Gates of Vienna News Feed 6/11/2011

Gates of Vienna News Feed 6/11/2011Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) says that he expects the rate of inflation to reach 50% in the next two years. The debt is so large that it cannot possibly be paid off, and the only way out is “default through inflation”.

In other news, a dissident Shia group in Bahrain known as the “Youth of February 14” has called on Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to intervene in Bahrain’s crisis. Mr. Ahmadinejad says that he intends to propose a plan for Bahrain that will resolve the country’s problems.

Meanwhile, in the wake of the “sexting” scandal, Nancy Pelosi and other Democrat leaders have asked Congressman Anthony Weiner (D-NY) to resign. Mr. Weiner, however, says that rather than resign, he will take a brief leave of absence so that he can enter a psychiatric program to help him with his problem.

To see the headlines and the articles, open the full news post.

Thanks to AC, C. Cantoni, Fjordman, Gaia, Insubria, JA, JD, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.

Commenters are advised to leave their comments at this post (rather than with the news articles) so that they are more easily accessible.

Caveat: Articles in the news feed are posted “as is”. Gates of Vienna cannot vouch for the authenticity or accuracy of the contents of any individual item posted here. We check each entry to make sure it is relatively interesting, not patently offensive, and at least superficially plausible. The link to the original is included with each item’s title. Further research and verification are left to the reader.

15 thoughts on “Gates of Vienna News Feed 6/11/2011

  1. Wow! You all were very busy today over on the other thread which is now closed to comments. 🙂

    In my defense….

    Takuan Seiyo, I would be so sad if you were referring to me and asked GoV to choose between us. I love GoV – and also Jews (!) and Israel (!) – but I do think that Jews are humans – and ALL humans constantly make free will choices to engage in either good or bad behavior that leads to good or bad results for themselves and other humans.

    In other words, as with any other human group that chooses to self-identify (based on sex, race, religion, nationality, etc.), Jews are just as fair game to blame and criticize as to credit and compliment.

    I remember a recent discussion about women voting where, as I recall, your assertion (along with others here) that women should be denied the vote based on their female group membership greatly offended me – and yet, I neither called for banning you or others from commenting at this site nor did I threaten to walk away if you or others continued to comment here.

  2. I want to relate a story about a 2009 PBS program called Manor House that forever changed how I view the issue of servitude – and slavery – and the Holocaust.

    In Manor House, the people playing the upper class family ended up loving the people playing their servants BUT the people playing the servants HATED the people who had played their masters.

    Here’s a comment from the top-rated review at Amazon:

    “The best example for poor leadership in the house, however, probably occurs at the end. Sir John and the family are so distraught about leaving the house. They breakdown in front of the servants while saying good-bye, and they feel awful about leaving everyone whom they’ve come to feel so close to. At the same time, the servants are rather glad to be leaving aside from missing other people in their group, and most of them have developed a strong dislike for the family, of which the family is completely oblivious. The implication? Well, first, this shows how easily the same situation can look to two different groups of people on different sides of a situation. Secondly, if that was an organization, it would be on the brink of having its workforce walk out on it, even though, to the eyes of management, everything was splendid and, as they understood it, everyone was very connected to everyone else at all levels.”

  3. How I relate this to slavery and the Holocaust is that white people are currently absolutely oblivious to the high level of anger of some blacks about slavery and some Jews about the Holocaust.

    At a local military base, I taught an integrated Speech class full of career enlisted people pursuing their college educations as adults ready to retire from the military and enter the civilian workforce.

    At one point in class, after we read Martin Luther King, Jr.’s famous “I Have a Dream” Speech, the class was discussing racial issues and a quite beautiful and charming black lady nobly arose from her seat and said something along the lines of: “I forgive all you white people for slavery.”

    I had to reply, “My relatives were eating grass in Italy during the period of American slavery.” It was clear that no one but no one had ever answered the black lady in a non PC MC way before, and she was visibly surprised but took my comment pretty well.

  4. In my college classes that included black people, I would always try to get black people to understand that suffering is the HUMAN condition – versus merely the black condition.

    In this same class, this lady and I openly debated which of two bad situations was worse – American slavery or the Holocaust. I maintained that the Holocaust was worse because its stated purpose was genocide whereas at least American slave owners had incentive to keep their slaves alive. She maintained that American slavery was worse.

    I let my students select their speech topics from a list of pre-approved topics that I picked to open their minds about certain topics crucial to creating a well-educated mind – and soul.

    To my surprise, the quite beautiful and charming black lady chose to research and speak about the Holocaust. To her credit, she opened her mind and soul! In her speech, she admitted that she was horrified to learn of the suffering of World War II Jews and that no one had ever taught her about that before.

  5. In that same college class, there was a really great black man who told the story that the military base had allowed a person living in base housing to fly the Confederate flag, and he had complained to the base leaders who replied that flying the Confederate flag was simply freedom of speech. So, the black man decided to fly a Nazi flag at his house on base – just to make a point about the Confederate flag.

    Now, it was difficult for me to tell this great black man that he was wrong, but I did – gently – in front of the class. I said that, while I understood his point, his flying of the Nazi flag may have caused Jews great pain and given them the wrong impression of his values. He admitted that I was right, and he would come back to visit me and tell me that he had learned so much in my class. I truly liked him – and all of my students – and they knew it. 🙂

  6. The take-away point here is that it IS possible to have productive conversations about race – and religion (!) – IF the participants are genuine, civil, good-hearted, and open-minded.

    That said, I would like to answer the following genuine questions that Hesperado posed to Chechar:

    Hesperado: “Explain partial culpability placed on the Jews. What does it mean concretely?”

    Jewish organizations that 1) self-identify as Jewish and are predominantly funded and/or staffed by Jews, and that 2) lobby for open immigration policies (even for Israel itself!) and/or hate speech laws SHARE culpability for the destruction of Western civilization with like-minded non-Jewish groups and people.

    Hesperado: “What is Jewish about it? How does it differ from idiot Methodists, Lutherans, Baptists, Catholics, Copts, Hindus, Agnostics, Atheists (+ a massive etc.) who defend Muslims?”

    What is Jewish about the partial culpability is that the Jewish organizations self-identify as being Jewish. A better question would be, why do Jewish people feel that Jewish people require organizations defined by their Jewishness?

    The support of self-identifying Jewish organizations for Muslims differs from the support given by other religions because 1) Jewish people have a long and intimate history with Islam and a recent experience of its brutality that adherents of the majority of the other religions that you listed lack, and 2) Jewish people have numerous friends and relatives who live in Israel and the Middle East who can provide timely, honest, and accurate first hand reports of the continuing and now escalating brutality of Islam.

  7. Hesperado: “How many Jews are involved?”

    One assumes that, if desired, we easily ascertain the numbers of staff and general membership or readership of self-identifying Jewish organizations that support open immigration policies (even for Israel!) and hate speech laws.

    Hesperado: “Why are the Jews who are not culpable not involved?”

    Current experience with Muslims. 🙁

    Better upbringing. 🙂

    Better education. 🙂

    Freedom of association. 🙂

    Hesperado: “Why can’t we say that the Jews who are not culpable are that way for Jewish reasons?”

    We can WHEN self-identifying Jewish organizations and people lobby on behalf of ideas and policies that support Western civilization instead of Muslim-philic multiculturalism. To wit, I often admire Pamela Geller, Caroline Glick, Debbie Schlussel.

    I have seen numerous non-Jewish anti-jihad print and video valentines supporting Jews and Israel.

    Have you seen any Jewish print and video valentines thanking non-Jews for their support of Jews and Israel?

    Maybe Pamela Geller?

    Self-identifying Jewish organizations and people might consider thanking the non-Jewish members of the anti-jihad movement for their support – loudly and frequently!

  8. Hesperado: “Why can’t we say that the Jews who are not culpable are that way for Jewish reasons?”

    Also, let’s invert your question and apply it to World War II Germans. Why can’t we say that the Germans who are not culpable are that way for German reasons?

    Answer: Because, it’s irrelevant to the larger picture which, in German example, would be that, if a minority of a self-identifying ethnic group thinks and acts in opposition to the majority of the group (or even uncontested organizations that claim to represent the majority), which aspect of the ethnic group holds more power to define the ethnic group, the damaging majority – or the mitigating minority? Right, the majority defines the group. If you don’t like that, then find another group to represent you!

    P.S. I would say the same thing to Muslims.

    And thus, even to this day, ALL Germans are tarred by the ‘bad’ actions of the majority of Germans (or their uncontested representatives) in World War II – even the minority of ‘good’ Germans.

  9. Hesperado: “Why are Jewish reasons only ascribed to the culpable Jews?”

    So what you are really asking is, “Why are ‘we’ equating Judaism with negative behavior towards Western civilization?”

    Let’s invert your question and apply it to Nobel Prize winners: “Why are Jewish reasons only ascribed to the Jewish geniuses?” To wit, maybe Jewish Nobel Prize winners are geniuses who just happen to be Jewish – as opposed to being geniuses because they are Jewish.

    In this case, what you would really be asking is, “Why are ‘we’ equating Judaism with positive behavior towards Western civilization?”

    If we can impute positives being attributed to Jewishness, then might not some negatives also be imputed to Jewishness? Granted, perhaps a positive like high IQ might be genetic with a cultural element whereas a negative like fundamental distrust of Western civilization might be cultural – based on recent past experience in World War II – or even doctrinal – based on the Jewish proscription of intermarriage between Jews and everyone else.

  10. BUT, what I really want to discuss on another day is the role of George Soros in the destruction of Western civilization.

    And, yes, I firmly believe that the Jewishness of George Soros motivates his destructive actions against the West.

    And, yes, I believe that George Soros is MORE than partially culpable for a lot of negative behavior.

  11. “And, yes, I firmly believe that the Jewishness of George Soros motivates his destructive actions against the West.”

    George Soros is a baha’i..

  12. Egghead:

    You know, I am sick and tired of hearing about slavery and how all white people should feel guilty.

    The teaching of slavery is designed to foster this kind of hate and resentment, and not teach the truth as black people themselves were the biggest source of slavery.

    In fact whole African kingdoms were dependent and thrived on slavery, such as the Akan of the kingdom of Asante in what is now Ghana, the Fon of Dahomey (now Benin), the Mbundu of Ndongo in modern Angola and the Kongo of today’s Congo to name a few.

    Fairly recently, historians John Thornton and Linda Heywood of Boston University produced an evidenced estimate that 90 percent of those shipped to the New World were enslaved by Africans and then sold to European traders.

    Then there were the Arab traders and Jewish traders too – not to mention that a huge proportion of the black slaves were transported in Jewish owned ships such as Abigail, Crown, Nassau, Four Sisters, Anne & Eliza and Prudent Betty to name just six of many.

    So it was not just ‘whitey’ I am afraid. Not in reality. In fact whilst ‘whitey’ may have bought slaves, ‘whitey’ overwhelmingly didn’t actually carry out enslavement. Black people did.

    In fact what did the emancipated US blacks who flocked to the western African state they called Liberia do with their freedom?

    They created a new racial order in their new country with themselves at the top and the indigenous African populace at the very bottom and wasted no time in enslaving the indigenous Africans and selling them. It was so horrific and blatant that even the League of Nations had to get involved in 1927.

    5% of these emancipated US blacks and their descendents lorded it over the other 95% of the indigenous African populace right up until 1980 and it only ended then because they were violently removed.

  13. And if we are going down the collective responsibility route, when is Obama going to apologize for rampant and massively disproportionate black crime? When is anyone going to take responsibility for that?

    And lets face it, its hardly just in the US, it is in every single western country that black people reside in. And trust me, I can quite easily present the official statistics to back that up.

    In fact Obama’s very election told us that black people vote for black people, that race is clearly the prime motivator just as Latinos vote for Latino’s.

    But that’s fine.

    It’s just when white people organize its ‘evil’ and ‘racist.’

    When are Europeans going to get apologies and reparations for the millions who were captured and enslaved under the Ottoman controlled Barbary slaver trade? Or the Moors? Or the Mongolians?

    When are Europeans going to even be taught these things in school? Or is one history of slavery all that matters?

  14. Hi Van Grungy: No matter what religion Soros would claim today, his choices would be informed and influenced by his being born and raised a Jew who, as a teen, was forced by fate into a situation where he – allegedly – felt it necessary to deny his birth religion and his people (with the full realization that the teenage Soros also had free will in the very bad situation in which he found himself).

    Also, the Bahá’í religion is a patent fraud – and perhaps even a version of that moderate Islam that we all anticipate. Although Bahá’ís are considered infidels, the Bahá’í religion is actually extremely reminiscent of Islam with its veneration of Mohammed and its worldwide ummah with an undertone again implying Arab supremacism.

    The Bahá’í Website reveals:

    “Throughout history, God has revealed Himself to humanity through a series of divine Messengers, whose teachings guide and educate us and provide the basis for the advancement of human society. These Messengers have included Abraham, Krishna, Zoroaster, Moses, Buddha, Jesus, and Muhammad. Their religions come from the same Source and are in essence successive chapters of one religion from God.”

    “Bahá’u’lláh, the latest of these Messengers, brought new spiritual and social teachings for our time. His essential message is of unity. He taught the oneness of God, the oneness of the human family, and the oneness of religion.”

    While there is a oneness of GOD, there is most definitely NOT a oneness of religion (um, that would be the ummah).

    Anyone who claims that Mohammed is an advancement and/or successor of Jesus Christ is a fraud (um, that would be the ummah, too).

    Also, while the Bahá’í claim that men and women are equal, I believe that I have read before that only men are the ultimate rulers of the Bahá’í. (No time to verify today.)

  15. You know, I am sick and tired of hearing about slavery and how all white people should feel guilty.

    The teaching of slavery is designed to foster this kind of hate and resentment, and not teach the truth as black people themselves were the biggest source of slavery.

    Likewise the one-sided anti-European “blood libel” version of history according to jews.

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