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Sunday, May 27, 2012

Germany and The New World Order

As the Euro zone faces a Greek default a former German Central Banker, Thilo Sarrazin, triggered controversy when he stated that the Euro Zone was holding Germany hostage over its past aggression. He preferred that Germany not only control the flow of money but also decide when and if it is to fund Euro bonds and whether it is in Germany’s (economic) interest to finance mutualised (European) debt.

Germany before ‘the war’ could not have nurtured fascism without an amoral upper class nor could it have carried out mass murder on the industrial scale that it did.  But it is ironic that Germany encouraged emancipation and was ahead of Britain in its legalised equality, it celebrated egalitarianism and radical ‘back to nature’ movements including naturism, the ethical treatment of animals, and vegetarianism.  Free love was encouraged.  The SA, Hitler’s storm-troopers who he had eliminated in the “Night of the Long Knives” was officered and led by a homosexual elite. (He did not kill them because he feared their sexuality but because he recognised the damage two rival elites, the SA and the SS could have on his control over them and therefore, over the party and as a consequence, over the German nation). The enthusiasm with which doctors and teachers flocked to Hitler’s version of Fascism made them the two unions most represented within the Nazi Party.

If we consider the way Britain behaved parallel to Germany, its post war deception and behaviour is not encouraging.  As Britain struggles to accept its diminished role in the world the desperation with which it vies with other nations to collaborate with regimes that are fundamentally opposed to its own way of life is a failure of ethics that is as destructive as it is near sighted.  An eclectic society is also a selective society or it is just a refuse heap of ideas that corrode and decay the humanity of its members from within.  It is fashionable for companies, clubs and political parties to all talk about a ‘vision.’ But a vision requires a road map, a recognisable road and a vehicle in which we can all travel so that we, as a society exclude no-one.  So that we all benefit from embracing that vision there are road rules to be followed.  A road map indicates restrictions for good reason. It wouldn’t do to drive off a cliff, into a river, or headlong into another car, just because we are either indifferent to or lacking the imagination to internalise the consequences. 

We know that Britain collaborated in the Shoah. The press in its complicity with government still produces narrative propaganda with barely a grain of truth in it to justify past glories and expunge earlier infamies from history.  Devoid of an ethical compass Britain and its Lib-left collaborators have been rewriting the narrative to suit their own prejudices and economic sub-texts.  The Conservative-Liberal Democratic coalition government of David Cameron has done no better than its predecessor. But then where is the payback for supporting an ethical stance if history is no more than the creative output of journalists and politicians?

Some sixty-seven years after the conclusion of the Second World War Germany rules Europe, not by its military might but by its wealth.  Without Germany the old man would be nearly bankrupt and at war with itself.  It could still be both.  And because the new order is failing, old alliances are being redrafted (Germany and Russia for example).  It does well to remember that while Germany subsidises submarines for Israel's protection, (as second - last strike deterrence) it collaborates with Israel’s unrepentant enemies.  Switzerland, without which Germany could not have funded its war of aggression between 1933 and 1945 has embraced racist and genocidal anti-Jewish Iran, a nation whose fundamentalist theology threatens not just Israel but world peace.

In the UK Muslims are awarded an annual bribe totalling £180 million for communal activities; it is given to no other group, its purpose is to stop them from bombing (again), British targets at home. Islam in the Near-East, practised as a religious right, thirteen-hundred years of aggression and ethnic cleansing towards its non-Muslim citizens to bolster its militant racialist agenda. Theologically it drives a globally expansionist vision that has rarely waned since the Koran was written in the 7th Century CE (AD).  By failing to recognise this threat to global security; by appeasing Islam we do not gain time while preparing ourselves for the inevitability of conflict, instead we encourage the spread of darkness. Those who refuse to speak of the evil that confronts the word today are complicit in spreading its poison.

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei spoke of a cancerous tumour in the world and like all men of evil he based his supercessionist world view on a theological construct that one religion, Islam, can supersede or be superior to every other faith. His side kick President Ahmadinejad has publicly stated that in order to bring about redemption and ‘The Final Days,’ chaos must rein supreme.  Those that bend their knees towards an idol of hate and offer supplication to a death cult refuse to recognise that the cancer is the Ayatollah and his theology, the pathogen.

The true difference between Fundamentalist Turkey, Racialist Iran, Egypt and super rich Saudi Arabia is in public presentation. And increasingly, those differences are becoming less obvious.

Those who fail to respond to a narrative of hate legitimise the views of its proponents; those who speak a language of hate only understand its consequences when it envelops them in a stifling and claustrophobic embrace that ultimately destroys its host.

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

The Bibi and Shaul Show

I wrote on this blog (May 1st 2011 ‘Voting Reform’) pure proportional representation creates a multiplicity of parties that ultimately destabilizes the institution of democracy.  It is a foil to corruption or chaos when a plurality of interests is able to work together for the common good however over an extended period of time the chances for this diminish.

Kadima was the main opposition party to the ruling Likud Coalition in the 18th Knesset, elected in 2009.  When everyone expected the government to fall and new elections to be called (in May 2012) Shaul Mofaz shocked and surprised everyone by taking Kadima (the name means ‘Forward’) into the coalition.

Today we have the opportunity to reform the Party system, the Electoral system and the System of governance. It is the only possible justification for forming a Likud - Kadima coalition government.

The Israeli legislative elections in 2009 were the 18th set of parliamentary elections in 60 years. On the face of it this provides a picture of stability because if elections are held every 3 to 4 years it enables a government to present a full legislative programme to the country.  But then we bump into statistics that belie this initial impression.

Between 1949 and 2012 there have been 33 separate governing coalitions.

In 1949 the first Knesset had 21 separate parties that contested the election of which 12 parties passed the 1% threshold.  In the 2009 election to the Knesset, a record 43 political parties registered but ONLY 33 ran on Election Day (12 parties got in - the threshold was 2%).  The protest movement expressed as a political force has always been a means by which dissatisfaction can be bled away without altering the essential power base of the ruling elite. The energies that are spilled out dissipate potentially violent frustration while dispersing any momentum for change.  Government becomes the art of holding onto power without actually achieving anything of lasting value.

Arye Carmon (President of the Israel Democracy Institute) stated “the politics of survival led Bibi Netanyahu in 2009 to establish the largest cabinet ever, comprised of 30 ministers and nine deputy ministers.”  The current Prime Minister controls 21.6 per cent of the Knesset while his new coalition partner, Kadima, actually has a greater percentage of the votes (22.5%).

Carmon further states that between 1999 and 2009 “MK’s, eager for publicity, flooded the floor of the Knesset with 14,000 private bills, only 6 per cent of which became law”.  That is 1,316 bills per year wending their way through committee before being rejected, and 84 per year, passed into law.

The ability of any prime minister to govern effectively has been strangled.  In Israel today it is not possible to practice effective government.  Significant structural reform of the Knesset institutions is a necessity for survival.

A second house elected by proportional representation and able to submit bills, not including defence, finance and foreign relations, should be created. All parties not represented in the main house would be empowered, via the parliamentary route, to have their voice heard.

It is time to solve Israel’s chaotic and debilitating electoral and parliamentary system of government.  The Bibi and Shaul Show will be worth watching if it finally presents Israelis with a system that rewards accountability, encourages stability and enables its elected representatives to present its citizens with a vision for a long term future.

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Parliamentary Democracy and Violence


If we want to know why violence infects our streets and crime is no longer a badge of shame look to the Knesset (and while it may be an extreme case, it is hardly unique in its abuse of the ideal of parliamentary democracy).

Jobs are scarce and insecure and prospects governed by mutually narcissistic ambition that protects the lazy and the dishonest while it brutalises the rest of us.  Our society has given us the tools, the ability to think but has filled the ether with the violent demands of those who would tell us how and when to think and that attacks us and tries to deprive us of our freedom when we refuse to listen to their view only.

Our contemporary offering to the gods is not a vision for a peaceful future but a drunken revelry and an act of mindless devotion.  We live in polarised societies with no direction. We live in societies that move at a pace that discounts the value in human relationships.  We too often speak without honour and to hell with the consequences.   And finally, because society has no faith in itself we are unable to pierce the boil of our own frustrations so we drown our concerns in taking extremist positions or in mindless devotion to practicing the art of glitzy superficiality and serene oblivion.

If our parliamentary system has failed to offer a coherent response to the challenges within our society then it can come as no surprise that radicalism is on the march again; that fanatics are in the ascendant with growing legions of followers who have despaired with the mainstream of society.  So the challenge is first how, to get the extremists to acculturate to the Western way of thinking and second to ask the question, why should they bother listening to us when we are unable to explain why our direction is better than theirs? If the rhetoric of hate appears able to solve the problems of society what does it matter to the majority, if the minority is silenced for the overall good?

Yaron London, in a recent Op-ed said the following: “The clash between zealotry and scepticism is the root of the dispute among us” He was referring to Israeli society but he could as easily have been referring to any society not under the thumb of dictatorship.

When power becomes an end in itself, parliamentary democracy becomes a sham, no more than a cynical exercise in corruption for the mutual benefit of a ruling class.  So the question of why our youth have no respect for authority, why too many of them drink to excess as a matter or normality and why they look to their peer group for support instead of government for guidance is no longer a question that needs an answer.

Simply put, the individual is unimportant.  When governments talk of pain, it is yours, not theirs. When they talk of sacrifice, again, it is yours, to which they refer, not theirs.   When they talk of solutions – it is not with strategic vision but short term electoral advantage. Strategy costs money and is of uncertain and invisible tactical (immediate) advantage.  A coalition enables the uninspired and the unelectable (unless we believe that minority rule is democratic) to endlessly dip their collective snouts in the publics’ purse. Society should be for all the people, following all of the rules.  This is the failure of modern politics.

I will address the Bibi and Shaul Show in my next posting.

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Demonisation and Delegitimisation


A few years a go a friend of mine, a Labour counsellor for Harrow, was discussing with me my forthcoming trip to Israel. He made an anti-Israel statement and by responding I fell into his trap. That was my error. I call it an error because unfortunately those that deny Israel the rights they give to everyone else are incapable of seeing the racism inherent within their own arguments. Therefore, any reasonable response by me was not only an act of futility; it was an act of incitement by me. I should have just walked away.

I think we all of us believes in democracy but not every-one of us believes in free speech. When a discussion is labelled an act of incitement simply because any response agitates the listener it is time to fear.  Fear and the absence of equal access to free speech is the start of fascism.

Intolerance is a staple of the political bigot’s diet – indifference to the facts is the meat and two vegetables of Israel’s enemies.

My friend furiously spat out the statement that one mans’ history is another mans’ mythology.  The way he violently spewed out his response startled me but it was also intended as an act of intimidation whose intent it was to foreclose any further debate.

Edward Said was a Lebanese/US - Palestine born philosopher at Columbia University.  He worshipped at the alter of pan-Arab imperialism – he had no qualms resoundingly condemning Western Colonialism while celebrating Arab Colonialism and he had no issue with the Arab aggression which continues to this day at the expense of its indigenous non-Arab and original inhabitants.  Edward Said was the founding father of Orientalism – it has been fashionable since the 1970’s and while it rejects Western imperialism it is reliant on the Identity Politics of non-Western players to demonise the influence of Western thought or action outside of the West.  And it refuses to judge them.  He mainstreamed the idea that history is the servant to the cause which till he argued for it, was a propaganda device favoured by the Far Left.  Put another way, history is no more than a storyline and truth an inconvenient impediment which may be discarded at will.  If all history is bunk (as Henry Ford said) then the truth is truly hostage to the terrorist.

So how do we combat delegitimisation and demonization? I want to make it clear that we are currently playing by our enemy’s rules and any narrative response must therefore lead to our defeat.  If we are to answer the question effectively it must be appreciated that there will be no benefit to trying to convert the agenda driven bigot. They aren’t listening and they don’t want to hear. Of greater importance is to gain the publics attention. As important, we want to deny them access to the bigots’ pre-conceived prejudices.

If we accept the basic premise then it becomes a lot easier to answer the question. You do not address your attention to the denier. We will not convert the intelligent idiot. A propaganda war is a war by any other means – it is disinformation, it is intimidation; it utilises physical violence such as when the East London Muslim university lecturer attacked the photographer; and it is vandalism, threats of violence and the creation of a climate of fear.

I am not advocating the same tactics, but if we honestly believe that our rights are being violated at every opportunity then it is time we took the fight to our enemies. They are not adversaries or protagonists, or any other woolly euphemism we may prefer. They are our enemy and if we become casualties of their war – they will blame us, their victims, for it.

So again, how do we fight demonization and delegitimization? That depends on the identity of our interlocutor.

If it is the Muslim block or their Left wing activist acolytes, we need to use the same placards they use to incite others against us, against them. Islamism is a racist ideology, it is colonialist and genocidal.  There is no love or peace in their theology and the Left has embraced this hatred because it has always been comfortable with a story that is not complicated by complexity or nuance.  The appropriate Koranic texts should be displayed in response to every act from the other side.  Our slogans must be as familiar to the general public as theirs are to us.

This is essentially an agitprop exercise. We must have an explicit message.  Repetition is a staple of the propagandist’s arsenal.  But as important is to stop addressing our enemy’s claims – only then will they be forced to respond to our narrative attack on them.  We are not interested in our enemy, only in the onlooker. Remember they hate us so why do we try to gain their affection?

There are people who say that suffering ennobles; that those who have suffered should be more honourable, purer, better, kinder, more tolerant than those who have not.  It is a fine idea but it is also nonsense. Suffering does not ennoble us. It makes us bitter, twisted and it torments us. I have never heard it said that the former Afro-American slaves must uniquely turn the other cheek and to do so would rightly be condemned as racist.  But Jews who suffered persecution and genocide are told to have trust and be noble, to suffer in silence and to turn the other cheek. And no one cries ‘outrageous,’  ‘RACIST.’

Years ago in the flagship Saudi Mosque in Regents Park the mosques’ elders projected an image onto the massive back-wall, of Ariel Sharon’s head as it slowly underwent metamorphosis into a pigs' head.  The animal metaphor, of the monkey, the pig or the dog as an allegory for the despised and worthless adversary is by intent, deeply offensive.  It is central to the anti-Christian and anti-Jewish imagery in Koranic literature.  Ridicule is an essential component of dehumanization that raises Islam and Muslim civilisation above the dhimmi (the inferior infidel). There is not a single reason to not turn it back on them. The demonic visage of Mahmud Achmadinijad (add a couple of horns) should be everywhere displayed. Recent Iranian history justifies the comparison to Hitler or perhaps Rasputin.  A few placards showing people hanging from cranes, won’t make for regime change but will be a reminder of the difference between us and them.  And when it is distilled to its purest point the differences are what define us and what this conflict is all about.  It is a simple matter of choice, between those that (we are frequently reminded) celebrate death, (because it brings them nearer to their god and their prophet) and those of us taught to live life in this world as if there was no next world.

The entire Arab world save perhaps Egypt and Iran are the random creation of Western Colonialism. I repeat: the Arab world is no more than the artificial creation of western imperialism fostered by the greed of its Arab leaders. Self-determination was perhaps, never intended to be unique to the Arab nations and they can be deconstructed to rid us of the artificial racist entities that they represent. The Arab nation is hegemonic, they believe in the inherent superiority of the Arab over all other people, everywhere. Muhammad / Allah chose for them to be his vehicle for the conquest of human history and our physical subjugation. They have suppressed, discriminated against and ethnically cleansed every non-Arab people that they have encountered.

People have selective memories. They like to imagine that by sacrificing us they will be ignored or that at least they will share in the spoils of victory, and for nations, guarantee an uninterrupted oil supply.  After the Madrid bombing in 2004 when al-Qaeda murdered 200 people and injured 1,000 others Osama bin-Laden told us here, living in Europe that we could immunize the continent against further terror if we returned the Iberian Peninsula to Islamic control.  All we needed do was to deliver Spain, Portugal and Gibraltar into Muslim hands, a mere 60 million souls sacrificed to an Islamic dream.  At the heart of this acquisitive Islamic fundamentalism is the concept of colonization and cultural transfer. Today we would summarise it as “What is mine is mine and what is yours is also mine” but Islam adds the following: “Once we seize it, it remains our patrimony for ever.”

I do not think I am better than anyone else, my religion does not impose on me a duty of taking my cause unto others; my choseness imposes demands on me but does not make me nor imply superiority over any one else.  I resent the bigots’ accusations that render me guilty of every act they themselves have committed against me.

Our narrative and the vanished narrative of the other persecuted non-Arab players, bruised and battered by conflict with imperialist Turkey, racist Iraq, theocratic Iran, Ba’athist Syria, fundamentalist Egypt (and to every Arab nation we could add a description that would be no less aspirational in their desire to dominate and destroy) can only be heard if we express our outrage publicly at every opportunity. There is much to demonise in the aims and ideology of our enemies.

The Kurds and the Armenians are the perfect Delegitimization weapon  - Christians, Jews and Muslims in the Arab world: Chaldeans (Assyrians), Copts, Greeks, Berbers and Baha’i – the too long list of the murdered and the butchered, the humiliated and the expelled, the discarded people of history – it is propaganda that the  Muslim world denies with not a moment of shame.  We must rewrite the rules of engagement.

Only then will the people want to listen, only then will they hear us.

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

UK MP Calls for enquiry into Jewish Lobby

Recently British parliamentarian Jeremy Corbyn called for an independent investigation into the Jewish Lobby. The populist bluster of British politicians is nothing new, middle class anti-Semitism has always had an honourable place at dinner tables and as part of polite conversation here in the UK.

But with a Muslim population of 5% here in Britain it was recently pointed out by George Galloway MP that Ken Livingstone must “connect to his core, including the 750,000 Muslim voters in London. If they don’t vote, he is done for, but if they do, in numbers, he could win handsomely.”  Ken hopes tomorrow to regain the Mayoralty of London. Another recent, nationally reported remark was that Jews wouldn’t vote for him because they are all rich.  In a critical letter to the head of the Labour Party by prominent Jewish Labour supporters it was observed that Ken “used the words Zionist, Jewish and Israeli interchangeably and did so in a pejorative manner that was classically anti-Semitic.” He dismissed his comments as ‘misunderstood.’

Jeremy Corbyn MP is both pro-Arab and anti-Zionist – the two usually go hand in glove. I would never insinuate that British MP’s have formed a Pro-Arab or Pro-Muslim lobby just because they are employed or have been employed by the Islamic theocratic regime (Iran), through its media mouth piece ‘Press TV’; nor would I imply that they have formed a cadre, or shall we say cabal (perhaps the word ‘conspiracy’ is too strong) of British MP’s whose interests are not necessarily Britain’s. Nor am I saying they are guilty of dual loyalty.  I am certainly not questioning their motives in representing a foreign power in the UK. Nor would I suggest that by taking money from a foreign government propaganda organ and being members of parliament they undermine British sovereignty here in the UK.  But it is curious that it is one of their number that calls for an enquiry into a Jewish lobby but never an enquiry into an Arab lobby and certainly never an enquiry into a Muslim lobby, while they themselves, as members of the British parliament or political establishment have all (?) been in the pay of a foreign government global news network.  No-one complains. Conspiracy politics is of course part of the populists’ arsenal of incitement against a specific target that helps to facilitate his or her re-election. It confirms allegiances and is an excellent propaganda point to bring up during campaigning. We should remember that Jeremy Corbyn MP, Julian Brazier MP, George Galloway MP, Ken Livingstone (formerly an MP) and who can forget Dr (Baroness) Tonge MP have all been on the payroll of the Islamist Republic of Iran through their active involvement in Press TV.  Nor should we forget the former Prime Ministers’ sister-in-law and Muslim convert Lauren Booth?  Should we ask how she influenced British Foreign Policy during the ‘Blair Years?’

If there is to be any discussion of parliamentary investigations where the peddling of influence (for cash or ideological conviction) is discussed, here is where Parliament should begin.

As an aside, I am surprised there is no entry in Wikipedia for the Muslim Lobby or the Arab Lobby which without a doubt exists and which has been hugely influential through the immensely wealthy, oil drenched Muslim Uma. It is clearly, enormously competent, beyond anything Jews can achieve.  After all, it has successfully stayed out of the news and in the world of the lobbyist, silence is indicative of effectiveness. So where are we as a community going wrong?  Perhaps we should ask Mr Corbyn?