Wednesday, May 06, 2015



Scottish Nazism to the fore

In the 1930s Hitler had a special party arm (the brownshirts)  that specialized in breaking up the meetings of other parties.  A similar situation has arisen in Scotland these days.  There a group of extreme-Left nationalists even break up the meetings of the Labour Party, the major British party of the Left.  Intimidation and silencing of your opponent are Leftist reflexes so it has an element of justice that Labour party people are finding out how it feels to be on the receiving end of such tactics.  They don't like it! A current report below:

Labour tonight accused the SNP of tipping off a mob of nationalist campaigners - after the party's leader in Scotland Jim Murphy was forced to abandon a planned rally when he was confronted by dozens of angry campaigners.

A group of around 30 separatist activists hurled abuse at Mr Murphy, who was campaigning in Glasgow with the comedian Eddie Izzard, eventually forcing the pair to flee in a getaway car.

In scenes reminiscent of some of the confrontations during last year's independence referendum - when Mr Murphy was egged, spat at and abused during a 100-day tour of Scotland - then chased the pair as they attempted to leave.

A young girl was left in floods of tears by the aggressive scenes, which also saw a photographer and TV reporter pushed to the floor, and several activists caught up in a violent scrum.

The protest was organised by the leader of far-left campaign group 'Scottish Resistance' James Scott, self-styled anti-austerity campaigner Piers Doughty Brown and former SNP candidate Sean Clerkin - who have all been pictured with leading SNP politicians.

Mr Murphy was greeted with shouts of 'traitor', 'Judas' and 'warmongering scum' by the mob of protesters in Glasgow's St Enoch Square, who drowned out Mr Murphy and Izzard using megaphones and music speakers.

Speaking after the event the Scottish Resistance chief Mr Scott said his group was part of an alliance of pro-independence groups aiming to overthrow 'British imperialism' and defended this morning's chaotic scenes. He added: 'We are not provoking them, we are annoying them.'

Allegations later emerged on Twitter that one of Nicola Sturgeon's spin doctors had given some of the protesters details of the location and timing of the event. However, this was emphatically denied by the SNP.

But a spokesman for Mr Murphy, who said that while he could not believe the First Minister's office would direct the group, added: 'The 'nothing to do with us' defence doesn't hold water.'

More HERE






Black rioters in Israel too

The crunch of broken glass and stun grenade shards could still be heard underfoot in Tel Aviv’s Rabin square early Monday morning as the day’s first papers sailed onto the blood-spattered sidewalks, carrying the news of the most intense clashes the so-called White City had seen in decades from the night before, and beginning the requisite round of hand-wringing over violence by both the protesters and police.

Front page headlines like “Battle Zone” (Israel Hayom) “Rage Square” (Yedioth Ahronoth) and “About 50 injured in Tel Aviv protest,” accompanied by pictures of an overturned cop car, riot police on horseback, black protesters and clouds of tear gas, set the tone for the tenor of coverage, which focuses on the violence that punctuated the night while also addressing causes for the demonstration and the claims of racism by the Ethiopian community.

Dani Adino Ababa, embedded for Yedioth with the protesters, gives a firsthand view from inside the chaos that reigned in Rabin Square, writing of the moment all hell seemed to break loose out of nowhere.

“’We are not violent,’ the protesters shouted and raised their hands in the air. ‘We want no violence, we suffer from pain.’ However at this moment the event lost control,” he writes. “Rocks were thrown in every direction, and after that bottles went flying in the air, trash cans and even bikes that were parked nearby, damaging car windows. The police response was no less violent: phalanxes of horses galloped on the masses with no warning to clear the demonstration, while shooting stun grenades and tear gas, and water cannon trucks tried to clear a way through the center of the events.”

A Haaretz account reports that most of the protesters were in their 20s and 30s, many in army uniforms, with their shirts untucked. “Others waved Israeli flags or held up signs reading ‘I didn’t choose to be born black but that’s my right,’ or ‘Since when is color a crime.’”

The paper notes that activists say the struggle against racism suffered by the Ethiopian Israeli community is nothing new. “We will protest until somebody from the government will come and give real solutions, we won’t leave,” a protester named Solomon is quoted telling the broadsheet.

Israel Hayom reports on the response of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, calling for calm while not dismissing the claims of the protesters. The paper also cites the police pulling the old Sacco and Vanzetti, placing the blame for the troublemaking on anarchists.

“Some of the people here were incited by anarchists, you can see well who is there with the protesters,” Tel Aviv police chief Bentzi Sao is quoted telling the paper.

Even with the police claim, though, the 5-0 face some tough questions on how they responded to the protests, including from Ben Dror Yemini in Yedioth.

“The protest that paralyzed Tel Aviv yesterday was furious, justified and formative. After hours of quiet came a turning point. It’s not clear how it started. It’s possible there were hotheads among the protesters. In mass protests there is always a violent minority,” he writes. “And the police, oh the shame, lost patience. Why? Why respond with smoke grenades? Why not keep their cool? The masses came out to protest against violence. So why in the hell did the police response need to be so forceful? Given police brutality in the past years against Ethiopians, there’s a suspicion that there was more violent provocation from the cops than from the protesters.”

Haaretz’s editorial sums up the feeling among most of the commentators across the papers: the protest was justified, even if the violence was not: “No group in society need accept discrimination by the authorities. The immediate cause of the latest demonstrations may be police brutality, but the protest is broader, reflecting a lack of hope for any change, particularly among younger people who were born and educated in Israel and have personally experienced the degree to which Israeli society is unwilling to accept them,” the paper writes.

In Israel Hayom, Boaz Bismuth admits that there is a problem with the way Ethiopians are treated, but after comparing the protest to the Baltimore riots (albeit without the baggage of 300 years of slavery) he blames the discrimination on a unique mixture of Israeli stupidity and bad luck: the fact that Ethiopians arrived in Israel around the same time as masses of non-Jewish African migrants.

“Unfortunately for our Ethiopian brothers, they got here at the same time as illegal migrants began coming from Africa, and there’s no shortage of idiots who confused them. Not to say that the migrants are worthless and they deserve to be treated badly, but what to do when a new immigrant is the same as every other Israeli, but there are those who get confused between them. Both in relations with them and also in protests,” he writes, ignoring the fact that the largest waves of Ethiopian immigration predated the migrant influx by a couple of decades.

SOURCE






Some Leftist hate from England

Some translations for non-British readers: A scouser is someone from the Liverpool area.  A skiver is a work-avoider.  A Trot is a Trotskyite, a far Leftist



Esther McVey, the jaunty Tory Scouser, with her boss Iain Duncan Smith, has made it harder for benefits skivers to suck off the state.  It is in no small way thanks to Miss McVey that welfare abuse has faded and 1,000 jobs a day have been created during this Government.

Boy, Miss McVey has taken some stick, not least from that sexist oaf John Prescott, who naturally got her name wrong and sneered about her penchant for dressing in smart outfits.

Lady Prescott has also been known to buy the odd frock, I believe...

The trade unions hate 5ft 4in Esther so much, they are funding a ‘sack McVey’ campaign, depicting her as the spoor of ‘wicked’ Mrs Thatcher.

At times it has seemed every moaning Trot on Merseyside has descended on West Wirral to campaign against ex-television presenter Esther.

Labour MP John McDonnell said that she should be ‘lynched’.

 For getting youngsters into work! Imagine the hoo-hah from the BBC if a male Tory MP said a Labour woman should be physically attacked.

Yesterday morning found Miss McVey – accompanied by her wiry dad Jim, who used to run a Liverpool construction firm – near West Kirby’s waterfront.

Five years ago, one in four shops in nearby Hoylake was boarded up. Now West Wirral is booming, Unilever is investing millions, Vauxhall is taking on workers and the local number of welfare recipients has dropped 50 per cent.

 ‘Labour’s bullying is hurtful, yeah, but if they think I am going to be intimidated, they have the wrong person,’ said Miss McVey.

She was being helped yesterday by other Tory candidates from the Liverpool area: Jackson Ng, Ed McRandal, Martin Williams, Gillian Keegan.  All admitted that it was character-building being a Tory in Merseyside’s Labour heartlands.

But Wirral West certainly ain’t that. I’d say Labour’s sexism and negativity may have backfired.

New residents Jesper and Tina Toft introduced themselves and Miss McVey kept rising on her flat-shoed tiptoes to talk to tall Jesper.

The Tofts knew nothing about her beforehand. They went away with a Tory poster and a blue sticker for their cocker spaniel Charlie.

Wine merchant Paul Nelson, 59, thanked Miss McVey for ‘putting forward a positive image of Merseyside’. Schoolgirl Issy White, 16, was cross that the local Labour Party had criticised her state school. The White household, previously Labour, was now leaning to the Tories.

Retired industrialist Bill Lancaster said he had been tempted by Ukip but Miss McVey’s work-rate had converted him.

SOURCE






Clinton: Religion Must Surrender to Progressive Ideology

There is little question the American Left is arrogant. It is an arrogance suffused with a self-aggrandizing worldview that begins and ends with the simplest premise: You either agree with us, or you’re wrong. But not just wrong in the sense of having a different opinion. Wrong in the sense that you’re a knuckle-dragging Neanderthal at best, or the embodiment of evil itself at worst. In other words, you’re either on board with us, or you’re completely illegitimate.

The above explanation fits Hillary Clinton to a tee. At the sixth annual Women in the World Summit, Clinton brought up one of the Left’s most cherished planks, abortion on demand. “Far too many women are denied access to reproductive health care and safe childbirth,” she insisted, “and laws don’t count for much if they’re not enforced. Rights have to exist in practice, not just on paper.”

One is left to wonder what denial of access Clinton bemoans. It can’t be Planned Parenthood (PP), an organization whose name completely belies its true function. As its 2013-2014 Annual Report reveals, PP received more than $528 million in taxpayer funds in the form of government grants, contracts and Medicaid reimbursements that accounted for 41% of its total resources. And despite its ostensible non-profit status, the abortion giant has $127 million in excess revenue and more than $1.4 billion in net assets.

Where does the money go? According to a fact sheet disseminated by the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List, PP devoted 94% of 2013 “pregnancy services” to performing abortions. Prenatal care and adoption services accounted for 5% and 0.05% of its activities, respectively. Moreover, between the years 2011-2013 for which figures are available, PP performed 988,783 abortions.

PP chair Alexis McGill Johnson and president Cecile Richards couldn’t be happier. “We’ve come a long way since Margaret Sanger was jailed in 1916 for opening America’s very first birth control clinic,” they explained at the report’s release. “Today, 99 percent of sexually active American women at some point in their lives use birth control — and, thanks to Planned Parenthood and the Affordable Care Act, more than 48 million women are now eligible to receive it with no copay.”

Sounds like a boatload of access, at least to “reproductive” health care. Safe childbirth? Not so much, a reality that deeply troubles people of faith — a group with this “crazy” notion that abortion constitutes the wrongful termination of a human life.

Not to worry, though. Hillary has a “solution” for their concerns. “Laws have to be backed up with resources and political will,” she declared. “And deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed. As I have said and as I believe, the advancement of the full participation of women and girls in every aspect of their societies is the great unfinished business of the 21st century and not just for women but for everyone — and not just in far away countries but right here in the United States.”

If that sounds like people of faith must either abandon that faith or be considered wholly illegitimate, or “structurally biased” as it were, it’s because that’s exactly what Clinton proposes. In short, you’re either pro-abortion or a “bitter clinger.” That euphemism entered the national zeitgeist courtesy of Barack Obama, whose administration has made it clear that the only thing standing between it and the evisceration of the First Amendment’s Freedom of Religion clause is a 5-4 Supreme Court decision in the Hobby Lobby v. Burwell case. The Court decided corporations with sincerely held religious beliefs are under no obligation to provide a full range of contraceptives — including abortifacients — at no cost to their employees as mandated by ObamaCare.

Yet abortion is only one arena where people of faith are being steamrolled. As Solicitor General Donald Verrilli made clear during oral arguments before the Supreme Court on the subject of same-sex marriage, the heavy hand of government will be imposed on those who refuse to embrace progressive “values.” When asked by Justice Samuel Alito if the Obama administration would be willing to impose penalties on institutions that refuse to abide same-sex marriage, Verrilli admitted as much. “It’s certainly going to be an issue,” he conceded. “I don’t deny that.”

Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins spells out the inevitable, writing, “Translation: If churches, religious groups, schools, or nonprofits won’t surrender their beliefs on marriage, the government will make it hurt.” And regardless of what the Court decides, Justice Anthony Kennedy illuminated the stakes with a simple remark, noting the definition of marriage as between a man and a women “has been with us for millennia.” Therefore, he said, “[I]t’s very difficult for the Court to say, ‘Oh well, we know better.’”

Progressives have no such inhibitions. And that would be fine were it not for the reality that they are determined to forcibly impose their worldview by any means necessary on those who disagree.

How arrogant is Clinton in that regard? As recently as 2013 she opposed same-sex marriage, and in 2004 she called traditional marriage a “fundamental bedrock principle.” How hypocritical? “I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and you disagree with this administration somehow you’re not patriotic,” she huffed in 2003.

Not patriotic? Now if you disagree with the leftist onslaught, you’re a homophobic, religiously impaired bigot who must abandon millennia of traditional beliefs — or be deliberately targeted if you don’t.

Live and let live? A concept for which those who profess to be the most tolerant among us have zero tolerance. “Evolving” on issues as Clinton and Obama have on same-sex marriage? Embrace progressive ideology right now or be penalized in every way possible.

A number of Christian leaders are fighting back with a pledge defending traditional marriage. One of their reasons for doing so stands out. “Family is the first vital cell of society, the first government, and the first mediating institution of our social order,” the pledge states. “The future of a free and healthy society passes through marriage and the family.” Anyone else think this is a message that might resonate in Baltimore right about now?

One last thought regarding abortion: Perhaps the debate on the issue might be imbued with far more honesty if the phrase “a woman’s right to choose” included the first choice, as in the decision to have unprotected and/or irresponsible sex leading to an unwanted pregnancy.

SOURCE

*************************

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

***************************


No comments: