The Earliest Lame Duck in History

President Obama is an avian mixed metaphor. He has tried to be the early bird, pushing very hard on his radical agenda in the face of economic hardships. But he has only suceeded in making himself the earliest lame duck in history. Case in point is here:

The man is either living in a fool's paradise or he is just trying to do as much damage as he can before he is deprived of his minions next year and swept out of office in three years. The election is NOT over- in America the election is every day. He looks around him grasping at straws and ends up only finding Harry Reid and Chris Dodd as his examples! Hold on there, Mr. President. Chris has already acknowledged that he cannot possibly get reelected by his constituents and Harry, by all acconts, is headed for electoral elimination next year!

That is the beauty of American Democracy- the election is never over- we the people will always have our say.

Let's mix the metaphore even more, Obama's presidency has turned into an empty suit leading an army of dead-men-walking.

Note to U C Irvine: Don't Look Now But They Have Taken Your School Right Out from Under You!

This video is all you need to know about both the Middle East and the challenge it presents to Western Civilization.

The problem for us in the west is that the people who come out of the Arab Islamic culture in which violence is the currency of leadership and coercion masquerades as truth, have achieved three pivotal advances in positioning, tactics and strategy.

They have achieved sufficient affluence to study at (or at least hang around) a University.

They have learned to manipulate and capture the imagination of impressionable and alienated young westerners.

They have mastered the Alinsky rule book for intimidating and perverting their host culture.

Here are Alinsky’s rules and my scorecard for this event:

1. "Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.

Ambassador Oren relates that he was warned by the Foreign Minister of Israel, “Oy, are you going to have a hard time!” – an admission that reasonable people know that UC Irvine is a place that is not just intellectually opposed but so openly hostile, emotionally intimidating and aggressively closed minded that it is not possible to carry on a dialogue there.

2. "Never go outside the experience of your people.

Not that being disruptive and attempting to keep a speaker from presenting his ideas and thoughts is such an involved undertaking but you will notice that at 6:11 and 6:39 of the clip it is obvious that someone had gone to the trouble of providing at least two of the young men who got up to shout their epithets and taunts with little slips of paper from which to read their outbursts. Pathetic, I know, that those two dolts and perhaps others (we just don’t get a chance to see them as they start yelling) cannot even manage to be boorish and ignorant without a script, but the scary thing is that someone obviously knew that about them and got them prepared…

3. "Wherever possible go outside of the experience of the enemy.

Not possible in this case. If they aren’t lobbing outrageous lies, their cousins are lobbing Qassam missiles. Jews and Israelis have seen worse than this.

4. "Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules.

Unfortunately, (probably due in large part to # 1 above) the impotent UC officials lived up to a very high-toned reading of the rules. This was obviously a very tightly orchestrated and planned disruption. After the second outburst and boisterous agitation, it should have been clear that the presumption of innocence for most of that side of the room was an example of cowardice not fairness. They should have been rounded up and arrested. They conspired to deprive Ambassador Oren of his right to speak and his sponsoring group of their right to assemble. Oh, where is the ACLU now? Must be out defending the right of Neo-Nazis to have a parade in a Jewish neighborhood…

5. "Ridicule is man's most potent weapon.

Well, you can’t win them all. The protesters, in the end, didn’t use much ridicule. They showed themselves to be ridiculous (see the capering young woman at 8:41 for example) but that is not the same thing.

6. "A good tactic is one that your people enjoy.

This was clearly a great success in the enjoyment department. Apparently, accusing intelligent, egalitarian and earnest people from the one country in the middle east that gives equal rights to religious minorities and women and bends over backwards not to kill people who have sworn to destry them of murder and even genocide is intensly diverting for them, They smirk, giggle and congratulate each other as if their team had just won a soccer match.

7. "A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.

They took up a lot of time here but I do think they knew when to file out en mass. Yup, they had this about right.

8. "Keep the pressure on.

This does not apply to this one instance- it is a long term goal- but this would certainly be an occasion at which they are “keeping the pressure up.”

9. "The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.

Exactly, they howl and mewl but that is not so bad. Even on campuses, though, nowadays you can’t help but wonder if there is a Major Nadal Malik Hasan or Abdul Farouk Umar Abdulmutallab in the crowd.

10. "Major premise for tactics is development of operations that will maintain constant pressure upon the opposition.

Sure, they do this kind of this thing enough and they will wear away the resistance to all kinds of little projects of theirs- academic boycotts, for example. Even more insidiously, though, it is a common ploy of radicals to take extreme positions and shout outrageous things at high volume so that people like Ambassador Oren wind up begging only to be heard. This imbalance makes the radical seem magnanimous when he allows someone else to so much as finish a sentence while Ambassador Oren looks demanding when he insists on his absolute right to express himself.

11. "If you push a negative hard and deep enough it will break through into its counterside.

Check, here they are championing proxy armies, dictatorships, corrupt monarchies and Islamofascist regimes and making it seem as though Israel is the villain state.

12. "The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.

They utterly fail at this. Every time an Israeli tries to find a formula for Coexistence, an Arab calls for the destruction of Israel. For them killing Jews seems constructive, I guess.

13. "Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.

They shout outrageous personal calumny, lies and accusations at the honored guest, but he is not even the real target of this demonstration. They identify the true victim as they file out. At 8:15 of the clip you can hear one of them repeatedly shout, “Whose University is it?” and each time they answer in chorus “My University”.

Until the administration of UC Irvine develops enough spine to take it back, I am afraid they are quite right about that.

Note: As of this posting this clip has had over a quarter of a million views on YouTube. Maybe that will embarrass them into doing something to these thugs who have shamed the school. Click on it! I always clapped my hands for Tinker-belle too.

The Biggest Freudian Slip in the History of Propaganda

On one of my regular visits to Seraphic Secret (one of the finest, most interesting blogs on the internet) I was reminded that Feb. 11th is Revolution Day in Iran. Robert posted this picture which I think should get more attention so I am borrowing it and putting up here as well. I left a comment at Seraphic Secret about it and will expand on it here...

Correct me if I am mistaken, it looks to me that Obama has just beheaded Lady Liberty in that picture. If so, this must be in the running for the title of "The Biggest Freudian Slip in the History of Propaganda".

Think about it! What exactly are they saying here? Do they agree with many of our own American conservatives that President Obama's agenda is a deadly threat (intentional or not) to Liberty? Are they suddenly concerned for the preservation of American ideals? What is the meaning of an obviously verdi-copper colored statue bleeding red blood?

No, they care nothing for and know less about Liberty. The rage and pain in the Islamist soul renders them inchoate. There is nothing deeper here than hatred pure, mockery vile and fury unbounded. Poor un-manned Obama with an odd sort of orgasmic look on his face holding the desecrated female symbol of Liberty (name me one brave, important and powerful female symbol in all of Islam!) expresses their impotence more perfectly than any essay or analysis ever could. They are powerless to express the overwhelming rage. Their inability to see the real cause of the rage turns their every attempt at expression turgid and recursive.

This is why they call it Revolution Day. They celebrate their revolution with shows of irrational cascades of bloody symbolism and threats of death.

We call The Fourth of July Independence Day because something was born that day. The day that shooting started on started in our revolution, has been relegated to a second class state holiday in Massachusetts and we instead celebrate as a nation the publication of the document that proclaimed a new and unique way of organizing a government in these words:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. "

Nothing was born on Revolution Day, it was just the latest in a series of bloody events that stretch back to the origin of the species, events that promise nothing but more and bigger of the same.

It was, after all my family's intimate encounter with a distant but deadly ripple from the utter insanity of Iran's streets that gave me my first inkling of the beast that is stalking us. But this picture is really a crystal window into what a squalid dead-end Iran and the dream of the Caliphate really is. These people haven't a clear thought in their heads. They are twisted and knotted so thoroughly around the Islamist armature of collectivism, misogyny and ignorance that they are truly "beside themselves" and they just HATE the neighborhood.

As for President Obama, believe what you will about his intentions and the bankruptcy of his agenda, his apparent acquiescence in the nuclear ambitions of these people put him in danger of becoming the chief enabler of the next holocaust- the most avoidable and horrifying one ever...

All the News That's Written by Imbeciles

Here (hat tip to Dan Friedman) is a new and utterly transparent illustration of how anything that is bad for Israel seems good to The New York Times. I'll quote the whole sad mess below so you don't have to increase their traffic volume.

By the reasoning in this article, it would be a good idea to bring back smallpox so we could sell vaccinations to the people we want to have beholden to us. The Times would ONLY think this a printable idea if the biggest possible loser in the scheme were Israel. Even more horrifying is that the imbecile who wrote it is a "defense analyst" at the Air Force Institute.

Update:

Friend, noted scholar and astute observer, Judith Klinghoffer writes:

It is stupid analysis as it assumes that Arabs would pay for security or that Arab autocrats will repay the American favor by becoming less autocratic and anti-American. Historically, this has never been the case. The opposite has been true. And it is even more unlikely to be the case with Obama in power. The man simply is shilling for defense contractors who worry about a decline in traditional defense spending.

Judith

Read it and be enlightened:

February 9, 2010

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR

Iran’s Two-Edged Bomb

By ADAM B. LOWTHER

Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala.

With Iran having notified the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency that it is now enriching its stockpile of uranium to a higher level, we should admit that Washington’s approach to countering the Islamic Republic is leading nowhere. What’s needed, however, may be less of a change of plan than a change in how we view the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran.

Believe it or not, there are some potential benefits to the United States should Iran build a bomb. (I’m speaking for myself here, and in no way for the Air Force.) Five possibilities come to mind.

First, Iran’s development of nuclear weapons would give the United States an opportunity to finally defeat violent Sunni-Arab terrorist groups like Al Qaeda. Here’s why: a nuclear Iran is primarily a threat to its neighbors, not the United States. Thus Washington could offer regional security — primarily, a Middle East nuclear umbrella — in exchange for economic, political and social reforms in the autocratic Arab regimes responsible for breeding the discontent that led to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Until now, the Middle East autocracies have refused to change their ways because they were protected by the wealth of their petroleum reserves. A nuclear Iran alters the regional dynamic significantly, and provides some leverage for us to demand reforms.

Second, becoming the primary provider of regional security in a nuclear Middle East would give the United States a way to break the OPEC cartel. Forcing an end to the sorts of monopolistic practices that are illegal in the United States would be the price of that nuclear shield, bringing oil prices down significantly and saving billions of dollars a year at the pump. Or, at a minimum, President Obama could trade security for increased production and a lowering of global petroleum prices.

Third, Israel has made clear that it feels threatened by Iran’s nuclear program. The Palestinians also have a reason for concern, because a nuclear strike against Israel would devastate them as well. This shared danger might serve as a catalyst for reconciliation between the two parties, leading to the peace agreement that has eluded the last five presidents. Paradoxically, any final agreement between Israelis and Palestinians would go a long way to undercutting Tehran’s animosity toward Israel, and would ease longstanding tensions in the region.

Fourth, a growth in exports of weapons systems, training and advice to our Middle Eastern allies would not only strengthen our current partnership efforts but give the American defense industry a needed shot in the arm.

With the likelihood of austere Pentagon budgets in the coming years, Boeing has been making noise about shifting out of the defense industry, which would mean lost American jobs and would also put us in a difficult position should we be threatened by a rising military power like China. A nuclear Iran could forestall such a catastrophe.

Last, the United States would be able to stem the flow of dollars to autocratic regimes in the region. It would accomplish this not only by driving down the price of oil and increasing arms exports, but by requiring the beneficiaries of American security to bear a real share of its cost. And in the long run, a victory in the war on terrorism would save taxpayers the tens of billions of dollars a year now spent on overseas counterinsurgency operations.

What about the downside — that an unstable, anti-American regime would be able to start a nuclear war? Actually, that’s less of a risk than most people think. Unless the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameini, and his Guardian Council chart a course that no other nuclear power has ever taken, Iran should become more responsible once it acquires nuclear weapons rather than less. The 50-year standoff between the Soviet Union and the United States was called the cold war thanks to the deterrent effect of nuclear weapons.

There is reason to believe that the initial shock of a nuclear Iran would soon be followed a new regional dynamic strikingly like that of cold-war Europe. Saudi Arabia and Iraq would be united along with their smaller neighbors by their fear of Iran; the United States would take the lead in creating a stable regional security environment. In addition, our reluctant European allies, and possibly even China and Russia, would have a much harder time justifying sales of goods and technology to Tehran, further isolating the Islamic Republic.

Iran may think its enrichment plans will put fear into the hearts of Americans. In fact, it should give us hopes of a renaissance of American influence in the Middle East.

Feb. 9. 2010: This Op-Ed has been updated to reflect the news.

Adam B. Lowther is a defense analyst at the Air Force Research Institute.

Corpseman- It's No Mere Gaffe

Gaffes are one thing, ignorance and dereliction of responsibility are another thing altogether. Everyone is missing the point about the President’s latest gaffe. It is more telling than Dan Quayle misspelling a food item and it is much more chilling than any of the famous malapropisms of former president Bush.

Here is why. President Obama is not just our political leader, he is the Commander-in-Chief of our armed forces. He is the one we have given the ultimate responsibility to keep us safe. He has the power to send our young people into harm’s way. He can, likewise, withhold military action when Americans are in peril. Protecting and defending us is supposed to be the first priority of the President. Compelling the healthcare system to wipe more noses even if it is with rougher tissue paper, changing our national culture by weaning us away from our “bitter” clinging to God and guns and keeping industry from creating jobs by producing more than a certain quota of fossil fuel smoke are supposed to be somewhere down the list.

There is a common legend that Eskimos have a variety of words to describe snow. It makes sense for people to whom snow is important and whose lives often depend on a clear understanding of snow’s condition and appearance would have evolved sophisticated was of classifying and communicating about it. If Barack Obama were an Eskimo, he and all he leads would die in the ice.

We know that he has never served in the armed forces himself but, for God’s sake, Mr Obama walks past the Marines who guard his life every day. He flies in the helicopter Marine One to Camp David and other places constantly. The unofficial name for The Marine Band is “The Presidents Own”. He daily makes decisions in which he calls upon members of the various Corps of the armed forces to risk their own lives and take the lives of others. Do you think he might at some point have taken the time to listen to the military men and women talk about themselves?

Does he call “his own” band the Marine Corpse Band?

Is he really THAT disinterested in one of the most powerful instruments of policy available to him? Has he such a small appreciation for one of the key guarantors of his own personal safety? If so, what does that say about the priority he gives to the protection and preservation of the rest of us- our lives and livelihoods?

Calling a service member a corpseman is no mere gaffe it is one more proof that Mr. Obama does not understand his job, overestimates his own importance and has no idea what is truly important.

If you owned a cabinet making business would you hire a guy who, in the course of a job interview, called the big planer that you use to mill wood down to a smooth and even thickness a planner- confusing it with a calendar book day-timer?

Would you let a surgeon who says car-toid instead of carotid for the artery that carries all of the blood to your brain operate on your neck?

If not, then why would you want this guy to be your Commander-in-Chief?

UPDATES:

1. This was not the first time Obama has made this mistake one of my commenters on Free Republic has sent me this:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxORB49KtsE

2. My friend Professor Barry Rubin writes of the Eskimo analogy:

Actually, they would develop a stiumulus package that bought trillions of dollars of refrigerators. Professor Barry Rubin, Director, Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center http://www.gloria-center.org The Rubin Report blog http://rubinreports.blogspot.com/ Editor, Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal http://www.gloria-center.org Editor Turkish Studies, http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~db=all~content=t713636933%22

What's the Difference (between an Imam and a Rabbi)?

Tell me again why anti-Semitism is on the rise in France?

Q: What do you call a Muslim Imam who respects other religions and believes in acting like a citizen of the country and century he actually lives in?

A: A National Hero- he gets invited to dine with the leaders of the state!

Q: What do you call a Rabbi who respects other religions and believes in acting like a citizen ot the country and century he actually lives in?

A: No Biggie- thats 99% of them.

To Annihilate Evil

Ho-hum, another day, another Jew is accused of being blood-thirsty. No surprise either that another Jew is adding to the chorus. There is a gem of insight to be found here though so bear with me and slog through this hideous little example of faux journalism from Russia Today. Fellow Blogger Carl in Jerusalem, by the way, is the "blood-thirsty" exemplar here and he has blogged on the mess here.

I watch this video and the outrage I feel at the lies, anti-Semitic innuendo and the outright blood-libels is dwarfed with a kind of wonder at the utter absurdity of the Israeli woman, Inna Michaeli. Is there no limit to the venal careerism of people like this toad from "Women for Peace"? I wrote about Amira Hass as the Queen of the Toads three years ago and the same things I said about her back then apply double here to Inna Michaeli. She perverts and subverts liberal democratic ideals by implying that there is a moral equivalence between Israel's struggle to survive and protect her people and the annihilationist Arab Jihad against her, she obscures truth by inferring that Israel has not tried to achieve peace in ways other than warfare, and she betrays her own country a country which, judging by her accent, not so long ago redeemed her from the oppression of living in some part of the former Soviet Union. Now she is a professional in an organization that raises money and thrives on that betrayal, obfuscation and perversion. As with Hass, she has made her livelihood at betrayal and perversion and she takes her public acclaim and professional standing as her justification.

But who is blood-thirsty? Is it Carl who's only sin is in identifying evil and warning of its consequences or is it this fraud Inna Michaeli who pretends to want peace but who works to prevent Israel from asserting her power advantage (while she still has it) to secure her own people and survival. Who will be more responsible as the wars drag on and the land runs with blood for yet another generation?

The answer is made plain when she says “war is inevitable because ...wars and military action by our government simply goes unpunished..."?

If all military action is punished, who punishes the punishers? This is nothing less than a subconscious manifestation of the essential leftist yearning for world totalitarianism. This is the call for unending war.

Then too, Israpundit posted a brilliant speech by Spanish politician and Journalist Pilar Rahola at the Conference in the Global Forum for Combating Anti-Semitism. This quote was debated in the comment stream, “The World is a dangerous place. Not because of the people who are evil; but because of the people who don’t do anything about it”. I was moved to write a comment which I have expanded upon below.

The only thing to disagree with here is that she comes so close but then misses the heart of the real problem. That is that ALL people are evil. The founders of the U.S. knew, as they learned it from Genesis, that man's heart inclines toward evil from his birth. The Patriarchs were evil Thomas Jefferson owned slaves NO ONE is perfect. The genius of America is that the founders were honest about evil. They constructed the first human constitution that accepted that honest appraisal and was specifically designed to make sure that no one person or party could dominate and hold the rest hostage. They constructed check and balances so that the next ruler would not have to kill his predecessor. By making it so that we were responsible for keeping each other "honest", They gave us a reason to work with and trust each other. On the whole, it has worked. Israel's government has very similar aims.

What is so insane about the left is the utter dishonesty about evil- the pretense that the government (any government) or the financial system or bourgeois morality or organized religion or The Jews or the Republicans are the cause of evil. In "resisting" these and other "institutions of evil" they are blindly and ironically undermining the very Institutions that have evolved to control and channel ever-present human evil. The left has declared a war of annihilation against evil, thinking that that is good. It is not an accident that the greatest slaughters of human history have been perpetrated by socialists and communists. They are ready to pursue and exterminate evil right down to the last human heart in which it resides.

And, like Inna Michaeli, they all pretend to virtue and compassion...

A Jew Who Says Merry Christmas

Note:

This will be the third time I have edited and posted this little essay. I feel the need to change it a little every year but this one is changed a bit more than usual. I am posting it before Thanksgiving this year and you'll have to read it to find out why:

A Jew for "Merry Christmas"

I am a Jew and I have to tell you, no one is going to discourage me from celebrating Thanksgiving and Christmas this year. No, I am not loosing my Jewish identity; on the contrary, I am very sure that it is stronger than ever.

I grew up in an observant Jewish home ( I am observant still) in which we greeted Christmas with a mixture of fascination, respect and a little irritation. At some point I became fond of expressing my ambivalence by quoting Jackie Mason, who once said:

“I don’t understand something about Christmas; maybe you can explain this to me? Why is it that this time of year you Christian people bring all of the trees inside the house and take all the lights and put them outside”

That line, for many years summed up the bemusement that I affected about the whole public Christmas celebration.

My feelings were mixed for a variety of reasons. My Dad had a retail store so the weeks leading up to Christmas were always a time of tension and brutally long hours of work. The traffic on the roads, crowds in the stores, and the saturation of television (especially in those pre- cable times) and radio airwaves with Christmas programs and music were overwhelming. I found the frenzy mentally punishing, the free-floating goodwill unsettling and the talk about Jesus (in whose divinity I was not supposed to believe) uncomfortable.

It left me very glad to have it over on December 26th.

And I was always just a little unsure of how to respond when some well meaning person would wish me a Merry Christmas. I was often caught between wanting to thank him noncomittaly, try to summon a convincing Merry Christmas in return or to say,” Thanks Very much but I don’t celebrate Christmas and then have to deal with the uncomfortable silence or explanations and apologies.

I am ashamed to admit it today but I was, at first, pleased when I saw, over the years, the ACLU and Multi-culti types pushing “Merry Christmas” out of the vocabulary of cultural discourse in favor of the more generic “Happy Holidays”.

I’ve grownup, though, and I’ve grown into a new perspective on this whole question and, today, when someone wishes me a Merry Christmas, I have a new response. It’s really simple-

I stop what I am doing

I don’t have any hesitation or second thoughts.

I wish them a great big “Merry Christmas” in return.

I would like to encourage all my fellow Jews to join me in this. Here’s why:

I have come to see quite clearly that even if there are politically correct, multi-cultural, morally relativistic, post modern progressive busybodies who would like us to believe that our Christian friends’ and Neighbors’ spontaneous Christmas wishes are somehow injurious to us and our culture, they are nothing of the kind. A sincere “Merry Christmas is more American and better for the republic and her people than the blandest, most guarded “Happy Holidays”

You see, the U.S. was founded by Christians. Not just any Christians. The early colonists were both devout and independent. They were fervent Protestants whose purpose in coming here was to leave the Kings, Priests, state religions and archaic laws of the Old World behind.

Even if some of them were supersessionists and dogmatic, they were also egalitarian and self-reliant. They came here to build a country where every man could read scripture for himself and be his own priest- where he could be free to elect political leadership that he could follow gladly. Ultimately, that experiment gave rise to the constitution and form of government we have today. At over two hundred years old, it is still the one in the entire world that best honors the individual and guarantees most rights to any individual who accepts the constitutional responsibilities of a citizen.

It was those fiercely independent Protestants who set the tone for the nation in which we now live. Their fierce spiritual presumption of the liberty of the human soul is, still today, the great central mast that lifts the canopy of democracy and holds it above us as a sanctuary from the despotism and effete decay that afflicts most of the rest of the world.

Crystallized in the constitution, the devotion of deeply religious people and spiritually awakened souls like Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams are what have made it the highest standard of self rule and freedom in the history of the human race.

Among all their other unique achievements the fact that they decided that there could be no Official Religion in a country that aimed not just at physical or intellectual freedom shows that they understood that full human freedom means spiritual freedom too- Freedom of Religion.

To honor their genius fully we have to understand that Freedom of Religion must never be allowed to be a mandate for Freedom from Religion. As a Jew, I am exquisitely aware that freedom to practice my form of religion exists in this country because of those Christians and their vision of what a Christian country should stand for.

This uniquely Christian openness is why America has become the destination of choice for any one wishing to escape repression or lack of opportunity elsewhere in the world. That's why Jews have gravitated here for two hundred years. But we all (Christians, Jews, Muslims and Atheists) are in danger of forgetting how this all works and I think this whole “anti-Merry Christmas” thing is a symptom of that amnesia.

Fortunately, though, Jews do have a collective memory of stories if we just listen to them. My grandfather told me stories about life in turn-of-the(last)–century Eastern Europe so I have some idea of what he escaped by coming here. And its not just that he was not in Zhitomir, his Ukrainian home town, thirty years after he left for America, when the Waffen SS slaughtered thirty six thousand Jews there in one day! That is a gift indeed but it is in and of the past. No, it is the gift of equality and the opportunity to prosper that still lives on. It is that continuing gift that sustains the American dream and should call upon our constant love and loyalty.

The United States of America, as conceived by her Protestant founders, has been a miracle and a blessing to the entire human race. It has been especially important to the Jewish people.

We Jews are barely over one percent of the population here. We (a lot of us anyway) take pride in our contribution to America’s dynamism. We point with satisfaction to the fact that the founding fathers of this country were inspired and informed by our holy book which they called The Old Testament. Many of them read it in the original Hebrew, something few of us “modern” Jews can do.

But why do I need to explain this? Why don’t we all understand the centrality of the Protestant ethic to the goodness of America? Partly, it’s because of a lack in the educational program. But it’s also because our media, whose responsibility it should be to make us aware of the important ideas, events and issues has other agendas. Our “Mainstream” media is often found to be doing just the opposite.

In the media, America is assailed daily for her imperfections; and if not assailed, then damned by the faintest of praise. The media emphasizes the imperfections instead of the achievements- the discords not the harmony.

Historical revisionism has been used by the joyless progressives, secular humanists and multiculturalists to sap the joy and meaning out of Thanksgiving and the goodwill out of Christmas.

It has even come to pass that our President goes abroad and cannot seem to visit another country without some pathetic apology for America’s past- as if there is any country on earth whose history is so pristine that they are in a position to judge.

I am only one Jew- not a Rabbi and not a spokesman for a community organization, just a simple Jew. Nevertheless, I would like to call on all Jews, indeed, all Christians, Muslims and whoever else will standup with me and celebrate the blessing that The United States of America is to us and to the human family. Let us bow our heads together this Thanksgiving and resolve that instead of fretting about how saying “Merry Christmas” might make us an overly Christian country, we will thank our own, private God that we live in this country where “Happy Thanksgiving” and “Merry Christmas” mean what they mean here.

We need to loosen up and get a perspective on this “Merry Christmas” thing. It is not the people who say “Merry Christmas” and mean it that we need to be discouraging in America at this time. It is the people who find something wrong and suspect in the energy, enthusiasm and good-will that animates that “Merry Christmas” that we need to discourage.

We must side with our fellow Americans, the overwhelming majority of whom are warm-hearted friends with morals and ethics or we will have become unwitting dupes to heartless enemies with no moral compass who think they can rationalize almost anything and undermine our great civilization with reasonable sounding, non-judgmental sophistry. Do you need a moment to think about that?

By saying “Merry Christmas” in public we are not necessarily agreeing that Jesus was the son of God, we are just acknowledging that some very good people believe it. When we say it, that does not constitute accepting Jesus as our personal savior; it does show his followers that we see them as fellow countrymen, friends and brothers-in-arms in the defense of the highest ideals of our civil society and Judeo-Christian culture. What is the problem with that?

The first four words of this essay “I am a Jew”, are exactly the words that Daniel Pearl was forced to say on camera just before he was pinned down and his head was sawn off. I'd like you to try a little thought experiment simulating a better world here- Pretend that the next sentence that I write followed that first one and I had no need for the rest of the explanation in between...

"Have a Merry Christmas"

Progressives for Breast Cancer: A Preview of the Medical Gulag

Here is a little thought experiment for you. The U.S. Preventative Services Task Force has made a new set of recommendations for the diagnosis of breast cancer that have implied that breast self-examinations are of limited value and that women should begin getting a regular mammography at 50 years of age (rather than the old recommendation of 40) and then only every two years instead of every year.

Their report states that screenings between 40 and 49 years of age only turn up one cancer for every 1900 or so women. They express concern that “false positives” and unnecessary tests are a cruel source of anxiety and mental suffering for many women and that women would be much better off if they waited another ten years before they put themselves through all that turmoil. Oh, yes, they added that hat a great deal of money would be saved along with the angst of all those hysterical ladies.

Well, ok, false positives are a problem when you do screenings but what about the non-false positives that don’t get diagnosed? If you take their number of 1900 to 1 it doesn’t sound so bad, really. Until you think a little more about it…

Just consider that detected early, the five year survival rate for breast cancer victims is in the neighborhood of 98%. Detected late, that rate falls to about 26% a decrease in survival of 72%. And that doesn’t begin to cover the additional suffering from the treatments and dislocation of families when diagnosis is delayed.

But how bad is the problem? Let’s take Gillette Stadium for an example.

Gillette is where the New England Patriots play. Like a lot of stadiums, it has been used as a venue for all kinds of events, soccer games, rock concerts- all kinds of things. So let’s make up a hypothetical event to fill the stadium. Let’s just say that in the run-up to the last presidential election, candidate Obama wanted to solidify his support among one of his best “demographics”, younger women. His staff planed a big rally to which only women 49 and under are invited.

Now, Gillette’s official capacity is 68,756 people. So at a diagnosis rate of 1900 to 1 that means that 36 women there at the rally already have breast cancer. President Obama was a great draw in 2008 lets assume he would have filled the whole stadium so we can assume that there are 68,756 women in the seats.

Ok now picture a stage in the middle of the field. As the lights dim and the applause fades, a spotlight beam centers on the thin, serious figure of the future President of the United States and he lifts the microphone and pronounces his words very carefully.

“Ok, now, I have something to tell you that is very upsetting and I don’t want you to panic or get hysterical. Thirty-six of you women here tonight, and we don’t know who you are yet, are going to agree to reduce your chance of living for another five years by 72%. That means instead of 33 of you living at least five more years, only 9 of you will live. Not only that, you are going to give your consent to putting your self through a comparable amount more suffering and pain than you would otherwise have to endure. Also you will be saddling your husbands, parents, friends and children with infinitely more sorrow and desolation than they would have had to bear if you had not come to support my presidency tonight.”

In his usual style, the President is actually understating the case by a factor of ten. An astute friend of mine has pointed out that the 1900 to one ratio is a "yearly" crop of diagnoses based on yearly screening. so the actual loss of early diagnosis will be multiplied by the ten years of delay in receiving mammograms. This makes the actual death toll from that fateful rally more like 270 women.

It sounds like a non-starter doesn’t it? Do you think he would have gotten any of those women's votes that night? But the fact is that those 68,756 women (including the 36 doomed ones) have already been hoodwinked in to agreeing to that deal. Because, if Obama has his way and forces the single payer system down our throats, government then recommendations like these will assume the force of law for all but those are so wealthy that they can pay for medical services out of pocket.

These new recommendations are draconian, not just because it reminds us of how cold and callous a bureaucracy can be in its disregard for medical prudence and the value of an individual’s life but (even more) because it has given us an ominous forewarning of what the Medical Gulag of single payer, government run health care system would look like if the Blue Dogs and Republicans in congress don’t come to their senses soon and stop Obama’s high-pressure sales blitz for his “health care reform package”. It is tragic to consider the consequences of this push for cheap health insurance.

Just to put a human face on it, I have Googled "died of breast cancer", clicked on "Images" and selected a somewhat random sampling of the resulting pictures. I have posted 27 of them below to represent the first year's (remember there are another nine years worth of death, sorrow and suffering involved!) 27 extra deaths among the 68,756 rally attendee at that imaginary rally. Imagine that they are the ones upon whose bodies and families, Obama's health care reform would save all that money.

They are all kinds of women who have one infinitely sad thing in common:

Some are mysterious and exotic.
A Daughter who Died before her mother...
Sisters who lost a mother and a sister to breast cancer
A Champion marathon runner
A newscaster
A sister who inspired a movement
A coach
Some you might think you recognize
All will be missed

They will not see their children grow
They are remembered for all kinds of things
They leave holes that cannot be filled
Some were accomplished and famous
Others never got to fulfill their dreams
Some changed whole industries
Some inspired good works in their names
Their music is stilled forever...
..never to be heard again

They are fading into memory

If only we had taken more pictures...

Their laughter still echoes

Their courage still inspires
We still smile when we remember
They are gone
No matter how alive they once seemed
They live now only for those who remember
Reminder: this represents the first year's "beneficiaries" of the Obama "adjustment" to the mammogram regime. What other horrors will they come up with to make their takeover seem affordable?

And what is the money being saved for?

Incredibly, this is little more than part of a naked attempt to make it look "budget neutral" to take some of the excellent health care away from citizens who work, pay taxes and earn the right to have their own insurance and choose their own doctors and redistribute it to people many of whom are not even legal residents of our country. It is intended to rationalize the degradation of medical service for families that struggle to pay their own way in order to give an inferior but equal care to people who don't even value enough to work for it. It has even been proposed in the Health reform bill that the savings be used to increase the linguistic and cultural "sensitivity" of health care delivery in border regions to ease the lives of illegal aliens as they resist acculturation and assimilation.

If you are a woman, or care about women at all, picture that pro-Obama rally in Gillette stadium. Look at these pictures above and imagine these wonderful, unique, and irreplaceable people sitting side by side. They would occupy a little more that one row in an average section. Imagine them all dead within five years just because they voted for Obama. Then imagine ten more deadly swaths just like that over the next ten years. And that is just from the rally In Foxboro, Massachusetts. Fill all the football stadiums in the country and imagine eleven rows of breast cancer victims whose life is unnecessarily shortened because they invited government bureaucrats to decide on their cancer screening schedule. And even that would not approximate the real toll. Whose picture do you want in that group?

Important Update:

The reader who corrected my numbers on the toll from the rally also stated this in relation to cutting the screenings down from every year to every two years:

It gets worse than that.

Half of all screenings post-age-50 would be eliminated, meaning that half of all cancers discovered post-age-50 would have been incubating one extra year (and half of all cancers would post-age-50 would be detected as early as before).

How many women post-age-50 get breast cancer and by how much would the death rate increase for that half of them with one extra year of incubation pre-treatment?

Please correct your post accordingly.

Best,

(I do not have permission to use his name yet)