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Pez, Davey wrote wise words. Please heed them. :)
http://www.internet-haganah.us/harchives/004242.html
June 10, 2005
"Al Tawhid sites of Germany"
http://www.al-Islaam.de
http://www.salaf.de/hp/index.htm
http://www.salaf.de
http://www.islah.de/
I agree with you jerseygirl. With "friends" like Pakistan/Musharraf who needs enemies.
______________
2 Al-Qaeda suspects arrested from US are Saeedur Rehman's relatives
NEW YORK, June 10 (Online): The two alleged Al Qaeda activists, who were arrested in California are close relatives of a former MPA Punjab and JUI leader Qari Saeed ur Rehman of Attock.
Sources in LODI (loadai)a Pakistani majority area of farming said both arrests were part of religious vendetta.
Online learnt that two opponent groups were struggling to gain the control of a mosque in Lodi and newly Islamic center in Sacramento.
The alleged terrorist suspect Hamid Hyatt who went to Pakistan on April 21, 2003, is the grand son of Qari Saeed ur rehman who is a close aide of Moalana Fazal ur Rehman the opposition leader and former advisor to Punjab is also head of a Madrasa in Rawalpindi where Hamid Hayat attended school for two years and returned to United States in May 2005.
Umer Hayat who is also arrested with his son is the son in law of Qari saeed ur Rehman and belongs to a town Behboodi near Hazro Attock a US citizen living for decades in Lodi where thousands of other Pakistani origin mostly from Attock Hazara and Peshawar areas has many Islamic centers for whom many are trying to gain control, a community activist told Online that a new Islamic center was being built near by Sacramento while the old one was claimed by the other group this episode was going on for years and both groups made false reports to the FBI and local Police.
FBI told and assured community that they were not against any community or particular faith but were trying to ensure the security of the land.
A leader of local community from mansehra Taj khan while talking to Online has said: "Community is in panic and everyone who attends the prayer is being interrogated and we are in state of fear. No one in the community is either terrorist or against the US we are loyal and law abiding citizens".
Imam adil khan and his assistant also taken into the custody for immigration violation are part of the conspiracy to get access to Imamat Shabbir a native of Azad kashmir wants to become imam while one Adil who immigrated to US on Masjid visa is not willing to step down.
Local Mayor and city officials had held meetings with the community the media has a full fledged team of hundreds in Lodi and are focusing on the issue that Muslims and Pakistani are terrorists. Also, the media named Moalana Fazal ur Rehman in the report that Hamid Hayat got training in his Madarssa.
President Bush in interview with Fox news endorsed and praised the FBI It is not known whether Foreign minister Kasuri with meeting with Bush had any discussion about the arrests and alleged involvement of opposition leader in the National assembly. A bail hearing is scheduled for Hamid on late Friday.
http://www.thepakistaninewspaper.com/news_detail.php?id=2317
For The Record and ON THE NET...
---
Note: The following text is an exact quote:
---
http://www.ice.gov/graphics/news/newsreleases/articles/050609sacramento.htm
News Release
June 9, 2005
JTTF INVESTIGATION CONTINUES IN LODI, CALIFORNIA
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — United States Attorney McGregor W. Scott, Special Agent in Charge Keith Slotter, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and Charles DeMore, Special Agent in Charge, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), confirmed today an investigation being conducted in Lodi, California. This is a long-term, ongoing investigation being conducted by the Sacramento Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF).
Based on the investigation conducted to date, there is no information to indicate there is an immediate danger to public welfare or safety. Specifically, the FBI has no information about specific threats to hospitals and food stores.
On June 5, 2005, Hamid Hayat, married, age 24, was arrested in Sacramento by FBI agents. His father, Umer Hayat, married, age 47, was also arrested in Sacramento later that same day. They were both arrested without incident.
On June 6, 2005, the United States Attorney's Office filed criminal complaints charging each with one count alleging violation of Title 18, United States Code Section 1001 (a) (2), making a false statement to a Federal Agent. These charges are merely an accusation and the defendants are presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty.
Also, on June 6, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested Mohammed Adil Khan and Shabbir Ahmed for violating the terms of their visas. Both remain in ICE custody on administrative immigration charges and will be afforded the opportunity to appear before an Immigration Judge. Khan is a citizen of Pakistan who is affiliated with the Farooqia Islamic Center near Lodi, California. Ahmed is a citizen of Pakistan who currently functions as the Imam of the Lodi Mosque.
This investigation is a collaborative effort by various Federal, State, and Local law enforcement agencies comprising the Joint Terrorism Task Force JTTF.
# ICE #
===
===
Note: The following text is an exact quote:
---
http://sacramento.fbi.gov/pressrel/2005/06082005.htm
FBI NEWS RELEASE
U.S. Department of Justice
Federal Bureau of Investigation
4500 Orange Grove Avenue
Sacramento, California 95841
For Immediate Release
June 8, 2005 Media Contact: SA John M. Cauthen, (916) 977-2249
INVESTIGATION CONTINUES IN LODI, CALIFORNIA
SACRAMENTO, CA Special Agent in Charge Keith Slotter, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and United States Attorney McGregor W. Scott confirmed today an investigation being conducted in Lodi, California. This is a long?term, ongoing investigation being conducted by the Sacramento Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF).
Based on the investigation conducted to date, there is no information to indicate there is an immediate danger to public welfare or safety. Specifically, the FBI has no information about specific threats to hospitals and food stores.
On June 5, 2005, Hamid Hayat, married, age 22, was arrested in Sacramento by FBI agents. His father, Umer Hayat, married, age 47, was also arrested in Sacramento later that same day. They were both arrested without incident.
On June 6, 2005, the United States Attorney's Office filed criminal complaints were filed, charging each with one count alleging violation of Title 18, United States Code Section 1001 (a) (2), making a false statement to a Federal Agent. These charges are merely an accusation and the defendants are presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty.
Also, on June 6, 2005, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested Mohammed Adil Khan and Shabbir Ahmed for violating the terms of their visas. Both remain in ICE custody on administrative immigration charges and will be afforded the opportunity to appear before an Immigration Judge. Khan is a citizen of Pakistan who is affiliated with the Farooqia Islamic Center near Lodi, California. Ahmed is a citizen of Pakistan who currently functions as the Imam of the Lodi Mosque.
This investigation is a collaborative effort by various Federal, State, and Local law enforcement agencies comprising the Joint Terrorism Task Force JTTF.
A press conference providing additional information will be held at the office of the United States Attorney located at 501 I Street, 10th Floor, Sacramento California at 1:30pm.
###
I hope the results will not be that extreme. But if the moslems in Lodi really want to become part of the 'fabric of the community', they will need step up and ensure that their community is safe from terrorists as their contribution to our collective freedom they claim to be a part and enjoying the benefits from.
By Leila Hatoum
Daily Star staff
Saturday, June 11, 2005
BEIRUT: President George W. Bush stepped up his attacks on Syria last night, after a U.S. official said Damascus had compiled an "assassination hit list" targeting Lebanese political leaders. The accusation comes a week after the assassination of anti-Syrian Lebanese journalist Samir Kassir which has fueled speculation that Syrian intelligence units are still operating in Lebanon.
Bush said: "Our message to Syria - and it's not just the message of the United States, the United Nations has said the same thing - is that in order for Lebanon to be free, Syria needs to not only remove its military, but to remove intelligence officers as well."
Commenting on the assassination list, Bush said: "Obviously we're going to follow up on these troubling reports, and we expect the Syrian government to follow up on these troubling reports."
The anonymous U.S. official said the information came from "a variety of credible Lebanese sources."
In the latest escalation of tensions between Damascus and Washington, the White House accused Syria of creating a climate of fear during Lebanon's parliamentary elections in what will be seen as a scarcely veiled allusion to the murder of Kassir.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said: "We are deeply concerned about Syria's interference and intimidation inside Lebanon."
He added: "We are concerned intelligence operatives are interfering in Lebanon's internal affairs. We have all called on the UN to send the verification teams back to Lebanon."
Washington's attack follows earlier comments from UN chief Kofi Annan who said on Thursday night that he was considering sending a second verification team to Lebanon because of reports that Syrian intelligence is still operating in the country.
Damascus has strenuously denied any involvement in the Kassir murder, and insists it has fully complied with UN Resolution 1559 which ordered Syria to withdraw its troops and intelligence agencies from its smaller neighbor.
A UN verification mission, dispatched to Lebanon last month, reported that Syria had "fully" withdrawn its troops from Lebanon, but failed to issue the same assertion regarding the presence of Syrian intelligence in Lebanon.
Speaking yesterday, Syria's ambassador to the UN, Fayssal Moqdad said: "I am sure there are no Syrians there. Let them investigate themselves."
He added: "If there were any intelligence personnel in Lebanon then they would be from France, the U.S. or Israel."
Late Thursday night leading Lebanese opposition MP Walid Jumblatt said: "I believe the entire opposition is being targeted."
He added: "The assassinations will continue with or without the knowledge of Syrian President Bashar Assad."
The new accusations against Syria came as Lebanon prepares to hold its third phase of four-stage parliamentary elections on Sunday, in Mount Lebanon, and the Bekaa districts.
Jumblatt accused the former Syrian military intelligence chief in Lebanon, General Rustom Ghazaleh, of meddling in the election through his agents.
Jumblatt said: "Rustom Ghazaleh, whom the Syrian leadership should have thrown in jail, has blocked an electoral alliance between MP Elie Skaff and the Hariri group."
Skaff, a Christian independent MP, is seen as a neutral politician within the Lebanese political system.
He is running for a parliamentary seat in this Sunday's round of voting as an independent on his own electoral list.
Speaking yesterday, Skaff insisted he had not met Ghazaleh since Syria's troop withdrawal from Lebanon at the end of April.
Meanwhile, Lebanon's government has pledged to assist the ongoing UN investigation into the assassination of former Prime Minster Rafik Hariri and agreed to allow state officials and public servants to be interrogated by the team led by German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis.
The UN team is to coordinate with Lebanese State Prosecutor Said Mirza, and investigating Magistrate Elias Eid.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=15842
Thanks for the update Cindy.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1420066/posts
"Krekar makes parallels to Israel"
Aftenposten ^ | Friday June 10 2005 | Aftenposten
Posted on 06/09/2005 9:26:05 PM PDT by Eurotwit
You're welcome.
We are going to keep updating this story here.
Muslim schools seek funding from Saudi "fundamentalists"
The Swedish Radio programme 'Kaliber' reported on Sunday that "almost all" Islamic schools and congregations in Sweden have contacted potential sponsors in Saudi Arabia. Many of these Saudi foundations ask for influence in return. However, an expert thinks the chances are slight that violent organisations will gain a foothold in Sweden's muslim communities.
Islamic organisations have received help from the Saudi embassy in Stockholm to find potential donors. Many community groups can only afford simple basement premises. But with Saudi money, they can build mosques.
'Kaliber' featured the Al Salam school in Örebro, which takes children from nursery age to Year 5 and receives between 150 and 200,000 crowns a month from an Islamic foundation.
In return for their money, sponsors often demand a seat on the board or the right to appoint imams or school leaders. Saudi Arabia practices the strict Wahhabi and Salafi traditions. Women are required to be completely covered and are not allowed to socialise with men outside the family. Men must have long beards and dress in the style of the prophet Muhammed. Music and art are banned.
It's not clear how many schools or other organisations have accepted sponsorship or acceded to demands of influence. But four of Sweden's eleven islamic schools have said that they wouldn't accept donations if demands were attached. Two headmasters have said they wouldn't accept gifts from Saudi sources because the country was associated with terrorism.
Now the government have taken an interest in the issue. Schools minister, Ibrahim Baylan, was concerned that teaching could be affected:
"Our legislation is very clear. In order to qualify for state support, a school's syllabus should be objective and comprehensive. Schools shouldn't alter their teaching in return for money. It's Skolverket's job to make sure that doesn't happen and I'll check to see if they've received any reports on this issue."
Children and young people's minister, Lena Hallengren, also expressed concern. She said that it was primarily the responsibility of the Muslim communities to consider the implications of accepting sponsorship.
"It's a serious matter if these Saudi sponsors are making demands which don't match the community's beliefs," she said. "The government provides a total of 50m crowns in funding to faith organisations and we'll never be able to compete with Saudi billions," she continued.
But Jan Hjärpe, professor in Islamic studies, thinks any fears that fundamentalist or terrorist organisations will infiltrate Sweden's muslim communities are exaggerated. And he doesn't think muslim parents would allow such a development in their children's schools
"Saudi Arabia is very anxious that extreme, violent groups are not allowed to spread. Obviously they don't stand for the most liberal form of Islam either, but parents are more interested in the children getting a career."
Mehmed Kaplan of Sweden's Young Muslims feels the Swedish government could help the financial difficulties of many community groups by being more creative with their funding:
"I think it's up to the government to come up with a constructive solution, for example by providing some form of state credit."
http://www.internet-haganah.us/harchives/004241.html
June 10, 2005
"revivingislam is back online"
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/2005/06/006547print.html
June 07, 2005
"'May Allah rip out his spine from his back and split his brains in two, and then put them both back, and then do it over and over again'"
ARTICLE SNIPPET: "RevivingIslam.com is back, so I thought you might be interested in seeing the reaction they had to my publicizing of their death threat against me. This material was posted on the RevivingIslam forums in the three days between my posting the threat and the shutdown of their site -- a shutdown that has now proved to be temporary."
===
===
ON THE NET...
http://www.revivingislam.com
Note: The following text snippet is an exact quote from infovlad.net:
===
http://www.infovlad.net
06.09.05
Jihadi Files Update
Posted in General at 9:35 pm by Vladimir
Posted on June 10
http://hackjaponaise.cosm.co.jp/terror/0610200501.rmvb
http://hackjaponaise.cosm.co.jp/terror/0610200502.rmvb
Posted on June 9
http://hackjaponaise.cosm.co.jp/terror/0609200501.rm
PERSECUTION.ORG
http://www.persecution.org
===
===
Note: The following text is an exact quote:
---
http://www.assistnews.net/Stories/s05060032.htm
ASSIST News Service (ANS) - PO Box 2126, Garden Grove, CA 92842-2126 USA
Visit our web site at: www.assistnews.net -- E-mail: danjuma1@aol.com
Wednesday, June 8, 2005
ERITREA: SOME 900 CHRISTIANS IMPRISONED
By Elizabeth Kendal
World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty Commission (WEA RLC)
Special to ASSIST News Service
AUSTRALIA (ANS) -- In September 2001 the Eritrean government closed down all private media, then rounded up its opponents and critics and silenced them by incarcerating them in 'secret' prisons. Amnesty International estimates several thousand political prisoners are languishing incommunicado in detention. The crackdown on churches began in May 2002 when the government closed and banned all but three state- sanctioned denominations: Eritrean Orthodox, Catholic and Lutheran.
Today some 900 Christians including 16 pastors are in prison for their faith. The conditions are dire and torture is routine. This religious repression is partly driven by the politically powerful Eritrean Orthodox Church trying to protect its influence in the face of significant evangelical renewal. The Eritrean government denies there is any religious repression, boasting full religious freedom with tight national security.
These four years of repression, violence and injustice have also been four years of drought. Today, around 60 percent of Eritreans rely on food aid. UNICEF reports that more than 40 percent of pregnant or lactating women are malnourished and between 10 and 20 percent of all children under age five are acutely malnourished. New laws came into effect on 1 June 2005 to regulate Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) and tax their imports, making it impossible for smaller NGOs to operate. NGOs engaging in 'political or economic sabotage' will be banned. Eritrea's suffering and isolation will thus be further compounded.
Compass Direct (CD) reports that on Saturday 28 May, police raided a large wedding ceremony in the Eritrean capital of Asmara, arresting at least 250 guests, along with the bride and groom (both of the Meserete Kristos Church) and their wedding party. Members of the government-sanctioned denominations were later released, while about 70 others belonging to banned evangelical churches were kept in custody. CD reports that amongst those arrested were Pastor Gideon of the Meserete Kristos Church, Immanuel an evangelist from the Kale Hiwot Church, and Esaye Stefanos, a nationally known gospel singer from the Full Gospel Church. The prisoners are reportedly being pressured to abandon their evangelical beliefs and join state-sanctioned churches.
On Wednesday 25 May, Eritreans from across America along with their supporters gathered outside Eritrea's Embassy in Washington DC to protest Eritrea's human rights violations. They called for the release of all political and religious prisoners, and for political, journalistic and religious freedom to be restored. Eritrean believers at the rally prayed and worshiped the Lord openly in front of posters of imprisoned Eritrean pastors. The Director of Jubilee Campaign, Anne Buwalda, comments, 'Almost everyone [at the rally] knew one or more jailed pastor. ... they came from as far away as Minnesota and Atlanta to attend because of their love for their pastors.'
Sources believe the wedding arrests were a response to the Washington protest and the Eritrean government is trying to intimidate local believers into silence. Retaliatory arrests are intended to send the message that overseas advocacy and pressure will only make things worse. There will be a rally outside the Eritrean Embassy in London on Thursday 9 June, to call once again for religious freedom in Eritrea.
PLEASE PRAY SPECIFICALLY FOR:
God to comfort, encourage and sustain imprisoned believers, supplying all their needs, healing their trauma of body, mind and soul, and filling them with an overwhelming assurance of his presence and love.
God to raise up powerful advocates and effective measures to restore justice and religious liberty to Eritrea, so those unjustly imprisoned can be released and God's word can go out boldly, powerfully and freely.
the President of Eritrea, Isayas Afewerki - 'The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord; he directs it like a watercourse wherever he pleases.' (Proverbs 21:1)
the irresistible Holy Spirit to revive the state-sanctioned Eritrean Orthodox, Catholic and Lutheran churches, from the grassroots to the leadership, that repenting they will know unity as one body, solidarity with the persecuted, and renewed passion for the living Christ.
'Lord, I have heard of your fame; I stand in awe of your deeds, O Lord. Renew them in our day, in our time make them known; in wrath remember mercy.' (Habakkuk 3:2)
Elizabeth Kendal is the Principal Researcher and Writer for the World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty Commission (WEA RLC) www.worldevangelical.org/rlc.html. This article was initially written for the WEA RLP(Religious Liberty Prayer) mailing list
Elizabeth can be contacted by e-mail at rl-research@crossnet.org.au.
** You may republish this story with proper attribution.
CAN I HAVE MY COUNTRY BACK,
PLEASE?
By Don Feder
Posted June 3, 2005
It’s times like these that I miss my country most.
Holidays like Memorial Day, the Fourth of July and Thanksgiving remind me that once upon a time (long ago, in a galaxy far, far away), I had a country. It was called America.
Perfect? Absolutely not. Nothing is in this world. But it represented something noble, brave and fine. Even if they couldn’t quite articulate it, Americans understood what America meant – and cherished it. Once, we knew our nation’s history. Once we spoke a national language. Once we controlled our borders. Once we knew what treason was and how to deal with it.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Of our three national holidays, for me, Memorial Day is the most significant. The Fourth of July celebrates our independence. Harkening back to our beginnings, Thanksgiving recalls our religious roots. But it’s the blood and guts (the suffering and sacrifice) symbolized by Memorial Day, that made America possible. To make ideals real – and to protect and preserve them -- requires payment in the coin of strife and death.
At the urging of my youngest son, I just finished watching the series “Band of Brothers,” based on the Stephen Ambrose history of one company of the 506th Regiment of the 101st Airborne, from Normandy to the Eagle’s Nest. It’s a stirring saga – all the more intense because it’s told without the usual Hollywood hoopla.
Each episode opens with commentary from the men whose story this is -- the veterans of Easy Company. Old men (most in their ‘80s) their faces are like a bomb-scarred landscape. There’s an undercurrent of emotion in the quiet voices of men who went through hell so the rest of us have a safe, comfortable life as free men in a nation of free men.
If I could speak with them, I’d ask: “Are you happy with what your country has become? When you were a nervous kid waiting to jump out of a plane while shells peppered the sky, did you ever imagine it would come to this?”
Alienation – the sense of being severed from your roots. Waking up covered in bandages, in a hospital bed in a strange land (where no one understands a word you’re saying) and wondering what happened to the world you once knew.
Doom and gloom, you say? You wouldn’t if you were paying attention.
Less than 8 weeks ago, a brain-damaged woman was deliberately starved to death. (Her mother was not allowed to moisten her parched lips with drops of water.) A judge decided that hers was a life unworthy of life -- in the finest tradition of Nazi medicine.
In Lexington, Massachusetts – where Minutemen first confronted the tyranny represented by redcoats – the father of a kindergartener was arrested recently for objecting to the indoctrination of his child in the homosexual lifestyle. (He had refused to leave his son’s elementary school until administrators agreed to respect his parental rights.) Nothing is allowed to stand in the way of teaching kids the swellness of sodomy.
In Nebraska, a federal judge overturned an amendment to the state constitution (enacted by over 70% of voters) recognizing the reality that a married couple is a man and a woman united in the bonds of matrimony – not two perverts playing house. Democracy and morality are dying together.
On a cable TV reality-based show, a fat loudmouth with a ponytail and his dwarf companion repeatedly used a four-letter word to refer to Mother Teresa, who devoted her life to succoring the sick and dying. This loathsome display of vulgarity and disrespect is one example of the evil that passes for entertainment in 21st century America.
Across the nation, pandering politicians rush to bestow benefits on illegal aliens – driver’s licenses, in-state tuition at public colleges for their children, even workmen’s compensation for injuries sustained at jobs they shouldn’t have. We’ve become a people of misplaced compassion who are driven to show love for home invaders.
In Massachusetts, Connecticut and elsewhere, bills advance to give addicts needles (supposedly to contain the spread of AIDS – a disease spawned by the Sexual Revolution). Thus have we gone from just-say-no, to just use a clean needle as you shoot junk into your arm and accelerate our evolution to Addict Nation. In California and a number of other Western states, physicians can prescribe pot – the drug that opens the gates to a life of addiction – for everything from the nausea accompanying chemotherapy to a bad back.
Sometime in its current term, the U.S. Supreme Court will decide if Americans will be allowed to have public displays of the Ten Commandments (as long as they’re constitutionally camouflaged with secular documents). It’s reached the point where this is a real big deal – permitting any public acknowledgement of the ethos on which America was founded. The 9th Circuit Appeals Court nearly succeeded in taking “one nation under God” out of the Pledge of Allegiance. (Its decision was overturned by the Supreme Court – on a technicality.) What then of John Adams admonition: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and a religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other”?
And that’s just an aerial overview of a nation in spiritual free-fall.
If you approve of the above, read no further. You are hopeless, and deserve the fate which awaits you. On the other hand, if you hate what we’ve become in the past four decades, let me show you the not-so-distant past.
Let me tell you what my America was like. For those of you under 40, it may come as a revelation.
· In my America, there was prayer in the schools, crèches in public parks at Christmas (in fact, sales people actually wished you a “Merry Christmas,” instead of the generic, secularized “happy holiday”), and universal respect for individuals who were reverently referred to a “men of the cloth.” Hollywood celebrated faith with classics like “The Song of Bernadette,” “Going My Way,” “The Ten Commandments” and “Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison.”
· Instead of half-naked, writhing celebrities and smirking savages with pistols larger than their brains, we had athletes, warriors, champions of justice and people of faith as heroes. (In terms of role models, we’ve gone from Audie Murphy to Edie Murphy.)
· It was universally acknowledged that sex should be reserved for marriage. Those who lived together without the benefit of a marriage license weren’t called a “cohabitating couple.” It was said they were “shacking up” or “fornicating.” The product of their “illicit” relationships weren’t “born out-of-wedlock;” they were bastards (a judgment on the parents, not the children).
· Pornography was limited to the shadow world – to paperbacks and magazines surreptitiously sold under the counter, or arriving in the mail in a plain-brown wrapper. Parents could be assured that children wouldn’t encounter sex before the appropriate time. Society treated this volatile aspect of human nature cautiously and respectfully, not as a lurid national pastime that pervades every aspect of our lives. Virginity and fidelity were prized. Indiscretion, promiscuity and adultery were condemned.
· Addiction too was limited to society’s fringes, to social outcasts. Provisions were made for the treatment – or incarceration – of the unfortunates who became slaves to narcotics. But we didn’t cater to them by facilitating their addiction, in the name of disease control or compassion.
· Immigrants (who were here legally) were humbly grateful to reside in the greatest nation on earth. They understood that it was their responsibility to learn our language and history and identify with us – in short to Americanize. Instead of making demands, they accepted obligations.
· In general, our society was more oriented toward responsibilities than rights. The mark of an American wasn’t a hand outstretched, palm up, but a shoulder for bearing burdens. Instead of whiny demands, we gratefully accepted duties.
· Crime was an anomaly. In small towns, people frequently went away for the weekend without locking their doors. Except for certain disreputable sections, the streets of our cities were safe for women, even at night Girls weren’t abducted, raped and buried alive in landfills. The rights of the accused were minimal.
· Expressions like “no-fault divorce,” “casual sex,” “recreational drugs,” “undocumented workers,” “same-sex couples,” “trophy wives,” “gender-neutral,” “racial profiling,” “affirmative action,” “church-state separation,” “victimless crimes,” “sex-industry workers,” “symbolic speech,” “sexually transmitted diseases,” “non-judgmentalism,” and “revisionist history” were blessedly unknown.
· Homosexuality was treated as a grievous sin – or a mental disorder (depending on your perspective) – not as an innate characteristic conferring minority status. Before they became “gay,” homosexuals weren’t hated; they were pitied. But they weren’t allowed to turn the social order upside down to enhance their self-esteem.
· The FBI. Boy Scouts, police, firemen, military and clergy were respected. Degenerates, parasites, misfits, mutants and whiners were not.
· Americans knew their history, celebrated their past and revered their heroes. They weren’t consumed with guilt for the mistakes of the past. Everyone knew that slavery was a great wrong and the Indians got a raw deal. We also knew that slavery was a universal institution and we weren’t the first people to clash with an indigenous population. We understood that America’s faults were minor and – on balance – the blessings we bestowed on humanity far outweighed our mistakes.
· We weren’t obsessed with our image abroad – whether foreigners loved us. We were willing to accept the animosity of the envious and the hatred of our enemies as part of the natural order. When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, we didn’t ask if we had brought this on ourselves by our ghastly treatment of a nation of ruthless warmongers. FDR didn’t proclaim that our mission was to bring democracy to the Germans and Japanese (that was a side effect). It was to kill Japanese and Germans and to keep killing them until they stopped killing Chinese and Filipinos, and Jews and Poles and went back where they belonged. The idea of Americans agonizing over whether Mein Kampf was treated disrespectfully in a POW camp for Germans is ludicrous.
· We weren’t “multi-cultural.” There was one culture – Anglo-Saxon, Protestant – to which others were expected to conform. This didn’t mean that Jews, Catholics, blacks or Asians, considered themselves less American than those of Mayflower descent. But it was universally acknowledged that America was founded on the heritage of Western civilization, as amplified and transmitted by England.
My America worked. We saved civilization from repeated barbarian onslaughts. We were the arsenal of democracy – the workshop of the world. Our prosperity lifted boats across the globe. We were happy, self-confident and proud.
And look at us now. We’re like a dysfunctional family of 268 million, bordered by two oceans.
Our salvation/resurrection lies in memory.
In a novel of the end of the Roman Empire (“The Last Legion” by Valerio Manfredi), the boy emperor Romulus Augustus and his tutor are about to escape their barbarian captors. The elderly mentor stops to take a copy of the “Aeneid” (Virgil’s epic poem of the founding of Rome).
“’That’s useless weight,’ protested Romulus.”
“’On the contrary, it is the most precious thing I have in here, my son,’ replied Ambrosinus. ‘When we flee and leave everything behind us, the only resource that we can take with us is memory. The memory of our origins, of our roots, the stories of our ancestors. Only memory can allow us to be reborn. It doesn’t matter where, it doesn’t matter when. If we conserve the memory of our past greatness and the reasons we’ve lost it, we will rise again.’”
No one will give us back our country. We have to take it back – with our memory, our discernment, our capacity for struggle and sacrifice and our sheer will.
These are thoughts to ponder while you’re waiting to jump out of a plane onto the battlefield of the culture war.
This article originally was published by GrasstopsUSA.com
http://www.donfeder.com/
Machete Attack a 'Tipping Point'
Officials see larger concerns connected to gang-related incident.
By Glenn McCarty
http://www.connectionnewspapers.com/article.asp?article=51558&paper=72&cat=104
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