Sunday, May 03, 2009

Top British Leftist politician sends out greetings for every festival EXCEPT Christmas!

He is the son of a prominent Marxist theoretician

Foreign office mandarins have begun a consultation on whether to mark Christmas. They have ordered a review into which religious festivals should be the subject of special greetings from the Foreign Secretary. It follows complaints from staff that David Miliband sent out a Ramadan message to Embassy staff around the world, but neglected to prepare one for Christmas Day or Easter.

Mr Miliband has also been accused of ignoring St George's Day, while giving Scotland's First Minister, Alex Salmond, 'plenty of FCO airspace' to wish Scots a Happy St Andrew's Day. Embassy staff are now being asked to nominate occasions which should be celebrated, to avoid upsetting different faiths and nationalities.

The FCO sends out statements to mark Ramadan, the Muslim festival of fasting, and Jewish New Year. But Mr Miliband, who once revealed he did not believe in God, has never sent his own Christmas tidings, to the fury of some staff.

In an internal newsletter called News and Views, Mark Thomas, who works in staff policy, complained: 'It was depressingly predictable that the Foreign Secretary found the time to deliver a special Ramadan message after scoring misses at Christmas, Easter and any other number of occasions when different faiths celebrate special festivals or periods throughout the calendar year.

'The decision to afford Alex Salmond plenty of FCO airspace to wish Scots a Happy St Andrew's Day, while neglecting David, Patrick and George - and not for the first time - was equally disturbing.'

In response, Nicola Bowles, FCO head of corporate communications wrote: 'As you say, the current system for celebrating British (and FCO) diversity with messages from the Foreign Secretary and others on significant dates could maybe be improved. 'We are now consulting with private offices, stakeholder managers and the diversity strategy unit to draw up guidelines that strike the right balance. 'The aim is to find a way to celebrate our diversity - and offer reassurances to groups who may feel marginalised - without falling into the trap of diminishing impact (or indeed overloading our communications system) through an unnecessary plethora of messages.'

The move comes a month after a report from Human Resources consultancy-Couraud said the Foreign Office was sinking into 'stagnation and decay' because of political correctness. Devotion to gender and race equality, together with inertia and weak leadership are crushing the spirit of those working there, it said.

SOURCE



The fight for the survival of free speech

Most Americans are sleepwalking right now through the early reign of Obama the Magnificant. He tells them he is cutting spending, cutting taxes, and cutting the deficit, and they believe him. When they find in 2010 and 2011 that he deliberately misled them and has been doing just the opposite, and they are deep in the soup as a result, public opinion will turn decisively against him.

Meanwhile, our "mainstream media," which should be called the Party Controlled Press, are quite successfully maintaining the smokescreen in promoting the Obama propaganda line, acting as slavishly as Pravda and Izvestia did towards the Kremlin in the old Soviet Union. This is the beginning of the end of free speech in America.

Next is to target the remaining holdouts, primarily conservative talk radio and the Christian broadcasters. Then the Internet. And if Fox News doesn't stop airing independent voices, and learn to toe the party line, the Obaman Left will further browbeat them. Now is the time for true patriots to stand up and fight for the survival of free speech in America. Grassroots activism is needed here. If the Left shuts down free speech, we will no longer have a free country.

Property Rights: The Foundation of All Other Rights

The airwaves, meaning the broadcast spectrum, are already publicly owned. That means we already have socialism in radio and TV broadcasting. This is the root of the gathering threat to free speech. Because the airwaves are publicly owned, government control and regulation of speech on those airwaves is considered justified.

This public ownership is at the root of the Fairness Doctrine. It was considered permissible for the government to regulate the "fairness" of broadcast speech because the airwaves are publicly owned. No one ever talks about regulating the fairness of print media because printing presses are all privately owned.

The main threat to broadcast free speech is coming under the rubric of "localism." Because the airwaves are publicly owned, broadcasters operate under a regulatory requirement that they serve the needs and interests of the local community. Of course, the only way broadcasters can succeed economically is by serving the needs and interests of the local community. It's called ratings. If a radio station only broadcasts programs that nobody in its local community is interested in, obviously it is not going to last very long. If a station is broadcasting shows whose ratings are among the highest in the local community, then obviously it is serving the needs and interests of the community, broadcasting exactly what the local community is most interested in.

But the government doesn't want to measure localism in this way because then there is no role for government. The market is taking care of it. Moreover, there is no political gain in looking at it that way. What the government means by localism is serving the needs and interests of self-appointed, local, political activists, not real people as represented by the largest audiences.

That is why the FCC has already endorsed the idea of requiring radio stations to each "convene a permanent advisory board made up of officials and other leaders from the service area of its broadcast station." Though it has not yet adopted such a regulatory requirement, this is among the first things that the Obama FCC could do, once the new Obama appointed chairman, Julius Genachowski, is confirmed. But even without a regulatory requirement, in the current political environment with the Obama controlled FCC, a station that does not even have a local advisory board is going to be vulnerable during license renewal. As a result, conservative talk radio stations have already begun voluntarily setting up such local advisory boards.

And who would be on these boards? Are they going to be dominated by the left-wing grassroots activist groups ACORN and MoveOn.org? Couldn't we expect to see all the other usual suspect lefty groups, Code Pink and associated peace activists, government labor unions that want higher taxes, environmental extremists that want to repeal the industrial revolution, advocates of unilateral disarmament, assorted sexual identity groups, NARAL, NORMAL, Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, anti-nuclear power activists, etc.?

These boards are an entry wedge that would enable Obama effectively to take control of the radio stations. Indeed, all the FCC has to do is pay close attention to what these boards say during license renewal proceedings. Suppose such a local board recommends that a station's license not be renewed? If that weighs heavily in the renewal decision, then that board, and all other such boards around the country, would have a powerful influence on the stations and what shows they choose to air. Suppose such local boards then start objecting to nationally syndicated radio shows such as Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity as not serving the needs and interests of the local community as well as a local talk show host would. Would they develop an effective veto at least over nationally syndicated shows?

Indeed, suppose the local community advisory board vigorously supports during the renewal process switching the license to some or all of the members of the board itself. Then the board would become the radio station. All of this can be done during license renewal proceedings without even any new regulations from the FCC.

That is why if radio stations are going to have these local advisory boards, local conservative activists must get on the board as well. Local taxpayer activists, gun owners, pro-life advocates, veterans, Christian leaders, small businessmen, pro-family activists, libertarians, those who advocate traditional values, free market advocates, call and write your local talk radio stations and demand to become a member of the station's local advisory board. You should not limit this to conservative talk radio. Call your local NPR affiliate and demand representation on its advisory board as well. If they don't have an advisory board, complain loudly to the FCC about it, and renew those complaints during their license renewals.

SOURCE



Antisemitism is rife in the Nordic countries

In recent years the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs has published several articles about the Nordic countries, Jews, and Israel in both the Jewish Political Studies Review and Post-Holocaust and Anti-Semitism. Gradually a picture has emerged of these countries that differs greatly from the often superficial friendliness the visiting tourist experiences, or the impressions one gains abroad from the few usually positive articles in international media. Little is known about the multiple negative events in the Nordic countries regarding Israel and the Jews.

This volume aims to provide a more strategic picture of the Nordic countries' attitudes toward Israel and the Jews than is available elsewhere in English. Our research clarifies that in recent years part of the societal elites, particularly in Sweden and Norway, have been responsible for many pioneering efforts to demonize Israel. Prominent among the perpetrators are leading socialist and other leftist politicians, journalists, clergy, and employees of NGOs. This demonization is based on the classic motifs of anti-Semitism, which often also accompany its new mutation of anti-Israelism.

Behind the Nordic countries' righteous appearance and oft-proclaimed concern for human rights often lurk darker attitudes. This volume's main purpose is to lift their humanitarian mask as far as Israel and Jews are concerned. This disguise hides many ugly characteristics, including the financing of demonizers of Israel, a false morality, invented moral superiority, and "humanitarian racism." Such humanitarian racists think-usually without expressing it explicitly, sometimes not even being conscious of it-that only white people can be fully responsible for their actions while nonwhites cannot (or can but only to a limited extent).

A journalist for the Norwegian conservative daily Aftenposten reacted to the prepublication of this author's essay on Norway in this volume, stating that its tone was "extraordinarily shrill." This was a bizarre remark in view of the tone of the daily that employs him. Assuming that he was writing in good faith, it illustrates a major problem: being in denial about matters that occur in one's own environment. In recent years Aftenposten has published a variety of extreme anti-Semitic cartoons, articles, and letters to the editor. Before World War II it also published anti-Semitic articles. No overview of twenty-first-century West European anti- Semitism can be complete without reference to this paper. The facts presented in this volume about this Norwegian "quality daily" demonstrate how hypocrisy and anti-Semitism converge.

Much more HERE



Miss California finds her new cause

Prejean promotes marriage

Miss California may have lost a pageant, but she's not sorry. She has won a cause. Carrie Prejean's politically incorrect response to a question about same-sex marriage may have cost her the Miss USA crown, but apparently it's going to take more than a few insults from celebrity blogger Perez Hilton to change her mind. "It's unfortunate that this happened, but it's become such a blessing," Miss Prejean said in a telephone interview Tuesday with The Washington Times. "I'm glad I didn't win that pageant, because I now have a cause, I now have a purpose and I'm going to pursue it."

Not only is Miss Prejean refusing to apologize, explain her answer or even stay out of the spotlight, but she's unabashedly promoting traditional marriage in post-pageant appearances, including later this week in Washington and in Lynchburg, Va.

In doing so, she's become an inspiration to conservative Christians, especially those in California, who are reluctant to speak out on behalf of traditional marriage in the face of shifting cultural mores, said Miles McPherson, her pastor at the San Diego-based Rock Church. "Every week, we tell our congregation to do something bold, and here she did it on the biggest stage in the world," said Mr. McPherson, a former San Diego Chargers football player who founded the evangelical megachurch. "It's about standing up for faith in the face of persecution. A lot of people are intimidated about saying what they believe because it's not politically correct."

Last week in New York, he said, dozens of people went out of their way to thank Miss Prejean for taking her stance. "People left and right kept coming up to her, telling her how much they appreciated what she said," Mr. McPherson said. "It was overwhelming."

Indeed, her statement on behalf of traditional marriage and the response she received from Mario Armando Lavandeira Jr. - the openly gay blogger better known as Perez Hilton - may represent a turning point in the marriage debate, said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council. "I think it was a very significant event. It's just the Miss USA pageant, but it could be a turning point in the cultural battle that's being waged," he said. "People have rallied around Carrie and said, 'Enough is enough.' "

Miss Prejean, 21, was considered the front-runner in the April 20 Miss USA Pageant when Mr. Lavandeira, a pageant judge, asked her to weigh in on same-sex marriage.

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, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. 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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