RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/2018/06/enough-is-enough-video.html

‘There have been countless incidents, from Europe to North America. These are just a few recent examples… In Ukraine, antisemitic attacks nearly doubled between 2016 and 2017. There were more than a dozen incidents recorded in April alone. In Berlin, a man was attacked in an upscale neighborhood for wearing a kippah. In Paris, Holocaust survivor Mireille Knoll was brutally murdered in her apartment. Her attacker stated that he carried out the crime because she was Jewish. 2017 set a record for antisemitic activity in Sweden. Authorities prevented a neo-Nazi march in front of a synagogue on Yom Kippur after receiving intense pressure. In Bulgaria, far-right nationalists marched in commemoration of a war time Nazi collaborator. And in the United States, a Georgia town was the site of a Neo-Nazi march despite protests from residents. Marchers there set a swastika ablaze after nightfall. Italian fans of the Lazio football club used images of Anne Frank to insult supporters of rival club Roma. British Jews rallied in response to rampant and institutionalized antisemitism within the Labour Party.’

http://standpointmag.co.uk/node/7179/full
Why has the Left become so averse to free speech? Whether it is Labour MPs, such as the redoubtable Thangham Debbonaire, bullied and laid into by Momentum thugs for attending a rally against anti-Semitism, or the transgender cabal hell-bent on destroying anyone who disagrees with a single word of their Orwell-ian propaganda, silencing by some leftists has become ridiculous in the extreme.

In an article for the New York Times recently, the German academic Ulrich Baer wrote: “The idea of freedom of speech does not mean a blanket permission to say anything anybody thinks. It means balancing the inherent value of a given view with the obligation to ensure that other members of a given community can participate in discourse as fully recognised members of that community.” How true.

By far the worst censors and McCarthyites are the transgender activists and their allies. Guardian commentator and Corbynista Owen Jones has angered a number of feminists by telling them they are “on the wrong side of history” because they believe they have the right to discuss their rights as women, and because they refuse to accept that “trans women are women” and that “some women have penises, some men menstruate”, as goes the trans-lunatic mantra.

There are currently any number of men on the Left who are happy to see women like me silenced and bullied for not toeing the party line. It suits men such as Jones to be able to scream “transphobe” at feminists whilst being seen as a “progressive” by other leftist men.

I recently attended a meeting organised by a group of feminists in Bristol who were concerned about the proposed changes to the Gender Recognition Act that would enable any man to “self-identify” as a woman (or vice versa) without any medical intervention whatsoever.

http://standpointmag.co.uk/node/7177/full

“Sorry we didn’t make it to you yesterday,” said the delivery man. “We had to come from the other side of the city and there was all that trouble in Mitchell’s Plain. They were stoning the vehicles on the highway and there was a lot of shooting. There was more shooting due to the bus strike too. Today the trouble seems to have shifted to Grassy Park and Hout Bay — we have heard of shooting in both those places but luckily they’re not on our route.”

I nodded — I’d heard about the Mitchell’s Plain trouble but these days civil strife is so common in South Africa that it often doesn’t make the papers at all, only the traffic news, and nobody bothers any more to say what the cause of the trouble is. Instead, it is all put under the general rubric of “service delivery protests”.

What seemed to be the problem, I asked. “Oh, you know how it is,” says the delivery man, who is Coloured. “Some of them say their housing conditions are bad, others are demanding houses or land to build shacks on. That’s what it’s like in the new South Africa, hey? Some people think they will be given property if they just make enough trouble.” A black workman, overhearing this, tells me more bleakly: “What’s happening at Mitchell’s Plain is that the Coloured people and the blacks are fighting one another.”

On April 21 the Kaiser Chiefs soccer team played at the World Cup stadium in Durban — and lost. Their angry fans went on the rampage, burning and looting vehicles and committing some Rand 2.6 million (£150,000) of damage to the stadium itself. On April 1 on the main N3 motorway at Mooi River, more than 100 miles out of Durban, protesters had attacked and burnt 35 large trucks and looted and destroyed a considerable number of other vehicles. This was only a small item in the news and no reason was given for the violence. However, a friend phoned me from the scene, describing a situation of utter chaos. The protest had been against the employment of Zimbabweans as truck-drivers — there is usually a xenophobic element to such troubles — but once the vehicles had been successfully stormed an army of looters joined in. My friend said that the police were just standing watching. When he asked them why they made no move to stop the looting, they had explained that it wouldn’t be safe — some of the looters had guns. This complete passivity on the part of the police is also part of the new normal — it had been just the same at the soccer riot.

One of the uncanniest commemorations of modern times took place last month. It centred on the Basilica of Constantine, one of several imposing remains of the ancient Roman colony of Augusta Treverorum, later the German city of Trier. This vast brick Aula Palatina — once the throne room of Constantine, the first Christian Emperor of Rome, now the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer — was the setting for a celebration of the bicentenary of the birth of Karl Marx on May 5, 1818.

The ceremony culminated in a remarkable tribute to Marx by Jean Claude Juncker, the President of the European Commission. “Karl Marx was a philosopher who thought into the future,” Juncker rhapsodised. He had recognised “the task of our time — Europe’s social dimension that remains to this day the poor relation of European integration”. Having designated Marx as godfather of the European Union, Juncker insisted that Marx’s ideas had been posthumously “reformulated into virtually the opposite” and denied that the author of The Communist Manifesto had anything to do with the crimes of communist regimes: “Marx isn’t responsible for all the atrocities his alleged heirs have to answer for.”

Such an official endorsement of an English-speaking thinker — Adam Smith, say — would be unthinkable, but the European Commission pulled out all the stops for the German ideologue. (It is worth noting that Juncker’s speeches are usually written for him by Professor Martin Selmayr, his German chef de cabinet, whom he recently — and controversially — promoted to be Secretary-General of the Commission, the EU’s most senior civil servant.)

On the same day President Xi Jingping of China described Marx as “the greatest thinker of modern times”. Xi had donated a huge bronze statue to stand guard over Marx’s birthplace; it was unveiled by Juncker amid much pomp. Meanwhile in London, John McDonnell was also defending Marx, who died here in 1883. “Marxism is about developing democracy,” Labour’s Shadow Chancellor declared, “but to have an honest debate we need to be able to cut through the lies about Marxism.”

Juncker, Xi and McDonnell are correct in one respect: Marx was no ordinary thinker. Indeed, he dismissed philosophers who had merely interpreted the world: “The point is to change it.” And change the world he certainly did.

Two centuries have passed since Marx was born, but we are still living in his shadow. No man in modern times has had more influence. Yet nobody, perhaps, has done more harm to humanity.

More than a hundred million people have been murdered in his name by Stalin, Mao and other dictators who were his disciples. Billions more have suffered under Communism, the ideology Marx created and which once ruled nearly half of mankind. But for Marx, there would have been no Gulag Archipelago in the Soviet Union, no Holodomor in Ukraine, no Cultural Revolution in China, no Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, nor any other famines, purges and genocides carried out in the name of Communism.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/06/the_muslim_authoritarian_mentality.html

For thousands of years, Arabs lived in an authoritarian paternalistic culture. There was always a headman, a chief, a dictator, or a know-it-all who had the answers or resources who had to be followed and obeyed. This “follower mentality” had great heuristic value. It freed the masses from the often arduous task of thinking for themselves, taking responsibility, and tackling problems. It was always easier to let someone else do all those chores and simply follow his directives. This type of mentality was ideal for Muslims who did not want to think for themselves.

Authoritarian paternalistic culture ruled the Arabs for as far back as historical records show. Arabs were always headed by an autocratic man. At times, there were councils, all male and usually advisory in function with no or little executive power. The headman embodied in himself all authority: the legislative, the judiciary, and the executive.

The system was a top-down hierarchy, where all directives and decisions were dictated from the top, and all people were to serve the top and at the pleasure of the top.

A father in the family and a father figure of some kind in the larger group always ruled. The man on top, a father or a father figure, was adhered to as the authority, followed, and obeyed.

Islam is custom-made and perfectly suited for people who are accustomed to being treated like children. Being a Muslim is a bargain of sorts. The believer continues to remain in a child mentally while aging. His part of the bargain is the total surrender to Islam. In return, Islam promises to supply him surefire answers as well as a perfect roadmap for this life and guaranteed bliss in the afterlife.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12270/uk-blasphemy-laws

It is reasonable to assume that the planned report and the ensuing work on finding a definition of “Islamophobia” is meant effectively to destroy the little that remains of free speech in the UK.

The Anti-Muslim Hatred Working Group has as its top priority “tackling the far right and counter jihadists”. It seems a peculiar government priority to “tackle” people who are opposed to jihad; one would assume that the British government is also against jihad.

According to British government logic, then, after Muslims stabbed and beheaded British Army soldier Lee Rigby in broad daylight in London, Muslim institutions needed protection — not British ones.

The All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on British Muslims[1] has formally begun work on the establishment of a “working definition of Islamophobia that can be widely accepted by Muslims, political parties and the government”.

The AAPG on British Muslims, according to its website, was established in July 2017. It is chaired by MPs Anna Soubry and Wes Streeting and is meant to build on the work of a former AAPG: the AAPG on Islamophobia. The latter came into existence as the result of a meeting at the House of Commons in March 2010, hosted by, among others, the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) — the largest Muslim organization in the UK, which claims to be representative of British Muslims — which is linked to the Muslim Brotherhood[2]. The purpose of the meeting was “to discuss the growing spate of attacks in all its forms against British Muslims”. The meeting, which was attended, among others, by parliamentarians, police and public servants called for the establishment of an APPG on Islamophobia. By November 2010, the AAPG on Islamophobia had been formed, and was described by its chairman, the Conservative Kris Hopkins, as a “momentous occasion” the purpose of which was to “propose considered, evidence based policies to tackle Islamophobia wherever it exists”. However, the newly established AAPG quickly ran into trouble. It turned out that the Muslim organization appointed as its secretariat was the Muslim extremist organization iENGAGE, which has since changed its name to MEND.[3]

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12427/populist-government-takes-power-in-italy

The new government has pledged to pursue a host of populist policies, including reclaiming national sovereignty from the European Union over issues ranging from border protection and immigration to economics and finance. For now, however, it has abandoned previous plans to hold a referendum on whether Italy should abandon the euro.

“The EU Budget Commissioner the German Oettinger says the markets will show Italians the right way to vote. If that isn’t a threat…” — Matteo Salvini, leader of the Lega party

The continued patronizing by EU officials has contributed to the rise of populism in Italy and feeds popular support for the euroscepticism embraced by M5S and Lega.

Italy’s rival anti-establishment parties — the populist Five Star Movement (M5S) and the nationalist League (Lega) — have formed a “eurosceptic” coalition government.

The new government has pledged to pursue a host of populist policies, including reclaiming national sovereignty from the European Union over issues ranging from border protection and immigration to economics and finance. For now, however, it has abandoned previous plans to hold a referendum on whether Italy should abandon the euro.

The viability of a M5S/Lega government initially was thrown into doubt after Italian President Sergio Mattarella vetoed their eurosceptic choice for finance minister: Paolo Savona, an 81-year-old former industry minister who has called Italy’s entry into the euro a “historic mistake.”

M5S/Lega reached a compromised by nominating Giovanni Tria, an economics professor who holds politically correct views on the euro, to head the finance ministry. Fittingly, Savona will become Italy’s new Minister for European Affairs.

The new government, which was sworn in by Mattarella on June 1, will be headed by Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, a little-known law professor with no experience in politics, and two deputy prime ministers: M5S leader Luigi Di Maio, who also becomes minister for economic development and labor; and Lega leader Matteo Salvini, who also becomes minister of the interior. The cabinet will have 19 ministers in all.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12428/british-justice-poppycock

Instead of arresting rapists, the police, in at least a couple of cases, actually arrested people who had done nothing other than to try to rescue their children from the clutches of rapists.

So much concern – legitimately so – about the sacred right of the rapists to a fair trial, including the presumption of innocence and an opportunity to retain the lawyers of their choice – but so much readiness to excuse the denial of the same right to Robinson.

These decades of cover-ups by British officials are themselves unspeakable crimes. How many of those who knew, but who did nothing, have faced anything remotely resembling justice? Apparently none.

As any viewer of British TV news knows, a “trained professional journalist” in Britain observes all kinds of rules of professional conduct: he calls Muslims “Asians,” he describes any critic of Islam, or anyone who attends a rally protesting the unjust incarceration of a critic of Islam, as a member of the “far right,” and he identifies far-left smear machines as “anti-racist groups.”

The coverage here during the last few days of the Tommy Robinson affair in Britain appears to be having at least a small impact in certain circles in Merrie Olde England. Dispatches have come in from some of the tonier addresses in the UK explaining, in that marvelous tone of condescension, which no one from beyond the shores of England can ever quite pull off, that those of us who sympathize with Robinson have got it all wrong; that we simply do not grasp the exquisite nuances of British jurisprudence, specifically the kingdom’s laws about the coverage of trials – for if we did understand, we would recognize that Robinson’s summary arrest and imprisonment did not represent an outrageous denial of his freedom of speech, his right to due process, and his right to an attorney of his own choosing, but were, in fact, thoroughly appropriate actions intended to ensure the integrity of the trial he was covering. Those of us outside the UK who think that British freedom has been compromised and that the British system of law has been cynically exploited for ignoble purposes are, apparently, entirely mistaken; on the contrary, we are instructed, Britain’s police are continuing to conduct themselves in a responsible matter, Britain’s courts are still models of probity, and Britain’s real journalists (not clumsy, activist amateurs like Robinson) persist in carrying out their role with extraordinary professionalism and propriety, obeying to the letter the eminently sensible rules that govern reportage about court cases in the land of Magna Carta.

“It is true,” acknowledged one correspondent, “that in previous years the UK police wrongly hesitated to prosecute Muslim grooming gangs. And it was a shocking scandal, which the Daily Mail did much to expose and excoriate. But that has changed.”

Hesitated? Changed? Talk about English understatement. For decades – not years – police, social workers, local politicians, and journalists all over Britain knew that thousands of non-Muslim girls throughout the country were being repeatedly raped by Muslim gangs. The perpetrators were not arrested – partly because police and others in authority were apparently terrified of being called racists.

https://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/putin-the-manager

On May 30, Russia Today (not to be confused with the RT television network) published an article by Srdja Trifkovic in Russian, “Putin is a manager rather than a far-seeing statesman who follows a long-term plan.” We bring you this piece in Dr. Trifkovic’s translation, a sequel to his article Putin’s Collapsing Credibility posted here a month ago.

It has been perfectly clear to me, since early spring of 2014 and Putin’s hesitating response to the crisis in Ukraine, that Russia does not have a serious strategy. An adequate response would have entailed prompt despatch of Russian forces to protect the Russian-speaking population, from Kharkov in the northeast to Nikolaev in the center and Odessa in the southwest, in accordance with the R2P doctrine. Instead, there was a consolation prize [Crimea], rather meager for the loss of 500 miles of strategic depth inhabited by a pro-Russian majority.

Russia experienced something similar with the regime-change operation in Tbilisi in 2003, when Shevardnadze was replaced by the unstable Mikhel Saakashvili. The Russians “protected” South Ossetia and Abkhasia, one-fifth of the country, but Georgia was lost to the pro-NATO regime. In Central Asia the Russians are losing ground to the Chinese. Their north-south geopolitical vector in the direction of Iran has been cut by the Chinese one, which extends from Xinjiang to the Caspian Sea. The Chinese are gaining ground with greater investment and soft power, which is also projected by Turkey throughout the region. This is aptly illustrated by the fact that Kazakhstan is replacing Cyrillic with Latin as its national language script.

In Belarus the situation is fluid. The relations between Moscow and Minsk are worse than at any time since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Poor personal rapport between [Belorussian president Alexander] Lukashenko and Putin has morphed into a very visible weakness of that alliance. In Armenia, the Russians were faced with a routine regime-change operation directly copied from Gene Sharp’s textbook. Unlike Georgia and Ukraine, let it be noted, Armenia is both a member of the Eurasian Economic Union and of the Collective Security Treaty Organization [ODKB, founded in Moscow in 1992].

http://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2018/06/second-coming-karl-marx/

One thing young people are very unlikely to learn—not from our education system anyway—is that no simple concept can ever hope to explain all of human history, or even most of it. Denied this insight, the notion that history has been determined by class struggles is an easy sell.

Most readers of Quadrant would have expected the 200th anniversary of the birth of Karl Marx on May 5, 1818, to go largely unnoticed. Today, most would think Marxism a philosophy that died at the end of the Cold War and is now well and truly relegated to the dustbin of history. However, our mainstream press still found adherents who not only marked the anniversary but took an upbeat position. Professor John Buchanan of the School of Business at the University of Sydney declared: “Marx was one of the greatest thinkers of all time. His work Das Kapital is still referred to and used in discussions of the modern economy.” In his interview, the Sunday Telegraph observed:

As Western democracies confront such global capital Goliaths as Facebook and Google, the Australian banking royal commission and business pressure to reduce wages by cutting penalty rates and employing casual labour, Buchanan says Marx’s complaints of social inequality under capitalism are increasingly relevant. Marx’s key arguments were that society was the history of class struggles, between property or capital owners, and those without capital.

In London and New York the anniversary was even more newsworthy. Some major newspapers responded as though Marxism was enjoying an intellectual revival, on the verge of the secular equivalent of a Second Coming.

The New York Times headlined: “Happy Birthday, Karl Marx. You Were Right”, and endorsed Marx’s alleged “originality and profound importance as a philosopher”, claiming:

Today the legacy would appear to be alive and well. Since the turn of the millennium countless books have appeared, from scholarly works to popular biographies, broadly endorsing Marx’s reading of capitalism and its enduring relevance to our neoliberal age … Educated liberal opinion is today more or less unanimous in its agreement that Marx’s basic thesis—that capitalism is driven by a deeply divisive class struggle in which the ruling-class minority appropriates the surplus labor of the working-class majority as profit—is correct.

In London, the Independent also declared Marxism was on the brink of something big: “The world is finally ready for Marxism as capitalism reaches the tipping point.” It said Marx had predicted that the centralisation inherent in globalised, capitalist economies would give birth to a post-capitalist society. Socialist ideas, the Independent asserted, remain celebrated throughout the world, especially among younger generations:

Socialism does not carry historical baggage for a younger generation left behind by the iniquities of capitalism. A Harvard study found that a majority of millennials reject capitalism and a third are in favour of socialism. This is what might be called the revenge of Marx; the rehabilitation of one of the world’s historical philosophers.

The notion of a Marxist revival explains the otherwise difficult to comprehend electoral appeal to young people of those two aged white male socialists, Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders.