Jan 26 2011

Obama & Hu – The Cliffnotes Version

Category: appeasement,China,Obamaamuzikman @ 8:55 am

OBAMA: (bowing) Welcome Chairman Hu. We welcome a new season of cooperation between our countries.

HU: Your country is washed up.  You are all a bunch of has-beens.

OBAMA: We are here to make your visit as special as we can. Just ask and it is yours.

HU: I want no questions from the media

OBAMA: We’d really like China to buy a bunch of our stuff.

HU: Sure, We’re buying it with your money anyway.

OBAMA: China needs to improve in the area of human rights.

HU: Yeah, so….?

OBAMA: China is unfairly manipulating the value of its currency.

HU: Yeah, so…?

OBAMA: this has been an historic visit.

HU: You really don’t know who you are dealing with, do you?


Oct 23 2010

Diversity being displaced by sustainability?

Category: appeasementharmonicminer @ 12:38 pm

Peter Wood, to whom I have referred elsewhere on this blog, has an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education called From Diversity to Sustainability: How Campus Ideology Is Born

 

Diversity is a story of a once-fresh ideology that swept through higher education in a spirit of triumph but that quickly seems to be losing its status as the sexiest ideology on campus. Diversiphiles would like to keep the adrenaline flowing, but it is hard. Freshmen now arrive on campus already having sucked on multicultural milkshakes from kindergarten to senior prom. Diversity for them is just the same ol’ same ol’.

That doesn’t stop the diversicrat establishment from trying to pump new excitement into the project. California State University at Chico, for example, recently circulated a new “action plan” titled “To Form a More Inclusive Learning Community,” in which the university president sets his sights on placing “diversity at the core of our mission, vision, and priorities.” The practical goal is to get Chico State listed as an official “Hispanic-Serving Institution” by 2015, which requires substantially increasing Hispanic enrollment past the university’s current 13.5 percent. (Chico State serves mostly a local population in a part of the state with relatively few Hispanics. Hispanics are already “overrepresented” at Chico from a purely demographic standpoint.) The federal designation “Hispanic-Serving Institution” would bring access to additional federal support. But the diversity game is never about just numbers and dollars. It is also about ideology and intimidation, and Chico State is actively pursuing those, too. As part of the new campaign, it invited the “Diversity Guru” Lee Mun Wah to provide workshops including “Unlearning Racism in the Classroom.” Faculty members get the message: Openly expressed doubts about the diversity program will be treated as racist conduct.

 

Prof. Wood’s commentary is largely about how “sustainability” is gradually displacing some of the oxygen once reserved for “diversity” in the modern higher education establishment.  It is a great read (read it all here), and sets the table nicely for discussion about the true nature of both initiatives.  He calls them both “second wave” phenomena, in that “diversity” grew out of “affirmative action” (when official quotas fell out of public and legal favor, so some folks decided to sneak them in the back door under the name “diversity”) and “sustainability” grew out of “environmentalism” (when public skepticism about Earth Firsters, PETA, and EPA protection of exotic flies led to a need for a new label for the same agenda).

I wish this kind of thing was only going on at state or secular schools.  That is not the case, however.   At least one Christian university is giving a seminar for faculty about “mistakes white professors make in the classroom” or words to that effect.  And extremist videos are being shown in class on sustainability, full of unsupported and self-contradictory assertions.

Prof. Wood may be wrong on one point, however, regarding the apparent competition between sustainability and diversity as points of reference for academic/institutional programming and energy.  It is clear that the diversiphiles and sustainophiles are mostly the same people.  They have no trouble simply combining both agendas, with diversity class including sustainability propaganda without a blush.

The floor is open for speculation about what unites “diversity” and “sustainability” as leftist perspectives. 

 


Jun 01 2010

Headlines and Israel

From the Drudge Report, headlines, May 31, 2010:

Israel faces int'l fury over flotilla...
Bloody raid...
Israel: Passengers were armed, 'no peace activists'...
Video...
Turkey warns of 'consequences'...
Israel in eye of storm...
Thousands protest, clashes in Athens...
Paris: Demonstrators tried to break into Israeli embassy...
Netanyahu defends...
Crisis...

From the Drudge Report, headlines, May 31, 2010, in an alternate universe:

Palestinians faces int'l fury over flotilla...
Bloody set-up...
Hamas: Passengers were armed, 'no peace activists'...
Video...
Turkey warns of 'consequences'...
Iran in eye of storm...
Thousands protest, clashes in Athens...
Paris: Demonstrators tried to break into Iranian embassy...
Amadinejad defends...
Crisis...

We have come to this – instant global condemnation of Israel every time an incident occurs.  Israel is now officially presumed guilty until proven innocent.  Not many facts are yet known about this incident, but in our world today facts are little more than an annoyance.  No, what seems to matter most is to lay the blame on Israel.

And a sitting U.S. President has become a part of the condemnation chorus virtually from the day he took office.  All the while the terror-sponsoring state of Iran, whose own President has sworn to wipe Israel from the face of the earth, rushes full tilt toward becoming a nuclear power. And when they do I imagine our president’s reaction will be to bow a little deeper to Amadinejad, and he’ll wag his finger a little longer at Netanyahu.  Madness.

Mr President, your words and actions have emboldened not only our enemies but the enemies of one of our closest allies.  And at least in part, the blood shed today is on your hands.  Words have meaning, Mr. President.  You know that.  And your obvious lack of support for the State of Israel coupled with your failed attempts at diplomacy towards our enemies has made this world in which we live a less safe place.  This incident is just a drop in the bucket compared to what I fear is is coming.  And the headlines do not bode well for the State of Israel.


Jan 09 2010

I Can’t Help But Wonder

Category: appeasement,Bush,government,Obamaamuzikman @ 8:45 am

The Financial Times on-line has an article entitled “America is Losing the Free World

The last paragraph of the article reads:

Mr Obama is seen as a huge improvement on George W. Bush, but he is still an American president. As emerging global powers and developing nations, Brazil, India, South Africa and Turkey may often feel they have more in common with a rising China than with the democratic US.

After reading this article I note the last paragraph would seem to be oxymoronic.  If Obama is “seen as a huge “improvement” then why the apparent worse-than-ever relations between us and these other democracies?  To some the answer will be America’s tyrannical and oppressive legacy of strong-arming their allies in an attitude of oft-repeated international arrogance.  To others it will be yet another chance to point a finger at George W. Bush and his “cowboy diplomacy”.  But is it even remotely possible that Obama himself has something to do with this?  Is there a shred of possibility that our current president is not seen as someone to be taken seriously?  Could it be that his international Apologize-For-America tour, along with his continual actions of appeasement towards terror-sponsoring regimes, his unwillingness to declare victory as our goal against Islamofacism, and his frequent rebukes and snubbing of our allies has created a perception that this president is weak and lacking in resolve?

If Obama is such an improvement, then why are those who should be our strong allies turning instead more than ever to form alliances elsewhere?


Dec 28 2009

An Inconvenient Truth About Terrorism

Category: appeasement,Islam,Obamaamuzikman @ 9:23 pm

I cannot remember one single incident in which an international terror attack was prefaced with a cry of, “Hail Mary, full of grace…”

“Who is like you, oh Lord….” has not been uttered by even one suicide bomber just before they flipped their fatal switch.

No airline hijacker has screamed, “Om Mani Padme Hum”, “Hare Krishna”, or even a simple “Aum.”

And in spite of the often discriminatory tone towards Christianity in this country, I know of no crowds of fanatics who have danced in the streets around a burning effigy, shouting “Jesus loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life”.

The simple fact is this.  Virtually all international terror is done in the name of Islam.  Note I did not say Islam is a religion of terror.  I said terror is done in the name of Islam.  Anyone wishing to step forward with a plausible denial of this simple fact please feel free to do so.

So here is the problem in America today.  The current occupant of the White House is an Islamic apologist and his administration reflects his attitude.

In his first year in office, President Obama has gone out of his way to reach out to Islamic regimes, some of which can best be described as avowed enemies, either of us or our allies, while at the same time he tours the world, apologizing for the United States.  Obama has tried to play down the importance of remembering 9/11 by transforming it into a “day of service”.  He has established the chilling precedent of bestowing constitutional rights on terrorists captured on the battlefield and intentionally avoided condemnation of terror admittedly and openly done in the name of Islam.

Why does Obama do this?  I don’t know.  Is it something left over from his childhood experiences?  Perhaps.  Is it because he continues to believe his own press about being “the Chosen One” –  that somehow the strength of his charisma can overcome the hatred and death wish our sworn enemies have for us?  Maybe.  But at the end of the day the reasons don’t really matter.  What does matter is that I believe our country is less safe now because of this administration.

This latest airline incident is truly frightening in what it reveals:  Umar Farouk Abdulmuttalab, is a man on the terror watch list, whose own father, a highly placed Nigerian Diplomat, reported him as a terrorist. He boarded a plane with no passport, no luggage, and a one-way ticket paid in cash.  This man almost succeeded in detonating a bomb on the plane as it approached Detroit’s Metro Airport.  And the response of our Homeland Security Secretary? “Once the incident occurred, the system worked,”  This may go down as one of the most asinine public statements ever made.  But it is frighteningly a reflection of this administration’s impotent position on terror, er, I mean “man-caused disaster.”

God help us.  Because I am starting to believe we are going to experience another disaster like 9/11 and if I am alive afterward I fully expect to hear this president urge us not to “rush to judgment,” when, in fact that is exactly what we should do.  Homeland Security should immediately begin to profile passengers according to threat level, starting with young Islamic men.  If I was a peaceful Muslim male between the age of 18 and 30, and I was given extra scrutiny at an airport I think I would certainly understand.  Wouldn’t you?  But instead we ramp up our security for everyone in the name of political correctness and to placate.  We don’t need to pat down wheelchair-bound octogenarians and mothers with a stroller carrying twins.  We don’t need to force everyone to sit in their seats for the last hour of a flight, with nothing in their hands.  We need to look for those who are most likely to commit these acts and like it or not they are within a pretty narrowly-defined group.  We need to stop fearing what someone might say.  And we need to stop pretending the regimes that spawn and sponsor these monsters will ever become our friends.



Oct 25 2009

Hello World Government? Goodbye freedom? UPDATE

Watch this, from Lord Christopher Monckton, chief policy advisor to the Science and Public Policy Institute.

I haven’t heard much about this from other sources…. I’m trying to get more information about it.  But if this fellow isn’t exaggerating, this is looking really ugly.

More info here and here and some especially scary nonsense from Gordon Brown, British Prime Minister.


Jul 16 2009

Hondurans standing for freedom *against* the USA?!? Yes.

Category: appeasement,freedom,government,liberty,media,Obamaharmonicminer @ 8:32 am

It is bizarre that the official US position about Honduras’ current political situation is to condemn the people who resisted an illegal takeover of Honduras by a wanna-be dictator for life.

The way in which nearly all the world’s media portray the legal, Supreme Court-ordered ouster of President Manuel (Mel) Zelaya is one major reason for the universal opprobrium. Because military men took part in the deportation of the sitting president, it has been portrayed as a classic Latin American “military coup,” and who can support a military coup?

The lack of context in which this ouster took place has prevented the vast majority of the world’s news watchers and readers from understanding what has happened.

I wonder how many people who bother to read the news — as opposed to only listen to or watch news reports — know:

— Zelaya was plotting a long-term, possibly lifetime, takeover of the Honduran government through illegally changing the Honduran Constitution.

— Zelaya had personally led a mob attack on a military facility to steal phony “referendum” ballots that had been printed by the Venezuelan government.

— Weeks earlier, in an attempt to intimidate the Honduran attorney general — as reported by The Wall Street Journal’s Mary Anastasia O’Grady, one of the only journalists in the world who regularly reports the whole story about Honduras — “some 100 agitators, wielding machetes, descended on the attorney general’s office. ‘We have come to defend this country’s second founding,’ the group’s leader reportedly said. ‘If we are denied it, we will resort to national insurrection.'”

— No member of the military has assumed a position of power as a result of the “military coup.”

— Zelaya’s own party, the Liberal Party, supported his removal from office and deportation from Honduras.

— The Liberal Party still governs Honduras.

So, Dennis Prager has asked you, did you know those things? If you didn’t, and you’ve been watching/reading the news, you’ll have to ask yourself why didn’t you know them.  Hopefully you’ll come to the correct conclusion about the slant of US major media, which never saw a left-socialist South American dictator it didn’t like.

As we’ve commented here before, the actions of the Honduran military were legal, and supported by the Honduran Supreme Court AND by the political party of the Zelaya himself. 

I have absolutely no idea what’s behind Obama’s support of Zelaya…  except that maybe he recognizes a fellow traveler.


Jul 07 2009

Honduras & The Rule Of Law

Category: appeasementamuzikman @ 7:43 pm

To hear our mainstream media one would think a military coup in Honduras has ousted a democratically elected president.  But the truth is not so simple nor shallow. Read this and ask yourself why our government is siding with the likes of the Castro brothers and Hugo Chavez.

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Apr 09 2009

Random & Sporadic Thoughts

Obama is proceeding with “immigration reform” (spelled a-m-n-e-s-t-y) in spite of the fact the American people clearly and unequivocally voiced their opposition to this the last time it was proposed.  Why?  Because amnesty and citizenship for illegals qualifies them for union membership.  And an increase in union membership is an increase in Democrat voters.  Obama has made no effort to disguise this as his motivation.

Obama is radically pro-abortion.  He is in favor of the killing of unborn infants with no restrictions, paid for with a government check.  He is also in favor of killing children born alive as a result of a botched abortion.  He is in favor of forcing doctors to perform abortions even if those doctors have a moral objection.

Does anyone remember Obama’s soft-spoken, relaxed and seemingly innocuous little comment to Joe the plumber?  “When you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody”.  We now see that what he meant was a wholesale destruction of capitalism and a premeditated effort to replace it with socialism.

Obama is robbing our future generations of any hope of prosperity by an orgy of federal spending unheard of in our country.

Obama is reaching into the board rooms of private companies and firing employees.  He has crossed a line between public and private sectors that is unprecedented.

Obama has just completed an international trip with the message of appeasement to our enemies.  When, in the course of human history, has appeasement ever worked?

Iran is on the threshold of becoming a nuclear power.  Is there ANYONE who thinks this is a good thing?

The laundry list of Obama appointees who were revealed to have unpaid taxes is shameful.  Is there ANY private citizen who could get away with this wanton disregard for tax laws by simply saying “Oops, I’m sorry”?

The Republican Party is currently populated with political eunichs.  Where is the voice of opposition?

Obama wants to socialize medicine.  If this happens it will complete his coup d’état and America as we know it will be gone forever.

Many citizens of this great country are simply left speechless by this apparently unstoppable. radical, ultra-liberal assault on America.  So many of us feel a combination of powerlessness and outrage in the face of what is happening.  Many are asking, “What can I do to stop this madness?”  Not all of us have a public forum from which to vent our frustrations.  Not all of us are eloquent of speech or skilled in writing.  But we all have family and friends.  We all live lives that are made up of relationships.  This is where the battle must be fought – one friend, one family, one realtionship at a time.  Those of us who do believe America is essentially good – that it was founded and made great on a firm foundation of Judeo-Christian beliefs, that it is a place where people can be free, that perserverance and hard work will be rewarded and that anyone can acheive the American dream – must share our convictions and persuade our family and friends that it is an America worth fighting for.  For outrage is not enough, feeling helpless and powerless is no excuse, and inaction is not an option.

Yeah, I know it’s starting to sound like there should be a choir humming “My Country Tis Of Thee” in the background.  I don’t care. It is a battle worth fighting…but we had better start now.


Oct 01 2008

When aliens or other life forms attack

Category: appeasement,election 2008,McCain,Obama,politicsharmonicminer @ 9:02 am

In the movie, Independence Day, the aliens want the earth.  They don’t want to negotiate, they can’t be bargained with, and they are deadly in capabilities and intentions.  A lot like Islamic extremists, among other threats to international amity.

There is an arresting scene in the movie, taking place on a rooftop just beneath the levitating alien spacecraft, upon which stand all the wide-eyed innocents who think the universe is a friendly place, despite pleny of hints that the aliens are up to no good.  We are treated to a view of the welcoming throng, looking upward with shining faces, waiting to make the acquaintance of the aliens, in a manner somewhat reminiscent of scenes from Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Independence Day revelers

Peace on Earth isn’t exactly what the aliens have in mind.

White House destroyed

Now, look a little more closely at the people on the roof.  Do you see the guy on the left, with the open mouth?  Now look at the snappy, elegant patent leather shoe, just visible past the mouth breather’s left shoulder.  Look familiar?  Well, as we all know, Obama has lots of friends in the Hollywood Left (that being most of Hollywood, of course).    I can now reveal that Obama has appeared in movies for years, in extra roles (probably hoping that by being an actor he could become President).  The problem, of course, is that actors have to actually memorize their lines, and can’t just read them from teleprompters.  So, Obama’s roles have all been non-speaking walk-ons.  Yes, friends, that is Obamas LEFT FOOT in the classy shoe.  (It figures….)

Obama famously said he would negotiate without preconditions with pretty much anyone at all, regardless of their stated ill intent towards us or our allies.  When Russia attacked Georgia, he responded,

“I strongly condemn the outbreak of violence in Georgia, and urge an immediate end to armed conflict,” Obama said in a statement. “Now is the time for Georgia and Russia to show restraint, and to avoid an escalation to full-scale war. Georgia’s territorial integrity must be respected.”

This is lovely.  So, when Nazi Germany invaded Poland, Obama would have “condemned the outbreak of violence in Poland”?  Called for German and Polish restraint?  Oy vey, others parsed this, but it’s still frightening to think the free world’s leader may be so feckless.  Obama is the very master of passive voice.  Reading his comments, you can’t tell who invaded whom.

Let’s hope this is one time when life does not imitate art.   When the USA is threatened (a guaranteed fact of life for the coming decades), let’s hope Obama is not the one with whom we are stuck for protection, wisdom and general courage in the face of adversity.

I don’t think he’ll be able to negotiate with the Borg.

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