What’s the MEK?………”a jihadist, communist cult in Iran?”

“Yes, and a murderous one at that”  claims Manda Zand Ervin in the following article:

“In recent reports, the Washington Times has misinformed the public about the Iranian group MEK. Here are the facts.

The Times foreign service reports that a group of prominent U.S. Republicans associated with homeland security just spoke to a forum of cheering Iranian exiles in Paris. The exiles demanded that the Obama administration remove the Mujaheddin-e Khalq (MEK) Iranian opposition group from the U.S. list of foreign terrorist organizations, and that the U.S. incorporate it into efforts to overturn the mullah-led government in Tehran. Former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge, former White House Homeland Security adviser Frances Fragos Townsend, and former Attorney General Michael Mukasey are the new batch of “formers” being recruited to lobby the Obama administration to support MEK.

MEK — which translates as “Jihadists of the Deprived Masses” — was one of the Middle Eastern anti-American groups sponsored and supported by the Soviet Union during the Cold War of the 1960s and 1970s. Led by Massoud Rajavi, MEK is a terrorist organization that robbed millions of dollars from banks and bombed public buildings and police stations. They killed thousands of innocents and law enforcement officials.

They bombed the offices of El Al, Shell, BP, and Jewish-owned offices in Tehran. They bombed numerous other U.S. facilities and properties, killing and maiming. In its publication, The Mojahid, Mr. Rajavi said: “We will make this another Vietnam for America.” During the 1970s, MEK assassinated many American military and civilian personnel, including: General Harold Price, Colonel Lewis L. Hawkins, Colonel Paul Schafer, and Colonel Jack Turner. Donald G. Smith, Robert R. Krongrad, and William C. Cottrell of Rockwell International were among the civilians assassinated by Rajavi’s order.

MEK also attempted to assassinate President Richard Nixon by bombing places he was going to visit when in Tehran. During the 1970s, there were many attempted kidnappings of Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Douglas MacArthur.

MEK joined forces with Ayatollah Khomeini until Khomeini took power. MEK then became the revolution’s terror and killing squad. They spied on and betrayed 186 Iranian Air Force officers, the finest pilots who were planning to take back their country. MEK was the firing squad that killed them all.

Iranians have never forgiven MEK for this betrayal.

MEK attacked and took over the U.S. embassy, taking the hostages. Rajavi insisted on killing the hostages, but Khomeini disagreed with him.

When Khomeini refused to give the position of prime minister to Rajavi, he revolted against the regime and unleashed his assassination squads, exploding leading clerics by children strapped with bombs. Iranians will never forgive MEK and Rajavi for the murder of their children.

After Rajavi fled Iran and was deported from Europe, he went to Iraq and joined forces with Saddam Hussein’s military against Iranian soldiers in exchange for money, a camp, and security. Mr. and Mrs. Rajavi made an unknown amount of money from bank robberies in Iran, millions of dollars from Saddam Hussein, and have raised millions of dollars by having their cult members beg for money in international airports around the world for many years while living in communal housing.

In American culture there are groups who live in communal settings and camps, outside society. They follow a charismatic leader and his dictatorial rules and live for a communal goal set by the leader. They are devoid of individuality or a will of their own. These groups are typically called “cults.” Iranians call MEK “the black Marxist cult,” black being the color of Islam.

MEK has never joined the Iranian diaspora or the opposition groups inside the country. MEK has chosen seclusion, and is not part of Iranian society. Mr. and Mrs. Rajavi have appointed themselves presidents of Iran, voted in by their cult members.

The people of Iran don’t need another batch of Islamist dictators who are even more dangerous than the existing Khomeinism. Iranian Americans oppose another self-appointed Islamist jihadist being incorporated into efforts to overturn the current mullah-led government in Tehran.

The Rajavis know that they have no place among the Iranian people, that they are not welcome. Therefore, they are trying to get themselves installed in Iran by foreign powers. In 1978, Ayatollah Khomeini lied to the people of Iran and the world. Many believed him a man of God, peaceful and humanitarian. Let us not make the same mistake by advocating for another anti-American Islamist jihadist.

The Iranian opposition’s proposal for Iran is to end any and all useless dialogues, trade, negotiations, and talks because all of that violates the human rights of the people of Iran. The Iranian opposition’s proposal for Iran is for America to give total support to the grassroots underground freedom movements of women, labor, and youth. Weaken the regime, and let the people of Iran become our free friends and allies.”

Ron Rodosh Analyzes John B. Judis’ Pandering to Marxists at Same Old ‘New’ Republic

John B. Judis has just collapsed from exertion writing about Republicans in the New, Same Old New Republic, a couple pages of Marxist pablum for the  couple subscribers who still read TNR.   Dragged to the psycho couch, Judis now  is ‘lying’  soothed by Ron Rodosh’s review of  John’s rage in print.   (Found at Pajamas Media)

“John B. Judis, senior editor of The New Republic, can be a top-flight reporter; he has in the past done first-rate reporting about politics. He thinks about it on a serious level and tries to make judgments that take into account demographics and the current political scene. He has gone to contested areas to conduct interviews with regular people in the districts, as well as to spend time with prospective candidates and to travel with them during campaigns.

He can also be highly ideological and wrong-headed. With Ruy Teixeira, he wrote a highly acclaimed book, The Emerging Democratic Majority, (2002), which, somehow or other, never has seemed to quite emerge, although when Barack Obama was elected president, he argued that the 2008 results had vindicated their analysis. Then, of course, came the 2010 mid-term elections, and the prognosis again looked rather dim, which Judis readily acknowledged.

Now, Judis has the cover story [which temporarily is behind TNR’s firewall but will eventually be posted for all to read] in the latest issue of TNR, “Return of the Republicans,” in which Judis does his best to demonize Republicans as totally evil and dangerous, as a political party that has departed from the American consensus, a group of “counterrevolutionaries” whose program “could imperil the country’s recovery-or even precipitate, as happened in 1937 and 1938, a double-dip recession.”

He argues that the Republicans, unlike the Democrats or the old Republican Party, have departed from the old paradigm of Clinton Rossiter, who in 1960, explained that our political parties are “creatures of compromise and moderation” that produce “coalitions of interest in which principle is muted and often even silenced.” That is why, Judis argues, America escaped violence and revolution during both wars and depression.

Now, he argues that the current Republicans, rather than following in the old direction, are determined to stand on principle. What he is doing, as Dennis Prager points out with other recent examples of the litany, is “libeling the Right.” In Judis’ eyes, only the Democratic Party maintains the Rossiter standard; the Republicans, as he says they did in the past:

[S]hut down the government, ambushed the president and his Cabinet with intrusive investigations into corruption—many of them mind-bogglingly trivial—and eventually tried to impeach President Bill Clinton on the most frivolous of grounds.

And in the present, during the past few years, they “disrupted the normal working of Congress and threatened not simply the president, but the power and prestige of the presidency.”

This means, Judis asserts, that in their desire to take power, they are doing so “at the cost of disrupting the political system.” To prove his argument, Judis goes back to the 1930s and the era of the New Deal,  when old-style conservative Republicans from rural and small-town districts combined with Southern Democrats — the racist Dixiecrats — to oppose FDR’s New Deal legislation. Like today, these Republicans falsely accused the New Deal of moving to fascism and/or communism, and planning an American form of totalitarianism. He gives us a series of attacks from those days, from politicians like Arthur Vandenberg and Hamilton Fish, and groups like the American Liberty League. You get the picture: reactionary troglodytes used specious arguments to oppose progress.

FDR, of course, argued that he welcomed the opposition of congressmen like Hamilton Fish, and vowed to “push the money changers out of the temple.” But as I argued many years ago in an article I titled “The Myth of the New Deal,” the major New Deal reforms of the Second New Deal, supposedly achieved because of the mass protests of organized labor and the Left, were actually favored by and vigorously supported by the large commercial and financial interests. Judis cites the opposition from small business groups like the N.A.M., and ignores the powerful corporate leaders, for example, who visited the White House to support and to propose the Social Security Act. There was a time when serious left-wing scholars, like G. William Domhoff whom I quote in the article, understood this truth.

What Judis does to demonize the old Republicans is to pick among those who actually were reactionaries, and who did not comprehend how the New Deal legislation served the interests of the actual corporate powers who benefited from New Deal reforms. Then he jumps to the present, to show today’s Republicans using similar rhetoric, and to hence argue that like in the past, the Republicans are opposing progress — and trying to destroy America in the process.

He refers favorably to someone he calls a “New Deal liberal Democrat” from the South who supported FDR (one of few) — Sen. Claude Pepper. He neglects to inform readers that Pepper’s nickname given him by his opponents was “Red” Pepper, referring not to his hair, but to his politics — since Pepper was an ardent fellow-traveler of the American Communist Party, a Senator who told Americans that Joe Stalin was a “man Americans could trust.”

Judis is right that there was certainly a conservative coalition opposed to the New Deal made up of Southern Democrats and northern Republicans who branded the New Deal as fascist, but he neglects to note that the Socialist leader Norman Thomas also proclaimed that the New Deal was an American version of fascism — and Thomas was anything but any kind of conservative. Of course, during the years of the Nazi-Soviet Pact, so did the American Communists brand FDR a proto-fascist and condemn the New Deal as fascist.  As for the New Deal being responsible for a renewed recession, as Judis does not indicate, current scholarship indicates that this conclusion is now fairly mainstream — and that conservatives said it was true back then does not make it wrong.

His main point is simply that “the conservative coalition of the 1930s is the Republican Party of today,” one that sees liberalism “as the product of communism or fascism that had been imported from Europe … obsessed with strict fealty to an anachronistic reading of the Constitution”; investigated opponents to stop the administration’s program; and argued against government spending. If it was wrong then, says Judis, it must be wrong now. But today’s Republicans are even worse, because now, unlike the past, there are no moderate Republicans willing to work in a bipartisan fashion with Democrats on behalf of the American people.

Now, he claims, Republicans are trying to dismantle the entire New Deal edifice, not to stop overextended programs rejected by our countrymen, like ObamaCare. It is a pure and simple “counterrevolutionary party” that wants victory at any cost, even if it means destroying our entire government.  He of course cites Newt Gingrich as a prime example — ignoring the fact that the current new speaker of the House is not Gingrich, but John Boehner, who, as everyone knows, is acting in a very different fashion than Gingrich did in the Clinton years. Yes, he manages to write that Boehner and Mitch McConnell “are more cautious than Gingrich” — hard to ignore that — but says “they will be vigorously pushed to the right” by the Republican Congress and by other conservatives.

What you will not see anywhere in his article is an assessment of the current Democratic Party, and any awareness that one of the reasons the Republicans have made such major advances is that the Democratic Party has been pushed far to the left. In fact, the leadership of Pelosi and Reid and their supporters took pride in how so many Blue Dog Democrats lost in the mid-term election, because that gave the left wing of of their party more control! There is no discussion of the arrogant attempt of Reid to push through a new stimulus at the last moment, and of the mechanism by which the Democrats forced through an unpopular health care program by failing to consider any of the valid criticisms made of it by opponents.

Instead, he bemoans that there are no more “moderate pro-labor Republicans,” without mentioning that there are almost no more moderate centrist Democrats left who have any influence. I don’t recall Judis, for example, backing Joe Lieberman against Ned Lamont in the last Connecticut Senate race. And then Judis moans about think tanks — they’re all extremist, like AEI and Heritage. I don’t notice Judis mentioning John Podesta’s Center for American Progress, which put out a recommendation that Obama rule by executive decree and bypass Congress, or the Old Left and still existing Institute for Policy Studies, whose staff has put out similar recommendations.  As we all know, extremists are only on the right.

According to Judis, Republicans, conservative think tanks, and Fox  News “speak the language of insurgency and insurrection.” A while ago, I blogged about Frances Fox Piven’s editorial in The Nation, in which she editorially calls for insurrection and violence. I guess that missed Judis’s reading list. Or is it ok when she does it, since Piven is a voice of the Left? As for AEI, its chief is a “right-wing propagandist.” Actually, he is an academic economist. Would Judis like to be described not as a journalist, but as a left-wing propagandist? Or a Marxist ideologue, since he revealed in early 2009 that he again considers himself a Marxist? (Shortly before Obama took office, Judis wrote, “A decade ago, I might have been embarrassed to admit that I was raised on Marx and Marxism, but I am convinced that the left is coming back.” Ok — I should have begun my article calling him a left-wing Marxist ideologue, not a “top-flight reporter.”)

Finally, let me call my readers’ attention to two articles in the Jan. 17^th issue of The Weekly Standard. Without having read Judis, its authors reveal what is so wrong about his analysis. First, Jay Cost writes about the Republican Party of the past. But unlike Judis, Cost explains that the current Republican Party is strong in areas like that where John Boehner hails from, and reflects “the rise of the postwar suburbs” that swung voters who used to vote Democrat to the GOP, “which it has consistently supported for president since 1968.” These are, I might add, precisely the suburbs that, according to Judis, would be the heart of the new emerging Democratic majority.  As Cost writes: “Over the last 60 years, Republican strength has moved southward and westward into territory once controlled by the Democrats.” He goes on to explain that “the pro-growth policies of the Republican Party made new suburbs a natural home for these voters.”

And Cost then mentions Judis’ vast omission — “the leftward drift of the Democratic party.” He is completely on target when he points out that “after the reforms of the Great Society, northern liberals acquired control of the party and pushed it away from the political center, alienating scores of old New Deal voters like culturally conservative Catholics.” He notes that these Catholics handed the Republicans a 20 point victory in the 2010 mid-term elections. Judis should know this. It was the thesis of my 1996 book, Divided They Fell:The Demise of the Democratic Party. I know Judis read it, because he wrote one of the blurbs for it, pointing out that “Radosh makes a good case for why the left must shoulder the responsibility” for the Democratic Party’s decline.

As for Judis’ new claim of extremism, Cost writes the following, to which Judis should take note:

Once upon a time, the Democrats promised a reasonable social safety net that would not impede growth. Social Security and Medicare were perfectly consistent, they argued, with 3 percent or better increases in annual GDP. Yet those days are long gone. Today’s Democrats might talk a good game about prosperity, fiscal responsibility, and a vibrant and secure middle class, but the proof is in the pudding: The last significant action of the 111th House saw a majority of all House Democrats vote to keep taxes low. But of the Democrats who are returning to the new Congress, a majority of them voted to raise taxes just as the economy is limping out of recession.

What the Republicans must do, this conservative author points out, is the following:

What the Republican party​—​supported as it is today by so many former Democrats​—​must do is what the Democrats used to claim to be able to do. The Republicans must find a way to sustain the entitlements that Americans have come to depend on​—​most notably Social Security and Medicare​—​without crippling the economy with increased levels of taxation. Liberal Democrats who demagogue about secret Republican schemes to destroy Social Security and Medicare have it exactly backwards. In truth, the Republican party​—​and only the Republican party​—​can save these entitlements without destroying the prospects for economic growth. The Democratic party can no longer be counted on to do this, which is why the GOP consists of so many old Democratic constituencies. This is the great mandate of the GOP: not to destroy the New Deal and Great Society, but to save their best elements from the ruinous ambitions of today’s liberal Democrats.

He says the Republicans must “sustain the entitlements,” but without “crippling the economy.” He does not say end them and go back to a complete 19th Century laissez-faire system, which is what Judis says is the Republican program. And Judis, as Cost predicts, is the man who leads the pack in demagoguery, arguing about non-existent plans to destroy Social Security and Medicare.

The other point Judis argues — that Republicans do not want bipartisanship — is covered in the article by Fred Barnes, who tells readers about how serious talks last fall between Senator Bob Corker and Senator Chris Dodd, who sought to work out a compromise on financial regulations, were ended on March 10^th when the White House, deciding that they did not need Republican votes, pulled the plug on the bipartisan negotiations. As Barnes point out, Corker was furious when Obama came to the Senate Republican policy lunch and lectured them on the need for bipartisanship.  I guess Judis also missed that issue of the Standard.

The truth is, as my historian friend Martin J. Sklar continually points out, the Republicans are today the party of progress and the future, and the Democrats, whom Judis heralds are the new reactionaries, are devoted to trying to create a command-state economy. And as National Review’s Ramesh Ponnuru writes, “Judis is just ventilating his prejudices.” Too bad The New Republic sees fit to give this venting the lead position in its new issue.”

Comment:   Readers are to be reminded that Marxism is a religion……..one in which the basic faith relies on Marxist man, at the center of the universe   micromanaging   the lives and concerns of  their Marxist peoples  according to the principles  of  their Marxist government in order to make people equal one to another.

Dutch Left Moves Ahead To Try Geert Wilders for Truthspeaking against Islamic Jihad

The Trial of Geert Wilders: A Symposium

By James Cohen • on January 19, 2011

Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders goes on trial in Amsterdam on Wednesday, January 20, on charges related to his political campaign to stop and reverse the Islamization of the Netherlands. The International Free Press Society has asked an array of legal experts, authors and journalists to reflect on this momentous event, and we present their comments below.

Allen West

Greetings to all who still cherish Western civilization’s most prized possession, individual liberty and freedom. One of the foundations of our liberty is the freedom of speech that separates us from dictatorships, autocracies, and theocracies, of which there still exist many. A preponderance of such unfree systems exist in the Islamic world where the basis of governance is the Koran — a violation of another premise of modern Western civilization, separation of church (religion) and state.

My purpose for writing this simple missive is because of a dear friend and compatriot, Dutch MP Honorable Geert Wilders. I have met Geert on several occasions and correspond with him as well.

I find the news below appalling and despicable;

Mr Wilders faces a 70-page charge sheet covering five counts of breaking Dutch law on incitement and discrimination against Muslims in more than 100 public statements, for example by likening the Koran to Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf and calling for an end to the “Islamic invasion.”

The alleged offences include Mr Wilders’ film Fitna, which shows images of 9/11 and beheadings interspersed with verses from the Koran. It ends with a the controversial Danish cartoon of the prophet Muhammad wearing a bomb as a turban.

If truth has become the new “hate speech” we are doomed. When tolerance becomes a one way street it leads to cultural suicide. If sheep and cowards become leaders of Lions, we shall be led to slaughter. When Islamic terrorists are trained and given guns and bombs, only to get lawyers when captured…..we shall lose.

The individuals bringing forth these insidious charges against my friend Geert represent the worst among us, devoid of character.. They are more willing to live a life kneeling in submission and subjugation than to find the moral courage to stand. I admonish the people of The Netherlands and all across the world to STAND. I plead with you to reject the abject gutlessness of this court of fools and charlatans.

Geert, stand strong, and know that you are not alone, for “I am Geert Wilders”!
Steadfast and Loyal, Lieutenant Colonel Allen B West (US Army, Retired)

Politic and freedom

Bat Ye’or

Muslims might feel insulted by Geert Wilders’ opinions on Islam. However, Geert Wilders and non-Muslims feel insulted – threatened — by the hostile and negative opinions on them enshrined in Muslim holy books, laws and customs. These are not hidden or dismissed as outdated, but continuously and proudly published, taught and publicly expounded throughout the world — without being opposed by Muslim leaders.

Westerners have been conditioned by their governments, their media, the Palestinisation of their culture and societies, to be the culprit and to accept without a murmur the continuous harassment of the permanent terrorist threat. Such terrorism has taken already many innocent lives and wounded countless others since it started, in the 1960s, in Europe with the collaboration of Palestinians and Nazi groups murdering Jews and Israelis.

In view of an aggressive indigenous and foreign terrorism within the Netherlands itself, it is clear that Geert Wilders is answering a provocation against him that obliges him to live under permanent security controls. How is it possible that in the XXIe century, in a democratic and peaceful Europe, some people, politicians, intellectuals, cartoonists or others, need 24-hour security when they have done nothing but lawfully express themselves ?  Will self-censorship define our culture?

For most Europeans, Geert Wilders appears to be the hero and defender of their lost freedoms and dignity; a conviction would reinforce his aura and weaken his political enemies. Public opinion would see those enemies as the stooges of the Organization of the Islamic Conference who continuously and by every means pressure European governments to punish severely what it consider blasphemy according to shariah law. For instance, in March 2006, the Executive Committee of the OIC held its first Ministerial Meeting in Jeddah.1 They decided that the OIC Member States and its Secretary-General ought to pursue efforts to realize the following objectives: 1) adoption of a resolution at the 61st session of the UN General Assembly to proscribe defamation of religions and religious symbols, blasphemy, denigration of all prophets, and the prevention in the future of other defamatory actions; and 2) planning a global strategy to prevent the defamation of religions with the implementation of effective and appropriate measures.

Western governments must decide whether they judge by Western or shariah laws. Wilders has defied shariah law, and, as a consequence, his life is in  constant danger. It seems to me that the threats against him are the real crimes the Netherlands should address. If Wilders is convicted, Europeans will see in such a verdict the suppression of their own freedom to defend themselves and their submission to dhimmitude.

Wilders’ prosecution reveals a real and profound social and political malaise. Punishments and insults will not help, it will worsen it. Through him, governments must listen to the discontent of their own people whom they have  consistently ignored or despised. This is Wilders’ message. It is also Flemming Rose’s revolt and Kurt Westergaard’s ordeal – to name a few other prominent revolutionaries against the imposition of shariah in Europe, without forgetting the Muslim apostates.

The Free World is watching and listening. Buying Europe’s security by appeasement, political correctness, self-censorship and the Palestinisation of society, will lead only to civil wars.

Humans have short memories. But history will record that Wilder’s trial will either condemn freedom of speech, or support this most precious right of Mankind against intellectual terror and cultural totalitarianism.

His Free Speech is Our Free Speech

By Clare M. Lopez

When Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders goes on trial this week in the Netherlands, he will stand alone before a Dutch court. But make no mistake: it is the very principle of free speech which hangs in the balance there. Brought up on charges of inciting hatred, Wilders is one of the few leaders anywhere in the Western world who dares to denounce a supremacist Islamic doctrine that commands its faithful to jihad and terror against non-believers. As he showed so honestly in his courageous film, ‘Fitna,’ a system of pluralist, tolerant, liberal democracy is fundamentally incompatible with literal, textual Islam as presented on the pages of the Qur’an.

Increasingly, Wilders’ fellow countrymen and lovers of individual liberty under rule of man-made law across Europe are responding to his call to confront those who would follow the way of Islamic jihad. We all are beginning to understand that Geert Wilders is Everyman—every man and woman who believes in the freedom to speak one’s mind, to express truth as he sees it without fear of repression or prosecution. Free speech means nothing if it does not include the right to offend, and no belief system, not Islam and not any other, can be exempt. To speak the truth is no crime—but to rise up in gratuitous violence at the sound of truth, however offensive, ought to be.

The American Founding Fathers declared that our rights derive not from any government or religion but from the Creator Himself and the natural state of human beings. As such, no government may or ought try to alienate such rights from its people. Nor may Islam or any faith. Geert Wilders knows this and to ensure that inalienable rights remain the hallmark of human dignity, he stands in the dock for all of us.

Netherlands: the world is watching. Do not lead Europe into a long black night where the light of freedom flickers but fitfully as it does in every place where Shari’a is law. Stand with your forebears who, like William of Orange, fought to keep Dutchmen free, and do not fear the violence of assassins and mobs. Your liberty is our liberty and Wilders’ free speech is our free speech.

Netherlands Cowing to Islamic Fascism as Geert Wilders Trial Finally Begins

That might be true,” says Geert Wilders about the possibility that he has lost his freedom for the rest of his life, “and if so is a very sad conclusion. I wouldn’t wish my worst political enemy not to be free. But I have no regrets. I have to pay a high price for the fight for freedom, but it’s worth it because if I and others in the world don’t fight against the ideology of hate and submission, we will all lose our freedom.” His remarks came on the day before the man who may become the Netherlands’ next prime minister goes to trial for criticizing Islam.

Wilders has lately been spending his days and nights with his lawyer preparing for a courtroom battle in the homeland of Spinoza. Human Rights Service asked him if he would be willing to conduct an interview by email, and he replied in the affirmative. But he added that because of the time pressures he is under, “it would help if it’s not too long” and asked that we send “just a few questions.”

The whole world will have its eyes on Amsterdam when Wilders, Europe’s most persecuted man, goes to trial this week. The trial will make world history, since no leading politician in modern European history, as far as we know, has been prosecuted for hateful and insulting remarks about a religion, its allegedly holy book, and its adherents.

There are five charges against Wilders in all. Wilders has caused religious offense by (among other things) describing Islam as a fascist religion and by proposing a ban on the Koran, which he has compared to Mein Kampf. He has incited hatred and discrimination by claiming that Moroccan youth are violent, and by calling for the Netherlands to close its borders to all non-Western immigrants and for a halt to the “Islamic invasion.” Wilders, whose political party — the Freedom Party — was declared yesterday to be on the verge of becoming the country’s largest, risks being sentenced to as much as a year in prison.

In the last couple of days, Wilders has of course been very busy preparing his defense. But he was kind enough to take time out to answer some questions for Human Rights Service:

HRS: Like Robert Redeker and Kurt Westergaard, it may be that you will not be able to live in freedom for the rest of your life. What do you think of this situation?

Wilders: That might be true, and if so is a very sad conclusion. I wouldn’t wish my worst political enemy not to be free. But I have no regrets. I have to pay a high price for the fight for freedom but it’s worth it because if I and others in the world don’t fight against the ideology of hate and submission, we will all lose our freedom.

HRS: Do you, as a living symbol of freedom, really believe that the Koran should be prohibited, or was that proposal a conscious provocation? Do you really hope for book burnings of the sort that would remind us of some of the darker hours of Europe’s history?

Wilders: You have to see this proposal in the Dutch context. In the Netherlands Mein Kampf is outlawed. When it was outlawed, the politically correct leftist and liberal parties applauded it. My point was that for the same reason and (legal) arguments that Mein Kampf was outlawed in the Netherlands, the Koran could and should be outlawed since both books are full of incitement of violence. Of course the left were angered by my proposal to outlaw the Koran, and this was inconsistent, at least. So I did introduce a parliamentary resolution to outlaw the Koran in the Netherlands, but that resolution was rejected by the majority.

HRS: How do you envision Europe in 10-20 years? Will Europe have rediscovered its identity and pushed back the dark forces of Islamism, or will the old Europe have collapsed in fear? How can the dark forces of Islamism be forced into retreat, neutralized? If fear wins out, what will Europe look like in 2025?

Wilders: Europe is weak. European leaders are weak. We currently have more appeasers like Chamberlain leading European countries today than fighters like Churchill. If we stay weak, we lose our identity; our culture based on Christianity, Judaism, and humanism will lose ground and Islam will grow even stronger in Europe today. We will face a Eurabia, as my dear friend Bat Yeor has so rightfully described it. There will be no freedom, no room for anything but Islam, no tolerance, and more sharia. It will be hell. However, more and more people are becoming aware of the Islamic threat, unlike the politically correct political elite that is still pampering the multicultural society and cultural relativism. There is a growing gap between the awakening vox populi and sleeping political elite. That’s why my Party for Freedom (PVV) in the latest poll from yesterday is (virtually) the biggest party in the Netherlands. That is encouraging. But we have a long way to go and we should fight, since liberty is at stake.

HRS: If you became prime minister of the Netherlands, what would your main political priorities be and why?

Wilders: I would stop the immigration from Muslim countries. Not because I have anything against Muslims — I don’t — but because we have enough Islam in Europe. I would be tougher on the integration of the non-indigenous people. If you do not adhere to our Constitution, laws, and values, and commit crimes you will deported as soon as possible. I would strengthen the freedom of speech in the Netherlands by introducing some kind of Dutch First Amendment of the sort that the U.S.A. has. I would lower taxes in the Netherlands by cutting expenses on integration, contributions to the EU, development programs, and other leftish hobbies, etc. I would spend more money on the elderly and disabled since they are often worse off than the prisoners who are pampered in Dutch prisons.

HRS: A major aspect of Islamist control in Muslim communities is the denial of rights to women in those communities. How would you address this as prime minister? Is it possible for governments to do anything about this?

Wilders: One of the differences between our free Western societies and societies where the Islamic culture is dominant is the equality of men and women. We will not compromise on that one inch. Woman are equal to men, should have the same right to education and freedom and opportunity as men. This is already in all our laws. We have to act on it if we witness any other behavior that is unlawful and we should make examples by punishing and/or extraditing those men who don’t adhere to our laws and the important principle of equality of men and women.

HRS: How should we deal with the results of new research in Denmark which shows that the better integrated Muslims are, the more radicalization there is among them?

Wilders: I don’t believe that, and as a matter of fact am not interested in why people are radicalizing. I am a lawmaker, not a psychiatrist. The left tried to fool us before by saying that the reason of radicalization is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the war against Iraq or Afghanistan, the domestic social background of people, etc., etc. We should act against radicals by finally acting in the toughest way against them: Jail them and if possible denaturalize and extradite them. Let people in our societies know: If you adhere to our laws and values you are equal to anybody else and welcome to stay but if you don’t we will jail and extradite you.

HRS: How should authorities deal with organized Islam (mosques, schools, etc.) that is in full collision with human rights? Isn’t this a greater challenge than whether the Koran is available in bookstores? Wouldn’t it make more sense to argue for the prohibition of organized Islam itself, in cases when the organizations in question have clear connections to certain Islamic movements and schools of law?

Wilders: I believe Islam is more an ideology than a religion. As a matter of fact Islam is a totalitarian ideology like Communism and fascism. Therefore Islam is not equal to Christianity or Judaism, but has to be compared to other totalitarian ideologies. I want all Islamic schools in the Netherlands to be closed immediately. Young children should not be brought up and be taught an ideology of hate, submission, and violence. We would help the integration of young Muslim children far more by allowing them into other schools where they can be educated amongst other children. I don’t want any more mosques to be built in the Netherlands either, for the ideology of hate is advocated there, too. And as for reciprocity: Try to build a synagogue or Christian church in Saudi Arabia or Iran. You will be prosecuted and sentenced. We should stay tolerant to the tolerant, but also learn to be intolerant to the intolerant.

Support: If you want to show your support for freedom of expression, sign this petition.

Yes, Apparently Khaled Sheikh Mohammed Did Behead Daniel Pearl

According to the new report, which was prepared by faculty members and students at Georgetown University, U.S. officials have concluded that vascular technology, or vein matching, shows that the hand of the unseen man who killed Pearl on video is that of Mohammed. The report also says Mohammed told the FBI that a senior al-Qaeda operative advised him to take control of Pearl from his original kidnappers.

The 31,000-word report, published in conjunction with the Center for Public Integrity at http://www.publicintegrity.org, is among the most complete and graphic accounts of Pearl’s death…

Mohammed slashed Pearl’s throat, killing him, but one of his accomplices failed to operate the video camera, which they had brought to capture the murder for propaganda purposes. Mohammed restaged the killing, this time decapitating Pearl, according to the report. He then dismembered Pearl’s body, and it was buried on the compound. Guards washed the bloody floor and then prayed, foreheads to the ground, on the same surface where their prisoner had just been killed, the report said.

The report said that 27 men, including guards and drivers, played a part in the kidnapping and murder, and that 14 remain free in Pakistan.

Below is a video which accompanied this story by Allahpundit at HotAir:

http://hotair.com/archives/2011/01/20/forensic-analysis-yes-khaled-sheikh-mohammed-murdered-daniel-pearl/

A Note Requesting Money from My Representative, Erik Paulsen

I received this fund raising notice from my Congressional District Representative, Republican Erik Paulsen.  

Erik is not a “fire and brimstone”  driven politician,  a stereotype the Obama Progressives-progressing-to-Marxism in America would like Minnesota voters to believe.  They believe he may even attend Church occasionally.   

After all, Erik is Scandinativan by blood line, a line not  high on today’s  Democrat Party’s list of favorite victimhood groups it panders to for votes.  A blood line which folks  in these snows of the country, generally assume that  a person born “Erik Paulsen” would inevitably be   a quiet,self composed and honorable man and probably a whiz in things mathematical. 

Such people created Minnesota and therefore the  ‘Minnesota Nice’,  a description which until a few years ago accurately described the cultural life in this state where I live.  Things have changed.

Today we have Al Franken, Keith Ellison, the Minneapolis StarTribune,  MSNBC,   the  Paul Krugmans and Tom Friedmans at the New York Times, the Oliver Stones, Barack Obama,  and public schools whose students have become  foreigners  to the American traditions of democracy,  justice and civility which also have grown foreign in  the new Minnesota of our day.     It is not a very “Nice” Minnesota.  If current trends continue, it will be even less nice in the future  if  government keeps getting bigger and bigger and therefore, more authoritarian.

A few islands where democratic freedoms, civility, respect for knowledge,  common sense, and tolerance are cherished, still exist in the state.    They need to be defended by our representatives who cherish American values and are not afraid to identify these values privately and publicly.

Representative  Eric Paulsen, I believe, is a retro from old time Minnesota of “Minnesota Nice”.   I do not know him well, except that I have noticed both from personal conversations with him and from attending some of  his  political gatherings,   he cannot seem to hide his Minnesota background, whether genetic or cultural,  that he is genuine,  a quiet, self composed and honorable man and probably a whiz in things mathematical.

Erik Paulsen’s fund-raising note:

“Dear friends,

Yesterday, the House of Representatives voted to repeal the new job-destroying health care law. This was the bill that Nancy Pelosi said we had to pass so “you can find out whats in it”.

Now, the opposition is fighting back.  Recently, Politico reported that I am one of 62 Republicans being targeted by the DNC because I oppose this unaffordable government takeover of health care.  And now, President Obama’s liberal political arm, Organizing for America, is activating its grassroots army in my district.

You and I know our country can’t afford $500 billion in new tax increases and mandates, the increases in health care premiums and a costly, trillion dollar overhaul when our nation is deep in debt.”

Erik Paulsen represents a Congressional District whose voters supported a faceless Republican lost in the Washington crowd, a Republican almost in name only.   He was a non-entity, but a ‘Minnesota Nice’  man, unfortunately very   silent as America became more and more imprisoned by the world of LeftWing Political Correctness and its false attacks  upon our culture and its past.

Thus far, Erik Paulsen is eminently worthy of our  Minnesota support, no matter where you live.   We need such honorable representatives  to help restore, “America Nice” and the democratic culture upon which it depends.

Honorable traditional Americans must  unite to defeat Democrats at the ballot box, and, or convert them to rediscover what America has meant to its citizens throughout its existence.

I include here Erik’s email address.    Help him become better known as a Republican representing traditional conservatvie values, the values that formed our America to become the exceptional community it has been.

erik@paulsenforcongress.com |

Video Interview with Jeb Bush on American Education Reform

As governor of Florida from 1999 to 2007, Jeb Bush championed school choice. His first year in office he created a program that offered vouchers to students in failing schools. The program successfully boosted student achievement until it was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2006. Two other Bush-supported programs — one that offers tax credits to business that help send low-income kids to private schools and another that gives vouchers to disabled students -– survived the high-court ruling. Bush also expanded the Florida Virtual School, a national model for online public education.

Since leaving office, Bush has promoted his reform agenda in other states. He founded the Foundation for Excellence in Education and serves as co-chair of the Digital Learning Council.

Reason.tv’s Nick Gillespie sat down with Bush at the National Summit on Education Reform in Washington, D.C., to talk about how information technology can help break the education monopoly.

This interview is part of National School Choice Week, an initiative to raise awareness of how competition and choice can transform public education. 

Approximately 6.30 minutes. Filmed by Jim Epstein and Meredith Bragg, and edited by Epstein.  

http://reason.com/blog/2011/01/19/reasontv-jeb-bush-on-disruptin

Go to Reason.tv for downloadable versions and subscribe to Reason.tv’s YouTube Channel to receive automatic notification when new material goes live.

For more on the potential for online learning to transform K-12 education, read Katherine Mangu-Ward’s “Teachers Unions vs. Online Education” from our August-September 2010 issue.

George Will on ObamaDems, “No Amount of Resources Can Prevent Government from Performing Poorly

It takes a worried man to sing a worried song, and in a recent speech that seemed like Larry Summers’s swan song, the president’s now-departed economic adviser warned that America is “at risk of a profound demoralization with respect to government.” He fears a future in which “an inadequately resourced government performs badly, leading to further demands that it be cut back, exacerbating performance problems, deepening the backlash, and creating a vicious cycle.”

The idea that America’s problem of governance is one of inadequate resources misses this lesson of the last half-century: No amount of resources can prevent government from performing poorly when it tries to perform too many tasks, or particular tasks for which it is inherently unsuited.

Actually, government is not sufficiently demoralized. The hubris that is the occupational hazard and defining trait of the political class continues to cause government to overpromise and underperform. This class blithely considers itself exempt from the tyranny of the bell-shaped curve – the fact that in most occupations a few people are excellent, a few are awful, and most are average.

In fact, the bell curve is particularly pertinent to government. Surgeons achieve eminence by what they do “in office” – in operating rooms, performing surgery. Politicians achieve eminence simply by securing office – by winning elections, a skill often related loosely, if at all, to their performance in office.

James Q. Wilson, America’s preeminent social scientist, has noted that until relatively recently, “politics was about only a few things; today, it is about nearly everything.” Until the 1930s, or perhaps the 1960s, there was a “legitimacy barrier” to federal government activism: When new policies were proposed, the first debate was about whether the federal government could properly act at all on the subject. Today, there is no barrier to the promiscuous multiplication of programs, because no program is really new. Rather, it is an extension, modification or enlargement of something government is already doing.

The vicious cycle that should worry Summers is the reverse of the one he imagines. It is not government being “cut back” because of disappointments that reinforce themselves. Rather, it is government squandering its limited resources, including the resource of competence, in reckless expansions of its scope.

“There has been,” Wilson writes, “a transformation of public expectations about the scope of federal action, one that has put virtually everything on Washington’s agenda and left nothing off.” Try, Wilson suggests, to think “of a human want or difficulty that is not now defined as a ‘public policy problem.'”

Summers leaves a federal government funded by a continuing resolution. Congress has been so busy passing gargantuan legislation to expand government’s responsibilities that it has not had enough time, energy or sense of responsibility to pass a budget. And the pathologies of expanding government are becoming worse because of two concepts Summers mentioned in his valedictory – Baumol’s Disease, and Moynihan’s Corollary to it.

William J. Baumol, Princeton economics professor emeritus, said that in certain economic sectors – e.g., labor-intensive service industries – productivity will increase, if at all, more slowly than in the rest of the economy. The late senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s corollary was that such services – e.g., teaching, nursing, the performing arts – tend to migrate to the public sector.

Moynihan noted that if you want a string quartet, you must hire four musicians with four instruments, just as in Chopin’s day. “Productivity,” said Moynihan, “just hasn’t changed much. And when it does – e.g., playing the Minute Waltz in 50 seconds – it doesn’t seem to work right.” Actually, lopping 10 seconds off the waltz subtracts from musicians’ productivity.

Moynihan noted a danger to his party in the tendency for the “stagnant services” to become government services: “The Democratic Party is identified with this very public sector in which relative costs are rising. By contrast, the Republican Party is identified with the private sector where relative costs are declining.” The public sector’s involuntary tendency to become, regarding productivity, a concentration of stagnation is a reason for government to become more circumspect than it has been about the voluntary acquisition of vast new responsibilities, such as micromanagement of health care’s 17 percent of the economy.

As Summers returns to Harvard, he is hopeful because “markets climb walls of worry.” That is, American history is replete with self-refuting prophesies of peril – predictions of national decline that prompt renewals.”

“Clean Energy” Can’t Exist without Raiding Taxpayers’ Pockets!

Clean Energy Can’t Compete

The following article was published at the National Center for Policy Analysis:

“The solar company Evergreen announced last week that it is shutting its Massachusetts plant and will lay off 800 workers.  That’s the same plant Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick had state taxpayers fund in 2007 to the tune of $58 million in grants, loans and land and tax incentives — one of the largest investments in a private company in Bay State history, says the Wall Street Journal.

Evergreen blames its plant closing on competition from subsidized Chinese manufacturers.  However, Evergreen has also been subsidized in the multiple ways that federal and state governments favor solar power, says the Journal.

• Bay State taxpayers are now stuck with the losses.
• Mr. Patrick says he intends to claw back some of that $58 million, but Evergreen says it does not owe more than $4 million.
• Taxpayers will also be thrilled to know the state is so worried about getting a new tenant for the manufacturing site that it may let Evergreen keep its sweetheart $1-a-year lease — allowing the company to sublet it at a profit.

All of this adds up to one more case study in the perils of politically allocated capital.  Like President Obama, Mr. Patrick has advertised the illusion that governments can nurture new companies, even whole new industries, with targeted taxpayer “investments.”  This is the entire premise of the “clean energy” industry, most of which wouldn’t exist without subsidies because it can’t compete on a market basis, says the Journal.

Source: “Solar Power Eclipse,” Wall Street Journal, January 18, 2011.”

For text:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703959104576081991727353356.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Question:  Whyisn’t America  drilling. for American oil?   Why aren’t we developing our vast resources of oil products?   Why are we shoring up these modern muslim caliphates and the United Nations which they hold hostage?   Why are we politically hog tying Americans from creating wealth for the United States Treasury and the American people, yet tolerate Cuban and Chinese government oil exploration off our own shores?

Because of Barack Hussein Obama.

Are You a Liberal? …….find out by taking the Dennis Prager Test!

It is my belief that about half of the Americans who call themselves liberal do not hold the great majority of positions held by mainstream liberal institutions such as the New York Times editorial page, People for the American Way, and the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. So here is a test of this thesis to be given to anyone who believes he or she is a liberal. If you feel I have omitted a liberal position or have unfairly characterized any of them here, please email me. This is still a work in progress.

Thank you,
Dennis Prager
dennisprager@dennisprager.com

 

You say you are a liberal.

Do you believe the following?

1.Standards for admissions to universities, fire departments, etc. should be lowered for people of color.
2.Bilingual education for children of immigrants, rather than immersion in English, is good for them and for America.
3.Murderers should never be put to death.
4.During the Cold War, America should have adopted a nuclear arms freeze.
5.Colleges should not allow ROTC programs.
6.It was wrong to wage war against Saddam Hussein in the Gulf War.
7.Poor parents should not be allowed to have vouchers to send their children to private schools.
8.It is good that trial lawyers and teachers unions are the two biggest contributors to the Democratic Party.
9.Marriage should be redefined from male-female to any two people.
10.A married couple should not have more of a right to adopt a child than two men or two women.
11.The Boy Scouts should not be allowed to use parks or any other public places and should be prohibited from using churches and synagogues for their meetings.
12.The present high tax rates are good.
13.Speech codes on college campuses are good and American values are bad.
14.The Israelis and Palestinians are morally equivalent.
15.The United Nations is a moral force for good in the world, and therefore America should be subservient to it and such international institutions as a world court.
16.It is good that colleges have dropped hundreds of men’s sports teams in order to meet gender-based quotas.
17.No abortions can be labeled immoral.
18.Restaurants should be prohibited by law from allowing customers to choose between a smoking and a non-smoking section.
19.High schools should make condoms available to students and teach them how to use them.
20.Racial profiling for terrorists is wrong — a white American grandmother should as likely be searched as a Saudi young male.
21.Racism and poverty — not a lack of fathers and a crisis of values — are the primary causes of violent crime in the inner city.
22.It is wrong and unconstitutional for students to be told, “God bless you” at their graduation.
23.No culture is morally superior to any other.

Those are all liberal positions. How many of them do you hold?

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