Sunday, June 14, 2009

The British far-Left do their best to generate publicity and sympathy for anti-immigration party

What they really want is self-publicity but they just succeed in showing who the real thugs are



When Nick Griffin was pelted with eggs outside Parliament this week, the protest divided public opinion over whether it was a legitimate expression of anger or a foolhardy stunt that handed unwarranted publicity to the British National Party. It has also widened a rift in the anti-fascist movement over how to combat the rise of the far-right party.

United Against Fascism (UAF) is planning a series of physical demonstrations over the coming months based on Tuesday’s confrontation, which forced Mr Griffin, the BNP leader and newly elected MEP, to abandon his victory press conference. The approach has frustrated seasoned anti-BNP campaigners, who believe that the stunt allowed Mr Griffin to portray himself as a martyr.

There were violent tussles between the protesters and supporters of Mr Griffin and Andrew Brons, who won the BNP’s second European seat in Yorkshire and the Humber region, and police are investigating two allegations of common assault. UAF, which was set up five years ago as an umbrella organisation for anti-racism groups and trade unions, says that it will picket Mr Griffin wherever he goes. It accepts that there is potential for further violence but insists that the action is necessary to combat the BNP.

Searchlight, a separate organisation that has campaigned against the BNP and its predecessors since the 1960s, is cautious about such protests and says that a more “constructive” approach is needed. Searchlight initially joined UAF when it was created but broke away following policy differences. This week it launched a widespread digital media initiative called Not In My Name. The organisation is being advised by Blue State Digital, the internet strategy firm responsible for President Obama’s winning US campaign, and plans a variety of online initiatives to raise awareness and funds.

This weekend an appeal video featuring various celebrities will be posted online to urge the public to donate. More than 84,500 people have already signed up to its database, making it bigger than those of any of the mainstream political parties.

The Royal British Legion yesterday accused Mr Griffin of trying to politicise “one of the nation’s most beloved symbols” after he repeatedly wore a red poppy during the European election campaign. The charity is demanding that Mr Griffin stop wearing the poppy, after private appeals to his “sense of honour” were ignored. In an open letter to The Guardian, the charity wrote: “True valour deserves respect regardless of a person’s ethnic origin . . . Stop it, Mr Griffin.”

Campaigners are also organising a petition to take to the European Parliament next month, saying that while the BNP has won seats, it does not represent Britain. The number of signatures had exceeded 56,000 by Wednesday, only two days after it was begun. Campaigners aim to surpass 132,094, signatures — the number of votes that Mr Griffin attracted in the North West region.

Searchlight is hoping to raise enough money to wage its biggest campaign against the BNP, from advertisements on buses to leaflets aimed at areas where voters are BNP-friendly. Nick Lowles, the campaign coordinator, said it was a positive way to express discontent. “We need to harness people’s anger in a constructive way, rather than throwing eggs at the BNP,” he said.

However, Anindya Bhattacharyya, a spokesman for UAF, claimed that the strategy was not adequate to defeat the BNP. “If fascists simply organised on the internet then it would be fine. But they foment their race hatred on to the streets. That’s where we have to stand up to them,” he said. UAF is planning an emergency national conference in Manchester on July 18 and aims to picket events such as the BNP’s annual rally in August. Mr Bhattacharyya defended the tactics displayed on Tuesday. He said: “I think the far greater danger is that he [Mr Griffin] becomes legitimised.”

SOURCE



Arrogant feminist who thinks men should bring up babies to represent "families" in Britain



A hardline feminist has been chosen as the Government's new chief spokesman on families. Dr Katherine Rake, who wants to see men bring up babies, will head the Family and Parenting Institute, a heavily state-financed organisation set up by Labour to speak for parents and children. The Institute boasts that it 'brings alive the real issues for families' and 'listens to parents and carers across the country'.

But critics said the appointment of Dr Rake, currently director of the women's equality campaign group the Fawcett Society, showed the Institute was out of touch with the concerns of ordinary families.

The organisation was set up in 1999 by then Home Secretary Jack Straw to shore up family life and encourage parents. Last year it received nearly £8million from Ed Balls's Department for Children, Schools and Families towards its declared mission of 'supporting parents in bringing up children'.

Dr Rake, who will take over from the Institute's founding chief executive Mary MacLeod, has long declared her intention is not to support parents as they are, but to revolutionise their lives. Writing in The Guardian three years ago, she said: 'We want to transform the most intimate and private relations between women and men. 'We want to change not just who holds power in international conglomerations, but who controls the household budget. 'We want to change not just what childcare the state provides, but who changes the nappies at home.' Dr Rake added: 'It is only when men are ready to share caring and work responsibilities with women that we will be able to fulfil our true potential to form equal partnerships in which we have respect, autonomy and dignity.'

Under the direction of Dr Rake, a former London School of Economics lecturer, the Fawcett Society has campaigned for a 'changing role' for men. The group, which is chaired by prominent gay rights campaigner Angela Mason, says the role reversal should be backed by longer paid parental leave, official encouragement for men to apply for flexible work hours, and the opening of mother and toddler groups to stay-at-home fathers. It has complained that women will never achieve equality with men at work without 'challenging the traditional roles of homemaker and breadwinner'.

Fawcett has also condemned Tory plans to give tax breaks to married couples, complaining that 'it penalises all those children living with unmarried parents or with one parent'.

The appointment of Dr Rake, who is likely to earn £60,000 a year, comes at a time of growing pressure on mothers to go out to work. Despite overwhelming evidence that a majority would prefer to stay home to bring up young children, ministers have piled pressure on them to take jobs and warned that those who fail to do so, and who rely on the income of a husband or partner, are likely to face poverty.

Only two million mothers now bring up their children full time. Official figures show that two out of three children aged three and four now spend at least part of their week in nurseries.

Jill Kirby, of the centre-right think-tank Centre for Policy Studies, said: 'This appointment to a body which is supposed to speak for the interests of ordinary parents and families shows how out of touch the leadership of the organisation is with real life in Britain. 'Katherine Rake's agenda is more about reversing sex roles than helping parents.'

The chairman of the National Parenting Institute is Fiona Millar, long-term partner of Tony Blair's former spokesman Alastair Campbell. She said that Dr Rake 'has a strong track record in research, policy and campaigning and will be a great asset to the organisation at a time when the recession is putting extra pressure on families up and down the country'.

SOURCE



The U.S. Department of Injustice

by Michelle Malkin

The seal of the U.S. Department of Justice bears a Latin phrase: “Qui Pro Domina Justitia Sequitur. The motto refers to the Attorney General “who prosecutes on behalf of Lady Justice.” But under Barack Obama’s politically corrupted DOJ, Lady Justice is getting the shaft. To wit: Let’s examine the uproar over Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to protect hate-mongering thugs who harassed and bullied precinct workers and voters on Election Day in Philadelphia. Oh, wait. There’s been no uproar. Let me tell you why.

Two weeks ago, in a highly unusual move, Holder dismissed default judgments his department had won against two of three defendants charged with violating the Voting Rights Act. On November 4, 2008, a billy club-wielding militant in military-style boots and beret stood outside a Philly polling location with a similarly-dressed partner. Citizen journalists from the Pennsylvania-based blog Election Journal captured the menacing duo on video. One of the watchdogs observed: “I think it might be a little intimidating that you have a stick in your hand.”

That was an understatement. Witness Bartle Bull, a Democratic lawyer who organized for Bobby Kennedy and worked for the civil rights movement in Mississippi, signed a sworn affidavit decrying the Election Day brutishness. Serving as a poll watcher that day, he called the behavior of Samir Shabazz and Jerry Jackson “the most blatant form of voter discrimination I have encountered in my life.”

One of them, Bull reported, taunted poll observers: “[Y]ou are about to be ruled by the black man, cracker.” If the pair had been dressed in white sheets, all hell would have broken loose. But the ebony-clad thugs were members of the New Black Panther Party who had been dispatched by Malcolm X wannabe Malik Shabazz to “guard” the polls. Translation: Protect them from scrutiny. Shield them from sunlight. Keep independent voters and observers out.

Who is Malik Shabazz? The bespectacled race hustler grabbed the spotlight in the weeks after the September 11 terrorist attacks by defending Osama bin Laden, blaming President Bush for 9/11, bashing Israel, and blasting our founding fathers as “snakes.” His group also infamously rallied behind the Duke University lacrosse rape hoaxer. And on the day before the presidential election last fall, one of Shabazz’s “field marshals,” Minister Najee Muhammad, held a “black power” rally promising to send his forces to polls across the country “to ensure that the enemy does not sabotage the black vote.”

The Bush DOJ filed suit against Malik Shabazz, Samir Shabazz, and Jerry Jackson in early January 2009. None of the defendants filed an answer to the lawsuit, putting them all into default. Instead of taking the default judgment that DOJ is entitled to against all of the defendants, the Obama team fully dismissed the lawsuits against Malik Shabazz and Jerry Jackson. Jackson, you should know, is an elected member of the Philadelphia Democratic Committee and was a credentialed poll watcher. Witness Greg Lugones told me “Obama campaign operatives were on site throughout the entire episode.”

Former Justice Department official and voting rights scholar Hans Von Spakovsky added: “I have never heard of the Department dismissing a case it has already won by default. They have…sent the message that hurling racial epithets and slurs at voters and intimidating and threatening voters at the polls is fine with the Holder Justice Department – at least if you are African-American. I seriously doubt that would have happened if the races had been reversed in this case.” Exactly. And to repeat: The harassment was aimed not just at voters, but at white poll workers trying to ensure a fair and lawful process in a city infamous for machine politics and street money pollution. Who are the racial cowards, Attorney General Holder?

On the heels of this voter intimidation protection plan, the Obama Justice Department issued another decision that undermines electoral integrity – but bolsters Democratic voter drives. The department this week denied the state of Georgia the ability to enact strict citizenship voter verification rules previously approved by two federal courts. As the Georgia secretary of state Karen Handel explained: “DOJ has thrown open the door for activist organizations such as ACORN to register non-citizens to vote in Georgia’s elections, and the state has no ability to verify an applicant’s citizenship status or whether the individual even exists.”

On top of all that, Holder recently politicized the legal review process involving the contentious issue of D.C. voting rights. After careful study, the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel had issued an opinion that a House bill on the matter was unconstitutional. Holder, who supports D.C. voting rights along with President Obama, overrode his staff lawyers’ ruling—and simply ordered up an alternative opinion that fit the White House agenda. Lady Justice is now protected by a security force armed with billy clubs and lawyers who serve the cause of protecting the re-election of Barack Obama over the rule of law.

SOURCE



Australian child protection agencies are picking on soft targets and ignoring real problems

By Sara Hudson

The case of the Northern Territory teenager known as Kunmanara is yet another example of the failure of government to protect children from abuse. Meanwhile, a Queensland man is facing child-abuse charges for downloading a video of a swinging baby and publishing it on a video sharing site. Both these cases highlight the absurdity of the child abuse laws in this country.

Despite everybody from police, Family and Community Services (FACS) and health services being aware that Kunmanara was in danger they did nothing to protect her. No one seemed to notice that she did not attend school for nearly a year. The fact that she tested positive to two sexually transmitted diseases at the age of 13 did not stop FACS staff assessing the teenager as “safe.”

While the man at the centre of the Queensland case may have acted stupidly in publishing the video of the swinging baby he surely does not deserve the maximum of 10 years’ imprisonment for his actions. He is arguing that the video is not child-abuse material but is a “training film for a Russian circus family.”

Interestingly, I remember viewing a program on ABC about a young Russian weight lifter. The program showed shots of her as young baby being swung by her father as part of a ‘training’ regime he had devised to make her stronger. No one took ABC to task for republishing such footage. It is ludicrous that Police resources are being spent on prosecuting this case when many officials seem to be turning a blind eye to real cases of child abuse. It is difficult to be 100% accurate and mistakes in judgement will inevitably occur. But too often child protection agencies focus on soft targets like this Queenslander, while the really serious cases are neglected in the "too hard" basket. The challenge for people working in this field is to know when something is a distraction and when something needs a full and serious investigation.

The above is a press release dated June 12 from CIS

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of other countries. The only real difference, however, is how much power they have. In America, their power is limited by democracy. To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges. They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did: None. So look to the colleges to see what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way. It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here. For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site here.

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