RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://www.nationalreview.com/blogs/print/300849

Dziga Vertov, one of the world’s first and finest documentarians, defined the goal of documentary film as showing “life as it is.” Ami Horowitz’s U.N. Me accomplishes this and more — it is a detailed exposé of the failures of the United Nations. This film could have sunk into a dreary, depressing recital of the various horrors perpetrated under the U.N.’s watch (Darfur, Rwandan genocide, etc.), but Ami Horowitz skillfully weaves a narrative that strikes a careful balance between humor and information.

Horowitz is not your typical documentary filmmaker, and his regular, unpretentious charm sets the tone of his film. He began his life as a banker, until one night he had an epiphany. He was drifting off to sleep while watching Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine when he suddenly realized that this was the medium for him. The result was U.N. Me.

But what is U.N. Me? According to Horowitz, it’s “a love letter” to the United Nations, albeit a love letter with “constructive criticism.” But if U.N. Me is a love letter, then it’s the letter you write to a significant other threatening a break-up. You want the relationship to work, but there have to be some major changes. The movie recounts several of the major failings of the United Nations over its history: the sexual abuses and massacres committed by U.N. peacekeepers, the failure to stop Iran’s nuclear-weapons program, the U.N.’s inability to curb terrorism, the Oil-for-Food program, the genocides in Rwanda and Darfur, and the United Nation’s failure to support human rights across the world. Not exactly the most uplifting material. But U.N. Me is more than a recitation of the United Nation’s misdeeds; instead, it delves deeper into how the culture and the structure of the U.N. led to such debacles.

Islam’s Cultural Revolution URL to article: http://frontpagemag.com/2012/05/24/islams-cultural-revolution/ Mao’s Cultural Revolution was one of the darkest chapters of the 20th Century: communist zealots, known as “the Red Guards,” attached revolutionary messages to Buddhist statues; seventeen professors from the Shanghai Music Conservatory committed suicide; intellectuals were harassed in public trials during which they had to confess their […]

Anders Behring Breivik and Norway’s Illness URL to article: http://frontpagemag.com/2012/05/24/anders-behring-breivik-and-norways-illness/ The trial of Norwegian mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik is, in the words of a perceptive Norwegian reporter-blogger, a “media circus.” The killer is being allowed to spout his extremist views on a wide variety of subjects, and although he murdered 77 people with no […]

http://frontpagemag.com/2012/05/24/world-powers-resume-%e2%80%9ctalks%e2%80%9d-charade-with-iran/

The Iranian regime with which the P5+1 countries launched their second round of nuclear talks on Wednesday in Baghdad is not the real Iranian regime. That is to say, the Western, Russian, and Chinese diplomats will—at best—be negotiating with a fantasy-projection of the Iranian regime, and Tehran’s negotiators will be all too compliant in playing the part assigned to them.

At worst, the P5+1 diplomats will actually be aware of the true nature of the Iranian regime, but will act out the script of “negotiating constructively” with it so as to further certain ancillary goals—like lowering oil prices, boosting political fortunes, and above all, forestalling a possible Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

This constructive, reasonable Iran, ready to strike a deal and essentially having the same aims as the P5+1 countries except for a few bridgeable areas of disagreement, cannot be the same Iran that just this week called for the “full annihilation of Israel,” that has taken a steady toll of American lives in Iraq, that bragged earlier this month of its navy’s ability to threaten New York City, that has been responsible for an ongoing string of terrorist atrocities for over three decades, and that continues to intimidate its Persian Gulf neighbors with subversion and very real threats of conquest.

There is, indeed, a situation in which a regime like Iran’s would sue for reasonable terms and real compromise—if it were truly on the ropes. But, while the sanctions are taking an economic toll, not even the most determined optimists claim that Tehran is anywhere near teetering. Not while its nuclear program continues at full speed, and while, as Israeli analyst Lt.-Col. (ret.) Michael Segall notes, it has been continuing a policy of strategic “buildup, defiance, and power projection” in the face of all Western blandishments.

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/the-media-is-guilty-of-racial-profiling?f=must_reads

The media reporting on the Trayvon Martin killing is guilty of felony racial profiling.

It thought it had all the juicy ingredients for a long term titillating story about an angry, white, gun toting, wannabe cop who profiled and stalked an innocent black teenager before killing him simply because of his race.

Due to Zimmerman having a European surname, living in the South, carrying a handgun, speaking without any dialect, and appearing Caucasian, the New York Times naturally profiled George Zimmerman as a bigoted right wing Conservative-Republican NRA life member nut job.

After learning that his mother was from South America, the newspaper of record, the New York Times, identified him as a “White-Hispanic.” I never heard that term applied to former Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico, whose mother was Hispanic. Richardson was always regarded as the Hispanic member of Bill Clinton’s diversified cabinet.

It turns out that Zimmerman is a registered Democrat.

George Zimmerman’s genes are an eclectic blend of at least three different races. The shameless mainstream media purposely downplayed the fact that Zimmerman’s grandfather was black. But because he has a German family name and has Caucasian facial features, he was immediately profiled and portrayed as a stalking racist killer who preys on poor defenseless black children.

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/sticks-and-stones

Sticks and stones may break my bones, goes the adage, but names will never hurt me.

The new adage, tailored for our age, goes:

Sticks and stones may break my bones, and names, insults, derogatory remarks, denigrations, defamations, “hate” crimes, “bias intimidations,” rude or indecent gestures, mockery, satire in textual print or imagery, disrespect, lifestyle harassment, bullying, and other verbal, visual, and non-violent actions, attempts at passive victimization and gross insensitivities that tend or are calculated to hurt, depress, humiliate, or shame me, and otherwise offend my self-esteem and rightful dignity, compromise my privacy, and diminish my standing in the eyes of my fellow creatures – may be grounds for civil and/or criminal suits.

Sticks and stones may be used in the commission of an actual felony, as well as guns, knives, one’s fists, or any other physical object. But an evolving complement of new chargeable felonies, often appended to legitimate ones, is growing, and if not challenged, will reach a “critical mass” in law that will stifle all realms of speech. These new “felonies” are “hate crimes.” A new subset of them is “bias intimidation.”

In “The Peril of ‘Hate Crimes'” I noted:

.[T]he why of a crime is increasingly treated as though it were a weapon, such as a gun, a knife, or a club. In standard criminal cases, however, it has never been the instrument of crime that was on trial, but the defendant and his actions.

Proponents of hate crime have attempted to find a compromise between objectivity in criminal law and the notion that a felon should also be punished for what caused him to commit the crime. But no such compromise is feasible if objective law is to be preserved and justice served. The irrational element – that is, making thought, however irrational or ugly it may be, a crime – has suborned the rational. No compromise between good and evil is lasting or practical. Evil will always come out the victor.

It did not take long for the corrupting notion of hate crimes to degenerate into thought crime. This is what happens when reason is declared irrelevant or is abandoned or diluted by the irrational.

It used to be that a criminal was sentenced for his crime, and if the crime was committed from some form of prejudice, the court’s and jury’s afterthought was usually: And, by the way, your motives are contemptible and despicable.

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3075/jordan-hijab Several Arabic news reports appeared yesterday, Tuesday, May 22, exposing the new hijab policy of the Jordanian Dubai Islamic Bank. Under new ownership, bank management recently decreed that all females must wear the hijab, the Islamic veil, or be terminated. According to Najem News—which says the bank’s policy “contradicts Jordan’s laws and constitutions”—the bank […]

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3074/islamic-separatism-britain Ul-Haq, 41, is also the leader for new generation of “home-grown” British Islamists who loathe Western values, support armed Jihad and preach contempt for Christians, Jews and Hundus. Ul-Haq, who preaches in mosques throughout Britain, outlaws television and music, and says football is a “cancer that has infected our youth.” He is appalled by […]

http://www.mererhetoric.com/2012/05/24/contentions-roundup-obama-bows-to-turkey-on-israel/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+MereRhetoric+%28Mere+Rhetoric%29

A roundup of recent Commentary Contentions posts on how Obama is allowing AKP neo-Ottomans in Turkey to drive a wedge between the United States, NATO, and Israel. The second post is roughly as comprehensive a link dump as you’ll find:

Obama Sold Out Israel to Turkey’s Islamists
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/03/05/obama-israel-turkey-islamists/

Obama Letting Turkey Drive a Wedge Between NATO and Israel

Obama Rolls Over Again for the Turks

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/23/us-afghanistan-poisoning-idUSBRE84M0N420120523 SO NOW THE JIHADIS ARE CALLED “CONSERVATIVE RADICALS”….RSK Reuters) – More than 120 schoolgirls and three teachers have been poisoned in the second attack in as many months blamed on conservative radicals in the country’s north, Afghan police and education officials said on Wednesday. The attack occurred in Takhar province where police said that […]