Patterico's Pontifications

4/17/2014

Something Wicked Came

Filed under: General — Dana @ 10:45 pm



[guest post by Dana]

It was a chilling scene in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk as Jews leaving a synagogue claimed masked men on the sidewalks were handing out leaflets requiring Jews to register “or else have their citizenship revoked, face deportation and see their assets confiscated”.

The denials came quickly,

The leaflets were supposedly signed by Denis Pushilin, the leader of the Donetsk People’s Republic, the newly declared and unrecognized state that claims to represent ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine. But that group and other pro-Russian groups quickly denied they had anything to do with them.

“This has nothing to do with us; it is a provocation,” said Alexander Maltsev, a spokesman for the People’s Republic, in a telephone interview. He said he did not know who was responsible, or their motives.

The leaflets ordered Jews to register at Room 514 in the building used as the headquarters to pay $50 each, or “the guilty ones would be deprived of their citizenship and deported outside the republic and their property confiscated.”

Mr. Maltsev, the spokesman, said Mr. Pushilin had not written, signed or approved any text demanding that Jewish residents register. “How could he do such a thing?” Mr. Maltsev said. “He understands that many different kinds of people live here.”

A protester laughed about the fliers, believing they were nothing more than propaganda.

Ukrainian Jewish groups have mostly rejected the Russian government’s assertion that the new authorities in Kiev are anti-Semitic, the claim also made by militants here, while remaining on guard against the prospect that the country’s political turmoil will stir up old and dark hatreds.

That for now the anti-Semitic language and actions seem to be directed at other targets in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, rather than Jews, is little consolation.

–Dana
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The Abyssmal Failure of Feminists

Filed under: General — Dana @ 8:38 pm



[guest post by Dana]

I am a regular reader of the remarkable Dr. Phyllis Chesler, and after the Ayaan Hirsi Ali debacle occurred, hers was one of the first commentaries I read. She summed up her distress thusly, “This is a terrible moment for academic freedom and critical inquiry on the American campus”. As I was strolling through the web tonight, I found that Dr. Chesler looked into the matter further. And in doing so, uncovered a shameful hypocrisy,

The Brandeis professors who demanded that Ayaan Hirsi Ali be “immediately” dis-invited wrote that “we are filled with shame at the suggestion that (Hirsi Ali’s) sentiments express Brandeis’s values.” The professors also castigated Hirsi Ali for her “core belief of the cultural backwardness of non-western peoples” and for her suggestion that “violence toward girls and women is particular to Islam.” The professors note that such a view “obscure(s) such violence in our midst among non-Muslims, including on our own campus.”

This is exactly what these professors are teaching the more than four thousand Brandeis students who signed a petition to rescind Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s award.

Are eight year-old girls being genitally mutilated at Brandeis or forced into polygamous marriages with men old enough to be their grandfathers? Are they being forcibly face-veiled or honor murdered for refusing to marry their first cousins? Perhaps they are being executed because they have been raped, for leaving an abusive marriage, or for daring to express an independent opinion?

Eighty seven professors or 29% of the Brandeis faculty signed this letter. These professors teach Physics, Anthropology, Near Eastern and Jewish Studies, English, Economics, Music, Film, Computer Science, Math, Sociology, Education—and Women and Gender Studies. Four percent of the signatories teach Anthropology, 6% teach Near Eastern and Jewish Studies, 9% teach Physics—and 21% teach Women and Gender Studies.

(emphasis added)

Feminists became multi-cultural relativists and as such, refused to criticize other cultures including misogyny within those other cultures.

Feminists have been attacking Ayaan Hirsi Ali for years as a “racist” and an “Islamophobe.” They are guided by the same false moral equivalents which the above Brandeis professors share.

Dr. Chesler closes with her own personal look at feminism,

I mourn the loss of an activist, vibrant, intellectually independent, and politically incorrect feminist Academy.

This is what modern feminism looks like: ugly, hypocritical, and wholly unbecoming. There is not enough liptstick in the world for this pig.

–Dana

Snowden Participates in Pro-Putin Propaganda Piece

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 7:07 am



Lovely:

Appearing on a televised call-in program, Putin even took a video question from Edward Snowden, the American former intelligence contractor who revealed large-scale U.S. surveillance programs and has taken refuge in Russia. Putin greeted him as a fellow spy, saying, “We can talk one professional language.”

Snowden asked if Russia spied on its citizens the way he said the United States did. Putin denied it, saying that Russian eavesdropping is strictly controlled by the law.

Russia doesn’t spy on its citizens! And you can take that to the bank! Why, it’s as certain as the absence of Russian troops in Crimea before the referendum vote! What’s that? Putin admitted what?

President Vladimir Putin, who repeatedly denied Russian troops had entered Crimea before the March referendum there, changed his version of those events Thursday, telling the nation that they had indeed been there all along.

But the green-uniformed men observed in eastern Ukraine right now, storming buildings and raising the Russian flag, are not Russian, he said. “Those are local residents,” he said.

Snowden is being defended by his cronies, of course, as he was when he revealed information about our spying on China and Hong Kong. Remember that?

Greenwald said he would not have published some of the stories that ran in the South China Morning Post. “Whether I would have disclosed the specific IP addresses in China and Hong Kong the NSA is hacking, I don’t think I would have,” Greenwald said. “What motivated that leak though was a need to ingratiate himself to the people of Hong Kong and China.”

Today Greenwald says of Snowden’s participation in Putin’s propaganda-fest:

This is what is known as a “false choice” — Snowden must either go on a pointless suicide mission, or . . . participate in a dishonest piece of propaganda for Putin.

Many of Snowden’s fans are expressing disappointment. Have they been asleep for months?

P.S. I would have thought this is obvious but I’ll say it anyway: if Greenwald is actually saying this is not a false choice — i.e. that Snowden’s choices are 1) be a shill for Putin publicly or 2) be shipped back to the U.S. for trial — then why not say so openly and explicitly? “Sure, Snowden is helping out a worse abuser than we are, but hey, he has to.” Own it.


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