Obama White House Defends Sharia Law

Dalia Mogahed, President Obama's hardline Islamic advisor, is in the news today in two pieces: Stephen Schwartz's, "What Do Muslims Want? A White House Adviser Defends Sharia," and Cinnamon Stillwell's, "Does Sharia Law Promote Women’s Rights?"

Here's this from the Schwartz essay:

Dalia Mogahed has enjoyed a varied career. Born in Egypt, she was brought to America as a child and climbed a fairly ordinary professional ladder. She earned a master's in business at the University of Pittsburgh and pursued success in corporate life. But she became an American Muslim celebrity after joining Georgetown professor John L. Esposito, a tireless defender of radical Islam, in producing a controversial study, Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think. With its wildly overreaching subtitle, the volume was based on polling by the Gallup Organization, where Mogahed gained a post as Senior Analyst and Executive Director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies.

All of which was rather banal in Washington's subculture of Muslim advocacy, until President Obama named Mogahed to his Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. Mogahed is now a prominent Obama satellite, and, as noted here last month, she appeared at a Pentagon iftar, or Ramadan fast-breaking event, alongside a noted Saudophile, James Zogby of the Arab American Institute.

Early in October, Mogahed gave a telephone interview to a British Muslim fundamentalist television network, IslamChannel. The program also interviewed Nazreen Nawaz, a female representative of the ultra-radical Islamist group Hizb-ut-Tahrir (HT), or the Islamic Liberation Party, as a live guest. HT calls for a global Islamic regime (the "caliphate"), under sharia law, and the destruction of the West. The show was posted on Sunday, October 4, to HT's UK website here. While television debate between sharply-opposed individuals has become a dominant form of public communication all over the world, Dalia Mogahed made no effort, in her encounter with an extremist advocate, to establish any distance between their views.

Rather, Mogahed delivered a defense of sharia law, and, in particular, its application to women. She alleged that "the perception of sharia and portrayal of sharia has been oversimplified even among Muslims," and called for sharia to be viewed "holistically" (a meaningless cliché.) According to her, "the majority of women around the world associate sharia with 'gender justice.'" Presumably, her broad reference to "the majority of women," rather than Muslim women, was a slip of the tongue. But there is no doubt that in her perspective, sharia as public law guarantees Muslim women a dignity absent in the West.

Mogahed further declared that Muslim women support "universal values of justice and equality" but reject "Western values," which she associated with sexual promiscuity and male disrespect of women. As projected by Mogahed, the views of Muslims are either fundamentalist or confused. Their attitudes toward Islamic law are divided, in her terms, only between supposedly wanting sharia to be the sole source of governance and seeing it as one source of legislation among various canons. But for her, even this distinction is less important than proclaiming the satisfaction of Muslim women with sharia.

Mogahed cited "one woman in Malaysia" who "specifically" told the pollsters "she felt sorry for Western women because she felt that they always felt that they always needed to please men." As if choosing individual voices out of a putative billion were not absurd enough, Mogahed drew on another single citation to portray Muslim women abroad as complaining that Western women lack social status.

And from Stillwell:

In thinking about women’s rights, sharia law, or Islamic law, doesn’t typically come to mind.

Yet, according to a survey conducted by Dalia Mogahed, executive director and senior analyst of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies and appointee to President Obama’s Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, the two are closely intertwined. Her survey alleges that a majority of Muslim women believe sharia law should either be the primary source or one source of legislation in their countries, while viewing Western personal freedoms as harmful to women.

Palestinian Militants to Ehud Olmert: 'You Deserve to Be Executed!'

From the Chicago Maroon, "Jeers Stifle Olmert’s Speech":

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert struggled to make himself heard over a cacophony of protests in Mandel Hall Thursday, in what became more of a free-for-all than an international policy lecture.

Dozens of protesters inside the auditorium, and over 100 more outside, voiced their fury at alleged war crimes committed by Israel in Lebanon and Gaza during Olmert’s tenure. Meanwhile, Olmert articulated a two-state plan for peace in the Middle East, which has Israel sacrificing nearly all of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and Golan Heights land occupied since the Six Day War in 1967.

The scheduled running time for Olmert’s remarks was 20 minutes, but ran nearly an hour-and-a-half after a series of false starts. Shouting from the audience dominated the event from the beginning, and ranged from the extreme to the absurd.

“You deserve to be executed!” shouted one protester. “Your face is ugly!” yelled another.

“I understand these emotions. There is the same rage from voices on the right in Israel,” Olmert said, referring to those who criticized his moderate party for giving concessions to Palestinian negotiators.

The lecture was part of the King Abdullah II Leadership Lecture series organized by the Harris School of Public Policy. Some protesters raised concerns that using the King of Jordan’s grant money to fund the lecture was a slap in the face to the Arab world.

Olmert’s remarks, fragmented and often inaudible, centered around a four-point peace plan he supported towards the end of his tenure as prime minister.

Olmert’s plan called for Israel to give the Palestinians land in the West Bank and Gaza Strip that it occupied after the 1967 war, and for Jerusalem to be split into an eastern Palestinian portion and a western Israeli portion. Further, he advocated that the ancient religious sites in the Old City area of Jerusalem be administered by an international coalition, and Palestinian refugees be provided with resources to start new lives in Palestine.

“We have to make a choice of what we want. Do we want to fight these people forever, or do we want to make peace?” Olmert asked. “If people shouted less, we could have done great things” ....

Across the street on University Avenue, a group of six counter-protesters held up signs reading, among other things, “Let Israel Live in Peace.”

Inside the auditorium, Olmert faced more abrasive criticism.

“You’re a fucking snake! You goddamn pig!” shouted one heckler as police dragged him from Mandel Hall.

Well, these people don't want dialogue, obviously.

The protesters were from the Palestine Solidarity Group-Chicago and the U.S. Palestine Conference Network.

The PSG is a student front group for the International Solidarity Movement. The latter organization is most notoriously identified with Rachel Corrie, the American activist who was accidently killed by an Israeli tractor as she worked to protect Gazan arms smuggling-tunnels in 2003.

See also, FrontPage Magazine, "Discover the Arab Lobby 'Network'."

Hat Tip: From U.S. News, "Olmert Heckled at University of Chicago."

Just How Relevant Is Political Science?

From the New York Times, "Field Study: Just How Relevant Is Political Science?":

After Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma, this month proposed prohibiting the National Science Foundation from “wasting any federal research funding on political science projects,” political scientists rallied in opposition, pointing out that one of this year’s Nobel winners had been a frequent recipient of the very program now under attack.

Yet even some of the most vehement critics of the Coburn proposal acknowledge that political scientists themselves vigorously debate the field’s direction, what sort of questions it pursues, even how useful the research is.

Much of the political science work financed by the National Science Foundation is both rigorous and valuable, said Jeffrey C. Isaac, a professor at Indiana University in Bloomington, where one new winner of the Nobel in economic science, the political scientist Elinor Ostrom, teaches. “But we’re kidding ourselves if we think this research typically has the obvious public benefit we claim for it,” he said. “We political scientists can and should do a better job of making the public relevance of our work clearer and of doing more relevant work.”

Mr. Isaac is the editor of Perspectives on Politics, a journal that was created by the field’s professional organization to bridge the divide after a group of political scientists led a revolt against the growing influence of statistical methods and mathematics-based models in the discipline. In 2000 an anonymous political scientist who called himself Mr. Perestroika roused scores of colleagues to protest the organization, the American Political Science Association, and its flagship journal, The American Political Science Review, arguing that the two were marginalizing scholars who focused on traditional research based on history, culture and archives.

Though there is still jockeying over jobs, power and prestige — particularly in an era of shrinking budgets — much of that animus has quieted, and most political scientists agree that a wide range of approaches makes sense.

What remains, though, is a nagging concern that the field is not producing work that matters. “The danger is that political science is moving in the direction of saying more and more about less and less,” said Joseph Nye, a professor at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, whose work has been particularly influential among American policy makers. “There are parts of the academy which, in the effort to be scientific, feel we should stay away from policy,” Mr. Nye said, that “it interferes with the science.”

In his view statistical techniques too often determine what kind of research political scientists do, pushing them further into narrow specializations cut off from real-world concerns. The motivation to be precise, Mr. Nye warned, has overtaken the impulse to be relevant.

There's more at the link.

This is an ancient debate, actually, and it's not going away any time soon. I don't think Coburn made the right call in attacking political science. He's a doctor himself, and no doubt lots of experimental - and ultimately unfruitful - research in medicine has been funded with the same basic kinds of grants as the NSF program the senator is targeting.

That said, check what folks on the research side of things are saying over at The Monkey Cage. The APSA has related information on and responses to Tom Coburn.

(P.S. I really like Coburn politically, so I'm interested to see how this controversy plays out.)

When Defeat is the ANSWER

From my essay yesterday at FrontPage Magazine, "When Defeat is the Answer":

President Obama is still dithering over the war in Afghanistan, but his hard-Left base has increasingly decided to break with the administration to cheer for American defeat overseas.

The latest sign of the Left’s defection over the war comes from the Los Angeles chapter of the anti-war group International A.N.S.W.E.R. On Sunday, ANSWER sponsored an antiwar “teach-in” on Afghanistan at Los Angeles City College. The event was the group’s latest “local action” in its self-described “struggle” against alleged U.S. imperialism in “Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, the Philippines, Latin America and beyond.” All this is standard fare for the radical group, with one notable exception: It now considers the Obama administration the enemy.

To that end, ANSWER is accelerating its calls for grassroots resistance to the administration. In particular, ANSWER organizers claim they are seeking to block U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s recent request for an additional 40,000 troops. But ANSWER’s ultimate goal is to support the insurgency seeking to topple the Hamid Karzai government in Kabul. According to Richard Becker, ANSWER’s West Coast Regional Director, and a keynote speaker at this weekend’s teach-in, a defeat for the current American mission in Afghanistan would strike a blow to the American “empire” in South Asia.

Read the whole thing at the link.

RELATED: "Marxist Violent Revolutionary Doctrine - CAPITALISM IS A CRIME!."

Marxist Violent Revolutionary Doctrine - CAPITALISM IS A CRIME!

Check out this handout for the Party of Socialism and Liberation's workshop on "Capitalism Is A Crime!":

Organize To Fight Back!

Had Enough Cuts, Layoffs & Bank Bailouts? Fight For Revolutionary Change!

• What is Socialism? Is it possible in the U.S.?
• Fight the anti-worker capitalist agenda
• Stop police brutality & racist oppression
• Is a revolutionary party necessary for working class victory?
• Healthcare for all, not for profit
• Fight layoffs, evictions, foreclosures, education cuts & union busting
• Win full rights for all immigrants
• Capitalism must go: Stop racism, sexism & homophobia
• Socialism in Cuba & revolution in Venezuela

But see also Kelly O'Connell's piece at American Thinker, "If Obama Were a Marxist, What Would He Believe?":

Marxism is a violently revolutionary doctrine. Marx claimed capitalism's Armageddon was inevitable, but followers should bear arms to hasten change. Since the rich will never give up their capital voluntarily, it must be taken by force. After this, the arduous task of rebuilding society begins. Lenin's "New Man" is created by education. Those who don't adapt can be eliminated to purify the whole. But capitalism must be destroyed before healing can occur.

Also:

As Lenin in Russia, and Mao in China launched Communist revolts, the prophesied global apocalypse seemed imminent. But the staggering failure of Marxist theory to make productive societies, coupled with the West's relentless growth forced an intellectual crisis.

Twentieth century leftist progressives developed a Neo-Marxism less warlike and more psychologically attractive by combining Marx with Freud, creating a highly sexualized socialism. The Frankfurt School were academic Marxists who escaped Frankfurt, Germany to avoid Hitler's wrath. Relocated to the U.S., they successfully infused Marxism into American universities. For example, "Political Correctness" is a Frankfurt movement, and the first modern use of this phrase is found in Chairman Mao's "Little Red Book," according to Geoffrey Hughes' "Political Correctness: A History of Semantics."

Marxist theories now dominate Western universities. Movements like Race Theory, Feminism, Gay Rights, Modern Art, Critical Theory, Animal Rights, Gender Studies, abortion advocacy, Deconstruction, penal reform, Hate Crimes legislation, etc are all informed by Frankfurt scholarship. Redefined Marxism has produced spectacularly disruptive results. Some argue Obama's election is a direct result of cultural Marxism's success. Universal Health Care is another Marxist holy grail. The USSR had free medical treatment, notable for a staggering lack of basic supplies, horribly outdated methods, and horrifically filthy conditions.

See also, Dr. Sanity, "The Collectivist Undead."

Disastrous WaPo Health Survey: 7 in 10 Say ObamaCare 'Would Increase the Federal Budget Deficit' - Plus, 85 Percent Now Have Health Coverage!

Radical leftists are going to have a field day with these numbers, no matter how flawed the poll design.

A new Washington Post survey finds 57 percent of Americans would support "having the government create a new health insurance plan to compete with private health insurance plans..."

The poll also shows that a statistically insignificant majority of 51 percent favors a "a law that requires all Americans to have health insurance, either getting it from work or buying it on their own?"

But in a follow up question, a huge majority rejects taxing the insurance plans of affluent Americans:

One idea would put a tax on the most expensive health insurance policies. (Supporters say this would help pay for health care reform, and encourage insurers to offer cheaper policies.) (Opponents say this would make these policies too expensive for people who want them.) Would you yourself support or oppose this tax?

Sixty-one percent of Americans oppose the idea.

Also, nearly 7 in 10 Americans believe ObamaCare socialized medicine will balloon the federal deficit:

Just your best guess, do you think health care reform would increase the federal budget deficit, decrease it, or have no effect? (IF INCREASE) Do you think that would be worth it, or not?

Sixty-eight percent said health reform would increase the federal budget deficit.

Interestingly, 85 percent of respondents said they "have some form of health insurance or health care coverage," which means there is no catastrophic healthcare crisis, as President Obama has trying to argue all year.

For some of the early socialist lies on this, see Firedoglake, "Americans Care More About Having Public Option than Gaining Snowe’s Vote," and Plum Line, "WaPo Poll: Majority Wants Public Option More Than Bipartisanship For Its Own Sake."

Can't You Smell That Smell...

During this morning's drive time, 100.3 The Sound was playing classics from 1977. It's funny, but I just noted last weekend how listening to this station is flooding my mind with memories. I was in 10th grade in 1977. Lynyrd Skynyrd was big, and "That Smell" was always a favorite - although I can attest that a lot of folks didn't take the message to heart (harmful behaviors didn't change):



My good friend Tony at PA Pundits International is also a music aficionado. Tony's got a Sunday night music club going, and this week's entry is Bonnie Raitt's, "I Can’t Make You Love Me."

Head on over the PA Pundits International for some great conservative blogging altogether, and, as always, get your fill of hot babes over at Theo Spark's.

Bay Area Communists Protest Afghanistan War

Last weekend, the Oakland Education Association and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, Local 10, staged a Bay Area protest against the 8th anniversary of the Afghanistan war:

The OEA is a fringe union way to the left of the already liberal California's Teacher's Association. (CTA is my union, by the way, since I have no choice of union membership as a community college professor. Only recently have I had the option of not having my union dues spent in support of far left-wing candidates.) The OEA backed this year's ILWU May Day Action Against Iraq and Afghanistan. Cindy Sheehan and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi spoke at the event. The union is a communist-front organization. The group held mandatory "Free Mumia" classroom teach-ins in the late-1990s (see, "For Class-Struggle Defense of Mumia!")

The ILWU is the West Coast Communist Party union organization of American radical Harry Bridges.

The video is via After Downing Street, the neo-communist action group currently allying with netroots activists and progressive Democratic Party officials. See, "Bay Area Trade Unionists Protest Afghanistan War On 8th Anniversary."

More on that alliance later.

Related: "Speaker Pelosi’s Controversial Marxist Connections."

Democrats Dither on Afghanistan Troop Surge

From the New York Times, "Decision on Afghan Troops May Wait":

The White House signaled Sunday that President Obama would postpone any decision on sending more troops to Afghanistan until the disputed election there had been settled and resulted in a government that could work with the United States.

As an audit of Afghanistan’s Aug. 20 election ground toward a conclusion, American officials pressed President Hamid Karzai to accept a runoff vote or share power with his main rival, Abdullah Abdullah, a former foreign minister. Although Mr. Karzai’s support appeared likely to fall below 50 percent in the final count, together he and Mr. Abdullah received 70 percent, in theory enough to forge a unity government with national credibility.

The question at the heart of the matter, said President Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, is not “how many troops you send, but do you have a credible Afghan partner for this process that can provide the security and the type of services that the Afghan people need?” He appeared on CNN’s “State of the Union” and CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

He echoed the thoughts of Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, a top Obama ally and the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, who said in a separate interview from Kabul, “I don’t see how President Obama can make a decision about the committing of our additional forces, or even the further fulfillment of our mission that’s here today, without an adequate government in place.” His interview was broadcast on “Face the Nation.”

“It would be irresponsible,” Mr. Emanuel told CNN. Then he continued, paraphrasing the senator, that it would be reckless to decide on the troop level without first doing “a thorough analysis of whether, in fact, there’s an Afghan partner ready to fill that space that U.S. troops would create and become a true partner in governing.”

The signals come as Republican critics already are complaining that the president is taking too long to decide whether to send the additional 40,000 troops requested by his commander, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal. They argue that Mr. Obama has left the impression of indecisiveness that has only emboldened the Taliban, making the task of the 68,000 American troops already there that much harder.

But see Jules Crittenden, "Last-Man-Mistake-Death Opportunity Knocks":

Well, sometimes not making a decision is a decision. Not making a choice when you really have no choice is pretty much a forfeit, though. Imagine where we’d be in Iraq today if George Bush had dithered like this, maybe we will, maybe we won’t, while the Iraqi government went through its extended birth pains. Pretty much not in Iraq, I’d guess, but not in a good way, fighting a wretched rearguard action on the way out as Iran and al-Qaeda fought over the bloody leavings of the great Iraqi genocide of 2008. With every last one of our allies looking on, doing the mental calculus on which way to go now that the United States has shown itself to be utterly gutless and unreliable.

Hat Tip: Memeorandum.

Related: See my essay today at FrontPage Magazine, "When Defeat is the Answer."

Free Speech and Canadian 'Human Rights' Commissions

Via Blazing Cat Fur, just the kind of essay I've been waiting for ...

From Barry Cooper, "It's Show Time! Free Speech and Canadian 'Human Rights' Commissions":

For those who have never taken the time to read dry legal documents, consider that Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act declares that hate speech is constituted by words that are likely to expose somebody to hatred or contempt – and what that has meant for Canadians.

In early October, Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant gave testimony before the House of Commons justice committee, currently considering whether section 13 should be repealed. Their remarks, available on You Tube, provide a short but thorough examination of the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) and its works.

They argue that the censorship implications of section 13 are an abomination in a constitutional democracy, that section 13 is the reason for so many complaints, and is why the entire administrative structure of this taxpayer-supported, government-backed human rights industry is broken past the point where it can be fixed. Any country, at least where freedom of expression and speech is truly valued, would have dissolved this outfit years ago.

Both Steyn and Levant have encountered Canada’s human rights bureaucrats first hand and written about their hair-raising experiences. The larger story, of an out-of-control bureaucracy that transformed itself from an organization charged with conciliation of differences among citizens into a politically motivated attack organ, should also trouble Canadians.

More at the link.

Some of the Steyn/Levant video is here, "Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant at JUST Subcommittee on Section 13." Check the Google video page for more ...

Rethink Afghanistan: Typical Neo-Communist Antiwar Propaganda

It's pretty telling that the far left-wing New York Times hammers Robert Greenwald's far left-wing documentary, Rethink Afghanistan:

In press materials, Mr. Greenwald says the documentary is at the “center of the movement” to end the American military involvement in Afghanistan. Well, he’s no Michael Moore in the public consciousness. And that’s probably a good thing: political discourse in this country could use fewer cults of personality among its commentators.

But it could also use balance, something in short supply here. At an almost breathless pace that leaves little room for reflection, Mr. Greenwald presents a flurry of sights, voices and figures, many of them compelling but all reflecting his point of view. A historical summary is fleeting. What appears, again and again, are terrifying images of children: dead, hideously maimed or, in one instance, almost put up for sale by a frantic civilian in a refugee camp. Military engagements, it seems, are messy and claim innocent lives.

Mr. Greenwald’s documentary has no time to approach an opposing view with sympathy or understanding for its concerns. It may inspire those already behind its cause, but it is unlikely to win over new supporters.

In Los Angeles, the neo-communist network is gearing up for another event this week, "Resisting the US Occupation of Afghanistan."

Tom Hayden's speaking, but get this:

NOTE: Absolutely NO still or video photography allowed for security purposes. Please leave ALL cameras at home. People with cameras will be turned away.

Yeah. Great plan. That'll really keep the revolutionary agenda secret.

Hayden has a new book, by the way: The Long Sixties: From 1960 to Barack Obama.

Tom Hayden political bio: $26.95. New Left communist endorsement of President Obama as '60s radical heir: Priceless.

STOP THE WAR! Teach-In on Afghanistan and the Anti-War Struggle - ANSWER L.A.

I had an interesting day at the ANSWER Coalition's "Teach-In On Afghanistan & the Anti-War Struggle: WHY WE MUST END THE WAR NOW!"

The event was held at Los Angeles City College, on Vermont Avenue, just north of U.S. 101. I parked on a sidestreet, and as I was walking over to the campus I snapped this shot of a street vendor's display. Che Guevara's quite hip with the L.A. homies:

Here's the scene inside the LACC Chemistry Building upon entering:

Some readers might remember the communist "sales" woman from the Westwood protest a couple of weeks ago. I hope she's making good money (despite ideological prohibitions against capitalist profiteering), because no doubt by now she's heard the Marxist-Leninist line ad nauseum:

Notice the black and green book at the lower-left of the display stand. That's the new release by ANSWER'S Richard Becker, Palestine, Israel and the U.S. Empire. I picked up a copy. More on that below.

This is Michael Prysner. He spoke at the Westwood demonstration against the Afghanistan war. I noticed him as I was finding a seat and asked if I could take his picture:

An Iraq war veteran, Prysner's a cadre with March Forward!, ANSWER's military resistance cell. During his talk, Prysner parroted the March Forward! talking points, which include such gems as:

Service members should no longer be sent to fight, kill, die, be seriously wounded and/or psychologically scarred furthering the domination of U.S. corporations over other nations. We have nothing to gain from these wars. The occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan serve only the interests of the rich, not the service personnel who are sent over and over to repress people who have the right to determine their own destiny. The people of Iraq and Afghanistan are not our enemies. The more than 800 U.S. bases in 130 countries around the world should be shut down and the troops, fleets and air power brought home.

I'm still a little dumbstruck by his speeches. Not mentioned in the March Forward! media-babble is Prysner's call for insubordination and mutiny in the ranks. Enlisted personnel should "fight the system" from the inside to sabotage the U.S. military's neo-imperialist global campaign. Disaffected G.I.s would join with the "entire nation" to repudiate the "criminal" deployments launched to fill the coffers of the hegemonic U.S. multinational corporations. It's not particularly original, but Prysner make up for it with an enthusiastic communist esprit de corps.

Okay, below is the start of the "teach-in" lectures. That's Muna Coobtee pictured. An activist with the National Council of Arab Americans (an ANSWER front group), she M.C.'d the Westwood Afghanistan rally on October 7th. Ms. Coobtee laid out the raison d'etre for the day's events. And like Michael Prysner, she hewed closely to the party line. The most important theme for the communists is that Afghanistan's a doomed neo-colonial war, and that American military goals are exclusively to "avoid defeat ... or to avoid the perception of defeat." Ms. Coobtee was following the script in ANSWER's communist pamphlet, Liberation. Specifically, Brian Becker's, "Afghanistan and Iraq Will NEVER Accept U.S. Colonialism."

Ms. Coobtee was followed by ANSWER's Peta Lindsay (a longtime cadre with the Party for Socialism and Liberation) and Blase Bonpane (of the Office of the Americas and KPFK 90.7 FM Los Angeles). Toward the end of his address, Bonpane argued that "the art of revolution is the art of organizing the majority of Americans to end the warfare state."

A number of other speakers also addressed the audience, seen below (and including those not pictured, probably seventy-five or so people altogether):

At the end of the lectures, I moved out to the building's front hallway to get a photo of Richard Becker:

Becker's part of ANSWER's national steering committee and he's the West Coast Director of the International Action Center (according to the website, the "IAC defines itself as an 'anti-capitalist' and 'anti-imperialist' organization").

Becker was talking to a supporter when I took the picture above. He was spooked and asked me who I was? I told him my name was "Donald," and Becker snapped back, "Donald Douglas?" I was surprised! I asked how he knew my name? "Someone said you were going to be here," was the reply (I guess ANSWER apparatchiks are reading my blog). He continued, clearly agitated: "What right-wing organization are you with?" I gave him my business card and told him "No one. I'm a professor." I hung out in the hallway a little longer but one of Becker's thugs starting herding people out of area, so I decided I'd better take off.

Richard Becker's a longtime U.S. communist hardliner. He's got a write-up at Discover the Networks, where it notes that "Becker detests America and has written, 'No one in the world ... has a worse human rights record than the United States'."

During his lecture, Becker made an extremely twisted defense of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. Based on a single source (a 1998 interview with Carter NSA chief Zbigniew Brzezinski), Becker argued that the Soviet incursion was a strategic counter-thrust to U.S. imperial influence in Kabul. That is, the CIA had plans on tap for a U.S. colonial outpost in Afghanistan. The ultimate goal was to consolidate U.S. control over Caspian crude and to establish an oil pipeline to the Arabian Sea and the waiting arms of global capitalism's "Big Oil" multinational tanker fleet.

The region's geopolitics, of course, are much more complicated that than; and indeed, Moscow's interest was in propping up Kabul's pro-Soviet government that took power the early-1970s. American interests kicked up after the assassination of Muhammad Taraki by forces of the Marxist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan. It's very difficult to impute U.S. imperial causes to the overthrow of Taraki's predecessor, the Mohammed Daoud regime. The Soviet invaded to bolster a pro-Moscow communist regime, not to overthrow an American neo-imperialist puppet (See, "The April 1978 Coup d'etat and the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan.")

In any case, Becker went on about how a defeat for the current American deployment under General Stanley McCrystal would strike a blow to the American "empire" in South Asia: "Every empire falls, and this empire will fall as well."

I was rolling my eyes, but the audience erupted in applause at Becker's exhortation for America's defeat.

Plus, recall that Becker's got his new book out, Palestine, Israel and the U.S. Empire. I was actually hesitant to purchase a copy, but after listening to this man's perverted historical revisionism my sense was that I'd do well to read the book. This type of anti-imperial gobbledygook has a way of making it into college classrooms, and I might as well be prepared to rebut the radical left's latest demonizations of Israel and the West.

P.S. Note that International ANSWER is organizing a National March on Washington, for Saturday, March 20, 2010. See the announcement here.

Socialism's Psychopathology of Death and Destruction

I'm heading up to Los Angeles a little later to cover a "teach-in" sponsored by the neo-communist ANSWER Coalition: "WHY WE MUST END THE WAR NOW!"

I'm sure some folks have long asked why I spend so much time on these people -- why dovote so much energy to what many consider to be an extremist fringe?

Well, frankly, as I've shown here repeatedly, the views of the ANSWER cadres aren't actually fringe. As we saw at the Adam Schiff town hall in August, the Democratic-left has allied with the full spectrum of hardline antiwar and state-socialist contingents. And as we saw this week, White House communications director Anita Dunn recently boasted that mass-murderer Mao Tse-tung was one of her favorite "philosophers." As a professor, I'm routinely approached by students who are bewildered by the communist indoctrination they're getting in their classes -- indeed, the latter development is perhaps most bothersome: the destructiveness of communist-chic culture and how it's wreaking havoc on the minds of so many youth today. From the Democratic Party and its SEIU thugs, to the netroots hordes, to the tenured-radicals hammering home Weather Underground talking points to their charges, society's infiltration with communist ideology is more pronounced than is appreciated outside of the enlightened right.

In any case, I'm reading Stefan Aust's, Baader-Meinhof: The Inside Story of the R.A.F. The parallels between the left's terrorist campaigns of the 1960s and 1970s to events on the global left today are striking. There's a passage on pages 38-39, reciting RAF attorney Horst Mahler, that's truly creepy in its presentation of the communist-left's pyschopathology of destruction. Aust notes that Mahler's defense of Andreas Baader on arson charges included Steppenwolf mythmaking, drawing on the surrealism of Herman Hesse. Summarizing the psychology, Aust quotes Mahler discussing the conclusion of the novel:

They are shot down like game animals, perishing with those inside them ... In this struggle there is certain enjoyment in killing, albeit killing out of despair ... They know that their actions cannot succeed in real terms. The others are stronger ... But they also know they have no choice .... Above all, one must take action ... and in the end, yes, there is guilt, but it is the world that is guilty. They have killed human beings for the sake of humanity.

Aust remarks that "Hardly ever did a member of the RAF pin down the psychopathology of the group as precisely as Horst Mahler ..."

I'm also reading Jamie Glazov's, United in Hate: The Left's Romance with Tyranny and Terror. That book's thesis overlaps with Aust's commentary above. Here's Glazov speaking of the emergence of America's New Left, which was coterminous with Germany's Red Army Faction:

Ungrateful for being the luckiest generation in world history, sixties New Leftists agonized about how affluence and security created "empty human values," and, worse still, competitive individualism. To be matierally comfortable meant to be empty and selfish. And because believers themselves were among those who were materially comfortable, they became plagued by guilt, which they attempted to assuage by working toward a solution that would rid the world -- and themselves -- of the system that gave them the luxurious time to think up everything they hated about it.

In any case, I should have a photo-essay report of the ANSWER teach-in late tonight or early tomorrow. Meanwhile, the video above is care of Gateway Pundit's post, "The Accolades Keep Coming In ... Castro Praises Obama's Nobel Prize," and especially the link there, "The Infamous Firing Squad."

P.S. Comment moderation is enabled again ... sorry for any delays in getting comments approved. I've got that idiot "(MASS)KED MEDIA" spamming the comments again. I'll go to the Glenn Reynolds' model if I have to, so hopefully these jerks will get the message that I don't scare easily and I won't back down in highlighting their murderous insanity.

Daily Kos Tied to Facebook Obama Assassination Poll

Was Daily Kos behind the recent Facebook Obama assassination poll controversy?

Red State had a great post yesterday, "The Left is Shocked! Shocked! by Facebook Assassination Poll." The entry highlights "Vann," a Daily Kos diarist who claims credit for creating the Facebook application, which facilitated the Obama assassination poll a couple of weeks back. Vlad at Red State's not buying the argument that a "kid" put this poll up:

Now, take another look at the screenshot.

Right away, there are two obvious red flags to tell anyone with an IQ above room temperature that the poll’s author was either a kid or a moby: 1) the lack of capital letters, and 2) the poll option “if he cuts my health care”.

Please.

Room temperature IQ not being a registration requirement at the Huffington Post, the Facebook Obama Assassination Poll, and its fantasized connection to “right-wingers” and “the GOP” had HuffPo commenters’ collective panties in a wad for several days.

Naturally, the evil conservative "teabaggers" were smeared with responsibility for the "kill Obama" poll. See, Little Green Footballs (cached), "Secret Service Investigates Facebook Assassination Poll," Huffington Post, "GOP Must Disavow the Nut Jobs," and ABC News, "'Should Obama Be Assassinated?' Poll Pulled from Facebook Site."

Of course, it matters not whether it was some errant child or a juvenile Daily Kos diarist, the media simply moves on to the next case -- and the left's idiot bloggers and journalists get away with another slam against the "fundie" right's alleged racist assassination culture.

Which brings us to Rush Limbaugh's piece at WSJ today, "The Race Card, Football and Me." (Via Memeorandum.) The bottom line on the left's "racist" attacks on conservatives:

"Racism" is too often their sledgehammer. And it is being used to try to keep citizens who don't share the left's agenda from participating in the full array of opportunities this nation otherwise affords each of us. It was on display many years ago in an effort to smear Clarence Thomas with racist stereotypes and keep him off the Supreme Court. More recently, it was employed against patriotic citizens who attended town-hall meetings and tea-party protests.

These intimidation tactics are working and spreading, and they are a cancer on our society.

Andrew Breitbart: Taking On the 'Democrat-Media Complex'

From James Taranto's interview with Andrew Breitbart at WSJ, "Taking On the ‘Democrat-Media Complex’":

"At every step of the way, we were correct. At every step of the way, the mainstream media took the lies of Acorn. At every step of the way, the mainstream media attempted to cover up for Acorn. . . . If they think that Acorn or the Democratic Party or the NEA or the Office of Public Engagement is the primary target, they couldn't be more wrong. It is the Democrat-media complex. It is the mainstream media. No jury would need more evidence at this point. The Clark Hoyts of the world should just put their pens down and retire right now and walk away. They lost."

More at Memeorandum.

See also my earlier reflections on Breitbart, "American Power: ACORN, NEA, and Andrew Breitbart's PWNING of MSM."

Obama Desperately Trying to Close on Health Care

The debate is dragging on, and President Obama's not better for the wear.

Obama's rehashing his insurance company demonization schtick from last summer, but reports that the deficit's coming in at $1.4 trillion aren't helping. (The deficit's now the highest ever as a percentage of GDP since WWII.)

But check Karl Rove as well, "Obama Hasn't Closed the Health-Care Sale: Wait Until the Voters Figure Out How Congress is Proposing to Pay for Reform:

Mr. Obama's problem is that his Magic Kingdom Health Care World is colliding with reality. There is a big cost to any large government expansion—and the ways to cover the cost of Mr. Obama's plan are limited, unpopular, and sure to anger Americans once they are fully understood.

'Drill, Baby, Drill'? Yes We Can!

That's the message from Sarah Palin at National Review, "Drill: Petroleum is a major part of America’s energy picture. Shall we get it here or abroad?":

Reliance on foreign sources of energy weakens America. When a riot breaks out in an OPEC nation, or a developing country talks about nationalizing its oil industry, or a petro-dictator threatens to cut off exports, the probability is great that the price of oil will shoot up. Even in friendly nations, business and financial decisions made for local reasons can de­stabilize Amer­i­ca’s energy market, since the price we pay for foreign oil is subject to rising and falling exchange rates. Decreasing our dependence on foreign sources of energy will reduce the impact of world events on our economy.

In the end, energy independence is not just about the environment or the economy. It’s about freedom and confidence. It’s about building a more secure and peaceful America, an America in which our energy needs will not be subject to the whims of nature, currency speculators, or madmen in possession of vast oil reserves.

Alternative sources of energy are part of the answer, but only part. There’s no getting around the fact that we still need to “drill, baby, drill!” And if those in D.C. say otherwise, we need to tell them: “Yes, we can!”

A note about the photograph: I'd forgotten about this one, but National Review's using it at the piece. Maybe TrogloPundit can think of some additional appplications for it!

The Message From Conservatives

The image is from Another Black Conservative, "Newt Gingrich “Shrugs Off” Conservatives' Concerns and Endorses RINO Dede Scozzafava" (via Memeorandum):

The GOP is clearly banking on people electing their crummy candidates just to get away from the crummier Democrats currently infesting Washington. This is where conservatives must give the GOP a very hard bitch slap and reject their awful RINO candidates in every primary.

See also, CQ Politics, "Gingrich Steps Up For GOP in Special Election."

And don't miss Doug Hoffman's special guest post at Michelle Malkin's, "It’s Time for Conservatives to Show the Republican Establishment Who’s in Charge."

Driving That Train, High on Cocaine...

I mentioned earlier that I've been really enjoying a new station, The Sound 100.3 FM. Frankly, I feel like I'm back in the 1970s, listening to folks like Jim Ladd on KMET. The playlist continues to surprise me. You'll get some popular entries that you'd likely hear on any channel on the dial, but then you'll hear things seldom heard during drivetime these days. That's how it was this morning with the Grateful Dead's "Casey Jones" came over airwaves. I was never a Dead-Head, but hearing 'em was something of a pleasant reminder of earlier times. Enjoy:

By the way, here's Jim Ladd's current page at KLOS. I'm just never up that late, LOL!

Religion of Victory: 'Islam Will Dominate the World'

Coming to a democracy near you.

From Atlas Shrugs, "Geert Wilders Greeted With 'Islam Will Dominate the World', 'Freedom Go to Hell', 'Shariah for the Netherlands'." London's Daily Mail has this, "Protester Abu Mousa said: 'What he says deserves the death sentence under Islam'." See also the video below:

See also my earlier essay, "Religion of Victory: Understanding Islam."

Image Credit: Islamization Watch, "Freedom Go to Hell - Islam Will Dominate - All Perfectly Respectable!!," and "Muslims For Sharia Law Show Up to Protest Wilders' UK Arrival."

Mao Tse Dunn: Another Communist at Obama White House

From Andrew McCarthy, "Re: Anita Dunn and Mao Zedong":

Let me just add two points to Hans's post.

1. While Dunn's anabashed affection for the most execrable mass-murderer in history is shocking, the Maoists in Obama's attic are not a new story — just a story obstinately ignored by the mainstream media. Before the election, I wrote a column ("Another Communist in Obama's Orb") about Obama pal Mike Klonsky. Here's a sampling:

Here’s what you need to know. Klonsky is an unabashed communist whose current mission is to spread Marxist ideology in the American classroom. Obama funded him to the tune of nearly $2 million. Obama, moreover, gave Klonsky a broad platform to broadcast his ideas: a “social justice” blog on the official Obama campaign website.... Klonsky’s communist pedigree could not be clearer. His father, Robert Klonsky, was an American communist who was convicted in the mid-Fifties for advocating the forcible overthrow of the United States government — a violation of the Smith Act, anti-communist legislation ultimately gutted by the Supreme Court. In the Sixties, Klonsky the younger teamed with Ayers, Dohrn, and other young radicals to form the Students for a Democratic Society. It was out of the SDS that Ayers and Dohrn helped found the Weatherman terrorist group ....

2. At his blog, Roger Kimball offers trenchant thoughts on Dunn and Mao:

N.B.: Anita Dunn is not just an Obama hanger-on. She is part of his inner circle, one of his top aides, along with David Axelrod, Rahm Emmanuel, and Robert Gibbs. What does it mean that someone in that position proffers one of the greatest monsters the world has ever seen for emulation?

Anita Dunn calls Mao a “political philosopher.” In fact, as a real philosopher, the late, great Leszek Kolakowski, understood, Mao’s real achievement was as “one of the greatest, if not the very greatest, manipulator of large masses of human beings in the twentieth century.” His violent peasant revolution mouthed Marxist slogans, but at its core was less Marxist than a particularly rebarbative form of anarchic and anti-intellectual tyranny. “The obfuscation of Western admirers of Chinese Communism,” Kolakowski observes toward the end of his magnum opus, Main Currents of Marxism, “is scarcely believable.” I wish he were still here for Anita Dunn.

In the 1960s and 1970s, many American universities, along with some other Western redoubts of privilege and irresponsibility, harbored a few deluded characters who declared themselves Maoists and were found of toting around his pathetic compendium of absurdity, “The Little Red Book.” These creatures were the sorriest detritus of our own cultural revolution. Some destroyed themselves. Others grew up, in whole or part, and were absorbed by a rich and forgiving society into the tissues of American life. Only now is it clear that some of the most radical and benighted have subsisted long enough in the outer corridors of power to find themselves suddenly translated into its inner sanctum, the White House and other top agencies of the Untied States government. It is an eventuality that would be risible were it not repulsive and, indeed frightening.

So, we have a self-professed admirer of Mao Tse-Tung in a top job at the White House. Where does it end? Where?

Video Hat Tip: Dan Collins.

Idiot Leftist Marc Lamont Hill Out at Fox News

From Mediaite, "Liberal Analyst Marc Lamont Hill Fired From Fox News":

Mediaite has confirmed Marc Lamont Hill has been fired from Fox News Channel. The liberal commentator was a regular on the network, most recently appearing as a guest on The O’Reilly Factor one week ago, according to TV Eyes.

Interestingly, the news was broken by News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch at the companies stockholders meeting today, reported by The Hollywood Reporter.

Murdoch made the announcement after a shareholder asked about Hill’s “reputation of defending cop killers and racists.”

See also, David Horowitz, "The O’Reilly Factor’s Insult to Its Viewers Generally and to African Americans in Particular":

I am a big fan of The O’Reilly Factor. I think O’Reilly has done heroic work in taking on the media left, in speaking up for the little guy, in pursuing sex offenders and corrupt judges and being a stand up guy on a whole host of issues. I watch him regularly and regard him as a pioneer in honest television.

That said, I find his continued promotion of Professor Marc Lamont Hill an embarrassment to his own standards and an insult to the intelligence of African Americans particularly and his entire audience generally ...

Hill's own website has this description: "Dr. Marc Lamont Hill is one of the leading hip-hop generation intellectuals in the country."

Yeah. Right. Good riddance to the guy. Columbia should follow suit (but they won't, since Hill's type is a dime-a-dozen over there).

Dan Riehl has more. And Memeorandum.

The Left's War Against Liz Cheney

I'm just going to come out with it: I've got a crush on Liz Cheney! Her new PAC is awesome, and she's sending leftists into paroxysms of fear:

And see Ron Radosh, "The Media’s War Against Liz Cheney":

You can’t win with liberal supporters of a weak dovish foreign policy, especially if you are a woman. We’re familiar with their attacks on Sarah Palin, whom they accuse of being a know-nothing, uneducated, unprepared, right-wing partisan. Liz Cheney obviously knows her stuff, is prepared and educated, and certainly does not need to be brought up to speed. She has five children, still manages to function as a serious spokesman for a new foreign policy, and is good looking and charming.

Of course, their real fear is that before long, Liz Cheney will run for a major national office. What could be worse–an attractive, articulate female conservative with knowledge and guts, running for office ... this woman must be brought down.

Richard Heene a Democrat? 'Balloon Boy' Father Hopes to 'Get Rid of Modern Vehicles'

Richard Heene, father of "Balloon Boy" Falcon Heene, sounds a bit like the "Goracle" in the clip from Colorado's KUSA-TV 9-News, "Richard Heene Interview."

From the New York Times, "Interview Sets Off Skeptics of Balloon Drama":

People inclined to believe that Thursday’s balloon drama was a publicity stunt will want to see this raw video of Richard Heene explaining his “experiment” to reporters on Thursday night. In the video, published by 9news.com, the Web site of a Colorado television news station, Mr. Heene explained that his whole family was present when he launched the balloon and that he hopes that his invention can one day be used by commuters instead of cars. “It’s a low-altitude vehicle,” he said, “and we’re working on a way to perhaps get rid of modern vehicles, so we can just levitate, and go to work at 50 to 100 feet, to and from work. And this works off a million volts to move horizontally. It uses helium to levitate, much like a blimp.”

Then, after appearing to struggle with his emotions while recounting for the press the moment when one of his sons, Bradford, told him that his brother Falcon was inside the experimental vehicle when it took off, Mr. Heene regained his composure and thanked the media “for being kind to me.”

Now it turns out the Heene family is under investigation. See, the Times, "Family Is Being Investigated for Possible Balloon Hoax." (Via Memeorandum.)

Newt Gingrich Joins Daily Kos in Dede Scozzafava Endorsement!

Look, Newt Gingrich is utterly reviled by the hardline partisans of the netroots left. So when Gingrich winds up on the same political page as Markos Moulitsas, you know something in the GOP it TFU.

In June, Moulitsas decried the "GOP’s jihad" against Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor. As Kos wrote then, "Newt Gingrich Twittered that since a white racist shouldn’t sit on the Supreme Court, a 'Latina woman racist should also withdraw'." Now though, Kos and Gingrich are happily singing duet together in backing RINO Dede Scozzafava in New York's 23rd district special election. Gingich's endorsement is at The Hill today, "Gingrich Endorses Scozzafava in NY-23 Race." But check Daily Kos from earlier this month, "NY-23: The Most Liberal Candidate Leads (And It's Not the Dem)":

... Dede Scozzafava, the Republican, is actually the most liberal candidate in the race ....

Sure, she is a Republican, and opposes the public option. But she's been willing to raise taxes when budgets require it, and is to the left of most Democrats on social issues (including supporting gay marriage) ....

So it's official, I'm rooting for the Republican to win. As a congresswoman, she could either move even more to the left to properly represent her progressive-trending district and be a pain in the side of the GOP caucus (they have nothing like our Blue Dogs), or Democrats can field a real Democrat to challenge her in 2010.

Hat Tip: John McCormack, "Scozzafava to Switch Parties?" (via Memeorandum.)

See also, Michelle Malkin, "An ACORN-Friendly, Big Labor-Backing, Tax-and-Spend Radical in GOP Clothing."

Plus, Dana Loesch, "Newt Gingrich Poised to Blow the Second Republican Revolution."

Related: So It Goes in Shreveport, "Not One Red Cent to the NRCC!"

San Francisco Tea Party: No Rest for the Obamunist

From the City Square blog, "A Tea Party greets Obama in San Francisco."

See also, Atlas Shrugs, "Huge Anti-Obama Protest Greets Obama in San Francisco." (Via Memeorandum.)

And Michelle Malkin shares my thoughts on Newt Gingrich's endorsement of Dede Scozzafava, "I think it’s time for Tea Party protests in the D.C. offices of the NRCC and Newt Gingrich."

Why is Newt Gingrich Endorsing Dede Scozzafava?

I just read the Wall Street Journal, "Tea-Party Activists Complicate Republican Comeback Strategy." It notes there that Dede Scozzafava, a RINO who's nevertheless backed by New York's Hamilton County Republican Committee, is pro-choice, favors same-sex marriage, backed President Obama's economic porkulus plan, and wants to give unions card-check power over employees. And Newt Gingrich is backing her over insurgent conservative Republican Doug Hoffman? That's fubar. Bill Kristol responds, "Shouldn't the Republican Establishment Help a Republican Win a Congressional Seat?":

A new poll in the November 3 special election for the congressional seat, NY-23, vacated by Army Secretary John McHugh, confirms what knowledgeable observers have suspected for a while: The candidacy of the official Republican nominee, liberal Dede Scozzafava, selected by local party officials and supported by the national Republican establishment, is collapsing. The Republican who has a real chance to defeat Democrat Bill Owens is Doug Hoffman, the Conservative Party candidate—a Republican with a profile far more like the popular McHugh, and one far more in sync with the district. What’s more, if elected, Hoffman would caucus in Congress with Republicans—whereas Scozzafava could well pull an Arlen Specter and defect to the Democrats.

Read the whole thing at the link. (Additional commentary at Memeorandum.)

Scozzafava is fading, and folks can help Hoffman by making a donation at his campaign page, here.

What bugs me especially is Gingrich. Why is this guy backing a Rockefeller Republican? The days of the moderate Republican are long over, and folks like Scozzafava simply need to declare their real party affiliation rather than carpetbagging GOP races. Gingrich should know better. Indeed, tea partiers should denounce the former Speaker at their next round of events.

Added: From Red State, "Today Newt Gingrich Takes Himself Out of the 2012 Running."