Wednesday, December 07, 2016



UN "rapporteur" says Australians (and their leaders) have a big racism problem



This is part of the U.N. -- itself a highly corrupt body -- hiring people from corrupt Third World countries -- in this case Kenya -- to criticize First world countries. But no country is perfect so they will always find something to pick at. 

What is lacking is any metric, any sense of proportion.  Even an ordinal scale might be interesting:  Is Australia the 3rd most racist or the 133rd most racist?  We are not told.  Which makes the criticism pretty meaningless.  The criticisms below are entirely consistent with Australia being the least racist country in the world.  If that is so, it does put a rather different light on the criticisms, does it not?

Even politically correct old Britain has been in their firing line

One wonders at the reasons behind these pointless exercises. Are they meant to make the inhabitants of poor countries feel good?  Are they meant to make the United Nations look good?  Who knows?  There is certainly nothing scientific or even original about them.  They just regurgitate the talking points of the political Left



The United Nations' special rapporteur on racism has condemned Australian politicians from major and minor parties whose statements are contributing to an increase in "xenophobic hate speech" and negative views about migrants.

Mutuma Ruteere has also warned that political leaders who do not denounce such views are tacitly contributing to the normalisation of hard-right and racist opinions.

"If they do not speak out they lend legitimacy to them. It's very easy for darkness to drive out the light. It's very easy for the bad to demean the good. It's much harder to clear out the political space once it's infected by racists," Mr Ruteere said in Canberra on Wednesday.

Mr Ruteere was finishing a visit to Australia, the first by someone holding his position in 15 years. He comments will form the basis of a report he will deliver to the United Nations Human Rights Council next year.

Mr Ruteere said Australia was not unique among western democracies in grappling with popular support for parties with discriminatory policies and racist views.

He said the "danger" for Australia was the experience of other countries where "the fringe elements keep moving to the centre, to the mainstream [and] the fringe becomes the mainstream".

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton was criticised in November for comments he made about migrants. "That's a threat not just for Australia but all open multicultural societies. This is something open democratic states need to be aware about and to take pre-emptive action against," Mr Ruteere said.

Western democracies were "reckoning with history", he said, and "have to make the decision whether to confront the bigots and racists who purport to speak for the people but contradict" the values on which those societies were founded, such as equality of all people.

Mr Ruteere's visit to Australia coincided with the final two weeks of Parliament in which Immigration Minister Peter Dutton was criticised by Labor, the Greens, security experts and multicultural groups when he suggested Australia's immigration program in the 1970s had made "mistakes".

Challenged in Parliament to identify the groups he was referring to, Mr Dutton said "of the last 33 people who have been charged with terrorist-related offences in this country, 22 are from second and third-generation Lebanese Muslim backgrounds".

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull later praised the performance of Mr Dutton although he stopped short of endorsing his minister's comments.

The visit also coincided with a speech given by One Nation leader Pauline Hanson in which she said she was "fed up" with being called racist and backed the review of section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act.

Mr Ruteere said there was no need to change the law.

"Removing this provision would undermine the efforts taken by the various levels of government for an inclusive Australia and open the door to racist and xenophobic hate speech, which has been quite limited thanks to this provision," Mr Ruteere said.

He also praised the work of the Human Rights Commission and its president, Gillian Triggs.

During his visit, Mr Ruteere was briefed on the Royal Commission into the Protection and Detention of Children in the Northern Territory.

He recommended Australia re-examine its criminal justice system to "embrace alternatives to detention and avoid mandatory sentences" and urged Australia to grant constitutional recognition to Indigenous peoples as soon as possible.
 
SOURCE






UK: 'Right on' critics are ignoring problems caused by immigration, government tsar warns

The author of a bombshell report on immigration and integration in Britain today slammed 'right on' critics for ignoring real problems.

Dame Louise Casey made a series of extraordinary recommendations today after months studying the impact of migration across the country.

Among her proposals is a demand for all new migrants to Britain to take an oath of allegiance where they promise to embrace liberal values before arriving. 

Dame Louise said ghettos have formed because the pace and scale of immigration has been 'too much' and some towns and cities have been transformed 'out of all recognition', it says.

She said successive governments have 'ignored or even condoned regressive, divisive and harmful cultural and religious practices, for fear of being branded racist or Islamophobic'.

But Mohammed Shafiq, chief executive of the Ramadhan Foundation, has condemned the report as 'inflammatory, divisive, pandering to the agenda of the far right'.

'We are saddened that once again British Muslims have become a political football which is bashed from time to time without any regard for the impact this has on individuals who then are subjected to threats and violence,' he said.

When confronted with this on Radio 4 Dame Louise dismissed some critics as 'right on' and said the UK could 'no longer duck difficult issues' even if parts of her report would be 'hard to read'.

The report warns that rapid population change has also increased ethnic segregation and left communities more divided than ever, she said, adding: 'We are developing pockets where there is a monoculture, a monoethnicity and that's a concern'.

Warning of 'escalating division and tensions in society', she called for greater efforts at integration to 'bind Britain together'.

Currently migrants do not have to swear an oath unless they want to secure UK citizenship. At the moment, millions of migrants must take a 'Life in the UK' test about their knowledge of Britain to secure their right to stay.

Dame Louise also says the criteria for full citizenship should be reviewed.

Communities Secretary Sajid Javid said he would be studying the findings closely but the Ramadhan Foundation condemned the 'inflammatory' report.

Mr Javid said the UK was home to many cultures and communities 'but all of us have to be part of one society - British society'.

'So while it's right that we celebrate the positive contribution that diverse groups make to British life, we also need to continue making sure that nobody is excluded from it or left behind,' he said.

'To do that, we need to take a serious look at the facts and must not shy away from the challenges we face.'

Dame Louise's shock new report says Muslims in some parts of the country are so cut off from the rest of society that they believe the majority of Britons share their faith.

The new review says Muslim enclaves are concentrated in northern areas such as Bradford, Birmingham and Blackburn, where MailOnline revealed last month there is a halal butcher who has never served a white customer. 

Some rarely, if ever, leave their neighbourhoods, and believe that Britain is a Muslim country in which up to three-quarters of the population follow Islam, the report says.

However, figures from the 2011 Census put the actual proportion of Muslims in England and Wales at under five per cent, while Christians account for nearly 60 per cent.

Dame Louise's report criticises the rise of 'Sharia councils', which have been allowed to run unhindered and in some cases support extremist values, wife beating and forced marriage and marital rape.

Mosques and Islamic organisations are offering regressive advice about the behaviours expected of Muslim women and girls.

This includes not being able to leave the house without telling their husband, not being allowed to travel without a chaperone or even not being able to wear jeans, despite Islamic theologians dismissing such advice as inappropriate, she says.

And there is not just segregation in Muslim communities, Dame Louise said that there are hundreds of electoral wards where there are 40 per cent non-white British residents or more. In 17 wards the figure was 90 per cent.

In one borough of Sheffield there is a 6,000-strong Roma or eastern European community living together.

In Jewish orthodox communities they have been allowed to teach their children  'that a woman's role is to look after children, clean the house and cook'.

While some Christian groups have been allowed to try to 'cure' people of homosexuality' without being challenged.

And the Polish community in Britain has grown by 500,000 in a decade, with many heading to areas like Boston, Lincolnshire.

The report concludes: 'We know that where communities live separately, with fewer interactions between people from different backgrounds, mistrust, anxiety and prejudice grow.

'Conversely, social mixing and interactions between people from a wider range of backgrounds can have positive impacts; not just in reducing anxiety and prejudice, but also in enabling people to get on better in employment and social mobility.'

The report, commissioned by David Cameron to try to address how some Muslim communities are cut off from the rest of society, also:

- Recommends schoolchildren are taught 'British values' of tolerance, democracy and respect as well as the country's laws, history and values;

- Warns that women are being held back by regressive cultural practices and face coercion, violence and abuse;

- Warns that children being taught at home or outside mainstream schools are being exposed to divisive practices;

- Calls on ministers to provide more English language classes for 'isolated groups'.

Among community cohesion tsar Dame Louise's recommendations is an 'oath of integration with British values and society' for new arrivals. Migrants who want to come to the UK could also be required to sign up to 'clear expectations on integration' when applying for visas.

Her report says that while Britain has benefited hugely from immigration and increased ethnic and religious diversity, 'nowhere near enough emphasis has been put on integration in communities to match the pace and scale of the change in our population in recent years'.

In a bleak warning about the impact of mass immigration, it reports some communities saying the pace of change has been 'too much' for them to deal with.

Dame Louise, a former homeless charity executive, said last night: 'Social integration is about closing the gaps that exist between people and communities. This report has found those gaps exist in terms of where people live but also in terms of the lives they lead and the opportunities they have to succeed. So it is about how we get on in life, as well as how we get along with each other.

'To help bind Britain together and tackle some of the division in our society, we need more opportunities for those from disadvantaged communities, particularly women, and more mixing between people from different backgrounds.

'We also need more of a spirit of unity, compassion and kindness that brings people together under our common British values of tolerance, democracy, equality and respect.'

The report says promoting British laws, history and values within the 'core curriculum in all schools' would help build integration, tolerance, citizenship and resilience in children. Dame Louise also says it is 'extremely concerning' that some children are opting out of state education 'without sufficient checks on their wellbeing and integration'.

Dame Louise says efforts to promote integration in recent years have failed, adding: 'They have been well-meaning but grossly insufficient to cope with the scale of the challenge. Events and projects that have been described to us as 'saris, samosas and steel drums' can help bring people together but too often attract the already well-intentioned and do not succeed in tackling difficult issues.'

Her conclusions about the conditions facing some women are particularly excoriating. Women face 'persistent gender inequalities' in some communities, including lack of job prospects at best, and at worst 'coercive control, violence and criminal acts of abuse, often enacted in the name of cultural or religious values'.

Dame Louise also calls for more action to tackle 'regressive and harmful' practices in Muslim communities, such as forced marriage, female genital mutilation and other abuses.

Dame Louise's oath proposal has not even come before ministers, so is a long way from potentially becoming law.

Dr Alan Mendoza, of the Henry Jackson Society security think-tank, said: 'This review contains serious concerns about the state of integration between different communities in the UK today, particularly Muslim communities in certain areas. I would urge the Government to strongly consider the nature of this problem and commit to action to counter it.'

Jon Yates, of The Challenge, a leading social integration charity, said: 'Unless we act urgently our country is in danger of becoming a less integrated and more divided place.'

SOURCE






Newt Gingrich Defines Trumpism: ‘If You See Something That’s Really Stupid, Change It’

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Friday that Trumpism is all about getting things done in government and changing whatever is not working.

“Trumpism is going to be about the following principle: If you see something that’s really stupid, change it,” Gingrich said during a speech at the American Legislative Exchange Council’s (ALEC) States & Nation Policy Summit held in Washington, D.C.

Gingrich praised President-elect Donald Trump, saying that “the heart of the reason that Trump emerged was he actually knows how to do things.

“That is, when Trump would go out and raise the money to build a building, the people actually expected a building. And so he had to contemplate what does it take to build a building? And then he actually had to get the building built,” Gingrich explained.

The former speaker told the audience of state legislators that with Republicans now in the majority in Congress, it is time for them to learn a new “evolutionary process led by an entrepreneurial leader who has three characteristics that are amazing.”

“He’s three different people,” Gingrich said of the president-elect. “If you want to understand how Trump operates, he has the disruptive patterns of Andrew Jackson, he has the sheer biological energy of Theodore Roosevelt, and he has the compulsive salesmanship of P.T. Barnum.

“And these three weave together to produce outcomes that are dramatically better than anyone I’ve ever seen.”

Gingrich noted that the Republican Party is now at a “watershed” moment in the life of the nation.

“We are potentially, if we do our jobs, at a genuine watershed. I always use the watershed model because when the rain comes down, if it hits this side of the watershed, it goes this way. If it hits this side, it goes this way. It’s decisive.

“So, for example, in the Appalachians, there’s a point the water will go either to the Gulf of Mexico, or it’ll go to the Atlantic. It’s that decisive,” Gingrich said.

Gingrich pointed out there are now “over 4,100 state legislators, the most in the history of the Republican Party since its founding in 1854. The most ever. We have 34 governors, which ties the most in modern times. We have 25 states in which the legislature and the governor are Republican, which means in theory, we should be held accountable for whether or not we’re really different.”

Gingrich noted that during the presidential campaign, Trump frequently asked his advice before taking the debate stage.

“Every time I said to him: ‘I don’t have any advice about debating.’ I said: ‘You’re a better debater than I am,’ because he’s totally intuitive,” Gingrich said.

“He somehow senses the audience, he senses his opponent. He figures out exactly what language will work. His opponent stands there like a deer in the headlights, going: ‘You’re not allowed to say that.’ And he just pounds on them.”

However, the former speaker also stressed the fact that although Donald Trump won the election, the hard work has only just begun for him.

“I said to the President-elect the day after the election: ‘You have now won a ticket to the dance. That’s all. Now you’ve got to dance,” Gingrich said. “And you’ve got to dance well enough to get re-elected and you gotta dance for four more years. You gotta dance well enough to be successful as a Republican, and in eight years of good dancing, then you can write your memoir.

“But it ain’t like the election. The election was the beginning, not the end,” he concluded. 

SOURCE




'No Room at the Inn' -- Rejected Nativity Scene Finds Home at Homeless Shelter

CBN News is reporting that a nativity scene that was removed from a public park in northern Michigan has found a home in front of a homeless shelter.

The nativity scene had been at the Menominee Marina Park when the Freedom From Religion Foundation made a complaint that a religious display was not allowed on government property.  Menominee City Manager Tony Graff tells WLUK-TV that the display was taken down shortly when the city attorney determined that the display was “a violation of our own policy” governing what can be put up on public property.

Pastor David Pennell from Abundant Life Church and Mission then offered to help relocate the nativity scene in front of his homeless shelter. "You know it's kind of appropriate that the baby Jesus' home is now at the homeless shelter, seeing there was no room at the inn for him," Pennell told CBN.

He added that the nativity scene will now be the first thing anyone sees when they cross the bridge into town. "It's almost kind of a divine intervention that now many people will see it instead of just the ones that go downtown," he said.

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

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