Whither The Fool?

Glassman: “We Think You’re Dirt” (TechCentralStation.Com)

James Glassman, according to Rush Limbaugh, refers to himself as a “liberal” economist because Mr. Glassman is well-read and aware enough to note that the original meaning of the word as used for a couple of centuries was “one who prizes liberty,” oddly enough.

Here he gives a short review of a little-noticed film of last year as the springboard to yet another indictment of U.N. uselessness and the hypocrisy of the “world community” most of which is overrun with “left-of-center” “social democracies” (lots of cynical quote-marks to go around in that sentence).

[Hotel Rwanda], directed by Terry George, is the true story of a Europhile hotel manager who simply wants to raise his family without complication and to do his job with “style.” Suddenly, thrust into a moral crisis, he rises to leadership and saves the lives of 1,268 adults and children during the genocidal slaughter of nearly one million minority Tutsis by Hutu militias and soldiers between April and July 1994, as the world sat on its collective hands.

Please note that the Clinton Administration was foremost among those morally in absentia during this catastrophe. Having the lapdog-media reliably silent whenever they are so signalled, Democrat administrations can get away clean with outrageous neglect of pressing crises such as the Terror in Rwanda because “everyone knows” that true social justice starts and ends with them.

Criticizing a Democrat for nonchalant dismissal of the suffering of dark peoples is like denouncing Santa Claus because his suit isn’t red enough.

But the facts are there nevertheless, and history will judge (as will God). Just as we finally came to rescue of Iraq in our own interest as well as that of suffering Iraqi citizens, we should have intervened in force in Rwanda and we did not. And why not? Because it didn’t focus well among likely voters, or it didn’t provide enough cover for some other inconvenient news story then brewing, or maybe Clinton couldn’t pronounce “Tutsi” and “Hutu” with a straight face.

Whatever the reason, death and suffering were ignored and the Left never let out a peep about it, just as they seemed fine with Saddam’s ceaseless slaughter of his people but insist our end to it is “an evil occupation.”

Mr. Glassman’s expansion on that theme to present outrages is likewise pointed:

Michael J. Totten, writing on TechCentralStation last month, called the U.S. and European attitude toward Rwanda in 1994 a manifestation of the Genovese Syndrome, a reference to Kitty Genovese, who was knifed to death in New York in 1964 as neighbors looked on without trying to help her.

Now, the Syndrome is being played out in Sudan, whose Darfur region is the site of an “ethnic cleansing,” or genocidal, campaign by militias with government support — in a replay of Rwanda. The U.N. Security Council has passed resolutions threatening sanctions, but it hasn’t issued sanctions or taken serious steps to restrain the attackers, who have killed an estimated 70,000 and created 800,000 refugees.

Doesn’t matter. The aggressors are Arab Muslims who are–because of their horrible suffering in the wake of 9-11, especially here in the U.S.–obviously the most put-upon people in the world. What is the fate of a few black African Christians and Animists compared to Leftist political correctness?

Now, of course we all know that whereas Bill Clinton was a real “man of the people,” George W. Bush is an elitist snob that calculates the political advantage of every move–that’s what these so-called “christians” are all about, you know. Well, all those except the Bill Clintons, Reverend Jesse Jacksons and Reverend Al Sharptons, of course.

President Bush was among those moved by “Hotel Rwanda” and recently asked to meet with Paul and Tatiana Rusesabagina, who now live in Zambia. They got together in the Oval Office on Feb. 17, along with Mrs. Bush, Chief of Staff Andrew Card and National Security Advisor Steve Hadley.

Rusesabagina had recently returned from Darfur with a delegation that included five congressmen and Cheadle, and his message to the president was that “what is going on in Darfur is exactly what was going on in Rwanda�.�.

“The rest of the world failed when the genocide was taking place in Rwanda. The [U.N.] soldiers ran away and left on our own. Today, there is no one who is intervening really in a good way in Darfur. Darfur is left on its own.”

Well, the cynicism of Mr. Bush is beyond all outrage! Imagine, actually expending this much time and effort on a so-called “humanitarian issue”! The man’s willingness to confuse the liberal pundits is beyond contempt!

Unlike in Rwanda, the U.S. is pressing for action in Sudan, but America is being thwarted by France, which has rejected both sanctions and a proposed NATO role, and China, which has oil interests in the country. Europeans are cynically trying to create an uncomfortable situation for the U.S. by pushing for the prosecution of Darfur war crimes in the International Criminal Court (ICC), whose permanent status the Administration correctly opposes for fear that innocent U.S. officials will be hauled to the dock by anti-war extremists.

The U.N. is as useless as, well, as a Democrat president’s foreign policy initiatives.

The less relied upon the greater the chance for success.

Oh, and I thought only America was willing to shed blood for oil. Well, it’s own, of course. China and France prefer it be someone else’s.

In fact, the U.S. could support a special tribunal for war crimes in Darfar without backing a permanent ICC with broad powers.

But this story runs far deeper. The theme in Rwanda and Darfur can be seen throughout Africa. As Nolte’s character, who is tormented by the U.N.’s neglect, says to Rusesabagina: “They’re not going to stop the slaughter. You should spit in my face�.�.. We think you’re dirt, Paul�.�. You’re not even a nigger. You’re African.”

Consider the treatment that Africans are receiving today at the hands of a U.N. agency, the World Health Organization, which has approved the use of rip-off Indian-made copies of American and European drugs to fight AIDS. The companies that make these drugs now admit they can’t prove their medicines are “bio-equivalent” — that is, composed of the same chemicals as the originals — and many have been withdrawn from the WHO’s list, but with no follow-up to find who has been taking them.

Sick Africans deserve the same drugs as sick Americans and Europeans — especially when those drugs cost no more than the knock-offs, as research has shown.

Last summer at an AIDS conference in Bangkok, I heard Randall Tobais, who heads the Bush program to fight the disease, put the issue very well: “It is a moral imperative that families in programs funded by the United States in the developing world have the same assurances as American families that the drugs they use are safe and effective. America will not have one health standard for her own citizens and a lower standard of “good enough” for those suffering elsewhere.”

Yes, there are well-meaning and hard-working relief workers making sacrifices, but too many officials of developed countries — and of the U.N. — still act as though Africans were dirt.

That’s the message of “Hotel Rwanda,” a movie the world should be watching.

I pray for the peace of Darfur.

Ann Coulter: Republicans, Bloggers and Gays, Oh My! (UExpress.Com)

In which the conservatives’ answer to Sweet Polly Purebred “sees” the Left’s triumphant “outing” of “Jeff Gannon” and raises ‘em a Dan Rather-Howell Raines-Eason Jordan trifecta:

In response to the public disgrace and ruin of New York Times editor Howell Raines, CBS anchor Dan Rather and CNN news director Eason Jordan, liberals are directing their fury at the blogs. Once derided as people sitting around their living rooms in pajamas, now obscure writers for unknown Web sites are coming under more intensive background checks than CIA agents.

The heretofore-unknown Jeff Gannon of the heretofore-unknown “Talon News” service was caught red-handed asking friendly questions at a White House press briefing. Now the media is hot on the trail of a gay escort service that Gannon may have run some years ago. Are we supposed to like gay people now, or hate them? Is there a Web site where I can go to and find out how the Democrats want me to feel about gay people on a moment-to-moment basis?

Liberals keep rolling out a scrolling series of attacks on Gannon for their Two Minutes Hate, but all their other charges against him fall apart after three seconds of scrutiny. Gannon’s only offense is that he may be gay.

First, liberals claimed Gannon was a White House plant who received a press pass so that he could ask softball questions — a perk reserved for New York Times reporters during the Clinton years. Their proof was that while “real” journalists (like Jayson Blair) were being denied press passes, Gannon had one, even though he writes for a Web site that no one has ever heard of — but still big enough to be a target of liberal hatred! (By the way, if writing for a news organization with no viewers is grounds for being denied a press pass, why do MSNBC reporters have them?)

On the op-ed page of The New York Times, Maureen Dowd openly lied about the press pass, saying: “I was rejected for a White House press pass at the start of the Bush administration, but someone with an alias, a tax evasion problem and Internet pictures where he posed like the ‘Barberini Faun’ is credentialed?”

Press passes can’t be that hard to come by if the White House allows that dyspeptic, old Helen Thomas to sit within yards of the president. Still, it would be suspicious if Dowd were denied a press pass while someone from “Talon News” got one, even if he is a better reporter.

But Dowd was talking about two different passes without telling her readers (a process now known in journalism schools as “Dowdification”). Gannon didn’t have a permanent pass; he had only a daily pass. Almost anyone can get a daily pass — even famed Times fantasist Maureen Dowd could have gotten one of those. A daily pass and a permanent pass are altogether different animals. The entire linchpin of Dowd’s column was a lie. (And I’m sure the Times’ public editor will get right on Dowd’s deception.)

“Down, Sweet Polly! Animated animals being what they are it was hard to identify you as an ‘attack dog’! Are you seriously suggesting that Dowdy engaged in obfuscation here?”

Yes, she is. And yes, she did.

Finally, liberals expressed shock and dismay that Gannon’s real name is “James Guckert.” On MSNBC’s “Hardball,” Chris Matthews introduced the Gannon scandal this way: “Coming up, how did a fake news reporter from a right-wing Web site get inside the White House press briefings and presidential news conferences?”

Reporter David Shuster then gave a report on “the phony alias Guckert used to play journalist” — as opposed to the real name Shuster uses to play journalist. (You can tell Schuster is a crackerjack journalist because he uses phrases like “phony alias.”) With all the subtlety of a gay-bashing skinhead, Matthews spent the rest of the segment seeing how many times he could smear Gannon by mentioning “HotMilitaryStuds.com” and laughing.

Any day now, Matthews will devote entire shows to exposing Larry Zeigler, Gerald Riviera and Michael Weiner — aka Larry King, Geraldo Rivera and Matthews’ former MSNBC colleague Michael Savage. As a newspaper reporter, Wolf Blitzer has written under the names Ze’ev Blitzer and Ze’ev Barak. The greatest essayist of modern times was Eric Blair, aka George Orwell. The worst essayist of modern times is “TRB” of The New Republic.

Air America radio host and “Nanny” impersonator “Randi Rhodes” goes by a fake name, and she won’t even tell people what her real last name is. (She says for “privacy reasons.” That name must be a real doozy.) As Insideradio.com describes Rhodes, she refuses “to withhold anything from her listeners” and says conservatives “are less likely to share such things.” How about sharing your name, Randi? We promise not to laugh.

Ann, “Everyone Knows” that Conservatives want to kill people–and therefore Leftists have to restort to subterfuge in order to stay safe!

But who in the world needs to fret even one minute about any danger to their person from the Left? I mean, c’mon, Pol Pot, Joe Stalin and most of the worst of the union presidents are dead now; and the Chinese politburo aren’t feeling so well, either!

Democrats in Congress actually demanded that an independent prosecutor investigate how Gannon got into White House press conferences while writing under an invented name. How did Gary Hartpence, Billy Blythe and John Kohn (Gary Hart, Bill Clinton and John Kerry) run for president under invented names? Admittedly, these men were not reporters for the prestigious “Talon News” service; they were merely Democrats running for president.

Liberals keep telling us the media isn’t liberal, but in order to retaliate for the decimation of major news organizations like The New York Times, CBS News and CNN, all they can do is produce the scalp of an obscure writer for an unknown conservative Web page. And unlike Raines, Rather and Jordan, they can’t even get Gannon for incompetence on the job. (Also unlike Raines, Rather and Jordan, Gannon has appeared on TV and given a series of creditable interviews in his own defense, proving our gays are more macho than their straights.)

Gannon didn’t write about gays. No “hypocrisy” is being exposed. Liberals’ hateful, frothing-at-the-mouth campaign against Gannon consists solely of their claim that he is gay.

Yes, but to the Left, the only thing worse than a “conservative” is a conservative who “cross-dresses” as one of their plantation slaves. A black Republican Supreme Court justice, A black female Republican SecState and a Hispanic Republican Attorney General must be excoriated at every turn, and so must a conservative queer.

It’s in the Code.

List of Pagans in the Military

Very interesting insights into the sort of “religious freedom” one can find in the Military.

Say, I wonder if any of these guys have done any research into the feasibilty of, say, reforging Narsil?

I mean, what they heck, it couldn’t hurt!

A Watershed Moment for the U.N.? (CaptainsQuartersBlog.Com)

Mon Capitan reports that the UN has taken a little body-count of its own going in the Republic of Congo, where it has been “peacekeeping” for six years or so.

The Captain’s report mentions an “attack helicopter.” If it’s a U.N. chopper, wouldn’t that make it a retreat helicopter? French make-and-model, mais non?

O. S. Card - Hitch Film Review (Hatrack.Com)

I haven’t yet seen this film, yet, though after this review I’ll definitely consider it.

But what really brought my ponderous eyebrows up was this passage:

I remember the day, almost ten years ago, when I was in a strategy meeting for my film project Homebody and I mentioned that I wanted a black actor in the lead. Everyone in the room (some of whom were African-American) assured me that no studio would fund a romantic comedy/thriller with a black lead. “That would make it a niche film. A black lead won’t open a movie like this.”

“What about Will Smith?” I said.

“He always has to be teamed with a white actor,” I was told.

This is just uncanny. Here we’re talking about “Hollywood,” billed to the brim with people like Susan Sarandon and Barbra Streisand and that ilk who deign to tell us “little people” how to live (on accounta we’re all too “racist, bigoted and homophobic” to figure it out ourselves). But how do they behave when the money’s got to go to the bank?

Well, let’s just say that you can’t ever expect the “kid gloves” treatment if you’re black and in the way–Clarence Thomas comes to mind.

Steve Hackett’s “Metamorpheus” Release Announced (Camino.Co.UK)

Just thought I’d point this out. Genesis’ longtime guitarist and a master of his craft has released a new record about every other year for the past two decades. They are typically of high quality and worth a listen.

Hackett is in my opinion the most underrated rock/jazz guitarist in history.

CATHOLIC LEAGUE for Religious and Civil Rights

Double-plus Un-Funny:

During the February 22 episode of the NBC-TV sitcom, �..Committed,�.� two non-Catholics are mistakenly given Holy Communion at a Catholic funeral Mass. Nate, who is Jewish, and Bowie, a Protestant, don�..t know what to do with the Eucharist, so they make several failed attempts to get rid of it. For example, they try slipping it into the pocket of a priest, dropping it on a tray of cheese and crackers, etc.

At one point, the priest, who is portrayed as not knowing the difference between the Host and a cracker, goes to grab the �..cracker�.� from a tray of appetizers; he initially balks when he discovers that it is the last one. Then he changes his mind, saying, �..Oh, what the hell.�.� By far the most offensive scene occurs when Nate and Bowie accidentally flush what they think is the Host down the toilet.

Catholic League president William Donohue commented on this today:

�..It�..s been quite a while since we�..ve been deluged with as many complaints as this episode of �..Committed�.. fielded. To say that Catholics are angry about this show would be an understatement�..the outrage is visceral and intense. The complaints have come from bishops, college chaplains, pastors and the laity, and they have come from all over the country. With good reason: NBC has made a direct frontal assault on Roman Catholicism, choosing to mock, trivialize and ridicule the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.

�..What happened was deliberate. According to a January 2 story in the Cincinnati Enquirer, the writers for the series, Eileen Heisler and DeAnn Heline, have been encouraged by NBC executives �..to push the limits of comedy.�.. For obvious reasons, the writers of �..Roseanne,�.. �..Murphy Brown�.. and �..Ellen�.. chose not to push the buttons of homosexuals (or some other protected group), so they decided to play it safe and stay in good standing with their bosses by bashing Catholics.

�..More than an apology is needed. This episode should be retired for good, and that is what we will demand.�.�

Although as a “Mormon” I may not see the eucharist in the same light as a believing Catholic would, it isn’t hard for me to put myself in their place. What if this were an episode making fun of our similar rite of the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper? Or of temple garments (probably more the level of sanctity)?

Why is it considered “humor” to ridicule the sacred beliefs of others, but not to make ethnic slurs, say?

It’s a symbol of the low regard for religion and the religious in Hollywood and its environs.

Good for the Catholic League for kicking up such a fuss. Only really squeaky wheels get the grease any more.

The U.N. Hires Help from John Kerry (MichelleMalkin.Com)

Wahlll….

If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, eh?

So the U.N.’s trying to counter the Blogosphere by coming up with a blog of it’s own, eh?

Anyone notice anything funny about the photo on the U.N. Notes’ masthead? It looks suspiciously like the group of “investigators” from the shadowy organization in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” Looks like they took a still from film and Photoshopped the “U.N.” on the doors.

Michelle’s Update

‘Perhaps on the advice of his trusty Kerry spinners, he did not use the word “kerfuffle” once.’

Well, Michelle, it may be that “kerfuffle” means something really nasty in Mr. Annan’s native language. Like, say, “personal responsibility?”

Captain’s Quarters

So: More about Sen. Specter’s “grave intonations” and trying to appear “statesmanlike.” Balderdash.

The fact is that the Constitution gives only the President the power to appoint nominees. The Senate has plenty to say in an “up or down” vote. They do not have the power to inject themselves into the process, no matter what party’s in charge.

Specter’s “swinging both ways” notwithstanding, he cannot point to a single instance of obstructionism on the part of Republicans of Clinton’s nominations. They might have caterwauled but the gave every one of ‘em an up-or-down vote–and they had the majority during most of that time!

Specter needs to retire and get out of the way.

UN-created Pederast Underground (TheNewAmerican.Com)

Well, once again I “bend” the rule about putting salacious stuff up here, but I think this is another of those “simmering controversies” that get little to no play in the MSM but are of far greater importance than what the newest “celebrity” shock-jock or gangsta-rapper is up to.

Didier Bourguet is on trial in his native France for charges of sexual abuse and rape in Congo while working as a UN transport worker. His defense attorney, Claude de Boosere-Lepidi, told the court “that there was a network of UN Personnel who had sex with underage girls and that Bourguet had engaged in similar activity in a previous UN posting in the Central African Republic,” reported the February 12 Los Angeles Times.

�..Bourguet�..s case is the only one that has been prosecuted among 150 allegations against about 50 soldiers and UN civilian officials who have served in the Congo peacekeeping mission,�.� continued the Times. �..At least seven cases of sexual exploitation and abuse have been documented against peacekeepers based in Bunia, a northeastern town.�.�

On February 11, the ABC News program 20/20 broadcast photographs extracted from the hard drive of Bourguet�..s computer, which �..reportedly contained thousands of photos of him with hundreds of girls. In one frame, a tear can be seen rolling down the cheek of a victim.�.�

�..Peacekeepers�.� and civilian UN personnel would entice desperate Congolese girls with offers of food, shelter, and other necessities. One 12-year-old girl, identified only as �..Helen,�.� told the December 18 New York Times about being lured into a �..peacekeeper�..s�.� tent when the foreign soldier offered her a cup of milk. �..After she gulped it down,�.� the paper reported, �..the foreign soldier pulled Helen �.� into his bed, she said. About an hour later, he gave her a dollar, put a finger to his lips and pushed her out of his tent….�.�

�..In this same eastern outpost, another United Nations peacekeeper, unable to communicate with a 13-year-old Swahili-speaking girl who walked past him, held up a cookie and gestured for her to draw near,�.� continued the New York Times account. �..As the girl, Solange, who recounted the incident with tears in her eyes �.� reached for the cookie, the soldier reached for her. She, too, said she was raped.�.�

Not surprisingly, given her fears of reprisal from both her family and other UN-connected predators, Solange declined to avail herself of medical or counseling services offered by a nearby UNICEF facility. The slogan of the UN Children�..s Fund, incidentally, is: �..Every child is our child�.� �.. a motto that takes on a grim undertone in light of the UN�..s uncanny ability to foster child exploitation wherever it puts into practice its peculiar variety of benevolence.

The abuse of refugees and displaced persons nominally under the “protection” of the United Nations “peacekeepers” has evidently been going on for years. How surprising is it that Europeans with their post-Christian inclination toward debauchery of all kinds and their history of colonial exploitation would be among the most egregious offenders?

An interesting though seemingly speculative article from a few years ago about the European paedophilia cabal can be seen here at RumorMill.Com.