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If symbols were nothing then the lengths to which the narrative makers go to control them would be incomprehensible. The war of symbols is all about filtering, conjuring and transforming memes. In the beginning there was the word. And the word still matters.
- “As Americans, we will not or ever be at war with Islam.” — Barack Obama, September 11, 2010
- Stat rosa pristina nomine, nomina nuda tenemus translated as “Yesterday’s rose endures in its name, we hold empty names” — Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose
- Nunc ubi Regulus aut ubi Romulus aut ubi Remus? / Stat Roma pristina nomine, nomina nuda tenemus. — “Now where is Regulus, or Romulus, or Remus? / Yesterday’s Rome stands only in name, we hold empty names” — Bernard of Cluny
- A video of a man burning a Koran at Ground Zero in 2010 and arrested on the spot, now marked as potentially offensive by YouTube.
Soledad O’Brien and the Imam Rauf on Larry King Live, Sept 8, 2010.
RAUF: So the Cordoba house –
O’BRIEN: –though, right, isn’t that causing to some degree an instability and a risk, a risk of safety? I mean, there’s an address now that has become the flash point for a lot of anger. Isn’t that a risk to Muslims and Americans?
RAUF: There is a certain anger here, no doubt. But if you don’t do this right, anger will explode in the Muslim world. If this is not handled correctly, this crisis could become much bigger than the Danish cartoon crisis, which resulted in attacks on Danish embassies in various parts of the Muslim world. And we have a much larger footprint in the Muslim world. If we don’t handle this crisis correctly, it could become something which could really become very, very, very dangerous indeed.
O’BRIEN: Do you ask yourself how did you miss that? I mean, it’s been your life’s mission, and you and I have spoken in the past years, to build bridges and reach out. And yet, given what you know now, would you have built?
RAUF: As I mentioned it, this story is not new. People knew about it.
O’BRIEN: Right, but given what you know now, would you have said, listen, let’s not do it there? Because it sounds like you’re saying in retrospect wouldn’t have done it.
RAUF: Well, yes.
O’BRIEN: You would not have done it?
RAUF: If I knew this would happen, this would cause this kind of pain, I wouldn’t have done it. My life has been devoted to peacemaking.
O’BRIEN: There are so many people who say, so if you’re saying it was a mistake, then why can’t you get out of it and not do it?
RAUF: Because we have to now make sure that whatever we do actually results in greater peace, not in greater conflict.
Open thread.
Unfortunately even when the most hideous symbols die the ideas behind them do not.
“As Americans, we will not or ever be at war with Islam.”
This President does not speak for this American.
“Make the other side live up to its own rules.” Wasn’t that supposed to be one of Alinsky’s principles?
So it is OK to build a mosque near the 9-11 site because the first amendment says so, and it is OK to burn the American flag because the first amendment says so, but it is somehow not OK to burn a qur’an or put up a billboard with a cartoon Muhammed.
It is OK to tell Israel that they may not expand a housing project on their own territory but it is not OK to tell a developer that they may not build a mosque near 9-11′s site. But you can be sure that the zoning department of New York City would disallow a billboard with a cartoon Muhammed across the street from that same mosque.
What hath God wrought?
The NYPD arrested him and then un-arrested him.
He ends up walking away surrounded by a crew of leftists/atheists/muslims — themselves trying to bait him into a confrontation.
In less than eight minutes, a micro-chasm of NYC.
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We’ve entered the Zero-sphere: gross violations of the First Amendment go unrecognized by the ‘press.’
Dhimmitude blossoms in full flower. The irony lost upon all.
Do NOT view this before a meal or shortly after. Stomach upset a serious risk.
The moon and star should follow the swastika to the grave yard of despised symbols. I believe that we should never forget and never forgive those Wahhabi scum.
“As Americans, we will not or ever be at war with Islam.” — Barack Obama, September 11, 2010.
Reply: Barack Obama will not be President of the United States forever and his words will not bind us forever.
I remember Friday night after September 11th going to a high school football game in north Alabama. It was a warm and balmy night with a breeze whipping the Stars and Stripes. When they played the national anthem, I remember weeping openly. My thoughts in that most heartland of heartland places was “This can’t stand! These ignorant barbarian bastards can’t attack our wonderful nation and celebrate in their wretched hovels. We’re going to crush them into the unmourned graves they so richly deserve.” And we have crushed many of them. But I watch the cowards and enablers of the left who hate our nation more the muslim dogs do and I think what folly liberalism and political correctness has wrought. But I think we’re awakening to the fools among us and we will honor the debt to freedom purchased by brave men in Concord and Antietum and the Argonne forest and Tarawa and Pork Chop Hill and the A Shau valley and Fallujah and the Korengal valley and countless other crucibles. We will endure!
…it is OK to burn the American flag because the first amendment says so, but it is somehow not OK to burn a qur’an…
So is it okay to burn a Koran if it’s first wrapped in an American flag? Contemplating that just might cause your average Progressive’s head to explode.
Batman, they don’t bind us now. And won’t for as long as the first amendment stands.
Labels, brand names, etc. are a deception. A type of lie. I blame Madison Ave., although they were far from the first to make use of the technique. Product is what is important. A marketing major would squeal like a stuck pig at that thought because it would mean Someone hasn’t swallowed the big lie. People buy the sizzle and not the steak because that is what they have been brainwashed to do. Changing the wrapper of a widget from blue to green will up sales. Until people get used to the green. Then you change it back to blue and up sales again. Go figure. It’s always been the same widget.
Never a war against Islam? Then and now:
From: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/jefferson_papers/mtjprece.html
For many decades the Islamic states of North Africa, under the name Barbary Pirates, captured European and American ships for ransom. The practice in Europe was to pay this ransom or, alternatively, pay “tribute” – the equivalent of paying the mafia “protection” – to safeguard its vessels. After independence, America could no longer rely on Great Britain to protect our ships and the question arose what to do. The article states:
Paying the ransom would only lead to further demands, Jefferson argued in letters to future presidents John Adams, then America’s minister to Great Britain, and James Monroe, then a member of Congress. As Jefferson wrote to Adams in a July 11, 1786, letter, “I acknolege [sic] I very early thought it would be best to effect a peace thro’ the medium of war.” Paying tribute will merely invite more demands, and even if a coalition proves workable, the only solution is a strong navy that can reach the pirates, Jefferson argued in an August 18, 1786, letter to James Monroe: “The states must see the rod; perhaps it must be felt by some one of them. . . . Every national citizen must wish to see an effective instrument of coercion, and should fear to see it on any other element than the water. A naval force can never endanger our liberties, nor occasion bloodshed; a land force would do both.” “From what I learn from the temper of my countrymen and their tenaciousness of their money,” Jefferson added in a December 26, 1786, letter to the president of Yale College, Ezra Stiles, “it will be more easy to raise ships and men to fight these pirates into reason, than money to bribe them.”
The story is actually much more complex, as you will see if you research the matter. But the bottom line is that the best path to peace is through the medium of war, as Jefferson noted. The paying of bribes only invites more demands.
The reason the destruction of the swastika was possible is that the Nazi’s had been thoroughly defeated. The fall of the statue of Sadaam didn’t fully change things until we had the surge. The way to peace is to frontload our responses.
We shall see in due time whether provocations escalate to surrender or to war, and which will work better.
“As Americans, we will not or ever be at war with Islam.”
Historical fact–islam has always been at war with everyone.
Oh but that’s right, he didn’t like to read history. It bored his big brain.
Charles Krauthammer says Obama should be praised because his middle east peace talks are well designed … and will fail on September 26.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/09/AR2010090904999.html
Is CK trying to be cute, or what does he mean by “well designed” if he already sees failure baked in?
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All words are symbols, arguably even the letters (being specific and enumerable) are symbols and not just signs or marks. The process of language is remarkably poorly understood, in spite of thousands of years of study and the processes of meaning and mind (if they are “processes” at all) are even less understood. So what is remarkable about symbols is not that they may fail, but that they may succeed, and do so often enough that we keep on using them.
Screw the symbols. How about the power of words?
Nine years after 9/11 and I continue to read things like this mocking Franklin Graham for his criticism of Islam…one would imagine that Islam is some sort of insidious cancer devouring the civilized world. Between his nauseating description of Islam as a “devilish” faith… by people who supposedly know better. Washington Post
If I am correct in my analysis that Islamic jurisprudence is based on the dogmatic principles that the Koran is the authentic word of Allah, and that Mohammed’s deeds and sayings are the foundation of proper Islamic behavior – then Islam can be nothing else but an insidious cancer intent on devouring the civilized world.
What else would you call an ideology/religion that rigidly controls every aspect of human behavior, and treats non-believers as so much garbage to be picked up or discarded at will?
If anybody has information that suggests that any of the five major schools of Islamic jurisprudence repudiates the deeds and sayings of Mohammed as proper Islamic behavior then please let me know so that I can be disabused of my ignorance.
My hands are not empty today. They are filled with the faces of those from the NYFD as they unloaded their equipment and shouldered their hoses. Their faces of calm, resolute courage as they ascended those stairs, never to descend them again. The face of the mayor of NYC as he looked up at the towers, knew that those trapped above the sites of impact could not be rescued or saved, but that he must act anyway and did. The candle lit faces of those who gathered quietly that night all over the country, of all faiths, and prayed together with heads bowed in unspeakable and shattering grief.
These “symbols” filled my heart and mind as I raised the flag of the United States of America at sunrise. The images overwhelm me as vividly today as they did nine years ago. All else seems trivial this day.
I misspeak. There is one other thought that burns and sears within. I will fight to my last breath that most loathsome and evil set of ideas that caused those deaths.
Hmmm… given that the proper way to dispose of an old or worn flag is by burning, perhaps the next time my flag wears out (which, may I point out, is the only time I’d ever burn Old Glory), I’ll wrap it around a Koran before setting it alight.
Imagine the cognitive dissonance in the Journolist Press. –evil grin–
I think September 11, 2010 will rank alongside with 2001 as a watershed date. All the observances prior to 2010 were conducted on a shared, if spotty understanding that it repesented a day when America was attacked by an enemy. This year represents the first time it will commemorated under two banners. The first banner is the original one. The second group is observing it under the slogan of remembering the “heartbreak” and embracing oneness with the Islamic world. For the second group, the “enemy” — if he existed at all — has all but disappeared, “underground” as the President says, invisible and almost unreal.
Yet the war is not quite over. The symbols of victory? submission? defiance? that are raised on cultural hilltops have taken on a disturbing air. Something has been left out of the narrative. Two banners of September 10, 2010 shift uneasily, as if in a truce about to be broken, upon their chosen peak.
The GZM and Koran Burning incidents were the outward manifestations of this split. They did not cause it, but they precipitated its crystallization. These events happened to coincide with the mid-term elections. A line in the sand has somehow appeared, which not only Terry Jones, but President Obama noticed. “We have to make sure that we don’t start turning on each other”, he said. That is of course, not going to persuade those who believe he turned on them first.
Donnie: “We don’t need to speak to him. Seeing his face is disgusting enough . . . . Islamic hate is running amuck [sic]. . . . 99% of the country feels the way I do.”
What Donnie means, of course, is, first, that the Pastor is not one of the beautiful people, and thus cannot and should not be spoken to; and, second, that the hate running “amuck” is not Muslim hate of infidels but Americans’ hate of Muslims.
Donnie and friends are like Michelle Obama, not proud of America until it proves itself worthy, until it is remade in Donnie and friends own image. The American flag is thus a symbol of good and evil to Donnie and friends: evil during the Republican administrations, good during the Democrat administrations.
Some symbols that the left has marginalized and demonized as hegemonic and oppressive: Stars and Bars; Boy Scouts; Christian Cross, male clergy, creche, holidays, etc.; westerns and cowboys in general (except when Brokebacked); exhaust circuit-NASCAR. Others?
The left is master of propaganda and the big lie. Consider the MSM portrayals, during the election, of John McCain and Sarah Palin, and Glenn Beck—and innumerable others who, if they are not already “disgusting,” can be made to look so.
Via Bob Dylan:
Big-time negotiators, false healers and woman haters
Masters of the bluff and masters of the proposition
But the enemy I see wears a cloak of decency
All non-believers and men stealers talking in the name of religion
And there’s slow, there’s slow train coming up around the bend.
They slink through the sewers in murderous rage
They kill before cameras to use the world stage
They read the Koran and believe every page
That demands that the infidel die
They slit old men’s throats just because they are Jews
They stable their horses where once there were pews
They know that the West their foul deeds will excuse
They kill in a blink of an eye
The symbols of Islam stand bright in the sun
A mosque at Ground Zero tells the world that they’ve won
But one day we’ll wake up and then they’ll be done
And Mecca in ruins will lie
Bravo, Walt.
aardvark @ 17: the star of David, the Israeli flag, hey any national flag. the UN flag is still OK, and somehow the star and crescent seems still OK as a design for a memorial in Shanksville. any use of the American Indian as an image of strength or identity, at least by public schools or sports teams.
CK must be pulling my leg.
The only way that peace can be had is with the total defeat of islam.
The Israeli-Arabs talks are a side show of a side show.
The real battle is between Leftist-Aristocracy and its hangers-on and everyone else.
On current trends, the Zero is going to zero-out our international credit and credibility.
It will be controlled flight into irrelevancy.
At which point we’ll witness a global scrum. Lord only knows where the ‘magic bean’ ( aka the bean of power ) will squirt off to. One thing is sure: only an adult can wield it.
As for us, it will take more than two years to wean our man-child. So don’t count us for much when the balloon goes up.
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From the photos, it is apparent that Bibi has learned his Noh Role.
With the right rite, he can spew cant until he can’t.
Bibi must envy Atlas. He only had the whole world on his shoulders. Bibi has that AND the media, too. HE has to make it look good.
By comparison, Abbas can abase himself, whence the camera turns away.
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Dual track diplomacy for Abbas means lying to the West in English and agitating the locals in Arabic.
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BTW, no one who speaks ‘proper’ Arabic can think straight. This has long been observed in Algeria. Only Arabs that speak and think in French can progress to graduate in any of the hard sciences.
The reason is basic: ‘proper’ Arabic chokes on rote cant WRT islam. At least 15 Percent of every utterance revolves around islamic-cant-structure:
“If allah wills it” is a relentless thought coda. It’s stultifying.
Endless references to mo and benedictions thereon clog all conversation.
All intros are chock-a-block with islamic structures.
By the time the typical muslim has got the cant covered, he’s run out of time to say anything.
A muslim woman is brain dead: islam places her in societal isolation wards called ‘the home.’ In that cloister she is expected to have no political opinions and to confine her interests to what best serves her master. For the majority, this means being a walking womb with no views. Most porn queens have a wider range of interest.
As long as Arabic is spoken, islam endures. Hence, not withstanding its culture drowning character, cognitive islam will endure until its Arabic host is destroyed.
Arabic, at the end of the day, must become a dead language. Considering its lack of commercial and cultural utility, it will be no loss. Outside of the oil-pig trade, no one would care to learn Arabic. Look at the difficulty the US Army has in getting Arabic translators. But then to properly speak it, one has to endure the hypocrisy of intoning islamic cant relentlessly through the day.
You can bet your bottom dollar, that when Lawrence showed up speaking fluent Arabic and having memorized the koran; all present took him to be a muslim. If they didn’t they’d never would have followed him to hell and back.
Josh #20
any use of the American Indian as an image of strength or identity, at least by public schools or sports teams.
Last I heard, Atlanta was still the home of the Braves and Cleveland still has the Tribe.
We need to stir the cryo-tank.
Well, this falcon cannot hear the falconer (or more accurately, I can hear him but I ain’t listening).
#18, Walt:
I think you got it. I wonder if the Islamic World realises that the GZM would be yet another domino that leads to the loss , maybe the destruction of Mecca.
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/09/11/1944227/Pentagon-Aims-To-Buy-Up-Book
I’ll bet I know what’s coming next ….
In the beginning was the Word…and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth. The Word here is our Lord, Jesus Christ. Every problem
in the world stems from our refusal to obey Him.
And Obama is a liar. Islam is our self declared enemy. Our historical enemy. Our current, terrorist enemy. He knows that, because he is a moslem, as well as a sociopath. He wants to substitute Sharia for our Constitution ad deprive us of our rights. He, a traitor, is eager to surrender our sovereignty to anybody, particularly a global government. This disgusting, pitiful reprobate was elected by female votes. And such are those who would suffer most if he succeeds in imposing Islam on America.
Ladies, why are you eager to empower your oppressor?
Lets impeach and out the Kenyan Kid and then undo every single ugly thing he has “accomplished”.
PROVOCATIVE DINESH D’SOUZA ARTICLE:
Obama and his Father’s Ghost
http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2010/0927/politics-socialism-capitalism-private-enterprises-obama-business-problem.html
As I interpret the article, we are now governed by a drunken ghost through his malevolent son.
Our fool President is still fighting “colonialism” in his strange mind.
September 11, 2010
Pain and Triumph
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfsasAlICo8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cIij7zWdN0&feature=related
A video of a man burning a Koran at Ground Zero in 2010 and arrested on the spot, now marked as potentially offensive by YouTube.
Marked as potentially offensive AND not accessible. Could it be more offensive than MSNBC’s behavior toward the Reverend Jones? Invite him as guest to your broadcast, lecture him on having an opinion that differs from that of the Obama administration and MSNBC, call him ugly and dismiss him without letting him argue his position. Very ugly. Very offensive.
Well HeyKids, if you’re going to do Flowers of the Forest and the Dark Isle, how about the only French military march that I am aware of done in bagpipes, trumpets and drums, in memory of Auld Alliance: March des Soldats de Robert de Bruce?
There is a flickering fire that runs through all lives that fleets and will not be confined. It crosses every border and creed and makes us all brothers. It never asks us to submit. Only to give.
30 – you have to check the box to dismiss the warning message, but it’ll play.
Totally agreed about MSNBC.
From the Rauf interview on CNN :
There are already about 80 mosques in NYC. According to Rauf,”moderate” Christians support building another mosque in NYC, at Ground Zero. There are no non-Muslim religious buildings in Saudi Arabia. Does Rauf mean that “moderate” Muslims would support building a church or synagogue in Saudi Arabia?
Not only does Saudi Arabia forbid any building dedicated to a non-Muslim religion, it confiscates Bibles. Does Rauf mean that “moderate” muslims support the legalization of and free access to the Bible in Saudi Arabia, the same way that “moderates” in the US support the current legalization and free access to the Koran?
“Moderate” Muslims and “moderate” Christians are not the same at all.
Watching the MSM video clip is painful. They all refuse to confront the most basic question regarding the Koran burning incident. No one asks why the Islamic world (at least those who speak for it) resort to violence and death threats based on a symbolic gesture half a world away. The left is truly afraid of the Islamists and are dog paddling as fast as they can in an attempt to keep their heads above the rising tide. It is, of course, a losing battle for them (see Europe).
We can either meet the steamroller head first or feet first, but we will be confronting it one way or the other. The only question is when.
Don Rodrigo…
D’Souza is fantasizing.
As posted over on Neo-Neocon:
http://neoneocon.com/2010/09/09/obama-the-anti-colonialist/
Frank Marshall Davis is the biological father…
AND ABOVE ALL — the political father.
Barry spent hours and hours with Marshall. Practically NO time with Obama Sr.
Of course, I do agree that Barry has the ‘Big Man on Top’ political shtick down cold. He really does operate like a despot. Look at the auto companies rocketed through bankruptcy. Title 11 was tossed entirely overboard.
Likewise ‘en blanc’ legislation: shades of the Enablement Act!
This September 11th, I’m perusing the world of the internet. The blogs, the op-eds, the you tube posts, moving from one post the next, stream-of-consciousness style.
I ran across this You Tube post (tangientially vie Instapundit) and felt it was topical enough to share with the BC, particularly while we’re on the subject of symobls.
It’s the personal post of a young woman and her thoughts on Americans against the Ground Zero Mosque.
My prediction: she’ll have an on-air gig at MSNBC within a week. She’d be perfect for that crew: dripping with condescension for her “bigoted”, “ignorant” fellow Americans and, not incidentally, great to look at! A perfect vision of sexy liberal sactimony.
It made me think about symbols. Specifically, all the subtle sexual symbols she’s intentionally included as part of her personal appearance. The thick sensuous hair, the very low-cut V, the little tit-tat (nice touch).
You see, in this society, women are free (indeed encouraged) to use sexual symbolism to their advantage if they can. You might say they are free to seduce. Free to use their sexuality to garner that much-envied commodity, attention.
Would this video leave quite the same impression if she looked like, say, Helen Thomas?
In the video she gets an awful lot of mileage from one protestor who can’t quite articulate the meaning of “Sharia” ( a typical “ignorant” American bigot).
I’ll try and answer for him: “Sharia” is what would land on this young womans’ head in about 5 minutes were she to walk down the street in Riyadh, Kabul, or practically any city in the Middle East, dressed as she is in this video.
I wonder how long it would take her to really miss those bigoted American and their ignorant attitudes in that situation.
Completely baffling how intelligent, educated people, are lining up like lambs for their slaughter.
This history shall be discussed by scholars for centuries.
Today at the memorial at Ground Zero, a relative of one of those killed stood up and said let today be only about sorrow.
If I had been allowed to speak there I guess I would have been thrown out. For I would have stood and said:
“Three cheers for the firemen who lived – and died – trying to save those people in the WTC!”
“Three cheers for the policemen who lived – and died – trying to save those people in the WTC!”
“Three cheers for the ordinary people who lived – and died – trying to save those people in the WTC!”
“Three cheers for the people who sorted through the wreckage looking for survivors!”
“Three cheers for our military who live – and die – taking our fight to a horrible enemy!”
Yep, guess I would have been thrown out.
cellec:
She’s synaptically challenged. Like all atheistic Jews presumes that she is above and beyond the revealed Word — or should it be reviled Word.
A creature of MSM ‘reality’ operations, she’s been totally ‘Smithed.’ A brain reforged in a sea of deceit.
Not safe for children, she is.
Cyber…
To be misinformed is to be ill educated.
To stay that way challenges the conceit that one is intelligent.
Such individuals are nowhere near as smart as they think of themselves.
Plainly, they swim in a bath of group think and arrogate to themselves an unchallengeable high moral plain.
wretchard #31
There is a flickering fire that runs through all lives
As long as Wretchard and heyyoukids are posting bagpipe videos, here’s one that references the Barbary pirates (batman at #10). It’s a video of the massed pipe and drum bands of the NYPD marching through Times Square after their 9/11 memorial concert in September 2008. Fast-forward to about 3:08 and you will hear “From the Halls of Montezuma” played on the bagpipes; first time I’ve ever heard that particular tune played by pipe bands.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eZm5A6LwC4&feature=related
Welsh Inspiration:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjvKZHJeayg&feature=related
42. Arkroyal:
That movie is the ultimate guilty-pleasure. “I came up here to build a bridge…“
42 Arkroyal
Did you know that Rick Rescorla, one of the heroes of 9/11 who died getting people to evacuate one of the towers, sang “Men of Harlech” to encourage those who were with him?
From Mudville Gazette:
“In St. Augustine, Dan Hill was laying tile in his upstairs bathroom when his wife called, ‘Dan, get down here! An airplane just flew into the World Trade Center. It’s a terrible accident.’ Hill hurried downstairs, and then the phone rang. It was Rescorla, calling from his cell phone.
‘Are you watching TV?’ he asked. ‘What do you think?’
‘Hard to tell. It could have been an accident, but I can’t see a commercial airliner getting that far off.’
‘I’m evacuating right now,’ Rescorla said.
Hill could hear Rescorla issuing orders through the bullhorn. He was calm and collected, never raising his voice. Then Hill heard him break into song:
Men of Cornwall stop your dreaming;
Can’t you see their spear points gleaming?
See their warriors’ pennants streaming
To this battlefield.
Men of Cornwall stand ye steady;
It cannot be ever said ye
for the battle were not ready;
Stand and never yield!”
http://www.mudvillegazette.com/archives/000307.html
PA Cat @ 22: True, and I haven’t even heard many rumblings about it for some time, but I still miss my Stanford Indians, RIP 1974 or thereabouts in favor of “the cardinal” and a dancing “palo alto” (tree).
And I believe there are high schools / colleges in Los Angeles sporting an Aztec theme (not mascot heaven forfend).
cellec @ 36: sharia law is running an entire society by the letter of religious law, specifically the letter of the Koran. she pretends to be against such stuff, so what is her beef? in spite of her protestations, I’d be surprised if she was not an apostate Muslim … well, we all are, right? Ha. Back in your burqa, girl, then I’ll believe in your sincerity, at least.
Josh #45
Well, even the Braves had to replace their mascot, Chief Noc-A-Homa, in the early 1990s because of PC. The Chief used to come out of his tepee in the bleachers and dance when one of the Braves hit a home run:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nocahoma2.jpg
The Chief was replaced by Homer, a baseball-headed humanoid that looks like a copycat Mr. Met. http://www.sportsecyclopedia.com/nl/atlbraves/Homer.jpg
Frankly, I think the Chief had a lot more class.
Wikipedia entry regarding the high school where I teach and a photo of the “V” for Victory Monument in the courtyard of the school. I am the sponsor of the Young Republicans mentioned and I will not let them forget as long as I teach there:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartram_Trail_High_School
The idea for the statue was mine, based on Churchill’s “V” for Victory and it was wonderfully done by Mr. Kirk, our art teacher. Notice that the stainless steel half of the “V” is one of the Twin Towers. We put out over 700 American flags around the monument yesterday.
Wretchard @ 31
C’est bon ca. Mais pour mois, c’est le grande cornemuse d’ Ecosse.
@31
It does indeed.
they lectured the pastor on what jesus said about turning the other cheek….yes he said turn the other cheek but he didn’t say allow yourself to be beaten to death
I re-post this every year, just changing the number of years ago. Please forgive it’s length.
Of course at that time, I had no idea that we would also be fighting a war here in this Republic against the forces of liberalism, socialism and ignorance of the “left”, and of the Media. This war with “our enemies within” makes me even more angry and sad.
As you can see, when I wrote this letter back in 2001, I still held that there were “moderate Muslims”. I no longer hold that belief. I believe that there are just Muslims [so called moderate Muslims] who wish to subvert and subjugate us to Islam through politics, subversion and by using our own beliefs and Constitution against us.
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9 years ago I wrote a letter.
I won’t lie to you, this mass murder scared the hell out of me. But I was one of the many that knew in an instant who did this terrible thing.
That fact didn’t help me though, because I knew that we would have a hard time convincing the American people that this was the crisis of our lifetime and that this threat endangered not only us, but our children and our grandchildren.
Here is the letter I wrote to my two grown children:
Sept. 20, 2001
Dear xxxx and xxxxx
Last week as I was reading and sometimes looking up to see what was on the TV, I witnessed the start of the most awful and fearful period of our lives unfold. I feel that I should try and talk to you both about it more. I will, but I also decided to write this letter, because sometimes things are important enough to put down on paper.
We have been given the lives we lead now by a previous generation. They are often called the “Greatest American Generation”. This is because with the help of our allies, they literally saved the world from domination and repression by two misguided and evil empires; Germany and Japan. They were determined to rule the world and destroy us (and the rest of the free world) as a country and a culture.
We now face another threat even more terrible to us and to our way of life.
Now, we and your children, (my grandchildren) are now involved in and exposed to this terrible conflict between ourselves and a people that want us to be destroyed, so that their concept of their religion and distorted beliefs can rule the (our) world.
There is no reasoning with them. They do not care to know of us or to understand or tolerate our beliefs or religion. We are the product of the “Great Satan” which is what they call the United States of America and which they intend to destroy. They believe that theirs is the one and only true religion and that all other religions must be subverted and destroyed.
They hide behind (and call upon), their corrupted religion, in their crusade (Holy War) to destroy us and our way of life. To do this, they have distorted and defiled their religion, which in the more moderate form, teaches compassion. They prey upon the poor, uneducated and dissatisfied of their lands and others and use their needs and despair to foster their misguided and evil hatred of anyone or anything different than themselves or their beliefs. They even teach their children to hate us and want our destruction.
Unfortunately, sometimes in the past, the United States foreign policy has done many things to reinforce this bad image of us. We have helped the wrong people, we have not helped those we should have, when we should have, and generally did not try and understand or help resolve problems soon enough. We appeared to have no love or compassion to many people and we seemed to take sides without reason.
They were right a lot of the time. But most of their problems are caused by their culture, by their inability to adapt to changing times and by their religion, Islam, which in of itself is a religion of conquest and subversion.
How can we as a family handle this? How can we protect our children and ourselves?
We must stand together of course, helping and advising and nurturing our sense of family and talking to our children (as I am now to you). We must try to reassure them that we can and will protect and defend ourselves and them. That we will not be hurt or overcome by these misguided and destructive people that have vowed to destroy us and our way of life.
We must also be sure that they do not feel that they or you are in any kind of immediate danger. Our children must still feel that we are all still safe. The truth and sometimes mis-stated facts on TV and what they hear at school must be discussed and any rumors or over-reactions must be dealt with. The truth will be bad enough, so be sure to reassure them often by talking to them and showing them you have faith and confidence by the way you act.
This war will be unlike the others in the history books because some of it will be fought and won (or lost) without press or public knowledge. Additional terrorist attacks and the deaths of our soldiers and more civilians will sometimes be the only visible actions. Our military will out of necessity have to operate mostly in secret, or at least in secret until after operations are completed.
It is going to be a war that will last and last and not seem ever to be won. It will become a way of life. But we must not allow it to rule our lives with fear and uncertainty.
You must be sure that you do not believe all you see or read in the media, because, as we were years ago, in the conflict in Vietnam, the media shades and shapes events.
Our lives (but, not all Americans) and our homeland have been left out of the struggles of this religious conflict up to now. But now we have been defiled and attacked here in our county. I was not surprised. I knew it was coming, I just didn’t know when, where or what form of terrorism it would be. This attack has shown all of us that they are deadly serious and want to destroy us as a culture.
What else can we do? We can continue to work very hard, enjoy life as much as we can and to help our country by not giving into these people and letting them destroy our confidence and our faith in our country, our way of life and our family’s pursuit of happiness.
We can also give of our time and our energies. Kindness, compassion and cooperation in our community and patience with the coming restrictive security measures are ways we can help. We must show support for our Government and for our Military.
Sadly, we don’t have the money or the influence to make great gifts to help our county. We are not in the position now to give military service or government service. But your children may be in a few years. Is that something we would want? No maybe not, but it may be necessary and it certainly is something that previous generations have done to insure our happiness and our survival. So is it too much to expect that our children will do the same? Texans have always been at the front of the line when it came time to protect and serve their country. We and our children should be no different.
I wish I were forty years younger, I wish I were rich, I wish I could do more to insure that my children and grandchildren would not have to face the bad and evil in this world. But I can do no more than tell you both to be honest and truthful to each other and your children and instill in them a sense of confidence in themselves and their country and in our American way of life.
We have seen examples in the last week of the courage and resolve of the people in New York and in Washington. Be assured that they are not exceptions, but just great examples of all Americans. We (Americans) can work harder, produce more, and fight harder and better than any other nation in this world.
We will continue to prosper and to protect our freedoms. We will not fear, we may suffer and mourn our dead, but we will persevere and continue to be the greatest nation on this earth. You must pass these ideals on to your children. They must grow up with confidence, but knowing the dangers of this world.
We also as a family need to encourage our representatives to pay more attention to the plight of other peoples in other lands. To help them more, and to help change their governments so that poverty, despair and dis-satisfaction will not foster terrorism and hate. These governments may not want to change, but we must foster or force change upon them.
We as a family, can and will, even in these dark times, by our attitude and hard work, provide support and love for our children, ourselves, our community and our country.
All my Love,
Dad
Friend of mine owns a copy of an early English translation of the Koran.
Here’s how he described his plan: buy a couple of lbs of bacon, set up a camera. Video tape his gloved hands opening the bacon package, peel each strip of bacon & lay it between a couple of pages of the Koran, open to a different page, lay another strip, etc. till he runs outta bacon.
Wrap the book in an American Flag, squirt it with lighter fluid, and touch it off with a bic lighter.
He’s laughing like a loon as he describes this.
I’ll tell you, of all the things that have royally pissed me off the last few years from the arrogant left wing MFs driving this country over the cliff, this last week tops it off. I’m staying away from people I know to be LEFTARD pin-heads, because they don’t filter what they say one single iota. They go to great lengths to speak in their “outside” voices to make sure anyone in earshot knows they think any conservative is a stupid bastard. Disagree with them about ANYTHING and that identifies YOU as a stupid bastard conservative.
What I’m feeling seems to be pretty similar to the exasperation of a LOT of conservatives who are pretty close to the end of their patience with being told that dunking a sacred symbol of Christianity in Urine is protected by the Constitution, but that in any other instance the Constitution is a worthless piece of toilet paper suitable for the same function as any other piece of Toilet paper.
The contradictions and lies of the left have reached a density that they’re beginning to annihilate each other. They’re like the particles and anti-particles that fizz in and out of existence at the lower limits of the sub-atomic scale of the universe. Didn’t Hawking theorize that these pairs (particle/anti-particle) can lose one member of the pair if they pop into existence at the event horizon of a small black hole? And that this would mean the black hole would eventually evaporate in a flash of suddenly freed anti-particles?
AAARGH. complicate metaphor.
But I feel strangely calmer after struggling through that.
I suppose that’s good. I was ready to do something violent that would have brought shame and dishonor upon conservatives everywhere.
Was that wrong?
By the Way – a federal Judge in Norfolk VA has ruled that the USNavy didn’t have proper reason to arrest the Somali Pirates who had attacked a US Navy vessel, and he’s dismissed the most serious charges against the “ALLEGED” pirates.
God help this country, cause it looks like the democrat-appointed judges are on the other side.
Whatever happened to the doctrine of “Hostis Generis Humanis?”
This is my own contribution to the symbols of 9/11
http://tinyurl.com/2e4hcm7
How about reciprocity?
No more mosques (or special pleading) in western countries until such time as Christians get similar treatment in muslim countries. Failing that, just stop muslim immigration since they are proving to be hostile to our way of life.
(I should add that I think we could do with a bit more Christian morality and a bit less of a behavioural free-for-all, particularly in respect of late-closing night venues, but that’s another issue)
Whiskey’s banned. Habu doesn’t bother posting here anymore. These guys knew and described the proper response to this stuff but it was deemed too incendiary. In your hearts you all know the answer too, but you deem it too awful to clearly face. I agree with you that it is awful. What will be worse is submission to the evil our foes represent. All the regular readers here know Churchill’s quote from “The Gathering Storm” about having to fight with no hope because it is better to die fighting than to live as a slave. Those are the choices in the place where we as a nation are currently headed. There aren’t any others there. Make your preparations accordingly.
There are symbolic actions as well as physical symbols. Here is a video showing such symbolic actions – a large group of men, holding to a certain belief/value system, heads down, butts in the air….the photographer had to video this secretly and has been the target of death threats (go figure). Good commentary, too.
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/09/paris-muslims-block-streets-for-prayers-police-afraid-to-intervene.html
Bernard Lewis, in an article titled “A History of Tolerance”, says:
“For the moment, there does not seem to be much prospect of a moderate Islam in the Muslim world. This is partly because in the prevailing atmosphere the expression of moderate ideas can be dangerous—even life-threatening. Radical groups like al Qaeda and the Taliban, the likes of which in earlier times were at most minor and marginal, have acquired a powerful and even a dominant position.”
Fortunately the people that follow blindly those hideous ideas die, too. In the beginning was the word…how true that is! Without the word we’d still be living like crabs, or oaks, or llamas, or even worse–rats! For rats form factions, armies, and kill each other.
One of the most disgusting things about the lecture by the Newsweek editor, Meacham, of the pastor is when he tells the pastor he will have blood on his hands if he burns the Koran. Newsweek published a FALSE story about US Miltitary personnel at Gitmo flushing a Koran down the toilet. Reaction in the Muslim world included murder of Christians.
The election of Obama to the presidency is the modern analog of George McClellan being elected president in 1864.
Would anyone today even entertain the concept of a “moderate Nazi”?
W, what’s with the Anti-Fascist Action Icon?
I know I am being redundant but on the commemorative of a horrific and brutal mass murder
Is not the time to talk of tolerance
I am so disappointed by this man and his party
My God
A week ago, I was ready to condemn Pastor Jones. I do not like the burning of books, the Koran or any other book.
Now, though – after seeing the reaction of President Obama and our elites – I see things a little differently.
http://asher813.blogspot.com/2010/09/koran-burning-freedom-rears-its-ugly.html
Buddy Larsen @ 124 (A Wider Broom)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLf2PusBhFQ
All in all, the hypocrisy of the Mosque @ Ground Zero & the Koran burning show me that while we can be tolerant, we can also be dupes. The very idea that if the Mosque is relocated the Muslim world would become violent, represents real hypocrisy in the absolute extreme. Face it, Muslims have been reacting violently to almost anything & everything the west & especially America, says or does. For them, there is no middle ground. There is only, their way.
Its like the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. If Israel gives up its security & land, plus agrees they will make peace based on Muslim assertions they have no right to even exist as a nation, or as human beings, then, the Palestinians will make peace & one the Muslim world would find acceptable.
Such an accord would be capitulation to despotism & hatred. Reaching an agreement w/ Muslims pushing Islam & the Sharia, is like compromising w/ liberal Democrats. What they call the ‘middle’ ground, is really when those they wish to subjugate give up totally & agree to submit to their point of view. Liberal Democrats do not represent ‘middle America’, or the majority opinion of Americans as they & the media keep trying to push. See real polls done & one will find ‘middle America’ is far right of what the liberal Democrats call the middle. And resolving the Israeli-Palestinian issue would mean Israel would have to bend left as well, because the media & liberals have pushed the notion Palestinians want to negotiate in good faith.
Trust but verify does not fit this issue.
Keep you powder dry does!
JJRedFan, #53: Friend of mine owns a copy of an early English translation of the Koran.
Here’s how he described his plan: buy a couple of lbs of bacon, set up a camera. Video tape his gloved hands opening the bacon package, peel each strip of bacon & lay it between a couple of pages of the Koran, open to a different page, lay another strip, etc. till he runs outta bacon.
Wrap the book in an American Flag, squirt it with lighter fluid, and touch it off with a bic lighter.
The one problem with your friend’s plan is that his translation of the Qur’an is just that: a translation. Only the original classical-Arabic text is considered an authentic Qur’an by most Muslims. Some even consider Qur’an translations to be heresies, so they would not be upset by his attempt to desecrate something that’s called a Qur’an but really isn’t. Quite the opposite, in fact.
mac, #56: All the regular readers here know Churchill’s quote from “The Gathering Storm” about having to fight with no hope because it is better to die fighting than to live as a slave. Those are the choices in the place where we as a nation are currently headed. There aren’t any others there. Make your preparations accordingly.
As I’ve pointed out here before, Churchill’s quote presumes a belief in an afterlife administered by a just God. Those who harbor no such belief might prefer to take their chances with their new overlords over total oblivion – which, of course, makes the odds for the rest of us that much longer.
lc
but the images have been arranged by the evangelist guis of the media, check, it’s a evangelist media !
There isn’t such a radical anti islamism here these muslims pray in the street in the Barbes quater, which is a immigration quater, and they do it according to the right they obtain from the mayor until a site is found for a Mosquee. None normal parisian is complaining, sure some militants anti-islam would still do it !
If you get the opportunity to be in Lorient in the first weeks of August, there’s a intercletic festival for military, navy, traditional musics from Brittany, wales, Ireland, Scottland.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otZx3i-rSes&feature=related
Throughout all this hysteria, I have had one thought which I cannot let go of: how much I miss the quiet dignity, integrity, and gravitas of George W. Bush.
Wow.
I thought the Ministry of Truth had already hit rock bottom. There is not any pretense of objectivity now. Was that an actual news broadcast or the day’s Two Minutes Hate?
How gutless.
That’s the problem with the conservative right in this country, they have nothing BUT symbols.