Academic Indoctrination -- Obama Wants More

The University of Delaware program to brainwash its students into mindless leftist dogma may be lying dormant, temporarily. But Obama wants to expand the program to high schools -- to create his own National Service Corps of brown-shirted Nazi Youth like zombie minions. In order the be sure that these "Red Guard" lookalikes have gotten their minds right, Obama will instruct them all to undergo consciousness training.

And why not? These youth have very little future, once Obama has made mincemeat out of the economy for the next 50 years. May as well march to the drummer that pays that government check, eh?

French Unions form Gangs to Victimise Citizens

Redundancy plans have caused violent protests in private sector companies, left-wing students have blocked universities and unions are planning a demonstration on Labour Day. “There is a risk of revolution,” Dominique de Villepin, the former prime minister, said. _TimesOnline

In France, striking labour unions are forming gangs to terrorize French citizens into submission. Cutting off power and gas to neighborhoods already at risk from ethnic and religious violence, French labour unions are hoping to push France over the edge into outright insurrection. Union leaders hope that such violence will convince the government that the unions are too big to discipline.

At an electricity substation on a bleak industrial estate north of Paris a masked union militant is preparing to deprive a neighbourhood of power.

His colleague is outside, dragging nervously on a roll-up cigarette while keeping a lookout for police or security guards. “Get a move on,” he says. “And then let’s get out of here.”

A switch is pulled down, the door of the sabotaged transformer is locked and the two activists — employees of EDF, the French state electricity supplier — drive off.

....It was the second time in a week that blackouts had hit the Paris region as striking gas and electricity workers adopted radical tactics to support their call for a 10 per cent pay rise and an end to outsourcing of jobs.

They are denounced as industrial saboteurs by the Government and face disciplinary action and prosecution, but say they are determined to press ahead with what they portray as a struggle against free-market forces.... _TimesOnline

In Germany, the threat of revolution is more subdued. Potential gangs are waiting for the other shoe to drop -- waiting to see what happens when the second stage of bad loans hits the financial sector of Germany and Europe.

A clutch of political and labour leaders in Germany have raised the spectre of civil unrest after the country's leading institutes forecast a 6pc contraction of gross domestic product this year, a slump reminiscent of 1931 and bad enough to drive unemployment to 4.7m by 2010.

...Michael Sommer, leader of the DGB trade union federation, called the latest wave of sackings a "declaration of war" against Germany's workers. "Social unrest can no longer be ruled out," he said.

Gesine Swann, presidential candidate for the Social Democrats, said "the mood could turn explosive" over the next three months unless the government takes drastic action.

While authorities have belatedly agreed to create a "bad bank" to absorb toxic loans and stabilise the credit system, further financial troubles are almost certainly in the pipeline.

Swiss risk advisers Independent Credit View said a "second wave" of debt stress is likely to hit the UK and Europe this year as the turmoil moves from mortgage securities to old-fashioned bank loans. A detailed "stress test" of 17 lenders worldwide found that European banks have much lower reserve cushions than US banks, leaving them acutely vulnerable to the coming phase of rising defaults. _Telegraph

Of course, in third world countries -- even relatively prosperous ones such as Jamaica -- there is no pretense of order. When the government declares a tax hike, they call out the army in advance to suppress violence by any means necessary. I think I'll cancel that weekend in Jamaica I had planned for next month.

Meanwhile, in nearby Mexico, swine flue threatens to upset the ongoing status quo of corruption and drug cartel warfare. Riding a wave of human immigrants to el norte, the flu is starting to spread to the US, along with the drug cartel violence.

Hope and change in the world of the Obama / Pelosi reich. It may come down to a question of the last man standing.

Obama "Feels the Terrorists' Pain"

President Clinton was famous for the ability to feel the pain of ordinary Americans -- and to remind them of this facility at every opportunity. President Obama is even more sensitive than President Clinton, with the ability to feel the pain of terrorists and anti-American dictators around the world. When not bowing to dictators, he is laughing at their anti-American jokes and accepting their gifts of anti-American propaganda. And still he has time to leak top-secret memos describing harsh interrogation techniques that reaped plentiful high-value information from proved terrorists. He is making sure America can never obtain such high-value information from terrorists ever again -- at least during his reich. Because he feels the terrorists' pain, so that when the terrorists hurt, Obama hurts.

The release of the memoranda means that we are unlikely ever again to get valuable information from terror suspects, because now our enemies know the precise lengths to which our interrogators are willing to go to coerce information, and that those limits stop well short of actually causing the terror suspect injury. _JWR

The interrogation techniques did not exactly involve "pain", as such. There was plenty of psychological stress involved, with the threat of pain and injury. But clearly the word "torture" may not actually mean what Herr Obama thinks it means.

Take the insect “torture.” Specifically designed for al-Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah, a confidant of Osama bin Laden’s with a fear of spiders, it involved placing Zubaydah in a “cramped confinement box” with an ostensibly stinging insect. Except that the insect would actually be harmless caterpillar. No physical harm whatsoever was meant to come to Zubaydah himself and, in any case, the tactic was never used. As evidence of “torture,” this is far from compelling.

One interrogation technique that was used is sleep deprivation. Importantly, however, the memos reveal that the emphasis was always two-fold: to obtain intelligence and cooperation but only insofar as no lasting physical or mental harm came to the detainee. To that end, they stipulate that if the detainee were to be denied sleep then “personnel with medical training” had to be available to intervene “in the unlikely event of an abnormal reaction.” _FPM

As much like genuine torture as The Sound of Music is like hard core porn. And left-wing zomboids are plenty mad about Obama's actions. Oh, not because they feel he has gone too far in placing American forces and the American people at risk. No, leftists are hopping angry because they feel Obama did not go far enough in tearing down America's defenses against death-dealing muslim and other terrorists.

... there is the sense of anxiety and fragility that stems from the liberals' newly-won power. They control everything in government, and some fear what the responsibility of governing is doing to them.

Their president of hope and change has chosen not to prosecute the authors of the Bush-era "torture memos." He is escalating the war in Afghanistan. He seems determined to bail out the nation's richest bankers. For some on the left, it can be difficult to abide those actions and still maintain the image of one's self atop the moral high ground. So they lash out at the easy target... _WashEx

Any easy target will do as long as it is decidedly American, and dedicated to the safety and prosperity of the American people. Leftists are so predictable!

So we see that Obama feels the terrorists' pain, whether they are actually feeling any pain themselves. And we are learning that "torture" -- like "sexual harassment" -- is anything that makes the complainant "uncomfortable" in any way, at any time. There is much to learn from a US President who is so sensitive -- almost effeminately so. The first truly "metrosexual" president surely has more surprises up his laced, perfumed sleeves. We simply cannot wait to learn what they are.

Banned by YouTube, Coming to a Town Near You

H/T Brussels Journal

More

From Sweden to Belgium to Holland to Paris to Germany to London. This is the face of your future.

Obama, Saviour of the Universe! Film Festival

Okay, well perhaps the last video is just a bit over the top. It reminds me of something the Obama juggernaut (ACORN, moveon.org, Rev. Wright, etc) might have cooked up, if the Obama steamroller had been running against Obama. Sauce for the goose and the gander, you might say. It certainly had me laughing uncontrollably most of the way through.

Can Africa Survive the Good Intentions of the World Bank and the Neo-Colonialist NGOs?

Year by year, Sub-Saharan African countries are growing more impoverished -- and more populated. Despite the perpetual drive for increasing aid from the World Bank and the NGOs, the bottom line is that poverty in Africa is on an exponentially increasing rise. Here is what African economist Dambisa Moyo thinks about western aid to Africa:

The countries in the world receiving the most foreign aid, largely in sub-Saharan Africa, happen to be the poorest—and getting poorer by the year. Is it because they aren’t getting enough aid? Or is aid part of the problem?

...While her predecessors in arguing against aid have been Europeans and Americans, Dambisa Moyo is African by origin. She’s traveled from her native Zambia, however, to Harvard, Oxford, the World Bank, and Goldman Sachs. Africa has become a source of talent for the developed world: the South’s lack of opportunities causes a brain drain, part of poverty’s vicious circle. Moyo’s new book, Dead Aid, would not be so compelling if she were only an African woman recycling her predecessors’ mantras. But she brings to the subject a compelling and easy to understand style, along with personal commitment and moral outrage. And she upholds her argument with striking examples.

...“What if,” she asks, “African countries received a phone call telling them that in five years, the aid tap would be shut off permanently?” But such shock therapy will never happen, as Moyo should know better than anyone from her experience working at the World Bank. U.S., European, or Japanese aid bureaucracies and charities will not put themselves out of business. These well-meaning angels, more focused on intentions than results, do not want to lose their financial, and even more important their moral, raison d’être. The West’s deepest motivation in helping Africa is the feel-good impulse: we want to alleviate our bad conscience. Moyo calls it “glamorous aid.”

...Dysfunctional states will remain hostile to development with or without aid; but without aid, epidemics will rage untreated. Opening developed countries’ markets to African agriculture would be useful, but not sufficient to raise Africa out of poverty. _CityJournal

The real problem -- which is something that neither Moyo nor the writer of the above review in the City Journal dare mention -- is the utter lack of significant high - g human capital in Sub-Saharan Africa. The average IQ of S-S African populations hovers near 70. Optimising nutritional levels in those countries could conceivably raise average scores to 75 or marginally better.

Given that a nation's best educators, scientists, physicians, legal minds, architects, engineers, and technologists will come from the upper end of the IQ distribution, what kind of elite can a nation have when its upper end tops out between 100 and 110 IQ? In the west, an IQ of 125 to 130 is considered a minimum for fielding the best scientists, engineers, technologists, and medical specialists. Such levels of IQ are extremely rare in African populations.

The historical cure for that problem has been the "market dominant minority (M-D-M)", or the "smart fraction". In Rhodesia (then Zimbabwe) and South Africa, the M-D-M were white Europeans, who helped make those two countries the most prosperous on the continent. Formerly in a more prosperous Uganda, the M-D-M consisted of Indians and Lebanese -- prior to Idi Amin's purge of the "outsiders" and the subsequent crash in prosperity and quality of life inside Uganda.

The NGOs have tried to become a quasi- M-D-M, but have had very poor results. China is currently moving in to many countries of S-S Africa, playing the role of a new type of M-D-M which is based more upon a callous self-interest than the "altruistic" NGOs or the more integrated economic industry of previous M-D-Ms. Both the NGOs and the new Chinese interests tend to give the corrupt leaders of African nations exactly what they want -- bribes and a cut off the top -- while leaving the masses of the populations in growing misery and poverty.

Moyo thinks Africans can do better on their own. But that will never happen. Africa has too many riches to be left alone by the developed and emerging world.

Eurabia Shaping Up?

What about the 60+ million – soon to be 100 million-- legal 1st and 2nd generation Muslims already in the West? What about the possibility that it’s not Islam but Muslims that are the problem? After all, 1400 years of following an unchanged totalitarian dogma and marrying each other’s cousin, and 500 years of disdaining science and creativity, has at least as much to do with the character of a people as its religion does. _BrusselsJournal

Europeans are vanishing from Europe, just as legal and illegal Muslims are flooding into the continent. Many of Europe's largest and most important cities are already 25% Muslim -- which changes their characters entirely. Gangs of Muslim rapists and hooligans roam too many European streets as it is, but this is only the beginning.

According to statistics quoted by a Finnish blog, Somalis, who constitute 0.2% of Finland’s population, commit 12% of reported robberies. The Somali community in Finland, of course, lives at the taxpayers’ expense just as is does in every Western country where it’s present.

To import Somalis to such a singularly unmixed white and monocultural nation as Finland is a symptom of a galloping psychopathology. Not only that; the Finnish legal establishment actively prosecutes ethnic Finns who publish politically incorrect statements about Islam or Muslims. A blogger named Seppo Lehto was sentenced to long imprisonment and a large fine for “incitement against an ethnic group” and “disturbing religious worship.” To do this, the Finnish Body Snatchers had to dig up a blasphemy law so old that the first attempt to overturn it was made in 1914. And now, a Helsinki councilman and blogger Jussi Halla-aho will be tried for blasphemy, for having written that Muhammad was a pedophile. _BJ

The insanity of tribal Islam transplanted into Europe matches the insanity of the politically correct enablers of uncivilised Muslim behaviours. No wonder nationalist parties are starting to swell across the countries of Europe.

Jihad is not the cause. It’s a symptom. Aggressively separatist Muslim communities in the West are not the cause. They are a symptom.

The symptom, in the West, is as old as the Goths and the Huns. But the disease is as old as the end of the Roman Empire, and before that, the Babylonian one. Flowering followed by decadence, followed by a partial population replacement with imported barbarians, followed by chaos, internal war, and wilting.

Addressing the solipsistic degeneracy of the American Empire and the despairing self-asphyxiation of post-national Europe are a precondition for disposing of the symptom. Fighting the symptom as if it were disembodied cannot bring cure, since the body’s maimed autoimmune system recognizes Islam and Muslims as its own, and its own – the anti-Islamization dissident – as the invading disease. _BJ

The disease is a leftist flight from reality that dominates so many minds within the increasingly decadent western world.

As the Sci-Fi writer Philip Dick quipped, Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. Either we shall learn to deal with Reality, or we will be gone away. Reality will remain. _BrusselsJournal

If Western Civilisation is to Survive, We Need More Leaders Like This

From Brussels Journal:

Just a few days ago, not many Americans knew about Daniel Hannan, a Conservative member of the European Parliament. However, after a three minute speech on March 24 in which he confronted British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Hannan has become an international sensation. His YouTube video “The devalued Prime Minister of a devalued government” is already an internet success. It has become the most viewed political speech faster than any other in internet history, with almost two million views in its first week, and it has been the number one viewed video for several straight days. As a principled politician, Hannan has been widely praised by conservatives in the United States and was recently featured on Fox News, the Drudge Report and various important conservative radio talk shows, including the Rush Limbaugh Show.

Hannan has been writing in Britain's best-selling quality newspapers for 14 years. When first elected to the European Parliament in 1999, Hannan was its youngest member. Then in April 2008, he was pushed to the top of the Conservative candidate list for the 2009 European elections, making it almost certain that he will be re-elected to the European Parliament next June.

American interest in Hannan´s short video and speech rests on a simple premise: what Hannan said in the video to Gordon Brown could have easily been said to Barack Obama by any of the true conservative members of the Republican Party in the U.S. Congress. After all, our new American president is pursuing the same or even larger massive spending policies which will lead the United States down the path to unprecedented debt and financial ruin. In his video, Hannan tells Brown: “I have long accepted that you’re pathologically incapable of accepting responsibility for these things. It’s that you’re carrying on, willfully worsening our situation, wantonly spending what little we have left.” American Conservatives feel exactly the same way about Obama, and Hannan is a reminder of that. Daniel Hannan’s brilliant oration –reminiscent of William F. Buckley´s accent– has produced a new European conservative star. Conservatives should take note of the need to develop a true transatlantic alliance with their European conservative brethren.

Conservative principles are as true today as they were at the founding of our country in 1776; they were laid out by political philosophers and thinkers throughout the nation´s history such as Edmund Burke, Lord Acton, Russell Kirk and upheld by notable politicians such as Barry Goldwater, Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. Just as Mark Levin outlined in his recent conservative manifesto, conservatism is rooted in the ideas of the framers of our founding documents. Both in the United States and in Europe, all that is really needed is a group of politicians willing to articulate those principles. Hannan is an example of how it is indeed possible to do so. He represents a clear example of how bridges between American and European conservatives can be built. It could also create a platform for rising conservative political figures such as Bobby Jindal, Sarah Palin, Mark Sanford, Eric Cantor and others.

Before Hannan´s video shocked the viewers in the United States, he had already made some waves within European politics. Armed with his knowledge of the French and Spanish languages, he has closely followed the political atmosphere in Europe and, particularly, in Spain, a country where several hundreds of thousands of British citizens live and also vote. Hannan specifically asked those British living in Spain to get out and vote conservative in the next European elections this coming June. Hannan´s point was that as Brits in Spain are one of the least represented communities in Western Europe (most of whom are conservative), the importance of voting is particularly relevant. The interesting aspect in Hannan´s position -- as well as in the position taken by the Tories in the Conservative Party in England -- is the clear attempt to form a new conservative bloc of parties within the European Parliament. David Cameron has already given formal notice of his intention to leave the “European People´s Party” grouping to set up a conservative bloc: the “European Conservatives,” a political group in the European Parliament that will attract members from the Czech governing party -- Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek’s Civic Democrats (ODS). Topolanek, who commands particular influence because his country holds the EU presidency, recently asserted that extra spending was “the way to hell”. Others likely to join Cameron´s organization include the Polish Law and Justice party (PiS), Spain´s Alternativa Española (AES), led by Rafael López Diéguez, and several other political parties from Romania, Bulgaria, and other Baltic states that have become uncomfortable with their existing affiliations.

Undoubtedly, this is good news for American conservatives. Further, it is a blow to several European leaders who are part of the “European People´s Party” but who, unfortunately, seem to be more interested in keeping their place in politics rather than implementing true conservative values: Angela Merkel in Germany, Nicolas Sarkozy in France, Silvio Berlusconi in Italy or Mariano Rajoy in Spain. Those who want to stop the creation of the new Conservative bloc in the European Parliament are already carrying out a dishonest campaign of propaganda against these European parties, calling it a “far-right” or a “fascist” coalition of parties: the same old insults that we see in the United States against conservatives.

Cameron, Hannan and most of the British Tories disagree with the European People´s Party views, which include advocating for closer integration in Europe in matters of economy, immigration, defense, big government and foreign policies. As it stands now, the European Parliament lacks official opposition. Cameron will lead this much needed conservative crusade for real reform in Europe. It is within this context that Hannan´s recommendations for British expatriates living in Spain should be considered. His suggestion as a conservative was not to vote for the usual Spanish “Partido Popular” (PP) or the “Partido Socialista Obrero Español” (PSOE), but rather to vote for a new, vibrant and pro-life Spanish conservative party, “Alternativa Española” (AES), which openly defends its Western Christian roots. Hannan defines this Spanish party as a Euro-sceptic anti-corruption party that has broken away finally from both the socialist PSOE and the centrist PP (which has lost the credibility, principles and stature it once had under José María Aznar´s leadership). Hannan argues that without dodgy mayors to defend, AES is keen to address the concerns that Spanish as well as expatriate British residents have about land security and other important issues for conservatives.

Furthermore, as Hannan points out, AES was the only party to campaign for a real “No” vote on the European Constitution and an active party that encouraged Ireland to stand up to the Euro-bullies. Hannan´s pick of AES makes sense if one considers that for Spain it takes only 300,000 votes to return a Member of the European Parliament.

Some conservatives in the United States are already paying close attention to the activities within the conservative movement in Europe and alerting the Republican Party to the need to consider the suggestions made by Hannan and look at parties in Europe with which alliances and partnerships can be created. Hannan arrives into the political scenario at a time when the Republican Party can lay no legitimate claim to being for limited government after eight years of being just the opposite, ending with bailouts of banks and car companies. This is precisely why the Republican Party should take a close look at the vibrant Spanish conservative party “Alternativa Española” as a first step to creating a true Transatlantic Alliance of Conservatives. While the other two major parties in Spain were and continue to be mesmerized by Obama and openly supported his campaign, “Alternativa Española” stands on principles and defends conservative values: individual freedom, limited government, free markets, individual responsibility, an unequivocal pro-life stance, lower taxes and the implementation of a practical flat tax, school vouchers and, very importantly, the defense of the Judeo-Christian roots of the Western civilization.

Cameron and the European conservatives seem to be decided on firm principles (with the exception of some mistakes on Cameron´s part regarding his positions about the dangers of the so-called man-made “global warming”). In the final analysis, the alliance could be a stepping stone to subsequent conservative realignments and alliances at the transatlantic level. British Conservatives have been in opposition to the ruling party since 1997 but, according to opinion polls, they are very well placed to defeat Brown´s Labour Party at the next election in mid-2010. In the middle of the outrageous financial interventions by the governments of Spain, England and the United States, European voters who believe in limited government will have a say. If we consider that in November of 2010 the United States has its midterm elections, we may be witnessing a reemergence of conservatism in Europe and the United States. Cameron and Hannan's strategy may work in Europe and it is even possible that, contrary to what many believe, we may also be making history as part of a new conservative revolution on both sides of the Atlantic.

Alberto Acereda is a Professor at Arizona State University and a Member of the “North American Academy of the Spanish Language.” He is also a columnist for several newspapers in Europe and the United States.

The present leadership of the US, Australia, Norway, Sweden, Spain, and several other western countries is shot through with corruption and an unwillingness to confront the real threats to the survival of the west. If the most enlightened civilisation ever to face the challenges of survival is to survive yet again, it will need better leaders.