The deadly instinct to appease

As American Airlines Flight 11began heading toward the North Tower of the World Trade Center, Muhammad Atta announced to the passengers: "We have some planes. Just stay quiet and you'll be OK..Nobody move. Everything will be OK. If you try to make any moves, you'll endanger yourself and the airplane. Just stay quiet."

This has been the modus operandi of bullies and thugs throughout the ages: telling their victims, keep quiet, just go along, or things will go even worse for you. And of course, the only effective response to the bullying of the weak by the powerful has always been not to keep quiet, but to speak out, to resist, and thereby to draw attention to the bullying and make life as uncomfortable as possible for the bully unless and until he stops. But this, unfortunately, is a lesson that human beings have had to relearn again and again. The impulse to stay quiet, to appease, to give the bully what he wants, wasn't invented by Neville Chamberlain in his Munich meeting with "Herr Hitler": it is as old as human conflict itself, and is alive and well today despite the voluminous evidence that it only emboldens thugs, rather than pacifying them.

And so it played out again in recent weeks, when Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, fired the New England regional director of the ADL, Andrew H. Tarsy. Tarsy's crime? He recognized the 1915-1918 Turkish genocide of the Armenians, and expressed his support for H.R. 106, a Congressional resolution recognizing and deploring that genocide. After encountering a storm of disapproval, Foxman rehired Tarsy and conceded that the Turkish actions were "tantamount to genocide," but still refused to throw the ADL's support behind H.R. 106, explaining: "We continue to firmly believe that a congressional resolution on such matters is a counterproductive diversion and will not foster reconciliation between Turks and Armenians, and may put at risk the Turkish Jewish community and the important multilateral relationship between Turkey, Israel, and the United States."

In other words, one of the main reasons why we have to keep quiet about the Armenian genocide for fear that the Turkish government, which still refuses to acknowledge that it happened, will cause trouble for the Jews remaining in Turkey. Just stay quiet and you'll be OK.... What can be gained by remaining silent about these atrocities? Only a new boldness by those who would emulate the Turks - as Adolf Hitler said, "Our strength lies in our intensive attacks and our barbarity...After all, who today remembers the genocide of the Armenians?" Of all organizations, the ADL, which speaks out so strongly and eloquently against Holocaust denial, should recognize this.

But fearful and shameful silence in the face of barbarity is not the province of the ADL alone. Foxman's refusal to endorse H.R. 106 is of a piece with a much larger denial: the refusal on the part of the mainstream media and government officials to examine the jihad ideology of Islamic supremacism that helped fuel the Armenian genocide, and fuels contemporary terrorism. Much of this refusal stems from an impulse similar to Foxman's: a desire to avoid offending Muslims, so as to keep those who are not yet radicalized from becoming so. But this, as Muhammad Atta's advice to the passengers of American Airlines Flight 11 makes clear, only emboldens the jihadists. Those who stay quiet and avoid unpleasant realities in hopes of thereby appeasing the violent are in for a rude awakening. Their supine response will only make bullies step up their bullying, secure in the knowledge that decent people do not have the will to stop them.

More here

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ELSEWHERE

I have heard nothing further from Pyszczynski about "worldview defense" so I have assembled my various comments on the subject into a single article here (or here).

Denmark -- The Next Target: "Police in Denmark have arrested eight suspected al-Qaeda terrorists in Copenhagen as they have apparently foiled a terrorist attack. The men, ages 18 to 29, were found in raids at eleven addresses -- and authorities found more than just the men... Police report that the men had been under surveillance for quite some time. They had begun producing an "unstable explosive" in a densely-populated area in preparation for an attack. They had lived in immigrant neighborhoods, but six of the eight have Danish citizenship. It's not the first time Denmark has discovered plots against their people. Last year they arrested four men on suspicion of plotting terrorist attacks; that trial starts tomorrow. The coincidence of this arrest and the trial seems a little hard to swallow. Congratulations to Denmark for stopping these terrorists before they could attack."

More brilliant British bureaucracy: "Almost 500 million pounds of taxpayers' money will be spent on covering the costs of the bungled implementation of a new payment system to English farmers, a parliamentary inquiry reports today. The Single Farm Payment Scheme, introduced two years ago, aimed to pay farmers for their stewardship of the land rather than the number of animals they reared for meat. But farmers have faced severe financial hardship as they waited months for their cash, and it may take another 18 months for the system to be running smoothly. By the payment deadline of March 2006 only 15 per cent of the 1.5 billion due to English farmers had been made. Even in May this year 24 farmers were waiting for their 2005 subsidies. MPs on the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), which ensures that public spending is value for money, say that the Government's handling of the Common Agricultural Policy reform is a textbook case of how not to set policy.... MPs are also concerned that the Government pressed ahead with a "highly risky project" at a time when the Rural Payments Agency was making 1,000 of its 2,800 staff redundant. The agency then had to bring in casual staff to process the claims. Farmers were frustrated because they were unable to get any information from officials about the status of their claims."

Brits to hand over more control of their lives to the EU whether they like it or not: "Gordon Brown's refusal to hold a referendum on the European reform treaty will face a fresh challenge today, with the start of an official cross-party campaign calling for a public vote. The Prime Minister is determined to avoid a referendum, which ministers believe would almost certainly be lost ? not necessarily because of the issue but because of the low esteem in which the EU is held by the public. But he has issued two clear warnings this week that any attempt by the rest of Europe to water down the opt-outs from the treaty secured by Britain at the Brussels summit in June would mean that he could not sign up."

How many lawyers does it take to sink the US Navy?: "In the 1980s, Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi claimed the Gulf of Sidra as Libyan territorial waters and demanded that foreign ships obtain Libyan permission before entering this broad bay on the Mediterranean coast. Since the mouth of the bay is 300 miles wide, it was not very plausible, under generally recognized principles of international law, to claim that all the enclosed waters were Libyan territorial seas. But Libya could have claimed authority to enforce conservation standards in an 'exclusive economic zone' covering the whole Gulf of Sidra. Rather than argue the fine points at length, President Reagan sent a carrier task force into these waters in 1986 to prove that they were open to international navigation, without prior permission. The task force opened fire on Libyan patrol boats which tried to resist its intervention. Two of the Libyan boats were sunk, with the loss of all hands. Today, the Bush administration seems to think we could avoid such unpleasantness by relegating all such disputes to the determination of an international tribunal."

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN.

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party".

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