Anything to do with the fact that they watch Al-Jazeera and Al-Manar 24/7?

Uncanny. There is no way you are going to keep those sophisticated French in the dark. No sir. A just released newspaper poll reveals that 69% of French feel an increase in racism in their country (only 57% feel that anti-Semitism has increased).

France 2006

French Jews are disguising themselves to not be recognized as such. The scariest thing is that this sick, animalistic society that is France has not yet touched bottom.

Comme diraient Eric et Ramzy, "nous ne voyons pas d'autre explication"

The French suburban populations that spawn this violence are justifiably seen as animalistic. The much read Powerline spreads the word côté States.

Jénine-sur-Seine

Trop contents de se faire un juif, on voit à quel point, les résidents de certaines banlieues parisiennes, pas peu fiers d'habiter des zones de non-droits, font preuve d'une animalité rarement vue en dehors de la Palestine.

They who suffer no fools.

Stifla, Emile!

The moral rationale of cultural relativism is a plea for tolerance and respect of other cultures — with one exception

Something is obviously going terribly wrong here. The logic of relativism is taking Western academics into dark waters. They are now prepared to countenance practices that are obviously cruel, unnatural and life-denying, that is, practices that offend against all they claim to stand for.

…The moral rationale of cultural relativism is a plea for tolerance and respect of other cultures, no matter how uncomfortable we might be with their beliefs and practices. However, there is one culture conspicuous by its absence from all this. The plea for acceptance and open-mindedness does not extend to Western culture itself, whose history is regarded as little more than a crime against the rest of humanity. The West cannot judge other cultures but must condemn its own.

Since the 1960s, academic historians on the left have worked to generate a widespread cynicism about the nature of Western democracies, with the aim of questioning their legitimacy and undermining their ability to command loyalty

writes Keith Windschuttle (thanks to Sock Pocket of Doom), who concludes that

The truth is that the riots, the arson, the death threats were not spontaneous outbursts from passionate religious believers but were carefully stage-managed by Muslim leaders. The imams of the Danish Muslim community consciously ignited the response some four months after the cartoons were published. They travelled to the Middle East where they generated support for a campaign quite deliberately targeted at Western culture's principle of freedom of expression.

Their real aim is not religious respect but cultural change in the West. They want to prevent criticism of its Muslim minority and accord that group special privilege not available to the faithful of other religions. Instead of them changing to integrate into our way of life, they want to force us to change to accept their way of life.

Muslim rage over the cartoons is not an isolated issue that would have been confined to Denmark and would have gone away if nobody had republished them. It is simply one more step in a campaign that has already included assassination, death threats and the curtailment of criticism. And our response, yet again, has been one more white flag in the surrender of Western cultural values that we have been making since Khomeini's fatwa against Rushdie in 1989.

The Western concept of freedom of speech is not an absolute. The limits that should be imposed by good taste, social responsibility and respect for others will always be a matter for debate. But this is a debate that needs to be conducted within Western culture, not imposed on it from outside by threats of death and violence by those who want to put an end to all free debate.

The concepts of free enquiry and free expression and the right to criticise entrenched beliefs are things we take so much for granted they are almost part of the air we breathe. We need to recognise them as distinctly Western phenomena. They were never produced by Confucian or Hindu culture. Under Islam, the idea of objective inquiry had a brief life in the fourteenth century but was never heard of again. In the twentieth century, the first thing that every single communist government in the world did was suppress it.

But without this concept, the world would not be as it is today. There would have been no Copernicus, Galileo, Newton or Darwin. All of these thinkers profoundly offended the conventional wisdom of their day, and at great personal risk, in some cases to their lives but in all cases to their reputations and careers. But because they inherited a culture that valued free inquiry and free expression, it gave them the strength to continue.

Today, we live in an age of barbarism and decadence. There are barbarians outside the walls who want to destroy us and there is a decadent culture within. We are only getting what we deserve. The relentless critique of the West which has engaged our academic left and cultural elite since the 1960s has emboldened our adversaries and at the same time sapped our will to resist.

The consequences of this adversary culture are all around us. The way to oppose it, however, is less clear. The survival of the Western principles of free inquiry and free expression now depend entirely on whether we have the intelligence to understand their true value and the will to face down their enemies.

The moral rationale of cultural relativism is a plea for tolerance and respect of other cultures — with one exception

Something is obviously going terribly wrong here. The logic of relativism is taking Western academics into dark waters. They are now prepared to countenance practices that are obviously cruel, unnatural and life-denying, that is, practices that offend against all they claim to stand for.

…The moral rationale of cultural relativism is a plea for tolerance and respect of other cultures, no matter how uncomfortable we might be with their beliefs and practices. However, there is one culture conspicuous by its absence from all this. The plea for acceptance and open-mindedness does not extend to Western culture itself, whose history is regarded as little more than a crime against the rest of humanity. The West cannot judge other cultures but must condemn its own.

Since the 1960s, academic historians on the left have worked to generate a widespread cynicism about the nature of Western democracies, with the aim of questioning their legitimacy and undermining their ability to command loyalty

writes Keith Windschuttle (thanks to Sock Pocket of Doom), who concludes that

The truth is that the riots, the arson, the death threats were not spontaneous outbursts from passionate religious believers but were carefully stage-managed by Muslim leaders. The imams of the Danish Muslim community consciously ignited the response some four months after the cartoons were published. They travelled to the Middle East where they generated support for a campaign quite deliberately targeted at Western culture's principle of freedom of expression.

Their real aim is not religious respect but cultural change in the West. They want to prevent criticism of its Muslim minority and accord that group special privilege not available to the faithful of other religions. Instead of them changing to integrate into our way of life, they want to force us to change to accept their way of life.

Muslim rage over the cartoons is not an isolated issue that would have been confined to Denmark and would have gone away if nobody had republished them. It is simply one more step in a campaign that has already included assassination, death threats and the curtailment of criticism. And our response, yet again, has been one more white flag in the surrender of Western cultural values that we have been making since Khomeini's fatwa against Rushdie in 1989.

The Western concept of freedom of speech is not an absolute. The limits that should be imposed by good taste, social responsibility and respect for others will always be a matter for debate. But this is a debate that needs to be conducted within Western culture, not imposed on it from outside by threats of death and violence by those who want to put an end to all free debate.

The concepts of free enquiry and free expression and the right to criticise entrenched beliefs are things we take so much for granted they are almost part of the air we breathe. We need to recognise them as distinctly Western phenomena. They were never produced by Confucian or Hindu culture. Under Islam, the idea of objective inquiry had a brief life in the fourteenth century but was never heard of again. In the twentieth century, the first thing that every single communist government in the world did was suppress it.

But without this concept, the world would not be as it is today. There would have been no Copernicus, Galileo, Newton or Darwin. All of these thinkers profoundly offended the conventional wisdom of their day, and at great personal risk, in some cases to their lives but in all cases to their reputations and careers. But because they inherited a culture that valued free inquiry and free expression, it gave them the strength to continue.

Today, we live in an age of barbarism and decadence. There are barbarians outside the walls who want to destroy us and there is a decadent culture within. We are only getting what we deserve. The relentless critique of the West which has engaged our academic left and cultural elite since the 1960s has emboldened our adversaries and at the same time sapped our will to resist.

The consequences of this adversary culture are all around us. The way to oppose it, however, is less clear. The survival of the Western principles of free inquiry and free expression now depend entirely on whether we have the intelligence to understand their true value and the will to face down their enemies.

Any "apology" would be too contemptible to accept.

«The cartoons have nothing to do with Freedom of Speech.»

says the Turkish government. So reports the Danish blog Agora.

The reception of these arguments is yet another sign that most Europeans lives in a self-referential hell that they’ve made for themselves. Imagine anyone taking seriously this announcement from the Turkish foreign ministry:

«The Danish government must distance itself from the Muhammad cartoons published in Jyllands-Posten and make an apology.

Otherwise, no bridge-building with the Islamic world is possible, says the official spokesman of the Turkish Foreign Ministry following the European Unions’ request for Turkey to act as a mediator.»

This, in spite of the fact that others still aver as loudly as possible that no apology, however misplaced would not be adequate.

Still we find this non-abeyance to logic: the Danish Government could only speak for Jyllands-Posten if they had editorial control over private newspapers. Though this seems okay in the ham-fisted vision of the supremacists of the Umma, it is silly beyond belief to anyone with a mind.

The question really is what it has been for the part 30 years: how will these pan-islamist sypms who tacitly support religious hegemony find a way to live with the rest of the world?


Spurious artwork by Ken. Free speech by the enlightenment.

"A Wonderful Führer"

"Führer" is nothing but the German word for "leader", but since Adolf's time, needless to say, the term is never used for German leaders — or for the leaders of other countries, for that matter.

For Germany's mainstream media, however, as Davids Medienkritik explains, there is one exception…

Speaking of Germany, don't forget to visit the Carnival of German-American Relations…

Want this badge?

Iranian cleric blames west for mosque attacks in Iraq

Oooh, lookie, it’s the Newthh! (and check out the tricky "bust a move" camera moves too.)

Lost in all of this is the fact that pitting Shi’ites and Sunnis to create chaos was a Fedayeine strategy.

Cyberjihad

Direct from Paris.

As predicted

Even before the savage is brought back to Fwance the French touchy-feely sympathy media machine has gone into full swing. Libération PropagandaStaffel bleats that the suburban population is unjustly stigmatised and French cable TV news repeats 24/7 that the suspect, who admits to the kidnapping, torture, and murder, denies any anti-Semitic intent.

UPDATE: Just 10 minutes ago on French cable TV i-Tele some jackass from an umpteenth French Human Rights group was moaning that this guy cannot be extradited from the Ivory Coast without violating his human rights. The French media machine is in overdrive in what is shaping up to be a succesful bait-and-switch on who the real victim is here as they quelch all media echos of anti-Semitism in this affair.

What, me anti-Semitic?

Seven Hours' Flight, Seven Hours' Waiting for the Train, 15 Hours By Rail, a 20 Minute Car Ride: "Hard to Find a Place Further Removed"

While the world is wailing at Abu Ghraib, Marie Jégo tells us that Mikhail Khodorkovsky's life goes on with little help from his lawyers…

In other news, Ariane Chemin explains that to the French, the head of France's Muslims is a Muslim and to the Muslims, he is a Frenchman: in other words, Dalil Boubakeur is the perfect Muslim.

A battle of the wits with the unarmed

EURSOC also discusses a slideshow of hateful imagery at Transatlantic Intelligencer. John Rosenthal asks why Serguei and Plantu's work resembles that of the Nazis more than that of a handful of cartoons from Denmark.

Got Ice?

Faith, Madness, and Spontaneous Human Combustion

Via Biased-BBC: “Drinking from Home” explains why sucks not appear to be from a designated social class to the mainstream media.

It really takes effort for the media to show that much stupidity.

This is the enemy they find so vile?

Even a handful of decent souls on the message board of Indymedia who are sympathetic to Ilan Halimi’s death get shouted down by a crank who thinks he sees fascism everywhere, even in the death of an innocent man at the hands of scumbags.

Then again, maybe he doesn’t see it everywhere – only under every Star of David, American flag, and box of Wheaties.

In effect, they’re all the same. Like the schoolyard-Marxists of the far-left, fascists have no faith in people. Not caring for a civilization that they can’t rule with impunity anyway, they resort to wheedling details and use scare-quotes to protect their chronically dysfuntional world-views from collapse.


>

French Documentary (Yet Another One) to be Shown by Al-Jazeera

That stunningly objective documentary on the Saddam Hussein trial that Arte broadcast last Fall has caught the attention of that stunningly objective network called Al-Jazeera. Back in September, No Pasarán brought you the full details on the film that poured scorn on the "American occupiers" while turning Saddam Hussein into a stoic character of resistance.

As it happens, French TV fare seems to be of great interest to Arab television stations, notably cartoons and… documentaries. Emmanuelle Erbsman, head of Arte's rights department, confirms that her clients

appreciate the distinct tone in French programming.

(You can almost see her raise her nose and sniff in self-contentment.) Al Jazeera and MBC's 03 company were so intent on snatching up the Jean-Pierre Krief documentary that the rivals drove up the prices, with the $10,000 that eventually settled the deal being double the usual price.

With anti-American fare like that we are used to seeing on French TV, no wonder that Al Jazeera has bought over 20 French documentaries since 1999.

George Clooney Movie Again Makes the Cover of a Leading French Daily

What is the most important event on the past 24 hours, one that warrants an over-sized photo on the cover of Le Monde, i.e., a supposedly serious and objective newspaper dealing with vital international affairs?

Well, if there is a Hollywood movie castigating America's reigning neoconservatives coming out, then that would be it. And so we have an oversized picture from the Participant Productions movie Syriana with an accompanying article on the "cinema of responsibility". (Notice that the translator has mistranslated a phrase in the final paragraph of Thomas Sotinel's interview of George Clooney: the actor must have said "We [liberals] were against the witch trials" in the McCarthy era, but this has been translated as "We… were against the trials of witchcraft.")

The only other photo on the cover is an ad for the Terrence Malick movie The New World; the only other image, a Plantu cartoon.

This, of course, is only the second Hollywood-movie-that-happens-to-demonize-Uncle-Sam's-policies to happen to make the cover of a French daily in seven weeks.

Post riot payoff pittance promptly plinked

Not fantasist enough, it seems:

«Unions and students in France plan to take to the streets today in nationwide protest over Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin's proposal to loosen the country's labor market.

Fifty-two percent of the French are against the bill, which introduces a new set of work contracts for those younger than 25, a survey of 1,056 people by polling company LH2 in French newspaper Liberation showed. Among those between 15 and 29 years old, 56 percent are against the new contract, according to the poll.»

First of all, why would one need work contracts in the law at all? When you’ve still got malaise, listening to “students” and unions is societal suicide.

We are defined in their eyes by one simple word: "infidels."

Brigitte Gabriel:

«The most important element of intelligence has to be understanding the mindset and intention of the enemy. The West has been wallowing in a state of ignorance and denial for thirty years as Muslim extremist perpetrated evil against innocent victims in the name of Allah.

I was ten years old when my home exploded around me, burying me under the rubble and leaving me to drink my blood to survive, as the perpetrators shouted “Allah Akbar!” My only crime was that I was a Christian living in a Christian town. At 10 years old, I learned the meaning of the word "infidel."

I had a crash course in survival. Not in the Girl Scouts, but in a bomb shelter where I lived for seven years in pitch darkness, freezing cold, drinking stale water and eating grass to live. At the age of 13 I dressed in my burial clothes going to bed at night, waiting to be slaughtered. By the age of 20, I had buried most of my friends--killed by Muslims. We were not Americans living in New York, or Britons in London. We were Arab Christians living in Lebanon.»

Failing that, someday the world will one day say thanks for nothing. It won’t be coming from the unremediably angry extreme left, but from the population at large whom we would have failed by letting the vanity which we confuse for nuance and sophistication get in our way.

«Tolerating evil is a crime. Appeasing murderers doesn't buy protection. It earns one disrespect and loathing in the enemy's eyes. Yet apathy is the weapon by which the West is committing suicide. Political correctness forms the shackles around our ankles, by which Islamists are leading us to our demise.»

Brigitte Gabriel, by the way, is from Marjayoun, a christian town leftist wankers kept referring to as a town as being held prisoner by the Israelis. The propaganda bleated to the ignorant outsiders was so successful, that they even had "rights" organizatons convinced that the natives of the area who were trying to defend themselves from being attacked solely for their religion needed to be hunted down in Europe and sent back to a certain death.

“Racist” Food

Only among the fevered mind of leftists would a charitable act never be good enough – not at least if you can’t hate your own society:

« The temperature on the street had dropped to minus three and the homeless stood in knots of two or three, blowing on their hands to relieve the bitter cold, as plastic bowls of steaming soupe au cochon were prepared.

"Hot wine?" asked the elegant blonde woman behind the table. But before anything could be served, the police arrived flourishing an order from the local authorities in Strasbourg to shut down the mobile soup kitchen.

The scene has been repeated all over France in recent weeks after complaints that extreme Right-wing groups have been serving "racist" food.»

As if religion and race were interchangeable. Too bad smoothe old Sammy isn’t around to tell ‘em to get over themselves. Meanwhile the law is forced to enforce PC stupidity, eliminating local identity for the sake of the new European order:

«You may have heard about the Identity Soups. These traditional pork soups are distributed in several towns in France and Belgium by Identity associations that are wishing to help their compatriots living in poverty.»

Local fayva!

Prefer as one might less some controversial proteins, say, from polyurethane, hating your own society without a real cause has always had a certain psychological role to hater himself – it makes him or her believe themselves distinct, separate, and better than everyone around them, their elders, their friends. It’s emotional cover for their own personal failures. It’s a form of malignant narcissism which never wants to see itself healed for fear of being heard and loved by strangers. The lack of disquiet means that others don't have to worry about you, and as a result don't pay attention to the fact that you've done nothing to deserve their attention.

The problem is when these same personal agitators leave the sandbox of their own peevishness and try to get the rest of us killed.

They let him get away

One of the suspects in custody declared, "I attacked him because he was a Jew, and the Jews are rich". French authorities have no other choice than to pull their heads out of the sand their asses and confront the anti-Semitic nature of the crime. The ringleader is believed to have fled to the Ivory Coast. The MRAP (France's local version of the NAACP) claims that suburban kids, as a population, are being given a bad rap.

Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs

Yanks!

Courtesy of Kathy K.

“Publish and be damned”

From an EU Observer commentary:

«Amid all the furore prompted by the publication of the now infamous caricatures in a Danish newspaper one sound has been singularly lacking: it is the sound of European leaders extolling the virtues of free speech.

Instead we have had a whole series of admirably balanced statements such as that from Franco Frattini, the European Commissioner responsible for Justice, Freedom and Security.

[ ... ]

Thus while embassies have burned, European leaders have largely been silent about the role the press plays daily in ensuring that our freedoms are maintained and enhanced.

Instead we have heard the sound of appeasement, of regretful hand wringing, almost as if the phenomenon of a free press, untrammelled by government dictat or religious scruple, was a species of European idiosyncrasy.»

Idiosyncrasies. AKA The Brussels Wank when one is helpless in trying to deal with a primitive world view that's immune to their principles. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the usual lot that never seem to get it still don’t get it.

Other Jews have been kidnapped because for those French kids: Jew = Money

Paris police flubbed the whole kidnapping affair in the early stages when they advised the family, during the first 5 days, not respond to the kidnappers' attempts to contact them. Police also brushed away any talk of anti-Semitism as the motive. French authorities are in full appeasement and do-everything-to-keep-things-calm mode following the November riots and the ongoing cartoon jihad.

Prediction: when this guy gets caught, the French touchy-feely sympathy media machine will go into full swing

Aller Simple

èvreH Hervé متشکرم

It's not because he was Jewish

It's because he was rich. French investigators, while continuing to affirm that anti-Semitism is not a motive, claim that for French suburban kids "Jew equals money". So you see, it's not because he was Jewish. It's because they thought he had money (because he was Jewish). Thanks for clearing that up, guys.

To him "Jew" means "Mo' Money"

Public Enemy

He's shy and became all screwed up following a spell in prison (after falling in with a bad crowd). The French press continues to hush up the truth about the most sought after fugitive in France and the home grown suburban Paris Jew hatred behind the grisly murder.

Fear of a Jewish Planet

Le Malade Imaginaire

Encore plus marrant que Smaïn en train de jouer Molière, notre nouveau rebeu Malade Imaginaire s'appelle Mourad (non, pas le connard à casquette qui passe à la radio).

Mourad Benchellali, (Libération PropagandaStaffel calls him a "Lyonnais d'origine algérienne", which means "French" when double-talking French media types don't want to admit as much), spent 2 months in an Afghan training camp and was present during a visit from Ossama Bin Laden before 9-11. He's now crying a river of tears about his recent internment at Gitmo and is talking up the usual Manchester Manual rubbish to anyone who will listen. Among other recurring fantasies are the episodes of torture and the dunking of Corans in any available toilet facilities.

Don't provoke them by telling the truth

In Fwance, only the far-right bogey-men can be guilty of killing Jews. Muslims never think about doing that kind of stuff.

He was provoked.

Why not? France feels closer to Hamas and Hezbollah anyway

They could replace the French.

Per Nyholm sees thorough the madness

The Danish blog Agora has translated articles from Jyllands-Posten which definitely of interest to those of us who slept through Danish class in school.

Addressed to the Indonesian President, Per Nyholm (who authored the “We are being pissed upon” article) takes Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono up on his word. The BBC fawns over Yudhoyono, probably because he talks the right talk when prompted to stroke their lefty sensibilities when it comes to “tolerance” and “diversity”, but does a U-turn with any other audience.

«You complain, Mr. President - with no small justification - about the Islamophobia of The West. In connection with that, some have complained of a drawing of Muhammad with a bomb-like turban as being the most offensive. Very well, what do you think hurts Islam the most? The cartoon or this: that millions of viewers watch crazed and savage madmen decapitate their victims with knives or slaughter thousands of innocents, Moslems included, from New York to Iraq and Bali?»

Read it all. Also take a look at the Nyholm’s view of what he sees when he looks into the mind of those in that culture of complaint, and finds something familiar to Danish history:

«Both Munch and Scavenius preferred not to hear about concentration camps or the mass murder of Jews and Hitler’s political adversaries. They would much rather hear about amazing German triumphs, of the German economic miracle and of new autobahns.

[ … ]

That is a road of tears which in no small part is due to Islam remaining the core of a society which increasingly came under pressure, ending in a state of fossilization and single-minded regard for The Beyond; a contrast to The West which is increasingly focused on the here-and-now. These people shall now, by the hands of manipulating religious leaders, suffer a new, unnecessary defeat.

[ … ]

Another perceived injustice will burrow into the Arab mind, a harsh diet for people not motivated by democracy and freedom but divine justice.»

Le Monde finally runs an American cartoonist

Surprised at the subject? LM runs Ann Telnaes the pseudo-sophisticate who always has an attitude but rarely has a narrative or a point.

She's in good company.

Not lost in translation

Sounding more childish than bitter, André Fontaine presents an ‘anaylsis’ in Le Monde Al-Jazeera sur Seine which is about as unchallenging as a group of ‘the oppressed’ all nodding at each other, trying as best they can not to look happy with the world:

«Against the temptation to do as they would in old Europe [George Washington], wrote to his/her friend Lafayette: "We threw a seed of freedom and union which will germinate little by little in all the land. One day, on the model of the United States of America, therewill one day be a 'United States of Europe'. It will one day be the legislative mechanism of all nationalities."

[Pierre Hassner] wanted to say that, where his distant predecessor dreamed of a peaceful democratization of planet, George W Bush thought it perfectly legitimate to resort to force to advance (these/his) ideas.

Some successes were certainly had: in Morocco, where life has humanized; in Kuwait, Jordan, and in Libya, where Kadhafi become docile, in Lebanon, where the Syrian supervision is more and more openly defied. Certain Saudis finally started coming clean and showing some transparency.»

I really doubt that George Washington ever hinted at transnationalism, or 'one world government' to anyone, or that what you could call what the Syrian were doing in Lebanon 'supervision'. But in any event... it’s time for Fontaine to take another hack, and make another improbable comparison. Failing that and he has to make the US' mention of participatory government both flawed and inadequate.

«But the difference is in ancient Rome, which conquered without scruples, and whose gods were not necessarily paragons of virtue, American Rome is of foundation a Messianic nation. "religion merges there, wrote Tocqueville, (...) with all the feelings that the fatherland gives birth to; that gives him a particular force."

A particular [implying an annointed] force, certainly, but not sufficient to impose its law on nations that don’t want it. If they quickly passed from the worship of the proletariat to that of golden calf, the White House did not find the means of bringing political freedom to Russia and China.

Already engaged in Afghanistan and Iraq, not to speak of the five year war with Al-Qaida, the United States are eager to intervene in Iran or North Korea. It explains the peace that the new Persian president feels, which draws down on the oil and gas reserves that rich countries cannot buy, openly challenges Israel and the West, and pushes ahead with its’ nuclear program.

However there is not just him [Ahmedinajad] and Hamas to play the spoilers. The installation of a Fidel is underway in Venezuela, which also has oil to sell him, and Bolivia is returned to its former Indian Masters.

George W. Bush can no longer believe that he’s the only Master of the world, and recently announced military appropriations won’t change that... Wilsonianism becomes much more difficult to practice when it is been discredited.»

It's curious who he manages to make responsible for any political event in the world, both because the US intervenes at all, even if it's just by representing the concept of participatory government, and is also wrong for not doing enough. Does he really believe that the Maya, a society so obsessed with human sacrifice that it self-destructed, were in fact good little socialist who loved their people? One would think he would rather try to whitewash socialism of that rather apt comparison.

Fontaine's analysis certainly is a useful one - of his own emotional projections.