be difficult ...

Yes Mary, and we have to defeat those foes who will stop at nothing to destroy us...it isnt going to be a nice walk in the park....just as the Cold War wasnt....and hopefully we can all agree that the US did some dubious things, but that the US and its allies won the Cold War is what mattered. We dont gravitate towards dubious actions, we respond to threats to ourselves and our allies liberty effectively however imperfectly then revert to our mostly benevolent nature.

thanks for getting back to me sol....
that'll be my new handle "the anonymous Mike N"

What do you want from me? Just comment like you always have and put whatever name you want in the name field.

Sophia,
you are defending racism. Even when you think that there is good reason for that racism, it still is racism. These guild issues are poisonous.
Btw: aren't Mexicans of European imperialistic decent themselves?

EscapeVelocity,
this pressure tactic is ugly! When we make our decisions about what to do or with whom to join forces based on the idea that it is urgent and that there is no other choice, then we are likely on our way to become a problem ourself. Same here: poisonous.
"All White Parties" represent a incredible tiny part of the population. Already, most supporters I know do it only for the reason that you stated above. And it is getting worse. These people are no power. Your comparison to Stalin is wrong. We are empowering racists so that they can use our support for there purposes. This is sick!

Does anyone here still believe in rational decisions?

The support for these parties, not all of which are as nasty as you would assert....willl eventually move the centrist parties to act. This is good.

Its easy to counter these parties you dont like. The hard part is abandoning your statist social engineering and other leftwing utopian fantasies.

Obsy, how on earth am I defending racism?

For starters, Mexicans are not of "European Imperialist Descent" themselves - some are of mixed Native American and European descent, some are mostly or all European but many if not most are primarily Native American and their status as the underclass in their own country is an issue of long standing (as it is here in the US and other parts of the Americas).

It is also the subject of art - for example study the work of Diego Rivera, Siqueros, Orazco and Frida Kahlo; and has been the cause of revolution and other forms of violence not only in Mexico but throughout Central and South America. Class and racial discrimination have also resulted in exploitation and political manipulation by foreign powers and business interests and that is a study in itself.

I recommend some study of Mexico/Latin America. I think it would shed some light on what I'm trying to say.

Recognizing these facts, this history, and the history and long-term damage of slavery, isn't racism, sorry, anymore than recognizing the need of Israel for a home is racist, and equally it isn't "racist" to recognize and respect and explore our diverse histories and cultures even with the "melting pot" of the US.

By the same token it is vital to respect the huge variation between people in the so-called "Arab world" or "Muslim world" - in fact the diversity of people in those groups is enormous yet some of us insist on treating the whole megillah as if it were some sort of bland tapioca pudding but in fact if you look at North Africa alone a very different picture emerges - a picture of highly various groups, highly various nations and ideologies and individuals - people who simply cannot be stereotyped.

I think there is an enormous difference between recognizing and respecting diversity and stereotyping or excluding people from participating in society. The former is simply honesty; the latter is racism.

For example there was a time in modern Turkey when minority (for example Kurdish) language and music were forbidden.

That is racist, just as it was racist to put Jews in ghettos or try and wipe us out.

What you are saying is that it is "racist" to recognize Native American and African American (or Jewish?) suffering, and pretend we are all alike when we aren't, and make no allowances for the absolute fact that certain groups of people are disadvantaged by virtue of color, class or the history of their people.

I think that's an absurd allegation.

The catch phrase, "the way to stop discrimination is to stop discriminating" sounds cute and sassy but it's baloney.

The way to stop discrimination is to confront it, recognize it and realize that its effects are ongoing - for example the unemployment rate among African Americans in the US is approaching 15%.

That is absolutely catastrophic for this particular group but it has ripple effects throughout entire communities - the big cities for example. It is bad for all of us. And it guarantees that this particular group of people will remain trapped in poverty and suffer its attendant evils for another generation or more.

Just look at one example: the number of dead African-American schoolchildren in Chicago alone - victims of the terrible violence in the ghettos - most of which is an outgrowth of poverty and a lack of hope.

This cannot be wished away and nor can the nearly invisible presence of the Native American people in the US - for heaven's sake we have people living in near Third World circumstances right here in our own country and most American citizens know nothing of the people, their heritage, history, suffering, art, mythology, their lost world, their sad reduction to wards of the state, and the problems they have trying to adapt to a culture that doesn't even see them let alone respect or want them.

The bigotry against Native Americans in my home state, and also against Mexican Americans, is appalling - even as that state is immeasureably enriched by their presence. So I know what I'm talking about here because I grew up with it.

I find these circumstances shameful, I find this degree of ignorance shameful - just as I find it shameful that people are ignorant of Jewish history but have no problem slandering us or Eretz Israel.

Finally - to address your comment about "social engineering" -

One of the worst facts of life in the US, one that isn't openly and frankly discussed, is the problem of class. Regardless of what people claim about "upward mobility" the fact is that class is a huge problem and it's frequently linked to race - but also to inherited wealth and a de facto oligarchic power structure.

Discussing that isn't "racist" and nor is it "social engineering". Indeed there's a de facto degree of "social engineering" in a system that rewards people simply for having been born into a wealthy family, is there not?

In those cases the "social engineering" is built right into the system - a system that ensures success for CERTAIN people: education, position, connections - whether they deserve it or not - and by extension - others are excluded.

That is every bit as much a type of social engineering as the progressive tax code, and it's a far more harmful one. It is harmful not only because it excludes people from various "inner circles" but because by its very nature hereditory wealth and power, over time, reward mediocrity whereas people with energy, creativity and ideas are not necessarily able to acquire even the first level of education required to take the first step up the ladder let alone rise an entire class.

Thus, we have seen great empires decay over time. Inherited power and position, exclusion of fresh ideas and creativity - tell me I'm wrong.

It is true - because of people who are willing to work through our democratic and legal system - that women and minorities are doing better now than we used to. It is true that slavery was ended, that women got the vote, that gays are beginning to be recognized as human.

If this is "social engineering" I'd argue it's only fulfilling the promise of our national ideals.

No - you can't dust me off simply by claiming I'm arguing for "racism" or making derogatory comments about "social engineering" when in fact I'm exposing both and saying, these are problems, we do have racism and we do have built-in "social engineering" in the form of de facto class/caste structure; and sometimes they're related - so what are the solutions.

I am simply making an attempt to look at the facts and try to find a compassionate way of dealing with real pain and real deprivation - which are often the results of racism just as cushy jobs (and mediocre performance) are often the result of nepotism or simply being born into the "right" class or circumstances.

Another aspect of poverty not to mention "social Darwinism" is the fact that all too many Americans wind up broke and on the street for the simple reason that they get sick.

This is something we CAN fix but for some unknown reason certain groups are so horrified that people might actually get affordable health care they block all attempts to make this one change in our society that really would help all of us deal with the inevitable fact of illness.

Instead we have a predatory system that sees ever more expensive and therefore discriminatory means of saying who lives and who dies - if you're rich you live, if you're poor, you're dead.

Well if wanting to fix that is "social engineering" I plead guilty. Frankly I think it's just simple compassion combined with smart economics: sick workers are not productive and there's nothing smart about the fact that one illness can put families out on the street. When working people have to live in cars something is clearly amiss.

I find it upsetting that people would try to sweep these serious issues under the rug and turn the tables on an honest and realistic argument about the facts of life for countless millions of people here in the US alone, while simultaneously claiming that the power structure is being discriminated against.

Please.

The idea that joining with extremist parties in Europe will move Euro centrist parties to act is based on the idea that a majority of (or at least a few) Europeans support "anti-immigrant" parties. The failure of the recent "Pro-Koln" rallies proves that Euros may not be as dumb as we thought.

Allying with these unpopular groups doesn't help centrist conservatives. Zionists who ally with them appear to be either manipulative, weak or gullible. So, why do it?

Sophia - I knew a Marxist Mexican student in Germany who constantly berated Americans for their racist, discriminatory treatment of poor downtrodden Mexicans (like himself). He drove a Porsche, he wore Gucci from head to toe, he went clubbing every night and he had the obligatory poster of Che in his room. He had more money than all of the Americans he knew combined. Like most downtrodden Marxists I've met, he was the oligarchy good socialists were supposed to be fighting.

And the "terrible violence in the ghettos" has never been the outgrowth of poverty and a lack of hope. Crime is the outgrowth of a surfeit of hope - the criminal's hope that he'll be able to get away with it. If the police aren't doing their jobs, or if the community doesn't help them, the criminals have all the hope they need.

Leftists have some good ideas, but their tendency to portray opportunistic criminals and "revolutionaries" as victims of capitalism muddles their message. Violent criminals and trust-fund Che fans are as (or even more) greedy than the average wall street banker. When the left protects and makes excuses for these opportunists, it makes them look about as misguided and gullible as the right-wing anti-jihadis.

Sophia,
Your posts demonstrate how far Enlightenment culture has been corrupted into ideological goo. Compassion is an emotion, not the highest moral value. Compassion is the mask of envy. The policies of envy are: redistribution, affirmative action, multiculturalism. They rest upon the unquestioned orthodoxy of identity politics - the Marxian categories of race, class, gender (now, sexuality). These politics are profoundly unjust. They "enable" tyrants and extremists - including white racists, who demand equal special treatment and cultural respect. It is now clear that the West's cultural suicide will precede its demographic death.

Re, Pro-Koln, see here and here. (Both links contain extensive and detailed commentaries.)

Excerpt from the second link, summarizing the opposition to pro-Koln:

"What’s notable about this da’wa operation is the deliberate and well-planned coordination of the city’s Muslims with the extreme Left and the “anti-Fascists”."

There are too many feathers flying and too many known and unknown unknowns for me to come to any conclusion, excepting that Charles Johnson, once again, is, to be charitable indeed, tendentiously characterizing the issues.

I disagree with Charles Johnson's focus on Spencer and Geller - both are uninformed trolls who have no clue about the rallies they promote.

They don't know anything about the Austrian FPO, for example. According to this report, the FPO sent a large delegation to the Pro-Koln rally.

Some info about the FPO - Most of the FPÖ's leading proponents were former Nazis. The lower ranks of the party are mostly made up of members of German-nationalist student groups.

Another anti-immigrant party, the Alliance for Austria’s Future, led by Jörg Haider (former FPO leader), got 11 percent of the 2008 vote. Together these parties won almost a third of the vote, giving them huge gains over the traditional leading parties, the center-left Social Democrats and the conservative Austrian People’s Party.

Jorg Haider developed the tactic of downplaying and denying his party's traditional hatred of Jews. He also actively sought Jewish allies to promote his interests. His political future looked bright until October 2008, when, on a dark and stormy night, he had a fight with his gay lover, had too much to drink and crashed his car on rainy mountain roads. In their grief, his followers dropped their masks and blamed the Jews for his death.

Jewish leaders in Vienna and Israel believe that the Austrian "anti-immigrant" paries like the FPO and the Alliance for Austria's future are a threat to Israel and to the safety of Jews living in Austria. They've published articles about their fears (in English) in sources that Pamela and Spencer should be able to read.

Yet today, Pamela at Atlas Shruged posted an indignant article about "No Jews Policy at Austrian Hotel" in Tirol. If she knew anything about the people who attended the pro-Koln conference, she would know that the FPO's supporters are mostly based in Tirol.

In general, commenting about (and promoting!) groups that you don't know anything about is a bad idea.

All involved are too exciteable at times. Otoh, it was Charles Johnson and his LGF followers who initiated the far more, the decidedly more personal attacks and extraordinary presumption in that vein - summarizing: the libels, traducements, smears, personal invective, presuming upon the very motives of others and not merely analyzing things at a more "phenomenal" level.

Once that was raised to the level he indulged, it's hardly surprising it has devolved further still. That doesn't excuse some of the counter exciteability and reactions, but that does reflect the history, which now spans well over a year's time and that history is too easily lost.

"Compassion is the mask of envy"?

Oh fer pete's sake.

Mary, I have met self-styled "revolutionaries" like the one you describe - wearing silk scarves and high end leather - heck by the time I was 18 I'd figured out they were ridiculous. Indeed I figured they were at least as bad as Nixon.

For one thing I couldn't see what these upper middle classnikim were rebelling against.

?

Beyond that - means of effecting change are important. I don't believe that "the end justifies the means" or that expediency or (G*d help us) "realism" holds long term answers - nor repressive legal or political tactics.

Indeed people who reach for rockets first and books later worry me deeply. This is true regardless of their ideals - it's one reason the whole anti-jihadi argument we're discussing was bound to step into a dangerous place eventually, just as we probably overstepped after 9/11. The torture argument is necessary for that reason - as are these discussion about European fascists - we do need to think about who we are - what we are that's worth preserving - and how easy it would be to lose that.

Doesn't fear often create a violent overreaction?

Indeed this is why responsible governments carefully consider the nature of threats before they go to war and why our legal system recognizes the difference between murder and self-defense.

As far as hungry, oppressed people are concerned - in those cases the lines are more blurred. The Gucci revolutionary may seem silly but what about the Black Panther? People who've seen these neighborhoods - if you've walked that concrete - if you've been face down in the grit and ground glass - with no idea of how you're going to get up - if you've been bitterly cold, broke - outside the gleaming towers - maybe it's a little easier to understand, relate to those who've rebelled in Latin America, in Europe, Africa, Asia...the peasants who finally couldn't stand the czar anymore - their poverty - the aristocracy and their wars.

Nevertheless - the idea of violent revolution in order to bring "justice" is fraught with danger - the most obvious being that it's - well - violent, by extension oppressive, coercive - and likely to create a totalitarian situation at least as bad as whatever is being rebelled against.

After the initial Russian revolution the democratic government was hijacked and worse violence ensued, resulting in a really terrible situation and the abuses were ghastly.

This was also true of the "Cultural Revolution" in China, of the French Revolution as well. I don't see either what violence has done for the people of Gaza.

And - violence once unleashed is dreadfully hard to contain - there have been revolutions in Mexico for example in which the Great Heroes were indistinguishable from the oppressors - both were violent, murderous, and the people suffered.

In fact this was my worry about the Iraq war - that the effects of the war would be at least as bad for the Iraqi people as Saddam's rule.

Just from studying the Arab/Israeli conflict or the Lebanese Civil War it was easy to see that ancient tribal, ethnic and religious fault lines would erupt and that violence could easily last decades. The suicide bomber creates a brutal ripple effect, harming people miles from the initial blast, and the cycle of hatred, fear and revenge could go on indefinitely and destroy any chance of an orderly, open, democratic society.

And on top of that there is hatred of the outsider - much as we saw in Afghanistan after the Soviet invasion - a situation we're still dealing with - that ultimately brought Arab mujehhedin who eventually turned against us, enriched the Taliban - now nuclear Pakistan is unstable - the army has attacked the Swat Valley and tens of thousands are caught in the violence.

I hope this doesn't happen - decades of war - I hope that Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan will progress toward open, peaceful, democratic societies - but I'm worried.

Hence the internal argument within the left - there is a huge difference between peaceful evolution and violent revolution. There is a huge difference between suggesting peaceful change and forcing progress at the point of a gun.

Needless to say I have never believed in the latter - but then I wasn't born in feudal Russia or dsyfunctional, starving post WWII China and I didn't live in Saddam's Iraq either - or medieval Afghanistan - it's easy to be non-violent in the US where we are so blessed that I thank my stars every day - even though I'm pretty low on the totem pole - I feel rich because I have known, I have seen real poverty, real hopelessness - but here there's always hope - so I feel blessed.

So from where I sit it's easy to say well we shouldn't be violent but then I think of WWII, of the people trapped in Darfur, of the million or so murdered in Rwanda, and I think why the hell didn't we intervene sooner? We didn't we intervene in Rwanda? Why are millions dying in Africa? Is there truly nothing to be done, with or without an army?

My mom never served a meal without the ritual "think of the starving children in China" and I guess I internalized that.

So indeed I never stop thinking about the less fortunate and I think it's bollocks that this concern for the poor, for helpless animals and people and for oppressed people here and around the world - ie compassion - part of Jewish and Christian and Buddhist and many other religions and philosophies - a core of socialism for that matter - masks "envy".

In fact that comment about envy is just a defensive reaction against having to face the fact that one's good fortune often results from another's disaster. Worse, it's an ugly attempt to try and wriggle off the hook.

Equating compassion with envy absolves the rich and powerful of their responsibilities and that is so against our entire cultural and religious heritage it disgusts me.

That said, as democratic ideals spread and more and more people around the world connect and recognize possibilities, probably the need for violent revolution has passed.

Maybe one day we'll see that war is obsolete, that its horrible toll can be avoided, that we have more in common with our worst enemies than we could ever imagine - that we face global challenges and need each other - that all of us are precious and have something to give, something to offer.

Indeed classical Marxism aimed for a middle class, not for endless revolution - this was I think was the key element in the battle with Trotsky, who apparently believed in endless revolution. But once a middle class was created out of the polarities of very rich and very poor, when powerful and powerless were "more equal" - with all being able to share and contribute, with all having a stake in the economy, then there would be no need for economically-based violence.

Don't we see this evolving now in China? Only a few decades ago there was mass starvation, now there is a powerhouse - and we should remember too, China has been a creative and economic powerhouse for millenia, with the exception of the recent "bad century" as they call it, brought about by several factors including the crippled end of the Qing dynasty, the opium wars, hunger, WWII...

Hopefully human rights will become a concern there as well, as the society opens and modernizes and connects more with the rest of the world.

What we're seeing here now though is a stagnation and indeed an increasing polarization between rich and poor - powerful and powerless - the very economic instability and disparity in control that did result - that has resulted - in revolution and war in other times, other parts of the world.

That worries me.

Simply listening to the increasingly ugly discourse - including antisemitism - it's highly reminiscent of the 1930's, the Depression era - which I think was a direct cause of WWII with all its horrors.

Thus, I urge people, left or right, to step back a little, really think about what we're saying, try to refocus, focus on what's great about our culture - and also, think about our responsibilities and instead of attacking other people just because they are Democrats or Muslims or Jews or Evangelicals or French or whatever - try to be less defensive.

We can all learn from each other.

And as humans - as democrats - aren't we all our brothers' keepers?

Oh please, classical Marxism specifically aimed for an extraordinarily violent revolution.

Smell the coffee, open your eyes, admit to the perforce, a prioi evidence and eschew these tropes and fairy tales once and for all. Good grief, looking at "classical Marxism" through such deluded, rose colored glasses advances what, precisely?

Marx himself worried over "the Jewish question," he considered the problem of "racial trash," he positively conceived and hoped for a "revolutionary holocaust."