QUOTE FOR THE DAY

5 May 2012

Ken Livingstone's anti-fascist group appoints fascist as vice-chair

By Andrew Gilligan
February 29th, 2012

One of this blog’s oldest friends, Azad Ali, has a great new post. As the Harry’s Place blog reports, Azad is the new vice-chair of Unite Against Fascism, the ostensibly anti-racist group (in fact more of a meal-ticket for the leadership of the Socialist Workers’ Party.)

Azad is the community affairs co-ordinator of the extremist Islamic Forum of Europe, which controls the East London Mosque and which is dedicated, in its own words, to changing the "very infrastructure of society, its institutions, its culture, its political order and its creed … from ignorance to Islam.” Through “hisbah” (the enforcement of Islamic law) and “jihad,” it aims to create a “global” Islamic dictatorship, the caliphate, and its “primary work” in this "is in Europe, because it is this continent, despite all the furore about its achievements, which has a moral and spiritual vacuum."

The IFE has already made some progress towards its goal, exercising strong influence over Tower Hamlets Council through its close ally, the elected mayor, Lutfur Rahman. Lutfur’s council has been busily engaged in enforcing Islamic law on, for instance, local strip clubs and a gay pub. At the last election Azad and the IFE also helped to deliver extraordinary and unprecedented swings in their East London heartland for their equally close friend, Ken Livingstone (Ken had given the East London Mosque more than £1 million of City Hall money to build the IFE a new headquarters, despite the strenuous objections of his officials.)

Azad has written on his IFE blog of his “love” for Anwar al-Awlaki, the al-Qaeda cleric. He used to attend talks by Al-Qaeda’s main representative in the UK, Abu Qatada. He has described al-Qaeda as a "myth" and said that the Mumbai terrorist attacks were not terrorism. On his IFE blog, he advocated the killing of British troops in Iraq (he sued a newspaper for reporting this, and lost.) Filmed by an undercover reporter for my Channel 4 Dispatches on the IFE, Azad said: “Democracy, if it means at the expense of not implementing the sharia, of course no-one agrees with that.” His response to this exposure was to threaten our undercover reporter.

It would, I think, be fair to describe Azad Ali as an Islamic fascist.

And Azad’s immediate boss, UAF’s chair, is… Ken Livingstone. In this small world, isn’t it fascinating how the same names keep cropping up?

4 May 2012

Senator Rand Paul asks supporters to help abolish the TSA

Source: Russia Today
04 May, 2012

Kentucky Senator Rand Paul is rallying once more to end the TSA, and this time he is attacking the federal government’s grabby airport screeners for encroaching on the liberty of American passengers.

In a statement released this week, the Republican senator and son of a presidential hopeful, Texas Congressman Ron Paul, pleads with supporters to help abolish the US Transportation and Security Administration, insisting that the federal agents responsible for screening passengers in airports with invasive pat-downs are damaging what is left of Americans’ civil liberties.

“Sometimes our liberty slips away silently, and it is almost hard to notice what went wrong and where. The one fortunate thing about the TSA is that they certainly don’t fit that definition,” Senator Paul explains.

“The American people shouldn’t be subjected to harassment, groping, and other public humiliation simply to board an airplane. As you may have heard, I have some personal experience with this, and I’ve vowed to lead the charge to fight back.”

Earlier this year, Senator Paul was detained at an airport in Nashville, Tennessee while attempting to board a flight to the US capital. After passing through a full body scanner, an “anomaly” in the lawmaker’s knee raised a red flag and TSA agents asked him to submit to a hands-on search. Paul, a long-time opponent of the practice, refused and missed his engagement in DC. Hours later, his father offered up an earful to the TSA:

“The police state in this country is growing out of control. One of the ultimate embodiments of this is the TSA that gropes and grabs our children, our seniors and our loved ones and neighbors with disabilities,” Congressman Ron Paul responded in a statement issued in January. “The TSA does all of this while doing nothing to keep us safe.”

“We must restore the freedom and respect for liberty that once made American the greatest nation in human history. I am deeply committed to doing that as president of the United States,” added Congressman Paul. “I'm proud of my son's stand, but just imagine those who receive this kind of treatment every day in our nation's airports and can't fight back? The elderly. The disabled. Little kids,” he said, “All victims of an out-of-control police state that, while doing nothing to make us safer, is working overtime to strip away our freedoms, our rights and our basic dignity.”

Months earlier, Senator Rand Paul condemned the TSA for continuously using the machines with mixed results and ongoing opposition, saying that the federal agency has gone “overboard” with their security practices.

“I think you oughta get rid of the random pat-downs. The American public is unhappy with them. They’re unhappy with the invasiveness of them,” explained the senator.

Congressman Paul has already vowed to abolish the TSA if elected president, and with supporters of his son urging the senator to consider a campaign for the White House in 2016, the younger of the libertarian lawmakers might be able to follow through with that goal if his father can’t capture the GOP nominee this year.

Wave of black mobs brutalizing whites

Anti-White Race Hate Watch:
(Because it isn't alright to pick on 'whitey')

By Chelsea Schilling
4th May, 2012

Police: 'At no time … did it appear this assault was racially motivated'

[ed. It never is...http://www.awpn.net/crime/black-on-white]


In a wave of black-on-white crime since the February Trayvon Martin slaying, reports are emerging of dozens of brutal assaults by black mobs and assailants against white victims – and some attackers are citing the revenge for the Martin slaying as reason for their aggression.

Martin is the unarmed black teen who died after being shot by a white/Hispanic community-watch captain, George Zimmerman, in Sanford, Fla., sparking a wave of outrage o violence against whites long after the Feb. 26 incident.

On March 17 in Baltimore, Md., a white man was beaten, stripped naked and robbed. As a girl danced against him, a black man grabbed an item from the man’s pocket. When the victim attempted to recover his property, the man punched him in the face, knocked him to the ground, stripped his clothes off and taunted him.

Then one man in the mob, identifying himself on Twitter as “Lil Darren,” posted a video of the assault online, explaining: “me an[sic] my boys helped get justice fore[sic] trayvon.”

In the video, a man named Aaron Parsons, 20, looked into the video camera while ridiculing the victim. He turned himself in to police after being linked to the incident. According to the Baltimore Sun, he has been charged with robbery, assault and other crimes.

Parsons’ attorney, Warren Brown, told the paper the suspect is a “good kid.”

“It’s not the punch that has aroused so much anger – it’s the humiliation after the punch, the disrobing of the guy and going through his pockets,” Brown said. “He wasn’t involved in any of that and has no real association with those people.”

Despite an apology from Parsons, Brown said his client would plead not guilty

The Sun reported:

“As a girl dances against him, a man who police now say is Parsons grabs something out of the victim’s pocket. The man moves to recover his property, and the man identified as Parsons rears back and punches him in the face, knocking him to the ground. The victim is then stripped of his clothing and teased.

Police are still attempting to identify at least three other suspects captured on camera.

The video of the assault can be seen below:

On March 25 in Cobb County, Ga., a former U.S. Marine who served two tours of duty in Iraq was beaten to death when he got into an altercation with a group of men in an apartment complex parking lot. Police have arrested four black men in connection with the beating death.

The Atlanta Journal Constitution reported that Arthur Batchelor, 37, Tarell Secrest, 36, Jason Hill, 35, and Sean Hill, 38, were taken into custody on suspicion of killing 34-year-old Zachary Gamble.

The victim’s relatives said Gamble, father of a 7-year-old boy, died from severe head trauma.

All four of the men have been charged with felony murder, aggravated assault and aggravated battery. They’re being held without bail in the Cobb County Adult Detention Center.

On March 24-25 in Grand Rapids, Mich., at least seven white people were reportedly beaten by black mobs. Five of the victims filed reports with local police.

Charleston Conservative Examiner reporter Kyle Rogers said he spoke with victim Jacob Palasek, 37, a full-time student. Palasek said he was attacked by a black man on a bicycle who whipped the side of his head with a chain. The attacker purportedly hit him two more times in the head before Palasek broke away, ran to a home and knocked on the door, hoping the resident would call 9-1-1.

He said three blacks attacked him on the porch, yelling, “This is what you deserve, you piece of sh-t.” They continued hitting him in the head with the chain, but he escaped again and hid behind a dumpster. Palasek said the men chased him but walked away when several cars drove by.

“A detective told Jacob that they believe all the attacks were racially motivated,” the report stated. “The detective also told Jacob that he believed the Trayvon Martin media frenzy is what prompted the attacks. Jacob also believed that the thugs were seeking revenge for Trayvon Martin before the detective confirmed this belief.”

According to the report, seven victims were assaulted within six blocks of the Palasek attack – some in broad daylight.

On March 26 in Seminole County, Fla., a white man named Mark Slavin, 50, reportedly sustained massive injuries to his skull after he received 13 blows to his head with a hammer.

The Jacksonville Daily News reported that the victim, a salesman for a furniture company in Orlando, was so badly beaten that he was unidentifiable.

According to the arrest report, one witness called 9-1-1 after he heard a man screaming for help. The caller said two men pulled the victim from a car, bludgeoned him with a hammer and dragged him into the nearby woods, where they continued to assault him. The attackers fled the scene in the victim’s car before police arrived.

Two black men, Julius Bender, 18, and Yahaziel Israel, 19, were charged with attempted homicide, burglary with assault or battery and armed burglary.

The victim’s father noted that the attack happened within a few miles of the place where Trayvon Martin was shot and killed by George Zimmerman.

The victim’s father said he wonders if the attack is related to the Martin shooting.

“I’d like to have it checked to see if it was a hate crime,” he said.

According to the report, officials at the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office said they don’t believe the attack was connected to Martin’s shooting.

“While the investigation is ongoing and we cannot give details at this point, I can tell you investigators from the Seminole County Sheriff’s Office do not believe that this attempted homicide had anything to do with the recent events that occurred here in Sanford,” said Kim Cannaday, a media spokeswoman for the sheriff’s office. “We do not believe it was in retaliation or racially motivated.”

On April 5 in Toledo, Ohio, a 78-year-old white man named Dallas Watts was the victim of a group assault, with the attackers allegedly yelling, “This is for Trayvon.” According to Fox News, the man told police he was confronted by a gang of six youths, both black and white. One said, “Take him down.”

“[Get] that white [man]. This is for Trayvon … Trayvon lives, white [man]. Kill that white [man],” the boys are quoted as saying in a police report

On April 9 in Gainesville, Fla., between five and eight black men emerged from a car screaming “Trayvon!” as they battered a 27-year-old white man who had been walking home, the Gainesville Sun reported.

According to the report, police believe the Martin case was the catalyst for the beating.

“We do believe that the crime was racially motivated,” Gainesville Police Department spokeswoman Cpl. Angelina Valuri said.

The victim told police the beating lasted five minutes – resulting in injuries to his left eye, abrasions to his palms, a cut on his right kneecap and “permanent disfigurement to the left side of his face.”

The victim said the group got out of the car and told him he was walking too slowly before proceeding to beat him.

On April 14 in Mobile, Ala., a white man was beaten by a black mob after he told a group of children to stop playing basketball in the middle of a street, WKRG -TV reported. One witness said she heard an attacker yell, “Now that’s justice for Trayvon!”

On April 14 in Norfolk, Va.,a white couple was attacked by dozens of black teenagers, and the local newspaper did not report on the incident for two weeks, despite the victims being reporters for the paper.

As WND reported in a story posted on the popular Drudge Report, the couple was pummeled April 14 by dozens of black teens, and the Virginian-Pilot newspaper did not report the incident for two weeks, despite the fact the victims, Dave Forster and Marjon Rostami, are both news reporters for the paper.

The attack was first reported in an opinion piece by columnist Michelle Washington.

“Wave after wave of young men surged forward to take turns punching and kicking their victim,” Washington wrote, describing the onslaught that began when Dave Forster and Marjon Rostami stopped at a traffic light while driving home from a show on a Saturday night. A crowd of at least 100 black young people was on the sidewalk at the time.

“Rostami locked her car door. Someone threw a rock at her window. Forster got out to confront the rock-thrower, and that’s when the beating began. …

“The victim’s friend, a young woman, tried to pull him back into his car. Attackers came after her, pulling her hair, punching her head and causing a bloody scratch to the surface of her eye. She called 911. A recording told her all lines were busy. She called again. Busy. On her third try, she got through and, hysterical, could scream only their location. Church and Brambleton. Church and Brambleton. Church and Brambleton. It happened four blocks from where they work, here at the Virginian-Pilot.”

Washington says neither suffered grave injuries, but both were out of work for a week. Forster’s torso ached from blows to his ribs, and he retained a thumb-sized bump on his head. Rostami reportedly fears to be alone in her home, while Forster wishes he’d stayed in the car.

In her column about the assault, Washington said the day after the beatings, Forster searched Twitter for mention of the attack, and one post in particular chilled him.

“I feel for the white man who got beat up at the light,” wrote one person.

“I don’t,” wrote another, indicating laughter. “(do it for trayvon martin)”

But at a press conference today, interim Norfolk Police Chief Sharon Chamberlin said the department is not investigating the case as a hate crime.

“At no time in our investigation or in statements taken from the victims did it appear this assault was racially motivated,” she said.

On April 17 in Chicago, Ill., two black teenagers beat a white 19-year-old to the ground, threatened him with a tree branch and robbed him because, one attacker explained, they were angry about the Trayvon Martin case.

Alton Hayes III demanded the victim give them his belongings, saying, “Empty your pockets, white boy.”

Hayes and a second attacker, unnamed because he is only 15, searched their victim’s pockets, threw him to the ground and punched him several times in his head and back. He told police they chose the victim because he is white.

Hayes was charged with attempted robbery, aggravated battery and a hate crime, all felonies. The younger attacker was referred to juvenile court.

On April 28 in Charleston, W.V., two black men beat a white 45-year-old man unconscious in front of his girlfriend and two sons, ages 9 and 13. The assailants knocked the man down, repeatedly kicking him in the face until he suffered a concussion and lacerations. Then they stole $30 from his pockets.

The Charleston Daily Mail reported police said the victim didn’t antagonize the situation.

After posting a list of numerous recent black mob attacks against whites, PJ Media noted:

“This list of brutality does not include the highly publicized beating of Matthew Owens in Alabama that may have been the result of a long-running neighborhood feud, nor does it include the shooting of an unoccupied Sanford, Fla., police car at the height of racial tensions before George Zimmerman was arrested. It also does not include alleged vandalism and threats that have been issued, such as the death threats in Wisconsin plastered on neighborhood mailboxes and a sticker featuring a picture of Trayvon Martin and the word ‘Revenge,’ as well as another that said ‘Kill Whitey.’”

[ed. Just the tip of the iceberg folks and has been swept under the carpet for a very long time...staying silent about this blatant racism is no longer an option...]

EU Plot to Scrap Britain

By Macer Hall
May 4,2012

SENIOR Eurocrats are secretly plotting to create a super-powerful EU president to realise their dream of abolishing ­Britain, we can reveal.

A covert group of EU foreign ministers has drawn up plans for merging the jobs currently done by Herman Van Rompuy, president of the European Council, and Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission.

The new bureaucrat, who would not be directly elected by voters, is set to get sweeping control over the entire EU and force member countries into ever-greater political and economic union.

Tellingly, the UK has been excluded from the confidential discussions within the shady “Berlin Group” of Europhile politicians, spearheaded by German foreign minister Guido Westerwelle.

Opponents fear the plan could create a modern-day equivalent of the European emperor envisaged by Napoleon Bonaparte or a return to the Holy Roman Empire of Charlemagne that dominated Europe in the Dark Ages.

They are concerned that David Cameron’s coalition Government is doing nothing to prevent the sinister plot. The secret talks were uncovered by Independent Labour peer Lord Stoddart of Swindon.

“This is a plot by people who want to abolish nation states and create a United States of Europe,” he said.

“The whole thing is barmy. These people are determined to achieve their final objective.


“The only hope for Britain is to leave the EU and become an independent nation.”

The move will give further momentum to the Daily Express’s hugely popular crusade for Britain’s withdrawal from the EU.

Tory backbench MP Douglas Carswell said: “It doesn’t matter how you arrange the offices of these technocrats, they are useless at arranging our lives for us and they are not elected so they have no legitimacy.

“My worry is that the president will end up having the charisma of Van Rompuy and the economic management skills of Barroso.”

Euro-MP Paul Nuttall, of the UK Independence Party, said: “This is a truly ridiculous idea that must never be allowed to happen. It sounds as if they are trying to go back to the days of the Holy Roman Emperor.”

At present, the two senior EU bureaucrats, Mr Barroso and Mr Van Rompuy, are locked in a bitter power struggle to determine who is the true big cheese or “grand fromage” in Europe. Former Portuguese premier Mr Barroso, who heads the EU’s executive arm and was elected to his post by members of the European Union, is understood to resent the rival fiefdom of Belgian Mr Van Rompuy, who was chosen by the heads of ­government of EU member states to represent them.

Under the plan, a single figure would be elected by Euro-MPs to perform both roles.

Supporters of the move believe that the rival presidencies are undermining the EU’s ability to speak with a single voice. They argue that merging the two jobs will create a powerful European leader who is capable of pursuing the federalist dream of a united Europe which has been severely shaken by the eurozone crisis.

Lord Stoddart confirmed the existence of the plot thanks to a parliamentary written answer in the House of Lords. He asked Foreign Office ministers to reveal what they knew about the merger talks.

In response to his inquiry, Tory Foreign Office minister Lord Howell of Guildford said: “We are aware of one group of EU foreign ministers meeting on an informal basis to discuss a variety of issues related to the future governance of the EU.

“While the UK is not part of that group, we understand that one idea under discussion is a merger of the positions of president of the European Council and president of the European Commission.”

Lord Howell added: “A merger of the two presidencies would create a potential conflict of interest, undermine the quality of the EU’s decision-making processes and upset the institutional balance within the EU.” Lord Stoddart said: “These sorts of informal discussions within the EU have a habit of rapidly being transferred into formal proposals.

“Since the Government is not party to these discussions, its reservations are academic.

“Such a merger would represent a massive shift of power into the hands of a single, unelected bureaucrat. The Government should be taking this far more seriously and voicing its objections very strongly.”

He added: “The holder of this new office would be both Europe’s political and administrative leader, giving them far more powers than those given to the US president.

“It really is a great disappointment that we have a Conservative-led Government that is supposed to be Eurosceptic yet ministers just go along with this.”

3 May 2012

Obama embraces Islam


If Islamism is OK for Egypt, why not America?

By THE WASHINGTON TIMES
April 25, 2012

The Obama administration is doing its utmost to promote the fortunes of the Islamist parties in Egypt. A State Department official declared that with the rise of these radical groups after the Arab Spring, “people who once might have gone into al Qaeda see an opportunity for a legitimate Islamism.” They see this as a victory. The problem is, so do the terrorists.

Last year, the White House began peddling the line that the uprisings in the Middle East were a repudiation of the al Qaeda model of seeking change through terrorism. The argument was that while America opposed violent extremism, the rise of nonviolent radical movements was just fine, and even commendable. Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri quickly dismissed this claim, saying that from the terrorists’ point of view, it didn’t matter whether an Islamist victory came through violence or not. The means were unimportant except as they related to the end state: the imposition of hard-line Shariah-based laws and policies.

From Zawahri’s point of view, it makes no difference whether the caliphate is born of the ballot, bomb or bullet. The important thing is the victory of Islamism, which the White House also seems to endorse.

The notion that there is a legitimate form of Islamism reflects a serious intellectual failing on the part of the Obama administration. President Obama seems to believe the Islamists are legitimized simply by participating in the political process. Some argue that the demands of electoral politics will moderate the Islamist parties, whose members will evolve from stern-eyed theocrats into social reformers. Others believe the only path to modernity is through embracing the Muslim Brotherhood’s barbarous values.

No matter what the source of the delusion, no political movement that exalts the Koran can peaceably coexist with the concept of freedom at the root of Western governance. Islamist notions of democracy are constrained by the strictures of their religion. Radical Muslims reject the humanistic values that gave birth to modern Western government; the self-evident truths regarding everyone’s inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are just so much infidel heresy to the Islamists. There are no inalienable rights under political Islam, only submission to the will of Allah.

The Islamist parties in Egypt and elsewhere are promoting democracy simply as a means of consolidating their power. They see the process as a ratchet effect, with every gain they make as one more step toward erecting a Shariah-based theocracy. Increased power will not lead - and in fact, never has led - to moderation, but to further demands to implement their blueprint for Koranic rule. The model is the Iranian Revolution, in which a brief period of openness was followed by the ascent of Islamic hard-liners who snuffed out any hint of liberty and executed those who had the nerve to differ.

To anyone who believes in the Western concept of freedom, Islamism by its nature cannot be legitimate. The White House needs to answer the question: If Islamism is a legitimate political movement, should it come to America, and if so, how soon?

The EU elephants in the water

Richard North
3rd May, 2012

Although this has the smell of the EU, not wanting to leap in without fully understanding the situation, I've been holding off from identifying an EU link in the current application of UK water policy.

However, I have now gathered enough to determine that we are indeed dealing with the EU – and in a big way. The current agenda is coming entirely from the EU, and in particular from Commission Communication COM(2007) 414 final, on: "Addressing the challenge of water scarcity and droughts in the European Union".

This is the worst of all combinations, though. It involves the EU and climate change, with the Commission asserting that water scarcity and droughts have now emerged "as a major challenge" – and "climate change is expected to make matters worse". Using that as its base, the EU has effectively taken over water management policy.

Interestingly (if that is the right word), we are also seeing a convergence between the attitude to energy and water supply. Having adopted "an Energy and Climate package to guide the EU towards a sustainable, competitive and secure energy policy", the commission tells us that "one of its central themes" is to tackle the energy challenge by "first making an effort to use energy more efficiently before looking at alternatives".

This approach, it then says, "is also valid for water scarcity and droughts". And now it all begins to make sense. We've seen a perversity creep into UK policy where, instead of dealing with local water shortages by increasing storage capacity, government is preventing these shortages from being resolved, and is then seeking to reduce consumption. Now we see where this is coming from.

"In order to come to grips with water scarcity and droughts", says the commission, "the first priority is to move towards a water efficient and water-saving economy". What the commission decided, the UK government has adopted.

Then we see the climate change mantra, for the commission goes on to tell us that: "Saving water also means saving energy, as extracting, transporting and treating water comes at a high energy cost". Thus, the commission asserts that: "it is essential to improve water demand management".

Having set the baseline, we very quickly get to the core, with the commission deciding that one of the main challenges to be addressed is "ineffective water pricing policies" which generally do not reflect the level of sensitivity of water resources at local level.

The "user pays" principle, it complains, "is hardly implemented beyond the sectors of drinking water supply and waste water treatment. Introducing this principle at EU level, it then asserts, "would put an end to needless losses or waste, ensuring that water remains available for essential uses across Europe". In other words, says the commission, "it would encourage efficient water use".

From those beginnings, via the Framework Water Directive, we see the emergence of a
formal policy, the effects of which are only too evident. This is not a failure of policy, as we have suggested. It is the replacement of UK policy by EU policy.

That it is now in the process of being implemented we see via the Daily Mail and the assertion from the Lords Agriculture, Fisheries and Environment EU sub-committee that water bills "should be allowed to rise" to encourage people to save water in the face of scarcer resources.

Needless to say, the Mail cannot get its head round the idea that the reason why the Lords European Union Committee is thus declaring is that it is
parotting EU policy. The protection of our water environment while the population continues to grow will require the adoption of innovations, such as metering, and real-time information about domestic water consumption, and will require consumers either to pay more or to save more, says the Committee. And then are we told:
We believe that the cost of water will have to rise in areas where other measures are not enough to meet the challenges of water scarcity.
Basically, price is to be used as the primary tool of water management. No longer is it the function of water companies to provide adequate supplies of clean water at minimum cost. The task is to reduce demand, thereby saving energy and reducing carbon footprints.

Of course, if water becomes too plentiful and there is no need for rationing, extreme water-saving measures could not be implemented and consumer resistance to price rises would be difficult to overcome.

Therefore, in implementing EU policy, it has become government strategy deliberately to maintain a climate of shortage, and an atmosphere of crisis. The consumer is being given the choice between standpipes and higher prices, which makes paying more seem a better option. But it is an artificial choice, engineered for doctrinal reasons rather than necessity.

Once more, we are being taken for a ride. The [EU] elephants are in our water supply, and the British government, as always, is falling into line.

'Cinco de Mayo' Plenty of Beer, Little History

By RUSSELL CONTRERAS
Associated Press
May 2, 2012

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) -- Here's what Cinco de Mayo has become in the U.S.: a celebration of all things Mexican, from mariachi music to sombreros, marked by schools, politicians and companies selling everything from beans to beer.

And here's what Cinco de Mayo is not, despite all the signs in bar windows inviting revelers to drink: It's not Mexico's Independence Day, and it's barely marked in Mexico, except in the state of Puebla, where the holiday is rooted in a complicated and short-lived 1862 military victory over the French.

But don't let that spoil the party.

In Houston, ballet folklorico dancers will ring in Cinco de Mayo by stomping to traditional Mexican music in a city park. New York City will close parts of Spanish Harlem and Queens for street fairs as Mexican flags flap from apartment fire escapes and car antennas. Albuquerque honors the day with a Mariachi concert and free cab rides for those who show their love for Mexico with a little too much Dos Equis XX or tequila. Even West Des Moines, Iowa, has an all-day festival with Mexican food, artwork and live music.

The holiday has spread from the American Southwest, even though most are unaware of its original ties to the U.S. Civil War, abolition and promotion of civil rights for blacks.

Often mistaken for Mexican Independence Day (that's Sept. 16), Cinco de Mayo commemorates the 1862 Battle of Puebla between the victorious ragtag army of largely Mexican Indian soldiers against the invading French forces of Napoleon III. Mexican Americans, during the Chicano Movement of the 1970s, adopted the holiday for its David vs. Goliath storyline as motivation for civil rights struggles in Texas and California.

Over the years, the holiday has been adopted by beer companies as a way to penetrate the growing Latino market, even as the historical origins of the holiday remain largely forgotten.

David Hayes-Bautista, a professor of medicine and health services at UCLA and author of the newly released "El Cinco de Mayo: An American Tradition," said the holiday's history in the U.S. goes back to the Gold Rush when thousands of immigrants from Mexico, Central and South America came to California during the Civil War.

According to Spanish-language newspapers at the time, this first group of multinational Latinos on U.S. soil identified with the Union Army's fight against the Confederacy and often wrote pieces about the evils of slavery. Hayes-Bautista said these Latino immigrants were concerned about the Union's lack of progress and Napoleon III's interests in helping the South.

"It wasn't until the news came about the Battle of Puebla that they got the good news they wanted," said Hayes-Bautista. "Since Napoleon III was linked to the Confederacy, they saw the victory as the first sign that their side could win."

They didn't, of course, at least not for a few years. French forces took over Mexico after the Battle of Puebla, and installed Habsburg Archduke Maximilian as Emperor of Mexico. He was captured by Mexican forces five years later and put to death.

But in the years that followed, Latinos in California and the U.S. Northwest celebrated Cinco de Mayo with parades of people dressed in Civil War uniforms and gave speeches about the significance of the Battle of Puebla in the larger struggle for abolition, said Hayes-Bautista.

The Cinco de Mayo-Civil War link remained until the Mexican Revolution, which sparked another wave of Mexican immigration to the U.S. Those immigrants had no connection to Cinco de Mayo - except that U.S. Latinos celebrated it.

"That's when it became about David vs. Goliath, Indians beating a European force, and it took on a new meaning," said Hayes-Bautista. "The Civil War ties disappeared."

The date received another jolt during World War II during the U.S. government's "Good Neighborhood Policy" aimed at building good relationships with Mexico and during the Chicano Movement, when Mexican American activists adopted the day to reinforce civil rights demands. Two police beatings of Cinco de Mayo revelers - one in Houston in 1978 and the other in Washington DC in 1991 - resulted in riots and sparked protests and calls for reforms from Latino advocates.

The holiday spread outside of the American Southwest as more Latinos moved to new areas around the country. Alyssa Gutierrez, 35, a teacher who is originally from Robstown, Texas but now lives in New York's Harlem neighborhood, said Cinco de Mayo was barely noticed when she moved to New York in 1998. "Now there are Mexican restaurants on almost every block and all do something on Cinco de Mayo, usually around a boxing match," said Gutierrez.

Jody Agius Vallejo, a sociology professor at the University of Southern California and author of "Barrios to Burbs: The Making of the Mexican-American Middle Class," said Cinco de Mayo is now used by assimilated Mexican Americans as an easy way for them to showcase their ethnic identity.

"It's very similar to how Irish-Americans celebrate St. Patrick's Day," said Vallejo. "One way they can honor their ethnicity is to celebrate this day, even when most don't know why."

But not all buy in. "To others," she added, "this holiday is kind of viewed as a joke because they feel it's their culture that is being appropriated and exploited."

Hayes-Bautista said because the theme and focus around Cinco de Mayo has transformed a number of times, it won't be surprising if it changes again.

"No one has owned Cinco de Mayo," said Hayes-Bautista. "And no one ever will."

The Corporation Part 1/24 (Video) (Spanish subtitles)

1 May 2012

Asylum seekers made to feel at home, thanks to a $10,000 welcome pack


By Gemma Jones
February 17, 2012

  • Family of five in detention eligible for goods valued at $7100
  • Families of more than nine receive up to $9850 in furnishings
  • "They are basic supplies. We're not talking about luxury here"

ASYLUM seekers are receiving welcome packs of furnishings worth up to $10,000 and food hampers as they wait for their refugee claims to be processed.

Beds, fridges, mattresses, couches and items such as alarm clock radios, clothes hangers and containers for biscuits are being bought in a "household goods formation package" that contains more than 60 items.

The package includes a television with a minimum screen size of 53cm.

A family of five in community detention is eligible for goods valued at $7100.

Families of more than nine can receive up to $9850 in furnishings, the federal Opposition said after Senate hearings this week.

Asylum seeker families in Sydney arrive to a hamper of bread, butter, milk, eggs, other essentials, and cleaning products. Families with a baby can access a $750 pack of basic supplies, while phone and electricity connections are also paid for.

The assistance is on top of free doctors' visits, dental care, pharmaceuticals, and education, and payments of up to $433.25 a fortnight.

Asylum seekers are not allowed to work.

In Sydney suburbs, 97 homes are being rented at an average cost of $416 a week. Nationally, almost 1600 asylum seekers are being housed in community detention.

A spokesman for Immigration Minister Chris Bowen said the Government was being responsible in providing basic provisions while asylum seekers' claims were being assessed.

"People do not get to keep the goods. They remain in a house when a family moves out and are used by the next people who move in," he said.

"These people are not allowed to work."

The Red Cross provides the packages.

"They are basic supplies. We are not talking about luxury here," the Red Cross's spokesman, Michael Raper, said.



Totalitarian regime in Britain as political police persecute BNP candidate – Shocking!

Liverpool Mayoral Elections 2012 –

Three days to go before election day, and politically motivated police raid British National Party candidate Cllr Mike Whitby’s family home following malicious allegations of electoral fraud by the political opposition to the BNP.

The video footage is damning. Political police refuse to allow Cllr Whitby to attend the police station of his own accord so that they can employ totalitarian tactics and send a clear message of terror to their political opposition.

Cllr Whitby was arrested and held in the police station for several hours before being released – without charge.

This shocking footage demonstrates just how rotten the British establishment of old political parties has become and stands as evidence that they view the BNP as the only genuine threat to their corrupt regime.

The shocking video can be seen here.

http://www.bnp.org.uk/news/national/video-totalitarian-regime-britain-political-police-persecute-bnp-candidate-%E2%80%93-shocking

[ed. We truly do live in a fascist regime and this isn't the first time the BNP have been targetted. Several Liverpool BNP were arrested whilst lawfully leafletting and a candidate was arrested during the last general election because the Labour candidate refused to take part in a debate with him. It is truly imperitive you know your rights and get up to speed with what is going on in the world. Get the conversation started if you want things to change...this will get a whole lot worse yet...]


Judge Halts Texas Ban on Planned Parenthood Funding

Source: Newsmax
30 Apr 2012

A federal judge on Monday temporarily blocked a new Texas rule that would have banned state funding for Planned Parenthood clinics and ended their health services for poor women because the organization provides abortions.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel in favor of Planned Parenthood means thousands of women enrolled in the Texas Women's Health Program who go to its clinics will not have to find new healthcare providers, at least for now.

"The court is particularly influenced by the potential for immediate loss of access to necessary medical services by several thousand Texas women," Yeakel said in a 24-page ruling.

The preliminary injunction is a big victory for Planned Parenthood, which has been under siege in several states by abortion opponents. In the past year alone, states including Wisconsin, North Carolina, Tennessee and Indiana, in addition to Texas, have moved to block Planned Parenthood from receiving taxpayer money.

"For many women, we are the only doctor's visit they will have this year," Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in a statement. "This ruling affirms what women have known all along: politics simply doesn't have a place in women's health."

Texas Governor Rick Perry and some Republican lawmakers have said they would rather eliminate the women's healthcare program entirely than direct money to Planned Parenthood clinics.

Texas immediately appealed the federal judge's decision.

"Texas has a long history of protecting life, and we are confident in Attorney General Abbott's appeal to defend the will of Texans and our state law, which prohibits taxpayer funds from supporting abortion providers and affiliates in the Women's Health Program," the governor's press secretary Catherine Frazier said in a statement.

The Texas program, which is part of the federal-state Medicaid program, provides cancer screenings, birth control and other health services to more than 100,000 low-income women.

The program does not pay for abortions or allow abortion providers to participate in the program. The new Texas state rule would ban program money from going to affiliates of abortion providers.

BAN ON AFFILIATES

State law has included that ban on affiliates since the program began in 2007, but the state did not enforce it. Texas notified the federal government last year that it intended to begin enforcing the ban, effectively excluding Planned Parenthood from the program.

On March 9, the administration of President Barack Obama announced that it would no longer provide funding for the Texas program if Planned Parenthood was excluded. Texas then filed suit against the federal government. The ruling on Monday was on the Texas suit.

According to Planned Parenthood, about 49 percent of the women who received services through the program in 2010 obtained some services through a Planned Parenthood provider. Planned Parenthood said it would lose about $13.5 million of annual funding for preventive care and family planning if the rule is applied, forcing it to close clinics and lay off staff.

Texas has already made deep cuts in other family-planning programs. As a result, state subsidies that once provided low-cost birth control to 220,000 women a year now cover fewer than 60,000 women a year.

The federal government pays for 90 percent of the cost of the Texas Women's Health Program, which serves low-income women of reproductive age who do not qualify for regular Medicaid coverage. Texas puts up just $4 million a year.

Critics object to Planned Parenthood receiving taxpayer money, which cannot be used to provide abortions, arguing that a steady stream of government grants provide an indirect subsidy by helping pay utility bills and keep doctors on staff.

Planned Parenthood is the nation's largest abortion provider, terminating about 330,000 pregnancies a year.

It gets about a third of its revenue - $360 million in 2009 - from government grants to provide birth control, gynecological exams and care for sexually transmitted diseases to low-income women.

Sharia in Moscow

by Daniel Greenfield
Apr 30th, 2012

“You think that we are coming here as foreigners, but we believe that we are at home here and maybe you are the foreigners. We will make those laws that suit us, whether you like it or not, and any attempts to change that will lead to spilled blood. There will be a second dead sea here and we will drown the city in blood.”

Those were not the words of some back alley preacher, but of noted Moscow lawyer, Dagir Khasavov, giving an interview to a television station about his proposal to implement Sharia courts in Russia. Interspersed with footage of death sentences being executed, Khasavov spoke about his new organization that would protect Muslim rights and claimed that his proposal was only the beginning of a worldwide expansion.

“We are going to expand this net, we will begin in Russia, first Asia, and then everything will be encompassed, as it was in the Caliphate,” Khasavov said. According to Khasavov, Russian security services already unofficially refer cases involving Muslims back to Sharia courts and his proposal to officially establish such courts would only legitimize the parallel justice system that already exists for the millions of Muslims who now live in Moscow and other cities.

There is no official count of the number of Muslims who have migrated to find work in Moscow, but it might be as high as a third of the population. Muslim prayers spill out into the streets and take over portions of the city. After the demolition of the decrepit Cathedral Mosque, eighty thousand Muslims took over the streets to celebrate Eid al-Adha while the police scrambled to control the streets.

Halal cafes are easier to set up than mosques and have proliferated much faster. Unofficial Sharia courts already operate out of Moscow mosques with Imams acting as the arbitrators, but Khasavov would like to go much further. Last year he proposed the creation of a Council of Imams, the first step toward establishing a united Muslim legal system. Nor is Khasavov a man who can be easily dismissed as a bearded lunatic playing Al-Awlaki sermons.

Khasavov has an extended background with the MVD, Russia’s Ministry of Internal Affairs, a section of its security services, and graduated from two of its institutions, including one named after Felix Dzerzhinsky, the godfather of Russia’s police state. Until recently he served as an aide to a member of the Federation Council dealing with social policy. And media coverage of his Sharia courts proposal was generally positive until a hostile interviewer on REN TV baited him into a rant that led to a catastrophic backlash causing him to temporarily leave the country. It is entirely possible that his proposal was a trial balloon from higher up the food chain.

One of the stranger acts of Muslim terror in Moscow was the assassination of a Russian Orthodox Priest who had spent a great deal of time campaigning against Islam. Fr. Danill Sysoyev was killed in his own church by a masked man armed with a Makarov pistol tipped with a silencer. Security services supposedly turned up the pistol in the hands of a dead man they had killed, but no one appears to believe this version of the story, including the Moscow Patriarchate.

The method of the killing would have been out of character for Muslim terrorists, but entirely in character for the Russian security services, which have assassinated enemies of the state in the exact same manner. Opposition figures have been killed by masked gunmen armed with silenced pistols in public places, with their murders added to the list of unsolved crimes or attributed to some convenient career criminal. It would not have been the first time that the Russian security services had murdered a priest who fell out of line with government policy and treated it as an unsolved murder. The case of Alexander Men comes to mind.

Putin, like many European leaders, has used the Muslim presence to create chaos and instability for his own purposes. The UK’s Labour Party imported Muslim immigrants in their own divide and conquer scheme for Britain and Putin is following the same policies, the only difference is that critics of Russian government policy don’t get dragged into court on racism charges, they get shot in the head and the crime becomes another unsolved murder.

Like Europe, Russia is on the path to demographic suicide and has adapted to it by trying to divide Muslims into two groups, those they think they can control and the extremists who have to be suppressed. The native population is treated the same way. The lawless violence of the Russian government makes it easier to suppress the “extremists” in ways that the Eurocrats could not even dream of, but that doesn’t mean that its policies are fundamentally different.

Nearly a sixth of the Russian population is already Muslim and the birth rate numbers have put it on track to a Muslim majority. It’s an open question as to whether the authorities will allow things to go that far, but tellingly the Russian military is projected to become a majority Muslim force in a much shorter time. Once that happens it will become very difficult to change the direction of a country where control of the armed forces and major cities counts for more than the ballot box.

It’s not just Obama who has said that Islam has always been a part of his country, Medvedev said before him at an Arab League meeting in Cairo. “Russia does not need to seek friendship with the Muslim world,” he said, “Our country is an organic part of this world.”

Khasavov’s proposal follows Medvedev’s logic. If Russia, like America, is part of the Muslim world, it needs Sharia law and courts. And it will have them; initially under the auspices of trusted Muslim leaders, who like Khasavov, have links to the security services.

Putin is less concerned with whether he rules a Christian or Muslim country, so long as his power is unchallenged. And his propaganda increasingly aims at presenting his rule in a Muslim religious context. After the Iraq War, Russia’s Supreme Mufti called for a “joint ‘Orthodox-Islamic’ Jihad” against the United States and an election song by a Muslim singer set to traditional rhythms mixed with pop music praised Putin as “God’s Messenger”.

Ramzan Kadyrov, the President of Chechnya, was even more direct, saying, “Putin gave the Chechen nation its second life! Allah appointed him to his position.” Kakiev Said-Magomed Shamaev, leader of a GRU Spetsnaz battalion, appeared in a Pravda piece titled, “Special Services fight in the name of Allah and Putin.”

This brand of Eurasianism is to Russia what multiculturalism is to the West, both reject the European context and in doing so hope to build an empire through union with the Muslim world. And both strategies are equally doomed. Instead of protecting Russia, Putin has protected his own power and once again the Russian people are paying the price for the imperial dreams of their leaders.

Today the bloody mess on the streets of Moscow is only that of sheep being slaughtered for Muslim festivals, but If Russia continues on its present course the day will come when Khasavov’s prediction of a city drowned in the blood of Muslim violence will come true.

Breitbart's coroner poisoned to death?

by Joe Kovacs
30th April, 2012

Medical examiners in Los Angeles are investigating the possible poisoning death of one of their own officials who may have worked on the case of Andrew Breitbart, the conservative firebrand who died March 1, the same day Sheriff Joe Arpaio announced probable cause for forgery in President Obama’s birth certificate.

Michael Cormier, a respected forensic technician for the Los Angeles County Coroner died under suspicious circumstances at his North Hollywood home April 20, the same day Breitbart’s cause of death was finally made public.

“There are mysterious circumstances surrounding his death,” said Elizabeth Espinosa, a news reporter for KTLA-TV. “We’re told detectives are looking into the possibility that he was poisoned by arsenic.”

Help Sheriff Joe blow the lid off Obama’s fraud. Join the Cold Case Posse right now!

Cormier, 61, had been rushed to Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank after complaining of pain and vomiting.

“He was transported there early in the morning, and passed away late at night,” Ed Winter, assistant chief of operations and Cormier’s colleague at the Los Angeles County Department of Coroner, told KTLA. “It affects everybody when you lose a co-worker, but we’ll proceed and do our job and try to figure out why Michael died.”

The hospital then notified Los Angeles Police about Cormier’s death.

“At this point we haven’t ruled out foul play,” police Lt. Alan Hamilton told the Los Angeles Times. “It is one of the things being considered. We are waiting for the coroner’s results.”

Toxicology results are not expected for five to six weeks.

Sources told the Times several hazardous materials experts and officers searched Cormier’s home in search of what may have caused his sudden demise.

Michael Cormier

“The sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that finding the presence of poison does not necessarily mean the death was a homicide, because the substance could have accidentally entered his system,” the Times reported.

Hamilton also noted investigations are standard procedure when there’s a suggestion of anything other than natural causes in someone’s death.

It’s still unclear if Cormier personally worked on the probe into Breitbart’s death, and WND has left messages with the coroner’s office seeking comment.

On April 20, the same day Cormier died, the coroner’s office released its findings into the death of Breitbart, stating the 43-year-old conservative media powerhouse died of natural causes, listing cause of death as heart failure.

“No prescription or illicit drugs were detected. The blood alcohol was .04%,” the official report said. “No significant trauma was present and foul play is not suspected.”

Breitbart was founder of BigGovernment.com among other websites.

The night before Breitbart died, WND senior staff reporter Jerome Corsi arranged for Breitbart to interview Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who the very next day held a news conference to announce there was probable cause to believe President Obama’s birth certificate released on April 27, 2011, was a forgery, as well as Obama’s Selective Service Card.

“I have known Andrew for nearly 15 years and considered him a friend. His passion and energy for seeking the truth will be greatly missed by the nation. It’s almost incomprehensible that he left us so soon,” said Joseph Farah, founder and editor of WND.

In a column, Farah recalled meeting Breitbart years ago when he worked as a backup editor for the Drudge Report.

Matt Drudge paid tribute to his colleague and friend with a posting on the Drudge Report: “In the first decade of the DRUDGEREPORT Andrew Breitbart was a constant source of energy, passion and commitment. We shared a love of headlines, a love of the news, an excitement about what’s happening. I don’t think there was a single day during that time when we did not flash each other or laugh with each other, or challenge each other. I still see him in my mind’s eye in Venice Beach, the sunny day I met him. He was in his mid 20′s. It was all there. He had a wonderful, loving family and we all feel great sadness for them today.”

Rush Limbaugh called Breitbart an “indefatigable bulldog for the conservative cause.”

Sean Hannity told WND: “Andrew was a warrior, though a happy warrior, who relished political combat. He cared deeply for his friends, his family and his country. The movement has lost a passionate advocate. And I have lost a good friend. Andrew and his family are in our prayers.”

Blogger threatened with jail for writing on health

By Jack Minor
1st May, 2012

A blogger in North Carolina has been threatened with jail time for “practicing nutrition without a license” by writing about his experiences with diabetes and telling readers what types of food he was eating.

It was in January when the North Carolina Board of Dietetics and Nutrition told blogger Steve Cooksey, who writes at diabetes-warrior.net, that it was investigating him for providing nutrition care services without a license.

Cooksey was accused of violating Chapter 90, Article 25 of the North Carolina General Statutes, which makes it a misdemeanor to “practice dietetics or nutrition” without state permission – a license. According to the law, “practicing” nutrition includes “assessing the nutritional needs of individuals and groups” and “providing nutrition counseling.”

In February 2009, after being hospitalized with diabetes and wanting to avoid the fate of his grandmother who eventually died from the disease, Cooksey decided to embrace the low-carb, high-protein Paleo, or “caveman,” diet.

As a result of the diet, he was drug- and insulin-free within 30 days. By May of that year, he had lost 45 pounds and decided to start a blog in which he would write about his success.

In January, Cooksey received a call from the director of the nutrition board telling him he was not allowed to offer nutrition advice without a license and that his website was being investigated. He was also told that if he did not comply with the “suggestions” in a 19-page report, his website could be shut down and he could be sentenced to up to 120 days in jail.

The first page of the report shows Cooksey responding to an email he received from a person who is concerned about a friend that has diabetes. In the response he says, “Your friend must first and foremost obtain and maintain normal blood sugars.”

The official hand wrote a note in the column saying “assessing and advising requires a license.”

When Cooksey provided a list of what he eats as part of his diet, he was told, “It is acceptable to provide just this information, but when you start recommending it directly to people you speak to or write to you, you are now providing diabetic counseling which requires a license.”

In a statement on his blog site, Cooksey said that in response to the investigation he stopped writing his published advice column, took down his diabetes support packages and made the disclaimer more prominent.

The steps appear to have satisfied government officials, who announced April 9 they were closing the case.

However, Cooksey says he does not consider the issue to be over.

“All this means is that the board has violated my First Amendment rights by silencing me in altering how I express my opinions. My compliance is compliance with their violation of my rights, not an agreement between us that I was wrong and they were right,” he said. “I have absolutely no intention of complying with the board’s violation of my free speech rights. I intend to defend those rights, not only for myself, but for everyone.

“This is America and America people should be free to give each other advice about things like diet.”

He went on to say the letter sent by the board threatened to keep monitoring his website.

Charla Burrill, executive director for the NCBDN, confirmed to WND that the case was closed. However, she claimed the reports of threatening him with jail time were false, saying the board has no authority to criminalize any actions taken by Cooksey.

“By law, if a person has violated Chapter 90, Article 25 of the North Carolina General Statutes, the NCBDN may report such an action to a local prosecutor, however, it would be the prosecutor’s decision whether or not to seek a misdemeanor charge,” Burrill said.

Coincidentally, just a day earlier, a new report from the New England Journal of Medicine revealed that diabetes in America’s young people is linked to obesity.

It was the first large study of Type 2 diabetes in children, Dr. Robin Goland of the Naomi Berrie Diabetes Center at Columbia University said, because the disease previously has not been prevalent in children.

“The report documented that as obesity problems grow in children, so does the probability of diabetes.

The actions against Cooksey are part of a growing trend by government officials to crack down on any groups or persons that offer alternatives to traditional medical treatment.

In 2010, the FDA raided the offices of Daniel Chapter One, a Christian ministry that promotes a diet based on the bible chapter that is its namesake after a federal judge refused to allow the FTC to level a massive fine against the company.

“They came in screaming and hollering, ‘This is a raid, hands up.’ I saw a gun in my face,” said Jim Feijo, founder of the company.

“They patted Jim down and removed him from the office. They didn’t show me a warrant. They came in very aggressively, that was needless,” said Tricia Feijo, Jim’s wife and partner and a trained homeopath.

“They locked us out of the building and for the next four hours they went through everything. They took personal correspondence, they took phone records. It’s so over the top that they’re going through personal e-mail to see if I told a friend how to use a certain product, or told somebody what they could do for an illness.”

The Supreme Court declined to take up a case over whether the Feijo’s rights were violated or not.

Under Obamacare, the FDA has determined that a person’s own body is considered a drug and subject to regulation.

The Centeno-Schultz clinic in Denver pioneered Regenexx, a treatment in which a patient’s stem cells are removed, cultivated for two weeks in a lab then re-injected back into the body. The procedure is used to treat patients with knee injuries, partial rotator cuff tears in the shoulder and lower back disc bulges.

In 2008, the FDA informed Dr. Christopher Centeno that it considered the stem cells to be a drug and subsequently stopped the clinic from cultivating patients’ stem cells.

“You have the right to go to a doctor and have stem cells taken out and put back in your body that’s between you and me, it’s not the business of the federal government” Centeno said.

He said the ramifications are frightening.

“Under this logic, a doctor seeing a patient with high cholesterol may no longer be able to recommend fish oil as that is not an approved drug by the federal government.”

In another case involving raw milk, a federal court judge said that Americans “do not have a fundamental right to consume the milk from their own cow,” and they “do not have a fundamental right to produce and consume the foods of their choice.”

The FDA has even suggested that bottled water when used to treat dehydration should be regulated as a drug. Under the organization’s “Complementary and Alternative Medicine Products and Their Regulation by the Food and Drug Administration,” the agency said it should have the authority to regulate all vitamins, supplements, herbs and other natural substances, including water when used to “treat” dehydration.

New Obama slogan has long ties to Marxism, socialism

By Victor Morton
April 30, 2012

The Obama campaign apparently didn't look backwards into history when selecting its new campaign slogan, "Forward" — a word with a long and rich association with European Marxism.

Many Communist and radical publications and entities throughout the 19th and 20th centuries had the name "Forward!" or its foreign cognates. Wikipedia has an entire section called "Forward (generic name of socialist publications)."

"The name Forward carries a special meaning in socialist political terminology. It has been frequently used as a name for socialist, communist and other left-wing newspapers and publications," the online encyclopedia explains.

The slogan "Forward!" reflected the conviction of European Marxists and radicals that their movements reflected the march of history, which would move forward past capitalism and into socialism and communism.

The Obama campaign released its new campaign slogan Monday in a 7-minute video. The title card has simply the word "Forward" with the "O" having the familiar Obama logo from 2008. It will be played at rallies this weekend that mark the Obama re-election campaign's official beginning.

There have been at least two radical-left publications named "Vorwaerts" (the German word for "Forward"). One was the daily newspaper of the Social Democratic Party of Germany whose writers included Friedrich Engels and Leon Trotsky. It still publishes as the organ of Germany's SDP, though that party has changed considerably since World War II. Another was the 1844 biweekly reader of the Communist League. Karl Marx, Engels and Mikhail Bakunin are among the names associated with that publication.

East Germany named its Army soccer club ASK Vorwaerts Berlin (later FC Vorwaerts Frankfort).

Vladimir Lenin founded the publication "Vpered" (the Russian word for "forward") in 1905. Soviet propaganda film-maker Dziga Vertov made a documentary whose title is sometimes translated as "Forward, Soviet" (though also and more literally as "Stride, Soviet").

Conservative critics of the Obama administration have noted numerous ties to radicalism and socialists throughout Mr. Obama's history, from his first political campaign being launched from the living room of two former Weather Underground members, to appointing as green jobs czar Van Jones, a self-described communist.

30 April 2012

The Myth of the Golden Age of Tolerance in Medieval Muslim Spain

by Norman Berdichevsky
Nov. 2006

Apologists for Islam never tire of referring to the “Golden Age” of tolerance that supposedly characterized seven centuries of Muslim dominated Spain. This fundamentally flawed assessment draws the wrong conclusion based on fragmentary evidence and distorts the larger picture. It ignores the reality of enormous destruction wrought by the three Arab-Berber Muslim invasions that repeatedly sought to hold on to control and rule over the indigenous peoples of Spain who had been reduced to second class citizens in their own homeland.

The desire to restore “Al-Andalus”, an Arabic corruption of the land they conquered that had previously been ruled by the Germanic Vandals (hence al-Andalus as “Land of the Vandals" in Arabic) and Visigoths has persisted to this day. Extremist support for the atrocious terrorist bombing of the Madrid Train Station on March 11, 2004 is viewed by some Muslims today not simply as just punishment for the pro-American government of former Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar but as the first step in the re-conquest of what is still considered along with “Palestine” as land that must be returned to Muslim dominion.

Renewed Theological Debate

In Medieval Spain, numerous theological debates were held to discuss the relative merits and claims of the three monotheistic religions. Even though many centuries have passed, there is still a fundamental division among them. Jews who first discovered a path towards salvation, believed they were setting an example by serving God as a nation, demonstrating their way of life to other nations. This continued to be possible even after the destruction of the Temple and loss of Jewish independence in 70 AD. Christians, on the other hand, believed that this was possible on a purely individual level and could be achieved by anyone no matter what his or her nationality, race or sex.

For Islam, the world is divided between two hostile camps, and it is incumbent upon Muslims to subject the other camp to its will. More than a matter of personal submission to the will of Allah, subjugation (the deeper meaning of “Islam” usually confused with salaam meaning “peace”) requires the dominion over territory. The struggle for Islam requires a continual appraisal of a chess-board like map of what part of the world has been subdued and placed under Muslim rule FOREVER (no retreats or “do-overs” are allowed). The subdued territory is Dar-al-Islam while the remaining territories are ideologically still in the camp of the unbelievers. The other camp is labeled the “Camp of War” (Dar-Il-Harb) and must ultimately be conquered. In this regard, territories such as Israel, Spain, Chechnya, Kosovo or Albania, that were once submitted to Allah, cannot be allowed to return to the Camp of War.

Moderate Muslims may want to live in harmony with their neighbors, but this theological sword and the pressure it exerts suggest that the more militant strain will gain the upper hand. Now that Al-Qaeda has forced a change in Spain’s foreign policy with a terrorist bombing, it is questionable whether European domestic policies will be able to remain free from the aims and goals of Islamic radicals.

The Original Conquest of 711-716

The Islamic Civilization of medieval Al-Andalus endured in various parts of the Iberian peninsula from a few decades to 700 years. It left its mark primarily in Castile and Andalucia and provided Spain, and to a lesser degree Portugal, with a colorful and illustrious but also violent past that marked the history, language, architecture, art, music, food, place names and society of the country long after the last Muslim had departed.

The Muslims did not constitute anywhere near a majority of the population that numbered approximately 7 million Christians and Jews at the time of the first conquest in 711-716. By the beginning of the tenth century it has been estimated that the Muslim population of Berbers, Arabs and Muladies (Christians who had converted to Islam) was approximately 2.8 million out of a total of more than 7 million. By the beginning of the twelfth century, the number of Muslims had almost doubled but were just a bare majority of the total population of the peninsula. (source: "Judios, Moros y Cristianos; tres pueblos, ritos y costumbres" by Pastora Barahona, editorial Libsa, Madrid; 2004.) There was a hierarchical pecking order in spite of the lip service that all believers were equal.

Arabs stood at the top, Berbers provided the majority of the shock troops and hewers of wood and drawers of water followed by converts and at the very bottom were the infidel Jews and Christians no matter how significant their contribution to the arts and sciences.

The Muslim conquest of Spain was greatly aided by internal divisions among the Christians, especially the land-owning class of Visigoth nobles. The Muslim Conquest of Spain was accomplished in the short space of five years but society did not change abruptly. The newly won territory was given the name Al-Andalus with its capital in Cordoba and became a dependency of the Omayyid Caliphate of Damascus. Just prior to the conquest, much of the original Christian population demonstrated little stake in continued Visigothic rule and, even among the Visigoth ruling class, several clans found it expedient to cooperate with the Muslim rulers in order to preserve their property and privileges.

These Germanic rulers were still considered “foreigners” by many ordinary native Spaniards and their formal conversion to Catholicism from the Arian heresy that rejected the idea that Jesus was co-equal or co-eternal with God the Father (contesting the Catholic doctrine of the Trinity and that Christ was both human and divine). Their "conversion" had only been an initial step designed to appeal to the Catholic majority and integrate the different elements of the population into one society. The harsh anti-Jewish measures adopted by the last Visigothic king were made to appeal to Christians and unite the kingdom in the face of the Muslim invaders who were originally welcomed by the Jews, initially regarding them as liberators.

The tolerant Spain of The Three Great Monotheistic Religions (often referred to as Las Tres Culturas) gradually contracted and was eventually extinguished as a result of repeated invasions of the peninsula from North Africa by severe Muslim-Berber tribes people who brought with them a fanaticism reminiscent of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Only later did a resurgent Christian-Hispanic reaction begin to imitate this intolerance. The term “Golden Age” of Muslim Spain most correctly applies to a relatively short period from the eighth to the mid-eleventh century and is even more accurate when applied to the Christian North of the country for a period of more than three hundred years. (1050-1390).

The Berber-Arab Division

From the very beginning of the Muslim domination of Spain, a considerable antagonism existed between a minority of Arab overlords and their predominantly Berber followers who had joined the Muslim crusade after their conversion to Islam. The majority of these Berbers lived in Morocco and Mauretania and for this reason were referred to as Moros (Moors), a term that continues in use today and is more prevalent that muselmanes (Muslims) or árabes (Arabs) in contemporary Spanish.

Many of the Berbers had remained pagan or converted to Byzantine Christianity before accepting Islam and had long been in contact with the south-eastern corner of Spain separated from the Moroccan coastline by the narrow strait of Gibraltar. They provided the majority of the manpower for the invasion but were regarded with contempt by an Arab ruling class who felt a racial superiority and purity of faith connected with the Caliphs in Damascus and later in Baghdad

Collapse of Muslim Spain into Chaos

Muslim Spain, nominally subject to the rulers (caliphs) in Damascus and Baghdad, eventually broke free from any foreign subservience. Around the years 930-1000, Cordoba excelled as the most cultured city in Europe under a stable and prosperous rule, especially during the reign of Abd-al Rahman III (proclaimed Caliph in Cordoba in 929). This enlightened ruler built a sumptuous palace, Medina Azahara, named for his favorite wife Azahara. Its magnificence in ivory, jade, ebony and alabaster rivaled or exceeded that of the Taj Mahal and yet it was totally destroyed and sacked not by the “barbarian Christians” attacking from the North but by the fanatical Muslim Berber invaders in 1010. They left hardly a stone standing.

During a few months in 1009, five different rulers succeeded each other and lost control of much of the provincial territories. A rebellion against loyalty to the Omayyid dynasty led to civil war and the descent of Muslim Spain into chaos. Within a generation, approximately 40 independent Muslim mini-kingdoms or emirates called taifas proclaimed their independence and enabled the Christian kingdoms to organize and make major advances in the reconquest of the peninsula.

The Native Jewish population of Spain (many and perhaps most Sephardi Jews were native born converts rather than migrants), always a barometer of tolerance, quite clearly preferred the Christian North to the Muslim South from the beginning of the 11th century. Severe anti-Jewish disturbances began first in Granada and the Muslim South under the Almoravids and Almohades. The great palaces, artistic achievements and part of the sophisticated irrigation works of the Omayyids and Abbasids were largely destroyed by the new invaders. By the time of the final conquest of Granada - the last remaining Muslim kingdom in 1492, almost no Jews resided there whereas more than 225 Spanish towns had their distinctive Jewish quarters (juderías) still intact on the eve of the expulsion.

The Reconquest

The Reconquest by the Christian kingdoms eventually took on the dimensions of a religious crusade in which there could only be one winner. The Christians would have won and evicted Muslim rule much earlier had it not been for the arrival of fresh forces brought with the Berber incursions during the 11th and 12th centuries. The gains of territory achieved by the rival Christian kingdoms did not originally contribute to cementing a sense of religious unity or a crusade (“Christendom“). It was early beset by national, dynastic and linguistic rivalries (Castilian, Catalan, Leonese, Aragonese, Valencian, Portuguese and Navarran-Basque). Fortunately for them, the Muslim opposition was even more fragmented. The many small feuding taifas were to fall one by one to the conquering Christian princes and their armies.

Medieval Spain

Medieval Spain was the scene of a unique encounter among the three great civilizations of Roman Christianity. Arab-Berber Islam and Sephardi Jewry. The multi-cultural synthesis that emerged following the Muslim conquest left behind a stunning legacy, but one that was uneven, sporadic and marred due to political fragmentation, intermittent warfare, religious intolerance and eventual excessive religious zeal that ended in the eventual expulsion of the Jews (1492) and Muslims (1609) or their forced conversion as a step in the consolidation of political unity.

Only in Andalucia, was Muslim rule in Spain continuous for a long period of time. Elsewhere, it was limited and endured for a much shorter lengths of time, notably in Galicia, Asturias, the Basque country, Aragon and much of Catalonia. A good indicator of the Muslim presence is the large number of sites that bear Arabic place names (toponynms) starting with either the article “al” (the) or the prefix “Beni” (sons of). These sites show a strong concentration in the south of Andalucia and along the Mediterranean coasts of what are today the provinces of Murcia and Valencia.

Las Tres Culturas

There is abundant evidence of social coexistence and considerable cultural interchange between members of all three religions in the early period of Muslim rule in the south and later in the Christian North, participation in holidays (even Christmas) and celebrations such as weddings and baptisms across religious lines. Noted Spanish historian Antonio Dominguez Ortiz, in his classic essay Las Tres Culturas en la Historia de España, put it this way:

Conversion to Islam had not eroded the taste of many for good wines, the woman’s veil had not yet become a widespread custom (such a requirement does not appear in the Koran) and the happy sensual and cultivated environment that has always characterized the peoples of the South of Spain was not compatible with a rigid interpretation of the Koranic precepts. Centuries later, the dynamic Zionist leader and great poet, Ze’ev Jabotinsky, explained his support of the Sephardi (Judeo-Spanish) pronunciation of Hebrew as due, in part, to appreciation of the gayer, more carefree, less inhibited nature of the Sephardim and their Mediterranean traditions than the heritage of the more morose and somber Ashkenazi (East European Jewish) past.

The Cosmopolitan and Tolerant Christian North of Spain (1050-1390)

It is noteworthy that the most successful Christian rulers during the greatest advances made in the Christian re-conquest were also the most tolerant. Their kingdoms derived particular benefit from the active cooperation and participation of their Jewish communities. Alfonso VI, known as "The Brave" (1072-1090) appointed a Jewish minister and treasurer. The “philosopher king” Alfonso X (1252-1284) collaborated on many projects with Jewish scholars and translators and proclaimed them as valuable citizens, specifically forbidding the use of force to bring about conversions to Christianity. Jaime I, the conqueror of Valencia, was an enlightened king who promoted his Jewish subjects to positions of considerable prestige and influence. As a sign of special favor, he offered a distinct part of the town for Jewish residence in 1239 at their own request.

Under Muslim rule, especially following the arrival of the Almoravids and the Almohades, both Christianity and Judaism were scarcely tolerated and regarded as decidedly “inferior” religions. Their adherents were either forced at sword point to convert or paid exorbitant tribute to remain “protected peoples” (dhimmis), who possessed a divinely inspired book of revelation. They had to pay a “head tax” from which Muslims were exempt. The Jews, being more literate and whose Hebrew closely resembled Arabic, felt much more able to adapt to the new State at once and began to specialize in those activities and professions that Arabs regarded as “beneath them” (especially trade and tax collecting), administration, or onerous and “defiling” (working with leather).

The Three Sources of Hispanic Civilization

The arts, sciences, technology, literature, architecture, navigation, mapmaking, mathematics, astronomy, philosophy and art that flourished in Medieval Spain are often credited to Islam but this is a distortion of the role played by adherents of all three religions. The United Visigothic kingdom of Spain prior to the Muslim invasions had inherited five centuries of Roman civilization and had made use of the achievements of the Greeks and earlier Carthaginians as well as the Assyrians in agriculture, irrigation, mathematics, time keeping, the calender, mining, architecture, road building, mosaic art, pottery, jewelry, law and civic responsibility. The Muslim conquerors who arrived in 711 had inherited these same arts and sciences on their path of conquest across the Byzantine empire, the Near East and Christian-Roman North Africa. Christian and Jewish artisans and scholars made major contributions enabling the Muslim conquerors to make use of these achievements. The Schools of Translation established in Granada and Toledo by Muslim and Christian rulers respectively relied heavily on Jewish scholarship.

Spain’s View of their troubled Past Relations with the Muslims

Due to a long troubled history, Spanish involvement in the affairs of Morocco and the religious fervor generated by the Re-conquest, the Crusades and the Counter-reformation, a problematic legacy has been inherited by many Spaniards who maintain a kind of love-hate relationship with their past and with their Muslim neighbors to the South. From the eighth century to the present day, stereotypes have dominated Spanish attitudes and relations with the Arab states and Muslim civilization no less than with Israel, Judaism and the Jewish Diaspora. Since the 1970s, Islam has re-emerged as a major factor in Spanish society and since then the continual flow of cheap migrant labor and illegal immigration from Morocco has resulted in the rapid growth of the Muslim community.

From the time of the expulsion of the last “Moors”, the term moros has been used in Spain and applied indiscriminately to everything connected with Islam. Due to Spain’s involvement in Morocco, a large Army of Africa was created. In the 1930s, it was commanded by General Francisco Franco and its troops came to play a major part in the suppression of a revolt by anarchist miners and other workers in the northern province of Asturias in 1934, and then in the uprising to overthrow the Republic that culminated in the Civil War (1936-39). In spite of General Franco’s frequent use of the theme of “rescuing” Spain’s Christian heritage from “barbarism”, the use of Muslim troops brought with him from Morocco earned him a reputation for brutality. They were hated and feared by ordinary Spaniards wherever they fought.

Spanish Civilization is indeed indebted to both its early Iberian-Carthaginian-Roman-Greek-Germanic-Celtic origins and the invaluable contributions of both Jews and Muslims in the Middle Ages. The “Golden Age” was due originally to a wise policy of coexistence but was short-lived and followed by centuries of chaotic condition of fanaticism and fratricidal conflict due to the extremist Berber sects who followed a policy similar to that of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda of today. The Reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula by the Christian Kingdoms of Castile, Aragon and Portugal attracted Jews to these lands from the feuding Muslim taifas in the South and initially followed a policy of tolerance towards the remaining Muslims (known as Mudejars). Unfortunately, the bitterness of almost seven centuries of war between the Christians and Muslims for domination eventually resulted in Spain’s liberation and unification (1492) that was marred by the triumph of a religious crusade, fed by the excessive zeal of the Church bent on revenge and the consolidation of state power.
 

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