Ahmadinejad (Done Speaking.)

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Dustan,

Before continuing to Hitler, I decided to look into what influences the old Grand Mufti, Haj Muhammed Amin al-Husseini had on the younger Sayyid Qutb and came across an excellent article that traces Islamism back to the 1920's and the founding of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Islamic Terrorism's Links To Nazi Fascism by Robert Duncan

Folks seem to be in a quandary when asked if the terms "Islam" and "Fascists" can be used in the same sentence. Those who line-up on the naysayers' side claim any such linkage demonstrates a lack of sensitivity toward the vast majority of followers of Islam.

But despite some weak politically correct attempts, the fact is that the press for the most part is guilty of whitewashing one simple fact: There is a radical, heretical brand of Islam fostering terrorism that is indeed a by-product of Fascism and a hatred of Jews.

Shahid Nickels, a member between 1998 and 2000 of the group headed by Mohammed Atta who led the 9-11 attacks, said that "Atta's weltanschauung was based on a National Socialist way of thinking. He was convinced that 'the Jews' are determined to achieve world domination. He considered New York City to be the center of world Jewry which was, in his opinion, Enemy Number One," according to an article written by Dr. Matthias Küntzel. (1)

Atta's peculiar "Nationalist Socialist way of thinking," however, was far from unique. In fact, it was a seed germinating for 80 years among radical Islamists that can be traced to Hassan al-Banna, a 22-year-old school teacher who gathered discontent Muslims to found the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928/1929.

While initial growth of the Muslim Brotherhood was moderate, the organization's membership rolls - coinciding with rising anti-Semitism in Europe -- by August 1938 had swelled to more than two hundred thousand members. By the end of World War II the Muslim Brotherhood had around half a million members.

"Islamism, or fascism with an Islamic face, was born with and of the Muslim Brotherhood. It proved (and improved) its fascist core convictions and practices through collaboration with the Nazis in the run-up to and during World War II. It proved it during the same period through its collaboration with the overtly fascist "Young Egypt" (Misr al-Fatah) movement, founded in October 1933 by lawyer Ahmed Hussein and modeled directly on the Hitler party, complete with paramilitary Green Shirts aping the Nazi Brown Shirts, Nazi salute and literal translations of Nazi slogans. Among its members, Young Egypt counted two promising youngsters and later presidents, Gamal Abdel Nasser and Anwar El-Sadat," so begins an Asia Times article by Marc Erikson. (2)

"The "Supreme Guide" of the brethren knew that faith, good works and numbers alone do not a political victory make. Thus, modeled on Mussolini's blackshirts (al-Banna much admired "Il Duce" and soul brother "Fuehrer" Adolf Hitler), he set up a paramilitary wing (slogan: "action, obedience, silence", quite superior to the blackshirts' "believe, obey, fight") and a "secret apparatus" (al-jihaz al-sirri) and intelligence arm of al-Ikhwan to handle the dirtier side - terrorist attacks, assassinations, and so on - of the struggle for power," writes Erikson elsewhere. (3)

According to John Loftus, a former prosecutor with the US Justice Department, "Al-Banna formed this nationalist group called the Muslim Brotherhood. Al-Banna was a devout admirer of Adolf Hitler and wrote to him frequently."

Loftus adds that Al-Banna was so persistent in his "admiration of the new Nazi Party that in the 1930s Al-Banna and the Muslim Brotherhood became a secret arm of Nazi Intelligence. With the goal of the Third Reich to develop the Muslim Brotherhood as an army inside Egypt." (4)

So what was Al-Banna teaching?

Well, for one thing Al-Banna idealized death.

. . .

(Read the rest of the article at the link in the title or here).

So if Amin al-Husseini was the grandfather of fundamentalist Islamism, Al-Banna was the great-grandfather.

According to Duncan, Arab Nazis have been used by Western secret services over and over since WWII instead of being brought to justice. We have essentially kept Arab Nazis armed and healthy. Dayaamm!!! Now they are strong enough to bite us and everybody else and that's exactly what they are doing.

If true, that explains a great deal to my mind. What in hell were Western government secret services thinking?

Michael

EDIT: Interestingly enough, in one of the links you sent me as an interesting Jewish organization, Point of no return, there was a fascinating article on this very theme that was linked and commented (you have to scroll down to September 8, where it is called "The Nazi roots of Islamist Jew-hatred in Egypt," but is called the name given below when you click on the link that goes to The Weekly Standard—also the date is weird, since the date on the article is Sept 17). I will reproduce it below like the one above. It starts with an interesting vision of Hitler's old dream of New York skyscrapers burning,

Jew-Hatred and Jihad

The Nazi roots of the 9/11 attack

by Matthias Küntzel

09/17/2007

Volume 013, Issue 01

. . .

Despite common misconceptions, Islamism was born not during the 1960s but during the 1930s. Its rise was inspired not by the failure of Nasserism but by the rise of Nazism, and prior to 1951 all its campaigns were directed not against colonialism but against the Jews. It was the Organization of the Muslim Brotherhood, founded in 1928, that established Islamism as a mass movement. The significance of the Brotherhood to Islamism is comparable to that of the Bolshevik party to communism: It was and remains to this day the ideological reference point and organizational core for all later Islamist groups, including al Qaeda and Hamas.

It is true that British colonial policy produced Islamism, insofar as Islamism viewed itself as a resistance movement against "cultural modernity." The Islamists' solution was the call for a new order based on sharia. But the Brotherhood's jihad was not directed primarily against the British. Rather, it focused almost exclusively on Zionism and the Jews. Membership in the Brotherhood shot up from 800 to 200,000 between 1936 and 1938, according to the research of Abd Al-Fattah Muhammad El-Awaisi for his book The Muslim Brothers and the Palestine Question 1928-1947. In those two years the Brotherhood conducted only one major campaign in Egypt, and it was against Zionism and the Jews.

This campaign, which established the Brotherhood as a mass movement, was set off by a rebellion in Palestine directed against Jewish immigration and initiated by the notorious grand mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al--Husseini. The Brotherhood organized mass demonstrations in Egyptian cities under the slogans "Down With the Jews!" and "Jews Get Out of Egypt and Palestine!" Leaflets called for a boycott of Jewish goods and Jewish shops, and the Brotherhood's newspaper, al-Nadhir, carried a regular column on "The Danger of the Jews of Egypt," which published the names and addresses of Jewish businessmen and allegedly Jewish newspaper publishers all over the world, attributing every evil, from communism to brothels, to the "Jewish danger."

The Brotherhood's campaign against the Jews used not only Nazi-like tactics but also German funding. As the historian Brynjar Lia recounted in his monograph on the Brotherhood, "Documents seized in the flat of Wilhelm Stellbogen, the Director of the German News Agency affiliated to the German Legation in Cairo, show that prior to October 1939 the Muslim Brothers received subsidies from this organization. Stellbogen was instrumental in transferring these funds to the Brothers, which were considerably larger than the subsidies offered to other anti-British activists."

At the same time, the Muslim Brotherhood was the first modern organization to propagate the archaic idea of a belligerent jihad and the longing for death. In 1938, Hassan al-Banna, the Brotherhood's charismatic founder, published his concept of jihad in an article entitled "The Industry of Death." He wrote: "To a nation that perfects the industry of death and which knows how to die nobly, God gives proud life in this world and eternal grace in the life to come." This slogan was enthusiastically taken up by the "Troops of God," as the Brothers called themselves. As their battalions marched down Cairo's boulevards in semi-fascist formation they would burst into song: "We are not afraid of death, we desire it. . . . Let us die to redeem the Muslims!"

The death cult that became a hallmark of modern jihadism was laced with Jew-hatred from the very beginning. Moreover, this attitude sprang not only from European influences; it also drew directly on Islamic sources. First, Islamists considered, and still consider, Palestine an Islamic territory, Dar al-Islam, where Jews must not run a single village, let alone a state. At best, in their view, this land should be judenrein; at the very least, Jews there should be relegated to subservient status. Second, Islamists justify their aspiration to eliminate the Jews of Palestine by invoking the example of Muhammad, who in the 7th century not only expelled two Jewish tribes from Medina, but also beheaded the entire male population of a third Jewish tribe, before proceeding to sell all the women and children into slavery. Third, they find support and encouragement for their actions and plans in the anti-Jewish passages of the Koran.

After World War II it became apparent that the center of global Jew-hatred was shifting from Nazi Germany to the Arab world.

. . .

(Read the rest of the article at the link in the title or here).

This same reporter Küntzel has another highly interesting article from February.

Iran's Obsession with the Jews

Denying the Holocaust, desiring another one.

by Matthias Küntzel

02/19/2007

Volume 012, Issue 22

On December 12, 2006, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad personally brought to a close the infamous Holocaust deniers' conference in Tehran. A strange parade of speakers had passed across the podium: former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, the nutty followers of the anti-Zionist Jewish sect Neturei Karta, and officials of the neo-Nazi German National party, along with the familiar handful of professional Holocaust deniers. Frederick Töben had delivered a lecture entitled "The Holocaust--A Murder Weapon." Frenchman Robert Faurisson had called the Holocaust a "fairy tale," while his American colleague Veronica Clark had explained that "the Jews made money in Auschwitz." A professor named McNally had declared that to regard the Holocaust as a fact is as ludicrous as believing in "magicians and witches." Finally, the Belgian Leonardo Clerici had offered the following explanation in his capacity as a Muslim: "I believe that the value of metaphysics is greater than the value of history."

If this motley crew had assembled in a pub in Melbourne, nobody would have paid the slightest attention. What gave the event historical significance was that it was held by invitation, at the Iranian foreign ministry: on government premises, in a country that disposes of the world's second-largest oil reserves (after Saudi Arabia) and second-largest natural gas reserves (after Russia). And in this setting, the remarks quoted above provoked not dismissive laughter, but applause and attentive nods. On the walls hung photographs of corpses with the inscription "Myth," and others of laughing concentration camp survivors with the inscription "Truth."

. . .

Ahmadinejad's great inspiration, the Ayatollah Khomeini, not only recognized the mobilizing power of anti-Semitism in the struggle against the shah, he made use of it himself, as far back as the 1960s. "I know that you do not want Iran to lie under the boots of the Jews," he cried out to his supporters on April 13, 1963. That same year, he called the shah a Jew in disguise and accused him of taking orders from Israel. This drew a huge response from the public. Khomeini had found his theme.

Khomeini's biographer Amir Taheri writes: "The Ayatollah was by now convinced that the central political theme of contemporary life was an elaborate and highly complex conspiracy by the Jews--'who controlled everything'--to 'emasculate Islam' and dominate the world thanks to the natural wealth of the Muslim nations." When in June 1963 thousands of Khomeini-influenced theology students set off to Tehran for a demonstration and were brutally stopped by the shah's security forces, Khomeini channeled all their anger toward the Jewish nation: "Israel does not want the Koran to survive in this country. . . . It is destroying us. It is destroying you and the nation. It wants to take possession of the economy. It wants to demolish our trade and agriculture. It wants to grab the wealth of the country."

. . .

Khomeini's anti-Semitic attacks found favor with the opponents of the shah, both leftists and Islamists. His anti-Semitism ran along the same lines as The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the turn-of-the-century hoax beloved of the Nazis that purports to expose a Jewish conspiracy to rule the world. The Protocols was published in Persian in the summer of 1978 and was widely disseminated as a weapon against the shah, Israel, and the Jews. In 1984, the newspaper Imam, published by the Iranian embassy in London, printed excerpts from The Protocols. In 1985, Iranian state authorities did a mass printing of a new edition. Somewhat later, the periodical Eslami serialized The Protocols under the title "The Smell of Blood: Jewish Conspiracies."

Just two years ago, in 2005, at the Iranian booth at the Frankfurt Book Fair, I was readily able to buy an English edition of The Protocols published by the Islamic Propagation Organization of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Other anti-Semitic classics were also available, such as Henry Ford's The International Jew and Mohammad Taqi Taqipour's screed Tale of the "Chosen People" and the Legend of "Historical Right." The cover of the latter volume caught my eye: a red Star of David superimposed over a grey skull and a yellow map of the world. Obviously, even after the death of Khomeini in 1989, the worldwide dissemination of anti-Semitism by Iran continued.

The fact that 25,000 Jews now live in Iran, making it the largest Jewish community in a Muslim country, is not incompatible with the foregoing. The Jews in Iran are made clearly to feel their subordinate Dhimmi status. Thus, they are not allowed to occupy higher positions than Muslims and so are disqualified from the leading ranks in politics and the military. They are not allowed to serve as witnesses in court, and Jewish schools must be managed by Muslims and stay open on the Sabbath. Books in the Hebrew language are forbidden. Up to the present, the regime, which has time and again published anti-Semitic texts and caricatures, has prevented such hate-mongering from resulting in violence against Jews. Nevertheless, the combination of incitement and restraint leaves the Jewish community in a state of permanent insecurity. Today, the Jewish community serves Ahmadinejad not only as an alibi in his power game, but also increasingly as a deterrent: In the event of an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, this community would find itself hostage and vulnerable to acts of reprisal.

Irrespective of the leeway that Ahmadinejad has, for the time being, left the Iranian Jews, his rhetoric is steeped in an anti-Semitism that is unprecedented for a state leader since World War II. Ahmadinejad does not say "Jews" are conspiring to rule the world. He says, "Two thousand Zionists want to rule the world." He says, "The Zionists" have for 60 years now blackmailed "all Western governments." "The Zionists have imposed themselves on a substantial portion of the banking, financial, cultural, and media sectors." "The Zionists" fabricated the Danish Muhammad cartoons. "The Zionists" are responsible for the destruction of the dome of the Golden Mosque in Iraq.

The pattern is familiar. Ahmadinejad is not a racist social Darwinist who, Hitler-like, wants to eliminate every last trace of "Jewish blood." The term "half-Jew" is not used in Islamist discourse. But he invests the word "Zionist" with exactly the same meaning Hitler poured into "Jew": the incarnation of evil.

. . .

(Read the rest of the article at the link in the title or here).

I find all of this very disturbing. If, intellectually, we strive to fight for peace and fight against the threat of Islamism, we cannot ignore the issue of antisemitism. It has enormous historical roots, continued media presence in Islamic life and it is a malignant leftover from Nazism (irrespective of any antisemitism that existed before that).

Antisemitism is evil. There are no extenuating circumstances to excuse it. Not even anti-Muslim racism, which is just as evil.

I look at all this on all sides and think, "What a bunch of losers!" But the problem is that they are playing with real destruction and there are millions of people involved. What's more, non-racists are sandwiched in on all levels, so even pointing the finger at the bad guys is complicated. This whole bigotry thing is absolutely disgusting. But racism is one principle that we can isolate and condemn universally. And we should.

Islamism is not run on the Qu'ran. That is part, but it is mostly a pretext. Islamism is run on Nazi antisemitism.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Dustan,

To finish what I started after that small detour (that kept getting longer and longer), here is something I think we should keep in mind about Jews that support Ahmadinejad. We need to to look at how many there are who support him. Mankind is made up of all kinds and Jews are no different. The difference is in the numbers and they will not lie.

If the number of Jews supporting Ahmadinejad is large, then the ones calling Ahmadinejad antisemitic are simply very loud pro-Jewish advocates sounding off. If the number is very small, then these dudes are nothing but some dorks used for propaganda. If the number is in the minority, small but not tiny, the issue is complicated.

One of the articles I linked above called Ahmadinejad's distinction between Jews and Zionists a Trojan Horse.

Is it?

This is a valid question. There is a line at the beginning of the documentary on Hitler that I am linking to below that haunts me:

This account of Hitler’s Hell on Earth is dedicated in guilt to his victims. As human beings, we are responsible for what he did—for he was one of us and we permitted this to happen.

As an Objectivist, I cannot accept unearned guilt, but there is a deep truth in those words that will not leave the back of my mind. We cannot stand by and watch that kind of evil grow again among us. We are better than that.

So is Ahmadinejad some kind of Hitler or is he simply a religious politician with a penchant for unfortunate rhetoric? If antisemitism were not so deeply rooted in this whole affair, I would be inclined to call those who would call him a modern-day Hitler conspiracy theorists. But antisemitism is involved on a "good versus evil" basis. That gives me great pause.

I don't care if Ahmadinejad says he is Muslim and cannot lie, he's a politician and ALL politicians lie. Whoever does not believe that deserves the government he gets. The problem is trying to discern what Ahmadinejad's lies are and what is behind them.

I don't think he would ever pose a threat of conquering the world simply because the Salafi Muslims would not accept the Shi'a denomination over them. But Ahmadinejad keeps talking about the Muslim equivalent of the second coming. (See a discussion of this on Daniel Pipes' site: The Mystical Menace of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by Daniel Pipes, New York Sun, January 10, 2006.) I can easily see Ahmadinejad serving savagely under one he believes to be the "Twelfth Imam." I also can see him one day waking up and saying, "Hey! Twelfth Imam? That's me!"

Now here is the documentary about Hitler. It contains footage from German files shot by SS cameramen and other sources. This is footage that Ahmadinejad would doubt authenticity-wise, even as it shows Hitler, Himmler, Eichmann, and a host of other top-ranking Nazis in all their glory. If a person can watch this movie and still doubt the Holocaust, he is beyond rational discussion. The movie is the following:

Mein Kampf (1960)

Written and edited by Erwin Leiser

Narrated by Claude Stephenson

It about 2 hours long. There are 4 You Tube links:

Hitler - Mein Kampf (full documentary) Part 1

Hitler - Mein Kampf (full documentary) Part 2

Hitler - Mein Kampf (full documentary) Part 3

Hitler - Mein Kampf part 4

By way of introduction, here is the synopsis on Rotten Tomatoes:

A documentary double feature chronicling the horrors of Nazi Germany. Includes MEIN KAMPF (Den Blodiga Tiden), a shocking visual documentation of the atrocities committed by the Nazi war machine with actual footage from dozens of sources (including previously untapped German archives) and ADOLF HITLER, a film that uses newsreel footage and home movies to offer a never before seen glimpses into Hitler's private life and bloody legacy as the instigator of the Jewish holocaust.

Also, a review in the New York Times: Mein Kampf (1960), April 22, 1961, Screen: 'Mein Kampf': Documentary Offered in Debut at Rivoli, by BOSLEY CROWTHER, April 22, 1961. From the review:

Most of the war-combat footage and the footage of scenes in the Nazi concentration camps was released in this country in newsreels during and immediately after World War II and has since been included in various combinations in numerous documentary films. (Of course, all the footage in "Mein Kampf" may not be precisely the same as that released here, but it is so close in character and content that it is familiar.)

Likewise, the pre-war material—the documentation of Hitler's early years and the years of the rise of the National Socialist party and its grabbing of power in Germany—is fairly commonplace and familiar. Much of it is still photographs, worked into visual arrangements that give a fair sense of fluidity to what inevitably must be somewhat tedious, when most of the information has to be packed into the narration.

As a consequence of its familiarity—and as a consequence, too, of the fact that the first half of "Mein Kampf" is virtually an illustrated lecture on the complexities of pre-war Third Reich politics—this film is likely to catch and hold Americans only in those few sequences that have to do with the tragedy of Warsaw and the nightmares of the concentration camps.

The footage of the Warsaw ghetto, which the film's editor, Erwin Leiser, a German-born Swede, says he found in an East Berlin film vault where it had been secreted because it was considered too shameful to show, bears terrible and sickening testimony to the brutality of Hitler's minions in their treatment of the Jews. Even though it runs for only a few minutes, it is shattering and unforgettable.

Shot by S. S. (Elite Guard) cameramen, it shows hungry children begging piteously in the wall-enclosed streets, starving people lying helpless on the sidewalks while gaunt dead bodies are picked up from beside them, loaded on open carts and hauled away to lime pits, into which they are tossed. The dismal agony of these poor victims of the Nazis has never been more graphically shown on film.

There is also an interesting sequence showing the not too much publicized trials of the officers and Nazi officials caught in the anti-Hitler conspiracy of 1944. And the last shots of Hitler, flabby and feeble, are extraordinary evidence of his final decline.

I hope you find the time to see this. It makes you think. It made me think. Real hard. And it depressed the hell out of me.

Michael

[Martin Radwin]

You are living proof that it is possible for a person to be highly intelligent in the fields of math and physics and yet in other respects be a complete lunatic.

Martin

I have been crazy since 08:46 AM of September 11, 2001. Prior to that I was not bloodthirsty (well, not too bloodthirsty). Now I want complete and utter destruction of my enemies and God Damn the collateral damage.

Ba'al Chatzaf

The Iraqi government was not responsible for 9/11. Neither was the Iranian government. Neither was the Chinese government. And even more so, the people of Iraq, Iran, and China were not responsible. So perhaps you should think twice before deciding that they are your enemies and should be exterminated like so many insects.

Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have died as a result of the US invasion. These Iraqis were not guilty of anything other than living in a country ruled by a dictator that the US government didn't like, a dictator who the US government had previously supported. Since the US invasion, relative to its population, Iraq has experienced the equivalent of about one 9/11 attack every day.

Since the 9/11 attack has by your own admission turned you into someone utterly bloodthirsty and seeking the complete and utter destruction of your enemies, which apparently include people who are not actually your enemies at all, how many Iraqis who have lived through the equivalent of one 9/11 attack every day for the last four years may have been turned into bloodthirsty monsters intent on the complete and utter destruction of the American enemies who did this to them?

Martin

Twice? I don't think Bob's really thought once about this. Nevertheless, he's no monster, it's all intellectualization. Not surprising in a scientific mind, not to me. I've actually seen war and hundreds of dead bodies. I can't take him seriously; if I did it would be him or me on OL. Note that he really presents no arguments. He just keeps repeating himself. Asseverations. There's simply no muscle behind his "genocide." It's completely phoney.

--Brant

Brant, I agree with you that Bob has made no reasonable arguments for his views in support of genocide, probably because the position is so absurd and inhuman on its face that no reasonable arguments in its support are possible. But it's obvious to me that he's totally serious. I still remember that, when discussing the Iran hostage crisis, Bob indicated that he would have responded to this situation by nuking Tehran, which I at the time pointed out would have killed and maimed millions of innocent people, making Bob one of history's most prolific mass murderers. Bob actually seems to believe that ethical considerations should have no place in foreign policy decisions, so that, for example, if the US considers it necessary to slaughter half the earth's population in order to defend itself against a hypothetical threat to its security, then that's perfectly okay. He also seems to believe that, ethical considerations aside, this is a practical approach to insuring US security; in other words, that we can bomb our way to peace and safety. He has made these views known repeatedly in one post after another.

I have very little doubt that, were Bob president of the United States, with the power to enact these genocidal policies, he would almost certainly do so. He has stated as much; I have no reason to disbelieve him. The only reason not to take Bob seriously is that he is just a keyboard warrior, making posts on an internet forum. If he had the power, I have no reason to presume that he would not use it.

Martin

[tjohnson]

The only reason not to take Bob seriously is that he is just a keyboard warrior, making posts on an internet forum.

Martin

Maybe not the ONLY reason but possibly the BEST reason not to take him seriously.

[BaalChatzaf]

I have very little doubt that, were Bob president of the United States, with the power to enact these genocidal policies, he would almost certainly do so. He has stated as much; I have no reason to disbelieve him. The only reason not to take Bob seriously is that he is just a keyboard warrior, making posts on an internet forum. If he had the power, I have no reason to presume that he would not use it.

Martin

Thank you for semi-taking me semi-seriously. By the way, I DO have blood on my hands. I have helped to design guidance systems for weapons that have been successfully deployed and used. When I was younger, I felt a bit guilty about it. Now I am proud of every drop of enemy blood I have helped to shed. My only regret is that my health precluded my becoming a Real Warrior. I did and do so want to kill enemies directly. I had to settle for making better spears for the Real Warriors to throw. Such is life.

My Alligator Brain has been in charge of my aging body since 08:46 9/11/2001. Prior to that I was a reluctant killer. Now I am enthusiastic. Peace is for dweebs and ghurly boys. A nuke! A nuke! My Kingdom for a nuke!

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Brant Gaede]

I have very little doubt that, were Bob president of the United States, with the power to enact these genocidal policies, he would almost certainly do so. He has stated as much; I have no reason to disbelieve him. The only reason not to take Bob seriously is that he is just a keyboard warrior, making posts on an internet forum. If he had the power, I have no reason to presume that he would not use it.

Martin

Thank you for semi-taking me semi-seriously. By the way, I DO have blood on my hands. I have helped to design guidance systems for weapons that have been successfully deployed and used. When I was younger, I felt a bit guilty about it. Now I am proud of every drop of enemy blood I have helped to shed. My only regret is that my health precluded my becoming a Real Warrior. I did and do so want to kill enemies directly. I had to settle for making better spears for the Real Warriors to throw. Such is life.

My Alligator Brain has been in charge of my aging body since 08:46 9/11/2001. Prior to that I was a reluctant killer. Now I am enthusiastic. Peace is for dweebs and ghurly boys. A nuke! A nuke! My Kingdom for a nuke!

Ba'al Chatzaf

This is silly or vacuous or both. Bob, you're so much better on other subjects.

As for dangerous U.S. Presidents, Alan Greenspan's thoughts on Nixon are sobering. Unlike Bob, the man was half off his rocker.

--Brant

[Chris Grieb]

In term of his mental health Wilson was more than little delusional after his stroke.

Nixon as Greenspan has shown was very paranoid.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Brant,

In my research on the Nazi connection to Islamism and antisemitism in the Muslim world, I got into Hitler's head a bit. I don't feel certain things in my day-to-day life like the horror and perplexity I felt on imagining what was going on inside him. It was too intense and and prompted a depression that I had to fight off. I saw literal stark-raving insanity organized and selling itself to the world.

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

Brant,

In my research on the Nazi connection to Islamism and antisemitism in the Muslim world, I got into Hitler's head a bit. I don't feel certain things in my day-to-day life like the horror and perplexity I felt on imagining what was going on inside him. It was too intense and and prompted a depression that I had to fight off. I saw literal stark-raving insanity organized and selling itself to the world.

Michael

And some bought it, you will notice. Like I said, the human species is a nasty bunch.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Bob,

Human beings also beat it without becoming that. People are marvelously heroic when they decide to be. All they have to do is choose.

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

Bob,

Human beings also beat it without becoming that. People are marvelously heroic when they decide to be. All they have to do is choose.

Michael

And so rarely the do. Have you noticed that? Why do you suppose that is?

Here is an experiment we can do. You can bet on heroic behavior and I will bet on base or at least narrow behavior. In the long run who will win more often? I bet I do. Not because I like it, but because that is the way the world is. I think the difference between your approach and mine is that I have low expectations and am pessimistic. You have high expectations and are optimistic. I am rarely disappointed. How do you make out? Since I don't expect much I am not often disappointed and sometimes I am even pleasantly surprised. What is your score?

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Bob,

I do not believe in the utopic version of a philosophy or religion. Maybe if enough people do good over enough generations, some kind of evolutionary thing will kick in, but by then I will be long gone.

I don't do morality for others. I do it for myself. I gave up trying to save the world long ago. All I do now is take care of my part in it. Sometimes that part extends a bit further than the people in front of me, for instance this web site or my artistic activities in Brazil, and sometime it is important to try to influence events as they will impact my world, but I gave up thinking the earth will become a utopia and mankind will get the bad bred out of him through good thinking.

But I have decided on one thing. Within my little corner, I will foster the kinds of people I admire and distance myself from those I despise. There is a great side-effect to this, too. If the world is ever to be improved for real, it will be because of those who, like me, take care of their little corner. Imagine thousands and millions doing like I do. They can if they want to. They can look at me in order to see one manner in which it is done. And there are others they can look to. All they have to do is choose the good and want to choose it.

But I am not doing this for them. I am doing it because I enjoy myself when I am good and I enjoy the people with the qualities I admire.

I can even get personal on this. Why do you think I have not distanced myself from you, despite despising some of your views? It is because you think for yourself (at the core and when you are not showing off or preaching). That is the part I admire most in a person and it far exceeds some of your poor choices. I'll take one of you over 1,000 close-minded people who sing my "party line" because they have not one of their own. I think I am pretty clear where my line of tolerance is, also. (I have to say that because I don't want this to go to your head. God knows what you'll say. )

Back to the heroic potential (and actual) versus the nasty potential (and actual) in the human spirit. Nobody knows just how nasty people can get in the same manner as a drug addict because he has seen it in himself. I know of this because I have drunk from this cup. And nobody knows just how wonderful choosing the good is in the same manner as a drug addict who has beaten his addiction. I have drunk from this cup, too.

In my world, people choose to think for themselves. When they do, they almost always choose the good. When they choose the bad, it is usually temporary. Even you, despite your contemptible rhetoric. I had your number a while back on this.

I see ethics as an enormous banquet laid out on two tables. On one table is the most exquisite caviar and healthy delectable foods and on the other table is slop and putrid stinking meat with mold all over everything. I eat at the first table. I simply don't want to eat with anyone who likes what is served on the second table.

It's a choice. A personal choice. An individual choice.

And an appetite.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

Bob,

Human beings also beat it without becoming that. People are marvelously heroic when they decide to be. All they have to do is choose.

Michael

And so rarely the do. Have you noticed that? Why do you suppose that is?

Here is an experiment we can do. You can bet on heroic behavior and I will bet on base or at least narrow behavior. In the long run who will win more often? I bet I do. Not because I like it, but because that is the way the world is. I think the difference between your approach and mine is that I have low expectations and am pessimistic. You have high expectations and are optimistic. I am rarely disappointed. How do you make out? Since I don't expect much I am not often disappointed and sometimes I am even pleasantly surprised. What is your score?

Ba'al Chatzaf

Bob, how much of a bet do you place on yourself for what?

--Brant

[BaalChatzaf]

Bob, how much of a bet do you place on yourself for what?

--Brant

I never bet on myself because I know what I will do. I only bet on what others do, because I don't know what they will do.

I work on simple rules.

1. Don't do to other people what you don't want them to do to you, unless they have done such to you, in which case get even.

2. Cherish and protect your friends.

3. Be polite to neutrals. Being polite is a state of low energy expenditure.

4. Destroy your enemies if you can. If you can't, then run like hell and get far away from them or hide behind a stout wall.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Brant Gaede]

Bob, how much of a bet do you place on yourself for what?

--Brant

I never bet on myself because I know what I will do. I only bet on what others do, because I don't know what they will do.

I work on simple rules.

1. Don't do to other people what you don't want them to do to you, unless they have done such to you, in which case get even.

2. Cherish and protect your friends.

3. Be polite to neutrals. Being polite is a state of low energy expenditure.

4. Destroy your enemies if you can. If you can't, then run like hell and get far away from them or hide behind a stout wall.

Ba'al Chatzaf

There was an African tribal king who died, oh, maybe 15-20 years ago. His philosophy was to embrace his enemies. Get as close to them as possible. For this I have no comment except he wasn't murdered.

--Brant

[BaalChatzaf]

There was an African tribal king who died, oh, maybe 15-20 years ago. His philosophy was to embrace his enemies. Get as close to them as possible. For this I have no comment except he wasn't murdered.

--Brant

What was it that Don Corleone (and also Machiavelli) said? Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Judith]

There was an African tribal king who died, oh, maybe 15-20 years ago. His philosophy was to embrace his enemies. Get as close to them as possible. For this I have no comment except he wasn't murdered.

What was it that Don Corleone (and also Machiavelli) said? Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

There's something to be said for staying close enough to be able to know what your enemy's up to, but there comes a limit to what one can stomach. I'd rather die for lack of knowledge than live in a state of revulsion.

Judith

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Judith,

I agree with your sentiment. I tend to live by it.

But what do you do if you are someone to whom the whole world is an enemy and revolting to you?

Preach hate?

Look for a tribe?

Constantly crap on others?

I see this problem at times in the Objectivist world.

Michael

[Chris Grieb]

Michael;

Do you have anyone in mind?

Now that I'm done being cute I suspect the problem is probably one of high standards for others but not for oneself.

[Judith]

But what do you do if you are someone to whom the whole world is an enemy and revolting to you?

Preach hate?

Look for a tribe?

Constantly crap on others?

I see this problem at times in the Objectivist world.

Remember Rand's introduction to the 25th anniversary edition to "The Fountainhead", where she said that she and Frank were living in a world of people for whom she felt nothing but revulsion? What she did at that point seems to be the honorable response: live your life as best you can and do your work, and let your light shine as best you can.

You made this post sort of tongue-in-cheek, but the situation can happen. What would an honest person do living in Nazi Germany? Or Soviet Russia? Retreat into a private world to the extent possible, and look for escape to the extent possible.

As for the Objectivist world, I wish some of them WOULD do the honorable thing and retreat into a private world instead of making the trouble they do and giving the rest of us a bad name.

Judith

[Brant Gaede]

Remember Rand's introduction to the 25th anniversary edition to "The Fountainhead", where she said that she and Frank were living in a world of people for whom she felt nothing but revulsion? What she did at that point seems to be the honorable response: live your life as best you can and do your work, and let your light shine as best you can.

Do you have the actual quote? My copy is in storage and this doesn't sound right.

--Brant

[Wolf DeVoon]

Frank was the fuel. He gave me, in the hours of my own days, the reality of that sense of life, which created The Fountainhead -- and he helped me to maintain it over a long span of years when there was nothing around us but a gray desert of people and events that evoked nothing but contempt and revulsion.

:turned:

[Judith]

Frank was the fuel. He gave me, in the hours of my own days, the reality of that sense of life, which created The Fountainhead -- and he helped me to maintain it over a long span of years when there was nothing around us but a gray desert of people and events that evoked nothing but contempt and revulsion.

Thank you! I was just going to go dig up my own copy and you saved me the job.

Judith

Edited October 2, 2007 by Judith

[Wolf DeVoon]

But what do you do if you are someone to whom the whole world is an enemy and revolting to you?

Wynand to Roark: "Did you want to scream as a child, seeing nothing but fat ineptitude around you, knowing how many things could be done and done so well, but having no power to do them? Having no power to blast the empty skulls around you? Having to take orders -- and that's bad enough -- but to take orders from your inferiors! Have you felt that?"

"Yes."

"Did you drive the anger back inside of you, and store it, and decide to let yourself be torn to pieces if necessary, but reach the day when you'd rule those people and all people and everything around you?"

"No."

"You didn't? You let yourself forget?"

"No. I hate incompetence. I think it's probably the only thing I do hate. But it didn't make me want to rule people. Nor to teach them anything. It made me want to do my own work in my own way and let myself be torn to pieces if necessary."

"And were you?"

"No. Not in any way that counts."

******

In my case, I gave up. Retired, I tell people, because I can't write any more, not like I used to. Just cleaning up and archiving old stuff now. That was true of Miss Rand as well. She was finished in the 50's. Huge achievements, of course, but NBI was not one of them. My opinion. It's good to quit while you're ahead -- instead of turning into a

Oh, nevermind. I already spoke my piece about that. Nothing worse than two has-beens hissing at each other.

W.

Edited October 2, 2007 by Wolf DeVoon

[Barbara Branden]

When Iran is being discussed, and its clear, open, unequivocal, and specific intention to destroy America and Israel, I wonder how it is possible that no one appears to remember Neville Chamberlain and Hitler. When will we believe that dictators mean precisely what they say?

Barbara