We Americans have grown accustomed to our annual December ritual of Christmas-bashing. What used to be a national holiday celebrating the central hopes of the Christian faith is marked here today by articles on holiday depression; schools banning Christmas displays; lawsuits removing Nativity Scenes; local governments issuing politically-correct anti-Christmas edicts; and of course the ubiquitous protests outside every department store demanding an end to everything from wearing fur to voting in free elections.
This is the new normal in the Prozac Nation. Beefed-up police presence; lots of drugs to deal with holiday stress; watch-what-you-say; unbridled commercialism; guilt-tripping over the homeless bum population; and a lot of pretending that it's all about the holiday spirit.
Less effete cultures, however, still celebrate holidays like Christmas and actually enjoy it. This is even true in countries that are war-torn and not even predominantly Christian---like Syria. Santa Claus actually appeared in the ancient city of Homs---known in New Testament times as Edessa---along with RT News reporters to visit displaced children at a UNICEF shelter there. RT reported that "Santa ignited a festive mood in the crowded room as children were singing and dancing in an early celebration of what is set to become for Syria its sixth Christmas in wartime. The weather was also getting into the Christmas spirit, as snow began covering the roads."
We were unable to find any news stories of an American media outlet doing anything similar. However, many have banned the use of the word 'Christmas' as offensive.
Meanwhile, Fars News reported today that the Catholic community in the Al-Azizyeh District of Aleppo began setting up Christmas displays for the first time since 2012. This district was recently liberated by Allied forces from Al-Qaeda occupation. Like many US municipalities, Al-Qaeda had forbidden public Christmas displays.
The Fars News video shows Syrian Christians stringing holiday lights in the streets and re-opened businesses bringing out their Christmas ornaments.
And in Damascus this weekend, SANA reported that hundreds turned out for the annual Christmas Tree lighting at the Dama Rose Hotel. The ceremony was attended by Christian priests; featured a youth choir singing hymns and carols among other activities. In Damascus---and in the Syrian Arab News Agency---it is still acceptable to refer to this as a 'Christmas Tree'.
It's no wonder then, that the US Government-Media Establishment is calling for censorship and legislation to counter foreign propaganda. In a country where schools are banning Christmas and trying to establish progressive policies--- like disseminating homosexual propaganda in Kindergarten and organizing extracurricular Satanist clubs---it is outrageous to allow Russian, Iranian, and Syrian stories of delivering presents to orphans or worshippers thanking God that they weren't ethnically cleansed. And besides, portrayals of Russians and Arabs as human beings doesn't fit the exceptionalist narrative that our media hopes to convey.
People might start wondering, for example, how Syrian children manage to survive in orphanages in the middle of a civil war without Ritalin and safe spaces. And they might start thinking that faith has something to do with it.
Remember When American Schools Looked Like this at Christmas?
It seems hardly a day passes any more without some icon of the Far Left publically experiencing a mental breakdown of some kind. Many were probably well on the way to neurosis already, but the recent Trump victory triggered their latent problems.
Paul Krugman, an economics professor at City University of New York, Nobel Prize recipient, and contributor to the New York Times, is the latest victim of this syndrome. Krugman is not only not reconciled to the 2016 Election, he's having flashbacks to the 2000 Election. Hence he wrote on Twitter yesterday that,
"There was rightly a cloud of illegitimacy over Bush dispelled wrongly by 9/11. Presents some interesting incentives for Trump."
Apparently Krugman is warning that Trump will stage a terrorist attack as Left-Wing conspiracy theorists claim that Bush did; as well as implying that Trump's election was illegitimate, as these same conspiracy theorists say of Bush's:
"At some point Trump will surely use the patriotism card to distract from the tainted election and his anti-populist policies."
Unlike the Democrats, of course, who have been claiming that Trump stole the election with collusion from the Russians, and that all good Americans really sided with Clinton. Because the Democratic Primary election wasn't the least bit tainted---other than top officials being forced to resign over cheating and a suspected whistleblower being murdered. Krugman is an admitted believer in the conspiracy theory that the Russian Government somehow orchestrated Trump's win.
Krugman incidentally is paid $225,000 a year to teach this kind of nonsense at CUNY. A recognized 'expert' on income inequality, Krugman has an estimated net worth of $2.5 million.
Nonetheless, this champion of the economically deprived managed to pull his faculties together enough to write a brief but utterly senseless op-ed in the New York Times today. Forgetting that the Russians are supposed to have hacked the voting machines, Krugman wonders why Clinton promises of welfare failed to materialize votes among the working poor against Trump's promises of creating well-paying jobs. His answer concludes that "it has to be about culture and, as always, race."
Now to draw Krugman's argument to its logical conclusions: he is suggesting that racial minorities prefer welfare to work. This kind of patronizing hypocrisy is why prominent Black community leaders like Louis Farrakhan urged Black and Moslem voters not to support Clinton. Krugman though is too severely blinded by anti-Trump hysteria to see the absurdities and contradictions in what he writes: and he is succeeding only in making a fool of himself.
It's been a few weeks since we last wrote about Infogalatic. Readers might recall that Infogalactic was a project initiated by Game/Red Pill cult blogger Vox Day and a few of his toadies to rewrite Wikipedia articles from their 'Alpha' perspectives. The Alphas believe that Wikipedia is censoring their contributions, because their editors insist on things like supporting sources and facts.
Infogalactic had somewhat disappeared from what little public attention it had until the Pizzagate controversy drew it some more recent attention in the Manosphere.
So we checked in with Science Fiction blogger Camestros Felapton, who has been keeping with Infogalactic and many of Vox' other antics. In 2013, Vox was booted out of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America organization; hence members feel obligated to keep an eye on him before he does further damage to their cause. Camestros noted in his most recent article on Infogalactic that, outside of the Manosphere and a few other Radical Right echo-chambers, Infogalactic has gotten no traction among the general public whatsoever. In fact, the project seems to be shrinking, with fewer editors actually re-scripting Wikipedia; the Infogalactic blog itself hasn't even been updated since late October.
Over the last several months, Camestros has done an excellent job of exposing Infogalactic's pseudoscientific and history-revisionist claims. But in his December 3rd article, The Alt-Right and Misogyny, Camestros explains why programs like Infogalactic and other Red Pill cutouts are so pernicious socially:
"Misogyny has been the gateway for the Alt-Right to recruit young men into a racist movement. The current Alt-Right has deep and continuing connections with 'men's rights' style movements as well as supposed pick-up artist (PUA) groups and dodgy 'self-improvement' and pseudo-psychology. In each case, there is a strong element of the Alt-Right playing on the sexual insecurities of young men. At the same time, the Alt-Right have tended to prefer nationalism and racism to self-define their movement...yet women are the most consistent personal targets of Alt-Right campaigns. Anti-women viewpoints (including views that promote or legitimize sexual assault) are central to their messaging. Even their anti-immigrant propaganda is centered on sexual fears---often phrased in terms that imply that women are territory or property at risk of being stolen from white men."
Camestros is exactly right; psychologists of the past were well-aware of the deep connection between political/religious extremism and sexual maladjustment. Vehicles like Infogalactic are 'gateways' disguised as online encyclopedias to lure the unwary into the Red Pill Cult. This is why there has been a flurry of Manosphere articles lately praising Infogalactic's coverage of Pizzagate. The idea is to draw in Pizzagate proponents by expressing sympathy for their views (in contrast to the alienation Pizzagaters are experiencing) and then converting them to their other ideas. It's a typical cultish tactic; and the same tactic that the Red Pills have employed to suck in Men's Rights Activists, Gamergate theorists, and others before.
In short, Infogalactic never had a chance of replacing Wikipedia; and it probably was not intended that it should---at least not in the short run. It was designed to serve as a recruiting tool, to draw more men into a movement which could never stand on its own merits.
At this time of year we're reminded (reminded, that is, in churches and not in Pop Culture) that Advent is a time when Christ came to redeem mankind and destroy the works of the Devil. Next week's feature review will deal with Redemption. This weekend, we're going to destroy the works of the Devil.
Our weekend recommendation is a truly unique film from 1974 titled Captain Kronos and stars Horst Jansen, John Cater, and the beautiful Caroline Munro. The film was produced by Hammer Studios---best known for producing fairly standard horror films. Captain Kronos is anything but standard; and arguable even whether it fits neatly into the horror genre or not. It is said that Italian Western director Sergio Leone was a technical advisor for this film; and it really watches more like an action film with some supernatural elements involved.
The story is set in Puritan England where Captain Kronos (Jansen) is a battle-hardened veteran of the English Civil War. He's a demobilized officer formerly of King Charles' Imperial Guards and has since found a new occupation as a soldier of fortune: fighting the various Witches' Covens and Satanic Cults that had sprouted up all over England in the mid-1600s. Kronos is a master swordsman and he is assisted by the hunchbacked Professor Grost (Cater), an expert in the occult.
Kronos is summoned by his old comrade-in-arms, Captain Marcus, to investigate a series of strange deaths where the victims---mostly young women have been found drained of their blood and aged beyond recognition. En route, Kronos meets and rescues Carla, his love interest in the story (played by Caroline Munro), who's been put in the pillory by the Puritans for 'dancing on a Sunday.'
The trio move on Marcus' village, where Grost determines that a vampire is at work. Kronos is obliged to fight a fair number of sword-duels, leading him to suspect that someone highly-placed in the area is behind these attacks, and assisting the vampire. The plot takes on the aura of mystery and suspense as Kronos tracks down the source of the problem.
In our Postmodern Era, it's become fashionable to laugh at the idea of devils and demonic influences---even though there are no shortages of irrational evil to illustrate otherwise. Part of the allure of Captain Kronos is that, unlike most films of the standard horror genre, it depicts the existence of evil as a fact; and a fact that good and determined people must stand against and fight. There is a stark reminder in this film that evil, no matter what its form in the mundane world, always has a spiritual evil behind it. We tend to forget---and often disbelieve---that the spiritual world claims allegiances and it that there are those who serve evil as well as good.
While it's doubtful that Captain Kronos will become annual holiday viewing, it's a film that most wouldn't mind watching more than once. The film is simply so unique and Kronos' character so admirable that it has had a loyal cadre of fans ever since its release. One can almost imagine Captain Kronos and Carla as the distant ancestors of American Western gunfighters and hard-boiled private-eyes. It is another testimony that every generation, no matter how bleak, has its remnant ready to lift its sword, or its gun, or its fists---or its voice---against the Powers of Darkness.
Captain Kronos is currently available on Youtube and elsewhere; also it is available on DVD.
The Israeli Interior Ministry on Tuesday issued a decree recognizing homosexual so-called 'marriages' performed abroad as legal. The Israeli approved such unions among Israeli citizens recently, but the Synagogue refuses to perform them---which, in Israel, is required for legally recognized marriages. The Israeli Interior Ministry lifted the ban on foreign marriages after a lawsuit was filed on behalf of a group called The Gay Fathers Association. Efforts are underway to circumvent the Synagogue's power to block to prevent such unions. Israel's Chief Rabbi was recently mobbed by angry homosexual activists for publically stating the Torah's position on the subject.
According to Wikipedia: "LGBTQ rights in Israel are the most advanced in the Middle East, and among the most advanced in Asia...Recent polls have indicated that a majority of Israelis support same-sex marriages despite some Social Conservatism. Tel Aviv has frequently been referred to as one of the most gay-friendly cities in the world, famous for its annual Pride Parade and gay beach, earning it the nickname 'the gay capital of the Middle East' by Out Magazine."
Israel, like most Western democracies, is under attack from the Cultural Marxists, despite considerable resistance from the Jewish Synagogue, the traditionalists there are clearly losing ground.
Now the question has been raised among some concerned commenters recently as to why we here praise and commend governments which do not share the West's commitment to popular democracy or free market economics. Aside from the fact that these commitments largely exist in name only today, the reasons are clear. Countries we have praised like Russia, Syria, China, and Iran are not being held being held up as ideal governments or economic system. They being praised because their policies are policies which the West once stood for and enacted by popular will.
Yes: China can enact a model-families program today because they are One-Party State with a controlled press. Iran can enact pro-family education in the public schools immediately because the Ayatollahs can rule by decree. Syria can rebuild and protect Christians because Assad is a dictator and can do as he pleases. Russia can promote faith and family because---despite being a democracy with a free press---Putin's party dominates all opposition numerically.
The obvious weakness in all of these systems is that all it takes is one madman to seize control of the reins of power and all of these good deeds can be erased and the countries placed under a Reign of Terror. In fact, all four countries named above experienced that very thing during the 20th Century. There is no system of checks and balances in any of them---with the arguable exception of Russia.
Yet the governments in these four countries are popular, while we in the West are deeply divided and few Westerners trust or respect their government. And this is where the issue lies. The US and Western countries should have social and economic policies---enacted by popular will---that are models for countries like ones named above, and not the other way around.
When we examine the example of Israel compared to Iran what do we see? A nation's religious leaders and sexual anarchists fighting over the legal definition of marriage in Israel and a nation's religious leaders enacting public education programs to fight homosexuality and divorce in Iran. Honestly now: which scenario would we rather see in America? It is a point worth remembering that there has never been a Christian-owned bakery closed in Iran for refusing to cater a gay wedding---ever.
This is not to argue, as the press in the above-named countries often do, that America would be better if it were ruled by the United Russia Party, the Baathists, the Communist Party of China, or if it became an Islamic Republic. The fact is, that we used to promote the values of Democracy and Christianity worldwide without dictatorships, or theocracies, or decrees. What we have lost as a nation---as has most of the West---the moral standing to criticize any of these countries. Because however flawed their systems of government and economics are, they are not only beating us badly economically, militarily, in education, and scientific achievement: they are actually displacing the West from its moral high-ground. Nature abhors a vacuum; and when we, as a people---and the people are ultimately the rulers in the West---stop leading by example, then the world is naturally going to look at whatever virtues they see in alternative systems.
It is useless to talk about Making America Great Again or American Exceptionalism if there is no popular will to be great or exceptional again. Absent popular will to do these things, it really doesn't make any difference what form of government we live under. For nearly 30 years now, we have posed as a great nation without actually being one. The current generation has chosen to rest on the laurels of its forefathers and let our government, media, schools, courts, military, and economic system fall into the hands of bandits.
The Trump Administration has a popular mandate to change some of these things; but the change is going to have to start from the ground up. We can't sit back and expect Trump and his team to do everything. We can prove once again to the world that our system works; but we have to make it so; that includes all Western democracies, including Israel.
While here in the Prozac Nation, schoolteachers send students from class to protest elections---and armed kooks search for missing kids in pizza-parlor basements, the Nigerian Army is actually doing something positive. In a series of surprise attacks in Sambisa Forest, Nigerian forces under the command of General Leo Irabor killed hundreds of Boko Harum terrorists and freed 605 hostages; 450 of whom were children.
Boko Harum is a Jihadist gang funded and armed by Clinton donors in the Wahhabi-run Gulf States and is said to have been organized by Al-Qaeda in 2009. During the latter half of 2016, Nigerian forces have put the terrorists on the defensive; driving them deeper into the African jungle.
The terror group made international headlines in 2014 when they raided a girls' school in Chibok, Nigeria and took 276 girls and young women prisoner. The story quickly disappeared from the Corporate Media after the Nigerian Government snubbed Obama's interference and invited in Chinese military advisors and suppliers over the Pentagon.
Nigerian President Mohammudu Buhari praised the 'intellectual transformation' of Nigerian Military under Chinese instruction at a ceremony the day before the Sambisa Battle. Commander-in-Chief General Tucker Buratai flew to Sambisa to decorate the troops and arrange for the return of the hostages. General Buratai told the African media that he was confident that Boko Harum would be eliminated by mid-2017.
The Terrorists, though, have left a humanitarian crisis in their wake. Preliminary reports from UNICEF indicate that Boko Harum destroyed 75% of the water and sanitation services and 30% of the hospitals in the Sambisa-Borno Region before retreating. The thugs also looted food supplies, leaving the region at risk for famine.
Hopefully, with the downfall of the American Neocon/Liberal Establishment, the new Administration will cut off weapons sales to Jihadist Regimes that support these criminal gangs. The Obama/Clinton legacy in foreign policy is written in blood worldwide.
Good Men Doing Good Things
Left-wing activist and multimillionaire Corporate Media mogul Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, published an article in Daily Kos (which he owns) on Monday wishing death and poverty on workers who voted for Trump. Daily Kos purports to be a political weblog analyzing the news from a Liberal perspective. And as we've frequently seen during the post-Election weeks, modern Liberalism is essentially anti-Democratic, Elitist, corrupt, and thuggish.
Moulitsas' article is titled "Be Happy for Coal Miners Losing their Health Insurance: They're Getting Exactly what they Voted For." What this so-called populist is referring to is a proposed extension of Federal Benefits to retired coal miners, introduced by Senator Manchin of West Virginia as part of the Stopgap Spending Bill. Senator Manchin dropped the Bill's inclusion on the condition that the Senate consider it as a separate Bill and vote on it before recess. In other words, Manchin was simply employing a procedural tactic to draw attention to the Bill's urgency (the benefits are set expire on December 31st).
The reality then, is that the coal miners have not lost their benefits; will likely not lose them; and the Bill had nothing whatsoever to do with Trump. Obama already signed the Stopgap Spending Bill without the inclusion of Manchin's Amendment.
Nonetheless, Moulitsas wrings his hands with sadistic glee over the prospect that retired coal miners will lose healthcare and sink into dire poverty. Just read this abominable rant:
"Hilary Clinton won the election but a system designed to let a powerful minority override the will of the majority elected some a-----e. For now we have to deal with this b------t reality, and lots of good people will suffer serious consequences. But don't feel sorry for the ones who enabled this nightmare by voting for the incoming Trump-Putin Administration. For example, why should we weep for the retired coal miners who will now lose their health insurance thanks to the GOP majority---despite the best efforts of Democrats to change the outcome?"
Aside from the considerable level of fake news in the preceding quote, note the viciousness and lack of empathy the author displays. After preaching phony Cultural Marxist schmaltz for the last decade about compassion for the poor, he now tells his readers that poverty is exactly what people who didn't vote Democrat deserve. It gets worse; Moulitsas goes off on a full-blown Olbermann-style paroxysm of outrage:
"How sorry should we feel for this crowd? Coal country swung hard for Donald Trump, winning 70-80% in some of these counties." (apparently Moulitsas doesn't believe that the Russians hacked the voting machines there) "Don't weep for these coal miners, now abandoned by their GOP patrons. They are getting exactly the government that they voted for. Democrats can no longer offer unrequited love and cover for them. And isn't this what democracy is all about? They won the election! This is what they wanted!"
Moulitsas, a smug, pompous, self-appointed 'cultural elite' and his alleged unrequited love is exactly what the voters rejected. The voters saw Moulitsas, Olbermann, Colbert, and their media ilk for the servile toadies of the corrupt and decadent Clinton Machine that they are. A DNC machine which has done very little for the benefit of coal miners---except to cripple the coal industry and stuff funds into the pockets of political cronies operating bogus green energy and climate change scams.
And lest we forget also, most of the Democratic Party voters in coal country supported Senator Sanders during the primaries. When one's candidate is blatantly cheated out of nomination by the other candidate, it's hardly to be expected that the cheating candidate will get much support from the cheated voters. That's the extent of Moulitsas' unrequited love that the DNC displayed for their coal country constituents.
Daily Kos is yet another example of the yellow journalism and supermarket tabloid level reporting and writing into which the American Corporate Media has sunk.
