Monday, April 17, 2006

RACE, RACE, AND MORE RACE

Have you noticed the similarities between some of our high-profile news stories lately? You too? Yes, it’s all about race, isn’t it? The Cynthia McKinney-Capitol police officer altercation, in which the Black female congresswoman from Georgia clocked a Capitol police officer with her cell phone after bypassing security and refusing to acknowledge the officer’s direction to stop. He put his hands on her – so she thumped him. Leaving aside the fact that she was lucky not to be shot (or at least tasered), the fact is that the cop simply didn’t recognize her - an egregious affront in itself, of course.

But the issue quickly became one of race (McKinney’s favorite subject) rather than security; obviously, the officer woke up that morning with an irrepressible desire to rough up a Negress. Never mind that we’re living in an age when members of Congress have to fear bags of anthrax being secreted into their places of work. If anything, the incident solidified my belief regarding how very easy it would have been for a terrorist to charge up to the Capitol checkpoint howling “Allah Akhbar” — then blow himself and dozens of others into the stratosphere.

But it wasn’t about security, nope. It was about race, as was the ineptitude of the Federal government relative to its response to Hurricane Katrina. Who gives a rip, right? They’re just a bunch of unproductive welfare cheats and crackheads. It had nothing to do with the fact that the mayor of New Orleans (a Black man) and the governor dropped the ball on the evacuation order, and when it was finally given, tens of thousands were either too ignorant, defiant or nefariously inclined to leave. To blazes with reality: It’s about race.

And now we have a situation in which our government, mandated by the Constitution to maintain our borders, will not do so – even while we’re engaged in a war. Yes, business interests want cheap labor; yes, certain political interests perceive a future advantage in courting the immigrant population. But at a time in which drug dealers and other criminals are terrorizing residents on both sides of our border with Mexico, and in which it would be child’s play for a group of terrorists to slither across with a nuclear device in a truck, drive it to Dallas, cry “Allah Akbar” – then blow themselves and an entire American city into the ionosphere — it isn’t about security.

Again it’s about race, about the evil, faceless rich White man in a suit picking on the poor little sombrero-wearing peasant who’s only looking for a better life. Forget the victims of the criminals, forget the duplicity and oppressive mode of the Mexican government, forget the sex trading in children, forget our Constitution, forget national security; these people want amnesty, they somehow “deserve” it as well – so they should have it. Just give it to them. Just because. Discounting this being the inane rationale of a five-year-old and that it would lead to a doubling of the number of illegal Mexican immigrants in coming years, to bring about this amnesty, Marxist groups supported by the media and like-minded politicos have incited millions of acolytes and young ignoramuses to march on behalf of illegal aliens and turned the Senate immigration debate into such a quagmire that only one thing has become almost certain: Very little of value will be accomplished, and America and its citizenry, particularly in the Southwest, will ultimately suffer for it.

Heaven help the White man so rash as to speak publicly about Americans of northern European descent as “The Race” – but that’s what many Mexican-Americans do. There’s even an organization by that name (“La Raza”) which ostensibly supports the rights of Mexican-Americans and Mexican immigrants, but has a shady support structure, contacts, and nebulous stated objectives. Why the hypocrisy? Because so many have been cowed by or indoctrinated into Politically-correct dogma that, in short, we’re too weak to say or do what’s right. Ironically, it isn’t a Mexican or a Hispanic thing, either; if India or Uganda just happened to lie on the other side of our southern border, we could simply swap ethnic labels and we’d have the same situation, the same arguments, and the same lies in play.

When the members of any other nation seek the benefits of life in America, we process them through channels and assess them via certain criteria. Although the standards aren’t the same as they were when the Italians, Irish, or Poles emigrated, they still exist. Mexican nationals appear to be exempt from all of this, due to greed, subversion of our politics and culture, and our collective weakness.

God save America.

Erik Rush is a New York-born Black columnist and author who writes “The Culture Shark,”a weekly column of political fare. He is also a Staff Writer for the New Media Alliance, Inc. The New Media Alliance is a non-profit (501c3) national coalition of writers, journalists and grass-roots media outlets. An archive containing links to just about everything he’s written is at http://www.erikrush.com

ANOTHER ROUND OF MOHAMMED CARTOON'S

A NEW MOHAMMED CARTOON

***scroll for updates***

Update: Reader Andrew passes along a cartoon that he believes is the artwork published by Studi Cattolici. If anyone can translate the Italian captions to confirm, it would be appreciated. Note that Mohammed does not even appear in the cartoon:

mostudi.jpg

***
Via the London Telegraph, an Italian Catholic magazine has entered the Mohammed cartoon fray:

An Italian magazine has infuriated Muslims by publishing a cartoon showing the Prophet Mohammed cut in half and burning in Hell.

The drawing appears in Studi Cattolici, a monthly magazine with links to the ultra-conservative Roman Catholic group, Opus Dei. It shows the poets Virgil and Dante on the edge of a circle of flame looking down on Mohammed.

"Isn't that man there, split in two from head to navel, Mohammed?" Dante asks Virgil.

"Yes and he is cut in two because he has divided society," Virgil replies. "While that woman there, with the burning coals, represents the politics of Italy towards Islam."

Cesare Cavalleri, the editor of the magazine, said last night that he had not meant to cause offence. "If, contrary to my intentions and those of the author, anyone felt offended in his religious feelings, I freely ask him in a Christian manner for forgiveness."

That was a marked change of tone from an earlier statement, when he said: "We must not fear freedom of opinion." If the cartoon provoked an attack, it would only confirm "the idiotic positions" of Muslim extremists.

"This is not a cartoon against Mohammed. It is a cartoon which addresses the loss of the West's identity.

Amen to that. Too bad he didn't stick to his guns. [Update: A reader thinks Cavelleri's apology was Italian sarcasm rather than capitulation. I hope so.]

Cavelleri continued:

"Why all the fuss over a cartoon which only represents that which has already been written centuries ago by Dante Alighieri?"

Dante placed Mohammed in Hell in Canto 28 of The Divine Comedy. His work inspired a painting by William Blake, depicting Mohammed with his entrails hanging out, and a fresco in Bologna Cathedral showing him being tortured by a devil.

It seems some Catholic thinkers are opening their eyes to the insanity of the jihadists. But not all. Italian Muslims are gearing up in protest and some Catholics are dutifully playing the dhimmis. Apologies have already been extracted.

Stay tuned. I have a feeling we haven't heard the last of this.

***

4/17 morning update: Blogger Chris at Home quotes the passage in Dante's Inferno to which the cartoon alluded:

Inferno XXVIII, 19-42.

The poets are in the ninth
chasm of the eighth circle, that of the Sowers of
Discord, whose punishment is to be mutilated.
Mahomet shows his entrails to Dante and Virgil
while on the left stands his son Ali, his head cleft
from chin to forelock.

Chris reprints the Willam Blake painting of Mohammed in Hell:

moblake.jpg

And he also has a photo of the Gustave Dore version.

Flashback: Zombie's archive of Mohammed images has many more paintings depicting Dante's Mohammed in Hell scene.

Bridget P. notes that the Bologna Cathedral, which has a fresco of the Mohammed in Hell scene, has been targeted by Muslims before. In 2002, an Al Qaeda plot to blow up the church was uncovered.

How long before we see this again:

behead.jpg