RUTHFULLY YOURS

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324077704578362701947035938.html?mod=WSJ_hp_mostpop_read

Argentines who want their country to be the next Venezuela see Francis as an obstacle.

Argentines celebrated last week when one of their own was chosen as the new pope. But they also suffered a loss of sorts. Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, a tireless advocate of the poor and outspoken critic of corruption, will no longer be on hand locally to push back against the malfeasance of the government of President Cristina Kirchner.

Argentines not aligned with the regime hope that the arrival of Francis on the world stage at least will draw attention to this issue. Heaven knows the situation is growing dire.

One might have expected a swell of pride from Argentine officialdom when the news broke that the nation has produced a man so highly esteemed around the world. Instead the Kirchner government’s pit bulls in journalism—men such as Horacio Verbitsky, a former member of the guerrilla group known as the Montoneros and now an editor at the pro-government newspaper Pagina 12—immediately began a campaign to smear the new pontiff’s character and reputation at home and in the international news media.

The calumny is not new. Former members of terrorist groups like Mr. Verbitsky, and their modern-day fellow travelers in the Argentine government, have used the same tactics for years to try to destroy their enemies—anyone who doesn’t endorse their brand of authoritarianism. In this case they allege that as the Jesuits’ provincial superior in Argentina in the late 1970s, then-Father Bergoglio had links to the military government.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324532004578362593064526174.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_MIDDLETopOpinion Pfc. Bradley Manning is charged with espionage. Why not Julian Assange? It looks as if Pfc. Bradley Manning and Julian Assange will go down in history as outliers, not trend setters. There have been no copycat leaks of massive quantities of diplomatic and intelligence documents, despite how easy the Internet makes it to leak […]

http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/

“Rand Paul’s dramatic 13-hour filibuster of the Brennan nomination, the attacks on his position from established Republican leaders like Senator John McCain, and the conservative applause Sen. Paul received afterward had many talking about a sea change in Republican foreign policy — and that was before he won the CPAC straw poll. Were the isolationists and America-Firsters coming back from the margins, led by the younger and more telegenic Paul? Could Patrick Buchanan style thinking be returning to the mainstream of an anti-engagement, ignore-Israel Republican Party?”
It’s often said that Republicans are the Daddy Party in American politics, while the Democrats stand in for Mom. Mom is about putting nice meals on the table, pushing us to do well in school and teaching us to be kind to other kids; Dad worries about the budget, enforces the rules, teaches us to be self reliant, and is the one you look to when bullies or criminals threaten.

Naturally in these enlightened times we reject all such sexist rhetoric; we are all Coneheads now with interchangeable, unisex parental units instead of mothers and fathers. Still, the old description has some merit, and Moms nationally do lean towards the Democrats, while Dads tend to go GOP.

Our problem these days is that neither parent is really doing its job. Like a couple of addled narcissists too busy with midlife crises to tend to the kids, both parties are falling down on the job. The Mommy Party has messed up the schools, the pensions, the post office, healthcare and local government, but unless you think the Iraq War was a strategic masterstroke and brilliantly executed to boot, the Bush administration often looked more like Homer Simpson than John Wayne.

At Via Meadia we keep a close eye on the mess in Mom’s kitchen; it’s a time of real crisis. The traditional methods and institutions of the 20th century progressive state are less and less able to deliver what people need in the contemporary world, and the wholesale renovation and reform of the American social model is an urgent and inescapable task.

Generally speaking, the Republicans are doing some interesting things on the Mommy side these days. With fewer ties to the vested interests that want to fight change in domestic institutions, the Republicans have led the way on some promising education initiatives and government reforms. There’s something of an intellectual ferment on the GOP side these days as politicians and wonks hunt around for ideas that might reduce the “Mom gap” and make voters trust Republicans more on some domestic governance issues. It’s a start, though much more needs to be done.

But where Republicans are falling down on the job these days seems to be in the realm of foreign policy – a traditional GOP strength. Between the annual CPAC meeting and the intra-party struggle over Senator Rand Paul’s drone filibuster, it’s clear that the GOP has some big unresolved questions to ponder.

http://pjmedia.com/blog/wrong-battle-wrong-enemy/?print=1 WRONG BATTLE, WRONG ENEMY Ever since the election, there has been something of a battle going on within the Republican Party, as conservatives look for someone to blame for the loss. You can see some of this criticism here at PJ Media, such as Mark Stuertz’s complaint about Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) [1], or […]

http://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2013/03/10/4-old-dreamy-songs/?print=1

FOR THE SENIOR GENERATION….THE WORLD WAR 2 SONGS EVOKED THE LONELINESS AND THE DREAMS OF A WHOLE NATION…CLASSICS SUCH AS “I’LL WALK ALONE”…OR “I’LL BE HOME FOR CHRISTMAS”…OR “ALWAYS”….SONGS WITH GENTLE AND TOUCHING LYRICS…..RSK

My main solace and support during an unhappy adolescence was my radio. I remember it as good-sized and rectangular with a wood finish. It sat on the little night table by my bed, and was always set to the same channel — WRPI, the station (still in existence) of the nearby Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, staffed and run by college students.

WRPI played what was then called progressive rock — rock songs that were outside the Top 40 hits that the commercial stations played. These could be songs, available only on albums, by performers who had Top 40 hits, or songs by performers considered esoteric or “experimental” enough that they were outside the Top 40 sphere altogether. Among other things, “progressive rock” offered me more introspective, poetic music that knew something about the deeper world of my feelings.

Since then my tastes have expanded, from ultra-introspective Mahler and Bruckner to wildly joyous Sonny Rollins and much in between (I also attempt my own contribution). The advent of YouTube some years back led me, in a sort of hushed curiosity, to search and find songs that in some cases I hadn’t heard since those distant days of adolescence. And in some striking cases I discovered that a song had not lost—or had even gained—power over me compared to back then.

All of the four songs I’ve picked below use only voice and acoustic guitar. All are from the late sixties; my WRPI-listening years were 1969-1972.

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/bloomberg-bans-breathing-and-death-to-battle-global-warming?f=puball New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced at City Hall today that the city’s Board of Health has instituted a ban on both breathing and death in order to combat the crippling effects of global warming. The ban will go into effect in May of this year, giving city residents time to figure out […]

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/us-national-security-document-will-omit-references-to-islamic-extremism-and-jihad?f=puball

In what appears to be another victory for the US Muslim Brotherhood, Associated Press is reporting that “religious terms” such as Islamic extremism and Jihad will be removed from the document known as the National Security Strategy. According to the AP report:

President Barack Obama’s advisers will remove religious terms such as “Islamic extremism” from the central document outlining the U.S. national security strategy and will use the rewritten document to emphasize that the United States does not view Muslim nations through the lens of terror, counterterrorism officials said. The change is a significant shift in the National Security Strategy, a document that previously outlined the Bush Doctrine of preventative war and currently states: “The struggle against militant Islamic radicalism is the great ideological conflict of the early years of the 21st century.” The officials described the changes on condition of anonymity because the document still was being written, and the White House would not discuss it. But rewriting the strategy document will be the latest example of Obama putting his stamp on U.S. foreign policy, like his promises to dismantle nuclear weapons and limit the situations in which they can be used. The revisions are part of a larger effort about which the White House talks openly, one that seeks to change not just how the United States talks to Muslim nations, but also what it talks to them about, from health care and science to business startups and education. That shift away from terrorism has been building for a year, since Obama went to Cairo, Egypt, and promised a “new beginning” in the relationship between the United States and the Muslim world. The White House believes the previous administration based that relationship entirely on fighting terror and winning the war of ideas.

The AP report also identifies a little known White House office that appears to have played a major role in the language change:

“You take a country where the overwhelming majority are not going to become terrorists, and you go in and say, ‘We’re building you a hospital so you don’t become terrorists.’ That doesn’t make much sense,” said National Security Council staffer Pradeep Ramamurthy. Ramamurthy runs the administration’s Global Engagement Directorate, a four-person National Security Council team that Obama launched last May with little fanfare and a vague mission to use diplomacy and outreach “in pursuit of a host of national security objectives.” Since then, the division has not only helped change the vocabulary of fighting terror but also has shaped the way the country invests in Muslim businesses, studies global warming, supports scientific research and combats polio. Before diplomats go abroad, they hear from the Ramamurthy or his deputy, Jenny Urizar. When officials from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration returned from Indonesia, the NSC got a rundown about research opportunities on global warming. Ramamurthy maintains a database of interviews conducted by 50 U.S. embassies worldwide. And business leaders from more than 40 countries head to Washington this month for an “entrepreneurship summit” for Muslim businesses.

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/the-hardball-realities-of-obamacare While Paul Ryan shrugs, the media mocks. That’s the impression that Chris Matthews gave on his recent MSNBC segment from “Hardball,” where he criticizes Representative Ryan for his new budget plan which would get rid of most of the spending outlined in Obamacare. “Call it ‘Ryan Shrugged,’” asserted Matthews. “It kills the President’s health […]

http://www.thecommentator.com/article/2953/who_is_immigration_for
Opinion polls show a majority of Europeans to be against large scale immigration. Unfortunately for the majority, the political class has always displayed contempt for public opinion

The conventional wisdom among the mainstream political class in Europe is that non-European immigration to Western Europe has been an economic benefit.

An example of this conventional wisdom was to be heard recently on the BBC programme Any Questions. The Liberal Democrat Evan Harris stated, as if it were an obvious truth, that the National Health Service would be “non-existent if it wasn’t for immigrant doctors propping it up.”

This claim went unchallenged and to great applause from the audience, the usual British response to all soft-left statements. But is there any truth in the claim? Has immigration economically benefited Britain and the rest of Europe?

Some of the most fascinating statistics on this subject are to be found in Christopher Caldwell’s book: Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam and the West.

As Caldwell puts it:

“One of the amazing statistics in the history of European immigration is that the number of foreign residents in Germany rose steadily between 1971 and 2000 – from 3 million to about 7∙5 million – but the number of employed foreigners in the work force did not budge. It stayed rock steady at roughly 2 million people. In 1973, 65% of German immigrants were in the workforce; in 1983, a decade later, only 38% were.”

According to those statistics, the vast majority of immigrants to Germany (mainly Turkish Muslims) did not come to the country to work. Almost 4.5 million immigrants arrived, yet there was no change in the immigrant workforce.

Caldwell claims that this immigration pattern has been replicated across Western Europe. In Britain, for example:

Dear Member:

A new video has gone up.

“Christian Zionism Part 4: Origins in America” is now available.

You can see it directly via the following link:

http://zionism101.org/NewestVideo.aspx

Or log in at www.zionism101.org

“Christian Zionism Part 4: Origins in America” examines the long tradition of Christian Zionism in the United States. The Puritans who came on the Mayflower identified strongly with Jews. But the greatest impact on American Christian Zionism came in the 19th Century from British theologian John Nelson Darby, who made several lengthy visits to North America, beginning in 1862.

Darby wrote:

“Deny Israel’s place and glory with Messiah and the Church will become earthly, rise in its own conceits and, finally, as a system down here be cut off.”

We encourage you to share information about “Zionism 101” with your friends, family, and co-workers, plus anyone else who is interested in learning about the most important development in modern Jewish history.

If you haven’t already, please watch our completed video series on ‘Founding Fathers’, ‘Origins of Zionism’ and ‘Rivals to Zionism’.

We welcome questions and comments.

Sincerely,

David Isaac
Executive Director
Zionism101.org