Amongst those who have come to the realisation that Islam is not in fact a religion of peace at all, there are a strand of optimists who think it can somehow be reformed in the way Christianity was reformed in the middle ages. American reformist Muslim Zuhdi Jasser appears to be of this belief.
Reform is clearly necessary. 1.5 billion Muslims are not just going to disappear, and after 1,400 years it's deeply ingrained in the culture of huge chunks of the human race. It is not, like fascism or communism just going to evaporate or collapse under it's own weight.
It's almost impossible to overstate the difficulty of reforming Islam though. Reforming Christianity already took several centuries and much bloodshed. It's important though to understand how Islam is inherently anti-reform. One of the fundamental premises of Islam as a religion is that Mohammed was the final prophet and that the 'People of the Book' - the term the Quran uses for Jews and Christians - had over the years perverted and forgotten important parts of the message given to them by previous prophets,
In a sort of divine 'for the last bloody time' God decided to dictate his commands word for word, via the angel Gabriel to the prophet Mohammed and this became the Quran. Not only is it unchangeable, perfect and complete according to every extant Islamic tradition, but it was actually brought about by our bad habit of reforming previous revelations. How then, can you significantly alter the meaning without undermining the very purpose of the book?
The way in which a phrases in the bible such as "let he who is without sin cast the first stone" can readily be taken as an example in a certain historical context and applied to warn followers against hypocrisy or over zealous moralising. The direct, divine command in the Quran to "slay the non-believers where you find them" has no historical context. It is just that, the word of God as revealed to Mohammed.
To reform this will require either a fundamental shift more profound than anything experienced by Christianity, or a gradual withering to replace the ideological components with a vague cultural Islam which largely ignores the actual teachings of Mohammed.
Either of these could take centuries and have huge overspill for the rest of the world. The important thing at this stage is to understand this and have our own strategy for protecting our culture and security at home and our interests and allies abroad.
Friday 4 December 2015
Tuesday 24 November 2015
The Narrative Must Survive
Why is it so difficult to accept that Islam has deep rooted problems? We have 14 centuries of evidence and a core text which gives explicit sanction to every single action of Islamic State and all the actions of the various Islamic extremist groups. Yet still we stick with this ridiculous notion that it's all some sort of a misunderstanding. That an essentially peaceful religion is being twisted by a small number of fanatics.
There's a line in the film Full Metal Jacket which so brilliantly sums up the main attitude behind this brilliantly. When confronted with a young private who appears to have doubts about the war he explains that they are helping the Vietnamese because "inside every gook there's an American trying to get out." In a politically incorrect way, this articulates the very politically correct conceit at the core of the multicultural dogma - that our western values are universal human values, and only entrenched tyranny and ancient prejudice is preventing the world from living up to them.
The reality is a little more complex. Even if this is true on a genetic level, deep cultural values are ingrained in people from the moment they enter the world, and clearly not everyone aspires to the secular, western lifestyle. The tyrannies are as much a result of the culture as the culture a result of the tyranny, and thus the prejudices become self-reinforcing.
In this way 'diversity' tends not to lead to a united whole where everyone converges on a central idea and maintains superficial differences, but quite the reverse. People converge on superficial ideas while the deep rooted differences actually grow as they regard each others cultures with horror and recoil into self-propagating isolation.
In this way Muslim communities across the western world are more isolated than they were 30 years ago. Young Muslims born in western countries are more radical than their parents. Young women are more likely to wear hijabs and young men more likely to join IS. The entire narrative and ideology behind peaceful coexistence with curry and real ale has fallen apart.
A collapsing narrative of this type is difficult to process. The film Goodbye Lenin! captures this beautifully, following an East German family attempting to hide the collapse of Soviet Communism from their bedridden mother. It is something that people have a deep emotional attachment to and when defending it logically fails they will swear black is white rather than change their premises.
Thus David Cameron can say with utter certainty that Islam is a religion of peace just days after the Paris atrocity, sanctioned by a man with a Doctorate in Islamic studies and perpetrated by devout Muslims shouting 'Allahu Akbar.' Thus the media greeted with delight the advert in the Telegraph taken out by the Muslim Council of Britain condemning the attacks in the loosest terms. Thus the entire body of incredibly detailed research by the likes of Robert Spencer and Daniel Pipes, along with the pronouncements of Muslim scholars themselves can be completely ignored in favour of vague platitudes.
The narrative must survive, even if it is wrong, because if it fails then all manner of assumptions which rest upon it also fail.
There's a line in the film Full Metal Jacket which so brilliantly sums up the main attitude behind this brilliantly. When confronted with a young private who appears to have doubts about the war he explains that they are helping the Vietnamese because "inside every gook there's an American trying to get out." In a politically incorrect way, this articulates the very politically correct conceit at the core of the multicultural dogma - that our western values are universal human values, and only entrenched tyranny and ancient prejudice is preventing the world from living up to them.
The reality is a little more complex. Even if this is true on a genetic level, deep cultural values are ingrained in people from the moment they enter the world, and clearly not everyone aspires to the secular, western lifestyle. The tyrannies are as much a result of the culture as the culture a result of the tyranny, and thus the prejudices become self-reinforcing.
In this way 'diversity' tends not to lead to a united whole where everyone converges on a central idea and maintains superficial differences, but quite the reverse. People converge on superficial ideas while the deep rooted differences actually grow as they regard each others cultures with horror and recoil into self-propagating isolation.
In this way Muslim communities across the western world are more isolated than they were 30 years ago. Young Muslims born in western countries are more radical than their parents. Young women are more likely to wear hijabs and young men more likely to join IS. The entire narrative and ideology behind peaceful coexistence with curry and real ale has fallen apart.
A collapsing narrative of this type is difficult to process. The film Goodbye Lenin! captures this beautifully, following an East German family attempting to hide the collapse of Soviet Communism from their bedridden mother. It is something that people have a deep emotional attachment to and when defending it logically fails they will swear black is white rather than change their premises.
Thus David Cameron can say with utter certainty that Islam is a religion of peace just days after the Paris atrocity, sanctioned by a man with a Doctorate in Islamic studies and perpetrated by devout Muslims shouting 'Allahu Akbar.' Thus the media greeted with delight the advert in the Telegraph taken out by the Muslim Council of Britain condemning the attacks in the loosest terms. Thus the entire body of incredibly detailed research by the likes of Robert Spencer and Daniel Pipes, along with the pronouncements of Muslim scholars themselves can be completely ignored in favour of vague platitudes.
The narrative must survive, even if it is wrong, because if it fails then all manner of assumptions which rest upon it also fail.
Monday 23 November 2015
Secretary of (Islamic) State
US Secretary of State John Kerry made a telling remark recently about just how far down the Sharia road the Barak Hussein Obama administration is. Responding to the Paris attacks of the 13th of November he contrasted them with the Charlie Hebdo attacks in January:
“There was a sort of particularized focus and perhaps even a legitimacy in terms of — not a legitimacy, but a rationale that you could attach yourself to somehow and say, ‘Okay, they’re really angry because of this and that.’"
Absorb those words. A sort of legitimacy to mowing down cartoonists and back office staff in a magazine office because they published something that offended them. He backpedalled on the word legitimacy fairly quickly, but his meaning is quite clear. The west must bend and moderate it's values to accommodate Islam.
Viewed as the inane mewlings of an outgoing 'progressive' Secretary of State this is one thing. However, that would be the wrong way to view it.
People have a misconception that sharia law in the west means beheadings and stonings. Sharia does mean these things in it's most extreme form, but that is just one aspect. It's like equating secular law with incarceration.
Sharia is a legal system outlined in the Quran and developed over 1,400 years of Islamic jurisprudence. It covers how Muslims should live but also how non-Muslims must act, and how the two should interact. It is shamelessly supremacist, relegating non-Muslim dhimmi to second class status by treaty. Those who seek peace without converting to Islam are subject to a raft of restrictions and impositions. Converting to Islam removes these rules.
The key point for Kerry's comments relates to the principle that the dhimmi, as such conquered people are known, is the well established principle that those who criticise Islam have broken their treaty obligations and are no longer protected.
The west is developing it's own form of Sharia, not by a formal pact but on a case by case basis where overt criticism of Islam or the defence of western values is seen as an afront to Islam.
A better lens through which to view this insane comment is to see John Kerry as some vanquished local priest in the medieval Levant. His church crumbling and his congregation dwindling. His response to another random outburst of sectarian violence against Christians is to try and restore order and safety at any price. To remind Christians that it's their fault for breaking the terms of the pact.
He still notionally proclaims the truth of his faith, quietly, out of earshot of the Muslim rulers. But the message is clear. We must change to accommodate their violent intolerance. We know the rules, and we can't complain too much when they enforce them.
It is a sad and pathetic attitude for anyone in a free western country to have. For one of the most powerful political leaders in the most powerful of western countries it is appalling. What hope does anyone have of defending free speech when such a figure gives 'legitimacy' to the Charlie Hebdo attacks?
Thursday 19 November 2015
Five Days
Five days. That's how long it took for someone to come out with the phrase that rightly deserves to be a parody of political cowardice and duplicity as regards violent Islam. The phrase of course is 'Religion of Peace.' I am amazed anyone can say it with a straight face.
"It cannot be said often enough that these butchers of IS are no reflection of the true religion of Islam, which is a religion of peace."
And it gets even stranger
"But we do have to recognise that whether these terrorists are in Tunisia, Paris or London, they spout the same bile that they claim comes from the religion of Islam.
That is why we have to take apart what they say and prove that's not the case."
And it gets even stranger
"But we do have to recognise that whether these terrorists are in Tunisia, Paris or London, they spout the same bile that they claim comes from the religion of Islam.
That is why we have to take apart what they say and prove that's not the case."
What if when you take apart what they say you find that what they say exactly corresponds very closely to Islamic scripture and Islamic jurisprudence? A possibility he appears to have already ruled out, which is a strange starting point, unless he claims to know more about Islam than Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the head of IS who has a PhD in Islamic Studies and has dedicated years of his life to better understanding the religion. Of peace.
An Unlikely Islamophobe
The excellent website of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) posts translations of items from the media of the Middle East, and often comes up with interesting things. One recent article in particular stands out as being especially illuminating.
Adnan Hussein, the Editor if Iraqi daily newspaper Al-Mada wrote this excellent article in response to the attacks in Paris.
Discussing the causes of terrorism, he nowhere mentions the iniquities of global capitalism or the legacy European colonialism. He doesn't even mention the muddled American led intervention in his country. He uses no empty platitudes about a religion of peace.
Instead he lays the blame firmly at the door of radical Islam and the all pervading culture of teaching this insane creed to generation after generation of Arabs and Muslims.
Had he written this article in a western newspaper he would have been derided as a racist and an Islamophobe. As an Arab Muslim saying this he is simply ignored.
Why do we insist on maintaining this bizarre insistence that Islam is nothing to do with terrorism?
Adnan Hussein, the Editor if Iraqi daily newspaper Al-Mada wrote this excellent article in response to the attacks in Paris.
Discussing the causes of terrorism, he nowhere mentions the iniquities of global capitalism or the legacy European colonialism. He doesn't even mention the muddled American led intervention in his country. He uses no empty platitudes about a religion of peace.
Instead he lays the blame firmly at the door of radical Islam and the all pervading culture of teaching this insane creed to generation after generation of Arabs and Muslims.
Had he written this article in a western newspaper he would have been derided as a racist and an Islamophobe. As an Arab Muslim saying this he is simply ignored.
Why do we insist on maintaining this bizarre insistence that Islam is nothing to do with terrorism?
Tuesday 17 November 2015
The Need for a Western Culture
Islamic State should be a pathetic side show. A rabble of fundamentalist nutcases and disgruntled, bored youths running around the deserts of the middle east living out some depraved fantasy which seems half Qu'ranic literalism and half Grand Theft Auto. Yet this disjointed band of crackpots have managed to baffle the world's major powers and now carry out a serious terrorist atrocity in a major European city.
If it came down to guns, bombs, planes and military tactics then the silliest, weakest most pacifistic of western powers could crush them in a week. The trouble is it doesn't just come down to that. It comes down to will, and the west had collectively lost it's will to stand up for it's values, or even state them.
I think it's a form of cultural masochism. People with an essentially slave or subordinate mentality now have their freedom and they don't know what to do with it. It scares them. They now have to think for themselves, make moral judgements or drift around in a relativist quagmire clutching at fashionable ideas which later turn out to be wrong.
They hate the culture they have created and find the certainty and moral absolutism of radical Islam appealing. They can still have the same old enemy of the stodgy old conservative white men who disapprove. Their more repellent attitudes can be blamed on their poverty and lack of education, which is our fault. Their radical and violent tendencies towards us can be blamed on our support for Israel and our imperialism a century ago. The continued failure of many Muslims to integrate into secular western democracies is our fault because we're racist.
They couldn't possibly, with a very few exceptions, go back to the culture they hated and I don't suppose most people now would have any real working memory of life before the cultural revolution of the 1960s, nevermind before the post WW2 welfare boom, or the certainties of a bold and confident British empire, run by white protestants.
Nor should we look to go back to these things. They were already out of date when they were overthrown.
What we have failed to do is create or evolve any sort of alternative which is both inspiring and inclusive enough to really motivate people to defend it, let alone evangelise it or wish to see it spread in the wider world. Instead we have a sort of loose buffet of ideas about a welfare state which is already essentially collapsed, freedom of expression so long as it doesn't go too far or cause any real offence, multiculturalism which is fragmented and divisive and gives no central values which all people living here can be expected to share.
We 'tolerate' everything without really standing for anything.
To me, we have many things that are worth standing for. We have had them for centuries, but they have become tarnished by imperialism, militarism and national, religious and racial chauvinism of a long gone era, and we have essentially thrown out the baby with the bathwater.
Monday 16 November 2015
The Religion of Peace Fights Back - Or Does it?
There isn't a lot to say on the Paris attacks that hasn't been said already. Another 130 lives lost to the religion of peace, and the worst act of violence in France since the end of World War 2.
The immediate aftermath of the Paris attacks provided fairly slim pickings for those of us who were looking out for the usual idiotic platitudes about the religion of peace, and the claims that it is somehow misunderstood by a tiny number of Muslims, who take a few passages of the Qu'ran out of context and blacken the name of an otherwise peaceful creed.
Piers Morgan was first out of the traps with his absurd suggestion that they were not 'real Muslims.' As though the dough faced loudmouth was somehow better placed to determine what constitutes true Islam than Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who has a PhD in Islamic studies.
Then the Islam PR machine got into gear, with Qanta Ahmed in the Spectator describing the attacks as 'an act of war against Islam.' An absurd 'black is white' statement and frankly insulting to the scores of people who died in Paris for whom, like many others senselessly slaughtered throughout the world, the last words they heard on earth would have been "Allahu Akbar."
Meanwhile the twits on Twitter, so beloved of people who like to get a slogan across without having to back it up with any substance, have made #notinmyname the hashtag for 'moderate Muslims.' So moderate it seems that they have missed the point that jihad was never done in their name. It is done, as many Parisians found out on Friday in the name of Allah.
And better late than never, Reuters published this on Sunday night. The predictable grim warnings of an 'Islamophobic backlash' and the preparations for cries of persecution and discrimination against Muslims. As though they are somehow the victims here.
The biggest fraud of the moment though seems to be the open letter to al-Baghdadi, published late last month and signed by an array of Islamic scholars. The letter is the brain child of Abdallah Bin Bayyah, a prominent Islamic scholar and it does indeed condemn IS and their actions. There are however, a few problems.
At 18 pages and heavy with references to the Qu'ran and the Hadiths, it's not light reading. At this stage I have only skimmed it but a few things stand out:
Regarding the need to read the whole Quran and not just cherry pick parts of it the "Moderate" Muslims Scholars claim that the reason behind this is that everything in the Qur’an is the truth, and everything in authentic Hadith is Divinely inspired, so it is not permissible to ignore any part of it.
Pretty definitive. Not all that moderate. So presumably including this part
Quran 2.191-193 said:
"And kill them wherever you find them, and turn them out from where they have turned you out. And Al-Fitnah [disbelief or unrest] is worse than killing...
but if they desist, then lo! Allah is forgiving and merciful. And fight them until there is no more Fitnah [disbelief and worshipping of others along with Allah] and worship is for Allah alone. But if they cease, let there be no transgression except against Az-Zalimun (the polytheists, and wrong-doers, etc.)"
This literalism is exactly the problem with Islam.
But the real give away comes when they cite this often misused quote:
Quran 5.32 said:
‘Because of that, We decreed for the Children of Israel that whoever slays a soul for other than a soul, or for corruption in the land, it shall be as if he had slain mankind altogether; and whoever saves the life of one, it shall be as if he had saved the life of all mankind. Our messengers have already come to them with clear proofs, but after that many of them still commit excesses in the land .’
But Muslims are not the Children of Israel. Jews are. So this passage is merely saying that Jews are prohibited from killing anyone.
They acknowledge quite openly the desire for a Caliphate
There is agreement (ittifaq) among scholars that a caliphate is an obligation upon the Ummah. The Ummah has lacked a caliphate since 1924 CE.
Their objection to slavery appears to be mostly regarding the lewdness of taking sex slaves, and the bad image it will give Islam, ending as it does with the warning that
You bear the responsibility of this great crime and all the reactions which this may lead to against all Muslims.
Their section on hudud, the sadists charter for flogging, mutilating, stoning and beheading those who offend Islam begins not with, as you might hope, an unequivocal statement that while this may have been acceptable in 7th century Arabia, it is not acceptable anywhere today. Instead they write:
The immediate aftermath of the Paris attacks provided fairly slim pickings for those of us who were looking out for the usual idiotic platitudes about the religion of peace, and the claims that it is somehow misunderstood by a tiny number of Muslims, who take a few passages of the Qu'ran out of context and blacken the name of an otherwise peaceful creed.
Piers Morgan was first out of the traps with his absurd suggestion that they were not 'real Muslims.' As though the dough faced loudmouth was somehow better placed to determine what constitutes true Islam than Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who has a PhD in Islamic studies.
Then the Islam PR machine got into gear, with Qanta Ahmed in the Spectator describing the attacks as 'an act of war against Islam.' An absurd 'black is white' statement and frankly insulting to the scores of people who died in Paris for whom, like many others senselessly slaughtered throughout the world, the last words they heard on earth would have been "Allahu Akbar."
Meanwhile the twits on Twitter, so beloved of people who like to get a slogan across without having to back it up with any substance, have made #notinmyname the hashtag for 'moderate Muslims.' So moderate it seems that they have missed the point that jihad was never done in their name. It is done, as many Parisians found out on Friday in the name of Allah.
And better late than never, Reuters published this on Sunday night. The predictable grim warnings of an 'Islamophobic backlash' and the preparations for cries of persecution and discrimination against Muslims. As though they are somehow the victims here.
The biggest fraud of the moment though seems to be the open letter to al-Baghdadi, published late last month and signed by an array of Islamic scholars. The letter is the brain child of Abdallah Bin Bayyah, a prominent Islamic scholar and it does indeed condemn IS and their actions. There are however, a few problems.
At 18 pages and heavy with references to the Qu'ran and the Hadiths, it's not light reading. At this stage I have only skimmed it but a few things stand out:
Regarding the need to read the whole Quran and not just cherry pick parts of it the "Moderate" Muslims Scholars claim that the reason behind this is that everything in the Qur’an is the truth, and everything in authentic Hadith is Divinely inspired, so it is not permissible to ignore any part of it.
Pretty definitive. Not all that moderate. So presumably including this part
Quran 2.191-193 said:
"And kill them wherever you find them, and turn them out from where they have turned you out. And Al-Fitnah [disbelief or unrest] is worse than killing...
but if they desist, then lo! Allah is forgiving and merciful. And fight them until there is no more Fitnah [disbelief and worshipping of others along with Allah] and worship is for Allah alone. But if they cease, let there be no transgression except against Az-Zalimun (the polytheists, and wrong-doers, etc.)"
This literalism is exactly the problem with Islam.
But the real give away comes when they cite this often misused quote:
Quran 5.32 said:
‘Because of that, We decreed for the Children of Israel that whoever slays a soul for other than a soul, or for corruption in the land, it shall be as if he had slain mankind altogether; and whoever saves the life of one, it shall be as if he had saved the life of all mankind. Our messengers have already come to them with clear proofs, but after that many of them still commit excesses in the land .’
But Muslims are not the Children of Israel. Jews are. So this passage is merely saying that Jews are prohibited from killing anyone.
They acknowledge quite openly the desire for a Caliphate
There is agreement (ittifaq) among scholars that a caliphate is an obligation upon the Ummah. The Ummah has lacked a caliphate since 1924 CE.
Their objection to slavery appears to be mostly regarding the lewdness of taking sex slaves, and the bad image it will give Islam, ending as it does with the warning that
You bear the responsibility of this great crime and all the reactions which this may lead to against all Muslims.
Their section on hudud, the sadists charter for flogging, mutilating, stoning and beheading those who offend Islam begins not with, as you might hope, an unequivocal statement that while this may have been acceptable in 7th century Arabia, it is not acceptable anywhere today. Instead they write:
Hudud punishments are fixed in the Qur’an and Hadith and are unquestionably obligatory in Islamic Law.
They go on to point out that a high burden of proof is needed.
So at first glance it seems like more of the same duplicity (taqiyya, permitted by the Quran) and lame defence of a fundamentally violent and intolerant religion. And of course at the length and tone of this, few people will ever read it thoroughly. But the likes and the shares on Facebook (tracked on the site) will probably help the image of Islam, and provide a great reply to anyone looking to show how moderate Muslims do condemn IS.
Not that I imagine these scholars secretly support IS or it's methods, they probably don't. But they do not offer an alternative, peaceful, secular interpretation of Islam. They appear mostly to disagree on the means, not the end, and the finer points of it's application rather than the fundamental idea behind it.
They don't disown the principle of jihad, or put any clear distance between themselves and the brutal hudud punishments. They don't offer a reformed, moderate Islam compatible with life in a 21st century secular democracy. They appear to be offering first and foremost advice on public relations.
A long way short of anything that would convince me that the people who chose to slaughter scores of innocent men and women in Paris on Friday are just some loony fringe who have taken a few passages out of context.
On the plus side all of this is a lot more subdued than we have become accustomed to, and indeed than I was expecting. Poland has said no more migrants. France closed it's borders immediately. No major political figure has yet visited a Mosque. Perhaps Europe is finally starting to stir out of the deep and deadly slumber from which it has been so reluctant to awake.
They go on to point out that a high burden of proof is needed.
So at first glance it seems like more of the same duplicity (taqiyya, permitted by the Quran) and lame defence of a fundamentally violent and intolerant religion. And of course at the length and tone of this, few people will ever read it thoroughly. But the likes and the shares on Facebook (tracked on the site) will probably help the image of Islam, and provide a great reply to anyone looking to show how moderate Muslims do condemn IS.
Not that I imagine these scholars secretly support IS or it's methods, they probably don't. But they do not offer an alternative, peaceful, secular interpretation of Islam. They appear mostly to disagree on the means, not the end, and the finer points of it's application rather than the fundamental idea behind it.
They don't disown the principle of jihad, or put any clear distance between themselves and the brutal hudud punishments. They don't offer a reformed, moderate Islam compatible with life in a 21st century secular democracy. They appear to be offering first and foremost advice on public relations.
A long way short of anything that would convince me that the people who chose to slaughter scores of innocent men and women in Paris on Friday are just some loony fringe who have taken a few passages out of context.
On the plus side all of this is a lot more subdued than we have become accustomed to, and indeed than I was expecting. Poland has said no more migrants. France closed it's borders immediately. No major political figure has yet visited a Mosque. Perhaps Europe is finally starting to stir out of the deep and deadly slumber from which it has been so reluctant to awake.
Wednesday 11 November 2015
The Great Guilt Trip
It was 12°C in Calais last night, where 6,000 illegal immigrants are still camped out trying to illegally enter England. Munich was 8°C. Malmo in northerly Sweden was a positively balmy 13°C. The migrant crisis has gone on against a backdrop of an unusually mild winter over most of the continent. This will almost certainly not last.
I don't suppose anyone knows with any accuracy how many migrants are actually sleeping rough across Europe at the moment but they certainly do know that there are many, and as it gets colder it will get much harder, especially for those from warm climates to sleep outside.
Over the next few weeks it will turn much colder and people who are ill equipped and unaccustomed to cold weather will die if they are sleeping in damp makeshift shelters without heating. Again, officials know this. Migrants know this. Anyone with a modicum of common sense knows that you can not sleep outside in northern Europe during the winter. Every year homeless and elderly people die this way. Any day now we could have a cold snap.
That means that any day now we could see news reports with the dead bodies of migrants being carried out of their makeshift shelters having succumbed to hypothermia. An amateur cynic might say that if this stems the flow of illegal migrants from the third world then it is a price worth paying, however distasteful anyone might find dead bodies. However, a truly accomplished cynic would notice that throughout 2015 perilous attempts to enter Europe have been orchestrated and encouraged and the drowned babies that have resulted from them have been used as a stick with which to beat those who oppose mass Islamic immigration, and say how cruel and heartless are those who wish to enforce, let alone tighten, our immigration laws.
How much more effective would this guilt trip be with the corpses of women and children being carried out of camps in Calais and Malmo? Tiny body bags laid by adult ones. If a handful of these stories come out, in the run up to the season of goodwill how will Europe react? How many really have the stomach to say let them die, or deport them? Do we even have the ability to deport these undocumented people in this time frame? To where? Even ship them, against their will, to warmer climes within the EU would be a logistical and political nightmare?
Of course we have no such stomach anyway. European politicians and the public will cave in and house them, and as a result millions more will come. The media, the government, the churches and the Islamist terrorists who have manufactured this crisis will have achieved their ends for the price of a few dozen deaths or poor, ignorant migrants and the women and children they drag along with them. Something they have already proven themselves completely indifferent to. The already strong fifth column of angry young Muslim men across the continent will be further strengthened, and the pathological self-loathing masquerading as good nature, will be even more ripe for exploitation.
If we want to have any chance of stopping this blatant set-up from being a success then we had better fortify ourselves now for the sight of people frozen to death, in Europe, and reconcile ourselves to the idea that the migrants themselves and the 'kindness' of the liberal left have brought this about by encouraging vast numbers of people to come here in this fashion.
I don't suppose anyone knows with any accuracy how many migrants are actually sleeping rough across Europe at the moment but they certainly do know that there are many, and as it gets colder it will get much harder, especially for those from warm climates to sleep outside.
Over the next few weeks it will turn much colder and people who are ill equipped and unaccustomed to cold weather will die if they are sleeping in damp makeshift shelters without heating. Again, officials know this. Migrants know this. Anyone with a modicum of common sense knows that you can not sleep outside in northern Europe during the winter. Every year homeless and elderly people die this way. Any day now we could have a cold snap.
That means that any day now we could see news reports with the dead bodies of migrants being carried out of their makeshift shelters having succumbed to hypothermia. An amateur cynic might say that if this stems the flow of illegal migrants from the third world then it is a price worth paying, however distasteful anyone might find dead bodies. However, a truly accomplished cynic would notice that throughout 2015 perilous attempts to enter Europe have been orchestrated and encouraged and the drowned babies that have resulted from them have been used as a stick with which to beat those who oppose mass Islamic immigration, and say how cruel and heartless are those who wish to enforce, let alone tighten, our immigration laws.
How much more effective would this guilt trip be with the corpses of women and children being carried out of camps in Calais and Malmo? Tiny body bags laid by adult ones. If a handful of these stories come out, in the run up to the season of goodwill how will Europe react? How many really have the stomach to say let them die, or deport them? Do we even have the ability to deport these undocumented people in this time frame? To where? Even ship them, against their will, to warmer climes within the EU would be a logistical and political nightmare?
Of course we have no such stomach anyway. European politicians and the public will cave in and house them, and as a result millions more will come. The media, the government, the churches and the Islamist terrorists who have manufactured this crisis will have achieved their ends for the price of a few dozen deaths or poor, ignorant migrants and the women and children they drag along with them. Something they have already proven themselves completely indifferent to. The already strong fifth column of angry young Muslim men across the continent will be further strengthened, and the pathological self-loathing masquerading as good nature, will be even more ripe for exploitation.
If we want to have any chance of stopping this blatant set-up from being a success then we had better fortify ourselves now for the sight of people frozen to death, in Europe, and reconcile ourselves to the idea that the migrants themselves and the 'kindness' of the liberal left have brought this about by encouraging vast numbers of people to come here in this fashion.
Monday 9 November 2015
BBC Bias - The Little Things
There's sometimes a perception that BBC bias means the whole organisation is simply a mouthpiece for the Labour Party, a latter day Pravda grotesquely distorting the facts to promote it's own view of the world.
Understandable, but also simplistic. The BBC's bias is also a subtle and maybe subconscious reflex, as demonstrated by the headline of this fairly trivial article about the European Union referendum, which reports that the 'No' campaign are urging the incoming head of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) to rethink their unswerving support for EU membership.
The trouble is there isn't a 'No' campaign. After the Electoral Commission criticised the inherently biased wording of the original question it was changed from Yes or No to Leave or Remain. It is the 'Leave' campaign who are lobbying the CBI.
The BBC continue to call it the No campaign because, as the Electoral Commission ruled, this has connotations of a negative, regressive and insular stance, which is exactly how the typical BBC staffer perceives those who wish to leave the European Union.
Whether this was a conscious decision or an involuntary oversight is anyone's guess, and anyway it doesn't really matter. The BBC view is that being in the EU is inherently good, progressive and nice while leaving it is bad, and this continues to leak through into their coverage.
Understandable, but also simplistic. The BBC's bias is also a subtle and maybe subconscious reflex, as demonstrated by the headline of this fairly trivial article about the European Union referendum, which reports that the 'No' campaign are urging the incoming head of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) to rethink their unswerving support for EU membership.
The trouble is there isn't a 'No' campaign. After the Electoral Commission criticised the inherently biased wording of the original question it was changed from Yes or No to Leave or Remain. It is the 'Leave' campaign who are lobbying the CBI.
The BBC continue to call it the No campaign because, as the Electoral Commission ruled, this has connotations of a negative, regressive and insular stance, which is exactly how the typical BBC staffer perceives those who wish to leave the European Union.
Whether this was a conscious decision or an involuntary oversight is anyone's guess, and anyway it doesn't really matter. The BBC view is that being in the EU is inherently good, progressive and nice while leaving it is bad, and this continues to leak through into their coverage.
Thursday 29 October 2015
Not All Hate Crimes are Created Equal
Another blast from the past.
2011 this time and two stories which appeared within a month of each other.
The first one in March concerns Emdadur Choudhury, a self proclaimed Islamic fundamentalist on benefits who decided to protest at a remembrance day parade with his fellow jihadists in East London. In front of past and present British soldiers and their families they chanted "British soldiers burn in hell" and burned poppies Choudhury was fined £50 plus a £15 victim surcharge.
The second story was about former soldier Andrew Ryan of Carlisle, who was understandably annoyed by poppy burning. So annoyed in fact that he went to a library, took a copy of the Quran and set fire to it outside the Old Town Hall in Carlisle city centre. Ryan was jailed for 70 days.
What the hell is wrong with England? How on earth can a man be sent to prison for burning a book in the street, while a self declared enemy of everything Britain stands for can disrupt a remembrance parade in such a foul way and be given a fine that is less than you would get for a parking offence?
There are two possible explanations. The first is that the British establishment is cowering in fear of these Islamic extremists. They are desperate to be seen to be tough on Islamophobia, and equally desperate not to be seen to come down too hard on Islamists. The second explanation is that they secretly agree with Choudhury, they want to promote fundamentalist Islam. They give a derisory fine which he will probably never pay anyway as they have to be seen to be doing something, yet they come down hard on any resistance to it.
2011 this time and two stories which appeared within a month of each other.
The first one in March concerns Emdadur Choudhury, a self proclaimed Islamic fundamentalist on benefits who decided to protest at a remembrance day parade with his fellow jihadists in East London. In front of past and present British soldiers and their families they chanted "British soldiers burn in hell" and burned poppies Choudhury was fined £50 plus a £15 victim surcharge.
The second story was about former soldier Andrew Ryan of Carlisle, who was understandably annoyed by poppy burning. So annoyed in fact that he went to a library, took a copy of the Quran and set fire to it outside the Old Town Hall in Carlisle city centre. Ryan was jailed for 70 days.
What the hell is wrong with England? How on earth can a man be sent to prison for burning a book in the street, while a self declared enemy of everything Britain stands for can disrupt a remembrance parade in such a foul way and be given a fine that is less than you would get for a parking offence?
There are two possible explanations. The first is that the British establishment is cowering in fear of these Islamic extremists. They are desperate to be seen to be tough on Islamophobia, and equally desperate not to be seen to come down too hard on Islamists. The second explanation is that they secretly agree with Choudhury, they want to promote fundamentalist Islam. They give a derisory fine which he will probably never pay anyway as they have to be seen to be doing something, yet they come down hard on any resistance to it.
Tuesday 27 October 2015
The Quilliam Foundation and 'Moderate Muslims'
Aren't the Quilliam Foundation a reasonable lot? Dedicated to tackling extremism in all it's forms, the Muslim think tank claims to stand for 'religious freedom, equality, human rights and democracy' who could object to that?
It's co-founder and Chairman Maajid Nawaz is a former Islamist, imprisoned for 5 years in Egypt for extremist agitating. There he was adopted by Amnesty International as a 'prisoner of conscience' and his life seems he have gone upwards and leftwards ever since. He was instrumental in creating the new, more conciliatory Tommy Robinson, and later stood as a Liberal Democrat MP. So he must have reformed himself, right?
First things first, William Henry 'Abdullah' Quilliam is a strange choice to name your moderate Muslim think tank after. A 19th century convert, he is credited with building the first Mosque in Britain in his native Liverpool and worked tirelessly to promote Islam there with generous funding from Muslim countries. His political activities were not limited by his new found spirituality though. He was insistent that no Muslim should ever fight for a European power, he opposed British intervention in the Sudan and swore allegiance instead tot he Ottoman Empire. He didn't go to live there though. He stayed in Liverpool, calling for a worldwide Caliphate.
So it's not really surprising that despite their 'reasonable' image and reassuring disavowal of extremism 'in all it's forms' they seem to have a particular interest in the usually fairly trivial examples of anti-Islamic extremism such as racial profiling, and so little to say on the hateful, fundamentalist preachers operating in Mosques across the country with the aim of creating an Islamic state in England.
That's not to say that Quilliam is a hotbed of extremism breeding the next generation of suicide bombers. In fact it's worse. They exist in a grey area who share with ISIS the same end of a global Islamic Caliphate, but disagree on the means to get there.
So far there is much talk of not alienating moderate Muslims, and driving them into the arms of extremists. Such talk is complete nonsense. any Muslim who, considering the events of the last few years, is driven to Islamic terrorism by the understandable suspicion many people have towards Muslims was clearly never very firm in their belief in secular democracy to start with. Conversely any Muslim who is sincere in his belief in secularism is more likely to be angered by his fellow Muslims bringing such suspicion and attention to the personal matter of his faith that he is likely he will reject all the more the extremist elements of it.
We actually need to polarise Muslims to that we know what we're up against. So that Muslims who are genuinely secular and moderate are brought into the side of secularism and moderation, and those who are secretly or dormantly fundamentalist are shown to be so.
It's co-founder and Chairman Maajid Nawaz is a former Islamist, imprisoned for 5 years in Egypt for extremist agitating. There he was adopted by Amnesty International as a 'prisoner of conscience' and his life seems he have gone upwards and leftwards ever since. He was instrumental in creating the new, more conciliatory Tommy Robinson, and later stood as a Liberal Democrat MP. So he must have reformed himself, right?
First things first, William Henry 'Abdullah' Quilliam is a strange choice to name your moderate Muslim think tank after. A 19th century convert, he is credited with building the first Mosque in Britain in his native Liverpool and worked tirelessly to promote Islam there with generous funding from Muslim countries. His political activities were not limited by his new found spirituality though. He was insistent that no Muslim should ever fight for a European power, he opposed British intervention in the Sudan and swore allegiance instead tot he Ottoman Empire. He didn't go to live there though. He stayed in Liverpool, calling for a worldwide Caliphate.
So it's not really surprising that despite their 'reasonable' image and reassuring disavowal of extremism 'in all it's forms' they seem to have a particular interest in the usually fairly trivial examples of anti-Islamic extremism such as racial profiling, and so little to say on the hateful, fundamentalist preachers operating in Mosques across the country with the aim of creating an Islamic state in England.
That's not to say that Quilliam is a hotbed of extremism breeding the next generation of suicide bombers. In fact it's worse. They exist in a grey area who share with ISIS the same end of a global Islamic Caliphate, but disagree on the means to get there.
So far there is much talk of not alienating moderate Muslims, and driving them into the arms of extremists. Such talk is complete nonsense. any Muslim who, considering the events of the last few years, is driven to Islamic terrorism by the understandable suspicion many people have towards Muslims was clearly never very firm in their belief in secular democracy to start with. Conversely any Muslim who is sincere in his belief in secularism is more likely to be angered by his fellow Muslims bringing such suspicion and attention to the personal matter of his faith that he is likely he will reject all the more the extremist elements of it.
We actually need to polarise Muslims to that we know what we're up against. So that Muslims who are genuinely secular and moderate are brought into the side of secularism and moderation, and those who are secretly or dormantly fundamentalist are shown to be so.
Monday 26 October 2015
Sharia Cherie Blair and Cultural Masochism
Last week I talked about Lauren Booth, half sister of Cherie Blair, wife of King Tony. But somehow I missed this little gem from 10 years ago.
Shabina Begum was a 16 year old student of Bangladeshi extraction, and in 2006 she took her school to the highest courts in the land to argue for the right to wear the jilbab, the formless bag that women in Saudi Arabia wear to demonstrate that they have no rights at all.
When the High Court rejected her case, frogmouth Cherie Blair (nee Booth) herself stepped in to represent Begum in the Court of Appeals. They won, in what Sharia Cherie described as "a victory for all Muslims who wish to preserve their identity and values despite prejudice and bigotry."
It seems worth mentioning at this point that Begum is of Bangladeshi extraction and was born in the UK around 1990. The jilbab meanwhile was invented in Saudi Arabia in the 1970s, loosely based on a specific Wahabi interpretation of the Qu'ran. Bangladesh is traditionally a relatively moderate Sunni Muslim country. The jilbab forms no part of it or Shabina Begum's traditions or identity. It's a potent symbol of the absolutist and insanely literal interpretation of the Qu'ran which pertains in Saudi Arabia and is behind much of the militant Islam which drives terrorism. I'm not a human rights lawyer but I would imagine Cherie must have known this before taking the case to the highest court in the land.
Quite aside from the absurdity of a high profile case in the House of Lords to enable her to defend her "modesty" this must have made for some interesting evenings at the Blair household, what with Tony then engaged in the height of the war on terror, and Cherie fighting for the right of a British Bangladeshi girl to dress like an Arabian fundamentalist.
To their great credit the school, Denbigh High School, to their eternal credit fought on to the House of Lords where Booth again represented Begum and finally lost, establishing the principle that the school dress code did indeed trump the right to dress like someone you wouldn't want to sit near on public transport.
There was something else a bit strange about this case though. Denbigh high school is in Luton, and at the time of the case it's pupils were some 80% Muslim, and 4 of the 6 governors of the school who fought so hard against this display of Islamic extremism, as represented by the wife of the then Prime Minister, were also Muslims.
The interesting character Ghayasuddin Siddiqui, leader of the organisation Muslim Parliament said that "This may be a victory for human rights but it is also a victory for fundamentalism." Siddiquie is something like the Muslim equivalent of the Archbishop of Canterbury. He supported the fatwa against Salman Rushdie and strongly criticised the Iraq war in 2003, but is also a founding member of British Muslims for a Secular Democracy. He's a crackpot by any reasonable standards, but by the standards of modern British Muslims he's a hand wringing moderate.
In fact by the standards of Cherie Blair he is a wet. Clearly like her half-sister, only the full fat Wahabi lunacy fresh from Saudi Arabia is interesting and enriching enough for Cherie and her view of multicultural Britain.
It's a curious case for a leading human rights lawyer and a self-appointed first lady of President Blair to take up. And it adds to my suspicion that at the very heart of New Labour, and throughout our political establishment is deep seated wish to actually promote Islamic fundamentalism at the expense of our own culture. Even when the genuine "moderate Muslims" who they claim to support are dead set against it.
The explanation that this was driven by a sort of soppy liberalism taken to an extreme simply doesn't wash. Cherie Booth wasn't fighting a stuffy white establishment for the right of a ethnic minority to wear her colourful traditional garb and enrich us, she was fighting moderate Muslims for the right of a second generation Bangladeshi to wear the uniform of militant Wahabi Islam from Saudi Arabia. It is not tolerance or diversity it is wanton cultural suicide.
Shabina Begum was a 16 year old student of Bangladeshi extraction, and in 2006 she took her school to the highest courts in the land to argue for the right to wear the jilbab, the formless bag that women in Saudi Arabia wear to demonstrate that they have no rights at all.
When the High Court rejected her case, frogmouth Cherie Blair (nee Booth) herself stepped in to represent Begum in the Court of Appeals. They won, in what Sharia Cherie described as "a victory for all Muslims who wish to preserve their identity and values despite prejudice and bigotry."
It seems worth mentioning at this point that Begum is of Bangladeshi extraction and was born in the UK around 1990. The jilbab meanwhile was invented in Saudi Arabia in the 1970s, loosely based on a specific Wahabi interpretation of the Qu'ran. Bangladesh is traditionally a relatively moderate Sunni Muslim country. The jilbab forms no part of it or Shabina Begum's traditions or identity. It's a potent symbol of the absolutist and insanely literal interpretation of the Qu'ran which pertains in Saudi Arabia and is behind much of the militant Islam which drives terrorism. I'm not a human rights lawyer but I would imagine Cherie must have known this before taking the case to the highest court in the land.
Quite aside from the absurdity of a high profile case in the House of Lords to enable her to defend her "modesty" this must have made for some interesting evenings at the Blair household, what with Tony then engaged in the height of the war on terror, and Cherie fighting for the right of a British Bangladeshi girl to dress like an Arabian fundamentalist.
To their great credit the school, Denbigh High School, to their eternal credit fought on to the House of Lords where Booth again represented Begum and finally lost, establishing the principle that the school dress code did indeed trump the right to dress like someone you wouldn't want to sit near on public transport.
There was something else a bit strange about this case though. Denbigh high school is in Luton, and at the time of the case it's pupils were some 80% Muslim, and 4 of the 6 governors of the school who fought so hard against this display of Islamic extremism, as represented by the wife of the then Prime Minister, were also Muslims.
The interesting character Ghayasuddin Siddiqui, leader of the organisation Muslim Parliament said that "This may be a victory for human rights but it is also a victory for fundamentalism." Siddiquie is something like the Muslim equivalent of the Archbishop of Canterbury. He supported the fatwa against Salman Rushdie and strongly criticised the Iraq war in 2003, but is also a founding member of British Muslims for a Secular Democracy. He's a crackpot by any reasonable standards, but by the standards of modern British Muslims he's a hand wringing moderate.
In fact by the standards of Cherie Blair he is a wet. Clearly like her half-sister, only the full fat Wahabi lunacy fresh from Saudi Arabia is interesting and enriching enough for Cherie and her view of multicultural Britain.
It's a curious case for a leading human rights lawyer and a self-appointed first lady of President Blair to take up. And it adds to my suspicion that at the very heart of New Labour, and throughout our political establishment is deep seated wish to actually promote Islamic fundamentalism at the expense of our own culture. Even when the genuine "moderate Muslims" who they claim to support are dead set against it.
The explanation that this was driven by a sort of soppy liberalism taken to an extreme simply doesn't wash. Cherie Booth wasn't fighting a stuffy white establishment for the right of a ethnic minority to wear her colourful traditional garb and enrich us, she was fighting moderate Muslims for the right of a second generation Bangladeshi to wear the uniform of militant Wahabi Islam from Saudi Arabia. It is not tolerance or diversity it is wanton cultural suicide.
Looking the Wrong Way
200 years ago Thomas Robert Malthusians was predicting that the population boom at the time would lead inevitably to hunger, disease and war. In 1811 the population of England was 8.7 million, by 2011 it was 53 million, according to Wikipedia. It had multiplied by 6, and yet food was cheaper and hunger less widespread than in Malthus' time, and the anniversary of the battle of Waterloo passed in June without much possibility of a rematch.
What doesn't seem to get a lot of attention is the opposite problem. Densely populated and expensive as Britain is it's far from packed to bursting point, nor starving for the lack of food or other necessities. A far greater problem is our massive unfunded pension liabilities, because the burden on a much reduced working population supporting a greatly enlarged non-working population will be enormous.
What happened in the interim was two things. Most importantly and best known is that technology and trade gave us more food, advances in medicine and general living conditions conquered many diseases and with a couple of false dawns, Europeans finally tired of slaughtering each other and decided to go on holiday and swap wines and cheese instead. The other factor, much less discussed, is that people stopped reproducing at the same rate. According to this study the Total Fertility Rate peaked at around 1820 and then simply dropped off a cliff from a high of nearly 6 children per woman, and fell below the replacement rate of 2.1 women per children by the 1930s. It briefly spiked after World War 2, giving us the baby boomer generation who are now in their 60s and 70s. However, after peaking at 2.95 in the 1960s, not a "boom" which would have impressed demographers in the 1820s, the rate fell again. It's currently hovering around 1.9, which is below the replacement rate, but far from the worst in the developed world.
We hear a lot about over population. That is people who believe that the biggest problem we face is ever more people leading to ever greater competition for resources this will create. I've never bought this, for the same reasons Thomas Malthus was wrong originally - we tend to get more efficient at using the resources we have, extracting resources we didn't know we had and finding substitutes for resources that do become too scarce to use economically.
What doesn't seem to get a lot of attention is the opposite problem. Densely populated and expensive as Britain is it's far from packed to bursting point, nor starving for the lack of food or other necessities. A far greater problem is our massive unfunded pension liabilities, because the burden on a much reduced working population supporting a greatly enlarged non-working population will be enormous.
And it isn't just a British problem by any means. Nor even a developed world problem.
Here's the World Bank's data on fertility
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN...
Here's the World Bank's data on fertility
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN...
We are facing a global equivalent of what has happened in Europe and Japan. A fertility rate in freefall, an aging population which is declining and not enough people of working age to actually extract and use the resources we need.
China, Thailand and Cuba are well below the 2.1 replacement threshold.
Even much of the Arab world is hovering in the 2-3 zone and falling, and to find positive growth you have to go to sub-Saharan Africa, which dominates the top of the data. But even here it's falling dramatically.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_fertility_rate...
The world as a whole is at 2.36, just above replacement.
Our current predicament in the UK of high prices for first time buyers and a large pension liability might be just a foretaste of global population decline, and the same problems on a world wide scale as billions of people live longer, work less, consume more and have fewer children. And the house prices and taxes required to cover it won't encourage people to have more children or have them younger, which might avert this.
Anyone think we're going to run out of people before we run out of oil, water, land or food?
Even much of the Arab world is hovering in the 2-3 zone and falling, and to find positive growth you have to go to sub-Saharan Africa, which dominates the top of the data. But even here it's falling dramatically.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_fertility_rate...
The world as a whole is at 2.36, just above replacement.
Our current predicament in the UK of high prices for first time buyers and a large pension liability might be just a foretaste of global population decline, and the same problems on a world wide scale as billions of people live longer, work less, consume more and have fewer children. And the house prices and taxes required to cover it won't encourage people to have more children or have them younger, which might avert this.
Anyone think we're going to run out of people before we run out of oil, water, land or food?
It's not quite clear if or how this trend can be reversed. Maybe it will self correct after the baby boomers die off, freeing up resources. Maybe populations will move around according to which countries have a shortage and which have a surplus. Something that will have profound cultural implications but perhaps make the situation at least economically sustainable.
Tuesday 20 October 2015
Lauren Booth - Supreme Cultural Masochist
I missed this at the time but in 2010 Lauren Booth, half-sister of Cherie Blair, converted to Islam. She's now set up a blog full of nonsense, promoting Islam and denigrating Britain. It's quite an interesting insight into the mind of an über cultural masochist.
We hear how unfair it is that vocal Muslims face extra security checks, just because a few of their number happen to have flown planes into buildings to make their point. We hear how Islam is good for the environment, and the generosity of Muslims brings communities together, two favourite hobby horses of the left. We hear how it's people vs. government on the case of refugees, 'the people' saying let them in and the government saying No. She obviously doesn't speak to the same people I do, but then seeing as she lives in Qatar, who have taken a grand total of zero Syrian refugees as far as I can tell, she wouldn't.
Her article about inviting her mother to Qatar which is illuminating too. Their respect for the elderly and parents in particular is admirable, though in Lauren's case clearly this respect hasn't prevented her from moving half way around the world to pursue Islam or mocking her mother's fear and antipathy towards Islamic extremism. Instead she tells her that Qatar is "like Cannes in the 1950s,with lots of glossy sheikhs wafting around and beautiful women, dressed modestly and behaving with casual decorum.” In contrast with a picture of an elderly white British woman covered in blankets, clutching a hot water bottle and sitting by a gas fire with the mocking subtitle "Another British pensioner lives life to the full."
This is probably the most telling. Of course Booth wasn't in Cannes in the 1950s. She means it's like her romanticised vision of Cannes in the 1950s. Stylish and elegant where Britain is stuffy and conservative. Exciting and intriguing where Britain is drab and familiar. Flogging and stoning wasn't legal in Cannes in the 50s of course, but let's not get too hung up (pardon the pun) on such trivia. If you're a well off, liberal lefty looking for something stylish and exciting then converting to Islam and having a place Qatar trumps any amount of volunteering in Africa or buying a bolt hole in Tuscany. It's way more committed than getting a tattoo. Let alone such a simple and mundane thing as looking after your elderly mother and adhering to the culture she brought you up in. Suck on that big sis.
Of course, Booth fits few people's definition of a normal or decent person in many ways. She left her husband Craig Darby after he a motorbike accident left him with brain damage, and her way of finding a husband might raise some eyebrows, or indeed some stone throwing hands, in the countries of her adopted religion.
It all starts to paint a picture of a selfish and rather bitter woman with a grudge against Britain, choosing the most shocking way to rebel and denigrate western civilisation by aligning themselves with it's most aggressive enemy. For Tony Blair's sister in law it might all seem chic and stylish, something to write Guardian articles about as though converting to Islam was something akin to becoming a vegan or joining Greenpeace. Of course this is not the reality for the dim witted school girls who elope to join ISIS or for the girls who do their rebellious exploration closer to home and end up being raped by Muslims in Rotherham or elsewhere.
It's not quite clear whether these attention whores actually understand that Islam is not some exciting diversion like a tattoo or a motorbike. It's a vicious death cult which is busily engaged in maiming, killing and oppressing millions of people across the world. If they don't then they're just gullible fools, but I suspect they know full well what Islam is, but are so consumed by their hatred of western civilisation that they don't care.
We hear how unfair it is that vocal Muslims face extra security checks, just because a few of their number happen to have flown planes into buildings to make their point. We hear how Islam is good for the environment, and the generosity of Muslims brings communities together, two favourite hobby horses of the left. We hear how it's people vs. government on the case of refugees, 'the people' saying let them in and the government saying No. She obviously doesn't speak to the same people I do, but then seeing as she lives in Qatar, who have taken a grand total of zero Syrian refugees as far as I can tell, she wouldn't.
Her article about inviting her mother to Qatar which is illuminating too. Their respect for the elderly and parents in particular is admirable, though in Lauren's case clearly this respect hasn't prevented her from moving half way around the world to pursue Islam or mocking her mother's fear and antipathy towards Islamic extremism. Instead she tells her that Qatar is "like Cannes in the 1950s,with lots of glossy sheikhs wafting around and beautiful women, dressed modestly and behaving with casual decorum.” In contrast with a picture of an elderly white British woman covered in blankets, clutching a hot water bottle and sitting by a gas fire with the mocking subtitle "Another British pensioner lives life to the full."
This is probably the most telling. Of course Booth wasn't in Cannes in the 1950s. She means it's like her romanticised vision of Cannes in the 1950s. Stylish and elegant where Britain is stuffy and conservative. Exciting and intriguing where Britain is drab and familiar. Flogging and stoning wasn't legal in Cannes in the 50s of course, but let's not get too hung up (pardon the pun) on such trivia. If you're a well off, liberal lefty looking for something stylish and exciting then converting to Islam and having a place Qatar trumps any amount of volunteering in Africa or buying a bolt hole in Tuscany. It's way more committed than getting a tattoo. Let alone such a simple and mundane thing as looking after your elderly mother and adhering to the culture she brought you up in. Suck on that big sis.
Of course, Booth fits few people's definition of a normal or decent person in many ways. She left her husband Craig Darby after he a motorbike accident left him with brain damage, and her way of finding a husband might raise some eyebrows, or indeed some stone throwing hands, in the countries of her adopted religion.
It all starts to paint a picture of a selfish and rather bitter woman with a grudge against Britain, choosing the most shocking way to rebel and denigrate western civilisation by aligning themselves with it's most aggressive enemy. For Tony Blair's sister in law it might all seem chic and stylish, something to write Guardian articles about as though converting to Islam was something akin to becoming a vegan or joining Greenpeace. Of course this is not the reality for the dim witted school girls who elope to join ISIS or for the girls who do their rebellious exploration closer to home and end up being raped by Muslims in Rotherham or elsewhere.
It's not quite clear whether these attention whores actually understand that Islam is not some exciting diversion like a tattoo or a motorbike. It's a vicious death cult which is busily engaged in maiming, killing and oppressing millions of people across the world. If they don't then they're just gullible fools, but I suspect they know full well what Islam is, but are so consumed by their hatred of western civilisation that they don't care.
Don't worry, the tax payer won't be paying for it. The nice people at Serco dug deep and transported 7 illegal immigrants from Heathrow to Manchester on behalf of the Home Office, for the sum of £3,000.
Of course the tax payer is paying for it somehow. Even if Serco are making a "loss" on this you can be very sure they're making it back with what they're milking from such ridiculous contracts elsewhere.
Never having made this particular journey before in my life, and lacking the wisdom and economies of scale that we pay these experts at Serco for, armed only with a laptop I Googled "Heathrow to Manchester" and found this:
National Express coaches range between £34.50 and £45.90 depending on when you leave. 7 seats at the top price would cost £321.30.
Standard rail fare without booking is £189, so times 7 is £1,323.
SkyScanner shows BA flights today as £195, so £1,365 for 7.
Sixt will hire you a 15 seat minibus for £335 for 24 hours. £120 for a driver for a day, same again on fuel makes it £575, £22 for the M6 toll both ways and it's a shade under £600.
I couldn't get a quote from people smugglers, but Mogdan paid £370 to cross the channel, which is a bit closer but involves an international border and a stretch of sea. If you could do a deal to get these people the rest of the way up to Manchester for the same price that would be £2,590.
So can I get a job in procurement at Serco? Or better still, the Home Office? I'd only ask about triple what someone of my experience would get on the open market, which is the first of many bargains for them. Maybe not, as in a full 15 minutes I haven't been able to find a more expensive (not to mention gratuitously offensive) way of transporting 7 people from London to Manchester short of chartering an aircraft.
Even the most obvious explanation of blatant corruption doesn't seem plausible. If you were going to help out your brother/uncle/mate on the Home Office's tab you'd probably be a little bit more restrained. Half that price would leave you room to hire and fuel a minibus and still pocket £1,000. Why the stretched limo? Why blab about it in the pub?
Never having made this particular journey before in my life, and lacking the wisdom and economies of scale that we pay these experts at Serco for, armed only with a laptop I Googled "Heathrow to Manchester" and found this:
National Express coaches range between £34.50 and £45.90 depending on when you leave. 7 seats at the top price would cost £321.30.
Standard rail fare without booking is £189, so times 7 is £1,323.
SkyScanner shows BA flights today as £195, so £1,365 for 7.
Sixt will hire you a 15 seat minibus for £335 for 24 hours. £120 for a driver for a day, same again on fuel makes it £575, £22 for the M6 toll both ways and it's a shade under £600.
I couldn't get a quote from people smugglers, but Mogdan paid £370 to cross the channel, which is a bit closer but involves an international border and a stretch of sea. If you could do a deal to get these people the rest of the way up to Manchester for the same price that would be £2,590.
So can I get a job in procurement at Serco? Or better still, the Home Office? I'd only ask about triple what someone of my experience would get on the open market, which is the first of many bargains for them. Maybe not, as in a full 15 minutes I haven't been able to find a more expensive (not to mention gratuitously offensive) way of transporting 7 people from London to Manchester short of chartering an aircraft.
Even the most obvious explanation of blatant corruption doesn't seem plausible. If you were going to help out your brother/uncle/mate on the Home Office's tab you'd probably be a little bit more restrained. Half that price would leave you room to hire and fuel a minibus and still pocket £1,000. Why the stretched limo? Why blab about it in the pub?
It looks like another example of our influential cultural masochists seeking to elevate these people to a privileged class.
Thursday 8 October 2015
World Power in a Week
If it wasn't so entirely possible that it would lead to World War 3, the flapping indignation of NATO would be comical. Four years after the US started providing material aid, and after one year of actively bombing Syria while achieving nothing, Russia appears to have achieved much within one week of a concerted campaign.
There are sound, obvious reasons for this success. Firstly is their willingness to put adequate firepower behind it - Russian fighter planes and cruise missiles, supplies of military hardware to the Syrian government, and now it seems Russian troops actually on the ground. Contrast this with the drone strikes and long range bombing runs of Obama who clearly wanted the glory of overthrowing a brutal regime and fighting terrorism, but not the bad publicity of American troops dying in Syria.
Most importantly though, the Russians are succeeding because of their wholly sensible decision to work with the Assad regime. At the very least, the regime has proven itself capable of running a stable country which tolerates minorities and will fight ISIS, even if it's not exactly a liberal democracy. It is quite simply the only possible way of stopping vast swathes of the country falling into the far worse hands of Islamic State. The western approach of adding yet another faction (one which no-one in Syria seems to want anyway) to the tinder box was always folly.
Such obvious folly that it makes one wonder if perpetual civil war and instability was the American objective all along. But this is the other thing that is so impressive about the Russian intervention - they seemingly haven't speculated about American motives, or got bogged down with the absurdly complicated politics of the region. Instead they have gone ahead with a very straight forward intervention to support a somewhat friendly government against a terrorist insurgency. Had America and it's allies done this 4 years ago, or even 1 year ago then this whole debacle could have been finished far quicker.
Instead, whether through indecision or malice, they have gifted Russia something it has longed for since the collapse of the Soviet Union: being a genuine world power which can look Washington in the eye. Shrewdly however, Putin has left the door wide open for the US and it's allies to cooperate with the Russian intervention. A deviously magnanimous move which leaves Obama with the choice of either standing back and letting Russia succeed where they have failed, or to petulantly condemn the Russian action while providing no better ideas. So far it looks like they're opting for the second course of action, with ill tempered accusations of Russian fighters violating Turkish airspace and the like. Unless Washington is prepared to risk World War 3 to repel these brief aerial incursions into the porous and barren border regions of southern Turkey, it is so much hot air.
So Putin's task is complete. After the serial failures of western countries to achieve their publicly stated objectives in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya or elsewhere, Russia has shown that it has the military capability and the political will to act where America can not. Countries facing an Islamic insurgency have a new number to call when they need outside assistance, and the world is significantly more bipolar than it was this time last week.
There are sound, obvious reasons for this success. Firstly is their willingness to put adequate firepower behind it - Russian fighter planes and cruise missiles, supplies of military hardware to the Syrian government, and now it seems Russian troops actually on the ground. Contrast this with the drone strikes and long range bombing runs of Obama who clearly wanted the glory of overthrowing a brutal regime and fighting terrorism, but not the bad publicity of American troops dying in Syria.
Most importantly though, the Russians are succeeding because of their wholly sensible decision to work with the Assad regime. At the very least, the regime has proven itself capable of running a stable country which tolerates minorities and will fight ISIS, even if it's not exactly a liberal democracy. It is quite simply the only possible way of stopping vast swathes of the country falling into the far worse hands of Islamic State. The western approach of adding yet another faction (one which no-one in Syria seems to want anyway) to the tinder box was always folly.
Such obvious folly that it makes one wonder if perpetual civil war and instability was the American objective all along. But this is the other thing that is so impressive about the Russian intervention - they seemingly haven't speculated about American motives, or got bogged down with the absurdly complicated politics of the region. Instead they have gone ahead with a very straight forward intervention to support a somewhat friendly government against a terrorist insurgency. Had America and it's allies done this 4 years ago, or even 1 year ago then this whole debacle could have been finished far quicker.
Instead, whether through indecision or malice, they have gifted Russia something it has longed for since the collapse of the Soviet Union: being a genuine world power which can look Washington in the eye. Shrewdly however, Putin has left the door wide open for the US and it's allies to cooperate with the Russian intervention. A deviously magnanimous move which leaves Obama with the choice of either standing back and letting Russia succeed where they have failed, or to petulantly condemn the Russian action while providing no better ideas. So far it looks like they're opting for the second course of action, with ill tempered accusations of Russian fighters violating Turkish airspace and the like. Unless Washington is prepared to risk World War 3 to repel these brief aerial incursions into the porous and barren border regions of southern Turkey, it is so much hot air.
So Putin's task is complete. After the serial failures of western countries to achieve their publicly stated objectives in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya or elsewhere, Russia has shown that it has the military capability and the political will to act where America can not. Countries facing an Islamic insurgency have a new number to call when they need outside assistance, and the world is significantly more bipolar than it was this time last week.
Monday 5 October 2015
Fight Eggs with Eggs - Not Shit Eating Grins
Looking at that young man who got egged at the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester, I couldn't help but feel that it painted a rather pathetic picture of the state of the so called right. Not that the Conservatives are really right wing in any meaningful sense, but they are the least left wing of the major parties. I was quietly pleased, if not ecstatic when they won the election and while hardly radical their attempt to reign in the worst excesses of the public sector largesse they inherited from Labour seems a worthwhile exercise.
Of course it's no great surprise to see the shrill left "protesting" outside, often aggressively shoving, blocking paths and throwing eggs. In a perfect photo op, one young Tory was hit right on the head with an egg. So there he is, this preppy looking Young Conservative with a gormless grin laughing at being hit by an egg. Great.
Where's the F off? Where's the anger? Where's the eye for an eye? It's fine to take these things in good humour, but you can't just take these things lying down. Egg them back. This is not the new testament, it's a power game. John Prescott understood this, which is why he lamped the man who egged him in Wales in 2001.
Seems like a small thing but it goes right to the heart of the total failure of British conservatives to make any mark or be taken seriously - they're too damn nice. The term cuckservative describes it well.
Of course it's no great surprise to see the shrill left "protesting" outside, often aggressively shoving, blocking paths and throwing eggs. In a perfect photo op, one young Tory was hit right on the head with an egg. So there he is, this preppy looking Young Conservative with a gormless grin laughing at being hit by an egg. Great.
Where's the F off? Where's the anger? Where's the eye for an eye? It's fine to take these things in good humour, but you can't just take these things lying down. Egg them back. This is not the new testament, it's a power game. John Prescott understood this, which is why he lamped the man who egged him in Wales in 2001.
Seems like a small thing but it goes right to the heart of the total failure of British conservatives to make any mark or be taken seriously - they're too damn nice. The term cuckservative describes it well.
Friday 11 September 2015
Why I like Jeremy Corbyn
I've finally worked out why I quite like Jeremy Corbyn and want him to be the next leader of the Labour Party.
He actually has ideas. Really bad ones, but ideas none the less. He thinks stuff like railways should be owned and run by the government. He thinks the erosion and degradation of British society is a good thing. He thinks we should destroy our military capability.
All of these things are wrong. All of them have happened anyway under both Labour and Tory governments who said these things were wrong and that they wouldn't happen. I don't know if Blair or Cameron actually think these things are good like Corbyn does. I suspect they just don't care and do them when in office because it's expedient.
If Corbyn stands up and says they are right then he has to say why they are right, and the Tories have to say why they are wrong. Cameron and his ilk can't do this because they don't really believe they are wrong, but others can. Whether that's a rump of level headed people in the Conservative party, UKIP or someone else compeletely doesn't really matter.
Next time we might not have to suffer the banality of the last election, with two vaccuous imbeciles arguing over basic administrative competence (of which neither have any) and attempting to outbid each other on a meaningless array of tax and spending promises they couldn't possibly keep.
Instead Corbyn's stupid, failed and wrong headed ideas would be brought out into the open where they would once and for all be smashed to pieces by uncompromising reality, probably even more comprehensively than they were smashed in the late 1970s where a then timid Thatcher was being advised by wets from the Heath camp, and Hayek, Friedman et al were a guilty secret, and the National Front was the main opposition to mass immigration. Now we have the likes of John Redwood who have been in governments who implemented free market policies and saw them work. We have the likes of Nigel Farage who can make a compelling case for national independence without being fascists.
So bring it on. Verbalise what the Labour party actually think and are planning to do next in their century-old quest to ruin Britain and watch the rotten idea fall apart. Or vote for another bland "modern" candidate who says all the right things about free markets, moderate taxes and national independence then continues to piss all over them.
All of these things are wrong. All of them have happened anyway under both Labour and Tory governments who said these things were wrong and that they wouldn't happen. I don't know if Blair or Cameron actually think these things are good like Corbyn does. I suspect they just don't care and do them when in office because it's expedient.
If Corbyn stands up and says they are right then he has to say why they are right, and the Tories have to say why they are wrong. Cameron and his ilk can't do this because they don't really believe they are wrong, but others can. Whether that's a rump of level headed people in the Conservative party, UKIP or someone else compeletely doesn't really matter.
Next time we might not have to suffer the banality of the last election, with two vaccuous imbeciles arguing over basic administrative competence (of which neither have any) and attempting to outbid each other on a meaningless array of tax and spending promises they couldn't possibly keep.
Instead Corbyn's stupid, failed and wrong headed ideas would be brought out into the open where they would once and for all be smashed to pieces by uncompromising reality, probably even more comprehensively than they were smashed in the late 1970s where a then timid Thatcher was being advised by wets from the Heath camp, and Hayek, Friedman et al were a guilty secret, and the National Front was the main opposition to mass immigration. Now we have the likes of John Redwood who have been in governments who implemented free market policies and saw them work. We have the likes of Nigel Farage who can make a compelling case for national independence without being fascists.
So bring it on. Verbalise what the Labour party actually think and are planning to do next in their century-old quest to ruin Britain and watch the rotten idea fall apart. Or vote for another bland "modern" candidate who says all the right things about free markets, moderate taxes and national independence then continues to piss all over them.
Monday 7 September 2015
Tin Foil Hat
As a keen wielder of Occam's Razor I tend to throw out conspiracy theories pretty quickly as convoluted explanations which rely on too many guesses, when there is enough errant nonsense and blatant lies spouted publically to last any angry man several lifetimes.
However, if the current migrant crisis leads as it probably will to calls for joint European efforts on asylum and foreign policy, and an EU defence force to back this up, haven't we had a brilliant few years of disastrous British foreign policy to make it seem like an attractive option? From our foolish intervention in the Balkans, to the disaster of Iraq and Afghanistan, and the idiotic overthrow of Gadaffi with no follow up plan, and our tinkering around in Syria despite parliament roundly rejecting our involvement.
All of these things have directly contributed to the current crisis, and all were apparently inspired by a stupid desire to run behind the US and pretend we're part of some sort of global crusade for freedom, but one which we clearly don't have the military or financial might to make good on.
What better background against which to frame a new approach, pooling our resources with our more humanitarian European neighbours to have an EU foreign policy which Britain can be a leading part of? What better carrot to dangle in front of a vainglorious dimwit like David Cameron than the irresistible prospect of facing the President of the US as a true equal?
In short, if you wanted to discredit the whole idea of a British foreign policy and pave the way for it's replacement with an EU one, you couldn't do much better than the dismal mess of nearly everything we have done since 1997.
Friday 4 September 2015
Petition to the Guardian
I hadn't heard of Richard Seymour until his spiteful little comment recently about Simon Weston. Weston was injured during the 1982 Falklands war when an Argentine bomb hit the ship Sir Galahad on which Weston was serving. When Weston recently expressed his antipathy to Jeremy Corbyn apparently saying he would seek a deal with the Argentine government over the disputed islands, Seymour decided to step in with: "Seriously, who gives a shit what Simon Weston thinks? If he knew anything at all he would still have a face."
He was making a crass and extremely nasty remark, which can only really be read as jeering at the life-altering injuries Weston sustained in the defence of British sovereign territory against annexation by a military dictatorship.
I don't think he should be prosecuted for it or exiled to Siberia or anything. He has the right to say it. I do think however, that it is a prime example of the sort of vitriolic hatred that many on the left have for everything good and decent which this country ever stood for, and underlines the fact that, at heart, they favour the grubbiest and most despotic regimes of the world when they're plainly in the wrong over a democratically elected British government whose colours they don't like.
So I have posted up a petition on change.org to ask Katherine Viner, editor of The Guardian, to stop publishing Seymour's work and giving a platform to this nasty and spiteful little cretin who has put himself far outside the boundaries of civilised discourse. Please sign it here.
Killing with Kindness
Anyone with a heart would be appalled at the picture of a dead toddler washed up on the beach at Bodrum, now being bandied around by papers like The Independent who link the story with their petition to let more refugees into Britain. As emotional blackmail goes, you don't get much more blatant or cynical.
However, it's worth looking a bit further into the story behind this shocking image before reaching the conclusion that throwing open the doors is the humane and decent thing to do.
Ayland Al-Kurdi, the boy who drowned had fled with his family from the war-torn Syrian city of Kobane. They had applied for asylum at the Canadian consulate and been turned down and were staying in the resort town of Bodrum in Turkey, far from the fighting in Syria. It was from Bodrum that they attempted to make the short sea crossing to the Greek island of Kos, where presumably they believed onward travel within the EU would be easier.
They could have applied at a European consulate in Turkey and made the journey overland quite easily in relative safety. Instead they chose to make a risky and illegal journey in the belief that this would speed up their resettlement. With Angela Merkel saying that Germany can take 800,000 refugees, you can't really blame them for trying. Who in their right mind would not attempt such a journey, when you can see Kos from the beach in Bodrum?
That though, is precisely the problem. Europe, with it's crowded cities and faltering economy simply can not throw open its doors to millions more migrants. The rise of right-wing parties across the continent demonstrates that Europe's population recognises this. The notion that we can is a dangerous delusion.
This child was not killed by those who recognise this and are demanding a tougher stance on asylum, but precisely by those like Merkel who deny this obvious reality and continue to encourage thousands to make these risky journeys in the mistaken belief that they will be welcomed with open arms and enjoy a life of plenty if they can just cross the 4km body of water between Bodrum and Kos.
True kindness is not competing to take more mirgants than we can absorb but sending a very clear message that illegal entry to Europe will not be tolerated or rewarded. Only then will we stop seeing these heart breaking images which are the inevitable consequence of encouraging thousands of desperate people to make dangerous journeys for which they are woefully ill-equipped.
However, it's worth looking a bit further into the story behind this shocking image before reaching the conclusion that throwing open the doors is the humane and decent thing to do.
Ayland Al-Kurdi, the boy who drowned had fled with his family from the war-torn Syrian city of Kobane. They had applied for asylum at the Canadian consulate and been turned down and were staying in the resort town of Bodrum in Turkey, far from the fighting in Syria. It was from Bodrum that they attempted to make the short sea crossing to the Greek island of Kos, where presumably they believed onward travel within the EU would be easier.
They could have applied at a European consulate in Turkey and made the journey overland quite easily in relative safety. Instead they chose to make a risky and illegal journey in the belief that this would speed up their resettlement. With Angela Merkel saying that Germany can take 800,000 refugees, you can't really blame them for trying. Who in their right mind would not attempt such a journey, when you can see Kos from the beach in Bodrum?
That though, is precisely the problem. Europe, with it's crowded cities and faltering economy simply can not throw open its doors to millions more migrants. The rise of right-wing parties across the continent demonstrates that Europe's population recognises this. The notion that we can is a dangerous delusion.
This child was not killed by those who recognise this and are demanding a tougher stance on asylum, but precisely by those like Merkel who deny this obvious reality and continue to encourage thousands to make these risky journeys in the mistaken belief that they will be welcomed with open arms and enjoy a life of plenty if they can just cross the 4km body of water between Bodrum and Kos.
True kindness is not competing to take more mirgants than we can absorb but sending a very clear message that illegal entry to Europe will not be tolerated or rewarded. Only then will we stop seeing these heart breaking images which are the inevitable consequence of encouraging thousands of desperate people to make dangerous journeys for which they are woefully ill-equipped.
Monday 31 August 2015
The Transgender Fraud
You can see it gathering pace. The Huffington Post called it The Next Civil Rights Frontier and the sickly fawning over Bruce Jenner's decision, in his 60s, to become Caitlin Jenner. While CNN all but directly blamed the parents for causing the suicide of their 17 year old son by not embracing his wish to be a woman in one of the most cynical and one sided articles you could ever hope to read.
Of course Britain as usual is thoughtlessly bounding after this clearly ridiculous American craze. The BBC are fully on board as you'd expect with this article explaining how happy two young boys were to be treated as girls at the ages of 6 and 8; while Louis Theroux made a programme about some 'pioneering medical professionals' who are helping people change gender at ever younger ages.
Just to be very clear about what this means - children as young as 6 years old are being taken seriously in their expressed desire to be raised as members of the opposite sex. By age 11, or Tanner Stage 2 of puberty that can be administered 'puberty blocker' hormones to delay puberty until they are in a position to choose which sex they wish to be. Worth repeating. The perfectly natural and healthy development of children into adults is being medically delayed in case they wish to change gender.
One of the most common drugs used in this is Lupron. Luron isn't actually designed for this use. It is used to stop precocious (early-onset) puberty in children and to reduce the symptoms of prostate cancer in adult men. Lupron used on children and adolescents is said to cause "disastrous irreversible damage to sexual functioning," the long term effects of use in this way are completely unknown.
Secondly the idea that this treatment in itself will not prove hugely traumatic and disruptive to the life of these adolescents seems absurd. How can the child possibly develop mentally into the adult of the physical sex they are when they are prevented from doing so by drugs?
They are conditioned at a very vulnerable stage of their lives into believing a total myth that they can simply choose a gender and have surgery to make reality conform to this fantasy. It is nonsense.
I can't see this as anything other than child abuse.
If it is harmless then why not extend this choice to all children and let them make a fully informed choice about gender much later in life? Of course no-one would advocate such a thing at present. Who knows where a few more years of this insanity will lead?
There are detractors of course, and not just the religious right. Renowned psychiatrist and former Chair of Psychiatry of Johns Hopkins Paul McHugh wrote an excellent article in the Wall Street Journal explaining why he ended gender reassignment surgery. Feminist Julie Bindel has also voiced her opposition and come in for considerable flak for doing so, from the usual guard dogs of the politically correct Taliban - the NUS, feminist groups, and other activists.
And it's not just acceptance they seek. According to these estimates about 0.4% of the UK population defines themselves as "non-binary" and 31% of those confidently identify as trans. Out of a population of 60 million with a bit of farmer's maths I make that about 74,000 trans people in the UK, or slightly less than 1 in 800 people. I find that number quite high, but even so that means you could go your whole life without knowing any trans people at all, and if they're somewhat convincingly presented as a woman you'd probably never have cause to find out. If this tiny number of adults wanted to parade around as being members of the opposite sex it seems doubtful that many people would even notice, let alone "discriminate" against them or treat them as outcasts.
But that wouldn't be enough. They want approval. They want the sort of gratuitous fawning that greeted Bruce Jenner, and they want permission to live out their obscure fantasies and impose them on children who they diagnose as having gender dysphoria. It is an absurd situation, and one which is being aggressively pushed as normal.
Of course Britain as usual is thoughtlessly bounding after this clearly ridiculous American craze. The BBC are fully on board as you'd expect with this article explaining how happy two young boys were to be treated as girls at the ages of 6 and 8; while Louis Theroux made a programme about some 'pioneering medical professionals' who are helping people change gender at ever younger ages.
Just to be very clear about what this means - children as young as 6 years old are being taken seriously in their expressed desire to be raised as members of the opposite sex. By age 11, or Tanner Stage 2 of puberty that can be administered 'puberty blocker' hormones to delay puberty until they are in a position to choose which sex they wish to be. Worth repeating. The perfectly natural and healthy development of children into adults is being medically delayed in case they wish to change gender.
One of the most common drugs used in this is Lupron. Luron isn't actually designed for this use. It is used to stop precocious (early-onset) puberty in children and to reduce the symptoms of prostate cancer in adult men. Lupron used on children and adolescents is said to cause "disastrous irreversible damage to sexual functioning," the long term effects of use in this way are completely unknown.
Secondly the idea that this treatment in itself will not prove hugely traumatic and disruptive to the life of these adolescents seems absurd. How can the child possibly develop mentally into the adult of the physical sex they are when they are prevented from doing so by drugs?
They are conditioned at a very vulnerable stage of their lives into believing a total myth that they can simply choose a gender and have surgery to make reality conform to this fantasy. It is nonsense.
I can't see this as anything other than child abuse.
If it is harmless then why not extend this choice to all children and let them make a fully informed choice about gender much later in life? Of course no-one would advocate such a thing at present. Who knows where a few more years of this insanity will lead?
There are detractors of course, and not just the religious right. Renowned psychiatrist and former Chair of Psychiatry of Johns Hopkins Paul McHugh wrote an excellent article in the Wall Street Journal explaining why he ended gender reassignment surgery. Feminist Julie Bindel has also voiced her opposition and come in for considerable flak for doing so, from the usual guard dogs of the politically correct Taliban - the NUS, feminist groups, and other activists.
And it's not just acceptance they seek. According to these estimates about 0.4% of the UK population defines themselves as "non-binary" and 31% of those confidently identify as trans. Out of a population of 60 million with a bit of farmer's maths I make that about 74,000 trans people in the UK, or slightly less than 1 in 800 people. I find that number quite high, but even so that means you could go your whole life without knowing any trans people at all, and if they're somewhat convincingly presented as a woman you'd probably never have cause to find out. If this tiny number of adults wanted to parade around as being members of the opposite sex it seems doubtful that many people would even notice, let alone "discriminate" against them or treat them as outcasts.
But that wouldn't be enough. They want approval. They want the sort of gratuitous fawning that greeted Bruce Jenner, and they want permission to live out their obscure fantasies and impose them on children who they diagnose as having gender dysphoria. It is an absurd situation, and one which is being aggressively pushed as normal.
Thursday 27 August 2015
Dhimmitude
One of the ways in which the entire western world is utterly miss handling militant Islam is by focusing on large scale terror attacks and the despotic lunacy of groups like ISIS in the middle east.
Look at any part of the world where Muslim and non-Muslim populations live side by side and you will find problems with a number of common themes. As this demographic grows to be a larger proportion of the British population and the dominant group in certain areas I can't see any reason to believe that the same problems won't increase here.
Never mind the London attacks, the Lee Rigby killing or other such incidents which are extremely rare. Look at the systematic child sex abuse in Rotherham, or the deliberate Islamisation of schools in Birmingham and the systematic election fraud in Tower Hamlets. Look at so called "self-policing" where rape and murder go unreported in some areas.
Look at any part of the world where Muslim and non-Muslim populations live side by side and you will find problems with a number of common themes. As this demographic grows to be a larger proportion of the British population and the dominant group in certain areas I can't see any reason to believe that the same problems won't increase here.
Never mind the London attacks, the Lee Rigby killing or other such incidents which are extremely rare. Look at the systematic child sex abuse in Rotherham, or the deliberate Islamisation of schools in Birmingham and the systematic election fraud in Tower Hamlets. Look at so called "self-policing" where rape and murder go unreported in some areas.
And look at the way the authorities deal with this. Or don't. Systematically covering it up and allowing it to grow. And this list, admittedly published with a very clear agenda but no less true for it, of racially aggravated crimes against whites overwhelmingly by Muslims, and of the lenient treatment of offenders.
Then look at Kosovo, Chechnya, Burma, western China, southern Thailand, Sudan, Somalia, Nigeria, East Timor, Sri Lanka, India and just about anywhere else in the world where a significant proportion of the population are Muslim and a majority are not, and you see the same pattern of violence, sexual abuse and intimidation from Muslims going hand-in-hand with claims they are oppressed and discriminated against.
This is not just a bit of friction or a few isolated incidents, it's a consistent pattern of behaviour. And nor is it something that was dreamed up by the tabloids. The Covenant of Umar sets out the terms for non-Muslims in Muslim conquered lands and outlines their status as second class citizens. This has been applied in some form by Muslims for centuries across the middle east and north Africa and other areas where they have come to dominate.
Of course it's not all Muslims, but nor is it just a few extremists. I suspect this sort of militancy is inherent in the way that evangelism is inherent to Christianity - you can be observant and sincere in your faith without it, however the urge to spread the good word and the feeling that doing so is a favour to the recipients appears to be very real and constant.
The result is dhimmitude. Areas where non-Muslims must be on their guard. Schools, prisons and other institutions being held hostage by the need to accommodate Muslim eating practices, observe Muslim prayer patterns and bend to the particular sensitivities of Muslims, and "authorities" who are too afraid of the shrill cries of racism and Islamophobia to act.
So don't just look at how many people are killed and seriously injured by explicit Islamic terrorist attacks in a given period of time in one place. Look at how huge swathes of the non-Muslim world are under constant attack, and how non-Muslims end up with living in fear, and and ask if this is something we really want to run the risk of replicating in Britain?
For me the answer is very simple No. I don't care a jot about international treaty obligations, they come and go. I can sacrifice the humanist, secular values which say that we should treat everyone equally regardless of religious beliefs, and that we should be welcoming to those seeking a better life. I can throw out my libertarian belief that border and immigration controls are a hindrance to the operation of a free market. And if that falls under some people's definition of racism so be it.
I would happily halt all further Muslim immigration tomorrow, have a strict system of deportation for any foreign criminals convicted of crimes in Britain and have an open campaign of rooting out Islamism in public institutions. I am also coming around to the idea of some sort of elective repatriation for those with dual nationality or recently acquired British citizenship who either choose it or who are convicted of certain crimes. For example 10 years for racially aggravated assault, or 3 years if you renounce British citizenship and leave the country permanently.
Then look at Kosovo, Chechnya, Burma, western China, southern Thailand, Sudan, Somalia, Nigeria, East Timor, Sri Lanka, India and just about anywhere else in the world where a significant proportion of the population are Muslim and a majority are not, and you see the same pattern of violence, sexual abuse and intimidation from Muslims going hand-in-hand with claims they are oppressed and discriminated against.
This is not just a bit of friction or a few isolated incidents, it's a consistent pattern of behaviour. And nor is it something that was dreamed up by the tabloids. The Covenant of Umar sets out the terms for non-Muslims in Muslim conquered lands and outlines their status as second class citizens. This has been applied in some form by Muslims for centuries across the middle east and north Africa and other areas where they have come to dominate.
Of course it's not all Muslims, but nor is it just a few extremists. I suspect this sort of militancy is inherent in the way that evangelism is inherent to Christianity - you can be observant and sincere in your faith without it, however the urge to spread the good word and the feeling that doing so is a favour to the recipients appears to be very real and constant.
The result is dhimmitude. Areas where non-Muslims must be on their guard. Schools, prisons and other institutions being held hostage by the need to accommodate Muslim eating practices, observe Muslim prayer patterns and bend to the particular sensitivities of Muslims, and "authorities" who are too afraid of the shrill cries of racism and Islamophobia to act.
So don't just look at how many people are killed and seriously injured by explicit Islamic terrorist attacks in a given period of time in one place. Look at how huge swathes of the non-Muslim world are under constant attack, and how non-Muslims end up with living in fear, and and ask if this is something we really want to run the risk of replicating in Britain?
For me the answer is very simple No. I don't care a jot about international treaty obligations, they come and go. I can sacrifice the humanist, secular values which say that we should treat everyone equally regardless of religious beliefs, and that we should be welcoming to those seeking a better life. I can throw out my libertarian belief that border and immigration controls are a hindrance to the operation of a free market. And if that falls under some people's definition of racism so be it.
I would happily halt all further Muslim immigration tomorrow, have a strict system of deportation for any foreign criminals convicted of crimes in Britain and have an open campaign of rooting out Islamism in public institutions. I am also coming around to the idea of some sort of elective repatriation for those with dual nationality or recently acquired British citizenship who either choose it or who are convicted of certain crimes. For example 10 years for racially aggravated assault, or 3 years if you renounce British citizenship and leave the country permanently.
Monday 24 August 2015
Collective Masochism: The Cuckolds of Calais
And I didn't have to look very far for the first example of this crackpot sexual fetish which has come to dominate the political mainstream. Gleefully reported in The Guardian.
Meet Linda and Yves. A soppy couple in their late 50s who took in a Syrian migrant, 20-year-old Sayid. Linda cooked and danced to Syrian pop music with him. She reports that Sayid had said she was like a mother to him, and how she felt that it was something she had to do. There is a picture of them walking the dogs on the beach, Sayid proudly standing in the middle of the pathetic couple.
Yves, the hapless and weak-willed "father" who had the double pleasure of being cuckolded and having his daughter degraded by Sayid, wears his shame like a trophy. He reports with pride how their neighbours were "scandalised" by these arrangements and now cross the street to avoid him.
Of course "scandals" are racy and fun, but sorry to say Yves it was probably less of a scandal and more a mix of pity and disgust, with a healthy dose of anger at their new neighbour, who if he can't even hold back from criticising his hosts daughter one can only imagine how he might have behaved towards neighbours even less sympathetic.
And believe it or not it wasn't all a fairy tale. He would criticise their daughter, also 20 years old, for having uncovered hair and not yet being married. It's worth repeating that. This charming young man who was staying for free in their home and eating their food while attempting to illegally migrate to Britain, took it upon himself to criticise their daughter for not behaving like a third world Muslim.
Sayid eventually made it to Britain, leaving a big empty illegal migrant shaped hole in their hearts, and was housed in a B&B, presumably at the tax payers expense. His asylum application was rejected, so now he's living in Wakefield. Obviously.
Can this be read as anything other than a couple living out a cuckold fantasy?
Meet Linda and Yves. A soppy couple in their late 50s who took in a Syrian migrant, 20-year-old Sayid. Linda cooked and danced to Syrian pop music with him. She reports that Sayid had said she was like a mother to him, and how she felt that it was something she had to do. There is a picture of them walking the dogs on the beach, Sayid proudly standing in the middle of the pathetic couple.
Yves, the hapless and weak-willed "father" who had the double pleasure of being cuckolded and having his daughter degraded by Sayid, wears his shame like a trophy. He reports with pride how their neighbours were "scandalised" by these arrangements and now cross the street to avoid him.
Of course "scandals" are racy and fun, but sorry to say Yves it was probably less of a scandal and more a mix of pity and disgust, with a healthy dose of anger at their new neighbour, who if he can't even hold back from criticising his hosts daughter one can only imagine how he might have behaved towards neighbours even less sympathetic.
And believe it or not it wasn't all a fairy tale. He would criticise their daughter, also 20 years old, for having uncovered hair and not yet being married. It's worth repeating that. This charming young man who was staying for free in their home and eating their food while attempting to illegally migrate to Britain, took it upon himself to criticise their daughter for not behaving like a third world Muslim.
Sayid eventually made it to Britain, leaving a big empty illegal migrant shaped hole in their hearts, and was housed in a B&B, presumably at the tax payers expense. His asylum application was rejected, so now he's living in Wakefield. Obviously.
Can this be read as anything other than a couple living out a cuckold fantasy?
Collective Masochism
Many years ago in Hong Kong I met a local girl. We talked and quickly became very well acquainted. She was fascinated by all things western, very dubious about the role of the People's Republic in Hong Kong, and committed to liberal western democracy. As a middle-class Honky she was well off so this wasn't simply a money thing, and just so you know, we didn't meet in one of the infamous bars of Wan Chai where aspiring Suzy Wongs are friendly and easily to become acquainted with. During an energetic sex session one day she blurted out a barrage of self-deprecating racism and encouraged me to join in with it. The amateur psychologist in me was fascinated by this even mid act. When we discussed this later she confided that this was not a one off thing. She had a sexual fetish for racial and cultural degradation. It was bizarre though I must admit quite fun. Talking about it afterwards it appeared that there wasn't really a hard and fast division between her sexual desires and her political outlook.
The more I observe Britain and the west's ongoing death spiral from afar, and especially the current migrant crisis, the more I come to the conclusion that it's nothing to do with compassion. Nor is it an ideological belief in one world where we all move around freely, and live side by side as equals, nor any of the other usual explanations. Rather it seems more and more that many 'liberals' have some sort of a masochistic love of seeing our culture suppressed, denigrated and destroyed. A dystopian fantasy, that is reminiscent of my Hong Kong encounter.
Obviously it's nearly impossible to come up with hard evidence of this, but when you look at various stories and reports in that light it's hard not to notice it. Many of these people appear to have a sort of deep rooted sexual desire to be taken advantage of by aggressive immigrants.
I'm starting a Collective Masochism tag to flag up stories which illustrate this. Please do feel free to send me more, or your own examples of such stories.
The more I observe Britain and the west's ongoing death spiral from afar, and especially the current migrant crisis, the more I come to the conclusion that it's nothing to do with compassion. Nor is it an ideological belief in one world where we all move around freely, and live side by side as equals, nor any of the other usual explanations. Rather it seems more and more that many 'liberals' have some sort of a masochistic love of seeing our culture suppressed, denigrated and destroyed. A dystopian fantasy, that is reminiscent of my Hong Kong encounter.
Obviously it's nearly impossible to come up with hard evidence of this, but when you look at various stories and reports in that light it's hard not to notice it. Many of these people appear to have a sort of deep rooted sexual desire to be taken advantage of by aggressive immigrants.
I'm starting a Collective Masochism tag to flag up stories which illustrate this. Please do feel free to send me more, or your own examples of such stories.
Monday 17 August 2015
ISIS Aid
While ont he subject of the peculiar things that are and are not deemed worthy charitable causes, a good friend of mine recently pointed out this batshit mental campaign organised by Canadian-Jewish businessman Steven Maman to actually buy sex slaves from ISIS.
Yes, he is giving money to Islamic State. Money to buy weapons, fuel and propaganda. And perhaps worse still he is providing them with every incentive to continue their barbaric campaign of death and slavery.
This of course is all fine and dandy according to GoFundMe, through which he is raising funds.
Yes, he is giving money to Islamic State. Money to buy weapons, fuel and propaganda. And perhaps worse still he is providing them with every incentive to continue their barbaric campaign of death and slavery.
This of course is all fine and dandy according to GoFundMe, through which he is raising funds.
Just Giving to Certain Causes
To no-one's great surprise my campaign to raise funds to repatriate the illegal immigrants currently at Calais was not published by Just Giving. The original rejection email simply said that my page did not meet their guidelines, and when I asked for clarification I was told that the crowdfunding platform enables people to deliver a social good, and this campaign did not fit their criteria for this
Now while I clearly don't fit the social justice warrior profile of your typical Just Giving crowdfunder and my campaign was tongue-in-cheek I genuinely would be interested in how exactly this idea does not constitute a social good. It would be helping them to comply with the laws of two democratic countries, to whom they would be free to apply for asylum or work visas through the proper channels, it would be alleviating their immediate hardship which will only worsen as the weather turns colder and the authorities harden their stance, and it would take away the impetus for increasingly hardline attitudes in both Britain and France against all immigration and asylum.
According to the other campaigns already running on JG, these migrants barely have the money for the bare essentials. In fact, they even need to be given bicycles in order to get around Calais. We know that these people are not being allowed into the United Kingdom and that many are already illegally in France where surely their presence in large camps around Calais is disruptive. With no funds to return to their countries they are completely stuck in limbo. In what sense is providing them passage home not a genuine kindness?
Or perhaps it's just not the right sort of kindness. From the links above they obviously believe that sending basic necessities is a social good, keeping these people in a miserable half-way house. Looking elsewhere on their site they clearly have no objection to raising money for Islamic Relief, a charity that was has been accused of funding Hamas by several governments.
So it's obviously something about helping stranded refugees to get home that doesn't fit with their ethos.
There would seem to be two obvious possibilities - Firstly that Just Giving is actually pro-immigration and is happy to help keep these migrants illegally squatting in Calais in the hope that European governments will eventually relent and allow them to settle. The other being that Just Giving is a commercial organisation who charge 5% of the money raised, and this campaign simply wouldn't fit with their branding. As only a mild cynic, I'm probably more drawn to the second possibility but wouldn't rule out a heavy dose of both.
As a libertarian, I'm bound to say that Just Giving are quite entitled to support any cause they wish and refuse and cause they wish and don't own me any explanation as to why. It sticks in the craw a bit that they have this veneer of being all about helping people when they are in fact a profit making the venture, but that's by the by.
The real point here is the way in which a certain strand of the left has been allowed to dominate the charitable sector so totally. This does not need to be the case. Voluntary action by private individuals is not an inherently socialist idea. In fact quite the reverse.
So let's try GoFundMe.com next.
Now while I clearly don't fit the social justice warrior profile of your typical Just Giving crowdfunder and my campaign was tongue-in-cheek I genuinely would be interested in how exactly this idea does not constitute a social good. It would be helping them to comply with the laws of two democratic countries, to whom they would be free to apply for asylum or work visas through the proper channels, it would be alleviating their immediate hardship which will only worsen as the weather turns colder and the authorities harden their stance, and it would take away the impetus for increasingly hardline attitudes in both Britain and France against all immigration and asylum.
According to the other campaigns already running on JG, these migrants barely have the money for the bare essentials. In fact, they even need to be given bicycles in order to get around Calais. We know that these people are not being allowed into the United Kingdom and that many are already illegally in France where surely their presence in large camps around Calais is disruptive. With no funds to return to their countries they are completely stuck in limbo. In what sense is providing them passage home not a genuine kindness?
Or perhaps it's just not the right sort of kindness. From the links above they obviously believe that sending basic necessities is a social good, keeping these people in a miserable half-way house. Looking elsewhere on their site they clearly have no objection to raising money for Islamic Relief, a charity that was has been accused of funding Hamas by several governments.
So it's obviously something about helping stranded refugees to get home that doesn't fit with their ethos.
There would seem to be two obvious possibilities - Firstly that Just Giving is actually pro-immigration and is happy to help keep these migrants illegally squatting in Calais in the hope that European governments will eventually relent and allow them to settle. The other being that Just Giving is a commercial organisation who charge 5% of the money raised, and this campaign simply wouldn't fit with their branding. As only a mild cynic, I'm probably more drawn to the second possibility but wouldn't rule out a heavy dose of both.
As a libertarian, I'm bound to say that Just Giving are quite entitled to support any cause they wish and refuse and cause they wish and don't own me any explanation as to why. It sticks in the craw a bit that they have this veneer of being all about helping people when they are in fact a profit making the venture, but that's by the by.
The real point here is the way in which a certain strand of the left has been allowed to dominate the charitable sector so totally. This does not need to be the case. Voluntary action by private individuals is not an inherently socialist idea. In fact quite the reverse.
So let's try GoFundMe.com next.
Friday 14 August 2015
The Empire Bum's Rush
Since neither our own government, the French government nor our "partners" in the wondrous European Union have shown any ability of even desire to solve the utter mess at Calais, I propose a private sector solution - simply load them on boats that we say are bound for England and sail them straight back to Africa where they can find far better refuge in the lands of their Muslim brethren.
Talking to a friend who works in shipping he reckoned on about £12,000 for a decent sized boat to sail to Morocco carrying up to 100 passengers.
Talking to a friend who works in shipping he reckoned on about £12,000 for a decent sized boat to sail to Morocco carrying up to 100 passengers.
I'll call it the Empire Bum's Rush.
To this end I've set up a Just Giving crowd funding site here where people can donate. I've set the target at £1 million, because this will be an ongoing project until would be migrants get the message that it is simply not acceptable to turn up in Europe with no visa and no money and no right to be here, and that it is very unwise to pay significant amounts of money to people trafficking gangs in order to do this.
To this end I've set up a Just Giving crowd funding site here where people can donate. I've set the target at £1 million, because this will be an ongoing project until would be migrants get the message that it is simply not acceptable to turn up in Europe with no visa and no money and no right to be here, and that it is very unwise to pay significant amounts of money to people trafficking gangs in order to do this.
Thursday 13 August 2015
Degradation Fetishists Dressed as Liberals
That rather alarming title is about the best I can think of for this utterly ridiculous video. It shows a group of French morons pretending to be kind by feeding the swarm of illegal migrants camped out around Calais hoping to come and enrich the United Kingdom.
This sorry band, led by dismal baby-boomer Claudine are going out and doing the begging on behalf of the assorted human misery living in fields around Calais, and getting local businesses to donate food, so that they can get a taste of life in England by living for free before they even get there. And what sort of reaction would you expect from these poor and downtrodden folk who are the recipients of this largess?
Even someone as cynical as me was a bit surprised to see them besieging and robbing the van when our saintly dupe noticed that they were hoarding boxes to sell to their fellow illegals. They drove off with one of them hanging out the back of their van emptying the contents out to his friends. Incredibly this only seemed to enhance Claudine's idiotically misplaced sympathy and she returned the next day bringing cans of halal ravioli to a colony of Somalians. When they noticed that the cans were past their best before date they angrily refused them and eventually tipped their contents out on the ground, almost quite literally throwing Claudine's "kindness" back in her face. She retreated, offended by the waste of food. This waste actually did annoy Claudine, but her anger wasn't directed at the supposedly poor and desperate Somalians who had just thrown away perfectly good free food. Oh no, as she and the gormless blob of silence in the van drove off she blamed "consumer society." Somalia, with an annual GDP of $246 can't really have much by way of rampant consumerism, so I presume she means the western consumer society which they have recently arrived in.
I tried hard to be generous to Claudine and think that she was simply an aging, naïve simpleton who thought she was being kind. The sort of lady who "charities" prey on to set up direct debits. It won't fly, though. Someone who was simply kind and compassionate would have stopped at the point that her van was besieged and assaulted. They would have been rightly offended, annoyed and disillusioned by this behaviour. Not Claudine though, she is back the next day getting more abuse from the recipients of her kindness. It could be a martyr complex, but she doesn't really come across as someone intent on broadcasting her generosity. In my experience, such people do more self-promotion and apart from a few photo ops with babies. The (video) photo op Claudine put out on YouTube shows her being berated by the very people she is trying to help.
This sorry band, led by dismal baby-boomer Claudine are going out and doing the begging on behalf of the assorted human misery living in fields around Calais, and getting local businesses to donate food, so that they can get a taste of life in England by living for free before they even get there. And what sort of reaction would you expect from these poor and downtrodden folk who are the recipients of this largess?
Even someone as cynical as me was a bit surprised to see them besieging and robbing the van when our saintly dupe noticed that they were hoarding boxes to sell to their fellow illegals. They drove off with one of them hanging out the back of their van emptying the contents out to his friends. Incredibly this only seemed to enhance Claudine's idiotically misplaced sympathy and she returned the next day bringing cans of halal ravioli to a colony of Somalians. When they noticed that the cans were past their best before date they angrily refused them and eventually tipped their contents out on the ground, almost quite literally throwing Claudine's "kindness" back in her face. She retreated, offended by the waste of food. This waste actually did annoy Claudine, but her anger wasn't directed at the supposedly poor and desperate Somalians who had just thrown away perfectly good free food. Oh no, as she and the gormless blob of silence in the van drove off she blamed "consumer society." Somalia, with an annual GDP of $246 can't really have much by way of rampant consumerism, so I presume she means the western consumer society which they have recently arrived in.
I tried hard to be generous to Claudine and think that she was simply an aging, naïve simpleton who thought she was being kind. The sort of lady who "charities" prey on to set up direct debits. It won't fly, though. Someone who was simply kind and compassionate would have stopped at the point that her van was besieged and assaulted. They would have been rightly offended, annoyed and disillusioned by this behaviour. Not Claudine though, she is back the next day getting more abuse from the recipients of her kindness. It could be a martyr complex, but she doesn't really come across as someone intent on broadcasting her generosity. In my experience, such people do more self-promotion and apart from a few photo ops with babies. The (video) photo op Claudine put out on YouTube shows her being berated by the very people she is trying to help.
This is the thing, though. I simply can't believe that it's actually the migrants Claudine is trying to help. From watching the video, I get the impression she thrives on degradation and abuse. Like a battered wife who keeps going back for more, she feels on some level that she deserves it. In this, Claudine is far from alone. This sort of cultural masochism appears to be a phenomenon of that age bracket. I believe Claudine wants to broadcast this element because she enjoys the humiliation of it.
Whether this betrays some sexual fetish or simply a general lack of any self-esteem or dignity is not clear and is really the business of Claudine and her merry band alone. What is clear is that she is at the very sharp end of a phenomenon which is basically destroying the western world. The fact that this swarm of aggressive and vicious migrants have even got as far as Calais, quite possibly with the help of the British navy, is an absolute disaster.
It would be quite possible for us to stop this. By simply doing nothing instead of assisting their illegal passage to Italy, it is quite likely that the numbers would be greatly reduced as far fewer would even attempt the crossing. Actually turning boats back would probably deter even more. A contributory welfare policy would make the country far less attractive. Having and enforcing a sensible immigration policy should make the number of illegal immigrants and genuine asylum seekers negligible.
That would be no good for Claudine and her ilk because they actively want to see western countries destroyed by mass third world immigration. They want scorn and degradation because they actually hate themselves and western culture so much that they believe it is deserved. They seem to derive some sick pleasure from being mugs. Taken advantage of by the very worst that humanity has to offer.
There's nothing especially complex about stopping this, we simply lack the political will to do it because an influential section of the public who are disproportionately represented in government and the media seem to share what appears to be a rather sick fetish for this sort of degradation. They feed off sharing it publically and crave ever more of it, and they are quite literally destroying western civilisation to fulfil it.
Friday 7 August 2015
A very smokey fire
Someone making a wholly malicious accusation of child molestation against a prominent politician in the current climate seems to be a pretty strong case of perverting the course of justice. So it seems a bit strange that Ben Fellows was recently found Not Guilty of perverting the course of justice for making a historic child abuse accusation against Kenneth Clarke. Something with the potential to cause massive damage in the current climate.
Now it is quite possible that after 21 years there was simply insufficient evidence to either prosecute Clarke for molestation or Fellows for making a false allegation. However, Fellows accusations are quite specific. In 1994 he was part of a cash-for-questions sting operation by The Cook Report targeting Clarke, who he alleges plied him with alcohol and sexually abused him in the office political lobbyist Ian Greer. It doesn't really sound like there's a lot of room for error or mistaken identity there. This wasn't a mysterious figure taking him from a children's home late one night, but a targeted investigation which uncovered something even more dramatic than was originally intended. It either happened or it's a fabrication. The law on perverting the course of justice covers fabricating evidence, and effecting a public mischief, both of which would seem to describe Fellows behaviour if the court believes the allegations were wholly false.
Perhaps even more curious still is Fellows statement immediately after the trial that while he stands by his allegations, he “shall make no further comment now or in the future about Mr Clarke and the events of 1994.”
Why would this be? It seems that the court has decided these allegations are not unfounded or malicious and that Fellows believes he was interfered with by a prominent politician. Even if no criminal prosecution can be brought against Clarke then surely having brought it this far he could either bring a private prosecution or at least encourage others to come forward so that Clarke can face justice while he is still alive.
His vow of silence seems to suggest a deal has been done. Quite what the deal is we may never know, but the deal maker would appear to be Justice Peregrine Simon. As well as acquitting Fellows, Simon also ordered that the jury not be told about another, entirely separate investigation by South Yorkshire Police into Clarke's interference with underage boys. Simon is the son of Jocelyn (Baron) Simon of Glaisdale, a founding member of the One Nation Group along with Clarke and Heath. According to Simon adjourning the case to let the other investigation take it's course would take too long, and just be too much trouble for such a minor matter.
So far so normal then, a Tory sexual cover up over 20 years ago, and a quite possibly dramatised recollection of events by Fellows.
Except there's more. You see in 1994, just around the time of the alleged incident a promising young Conservative researcher rather abruptly left politics and went over to Carlton Communications as Director of Corporate Affairs. His name was David Cameron, and he is the current Prime Minister.
Carlton was the baby of one Michael Green who through his marriage to Janet Wolfson, daughter of Conservative life peer Lord Wolfson, and cousin of Lord Young, the Conservative Secretary of State for Trade & Industry, Cameron's brief at the Conservative Research Department. In 1994, around the time of the alleged incident and Carlton hiring David Cameron, the company acquired Central Television who made The Cook Report, the programme that Fellows was working on when the alleged abuse took place. The episode in question mysteriously disappeared, the only episode cancelled in this fashion, as apparently after a few months accusations of cabinet ministers accepting bribes would have been "dated." All seems very cosy and convenient.
The Cook Report was cancelled in 1998, with Cameron still in situ, where he remained until being parachuted in to an ultra safe Conservative seat in 2001. Four years later he was leader of the Conservative party and by 2010 Prime Minister. Quite a career.
None of this of course is conclusive proof of any impropriety by Clarke, or of any assistance or collusion on the part of Cameron. Conclusive proof of anything in the sorry saga of the Westminster paedophile ring is a scarce commodity. However, it does not seem beyond the realms of possibility that both Clarke and Simon were keen to close the matter off once and for all, and that with Cameron now leading a majority Conservative government they had the perfect opportunity to do this, and do it by whatever means to ensure the silence of Fellows and others.
The more details emerge, the more probable it seems that a very powerful clique at the very highest levels of British politics and media have conspired to cover up grotesque child abuse, and through their culture of secrecy and silence have created a situation where paedophilia is rife across the very top echelons of society.
Now it is quite possible that after 21 years there was simply insufficient evidence to either prosecute Clarke for molestation or Fellows for making a false allegation. However, Fellows accusations are quite specific. In 1994 he was part of a cash-for-questions sting operation by The Cook Report targeting Clarke, who he alleges plied him with alcohol and sexually abused him in the office political lobbyist Ian Greer. It doesn't really sound like there's a lot of room for error or mistaken identity there. This wasn't a mysterious figure taking him from a children's home late one night, but a targeted investigation which uncovered something even more dramatic than was originally intended. It either happened or it's a fabrication. The law on perverting the course of justice covers fabricating evidence, and effecting a public mischief, both of which would seem to describe Fellows behaviour if the court believes the allegations were wholly false.
Perhaps even more curious still is Fellows statement immediately after the trial that while he stands by his allegations, he “shall make no further comment now or in the future about Mr Clarke and the events of 1994.”
Why would this be? It seems that the court has decided these allegations are not unfounded or malicious and that Fellows believes he was interfered with by a prominent politician. Even if no criminal prosecution can be brought against Clarke then surely having brought it this far he could either bring a private prosecution or at least encourage others to come forward so that Clarke can face justice while he is still alive.
His vow of silence seems to suggest a deal has been done. Quite what the deal is we may never know, but the deal maker would appear to be Justice Peregrine Simon. As well as acquitting Fellows, Simon also ordered that the jury not be told about another, entirely separate investigation by South Yorkshire Police into Clarke's interference with underage boys. Simon is the son of Jocelyn (Baron) Simon of Glaisdale, a founding member of the One Nation Group along with Clarke and Heath. According to Simon adjourning the case to let the other investigation take it's course would take too long, and just be too much trouble for such a minor matter.
So far so normal then, a Tory sexual cover up over 20 years ago, and a quite possibly dramatised recollection of events by Fellows.
Except there's more. You see in 1994, just around the time of the alleged incident a promising young Conservative researcher rather abruptly left politics and went over to Carlton Communications as Director of Corporate Affairs. His name was David Cameron, and he is the current Prime Minister.
Carlton was the baby of one Michael Green who through his marriage to Janet Wolfson, daughter of Conservative life peer Lord Wolfson, and cousin of Lord Young, the Conservative Secretary of State for Trade & Industry, Cameron's brief at the Conservative Research Department. In 1994, around the time of the alleged incident and Carlton hiring David Cameron, the company acquired Central Television who made The Cook Report, the programme that Fellows was working on when the alleged abuse took place. The episode in question mysteriously disappeared, the only episode cancelled in this fashion, as apparently after a few months accusations of cabinet ministers accepting bribes would have been "dated." All seems very cosy and convenient.
The Cook Report was cancelled in 1998, with Cameron still in situ, where he remained until being parachuted in to an ultra safe Conservative seat in 2001. Four years later he was leader of the Conservative party and by 2010 Prime Minister. Quite a career.
None of this of course is conclusive proof of any impropriety by Clarke, or of any assistance or collusion on the part of Cameron. Conclusive proof of anything in the sorry saga of the Westminster paedophile ring is a scarce commodity. However, it does not seem beyond the realms of possibility that both Clarke and Simon were keen to close the matter off once and for all, and that with Cameron now leading a majority Conservative government they had the perfect opportunity to do this, and do it by whatever means to ensure the silence of Fellows and others.
The more details emerge, the more probable it seems that a very powerful clique at the very highest levels of British politics and media have conspired to cover up grotesque child abuse, and through their culture of secrecy and silence have created a situation where paedophilia is rife across the very top echelons of society.
Wednesday 5 August 2015
Paedophiles and Power
I'm beginning to think that paedophilia is more a manifestation of someone being drunk on their own power than an innate condition in itself.
In this light it shouldn't really surprise anyone to hear that Edward Heath has been accused of child molestation. As well as persistent rumours, and the admission by his Chief Whip Tim Fortescue about covering up such things to keep backbenches loyal, Heath showed himself to be a thoroughly nasty piece of work in every way and absolutely power crazed.
"For anyone with any sense, who was in trouble, would come to the whips and tell them the truth, and say now, I’m in a jam, can you help? It might be debt, it might be… a scandal involving small boys, or any kind of scandal in which, erm er, a member seemed likely to be mixed up in, they’d come and ask if we could help and if we could, we did. And we would do everything we can because we would store up brownie points… and if I mean, that sounds a pretty, pretty nasty reason, but it’s one of the reasons because if we could get a chap out of trouble then, he will do as we ask forever more."
In this light it shouldn't really surprise anyone to hear that Edward Heath has been accused of child molestation. As well as persistent rumours, and the admission by his Chief Whip Tim Fortescue about covering up such things to keep backbenches loyal, Heath showed himself to be a thoroughly nasty piece of work in every way and absolutely power crazed.
There's no real way of knowing whether Heath was a paedophile who became powerful, or a powerful man who became a paedophile. However, the persistent nature of these accusations against very powerful men at the top of their profession does seem to point towards some link, rather than a representative proportion unless paedophillia is simply far more common than we are led to believe.
If there is a link between power and paedophillia then there seem to be 2 possibilities:
One, that power actually makes certain people attracted to the abuse of children. Perhaps their belief in their own power and invincibility leads them to push new boundaries and sexually abusing children is one of the most extreme boundaries they can push. Perhaps simply a love of extremes where the most powerful political figure in the country would derive sick pleasure from abusing some of the most powerless people, orphaned and abused children.
The second is that being a paedophile is a prerequisite for attaining power in the first place. Sexually abusing children is a rite of passage to the inner circle, and someone who doesn't do this can not be trusted.
This is basically an extension of Tim Fortescue's comments on his time as Chief Whip in Heath's government, where he would routinely help backbench MPs cover up "problems" in exchange for their loyalty:
This is basically an extension of Tim Fortescue's comments on his time as Chief Whip in Heath's government, where he would routinely help backbench MPs cover up "problems" in exchange for their loyalty:
"For anyone with any sense, who was in trouble, would come to the whips and tell them the truth, and say now, I’m in a jam, can you help? It might be debt, it might be… a scandal involving small boys, or any kind of scandal in which, erm er, a member seemed likely to be mixed up in, they’d come and ask if we could help and if we could, we did. And we would do everything we can because we would store up brownie points… and if I mean, that sounds a pretty, pretty nasty reason, but it’s one of the reasons because if we could get a chap out of trouble then, he will do as we ask forever more."
It isn't quite clear from this whether these people will "do as we ask forever more" out of gratitude or fear of being outed later - i.e. blackmail. What is clear is that if you were a chief whip or a senior minister then the more scandal and dirt you have on your backbenchers (and hence the more loyal they are) the better. Of course, the reward for being a loyal backbench MP is promotion to more senior roles in the party and in government.
Given that MPs are meant to first and foremost to represent their constituents, there's no reason they should be unswervingly loyal to the government. In fact they should hold the government to account which necessarily involves disagreeing with it on occasion. If the whips know they are a child molester then they can be prevented from doing this in any way which would be detrimental to the government. The more dirt the whips have, the more the MP can be trusted to toe the line.
The logical conclusion of these machinations is that the governing party would promote those who they had dirt on, while promoting someone with no dirt would be dangerous as they might contradict or challenge the government. Of course not all dirt is paedophilia, but it's hard to imagine a more potent scandal, or thus a more powerful way for a government to keep their MPs in line.
The logical conclusion of these machinations is that the governing party would promote those who they had dirt on, while promoting someone with no dirt would be dangerous as they might contradict or challenge the government. Of course not all dirt is paedophilia, but it's hard to imagine a more potent scandal, or thus a more powerful way for a government to keep their MPs in line.
I suspect the reality lies in a mixture of both of these explanations - the mix of ambitious MPs attaining much longed for power, and the fear of public revelations about what they do with that power creating and reinforcing a culture of secrecy and collusion. In this situation everyone who could expose it stands to lose by doing so, yet stands to gain by staying quiet.
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