Tuesday, July 26, 2011


Norway shooting: Glenn Beck compares dead teenagers to Hitler youth

Hitler's national socialists and Norway's present-day socialists are certainly not the same but they were/are nonetheless both authoritarian socialists who muzzle debate. Norway's penal code (Straffeloven, section 135 a) prohibits "hate speech" and defines it as publicly making statements that threaten or ridicule someone or that incite hatred, persecution or contempt for someone due to their skin colour, ethnic origin, homosexual life style or orientation or, religion or philosophy of life. So criticism of Muslims is illegal.

And we read here how the island had long been a training ground for Norway's Leftist leadership. So Beck is right to point out similarities. Leftists always go into paroxysms of rage in response to any criticism so their rage against Beck in this case is just routine


Glenn Beck, the leading Right-wing American broadcaster, has prompted outrage after comparing the teenage victims of the Utoya Island massacre to the Hitler Youth. Beck said that the Labour party youth camp on the island, where 68 people were murdered, bore "disturbing" similarities to the Nazi party's notorious juvenile wing.

Beck, a multimillionaire darling of the Tea Party movement, said on his nationally-syndicated radio show: "There was a shooting at a political camp, which sounds a little like, you know, the Hitler youth. I mean, who does a camp for kids that's all about politics? Disturbing."

Torbjørn Eriksen, a former press secretary to Jens Stoltenberg, Norway's prime minister, described the comment as "a new low" for the broadcaster, who has frequently been forced to apologise for offensive remarks. "Young political activists have gathered at Utoya for over 60 years to learn about and be part of democracy, the very opposite of what the Hitler Youth was about," he told The Daily Telegraph. "Glenn Beck's comments are ignorant, incorrect and extremely hurtful."

The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, a Washington-based campaign group, said the remark by Beck, a free agent after being forced out of the Fox News channel earlier this year, was "absolutely disgusting".

Beck's controversial statements and conspiracy-filled rants have made him one of the most divisive figures in US politics and media in recent years. Last year he said he regretted calling Barack Obama a "racist" with a "deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture". He later apologised for mocking Mr Obama's young daughter Malia.

In February he apologised to Reform Judaism, a group that campaigns for the modernisation of the Jewish faith, after comparing them to "radicalised Islam".

But he refused to apologise in May after mock-vomiting on his live TV show following a cancer-awareness advert starring a nude Meghan McCain, the daughter of Senator John McCain. Beck said that Miss McMcCain, whose father survived cancer before running for the US presidency, should "wear a burka" because she was apparently unattractive.

Despite Beck expressing surprise that political movements would hold camps for children, followers of his 9/12 Project – which aims to "recapture the spirit of the day after America was attacked" – have this summer been doing just that.

Organisers of the "vacation liberty schools" in several states told the Daily Telegraph how they taught children as young as eight a Tea Party-endorsed curriculum spanning religion, economics and political principles.

SOURCE




Background to the anti-immigration terrorist attack in Norway

Daniel Greenfield prefaces his remarks below with a "psycho-analysis" of Anders Behring Breivik -- but he has more confidence in his judgment than I do. I am a much published psychologist specializing in the study of political psychology -- including neo-Nazism -- and so far I see nothing very unusual in Breivik. The things that people point to -- his use of "sim" computer games, for instance -- would also be true of many millions of young men who do not become terrorists -- JR

It was Breivik who pulled the trigger, but it was the Norwegian authorities who created and then ignored the social problem of Islamic immigration, that enabled him to exploit it in a burst of horrifying violence.

The Oslo killings are a tragic reminder that conflicts rarely remain one sided. And it is foolish to expect them to. Violence begets violence and extremism creates extremists. Terrorism gives birth to more of the same.

Oslo has become symbolic of pacifist idealism, which is why the bloodshed is so stunning, but also inevitable. Any ideal pursued to a far enough extreme gives birth to its opposite number. Violence attracts idealism and idealism attracts violence. Both pacifism and violence represent unbalanced extremes. And extremes often have a way of coming together in an explosive collision of opposites.

The search for blame in all the usual places is inevitable, but counterproductive. The Oslo killings are another item on the ledger of the high cost of Islam. The explosive rage on both sides fueled by a social instability created by aggressive immigration with no thought to its impact on the country as a whole. It was Brevik who spent nine years planning and carrying out the attacks, but it was the political authorities who had created a scenario that made it possible.

There are of course shootings carried out all the time with no larger political justification, and it is possible that Brevik would have acted regardless of any of the events of the past nine years. But it is far more likely that by giving him an antagonist to fight, the authorities brought those violent events into being.

Violence driven by social instability must be at least partly laid at the feet of those who caused the social instability. And that is not a handful of American critics of Islam, but the Norwegian authorities whose social and immigration policies created an explosive situation that had already exploded into violence before.

We cannot regard Brevik as an isolated phenomenon or as the creature of a handful of foreign pundits. He was a Norwegian whose views and attitudes echoed those of many of his countrymen. His violent response to social problems created by the authorities and aimed at the authorities should be deplored. But at the same time we must learn the lessons of not the act itself, but of the social instability that gave rise to it. It is the best chance of avoiding a repetition of it by those who would, like Brevik, exploit social instability as a means of promoting a violent solution.

Muslim violence, whether it is planes being flown into skyscrapers or women being raped with religious sanction, are likely to inspire answering acts of violence. Such acts should be condemned, yet so should the apathy toward the social instability created by Muslim immigration that gives rise to them.

When a woman is raped on the steps of the Norwegian parliament, it should be every bit as shocking as Brevik’s massacres, not because their damage is equal, but because they are both wake up calls to a major social problem that cannot be swept under the rug.

Muslim immigration and its attendant violence gave Brevik his casus belli to take action against the authorities. It may inspire future Breviks as well. It is easy to blame the pattern of ideas that Brevik cited in his manifesto, but the manifesto and the ideas are the children of an existing social problem. A problem so severe that a woman can be raped on the steps of the Norwegian parliament with no one moving to intervene.

The European media will use the Oslo killings to argue against the regional trend of examining Muslim immigration. But they have it exactly backward. A social problem cannot be solved by refusing to examine it or by silencing all discussion of it. Social problems breed and worsen in silence. As do all things in the dark. Brevik’s shootings should rather be a wake up call to seriously examine the impact of Muslim immigration on Oslo in particular, and Norway in general.

Brevik was not a Muslim, yet he was motivated by Islam, as surely as the most devout Jihadist. Islam defined his actions, as surely as it does theirs. The only difference is that they were acting for Islam, while he was acting against it. But the problem of both Brevik and the Jihadist emerges from a common source. Islam.

Violence rarely remains one sided. In Norway, Brevik has added a second side to a triangle, whose third side is politically correct apathy and nervous pacifism. That second side is as bloody as the first, and no more removable without addressing the first side and the third.

Whether it is the Madrid bombings or the Oslo rampage—all these horrors are a reminder that Europe’s current policies have failed. That integration has not worked and multiculturalism has given rise to hostile cultures living side by side. Brevik’s actions and growing tension on the far right remind us that apathy and mouthing multicultural slogans can no longer substitute for a serious examination of the problem.

This latest horror warns us that violence will be exploited by the violent, and that the European equation is now in danger of having a third variable. We have had the Jihadists and the apathetic authorities, now there are the Breviks. Dangerous men looking for a cause and a reason to fight. And the social instability and violence created by Islamic immigration gives them a reason.

Anti-government violence in Norway and Sweden, countries which have repressed free speech the hardest, is no coincidence

Talk of suppressing extremism will not prevent the Breviks, it will only encourage them by giving them a more definite enemy to fight. Anti-government violence in Norway and Sweden, countries which have repressed free speech the hardest, is no coincidence. Authoritarianism only feeds anti-government tendencies. It is impossible for Europe to rid itself of the Breviks, without also ridding itself of the social problems that make them possible.

The best way to stop the Breviks of the future, is to steal their thunder. To seriously examine the high cost of Islamic immigration, the failures of integration, the violence taking place under the shadow of multiculturalism—and to honestly and seriously address these things.

Brevik would not have acted if he did not believe that the authorities would play into his hands. If the Norwegian government really wishes to defeat the ideas he championed, it must pull their claws, by addressing them as social problems, rather than by denying them and repressing their critics. Europe’s history of domestic radicalism should provide ample reasons to show why such an approach is unwise and counterproductive.

As long as a social problem remains neglected and a source of social instability proliferates, then the violent tendencies of dangerous loners will be channeled into its path. That is how World War I began. It may be how World War III will begin. The duty of responsible authorities is to address the social problem, not with slogans, but with concrete and realistic measures. If a social problem is a swamp, then it must be drained. Oslo’s social problem is Islamic immigration. The fever swamp of violence cannot be drained, until the immigration that feeds it is drained as well.

More HERE




Eviction of travellers from Britain's biggest gypsy camp delayed while bailiffs undergo 'cultural awareness training'

400 travellers to be moved on next month after being at the site for ten years

A multi-million pound eviction of travellers from Europe’s largest illegal camp could be delayed because bailiffs supposedly need ‘cultural awareness training’.

Hundreds of people are set to be removed from Dale Farm near Crays Hill in Essex next month, after years of legal battles. But Basildon Council has started approaching travellers’ groups for bespoke training, ‘specifically for the forced removal of gipsy and traveller women and children’.

Officials are looking for guidance as they fear the process, which is likely to spark violent confrontations, could breach equality legislation. However, one organisation has already refused the request and warns others would follow its lead.

Share, which promotes traveller health and welfare, revealed it had been approached by the council to train staff at Constant and Co, the firm of bailiffs appointed to deal with the situation. Chairman Tommy Mordacai said: ‘I just can’t believe they would contact us and ask about forcibly removing women and children.’

And in a formal response to the council, he wrote: ‘As you are from the inclusion and diversity team I would expect you to be able to understand and appreciate the serious long-term damage and health implications that the removal will have upon the women, children, and men.’

The stand-off means the operation, which is set to cost up to £18million, including police and bailiffs’ fees, plus returning the land to its former greenbelt status, faces being put on hold.

Travellers have lived on legal plots at Dale Farm for decades but hundreds began arriving in 2001 and set up home there without planning permission. Around 1,000 are based there now, almost half illegally. Many marched through nearby Gloucester Park to protest at the town hall over the eviction threat.

They are due to be removed on August 31 after a Court of Appeal ruling last year. But many have spoken openly of having pitched battles with the authorities. Barbed wire barricades and dangerous high-pressure canisters have been placed around the site in readiness for what some describe as a ‘state of war’.

But local resident Len Gridley, whose land is bordered by the travellers’ site, complained: ‘What training could the bailiffs possibly need? They do this job every day.’ Constant & Co, which regularly handles traveller evictions, yesterday refused to comment. But its website boasts that staff are ‘employed nationally on a daily basis to recover possession of land from unwanted trespassers’. It adds: ‘We are the most experienced, professional and busiest company in this type of work.’

A council spokesman said: ‘Share was just one organisation which has refused. ‘The funding has only just been finalised so this could not be arranged earlier. ‘We are confident that there will be an organisation which will provide the training.’

However, Richard Sheridan, president of the Gypsy Council, said: ‘I won’t be helping them with it. ‘Those bailiffs will be throwing women and children out from their homes. No amount of training can make them do that in a nicer way.’


SOURCE






The chimp they tried to turn into a human: An extraordinary experiment in which scientists raised a chimpanzee as their child... with chilling results

The woman volunteer thought Nim was coming to hug her, but instead the young chimp lunged, biting so deep into her cheek that his fangs pierced her mouth.

As she clutched her bleeding face, the little ape was beside himself, using the same piece of sign language again and again to attract her attention. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ he repeated.

This haunting recollection is one of many contained in a riveting new film, Project Nim, by the director of the Oscar-winning Man On Wire, about one of the most bizarre scientific experiments of recent times.

British film-maker James Marsh’s latest subject undertakes a journey every bit as astonishing as tightrope artist Philippe Petit’s walk on a wire strung between the Twin Towers of New York’s World Trade Centre.

Nim was a chimp that was raised as a human child in order to test out the radical theory that man and his closest relative could learn to talk to each other.

Tragically, as Marsh’s film relates through a mixture of archive footage, re-enactments and interviews with those who took part in the early-Seventies experiment, this is a tale that ultimately says more about human arrogance than simian intelligence.

For those who have been charmed by the recent tale of Digit, the gentle adult gorilla that shares the marital bed of the devoted French couple who look after him, here is a much darker side to man’s attempts to bond with his ape cousins.

A helpless pawn ripped — quite literally — from his mother’s breast, Nim was a victim of the naïve, hippy- culture-infused world of early-Seventies New York. He fell into the clutches of a hapless band of woolly social scientists who gave him human clothes, human food and enough doting young lady volunteers to send his simian hormones haywire. If it were not for what happened later, it could have been a Woody Allen comedy.

Project Nim began in November 1973 with Nim’s birth at a primate research centre in Oklahoma. He spent just a few days in the arms of his real mother before she was knocked out with a tranquilliser dart and her screaming baby was handed straight to his delighted new, human, mother.

Nim had been selected by Herb Terrace, an ambitious psychology expert at New York’s Columbia University, to prove a premise that was ‘way out’ even for the Seventies: that a chimp raised as a human and taught sign language could learn to communicate in grammatical sentences. Finally, man might understand what animals were thinking — and perhaps vice versa.

Terrace, a small, mustachioed man with a huge ego, had named the little creature Nim Chimpsky — a pun on Noam Chomsky, the famous thinker who insisted that only humans have the capacity for language

However, Terrace thought differently and had chosen Stephanie LaFarge, a former student and lover, to bring up Nim in the large Manhattan townhouse she shared with her self-confessed ‘rich hippy’ writer husband, Wer, and their seven children.

But it was a disastrous decision — Stephanie never bothered trying to discipline Nim. She did not take any notes on the experiment and did not keep a log of Nim’s progress, but she did breastfeed him and give him alcohol and puffs on her cannabis joints.

He was encouraged to lay waste to their expensive home and wind up his rival for her affections, Stephanie’s husband. Home movie footage shows the little creature, a blur of black and white in his romper suit, charging around as Stephanie recounts dreamily how she let him explore her naked body as he moved into puberty.

‘I never felt sexually engaged with him,’ she recalls, which is a blessing at least. Yes, it certainly was the Seventies.

Chimp throats cannot reproduce human speech, so the idea was to teach him sign language. ‘Drink’ was the first sign he learned, followed by ‘eat’, ‘me’, ‘Nim’ and ‘hug’. Volunteer Jenny Lee remembers his heart-warming empathy. ‘Whenever you were upset he would come over and sit with you and kiss the tears away,’ she says.

But it didn’t last. Laura-Ann Petitto, a pretty Columbia researcher recruited to the project, recalls turning up at the house to find ‘utter chaos’. She was particularly appalled to find Stephanie fixated by Nim’s penchant for what is delicately known as self-abuse.

Finally, realising things had gone awry, Terrace moved Nim to a big empty house in the suburbs where Laura-Ann became his new ‘mum’ and the band of helpers swelled.

If any of ‘his people’ showed the slightest signs of vulnerability — even just accidentally turning their back to him too quickly — the hair would rise on his arms and, Laura-Ann recalls, he’d ‘go into attack .... he had to draw blood’. She still has the scars, running down her arms, to prove it.

Nevertheless, in his own way, Nim was devoted to her — and very jealous of her affections. Laura-Ann had begun an affair with Terrace and one day, as she packed up to leave after a language session with Nim, the chimp showed what he thought of her disloyalty.

Jumping 25ft from a second-floor window, he grabbed his favourite female and started pounding her head into the pavement. It took four men to get him off.

‘He wasn’t my child, he wasn’t my baby,’ she said in the film, her voice still quivering at the memory. ‘You can’t give human nurture to an animal that could kill you.’

But still the gallant band behind the experiment persevered. Renee Falitz, a small but plucky professional sign language teacher, became Nim’s new mother figure until he one day sank his fangs deep into her cheek. When Nim was finally allowed to see her again and immediately reached for her face, she was off. ‘It was like breaking up with a bad boyfriend,’ she recalls.

By now, it was clear that someone was going to get seriously hurt before too long. Much to the disgust of his underlings, Herb Terrace flew Nim back to the Oklahoma research centre where he had got him fewer than four years earlier.

More HERE

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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, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN (Note that EYE ON BRITAIN has regular posts on the reality of socialized medicine). 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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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

This ridiculously competent murderer really has given conservatives a grinning hard on in the way that IRA and Palestenian bombs secretly stimulated the blood lust of liberals. Your bold coverage makes me cringe, and commend.

Paul J. Marasa said...

You mention, "Norway's penal code (Straffeloven, section 135 a) prohibits 'hate speech' and defines it as publicly making statements that threaten or ridicule someone or that incite hatred, persecution or contempt for someone due to their skin colour, ethnic origin, homosexual life style or orientation or, religion or philosophy of life. So criticism of Muslims is illegal." But "criticism" is not the same as "making statements that threaten or ridicule someone or that incite hatred, persecution or contempt." While the distinction may not be as firm as we'd like--and while I have no idea how hate speech legislation is applied in Norway--certainly there is a difference between criticism and hatred: the former involves deliberation, logic, careful evidence; the latter demands that thought be replaced with sheer feeling. I certainly would not want to be criticized--as an employee, student, or simply as a person--based on someone's feelings, especially such blinding ones as hatred and contempt.

Let's try not to conflate terms for the sake of a win. If in Norway criticism = hatred, then they're wrong. That simply means their defintion of hate speech is screwed up, not that there isn't such a thing as hate speech.

jonjayray said...

The effect in Norway seems to be suppression of criticism about Muslims

But you can criticize Israel, of course. That's virtuous, apparently

Double standards are normal among Leftists