Many Americans proclaim that President Bush successfully protected America from terrorism after September 11, 2001. Even though terrorists did not attack U.S. soil again after 9/11, Bush's policy allowed terrorists to infiltrate and harm America with a strategy that is leading to our self-destruction. Bush's, "war on terror" was based on a premise that defers terrorism to "a few" extremists, not the Islamic doctrine itself. The premise was, and still is, that Islam is somehow reformable after being given a bad reputation.

The Bush dhimmi doctrine endorsed Islam as "peaceful" even though Bush acknowledged that slaughtering and intimidation of non-Muslims had become a global pandemic. This includes good Muslims fighting bad Muslims as in Iraq and Afghanistan. But to protect the lives of American citizens and keep oil flowing into the U.S., Bush dutifully spoke of a peaceful Islam.[1]

A 2007 article titled "Bush Administration Moves to Legitimize the Muslim Brotherhood," by William Mayer and Beila Rabinowitz, reported that the Bush Administration's Bureau of Intelligence and Research hosted a meeting to discuss opening more formal channels to the Islamic "brothers."[2]

President Bush named Iran, Iraq and North Korea the "Axis of evil" because of the part they played in helping terrorism and ability to obtain weapons of mass destruction. It is interesting that he did not include Saudi Arabia as a part of the Axis of evil even though 9/11 terrorists were Saudis funded by Saudis, and Osama Bin Laden is a Saudi terrorist who is from a prominent Saudi family.

It is telling that Saudi Arabians (supposedly our friends) are mostly Wahabbi-Sunnis, and Iranians (supposedly not our friends) are mostly Shiite. The two countries, close to the same size, compete for power in the Persian Gulf. America has taken sides with the Saudis because they have more oil which we buy from them, and as a result they have acquired enormous strategic investments in the world and in American market and financial system. In other words, they pull the strings and we react. In a visit to Saudi Arabia in May 2008, Bush discussed a civilian nuclear deal with Saudi King Abdullah, reportedly part of an effort to protect the kingdom's vast oil reserves, pipeline distribution system, and borders, allowing the Saudi's to join a global initiative to combat nuclear terrorism, enhance the protection of nuclear systems, and improve detection and confiscation of illegally held nuclear material.[3]

Bill Warner, who runs the online newsletter, "Bulletin of Cultural Annihilation," wrote about the Bush Islamic Doctrine, defining "dhimmis" as non-Muslims who apologize for Islam, such as the media, willing professors, financiers, preachers, priests, politicians, pundits and rabbis, George Bush, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Barrack Obama.

Dhimmitude effectively disallows the truth of Islamic history, denies the way Islam is presented in the Koran, and denies a Koran based manifesto of Islamic aggression. Attributing Islam to the terror and horrible murders would certainly incite more hate from terrorist murderers and their proponents. In highly promoted interfaith dialogues, religious leaders meet and claim they worship the same god. However, the Christian and Jewish leaders have not actually read the Koran. Without reading it, one cannot claim to know anything about the Koran. Furthermore, merely reading the Koran does not prove that its revelations are from the God of Judaism and Christianity.

Responding to a barbaric Islamic act, a dhimmi will predictably reply that Christians have done bad things, too....and there is violence in the Bible too. A dhimmi will defend a doctrine they know virtually nothing about, saying such as "jihadists are fundamentalist radicals but most Muslims are just like everybody else" and, "I know a Muslim who is nice." A dhimmi believes that just because he thinks a Muslim is nice to him, then Islam is good. Afraid to challenge a Muslim for fear of being called Islamophobic or unfair, a dhimmi would rather not hear  historic evidence that is uncomfortable. A dhimmi does not initially realize that he is being set up to accept and apppologize for Islam. Believing Islam is peaceful enables stealth jihad through deception, intimidation, policy, and other methods.

The media does not admit the extent that pure Islam is involved in terror attacks. For example, the 2009 incident in Mumbai, India was motivated by Islam but Muslims were never mentioned.

Real "terror" distracts us from seeing the other terror-less, stealth, or "peaceful" forces of jihad. Bill Warner lists sword, pen, tongue and money as the four forms of jihad. The State Department relies on indoctrination through the so-called peaceful methods for the gradual Islamization of America.[4]

President George W. Bush made it clear when he entered office that he opposed efforts to secure our nation's borders. His guest worker amnesty programs encouraged the greatest influx of illegal aliens in the history of our nation. While the majority of people who migrate to the United States may simply want a better life and hope to become loyal Americans, there are many others who are motivated with a desire to harm our nation.

Today terrorists can easily penetrate our borders, embed in mainstream society, build compounds, and access weapons of mass destruction that can cause hundreds of thousands of American deaths. The 9/11 Commission staff report on terrorist travel stated it had identified numerous entry and embedding tactics associated with earlier attacks in the United States. The report revealed that prior to September 11, 2001, abuse of the immigration system and a lack of interior immigration enforcement unwittingly worked together to support terrorist activity. The 2000 census estimated 8 million illegal aliens in the United States. Today that number is estimated to be over 13 million, with around 7 million of them in the workforce.[5]

That total includes individuals who entered the United States without proper documentation and those who entered legally but overstayed or violated their visas or terms of entry. The threat of Muslim fundamentalist attacks is not the only price to pay for unsecured borders. Illegal immigration affects education, the economy, health care, the environment, criminal justice and national security. Not withstanding that reports indicate that illegal aliens in the U.S. have a crime rate two and a half times that of legal aliens[6] and account for around 30% of the inmate population in federal correctional institutions.[7]

Americans are losing jobs at an unprecedented rate while illegal immigration reportedly costs taxpayers billions of dollars each year. Because many immigrants are poor, increasing numbers add to the burden of disadvantaged groups. An estimated cost of illegal immigration is approximately $340 billion dollars a year.[8] As an alternative, The National Policy Institute estimates the cost of mass deportation for all of the illegal immigrants would be between $206 and $230 billion.[9]

In 2005, four to five million illegal aliens entered the U.S. at our Southern Borders. The number reportedly includes as many as 19,500 illegal aliens from terrorist countries. Millions of pounds of drugs, cocaine, meth, heroin and marijuana also crossed into the U. S from the Southern border.[10] 

Due to lack of staff personnel and detention facilities, Islamists and potential terrorists can enter the U.S. legally because applications are not always checked for fraud or potential terror connections. Potential terrorists can also obtain student visas to enter the country and stay indefinitely, knowing the Federal Government will likely never search for them if they overstay their visas. By September 11, 2001, visa's of three of the 9/11 hijackers had lapsed, thus they were in the country illegally, even though all nineteen had entered legally.

The Bush dhimmi doctrine did not prevent the operation of thirty-five potential terrorist training camps in the U.S. The compounds are believed to be run by Sheik Mubarak Ali Gilani, who is known for allegedly setting up journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002. Daniel Pearl was abducted on the way to meet with Gilani, and eventually beheaded.

 Reported in an interview between Sean Hannity of Fox News and Martin Mawyer of Christianaction.Org, Sheik Gilani is reportedly a direct descendant of Mohammed, and his followers believe Gilani speaks for Allah. The interview between Mawyer and Hannity revealed that though the group claims to be peaceful, they appear to have a sinister agenda. A videotape uncovered by the Christian Action Network was titled "The Soldiers of Allah." It features Sheikh Gilani teaching American followers guerilla warfare tactics such as scaling mountains, subduing enemies, murdering guards, hijacking cars, kidnapping, weapons training, and setting off explosives. Sheik Gilani is reportedly quoted as saying:

 "We are fighting to destroy the enemy. We are dealing with evil at its roots and its roots are America." 

Explaining how to kill American Infidels, Gilani reportedly said: 

"Act like you are his friend. Then kill him." 

Sheik Gilani's thirty-five communities extend from New York, to South Carolina, to Seattle, Washington, and Texas. The compounds are owned by a Pakistani based group, Jumaatul-Fuqra, otherwise known as Muslims of America in the U.S. When Mr. Mawyer's organization investigated, they learned that the group is allowed to continue primarily because they are protected by state constitutions and the U.S. Constitution. Mawyer said that "law enforcement hands are tied in trying to shut these groups down," even though local field officers believe the group has weapons of mass destruction.[11]

Hezbollah members are known to be raising money in the U.S., and have long been believed to be bringing suite case dirty booms into the U.S. to await further instructions. Across the border, Hezbollah in Mexico is believed to train Mexican drug cartels in gorilla terror tactics. Reportedly, the Mexican drug cartels have adopted the terrorist tactics of kidnappings and beheadings.

Islamic terrorists sell cocaine from Afghanistan to the Mexican drug cartels, and pass profits on to Hezbollah and other Islamic terrorist groups. An anonymous Mexican Army officer said that Hezbollah is believed to be teaching the Mexican drug cartel the art of bomb making. An anonymous U.S. law enforcement official confirmed that forensic evidence ties Hezbollah bomb experts to roadside explosions in Iraq. In Mexico, police stations and government buildings are at risk of the terrorist training designed to combat the Mexican Army, Mexican Police, American Special Forces and DEA agents. News reports have confirmed that effects of the terrorist training are beginning to be seen throughout Mexico and the bordering U.S. states.

Homeland Security has said that Hezbollah members already operating in the U.S. probably have contact with other Hezbollah members in Mexico and around the world.

Mexican deaths linked to organized crime grew historically in 2008. The first one thousand deaths occurred by around April 14; the next one thousand by July 2; reaching 3000 by September 10, and 4000 by October 28. At the end of 2008, 6000 deaths were linked to organized crime.

Texas officials reported that dozens of individuals wounded in the Mexican state of Chihuahua are treated in an El Paso hospital. From Texas to California, drug-related dangers and violence is so high that Mexico is off-limits to U.S. Military personnel. Americans who normally cross the border to travel, shop and conduct business, no longer feel safe in Mexico. [12]

ABC News reported in early February 2009 that Phoenix, Arizona had become the kidnapping capital of America. Phoenix reportedly has more incidents than any other city outside of Mexico City. The Phoenix Police Chief, Andy Anderson said that the transgressions are a result of Mexico's drug cartels expanding into the U.S. The report revealed that over 370 kidnappings occurred in Phoenix in 2008, with many of them connected to Mexico's drug cartels as criminal activities have spilled over the U.S.-Mexico border. The report revealed that ransoms not paid promptly result in "horrific cases of chopped-off hands, legs and heads." [13]

Human trafficking has also become widespread as a result of lax immigration enforcement. The Department of State estimates are that between 18,000 and 20,000 victims are trafficked into the United States each year. Since 2001, more than 20 percent of the human trafficking victims have been found in Texas. [14]

The Bush administration did not hire enough special agents for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or enough Border Patrol agents for years. In a March 2005, a hearing titled "Interior Immigration Enforcement Resources," before the Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security, testimony by the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Robert S. Mueller, addressed the urgent border issue: 

"In 2004, we learned that operatives had conducted detailed surveillance of financial targets in New York, Washington, D.C., and New Jersey . . . a sobering reminder of the threat we continue to face...There is the threat from covert operatives who may be inside the U.S. who have the intention to facilitate or conduct an attack. I remain very concerned about what we are not seeing. Efforts by extremists to obtain training inside the U.S. is also an ongoing concern."

Lack of agency funding severely undermines the national objective to not have to fight the war on terror inside America. Testimony at the 2005 hearing stressed that illegal immigrants are often released into the U.S. because sufficient funds to detain and hold them were not allocated in a timely manner, even though Congress had authorized the funds. Without sufficient detention facilities, non-Mexican detainees released on their own recognizance were ordered to appear at deportation hearings weeks later. The number of released illegal immigrants who did not return was in the hundreds per week.

Employer sanctions were abandoned because of inadequate numbers of detention beds and a lack of ICE Agents during the Bush administration. According to information from the Congressional Research Service, in 2004 alone the U.S. Border Patrol released 35,000 detainees described as "other than Mexican" due to a shortage of beds.[15]

The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 authorized 800 new ICE investigators for 2006 through 2010, however, President Bush's initial budget only requested funding for 143 new ICE investigators for 2006. Lack of funding also led to cancellation of ICE academy training in the latter part of 2005, affecting training for approximately 900 immigration and enforcement employees.

In 2004, Congress provided funding to hire 2,000 new Border Patrol agents with an additional 2,000 new Border Patrol agents for each of the next 4 years, to bring the total to 10,000. Leading to what would become a crisis, Bush and his administration significantly reduced the number of new Border Patrol agents from 2000-2004 to 210.

In 2006, President Bush announced he would hire 6,000 additional Border Patrol agents before he left office. To meet those numbers, agents were hastily hired with reduced training. Though the agency was on its way to meeting the president's goal before he was ready to leave office in 2008, The National Border Patrol Council criticized a hasty last minute hiring process, with resulting reduced educational requirements, shortened training periods and inadequate screening. The agency's union president, T.J. Bonner said:

 "They want the best and the brightest, but they're going about it in the wrong way...They're rolling the dice with our homeland security."[16] 

When the U.S. Homeland Security Department's Office of the Inspector General conducted 79 investigations into corruption among federal agents along the border in 2007, they found cases had risen from 31 in 2003 to some 200 cases by July 2008.[17]

A justifiable concern is that the hasty hiring process provided for criminals and terrorists to obtain sensitive positions. If the Bush administration had immediately and effectively used all the funds allocated by Congress, the eligibility of new Border Patrol agents might not have become an issue.[18]

Another very serious threat to American's security is bringing in displaced Muslims from war-torn countries under the guise of "humanitarianism." For nearly a decade, Bill Clinton and George Bush have systematically imported Muslims, by tens of thousands per year for each group. The Bush administration flew 1,000 Iraqi refugees into America every 30 days in 2008 alone. It is estimated that another 17,000 Iraqis arrived in 2009. These immigrants are comprised of Sunni and Shiite Muslims adversaries that have battled and killed each other for hundreds of years.[19] The 1990 census counted only 2,070 immigrant Somalis in the U.S.[20] Since then, hundreds thousands of Muslim Somali immigrants have also arrived in the United States. The U.S. provides for their immigration, supposedly proving compassion for the disadvantaged Muslims. What is contradictory is that we then bend our policy to accommodate their way of life-which is what they left or fled in the first place. Because accommodation encourages propagation of Islam to the extent of affecting American freedoms and traditions, an agenda beyond compassion is clear.

Seventeen Chinese Muslims terrorists known as Uighurs captured in Afghanistan living at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay since 2002 have admitted to receiving weapon training from the Taliban. Being held pending efforts at resettlement, the Uighurs were cleared for release in 2004, but the Bush administration could not find another country that was willing to accept them. The Chinese call them terrorists and some fear that if they return to China, they will be tortured. Other countries fear reprisal from China if they accept them.

In October 2008, U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina, a Bill Clinton appointee, ordered their immediate release into Washington D.C. stating he did not "understand why that would not be a viable option." Prior to the decision, Justices voted 5-4 to allow Islamic terrorists held in Guantanamo the right to challenge their detention by filing habeas corpus petitions in American federal courts.

Prior to Urbina's ruling, a Chinese Foreign Ministry representative said that the Uighurs are thought to be members of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement. The group is recognized as a terrorist organization by the U.S. government. And the Bush administration said the Chinese terrorists are a national security threat. The Bush administration, along with millions of Americans, stood against Urbina's decision. The district court's ruling could be used as precedent for other Guantanamo Bay detainees including those suspected of planning the 9/11 attacks. This means that if Obama closes Guantanamo, many more Islamic terrorists could end up in the U.S. In fact, now that Obama is president, he wants to move detainees to Michigan, where they could be eligible for a jury of their peers, and where a high percentage of Muslims have settled.

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia noted that our nation is at war with radical Islamists, therefore the ruling would make the war more difficult on Americans, and could lead to more American deaths. [21]

So far the release efforts have been unsuccessful because the court lacks authority to direct the government to bring them to the U.S., however the Uighurs no longer have restricted conditions.

A September 2005 report titled "Immigration and Terrorism: Moving Beyond the 9/11 Staff report on Terrorist Travel," reviewed the immigration histories of 94 terrorists who operated in the United States from the early 1990s through 2004. The report findings show widespread terrorist violations of immigration laws, and describe how terrorists in the country use weaknesses in the system to remain in America.

Fraud is often used to gain entry into the U.S., and to remain in the country. In some instances, terrorists claimed they lack proper travel documents and applied for asylum at their port of entry. Some terrorists acquire various forms of fake identification, including driver's licenses, birth certificates, Social Security cards, and immigration arrival records. Once in the United States, they can become legal permanent residents, and often marry Americans in sham marriages. Through various means, terrorists can easily become naturalized U.S. citizens.

Terrorists in America understand they can easily embed themselves in U.S. communities and carry out operations related to terrorism and espionage. In addition to physically attacking our nation, terrorists in the U.S. can gather intelligence, establish "safe houses" and generate funds to enable their terrorist organizations to conduct operations around the world. They are able to acquire jobs that provide them with access to critical infrastructure such as federal agencies, airports, seaports, border crossings, nuclear power plants, and military bases. They obtain positions for contractors that work with the federal government and the United States military. They work in our meat and food processing plants. They can also work at water processing plants, enabling access to America's food and water supply.

The fourteenth Annual Arab International Festival, 2009 drew some 250,000 attendees. Sponsored by the Ford Motor Company, the American Arab Chamber of Commerce, the FBI, the CIA and various branches of the U.S. Armed Forces, the event was a recruiting ground for all branches of the U.S. Military.  Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force recruiters promised American citizenship to every Middle-Eastern immigrant who enlisted- under the condition that they were Muslim.  "The United States Army" in Arabic script adorned G.I. issued uniforms. The FBI set up a booth to recruit Muslim agents, and the CIA conducted raffles to entice young Islamists.

Muslims were not prohibited from distributing and selling Islamic books and materials at the festival but Christians who dared to attend the festival were prohibited by law from distributing religious materials pursuant to an order prior to the event from U.S. District Judge Nancy Edmonds. Dearborn police kept watch for Christians who might violate the ruling even though Christians have never disrupted the event in the past.

Some of the army recruits were sent to Ft. Hood in Texas where Major Nidal Hasan was stationed.[22]

Major Nidal Hasan, an Army Major serving as a Psychiatrist was one of around 40 Muslims stationed on Ft. Hood, and 15,000 Muslims in the military fired on 43 fellow soldiers, killing 13 as he cried "Allahu Akbar." Major Hasan, who claimed to be "a Muslim first and an American second," had previously said that "Muslims should stand up and fight the aggressor," and "Muslims had a right to attack" yet apologists for Islam dhimmis were quick to claim his murderous action was were not really Islamic.[23]

Hassan completed residency at Walter Reed Army Hospital where his ideology was well known.[24] He had worshipped at the same mosque in 2001 as two of the 9/11 hijackers and once gave a lecture to doctors at Walter Reed saying that non-Muslims should be beheaded and have boiling oil poured down their throats. Colleagues questioned his loyalty but were hesitant to complain because of political correctness.[25]

In May 2007, six men were arrested for plotting to attack Fort Dix with assault weapons. Albanian Muslim immigrants from the Balkans were convicted in December of conspiring to target Fort Dix in the crime inspired by al-Qaida, proving that jihadists do plot inside America. [26] They said their ideology and hatred for America was the motivation for their plot to kill U.S. soldiers. [27]  The men were brothers who had lived illegally in the U.S. after they crossed the border through Mexico in 1984.[28]
An American black convert to Islam shot 24 year-old soldier Pvt. William Long, and wounded 18 year-old Pvt. Quinton Ezeagwula. Investigators believed the shooting specifically targeted military personnel, and motivated by political and religious views.[29]

The story of a young woman from Lebanon provides an excellent example of a terrorist infiltrating the FBI and the CIA. Nada Nadim Prouty entered the U.S. on a student visa, which expired in 1988. She overstayed her visa and obtained resident alien status through a fraudulent marriage, which enabled her to successfully gain U.S. citizenship. After becoming a naturalized citizen, she used her fluency in foreign languages to get a job as an FBI special agent. Her FBI position led to a position for the CIA before it was discovered that she had used her security clearance to access database information on Hezbollah. Prouty provided classified information to Hezbollah through her brother-in-law, Talal Chahin.

An investigation revealed that Chahin, who allegedly laundered over $20 million to Hezbollah through his Michigan restaurant chain, had arranged Pouty's fraudulent marriage. Investigations revealed that Prouty had disclosed the sensitive information to Chahin on three investigations in which he was involved.

Prouty's family in Lebanon is noted for its involvement with the Syrian National Socialist Party, which has the objective of forming a greater Arab state that will include Lebanon, Syria, Israel, Cypress and part of Turkey. Intelligence sources revealed that Prouty's cousin, Nidal Al-Aouar, was a terrorist who set roadside car bombs in Lebanon on behalf of Syria after training North Korea and the old USSR. [30]

Roy Bailey, a Detroit field office director for Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, enabled Prouty's fraudulent activities. Charged in September 2008 with defrauding the federal government, conspiracy to commit bribery, and failing to report a felony, Bailey enabled a wide range of fraudulent activities that included immigration fraud, preferential treatment, and benefits in exchange for gifts and cash from a range of restaurant owners, attorneys, and business owners that included Talal Chahin.[31]

The immigration problem directly affects the rights and lives of individual Americans. Roger Barnett, an Arizona rancher, caught 12,000 illegal immigrants crossing his ranch from  1998-2004. When he caught immigrants crossing his property he turned them over to the border Patrol. A March 2004 incident involving sixteen illegal immigrants led to a civil suit when Mexicans trespassers filed charges against Barnett claiming that their civil rights had been violated. The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDE) represented the group of illegal Mexican immigrants charging that they had endured emotional distress as Mr. Barnett held them at gunpoint and threatened to turn his dog on them. The suit also charged the Sherriff of Cochise County for not stopping Mr. Barnett as he allegedly yelled obscenities at the immigrants and kicked a woman during the incident. Mr. Barnett said that over the years, illegal immigrants had left behind a trail of garbage including used toilet paper, soiled diapers and plastic bottles. He said that they had destroyed his property, broken into his house, torn up water pumps, stolen trucks, and left garbage that led to the death of some of Barnett's cattle. [32]

Mr. Barnett was a crime victim who was treated as a criminal in efforts to protect his property. The immigrants filed suit against Mr. Barnett for $32,000,000.  Barnett's attorney argued that illegal immigrants do not have the same rights as citizen, but U.S. District Judge John Roll refused to drop the charges.

In February 2008, a civil jury found that Roger Barnett did not violate the civil rights of the trespassers, rejecting their claims of battery and false imprisonment. Mr. Barnett was however ordered to pay $77,804 in damages, of which $60,000 were punitive. Five of the plaintiffs were living in the U.S. with visa applications at the time of the verdict.[33]

Lack of immigration scrutiny and enforcement also affects legal immigrants in tragic circumstances. Legal immigrants who sincerely wish to leave their former countries behind to live in a free, Democratic society, may still be victims of barbaric religious practices when our laws fail to protect them. Examples include Middle Eastern women and children who want to be free of oppressive Islamic laws.

A heartbreaking incident took place in Irving, Texas in early 2008. Amina and Sarah Said were teenage girls who attended American schools and had American friends even though their father resented American laws and culture. When their father, Yaser Said, found out the girls had boyfriends, he shot and killed them in the back of a taxi before he fled the country.[34]

In another deplorable case, Aasiya Hassan, a beautiful Middle Eastern woman was stabbed and decapitated in Orchard Park, New York on February 12, 2009 after she had filed for a divorce and obtained an order of protection from her husband, Muzzammil Hassan. Mr. Hassan was an influential member of the local Muslim community who founded the English speaking Islamic Bridges TV in 2004, reportedly in an effort "to help portray Muslims in a more positive light."[35] 

After arriving in the U.S. at the age of fourteen from Pakistan, Mr. Hassan reportedly graduated magna cum laude in 1996 with an MBA from the University of Rochester in 1996, and went on to become a successful banker in Buffalo, New York. [36]

Hassan had expressed concerns that Hollywood does not portray moderate Muslims accurately. He said "Bridges TV gives American Muslims a voice and will depict them in everyday, real life situations."[37]

The Bush dhimmi doctrine kept us safe from terrorism because Bush was a good dhimmi. He managed the appearance of having zero tolerance for terrorism, but he did not or could not distinguish between terrorism and jihad, specifically jihad through non-violence. By encouraging Americans to believe that the events of 9/11 were caused by only a few random terrorists, he shifted the real source of terror, the ideology of Islam as it is written in the Koran, to a few crazed lunatics and fringe groups. Believing that Islam is really peaceful is an effective strategy that allows Islam to advance stealthily so American citizens will not notice and therefore not oppose a gradual takeover. It is easier to enforce Islam through dhimmitude even if it is met with some skepticism and reluctance, rather than have to resort to terror. In other words, it is easier if you just hand a thief your pocketbook, however reluctant, rather than fighting and possibly losing your life. You only hand him your pocketbook because you know that if you do not, he will try to kill you.

Also, as long as we allow foreign Muslims to immigrate to America and appease them by accommodating their religious "needs," and continue to buy oil from the Middle East, we will potentially be a dhimmi nation. We must reclaim our sovereignty by immediately closing the borders, drilling in America, and charging the Middle Easterners for drilling and processing their oil for them.

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FOOTNOTES AND CHRISTINA'S WEBSITE

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[to read Part 1 click here]

"Academic and aristocratic people live in such an uncommon atmosphere that common sense can rarely reach them," said Samuel Butler.  For example: US Senator Harry Reid, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, John McCain, Barbara Boxer, Diane Feinstein, Bill Gates and much of the U.S. Congress.

In her book, THE TROUBLE WITH ISLAM, Canadian Muslim Irshad Manji wrote, "My cause is the democracy of thought and freedom of expression...I want to give my fellow Muslims permission to think...can you tell me why Islam is at the heart of terrorism and human-rights violations?"

At the center of Islam's message is that all other religions and their followers constitute 'infidels' to be converted or killed. Islam means 'submission' of all by conversion, force or death. The Koran, Sura (chapter) 5, verse 85, describes the inevitable enmity between Muslims and non-Muslims: "Strongest among men in enmity to the believers wilt thou find the Jews and Pagans (anyone not believing in Islam).  Sura 9, verse 5, adds: "Then fight and slay the pagans wherever you find them. And seize them, beleaguer them and lie in wait for them, in every stratagem of war."  Sura 5, verse 51 says, "O ye who believe! Take not the Jews and the Christians for friends."  Sura 1, verse 193 states: "Fight them until Islam reigns supreme."  Sura 8, verse 12 demands: "Instill terror in the hearts of unbelievers. Cut off their heads and cut off the tips of their fingers." 

Is it little wonder that Major Nadal Hasan, last week, slaughtered 42 unarmed people?  Sura 55 states: "The smallest reward for martyrs of paradise is an abode where are 72 virgins...." (It's possible that the 19-- 9/11 hijackers are deliriously happy right now or exhausted!) While Hasan presented ample evidence and actions for over two years, no one in the Army dared speak about his aberrant behavior for fear of fitness reports and political correctness. That political correctness caused the deaths of 13 and collateral damage of all 42 victims at Fort Hood, Texas.  If carried out further for, say, another 20 years, it will mean the death of the United States as a first world, republican civilization.

Consider the behavior of Denver, Colorado Muslim, Najibullah Zazi, mixing chemicals to blow up parts of the city along with his colleagues in New York-before being captured by the FBI.  Again, like Hasan, or the Fort Dix Six, or the imam from Detroit, Michigan two weeks ago, all followed the dictates of Islam.

One Muslim bragged that, "We love death more than life."

Mary Cate Cary, writing for the Thomas Jefferson Street Blog, said, "The reason I don't think Islam is a religion of peace is that I am not aware of a single Muslim cleric stepping forward to denounce acts of violence committed in the name of Islam. This has happened over and over, and yet the mainstream Muslim leaders-presumably peaceful religious leaders who are not radicals-never step forward to call for an end to murderous rampages and terrorist acts committed in the name of Islam."

One radio talk show host read a rant by Hasan where he said, "Any infidels should have their heads cut off and boiling oil poured down their necks."

"Infidels" means all of the rest of us that do not subscribe to Islam. Therefore, he demanded that 9.9 out of 10 Americans should suffer beheading.

Religions like Islam and Christianity stand SO far apart; they might as well be as far apart as Earth to Pluto.  A tribal illiterate thug living in the deserts of the Middle East, Muhammad, the originator of Islam, cut the heads, hands and fingers off his enemies.  A peasant man, Jesus, from whom the Christian religion arose, spoke eloquently and offered his life on a cross to save everyone.  One offered violence and the other offered salvation and peace.

Yet today, both religions race toward dominance.  Muslims send their adherents out all over the world.  Islam also sports the highest birth rates.  Islam grows as the largest religion on the planet.  Christians send their missionaries out to the world to convert anyone willing to listen to their beliefs.

Both religions offer books such as the Koran and the Bible.  Both see the world in different ways.  Both espouse myths, magic and eternal life. 

Both remain as compatible as a cat and a dog, as a razor blade and a jugular vein, as a pedophile and a kindergartener. Modern day 'multiculturalists' espouse that members of these two religions can live together in perfect harmony. For non-examples: Israel, Iran, and Palestine!  Such intellectuals forget that Islam vows to, "...convert or kill all non-believers."

T.L. Winslow said, "The reason that the West is acting surprised at jihadists like the Beltway Snipers and Major Nidal Hasan, and attempting to find reasons why they're victims not victimizers is pure ignorance of Islam's 1400-year history. It all started back in 1683, when the Ottoman Empire's military threat to the West ended. It allowed the West to rocket ahead in every category of civilization while quarantining the Muslim world. That 'world' remained in the Medieval Ages as the 'Sick Man' of Europe until WWI kicked the Ottoman Empire's can.  The West falsely believed that Islam was dead except as a name, only to be surprised by "fundamentalist" terrorists, which they thought were falling for all the Western "education." They were getting that the Quran is for display purposes only.  Islam never dies. So, if you're still an Islam history ignoramus, it's getting dangerous not to take the time to finally acquaint yourself with the rise, spread, and real doctrines of good ole fashioned fundamentalist Islam before the next wet bloody surprise on American soil. Where is the best place to learn it fast accurate and free online? Just click http://go.to/islamhistory

At some point, Islamists and Christians will explode in riots across the USA, or, if not, they will grow in their separate cities in yet another 'tense' multicultural bouquet of tolerance.

As Jean Raspail, in his book, Camp of the Saints, said, "You don't know my people - the squalor, superstitions, the fatalistic sloth that they've wallowed in for generations. You don't know what you're in for if that fleet of brutes ever lands in your lap.  Everything will change in this country of yours.  They will swallow you up!"

For a reality check, Muslims erected over 1,000 mosques in America in the past 20 years.  That might give you an understanding of the speed of this religion's advancement on American society. Some experts predict Sharia Law will be voted into existence over democratic law-by using their numbers and democratic law, which, in effect, will void democratic law in America.  It's already occurring in Great Britain and Belgium.  The greater their numbers the greater their collective power.  Ultimate reality? Theocratic religious law will dominate Western civilization.  That result? Return to the Dark Ages.  Result for women?  Returned to subjugation by men!

A New York Times article, "Islam Attracts Converts by the Thousands," contains interviews with converts, analyzes Islam's rapid rise in America, and states:  with some 6 to 7 million adherents in the United States, Islam is said to be the nation's fastest-growing religion, fueled by immigration, high birth rates and widespread conversion. One expert estimates that 25,000 people a year become Muslims in this country; some clerics say they have seen conversion rates quadruple since Sept. 11."

Muslims NEVER assimilate into the host country.  At some point, Muslims will create Islamic schools separate from American public education.  They will demand and receive more and more compromises from Americans.  Much like Dearborn, Michigan, more and more cities will hear Islamic call to prayer ringing out over the cities dominated by Muslims.   They will demand Arabic be spoken in schools and more and more newspapers will be printed in Arabic.

Symptoms of Jihad in America

Danville Express, November 11, 2009, "Backlash in California: Muslim tears cross from shopper's neck and shouts, "Allah is power!" Journalist Emily West reported, "Police arrested 22-year-old Abdul Walid Hamid of Hayward on the evening of Wednesday, November 4th, after he reportedly tore a crucifix from a person's neck and scared others at Stoneridge Shopping Center.  Hamid, an employee at a mall kiosk near Starbucks, has been charged with battery, terrorist threats and grand theft. According to reports, Hamid was yelling "Allah is power" and "Islam is great" while holding a pen in a fist over his head. Witnesses said he shouted anti-Christian comments, said police."

More outrageous examples abound in Great Britain, France, Holland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Austria and Spain.  We will cover them in this series.

Part 3: can Muslims become good Americans? www.jihadwatch.org

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 Frosty Wooldridge has bicycled across six continents - from the Arctic to the South Pole - as well as six times across the USA, coast to coast and border to border.  In 2005, he bicycled from the Arctic Circle, Norway to Athens, Greece.  He presents "The Coming Population Crisis in America: and what you can do about it" to civic clubs, church groups, high schools and colleges.  He works to bring about sensible world population balance at frostywooldridge.com  He is the author of:  America on the Brink: The Next Added 100 Million Americans.

Yet this is the same Ingrid Mattson who has repeatedly reinforced the image of the West as colonizers in the Muslim world and defends jihad in articles like "Stopping Oppression: An Islamic Obligation," where fighting oppression defines a "just war," or jihad.

The reckless disregard Islamists show for the potential for violence their rhetoric fosters should be criminal. One should not forget that ISNA was founded in 1981 by the Muslim Students Association (MSA) of the U.S. and Canada. The MSA is a Muslim Brotherhood creation meant to recruit Muslim youth to Islamism. As one past member of MSA stated:

We are told America's foreign policy is based on racist neo-imperialism; we are taught that national security is a foul epithet to be reviled; we are told the Jews and Israel are to blame for the hatred against us.

The First Gulf War was viewed by many Islamic scholars as a just war because it liberated Kuwait, but Islamist leaders do not preach the same with U.S. intervention in Iraq, Afghanistan, or Pakistan.

How does that affect otherwise normal Muslim Americans who are also soldiers?

"Some return exhausted and traumatized from their tours, only to hear at their local mosques that they will go to hell for killing Muslims," said Qaseem A. Uqdah, the executive director of the American Muslim Armed Forces and Veterans Affairs Council.

Nidal Hasan is not a random criminal. The murders he committed at Ft. Hood are yet another example of Islamist extremism rooted in an ideology. These murders were a natural result of speeches, writings, and outreach by Islamists in the U.S., whether they specifically advocate violence or not. The angst, emotional confusion, and divided loyalties men like Hasan eventually feel are foreseeable and can easily be connected to the words of not only clerics, but community representatives like Ingrid Mattson as well.

Mr. Uqdah, clearly a more responsible American Muslim, finished his statement by urging that Muslim groups must work harder to help their communities end extremism.

That would be you, Ms. Mattson.

 ---------------------------------------------

Private Joseph Foster was sitting in the second row when Nidal Malik Hasan attacked last week, and explained his situation to CNN:

Roberts: So the first moments of Thursday afternoon, can you tell our viewers, you know, where you were, what happened, how it all unfolded?

Foster: I was sitting in what they call station 13, it's where we get, basically, our final outs of our RSP (ph) system and I was sitting in about the second row back when the assailant stood up, screamed and yelled Allah Akbar (ph) in Arabic and he opened fire.

Foster was one of those soldiers wounded when Hasan began shooting.  He was shot in the hip, but even with his wound he did "what [he] was trained to do," helping others get out of harm's way. As the Mudville Gazette pointed out, when Roberts said Foster was "acting heroically" for helping others despite his injury, Foster nobly protested:

ROBERTS: So you were acting like a soldier. You were acting heroically. We should point out that you're with the 20th Engineer Battalion and despite your best efforts and I guess the efforts of your comrades, as well, four members of the battalion were killed, 10 others were injured. And you were shot in the hip and you didn't realize it at the time?

Foster: I had realized it at first, but with that much adrenaline, you tend to forget things. 

Clearly, Foster was implying that his adrenaline rush made it possible for him to forget the pain from his hip and save the lives of those around him.

However, you would never get this story if you didn't watch the video of Private Foster yourself (or read about it at the Mudville Gazette or Gateway Pundit)-because CNN was reporting Foster's account thusly:

Fort Hood, Texas (CNN) -- Pvt. Joseph Foster was filling out routine paperwork for his upcoming deployment to Afghanistan on Thursday when he heard a shout quickly followed by a burst of gunfire from just a few feet away.

"I was sitting in about the second row back when the assailant stood up and yelled 'Allahu akbar' in Arabic and he opened fire," Foster said Monday on CNN's "American Morning."

Foster, 21, said he wasn't clear about whether the gunman said those exact words, noting that "with that much adrenaline, you tend to forget things."

Of course, when the Mudville Gazette first pointed this out, CNN retroactively edited the first article they linked to.  They did find this page that as of 1:26 PM EST had the original story intact, and we at Accuracy in Media took the liberty of saving a screenshot of the page, in case they retroactively edit that one, too. 

This story serves as a disturbing wake-up call to those few left in society today who believe that such organizations as CNN are above selective editing for agenda-driven purposes.  This is just one more reason why the American people should think twice before believing what they read.

-------------------------------------------

Allie Winegar Duzett is an intern at the American Journalism Center, a training program run by Accuracy in Media and Accuracy in Academia.

"Not all Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims," said radio talk show host Peter Boyles last week on www.khow.com in Denver, Colorado.

Boyles' remarks followed a horrific mass killing by Muslim U.S. Army Major Nadal Malik Hasan at Fort Hood, Texas.  Hasan blasted away at 42 military personnel and civilians as they stood defenseless in line awaiting deployment processing for the Middle East.  He screamed, "Allah Akbar, Allah Akbar!" while unloading his firearms into the bodies of U.S. troops.

A female off-duty police officer waded into the chaos with her gun blazing until she brought him down with four shots.  He lays in a Fort Hood hospital bed in critical condition.

His condition stands as a warning and a metaphor for the United States of America as it places itself in critical danger by importing millions from incompatible cultures and languages into America at breakneck speed.  It reminds me of students in a chemistry class pouring unknown chemicals into a beaker and hoping it doesn't boil over or blow up. 

This incident isn't the first time.  U.S. Army Muslim Sergeant Hasan Akbar threw a grenade into a tent at the beginning of the Iraq War, which killed three U.S. Army officers.

The philosopher Emanuel Kant said, "Religion and language are the two great dividers of humanity."

First of all, Islam's basic tenant means, "Submission." Imams say that Islam remains a religion of peace, but they fail to tell listeners that peace will arrive only when Islam becomes the sole religion in the world.  Its prime directive in the Koran reads, "...convert or kill all non-believers, starting with the Jews."

If you look at Islam in the modern world, its terror tactics began in Munich, Germany 1972 with the mass killings of Jewish athletes at the Olympics.  From that point, every major mass murder, or killing attempt across the planet stems from Muslim terrorists at regional levels all the way to the 19 Muslims that brought down the World Trade Towers.  Muslim terrorists brought down Pan American airlines at Lockerbie, blew up barracks filled with soldiers in Africa, bombed night clubs in Balli, killed Theo Van Gogh, train bombings in Madrid, Spain; subway bombings in London, 9/11, Fort Dix six, and dozens of other killings or attempted bombings. Muslims place 'fatwa's', (a death threat for life) against writers, speakers and political leaders such as Hirsi Ali in Holland for standing up against Islam. Muslims do not tolerate free speech, free choice of religion and they do not tolerate women as equals. 

Two weeks ago, in Detroit, Michigan, 11 Muslims fought FBI agents with calls to create a separate Muslim state in Michigan under Sharia Law.  Muslims rioted in Sweden this summer against Jewish tennis players playing in that country.  Muslims rioted in November 2007 in France. 

Amil Imani , "Islam is Fire" , September 12, 2009, said, "The Islamic fire, fueled by immense oil income, is raging in certain regions of the world, smoldering in others, and is ready to ignite in yet other parts of the world. It is imperative for the free people of the world to abandon all illusions about Islam and put out its fire, once and for all. Multiculturalism, live and-let live, is a delusion of kind-hearted naïve people. Islam, as fractured as it is, is a non-compromising mono-culture; a cruel culture of a primitive people handed down by Muhammad some 1400 years ago."

Most Americans sit and watch with total oblivion of the march of Islam into America.  In 1990, only 100,000 Muslims inhabited the United States. Today, over eight million spread across the country with over 1,000 mosques and growing.  We import over 1,500 Muslim refugees every thirty days into America.  They stand in diametrical opposition to a republican form of government and equal rights for women.

At the same time, honor killings, female genital mutilation, violence toward women and hostility toward Americans accelerates.

"Immigrants devoted to their own cultures and religions are not influenced by the secular politically correct façade that dominates academia, news-media, entertainment, education, religious and political thinking today," said James Walsh, former Associate General Counsel of the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service. "They claim the right not to assimilate, and the day is coming when the question will be how can the United States regulate the defiantly unassimilated cultures, religions and mores of foreign lands?  Such immigrants say their traditions trump the U.S. legal system.  Balkanization of the United States has begun."

For example, Muslims practice female genital mutilation (FGM).  It's 6^th century Dark Ages barbarism alive in the 21^st century.  It occurs today in Detroit, Michigan, Freemont, California and Denver, Colorado, and wherever Islam grows in America.  Seven years ago, hundreds of cases of little girls suffering from infected genitalia, after being slashed with razors and glass, landed in Colorado hospitals from the FGM ritual.  Islamic practitioners, without sterile room technique or anesthesia, cut out the labia majora and minora as well as the clitoris of girls, usually less than nine years of age. 

Led by Colorado House Representative Dorothy Rupert, lawmakers passed a new law to halt it.  The practice didn't stop; it torpedoed underground.  What happens when Muslim culture becomes the majority and votes it into legal practice? 

Have you seen a country devolve?  In the Middle East today, Muslims stone women to death for adultery.  They won't allow women to drive.  Women cannot go out in public without a male relative at their side.  They demand separate swimming pool times for men and women.  They make women hide their faces with a burka into 'non-beingness'.  They practice Sharia Law which proves harsh and diametrically opposed to parliamentary law. 

Don't think it can happen in America?  Fox News, July 25, 2008 reported a Muslim honor killing in Garrett, Texas when a 12 year old girl called 911, screaming, "My dad shot me; I am dying."  She died before an ambulance arrived. Reason: father didn't like her wearing western jeans and blouses.

In Clayton County, Georgia, July 10, 2008, a Pakistani immigrant father, Chaudry Rashid strangled his daughter for not accepting his choice of a husband.  She wanted a divorce.  She was 14 when she died.

In New York, February 16, 2009, FOX News, Joshua Rhett Miller reported, "The estranged wife of a Muslim television executive feared for her life after filing for divorce last month from her abusive husband," her attorney said - and was found beheaded Thursday in his upstate New York television studio.  Aasiya Z. Hassan, 37, was found dead on Thursday at the offices of Bridges TV in Orchard Park, N.Y., near Buffalo.  Her husband, Muzzammil Hassan, 44, has reportedly been charged with second-degree murder. "She was very much aware of the potential ramification of her filing for divorce might have," said attorney Elizabeth DiPirro, whose law firm represented Aasiya Hassan in the divorce proceeding. "But she wanted to proceed despite the potential for it to erupt."

Under Sharia Law in the Middle East, such an 'honor killing' remains accepted in Islamic society.   Ann Curry on NBC hosted a news piece, "Honor Killings in America."  She reported on the astounding rise of honor killings in America by Muslim immigrants.

Last week, in Glendale, Arizona, an immigrant father, Faleh Hassan Almaleki, ran down with his Jeep truck and killed his daughter Noor for being too "Westernized."  Her crime?  She liked to wear jeans.  A sane person might ask, "Why did he immigrate to America and why did he bring his daughter?"

Worldwide, Muslim husbands and brothers kill 5,000 women every year, year in and year out-for disobeying them. (Source: Miami Herald, Leonard Pitts, November 8, 2009, "American dream doesn't include this nightmare) And, they get away with it because Sharia Law condones honor killings.  You see, Mohammed the prophet proved an illiterate tribal war leader who cut his enemies' heads and fingers off if they disobeyed him.  His barbarism remains with Islam today.

As their numbers grow in host countries, they displace laws, culture, language and finally, take over.  America will prove the last stand of humanity and Christianity against Islam's onslaught. So, far, the USA is losing its language, customs and culture - to Islam.  Of course, you see the same nightmare occurring in Sweden, United Kingdom, France, Austria, Norway, Holland, Belgium, Spain and Germany.

Part 2: Three parts of 'soft' Jihad, political correctness and Robert Spencer

-------------------------------------------

Frosty Wooldridge has bicycled across six continents - from the Arctic to the South Pole - as well as six times across the USA, coast to coast and border to border.  In 2005, he bicycled from the Arctic Circle, Norway to Athens, Greece.  He presents "The Coming Population Crisis in America: and what you can do about it" to civic clubs, church groups, high schools and colleges.  He works to bring about sensible world population balance at frostywooldridge.com  He is the author of:  America on the Brink: The Next Added 100 Million Americans.

The constructivist concept seems to be contained inside a short phrase: CONSTRUCT NEW KNOWLEDGE, as in, "Students shouldn't be focused on acquiring information or submitting to other people's ideas; education should be concerned with constructing new knowledge." I've seen a hundred such formulations. Finally, one really wants to know, is that saying anything? Nothing? What exactly?

It does sound wonderful, doesn't it? Create new knowledge! That's what Einstein did, right? And exactly that, according to many modern educators, is what children do all day in the classroom, as teachers--guides at their sides--facilitate an explosion of brand new knowledge. The process was spelled out brilliantly by Piaget and Vygotsky, geniuses both.

Hmmm. So many grandiose claims, so much smugness. I was suspicious that constructivism might be another giant flying sophistry performing whatever tricks an educator wishes. Frankly, however, I found it difficult to dismantle this thing, to deconstruct its core. The reason, I finally realized, is that the three words-- CONSTRUCT NEW KNOWLEDGE--work magically well together, like the perfectly fitting pieces of a Japanese puzzle box. This phrase insists on being experienced in toto. Every time you read it, you're inclined to murmur, "It sure does sound wonderful..." But you're still not sure what it means.

So let's bear down on these words one at a time.

1) KNOWLEDGE. This is one of our most prestigious words. DaVinci, Galileo, Archimedes, those guys dealt in knowledge. We love knowledge! Simply to edit this word to "information" brings the hype down a few notches. You want to construct new information? Okay, if you insist.

2) CONSTRUCT. We build, assemble, model, memorize, learn or, if you like, construct the new stuff in our heads. But a sleight of hand occurs when theorists let "construct" suggest something more grandiose, namely, "create" or "invent." Creating and inventing are humanity's highest mental feats. It's a stretch to insinuate that a child's every mundane mental activity is tantamount to composing a poem or devising a theory.

3) NEW. Strangely, it's this little word that is the biggest liar of the three, and that makes the whole sophistry work. Children are learning new stuff every day--how to cross the street, how to identify a type of vehicle, what a cloud is, what a word means. Fine. But in what sense is any of this "new"? It's new in the child's own brain, of course. It is most definitely NOT new in the world, having occurred trillions of time before. Where the constructivists lie is when they foster the impression that children are making something new in the world, something original and unique and precious.

Here is where this sophistry goes: constructivists argue that for children to truly learn that 2+3 equals 5 or that Paris is the capital of France, it's necessary for children to construct this "new" knowledge for themselves. If you just, for example, explain something to them, that's not authentic. If they simply memorize that 9 times 9 is 81, that doesn't count. No, they must reinvent numbers, multiplication, and this or that example, otherwise their education is an empty fraud. In summary, educators bring in constructivism so they can describe learning as happening in one particular way, and then insist that nothing else is learning. Naturally, they have to change the schools all around to make sure that only the correct kind of learning occurs.

To give a picture of how far educators run with this flimsy thing, here are a dozen typical comments found on the internet, in no special order:

"The emphasis is on the learner as an active 'maker of meanings'. The role of the teacher is to enter into a dialogue with the learner, trying to understand the meaning to that learner of the material to be learned, and to help her or him to refine their understanding..."

"Piaget's theory of constructivism states that learning begins from the inside of the child. Constructivism is a scientific theory that explains the nature of human knowledge. It is also the only known theory that explains children's construction of knowledge from birth to adolescence."

"Basically, constructivism views that knowledge is not 'about' the world, but rather 'constitutive' of the world. Knowledge is not a fixed object, it is constructed by an individual through her own experience of that object."

"Constructivism values developmentally-appropriate facilitator-supported learning that is initiated and directed by the learner. This is the path through which educators (facilitators) wish to approach students in constructing meaning of new concepts."

"Constructivism calls for the elimination of a standardized curriculum. Instead, it promotes using curricula customized to the students' prior knowledge."

"Constructivists argue that it is impractical for teachers to make all the current decisions and dump the information to students without involving students in the decision process and assessing students' abilities to construct knowledge."

"This dramatic change of role implies that a facilitator needs to display a totally different set of skills than a teacher. A teacher tells, a facilitator asks; a teacher lectures from the front, a facilitator supports from the back; a teacher gives answers according to a set curriculum, a facilitator provides guidelines and creates the environment for the learner to arrive at his or her own conclusions; a teacher mostly gives a monologue, a facilitator is in continuous dialogue with the learners."

"Focus on knowledge construction, not reproduction; present authentic tasks (contextualizing rather than abstracting instruction); provide real-world, case-based learning environments, rather than pre-determined instructional sequences; foster reflective practice; enable context-and content dependent knowledge construction..."

'The implications of such a view for education are trifold: 1. teaching is
always indirect. Kids don't just take in what's being said. Instead, they interpret what they hear in the light of their own knowledge and experience. They transform the input. 2. the transmission model, or conduit metaphor, of human communication won't do..."

"Constructivism describes how learning should happen, regardless of whether learners are using their experiences to understand a lecture or attempting to design a model airplane. In both cases, the theory of constructivism suggests that learners construct knowledge."

"Social constructivism encourages the learner to arrive at his or her own version of the truth, influenced by his or her background, culture or embedded worldview...it is thus important to take into account the background and culture of the learner throughout the learning process, as this background also helps to shape the knowledge and truth that the learner creates, discovers and attains in the learning process."

"Constructivism requires 1. sensitivity toward and attentiveness to the learner's previous constructions; 2. diagnostic teaching attempting to remedy learner errors and misconceptions; 3. attention to metacognition and strategic self-regulation by learners..."

AND IN CONCLUSION:

I wanted to list a surfeit of quotes, in case you haven't run into constructivism before. It's fascinating, isn't it, how sweeping the demands are: everything old must go, ideas, books, structures, everything! Teachers must be retrained, classrooms rearranged, schools redesigned. All on the basis, I believe, of tweaking the customary meaning of three words.

Finally, so much of 20th century education seems to be perfect storms of frail theory, robust sophistry, and gaudy jargon. More learning is always promised, even as the final result seems always to be less learning. Look at what happens in this case: the entire educational process is definitely going to be slowed down. Teachers can no longer teach--they must facilitate, i.e., interact with each student individually, which is simply not possible without hundreds of additional hours. Classes will slow down as facilitators wait endlessly for every child to come up with their "new" version of everything in life. At every turn, teachers are expected to be familiar with each student's "prior knowledge"--imagine the amount of labor entailed in that one requirement. Worse of all, you just know that children will never be asked to learn all those thousands of basic facts they need to move on up the academic ladder. The whole point of constructivism, in fact, seems to be to put traditional fact-based education on hold, while everyone busily and ostentatiously plays at "constructing new knowledge." And that is the con in constructivism.

Here's the constructivist creed: all children, if only you will not teach them anything, are little DaVinci's, churning out bold new truths. Don't wreck this beautiful geysering genius with your silly old suffocating schools.

Think about how this would work in practice. A teacher might want to say: "This bridge is a mile long. 10,000 cars go over it every day. It's a steel bridge that contains more than a million rivets...." Now, as a practical matter, that's about four little chunks of knowledge. How in the world would you get children to construct those chunks for themselves?  If you state the facts, you've already destroyed the constructivist process. If you don't state the facts, the children will probably never learn them. Multiply times many dozens of similar scenarios each day.

In constructivism you have an all-purpose alibi for skipping the boring basics. That's not real learning, don't you see? Children should concentrate on devising their own personal versions of what used to be called facts. It can sound wonderful. Kids skip all the tiresome little details, and just jump in the pilot's seat and fly.

Indeed, constructivism reminds me of another popular sophistry: higher level thinking (or critical thinking). These are activities that children who know nothing are supposed to engage in. Note the common elements of swift promotion and make-believe. Kids who don't know what war is, or what Russia is, or who Hitler was, or when 1941 was, will be invited to reflect upon World War II. You can imagine the profundity of the comments. Similarly, children who know little about numbers will be invited to construct "new knowledge" about arithmetic.

Modern educators always get things backward, because they don't want to bother with the nuisance of learning basic facts, of mastering foundational knowledge, of crawling before walking. Here's a disturbing question; are these educators just permissive and indulgent in a Rousseauvian way? Or is their goal more sinister--dumbing down whenever possible? And is constructivism just another gimmick for making sure that each generation of students is more ignorant than the one before?

AFTERWORDS

So, is there anything of substance here? Only the obvious things that everybody always knew. For example, children might learn about X in a book. Better, they observe X in person. Still better, they do X themselves. Even better, they do X several times or in competition or with changing obstacles. Obviously, there's a hierarchy here. Each successive level of engagement results in deeper, richer, more permanent memories. And what else is "learning" but memories? So of course we want to have learning by doing, the more the better. Active involvement is usually better than a boring lecture. Is there somebody somewhere who does not know this? Did all of Piaget's theoretical formulations add to the common sense understanding?

Here's another way of appreciating how crazy our educators can become. Researchers rhapsodized on the internet about an English teacher who divided her class into five sections and told each one to create a puppet show based on one of Hamlet's acts, using contemporary language if they liked. This approach was hailed as what teachers can achieve if they'll give their souls to constructivism. I like this idea. It's clever; it's creative.  Maybe it's good that some weird theory could shake up this teacher's technique. But was theory essential? Why does anyone need to muck up a pleasant day with the jargon of  constructivism? Couldn't any eager teacher come up with this? Even a century ago. Constructivism doesn't concoct this idea. A creative teacher concocts it.

Indeed, it's this sort of cleverness that ed schools should be teaching. Not because it's based on some theoretical fad but because, at the end of the day, it will increase learning! That's all that matters. Have these kids learned more about Shakespeare this way than by a lecture or watching a performance? Or is there some still more ingenious way?

At the end of the day, do they know more--that's THE question. If the teacher wants to dress up as a penguin and jump off the roof, all I want to know is whether this approach works. Do the kids feel they learned more?

Constructivism, like astrology, aroma therapy, feng shui, Buddhist prayer wheels, and Pythagorean theorems, could on a given day spark some juicy new idea. I'm glad of it. But my suspicion is that constructivism typically keeps a class in first gear. There's something dense and unfriendly about the jargon. Something a little demented and totalitarian in the insistence that everything must be learned according to a certain formula or sequence. When was that ever the truth?

Finally, there is the matter of helpfulness or appropriateness. Some things belong in Philosophy Departments. That human consciousness and human mistakes may shape what we describe as real--sure, that's always been a slant that philosophers love to debate. But constructivists want to use all these what-if's as pretext for disrupting and dismantling what children will learn in elementary school. Constructivism is not constructive.

Here's one more quote from the internet. I like this one especially because the writer sounds so crazed. Indeed, this little quote is worth savoring--it's almost a perfect description of insanity:  "In fact, for the social constructivist, reality is not something that we can discover because it does not pre-exist prior to our social invention of it. Kukla (2000) argues that reality is constructed by our own activities and that people, together as members of a society, invent the properties of the world."

I'm reminded of a poem I wrote years ago. The narrator is a patient at a mental institution, now roaming the grounds. Here's how it starts:

THE EMPEROR

birds circle
according to my desire
the wind whispers
what I wish to hear
leaves lift and sigh
as I walk by

I am the emperor...

SCHOLARLY  FOOTNOTE:

The two most popular sophistries of the last 50 years are complements: DECONSTRUCTION and CONSTRUCTIVISM. 

Each is an attempted coup d'etat, accomplished not with guns but with words. Each is intended to let the user control reality.

DECONSTRUCTION (just a fancy way of saying DESTROY) lets you get rid of what you don't like. CONSTRUCTIVISIM lets you create what you do like and ignore all else. 

How convenient.

The pretentiousness and what might be called semantic desperation of these things should tell you a lot about the people who resort to them.

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Bruce Price - is the founder of Improve-Education.org, a lively intellectual site with articles on Latin, birds, Pavlov, phonics, sophistry, 1984, the assault on math, design, teaching science, why our educators do a bad job, and much more.

Bruce Price's fifth book is "THE EDUCATION ENIGMA--What Happened To American Education." (Available on Amazon.)

WASHINGTON, D.C., November 8, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Celebration over the dramatic victory of a pro-life amendment in the House health care bill late Saturday night was quickly dimmed by the passage of the bill, which not only presents a plethora of other dangers, but also could lose even the hard-won pro-life language in later proceedings.

At approximately 10:20 p.m. EST Saturday night, the U.S. House voted 240-194 to approve an amendment to H.R. 3962 that maintains long-standing federal policy on abortion by banning government-appropriated funds from covering elective abortions.  Then, just before 11 p.m., House lawmakers voted 220-215 to pass the massive health care overhaul.  One Republican voted for the bill.

Family Research Council president Tony Perkins called the passage of the pro-life amendment "a huge pro-life victory" and congratulated the bipartisan effort against the bill's abortion coverage.  "We applaud this House vote which prohibits the abortion industry from further profiting from taxpayers by using government funds to pay for the gruesome act of abortion," he said.

"Unfortunately, H.R. 3962 is a seriously flawed piece of legislation," said Perkins, who pointed out the bill's massive governmental power grab and open door to health care rationing, among other issues.

National Right to Life's Douglas Johnson agreed that the victory was not total.  "Today's bipartisan House vote is a sharp blow to the White House's pro-abortion smuggling operation," he said. 

"But we know that the White House and pro-abortion congressional Democratic leaders will keep trying to enact government funding of abortion, and will keep trying to conceal their true intentions, so there is a long battle ahead."

Pro-abort leaders across America flew into a rage as the pro-life Stupak amendment, unexpectedly approved for consideration Friday night, went on to gain an easy victory Saturday.  Many pointed fingers at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), whose input several lawmakers relied on to discern solidly pro-life amendments for the bill.

"It is extremely unfortunate that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and anti-choice opponents were able to hijack the health care reform bill in their dedicated attempt to ban all legal abortion In the United States," said Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards in a statement late Saturday. (SOURCE)

Yet various sources confirm that Pelosi's last-minute turnaround was not a true abandonment of her abortion allies, but a temporary concession to keep the struggling bill alive - with hopes that a subsequent bicameral version would scrap the pro-life language.  There is a larger pro-abortion majority in the Senate, making it unlikely a similar pro-life scenario would play out on the Senate floor.

Some Democrat lawmakers have already vowed to pursue such a reversal.

"I feel certain [the Stupak amendment] will come out of the bill before it comes back from committee," pro-abortion California Democrat Lynn Woolsey told The Hill. "I will insist that it come out."

Ultimately pro-life leaders appeared to agree that the amendment, though important in its own right, put hardly a dent in an otherwise massively dangerous bill.

Noted FRC's Perkins: "The Speaker's bill still allows rationing of health care for seniors, raises health costs for families, mandates that families purchase under threat of fines and penalties, encourages counseling for assisted suicide in some states, does not offer broad conscience protections for health care workers and seeks to insert the federal government into all aspects of citizen's lives."

American Life League president Judie Brown had harsh words for the USCCB's cooperative attitude toward the legislation.  While aggressively promoting the long-standing ban on federal abortion funding, the Conference has largely not questioned other dangerous aspects of President Obama's overhaul - a position Brown says risks making the bishops "political pawns in advancing a culture of death that treats human life as disposable."

"[The health bill's] instrumentalist approach to abortion will serve to enshrine in law grave injustices condemned unequivocally by the Catholic Church," she said.  "Among these are rationed health care, In vitro fertilization, embryonic stem cell research, human experimentation, euthanasia and birth control.

"Faithful Catholics have a responsibility to vigorously oppose abortion in healthcare, not negotiate the status quo."

See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:

NY Times: Dems Banking on Later Squeezing Pro-Life Language Out of Bill in Committee

Major Health Care Development - Pro-Life Stupak Amendment Vote OK'd for Today

LifeSiteNews.com is a non-profit Internet service dedicated to issues of culture, life, and family. It was launched in September 1997. LifeSiteNews Daily News reports and information pages are used by numerous organizations and publications, educators, professionals and political, religious and life and family organization leaders and grassroots people across North America and internationally.

But never fear, the mainstream media will keep looking for a motive! "Fort Hood shooting: Texas army killer linked to September 11 terrorists," by Philip Sherwell and Alex Spillius for the Telegraph, November 7 (thanks to all who sent this in):

Major Nidal Malik Hasan worshipped at a mosque led by a radical imam said to be a "spiritual adviser" to three of the hijackers who attacked America on Sept 11, 2001.

Hasan, the sole suspect in the massacre of 13 fellow US soldiers in Texas, attended the controversial Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Great Falls, Virginia, in 2001 at the same time as two of the September 11 terrorists, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt. His mother's funeral was held there in May that year.

The preacher at the time was Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born Yemeni scholar who was banned from addressing a meeting in London by video link in August because he is accused of supporting attacks on British troops and backing terrorist organisations.

Hasan's eyes "lit up" when he mentioned his deep respect for al-Awlaki's teachings, according to a fellow Muslim officer at the Fort Hood base in Texas, the scene of Thursday's horrific shooting spree.

As investigators look at Hasan's motives and mindset, his attendance at the mosque could be an important piece of the jigsaw. Al-Awlaki moved to Dar al-Hijrah as imam in January, 2001, from the west coast, and three months later the September 11 hijackers Nawaf al-Hamzi and Hani Hanjour began attending his services. A third hijacker attended his services in California.

Hasan was praying at Dar al-Hijrah at about the same time, and the FBI will now want to investigate whether he met the two terrorists.

Charles Allen, a former under-secretary for intelligence at the Department of Homeland Security, has described al-Awlaki, who now lives in Yemen, as an "al-Qaeda supporter, and former spiritual leader to three of the September 11 hijackers... who targets US Muslims with radical online lectures encouraging terrorist attacks from his new home in Yemen"....

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When John Wilkes Booth opened fire on President Abraham Lincoln in Ford's Theatre in April 1865, the media was puzzled. "True, the actor was outspoken in his Confederate sympathies and viewed himself as a Southerner," said someone who knew him, "but that was no reason he might want Lincoln to be dead."

The day before he went on his shooting spree, Booth hoisted a big Confederate flag outside his hotel room. After he leaped onto the stage he shouted, "Thus ever to tyrants!" the motto of the rebel state of Virginia.

The New York Times reported that Booth was psychologically unstable and was frightened of the Civil War coming to an end and having to face a peacetime actors' surplus. "His political views had nothing to do with the motives for this tragic act," it said, quoting experts.

After Fritz Reichmark opened fire on fellow soldiers at Fort Dix in January 1942 the media was puzzled. "True, he used to go to German-American Bund meetings," said one fellow soldier, "but he only wore the swastika armband in his off-hours." Reichmark would regale other soldiers with diatribes against the Jews, Winston Churchill, and Communists. The day before he went on his shooting spree, Reichmark gave out copies of Mein Kampf to neighbors. Soldiers who survived reported he was shouting "Heil Hitler!" while firing at them.

The New York Times reported that Reichmark was psychologically unstable and was frightened of being shipped out to North Africa because he was a coward, though this doesn't explain his making a suicide attack when his job wouldn't have required him to go into combat. "His German ancestry and political views had nothing to do with the motives for this tragic act," it said, quoting experts. The newspaper urged that the main lesson coming out of this event was to fight more firmly against Germanophobia.

When Padraic O'Brian bombed a restaurant in London with massive loss of life, the media was puzzled. "True, he used to go to IRA rallies," said a cousin, "and he would rant for hours about how the British invaders should be wiped out" but the media reported that this had nothing to do with this attack which was caused by his psychological problems. As he fired at pursuing police, O'Brian yelled: "Up the republic!"

The Guardian reported: "His Irish identity and political views had nothing to do with the motives for this tragic act." The newspaper urged that the main lesson coming out of this event was the need to fight more firmly to ensure that Northern Ireland was handed over to the Irish Republic and that Israel be wiped off the map.

When a group of 19 terrorists flew two planes into the World Trade Center, one into the Pentagon and the fourth crashed on the way to the White House, the media was puzzled. "True, they wrote letters to Usama bin Ladin and expressed radical views but their act of violence must have been connected to their extreme poverty back in Saudi Arabia," one expert was quoted as saying. When informed the young men all came from well-off families, he responded, "Oh."

The New York Times reported that they were all psychologically unstable and had difficult times in forming stable relationships with women. "The fact that they were Arabs and Muslims or their political views had nothing to do with the motives for this tragic act," it explained. The newspaper urged that the main lesson coming out of the attack was the need to fight against Islamophobia and Arabophobia as well as for the United States to make more concessions in the Middle East and to impeach President George W. Bush.

The point of the above exercise is to make the following points:

--Individuals who commit terrorist acts often have psychological problems but the thing that justified, organized, and ensured that violence would be committed were political ideas.

--Whenever an individual who belongs to any group commits a crime, it is possible that some will stigmatize the entire group. Most Americans or Westerners today, however, will not do so. The most important issue is to identify why the terrorist act happened and what to look for (including which type of individuals) to prevent future attacks.

--When there is clear evidence that danger signs were ignored because people were afraid of being stigmatized for doing their job of protecting their fellows, that is a dangerous mistake that must be corrected.

--Someone who is "afraid" of being sent into a war zone is not likely to handle that cowardice by standing up with a gun in a suicide attack and shooting people until he falls to the ground with about four bullet wounds.

--The media can often be stupid but when it censors reporting for political or social engineering reasons, freedom is jeopardized. The correct phrase is: The public's right to know. It is not: The public has to be guided into drawing the proper conclusions by slanting and limiting information even if the conclusions being pressed on them are lies and nonsense.

--------------------------------

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan).

Sunstein argues that traditional marriage discriminates against single people by imposing "serious economic and material disadvantages." He asks, "Why not leave people's relationships to their own choices, subject to the judgments of private organizations, religious and otherwise?"

Sunstein also suggests "routine removal" of human organs because "the state owns the rights to body parts of people who are dead or in certain hopeless conditions, and it can remove their organs without asking anyone's permission."

The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was passed in 1996 by overwhelming majorities in Congress and signed by President Bill Clinton. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has identified more than 1,000 federal laws that are based on the traditional definition of marriage, including the tax laws that permit married couples the advantage of filing joint income tax returns and the Social Security benefits awarded to fulltime homemakers, both very popular federal laws.

The peculiar push to recognize polygamy as just another variety of marriage is a predictable and logical corollary of the political movement to recognize same-sex marriage. If our government cannot define marriage as the union of one man and one woman, it follows that there can be no law against the union of a man and several women.

For years, polygamy, even though it is totally demeaning to women, has been embraced by the powerful American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Polygamy is one of the many controversial issues that were not raised during ACLU lawyer Ruth Bader Ginsburg's so-friendly Supreme Court confirmation hearings.

The ACLU's feminist president, Nadine Strossen, stated in a speech at Yale University in June 2005 that the ACLU defends "the right of individuals to engage in polygamy." On October 15, 2006, in a high-profile debate against Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, Strossen stated that the ACLU supports the right to polygamy.

Speaking to the Federalist Society on November 18, 2006, the ACLU's executive director, Anthony Romero, confirmed his organization's support of polygamy.

The massive immigration that the United States has accepted in recent years includes large numbers of immigrants from Third World countries that approve of polygamy as well as marriage to children and to close relatives. We wonder if polygamists have been admitted to the U.S. and if they are continuing these customs in U.S. neighborhoods.

Attacks on the traditional legal definition of marriage come from the gay lobby seeking social recognition of their lifestyle, from the anti-marriage feminists, and from some libertarians who believe marriage should be merely a private affair, none of the government's business. These libertarians want to deny government the right to define marriage, set its standards, or issue marriage licenses.

Government now has and should have a very important role in defining who may get a license to marry. In America, it is and should be a criminal offense to marry more than one person at a time, or marry a child or a close relative, even though such practices are common in some foreign countries.

In Socialist Canada, which has already approved same-sex marriage, polygamy has suddenly become a live issue. British Columbia's Supreme Court is now being asked to decide if polygamy should remain illegal.

We may have to depend on the Republican Party to maintain government's proper role in defining and protecting traditional marriage. The very first Platform adopted by the Republican Party, in 1856, condemned polygamy and slavery as the "twin relics of barbarism," and the 2008 Republican Platform calls for "a constitutional amendment that fully protects marriage as a union of a man and a woman, so that judges cannot make other arrangements equivalent to it."

---------------

Further reading:

• "Beyond Gay Marriage", The Weekly Standard, 08/17/2006
• Marriage
• Feminism

----------------

 Eagle Forum supports American sovereignty 
We oppose opening U.S. northern and southern borders to a North American Community, or Security and Prosperity Partnership, or any kind of economic integration.

We oppose all encroachments against American sovereignty through United Nations treaties or conferences that try to impose global taxes, gun registration, energy restrictions, feminist goals, or regulation on our use of oceans.

We support the deployment of an anti-ballistic missile defense to protect American lives..........more 

New Findings Indicate 85 Percent of Women Have Negative Reactions After Abortion 

Springfield, IL -- A new study on mental health problems after abortion has found that 85 percent of women reported negative reactions to abortion, putting them at higher risk for mental health problems.

The paper, published in the British Journal of Psychiatry, found that more than 85 percent of women who aborted reported at least one negative reaction to abortion, such as such as sorrow, grief, regret or disappointment; and approximately 35 percent reported five or more negative reactions.

The high numbers are of concern because the paper also found that the risk of mental disorders among women who had negative reactions to abortion was 40 to 80 percent higher than among women who didn't abort. 

The results came from an ongoing survey that tracked women in the Christchurch area of New Zealand from birth to age 30. A subsample of about 530 women were given questions about their pregnancy history and mental health outcomes, including being asked whether the pregnancy was unwanted or unplanned, and their initial reaction to the pregnancy at the time. 

Overall, more than 86 percent of women who had abortions also reported at least one positive reaction, such as feelings of relief, happiness or satisfaction. When the responses are broken down into categories, however, more women were likely to respond "not at all" when asked if they felt happiness (58 percent "not at all" vs. 23 percent "very much") or satisfaction (60 percent vs. 20 percent) about the abortion.

The research team concluded that "many women experience a mixture of both positive and negative emotions about having an abortion," but said that that the results don't support the belief that abortion is better for women than unwanted or unplanned pregnancy. 

"There is no evidence in this research that would suggest that unwanted pregnancies that come to term were associated with increased risks of mental health problems or that abortion mitigated the risks of mental health problems in women having unwanted pregnancy," the authors noted.

Supports Previous Findings on Mental Health and Abortion

The latest findings follow two other studies led by the same researcher that also linked abortion to higher rates of mental health problems.

In 2005, they published findings showing that young women who had abortions subsequently experienced higher rates of suicidal behaviors, depression, substance abuse, anxiety and other mental health problems.

A second study in 2008 found that women were 30 percent more likely to experience mental health disorders after abortion than they were for other pregnancy outcomes. As with the current paper, this study found that women who continued an unwanted or mistimed pregnancy did not experience a significant increase in mental health problems--challenging arguments from abortion advocates that abortion is better for women than carrying an "unwanted" pregnancy to term.

Abortion Not As Safe as Presented, Authors Say

In the 2005 paper, the authors were critical of the American Psychological Association's claim that abortion does not pose mental health risks for most women. The study's lead author, Prof. David Fergusson, who has described himself as pro-choice, has been an outspoken critic of the APA and has called for more research into the safety of abortion.

Last year, Fergusson published an editorial supporting the position of the Royal College of Psychiatrists in the U.K., which said that the evidence suggests that abortion can increase mental health problems for some women. He also criticized a report by an APA task force that dismissed research linking abortion and mental health problems and which claimed that abortion is generally safe for most women.

The Legal Implications

The findings of these studies could have an impact on the the legal status of abortion in some countries, the researchers noted.

For example, British law only allows abortion when the risks of physical and psychological injury from continuing a pregnancy are greater than if the pregnancy is aborted. And in New Zealand, more than 90 percent of abortions are done under a provision in the law that only allows abortion when "the continuance of the pregnancy would result in serious danger (not being danger normally attendant upon childbirth) to the life, or to the physical or mental health, of the woman or girl."

In the current paper, the authors noted that "this evidence raises important questions" about the practice of performing abortions "on the grounds that this procedure will reduce risks of mental health problems in women having an unwanted pregnancy."

"Currently there is no evidence to support the assumptions underlying this practice, and the findings of the present study suggest that abortion may, in fact, increase mental health risks among those women who find seeking and obtaining an abortion a distressing experience," they stated.

Besides the 85 percent of women reporting negative reactions in this study, other evidence suggests that many women do, in fact, find this experience distressing.

A survey of American women who had abortions found that more than half said they felt rushed or uncertain about abortion and 64 percent reported feeling pressured by others to abort. Sixty-five percent of the survey respondents reported symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder that they attributed to their abortions, with slightly over 14 percent reporting all the symptoms for a diagnosis of PTSD.

Providing Real Help for Women in Need

Frequently, when a woman or girl is pregnant in a crisis situation, those around her--including medical personnel, mental health professionals, her family or partner, and others who are in positions of authority--believe that abortion is the best, or only, solution to protect her mental health and well-being. Some may even pressure, coerce or push her to have an abortion because they believe it will be best for her.

These findings suggest that abortion is likely to be far more damaging to the woman or girl than continuing the pregnancy would be, even when the pregnancy is unplanned or unwanted.

Further, the evidence points to the need for health care providers and abortionists to screen women and girls for coercion and other known, statistically-validated factors that put them at risk for mental health problems after abortion. Such screening would help put an end to abortions that are unwanted, unsafe and unnecessary and would help protect the rights of both women and their unborn children.

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To view the Elliot Institute's model bill holding abortionists liable for failing to screen for coercion and psychological risk factors before abortion, visit www.stopforcedabortions.com.

Source:

David M. Ferugsson, L. John Horwood and Joseph M. Boden, "Reactions to abortion and subsequent mental health," The British Journal of Psychiatry 195: 420-426 (2009). 

The European Court of Human Rights has ruled against the use of crucifixes in classrooms in Italy.

It said the practice violated the right of parents to educate their children as they saw fit, and ran counter to the child's right to freedom of religion.

The case was brought by an Italian mother, Soile Lautsi, who wants to give her children a secular education.

But the ruling has sparked anger in the largely Catholic country, with one politician calling the move "shameful"....

Education Minister Mariastella Gelmini said the crucifix was a "symbol of our tradition", and not a mark of Catholicism.

One government minister called the ruling "shameful", while another said that Europe was forgetting its Christian heritage....

Some conservatives have already complained about schools dropping nativity plays to avoid upsetting Muslim children.

Odd usage of "conservatives" there. Usually in mainstream media stories dealing with events outside the U.S., "conservatives" are sawing off their daughters' heads, or blowing something up.

---------------------------------end article

RightSideNews.com takes this opportunity to thank Robert Spencer and JihadWatch.org, for their diligent and faithful battle against the radical Islamist agenda.

Why Jihad Watch?

Because non-Muslims in the West, as well as in India, China, Russia, and the world over, are facing a concerted effort by Islamic jihadists, the motives and goals of whom are largely ignored by the Western media, to destroy their societies and bring them forcibly into the Islamic world -- and to commit violence to that end even while their overall goal remains out of reach. That effort goes under the general rubric of jihad.

Jihad (Arabic for "struggle") is a central duty of every Muslim. Modern Muslim theologians have spoken of many things as jihads: the struggle within the soul, defending the faith from critics, supporting its growth and defense financially, even migrating to non-Muslim lands for the purpose of spreading Islam. But violent jihad is a constant of Islamic history. Many passages of the Qur'an and sayings of the Prophet Muhammad are used by jihad warriors today to justify their actions and gain new recruits. No major Muslim group has ever repudiated the doctrines of armed jihad. The theology of jihad, which denies unbelievers equality of human rights and dignity, is available today for anyone with the will and means to bring it to life.

Jihad Watch is dedicated to bringing public attention to the role that jihad theology and ideology plays in the modern world, and to correcting popular misconceptions about the role of jihad and religion in modern-day conflicts. We hope to alert people of good will to the true nature of the present global conflict.

JIHAD IS A CENTRAL DUTY of every Muslim. Modern Muslim theologians have spoken of many things as jihads: the struggle within the soul, defending the faith from critics, supporting its growth and defense financially, even migrating to non-Muslim lands for the purpose of spreading Islam. But in Islamic history and doctrine violent jihad is founded on numerous verses of the Qur'an -- most notably, one known in Islamic theology as the "Verse of the Sword": "Then, when the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them (captive), and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush. But if they repent and establish worship and pay the poor-due, then leave their way free. Lo! Allah is forgiving, merciful" (Sura 9:5). Establishing "regular worship" and paying the "poor-due" (zakat) means essentially that they will become Muslim, as these are two of the central responsibilities of every Muslim. Sahih Bukhari, which Muslims regard as the most trustworthy of all the many collections of traditions of Muhammad, records this statement of the Prophet: "Allah assigns for a person who participates in (holy battles) in Allah's Cause and nothing causes him to do so except belief in Allah and in His Messengers, that he will be recompensed by Allah either with a reward, or booty (if he survives) or will be admitted to Paradise (if he is killed in the battle as a martyr)."

Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406), a pioneering historian and philosopher, was also a legal theorist. In his renowned Muqaddimah, the first work of historical theory, he notes that "in the Muslim community, the holy war is a religious duty, because of the universalism of the Muslim mission and (the obligation to) convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force." In Islam, the person in charge of religious affairs is concerned with "power politics," because Islam is "under obligation to gain power over other nations."

Violent jihad is a constant of Islamic history. The passages quoted above and many others like them form a major element of the motivation of jihad warriors worldwide today. No major Muslim group has ever repudiated the doctrines of armed jihad. The theology of jihad, with all its assumptions about unbelievers‚ lack of human rights and dignity, is available today as a justification for anyone with the will and the means to bring it to life.

Jihad Watch is dedicated to bringing public attention to the role that jihad theology and ideology play in the modern world and to correcting popular misconceptions about the role of jihad and religion in modern-day conflicts. By shedding as much light as possible on these matters, we hope to alert people of good will to the true nature of the present global conflict.

Jihad Watch also includes Dhimmi Watch, formerly a separate page on this site, tracking dhimmitude. Dhimmitude is the status that Islamic law, the Sharia, mandates for non-Muslims, primarily Jews and Christians. Dhimmis, "protected people," are free to practice their religion in a Sharia regime, but are made subject to a number of humiliating regulations designed to enforce the Qur'an's command that they "feel themselves subdued" (Sura 9:29). This denial of equality of rights and dignity remains part of the Sharia, and, as such, are part of the legal superstructure that global jihadists are laboring to restore everywhere in the Islamic world, and wish ultimately to impose on the entire human race.

If dhimmis complained about their inferior status, institutionalized humiliation, or poverty, their masters voided their contract and regarded them as enemies of Islam, fair game as objects of violence. Consequently, dhimmis were generally cowed into silence and worse. It was almost unheard-of to find dhimmis speaking out against their oppressors; to do so would have been suicide. For centuries dhimmi communities in the Islamic world learned to live in peace with their Muslim overlords by acquiescing to their subservience. Some even actively identified with the dominant class, and became strenuous advocates for it.

Spearheaded by dhimmi academics and self-serving advocacy groups, that same attitude of chastened subservience has entered into Western academic study of Islam, and from there into journalism, school textbooks, and the popular discourse. One must not point out the depredations of jihad and dhimmitude; to do so would offend the multiculturalist ethos that prevails everywhere today. To do so would endanger chances for peace and rapprochement between civilizations all too ready to clash.

But in this era of global terrorism it must be said: this silence, this distortion, has become deadly. Before 9/11 it was easy to ignore and whitewash dhimmitude, but the atrocities changed the situation forever. In jihads throughout history, untold millions have died. Tens of millions have been uprooted from their homes. Tens of millions have been stripped of their cultural identity. To continue to gloss over the destruction wrought by jihad ideology and its attendant evil of dhimmitude is today to play into the hands of jihadists, who have repeatedly vowed to dhimmify the West and destroy any recalcitrant elements. While jihadist groups, even with their global diffusion, are not strong enough to realize this goal by themselves, they have a potent and destructive ally, a genuine fifth column, in the dhimmi academics and dhimmi journalists they have recruited in the West. They have succeeded in confusing millions in the West into mistaking honesty and truthfulness for bigotry, and self-defense for oppression.

Before it's too late for Western Europe and the United States, which gave birth to the traditions of freedom and equality of rights for all that shine today as lights in the entire world, this must be stopped. Therefore Jihad Watch seeks to bring public attention to:

• The plight of the dhimmis, an immense but almost completely ignored ongoing scandal that continues in Muslim countries today;
• The plight of women under Sharia provisions, similar to conditions imposed on dhimmis, in the denial of equal rights and dignity;
• Slavery in Islamic lands, which continues today, justified by Sharia-'s dhimmi codes;
• The integral role of jihad and dhimmitude ideology in global terrorism today;
• The license that academic and journalistic whitewashes of dhimmitude gives to radical jihadist enemies of human rights for all.

Jihad Watch fights to ensure that deeds done in the darkness for so long will not continue to be done. The light of world attention is anathema to the proponents of jihad and dhimmitude: we have seen in recent years that women sentenced to stoning for adultery, often victims of rape unjustly accused thanks to Sharia laws disallowing rape victims' testimony, were freed following international outcry. Jihad Watch seeks to provoke similar, continuous and increasing outcry wherever and whenever the Sharia's institutionalized injustices threaten dhimmis and women.

May the truth prevail.

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. - OldSpeak, an online publication of The Rutherford Institute, hosts a provocative discussion between Frank Schaeffer, the son of Christian evangelist Francis Schaeffer and author of Patience with God: Faith for People Who Don't Like Religion (or Atheism) (Da Capo Press, 2009), and John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute.

The interview, "Patience with God: Taking on Atheists and Christian Fundamentalists," is a candid discussion of religion and its impact on American politics between two individuals, Schaeffer and Whitehead, whose ideas and actions have shaped our national dialogue on matters of religion and politics.

WHITEHEAD: In your book Patience with God, you point out that the New Atheists are just as dangerous as you consider fundamentalist Christians to be.  Can you explain why?

SCHAEFFER: I would go even further and say that the New Atheists are fundamentalists.  They have just changed a few words and instead of trying to get everybody to believe in a certain theological idea, they are trying to enforce a kind of philosophical morality on the rest of the country. They actually argue that you are stupid if you believe in God.  There is a lot of mockery involved.  It is found in the tone of Bill Maher's documentary film, Religulous. It is also shown in the tone of his TV show. What you are watching is the flip side of Pat Robertson or James Dobson. It is the same kind of intolerance towards diversity and people who disagree with you as you see from the Right.  In my book Patience with God, I make the argument that these two movements-religious fundamentalism and the New Atheism-are parallel movements. They come from the same lack of understanding and spirituality which involves celebrating paradox. It lacks mystery. We simply don't have to answer every question.

The interview, "Patience with God: Taking on Atheists and Christian Fundamentalists," is available at Rutherford Institute.

Frank Schaeffer is a prolific blogger and a New York Times best-selling author. His most recent books include Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back (2007) and Keeping Faith: A Father-Son Story About Love and the United States Marine Corps (2003) about his son's military service in Iraq. He also co-authored AWOL: The Unexcused Absence of America's Upper Classes from Military Service-and How It Hurts Our Country (2006) and How Free People Move Mountains: A Male Christian Conservative and a Female Jewish Liberal on a Quest for Common Purpose and Meaning (2003).

OldSpeak, the online journal of The Rutherford Institute, is dedicated to publishing interviews, articles and commentary on subjects often overlooked by the mainstream media in the areas of politics, art, culture, law and religion. The Rutherford Institute is an international, nonprofit civil liberties organization committed to defending constitutional and human rights.

Many Christians and religious Jews, along with secular liberal-progresssives, sincerely oppose the death penalty for convicted murderers or rapists. They are firmly persuaded that the God-given miracle of life is too precious to leave in the hands of fallible human jurors and judges.

Almost all people agree that murder, taking matters into one's own hands without the sanction of civil justice, is forbidden. Indeed, that view is one of the oldest imbedded in society's laws.

Those same laws of society, from time immemorial, also dictated executing murderers and rapists, provided that they were brought before a lawfully constituted body and convicted by requisite evidence. Justice was fitting the penalty to the crime.

Justice was viewed from the standpoint of the whole of society, not solely from the viewpoint of the accused. Acts of rape, mutilation, or murder were crimes against the order of society, as well as against the specific victims.

Ancient law codes, from the Ten Commandments to Hammurabi's law, were based upon an explicit reference to the gods recognized as the protectors of that society. Thus executing murderers and rapists, as well as acts of murder or rape, inevitably raise moral questions. Today those questions tend to be confined to the criminal who commits such acts. Little thought is given to the morality of protecting society from such people, as well as the rights of victims and their families. Little thought is given to the degrading effect upon society, the contempt for law and justice, engendered by limiting punishment of murderers and rapists to prison confinement, from which they all too often escape or are paroled. Little thought is given to the frequency with which escapees or parolees murder, mutilate, and rape new victims.

For more details regarding that aspect of the death penalty, see Lester Jackson's essay on the TCS Daily website.

Many Christians and religious Jews who oppose the death penalty also oppose abortion. But many secular liberal-progressives oppose the death penalty while advocating an absolute and unilateral right of a woman to murder her baby via abortion. Why, it's fair to ask , are the lives of ruthless criminals so much more important than the lives of innocent unborn or just-born babies?

Opposition of the ACLU and other liberal-progressives to the death penalty and their support for abortion pivot off their support for civil rights. Because a disproportionate number of murders, mutilations, and rapes are committed by blacks and other minorities, the ACLU says that the death penalty is itself discrimination against those minorities and an infringement of civil rights. Because the ACLU, and liberal-progressives generally, reject Judeo-Christian morality as a foundation of social order, they have no compunction about elevating feminist ideology over unborn babies' right to life.

The underlying philosophical support for such doctrine is socialism's concept of social justice. The first prominent statement of that doctrine was the work of French Revolutionary philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau in the middle 1700s. Rousseau asserted that, in the original state of nature, there was plenty of everything for everybody and that people were benevolent, resorting to neither aggression and crime, nor war.

In Rousseau's imagination (he admitted that he had no historical or other evidence to support it), this idyllic perfection, the secular-liberal-progressive version of the Garden of Eden, was ended by the advent of private property rights and the structuring of societies to protect those property rights. Once someone declared a piece of ground to be his property and asserted a right to prevent its use by others, avarice, greed, aggression, crime, and war were unleashed upon a formerly peaceful and benevolent humanity.

Opposition to the death penalty rests in part upon Rousseau's imagined benevolence of people in the original state of nature. If crime is the product of ownership of private property, then humanity can be returned to its natural benevolence by redistribution of property under a socialist regime. Murderers and rapists can be rehabilitated through the ministrations of secular social scientists, because humans are all good when not corrupted by a social and political structure that protects property rights.

This doctrine is unsupported by historical experience, indeed totally repudiated by socialist experiment, from Revolutionary France, to the Soviet Union, Hitler's National Socialism, and Mao's Red China. But it was the genesis of the ACLU, which was organized during the First World War to support socialists' and anarchists' efforts to sabotage America's preparations for entry into the European conflict.

The ACLU, ever since, has adopted as its official purpose supporting any effort to degrade the Judeo-Christian moral ethos upon which the United States was founded.

For the ACLU and its liberal-progressive supporters, at least, opposition to the death penalty is, at bottom, just one more way to corrode the moral foundations of constitutional government in the United States, a constitutional government founded upon the essentiality of private property rights. It is precisely this same objective that governs ACLU advocacy of abortion.

In an article in the socialist Monthly Review, "Journalism, Democracy, and Class Struggle," McChesney declared, "Our job is to make media reform part of our broader struggle for democracy, social justice, and, dare we say it, socialism."

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In the video, which captures Wright's appearance at a September 17, 2009, anniversary celebration of Monthly Review, Wright said that while the "corporate media" provide a "binary lens" of the world, in such terms as "communist versus Christian," Monthly Review offers what it calls "no-nonsense Marxism."

He added: "You dispel all the negative images we have been programmed to conjure up with just the mention of that word socialism or Marxism."

He called America "land of the greed and home of the slave."

During the 2008 presidential campaign, as Obama was trying to distance himself from figures such as Wright and Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers, Wright gave a speech at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. and repeated a discredited Soviet propaganda claim that the U.S. Government had manufactured the AIDS virus to kill black people.

The McChesney introduction of Wright provides more insight into the political network, based largely in Chicago, that launched Obama's political career and still influences him.

A professor at the University of Illinois, where Bill Ayers is also employed, McChesney was an editor of Monthly Review but now serves as a contributor to the publication and a director of the Monthly Review Foundation.

Fox News' Glenn Beck, who has focused critical public attention on McChesney's influence in the "media reform" movement and on the Obama Administration, has noted that McChesney co-authored another piece for Monthly Review, "A New New Deal Under Obama?," in which he said, "In the end, there is no real answer but to remove brick by brick the capitalist system itself, rebuilding the entire society on socialist principles."

Ironically, McChesney's Free Press organization has received at least $1 million from the Open Society Institute of billionaire George Soros, a mega-capitalist who seems to have dedicated his life to overturning the system that made him wealthy.

At the 2007 Free Press "National Conference for Media Reform," Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) launched a vicious attack on conservative talk radio, saying that the survival of America was itself at stake because of "neo-fascist" and "neo-con" talk-show hosts led by Rush Limbaugh.

Accuracy in Media's coverage of various Free Press conferences led us to publish the book The Death of Talk Radio?, recognizing the dangers to a truly free press that were being assembled by forces on the political left. But rather than pursue the destruction of conservative media through such measures as the Fairness Doctrine, it appears that "diversity" in media, "localism," and "Internet neutrality" are becoming the main methods for media manipulation and control.

Dropping any pretense of objectivity and non-partisanship, the 2008 "National Conference for Media Reform" turned into a Barack Obama-for-President rally, as left-wing media figure Arianna Huffington denounced John McCain as a "Trojan horse for the right" who had "sold his soul" to become president. Several speakers, including Federal Communications Commissioner Michael Copps, used the Obama campaign slogan, "Yes, we can," as they urged the thousands of "progressives" in the audience to bring "change" to Washington, D.C.

The change can now be seen in the main agency, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), with jurisdiction over the media as well as the Internet. A major figure in Free Press conferences, Mark Lloyd, is now the Associate General Counsel and Chief Diversity Officer at the FCC. But he has gotten critical attention from Glenn Beck and others for praising the Marxist revolution in Venezuela, where the regime has attempted to control or even eliminate private media sources. Lloyd also has defended Paul Robeson, the famous singer and actor who tried to conceal his involvement in Communist Party activities from congressional investigators.

A former Free Press official, Jen Howard, is now the press secretary for the Federal Communications Commission.

As for Wright, he received some unwanted attention for saying earlier this year that he blamed "them Jews" for keeping him away from President Obama.

At the Monthly Review celebration, however, he went into more detail about his own personal and political philosophy. He said that "My work with liberation theology, with Latin American theologians, with the Black Theology Project and with the Cuban Council of Churches taught me 30 years ago the importance of Marx and the Marxist analysis of the social realities of the vulnerable and the oppressed who were trying desperately to break free of the political economics undergirded by this country that were choking them and cutting off any hope of a possible future where all of the people would benefit."

He said that his "exposure to the FMLN in El Salvador, the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, and my presence at the 15^th Jamahiriya in Libya taught me what I have read in the pages of the Monthly Review which is, as Joshua Stanton says, though we need not always agree with one another we must do the work necessary to at least understand one another."

The FMLN was the armed wing of the communist movement in El Salvador, while the Sandinistas are the communist movement in Nicaragua. The Cuban Council of Churches is controlled by the Castro regime.

Interestingly, Wright used his appearance at the Monthly Review event to quote Frantz Fanon, the revolutionary also cited in Obama's book, Dreams from My Father.

However, his only reference to Obama in the speech came when he complained about Obama going to "beg the big fat cats" on Wall Street to stop irresponsible financial practices.

In a recap of the celebration, the Monthly Review editors declared, "We would like to thank all those who participated in this extraordinary event. Dr. Wright captured the tone of the evening, declaring that: 'Militarism, capitalism and racism, domestic oppression, foreign military aggression, victims of neo-colonialism, victims of community and national racism, and the Cold War days in its infancy to the needless war in Vietnam in its [MR's] second decade, through wars of greed in Afghanistan and Iraq in [its] sixth decade' were all incisively covered by the magazine. He spoke of Monthly Review's indefatigable insistence on the need to put 'people before profits,' and its unflinching criticisms of inequality, injustice, and the realities of capitalism."

It is not clear what kind of personal relationship that McChesney, a professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has with Obama. But his influence on the Obama Administration, as reflected in the FCC appointments, seems to be significant.

When he recently staged an on-air fundraising drive for his "Media Matters" radio show, McChesney included John Nichols, a co-founder of Free Press; Ben Scott of Free Press; Norman Solomon of the Institute for Public Accuracy; and Noam Chomsky of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, a Communist Party spin-off group. Nichols was a speaker at a 2002 CCDS conference in San Francisco.

Ben Scott was a graduate student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign when he co-authored a piece with McChesney for the Monthly Review on the problems of "capitalist journalism." He and McChesney also co-authored Our Unfree Press: 100 Years of Radical Media Criticism.

Scott would go on to serve as a legislative fellow for then-Representative and open socialist Bernie Sanders and then become the policy director for Free Press.

The contributors to Monthly Review include former Weather Underground terrorist Bernardine Dohrn; Marilyn Buck, another former Weather Underground member; convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal; Bill Fletcher, Jr., a founder of Progressives for Obama; and Chomsky.

In a piece titled, "Homeland Imperialism: Fear and Resistance," Dohrn wrote of the "robust and unified resistance to imperialism" after the terrorist attacks of 9/11.

Fletcher, a former assistant to the President of the AFL-CIO, wondered, "Can U.S. Workers Embrace Anti-Imperialism?"

That particular cause had been led and managed by Van Jones, the "Green Jobs Czar" in the Obama Administration who was ousted after his history of deep involvement in communist and extremist causes threatened to implicate White House official Valerie Jarrett and Obama himself in his recruitment to his White House job.

An Accuracy in Media investigation determined that, like Free Press, Van Jones' career was carefully assisted by a lot of George Soros cash.

Cliff Kincaid is the Editor of Accuracy in Media, and can be contacted at cliff.kincaid@aim.org.