That Long Empty Road: America and the Great Depression

A note from Radarsite: In our current increasingly frightening financial crises, we are it seems being continuously bombarded with references and analogies to the Great Depression. But how much do we really know about this great American tragedy? Most of us are aware of those old familiar images of veterans selling apples on the street corners of our great cities, the bread lines and the soup kitchens, the catastrophic devastations of the Dust Bowl. But many of us would perhaps be surprised, as I was, to learn of some of the more drastic repercussions of this monstrous economic meltdown. Many of us would perhaps be shocked to learn just how close we came to losing it all. If, as some pundits dramatically proclaim, we are indeed at the threshold of yet another Great Depression, it would be in our interest to take a closer look at that original disaster.

In an earlier Radarsite article Hollywood and the Jews, we examined the origins of Hollywood's historic 'left turn', the role of Hollywood's Jews, and the ever-present specter of anti-semitism. Here, we move beyond that glittering fantasy world of Hollywood to the cities and farmlands of America in an attempt to better understand this grave and critical period in our American history, which we refer to as the Great Depression. - rg

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Hollywood’s traditional political position — leftist (mostly Democratic) opposition to Capitalist (mostly but not always Republican) governments, though temporarily suspended during the astounding Hitler-Stalin Pact of 1938, can be traced back to at least the early 1930s when active far-left pro-Communist groups and guilds flourished under the protective umbrella of the seemingly benign “Popular Fronts.” However, to better understand the origins of Hollywood’s significant “left-turn”, we must go back a little further.

Just two short years after Al Jolson’s wildly popular (but by today’s standards, monstrously politically incorrect) “blackface” minstrel Jazz Singer (1927- D: Alan Crosland) launched us into the exciting -- and for some major Hollywood silent film stars, career-ending -- era of the “talkies,”* the skies over America, and most of the rest of the world, began to darken. On October 28, 1929, “Black Friday,” the U.S. Stock Exchange in New York City collapsed, plunging the world into an era of unprecedented financial chaos and political turmoil. To a stunned American public it seemed that, without any warning, in just a matter of days the unthinkable had happened—our eminently successful system of Capitalism had simply failed.

Of course nothing in history is simple. Beneath the purported gaiety of the “Roaring Twenties” and the fun-loving, self-indulgent escapism of the “Jazz Age,” there was another darker but equally valid tale of the twenties. In 1929, well before the onset of the Great Depression, more than half of all Americans were living below a minimum subsistence level. Throughout the 1920s, rural America—where more than half of all Americans lived—had been in a long, downward spiral. While the annual per capita income was only $750, farm people earned a mere $273, making the farm worker’s life one of unrelenting hardship and privation. In 1930, 95% of the rural population was still living without electricity.* Between 1920 and 1930, prices for crops fell by 40 to 60%, while the value of farmland fell 30 to 40%.

As bad as it was for the farmers, the cities were hit even harder—especially those that relied on heavy industry. From 1932 to 1933 (the worst years of the Great Depression), auto manufacturing fell from 5.3 million manufactured in 1929 to 1.3 million in 1932, helping to make Detroit the worst hit city of the Depression. Industrial stocks lost 80% of their value since 1930, while banks lost $2 billion in deposits since 1929. In other areas, construction was down by two billion dollars since 1926, and construction “new starts” fell to 10% of the norm. This precipitous downturn resulted in the loss of two million high paying jobs in the construction industry. To add insult to injury, in what was then termed “technological unemployment,” an estimated 200,000 workers per year were being replaced by automatic or semi-automatic machinery.

Although almost every class of American society was affected in some way, those with the least were hurt the most—90% of the poorest communities in the country were affected by the Depression. Thirteen million Americans had lost their jobs since 1929. Only one quarter of the unemployed were receiving relief. Thirty million Americans were without any income at all. By 1933, unemployment had reached its record high of 24.9%.

The word “hobo” entered our lexicon, as two million mostly young men roamed the country desperately looking for work. As men lost their ability to earn wages, they soon lost their sense of identity and self-esteem and the number of desertions (“poor man’s divorces”) increased. Families were torn asunder. For the first time in 300 years, America’s population rates actually decreased. There were an estimated 200,000 vagrant children on the road (one in five of our nation’s 21 million children were going to bed hungry, while the number of children placed in orphanages rose by 50%). We had, indeed, entered a “Dark Valley”* of apparent hopelessness and despair.

As though things weren’t bad enough, Nature herself seemed complicit in our national tragedy. Some thirty years before the First World War, homesteaders settled in the southern parts of the Great Plains—large sections of Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, and Colorado—planting wheat, row crops, and raising cattle on land that had originally been hardy grass plains. Soon the soil was exhausted and left exposed to the traditional droughts, torrential rains, and winds. Then, beginning in the early 1930s, the region experienced an unusually severe and long-lasting drought and the soil began to blow away. The results were devastating. Thousands of families, near penniless, their farms ruined, hoping to start a new life in the legendary promised land of California, left what had now come to be known as the “Dustbowl” and began their painful, and often humiliating, migrations westward (earning along the way the deprecating nickname “Okies” and providing the inspiration for John Steinbeck’s “Joad” family in his epic, previously mentioned, masterpiece The Grapes of Wrath).

Across the Atlantic, on hearing of the New York Stock Market Crash, our envious ideological rivals, Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin, chortled with satisfaction and uttered their self-congratulatory “I told you so” having (they said) long ago foretold the inevitable demise of corrupt American/Jewish Capitalism. Their glee was, however, short lived as the gigantic, unstoppable tsunami wave of the Great American Depression was already rolling towards their unprotected shores.

For a while America seemed to be teetering on the brink of anarchy. As the Depression deepened, there was a growing sense of anger and resentment; there was talk of civil war and rebellion. And not just talk. In 1933, the so-called “Business Plot” came to light, when one of our most respected military figures, Marine Corps General Smedley Butler, came before a Congressional committee and testified that he had been approached by a group of several wealthy, well-known East Coast businessmen (allegedly including the DuPont family) to become part of a plot to overthrow Roosevelt in a fascist military coup. --“We need a fascist government in this country to save the Nation from the Communists who want to tear it down and wreck all that we have built in America,” ranted the groups purported leader, New York businessman Gerald C. MacGuire. “The only men who have the patriotism to do it are the soldiers, and Smedley Butler is the ideal leader. He could organize one million men overnight.” -- Thanks almost entirely to General Butler’s timely testimony, the proposed right-wing coup was foiled. Although a full Congressional investigation ensued, no one was ever charged in the case and it eventually disappeared from the headlines (causing endless speculation among liberal conspiracy-theorists of a right-wing cover-up).

However, this was just one threat among many. After the apparent failure of Capitalism, for the first time in our Nation’s history there was a distinct possibility that one of the three dark isms—Communism, Socialism, or Fascism—would creep out of the shadows to claim what was left of our broken American Dream. In the 1932 elections the Communist Party’s William Z. Foster won 103,000 votes; while the Socialist Party under Norman Thomas received 881,000 votes. Dozens of loony left-wing and right-wing movements crawled out of woodwork. The popular liberal “Utopian socialist” author Upton Sinclair advocated the creation of a “network of workers villages, model factories and rural colonies where production-for-use would replace production-for-profit”. In 1932, Howard Smith founded the “Technocracy Movement” which sought to “abolish the ownership and price system [and] give power to a technological elite.”

Although their coup had never materialized, the DuPont family, together with the Pew family (Sun Oil) and the Rockefeller Associates never relented in their vicious propaganda attacks against Roosevelt and his New Deal -- which they characterized as “Jewish Communism”. To “save the Republic” and to further their anti-Semitic, anti-Communist causes, they provided major support for the fledgling American Liberty League, which in turn spawned a whole new series of extreme right-wing groups and paramilitary bands, such as the Sentinels of the Republic, the Minutemen and Minutewomen, and—picking up on the Nazi Party’s apparent love of “shirt movements” (the Brownshirts and the Blackshirts)—they formed their own Silver Shirt Squad of the American Storm Troopers. These were followed in New York City with General Art Smith’s Khaki Shirts (who wanted to abolish Congress altogether and form “the largest Army in the world”); then, yet another Silver Shirt movement organized by North Carolina’s William Kelley, whose members were described as the “cream of Protestant Christian manhood,” and whose rather broad mandate was to fight against the “Jewish Conspiracy.”

Father Charles Coughlin, the immensely popular and controversial “radio priest of Detroit,” who began broadcasting his weekly sermons in 1926, was by 1931 reaching an astonishing 40 million listeners (one-third of the U.S. population). Considered “the most prominent Catholic spokesman on political and financial issues,” he endorsed FDR in the 1932 elections and was initially a strong supporter of the New Deal reforms. In 1934, however, he dramatically changed course and began denouncing Roosevelt as a “tool of Wall Street.” Virulently anti-Communist and anti-Semitic, by 1936, he was increasingly expressing sympathy with Hitler and Mussolini, blaming the Depression on (what else?) an “international conspiracy of Jewish bankers.” In a speech on November 20, 1938, just two weeks after Germany’s infamous Kristallnacht, where innocent Jews across Germany were savagely attacked and killed and Jewish businesses and homes burned, Coughlin blamed the Jewish victims, claiming that, “Jewish persecution only followed after Christians first were persecuted.” By 1938 he was allied with the German-American Bund in a Christian Front against “Jews, unions, and Communists.” Finally, the new NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) code of 1939 forced radio stations to cancel Coughlin’s broadcasts and with the onset of the war his newspaper was subsequently banned from the mail under the Espionage Act for being pro-Nazi.

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Postscript:
According to one prescient observer, we are now entering an "Axial Age". We are facing a great crossroads. Which direction will we take? Right, left, or straight off the precipice? God grant us the wisdom to make the right choices.

* For further reading on this subject Radarsite highly recommends The Dark Valley by Piers Brendon (Knopf)

This article is drawn from my yet-to-be-completed The Secret of Samson's Hair

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"Dangerous Islamic Terrorist" or tortured innocent?

Binyam Mohamed (BBC picture)

At 9am today, I got an email from Family Security Matters. It was an "action alert":

Exclusive: Obama to Release Dangerous Islamic Terrorist This Week

The Editors

Binyam Mohamed said he wasn't planning on attacking the U.S., but if it waddles like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck.

Several weeks after issuing the executive order that will close Guantanamo Bay by the beginning of 2010, it looks as though President Obama may be intent on emptying it well before the shut down date.

This week, he is expected to authorize the release of UK national Binyam Mohamed, who will return to the UK once the two governments have reached an agreement. Mohmed, who was captured in Pakistan in 2004, claims to have been tortured while in U.S. custody.

The media is all over his release and his allegations of torture while at Gitmo. However, they seem to be forgetting the reasons why he was taken into custody in the first place. Thomas Joscelyn, writing for the Weekly Standard, reminds us:

1. The detainee is an Ethiopian who lived in the United States from 1992 to 1994, and in London, United Kingdom, until he departed for Pakistan in 2001.

2. The detainee arrived in Islamabad, Pakistan, in June 2001, and traveled to the al Farouq training camp in Afghanistan, to receive paramilitary training...

Read the rest at Assoluta Tranquillita here.

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Durban II draft document getting worse.

by Findalis


I told you so President Obama. The second Durban Conference on bigotry and racism will be worse than the first.

Not only is Israel the only nation singled out for attack, but the idea of Free Speech will be destroyed too when they meet in April and force the world to accept as International Law that any criticism of Islam is a crime.

The draft document for the United Nations anti-racism conference, dubbed Durban II, is problematic both for Israel and western democracies in general, Ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva Roni Leshno Yaar told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday.

Besides issues relating to Israel, the draft has problematic paragraphs regarding free speech, defamation of religion and discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, he said.

"At this stage it is not possible to say what in the text would improve, if at all. In fact I expect the text to get only worse on all issues which are important for western democracy," Leshno Yaar said in a telephone interview from Geneva.

He spoke as representatives from 190 nations have been meeting in Geneva to debate the language for a document in which Israel is alluded to as a "racist" and "apartheid" power.

The final draft will be presented at an April meeting in Geneva, which is the follow-up to the 2001 UN World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, which took place in Durban, South Africa.

Israel and the United States walked out of the 2001 conference to protest its disintegration into an anti-Semitic and anti-Israel hate-fest. Israel and Canada have already announced they do not intend to participate in this April's conference in Geneva.

On Friday, the State Department stated that it had gone to the preparatory meetings in Geneva "to work with countries that want to achieve a successful review conference" and added that the United States had "strong reservations about the direction of the conference, as the draft document singles out Israel for criticism, places unacceptable restrictions on freedom of expression under the guise of defaming religion, and calls for payment of reparations for slavery."

While in Geneva, US representatives met with 30 national delegations to outline their concerns.

The Americans were present but did not appear to have made improvement in the document, which he said "is getting worse every day."

Irwin Cotler, a Canadian MP and former justice minister, told the Post that the conference had been initially designed to speak about global issues relating to racism without singling out any country or group.

Israel was the only country that was alluded to in this way, he said.

Read the full story here.

Sorry followers of the Great Pedophile. But it will come down to which system of government is better. The backward 7th Century ramblings of a lunatic who hated everyone or the enlightened men of Philadelphia who foresaw this and placed the Freedom of Speech as 1st in the American Constitution.

What will the President do? Support those who follow a 7th Century madman, those who reject everything this nation stands for? Or finally listen to reason and reject not only the Durban II Conference, but anything that comes from it?

President Obama swore to uphold and defend the Constitution on Jan. 20th. Will he now do that? Or to please the Muslim world will he ignore our laws and impose the UN's on us?

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Obama Will Pack the Supreme Court!

Document Source:

THE SUPREME COURT RENEWAL ACT OF 2009

File Format: Microsoft Word - View as HTML
The proponents do not all agree on all of them, but are unanimous that Congress should soon reconsider the law applicable to the Supreme Court of the United ...
www.scotusblog.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/judiciary-act-of-2009.doc -

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I first learned of the proposal to pack the court through this blog post: http://judgeright.vox.com/library/...
http://judgeright.vox.com/library/post/no-dissent-allowed.html?_c=esv1.
My source apparently learned of it from this blog: http://www.bloggersbase.com/articles/world-affairs/...
http://www.bloggersbase.com/articles/world-affairs/politics-and-opinions/effort-to-stack-supreme-court-taking-shape/

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The Microsoft Word document is about 77kb and contains a set of four proposed "reforms" . The "reform" of greatest concern is one to pack the court.

proposal i: regular appointments to

the supreme court

The following is quoted from the narrative accompanying the proposed code.

One question to be considered is the prospect that as Justices retain power for extended lengths of time, appointments to the Court are made so infrequently as to diminish the likelihood that the Court's many important policy decisions will reflect the moral and political values of the contemporary citizens they govern.

The first reform presented here therefore provides for regular biennial appointments of new Justices selected by the then sitting President and Senate in order to assure timely rotation within the membership of the Court. To assure a Court of nine Justices, this will require a modification of the duties of Justices who have remained on the Court for more than eighteen years. A variation on this specific proposal was advanced and widely discussed in 2005. It won approval from many, including bar leaders and former judges. Most opposition rested on a constitutional argument that any term or age limits imposed by Congress would violate Article III and require a constitutional amendment. But no proposal for such an amendment has been advanced, and we see no serious constitutional problem in legislating regularized appointments with diminished but continuing roles for those Justices holding office for very long terms.

Almost everywhere high court judges are subject to term or age limits that prevent the risk of superannuation. Our proposal is not a term limit but a system of rotation to assure some regularity of change in the composition of the Court. If necessary to meet the constitutional objection, the allocation and assignment of duties when there are more than nine active Justices could be left for the Justices themselves to resolve by a rule of court. There is surely no constitutional objection that could be made to that scheme, but it would be more cumbersome than the one proposed.

Two alternatives for avoiding any constitutional problem are available if thought to be necessary. One response would be to provide a large bonus to Justices who retire in good time. It would seem unjust to give such a bonus to Justices and not to circuit or district judges who now tend to surrender their power and accept senior status in good time. Another response to the constitutional question would be to revive the practice of required circuit riding. If each Justice were required to sit on a district court bench a few times a year, that requirement would again serve, as it long did, to keep the Justices in closer contact with the citizens they govern and the realities that citizens perceive. And it would reduce the likelihood that Justices will cling to an office they are no longer willing or able fully to perform. We do not favor either of these reforms but mention them as alternatives to be considered if the more modest proposal we advance is thought to raise a problem under Article III.

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It appears that the legal scholars object to the presence of Conservatives on the Supreme Court bench.

One question to be considered is the prospect that as Justices retain power for extended lengths of time, appointments to the Court are made so infrequently as to diminish the likelihood that the Court's many important policy decisions will reflect the moral and political values of the contemporary citizens they govern.

Were these legal scholars raising this objection during the terms of Presidents Reagan or Bush? So why the push now? Could it be because they have a Socialist in the White House and hope to keep him there for the next 8 years if not longer? Could it be that they desire to grease the skids for changes having irreversible negative impacts upon our Constitutional rights?

Which justice has been on the bench too long? Is it Justice Thomas? Justice Sevens? Justice Scalia? Justice Souter? Justice Ginsburg? Why does the Constitution give them life terms during good behavior? Could it be the value of Judicial Independence? What happens to that vital concept if every new President obtains arbitrary power to name new Justices every two years?

Lets be clear about the context. The Socialists have working majorities in both houses of Congress. They intend to repeal the Presidential term limit, pack the court, gerrymander their districts so that no Conservative will ever be elected to replace any of them and squelch dissent with the 'fairness doctrine' & 'local advisory boards' packed with ACORN activists. They have power and they intend to solidify it; forever.
Examine the quote again; notice the red flag? The intent of this proposal is to dilute the protection of liberty & property ownership by removing the provisions preventing mob rule.

The first reform presented here therefore provides for regular biennial appointments of new Justices selected by the then sitting President and Senate in order to assure timely rotation within the membership of the Court. To assure a Court of nine Justices, this will require a modification of the duties of Justices who have remained on the Court for more than eighteen years.

Does any doubt remain? Does anyone remember President Obama's remarks to the Chicago NPR station in '01? He complained bitterly that the Supreme Court protected 'negative rights'; that the Constitution specified what the Government can't do to us rather than what it must do 'for' us?

Now is the time to rise up and raise Hell, before this unconstitutional scheme is fully hatched and railroaded through Congress. Go at once to http://www.congress.org/ and send an email to your Representative & senators. Tell them that their vote for this proposal to pack the court will seal your last vote for them, regardless of all other policies, positions and votes.

Don't ignore this; don't brush it off. Don't assume that someone else will take care of it.

• Email your federal legislators immediately. Make sure that you absolutely will not tolerate packing the Supreme Court.
• Phone radio talk show hosts and inform them about this issue.
• Send letters to your local newspaper editors.
• Raise this issue on forums and web sites. Copy and cross post this article.
• Copy this article and paste it into an email to your family, friends and associates; urge them to forward it.

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title 1: the organization of the supreme court

§1. Number of Justices Sitting to Decide Cases on the Merits; Quorum. The Supreme Court shall generally sit as a Court of nine Justices but if necessary six Justices shall constitute a quorum. The Court may by rule authorize a single Justice to make provisional rulings when necessary.

§2. REGULARITY OF APPOINTMENTS. One Justice, and only one, shall be appointed during the first session of Congress after each federal election, unless during that Congress one or more appointments are required by Section 3. Each appointment shall become effective on August 1 of the year following the election. If an appointment under this section results in the availability of more than nine Justices, the nine who are junior in time of service shall sit to decide each appeal certified for its decision on the merits.

§3. vacancies. If a retirement, death or removal of a Justice results in there being fewer than nine Justices, including Senior Justices, a new Justice or Chief Justice shall be appointed and considered as the Justice required to be appointed during that Congress, if that appointment has not already been made. If more than one such vacancy arises, any additional appointment will be considered as the Justice required to be appointed during the next Congress for which no appointment has yet been made.

§4. the ofFICE OF senior justice. A Justice who is senior to nine or more Justices shall unless disabled continue to hold office as a Senior Justice. If there is a vacancy on the Court or if a Justice is recused a Senior Justice shall be called by the Chief Justice in reverse order of seniority to sit when needed to provide a nine-member Court to decide a case. A Senior Justice shall also participate in any other matter before the Court including decisions to grant or deny a petition for certiorari or to promulgate rules of court in compliance with the rules enabling provisions of Title 28.

§5. TEMPORARY DELAY IN COMMENCEMENT OF REGULARITY OF APPOINTMENTS. Justices sitting on the Court at the time of this enactment shall sit regularly on the Court until their retirement, death, removal or voluntary acceptance of status as a Senior Justice. No appointments shall be made under Section 2 of this Title before the Congress that begins after the last of the present Justices so leaves the Court, but any Justice appointed after the date of enactment shall become a Senior Justice in accordance with the provisions of Section 4 of this Title.

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Amnesty International and the Endangered Monsters List

Abu Qatada

Nicola Duckworth

The Story

From CNN.com International/Europe

2/18/09 LONDON, England (CNN) -- The UK's highest court Wednesday ordered that the man known as Osama bin Laden's spiritual ambassador to Europe be deported to Jordan, despite claims that he faces torture.

The court also ordered that two Algerians, known only as "RB" and "U," be deported to Algeria.

Radical cleric Abu Qatada, also known as Omar Othman, has been engaged in a long-running campaign to remain in the UK since he arrived 16 years ago.
UK ministers have described Qatada as an "inspiration" for terrorists such as Mohammed Atta, the lead hijacker behind the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.
The government has claimed that he is a national security risk who fundraised for terrorist groups, including organizations linked to bin Laden; and that he publicly supported the violent activities of those groups.
In his judgment Jonathan Mance, one of the law lords, ruled "there is no real risk that his trial in Jordan would be flagrantly unfair in character, course or consequences."
Nicholas Phillips, another of the law lords, added in his ruling: "Just as in the case of Algeria, these assurances were agreed in principle at the highest level in discussions between the prime minister and the king of Jordan and between the foreign secretary and the Jordanian foreign minister."

Qatada has denied the allegations. It is expected that he will appeal the decision to the European Court of Human Rights.

Welcoming the judgment, UK interior minister Jacqui Smith said: "I'm delighted with the Lords' decision today in the cases of Abu Qatada and the two Algerians 'RB and U'. It highlights the threat these individuals pose to our nation's security and vindicates our efforts to remove them.
"My top priority is to protect public safety and ensure national security and I have signed Abu Qatada's deportation order which will be served on him today. I am keen to deport this dangerous individual as soon as I can."

The Background

Qatada came to the UK on a forged United Arab Emirates passport in 1993, according to court documents, and claimed asylum for himself, his wife and their three children.
The UK government recognized him as a refugee and allowed him to stay in the country until 1998.
Qatada applied to stay indefinitely but, while his application was pending, a Jordanian court convicted him in absentia for involvement in two 1998 terrorist attacks and a plot to plant bombs to coincide with the millennium.
By 2002 the UK government said it suspected Qatada was a terrorist and a national security risk. Refusing him leave to stay in Britain, it ordered he be deported and detained him.
Last June a three-judge appeals panel freed Qatada under strict bail conditions, including fitting him with an electronic monitoring tag and ordering that he stay at home for 22 hours each day.
The panel said there was no reason to continue holding him but that he presented a "continuing and significant" threat.
The deportation decision Wednesday by the Law Lords followed the government's appeal against that decision.

Duckworth to the Rescue

But human rights group Amnesty International said it was "gravely concerned" by the consequences of the decision.
"What is not acceptable is to use suspicion of involvement in terrorism to justify sending someone to face a real risk of torture or other serious violations of their rights," said Nicola Duckworth, Europe and Central Asia Programme Director at Amnesty International, in a statement.
"If these individuals in question are reasonably suspected of having committed a criminal offence relating to terrorism, it is always open to the UK authorities to charge them and give them a fair trial.
"It would be deeply worrying if the Law Lords' decision were to be taken by the UK government as a green light to push ahead with deporting people to countries where they will be at risk of abuses such as torture and unfair trials."Duckworth also said that diplomatic assurances from the governments of Algeria and Jordan about the suspects safety were "completely unenforceable and as such cannot be relied upon."

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A note from Radarsite: So how are we in the West doing so far in this Global War on Terror? Are you becoming as troubled and disillusioned as I am by our deeply conflicted and weak-kneed Western Civilization? How many enemies do we really have? Who amongst them are the most dangerous? To what degree have our so-called Human Rights Groups successfully undermined our efforts to prosecute this war for our survival? To what degree have they aided and abetted our sworn enemies? Could the monsters they are so eagerly protecting be any more obvious in their contempt for our self-righteous moral principles, or any more blatant in their sacred mission to destroy us?

If the above story of the embattled UK's continuously thwarted attempts to deal with the monster Abu Qatada is an example of our efficacy in fighting this great existential battle, and I believe that it is, then we might just as well give it all up and, as some of Britain's most prestigious intellectuals have already suggested, start the process of adopting sharia law.

And to Madam Duckworth and all of your contemptible brothers and sisters in the International Red Cross, the ACLU, etc. I must say this. I despise you and everything you supposedly stand for. The only legitimate place for you to even exist would be in a world of unadulterated like-minded liberals; and we live in no such world. In the brutal reality of the world in which we live you and your liberal causes are worse than useless, they are self-destructive. In order to protect the likes of Abu Qatada, in order to promote your absurd vision of international social justice, you are placing the lives of our children in mortal peril. Devastated by this escalating Muslim Blitz, your great nation is falling to pieces all around you, and you steadfastly ignore the chaos and stand amidst the smoldering ruins and call for fair play and amnesty. You, Madam Duckworth, are the enemy, perhaps even more dangerous than the monsters you defend. You are the true Enemy of the State, and in a more rational world you would have already been arrested and summarily prosecuted for treason. How dare you! How dare you jeopardize the precious lives of our children and bring down the very foundations of our great and admirable culture in order to promote your personal ludicrous and delusional agendas.

Put aside your ponderous egos for a moment and listen closely. If you truly want to help this imperiled world of ours survive this present-day onslaught of barbarism, if you truly want to make a safer and more just world for our next generation, then I suggest that you go into your offices tomorrow morning and disconnect all the computers and the fax machines, pull out the plugs for all of your telephones, turn out the lights and lock the door behind you. For it is possible, perhaps still possible that, without your infernal meddling, without your relentless self-satisfied obstructionism, we just might stand a chance of winning this terrible war, this monumental life-and-death struggle, which you have so ingeniously managed to all but ignore. Please, if you truly love mankind, just turn out the lights and go home. - rg

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