Notre Dame vs. European Secularism

Photo: Ileana, Christmas 2002

Notre-Dame spire

For centuries the European faithful have sacrificed to build exquisite monuments to their faith that subsequent generations would cherish as much as they did. It is a legacy that unfortunately secular Europe has been busy extinguishing for decades. The transformation has been visible to any visitor who cared to observe the change.

Secular Europeans today value venerable old churches as cash cows, to the extent that they provide millions of visitors annually who spend a lot of tourist money to marvel at and admire their remarkable history, art and architecture, and often climb (for a fee) to the rooftop for a breathtaking view of the surrounding city.  

According to the CIA World Factbook, the population of France in 2014 was approximately 66.3 million. France is mainly Catholic Christian, with 63-66% Christians, 23-28% secular people, and 7-9% Muslims. Some areas of Paris like St. Dennis are 40% populated by African Muslims.

There are pockets left of the fervent faithful who are still attending church on a regular basis while the rest may attend Easter services, Christmas, weddings, baptisms, and burials.

While strolling in during service, I often noticed with regret the small crowd of worshippers and their advanced age. The young Europeans seemed to be missing among the parishioners. They were found outside, enjoying their secular existence devoid of God.

Following an alleged accidental fire, the beautiful Notre Dame Cathedral’s spire has burned completely to ashes. The stone base, the altar crucifix, the interior statuary and artwork, and some of the famous rose stained-glass windows fortunately remained intact.

President Macron and the secular French immediately proclaimed that the spire will be rebuilt better and grander, from modern materials and with a design that would be even more beautiful - a multi-faith monument that reflects France of today. Who will get to decide what alterations improve on the original? The atheists and the non-Christians?

Almost one billion dollars has been donated so far for the rebuilding project that was estimated unrealistically by the former banker now President Macron to be five years. Those of us who appreciate old churches as a place of worship, the soul of western civilization and of its Christian people, know that beautiful, masterful, and enduring construction takes a lifetime to achieve. I am not sure that the master craftsmen and stonemasons of yesteryear still exist today.

Notre Dame cathedral itself did not collapse because medieval builders knew that rib vaulting and flying buttresses were the best ways to support the massive structure to withstand the passage of time. They built for endurance, almost nine centuries of existence.

John Harwood, an architectural historian from Toronto, said, “Any rebuilding should be a reflection not of an old France, or the France that never was – a non-secular, white European France – but a reflection of the France of today, a France that is currently in the making.” He sees Notre Dame as a “reflection of the modern zeitgeist;” cathedrals are “political monuments.”

Rev. Ben Johnson disagrees vehemently – “Christians built cathedrals as earthly embassies of the kingdom of Heaven, … created as an expression of faith. Their beauty and wonder provide a foretaste of the splendor and order of eternity.” He argues that, if Notre Dame reflected who the French are today, it would be a parking lot or a concrete government building because atheism “erects no cathedrals.” What are the European values, one wonders, suicidal tolerance and failed multiculturalism?  https://www.intellectualtakeout.org/article/notre-dame-may-be-rebuilt-secular-monument

Architecture, art, sculpture, poetry, and literature were inspired by Christian faith and created by the West. Notre Dame was and is the symbol of Christian faith and of our collective western civilization, not just of Catholicism. Rev. Johnson argues that “The belfries of all Christendom echo its message of hope, redemption, and peace. Only those ablaze with the fiery flame of divine love can rebuild Notre Dame, or Europe, from the debris.”

The cathedral reconstruction should never be about “what modern French people want” even though it is in the center of Paris. Notre Dame, like all other cathedrals in Europe, is a monument to Christianity and part of the history of Western Civilization and must be restored as it was.

Albani's Escape from Communism and His Free Life in America (Part II)

“A year later I went back to the country and stole my wife. Nobody knew I was coming.”

Albani had no idea what happened to the unassembled submarine he had abandoned when he escaped to France and never returned. He had sent drawings to each factory to manufacture the parts. The authorities had no idea what he was going to make with all these separate sections; some of them were conical, like a piece of pipe, with flanges and bolts; they looked like something designed by an idiot who did not know how to do a flange because his flanges were inside instead of outside.

Once he escaped, Albani hatched a plan to bring his wife to Paris. “I made a trick car because I wanted to steal more people, not just my wife. But my best friend escaped too and my plan now focused solely on her. I modified the car in such a way as to fit her in.”

How did he get away with stealing her without papers and hiding her in a car across so many borders? Albani answered with pride and aplomb: “I’m an engineer.”

There is a modified Volkswagen in the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C., in which people have been hidden and taken across Checkpoint Charlie between East and West Berlin. The two sides were separated by the heavily guarded Berlin Wall of Shame built by East German communists who wanted to keep their oppressed subjects inside the “socially just and egalitarian communist paradise” they built for their citizens. It was such a miserable “paradise” that people were willing to chance being shot and possibly die in order to escape it.

From August 13, 1961 until November 9, 1989 the Berlin Wall was a stark reminder of the division between the free west and the communist-enslaved east. Before the Berlin Wall was erected, 3.5 million East Germans managed to cross the border between East and West Berlin. After 1961, there were few successful attempts to cross by low flying aircraft, running through the barbed wire, hidden in cars, and other unconventional means.  But many were shot and died trying to escape. The Center for Contemporary History in Potsdam gives the official figure of those who died trying to flee to freedom at 138, from an infant to an 80-year old woman, but researchers at the Checkpoint Charlie Museum estimate the death toll to be significantly higher.

Albani hid his wife inside the modified rear bench. He created a slight space; the floor went down two inches in the Citroen DS by cutting the springs much shorter, taking the cover and reversing it. The space was far from comfortable; it was a fetal position inside the bench. He sized the space by using his friend who knew what he was going to do.

To throw off the sniffing dogs at the border, he used a spray repellant for animals. “Maybe it was Tiger Balm,” he joked.

While in Paris, Albani toyed with the idea of a phony passport for himself and his wife but it was very difficult to alter a French passport. The pictures had small rivets on which Republique française was written in very small font, and you needed a microscope to see them. Counterfeiting such a passport was impossible. A very good friend, a Moroccan Jew with a lot of dark and curly hair like him offered his passport. “But I don’t look like you. But I don’t look like myself either.” He showed Albani his passport. This man was 22 years old and Albani was 28. The saving grace was that the passport had been issued when he was 14 and he did not look like himself either. 

“You don’t have to change the picture! Look at all the countries I went through with this passport.” Indeed, there were 45 visas, from Iran, to Nepal, to France, Sweden, to Germany. “Nobody stopped me; I went all over the world.” And he did, he had lots of entry stamps.  The French passport was good for 16 years, until the age of 30. Albani took his passport.

After posting an ad on a college campus that he was going to Romania with his best friend, a really good driver, and had two seats available in the car, three guys called and asked how Romania was, they wanted to go. It was fashionable to hitchhike. “I chose my married friend who had a week old baby. He risked his life to come with me to get my wife. The other three guys had no idea what we were going to do.”

To make the trip even more dangerous, Albani foolishly bought a BB gun, a high speed, high precision target practice gun as a gift for his sister and put it in his luggage.

It was still dark when they left at 4 a.m. in a completely modified Citroen DS. Their intended route was through Germany, Austria, Hungary, and then Romania. They were driving through Paris, in a roundabout, had just entered it, when two gendarmes, very tough guys, on motorcycles with machine guns on their backs, cut them off, almost hitting a wall. The other cop drove and stopped by the driver’s side and put a gun to his head, literally touching it. They spread eagle the rest of us on the car and on the nearby wall. More gendarmes arrived for backup. They checked the luggage and I.D.

Apologizing for inconveniencing them, the gendarmes explained that four hippie looking guys had broken into a bank 20 minutes earlier and killed the guard. They were looking for those culprits who were armed with machine guns.

“They let us go, very apologetic, you can make a complaint, but someone was killed, and they were driving the same red Citroen DS like you. When they stopped us, I almost peed in my pants.  The whole time, I was thinking about my sister’s BB gun, my modified car, and I just knew we would wind up in jail. My French friend did not know I had the BB gun, I told him later, he said I was crazy. It looked like a real gun.”

Getting closer to the German border, with his friend driving like a maniac, 100 mph, rotating lights appeared in the rear view mirror and they had to stop. But the poor cop on the motorcycle did not see the blocked isle for a bus stop and he hit the concrete side and spun wildly all over the road but recovered. Visibly shaken, he asked for IDs.

The passengers were scared that he was going to arrest them for driving so fast. But he told them to slow down and let them go very graciously without a ticket.

The German border guards pored over Albani’s French passport but let him go. The stop at the Austrian border was short. But then they got to Hungary, a strict communist country. There was barbed wire everywhere, control towers, guns, lights; it was frightening, dozens and dozens of cops armed to their teeth.

In no time their luggage was spread in the grass, and everything was taken out of the car; they were looking for contraband, cassette recorders, western goods, Kent cigarettes, cosmetics, foreign currency. But they found nothing.

“We got to the Romanian border, guards were lazy, moving around very slowly, but checked the papers very carefully. We spoke only French. I was in the car, inching our way in line. A cop, military guy, with a gun from 1916, probably our age or younger, was looking at our smart car, never saw a Citroen before.  He checked the car out; I opened the hood, the trunk, etc. He tested the seats, but the springs in the rear benches were much shorter which made the bench quite stiff. Why is the back bench so hard, he asked?”

He pulled the bench; they were in such a rush to leave, Albani forgot to bolt the bench back in place. He pulled the bench and saw the cover, some dirt, glue, straw, a penny; all set up to look like a bench would look. He could have pulled the cover easily and revealed the hidden space, but, once again, they got lucky, he never did.

On the way to Cluj, they stopped in a village to eat Romanian meat balls called “mititei.” It was Sunday, everyone was out drinking, the smell of grilling meat was overpowering; a guy came by and, in his drunken stupor, called them bastard capitalists and threw a rock through the rear door window and shattered it.

The local policeman was horrified and forced him to pay for the window. The cop was very apologetic to the foreign visitors. The poor drunk looked like he could hardly afford to pay for his booze much less replace the broken window.  They declined and left in a hurry.

They replaced the window with a piece of plastic which took a really long time to find in the miserable “socialist paradise,” where it was hard to even find a piece of plastic on the black market at ten times the price.

The trio found two girls infatuated with “foreigners” and they offered them free overnight accommodations in their homes; if caught, this generous offer would have landed them all in jail. They visited the old city and churches in Cluj and then went to Feleac. They had to cross a ditch, Albani asked the driver to raise the hydraulic suspension of the Citroen in order to avoid being stuck but he declined. He was sure the Citroen could handle it. Once in the ditch, the cap of the low-hanging gas tank sheared off and the gas drained everywhere.

The girls helped push the car onto the highway, but the gas tank was now empty. “We could not fix it, what do you do, go to a garage and say, hey, I have a modified compartment with a gas tank hanging too low, would you fix our sheared gas cap? You have a gas tank under the driver’s seat? Boom.”

 

They went into the city, knowing that copper pipe was impossible to find. At that time, nothing could be found in Romania unless it was bought on the black market. But Albani bought two plastic tanks in a warehouse by bribing one worker willing to sell it to him.

“I had to become Romanian again because you could not wheel and deal in a warehouse as a foreigner.” To appear Romanian, he had to cut his hippie hair into a “fashionable” crew cut and ditch the western clothes because they were too easily identifiable, the quality was “too good.”

It was illegal in Romania at the time to have long hair. If the police caught you, they shaved your head. An actor was trapped once in a daily occurring raid in Bucharest; he was playing a hippie role in a movie and needed long hair for the duration of filming. Cops shaved his head and he had to finish the movie with a wig.  

Accidentally pulling out foreign money out of his pocket instead of Romanian lei, Albani explained to the barber that he had just returned from Germany and that’s why he had French francs. For owning foreign currency, Albani could have gotten a year in jail, it was the minimum punishment. Again, luck was on his side. Barbers and hairdressers were information collectors for the secret police, they were compensated informants and everyone knew that. He paid quickly and disappeared.

“I had a capped canister of 10 gallons of fuel in the car and that is how we drove all the way to Paris. I found a small tank of two quarts to put it in the engine compartment when crossing the border. It was red, so I had to find black paint. Black paint was not available but I did find some tar for roofs and made the small tank black. We left, it was raining heavily and we had a broken window in the back. Nearing Bucharest, a green secret police jeep followed us, passed us, looked inside, we had French plates, we were driving by the book, we found them two miles later stopped on the right. It happened three times. Later we realized they were picking up hitchhikers from various villages and dropping them off to make extra money and to get a bag of potatoes, onions, or a live chicken.” It was still cheaper to travel this way instead of taking the rickety state bus.

They made it to Bucharest too early in the day and could not find his wife. They drove twice around Bucharest to kill some time and then stopped in a coffee shop. Seated next to them was a former colleague from IPROMET with a good memory of faces. “Albani, I thought you defected to France a year ago.” He pretended to be the Frenchmen he impersonated while his heart was beating hard and beads of sweat were forming on his brow.

Finally, it was dark enough and drove to Marin’s apartment who was to bring his wife to him. Instead of Marin opening the door, an older acquaintance, a full bird colonel in the Secret Police invited them in. Albani froze.

“Come in, have a drink, what are you doing here, why did you come back? He knew everything. I went to college; I came back because I did not like France. I gave him a snow job. I thought momentarily, when survival instinct kicked in, about hitting him on the head with a heavy seltzer bottle nearby.”

When Marin returned, Albani found out that this colonel had been kicked out of his apartment by his estranged wife. He was a very good rugby player from a team that was sponsored by the Secret Police. The biggest rivalry at the time was between the railroad workers union, the secret police, and the military. Each sponsored a team and conferred high ranks on the best players.  “As it turned out, he was not a squealer, he was one of us. He never talked. One year later he died in a car accident. It was pretty sad.”

Marin left to pick up Albani’s wife. She was living in a building that was adjacent to the Secret Police headquarters that was guarding the president. You cannot make this stuff up. The villa had all the communication equipment and, in summer time when the windows were open, you could hear all the radio police chatter.

Fate intervened again – his wife was not home. She knew Albani was coming but was in Brasov with her sick mother.  He had sent her a note on thin paper placed inside a pen with General De Gaulle’s picture on it. He had called and emphasized the word “general” several times.  She eventually understood and read the note inside the pen. Henri, his French driver friend, and Marin went to Brasov and told her to take a few things, and, when the car stopped at the curb, to jump in. They drove back to Bucharest and left for Paris.

Choosing the Yugoslavia, Italy, and France route, they stopped at the border with Yugoslavia and had to cross a ditch filled with a chemical to prevent mad cow disease. Luckily, the ditch was only 2-3 inches deep and did not plug up the breathing hole of the compartment where his wife was hiding. But the chemical fumes were terrible. Maybe Albani’s animal spray deterrent worked or the dogs smelled the chemical in the ditch, they did not react when sniffing the Citroen’s back bench.

At border crossings, there were only two passengers in the car, Henri and Albani. The third Frenchman stayed in Romania for more sightseeing. Driving through each country, Albani’s wife would come out of her hiding.

“I went inside to have the passports stamped and some guy told me in Romanian, even though I had French documents and was dressed in western clothes, driving a Citroen DS, didn’t you pass by one year ago, which was true. I did not react. He said again, looking sideways, you passed by here a year ago. Again, I did not react. He stamped the passport and we left.”

Between Romania and Yugoslavia, there was no sign telling them how far they were from the border and at some point, the border suddenly appeared, two blocks away.  And his wife was sitting in the car, no passport, no nothing.  So they pulled into a field of corn, put her in and crossed the border.

The road eventually ended into a Yugoslavian checkpoint in the mountains, they could not even turn around. They stopped in the small parking lot to put his wife in again. They opened both back doors and acted like he was cleaning the car of trash. Henri went in to buy some candy. There was no time to be scared.  As they inched toward the border, the car started sputtering and died.

It was the crossing point down to Trieste. The guards were nice, pulled back the car and promised to fix it. “Don’t worry, you don’t have parts here. The road is going down.  It’s a spark plug. They pushed the car onto the Italian side, into the parking lot in Italy, and checked our papers. I took my wife out of the hiding spot later. Apparently, I had forgotten to reconnect the two tanks, the fake and the real one.”

She almost died in the Mont Blanc tunnel; they did not know how long it was and that they had to drive through it for 40 minutes.

“It was night time, the ventilation was not good, the border was right before the tunnel and I could not stop and take her out, so she stayed in for the entire Mont Blanc tunnel. When she came out, she was coughing and choking.”

In France they were all in the car, Henri was driving like a maniac, the car was not insured, as if it mattered at this point. They had insured the car by phone for two days only and were not sure if it was still valid. Stopped for speeding, they had to explain why his wife had a Romanian I.D. card.

Sent to the Paris prefecture to declare her, the police took them to the Secret Police and they just knew that they would be arrested and fined. Instead, the policemen laughed heartily. “We just knew our border guards were stupid, anybody can come through, and they have no idea what they are doing. They can’t catch anybody even if they import a tank.” Asked if she was persecuted in Romania, and after answering yes, the secret police issued her papers to stay in France.

So she made it to Paris and to the free world with a lot of luck and God’s providence. But, they did not live happily ever after - they were married “ten years minus three hours,” as Albani likes to say. They immigrated across the ocean to the land of the free where they both still reside today.

Copyright: ILEANA JOHNSON 2016

 

 

 

 

 

Daylight Savings Time, Is It Good for Us?

Photo: Ileana Johnson 2015

As my body struggles each spring to cope with the Daylight Savings Time (DST), I wonder if it is beneficial to humans and what effect does it have if any on loss of productivity due to sleep deprivation, on health, and potential accidents. Who decided first that it was a good idea to turn clocks forward one hour in spring and wind them back in the fall? Did it save significant amounts of energy and thus money?

At 2 a.m. on the second Sunday in March until 2 a.m. on the first Sunday in November, all states except Arizona, Hawaii, and territories, American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands observe DST. Seventy other nations around the world also follow DST.

Benjamin Franklin, then Minister to France, proposed in 1784 to reset the clocks when the sun came up and people were still sleeping, saving one million francs per year in candles.

A British builder, William Willett, proposed in 1907 to move hours of work and recreation more closely to daylight hours, cutting back on artificial light. The bill he proposed in Parliament did not pass.

To conserve fuel, Germany started DST on May 1, 1916. During the war, most of Europe also adopted DST.

In the U.S., DST was not formally adopted until March 19, 1918, establishing both standard time zones and summer DST to start on March 31, 1918. Because the idea was unpopular, Congress abolished DST after the war, overriding President Woodrow Wilson’s veto. Some states observed DST until WW II. At that time, President Franklin Roosevelt established “War Time” on February 9, 1942 which ended on the last Sunday in September 1945. The following year, many states adopted summer DST.

According to the Congressional Research Service, the Uniform Time Act of 1966 (P.L. 89-387) established federal regulation across the country because the transportation industry needed consistency in time observance. Clocks were to be set forward one hour on the last Sunday in April at 2 a.m. and set back on the last Sunday in October. An entire state could exempt itself from the law, including states that were located in split time zones, as long as the entire state would follow the same time. Arizona exempted itself in 1968 and in 1972 the act was amended to allow states split in different time zones to be exempted or be entirely included in DST. The Department of Transportation became the law’s enforcer.

The OPEC oil embargo of 1973 prompted Congress to have a trial period of year-round DST in order to conserve energy and fuel. Benefits advertised were more recreation, reduced light and heating demand, reduced crime, and reduced auto accidents. Many worried about children going to school in the dark. After the trial period, in 1975 the whole country returned to DST.

The DOT found that “modest overall benefits might be realized by a shift from the historic six-month DST (May through October) in areas of energy conservation, overall traffic safety and reduced violent crime” when the DST was proposed to be changed to March-November.

Beth Cook wrote that the DOT reported, “These benefits were minimal and difficult to distinguish from seasonal variations and fluctuations in energy prices.” (March 9, 2016, CRS, R44411, p. 2)

Cook also wrote, “Congress then asked the National Bureau of Standards (NBS) to evaluate the DOT report. In an April 1976 report to Congress, Review and Technical Evaluation of the DOT Daylight Saving Time Study, NBS found no significant energy savings or differences in traffic fatalities. It did find statistically significant evidence of increased fatalities among school-age children in the mornings during the four-month period January-April 1974 as compared with the same period (non-DST) of 1973. NBS stated that it was impossible to determine, what if any of this increase was due to DST. When this same data was compared between 1973 and 1974 for the individual months of March and April, no significant difference was found for fatalities among school-age children in the mornings.” http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R44411.pdf

The Uniform Time Act of 1966 was modified in 1986 to change DST to first Sunday in April through last Sunday in October and in 2005 when Congress changed DST to second Sunday in March and ending it the first Sunday in November. Congress also asked the Department of Energy (DOE) to report on the impact of extended DST on energy consumption. DOE sent this report to Congress in 2008. (Fred Sissine, CRS RL32860, Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Legislation in the 109^th Congress)

Cook enumerated some studies on energy savings, health, and safety:

-          Department of Energy (DOE) studies in 2006 and 2008 revealed that ”Total potential electricity savings benefits of DST are relatively small, 0.01 percent to 0.03 percent of total annual U.S. energy consumption.” http://www1.eere.energy.gov/ba/pba/pdfs/epact_sec_110_edst_report_to_congress_2008.pdf

-          “There is general consensus that DST does contribute to an evening reduction in peak demand for electricity, though this may be offset by an increase in the morning.” (M.B. Aries and G.R. Newsham (2008), “Effect of Daylight Saving Time on Lighting Energy Use: A Literature Review,” Energy Policy, 36(6), 1858–1866.)

 

-          “Our main finding is that, contrary to the policy’s intent, DST increases electricity demand.” A trade off was identified between “reducing demand for lighting and increasing demand for heating and cooling.” http://environment.yale.edu/kotchen/pubs/revDSTpaper.pdf

-          A. Huang and D. Levinson, studying the effects of DST on vehicle crashes in Minnesota, found in 2010 that “the short term effect of DST on crashes on the morning of the first DST is not statistically significant.” http://nexus.umn.edu/papers/daylightsavingstime.pdf

 

-          T. Lahti et al found in their 2010 study, “Our results demonstrated that transitions into and out of daylight saving time did not increase the number of traffic road accidents.” (T. Lahti et al., 2010, “Daylight Saving Time Transitions and Road Traffic Accidents,” Journal of Environmental and Public Health, 657167)

 

-          Y. Harrison found in his 2013 that “The start of daylight saving time in the spring is thought to lead to the relatively inconsequential loss of 1 hour of sleep on the night of the transition, but data suggest that increased sleep fragmentation and sleep latency present a cumulative effect of sleep loss, at least across the following week, perhaps longer. The autumn transition is often popularized as a gain of 1 hour of sleep but there is little evidence of extra sleep on that night. The cumulative effect of five consecutive days of earlier rise times following the autumn change again suggests a net loss of sleep across the week. Indirect evidence of an increase in traffic accident rates, and change in health and regulatory behaviors which may be related to sleep disruption suggest that adjustment to daylight saving time is neither immediate nor without consequence.”  http://europepmc.org/abstract/MED/23477947

 

-          MR Jiddou et al in their 2013 study, “Incidence of Myocardial Infarction with Shifts to and From Daylight Savings Time,” The American Journal of Cardiology, 111(5), 631-635,  stated, “Limited evidence suggests that Daylight Saving Time (DST) shifts have a substantial influence on the risk of acute myocardial infarction (AMI). Previous literature, however, lack proper identification necessary to vouch for causal interpretation. We exploit Daylight Saving Time shift using non-parametric regression discontinuity techniques to provide indisputable evidence that this abrupt disturbance does affect incidence of AMI.”

If savings in electricity are relatively small, cumulative sleep deprivation has been demonstrated which could result in productivity loss and traffic accidents, and potential health effects, why are we embracing DST? Wouldn’t following nature’s biological clock be more beneficial to our wellbeing?

 

 

 

 

 

"Combating Hate in Europe" Forum

From left to right: Fred Hiatt, Washington Post moderator, Peter Wettig, German Ambassador, Gerard Araud, French Ambassador, and David O'Sullivan, EU Ambassador to U.S. Photo: Ileana Johnson 2016

Despite the snowy conditions in Washington, D.C., the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum held a program on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, January 27, 2016 on the topic of “Combating Hate in Europe.” http://www.ushmm.org/online/watch/index.html

In advertising the forum, the museum explained the importance of such a program.
“Around the world, antisemitism, religious persecution, and violent extremism are on the rise, and each threatens the stability and freedoms that democratic leaders are working to preserve.”

The Museum’s intent was to examine how the lessons of the Holocaust could help “combat extremism and also stand up to antisemitism and violence against religious minorities.”

Ambassadors were to address what can be done to confront these challenges today, “what their governments are doing and still need to do to educate young people, counter hate speech, and create economic opportunity while also maintaining secure borders and offering safe harbor to refugees.”

Speakers included Gérard Araud, Ambassador of France to the United States, David O'Sullivan, Ambassador of the European Union to the United States, and Peter Wittig, Ambassador of Germany to the United States. Fred Hiatt, editorial page editor at the Washington Post was the moderator.

Dr. Alfred Munzer

The special unannounced guest and speaker was a Holocaust survivor, Dr. Alfred Münzer.

In her opening remarks, the museum representative described the day as a “day for education and reflection,” keeping in mind the social unrest in Europe, the fear on the ground, the resentment, xenophobia, hate speech, vicious, sexual attacks, and the treacherous slide into the worst extremism, the rise of terror groups and of government leaders who engage in hate speech. She described the rise of radical groups in Poland, “which are bolder and stronger than ever,” and the “anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, anti-Jewish, anti-NATO, anti-Europe feelings, “the unbridled threats and actions against minorities; the anti-s have taken over the global discourse.”

Fred Hiatt remarked that America spoke with “moral arrogance” about Europe but “nobody is in a position to lecture anybody else when we are talking about these topics.” He mentioned how dismayed many were at the level of intolerance in parts of our presidential debates, “the ease with which other human beings were dehumanized.”

Peter Wettig explained that his country, Germany, has a moral responsibility to never forget the Holocaust, and that shapes its foreign policy, especially towards Israel. Anti-Semitism is not tolerated – “my country has strict laws on incitement, on hate speech, and on Holocaust denial which are punishable under the law, under the full force of the law.”

Those who decide what constitutes hate speech are lawyers and judges, an obviously subjective decision. One of the panelists explained that, in order to be hate speech, it must “incite” violence. I thought violence in general is caused by hate, an “intense and passionate dislike” of something or someone, by revenge, or insanity.

What is then “hate speech” as determined by progressive scholars. There is a legal and a dictionary definition.

“In law, hate speech is any speech, gesture or conduct, writing, or display which is forbidden because it may incite violence or prejudicial action against or by a protected individual or group, or because it disparages or intimidates a protected individual or group.”

In the dictionary, it is “speech that attacks, threatens, or insults a person or group on the basis of national origin, ethnicity, color, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, or disability.”

By this definition, most Democrats should be fined for “hate speech” and inciting riots and violence. But we do have freedom of speech, particularly unpleasant and offensive speech.

The audience expected the forum to address “the growing concern of most of Europe and many here in this country of the virulent spread of hatred meted out by the growing Muslim population in their host countries.” Instead, “the general position taken was that the rest of us aren’t tolerant enough of their customs and religious ideas.”

According to Chriss Rainey, “the discussion was presented in a panel of like-minded socialists who represented their socialist governments. I don’t think anyone has the answers yet for the Muslim infiltration of Europe and the western world, but to think we can do nothing but increase tolerance is irrational.”

Rainey continued, “Did it ever occur to anyone that the repeated mention of Republican candidates running for office, Trump in particular, was offensive and bordering on hate speech? Or is it only acceptable to speak your mind and express your sincere beliefs if you are Democrat or a socialist?”

The German ambassador Wittig expressed his country’s position of respect for Jewish groups, for Israel’s right to exist, and his country’s stance of intolerance towards any form of anti-Semitism. He almost foolishly insisted that anti-Semitism, “if it existed, was a German problem and not a threat from the million Muslims they have invited and allowed into the country.”

An interesting word used by several people on the panel raised my radar, “stakeholders,” a word that points to the one world governance socialist-speak coming from the United Nations.

Ambassador Gerard Araud focused his remarks on the French secularist society which “has just opened its doors to a very religious body of immigrants who do not share a common morality with host countries.” Reeducating and training the immigrants to the French way of life was presented in such a positive light as if it was remotely possible. Never mind the two massacres in Paris in 2015; that must have been just an exception to the peacefulness and good intent of the new comers to build a progressive life in France.

Chriss Rainey believes that “Araud’s remarks reflect an attitude that they don’t like religion because it puts barriers on human progress. They have ideas of right and wrong and anyone will be trained in the proper conduct of a citizen. The French expect to do this not through any religious body, which has been the source of morality for centuries, but from within state run schools that are set up to mold the next generation, outside the loving eye of home and family. But then, how could it be otherwise since they have basically destroyed the family already and the only thing left to train children—what few of them there are, is the state.”

Ambassador David O’Sullivan, representing EU, a house of cards threatened by the possible exit of Greece and U.K., explained his organization’s interest in controlling the 28 member-states to make sure they stay in line and preserve the EU. To succeed, EU bureaucrats must make sure any nationalist idea is rejected as dangerous, racist, hateful, xenophobic, backwards, and simple-minded. Anyone who opposes global government control is uneducated.

O’Sullivan expressed his disdain for Donald Trump, a presidential candidate who loves his country and speaks openly about protecting Americans’ rights to preserve their way of life. Ambassador O’Sullivan added that he had faith in the American voters to do the right thing, meaning, to vote for some other candidate who shares his progressive, globalist control views.

During the panel discussion and Q&A, the bashing of Donald Trump was almost a lait-motif. Trump voters were derided as “nativists,” “lower class” and “uneducated” for considering a vote for such a persona-non-grata whom the Labor Party in the U.K. contemplated banning. The two remaining ambassadors expressed their faith in the American voters that they would do the right thing and vote as the elites and the media desire.

As Chriss Rainey so aptly put it, “Could it be that the remarks about our conservative candidates that we heard mentioned again and again, are merely a reflection of their own fear of a growing conservative movement in Europe?”

After the conclusion of the panel discussion and Q & A, a Dutch survivor of the Holocaust, Dr. Alfred Münzer, made brief remarks about how he survived “the fury of anti-Semitism that had engulfed Europe,” having been hidden and protected “by a Dutch family and their Muslim housekeeper.” But his older sisters, 6 and 8 years old, did not survive. They were turned in to the authorities and taken to Auschwitz. “The father of a Catholic family whose wife had taken them in did not like Jewish children.” Sadly, he explained, the murder of six million Jews did not end the anti-Semitism that is very much alive today.

I was surprised that not once the real culprits of anti-Semitism and perpetrators of heinous crimes today were not mentioned. Yet every panelist and the moderator repeated ad nauseam the idea that somehow, conservatives and nationalists in Europe and around the globe who disagree with progressive goals and ideals are “far right loons” who deserve derision, contempt, and legal punishment of hate crimes.  

Freedom of speech must fall under progressive censorship law; eager judges should eliminate the right to speak and think which is divergent from the ruling elites. Working hand in glove with social media, especially Facebook, these European bureaucrats and Democrats want to nip in the bud any resistance against their speech dictates.

Unlike Europe, which is a basket case of linguistic Tower of Babel, of broke socialist states thanks to their open borders, multi-culturalism and diversity at all costs, most Americans like their borders, their sovereignty, and their culture, and would like to keep it this way.

Americans do not want to lose their national identity to hostile, invading cultures that do not wish to assimilate but desire to change the demographics of the host country, its history, and replace the local customs and religions with Islam. It seems that the ruling progressives and invading Islamists, who rape and pillage across Europe, make strange bed fellows. The media and the socialist authorities are on high alert to hide the chaos.

The panelists spent more time protecting minorities that actually engage in hate speech, incitement, and murder, while condemning the “hate speech” coming from the “far right” fringe and those so intolerant and disagreeable with the progressive open border, destroy western civilization agenda.

No mention was made of all the violence, chaos, and rapes committed by the military age Muslim refugees harbored in ever-increasing numbers and welcomed with open arms by EU leaders determined to change the arrogant and intolerant face and demographics of our western civilization.

Unfortunately, thanks to progressive tyrants, career politicians in Washington who only represent the interests of their capitalist cronies, billionaires, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) lobbying around the world with coffers full of grant money, the fix is in for European style global socialism.

Further reading sources cited by the Holocaust Museum:

*Antisemitism in Germany. Ahead of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that antisemitism is "more widespread than we imagine." http://www.jta.org/2016/01/24/news-opinion/world/merkel-anti-semitism-in-germany-more-widespread-than-we-can-imagine?utm_source=Newsletter+subscribers&utm_campaign=e4d5d21674-Daily_Briefing_1_25_2016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_2dce5bc6f8-e4d5d21674-25299385

*Extremism in Poland. Our opening speaker and USHMM Council member, Amy Kaslow recently reported on the growth of nationalist movements in Eastern Europe.
http://fortune.com/author/amy-kaslow/

*Holocaust Remembrance events in Paris. To mark the global Day of Remembrance, the Museum and UNESCO Paris will co-host a series of events and open an important exhibition on propaganda, called State of Deception.

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/oppose-new-propaganda-of-hatred-by-irina-bokova-and-sara-bloomfield-2016-01

 

Dr. Savage Asks, "Where is America's Marine Le Pen?"

Marine Le Pen 
Photo credit: Wikipedia

In his valiant attempt to save our country from the illegal immigration invasion, the conservative talk show host Dr. Michael Savage asked with much passion the rhetorical question, “Where is America’s Marine Le Pen?”   

Savage dedicated his monologue intro on March 6, 2015 to the issue of amnesty, fast tracking millions of illegal aliens, potentially 30-50 million by 2016, who, armed with Social Security cards and driver licenses, will install Democrat party rule in perpetuity, with Republicans whining about their minority status while enjoying full privileges of the ruling elite.

Stating that we don’t have another party in power, Savage continues, “We have the most extremist, anti-American administration in history. They must be stopped. There is no precedent in the history of the world to accept 30 million illegal aliens into a nation and to change the demographics forever, unless that nation lost a war and was conquered by a foreign power.” Have we lost a war and, if so, which one?

According to Savage, the current administration is flooding the country with illegal aliens, the “New Americans,” at imperative speed; they are presented by progressives as part of the “civil rights movement,” even though they are violating our borders and breaking into our country.

The Democrats, seeking a majority, are building up a voter base that does not speak our language and has no desire to do so; in gratitude, they are going to vote Democrat, so long as they are getting a pathway to citizenship and Obama welfare. “They’ll vote Democrat for thousands of years!” Savage exclaimed in frustration. “Who will watch the watchers? The FBI is supposed to watch this. But it is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the administration!” White people are now expected to step out of the way and give the country over to the flooding immigrants who are going to be integrated into mini-countries inside the United States. They will be the protected “New Americans” while the real U.S. citizens will suffer.

To facilitate this fundamental transformation, our children will be tracked with behavioral assessment for kids. “If your child is too American, or too hetero, they are going to red flag him,” said Savage.

Mental health care and substance abuse care for all the junkies will be paid for by Obamacare at a cost of $30,000 per week even though recidivism rate is high. The treatment facility, he says, will offer “group therapy, yoga therapy, sex therapy, meditation.” He believes “cold turkey therapy works.” All this expensive therapy is just a con, he said, “They are looking for sympathy.” And the treatments for substance abuse “will add to the huge cost of Obamacare.”

“Why do we not expend money on the exceptional [kids] in America? When was the last time the Obama administration spent any money on the exceptional, not the downtrodden, not the junkie, not the substance abuser, but the exceptional children who are not challenged enough in the classroom because they are spending time on the stupid ones? Has there been any money earmarked for the gifted child,” he asks. “I doubt it; it’s called the lowest common denominator. You keep sinking the class lower and lower. No gifted classes, nobody is looking for the bright children, as if they are the freaks of society.”

To make matters worse, the Common Core standards of education, now adopted around the country, teach anti-Americanism, proselytize children into Islam, and teach students revisionist history, making them ashamed of who we are, of our achievements around the globe, of our country, of our culture, and of Christianity. Symbols of our nation, our flag, the Pledge of Allegiance, and the National Anthem are often stripped from official locations and public events. Lessons indoctrinating children into Islam and communism are now common around the U.S.

Looking at France, trying to save itself from the “scimitar of radical Islam that is threatening to cut their throats,” Savage describes how Marine Le Pen proposes to do so. Smeared as a far-right politician, Marine is a “nationalist who loves France.” Savage said that “she is hated by the Socialist scum who have ruined France and exposed them to the Islamic sword.” The “slimy political class considers her xenophobic because they pander to third-worlders whom they flooded into their country,” but she wants to return the power to the French people.

Le Pen views the French government’s plan to control homegrown jihadis as nonsense.  Her solution is a zero tolerance on Shariah Law, no Muslim holidays, enforcement of French-speaking in mosques, no Arabic in mosques, and stripping dual citizenship jihadis of their French citizenship.

“Why wouldn’t’ that work in America,” asks Savage?  Marine Le Pen thinks an overhaul of French foreign policy is necessary and a review of relationships with countries like Qatar and Turkey who support terrorism.  Chaotic mass immigration has created places where the French public is afraid to go. “There is no Islamophobia in France,” Savage is quoting Le Pen. “There are no anti-women acts.  There is a rise of anti-Semitism.”

Savage describes Le Pen as the champion of the little guys against globalization; France should leave the euro from the Euro zone, boost the franc in trading; France does not need experience, “it needs a fresh pair of eyes.”

“She is hated by President Francois Hollande. She has laid out her vision for France. Why don’t we have a Marine Le Pen? Why don’t we have a true conservative party in this country,” asks Savage. But then he readily admits that a third party would be a catastrophe at this point in our country.

Who is Marine Le Pen? Member of the European Parliament, President of the Front National, the third-largest political party in France since 2011, lawyer and youngest daughter of long-time Front National leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, Marine is criticized as a far-right politician based on her “divisive approach to immigration,” which urges the west to “eradicate the cancerous cell that Islamic fundamentalism represents.”

Marine Le Pen said, “When we fought Islamic fundamentalism, when we denounced it, they dismissed us as Muslim haters.  It is those people who dismissed us as Muslim haters who have created the confusion – not us.” http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-politics/11343571/Charlie-Hebdo-Will-Marine-Le-Pen-destroy-fragile-France.html

In a recent article in the New York Times, “To Call This Threat by Its Name,” Marine Le Pen states that “France, land of human rights and freedoms, was attacked on its own soil by a totalitarian ideology:  Islamic fundamentalism.” She describes the need to distinguish between Islamist terrorism and their faith because “Islamist terrorism is a cancer on Islam, and Muslims themselves must fight at our side.” http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/19/opinion/marine-le-pen-france-was-attacked-by-islamic-fundamentalism.html?_r=0

She continues, “Everything must be reviewed, from the intelligence services to the police force, from the prison system to the surveillance of jihadist networks.”  She identifies three mistakes made by those in power.

1.      The free movement of people and goods across the European Union borders must be revisited as it encourages the free flow of tons of weapons from the Balkans and jihadis move unhindered across many nations.

 

2.      The massive wave of immigration does not include an assimilation policy.  The desire to assimilate on the part of the immigrants does not exist. Culture is a major influence “on the way immigrants relate to French society and its values, on issues such as the status of women and the separation of state and religious authority.” She infers that immigrant cultures are at odds with French secularism, the “laïcité.” High unemployment is exacerbated by this massive immigration.

 

3.      French foreign policy is in a “geopolitical incoherence,” supporting Syrian fundamentalists and alliances with Qatar and Saudi Arabia, supporters of jihadi fighters. Le Pen suggests stripping jihadists of their French citizenship, reinstating national border checks, and zero tolerance for any behavior that undermines French Law.

Le Pen stresses that safety, liberty, sovereignty, French values, and independence are most important if France is to be saved from Islamist Fundamentalism.

And the words of Dr. Savage seem to echo in the wilderness, “Where is America’s Marine Le Pen?”

Copyright: Ileana Johnson 2015 

 

 

The Week in Review - National Blog Talk Radio 3-1-13

Topics: economy, this week in history, Thomas Jefferson, Monticello, European Union, France, Italy
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/cantotalk/2013/03/01/the-us-economy-in-review-with-dr-ileana-johnson-paugh

Spending and Demographics

House Speaker John Boehner criticized President Obama’s “failed policies and hostility toward job creators.” The current administration established a “new normal” for Americans: fewer jobs, higher unemployment, more spending, higher prices, and bigger deficits. The White House official blog calls this status quo the “Great Recession.”

To say that the economy is anemic is an understatement – GDP is 1.9 percent, only 69,000 jobs were “created” in the month of May and unemployment is at 8.2 percent. Unemployment figures are constantly revised, massaged, and misrepresented. No wonder, citizens no longer trust their government, they fear it.

Congress, who controls the purse strings, has done little to curtail the out of control government spending and waste on bankrupted “green energy” that electrifies nothing except campaign sound bites and the die-hard environmentalist left. 

Last week President Obama signed the reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank, raising its lending authority by 40 percent to $140 billion. The Export-Import Bank guarantees loans from U.S. banks to foreign businesses that buy U.S. made products.  Conservatives in Congress criticized the move and “assailed it for meddling in the free market.”

Legislators did not raise the most obvious question before approving the $140 billion giveaway. Why do we give loans to foreign corporations to buy American products? Do we have money to subsidize corporations, foreign or domestic? Why has Obama the Senator called the Import-Export Bank “little more than a fund for corporate welfare” during the 2008 campaign and promised to eliminate it, yet has reauthorized 40 percent more taxpayer dollars?

For the past three and a half years, the manipulated and constantly revised (a week or month later) unemployment rate has been above 8 percent. The real number is far worse, in the 11-14 percent range. Although the left maligned President George Bush on a daily basis, under his presidency full employment was always in the 4.5-5 percent unemployment range.

A sustained doubling of the unemployment rate is devastating to those who have lost jobs and for our economy. However, if you ask Spain, Greece, Italy, France, or Portugal, they would gladly trade places with us. Their full employment is an unemployment rate of ten percent and higher. This happens because their national priorities are stacked in favor of outrageous social programs and unionized labor, while the population becomes more slothful and happy to live on government handouts.

United States spends 14.8 percent of GDP on welfare programs and has not reached the welfare expenditures level of European socialist countries. France spends 28.5 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on welfare, Spain 21 percent, Greece 24.3 percent, Italy 24.4 percent, and Portugal 21.1 percent. There are European nations that spend more on welfare, such as Denmark (29.2 percent), Sweden (28.9 percent), Germany (27.4), and Belgium (27.2) but the economic situation in these countries is substantially different. (Statistical data source: NationMaster.com as quoted in Forbes)

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is vilified for her efforts to impose austerity measures on countries whose economies necessitate bailouts from the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Greece rejected the idea through vigorous and violent demonstrations, while 47 Greek parliamentarians walked out of meetings upon hearing about the type of austerity measures they would have to approve. France rejected austerity by electing a socialist president who promised more socialism, more spending, and more bureaucratic job creation. President Francois Hollande reneged on the austerity agreements his predecessor, Sarkozy, had cobbled with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Critics point out that Germany’s five percent unemployment rate makes it unfair and socially unjust for Angela Merkel to impose drastic welfare and pension benefits cuts in Greece, Spain, Italy, France, and Portugal when their respective unemployment rates are so much higher. In Spain, the overall unemployment has reached 25 percent, while 50 percent of young people, including recent college graduates, cannot find jobs and must leave Spain to seek employment.

Joel Kotkin describes them most vividly. “In Madrid you see them on the streets, jobless, aimless, often bearing college degrees but working as cabbies, baristas, street performers, or – most often – not at all. Call them the screwed generation, the victims of expansive welfare states and the massive structural debt charged by their parents.” (The Daily Beast, June 4, 2012)

A young man with a psychology degree, who is working in the grocery store where I shop, was complaining one day that he could not find a job. A quintessential liberal with the agenda of environmental sustainability, social justice and equity, the mantra of the left, it has not occurred to him that the “hope and change” he voted for, his overt distaste for capitalism, love for communism and the murderous Che Guevara whose t-shirt he is wearing under his uniform, is what is dooming his prospects of finding a decent job. He bought his college advisor’s empty promise of a six-figure salary upon graduation, his professors’ socialist/Marxist indoctrination, and is now facing Realville.

European demonstrators argue vociferously and increasingly violent that austerity and budget cuts are the primary reasons for their national economic crises. They believe that the largesse of the government welfare system spending has nothing to do with the government running out of money. As former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had said, “the problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.”

Taxing the rich in France at the proposed 75 percent rate will not solve their financial difficulties for long; it will simply prolong the inevitable. Even confiscating everyone’s wealth will only pay the debt and cover the deficit for a few months at best.

Lavish spending is unsustainable when the economy grows too slowly and the population is not having enough babies. There are insufficient wage earners who pay taxes to support retirees who derive benefits and pensions from those taxes.

Demographically speaking, the population replacement value in the U.S. is still within normal range of 2.1 newborns per woman if we count the illegal aliens’ newborns. Without illegal alien births, the U.S. population replacement value is 1.9. Many European Union nations have even lower population replacement values, below 1.4 newborns per female.

According to Joel Kotkin, wealthier countries in the north such as Germany, Denmark, and Sweden, “have offset very low fertility rates and domestic demand by attracting migrants from other countries, notably from eastern and southern Europe, and building highly productive export oriented economies.” (Forbes, May 31, 2012)

Unemployment among young people in Greece and Spain has reached the fifty percent mark. Many have left Spain for employment opportunities elsewhere. Young people have postponed having babies, preferring instead to buy homes, vacations, and luxury goods. The birth rate in Spain dropped to the lowest level of 1.4 from the previous four children per woman fifty years ago.

Joel Kotkin argues that a Nordic welfare state is sustainable because “companies and the labor force are productive and highly skilled,” while Spain, Greece, Italy, and Portugal derives most income and revenue from tourism. By 2021, every working person in Spain will support six students and retirees. (Source: National Institute for Statistics as quoted in Forbes)

Implementing national policies that promote affordable housing for families, reduced taxation for married couples, and higher birth rates instead of abortions, should be a priority for countries with a penchant for lavish spending.

Since Roe V. Wade, millions of babies in the U.S. have been aborted. It is a human tragedy with economic ramifications that will affect our labor force and the future of our country. We can afford right now to import cheap labor from Central America or outsource it to China. Would that be enough in the future to support the ever-burgeoning welfare class in this country? What will happen when we reach the tipping point of no return of the European style demographic decline?