The Hour and the Feminist Have Met
Topic: On Politics
I didn't glom onto this yesterday when I passed along the hand-wringing comments of Yale's Ms. Della Sentilles (see below), but it occurs to me this morning that she's actually something of an innovator, ideologically speaking.

Think about it: After decades of squealing and shrieking about the oppression of women in fascist Amerika, what was a good little progressive gender feminist to do when confronted with the less-than-enlightened practices of the Taliban? Alas, the Islamofascists of Afghanistan were not white males. They were saintly Third World exploitees, an inconvenient fact that set up a contradiction in feminist practice.

Here's Ms. Sentilles on the oppression of women at Yale:

Misogyny at Yale is rampant. It’s apparent in the lack of tenured female professors and the lack of adequate child-care options. . . . It’s apparent in the lack of a rape crisis center and the Administration’s denial of the prevalence of rape on this campus (national statistics predict that 79 Yale women are raped annually; last year, Yale reported only eight). It’s apparent when a large group of Yale fraternity pledges parade outside the Women’s Center chanting, "No means yes and yes means anal."

A "lack of adequate child-care options"--yikes! If this is enough to get Ms. Sentilles going, you'd think that the Taliban's abuse, torture and murder of countless women would really bring her blood to a boil. But no:

As a white American feminist, I do not feel comfortable making statements or judgments about other cultures, especially statements that suggest one culture is more sexist and repressive than another. American feminism is often linked to and manipulated by the state in order to further its own imperialist ends.

Introducing Della Sentilles, America's first self-loathing gender feminist. Yo, girl, how does it feel to be an ideological pioneer?

So Where's the Outrage?
Topic: War on Terror
Under fire for admitting as a student a former official of the horrific Taliban, Yale University is hunkering down, hoping that the story will just go away. Writing for the Wall Street Journal, John Fund notes:

Almost no one will now defend Mr. Ramatullah's presence as a special student, even though a week ago many had no such inhibitions in a splashy New York Times magazine piece, which broke the news that he had been at Yale for eight months. In that piece, Richard Shaw, Yale's dean of undergraduate admissions before he took the same post at Stanford, explained that Yale had missed out on another foreign student of the same caliber as Mr. Rahmatullah but that "we lost him to Harvard," and "I didn't want that to happen again."

Considering the Taliban's well-known record of abuse of women, you'd think that the heroic feminists of Yale would be up in arms over Mr. Ramatullah's presence on campus. Guess again:

Della Sentilles, the co-author of a feminist blog at Yale, insists one can't be judgmental about the Taliban. "As a white American feminist, I do not feel comfortable making statements or judgments about other cultures, especially statements that suggest one culture is more sexist and repressive than another," she writes. "American feminism is often linked to and manipulated by the state in order to further its own imperialist ends."

it's a sin against diversity to assert that the Taliban was ware sexist and repressive than wicked, fascist America. Thus your typical "white American feminist" cannot bring herself to condemn such Taliban practices as these:

Homosexuals were thrown into ditches and then had concrete walls bulldozed over them. Women caught wearing nail polish had their fingernails pulled out or in some cases their fingers chopped off. Everything was banned from television to kite flying to paper bags. Paper bags? Apparently one of the mullahs heard that bags in Kabul's market had been made out of recycled copies of the Koran, so they had to go.

Yale greatly deserves the public shaming to which it's being subjected. Kudos to Mr. Fund and others for keeping this story alive.

Doing What's Right in Iraq: Taking the War to the Enemy
Topic: Iraq War
Here's my first reason for thinking that the war in Iraq is a worthy cause: The right place to fight the war on terrorism is in the heartland of Islamofascist terrorism, the Middle East.

Critics of the war have occasionally pointed out that the US invasion of Iraq has made that country a magnet for terrorists. I certainly agree that it has, and a good thing too. The invasion of Iraq makes it much easier for our armed forces to find, fix and destroy the enemy. Every foreign jihadist who travels to Iraq, there to be killed by our troops, enhances the security of the US homeland. Since we have to fight this war, why not do so on ground of our own choosing, rather than yield the initiative to the enemy?

Doing What's Right in Iraq
Topic: Iraq War
What with the biased anti-Bush coverage generated by the mainstream media, it can be difficult to assess the actual state of affairs in Iraq.

Despite all the scaremongering predictions of Bush haters and pundits, Iraq has so far managed to avoid sliding into a full-scale civil war. (There's a case to be made for the proposition that the terrorist campaign is a sort of low-intensity civil war, but that's largely a semantic issue.) On the other hand, hopeful predictions of the flowering of Iraqi democracy seem exaggerated. Iraq is a country riven by ethnic/tribal hatreds, with absolutely no democratic traditions, and burdened with the baggage of a retrograde religion. It would be startling indeed if a true democratic government were to be rise from the wreckage created by the Prophet Mohammad, Ottoman despotism, British imperialism and Saddamite totalitarianism.

All that being said, is the Iraq War worth the price to America?

Bearing in mind that the war in Iraq is part of a broader war on terrorism, the answer must be yes. Aside from the obvious fact that anything opposed by John Kerry, Michael Moore and Mother Sheehan must be the right thing to do, I have several reasons for thinking that the Iraq War is a worthy cause. What are they? Stay tuned.

Blue State Hate
Standard issue nowadays for any state or local government with pretensions to progressivism is a commission or agency dedicated to the elimination of "discrimination." In Illinois it's called the Discrimination and Hate Crimes Commission. Not all is well, however, among the members of this august body, as by the Chicago Sun-Times in this story:

SPRINGFIELD -- Gov. Blagojevich's anti-discrimination panel seethed with acrimony Thursday as two leading Jewish members resigned, refusing to serve alongside a Nation of Islam official who was unwilling to condemn controversial remarks by Minister Louis Farrakhan.

The "controversial remarks" in question consisted of Minister Farrakhan's recent claim that "Hollywood Jews" are responsible for "promoting lesbianism, homosexuality" and other "filth."

Needless to say, black politicos sprang to the defense of Farraakhan and his minion on the commission, one Claudette Marie Johnson, also known as as Sister Claudette Marie Muhammad. State Senator Donne Trotter sneered, "I think these two are demonstrating their hatred ... of others is too big to effectively do their jobs." Yes, imagine the nerve of these two Jews, taking exception to St. Farrakhan's comments!

By appointing a close associate of a notorious racist and anti-semite to the Illinois Discrimination and Hate Crimes Commission, Gov. Blagojevich has conformed my longstanding suspicion that he's a complete idiot.

The Shelf Life of Crunchy Conservatism
Topic: On Politics
As far as I'm concerned, it's already past its expiration date.

In case you didn't know, "crunchy cons" are granola-munching conservatives who want liberalism without big government (my definition). Crunchy cons get their jollies by bashing capitalism and the consumer culture, proclaiming their devotion to the environment, admiring simple lifers like the Amish, etc., etc.

Crunchy conservatism is thus a kind of moral liberalism. We, the unenlightened mob, are to be made good, but somehow this will happen without the application of political muscle. Government will be small, but it will protect the "moral order." And so on.

So what's going on here? It looks to me like an attempt to redeem the failures of liberalism by rebranding it as a variant of conservatism. Personally, I'm not buying.

Thety're Racists, But They Mean Well
Topic: Hate-Bush Goofballs
Bush hatred is indeed a fascinating syndrome.

Bear in mind that in the ranks of the political opposition to George W. Bush, the most fanatical haters of the President are precisely those people who consider themselves brilliantly enlightened and thoroughly progressive. It is they who profess to see in Bush a warmongering totalitarian racist of the deepest dye.

Then along comes something like the Dubai Ports World deal, and what happens?

Those enlightened and progressive Bush haters waste no time in fanning the flames of xenophobia and racism. If that seems odd to you, remember that progressives who scapegoat and bash Arabs have a higher end in view: to bring down that notorious racist, George W. Bush.

Civil War Fever
Topic: Iraq War
It's easy enough to understand why the hate-Bush goofballs of MoveOn.org & etc. were crowing about the outbreak of civil war in Iraq last week. They have a vested interest in America's defeat, after all. Yet even allowing for mainstream media bias, it seems odd that Iraq coverage so quickly defaulted to "civil war" in the wake of the bombing of the Askariya shrine in Samarra. Even Fox News instantly began blathering about civil war as if it had already broken out. What on earth is wrong with these people?

Certainly there were legitimate grounds for discussing the possibility of an Iraqi civil war. Given that country's ethnic and religious divisions, the Askariya shrine bombing was a worrying development. But the media seemed uninterested in sober commentary. Instead, we got a tsunami of hysterical coverage whose subtext was that the civil war was already underway.

It's all very reminiscent of the over-the-top, highly inaccurate Katrina coverage, The media seem to have learned nothing from that embarrassing pratfall.

Honoring Terrorism in Chicago
Topic: On Politics
In Chicago, the dispute over naming a street after a member of the infamous Black Panthers rumbles on. Illinois State Representative Bobby Rush, a former Black Panther "defense minister," is doing his best to fan the flames:

We're engaged in battle now," said Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Chicago), a former Black Panther defense minister who said he fully supports Haithcock's proposal and "will stand right beside her and, if necessary, I will stand in front of her."

"I didn't seek this fight," Rush said. "I didn't go looking for this fight. But I am determined to fight for this street designation until the bitter end. It will become a reality in the city of Chicago."

But Chicago police officers are infuriated by the whole thing, recalling that the Black Panthers once openly advocated the assassination of "the pigs." Fraternal Order of Police president Mark Donahue called it a "dark day" in the city's history "when we honor someone who would advocate killing policemen."

An interesting footnote: This proposal to name a portion of Monroe Street after Black Panther thug Fred Hampton came originally from the dead man's son, Fred Hampton Jr., a "political activist" whose "activism" took the form of firebombing a couple of Korean-owned stores in Englewood. For that Fred Jr. went to jail in 1993, but unfortunately he is today a free man.

Like father, like son—terrorists both.

Curses! Foiled Again!
Topic: Iraq War
By the way, whatever happened to that Iraqi civil war? Such giants of geopolitical analysis as Mother Sheehan, Michael Moore, Rep. John Murthra and MoveOn.org have been predicting (and gleefully anticipating) civil war in Iraq for years. Last week, they thought that their hour had struck. But few people in Iraq seem interested in such a conflict; its main proponents appear to be American progressives and Islamofascist terrorists.