No Country for Civilized Men..or ANY Women
By dcmediagirl on November 17, 2008 at 11:45 AM in Current Affairs
(Bumped up by NoQuarter)
I still can’t get over the Saudi “interfaith”/”religious tolerance” travesty forced on the world by the United Nations. Now come this milquetoast kumbaya comment, courtesy of WaPo.com:
I am a Shia Muslim, and have heard my fair share of personal stories of Shias being persecuted in Saudi Arabia. Moreover, the Saudi government has supported a culture of ill will towards Jews and Christians, really towards anyone who is not a Salafi Muslim. None of these things make the Saudi King the most likely messenger of interfaith cooperation.
But I am choosing to approach this at a slight angle. Sometimes the external articulation of a message sets of a string of internal changes.
Consider America during World War II, fighting across Europe to free the Jews while its own swimming pools and water fountains were segregated. Americans were too smart to stomach their government’s hypocrisy for long. The American external message of freedom during World War II played a crucial role in catalyzing our internal Civil Rights Movement.
Maybe King Abdullah, by articulating the central Muslim value of religious pluralism on the world stage, will find the citizens of his Kingdom demanding that he implement it at home.
Yes, and one day someone actually WILL find a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, Barack Obama will pay my mortgage and my gas bill, and I’ll see a real, live unicorn.
Now, if this guy wants to occupy cloud cuckooland and brush off the abysmal treament of Shia in Saudi Arabia that’s his problem. But what’s all this about “a culture of ill will”? Sure that’s true, if by “ill will” you mean prohibiting those who are not Wahhabis from worshiping as they please AND not allowing Jews to enter the “kingdom” (just as well – like we’re missing something). And the United States DID NOT enter World War II and fight across Europe “to free the Jews”. What an imbecilic statement.
I ask you, is “King” Abdullah likely to implement anything resembling tolerance at home? Consider the following examples of the egregious Saudi legal system in action:
A leading international human rights group appealed to Saudi King Abdullah on Thursday to stop the execution of a woman accused of witchcraft and performing supernatural occurrences….
The judges relied on Falih’s coerced confession and on the statements of witnesses who said she had “bewitched” them to convict her in April 2006, according to HRW.
Withcraft is considered an offense against Islam in the conservative kingdom.
Falih later retracted her confession in court, claiming it was extracted under duress, and said that as an illiterate woman, she did not understand the document she was forced to fingerprint.
“The fact that Saudi judges still conduct trials for unprovable crimes like ‘witchcraft’ underscores their inability to carry out objective criminal investigations,” said Joe Stork, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.
“Fawza Falih’s case is an example of how the authorities failed to comply even with existing safeguards in the Saudi justice system,” he added.
There were protests in Egypt this week after an Egyptian doctor was sentenced to 15 years in prison and 1,500 lashes by the Saudi Arabian government for prescribing medicine to a princess that “drove her to addiction.” The wife of the convicted doctor worried publicly that the sentence would kill him. How many lashes can one man stand?…
Saudi Arabia does have some safeguards to protect the health of the person being lashed. For example, doctors inspect the medical condition of a prisoner ahead of time to determine whether he or she is fit to be lashed. (There tends not to be a post-lashing inspection.) And according to Islamic law, a flogger is supposed to hold a copy of the Quran under his arm to curb his range of motion and ensure that the strokes are not too powerful. Usually, the lashes are applied to the back, but they can also land on the legs and buttocks, according to firsthand reports. (The more varied the blows, the less likely they are to cause serious damage; hitting the same spot over and over increases the likelihood of breaking skin and causing infection.)
TWO men in Saudi Arabia have been sentenced to 7000 lashes each after being convicted of sodomy and have received their first round of punishment in public, a newspaper said today.
The men, who were not identified, were meted out an unspecified number of lashes in public in the the southwestern city of Al-Bahah on Tuesday evening, the Al-Okaz daily reported.They were then returned to prison where they are to be held until the full punishment is completed, the newspaper added, without saying how many sessions this would involve.
Homosexual acts are illegal in Saudi Arabia, which metes out strict punishment based on sharia, or Islamic law.
Rape, murder, apostasy, armed robbery and drug trafficking can all carry the death penalty in the kingdom, with public beheading the common form of execution.
Only fanatics and barbarians could support such actions. Saudi Arabia is a backwards hellhole run by a corrupt tribe of “royals” who have cut a Faustian bargain with their lunatic clerics. Together they’ve poisoned every country whose educational systems they’ve co-opted with their seemingly inexhaustible supply of oil money. The damage they have done to the civilized world cannot be measured. It seems only fitting that the band of crooks, criminals and thieves, led by a slobbering dauphin, who will soon evacuate Washington’s corridor’s of power and who hypocritically advance “democracy” and bleat against “terrorism” would serve as groveling apologists to this desert gang. But just because Bush, Cheney and Rice have agreed to be accomplices to the travesty that took place at Turtle Bay doesn’t mean that civilized countries around the world should join in.
(Release: November 13)
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Yikes! What a nightmare!
The Saudi’s suck but what are we to do.. They are part of our sphere of influence along with our Iraq enterprise
Keep the oil flowing west and not east..That is the primary objective.
Cruel and unfair world
I’ve read your comments and found them fascinating. Since you are preoccupied with the oil question and guarding the security of the homeland, doesn’t it bother you that 15 out of the 19 hijackers were in fact Saudi and none were Iraqi? So wouldn’t it make sense to invade Saudi Arabia and seize their oil wells? If not, why not? Just curious.
dc
In a perfect world yes. However, the Saudi airspace along with all the other oil countries in the region are under our soft control already. Saudi Arabia,Qater,kuwait and the UAE are dependent on the US for all their Air force’s planes, parts, radar protections and satellite etc. We rule the sky’s and influence the policies even though we look rather weak right now. The only countries outside our sphere of influence are Syria, Iran and Russia.
If Obama fails to see the importance of our position in the region we could lose our presence which also means the western worlds resources thus our way of life.
I’m in the plastics business and what I produce is vital to anything being manufactured whether it be food,fish or any finished goods. I see the peril of losing our power in the world.
There are other factors, I would add:
-Iraq was a weakened state
-Iraq overtly and directly supported Hamas, while the Saudi support anti-west sentiment indirectly as a means to maintain power.
-Israel and the ability of it to survive only if it is surrounded by democratic states.
Our presence in Iraq has several positive effects despite the very high price in blood and treasure.
Iraq is a hundred year plan. By overthrowing a Stalinist dictatorship outside the American sphere of influence we have been able to begin the Americanization of the country. There are no unknowns about what is happening in that country. Iraq has the infrastructure for industry which will not be used now for terrorist means. because of our invasion the Iraqi’s will be free albeit slowly and painfully with the riches from their oil which will flow to the west. Afganistan is a side show and an excuse to get out of Iraq the real center for control of the region. Afganistan is poorly developed and represents the unconquered areas that no other country wanted going back centuries. Iraq has to be pro western or we lose the entire area. By us being in Iraq we have the terrorists on the run the Russians stopped in Georgia and a barrier to the Iranian Shitte crescent to Lebanon. Having Israel and Iraq along with our other allies insures that the world doesn’t have resource wars with millions dead and terrorism and Islamic radicalism on the march. The amazing thing about this war is the timing. Because of 911 those with the American enterprise institute decided that the window for shaping the American resource sphere of influence in the middle was now before the Russians reasserted their dominance with petrol dollars. That window closed a few years ago as we see the Russians now with increased power and desire for empire. By being in Iraq we have stopped them cold with their greater ambitions.
Yes, except on the point about having the terrorists on the run, Afghanistan involvement alone would have done this.
Good point about Russia.
You make it all sound so reasonable SM. We have sold our souls for oil and power.
Elise,
Mankind lost it’s soul long before oil became the blood that runs through our veins of life.
Ever since establishment of the Sovereign nation and money mankind has waged a ruthless campaign to acquire resources and territories at the expense of people and the environment.
Just look around and tell me where a soul is.
Mankind has cut all the forests
Mankind has fished all the seas
Mankind has enslaved peoples
Mankind has committed genocide in every century
Mankind has invented the factory farm
Mankind is causing the extinction of half the worlds species.
Unless we control the oil through our allies we will be controlled by others and receive the same fate as peoples before us.
As I have said..Rather us than them!
Cruel world indeed!
Just to add…
I’m a believer in evolution…
Or shall we say Darwinism. The survival of the fittest. This world as much as I hate it relies on competition of species for survival. mankind would like to believe that it has removed itself from nature but the evidence by our actions suggest that we are no better than we were a million years ago.
It’s a dog eat dog world..Whomever is the strongest survives and dictates the terms to others.
I guess if I was in the wild I would rather be the killer whale than the seal.
By keeping Iraq pro western we are preventing possibly the biggest and bloodiest wars the world has ever seen.
Iraq is pro-Western? Fascinating.
Check the skies…Who’s Airforce
in politics, it’s the theory of realism.
Is that so? I have a feeling that’s what the Russians thought when they rolled into Afghanistan, Darwinism and all.
different time.
different poltical systems
different objectives
You have still not answered my question about the Saudis. The Saudis fund radical madrassahs. Iraq did not. 15 hijackers were Saudi. No Iraqis. Saudi Arabia has a vast supply of oil and its clerics are responsible for radicalizing Islam around the world. So by your logic, why not invade Saudi Arabia? If it’s all about oil and freedom I’m not understanding your logic.
Because the al-Qaida is not a nationalist movement. They do not recognize the concept of a nation-state. Blame, responsibility, culpability, etc. cannot be premised on the national territory from which the hijackers hail. Bin Laden had/has Saudi money; Bin Laden grew up with Saudis and knows them best. But the nation-state does not enter their thinking.
I give up. I have yet to read a reasonable explanation on this thread of why going to war in Iraq made any sense in the context of 9/11 or protecting the USA. I’m just reading a lot of revisionist history with no basis in fact whatsoever. By invading Iraq we created a vacuum that sucks in terrorists from around the globe. To believe otherwise is to buy into the neocon agenda that got us into this mess. The fact that our soldiers had to go in to satisfy the mad fantasy of a bunch of lunatic policy wonks is immensely sad. Sorry Seattle Moss and RW, I’m not buying what you’re selling.
Dc
Think back to what Bush said after 911. The war on terror will stretch out generations and sometimes there will be no obvious reason as to why certain actions were taken.
controlling Iraq insures our footprint forever in a region where petrol dollars can influence the production of weapons of mass destruction. Beyond that the visionaries have concluded that the future is all about competition for finite resources so having Iraq pro western prevents future resource wars.
911 was only the catylist for a strategic change in the dynamic of power in the middle east.
What you are writing about is a war for oil, not a war against terror, a war to root out WMDs or a war to establish democracy. That’s fine. But bringing 9/11 into the mix is nonsensical in this context. And I’m still waiting to read a good reason why, if we’re going to invade countries to take over their resources, we don’t do so with Saudi Arabia and root out the loonie clerics for good measure.
The war on terror is financed in part by petrol dollars. We know what’s going on in Saudi Arabia and other countries in our sphere of influence. By overthrowing Iraq we can keep an inventory of where those petrol dollars go. The reason why the terrorists have been weakened and there has been no further attacks is that they have been denied infrastructure and high levels of dollars.
Bush will never get credit, but if years from now people realize that by securing Iraq we have prevented WW3 and the killing of 100 million people may some day look to Bush as being brilliant like Truman
SM, do you believe the majority of Americans would have supported the invasion of Iraq with the reasoning you have given? If so, why bother to lie to the people, the congress and the UN? Time will not heal the damage this administration has done or transform his legacy into something it isn’t. There is moral poverty in your argument. Darwinism may justify defense against a direct assault on a person or country, but aggression never ends well. Do you expect the rest of the world to sit back and accept our greed? Tyranny contains the seeds of it’s own destruction because the victims always revolt. The time difference between the Soviet Union’s power and today is a moment in time. Political systems are only as good as the intent of the rulers. Revolutions rarely do more than change the names of those in control. There are always the haves and have nots. The objectives of the former Soviet Union are no different than our government if we continue to impose our form of government on other countries by force. If the ultimate goal is to “expand the sphere of influence” or steal the natural resources of other countries, in what way are we more noble? Finally, it could be that your idea of thinking first and only of our own needs is contrary to the survival of our nation and our safety?
I guess the idea is that 911 created as good an excuse as anyone would be seeing for awhile, and the quasi-monarchal structure of US governance made it possible to seize the opportunity.
What a sad picture.
You think that is sad.
We must not abdicate American Power in the world
We must stand up for America despite the wrongs and proclaim that we’re a greatest country for good…Period!!
Or you can Imagine this….
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v238/vfile/libertyapes.jpg
Iraq being a buffer between Iran and Lebanon makes a stronger point for me. And I believe the control of the water ways for the transport of oil is an even stronger one. About the issue of petrol dollars, my understanding is that Iran is in the process of creating a new zone of trade for oil (which is an island off the coast of Iran) and is considering using the Euro as its basis for trade. I had read about this a few years back in a UK paper indicating it was the real reason that Blair was such a strong supporter of Bush in the Iraq war; any further reliance upon the Euro as the basis for trade in oil would mean the further weakening of both the dollar and the British pound. And thus the alliance was formed and the shift toward Iraq from Afhanistan. Thoughts?
I’m definitely a “ditz” on foreign policy stuff, but my “take” on Bush’s move on Iraq was that he wanted to stake out a stand in the middle east other than Israel.
Iraq was vulnerable.
He went for it.
He “used” American anger about 9-11 to push this.
It worked.
It worked beautifully, actually.
I still remind the public, the voters, that they voted OUT long-time solid Democrats because they spoke out against this war. We lost some excellent senators.
So WE have a part in this story.
I think Bush wanted to show that America could win in the Middle East.
What I find astounding?
He was right.
LOL*
I really do find that astounding.
He was right.
Israel is not now and has never been “surrounded by democratic states”, yet has managed to survive just the same.
Israel has survived up till now…
As we have not been attacked again.
Vigilance is the only safeguard against those that would destroy us.
Yes, but the picture will change as the US loses power and Iran goes nuclear. Israel itself has lost power vs its adversaries, not the recent war against Hezbollah within Lebanon.
Huh? What happened to the requirement that Israel’s survival depends on being surrounded by democracies? What happened to that argument? And who’s next in line for democraticization? Syria? How about that endless stream of
protection moneyaid we send to Egypt? How about Jordan?Sorry but I don’t understand a word of any of these arguments. Some of you are giving me whiplash with your speedy changing of the subject. And what does our not having been attacked have to do with Israel’s survival?
And I still have no idea of what any of this has to do with the Saudis by the way.
You miss the whole point..
This is not about democracy or nation states. this is about individuals having the same power as nations states with weapons of mass destruction.
This has never been seen in the history of man
Read about Richard Perle, Paul wolfovitz and the Am. Institute…going back to the 90’s: the plan for the regime change in Iraq (creative destruction), what it would mean in terms of dealing with other states in the region and what it would mean for Israel.
“Consider America during World War II, fighting across Europe to free the Jews while its own swimming pools and water fountains were segregated.”
The AA in the US during WWII lived under segregation as second class citizens, the concern for Jews in Europe during that period wasn’t segregation, second class citizenry or freedom, it was concern about annihilation.
And the OBonaprte campaign demeaning women and throwing around accusations of racism if we breath somehow brings change, unity and the “post-racial” world? Did Kafka write this narrative?
A post-racial world in which the rules have been written by Obama.
Not wanting to shatter your illusions of reality, but there’s little evidence that the United States (or Britain, for that matter) had ANY concern about the “annihilation” of the Jews. (There certainly seems little regard for the hundreds of thousands of Romany people who faced the same prospects as the Jews.) The United States and most other Western Hemisphere countries had numerous opportunities to open their doors to Jews fleeing Germany in the years leading up to WWII, but most simply turned away the refugees, largely because of religious bigotry. (Jews in the Southern US were targets of Klan activity just as frequently as Blacks; the only reason fewer lynchings of Jews were reported was the smaller number of Jews. While Southerners may have been more openly blatant in their anti-Semitism, Northerners were frequently as anti-Semitic, but more likely to “hide” it–as they were with racial bigotry.)
Also, there were thousands of gays and lesbians who suffered in the death camps, but when the Jews were finally liberated, the gays (especially the men) were sent to regular prisons (after spending up to an additional year in the death camps under the watchful eyes of the Allied troops who took over). The reason for the transfer to prisons? Because the Nazis had instituted LAWS banning homosexual behavior and the Allied commanders continued treating gay men as common criminals, right along with rapists, murderers and thieves.
Estimates of Holocaust victims run in the neighborhood of 12-15 million, only 6 million of whom were Jews. That still leaves that many victims of all other persuasions (Romany, Slavs, gays, Christians) whose persecution and suffering tends to be overlooked or minimized.
The simple fact is that most of the higher-level politicians in both the US and Britain knew of the death camps from the beginning but they didn’t really care about them, largely because the majority of victims were Jews. Both Roosevelt and Churchill (as well as Chamberlain before him) had very anti-Semitic assistants and advisors who, quite frankly, didn’t have a problem if the Jews in Europe were exterminated. Certainly, the liberation of the camps was never a top priority for the Allied troops (if a camp was liberated, then so be it, but the camps weren’t deemed high-profile in the same way that freeing slaves was during the Civil War).
Thanks, I’m European, I know the European side of the history well….and I also know the exclusionary outlook of the Am. Jewish community to all the other none Jewish victims.
I was simplistically and quickly “correcting”? the quote from the previous post.
Absurd.
Which part? The part of the exclusion of Am. Jewish Community of all others? I’ve lived it.
You are correct. FDR didn’t believe that getting into the war because of the Jewish issue was politically feasible. Even after he was heavily petitioned by one prominent Jewish person in his cabinet (I can’t remember the man’s name). That’s why they waited for Pearl Harbor to occur which became the pretext for going to war. Hadn’t Germany already declared war upon the US?
Weren’t Jews also targetted by Russians during the Bolshevik Revolution?
The bottom line: war is always about controlling natural resources of one sort or another. Although the Crusades could be argued otherwise, in the end the vast riches of the Middle East were stolen.
People also forget that the KKK, in addition to AAs and Jews, were also rabidly anti-Catholic. I don’t know about lynchings though. My own Catholic family had a burning cross in our yard in the early 70’s.
A similarity of epic proportions, What Obots, Salafi Muslims and Daleks have in common,
Exterminate!
So just so we are clear, it bothers me that 15 of 19 were Saudi’s. it bothers me more that some folks were down at the Carlyle (Bush Sr.and friends) when it happened.
We have only to look at Salafi education being sponsored by the Saudi’s in many places in the USA. Like what possible enlightment can that educaion lead to anyway?
The UN is going to be remodled soon I hear. Honestly. And if you are gay you are dead in the land of Sa’udi.
So consider that when arguing the issue.
That goes for Iran as well. I found it shocking and sad watching those two young guys go to the gallows for being gay.
Fact – USA did not battle across europe to free the jews. They battled across west europe against a weakened Nazi machine because Hitler declared war on The USA after Pearl Harbour.
The camps had been in operation for some years & mass killings of Jews had been a policy of Hitler’s invasion of the USSR. . They did not take the Soviet Jews to camps but st exterminated them eg Babi Yar.
So Jews in Europe were not a catalyst for civil rights per se. Consider also the Pacific War – Jews were not a factor there .
Not to say the experiences of AAs in the services was a not a catalyst.
How can we lessen Saudi influence in American affairs, maintain our energy supply, and maintain our necessary political influence in the Middle East? Two major fronts:
1) Drill, Baby, Drill, and Research, Baby, Research!, i.e., American energy independence–We should develop our own natural resources, including natural gas, oil shale, and clean coal; build new generation nuclear power plants; develop all alternative sources (geothermal, hydroelectric/tidal, solar, wind, non-edible biomass, hydrogen); fund research into fuel efficiency and exotic technologies like nuclear fusion and superconductors.
2) New and better allies–We should aggressively develop Iraq and Afghanistan as a true allies by helping them to defeat their enemies and assisting them to stabilize their governments. This includes the basing and alliance/co-defense treaties that so many in certain sectors decry.
This is also the path to isolating and eventually dealing with Iran and Syria. I believe that these were the goals of some members of the Bush administration, which, of course, screwed it up by the numbers in both nations. Of course, some members of the Bush administration had something else in mind. When you consider who (in both parties) in the political and economic systems of this nation have been opposed to these goals, either openly or covertly, and who among these people have been the recipients of largess from the Saudis and related petrochemical companies … well, you should consider them, anyway, and what motivates them.
Remember folks — don’t forget to make a copy of your post before clicking “add comment” –
This new updated wordpress is as crappy as the old one. Post just go poof — but now when you click “back” you will find that the post is really gone into never never land.
I know it’s the damned Saudi chauvinist pigs — they zap anything they don’t like. They are everywhere.
Just kidding — I am NOT paranoid — not me. . . . . . . .
womenagainstshariah . blogspot . com
remove the spaces before and after the dots.
Then google Shariah law 101 & US treasury.
NW Rain….tell NQ to write to Askimet to get you out of SPAM…I was in this hell for a couple of weeks until WP support suggested it, after messing around with other nonsense
Thanks –
Your soul for oil! Would you give it? Will you even have the choice?
I believe that every society in the world must make its own laws regarding its citizens, and it’s not the business of other nations what those laws are until they infringe upon another country. Over the ages, various empires have swaggered around the world proclaiming their ways the most enlightened and civilized. I don’t think we should fall into that way of thinking just because it appears obvious to the Western ethos that a particular action is bad. This has been said many times, but it bears repeating: we would not appreciate the Saudis, Chinese, or even the Canadians telling us what is proper conduct. As it is, we’ve got the North and South of this nation in conflict over morals and ethics. It is not a given that women’s liberation, gay rights, or religious liberty is “correct”!
We fought the Nazis because they were threatening the Western republics, period.
Hootnannie: your post exemplifies the worst kind of PC cultural relativism imaginable. I love this quote:
Wow. Just wow. Words to live by.
And the Saudis HAVE infringed on other nations by exporting their lunatic version of Islam, thereby radicalizing youngsters around the world and breeding the next generation of terrorists.
No kidding.
Wow. Just wow.
So much for international conventions, the US, and the concept of human rights.
Wow.
Women are not humans.
I love the way ignorant folk toss around terms like “women’s liberation” as if the LIFE of women is worthless.
Human rights are women’s rights — it is that simple.
but hell — if the Saudi have oil — we’ll even allow Shariah law to creep into to the US — just like it is happening in the UK.
Under Shariah law — women are pretty much non humans.
And this is why Obama is dangerous to women — during his formative years he learned that women are less than human. That is one of his core beliefs — deduced from his attitude toward Clinton & Palin — and women in general (hey sweetie…)
“It is not a given that women’s liberation, gay rights, or religious liberty is “correct”!”
So basically, the UN human rights tenets are not “correct”?
The funniest thing? People think the war in Iraq is about oil. ROFLMAO. Where the hell do people get that idea? That’s ridiculous.
You’re always a treat!
Hey Honey. I wish someone would explain the ridiculous notion that we got into the Iraq mess because of oil. What good did that do us as far as oil? It didn’t change anything and we only get 40% or so of our oil from Arab countries. We could just pay for it, instead of TRILLIONS of dollars of spending and sending our troops over there. WTF? I wish people understood the oil business better. Maybe some of them wouldn’t have been so stupid and ignorant to vote for Fraudbama because they thought he knew something about energy, which he doesn’t.
I’m sure Obama will step up to the plate on this, considering he knows all about Sharia through is cousin Odinga!!!!!
Change my ass…his own arrogant, creepy attitude toward women doesn’t give me much hope…
However,this new one kenosha Marge does…how opinion changes over time…hope for us who know about Obama’s fakery…
The Rise and Fall of Great Expectations
http://insightanalytical.wordpress.com/2008/11/17/the-rise-and-fall-of-great-expectations/
Not EVERYONE trusts this guy…Not even his fellow AAs entirely – This is from the Black Republican Association
White Guilt Emancipation Declaration
We, black American citizens of the United States of America and of the National Black Republican Association, do hereby declare that our fellow white American citizens are now, henceforth and forever more free of White Guilt.
This freedom from White Guilt was duly earned by the election of Barack Hussein Obama, a black man, to be our president by a majority of white Americans based solely on the color of his skin.
Freedom is not free, and we trust that the price paid for this freedom from White Guilt is worth the sacrifice, since Obama is a socialist who does not share the values of average Americans and will use the office of the presidency to turn America into a failed socialist nation.
Granted this November 4, 2008 – the day Barack Hussein Obama was elected as the first black president and the first socialist president of the United States of America.
NBRA deserves to be much better known.
I’m not endorsing everything on it, but the NBRA web site has much useful information, for example the following…
http://www.nationalblackrepublicans.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=pages.DYK-Democrats%20refuse%20to%20apologize&tp_preview=true
I’m wondering what the collateral effect will be of the White Guilt crowd believing that they have now expiated their sin.
Will White Guilters on juries be less favorably disposed to AA complainants or defendants? Ditto the White Guilter judges…
Only time will tell.
stop calling Obama”black” He is not ,He is MULATTE> For once and for good. He is nor AA!!!
Good gravy…..that’s ridiculous.
That term was used in Mandingo, I think. LOL*
I’m an Obama hater, but come on. His mom was American, his dad African. So is literally AA!
Thank God for this!
Maybe other whites will stop getting in our faces and calling us racists because we don’t support Obama.
Maybe if the Black Caucus would utter such a declaration exonerating us from racism we could actually be post-racial.
yeah, in a pig’s eye!
Nothing against the Saudi’s or their religion, but as for me, give me John Cougar Mellencamp’s “Small Town”. GOD BLESS AMERICA!
http://ontheseventhday.wordpress.com/
just send hopey changey over there on his live unicornm, wave a wand and all will be well
Islam is the only religion allowed in Saudia Arabia. I think the king’s interest in religious tolerance has everything to do with western countries being more accepting of Sharia law and nothing to do with his country changing in any way.
I wonder how soon discussions like this will be considered hate speech.
ray,
I agree with you. This post by dcmediagirl is on the absolute absurdity of Saudi Arabia holding a conference on religious tolerance. They simply want us to tolerate their twisted form of a religion that does NOT have to be the way it is now.
I posted this earlier to make a point about Americans’ laziness and our tendency to take our freedoms for granted, in this case freedom of information:
I taught a Saudi student once who was at the intensive language program on our campus. I was teaching the general required research paper course all freshman take. He did so much better than most of the snotty “I just want to party” Americans. The foreign students thanked me for making them spend 12 hours on a “treasure hunt” assignment in the library which forced them to learn every nook and corner of he library and how it worked. They took so long because they were doing it in a language foreign to them. My American students cursed me because it took them three hours.
Any way, this student, with eyes lowered because I am female, asked if he could investigate the House of Saud’s record: good of bad. I said that of course he could.
Three fourths of the way through the semester, students had to turn in a beginning draft of their paper that had to be at least half-way complete so I could check their progress: citation form, organizational structure, etc.
He turned in a complete paper. He followed perfect citation form. But I could not understand the structure. There were pages and pages of documentation of all the wonderful things that the Saud family had accomplished. There were two paragraphs that were negative. The conclusion was–get this–the House of Saud had been horrible for Saudi Arabia. I told him the logic of his paper was unclear. He kept staring at the floor.
Finally a light went off in my head. I said simply out of the blue that I would lie if anyone came for his paper and say I didn’t have it. The next class period I got the real paper.
WE take our freedom of information too lightly. This campaign makes it clearer to me. All those students back then who wrote about Dessert Storm (sic) are now running the country. (Grading their papers, I imagined us bombing the country with cupcakes, hitting people in the face with pies, etc. Many studens don’t believe in spellcheck at all.)
I have often wondered about this student over the years. He was afraid someone would find out what he read and wrote here in the U.S. He would not have been here without the House of Saud’s financing and approval.
I am so idealistic, and I know people think of me often as a Pollyanna, but I sure wich our foreign policies were based on moral and ethical positions only. Never should we support what we don’t believe in.
Every time I hear about someone–for instance a young woman being stoned–I feel so sad for what she felt as it was happening. We should be the firmest force in the world against this type of behavior.
But my feeling is that Americans in general don’t want to know so they don’t have to care.
I worry that we will wake up too late–like that frog in the pot of boiling water. It has been so comfortable for so long. Since the beginning of the election, I’ve heard lots of people expressing a reluctance to speak their minds, for fear of retaliation. I want America, pre-911, back.
Yes, I want it back to the way it was when I was in high school and college. We were still idealistic then.
We had been taught the prinicples our country was founded upon. We believed them and expected our politicians to believe them.
We read Orwell’s 1984 and swore it would not happen to us, and here we are with Doublespeak/doublethink and Big Brother.
BINGO!
Islam will soon be the only religion allowed here too when Fraudbama gets ahold of us. NO MORE CHRISTMAS kids. Don’t call me an alarmist. There are already people getting prepared for when our Muslim “President” decides that since he doesn’t celebrate Christmas it should be abolished.
Yes, you’re an alarmist.
*sigh*
Lighten up!
Ann…”Grow up.” Fraudbama has been very clear about his feelings about America. It’s called HATRED. He also has been EXTREMELY clear about his intentions as far as our customs, symbolism, religions, etc. Adolf II is going to do away with the Flag, the Constitution, Christianity, you name it. And he will do so with the help of the sick F**ks in Congress.
Nah*…
I’m all grown up.
He’s just a man with the tan who won this election.
I, for one, am glad to see he’s steering middle so far.
I never bought into the “fear” rhetoric that he was a marxist, etc.
And I think he’ll, of course, try to do his best to lead this country.
Nobody runs for office to destroy the country.
That’s goofy thinking. I didn’t even think that about Bush.
That’s interesting, since the Italian Communist Party changed its name to “Partito Democratico” in honor of 0bannion.
They’re thinking they can copycat 0bannion’s way to power. (IOW if you call yourself something other than what you are, something more palatable to the UIs, umm, I mean the masses…it might just work!)
Have you ever been to Italy? Sarai proprio un buon soldatetto per il Partito Democratico, certo!
OMFG Too funny Red. The best part is that Fraudbama isn’t really HIDING who he is, or his plans. If you listen to the nut, especially on his America Sucks World Tour and all of his “Global Rule” insanity, etc. you can’t possibly take him seriously. He’s crazy and he’s going to screw this country up beyond repair IMO. And that happens to be the opinion of most of the sane, level-headed, patriotic Americans I know. They’re terrified.
My Italian friend told me that the former Partito Communista (now Democratico) could never garner more than 30% of the vote…well once again America displays its superiority to the world: we gave OUR commie 62%!
U.S.A! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!
No, not me. But I don’t see the connection, either.
We’re so far from the European model of government.
I subscribe to the description that Europe has socialistic policies due to the severity of the war. People simply demanded that way of life after WWII.
End of story for them.
We were not so damaged.
It doesn’t matter what you see or don’t. The Italian Communists DO.
there were socialistic policies before the war…
I personally think Obama is emerging just as I predicted…..a standard issue Democrat.
Will he have “new” ideas?
Perhaps….but I think he’s shaping up to be a conglomeration of moderate ideas.
I am not yet ready to announce, “I told you so.”
Getting there, *haha*
Socialist?
Hardly.
Radical? Oh please.
I AM ready to gig a few of you on that count.
We’ll see what he does when he takes office. I’m still wondering where Guantanamo bay prisoners actually go after he closes it?
That puzzles me.
He going to stuff all of them into the barbed wire enclosures that the DNC had at the ready for anyone who would dare interrupt their Denver Convention…
ROFLMAO
Uhhhh Ann…He’s a SOCIALIST….What part of “Spread the Wealth Around” did you miss? Duh. You’re not that crazy Ann. His background, his policies, his beliefs, etc. are ALL traditional Socialist. Puhlease. And he IS going to destroy this country. He hates it. And thinks it needs to be Cuba. What part of this have you missed? Sigh.
Not only that, but he said in his book that he sought out socialists to hang out with.
I think you’re wrong, obviously.
Ann…OMFG…Whatever. The guy admits what and who he is and YOU deny it? ROFLMAO. Get a grip. He’s a total commie nut.
It doesn’t matter that he admits it, it doesn’t fit the uh, you know…NARRATIVE.
Stay focussed on the NARRATIVE and all will be well.
Anyone who thinks Obama is a “commie nut” is simply a right-wing nut.
Get a grip.
Sorry ladies. I listened to his speeches, read his books, know who his friends like Ayers, Wright, etc. are. Now you’re saying that Fraudbama isn’t what we have all been talking about for months? OMFG.
Yeah, well……go to the edge of life.
Hang on.
You’ll be there for a very a long time.
Wrong. Obviously you never lived in Washington State – a stronghold of the Socialist party at one time. Why do you think Stanley Ann’s parents moved there? The ideology permeated everywhere and the unions were very, very strong. There is no socialist lite, Sweetpea. Socialists do everything in their power to undermine capitalism. Only when Microsoft overpowered the manufacturing and employment scenarios in Redmond, WA did unions lose their influence.
Have you ever worked in a union backed closed shop? I have in Washington State. It was socialism through and through and none to pleasant when you were required to join the union or give up the same amount of money as union dues each year. There WERE NO OTHER OPTIONS!!!!! Well, one other option. You could lose your job.
I don’t trust anything about Obama. One thing is for sure. He will make avery attempt to bring socialism and therefore, lack of choice to YOU and the rest of us.
Thanks Buzz. You are right. And I take my country very seriously. Unlike the trolls. I do NOT appreciate this BS of the FAIRNESS DOCTRINE, the GUN BAN, the CIVILIAN MILITARY FORCE. I am sure Ann will defend those nonsense socialist moves as “so what?” Every single slice Fraudbama takes out of our freedoms erodes our country and weakens us. And I, for one, will NEVER sit on my azz and watch him pull this crap. He’s a F-R-E-A-K and he has bad plans for us. PERIOD.
The Fairness Doctrine may not be all there is to worry about, 0bama uses FCC loophole to squash dissent.
Keep your eye on the birdie, people!
I have no clue as to wht this rant is about.
Stanley Ann?
In any case, Obama has won the election. It’s signed, sealed and delivered.
I’m obviously a big proponent of a free democracy.
At this stage?
I get behind the president.
This time, at least he’s a Democrat.
I voted for McCain, but I’m not about to go ballistic because Obama won.
Good gravy. No Republican could have won this year.
It’s amazing it wasn’t a runaway train.
That, I personally believe, justifies every post I posted about the concerns I had.
It was NOT a mandate.
So far, I see Obama loading up with typical Democrats who aren’t nutcases.
I do not think he wishes to go down as the “socialistic” black guy.
*haha
I am pretty sure he’s going to be very moderate, very careful, and probably be OK.
Hillary’s appointment will secure my opinion.
I’m waiting on that announcement.
FAIRNESS DOCTRINE
GUN BAN
CIVILIAN MILITARY FORCE
‘NUFF SAID.
PS THOSE ARE JUST WHAT HE’S GOING TO DO THE DAY HE GETS THERE. STAY TUNED FOR THE REST OF THE WING NUT CRAP.
Ann-you’re pretty sure he’s going to be very moderate?
Based on what? Your personal “feelings?” I am mystified by your posts that seem to disregard EVERYTHING Obama has said he wants to do. You continue to spout your feelings about what he will do despite his own proclamations. It sounds like your feelings should hold far more weight than what he has said or what he has done. There is an ostrich-like quality to that kind of thinking…head in the sand.
No, no…….look at his appointments!
All Clintonites.
He’s going to be moderate, guys.
He’s not looking to blow this.
I’m optimistic.
I’m still horribly disappointed in the DNC.
Horribly.
But…..I don’t think Obama is the enemy.
He’s the enemy. Period. You don’t lie, cheat, and steal your way into the White House and not be MY enemy. He’s scum. Sorry, he is. I can prove what he’s done to this country starting with Hillary. Anyone who stands for this is nuts and shares his hatred for America. I’m not standing for it. He’s NOT our President. Not legally. Not morally. Not ethically.
Ann, you should be concerned if Hillary accepts any position in Obama’s administration. She could be the only effective critic of Obama if she remains Senator. Once in the Obama administration, she will be effectively silenced.
Although I will support Hillary should she accept SOS. It is NOT something I will celebrate.
Anyway, do you really believe if he hadn’t been for 10 million republicans staying home this election, Obama would have still won? Obama and these New Party Democrats do believe that they have a mandate from the people. Rahm Emmanuel is not what one would call moderate.
What about the transplanting of the DNC to Chicago? The first time election history the party headquarters were moved.
Obama doesn’t think he is a socialist, and neither do the Dems. They just believe that the ends justifies the means and as long as they have the power it will work out just fine. They really aren’t considering the effects of these policies. Much like what happened when the Republicans tried to bring up the cooked books of Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac under Raines. They virulently proclaimed nothing was wrong and that it was a public lynching of Raines. They simply refused to look at the problem because they assumed that there was none.
That is the problem with this Obama administration as I see it.
Yeah, right Ann…Only a troll would think that suppressing free speech is okay. This country’s big pride and joy is our First Amendment. How dare these azzholes go NEAR IT?
November 17, 2008
Obama Declares War on Conservative Talk Radio
By Jim Boulet, Jr.
Barack Obama sought to silence his critics during his 2008 campaign. Now, with the ink barely dry on this November’s ballots, Obama has begun a war against conservative talk radio.
Obama is on record as saying he does not plan an exhumation of the now-dead “Fairness Doctrine”. Instead, Obama’s attack on free speech will be far less understood by the general public and accordingly, far more dangerous.
The late community organizer Saul Alinsky taught his followers to strike hard from an unexpected direction, an approach known as Alinsky jujitsu.
Obama himself not only worked as an organizer for an Alinsky offshoot organization, Chicago’s Developing Communities Project, but would go on to teach classes in Alinsky’s beliefs and methods.
“Alinsky jujitsu” as applied to conservative talk radio means using vague rules already on the books to threaten any station which dares to air conservative programs with the loss of its valuable broadcast license.
Team Obama and the “localism” weapon
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rule in question is called “localism.” Radio and television stations are required to serve the interests of their local community as a condition of keeping their broadcast licenses.
Obama needs only three votes from the five-member FCC to define localism in such a way that no radio station would dare air any syndicated conservative programming.
Localism is one of the rare issues on which Obama himself has been outspoken.
On September 20, 2007, Obama submitted a pro-localism written statement to an FCC hearing held at the Chicago headquarters of Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr.’s Operation Push.
Furthermore, the Obama transition team knows all about the potential of localism as a means of silencing conservative dissent. The head of the Obama transition team is John Podesta, President and CEO of the Center for American Progress.
In 2007, the Center for American Progress issued a report, The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio. This report complained that there was too much conservative talk on the radio because of “the absence of localism in American radio markets” and urged the FCC to “[e]nsure greater local accountability over radio licensing.
Podesta’s choice as head of the Federal Communications Commission’s transition team is Henry Rivera.
Since 1994, Rivera has been chairman of the Minority Media Telecommunications Council. This organization has specific ideas about localism:
In other words, it would not do for broadcasters to meet with the business leaders whose companies advertise on their station. Broadcasters must reach beyond the business sector and look for leaders in the civic, religious, and non-profit sectors that regularly serve the needs of the community, particularly the needs of minority groups that are typically poorly served by the broadcasting industry as a whole.
Rivera’s law firm is also the former home of Kevin Martin, the current FCC chairman. Martin is himself an advocate of more stringent localism requirements.
It was on Martin’s watch that on January 24, 2008, the FCC released its proposed localism regulations. According to TVNewsday: “At the NAB radio show two weeks ago, Martin said that he wanted to take action on localism this year and invited broadcasters to negotiate requirements with him.”
FCC complaints as politics by other means
Remember that an FCC license is required for any radio or television station to legally operate in the United States. A single complaint from anyone can significantly hinder a station’s license renewal process or even cost the station its FCC license entirely.
There have been some attempts to utilize the FCC complaint process for partisan political ends, most memorably in 2004, when Sinclair Broadcasting agreed to air a documentary questioning Senator John Kerry’s war record:
Poised to pre-empt programming on its 62 television stations to run a negative documentary about Sen. John Kerry, Sinclair Broadcast Group has come under fire from critics calling it partisan and questioning whether it is failing federal broadcast requirements to reflect local interests.
Members of Congress and independent media groups have questioned the company’s willingness to respect “localism,” a section of federal law that requires media companies to cover local issues and provide an outlet for local voices.
One group, The Leftcoaster, went further:
But what isn’t done a lot which requires the broadcaster to rack up expensive legal fees, is to challenge every one of their affiliates’ FCC license renewals as they come up this year and next. … [T]here still is time to organize and file Petitions or objections by November 1, 2004 for Sinclair stations in North Carolina and South Carolina, and for Florida by January 1, 2005.
More recently, the National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium issued a “fill in the blanks” official FCC complaint form which begins “Anything that you feel is offensive is worth reporting.”
Community advisory boards as permanent complaint departments
These random efforts could be far more effective at silencing conservatives if they could only be systematized and institutionalized. That is exactly what the FCC proposed on January 24th. Every radio and television station would be required to create:
[P]ermanent advisory boards comprised of local officials and other community leaders, to periodically advise them of local needs and issues, and seek comment on the matter. …
To ensure that these discussions include representatives of all community elements, these boards would be made up of leaders of various segments of the community, including underserved groups.
The “community advisory board as permanent complaint department” model may well be based upon the 1995 revisions of the Community Reinvestment Act, as described by Howard Husock in City Journal:
[T]the new CRA regulations also instructed bank examiners to take into account how well banks responded to complaints. … [F]or advocacy groups that were in the complaint business, the Clinton administration regulations offered a formal invitation. …
By intervening-even just threatening to intervene-in the CRA review process, left-wing nonprofit groups have been able to gain control over eye-popping pools of bank capital, which they in turn parcel out to individual low-income mortgage seekers. A radical group called ACORN Housing has a $760 million commitment from the Bank of New York…[emphasis in original].
Understand that even allowing conservatives to be radio talk show guests may provoke a FCC licensing complaint. Just ask “right wing hatchet man” Stanley Kurtz.
For Obama, when it comes to radio talk, silence is golden, at least when it comes to conservatives.
Can localism be stopped?
FCC observers agree that the outpouring of complaints from groups like the National Religious Broadcasters during the original comment period helped delay matters.
However, Kevin Martin’s determination to enact a localism regulation has led him to ask the broadcast industry to accept a voluntary standard that the FCC would then enact. If industry failed to agree now, Martin warned, “a future FCC may be less willing to compromise than the current one.”
This scare tactic — agree to our demands today or suffer dire consequences tomorrow — is having an impact.
What broadcasters need to do: speak up now
Radio and television station owners need to become engaged in the localism issue and then take the time to educate their own Congressman and Senators about the dangers of the FCC’s proposals.
If broadcasters get involved, it just may be possible to block implementation of any localism rules during the few months remaining of the Bush Administration.
This delay is critical, since once it is the Obama Administration leading the fight for rules which would shut down conservative talk radio, Republican Congressmen and Senators will find it easier to fight back.
The Senate needs to draw a line in the sand: free speech, not localism
While President Obama will have the authority to name Commissioners as their terms end, these nominations must be confirmed by the Senate.
A few pointed questions on localism to FCC nominees during their confirmation hearings would be useful. A filibuster of any and all pro-localism FCC nominees would be even better.
Any Senator leading such a filibuster would earn the gratitude of millions of fans of talk radio as well as everyone who believes in free speech..
I worked at a local radio station for a minute or two some years ago. I cannot imagine any Station Manager giving up the copious profits resulting from the heavy hitter conservative talkers. Those little AM stations have seen ad revenues blow through the roof thanks to Rush, Hannity et al.
I agree — I also live in WA state.
Bush & Cheney worked hard to put in place most of the measures needed to control the population. The population can be controlled — by either the extreme left or the extreme right — depending on which party steals enough votes.
Saudis use Islamic law to control and impose their will on the people.
Different methods — similar outcome.
Castro stated two days ago that nothing is going to change with the new administration in terms of US foreign policy.
I don’t agree that Obama is a socialist either, but he is definitely AUTHORITARIAN. That’s what bothers me the most. He doesn’t value contrary opinions, and will surround himself with those who have similar group think. And try to nullify his enemies by keeping them under his thumb, as he may do if Hillary accepts SOS.
No wonder he can’t stand Bill Clinton, who had a “bring it on” attitude when dealing with the press. He simply loved talking with and proving to them what his policies would do, not shun them if they asked tough questions (like we saw Obama do during the election season).
The desire for control of the media in addition to the strengthening of the localities in deciding what media should be on their airwaves also shows Obama’s hatred of contrary opinion, since it would be a slow march to the end of conservative talk radio. He doesn’t talk about ADDING liberal talk to the airwaves just the SUBTRACTING of what a locality doesn’t approve of.
I’m in MIlwaukee, which is the city of the sewer socialists. They did some good things here under Frank Zeidler. But these were people who believed in pay as you go and working with fundamental structures, not their complete overhaul. In retrospect, he was probably socialist-lite.
Personally, I am more concerned with Obama’s comments about the constitution. Not the “living breathing document” argument, but the fact he believed it is a tragedy that some sort of economic reparations were not included for slaves, and that it doesn’t go far enough entailing what govt should do for you. The fact that he didn’t mention the greatness of the Bill of Rights which is evidence of govt giving us something is particularly bothersome. He simply doesn’t believe that the Constitution designates positive liberties, or believes that negative liberties is much more prevalent. Either way, we will see a restructuring of the constitution under Obama.
He simply doesn’t believe that the Constitution designates positive liberties, or believes that negative liberties is much more prevalent. Either way, we will see a restructuring of the constitution under Obama.
That’s DISGUSTING. The President is here to protect and uphold the Constitution. NOT CHANGE IT. I’m not going to stand for this. And there are 50 Million people who didn’t vote for his freak, many of whom will join in the dissent against this jackazz altering our Constitution. What a jerk.