Five Things

Fausta tagged me. I said I wouldn’t do it again, but it’s Fausta.

This is definitely the last time (I hope).

Here are 5 things you didn’t know about the author of SC&A:

To the joy of my detractors, I have jumped out of a plane, twice. The first time I was wearing a parachute. The second time I jumped, it was without a parachute.

I once sat next to Wayne Gretzky on a plane. He gave me his peanuts and a puck.

I once dated a Broadway actress, who later went on to fame and fortune.

I knocked over and broke a 400 year old chinese vase. Mother was not amused at the time. She still isn’t.

My first car had no floor.

“Three Minutes To Midnight”

“We have been here before. History would have been different if Hitler had stuck to painting and Pol Pot to teaching. Once again, it’s three minutes to midnight.”
- The Sunday Times, December 18, 2005, on Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmendinejad.

It is clear that Iran, led by President Mahmoud Ahmendinejad, is on a collision course western civilization. In what is a dangerous game, Ahmandinejad is hoping he can retain the allegiance of Iran’s restless youth.

Iran has the youngest population in the world. Over 40 percent of the population is below the age of 15 while some 4.37 percent are above 65. The remaining portion, that is 55.62 percent of the population, is aged 15 to 65. A further breakdown reveals that some 19.44 percent of the population is aged 15 to 24 and some 32.79 percent is aged 25 to 46.

So far, Iran’s younger generations have placed national pride over substance in their demands for a more liberal Iran. That luxury may soon end, as they are forced to deal with a truth their compatriots outside Iran are painfully aware: something is going to have to give. The status quo cannot and will not go on unchallenged.

Defending the recent Holocaust Conference in Tehran, Iran has claimed they wanted ‘tolerance’ for a ‘different opinion’, as if historical truth were subject matter for opinion. Iran- and the much of the Muslim world would not be pleased if western opinion negated Islamic influence on western history and ideals.

We can no more be ‘tolerant’ of holocaust denial than we can be ‘tolerant’ of mathematical mistruths. The attempt to recast the truth of the Holocaust is a despicable attempt at rewriting history- and an even more despicable attempt to somehow imply that Jews somehow orchestrated the death of millions. While the Islamic world might wish to rewrite it’s own history of the slaughter of it’s own, as if they could hide the death and destruction of millions, they cannot rewrite the history of the west. That their allies in the endeavor are racists and bigots, only goes to prove the old adage, ‘You’re known by the company you keep.’

Further, when that ‘opinion’ is used to denigrate an entire people, and incite even more hatred, civilized people have an obligation to deal with that evil (yes, that’s what it is, evil) as quickly and as clearly as possible. That the Arab world has remained silent on Ahmendinejad’s remarks has served two very useful purposes. First, the Arab world thunderous silence only serves to highlight the reality that Holocaust denial and revisionism are everyday fare in the Arab world. There are now clearer distinctions between Arab and western civilizations. No longer can differences be attributed to differing political ideologies. Second, Ahmendinejad’s remarks have served to bring together the US and Europe in a common understanding. As we have noted earlier,

It is ironic to note that the deafening silence from the Arab world, in response to the remarks of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmandinejad’s remarks may have succeeded where the efforts of the world’s diplomats have failed: Europe and America are closer to a rapprochement than they have been in decades. Furthermore that Arab silence has only reinforced a strong truth, as pointed out in of all places, a San Francisco Chronicle editorial: “Ahmadinejad is leaving no doubt that the regime in Tehran is not only hostile to Israel, but it is detached also from reality… Let there be no doubt that Iran, with its volatile and delusionary leadership, cannot be trusted to handle materials that could be used for nuclear warheads.”

Israel- and the west, have no reason to disbelieve President Ahmendinejad’s remarks. When the leader of a country says he wants to see another country blown off the map, and his only opponent for power advocated the acquisition and use of nuclear weapons, we have no reason to disbelieve them. Indeed, the silence of the Arab world only emphasizes those truths. In fact, the Arab world might not be so silent.

Lebanon’s Largest Government University Hosted Hizbullah’s Al-Manar TV Symposium Calling to Wipe Israel Off The Map: ‘Just Like Hitler Fought The Jews…We Too Should Fight The Jews and Burn Them’ …excerpts from a symposium of students at Universite Libanaise, hosted by Hizbullah’s Al-Manar TV and broadcast on November 29, 2005. The symposium marked the anniversary of November 29, 1947, the day the U.N. General Assembly passed the Partition Plan, which is marked annually in the Arab world with ceremonies of solidarity with the Palestinians. Al-Manar’s TV symposium was devoted to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and participants included Shafiq Al-Hut, a former PLO representative in Lebanon, and Palestinian, Lebanese and Syrian students.

It should be noted that Universite Libanaise is Lebanon’s only government-run university, and the country’s largest.

This is what constitutes ‘higher’ learning in that country.

From the Iran Press Service,

One of Iran’s most influential ruling cleric called Friday on the Muslim states to use nuclear weapon against Israel, assuring them that while such an attack would annihilate Israel, it would cost them “damages only”.

“If a day comes when the world of Islam is duly equipped with the arms Israel has in possession, the strategy of colonialism would face a stalemate because application of an atomic bomb would not leave any thing in Israel but the same thing would just produce damages in the Muslim world”, Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani told the crowd at the traditional Friday prayers in Tehran.

Analysts said not only Mr. Hashemi-Rafsanjani’s speech was the strongest against Israel, but also this is the first time that a prominent leader of the Islamic Republic openly suggests the use of nuclear weapon against the Jewish State.

Once again, it is three minutes to midnight- and once again, the left are immobilized and caught in the headlights of reality.

Religious Progressives, The Judenrat And Another Generation In Denial

One of the most tragic Holocaust era phenomena was the manipulation of some Jews by the Nazis, who were recruited as collaborators with the Reich. Community elders were called upon to form a Judenrat (Jewish Council). There were many prominent Jews who refused to participate in the sham. They saw the ‘writing on the wall’ and they refused to take part in the deceit (Not all members of the Judenrat were ‘collaberators.’ Some believed that by cooperating with the Nazi authorities, they would be in a position to help their brethren. Sadly, those efforts were to prove futile).

The Judenrat in turn, formed a ‘Jewish Police’ force to maintain order in the ghettos. In the concentration camps, there were enforcers, kapos, many of whom were Jewish. These enforcers were given special privileges and status by the Nazis. It was their function to keep their co-religionists in line and docile, so as to facilitate the Nazi agenda.

The Jews who chose to participate in the Judenrat were told by the Nazis that as ‘prominent,’ ‘enlightened’ or ‘intellectual’ Jews, they would be spared the fate of those ‘lesser’ Jews. Eager to save themselves- and to distance and distinguish themselves from their ‘lesser’ cousins, members of the Judenrat and the ghetto police gave the Nazis everything they asked for, and then some. Many believed that by cooperating with the Nazis, they could ‘prove’ their worth and prove to the Nazis that Jews were really no threat to German Reich or volk.

The Nazis did not dispel those Jews of that notion. All too often Judenrat members were told that the anti Jewish measures were the result of ‘politics.’ They were told that talk about a ‘final solution’ was just that- talk. The Germans were an educated and enlightened people, they were told. Germans would never engage in such barbaric behavior. When the war was over, all this ‘Jewish’ talk would be forgotten. It was regrettable that it had begun, but war is war and politics is politics.

Members of the Judenrat were always happy to hear what they wanted to hear. They went on their way, redoubled in their belief that if they could fill the trains that came to provide ‘labor’ to the German war efforts and do so with the minimum amount of disruption in the ghettos, it would all work out in the end. They believed that resisting the Nazis and fighting against them was wrong. They believed that if they appeased the Nazis, they and their co-religionists would be spared.

Judenrat-type organizations and ‘police forces’ managed large numbers of people and keep them docile. Millions ended up marching to their deaths. Only as the end approached did they abandon their belief that evil, when cloaked as ‘reasonableness,’ is somehow less than evil and can be dealt with, reasonably.

The denial was complete. Even as members of the Judenrat were hauled off themselves, they continued to believe that they would be spared if they only were to prove to ‘useful’ to the Nazis.

Today, it is the progressives that have authored the newest version of totalitatianism. So notes Tobias Jones of the Guardian:

There’s an aspiring totalitarianism in Britain which is brilliantly disguised. It’s disguised because the would-be dictators – and there are many of them – all pretend to be more tolerant than thou. They hide alongside the anti-racists, the anti-homophobes and anti-sexists. But what they are really against is something very different. They – call them secular fundamentalists – are anti-God, and what they really want is the eradication of religion, and all believers, from the face of the earth.

We wish to talk about ‘religious progressives,’ that group of people who claim to be adherents of particular faith and at the same time adopt the kind of radical progressive agenda alluded to by Tobias Jones. We are in no way implying that all religious progressives are cut from the same cloth and share the same ideologies.

Having said that, to be a radical ‘religious progressive’ that adopts the radical leftist agenda, faith has to be dispensed with. A believer who wants to espouse progressive ideology must accept that his religious beliefs and values are worth less than progressive beliefs and values. Believers must find a way to rewrite faith to accommodate progressive ideology, even if that means upending the very beliefs, values and principles of the faith they profess to be a part of.

In the end, all radical ‘religious progressives’ are the Judenrat and kapos of their respective faiths and of our time.

By accepting and ascribing to beliefs and ideologies of Leftism, ‘religious progressives’ have made a deal with the very devil that would destroy them. Disagree with a ‘religious progressive,’ and like their progressive masters, tolerance goes out the window because dissent cannot be tolerated- because the ‘emperor has no clothes.’

The Left has gone from supporting liberal ideologies that were inclusive and universal, to supporting ideologies that are fascist. There is no way any observer can come to any other conclusion. A lot of the moral capital earned by Liberalism, has been squandered by Leftists in the support of causes that are clearly bankrupt and by ignoring causes that go begging.

The Left watched as Rwanda paid with the blood of over a million men, women and children. The Left stands idly by as Darfur unfolds, in slow motion, as testimony to the cruelest nature of man. In Algeria, the GIA raped and dismembered children as the left watched. The list goes on and on, as atrocities from Sierra Leone to East Timor to the oppression and repression dispensed by Middle East despots and religious zealots are ignored.

Radical and not so radical progressives, religious and otherwise, barely pay lip service to FGM that has impacted over 100 million women, according to UN figures. Honor killings, acid attacks, the harvesting of human organs for profit and a litany of other horrors go on. With the regularity of the New Moon, new atrocities by regimes and ideologies supported by the left surface each month. Those stand up to the tyranny in opposition to the regimes that have a boot at their neck. put themselves at risk as they demand more freedom and human rights. Predicatably, the progressives are found supporting the regimes and tyrants that persecute those who stand up.

The radical ‘religious progressives’ always remain silent in the face of true evil, focusing their attention on America or Israel, always forces for good, no matter how flawed they might be.

Any ideology that demands truth be abandoned is an ideology that God be abandoned. ‘Religious progressives’ have traded away God for false piety and a new religion of narcissitic selflessness.

When it comes to hatred of Israel, radical ‘religious progressives’ say that the Jews have “brought it upon themselves.” They ignore the truth that Israel is not a slave to a particular ideology or state sponsored hate. They ignore the truth that Israel is acting in response to dysfunctional regimes that for decades have made the cry of ‘ITBACH AL YAHUDI!‘ (SLAUGHTER THE JEW!) as an acceptable form of religious and political ideology. To the progressives, Jews defending themselves is an outrage. This of course, is not new.

A diary entry by Joseph Goebbels, as he took note of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, wrote (h/t Seraphic Secret):

“This is what happens when Jews get hold of guns.”

To the radical ‘religious progressives’ the world would be right if Jews weren’t so Jewish, or insisted on defending themselves and just allowed the themselves to be ‘blessed’ victims. Religious progressives must somehow distinguish themselves from their anti semitic secular brothers, you see.

In the same way the Judenrat believed the Germans were a ‘civilized’ nation, many ‘religious progressives’ have deluded themselves. In the end they believe, their secular progressive brothers in arms are ‘enlightened’ and ‘intellectual.’

Of course there is never good news when it comes to human and religious rights in nations ruled by despots and identified as the left’s ‘comrades in arms’. The enthusiastic support for dysfunctional and repressive Islamic and Middle Eastern regimes, is perhaps the most disturbing- and another truth that cannot be denied. These regimes make no excuse for their politics or their support for terror, nor do they even attempt to hide their hate and bigotry, broadcast in media, taught in schools and preached from the pulpit.

That these regimes have used religion as justification for their barbarism is cynically exploited by the left. One the one hand, says the Left, ‘we must respect their religion and their politics,’ and on the other hand, they point to religion and say, ‘This is the evil religion represents. We must separate ourselves and our politics from religion.’

All the while the erstwhile kapos of the left, the ‘religious progressives,’ remain silent.

Despite witnessing the out of control and barbaric behaviors of whole societies, the radical ‘religious progressives’ have turned a the blind eye to evil. They have come to accept and tolerate the most evil kind of behavior and remain silent. They and their secular brothers have aligned themselves with some of the most evil and dysfunctional tyrannies on the face of this earth.

They refuse to condemn the atrocities and hate and they will not condemn others who support the evil. Like the Judenrat before them, ‘religious progressives’ have come to believe the script. They openly encourage and even demand dysfunctional and self destructive behaviors that will inevitably lead to destruction, all in the name of healing and enlightenment. The ‘religious progressives,’ more than anyone, have embarked on the newest crusade. Join us they say, do it our way, or you will be destroyed. Plus ca change, plus ca reste la meme.

Dr Sanity noted in When Karl Met Sigmund that

Simply put, totalitarian systems–whether from the left or the right… whether religious or secular… actively promote the most negative, primitive, and immature aspects of human nature. In fact, they give a societal/institutional blessing to such behavior; and thrive on the resulting projection, paranoia, distortion, and denial of reality.

There are no ‘religious progressive’ voices on FGM, or religious persecution in China and other nations. There are no ‘religious progressive’ voices outspoken against the orchestrated and visceral hatred directed at Jews in most Arab countries. Instead, the ‘religious progressives’ save their vitriol for America, Israel and western democracies- nations that have at their center, religious freedoms.

When free and democratic states overcome tyranny, the result is the establishment of a free and democratic state. Enemies become friends.When tyranny overcomes freedom, that tyranny remains hated.

It is also true that no amount of ‘love’ can cure the dysfunctions that result in evil. Love of any kind, without a moral foundation fixes nothing. That knd of love is fickle, temporary and easily abandoned when the next object of infatuation or desire comes along.

If the left hated the atrocities and slaughter directed at innocents with as much hatred as they have for real freedom, America and Israel, there would be no more slaughters and there would be no more atrocities. Instead, the left and ‘religious progressives,’ choose the kind of perverted love that results in death over the kind of love that results in life.

Real faith is not measured by standing still and staying quiet as freedom and lives are taken. Real faith is measured by bringing freedom to others and saving lives.One can no more claim to be a radical ‘religious progressive’ anymore than than one can claim to be a ‘Christian Nazi.’

Shrill leftists like Larisa Alexandrovna speak of Israel, America and the Holocaust “(and as a Jew I have some personal interest in this myself obviously) ” as if somehow, being Jewish gave her words added credibility.

Like other progressives, she needs to sacrifice the truth on the altar of deceit.

Alexandrovna deceives with ease. She is like the kapo that knows the truth, and refuses to warn others of the truth. She focuses on the activities of some pre war American and British banks. What she does not acknowledge that some 6 years after the Holocaust, the Arab mantra of ‘We’ll finish what Hitler started’ is part and parcel of what passes for an Arab world educational priority.

She minimizes the participation of many Muslims during the Holocaust. Amin Husseini, mufti of Jerusalem, met with Hitler and offered his enthusiastic support for the ‘final solution.’ In fact, Husseni was to complain that Jews weren’t being killed fast enough.

Husseini’s support wasn’t only rhetorical- he raised an army of Bosnian volunteers that directly supported and participated in the Nazi war efforts.

In fact, Ms Alexandrovna is nothing more than a modern day equivalent of member of the Judenrat or kapo, perfectly willing to help the leftists sell out Israel so that she might maintain her ‘progressive’ bona fides (she is managing news editor of ‘Raw Story,’ and has contributed to Huffington, Alternet, Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair and Newsweek). She isn’t like those ‘other Jews.’ She an ‘enlightened’ and ‘intellectual’ Jew. She is part of the elite, or so she thinks.

Nowhere does Alexandrovna or the radical ‘religious progressives’ state an obvious truth: If the Arab world were to recognize Israel’s right to exist and abandon their stated desire to slaughter Jews, peace would be a Middle East reality in days.

Of course, not everyone sees it that way. Amotz Asa-El, in the Jerusalem Post, sees through Alexandrovna’s and radical ‘religious progressives’:

SOME AMERICAN Jews – many in fact – no longer care about their own Jewishness and Israel’s vulnerability. To them, we calmly wave goodbye as they sail into the sunset; they have made a conscious choice and, much as we lament it, we must also respect it. Our plea goes to those who do care.

A destroyed Israel and the corpses of Jews will not be the mountain that Larisa Aleaxdrova and the radical ‘religious progressives’ will stand upon, any more than corpses and Auschwitz are monuments to the kapos and the Judenrat.

Alexandrovna and her ilk want to wave their hands and make the truth disappear. She and they want their opinions and beliefs to be accepted as truths, simply because of who they are. Just like the Judenrat.

Of course, simply walking upright and having an opinion does not make that opinion valid or equal to other opinions. Holocaust denial, for example, is not a valid or equal belief because Mahmoud Ahmadenijad says it is. The beliefs (and silence) of radical ‘religious progressives’ and The World According To Larisa Alexandrovna are not universal truths, no matter how much they would like that to be.

One of the accepted hallmarks of civilized society is an accepted code of moral behavior. No matter one’s prejudices, biases or beliefs, we are all expected to behave in a certain way. We are all expected to treat others, regardless of their religion, lack of religion, culture or creed, in the same way we ourselves expect to be treated. If that accepted code of moral behavior is not present in a particular society, that society cannot be counted as civilized.

When the internal behavior of a society or segments of a society cannot be clearly categorized as civilized, it is safe to say that society or segment of that society, will not behave in a civilized way toward other nations or groups.

The silence of the radical ‘religious progressives’ brings to mind the words of the words of Martin Neimoller:

First they came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up,

because I wasn’t a Communist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up,

because I wasn’t a Jew.

Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up,

because I was a Protestant.

Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left

to speak up for me.