I grew up believing that the “truth” of a matter really existed and that, in the words of the immortal John Keats, that “Beauty is truth, truth beauty,–that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.” (See below for Keats’ Ode on a Grecian Urn).
Well, to some, Keats is just one more dead, white man. Today, the intellectual elite and their followers believe that truth does not exist; that there are many truths and isms; that everything is relative, Rashomon-like; that people have different points of view and that all such views are “equal.”
In addition, people have been taught to worship lies, paranoid projections, linguistic reversals, and photo shopped images. False accusations are mass produced and continue to pass for sweet truth in every language under the sun: Israelis are “Nazis” who killed 12 year-old Mohammed al-Dura in his father’s arms, perpetrated a “massacre” in Jenin, built an “Apartheid” Wall in the West Bank, are presiding over a “Holocaust” in Gaza.
If anyone thinks these are just words, no harm done, everyone is entitled to their opinion, please note that the entire world “cares” about Gaza and Palestine like no other places on earth. It makes sense. In the last month, the New York Times often published two articles a day, accompanied by large photos, about Gaza. They also simultaneously featured op-ed pieces, editorials, and letters on Gaza in the very same issue.
The same mainstream media that once wrote about the alleged “massacre” in Jenin, has now spread the lie that more than 1,000 Gazans, including many women and children, were killed by Israelis in battle. Now, too late for the world’s brief attention span, we learn that no more than 600 Gazans died, and that they were mainly Hamas warriors dressed as civilians, not civilians, not women and children. My God! Compare that to the daily death tolls in Darfur and Congo and you will understand how very yellow this journalism truly is.
Once, barbarians ate their enemies’ hearts in order to incorporate their power. Today’s barbarians assert that they are the victims, thus hoping to incorporate the moral stature of those whom they envy, defame, and victimize. How can a “victim” be a victimizer?
Over the weekend, I published a piece about Douglas Murray‘s dis-invitation as a moderator by the London School of Economics. Now, several commentators ( see comments 18, 31, and 32 for examples) suggest that the matter was really more… complicated, that LSE was not exactly, precisely, in the wrong. But is this true?
Based on my own experience with how Cambridge University dis-invited me but then denied having done so, and based on what Douglas has told me, I think not. Thus, once world media attention took note of the dis-invitation, the London School of Terrorism and Appeasement tried to cover their sorry ass exposure. According to Douglas Murray:
“The LSE has been desperately trying to firefight since the press here started on them. They even tried to ‘re-invite’ me an hour and a half before the event started. All their earliest media responses are different from the later ones when they tried to pretend there was no problem. They were caught off guard by the amount of media interest and decided to try to come up with a new ‘narrative’. Pretty pusillanimous from a university, or to be expected!
Their press officer has been in a terrible spin and has been writing to blogs and papers everywhere. But the Telegraph and Evening Standard here saw the original emails (which I’m very happy to send to you too) dis-inviting for all the reasons shown in the original press reports
Of course the LSE actually IS a hot-bed of radicalism and has repeatedly produced terrorists – not least the murderer of Daniel Pearl. Each time they are revealed to be a hot-bed of extremism they express embarrassment at the information becoming public knowledge – but never do a thing to change the situation. See here for another recent example.”
In terms of Cambridge: A few years ago, I was invited by the Womens’ Studies/Gender Studies program to deliver one of four keynote speeches at an international conference marking their tenth anniversary. To their credit, they said that I had made quite a good case in my book The Death of Feminism. What’s Next In the Struggle for Womens’ Freedom. I was amazed and pleased and immediately agreed to come. Then, I reviewed who the other speakers would be and realized that I would be the “token” critic of Islamic gender and religious apartheid and the token pro-American, pro-Israel, and pro-Western democracy voice. (By the way, these are the very views which now render me a “conservative.” Forty years ago, I was considered a “radical” for many of these same concerns.)
I stressed that I would come, one way or the other, but asked them to review the possible need for campus security. They promptly dis-invited me–but only to the international conference. They were canny enough to write that in the future, I would be welcome to address a small, non-international group. Of course, I’ve never heard from them again.
According to Murray, “Also – the current line the LSE is trying to pursue is that the particular international circumstances made it impossible this time, but that on other occasions (during peacetime?) I would be allowed on campus again. It’s worth noting what ‘normal’ circumstances at the LSE are.
I spoke to the Jewish Society at LSE last term. The Islamic society there heard of my visit and threatened the J-Soc with various things they said would happen if I came. The J-Soc held firm. They invited the I-Soc to attend. The talk passed peacefully and no member of the I-Soc even tried to challenge me. A few of them merely sat in silence and recorded the event without asking permission (presumably hoping I was going to say something they could then object to: of course they were disappointed).
However – the next issue of the LSE student newspaper contained a front-page article dictated by the I-Soc with all of their propaganda, libelling me in most grotesque way: accusing me of ‘Islamophobia’ and ‘racism’ among other allegations. I wrote to the editors, journalists and head of LSE warning them that unless they printed a full front-page retraction immediately I would sue them for libel. The next issue duly contained a full and complete retraction.
This is what going to LSE during ‘normal’ circumstances consists of. Going last week whilst feelings are ‘inflamed’ by Israeli actions turns out to be impossible for a friend of Israel. If I were them I would spend more time cracking down on Islamist students who practice intimidation and rather less time trying to spin and lie about events relating to visiting speakers. ”
This is not just happening in London or England or Europe. I want Americans to realize that our campuses are also under siege. Islamists and Marxist-Leninists, with lots of Wahabi, Saudi funding, have taken them over. Their Palestinianized point of view prevails. The dis-invitations are happening here too–as are the non-invitations. And, the rage of the Muslim and pro-Palestinian pro-“peace” marchers is very frightening. In London over the weekend, (very much like the marches for Gaza across America), a march on the Israeli Embassy turned ugly. As I watched it, I could hear one of the marchers clearly screaming: “Police brutality” over and over again. The marchers were attacking the unarmed police and one of their leaders made sure to claim victim status.
How long dear God, how long, will the world continue to fall for such tricks, persist in believing that Islamist and Marxist Lies are true?
Ode on a Grecian Urn
By John Keats
Thou still unravished bride of quietness!
Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flow’ry tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endeared,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal -yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!
Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unwearied,
For ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
For ever warm and still to be enjoyed,
For ever panting and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloyed,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.
Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead’st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
What little town by river or sea-shore,
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of its folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
Will silent be; and not a soul to tell
Why thou art desolate, can e’er return.
O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold pastoral!
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou sayst,
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty, -that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”
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