AP Slips in ‘Poverty’ as Reason For Nigerian Massacres

-By Warner Todd Huston

True to its fealty to left-wing, western pop psychology, the Associated Press thinks it knows one of the principle reasons why roving gangs of Muslims are hacking Christians to death and burning their villages to the ground in Nigeria: It’s “poverty.”

Liberals that struggle to understand why man is often so cruel to his fellows seem always to have assumed that poverty is a key factor in violence and crime, but rarely it is the factor that liberals assume it to be. Poverty is no picnic, but it is not the cause of crime and violence. It is more likely a symptom itself rather than a catalyst.

It’s a chicken and egg question, of course. What came first, the poverty or the crime? But the simple fact of the matter is that poverty is seen in every corner of the Earth, yet crime rates vary wildly from area to area and era to era. So, if poverty is constant and is the catalyst for crime, why doesn’t crime hold at a fairly constant rate? It seems pretty obvious that crime is not directly caused by poverty.

Poverty is caused by a myriad of factors. A lack of education, racism, government oppression, social factors and the like all create poverty. But these same factors also mitigate crime in some parts of the world.

Typically, however, the AP has decided that “poverty” has caused the religious-based violence in Nigeria. While poverty most certainly is a problem in Nigeria, it has changed so little for generations that I find it hard to believe that it could be a cause of this newest wave of violence.

The real cause is both religious and cultural. That poverty abounds in the region is of little difference to the cause of the violence. The clash is between Muslims from the north and Christians in the south. It’s a fight for cultural supremacy. Poverty doesn’t figure into it very much, when all is said and done.

Yet here is the AP presenting “poverty” as a “cause” of the violence as if it is fact. The truth is that “poverty” being a catalyst for crime is a pop psychology trope, not a fact.

It is not fact.

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ABC Credits Net Posse with Tracking Jihad Jane and Other Jihadists

by Maggie at Maggie’s Notebook

ABC News is crediting the “net posse” that helped track and report the activities of Jihad Jane (Colleen LaRose). Our friends at JawaReport, QuothTheRaven and the YouTube Smackdown Corps are rightly credited for their ongoing counterterrorism tracking – even though ABC also refers to these patriot sites as ‘net vigilantes.’ Oh, well, words are cheap for the lame MSM.

The JawaReport’s Rusty Shackleford said this in an interview with ABC News:

Shackleford, a pen name, says he is a libertarian college professor who created the blog JawaReport in 2004 after he was enraged that Iraqi Islamists had beheaded an American named Nick Berg.

It was my way of venting. But mostly it was about countering violent Islamist propaganda, specifically the videos that were being produced by al Qaeda in Iraq and other Salaafist jihadists fighting our troops,” he said.

Shackleford said his goal from the beginning was combating violent Islamist material and support on the Web.

I’m a blogger, but also an activist against violent Islamism. One of the things we do is try to pressure Webhosts to remove Websites that belong to terrorist organizations. An example of this would be the dozen or so times we’ve successfully had the Taliban’s website removed. The websites sometimes pop back up, sometimes not,” Shackleford said.

Shackleford and other contributors to JawaReport and sites like it noticed YouTube had become a hug for videos and comments in support of violent extremism and attacks against the West and it’s allies, leading to the creation of the YouTube Smackdown.

Shackleford said the groups identify videos in support of violent Islamism and pressure the Web site to take them down, “as they would child pornography or other obscene material.”

According to the Quoth the Raven blog, since the “smackdown” movement began in 2007, users have had over 31,000 videos removed from YouTube, and 695 users suspended. They say LaRose was one of those suspended.

Drop by The Jawa Report and leave a nice comment.

Read the complete story here.

More on Jihad Jane:
Colleen LaRose is Jihad Jane aka Fatime Larose – Indicted on Charges of Terrorism

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What is a ‘Religious Extremist’? This Lefty Weekly Sure Doesn’t Know

-By Warner Todd Huston

For the Independent Weekly of Durham, North Carolina, writer Sam Wardle proves that he hasn’t a clue how the phrase “religious extremist” is properly defined. But, I’d suggest that his confusion is endemic in the far left and proves to show why so many in the west don’t understand how to face and defeat the real religious extremism of radical Islam.

In a story about Representative Sue Myrick (R, NC) and her association with The National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools as juxtaposed with her condemnation of radical Islam, Wardle sees no difference between a radical Islamist that might blow himself up with a suicide vest or cut off the head of a helpless captive and a Christian American that wants to use properly constituted law to have the Holy Bible used in the classroom.

Certainly you can disagree with having the Bible used as a text in the classroom, but to say that a person that does want the Bible in the classroom is no better than a terrorist is, well, just plain stupid. It is also intellectually vapid. Unfortunately, Mr. Wardle is all too representative of the vapidity of the left that so often comes to this intellectually dishonest conclusion.

Wardle reveals his hatred of all things Christian in his IndyWeek piece titled, “For Rep. Sue Myrick, Islamic moderates are extreme, Christian extremists are moderate,” wherein he equates Rep. Myrick to a religious extremist.

Wardle starts his piece straight on with an attack on Rep. Myrick:

Rep. Sue Myrick (R-NC) is one of North Carolina’s staunchest defenders from Islamic extremism. When it comes to Christian extremism, though, the record is more mixed.

Wardle says that Myrick’s “defense against Islamic extremism” itself borders on the extreme.

Those are pretty serious charges, of course. So what does Wardle show as his proof to bear out the finger wagging at Myrick? One of the first of Wardle’s accusations would take an Olympic gymnast’s back-bending performance to agree with. In short it is weak as heck.

However, Myrick’s concern over religious extremism seems relegated to practitioners of one religion. At the forum, she pointedly avoided applying the label of “terrorist” to Joseph Stack, the 53-year-old Texan who flew his airplane into an IRS building in Austin in February.

Whether Stack should have been termed a terrorist by Myrick or not is one question, but what it has to do with the subject of religion is anyone’s guess. Austin IRS building attacker Joe Stack had no connection to any religion whatever. He did not perpetrate his act of terror in the name of religion so Wardle’s usage of Stack as his religious foil for Myrick is insensible. But such is Wardle’s hatred for both Myrick and Christianity that any stretch is excused, apparently.

Then Wardle goes on the attack against The NCBCPS, a “right-wing evangelical group” in Wardle’s terminology. Wardle reports that the NCBCPS’ goal is to “bring a state certified (sic) Bible course (elective) into the public high schools nationwide.” He says that the group claims that it has gotten its curriculum in 532 schools in 38 states.

Wardle counters that success by revealing that this group’s school texts have been criticized as containing “shoddy research, factual errors and plagiarism.” Wardle also lays out all the other groups and Media outlets that have attacked the veracity of the NCBCPS’ offerings.

But one thing is completely missing from Wardle’s piece. Any actual “extremism.” Apparently just the fact that the NCBCPS wants to get its curriculum in a school is enough to be classified just as extreme as al Qaeda to one such as Wardle.

But implicit in the whole discussion (but only implied because Wardle does not say it) is the fact that if the NCBCPS did get its curriculum in schools in 38 states it must have done so through the legitimate process of appealing to school boards and having those schools agree to accept the program. In other words, the NCBCPS followed the same legal procedure that every other education advocate has followed.

Notice how the NCBCPS didn’t win over those schools by cutting off administrator’s heads, bombing public buildings, or killing students thereby using intimidation and violence to get its way. So, while this Christian group is certainly seriously active, to act as if they are somehow just as extreme as Islamic Radicals is idiotic.

But this is the empty logic that befalls the far left in this country. Any religion, all religion is classified as “extreme” to these people. No logic need apply.

(Originally posted at BigJournalism.com)

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LEAN, MEAN & “GREEN”: The Smoking Gun

PART ONE:

LEAN, MEAN & “GREEN”: The Smoking Gun

Part One – By Sharon Sebastian – Website: DarwinsRacists.com

LEAN being the times Americans will face, MEAN is the method of implementation of great hardship on America, and GREEN is the radical environmental agenda sold to the world as the shill to implement the aforementioned two. Green also relates to the vast billions that a hierarchy of global elites plans to pocket specifically from Americans. So, why is President Barack Obama so obstinately determined to get his versions of Health Care and Cap-and-Trade into law over the overwhelming objection of Americans?

President Obama insists that America must be “transformed.” The President’s educational mentor, Saul Alinsky, writes that in order to gain true power to make those “transformational changes,” you must first “destroy the middle class.” That includes small businesses, farmers, elimination of individual rights and property rights, nationalizing land to protect the environment and nature, abandoning a Constitution that protects the people from tyranny, and retaining power at any cost. There also must be mass redistribution of wealth. Legislation must be enacted to bend the people to the will of government, specifically through “mandates” in Health Care and Cap-and-Trade, all of which will be enforced by fines and penalties of imprisonment. Heavy regulations are to be enforced on corporations and people alike to reduce carbon emissions. This all-too-familiar formula to regulate and control populations, pointedly Americans, appears right out of Barack Obama’s playbook. It summarizes the Progressive ideology that originated with the President — Obama’s transformation of America by his own design, right?

Wrong. It is also the blueprint set out in the “Green Charter” of the United Nations whose goal is to redistribute global wealth in order to control energy, population and power. Is it mere coincidence that Obama appears in lockstep with the U.N.’s agenda to subjugate Americans to international law and global mandates? Congress knows the plan. Members of both parties have signed on to it. A courageous few members of Congress are rising to stand against it. They rise up only because the people of this great nation are themselves rising up. This war began before most Americans knew we were engaged in it. Under attack is the sovereignty of America as a Constitution based, free market society that imbues both personal and property rights to its citizens. Forces against the American Republic have increasingly gained power over the course of the last 80+ years and now stand ready to strike a lethal blow.

Clearly, for the U.N.’s Green Charter to work (under U.N. Agenda 21), Americans must come under the jack-boot regulations of Health Care and Cap-and-Trade legislation that, when enacted, will destroy the American economy. The U.N.’s goal is for Americans to use less energy, water, food supply and other natural resources that can be shifted to the third world. That the President’s agenda appears aligned with the U.N. indicates a higher calling for the President beyond America’s best interest. For the most part, the U.N. is supported politically primarily by third world dictators, Arab nations, and international players, such as George Soros, who know if you can control energy and health, you control everything.

This socialist-globalist agenda also explains a great deal about the people with whom the President surrounds himself. Obama’s handpicked appointments include his initial “Green Jobs Czar,” Van Jones, a self-described communist who held powerful oversight as “green jobs” advisor to the President. A 9/11 Truther, Jones advocated redistribution of wealth and accused “white polluters” of steering poison into minority communities. Obama’s Manufacturing Czar Ron Bloom states, “We agree with [Communist Dictator] Mao that power comes largely from the barrel of the gun” and “We know that the free market is nonsense.” Obama chose Diversity/Media Czar Mark Lloyd who openly admired Hugo Chavez’ socialist revolution in Venezuela. Czar Cass Sunstein wrote a radical environmental view that “animals could be plaintiffs and sue humans in court,” Science Czar John Holdren wrote of putting steralents in drinking water to control human population, political strategist Anita Dunne claims irony when she stated Communist Dictator Mao (who killed millions to stay in power) was “one of her favorite political philosophers.” There is globalist Harold Koh, Obama’s Chief Council at the State Department who represents the U.S. in matters of international law. Koh has reportedly stated a preference for the international rule of law over the U.S. Constitution, whereby Americans and the American military would be tried in international court for violations. Koh, meanwhile, entertained the possibility of Shariah (Islamic) Law’s place in America’s legal system. Then, there is the President’s political ally and Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, who has said on-camera that he considers the 1st Amendment to the Constitution that guarantees freedom of speech and freedom of religion “to be highly over rated.” The list goes on. Putting people in power with communist, socialist and globalist backgrounds indicates to Americans that maybe this President’s motives are not pure.

From average citizens to news analysts, Americans are puzzled by the inexplicable. Americans are perplexed at how the Obama administration finds unprecedented ways to drain the U.S. treasury, while on-camera the President declares straight-faced, “We have to finds ways to cut spending.” Unable to contain the waste and corruption erupting out of his own current TARP and Stimulus plans, how can Obama be trusted to track down half a trillion dollars in Medicare fraud? If he turns a blind-eye to reports that TARP money, that was to be returned to tax payers, is reportedly being used as campaign slush funds to elect members of his own party – can he be taken at face value? This president, in reality, is not a chameleon though he seemingly changes at will. He has a goal. Is Obama’s desired legacy to be the President, the consequential historical figure that “changed America,” unhinged it from its founding…no matter the consequences? In the face of this “change,” Americans need to do a lot more than “hope.”

Part Two: LEAN, MEAN & “GREEN”: Takedown of America by Sharon Sebastian follows.

Also see: Previous article OBAMA & THE UN: Agenda: 21

Sharon Sebastian (http://www.DarwinsRacists.com) is an author, writer and contributor for various forms of media including broadcast, print and online websites. Her second book, Darwin’s Racists – Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow, addresses the global “evolution vs. creation” debate highlighting both the impact of Social Darwinism on America’s culture today and its influence on current policy coming out of Washington. Website: DarwinsRacists.com

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Terrorists at Fla. Atlantic U Are O.K., Young Americans for Freedom VERBOTEN

-By Warner Todd Huston

We send our young adults to university to be educated in the ways of the world, we all know. Following that well-worn path, young James Schackleford decided on the publicly funded Florida Atlantic University for his edification and boy did he learn a lesson about modern education last week. Mr. Schackleford learned that the FAU administration prefers on its campus Islamic terrorist supporters over representatives of the conservative Young Americans for Freedom organization. He also learned that it’s open season on all conservatives at our American universities.

At the Boca Raton campus Mr. Schackleford determined that his school needed a chapter of YAF, a 40-year-old conservative student organization, and so gathered a few like-minded students to meet with YAF State Director Daniel P. Diaz to discuss how they should proceed on organizing a chapter in the school.

As the few gathered were meeting, university administrator *David Blank burst into the room and demanded that they cease their meeting and vacate the room. According to the YAF press release, Mr. Schackleford asked for an additional 15 minutes to finish and Blank acquiesced to the request. But the 15-minute grant was short lived.

Upon hearing Diaz address the liberal bias on the FAU campus, Blank stopped the meeting again and boorishly ordered the students to vacate the meeting room. Blank then shut off the room lights, tore down the group’s promotional posters, and called the campus police.

It didn’t end there. According to YAF, the campus police arrived and began to harass the students and Mr. Diaz outside as they were in the process of leaving the campus. The police demanded to see student IDs and then menacingly followed YAF rep. Diaz to his car.

Police told Diaz that they were investigating a “possible trespassing charge,” and then loudly joked that Diaz “probably had tea bags hanging out the back of his car” as Diaz prepared to leave.

Diaz says that the whole incident is proof positive of why a conservative group is needed at Florida Atlantic University.

“If we were a Marxist, Socialist or Liberal group they would have let us finish our meeting, but the university officials and police harassed us because we are conservatives. This was the exact liberal bias on campus that I was discussing in the meeting that these future YAFers experienced firsthand. The university is no longer a place of open discussion and freedom of expression, but a breeding ground of intolerance for conservative beliefs.”

One question immediately comes to mind over this incident: did student organizer Schackleford and YAF representative Diaz officially reserve a room at FAU for their informal meeting? I asked Diaz this very question.

Diaz told me that since it was an informal meeting that should have been over rather quickly, Mr. Schackleford did not think that he needed to officially reserve a room through the university staff. In fact, according to Diaz, himself a former FAU student, such unscheduled meetings occur all the time.

No we did not reserve a room. When I was a student at the university when a room wasn’t being occupied one could go in and meet or study, and as long they left before the next scheduled group arrived they would be ok. After asking around that is how it still is.

In retrospect it was an obvious lapse in judgment not to officially reserve a room. Or perhaps they should have met off campus.

However, that small lapse in judgment does not absolve this oppressive, over-the-top reaction that university administrator David Blank exhibited. After all, not long ago Florida Atlantic University hosted a whole slew of Islamic terror supporters on campus. In 2006, for instance, the Muslim students group at FAU hosted an event at which appeared Hamas and Hezbollah supporter, Al-Haaj Ghazi Khankan; alleged Neo-Nazi, William Baker; and potential co-conspirator of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, Siraj Wahhaj.

Apparently it’s perfectly O.K., as far as the FAU administration is concerned, to have Islamofascist terror given full-throated support on its campus but it is a serious no-no to talk about organizing a patriotic American conservative student’s organization there.

Perhaps Mr. Diaz is right in his contention that a YAF chapter is sorely needed at Florida Atlantic University?

*David Blank appears to be the Event Planning Specialist for the Student Union at FAU. He can be reached at dblank@fau.edu.

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