In Human Events this morning I revisit the Wilders free speech death watch, showing that Geert Wilders has about as much chance of getting a fair trial as did Nikolai Bukharin:
During his State of the Union address, Barack Obama criticized the Supreme Court for overturning major portions of the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Act. But the Supreme Court was upholding the freedom of speech: when the high court struck down key McCain-Feingold provisions last month, its ruling declared that "if the First Amendment has any force, it prohibits Congress from fining or jailing citizens, or associations of citizens, for simply engaging in political speech."This was a key victory for defenders of the First Amendment. But now, from the Netherlands, comes a threat to the freedom of speech that is much more serious and destructive than anything John McCain and Russ Feingold ever contemplated: the trial of Dutch politician Geert Wilders.
Wilders, the Dutch Parliamentarian who produced the film Fitna, went on trial January 20 for charges including having "intentionally offended a group of people, i.e. Muslims, based on their religion." Fitna is a film which compellingly links images of terrorist attacks with passages from the Koran which incite Muslims to jihad.
The idea that intentionally offending someone is a criminal offense should be a matter for Kafka or comic opera, but such is the advance of multiculturalism in the Netherlands today, and the rest of Europe is not all that far behind. The real purpose of the Wilders trial is twofold: first, the Dutch political establishment hopes to use it to stop the meteoric rise of the upstart Wilders, who challenges so many of the core assumptions upon which current Dutch and European Union policy are based. And since one of those policies is unrestricted immigration from Muslim countries, they hope to discredit Wilders's work in exposing how Islamic jihadists use violent passages of the Koran to justify violence and supremacism.
There's only one problem with this scenario: Islamic jihadists really do use the Koran to justify violence and supremacism, and as I show in my book The Complete Infidel's Guide to the Koran, there is plenty in the Muslim holy book that they can use in this way. The multiculturalist Dutch authorities have a pliant media on their side, and they have much more money and much more political clout than Wilders could even dream of having. Yet for all their power, they cannot engage Wilders in honest debate and prove him wrong -- and so in order to silence him they have to resort to the legal thuggery of this show trial.
And a show trial is exactly what it is. This became clear last week, when the Amsterdam District Court disallowed fifteen of the eighteen witnesses Wilders had hoped to bring forward in his defense. "This Court is not interested in the truth," Wilders commented on the decision. "This Court doesn't want me to have a fair trial."
I was among the fifteen disallowed witnesses. Much more important was that Wilders was not allowed to call Mohammed Bouyeri, who murdered filmmaker Theo Van Gogh on an Amsterdam street on November 2, 2004 in revenge for Van Gogh's film Submission, which criticized the oppression of Muslim women....
The Wilders case is currently the best known example, but there is a huge amount of gagging going on globally, much of it instigated by the OIC. Take a look at some of the links listed under 'Censorship' at http://crombouke.blogspot.com/2010/01/everything-you-need-to-know-about-islam.html
"The idea that intentionally offending someone is a criminal offense should be a matter for Kafka"
The surreal Kafkaesque nightmare world of menacing bureaucracy and the powerlessness of the individual to fight it, as in "The Trial."
Except that the Wilders trial is not a novel, it's real.
Also, the Dutch bureaucrats don't give a hoot for the evidence found in "Fitna," which proves Wilders correct. They are simply out to convict him. And I bet you they will convict him.
Let us remember, however, that an un-just verdict can sway public opinion in a very powerful way. There may be hope yet.
Wilders will lead the way. He can only get more support and will throttle those in his path. The more exposure this "trial" gets, the better Wilders' image gets and the better the opportunity to show the world what Islamic doctrine is really all about. Best of luck Geert.
http://newstime.co.nz/2010/political-show-process-geert-wilders.html
Pat Condell 06:30 “… This man (Geert Wilders) is a HERO!!! Not a criminal! And it’s time, the rest of us stood up and said so, loud and clear, because …”
"Geert Wilders has about as much chance of getting a fair trial as did Nikolai Bukharin"
Nikolai Bukharin? The British spy, the wrecker, the agent of Fascism? That Nikolai Bukharin?
You know, the Dutch persecutors of Wilders should really get hold of one of those fat volumes containing transcripts of the Purge Trials of the 1930s, the English-language edition put out by International Publishers (I can't locate my own volume, but I remember it provided hours of grim hilarity), so that they can take some cues from the late Andrey Vyshinsky.
On the other hand, those Dutch determined to prosecute/persecute Wilders and others, in order to hold onto power in the Netherlands, by never having to admit what terrible damage they have done to their own country because of their wilful ignorance, criminal negligence when it comes to immigration, and a diseased "tolerance" when it comes to soi-disant "integration," makes one think that just possibly those magistrates and those conspiring behind them don't need any lessons from Andrey Vishinsky, but will prove to be masters of forensic wickedness all by themselves.
Did the Amsterdam court give reasons for disallowing the 15 witnesses? If so, could someone please publish them.
Geert Wilders is a modern day heretic, rebelling against the PC MC orthodoxy.
The free world has always had this struggle against either tyrants,demagogues,or dictators. Now the struggle is against a totalitarian ideology that wears the mask of a religion. The only way one can pull that mask down and reveal what should already be self evident is through freedom of speech. We should be celebrating the rights of free speech and free expression whether we disagree with what the speaker represents or not.
WE are on a battlefield now to protect the rights of individuals like Geert Wilders, and the tragedy is that the enemy is to be found in our own camp. The enemy within is corrupted by power and his character is weakened by fear, and he foolishly believes that if he shows sympathy,empathy, or appeasement to an enemy he will be spared by it.
The suppression and erosion of freedom of speech effects every single one of us one way or another. It does not stop at speech, it continues against films,books magazines, radio,and the internet as it slowly erodes what made the Western civilization what it is today.
The battle is just beginning and we must not be passive in the face of this aggressive Ideology of Islam that now dominates the United Nations through the OIC, the biggest block of nations on the planet today.
Until the West wakes up to this scourge we will be more and more at risk of losing our rights. We need to shout down any political hack,and any lame street media person who plays the dhimmi card through their shear ignorance of a very deceptive enemy.
Feel free to use the following Mr. Wilders, to show what Islam is about.
Like Evil? You'll Love Islam! Like Rape? You'll Love Islam! Like Sex Slaves? You'll Love Islam!
/Still needs some work but you get the idea.
This whole business is so phony that no publisher would accept it as the basic plot of a thriller-novel. Wilders is on trial for offending Moslems by saying that the Koran and other Moslem "holy books" inspire violence and hatred. Yet there must be dozens of Moslem imams and clerics, in the Netherlands alone, who every week call their followers to violence and hatred, citing the Koran in support. Why aren't every last one of them on trial as well?
The Koran is the source of Muhammad's sorcery. He claimed it was the voice of Allah through the angel Gabriel. On this claim is built the Hadith and the image of Muhammad as the perfect man to be emulated. On these three sources are the Muhammaden world built.
The Koran is a forgery. It has no connection with the Judeo-Christian acendency. Every Biblical story has errors and corruptions. The spiritual elevation that the Jewish Jesus brought to Jewish law is no where to be found in the Koran. Quite the contrary, Jesus brought love, forgiveness, compassion, non-violence and other high minded spiritual principles for all by all that are foriegn to the barbarism found in the Koran. The Koran is at its best, good burning material for a wood stove (especially while fuel prices are high and financing global expansion of Muhammadensism).
Since the Koran is a forgery then any attention to the sayings and actions of Muhammad are dangerously foolish. The Muhammaden house of cards falls to the ground with the sterilization of the Koran in a similarly commical way that Toto pulled the curtain on the Wisard while operating the immagery of 'the great and wonderful Oz' exposing him as a charlaten.
It is the Koran that must be placed front an center in this trial and all the future trials that we come as a result of this Muhammaden congestion of the legal system.
At some point, if the truth is used wisely, we will have automatic suspensions of frivolous claims by Muhammadens of hate speech when all are aware of the criminal intentions and activities that those who use the Koran as Allah given directions to conquer the world for Muhammad.
Fitna, le film de Geert Wilders est disponible en français!
Si vous ne l'avez pas encore vu, regardez tout de suite la vidéo suivante
http://www.avraidire.eu/2010/01/fitna-version-francaise-geert-wilders-part-12/
Unlike the 1st show trial in 1936 in which Zinoviev and Kamenev performed like trained seals (obviously under duress)...admitting to all manner of crimes they did not commit (including Kirov's murder), Bukharine's performance in his 1938 trial was a fascinating spectacle. While he admitted to almost everything he was accused of, he did so with such nuance and qualification that - given the circumstances - it was an unmistakable display of defiance.
Bukharine was also careful to avoid any admission of conspiring against Lenin - which Vishinsky repeatedly demanded. The accused was trying to convey an important political message for posterity, that whatever crimes he confessed to, they were directed at Stalin's Party, not Lenin's.
Interesting how the liberal intelligentsia of the West who were in attendance at the show trials bought the prosecutor's narrative, lock, stock and barrel when they reported home. I've always maintained that the gullibility of the intellectual far exceeds that of the common man.
"Islamic jihadists really do use the Koran to justify violence and supremacism, and as I show in my book The Complete Infidel's Guide to the Koran, there is plenty in the Muslim holy book that they can use in this way. The multiculturalist Dutch authorities have a pliant media on their side, and they have much more money and much more political clout than Wilders could even dream of having." - Spencer
What is puzzling here is why are the Dutch authorities still "multiculturalists"? What purpose does it serve? Why having a "pliant media on their side" serve any interest of the Netherlands. or their political 'elites' at all? Who really benefits from Multiculturalism in Netherlands? Or anywhere? Why are people attached to this obviously failed -and soon to be outdated- idea? The Islamists have forced their hand, by attacking within their own societies at will. If Multiculturalism is at fault, why keep it around, if it serves no socially or politically useful purpose? Is it merely a leftover hanger-on from the days of Marxism? Get rid of it, it's a bad idea. Future generations will thank us for putting down Multiculturalism for what it is, a failed Marsixt-Utopian idea.
God speed to Geert Wilders' trial. Truth ALWAYS wins in the end. Justice win out.
Love it! How about "Death to America!" -- LOVE ISLAM --?
Let's hope that Robert is wrong on this one - that the Wilders trial is quick, that he is found innocent of all charges, and that the judge admonishes the DA for bringing the case to trial in the first place.
Over at the Australian, I’ve attempted to post a comment in parts, in response to this comment:
“What would you say if Wilders was being tried for anti-semitic hate speech? By which I mean, he criticised and hated Judaism, rather than Jews.”
Found at:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/menace-in-mad-marchbrof-the-thought-police/comments-e6frg6zo-1225828481935
Whether they do post it or not, I’m certain this kindergarten rant won’t be lost on you usual suspects:
James of Canberra,
Your relativistic statement about anti-Semitism betrays your ignorance about the truths inherent to the five pillars of Islam. The fact is, Geert didn’t need to make a movie exposing the violent tenants of the Torah, or hate-preach being spoken by Rabbis because Judaism is not a threat to the secular democracies and republics which make up the free world.
Had Wilders been a simple anti-Semite, which if you listen to the invective of Imams and read the Quran, he would’ve been simply dismissed or ignored, and certainly, the party he represents would not be as popular in Denmark.
It is often the first salvo of the leftist Politically Correct Multi-Culturalist to deflect true debate about the intolerance of Islam by pointing to other religions, typically Christianity, or Judaism.
What is being practiced in the Dutch courts at the moment is a deciding moment as we in the West stand on the precipice of loosing our freedom of speech. The folly of the UN Human Rights Conference, Durban II, controlled by the 56 Muslim Majority Nations Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) wants to make it illegal for non-Muslims to discuss Islam under a law which would make it illegal to offend someone.
There is no right not to be offended anywhere in the West except under the misguided left wing ideology which seems to predominate all Human Rights Commissions, Tribunals, and every other variation there of.
Even if Geert Wilders is found guilty at a kangaroo trial where he has been disallowed to present most of his witnesses, a trial which was delayed to be held during elections he and his party are to take part in, innocent or not, this will never the less being attention to this reality: The problems being caused by Muslim immigrants refusing to integrate into Western society, and demanding that their brand of polygamous, misogynistic and inequality of justice based on laws of Allah rather than man, are being ignored under the guise of cultural respect.
The problem is the Muslim community doesn’t reciprocate the respect we give them, because the word of Allah as given by Mohamed in the Quran demands otherwise. And if someone in the Islamic Community says it is otherwise, I suggest you look up another word the Left won’t talk about: Taqiyya. (Where it is ordained that all Muslims my lie to non-Muslims in order to make deception, as part of Jihad, especially when Dar al-Harb is stronger than Dar al-Islam, until you number enough in their midst and make them pay the Jizya until they belong to Allah, or cast them.)
Even current peaceful evolution in Islam is met with violence. The Ahmidiyya sect, which renounced the third Jihad, that of violence, has been found to be an Apostate Sect by the OIC, which if you’re not up on your Islamic dialect, this means they must all be put to death, or anyone else who leaves Islam.
Islam, which is inspiring all but three of the current recognized terrorist groups on our planet, groups who are responsible for over 80% of Muslim deaths through their fanaticism, is not a Religion of Peace. Mohamed himself spread his religion through war, and made up his cult as he went along, culminating his debaucher by marrying a 6 year old child and deflowering her at the ripe young age of 9.
And as the Sunnah, the way of the Prophet is practiced by the holiest of Islamic men, Fistula, a condition afflicting young girls who have sex, or die at too young an age has its highest rates in Nigeria and Yemen. A situation directly related to Islam’s ideological parameters of mores.
Then there is the highest rate of consanguinity in Islamic nations because of the unchecked polygamy, which is a polite way of saying there’s too much inbreeding going on. Recently, an unusual high rate of hermaphrody has been cropping up in Gaza, directly relating to this.
And because men and women are not allowed to mix, such as in Saudi Arabia, the normal healthy interactions and relationships which we take for granted here in the West has led to a very high rate of homosexuality, ‘cause after all, boys will be boys. Now, if this were the West, it wouldn’t be an issue, but you see, in Islam, Homosexuals are usually put to death.
So you can write your little quip about, “what if he was talking trash about Bushido” and other such nonsense, but the fact is, the freedom to discuss Islam is what is really being surpressed, and if they succeed at that, what else will we not be able to talk or think about?
Keep up the good work JayDubyas!
"Let's hope that Robert is wrong on this one - that the Wilders trial is quick, that he is found innocent of all charges, and that the judge admonishes the DA for bringing the case to trial in the first place."
Ernie, you're an optimist, sort of like Professor Pangloss in Voltaire's "Candide." Pangloss, is btw, a fool.
Sorry, but no way are the Dutch PC Imbeciles going to admit they were wrong.
"Candide, ou l'Optimisme," a Satire.
Geert Wilders' trial is really a Kafkaesque one. He's accused of having used his right of free spreech. That isn't a crime in Europe, not in my books, or rather our PC politicians think it is, and are dealing with it as such. They're are digging their own graves, oh no, I forgot, they're on Arab petro dollar payrolls, they're digging our graves, the graves of Europe's free citizens.
But there is a big grassroot movement against the Islamisation of Europe. The Dutch people are behind Geert Wilders and support him, he's the most popular politician in the Netherlands. And he's very popular all over Europe. In Great Britain a lot of citizens are saying no to their dhimmi politicians. In the run-up to the elections there are lots of counter-jihad activities going on on Facebook, I've already joined several groups there. The French are pretty close to banning the niqab and burka, a break-through for the whole of Europe. In Switzerland minarets were banned. In feature sections of the German mainstream media there is a war going on between the pro-Islamic PC's and the counter jihad activists. And the PC's are running out of arguments. As they ran out of virgins in paradise for the suicide bombers.
With American help the freedom loving Europeans can surely get rid of the plague of Islam, as our parents and grandparents got rid of the plague of Nazism, with American help, of course.
Cornelius: It wasn't the liberal intelligentsia that bought the Stalinist show trial hook, line, and sinker, but the socialist intelligentsia. I think that if there were any real liberals (say, of the John Emmerich Dalberg-Acton variety) around in those days, they wouldn't have been fooled. The term "liberal" has been hijacked by people who have no love of liberty at all, but run around in blinders that guide them to follow whatever is trendy, be it socialism, PeeCee-ism, or what have you. Still, your point is well-taken. We are being led by people who fear ordinary Americans and Europeans more than they fear foreign Jehadis.
Epistemology, I surely hope you are right; and I really hope that our esteemed host is wrong about the probably outcome of the Wilders trial.
However, as a not-completely-white American,I admit that I have a bit of nervousness about European nativism. In Taiwan, I had a good Sino-Malaysian Canadian friend who skedaddled from England for fear of the skinheads. I have taught dark French kids who enthused about "relaxed" American racial attitudes when recalling enlightened Paris--and this after remembering how Europeans, especially the French, used to lecture us. Further, it's former immigrants to Europe who re-introduced Christianity to the Berbers (at least in the Evangelical form), and I have a great fear that such people may be counted with the Muslims simply because they're swarthy and got stuck with names from the religion they left. Still, I pray for God's mercy to Europe and North America, plus on the rest of the world.
Dutch Judge Van Kangaroe:
How dare, Mr. Wilders, use their own words of hate, taken from The Koran, and recorded in your film "Fitna", to condemn them!
You may not quote the hatespeech of the Koran!
It is super-hatespeech to do so.
You are guilty of illegal quoting!
Two years confinement anmd a 200,000 euro fine!
Next case...
Cornelius - you wrote, "I've always maintained that the gullibility of the intellectual far exceeds that of the common man."
Jacques Ellul agreed with you. He argued that the intellectual - at least, perhaps, the superficially-educated or the over-educated variety - was more susceptible, as he put it, to propaganda, than the average person.
From 'Un Chretien Pour Israel' (1983) chapter 2, 'Propaganda':
"And I know all the evil that a propaganda [campaign] can do; that it establishes a world which is false, purely fictional, but which is held to be the Truth by opinion, by the journalists and by the intellectuals themselves *(but don’t we know that intellectuals are more susceptible than others, unless they have deconstructed the mechanism?)* {my emphasis - dda}." END QUOTE. (One should note that the propaganda campaign that Ellul ruthlessly examines and dissects in 'Un Chretien Pour Israel' is that which the Arab/Muslim bloc and the Soviet bloc had been carrying out against Israel and the Jews; a joint campaign but drawing on separate and distinct sources of hatred, just as the Nazi and Arab/Muslim hate campaigns operated in tandem, reinforcing each other, but not, in the last analysis, dependent on each other).
In his other book, his classic study, 'Propaganda' (in French the title is plural 'Propagandes'), Ellul goes into this phenomenon - the vulnerability, to hard or soft propaganda, of the chattering classes/ intelligentsia - in much more detail, but I do not have a copy of it handy so cannot provide appropriate juicy quotes.
I have educated myself, with help from local news, international news, web-sites, books, authors, and people like Nonie Dawish, Brigitte Gabriel, Joy Brighton, Guy Rogers, Rifqa Bary, Bill Warner,Greet Wilder, Dr. Tawfik Hamid, Mateen Elass, and several more. My research and interst began when the jihadist pushed thge old man into the sea. The old man was in a wheel chair. Then again when the jihadists killed the 245 Marines. It became very clear to me that the world was not paying attention or not connecting the dots.
All of these murders go back 1400 years. Which means it has been around a long long time.
So why are we just now hearing about jihad and jihadists?
And if we are going to treat this crimes as civil matters, rather than military matters. Why are they not considered 290 million "hate crimes,,? This is all documented in history books. So why haven't we been made aware of this,??????
Why then is this enemy protected world wide,???? And has been protected form the beginning,...
That is the question we should be asking yourselves... Is it fear,? Or ignorance,?
We have allowed this to happen world wide. In every nation throughout the globe for the past 1400 years we have allowed it. Why,?
The United States has beat down our enemies for the past 300 years. Why can't we grasp that same committment today,?
In one word, "money", is the correct answer. Our leaders have sold out our nation, to more money. Look at the facts. In every case it is money that is the motivating factor,.
Think about it. If the enemy is seccessful he rules the world, and every person still alive becomes a slave to her or his master. Notice the word "master", and not our "creator", "Lord" or "God". Men will rule the earth ones and for all, right? The stuggle is over, right? We have all submitted ourselves, right?
Wrong we submitted ourselves to men, whom hid in caves, not God.
Or perhapes God has nothing to say about it,? Money is more important than God, Right?
Go ahead remove church and state America,...
I wonder what God will think about this,?
Then I wonder what God will do about this,?