Jinn of Current Events

Watch it courtesy of iFilm: Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh (yes, that van Gogh) was killed November 2, 2004, by a 26-year-old extremist Muslim of Dutch-Moroccan descent. The current theory is that he was taken down for his critical look at the treatment of Muslim women. It's not a documentary, but a metaphorical look at the harsh realities of their lives. (In English with Dutch subtitles.)

The film's screenwriter, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, grew up an upper-class Muslim in Somalia. In '92 she escaped to the Netherlands, mastered the language and attended university to study political science. Now a politician, she has received death threats for numerous stances she's taken and activities she's undertaken. But as a self-proclaimed ex-Muslim, she has taken it upon herself to make the plight of oppressed Muslim women known to the West--and to hopefully end their suffering. 

Matthias Döpfner, Chief Executive of German publisher Axel Springer AG, has written a blistering attack in the daily Welt against the cowardice of Europe in the face of the Islamic threat, Europe — Thy Name is Cowardice: A few days ago Henryk M. Broder wrote in Welt am Sonntag, Europe — your family name is appeasement. It's a phrase you can't get out of your head because it's so terribly true. Appeasement cost millions of Jews and non-Jews their lives as England and France, allies at the time, negotiated and hesitated too long before they noticed that Hitler had to be fought, not bound to agreements. Appeasement stabilized communism in the Soviet Union and East Germany in that part of Europe where inhuman, suppressive governments were glorified as the ideologically correct alternative to all other possibilities. ... And now many European intellectuals and politicians are demonstrating cowardice in the face of Islamofascist attacks. [via Davids Medienkritik] 

The UN is the largest fraud ever run. Dictatorships are lent equal legitimity to free countries, money is extracted from tyrants while shielding their murderous regimes, terrorists are treated as admirable human beings, Israel is the target of relentless attacks, and America pays most of the bills that support anti-Americanism.

The United Nations must be replaced with an alliance of free countries, with specific political requirements for membership, including free elections, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion, and private property. No organization that includes tyrants, terrorists, and thieves can have any legitimate purpose.

The UN is corrupt by nature. It cannot be fixed. The Diplomad: ... [We] have served at the UN, in New York, Vienna and Geneva, and worked with the UN in a variety of other posts, and can tell you from experience that the UN is a massive, expensive hoax that needs to be ended once and for all. ... The UN system is built on corruption, on the principle of the shake-down; whatever lofty objectives might have existed at its creation, for the UN corruption now provides the means and reason to exist. ... 

Ralph Peters: Setting aside the greater issues of defeating terrorism and promoting a free Iraq, the Second Battle of Fallujah has been remarkable on a purely military level. Beyond the sophistication of our weaponry and even the valor of the American soldier, the fighting affirmed that our armed forces are very good at learning while at war. ... Doctrine has rarely been an American strength. We've won our battles and wars through pragmatism, casting aside what didn't work and improving the methods that did. Instead of the inflexibility that outsiders attribute to our military, our armed forces are brilliant improvisers, ingenious at coping with war's surprises. ... 

To all the people who despair, hate the results, and variously seek to explain Kerry's defeat, I have two questions to which I require an answer before I'll consider listening to you:

1. Do you value individual rights?
2. Do you value a limited, representative government?

The reason I am asking this is that there are too many people who seem ready to dismiss the institutions of representative government as soon as the results are not aligned with their personal desires. You know these people by now, the ones who spend years claiming elections were "stolen", or who threaten to leave the country, or who denigrate those who voted for their opponent as unthinking masses, or who accuse such masses of being either morally corrupt or misled by evil forces (or both at the same time). If this is similar to what you believe, if you reject the rationality and validity of representation through majority electoral systems balanced among the States, then there is no reasonable republican debate in which you can participate (note the small 'r' -- this is about the republic not about political parties), there is no freedom-oriented social-political process which you would support.

The genius of the American republic is that it allows (nay, encourages) factions to fight each other within institutional structures that channel their efforts towards a limited form of government, as long as they subscribe to that form and to its purpose. Sometimes your faction wins, sometimes it loses. Always, the imperfect Republic lives, stumbles, and somehow manages to serve its general purpose: to guarantee and protect the people's individual rights.

There is no perfect President, no pure Senator, no disinterested Congressman, no unbiased Judge --humans are not angels-- and that is both the essence and the beauty of the American system of government.

As Ben Franklin said, the Founding Fathers gave the American people a Republic, if they can keep it. Please make sure your faction, whatever it is, always works to keep it, throughout electoral victories and defeats (yes, both happen). A good step towards that goal is to read and ponder The Federalist Papers written by Hamilton, Madison, and Jay. 

The Old Media (aka mainstream media, or MSM) are strongly biased towards socialist and marxist ideology, but they refuse to acknowledge this fact. This has two major effects: their rejection of objectivity, and the false sense of social dominance of the left. In other words, they lie when convenient. And their behaviour encourages leftist parties and their adherents to believe that their bubble is central to modern Western society, culture, and politics.

New Frontiers Foundation: The BBC and mainstream media were so hopeful and sure of a Kerry victory that they have repeatedly distorted news, while simultaneously accusing the Republicans of lies. They have demonstrated that they are incapable of distinguishing between (a) their centre-left opinion and (b) an attempt at discovering objective truth. ... 

If a free Europe is to survive this century --by defeating Islamofascism-- it must start listening to two courageous women: Oriana Fallaci and Bat Ye'or.

Bat Ye'or: In one of the most compelling books published in recent times, Oriana Fallaci comes face to face with herself in a deeply moving dialogue that brings us into intimate contact with the major conflicts of the Twentieth Century and the dawning Twenty-first. Fallaci draws us into her tragic, impassioned vision of a spiritual combat transposed into politics, separating the essential from the incidental, brilliantly combining corrosive satire, humor, and political lucidity against a background of illness, and her confrontation with death. This theme runs through the book, giving it breadth and a humane density that resonates in the political subjects that she treats with such vivid style. ... 

Bush will win a second term by a landslide (easily gaining both the popular and the electoral college majorities). Moreover, the Republicans will win a solid majority in the Senate.

Old Media will emerge as the main losers of the early 21st century. The Democrats will either descend further into leftist paranoia, or --less likely-- they will reject the madmen such as Michael Moore, Jimmy Carter, and Howard Dean.

The blogosphere will continue to grow as a massive, mostly American movement to collect facts, check sources, and seek to integrate facts and opinions into coherent wholes. By virtue of its mostly self-correcting operation, the blogosphere ensures that lies, distractions, and ambiguities are exposed as such -- because they cannot be integrated with the facts known by an informal aggregate of millions of experts. There is no subject matter that can escape this development of human knowledge. 

When watching Bin Laden's video, remember 9/11 and the people who died there, because the mass media won't show you those pictures.

The New York Times > Opinion >David Brooks: ... Here was this monster who killed 3,000 of our fellows showing up on our TV screens, trying to insert himself into our election, trying to lecture us on who is lying and who is telling the truth. Here was this villain traipsing through his own propaganda spiel with copycat Michael Moore rhetoric... 

Bin Laden has always been shown either sitting on the ground in the Arab fashion or walking around. He has also always had weapons on display, such as a dagger or a rifle.

In the latest video, his lower body is hidden and he has no weapon. I suspect he has lost one or both legs. (Or he wants Kerry to believe he is a peaceful man with whom Kerry could negotiate our surrender.)