There is one thing that the Jihad has reliably depended on in the late 20th century, it isn't a technological or a strategic factor, but us. Because the Jihad could not be what it is without the passive collaboration and active cooperation of the civilized world.

When the West left the Middle East it left behind the tools of its own undoing, the oil industry that would funnel untold billions into the Jihadi war chest, the engineering and military training to wage war and the open borders that permit the terrorists easy access and even residency in our countries, but worst of all was what the West took along, guilt.

When the Arab world got done rummaging through ash heaps of Nazism and Communism for ideologies their dictators could adapt to suit their needs, the old way of Mohammed was still waiting there ready to be embraced. And they embraced it with a vengeance even as the West had come down with a fever that was one part Rousseau, one part Marx and one part Gandhi, rolling the noble savage's rejection of civilization, socialist tyranny and pacifism into one toxic bundle.

Where the Jihadis were happy enough to use our systems of technology and organizations, we were busy learning to get in touch with our feelings, hug the whales and sing Kumbaya. And we're singing it still even in the face of decades of terrorism, reaching out to find the human face underneath the Keffiyah certain that the right tone rather than the right bullet is what it will take to end the violence. Having embraced guilt and a sense of morality and futility we have yet to even relearn how to fight for our lives.

9/11 was a slap in the face for the West, a slap it reeled from and then reeled right back into the same patterns, the soothing embrace of bureaucracy and consumerism and of course self-righteous pacifism on one side and guilt ridden socialism on the other. Some woke up on that day and are still awake, but most have gone to sleep again forgetting that 9/11 was not a catastrophe but a warning shot of what is yet to come.

While the West drowsed, the East armed. The Western oil companies that had served as the tools of colonialism were nationalized, oil money flowed but it flowed into limited hands. Population pressures combined with economic limitations created a population of frustrated and angry young men who had the potential to overthrow their governments. Instead their governments directed them at us, while putting on their best innocent faces when our diplomats came calling. What could they be expected to do? Extremism was a problem, of course it was only a problem when it was directed at them.

The West had left the Middle East and like Prometheus had given fire to those who should not have it, and then came the vultures flying jet planes and bearing bombs, Western technology jury rigged clumsily to serve their needs. While the West was busy marinating in its own guilt over colonialism, it had forgotten that colonialism was the extension of a thousand year long struggle between civilizations, and that not more than half a millennium ago it had not been so securely on the winning side of the equation. And that is the problem with history, it has a way of coming around again.

While the Children of the West cultivated short memories, the Children of the East cultivated long ones, looking up from the heaps of rubble and the oil wells, the slums of Cairo and the palaces of Riyadh to imagine a glorious past and envision a glorious future, one with no room in it for Kumbayah singers except as slaves. But it is not a future they could hope to achieve except with their complacent help.

It takes a great deal of apathy, corruption and loss of morale for the barbarians to not only reach the gates but walk through them and set up shop in the main plaza. That is the Jihad we have made, with oil money and guest workers, with liberal platitudes and an unwillingness to pass judgment even on the killers of our fellow citizens, with the technology and training we put in their hands and the power we have given them and continue giving them day after day to kill us.

It is doubtful that even a single terrorist attack has occurred except through the complacency and weakness of civilized country after country which has refused to take the threat seriously and put it down for good. Yesterday the terrorists set off bombs, today they import their beliefs and make them superior to ours, tomorrow they run for President. It's a simple straight line, an arrow pointing directly at the heart of not simply buildings or physical structures, but the values of a Republic. A people that are taught to tolerate Jihad have already become slaves and all but in name are willing to submit.

Tolerance has become another name for submission, the way of the liberal as the way of the Dhimmi and acceptance has become well, acceptance. This is the Jihad we made while we shopped for consumer electronics, worried about the regulations that the socialist bureaucracies had enmeshed every part of our daily lives and drove back and forth dropping endless coins into the Haram piggy banks of the Sheikhs and Imams who would send forth their dispossessed sons from the East to the West in a bid to slaughter us and rule over us.

This is the war we fight now and the question is not yet whether we can win it, but whether we can even learn to fight.

When Rabbis for Obama was announced with great fanfare it was meant to reassure worried Jewish voters. The 300 Rabbis who signed on to the letter which stated that Barack Obama had "longstanding, stalwart support for Israel" and claimed that "Senator Obama is in the best position to restore faith in America as a leader in the fight against serious threats to Israel."

But when you mix Obama and clergy together, the one thing you can count on is that they'll be left wing radicals who are anti-American and anti-Israel... and the Rabbis for Obama signers don't disappoint.

In fact a better name for "Rabbis for Obama" would be "Rabbis for Hamas". Does that sound like I'm exagerating, not at all. Because there is a surprising amount of overlap between the Rabbis who joined up with Rabbis for Obama and the Rabbis who signed the infamous Brit Tzedek V'Shalom letter urging Bush to keep an open mind on Hamas for the purposes of "constructive engagement" with the new Hamas government.

How much overlap? Five of the Vice Chairs of Rabbis for Obama were among the Hamas Rabbis, as well as 133 of the signatories to the Rabbis for Obama letter. That's nearly half the membership of Rabbis for Obama who signed on to a letter calling for Bush to keep an open door for dealings with Hamas. (see below for a full list)

Since then Brit Tzedek V'Shalom has authored a second letter to whoever wins the Presidential election that repeatedly condemns Israel for fighting terrorism, e.g. ("In 2001, then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon flatly rejected President Bush's demands that a massive Israeli military operation on the West Bank be suspended "as quickly as possible"), takes the Palestinian Arab side on the negotiations ("The Palestinians rejected Olmert’s offer as soon as it was made public as it did not adequately address most of the issues that are most important to the Palestinians") and once again calls for recognizing and dealing with Hamas;

The fact that Hamas rules the Gaza Strip is undeniably problematic, however; any agreement Abbas achieves with Israel will only be successful if the majority of the Palestinian people stand behind it. If the nation is, in fact, split into two geographical and ideological camps, this won’t be possible... However, some members of the Hamas leadership have indicated a certain openness to a peace deal with Israel; they would accept an agreement, if approved in a national referendum... Bottom line, for peace talks to succeed, the U.S. will also have to work to close the gap between Fatah, the movement headed by Abbas, and Hamas.

This time around three more of the Vice Chairs of Rabbis for Obama as well as many other Rabbis for Obama members signed on to the second Brit Tzedek V'Shalom pro-Hamas letter.

The original letter by the Hamas Rabbis was a project of Brit Tzedek V'Shalom aka Jewish Alliance for Justice and Peace, an extremist left wing group, which has condemned Israeli action against Hamas, defended the ISM terrorist solidarity group and coordinated pro-terrorist propaganda with figures involved in terrorism. And Brit Tzedek V'Shalom is funded by the same far left daddies too. Here's a sample.

The group gets financial support from other anti-American and anti-Zionist organizations, too, including Noam Chomsky's Resist, Inc. and the Ford Foundation. he board of Noam Chomsky's group is littered with admitted socialists, anti-Zionist activists, and even includes Yasir Arafat's former economic adviser Leila Farsakh. The New York-based Ford Foundation supports far-ranging efforts in globalization, internationalism and other internationalist leftist programs. Founded by industrialist Henry Ford, an admirer and supporter of Adolf Hitler, the Ford Foundation today continues to display anti-Jewish bias. Ford funded anti-Jewish agitprop at the UN conference in Durban and supports Al Mezan, ISM, New Israel Fund, and other anti-Zionist groups.

Rabbi John Friedman who chairs the Rabbinic Cabinet of Brit Tzedek v'Shalom and who was one of the Hamas Rabbis, is also one of the Obama Rabbis. And when you begin to examine the signatories to Brit V'Tzedek's letters and the list of Rabbinic board members for Brit Tzedek V'Shalom and Rabbis for Obama you come away with the impression that Rabbis for Obama is nothing more than a front for Brit V'Tzedek.

And a left wing group that calls for dealing with Hamas and which is funded by extremist groups that include figures such as Noam Chomsky, is in the worst possible position to reassure Jews that Obama meets their standard for protecting Israel and America's security. Not when that group itself is far too friendly with terrorists and blatantly hostile to Israel and America.

Two of the Hamas Rabbis even appear front and center on the Rabbis for Obama testimonials section, a limited list of a handful of Rabbis influential in the group. Both of their endorsements for Obama carry coded statements calling for pressure on Israel and appeasement for terrorism.

Rabbi Richard Levy (Los Angeles, CA) "I believe this country needs to return to a policy of respect for other nations, to pursue energetically all opportunities for peace in the Middle East and around the world."

Rabbi Elliot Dorff (Los Angeles, CA) "He has pursued the wrong war that is responsible for thousands of American deaths and hundreds of thousands of Americans maimed physically or psychologically -- and now the Taliban inhabit Iraq, where they never used to be... Obama, by contrast, offers us intelligence, caring, individual rights, well-thought-out programs for improvement in education and health care -- and, yes, wise and firm support for Israel and for peace in the Middle East."

Besides being a terrorist dupe, Rabbi Elliot Dorff is additionally an idiot who's under the impression that the Taliban are now in Iraq. And over several months none of the wise men of Rabbis for Obama have noticed anything wrong either.

Additionally prominent names among Rabbis for Obama include Rabbi Rolando Matalon who is on the Rabbinic board of Brit Tzedek V'Shalom, is also on the board of the radical left wing New Israel Fund and Americans for Peace Now.

There is Rabbi Arnold Jacob Wolf, a Vice Chair of Rabbis for Obama and an Honorary Board member of Brit Tzedek V'Shalom, who is personally acquainted with Obama and wrote a widely reproduced article "My Neighbor, Barack".

Somewhat less famously Rabbi Arnold Jacob Wolf is a left wing Anti-Israel radical who during the 2006 Second Lebanon War who served as the "Rabbinic Ally" for a letter condemning Israel's self-defense

"We urge the Union to likewise condemn the Israeli Defense Force’s killing of unarmed Lebanese and Palestinian civilians, as well as its premeditated targeting of civilian infrastructure, which has put additional lives at risk and hampered relief efforts."

There's Rabbi Elliot Dorff who is a Vice Chair of Rabbis for Obama, a signatory to both the Hamas letters and on the board of J Street, which successfully sabotaged the Anti-Ahmadinejad rally, and has made it its mission to insure that no military action will be taken against Iran.

There are hundreds of signatures of left wing Anti-Israel figures just like these there and they form the tapestry of both the Hamas letters and Rabbis for Obama. Rabbis for Obama claims to reassure Jewish voters about Obama's commitment to Israel, but that reassurance is coming from extremists who champion legitimizing Hamas and condemn and abuse Israel at every turn. Their voices make it clear once again what Obama and his supporters really stand for when it comes to Israel.

(A final note, these people may call themselves Rabbis but they're liberal clergy who rarely hold any actual belief in G-d or the Bible. Some like Rabbi Rachel Cowan are not actually Jews. Many are simply left wing figures who find a Rabbinical title convenient.)

[Below is the list of names overlapping between the Hamas letter and Rabbis for Obama. Draw your own conclusions as to whether there's any real difference between Brit Tzedek V'Shalom and Rabbis for Obama.]


Vice Chairs

Rabbi Laura Geller, Los Angeles, CA
Rabbi Elliot Dorff, Los Angeles, CA
Rabbi Richard N. Levy, Encino, CA
Rabbi Burt Visotzky, New York, NY
Rabbi Dayle Friedman, Philadelphia, PA


133 Members

Rabbi Ron Segal (Atlanta, GA)
Rabbi Paula Marcus (Aptos, CA)
Rabbi Jonathan Omer-Man, Berkeley, CA
Rabbi Michael Lotker, Northridge, CA
Rabbi Pamela Frydman Baugh, San Francisco, CA
Rabbi Linda Bertenthal, Los Angeles, CA
Rabbi Dan Goldblatt, Danville, CA
Rabbi Stephen J. Einstein, Fountain Valley, CA
Rabbi Roberto Graetz, Walnut Creek, CA
Rabbi Lewis Barth, Encino, CA
Rabbi Leonard I. Beerman, Los Angeles, CA
Rabbi Susan Laemmle, Los Angeles, CA
Rabbi Jason van Leeuwen, Los Angeles, CA
Rabbi Allen Krause, Mission Viejo, CA
Rabbi Suzanne Singer, Los Angeles, CA
Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb, Berkeley, CA
Rabbi Joshua Levine Grater, Pasadena, CA
Rabbi David J. Cooper, Piedmont, CA
Rabbi Burt Jacobson, Piedmont, CA
Rabbi Judith Seid, Pleasanton, CA
Rabbi Mark Hurvitz, New York, NY
Rabbi Hillel Cohn, San Bernardino, CA
Rabbi Laurie Coskey, Poway, CA
Rabbi Julie Saxe-Taller, San Francisco, CA
Rabbi Lori Klein, CA
Rabbi Neil Comess-Daniels, West Los Angeles, CA
Rabbi Beth Janus, Santa Cruz, CA
Rabbi Daniel Moskovitz (Tarzana, CA)
Rabbi Steven Jacobs (Woodland Hills, CA)
Rabbi Tirzah Firestone, Boulder, CA
Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, Boulder, CO
Rabbi Elliot Baskin, Greenwood Village, CO
Rabbi Stephen Booth-Nadav, Denver, CO
Rabbi Brian Field, Denver CO
Rabbi David Leipziger Teva, Middletown, CT
Rabbi Norman Koch, New Milford, CT
Rabbi Debra S. Cantor Newington, CT
Rabbi Binyamin Biber, Silver Spring MD
Rabbi Lynne Landsberg, Washington, DC
Rabbi Shaya Isenberg, Gainesville, FL
Rabbi Rebecca Lillian
Rabbi David Kay, Orlando, Florida
Rabbi Susan Marks, Sarasota, FL
Rabbi David Sandmel, Chicago, IL
Rabbi Arnold Jacob Wolf, Chicago, IL
Rabbi Andrea London, IL
Rabbi Brant Rosen, Evanston, Il
Rabbi Herbert Bronstein, Glencoe, IL
Rabbi Bruce Elder, Highland Park, IL
Rabbi C. Michelle Greenberg (Northfield, IL)
Rabbi Mira Wasserman (Bloomington, IN)
Rabbi David Dunn Bauer, Amherst, MA
Rabbi Sheila Peltz Weinberg, Amherst, MA
Rabbi Norman Janis, Brookline, MA
Rabbi Devorah Jacobson, MA
Rabbi Gary Mazo, Marstons Mills, MA
Rabbi Jeffrey W. Goldwasser, MA
Rabbi David Greenspoon
Rabbi Stephen A. Arnold, MA
Rabbi Caryn Broitman, MA
Rabbi Barbara Penzner, West Roxbury, MA
Rabbi Brian Walt, West Tisbury, MA
Rabbi Gerold Serotta, Chevy Chase, MD
Rabbi Elliot Ginsburg, Ann Arbor, MI
Rabbi Chava Bahle, Suttons Bay, MI
Rabbi Norman Roman, West Bloomfield, MI
Rabbi Amy Eilberg, MN
Rabbi Renee Bauer
Rabbi Randy Fleisher, St. Louis, MO
Rabbi Susan Talve, St. Louis, MO
Rabbi Joshua Taub, St. Louis, MO
Rabbi John Friedman, Durham, NC
Rabbi Eric Solomon, Raleigh, NC
Rabbi Jennifer Solomon, Raleigh, NC
Rabbi Amy Small, NJ
Rabbi Barry Schwartz, Cherry Hill, NJ
Rabbi Donald Weber, Marlboro, NJ
Rabbi Bennett Miller, NJ
Rabbi William Plevan
Rabbi Neal Borovitz, River Edge, NJ
Rabbi Daniel Cohen, NJ
Rabbi Lawrence Troster, Teaneck, NJ
Rabbi Malka Drucker, Santa Fe, NM
Rabbi Jerry Seidler
Rabbi Shoshana Leis, Bronx, NY
Rabbi Barat Ellman, Brooklyn, NY
Rabbi Linda Henry Goodman
Rabbi Joshua Gutoff, Brooklyn, NY
Rabbi Ellen Lippmann, Brooklyn, NY
Rabbi Jeffrey Marker, Brooklyn, NY
Rabbi Jennifer Jaech, NY
Rabbi Jan Uhrbach, NY
Rabbi Renni Altman, Great Neck, NY
Rabbi Ayelet Cohen, New York, NY
Rabbi J. Rolando Matalon, New York, NY
Rabbi David Rosenn, New York, NY
Rabbi Jennie Rosenn, New York, NY
Rabbi Felicia Sol, New York, NY
Rabbi Rebecca Gutterman, Rochester, NY
Rabbi Daniel Gropper, Rye, NY
Rabbi Lester Bronstein, White Plains, NY
Rabbi William Dreskin, NY
Rabbi Steve Segar, University Heights, OH
Rabbi Maurice Harris, Eugene, OR
Rabbi Yitzhak Husbands-Hankin, Eugene, OR
Rabbi Art Donsky, PA
Rabbi Myriam Klotz, Bala Cynwyd, PA
Rabbi Fredi Cooper, PA
Rabbi Meryl Crean, PA
Rabbi Simeon Maslin, PA
Rabbi Serena Fujita, PA
Rabbi Alan LaPayover, PA
Rabbi Marjorie Berman, Philadelphia PA
Rabbi Phyllis Berman Philadelphia, PA
Rabbi Shai Gluskin, Philadelphia, PA
Rabbi Linda Holtzman, Philadelphia, PA
Rabbi Yael Levy, Philadelphia, PA
Rabbi Amber Powers, Philadelphia, PA
Rabbi Arthur Waskow, Philadelphia, PA
Rabbi Shawn Zevit, Philadelphia, PA
Rabbi Nancy Fuchs Kreimer, PA
Rabbi Henry Cohen, Wynnewood, PA
Rabbi James Rosenberg, RI
Rabbi Alan Flam, RI
Rabbi Samuel M. Stahl, San Antonio, TX
Rabbi Rosalind Gold, Reston, VA
Rabbi Seth Goldstein, Olympia, WA
Rabbi Jill Borodin, Seattle, WA
Rabbi Hillel Gamoran, Seattle, WA
Rabbi Michael Latz, Seattle, WA
Rabbi Bruce Kadden, Tacoma, WA
Rabbi Jonathan Biatch, Madison, WI

By making a move toward general elections in Israel, Kadima's Livni is taking a big gamble. The basic gamble is that either voter fraud or general political inertia will not only keep the situation stable but will give Kadima an advantage in the election.

Livni does have a few things going for her. Having just gotten on the job she's actually in the best position to gamble on new elections that she will ever be in, because the general public has yet to be disgusted by her. Backed by a heavy PR campaign focusing on accentuating her positive image, Livni is hoping to ride her new position to an election victory. With Kadima's approval ratings in the toilet, this may be her only chance to secure Kadima's survival.

Naturally the usual way the left prepares for elections is by crying about right wing extremism and arresting a few people for supposedly plotting to commit something that usually falls apart at the trial level. Lately they've raised the bar to actually committing staged attacks, all meant to convince the Israeli public that their imaginary "right wing extremists" are more dangerous than the Arab terrorists they're busy coddling.

Labor has managed its own resurrection game replacing one unpopular leader with one formerly unpopular leader. Barak still enjoys too much public confidence despite his abysmal failure once again. And though he's prepared to push the Saudi peace plan, it's not clear that his credibility has been exhausted again. As the only military leader in the public eye and the political sphere, Barak still holds more credibility than many of his rivals in and out of the party. While Labor has destroyed itself several times over, it may well be in a position for a resurgence as the leading party again.

Likud meanwhile remains the obvious but weak alternative. Netanyahu has always polled better in America than he has in Israel, his speaking style and campaigns lack the shrill tabloid edge so common in Israeli politics making him appear presidential abroad, but weak, cold blooded and effete in Israel. Netanyahu comes into any race with two major deficits, he is a conservative candidate in a country where the press is left wing, and his style is at odds with a Mediterranean country. Additionally Netanyahu comes into the election having lost several elections already and heading a party crippled by Sharon and partially integrated into Kadima. While some Kadima defectors may be returning to the Likud, they're all but certain to sow even more chaos there.

Threatening Shas with elections is a fairly safe bet for Livni, with an Iranian crisis and a possible economic crisis rising the party does not have a lot of appeal for voters right now, and its cynical willingness to trade Yerushalayim will also hurt it. Eli Yishai has always bargained that he can play the devil's game, extract enough concessions and then cite principles and jump off the train just in time. This is a maneuver that Shas has repeatedly managed to pull betraying the country for a few million shekels time and time again, but this time it may not pay off.

Shas' only real cards are its network of institutions and exploiting Mizrahi concerns over inequality that have flared up again in the wake of the Kadima primaries and the defeat of Mofaz. But the blind religious loyalty to Ovadya Yosef and the willingness of Shas voters to buy into the new spin of Shas as the protectors of Yerushalayim should not be underestimated. The remaining religious parties meanwhile are busy with their own internal feuds that have all but put them out of the game.

On the Russian front Avigdor Lieberman's ambitions remain deluded and corrupt despite an attempt to posture as right wing. On the Putin front, Gaydamak is still a real threat but not as much as he once was, after all there are only so many positive headlines that can be bought with showy philanthropy, but while he will likely not be a major player, nothing can really be ruled out either. If he can exploit the internal division in the religious parties to take control of Yerushalayim, Putin will have control over Israel's capital and if his party enters a coalition government, Putin may have his own Israeli minister. Either one is a rather grim prospect.

Either way barring a miracle the elections do not look good. With Peres in power and abusing his constitutional authority forming a non-appeasement coalition government will be trickier than ever. Even if Likud manages to become the dominant party it will face a landscape of post-Zionist parties leaving Netanyahu saddled with Shas all over again. But the odds are rigged toward Labor-Kadima, despite the revelations that both parties are prepared to hand over Jerusalem, the Golan and even accept the Saudi plan.

The problem with Israeli voters is that they have virtually no memories and are willing to accept the same batch of scoundrels after a short waiting period. There may be few second acts in American politics, but Israeli politics is all 2nd, 3rd and 4th acts as the same corrupt leaders take another shot at the top job, turning off many voters and leading to even greater public apathy.

And the real wild card, much as with the US election, is the foreign money which has already stolen more than one election. NGO's and European governments have gotten less shy than ever about funneling money to promote post-Zionist parties and agendas and with massive foreign investment in Israel, the "peace plank" has tended to get its way. Clinton succesfully brought down Netanyahu in favor of Barak, and while under Bush the US may not quite so overly tamper with Israeli elections, there is no question of whom the State Department favors, only a question of what Rice and her minions are willing to do on behalf of Livni and Barak.

And if Kadima-Labor take power again, Israel will likely have run out of time and survival options. A Livni government will do its best to make good its secret international agreements which will include the handover of major parts of Israel and the release of a new wave of terrorists. And even with a McCain administration in DC will likely be unable to do anything useful about Iran. As for an Obama administration, that will simply mean an open door for dismantling Israel at express speeds.

If the elections fail to save Israel, it will be up to the modern day Macabees to do so.

As on Free Republic Obama was a member of the Chicago New Party and the Chicago DSA (Democratic Socialists of America) and to no one's surprise the Chicago New Party is not exactly a pro-israel party. In actuality it is a party profoundly hostile to Israel.

The Chicago DSA that Obama was part of in their newsletters have cited Mearsheimer and Walt on Israel and protested against CAT selling bulldozers to Israel

At the request of DSA member Libby Frank, the Chicago DSA Executive Committee voted to endorse the April 13 Stop CAT Coalition demonstration outside the Caterpillar shareholder meeting. This was in support of a shareholder action brought by Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) to have the corporation consider discontinuing the sale of its D9 and D10 bulldozers to Israel's military.

Chicago DSA accompanied its endorsement with a $50 contribution and lent them its 10 watt bullhorn.

another article mentions a march on the Israeli embassy and listed events such as these

Thursday, June 1, 7 PM
The New Ghetto: the Separation Wall and the Palestinians
In These Times, 2040 N. Milwaukee, 2nd Floor, Chicago
Israeli scholar and activist Yigal Bronner will give an overview of the "separation wall" now rising on the West Bank. An Open University of the Left event, tuition is $5, though no one will be turned away.

There is the DSA's resolution on the conflict
which calls for an end to all US military aid to Israel

Finally, propeace forces in both Palestine and Israel cannot succeed without the aid of the international community. Therefore, DSA calls upon the United States immediately to abide by its stated policy of ending all military aid to Israel used directly for purposes of the occupation. Furthermore, the United States should cut off all military aid if Israel al refuses to end all settlement activity and withdraw from the occupied territories as an integral part of the peace process.

And then there is this far stronger section from the YDS resolution

Since September 11, US foreign policy has almost completely centered on the War on Terrorism. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon seized on this new focus and immediately painted the al-Aqsa Intifada as a part of this stated universal war. Ironically, it was, in fact, Sharon himself who helped provoke the Intifada by his cynical visit to al-Aqsa, a Mosque in Jerusalem. After a horrific suicide attack in Netanya on the first night of Passover this year, Sharon decided to send Israeli troops into the West Bank and Gaza Strip to arrest all suspected terrorists as well as to crush the terrorist network. These murky goals stand unaccomplished, as there is a new suicide bomber it seems every day. Since that step in the war, untold numbers of Palestinians have been killed, with the most graphic loss of life occurring at the Jenin refugee camp, where scenes of charred bodies and destroyed buildings stand as testament to folly of Sharon's policies. The military moves of his administration can be considered war crimes under the Geneva Convention.

This injustice cannot persist. The YDS supports the Palestinians' struggle for self-determination and liberty as is affirmed in the resolution passed by the Coordinating Committee in March 2001. Resistance to Israeli security forces occupying Palestine is worthy of the support of all socialists. 

The latter paragraph is a virtual endorsement of terrorism, at least as directed against IDF troops  

And then there are essays like this

I am Jewish because what else would I be?

But how much longer can I remain Jewish when to be Jewish now means no quarter for Palestinians, no justice for Palestinians?

How much longer can I remain Jewish when to be Jewish means Jewish rage, means total military victory, means a final solution to the Palestinian problem?

And thus I find, in this occupation, that being Jewish may also mean agony and shame and others deciding what being Jewish means.

And so to be Jewish must finally mean, I cannot let that happen.

If next year, Pesach is to be in Jerusalem, I will share the seder meal with my Palestinian brothers and sisters. If not, then I choose exile.

I am Jewish because if you come for the Palestinians, you must come for me, also.

while the events listed occurred after Obama's time there it is doubtful that the party's view of Israel had changed dramatically since then and it is yet another demonstration that Obama has been repeatedly attracted to organizations on the political left which display a blatant hostility toward Israel and sympathy with terrorism. And it is yet one more factor for Jewish voters to consider in the days to come when they step into that voting booth.

Among conservatives democracy is the watchword of the day, Bush fastened on the idea of promoting democracy worldwide and McCain has even proposed a League of Democracies. This is ironic at a time when their Democratic party opponents are busy building a cult of personality and employing voter fraud to undermine the very idea of Democracy.

But what is so special about Democracy anyway? America is a democracy, but more to the point America is a Democratic Republic and one half of that word has been forgotten in a rush to embrace the idea that selling populist elections abroad can end tyranny and ugly belief systems that require mass subjugation.

Popular elections however are not a one step way to terminate tyranny, they were always understood as being a check on tyrants, rather than an absolute barrier. During the 20th century Communists and Nazis both participated in democratic elections while openly stating their goal of ending democracy. This is no paradox because many political systems, including the American system, does not require those participating in democratic elections to a democratic principles.

Democracy is a system rather than a principle, it is the Republic part of it that holds the values and principles. So promoting democracy in Gaza gave the victory to Hamas, in Egypt to the Muslim brotherhood and so on elsewhere, because if you give the popular vote to people whose value systems call for war against non-Muslims, that is how they will vote.

In the United States the overemphasis on Democracy over Republic has resulted in fanatically broadening the electorate while rejecting any test of literacy or competency as racist, just because such tests were abused in such a way at a given time in history. This matches the self-interest of politicians who would much rather have a field day with uninformed and ignorant voters than with voters who might actually get the facts from research rather than from campaign commercials.

This is of course the perfect kind of electorate to sell Bread and Circuses to, or a cult of personality campaign done in the same style as their favorite reality TV shows. A truly relevant system of elections understands that voting is a responsibility that requires some minimum demonstration of competence. Just as driving a car requires being able to prove that you understand the principles of the automobile, choosing the nation's driver should require some understanding of how the system of government works so that the voter demonstrates the ability to tell completely hollow promises from workable proposals. But in our zeal to proclaim the moral supremacy of democracy, we've forgotten that like every system democracy requires that all its parts be in working order, and the voter is part of that great machine of democracy.

Bring enough people together and they will forge some system of order based on the rule of the powerful. This is an inevitable consequence of human nature. Democracy provides a limited check on such people by forcing them to pass a referendum of the voters in order to take office. But popular vote is devoid of both value testing and genuine civic participation. A truly informed electorate is what distinguishes a democratic republic from a bread and circuses democracy.

Such a system would for example equally disqualify voters voting for or against Obama because of his race. It would disqualify voters unable to name the basic powers of the President or the candidate for whichever office they are voting for. It would disqualify voters whose stated motivations are purely selfish or vain. It would not encourage voting but discourage it, just as the Army Recuiting Office does not take everyone who walks through the door.

A voter card for such a system might read as follows: "Dear Citizen, voting is your right and through the excercise of that right you also accept its responsibilities. These are serious responsibilities and not to be taken lightly. By casting your vote you are taking part in more than an activity of a few minutes but in a government that will rule for years. Its decisions will be your decisions, its triumphs will be your triumphs, its follies will be your follies. By voting for a candidate you accept a share in his policies from this day forward until the next election. As a member of your nation's and community's electorate, your fellow citizens have placed their trust in you and you must now place that trust in a candidate for higher office. Carry out this responsibility with integrity and seriousness of mind. If for any reason you feel that you cannot, please leave at once."

Democracy is simply a means of decentralizing power. But responsibly decentralizing power requires placing it in responsible hands. The alternative is anarchy or more likely tyranny because as numerous examples have shown that decentralizing power into the hands of people who are not ready to hold it, makes it all the easier for a tyrant to pluck it from their waiting hands.

That is why in embracing the mantra of unlimited democracy as good in and of itself, we have placed real democracy in jeopardy and in promoting it abroad, we have confused populism with political change.

It has been a short few weeks, blogwise, due to the proximity of so many holidays which has cut down on posts and articles, but next week Sultan Knish will be getting back to normal. Or as normal as it ever is. Tableclothes are being lifted off, furniture is being set down and regular blogging will resume.

The world though is not standing still. The election showdown is drawing near in America that will serve as the anchor point for elections across the world. A major reason so much money from abroad is being used to influence the American election is because American policy translates into policy for any number of countries, including across Europe and in Israel.

The more Obama and his supporters talk about changing the world, the more this hits home. Europeans who are not paying much attention to the US election and think that it doesn't involve them, might want to imagine an American administration that employs punitive measures, including boycotts, against European governments who send back Asylum seekers, deport radical Imams or crack down forcefully on riots. Those are just baseline examples.

America was used as a tool to destroy Yugoslavia and create a Jihadist state, but comparing the Clinton administration which was responsible for that, to an Obama administration, is like comparing Tony Blair to Hugo Chavez. An Obama victory will not just mean bad times for America or even Israel, but bad times for the world.

Across Europe, Africa and Asia, Obama and his backers will be able to do what he only tried to do in Kenya, and while US troops may leave Iraq, the odds are they will be used as "peacekeepers" to protect Islamist terrorist groups and enforce compromises in numerous countries dealing with Islamic and left wing radical terrorism.

Considering how much damage Chavez has been able to do by exporting revolution in Latin America, Obama's export of revolution using the US as a base will be a great deal worse. In 4 years there may not be a single non-left wing dictatorship left in South America, and we can expect succesful "democratic" revolutions in Egypt and Saudi Arabia that will put the Muslim Brotherhood in charge. Not to mention a Jerusalem divided by barbed wire and bunkers again, and a Columbia with a FARC friendly government.

So if this blog speaks frequently about the US election, what is at stake is more than just the US.

Turning to the blogsphere now, the Powerline blog has uncovered the deliberate "gates down" approach of the Obama campaign credit card fraud. With a disabled address verification system, huge amounts of illegal money are coming in, from credit card fraud to false names.

The reality behind the Obama campaign is that a lot of the structure for it is abroad, the money is coming in from abroad and Eastern Europe which is the home of some major credit card fraud is no doubt playing a role in at least passing along the money.

As Mark Steyn writes

[I]n order to accept donations from "Della Ware" and "Saddam Hussein" et al, the Obama website had, intentionally, to disable all the default security settings on their credit-card processing. I took a look at the inner sanctum of my (alas, far more modest) online retail operation this afternoon and, in order to permit fraud as easy as that which the Obama campaign is facilitating, you have to uncheck every single box on the AVS system, each one of which makes it very explicit just what you're doing - ie, accepting transactions with no "billing address", no "street address" match, no "zip code" match, with a bank "of non-US origin" (I've got nothing against those, but a US campaign fundraiser surely should be wary), etc. When you've disabled the whole lot one step at a time, then you've got a system tailor-made for fake names and bogus addresses.

As I've said before the Obama campaign has little in common with the traditional political campaign on the right and the left. It has far more in common with a criminal enterprise, the consistent patterns of fraud, the MLM aspects, the shiny exterior hiding complex mechanisms that sustain it through illegal activities.

Madgeburger Joe meanwhile points out that Chavez's own failures highlight why Obama's socialism would be such a disaster

Venezuela, an OPEC member and a major producer of oil is now suffering power blackouts, some of them hitting most heavily neighbourhoods that are Hugo Chavez electoral strongholds.

The very regions targeted by Chavez for ambitious education and medical assistance programs are now finding their lives blighted by lack of electricity. The Yahoo News article cites the example of an elderly woman , blind and surviving on a pacemaker who lacks even an electric fan to help her through hot and humid nights.

Socialism may sound nice and even noble but in practice it becomes a drain. As Marx himself knew, only a wealthy country can even begin to afford socialism and after a few generations the escalating tide of bureacracy and regulations and program costs insure that it becomes incapable of sustaining the burden.

But of course the money isn't just being spread around at home. It goes abroad too. Elder of Ziyon reports that the US government has given the Palestinian Authority, run by the Fatah gang, 700 million dollars in just this year alone

A statement from the U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem says American aid to the Palestinians in 2008 now totals over $700 million and exceeds the amount the U.S. pledged at a donors conference in December 2007.

Now this is at a time when the US economy is in decline and average Americans are wondering how to pay our bills. Meanwhile the price of real estate in Ramallah is actually rising, even as it's falling across the US.

The 41-page paper said local government data from the commercial and political center of Ramallah indicates the value of prime downtown commercial plots has doubled each year since 2005, hitting the current average of about $372 a square foot.

How nice. Naturally if you're wondering where that 700 million really goes, I've written about that myself in the past.

"Since the Palestinian government was never providing much in the way of services to begin with, actual services like electricity and water all coming from the Israeli side, the real issue is the 165,000 government workers. But why does the PA which has little in the way of an infrastructure need 165,000 government workers?

Even the largest estimates of the Palestinian population clock in at around 3 million. That's one government worker per 18 Palestinians.

42.9 percent or 1.06 million of the overall population is under 14 and so wouldn't hold down government jobs either. An additional 73,000 is over 65. Of the remainder in the 15-64 year category 676,427 are male and 644,347 female. The female half can be eliminated as women generally don't hold down jobs in the PA.

That means the actual ratio of Palestinian adult men is 676,427 to government workers at 165,000. In other words every 1 in 4 or 25 percent of Palestinian men would be government employees. On wages subsidized by America and Europe.

Now since many of these employees don't hold down actual jobs but are Fatah militia members or their relatives, there's plenty of extra money in play to help fund their own private enterprises in Ramallah which helps the local real estate market.

And with Iran facing its own economic problems Joe Biden's post 9/11 call to give Iran 200 million dollars is more timely than ever. After all our enemies can't be expected to fund their own terorism. Not when they're too busy funding the Obama campaign. And with Ahmadinejad reportedly sick, we're wasting valuable appeasement time.

Meanwhile No Apology has an important report on The Third Jihad, a documentary covering the rise of radical Islam in America, and one wonders how much of that winds up being funded by taxpayer dollars too, one way or another. Either way the battle goes on and the nature of the two sides comes in clear, as Lemon Lime Moon writes,

When I was a kid I used to wonder how anyone could not see that the Soviet Union was evil. I mean they had to shoot people who tried to leave! What kind of ugly place has to force their people to stay? More so, what kind of a world would ever see that as a viable or right kind of government?? Yet, many did, do and continue to preach a Socialist plan for the world.

A look at the nighttime map of North Korea with its one tiny light as compared with South Korea's illumination shows the backward nature of a repressive Communist nation. We know the tortures and degradation there. We know from "tourists" that there is no freedom of any kind yet people praise North Korea and other Communist thugocracies as something to emulate.

Now with Obama we're promised Castro's much vaunted health care, Putin's domestic economic policies and Iran's foreign policy transmuted to Washington D.C. word for word.

And it cannot be allowed to happen.

Everyone knows that Obama can't win on his merits. Bluntly put, he has none. He isn't running on the issues, since he's demonstrated that he'll switch positions at the drop of a hat. What he's running on is a cult of personality, his own charisma and celebrity. Imagine JFK with no platform but a youthful smile and some vaguely optimistic rhetoric and that is the Obama platform in a nutshell.

Beyond the cult of personality, his real power comes from being treated as the inevitable winner. As far as the press is concerned, Obama is the incumbent, the election is nothing more than a formality and these next few months are a celebration of his victory.

Too many people, even those who hate Obama, see his victory as inevitable. That's not because of the poll numbers, but the perception created by the media with its constant coverage of the Messiah from Chicago and its determination to create the perception that you can't fight the future and that the election is already over. That same perception was used by the media to steamroll Hillary. It's now being used to steamroll McCain. And while the media can't control what happens at the polls, it can discourage and dispirit the opposition.

While there has always been media bias, what we are seeing in the election of 2008 goes well beyond media bias, to outright election tampering. There isn't even any pretense at fairness, nothing beyond a media selected coronation. You can't even call it dirty tactics, it's an outright assault on democracy by the major corporations that control the news media. It has as much in common with conventional media bias as a coup d'etat has with poll tampering.

If the media wins, it defeats democracy and fulfills its dreams of being able to decide who becomes President or not. If the media wins, the perception of McCain as doomed to lose and Obama as the certain winner will follow voters into the voting booth. For McCain to win, the media must lose.

That is why defeatism is the greatest enemy of the McCain campaign. To win McCain and the campaign must get a confident position across despite the media. That means going around the media where possible, cultivating small regional newspapers and radio stations in key battleground states, it means using bloggers and social media intelligently and constantly finding ways to communicate with the public as much as possible. For example a weekly or even daily video addressing the public streamed across video sharing sites would be a good idea.

It also means always having a clear and concise message and constantly creating "events" with a hook that target specific issues. If Obama is to make the campaign about his personality, McCain has to make it about the issues, which are his strongest area and which point up Obama's own weaknesses. McCain himself has spent too much time running on personality, but he will now be operating in a hostile media environment, a media that excells at distorting and destroying an enemy's image. He is going to have to put the issues first and put them out hard and fast to win.

If the campaign comes down to, who do you trust to run the country for the next four years, McCain will win. If the campaign comes down to, whose name do you recognize best and who seems to be a good guy, Obama will win. That's what he's been positioned to do, that's what his whole phony jolly personality exists for. It's meant to make him non-threatening and to deflect any serious questions about him and his record.

We've already seen that when the campaign gets hot, Obama melts. He doesn't do well under pressure, he doesn't know what he's talking about and he doesn't have the answers. He's a celebrity candidate whose answer to a problem is to put on a show. When his foreign policy credentials are challenged, he travels around the world and gives out free beer and sausages in order to get a crowd to listen to him in Germany. It's shallow, it's hollow and in the age of Big Brother and Paris Hilton, it works.

All Obama has to do to win, is to keep appearing on the covers of celebrity magazines, smile a lot and act like he's already won, while his friends in and out of the media do the dirty work for him. And he knows it too. If he actually begins lagging in the polls, they'll bring out the real ugliness and the sort of venom and hate they lavished on Hillary Clinton. For now though all they have to do is project his confidence to the American public, his Presidential seal, the references to Barack and Michelle as a First Couple and all the other totems and emblems of the man who is already acting as if he's President.

To beat that McCain will have to connect to the American people, to fight defeatism among Conservatives and shatter the idea that Obama cannot be beaten. Obama can be beaten. Obama has not won anything. And McCain can beat him and will, if he fights hard enough for it.

The Democrats want this to be a repeat of Clinton - Dole in 96. We have to make it a repeat of Bush - Kerry in 2004 instead. The Democrats want the McCain campaign to be an image of an old man toddling around and mumbling something, a respectable man but sure to lose. To fight that McCain has to be dynamic and aggressive, he has to be always in motion, always campaigning and always on message. The man who came from behind to win the Republican primary can do it. It's a matter of actually finding a focus.

The best hope for a Democratic victory in 2008 is for McCain and Conservatives to act and be made to act as if they're only playing out their part in Obama's March to the White House. That's the Dole curse. To beat it McCain must break through the invisible wall in the media and be prepared for the fireworks when he does, something that has already begun with the New York Times Op-Ed rejection. He must frame a clear choice between himself and Obama, based on his record and Obama's and his policies and Obama's. He must not only be prepared for the tidal wave of hate that will unleash, but ride it and even enjoy it, the way Theodore Roosevelt did.

If he can do that, McCain can do more than just win, he can enter the White House in triumph. If he can't, the country may well be doomed.

Using a government bailout to boost the market is a lot like giving a junkie enough money to pay for another fix. It might fix the short term problem of him passing out on your couch, but it doesn't fix the long term problem created by his addiction. It just enables it.

Wall Street habitually creates its own problems by tying its fate and fortunes to bogus investments and whether it's dot com companies with no business plan or bad mortgages, the bubble sooner or later bursts. Greed builds the sand castle but plastered sand can't hold back the tide of economic reality. And like all forms of irresponsible behavior, it creates the justification for overreaching government regulation and intervention, in other words socialism. The last stock market crash created the virtual dictatorship of FDR which ended the Second American Republic (1865-1933. This one may well do the same for the reign of Obama that will bring an end to America altogether.

The real problem is the extent to which our economy and industries are centered around Wall Street. America's industries were once built up by men of initiative who had a vision and turned it into profit. Today America's industries are run by self-promoting CEO's whose job is to somehow create enough hopeful expectations for their company's next quarter to raise the stock and then get out with a golden parachute before the whole thing tumbles down on them.

That has meant outsourcing American industry and just about everything else to Asia in order to cut short term costs, despite the fact that this has wiped out entire industries in the United States. It has also meant outright fraud, pointless gargantuan mergers, companies senselessly rushing after trends they don't understand and pushing corporate socialism, another short term gain for a long term loss.

What Wall Street has done to American industry in a nutshell, is wiped out long term thinking and planning. CEO salaries have become ridiculously inflated because the CEO has become the superstar figure who provides credibility for the company's short term plans. The CEO meanwhile doesn't need to think about the future of the company or his industry 20 years from now. He likely doesn't even have an industry and if he lasts more than a few years before jumping on board as the CEO of a completely different company in a completely different industry, then he's already a marathon man.

Meanwhile corporations have eagerly formed entangling alliances with the Federal government to gain the financial benefits of corporate socialism, without actually caring about what government entanglement means in the long run. The real lesson of socialism is that you don't have to accept responsibility for your mistakes. Socialism is insurance against failure, individual failure and corporate failure, at the cost of freedom and income. It's no wonder that corporations have learned to play the same victim game that minorities have. "We're destitute, we're victims, give us money."

Despite the macho posturing of Wall Street brokers and analysts who like to pretend that they're playing a man's game, the stock market is part casino and part three card monte. It isn't honest industry, instead it's destroying honest industry. The old monopolies crushed private enterprise through sheer power, today's companies destroy it through their incompetence and fraud and complete the process by inviting in the government to clean up their failure.

Extended worldwide the global economy is an entangled mess of financial chicanery in which billions can go missing without anyone noticing, because the fortunes being moved around are themselves fictional. The modern way of economics has made money abstract and in doing so it has also made it unreal. People rack up credit card bills because instead of spending money they were passing around a plastic card. Banks dole out bad mortgages because in the end it's only numbers on a balance sheet that can be sold to someone else. Insurance companies invest in securities that are themselves composed of debt, because debt long ago became a commodity. Meanwhile operators in India put on their best American accents and call American households to collect their debts. The problem is circular and it isn't going away.

America can't be ruined if the stock market collapses. It can only be ruined if the stock market persists. America's real wealth is in land and free enterprise. The collapse of the economic house of cards that people mistake for our economy can cause chaos, but it can't take away America's real wealth. The vastness of the frontier combined with individual initiative and a lack of regulation is what made American enterprise great.

We have the land and the individual initiative exists too, though diminished by socialism's incursions. But the regulations from the government have squeezed free enterprise on on side while a stock market oriented business model has destroyed the traditional values of American business. The collapse of the entire structure might well be the best bet for a clear cutting that may allow traditional American free enterprise to emerge unrestricted again.

As we all know Barack Obama isn't just a candidate, he's an icon, a messiah and a mass movement that is making a difference in the lives of millions of Americans. Barack Obama's confident willingness to run for a job for which he is completely unqualified for based on a platform of insipid slogans has similarly given people who should otherwise be locked in small tiny cages the confidence to pursue their dreams.

Here are their simple but eloquent testimonies.



"Barack Obama gave me the confidence to murder anyone I want."

Phil Spector


"Barack Obama and ACORN have given me the confidence to register 76 times to vote in both Ohio and Pennsylvania"

Walter G. Grizzus


"Barack Obama gave me the confidence to fight for my rights"

O.J. Simpson


"Barack Obama gave me the confidence to wreck the entire American economy because I knew the Federal government would be there to bail me out."

Franklin Raines, Fannie Mae







"Barack Obama gave me the confidence to go out and make some real money."

Jim B.


"Barack Obama has inspired me to run for the Senate. After all I'm just as qualified as he is."

Cindy Sheehan













"Barack Obama has given me the confidence to overcome the obstacles created by the people around me... with a chainsaw."

Frank Altmann





"Barack Obama has given me the confidence to take over the Democratic Party in his name. How's that working out for you?"

Sub-Commander Markos Moulitsas








"Barack Obama inspired me *gasp* to *wheeze* oh man those are some huge stairs up to the elevator *gasp* something. Say got another bribe for me or a hamburger?"

Congressman Jerrold Nadler










"Barack Obama has given me the confidence to try horseback riding even though I have a herniated disc and don't know anything about riding horses."

Richard E. Mellon






If you too have been inspired by St. Barry drop by and leave us a line.

Joe the Plumber is important. Not simply because he represents the defense of middle class aspirations against a socialist system designed to create a wide gap between the dependent ranks of the working class and the upper classes safely ensconced and managing the socialist bureaucracy...

but because his case demonstrates quite well the fate of those who criticize an Obama administration. Even without government control, Obama's backers are using the weapon of media intimidation to silence and suppress critics and clear his way to the top job.

The media has managed to turn up more negative material on Joe the Plumber in a day than they have on Barack Hussein Obama in a year. The latter is running for President, the former was an ordinary man who asked him a question.

This is the way things are supposed to work in a dictatorship, not in the United States. Here the critical eye is supposed to be on the politician, not on the American who asks him a critical question. Yet that is exactly where we are now, and if we don't stop it, there may well be a country called America, but it will have little in common with the United States of America.

Which makes it all the more important on election day to get out there and tell the messiah to stick his arugula where the sun don't shine.

Meanwhile in more of the Rage problem on the Obama side, PJM has an attack on a McCain supporter in Manhattan.

I'm not remotely surprised that the supporter was a middle aged woman or that the attacker was a burly man. This is actually common for your average enraged liberal coward. At pro-Israel rallies, lefties routinely went after signs held by older women.

Typical of this kind of enraged leftie cowards such as Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller at an anti-israel rally who assaulted Rachel Neuwirth or Nathan Winkler who chased a woman for having a Bush-Cheney bumper sticker on her car.

Now put this in the context of the psychotic hate being directed at Sarah Palin, and you're closer to the real face of liberalism, sheer cowardice.

(By the way if anyone knows where I can buy a McCain button in the New York City area, I'd be grateful, since by the time the official store ships me one the election will be all but over.)

Meanwhile Obama supporters are doing their own GOTV in their own old fashioned way, by stealing it.

First we have this disgusting story when a mentally handicapped man was forced to vote for Obama when he was taken to the polls for early voting. Look for a lot more of this happening particularly with senior citizens in New York and Florida. Forget the Big Schlep, the real story will involve caretakers and social workers and others going in with disabled people and seniors into the voting both and voting for them. I've seen this repeatedly in New York City at the polls.

Secondly the Supreme Court just legitimized Ohio's massive vote fraud, which just shows that the left will be happy to steal the election using the Supreme Court after all. How ironic.

Meanwhile anti-jihadist sites are running reports of a link between terrorists and pedophilia websites.

British security sources confirmed that such a link had been discovered in several cases. They noted the contradiction between people supposedly devoted to theocracy and Islamic fundamentalism and their use of child pornography. “It shows that these people are very confused,” a source said. “Here they are hating Western decadence but actually making use of it and finding that they enjoy this stuff.”

This of course just goes to show you how dim British security sources are. Pedophilia is a product of the decadence of the Muslim world, far more than it is a product of Western decadence. And Islamic terrorists routinely piggyback their fund raising ventures on organized crime based on doing things that are illegal in the West but a part of their culture, whether it's drug, car theft or pedophilia. After all Islam's prophet raided caravans and took a child bride. I have no idea if he chewed quat, but either way it's 2 for 3.

Meanwhile the fire sale of Israel continues with the US having now chosen to back the giveaway of the Golan to Syria. The circus goes on with more terrorists set to be freed, Haredim continuing to sell out Israel, Shas playing its cynical games on Yerushalayim and the religious zionist camp experiencing leakage away from sanity. The picture could be grimmer probably, but not by much.

As I've said before a lot is on the line this year and by the end of this year we will either be headed in a virtually irreversible downward spiral. All the while the Obamas will be chowing down on Iranian caviar in the White House.

In a brief blogsphere roundup,

Daled Amos covers the murder of 3 Americans by Palestinian Arab terrorists

Not much attention seems to have been paid this past week to the 5th anniversary of the murder of three American security contractors, John Branchizio, Mark Parson, and John Martin Linde Jr. by Palestinian terrorists on October 15, 2003.

At the Keli Ata blog, riffing on Obama's Grapes of Wrath

In the movie, Henry Fonda does a much better job reciting it than does the plagarist Barack Obama. Another reference to Obama in pop culture/American literature? I can't help it because the man keeps framing himself with it, plagarizing.

For a man described as a poet, Obama has so little orginality. I'd even go so far as to say his whole platform of Hope (including the many hope signs) were plucked right out of The Grapes of Wrath:

The always highly readable Breath of the Beast blog has an important post on the underlying psychological framework behind what's going on today

Obama intentionally presents us with an image of ourselves in that is calculated to make us feel is a reflection of the kind of world we desperately long to see. Because of that image, many people have made the commitment to ignore any thing negative that may come up about him and threaten the coherence of the image. This, as in the strange little mirror dance of Groucho and Harpoo ceases to be gullibility and becomes credulity. Even in the face of mounting evidence that he is not a man of good character, experience or, even, good will.

We're in the middle of a big election, an election that may well help decide the future of America. Which is why we all need to calm down a whole lot.

That may sound paradoxical but it isn't. The crucial thing in any fight is to keep a clear head. By contrast an emotional seesaw does nothing but wastefully drain your energy while cultivating chaos. Which means that declaring that the battle is already lost, haranguing the McCain campaign and behaving hysterically is the worst possible thing to do.

The left went into this election with a plan and they are close to achieving their goals. The right went into this election haphazardly and has just barely managed to sort of unite around the nominated candidate.

Up until the convention too many conservatives seemed ready to peg McCain as doomed, then with the convention slash Palin bounce they seemed ready to proclaim that New York would be won, now it's back to doom and gloom. And that kind of attitude and behavior is self-destructive and stupid.

Some conservatives like Noonan and Buckley have rushed to jump aboard the Obama bandwagon. After all why not go with the "inevitable" winner. Others are railing at the McCain campaign for not hitting harder or offering advice that varies between the unrealistic and the outright stupid. The prize example of which has to be the following Bill Kristol, New York Times editorial.

Now giving a Republican campaign advice in the pages of the New York Times is a lot like giving America advice in the pages of Pravda. And such advice as it is definetly belongs nowhere but in the pages of the New York Times.

It’s time for John McCain to fire his campaign. What McCain needs to do is junk the whole thing and start over. Shut down the rapid responses, end the frantic e-mails, bench the spinning surrogates, stop putting up new TV and Internet ads every minute. In fact, pull all the ads — they’re doing no good anyway. Use that money for televised town halls and half-hour addresses in prime time.

Provide total media accessibility on their campaign planes and buses. Kick most of the aides off and send them out to swing states to work for the state coordinators on getting voters to the polls. Keep just a minimal staff to help organize the press conferences McCain and Palin should have at every stop and the TV interviews they should do at every location. Do town halls, do the Sunday TV shows, do talk radio — and invite Obama and Biden to join them in some of these venues, on the ground that more joint appearances might restore civility and substance to the contest.

Or McCain could just concede now, since the gist of Kristol's advice is to all but suspend the campaigjn and put his fate in the hands of the press. The same press that is busy doing its dishonest best to lynch him. All the while jettisoning the ads that have actually put McCain ahead at every turn.

Now while Kristol's advice is fundamentally stupid, the people championing a more aggressive McCain campaign are missing the point, which is a campaign that does nothing but hit Obama, also does little to promote any kind of positive image for McCain. We're the ones who can be counted on to conduct the aggressive campaign online and offline, just as McCain can count on Palin to keep hitting Obama, while he expresses a larger vision for America.

McCain's campaign is by no means perfect, but neither is it as weak or dysfunctional or out of touch as its critics would like to believe. McCain is running an old fashioned political campaign against the media centered cult of personality Obama campaign. It isn't a clueless campaign by any means and counting McCain out would be foolish indeed.

For one thing McCain won the primary back when it was supposed to be Romney. He's managed to change the race in very little time and fighting the media upstream every step of the way. McCain isn't doomed and despite the polls, the race remains close. I don't need to remind most people of which way the media was calling Gore vs Bush or Bush vs Kerry. These days a Republican going up against a Democrat is sure to encounter the reverse of the Dewey Beats Truman effect.

This will be a close race. It will be a hard fought race, every day and every step of the way. There will be lies, hate, fraud and every ugly and dirty trick and meme the enemy can put out there. We aren't done yet and we won't be done until election day, one way or another. And the best way to get there the right way is to keep calm, to avoid the hand wringing and to just do what we can along the way.

Right now there are Obama supporters on social media sites who routinely pretend to be conservatives while spreading defeatist statements. This behavior is not random. From the very beginning, the Obama campaign worked to create the image of the inevitable candidate who could not lose. Too many conservatives have been convinced and programmed by that image. Some like Buckley have jumped ship. Others have simply accepted a premature defeat.

But victory and defeat are not inevitable, as Obama's media surrogates would like us to believe. They are the product of decisions and efforts and our own efforts are part of that larger equation of defeat or victory. So the memo here is calm down, do what you can and avoid being rattled by the propaganda. Neither candidate has won or lost. The battle continues.

This week the Washington Post had the upbeat story of how a bunch of Democratic activists in Prince George's County used a combination of racial victimization and straight up threats of boycotts to intimidate a hotel into removing a McCain marquee.

Had it been a bunch of Republican activists forcing a black hotel owner to remove an Obama for President sign, we can be sure that the Washington Post would have covered it in entirely different tones. We can also be sure that someone would have turned up a noose somewhere even if they had to buy it on eBay and Jesse Jackson would be leading a march down there chanting, "We Will Overcome."

But since it's a McCain sign, there was a sense of entitlement by black Democratic activists in getting it taken down. A sense of entitlement that the Washington Post article implicitly supports. Apparently supporting the candidate of your choice, if he isn't Obama, is "disrespect" which is next door to "intolerance" which is next door to "racism".

This all makes sense in the same twilight zone in which McCain with his interracial family is just like George Wallace and a commercial pointing out that Obama was associated with an upper middle class white terrorist is racist. Then there's Sarah Palin's white blouse. Next thing you know she'll be burning polar bear crosses on their lawn.

Never mind that the hotel's manager is an Azerbaijani American or its owners Italian Americans who have as much connection to the eternal racial grievances of the NAACP as I do to the current strife in Burma. They foolishly bought into the idea that the United States has Freedom of Speech. The Washington Post and the Democratic Party is here to teach them differently.

From Obama's "Truth Squads" to a media so biased it could teach Pravda a thing or two to accusations of racism being hurled at anyone who dares contemplate not voting for Obama (despite his extensive qualification of 100+ days in the Senate) to the organized campaigns waged against Kurtz's radio station appearances, we're getting our first ugly taste of what an Obama Presidency would look like. And Free Speech and Democracy are being led out to the firing squad.

It was inevitable that after a generation of censoring free speech in the name of tolerance, that we have now come to the point where democracy itself has become intolerance. And that's no surprise really, after all democracy is the ultimate form of intolerance.

What could be more intolerant than a nation of free people taking a look at two candidates, and each man and woman choosing the one they like best?

Shameful, absolutely shameful. And lucky for us the Democratic party and their media allies are here to put a stop to those sorts of shenanigans in order to give us the truly noble system of leadership held by such bastions of civilization as Cuba, China and North Korea and the old USSR.

They'll pick our leader, we will get the privilege of attending his rallies, worshiping his presence and voting for him. And anyone who doesn't like that arrangement is clearly either ignorant, intolerant or just plain racist.

The Democratic party has given up democracy and instead turned on the Cult of Personality, unleashed its Two Minutes of Hate against Palin (it doesn't take much imagination to picture liberals sitting down row after row in a theater, waiting for her face to show up on the screen and then unleashing all their rage and hate. In fact it doesn't take any imagination at all) and so close to the mark, they're bring out their full agenda meant to abrogate democracy and freedom of speech.

We are in very ugly territory now charted by men like Orwell, a realm where language is inverted at will, where every deed and word is political and where every human emotion is channeled to serve the Leader Image.

"Businesspeople have to be mindful of the sentiments and sensibilities of their market trading area, and Prince George's County is overwhelmingly for Obama," said community activist Arthur Turner of Kettering.

The marquee supporting the GOP ticket in "an area that is strongly African American was like putting a stink bomb in the middle of the living room," said University of Maryland political Professor Ron Walters.

Colony South General Manager Alan Vahabzadeh said that the hotel, one of several Washington area businesses that has dared to venture into the political thicket, got the message after about 100 phone calls and three dozen e-mails. The sign came down Wednesday afternoon.

"While a business has the right to display what it chooses, the public has a right to show its contempt for that decision, including boycotting," said Mel Franklin, president of the Greater Marlboro Democratic Club.

Bob Ross, 63, a community activist who lives near the hotel, said Obama supporters should see the sign as a reminder that they should "stay vigilant."

"That sign should serve as a reminder that everybody who supports Obama should make sure to bring five or six people with them to the polls Nov. 4. It means that there is still more work to be done."

June White Dillard, president of the Prince George's chapter of the NAACP, said the type of events Colony South has booked in the past is the reason the sign cut so deeply.
Mary Brantley, a travel agency owner from Upper Marlboro, belongs to the health club at Colony South and was among those who complained to the hotel. She was heartened to see the marquee changed Wednesday. It now advertises football games.

But as she drove past the hotel Friday afternoon, she couldn't help notice the two large banners in the front yard proclaiming: "McCain Palin. Country First." Again.

Now note the hotel has not done anything that could be described as offensive. It has not accused Obama of anything. It has not put up any combative slogans for McCain. All it did was put up a sign supporting one candidate. And that is what these people find offensive. Democracy. Freedom of Choice.

We do indeed to be vilgant as Bob Ross says. But we need to be vigilant against people like Bob Ross and the whole Obama crew. We need to be vigilant against those who are "vigilant" against democracy. Because Democracy, like Freedom of Speech, is the ultimate form of intolerance.

Freedom of Speech came first because it allowed unpopular ideas to be expressed. Democracy is next because it allows popular rule. And both popular and unpopular forms of individual action and expression are verboten under The One.

Defeating Obama isn't just about defeating his legal policies, it's about defeating the whole culture of undemocratic entitlement that he brings with him. No one has a right to the White House and no one has a right to decide the election or criminalize or intimidate the politicial opposition. Defeating Obama means preserving democracy in this country, while Obama's victory will mean that we will find ourselves fighting a losing battle for every single legal right we have.

The Rev. Shaun Casey is currently listed as Senior Religious Advisor to Barack Obama and is spearheading his outreach to evangelical Christians. However a year ago Shaun Casey had co-signed a letter initiated by Ron Sider, a left wing figure dabbling prominently in Liberation Theology.

Several dozen evangelical leaders have released a letter to President Bush in an effort to distinguish themselves from ardent pro-Israel evangelicals and to urge evenhandedness between Israel and the Palestinians.

The letter's authors got the idea while visiting the U.S.-Islamic World Forum in Doha, Qatar, where, according to the New York Times, they "met Muslim and American diplomats who were shocked to discover the existence of American evangelicals who favored a Palestinian state." The organizers plan to translate their letter into Arabic and distribute it internationally.

The letter repeated a common media-grabbing formula for liberal evangelicals. Demand action on climate change, denounce U.S. policies on "torture," or insist on a less pro-Israel stance. The ostensibly surprising revelation that not all evangelicals are reflexively Republican is an almost guaranteed headline maker.

The signers insist that they share the evangelical perspective that God will bless all who bless the descendants of Abraham, a common biblical theme among pro-Israel evangelicals. But they assert that both Israel and the Palestinians have ''legitimate rights stretching back for millennia to the lands of Israel/Palestine,'' and that a Palestinian state must include the "the vast majority of the West Bank.''

Ron Sider insisted that he and his fellow letter signers want "security" for Israel. But it's difficult to know what he, as a professed pacifist, means by security. Many of the signers are skeptical about the U.S. war against terrorism and place greater hope in international mediation than do typical evangelicals. The letters signers assume that Middle East peace depends on pressuring Israel into more accommodations. Most evangelicals are more skeptical.

In Evangelicals for Hezbollahstan the letter was described thus.

Evangelicals have long been a mainstay of U.S. support for Israel. But the Evangelical Left is trying to push Evangelicals into a more neutral position towards Israel.

Organizers of the Evangelical statement have couched their initiative in language of support for the Annapolis peace process. The prominent Religious Left endorsers, such as Jim Wallis, Tony Campolo and ESA’s Ron Sider, are better known for harsh condemnation of U.S. policies. But their stance is politically shrewd, as they posture as reasonable-minded Evangelicals in contrast to stereotypes about Evangelical Zionist zealots.

Meanwhile right now Dr. Shaun Casey will be running the faith forums for Obama, a role formerly filled by Father Michael Pfleger until he had to be bounced for his own radical views. Shaun Casey represents a more moderate face for the left wing People of Faith approach Obama is pushing.

U.S. Sen. Barack Obama’s Campaign for Change will host its “Faith, Family & Values” tour in communities in the Shenandoah Valley and southwestern Virginia on Monday and Tuesday. The tour will focus on how Obama’s faith has informed his judgment and shaped his perspective on the most urgent problems facing the nation.

Dr. Shaun Casey, Obama’s evangelical outreach coordinator, will lead the forums and talk about Obama’s faith how it has shaped his plans to strengthen Virginia families.

Ron Sider, the initiator of the letter, meanwhile has already met with Obama at Obama's own initiative.

That should tell you what kind of evangelicals Obama has surrounded himself with and their views on Israel.

Shaun Casey might be better known to you from his "Jesus was an illegal immigrant" quote and like half the Obama gang is naturally linked up with George Soros.