Some Leftist history

The Leftist view of the world is driven by their emotional needs rather than by reality so history is very unkind to their simplistic theories. They know that and normally avoid history like the plague, even when conservatives try to shove it down their throats. Sometimes however they get themselves into a position where they have to say something about history, so, on such occasions, they pick out a few bits and pieces and distort them. They NEVER tell the whole story. That great hater, Ward "Eichmann" Churchill, gives us an excellent example of that below

We've received, via one of our jackbooted thugs, a copy of Professor Ward Churchill's recent Works & Days article "The Myth of Academic Freedom: Experiencing the Application of Liberal Principle in a Neoconservative Era" (published a few scant weeks before Teh Trial began). It is as chockful o'facts as we've come to expect of any Churchill screed, provided that—in this PoMo world—zero still equals zero. We're reading it over the weekend, and we'll post our impressions as time and industry (or our lack of same) permit.

We note right off that in the section "On Matters of Historical Interpretation" Churchill makes his usual flight into fabulism with yet another iteration of his intentional smallpox infection story. He says, for instance, that in 1837

"[Charles Larpenteur] exposed a group of forty Assiniboins [sic] to a child in the most highly contagious stage of the disease, them told them to flee back to their home village(s)"

and cites in the accompanying footnote Larpenteur's own Forty Years A Fur Trader as part of his documentation (his other source is the two-volume A History of the American Fur Trade in the Far West by Hiram Martin Chittenden—which, incidentally, Churchill consistently misspells as Chittendon). Unfortunately for Churchill, the text of Forty Years is available on the Internet, and the relevant passage reads thus:

While the epidemic was at its height a party of about 40 Indians came in, not exactly on a trade, but more on a begging visit, under the celebrated old chief Co-han; and the word was, "Hurry up! Open the door!" which had been locked for many days, to keep the crazy folks in.

Nothing else would do we must open the door; but on showing him a little boy who had not recovered, and whose face was still one solid scab, by holding him above the pickets, the Indians finally concluded to leave. Not long afterward we learned that more than one-half of the party had died some said all of them.

Clearly, Churchill would have the reader believe Larpenteur's actions were consciously malicious toward the Indians, while the text is far less self-accusatory. More importantly, the immediately preceding sentences give the reader a very different perspective on the incident:

"[...] for immediately on the landing of the [steamer] we learned that smallpox was on board. Mr. J. Halsey, the gentleman who was to take charge this summer, had the disease, of which several of the hands had died; but it had subsided, and this was the only case on board. Our only apprehensions were that the disease might spread among the Indians, for Mr. Halsey had been vaccinated, and soon recovered. Prompt measures were adopted to prevent an epidemic. As we had no vaccine matter we decided to inoculate with the smallpox itself; and after the systems of those who were to be inoculated had been prepared according to Dr. Thomas' medical book, the operation was performed upon about 30 Indian squaws and a few white men. This was done with the view to have it all over and everything cleaned up before any Indians should come in, on their fall trade, which commenced early in September. The smallpox matter should have been taken from a very healthy person; but, unfortunately, Mr. Halsey was not sound, and the operation proved fatal to most of our patients. About 15 days afterward there was such a stench in the fort that it could be smelt at the distance of 300 yards. It was awful the scene in the fort, where some went crazy, and others were half eaten up by maggots before they died; yet, singular to say, not a single bad expression was ever uttered by a sick Indian. Many died, and those who recovered were so much disfigured that one could scarcely recognize them."

That Larpenteur was not only not maliciously intent on infecting Indians with smallpox, but rather, was trying desperately to save them (even observing in admiration their courage in the face of certain death), Churchill does not note in his "history," probably because it interferes with--the uncharitable might say baldly contradicts--his narrative. Count us among the uncharitable.

Churchill notes that Larpenteur was a fur company employee who filled in as post surgeon at Fort Union "while Denig was recovering from a very mild case of the pox" and cites Barton H. Barbour's Fort Union and the Upper Missouri Fur Trade as the source for this assertion, but Barbour himself only notes that Denig "was stricken with an unidentified violent fever, probably a mild case of the disease."

By the way: Larpenteur's account (being, as it is, one told by someone who was there and completely involved in the events) offers what we'd call pretty substantial proof that the smallpox epidemic started with the infected white trader, Mr. J. Halsey. One would think that to contradict such a straightforward recounting of events as witnessed by a participant with a tale of malicious and intentional infliction of smallpox by the US Army would require at least a similarly first-person account of same. One, of course, would be wrong. Churchill need offer no such proof. He is, after all, Ward Churchill.

More HERE



Conservative Black Group Challenges Liberal Urban League's "State of Black America 2009" Report

"Harmful Recommendations," "Dreary" Tone Among Criticisms

This year's edition of the liberal National Urban League's annual State of Black America report fails to effectively challenge the Obama Administration, is unnecessarily dreary and makes recommendations that would be harmful, say members of the conservative Project 21 black leadership group.

"It is long past time that groups such the National Urban League should be given a pass as they blame poor personal decisions, lack of personal preparation and the realities of life on a phantom bogeyman of conspiratorial dictates designed to impede black progress," said Project 21 Chairman Mychal Massie. "If they are going to point fingers, they should not exclude pointing fingers at themselves. They cannot claim 100 years of making a difference in the lives of blacks while simultaneously claiming that blacks aren't succeeding as quickly as every other group of Americans."

This year's National Urban League report, like past reports, dwells on negatives. National Urban League President and CEO Marc H. Morial, for instance, says, "The election of the first black president does not mean we can all now close up shop and go home." This echoes Morial's predecessor, John E. Jacobs, who wrote in the 1993 edition that black Americans were faced with "bleak despair countered by fresh hope" upon the change of presidential administrations.

Among essays by entrepreneur and publisher Earl Graves, Jr. and scandal-plagued U.S. Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT), the report makes specific recommendations on policies pertaining to education, health care, homeownership and employment, among others. Some of these recommendations, as categorized in the National Urban League report's executive summary, are constructively challenged by Project 21 members.

In the area of health care, the National Urban League recommends government-run universal coverage. As Project 21's Massie points out, this sort of health care has failed abroad and would fail in America as well.

"Do we need the people who run the DMV in charge of the emergency room? That's what you get with government-run health care," said Massie. "Creating a new health care bureaucracy would stifle innovation and limit choice."

"If you want an example of what may happen, look no further than the 'Urban Health Initiative' created by now-First Lady Michelle Obama and Obama political guru David Alexrod at the University of Chicago," noted Massie. "Their plan seeks to divert residents away for the university's elite hospital to county hospitals and clinics. This shocking plan is now being reconsidered after the Chicago Tribune reported that Dontae Adams, a 12-year-old dog bite victim, was given only a shot and some painkillers at the university hospital. He was told to seek follow-up treatment the next week at a county hospital. His mother immediately took him to another hospital on a bus for reconstructive facial surgery that same day."

Massie added: "What happened to Dontae might be a common occurrence for all under government-run health care. What Americans need are more choices and the ability to make their own decisions when it comes to their medical needs. That's what the NUL should be asking for."

Regarding homeownership, the NUL report suggests funding educational initiatives and credit counseling, something that might find them at odds with some activist groups of which they are usually allied that have opposed such programs in the past as akin to "redlining" because they might target certain areas and populations.

But NUL also supports an expanded Community Reinvestment Act - the regulation that mandates risky mortgage lending situations and is blamed by many as the catalyst for the subprime mortgage crisis.

Project 21 Fellow Deneen Borelli said: "Government aid and intervention should not replace an individual's responsibility to exercise good judgment. Achieving the American Dream of homeownership begins with understanding the terms of the contract and meeting those obligations. Expanding the Community Reinvestment Act risks inflating another housing bubble that would further hinder our country's economic recovery. For the National Urban League to encourage more risky loans at this point is reckless."

On education, the NUL suggests retaining the Bush Administration's "No Child Left Behind" standards policy, but does not adequately speak out in favor of popular school choice and charter school programs that explicitly spotlight and seek to remedy failing government-run schools by denying them a captive student body. NUL suggestions still look to government as the best administrator of education despite its poor track record.

"The status quo on education has not worked and it never will work," said Project 21 member Kevin Martin. "While the National Urban League is focused on what the government can do, they are not speaking out enough about what parents can do. Education is the civil rights issue of our time, and vouchers, charter schools and similar alternatives to the failed government approach need to be encouraged."

Overall, Project 21's Martin noted: "The black community does not need to be protected from capitalism, as the National Urban League's report seems to imply. The black community needs to embrace capitalism. The free market is where true opportunity lies."

The above is a press release from Project 21, a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization sponsored by the National Center for Public Policy Research. For more information, contact David Almasi at (202) 543-4110 x11 or project21@nationalcenter.org



Britain's Leftist government has emasculated the police

Police efforts to deal with anti-social behaviour are being crippled by Government diktats, a hard-hitting report by ‘Robocop’ Ray Mallon has found. Mr Mallon, who became famous for his zero-tolerance policing as a Detective Superintendent in Hartlepool and Middlesbrough, warns that officers are in the grip of an ‘arrest or ignore’ culture. He warned that police priorities have become distorted, leading to a collapse in public confidence.

Mr Mallon, who is now Mayor of Middlesbrough, makes his claims in a report released tomorrow by the Centre for Social Justice, a think tank set up by former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith.

In an article for Mail Online today (below), Mr Mallon says that officers’ discretion has been removed by strict operational guidance from the Home Office and a need to hit arrest targets, while the real problems of anti-social behaviour are not being tackled. It means officers have to make a snap decision to either arrest a suspect or let them go instead of giving them an old-fashioned clip round the ear and a stiff talking-to.

He quotes one policeman as saying: ‘Prisons are full, detections are up, but go to any High Street in the country and ask anyone: do you feel safer? The answer is a resounding no.’ He adds: ‘Over the last ten years, policing has become far too complicated and needs to be made simple again. More and more, the police find their actions constrained by tight Government prescription, set down in complex action plans, performance indicators and targets.’

Mr Mallon’s report coincides with a drive by the Conservatives to toughen up the party’s law and order policies. Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling says the Tories would introduce a number of measures to combat anti-social behaviour, including allowing the police to ‘ground’ children who cause trouble.

Research carried out for the report found that more than three-quarters of people did not think there were enough police on the streets or that they were doing enough to combat anti-social behaviour.

Taking Back the Streets

By Ray Mallon

Over 28 years as a career police officer and now as an elected mayor, I have seen how important it is for police to challenge unacceptable behaviour on the streets. When I talk to the public I find it isn¹t the fear of burglary that worries them but what might happen on their way home from work. It¹s when they have to cross the road to avoid a crowd of violent yobs or when they wait at home concerned because someone they love is late back from the bus.

That's when their heart rate rises and the fear of their streets sets in. This is the essence of what policing should be about. For that rising heartbeat is the fear of crime.

Despite the Home Office saying year after year that crime is going down, two out of three people think it has gone up. As one police officer told us: 'Prisons are full, detections are up but go to any high street in the country and ask anyone: 'Do you feel safer?' The answer is a resounding 'No'.' The public just don't trust crime statistics that tell them they are safer now than ever because that isn't their experience in the street.

It was because of my concerns about what has been happening to the police that when Iain Duncan Smith at the Centre for Social Justice asked me to help by getting to the heart of what's gone wrong with policing, I agreed. We started by commissioning national polling which told us what any Government should already know. Eighty-five per cent of people said that there are not enough police on the streets.

Seventy-two per cent of people said that it is unacceptable for police officers on duty, not to intervene when they see a crime. and seventy-six per cent said that the police don't deal with antisocial behaviour.

These are worrying numbers which show the public have become dissatisfied, losing their faith in a once proud force. Is it any surprise they feel like that, when police officers spend less than a fifth of their time on street patrol – that's under seven hours a week for a full-time police officer.

They patrol in pairs and in cars, making them half as visible and stopping them from interacting with the public. In the end, only one per cent of an officer's time is spent on foot patrol. How can the police intervene, if they aren't even on the streets? The public want a Force to police the streets. Instead, we have been de-policing them.

This is because over the last ten years, policing has become far too complicated and needs to be made simple again. More and more, the police find their actions constrained by tight government prescription, set down in complex action plans, performance indicators and targets.

During the course of this report, my team and I met so many officers who felt they were being forced to police in a straight jacket, unable to use their discretion. They knew that without the ability to use discretion, when on patrol, they couldn't provide a proper service to the public.

Discretion allows officers to judge when to make an arrest and when to use an informal approach. The public will judge the officer's intervention not by whether it achieves some government target but by whether it makes their street a better and safer place to live.

While I want to see a police force committed to intervene against every crime, disorder or act of antisocial behaviour that doesn't mean they have to arrest every kid who causes trouble.

I believe most of the public want the police to send a strong message about what is and isn't acceptable in their towns and streets. To break up the fight, to make the litterer pick up their mess - a voice of authority yet also a voice on the side of the law abiding in their community.

They should be encouraged and resourced to talk to parents and to schools, to use commonsense, to make the drunken college student repair or work off the shop window that he smashed. To make this happen, we need to tear up the excuse book. We have to get rid of these central targets, no one out there, not the police or the public wants the hand of central government on their shoulder, they are desperate for local policing driven by local priorities.

Too many times officers told us in desperation, 'We've been politicised. We don't police to do what we think is important, we police to do what someone up there wants.' They're right. Too often the public feel as though the police have become the agents of an over centralised state and of course the police know this.

What makes it worse is that as their methods have become less responsive to local needs, the dead hand of the health and safety lobby has emasculated the police further still. Stories about police unable to enter the scene of a shooting in case they got injured or unsure whether to save a drowning child because the risks were to great. This is madness on stilts.

I want police officers to be under orders to put themselves in harm's way if the safety of the public is at risk. That's why I joined and I know that is why those young men and women join today. They have joined to protect and serve the public and to make a difference. Surely It's time to free them and give them that chance.

If policing is going to improve, it needs to become a true profession, strongly led by effective Chief Officers who are liberated from petty political interference and have genuine operational independence.

Those Chief Officers must put the needs of the community they serve first ahead of careers and awards. To do this they will need to be overseen by effective and truly local governance, to hold not only the Chief Constable to account but also all of the agencies who combine together to make our streets safer.

Good policing is a basic expectation for every citizen and the recommendations in our report will make sure that it happens. They must become effective if they are to regain the trust of a sceptical public and through this trust they will regain the consent of the public. When the police reclaim the streets they will become, once again, a Force to be reckoned with.

SOURCE



Leftist racism again: Treating Arabs (and Muslims generally) as irresponsible children

By Caroline B. Glick

Tuesday's violent riots in Umm el Fahm and the debate which accompanied them are emblematic of one of the greatest challenges facing not only Israel, but much of the Western world today. Far right Jewish Israeli political activists held a peaceful demonstration in the radical Arab-Islamist dominated city of Umm el Fahm in the Galilee under heavy police protection. Thousands of Arab Israelis supported by far left Jewish Israeli political activists reacted with violent rioting. And the media blamed the violence on the peaceful Jewish Israeli demonstrators.

Tuesday's demonstration, which was led by former followers of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, MK Michael Ben-Ari, Baruch Marzel and Itamar Ben Gvir was supposed to take place last December after the Supreme Court upheld the activists' legal right to march through the city. But the police blocked it, claiming they could not guarantee the marchers' security. Only after again being ordered by the Supreme Court to the let demonstration to go forward did the police relent. But they limited the march to the outskirts of the city.

In accordance with the police guidelines, Tuesday the marchers were transported to the outskirts of the town in bullet-proof buses. 2,500 policemen deployed along Wadi Ara highway, and throughout the town to protect them. They were allowed to march holding flags and singing folksongs for a half an hour and then returned to their bullet proof buses. In the meantime, thousands of local residents standing on rooftops and crowding into the streets began rioting. They threw volley after volley of rocks at the Jewish marchers and the police protecting them. They cursed them. They cursed the police. In the end, some 15 policemen were wounded by the projectiles - including Inspector General Shahar Ayalon, the Deputy Superintendent of the National Police.

As far as the media were concerned, the fact that thousands of Arabs attacked the police and the lawful demonstrators was a non-story. The fact that these Israeli Arab citizens claimed to be personally insulted and injured because the demonstration "forced" them to set their eyes on their national flag was seemingly understandable. The fact that these Israeli citizens rejected Israel's flag while waving Palestinian and Islamic flags was neither newsworthy nor controversial. No one in the media asked the Arab rioters whom they felt threatened by. No one asked them why seeing Jews marching with the flag of Israel should provoke them to attack.

To the extent the media found a culprit, it was the Israeli demonstrators. They were "provocateurs" who forced taxpayers to spend millions of shekels to deploy 2,500 policemen armed with riot gear to the city. It never occurred to the media that Ben Ari, Marzel and Ben Gvir were not the cause of the enormous police presence. They were a danger to no one. The reason the police were forced to deploy so massively was because they believed that the Arabs would violently attack the Jewish demonstrators. It was the Arabs, not the Jews whom the police feared would break the law. And as it works out, they were right.

The media's coverage of the Umm el Fahm riot fits into an ongoing pattern. Over the years, the local media have developed a code for reporting on Arabs - whether Palestinian or Israeli or foreign. And it is a bigoted code.

As far as Israel's media are concerned, Arabs cannot be expected to act like responsible citizens. They cannot be required to abide by the law like the rest of the country's citizens. As far as Israel's media and the rest of the political Left are concerned, Arabs are either victims or objects. They cannot be culprits or independent actors. Their will -- to the extent they have one -- is collective. No individual can be held accountable for his or her actions. And their will is reactive. All Arab actions are but reactions to Jewish provocations. Many in the US and Europe have expressed surprise and indeed mystification about Avigdor Lieberman and his Yisrael Beitenu party's strong third place showing in last month's elections. And there is good reason for their confusion. Lieberman is not an easy candidate to swallow for either rightists or leftists. Right wingers find his plan to make the Galilee and parts of the Negev part of a future Palestinian state absurd and wrong. Leftists find his call for all Israelis, including Arab Israelis -- to declare their loyalty to the state as a condition for keeping their citizenship absurd and wrong. And yet, due to the 15 Knesset seats he won from both right and left wing voters, Lieberman will serve as the foreign minister in the incoming Netanyahu government.

The Israel Left has demonized Lieberman as a racist for his positions on the Arabs. The anti-Israel lobby in Washington is already using their attacks to discredit the incoming government. But the fact is that fundamentally, Lieberman is little different from the Left which demonizes him.

Lieberman is a populist. He owes his popularity to the fact that he properly identified the political radicalization and increasing lawlessness among Israel's Arab citizens as the major domestic issue of our times. Lieberman is unique among politicians from both the Left and the Right in that he is the only one who is willing to confront the issue head on. And it is due to his readiness to discuss this issue that the public rewarded him with fifteen Knesset seats.

Like most populists, Lieberman is not a deep thinker. As a consequence, he adopted the bigoted framework of the Left for contending with the challenge posed today by Israel's Arabs. His idea of removing the Galilee from sovereign Israel and attaching it to a Palestinian state in Judea, Samaria and Gaza is based on the Left's bigoted assumption that Israeli Arabs cannot be expected to be loyal to the country or act as law abiding citizens. Lieberman's adoption of the Left's prejudiced perspective on Israeli Arabs has engendered a dismal situation where while the debate has now been joined on the issue of how to contend with Israeli Arab disloyalty and crime, the debate that has developed is nothing more than a dialogue of the deaf.

No one talks about the need to inculcate Israeli values of liberal democracy among our Arab citizens. No one talks about blunting the power of radical leaders like Sheikh Ra'ad Salah, who heads the Islamic Movement's Northern Branch or Arab parliamentarians who openly treat with Hizbullah and Hamas and side with Israel's enemies in time of war. No one talks about empowering Israeli Arabs who are loyal to Israel. That is, no one talks about adopting policies that could actually improve the situation.

And this is a tragedy because the situation is truly grave. Early this week a Hizbullah-controlled Israeli Arab terror group which calls itself the Free People of the Galilee claimed responsibility for the attempted car bombing at Haifa's largest shopping mall Saturday night. That bomb, planted in a car trunk outside the mall, was large enough to have toppled the three story mall and kill hundreds of people. Mercifully, it was discovered before it was detonated.

Since 2001, the same group has claimed responsibility for a string of murderous attacks - mainly centered in Jerusalem. It claimed responsibility for the massacre of eight students at Mercaz Harav Yeshiva last year. It claimed responsibility for the first bulldozer attack in Jerusalem last year in which three people were murdered. And it claimed responsibility for the murder of several individual Jews around the Old City in Jerusalem since August 2001.

Also this week, the Jerusalem District Attorney's office announced that four Israeli Arabs have been indicted for the attempted murder of an American Hebrew University student last month. The four attacked the student as he walked through the Jerusalem Forest on the way to his dormitory. They beat him, stabbed him in the cheek, and tried to slash his throat before fleeing the scene. And earlier this month, the police announced the arrest last month of another Israeli Arab on charges of spying for Hizbullah. The arrest of 27-year-old Ismail Sulaiman from a village in the Jezreel Valley is the latest in a string of arrests of Israeli Arabs on charges of spying for Hizbullah. Last September IDF Sgt. Maj. Louai Balut from the Western Galilee, who served as a tracker along the Lebanese border was sentenced to 11 years in prison for spying for Hizbullah. And of course, former MK and Balad Party leader Azmi Bishara remains on the lam after he fled the country just before being charged with spying for Hizbullah during the 2006 war.

Israel of course is not alone in contending with this challenge. Throughout Europe governments are forced to contend with the fact that increasingly, the greatest threat to the security of their general citizenry comes from their Muslim and Arab citizens. The only difference is that Israel alone is castigated as a racist state simply for suffering from the problem of Muslim extremism.

On Sunday Phillip Johnston published a column in the *Sunday Telegraph* critiquing the British government's new strategy for defending against Islamic terror. Johnston bemoaned the fact that the new plan pays no attention to the fact that most of the terrorists sitting in British jails as well as the perpetrators of the July 7, 2005 bombings are British. Whereas the new strategy concentrates on the need to fight terrorists in places like Afghanistan, as Johnston put it, "There was not a single mention of the undeniable truth that the extremists who will actually carry out atrocities live among us and need to be confronted here and now."

Johnston argued that rather than ignore the problem of increased extremism among Britain's Muslims "in the interests of 'community harmony'," the British government should actively engage in "an unequivocal and enthusiastic espousal of British values of tolerance and liberal democracy."

That is, to contend with the growing radicalization of British Muslims, the government in London should end its current policy of appeasement of radical Muslim groups which is based on the bigoted assumption that Muslims cannot be expected to either abide by the laws or to integrate into wider society. Britain should instead embrace its own identity as a liberal democracy and require its citizens to abide by liberal democratic norms.

In Britain as in Israel and indeed throughout the free world, those norms are based on the understanding that the ability of a society to remain a free society is contingent on its citizenry's recognition that there can be no civil rights without civic duties. The Umm el Fahm riots serve as yet another warning of this fundamental truth.

Here in Israel we face the same choice. Either we encourage our Arab citizens to fully accept both the rights and duties of citizenship or we continue - through either populism of cowardice - to facilitate their rejection of our society. If we embark on the first path, we will safeguard our national identity as a Jewish liberal democracy. If we remain on the second path, we will imperil our lives, our way of life and our national existence.

SOURCE

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of other countries. The only real difference, however, is how much power they have. In America, their power is limited by democracy. To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges. They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did: None. So look to the colleges to see what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way. It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site here.

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