Showing posts with label Pacifascists. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pacifascists. Show all posts

Thursday, March 2, 2023

Dubious Alliances: Germany’s New Peace Movement Has Some Explaining to Do

At Der Spiegel, "Putin’s war in Ukraine is unsettling many in Germany. A new peace movement is forming in the country, but it is stirring up the ghosts of German history – and has an open flank to the extreme right":

No, she says, she’s not a "Putin sympathizer." And she has nothing at all to do with right-wing agitators. Antje Döhner-Unverricht sees herself as one of many in Germany who long for an end to the war in Ukraine, a segment of the German population that feels politicians are doing too little to make that happen.

So, the 52-year-old from Dresden took action: She signed the "Manifesto for Peace" organized by German author and feminist leader Alice Schwarzer and the far-left Left Party politician Sahra Wagenknecht. The "manifesto" calls on German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to support negotiations between Russia and Ukraine. "A compromise with Putin is by no means the capitulation of democracy," says Döhner-Unverricht. She speaks calmly and reflectively.

As a psychologist, some of those to whom she provides care are traumatized patients who "are very worried about the current state of war and are having a hard time dealing with it."

"My daily work is about ensuring that we maintain dialog with one another," says Döhner-Unverricht. "That dialog is currently missing from the political landscape."

The Dresden psychologist opposes arms deliveries to Ukraine. "Russia wants to win the war by any means necessary," she says. "We keep escalating it, where will it end?"

Almost every second person in Germany shares Döhner-Unverricht’s view. German society has been divided ever since Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine a year ago. Some are in favor of supplying weapons to Ukraine. Others are opposed – sometimes more and sometimes less strongly – because they fear it could escalate the war and make it go on forever.

Open letters have been published for and against Germany's role in the war, with prominent supporters for each argument. But the "manifesto" brings a new dimension to the debate.

What is happening now, namely the attempt to establish a new peace movement, hasn't been seen in Germany in years. More than a half-million people have signed Schwarzer’s and Wagenknecht’s "Manifesto for Peace," while over the weekend, major protests were held across Germany in support of the manifesto, with at least 13,000 taking to the streets in Berlin alone.

Right-wing extremists mobilized diligently in recent days to hijack the marches. People like Antje Döhner-Unverricht, who distance themselves from Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party and from Putin's propaganda on the petition platform and in comments to DER SPIEGEL, want nothing to do with them. They say they are uncomfortable with the idea that right-wing extremists share their position.

But the issue is too important to them to shun involvement just because of the interference from the right wing. With the result that it’s hard to tell who comprises the bulk of the manifesto’s signatories: moderates or radicals.

In the manifesto, Wagenknecht and Schwarzer warn of a "world war" and "nuclear war" and call on the chancellor to "stop the escalation of arms deliveries" and to work for "peace negotiations" between Ukraine and Russia.

What's lacking in the petition, though, is a coherent explanation of how negotiations might look with someone like Russia's president, who clearly isn’t interested in negotiations.

Wagenknecht and Schwarzer have been criticized for their initiative because it lacks clear language distancing itself from the right. Some of that criticism comes from Wagenknecht's own Left Party, but a number of the initial signatories to the manifesto have begun backing away from it.

Theologist Margot Kässmann, the former head of the Protestant Church in Germany, continues to support the "manifesto," but said last week she would not attend demonstrations in support of the movement in Berlin. "There are attempts by the right-wing fringe to hijack criticism of arms deliveries," Kässmann says, lamentingly. "I care about who I am associated with." The AfD, for example, whose chair Tino Chrupalla recently shared Wagenknecht’s and Schwarzer’s petition on Twitter, represents "inhuman views," says Kässmann. "I don’t want to be associated with them," Kässmann says. "Let them hold their own demonstration."

Meanwhile, Roderich Kiesewetter, a politician with the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), has launched his own counter-initiative as an alternative to that of Schwarzer and Wagenknecht. In it, he and other signatories write: "Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian women and children in this country, whose husbands, brothers and fathers are fighting on the battlefield right now, are shocked at these ideologues who insist on 'peace' by manifesto, whatever the cost might be."

The debate shows that more than 30 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Germans still don't know who they want to be. The thoroughly militarized East Germany was supposedly committed to world peace. And West Germany had a strong peace movement that emerged as a response to the NATO and Warsaw Pact arms race.

Then the war in Kosovo in the 1990s, which saw Germany's Green Party vote in favor of the German military's first intervention since World War II, shook pacifist certainties in both the east and west of the country. On February 24, 2022, though, it because glaringly obvious that the country had never really addressed a number of central issues – the country's defensive capabilities, for example, or the, question of how to deal with an increasingly aggressive Russia...

 

Wednesday, July 29, 2015

15-Year-Old Adrian Jerry Gonzalez, Suspect in Madyson Middleton Murder, to Be Tried as Adult, Faces Life Sentence

Here's my previous reporting on this horrible, horrible story, "Teen 'Lured' 8-Year-Old Santa Cruz Girl Into Apartment Before Killing Her, Dumping Body in Recycling Bin (VIDEO)," and "Santa Cruz Leftists Shocked — Shocked! — by Vicious Murder of Innocent 8-Year-Old Madyson Middleton."

There's no death penalty for minors, of course, otherwise prosecutors certainly would have sought his execution.

Here's the latest, at ABC 7 News San Francisco, "TEEN CHARGED AS ADULT FOR SANTA CRUZ GIRL'S DEATH."

The lovely little Madyson was bound with duct tape, raped, strangled and stabbed to death.

More at SFist, "15-Year-Old Suspect Named, Charged as Adult In Rape and Murder Of Maddy Middleton."

And at the Santa Cruz Sentinel, "Santa Cruz teen charged as adult in brutal homicide of 8-year-old."

Santa Cruz Leftists Shocked — Shocked! — by Vicious Murder of Innocent 8-Year-Old Madyson Middleton

Santa Cruz, California, where Utopian citizens live in a vacation from reality year-round, until something like the heinous murder of this sweet little girl shocks their leftist "pacifist" sensibilities.

Believe me, crime will surge in California in the years ahead, with criminals being released from the prisons under Prop. 47, and even more so as the Obama administration rushes to empty the jails of so-called "non-violent" criminals nationwide.

Even leftist enclaves push back when their cherished retreats from reality get threatened.

At the Los Angeles Times, "Shock in Santa Cruz over girl's killing, boy's arrest: 'These are our babies'":
The Tannery Arts Center sprang from the utopian ideal of creating a sanctuary for artists and their families — one intended to shield painters and sculptors from Santa Cruz's rising rents, while providing a cocoon around the creative community's many children.

But the creative Eden could not keep out a parent's worst nightmare. Police on Tuesday arrested a 15-year-old neighbor of Madyson “Maddy” Middleton, saying the boy lured the 8-year-old girl into his family's apartment Sunday and killed her, then hid the body in a dumpster-sized recycling bin.

Many residents had held out hope that Maddy, a vivacious girl last seen riding a scooter Sunday afternoon, would be found alive. The discovery of her body Monday night was a stunning blow to many in the complex.

To learn on Tuesday that another resident was suspected in the killing was too much.

“We're just devastated. These are two of our kids, and one is dead and one has been taken away. And it's horrible. It's just horrible,” said resident Yasmina Porter, a dance professor at Cabrillo College. Her children, ages 11 and 13, played with both the victim and the suspect, she said.

“From the community's standpoint, we mostly feel like these are our babies,” Porter said. “This is the most horrible thing you can imagine.”

Authorities said they believe Maddy willingly went into the boy's apartment, where they were alone.

“She was 8 years old,” said Santa Cruz Police Chief Kevin Vogel. “I think she had a reasonable amount of trust in him.”

Vogel said police were waiting for forensic results and did not give a cause of death.

Authorities did not identify the suspect because he is a minor. Shocked residents described him as “sweet” and said he was well-known for his prowess with a yo-yo.

Porter said the suspect was quiet and polite, and that his mother prepared food and invited neighbors over during holidays.

The eight-acre complex resembles a modern college campus — one especially welcoming for children who play, paint sidewalks with chalk and ride bicycles on its landscaped grounds.

It opened at the site of the historic Salz Tannery, which once supplied more than half of all saddle leather produced in California. The center's 100 housing units were completed in 2009, funded by the Santa Cruz Redevelopment Agency and a nonprofit developer.

Denise Kiser Shaw said she was taking a class Sunday afternoon and remembered seeing Maddy wearing a purple dress and riding the silver scooter.

“She was going back and forth on her scooter,” Shaw said. “She would peek into the door while we were working.”

By the end of the class, there was a commotion in the courtyard about the missing girl.

“We knew that there was something terribly wrong,” Shaw said. “It was like, it must be some stranger who grabbed her.”

Shaw called the complex an oasis for artists that “feels safe.”

“The children are out like little butterflies,” Shaw said. “It's a contained area … it's like, OK, you stay here in the courtyard and you ride around and you wait for your friend.”
Yeah, those leftist "safe spaces" aren't so safe after all.

Freakin' hippies. Idiots and leftist freakin' hippies.

Stil more.

PREVIOUSLY: "Teen 'Lured' 8-Year-Old Santa Cruz Girl Into Apartment Before Killing Her, Dumping Body in Recycling Bin (VIDEO)."

Sunday, June 6, 2010

Pressure Builds on Helen Thomas Following Anti-Semitic Remarks

I'm a little late getting to this, but incredulous in any case, and that's saying something. I used to call for Helen Thomas' retirement, but seriously, why would any news service still want her? Diane Nines, of the Nine Speakers press agency, gave Thomas the boot.

And see Ari Fleischer, at Fox News, "
Fleischer Leads Charge for White House Reporter Helen Thomas to Be Fired." And Patrick Gavin, at Politico, "THOMAS UNDER FIRE FOR ISRAEL REMARKS" (via Memeorandum):

Longtime White House correspondent Helen Thomas is coming under fire after a video circulated widely on Friday of her saying that Jews should "get the hell out of Palestine" and go back to Poland and Germany.

The Hearst newspaper columnist made the comment during an interview with RabbiLive.com's Rabbi David Nesenoff at last week's Jewish Heritage Celebration at the White House.

“Remember these people are occupied and it’s their land,” Thomas says in the video. “It’s not German and it’s not Polish.”

Asked what Jews in Israel should do, Thomas says “go home.” Asked where that home is, she replies: “Poland. Germany. And America and everywhere else.”

On a statement issued on her website Sunday, Thomas said she regretted her comments, made in late May but widely seen Friday after the Drudge Report picked them up.

The Drudge Report as of this writing shows a picture of Thomas with President Obama’s arm around her in the White House press room, and the banner headline: "WH PRESS QUEEN: JEWS GET OUT OF ISRAEL, GO BACK TO POLAND!"
Sheesh. I wish I woulda got a screencap!

And also at Politico, "
More Thomas fallout."

Plus, at Blazing Cat Fur, "
Kick Helen Thomas out of The White House Press Corp," and previously, "JDL 'Gaza Fauxtilla' Counter Protest Video Toronto June 5."

BONUS: At Astute Bloggers, "
THE NYTIMES - LIKE OBAMA - IS BLAMING ISRAEL AND SIDING WITH THE TURKS AND JIHADISTS."

Friday, January 16, 2009

On Barack Hussein's Patriotism

As Barack Hussein prepares for his inauguration (the President-Elect will use his full name), Bernard Chapin suggests we should be "Questioning Obama's Patriotism":

The case of Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann was a cautionary tale. Mrs. Bachmann, while speaking to Chris Matthews on his television show Gutterball, stated, “I’m very concerned that he [Obama] may have anti-American views. That’s what the American people are concerned about. That’s why they want to know what his answers are.” Matthews, ever the partisan Democrat and by far the most devout of Barack Obama’s biased media protectors, referred to this banal statement as “an extraordinary claim.”

Well is it? Of course not. Given Obama’s career, his words, the tone of his
autobiography, and his associations with ardent America-haters like Father Michael Pfleger, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Frank Marshall Davis, and William Ayers, Bachmann’s words were intuitive and anything but extraordinary. That Obama deems America — in its current configuration — a spurious venture appears to be about as controversial as believing that water is wet.

In the president-elect’s vision, we only will become a great nation if we alter ourselves into becoming another nation, one that precisely matches Obama’s desires and expectations. Regardless, Bachmann faced a reelection donnybrook and was forced to
apologize. Recant aside, her expressed opinion was one a sizable plurality of her peers share.

Granted, the pusillanimous nature of the average Republican politician (excluding Bachmann) appalls, but there is no cause for the rest of us to retreat on this issue. In the hopes of clarification, let me state with absolute certainty that the reason we should question the political left’s patriotism is that they are not patriotic.

On a plethora of policies, from immigration to missile defense, the Democratic stance suggests that they do not have a dog in the fight when it comes to America’s national security. Were they not so embarrassed by our history, along with the unfashionable folks who inhabit our non-urban enclaves, they might well think differently.

On a plethora of policies, from immigration to missile defense, the Democratic stance suggests that they do not have a dog in the fight when it comes to America’s national security. Were they not so embarrassed by our history, along with the unfashionable folks who inhabit our non-urban enclaves, they might well think differently.

Moreover, the president-elect’s recent selection of
Leon Panetta to become future director of the Central Intelligence Agency underscores this eventuality. It exposes the Achilles heel of the post-sixties Democratic Party. Mr. Panetta has practically no experience of working with the intelligence community in any capacity and neither does our impending director of national intelligence Dennis Blair. Obama argued that Panetta would be “committed to breaking with some of the past practices.”

Which qualifies him for what? Further, what practices need be terminated? Hopefully, the traditional practice of entrusting those who know how to do their jobs with defending the frontiers is not what he had in mind. In all probability, Panetta’s status as a loyal Democrat and one devoted to the
Change.gov religion is what necessitated his nomination, but placing him near the apex of our national security apparatus is about as rational as the Detroit Lions hiring me to play cornerback. If Mr. Ford can overlook my not being able to cover receivers and withstand punishment, then he definitely will profit from my never rooting for the other team or leaking information to the Packers.

The ridiculousness of Obama’s choice was even apparent to Senator Dianne Feinstein, who
observed, “I was not informed about the selection of Leon Panetta to be the CIA director. My position has consistently been that I believe the agency is best served by having an intelligence professional in charge at this time.” One would presuppose that the United States would benefit from having a CIA director who was familiar with both the military and the war on terror, but such an assumption fails to take into account the weltanschauung of our president-elect.

To Obama, the CIA job is merely a patronage position. Panetta is a Washington, DC, version of a “
soldier for Stroger.” His is a superfluous appointment. As with all leftists, Obama regards America’s principal enemies as being the politicians in the opposition party. The critics of the progressive movement on these shores — as opposed to Islamo-fascists or the dictators of rogue states — are the real threat. After all, what’s a dirty bomb or a hundred thousand Katyusha rockets in comparison to those who correctly deride Obama’s plans for a twenty-first-century economy as “socialism” — which we all know is really a code word for “black.”
Yes, the critics of "progressives"?

That sounds familiar ...

Monday, August 25, 2008

The Revolution in Denver

Denver's anti-American, anti-Bush, anti-capitalist protests at the Democratic National Convention kicked off over the weekend, ahead of official party festivities.

Little Green Footballs has photos, and there's no doubt that this is one angry, Marxist revolutionary crowd.

Photobucket

The Denver Post has the background, and it looks likes the barricades are a bit undermanned:

Maybe it was too hot Sunday afternoon, or maybe they hadn't gotten warmed up yet, but the tens of thousands of demonstrators that protest organizers promised would march through Denver turned out to be tens of hundreds.

Demonstrations began early Sunday and kept up a steady beat of marching, sign waving — and tying up downtown traffic. But through most of it, protesters were vastly outnumbered by police and, occasionally, even by those who came downtown just to watch the spectacle.

Lt. Ron Saunier, a Denver Police Department spokesman, said the number of protesters that actually showed up was nowhere near what groups had told city officials to expect.

Recreate 68 had projected that as many as 25,000 or even 50,000 people would participate in activities this week. Instead, a group estimated by police at 1,000 to 1,200 participated in a Recreate 68 anti-war march Sunday morning, with a much smaller group parading up Colfax Avenue later in the day.
The protesters are not without television coverage, however, and this has amazingly generated some recriminations among the desperate netroots left:

When the news broke last week that the Clinton's formed a "whip team" to handle troublemakers, I immediately realized that any disturbance, no matter how insignificant, would be elevated to a top story. It's kind of like when there's an earthquake and all the helicopters swarm over a burning shack somewhere and people across America get the impression that all of California is engulfed in flames....

Naturally, FOX News is already leading the way by not just reporting that it's 1968 all over again, but
trying to actually stir up trouble for their broadcasts. But the rest of the media appears to be receiving the message perfectly. CNN is spending most of their time this morning talking about the attempts to "paper over" the big divisions in the party. MSNBC just ran a clip of Teddy Kennedy standing with Jimmy Carter in 1980 as NBC's David Brinkley cooed, "This is awkward."
Yep, everyone's out to sabotage the Democrats.

Yeah right ... who needs
Donald Segretti when International ANSWER's on hand outside the convention hall and Barack Hussein Obama's on the inside, with his machine bosses attacking Hillary Clinton supporters as "Uncle Tom"?

If the police end up having to break out
rifle butts and truncheons to control the radical riff-raff, Democrats voters might as well stay home on November 4.

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Anti-Bush Partisans Stuck on "No WMD" Meme

By this time, five years after the run-up to the Iraq war, it's abundantly clear that those on the left implacably opposed to the toppling of Saddam Hussein's murderous regime are stuck in a pre-surge mentality, and they'll continue to use any and all methods to prolong their deligitimization campaign of the American deployment in Iraq.

One of these antiwar nihilists is Cernig at "Newshoggers". I took down old "C" in a post some time back, "
Blogging Foreign Policy: Bereft of Credentials, Left Strains to Shift Debate." "C" didn't like that and tried to resuscitate his "credibilty" in the comments.

Cernig's got a post up this morning on Australia's Rudd government and its effort to pull the country's contribution to joint security contingents in Iraq:

When War Party shills or the Bush administration repeat the old lie that "everyone thought Iraq had WMDs", they conveniently forget that French intelligence didn't, that weapons inspector Scott Ritter didn't, that Russian intelligence didn't, that Al Gore didn't, that German intel had already worked out that Curveball was a conman and warned the CIA...and leave out the fact that most Western governments were relying on the US to tell them the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Australian PM Kevin Rudd has been laying out that latter inconvenient truth for his public, on the occasion of his ordering a withdrawal of Aussie soldiers from Iraq. It's a story that's got very little attention in the US, however.
Notice that language: The "war party shills." God, that's sounds positively evil. I'm sure the diabolical "neocons" had something to do with it!

I went to leave a quote from the Wall Street Journal at the post, but apparently I'm banned by Cernig for violating his abstruse "rules" for debate at the blog:

We're sorry, your comment has not been published because TypePad's antispam filter has flagged it as potential comment spam. It has been held for review by the blog's author.
I started to leave this passage, from the Wall Street Journal article:

That Saddam had WMD was the consensus of the U.S. intelligence community for years, going back well into the Clinton Administration. The CIA's Near East and counterterrorism bureaus disagreed on the links between al Qaeda and Saddam--which is one reason the Bush Administration failed to push that theme. But the CIA and its intelligence brethren were united in their belief that Saddam had WMD, as the agency made clear in numerous briefings to Congress.

And not just the CIA. Believers included the U.N., whose inspectors were tossed out of Iraq after they had recorded huge stockpiles after the Gulf War. No less than French President Jacques Chirac warned as late as last February about "the probable possession of weapons of mass destruction by an uncontrollable country, Iraq" and declared that the "international community is right . . . in having decided Iraq should be disarmed."
The point here is not so much the disagreement over Iraqi WMD (Prime Minister Rudd's going to spin his antiwar meme as best he can, in kowtowing to whatever left-wing surrenderist pressures he's facing), but to illustrate the total cowardice of the antiwar hordes in censoring opposition to their views based on reason.

Cernig's a hack who has a history of banning pro-victory commenters, according to some whacked system of ad hoc posting rules. As
Dave in Boca pointed out in any earlier entry,

Petty autocrat [Cernig] banished/blocked me for consistently outwitting and outfacting his tendentious gibberish.
My neocon protege at
GSGF was also banned after disputing a Newshoggers' post, so shining the light of reason on this guy triggered a good amount of reflexive "spam-filtering."

Recall this is the blog that
cheered Downs syndrome suicide bombers in Iraq, and these folks routinely demonize the American deployment from the trenches of neo-communist antiwar ideological hostility.

*********

UPDATE: I frequently mention that many of my antiwar commenters, who I tolerate generously (including Repsac3), never denounce (but defend) the antiwar nihilism and left-wing anti-Semitism I regularly chronicle on this page.

Here's another example: In response to this post, and my reference above to Newshoggers' cheering of Downs syndrome suicide bombers in Iraq,
Fauxmaxbaer responded in the comments, which is followed by my rebuttal and the comment of Gayle from Dragon Lady's Den:

** [1] I followed the links and could not find where anyone applauded or cheered the use of those with Down's Syndrome as suicide bombers. Could you provide that quote. [Fauxmaxbaer]

** [2] This is the only quote that I found and it does not fit the description of cheering or applauding:

For the record, assuming it's true, I think it's just horrible that whoever was behind this latest disaster used Down's women to perpetrate the bombings but I don't see it as a sign of desperation. I see it as a sign of adaptation and a brilliant one at that. Perhaps Mr. Owens can educate me on how our troops are supposed to counter this new evil tactic? That would be helpful. [Fauxmaxbaer]
** [3] "I see it as a sign of adaptation and a brilliant one at that."A brilliant adaptation, for killing the innocents? Is that okay with you, Fauxmaxbaer? That's cheering. If that's okay with you, you're as bad as they are. [Donald]

** [4]) Donald, I found that same quote, and I see it differently than Fauxmaxbaer does. "I see it as a sign of adaptation and a brilliant one at that." Sounds like approval and cheering to me!
That quote came from here. I think Libby Spencer is morally challenged. [Gayle]

Gayle responded to me just seconds after I responded to Fauxmaxbaer, and I was already working on this update when I saw her comments. I was going to throw open the thread for some debate on defending as "brilliant" Downs suicide bombers, which for both Libby Spencer and Fauxmaxbaer, is a case in the worst form of moral relativism.

But to be clear: If war opponents see the strapping of explosive vests on mentally-challenged Iraqi women for the purpose of killing American soldiers and innocent civilians as a "brilliant adaptation," that can only be seen logically as applauding a shift in tactics by the terrorists to excalate the nihilist violence. Libby Spencer's original post, and Fauxmaxbaer's defense, demonstrates a moral equivalence (and depravity), that, frankly, I find sickening. Is there nothing that the terrorists will do that elicits an unequivocal denunciation by the far left-wing enemies of American success in Iraq?

Thanks to Gayle for the moral backup. Sometimes I go crazy with these lefties!

Sunday, May 25, 2008

Pacifascists!

I'm stoked!

I've been needing some additional adjectives and nouns to augment "nihilist," especially now that the hard-lefties have
appropriated my term!

Well, to the rescue is "pacifascists," via
American Digest:

"Pacifascist" (pac*i*fas*cist) is my spin on a word suggested by a commentor @The Belmont Club: The valley of tears

"there are so many people now who see war as the ultimate wrong. Thus, anyone who participates in it is to be condemned. Taken to its extreme, this leads to a funny sort of fascism: "pacifiscism" would perhaps be a name for it. It begs the question: would the "pacifiscists" ever get so worked up that they'd be willing to physically punish someone for participating in war? I think yes, though they would fell horrible afterwards."
I'll take his definition and his estimate of their probable behavior. I just think my variant scan better.

The latest examples of the "pacifascists" among us would be those that raised the howl last week demanding that the US Armed Forces supply Burma's suffering millions with aid even if they had to go in at the point of a gun with massive air cover.

Typical "pacifascist" crap. As long as there are no real American interests in play, the use of the military is "enlightened" - even required. If there are actually reasons strategic and otherwise for the US to engage in a war an win it - i.e. Iraq, there is no justification that can possible satisfy the "pacifascists."

I wrote previously about this issue of "no American interests." It's good to see others making the case.

Hat tip: Dr. Sanity