Friday, March 22, 2019



Brainless Leftist opportunism

All jihad is local, but all "Islamophobia" is global. So, if a Muslim of Afghan origin shoots up a gay nightclub in Florida and kills 49 people, that's just one crazed loner and no broader lessons can be discerned from his act. On the other hand, if a white guy shoots up two mosques in New Zealand and kills 50 people, that indicts us all, and we need to impose worldwide restraints on free speech to make sure it doesn't happen again. I'm ecumenical enough to mourn the dead in both gay clubs and mosques, but I wonder why we are so conditioned to accept Islamic terror as (in the famous words of London mayor Sadiq Khan) "part and parcel of living in a big city" that it is only the exceptions to the rule that prompt industrial-scale moral preening from politicians and media. [UPDATE: Utrecht isn't that big a city - 350,000 - but it's today's designated "part and parcel".]

The Christchurch killer published the usual bonkers manifesto before livestreaming his mass murder on Facebook. Brenton Tarrant purports to be an environmentalist - indeed, a self-described "eco-fascist" - who admires Communist China (notwithstanding, presumably, its indifference to environmentalism). He wants to massacre Muslims in order to save the planet:

The environment is being destroyed by over population, we Europeans are one of the groups that are not over populating the world. The invaders are the ones over populating the world. Kill the invaders, kill the overpopulation and by so doing save the environment.

Does he mean this? Or is it a giant blood-drenched leg-pull?

No matter. For the the politicians stampeding to the nearest camera to dust off their tropes, what counts is that, if you're American, Donald Trump pulled the trigger; and, if you're British or European and you're not prepared to say that Google-Twitter-Facebook should silence anybody to the right of Trevor Noah, then you're part of the problem. Here's the rather less homicidal environmentalist Catherine McKenna, Canada's Climate Change Minister, getting it pitch-perfect in two steps. First, visit a mosque (although obviously not to kill everyone to "save the environment", like Mr Tarrant); second, blame those whose exhibitionism isn't as gung ho as yours:

I spoke to parents at Ottawa Main Mosque today whose kids are too scared to pray & go to school. In Canada.

Meanwhile Andrew Scheer has to be called out before he can call out Islamophobia.

For non-Canadians, Mr Scheer is the Conservative Opposition Leader. But the point is you can call him out and, as Maxime Bernier noted of his former colleague, like many jelly-spined Tories he will instantly squeal, "No, wait, hold that last seat on the bandwagon for me." Even more disturbingly, the broadcaster Charles Adler denounced the Governor General for not "calling out" Islamophobia.

The Governor General of Canada is the Queen's vicereine. As the old joke has it, she is obligated to speak in governor-generalities - as, indeed, Her Majesty is. That is what is expected of an apolitical monarch. So, when there is an act of mass murder, the Crown and its viceroys express shock and sympathy and revulsion - and leave the politics to the likes of Ms McKenna and the hapless Scheer.

I would be interested to know why Mr Adler thinks it is in the national interest to lend the imprimatur of the Crown and the state to as specious and opportunistically deployed a conceit as "Islamophobia". One of our Antipodean Steyn Club members, Kate Smyth, drew my attention to a fine example of that: After the Islamic terror attack in Melbourne four months ago, Muslim community leaders refused to meet with Aussie Prime Minister Scott Morrison because of all the systemic Islamophobia. After the Christchurch attack, the same Muslim community leaders are demanding a meeting with Morrison because of all the, er, systemic Islamophobia. To say Terror Attack A is something to do with Islam is totally Islamophobic; to refuse to say Terror Attack B is Islamophobic is even more totally Islamophobic.

Were the Queen or the Governor General to pull an Andrew Scheer and sign on to this somewhat selective view of the world's travails, it would necessarily imply that "Islamophobia" is now beyond and above politics, and in that sense beyond criticism. The use of "Islamophobia" in the Melbourne attack is, in fact, its standard deployment: it is an all-purpose card played to shut down any debate.

Not, of course, that there's much debate as it is. And there's likely to be even less in the future. Facebook, which is unable to devise algorithms preventing a depraved psychopath livestreaming mass slaughter on its platform, is busy fine-tuning its controls to expel the most anodyne dissenters from the social-justice pieties. Less speech inevitably means more violence - because, if you can't talk about anything, what's left but to shoot up the joint?

Thus the revolution devours its own. It goes without saying that right-wing madmen like Donald Trump and Andrew Scheer are to blame for Christchurch, but did you know that, when you peel back the conspiracy and discover who's really pulling the Trump-Scheer strings, you find Islamophobic white supremacist Chelsea Clinton?

Muslim students have berated Chelsea Clinton at a vigil for the victims of the New Zealand mosques massacre, saying she is to blame for the attack...

'This right here is the result of a massacre stoked by people like you and the words that you put out into the world,' says Dweik, gesturing to the vigil for the 49 who were killed in Christchurch when a white nationalist shooter stormed two mosques.

'And I want you to know that and I want you to feel that deeply - 49 people died because of the rhetoric you put out there,' Dweik continues, jabbing her index finger toward Clinton as other students snap their fingers in apparent approval of her words.

All poor Chelsea was doing was trying to cut herself a piece of the grief-signaling action, and suddenly she finds herself in one big unsafe space:

According to NYU student Rose Asaf, who posted the video on Twitter, students at the vigil were angry about Clinton's accusation last month that Rep Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat, used 'anti-Semitic language and tropes' while criticizing Israel...

Clinton was one of many who condemned Omar's remarks, writing in a tweet: 'We should expect all elected officials, regardless of party, and all public figures to not traffic in anti-Semitism.'

It's hate-filled Islamophobic statements like that that will get us all killed, Chelsea. Personally I blame Christchurch on Nancy Pelosi's recent House resolution condemning the Dreyfus Affair.

But I'm sure Chelsea's learned her lesson. How eager do you think she'll be to criticize Ilhan Omar's next outburst?

Things are changing faster than you think. The urge to change New Zealand's gun laws might be politely excused as a reflexive response to the means by which an appalling attack was carried out. But the demand throughout the west to restrict both private gun ownership and free speech are indicative of a more calculated clampdown, and of broader assumptions about control of the citizenry on all fronts. In the transition to the new assumptions, we are approaching a tipping point, in which the authorities of the state (as in the average British constabulary's Twitter feed) are ever more openly concerned to clamp down on you noticing what's happening rather than on what is actually happening.

SOURCE







Democratic Party Fails to Condemn Antisemitic Democrats Ilhan Omar and Nancy Pelosi

Perhaps the most remarkable and disquieting aspect of the revelation that 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders is employing three senior advisers with records of involvement in anti-Semitic incidents is the disinterest it has engendered in Democratic circles across the board.
First, it emerged that Senator Sanders’ campaign manager, Faiz Shakir, and his senior foreign policy adviser, Matthew Duss, while both serving previously at the left-wing Center for American Progress (CAP) think tank, had in 2012 been involved in the use of antisemitic tropes about Jewish dual loyalty and domination of money and politics on CAP’s blog and website.

Then it emerged that Sanders’ national deputy press secretary, Belén Sisa, had participated in a recent Facebook discussion in which she used the antisemitic trope of Jewish dual loyalty.

The anti-Semitic incidents involving Shakir and Duss created such a furore at the time that it led the Obama Administration –– an sdministration that was often deeply critical of, and in conflict with, Israel –– to criticize those involved and cease contacts with them.

Given that history, it is astonishing that a Democratic presidential candidate feels entirely at ease with having these three figures tainted with antisemitism within his inner circle of advisers.

The Sanders non-controversy is occurring in a wider context of Democratic Party drift towards the vociferously anti-Israel positions of the hard left, as well as the election to Congress in last year’s midterms of proponents of these positions: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D–NY), Ilhan Omar (D–MN) and Rashida Tlaib (D–MI).

These new legislators support anti-Israel campaigns, such as the Boycott, Sanctions & Divestment (BDS) movement — a position that, until now, had enjoyed no support from a sitting member of Congress.

Rep. Ocasio-Cortez is critical of Jewish communities in the West Bank (Judea/Samaria) even though they comprise less than 2% of JudeaSamaria, and there has not been a single new community built since 1993. She also asserted her support for BDS and is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, which opposes Israel’s existence.

Rep. Omar, in a 2012 tweet reacting to Israeli military operations in Gaza that followed 150 rockets fired by terrorists into Israel, said, “Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel.” She staunchly defended her tweet before finally conceding its offensiveness, belatedly deleting it.

Since arriving in Congress, Omar has made further, false antisemitic statements, like asserting that supporters of Israel are urging American lawmakers to have “allegiance to a foreign country,” and tweeting that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) bribes legislators to support Israel.

Rep. Tlaib calls Israel a “racist country” on the basis of the lie that Israel discriminates against those “darker skinned,” ignoring the country’s diversity and the fact that Israel has brought in huge numbers of black Ethiopians and dark-skinned Yemenites. She supports BDS and the destruction of Israel in favor of an Arab-dominated state (“It has to be one state”), absurdly claiming Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a consistent, outspoken supporter of Israel, as inspiration for her views. Rep. Tlaib also “absolutely” backs withholding U.S. aid from Israel.

When Tlaib was elected, she attended her primary victory party draped in the flag of the Palestinian Authority, and posed for a photo with Abbas Hamideh, a supporter of the terrorist Hezbollah group, after her official swearing-in ceremony.

What has been the reaction of senior Democrats?

Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD), the second-ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives, initially declared that he didn’t “accept” that Omar and Talib are anti-Semitic. House Democratic Caucus chair Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) described them merely as “thoughtful colleagues.” Democratic presidential candidate Senator Kamala Harris (D–CA), leapt to Omar’s defense when Omar accused Israel’s supporters of dual loyalty. And House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D–CA) legitimized Rep. Omar by elevating her to the House Foreign Relations Committee. (Pelosi subsequently criticized some of Omar’s statements, but then absolved her of harboring deliberate antisemitic intent and refused to remove Omar from her committee assignments.)

House Democrats as a whole have performed little better. Initially, they prepared a resolution prompted by Omar’s anti-Semitic statements. But many were less interested in condemning Omar’s antisemitic outbursts than in producing a resolution condemning diverse forms of racism in the abstract. In the end, that is what the Democrat-controlled House passed, without even a mention of Omar.

Rep. Karen Bass (D-CA), chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, said earlier this year that unless Republicans condemned Rep. Steve King (R-IA) and removed him from his committee assignments after he made racially insensitive remarks (which they did), the GOP would be guilty of “tacit acceptance of racism.”

Yet Bass refused to subject Omar to the same equal standard, saying she “absolutely would have a problem” if the House resolution were to call Omar out specifically.

The message is clear, dangerous and bleak: antisemitism’s introduction into political discourse by a member of Congress incurs no cost and perhaps yields rewards. Omar is already a hero in Jew-hating corners of America: neo-Nazi David Duke has gushed: “Ilhan Omar is NOW the most important Member of the US Congress!”

In short, a party whose legislators support the elimination of Israel, indulge in antisemitism and hire anti-Semitic advisers while incurring no penalty; who receive, at best, anemic criticism from their senior colleagues, and at worst, promotion to Congressional committees; is a party that is normalizing antisemitism, not marginalizing it.

SOURCE





California Rep. Devin Nunes filed a lawsuit against Twitter on Monday, claiming the social media site has “shadow banned” conservatives

Nunes, a Republican, also accused Twitter of publishing defamatory content — including from a handle that purported to be Nunes own mother, according to the complaint filed in Virginia state court.

The suit accuses Twitter of “knowingly hosting and monetizing content that is clearly abusive, hateful and defamatory… thereby facilitating defamation on its platform.”

Nunes claimed Twitter “shadow banned” his account, purposefully blocking the content he posted and limiting his reach on the site.

He alleges that the social media site did this purposefully to elevate the alleged defamatory statements made against him.

“Twitter shadow-banned Plaintiff in order to restrict his free speech and to amplify the abusive and hateful content published …,” the complaint reads.

Nunes is seeking $250 million in compensatory damages and $350,000 in punitive damages.

Federal law typically exempts social media platforms from facing charges of defamation, but Nunes argues that because Twitter actively curates the content on its site, it should be held accountable for defamatory content.

As evidence of the apparent abuse, Nunes’s legal team included a number of tweets posted by the user @DevinNunesMom.

“Between February 2018 and March 2019, Twitter allowed @DevinNunesMom to post hundreds of egregiously false, defamatory, insulting abusive, hateful, scandalous and vile statements about Nunes that without question violated Twitter’s Terms of Service and Rules,” the complaint, which was first reported by Fox News, reads.

The Twitter account, which has since been disabled, posted missives like: “Devin might be a unscrupulous, craven, back-stabbing, charlatan and traitor, but he’s no Ted Cruz,” according to the lawsuit.

The Nunes legal team also pointed to another account, “Devin Nunes’ Cow,” which called him things like “treasonous cowpoke.”

The account also wrote about Nunes: “He’s udder-ly worthless and its pasture time to move him to prison.”

SOURCE






Another enemy of Free Speech

Sounds like he gets his ideas from Chairman Mao



"I kind of miss the days of 3 major networks and a few news programs that said the same thing," he said.

"While we can't get back there, we need to establish some rules of the road and standards so that our national discourse doesn't degenerate into a million incoherent news bubbles," he added.

Who will make and enforce these "rules of the road" for American speech?

"I will appoint a new News and Information Ombudsman with the power to fine egregious corporate offenders," he said. "One of the main purposes of the Ombudsman will be to identify sources of spurious information that are associated with foreign nationals. The Ombudsman will work with social media companies to identify fraudulent accounts and disable and punish responsible parties. The Ombudsman will be part of the Federal Communications Commission."

Who is this "I" who would appoint a new federal bureaucrat to watch over the nation's online communications?

You may not have heard of Andrew Yang yet, but he is a Democratic presidential candidate. The statements above are posted on his campaign website.

Yang, a New Yorker who founded the nonprofit Venture for America, says he believes in a "free press" — but that the government needs to "start monitoring and punishing bad actors" in this realm.

If not, he argues, "foreign actors" — such as the Russians — might exploit the "freedom of information" in the United States.

"We need a robust free press and exchange of information," Yang says on his campaign website.

"But we should face the reality that fake news and misinformation spread via social media threatens to undermine our democracy and may make it impossible for citizens to make informed decisions on a shared set of facts," he says. "We need to start monitoring and punishing bad actors to give the determined journalists a chance to do their work."

Will the "determined journalists" given a "chance to do their work" by the government monitors envisioned in this plan be those who believe in the principles of limited government enshrined in the U.S. Constitution? Will they be those who respect the laws of nature and nature's God cited in the Declaration of Independence?

On a page entitled "Media Fragmentation," Yang's campaign website reiterates that he favors "freedom of the press" but laments that the press is not united by one set of "shared values."

"Outside of extreme cases of malicious libel, the freedom of the press is inviolate," the page reads. "However, the fragmentation of our media is a growing problem. Different communities are receiving their news exclusively through different channels, resulting in world views with different 'facts' that rarely overlap. We can't decide on shared values if we don't agree on basic facts; we can find shared solutions if we don't even agree what the problems are."

The page lists as a goal of this plan: "Reunify the press."

Around what values does Yang hope to "reunify" the press?

What about life? "As President," he says elsewhere on his website, "I will ... Support a woman's right to choose in every circumstance and provide resources for planning and contraception."

Does he value a "right to choose" in other health care decisions?

"We need to provide high-quality healthcare to all Americans and a single-payer system is the most efficient way to accomplish that," he says.

Recognizing the financial difficulties local newspapers face in this era, Yang also presents some plans for revitalizing local journalism.

The main driver for this? Government.

Government will fund local news organizations. "I will initiate the Local Journalism Fund, a dedicated $1 billion fund operated out of the FCC that will make grants to companies, non-profits and local governments and libraries to help local newspapers, periodicals and websites transition to sustainability in a new era," he says.

And government will fund local journalists. "I will initiate the American Journalism Fellows, through which reporters from each state nominated by a body of industry professionals and selected by a nonpartisan commission will be given a 4-year grant of $400,000 ($100,000 per year) and stationed at a local news organization with the condition that they report on issues relevant to the district during the period of their Fellowship," he says.

In other words, American journalism would become exactly what it should not be: a subsidiary of government.

Journalism's highest calling is to protect individual liberty against unjust government intrusion. Thus, great journalistic institutions fight to protect the rights to life, liberty and property against overreaching government. Those that join with government to infringe on our rights do exactly the opposite of what they ought to do.

They are not defenders of freedom; they are its enemies.

Yang's campaign already has more than 65,000 contributors, the minimum threshold the Democratic Party has set for the maximum of 20 candidates who will be allowed to participate in the first presidential debates scheduled for June and July.

If Yang joins those debates, how many of his rivals will challenge his plan to empower the government to regulate speech?

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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