*** 12-Jan-15 World View -- Reader comments: Is Islam at war with the West?

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Reader comments on Islam and Christianity
• Is Islam at war with the West?
• Is Islam a religion, like Christianity, or just an ideology or mindset?
• Is PEGIDA a neo-Nazi movement, or just a simple grass roots protest?

****
**** Reader comments on Islam and Christianity
****


U.S. Marines storm Tripoli during the First Barbary War (1801-05) against North African Berber Muslims

In several recent articles, I've been describing the massive and
growing war of Muslims against Muslims in the Mideast, South Asia and
Northern Africa. I've made the point that Islam is NOT at war with
the West, and that the terrorist attacks, such as this past week's
Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris, were collateral damage from the real
war, the between Muslims and Muslims.

The following are some comments that I received.

****
**** Is Islam at war with the West?
****

<QUOTE>"I come to your site every day because I believe you
have something valuable to say, but when you make this statement,
you destroy your credibility.

<QUOTE>'As I've been reporting repeatedly, there is no
Muslim war against the West. Even in the last week, when a score
of people in Paris were killed, thousands were killed in Boko
Haram massacres in Nigeria, while hundreds more were killed in
Syria, Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia and other
countries.'<END QUOTE>

Muslims are surely fighting against each other - but to declare
the war is only happening on one front is nothing less than
selective denial. Hitler fought the West, but you might remember
he fought on an "Eastern Front" too. Save your credibility sir,
Islam is at war with everyone, including their own
families."<END QUOTE>

I've been writing about Muslim violence since 2003 -- thousands of
articles. I have, on file, almost 90,000 news stories that I've
copied and pasted from media sources around the world. I've read all
of these, as well as millions more that I didn't copy. In addition,
I've listened to untold thousands of hours from the BBC, al-Jazeera,
and domestic news services.

With all of that input, I find plenty of terrorist acts, but I cannot
find any evidence of an actual war by Muslims against the West -- as
measured by actual behavior, not by the rantings of Muslim terrorists
and jihadist leaders.

As I've described in recent articles, there have been fewer than 9,000
Christians killed in individual terrorist acts in the 13 years since
9/11/2011. Now that's a lot of Christians, but it's not what I would
call a war, except in a symbolic sense. For it to be a real war, you
would need to see Muslim armies attacking Europe or America.

On the other hand, there are militias and large armies of Muslims
attacking other Muslims in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, Mali, Nigeria,
Afghanistan and Pakistan. EACH YEAR there are 50,000 or so Muslims
killed by these armies, five times as many killed each year as
Christians were killed in THIRTEEN YEARS.

I want to emphasize what a big difference this is. Individual
terrorist acts by individual terrorists are bad, but they're not the
same as large armies conducting a real war.

In some ways this is just semantics. For most people, there isn't
much difference between being at war with Islamist jihadists versus
being at war with Islam.

I think it's dangerous for the West not to know who their real enemy
is. Those who say that "Islam is the enemy of the West" or "All
Muslims are enemies of the West" are doing a disservice because, if
they're believed, then resources will be wasted fighting the wrong
enemy. Indeed, it's quite possible that that's exactly what the ISIS
and AQAP leaders want -- to see the West waste their resources
attacking "Islam" or "all Muslims", rather than ISIS or AQAP
or other Muslim terrorist jihadists.

For more discussion, see the following articles:

"10-Jan-15 World View -- Up to 2000 Nigeria civilians killed in three-day Boko Haram massacre"

"8-Jan-15 World View -- The historic dilemma of the West versus the Muslim jihadists"

"1-Jan-15 World View -- The three most important dangers for 2015"

"29-Dec-14 World View -- Do news organizations ignore jihadist attacks on Christians?"

****
**** Is Islam a religion, like Christianity, or just an ideology or mindset?
****

<QUOTE>"Once there is a resolution of the Sunni-Shia schism
within Islam, it needs to be clearly understood that this
resolution is only the beginning. John's comments make no
provision for dealing with the ideology of radical Islam after the
resolution of their internal conflict (I have come to believe that
there is no Islam other than radical Islam). I can't stress
forcefully enough that Islam is not a religion... it is a mind
set. Islam makes no provision for the accommodation of anything
other than Islam - it isn't just about Allah, it's about Allah in
government, it's about Allah in speech (the "rationale" for todays
murders in Paris), it's about Allah in school, it's all about
Allah in every single aspect of life. Further, to be clear, and
make no mistake, there is an Imam someplace who is willing to
issue a fatwa that is going to tell you just exactly what that
means, and how you WILL comply with orthodox (as he sees it)
Islam, under penalty of death. Understand: there is no aspect of
life that is outside of the purview of Islam."<END QUOTE>

Islam is just as much a religion as Christianity is. Or, if you like,
Christianity is also just an ideology, in view of Christian Nazis who
killed Jews and other Christians, or Irish Protestants who killed
Catholics.

<QUOTE>"John, on most occasions we are in sync. Here we shall
have to agree to disagree.

Grew up in Dearborn, MI - largest Muslim community in the U.S. The
high school I attended was 30% Muslim - now it's 100% Muslim.
Developed an unfavorable attitude first hand - Muslims are
routinely strident, belligerent, and combative. After high school,
I lived in Turkey for a year - at the time Turkey was the most
moderate of the Muslim countries. Living in a Muslim country made
me understand what I saw in high school. I can remember leaving
Ankara in 1967 looking out the airplane's window thinking: "... no
one will believe what I tell them about this place... God help the
world if these people ever get money...." That was over 45 years
ago, and now they have the money to buy arms, and explosives,
i.e. the means to carry out their mentality; and there is no
longer a powerful moral America with the will to stop them.

Muslims are a problem wherever they alight. Philippines, Timor,
Myanmar, India, Kashmir, China, Russia, Israel, Britain, France,
Nigeria, Thailand, Kenya, et al. Virtually every airplane
hijacking since 1970 has been by Muslims, not Christians. ... The
only time Muslims seek freedom and tolerance is when they are a
significant minority; when they achieve a significant plurality,
or majority it is their way or the sword, they have no compunction
regarding impressing their will - Sharia Law - upon all. They
tolerate nothing, it's Allah, or die - it's Sharia for
all. Muslims believe that anyplace Muslims have occupied is theirs
forever, anyplace Muslims have prayed is theirs forever. ...

And Christianity is certainly not without issues, but here we are
discussing the differences between Christianity and Islam. The
difference between Christianity, and Islam is that the embrace of
Christianity is voluntary, with no direct physical harm, or ill
consequences suffered if one rejects the conversion. As recent
events have made clear, in Islam the conversion is not voluntary;
it's convert, or the sword - the conversion is coerced and once
converted, should you desire to exit Islam, it is a capital
offense subjecting you to death. ...

While Christianity has its dark chapters, those are not taking
place now. At this moment the Christian Church is as was given to
us through the Enlightenment and to a somewhat lesser degree by
the American Revolution (the inherent value of life, honesty, the
rule of law, personal freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of
religion, and many more, among others)."<END QUOTE>

Your final remark about "dark chapters" is where your argument
contradicts itself.

You claim that Christianity and Islam are fundamentally different in
that Islam isn't even a religion -- it's an ideology or mind set. To
support that claim in practice you would have to prove two things: not
only that Christianity and Islam have had different cumulative
outcomes throughout centuries of history, but also that Christianity
could never return to a new "dark chapter" in the future.

I claim you have no hope of proving either of those. All you can hope
to prove is that AT THE PRESENT TIME Islam is producing different
outcomes than Christianity. And the latter may in fact be true, as
the examples you've given illustrate. But that means that Islam and
Christianity are both religions, and differences in outcomes are only
temporal.

Why would such temporal differences exist? For the answer to that,
we look to a generational analysis.

WW II is still remarkably fresh in the minds of most Christians. How
was it possible for the entire Christian German population to turn
into Nazis and create the Holocaust to exterminate Jews, and also to
turn on the Christian French population, the Christian British
population, and also the Orthodox Christian Russian population. This
is still a matter of shame throughout the world Christian community,
and it affects every Christian's attitudes to people of other
religions.

But there is no similar collective memory in the Muslim community.
For Muslims, the destruction of the Ottoman Empire (in 1922) was in
the far more distant past than WW II, and to them was not a cause for
shame among Muslims, but a cause for shame among Europeans and
Russians, including Christians and Jews. Furthermore, the loss of the
Istanbul Caliphate is a gaping hole in the Muslim psyche.

That brings us to Iran's Great Islamic Revolution and the Iran/Iraq
war (1979-1988), which is as important to Islam as WW II is to the
West. This was a generational crisis war largely in the Shia Muslim
community. The problems that you described as Muslim problems are
actually almost always Sunni Muslim problems. Since Shia Muslims have
had a generational crisis war much more recently than Sunni Muslims,
then have far different attitudes and behaviors. So your argument
about Islam falls apart even when you consider temporal differences
between Shia and Sunni Islam.

Finally, as another counterexample to the uniqueness of Islam, the
shame of WW II does not extend to the Buddhist community, and the
Buddhists in Burma (Myanmar), led by a Buddhist monk, are massacring
innocent Muslim women and children, razing entire villages. The
Muslims under greatest attack are Rohingya immigrants, but the
Buddhists have even attacked Muslim villages that have existed for
hundreds of years.

****
**** Is PEGIDA a neo-Nazi movement, or just a simple grass roots protest?
****

This comment was in response to an article on PEGIDA,
a growing 'anti-Islamization' movement in
Germany.

<QUOTE>"You interpret PEGIDA as the rise of some neo-Nazi
movement. Writing to you this very moment from Germany, I can
assure you that thousands of Germans are most decidedly NOT
parading around shouting "Deutschland für Deutsche! Ausländer
raus!" That was/is the slogan of the far right, to use the phrase,
and you are wrong to conflate it and them with PEGIDA.

This movement, a grass roots protest, arose in the former GDR
[Communist East Germany], a region that has more familiarity with
totalitarian government than you or I have. They know a lie when
they are being forced to believe it, first under the SED
dictatorship, as socialism, and now under the EU and its constant
cheerleaders and propaganda. If you are located on the continent,
you will be only too aware of this. If you are not, then you are,
as I posted previously, writing with a less than full
understanding."<END QUOTE>

The article was not about me. What I was doing in my article was
reporting that European leaders are describing Pegida as neo-Nazi or
xenophobic.

In fact, Pegida organizer Kathrin Oertel agrees with my reporting: "Or
how would you see it when we are insulted or called racists or Nazis
openly by all the political mainstream parties and media for our
justified criticism of Germany's asylum seeker policies and the
non-existent immigration policy?"

So Oertel agrees with me that many Europeans view Pegida as xenophobic
or racist or Nazi. My personal opinion is that Hungary's Jobbik and
Greece's Golden Dawn are neo-Nazi, but Pegida is only "a little bit
xenophobic," at least so far.

<QUOTE>"To make the claim that this is the echoes of the
1930s all over again is patently false. There is not mass
unemployment, there is not anarchy, there is no hyperinflation,
there is no war just lost, there are no humiliating reparations,
there is no loss of territory, no occupation by foreign
powers. Would you like me to continue? Today's Germany is a
modern, peaceful, prosperous and surprisingly tolerant
country. Did you know it took in more refugees from the Yugoslavia
conflict than all the other countries put together?"<END QUOTE>

Oh, really? Unemployment rate at 25% in Greece and Spain, 16% in
Italy, above 10% in other eurozone countries. Hyperinflation was an
early 1920s phenomenon -- deflation was a 1930s phenomenon, same as
today. No humiliating reparations, but humiliating bailout
accusations between Germany and Greece, with the same effect. No loss
of territory or occupation, but floods of Syrian and African refugees
evoking the same emotions.

<QUOTE>"But given that a phobia is an irrational fear, there
is nothing irrational in witnessing whole areas of the town or
city where you were born and raised becoming nothing less than
foreign enclaves filled with people who refuse to integrate, let
alone be able to even if they should want."<END QUOTE>

I don't disagree with your characterization, and I might well feel the
same way in those circumstances.

As a student of history, surely you must see the similarities with the
1930s. The Nazis gave very "rational" reasons for their attitudes
towards Jews -- Jewish bankers had made money from the reparations,
Jews had sold out the Germans, etc. One can always find "rational"
reasons for any emotion.

But that doesn't change the point that I'm making. Xenophobic and
neo-Nazi movements are spreading across Europe today, and Pegida is
one of them, even if it's in its early stages. This is a trend that's
been growing for years, particularly since the rise of Generation-X,
and the trend is going to continue and grow.

By the way, suppose you were King of Europe. What would you do?
Deport all the Muslims? Lock them up in camps? Close the borders to
Syrian women and children fleeing starvation and bloody massacres?
Sink their boats and let them drown in the Mediterranean? What would
you do, and why would what you would do be better than what the
neo-Nazis would do?

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, France, Paris, Charlie Hebdo,
Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, Mali, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Pakistan,
Islam, Christianity, Nazis, Holocaust, Ottoman Empire,
Iran, Great Islamic Revolution, Iran/Iraq war,
Burma, Myanmar, Rohingyas, Pegida, Germany,
Hungary, Jobbik, Greece, Golden Dawn

Permanent web link to this article
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ISIS and AQAP may themselves be aided by other true enemies of The West, precisely to help accomplish the goal of getting the West to "fight Islam" instead of fighting totalitarianism.

*** 13-Jan-15 World View -- Concern rising over Muslim 'no-go zones' as terror breeding grounds

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Britain's PM Cameron calls Fox News commentator a 'total idiot'
• Controversy revived over France's 'no-go zones'
• France to deploy 5,000 police to protect Jewish schools

****
**** Britain's PM Cameron calls Fox News commentator a 'total idiot'
****


A typical sight in a commercial area of a Muslim 'no-go zone' in France (Daniel Pipes)

Steve Emerson, self-described as "an internationally recognized expert
on terrorism", appeared on Fox News on Sunday evening, and was asked
about "no-go zones." He said that there are a number of European
cities "where sharia courts were set up, where Muslim density is very
intense, where the police don't go in, and where it's basically a
separate country almost, a country within a country." He added:

<QUOTE>"In Britain, it's not just no go zones, there are
actual cities like Birmingham that are totally Muslim where
non-Muslims just simply don't go in. And parts of London, there
are actually Muslim religious police that actually beat and
actually wound seriously anyone who doesn't dress according to
Muslim, religious Muslim attire. So there's a situation that
Western Europe is not dealing with."<END QUOTE>

When Britain's prime minister David Cameron was asked about it,
he said:

<QUOTE>"Frankly I choked on my porridge and thought it must
be April Fool's Day. This guy is clearly a complete
idiot."<END QUOTE>

Perhaps Emerson's hysterical remarks were in some way forgivable, but
one is tempted to agree with Cameron. In 2006, the Congressional
Quarterly did an informal survey of Mideast "experts" in Washington,
including some who had been analysts for years, and discovered they
were abysmally ignorant. One so-called expert, for example, thought
that al-Qaeda was a Shia Muslim organization.

That Congressional Quarterly caused some British politicians to smirk
about dumb Americans. So the London Times did a similar survey of
British politicians, and found that they were equally ignorant. (See
"Guess what? British politicians and journalists are just as ignorant as Americans"

from 2007.)

As I wrote at the time, I've had many shocks and surprises since I
started writing about Generational Dynamics in 2002, but probably no
more shocking than the realization that I now know more about the
history and current events about the world than do 99.9% of the
politicians, analysts, journalists, pundits and others in Washington.
This is a reflection on how much work I've done, but it's even more a
reflection of the sheer arrogance and stupidity that pervades
Washington -- and London. And of course I've written many times about
the open lying about stock valuations on CNBC and Bloomberg TV.

So it's not really surprising that a self-described "internationally
recognized expert on terrorism" Steve Emerson says incredibly stupid
things, since saying incredibly stupid things is the norm.

Fox News later issued a retraction, pointing out that 21 per cent of
Birmingham population is Muslim, with 46.1 per cent identifying
themselves as Christians.

Emerson himself issued the following apology:

<QUOTE>"I have clearly made a terrible error for which I am
deeply sorry. My comments about Birmingham were totally in
error. And I am issuing this apology and correction for having
made this comment about the beautiful city of Birmingham. I do not
intend to justify or mitigate my mistake by stating that I had
relied on other sources because I should have been much more
careful. There was no excuse for making this mistake and I owe an
apology to every resident of Birmingham. I am not going to make
any excuses. I made an inexcusable error. And I am obligated to
openly acknowledge that mistake. I wish to apologize for all
residents of that great city of Birmingham. Steve Emerson PS. I am
making donation to Birmingham Children's Hospital."<END QUOTE>

Birmingham Mail and YouTube and IBN Live and Fox News

****
**** Controversy revived over France's 'no-go zones'
****

Emerson's remarks have revived a controversy over "no-go zones" in
Europe and elsewhere, which might be breeding grounds for terrorism.
France has identified 751 Zones Urbaines Sensibles (ZUS - Sensitive
Urban Zones). These are sometimes informally called "no-go zones,"
because it's claimed that they're almost entire Muslim, self-governing
with Sharia law, and where even the police never go.

Other places where it's claimed that these no-go zones exist are in
Birmingham England, Hancock New York, and Dearborn Michigan.

It turns out that France's list of ZUS is from 1996, and many of them
are simply places where urban renewal projects have been planned,
because of poverty and crime. Today, some of them have been
rehabilitated, some are poor but non-violent, and some are poor and
occasionally violent.

The ZUS were in the news in 2005, when there were several days of
Muslim violence in the suburbs of Paris. However, these were not
recent immigrants. In most cases, the youths were French citizens who
were second and third generation Moroccans, Turks and Arabs whose
parents and grandparents came to France in the 1960s and 1970s,
seeking a better life.

Mideast blogger Daniel Pipes started blogging about France's no-go
zones in 2006, and updated his blog repeatedly, sometimes with horror
stories. Then, in a January 2013 update, he wrote:

<QUOTE>"Jan. 16, 2013 update: I had an opportunity today to
travel at length to several banlieues (suburbs) around Paris,
including Sarcelles, Val d'Oise, and Seine Saint Denis. This comes
on the heels of having visited over the years the predominantly
immigrant (and Muslim) areas of Brussels, Copenhagen, Malmö,
Berlin, and Athens.

A couple of observations:

For a visiting American, these areas are very mild, even dull. We
who know the Bronx and Detroit expect urban hell in Europe too,
but there things look fine. The immigrant areas are hardly
beautiful, but buildings are intact, greenery abounds, and order
prevails.

These are not full-fledged no-go zones but, as the French
nomenclature accurately indicates, "sensitive urban zones." In
normal times, they are unthreatening, routine places. But they do
unpredictably erupt, with car burnings, attacks on representatives
of the state (including police), and riots.

Having this first-hand experience, I regret having called these
areas no-go zones."<END QUOTE>

As Pipes points out, the unrehabilitated no-go zones are similar to
high-crime areas in American cities, such as the Bronx, Detroit and
Chicago. And he might have mentioned the far worse situation in
Mexican cities where drug cartels are in charge.

The fact that unrehabilitated Muslim no-go zones are similar to
high-crime areas in large cities everywhere would be cause enough for
concern, but it's believed that these are breeding grounds for
would-be jihadists planning to commit terrorist acts. It's known that
some 1,200 young French citizens have gone to Syria for training,
possibly to return to France with new terror skills, and it's feared
that many of them may be coming from the unrehabilitated ZUS.
Catholic Online and Snopes and
France - government
and Trip Advisor and Daniel Pipes

****
**** France to deploy 5,000 police to protect Jewish schools
****

Four Jews were killed on Friday in an attack on a kosher supermarket,
in an attack that was linked to the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris two
days earlier. France's president François Hollande responded by
promising the Jewish community would be protected by the French army,
"if necessary." The interior minister announced on Monday that 5,000
security forces and police will protect the 700 Jewish schools in the
country, though how long this protection will continue was not
announced.

Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has annoyed French
politicians by urging French Jews to move to Israel, but in fact that
was already happening prior to Friday's attack. A record 7,000 Jews
emigrated from France to Israel in 2014. According to historian Marc
Knobel:

<QUOTE>"There are Jewish people living in sensitive
neighborhoods where anti-Semitism has become a daily part of life
for them. They feel uneasy. Some are scared to go the synagogue or
put their children in Jewish schools because they feel something
might happen.

Netanyahu persuading Jews to come to France is not new. It's a
policy started by Ariel Sharon in 2002. They see it as logical
where Jews are living in situations of peril to tell them to come
to Israel."<END QUOTE>

As I've been reporting the last few weeks, there is a growing Muslim
versus Muslim war, with Muslim militias and armies killing Muslims
throughout the Mideast, South Asia and Northern Africa. The
collateral damage from this war is an increase in terrorist acts in
Europe and elsewhere, and many of these terrorist acts may target
Jews. Nationalism and xenophobia are increasing in Europe and
elsewhere, and Generational Dynamics predicts that this trend will
continue and lead to war. AFP and The Local (France)


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Birmingham, England, Steve Emerson, Fox News,
David Cameron, Congressional Quarterly,
Zones Urbaines Sensibles, ZUS, Sensitive Urban Zones,
Hancock New York, Dearborn Michigan, Daniel Pipes,
Bronx, Detroit, Chicago, Mexico, Syria,
François Hollande, Marc Knobel, Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu

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A war that we refuse to recognize.

A War Between Two Worlds | Stratfor

http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/war-b...#axzz3Ohbfyk2n
..."The United States is different in this sense. It is an artificial regime, not a natural one. It was invented by our founders on certain principles and is open to anyone who embraces those principles. Europe's nationalism is romantic, naturalistic. It depends on bonds that stretch back through time and cannot be easily broken. But the idea of shared principles other than their own is offensive to the religious everywhere, and at this moment in history, this aversion is most commonly present among Muslims. This is a truth that must be faced.

The Mediterranean borderland was a place of conflict well before Christianity and Islam existed. It will remain a place of conflict even if both lose their vigorous love of their own beliefs. It is an illusion to believe that conflicts rooted in geography can be abolished. It is also a mistake to be so philosophical as to disengage from the human fear of being killed at your desk for your ideas. We are entering a place that has no solutions. Such a place does have decisions, and all of the choices will be bad. What has to be done will be done, and those who refused to make choices will see themselves as more moral than those who did. There is a war, and like all wars, this one is very different from the last in the way it is prosecuted. But it is war nonetheless, and denying that is denying the obvious."

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

*** 13-Jan-15 World View -- Concern rising over Muslim 'no-go zones' as terror breeding grounds

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Britain's PM Cameron calls Fox News commentator a 'total idiot'
• Controversy revived over France's 'no-go zones'
• France to deploy 5,000 police to protect Jewish schools

****
**** Britain's PM Cameron calls Fox News commentator a 'total idiot'
****


A typical sight in a commercial area of a Muslim 'no-go zone' in France (Daniel Pipes)

Steve Emerson, self-described as "an internationally recognized expert
on terrorism", appeared on Fox News on Sunday evening, and was asked
about "no-go zones." He said that there are a number of European
cities "where sharia courts were set up, where Muslim density is very
intense, where the police don't go in, and where it's basically a
separate country almost, a country within a country." He added:

<QUOTE>"In Britain, it's not just no go zones, there are
actual cities like Birmingham that are totally Muslim where
non-Muslims just simply don't go in. And parts of London, there
are actually Muslim religious police that actually beat and
actually wound seriously anyone who doesn't dress according to
Muslim, religious Muslim attire. So there's a situation that
Western Europe is not dealing with."<END QUOTE>

When Britain's prime minister David Cameron was asked about it,
he said:

<QUOTE>"Frankly I choked on my porridge and thought it must
be April Fool's Day. This guy is clearly a complete
idiot."<END QUOTE>

Perhaps Emerson's hysterical remarks were in some way forgivable, but
one is tempted to agree with Cameron. In 2006, the Congressional
Quarterly did an informal survey of Mideast "experts" in Washington,
including some who had been analysts for years, and discovered they
were abysmally ignorant. One so-called expert, for example, thought
that al-Qaeda was a Shia Muslim organization.

That Congressional Quarterly caused some British politicians to smirk
about dumb Americans. So the London Times did a similar survey of
British politicians, and found that they were equally ignorant. (See
"Guess what? British politicians and journalists are just as ignorant as Americans"

from 2007.)

As I wrote at the time, I've had many shocks and surprises since I
started writing about Generational Dynamics in 2002, but probably no
more shocking than the realization that I now know more about the
history and current events about the world than do 99.9% of the
politicians, analysts, journalists, pundits and others in Washington.
This is a reflection on how much work I've done, but it's even more a
reflection of the sheer arrogance and stupidity that pervades
Washington -- and London. And of course I've written many times about
the open lying about stock valuations on CNBC and Bloomberg TV.

So it's not really surprising that a self-described "internationally
recognized expert on terrorism" Steve Emerson says incredibly stupid
things, since saying incredibly stupid things is the norm.

Fox News later issued a retraction, pointing out that 21 per cent of
Birmingham population is Muslim, with 46.1 per cent identifying
themselves as Christians.

Emerson himself issued the following apology:

<QUOTE>"I have clearly made a terrible error for which I am
deeply sorry. My comments about Birmingham were totally in
error. And I am issuing this apology and correction for having
made this comment about the beautiful city of Birmingham. I do not
intend to justify or mitigate my mistake by stating that I had
relied on other sources because I should have been much more
careful. There was no excuse for making this mistake and I owe an
apology to every resident of Birmingham. I am not going to make
any excuses. I made an inexcusable error. And I am obligated to
openly acknowledge that mistake. I wish to apologize for all
residents of that great city of Birmingham. Steve Emerson PS. I am
making donation to Birmingham Children's Hospital."<END QUOTE>

Birmingham Mail and YouTube and IBN Live and Fox News

****
**** Controversy revived over France's 'no-go zones'
****

Emerson's remarks have revived a controversy over "no-go zones" in
Europe and elsewhere, which might be breeding grounds for terrorism.
France has identified 751 Zones Urbaines Sensibles (ZUS - Sensitive
Urban Zones). These are sometimes informally called "no-go zones,"
because it's claimed that they're almost entire Muslim, self-governing
with Sharia law, and where even the police never go.

Other places where it's claimed that these no-go zones exist are in
Birmingham England, Hancock New York, and Dearborn Michigan.

It turns out that France's list of ZUS is from 1996, and many of them
are simply places where urban renewal projects have been planned,
because of poverty and crime. Today, some of them have been
rehabilitated, some are poor but non-violent, and some are poor and
occasionally violent.

The ZUS were in the news in 2005, when there were several days of
Muslim violence in the suburbs of Paris. However, these were not
recent immigrants. In most cases, the youths were French citizens who
were second and third generation Moroccans, Turks and Arabs whose
parents and grandparents came to France in the 1960s and 1970s,
seeking a better life.

Mideast blogger Daniel Pipes started blogging about France's no-go
zones in 2006, and updated his blog repeatedly, sometimes with horror
stories. Then, in a January 2013 update, he wrote:

<QUOTE>"Jan. 16, 2013 update: I had an opportunity today to
travel at length to several banlieues (suburbs) around Paris,
including Sarcelles, Val d'Oise, and Seine Saint Denis. This comes
on the heels of having visited over the years the predominantly
immigrant (and Muslim) areas of Brussels, Copenhagen, Malmö,
Berlin, and Athens.

A couple of observations:

For a visiting American, these areas are very mild, even dull. We
who know the Bronx and Detroit expect urban hell in Europe too,
but there things look fine. The immigrant areas are hardly
beautiful, but buildings are intact, greenery abounds, and order
prevails.

These are not full-fledged no-go zones but, as the French
nomenclature accurately indicates, "sensitive urban zones." In
normal times, they are unthreatening, routine places. But they do
unpredictably erupt, with car burnings, attacks on representatives
of the state (including police), and riots.

Having this first-hand experience, I regret having called these
areas no-go zones."<END QUOTE>

As Pipes points out, the unrehabilitated no-go zones are similar to
high-crime areas in American cities, such as the Bronx, Detroit and
Chicago. And he might have mentioned the far worse situation in
Mexican cities where drug cartels are in charge.

The fact that unrehabilitated Muslim no-go zones are similar to
high-crime areas in large cities everywhere would be cause enough for
concern, but it's believed that these are breeding grounds for
would-be jihadists planning to commit terrorist acts. It's known that
some 1,200 young French citizens have gone to Syria for training,
possibly to return to France with new terror skills, and it's feared
that many of them may be coming from the unrehabilitated ZUS.
Catholic Online and Snopes and
France - government
and Trip Advisor and Daniel Pipes

****
**** France to deploy 5,000 police to protect Jewish schools
****

Four Jews were killed on Friday in an attack on a kosher supermarket,
in an attack that was linked to the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris two
days earlier. France's president François Hollande responded by
promising the Jewish community would be protected by the French army,
"if necessary." The interior minister announced on Monday that 5,000
security forces and police will protect the 700 Jewish schools in the
country, though how long this protection will continue was not
announced.

Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has annoyed French
politicians by urging French Jews to move to Israel, but in fact that
was already happening prior to Friday's attack. A record 7,000 Jews
emigrated from France to Israel in 2014. According to historian Marc
Knobel:

<QUOTE>"There are Jewish people living in sensitive
neighborhoods where anti-Semitism has become a daily part of life
for them. They feel uneasy. Some are scared to go the synagogue or
put their children in Jewish schools because they feel something
might happen.

Netanyahu persuading Jews to come to France is not new. It's a
policy started by Ariel Sharon in 2002. They see it as logical
where Jews are living in situations of peril to tell them to come
to Israel."<END QUOTE>

As I've been reporting the last few weeks, there is a growing Muslim
versus Muslim war, with Muslim militias and armies killing Muslims
throughout the Mideast, South Asia and Northern Africa. The
collateral damage from this war is an increase in terrorist acts in
Europe and elsewhere, and many of these terrorist acts may target
Jews. Nationalism and xenophobia are increasing in Europe and
elsewhere, and Generational Dynamics predicts that this trend will
continue and lead to war. AFP and The Local (France)


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Birmingham, England, Steve Emerson, Fox News,
David Cameron, Congressional Quarterly,
Zones Urbaines Sensibles, ZUS, Sensitive Urban Zones,
Hancock New York, Dearborn Michigan, Daniel Pipes,
Bronx, Detroit, Chicago, Mexico, Syria,
François Hollande, Marc Knobel, Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu

Permanent web link to this article
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I quite like Seine St. Dennis. That is where I go for real Algerian food as opposed to the stuff they slog at the tourists down in the 1st and the 4th. Even within Paris proper, I will go up to the 18th, 19th and 20th to get some very decent Algerian fare. The areas are like that photo. Solid working class (but sadly getting gentrified and losing some of their uniqueness).

Originally Posted by XYMOX_4AD_84

> I quite like Seine St. Dennis. That is where I go for real
> Algerian food as opposed to the stuff they slog at the tourists
> down in the 1st and the 4th. Even within Paris proper, I will go
> up to the 18th, 19th and 20th to get some very decent Algerian
> fare. The areas are like that photo. Solid working class (but
> sadly getting gentrified and losing some of their
> uniqueness).

Do you live in Paris, or just visit?

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

Do you live in Paris, or just visit?

Many visits.

*** 14-Jan-15 World View -- Europe prepares for Greece's possible exit from eurozone

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Europe prepares for Greece's possible exit from eurozone
• Paris France's Charlie Hebdo attacks provoke anti-Pegida protests in Germany

****
**** Europe prepares for Greece's possible exit from eurozone
****


Syriza leader Alexis Tspiras dances with party official Rena Dourou at pre-election rally last month (EPA)

It's far from certain, but the impending Greek crisis rerun during the
next month poses a real threat that Greece might have to leave the
eurozone and start printing drachmas again, with the result that
bankers and politicians are drawing up contingency plans in case it
happens.

The radical far left Syriza party is maintaining a "stable and sharp
edge in the polls," according to one analyst, for the January 25
election, meaning that Syriza leader Alexis Tspiras is the most likely
person to be Greece's next Prime Minister. Tspiras has promised that
if he wins, then Greece will renege on the austerity commitments it
made when it received a 240 billion euro bailout that has already been
paid. In particular, he took a swipe at Germany when he promised that
the country will "write down most of the nominal value of
debt... That's what was done for Germany in 1953, it should be done
for Greece in 2015."

Greece is in serious economic trouble. It has to come up with 4.6
billion euros in bond maturities in March, and 31 billion euros total
by the end of 2015. On the income side, tax revenues have been 40-50%
below expectations. In February, Greece has to pay creditors 2
billion euros, and must pay another 4.5 billion euros to International
Monetary Fund (IMF) this year.

So Greece needs another bailout, and both sides are playing a game of
chicken. Germany says Greece won't get the new bailout unless they
stick to the existing austerity commitments. Tspiras says that
they're reneging on the commitments, and that Europe will have to
provide the bailout anyway.

Most analysts believe that "Grexit", the Greek eurozone exit, will be
avoided because some compromise will be reached. But in the 1950s,
the game of chicken was played with two cars racing at each other
until one car or the other turned away, and we know that sometimes
neither car turned away, with explosive results. Greek Reporter and Nasdaq and Greek Reporter

****
**** Paris France's Charlie Hebdo attacks provoke anti-Pegida protests in Germany
****

Germany's anti-Islam Pegida movement fielded 25,000 protesters in
Dresden on Monday, the largest number ever. The Pegida movement
("Patriotische Europäer gegen die Islamisierung des Abendlandes," or
"Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West") protests
have been growing in size since Pegida was launched in October.

There has also been a growing opposition, and 100,000 Germans attended
anti-Pegida counter-demonstrations. The growth of the anti-Pegida
movement was spurred by the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris last week by
Islamic jihadists. As I've been writing, the number of Islamic terror
attacks is expected to increase as collateral damage to the growing
Muslim versus Muslim wars in the Mideast, South Asia and North Africa.
( "12-Jan-15 World View -- Is Islam at war with the West?"
)

According to some historians, Dresden is the perfect city for the
growth of the Pegida movement, because of its role in World War II.
In February 1945, American and British bombers dropped 4,000 tons of
explosives on Dresden, destroying the city. Twenty-five thousand
people were killed. The anniversary is still marked every year with
protest marches through Dresden’s rebuilt center. The history shapes
the worldview of many Pegida supporters. According to Werner Patzelt
of Dresden University:

<QUOTE>"The argument runs basically like this: Dresden has
been destroyed by Americans and English bombers. Americans have
never stopped bombing around the world. Now they bomb in the Near
East [Middle East]. They destroy states there. As a result, we
have so many refugees."<END QUOTE>

Patzelt adds that Russian flags seen during Pegida marches indicate
the desire among some for a counterweight to American power. VOA and
Globe and Mail and Bloomberg

KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Greece, Syriza, Alexis Tspiras,
Rena Dourou, International Monetary Fund, IMF,
Paris, France, Charlie Hebdo, Germany, Dresden, PEGIDA, Werner Patzelt,
Patriotische Europäer gegen die Islamisierung des Abendlandes,
Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West

Permanent web link to this article
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Originally Posted by radind

A war that we refuse to recognize.

This article highlights the difficulty of even holding rational dialogue among the various factions.
-I don’t see a solution-there may not be a solution.

A War Between Two Worlds

http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/war-b...#axzz3OlndLuHd

…”Migration, Multiculturalism and Ghettoization
The current crisis has its origins in the collapse of European hegemony over North Africa after World War II and the Europeans' need for cheap labor. As a result of the way in which they ended their imperial relations, they were bound to allow the migration of Muslims into Europe, and the permeable borders of the European Union enabled them to settle where they chose. The Muslims, for their part, did not come to join in a cultural transformation. They came for work, and money, and for the simplest reasons. The Europeans' appetite for cheap labor and the Muslims' appetite for work combined to generate a massive movement of populations.

The matter was complicated by the fact that Europe was no longer simply Christian. Christianity had lost its hegemonic control over European culture over the previous centuries and had been joined, if not replaced, by a new doctrine of secularism. Secularism drew a radical distinction between public and private life, in which religion, in any traditional sense, was relegated to the private sphere with no hold over public life. There are many charms in secularism, in particular the freedom to believe what you will in private. But secularism also poses a public problem. There are those whose beliefs are so different from others' beliefs that finding common ground in the public space is impossible. And then there are those for whom the very distinction between private and public is either meaningless or unacceptable. “…

…”Europe solved the problem with the weakening of Christianity that made the ancient battles between Christian factions meaningless. But they had invited in people who not only did not share the core doctrines of secularism, they rejected them. What Christianity had come to see as progress away from sectarian conflict, Muslims (and some Christians) may see as simply decadence, a weakening of faith and the loss of conviction.

There is here a question of what we mean when we speak of things like Christianity, Islam and secularism. There are more than a billion Christians and more than a billion Muslims and uncountable secularists who mix all things. It is difficult to decide what you mean when you say any of these words and easy to claim that anyone else's meaning is (or is not) the right one. There is a built-in indeterminacy in our use of language that allows us to shift responsibility for actions in Paris away from a religion to a minor strand in a religion, or to the actions of only those who pulled the trigger. This is the universal problem of secularism, which eschews stereotyping. It leaves unclear who is to be held responsible for what. By devolving all responsibility on the individual, secularism tends to absolve nations and religions from responsibility.

This is not necessarily wrong, but it creates a tremendous practical problem. If no one but the gunmen and their immediate supporters are responsible for the action, and all others who share their faith are guiltless, you have made a defensible moral judgment. But as a practical matter, you have paralyzed your ability to defend yourselves. It is impossible to defend against random violence and impermissible to impose collective responsibility. As Europe has been for so long, its moral complexity has posed for it a problem it cannot easily solve. Not all Muslims — not even most Muslims — are responsible for this. But all who committed these acts were Muslims claiming to speak for Muslims. One might say this is a Muslim problem and then hold the Muslims responsible for solving it. But what happens if they don't? And so the moral debate spins endlessly.

This dilemma is compounded by Europe's hidden secret: The Europeans do not see Muslims from North Africa or Turkey as Europeans, nor do they intend to allow them to be Europeans. The European solution to their isolation is the concept of multiculturalism — on the surface a most liberal notion, and in practice, a movement for both cultural fragmentation and ghettoization. But behind this there is another problem, and it is also geopolitical”. …

…”These killings have nothing to do with poverty, of course. Newly arrived immigrants are always poor. That's why they immigrate. And until they learn the language and customs of their new homes, they are always ghettoized and alien. It is the next generation that flows into the dominant culture. But the dirty secret of multiculturalism was that its consequence was to perpetuate Muslim isolation. And it was not the intention of Muslims to become Europeans, even if they could. They came to make money, not become French. The shallowness of the European postwar values system thereby becomes the horror show that occurred in Paris last week.“…

Do sensible people trust FoX News on anything with a political or economic message?

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

> Do sensible people trust FoX News on anything with a political or
> economic message?

Funny. On a typical day, FNC has more viewers than all the other
cable news channels put together.

I listen to all the news channels at various times, and I also read
the news coverage of the news channels, so I'm in a good position to
judge. FNC is the only one that provides good coverage of many
administration news stories. In the last year, FNC led the way in
reporting on Obamacare, Benghazi, IRS targeting, VA scandal, and so
forth -- stories that the other sanitized news channels don't even
want to think about.

In my opinion, the best general newscast available on any news channel
from 6-7 pm ET every day is "Special Report With Bret Baier" on FNC.
I suggest that you check it out.

There was a good example in just the last couple of days. I watched
the Charlie Hebdo ceremonies in Paris on Sunday, and it looked like
every world leader was there. Obama's absence was highly noticeable.
This was a major international news story, but only FNC was all over
it. The other news channels barely mentioned it or not at all, even
when the Obama administration apologized.

I and a lot of other people are sick and tired of so-called news
channels that are little more than public relations arms of the Obama
administration. If I want to know what's going on in Ferguson, any of
the channels will do. But if I want to know what's going on in
Washington, FNC is the only one that seriously covers it. "Sensible
people" outside the liberal bubble watch FNC just to get both sides of
many issues, not just the crap coming out of the Obama administration.

First they came for the Republicans, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Republican.

Then they came for the Catholics, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Catholic.

Then they came for Fox News, and I did not speak out—
Because I never listened to Fox News.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

Funny. On a typical day, FNC has more viewers than all the other
cable news channels put together.

I could make a similar case for the National Enquirer as a news source. Lots of people read it. "The maid must have left it", you know. It's harmless stuff; it's simply empty, and nobody wants to admit it as a source. It is successful, and it will likely outlast many small-region newspapers.

I listen to all the news channels at various times, and I also read the news coverage of the news channels, so I'm in a good position to judge. FNC is the only one that provides good coverage of many administration news stories. In the last year, FNC led the way in reporting on Obamacare, Benghazi, IRS targeting, VA scandal, and so forth -- stories that the other sanitized news channels don't even want to think about.

It demonized Bill Clinton and it now demonizes Barack Obama. But it created a personality cult for George W. Bush and falls short of doing so for John Boehner or Mitch McConnell because it can't decide which one to elevate. I look at one result -- that its devoted viewers have often proved misinformed. A few years ago a study showed that what people relied upon for news coverage determined whether people got objective reality right. On Gulf War II, the following statements have been shown demonstrably false:

1. that Saddam Hussein had involvement with international terrorism including the 9/11 attacks.
2. that Saddam Hussein had an active WMD program at the time of the invasion.
3. that the rest of the world approved of the invasion of Iraq by George W. Bush.

In general, people who relied upon printed newspapers or internet news sites, 24-hour broadcast news other than FoX News, NPR, or news programming capable of in depth coverage (and oddly, the Daily Show on Comedy Central) were more likely to say no to all three propositions than were those who relied exclusively upon the three thirty-minute newscasts on ABC, CBS, and NBC. The rigid programming on those nightly 30-minute newscasts makes in-depth news coverage impossible in contrast to the News Hour on PBS which can lengthen or shorten coverage on any individual story as the story (and not the rigid format of five minutes per story) can do. For years those who relied entirely upon the three nightly TV network for their news have been recognized as getting at most a superficial exposure to the news; they are likely to get just enough news to confirm their biases. Heck, the late and great TV newsman Walter Cronkite told people that if they want more news they should read a newspaper.

So what was it with The Daily Show? Comedy makes good analysis. Contrast FoX News, which is even more deadly-serious about news reporting than almost anything else. FoX News is more likely to tell right-wingers exactly what they want to believe, so it tailors its news (including analysis) to fit what right-leaning viewers want to believe. It does so longer, keeping stories such as "Obamacare, Benghazi, IRS targeting, VA scandal, and so
forth -- stories that the other sanitized news channels don't even want to think about" going much longer than others do. But deadly seriousness in reporting is not enough to inform, especially if the deadly seriousness simply confirms a delusional or propagandistic view of the world. Pravda was as deadly serious about itself and its stories as anything, too.

So if one despises FoX News Channel, can one fully ignore it? No -- especially when it is so influential upon the American political system. FoX News guided the Tea Party movement into power in the House and now the Senate; in 2017 America may be transformed into the most absolute plutocracy that has existed since the inhuman military clique of Agosto Pinochet in Chile. If such happens, FoX News will have done its role very well, and it will well serve the plutocratic oligarchy that makes America look much like the sorts of places that many Americans fled to get to America between the Irish Potato Famines and the near shutdown of immigration after World War I except for more agricultural productivity and more sophisticated technology. It will be creating the cult of personality around the Republican President and faulting Americans who believe that economic success and any material Good Life is a privilege solely for the rich and powerful.

In my opinion, the best general newscast available on any news channel from 6-7 pm ET every day is "Special Report With Bret Baier" on FNC.
I suggest that you check it out.

But Hannity and O'Reilly are pure junk.

There was a good example in just the last couple of days. I watched the Charlie Hebdo ceremonies in Paris on Sunday, and it looked like every world leader was there. Obama's absence was highly noticeable. This was a major international news story, but only FNC was all over it. The other news channels barely mentioned it or not at all, even when the Obama administration apologized.

For years, it has been the Vice-President who appears at the funerals of foreign dignitaries. The President needs a huge security detail around him due to the threat of assassination.

I and a lot of other people are sick and tired of so-called news channels that are little more than public relations arms of the Obama administration. If I want to know what's going on in Ferguson, any of the channels will do. But if I want to know what's going on in Washington, FNC is the only one that seriously covers it. "Sensible people" outside the liberal bubble watch FNC just to get both sides of many issues, not just the crap coming out of the Obama administration.

FoX News offers little but confirmation bias when it isn't creating a political reality on behalf of a political party going increasingly authoritarian. Pravda did much the same, except with newsprint instead of electronic pixels, on behalf of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Was Pravda to be consistently avoided? It was the closest thing to an insider source on the policy of the dominant Communist Party of the Soviet Union, so if one wanted a good idea on who was about to fall within the system and what the official foreign policy was, non-communist journalists heeded it.

Originally Posted by John J. Xenakis

Funny. On a typical day, FNC has more viewers than all the other
cable news channels put together.

I listen to all the news channels at various times, and I also read
the news coverage of the news channels, so I'm in a good position to
judge. FNC is the only one that provides good coverage of many
administration news stories. In the last year, FNC led the way in
reporting on Obamacare, Benghazi, IRS targeting, VA scandal, and so
forth -- stories that the other sanitized news channels don't even
want to think about.

In my opinion, the best general newscast available on any news channel
from 6-7 pm ET every day is "Special Report With Bret Baier" on FNC.
I suggest that you check it out.

There was a good example in just the last couple of days. I watched
the Charlie Hebdo ceremonies in Paris on Sunday, and it looked like
every world leader was there. Obama's absence was highly noticeable.
This was a major international news story, but only FNC was all over
it. The other news channels barely mentioned it or not at all, even
when the Obama administration apologized.

I and a lot of other people are sick and tired of so-called news
channels that are little more than public relations arms of the Obama
administration. If I want to know what's going on in Ferguson, any of
the channels will do. But if I want to know what's going on in
Washington, FNC is the only one that seriously covers it. "Sensible
people" outside the liberal bubble watch FNC just to get both sides of
many issues, not just the crap coming out of the Obama administration.

So is your basis for lauding FNC their non-stop advocacy against Obama? If not, then what are you trying to say here.

So far I see Barack Obama as an above-average President. His strongest point is economic stewardship, and if a six-year bull market without a speculative frenzy doesn't suggest economic probity, then what does?



Barack Obama was inaugurated when the American economy was reeling. The American economy is not now reeling. Maybe I would prefer that he had successfully addressed the severe inequality... but after two years the Republicans were able to come back and squelch all efforts to mitigate economic inequality. After all, no human suffering is excessive if if there is a profit to be had through it -- says the plantation owner, the Gilded Age plutocrat, the racketeer, and the nomenklatura-like executive, all of whom are amply represented in the Republican Party.

To be sure he can't undo all the damage of his predecessor. He can't undo the damage from the Second Gulf War and some of the depraved policies of the Bush maladministration. He can't undo the tortures. He can't undo the lies to Congress.

Benghazi? There was one sure way to prevent that incident -- to stand four-square behind Moammar Qaddafi when the people of Benghazi rose against him. Sure, every patriotic American would love to have complicity in another pile of cadavers in Libya who had lately turned on a vicious tyrant. If someone is cheating the IRS (and ultimately us), then one has no ground for complaint about appropriate scrutiny of one's business practices. The VA mess? It got cleaned up, didn't it?

*** 15-Jan-15 World View -- Sri Lanka follows a predictable pattern after its civil war

This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Pope canonizes first Sri Lanka saint, calls for national unity
• Sri Lanka's presidential election exhibits high drama
• Sri Lanka follows a predictable pattern after its civil war

****
**** Pope canonizes first Sri Lanka saint, calls for national unity
****


Pope Francis, visiting a Catholic shrine in Madu, Sri Lanka (TamilNet)

More than half a million people attended a seafront mass in Colombo,
the capital city of Sri Lanka, on Wednesday, as Pope Francis announced
that Reverend Joseph Vaz had been canonized as a saint. Vaz was a
17th century Indian missionary who revived the faith in Sri Lanka
during a time of anti-Catholic persecution by Dutch colonists, who
were Protestant Calvinists.

The Pope's visit comes five years after the end of Sri Lanka's 26-year
civil war. Sri Lanka has two major ethnic groups, the majority
Sinhalese, mostly Buddhist, who control the markets and the
government, and the minority Tamils, mostly Hindu, who were rebelling
against the government to create a separate Tamil state. The Pope
said that he hoped that religion could help heal the divisions between
Sinhalese and Tamils, just as Saint Joseph Vaz had helped bring the
peace in the 17th century.

The Pope encouraged the Sri Lanka government to appoint a "truth
commission" to determine what happened in the civil war, to bring
about healing:

<QUOTE>"The process of healing also needs to include the
pursuit of truth, not for the sake of opening old wounds, but
rather as a necessary means of promoting justice, healing and
unity."<END QUOTE>

This was actually a swipe at the Sinhalese government, which has been
accused by the U.N. Human Rights Council of having committed genocide
during the civil war. Although the war ended in 2009, there are still
some Tamil groups in Sri Lanka and in the European diaspora that would
like to revive the war, and the Pope's nice-sounding remarks give
encouragement to those groups.

Here's an excerpt from a letter sent by a Tamil leader to
the Pope, shortly before his visit:

<QUOTE>"I am Mrs. Ananthy Sasitharan, an elected member of
Northern Provincial Council in the island. I am working for the
people who lost their family members in the last phase of the
genocidal war waged on Tamil people in the North-East. We have
been tracing the whereabouts of many of the cases that are being
regarded in the records as ‘missing persons’. ...

I hope that Your Holiness is aware of the fact that the underlying
conflict in the island is a 60-year-long genocide against
Tamils. It has claimed the lives of most of the talented people
from our traditional homeland in the North-East. A significant
number of our resource people are forced into exile. The remaining
Tamils are forced to live as second-class citizens, facing various
forms of oppressions, colonization, Sinhalicisation and finally
Buddhicisation of the traditional Tamil homeland through Sinhala
militarisation.

During your visit, the Sri Lankan political leaders ... will be
fighting for the opportunity to kiss your hand and get your
blessings. ... The political leaders and their military commanders
of the Colombo government are seeking to protect themselves and
their system from its crime of genocide. ...

Your Holiness, please do not be fooled by their false promises on
protecting ‘minorities’. In fact, transforming Tamils into their
‘minorities’ was their first step in the genocide. Tamils are not
a minority in our own traditional homeland, which is subjected to
systematic Sinhala Buddhist colonization with a genocidal
motive. ...

We look at Vatican, as a moral guardian of humanity. The Catholic
Church, having witnesses among the people, has a moral duty to
safeguard the people from the protracted crime of
genocide."<END QUOTE>

As this letter shows, the civil war ended in 2009, but the tensions
and emotions that drove the civil war are still burning. Reuters and Guardian (London) and TamilNet

****
**** Sri Lanka's presidential election exhibits high drama
****

Mahinda Rajapaksa was first elected president of Sri Lanka in 2005,
and led Sri Lanka to victory over the Tamils in the civil war that
ended in 2009. His political party, the United People’s Freedom
Alliance (UPFA), has won almost every local and national election
since then. In October of last year, sure of victory, Rajapaksa
called for a new election for January 8, a year earlier than he had
to.

However, Rajapaksa's own Health Minister, Maithripala Sirisena,
declared that he would create a new party, the New Democratic Front
(NDF), and oppose Rajapaksa. Even two weeks ago, it was thought that
Rajapaksa would score a major victory. But when the election was over
and they counted the votes, everyone was shocked that Sirisena won.
Rajapaksa was hailed as a unifier when he graciously conceded defeat
to Sirisena.

Then it turned out that, on the morning of election day, Rajapaksa
realized that he might lose, and he sought the support of the army in
overturning the results of the election. Only after they failed to
back him did he concede.

The campaign spokesman of the new president claimed on Saturday that
the Sri Lankan army had defied Rajapaksa's orders to use force to keep
him in power:

<QUOTE>"The army chief got orders to deploy the troops on the
ground across the country. They tried attempts to continue by
force. The army chief defied all the orders he got in the last
hours.

We spoke to the army chief and told him not to do this. He kept
the troops in the barracks and helped a free and fair
election."<END QUOTE>

However, Rajapaksa denies that there was any coup plot. According
to his spokesman:

<QUOTE>"When U.S. State Secretary John Kerry spoke to
Rajapaksa over the phone, the former president assured him there
will be a smooth power transition as stipulated in the
constitution."<END QUOTE>

Whether the allegations of a coup attempt are true or false, the
damage has already been done in the sense that the election results
have been clouded, and in the future, Tamils will view election
results with suspicions of Sinhalese tampering. Ada Derana (Sri Lanka) and South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP - India) and Economist

****
**** Sri Lanka follows a predictable pattern after its civil war
****

As long-time readers may recall, as the Sri Lanka civil war
approached a climax in May 2009, every news organization and analyst
that reported on the civil war were predicting that the civil
war would continue on for months or years, because it had already
gone on for 26 years.

As far as I know, every analysis in the world was wrong except the
Generational Dynamics analysis. As I had been saying for months
earlier, the Sri Lanka civil war was a generational crisis war, headed
for an explosive climax, and when that climax was finally reached,
then the war would be over once and for all. The comparison I made
was to the surrender of Berlin and Tokyo that ended World War II once
and for all.

From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, civil wars are very
interesting studies because they're self-contained. With a war
involving two or three nations, it gets complicated to sort out the
various ethnic groups, religions, and generational timelines. But in
the case of a civil war, such as the Sri Lanka civil war, you have two
opposing sides with the same generational timelines, and with a clear
fault line separating. The result is that the generational timelines
for civil wars are more predictable than for multi-nation wars.

Let's illustrate this in the case of Sri Lanka.

The Sri Lanka civil war was fought between two ancient races: The
Sinhalese (Buddhist) and the Tamils (Hindu). WW II was a crisis war
for India and for Ceylon, the former name of Sri Lanka. There was
relative peace on the island until 1976, when the Tamils began
demanding a separate Tamil state, and formed a separatist group called
the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), or just "Tamil Tigers."

A non-crisis civil war began in 1983, and the low-level violence
continued until a peace treaty was signed in 2002. In the next few
months, the peace treaty has been unraveling, and in the last couple
of weeks it appears closer to a full-scale crisis civil war.

In 2006, the fighting became a lot more serious and by 2008 it
was a full-fledged generational crisis war. The major characteristic
of a crisis war is that the value of an individual life goes
to zero, while the only thing that matters is the society and
its way of life. To illustrate this, I always like to point to
the Allied storming of Normandy Beach in 1944, where the American
soldiers were shot down like fish in barrel. Subsequently, the
allies firebombed and destroyed Dresden, and then nuked two
Japanese cities.

WW II had a literally explosive climax, but the Sri Lanka civil war
had a climax that was just as explosive, though not literally, and
just as genocidal. The Tamils had been using civilians as shields.
Since the Sinhalese army did not want to kill innocent civilians, this
Tamil tactic worked for years. In January, 2008, the Sri Lankan
military commanders promised to "defeat the Tamils once and for all"
by the end of 2008. This was a signal that the lives of civilians
would no longer matter, and that the army would attack the Tamil
Tigers even if it meant killing civilians. (See "Sri Lanka government declares all out war against Tamil Tiger rebels"
from January 2008.)

Finally, in May 2009, the Sinhalese army trapped the Tamil Tiger
militants in a U.N.-declared "safe zone" and slaughtered them,
including a number of civilians, although 50,000 civilians that had
been trapped there were freed. That was the end of the war. (See
"Tamil Tigers surrender, ending the Sri Lanka crisis civil war"
from May 2009.)

The genocidal climax of a civil war is particularly shameful for
both sides, because the mass slaughter was not directed at foreigners,
but against cousins, brothers and neighbors.

Once a crisis civil war ends, the country goes through a Recovery
Era, where the traumatized survivors pass laws and create institutions
whose purpose is to guarantee that such a war will never happen again,
not to their children and not to their grandchildren.

Sri Lanka is now in the midst of a Recovery Era. Tensions are high
and bitterness is deep, but there's no more war, at least for the time
being. But there's a new generation rising, young people with no
personal memory of the horrors of the civil war. After about 15 years
after the climax, there's a generational Awakening Era, and they begin
to make their voices heard. Young Tamils will demand an end to
discrimination, and many young idealistic Sinhalese will join them.
But then the incidents of violence will start, expanding into
low-level violence, and the cycle will continue.


KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Sri Lanka, Colombo, Pope Francis,
Saint Joseph Vaz, Tamils, Sinhalese,
Mahinda Rajapaksa, United People’s Freedom Alliance, UPFA,
Maithripala Sirisena, New Democratic Front, NDF,
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, LTTE, Tamil Tigers

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Originally Posted by pbrower2a

> It demonized Bill Clinton and it now demonizes Barack Obama. But
> it created a personality cult for George W. Bush....

Bill Clinton was a serial rapist, and what we learned is that rape is
ok for Democrats. If you criticize Obamacare, then you're accused of
demonizing Barack Obama. Liberal media began by mocking George Bush's
Texas accent and hat, and proceeded to call him a war criminal, and by
2006 was lauding a Hollywood movie, "Death of a President," that
portrays the murder of George Bush. What you mean by "personality
cult" is that Fox News debated the issues, without jumping on the
liberal "Bush is depraved" bandwagon.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

> depraved policies of the Bush maladministration

Anyone who doesn't consider Bush to be depraved must be part
of a personality cult. This is a good example why FNC became
so popular during the Bush administration. People were sick
and tired of listening to one-note commentators on NBC, CBS,
etc., who considered Bush to be depraved.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

> On Gulf War II, the following statements have been shown
> demonstrably false: 1. that Saddam Hussein had involvement with
> international terrorism including the 9/11 attacks.

Saddam Hussein was paying off the families of Palestinian terrorists.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/palestin...harity-checks/

So your "demonstrably false" proof is demonstrably false. Falsus in
unum, falsus in omnibus.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

> FoX News guided the Tea Party movement into power in the House and
> now the Senate; in 2017 America may be transformed into the most
> absolute plutocracy that has existed since the inhuman military
> clique of Agosto Pinochet in Chile.

Totally laughable, bordering on lunacy.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

> But Hannity and O'Reilly are pure junk.

I don't like Hannity because he's too partisan, but if he's "pure
junk," then so are Bill Moyers and Tavis Smiley on PBS, as well as
most of the anchors on MSNBC.

O'Reilly is interesting. He's right of center, but he almost always
balances left wing and right wing guests. What I dislike about
O'Reilly is that he keeps interrupting his guests and never stops
talking.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

> So far I see Barack Obama as an above-average President. His
> strongest point is economic stewardship, and if a six-year bull
> market without a speculative frenzy doesn't suggest economic
> probity, then what does?

You're arguing the political issues. I was discussing the media
coverage of the political issues.

The stock market bubble is caused by the Fed's multi-trillion dollar
QE program, as I've been writing for years, and which even mainstream
economists on CNBC are saying more and more. QE has pumped a huge
amount of money into the stock market, and it's mainly benefitted the
top 1%. Obama's foreign policy has been one disaster after another.
Appointing John Kerry, who considers the U.S. army to be the
equivalent of Nazi storm troopers, was a thumb in the of everyone in
the armed forces.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

> FoX News offers little but confirmation bias when it isn't
> creating a political reality on behalf of a political party going
> increasingly authoritarian. Pravda did much the same, except with
> newsprint instead of electronic pixels, on behalf of the Communist
> Party of the Soviet Union.

More lunacy. The Pravda reference actually applies to CNN, NBC, etc.,
which avoid reporting any subject that embarrasses the Obama
administration - which is what Pravda did. (Actually, does)

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

> So is your basis for lauding FNC their non-stop advocacy against
> Obama? If not, then what are you trying to say here.

I'm saying that FNC covers both sides of the issues, and CNN, NBC,
etc., cover only the side that supports the Obama administration.
That's why FNC has as many viewers as all the other news channels
combined. It's the only place that fully discusses the issues.

Legitimate news media do not try to shape the political reality with calls for political rallies and protests. People do such (I think of the Civil Rights Movement) and earn the attention of the media, which earns credibility. FoX News was advocacy journalism in 2009 when it practically created the Tea Party Movement or at least coordinated its formation.

This is now old news (nearly six years old) but it shows how it is done:

http://mediamatters.org/research/200...ssively/149009


REPORT: "Fair and balanced" Fox News aggressively promotes "tea party" protests
Special Report ››› April 8, 2009 3:58 PM EDT ››› ERIC HANANOKI


Despite its repeated insistence that its coverage is "fair and balanced" and its invitation to viewers to "say 'no' to biased media," Fox News has frequently aired segments encouraging viewers to get involved with "tea party" protests across the country, which the channel has described as primarily a response to President Obama's fiscal policies. Media Matters has compiled an analysis of Fox News' promotion of these events.

Despite its repeated insistence that its coverage is "fair and balanced" and its invitation to viewers to "say 'no' to biased media," in recent weeks, Fox News has frequently aired segments encouraging viewers to get involved with "tea party" protests across the country, which the channel has often described as primarily a response to President Obama's fiscal policies. Specifically, Fox News has in dozens of instances provided attendance and organizing information for future protests, such as protest dates, locations and website URLs. Fox News websites have also posted information and publicity material for protests. Fox News hosts have repeatedly encouraged viewers to join them at several April 15 protests that they are attending and covering; during the April 6 edition of Glenn Beck, on-screen text characterized these events as "FNC Tax Day Tea Parties." Tea-party organizers have used the planned attendance of the Fox News hosts to promote their protests. Fox News has also aired numerous interviews with protest organizers. Moreover, Fox News contributors are listed as "Tea Party Sponsor[s]" on TaxDayTeaParty.com. Media Matters for America has compiled the following analysis of Fox News' promotion of the tea-party protests. (Most transcripts are taken from the Nexis database.)

Protests responding to administration policies

While tea-party organizers have stated that the protests are nonpartisan, Fox News and organizers have also characterized the protests primarily as a response to the administration's fiscal policies.

TaxDayTeaParty.com -- which describes itself as the "Online HQ for the April 15th Nationwide Tax Day Tea Party Rallies" -- states: "The Tea Party protests, in their current form, began in early 2009 when Rick Santelli, the On Air Editor for CNBC, set out on a rant to expose the bankrupt liberal agenda of the White House Administration and Congress. Specifically, the flawed 'Stimulus Bill' and pork filled budget."

Fox News personalities have repeatedly characterized the protests primarily as a response to the Obama administration's fiscal policies. For instance:

On the February 27 edition of On the Record, host Greta Van Susteren said: " 'Tea party' protests are erupting across the country. Angry taxpayers, or at least some of them, are taking to the streets in the spirit of the Boston Tea Party. People are protesting President Obama's massive $787 billion stimulus bill, his $3.55 trillion budget and a federal government that has been ballooning by the day since the president took office."

On the March 16 edition of The O'Reilly Factor, host Bill O'Reilly said that "big government spending protests are taking place all over the country. The latest in Cincinnati where about 5,000 folks showed up, showed their displeasure with the Obama's administration money strategy. These gatherings are being dubbed tea parties."

On the March 25 edition of Special Report, host Bret Baier said that the tea parties are "protests of wasteful government spending in general and of President Obama's stimulus package and his budget in particular."

During the April 6 edition of America's Newsroom, FoxNews.com contributor Andrea Tantaros said of the protests: "People are fighting against Barack Obama's radical shift to turn us into Europe." Fox News also aired on-screen text stating that the "Tea Parties Are Anti-Stimulus Demonstrations."

.....

Any questions? You may like the results, but nobody can claim that FoX News has no objective other than pure reporting.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

Legitimate news media do not try to shape the political reality with calls for political rallies and protests. People do such (I think of the Civil Rights Movement) and earn the attention of the media, which earns credibility. FoX News was advocacy journalism in 2009 when it practically created the Tea Party Movement or at least coordinated its formation.

This is now old news (nearly six years old) but it shows how it is done:

http://mediamatters.org/research/200...ssively/149009

Are you kidding me? You're quoting Media Matters, which is
Soros-funded and about as loony left as you can get? Why don't you
just quote Pravda?

Of course those opposing the Agenda are misguided, insane, stupid, or perverted:

Fox Attacks "Deluded" Protesters Who Have "Absolutely No Purpose Or Focus In Life"

Johnson: "I Would Think" Wall Street Protesters "Are Deluded In A Lot Of Ways." On the October 3 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends, Fox News legal analyst Peter Johnson Jr. attacked the "Occupy Wall Street" protesters, claiming, "Clearly, I would think these folks are deluded in a lot of ways and probably provide the best argument for national service for 18-year-olds that we have ever seen." Johnson later said of the protests: "I don't know what it is. I don't think they know what it is. But it's costing Americans millions of dollars in tax dollars in order to arrest them." [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 10/3/11, via Media Matters]

Fox's Watters: Wall Street Protesters Are "The Sludge" Of "Every Left-Wing Cause." On the September 30 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, Fox News producer Jesse Watters said of the protests: "I think if you put every single left-wing cause into a blender and hit power this is the sludge you'd get. And it's basically anti-capitalism. And they want to redistribute the wealth. But if you eliminate capitalism, there is no wealth to redistribute." [Fox News, The O'Reilly Factor, 9/30/11, via Media Matters]

Guilfoyle: Protesters Have "Absolutely No Purpose Or Focus" And Are "Just Looking To ... Dirty The Streets." On the September 30 edition of Fox News' Hannity, Fox News host Kimberly Guilfoyle said of the protests: "It's like Woodstock meets Burning Man meets people with absolutely no purpose or focus in life. No wonder, they have nothing but free time to be down there. They make up a slogan or a cause as they go along. And they are just looking to, like, go out there and dirty the streets. And they really don't have any, like, idea about what they are doing there." During the segment, an on-screen graphic stated, "Lunatics of the left wing."

http://mediamatters.org/research/201...rotests/181918

...


So just quit complaining, serve Corporate America with a smile even if you hate your life so much that you are stockpiling pills for the Final Exit, and know that your betters have the best at heart when it makes your life miserable. It is no surprise that FoX News slogan "Fair and Balanced" is a sick joke.

*** From 18-Sep-2009: Vile 'teabagging' jokes signal the deterioration of CNN and NBC news

Here's something that I posted on an online forum early in 2004:

<QUOTE>"I actually believe that things are much better
today, because there's a much wider range of political views
expressed in newscasts. My reading is that the major networks
lean far left, CNN leans slightly left, and Fox leans to the
right. The one that I believe is squarely hitting the center is
MSNBC."<END QUOTE>

At that time, MSNBC's newsroom was run by Jerry Nachman, a
distinguished journalist who made sure that the news reporting was
balanced. His death early in 2004 caused a big slide in MSNBC's news
standards.

By the time of the 2006 election, both CNN and MSNBC had completely
abandoned journalist standards for Democratic party ideology. CNN
essentially turned the network over to be a 24-hour per day
advertisement for the Democrats. NBC news did the same, and in
November ran a huge ideological dog-and-pony show announcing that the Iraq war was a 'civil war,'
and that the US would be defeated.

Unfortunately, both CNN and NBC have only gotten worse in the last
two years, and they both really seem to have become so disgusting in
the last week that it's hard to see how they could become any worse
(though I'm sure they'll find a way).

In the last couple of years, there have been only two major sources
of decent journalism at NBC: Tim Russert and Tom Brokaw. But Russert
has died, and Brokaw is already semi-retired.

The MSNBC web site
describes David Shuster as "The Emmy award-winning journalist [who]
has covered the nation's capitol for 16 years and is based in
Washington, D.C."

Before I quote from Mr. Shuster's Emmy award-winning journalism, let
me explain for those who don't know what "teabagging" is (as I
didn't) that it's a component of oral sex, where the man places his testicles in the
lady's mouth.

So now, if you watch this video of Shuster, you'll see him introduce his topic as
follows:

<QUOTE>"Thousands of them whipped out the festivities
this weekend, and while the parties are officially toothless, the
teabaggers are full-throated about their goals -- they want to
give President Obama a strong tongue-lashing, and lick government
spending."<END QUOTE>

Later in the "news" story, Shuster makes some puns about "DICK
Armey," referring to the former House Majority Leader for the
Republicans.


CNN's Anderson Cooper says, "It's hard to talk when you're teabagging," and David Gergen laughs.

CNN's Anderson Cooper took up the joke, as you can see in this video when he
said, "It's hard to talk when you're teabagging," to howls of laughter
from the other CNN correspondents, including David Gergen.

As if that weren't offensive enough, here's what far-left actress Janeane Garofalo said on MSNBC, completely
unchallenged:

<QUOTE>"Let's be very honest about what this is about.
This is not about bashing Democrats. It's not about taxes. They
have no idea what the Boston Tea party was about. They don't know
their history at all. It's about hating a black man in the White
House. This is racism straight up and is nothing but a bunch of
teabagging rednecks. There is no way around that."<END QUOTE>

She went on to describe a "right-winger, Republican or conservative
or your average white power activist" with: "Their synapses are
misfiring. ... It is a neurological problem we are dealing with." She
said that Fox News had captured the "Klan demographic," referring to
the Ku Klux Klan. She added, "Who else is Fox talking to? Urban older
white guys and their girlfriends who suffer from Stockholm Syndrome."

Garofalo is obviously a total nutjob, and she's entitled to her
opinion. But the point is the the MSNBC anchors simply accepted her
statement, and tacitly agreed with it.

From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, what we're seeing
here is a growing populist movement.

A typical remark that I heard on CNN or MSNBC was, "The people at Fox
News had a lot of fun creating these Tea Parties."

You'd have to be a total idiot to believe that a mass movement of this
size was "created" by anyone.

The first major sign of this populist movement came in the reaction
to CNBC market reporter Rick Santelli's February 19 rant, criticizing
President Obama's bailout plan. What was significant about this was
not the rant itself -- Santelli rants about something almost every day
-- but that the rant achieved "viral" status and spread around the
internet. As I wrote in "The mob turns ugly as AIG bonuses come under fire,"
Santelli's
rant signalled a signficant change in public attitudes, and for the
first time, the Obama administration was put on the defensive about
its entire economic strategy.

Now we're seeing that this populist attitude is growing. And to say
that CNN, MSNBC, and other mainstream media outlets don't have the
vaguest clue what's going on is a vast understatement.

Some years ago, I heard the aphorism: "Liberals think that
conservatives are evil, while conservatives think that liberals are
stupid."

We can see from the above quotes that liberal nutjobs at CNN and
MSNBC do indeed believe that conservatives are evil. But what about
the second half -- are liberals stupid?

That the liberals on CNN and MSNBC are incredibly stupid is obvious
from their ratings. In the 1990s, it used to be that CNN was far and
away the ratings leader in cable news ratings. Fox News Channel
(FNC) presented an alternate viewpoint, and began to surpass CNN in
ratings. Today, FNC is far ahead of CNN,

The following chart shows the cable news ratings for Thursday, April 16. It compares the
number of viewers for the five cable news networks (HLN is CNN's
Headline News). All numbers are in the thousands of viewers:

Code:

    Network  Total day   Morning (6-9 am ET)      Prime Time (8-9 pm ET)
    -------  ---------   ----------------------   ----------------------
    FNC       1443       FOX & Friends     1098   O’Reilly Factor   3897
    CNN        725       American Morning   529   Campbell Brown     942
    MSNBC      441       Morning Joe        429   Keith Olbermann   1229
    CNBC       234       Squawk Box         217   CNBC Reports       228
    HLN        375       Morning Express    301   Nancy Grace       1172

Bill O'Reilly, who is hugely hated on the left, is now celebrating
100 consecutive months of being #1 in his time slot. As you can see
from the above chart, he draws more viewers than all four of the
other networks combined.

So how many additional viewers did CNN and MSNBC drive away to FNC in
the last week? You have a growing, popular anti-Washington,
anti-tax, anti-spending grass roots movement, and CNN and MSNBC are
insulting and offending ordinary people by making odious oral sex
jokes, calling them racists, and saying that the wives are victims of
the Stockholm Syndrome. These vicious, vile attacks appear to be a
sign of desperation on the left.

If the people at CNN and MSNBC want to drive viewers away from their
networks, I cannot imagine a more effective way to do it.

CNN and MSNBC are being gratuitously offensive to millions of ordinary
people, and this is costing them dearly in ratings. If that isn't
stupidity, then I don't know what is.

KEYS:
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Nobody denies that MSNBC has a strong left-wing bias. CNN goes with the winner, so its politics are better described as 'neurotic' than as 'biased' over time.

FoX News is stridently Right. I'll spare the word fascist. It is consistent, though: it practically created a personality cult for Dubya and demonized Clinton and Obama.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

Nobody denies that MSNBC has a strong left-wing bias. CNN goes with the winner, so its politics are better described as 'neurotic' than as 'biased' over time.

FoX News is stridently Right. I'll spare the word fascist. It is consistent, though: it practically created a personality cult for Dubya and demonized Clinton and Obama.

I'm not sure I'd even call CNN "news" anymore. They cover terrorism, trials, and disasters. It's trash.

I go with National Public Radio.

Originally Posted by The Wonkette

I'm not sure I'd even call CNN "news" anymore. They cover terrorism, trials, and disasters. It's trash.

I go with National Public Radio.

I've got my popcorn popping in the u-wave, watching the Red and Blue Boomers duking it out, laterly, on this thread. In any case I agree most of the MSM these days (left and right) are spewing utter rubbish.