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Home First They Came for the Terrorists

First They Came for the Terrorists

It's a testament to the intelligence level of liberals that they prefer nursery rhymes to ideas. Whether it's Auden's "Those to whom evil is done, Do Evil in Return" (a verse from a Communist poet partially justifying Hitler's invasion of Poland, that he later disavowed) or "What Would Gandhi Do?" (give up and hope his enemies felt bad while cutting off his head) or the most famous nursery rhyme of them all, "First they came for the Communists."

This particular nursery rhymes endeavors to explain Nazis from a leftist perspective, in which Hitler's triumph occurred because no one spoke out when Communists were being imprisoned. When in doubt, the left and various useful idiots routinely trot out revised versions of this nursery rhyme. The current popular formulation on the left is "First they came for the Terrorists." (The Cato Institute's attempt to write one called "First they came for the Sex Offenders and then the Terrorists" proved to be wildly unpopular as no one outside the Cato Institute or maybe its liberal counterpart, the ACLU, sympathizes with sex offenders and terrorists at the same time.)

So it's completely unsurprising that the Ground Zero Mosque defenders have trotted out the "First they came for the Communists" nursery rhyme. Keith Olbermann did it, while suggesting that resisting the Ground Zero Mosque puts us on a path to the Holocaust. Olbermann went on to claim that Muslims in the US were at greater risk of terrorism than non-Muslims (which would be news to the actual recent targets of terrorism, who included soldiers in Fort Hood, airline passengers and anyone walking through Times Square.) And of course Olbermann hung it all on that infamous nursery rhyme and Martin Niemoller.

There are a number of problems with that. First Niemoller is not the author of the nursery rhyme, it's loosely based on some of his statements. Secondly, Niemoller went from being a Nazi sympathizer, to being a Communist sympathizer. That incidentally is the same message implicit in the poem itself. A man who supported Hitler and then supported Communist tyrants, including Ho Chi Minh is a spectacularly bad choice as a moral guide.

Had Niemoller come out of the war with the understanding that supporting totalitarian movements is bad, he might have been passably worth paying attention to. But instead Niemoller switched from sympathizing with Nazism, because he thought it would make for a better world, to sympathizing with Communism, because he thought it would make for a better world. He accepted the Lenin Prize, joined the World Peace Movement, and did what he could to undermine NATO, Europe and the United States.

Niemoller did not actually understand why Nazism was bad. Instead he now knew that Nazism was bad, but he was unable to apply that understanding in any meaningful way. Instead, like so many on the left, he decided that the nearest equivalent to Nazi Germany was the United States, because it was nationalistic, capitalistic and had a large military that killed a lot of people. That brand of moral idiocy led him to dub Truman, "The greatest murderer in the world" and to suggest that "the rich must be smashed in order to build human brotherhood."

The real lesson of Niemoller's story is that he went from being one kind of Nazi to being another kind of Nazi, putting off the red and black, and putting on the red and yellow instead. The common denominator was that both insisted on "One World or No World", which was also the title of Niemoller's book. If Niemoller were alive today, there is little doubt that he would endorse the "First they came for the terrorists" formulation. Which is exactly the point.

Liberals pretended that Communism was the opposite of Nazism. Today they pretend that Islam is the opposite of Nazism. The reality is that accounting for cultural and ideological differences, they are not all that far apart. The common denominator of all of them is a disdain for the individual, and a tyrannical plan to build a better world through mass murder and leader worship.

The poem attributed to Niemoller exemplifies what is wrong with that entire mindset. It begins with an act of historical revisionism, by pretending that the Nazis had come for the Communists first, then the Trade Unionists second, and the Jews third. The implication is that the Trade Unionists were complicit in Nazism because they failed to speak up for the Communists. The Jews were complicit because they had failed to speak up for either the Communists or the Trade Unionists. Niemoller himself is complicit because he failed to speak up for all three.

First of all, the Nazis were persecuting Jews before they were even in power, not until they "got done" with the Communists. Secondly, Niemoller did not remain silent, he was a supporter of Nazi Germany, who deviated on some issues. Niemoller himself said, that he had "never quarreled with Hitler over political matters, but purely on religious grounds." His hierarchy of complicity not only misrepresents his own role, but indicts those who are listed before him to a lesser degree. The idea is that everyone is guilty, some more so than others depending on their placement on the list.

Meanwhile in the USSR, the Communists had come for the Trade Unionists and the Jews. Niemoller had nothing to say on this subject. Neither do the people who quote the nursery rhyme, because it upsets their narrative. It forces them to deal with the fact that the Communists were perpetrators, rather than victims. What upsets the applecart even more, is the fact that the USSR had actually helped the Nazis destroy German Communists, because it viewed the rise of Hitler as strategically helpful to them.

It was also the Communists who were in the forefront of the anti-war movement in Western countries, after the Hitler-Stalin had been signed. It was they who insisted on no intervention. Niemoller himself became complicit in that same sort of activity when he enlisted in Soviet backed "peace" groups that opposed "American militarism".

Yet didn't the anti-war movement insist on a form of silence. Silence in response to the carving up of Poland. Silence in response to the mass murder of Jews. Silence in response to the Rape of Nanking. Just as they insisted on silence in response to the Soviet Union's oppression and mass murder of millions. Just as they insist on silence in response to the Islamic mass murder and oppression of millions today.

While Olbermann pats himself on the back for not being silent when people criticize the placement of a mosque near Ground Zero, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi talks about investigating those who protest against it. Will Keith Olbermann say anything, such as, "First they came for the patriots." We all know the answer to that. Because patriots aren't on the list. In the lefty codex, patriotism is a gateway drug to Nazism. Speaking out for the rights of thugs and terrorists is moral, but not for one's own country.

Niemoller did not originate this form of perversity, no more than Olbermann did. That is a longtime value on the left, which demanded that people be loyal only to working class and progressive ideals, anything else was to be a capitalist, bourgeois, a nationalist, a jingoist and a fascist-- terms that the left had a way of using interchangeably.

Olbermann's caveats about Ground Zero, the left wing's talking points, are not the issue. Because if the mosque was actually be built in the footprint of one of the towers, is there a single left wing pundit who would not just as enthusiastically shout in support of it? If it was to be physically constructed on the ashes and earth brought back from the Fresh Kills landfill, it would not make a drop of difference to them.

Had two Christian terrorist groups flown planes into Muslim skyscrapers, the left would have a completely different perspective. And they would be ready to physically tear down any church that Muslims found offensive. If you doubt that, don't. It's happened before already. Freedom of Religion would never enter into it for them, as it doesn't anyway. Their empathy is not moral, it is political. Purely political.

The left has a great deal of respect for mosques, but very little respect for Ground Zero. There is a very simple reason for that. The mosque is transgressive, to them it appears to be a rejection of Western materialism. Ground Zero on the other is an area where two towers of capitalism were destroyed, as a "reaction" to American foreign policy. That is how liberals think. That the World Trade Center's capitalism was part of a system that enabled them to be free, while the mosque represents an Islamic doctrine that would have them be second class citizens, is not an idea they will ever accept.

What the left has never been able to admit, is that they have a long history of both being "Nazis" and of aiding and abetting them. Both the actual Nazis, and an older brand of genocide and leader-worship in the form of Islam. They are the ones remaining silent, as an old evil spreads anew evil spreads across the world. An evil that embodies everything they supposedly hate, yet which they are prepared to defend to their last breath. But like Niemoller, they are in denial about their own principles, beneath their self-righteousness lurks a deeper corruption. Like Niemoller, they are too in love with evil to ever abandon it.

Comments

  1. Anonymous19/8/10

    Great essay. I've heard Niemoller's poem used in a number of sermons and always with a positive spin. It's great to see him debunked for the charlatan he was.

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  2. Patriot. Genius. Appreciated so much! Shorten links to pages for repost please!

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  3. shorten links? what does that mean?

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  4. Myriam van Antwerpen19/8/10

    As always very to the point analysis of what is going on and what should be known. I have always put Nazism on the same foot as extreme left because if you look at the full name "Nazional Sozialismus" which comes from the "Nazionalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterspartei" the party of Hitler, it says it clearly that it is a socialist aka left movement, not extreme right as the communists would have everyone believe. Hitler had a pact with Stalin to start with, before he decided to attack Russia, and if I'm correct received weapens and other war material such as tanks from Russia in the beginning.

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  5. Anonymous19/8/10

    Interesting, I heard the Niemoller story but never knew the other side of his coin. A few years ago there were similar stories about Dietrich Bonhoeffer, anoter pastor, executed by the nazis. He offered to take the place of a Jew in prison to be executed and in the end it was just a criminal Christian, not a Jew. I suppose the Germans want very badly to find a hero, in its clergy at least, that stood up for Jews.

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  6. That's all pretty good, except for the Sutan's usual hobby horse of liberals versus conservatives. Perhaps he is begging for his own radio talk show. But we already got a couple of those, the last time I checked.

    "Liberals pretended that Communism was the opposite of Nazism."

    The only thing that an interested observer would need to know in coming to grips with the nature of Nazism versus the nature of Communism is the self declared missions of both. What these two movements have to say about themselves says a lot about how we can compare the two.

    Communism rejects fascism and especially Nazism at its foundations. They claim to be democratic. The Nazis reject communism and all it's forms and especially democracy. They claim dictatorship is the only way to run society.

    Now what these two claimed and what you got were two different things, especially in years of WWII. And it does no credit to either one to understand how diametrically opposed they were to one another. But it is simple idiocy to suggest they are or were the same thing. They were nothing of the kind and there is no history to support such a belief. Communism is most certainly the opposite of Nazism. Your associating Islam with Nazism is, however, closer to the truth. They are very much alike.

    It is a relief to hear some discussion on this empty platitude of Niemoller. It was a sermon and certainly repeated in different forms and contexts to different audiences, much like Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech. Here is some more info on the subject, http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Martin_Niem%C3%B6ller

    The notion that one should always stand up in priniciple against the denial of rights for those who reject such rights as a matter of principle is absurd. And it is equally common sense to stand up against the persecution of innocent people.

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  7. Communism rejects democracy. Hence the dictatorship of the proletariat. Nazism rejected democracy in favor of their own dictatorship.

    Both invest power in the name of tyrannical elites with the supposed consent and support of the exclusive (constantly purged) groups they are trying to protect, and from whom they derive their legitimacy.

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  8. Anonymous,

    a lot of it had to do with internal politics. German institutions needed to recreate themselves, both state and church. So they relied on the creation of stories about "heroes" who resisted Hitler, to rebrand entire institutions as legitimate.

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  9. Communism, Nazism and Islam all favor world conquest.

    Communism; the dictatorship of the proletariat or the tyranny of the majority, Nazism; the dictatorship of the 'one' and Islam; the dictatorship of 'Allah' are all variation on a theme with the commonality being an individual having no rights, they completely deny the value of the individual.

    None can survive, much less conquer without the support of the "useful idiots".

    “Men by their constitutions are naturally divided into two parties:
    1. Those who fear and distrust the people, and wish to draw all powers from them into the hands of the 'higher' classes.
    2. Those who identify themselves with the people, have confidence in them, cherish and consider them as the most honest and safe, although not always the most wise depository of the public interests.

    In every country these two parties exist, and in every one where they are free to think, speak, and write, they will declare themselves.” –Thomas Jefferson to Henry Lee, 1824.

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  10. Here the Sultan criticizes CATO for it's article endorsing detention of enemy combatants captured on the battlefield outside the US, while opposing the same tactic used against American citizens on US soil for non-terrorism-related alleged crimes. Such as victims of the witch hunt against potheads and admirers of erotic art, who are similarly persecuted under Sharia law.

    Rittger is a distinguished scholar. He has been awarded an Army Commendation Medal with a "V" Device for valorous action and two Bronze Star Medals, and continues to serve as a reserve Judge Advocate.


    Rittger favorably referred to Andrew McCarthy, who refused to participate in an Obama administration meeting designed as cover for it's already-reached decision. He criticizes the Obama administration decision to go after attorneys who advised Bush on preventive detention of enemy combatants captured on the battlefield.

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  11. Mikec19/8/10

    Communism and Nazism have been, are, and always will be bedfellows. They are, to all intents and purposes interchangeable. Control, thuggery, death camps, atheism, eugenics, militarism, party membership, cult of personality, murder, kangaroo courts, flexible justice systems and probably a few more.

    Of these, all Islam lacks is the atheism and the death camps, but I understand they (the Iranians) are probably preparing the latter, especially for the American servicemen who will have to go in and sort out the mess (eventually - when it is so totally out of control that millions have to die, just like the last time).

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  12. Unlike the Cato Institute, I don't consider Al Queda terrorists to be American citizens.

    Much like the Cato VP is now claiming that the Ground Zero Mosque is a "distraction".

    They're fellow travelers of the ACLU.

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  13. Dear Daniel, there is so much on this column that is pure gold that I hate to nickpick. But I'll do it anyway. :-)

    First of all, thank you for debunking Niemoller. I had no idea about the real story behind that quote.

    I had heard it attributed him and it still makes a lot of sense to me - no matter who created it or the politics associated with it.

    GERMANY in the 1930s: It's a fact that many Jews voted for the Nazis up to the March 1933 election because they feared the Bolsheviks more than they feared anti-Semitism.

    Most of the votes Hitler got were from people who were just freaked out by the left, and who not only voted for him but still supported him for many years. Or at least as long as the going was good.

    The moral of that story fits quite well with the quote attributed to Niemoller. Indeed, as long as the persecuted were other groups, it was OK with the majority.

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    While I mostly agree with much of what you say about the liberals and the extreme left, I'm not in love with the right wing either.

    Both Democrat and Republican politicians would like nothing better than to use fear of terror or ANY EXCUSE whatsoever to clamp down on human liberties, particularly the right to privacy (internet).

    The Bush administration, still fresh in our memories, was a disgrace on many fronts.

    I'm a card-carrying CYNIC and I trust NOBODY.

    Governments have to be watched very, very closely, and must not be given the benefit of the doubt when it comes to limiting our freedoms - or the other guy's freedom.

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  14. Hitler and the Nazis drew on a varied base of support, but it was hardly pure anti-communism. Anti-Communism had been common enough in German politics up to that point.

    The Nazis mixed in doses of socialism, workers' programs, and of course anti-semitism. That alongside patriotism, traditionalism and nationalism. It made for a confusing, but appealing mix.

    I don't know what percentage of Jews voted for the Nazis, but I doubt it was particularly significant.

    I agree that most political parties and governments will try to maximize their power, which is why I'm not happy with sweeping provisions, rather than narrower laws that specifically target terrorists, denaturalize Muslim Brotherhood members, etc

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  15. THE FOLLOWING DESERVES A COLUMN OF ITS OWN:

    "The left has a great deal of respect for mosques, but very little respect for Ground Zero. There is a very simple reason for that. The mosque is transgressive, to them it appears to be a rejection of Western materialism. Ground Zero on the other is an area where two towers of capitalism were destroyed, as a "reaction" to American foreign policy. That is how liberals think."

    There is so much truth in the above. I hope you can elaborate more on this theme, Daniel.

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    I think I understand American subversive thought a little.

    It can also be a form of rebellion against mom and dad, but some people never outgrow this stage, unfortunately.

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    What is still a mystery to me is THE ISRAELI LEFT. While it's true that professors and the media are brainwashing people, it's hard to understand how so many of them don't appreciate the Arab danger to their lives and to their country.

    How can they love their enemy while he is spewing hatred against them and even trying to kill them?!!!

    For a while I attributed this to some obscure Jewish psychological ailment: Ghetto mentality, Oslo syndrome, the Holocaust trauma ...

    But now we see the same mental problem in Europe and in America. Two great sources of critical thought and freedom.

    WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO US???

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  16. "I think I understand American subversive thought a little.

    It can also be a form of rebellion against mom and dad, but some people never outgrow this stage, unfortunately."

    I've written on this in the past

    http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2010/02/what-is-behind-collapse-of-civilization.html

    The Israeli left is the product of the same intellectual and psychological systems as the European left.

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  17. TO DANIEL: Re: Your latest comment about anti-terror policies.

    Without referring to specific measures that could be taken against terrorists - I think that we're going the wrong way about it.

    Anti-terror legislation, protests against the Ground Zero mosque, policies against the veil - all that is simply delaying the inevitable.

    Daniel - nothing will work unless there is a stop to Muslim immigration. While we're busy arguing among ourselves, they are arriving in large numbers and raising huge families. They know that eventually their numbers, their money, and their social manipulation are keys to a power takeover.

    I'm all in favor of fighting the cultural war, but any gain will be moot once they occupy positions of power and influence (which they already do).

    Wasn't something like that what happened in Turkey? The all powerful army thought it could keep the country secular. They did not count on the huge demographic growth of traditional Islam in contrast to the more secular cities. So it's goodbye secular (or what passed for secular) Turkey, and hello Islamic Turkey.

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  18. So when does the zoning board make a final decision on the mosque? I am assuming it's the NYC zoning board. If not, who makes the ultimate decision since it's unlikely the mosque's supporters aren't going to bow out.



    Olbermann needs his head examined.

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  19. Olbermann is a troubled man.

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  20. RE: (1)"While Olbermann pats himself on the back for not being silent when people criticize the placement of a mosque near Ground Zero, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi talks about *investigating those who protest against it*."
    AND: (2)"That the World Trade Center's capitalism was part of a system that enabled them to be free, while the mosque represents an Islamic doctrine that *would have them be second class citizens, is not an idea they will ever accept*"
    (stars to direct emphasis)

    The increasing level of intimidation tactics are astounding.

    In the face of advancing islam, it seems that the natural progression of the hard left will be to become muslim (the "good" kind) thus maintaining 1st class citizenship.
    What do you think?
    Weren't many average Germans complicit with naziism merely to preserve their own societal ease & status?
    The thing is, people do not merely acquiesce, they eventually BECOME their choices.
    How far down the road are Americans from having to make that sort of "Me, or Them?" decision?

    obama's statement: "I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction" makes his allegiance entirely clear. It is not to our flag, nor to oppose ANY form of evil.
    A statement of absolutely diabolical intent!
    We live in a time when good is called evil and evil is called good, the principle being applied *to people* on either side.
    You are adept at articulating these things. Can you address my thoughts?

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  21. mindRider19/8/10

    Read Eric Hoffer's "The true believer" to reach to the core of the interchangeability of extremist ideologies.

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  22. "Hitler and the Nazis drew on a varied base of support, but it was hardly pure anti-communism. Anti-Communism had been common enough in German politics up to that point."

    Again, this is simply not true and a casual look at the history of Nazi Germany would clear it up. The Nazis were most certainly anti-communist at a fundamental level. But even more fundamental was their anti-semitism. Again, recall that according to the Nazis, Jews were at the bottom of all the world's problems. According to the Nazis, communism was itself a Jewish invention, a Jewish conspiracy against "classical" European values. Anti-communism was by no means a united front either and the communists themselves were fighting it out in the streets with the Nazis themselves and other bastions of the "right". Real civil war was a constant threat. This is all easy history on the subject for anyone who cares two cents about the facts of the matter.

    "The Nazis mixed in doses of socialism, workers' programs, and of course anti-semitism. That alongside patriotism, traditionalism and nationalism. It made for a confusing, but appealing mix."

    Confusing, yes, especially coming from an Austrian basing his political movement out of Bavaria, a Catholic part of Germany. Bavaria, where he had attempted a coup against the government there.

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  23. Anonymous20/8/10

    over twenty years the termites under my freind's house exploited every crack in the concrete foundations and munched through the timbers like soft chocolate.
    now house rebuilt it stands strong and resistant to assault and the termiteshave declared a hudna whilst they find new ways to circumvent the defences. It is relentless and there is no end to it. All his neighbours do not want the grounds treated as they are firm ecotypes. Better let his house be destroyed than interfere with nature,
    dave

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  24. I have to go with jlp4221; actually my first encounter of the poem was in Mark Steyn's 'First they came for Piglet' and that definitely had a positive ring to it.

    I've used it a few times in blog posts, but I won't be doing that anymore. Just the other week I was in a discussion where someone wondered why I made a difference in validity of quotes based on whom the quote originated from; it didn't matter to him.

    I explained that gratuitous quotes (do as I say not as I do) are meaningless, and thus I'd never quote someone I knew to not live up to them. Well, here's one I didn't know about, but I do now.

    Thanks. Another illusion gone...

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  25. Trencherbone20/8/10

    As well as next month's anniversary of 9/11, there is a more imminent though lesser known Islamic anniversary - that of the child-rape orgy and sadistic murder rampage at Beslan in early September 2004.

    Although the numbers of children tortured and murdered at Beslan were not as numerous as the 9/11 casualties, the depths of Islamic depravity demonstrated by this atrocity were in many ways worse than 9/11.

    For three days Muslim terrorists killed and tortured countless victims. Children and babies were shot and stabbed for crying. Teachers and parents were shot for trying to calm the hostages. Young girls were gang raped. Young girls were raped with gun barrels and other objects. Many did not survive these rapes. Children were forced to drink their own urine before being executed. And to make matters worse the MSM tried to cover up all Islamic involvement, and have done so ever since.

    Both anniversaries provide grim but necessary 'teaching moments' for Islamically aware bloggers to educate the American people about the true nature of Islam. We owe it to the victims to tell the truth and clear through the lies which envelop all aspects of Islam like a stinking smog

    The 9/11 attack wasn't an abberation caused by 'militants' who had hijacked the 'peaceful religion' of Islam. The attacks were a direct consequence of standard Islamic teaching on the need to kill Harbis.

    Terrorism and intimidation are intrinsic and essential features of Islam without which this vile cult could not spread or even maintain itself.

    Similarly, the sexual sadism and pedophilia of Beslan stem directly from the example set by the 'Perfect Man', the murdering, child-raping false prophet Mohammed.

    In commemorating the anniversaries of these atrocities, we need to avoid just preaching to choir. We need to copy the tactics of the jihadists with their mosques in every town and 'Think Globally, Act Locally'.

    The counterjihadist blogosphere is all very well for communicating globally with other Islamically Aware
    bloggers, but to reach the bulk of the people we need to use local forums and local online news media.

    So register and contribute to the forums in your locality. All the information you need is HERE - http://crombouke.blogspot.com/2010/01/everything-you-need-to-know-about-islam.html - Go forth and multiply it!

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  26. Paul,

    Anti-Communism was a popular position. It was hardly unique to the Nazis. And there were times when the Nazis attempted to work together with the Communists. Splits within Nazism helped keep it schizophrenic until Hitler began exerting total authority, and purging everyone else.

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  27. 2sloe,

    indeed people do become the masks they wear, and more so they wear the masks for a reason, because there is something in their personality that is compatible with the mask.

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  28. Hartman,

    Steyn was modifying it and entertainingly, and you can see why, as it is an effective enough slogan. But it's hard to detach it from its original meaning.

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  29. I was disgusted to read in the Buffalo News this morning that the snobs and eggheads at the Chautauqa Institute are supporting Iman Rauf over the Ground Zero Mosque and his claim that the US has more blood on its hands than al Quaeda.

    They're even caling Rauf a peacemaker. All based on the fact that they've known him for ten years.

    (see my blog post about it and about how the Chautauqa Institute is slamming Rick Lazio over this whole issue).

    Ken: We're at war with Islamic terrorists. Why shouldn't there be prisoners of this war? Granted it's a non-traditional war.

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  30. Mikec20/8/10

    Just because brother hates brother does not make them political opposites Paul. They still have the same mother and father, they have come out of the same womb, they grew up together and they both know how to hate.

    I am sorry that you are uncomfortable with the close relationships between communism and nazism. The left have tried awfully hard to make them opposites but unfortunately the facts don't support it.

    Tyranny is tyranny whatever its political or religious hue, the left dresses its tyranny in clothes of 'altruism', whilst the nazis wore cosy 'folk' costumes, but the bodies beneath exhibit exactly the same features...

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  31. Communism, Nazism, cut from same cloth. Evil is evil whatever name it takes for itself.

    ~~~~~~~~~

    The murder of children at Beslan should have been far more reported. It is as if the world has forgotten.

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  32. THIS IS BEYOND SHOCKING (to me)

    I was browsing through LEMON's websites this morning (very beautiful illustrations BTW) and found this item, which may be OLD NEWS TO many but completely new to me too.

    World Trade Sphere Plaza patterned after Mecca

    http://lemonlimemoon.blogspot.com/2010/08/world-trade-sphere-plaza-patterned.html

    The "Sphere" located in the court yard of the World Trade towers was a gold ball enclosing a black ball that symbolized the Kaaba in Mecca. The plaza itself was also a COPY OF THE MECCA COURTYARD.

    Lemon includes a link to a 2001 Slate magazine article that elaborates on this subject.

    "At the base of the towers, Yamasaki (Islam-inspired architect) used implied pointed arches—derived from the characteristically pointed arches of Islam...The shimmering filigree is the mark of the holy....alludes to a higher spiritual reality in Islam, and the shimmering quality of Islamic patterning relates to the veil that wraps the Qa'ba at Mecca."

    "Having rejected modernism and the Saudi royal family, it's no surprise that Bin Laden would turn against Yamasaki's work in particular. He must have seen how Yamasaki had clothed the World Trade Center, a monument of Western capitalism, in the raiment of Islamic spirituality."

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~

    And a foreign-born Muslim became president of the United States.

    I'm a science-fiction and conspiracy fan but this goes waaaay beyond anything I could have imagined.

    Have we been transported to some parallel universe???

    Is anyone at all CONNECTING THE DOTS?

    What else is out there that we still haven't noticed?

    I just got a headache....

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  33. Moshe20/8/10

    TracyW said: "What is still a mystery to me is THE ISRAELI LEFT. While it's true that professors and the media are brainwashing people, it's hard to understand how so many of them don't appreciate the Arab danger to their lives and to their country."

    It's simple, Tracy. They don't love Islam. They hate Judaism more than Islam and find the dati leumi to be a more threatening enemy than the Arabs. All their actions for the past 20 years have not been aimed at achieving peace with the Arabs. They have been aimed at destroying the dati leumi at any price.

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  34. Anonymous20/8/10

    My God, Trencherbone, your Beslan post is a must read. I didn't know it was that horrible. Damn Carter and Clinton for abetting this filth during their terms.

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  35. "I am sorry that you are uncomfortable with the close relationships between communism and nazism. The left have tried awfully hard to make them opposites but unfortunately the facts don't support it."

    This is just empty posing, bearing false witness. Clearly, identifying Nazism and communism as the being the same thing is a cult belief and there is no arguing with cult believers.

    As much as anything vital can be associated with liberals, leftists, conservatives and the right, I don't associate either Nazism or communism with any of them. But it is obvious that many self identified conservatives have a guilt complex over the history of Nazism and the standing accusation among liberals that conservatives represent something like Nazis. Among the talk show radio cream puffs, there is a lot sweat trying to turn this around, but nobody with any sense cares.

    I don't. And history doesn't either, which I am happy to cite in my arguments.

    Consider Croatia? The unrepetent Nazi loving state, a NATO member ... are these liberals? The left? Are they conservatives? Mostly, they are Catholic.

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  36. I would first like to say, hello Sultan, it's been a while. On to the point...

    Whoever wrote the "First they came for the Communists" poem was billant. It touches on many heartstrings. No matter if you like it or not, it was perfect for what happened during that time- and continues today. People don't respond or care to notice when others suffer. Most tend to ignore it because it's easier (Sudan, Congo, Etc...).

    Did you know that at the end of the tour at the U.S. Holocaust Museum Martin Niemoller is accreditted with that poem? In huge letters so you can't miss it. Maybe you should send this post to them...just a thought.

    ReplyDelete
  37. Daniel, I read the column you suggested:

    http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2010/02/what-is-behind-collapse-of-civilization.html

    I quite agree with its central idea. It's very well articulated.

    It should be noted that with ever new and exciting technology geared at keeping people of all ages entertained and removed from Real Life, there is no reason for them to grow up.

    What I see now is a Western population numbed by media and social manipulation and the easy life on one side - and a fanatic cult advancing on them on the other. Prey and predator.

    A PERFECT STORM!

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  38. TO MOSHE:

    Regarding the Israeli Left you write:

    "They don't love Islam. They hate Judaism more than Islam"

    That is true. Their track record makes that quite clear.

    Also, much of the anti-Israel and anti-Jewish feeling in the west is based on hatred against Judaism more than any real concern for the "Palestinians".

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  39. Dear Daniel, still with that column in mind, my conscience demands that I make an observation regarding the right and left wings.

    One problem with the right wing is its reluctance to evolve. Also it has allowed the left wing to run away with lots of worthwhile causes, such as animal rights and environmentalism. Those should not be just a left-wing concern.

    While our environment is suffering from significant damage, the right wing continues to cling to troglodite policies such as drill baby drill, let's club and skin baby seals alive, clear-cut our forests, mistreat our food animals for the sake of profit, and pollute our environment.

    So kids (of all ages) ARE CORRECT in some of their objections to the right wing agenda, and the kids' ideas are often based on solid ethical principles.

    **************

    Example: A legal loophole in Canada allows mining companies to dump toxic waste in lakes and rivers. The right wing supports this. The leftists oppose it.

    http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Fish+bearing+lakes+destroyed+become+tailings+ponds+Council+Canadians/3109850/story.html

    ******************

    Example: British Columbia government authorizes mining company to drain pristine lake to be used as a toxic tailings pond. The right wing loves it. The leftists oppose it.

    See picture of idyllic Fish lake here:

    http://www.pacificfreepress.com/news/1/6338-campbell-government-okays-destruction-of-fishbiny-lake.html

    ******************

    Continuous development and harvesting of everything in sight is neither acceptable nor sustainable.

    Human population also can't continue to grow. If other countries allow high rates of demographic growth, then they must accept responsibility and ALL the consequences.

    Unchecked greed and disregard for the environment cannot be part of a set of values that new generations can identify with.

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  40. Anonymous22/8/10

    Jim R

    Your comments on Niemoller bring to mind a quote from F.A. Hayek, a contemporaneous observer of the Nazis and Communists of that era. Those attempting to push the "Nazis (National Socialists) were conservatives" line will not like it.

    Although our modern socialists' promise of greater freedom is genuine and sincere, in recent years observer after observer has been impressed by the unforeseen consequences of socialism, the extraordinary similarity in many respects of the conditions under "communism" and "fascism." As the writer Peter Drucker expressed it in 1939, "the complete collapse of the belief in the attainability of freedom and equality through Marxism has forced Russia to travel the same road toward a totalitarian society of un-freedom and inequality which Germany has been following. Not that communism and fascism are essentially the same. Fascism is the stage reached after communism has proved an illusion, and it has proved as much an illusion in Russia as in pre-Hitler Germany."

    No less significant is the intellectual outlook of the rank and file in the communist and fascist movements in Germany before 1933. The relative ease with which a young communist could be converted into a Nazi or vice versa was well known, best of all to the propagandists of the two parties. The communists and Nazis clashed more frequently with each other than with other parties simply because they competed for the same type of mind and reserved for each other the hatred of the heretic. Their practice showed how closely they are related. To both, the real enemy, the man with whom they had nothing in common, was the liberal of the old type. While to the Nazi the communist and to the communist the Nazi, and to both the socialist, are potential recruits made of the right timber, they both know that there can be no compromise between them and those who really believe in individual freedom.


    -- from The Road to Serfdom

    The West now faces another totalitarian political ideology that, over the long haul, has been and looks like it will be even more dangerous. I of course refer to Islam, as it is intrinsically a political-religious system, and therein lies its great danger to the West. Accustomed for hundreds of years to religions that are separate from civil authority, and being strong believers in freedom of worship, we are as a society ill-prepared to properly evaluate and deal with a totalitarian system that cloaks itself in the guise of religion.

    Unsurprisingly, we have our Left aligning itself with this totalitarian system, all in the name of Multiculturalism to Death.

    It will take an event an order of magnitude worse than 9/11 to really wake people up. I am not at all happy to be making that prediction.

    ReplyDelete
  41. Anon:

    That is an excellent quote from Hayak. Of course it easily contradicts the notion that the Nazis were "conservatives", but also difuses the equally derelict notion that the Nazis were liberals. ... or that the liberals are Nazis or any other such tripe.

    But what you've really missed in looking at the sometimes close alignment between the Nazis and the communists and eventually the Muslims is anti-semitism. This is really where so many avowed communists were happy to become Nazis. That and the atheism of communism was difficult for many who were othewise sympathetic to the ideology of communism. The alleged socialism of Nazis was a pretty adornment designed to attract the attention of communists who were intellectually soft, but still passionate about labor power.

    It should also be pointed out the the alignment between Islam and both communism and Nazism is also old. Muslims were very happy to bask and prosper under communism, and socialist states like Yugoslavia served as incubators for growth among Muslims there and in the Soviet Union. Muslims were also happily allied with the Nazis in the same region and Muslim progress in the former Yugoslavia shares roots with the fake nationalism of the various Palestinian terrorist fronts struggling for dominance and land in Israel.

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  42. Paul,

    The nazis were socialist. Today we call it Crony Corporatism (Think Power Corp, Maurice Strong and The Lieberal Party of Canada as birthed by Trudeau the motorcycle Nazi Youth).

    btw... Ever read Pink Triangle? nazis are far leftists...

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  43. Van Grungy

    No, that's just ridiculous. And its ridiculous today too. Nazis today do not identify with the left, they identify with the right. You might sneak around accusing leftists today with being Nazi sympathizers, that is Nazis in the past, or some such tripe. But it is absurd to imagine that Nazis today would stand for the accusation that they had anything to do with leftists.

    ReplyDelete

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