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The tyranny of Pride It’s time for a fightback against rainbow authoritarianism. Brendan O’Neill

https://www.spiked-online.com/2022/09/04/the-tyranny-of-pride/

Imagine there was a political movement so powerful and so intolerant that you might be visited by the cops for making fun of it. A movement so dominant that desecrating its symbols came to be treated as a kind of blasphemy. A movement so fawned over by the elites that any town or village that refused to bow down to it – to wave its flag and shout its slogans – risked being written off as unsafe, and essentially as unclean. A movement so embedded in the ruling class that every wing of the establishment, from the political set to the military to the financial elite, was duty bound to display its insignia.

Well, such a movement exists, right here in 21st-century Britain. And it isn’t Toryism or ‘Brexshit’ or any of the other ideologies the liberal elite is constantly telling us to fear. It’s Pride.

We’re living under a tyranny of Pride. Its eyesore rainbow flag dominates every major highway during Pride month. Back in June London looked like a city under occupation, with vast boulevards like Regent Street festooned in this ugly new standard. Scores of them fluttered as far as the eye could see, in perfect and sinister militaristic formation. The capitalist class drapes itself in the Pride flag, too. Banks splash it across their windows, Morgan Stanley staff march behind it in the street. Even the armed wing of the state now comes in Pride colours. Cop cars have been repainted in the hues of this ideological rainbow. Top officers wear Pride-themed insignias and lanyards. The Ministry of Defence’s vast headquarters in London have been illuminated in the Pride colours. The Royal Air Force even did a flyover of the Pride march in London last year, with 10 fighter jets pumping out rainbow-coloured contrails to the whooping and cheering of the crowd below. How long before they start dropping Pride-painted bombs on their missions overseas?

And woe betide anyone who refuses to wave the Pride flag or – sin of sins – violates it in some fashion. Ockbrook and Borrowash Parish Council in Derbyshire was branded a sinful backwater when it refused to fly the flag last year. ‘Anger as Pride Month flag snubbed by Derbyshire council…’, reported a horrified BBC. As for profaning Pride and its sacred symbols – that is so serious it can become a police matter. A few weeks ago a man in Hampshire was visited by cops, and put in handcuffs, for the blasphemy of retweeting a meme showing four Pride flags arranged to look like a swastika. The literal speech police who knocked on his door accused him of ‘causing anxiety’.

Defiling Pride is to the 21st century what desecrating an image of Christ was to the 14th. Modern-day liberals puff themselves up as superior to little religious people, and yet they are far more rashly hostile to acts of iconoclasm. Most Christians let out a weary sigh when their beliefs or their book are mocked by the woke (who would never, of course, say an untoward word about Islam). It is the secular right-on who kick off when their holy symbols are befouled.

Turkey: What Is the Real Terrorist Threat? by Burak Bekdil

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18742/turkey-terrorist-threat

Erdoğan said that Turkey would freeze Finland and Sweden’s NATO membership bids if the Nordic countries do not come into line with Turkey’s “fight against terrorist organizations.”

That might be a tough task for Finland and Sweden. In 2019, Erdoğan notoriously called half of Turks (those who do not vote for him) terrorists. The same year, Erdoğan declared the pro-Kurdish People’s Democracy Party a terrorist entity. In parliamentary elections in June 2015, that party won 13% of the national vote and 80 seats in the Turkish parliament. Nevertheless, in 2021, Erdoğan stated that the students who peacefully protested his appointment of a rector to Boğaziçi University were “terrorists.”

If Sweden and Finland do not fight wholeheartedly everyone Erdoğan deems a terrorist, does that mean he will veto their membership?

Kavala was acquitted on all charges but, as Erdoğan publicly insists that he is a “traitor,” he was not released from prison. Upon his acquittal, a prosecutor instantly produced a new indictment against him.

The West should tell Erdoğan it is ISIS, not men like Kavala, that is the terror threat to civilization.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s ideological family tree is inherently anti-Western– hence, anti-US and anti-NATO. This author’s most recent article, “NATO Family Picture in Madrid: This Will Not Be Erdoğan’s Last Blackmail,” was posted on July 7. Only 11 days later, on July 18, Erdoğan said that Turkey would freeze Finland and Sweden’s NATO membership bids if the Nordic countries do not come into line with Turkey’s “fight against terrorist organizations.”

Mass Stabbing in Canada Kills 10, Wounds at Least 15 More By Gwendolyn Sims

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/gwendolynsims/2022/09/04/mass-stabbing-in-canada-kills-10-wounds-at-least-15-more-n1626920

Ten people were killed and over fifteen more were hospitalized early Sunday morning in a mass stabbing in at least 13 locations in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. Canadian authorities are actively conducting a manhunt for at least two suspects.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) released a statement on the stabbings and suspects:

At this point in our investigation, we have located 10 deceased individuals and are investigating 13 locations in the communities of the James Smith Cree Nation and Weldon in Saskatchewan.

Several additional victims have been injured, 15 of which at this point have been transported to various hospitals. There may be additional injured victims who transported themselves to the various hospitals. We ask any injured person who hasn’t already spoken to police to please contact 310-RCMP

At this stage in the RCMP investigation, it’s believed some of the victims were targeted by the suspects while others were attacked randomly. Authorities are searching for suspects Damien Sanderson and Myles Sanderson:

Damien Sanderson is described as a 31-year-old male, 5 foot 7, 155 pounds, with black hair and brown eyes. Myles Sanderson is a 30-year-old male, 6 foot 1 and 240 pounds with brown hair and brown eyes. Their pictures are available on our social media channels and websites…

…They are considered armed and dangerous. They are believed to be in a black Nissan Rogue SUV with Saskatchewan license plate 119 MPI. At this point, we don’t know if they have changed vehicle[s] since this morning. Their location and direction of travel are unknown. This is why we need everyone in the province to stay vigilant and report any suspicious activity by calling 911 immediately.

Macron’s Pessimistic Moment by Amir Taheri

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18853/macron-pessimistic-moment

“Prepare for the end of abundance!” This is the message that French President Emmanuel Macron offered in his first post-holiday pronouncement last month. Though supposedly addressed at the French people, Macron’s lamentation seemed to have the entire “Western world” in mind.

In its current version, the nomos [organizing principle] trying to seize control in almost all Western societies could be described as “victimism”.

In victimism the state is seen as a cash machine distributing money among the victims, while apologizing to them. In the past few years. Western states, both in Europe and North America, have distributed countless trillions…

Some philosophers, among them the German Jürgen Habermas, have tried to give victimism a Christian varnish. In their reading, the Western world, long after having adopted “secularism”, remembers Christianity as a school of frugality, empathy for the downtrodden and atonement of sins symbolized by Christ as the ultimate victim.

The trouble with that reading is that it is closer to the Greek concept of the scapegoat, than to the Christian concept of redeemer.

“Prepare for the end of abundance!” This is the message that French President Emmanuel Macron offered in his first post-holiday pronouncement last month. Though supposedly addressed at the French people, Macron’s lamentation seemed to have the entire “Western world” in mind.

According to him the era of easily available capital and seemingly endless natural resources, notably oil and natural gas, is already over. The “Western world” must learn to live in a different way.

‘There We Will Strike Them’: The Munich Massacre and Its Aftermath by Richard Kemp

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18859/1972-munich-massacre

Prime Minister Golda Meir — who had been a signatory to Israel’s declaration of independence in 1948 — refused to bargain with [the terrorists], branding it blackmail. She later said: “We have learnt the bitter lesson. One may save a life immediately only to endanger more lives. Terrorism has to be wiped out.”

Meanwhile Berlin offered safe passage and unlimited cash to the terrorists….

Libyan president Muammar Gadaffi had funded the attack at the behest of PLO leader Yasser Arafat, who subsequently denied any involvement and two years later was feted in a standing ovation at the United Nations General Assembly.

“We were not engaged in vengeance. What we did was to concretely prevent in the future. We acted against those who thought that they would continue to perpetrate acts of terror”. — Mossad Chief Zvi Zamir, in an interview with Yossi Melman, (17 February 2006), Haaretz.

Too often Western nations, despite earlier rejection, condemnation and sometimes hostility, have eventually been obliged to follow the lead Israel was first forced to take to protect its people. American and European responses to jihadist attacks on their own territory, especially after 9/11, is an example of that. We are at present living through another example: the Iranian nuclear threat. Israeli leaders have repeatedly warned that Tehran’s nuclear programme not only represents grave danger to their own country but to the entire region and to the world. As in its response to Munich, Israel is conducting a covert campaign to stop it, including by targeted assassinations. Meanwhile the US and European countries are appeasing the mullahs in Tehran, just as they did with Palestinian terrorists in the 1970s, and are on the verge of striking a deal that will pave the path to an Iranian nuclear capability. This time, ignoring Israeli warnings will have even more dire and far-reaching consequences.

In memory of: David Berger, Anton Fliegerbauer, Ze’ev Friedman, Yosef Gutfreund, Eliezer Halfin, Yosef Romano, Amitzur Shapira, Kehat Shorr, Mark Slavin, Andre Spitzer, Yakov Springer, Moshe Weinberg.

Fifty years ago this week, 5th and 6th September 1972, the world watched in horror as Jews were again brutally murdered on German soil, at the Olympics in Munich. Eight Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) terrorists, using the cover name “Black September,” tortured and murdered 11 Israeli athletes, emasculating one of them as he lay dying in front of his team-mates. They stormed the athletes’ accommodation, killed two immediately and held the remainder hostage, demanding the release of 234 terrorist prisoners held by Israel. Prime Minister Golda Meir — who had been a signatory to Israel’s declaration of independence in 1948 — refused to bargain with them, branding it blackmail. She later said: “We have learnt the bitter lesson. One may save a life immediately only to endanger more lives. Terrorism has to be wiped out.”

A Deal Based on Lies: The Iran Nuclear Agreement Will Make War More Likely by Richard Kemp

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18845/iran-nuclear-deal-lies

These are the effects of the proposed nuclear deal brokered by the EU, Russia and China. Why is it brokered by the EU, Russia and China? Because the United States was outrageously banned from direct negotiations by Tehran. It is not outrageous that Iran demanded it, but that the US tolerated its own exclusion.

[T]he deal that is about to emerge will be even worse [than the 2015 deal]. The argument of the “bad” dealers is that it buys time for the West, with Micawberish optimism that “something will turn up”. This thinking is clear from President Biden’s preposterous hope that he can “lengthen and strengthen” the deal once it has been struck.

While in office, Obama declared that Iran would not be allowed to build nuclear weapons on his watch. He must have known that the only way to prevent that was through military action or perhaps crippling sanctions, but was unwilling to do either and the result was the JCPOA, which kicked the problem down the road onto someone else’s watch.

Tehran can legitimately commence operation of advanced uranium enrichment centrifuges in two years, all the while working flat out to develop nuclear-capable ballistic missiles that, along with Iran’s terrorist activities, are not covered at all in the agreement.

The “buying time” argument, and indeed an argument for any agreement, only works if you do not understand Iran and are naive enough to believe the regime will honor what it agrees to.

The reality that the optimistic and the unschooled fail to grasp is that the regime in Tehran will ignore constraints imposed by the deal that it does not like.

Tehran will continue to develop the nuclear capability that it sees as its right — deal or no deal — at the speed it wants until it is physically stopped from doing so. Whatever shape Biden’s deal takes there are only downsides for the West and the Middle East and only upsides for Tehran.

More than that, according to Israeli prime minister Yair Lapid, Tehran will receive $100 billion a year as a result of lifted sanctions.

Released from sanctions, Iran will be used as an economic refuge by Moscow to evade its own international sanctions.

Under the draft deal, Iran will be able to retain the uranium that it has been illicitly producing since the original JCPOA, enriched beyond any requirements for a peaceful nuclear programme…. [I]t seems likely that Russia — despite its own repeated nuclear threats — will be handed control of this existing uranium stockpile.

This chilling scenario — for which the world will pay a very high price — is about to be made more likely by the ill-judged actions of governments in America and Europe, which lack the resolve and courage to apply sufficient economic pressure and military deterrence to put a stop to Iranian nuclear ambitions. Instead, as they did in response to Russian aggression, they are again opting for appeasement, the opium of the faint-hearted.

As Western governments quake in the face of Russian nuclear threats, they are on the verge of striking a deal that will give Iran that same power over them.

Iran’s school curriculum exposes diplomatic option failure Ambassador (Ret.) Yoram Ettinge

https://bit.ly/3eeK0Kp

*”Iran is fighting a global war and calls on oppressed Muslims and non-Muslims to unite under Islam and the Islamic Republic of Iran to overthrow the evil regimes [the “infidel” West led by the US and the “heretic” Sunni regimes]. The Islamic Revolution knows no borders [hence, the right of Iran to interfere in many conflicts in the Middle East and beyond]; it applies to the whole world (Literature and Humanities, Grade 12, 2021‒2022, page 110).

School curriculum reflects ideology

The school curriculum of Iran’s Ayatollahs is consistent with their constitution, domestic repression of ethnic and religious minorities, the subjugation of women, and the proliferation of anti-US terrorism in the Middle East, Africa and Latin America. It provides a roadmap for an apocalyptic commitment to a global, anti-US Islamic revolution.

While US and Western policy makers rely heavily on statements and commitments made by Iran’s Ayatollahs in the negotiation rooms and in the public arena, the Ayatollahs’ school curriculum reflects most authentically their fanatic, religious and megalomaniacal anti-US strategy, tactics and vision: toppling the Sunni “apostate and heretic” regimes and bringing the Western “infidel” (especially “The Great American Satan”) to submission.

Moreover, Iran’s Ayatollahs have mastered the art of the Quran-sanctioned Taqiyya: dissimulation, doubletalk and deception-based statements and agreements, aimed at shielding the “believers” from the “infidels,” to be abrogated once conditions are ripe.

Furthermore, the school curriculum of the Ayatollahs has become an effective production-line for terrorists and suicide bombers.

Man Falsely Credited With Ending the Cold War Dies Robert Spencer

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2022/09/man-falsely-credited-ending-cold-war-dies-robert-spencer/

Reuters was up front about it, headlining their obituary this way: “Last Soviet leader Gorbachev, who ended Cold War and won Nobel prize, dies aged 91.” CNN lamented that “Mikhail Gorbachev’s tragedy is that he outlived the thaw in the Cold War between Moscow and the US, after doing more than anyone to engineer it.” The same alleged news network headlined another story on their fallen hero: “Mikhail Gorbachev, former Soviet president who took down the Iron Curtain, dies.” The BBC was just a trifle more circumspect, going with the headline: “Mikhail Gorbachev: The Soviet leader who helped end the Cold War.” Gorbachev did indeed help end the Cold War, but chiefly by doing something that Reuters, CNN and the Beeb don’t deign to mention: Gorbachev helped end the Cold War by losing it.

The Leftist intelligentsia that runs the propaganda organs known as CNN, the BBC and Reuters, along with the rest of the establishment media, will never admit it, but the man who actually ended the Cold War was Ronald Reagan. As Rating America’s Presidents explains, Reagan became president in the era of détente, when it was generally agreed that the best way to deal with the Soviet Union and global Communism in general was to play down differences, turn a blind eye to the human rights abuses endemic to socialist states, seek accords that would ease tensions, prevent the use of nuclear weapons, and allow the two sides to continue in much the same way indefinitely. The détente era reached its apex on June 18, 1979, when Jimmy Carter and Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev signed the SALT II Treaty, and then, as the world watched agog, Carter embraced and kissed the Communist despot.

President Reagan set a different tone. He was a public critic of détente as disadvantageous to American interests. On June 8, 1982, in a speech before the British House of Commons, he contradicted the conventional wisdom that the Soviet Union was here to stay and boldly predicted its demise. Reagan said, “The march of freedom and democracy…will leave Marxism-Leninism on the ash-heap of history, as it has left other tyrannies which stifle the freedom and muzzle the self-expression of the people.”

Hamas in Turkey: Money Laundering, Turkish Passports, Government Collusion and Terror Bank Accounts by Uzay Bulut

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18844/hamas-turkey-money-laundering

Beside Erdoğan’s regular antisemitic outbursts, other alarming issues — such as Hamas’ secret investment portfolio in Turkey and Turkey’s granting passports to Hamas terrorists — need to be addressed by Turkish government authorities.
See the US Treasury’s list of specially designated nationals whose businesses operate in Turkey and elsewhere.
“It seems that Hamas has chosen to manage its secret investment portfolio in Turkey because of the weak financial system in Turkey, which enables Hamas to hide its money laundering activity and tax violations from the regulatory bodies. Trend Gyo, controlled by Hamas, has five subsidiaries in Turkey. Senior officials in the investment portfolio hold dual, high-ranking positions in all five companies.” — Double Cheque, February 2, 2018.
As Turkey-Israel relations appear to be entering a so-called “new phase”, the government of Turkey needs to publicly explain the following: When Hamas began operating in Turkey, what its political, financial, military, and diplomatic activities have been there, how many Hamas terrorists have lived in Turkey, and why Turkey has enabled them. Why did Turkey give them Turkish citizenship? And if they really deported a few of them, what has changed? Does Turkey see Hamas as a terrorist organization now? How many Hamas terrorists remain in Turkey as of today? And why?
[A] senior Turkish official and other sources told Middle East Eye that Turkey had not expelled any Hamas members and was not planning to expel the Muslim Brotherhood presence in the country, either. As Hamas is the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, it is probably not a reach to assume that Turkey has no plans to ask Hamas to leave any time soon.
Until the Turkish government officials honestly and transparently answer these questions and take concrete steps to end Hamas’ presence in Turkey, its “rapprochement” with Israel should be understood only as an unauthentic attempt to benefit Erdoğan’s regime and harm Israel.

“Tayyip [Erdoğan] is a Jew who pretends to be a Muslim,” wrote Yüksel Üstün, on his Facebook account in 2020. In November 2021, a criminal court sentenced Üstün with a fine of 7,000 Turkish liras ($385) for “insulting the president.” In the complaint, filed by Hüseyin Aydın, an attorney for President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the expression “Jew” (when applied to Erdoğan) was deemed “humiliating, damaging to honor and dignity.”

The Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office of the city in which Üstün resides filed the lawsuit against Üstün after the Ministry of Justice gave permission to prosecute him. The indictment argued that the suspect committed the alleged crime in his post by “offending the honor, dignity and respectability of the president”. The court initially sentenced the defendant to 10 months and 20 days in prison. The judge later commuted the sentence to a judicial fine. The defendant nearly went to prison for calling Erdoğan “a Jew.”

China Is Torturing Critics in Psychiatric Hospitals by Gordon G. Chang

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18843/china-torture-psychiatric-hospitals

In the ankang—”peace and health”—system, detainees are strapped onto beds, pumped full of drugs, receive electric-shock therapy, and left to lie in their own excrement.

Researchers Chi Yin and Jerome Cohen, writing on the Diplomat site, report that some Chinese are confined for their lifetimes.

The system also appears to be grounded in the Chinese Communist Party’s optimistic totalitarian notion that medical treatment can make people obedient.

Chinese medical personnel administered drugs that damaged the central nervous system of adherents of that faith, intentionally overdosed them, applied extreme-strength electroacupuncture, and brutally force-fed them.

The abuse of psychiatry has continued for seven decades in the People’s Republic of China. The Chinese Communist Party has changed the organizational structures and the methods of how it destroys people in psychiatric institutions, but the destruction of life continues.

Safeguard Defenders—and the international community—must finally acknowledge that the Party is inherently murderous. The only way to end the abuse of psychiatry in China as well as the Party’s other horrific crimes is to end its rule of China.

China’s regime is torturing and killing critics, petitioners, activists, dissidents, and religious adherents in psychiatric hospitals, thereby bypassing its horribly misdescribed criminal justice system. The “barbaric practice,” as a Madrid-based NGO termed it this month, is still widespread.