THE END IS NEAR !

Warming, cooling; what's the big difference after all?

Just keep in mind that either way, IT WILL BE A DISASTER AND IT'S ALL GEORGE BUSH'S FAULT!

WATCH SANITY RECEDE IN THE REAR VIEW MIRROR

It's time once again for the Weekly Whackjob Awards, which are given out every Wednesday at the blog belonging to that trio of thought-provoking thinkers, Sigmund, Carl and Alfred.

I know that it is Friday, but a good dose of the bizarre, the insane and the ridiculous today should tide you over until Sunday when you can catch the next Carnival of the Insanities.

If you can enjoy looking into that rear view mirror and watching sanity slowly recede into the distance, then the Weekly Whacky's are just your cuppa tea.

RUSHDIE RAGE AND THE RELIGION OF PERPETUAL WHINING & OUTRAGE

Michelle Malkin, writing at RCP:

Jihadi's Guide to Etiquette Rule 11: Never leave home without your matches, effigy-hanging sticks and death threat placards. You never know when they'll come in handy.

In Pakistan, dutiful followers of the jihadi guide have found a new pretext this week for an anti-Western bonfire party: the knighting of author Salman Rushdie in Britain. Muslim groups are burning Queen Elizabeth and Rushdie in effigy. The Union Jack is in flames. The Religion of Perpetual Outrage strikes again.

It's not just some obscure spokesman for a "tiny minority" objecting to Rushdie's knighthood and leading the renewed calls for Rushdie's death and Britain's submission. Pakistan's religious affairs minister, Mohammed ljaz ul-Haq, bellowed: "If someone blows himself up he will consider himself justified. How can we fight terrorism when those who commit blasphemy are rewarded by the West?" He says he was misunderstood, but the message is as loud and clear as the inscriptions on the infamous placards British Muslims waved around during last year's conflagration over the Danish cartoons:

"Behead all those who insult Islam. Slay those who insult Islam. Butcher those who mock Islam."

After the Danish Cartoon drama; after the flushing the Koran fiasco; after the latest Rushdie rage hysteria, it should be obvious to anyone with a brain (which sadly, excludes most of the robots on the left these days) that multiculturalism and the politically correct mindset has been repeatedly exposed as a complete fraud. With each increasingly bizarre and histrionic reaction from the religion of perpetual outrage, the shocking consequences and deadly potential of that fraud are suddenly becoming all too clear.

Wretchard commented back during the Danish Cartoons scandal:

The fine, broad highway to Hell that is political correctness which has achieved the opposite of its intent: not the universal chorus of harmony but religious conflict at its most primitive level.

One wonders how anyone could have expectd a different result?

Having given up any objective standard by which to mediate such vastly different perspectives and feelings; having abandoned reason altogether in favor of expressing one's feelings no matter what the cost; and, finally, having endlessly touted the critical importance and essential need to "belong" to one's race, tribe, religion or group first and foremost; the outcome is what Stephen Hicks refers to as "group balkinization" --with all its inevitable and inescapable conflict.

Why, in other words, would peaceful coexistence result from a movement that has done everything in its power to eradicate universalism and foist multiculturalism into the public consciousness?

Multiculturalism, or that which celebrates--not belonging to the family of humanity-- but one's sexual, racial, ethnic, or religious identity above all else.

Like many ideas of the left, it should now be apparent to anyone with a brain, that the exact opposite of what is promised ends up being delivered.

Just as the false promises of socialism and communism were found to lead to misery instead of happiness; poverty instead of wealth; enslavement instead of freedom--so too, have multiculturalism and political correctness, instead of harmony, brought lethal discord.

Malkin goes on to note:

As anyone with their eyes open through Rushdie's ordeal, the deadly Mohammed cartoons riots, the calls for beheading the Pope, Oriana Fallaci, Ayaan Hirsi Ali and defiant, ex-Muslim apostates around the world knows: "Sensitivity" in the jihadi world is a one-way, dead-end street.

And yet, the left , who perpetually have their eyes tightly shut to reality, will issue calls for appeasement and "understanding". They will minimize this latest obscenity, which is an attack on all Western values, freedoms, and culture. They will trip all over themselves bowing and scraping before these Islaminal bullies.

And, that kind of "compromise" and "multicultural tolerance" is what has brought us to this unbelievable situation in the first place.

The very first time we allowed the adherents of a medieval and primitive religion to believe that their feelings about that religion trump all the values of western civiliztion; the minute we began to apologize for our successes and make excuses--or even blame ourselves--for their failures; we were bound to come to this place.

Reason cannot be appealed to; nor tolerance--for the Islamists believe in neither. So here we are, together, on the PC highway to hell.

It may be late in the journey, but it is time for us to get off this path while we still can--if we still can.

I personally have no objection to Islam reaching their final destination alone.



Holy Outrage, Baathman! It's the Religion of Perpetual Whining!

THE SANITY SQUAD: The Palestinian Primaries and Suicide Bumbers

And we think we've got a contentious primary season! Check out how election primaries are done, Palestinian style in the most recent Sanity Squad Podcast at Pajamas Media !

You may have noticed that it has finally happened: there’s a two-state solution in Palestine. The only problem is that the two states are both Palestinian, run by terrorist Hamas in Gaza and corrupt Fatah in the West Bank. Actually, that’s not the only problem; both groups are violent, welfare-dependent, and dedicated to the destruction of Israel. Find out who’s to blame and what the future holds in this week’s podcast.

Join Shrinkwrapped, Siggy , Neo-neocon and me as we discuss the recent bloody Palestinian election protocols; and dysfunctional Palestinian society in general. The support of this broken and twisted society is a form of psychological denial, projection, and displacement for all the malfuntioning medieval regimes who must deflect attention from their own failures and externalize the blame on Jews and Americans.

And where there is failure, you will always find today's political left cheering it on; vociferously enabling it, and supporting it as if their ideology depended on it. Which, of course, it does.

All podcasts of The Sanity Squad can be found here; and you can also download them from iTunes. (search for Pajamas Media)
The Sanity Squad cartoon is drawn by Eric Allie, whose collection of political cartoons can be found here and here).

FOR THE REALITY-CHALLENGED COMMUNITY

Jimmy Carter wants the U.S. to make nice with Hamas? Well here's a little history lesson for the reality-challenged community who sees Carter as some sort of saint:

The Left in America is screaming to high heaven that the mess we are in in Iraq and the war on terrorism has been caused by the right-wing and that George W. Bush, the so-called "dim-witted cowboy," has created the entire mess.

The truth is the entire nightmare can be traced back to the liberal democratic policies of the leftist Jimmy Carter, who created a firestorm that destabilized our greatest ally in the Muslim world, the shah of Iran, in favor of a religious fanatic, the ayatollah Khomeini.

Carter viewed Khomeini as more of a religious holy man in a grassroots revolution than a founding father of modern terrorism. Carter's ambassador to the UN, Andrew Young, said "Khomeini will eventually be hailed as a saint." Carter's Iranian ambassador, William Sullivan, said, "Khomeini is a Gandhi-like figure." Carter adviser James Bill proclaimed in a Newsweek interview on February 12, 1979 that Khomeini was not a mad mujahid, but a man of "impeccable integrity and honesty."

Read it all and weep. That Jimmy Carter today enjoys a 'blessed icon' status within the ranks of the reality-challenged political left illustrates the degree of self-delusion and denial to which they have sunk. Not a single lefty blog commented on Carter's pimping for Hamas.

As Ed Morrissey asks:

What kind of world leader would instruct the international community to engage with Hamas, even though it just committed an armed insurrection against the Palestinian Authority? Who among the world's experts would argue that the coup d'etat legitimized their claim to speak for the Palestinian people? Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? Bashar Assad?

We wish [....]

So let's get this straight. Bush's refusal to engage with a terrorist group -- one that has long been on the State Department list of outlawed terrorist organizations -- is "criminal". Wouldn't it literally have been a criminal act to engage with Hamas? Federal law prohibits such direct contacts and the transmission of aid to terrorist groups such as Hamas.

Even more ridiculous, Carter feels that we should applaud the organizational skills of a terrorist group that just murdered its way to the top of the Gaza power structure. He applauds their "superior skills and discipline," while turning a blind eye to the ways in which they apply them. Rather than scold them for using violence to achieve their political goals, Carter wants the global community to welcome and reward them for it.

But this is the modus operandi of the left: they distort history and aggressively appease and/or reward evil wherever they find it. Additionally, as Siggy notes, What else do defenders of dysfunctional, racist and bigoted regimes post on? America of course!

For the intellectual and moral pygmies of the left, it is always America and Israel who are to blame for the behavior of all those poor, helpless terrorists out there, who only kill innocents and each other because we force them to!

And Jimmy Carter is, without a doubt, the most reality and morally-challenged leftist pygmy of the lot.

THE PREPOSTEROUS IS NOW NORMAL AT MY ALMA MATER

YIKES!

John Leo has an article "Let the Segregation Commence", in this month's City Journal that talks about the numerous commencement ceremonies that go on at UCLA, my alma mater. Apparently there is a special graduation to accommodate every possible identy group:

Some students are presumably eligible for four or five graduations. A gay student with a Native American father and a Filipino mother could attend the Asian, Filipino, and American Indian ceremonies, plus the mainstream graduation and the Lavender Graduation for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered students.

That is just so special, I hardly know what to say.

However, I will try to come up with something.

The usual rationalization of of all this "diversity"--which as Leo notes is actually a form of racial, ethnic, and sexist segregation/discrimination--is that the smaller ceremonies have more meaning for the individuals than the larger one that everyone could attend.

Okay. I might buy into that argument except for the fact that they don't really believe that rationalization themselves.

Do you know how I know that last statement to be true?

Just imagine the inarticulate rage; the unbelievable rancor and all the moral indignation that would ensue if Jews demanded their own special graduation ceremony under the auspices of the University? Or if there were a "Caucasian Male" society that held commencement exercises using UCLA facilities? Or say, an "Aryan" graduation?

When it comes out of the mouths of the leftoids, "celebrating diversity" becomes just another way to villify America and Western civilization. Leo goes on to explain what I also think is the real reason why this seemingly innocuous silliness is a cover-up for the PC neo-marxist trendy crowd on campus:

But the core reason for separatist graduations is the obvious one: on campus, assimilation is a hostile force, the domestic version of American imperialism. On many campuses, identity-group training begins with separate freshman orientation programs for nonwhites, who arrive earlier and are encouraged to bond before the first Caucasian freshmen arrive. Some schools have separate orientations for gays as well. Administrations tend to foster separatism by arguing that bias is everywhere, justifying double standards that favor identity groups.

Four years ago Ward Connerly, then a regent of the University of California, tried to pass a resolution to stop funding of ethnic graduations and gay freshman orientations. He changed his mind and asked to withdraw his proposal, but the regents wanted to vote on it and defeated it in committee 6–3.

No major objections to ethnic graduations have emerged since. As in so many areas of American life, the preposterous is now normal.

As for the smaller ceremonies giving student's more meaning (i.e., they feel more special), I am also fairly certain that racism, sexism,homophobia and ethnic bashing have more meaning for the people who engage in those activities, too.

What I think is happening here is that underneath that "do-gooder" PC sensitivity there lurks a profound racist, sexist, and homophobic core. The left has been very successful at camoflauging that core of intellectual and moral bankruptcy with the their gradiose, and so very well-meaning, rationalizations and psychological maneuvers.

Let me quote from an earlier essay I wrote on the subject of this intellectual and moral bankruptcy:

What we have witnessed over the 30- 45 years since the Left ascended to dominate political thought in the mid 20th century, is its rapid and unprecedented decline into wholesale intellectual and moral bankruptcy. The noble values and ideals they once stood for have been abandoned; and almost as if a surreal cosmic joke was being played on them, they have—without even noticing!-- embraced the exact opposite of what they once stood for.

Where once they stood for freedom; they now enable dictatorships and apologize for tyrants. Where once they sought to bring justice to the world; they now defend horrific acts of mass murder and enslavement. Where once they rightly demanded equal opportunity, they have embraced all kinds of racial quotas and discriminatory practices and demand equality of outcome. Where once they sought to empower the weak; they are now instrumental in maintaining and expanding their victimhood.

After all, how can you be a “champion of the oppressed” unless you maintain and nurture an oppressed class that will always require your services to help them?

This rather obvious fact, of course, goes a long way to explaining the rather peculiar attitude that the Left has toward any members of its various victim groups who actually escape victimhood and become successful, achieving and independently thinking adults! The previously altruistic and idealistic worldview is now merely a narcissistic one—and a malignantly narcissistic one at that—wholly preoccupied with the possession and retention of power for an elite few.

What was once a concern that equal opportunity be afforded to all members of our society has run amok and is now a shrill, insistent demand that all outcomes be exactly equal... or else.

Let me give an example of the transition from IDEA to IDEOLOGY; and this example will serve as my prototype argument that is applicable to all the left's identified special “victim” groups:

Once upon a time, the Women’s Movement –and the civil rights movement in general-- proudly supported and encouraged their respective constituencies to stop being victims and to stand up for their rights under the law. They demanded equal opportunity under the law, because that was the promise of America reflected in the words of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

For too long, that promise had been withheld from these groups. The greatness of America lies in the belief that women and blacks – and, in fact, any minority—should enjoy the same basic freedoms and equal opportunity as the majority. America was founded on the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for every individual. This was a very big idea-- a extremely important idea—because underneath it was the key proposition that all human beings regardless of their gender or color or religion or ethnic background should enjoy the blessings of our liberty and be free to pursue their happiness.

That idea was the promise of America. It was one of the greatest tragedies of history that, in trying to find a way to compromise with the slaveholding states to form the Union, our Founding Fathers (with the exception of Ben Franklin) permitted slavery and allowed discrimination against women in a document that promoted "universal" human freedom and dignity. It was interesting to observe similar problems in the negotiations of the Iraq constitution.

In all fairness to those Founders—who were light-years ahead of their time—they at least left a way to amend those wrongs and the beginning of that correctional process was the Civil War that nearly destroyed the Union. The mid-20th century became the final intellectual battleground for righting both defects in the US application of its Constitution.

Since my own experience over the years has been primarily with the women’s movement , I will share my observations of that movement over the last 30+ years.

"I am woman, hear me roar--in numbers too big to ignore...." That was the motto then, and I was once proud to be a card-carrying feminist. That was when feminist intellectuals argued that women need NOT be victims; and feminist activists told all women to stand up and live up to the best within themselves; and insisted they be judged not on their gender, but on their merit and capabilities.

NOTE TO MODERN FEMINISTS: There is some good news and some bad news. The good news is that the very same women’s movement that I supported back then was instrumental in mobilizing and encouraging women to reach for the stars. One small measure of the success of that movement is that most medical school classes today are 50% or greater composed of women! There is no systematic discrimination any more that keeps women out of medicine. Women are in every medical specialty. They have become presidents of universities and professional societies; deans of medical schools and chairwomen of departments. This is really wonderful. And these gains have been made in almost every profession and area of human endeavor.

The bad news is that the Feminist Movement never realized that the mission had been mostly accomplished. The women who want to become professionals--or do anything for that matter--can do it--including becoming wives and mothers if they choose. The war is won, but the Feminist Movement continues to battle on, oblivious to that fact.

The main justification for the existence of the women’s movement these days is to support and expand the cult of victimhood that they have created among women. Modern feminists have become the mother, once happy to nurture her child and help her leave the nest and go joyfully off to lead her own life; but now extremely bitter and resentful about the fact that her daughter doesn't need her anymore. Feminists have now dedicated their lives to convincing women that they really don't have any power; aren't capable of living and working equally among men; and encouraging them in demanding the "rights" that will ensure women who embrace their party line will be regarded by any person of reason and responsibility as complete losers and whiners.

Because today "feminists" (and today, I use the term with contempt) have a strict party line. Apparently, if you are not a Democrat, or more generally, a person on the left side of the political spectrum, then you are not a woman who counts. If Rosa Parks made a statement for freedom today, and (God help her) she was a...Republican, well, you know what would happen. The same thing that happened to Condi Rice and is happening to Michael Steele.

If you are the Secretary of State in a Republican Administration and happen to be a woman--and not only that, a black woman, you don't count (as either a woman or a black). If you are a Republican nominee for the Judiciary and a woman—you don’t count.

In fact, it turns out that if you happen to disagree with them on any issue you don’t count and are instantly labeled a traitor to your gender; and their most vile and derogatory remarks are reserved especially for you.

Indeed, the Feminist Movement of today is a bizarre parody of the women's movement that once supported and encouraged women like me back in the 70's. Like the mother I mentioned above, this group has now become outraged that I and others like me have excelled and dared to have my own ideas about how things should be in the world. Dared to disagree with them. Dared to grow up and live my own life.

Feminists today are not happy campers....Where once they wanted to erase the real barriers that prevented women from being all they could be; now, the feminists demanded that reality itself must bow to their demands. They insist that real biological or physiological differences between women and men don’t exist and that to address these differences is blatant sexism. They have basically identified reality itself as one of the key “oppressors” of women.

To demonstrate this estrangement from reality, all you have to do is recall the ridiculous image of a feminist academic actually swooning at the mere mention of the possibility that such biological differences might play a role in women’s lives.

You can't make such self-parody up.

Now I ask you. Haven't these women become totally irrelevant? And not only are they irrelevant, but they stand in the way of any real research, understanding, and progress that in the long-run might advance the cause of all women.

And, make no mistake about the consequences of such profound psychological denial, delusion and displacement. On the banal and "feel good" side of the spectrum of consequences, you have the preposterous and almost funny multitude of politically correct commencement exercises at UCLA.

But the more serious and catastrophic consequences of the mentality that brings you "diversity" is the specter of sectarian violence we see in Iraq between the Sunnis and the Shia; and the bloodbath between Hamas and Fatah in Gaza.

The same mentality was/is behind the bloodbath in Ireland between Catholics and Protestants; and even the gang wars between the Crips and the Bloods. Everywhere you look, in fact, it is this same sort of overemphasis on the differences between people that inevitably leads to the mayhem and murders.

Once our universities and colleges used to provide a counter to these differences by being a place where the diversity of ideas was all that mattered; where it didn't matter what your ethnic, cultural and racial background was because you were all part of the family of mankind and your ideas would stand or fall only when examined under the bright light of reason, truth and reality.

But now the university is a place that emphasizes the differences and shoves them in everyone's faces. Ideas are dependent on which group you come from and can be discredited merely if you are from the "wrong" group or if you support unpopular (i.e., if the majority in a poll disagrees with you) ideas.

Don't get me wrong. I don't happen to think all these students are consciously aware of all the negative and destructive emotions that they are supporting under the convenient cover of the political left's multicultural diversity claptrap. And, once upon a time, the real celebration of the wonderful differences that exist between individuals, nations, and races was also a way of celebrating the various individual and cultural strengths that each brings to the Famiy of Man.

America was a melting pot of all these cultural and individual contributions. If the leftists have their way, we will become, not a melting pot of combined strengths; but a collection of diverse victims, all shouting at once their incessant and narcissistic demands for special treatment and entitlement.

In the hands of the socialist left, whose ideology perverts every normal and healthy attitude an individual might have toward his fellow humans, it is impossible to celebrate "diversity" anymore without also taking a political aim at America--and Western civilization in general--both of which are notably excluded under the diversity umbrella, and branded as the source of all evil in the world. In the Gospel according to the neo-fascist Marxists it is perfectly ok to be racist, homophobic, anti-semitic, anti-American, and anti-Western civilization--as long as you say you stand for some variation of the leftoid multicultural manifesto.

E pluribus umun? Sorry, no way to get there if you start out on the left.

HOMO HOMOCIDUM

How dare these uncivilized, barbaric psychopaths threaten us because Salman Rushdie was given a knighthood?

Aren't you sick of this sort of outrage? How has it come to be that these Muslim leaders/thugs can say things like this:

"This is an occasion for the 1.5 billion Muslims to look at the seriousness of this decision," Mohammed Ijaz ul-Haq, religious affairs minister, told the Pakistani parliament in Islamabad. "The west is accusing Muslims of extremism and terrorism. If someone exploded a bomb on his body he would be right to do so unless the British government apologises and withdraws the 'sir' title."

... and have them reported in Western newspapers without one word of outrage by our so-called Western "intellectuals" and our pathetically appeasing political leaders?

How is it possible that so many people have de-evolved and become so obsessed with the worship of their evil, blood-thirsty god. Like the dark and violent cult of Kali in Hinduism, the Allah-cult demands death, death, death and more death. Those who believe in this horrible creation lose all sense of human decency, tolerance, and reason. How is it humanly possible that the members of this death cult could actually believe they are on the moral high ground as they scream out their ridiculous demands and threats?

These people are human evolutionary throwbacks; a mindless simulation of homo sapiens--though I doubt that even cavemen were as psychotic and delusional since they were at least concerned with survival. These morons are only concerned with death and are willing to kill themselves in order to kill you.

I don't know about you, but I don't even want to share the same species classification with them. The title of Homo sapiens is completely inappropriate.

Homo homicidum fits these sick cultists much better.

MIDDLE EAST CHESS LESSON

From Karma Nabulsim, fellow in politics and international relations at Oxford University, writing in the Guradian:

The drivers of violence in Gaza are clearly external. When all Palestinians can vote for sovereign rule, peace will be within reach.

There is nothing uglier and more brutal to the human spirit, nothing more lethal to that universal hope for freedom, than to see a people struggling for liberty for such a long time begin to kill each other. How and why did we get here? Above all: how do we get out of here? These are the questions everyone watching events unfold in Gaza and the West Bank are asking themselves. But before answering them, it is essential to understand just what we are witnessing.

This is not at its heart a civil war, nor is it an example of the upsurge of regional Islamism. It is not reducible to an atavistic clan or fratricidal blood-letting, nor to a power struggle between warring factions. This violence cannot be characterised as a battle between secular moderates who seek a negotiated settlement and religious terrorist groups. And this is not, above all, a miserable situation that has simply slipped unnoticed into disaster.

The many complex steps that led us here today were largely the outcome of the deliberate policies of a belligerent occupying power backed by the US.

One can only stand in wonder and awe at the incredible amount of self-delusion necessary to be able to make such a series of statements. Who could possibly believe such nonsense?

Oh wait.

I forgot there is an entire contingent of useful idiots marching and chanting the slogans of the political left, who are not only ready and willing to believe it; they desperately hope it is actually true.

But you have to be in complete denial, with your head safely tucked where the sun don't shine, if you harbor any doubts that the events we are witnessing in the Middle East are not moves in the global war that Islam has launched against the civilized world. We can close our eyes and pretend that it isn't happening at all; Or that everything is America's or Israel's fault; we can insist that Iraq exists in an alternate universe and is somehow not a battle of this war; but no matter how much denial is engaged in, the reality will still be there.

Wretchard comments on the recent crackdown in Iran and the UN's statement that the genocide in Darfur is about global warming by noting:

...there is a strange tendency, especially among those who would otherwise claim that America is everywhere declining, to ascribe to it an indirect omnipotence. Everything is America's fault. Is the climate changing? Are people in Gaza starving? Is there no help for those being killed in Darfur? Are the Ayatollahs beating up on student demonstrators? Look no further for the cause. It's all America's fault. It's always America's fault.

An unbreakable chain of causality is constructed from Washington politics to the smallest butterfly fluttering in the Amazon. It is the reverse Butterfly Effect; and the logical consequence is that if America does nothing -- if preferably it stops breathing -- then all the evils of the world will return to the lockbox whence they came. John Howard, speaking in Washington, likened this attitude to that of a frightened child. "And it's a war that confronts us all. Those who imagine that somehow or other you can escape it by rolling yourself into a little ball and going over in the corner and hoping that you're not going to be noticed are doomed to be very, very uncomfortably disappointed."

I wonder when we will cease this bizarre tendency to infantalize the enemy in this global war, and recognize that we are dealing with adults whose own set of perverted values--diametrically opposed to ours--have brought them to the place they are in? When will we stop pretending that they do not have free will and are only the poor, helpless victims of American, or Israeli, or Western evil? When will we begin to believe that they actually mean what they have said repeatedly about forcing us to submit to their will or destroying us? When, in short, will we finally admit once and for all that they are fully capable of detailed thought, planning and action--particularly brutal and barbaric action by any civilized standard--to achieve their oft-repeated goals?

Two chess quotes come to mind. The first is from Bobby Fischer: "Chess is life"; and the second is from Max Euwe:

"Do not ever underestimate your opponent, particularly when he is much weaker than you are. You are setting yourself up for a fall if you do this."

We are surely setting ourselves up for a fall in this Game.

Let us consider the positioning of the pieces on the Middle East chessboard and the most recent moves in the Game.

Hamas, committed only to violence and death and Islam, is a piece controlled by the Iran/Syria axis. It has made its move on the board and now controls Gaza...America, Israel and the West have countered with this maneuver. Meanwhile, "militants" in Lebanon are firing rockets at Israel.

And we might do well to remember that the the word "checkmate" orginates from the Farsi language spoken in Iran and Afghanistan. The original phrase is SHAH-K-MATE which means "The King is Dead".

We are playing against an opponent who is clever, deceitful, and in deadly earnest. It is not we who are controlling that opponent's moves on the board except insofar as he must respond to our moves just as we should be responding to his. All to often we have not countered his aggressive moves simply because there is a large number of people [supposedly] on our side who don't seem to understand that we are playing a very real "game" for very high stakes.

I will end with another chess quote from a grand master, Savielly Tartakower: "No game was ever won by resigning."

CARNIVAL OF THE INSANITIES

Time for the weekly insanity update, where the insane, the bizarre, the ridiculous, and the completely absurd are highlighted for all to see! This has been a week of rare idiocy (as always!). So, if you want to remain sane, the best thing is to poke some fun at the more egregious absurdities.

And, while you are in the Mood for Madness, go directly to the Weekly Whackjob Awards!

Send all entries for next week's carnival to Dr. Sanity by 8 pm ET on Saturday for Sunday's Carnival. Only one post entry weekly per blogger, please. And you might read this before submitting an entry.

**NOTE: I am now getting many more submissions than I can possibly include in the weekly Carnival. Please don't be offended if your submission is not used (oh, okay, be as offended as you like) as it only means that for a variety of reasons I wasn't able to fit it into the "flow" as I put together each Carnival.

REMEMBER, THERE ARE SO MANY INSANITIES AND SO LITTLE TIME!!!

1. Never judge a book by its cover...check out this simply amazing talent. And, the magic continues.

2. Suicide mommies. Homicide daddies. Mindless children. They have definitely flunked sexual politics, haven't they? But this is overreacting just a bit.

3. Happy Father's Day, from the Palistinians to the "Father" of their so-called nation. Sometimes humiliation isn't something other people do to you as much as something you do to yourself. How much is that Peace Prize in the window? Other games that can be played with the medal!

4. You know what they say...reconciliation breeds contempt.

5. Israeli trifecta? I guess they don't eat babies after all.

6. In the vegetable crisper of life. This is sad, but I think it comes under "survival of the fittest" somehow. Aren't there Darwin Awards for societies that are suicidal? Even the Russians would be surpassed in achievement by the Palestinians.

7. Stupidity has no particular sexual orientation.

8. Extremely disturbing news...the squirrels have come down on the side of terror. Can the chimpmunks be far behind?

9. Is it dawn over D.C.? Or, sunset? Harry Reid.... the nuclear option!

10. Dr. Evil and Mini-Me--the modern version!

11. The end of the world as we know it...again!

12. Fortune favors the brave. It also seems to favor failing farmers.

13. A world without Sopranos, or a soon to be Saturday morning cartoon? A plot for House?

14. Houston, we have a problem...the diaper needs to be changed.

15. I don't think Ms. Frizzle meant this exactly.

16. First they came for Paris Hilton and I did not speak up because I was not Paris Hilton.So, I BECAME PARIS HILTON ! Top reasons behind her tears....

17, Good Lord! Bengay can kill you? Now that's scary.

18, Lacramatory incidents are way down.

19. Spam helps feed the starving children in Uganda?

20. Group therapy the way it was never meant to be! LOL

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Carnival of the Insanities can also be found at The Truth Laid Bear's ÜberCarnival and at the BlogCarnival.

If you would like to Join the insanity, and add the Carnival of the Insanities button to your sidebar (clicking on it will always take you to the latest update of the Carnival), click on "Word of Blog" below the button to obtain the html code:

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HARD TO IMAGINE, BUT THE INSANITY GOES ON

In case anyone is wondering why blogging has been light, I am out of town and way too busy having a good time to blog much. It is hard to imagine, I know, but I actually haven't had time to keep up with the latest news or read all the blogs I usually scan either yesterday or today! And, I won't be getting back to Ann Arbor until sometime next Wednesday.

Somehow though, I suspect that the insanity will continue along just fine without me to obsess over it all. And, the thing is, I am certain that it will still be there when I get back.

I will post the Carnival of the Insanities as usual in the AM; and it is possible that I will have get a post or two up over the next several days.

All will return to normal by Wednesday...at least as close to normal as things ever were!

OCTOPUS AND OCTOPUSSY

Guess which is which?

QUOTE OF THE DAY

..is posted at American Digest:

"Five years ago, Middle Eastern extremists were killing Israelis and Americans. Today they are killing each other. Why is it that some people persist in claiming that Israel's and America's Middle East policy is a failure?" -- Alan Chamberlain

Just what I was saying in the UPDATE to the last post.

THE WORLD IS AWAKENING FROM A LONG SLEEP***Updated***

...where they dreamed of a peaceful Palestinian state living side-by-side with Israel. Only now are they beginning to realize it ain't gonna happen and that for the last fifty years they have been living in a nightmare.

The nightmare is the legacy of YasserArafat; and it is finally playing itself out in Gaza, and soon it will play itself out in the entire Arab world itself.

The chief Palestinian Authority negotiator had this to say about the violence and bloodshed going on right now:

"If we can't help ourselves, nobody can," said Erekat. "Who will come to help us?" It would be like expecting snow in Jericho in August, he said, a reference to the desert West Bank town where he lives.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch accused both Hamas and Fatah on Wednesday of committing "serious violations of international humanitarian law" and even "war crimes" by summarily executing captives, killing those not involved in the hostilities and engaging in battles near Palestinian hospitals.

This same Muslim versus Muslim violence is playing itself out in Iraq with the sectarian hate and the unrestrained barbarism that Muslims seem to reserve especially for each other, even when there are infidels around to also kill.

Something has happened to all that carefully cultivated Islamic victimhood. Let's consider what it might be, shall we?

First, for any understanding of events in the Middle East, it is necessary to put it into the context of the presumably pathetic plight of the poor Palestinians; so, we will begin there.

Western policy toward the never-ending Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been amazingly consistent over the last half century. It asks only three things of the Palestinians:

* Cessation of hostilities and terror
* Secure borders.
* Diplomatic recognition of Israel.

Siggy has astutely highlighted the problem inherent in these three "excessive" demands:

What exactly is one sided and unfair? What possible reason could the Palestinians have for not going along with the plan? In doing so, the floodgates of foreign aid, investment and all kinds of benefits would open.

What possible motives- or pathologies, could the Palestinians have for remaining ‘on the dole’ and in the gutter? What demands are so onerous that they justify Palestinian inertia and failure?

Consider this: When the Israelis look for solutions to problems, they turn to other western democracies. When the Palestinians look for solutions to problems, they turn to the Arab world for advice and counsel. They gravitate to the most dysfunctional group of leaders in the world, despots, dictators and tyrants that distinguished themselves on the world stage by the magnitude of their failures. From Qaddafi to the Saudis, the Palestinians are only too happy to take advice from the smorgasbord of some of the most dysfunctional leaders in history.

Not only do they consistently get bad advice from their Muslim "brothers", but search around inside your mind for a moment for an image that could symbolize Palestinian society as it has evolved since the mid-20th century. The one to the right is what pops into my mind.

The suicide bomber who indiscriminantly kills innocents in the name of their sad little god is the only "contribution" the Palestinians as a culture have made to human civilization--and it is a disturbingly negative one. "Civilized" is not a word a modern human would generally even associate with either the Palestinians as evidenced by their current behavior.

The image of children being brainwashed into becoming martyrs captures the essence of the depravity of Palestinian society, an artificial society that was consciously created by the Arab world and its Islamic states and which has unconsciously evolved into a repository for the most severe manifestations of Arab/Islamic psychopathology.

The Palestinians as "victims" of Israeli aggression and occupation have always been more useful to the Arab/Islamic world than the Palestinians as a free and prosperous people.

The former scenario allows them to maintain and nourish the myth of Palestinian victimhood--and by extension Arab/Islamic victimhood--by externalizing the blame for their own failures and dyfunctions as a culture, as a religion, and as nations.

The Palestinians themselves have become symbolic of the entire Arab/Islamic world. The world is living vicariously through the Palestinians, and the destructive conflict that they nurture is simply a microcosm in which their own religious and cultural inadequacies are acted out.

The Palestinians actually have been given multiple chances to leave the dysfunctional family of which they are members and join the civilized world. Israel has offered them this opportunity multiple times and most recently the Palestinian people have been given a chance at creating their own state. The world is watching as they choose instead to have a civil war that will ensure the terrorist group Hamas will be in absolute control. To preserve the victimhood status of the Palestinians the latest strategy developed by the "religion of peace" is to prevent anyone from leaving the scene of the crime. Of course, the really smart ones should have left long ago.

If the Palestinians had done even the bare minimum (the three requirements listed above)--hell, if they had only chosen to recognize Israel and stop the mindless promulgation of hate--the floodgates of foreign investment and economic prosperity would be opened to them.

Their Muslim "brothers" understand that they must not let that happen under any circumstances and have worked diligently to make sure it doesn't. Because if the Palestinians actually bought into the dreams of nationhood and lived and worked side-by-side with the incredibly successful Jewish state, then the entire world would not be able to ignore the gross pathology of the rest of the Middle East, which, inspite of its oil wealth still lives in the middle ages.

But then, some of the brothers went a little too far on 9/11; and along came that damn cowboy Bush who changed the rules and clogged up the well-oiled machine of Arab/Islamic victimhood. The strategic interventions in Afghanistan and in Iraq--for all the weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth by the international community; and for all the military and political ineptness that transpired--was the beginning of the end of a decades-long con game. Both the petty little despots as well as the malignant tyrants of the region are exposed for what they really are.

With no one to blame but themselves, the beasts in the Middle East have turned on one another. The civilized world must no longer make the mistake of treating them as moral and civilized equals, and must demand civilized behavior from them before another dime of blood money is sent their way.

I concur with Siggy, who says that "...this civil war s necessary" because

If Hamas wins the civil war, their ideologies and beliefs will no longer be camouflaged. we will know how to deal with these same ideologues that supported Saddam Hussein. If the PA wins the civil war, they will have to make some serious choices, or the cycle of internal violence will repeat itself. The only thing that is certain is that neither the western democracies or Israel will allow for another 40 years of Arafat type obfuscation, double talk and hypocrisy from the Palestinians.

If the Western world is finally waking up to reality and will no longer reward the dysfunction and enable the reasonable people can begin to hope that con game has been broken up for good and that it eventually will be the stimulus needed to shake the Middle East out of the delusional stupor that has kept them locked in dysfunction and backwardness for so long.

The rest of the Middle East stands at a crossroads: they can either take the path toward civilization and progress; or they can choose to follow the path of terror, tyranny and oppression. Either way, it will be crystal clear that the choice is theirs and theirs alone; and they won't be able to blame Israel or the West anymore or pretend they are the victims of anything except their own suicidal choices.



UPDATE: John Podhoretz this morning:

ISRAEL'S disengagement from Gaza, completed 22 months ago, has succeeded.

It was a demonstration project of a sort - an experiment in Palestinian self-rule. If the management of Gaza had gone well, there would have been a Palestinian state within three years, tops.

OK, now speak these three words to yourself: a Palestinian state.

Finished? Good. So are the words. They won't be coming out of anybody's mouth again for a very, very long time - at least not in any meaningful way.

Someone asked Benjamin Franklin what America got out of the Constitutional Convention of 1787. His reply: "A republic - if you can keep it."

So it was with Gaza in August 2005. The Palestinians got a "homeland, if you can keep it."

What they got instead was hell on earth.

What they got was two brutally murderous gangs, Fatah and Hamas, competing for power by throwing people off the roofs of buildings and slaughtering rivals in front of their wives and children.

What they got was Tony Soprano (Fatah) vs. Phil Leotardo (Hamas). Only this time, Tony got his head smashed in by the SUV.

Some say all this represents a failure on the part of Bush's Mideast policies. On the contrary. It is precisely those policies that have made evident to the entire world what should have been obvious for some time: we are not dealing with civilized people; we are dealing with fanatics who only pretend to be civilized.

Now that they are unmasked and the con game has been disrupted, the reality has forced them to behave according to their natures. President Bush's vision is still worthwhile--but before freedom and democracy can take root, the garbage has to be swept out, along with the rats feeding on it. The rats and their garbage can no longer pretend to be poor helpless victims of Israeli aggression and play to the idiots in the West. Their real agenda is perfectly clear.

GET THEE TO THE WEEKLY WHACKJOB AWARDS !

On being asked directions to a Charleston, South Carolina insane asylum, author James L. Petigru is reported to have responded, "My dear Sir, take any road, you can't go amiss. The whole state is one vast insane asylum.

His advice applies equally well to navigating today's whacky world. That's why Sigmund, Carl and Alfred have taken upon themselves to institute the "Wednesday Weekly Whacky Awards" given out to those individuals and groups who manage to reach the pinnacle of the bizarre; the depths of the ridiculous; or simply the comfortably coziness of the completely cuckoo.

So head on over to SC&A and celebrate the insanity.

CALIPHATE OF THE DO-GOODERS

Most people don't see the connection between today's radical environmentalists and the 21st century rise of communist and socialist tyrannies. I wrote about this connection to some extent here and here. In the first piece, I suggested that radical environmentalism is one of the key pillars (along with Multiculturalism and Political Correctness) of an ethical and political strategy developed by the remnants of 20th century socialist failures, to prevent their ideology from entering the dustbin of history.

These remnants waited patiently for the proletariat to revolt against the capitalists; and finally began to realize that it wasn't going to happen. In fact, the proletariat were (gasp!) becoming full-fledged capitalists themselves and surging into the middle classes with their new-found weath and success. Poverty was slowly but surely being eliminated in the market-based countries; while in the socialist paradises the populations wallowed in it.

Marxism, which was supposed to bring economic prosperity, brought misery instead, and lost the competition with capitalism very badly. This required a hasty revision of the Marxist ethical standad, which originally said that wealth was a good thing and was being taken away from the masses by the evil capitalists. "Stick with us, kiddos," the communist/socialist revolutionaries claimed (see Hugo Chavez for the most recent itiration of this scam), "and you too will become prosperous and happy beyond your wildest imaginings!"

Well, clearly they made a serious miscalculation.

You see, even Karl Marx believed that wealth was a good thing. He was only delusional in thinking that socialism would be able to deliver the goods more efficiently and "fairly" than capitalism. Reality proved him terribly and catastrophically incorrect.

It is said that the only way to make a small fortune as a Marxist is to start with a large one--and this truth has been proven repeated all over the world where Marxist ideas have been applied to national economies.

Thus, Marx's decendents have been faced with a terrible ethical dilemma. Their ideology of choice is complete crap and is unable to deliver any of the material goods it promises--so what to do? Simple! You make one tiny little ethical change, and instead of touting that wealth is good, you convince people that wealth--and everything that is necessary to create it--is bad!

The new ethics of the neo-marxists have taken their beloved Marxist theory several steps further into the realm of delusion; dismissing wealth as anything worthwhile, since they aren't capable of producing it anyway. Meanwhile, the radical environmental wing of the party aggressively asserts that technology is bad and inherently evil because it destroys the earth.

All in all, in their anti-capitalist fervor, they have managed to conclude not only that wealth itself is bad; but producing wealth is bad, and that producers of wealth are bad. This has enormous implications, especially for the poor saps in the proletariat class (everyone but the revolutionary leaders and the damn capitalists).

But not to worry! Those benevolent leaders will tell you the best way to live as they control all that evil technology for you (just like they did in the old Soviet Union, for example; one of the worst polluters and destroyers of the environment in history); and as they control what makes that technology possible--the human mind.

They will heroically manage whatever wealth does come from your mind and work, for the happiness of all!

Hence, one subgroup of the Marxist dead-enders from last century quite naturally felt right at home in the new dogma of radical environmentalism where wealth and technology are clearly bad; and they began to preach that humans were destroying the planet and the only solution to this state of affairs was GOVERNMENT CONTROL AND CENTRAL PLANNING (hint, hint, wink, wink).

The new "bible" of the secualar religion of Marxism is no longer Das Kapital; it isn't even a book (though Carson's Silent Spring still seems to wow the believers), but a movie . Ask yourself how and why Al Gore's environmental obsession has become required classroom viewing. And how our children are being indoctrinated right this moment in the K-12 classrooms into the holy rituals of the environmental histrionics.

In "Freedom, Not Climate, Is At Risk", Vaclav Klaus, the President of the Czech Republic has this to say:

In the past year, Al Gore’s so-called “documentary” film was shown in cinemas worldwide, Britain’s – more or less Tony Blair’s – Stern report was published, the fourth report of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was put together and the Group of Eight summit announced ambitions to do something about the weather. Rational and freedom-loving people have to respond. The dictates of political correctness are strict and only one permitted truth, not for the first time in human history, is imposed on us. Everything else is denounced.

The author Michael Crichton stated it clearly: “the greatest challenge facing mankind is the challenge of distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda”. I feel the same way, because global warming hysteria has become a prime example of the truth versus propaganda problem. It requires courage to oppose the “established” truth, although a lot of people – including top-class scientists – see the issue of climate change entirely differently. They protest against the arrogance of those who advocate the global warming hypothesis and relate it to human activities.

As someone who lived under communism for most of his life, I feel obliged to say that I see the biggest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity now in ambitious environmentalism, not in communism. This ideology wants to replace the free and spontaneous evolution of mankind by a sort of central (now global) planning.

The environmentalists ask for immediate political action because they do not believe in the long-term positive impact of economic growth and ignore both the technological progress that future generations will undoubtedly enjoy, and the proven fact that the higher the wealth of society, the higher is the quality of the environment. They are Malthusian pessimists.

They may indeed be Malthusian pessimists, but they are also closet socialists and unrepentant communists whose agenda remains the accumulation of power for themselves which will be for the "good" of all--a sort of "Caliphate of the Do-Gooders", in fact. They will take us back to the cave when humans lived in perfect harmony with the natural order and didn't have all this messy technology and economic prosperity to deal with. Their modus operandi and the solution to all problems is in government regulation and control. Like tyrants everywhere, they imagine themselves as the benevolent, dear leaders/Imams who will interpret the will of Gaia and bring the poor, stupid masses to a higher level of consciousness and a better reality in the new, improved socialist utopia!

But call it a utopia; call it a paradise; call it a progressive socialist state; call it a caliphate; call it what you will--it is still just the same old tyranny dressed up in new clothes; and it seeks--as it has always done--to enslave the mind of man and keep him in chains.

I can almost hear the call to prayer emanating from the environmental muezzin:
Praise Gaia! Gaia is Great! Submit yourself to the will of Gaia! There is no god but Gaia!

EVERY DAY'S A NEW DAY,,,

....for the left to work on the defeat of the US in Iraq and in the war on Islamic fundamentalism. It's a tough job to skew reality and distort the truth, but hey! Somebody's gotta do it...and the political left has all the necessary moral and intellectual hollowness to do the job.

Let's take as our first example this op-ed from the LA Times, who in delighted anticipation of the imminent American defeat in Iraq, have coined a new diagnosis. No one is suffering from it as yet; but with any luck, anyone with neocon tendencies will soon be incapacitated by it:

The endgame in Iraq is now clear, in outline if not detail, and it appears that the heavily favored United States will be upset. Once support for a war is lost, it is gone for good; there is no example of a modern democracy having changed its mind once it turned against a war. So we ought to start coming to grips with the meaning of losing in Iraq.

The consequences for the national psyche are likely to be profound, throwing American politics into a downward spiral of bitter recriminations the likes of which it has not seen in a generation. It will be a wedge that politicians will exploit for their benefit, proving yet again that politics is the eternal enemy of strategy. The Vietnam syndrome divided this country for decades; the Iraq syndrome will be no different.

The battle for interpretation has already begun, with fingers of blame pointed in all directions in hastily written memoirs. The war's supporters have staked out their position quite clearly: Attacking Iraq was strategically sound but operationally flawed. Key decisions on troop levels, de-Baathification, the disbanding of the Iraqi army and the like doomed what otherwise would have been a glorious war.

The American people seem to understand, however — and historians will certainly agree — that the war itself was a catastrophic mistake.

Wishful thinking anyone? The piece practically salivates at the prospect of "history" judging the Iraq war as a "catastrophic mistake". That is clearly open to debate since both the battle of Iraq and the greater war on terror are still works in progress.

And there is something else that needs to be considered when discussing lightheartedly mocking those who might have some angst at the possibility of a defeat on the ground (as opposed to in the op-ed columns of leftist rags like the Times) : WE MUST NOT LOSE THIS BATTLE IN IRAQ BECAUSE OF THE CATASTROPHIC CONSEQUENCE THAT WILL RESULT--in Iraq, in the Middle East and in the greater war against the Islamofascists.

I shudder to think what history will record about the pathetic appeasers and enablers of the left who lacked both the moral courage and physical stamina to stand against the Nazis of our generation. I don't know why I should be surprised at their betrayal of the the good. It is all in a days work for them.

Wretchard notes:

There are several differences between Iraq and Vietnam. The first is that Iraq is a strategic country in the oil-rich Persian Gulf from which ultimate withdrawal is impossible. A redeployment perhaps, but a withdrawal no. The second is that unlike Vietnam, whose NVA had neither the inclination nor the capability to follow withdrawing American troops home, al-Qaeda already has. It proved that capability on September 11, 2001. The third is that unlike the Cold War, which consisted of proxy rivalries outside the homelands of the US and the USSR, the battlefield this time will be as close as Fort Dix or the JFK Airport.

The battle for "political interpretation", far from being dreaded by the Left, is probably anticipated with great eagerness. Here at last is the opportunity to round up the remaining survivors of the Vietnam War syndrome for final annihilation. After the hoped-for Iraq War syndrome, the US will finally be remolded. Into what the reader may imagine.

But only by portraying the domestic political component of the War on Terror as "divisive" can the Left proceed to launch it anyway. Without of course the intellectual opposition that might cause fractious debate. But if the debate so far has had any object whatsoever, it has been to promote division anyway. And so it will continue. At all events it is unlikely, now that the Internet has broadened the policy forum, that anyone will be given the chance to politically interpret recent events without opposition. But the main rebuttals will come, not from neo-conservatives, whoever they may be, but from events. The book will not close with Iraq, any more than the war on fascism closed with the Spanish civil war.

The problem with declaring an Iraq War syndrome is precisely that the war isn't with Iraq, and hence makes about as much sense as declaring a post-Guadalcanal War syndrome.

Then we have Andy McCarthy's wry observation about the latest insanity emanating from the left:

Usually, the Left's position is that the terrorism problem is grossly overstated. The Justice Department, it is claimed, has vastly inflated its terrorism prosecution numbers both to heighten our sense of fear and to appear to be doing something meaningful to protect us....

So why now, all of a sudden, is one of the leading "progressive" organizations, HRW, suggesting that Justice has actually racked up "hundreds" of successful prosecutions? Because of yesterday's Fourth Circuit decision in the al-Marri enemy-combatant case (which I write about, here). By a 2-1 ruling, the court held that an alien terrorist who is lawfully in the United States may not be held without trial as an enemy combatant. He must, the court said, be handed over to the civilian courts for trial, deported or released — which, of course, means either giving jihadists lavish discovery of our intelligence while the war is going on, or letting them go to rejoin the jihad.

You see? Yesterday, the Left wanted to argue that terrorism prosecutions almost never happen, so DOJ's numbers were inflated and there is no real threat to national security. Today, to defend the al-Marri decision, they want to argue that terrorism trials in the civilian courts happen all the time with no harm to national security, so DOJ's doing a bang-up job and its numbers are just outstanding.

You gotta hand it to these guys. There's always an answer for everything when every day is a new day that wipes the slate clean.

Now, add this accusation by the UN that America is to blame for (get ready to LOL) the the failure of the UN to achieve peace in the Middle East; and stir in the latest Palestinian murderfest between Hamas and Fatah, those "democratically" elected leaders of the dysfunctional terrorists who run things there, and you have identified all the anchors of the postmodern intellect, whose goal was and always shall be to travel the shortest distance between reality and delusion.

Debunk them all you want; it doesn't matter! Postmodernism means never having to say you're sorry! It means that you never let reason or facts stand in the way of any argument that helps destroy the real enemy (you know who they mean) !

Yes, every day's a new day to wipe the slate clean and start the irrationality all over again.

THE SANITY SQUAD - Homo Sapiens Lied and Streptococci Died!

For all those "evil" scientists everywhere, who have callously oppressed and victimized poor, helpless streptococci, in their quest for species dominance, the most recent Sanity Squad Podcast at Pajamas Media explores the failure of environmentalists to consider homo sapiens as an integral part of nature's complex system. Looked at from the perspective of the natural order, and especially through the Darwinian lens, that means that humans have as much right as any species to demonstrate their fitness for survival. Instead of their activities being considered a 'blight" on an external natural order, they--and the products of their minds (i.e., science, technology, art and literature)--are an essential part of the ecosystem!

What a concept!

We like to think that Science is objective—-but is it? Certainly not when the popular press, the schools, and scientists with an agenda get through with it with making it conform to their particular ideology.

This week’s podcast explores the wonders of scientific research and its discontents; including the unforeseen consequences of Rachel Carson’s vendetta against DDT (which is directly responsible for the deaths of millions of children under age 5--about 800,000 or more per year; the vagaries of estimating AIDS cases in Africa; the vaccination vigilantes, and other victims and victimizers.

For the benefit of all intelligent and discerning listeners; as well as for the annoyance of the the reality-challenged community, the Sanity Squad brings clarity and psychological insight to all the postmodern, quasi-scientific rhetoric.

Join Neo-neocon, Shrinkwrapped, Siggy and I as we make sense of all the nonsense and bring some brief sanity to the insane rhetoric of today Luddites who use junk science to advance their anti-human causes.

All podcasts of The Sanity Squad can be found here; and you can also download them from iTunes. (search for Pajamas Media)
The Sanity Squad cartoon is drawn by Eric Allie, whose collection of political cartoons can be found here and here).

PUTTING MY FANTASIES IN PERSPECTIVE

I have recently come to realize that when I talked about the inevitability of the rise of Freedom in the world, that I was terribly wrong. I suspect that my rhetoric about it came from my own quasi-utopian fantasies of Freedom sweeping the world and ridding it of the chains that bind the human mind.

But this essay by David Warren at RCP, which discusses the recent conference on liberty that Bush attended while in Europe, puts my fantasies in perspective. Warren quotes a number of the luminaries attending that meeting and ends with a quote from President Bush:

George W. Bush, of USA: "Freedom can be resisted, and freedom can be delayed, but freedom cannot be denied."

This last is the only statement I'll contest. In my view, and my experience, freedom can be resisted, delayed, and denied, and moreover, it can be in decline, as it is in the West, where the nanny state grows insidiously and constantly -- regardless of who is elected to government -- with the expanding power of the self-appointed elites who control our legal systems, and regulatory regimes.

It is nice to say rhetorically that freedom will prevail, but we must realize that such statements apply to heaven and not to earth. For down here, civic freedom is invariably obtained at the cost of human blood and treasure. It is not obtained by negotiating with dictators, except from a position of invincible force, and then only when one is fully prepared to use it. The very argument used against the wisdom of invading Iraq -- that it costs blood and treasure -- is itself the signal of surrender.

Aristotle once wrote that the magnificent man "does not count the cost." He understood also the virtue of prudence, the need for calculation and tact. But prudence itself is not finally calculated in blood or treasure. In the words with which my own country, Canada, was once mobilized against the Hitler menace: "No price too high!"

There is no price too high for human liberty, and those who dispute this are, and deserve to be, slaves.

I quite agree, and have come to understand over the last several years of blogging about one insanity after another, that there are very powerful forces at work in our own country and in the world that want nothing more than to eradicate human liberty and chain the mind of the individual to the collective.

I very much want to believe that human freedom is an unstoppable force; that the forces that created man meant for him to everywhere live in freedom and not in chains; and perhaps that is true in the very long term, since Freedom has slowly but surely increased since the time humans first congregated in groups. But I can no longer deny the reality that Freedom can be stopped in the short term; and that even a country that has always been a beacon of that precious liberty can be dimmed.

It is happening right now, everywhere in this country because most people find the price is way too high for them.

Maybe I am just having a bad day.

THE "GET OUT OF JAIL FREE" MENTALITY

So, Palestinian reporters are angry at Palestinian terrorists (referred to as "Gaza militants" by Reuters:)

The Palestinian journalists' union criticised militants on Sunday for using a vehicle marked with a "TV" sign to approach Gaza's border with Israel and attack an Israeli military position across the frontier.

One militant was killed in Saturday's attack, jointly claimed by Islamic Jihad and al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed wing of President Mahmoud Abbas Fatah faction. The Israeli military said none of its soldiers was hurt.

"The use of vehicles that carry 'Press', 'TV' or other signs ... expose journalists' lives to danger, gives the Israeli occupation a pretext to target and kill journalists and restricts their ability to perform their professional and national duties," the Palestinian Journalist Syndicate said.

They are joking, right?

What do they imagine the motivations of the "militants" are to do this sort of thing in the first place?

Glenn Reynolds figures it out:

THEY'VE ALREADY USED AMBULANCES, a car labelled "TV" to stage an attack? It's all upside for them-- no significant outrage now, and maybe it'll lead the Israelis to accidentally shoot up a truck full of real reporters, which will then cause worldwide condemnation. Of the Israelis.

Then he quotes from TigerHawk:

And when it happens that condemnation will be outrageous precisely because it is so predictable. Palestinian strategists understand the objective, which is to put the Israeli military in an impossible situation. Everybody else also understands the objective, and -- this is the big point -- everybody understands that the Palestinian strategists understand. It is one giant cesspool of known-knowns, so those who condemn Israel when it happens will be, yes, collaborators.

I share his lack of sympathy for the reporters' moralizing. They seem shocked, shocked that such things go on.

But let's, for a moment, consider the Palestinian strategists themselves, who deliberately and calculatingly chose that particular method; and what they are psychologically counting on to be the world's response to their behavior.

As TigerHawk notes, that response is utterly predictable. The terrorist's behavior will be ignored or dismissed; and Israel, a country that actually exceeds the requirements of civilized behavior and works hard to minimize civilian casualties, will be excoriated and blacklisted by the same people.

Just back in April, for example, the UK reporters union voted to boycott Israel; and do you suppose this latest act by the terrorists of Gaza will make those reporters change their mind? Or, will this egregious appropriation of the news in Canada give anyone more than a moment's pause in their haste to condemn Israel?

I don't expect that it will. No one seemed to care much when the terorists used ambulances; no one cared when the terrorists used human shields or placed their missiles with which they attacked Israel next to apartment complexes; no one cares what the terrorists do or how malevolent their intentions are. As Reynolds and TigerHawk so accurately suggest, the Palestinians know that the international community has given them carte blance; a "Get Out of Jail Free" card which has a dual purpose: it lets the Palestinians off the hook for their behavior; and on the flip side is an "Opt Out of Reality Free" option for the benefit of the international community.

This is the same kind of card that Paris Hilton expected would literally be her ticket out of the slammer. Why? Well, Paris had every reason to expect it because her parents have always bailed her out and she has never had to reap the consequences of her own narcissistic behavior. In the Palestinian's case, the international community (particularly the left) is inclined to do the same as Mr. and Mrs. Hilton.

The Palestinian strategists, in particular, depend entirely on the phenomenon of denial of reality by the West; a psychological state carefully cultivated and promoted by the multicultural racism/infantalization promulgated by the intellectual elites of the political left.

In saying the above, I am possibly giving some of those elites too much credit for being conscious; many are so brainwashed by socialist ideology they are only capable of a reflexive and automatic response when those who perpetrate evil happen to be a member of an identified victim class.

So, why is so easy for so many Westerners to succumb to this sort of rmanipulation by the Palestinian strategists?

What we are witnessing is a regressive psycholgoical defensive maneuver that has become perhaps, the most common response to the worldwide threat of Islamofascism, with all its attendant barbarism and frightening committment to death and destruction. A very specific kind of psychological denial has become the "opt out of reality" ticket for the West and it is referred to as displacement (also see here, here and here).

I have discussed this phenomenon multiple times because displacement is the same psychological strategy that is at the root of Bush Derangement Syndrome and the widespread leftist belief that Christianity is iminently going to impose a theocratic state in the US, even as Shar'ia is welcomed with open arms, tolerant hearts, and closed eyes.

And it is also happens to be the dynamic behind the current rise of anti-semitism and anti-American sentiment right here in the USA--even among relatively normal individuals otherwise.

You can think of psychological displacement as a process analogous to how attenuated viruses work when a person is immunized with them to prevent the catastrophic consequences of an otherwise life-threatening virus.

Psychotherapy itself revolves around, and works because of the temporary displacement of the patient's psychopathology onto the therapist--which is called transference. Let's say, that the patient has a conflict with his father. For all intents and purposes, the therapist becomes the psychological brother and the therapeutic relationship plays out the drama in a less threatening, and more manageable setting.

The entire purpose of displacement is to gain control over the conflict. By focusing on something you have some control over, the psyche is much less threatened. You can fire your therapist; you can express your hatred unreservedly and there will not be the consequences if that hatred were directed toward the real object of conflict. You can even pretend, that if it weren't for the therapist, everything in your life would be perfect.

Displacement can be thought of as an slightly more mature type of projection. In projection, the individual remains oblivious to the fact that he owns and is responsible for the emotions that he imagines are in the person or group into which he is projecting. In other words, ownership of the idea and/or affect is banished from the self.

In displacement, the idea or emotion is deflected from one object to another, less threatening one, but the ownership of the negative emotion or idea (e.g. animosity, anger) is retained--and is often raised to a virtue. A common example is the person who is angry at a loved one, but settles for kicking the dog. The anger is evident in the action and is still owned by the person experiencing it.

At its most primitive, anti-semitism is a form of psychological projection (just as all racism is). We see this infantile defense used repeatedly in the Arab/Islamic world. They seem unable to appreciate the irony of their labelling of Islam as a "religion of peace", for example, and dismiss the barbarism done in the name of Islam as misunderstandings or the actions of only a few. In other words, they dismiss their own aggression in toto; asserting that it is the Jews who are always the aggressors; that it is the Jews who are out to destroy them; and that they are the poor, helpless victims of the Jews. By distancing themselves from their own aggression and projecting it onto Israel and the Jews; they have retained their honor as the peace-loving people they claim to be.

It is essential to the success of the defense that they portray themselves as the victims and be seen as the victims in the eyes of the world. Even when their own behavior is responsible for the deaths of innocents, it is rationalized away and ultimately also blamed on the Jews.

Displacement, too, is also an effective method for psychologically avoiding reality. It is a step above projection and is considered simply neurotic. While projection can often appear to be completely uncoupled from reality, displacement has the advantage of allowing someone filled with unpleasant emotions to have an acceptable object onto which to express those emotions. Note that in projection, the individual completely denies that he or she even possesses or is capable of possessing those unacceptable emotions--it is the "other" who possesses them, and wants to inflict them on you.

Historically, the Jews have been the offical scapegoat (object of displacement) for many societies. If only the Jews were gone, then all would be well. The world would be perfect.

We see something similar in much of the rhetoric of the left. If only Bush were gone, everything would be perfect. None of these awful things--like 9/11 would have happened and the U.S. could go back to the idyllic days of the Clintonian utopia.

Likewise, if only the world put a halt once an for all to Israeli aggression, then the Middle East would be at peace.

This is as clear a case of "blaming the victim" as you will ever see on a grand scale. It is far too threatening to blame the real aggressor; and the real source of hatred and genocidal intent-- who are incapable of being rationally dealt with or deterred anyway. This real aggressor repeatedly states its intentions clearly and unambiguously. It even uses Western technology and icons to further its message of hate and death and extend it generationally.

Yet, for some curious reason, those in the West who are able to see it and hear it refuse to believe what they see and hear--particularly when the focus of the hate is directed toward themselves. The words are laughingly dismissed, and the actions that logically derive from the words are minimized or ignored--and the perpetrators get out of jail free because the psychological decision is made to opt out of reality.

If life was a board game, it would be a lot of fun to suispend objective reality for a time without having to suffer any serious consequences. But even in Monopoly, reality eventually triumphs and you land on someone else's Boardwalk and must pay the piper.

No rational person can deal with someone who glories in victimhood and destructivenss to a degree hardly paralleled in human history and who screams "god is great" even as he blows you and himself up in a nihilistic frenzy. To say the least, this is fairly frightening and inexplicable behavior for the modern man to psychologically metabolize. Thus, it must be defended against and prevented from being digested and analyzed.

The dynamic of displacement goes a long way to explain the remarkable and sometimes lunatic appeasement of Islamofascist aggression and violence by so many individuals and governments and around the world, even as they fearlessly trash the US (and particularly Bush) and Israel. Denial and displacement give you the illusion that you are in control of the situation and that the solution is simple.

The only problem is that reality doesn't go away simply because you have found a way to satisfactorily (and temporarily) deflect it; and have managed to hide the unpalatable truth from yourself.

In the real world, there is no "get out of jail free" card that can insulate a person or a group for very long from the consequences of their dysfunctional behavior. Eventually all the Paris Hiltons; all the Palestinians--indeed the entire world will have to face reality.

Ahhhh Yes, Critical Thinking Skills...

I was just discussing them in the last post.