Glorious Grain from the Berlin Blockade: update

Art Daily: "Photographs of the Berlin Blockade in 1948-9 by Henry Ries Opens at the German Historical Museum"

The currency reform and subsequent blockade of West Berlin carried out by the Soviet Union was a key event which resulted in the partition of Berlin, Germany and Europe.

The division of the occupation zones into two separate economic and political systems had been becoming increasingly palpable since 1947. In 1949, this resulted in the foundation of the two German states and the GDR's closure of the interior borders, finally culminating in the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961.


In 2007, the German Historical Museum acquired the photographic legacy of Henry Ries, whose photographs of the Berlin Blockade and the reaction of the Western Powers, the Berlin Airlift, occupy an important place in his work. Henry Ries was born in Berlin in 1917. In 1937, Ries, who was Jewish, fled Germany for New York, where he embarked on his career as a photographer. In 1945, he returned to Europe as a soldier, where his first job was as a photojournalist for the OMGUS Observer. He went on to work (...) >>>

"On the initiative of the US military governor Lucius D. Clay the West-Berlin population was supplied by means of an airlift. With almost 200,000 flights, around 1.5 million tons of vital goods were transported to Berlin. A transport plane landed at one of the three West-Berlin airports every two or three minutes. In the popular German phrase the airplanes were called “raisin bombers”.

"In this way the Americans, British and French succeeded in safeguarding the basic supply of goods to the city. The airlift was a gigantic logistic undertaking that had begun with uncertain outcome and ended as a success story. On 12 May 1949 the Soviet Union rescinded the Berlin Blockade."

More about the Berlin Blockade can be found on History Research Guide. Check out the exhib's site at the German Historical Museum.

Update:

Juliette Ochieng on Pajamas Media has a comprehensive article on the subject which is especially interesting for those who have missed the details of the historical events. The title is interesting in itself. It alludes to Gail Halvorsen, the Candy Bomber who retired from the USAF at the rank of Colonel, who is now 87 and a revered figure in Germany. On a philosophical level the title illustrates the Kantian ethics with which the German people are saturated - a blessing as well as a curse - "‘Service Before Self’: Honoring the Berlin Airlift."

"(...) The Soviet ban of Allied land traffic in East Germany didn’t happen all at once; it started with simple harassment in March 1948 with the demand to inspect every train from the West and was brought into full effect by late June. At that point, the city was left with barely more that a month’s worth of subsistence and since the Western powers had never negotiated access rights to the three land routes to Berlin with the Soviets, there was nothing they could do about the ban. However, access to the three corresponding air lanes had been negotiated, making the West’s choice clear. They would supply the city by air, daring the Russians to break their agreement and shoot them down.

On June 26, 1948, the first two of many USAF cargo aircraft (C-47s and later C-54s and C-82s) made their way from Frankfurt Airport to Tempelhof Airport in West Berlin. The Royal Air Force followed suit the next day (...) During the 479-day effort, the deliveries had become so systematic that one aircraft touched down at Tempelhof every three minutes 24/7. (...)" Read it all >>>

The German Revolution

The present is a review of an episode in "The Orientalist" by Tom Reiss, a thoroughly and uniquely researched work that accounts hitherto less known historical and personal facts. Set during the interbellum, it chronicles a fascinating and remarkable story, encompassing four empires, three continents, three religions, two revolutions and two world wars. Earlier posts were "History Class: of agit-prop, revolution and terror!"

xox

On Monday, 11th November 1918, delegates from the new Social Democratic government of Germany officially signed the armistice, ending Germany's part in the Great War 1914-1918. The Kaiser moved to comfortable exile in The Netherlands.

But mob rule reigned Germany. Leftist leader Emil Eichhorn, self-appointed chief of the People's Revolutionary Berlin Police Department - personally freed 650 prisoners from police headquarters at the head of a mob. Others seized newspaper offices, government buildings, stores, and telegraph offices.

The demobilising army agreed not to oppose the government, in exchange for a free hand in quelling the revolutionary unrest. The government took the responsibility and the blame for the humiliating surrender, while simultaneously delegating political power - the state's monopoly of force - to Rightist officers.

As the army demobilised in Berlin, all moral constraint melted away. Here's an account of artist George Grosz: "The city was dark, cold and full of rumours. The streets were wild ravines haunted by murderers and cocaine peddlers ... People denied all knowledge but whispered about secret manoeuvres by the Black Reichswehr or a newly formed Red Army." Bursts of machine-gun fire and hand-grenade explosions were common. Grosz: "Inhabitants (...) went up on the roof to shoot pigeons and people. Their sense of proportion (...) got misplaced."

Three hundred people perished each day from influenza alone. Demobilised soldiers started selling their weapons on the streets. Those who held on to their arms followed their unit commanders into Mafia-style, loosely connected militias, known as the Freikorps (Free Corps), a proto type of the later Waffen SS, but originally consisting of volunteers in the Wars of Liberation against Napoleon in 1813-1815.

It was more than just the Red menace which motivated the Freikorps, their originators being the ancestors of all guerilla fighters and revolutionary insurgents of the next century. An even earlier connection identified them with the Teutonic Knights. They were anxious to proof themselves worthy of the medieval battles in the East against Poles and Tartars.

The Western powers restricted the German military, but motivated by fear of the Soviet revolutionary threat, refrained from disarming and restraining the Freikorps. In 1919 the Freikorps spontaneously and without orders moved against Poland, Lithuania and Latvia - the same countries the Nazis re-invaded in 1941.

Despite their symbolism and ancestry the Freikorps did not succeed in turning the tide of the Whites against the Reds and descended on a city in chaos, armed to the teeth, wreaking havoc on the new republic.

The revolutionary neighbourhoods were attacked without restraint. The front was brought to civilian society. This maintained the fantasy that the war had not really ended. Unarmed civilians had become the enemy. It "was a lesson in local brutality and cold-bloodedness that prepared many of them for work as storm troopers or concentration-camp guards in the years to come."

A footnote provides an important psycho-pathological context: "Many returning soldiers, no matter their political disposition, would display signs of sociopathy. Homicides and rapes became commonplace in postwar Berlin, brutal acts committed by men with no previous criminal record (...)"

"The panic evoked in Germany by the fate of Russia drove so deep into the psyche of ordinary Germans that they could not see that the forces of the new Right were equally hostile to bourgeois values like law, order and moral restraint. The Freikorps ethic, every bit as revolutionary as that of the Bolsheviks, masqueraded behind a false aura of conservatism and pacification.

Real conservatives believed in the value of traditions, but the Freikorps believed exactly the opposite - for them, the Great War had proved that the morality and social structure of peacetime were corrupt and meaningless. The politics behind the war had been a fraud, but the fighting had been real, and in this reality, the 'New Man' of the Right-wing revolution was born."

Author of 'Storm of Steel' and 'Battle As Inner Experience' Ernst Jünger hailed the 'storm soldier': "the coming of a whole new race, smart, strong and filled with will, to save Europe from its liberal delusions". "For this New Man, as for the Red revolutionaries, the legal and moral foundations of society were mere bourgeois squeamishness. At the front, only the fundamental values of bravery, ruthlessness, and camaraderie mattered - and the fundamental precept of Freikorps ideology: all society is the front."

The more the Freikorps suppressed the revolution, the faster it spread. Bolshevik cells and councils (Soviets) sprang up in towns and cities across Germany. The Munich Soviet was led by a former mental patient who wrote threatening letters to the Pope and declared war on Switzerland for failing to provide a shipment of locomotives.

In April 1919 the Bolshevik triumvirate led by Lenin associates made an attempt to launch Red Terror. Bourgeois and local aristocrats (every locale was supposed to have one, in the absence of which the village headmaster was supposed to volunteer) were jailed, property was confiscated, opposition presses smashed and schools shut down - "though this was not a real Red Terror but more of Red Terror manqué. But in the event of insufficient ruthlessness on the part of the German Left, the German Right was only too happy to fill the void."

The Freikorps attacked Munich as if it were a foreign city. The Reds held the town for three days, at the end of which more than a thousand were shot, including seminary students.

The next year saw a coup by Dr Kapp and General Ludendorf. According to an anecdote Corporal Hitler came too late to join it. The ousted Social Democratic government being unable to turn out the Freikorps against the Freikorps, called for a general strike. This succeeded, sending the putschists fleeing to Sweden, upon which the Spartacists raised a 80,000 strong 'Red Army of the Ruhr' in order to seize the mining and heavy industry in that area. The reinstated Social Democratic government retaliated by setting the Freikorps loose on Berlin. The Reds in the Ruhr were crushed.

"Finally, the major disturbances ended, though street battles and small uprisings continued to break out in towns across the fatherland. In the spring of 1921" as the protagonist of "The Orientalist" crossed the border into Germany, the country had fallen into uneasy quiet ...

- More excerpts from Tom Reiss' "The Orientalist" on the history of the two Socialist movements in next posts.

- Up next: Both Sir Winston S. Churchill in "Memoirs of the Second World War" and Tom Reiss' in "The Orientalist" touch on one of the most colourful people of the interbellum, Hitler's Master of Ceremonies.

Of the Saddam Connection and Al Qaeda's Unraveling

The Press from Hell has really done it this time, or so it seems. Things are moving on the counter terrorism front you wouldn't believe! Or perhaps you do ... judge for yourself:

- American Thinker: "A Quiet Triumph May be Brewing" by Ray Robison - "There are signs that the global Islamic jihad movement is splitting apart, in what would be a tremendous achievement for American strategy. The center of the action is in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the very territory which is thought to harbor Usama, and from which Al Qaeda was able to launch 9/11. Capitalizing on existing splits, a trap was set and closed, and the benefits have only begun to be evident."

"This cannot be overstated: it is the most crucial development since the capture of Khalid Sheik Mohammed. Cutting al Qaeda's support in Pakistan has been a massive coup, of which our media has no clue of right now. It is the exact sort of thing that the Democrats and their media accomplices always complain that we are not doing and then completely ignore when we do it."

"By way of correlation, you may remember that the German government recently arrested Islamic terrorists planning an attack on US targets. It turns out that those men were trained and controlled by Uzbek terror camps in Pakistan -- this time meaning actual Uzbeks. The stated purpose of the attack was to force the German military to cease operations at an Uzbekistan base which is supporting operations in Afghanistan. The German terrorists were part of the Islamic Jihad Union (IJU) which is an offshoot of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU). Other recent reports have noted that the order to the terrorists to start the attacks stated it was crucial for them to "go now" and attack within days during early September."

"To cause the German public to demand an end to operations in Afghanistan just as the Madrid train bombings caused the Spaniards to demand an end to that government's involvement in the war on terror. Since the Germans are the only western forces allowed to operate in Uzbekistan this would help al Qaeda forces trapped in Tora Bora."

"The Bush Administration, most likely through the CIA and DIA, has pulled off a fantastic maneuver to split the global Islamic jihad movement at its base. This is the kind of stuff we may not hear about in detail for another fifty years. Congratulations to our President and our brave soldiers and intelligence assets for making this happen. Al Qaeda is losing in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iraq. The fact is now inescapable that they have lost the ability to impose their political will on the West, athough this does not mean ...."

Here's a link to a 3D map of Tora Bora, Afghanistan which ran in Time Magazine in 2001.

Here's the entire article! It reads like a spy novel ...! >>>

Wait, there's more by the same author. We already touched the subject in yesterday's digest. The Saddam-Al Qaeda connection!


- American Thinker: "Al Qaeda's Man in Saddam's Iraq" - "As is widely known, Zarqawi was indeed moving between Iraq and Iran at this time but his links to al Qaeda and reasons for being in Iraq have been contested."

"As I explained in a previous American Thinker article, he was indeed al Qaeda and he was in Iraq to fight Americans instead of Saddam. In that article I detailed how the Jordanian population had become more radicalized by a “jihad stream” of Palestinian refugees who were kicked out of Kuwait by that government for collaborating with Saddam when Iraq invaded in 1990. Those Jordanians, like Zarqawi, were directed by an al Qaeda associate named al Barqawi."

"Zarqawi’s mentor Barqawi was a Saddam sympathizer and al Qaeda affiliate who sent these Jordanian-Palestinians to Iraq to fight the Americans. Clearly these Jordanian-Palestinians were not in Iraq to impose their own brand of regime change on Saddam; they were there to kill US forces."

"Now a man named Hamid Mir, who is an Executive Editor for Geo TV in Islamabad, Pakistan, writing for the popular India news website rediff.com, reveals his inside knowledge ... >>>

Open Letter to Nice, Leftist People

Every once in a while I receive messages from mainstream Leftists who tell me that they too want to defend the freedoms and rights of Western democracy against the encroaching theocracy of Islam. They should know they are dissenters in the face of the recent EuroParl Socialist Group's claims of leading the condemnation of the "Stop Islamization of Europe" movement. I consider them from hereon the political Owners of this vital subject in Europe.

With them are any number of local and national Leftist parties that are also overtly siding with Islam, if only because they cannot resist the attraction of the 'bloc' vote; but there are similarities of an ideological nature between Islam and the Left as well, worthy of a dedicated post in the near future.

In the past I would have said, okay, we have a common cause: let there be a coalition and let's set aside our differences for the moment. Not anymore. Here are a few reasons why.

- The Left may say they too want freedom and Roman Law defended against encroaching theocracy, but the "Stop Islamization of Europe" (SIOE) 9/11 demo in Brussels has been prohibited by the Left wing Mayor of that city. This has come about as the result of the Left's legalised redistribution of speech rights to unequal minority groups at the expense of universal equality and the established majority. [1]

- The Left may say they too want freedom and Roman Law defended against encroaching theocracy, but they have left brave Muslim apostates, freedom lovers like Ayaan Hirsi Ali in the lurge. Instead she's accused of being a Liberal fundamentalist, whereas intolerant critics are excused. While many Leftists are converting to Islam, there are also a great number of Muslims that can muster the courage to leave; but they need not apply at the Left for help, is the message. [2]

- The Left may say they too want freedom and Roman Law defended against encroaching theocracy, while making ridiculous charges about an impending phantom coup by the far Christian right, or a Catholic theocratic dictatorship emanating from the Vatican that will plunge the world in a prolonged era of darkness. It is a feeble attempt to collate Christianity with Islam, a favourite Leftist pastime. [3]

On the other hand, when worries as expressed by a movement as the SIOE, theirs fears are dismissed as xenohysteria, racism and Islamophobia and sometimes - a case in point is the Mayor of Brussels - even as criminals.

- The Left may say they too want freedom and Roman Law defended against encroaching theocracy, while a false discussion is raging on Intelligent Design versus Darwin's Theory of Evolution. Any options other than these two, are a priori excluded from the debate. Darwin's unproved theory provides the Left with the 'scientific' basis for their atheist ideology. Which explains the fanaticism and the dogmatism with which they've been clinging to it since 1880 and why Charles Darwin has been included in the Marxist pantheon. [4]

- The Left may say they too want freedom and Roman Law defended against encroaching theocracy, while decrying those who come out against it as racists, Fascists and Nazis in the most vile racist, Fascist and Nazistic terms possible, removing the evidence within 24 hours to avoid detection. These 'Ministries of Information' are actively harassing and closing down websites and weblogs. This undesirable development has to do with the Postmodern Leftist view, that everybody (with the exception of the members of the White Patriarch tribe [1]) is right from his or her particular perspective, rendering all forms of critique a humiliation, no person should have to endure. This leads to intolerance, which leads to more dictatorial attitudes. Immunity from criticism has almost become a human right! [5]

- The Left may say they too want freedom and Roman Law defended against encroaching theocracy, while making common cause with Turkey and the Turkish immigrant electorate in denying the historical fact of the Armenian holocaust. While Germany has gone through a painful, decades long process of national acceptance and conciliation with regard to World War II (Japan in still working on it), Turkey is allowed to duck the past and get away with genocide. It is a shame and an embarrassment! [6]

- The Left may say they too want freedom and Roman Law defended against encroaching theocracy, while increasingly siding with antisemites of various hue against the state of Israel, in defiance of the historical realities, the protected rights of Arab minorities living within Israel's borders and the primacy of the rule of law in that country, even to the point of endangering its own defenses against terrorist attacks. [7]

- The Left may say they too want freedom and Roman Law defended against encroaching theocracy, while engaging in mutual appreciation relationships with Iran, Syria, the Cuban dictatorship, and the regime of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, to name but a few. This is in keeping with the general Leftist tendency of apologising Marxist dictatorships, no matter how many victims have ensued. [8]
Instead the Left prefer making false accusations against a friend and ally - the American administration - of having killed 2,000 innocent people in cold blood for political gain, and in doing so give credence to irrational conspiracy theories that defile the memory of the victims of 9/11. For the Left it is easier to deal with conspiracies that they can control, than with the reality of having cold hearted murderers in our midst.

- The Left may say they too want freedom and Roman Law defended against encroaching theocracy, while apologising and/or denying terrorism (case need both at the same time!). A short term state of denial is understandable and healthy, but at a certain point reality has to set in. Confronted with the dilemma to hold those responsible to account at the risk of provoking Muslim wrath, they chose to project their anger on to their own governments, who as a consequence are painted hateful, divisive, full of vitriol and bile, bigoted, intolerant and hatemongering. [9]

- The Left may say they too want freedom and Roman Law defended against encroaching theocracy, while simultaneously denouncing 'eternal truths' and 'dogmas' in the face of their unshaken belief in Human Rights and democracy. [10]

- The Left may say they too want freedom and Roman Law defended against encroaching theocracy, while simultaneously undermining the opposition's endeavours towards the dissemination of freedom and democracy whenever the opportunity presents itself. [11]

- The Left may say they too want freedom and Roman Law defended against encroaching theocracy, while reviving a pernicious ideology that has negatively influenced global politics since the philosopher Rousseau published his position on egalitarian collectivism. This school of thought has gone through many cultural and political guises, from Romanticism to Communism and National Socialism, from cultural Marxism to its latest incarnation, Islamic Leftism (or Leftist Islamism). Estimated number of victims to date: 110 million. [12]

- The Left may say they too want freedom and Roman Law defended against encroaching theocracy, but even after the fall of the Soviet Union, Marxism has never conceded defeat. The subversion program that aims at destructing the West from within was completely forgotten, while in fact it was secretly ongoing and is now nearing completion. [13]

- The Left may say they too want freedom and Roman Law defended against encroaching theocracy, but you are actively foisting the morality of your ideology onto people of other persuasions - either by the soft pressure of political correctness, or by furthering legislation to that effect. It turns otherwise law abiding citizens into criminals, should they feel the need to assert their consciences. There is a word for that: it's tyranny. [14]

In spite of vehement Leftist denial, each of us, Left, Right and mainstream, today stands at a major cross roads in human history. Will you follow the Left into a post-democratic era under crypto Islamic Leftism?

This is the reality we face today: a prospect that is in the making as we speak. Europe is not only morally and culturally sick, it is also literally, demographically 'dying' thanks to Cultural Marxism's 'non family planning' and the rest of the "progressive" moral subversion program [12].

Or, are we re-taking the road that has made us who we are? A choice for true Enlightenment: liberty, mutually beneficial free market capitalism, universal equality, limited government for and by the people, equal chances for all mature, responsible individuals on this continent, that came into being through Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian values, on which the present unequaled prosperity, freedom and human rights rest?

Will we finally tell the collectivist pocket potentates where they get off? That enough is enough! Collectivism - be it Leftist, Rightist or Islamic - is mutually exclusive with individual freedom.

You, our nice, mainstream Leftist friends, need to be educated about the ideology you keep so close to your heart. You need to know that it isn't about "being nice towards working class people at the expense of rich fat cats"; just as multiculturalism isn't about "being nice to immigrants". It is a covert means to redistribute power and rights at the expense of Western civilization as we know it. It weakens and distracts us. The diabolical ploy has long been exposed as the cynical excuse for the power grab that it is: power for power's sake!

My friends, your denial of the reality of terrorism is but the last drop ... your irresponsible attitude in the face of a crucial moment in time urges me to declare that there's a line in the sand for you too! The time of muddling through with 'Left Light' must be over. Make the choice for freedom now while you can! If you are willing to do that, there will be a coalition and together we can try to stem the tide that you have unleashed through your brainless idealism.

Lux et Libertas,
Cassandra.

SIOE Update: Legal Loonies United!

While there's no going back at this stage, it cannot harm to evaluate some that has been written in the last few days.

Brussels Journal: "Brussels Mayor Warns: 9/11 Demonstrators Are Criminals":

FT: "First and foremost the organizers have chosen the symbolic date of 9/11. The intention is obviously to confound the terrorist activities of Muslim extremists on the one hand and Islam as a religion and all Muslims on the other hand."

The date of 9/11 is a brave choice and very symbolic. The link with Islamization by stealth does however provide an adverse mayor with the legal basis he is looking for to deny his permission. Having said that, as this particular generalization is apparently a huge No-No - while "'t was the Dews that did 9/11" isn't (perhaps someone needs pressing charges) - facilitating a club of loonies, who are basically accusing a friendly nation's government of having murdered 3,000 innocent people in cold blood for political gains, is not an offence.

FT: "To my knowledge not a single rule specific to the Islamic religion is being enforced in similar fashion. And I see no indication that a large majority of our Muslim population is demanding any such thing."

BJ provides part of the answer: "Contrary to what the mayor says, rules specific to the Islamic religion are being imposed upon society as a whole. For instance, Brussels has segregated swimming hours for women in public pools; Brussels public schools serve halal meat; Muslims slaughter sheep in the streets of Brussels.

Where are the animal rights activists when you need them? Oh, they're with FruitCakes United!

Snaphanen weighs in, in reference to the recent Doctors United actions in Scotland: "Apparently the bureaucrats believe that the would-be bombers were demanding sandwich-free offices in Glasgow hospitals during Ramadan."

Muslims normally only hit the streets in anger about perceived grievances; they do not do so, in demand of specific rights. They are more clever than that. Ask CAIR c.s. how the West's legal systems are being played like a piano forte. The Islamization by stealth process is supported by our own usefuls through coinciding ideology (see Chart I: the Straight Red Line), by dhimmitude through intimidation (see above example provided by Snaphanen), and through jurisprudence.

Consider the text of Leftards United: "Recently the French Minister for Housing and the City Mme Christine Boutin expressed her doubts about the official 9/11 report. Before, Michael Meacher, secretary of state in Britain and Andreas Von Bulow, ex Minister from Germany, stated clearly that 9/11 and the war on terror are orchestrated by the Bush administration ... They agree the 9/11 attacks and other terrorist acts, no matter if they were carried out by some so-called Afghan cavemen or by the governments themselves, inflicted the current policy of fear ..."

We've already seen that accusing a friendly government of cold blooded mass-murder isn't punishable by any contemporary liberal law. Cowards United are hiding behind a battery of European government officials with whose accusations they say to agree. What these various officials are doing is a disgrace and a diplomatic scandal, but at no time are Lobotomy United linking terrorism with a specific culture, religion or race. Therefore it might be of some importance to find out what was really being said here and by whom.

There's no going back at this stage. SIOE HQ: "A Line in the Sand" - "This is the limit! Therefore the organisers of SIOE call upon all to carry on and join the demonstration anyway, – because enough is enough. If we do not draw a line in the sand, and reject the attempts of people like Thielemans to curb our rights – people like him will turn the EU into a dictatorial state. Therefore we also call upon all organisations and ... >>>

Way to go, guys!!!

The Safety of Collectivism

The German cultural English language site Signandsite recently dealt with an interview, published in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung am Sonntag with sociologist Wolfgang Sofsky, "who, in his coming book defends the private sphere in Germany against ever greater infringements in the name of terrorism control and tries to explain Germans' resignation to these constraints on their freedom."

"There's something missing in Germany: anti-totalitarian consciousness. We've had anti-communism, we've had anti-fascism on command, but we've had no clear-sighted anti-totalitarianism. While totalitarian regimes have existed on both German soils, there is no fully-developed sensitivity for the threat to freedom."

I posit that Sofsky's "sensitivity for the threat to freedom" comes with the Enlightenment's philosophy of Libertarianism, that was - at heart - an Anglo-Saxon project. It brought with it the blessings and accomplishments of human autonomy, the individual as operative unit, limited government, free market and a laissez faire attitude towards economy, and all what comes with reason and the right of free enquiry: technology, mechanization, and the scientific method.

Germany, upon shedding feudalism - instead of embracing Libertarianism, became home to the collectivist Counter-Enlightenment movement as started by Rousseau; thereafter - to its later chagrin - it adopted from that collectivist movement, both its political branches: Right Collectivism, National Socialism, and after its defeat, Left Collectivism, Communism. Germany's Libertarian Party, is until this moment, a marginal affair.

From the above may be concluded that Germany just doesn't seem to like individualism very much, preferring instead big government, the state as the embodiment of the collective spirit of the people. As a consequence Germans simply cannot be bothered with "ever greater infringements in the name of terrorism control" and "these constraints on their freedom."

I suspect, that the sociologist's sudden concerns over the people's privacy have more to do with the psychological projection known as Bush Derangement Syndrome and the American war on terrorism, in Leftist eyes seen as an excuse for a power grab, rather than the freedoms of the German people.

And it's not just the Germans who prefer to swap freedom for state control. It is true for most parts of Europe, as we shall see. Perhaps feudalism has made its way into the European psyche, predisposing it for the safety of Collectivism and the immaturity of never really having to grow up. Father State Will Provide is - according to psychiatrist Lyle H. Rossiter Jr in "The Liberal Mind, The Psychological Causes of Political Madness" - to blame for much of today's Narcissistic pathology (I'll come back about it in some detail). The chaos and responsibility that come with freedom can indeed be frightening, as adolescents know.

In social-economics there's the light weight Anglo-Saxon model, and the so-called 'Rhineland' variety. The continent - having adopted the latter, and Scandinavian countries an even weightier version of it, sees the Anglo-Saxon model as predator capitalism and - like the Germans - fail to see that they themselves have traded their freedom for a collectivist government that redistributes people's wealth as it sees fit: not free citizens, but all dependents of the state, from cradle to grave. They have even managed to turn Liberalism into Socialism Redux by the colpo of usurp, pervert, destroy.

While the French may be irritating the rest of the known world to bits by their obnoxious chauvinism, and the Germans - in view of recent history - temporarily don't talk so loud about The Goodies At Home, the Swedes somehow have persuaded themselves of the idea that they are the envy of the cosmos. Europeans misinterpret American patriotism in a similar vein.

But Americans don't pride themselves of their (heavily mixed) blood, or the beauty of their soil! They are proud of the Idea that is America, the human spirit that has shed the mentality of serfdom: the symbols of the government of the people, by the people and for the people. Europeans completely fail to understand the Americans' right to bear arms. They miss the connection, that those arms stand symbol for the guarantee of the principle, that the government exists at the people's pleasure, and not the other way around.

Fjordman has again produced what he knows best, another article on the inherent totalitarianism of the European Union: "... The European Union is basically an attempt – a rather successful one so far – by the elites in European nation states to cooperate on usurping power, bypassing and eventually abolishing the democratic system, a slow-motion coup d'état. Ideas such as 'promoting peace' are used as a pretext for this, a bone to fool the gullible masses and veil what is essentially a naked power grab. It works because the national parliaments still appear to be functioning as before."

"This is perhaps the most dangerous aspect of the EU: it is increasingly dictatorial, but it is a stealth dictatorship ... [it] has a lot more in common with totalitarian regimes such as Nazi Germany - and the Soviet Union - than the supposedly evil nation states it seeks to replace, especially its tendency to suppress freedom of speech, indoctrinate school children with blatantly false information and impose decisions upon its subjects without their consent."

Fjordman goes on a bit about the E.U. 'glossocracy', the Orwellian new speak, and government spokespersons' media guidelines regarding idiom and self-censorship: political correctness with a view to control mind and free flow of speech. Certainly also in evidence in the U.S. as promoted by the Democrats, it defies comprehension, but it now transpires that this phenomenon is an attempt by Pomo (Postmodernism: see Chart I: The Straight Red Line) to redistribute the right of free speech: a totalitarian effort to compensate unequal groups in proportion to their inequality. Pomo logic: the more elements of The White Patriarch a particular group has, the less unequal it is, the less entitled it is to free speech.

It is the same source that keeps on hyping the message, that we should loath ourselves on account of our imperialistic past: that waive after waive of ethnic cleansing, the enslavement of peoples other than powerful, rich, white, Christian males. I'll come back very shortly on the curious and fatal relationship of Pomo and language in general.

Dissecting relativism, The Base (III): Third generation at crisis point

I've been at it again last night, or should I say this morning! It's because I have been reading an article by Barry Rubin of the Middle East Forum, titled Arab Politics: Back to Futility. On the basis of one of the Middle East's favourite style figures, that of comparing the present situation with another in the past, thus providing some gloss to an otherwise shoddy piece of journalistic work, I was at first a bit apprehensive about it. It compares the present situation (Islamic fundamentalism led by Iran's president Ahmadinejad) to the situation in the 1950-1960 (Pan-Arab nationalism led by Egypt's President Nasser). But it is of another style altogether, well-investigated, thoroughly thought through and could give us some foresight into the near future. If so, we are in for a big conflagration (which is on the books anyway, of that I am convinced), but we all know how Nasser's plans worked out in the end. I'm not that sure about the futility, though! And the Arabs shall have to accept Iranian hegemony in the region, which also a bit of a stretch.

For today's illustration I been rummaging through images of said dreadful conference in Tehran, old Adolf pics, etc. All pretty drab, really. I prefer a picture I kept for it's own sake, a good photo. I think it's in Rome ... here it is:

Which brings me back to The Daily Star of Lebanon, which provides us with some more insight into Ahmadinejad's brain brawls, this time in re of the anti-holocaust conference, held in Tehran earlier this week. It would be nice and easy to dismiss the man as a raving islamist who doesn't know any better, but at our peril. What he means with the whole lunatic exercise is this:
1. The holocaust doesn't suit my purposes, so he denies it ever happened.
2. It negatively impacts the status quo (from his point of view).
2. The European Union and Germany itself are built on the ruins of that event and are what they are today, because of it. The West protect Israel on that basis and will prevent it ever happening again.
4. In his letter to Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel, Admadinejad says in so many words that, just imagine what your country (and Europe) would be if it didn't have this "imposition".
At which point I would like to make a M.E. style figure of my own, namely of comparing Ahmadinejad with Hitler, who told the Germans after World War I: "just imagine what your country would be if it didn't have this "imposition" (of being lumbered with heavy repair payments). I am not an admirer of present, inflationary remarks made left, right and center with reference to events and people of WWII, but this guy is simply begging for it. Better still, I think he'll take it as a compliment.

Back to our last generation of post-moderns at crisis point.
Dissecting relativism, The base (III), continued
Should there unexpectedly be a feeling of spiritual emptiness, this can be remedied by dabbling in vague mystical concepts of a much further past, or of a brand new variety for that matter. For those seeking a practical hobby or pseudo-guidelines there are astrology, numerology, stonology and the like, and for those seeking a quick fix there is aroma-therapy and hot stones, should you be medically inclined. For the pseudo-scientist there is The Field (or whatever it's called) and bio-rhythms; the not too timids can go all the way in neo-paganism and Wicca. For fallen Christians Gnosticism and Da-Vinci-Code'ism is recommended (the latter formerly known - before a hoax was admitted and Mr Brown got away with plagiarism - as "the secret of the Priory of Sion", which was exciting and fun while it lasted, but was nonetheless a bit of a cult and seriously believed by lots of romantically inclined gullibles).

Besides that, we are told every day, implicit or explicit that all these, and each and every idea born of humanity, however barbaric, downright luny or brave and brilliant, are equally valid. (Christendom excepted, which supported very bad things in the past that The West did to other peoples.)

Each his or her own truth, depending on where you come from, your situation and particular place in the world.
Can you blame poor people from stealing a loaf of bread (supported by a Dutch bishop), or Africans for waging tribal wars (which is a result of the West's imperialism that drew arbitrary and unnatural borders between countries), or Indians for extensive navel-staring under coconut trees (this is what their faith tells them to do and is their way to cope with poverty), and so on, and so forth.
Besides, what to do in case of a paradox or a contradiction. The way out of that one and to keep the peace in the world, is by declaring them all equal. It is also fits our idea of democracy, egalite, n'est pas?

This is however ignoring what's plain to see for everybody who wants to. Stealing is not done, because that would end in Darwinian chaos, the strong knocking the weak over the head to get to a mobile phone. That would be a free for all in which no body's property would be safe anymore, so having any property would be senseless, so why should we work, etc.
African tribal warfare is equally of the stone age, and bad for obvious reasons (don't start me again on survival of the fittest, or mother earth being crushed by the sheer weight of so many people inhabiting it!).
While a people whose faith prescribes extensive navel staring as the highest good, would always remain poor and couldn't be dragged out of misery by all the development assistance in the world.

One could of course argue that only a westerner would think this way. We are always thinking in terms of economy, money and practicalities. That may be so, but why then is it that nobody in his right mind would advocate a anarchistic Darwinian society, Africans would come to the West en masse if they only could and Indians are by now also discovering starvation doesn't bring nirvana any nearer and what the benefits are of some basic earthly goods.

Of course it could be said that all these people see it the wrong way and are indoctrinated, believe in fairy-tales, et cetera, but how high is this chance? I know ... equally high as relativism is true.

Bizarre, bewildered and unconscious

Recently I've seen an interview with bizarre Borat (Sacha Baron Cohen) and frankly, I didn't think him all that funny. But now, it seems, he's got the Hysterical Women's Lib up in arms ("It doesn't really matter that a woman's brain is smaller than a man's", or words to that effect). Now I'm all for him. Long live Borat! That he may continue shocking the P.C.s for a very long time to come. In fact, I can even do better than that: here's The Unofficial Site! Watch, read, listen and imagine the indignation ... enjoy!


Which brings me to a very pressing bit of discourse, which I thought we were done with some forty years ago, when it became the done thing to poke fun at royalty, clergy and authority. Compared to what we are seeing today, makes what was done then, seem like a stroll in the park. Elsevier is reporting about a website (geenstijl.nl, no style dot nl) for youngsters (pfff, am I getting old!) which shows a girl being sick by undue cannabis use; this picture is obviously hilarious and the author is paid due homage as the true hero that he is. Clips and footage shown on this site are often undergoing an editing process for comic and unseemly result and never mind facts or truth. One of it's victims (who is no angel himself!) is considering legal action; the authors so confronted had one typical reaction: "Krijg de tyfus", which means exactly what you think it does! As if that is not representative enough of the moral and philosophical low ebb of the discourse, one commentator's contribution to the critical article in Elsevier is "your attempt at censoring annoys me" (Ik vind de sensuur ... storend"). Let us pray ... long and hard!


It's not all bad news though. The BBC is reporting that Pakistan's parliament has voted to amend the country's strict Sharia laws on rape and adultery. There may be some hope yet of bringing Islamic practice somewhat into step with what we have come to think of as universal human rights and civilization.


Back to polder now where a right-wing politician Marco Pastors, a follower of the assassinated Pim Fortuyn, makes no bones about the self-censorship under Islamic fundamentalist duress of journalists, comedians, columnists, politicians, and so on and so forth, in short the apologists, appeasers and cowards:

The islamization of The Netherlands resembles the growth of Nazism in Germany
in the twenties and thirties (red. of the last century). The extremists are setting the agenda and the establishment sits idle.

It's a bit of a tall order (?) and it is after all campaign time, but I am reserving judgment until 20 years from now.