Some Research on the "Right-Wing" Groups

I've been doing some reading on what mainstream media sources are calling "Right-Wing" and "Fascist" groups.  I'm NOT persuaded that the media understand either term, given that they seem to be using them to smear the groups as proto-Nazi "hate" groups.

Hate is a strong word.  It NEVER is applied to Islamicist groups, although they are quite vocal about their hatred of Jews and Christians, often using terms that are vicious, bigoted, and compare those people to apes, slaves, and sub-humans.  At best.

It is common to hear terms that are the Arabic equivalent of the N-word, applied to blacks.

Here's one of the stories that has been cited as a reason for the popularity of the English Defense League (EDL) - understand, I am NOT supporting them, nor am I in favor of their aims.  What I am trying to do is go beyond the vilification of them, en masse, to understand that the truth about their rise, and the reasons for it, may lie in that gray area called reality.  If, in fact, native Brits have been treated as 2nd-class people in their own country, you could certainly understand why they might be resentful about it.  And if that less-favored treatment only extends to the working-classes, and not the elites, it does seem to be doubly unfair.

Here's a video of a Christian church, whose graveyard is being dug up for a mosque.  The real question is, why is this acceptable?  Given the strong feeling in the Christian community about leaving the dead in peace in their graves, it does seem to be unnecessarily provocative.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rP9K1lj9h0

Here's another provocation - a parade for English returning soldiers - they are being abused by militants.  Note, there is NO adverse response to shouting, pushing, and vile comments.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yB3qnHmfaLg&feature=related

Note the aggressive actions and postures of these marchers, who push and shove against the Bobbies.  Note, also, that they are using their Pro-Palestinian scarves to disguise their identities.

This is one that has gotten a LOT of attention by the EDL.  Protesting Muslims are burning a giant poppy, symbol of respect for the war dead.  This is a symbol that dates back to WWI.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yBc-6Lu_B0

No-Go Zones?  These are areas that are NOT places where the Natives are tolerated.

http://youtu.be/E0BbWmPKCyk

Keep listening, when you watch different Youtube videos, for certain Arabic words to keep returning:

• These are Egyptian:


• kalb or kalba - bitch


• gazmaa - shoe (any reference, in the absence of other proof, should be taken to be an insult)


• kuss unmak - your mother's - um - female part - REAL insulting


• kaddaab - liar - it is REALLY insulting to call someone this


• Haraami [pl.] Haraamiyya - thief - don't forget, these are the people who think it's acceptable to cut off the hand of one


• saafil [pl.] safala - base, loathsome


• More generally Arabic insults


• sharmouta - whore - VERY common insult


•  kuffir or kuffar - infidel - literally, one who rejects Islam.  Has evolved into a slur; often coupled with "dirty" to imply that such a base person has sprung from a debased woman's female parts - a GRAVE insult, as they see it.  Someone so designated is considered to be beneath civilized contact, and deserving of any curse, punishment, cruelty, and lack of respect that the curser deems OK.


• From Wikipedia:


• Abid (Arabic: عبد‎, plural Abeed عبيد or El Abeed العبيد) is a derogatory term meaning "slave" used mainly in Arab countries and is usually applied as an insult toBlack people to invoke stereotypes. 


• The name has been explained as being an allusion to the submission that Muslims owe to Allah. Meyer dismisses this as "efforts by propagandists" to "explain the term away" that are "at the least, disingenuous".^[1]

So, are they choir boys in the EDL?  No.  But, neither should their outrage be ignored.

Neither should mothers - this one the wife of a serving soldier -  be threatened with loss of their children for expressing "unacceptable" thoughts about politics.

I'd like the rhetoric to tone down - on ALL sides.  I'd like all sides to realize that they are NOT the totally innocent victim of "Hate Groups", but may be digging into intolerant positions, based on half-understood "truths".  No single person or group holds revealed truth, or is beyond criticism.  Use of government to suppress criticism is unacceptable.  Labeling of your opponents as RACIST, in the absence of legal proof, is unacceptable.

What Constitutes a "Crime" Under Rules of Engagement?

Armed forces in the field are held to a high standard of conduct.  If they see an enemy combatant, they have to weigh the cost of letting him get away, versus the potential for civilian (that is, those not directly involved in the war and wearing a uniform - no matter what aid they give to their soldiers on their side) harm.

 

The Army Times had a recent post on a soldier involved in just that kind of situation - that soldier may end up disciplined for what, at worst, was a difference in opinion in a stress situation.  In a way, he is lucky - other soldiers have faced courtmartials, and potential prison time for "offenses" no greater.

 

Another blog goes into some detail about the daily experiences of soldiers, who risk their lives to avoid killing civilians.

 

Remember when the Anti-War crowd fought to get pictures of dead soldiers' coffins on the evening news - oh, yeah, that was when BUSH was president.



It's different now - the above pictures aren't on display, although the men and women are just as dead, in the same war.

 

And what of our Commander-in-Chief?

 

The Rules don't appear to apply to him.

 

Although President Obama has only served 39 months in office, 69 percent of the U.S. military fatalities in the more then 10-year-old war in Afghanistan have occurred on his watch.

Through April 30, the Defense Department had reported that 1,844 U.S. military personnel have been killed in and around Afghanistan while deployed in Operation Enduring Freedom, which was launched in October 2001 after al Qaeda terrorists attacked the World Trade Towers and the Pentagon.

According to CNSNews.com’s comprehensive database on Afghan war casualties, at least 1,275 of the 1,844 U.S. troops killed in Operation Enduring Freedom have been killed since Jan. 20, 2009, when Barack Obama was inaugurated as president.

 

Go here for the full story - and check the comments - some are saying that those figures may be low, due to playing games with the stats.

 

Here's some background on the drone strikes.

 

President Barack Obama has authorized 193 drone strikes in Pakistan since he took office in 2009, more than four times the number of attacks that President George W. Bush authorized during his two terms, according to the New America Foundation, a Washington-based public-policy institute.

 

Drone strikes aren't precision bombing - in most cases, all males in the vicinity are killed or injured.  And, that seems to be OK with the Prez.

 

“The president apparently reacted quite strongly to a bad strike, an errant strike in Pakistan very early in the first days of his presidency, and has kept pressing the agencies involved to minimize civilian casualties,” Shane said. “But there’s also been some dispute over the way civilian casualties are counted. The CIA often counts able-bodied males, military-age males who are killed in strikes as militants, unless they have concrete evidence to sort of prove them innocent, and some folks at the State Department and elsewhere have questioned that kind of a process.”

The Times article goes on to explain that President Obama is incredibly instrumental when it comes to targeted drone strikes and oversees counterterrorism operations involving the unmanned aerial aircraft so much so that he says who can and can’t be killed. To Newshour, Shane said, “Instead of wanting deniability and wanting to keep at a distance from this lethal program, he actually wanted to be very much part of it.” According to that Times’ report, it now makes a lot of sense why the commander-in-chief has never condemned the continuing strikes.

Speaking to an international audience during a virtual townhall earlier this year, President Obama said that drones had"not caused a huge number of civilian casualties” and he added that it’s "important for everybody to understand that this thing is kept on a very tight leash.” But when the Bureau of Investigative Journalism released the findings of a drone strike stud last year, the UK-based agency said , that the number of civilians killed in US drone strikes were probably 40 percent higher than what the American authorities were actually reporting: between 2004 and 2011, they put the estimate of civilian deaths at a figure of 385, but added in the research that the toll could actually come close to tallying 775 casualties.

 

The NY Times has another take on the story, but one that also lays out clearly Obama's complicity in the deaths.

 

BTW, here is a detailed explanation of the ROE for Iraq (haven't found the Afghan ones yet - I believe that the revisions haven't had wide circulation).  The original document was from the Wilileaks site.

 

How insane are these rules?  According to this post, George Zimmerman had more cover under the law to shoot Trevor Martin than many of our troops - who are pursuing men who are trying to kill them - have.

In Honor of Our Forefathers

...and All Patriots who choose to stand with them, against tyranny.

Why was THIS The Only Real Revolution?

we all know how the Sons of Liberty reacted to a two-cent tax on tea. They took their rights — their liberty — seriously. They knew that when a tyrant gets his foot in the door, the rest of the beast is sure to follow. As George Washington said in 1774, “The crisis is arrived when we must assert our rights or submit to every imposition which can be heaped upon us, till custom and use shall make us . . . slaves.”

How different are we?

Imagine that men from that era were observing us today. They would see that we send up to 50% of our income to different levels of government, and we are told that this is not sufficient —  that our duty is to sacrifice more. (Consider this shocking fact: the colonists paid approximately 1% of their incomes in taxes.) They would see an incredible number of regulations on all types of domestic and foreign commerce. They would see an immense army of bureaucrats to enforce the regulations and another army of real soldiers residing more or less permanently in other countries. It would be clear to them that Jefferson’s statement is unfortunately still true that “even under the best forms [of government] those entrusted with power have, in time and by slow operation, perverted it into tyranny.”

It's quite a tradition that we Americans have to live up to.

Freedom Costs - and it cost THEM dearly.

To Our Nation - Happy Birthday!

To Our Armed Forces - Please Take Care.

To All Citizens - Live Up to Their Example!

"Illegal Immigrant" - A Racial Slur - Or Something Else?

According to Ian Tuttle of the National Review, there are some who are characterizing the terms "illegal alien" and "illegal immigrant" as demeaning, unfair, and better replaced with "undocumented immigrant", "economic refugee", and other such terms.

The problem isn't WHAT you call the person who has violated our national sovreignty and right to determine who has a right to be here, it's that the person has chosen to invade our territory, without our permission.

To some extent, this is a cultural issue.  By that, I mean that the situation has been aggravated by misunderstandings arising from cultural differences.

For the majority of the USA's inhabitants, historically, we have been a "queue" culture.  It is the idea behind "first come, first served", and the standard way of handling crowd control without resorting to the riot police.  It is backed by the fact that everyone's time is important, and that no one has dispensation to force others to wait longer, so that they might be served earlier.

For this reason, "line jumping" is a violation of the cultural norm; Typically, adults enforce this norm through their social disapproval of the violator.  The system, when dealt with by those means, worked the majority of the time.

It's a Teutonic legacy.  The English and the Germans (from which groups a majority of the White citizens descended) follow that cultural artifact, and accept the wait stoically.

Many Hispanic immigrants (as well as a majority of African descended Americans) have another cultural heritage.  They are "push and pull" cultures.  Those are cultures that look for ways to evade the line, and use both push - crowding and shoving to get to the front - and pull - asking for a friend or relative to "hold them a place".  By either or both means, those in the Push and Pull cultures get to their goal of minimizing wait time (which, it must be said, is the same goal as the Queue culture).

This INFURIATES the Queue cultures.  It is often not recognized by the P & P people, or, for that matter, authority figures, such as cops and teachers.  The Q people are urged to ramp down their outrage at this assault on their cultural norms, and make nice.  Since another Q cultural heritage is to use non-physical means to enforce cultural norms (dirty looks, pursed lips, comments about lack of culture), the authorities are satisfied that an open fight didn't break out.

The P & P people, on the other hand, interpret those non-physical reminders of the norms as:

• Hate - rather than a learning opportunity designed to pressure them to conform to the expected behavior, they are seen as a manifestation of personal and racially-based hatred


• Fear - since the Q person didn't openly get physical, OBVIOUSLY, they are afraid - and have willingly consented to be bullied

I cannot emphasize enough just how OUTRAGED the Q people are by violations of their norm.  They may not respond with fists, but, they are mad enough to, under their calm surface.

Currently, legal immigration depends on queues.  Applicants are expected to adhere to the queue, and, for the most part, those influenced by English and Germanic cultures do so abide by the practice.

The P & P people, in contrast, blithely ignore the line, and, using either a hearty Push, or solicit a friend or family member for a Pull, walk in whenever they  please.  Understand, in their eyes, they have done NOTHING wrong - any resistance is considered by them to be without merit, and evidence of "hatred".

Touching off fury by the Qs.  They demand that the authority figures enforce "The Line", and, in today's world, are completely ignored.

Worse - they are lectured about their insensitivity to cultural norms (what about OUR norms?), forced to pay for the ones that violated those norms, and, in short time, told to accept, on compassionate grounds, as many relatives of the line-jumper as can be persuaded to apply.

What will be the end result of this cultural impasse?  Likely, unless something changes drastically (perhaps Queue Cultural Sensitivity sessions, to enlighten the P & P people as to the underlying motivations/expectations?), this will continue to be a divisive issue, both in the next election, and beyond.

Personal Update

This has been one of the driest periods I've had in the years that I've been blogging.  It was due to physical illnesses and pretty much total exhaustion.

In the last year, I've:

• Injured my knee - torn ligament


• Had flare-ups in pain management for some old wrist and elbow injuries


• Contracted pneumonia


• Suffered through a bout of bronchitis - during which, I pulled some rib muscles - I'm still in pain, and getting chiropractic treatment 2-3 times a week for that.


• During most of this time, my energy level was barely equal to doing the minimum - most days, I barely made it past noon without needing a nap.  As a consequence, the house looks like he!!.


• Started itching - initially bug bites, then what appeared to be prickly heat rash, and, finally, huge welts of hives.  That finally sent me to the doctor, who injected cortizone (also helping my asthma), and prescribed prednizone and decent antihistamines.

I'd feel REALLY sorry for myself if I wasn't aware that so many other people in my life have it as bad, or worse - whether financially, physically, or emotionally.

Now that I've improved, I've started writing - I have 1 post in process, and am looking forward to posting 3 or more times a week soon.

Memories of My Mother

Mom was a lighthearted woman.  She sang around the house (we teased her, claiming that her voice was terrible.  It wasn't a Grammy-quality voice, but it was fine).

Like most people, she sang the songs of her youth - in her case, the 1940s.  I didn't realize how often I'd heard them, until one day, I was watching Name That Tune.  The music of the show was WWII songs - I was, for once, VERY good - I knew them all.

Mom was patient.  She listened to my brother and I read stories aloud (prompting us to "sound it out" when encountering an unfamiliar word), let us recite our times tables, and helped us learn new skills - cooking, sewing, knitting, etc.

At a relatively young age (early 40s), Mom developed Rheumatoid Arthritis.  By the time I had my last child, she was in a wheelchair.  From that point on, she largely stayed home; it took much planning to arrange outings.  My dad retired early, both due to his poor health (he had pancreatic cancer), and to care for her.

Mom's life was not one that makes great biographies; she never held prestigious jobs, attended college, or managed charities or organizations.

What her special gift was that she made everyone that knew her feel special.  She had time to listen to those that needed it.  She gave her attention to others, without needing to be the focus of attention.

That's a very rare quality, and a large part of what made her special.

WHY Leftist Goals Aren't Good for America

I've not before found an explanation that better capsulizes the Leftist philisophy, and makes clear why it is NOT sustainable:

The left constantly approaches the economy like it’s a gigantic daycare. When people need something, “all we need to do is share.” If someone has something another person doesn’t, the solution is to have the “teacher” force him to share. This is how liberals approach the economy. But what is lost in this daycare mentality approach is that individuals need to put effort into creating, producing, and selling goods and services. They do not just exist, like a birthday cake that should be cut up and handed to the rugrats on a plastic plate. And liberals don’t notice that after a few semesters, the teacher is really packing on the pounds.

People, the tangible things of an economy don't just materialize.  They come into being because of the hard work of the producers.  If you think that people should just "share" their money, try this:

Here's an experiment - the next time someone says that "we" need to do something about a social problem, say "Great!  I've been hoping you'd agree.  Let's see, that program will cost about 3 billion dollars - you don't think that's too expensive, do you?"  They'll likely say NO amount is too great to solve the problem.  Then respond, "Wonderful!  I'm so glad that you have the commitment to solving the problem.  Your share will be $1000.  I'll take a check."

The concept that there just isn't a fairy godmother, with LOTS of money, who will wave her wand and dole out cash, is lost on many people.  This is a deeply immature mindset.  It is the mindset of one who FEELS poor, but FEELS surrounded by others who have SO much money.  Like the non-birthday girl at a party, she just can't fathom that the birthday child wouldn't want to make her happy by "sharing" some of the gifts - and by sharing, I mean being forced to give them up.