Is Islam a Mental Illness? How to Reason with your Favorite Mob

Truepeers and I are having a debate of sorts over what to do about Islam and Muslims generally. Peers argues we cannot simply write them off as incorrigible and then resort to apocalyptic visions of revenge, stalking after the Muslim world and defeating it as bloodily as we may, expecting it to stay down eternally, our problems forever thereafter solved.

I have been putting forth that Islam is an Irrationality, and that those who are Muslims are something like insane, which I use for lack of a better term. Peers argues that "insanity" is a sure way of alienating the reasonable Muslim who wants nothing more or less than what any other person wants, and that to dismiss him, the normal Muslim, without trying to negotiate with him a common understanding of a covenant between disparate groups is to give in to -- I would guess-- and innate blood-lust and viciousness. Peers argues that debate and reason are the best ways to approach our problem with Islam, and that until all other reasonable avenues are show to be closed we cannot rightly resort to force. Calling the Muslim world "insane" does nothing to further the talks we must have with the Muslims we can deal with. Calling them all insane is merely to foreclose debate even with the most normal of Muslims, writing them off as not worth talking to at all, just being worth fighting. If we refuse to accept any Muslim as anything other than insane, then we begin with war and end with some utopian idea that we will stop all of the insanity and life will be perfect afterward.

Peers is, as our readers know well, an extremely sophisticated writer and debater. My point in posting the two short editorial pieces below is not to foreclose debate or to try to add legitimacy to anything I argue, but to show there is a side to the West that agrees with me in the mainstream. Regarding the particular debate between me and Peers, one may read it at Covenant Zone and see just how severely I blew the doors off his arguments today. Wow.

WEBCommentary Contributor
Author: Sher Zieve
Date: December 1, 2007

Does Islam Cause Mental Illness?

With resumed violent riots in France, the Saudi Arabian woman who was recently convicted of having been gang-raped by seven men and has been sentenced by the Islamic Shari'a court to 200 lashes with a whip (a virtual death sentence) and 6-months in prison, assuming she survives the beating, and the case of Muslims calling for the execution of British teacher in Sudan Gillian Gibbons (who allowed her students to name the classroom teddy bear Muhammad) the insanity occupying the Islamic world is once again slapping the rest of the world in its face. Although she was convicted by the fundamentalist Islamic court system of "insulting Islam" and sentenced to jail time, over 10,000 Sudanese Muslims have taken to the streets and are reported to still be screaming for Gibbons� death with: "No tolerance! Execution! Kill her, kill her by firing squad!"

Apparently not satisfied with last year's worldwide riots over the infamous Muhammad cartoons and the multiple videos of Islamist beheadings, not to mention the genocide of non-Muslims that is still being perpetrated in the Darfur area of Sudan, portions of the Muslim word are at it once again. As these types of extraordinarily brutal, sadistic and bizarre behaviors do not occur within the Jewish or Christian communities of the world, I believe that I must ask: Is it Islam, itself, that is causing this mental illness amongst its adherents?

In the mainstream reportage of these continuing and violent incidents, once again the bulk of the leftist media, the same media that vilifies virtually everything democracies affect to protect their citizens and bring down these regimes of terrorism, are offering "o opinion" on these recent Muslim atrocities. Note: Unfortunately, not all of the recent so-called extremism in the Muslim world is coming strictly from the Islamist factions. But, it does appear that an increasing number of non-Muslims are finally beginning to realize that violence against them is built into and commanded by the Surah verses (the latter stanzas) of the Qur'an.

" Islamic Rage-Boy Photo credit."

Getting back to the Gibbons debacle, an ostensibly mainstream Muslim cleric Abdul-Jalil Nazeer al-Karour in Khartoum worked to incense Muslims in his Mosque on Friday with: "This is an arrogant woman who came to our country, cashing her salary in dollars, teaching our children hatred of our Prophet Muhammad!" The fact that the children chose the teddy bear's name still seems to have escaped the attention of this cleric and others in these repressive Islamic systems. Instead a favorite theme on Islamic television continues to be "the proper way to beat one�s wife". In the below video link, women are compared to camels and donkeys and Muslim men are instructed not to beat their wives in the face but, to beat them "where it won't leave marks." Whew! That's helpful, unless you're a woman. Note: Western feminists still continue to ignore this and other Islamic atrocities committed against their "sisters." It's mind-boggling that they still pretend that none of this is actually occurring. Or, could it be that as it doesn't directly impact them, these "humane" feminists simply don't care about women half a world away? I vote for the latter.

Spurred on by its Imams, the Muslim world is becoming more and more violent each and every day. And it is now creating "insulting" situations when they have not occurred. Like the Leftists, Muslims attack before they are assaulted and then claim "victimhood". Note: This is another example of homicidal children killing their parents and then asking for sympathy because they're now orphans.

Like the recent riots in France, brought on by two Muslim teens running a red light with their motorbike and then hitting a police car, when these immigrants to Europe have nothing else to fall back on, they create false situations themselves. In this instance, Muslim "youth" in France torched cars, libraries and homes then claimed, even though it was the fault of the two teens, that the police were to blame!

So, I ask again: Is it in the interpretation or does Islam�itself�cause mental illness? Take a look at what's happening around the world and draw own conclusion.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/us_world/2007/12/01/2007-12-01_sudan_mobs_want_british_teacher_shot_for-1.html

Muslim Video on How to beat your wife�: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RsysfGN0Iw

Sher Zieve

http://www.webcommentary.com/asp/ShowArticle.asp?id=zieves&date=071201

Mobs rule and bullies dictate

David Warren

The Ottawa Citizen

Saturday, December 01, 2007

Let us not be timid in the face of bullying. I am thinking of the mob that formed in Khartoum yesterday, after Friday prayers in the mosques, demanding the execution of a British schoolteacher who was arrested by Sudan's ruling Islamist junta. Gillian Gibbons has already been "tried," and jailed 15 days, by one of this regime's kangaroo courts.

She was found guilty of "insulting Islam," and barely escaped 40 lashes or worse -- for what? For having named a class teddy bear "Mohammed," in complete innocence, at the suggestion of one of her pupils, whose own name is Mohammed, and who bravely stood up to defend her. In other words, a wilful misunderstanding, in which the wilful misunderstanders are calling for blood.

From the BBC's reports, we read the signs and hear the shouts from that mass rally: "No tolerance." "Execution." "Kill her." "Kill her by firing squad," etc. The paradox is that the idea of "zero tolerance" came from the politically-correct West, just as the idea of "tolerance" came from the civilized West before the era of political correctness.

The British Foreign Office is naturally on the case, and doing what it can to free Mrs. Gibbons, and get her out of that murderously dysfunctional country, which anyone of charitable intention (teachers, missionaries, the deliverers of food aid, invited foreign "peacekeeping" troops) enters at his own risk. A country in which slavery is still openly practised, and slave raids against Christians and Animists have been documented. Let us not be diplomatic when speaking of Sudan, or of the vicious government that has created not only the conditions for massacre and rapine, but also, the administrative problems that have followed from these. And which expects the world to solve its problems.

Alternatively, I am thinking of the violent mobs that have formed repeatedly in Calcutta, demanding the execution, or in the case of some moderates only the flogging and incarceration, of Taslima Nasreem. She is a witty feminist author from Bangladesh, whose memoir, Dwikhondito ("Split in Two," published in 2003) contained several remarks which fanatics consider to be derogatory to Islam. The government of West Bengal had already banned the book, in deference to the state's Muslim minority. And now, at the demand of the union government in Delhi, Ms. Nasreem has agreed to remove two pages from editions of the book available elsewhere. She has required heavy security and been whisked from one hiding place to another, around India.

Yet as the eminent Bengali artist, Shuvaprassana, has said: "This is a compromise that she has been forced into for the sake of getting refuge. But if she can drop two pages to get refuge in India, she can drop three pages and go back to Bangladesh."

This remark conveys more than first appears. Obviously, no matter what Ms Nasreem does, she cannot return to Bangladesh. The point to be read between Shuvaprassana's lines is that if we don't make our stand where we are standing, there is no end to retreat. The defence of freedom demands that we make no concessions -- no concessions at all -- to a bullying mob. And should people in the mob wish to impale themselves on the pikes of lawful authority, let them.

My third example of bullying is a more subtle one. It is from the conference at Annapolis this week, and could be seen on television, by any perceptive person. Naturally, it was widely noticed in Israel, but not elsewhere. The royal Saudi delegates not only did not politely applaud, as is the genteel custom, after the Israeli delegate spoke. They had declined to put in their earphones, to hear the translation while that delegate spoke. From a party to actual peace negotiations comes this rude gesture to announce that nothing a representative of Israel could say would be worth hearing.

After the conference, the Israeli foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, whose national affiliation is compounded by the fact she is a woman, made an unprecedented public complaint. She said that none of the Arab foreign ministers would shake her hand; that she was treated as a pariah. Or as Frans Timmermans put it -- a Dutch government minister who was in attendance -- they "shun her like she is Count Dracula's younger sister."

The questions should ask themselves: Why do we treat Arab foreign ministers diplomatically, who are themselves incapable of diplomacy? Why do we confer dignities upon Saudi royalty who will confer no dignity upon our friends?

These are naive questions, to be asked boldly.

David Warren's column appears Sunday, Wednesday and Saturday.

© The Ottawa Citizen 2007
http://www.canada.com/topics/news/story.html?id=e3bea1db-e534-4fb9-8793-19594334926e&k=22035&p=2

I know a great deal about Islam and its history. I don't know everything. I do know that i might have missed something that would lead me to believe Islam has a chance to reform itslef to become in time something like other religions of the Earth. I know too that no one currently speaking on this topic has spoken the right words to make it convincing. I hear nothing but uninformed platitudes, rehashed cliches, hopeful bursting bubbles, and taqiyyah. No proof, no evidence based in Islam as it is, no verifiable hints at a possible peaceful Islam.

Of those who claim that not all Muslims are violent jihadis, I agree. I argue though that the non-violent Muslims are either engaged in passive jihad as supporters or by-standers willing to aid and comfort jihadis in the field without actually going to violent lengths; or they are not really Muslims in any legitimate and meaningful sense at all in th e eyes of Muslims generally. I base that on my own and on the studies of others into orthodox Islam over the centuries, not on any ill-will toward Muslims. I accept the need for force to restrain and de-Islamise the world for the sake of the safety or Muslims. I see non-Islamic aggression against Islamic areas as the best hope of saving most Muslims from retaliation for the provocations they now instigate. That's me. There are others who see things more or less as I do. There is also much time to discuss the future, given that we aren't rushing off from the Halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli any time soon. Feel free to leave a comment, a fatwah, a thinwah, a dagwah, or a deathwah. I'm easy.

With Our Own

There is much kerfuffle about European ethnic nationalism and White racism recently among those of us who care about Human freedom and the Rights of Man. Some anti-jihadis are concerned that European anti-jihadis are nothing more than White racists who wish to exterminate non-Whites in Europe. Some "refuse to associate" with the neo-Nazis of anti-jihadi parties of Europe. The need for people to be among their own and to preserve the inheritance of millenia is nothing to these anti-racist puritans. If one distinguishes between them and us, then one must be a neo-Nazi. I prefer being among my own kind, and I make no apologies for it. I hate Islam.

Many are concerned that Islam is destroying the world and life as a good thing rather than as a slavery to a murderous ideology of primitives bent on ruining our beautiful Modernity for the sake of stoking their own evil rage and resentments. In that quest for annihilation of Modernity the Muslim world has allies in the Left dhimmi fascists and White Fascists of the West. Some of the Left fascists are Christian churches, eg. Presbyterian and Anglican, to mention only two of too many. Most church-goers are disgusted by their church leaders, and the proof of it is that most church-goers are leaving for other places.

While some Christian churches and some anti-jihadis beat their chests in a snit over "racism", of which they know next to nothing, watching and doing little or nothing to preserve our beautiful Modernity, berating Europeans for trying to preserve their world of good, others walk away and find normal people to associate with, people of their own kind.

Religion Today

By RACHEL ZOLL – Nov 22, 2007

Nearly every week, new visitors arrive. They want to see the megachurch that was built in the unlikeliest of places by the unlikeliest of men.

The Embassy of the Blessed Kingdom of God for All Nations was founded 13 years ago by a Nigerian immigrant, Sunday Adelaja, in Kiev, Ukraine. In a predominantly Orthodox Christian country where racism is pervasive, Adelaja created a Pentecostal church with 30,000 members.

But the church aims to be far more than a curiosity. Like the pastors who travel to Kiev to see him, Adelaja believes God's Embassy can be a model worldwide.

The next stop in his bid for global reach is the United States....

When the Christian churches spend most of their time and money berating Jews as Nazis and promoting the interests of Palestinian terrorism I find myself unsympathetic to Christian churches. In fact, I might have gone so far as to urge that many leaders of mainstream Christian churches be tried for crimes against humanity; and that if and when convicted, they should be hanged from lamp posts. Must be that Dag sense of humor. Yes, I might have, a time or two, urged that the PCUSA leadership be thrown to the lions at the city zoo, but ha ha. What I really meant to write is that Christians should defenestrate the bastards. Oh, me and my joking! No, gentle reader, Christians should burn them at the stak--

Damn. There is an alternative, and it's one I have tried unsuccessfully to do here in Vancouver, Canada: that is to join an African Protestant church. You object, dear reader? You rightly point out that over and again I make it clear that I am a Godless atheist, and yet I try to join a church?! Well, yeah. That makes good sense to me. What kind of fool would spend a whole life making the best of nothing just because? I like people, I have some values I take seriously, and I like being with others who share those values with me because most of them are good people and I could stand some rubbing off of such. I don't smoke pot, don't skateboard, and don't watch television. I like being with people, and I like being with good people, not Presbyterian social worker povertarian war-criminal abbetors. I like people who are honest and decent and happy; and I hate Presbyterian dhimmi scum cheerleaders who support killers. So, it's just plain logic that I would want to find a church full of people who share my values even if I'm not exactly one of them in all regards. Maybe I'm not so much a Christian, and perhaps I'm not really very African; but those things are mere details we can work out later if it comes up in conversation. The main point is that I want to spend my time with people I like, decent people, not fucking Presbyterians! So I look for African Christians. Guess what? They seem to be coming my way.

"America is fast becoming a mission ground again," Adelaja said in a phone interview from Sacramento, Calif., during his latest trip through the country. "We are surprised that the Americans who preached to us, the passion they had is almost already gone."

Adelaja is among a stream of pastors from Africa and other countries starting hundreds of churches in the U.S. Their congregations back home are bursting with worshippers as Christianity advances through the developing world. The clergymen see American churches as [foundering] — focused more on money than God and filled with stale preaching and sinfulness.

They hope to save the country that brought them the faith.

"When the values are crashing, you have the largest number of abortions, divorce and school shootings. These things are very sad," Adelaja said. "As America goes, so goes the world. We shouldn't allow the Christian influence to diminish in this country."

His goals may seem unrealistic, but researchers who study global religion are already calling this the "African century" of Christianity. African churches — with their zeal and resourcefulness — are poised to become a force not just in America but around the world.

Adelaja trains mission workers in Ukraine and, through them, he says he has already started more than 600 churches in dozens of nations. In the past few years, he has been traveling around the U.S., building ties with pastors, especially leaders from the Pentecostal and charismatic traditions, known for spirited worship and speaking in tongues.

"At present, he doesn't have great influence," in the United States, but has a "network of fans," said Tony Carnes, who studies African churches in the New York area and beyond. "This current trip is a sustained effort to bring Adelaja to the greater church audience."

God's Embassy claims 20 churches in America, built mainly through Ukrainian and Russian-speaking immigrants and their U.S.-born children and friends. Last year, he started History Makers Bible School in New Jersey and says 200 or so pastors from around the country attend the weekend classes.

The Kiev megachurch funnels about $200,000 each year to its American offshoots, which serve an estimated 5,000 people, Adelaja said. In sharp contrast to other African-led churches in the U.S., Adelaja says his American congregations, usually called God's Embassy, are overwhelmingly white.

The pastor's big push comes in January when he joins a conference of American and overseas pastors and business leaders in Atlanta to improve leadership in churches. Shortly after, he plans to release his book and workbook called "Church Shift," to help U.S. pastors learn his strategies for reaching nonbelievers.

"I'm not bringing cultural particularities of Africa or Ukraine here," Adelaja said. "I'm using biblical principles to make headway."

Adelaja, 40, certainly sounds like many conservative Christians in the U.S.

He says secular Americans are discouraging Christians from sharing their beliefs. "You want to give minorities the freedom to talk, but you want to make the majority quiet," he said.

Social ills — from teen pregnancy to government corruption — can be solved through the values that Christianity teaches, about love, purity, fear of God and honesty, the pastor said.

He considers Muslim extremism one of the biggest threats facing the world. In Nigeria, which Adelaja left as a young adult to study in the Soviet Union, the population is nearly evenly split between Muslims and Christians, and violence between the two groups is common.

Despite the deep involvement of Christian conservatives in American public life, he also believes American churches should do more to influence government policy.

His Kiev megachurch played key roles in get-out-the-vote efforts and protests meant to strengthen Ukraine's young democracy. He says too many American Christians are focused more on career than creating a ministry for God.

"We're not saying we should go back to the medieval age when the Christian church used to be the government. That was a mistake of the medieval time in Europe," Adelaja said. "We're only saying anybody who has a value system shouldn't be ashamed of it."

"If we don't engage the culture," he said, "the culture is going to overrun the church."
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gq7KQubcoZYlyDvdQtL1eVU3fEzQD8T2RC8O1

An African guy from the Ukraine? Well, that's just right for me. Does he know Gospel music? Maybe that's a contribution I can make to the Church. Maybe I can add my harsh voice to the chorus and I can stand with my fellow African/Ukrainian brothers and sisters and I can sing till tears roll down my happy, smiling face:

1. He´s got the whole world in His hands,
|: He´s got the whole world in His hands, :|
He´s got the whole world in His hands.

2. He´s got the wind and the rain in His hands,
|: He´s got the wind and the rain in His hands, :|
He´s got the whole world in His hands.

3. He´s got the the tiny little baby in His hands,
|: He´s got the the tiny little baby in His hands, :|
He´s got the whole world in His hands.

4. He´s got you and me, brother, in His hands,
|: He´s got you and me, brother, in His hands, :|
He´s got the whole world in His hands.

5. He's got ev'rybody here in His hands.
|: He's got ev'rybody here in His hands. :|
He's got the whole world in His hands.

---

1. He´s got the whole world in His hands,
|: He´s got the whole world in His hands, :|
He´s got the whole world in His hands.
He's got the earth and sky in his hands;
He's got the night and day in his hands;
He's got the sun and moon in his hands;
He´s got the whole world in His hands.

2. He´s got the whole world in His hands,
|: He´s got the whole world in His hands, :|
He´s got the whole world in His hands.
He's got the land and sea in his hands;
He's got the wind and rain in his hands;
He's got the spring and fall in his hands;
He´s got the whole world in His hands.

3. He´s got the whole world in His hands,
|: He´s got the whole world in His hands, :|
He´s got the whole world in His hands.
He's got the young and old in his hands;
He's got the rich and poor in his hands;
Yes, he's got ev'ry one in his hands;
He´s got the whole world in His hands.

He´s got the whole world in His hands,
|: He´s got the whole world in His hands, :|
He´s got the whole world in His hands.

No one's taking credit for writing this song. No one takes credit for singing it in church. It's something anyone can do, but it'd be pretty painful to do it alone. wikipedia adds this:

"He's Got the Whole World in His Hands" is a spiritual that made the popular song charts in a 1958 version by Laurie London, which went all the way to #1 of the Most Played by Jockeys song list in the USA.

Flush with Pride: Bindeshwar Pathak

Bathos is the word to describe it: What should be tragic is actually a laughing matter. He was a young guy on the road in a Third World country who decided he's accustom himself to local conditions, wanting to "go native" for some reason, a Romantic kid. I have done monstrously stupid and sometimes evil things in my life, but I had the good fortune to live long enough to change and regret my ways, to learn and to try to do better. Lucky for me I never felt any desire to "go native." Our buddy did. He decided to sip a bit of local water every day to "get used to it and build up a tolerance." No amount of talking him out of it worked. He sipped a bit of water, got sick, and tried again next day, convinced that he'd develop an immunity to the water and its problems, just like the locals. Telling him the locals die from drinking the water didn't impress him, there being many locals living quite nicely who drink the water. To make a long and obvious story short, our buddy laid in bed for a week with something like lizards in his guts eating him to death. There is no immunity from things that kill. The locals die. Eventually poison kills everyone. Bathos. It's not possible to sympathize with anyone so foolish. The locals drink the local water because they have no choice. When they do, they don't drink it because it's poisonous. One of the many great things about our Modern world is that the water is drinkable, that it doesn't kill us and our children. Few of us ever give it a second thought, instead worrying ourselves silly with concerns that drive us to bottled water at the price of a peasant worker's daily wage. Our ordinary tap water is like manna from Heaven. Thank God.

Water is a boring thing. I use it to make coffee in the morning, and I shower in it and such. I really don't even think about it. It's just water. It comes out of the tap and goes down the drain till next time. Here. In the Modern world. Do that other places and you will likely end up dead or wrecked in the guts for all of your life. Not to be too graphic about it, many people in the Third World drink liquid shit because there is no sanitation programme to save them from it. It's enough to make an ordinary man howl with rage.

I'm an ordinary man and I get completely upset. An extraordinary man sits down and thinks about the problem well enough to come up with a solution to poisoned drinking water. I have some things in life yet to learn:

"DR. BINDESHWAR PATHAK is the leader of a national crusade for restoration of human rights and dignity to millions of scavengers (cleaner and carrier of human excreta), traditionally known as untouchables; and for providing safe and hygienic human waste disposal system to 700 million Indian population who go outside for open defecation even along roads and railway tracks...."1.

Sanitation is so simple that when there is a place without it it's enough to make one weep. India is such a place, and the untouchables are the caste that suffer from the effect more than all others. So Dr Pathak made it his life to attempt a solution to the question of Untouchables and the hygiene problem. In India not everyone can have a flush toilet and a sewer connection. Instead, millions of buckets stand on the streets for the population to use as they will, and the Untouchables deal with it as a life. They are the caste that is "untouchable." No wonder. The solution? Pathak came up with the Sulabh toilet:

"The Sulabh technology is a very simple device. It consists of two pits and sealed cover. While one is in use, the other pit is left to manure. And, finally, it is cleared to be used as manure. By using this technology, there will be no need to physically clean human excreta."1.

There are two kinds of people on this Earth, according to me: there are the reactionaries, those who wage constant war against the triune revolutions of Modernity, i.e., the Industrial, American, and French Revolutions, revolutions of democracy and rationality, of individualism and positive common law, revolutions against privilege and entitled tyranny; and there are the progressives, those who work to incrementally improve the life of man by adding piece by piece to our beautiful Modernity. I mean, for example, toilets and sewers.

"[T]he Sulabh Shauchalaya is a low cost, pour flush, water-seal toilet with twin leach pits for on-site disposal of human waste. The technology has many advantages. It is affordable, even by the economically weaker sections of the society, and is designed to suit different levels of income. Flushing requires only two litres of water, instead of 10 litres needed by a conventional toilet. The toilet can never be out of commission since one of the two pits can always be used while the other is being serviced. The latrine can be built with locally available material. It can be conveniently upgraded as it is a stand-alone, on-site unit that can be connected to a sewer system as and when the latter is introduced in the area."1.

We can ask ourselves what our priorities are in this life. I copy this from Jihad Watch:

V.S. Naipaul writes of my favorite Moslem, a man living in Pakistan:

"His world had shrunk to a hut in a crumbling village. He was prepared for even that to crumble away further, once the faith was served."

Among the Believers, Penguin: p. 89.

It's a matter of epistemology, of eschatology, of the simple view of Human life's worth. I favor Modernity, even with its attendant problems. The living can deal with them.

"Dr. Pathak sought to abolish scavenging not only out of sympathy for scavengers but also out of the belief that it is a primitive, expensive and unhygienic practice which may create an explosive situation in which case a highly dissatisfied group will turn lumpen and work to destroy the social system. For that matter, the Sulabh Movement is different from other social movements: it is an indigenous concept based on experience and tested scientifically, combining in itself an appropriate technology and demand for social morality. In simpler words, while other movements identified problems and injustices in society but failed to find solutions, Dr. Pathak identified problems, developed a self-sustaining system, gave an appropriate technology and, finally, solved the problem."1.

The problem. Solving the problem. "Solving the problem" is a problem for fascists. It's not so much that they don't know how, it's that they do not want the problem solved; and in fact, they like the problem and want more of it. That is a central pillar of fascism. White, Red, Green or Muslim, all fascisms demand a return to a state of primitivism, a return to "authenticity." All fascisms share a hatred of Modernity, even a hatred of toilets and sewers. All fascisms demand a return to feudalism or worse. They all demand a communitarian peasant life at best, a non-market economy, a cashless economy, an economy of trade and barter, of simplicity in social relations, there being a leader and the rest following in a "natural" order, a hierarchy of the powerful and the slaves, all together, and none apart. Cities must disappear so people will again live authentic lives communally, sharing, caring, and cetera. People must remove from alienating environments, from cities, to "the land." Back to the state of Nature, people will find authenticity and natural order. No fascism can accommodate Modernity. There can be no individuals alone and private. Every man is but a sliver of the whole, nothing in himself without the group giving him identity. Having ones own toilet? Anti-social. From workers' communes to mass extermination camp showers to group nudist hippie mud baths to the communal ritual foot-washing, all fascisms demand a collective life. And it is a poverty.

Living for the faith, living for little else than the faith, it is a poverty that is a "povertarianism." The Romantic reaction against the triune progressive revolutions is a utopian nightmare, a dystopian vision of the worth of Man, an anti-Humanism. The Party, the Fuehrer, the Umma, Mother Nature, all despise Man. All, at best, demand that Man live as a farm animal, tended and minded and herded, and eventually slaughtered. For the Communists, kill all the rich and the class traitors; for the Nazis, kill all the Jews and the inferior people who are outside the purity of Nature; for the Muslims, kill all the kufar; and for the ecologists, kill everyone and let Nature resume its course. In every case of fascism, those who live must live simply, i.e. in poverty, hence "povertarianism." No Modernity, no cities, no privacy, no sewers, no toilets. All are one, all are poor. It is the vision of the Left, of Islam, of Nazis, of ecologists. Crush Humanity!

Without a market economy, without privacy, without a high regard for the worth of Man, there will be no toilets and no sewers. Those who hate Modernity will condemn Man to a squalid life of filth, illness, and death. Leftists who unite with Rightist to gang together with Muslims and ecologists are all fascists, all hating Modernity and Humanity. When you hear: "Yankees go Home," hear: "No toilets, no sewers for the people." Hear the voice of fascism. Hear the life of Man going down the drain forever. Pathetic.

1. http://www.sulabhtoiletmuseum.org/profile.htm

The Grateness of Sewers

A world without sewers is not only stinking and vile, it's a disease-ridden world that kills children and just about everyone else unfortunate to have to live in it. Sewers are a small thing most of us never give any thought to. Why should we? Sewers are underground, out of sight, out of mind. Like most of our beautiful Modernity, most people take sewers for granted. That in itself is a blessing of Modernity. To live without thinking about the blessings we have, it's a goodness in life.

Some people do know about our sewers, those who have to enter them and fix them when they're broken. To enter the dark realm of sewers one need an ingress, and there we have something our Modernity also provides us in abundance: a physical beauty reified by the happy mind, in this case, artwork in the form of manhole covers. Sewers are a beauty of Man's mind, a wonder of thinking and care for people. Sewers, if I may indulge in some seeming flight of rhapsodic hyperbole, sewers are expressions of love. One must love Humanity to care enough about it to make sewers for the benefit of strangers. And for those who enter in, some people make the covers that cover the holes into art. Those of us who walk in cities and see lovely manhole covers smile and are made better for it.

Ode to Karl Shapiro

I am struck by the beauty of manhole covers.
Addicted to their cryptic charms.
I have brushed away sand and debris
To reveal stamped symbols.

I have kneeled at steel rims,
To record autumn images:
Waxed dark crayons, across white paper
Taped to cold, notched-whelked lids.

I have seen steam rising
From cold wintry grates.
Glimpsed rusty iron peeping through
Snowy track and icy treds.

Summer's steaming Con Ed irons
Burned my hands: melted my crayons.

Rubbings, photos, prints and sculptures
Honor these urban artifacts:
Preserving their beauty
Never outdated.

- Bobbi Mastrangelo

http://www.grateworks.com/

What a wonderful thing to write a poem about manhole covers. What a wonderful person to think of it. A bit of blurb from sewer history org:

Artist Bobbi Mastrangelo of Poinciana, Florida, celebrates the beauty of manhole and utility covers in her inventive and beautifully textured multimedia pieces.

Recording the disappearing legacy of intricate cast iron manhole covers is an important element of her work. "When streets and sidewalks are repaved, the older lids are often replaced with modern, standardized covers. Because of our anti-pollution laws, many of our foundries closed. We now import many more covers from India and Brazil. Most of these designs are universal and plain. As I traversed the streets of Manhattan, I noticed the contrast in designs, shapes and purposes of the covers. Some of the oldest castings boasted intricate, artistic designs created by real craftsmen. After a while I realized that some of my artworks record the amazing patterns of older covers. So in essence, these are historic documentations."

You might be at this point asking yourself who makes manhole covers. Who are these men who work in iron foundries to make for those of us who notice works of art? You likely won't be surprised to learn that the men who make many of our manhole covers work in conditions straight out of nineteenth century England, like pages out of Friedrich Engels' Conditions of the Working Class in England. A horror story? You bet. That these men are proud of the work they do and of themselves is little consolation for the conditions of their lives. In the lives of the men below they will likely never see any noticable improvement in their working conditions. Their lives will likely always be hard. But things will improve, if not for the men below then for their children and for their grandchildren till it comes to the point no one but the most eccentric even notices the work of the grandfathers who made the manhole covers they walk over on the way to the office. Progress? It is sewers. It is the life of a man who takes pride in doing his job making metal for a city, sweating and burning and carrying on with joy. And the pain? Yes, there is always pain. Sacrifice? Sometimes so.

When I next walk on a sewer cover I will stop for a second and thank the men who made it, and I'll look at their children healthy and strong and happy, and I'll be happy. What a great world we have in our beautiful Modernity!

Truepeers sent this to me. I hope you can read it and grasp the wonder of these men rather than indulge in anti-American foolery.

New York manhole covers, forged barefoot in India
By Heather Timmons and J. Adam Huggins The New York Times
Monday, November 26, 2007

Eight thousand miles from New York, barefoot, shirtless, whip-thin men rippled with muscle were forging prosaic pieces of the urban jigsaw puzzle: manhole covers.

Seemingly impervious to the heat from the metal, the workers at one of West Bengal's many foundries relied on strength and bare hands rather than machinery. Safety precautions were barely in evidence; just a few pairs of eye goggles were seen in use on a recent visit. The foundry, Shakti Industries in Haora, produces manhole covers for Con Edison and New York City's Department of Environmental Protection, as well as for departments in New Orleans and Syracuse.

The scene was as spectacular as it was anachronistic: flames, sweat and liquid iron mixing in the smoke like something from the Middle Ages. That's what attracted the interest of a photographer who often works for The New York Times — images that practically radiate heat and illustrate where New York's manhole covers are born.

When officials at Con Edison — which buys a quarter of its manhole covers, roughly 2,750 a year, from India — were shown the pictures by the photographer, they said they were surprised.

"We were disturbed by the photos," said Michael S. Clendenin, director of media relations with Con Edison. "We take worker safety very seriously," he said.

Now, the utility said, it is rewriting international contracts to include safety requirements. Contracts will now require overseas manufacturers to "take appropriate actions to provide a safe and healthy workplace," and to follow local and federal guidelines in India, Clendenin said.

At Shakti, street grates, manhole covers and other castings were scattered across the dusty yard. Inside, men wearing sandals and shorts carried coke and iron ore piled high in baskets on their heads up stairs to the furnace feeding room.

On the ground floor, other men, often shoeless and stripped to the waist, waited with giant ladles, ready to catch the molten metal that came pouring out of the furnace. A few women were working, but most of the heavy lifting appeared to be left to the men.

The temperature outside the factory yard was more than 100 degrees on a September visit. Several feet from where the metal was being poured, the area felt like an oven, and the workers were slick with sweat.

Often, sparks flew from pots of the molten metal. In one instance they ignited a worker's lungi, a skirtlike cloth wrap that is common men's wear in India. He quickly, reflexively, doused the flames by rubbing the burning part of the cloth against the rest of it with his hand, then continued to cart the metal to a nearby mold.

Once the metal solidified and cooled, workers removed the manhole cover casting from the mold and then, in the last step in the production process, ground and polished the rough edges. Finally, the men stacked the covers and bolted them together for shipping.

"We can't maintain the luxury of Europe and the United States, with all the boots and all that," said Sunil Modi, director of Shakti Industries. He said, however, that the foundry never had accidents. He was concerned about the attention, afraid that contracts would be pulled and jobs lost.

New York City's Department of Environmental Protection gets most of its sewer manhole covers from India. When asked in an e-mail message about the department's source of covers, Mark Daly, director of communications for the Department of Citywide Administrative Services, said that state law requires the city to buy the lowest-priced products available that fit its specifications.

Daly said the law forbids the city from excluding companies based on where a product is manufactured.

Municipalities and utility companies often buy their manhole covers through middlemen who contract with foreign foundries; New York City buys the sewer covers through a company in Flushing, Queens.

Con Edison said it did not plan to cancel any of its contracts with Shakti after seeing the photographs, though it has been phasing out Indian-made manhole covers for several years because of changes in design specifications.

Manhole covers manufactured in India can be anywhere from 20 to 60 percent cheaper than those made in the United States, said Alfred Spada, the editor and publisher of Modern Casting magazine and the spokesman for the American Foundry Society. Workers at foundries in India are paid the equivalent of a few dollars a day, while foundry workers in the United States earn about $25 an hour.

The men making New York City's manhole covers seemed proud of their work and pleased to be photographed doing it. The production manager at the Shakti Industries factory, A. Ahmed, was enthusiastic about the photographer's visit, and gave a full tour of the facilities, stopping to measure the temperature of the molten metal — some 1,400 degrees Centigrade, or more than 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit.

India's 1948 Factory Safety Act addresses cleanliness, ventilation, waste treatment, overtime pay and fresh drinking water, but the only protective gear it specifies is safety goggles.

Modi said that his factory followed basic safety regulations and that workers should not be barefoot. "It must have been a very hot day" when the photos were taken, he said.

Some labor activists in India say that injuries are far higher than figures show. "Many accidents are not being reported," said H. Mahadevan, the deputy general secretary for the All-India Trade Union Congress.

Safety, overall, is "not taken as a serious concern by employers or trade unions," Mahadevan added.

A. K. Anand, the director of the Institute of Indian Foundrymen in New Delhi, a trade association, said in a phone interview that foundry workers were "not supposed to be working barefoot," but he could not answer questions about what safety equipment they should be wearing.

At the Shakti Industries foundry, "there are no accidents, never ever. Period," Modi said. "By God's will, it's all fine."

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/11/26/america/26manhole.php

When I next walk on a sewer cover I will stop for a second and thank the men who made it, and I'll look at their children healthy and strong and happy, and I'll be happy. What a great world we have in our beautiful Modernity!

A Race Against Conformity

There is a brewing stew of acrimony among some anti-jihadis that the struggle in our Modernist West is polluted by those not simply concerned with the preservation of individualist secular rights in a democratic Europe, i.e . those opposed to Muslim privilege, opposed to encroaching shari'a, opposed to imposed dhimmitude: there is a cry that those Europeans who proclaim themselves democrats in struggle against fascist Islam and Left dhimmi fascism are-- God help us-- Racists! What? Can it get worse? Yes, dear reader, it can: There is much suggestion and outright accusation that the European movement to maintain a European culture in Europe is nothing more than a thinly disguised movement lead by crypto-Nazis Many spot them as soon as the lights go out and they shut their eyes. Neo-Nazis under every bed. Are the political parties of Europe secretly (and not so secretly) Jew-hating monsters slavering over dreams of rising from the ashes of the 1940s to reopen the gates to Auschwitz? Some of the hysterical voices are certain such is so. Do we work with Europeans or do we go it alone and take them over because they are untrustable? Do we shunt aside all native Europeans because they are probably Nazis in disguise? Do we simply wash our hands of Europeans because we imagine they are Nazis? Oh, yes, there's all the proof. Let's not forget that. A secret cabal of Nazis is taking over Europe using the anti-jihad movement as they Trojan Horse. Of course. We have to decide if the movement to restore democracy in Europe is actually a Nazi plot. It's a decision that hangs over us, and it will for many years to come.

Here hangs Europe, its fate hanging between Islamic demographic conquest, a masochistic Left fascism, and an intimidated and beguiled by delusions of sentimental guilt mass middle ruled by a cynical post-Nazi pagan elite of neo-feudalists on the one side, and in the balance on the other those few who act to save what they can of Europe as a traditional European land of continuous striving for betterment and freedom. Against the latter, in our struggle against violent jihad and demographic Islamization of Europe, some our our own, our pseudo-democrats, cry "Racism!" as if they understand the word and its meaning, its connotations and its history rather than the vestiges of it usage as a Left pejorative. Racism. Ethnic Nationalism. Oh woe! Knowing little or nothing of the ideas of "racism" our own rush to scream they cannot possibly be part of a neo-Nazi movement of European racists. Racists and Nazis, colonialists and imperialists! Down with the lot. Family and inheritance and a privilege of foundation, no, it's all racist. Our beautiful Modernity? Our Manifest Destiny? Oh, Oh, Racism! We hang. We hang on "racism."

Our current noose of post-modernity is woven of many ideological threads, one of which is the socialist rubbish multi-culti day-dreams of Anthony Giddens. How did we find ourselves in this mess? How did we come to allow the likes of the British Labour Party to rule us and to destroy our culture and the likelihood of its continuation? Why is all of Europe on the edge of an abyss from which the step back might well cause catastrophe? For our immediate problem thank Giddens and his socialist friends following in the muddy footsteps of Mead, Benedict, and Boas. Thank the post-God missionaries returned from all points sick and primitive for spreading the gospel of Cultural Relativism, the elitist missionaries of upper-class philobarbarism, the anthropologists who saw the beauties of all cultures and peoples and rushed to protect them from Modernity and our colonialist policies. Thank the reaction to Galton and de Gobineau. Today, thanks to the anthropologist antimissionaries of the beginning of the last century, we live with a pervasive ideology of the oneness of Man and with the stigma of racism clinging like ordure to all who are not Other. Racism as the apocalyptic hobby-horse of privileged dilettante intellectuals? A century old parlor-trick for childless spinsters with nothing in life but yo indulge their zeal for baby-sitting the world? Could it be that all this rage over racism is a simple ephemeron bronzed by po-mo bo-bo Scholatics? Is the Modernity of our world falling to pieces because of a mayfly of the mind 100 years old? Is racism merely an elitist intellectual fad of the early part of last century? Is it possible that colonialism is an excellent thing? Racist colonialism a good thing? Is it possible that we condemn things we know not the sense of? That we are hanging ourselves because the light of knowledge is out and in this ignorant darkness we don't see the strands that make the noose? Racist colonialism? HA!

British colonialism looks bad from the Scottish view, from the empty Highlands dotted today and for centuries with sheep. The people sheared and cleared and the commons ground of men. America and "A Little Matter of Genocide," as the ever pithy Ward Churchill describes our brilliant history? The Congo drummed nearly out of existence? The Pied Noir blackguards of the North chopping till they fled the dunes, pursued to home? Colonialism. It was a bad thing. Oh so bad. Let us weep for the imposition of Modernity on the primitives. Forget me: "That I used to hate the sight of a sheep on the land because I saw it take the place of a man; but now I thank the Lord my own were cleared so I had a chance to be born and raised not here but in America! Thank God, Thank God!" Yeah, forget about that.

Let us all weep from guilt at our terrible misdeeds toward the Other. Let us indulge in philobarbarism, in our guilt that feels so good when we feel so bad. Out colonial heritage, a blight upon the land and the world, a crime against Humanity. Pseudo-scientists, fools all, have driven our beautiful Modernity into the wilderness and left us stunned and stupid, living like monks of the desert engaged in pursuit of spiritual elevation and being seen to perform might tasks. Having every fucking thing on Earth, we must also glut on moralism. More money than God, (though less than Oprah,) we are now free and determined to be the best of all people. We will be without sin. Modernity not being nearly enough for mortal men, we must be perfect too. What else is there when we have it all? Having little to strive for anymore, we must look back to rue our ways, to beg forgiveness for our beauty, to make amends for our lovely Modern world. We have to share, we have to care, we have to be nice to everyone. They hate us. We must try harder to be loved, or otherwise we are so much more guilty that ever we thought. Let's give it all away, everything we stole to make room for sheep. Yeah, I want to live in a peat bog. Just so. Thank you, Anthony Giddens. Thank you Tony Blair. Bless you, E.U. minders who know so much better than I my guilt and my need for purity. Impose upon me authenticity and kindness. Correct my trespasses against others who have never trespassed against me, they who lived their eternal lives in bliss and harmony with Mother Nature till my own came and destroyed the pristine world of primitivism. Make right, oh mighty minders, the the evils we have wrought.

Let us now hate famous men: Galton and de Gobineau.

I have been steamed, furious and angry; yes, and alone in my agony over social injustice. One is the loneliest number one can ever do. Thus it is for other isolated Gnostics who must, who are compelled by sheer Humanness, driven to make right the wrongs of a systemic outrage against the Other, that they would band together against the cruel conspirators of the perpetuation of mystification and false consciousness to terrorize the world's helpless and pure. Oh Boas! Show us how all peoples are equal in dignity and worth, how each culture is in itself a perfection on its way to Godliness alone to itself if only we can restore it to its prelapsarian genius. Social injustice! By God, never in the history of Mankind have we ever before thought of such things, but now we do, and we must act before it's too late. And yes, the whole corrective plan is to allow others to share our good fortune and our prosperity, such as we have literally stolen from Other, to give back to the Community, to the Brotherhood of Man. Glory! We will be Gods! We will be Perfects!

How, you ask? We must begin by correcting Galton and de Gobineau. We must accept that the Jews are eternally cursed, of course, but we must also accept that we are racists. It is our original sin to be born European, a stigma we cannot ever erase even through the greatest of our good deeds. But we must forever attempt to do our best, knowing we are condemned to failure. We must be humiliated by those we have hurt, whose cultures we have destroyed. "Kick the bastards out?" No. No, no, no. We have to let them in, because nobody is illegal." Why, aren't we all Human? How can a person's existence be 'illegal?' No, let them in to share our ill-gotten wealth. We stole it from others in the first place, and now we must dismantle our palaces of inequity and share with those we have hurt so deeply by our iniquity.

But let us not follow old paths, let us find a third way to the golden future, following the genius of the mind of Tony Blair, the brain known as Anthony Giddens.

"Giddens' recent work has been concerned with the question of what is characteristic about social institutions in various points of history. Giddens agrees that there are very specific changes that mark our current era, but argues that it is not a "post-modern era", but just a "radicalised modernity era" (similar to Zygmunt Bauman's concept of liquid modernity), produced by the extension of the same social forces that shaped the previous age. Giddens nonetheless differentiates between pre-modern, modern and late (high) modern societies and doesn't dispute that important changes have occurred but takes a neutral stance towards those changes, saying that it offers both unprecedented opportunities and unparalleled dangers. He also stresses that we haven't really gone beyond modernity. It's just a developed, detraditionalized, radicalised, 'late' modernity. Thus the phenomena that some have called 'postmodern' are to Giddens nothing more than the most extreme instances of a developed modernity.[8] Giddens concentrates on a contrast between traditional (pre-modern) culture and post-traditional (modern) culture. In traditional societies, individual actions are not matters that have to be extensively considered and thought about, because available choices are already predetermined (by the customs, traditions, etc.). In contrast, in post-traditional society people (actors, agents) are much less concerned with the precedents set by previous generations, and options are at least as open as the law and public opinion will allow. Therefore individual actions now require much more analysis and thought before they are taken. Society becomes much more reflexive and aware, something Giddens is fascinated with, illustrating it with examples ranging from formal government at one end of the scale to intimate sexual relationships at the other."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Giddens

Pleasingly pretty, yes? Not a stinking capitalist, not an outright socialist, but a man in the middle, taking the third way, the way of the managerial-minder Gnostic. Put on your high rubber boots and wade through his works. Then see for yourself what it leads to:

Research and compilation by Esther, "Islam in Europe."

Friday, November 23, 2007

Muslim population in European cities

I was recently asked which cities in Europe have the highest Muslim percentage. The following is what I found in my research. My sources are marked with an asterisk. Not all sources have the same reliability level.

If my readers have more information, I will be glad to integrate it into this list.

Note that in some of these cities, there are neighborhoods which have a much higher percentage of Muslims (for example: Kreuzberg in Berlin, Molenbeek in Brussels and Tower Hamlets in London).

Marseilles - 25% (200,000 of 800,000) (*), PACA region - 20% (0.7-1.0 million of 1.5 million) ( *)
Malmo - ~25% (* )
Amsterdam - 24% (180,000 of 750,000) ( *), Greater Amsterdam - 12.7% ( *)
Stockholm - 20% (>155,000 of 771,038) ( *)
Brussels - ~20% (some say 33%) ( *)
Greater London - 17% (1.3 million of 7.5 million) ( *)
Luton - 14.6% (26,963) ( *)
Birmingham 14.3% (139,771) ( *)
Rotterdam - 13% (80,000 of 600,000) ( *), Greater Rotterdam - 9.9%
Copenhagen - 12.6% (63,000 of 500,000) ( *)
Leicester - 11% (>30,000 of 280,000) ( *)
The Hague (area) - 11% ( *)
Aarhus - ~10% (*)
Zaan district (Netherlands) - 8.8% ( *)
Paris - 7.38% (155,000 of 1.2 million) (*)
Utrecht (area) - 7% ( *)
Antwerp- 6.7% (>30,000 of >450,000) (*)
Hamburg - 6.4% (>110,000 of 1.73 million) ( *)
Berlin - 5.9% (~200,000 of 3.40 million) (*)

http://islamineurope.blogspot.com/2007/11/muslim-population-in-european-cities.html

Islam overruns Europe, Muslim privilege overrides native and traditional values, creeping sharia looms, dhimmitude descends, and the elite, aided by conformist Left dhimmi fascsists, cut away the fabric of European Modernity in a so-far successful attempt at imposing neo-feudalismon a frightened and docile populaiton, cowed by thought police, armed and uniformed police, shouting "Racism!"

Racism. One is tempted to respond bluntly with a simple: "So what?" One might say that racism, the most malign insult suitable for casting, is not of any interest any longer to the normal person pummeled by a cascade of Islamic privilege and fear of ostracization by a fascist mind-class. "Racism?" The ultimate royal question arises: "Why don't you shut up?" Fear. Fear.

Why this fear? Racism, a pseudo-scientific ideology lasting half time of Communism in Russia, lingers today because of its adoption by the Nazis. As if they needed a "theory." Racism? As foolish and wanton an idea as has come and gone, it is gone. A creation of the nineteenth century, racism is long gone, only still kept in the public mind by constant incitement, of witch-hunting for racism, for bourgeois tendencies. Racism? Its a joke told by the humorless, and no one is laughing any longer. But the European colonialism? The disrupting of primitives cultures and peoples? It's life. It is a good thing. We should again hoist our flags of Modernity over the wasted lands and oppressed people of lost British colonies. Britain's waving flag has fallen, and it is for America to wash over the world in its place.

They will complain, those who swarm into Modernity's bosom to corrupt and destroy it. They come, they hate, they kill. We sit and watch and worry about our souls. "Woe unto us for we are 'racists'."

The Wretched of the Earth. Hygiene, sewers, roads, schools, affluence, literacy, rule of codified and common positive law, individual autonomy; these are the things the wretched of the Earth suffered from with the coming of Modernist colonialism. There must be another way. Pity the poor savage who had enough to eat, clean water, freedom from arbitrary harm at the hands of anyone stronger.

As if the world flees the chaos of their homelands due to the destruction colonialism visited upon them. Old ties torn? Good. More of it. All of it. Burn the world to the ground! A chicken in every pot? Then a gunboat in every port. Racism? What fools these morons be. Colonize.

Yes, there is a third way. Colonize Europe. America, colonize Europe. Forget Baghdad. Take Berlin! Take it from those who take it, and then go farther and take the world. Racism? An empty curse from the lips of the p.c. god Ephemeron. We do good by making America of the mind universal. Filibuster for universal Modernity.Go forth and take whatever you can get. Rip and tear for the greater good of your own wallet. Racism? HA!