Category Archives: The West

Dalai Lama La-La Land

Celebrity, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Pseudo-intellectualism, The West, The Zeitgeist

Ask the prototypical dumb bimbo—an American beauty queen, for example—who’s her most favorite person in the whole wide world, and she’ll reply: the Dalai Lama. (And then bare that mandatory big overbite.)

The Dalai Lama is the celebrity airhead’s “intellectual” ornament, every bit as essential a fashion accessory as the rat-like pooch, or the adopted African or Asian ankle biter.

On the surface, the DL seems a sweet enough old man down to his conventional arsenal of simple truisms. He’s no Aristotle that’s for sure, although when he says things like, “Peace good; war bad,” his followers react as though he said something revolutionary. Western liberals love to patronize exotic, foreign activists.

So, as sixty thousand pitiful pinkos flooded Qwest Field stadium in Seattle to feast on the Tibetan leader’s presence (flabby arms and all), it’s worth remembering that the man, and Tibetan Buddhism, was made hip by the likes of Richard Gere, who doesn’t always know a great deal. (I’m being charitable here.)

Indeed, the Dalai Lama is Hollywood’s cause celebre. When the Beatles were young, the rich and famous flocked to India to prostrate themselves before slimy gurus, who promptly took their cash in exchange for Lama-like fortune-cookie “wisdom.” Later, many gurus were exposed for their corrupt, un-abstemious life-styles. The left-liberals lying at the feet of the Lama should know that “during the half century of living in the western world, he had embraced concepts such as human rights and religious freedom, ideas largely unknown in old Tibet.”

The Lama’s wisdom is Western.

All in all, the Dalai Lama is a bit of a liar. He certainly never reminds his acolytes that the Tibetan exile community, lazy Lama included, was funded by the CIA (and George Soros). Michael Parenti, Ph.D has deconstructed the myths of Tibetan Buddhism and history in “Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth”:

“Both the Dalai Lama and his advisor and youngest brother, Tendzin Choegyal, claimed that “more than 1.2 million Tibetans are dead as a result of the Chinese occupation.” The official 1953 census–six years before the Chinese crackdown–recorded the entire population residing in Tibet at 1,274,000. Other census counts put the population within Tibet at about two million. If the Chinese killed 1.2 million in the early 1960s then almost all of Tibet, would have been depopulated, transformed into a killing field dotted with death camps and mass graves–of which we have no evidence. The thinly distributed Chinese force in Tibet could not have rounded up, hunted down, and exterminated that many people even if it had spent all its time doing nothing else.

Chinese authorities claim to have put an end to floggings, mutilations, and amputations as a form of criminal punishment. They themselves, however, have been charged with acts of brutality by exile Tibetans. The authorities do admit to “mistakes,” particularly during the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution when the persecution of religious beliefs reached a high tide in both China and Tibet. After the uprising in the late 1950s, thousands of Tibetans were incarcerated. During the Great Leap Forward, forced collectivization and grain farming were imposed on the Tibetan peasantry, sometimes with disastrous effect on production. In the late 1970s, China began relaxing controls “and tried to undo some of the damage wrought during the previous two decades.”

Needless to say, the history of the region is far more nuanced than Western liberals allow. Tibet was a slave, serf-based, old feudal theocracy under the Lama, and before the Chinese. “In reality, old Tibet was not a Paradise Lost. It was a retrograde repressive theocracy of extreme privilege and poverty, a long way from Shangri-La. To denounce the Chinese occupation does not mean we have to romanticize the former feudal régime.” Or the Lama, who is a caricature, the creation of far-out left-liberals.

Bottom line, Americans should be convening to protest the Iraq war, with its 4 million refugees and tens of thousand dead. As little as they know about that recent atrocity, Americans know even less about Tibet. More material, Iraq is an American mess. Americans, most of whom cheered the war when it was launched, have an obligation to expiate and make amends for that mess. Until you’ve done that, shut the hell up about Tibet.

And do read “Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth” in its entirety.

Updated: Judenräte Turns on Geert Wilders

Free Speech, Islam, Judaism & Jews, libertarianism, The West

In “Nitwork Solutions Suspends Wilders Site,” you read about a heroic Dutchman by the name of Geert Wilders who is fighting Islam’s suffocating strictures. In a country of dhimmis, this Dutchman is a rare breed (so is Ayaan Hirsi Ali); he is trying to reclaim his country.

When the self-anointed Jewish leadership is not reaching out to libertines and left-liberals, it is siding with Jew haters. Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League is still mum about the dangers to the American Jewish community of Muslim immigration.

On the other hand, Foxman had a fit over Mel Gibson, a man who has never hurt a Jew (unless hurt feelings count—and they don’t; sticks and stones and all that). But when a Seattle Jihadist murdered a Jewish woman and critically injured five other women at the downtown Jewish Federation building, our defender issued only the tersest of statements, making no mention of the dead, the injured, and the Muslim.

By the ADL’s telling, this was a random killing.

Now the Dutch Judenräte has turned its back on a friend of the Jews, Geert Wilders:

“In a statement following the film’s online release, the board said that Wilders – the leader of the Party for Freedom – was guilty of serious generalizations. ‘Wilders presented demographics on the increase of Muslims in Europe with pictures from scenes of terrorist attacks, suggesting all Muslims are potential terrorists,’ head of the Hague-based Center for Information and Documentation on Israel, Dr. Ronny Naftaniel, Saturday told Haaretz.”

Dr. Ronny Naftaniel’s incorrect deduction aside, Jews who side with him and his ilk ought not to complain when increased Muslim immigration coincides with more hate crimes against them. Nor should they be surprised when the many Dutch who secretly consider Wilders a patriot think of Jewish representatives as unpatriotic, and worse.

By the way, the response of the Muslim world and its representatives to “Fitna,” the Wilders film, proves irrefutably that Wilders is right about Islam. To deny that he is correct about the dangerous, dampening effects of Islam on a free society is to deny reality.

Wilders would have been shown to be wrong had the Muslim world and its proxies refused to bring pressure to bear on organizations that screened “Fitna,” and adopted a western live-and-let-live stance toward this form of speech.

Had Wilders not been subjected to death threats for his speech; and had the Dutch government not been pressured by Muslim leaders to denounce Wilders—I’d have been the first to concede that the Muslim Ummah is indeed benign, peaceful, and presents no threat to the West.

Speaking of the Ummah; where is my libertarian community on this? Have those few errant folks repented yet?

Update (April 1): “LiveLeak restores Fitna. Score one for freedom,” reports the intrepid Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch. LiveLeak had previously removed the piece.

Update 3: Nitwork Solutions Suspends Wilders Site

Free Speech, Islam, libertarianism, Media, Morality, The West

A hosting service has suspended the site erected by the heroic Geert Wilders to popularize his film about the Quran. Wilders is the only politician I know of, aside Ayaan Hirsi Ali, to speak truth to power about Islam.

We all recall the tragic fate another brave Dutch film maker met. Vincent van Gogh’s great-great-grandson—more authentically Dutch you cannot get—was “stuck like a pig” on an Amsterdam street by a Muslim immigrant.

So who has curtailed Wilders in his heroic efforts? An American company, of course:

“Network Solutions has received a number of complaints regarding this site that are under investigation … The company could not immediately be reached for comment. Its terms of service contain a sweeping prohibition against ‘objectionable material of any kind or nature.’”

(I’ve just asked the designer of our new fabulous website under construction to check up that the server to which we will be migrating tolerates speech. American companies are becoming oppressive.)

The Herald Tribune has characterized Wilders as heading “a reactionary party with 9 seats in the 150-member Dutch Parliament, which was elected on an anti-immigration platform. He lives under police protection because of death threats.”

If by reactionary the Tribune means that Wilders would dearly like to prevent Sharia from becoming the law of the land in his beloved homeland, and that he doesn’t rah-rah for Muslim rioters, then yes, I guess he could be called a “reactionary.”

The fact that a man who voices unpopular opinion is required to “live under police protection” in a western, liberal society—this, the Herald Tribune doesn’t find the least bit “reactionary.”

Update (March 25): Posted over at Jihad Watch is an interview with “Nitworks Solutions.” That is if long pauses and pregnant silences from the company’s representative constitute an exchange.

My contact for all things webular tells me that “Network Solutions has a long history of screwing people. They were the first—and for a long time the only—people who registered domain names for the Internet in the early years.” They had a government granted franchise or monopoly [like Comcast in certain regions] and, consequently, charged very high fees. “Down the road, when people became savvier and other high-tech companies wanted the ability to sell domains as well, the latter had to go to court to get the ability but they won. Today Network Solutions still sells domain names and they are about a tenth of what they used to charge but they still cost more than most everywhere else. The markup is ridiculous.”

In any event, if Mr. Wilders contacts us, we’ll put him in touch with someone who’ll fix him up in no time with a reliable, willing host.

Libertarians who fail to protest such intimidation are a sad joke. Sure, a host is a private company and ought to be able to host or not host at will. However, this is an example of intimidation at the threat of death. (By the same token, neither did the ousting of Imus have anything to do with private property or market forces. Rather, mob forces shaped that event.)

In “Those Cartoons: A Reply To Walter Block,” I addressed the moral confusion that led some libertarians to shirk the responsibility to defend the great Danes in what I termed “one of the defining libertarian issues of our times,” and that is:

“Speaking and publishing under the threat of injury or death … what is becoming a matter of life and death for writers, filmmakers, comics, and caricaturists in the West.”

Update 2 (March 27): I am disappointed that some libertarians construed the protest on this post as a call for censorship. You really have to develop the ability to distinguish between a debate about libertarian law vs. one about morality and ethics. Or values, as an Objectivist would put it. Objectivists often complain that libertarians are incapable of bridging this void. I can see the merits of their complaint.

I believe I’ve done this exercise once before, but here goes again: It has to be manifestly clear that no one on this blog has called on the state to intervene with Nitwork Solutions, which, by the way, was operating by grant of a government privilege when it monopolized domain licensing; that’s another problem some correspondents clearly struggle with: telling the free from the fettered market.

In any event, the debate here is about this new phenomenon we in the West are subjected to, and that is publishing under the threat of death. What Nitwork did to the heroic Wilders is perfectly licit in libertarian law. Some libertarians, however, go so far and say it is moral; they even lend their imprimatur to Muslims in terrorizing writers for doing no more than “hoisting their epistolary pitchforks.” For this perspective, I have nothing but contempt.

That said, let’s move on to a letter from my mother, our correspondent in The Netherlands:

Wilders: A Principled Man

Holland has a hero. Geert Wilders represents many Dutch people who are anxious about the growing power of Islam in Holland. He is a member of the Dutch Parliament and has won 9 seats in the parliament.

The parliament members have done everything to stop Wilders legitimate objection to the growing power of Muslims in all spheres in this country. The government is terrified that the Arab states will object and will take measures to decrease monetary gains. This terrifies all Dutch parliamentarians and, as a result, they have done everything to stop Wilders from speaking out about this Islamization, have tried to stop him from releasing the film he has made about Islam; and have done all in their power to intimidate him into silence and threaten him to keep his mouth shut.

And this in the “Great democratic Holland,” where, supposedly, “Freedom of Speech” is a holy right of all. It is clear to all of us who support this brave man that freedom of speech in Holland is only allowed to those who agree with government policy—their fear of reprisal from Arabs, in the manner used against Denmark, is the only thing they can think about.

Wilders holds onto his principles, even though his life is threatened—he is indeed a man who is prepared to sacrifice himself for his principles—and for his country.

—Ann

Update 3 (March 29): ACCEPTING THE TERMS OF SURRENDER. As I’ve said, we’ve arrived at a stage in the West’s demise where we are publishing under duress—under the threat of death, to be precise. This state of affairs has arisen due to our welcoming into our midst a culture and faith that doesn’t comport with life and liberty. Philosophical disagreements will henceforth be settled by the kafia-clad hit squad, or their proxies, CAIR and their ilk.

LiveLeak.com has folded. Here you can find a statement of cowardice and capitulation from this outfit as to why they’ll not be honoring the courage of Geert Wilders, and posting his film, Fitna (Fatwa).

Those who threatened LiveLeak.com have rejected the way philosophical battles are fought by westerners (to distinguish from their governments). What they’re doing is laying down the law under Islam. Each capitulation brings us closer to a time when this space, and spaces as outspoken, will cease to exist.

What’s worse; westerners, with few exceptions, are accepting the terms of surrender.

Update 3: Rev. Wright’s River Of Racism Will Run Through Washington

Barack Obama, Elections 2008, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Media, Pseudoscience, Racism, The West

What can I add belatedly to the debate over Obama’s spiritual adviser, other than that he sounds like Chris Rock, and is probably overcompensating for not looking like Kunta Kinte? (Say you haven’t missed me.)

Much-missed Mercerisms aside, what Boobus Americanus cheering for Obama needs to take away from Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s words is not this or the other political message. Some of his statements have a core of truth; others are purely phantasmagoric.

What’s crucial here is the tenor of the message uttered by Obama’s mentor—it bespeaks a vile, vociferous, overwhelming hatred of whites.

Rev. Wright’s river of racism runs deep in America and manifests in, for example, violent crime against pale faces, as well as in an ideology that has slowly permeated all cultural products and institutions.

And it has now arrived at the White House.

The Obama presidency will bring this dark force to the White House—and don’t mistake me for claiming said abode has not been infested by the most demonic of forces. It has. Courtesy of the Clintons, the illiterate “poet” Maya Angelou—about whose oeuvre the Times Literary Supplement often has a hearty, cleverly-disguised laugh—became a national name. And worse, of course: Manufactured wars. Lies. Destruction of lives here and abroad.

However, with “Militant Mama Obama” prodding the president, whites will be the only group filled with more hate for Honky than are Michelle, her minister, and his many followers across hijacked American institutions.

I don’t mean whites of the liberal left variety pushing Obama. They love themselves, but do not consider that they are anything but a colorless, divine manifestation of justice on earth. I mean ordinary, self-effacing, brow-beaten, timid whites, who lose jobs daily to anointed “minorities,” and who’ve ceded historical truth to the minority’s “history from below.”

With Mama Obama prodding the president, history from below will blanket America. About the replacement of “the impartial, non-ideological study of American history and its heroic figures with ‘history from below,’” I wrote the following:

“This post-modern tradition regularly produces works the topics of which include, ‘Quilting Midwives during the Revolution.’ Or, ‘Hermaphrodites and the Clitoris in Early America.’ It seeks to obliterate memory of the “predominantly British Christian origins of the people who established the political order described by Thomas Jefferson as ‘a composition of the freest principles of the English constitution, … derived from natural right and natural reason.’”

The establishment’s holy men are down with these humbugs. The corrupt media, as part of what I’ve dubbed the media-military-industrial-congressional complex, will proceed to propagate these perversions high-and-low.

Remember, when the Wright scandal percolated with great difficulty into cable’s quarters, that grizzled “newswoman” Anderson Cooper responded thus: “How do we make this go away?” Those were his words.

However, Rev. Wright’s wrongs are what the inimitable Diana West has dubbed an existential issue for Obama.

And for America.

Updated 1 (March 17): The chronically incurious media has fallen silent on investigating what may be the philosophical underpinnings of Obama—and certainly Mrs. Obama.

The impoverished argument according to which an anti-war candidate is being smeared has popped up here and there. This is in itself a smear—instead of investigating Obama’s worldview, those inquiring into this murky miasma are being discredited. Answer the questions; don’t cover them up!

It is not about what Rev. Wright said on this or the other date, and whether Obama was in the pews at the time; it’s about what he stands for with all his being, and whether the man he mentored holds the same despicable worldview about whites.

We are told by Time that Obama plans a major speech on race. He has indeed been very astute in subtly and genteelly ensuring any questions about His Illusiveness are framed as a racist. It appears Obama also plans to “explain” the black church. Read sanitize.

The pan-Africanism associated with Black Liberation Thinking has a proud tradition of fabrication—it invented an Afrocentric “Safari Scholarship” to finesse unpleasant historical realities:

“Afrocentric books such as Black Athena by Cornell’s Martin Bernal, Stolen Legacy by George G. M. James, and the school tracts known as the “Portland African-American Baseline Essays” [adopted in some American schools]…[claim] no less that thousands of years ago Egyptians-cum-blacks ‘flew in electroplated gold gliders, knew accurately the distance to the sun, and discovered the Theory of Evolution.’ According to Cheikh Anta Diop, a Senegalese Afrocentrist, Africans invented everything from Judaism, to engineering, to astronomy, including dialectical materialism (although Marxism is no cause for inventor’s pride.)”

In the same essay I posed “one nagging question”:

“Afrocentrics claim that practically every reprehensible occurrence in history is the doing of the Great White and his linear thinking. Why, if Eurocentric culture is so horrible, would they want to lay claim to it? By coveting it, aren’t Afrocentrists providing the ultimate validation of Western Civilization?”

Obama is certainly a product of Western culture. Outrageous as it may seem to some, I’d like to know if he holds it and its originators in contempt.

Update 2: “Senator Obama is proud of his pastor and his church, but because of the type of attention it was receiving on blogs and conservative talk shows, he decided to avoid having statements and beliefs being used out of context and forcing the entire church to defend itself.” This, from a press release courtesy of the Obama camp a year ago, when the senator was about to announce his candidacy. Back then, Obama intended to begin the event with a public invocation by Rev. Wright.

Where’s the pride now?

Update 3: The focus of most “analysis” vis-à-vis Obama and his preacher has revolved around whether the candidate has been sufficiently politic and strategic about his association with the repulsive Rev. Wright. He should have distanced himself from the man sooner goes this impoverished “argument.”

The tack tackles the patina of politics. Is Obama a sufficiently slimy operator to have slithered efficiently from under a tricky situation? Suppose he had come out swinging against Wright. That would not have obviated the only issue at hand here: does Obama too feel the filthy feelings Wright so obviously feels about white Americans; is Obama as rank a racist as Wright is.

There is no question that Obama has a deep bond with Wright; there is no question as to his loyalty to the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. The question as I posed it in this post is this: why has Obama been spiritually enmeshed in a church which holds such an unchristian, unevolved, hatful philosophy. Could it be that Obama doesn’t think Wright’s worldview is that hateful?