Anti-Nonsense Alerts

A sci-fi analogy

2007-04-10T08:25:00.000-07:00

Many years ago, I read a science-fiction novel titled "Ensign Flandry," by Poul Anderson. In it, the hero, a futuristic military officer serving Earth, was up against hostile aliens comparable to Star Trek Klingons before the Klingons turned friendly. Worse yet, Flandry had to contend with an arrogant and willfully stupid pacifistic diplomat, who was SO determined to prove he could solve _everything_ by negotiating, that he was prepared to side _with_ the evil aliens and threaten Flandry's safety just to score his points.

Nancy Pelosi, with her brown-nosing visit to Syria, reminds me of this. She would _rather_ that our troops came to harm, than that she should miss out on a photo-op and the praises of her hard-leftwing dupes.

Anti-Nonsense Alerts

2006-12-14T15:42:00.000-08:00

My Car Radio Always Gives Me Material

I was travelling recently, when I heard on public radio an interview with the author of a biography of Kofi Annan. The outgoing U.N. Snake-rat-tary General could do no wrong in the eyes of either the author or the interviewer; his problems were the fault of the mean old Americans picking on him. It was America's fault that Annan dropped the ball when ethnic cleansing was occurring in Rwanda; it was America's fault that rights-violating nations like Sudan got to have seats on the U.N. Human Rights Council; and of COURSE it was America's fault that U.N. observers in Lebanon did nothing to prevent Hezbollah terrorists from preparing for the attacks which provoked the latest retaliatory campaign by Israel.

With an air of invoking divine authority, one of the two men "proved" Annan's moral superiority by reminding the listeners that Annan had won a Nobel Peace Prize. You remember the Nobel Prize, don't you? That's what they gave to professional mass-murderer Yasser Arafat.

After listening to this drivel, I felt my ears needed to be cleansed; so I listened to my CD of the soundtrack from "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe." If the White Witch were an actual person, public radio would find some pretext to justify her actions, too.

Anti-Nonsense Alerts

2006-12-14T15:41:00.000-08:00

Anti-Nonsense Alerts

2006-11-05T18:18:00.000-08:00
Anti-Nonsense Alerts

Just Before the 2006 Election:

Back in the Clinton era, when we lost some brave American soldiers in the "Blackhawk Down" incident in Somalia, millions of Americans, including me, formed a common impression of the occurrence, based on the selected information the establishment media gave us. Our impression was that the total activity of the American soldiers in Mogadishu consisted of stumbling and fumbling around, losing men to attacks by the Islamist fanatics, and accomplishing nothing at all. The data generally offered gave us no cause to believe otherwise.

It was only much later, when discussion of the incident was revived in connection with a movie being made about it, that I learned something of which I had received no hint from any reports I read or heard before. I learned that, in that action in Somalia, our soldiers had killed something like FORTY of the enemy for every ONE man of their own who died...and what's more, they DID capture a warlord they were hunting for. This makes it a very different story from the scenario of total failure we were sold originally. It reminds me that Benjamin Franklin said, "Half the truth is a great lie."

The anti-military bias which gave us a false initial impression of the "Blackhawk Down" incident still is alive and well in the media. I should say, the anti-AMERICAN-military bias. Our ultra-leftwing journalists and talking heads don't seem to bear any ill feelings toward the Red Chinese military which hovers threateningly over Taiwan. As our brave servicemembers in Iraq and Afghanistan fight and work to protect our security at the same time they give long-oppressed peoples a chance for lasting freedom, the liberal news media are mainly interested in reminding us of deaths on our side. The media DON'T want us to know that, in return for what is really a moderate casualty rate as wars go, our troops are accomplishing substantial good. The media want us to think that American lives are being thrown away for nothing over there, so that we'll want to give up. They actually would rather see America lose a war, and be thereafter MORE vulnerable to terrorist attacks on our soil, than see a President who isn't a Democrat get any credit for achieving a good outcome.

Please don't be suckered. There are plenty of American servicemembers returning from honorable service in the war zones, who can tell you the things that CBS News and other such outlets choose to omit or de-emphasize. While I don't give Mr. Bush an automatic pass--especially on his frightful slowness to act against penetration of our own southern border--he still is doing FAR more to preserve our safety than the John Kerry crowd would even imagine wanting to do.

While praying that we still even HAVE time to discuss and sort out such things

2006-08-21T19:15:00.000-07:00
The latest idiotic-but-pretending-to-be-clever bumper sticker I've seen reads: "UH, THE FOUNDING FATHERS WERE LIBERAL EXTREMISTS; SORRY TO RAIN ON YOUR PARADE." This is a fine example of "He who gets to define the terms, wins the argument."
Or perhaps better to say, "He who gets away with obscuring the definitions of terms can flatter himself that he has won the argument."

America's Founding Fathers were liberal extremists only relative to the starting point of monarchy. An oppressive king being at the right-wing end of the spectrum, breaking free of
his power could be considered a move to the "left." But in spite of the myth of all the Founders
being Deists (a myth more than adequately exploded by the research of David Barton and his
Wallbuilders organization), no informed person can consider them to be liberal extremists in
the sense that label bears TODAY. George Washington did not cross the Delaware to abort
babies, nor endure the winter at Valley Forge in order to build a gay bath-house there.

But odds are the composer of that bumper sticker doesn't even believe what it says himself;
he just wants to throw conservatives and patriots into confusion. Doubtless next week he'll
be back to condemning Washington and Jefferson for having owned slaves. That's much like
the liberal extremists who pretend to care about Jewish people's welfare only long enough to
pillory Mel Gibson; the same lefties will soon be back at their pastime of rooting for Muslim
terrorists to destroy Israel.

Speaking of the Muslim terrorists, I continue to pray AGAINST their evil plans. I get so tired
of wimpy, smarmy prayers for "peeeeeace"...in which those who pray are so often assuming
that the whole silly quarrel only started by accident, and both sides can be reasoned with. No,
both sides CAN'T be reasoned with; I'm sorry to rain on THAT neo-hippie parade. Only three
outcomes can occur with Islamist fanatics: (1) they get their way, (2) they repent of their sins
and submit to the REAL God through Jesus Christ, or (3) they are deprived of their power to
do harm--via death, disarming or detention. I pray for the side of civilization to WIN the war.

HOLLYWOOD STRAINS OUT GNATS AND SWALLOWS ENTIRE HERDS OF CAMELS

2006-08-05T18:13:00.000-07:00
About thirty years ago, the Disney Corporation released a fantasy
movie titled "Dragonslayer." A summary of its plot is quite relevant,
as you will see:

In the Dark Ages, as the European-Mediterranean world is just
beginning to feel the spreading influence of Christianity, a young man
in a still-pagan society becomes the apprentice of an old wizard. He
learns that a dragon is preying upon fellow pagans in a region where
Christianity has just begun to be proclaimed, so he tries to use such
knowledge and power as he has acquired so far to kill the dragon. He
fails to kill it, but at least wounds it, and lives to tell about the encounter.
Meanwhile, a Christian preacher is not so fortunate: his prayers upon
meeting the dragon are useless, because his God is completely unable
to do anything for anyone, and the audience is invited to laugh at the
preacher's foolishness as he gets graphically incinerated by dragonfire.
The old wizard takes a hand to set things right. This is to be his
last great act, because the time of classic paganism is coming to an
end. It is NOT coming to an end because of _any_ merit or value in
the Christian faith which is supplanting it; we have just been shown
forcefully that, in the reality of the movie script, Christianity has no
power to do anything at all about supernatural evil. Rather, a blind
and meaningless Fate--itself a pagan concept, nothing to do with
God's will--has decreed that the Church will be allowed to grow
and flourish for no particular reason (at least until some time
after motion pictures are invented). The wizard, his magic making
him the dragon's equal in power, fights it, until both perish, ringing
down the curtain on their era.
The young apprentice and his love interest witness a crowd of
Christian converts, dumb hicks, falsely giving credit to God for the
destruction of the dragon. A Christianized king even stands over
the dead monster with a sword, trying to pretend that HE had
something to do with its death. But the so-much-wiser young
pagan sweethearts know that Christianity is a fraud, profitting
by undeserved good luck; so they ride off together, apparently
determined to keep up the true and superior faith of occultism.

You know, someone just _might_ perceive in that film a slight
antagonism to Christianity...sort of like the way "The Communist
Manifesto" had a slight antagonism to private property ownership.
Even if you never saw "Dragonslayer," you must have been
staying away from the movies altogether if you didn't see at least
a few of the _countless_ Christian-bashing films which have been
produced since then. Christians have not just occasionally, but
ROUTINELY, been portrayed as abusers, adulterers, bigots,
cowards, drunks, fascists, fools, hypocrites, moneygrubbers,
murderers, primitives, psychotics, schemers, rapists, tyrants and
yokels. (In that respect, "The Da Vinci Code" is nothing new;
nor was the screwball comedy "Road Trip," in which a despicable
evil character wore a T-shirt saying "God Is Awesome;" nor was
the Jean-Claude Van Damme film I saw in which a psychotic
murderer yelled "Come to Jesus!" as he assaulted people. I
could provide plenty more examples.)
I am especially disappointed with actor Hugo Weaving, who
did so well as Elrond, for being in the recent anti-Christian movie
"V Is For Vendetta." Its point is to warn us what a threat of
tyranny _Christianity_ poses to the world, unlike the sweet and
sensitive Religion of Peace as practiced in, say, Sudan. But this
barking up the wrong trees is going on all over the place; and
the latest man stuck in a barked-at tree is the tragically-deranged
Mel Gibson.
Even if Mr. Gibson somewhere deep in his heart seriously
wished for Jewish people to die--which no one can make a
credible case that he does--he is less of a practical threat to
Jewish lives than any rank-and-file Hezbollah terrorist chosen
at random. Yet the Associated Press, which in at least one
recent article said something more or less to the effect that
Israel merely had an _opinion_ that Muslim terrorists were
intent on destroying Israel, keeps fanning the flames of public
indignation against Mr. Gibson day after day, finding person after
person to quote at Mr. Gibson's expense. It seems that one man
saying bad words when drunk, and then meekly apologizing for
them, is far worse than whole nations actively plotting genocide
upon Israel, and boasting about it.
Certainly it's worse than hundreds of movies and prime-time
television broadcasts relentlessly accusing Christians of being all
the bad things I listed a few paragraphs ago. (If there isn't an
anti-Christian bias in commercial television, how come the
writers of "Touched By An Angel" _never_ dared once in the
life of the series to let Jesus be honored by name, even by mere
human characters at worship in a church?) So, as Mr. Gibson
tries to make amends for his wrongdoing, I know how some of
the Holly-woodlice would _like_ him to make amends: they
would like him to say, "It was Christianity as such that caused
me to have this anti-Semitic streak; this shows that Christianity
is inherently bad, so I renounce and reject it." Then the hard
left would "forgive" him--as they "forgave" Bob Dylan for his
offense of professing Christian faith, once he gave an interview
to Spy Magazine (I've read it) denying the divinity of Jesus.
If Mr. Gibson should go the way of Bob Dylan, I can
imagine the sort of movies the leftwing establishment would
urge him to make. Perhaps one about how the cruel, greedy
Coptic Christians are currently oppressing the poor, defenseless
Muslims in Egypt; or one which transforms the Washington
Beltway sniper from the Muslim he is into a Baptist; or a historical
film about the savage, vicious Armenian Christians exterminating
a million Turks in 1915; or even one about the American Civil
War, in which the liberation of the slaves is credited to a coalition
of Muslims and Marxists.
None of those productions could be very much more
outlandish than Christian-bashing films that have already been
released and applauded. Christians have been fair game for
vilification for decades now; also, many in the hard left who
pretend to be solicitous for Jews at the moment will soon get
back to rooting for Muslim terrorists to annihilate Israel. Ah, but
we can sleep secure in our beds, confident that the Associated Press
and Ariana Huffington will protect us all from Mel Gibson. I feel
SO much safer.

YOURS FOR JESUS AND LIBERTY,
JOSEPH RICHARD RAVITTS

Blogging in English, before Spanish becomes mandatory

2006-04-09T04:56:00.000-07:00
SHE SCRATCHED THE SURFACE,
BUT I'LL DIG MUCH DEEPER

"Noise, numbers and repetition cannot turn a lie into
the truth." -- Frank Peretti

Let me see if I can de-activate the landmine which
sits in the way of all discussion of the illegal-invasion issue.
I refer, of course, to the reflexive accusation that anyone
who objects to the swarms of illegal aliens flooding our
country MUST be a "racist." Guess what? I would be
EVERY BIT as upset and alarmed by a blond-haired,
blue-eyed Anglo forcibly breaking into my house at night
as I would be by a Hispanic doing the same thing. And
there are some very NON-white American commentators
who feel the same way I do, such as the African-American
Thomas Sowell and the Asian-American Michelle Malkin.
So, now can we have a real discussion?
Courtesy of the 3 April edition of "Human Events," I
got to see a news photo of one of the recent Mexican mob
marches, in which the marchers demanded the "right" to
have their enchilada and eat it too--that is, to enjoy all
privileges of United States citizens while at the same time
despising the United States and giving all their loyalty to
Mexico. At the front of the crowd was a girl who might
have been attractive if her mouth hadn't been opened
wide enough to swallow a smuggler's truck. She was
holding a sign which expressed a degree of truth;
but, as we shall see, partial truth can be dangerously
misleading. Her sign only scratched the surface of the
complete facts.
The sign said: "If you think I'm 'illegal' because I'm
a Mexican, learn the true history, because I'm in my
HOMELAND." The march of which this girl was a part
was occurring in California; and going by all the history
I have learned, it is precisely in California more than
anyplace else that Hispanics have a valid grievance
over the way the territory changed hands. Frankly,
the United States DID just march in and seize California
by shameless naked force; and I'm told that Kit Carson
murdered some Spaniards who opposed this.
But other geographical dishes on the protestors' table
are less nutritious to their case. Want some true history
besides just the part which serves one side? The Texas
Revolution happened, not because of a premeditated
takeover by Anglos, but because the Mexican government
was not respecting the rights of residents of Texas. That's
why there were MEXICAN residents of Texas who sided
WITH Sam Houston. But I suppose those Mexicans don't
count--just as modern Mexican-Americans who are loyal
to the United States are scorned by the Aztlan activists.
(Note also that, in this era before our Civil War, there was
much less of a sense of centralized national identity in the
United States--thus, less reason why the Anglo-Americans
who settled in Texas would have felt any need to attach that
land to the United States.)
Later came the Mexican War, which ended up transferring
a lot more territory to Anglo control, and in which we have
long been seen as the bad guys. Since the United States
(unlike most other countries EVER) is capable of admitting
faults, I was willing for a long time simply to accept that
verdict against my country, without further examination.
But just a couple of years ago, I learned for the first time
something that America-bashers don't want you to realize:
the fact that it was MEXICO which declared war, not our
side. What's more, after Mexico was thoroughly beaten and
lying helpless before us, there was discussion in Washington
of us taking over that whole country permanently--but we
quickly dropped the idea, and left Mexico independent.
So, Mexican civilization is not quite so purely innocent as
the marchers want us to believe. This is not to say that the
United States is purely innocent either, as I have already
conceded. But our faults already get enough, and more than
enough, and more than too much reproach, while other
nationalities get away with denying the FACT that every
injustice ever done in America has also been done elsewhere
--and frequently worse. Furthermore, it's worth noting that
the Hispanic supremacists, like other groups which get
intoxicated on the sense of entitlement, have overreached
their legitimate complaints. Around the same time as that
girl and her friends marched in Pasadena, California, a
similar mass rally brought its Mexican flags and mob noise
to Atlanta, Georgia.
If Georgia was ever a possession of Mexico or Spain
called Jorge-a, I have somehow failed to read that part of
history. And even if Georgia ever was under Hispanic rule,
I can absolutely assure you that MARYLAND, where I
live, NEVER was. Yet Maryland is also seeing mass
colonization by Hispanics who refuse to assimilate to
United States culture--including members of the vicious
MS-13 criminal gang.
Notice that I said "United States culture." Regardless
of what politically-correct writers or teachers may have
told you, there is such a thing as the United States culture.
It has room for the contributions of all races and civilizations,
but it also has its own characteristic center, consisting in
such elements as the love of home and family and a belief
in individual responsibility. Those who place the landmines
of false accusations of racism want you to imagine that
preserving America's core values MEANS denying people
from abroad all opportunity to keep their diverse heritage.
(Thus, fanatics for bilingual education pretend to believe
that wanting them TO know English is the same as saying
that they MUST NOT know Spanish. This is a lie, and
they know it.) It does not mean any such thing; but it does
mean that there has to be SOME unifying set of principles,
or there won't BE a country.
This brings us to a crucial point which race-card-playing
victimology specialists have obscured. When raising the
question of whether the United States as we know it should
be allowed to go on existing, it is not enough only to ask
if there were injustices connected with its founding and
growth. Of course there were. How many nations can you
identify which DON'T have injustices in their history? But
we must also ask: what does this country have to OFFER?
And what, in contrast, is offered by the Mexican culture
which is so eager to take over?
When Hernan Cortez invaded Mexico, he did not have
enough manpower with him to defeat the whole Aztec
Empire. He needed reinforcements; and he got them
from among the native tribes who were sick and tired of
Aztec priests using them for daily human sacrifices. Cortez
was an outside invader--but he had something to offer.
The new regime he offered could not be, was not, and in
all the time since then has not been, as bad as what native
people suffered under the murderous Aztecs. We see,
therefore, that prior claim of habitation is not the ONLY
consideration in deciding what culture or society deserves
to run a place.
Mexico is morally better than the Aztec Empire was.
Almost everyone and everything outside of Hitler's Reich
and Stalin's USSR is morally better than the Aztec Empire
was. But does this prove that Mexican culture offers people
a better way of life than United States culture does?
I have noted above that the United States is exceptional
for its willingness to admit its faults and remedy them. Yes,
we had slavery, but then we abolished it (and those much-
detested Bible-thumping Christians were at the head of
the movement to abolish slavery). Yes, we conquered the
indigenous peoples; but the descendants of the conquered
natives now find an attentive and respectful audience for
their books and lectures among white Americans. And
persons of every race and ancestry now can rise to the
top of our society--as witness the black woman who is
our Secretary of State.
Now, what about Mexico? During the early 20th
century, Mexico conducted a campaign against religious
freedom, actually killing Catholic priests just for being
Catholic priests. This true history didn't make it onto
the signboard of that girl in Pasadena, but it was the
inspiration for Graham Greene's novel "THE POWER
AND THE GLORY." More recently, the Mexican
government has persecuted Native Americans on its
territory. And plenty of Mexican-Americans, the ones
who appreciate what they have here, will tell you that
it is the firm tradition of Mexican police officers always
to give preference to those who bribe them. Not only
that, but numerous Mexican soldiers have sold
themselves as mercenaries to drug-dealing gangs.
If none of the preceding disturbs you, then how about
one sin which even the most politically-correct mind can
at least sometimes recognize as a sin: hypocrisy? Even
as Vicente Fox loudly insists that Mexicans have a
"right" to enter the United States on their own terms
and take what they want...his government ARRESTS
AND PUNISHES Central Americans who cross MEXICO'S
southern border without permission. Since pre-Columbian
civilizations did not have the identical borders of today's
Latin American countries, the Central Americans have
EXACTLY the same justification for entering Mexico as
Fox claims Mexicans have to enter the United States;
but Fox conveniently manages to forget this "true
history." In other words, Vicente Fox continually does
himself the very same thing which he calls us racist
bigots for doing.
Speaking of bigotry: do you recall Cruz Bustamante,
who ran against Arnold Schwarzenegger for the
governorship of California? In his youth, Bustamante
belonged to a Hispanic supremacist organization whose
motto was: "Everything for The [Hispanic] Race, nothing
for those outside The Race." And yet we're supposed to
believe that all the problems arise only from racism on
the part of Anglos?
If Mexican culture is so good that it deserves to be
utterly dominant, why aren't millions of Anglos trying
to get into Mexico? Maybe it's because they know that
the United States culture already allows you to enjoy all
that's good in Mexican and other cultures--whereas too
strong a dose of a Third World culture would cause us to
LOSE what's good in OUR culture.
Antonio Banderas--not exactly an Anglo supremacist,
I'd say --recently released his second "Zorro" movie.
Since it portrays the transition of California to United
States authority, I would not have blamed Banderas if he
had shown Zorro as resenting the Anglo takeover--maybe
even kicking Kit Carson's rear. But he didn't. I've never
heard Banderas detailing his opinions on the immigration
issue; but at least he showed by this movie his recognition
that the United States, AS the United States and not as
Mexico, has something good to offer the human race.
The good America offers is vulnerable to destruction,
as the fabled goose that laid golden eggs was vulnerable
to being killed. Those who demand a "right" to come in
on their own terms and feed at our trough WITHOUT
giving any loyalty to the United States--and the con-
game of dual citizenship is just a way of disguising the
refusal to give loyalty--threaten to ruin the same way
of life which created the benefits they demand.
If Hispano-fascists found a way to kill off every Anglo
in the United States, and also to kill off everyone of any
other race who lived by the core values of this country,
until there was no one left but Aztlan-activist Chicanos
from Hawaii to Maine, what would they gain by it? For
awhile, there would be a leftover infrastructure for them
to plunder, as barbarians have always plundered. But
since they have chosen to live by a self-serving spoiled-
brat sense of entitlement rather than by responsibility
and integrity, they would not be able to keep it running.
Thus they would sink into the rule of the strong and
corrupt over the weak--just like Mexico. Killing the
goose that laid the golden eggs would simply enlarge
the Third World.
I would rather that this did not happen. I would
rather that people of all races be able to enjoy the God-
ordained freedoms which the United States Constitution
recognizes, and which most other governmental systems
do not. But the survival of those freedoms depends on
people giving loyalty and respect to the civilization which
upholds them. I'm all for immigrants who come with a
desire to be loyal members of our society; by making
their diverse contributions WITHIN the framework
of our core culture, they strengthen us. What I'm
against is those who despise our laws yet still demand
our blessings and our welfare funds.
I guess this makes me a racist.
Maybe I'd better look that word up again; I didn't
seem to recall "racist" meaning someone who believes
in the rule of law...

Yours for Jesus and America,
Joseph Richard Ravitts

Have to admit I'm getting blogger, a little blogger all the time

2006-01-13T14:24:00.000-08:00
Okay, thanks, Joe W.! Now that I've got a second "original"
post, have I used up all my ideas?

Let's see, here's one which I don't think I ever got around to
using in an "Empowered For Freedom" circular. Let's call it:

"THE FALSE FORGIVENESS OF THE FAITHLESS"

Back in the '60's, Bob Dylan could do no wrong in the eyes
of the popular culture. He was allegedly a giant of creativity
and the conscience of the Western Hempisphere (that was a
typo, but in view of what many of his fans were smoking I've
decided to keep it).

All this changed the very instant that he claimed to have
become a believer in Jesus Christ. Now, suddenly, the former
Dylanites decided that he was arrogant and self-righteous.
In fact--much the way the Soviet Union used to call dissident
writers not only treasonous but also untalented--they decided
he was not a giant of creativity after all. "Saturday Night
Live" did a supposedly clever sketch which depicted Dylan
as having stolen his major song ideas from Woody Guthrie--
an accusation they would never have aimed at him as long
as he was politically correct.

Like the seed dropped in shallow soil, Dylan could not take
the persecution. So he "repented" of the "offense" of taking
an interest in Jesus. In an interview with SPY Magazine, he
said that it didn't matter if Jesus was the Son of God or not.
Of course, he was smart enough to realize that NO ONE
would EVER say this unless he was convinced that Jesus
was NOT the Son of God; thus, his saying that it didn't
matter was an absolute capitulation--a clear declaration
to the leftwing establishment that he was abandoning all
that Jesus-freak foolishness, so wouldn't they please let
him be a giant of creativity again?

It worked. The leftwing establishment, in its secular-
humanist grace, "forgave" Dylan and gave him permission
to be admired again. If a rooster crowed three times
around then, Dylan wasn't listening--probably too busy
counting his thirty pieces of silver.

That reminds me: someone once wrote a little poem
that warrants reflection--

"Strange to think how man
By man himself is priced;
For thirty silver pieces,
Judas sold himself, not Christ."

Putting on a second blogging hat

2006-01-09T14:38:00.000-08:00
I've been disappointed by the sparse response to my first blog, which is at:

http://ut-fidem-praestem.blogspot.com

That blog will remain there as long as Blogspot will allow it, but meanwhile
I'm starting another one. Since hardly anyone wants to participate in the
NON-confrontational dialogue I was offering at "Faithful In Adversity," I
shall be rather more uninhibited here. Below you will see an article I put
out via e-mail about a week ago...

DISARMING THE FALSE-GUILT BOMB

Some years ago, a group of Wicca practicioners raised a
stink against the film "The Wizard of Oz." They were outraged
that a witch was depicted as evil--even though another, equally
prominent witch was depicted as good. It wasn't good enough
for them for a film to say that some witches were good; ALL
witches must be above criticism. If a movie showed some
Christian clergymen as bad but others as good, any Christian
who complained about this would be dismissed as a thin-
skinned whiner; but for witches, whose very worldview
entails wanting to bend reality to their personal will, it's only
natural to demand favoritism and call it fairness.
Hold that thought...and turn your thoughts much farther
back in the history of cinema, to the silent era.
Douglas Fairbanks Senior, first of the great swashbucklers,
made a movie called "The Thief of Baghdad," one of the first
great fantasy adventures on film. It was set in a Muslim
civilization, and it portrayed Muslim civilization in a favorable
light. It was not the only American silent movie to do so. (How
did Rudolf Valentino become a sex symbol, if not by starring
in "The Shiek"?)
In 1935, Cecil B. DeMille released "The Crusades," which
(not without factual justification) depicted Saladin as a more
civilized and reasonable man than Richard the Lion-Hearted.
This was in an era when racism still was a very serious
problem in America, yet even racism did nothing to prevent
Muslim culture from being given a fairly friendly portrayal.
Not many years later, Asian actor Sabu starred in
Michael Korda's remake of "The Thief of Baghdad," and in
the new screenplay a very explicitly Islamic spirituality was
clearly shown as the supreme height of merit achieved by
Sabu's character. At least two more adaptations of the story
were to follow in subsequent years; and interspersed with
them would be seven or more films about the Arabian Nights
heroes Ali Baba and Sinbad--all putting Muslim culture in
a positive light.
One of Charlton Heston's earliest leading roles was in
"El Cid." This epic had a Muslim villain, but took pains to
indicate to the audience that this villain was NOT part of
the Islamic mainstream. The Christian hero is made at one
point to suggest that his converting to Islam is conceivable,
but none of the Muslim good guys _ever_ hints at becoming
a Christian. (Making Christianity "exactly equal" to other
faiths always leads to considering it LESS equal--not because
any flaws are discovered in Christianity, but because fallen
human nature has a bias against the gospel.)
Live theater in the English-speaking world has also been
generous to Muslims. Sigmund Romberg's operetta "The
Desert Song" romanticized Arabs; though the hero was really
a European, he sympathized strongly with the Arabs. The
later musical "Kismet" had an all-Muslim cast of characters,
including the historical figure Omar Khayyam. Both shows
also became films eventually.
"Lawrence of Arabia," "The Wind and the Lion," and
Brendan Fraser's more recent Mummy movies have all
made Muslims look good. Topping them all, however, was
Kevin Costner's revisionist Robin Hood film. "Robin Hood,
Prince of Thieves" not only practically made its Muslim
character the star instead of Robin Hood, but in addition
it promoted one medium falsehood and two whopping
falsehoods. Medium falsehood: suggesting that Muslims
invented the telescope. (It was a European who invented
it, after the period when Robin Hood would have lived.)
First whopping falsehood: claiming that male-female
relationships in Muslim societies, _more_ than in Christian
societies, are developed by open communication between
the sexes (when Azim says, "We talk to our women").
Second whopper: when Robin says that the land of Israel
is rightfully Muslim territory.
Add up all these productions, and can you seriously
say that Western media and entertainment have always
portrayed Muslims in a derogatory manner? Not if you
have any honesty, you can't.
But now it's time to remember the Wiccans fussing
about "The Wizard of Oz."
Radical Islam, the system that approved putting out a
murder contract on Salmon Rushdie because he wrote a
book Islamists didn't like, doesn't care how many movies
you make that show Muslim culture as good. If you let
even ONE movie be made that says _anything_ critical of
Islam, you're an Islamophobic bigot. Muslims are allowed
to arrest you in _their_ countries just for talking about the
Lordship of Jesus; but if in a Western country you say
that something's wrong with Islam, you're the intolerant
one. If you're Dutch, you may get knifed for it.
Muslim activists in America, taking advantage of the
level of freedom here which NO Muslim country grants to
Christians, have the gall to claim that our entertainment
media are full of unfairly negative images of Muslims. Of
course, they also claim that there have been many anti-
Muslim hate crimes in America since the 9-11 attacks;
but many if not most of those crimes have turned out to
be fictions, made up by Muslims who knew that Americans
are vulnerable to manipulation by false guilt.
In a time when virtually ALL terrorist threats in the
world _are_ in fact of Muslim origin, American TV and
movies have bent over backwards to pretend that it's
really the old standard white-supremacist neo-Nazis who
are behind everything. Yet when the series "24" actually
got around to having Muslim terrorists in the plotline, the
Council on American-Islamic Relations went ballistic. Didn't
we bigoted Judeo-Christian Americans know that Osama
bin-Laden is really a white South African fascist or something?
But in case too many people figure out that the typical
modern terrorist IS a Muslim and is NOT a white South
African, they have a backup plan. If movie reviews are
accurate, the backup plan can be found in the new movie
"Syriana." Okay, the terrorists are Muslims...but it's not really
their fault. It's the fault of the evil American oil corporations!
Yes, now it all makes sense. Muhammad plundered the
Jewish merchant colonies of Arabia because of evil American
oil corporations. The medieval Turkish empire kidnapped the
sons of Christians to make them janissaries because of evil
American oil corporations. Arabs were taking black Africans
as slaves before slavery got underway in America, but it was
the fault of those oil corporations. American oil tycoons gave
Egypt the idea of refusing to hear testimony from Coptic
Christians against Muslims. And Chechen terrorists wantonly
murdered schoolchildren in Beslan, Russia because of evil
American oil corporations.
Maybe I shouldn't be saying this; George Clooney might
make a movie claiming with a straight face that all the sarcastic
statements above are literal truth. But even if he does make
such a movie, it still won't be enough to make the C.A.I.R.
types drop their fraudulent complaints. (In case you think
I'm too hard on Clooney--did he not make an action movie in
which the big threat was a Serbian terrorist? Come on, now,
how many Serbian terrorist attacks have you heard of? It's
the Albanian Muslims who have ties to bin-Ladin, and who in
addition are deeply into forced-prostitution trafficking.)
I myself have Muslim neighbors. Not only do I get along
just fine with them, but I personally cook food for them at
Ramadan time. They could tell me if they were suffering
from hateful harassment just for being Muslims, and they
know that I would side with them against any such injustice;
but they have no such trouble to report, because THERE IS
NOT any widespread persecution of Muslims in America.
The C.A.I.R. types know that American Muslims are not
oppressed; but it suits them to pretend that they believe there
is oppression, so that false guilt over supposed prejudice will
weaken our will to fight real terrorism. We cannot afford to
let them succeed in this cynical deception.
How about this as a cure for the induced false guilt: let
Americans read English translations of the lying propaganda
which Iranian mullahs and Palestinian thugs broadcast against
Israel--even reviving the long-discredited "Protocols of the
Elders of Zion"--and then compare this for hatefulness with
the American media's average treatment of Muslims. Next,
have people see how long it takes to watch all the pro-Muslim
films I described above. If, after doing this research, you still
think that Muslims have a valid complaint about how they are
portrayed in the West, I have a tropical beach condo in Finland
I'd like to sell you.

Yours for Jesus and America,
Joseph Richard Ravitts