More Steyn wisdom, here and here- from his End of the World Tour Down Under.
I love the quotations- especially the ones he repeats. The Napier quote strikes me as more and more brilliant every time I read it.
A British General in India, Napier responded to the cruel practise of Sati thus:
"'You say that it's your custom to burn widows, very well. We also have a custom. When men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their neck and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it my carpenters will build a gallows; you may follow your custom, then we will follow ours.'"
Now that's my multi-cultural brutha!
Saturday, August 26, 2006
Posted by ed thomas at 8:52 PM |
Thursday, August 24, 2006
Speaking of Truth, here's Mark Steyn quoting another guy:
'"The Jews are a peculiar people," wrote America's great longshoreman philosopher Eric Hoffer after the 1967 war. "Things permitted to other nations are forbidden to the Jews. Other nations drive out thousands, even millions of people and there is no refugee problem . . . But everyone insists that Israel must take back every single Arab . . . Other nations when victorious on the battlefield dictate peace terms. But when Israel is victorious it must sue for peace. Everyone expects the Jews to be the only real Christians in this world." '
and from the man himself:
"For over a generation now, Canada and many other countries have regarded civilizational self-loathing as just another alternative lifestyle, like being gay or vegetarian. It's a kind of literal "homophobia"--a fear (phobia) of the same (homo-), the same old white-bread people that produced the world in which you live, the legal system, the property rights, the economic prosperity."
Great essay.
Posted by ed thomas at 8:19 PM |
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Why I don't want "to disappear vanish"
First I have to explain that I'm a bit of a fan of A Tangled Web, and this post is something of a riposte to David Vance's recent "feel like quitting blogging" post.
There are many reasons for not giving up posting to this site- for me.
The first is that I'd regret it if I did- and soon. You know, I care about what happens in the world and somehow I can register that concern here.
In a very small way one is part of the continuum of events- even though probably less significant than one's real life influence on events, which is vanishingly small anyway.
In some ways I blog to feel small, to set myself against events as I used to seek out the waves in the ocean as a child and try to ride them.
Let me just point out a couple of things i'd regret if i didn't blog. I'd regret that I didn't place myself in opposition to the many lies that our MSM tell, and inparticular- given their reputation, reach and resources- the BBC.
I'd regret not being able to let out how I felt the next time a major terror attack happens. I'd regret not complaining about the reverse racism, the corruption, the malaise of reason, that's infected the West.
I'd regret most of all I think the chance to listen to others, to weigh their thoughts, ideas, schemes in a medium which like it or not is going to be formative of our future world- assuming that is that there is a world to be formed.
And, in listening to others, I'd miss absolute gems like the dropping of Autumn rain such that my perceptions are like dormant seeds readying themselves to hear. Gems like this one, for instance. Or this, from the same site. Real understanding, and a real grip on things which none of us can maintain all the time, but some of us will always be manifesting. It's but for me to look, and understand.
(the two posts linked immediately above refer to an excellent point about GWB and the WOT, and a simply brilliant roundup of the data on Qana- in that order)
Posted by ed thomas at 7:48 PM |
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
Islamofascism
I've talked a bit about it. Now here's Stephen Schwarz attempting to define it.
Posted by ed thomas at 7:37 PM |
Sunday, August 20, 2006
The Islamic Fascist Threat
I think most people think that talking about Islamic Fascism is just a ramping up of rhetoric, simply exaggeration for effect.
Howeve, since Sept. 11th I have consistently held the view that it's an accurate description.
One reason for this is the strong dimension of racism in the Islamic movement, which has really been overlooked and downplayed.
A vital part of this racism, without which the true nature of Islamism cannot be appreciated, is the racism against black Africans. Of course the racism against Jews is a prominent feature, but the underbelly of Islamic racism has traditionally been against blacks.
This racism is both historic and current. Forget the apparent tolerance of blacks among Islam in the West, when it comes to Africa proper the Arab muslims give no quarter to the blacks.
Recently I was reading up about Somalia. Did you know that there is a part of Somalia, a river valley called Juba, occupied by Bantu tribesmen, in contrast to the Arab-derived Somali populous? Their historic function was to work as a slave class, tilling the soil to provide for their Arab-Somali masters. Now many of them have fled the region altogether to avoid the Somali warlords' pillaging. That kind of tale is a commonplace reality for East and North Africa.
Turning to Sudan, I was interested to read this from Dave Kopel, as well as to hear the Sudan President's identification of his country with Hezbullah's struggles.
Dave Kopel points out that "if you’re an Arab who wants to kill blacks, then Sudan’s gun control laws became awfully loose. In Darfur, there has been a long rivalry between camel-riding Arab nomads and black African pastoralists. The Arabs consider the blacks to be racially inferior, and fit only for slavery."
The fascinating thing about the Kopel article is that it analyses not the acts of violence perpetrated against the blacks in Sudan, but the armament of the Arabs and disarmament of the blacks, thus creating the imbalance of power necessary for genocide. He outlines the very strict rules for gun ownership in Sudan, which are applied to blacks and overlooked for Arabs.
It is this kind of basic abuse of power, abusing the power of the state to oppress sections of society, which reminds me forcibly of Nazism. And where this cannot operate because the Islamists don't hold sway, the power of terror is used to turn opponents into facilitators of the growing menace by their sheer passivity in the face of fascistic evil.
And guess who is the biggest facilitator of the disarmament which has served Sudan so well? Why, the UN of course.
(and by the way this UN position is absolutely crazy to me from my exerience of Africa. There were very few weapons on display in highland North-West Kenya, anyway. There are tribal gangs which are outlaws and armed, and the government troop has his always on display, and will point very freely at any civilian who looks twice at him, but guns were not an issue- knives, meanwhile, were omnipresent, and very sharp.)
Posted by ed thomas at 12:36 PM |