Good News? Revolutionary Islamists Taking Power Produces Moderation and Ends Terrorism!
The Times journalist explains:
American officials did not always carefully distinguish between Islamists, who advocate a leading role for Islam in government, and violent jihadists, who espouse the same goal but advocate terrorism to achieve it.
To say that a group like the Muslim Brotherhood just advocates “a leading role for Islam in government” is not quite the point. The issue: what do they want to do with this “leading role”? Might they have some agenda after they give Islam a leading role in government, such as destroying women’s rights, oppressing Christians, attacking Israel, forcing the people to conform to the Islamists’ definition of Islam, and smashing U.S. interests?
It is the ability of leading mass media outlets to produce sentences like the following that drives me to despair:
American hostility to Islamist movements, in fact, long predated Sept. 11, in part because of the United States’ support for secular autocrats in Arab countries.
In other words, it is all America’s fault for not being sufficiently sensitive in comprehending the perspective of the Islamist movements. What about the other, unmentioned, part: the fact of the Islamist movements’ hostility to America, their support for terrorism, their blood-curdling expressions of anti-Semitic hatred, and their stated intention of repressing everybody else at home?
Two brief historical examples: A) In March 2002, the Muslim Brotherhood announced it had established an armed wing, eight of whose members were ready to be suicide bombers in attacking Israel. B) When an Islamist inspired by Brotherhood leaders’ call for his murder tried to assassinate Egypt’s Nobel prize-winning author Naguib Mahfouz, a top Brotherhood official testified in the terrorist’s defense that he was right to try to murder the aged author.
So is there any risk from the rise of revolutionary Islamists today? Absolutely not, explains the Times writer. According to him:
[Experts] suggest that Americans should not assume that the rise of Islamists puts the United States in greater danger from terrorists. The opposite may well be the case, they say.
More recently, of course, we have the formation of Salafist morality squads, attacks on churches, and the extremely radical rhetoric of the Muslim Brotherhood’s presidential campaign when all the niqabs were lifted to show the ferocious hatreds and extremism underneath.
I too was struck by the idiocy of the comparison between a small group of Jews using terror to get the British out and establish their own country and the Islamic terrorist whose demands are a challenge to the West’s democratic survival.
These radicals are can’t be compared to nationalists radicals whose demands are always local. They can only be compared to the radicals say in Iran before they took over the country or better still to the Bolshevik radicals who wanted to set up world wide dictatorships “of the Proletariat.”
Is this so hard to understand?
In a manner of speaking it’s amusing the way there is always an excuse for Arab/Muslim terror but for the bit of Jewish terror that got the Brits out of their hair, nothing.
Pity the desperation of having to endure the perfidious treatment the Brits handed out to the mandate they received from the League of Nations, to the White Paper effectively locking the Jews into Europe for Hitler to round up, to the Cyprus “concentration” camps for Jews prevented from enetering “Palestine” to the British handing over armaments and apparel to the Arabs before leaving the region.
At least no British civilians were blown up buying “fish & chips” at their local shop, but only the military was targeted.
Oh I forgot to mention the the truck bomb the Arabs set off in Jerusalem, with the help of British soldiers, killing more than 60 civilians.
To fully understand what animates the death cult of Islam-and it IS a death cult-I refer one and all to my latest blog post.
If Barry Rubin reads it, especially the embedded link-’Islam & Blood’-I expect he will agree(more than not) with its contents.
Here’s the link-http://adinakutnicki.com/2012/07/13/islam-blood-a-groundbreaking-policy-paper-contained-herein-the-world-stands-on-a-precipice-commentary-by-adina-kutnicki-109/
Spread it wide and far…..
Although I’m very aware of their blindness, it’s very disturbing to actually read what the NYT pushes.
The banality. The insidious and “studied” ignorance, and the extreme — and dangerous — idiocy.
It’s all I can do to keep from throwing up.
When the Islamists line up all NYTimes editors for neck slitting for their usual liberal outlook, then these morons will know how “moderate” Islamists become once they grab power.
What appears to be happening in the US is a collective temper tantrum brought on by years of hatred of parents who were “too strict” or “square”. You know, those things that normally turn out shining new examples of adulthood. But those people in the mainstream, for lack of a better, lesser-used term, are still seeking “cool” points with their peers and dying to sit at the right lunch table.
The people they look up to are, as was discusses some months back, the epitome of cool. Which is to say, rebellious, ignorant of reality, ignorant of why our nation had worked for over 200 years.
Their main grumble? “But it’s so ….boring”. In one sense, I think the “leaders” of the United States and to a greater extent, the one who report in the media have been diddling the pleasure center of their brains so much that living a clean, normal life brings on serious withdrawal.
It is therefore no wonder that they are attracted by shiny things. But I’m focusing here on their polarity. By that, I mean their desire to use normal, conservative America as their compass on which direction to take on any subject. If they choose the opposite of what a conservative would think or do, they are showing allegiance to their peers and intentionally going against the grain, even if that direction is destructive. What really matters is the rebelliousness. If conservatives think islam is bad, the contrary-thinking socialists think islam is good.
There is no thinking required; Just see what the squares are talking about and do/say/feel the opposite.
Of course, this behavior is rooted in adolescence. In other words, they never grew up. Looking at the attack ads against Romney with the lies about Bain are clearly put together by angry, antisocial misanthropes whose only purpose in life is to p*ss off conservatives. They then howl with laughter about getting a rise out of the republican candidate.
Of course in a normal, functioning society, these antagonists would get their ears pinned back but in today’s society, there are the Bill Mars, (intentional misspelling), the Debbie Wasserman (I know NO-thing)Sergeant Schulz and at the top of the heap, the biggest smart-ass of them all, Obama himself taking cheap shots wherever and whenever he can. He has diminished the office to high-school sophomore gum-chewing levels. I really wish I could find out about someone who beat his ass severely for his smart mouth and cocky attitude.
But that’s the trouble, isn’t it? No one out there seems willing to put these peckerwoods in their place. The republicans fear the media more than ever, why? I’ll tell you why. Because they still have the same DNA where if they are ostracized by the cool kids, they won’t be accepted and respected. Well, take it from one who’s been ostracized his whole life, me.
You can’t let your principles be silly putty. The hardest part is the time involved for doing the right thing and holding fast. Perhaps because we’re all so influenced by the immediacy of chicanery and ridicule that we prefer to remain silent when everyone’s acting poorly rather than be labelled as the hall monitor or the snitch.
But the stakes aren’t the same in adult-world as much as the socialists would like to have us believe. Rush has pointed it out many times: They aren’t going to like us. They will NEVER accept us and every attempt to please them is met with ridicule from their side. So you have to say screwwit and do your own thing and stick to principle, the rule of law and the Constitution.
You republicans might as well get hated for what you are instead of what they want you to be. They hated Reagan. Think Reagan cared? He had enough life experience to know that their whining was garbage. Boehner, in comparison wants so desperately to have others think of him as a “sensitive, caring man” that he cannot see that not only does the left not respect him, but the right doesn’t either.
So, this collective groupthink about islam is a warm fuzzy thing has got to go. I have lived in the US all my life and traveled via the military to many other parts of the world. The middle east is a violent place. I can sit in my home or go eat lunch in a restaurant or go to a movie and not have a fear that someone set a bomb to go off anywhere near me. In the middle east, nobody goes to a theater unless they have bomb-sniffing dogs, police everywhere and lookouts. I’m exaggerating but you get my point.
Unfortunately, by demanding that we tolerate islam, Hitlery, Obama, Gore, the newsies, the left-wing buttonheads, all of them will force us to capitulate and they will rue the day. They, by being contrary to simple logical and deductive reasoning, will only recognize what they have done too late. Or never. Hell, Carter STILL has no clue what he brought about in Iran.
We’re in deep, deep trouble and our military, the loyal, hardworking members that they are, will be given orders to allow themselves to get shot at time and again because….gee wizzums, islam isn’t so bad. Next thing you know, the directive will go out that before they eliminate a muslim combatant, they will have to offer him a cup of tea and sit down with them and ask if we can’t all get along. Laughable? Of course but it’s on the mind of every national socialist who thinks the war in the middle east is the result of US aggression and treating the sand-people “unfairly”.
But it’s easy to be magnanimous when it’s not your head stuck on a pike. I’d like to see Kerry go unannounced into an Al Qaeda camp and say, “Howdy fellas..how about a good game of checkers?” and see what they do to him. Well, in reality, since 2001 that’s exactly what they’ve been doing to our US soldiers. It took years for Japan to fully accept the US because of their devotion to the emperor and their so-very-different ways than ours. But at least they didn’t have a religion that taught them that anything non-Japanese was to be destroyed. They are logical thinkers and saw a way that they could succeed and took advantage of it.
It’s unlikely that the cult of islam will fare as well. They are stone-age people with stone-age thinking. Our own left-wingers won’t hear of their intolerance of women, failing to allow them to become educated, have jobs, DRIVE, etc. Orphaned boys are taken in by perverts who use them for sex and beat them. But the media is intentionally blind to all of this because this information comes from conservatives and must therefore be ignored. It’s an Archie Bunker/Michael Stivik argument.
Sadly the Michael Stiviks will still have their heads cut off just as easily as the Archie Bunkers.
Most of us grew up after getting out of college. The liberal media, along with their university intelligentsia comrades, could never separate themselves from the warm uterus of a community that thrived on lofty ideas with no regard to consequences. As they kneel, hand bound, with the cold blade of the knife held at their throats, will they hear, “Young fool… Only now, at the end, do you understand… “
insightful comment and astute observation.
No Jaladhi, the New York Times is too valuable a propaganda tool for Islam. The throat slitting will be for those who love liberty, and the Jews first.
The other says that Egyptian terrorists were just mad about the Mubarak dictatorship so they have no remaining motive to use violence.
The others should read the Holy Ko-Ran (raw or commented), the Hadiths, the various Sharia codes, or read and understand 1,400 years of programmatic Moslem violence done in the name of Islam.
As far as the Islamist thing, why the resistance to acknowledging the simple fact that what is simply is? There is no reason to paint stripes on a zebra. If they’re Islamists then I’m a Judeo-Christianist. But I don’t plan to threaten, maim or kill anybody, and am do not believe in a belief system with the central purpose of destroying all other belief systems.
Buddhists must wince every time they hear the term Islamist. Sophistry strangles, and when it comes to Moslems, our news entertainment class is choking on this critical issue.
This is an open and well intended request for an explanation of the distinction between a Muslim and an Islamist.
If both a Muslim and an Islamist reads and understands and lives by the various brutal tenets of their Koran…..is one of them a little bit more “pregnant” with this bloody violence and authorization any behavior at all, so long as that behavior advances the ultimate aim of spreading Islam?…if so, which one….and how so?
Then we come to the angels-on-the-head-of-a-pin distinction of just what, exactly. makes one of these two groups a member of the sub-group called a “moderate” Muslim. In other words, has the sperm-fertilized egg of terrorism divided into a blastocyst?….has it progressed to a fetus? …which trimester?
Doesn’t this “moderate” Muslim read and adhere to and live by the same blood-inducing, discriminating verses as the Islamist, the Muslim, or the “Moderate”?
Can these subdivisions pick and choose among the verses of thie Koran to observe and live by?
Our media seem to be muddled, and all of the Muslims-Islamists-Moderates relish this very confusion and thrive upon it. It all seems very elastic and an arch rationalization enabling whatever the writer wants to get across.
…hasty correction…as much as I love puns, I intended no flippancy with terrorism-blastocyst….the latter is a term used in embryology 101.
Here’s an interesting article via Robert Spencer’s “Jihad Watch”:
…….”Chicago: Qur’an translator intended to become jihad/martyrdom suicide bomber
Jul 14, 2012 09:28 am | Robert
How did this man who had immersed himself in the peaceful teachings of the generous Qur’an misunderstand Islam so spectacularly as to want to kill and be killed for Allah (as per Qur’an 9:111)? Why does the proliferation of stories like this one never shake the mainstream narrative about Islam…”
Same old egalitarian illusion at the root of this worldview: All people are basically good, only bad political arrangements make them bad, i.e. dictatorship causes extremism. Fix the political situation by introducing democracy and everyone reverts to their natural goodness. Good luck with that…
Evil is as evil does. Much of this tripe by leftist ideologues sounds like the vociferous appeasement idiots fawning over Hitler, then WWII broke out and 6 million plus people paid the price. The same type of idiots then swooned over the “peaceful” Communists, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, all who fertilized the earth with over 60 million corpses.
Sure, the Islamists might have international peace for now, only long enough to get their “holy” domestic pogroms in order. When reality doesn’t fit ideology, heads roll. History has shown us that with the advancement of time and global connectedness, the brutality increases.
How many will be cleansed of the earth to achieve “Allah’s” trans-global paradise? The New Testament’s book of Revelation speaks of 1/3 of the global population being wiped away in future tribulations. Looks like this prophesy is on par with Jihadists’ wet dreams. You do the math.
“Much of this tripe by leftist ideologues sounds like the vociferous appeasement idiots fawning over Hitler, then WWII broke out and 6 million plus people paid the price.”
NO! WWII broke out and over 50 million people died!
Yes, six million of these people were Jewish but the rest were people too!
Tell it to the Coptic Christians of Egypt, or any other Christians in the area. See what they say. Massive increase in persecution of Christians. Promoting of Christianity can lead to death. Churches made illegal and burned or turned to mosques.
Many, many years ago, long before 9/11 even, Mad Magazine had a humorous article concerning the terrorist culture in the Middle East in which the authors displayed a clear understanding of the nature of the beast. I mention this to note that there are reliable publications based in NYC that do publish competent articles on the subject, one just has to know where to look.
Great! Next up Islamist governments for Europe, the Anglo Nations, Ivory Coast and Nigeria! Dont forget an Islamist government for Israel, too.
Moderation and peace!
Sounds wonderful!
Keith Ellison and his Muslim Brotherhood friends are no doubt ecstatic.
What you see isn’t…..
============================
Anyone who really knows the Middle East will tell you that it doesn’t really matter who’s “in charge” in Egypt. In the end, there is no hope for that country ever to free itself from massive poverty, drudgery and ultimately enslavement of one sort or another. They’ve tried it for 5000 years and nothing’s worked.
Therefore, I’m glad the Muslim Brotherhood has “won”. Let them have a go at it. All their efforts will come to nought. You wait and see. They may last 5-10 years but then they’ll be replaced by another group who has “all the answers.” In the end, all that will be left are the Pyramids….and the Sphinx.
Much the same can be said for the larger Middle East, including Iran and Pakistan. Their populations are all condemned to a marginal life of near starvation and servitude. After all is said and done, that’s the bottom line. They’ll end up as carpet weavers, coffee boys and bootblacks. It’s inevitable.
In my old age I am inclined to nostalgic flights of memory to the “good old days”. Here in many a German “Kaufhof” (department store chain) antiquated appearing radios –quite expensive– have been a nostalgic hit. For the German market the appearance of said radios is of the late 1940′s, a time leading to the socalled economic miracle. However, a certain type of rememberance that goes back some years earlier might recall certain bad times, namely the era of Adolf Hitler. Oh, oh, although Germans born post-WW II have no personal reason to remember, the chain of “Kaufhof” (carries a different firm name today) and the now absorbed “Hertie” (another chain store) might remind one that the original owners were a business family, whose property was forcefully “aryianized” by the Nazies. The founding owners were Jewish and pioneers in marketing! If a sensitive German, aware enough of the first half of the 20th Century history of his country, has nostaligia for the good old days, such pleasant feeling can dissolve into a disconcerting “déjà vu” if the symbolism of remembering is disconcerting. I suspect that this explains why the radios remind one of the good (but not too) old days. Why have I returned to days even preceding my youth?
The reason lies therein that I seem to be experiencing certain “morphological” parallels evident at different historical times–popularly known as “history repeating itself”. If one learns from such a repetition, fine. However if the repetition of history seen right NOW, here and today, evinces a “déjà vu” of activities that paved the way to massive detruction in the past, nostalgia of an old man becomes quickly a nightmare, alas while not asleep. So, let me very, very briefly note the nightmare that the nostalgic radios on the German market bring forth in me and then make a short reference to Barry Rubin’s perception of today.
Some days ago, after spending a marvelous morning with a Russian Orthodox priest, a guest arrived and unintentionally spoiled the day with a “déjà vu” not wanted at the moment. The man’s grandfather had been school friend of Goebbels and had made a SS career out of such a friendship. My opinion of Goebbels is that he was quite intelligent. My interlocuter corrected me with a sorrowful “fact”. No, the man was brilliant, particularly in communications. Well, knowing something about the “great” communicator of a monstrous age, I was reminded of the Goebbels’ doctrine of the “big lie”, that is, repeat something often enough and it will be believed. This thesis, formulated more abstractly, does indicate, nevertheless, a truth for communication theory for times others than those of the Nazies. I dare the thesis: If person (or movement) X controls the vocabulary of discourse, said person has already won the battle. At any rate, it is hard to think “outside the box” and generate resistance.
I cannot in the space of this Comment begin to trace how the Nazies dominated the vocabulary that disguised Nazi behavior as an, at least, understandable German reaction to the injustices of the Treaty of Versaille (and that treaty was a punitive one, particularly pushed by the French). A plausible truth was taken up and dominated the vocabulary of evaluation of Hitler. Such dominance was a success and explains in part the European desire not to want to see danger in the German version of a “Brotherhood”. And so, Chaimberlain achieved “peace in our time”. We all know how “peace” vocabulary at that time ended in the atrocious war leading to the Holocaust (and Hitler had explicitly stated that the termination of Jews was his “Glaube”, viz., “Faith”. To no avail!)
Here my trip along nightmare lane can only indicate the “repeating of history” that my old eyes have seen. Rubin has shown a vocabulary of justification for not taking seriously Islamism in the form of the Brotherhood. But such a harmless rendering vocubary (which includes blame “our” side with guilt for the apparent radicalisms of the “enemy’s” side) took place in the Left relative to the resistance to Soviet or Chinese or Vietnamese or etc. Communism. I have even seen a socalled documentary that suggests that the introduction of a sound Mark was a provocation of the Soviet occupied East Germany and provoked the Cold War. Yes, American aggressivity, not Soviet announced communism, was the culprit. Here I have a “déjà vu”, a bit extreme, of the leftist exculpation of communist aggresive expansionism. Whereas the vocabulary of exculpation of Nazi danger was before my time, the leftwing excuse for communist expansionism, often blaming America for the conflict, constituted a great part of my life’s awareness. And now another “déjà vu” in my old age!
On the night of the Egyptian revolution (sic!), I saw one Muslim after another (frequently young ladies) in German tv simply valiumize the viewer. Sure, the “old” members of the Brotherhood made extreme statements, but the young here-and-now members are, well, another thing, a welfare oriented thing. Some, perhaps, naive remarks by a young Muslim here in Germany, all taken up by hopes for better days, can be understood. But, such naive thinking does not pertain to the “professional” reporters of the NYT or CNN or etc., etc. Particularly it should be absent from the US government and its foreign policy makers, e.g., Obama. I have written already too much. But Barry Rubin has ruined my nostalgia for today, leaving me somewhat depressed. If the “respectable” media controls the interpretative vocabulary for the evaluation of Islamic behavior, specifically that of the Brotherhood, effective medial resistance becomes difficult. Rubin’s article belongs not just in the pages of PJ Media, but as a headline for the NYT. I do not hold my breath!
Well, I will sign off here and struggle to find some pleasant nostalgia for today. An old man needs his illusions. I will not, how, become a modern day Chaimberlain. As usual I thank Barry Rubin for his cold hard analyses. He reminds me so much of a favorite of mine of bygone days, namely James Burnham (who seemling whistled in the dark about the nature of Communism and the concrete situation of the day)
BRAVO! BRAVO! BRAVO! You have done me a great service, Professor, by providing so much insight and personal remembrances to Dr. Rubin’s article. My father-in-law fought in WWII. He had a German professor in college who told the class what Hitler was really saying as opposed to the English translation. As you say, it seems that the U.S. has a history of “turning a blind eye”. And, yes, those of us who do not learn from history are indeed doomed to repeat it. I am in no way anti-Islam, but we are far too eager in my country to pretend that all will be well if we just wish hard enough.
Thank you Lynn K for your kind BRAVOS. I have mentioned above and below that the willful rendering of the Nazi danger as “harmless” has a very personal meaning for me. I am packed full with Germanic DNA, some German and some Anglo-Saxon. The Nazi perversion of German life (and also of Austrian DNA bearers–some of the worst SS were Austrian) has profound implications for me, even in view of the fact that, by the Grace of God, I was born in 1939 in America. I take a personal interest asking myself, if, by the lack of the Grace of God, I had been born in Germany, then what?. What would have become of me? I will introduce you and any uninformed reader about those dark days, however superficially, to a horror that lurks in the depths of all of us, but came to the fore in Germans of that time and a horror lurking in Jihaddists of today who obtain the sublime status of martyr by aggressively killing and being killed in combat. (My God, that Jihaddist imperative was proclaimed by the Nazies, of course with a different verbal coating!) Let me begin the horror story.
Above I translated “Glaube” as “Faith” so as to stress the religious use of the term that Hitler intended with total malice of forethought. The “l..b” in “Glaube” is etymologically the same as the “l..b” in “beLieF” and in the “l..v” in “LoVe” and, to make matters lustfully clear, the “l..b” in “LiBido”. Please try to understand “LiBido” as not only sexual, rather as lustful, primoridal, chaotic passion for extacy, sort of a dissolution in frenzy. Without even beginning to enter into the phemonological aspects of the matter (done strikingly by Prof. Hermann Schmitz–who also wrote a controversial book on the forensic pathology of the Nazi fixation upon the body and the lust to destroy it), I want to indicate how “GLauBe” can become the frenzy of the “LiBido” in the passionate act if climatic killing.
In a fascinating documentary on the recruitment and transformation of normal police officiers into the Gestapo (Himmler’s murderous police) or into the one-on-one murders of the SS, it was noted that such “normal” men did not just listen to cold and hard argumentation, viz., sly educational propaganda of the Nazi and then, like a logician, conclude that it was a sacred duty to rid the world of Jewish vermin or, for that matter, of slavic infestations. No, there was reluctance. Himmler himself was aware of such reluctance both in his men and in himself. Once I heard a Catholic priest say: “If I can get a man to go down on his knees, he will soon be praying”. Very sensible pedagogics, i.e., if someone begins to act in a certain way, one will tend to accept the cognitive justifications therefore. Well, the key point for the Himmlerites was to get the individual police-MAN just to murder someone, just once. Once that act was done, conversion took place very rapidly. Conversion to what? Here is where the “GLauBe” << "LiBido" comes into play. Some Nazi murderers simply were overtaken by an extatic frenzy of murdering, sort of like a gigantic male orgasm, where sex and death merge (relative to which there are phemonological reasons for the comparison). I think we MEN with our sexuality are much more inclined to become killers, mixing lust, sex, and extacy into a frenzy of pleasure than are women. Certainly the phenomenon takes place all too often individually in criminal acts of concern for the police. Such acts are, however, those of an individual. In the case of the Nazies it was a "collective" act of the "Volk" and, hence, much more dangerous. In the case of the Jihaddists" it is a "collective" act of the "submission" to the ummah or Muslim community.
I have entered into this horror story because I wish to make it clear that horrors haunt the depths of libido-belief motivation to kill. From everything I have read about the Brotherhood (and other hardcore Islamists) there is a commitment to Jihad on a religious basis and such "Glaube" entails killing and being killed in combat. I hardly need to refer to the Islamic association of the Jews with pigs, etc. Let one but listen to Memri TV and to many a "Glaube"-statement of some Islamists and one will (at least I do) scent the extacy of libido killing. What does this have to do with foregin policy competency?
Quite simple: If my description of horrors latent in the libido-ized belief killing is accurate, then a great deal, particularly for Jews, is in play relative to the correct evaluation of the behaviorial imperative contained in the Brotherhood's "Glaube". It is just this aspect of religious frenzy, seemingly consciously excluded from consideration by Obama and neglected by the NYT that makes a miscalculation so very, very dangerous. Just as miscalculations ended in the horrible destruction of WW II they could repeat themselves as the "history" in "our time". Rubin's critique entails omninous implications!
Well done Professor Wessell. Given that I too have a fews years on the odometer I have recognized the interplay of these instincts in myself – Sex, Death, Ecstasy, Love etc. I have long imagined it likely that Mohammed Atta experienced incandescent ecstasy in the moments before the plane hit. What I would add is that that if we deal with the resulting terror unconsciously by denial then we go the way of the New York Times and CNN. In shorthand Stockholm syndrome, where the victim undergoes a conversion such that they adopt the cause of the terrorizers -particularly emotionally. (Both terror and television are human activities that work primarily on he emotions) Once emotionally converted, being well educated children of the enlightenment, they project their own rationality on the terrorizers and try to convince us and themselves that they are harmless.
So these people in the media and at the state department and elsewhere don’t intend to undermine their own country and civilization. They are just mentally ill, so naturally we can’t hold them responsible – which, of course, should go without saying.
Good news? Hardly. Actually, no such thing coming from that quarter .. the NYT.
As you yourself wrote:
“The mind that can make such a comparison is incapable of comprehending international affairs.”
I would add: A mind capable of such comparisons is simply incapable of ANY sort of conceptual thinking, which means it would be incapable of comprehending anything of much complexity, any chains of causality of significant length.
From the NYT not much more is to be expected.
What I don’t get is how come in our vast State Department, with countless well-educated career diplomats, there seems to be nobody better. Or, could it be these just don’t get a voice? If not, then must we conclude Hillary herself to be so vastly ideologically blinkered, so replete with save-the-third-world good intentions, as to muzzle all voices of reason? Or, does she simply collect her marching orders from the grand BO at 1600 Penn and be done with things? Whatever the reasons, our ME policies appear to have been disaster upon disaster. We’re worse off, much worse, than during the Bush tenure; with nothing to show for it.
Roger, you may be missing the point relative to Rubin’s comment on “a mind that can make such a comparison …”. I find it improbable that such a mind, conceived in its subjectivity, viz., IQ rating, is “simply incabale of ANY sort of conceptual thinking”. If only it were so! In such a case the article written would hardly distinguish itself from jibberish. But the article is well articulated in its very act of “making such a comparison”. And that is the REAL danger, the mind of the ideologue. I should like to illustrate the errancy of underating the intelligence of an ideologue.
No one will doubt the considerable intelligence of Trotsky. Yet, even when driven into exil and even knowing well the dictatorial tyranny of Stalin, Trotsky, nevertheless, maintained that the Soviet Union was the bearer of revolutionary hope and change, i.e., it represented the supposed ibjective interests of the proletariat. At the same time, #2 of the Trotsky faction, namely James Burnham, captured the incongruity of such ideological thinking and broke with Trotsky over such ideological blindness. (It can be interesting reading Trotsky’s reply. Trotky’s foolishness eventually got a pick-axe in his head.) Burnham’s liberation of his considerable intelligence from the confines of Marxist-Leninist ideology led him not only to critique Trotsky, but eventually to his “hit” seller, “The Managerial Revolution”, in which Burnham traced an objective morphologicqal similarity between the Soviet organization of society, Nazi organization and in, at least, incoate form in FDR’s New Deal. (And the analysis is valid for Obama’s state cooperatism and a similar organization in Mussolini’s fascism.) As a Trotsky-ideologue Burnham was just as subjectively capable of abstract thinking as he was after his break from such ideologically directed thinking. The difference lies therein that his capacity for “abstract thinking” was able to understand the way things really are without hiding unpleasant facts by means of contorted comparisons.
Roger, I fear that the danger for the USA and, for that matter, Israel (not to speak of “moderate” Arabs, persecuted Christians, resisters of any sort to an aggresive Islam), abodes in the “respectable” or, at least, “respected” mass media control the vocabulary of evaluation for the general public in America. If the Israelis should surrender to such ideological thinking and pin their hopes on friendly cooperation with the (unto now misunderstood) Brotherhood, the citizens of that land will soon enough feel the error of their ways finding themselves in a war. We in the USA would, of course, be upset, but we need not worry because ideologues in the Obama administration, not to mention the “respected” press, will develop an “ideological” analysis that renders harmless the Israeli situation and, well anyway, it was their fault in the first place. Do not underestimate the intelligence of your enemy, it can be lethal.
The Old Grey Lady, in 1933, printed an editorial stating :
“Now that Herr Hitler has become Chancellor of Germany, his wild crowd-swaying pronouncements will disappear, as he assumes the burden and responsibility of leading a major European nation”
The NY Times hasn’t gotten any closer to reality in the past 80 years.
.
Could you please obtain for me, Rick Z, the exact bibliography on the statement you cited. I have seen a documentary here in Germany in which Hitler, all dressed in civilian clothes and looking quite like a statesman, stives down the street to assume power. The commentator says in German almost the same words, so much so that it could be a translation. Alas, the documentary gave no source relative to whom the voice belonged. I took it to be a contemporary German source, for afterall, the voice was in German. Maybe some quoting was going on? I am not aware of just who (or what) “The Old Grey Lady” was. Was that the designation for a regular editorial slot of the NYT? It is just this sort of “ideological” wishful thinking by intelligent people that contributed to sidelining from the German public awareness (from the world’s too) the “real” nature of the Nazies and, I hold, allowed many European politicians, particularly Chaimberlain, to ignore with good conscience the explicit program of Hitler, superclearly expressed in the bestseller “Mein Kampf”. By the way,do you know if an English translation ever made it on the list of bestsellers of the NYT. That would blow my mind away. The point to be made regarding my comment above is that such professional “reporting” created a vocabulary of discourse making it difficult in public to attack the real issue at hand. How does one attack publicly some politician or movement that a respected newspaper such as the NYT has obscured in a vocabulary of deception? Alas, real public discourse in the USA is having its universe of discourse robbed of an adequate vocabulary. That is the lesson that I draw from Rubin’s article.
I am not aware of just who (or what) “The Old Grey Lady” was. Was that the designation for a regular editorial slot of the NYT?
For a long time, The Old Grey Lady has been the warm, fuzzy designation of the newspaper itself, the New York Times.
I couldn’t find the quoted editorial, but, also in the 1930′s, it was the Times’ own Walter Duranty who won a Pulitzer Prize for his series of articles praising Stalin and Russia under that particular mass murderer.
Wishful thinking vis à vis mass slaughterers is sort of a tradition at the Times.
Correction: The Grey Lady, not The Old Grey Lady
I cannot give you the bibliography, however Deborah Lipstadt’s book Beyond Belief: The American Press And The Coming Of The Holocaust, 1933- 1945, has many similar quotes.
Thank you both for the information. I will note it down. My professorial specialities were philosophy and German literature. I am, so to speak, a total amateur in the Nazi period, heck, in the American side. The German government has made an honest effort not to let the German public forget, for which I extend a compliment. There is hardly a day when I cannot watch at least one documentary, often many, on this or that phase of the dark period of Hitlerism. At times, comparisons are made with Stalin or Mussolini or, the last two monsters are treated separately. I am not a German, though I have lived here for over 30 years. My grandparents were immigrants from the expansionistic phase of Prussia as it was on the way to becoming the “Kaiserreich”. First out of curosity and now out of passion I watch every docmumentary possible and read a book or two now and then. Every now and then I come upon Western quotations, often from the NYT (which could also praisingly excuse Mussolini a decade before Hitler). What began as a mere curosity has turned into a passion for me. I do not just want to view the artocities, but understand the thinking of the Nazies (and there were some intelligent ones) and, if possible, grasp the internal logic guiding actual behavior. How could the land of Goethe and Schiller become the land of Hitler, Göring, Himmler, etc.? Many questions. The answers, such as I have them, have affected me deeply. I must ask myself if I would have gone along, i.e., if I had been born here and had a Nazi education. It is really freigtening as it forces me to look inside of myself and see to it that such a seduction of my soul never takes place. Pardon the personal element of my response. I return to Barry Rubin’s article.
I visit Russia every year. I am often saddened with the cultural damage done by the Leninits and Stalinists and … . I do know Marx well (published some books on him), familiar with the ideology of Communism and was politically engaged in the often maleable policies of America, resisting and not resisting Communism. Particularly the excuses of Communist behavior irritated me. The cold and not so cold “war” was a central part of my oilitical interests. The same type of vocabulary of “rendering harmless”, highlighted by Rubin, struck me as a “déjà vu”, as a very unpleasant one. Reading Rubin’s article provoked in me a sense of, my God, I have seen this before. Rubin simply put into a focused capsul-form the repetition of history.
I thank you again for the information. I just cannot access it here. I would love to read a book that follows in detail the the “rendering harmless” vocabulary during the Nazi period, the Communist period and in its apparent reincarnation in today’s public discourse monopolists. (In some cases, e.g., the NYT, I am sure that the same institutinal groups are involved.) Perhaps, we can coax Rubin to do so?
How could the land of Goethe and Schiller become the land of Hitler, Göring, Himmler, etc.?
Thank you for writing personal and interesting information, Leonard.
The most logical explanation I’ve read of Hitler’s rise was the economic chaos of Germany at the time and a desire for a Savior, reasons not markedly different from why many Americans made an extremely ill-advised selection for president in 2008.
I ask myself frequently:
How could the land of Jefferson and Washington and Adams become the land of Obama, Biden, Clinton and their numerous surrogates, most of whom would happily subvert both the letter and the law of America’s founding ?
Americans have been decidedly lax when it comes to decades’ long evolution of their government. Eternal vigilance really is the guardian of liberty.
And now we reap what we have sown and are overwhelmed with spin, with “American officials” spouting words that conform to their narrative, to what they want to believe, their words bearing little relationship to the truth.
Hitler and Nazi Socialism were very, very intent on controlling and supervising the citizens’ “healthcare”, an ultimate weapon of control.
Another parallel with contemporary America.
Prof. Wessell :
I don’t have the exact source of the quote.
You might, however, check the New York Times, dated Tuesday, January 31, 1933.
That edition is available at http://mitchellarchives.com/hitler-becomes-chancellor-of-germany.htm
If you put this quote into NYT’s search function, you do not find it. I don’t know what fraction of their paper from that era is searchable. The first part of the quote (up to the first comma) does bring up articles from 1933.
I found the following headline to a news story (not an editorial), indicating people were not aware of the threat:
HITLER IS EXPECTED TO BE CHANCELLOR IN CABINET SHAKE-UP; Every Likelihood Now That Nazi Leader Will Be Appointed Within a Few Days. CENTRISTS WOULD ACCEPT Government Seeks Assurance of Moderation and Check on Fascist Leader. SCHLEICHER TO KEEP POST Von Papen Likely to Be Foreign Minister — Two More Killings as New Decrees Take Effect. HITLER IS EXPECTED TO BE CHANCELLOR
Thank you, Anne, for the research. Your comment, however, confuses me, namely that the headlines indicate that “people were not aware of the threat”, presumeably of the real threat that Hitler was. If that was you intent, I must immediately ask just what people? Many Germans were aware of the danger Hitler. The SPD, not to mention the Communinists, were accutely aware. Even within the Centrist Party (related to the interests of Catholicism) there was awareness of the danger, just that the Centrists thought they control Hitler and neutralize him. There have been some excellent documentaries here in Germany on Hitler’s “Machtergreifung”, viz., “Seizure of Power”. Given the speechs made by Hitler, Hess, Goebbels, Röhm and many other Nazies I find it hard to believe that the German press (not yet under Nazi control) was not aware. That would be like saying that no one could guess that Lenin was a Marxist–an important fact ignored (= made hormless) by the the Kaiser-government when that gov. sent Lenin back to “Mother” Russia and supplied his movemnent with piles of money (which may have played a decisive role in the successful seizure of power by the Bolsheviki). On the other hand, you might be just referring to the NYT and other American (and British) media of the time. If so, I have extreme doubts about such a lack of awareness. Anyone who was familiar with German politics during the messy Weimar Republik must have known of the agitatory, indeed, revolutonary nature of National Socialism. It was never hidden. And that goes for a NYT reporter. I have seen clips of arrogant British politicians who mumbled opinions that simply overlooked the CLEARLY and literally LOUNDLY proclaimed anti-democratism and ANTI-Jewish dynamics of core Hitlerism. In one way or another, an exculpatory VOCABULARY was adopted that blurred out a “conscious” evaluation of the danger in favor of soothing press reports leading to a rendering Nazis harmless. Alas, I observe HERE and NOW the Western (not only American) press adopting a language of evaluation that simply surpresses the formation of an awareness of the objective core danger of movements like the Brotherhood. Centrists politicians were not unaware of the danger, they just accepted the verbalisms used by Nazis to sound respectable. I hope I have not come over as aggressive towards you. Your judgment seemed to me to have accepted the preferred illusions of peace and prosperity of the Centrists and others as a genuine state if being unaware. There was, as you well know, no “peace in our time”, and long, long before it could no longer be overlooked.
American officials did not always carefully distinguish between Islamists, who advocate a leading role for Islam in government, and violent jihadists, who espouse the same goal but advocate terrorism to achieve it.
Now Islamists are good guys and violent jihadists are the bad guys ? Hard to keep up with the categorizations and distortions of convenience.
“American officials” never seem to tire of inventing new categories & fabricating new spin in order to let themselves feel comfortable and smug.
Such wishful thinking is welcomed by Morsi’s very own Muslim Brotherhood, its specific goals spelled out in a long diatribe in 1991:
“The (Brotherhood) must understand that their work in America is
a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western
civilization from within and “sabotaging” its miserable house by their
hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s
religion is made victorious over all other religions.”
Sounds like they’ve got a foot in the door with “American officials” and NYTimes fabulists.
What about the other, unmentioned, part: the fact of the Islamist movements’ hostility to America, their support for terrorism, their blood-curdling expressions of anti-Semitic hatred, and their stated intention of repressing everybody else at home?
We just ignore the inconvenient truths.
Then they go away, you see ?
Yes, the United States is now allied with those who are trying to achieve the same ends that Osama bin Laden was, though of course disagreeing with those specific tactics as long as those tactics are not used against us.
Exactly – the US, much more than the Russians or any other external power – now promotes Islamist rule throughout the Middle East.
When I think of what a New Yorker is, I think of someone who is pragmatic, hard-working, straightforward to the point of being in your face, mentally tough, world-wise, self-protective but engaging. That is, EVERYTHING that the New York Times is not. So it just amazes me that New Yorkers allow the TImes to get away with this jihadi-excusing horsesh*t. I mean, Manhattan was ground zero on 9-11. That was such a searing event, for me (and nearly all Americans), that when I think of New Yorkers, I think of the victims who died that day — men and women of all backgrounds; I think of the first responders who had to endure the ungodly calamity going down around them; I think of those New Yorkers who chose to jump rather than burn; I could go on and on, but let me just tie it up by saying I *remember* the banner that New Yorkers put up for all the world to see: We will never forget. And yet, it seems all HAS been forgotten. I just don’t get it. You would think, at least in terms of national security and denunciation of Islamist propaganda, that New Yorkers would be the backbone of American self defense. But instead we have this latest capitulating item in the NYT, going unchallenged, by New York survivors of the deadliest attack ever on U.S. soil.
Oh well. Maybe, out of shock and grief, I over-estimated these people.
Liberals cite experts often without identifying them further, when questioned they claim a sole right to define who an expert is. The other claim for authoritative opinion cited is often some study by some obscure self defined expert funded by some liberal group. Any time the report is prefaced as experts or a study i get ready for a wagon load of manure to follow.
The moniker Gray Lady is only part of the issue. Watching the NYT is like watching your grandmother progress with Alzheimers disease. It has become advocacy journalism, especially anti-Israel advocacy. When a colleague pointed out that there are some good articles in the NYT, I use the analogy of a loaf of bread. If 3% of a bread loaf is mold, the bread gets discarded. In the case of the NYT, it is around 50% mold. The plastic that surrounds the home delivered NYT is necessary to prevent the mold from causing a cloud when picked up
FINAL question, the QUESTION not adequately stated (for which I don my professorial cap): Reflecting first upon Rubin’s article, then upon my response plus the delightful and informative interaction with some of the commentators about a highly distasteful problem, namely the fact that reports on the left and administration officials seemingly do not see (and probably do not want to see) the danger from Islamic groups, doing all this reflecting has led me to become aware of an important moment in the parallels, a moment not yet posed. (My God, that was a Germanic sentence!) In the discussions one question has NOT been posed, indeed, not really examined by Rubin himself. As is often the habit with us professorial types, I will wind about reflecting upon comments before I state the obvious question.
My reaction to Rubin’s review of the incompetency of professional reporters to grasp that they are rendering Islam harmless was one of a startling “déjà vu”, namely: I experienced again the vocabularies of self-denial during the Nazi period, during the confrontation with Communism and now again with the confrontation with radical groups in Islam. In the terms of Burnham’s analysis of the MORPFOLOGICAL similarities betweeen Nazi societal organization, Soviet organization and FDR’s New Deal organization, my threefold “déjà vu” was also one of parallel structures. Tanstaafl expressed his thoughtful reflections upon the mechanism of Hitler’s success in a troubled Germany and then noted parallels with the currently TROUBLED America. Parallels, aaah, ha! What is lacking in my attempt to understand the current parallel of rendering danger harmless? Alas, one more series of theoretical ruminations must be adduced.
Ruminations: 1) Some years back while still with Fox News, Glenn Beck forcefully focused upon the parallel between the radical left and Islamism regarding opposition to the West, to the Western way of life including free enterprise. 2) Rev. Wright defended himself well in an interview with Hannity. The reverend refused to allow criticism of his inflamatory remarks until Hannity could say that he had read authors a, b, c, …z on Black Liberation. This caught my professorial respect, i.e., the man was claiming knowledge that would justify his harsh condemnations of America. 3) Ed Klein has revealed that Rev. Wright holds that Barark HUSSEIN Obama’s basic interest in religion is basically political. 4) President BO spent years in a church of Black Liberation Theology. 5) All points above –and some others I have not made– seem to suggest a question which I have sought to hint at by capitalizing BO’s chosen middle name. But first, one more rumination.
5) Based upon the little I know of Obama’s apparently postive experience of Islam as a youth, based upon the character portrait of Obama that emerges from Klein’s “The Amateur” and based upon the investigations of Stanley Kurtz on the evolution of the formation of BO (just to note only three features), I wonder if the Islam Black Liberation moment in President B HUSSEIN O does not indicate a motivating factor that constitutes the missing link in the parallels of my “déjà vu”. Let me briefly explain.
The harmless makers of the past were not fools (this is why I disagreed with Roger’s denigration of the abstractive capacity of the left), they reasoned in an orderly manner and they had their value “pre-judices” (in a Burkean sense). Ah, “value prejudices”, here is what has been lacking in my Burnhamian parallels. It is one thing to establish a morphological “deep structure” ordering parallel happenings. It is another thing to distinguish and to examine the “prejudices of value” that MOTIVATE the acts directing socalled “professional” evaluations of a danger and the choice of vocabulary with which to discuss the problem, viz., to stake out the nature said discussion must follow. Indeed, with the vocabulary adopted the universe of discourse will be mapped out and outlying opinions will be surpressed from awareness.
I can now come closer to formulating the missing question. My question implies a certain critique of Rubin’s analysis regarding the incompetency claim. I am tentatively suggesting that the said “incompetency” highlighted by Rubin is really a “competency” based upon value preducies that motivate the reporter concerned or, for that matter, the top evaluator, Barack HUSSEIN Obama, to think in such a manner. My question: What is this motivational “prejudice”? I do hope that Barry Rubin and other highly qualified contributors to the PJ Media would attend to my question concerning the motivational factor that renders incompetent, objectively speaking, evaluations of Islam so attractive, evaluations that are, given the motivatinal factor, possibly quite competent in formulation as they frame the universe of discourse and thereby win the battle of public opinion in advance. In effect, such motivational “competency” surpresses awareness leading, objectively speaking, to incompetent judgments.
Finally, I would like to excuse my ungainly English. The German language with its endlessly long sentences has invaded my English with such subversive effects that I have at times the impression that my English has become a series of run-on sentences. The last sentence written proves my (self)point.
Prof. Wessell:
On another tangent:
“Mein Kampf”, in Arabic, is the second most widely purchased book in the Middle East. (The Koran is number one).
Wow! Years ago when, oh, all so young, I noted that “Mein Kampf” was available in Mexico in Mexican. The can be nothing programmatic of interest in the book for today’s hater of Jews, except the tirades directed at them. That would mean motivation for purchase must be purely anti-semitic.
The new Egyptian president hasn’t wrapped his hands around the Egyptian Army yet. Just wait until the happens. We could very well see some stuff starting to hit the fan concerning Christians and Israel. This new power struggle is itching to try on the big boy pants.
Why would someone write an article like this?
Yes I understand writers get paid to write and need something
“interesting”
to keep readers attention, but this is simply asinine.
Muslims are our enemy; Muslims will always be our enemy,
The only solution is to kill all Muslims,
If your child develops cancer you see a medical professional and seek a solution
You rid the child of cancer or he will die.
You rid the planet of Muslims or you die, Islam is a cancer, Muslims are a disease and need to be eliminated.
dr dre beats pro
“I experimented with looking at your blog on my ipod touch and the format doesnt seem to be right”