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Western Civilisation

Until the advent of materialism and 19th c. dogma, Western Civilisation was  superior to anything Islam had developed.  Islam has not aided in the development of the modern world; in fact civilisation has only been created in spite of Islam.  Proof of this resides in the 'modern' world and the unending political-economic and spiritual poverty of Muslim states and regions.  Squatting on richer civilisations is not 'progress'.  Islam is pagan, totalitarian, and irrational.   

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Wednesday, January 11, 2012

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Book Review: Norman Berdichevsky, 'The Left is not always Right'

Well researched and sourced.

by Ferdinand III


 Norman Berdichevsky has written an important book on the perversion and rather useless innuendo around the political terms 'Left and Right'. In 'The Left is not always Right', Berdichevsky lays out the reasons why the definitions of the political 'left' or 'right' have little real meaning. For instance was spend-happy statist G.W. Bush, who doubled the US national debt over 8 years a 'right wing' politician or a statist intent on expanding government – by itself a definition of 'leftism' ? Bush was clearly not 'right wing', nor a 'conservative', yet the media applied both appellations to the 2 term President with left-wing devotees conflating Bush with Hitler. It might surprise the robots of the 'left' that Hitler enacted national socialism and statism and was the exact opposite of a classical conservative. The left is indeed mostly wrong, especially in its definitions, depictions, conflations and demonizations.

Berdichevsky is an American Jew whose family fled the constrained and unfree lands of Eastern Europe – fertile lands and easy fodder for the theology of national socialism. He is a writer with over 200 publications in various countries and languages and is an editor at the polemical site the New English Review. His book should be read in conjunction with Goldberg's work 'Liberal Fascism' which outlines why Marxist-Left wing theology is in fact Fascist. [Goldberg's book is reviewed here.] As Berdichevsky writes, the Left-Right dichotomy so embraced by many Marxists and Socialists is the theology of simpletons and ignoramuses:

The exhaustive documentation in ‘Liberal Fascism’ of the presidential careers and administrations of Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Delano Roosevelt as well as the detailed analysis of Mussolini, Hitler and Stalin and those who were their original supporters and detractors left many of Goldberg’s critics with egg on their faces. Many were simply totally ignorant of the facts and had to be reminded how their many misconceptions all stem from the same simplistic acceptance of the straight line or semicircular Right-Left Measuring Tool, based largely on economic and trade policy introduced in the last days of the French monarchy before the 1789 Revolution and its immediate aftermath of republican rule and the purely abstract and wholly arbitrary parliamentary seating arrangements that were introduced at the time.”

Influenced by the exaggerated tilt towards the Liberal side of the political spectrum, too many Americans invariably accept the emotionally loaded doctrines of political commentary that Left= good and Right = bad in much the same vein as Orwell’s Dictatorship of the Pig in Animal Farm that four legs = good and two legs = bad.”

Orwell indeed. The media and their supportive sheep bleating out the stupidity that being a Left-wing zealot is good and the Right is bad. Obey, submit, shut up. Sounds a lot like Islam.

The mindless support of the American and European Political Left for radical and “revolutionary leaders” in non-Western developing countries has preferred to ignore or “explain” the enormous contradictions between those regimes and leaders they have supported as “progressive” and the accepted jargon of political science discourse that “LEFT” means enlightened, beneficial to the working class, liberal, secular and internationalist.

And

In American political discourse, “Fascist!” is the ultimate epithet bandied about and frequently hung around the neck of those who value constitutional safeguards, parliamentary traditions, have deep seated religious convictions or believe in a strong military stance to defend the United States or RESOLUTELY opposed Communism.  

Pace Berdichevsky, a pagan-fascist construct based on the cult of Muhammad cannot be named for it is. Better to call it a 'religion' and hope that it simply goes away before it kills too many Unbelievers:

Of course, the only reluctance to use the term "Fascist" by a large segment of Left-Liberal opinion in America today is where it is most strikingly accurate – Islamo-Fascism, a term that describes the enemies we, Western civilization, Israel, Spain, Denmark and democracies from India to Australia and even moderate Arab/Muslim states such as Turkey, Algeria, Tunisia and Lebanon currently face. China and Russia face this same threat as well but prefer to ignore it and pretend that it is only directed against Israel or the Western and capitalist societies.”

Historically of course the cadre of Marxists and Socialists were virulent supporters of Hitler's National Socialism and Russian-Chinese-Cuban Marxist-Socialism. At least they are consistent. They also venerate that insipid clown Gandhi, who wanted to return India to the neo-lithic period:

Prof. Bluefarb reminds us that a similar proposal was made by another of the Left’s great idols, the spiritual father of pacifism, Mohandas Gandhi during World War II, in which the Mahatma—“Great Soul”—urged the Jews of Germany…..”To go gladly to their deaths, and thus gain the moral sympathy of the world.” Similar proposals today, coming from those who claim that we in the West are responsible for Muslim grievances, are no less absurd. They think and act under the assumption that 1,400 years of aggressive Muslim expansion cannot be called provocation but only reactions to it by those under attack.”

Gandhi in fact demanded that Britain and the civilized world simply surrender to Hitler and accept fate. What a hero. He would say the same today about Islam. It was Gandhi's insistence on destroying the British Raj which resuscitated the Moslem Jihad against the infidel Hindus and Buddhists in India:

If we are to learn anything at all from history, it is that the Islamist concept of jihad was unequivocally understood as “violent holy war” against the infidels and not subject to interpretation. It remains a political weapon that has been used quite similarly by the last Ottoman Caliph, the Taliban, the Iranian mullahs, Al-Qaeda and rival extremist Sunni and Shi'ite clerics in Iraq today. It is still attractive to much extremist opinion in large parts of the Arab world, Chechniya, the Sudan, Pakistan and even in Indonesia. Its attraction throughout the 20th century for those autocratic and dictatorial European leaders who sought to become “Protectors of Islam” and “borrow” it, was to exploit its violent and evil appeal for their own purposes.

Islam like National Socialism venerates the theology of the cult. The great leader. The Umma or community which might be a nation, a class, or simply the group of 'believers'. The use of violence to achieve political objectives. And of course the merger of church and state, in opposition to enlightened civilized Western society.

The false and often irrelevant dichotomy of LEFT vs. RIGHT obscures the basic similarities uniting the two wings of political thought at their extremes that glorify and deify abstractions such as THE leader, party, race, church or class that embody THE NATION. Both ideologies at their extremes grant ALL POWER to a demagogic leader who, once in power, promises either to save the people from poverty, restore their heroic traditions and glorious past, redeem the nation and restore its historic borders, or wipe away the humiliation and the privileges of the "ruling class." Every demagogue whether labeled as a Rightwing or Leftwing dictator throughout Latin America, Europe, Asia and Africa has made the same appeal and it is always predictably anti-American, anti-Capitalist, anti-Jewish and anti-Israel.”

This is a well-researched book and should be read by anyone who has an interest in current politics and who wishes to know more about the divide – false and mendacious as it is – which lies between the 'left and right'. The real struggle is of course between the communal which denies free-will, and the individual who possesses free-will. 


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9/4/2023:  'The Templars', by Michael Haag

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7/30/2023:  Simon Webb: ‘The Forgotten Slave Trade; The White European Slaves of Islam’

7/5/2023:  Scanderbeg: A History of George Castriota and the Albanian Resistance to Islamic Expansion

6/29/2023:  Defenders of the West. Raymond Ibrahim. Another must-read.

6/21/2023:  A must read book, Raymond Ibrahim’s ‘Sword and Scimitar’.

5/29/2023:  Judith Herrin, ‘Byzantium. The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire’.

5/26/2023:  Review: 'Byzantium and the Crusades', by Johnathan Harris.

5/18/2023:  Johathan Harris, The Lost World of Byzantium

5/13/2023:  History of the Byzantine Empire, Sir Charles Oman, 272 pages, 2018

11/7/2022:  Christopher Dawson 'Religion and the rise of Western culture'

8/26/2022:  Power and Persuasion in Late Antiquity. By Peter Brown

4/14/2022:  Henri Pirenne, 'A History of Europe: From the Invasions to the XVI Century'

1/22/2022:  ‘Through the Eye of A Needle’ by Peter Brown

11/28/2021:  Peter Hammond: Slavery, Terrorism and Islam. Exposing the moon cult and Jihad

11/14/2021:  The Rise of Western Christendom: Triumph and Diversity, A.D. 200–1000. Peter Brown.

10/4/2021:  Henri Pirenne: Mohammed and Charlemagne

9/27/2021:  Henri Pirenne: Mohammed and Charlemagne. Rome never 'Fell'. It was replaced.

8/9/2021:  The Catholic Enlightenment, Ulrich L. Lehner. Nicholas Bergier, defender of the Church.

8/8/2021:  The New World Order, by A. Ralph Epperson

7/15/2021:  The Catholic Enlightenment, Ulrich L. Lehner. From the 16th century to Pope Francis.

7/9/2021:  The Catholic Enlightenment, by Ulrich L. Lehner

3/29/2021:  The Clock and the Camshaft, J. W. Farrell

3/20/2021:  Bearing False Witness, by Rodney Stark, #2.

3/17/2021:  Bearing False Witness, by Rodney Stark, #1.

2/5/2021:  ‘Slavery, Terrorism and Islam’ by Peter Hammond

1/27/2021:  Emmet Scott 'The Impact of Islam' and the mythical Golden Age of Muhammadan Spain

1/24/2021:  The Impact of Islam, by Emmet Scott (part two)

1/20/2021:  The Impact of Islam, by Emmet Scott (part one)

11/20/2020:  The Light Ages: A Medieval Journey of Discovery, by Seb Falk. Science and sphericity.

11/11/2020:  The Light Ages: A Medieval Journey of Discovery, by Seb Falk

10/16/2020:  The Age of Plunder, by W. G. Hoskins

10/11/2020:  Michael Wood's 'In Search of The Dark Ages'. Plenty of light, the basis of civilisation

9/8/2020:  The Glory of the Crusades, Steve Weidenkopf (2014)

8/5/2020:  C.S. Lewis and 'The Abolition of Man' by Steve Turley

12/18/2019:  The Palestinian Delusion: The Catastrophic History of the Middle East Peace Process, Robert Spencer

12/11/2019:  Islam: Religion of Peace?: The Violation of Natural Rights and Western Cover-Up, Fr. Portella

11/25/2019:  2030: Your Children's Future in Islamic Britain, by David Vincent

4/28/2016:  History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French Revolution - James MacCaffrey

2/24/2016:  Morris Bishop, 'The Middle Ages'

11/6/2015:  “Medieval Lives” by Alan Ereira, Terry Jones and the 'other side' of the Monkish orders

11/6/2015:  Medieval Lives by Alan Ereira, Terry Jones

8/18/2015:  Dr. Robert Morey, 'Islam Unveiled' – The Real Desert Storm

8/16/2015:  R. A. Morey, 'Islam Unveiled', 1991

1/18/2015:  Ataturk in the Nazi Imagination, by Stefan Ihrig

11/28/2014:  The poorly named Enlightenment - James Hitchcock, History of the Catholic Church

11/27/2014:  Michael Coren's 'Hatred: Islam's war against Christianity' Read it.

11/20/2014:  "The Catholic Church and Science" by Benjamin Wiker

11/14/2014:  Michael Coren: 'Hatred; Islam's war on Christianity'. Stating the obvious.

11/11/2014:  Collins and Christian-Catholic Culture in the West

11/4/2014:  The Birth of the West: Rome, Germany, France, the Creation of Europe in the 10th Century P. Collins

7/25/2014:  James Hitchcock, The History of the Catholic Church

7/19/2014:  William Muir, 1868, 'Life of Mahomet' - the madness revealed

6/30/2014:  Garwood: 'Flat Earth' - a belief only held by atheists and evolutionists

5/1/2014:  How the West Won: The Neglected Story of the Triumph of Modernity by Rodney Stark

4/23/2014:  The Victory of Reason: How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, + Western Success - Rodney Stark

3/31/2014:  John Freely: 'Before Galileo', Kuhn and the real history of real science.

3/25/2014:  John Freely: 'Before Galileo', Diophantus to Bradwardine, review 2

3/15/2014:  Book Review: John Freely and 'Before Galileo'

2/19/2014:  Christianity, Islam and Atheism by William Kilpatrick (2)

2/18/2014:  Christianity, Islam and Atheism by William Kilpatrick

6/28/2013:  Raymond Ibrahim 'Crucified Again: Exposing Islam's New War on Christians'

4/24/2013:  Evangelical Catholicism: Deep Reform in the 21st-Century Church by George Weigel

4/21/2013:  Robert Spencer: 'Moslem Persecution of Christians'

4/13/2013:  Book Review: Islam: Evil in the name of God

3/31/2013:  The Triumph of the Risen. The Truth of Christianity.

1/12/2013:  Book Review 2: God and Reason In the Middle Ages, by Edward Grant

1/7/2013:  Book Review 1: God and Reason In the Middle Ages, by Edward Grant

1/3/2013:  The Early Middle Ages 400-1000, Editor Rosamund McKitterick, Short Oxford History of Europe

12/17/2012:  Heresy: Ten Lies They Spread About Christianity, by Michael Coren

12/10/2012:  Medieval Technology and Social Change, Lynn White Jr., Oxford Press, 1968

11/29/2012:  Book Review: Preachers of Hate: Islam and the War on America, Kenneth Timmerman

11/28/2012:  Book Review: Islamophobia, by Robert Spencer.

11/25/2012:  Part 2: The Gies' - Cathedral, Forge and Waterwheel, Review

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11/13/2012:  Book: The cult of the Moon God, by Brian Wilson

10/31/2012:  Review 2: Islam Dismantled, Sujit Das, Ali Sina

10/29/2012:  Book Review 1: Islam Dismantled by Sujit Das, Ali Sina

9/22/2012:  Book Review: Michael Coren, 'Why Catholics are Right'.

9/3/2012:  Book Review, Why the West is Best, by Ibn Warraq, Part Two

8/29/2012:  Book Review, Why the West is Best, by Ibn Warraq, Part One

6/12/2012:  Book Review: Poitiers AD 732, Charles Martel turns the Islamic tide. David Nicolle.

6/6/2012:  Review 2: Diane Moczar, Islam at the Gates, How Christendom defeated the Ottoman Turks

5/31/2012:  Review 1: Diane Moczar, Islam at the Gates, How Christendom defeated the Ottoman Turks

5/26/2012:  The Early Middle Ages 400-1000, Editor Rosamund McKitterick, Short Oxford History of Europe

4/13/2012:  Review, Emmet Scott: 'Mohammed and Charlemagne'

4/10/2012:  Henri Pirenne, 'Mohammed and Charlemagne' – Part 2

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1/29/2012:  Andrew Wheatcroft's, 'The Enemy at the Gate'

1/22/2012:  Book Review: Defenders of the Faith, by James Reston Jr.

1/11/2012:  Book Review: Norman Berdichevsky, 'The Left is not always Right'

12/10/2011:  Book Review, Nigel Cliff's 'Holy War' – good but flawed.

11/7/2011:  'How Civilizations Die', D. P. Goldman, 2011, 270 pgs.

10/21/2011:  'Religion and the Rise of Western Culture' – Christopher Dawson [Kindle Edition]

9/29/2011:  Book Review: Bynum's 'Allah is Dead'

9/16/2011:  Middle Age Dynamism

8/13/2011:  Malise Ruthven, 'Islam in the World' and the Kabaa-Hajj paganism.

8/12/2011:  EJ Brill and the Ka'ba

8/11/2011:  F.E. Peters and the pagan origins of the Kabaa Shrine

7/14/2011:  Benjamin Walker, Foundations of Islam: The Making of a World Faith 

4/12/2011:  Martin Gilbert: 'In Ishmael's House: A History of Jews in Muslim Lands', part 3.

4/6/2011:  Martin Gilbert: 'In Ishmael's House: A History of Jews in Muslim Lands', part 2.

4/3/2011:  Review part 1: Martin Gilbert 'In Ishmael's House'. A History of Jews living in Muslim lands.

3/31/2011:  Book Review: Susan Bauer, 'The History of the Medieval World'

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3/22/2011:  Book Review: Will Israel survive? By Dr. Mitchell Bard, expert on Israel's political-economy.

3/20/2011:  Book Review ‘The Great War for Civilization', by Robert Fisk

3/18/2011:  Book Review: Bruce Bawer's “Surrender: Appeasing Islam, Sacrificing Freedom”, Doubleday, May 2009.

3/15/2011:  Book Review: World War IV and Beyond, by Richard Hobbs.

3/11/2011:  Alan Dershowitz's: 'The Case for Israel.'

3/5/2011:  Leaving Islam, by Ibn Warraq

2/18/2011:  Review part 2: D. S. Margoliouth, 'The Early Development of Mohammedanism', 1913.

2/12/2011:  Review: D. S. Margoliouth, 'The Early Development of Mohammedanism', 1913.

12/21/2010:  Robert R. Reilly, 'The Closing of the Muslim Mind'. The Communal Fascism of Islam.

12/19/2010:  Robert R. Reilly, 'The Closing of the Muslim Mind'.

10/22/2010:  Rodney Stark, 'For the Glory of God'

10/20/2010:  Andrew McCarthy, 'The Grand Jihad, How Islam and the Left Sabotage America'.

10/18/2010:  Book Review: 'The Dhimmi. Jews and Christians under Islam.' Bat Ye'or.

10/8/2010:  Jamie Glazov: 'United in Hate'. Indeed they are. The Leftards and Muslims that is.

8/31/2010:  'The Stealth Jihad: How Radical Islam is Subverting America without Guns or Bombs', Robert Spencer

8/9/2010:  Amil Imani: Iranian and former-Muslim writes about the pagan savagery that is Islam.

7/15/2010:  Book Review: Baran's 'The Other Muslims: Moderate and Secular'. A fantasy novel.

6/29/2010:  Serge Trifkovic: 'The Sword of the Prophet'. Jihad, Jihad and endless Jihad.

6/28/2010:  Serge Trifkovic: 'The Sword of the Prophet'. The Madness of Muhammad.

6/5/2010:  Review, 'Medieval Civilization 400-1500' by Jacques Le Goff.

5/31/2010:  Fregosi and Islam's endless Jihad.

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5/21/2010:  Book Review: 'Islam's Black Slaves', by Ronald Segal, 2001.

5/9/2010:  Book Review: 'Race and Slavery in the Middle East.' by Bernard Lewis, 1990.

5/6/2010:  Book Review: 'Slavery in the Arab World', by Murray Gordon, 1987.

5/5/2010:  Book Review: R. C Davis; 'Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters', 2004 edition.

5/1/2010:  Book review: The Complete Infidel's Guide to the Koran, by Robert Spencer.

4/28/2010:  Book Review; Thomas Cahill, 'Mysteries of the Middle Ages', 317 pages.

4/9/2010:  Book Review: 'The Islamic Anti-Christ', Joel Richardson, 2009, WND Books.

3/26/2010:  Book Review: Wafa Sultan, 'A God Who Hates'. 2009, 244 pages.

3/19/2010:  Book Review: Brigitte Gabriel, “They Must be Stopped”. 2009. 240 pages.

3/1/2010:  Book Review; M. A. Khan “Islamic Jihad: A Legacy of Forced Conversion, Imperialism and Slavery”

2/22/2010:  Book Review: 'Defeating Political Islam' by Moorthy Muthuswamy

2/13/2010:  'Holy Warriors' – the Arab devastation of the Mediterranean

2/10/2010:  Henri Pirenne and why the 'Dark Ages' occurred.

2/20/2009:  Book Review: 'The Great Arab Conquests', by Hugh Kennedy.

1/22/2009:  Book Review - 'Chasing a Mirage' by Tarek Fatah. [2008, Wiley and Son, 410 pages.]

6/15/2008:  Book Review: 'Islamic Imperialism – A History.' By Efraim Karsh.

1/7/2008:  Book Review: Ed Husain, 'The Islamist'

11/22/2007:  Book Review: 'The War of Ideas: Jihadism against Democracy', by Walid Phares

10/16/2007:  Robert Spencer's superb book: 'Religion of Peace: Why Christianity is and Islam isn't'

9/21/2007:  Book Review: 'Infidel' by Ayaan Hirsi Ali- a Somalian-Dutch Muslim Apostate

5/2/2007:  Book Review: Islam The Arab Imperialism, By Anwar Shaikh

4/9/2007:  Book Review: ‘Religion of Peace? Islam’s War Against the World’, by G.M. Davis

2/12/2007:  Book review – ‘The Truth about Mohammad’, by Robert Spencer

2/11/2007:  Book review of 'Because they hate' by Brigitte Gabriel