Posted on 05/01/2004 10:51:07 AM PDT by MegaSilver
Media mogul Rupert Murdoch let his hair down during a business conference in Los Angeles this past weekend, warning of rough times ahead.
"There is going to be real trouble coming in Europe, I think," Murdoch said, noting the large Muslim communities living in France.
Calling his observations random thoughts, Murdoch told the Milken Institute's annual three-day Global Conference at the Beverly Hilton Hotel about his fears.
He sees terrorist breeding grounds in France, offered a blunt critique of the European Union, and voiced fears about Saudi Arabia and China, according to Australia's Financial Review.
The topic of discussion was "Creating Prosperity and Stability Amid Ever-Accelerating Change."
Despite the ranking of his co-speakers, including Gary Becker, Nobel Laureate, Economic Sciences; Thomas Hughes, Deutsche Bank's global head of asset management; Sharon Allen, chairman of Deloitte's U.S. board of directors; and Jami Miscik, the CIA's deputy director of intelligence, Murdoch's views held center stage.
With his audience spellbound, Murdoch warned that he believes Europe, particularly France, has failed to properly assimilate large Muslim immigrant populations from Northern Africa and the Middle East, all of which makes Europe more vulnerable to another terrorist attack than the the U.S. is.
Among his other concerns:
"The Muslim populations in France and Germany are much bigger proportionately to what they are in this country [the U.S.] and they have made a very bad job of assimilating them. "The U.S.," he said, has done a "pretty good job of assimilating" its Muslim population and only has "pockets of trouble here and there."
"They [Europe] have major centers of problems that are just boiling up. Paris is surrounded by vast blocks of tens of thousands of apartments - all Muslim, all no-go areas for police and totally lawless. There is more danger of terrorist attacks coming than what we have here," he said.
The European Union has "no political leadership with the will to change." "You have this awful French socialist bureaucracy stuck in Brussels, which is deterring investment in Europe, which is over-regulating every business and everybody."
The outlook for Saudi Arabia is glum, he said, and is casting a dark cloud on the horizon for the world's economy. "I think the most outstanding thing to worry about, if we are talking about urgency, is in the Middle East and it is with Saudi Arabia.
"Saudi Arabia is really the swing. If there was a revolution there it would happen overnight and you might see oil go from $40 to $80 or $90 [a barrel] and that wouldn't simply affect us. It would bring China and Japan and all those countries into a pretty terrible state."
Despite its problems, China is the one bright spot he saw, adding that "the worries that I see that we don't know are the danger of Chinese continuity. I operate a business there."
"We see all of this wonderful expansion around us, but the fact is, it is still a centrally planned economy and historically, centrally planned economies, particularly of that size, do become unmanageable. I'm not pessimistic about it.
"I think they do a pretty brilliant job, but we have to face the facts it is one of the uncertainties. I'm optimistic, at least in the short term, hopefully in the long term, about the Chinese economy."
Keep up.
UP, I say.
UP!!!!!
IT'S ABOUT OUR GRANDCHILDREN!!!!!
(Says the virgin who doesn't even have a girlfriend...)
From the Unabomber Manifesto:
15. Leftists tend to hate anything that has an image of being strong, good and successful. They hate America, they hate Western civilization, they hate white males, they hate rationality. The reasons that leftists give for hating the West, etc. clearly do not correspond with their real motives. They SAY they hate the West because it is warlike, imperialistic, sexist, ethnocentric and so forth, but where these same faults appear in socialist countries or in primitive cultures, the leftist finds excuses for them, or at best he GRUDGINGLY admits that they exist; whereas he ENTHUSIASTICALLY points out (and often greatly exaggerates) these faults where they appear in Western civilization. Thus it is clear that these faults are not the leftist's real motive for hating America and the West. He hates America and the West because they are strong and successful.
Personally, I think it's all part of their plot. Now, they have a group of Islamist fanatics who hate the West as much as they do. No wonder they get along so well.
I just wish the Liberals would emigrate to the Middle East rather than the Islamists immigrating to the West.
After the Iranian revolution, the export of radical Islam permeated every damn Moslem country on earth. That was also helped by billions of petrodollars from Saudi Arabia, and fanatical jihad cells in every mosque. At this point the Moslem world has the holy mission of "us against them" attitude. Under such cover, the entire Moslem world is rapidly deteriorating into the sixth century barbarian mode. To be fair, the conservative Christians and Jews are not too far behind them in fanatical ideologies please dont get very defensive, and read through. What this world is in need, at this confusing time is moderation, tolerance, and coexistence. This has to be the constant message from every church, mosque, and synagogue. Yes, there is no hate preaching in most churches, but to be accepted, and respected, you must be able to have self criticism.
Having said so, I am not naive to think that Islam is a religion of peace, or to think that Islam does not have a hidden agenda of dominating the world. As a matter of fact, Christianity has similar mission (to share Christ with every human on earth - i.e. witnessing)! Judaism to a lesser extent is not interested in converting people but interested in "greater Israel". The difference is the use of coersive force to achieve converts!
Religions are very similar to sport teams; if fans become fanatics, then the whole sport become too dangerous, and the game becomes unsafe. During the heat of a game, as fans are drinking, and their testosterone is flowing, if the leaders (like the coaches) started up a fight, the stadium will blow up in violence. To assure civility, there are rules of sportsmanship. That is essentially what we are missing in religions. As a matter of fact this idea is not new, the communists had a way to deal with it, they abolished ALL religions! The simple reason we are missing such rules in the religion realm today is because we are supposed to be politically correct, and respect other people faiths. Our leaders MUST state to the population of the earth: WE RESPECT ALL RELIGIONS AS LONG AS THEY DON'T PREACH HATE AND VIOLANCE AGAINST OTHERS. If a religion has such scriptures in its text, it should be swept under the carpet, and never become the dominant verses in any sermon in any prayer or gathering. Such consensus is not too difficult to attain in a UN forum or other international gathering of political and religion leaders. That is so simple, if we can shut the ACLU, and the "diversity" knee-jerk liberals up. If the Moslems refused to comply, they will be risking the isolation from the rest of the world.
Imagine the looks on their faces when they realize that they might never get to come home to indoor plumbing. Or to be around people who let them get away with blathering their BS.
This is the popular academic orthodoxy of our time. Unfortunately, I believe it to be gravely mistaken.
You can call for "moderation," "tolerance," and "coexistence" all you want. It will not change the fact that a) ordinary citizens feel that they are being invaded, b) Islam draws no distinction between religion and politics, and c) at the end of the day, people in the West just want to be left alone to live life the way they grew up thinking they were going to be able to.
If you read my comments, you find that our leaders has failed in the past thirt years to recognize the danger of the radical Islamic movement in the world. The world leaders must stop pussyfooting around this religion thing; they must have a forum on the accepted behaviors of people, and the danger of preaching hate. Without admitting that religions can incite violence, and that preachers of ALL faiths MUST handle their job responsibly, we will continue to chase our tails for many generations to come.
We can sit on our hands and say well, the Moslems will never listen, or we can invite them in front of the rest of the world, and challenge them to reduce the decible of hate a notch or two.
I agree. Your comment about "tolerance" and "moderation" didn't seem to jibe with that, but I think I get what you were trying to say now.
We can sit on our hands and say well, the Moslems will never listen, or we can invite them in front of the rest of the world, and challenge them to reduce the decible of hate a notch or two.
Personally, I still think that as long as Islam exists, the rest of the world will be in at least some degree of danger.
Personally, I still think that as long as Islam exists, the rest of the world will be in at least some degree of danger.
In other words, let us sit on our hands and imagine that these are subhuman with no rational. I say, even if they are subhuman, at least by having an international forum on faiths and human behaviors, we will expose them for what they are. You know, a ggod part of this world are not Christian or Moslems (Hindues, and Budhists). It would be nice to triangulate the Moslems out as subhumans for the rest of the world to see.
I don't think Muslims are subhuman, not by any stretch. But Islam is a religion that doesn't draw distinctions between religion and politics. I suspect most Muslims don't realize the implications of this. If they did, would they be horrified? Quite possibly.
That is what the clerics wants to convince their followers to believe. Its a job securiy and a power grab for them. Clerics are employee of the states in Moslem nations. They are forbidden from fomenting violence against the rulers. Hence, these same rulers CAN forbid them from fomenting violence against the infidels.
Oh God...that is a funny thought. Dragged away by two crop wielding religious cops...she'd be screaming bloody murder "my rights! my rights!" and they'd be saying "you don't have any here"....too funny.
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