RUTHFULLY YOURS

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The New York City Council will not be marching in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade because gays can not wave the LGBT banner on this occasion. I’m curious about Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito’s decision to limit her outrage to the gay issue when she also might have insisted that marchers be allowed to wave banners about their support for abortion rights and universal insurance for birth control. As a New Yorker who is neither Irish nor Catholic, I wonder how the council which supposedly represents all New Yorkers became monolithically concerned about the feelings of the gay population, one which actually has its own designated parade. Of course, as Mayor de Blasio’s toady, Ms. Mark-Viverito made the ultimate obsequious choice, raising the ante one degree higher than her boss who declined to march himself but thought it was fine for city workers to march in uniform.

We have reached the nadir of the civil rights movement when people are reduced to being single-issue puppets instead of fully rounded human beings. Surely, if a gay man went to a wedding officiated by a Catholic priest, he would be able to restrain the need to initiate a debate over the church’s position on the subject of homosexuality. He would go as a friend, an employee or a family member – just three other identities he might possess that have nothing to do with his being gay. Similarly, each of us has a multitude of roles, causes, concerns and memberships which define who we are. It has taken more than a century of legislation, still ongoing, to abolish defining ourselves narrowly by race, creed or gender. Yet here we are in a polyglot city where people have enormous freedom for self-expression with a group of dissenters who insist that the Irish not be entitled to their separate moment of Irish pride, uncontaminated by political and controversial issues which have many other forums for public discussion. The Saint Patrick’s Day Parade, named for an Irish-Catholic saint, deprives no one of the right to be who they are. It just asks that the celebration stay on the topic of Irish pride – not gay pride, not Puerto Rican pride, not Jewish, German or Italian pride – all of which have their own opportunities to celebrate their respective identities.

Chuckie Hagel did Obama’s (and congress’) bidding and slashed military spending yet again. None of these guys can say if they’re cutting fat or muscle, because they don’t know.

http://spectator.org/articles/57934/et-tu-u2

Sergeant Hagel did his duty on Monday. The gent who was appointed to be Queen of Hearts for the Defense Department did as he was told and announced yet another round of massive cuts for the defense budget.

Like the Queen — “verdict first, trial after” — Sgt. Hagel announced some very choice cuts without the benefit of any analysis of the threats our nation faces. Gone will be the A-10 attack aircraft, the U2 reconnaissance aircraft, and a host or two of soldiers and Marines. The decision may also be made that the Navy can’t afford to refuel one nuclear carrier resulting in it — and the rest of its battle group — being stuck in port for the foreseeable future. Which is surely okay with the White House because Hagel is matching that with cutting half of the Navy’s cruiser force.

(NB: Obama’s “Pacific Shift” to protect Japan, Taiwan, and the rest of the Pacific Rim nations is now officially a nullity. So is his promise to replace the ground-based missile defense that Bush promised Poland with a sea-based system.)

Military pay raises will be capped at 1% for the second straight year and other pay and allowance reductions are imposed. Pay won’t be actually reduced, but some allowances will be, such as the housing allowance which is the reason military families can sometimes live off-base when on-base housing isn’t available.

http://www.jpost.com/Experts/A-survival-imperative-Israels-nuclear-weapons-and-strategy-343613?prmusr=CUrYkktNq%2fguyMqWxXWEqVYKNzSJ7%2b%2bEaXTdtBUTvOFkvRhysh50DtGaMAzTOnKQ Although widely unacknowledged, Israel’s alleged nuclear weapons represent a critical impediment to the actual military use of nuclear weapons, and to the commencement of a regional nuclear war. Photo by: REUTERS Each year, like clockwork, Israel’s enemies advance high-sounding proposals for a nuclear-weapons free-zone in the Middle East. Although, at first hearing, such “Geneva” […]

http://drrichswier.com/2014/02/26/a-quest-for-commonality/

The Adult Catholic Education program, held recently at a local Catholic parish hall, was entitled, “Under Abraham’s Tent: Jews, Christians, and Muslims in the World Today.” The evening, designed to “foster peaceful relationships” of three religions through their shared patriarch, Abraham, attracted about 200 guests.The first speaker, Rabbi “J,” related the story of Abram, who smashed all but one of his father’s idols, leaving a hammer in the hand of the largest. When his father, Terach the idol carver, returned to the store and saw the damage, Abram alibied that a war had ensued among the gods, and the largest idol won. Terach scoffed, saying, “The idols have no life or power,” to which Abraham responded, “Then why do you worship them?”

Thus did Abram show the folly of idol worship and introduce the belief of monotheism into civilization. “J” further explained that the Jews, through Moses, were also the first to bring laws of morality and humanity to humankind, the rules by which civilizations have prospered since. Regrettably, she did not offer a definition of Judaism, the role of Jews in world history, or the significance of Israel to the Jewish people.

Although Jews had resided in Egypt, Iraq, Iran, and Mesopotamia, and despite their persecution through the centuries, they nevertheless did not declare these lands as theirs. She might have dismantled the accusation that Jews are colonialists, had she noted the Jewish claim to the land has very specific boundaries set forth in the ancient Torah – the same boundaries established by the League of Nations in 1920, and again by the United Nations in 1948. .

http://www.jeffjacoby.com/14464/where-is-our-shame

CLIVE CROOK, who for many years was a senior editor at The Economist, wrote the other day that he used to think his finest moment at the magazine was in June 2000, when he approved what became one of the most memorable covers in the publication’s history — a photo of North Korea’s ruler Kim Jong Il, “looking wonderfully absurd” as he waved stiffly to an audience. The headline above the picture: “Greetings, earthlings.”

Millions of North Koreans have starved to death because of Pyongyang’s deranged policies.

Now, having read the new UN report on the Kim regime’s institutionalized barbarity, Crook feels a “pang of shame” at the thought of that cover. North Korea jokes no longer seem so funny.

Indeed. It has been known for years that North Korea is a totalitarian hellhole ruled by megalomaniacs who have turned the country into a vast concentration camp. Millions of North Koreans have died from starvation caused by their government’s deranged policies; millions more have been victimized by its fanatic efforts to repress any hint of independent thought, and by its merciless assaults on human dignity. But the report issued by the UN panel this month, after a year-long investigation that gathered evidence from more than 320 victims and witnesses, paints such an extensive and meticulous portrait of evil that it compares in significance, as the Washington Post observed, to Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s devastating history of the Soviet labor camps, The Gulag Archipelago.

Israel demographicIsrael demographyIsrael jewish PopulationIsrael PopulationMichael WidlanskiUNRWAUNRWA PalestiniansYasser ArafatYasser Arafat population timebomb People who predict population trends need to learn from weather forecasters: when your forecasts are wrong more than right, go home before they lock you at home.‎ Many who yell “demography” when discussing ‎Israel’s future, pretend to have the facts on their side. Actually, […]

Hamas’ real problem with the UNRWA curriculum is that it could spoil the Islamist movement’s ongoing efforts to stir the hearts and minds of Palestinian children to wage jihad against the “enemies” of Islam. Hamas wants Palestinian children to be taught how to become suicide bombers and seek the death of Jews and “infidels.”

Palestinian schoolchildren in the Gaza Strip have been denied the opportunity to learn about human rights after the Hamas government determined that such a subject “dangerously contravenes Palestinian and Islamic culture.”

Hamas’s announcement came in response to an attempt by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) to include a course on human rights in schools run by the agency in the Gaza Strip.

The UNRWA bid drew strong condemnations from the Hamas government, whose representatives accused the international agency of seeking to “brainwash” Palestinian children.

Mutasame al-Minawi, a senior official with the Hamas-run Ministry of Education, explained that the main reason why his government was opposed to the human rights subject being taught in Palestinian schools is because it “ignores the nakba [catastrophe] of the Palestinian people, seeks to scrap the right of return for Palestinian refugees [to Israel] and promotes the culture of peaceful resistance and submission as a way of restoring our rights.”

Al-Minawi said that UNRWA proposed two years ago to include in its school curriculum the subject of human rights. UNRWA was hoping, he added, that the subject would be taught to children from Grades 7-9.

http://www.mideastoutpost.com/archives/menachem-begins-broadcast-to-the-nation-may-15-1948-the-state-of-israel-has-arisen.html

” We shall be accompanied by the spirit of those who revived our nation, Zeev Benjamin Herzl, Max Nordau, Joseph Trumpeldor and the father of resurrected Hebrew heroism, Zeev Jabotinsky. We shall be accompanied by the spirit of David Raziel, greatest of the Hebrew commanders of our day; and by Dov Gruner, one of the greatest of Hebrew soldiers. And in this battle, we shall break the enemy and bring salvation to our people, tried in the furnace of persecution, thirsting only for freedom, for righteousness and for justice. God, Lord of Israel, protect your soldiers. Grant blessing to their sword that is renewing the covenant that was made between your chosen people and your chosen land. Arise O Lion of Judea for our people, for our land. On to battle. Forward to victory. ”

This speech was broadcast on May 15, 1948 in the newly liberated and recognized modern state Israel. World War II officially ended in August 1945, less than three years before. In that war, 6,000,000 Jews had been killed- one of every three Jews in the world, and in their memory and answering the prayers of Zionists for for two thousand years, the state of Israel was reborn. Menachem Begin who played an outsize role in Jewish history broadcast this speech to a nation that was soon attacked by enemies on all sides. Israel prevailed. The rest is history and a true miracle. rsk

Editor’s Note: This is excerpted from Begin’s address on Israel’s independence day on the Irgun’s radio station. His words are worth remembering in this time of unprecedented challenges to Israel’s right to exist.

Citizens of the Hebrew Homeland, Soldiers of Israel, Hebrew Youth, Sisters and Brothers in Zion! Today is truly a holiday, a Holy Day, and a new fruit is visible before our very eyes. The Hebrew Revolt of 1944-1948 has been blessed with success — the first Hebrew revolt since the Hasmonean insurrection that has ended in victory. The State of Israel has arisen in bloody battle. The highway for the mass return to Zion has been cast up. The foundation has been laid — but only the foundation — for true independence.

One phase of the battle for freedom, for the return of the entire People of Israel to its homeland, for the restoration of the whole Land of Israel to its God-covenanted owners, has ended. But only one phase. We should recall that this event has occurred after 70 generations of dispersion and unending wandering of an unarmed people and after a period of almost total destruction of the Jew as Jew. Thus, although our suffering is not yet over, it is our right and our obligation to proffer thanks to the Rock of Israel and His Redeemer for all the miracles that have been done this day, as in those times. We therefore can say with full heart and soul on this first day of our liberation from the British occupier: Blessed is He who has sustained us and enabled us to have reached this time. The State of Israel has arisen. And it has risen “Only Thus”: through blood, through fire, with an outstretched hand and a mighty arm, with sufferings and with sacrifices. It could not have been otherwise.

And yet, even before our state is able to establish its normal governing institutions, it is compelled to fight, or rather, to continue to fight satanic enemies and blood-thirsty mercenaries, on land, in the air and on the sea. In these circumstances, the warning sounded by the Philosopher-President Thomas Masaryk to the Czechoslovak nation when it attained its freedom after three hundred years of slavery has a special significance for us. In 1918, when Masaryk stepped out on to the Wilson railway station in Prague, he warned his cheering countrymen: “It is difficult to set up a state; it is even more difficult to keep it going.”

We are surrounded by enemies who long for our destruction. Our one-day old state is set up in the midst of the flames of battle. And the very first pillar of our state must therefore be victory, total victory, in the war which is raging all over the country. For this victory, without which we shall have neither freedom nor life, we need arms; weapons of all sorts, in order to strike the enemies, in order to disperse the invaders, in order to free the entire length and breadth of the country from its would-be destroyers. But in addition to these arms, each and every one of us has need of another weapon, a spiritual weapon, the weapon of unflinching endurance in face of attacks from the air; in face of grievous casualties; in face of local disasters and temporary defeats; unflinching resistance to threats and cajolery.

URL to article: http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/the-post-american-and-post-communist-world/

Sixty years ago an uprising in the Ukraine would have been met with machine guns fired from behind the armor of Communist ideology. With the fall of the USSR, Russia didn’t have much of an ideology to deploy against Ukrainian nationalism.

Putin tried to replace Communism’s international agents of influence by cobbling together a crude network of leftist anti-imperialists, paleo-libertarians and assorted conspiracy theorists and exploited it with classic tradecraft. Assange and Snowden showed how damaging this could be to the United States, but Assange, Snowden and all the rest of the gang couldn’t keep the Ukraine in Putin’s hands.

The anti-government sentiments projected by RT can bring in useful idiots, Assange and Snowden are evidence of that, but they lack Communism’s power to influence millions through the medium of a comprehensive ideology whose followers were willing to lie and die for it in unending numbers.

If Russia had set out to suppress an uprising 60 years ago, its talking points would have been on the lips and printing presses of innumerable writers and papers. To see what that would look like today, just compare and contrast the coverage of protests in Ukraine and Venezuela. Putin destroyed whatever goodwill he had left from the left by coming out against gay rights. Maduro however is a Socialist in good standing. The media coverage of Venezuela and the Ukraine reflect that ideological disparity.

URL to article: http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/humberto-fontova/where-have-all-the-flower-children-gone/

That silence you hear issues from the media/celebrity axis regarding the massive protests in Venezuela where hip college kids are being beaten, tear-gassed and shot down in a manner to shame anything done by Mayor Daley’s police in 1968 or the Ohio National Guard in 1970. Six Venezuelan youths are confirmed dead and hundreds have been injured and/or arrested.

Forget looking in the mainstream media for the nitty-gritty of this communist repression. The Venezuelan regime —under the (literal!) and expert tutelage of their Cuban colonial overlords–is easily censoring the sheeplike mainstream media. The truth, however, is seeping out through social media. Please don’t miss these dramatic videos.

But these are Communist police and National Guardsmen doing the beating, gassing and shooting, you see. Hence the silence. Worse still, these Venezuelan storm-troopers are “practiced at the art of repression” thanks to hands-on training by the best in the business: Castro’s police.

There is no place in the media-celebrity narrative on Latin American police repression for this sort of thing. Pinochet? Somoza? Batista?—sure! These Latin American dictators thrived on repressing young hipsters. But they were all “right-wingers.” So it was only natural. A good word regarding any of those regimes by a rocker celebrity would have lead to instant and permanent blacklisting.