Truth Among Murder Victims As Left Tries To Make Jared Loughner A Republican

Pilate therefore said to Him, “So You are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say correctly that I am a king. For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.”  Pilate said to Him, “What is truth?” – John 18:37-38

Well, one thing’s for sure: the truth sure isn’t what the Democrat rhetoric is spouting in the aftermath of the Tucson, AZ shooting that resulted in the wounding of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords among 19 shooting victims, with six killed.

I was amazed to see the thousands of hits an old article I wrote had recently generated.  The reason?  Democrats who had demonized Sarah Palin for her “targeting strategy” – which Democrats themselves routinely do – are now demonizing her again because one of the vulnerable districts Palin identified well over a year ago was Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ District 8.

As Democrats galore shrilly and viciously attack Sarah Palin for her “targeting,” what is conveniently ignored is that liberals not only targeted Gabrielle Giffords for defeat, but literally said “she’s dead.”

But “what is truth?” for these people?  An inconvenient obstacle to be overcome, at most.

I was also amazed that the White House literally used Fox News to pass off clear and demonstrable lies associating a conservative organization with Jared Loughner.

Incredibly, the Pima Country sheriff – elected as a Democrat – without a single shred of supporting evidence, has repeatedly denounced conservatives as being somehow to blame for the shootings in blatantly partisan and irresponsible manner.

“What is truth?”  Don’t ask Democrat Sheriff Clarence Dupnik.

And then there are the “Jared Loughner Facebook accounts” which “have all right wing books, websites, and people that he points to.”  Just more false flag operations by Democrats to falsely associate conservatives with the psycho assassin.

This crap just never ends. It doesn’t matter to these lying propagandists one iota that if anything, Jared Loughner was a liberal, rather than any kind of conservative.

Here’s yet another depraved Democrat attempt to deceive:

Loughner “Republican” Voter Registration faked. Three points that demonstrate that.
Posted on 01/10/2011 6:14:13 AM PST by Lazamataz

This document is circulating, purportedly showing Jared Loughner is a registered Republican.

There are two reasons why the document is faked, and one official proclamation that undermines it:

• TUCSON is spelled TUSCON. People who live in a city do not mispell it’s name.

• If you go to the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission website and put in the address listed on this “registration” it comes up in Senator District 26. This fraud voter reg says District 27. (Hat tip, Brytani)

• Chris Roads, Pima County Registrar of Voters, declares that Jared Loughner is registered as an independent. First registered in 2006. http://azstarnet.com/news/local/crime/article_78272a23-fe75-5bee-ba38-f8171cda3fb7.html

A blatantly partisan ideologue Newsweek “journalist” isn’t one bit disappointed in the sea of lies that characterize the Democrat response to this tragedy.  Far from it:

“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste,” Rahm Emanuel famously said in 2008. The same goes for a shooting spree that gravely wounds a beloved congresswoman. Congress won’t enact gun control, as it did in the wake of the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy in 1968, but perhaps something positive can come from this.

This little Joseph Goebbels minion basically wants Barack Obama to deliver a “State of the Reich” Address and demagogue this tragic shooting into a demand to round up all the conservatives and put them in camps.

The strategy that the little Newsweek rodent recommends has been successfully tried in the past – by one Adolf Hitler.  Let us hope that the “new bipartisan Obama” (although there is this caveat) is now getting his advice from more humans and fewer rodents.

Democrats and their media lackeys are decrying the “angry” or “hateful” rhetoric which caused this shooting en masse.  And, of course, they mean “conservative” and “Republican” “angry” or “hateful” rhetoric.

But why would anyone think that?  Apart from the fact that they are ideologues and propagandists, I mean?  There’s no evidence whatsoever that Jared Loughner EVER listened to “right wing talk radio,” or supported Sarah Palin, or was a member of the tea party, or even cared about charged political issues such as health care.  The evidence is, rather, that he was severely mentally sick and living in his own twisted world.

They make the prima facia claim (with little or no supporting argument) that the angry partisan political climate can set off the mentally unbalanced.  Which is itself a mentally unbalanced claim to make.

A few things, there.  First, if this is so, and they really believe that, then how do they justify the eight incredibly angry years of “Bush derangement syndrome”?  Why was it not true when Republicans were in power, but not true now that Democrats are in power?  The mainstream media is far too pathologically biased and dishonest to show you that the WORST “climate of hate” comes from the left.

Second, why do Democrats, if they really believe their own crap, continue to make such bitter and polarizing comments if such comments can push the already unhinged over the edge?  Take our liberal propagandist “sheriff, for instance:

“When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government — the anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country, is getting to be outrageous,” Dupnik said Sunday.

It’s clear who the sheriff has in mind. As he told Fox News’ Megyn Kelly: “We see one party trying to block the attempts of another party to make this a better country. … We as a country need to look into our souls and into our hearts and say is what we’re doing really in the best interest of this country, or is there something better we can do.”

Got that? The shooting was motivated by the rhetoric of “one party” — the Republicans — trying to stop the Democrats from making this “a better country.” Talk about “hate speech.”

Let me ask you, just for the sake of argument.  Suppose that there is some crazed liberal out there in the wings.  And said crazed liberal hears his law enforcement say, “We see [the Republican] Party trying to block the attempts of [the Democrat] Party to make this a better country.”  And, of course, he’s aghast.  What can be done to stop this evil Republican Party from keeping the Democrats from finally making this “a better country”???

Something must be done.  Someone must act.  By any means necessary.  Including – maybe even embracing – violence.

How does this not follow on their own rhetoric???

Didn’t Obama command, “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun”?

The president beamed his command into my brain to bring a gun to the Republican congressman’s meet-and-greet.

Didn’t Obama command, “I want you to argue with them and get in their face.”?

“Yes!  YES!  Get in their face.  With a gun!  And then pull the trigger!”

Didn’t Obama tell his followers to “punish our enemies”?  With said “enemies” being Republicans?

“My client says he had to punish those Republican congressmen.  He says the president commanded him to kill those congressmen.”

Now, to set the record straight, having pointed out just a few of Obama’s comments, I don’t think Obama was calling for violence.  Because, apparently unlike Democrats, I possess the moral intelligence to understand that he was using the same sort of common metaphors as Sarah Palin has when she has said, “Don’t retreat, reload.”  And, on the flip side, I realize that if Sarah Palin is a disgrace, then the president of the United States is far more so, given the very office from which he has said these things.

A reasonable person can’t help but be confused at the constant double-standard that comes from Democrats.  If this kind of rhetoric is wrong, if it leads to violence, then why do they keep doing it themselves???  And why do they denounce Republicans even while they themselves are doing the very thing they say is evil to do???  And how do their skulls not explode from containing all the contradictions???

Let me offer something that happened to me a couple of years ago to show how political rhetoric – whether “angry” or “hateful” or not – has little if anything to do with setting off an unhinged mind.

A very sweet lady in my church asked several of her friends to help her with a big garage sale she wanted to have.  Being a sweet lady, she asked the police if it was okay to put out signs around town notifying drivers of her yard sale.  Which most people just do.  And, being a sweet lady, when the police told her people weren’t supposed to put out such signage, she didn’t do it.  Which meant that her yard sale – with all the effort that went into it – was twisting in the wind.

So I made a nice, big sign that said “Yard Sale” along with the address, drove to the main drag in town, and waved that darned thing around to first the northbound traffic, then the southbound traffic, and so on and so forth.  And when I came back a couple hours later, I was assured that my incredibly soul-numbing boredom had not been in vain: a lot of people suddenly started showing up.

I love sweet little old ladies.  And don’t you dare mess with one while I’m anywhere nearby, if you like your teeth.

Well, all that was to bring up something that happened while I was holding that sign that merely said “YARD SALE” with a house address.  A woman walking on the sidewalk came up to me, took a look at the sign, and screamed, “Yard Sale!  YARD SALE!”  And just went off on me in an uncontrollable rant for two or three minutes.

I never said a single word to her.  There was no point.  She was clearly not in her right mind, and there’s no point trying to argue with or reason with deranged people.

And the point is, anything can set these people off.  Absolutely anything.  Even the words “Yard Sale” on a cardboard sign, accompanied by the probably wide-eyes of a helpless man staring into the bulging eyeballs of the insane.

It’s not a matter of “avoid the anger.”  Avoid everything.  Shut down the economy.  Close the stores.  Stay in your homes.  Shut off all the television and radio stations.  Make tinfoil hats.  Because even your very thoughtwaves can set these people off.

So this notion that Republicans and conservatives must “tone down the hate” – while of course Democrats may continue to feel free to unleash hell – is so paranoid and so unhinged that I can’t help but watch these Democrats and these reporters and see the face of that whacked-out woman going off on me about my yard sale sign.

Sheriff Dupnik saying that what people hear on the radio and on television makes them do the things they do could well come right out of the brain of Jared Loughner, who merely replaces “radio and television” with “government.”  It’s equally insane.

I can easily picture the “sheriff,” and liberals like Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow cringing in lead-lined bunkers hoping that their tinfoil hats are thick enough to prevent Sarah Palin – who already lives rent-free in their heads – from taking over that final molecule and forcing them to do her evil bidding.

That’s basically the message of the left right now: “Put on your tinfoil hats, people!  Because your all in danger of having your minds commandeered by rightwing hate!”

And, at risk of boring you, that was precisely what Jared Loughner’s disturbed and paranoid brain feared: mind control.

This Jared Loughner guy wasn’t livid over ObamaCare or the stimulus or anything based in reality; he was frothing at the mouth over the government being behind the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center, he was furious over the government taking over our brains by controlling grammar, he was enthralled with his bizarre dreams, that sort of thing.  He was as disconnected from politics as he was from the rest of reality.  Loughner once confronted Rep. Giffords with a question that made no sense.  And when she basically ignored it, his warped mind apparently fixated on her.

To make the Democrats’ despicable argument all the more so, based on their view, you could reasonably blame Gabrielle Giffords for the shooting.  Jared Loughner was listening to her, and she clearly didn’t say the right thing – which incited him to violence.

Every single journalist and every single politician who demands that people – and particularly conservative people – tone down their political views should be immediately discredited as nothing more than despicable ideological hacks.

What we are seeing is the murder of seven victims.  Not just six.  The seventh is truth, which is now being contorted and ripped beyond the breaking point for the sake of partisan political ideology.

And I’ll end by saying this: the record of history could not be more clear: the worse monsters in political history have without fail been those who have demanded that their opponents be silent.  The last thing we should ever want to follow is the political rationale that says, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.”

Katie Couric Demonstrates How Moral Idiot Left Will Surrender America To Sharia

Glenn Beck (and yes, I know I’ve already lost most liberals, who believe that no matter how factually true something is, if it comes from Fox News or a Glenn Beck, it can be demonized and disregarded) had the following to say about renowned profoundly progressive journalist Walter Lippmann from his book Phantom Public:

In fact, the media is engaged in open propaganda for this administration. Not merely bias — what are you, nuts? They’re following a proud heritage of propagandists before them that began, as you might expect, if you’re a regular watcher of the show, around the time of — oh, I don’t know — what is his name? Woodrow Wilson.

One of Wilson’s close advisors was this guy, Walter Lippmann. He is a journalist who considered himself an icon among the liberal media, and the liberal media agrees. His methods and ideas are taught in college to our journalism students to this today.

You should read some of his books. I wonder if the people in his college that love him so much have actually read — oh, I don’t know — this is an original. This one is “Phantom Public.” You should read it. Spooky!

But what they teach in college is public opinion. These are things that these journalists are taught as a good thing. Quote, “News and truth are not the same thing.”

And quote, “The common interests very largely elude public opinion entirely and can be managed only by a specialized class whose personal interests reach beyond the locality.”

In other words, you’re just too stupid. You don’t know it’s bad for you so we need a group of guys like this. Who has a big head and he can explain everything so we know it’s all for our own good.

Thank you very much. In fact, he believes that most citizens — and you’re going to love this, quote, “are mentally children.” Did you say that? Or barbarians. I can’t imagine why the journalists don’t just think this is guy is awful.

Things are starting to make sense now, aren’t they, about why you see journalists report the things that they do and treat the American people the way they do. Yes, they needed to be guided by intellectuals such as Walter Lippmann.

And hence the origin of the mainstream media class of journalistic snobbery; they’re better than you, they’re liberal as hell (and hellish as liberals), and whatever they think is right merely because they think it.  And of course they’re better than the 80% of the country who don’t share their values.

Katie Couric And Mo Rocca Show Us Why We’re Going To Lose Our Freedom To Sharia
Posted on January 1, 2011 by John L. Work

With thanks to Doug Powers over at Michelle Malkin’s site Hey.  Want to know why we’re headed toward losing this War against the forces of Islam – the same ones that declared eternal war on the World of Infidels way back in the 7^th Century?  Watch this CBS video clip, featuring Katie Couric as the host, with Mo Rocca as a guest, in a discussion on the alleged terrible bigotry and hate that Katie says America has exhibited toward Muslims (I removed their stuttering in my transcription):

http://michellemalkin.com/2010/12/31/katie-couric-maybe-we-need-a-muslim-version-of-the-cosby-show/

KC:  I also think sort of the chasm between, or the bigotry expressed against Muslims in this country has been one of the most disturbing stories to surface this year.  Of course, a lot of noise was made about the Islamic center – mosque down near the World Trade Center.  But I think there wasn’t enough sort of careful evaluation of where this bigotry toward one point five billion Muslims world-wide, and how this seething hatred many people feel for all Muslims, which I think is so misdirected and so wrong, and so disappointing.

MR:  And you know one thing, I don’t know about you or either of you guys, but I’m pretty smart, and I cannot tell you…

KC:  (interrupts) We’ll be the judge of that, Mo.

MR:  …I mean I went to really fancy schools.  I cannot tell you five things about Islam.  I know almost nothing about a major world religion that sits at the intersection of so many issues that are undeniably relevant to all of us.  And I’m embarrassed.  I mean I know nothing about Islam.

KC:  Maybe we need a Muslim version of The Cosby Show.

MR:  Interesting.

KC:  I know that sounds crazy, but the Cosby Show did so much to change attitudes about African Americans in this country and I think sometimes people are afraid of things they don’t understand.  Like you, Mo.  You know, you’re saying you don’t know that much, your not afraid of it, but that you’re sort of, don’t have enough knowledge about it, but maybe if it became more part of the popular (inaudible)…

MR:  (interrupts)  Well, I think that religion should just be taught as an academic subject in public schools…

KC:  (interrupts)  I totally agree with you.

MR:  …much more.  The fear of it, it’s so misguided and the interpretation of separation between church and state…

KC:  Alright.  Let’s change the subject in something a little less heavy.

End of clip

I rest my case.  For years this is what we’ve been force-fed by our media and by our elected officials about Islam.  Mindless apologist pabulum.  Ignorance.  Abject denial of reality.  Obstinate refusal to do a little homework and study.  If these so-called media icons had any real grip on the actual doctrines and practice of Sharia in Muslim states, they’d be damned afraid of it taking over here in the U.S.A.

Better to die free than to submit to Sharia.

It doesn’t really matter what the issue is; the mainstream media is waaaayy to the left of the rest of the nation’s values in its “reporting.”

So, for example, we can take the very issue that Katie Couric is lecturing America on – the Ground Zero mosque – and we can take her own CBS network’s polling.

From CBS:

NEW YORK (CBS 2) – Most Americans are against building a controversial mosque near Ground Zero, a CBS news poll has found.

According to the poll results,  only 22 percent of Americans surveyed think it’s appropriate to build the mosque and cultural center two blocks away, on Park Place.

On the other hand, 71 percent who responded said they think it’s not appropriate for the facility to go up so close to the World Trade Center site.

But, don’t you see?  “Most Americans” are QUOTE “mentally children,” and  so your beliefs and values can be disregarded.  And if the Katie Courics of the world simply have to flat-out lie to you, well, you’re too freaking stupid to understand the truth anyway.  And, as the great progressive big government bureaucrat Pontius Pilate famously asked, “What is truth?” (John 18:38), anyway?*

And public opinion needs to be managed by that “specialized class” of liberal elites.  Because, after all, liberal progressives have replaced God with themselves and with their superior ideas.  Just ask them.

Fellow progressive elitest “god-complexer” Bill Maher put the mindset well:

MAHER: Right, right. Uh, but, yeah, I mean, you know, they’re talking about 60 votes they need. Forget this stuff, 60…. You can’t get Americans to agree on anything 60 percent. Sixty percent of people don’t believe in evolution in this country.

He just needs to drag them to it. Like I just said, they’re stupid. Just drag them to this.  Get health care done, you know, with or without them. Make the Gang of Six an offer they can’t refuse. This Max Baucus guy? He needs to wake up tomorrow with an intern’s head in his bed.

That’s the amazing thing about liberals.  They are totally fascists; but they are such complete moral idiots that they don’t KNOW they’re fascists.

It would actually be funny, if these people weren’t so dangerous, and hadn’t amassed so much power and control which has enabled them to decide who wins and who loses.

And so they constantly lecture the right even as they do the above, and even as they try repeatedly to impose their oxymoronically-named “Fairness Doctrine,” and even as they now impose their again oxymoronically-named “Net Neutrality” to gain control over the internet.

But getting back to Sharia: it’s not that the left hates religion (atheism itself is a religion, you know, and “state atheism” is the religion of communism); it’s that the left despises Judeo-Christianity and everything it stands for.  And the left agrees with radical Islam that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”  Hence the left is all but openly aligning itself with radical Islam and sheltering the movement by demonizing anyone who would criticize it.  Why?  Because Islam becomes another device by which the left can demonize their more hated enemy, Judeo-Christianity, by depicting it as “intolerant” and “hateful.”   And after Christianity is undermined, liberals believe (naively and stupidly) that they can somehow reason with or appease the Islamists.

Which, again, is something only a true moral idiot would think.

I’m certainly not the only one who has perceived a liberal love affair with radical Islam; and I’m not the only one who has seen a liberal-Muslim axis.  And while liberals are too morally moronic to see themselves in this violent power-worshiping movement, all I have to do is say things like “Weather Underground,” “Black Panthers,” “Students for a Democratic Society,” all I have to do is name liberal icons such as “Che Guevara” or Charles Manson (as I once demonstrated to a particularly rabid liberal jerk once).

The fact of the matter is that liberals love violent revolutionary movements.

It’s funny.  General Eisenhower very prominently used the term “Crusade” – that came right out of Christendom – to describe the Allies’ war with and defeat of the evil forces of socialism (Nazi = National Socialist German Workers Party).  The fact of the matter is that Christendom has been the backbone that has allowed the West to stand up and fight its enemies since the first Crusade.

Which is to say that the day “progressivism” supposedly “wins” in its war on Judeo-Christianity, it will lose itself and all the values such as individual liberty that it never deserved in the first place.  And then progressives will get the totalitarian-tyrant they have always truly deserved.

As I’ve pointed out before, the beast is coming.

Fake Job Creation: What’s Good For The Goose Is Good For the Obama

When Obama forced and rushed his stimulus through Congress by fearmongering down the economy and predicting catastrophe if his $3.27 stimulus porker wasn’t passed, he offered a carrot: pass his stimulus, his administration promised, and he would be able to keep unemployment under 8%:

The forecasts used to drum up support for the plan projected today’s unemployment would be about 8 percent. Instead, it sits at 9.4 percent, the highest in more than 25 years.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/08/obamas-stimulus-promise-m_n_212420.html

And Zero has created zero jobs ever since, as the unemployment rate climbed, and climbed to near 10% – and is expected to keep on climbing.  But don’t let that stop the Obama White House for figuring out creative ways to pat itself on the back for a job done wonderfully.

A sticky little situation that New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine got caught in is very illustrative.  It appears that Corzine decided to embark on the same tactic his president has used.

Corzine aides told to ‘stretch’ truth

TRENTON, N.J. | New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine’s Cabinet has been told to orchestrate events to showcase job creation, even if it’s “a stretch.”

Mr. Corzine, a Democrat, is locked in a tight race for re-election with Republican Chris Christie and polls show the economy is a major issue.

The Star-Ledger of Newark obtained an Oct. 5 e-mail from Mr. Corzine’s deputy chief of staff, Mark Matzen.  He asked the heads of several departments to come up with events that “get our message out” that Mr. Corzine’s economic policies are working.

Mr. Matzen went on to say that while many programs might not create jobs directly, they do have some connection through “training, giving money to sustain employment or create demand for workers.”

Corzine spokesman Steve Sigmund says the effort doesn’t have anything to do with the campaign.

Yeah, Steve.  And every article I’ve written has actually been plugging for Obama.

We get a profound sense that we are being governed by weasels.  Here are just a few of my own articles from May and June pointing out just how deceitfully “Corzinesh” the Obama White House has been:

Obama Wreckovery Act And Stimulus ‘Employment’: The Pathetic Reality

Obama And Unemployment: Just So You Know How Pathetically Incompetent Dear Leader Is

Obama Reveals His Porkulus Was Bogus In His Own Bogus Claims

Biden Falsely Claims 150,000 Jobs Created By Stimulus: And Never Mind Those 2.6 Million Jobs LOST

Those were yesterdays ridiculous lies.  Today’s lies are even more ridiculous:

Vice President Joe Biden delivered a rousing review of the government’s economic stimulus plan in a conversation with the nation’s governors. “In my wildest dreams, I never thought it would work this well,” he said. “Thank you, thank you.”

The actual unemployment rate is now at 17%.  From the AP:

More than a half-million unemployed people gave up looking for work last month. If laid-off workers who have settled for part-time work or have given up looking for new jobs are included, the unemployment rate rose to 17 percent, the highest on records dating from 1994.

Things couldn’t be going better, could they?

Meanwhile, even liberals are now beginning to realize what a pathetic bust Obama has been at creating jobs.

And only 43% of the voters would vote to re-elect Obama.

Some Thoughts On The Russian Invasion Of Georgia

Vladimir Putin – who is most likely as much in control of Russia as he ever was – has said that the collapse of the U.S.S.R. ranks as “the greatest political catastrophe in history” and claimed that its reintegration was a matter of “historical destiny.” And he has been working for years toward reunifying and synchronizing the former Soviet empire under Russian rule.

But this was an empire that Ronald Reagan described as evil. The great and just passed Soviet dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn provided the intellectual and moral grounds for that assignation in his Harvard address, “A World Split Apart.” Solzhenitsyn began by saying, “Harvard’s motto is Veritas” (i.e., truth). And then he proceeded to launch into a sobering examination of Veritas.

It was a speech that excoriated not only the Soviet Union, but also the West for its immorality, materialism, and godlessness. It provoked outrage among liberal academia and sparked indignant editorials in the liberal media. “He believes himself to be in possession of The Truth,” the New York Times editorialized in what amounted to the ultimate postmodernist condemnation, “and so sees error wherever he looks.” But other columnists, such as Michael Novak, called the address, “The most important religious document of our time.”

Solzhenistsyn’s address raised postmodern issues and examined history in a distinctly Christian way. Its very title alluded to the postmodern condition: “A World Split Apart.” He affirmed traditional cultures against the all-encompassing mass culture of Western secularism. He dissected the West’s materialism and concern for comfort and pleasure, which he argued had drained away our capacity for courage and sacrifice. he deplored the way our laws had been disconnected from morality. “Society has turned out to have scarce defense against the abyss of human decadence, for example against the misuse of liberty for moral violence against young people, such as motion pictures full of pornography, crime, and horror,” he said. He blasted the irresponsibility of the news media and the West’s “TV stupor.” Your scholars are free in the legal sense,” he said, “but they are hemmed in by the idols of the prevailing fad.” He attacked “humanism which has lost its Christian heritage,” and cited the obsolescence of the “ossified formulas of the Enlightenment.”

Solzhenistsyn’s point was that the West had largely forfeited the moral and intellectual resources needed to confront genuine evil. With no absolute canons of objective truth, the moral and even the rational is replaced by the aesthetic. We believe in what we like. Today, people unused to thinking in terms of absolute, objective truth still have opinions and strongly held beliefs. In fact, their beliefs prove to be even more difficult to dislodge, because they admit to no ultimate external criteria by which they can be judged and be shown to be wrong. Since their beliefs are a function of the will, they cling to them willfully. Since their beliefs will tend to have no foundation other than their preferences and personality, they will interpret any criticism of their beliefs as a personal attack. Engage practically anyone in a discussion of some controversial issue today, and this problem will show itself.

As evil rises on the march, how do we confront it, when we do not even believe that it exists or know what it is? How can we unify to stop it when we are fractured into this identity group or that? How do we rise up and sacrifice to stop such evil when we are focused on our immediate comforts and environments?

Russia under former KGB officer Vladimir Putin has largely eradicated the fledgling democracy that had slowly been building and embracing a totalitarian state.

We are in a malaise. And I believe that it is the outrage over that malaise that prompted Paul Zannucci to write what he described as “an unadulterated rant.”

It sounds like the Russians are ceasing their military operations. Whether they will now consolidate their gains, or withdraw, is an open question. Very likely they will do the former, and the democratically elected government will give way to a Russian-installed puppet government. Certainly the two Georgian provinces that were leaning toward Russia will be seized from Georgia.

But this is very likely not the end of Russian maneuvers in their former satellites. Ukraine is very likely next. After the dust-up from Georgia begins to settle, I believe we will see Russia begin to exercise the same under-the-radar political strong-arm tactics that it used against Georgia prior to the shooting.

Ultimately, I believe that a coalition based on mutual self-interests will form between Russia and Islam. Russia wants its former satellites back; Muslims want Israel to be wiped off the map. And the large Muslim populations of eastern Europe may agree to Russian headship if Russia helps them annihilate the state of Israel.

We can already see this alliance forming, as Russia increasingly forms a military alliance with the rogue Islamic state of Iran.

And that is probably a major part of the America hesitation in dealing with the Russian invasion of Georgia: if we alienate Russia, they won’t help us reign in the nuclear ambitions of Iran.

My view is this: if we are counting on Russia – which has actively been aiding Iran’s nuclear ambitions by providing equipment and expertise – to help us dissuade Iran from doing what it has repeatedly asserted that it is intent upon doing, then we might as well be waiting for a cold day in hell.

Do we have the moral will to prevent these frightening scenarios from unfolding?

If we look back to Hitler’s Nazi Germany, we see Hitler boldly moving on one of his neighbors (e.g., Czechoslovakia, Poland), and then waiting to see what the international reaction would be. When he sensed the reaction was weak, he moved again. And he kept moving in bolder and bolder fashion until a pacifistic West finally woke up to a global conflagration that it had failed both to prevent or even to prepare for.

Most of the world – including our “allies” in the West – have succumbed to a malaise that is frighteningly similar to that of their ancestors. Our European allies have come to believe that we can appease evil by compromising and bargaining with it. Military action is to be avoided at all cost.

Meanwhile, our enemies feel no such similar constraints about using military action and/or terrorism to obtain their ends.

We can no longer count on our allies to truly stand with us. It is up to the United States to realize that evil can no more be contained than cancer, that cancer spreads unless destroyed, and that force must be met with force. Meanwhile, more and more of our enemies and former enemies are beginning to take steps that will lead to terrifying consequences in the years to come unless they are stopped.

Let me say, by way of a political observation, that the United States cannot prevent or stand against evil by becoming more like our European allies. Both the history of human civilization and a study of the great religious systems of man tell us that we cannot compromise with evil. Winston Churchill did not argue that we should be like Europe when it surrendered and compromised and ignored the storm that was overtaking it; he argued that Britain had to stand against Nazi fascism with everything it had. We must stand against evil. Even if that means standing alone.

It’s going to be up to the United States and Israel to contain Iran’s nuclear ambitions. And it’s primarily going to be up to the United States to contain Russia’s ambition to restore its former Soviet-era territorial greatness.

Can we mobilize the awareness, the courage, and the willingness to sacrifice to prevent these things from happening?

Only if we begin by listening to the warning of the late, great Alexander Solzhenitsyn.

Fighting For Survival Means Fighting For Truth – by Newt Gingrich

Sleepwalking Into a Nightmare: Newt Gingrich’s Remarks to a Jewish National Fund Meeting at the Selig Center

“Good evening.

I just want to talk to you from the heart for a few minutes tonight, and share with you where I think we are.

I think it is very stark. I don’t think it is yet desperate, but it is very stark. And if I had a title for tonight’s talk, it would be ‘Sleepwalking Into a Nightmare’, because that’s what I think we’re doing.

I gave a speech at the American Enterprise Institute recently, at which I gave an alternative history of the last six years, because the more I thought about how much we’re failing, the more I concluded you couldn’t just nitpick individual places and talk about individual changes because it didn’t capture the scale of the disaster. And I had been particularly impressed by a new book that came out called ‘Troublesome Young Men’, which is a study of the younger Conservatives who opposed appeasement in the 1930s and who took on Chamberlain. It’s a very revealing book and a very powerful book because we tend to look backwards and we tend to overstate Churchill’s role in that period. And we tend to understate what a serious and conscientious and thoughtful effort appeasement was and that it was the direct and deliberate policy of very powerful and very willful people. We tend to think of it as a psychological weakness as though Chamberlain was somehow craven. He wasn’t craven. Chamberlain had a very clear vision of the World, and he was very ruthless domestically.

And they believed so deeply in avoiding war with Germany that as late as the spring of 1940, when they are six months or seven months into the war, they are dropping leaflets instead of bombs on the Rohr, and they are urging the British news media not to publish anti-German stories because they don’t want to offend the German people. And you read this book, and it makes you want to weep because, interestingly, the younger Tories who were most opposed to appeasement were the combat veterans of World War I, who had lost all of their friends in the war but who understood that the failure of appeasement would result in a worse war and that the longer you lied about reality, the greater the disaster.

And they were severely punished and isolated by Chamberlain and the Conservative machine, and as I read that, I realized that that’s really where we are today. Our current problem is tragic. You have an administration whose policy is inadequate being opposed by a political Left whose policy is worse, and you have nobody prepared to talk about the policy we need. Because we are told, ‘if you are for a strong America, you should back the Bush policy even if it’s inadequate’, and so you end up making an argument in favor of something that can’t work. So your choice is to defend something which isn’t working, or to oppose it by being for an even weaker policy. And this is a catastrophe for this country, and a catastrophe for freedom around the world. Because we have refused to be honest about the scale of the problem.

Let me work backwards. I’m going to get to Iran, since that’s the topic, but I’m going to get to it eventually.

Let me work back from Pakistan. The dictatorship in Pakistan has never had control over Waziristan. Not for a single day. So we’ve now spent six years since 9/11 with a sanctuary for Al-Qaida, and a sanctuary for the Taliban, and every time we pick up people in Great Britain who are terrorists, they were trained in Pakistan.

And our answer is to praise Musharraf, because at least he’s not as bad as the others. But the truth is Musharraf has not gotten control of terrorism in Pakistan. Musharraf doesn’t have full control over his own government. The odds are even money we’re going to drift into a disastrous dictatorship at some point in Pakistan. And while we worry about the Iranians acquiring a nuclear weapon, the Pakistanis already have them. So why would you feel secure in a world where you could presently have an Islamist dictatorship in Pakistan with a hundred-plus nuclear weapons? What’s our grand strategy for that?

Then you look at Afghanistan. Here’s a country that’s small, poor, isolated, and in six years we have not been able to build roads, create economic opportunity, wean people off of growing drugs. A third of the Afghani GDP is from drugs. We haven’t been able to end the sanctuary for the Taliban in Pakistan. And I know of no case historically where you defeat a guerrilla movement if it has a sanctuary. So the people who rely on the West are out bribed by the criminals, outgunned by the criminals, and faced with a militant force across the border which practiced earlier defeating the Soviet empire and which has a time horizon of three or four generations. NATO has a time horizon of each quarter or at best a year, facing an opponent whose time horizon is literally three or four generations. It’s a total mismatch.

Then you come to the direct threat to the United States, which is al-Qaeda. About which, by the way, we just published polls. One of the sites I commend to you is AmericanSolutions.com. Last Wednesday we posted six national surveys, $428,000 worth of data. We gave it away. I found myself in the unique position of calling Howard Dean to tell him I was giving him $400,000 worth of polling. We have given it away to Democrats and Republicans alike. It is fundamentally different from the national news media. When asked the question “Do we have an obligation to defend the United States and her allies?” the answer is 85 percent yes. When asked a further question “Should we defeat our enemies?” – it’s very strong language – the answer is 75 percent yes.

So the complaint about Iraq is a performance complaint, not a values complaint.

When asked whether or not al-Qaeda is a threat, 89 percent of the country says yes. And they think you have to defeat it, you can’t negotiate with it. So now let’s look at al-Qaeda and the rise of Islamist terrorism. And let’s be honest: What’s the primary source of money for al-Qaeda? It’s you, re-circulated through Saudi Arabia. Because we have no national energy strategy, when clearly if you really cared about liberating the United States from the Middle East and if you really cared about the survival of Israel, one of your highest goals would be to move to a hydrogen economy, and to eliminate petroleum as a primary source of energy

Now that’s what a serious national strategy would look like, but that would require an actual change.

So then you look at Saudi Arabia. The fact that we tolerate a country saying no Christian and no Jew can go to Mecca, and we start with the presumption that that’s true, while they attack Israel for being a religious state, is a sign of our timidity, our confusion, our cowardice, that is stunning.

It’s not complicated. We invited Saudi Arabia to come to Annapolis to talk about rights for Palestinians when nobody said, “Let’s talk about rights for Christians and Jews in Saudi Arabia. Let’s talk about rights for women in Saudi Arabia.”

So we accept this totally one-sided definition of the world, in which our enemies can cheerfully lie on television every day, and we don’t even have the nerve to insist on the truth. We pretend their lies are reasonable. This is a very fundamental problem. And if you look at who some of the largest owners of some of our largest banks are today … they’re Saudis.

You keep pumping billions of dollars a year into countries like Venezuela, Iran and Saudi Arabia, and Russia, and you are presently going to have created people who oppose you, who have lots of money. And they’re then going to come back to your own country and finance, for example, Arab study institutes whose only requirement is that they never tell the truth. So you have all sorts of Ph.D.’s who now show up quite cheerfully prepared to say whatever it is that makes their founders happy — in the name, of course, of academic freedom. In this context, why wouldn’t Columbia host a genocidal madman? It’s just part of political correctness. I mean, Ahmadinejad may say terrible things; he may lock up students, he may kill journalists, he may say, “We should wipe out Israel,” he may say, “We should defeat the United States,” but after all, what has he done that’s inappropriate? What has he done that wouldn’t be repeated at a Hollywood cocktail party or a nice gathering in Europe?

And nobody says, ‘this is totally, utterly, absolutely unacceptable’. Why is it that the number-one threat in intelligence movies is always the CIA? I happened the other night to be watching an old movie, ‘To Live and Die in L.A.’, which is about counterfeiting. But the movie starts with a Secret Service agent who is defending Ronald Reagan in 1985, and the person he is defending Ronald Reagan from is a suicide bomber who is actually, overtly, a Muslim fanatic. Now, six years after 9/11, you could not get that same scene made in Hollywood today.

Just look at the movies. Why is it that the bad person has to be either a right-wing crazed billionaire, or the CIA as a government agency? Go look at the ‘Bourne Ultimatum’. Or a movie like the one that George Clooney made, which was an absolute lie, in which it was implied that if you were a reformist Arab prince, the CIA would kill you. It’s a total lie. We actually have SEALS protecting people all over the world. We actually risk American lives protecting reformers all over the world, and yet Hollywood can’t bring itself to tell the truth, because (a) it’s ideologically opposed to the American government and the American military; and (b), because it’s terrified that if it said something really openly, honestly truthful about Muslim terrorists, they might show up in Hollywood, and somebody might be killed as the Dutch producer was killed. They’re cowards.

And so we’re living a life of cowardice, and in that life of cowardice we’re sleepwalking into a nightmare.

And then you come to Iran. There’s a terrific book. Mark Bowden is a remarkable writer who wrote ‘Black Hawk Down’, has enormous personal courage. He’s a Philadelphia newspaper writer, actually got the money out of the Philadelphia newspaper to go to Somalia to interview the Somalian side of ‘Black Hawk Down’. It’s a remarkable achievement. Tells a great story about getting to Somalia, paying lots of cash, having the local warlord protect him, and after about two weeks the warlord came to him and said, “You know, we’ve decided that we’re very uncomfortable with you being here, and you should leave.”

And so he goes to the hotel, where he is the only hard-currency guest, and says, “I’ve got to check out two weeks early because the warlord has told me that he no longer will protect me.” And the hotel owner, who wants to keep his only hard-currency guest, says, “Well, why are you listening to him? He’s not the government. There is no government.” And Bowden says, “Well, what will I do?” And he says, “You hire a bigger warlord with more guns,” which he did. But then he could only stay one week because he ran out of money.

But this is a guy with real courage. I mean, imagine trying to go out and be a journalist in that kind of world, OK? So Bowden came back and wrote ‘Guest of the Ayatollah’, which is the Iranian hostage of 1979, which he entitled, ‘The First Shots in Iran’s War Against America.’ So in the Bowden world view, the current Iranian dictatorship has been at war with the United States since 1979. Violated international law. Every conceivable tenet of international law was violated when they seized the American Embassy and they seized the diplomats. Killed Americans in Lebanon in the early ’80s. Killed Americans at Khobar Towers in ’95 and had the Clinton administration deliberately avoid revealing the information, as Louis Freeh, the Director of the FBI, has said publicly, because they didn’t want to have to confront the Iranian complicity.

And so you have an Iranian regime which is cited annually as the leading supporter of state terrorism in the world. Every year the State Department says that. It’s an extraordinary act of lucidity on the part of an institution which seeks to avoid it as often as possible And you have Gen. Petraeus come to the U.S. Congress and say publicly in an open session, “The Iranians are waging a proxy war against Americans in Iraq.”

I was so deeply offended by this, it’s hard for me to express it without sounding irrational. I’m an Army Brat. My dad served 27 years in the infantry. The idea that an American general would come to the American Congress, testify in public that our young men and women are being killed by Iran, and we have done nothing, I find absolutely abhorrent So I’m preparing to come and talk today. I got up this morning, and a friend had sent me yesterday’s Jerusalem Post editorial, which if you haven’t read, I recommend to you. It has, for example, the following quote: “On Monday, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said, ‘The problem of the content of the document setting out joint principles for peace-making post-Annapolis has not been resolved. One of the more pressing problems is the Zionist regime’s insistence on being recognized as a Jewish state. We will not agree to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. There is no country in the world where religious and national identities are intertwined.’

What truly bothers me is the shallowness and the sophistry of the Western governments, starting with our own. When a person says to you, “I don’t recognize that you exist,” you don’t start a negotiation. The person says, “I literally do not recognize” and then lies to you. I mean the first thing you say to this guy is “Terrific. Let’s go visit Mecca. Since clearly there’s no other state except Israel that is based on religion, the fact that I happen to be Christian won’t bother anybody.” And then he’ll say, “Well, that’s different.”

We actually tolerate this. We have created our own nightmare, because we refuse to tell the truth. We refuse to tell the truth to our politicians. Our State Department refuses to tell the truth to the country. If the President of the United States … and again, we’re now so bitterly partisan, we’re so committed to red-vs.-blue hostility … that George W. Bush doesn’t have the capacity to give an address from the Oval Office that has any meaning for half the country. And the anti-war Left is so strong in the Democratic primary that I think it’s almost impossible for any Democratic presidential candidate to tell the truth about the situation.

And so the Republicans are isolated and trying to defend incompetence. The Democrats are isolated and trying to find a way to say, “I’m really for strength as long as I can have peace, but I’d really like to have peace, except I don’t want to recognize these people who aren’t very peaceful.”

I just want to share with you, as a grandfather, as a citizen, as a historian, as somebody who was once speaker of the House, this is a serious national crisis. This is actually 1935 or 1936, and it’s getting worse every year.

None of our enemies are confused. Our enemies don’t get up each morning and go, “Oh, gosh, I think I’ll have an existential crisis of identity in which I will try to think through whether or not we can be friends while you’re killing me.” No; our enemies get up every morning and say, “We hate the West. We hate freedom. We will kill them all.” They would not allow a meeting with women in the room. I was once interviewed by a BBC reporter, a nice young lady who was only about as anti-American as she had to be to keep her job. Since it was a live interview, I turned to her halfway through the interview and I said, “Do you like your job?” And it was summertime, and she’s wearing a short-sleeve dress. And she said, “Well, yes.” She was confused because I had just reversed roles. I said, “Well, then you should hope we win.” She said, “What do you mean?” And I said, “Well, if the enemy wins, you won’t be allowed to be on television.”

I don’t know how to explain it any simpler than that.

Now, what do we need?

We need first of all to recognize this is a real war. Our enemies are peaceful when they’re weak, are ruthless when they’re strong, demand mercy when they’re losing, show no mercy when they’re winning. They understand exactly what this is, and anybody who reads Sun Tzu will understand exactly what we’re living through. This is a total war. One side is going to win. One side is going to lose. You’ll be able to tell who won and who lost by who’s still standing. Most of Islam is not in this war, but most of Islam isn’t going to stop this war. They’re just going to sit to one side and tell you how sorry they are that this is happening.

We had better design grand strategies that are radically bigger and radically tougher and radically more honest than anything currently going on, and that includes winning the argument in Europe, and it includes winning the argument in the rest of the world.

And it includes being very clear, and I’ll just give you one simple example because we’re now muscle-bound by our own inability to talk honestly. Iran produces 60 percent of its own gasoline. It produces lots of crude oil but only has one refinery. It imports 40 percent of its gasoline. The entire 60 percent is produced at one huge refinery.

In 1981, Ronald Reagan decided to break the Soviet empire. He was asked: ‘what’s your vision of the Cold War?’ He said, ‘Four words: we win; they lose.’ He was clearly seen by The New York Times as an out-of-touch, reactionary, right-wing cowboy from California who had no idea what was going on in the world. And eleven years later the Soviet Union disappeared, but obviously that had nothing to do with Reagan because that would have meant he was right. So it’s just a random accident the Soviet Union disappeared.

Part of the war we waged on the Soviet Union involved their natural gas supply because we wanted to cut off their hard currency. The Soviets were desperate to get better equipment for their pipeline. We managed to sell them, through third parties, some very, very sophisticated American pipeline equipment, which they were absolutely thrilled to buy, and thought they had pulled off a huge coup. Now, we weren’t playing fair. We did not tell them that the equipment was designed to fail; to blow itself up. It was in the software that ran the equipment, and they never detected it. One day in 1982, there was an explosion in Siberia so large that the initial reflection on the satellites looked like it was a tactical nuclear weapon. One part of the White House was genuinely worried, and the other part of the White House had to calm them down. They said, “No, no, that’s just our own equipment blowing up.”

In the 28 years since the Iranians declared war on us, in the six years since 9/11, in the months since Gen. Petraeus publicly said they are killing young Americans, we have not been able to figure out how to take down a single refinery. Covertly, quietly, without overt war. And we have not been able to figure out how to use the most powerful Navy in the world to simply stop the tankers and say, “Look, you want to kill young Americans, you’re going to walk to the battlefield. You’re not going to ride in the car, because you’re not going to have any gasoline.”

We don’t have to be stupid. The choice is not cowardice or total war. Reagan unlocked Poland without firing a shot, via an alliance with the Pope, with the labor unions, and with the British. We have every possibility, if we’re prepared to be honest, to shape the world. It’ll be a very big project. It’s going to require an effort much closer to the effort we put into World War II than it is to anything we’ve tried recently. It will require great effort, real intensity and real determination. We’re either going to do it now, while we’re still extraordinarily powerful, or we’re going to do it later under much more desperate circumstances after we’ve lost several cities.

We had better take this seriously, because we are not very many mistakes away from a second Holocaust. Three nuclear weapons is a second Holocaust. Our enemies would like to get those weapons as soon as they can, and they promise to use them as soon as they can. I suggest we defeat our enemies, and create a different situation long before they have that power.

Thank you.”

– Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich

How Postmodernism Leads To Fascism (part 1)

It is hard to talk to talk to people who believe that truth is relative. And there are more and more such people all the time.

C.S. Lewis described the fallacy of any theory that rejects the connection between thought and truth. In his book Miracles he said “All possible knowledge … depends on the validity of reasoning,” and developed his argument thus:

No account of the universe can be true unless that account leaves it possible for our thinking to be a real insight. A theory which explained everything else in the whole universe but which made it impossible to believe that our thinking was valid would be utterly out of court. For that theory would itself have been reached by thinking, and if thinking is not valid that theory would, of course, itself be demolished. It would have destroyed its own credentials. It would be an argument which proved that no argument was sound – a proof that there are no such things as proofs – which is nonsense.

To disbelieve in truth is patently self-contradictory. To “believe” means to think that something is true; and to say, “It is true that nothing is true” is fundamentally meaningless nonsense. The very statement, “There is no absolute truth,” is a statement of absolute truth. In the past, this pseudo-intellectual exercise was little more than a parlor game for the vacuous and simply not taken seriously. But it is very serious today, indeed. Today these views are held not only by much of academia, but by the average man on the street.

The rejection of absolutes is not merely a fine point of philosophical debate. Relative values accompany the relativism of truth. Today, we are a morally velocitized culture. What was unthinkable decades ago is openly practiced today; and what is unthinkable today will surely be openly practiced within a few years’ time.

What we have today is not merely immoral behavior by virtually all previous standards of conduct, but an abandonment of moral criteria altogether. More, we have an abandonment of meaning itself; and so today, we look for meaning in ways that would have bewildered, saddened, and shocked our forefathers.

The intellect is being replaced by the will. Reason is being replaced by emotion (which is one reason our kids are falling so far behind in math and science, and why so many are so passionate about a political candidate whose positions they cannot even begin to articulate). Morality is replaced by relativism. Reality itself is becoming viewed as little more than a mere social construct that can be manipulated by language. It all depends on what the meaning of the word “is” is.

Today, I frequently encounter people who hold mutually inconsistent ideas. I literally wonder how their heads do not explode from the contradictions they spout. It might simply be ignorance or confusion, but it really doesn’t matter: holding to mutually inconsistent ideas is a sure sign of believing that there is no such thing as absolute truth.

Where did all this come from?

Postmodernism as any form of coherent intellectual discipline largely developed from the field of literary criticism, especially from deconstructionism. So it is no surprise that postmodern scholars stress the importance of “contextualizing,” putting an author or an idea in the context of the times and showing its connections to all of the other “texts” that constituted the culture. But it turns out that one can deconstruct this deconstructionism to see where this thinking has been before, and where it will surely go again unless we turn away from these ideas. It is revealing, for instance, to contextualize Martin Heidegger, who originated the anti-humanism of both the academic theorists and the environmental movement that is so significant in the postmodernist academic circles of today. David Levin has written that Heidegger criticized humanism for tolerating totalitarianism. But Levin was quite disingenuous; the fact is, we now know that Martin Heidegger was a Nazi (see Victor Farias, Heidegger and Nazism, tr. Paul Burrell (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1989), p. 253).

Heidegger’s active involvement in the Nazi party and his shameless promotion of its ideology puts a very different light on his rejection of the individual, his repudiation of traditional human values, and his glorification of nature and culture. We find that EVERY SINGLE ONE of these postmodernist concepts were central tenets of fascism. It should be no surprise that the deconstructionist critic Paul de Man has also been revealed as an apologist of Nazism (for the connection between Heidegger’s Nazi ideology and his philosophy, see Tom Rockmore, On Heidegger’s Nazism and Philosophy (Berkeley: U of California Press, 1992). The fact is, postmodernism as a philosophy shares the same underlying concepts as fascist thought.

Postmodernists of today and the fascist intellectuals of the 1930s BOTH embrace a radicalism based not so much on economics but on culture. They BOTH reject identity in favor of cultural determinism. They BOTH reject moral values in favor of the will to power. They BOTH reject reason in favor of irrational emotional release. They BOTH reject a transcendent God in favor of an impersonal, mystical nature.

In Gene Edward Veith’s book, Modern Fascism: Liquidating the Judeo-Christian Worldview, he discusses in detail fascist ideology, its intrinsic opposition to the biblical worldview, and its survival in contemporary culture and postmodernist thought. He demonstrates that the irrationalism, the cultural reductionism, and the anti-human values of the postmodernists have already been tried once, and the result was catastrophic. Fascism is coming back. Communism has fallen, but throughout the former Soviet empire democracy is opposed by a new alliance of ex-Marxists and nationalists, who are trying to forge a new National Socialism (witness Vladimir Putin’s shutting down a newspaper for publishing his secret divorce and remarriage to a young Russian gymnast). American academics see themselves as pro-Marxists (or neo-Marxist, or post-Marxists, or however they sell this utterly failed system to themselves), but their desire for a government controlled economy, their cultivated irrationalism, and their reduction of social issues to questions of culture and race are actually more similar to Mussolini (i.e. fascism) than to Marx. If Marxism is modern, fascism is postmodern. And, as per the title of another of Veith’s books on the subject, we are living in Postmodern Times.

In addition to Gene Edward Veith’s insightful works, a further excellent reference is the book The Seduction of Unreason: The Intellectual Romance with Fascism from Nietzsche to Postmodernism by Richard Wolin (whose study substantially agrees with this paper). A review of Wolin by George Crowder available online is also very much worth reading. Although Crowder disagrees with the conclusion that fascism is implicit in postmodernism, he nevertheless acknowledges that the philosophical premises between the two ideologies are virtually identical. There is a genuine interrelatedness between fascist and postmodernist thought that simply cannot be denied.

For all their earnest championing of the oppressed, and their politically correct sensitivities, postmodernist intellectuals, no doubt without realizing it, are actually resurrecting the ways of thinking that gave us World War II and the Holocaust. Perhaps the postmodernists think their good intentions will mitigate the implications of what they are saying. But intellectuals thought this once before, with terrifying consequences. David Hirsch has warned, “Purveyors of postmodernist ideologies must consider whether it is possible to diminish human beings in theory, without, at the same time, making individual human lives worthless in the real world.” Ideas have consequences.

The Tenets of Postmodernist Ideology and The Political Implications of Postmodernism (Understand that this is a presentation of what postmodernists believe and the corresponding implications of these beliefs):

• Existentialism. Existentialism provides the rationale for contemporary postmodernism. Since everyone creates his or her own meaning, every meaning must be equally valid. Religion becomes merely a private affair, which must not be “imposed” on anyone else. The context of one’s meaning makes no difference, only the personal commitment – to give otherwise meaningless life some subjective degree of meaning. Jean Paul Sarte chose communism; Martin Heidegger chose Nazism; Rudolf Bultmann chose Christianity. Everyone inhabits his or her own private reality. Thus, “What’s true for you may not be true for me.” In today’s youth culture (and video/computer games are a classic example), we find a growing dark side to this existential subjectivism; we see a growing cynicism, pessimism, and dislike for reality as more and more people elect to create their own private realities and “tune out” to the world around them.
• Moral Relativism. Moral values, like all other kinds of meaning, are created by the self. The best example of this existential ethic can be found in those who call themselves “pro-choice” in their advocacy of abortion. To them, it makes no difference what the woman decides, only that she makes an authentic choice (whether or not to have her baby). Whatever she chooses is right – for her. “Pro-choice” advocates are astonishingly disinterested in any objective information that might have a bearing on the morality of abortion or the status of the unborn. Data about fetal development, facts about the despicable ways abortion is performed, philosophical argumentation about the sanctity of life – all such objective evidences from the outside world are meaningless and can have no bearing on the woman’s private choice. As we can see in the “One child per family” policy of forced abortion in China, however, this view of individual choice cannot stand for long in a larger community that accepts the premises of abortion. Ultimately, as we shall see, one’s will must be subsumed into the will of the majority.
• Social Constructivism. Meaning, morality, and truth do not exist objectively; rather, they are constructed by the society. The belief that reality is socially constructed is nothing less than the formula for totalitarianism [as David Horowitz pointed out in "The Queer Fellows," American Spectator, January 1993, pp. 42-48. For a similar discussion applied to Hollywood values in K.L. Billingsley, The Seductive Image: A Christian Critique of the World of Film (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1989), pp. 112-113)]. Democracy presumes that individuals are free and self-directed. They are capable of governing themselves. But postmodernism holds that individuals are NOT free and in fact are directed by their societies. If the members of a society are passively and wholly controlled by societal forces, then self-governance would be impossible. Furthermore, if reality in fact is socially constructed, then the power of society and those who lead it becomes unlimited. We see this carried out to its logical extreme in Orwell’s 1984, in which the all-powerful state totally shaped the culture and controlled the very thoughts of the masses.
• Cultural Determinism. Individuals are wholly shaped by cultural forces. Language in particular determines what we can think, trapping us in a “prison house of language.” Whereas Christian religion teaches that God constructs reality and creates man in His image to comprehend that reality, to see society as the creator (of reality) is to divinize culture. With these postmodern assumptions, every problem must have a societal solution, and nothing would escape the control of those who direct such a society. “Totalitarian” means that the state controls every sphere of life, which is exactly what postmodernism implicitly assumes in its presuppositions!
• The Rejection of Individual Identity. People exist primarily as members of groups. The phenomenon of American individualism is itself a construction of American culture with its middle-class values of independence and introspection, but it remains an illusion. Identity is primarily collective. Postmodernism minimizes (even subsumes) the individual in favor of the group. This can only result in a collectivist mentality in which the claims of the individual are lost within the demands of the group. An ideology that that believes that personal liberty is an illusion can hardly be expected to uphold, allow, or tolerate human freedom. Subscribing to the former view ultimately must rule out the latter.
• The Rejection of Humanism. Values that emphasize the creativity, autonomy, and priority of human beings are misplaced. There is no universal humanity since every culture constitutes its own reality. Traditional humanistic values are canons of exclusion, oppression, and crimes against the natural environment. Groups must empower themselves to assert their own values and to take their place with other [human as well as non-human] planetary species.
• The Denial of the Transcendent. There are no absolutes. Even if there were, we would have no access to them since we are completely bound to our culture and imprisoned in our language. Moreover, excluding transcendent values places societies beyond constraints of moral limits. There is no God outside, above, or transcendent to society that holds a society accountable. Society is not subject to the moral law; it makes its own moral law.
• Power Reductionism. All institutions, all human relationships, all moral values, and all human creations – from works of art to religious ideologies – are all expressions and masks of the primal will to power. If there are no absolutes, the society can presumably construct any values that it pleases and is itself subject to none. All such issues are only matters of power. Without moral absolutes, power becomes arbitrary.
• The Rejection of Reason. Reason and the impulse to objectify truth are illusory masks for cultural power. Authenticity and fulfillment come from submerging the self into a larger group, releasing one’s natural impulses such as honest emotions and sexuality, cultivating subjectivity, and developing a radical openness to existence by refusing to impose order on one’s life. Since there is no ultimate basis for moral persuasion or rational argument, the side with the most power will win. Government becomes nothing more than the sheer exercise of unlimited power, restrained neither by law nor by reason. One group achieves its own will to power over the others. On the personal level, the rejection of all external absolutes in favor of subjectivity can mean the triumph of irrationalism, the eruption of raw emotion, and the imposition of terror.
• A Revolutionary Critique of the Existing Order. Modern society with its rationalism, order, and unitary view of truth needs to be replaced by a new world order. Scientific knowledge reflects an outdated modernism, though the new electronic technology holds great promise. Segmentation of society into its constituent groups will allow for a true cultural pluralism. The old order must be swept away, to be replaced by a new, as yet undefined, mode of communal existence.

(Note: Although I do not provide citations, and my own ideas are interspersed throughout this paper, much of this three part series emerges directly from the influence of two works by Gene Edward Veith, Jr.: Modern Fascism: Liquidating the Judeo-Christian Worldview, and Postmodern Times: A Christian Guide to Contemporary Thought and Culture. At some future time I intend to add page references. Veith’s penetrating analysis of culture needs to be considered as we enter into what are incresingly perilous times.)

See How Postmodernism Leads To Fascism (part 2)

How Postmodernism Leads To Fascism (part 3) is available here.

Pope Benedict: The anti-Maher, anti-Wright Christian leader

I was so pleased that Fox News gave the Pope’s celebration at St. Joseph’s Seminary full coverage. I am not Catholic, but I would have gladly kissed that ring today.

I think about Bill Maher’s recent comments against Pope Benedict (see my article, “Bill Maher vs. Pope Benedict: and the winner is…). I think about the remarks of Trinity United Church of Christ’s (and Barack Obama’s) paster, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. In contrast to such bitter men, it was so inspiring to see a wise, gracious Christian giant demonstrate the true virtues of the Christian faith.

My home page is set to MSNBC. It really shouldn’t be, but I’m too lazy to change it. I am glad that their forecast (something like, “Pope Benedict is visiting America, but nobody cares”) was so completely dead-wrong.

The Pope, addressing an audience of mainly young people, was able to draw on his own experiences as a youth in Germany under the “monsters” of Nazi fascism. He said, “My own years as a teenager were marred by a sinister regime that thought it had all the answers; its influence grew — infiltrating schools and civic bodies, as well as politics and even religion — before it was fully recognized for the monster it was. It banished God and thus became impervious to anything true and good. Many of your grandparents and great-grandparents will have recounted the horror of the destruction that ensued. Indeed, some of them came to America precisely to escape such terror.”

The Pope praised God for the strength of Democratic governments who finally stood up and removed the evil that marred his youth even as it marred the world, and called upon continued resolve to stand up for freedom. “Let us thank God for all those who strive to ensure that you can grow up in an environment that nurtures what is beautiful, good, and true: your parents and grandparents, your teachers and priests, those civic leaders who seek what is right and just,” he said. He urged the young people and the future priests in the seminary to faithfully carry on their Christian works while enjoying the liberties that they were blessed to have.

“The power to destroy does, however, remain. To pretend otherwise would be to fool ourselves. Yet, it never triumphs; it is defeated. This is the essence of the hope that defines us as Christians; and the Church recalls this most dramatically during the Easter Triduum and celebrates it with great joy in the season of Easter! The One who shows us the way beyond death is the One who shows us how to overcome destruction and fear: thus it is Jesus who is the true teacher of life (cf. Spe Salvi, 6). His death and resurrection mean that we can say to the Father “you have restored us to life!” (Prayer after Communion, Good Friday). And so, just a few weeks ago, during the beautiful Easter Vigil liturgy, it was not from despair or fear that we cried out to God for our world, but with hope-filled confidence: dispel the darkness of our heart! dispel the darkness of our minds!”

“The German-born pope lamented that what he called “the joy of faith” was often choked by cynicism, greed and violence. Yet he drew an analogy to show how faith can overcome distractions and trials. ‘The spires of St. Patrick’s Cathedral are dwarfed by the skyscrapers of the Manhattan skyline, yet in the heart of this busy metropolis they are a vivid reminder of the constant yearning of the human spirit to rise to God.’”

These words were as beautiful as they were inspiring:

“The Incarnation, the birth of Jesus, tells us that God does indeed find a place among us. Though the inn is full, he enters through the stable, and there are people who see his light. They recognize Herod’s dark closed world for what it is, and instead follow the bright guiding star of the night sky. And what shines forth? Here you might recall the prayer uttered on the most holy night of Easter: “Father we share in the light of your glory through your Son the light of the world … inflame us with your hope!” (Blessing of the Fire). And so, in solemn procession with our lighted candles we pass the light of Christ among us. It is “the light which dispels all evil, washes guilt away, restores lost innocence, brings mourners joy, casts out hatred, brings us peace, and humbles earthly pride” (Exsultet). This is Christ’s light at work. This is the way of the saints. It is a magnificent vision of hope — Christ’s light beckons you to be guiding stars for others, walking Christ’s way of forgiveness, reconciliation, humility, joy and peace.”

Pope Benedict did not turn a blind eye to the darkness that constantly threatens to eclipse the world. Rather he defines it, and describes the path to attaining victory over it:

What might that darkness be? What happens when people, especially the most vulnerable, encounter a clenched fist of repression or manipulation rather than a hand of hope? A first group of examples pertains to the heart. Here, the dreams and longings that young people pursue can so easily be shattered or destroyed. I am thinking of those affected by drug and substance abuse, homelessness and poverty, racism, violence, and degradation — especially of girls and women. While the causes of these problems are complex, all have in common a poisoned attitude of mind which results in people being treated as mere objects ? a callousness of heart takes hold which first ignores, then ridicules, the God-given dignity of every human being. Such tragedies also point to what might have been and what could be, were there other hands — your hands — reaching out. I encourage you to invite others, especially the vulnerable and the innocent, to join you along the way of goodness and hope.

The second area of darkness — that which affects the mind — often goes unnoticed, and for this reason is particularly sinister. The manipulation of truth distorts our perception of reality, and tarnishes our imagination and aspirations. I have already mentioned the many liberties which you are fortunate enough to enjoy. The fundamental importance of freedom must be rigorously safeguarded. It is no surprise then that numerous individuals and groups vociferously claim their freedom in the public forum. Yet freedom is a delicate value. It can be misunderstood or misused so as to lead not to the happiness which we all expect it to yield, but to a dark arena of manipulation in which our understanding of self and the world becomes confused, or even distorted by those who have an ulterior agenda.

Have you noticed how often the call for freedom is made without ever referring to the truth of the human person? Some today argue that respect for freedom of the individual makes it wrong to seek truth, including the truth about what is good. In some circles to speak of truth is seen as controversial or divisive, and consequently best kept in the private sphere. And in truth’s place — or better said its absence — an idea has spread which, in giving value to everything indiscriminately, claims to assure freedom and to liberate conscience. This we call relativism. But what purpose has a “freedom” which, in disregarding truth, pursues what is false or wrong? How many young people have been offered a hand which in the name of freedom or experience has led them to addiction, to moral or intellectual confusion, to hurt, to a loss of self-respect, even to despair and so tragically and sadly to the taking of their own life? Dear friends, truth is not an imposition. Nor is it simply a set of rules. It is a discovery of the One who never fails us; the One whom we can always trust. In seeking truth we come to live by belief because ultimately truth is a person: Jesus Christ. That is why authentic freedom is not an opting out. It is an opting in; nothing less than letting go of self and allowing oneself to be drawn into Christ’s very being for others (cf. Spe Salvi, 28).

How then can we as believers help others to walk the path of freedom which brings fulfillment and lasting happiness? Let us again turn to the saints. How did their witness truly free others from the darkness of heart and mind? The answer is found in the kernel of their faith; the kernel of our faith. The Incarnation, the birth of Jesus, tells us that God does indeed find a place among us. Though the inn is full, he enters through the stable, and there are people who see his light. They recognize Herod’s dark closed world for what it is, and instead follow the bright guiding star of the night sky. And what shines forth? Here you might recall the prayer uttered on the most holy night of Easter: “Father we share in the light of your glory through your Son the light of the world … inflame us with your hope!” (Blessing of the Fire). And so, in solemn procession with our lighted candles we pass the light of Christ among us. It is “the light which dispels all evil, washes guilt away, restores lost innocence, brings mourners joy, casts out hatred, brings us peace, and humbles earthly pride” (Exsultet). This is Christ’s light at work. This is the way of the saints. It is a magnificent vision of hope — Christ’s light beckons you to be guiding stars for others, walking Christ’s way of forgiveness, reconciliation, humility, joy and peace.

At times, however, we are tempted to close in on ourselves, to doubt the strength of Christ’s radiance, to limit the horizon of hope. Take courage! Fix your gaze on our saints. The diversity of their experience of God’s presence prompts us to discover anew the breadth and depth of Christianity. Let your imaginations soar freely along the limitless expanse of the horizons of Christian discipleship. Sometimes we are looked upon as people who speak only of prohibitions. Nothing could be further from the truth! Authentic Christian discipleship is marked by a sense of wonder. We stand before the God we know and love as a friend, the vastness of his creation, and the beauty of our Christian faith.

Some more marvelous words that reveal the genuine transformational power of the Christian faith, as well as an incredible source of power to do good in the world:

“In the liturgy we find the whole Church at prayer. The word liturgy means the participation of God’s people in “the work of Christ the Priest and of His Body which is the Church” (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 7). What is that work? First of all it refers to Christ’s Passion, his Death and Resurrection, and his Ascension — what we call the Paschal Mystery. It also refers to the celebration of the liturgy itself. The two meanings are in fact inseparably linked because this “work of Jesus” is the real content of the liturgy. Through the liturgy, the “work of Jesus” is continually brought into contact with history; with our lives in order to shape them. Here we catch another glimpse of the grandeur of our Christian faith. Whenever you gather for Mass, when you go to Confession, whenever you celebrate any of the sacraments, Jesus is at work. Through the Holy Spirit, he draws you to himself, into his sacrificial love of the Father which becomes love for all. We see then that the Church’s liturgy is a ministry of hope for humanity. Your faithful participation, is an active hope which helps to keep the world — saints and sinners alike — open to God; this is the truly human hope we offer everyone (cf. Spe Salvi, 34).

Your personal prayer, your times of silent contemplation, and your participation in the Church’s liturgy, bring you closer to God and also prepare you to serve others. The saints accompanying us this evening show us that the life of faith and hope is also a life of charity. Contemplating Jesus on the Cross we see love in its most radical form. We can begin to imagine the path of love along which we must move (cf. Deus Caritas Est, 12). The opportunities to make this journey are abundant. Look about you with Christ’s eyes, listen with his ears, feel and think with his heart and mind. Are you ready to give all as he did for truth and justice? Many of the examples of the suffering which our saints responded to with compassion are still found here in this city and beyond. And new injustices have arisen: some are complex and stem from the exploitation of the heart and manipulation of the mind; even our common habitat, the earth itself, groans under the weight of consumerist greed and irresponsible exploitation. We must listen deeply. We must respond with a renewed social action that stems from the universal love that knows no bounds. In this way, we ensure that our works of mercy and justice become hope in action for others.”

I hear and read these great, wise, potent words, and then I compare them to the cynicism of Bill Maher and the bitterness and divisive racism of Jeremiah Wright. The gulf is astronomical. Such a beautiful description of such a beautiful worldview. Contrary to the sickness that has come out of the mouths of Maher and Wright, the first German Pope is the anti-Hitler, the anti-Wright. The light he offered to the young people at Yonkers contrasts dramatically with the darkness we have heard from others.

Daniela Rizzo brought her husband and their infant son from Connecticut. “You can feel the energy,” Rizzo said. “You can feel the faith.”

I felt it too.

Welcome to America, Pope Benedict. May your visit be as happy as the joy you are bringing to millions.

A full transcript of the Pope’s remarks at St. Joseph’s is available at

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/19/nyregion/19popeyouth.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ei=5088&en=2a1a37f9f94e066d&ex=1366344000&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss