Russia Today Orthodox Church Federation:Make America Lindberghist Again

Donald Trump must not be elected.
Vladimir Putin is not a president to be made ally, but a totalitarian dictator weened on the teet of the KGB.

Your Other Left: Sectarian Doldrums

Every journalist, public intellectual and mouthbreathing tv personality has an opinion on what western strategy should be in Syria in light of the Russian involvement.  It makes for a chaos in perpetual regeneration. However, the vacuum we've created in Syria by our inaction and the lack of leadership from president Obama and Mr Cameron having now been filled by the vile dictator Putin might make western strategy more simple.  That is if we operate under the assumption we take advantage of the opportunity.

Many Sunni Arab nations in the region have been unwilling to take action against ISIS and in many cases have been supporting the Islamic State materially and strategically.  This is because the dominant concern for the Sunni regimes is the threat posed by the rogue axis of the Syrian Ba'athist Alawite regime of Bashar Al Assad, the Shia twelver rapture cult IRGC, and their protector Vladimir Putin.  Setting aside the many severe human rights offenses and the warped ideological export regime in Saudi Arabia and the embarrassment that is Turkey under the AKP and the unabashed Hitler loving islamist Erdogan, it isn't difficult to see their point.  Saudi Arabia and Turkey have long been allies to the west.  Saudi Arabia is actually surprisingly eager and cooperative in diplomatic matters despite their vile domestic barbarism and their fetish for pushing wahabbi islam on the world, and Turkey has become a serious liability in recent years after only being a problematic partner in the Cold War.  Perhaps AKP lobbyist Porter Goss has something to do with it.

The Sunni powers are the worst kind of allies but they aren't wrong about the rogue theocratic axis.  The Islamic Republic of Iran is controlled by a Twelver Shia Armageddon cult of revolution hijacking Bonapartists, pseudo-democratic Bolshevists, and sadistic senior citizens with a lust for WMD who lead the world in terror sponsorship, human rights violations, executions, and abuse of civil liberties.  Their private Libyan fascist militia Hezbollah has a nifty flag featuring a not at all subtle mushroom cloud, as if promotion of the Rosetta Stone of anti-Semitism aka the Protocols of the Elders of Zion weren't despicable enough.  The Islamic Republic has been successful at keeping their overwhelmingly young population of regime haters from executing a coup, but their Alawite subsidiary in Syria, the Ba'athist mass murderer Bashar Al Assad has not had the same luck keeping his prison riot of a country under control.

The Syrian Civil War is quite possibly the most confusing conflict in history with the sectarian militias, foreign fighters, state proxies, side dealing enemies, jihadist guerillas and the criminal sex shame cult as alternative makeshift startup state with dystopian fantasy appeal for the young and repressed youth seeking the medieval slave state of their dreams.  The success of the Iranian cult and the survival of the genocidal tumor Assad would not be ongoing if not for their benefactor who is neither Shia or Alawite, the crimeboss, demigod, media magnate and "all things to all creeps" dictator leading the Russia Today Orthodox Church Federation to the ideal Russian imperial future: the Russian imperial past.  Vladimir Putin may seem like a mutant villain from a cyberpunk comic book, but he's much worse.

Imagine the absurdity of a former KGB bureaucrat with a predilection for poisoning, shooting and bludgeoning political opponents being elected, reelected and then claiming squatters rights in the Kremlin.  Once there he merges government with the imperial nostalgist-cum-Stalin revivalist colporteurs of arch-Christian national chauvinism in the Russian Orthodox church, reverses decades of nuclear non-proliferation, recycles the Sudetenland strategy in Crimea, and melds Europe's preeminent cultural felo de se in the masochistic far left and the sniveling far right.   He sashays his way across the wreckage of his Caligulan bacchanalia fueled by adrenaline, tabloid journalism standards and Mafia panache, and remakes his proud country into a bitter vassalage of his knavish personality, a dour thraldom of belligerent jingoism, and a quickly closing society of maimed subjects to a theocratic syndicate of crony corporatist oligarchs and feudal lords oblivious to their state of geopolitical Siberia and with Herculean poll numbers Putin comes to the rescue to "fight Isis." In fact he is the bodyguard of an empowered Assad and the errand boy for the rogue axis of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

 The goal whether he knows it or not is the crushing of Saudi Arabia, which is simultaneously pure tribalism and a totally legitimate threat to the security and economy of the region and the world. The increased influence of Iran and Russia, their support for Assad and the racism against Kurds, Yazidis and other ethnic and religious minorities makes ISIS the more attractive choice for Turkey and their neighbors.  This is obscene, but it is also the reality.

The presence of Russian troops along with Iran and Assad is going to be tough for the Islamic state and the other jihadist and radical groups fighting Assad in Syria.  The alliances between these groups and the regional regimes will be increasingly difficult to conceal as this conflict continues.

The western democracies should leave Syria to this emerging international disaster.  It does nobody any good to have Arab countries see the US and our allies as partners with Iran and Assad.  Let Russia be the visible enemy in that regard.  What western democratic open societies should do is focus efforts on Iraq and the Kurdish areas of Syria.  The strategy should be to support the Kurds, remove ISIS from all Kurdish areas and Iraq, in so doing humiliate ISIS militarily and drive them into Syria where there will no doubt be a clusterfuck of mammoth proportions.

There really is no winning strategy or path to victory conceivable in Syria with Russia and Iran so heavily involved.  We really can't say what victory in Syria would look like. We want to defeat ISIS and al Qaeda but everyone else wants to defeat Assad and Iran (and now Russia). We should define victory as securing Kurdish territory and removing ISIS from Iraq.

In Syria, apart from the Kurdish territory, we have good options.  If we side with the regional regimes we are putting ourselves at odds with our Kurdish friends and cooperating with parties that have different goals and conflicting agendas with regards to ISIS.  Siding with Assad was never an option and Russia can make the entire region their enemy by backing Iran and Assad without our involvement.

This is going to be a mess. It is time to take sides and declare to The Kurds and Yazidis and all people who wish to be free from terror and tyranny: "we are on your side and we are staying there until you're in and they're out."

Your Other Left: Radical Pose: The Chomskyite Tendency

Neoliberalism is a scary word being thrown around lately and it is used most often by people who don't know what it means, but it is gaining steam in the coffee shops and organic dissentary bars on Northeastern campuses ever since the most influential Western capo, yarn spinning anarchist and half crazed Maoist Noam Chomsky printed it in all of his recent pseudo-empiricist and formulaic madlibs mimeographs where he puts his name to preternatural literature ghost written in earnest by a group of his Larouche-esque cult of interns and it magically transforms into canonical scripture amongst true believing apology fetishists.  Anarcho reactionaries ultra faithful to the Chomsky ideological method of self-righteous dishonesty which the walking tenure cautionary poster Noam perfected by refusing to debate a soul since he was the leading academic to hear speak if you need to sleep for finals and wanted to be in a safe space for fellow supporters of totalitarian ideology.  I attempted to find data to back up claims scribbled by students of the MIT resident capo on many occasions but it wasn't until I tapped into my spiritual reservoir of subluxation to find the sacred art of blind  faith in the inherent morality in and regressive powers of pure anti-Western orthodoxy that I could see what ideas were used to pen the latest ode to leftish taqiyya (lie-to-win) identity fascism and conspiracy paranoia smut with idiotic large print.  When he breathes his last bit of anarcho-inhalants his spirit will be harnessed into pure light and moral superiority (or perhaps he will be gifted 72 virgins).  With high powered canisters of virtue signal pomposity as the world's most cited intellectual, the Left Wing Ayatollah of hari kari thinking can now finally eliminate the need for critical thought altogether.  It is only when he lurches forward and drones on about the evils of diplomacy and human rights for eighteen hours to the circle jerk of bespectacled bourgeois anarcho Bolsheviks that it dawns on him: he has made it!  Momma Chomsky would be proud to see her son the demigod of masochistic frippery. Noam prefers to be called Generalissimo in his particular corner of radical posing purveyors of Orwellian doublespeak and mental slavery we call the regressive left.  It is in this tendency that he is finishing up the junta coup plans to take the MIT quad by force of mimeograph and institute a new political party sans candidates or policies or leaders: just Noam.

The event will be organized by Students for Jew-slaughter in Palestine.  The cocktail hour will be held at the Iranian Book Depot and Vegan Pudding Kiosk.

This is only the beginning of our political nightmare.

Your Other Left: NATO's Liability: Sultan Erdogan's Ottoman Nostalgia

The Turkish President is an Ottoman nostalgia fetishist, aspiring Islamist caliph, Sultan of sectarian war by proxy, Hitler enthusiast, and jihadist sponsor. He’s an amateur semanticist and lexicographer who is determined to expand the definition of the word terrorist to include journalists.

Erdogan’s AKP or, Justice and Development Party, has systematically reversed a century of Turkish republican democracy. They deny their democratic opposition at every opportunity, arrest and prosecute everyone (from small children who draw cartoons of the Sultan to German citizens who make jokes about his royal heinous). Shall we forget his brutal ethnic cleansing campaign against the Kurds? Violence and Kafkaesque violations of civil rights are the norm for politicians for AKP opponents, including the pro-Kurdish and pro-democracy HDP, as well as Kurdish civilians, Kurdish grandmothers and writers alike, who have the audacity to terrorize the sanctimonious Sultan by way of their egregious acts of Kurdishness and for writing things which hurt the priggish president’s fee fees.

Turkey Under Erdogan

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has set Turkey on the fast track to dictatorship. Turkey under Erdogan is the ultimate NATO liability and after years spent as the perennial EU candidate, he has opted for the stultifying strategy of supporting ISIS and Al Qaeda. He’s attacking American and European allies in Syria – shooting down a Russian jet, taunting Vladimir Putin, openly dismantling democracy and civil society, and extorting billions of euros out of the EU. He cannot pretend his country is an example of sophisticated Europe. Steadily, over the preceding fourteen years, this reactionary has taken every step to nurture the bitterness which the portentous Turkish nationalism, Sunni tribalism, Salafi Islamism, and Ottoman nostalgia of 2016 were built on.

He is resolute about transforming Turkey into an Islamist paradise; one that is free of pesky Kurdish, Shia, and Alawite peoples within or just beyond their borders. He is through with the archaic tedium of open society hallmarks like democracy, pluralism, freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and civil rights for women. Erdogan is equally determined to allow Turkish citizens free access across European borders.

His Brave New Turkey will seek to annex and reassemble the remnants of the Sykes Picot experiment that ripped the Ottoman Empire to shreds and scattered the once mighty caliphate into small colonies which were carved according to resources. The Ottoman caliphate was broken into pieces which were kept under the watchful eye of a monarchy or dictatorship. If you were lucky enough to be the Turks, however, you had a democratic revolution at a time when half of Europe was falling to totalitarian fascists, totalitarian communists, or fighting the odious malignancy of the German NSDAP.

Turkey’s Diminishing Past Progress

The burgeoning Turkish state was fought for and built into an enduring modern secular democratic republic. The Turkish nation had problems and reactionary elements to be sure, but a new secular republic from the ashes of an empire that had fought on the losing side of the Great War managed to endure some tumultuous decades. The Turks built a standout society with a world class education system in a location wedged between the Soviet Union and Gulf kleptocracies on the eastern border, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. A century of continental struggles, civil war, and ethnic strife – just beyond the Mediterranean in the Balkan peninsula and across Eastern Europe – made the former caliphate seem quite serene. For a moment.

Turkey has occasionally proven adept at choosing the ugly, imperialist, and regressive path in spite of a clear memory of a history of empire. It saw the Ottoman genocide of Armenians, Yezidis and Assyrians, multiple bloody alliance realignments, and it had a front row seat to watch its neighbors locked in a brutal cycle of struggles. As a keystone NATO ally, Turkey played a unique role in the Cold War. The strategic bulwark against the Soviet expansion to the west (the oil rich gulf states), was the location for American missiles aimed at the Soviet Union. They were quietly removed after Kennedy and Kruschev’s idiotic nuclear edge-play over Cuba.

The era of Turkey as a NATO liability began with the 1974 invasion of the Mediterranean island nation of Cyprus. Cyprus was later to join the EU and has been a United Nations member since 1960. The invasion precipitated the Greek plan to annex Cyprus, and Turkey took control of 40% of the country. Since then, Turkey has received a remarkable four-decades-long silence in protest of this criminal occupation in which the Cypriots, under Turkish rule, see their benevolent colonizers yank large sums of cash directly out of their bank accounts with no recourse.

Holy Territory and the Israel-Palestine Conflict

The long running cause celebre of much of the anti-Western left, most Arab nations, and many Muslim majority states has been the so-called Israeli occupation of Palestine. With a much smaller population at play – few who participate in the settlement of Palestinian territory – it is the fact that the imperfect Israel is a state on land holy to every regional theistic tribe that fuels the never ending debate. The secular democracy that ethnic Palestinians do not wish to leave, let alone return to the fiefdom of militant terror cult Hamas, is the object of global hysteria, racial and religious hatred, cultural resentment, mystery, envy, and conspiracy theory paranoia. What do you know about Cyprus though?

Turkey’s illegal occupation and dehumanizing treatment of Cyprus is a long running Western European and American embarrassment. Turkey still occupies a UN member state, but how many people do you know who frequently attend demonstrations to protest this NATO ally in occupation of nearly half of a European Union member state? Where is the solidarity to the Cypriots who are used as a piggy bank?

The Sultan’s Allies and Adversaries

Erdogan has consolidated his power over the last fourteen years and he now openly declares that freedom and democracy have no value in Turkey. Journalists are terrorists and Turkish citizens who criticize, satirize or otherwise offend the sultan are arrested. Erdogan’s closing society is getting more barbaric, more tribal, more dogmatic, more bigoted, and more dangerous for minority groups and social outcasts. The Sultan can’t help himself it seems. Erdogan has had a beef-on-sight relationship with Russian despot Vladimir Putin, but the two men share so much. They both embrace theocratic fascists, terrorists, and nationalist political movements. Both conduct proxy actions against neighboring countries. Both oversee reactionary governments in former empires where democratic systems are falling by the wayside, and where residual imperial nostalgia is celebrated. There is little resistance to the swift transformation into full blown totalitarian states (organized around propaganda, reactionary populism, national religion, and an aggressive pursuit of war).

Erdogan seems to have stumbled in the eyes of, well, everyone except his friends and his base. Those, and some tiny subset of deranged nihilists who enjoy his Putinesque swagger, mustachioed-violence, and his belligerent message of dissonance. He is oblivious to the fact his contradictory statements are a matter of public record, but this doesn’t matter to the kind of oddball characters who don’t pretend to mask their insatiable appetite for the explosive collapse of society.

Some of Erdogan’s allies are the suicidal terrorists who want a theocratic slave-state on earth, and a penthouse suite after-party in heaven where they can rape and torture 72 virgins as it pleases them. In Erdogan’s Turkey we see the unification of every insidious discipline. The principles of human rights, civil rights, and individual liberty are out of style among leftists who are quick to defend the sectarian tribal cultists and theocratic fascists of every stripe. The Erdogan problem is not on the minds, it seems, of the Western Left.

These beasts of hatred, ideological orthodoxy, intellectual laziness, and absolutism so often admire Erdogan’s unencumbered aggression towards Russia, Assad, and the Kurdistan Worker’s Party or PKK (who are a criminal imperialist dictatorship client of the Iranian Ayatollah’s Guardian Council), genocidal ba’athist cartel client of IRGC, and militant nationalist anarcho-socialist guerilla car bomb cult with a propensity for self sabotage, respectively.

Creating a Refugee Crisis

Erdogan undoubtedly experienced a thrill when he committed the epic yet brazenly sloppy crime of the century: the extortion of billions from the EU for the phony refugee crisis, a portion of which he manipulated by forcing people to repopulate and migrate en masse. Erdogan saw that he could gain from the systematic bombardment of Europe by Gulf state, Afghan, and African refugees who were fleeing jihadists like the Islamic State. He doesn’t care if you fled cruel and genocidal regimes. Nothing matters more to him than the proxy war between the IRGC and the House of Saud being fought through the Syrian civil war with pick-up wars between Turkey and Kurds, Assad and Sunni Arab militias, or Al Qaeda and ISIS. Most people wouldn’t want to wind up in Turkey after escaping the evil and twisted never-ending death orgy of Boko Haram or the Taliban. Erdogan is taking advantage of the massive number of African migrants descending on Europe, and he has allowed ISIS, al Nusra, foreign recruits, and any anti-Assad or anti-Kurd force to cross back and forth over a 60 mile jihadi turnstile of the Turkish Syrian border. ISIS fighters have been given refuge and preferential treatment in Turkey complete with special medical care provided under the management of the Sultan’s daughter.

Russia, Turkey, and the United States

Then we have the looming chaos that is the proxy war between Russia and the United States. It hovers lazily above it all like a smelly Lovecraftian vapor intruding into every aspect of life and personal space. This conflict between the Islamic Republic of the Iran IRGC twelver cult and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in Syria, in Lebanon, and at the gas pump is that much worse because of the maniacal Erdogan’s involvement.

He is losing the trust of his western allies, who have been increasingly uncomfortable with his maneuvers against the Kurdish YPG who fight ISIS in Syria, the Kurdish civilians, journalists and political opponents, and the melee between Erdogan and Putin which saw a Russian jet cross into Turkish airspace with no concern – since they’ve tested several NATO members air space this way. Turkey was the wrong NATO member to test: the Russian jet was quickly shot down by Turkmen loyal to the Erdogan regime.

The U.S. led coalition against the Islamic state was happy to be using Turkey for the convenient air base after Turkey was no help with the wars or actions in Iraq or Syria previously. The headlines were jubilant: “Turkey enters fight against ISIS, jihad group is in trouble now”. This, of course, was authentic frontier gibberish by a lazy press who knew little about Turkey besides their NATO membership and EU candidacy. The foreign policy establishment and intelligentsia were barely any better, and perhaps this has to do with former CIA Director and paid U.S. lobbyist Porter Goss representing the Erdogan regime’s interests.

Turkey declared they’d attack ISIS and about six of their bombs fell somewhere near ISIS positions with zero casualties. At the same time, the NATO ally rained hundreds of bombs on the PKK, YPG, and Kurdish civilians in Syria and Iraq. The PKK is some kind of extreme leftist cult and they commit guerilla terrorist acts akin to the IRA in the UK or Basque separatists in Spain. However, they rescued Yazidis on Mount Sinjar, and even though the U.S. lists the PKK as a terrorist group, there was a working relationship between the PKK and the U.S. prior to Turkey’s entrance into the conflict.

Erdogan’s Support of the Caliphate

The U.S. takes Erdogan’s help while ignoring (or paying lip service to) him for his requests for support in his war against the PKK. Perhaps if he hadn’t so blatantly attacked YPG positions and Kurdish civilians in Bashur he could have received some support, but his position that the YPG is a terrorist group is not shared by Americans who have worked with YPG effectively against ISIS. Perhaps he would deserve some benefit of the doubt if he hadn’t behaved like a thug in response to the HDP election gains and if he hadn’t exposed his undemocratic and inhumane police state actions on civilians and political opponents in Cizre. Maybe he’d garner some respect if he hadn’t ordered the Turkish military to stand on the Turkish border and watch as ISIS bombed the Kurdish city of Kobane into oblivion. Turkish troops standing a few hundred meters from Kobane with a full arsenal, missile launchers, and tanks without engaging ISIS looked bad, but it has been confirmed that Turkish military were there to cover ISIS as they returned into Turkey. Captured ISIS fighters have spoken of their leadership announcing that the Turkish military was helping, and that Erdogan himself is a supporter of the caliphate.

Red Flags

Russia has been behaving aggressively for nearly a decade. The agitprop reality show and the client services clause keeping Putin’s client Assad in power and further embarrassing the U.S. are not totally unexpected. The belligerent despotic turn, bellicose behavior, and the bitter persona of Sultan Erdogan should not be surprising. Casual observers could see through the AKP and their thin skinned fascist, genocidal, and imperialist ambitions.

He has severe red flags. The Sultan has revealed his unambiguous totalitarian, fascist, Islamist, and kleptocratic trajectory through:

• His willingness to support jihadists.
• His police action against journalists, political opponents and other critics.
• Openly denying civil liberties to Kurds, all political opposition, and critical media figures.
• His election strategy (when he didn’t like his losing election results he forced a recount and campaigned by killing Kurds).
• His Hitler fantasy remarks.

Like any political boss with a crony operation, Erdogan has his country’s political pulse seemingly all sussed out, fragile though his grip on power will prove to be in time. The Sultan has, however, completely misread his place in global politics. Turkey, under AKP government, has squandered too much faith and prestige in short order. Power has blinded Erdogan. He thought the west would go along with his iron-and-ham-fisted maneuvers despite the media spotlight shining on Syria. The consensus thinking had improved just as there was media coverage of Russia’s role as Assad’s airpower/bodyguard and official mouthpiece for the aggressive theocratic axis because: Russia Today Orthodox Church Federation, Islamic Republic of Iran, and the Shia-Alawite criminal syndicate of Assad regime forces and the IRGC pet terrorists known as Hezbollah know Turkey has played a dangerous game with ISIS.

Kurds are beloved across the west, eastern Europe and the entire free world for their courage and success against the Islamic state and for their example of establishing open society and democratic traditions informed by a unique blend of left wing socialism and western liberalism in a region where the only true democracy, Israel, is seen as a villain by the entire neighborhood of nations, regardless of sectarian differences.

As much as everyone (except Russia, Iran, Hezbollah and Jeremy Corbyn type leftists) agrees that Bashar al Assad must eventually go, the world is pragmatic in understanding that if Assad was removed without a replacement government lined up, and before the various parties including ISIS are defeated or isolated, the vacuum would lead to more war not less. Even if Assad goes and ISIS is too weak to take more territory, the proxy war between Sunni sponsors and Iran over control of Syria is not likely to go smoothly or quiet down.

What can the West do in this Syrian conflict?

The Russians are doing what they need to do to protect Assad and the US should leave them to it. Let Putin inherit this quagmire while the U.S. and the coalition against ISIS help the Kurds secure Iraq, Bashur and Rojava. Perhaps Iran will be preoccupied with their Syrian experiment leaving the Iraqi Shia government free to negotiate a peaceful settlement with the Sunni leadership, and the better-late-than-never three-state Mesopotamia can begin with some sort of economic agreement (the three Iraqi partitions will depend on a resource and revenue sharing scheme to survive, without which the influence of Iran and outside interests would become too strong and peace among the Iraqi trinity would be threatened).

Our allies are against each other. The Putin-Iran-Assad axis is playing games and hurling agitprop nonsense against the U.S., Kurds, Turkey, and all the Saudi proxy groups, with cross purposes. We can focus on Iraq and our friendship with the Kurds and Yazidis. The Kurds in Iraq have demonstrated their potential as a model society in the Middle East and the West needs another regional model and partner besides Israel. A democratic Kurdistan could replace the flailing AKP Turkey for military and strategic purposes. Iraqi Kurds have been brutal to Yazidis and Assyrians and the West can’t effectively encourage Kurds to be civilized towards the Yazidis and Assyrians if the West can’t promote Western principles. Americans may not know about Erdogan, but the rest of the planet does, and the credibility of liberal society and Western power is weakened due to our failure to hold our friends to a higher standard, recognize our enemies, and stand for our principles.

Suspend Turkey from NATO until the AKP is out.

Your Other Left: Reparations Accounting

Race mythology is big news these days.  I am a member of the human race.  Genetic difference between people with different skin tone is like that of people with different hair color.  We are all African in fact.  This is what Black Lives Matter does not know.  Now we have to talk about this bullshit.

I would like to know which of my Irish, Swiss and Italian ancestors ever owned slaves and if any did how that makes me or any other descendent of immigrants culpable for the slavery which so many Americans shed blood to end.  There is only one race.  Human solidarity.  Fuck identity politics.

Let's not include the body count preceding the the existence of the United States by African slavers and European merchants since that would be ridiculous.  You can take that up with the British, French, Turks and whichever African tribe still stands related to those barbaric villains.

Beginning in 1776: Jefferson (who married one of his slaves, who was his sister in law) tried to include abolition in the declaration, Paine and Franklin started the anti slavery society and Paine repeatedly tried to get the early presidents to fight the South Carolina delegations on slavery, from there we have 60 to 70 years of slavery in the United States before the civil war and during which time there were abolitionists, politicians, and journalists involved in fighting and breaking the law to free slaves.  In 1860 we begin a war to preserve the union over the issue of slavery and more Americans died fighting this war than in all wars combined before or since.  The war began with the election of an anti-slavery president and the idea that no new slave states could be added to the union.

I'm a major advocate for civil equality (as well as a lover of black people and culture in this country) but that is a separate issue.  The issue of reparations affects the tens of millions of immigrants and descendants to arrive in this country since 1865. It would have to include an accounting of who is related to slaves and slave owners.  It would run the risk of penalizing people who are not related to slave owners and rewarding people for nothing other than the color of their skin.  I'm not about to sit down while anybody is treated to any institutional benefits or prejudice based on anything as asinine as skin color.  You and I are the same race.  Every human being has common ancestors from Africa.  We are lucky enough to live in the most free nation on earth at a time where global poverty is 70% lower than it was in 1970.  Let's talk about something we haven't already figured out.  We are beyond this bullshit of skin color.  Now maybe we can free the slaves in Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Africa.  Once we have freed the slaves I will have a Coke.

Missionary Zeal

When the cult of masochism finally succeeds at abrogating modernity and extirpating liberal enlightenment principles from civil society and we all return to the agrarian system where tribalism and feudalism hold sway, victimization and outrage will be the new currency.  With no vaccines and everybody dying from dissentary because they defecate in their composte and prematurely smear it on their artificially selected crops, I wonder which God they'll blame it on?  Surely it will be some sort of non-denominational multicultural "Gaia meets Yahweh" character.

The Migrant Crisis and The "Universal Eligibility to be Noble."

Whether nationalism can be harnessed positively to address the mass immigration problem in Europe depends on the nature of the already thin premise of nationalism.Ethnic nationalism, like any identity tribalism, is treacherous.Class or populist nationalism is no different.The only type of nationalism that can be positive is a multicultural community partisanship or solidarity nationalism.People can bond through shared experience and common struggle in common space, even if they are different ethnicities, religions and any other arbitrary identity grouping.

In diverse cities in the US one could go to a bar or a carnival and witness the multicultural American nationalism at peak cohesion. Parts of New Jersey or Florida where there are Jews, Christians, Muslims, atheists, blacks, whites, Asians, Latinos and communities of eastern European and Mediterranean immigrants come together rather easily.The American immigrant communities retained their cultural identities to a certain extent but assimilated more and more with each generation.

Europe has sold themselves on the idea of a European version of the American melting pot as if it were a 'cash and carry' policy to be applied at will.The cosmopolitan aesthetic and multicultural make up of the United States was achieved over two centuries, but it hasn't been smooth sailing by any means. Assassinations have been commonplace and polarization ebbs and flows from one period of tumult to the next. We had a civil war over slavery and there have been many smaller bloody conflicts in nearly every region.These events gradually fade from memory due to the unique character of the American ideal and immigrants the American dream attracts.

America is a nation unlike most others because it is based on not just ideals but radical enlightenment ideals specifically, rather than most other nations based on kinship.Solidarity nationalism has survived in this country due to the optimism and spirit of immigrants and natural born alike, but it cannot be maintained if there is mass immigration, and segregated tribal ghettos.When disparate cultures who think with their blood or superstitionIf you consider old world wounds from the last century, to say nothing of the preceding 20, the only way other countries can achieve civic cohesion is slowly and with emphasis on soft indoctrination.I'd love to see dependency states in Europe and elsewhere achieve American type cohesion and better, but the rush job to attract immigrants just wasn't done wisely at all.

People from all over the world wanted to come to America because it is the only nation in which one can become not just a citizen but an actual American.If I moved to France or Vietnam I could become a citizen but I'd never become French or Vietnamese.There were unique circumstances that made this possible.It is worth mentioning also that the waves of immigration to the United states came from European countries and colonies with similar cultural DNA and the combination of deliberate propaganda and word of mouth made this egalitarian new world a destination for people who were seeking the solidarity nationalism experience of the American dream.

The "universal eligibility to be noble" still attracts new and future Americans, but Europe was simply in too big a hurry to attract sinew and didn't do the necessary ideological propaganda to westernize the newcomers.Though it has been relaunched in recent years, it was a mistake to shut down radio free Europe/radio liberty after the fall of the Soviet Union.The cold war ended, but the campaign to advance universal civil rights and human solidarity should have been pushed harder not withdrawn.We are in for one bloody hell of a century.

Transmissions From Closed Society: Tadamun al Murtadin from Morocco

The following is from a young man living in Morocco who we will call Tadamun al Murtadin, or Tad.  Tad is 18 years old: Follow Tad at twitter.com/Tadamunn and facebook.com/tadamun.almurtadin

Apostate in Morocco

My name is Tadamun, I'm a 18 years, I'm an Ex-Muslim atheist. I live in Morocco and I study in college currently. As an apostate I face persecution, oppression and violence from society and even from my family.

   I left Islam more than 1 years ago, after a long time of reading and seeking the truth. I was 17 years old back then. I was never okay with blindly following, as a skeptical person i couldn't keep believing without evidence, especially when i start to notice the brutal, cruel teaching of Islam and the many illogical things in Quran. So when i got the chance to read more about Islam, and raise my scientific knowledge, especially reading about Evolution theory, i realized that scientific method is the only true way of knowing, and that Islam is literally a source of terrorism all around the world, so i ended up being an atheist.

  Talking about my family, I'm literally in a quite hard situation dealing with my extremist father, who's forcing me to Islam, he did punch me several times just because I don't pray and do other Islamic things, and he's keep threatening. He once said to me: "If I see you talking bad about Islam one more time, i will kick you out of my house, and I won't consider you my son anymore". That hurts, he's so cruel when it comes to Islam, he can even kill me if he figured out that I'm no longer a Muslim.

    I have two little innocent sisters, I love them so much, and I feel sorry when I think that they will be raised as Muslims too, I wish to do something about it when they're old enough. but I am not rich, and it's quite hard for a young guy like me to find a job in this country. I can't blame my mother for being a Muslim inside this manly society which is under the control of men. My father for example, he have complete control over my mother, and she can't do anything about it, he decides what she should wear, when she's allowed to go out, and if she didn't obey him he punches her, it makes me so sad seeing my mother treated like this, this what it's like to live in a Muslim country no one cares about Humans rights.

  This society is sick, during summer days I will have to starve myself, and hide myself if I want to drink just a cup of water because of Ramadan, and if I do eat something in public I will immediately go to jail. Also there is no LGBT rights over here, one of my best friends is gay, and he's treated so cruel, religious people are making fun of him, and even they try to fight him. One day In college, one of the teachers there was treating my friend so bad in class when he knows that he's gay, I tried to defend him by discussing the whole thing with him, I explained to him that homosexuality isn't a choice.  And it exists in several animals as well as humans so it's completely natural thing, as expected from a Muslim teacher he got mad, and I was about to get fired from college because of that. I ended up getting a very bad treatment from my classmates and other teachers. We're in a bad situation just because we're different, just because we're using our brain to think. I hope one day I will be able to continue my study in a better place, where I can peacefully express myself and study what I'm passionate about.

  Since I became an atheist, I have convinced 3 of my close friends to leave Islam, because I wanna be a part of this revolution against this culture, to open the eyes of people to see what Islamic doctrine really is. And I will always fight against any inhumane behavior. I need help to build my life, to learn and study, and most of all to keep myself safe, because it's really dangerous to be around all of these starving Muslims

  Just like any other young man in this world, I have my own dreams. I wanna live in a secular country and continue my study there. To be honest I have a lot of financial problems stopping me from leaving Morocco, my Muslims family doesn't support me, and they're doubting that I'm an atheist. I love computer science and I'm really into graphic design, I wanna be a creative literate man, and it would be awesome if I got the chance to study In a great university to study Graphic design or Computer science. But I'm facing these problems that stopping me to develop myself and have a good life.

Tadamun al Murtadin
Morocco

Transmissions From Closed Society: Impiety, A Taboo In Pakistan by Rafiq

The following essay was written by a young man from Pakistan.  We'll call him Rafiq. He is 19 years old.

Impiety, A Taboo: by Rafiq in Pakistan

 Out of the early 7th century Hejaz region of the Arabian Peninsula comes the second largest religion in the world. Apparently just another monotheistic religion, Islam includes a large number of practices that affect lives of the people and leaves a remarkable impact on society.

The vast majority of followers of this religion today inhabit North Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. While the majority of the population in these areas are Muslims, there are also some people living in “closets” among them. To their own people they don’t appear very alien, but in reality, they are segregated from almost everyone around them. For excellent reasons, these people have to live a secret life, because hardly any of them would want to come out and risk their life. Out of their own league, these people actually happen to be cultural critics, rationalists and free thinkers. They commit what, to the majority of the people around them, is a crime known as blasphemy. In such a rigid atmosphere it is easy to go with the flow, but they go against it. They are almost unknown to everyone around them, including their blood relatives.  They lead a life in secret, a prisoner in their own minds.

Skeptical thinking and questioning the religious traditions are not the norm in Islamic societies. Most of the Muslim majority countries apply Sharia, a religious law based on the Quran and other Islamic doctrines, to their legislature. This includes blasphemy laws, which contain penalties from life imprisonment up to death for anyone who is found guilty of blaspheming the religion of Islam or its prophet. There have been a number of cases where the blasphemy convicts are sentenced to horrendous punishments. Besides having such severe laws, the societies in these countries are not very tolerant either. Unlike in the western societies where people do not question an individual’s right to freedom of speech, in the Muslim societies it is quite the opposite. Religion is a very sensitive subject to the Muslim people. Anything negative said about their religious dogma or the prophet is not tolerated at all.  Apostasy, leaving Islam, is considered one of the biggest social crimes and in a great lot of societies it is punishable by death. This too mostly does not require a proper court ruling in accordance with the laws but a simple social and religious construct.


To someone who has lived in such a society for whole of their life, these are the facts of life. Being born and raised into such a totalitarian culture that considers itself the absolute, final and unchangeable word of god, a child undergoes an intense level of indoctrination. The indoctrination does not only include irrational superstition but also dissension, execration and fanaticism. This kind of brainwashing injures the minds and deprives people of the ability to create a pluralistic, tolerant and multicultural society. People holding different beliefs and opinions are viewed as heretics and it becomes very difficult for the minorities in these Muslim majority countries to survive such kind of social persecution.

Transmissions From Closed Society: Khazana

The following was written by a young woman from Tunisia.  We'll call her Khazana. She is 28 years old.

I Want To Live: from Khazana in Tunisia

I am a woman, an Arabic atheist from Tunisia; do you know what it means to be an atheist in a country where 99% are Muslims?  It means you must keep your atheism to yourself and try not to reveal yourself to people around you. It means your life might be threatened at any time.  Your life is less valuable here because in my country being an atheist means you are a sinful person.  You are guilty. You are wrong.  For this you will be rejected, dissed or killed.

I am thankful for science and reason for opening my eyes to the truth. I am not a slave to illusions and lies anymore. I don’t believe in supernatural beings and I don't wish to be subject to morality based on outmoded religious beliefs.  I am capable of making up my own mind.  The people around me cannot find out that I have stopped believing.

I am 28 years old and I am desperate to have a relationship with some like-minded people. How can I get along with people if I don’t share the same beliefs and mentality!? I can’t be in a romantic relationship with men who might abuse me if they discover my secret.  I am afraid I will be forced to marry and obey a man that will treat me as if I am not an independent adult human worthy of dignity. I do not wish to live a secret life where I pretend to be religious and perform 5 prayers per day with a scarf on my head.

I would like to leave Tunisia, but it is hard to find a job.  I could not afford a plane ticket.  I am stuck here with no one to talk to, no one to listen.  It is just me, helpless and alone in the dark.

I am not the only one who is struggling. The unemployment rate among women is 41.1% and the unemployment rate among men is 21.4%.  I have spent 3 years trying and failing to find a job.

There is no future for me here. I am done with my situation I want to have a life.  I want to experience freedom. I want a job that makes me feel like a human. I want the opportunity to have an impact on society. I want rights. I want to defend those rights. I want TO LIVE!

Khazana,
Tunisia

Transmissions From Closed Society: Samat

The following is from a young man living in Pakistan. We will call him Samat. He is 23 years old.

Fake Prayers with my Jihadi Family: from Samat in Pakistan

I am a 23-year old Ex-Muslim in Pakistan who has been living underground for almost two years now. I say I’m underground instead of "in the closet," because underground is where I feel I’ve been for the past two years: I have an ‘Islamist’ family.

My uncle is a convicted terrorist. He was with the Taliban. I have a cousin who is a recruiter for ISIS in a village where I have other relatives on my mother's side. Many people in that same village morally and financially support some Islamist militant groups in Pakistan. Things are not so good on my father’s side as well, since my parents were distant relatives before they got married. I used to be the same as my militant family members. I used to be an admirer of Osama bin Laden. I had plans to join Hamas when I was 18 or 19, but I ended up losing my faith, for a variety of reasons.

I still go the mosque, to fake prayers. I do my best to pretend to fast in Ramadan. I help slay the goat at Eid. This is something you just can’t get used to. You can’t get used to hiding your identity all the time, because you are afraid that if you come out, you will get physically harmed for it. You can’t get used to constant fear. If there was no death penalty for apostasy under Islamic law that many Muslims (including my family) believe in, I wouldn’t be hiding my identity. I would only get disowned if that were the case. One can get over social ostracization in my opinion, but once you’re dead, you’re dead.

Previously my aim in life was Jihad and martyrdom. Now, it’s to get out of Pakistan somehow. I don’t think I can hide my identity forever. Not with these family members. I have been approached by the recruiter in my mother’s village to join ISIS. The recruiters present you with a warped, binary perspective of world politics, framing it in terms of Muslim vs Non-Muslim and they justify this worldview with a plethora of Quranic verses, hadith and their explanations. I’ve refused to join, mentioning half-forgotten peaceful verses in the Quran in an attempt to delegitimize ISIS in religious terms. Other times, I’ve said I’ll study Islam myself and then decide.

I know my pretense can’t last forever. Will I be faking prayers, faking fasting in Ramadan 10 years from today? Will I always be watching over my shoulder, concerned that nobody in the family finds out there’s an apostate in the family? Some classmates of mine from University know I’m an atheist and the news about my apostasy seems to be spreading around in my social circle. I have to get out, sooner or later. I’d rather die trying to get out than get caught my family…or the state for that matter. Officially, atheists don’t exist in Pakistan. We are an unrecognized minority. There have been cases where the state has imprisoned atheists in Pakistan over blasphemy charges. (1) Talks about apostasy bills have taken place in government (2). But my biggest fear is getting assaulted by a mob or physically beaten by family members. Even the accusation of apostasy can get you in serious danger (3). I was almost lynched once for eating in public in Ramadan. I had to beg people around me to forgive me and that I won’t eat again while others are fasting.


I’m uncertain about my future here and the uncertainty can be unnerving at times. I like to take comfort in the fact that, one way or another, this will end, eventually.

Samat,
Pakistan

Why They Hate Us

“Even if you were to stop bombing us, imprisoning us, torturing us, vilifying us, and usurping our lands, we would continue to hate you because our primary reason for hating you will not cease to exist until you embrace Islam.” -ISIS

This is a statement from the most active and vocal manifestation of the global jihadist insurgency.   This theocratic fascism must be terminated intellectually and the practitioners must be extirpated from civil society.  Solidarity to all people.  Death to fascism.

Your Other Left: On Leftist Seppuku

Making ethical decisions in a world where everything is political can be challenging.  For instance slavery:  how can I signal to you my virtue as a hyper progressive without declaring my utter contempt for white people on the basis that some of them owned slaves before the civil war?  What about FGM?  Or the Jewish question?  Allow me to parse all of your hot button issues with my handy leftist decoder ring, from kiddie diddling cults to slavery it all comes down, as you'll see, to your inherent islamophobia.

Baby Vagina Mangling is part of the culture and when you talk about it you might fuel right wing narratives so don't talk about it.  When you talk about how islamic cultures treat women you are basically saying you're a racist neocon Zionist and I don't know what these words mean but I'll shout and play the part of victim while virtue signaling my moral superiority for supporting the myth of a Palestinian ethnicity.   Israel are like Nazi occupiers because I heard it somewhere.  I will defend the  suicide guerrilla mass murdering psychotics in fascist death cults in the Mideast countries I can't find on a map, and stand up for the oppressed Muslim race because even if you inform me that Islam is not a race you're still a racist islamophobe because reasons.  If you say islamophobia was coined by the Muslim brotherhood to make criticizing islam taboo in the west, I will merely say something about colonialism and call you a Nazi Zionist.  It is easier this way.

 If you assert that Islam is a revealed theistic religion started by a conman who became a warlord and kiddie diddler while managing to launch a revolution to liberate Arabs (and eventually everyone who submits to Islam) from the racist saturnalia of passive paganism,  the polytheistic whores who worship polyspecies mutant Gods who gave us the pi, atheists and Jews with their Christian baby Matsoh recipes, the Zoroastrian firebreathers and other infidel sodomized then I will just point your attention to our lovely multiculturalism: See Sarah from Haifa on the runway in the synthetic Syrian cotton thread scarf over giraffe print on the sleek new niqab with easy access holes for honor and grooming.  

Unless you would like to see the minorities within minorities cease being victims of such preternatural piffle, then I suggest you get with the program.  Hamas is your friend.  Now show me to the Kuffar room.  I think it is room 101.

Homegrown Demagogues and Theocratic Fascists

"Anyone who threatens our values, whether fascists or communists or jihadists or homegrown demagogues, will always fail." -PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA 7-27-16

There are encouraging signs of madness at play here, indeed the entire world seems to be coming into contrast with the Donald openly declaring himself in league with the enemies of freedom and Erdogan making zoo noises of a similar hue:
The Donald has crossed yet another line.  It is a line I would not have guessed was even in play for a major party nominee.  It is 2016 and Olympian swimmers will lap in sewage, the most despicable of our NATO allies briefly experience a sketchy coup and the GOP invites the Russian theocratic dictatorship into our political process.

Tighten up folks.