Sunday, August 20, 2017



Anti-immigration protesters attacked by hundreds of far-Leftists as they march through the streets of Barcelona just one day after deadly terror attack in the city

The anti-immigration protesters are described by the sensationalist media as members of the Falange, the Fascist organization that kept dictator Franco in power for many decades, though Franco himself was not a member of it.  The Falange does still exist in Spain -- getting about 1% of the vote in national elections -- but we have no means of knowing the party connections of the protesters.  It could all be just media beatup. There are just not many Falangists left and you would not have to be a member of the Falange to be angry about Muslim immigration to Spain after the recent terrorist attacks there.

But even if we do assume that the protesters were Falangists, that does NOT of itself  indicate that they were racists.  From the Roman empire to this day, Southern Europeans have been little concerned about race.  Italian dictator Mussolini did for quite a time have Jews prominent in the Fascist party for instance.  Mussolini eventually proclaimed some widely-ignored anti-Jewish laws only after Hitler pushed him into it. And there is great sympathy for Israel in Italy to this day.

And the Falange of Franco's day were not concerned about race either.  Their primary foci were anti-communism and pro-Catholicism.  So to procalim that these anti-immigration protesters were racists would be ipso facto unfounded, though the media will no doubt say otherwise

The one thing we can conclude is that, like Hitler's Brownshirts,  Leftist thugs will emerge to attack those they disagree with wherever that might be.  It is they who are the Nazis, not the critics of Islam



Far-right activists were met by a huge crowd of anti-fascist protesters as they marched in Barcelona one day after a terror attack killed 13 people in the city. 

Members of the extreme Falange group congregated on Las Ramblas boulevard this afternoon before being met by hundreds of counter-demonstrators waving flags and banners.

Tensions were so high that armed riot police were called in to separate the groups as violence broke out.

Pictures show demonstrators shouting in each other's faces and fighting in the streets as tempers boiled over.

One photograph shows an anti-fascist punching a Falange supporter in the face amid a scuffle in the crowd. The punched man, who was wearing a T-Shirt emblazoned with the far-right slogan, 'Do not stop until you conquer', was later seen with a black eye.

He was later seen with a fellow protester whose face and hands were covered in blood after he had been hit in the nose.

The chaotic scenes took place near the scene where yesterday a van ploughed into pedestrians in an attack that also left more than 100 injured.

Falange took to the streets to 'protest Islam' and blame Spain's immigration policy for the attack.

A post on the group's website said: 'No one was fooled into thinking that the policies of multiculturalism and #RefugeesWelcome wouldn’t end like they did in Las Ramblas in Barcelona.'

Falange abandoned the demonstration after it was stormed by counter-demonstrators and had to be escorted away from Las Ramblas by police.

SOURCE






It’s clear now: the left only hates certain kinds of neo-fascism

Rarely has the hypocrisy of the West’s ostensible liberals and leftists been as violently exposed as it has been this week. Between Charlottesville and Barcelona, between their fury over the former and their embarrassment at the latter, we have gained a glimpse into today’s extraordinary double standards over extremists who loathe liberty, democracy and swathes of mankind. If the extremists are white and fond of the swastika, they’ll be roundly condemned, organised against, transformed into a focal point for the activities of a flagging left. But if they’re Muslims, if it’s a misogynistic, homophobic caliphate they want to build, if their targets are ‘kuffars’ rather than pinkos or black people, they will be frowned upon, of course, but never raged against. Never organised against. They will be treated more forgivingly, and explicitly so. It’s clear now: leftists only dislike certain kinds of neo-fascism.

Even before the barbarism in Barcelona, even before that Islamist terrorist mowed down scores of people, killing 13, the discussion about Charlottesville had become unhinged. What was in truth a nasty but small demonstration by white-power losers was transformed into the second coming of the Third Reich. Where most leftists and liberal commentators respond to Islamist barbarism with a sad emoji or a national flag on their Facebook page, they responded to Charlottesville with historic hyperbole. They shared images of Brits landing in France to fight Nazis, implying they were the heirs to such fighting. America mirrors Germany in the 1930s, they claimed. The self-flattery was off the scale, as if their breaking a nail as they tweet a piss-taking meme of Richard Spencer is comparable with those working-class men who left their families to fight in the Spanish Civil War or join the Greek resistance. The left’s blowing-up of Charlottesville is directly proportionate to its loss of focus and principle: it spies in these pathetic neo-Nazis a force it might resuscitate its fortunes in opposition to; a thing it might define itself against.

But if the treatment of Charlottesville and its vile car attack as a return of Nazism looked questionable before Barcelona, it looks mad after it. Yes, there are extremists in the West who have declared war on our fellow citizens, our liberties and our democracy. But they aren’t American hillbillies who once tried to read Mein Kampf — they’re Islamists, Muslims who subscribe to an extraordinarily intolerant interpretation of their religion and who increasingly think little of slaughtering anybody whose values run counter to theirs, whether it’s French cartoonists, Berlin Christmas shoppers, British pop fans, or crowds in Nice celebrating Bastille Day and the birth of modern mass democracy. These people’s violent misanthropy makes America’s white-nationalist movement look like a hippy outfit in comparison. A suspected hard-right fanatic killed one person at Charlottesville, in a foul assault on life and liberty; Islamists, if we add Barcelona, have killed more than 460 people in Europe in the past three years. Four-hundred-and-sixty. Let that sink in.

And yet after Barcelona, as is the case after every Islamist attack, there has been an awkward, shuffling silence in left and liberal circles. There is media coverage, of course. Lots of it, as there should be. There are condemnations and offers of solidarity with Barcelona, and so on. That’s all good. But politics? Anger? A demand that we recognise the gravity of the threat posed by Islamists and get together to do something about it? Calls for confrontation with Islamist movements, demands that we ‘Punch an Islamist’, in the same way American leftists have promoted ‘Punch a Nazi’? No.

On the contrary, we are encouraged to be sad about Islamist attacks but never active in relation to them. ‘Don’t look back in anger.’ Consider how swiftly the Manchester barbarism has drifted from Britain’s national consciousness. It wasn’t even three months ago, and yet this slaughter of 22 pop fans by a man who subscribed to an ideological worldview that is as ugly, if not uglier, as that spouted by American white nationalists is fading from national memory. That is a direct consequence of the cowardly, apolitical, even anti-political climate that is always cultivated after Islamist attacks: we are always invited to ‘move on’ because dwelling on such extremist violence would raise too many awkward questions.

The difference is alarming: Charlottesville was instantly institutionalised as a turning-point event. It was folded, in mere days, into a 21st-century political narrative about a resurgent far right (an overblown threat) and the need for a more serious, anti-fascist left. It became a morality tale, swiftly. After Islamist attacks, in contrast, we’re openly warned against doing anything like that. Don’t look for lessons. Don’t make it a moral issue. Don’t politicise it or get too angry about it, because apparently that’s what ISIS wants. Mourn it and carry on with life as normal — that’ll show ’em. This urge to moralise small neo-Nazi protests in the US while de-moralising, depoliticising and fundamentally defusing the problem of Islamist extremism, even though this extremism is a far more destabilising force, has to be explained. What drives this alarming double standard?

It’s fear. Cultural fear. Fear of us, the masses, and what we will get up to if society green-lights an honest discussion about the Islamist problem. And fear for Muslims, whom too many on the left infantilise and treat as incapable of hearing robust discussion about problems in their communities. (It has always struck me that there is more racism in certain leftists’ desire to protect Muslims from testy debate than there is in alt-righters’ misplaced fury with all Muslims: at least the latter treats Muslims as adults, open to criticism, rather than as children who need strictures against Islamophobia to guard their fragile feelings.)

And so where leftists insist after Islamist attacks that we mustn’t hold all Muslims responsible, or make such violence into a focal point for politics, or get too angry, after Charlottesville they said the precise opposite. ‘White culture’ did this. Let’s organise our political lives around it. Let’s get angry, really angry. They’re more comfortable confronting handfuls of American neo-Nazis because they can do so without engaging the bovine, untrustworthy little people and without threatening to raise questions about the ideology of multiculturalism and its divisive, increasingly violent impact in Europe.

They have declared a ridiculous, self-flattering war on neo-Nazism precisely as a distraction from the real problems facing Western society today, to which they have no answers, and are uncomfortable even with the questions.

SOURCE





Mob Rule Prevails in Toppling of Confederate Statue



Following the ugly incident that took place in Charlottesville, Virginia, this past weekend, an unruly mob took out its anger on a century-old statue in North Carolina.

It is a perfect example of how tribal and identity politics are raging out of control in America, and how radicals will continue to ratchet up their tactics to match one another.

While the media spent its time connecting riots to the political right, the hard left continued to step up its tactics to promote social discord, as it has been doing for years.

On Monday afternoon, a crowd of people in an "Emergency Durham Protest" marched down Durham’s Main Street, then made its way to the Durham County Courthouse.

The Herald Sun reported that organizations like the "Triangle People’s Assembly, Workers World Party, Industrial Workers of the World, Democratic Socialists of America, and the Antifa movement" were at the rally.

One of the participants, Eva Panjwani of the Workers World Party Durham, said in an interview:

This is really an opportunity, this moment of Charlottesville, to see what side of history we are choosing to side with. This is not a call to make someone to feel guilty or ashamed. This is a call to say this is an ask from people of color to say which side are you on.

"We need to shun passive, white liberalism," Panjwani said.

The larger group was comprised of people demonstrating with various left-wing slogans such as a "No Trump, No KKK, No Racist USA" banner, pro-socialist Che Guevara shirts, and numerous odes to abolishing capitalism.

One individual held a sign that said, "Cops and clan go hand in hand," as the group marched past police officers.

The crowd gathered in front of the courthouse and decided to target a statue that was created in memoriam to "the boys who wore the gray." That is, the North Carolina soldiers who fought for the Confederate Army in the Civil War.

What followed was a scene reminiscent of the French Revolution or the war in Iraq.

The rage-filled protesters tore down the statue and proceeded to kick and desecrate it. The surging mass of people hooted and hollered as individuals took turns spitting on and flipping off the generic visage of a young Southern soldier.

The act of vandalism continued unabated, as authorities stood by and watched. Durham Police put out a statement saying that they did not interfere with the toppling because it happened on "county property, where county law enforcement officials were staffed."

In the aftermath, some of the protesters took pictures in front of the crumpled-up bronze statue that had been pulverized in the fall.

Targeting this statue was seemingly an odd choice. It portrayed no individual specifically and was erected as a tribute in 1924 to the young boys, by that time old men, who had donned the uniform of the failed Confederate rebellion.

However, the attack was fitting as a mirror to the "alt-right" march that had taken place at the foot of a Gen. Robert E. Lee statue in Charlottesville. The individuals portrayed by the monuments were simply irrelevant.

This isn’t a battle over ideas or the Confederacy’s place in American history, it’s sheer and mindless identity politics.

American towns and cities are now increasingly being besieged by agitators who flaunt the law, direct their hate toward fellow citizens, and openly attack the crucial principles at the heart of the American way of life.

The resounding message that these events send is that in 2017, it’s impossible for this country to accept people of different creeds and points of views. You are either on the "right side of history," as President Barack Obama said, or you are on the wrong side.

The narrative is increasingly join us, or be crushed.

Perhaps the protesters should pay more attention to what happened in our Civil War, which claimed more lives than all of our other wars combined.

Perhaps they should study the leaders who, however imperfectly, tried to bind regions and people together to move on from a civil feud that pitted brother against brother and American against American.

And perhaps they should have studied the people, like Lee and President Abraham Lincoln, who tried to piece the shattered puzzle of American nationhood back together.

Alas, those concepts were lost in a sordid trampling of an old, barely noticed statue. Unless leaders pay increased devotion to denouncing and taking action against these lawless demonstrations, mob rule is here to stay.

SOURCE





"Allahu Akhbar" now heard in Finland

The attacker was described by police as "a youngish man with a foreign background."

Stab victim Hassan Zubier, 45, was slashed repeatedly as he tried to help an injured woman who died in his arms during yesterday's bloody rampage in Turku, Finland.

'We were strolling around the square when we suddenly heard someone screaming. I turned around. I saw a guy stabbing a woman with a knife while she lies on the ground,' Mr Zubier told Swedish daily Expressen from the Turku hospital.

'I rushed to help her and tried to stop the blood flow. Others gave her heart and lung assistance.'

The attacker then turned to slash at Zubier's girlfriend. He said that he rushed between her and the armed man and was stabbed twice.

Mr Zubier, a Swedish national, said that the attacker then moved away and he returned to the injured woman who he believed was dying on the ground.

'I try to stop the violent bleeding from her throat. Then he stabs me with the knife again. The woman is so badly injured and she dies in my arms,' he said.

Mr Zubier said that he has been stabbed in his neck, in his chest, at the side of the chest and on the back of his shoulders.

'My left hand is seriously injured. A nerve is injured, it is not certain that they can save the arm. I'm going to the MRI now, the doctors will then decide what to do.'

Mr Zubier and his girlfriend were on holiday in Turku. They were planning to have taken a cruise ship back to Stockholm on Friday night. 

Two people have been killed and at least eight wounded after a man armed with a knife stabbed several people on Market Square before he was shot by armed police.

Eight people were taken to hospital following the stabbings, including a woman who was pushing a pram. Some of the victims are in a critical condition.

Within three minutes of the attack beginning, police shot a man in the leg before arresting him.

They are now on the hunt for more potential suspects.

At least one person was pictured lying bleeding and motionless on the pavement among other victims in the southwestern city of Turku.

Chief of police Seppo Kolehmainen said the attack was not currently being treated as terror-related, but said such a motive cannot be ruled out.

The attack began at 4.02pm, officials said, with the suspect arrested at 4.05pm.

All of the victims in the attack are adults, Turko hospital chief said. 

President of Finland Sauli Niinisto speaks to journalists as he arrives for a prayer service at the Turku Cathedral for the victims of the stabbing attack which began today at 16:02

Police and emergency services rushed to Turku in response to the attack. 'International terrorism' has not been ruled out as a motive, the police chief for the area said

Finnish police said they were reinforcing security nationwide, with additional patrols and boosted surveillance following the stabbings.

Interior Minister Paula Risikko told Helsingin Sanomat she did not yet know whether the attack was related to terrorism.

The arrested suspect is being treated in hospital.

Speaking to US broadcaster CNN, Kent Svensson, 44, said: 'This guy had this huge knife in his hand - and several times he was stabbing this person. People were just running everywhere.

'This guy was just constantly stabbing. He was just turning around, flinging his knife everywhere. There were people lying everywhere. 'People were screaming and running.

'We were just talking about what happened in Barcelona. 'We thought we were safe in Finland. And then this happens.

'The woman was on the ground. She was dead. It's just awful. 'I can just see this huge knife in his hand and he's just stabbing.'  

In a video purporting to show the aftermath of the attack, people can be seen fleeing in the street.

It was also reported that a man was heard screaming 'Allahu Akbar' during the attack, but others have stressed this was merely misheard Finnish.

Turun Sanomat said police were inspecting departing trains and buses. 

'The government is following the situation in Turku closely and a police operation is under way,' tweeted Prime Minister Juha Sippila ahead of a cabinet meeting.

'Police are looking for other possible perpetrators of the crime in Turku,' security forces wrote on Twitter. 'They ask the population to leave and avoid central Turku.' 

According to local media site Uutiset, police tweeted: 'Several people stabbed in central Turku. People are requested to avoid the city centre.' Moments later a suspect was shot in the leg and arrested.     

Ilta-Sanomat, meanwhile, is reporting that people in the street tried to prevent the attack as it was going on.  One is reported to have used a baseball bat to strike the attacker. 

The attack comes just a day after at least 14 people were killed and over a hundred hurt in terror attacks in Catalonia.

SOURCE





The Group That Got Ignored in Charlottesville

The "alt-right" is evil. White supremacism is evil. Neo-Nazism is evil.

But the media have remained largely silent about another group: Antifa. Antifa is a loosely connected band of anti-capitalist protesters generally on the far left who dub themselves "anti-fascist" after their compatriots in Europe. They've been around in the United States since the 1990s, protesting globalization and burning trash cans at World Trade Organization meetings. But they've kicked into high gear over the past two years: They engaged in vandalism in violence, forcing the cancelation of a speech by alt-right popularizer Milo Yiannopoulos at the University of California, Berkeley; a few months later, they attacked alt-right demonstrators in Berkeley; they attacked alt-right demonstrators in Sacramento, California, leading to a bloody street fight; they threw projectiles at police during President Trump's inauguration; they attacked pro-Trump free-speech demonstrators in Seattle last weekend. They always label their opponents "fascists" in order to justify their violence.

In Charlottesville, Antifa engaged in street violence with the alt-right racists. As in Weimar, Germany, fascists flying the swastika engaged in hand-to-hand combat with Antifa members flying the communist red. And yet, the media declared that any negative coverage granted to Antifa would detract from the obvious evils of the alt-right. Sheryl Gay Stolberg of The New York Times tweeted in the midst of the violence, "The hard left seemed as hate-filled as alt-right. I saw club-wielding 'antifa' beating white nationalists being led out of the park." After receiving blowback from the left, Stolberg then corrected herself. She said: "Rethinking this. Should have said violent, not hate-filled. They were standing up to hate."

Or perhaps Antifa is a hateful group itself. But that wouldn't fit the convenient narrative Antifa promotes and the media buy: that the sole threat to the republic comes from the racist right. Perhaps that's why the media ignored the events in Sacramento and Berkeley and Seattle — to point out the evils of Antifa might detract from the evils of the alt-right.

That sort of biased coverage only engenders more militancy from the alt-right, which feels it must demonstrate openly and repeatedly to "stand up to Antifa." Which, of course, prompts Antifa to violence.

Here's the moral solution, as always: Condemn violence and evil wherever it occurs. The racist philosophy of the alt-right is evil. The violence of the alt-right is evil. The communist philosophy of Antifa is evil. So is the violence of Antifa. If we are to survive as a republic, we must call out Nazis but not punch them; we must stop providing cover to anarchists and communists who seek to hide behind self-proclaimed righteousness to participate in violence. Otherwise, we won't be an honest or a free society.

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, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS and  DISSECTING LEFTISM.   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  Email me (John Ray) here

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