Friday, April 23, 2010


Fly the flag of St George and celebrate English patron saint, urges the Archbishop of York

I have the St George flag flying from my flagpole right now -- JR



The Archbishop of York has called for a display of patriotism today, St George’s Day. Failure to celebrate the English patron saint is a sign of ingratitude for the country’s heritage and a mark of cynicism, said Dr John Sentamu. He added that it was time for the English ‘to rejoice in the land that we live in.’

Uganda-born Dr Sentamu, second only to the Archbishop of Canterbury in the hierarchy of the Church of England, made his plea for patriotism after a survey showed that many believe England has lost its national identity and feel ashamed of their nationality.

The Archbishop has long been an opponent of the multiculturalism fashionable among some of his C of E colleagues, which sees English history as disreputable and English patriotism as sinister.

He announced that he will fly the red cross of St George from his palace at Bishopthorpe in York today. A group of schoolchildren have been invited to play rounders on the palace lawn as part of a day of celebration.

Dr Sentamu said: ‘To be patriotic is to appreciate and be grateful for all that is valuable in the country you live in. It does not require you to be a xenophobe or a blinkered nationalist.

‘The failure to recognise and appreciate the goodly heritage of one’s country of residence is a sign of all-round ingratitude. Ingratitude in turn breeds cynicism.’

This week a poll by the magazine This England rated England as the least patriotic country in Europe and said that many believed if they tried to fly a St George’s flag from their house they would be told to take it down.

SOURCE



Hitler stimulated Arab antisemitism

The roots of Islamic fanaticism can be traced to Adolf Hitler's radio messages broadcast around the Arab world during the Second World War, according to a new book.

"Your only hope for rescue is the destruction of the Jews before they destroy you!" Hitler said in a 1942 message, one of thousands broadcast across the Middle East in an attempt to woo the Arab world.

In a broadcast aimed at provoking an anti-Semitic uprising in Egypt, he said: "A large number of Jews who live in Egypt, along with Poles, Greeks, Armenians and Frenchmen, have guns and ammunition. "Some Jews in Cairo have even asked the British authorities to set up machine guns on the roofs of their houses," he claimed.

But the Nazi's wartime broadcasts had remained a largely hidden chapter in the history of the war until the transmissions were unearthed by a US scholar, who believes they have fuelled continuing unrest in the Middle East.

"The conflict between Israel and the Palestinians would have been over long ago were it not for the uncompromising, religiously inspired hatred of the Jews that was articulated and given assistance by Nazi propagandists and continued after the war by Islamists of various sorts," said Jeffrey Herf, a history professor at the University of Maryland.

In his new book, "Nazi Propaganda for the Arab World", Mr Herf argues that Nazi propagandists offered a message that neatly dovetailed with underlying prejudice.

"Islamic fundamentalism, like European totalitarianism in the 20th century, was and is a mixture of very old and very modern elements.

"It is also a product of a mixture of some indigenous currents in the history of Islam with the hatred of democracy, liberalism and the Jews that were so central to National Socialism.

Mr Herf uncovered 6,000 transmissions, produced under the propaganda minister Josef Goebbels and sent around the Arab world from 1939 to 1945.

The transcripts of the broadcasts were made by the American embassy in Cairo during the war, and classified until 1977 in Washington. But it was not until two years ago that Mr Herf became the first scholar to be given access to the files.

The Nazis relied on radio broadcasts - translated into Arabic - to sow propaganda because of high illiteracy in the Arab world at the time. Although radio ownership was small, it was commonplace for cafes and bazaars to draw large crowds to listen to broadcasts.

"This propaganda campaign comprised an important chapter in the history of the war," Mr Herf said.

"The Arab language propaganda produced in wartime Berlin was a significant chapter in the longer history of radical Arab nationalism and militant Islam."

SOURCE



The politics of intimidation

Justice Department blocks polling-place investigation

On the first Tuesday in November, two uniformed men arrived at a voting place and took up positions by the entry doors. In the hours that followed, they harassed voters and election officials, hurled racial epithets and physically blocked persons of other races who sought to cast their votes for president of the United States. One of the men brandished a nightstick.

Bartle Bull, a civil rights movement veteran, was there. He says it was "the most blatant form of voter intimidation I have encountered in my life in political campaigns in many states, even going back to the work I did in Mississippi in the 1960s." The crimes Mr. Bull witnessed that day were not committed in 1960s Mississippi, however. Those crimes took place in 2008 in Philadelphia.

It is regrettable that on the day when the United States elected its first black president, two thugs in Philadelphia perpetrated acts of race-based voter intimidation of the type that marred elections in segregation-era America. It also is inexcusable that President Obama's Justice Department refuses to fulfill its duty and bring those racists to justice. Led by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., political appointees at the Obama Justice Department overruled career federal prosecutors and dropped voter-intimidation charges against the men.

The Justice Department obtained only a narrow, meaningless injunction against the man who taunted voters with the nightstick. He has been enjoined from brandishing a weapon within 100 feet of the entrance to any polling place (an act which was illegal to begin with) but only until November 2012.

Now the Justice Department is obstructing the U.S. Civil Rights Commission's investigation into this case. If two white men had donned police uniforms or white robes and terrorized a voting place, we can be certain the Justice Department would have brought the full force of the law to bear against the perpetrators and vindicated the right to vote - and properly so. In this case, however, the perpetrators were black, and the uniforms they wore bore the insignia of the New Black Panther Party, a black supremacist organization.

It should not matter. The Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act affirmed what the Declaration of Independence and Constitution intended: that all persons are created equal and are entitled to be protected equally by our government and laws. In the decades that have followed the passage of those two acts, I and millions of others have been the beneficiaries of those twin pillars of the civil rights movement.

But while the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act were passed to end discrimination against blacks and other minorities, federal law and our Constitution protect all Americans equally, without regard to race, color, creed or religion.

The selective enforcement of our laws, and the appearance of selective enforcement, erode faith and confidence in the administration of our justice system and undermine the fundamental rule of law that is the very foundation of our society: All persons are equal before the law, and no person stands above it.

The U.S. Civil Rights Commission has picked up this case and will be continuing its investigation of the Obama Justice Department's handling of it at a hearing Friday. Thus far, the Justice Department has stonewalled the commission's work - ignoring its requests for records and information and refusing to issue and enforce subpoenas on its behalf.

The commission will press forward with its investigation. And while the Obama Justice Department continues to demonstrate apparent disregard for the rule of law by obstructing the investigation, consider the new precedent its handling of this case sets: Racially motivated voter intimidation will be tolerated, even when it is captured on video and available for all to see on YouTube. If career prosecutors bring charges, high-level presidential appointees will intervene to ensure they are dropped. Apparently, only brandishing a weapon crosses the line.

The victims of the voting rights crimes that were committed in Philadelphia in 2008, and indeed all Americans, deserved to cast their ballots free from racial taunts, fear and intimidation. They deserved a Justice Department that enforces their voting rights instead of dropping the case. And they deserved better from the president who famously decreed, "There is not a black America and a white America. ... There's the United States of America."

Mr. Obama, his attorney general and his Justice Department should reverse course, comply with the Civil Rights Commission's requests for information and aid - not obstruct - its investigation. This is the only way to restore public faith and confidence in the impartial enforcement of our civil and voting rights laws, which has been seriously damaged by the Obama administration's actions in this case.

SOURCE



No civil liberties for people who like to choose their waiter?

This is a great way to encourage hotels to employ blacks. If I were the hotelier I would avoid the problem by hiring Hispanics instead

A HAITIAN-AMERICAN waiter filed suit against a Florida Ritz Carlton hotel after being forbidden from serving a British family who had requested no people "of colour" or with "foreign accents" wait on them.

Haitian-born American citizen Wadner Tranchant, 40, said he was turned away after he began to serve a British family who had reportedly lodged their request with staff at the luxury hotel in Naples, Florida, Florida's naplesnews.com reported today

"My client was prevented from waiting on this couple because he was black," said attorney Michael R.N. McDonnell of Naples, who represents Mr Tranchant, who had worked at the Ritz for 15 years, with Naples attorney Scott Martin Roth.

The lawsuit was filed under the US Civil Rights Act and seeks compensatory and punitive damages.

According to the suit, the incident with Brit Rodney Morgan and his family was not the first of its kind, as "Other employees ... encountered similar treatment on multiple occasions".

SOURCE

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of other countries. The only real difference, however, is how much power they have. In America, their power is limited by democracy. To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges. They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did: None. So look to the colleges to see what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way. It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here or Email me (John Ray) here. For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site here.

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1 comment:

Robert said...

If anyone tries voter intimidation like the Black Panthers did in a future election, it should end with the intimidated voter going home, getting his gun, and shooting the predatory aggressor dead, and daring any of his henchmen to earn the same fate.