Ekstra Bladet bærer stadig nag til Faderhuset, og nyheden om Ruth Evensens hemmelige datter fik en vægtning normalt forbeholdt en verdenskrigs ophør.

2/3-08 Ekstra Bladet – Datter af Ruth Evensen: Derfor købte mor Jagtvej 69.

3/3-08 Ekstra Bladet – Ruths datter: Mor er magtliderlig.

Til Jyllandsposten fortæller Sophie Ogenio.

“Bogen handler, ifølge forfatteren selv, om den farlige sekteriske mentalitet, som Faderhuset drives af… På spørgsmålet om, hvorfor Sophia Ogenio vælger at angribe sin mor og Faderhuset så stærkt, svarer hun:

‘Min bog er baseret på mine egne erfaringer. Jeg kan ikke fortælle sandheden om sekter uden at fortælle min egen historie. Min viden om sekter er baseret på egne erfaringer, så derfor er de to afhængige af hinanden.’”

Datteren Sophie har undsagt Faderhuset, og giftet sig med Edwin Ogenio. Ekstra Bladet skal nok vride de sidste dråber familiære og religiøse stridigheder ud af hende, så lad os vende sagen lidt om. Edwin Ogenio har foruden at være forsanger i et dødsmetalband været centrum for flere sekter. Tidligere i Holland. Herom beretter en ‘Cassandra’ fra Utrecht på et debatforum.

“… Edwin Ogenio had a church in the Netherlands, God’s Pleasure, where he abused several young women (sexually) and ruled like a dictator. His wife (who calls herself Victoria now (this is her sisters name), her real name is Annemarie) has had at least one lesbian relationship with a very young girl (18). When everything came out in the open they fled to the USA where they started their ‘holy work’ all over again. Also, they didn’t take care of their son. When they ran off to the USA people in the Netherlands found Edwins secret room; it was stacked with porn movies and worse.

[...]

I will translate some stuff from Dutch sites/newspapers about Edwin Ogenio and his ‘church’ in the Netherlands:”The youth church God’s Pleasure is an example how things can get out of control. They started out in 1988 and soon their group was getting larger, mostly with people dressed in black. The music there was fast and loud. At one point they had about 200 members, the average age was 20. In 1994 God’s Pleasure got a lot of media attention. Some parents of members and some former God’s Pleasure members said GP was a cult/sect. The charismatic leader, Edwin Ogenio, immediately wrote a book in which he claims that not GP, but the families where the members grew up in were a cult/sect. Well, he never did like criticism. Ogenio fell in the classic traps of sex, abuse of power, manipulation and wanting a lot of money, which led to the end of GP. Edwin and his wife Annemarie fled to the USA and left a lot of young people behind that were very confused, hurt and in crisis (faith).”

[...]

And what about this (a book about sects/cults in the Netherlands):”God’s Pleasure. Leader: Edwin Ogenio. Location: Utrecht. In the late eighties Edwin Ogenio, who cam from Curacao, started a youth church. The church had their own heavy metal band with christian lyrics.

Came in the media because: pressuring young people to break with their parents. Ogenio became more and more obsessed with power/control and ruled like a dictator. He decided whom could be friends with whom. Criticism was not allowed and people who asked too many questions got kicked out of the church. Former members sued him for abuse of power, extortion and a couple of other things. Also, the IRS (taxes!) were after him. Some of his closest ‘friends’ in the church had to pay for his debts when he fled to the USA. This took them years! It is known that Ogenio and his wife started all over again in Houston, San Diego and Beverly Hills/Hollywood. But some day their history will catch up with them…”

Flere tidligere tilhængere bekræfter ovenstående. Edwin Ogenio kommenterer selv beskyldningerne.

“… I would love to set the record straight when it comes to allegations directed to my person posted by some of you. About 17 years ago God called me to start a ministry among young people in Holland. The name we gave it was God’s Pleasure. This ministry was under the supervision of an existing church. By God’s grace this ministry grew in 7 years from nothing to about 300 members. Many gave their lives to Jesus Christ and have been set free from drug and alcohol addiction. We have seen many miracles of healing and restoration. We were able to buy as we called it “boys and girls homes” in order to rehabilitate those who needed it and also to promote biblical living and sharing together. Beside weekly Bible studies and Church service we also organized Christian rock concerts. Decision D was one of the house bands which later became well known. We ultimately had about 35 people working in the ministry. During this process I acknowledge that I and my staff have made mistakes, partially also due to our inexperience and lack of wisdom in how to administrate and balance the right care and help for so many diverse people and therefore have hurt some of them. At that time a great majority of the Dutch religious Christian establishment didn’t particularly approve of the way we were reaching out with the Gospel using tools like heavy metal music and radical preaching. In 1994 God called me to go to Houston, Texas and I told my staff at the time that I wanted to resign. They felt it wasn’t the time. But after all I believe it was me sinning against God by not obeying his call to resign and leave for the US. Right after two girls came to the ministry and wanted to be admitted to the girls-houses. I didn’t have peace about that but was weak enough to be persuaded.

[...]

The mother of one of these girls started a big media persecution against me and we suffered greatly for that. Later we found out that this lady was well known among Christian leaders and was clearly controlled by the Jezebel spirit [1. promiskuøs; 2. frafalden], also persecuting several other churches. Taking these girls in also ultimately led to my wife at that time falling in sexual sin with one of the girls. This situation now finally propelled us to go to America to seek counseling. I took upon myself the blame for her sin and many stories about my person surfaced which I tried to deal with to the best of my ability. I went back after some months to try to salvage the church but the new leadership refused. I warned them that I wanted them to give back the responsibility of the church to me for me to take care of the situation. I ultimately had to give it up. It was clear that God didn’t want me to go in that direction. I met with most of the church members who really was a blessing and an encouragement to me. I was able to reconcile with many of them and I also wrote letters to those who felt inappropriately treated. After staying a while on my birth Island of Curacao I left for the US as the Lord called me to. Since then God has done many miracles. He gave us a mansion in Montrose, Texas where God called me to minister. Again, we have seen many miracles, many being saved and set free. After two years God told me to hand over the ministry and move to California where I built ministries in San Diego, Hollywood and Beverly Hills. I never had sexual relationship with anybody in Holland (or anywhere else). I have never embezzled or stolen money. As a matter of fact when I left Holland the staff had control over all finances and insisted on continuing the church. The IRS (Tax) was never after me. That is a total lie. I never had pornographic videos either. I have even been accused of molesting children in Curacao. That’s how sick and far it went.

[...]

It was obvious that the Devil was doing whatever he could to discredit and destroy me. I have always lived a simple life and my home was always open for anybody and I have never had anything to hide. I also had a small studio where our radio shows were recorded and I could prepare sermons. I have never heard of anybody who told me that I falsely prophesied over them. Anybody of you out there who feels that I have hurt you, I sincerely apologize and ask your forgiveness because that was never my intention. I sincerely love all of you and it’s always my desire to build God’s Kingdom no matter where He sends me…”

[Mr. and Mrs. Ogenio.]

Opdate.

Black and Blue Society (om Edwin Ogenio og God’s pleasure).



TV2 sender sent i aften den norsk-producerede dokumentar USA mot AL-Arian. Fra programomtalen.

USA mod Al-Arian
- en arabisk-amerikansk families mareridt.
I over 30 år har den palæstinensiske borgerrettighedsforkæmper, universitetsprofessor og familiefar Sami Al-Arian boet og arbejdet i USA, men efter terrorangrebet på USA i 2001 og Bush-regeringens efterfølgende USA PATRIOT Act-lovgivning, er der blevet vendt op og ned på familiens tilværelse. I 2003 blev Sami Al-Arian arresteret og anklaget for at havde støttet en terror-organisation. I tre år sad Sami i isolation, mens hans hustru Nahla og parrets fire børn kæmpede for at bevise faderens uskyld. Trods omfattende efterforskning og en højt profileret retssag, der varede i seks måneder og rummede 80 vidneudsagn, lykkedes det ikke for anklagemyndigheden at få den arabiske amerikaner dømt for noget. Men hermed er de ikke slut med familiens trængsler!

Filminstruktør Line Halvorsen er pro-palæstinensisk fredsaktivist, og vi har her endnu en Bush-bashende pseudo-dokumentar, og som i filmen The Road to Guantanamo (om The Tipton Three) er virkeligheden kun interessant i det omfang den gør terrormistænkte til ofre.

Som modvægt anbefaler jeg to artikler.

Først den saglige. Ronald B. Standler – Case of Prof. Al-Arian.

“Because I am a former professor and currently an attorney in Massachusetts who specializes in higher-education law (e.g., see my essay on Academic Freedom in the USA, which I first posted in October 1999), several people have asked my opinion about Prof. Al-Arian’s case… The real tragedy in the case of Prof. Al-Arian is that many professors and advocates of freedom of speech defended Al-Arian in the years 2001 and 2002 out of idealism, a strong belief in due process, or a belief that the faculty (not the President, not the Board of Trustees) should make the initial decisions on tenure and employment in a university. It is natural that some of these idealists will feel betrayed by Al-Arian, and they will become more cynical, more skeptical, and more hesitant to get involved when future freedom of speech issues arise.“

Så den mere kontante. R. K. Royad i Frontpage Mag – May Day for Al-Arian.

“The truth sometimes hurts. Just ask the remaining supporters of Professor Sami Al-Arian. On May 1, 2006, their hero received the maximum sentence available under the plea agreement, in which he acknowledged what he had denied to everyone for over a decade: that he was indeed a secret U.S.-based operative for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).

[...]

By the time the government decided to charge the professor, officials in the intelligence community were willing to throw it all on the table. The challenge for the prosecutors was to shoe-horn what the intelligence says about Al-Arian’s conduct into a cognizable crime. His role as a secret PIJ operative was obvious from the intercepts. He was clearly up to no good, but what was the crime? The government chose to redress this conduct through racketeering charges and the fairly new offense of providing material support to terrorist organization. The jury acquitted Al-Arian of the crime of conspiracy to commit murder, which was probably a stretch from the beginning. They failed to reach agreement on the racketeering and material support offenses. Al-Arian ultimately pleaded guilty to the crime of engaging in prohibited financial transactions with PIJ. In the meantime, there was no shortage of expert commentators who claimed that the government was picking on an innocent person.”

www.usavsalarian.com (engelsk præsentation).



Det netop overståede midtvejsvalg i USA endte som bekendt med et nederlag til Republikanerne, formentligt på grund af folkelig modstand mod Bush og Irak-krigen. En sådan chance kan DR naturligvis ikke lade gå fra sig, for selvom man ikke skulle tro det, så findes der faktisk stadig enkelte Bush-bashende pseudo-dokumentarer produceret med det amerikanske præsidentvalg i 2004 for øje, der endnu ikke er sendt på den danske public service-kanal.

Igår sendte DR2 Rush to War: Between Iraq and a Hard Place, som at dømme efter antallet af ‘indberetninger’ i min indboks her til morgen var utilsløret propaganda fra det venstreradikale overdrev. Robert Taicher har selvfølgelig fået sine priser for værket, og mon ikke efterfølgeren Plamegate – Lies that led to war får lignende anerkendelser. Plame-dokumentaren er baseret på beretningen fra Joe Wilson – den ene part i sagen, og Rush to war ‘s persongalleri består ligeledes kun af partsindlæg fra den ene fløj. Det være sig en loonie-akademiker som Noam Chomsky, en venstreorienteret journalist som Molly Ivins (New York Times), samt forurettede efterretningsagenter (eks. Joe Wilson) og FN-ekspektører (eks. Scott Ritter). Mere ensidig kunne det næsten ikke blive.

Den officielle programomtale indikerer at vi har at gøre med propaganda over imperie-temaet.

“Hvad laver USA i Irak? Et tilbageblik på de sidste 50 års amerikansk udenrigspolitik forklarer, hvorfor dette prægtige land, der engang blev beundret og misundt i hele verden for sit demokrati, sin gavmildhed og sin kultur, i dag har mistet sit gode omdømme i det meste af verden. Efter Anden Verdenskrig støttede USA anti-kommunistiske regimer rundt om i verden uden smålig skelen til, om de var diktaturer eller demokrater. Det førte til CIA-støttede kup mod Mossadegh i Iran i 1953, Jacob Abenz i Guatemala i 1954, Allende i Chile i 1973 og den massive støtte til mujahedinerne i Afghanistan, mens USA valgte at forholde sig passiv i Angola og Rwanda. Angrebet på World Trade Center i 2001 og den efterfølgende “krig mod terror” har ført til en ny national sikkerhedsstrategi, efter hvilken USA skal være den dominerende militærmagt i verden, og enhver, der nærmer sig USA på dette punkt, anses som fjende.”

Jeg så desværre (/gudskelov) kun de sidste 5-10 minutter, men at det var decideret propaganda er nemt at dokumentere. Loonierne på Commondreams kalder filmen for en “anti-war documentary”, og Taicher kunne næsten ikke være mere ærlig omkring målet med dokumentaren.

“Taicher will personally assist in the distribution of 40,000 free copies of his film on DVD to Broward, Miami, and Palm Beach counties.

“I strongly believe that this film could have a major impact on the outcome of the presidential election,” said Taicher, 59, a long-time Miami Beach resident. “We are targeting the undecided voters, who will likely have the final say in which candidate ends up in the White House.” Early in October 2001, three weeks after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Taicher and a film crew drove from Los Angeles to Washington, DC and New York, interviewing a cross-section of Americans in the aftermath of the events…

Those involved in the making of this film dedicated long hours and are determined to educate the public as this highly emotional presidential campaign winds down,” said Taicher. “And we certainly expect this film will be watched and talked about well after the election.” Rush to War explores the background of events leading up to 9/11. Among the issues considered are: the Cold War and CIA interventions around the globe from the 1950s through the 1970s, America’s involvement with the Afghan resistance against the Soviet Union in the 1980s, and an extensive history of the United States’ two wars with Iraq. What emerges is a disturbing indictment of the Bush administration’s eagerness to invade Iraq at any cost, with particular emphasis placed on the administration’s policies and actions on the “War on Terror” and its consequences for global security in the 21st Century.

Riveting, balanced, informative, and ultimately terrifying, Rush to War: Between Iraq and a Hard Place presents compelling insight into the neo-con agenda just as Americans get ready to head to the polls next on November 2. This is a must-see for anyone concerned about what a second Bush victory will mean for the country. Special election week screenings of Rush to War: Between Iraq and a Hard Place will take place throughout the state of Florida through Election Day, November 2.”

Det er desværre umuligt for mig at slå ned på enkelte punkter i dokumentaren, men det virker til at være lige efter bogen – her citeret efter kommentar på Internet Movie Database.

“I loved in particular two quotes that Taicher offered in text stills. This one by Adolf Hitler: ‘What luck for the leaders that men do not think.’“

Taicher har iøvrigt skrevet denne sang.

George Bush Blues
I woke up this mornin’
As blue as I could be
I couldn’t sleep last evenin’
For what was worrying me.

I got the George Bush Blues
I’m blue as I can be
Well If he keeps on goin’
We won’t recognize this country.

If I look out overseas
We’re bombin’ everywhere
If I say a word about it
They say buddy don’t you dare.

I got the George Bush Blues
I’m scared as I could be
Well if he keeps on this way
We gonna be livin’ in misery.

If I look around at home
I’ll tell you what I see
They got us all worried about security
One day they say it’s yellow
The next they say it’s red
The way that things are going
I guess we’ll all end up dead.

It’s the George Bush Blues
I’m worried as I can be
Well if he keeps on goin’
Our whole life goin’ be in jeopardy.

If I say that I got rights
They say of course you do
We hope you just don’t mind
If we take a few.

It’s the George Bush Blues
It’s so threatening to me
If he keeps on goin’
He gonna take away all our liberty.

Now when it comes to Saddam
Old Georgie told his mom
It really made me mad
What they tried to do to dad
They say it’s necessary
They say we got to fight
If it aint’ your son or daughter
Then I guess that it’s all right.

It’s the George Bush Blues
Scared as I can be
Well if the song keeps going
I’m gonna wind up in custody.

Links.

Rush to war / Trailer / online-shop inkl. “Picks up where Fahrenheit 9/11 leftoff”.

1/8-05 Uriasposten – 100 minutters anti-amerikanisme på TV2/SVT2: Why we fight….



Irak-krigen er stadig et vigtigt emne herhjemme, og i de danske medier verserer i disse dage historien om en lækket efterretningsrapport New York Times offentliggjorde brudstykker fra i lørdags, og som Bush tirsdag lod offentliggøre fire sider fra. Dækningen af rapporten i de danske medier følger mønsteret. Fokus er rettet mod den betydning det eventuelt har for amerikanernes opbakning til præsident Bush, noget der på sin vis er uinteressant al den stund de vælgerne har sat ham til at lede landet frem til januar 2009.

Så vidt jeg kan vurdere af New York Times’ artikel, og det der er offentliggjort fra konklusionen, så er der to pointer i rapporten.

1) Irak-krigen bruges af ekstremister til at mobilisere

2) Demokratisering hæmmer terror (tilbagetrækning fremmer terror)

De danske medier der vanen tro blot sammenfatter New York Times’ dækning (her op imod kongres-valget), når aldrig ind til kernen. Rask væk ignoreres pkt. 2, ligesom rapportens ord om at terroristerne udnytter situationen ( “exploiting the situation” , s. 3 i den frigivne konklusion) forvanskes til uigenkendelighed. DR kæder samtidig rapporten sammen med Foghs postulat om at Irak-krigen ikke har forhøjet terror-truslen for Danmark. Isoleret set logisk nok, omend det er betænkteligt når ingen kender rapporten i sin helhed, og DR samtidig vælger kun at medtage det fra rapporten der kan bruges til at understøtte demokraternes kritik.

24/9-06 DR Online – Irak-krigen har forøget terror-truslen, siger USA’s agenter.

26/9-06 DR Online – Bush frigiver hemmelig terrorrapport.

27/9-06 DR Online – Nemmere at rekruttere terrorister.

De fleste amerikanske avisers dækning omfatter også den anden oplysning, men selvom Associated Press har skrevet om det, og selvom efterretningschefen John Negroponte der har det overordnede ansvar for den såkaldte ‘National Intelligence Estimate’, netop rettede fokus på det da han offentliggjorde de fire sider, så bliver det stille og roligt filtreret fra som værende ikke-væsentligt. Det nærmeste DR Online kommer i sin dækning er følgende citat…

“Præsident Bush siger, at Irak-krigen kun er et af mange påskud, som terroristerne bruger…”

Så mens DR Online troligt aflirer New York Times’ udpluk af rapporten der tilmed leveres som en afsløring, så serveres oplysninger New York Times ikke gad gengive, men som indgår i rapportens konklusion, som et partsindlæg fra Bush.

Her lidt fra Iraq is ‘cause célèbre’: report – Now declassified Document backs view that pullout would embolden extremists (Montreal Gazette, 27/9-06)

“Although the intelligence report found terrorists have been inspired by the conflict in Iraq, it also included assessments that appeared to support Bush’s view that an early withdrawal of U.S. troops would only further embolden Muslim extremists.

“Should jihadists leaving Iraq perceive themselves, and be perceived, to have failed, we judge fewer fighters will be inspired to carry on the fight,” the report said.

Bush has long said Iraq has become the central front in the war on terrorism. Efforts to promote democracy in Iraq and throughout the Middle East will ultimately reduce terrorist threats, he argues, and the declassified intelligence report appears to support Bush’s conclusion.

“If democratic reform efforts in Muslim majority nations progress over the next five years, political participation probably would drive a wedge between intransigent extremists and groups willing to use the political process to achieve their objectives,” it says.”

I mandags kommenterede jeg DR Onlines første artikel om historien, for at være en pseudo-nyhed uden substans – for i en eller andet forstand er det naturligt at konfrontation giver modparten vind i sejlene i egne rækker. Havde jeg haft adgang til artiklen, DR baserede sin udlægning på, så havde jeg nok underbygget med følgende afsnit.

“The estimate’s judgments confirm some predictions of a National Intelligence Council report completed in January 2003, two months before the Iraq invasion. That report stated that the approaching war had the potential to increase support for political Islam worldwide and could increase support for some terrorist objectives.”

Sammenlign ovenstående med en under-overskrift i en af gratisaviserne…

“Stik imod hensigten styrker Bushs offentliggørelse af Irak-rapporten kritikken imod den amerikanske præsident.” (Dato, 28/9-06, s. 11)

Flere medier fortæller iøvrigt, at afsløringerne ventes at presse Bush i meningsmålingerne. Hertil kan man passende notere at Bush de seneste tre uger har haft fremgang i meningsmålingerne - det glemte DR så også lige at fortælle.

Links.
27/9-06 P1debat – Øger Irak truslen for terror i Danmark?.



Han starter med Edward Saids naive syn på islam, gennemgår John Esposito og John Volls islamisme-apologi og ender med Olivier Roy og det evindelige forsøg på at italesætte en muslimsk reformator.

Fra Martin Kramers bog Ivory towers on sand – The Failure of Middle Eastern Studies in America. Kapitel tre – Islam obscured.

Her fra den afsluttende opsummering.

“In retrospect, the new elite in Middle Eastern studies had failed to ask the right questions, at the right times, about Islamism. They underestimated its impact in the 1980s; they misrepresented its role in the early 1990s; and they glossed over its growing potential for terrorism against America in the late 1990s. Twenty years of denial had produced mostly banalities about American bias and ignorance, and fantasies about Islamists as democratizers and reformers. These contributed to the public complacency about terrorism that ultimately left the United States vulnerable to “surprise” attack by Islamists. But there was no serious debate over Islamism within the field itself. Middle Eastern studies were so heavily invested in one interpretation that few dared to challenge the collective migration from one error to another. Dissent could be found only in think tanks that encouraged it, and in the Middle East itself, among intellectuals with a nearer and more acute angle of vision on Islamism in practice.

Even before the catastrophe of September 11, 2001, some portions of the general public had begun to write off academic “expertise” on political Islam. The loss of public confidence reflected the yawning gap between the actual conduct of Islamist movements and their representation by the academy. The camp led by Esposito assured America that “most Islamic movements are not necessarily anti-Western, anti-American, or anti-democratic.” But as an exasperated Gerges admitted, “time and again, Islamists have proven to be their own worst enemies” by “being equivocal about democratic norms, human rights, peaceful relations with the West, and the use of terror in the pursuit of domestic political goals.” Most Americans could tell that the professors were engaged in special pleading, a suspicion confirmed by the countless discrepancies between academic punditry and Islamist word and deed.

How long would it take for this failure to register within the academy? The academics — remote from the Middle East, distant from Washington, accountable to no one — could probably muddle through another decade without a reckoning. As long as they engaged in the ritual of condemning the public, the media, and the government for ignorance of Islam, they could be reasonably assured of the solidarity of their guild. But by the middle of the 1990s, the contraction of Islamist movements had left a vacuum in Middle Eastern studies. What would fill it? Salvation seemed to reside in the discovery of “civil society.” The result would be yet another lavishly funded intellectual failure, on a scale only America could afford.”

Apropos.



Fra nyhedsgruppen alt.politics.liberterian (/Bovination)- en god kommentar om religiøse følelser i relation til Muhammedsagen.

“In politics, it is sometimes too easy to de-humanize your opponents and forget that they have real feelings. And it seems that members of the Religion of Peace are a more sensitive group than many of us realized.

Yes, the same religion which brought you September-11, countless suicide bombings, infibulation, and the murder of several hundred innocent people in Madrid and London have a sensitive side. Many of them have been squealing like stuck pigs over the publishing of 12 cartoons of the prophet Mohammad in a Danish newspaper.

It seems that publishing cartoons of Mohammad crosses “one of Islam’s sacred boundaries”. While most people in The West don’t have a problem poking fun at a thug turned warlord pedophile who has been dead for 1500 years, it seems that in the Middle East, this is a violation of their citadel of dignity. Warlord pedophiles are to revered, not mocked, in the cradle of civilization.

The Weak-end Westerner has labeled this as the biggest clash of cultures between Christianity and Islam since Salman Rushdie dared to publish his ‘Satanic Verses’. Apparently the spate of suicide bombings and a gulf war, didn’t qualify as a clash of cultures – they were just misunderstandings. And the War Against Terror? Nothing to do with Islam. It’s just coincidence that the enemy are all Muslims. Even Dubya talks of Islam as being one of the ‘Great Religions’. Well, if popularity is the measure of Greatness, then it stands to reason. Over a billion people call themselves Muslims.

Usually incidents of Islamacist ranting can be dismissed by Leftist apologists as merely the opinions of a few ‘hardline Islamic leaders’ (ie psychopaths), and to deny that they represent any significant feeling in the Muslim community. But in this case that’s a bit harder, as evidenced by the fact that it has obvious widespread support – Danish products have been voluntarily boycotted around the Middle East, and Danish companies are having to lay off workers as a result. One misguided psychopath can attack an embassy or blow himself up on a train, but one person does not have the buying power to cause mass layoffs in another country.

There can be few surer indications that the teachings of Islam are not compatible with notions of freedom of speech, personal choice or even freedom of thought. Ultimately any argument can be silenced with ‘I find that deeply offensive and it violates my sacred boundaries’. Many Leftists might entrust governments with making a fair trade-off, but how many are willing to trust a Muslim cleric?

Democracy, it is often said, is the compromise between beliefs. Different people in democracies want different things, and democracy works because it tends to find a solution which, while it doesn’t please everyone, at least everyone can live with. However there are some things which cannot compromise. There is no compromise between the beliefs that ‘I have the right to rape you’ and ‘You do not have the right to rape me’. The two are not just different opinions worthy of equal consideration and compromise. They are just incompatible beliefs. Any compromise ‘well then you can rape me on Thursdays’ is not a compromise at all. It is a capitulation to evil.

Likewise the belief that blasphemy laws can be imposed upon non-believers cannot be reconciled with beliefs about personal freedom. They are just incompatible. These Islamic teachings are just not compatible with Western culture, and have no place in it.

On the other hand it could be argued that the Muslim world is becoming more Westernized. In modern Western culture, everyone wants to be a victim – the feminists, the Aboriginal lobbyists, the multicultural groups, and now of course, the Religion of Peace is claiming that status. Maybe the followers of the Religion of Peace are more Westernized than we realize?“ 



Sommerferien er så godt som overstået, og om få uger starter DR Udefra med Tyge Petersen en efterårssæson der næppe vil kunne overgå de forrige sæsoners anti-amerikanske propaganda. Markedet må nu være støvsuget for pseudo-dokumentariske politiserende udsendelser rettet mod Bush, og man skulle tro at ‘festen’ nu endelig var slut. Men sådan er det desværre ikke…

Den amerikanske filminstruktør Eugene Jerecki fik i år den såkaldte The American Documentary Grand Jury Prize ved Sundance Film Festivalen med Why we fight,
produceret af Charlotte Street for engelske BBC, canadiske CBC og franske ARTE i en co-produktion med bl.a. svenske SVT og danske TV2. TV2s præsentationsside siger alt:

“WHY WE FIGHT is an inside look at the anatomy of the American war machine, examining how a force so potentially counter to the balance of a democratic society influences American life. Amid the upheaval ofthe Iraq War, the film follows the personal stories of a group of characters in America’s military family. They are its soldiers and its victims. Its dreamers and its disillusioned.

Woven among the characters, a chorus of luminaries from government, academia, and the press explore the extent to which military, industrial, and national interests have formed an unholy alliance on the common ground of the battlefield.

Ultimately, the film’s goal is to move beyond the headlines about how the Iraq war was waged to the deeper question of why – why does America fight? Time and again, why does she seem inclined toward war against an ever changing array of enemies? What are the forces – economic, political, ideological — that shape and propel American militarism? Where do they meet? And what role does the individual play?“

Instruktøren Eugene Jarecki har tidligere begået et ‘kritisk’ portræt af Henry Kissinger, men som han fortalte til BBCs Storyville - så skulle hans modstand mod Irak-krigen nu pakkes ind i pacifistiske flosker:

“To me, that felt politically impotent because the forces that are driving American foreign policy are so much larger than any one man. With the next film I wanted to go further – I didn’t want to stop at an easy villain or a simple scapegoat. I wanted to have a much more holistic approach that really took on the whole system.“

Igår aftes sendte SVT2 filmen (som TV2 sendte d. 13 og 26. juli), og filmens pointe vekslede da rigtignok også skiftevis mellem nogenlunde konkret kritik af Bush og hans bagland (Perle, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Kristol) og Irak-krigen til mere luftig kritik af krige som fortsættelse af politik med andre midler, som det er blevet formuleret. Jarecki fokuserede blandt andet på et Eisenhower-citat om frygten for at militærets våbenleverandører kunne blive for magtfulde – og det blev på forskellige måder forsøgt tørret af på Bush-administrationen.
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Hvis man ser bort fra det historiske aspekt, så var der meget lidt nyt i filmen. En blanding af Karels Le Monde Selon Bush (Verden ifølge Bush) og Moores Fahrenheit 9/11, med bidrag fra nogle af de mere smalle venstrefløjs-motivanalyser som Tyge Petersen og Udefra har plaget licensbetalerne med de senere år.

Propagandistisk var den lige efter bogen. Det der med rimelighed kunne dokumenteres blev hastigt afliret, så man kunne få looniernes ekspertpanel til at digte videre. Flere konspirationsteorier blev luftet, og hvor Verden ifølge Bush havde indkaldt Norman Mailer som sandhedsviden – så havde denne hidkaldt Gore Vidal.

Han mente ikke atombombningen af Japan var rimelige (selv om de afsluttede 2. Verdenskrig), for de skulle jo i virkeligheden blot afskrække Stalin. For 30 år siden var Mao hans kæledægge, og han er i sandhed en virkelighedsfjern sidstedagskommunist.

Halliburton var ikke overraskende en af hovedhistorierne, nyt var derimod historien om Vietnam-veteranen Wilton Sekzer som mistede en søn den 11. september og nu finder trøst i konspirationsteorier fyldt på ham af det loonistiske overdrev. Men ellers var der flere gengangere i ekspertpanelet. Vi hørte Charles Lewis fra Soros-organet Center for Public Integrity belære os om den konstante kamp mellem kapitalismen og demokratiet…

… Joseph Cironcione (Carnegie…) om Saddams uskyldighed – og minsanten om ikke Jarecki havde den frækhed at give CBSs Dan Rather taletid. Rather var det ‘liberale’ nyhedsikon som valgte at udnytte sin position i medierne til at promovere forfalskede dokumenter om Bushs soldatertid – kort før præsidentvalget sidste år – dvs. før Jarecki optog sin film. At gøre Rather til sandhedsvidne er problematisk, men det er decideret absurd når man så samtidig skal høre ham fortælle at totalitære stater forfalsker virkeligheden, og henvendt til Bush-administrationen digte vers såsom ” They live by the belief that the public dont need to know”. Selvkritik har aldrig været venstrefløjens force.

Hvor man kan sige at modstanden mod Irak-krigen og vulgær-pacifisme var filmens politiske morale, så var der alligevel rigeligt med tid til forfølgelse af den yderste venstrefløjs tvangstanker. USA var onde imperialister som bekrigede fredelige lande for at få deres olie – i forhold til ‘oliekortet’ kom der intet nyt frem – men vi fik så påstandene at høre på forskellige måder fra menigmand og udvalgte eksperter.

Værst var her den tidligere CIA-agent Chalmers Johnson, der lød som en der trængte til lidt terapi.

- men Jarecki fandt også lidt propaganda-materiale i arkivet:

USAs offensive forsøge på at skabe en bedre verden ved hjælp af krige er filmen naturligvis imod, herunder Bushs slå-første-strategi – og når vi ingen grund havde til at frygte Sovjetunionen under Den Kolde Krig, så var der jo heller ingen grund til at bekæmpe det iranske Khomeini-styre… Men derfor kan man jo ligeså godt forsvare Saddam Husseins angrebskrig mod Iran:

Den obligatoriske Fox-henvisning var godt gemt – her om sammenblandingen af News & views.

Vi skal forstå terroristernes motiver – ja, vi er selv ude om det:

Der blev også tid til lidt kulturrelativisme:

Indrøm det nu din højreradikale warmonger - under Saddam Hussein græd søde børn med brune øjne ikke:

Jeg har set mange politiserende ‘dokumentarer’, men denne her var en af de værste. Hvor Moore udnyttede humoren til propaganda-formål, så forsøgte denne, især i den første time at give det hele et præg af dokumentarisme. Jarecki har gravet dybt i arkiverne, og de mange sort/hvide-sekvenser var klart tilsigtet at give det hele lidt seriøsitet som modvægt til den skingre retorik der prægede det meste af filmen. Alt i alt en underlødig film, som TV2 aldrig skulle have rørt ved. Det hele er set tidligere, og hvis danskere vil have et indblik i den amerikanske venstrefløjs antipati mod Bush – så burde de selv købe The Nation, podcaste The Al Franken Show eller hvad ved jeg…

Links

SVT – præsentationsside: Why we fight.

TV2 – præsentationsside: Why we fight.

BBC Storyville præsentationsside: Why we fight.

BBC Storyville (3/3-05): Director interview – Eugene Jarecki.

Anmeldelse af Eric D. Snider: “This is just a Michael Moore film without Michael Moore…”

13/1-04 – Frontpage Mag. (Anders Lewis): The Inventions of Gore Vidal.

SVT2: Why we fight 31/7-05 (35 caps).



God baggrundsartikel om Guantanamo-lejren i seneste Time Magazine med flere interessante oplysninger som sætter beskyldningerne mod USA i deres rette proportion. Et citat fra What’s going on at Gitmo?:

Have any died there?

“… Although the U.S. military has recently acknowledged that more than 30 detainees died in custody in Iraq and Afghanistan from August 2002 to November 2004, there have been no reports or allegations of detainee deaths at Guantanamo. According to the Pentagon, prisoners there have attempted suicide 34 times and have committed several hundred acts classified by the military as “self-injurious manipulative behavior,” but none have died as a result. A Saudi man who tried to hang himself in 2003 ended up in a coma for several months but ultimately regained consciousness and learned to walk again.”

Bare fordi ingen er døde så kan Guantanamo jo sagtens være “the Gulag of our times”, idet det nu er blevet bekræftet at USA ikke har behandlet basens lokumslitteratur med tilstrækkelig værdighed. Mere om ‘Koranskændingerne’ på Filtrat som bl.a. henviser til CNN-artiklen: Detainees, not soldiers, flushed Quran. Som Filtrat dokumenterer, så har Ritzaus og DRs udlægning ikke meget med virkeligheden at gøre.



Overlegen debunking af Richard Floridas kreative klasse af Steven Malanga, set på City Journal [via Agantyr]. Herunder en længere række citater fra The Curse of the Creative Class:

“A generation of leftish policy-makers and urban planners is rushing to implement Florida’s vision, while an admiring host of uncritical journalists touts it. But there is just one problem: the basic economics behind his ideas don’t work. Far from being economic powerhouses, a number of the cities the professor identifies as creative-age winners have chronically underperformed the American economy.”

“Florida found a ready audience for his ideas on the lecture circuit, then refined and expanded them in The Rise of the Creative Class, which reads more like a pop cultural and social history of the Internet generation than an economic-development treatise.… Eager to demonstrate that he is as hip as the people he writes about, Florida describes talented young software engineers as rock stars, labels one of his chapters “a rant,” and approvingly describes a business conference where attendees were issued wiffle balls to pelt speakers with whom they disagreed.”

“It’s not hard to see why Florida’s ideas would have wide appeal. His book has struck a chord among a generation of young, tech-oriented workers and entrepreneurs—the Fast Company magazine crowd that Florida is writing about—because rather than bash their go-go, Silicon Valley culture, as critics from both the Left and the Right have done for different reasons, Florida celebrates it. Creative Class also appeals to a broader group of young, educated workers, who, as David Brooks describes in Bobos in Paradise, have managed to combine two traditions that had previously been at odds—the bourgeois work ethic with bohemian culture—into something new, which Florida calls his ‘creative class.’” [... "the equivalent of an eat-all-you-want-and-still-lose-weight diet"]

“Moreover, as Florida’s ideas reach beyond urban-planning types and New Age liberal politicians, they are at some point likely to find resistance from the hard-core urban Left, composed increasingly of social-services activists and representatives of public-employee and service-industry unions, who demand ever more government spending for social programs, not art and culture. Indeed, the professor’s relentless argument that governments should help furnish bobo-friendly amenities ultimately comes to sound like a new form of class warfare: old-economy workers have no place in his utopian dreams.“

“A look at even the most simple economic indicators, in fact, shows that, far from being economic powerhouses, many of Florida’s favored cities are chronic underperformers. Exhibit A is the most fundamental economic measure, job growth. The professor’s creative index—a composite of his other indexes—lists San Francisco, Austin, Houston, and San Diego among the top ten. His bottom ten include New Orleans, Las Vegas, Memphis, and Oklahoma City… So you’d expect his winners to be big job producers. Yet since 1993, cities that score the best on Florida’s analysis have actually grown no faster than the overall U.S. jobs economy, increasing their employment base by only slightly more than 17 percent. Florida’s indexes, in fact, are such poor predictors of economic performance that his top cities haven’t even outperformed his bottom ones. Led by big percentage gains in Las Vegas (the fastest-growing local economy in the nation) as well as in Oklahoma City and Memphis, Florida’s ten least creative cities turn out to be jobs powerhouses, adding more than 19 percent to their job totals since 1993—faster growth even than the national economy.”

“It’s no mystery why the numbers turn out this way. Florida’s basket of indexes selects cities that participated in that bubble. The professor focused on these cities in developing his theories: it was their characteristics that he sought to identify when he constructed his various creativity indexes, so it’s predictable that they wound up scoring highest. Florida’s entire theory, in other words, is based on circular logic.“

“But Florida is wrong again. Many of his ‘talent magnets’ are among the worst at attracting and, more importantly, hanging on to residents. Just look at the 2000 census reports on domestic migration, which follow the movements in and out of metro areas by U.S. residents. That report found that New York, among Florida’s top talent magnets, lost 545,000 more U.S. residents than it gained in the latter half of the 1990s, the worst performance of any U.S. city. The greater San Francisco metro area was close behind, with a negative domestic migration of more than 200,000 people. In fact, five of the ten places atop Florida’s creativity index had steep losses of U.S. residents during that period, while some of Florida’s creative losers—including Las Vegas, Memphis, and Tampa Bay—were big winners.“

“A Money magazine poll rating dozens of factors that people consider in choosing a place to live found that the top ten reasons fell into two broad categories: low costs (including low property and sales taxes) and basic quality-of-life issues (good schools, low crime, clean air and water). By contrast, such Florida-esque issues as diversity ranked 22nd on the list, while cultural amenities like theaters and museums ranked 27th and lower, and outdoor activities even lower.”

“Consider Winnipeg’s mayor Glen Murray, one of Canada’s chief Florida fans, who even brought the professor north to tout his ideas to Canadian political leaders. While Murray invests in cultural amenities and derides people who only want cities to focus on ‘pipes, pavement and policing,’ the most distinguishing characteristic of Murray’s mayoralty has been this: for several consecutive years, Winnipeg has been the murder capital of Canada. Welcome to the creative age.“

Når Richard Floridas tanker ikke engang fungerer i multikulturelle hjælp-dig-selv-USA, så siger det sig selv at tankerne ikke ville kunne fungere i et homogent land som Danmark med højt skatteniveau.



En næsten to år gammel artikel fra John Fonte: The Ideological War within the West som jeg desværre først er stødt på nu. Fonte mener som Francis Fukuyama at Vesten har vundet den ideologiske kamp, men vurderer modsat Fukuyama at den indre fjende er stærkere end nogensinde tidligere – og måske vil kunne løbe af med sejren i det lange løb. Skellet går mellem de ‘liberale democrater’ og nationalstaterne overfor dem han kalder de ‘transnationale progressive’ og deres verdensborger-ideologi. Her et interessant uddrag, hvor han beskriver grupperne som udgør forkæmperne for ‘Transnational progressivism’…

TRANSNATIONAL PROGRESSIVISM
The key concepts of transnational progressivism could be described as follows:

The ascribed group over the individual citizen. The key political unit is not the individual citizen, who forms voluntary associations and works with fellow citizens regardless of race, sex, or national origin, but the ascriptive group (racial, ethnic, or gender) into which one is born.

A dichotomy of groups: Oppressor vs. victim groups, with immigrant groups designated as victims. Transnational ideologists have incorporated the essentially Hegelian Marxist “privileged vs. marginalized” dichotomy.

Group proportionalism as the goal of “fairness.” Transnational progressivism assumes that “victim” groups should be represented in all professions roughly proportionate to their percentage of the population. If not, there is a problem of “underrepresentation.”

The values of all dominant institutions to be changed to reflect the perspectives of the victim groups. Transnational progressives insist that it is not enough to have proportional representation of minorities in major institutions if these institutions continue to reflect the worldview of the “dominant” culture. Instead, the distinct worldviews of ethnic, gender, and linguistic minorities must be represented within these institutions.

The “demographic imperative.” The demographic imperative tells us that major demographic changes are occurring in the U. S. as millions of new immigrants from non-Western cultures enter American life. The traditional paradigm based on the assimilation of immigrants into an existing American civic culture is obsolete and must be changed to a framework that promotes “diversity,” defined as group proportionalism.

The redefinition of democracy and “democratic ideals.” Transnational progressives have been altering the definition of “democracy” from that of a system of majority rule among equal citizens to one of power sharing among ethnic groups composed of both citizens and non-citizens. James Banks, one of American education’s leading textbook writers, noted in 1994 that “to create an authentic democratic Unum with moral authority and perceived legitimacy, the pluribus (diverse peoples) must negotiate and share power.” Hence, American democracy is not authentic; real democracy will come when the different “peoples” that live within America “share power” as groups.

Deconstruction of national narratives and national symbols of democratic nation-states in the West. In October 2000, a UK government report denounced the concept of “Britishness” and declared that British history needed to be “revised, rethought, or jettisoned.” In the U.S., the proposed “National History Standards,” recommended altering the traditional historical narrative. Instead of emphasizing the story of European settlers, American civilization would be redefined as a multicultural “convergence” of three civilizations—Amerindian, West African, and European. In Israel, a “post-Zionist” intelligentsia has proposed that Israel consider itself multicultural and deconstruct its identity as a Jewish state. Even Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres sounded the post-Zionist trumpet in his 1993 book , in which he deemphasized “sovereignty” and called for regional “elected central bodies,” a type of Middle Eastern EU.

Promotion of the concept of postnational citizenship. In an important academic paper, Rutgers Law Professor Linda Bosniak asks hopefully “Can advocates of postnational citizenship ultimately succeed in decoupling the concept of citizenship from the nation-state in prevailing political thought?”

The idea of transnationalism as a major conceptual tool. Transnationalism is the next stage of multicultural ideology. Like multiculturalism, transnationalism is a concept that provides elites with both an empirical tool (a plausible analysis of what is) and an ideological framework (a vision of what should be). Transnational advocates argue that globalization requires some form of “global governance” because they believe that the nation-state and the idea of national citizenship are ill suited to deal with the global problems of the future.

Opdate 5/7-04: Samme artikel i en længere udgave fra Hudson Institute: Liberal Democracy vs. Transnational Progressivism: The Future of the Ideological Civil War Within the West [13 s., pdf].