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Subject: Dumper Foxman, Christian-hating loxist
ADL's Foxman warns of efforts to 'Christianize America'
By Shlomo Shamir, Haaretz Correspondent
NEW YORK - Institutionalized Christianity in the U.S. has grown so extremist that it poses a tangible danger to the principle of separation of church and state and threatens to undermine the religious tolerance that characterizes the country, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, Abraham Foxman, warned in his address to the League's national commission, meeting in New York City over the weekend.
"Today we face a better financed, more sophisticated, coordinated, unified, energized and organized coalition of groups in opposition to our policy positions on church-state separation than ever before. Their goal is to implement their Christian worldview. To Christianize America. To save us!" he said.
Foxman proceeded to describe the process and to name names: "Major players include Focus On Family. Alliance Defense Fund, the American Family Association, Family Research Council and more. They and other groups have established new organizations and church-based networks, and built infrastructure throughout the country designed to promote traditional Christian values."
The ADL, considered the largest Jewish organization in America, has in the past spearheaded campaigns against religious preachers and Christian elements deemed unusually extreme. But this is the first all-out media assault by an ADL head on the U.S. Christian establishment.
"In 2002, leaders from 10 conservative Christian organizations formed the `Arlington Group,' an alliance of over 50 of the most prominent Christian leaders and organizations. Their Web site documented in considerable details the agenda of a wide range of issues, including judicial nominees, stem-cell research, same-sex marriage, abortion restrictions and the faith-based initiative - and their expectation of success on these issues [was high] because of their perceived political strength," Foxman said.
He noted that churches and organizations of this sort have always been active in America, but they had never before been so aggressive and determined. "They intend to Christianize all aspects of American life, from the halls of government to the libraries, to the movies, to recording studios, to the playing fields and locker rooms of professional, collegiate and amateur sports; from the military to SpongeBob SquarePants," Foxman charged. "No effort is made to hide their goals or their ambitions, and their vision of America is far different from ours."
Foxman traced the growing spread of Christian extremism to a crisis in values among large segments of the American population and a corresponding yearning for religious content, along with the presence of President George Bush as an encouraging ally. However, Foxman identified the central cause as a sense of persecution and the perception that religion, in general, and Christianity, in particular, are under attack from the liberals in the U.S.
In his speech, Foxman presented the as yet unpublished results of an opinion poll commissioned by the ADL. The survey found that an overwhelming 75 percent of Americans who attend church once a week believe that religion is under attack in America. Among evangelicals, that figure rises to 80 percent. Among those who attend church regularly, 70 percent think that Christianity is particularly threatened; 76 percent of evangelicals agree.
The poll also revealed that 60 percent of church members, and 69 percent of evangelical favor instituting organized prayer in America's public schools.
[Don't miss comments through link.]
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/641853.html
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Subject: race realist frigtens dogmatic liberals
My girlfriend is a racist
Her views don't make much sense -- she likes Bush ... and Chomsky!
By Cary Tennis
Nov. 7, 2005 | Dear Cary,
I'm a college student in my mid-20s who recently began dating again after a four-year relationship ended around Memorial Day. The girl I'm seeing now is beautiful, talented and bright. We don't align at all politically (I'm a Democrat; she's a dyed-in-the-wool Republican) but our personalities mesh so well that it really isn't a source of friction for us. We have enough in common to relate, and enough differences to make it challenging and interesting. I tend to be reserved when it comes to declaring my love, but she is definitely the sort of woman I could fall in love with.
The other night, however, she said that she had something to tell me: she's "a little racist" (we're both Irish-American). She buys into some of the most offensive stereotypes of black Americans (crime, laziness, etc.), and proceeded to tell me that she hates when people who can't speak English come to America. I was dumbfounded. I told her that people said the same sorts of things about our respective great-grandparents, and that 19th century stereotypes about the Irish were as false as the ones she was spouting today about other races.
Physically, emotionally and personality-wise, we're in sync. But I feel that this is a deal-breaker for me. She's young (21) and grew up in a racist household, but at some point she has to take ownership for her opinions. I almost dumped her on the spot, but there's so much else about her that I adore and admire; she's a fascinating mishmash of conflicting traits -- she loves Bush but also thinks Noam Chomsky should run for president, for instance. I want to appreciate and maybe even love her for who she is, but I really want her to change this one thing, and it is a big thing for me. Do I dump her? Do I say, "Change your heart or I'll dump you"? Can she reform if she wants to? The air between us is poisoned; I don't know what to do.
Disappointed In Love
Dear Disappointed,
Rather than attack her racist ideas directly, I would suggest that you first think about why they are important to her, what value they have. They may represent a vital connection to her family that she is reluctant to discard.
It's an interesting question: How are we supposed to discard the mistaken lessons of our family? After all, we go out into the world armed with what they taught us. Then presumably we learn to think critically in the university. A persuasive and charismatic professor may break through our ignorance. Intellectual honesty may leave us no choice but to conclude that racist ideas are scientifically unfounded and socially pernicious.
But on campus we may also encounter political groups that mirror the beliefs of our family and reinforce our mistaken notions. If we are not ready to discard the myths and fairy tales we got from our family, we may take refuge in campus groups whose politics seem to lend legitimacy to those notions.
One clue that she is clinging to these ideas for emotional reasons and has not thought them through is the absurd contradiction of having as heroes both George Bush and Noam Chomsky. This may indicate that what she really requires for a feeling of security is simply a strong father figure. Maybe any father figure will do. Maybe her father is key: What peril does she face if she challenges her father's political ideas? What were the rules of argument in her family? Was one allowed to question the orthodoxy? What happened to children when they did so? What did they see in their parents' eyes? Hurt? Anger? Threat? And what purpose did racist ideology serve in the family? Was it something the family used to hold itself together against outside threats?
The answers to these and similar questions might be complicated and difficult or they might be simple. But if we are ever to be rid of racism, it seems to me we must ask them. We must try to understand what good it does people to hang on to these ideas, why it is so difficult to give them up.
You might also, at the same time, by way of making it fair, look at your own received notions from your family, and how orthodoxy and dissent were handled. What were the prevailing ideologies in your family? Were you taught that racism is a deal-breaker?
While it is important to ask where these ideas come from and why they are valuable to her, it's inevitable that the ideas themselves must come under scrutiny.
Since she likes Noam Chomsky so much, perhaps the most persuasive argument might come from Chomsky himself. If indeed she "buys into some of the most offensive stereotypes of black Americans (crime, laziness, etc.)," let's hear what Chomsky has said about race and IQ:
"Consider finally the question of race and intellectual endowments. Notice again that in a decent society there would be no social consequences to any discovery that might be made about this question. Individuals are what they are; it is only on racist assumptions that they are to be regarded as an instance of their race category, so that social consequences ensue from the discovery that the mean for a certain racial category with respect to some capacity is such and such. Eliminating racist assumptions, the facts have no social consequences whatever they may be, and therefore are not worth knowing, from this point of view at least. ...
"Since the inquiry has no scientific significance and no social significance, apart from the racist assumption that individuals must be regarded not as what they are but rather as standing at the mean of their race category, it follows that it has no merit at all. The question then arises, Why is it pursued with such zeal? Why is it taken seriously? ...
"In a racist society, inquiry into race and IQ can be expected to reinforce prejudice, pretty much independent of the outcome of the inquiry" (from "Equality: Language Development, Human Intelligence and Social Organization," in "The Chomsky Reader," pp. 199-200).
Chomsky reminds us that we live in a racist society, but he denounces racism. I suggest that your friend do the same. It may be harder for her if her family and peer group provided her with these views and reinforce them. But perhaps you can be of some help in this regard.
Anyway, good luck. You may have an uphill battle. Say you explore all these issues with her, and you come to understand the genesis of them, but you find she actually has great enthusiasm for these ideas and doesn't want to let them go. At that point, I think you and I would agree, you have to let her go.
But you never know. It's worth a shot. Let me know how things turn out.
One final request: If you can't talk her out of her racist views, at least try to talk her out of majoring in broadcasting, OK?
Cary Tennis is Salon's advice columnist.
Here.
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Subject: "outsiders" - nigger railing against whites
McGruder is exactly the sort of angry outsider who's custom-made to cause a stir among polite society's rabble-rousers -- you know, the sorts that prefer to effect change and engage in heated debates over roasted duck, smoothly sidestepping any hurt feelings or awkward silences. Getting angry and condescending to a crowd that paid good money to be there is just plain unseemly, forget that your main point -- that back-slapping, self-congratulatory elites make your stomach turn -- is well worth making, particularly to a crowd of back-slapping self-congratulatory elites.
You have to admire McGruder's courage, particularly given the immense pressure to smile and act humble in such a setting. To honor McGruder for what he does, which is write a provocative cartoon about racism and one black kid's anger at white people, and then balk when he makes provocative, angry remarks, is hilariously petty. But then, just as we love our nutty outsiders as long as they're in romantic comedies and not in our living rooms, so too do we love our angry black men, as long as they don't say anything that will make the vichyssoise go down the wrong way.
The first episode of "Boondocks," in which Huey, his little brother, and his grandfather are invited to an all-white garden party, seems to mirror McGruder's memorable night on the podium. Of course, Huey's angry outbursts to the guests would never even appear on TV, except that Huey is a kid and this is a cartoon and all of this is just for laughs, right? Except that there aren't really a lot of jokes here, just characters with strong ideas and stubborn notions facing off against each other. In truth, the show feels like an odd fit for "Adult Swim," which traffics in irony-laced goofiness and pop cultural non sequiturs and carefully avoids anything heavy or even slightly dramatic or remotely linear.
But what makes "The Boondocks" really odd and unusual to watch also makes it hard not to watch -- you want to know what McGruder's going to try to address, and how much leeway he'll get from the powers that be at Cartoon Network. After two episodes, "The Boondocks" shows promise, defies categorization and, basically, could either evolve into a great show or become repetitive really fast. It's way too soon to tell, but given the daunting topics McGruder wants to tackle, it's tough not to cheer him on.
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Subject: get with The Agenda or else
I Like to Watch
Celebrating weirdos and outsiders for their courage, energy and inventive hairstyles, from Sundance's "Iconoclasts" to Aaron McGruder's "Boondocks."
By Heather Havrilesky
Nov. 6, 2005 | Free to be you and me
Here in America, we embrace the individual. We believe that it's important to be yourself, to make your own choices, to honor your spirit. We want you to be you. Unless, of course, you're a weirdo -- in which case we want you to bind and gag your spirit and act just like everybody else.
For all of our talk of loving rebels and celebrating individualism, most of us learn very quickly that those who stray even a hair off the beaten path are harassed mercilessly until they start "acting normal" again. Still, the myth of individuality lives on, because that's the American way. Even after years of being punished for behavior that's even mildly original, we each fancy ourselves as special and unique when in fact we look and sound like everyone else, and our so-called originality is defined only by our dysfunctional tics and the particular blend of mass-produced items in our closets.
http://www.salon.com/ent/iltw/2005/11/06/boondocks/index.html
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Subject: riot in France/pics
One of many caught - but 5M migrants watching and waiting
Racial violence throughout France continues to escalate without any signs of the migrant rioters ceasing their nightly attacks upon vehicles, buildings and police lines. On Saturday night (5th) rioting took place in over a dozen towns and cities across the Paris area and disturbances were witnessed further afield in Marseilles, Nice, Nantes, Lille and Strasbourg.
Thousands of Central African and Muslim youngsters of North African origin have taken to the streets, creating havoc which has resulted in millions of pounds worth of damage since the violence started in the Paris suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois on Thursday 27th October. Today there was a report that a total of over 1500 privately owned cars had been torched and scores of public and privately owned buildings set ablaze. Scores of police officers have been injured and today an elderly lady resident was still in hospital after being caught in the crossfire near her home in the Paris suburbs.
FO Warning to tourists
In an unprecedented step the French Foreign Office has warned British tourists to exercise “extreme caution” when travelling in riot-torn areas.
Unsurprisingly Britain’s New Labour regime, which commands the backing of only a small minority of voters has been silent about the violence being conducted on the streets of France. No warning has come from the UK Foreign Office, which remains tightly in the grip of the Marxist controlled Labour Party.
Paralysis
The French ruling liberal elite appear to be paralysed by recent events but former presidential contender Jean Marie le Pen, Leader of the patriotic French Front National has called upon the Chirac government to declare a state of emergency; thereby allowing armed troops to patrol those trouble hit towns, instead of the civilian police forces which are suffering from fatigue and lack of experience.
It is becoming increasingly obvious to all indigenous Europeans that the multi-cultural experiment, forced upon almost every western European country in the past 40 years has well and truly failed, and all those European nations which contain a potential fifth-column of inassimilable Muslim and African immigrants, from the UK to Italy, Spain to Sweden must question just how those in charge of law enforcement are today prepared to deal with a similar situation across towns and cities in their respective nations.
Pictures which have not been seen on the BBC or other tightly controlled UK media outfits can be seen
here.
This gallery, compiled by independent French photographers clearly shows the hatred and anger of the migrant rioters against their white French hosts. Another worrying gallery can be seen
here.
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