Some days are better than others. I’m still processing the changes in my life since Savage Kitten and I broke up, as you can well imagine. The weirdest things are the obsessive mood swings.
I am not an operatic man, and I seldom ride roller coasters.
So this is a rather new experience.
THAT FAMOUS QUASI BRITISH RESERVE
As a child I remember fierce crying jags, as an adolescent those were impossible.
For one thing, showing your vulnerable side to the vicious natives ….. errm, I mean my Dutch grammar school classmates who hated my guts, was unthinkable. Expose your soft underbelly and those little brutes would stick a verbal shiv into it. Or just punch you.
My father always told me to keep my pecker up.
That was his way of communicating that a stiff upper lip was not a bad thing.
He, my brother, and I had much need for the stiff upper lip in those days. Being Yanks in the most viciously sanctimonious country on earth was not a blessing during the late sixties and seventies (America being so, SO, much worse than even the Nazis that many Dutch despised, loathed, and hated with a fierce self-righteous passion the country where they had so many investments and which was underwriting both their economic well-being and their freedom), and my mother was dying of cancer, which in the eyes of the ignorant savages …… errm, I mean my Dutch classmates who hated my guts, was probably as contagious as the black death and had all the hell-bound sinner connotations of leprosy. In that sense, they were very religious. Bibilical, even.
The Dutch are, in some ways, quintessential bigots.
My classmates in Valkenswaard especially so.
[No, I do not correspond with any of them, and yes, I have tried to forget most of their names.]
KEEPING MY PECKER UP
When my mother died in 1977, I managed what now seems a rather gentlemanly bit of weeping, and that was it.
My grandmother with whom I lived for three years in Berkeley died in 1981.
I managed what now seems a gentlemanly bit of weeping, and that was it.
When my father passed away in 1990, I managed what now seems a gentlemanly bit of weeping, and that was it.
My brother died in 1992, so did my father’s wife. I was very fond of both of them.
I managed what now seems a gentlemanly bit of weeping …………
Not really comfortable with emotions. Not an expressive person. Rock of stability and all that, dontcha know.
I keep my pecker up.
THE WARM AND FUZZY BITS
So you can imagine how disconcerted Savage Kitten was to discover me a few weeks ago on the kitchen floor bawling like a baby.
["Oh for crapsakes, Old Toad, what are you doing down there? Come on, get up off the floor! Please!" "But I like it down here!" "It's not right! Get your a** up! " " 'z okay, it's all clean and sh*t..." "I just washed the floor!" "I know! Nice!" "Whatever... get up!" "No! It's warm down here!" "But it's the floor!!!" "Your point is ..... ?" And so on... ]
Damn, I though she wasn’t going to be back for a while!
After twenty years of being with that woman, I have finally learned to have emotions. It just took me a while to realize that.
It’s a bit disturbing, but I am convinced I am a far better person because of it.
There’s an excitement to feeling things – she may not think so, because she has been desperately unhappy at many times in her life (do NOT ask about old-fashioned Cantonese mothers, you don’t want to know!).
This is so much better than a gentlemanly bit of weeping.
Liberating, even.
Thanks, hon, I feel more human now.
Someday, I may go back to Valkenswaard with a Glock 17 to confront those beastly aboriginals …… errm, I mean my Dutch classmates who hated my guts. No discussion necessary, I am in gonzen not interested in what they think. Just some payback.
And yes, that will be a very good day.
They will be expressly permitted a gentlemanly bit of weeping.
Should be a totally new experience for the swine.
==========================================================================
NOTE: If you wish, you may contact me directly:LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Showing posts with label Bigotry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bigotry. Show all posts
Friday, October 08, 2010
Friday, February 26, 2010
PRIESTS AND BOYS IN EUROPE
Onverheugend nieuws:
http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2010/02/dutch_don_bosco_priests_accuse.php
Citaat:
"A former member told the NRC that many priests had their favourite boys and had relationships with them."
Juist ja.
Ik kan mij bijzonder goed herinneren dat priestelijke kinderverkrachting jaren terug werd afgeschreven als louter een Amerikaans probleem. Ja ja, die vieze Amerikanen, weet je wel, die jenks kunnen gewoon niet zo rechtvaardig als de Europeanen zijn, het benne maar vuillakken, zoiets kan NOOIT in het beschaafde Europa gebeuren.
Puur Amerikaans. Wat verwacht je ook anders van dat volkje.
Met klem: NOOIT IN EUROPA.
Dus wel.
Blijken die o zo beschaafde Europeanen maar weer eens schijnheilige pissanten te zijn.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A MALE PRESERVE
So far, the Irish Church, the German Church, the Belgian Church, and the Italian Church have had their priests exposed as paedophiles and rapists.
Now also the Dutch.
And yet many in Europe still insist that abusive priests are purely an American phenomenon.
Nice folks, those Euries. Veritable examples to us all.
According to the Telegraaf newspaper:
"Paters in een Rooms-Katholiek internaat in 's Heerenberg hebben in de jaren zestig en zeventig kinderen misbruikt, Dit blijkt uit een onderzoek van de Wereld omroep en NRC Handelsblad."
[Translation: Padres in a Roman-Catholic boarding school in 's Heerenberg during the sixties and zeventies (sexually) abused children. This was shown in an investigation by World Broadcasting (- a radio station) and the NRC Handelsblad (- a newspaper).]
"Volgens de beheerder van een boerderij bij het internaat was het seksueel misbruik door de paters van de Salesiaanse orde bekend binnen de orde en werd het ook door de leiding besproken."
[Translation: According to the exploitant of a farm at the boarding school, the sexual abuse by the padres of the Salesian order was known within the brotherhood, and was also discussed by the leaders (of the order).]
Source:
http://www.telegraaf.nl/binnenland/6149760/___Paters_misbruikten_kinderen___.html?p=28,1
And:
http://www.telegraaf.nl/binnenland/6149760/___paters_misbruikten_kinderen___.html?p=15,1
"De hoogste baas van de Salesianen in Nederland in de jaren zeventig was Ad Luyn, nu bisschop van Rotterdam. De Wereldomroep heeft hem om een reactie gevraagd, maar hij wilde niet reageren."
[Translation: The highest authority of the Salesians in the Netherlands in the seventies was Ad Luyn, now bishop of Rotterdam. The Worldbroadcast asked him for a reaction, but he did not wish to comment.]
THIRTY YEARS OF SILENCE
I can understand the churchman's bashfulness. Everything he says may be held against him. It is, perhaps, best to claim ignorance.
Even in the priesthood, they grasp that.
Innocence, as is well known, is bliss.
And silence is golden.
http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2010/02/dutch_don_bosco_priests_accuse.php
Citaat:
"A former member told the NRC that many priests had their favourite boys and had relationships with them."
Juist ja.
Ik kan mij bijzonder goed herinneren dat priestelijke kinderverkrachting jaren terug werd afgeschreven als louter een Amerikaans probleem. Ja ja, die vieze Amerikanen, weet je wel, die jenks kunnen gewoon niet zo rechtvaardig als de Europeanen zijn, het benne maar vuillakken, zoiets kan NOOIT in het beschaafde Europa gebeuren.
Puur Amerikaans. Wat verwacht je ook anders van dat volkje.
Met klem: NOOIT IN EUROPA.
Dus wel.
Blijken die o zo beschaafde Europeanen maar weer eens schijnheilige pissanten te zijn.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A MALE PRESERVE
So far, the Irish Church, the German Church, the Belgian Church, and the Italian Church have had their priests exposed as paedophiles and rapists.
Now also the Dutch.
And yet many in Europe still insist that abusive priests are purely an American phenomenon.
Nice folks, those Euries. Veritable examples to us all.
According to the Telegraaf newspaper:
"Paters in een Rooms-Katholiek internaat in 's Heerenberg hebben in de jaren zestig en zeventig kinderen misbruikt, Dit blijkt uit een onderzoek van de Wereld omroep en NRC Handelsblad."
[Translation: Padres in a Roman-Catholic boarding school in 's Heerenberg during the sixties and zeventies (sexually) abused children. This was shown in an investigation by World Broadcasting (- a radio station) and the NRC Handelsblad (- a newspaper).]
"Volgens de beheerder van een boerderij bij het internaat was het seksueel misbruik door de paters van de Salesiaanse orde bekend binnen de orde en werd het ook door de leiding besproken."
[Translation: According to the exploitant of a farm at the boarding school, the sexual abuse by the padres of the Salesian order was known within the brotherhood, and was also discussed by the leaders (of the order).]
Source:
http://www.telegraaf.nl/binnenland/6149760/___Paters_misbruikten_kinderen___.html?p=28,1
And:
http://www.telegraaf.nl/binnenland/6149760/___paters_misbruikten_kinderen___.html?p=15,1
"De hoogste baas van de Salesianen in Nederland in de jaren zeventig was Ad Luyn, nu bisschop van Rotterdam. De Wereldomroep heeft hem om een reactie gevraagd, maar hij wilde niet reageren."
[Translation: The highest authority of the Salesians in the Netherlands in the seventies was Ad Luyn, now bishop of Rotterdam. The Worldbroadcast asked him for a reaction, but he did not wish to comment.]
THIRTY YEARS OF SILENCE
I can understand the churchman's bashfulness. Everything he says may be held against him. It is, perhaps, best to claim ignorance.
Even in the priesthood, they grasp that.
Innocence, as is well known, is bliss.
And silence is golden.
Wednesday, January 06, 2010
SEA SHEPHERD TERRORISTS ATTACK JAPANESE VESSEL
Five criminals from New Zealand and one Dutchman have been rescued after their attack on a Japanese boat went disastrously wrong.
After throwing chemicals on the Japanese ship, and trying to entangle its rudder with rope, the extremists on the Ady Gil circled around to attack from the front, attempting to ram the Nisshin Maru.
[Such tactics are explained in this "helpful" video produced by the anti-whaling side:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_6v5bcVSS4
in which it is made clear that the eco-thugs will not hesitate to break international laws and engage in piracy.]
Their attempt failed, and their own boat was severely damaged.
Unfortunately their henchmen pulled them from the waters.
From the BBC:
"The crew of the Ady Gil, five from New Zealander and one from the Netherlands, were picked up unharmed by nearby Sea Shepherd vessel Bob Barker near Commonwealth Bay.
"The Ady Gil is believed to be sinking and chances of salvage are very grim," the Sea Shepherd statement said.
A video apparently shot from on board the Japanese vessel showed the two ships smashing into each other at speed.
The Ady Gil was swamped by waves, its nose was torn off and damage could be seen to its side."
SOURCE:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8442808.stm
The extremists detail their version of events here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Brw6JN0lQXY
PERFECT FOR PIRACY
The Ady Gil is a high-speed and very maneuverable craft, whereas the Nisshin Maru needs a much larger turning radius and greater breaking distance. From which it is logically obvious not only that the New Zealand thugs (and the Dutchman) deliberately took risks and sought confrontation, but also that it would have been far easier for them to have avoided the collision than for the Japanese to have prevented it.
The New Zealand terrorists cannot help but boast about the Ady Gil here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hsB5IqO-dw&feature=related
This video also shows what a super boat they have:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ovtXC8zLH8&feature=related
And in this slick footage, you can clearly see the speed and maneuverability:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pR96rKo6M7k&feature=related
"Sea Shepherd extremism is becoming more violent... Their actions are nothing but felonious behaviour"
---ICR, Japan
HUNTING THE SNARK
Frankly, I think that whaling in this day and age is misguided, to say the least. It would probably be best if it ceased entirely.
But I take exception to a bunch of know-it-all middle-class white folks imposing their view on the rest of the world through bully-boy tactics, and furthermore doing it in ways which are calculated to insult, demean, and infuriate other cultures.
From Wikipedia:"The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is a non-profit marine conservation organization based in Friday Harbor, Washington in the United States that utilizes direct action tactics. "
Additionally, employing piracy ("direct action tactics") on the high seas, and knowing themselves immune from prosecution because the Western Nations have a smug sense of cultural superiority, and will make exceptions to international law as they see fit, is the height of arrogance.
If there were any justice in this world, Sea Shepherd vessels would be blown out of the water and whatever drifting survivors surrendered would be strung up after being put on trial.
At the very least, the United States should yank their tax-exempt status. It is untenable that such a bunch of terrorists should be coddled in any way by our government.
Those five New Zealanders and that Dutchman ought to be arrested when they set foot on land again, for piracy and attempted murder.
==========================================================================
NOTE: If you wish, you may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
After throwing chemicals on the Japanese ship, and trying to entangle its rudder with rope, the extremists on the Ady Gil circled around to attack from the front, attempting to ram the Nisshin Maru.
[Such tactics are explained in this "helpful" video produced by the anti-whaling side:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_6v5bcVSS4
in which it is made clear that the eco-thugs will not hesitate to break international laws and engage in piracy.]
Their attempt failed, and their own boat was severely damaged.
Unfortunately their henchmen pulled them from the waters.
From the BBC:
"The crew of the Ady Gil, five from New Zealander and one from the Netherlands, were picked up unharmed by nearby Sea Shepherd vessel Bob Barker near Commonwealth Bay.
"The Ady Gil is believed to be sinking and chances of salvage are very grim," the Sea Shepherd statement said.
A video apparently shot from on board the Japanese vessel showed the two ships smashing into each other at speed.
The Ady Gil was swamped by waves, its nose was torn off and damage could be seen to its side."
SOURCE:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8442808.stm
The extremists detail their version of events here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Brw6JN0lQXY
PERFECT FOR PIRACY
The Ady Gil is a high-speed and very maneuverable craft, whereas the Nisshin Maru needs a much larger turning radius and greater breaking distance. From which it is logically obvious not only that the New Zealand thugs (and the Dutchman) deliberately took risks and sought confrontation, but also that it would have been far easier for them to have avoided the collision than for the Japanese to have prevented it.
The New Zealand terrorists cannot help but boast about the Ady Gil here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hsB5IqO-dw&feature=related
This video also shows what a super boat they have:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ovtXC8zLH8&feature=related
And in this slick footage, you can clearly see the speed and maneuverability:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pR96rKo6M7k&feature=related
"Sea Shepherd extremism is becoming more violent... Their actions are nothing but felonious behaviour"
---ICR, Japan
HUNTING THE SNARK
Frankly, I think that whaling in this day and age is misguided, to say the least. It would probably be best if it ceased entirely.
But I take exception to a bunch of know-it-all middle-class white folks imposing their view on the rest of the world through bully-boy tactics, and furthermore doing it in ways which are calculated to insult, demean, and infuriate other cultures.
From Wikipedia:"The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is a non-profit marine conservation organization based in Friday Harbor, Washington in the United States that utilizes direct action tactics. "
Additionally, employing piracy ("direct action tactics") on the high seas, and knowing themselves immune from prosecution because the Western Nations have a smug sense of cultural superiority, and will make exceptions to international law as they see fit, is the height of arrogance.
If there were any justice in this world, Sea Shepherd vessels would be blown out of the water and whatever drifting survivors surrendered would be strung up after being put on trial.
At the very least, the United States should yank their tax-exempt status. It is untenable that such a bunch of terrorists should be coddled in any way by our government.
Those five New Zealanders and that Dutchman ought to be arrested when they set foot on land again, for piracy and attempted murder.
==========================================================================
NOTE: If you wish, you may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
I DESPISE PROTESTANTS
Yes, you read it correctly. But not ALL of them. There are some Protestants I do not despise. That being, of course, my ancestors. Who were Dutch Calvinists.
Willem van Deursen (b. 1542) and his son Peter (b. 1575), left Brabant and fled to Haarlem to escape Spanish repression. In 1607 Abraham Pietersen van Deursen was born there, who would emigrate to New Amsterdam (d. 1678). His son Isaac Abrahamsen van Deursen was born in the new world in 1635.
[Why the names Abraham and Isaac? Well, Abraham left the place of his fathers, and journeyed into a land not his own..... ]
The descendants of Abraham remained fairly religious till a few generations ago.
I do not know if my great-grandfather (who was descended from Abraham on both sides, and whose wife was also descended from Abraham) still attended church - I doubt it, but I am fairly certain that my grandfather did not. Same goes for my mother's side of the family.
Consider us Jack-Calvinists. Run-aways, if you will. Force us into a church, and we'll burn the damn' thing down.
I mention all this because of Ann Coulter.
ANN COULTER
In her latest venomous piece of dreck, ms. Coulter writes:
"Then there's Barry Lynn, alleged "Christian minister," whose stock in trade is to denounce any mention of religion anyplace, anytime. Look, I'm a Christian minister, but even I have to admit that the sight of a kindergartner praying is terrifying to most folks. (The first person to post Barry Lynn's bar mitzvah photos or birth announcement (mazel tov!) wins a free copy of my latest book, "Guilty: Liberal 'Victims' and Their Assault on America.")
[END QUOTE]
Source:http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=106696
The only reason for her sneering dig at the reverend Barry Lynn is that he wishes a division to be maintained between church and state - which, in the eyes of the odious Coulter and many of her fans, smacks of disloyalty to the little baby Jesus. Something apparently only Jews are capable of.
What Coulter and people of her ilk need to understand is that if we lessen the boundary between Church and State, people like me will come busting out of the woodwork. And we won't be happy.
Heck, I'll gladly lynch any number of members of the heretic denominations that threaten my irreligious freedom - Anglicans, Methodists, Presbyterians, Baptists, Adventists, Southern Cretinist, whatever. The only version of Christianity I would even want to see empowered is Dutch Calvinism. I am not particular about which obnoxiously stubborn and opinionated pissant version of it, either - I've got relatives all over that creed, and most of us haven't been Church-going in generations.
But still.... shtrenge Dutch Calvinists are infinitely superior to all those Anglo-protestantisms. Punkt.
Yes, I really do find most English-speaking versions of Christianity to be loathsome. Totally icky poo.
The psalters of Petrus Datheen and Marnix van St. Aldegonde make what would be mere pedestrian praedestinationism sparkle and shine - in Dutch, in poetic Dutch, and only in Dutch.
Still wrong (far too gnostic, too Christic, not old-testamentarian enough, and not nearly of an acceptable liberality or liberalistic), but eloquent and given to great lyric.
Bugger the English language versions of religion. Including, especially, typical American fundamentalist versions. They are intolerable.
You superstitious backwoods heathens are barely one step above savages.
The separation between Church and State is the only thing that keeps me from wanting to shoot you. Please count your blessings.
================================================
APPENDIX
For those of you who are baffled as all git-out by this mention of Calvinists, the following opinionated backgrounder may be useful. It is brief.
CALVINISM
In 1533 Jean Cauvin (John Calvin, 1509 - 1564), an argumentative student of theology and law at Paris, fled for his life, eventually ending up in Geneva. His weltanschauung was influenced by much of the theological ferment then current in Europe at that time, including Lutheranism and Anabaptism.
Two basic themes that he developed were Biblical authority as opposed to Church authority in matters of the faith, and praedestinationism.
Two major ethno-denominational groupings eventually formed that were based on Calvin's thought: Scotch Presbyterianism, and Dutch Reform.
The less said about Scotch Presbyterianism the better - those people never had to fight a super-power for freedom for their faith, and in consequence have a self-satisfied priggishness wich is quite unstomachable.
DUTCH REFORMED
At the same time as Calvin was contemplating his navel in Switzerland, Netherlandish cities and nobles were getting steamed over Philip the Spaniard's attempts to unify the Netherlands into one coherent legal and administrative system.
The Netherlands which Philip had inherited were a loosely unified mess of conflicting law codes and civic privileges, sporadically called to order by a grand meeting of the States General in Brussels. While all territories were represented in the States General, not all played along with its decisions, and even fewer had any intention of doing so in any consistent manner. Other than in name, their unity lay in resisting Philip and disagreeing with each other.
The situation exploded in 1567 when Philip sent the Duke of Alva (may his name be erased!) into the Netherlands to eradicate dissent and destroy heresy. In 1568 Alva had two of the grande seigneurs of the Netherlands (counts Egmont and Hoorne), executed in the Grande Place in Brussels.
Their crime was not disloyalty or treason, but that they had been too permissive of religious dissidence, even though they themselves had remained Catholic.
The executions may have been pointless. But they did serve as tinder.
For the next four years, Alva savagely suppressed all dissent, political and religious, throughout the Netherlands, painting a swath of blood and murder across all the provinces. The tide turned in 1572 when the Sea Beggars captured Briel in 1572, gaining a foothold along the coast. Within the next few years the rebellion gained strength and territory, eventually unifying all of the northern provinces. Protestants, who faced certain death in the south, fled north in large numbers, and contributed their skills and their lives to the cause of the rebel republic .
The war between Spain and the Dutch lasted until 1648, by which time Protestantism, in it's rather severe Dutch Calvinist form, had become entrenched in the north. Thenceforth Netherlandish quarrelsomeness would have the perfect medium in which to manifest itself - religion.
[Not until twentieth century politics would another so perfect vehicle for petty dispute and despicion come along (and how the Dutch enthusiastically jumped on that bandwagon is another story).]
Among the first actions that the Calvinists theocrats took was the banning of Catholicism in Protestant cities (and permitting Judaism).
Thereafter they started fighting among themselves.
Not only in the Netherlands.
DUTCH CALVINISTS IN AMERICA
The first Dutch Reformed church in the new world was established in New Amsterdam in 1628, and the first church was built in 1633 on what is now Pearl Street in Manhattan. The Brits eventually seized the property for military purposes, and a new church was built in 1693 on Exchange Place. By the end of the century Dutch Reformed congregations had arisen all over New York and New Jersey, including areas which are now Hareidi strongholds such as Brooklyn, Flatbush, Hempstead, Monsey, Paramus, etcetera. By 1792 the Dutch American churches split off from the Dutch churches, at which time they already consisted of various splinter groups on both sides of the Atlantic.
MY CHURCH, HIS CHURCH, AND THE ONE NEITHER OF US WOULD BE CAUGHT DEAD VISITING
In 1816 Dutch government meddling created even more splinter groups, all disunited in opposition to the official approved Dutch Reformed denomination. In 1822 more seceders split off from the Reformed Church in America to form the True Dutch Reformed Church, while in 1834 dissidents left the Reformed Church in the Netherlands to form two new denominations, the Christelijk Afgescheiden Kerk (Christian Separatist Church - CAK) and the Gereformeerde Kerk onder het kruis (Reformed Church under the cross, aka the Cross Churches).
It gets worse.
In 1841 pastor Ledeboer and his group in the Netherlands set up shop separately, along with others (forming the Ledeboerian faction). A number of these people headed for the U.S. in 1846 under the leadership of Pastor Albert Van Raalte, becoming the second group of people to immigrate to North America to get away from religious freedom (the Puritans having been the first). They established the settlement of Holland, Michigan (gosh what an imaginative name for a settlement of Dutchmen!). By 1850 they had more or less united with the Reformed Church in America.
Shortly thereafter, a group of dissenters split off from the Second Reformed Church (in Grand Rapids) and the Fourth Reformed Church (in Pella) to form the Christian Reformed Church. The True Dutch Reformed Church joined with the Christian Reformed Church in 1890, forming their own classis within the movement - Classis Hackensack. In 1908 most of Hackensack withdrew from the Christian Reformed Church in a dispute over the faithful joining civic lodges or fraternal organizations.
Second Christian Reformed is actually a term for split-offs from the Fourth Christian Reformed church (Pella), which itself is a split-off variant of Dutch Reformed.
Second Christian Reformed should not be confused with Third Christian Reformed or First Christian Reformed, even though most Christian Reformed Churches adhere to the same source documents: The Apostle's Creed, the Nicene Creed, the Heidelberg Catechism, the Belgic Confession, and the Canons of Dort.
Many Christian Reformed Churches in America, when they still worshipped in Dutch (in some places up until the nineteen-seventies or eighties!) still held to the Psalter of Petrus Datheen (1531 - 1588), though some "Reformed" Churches held instead to the Psalter of Marnix Van St. Aldegonde (Philip van Marnix, lord of St. Aldegonde, 1538 - 1598), and a few sick deviants had long since switched to either the first or second Statenberijming ("State's Rhyme" - the official version of the psalter), which dates from governmental meddling in church affairs starting in 1816 under William I.
In the Netherlands, several of the congregations of the Christelijk Afgescheiden Kerk and the Cross Churches combined to form another denomination - the Christelijk Gereformeerde Kerk (Christian Reformed Church, but not the same as the Christian Reformed Church in the American Midwest).
In 1886 Doctor Abraham Kuyper and his followers split off from the official Dutch Reformed Church to unite with Christelijk Gereformeerde Kerk.
The Ledeboerian churches in the Netherlands joined with the remaining Cross Churches in 1907, forming a denomination which called itself the Gereformeerde Gemeenten (Reformed Congregations).
The remaining Ledeboerians in America had meanwhile formed the Netherlands Reformed Church in Michigan in 1877.
RECENT HAIRSPLITTING
In 1924, Reverend Herman Hoeksema of the Eastern Avenue Christian Reformed Church in Grand Rapids refused to agree to the teaching of the doctrines of common grace and presumptive regeneration, and left the church with most of his own congregation, plus a congregation in Kalamazoo, and other dissidents. In 1926 they organized the Protestant Reformed Churches. Their unity lasted less than thirty years, nearly half of the members splitting off in 1954 to form the Orthodox Protestant Reformed Churches - which joined up with the Christian Reformed Church in 1961.
During WWII a new denomination arose: Gereformeerde Kerk Nederland - Vrijgemaakt (Reformed Church Netherlands - disassociated). By the nineteen fifties, this new denomination was also present in the U.S. and Canada.
A group seceded from the Gereformeerde Gemeenten (Reformed Congregations) over a doctrinal point that is totally incomprehensible, and became the Gereformeerde Gemeenten in Nederland (Reformed Congregations in the Netherlands). Their American branch is called the Reformed Congregations in North America.
Naturally, the recent mega-merger in the Netherlands of the Nederlandsch Hervormde Kerk, the Gereformeerde Kerk Nederland, and the Dutch Lutheran Church has (of course) resulted in even more break-aways.
The end is not in sight. Dissidence is a sign of health.
================================================
FURTHER NOTES
1. If at this point you are reminded of that scene in Life of Brian where they discuss the differences between the People's Front of Judea, and the Judean People's Front, that is perfectly appropriate. They are SPLITTERS, and it is entirely unknown whether they support your RIGHT to have children even if you are biologically incapable of it.
2. Decades ago I ceased believing that the Messiah already came, and I am skeptical that he will ever come. I await his first coming, even though he may tarry. And I was always dubious about the theory in any case.
No, I don't particularly feel like dealing with 608 more commandments. Why do you ask?
Willem van Deursen (b. 1542) and his son Peter (b. 1575), left Brabant and fled to Haarlem to escape Spanish repression. In 1607 Abraham Pietersen van Deursen was born there, who would emigrate to New Amsterdam (d. 1678). His son Isaac Abrahamsen van Deursen was born in the new world in 1635.
[Why the names Abraham and Isaac? Well, Abraham left the place of his fathers, and journeyed into a land not his own..... ]
The descendants of Abraham remained fairly religious till a few generations ago.
I do not know if my great-grandfather (who was descended from Abraham on both sides, and whose wife was also descended from Abraham) still attended church - I doubt it, but I am fairly certain that my grandfather did not. Same goes for my mother's side of the family.
Consider us Jack-Calvinists. Run-aways, if you will. Force us into a church, and we'll burn the damn' thing down.
I mention all this because of Ann Coulter.
ANN COULTER
In her latest venomous piece of dreck, ms. Coulter writes:
"Then there's Barry Lynn, alleged "Christian minister," whose stock in trade is to denounce any mention of religion anyplace, anytime. Look, I'm a Christian minister, but even I have to admit that the sight of a kindergartner praying is terrifying to most folks. (The first person to post Barry Lynn's bar mitzvah photos or birth announcement (mazel tov!) wins a free copy of my latest book, "Guilty: Liberal 'Victims' and Their Assault on America.")
[END QUOTE]
Source:http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=106696
The only reason for her sneering dig at the reverend Barry Lynn is that he wishes a division to be maintained between church and state - which, in the eyes of the odious Coulter and many of her fans, smacks of disloyalty to the little baby Jesus. Something apparently only Jews are capable of.
What Coulter and people of her ilk need to understand is that if we lessen the boundary between Church and State, people like me will come busting out of the woodwork. And we won't be happy.
Heck, I'll gladly lynch any number of members of the heretic denominations that threaten my irreligious freedom - Anglicans, Methodists, Presbyterians, Baptists, Adventists, Southern Cretinist, whatever. The only version of Christianity I would even want to see empowered is Dutch Calvinism. I am not particular about which obnoxiously stubborn and opinionated pissant version of it, either - I've got relatives all over that creed, and most of us haven't been Church-going in generations.
But still.... shtrenge Dutch Calvinists are infinitely superior to all those Anglo-protestantisms. Punkt.
Yes, I really do find most English-speaking versions of Christianity to be loathsome. Totally icky poo.
The psalters of Petrus Datheen and Marnix van St. Aldegonde make what would be mere pedestrian praedestinationism sparkle and shine - in Dutch, in poetic Dutch, and only in Dutch.
Still wrong (far too gnostic, too Christic, not old-testamentarian enough, and not nearly of an acceptable liberality or liberalistic), but eloquent and given to great lyric.
Bugger the English language versions of religion. Including, especially, typical American fundamentalist versions. They are intolerable.
You superstitious backwoods heathens are barely one step above savages.
The separation between Church and State is the only thing that keeps me from wanting to shoot you. Please count your blessings.
================================================
APPENDIX
For those of you who are baffled as all git-out by this mention of Calvinists, the following opinionated backgrounder may be useful. It is brief.
CALVINISM
In 1533 Jean Cauvin (John Calvin, 1509 - 1564), an argumentative student of theology and law at Paris, fled for his life, eventually ending up in Geneva. His weltanschauung was influenced by much of the theological ferment then current in Europe at that time, including Lutheranism and Anabaptism.
Two basic themes that he developed were Biblical authority as opposed to Church authority in matters of the faith, and praedestinationism.
Two major ethno-denominational groupings eventually formed that were based on Calvin's thought: Scotch Presbyterianism, and Dutch Reform.
The less said about Scotch Presbyterianism the better - those people never had to fight a super-power for freedom for their faith, and in consequence have a self-satisfied priggishness wich is quite unstomachable.
DUTCH REFORMED
At the same time as Calvin was contemplating his navel in Switzerland, Netherlandish cities and nobles were getting steamed over Philip the Spaniard's attempts to unify the Netherlands into one coherent legal and administrative system.
The Netherlands which Philip had inherited were a loosely unified mess of conflicting law codes and civic privileges, sporadically called to order by a grand meeting of the States General in Brussels. While all territories were represented in the States General, not all played along with its decisions, and even fewer had any intention of doing so in any consistent manner. Other than in name, their unity lay in resisting Philip and disagreeing with each other.
The situation exploded in 1567 when Philip sent the Duke of Alva (may his name be erased!) into the Netherlands to eradicate dissent and destroy heresy. In 1568 Alva had two of the grande seigneurs of the Netherlands (counts Egmont and Hoorne), executed in the Grande Place in Brussels.
Their crime was not disloyalty or treason, but that they had been too permissive of religious dissidence, even though they themselves had remained Catholic.
The executions may have been pointless. But they did serve as tinder.
For the next four years, Alva savagely suppressed all dissent, political and religious, throughout the Netherlands, painting a swath of blood and murder across all the provinces. The tide turned in 1572 when the Sea Beggars captured Briel in 1572, gaining a foothold along the coast. Within the next few years the rebellion gained strength and territory, eventually unifying all of the northern provinces. Protestants, who faced certain death in the south, fled north in large numbers, and contributed their skills and their lives to the cause of the rebel republic .
The war between Spain and the Dutch lasted until 1648, by which time Protestantism, in it's rather severe Dutch Calvinist form, had become entrenched in the north. Thenceforth Netherlandish quarrelsomeness would have the perfect medium in which to manifest itself - religion.
[Not until twentieth century politics would another so perfect vehicle for petty dispute and despicion come along (and how the Dutch enthusiastically jumped on that bandwagon is another story).]
Among the first actions that the Calvinists theocrats took was the banning of Catholicism in Protestant cities (and permitting Judaism).
Thereafter they started fighting among themselves.
Not only in the Netherlands.
DUTCH CALVINISTS IN AMERICA
The first Dutch Reformed church in the new world was established in New Amsterdam in 1628, and the first church was built in 1633 on what is now Pearl Street in Manhattan. The Brits eventually seized the property for military purposes, and a new church was built in 1693 on Exchange Place. By the end of the century Dutch Reformed congregations had arisen all over New York and New Jersey, including areas which are now Hareidi strongholds such as Brooklyn, Flatbush, Hempstead, Monsey, Paramus, etcetera. By 1792 the Dutch American churches split off from the Dutch churches, at which time they already consisted of various splinter groups on both sides of the Atlantic.
MY CHURCH, HIS CHURCH, AND THE ONE NEITHER OF US WOULD BE CAUGHT DEAD VISITING
In 1816 Dutch government meddling created even more splinter groups, all disunited in opposition to the official approved Dutch Reformed denomination. In 1822 more seceders split off from the Reformed Church in America to form the True Dutch Reformed Church, while in 1834 dissidents left the Reformed Church in the Netherlands to form two new denominations, the Christelijk Afgescheiden Kerk (Christian Separatist Church - CAK) and the Gereformeerde Kerk onder het kruis (Reformed Church under the cross, aka the Cross Churches).
It gets worse.
In 1841 pastor Ledeboer and his group in the Netherlands set up shop separately, along with others (forming the Ledeboerian faction). A number of these people headed for the U.S. in 1846 under the leadership of Pastor Albert Van Raalte, becoming the second group of people to immigrate to North America to get away from religious freedom (the Puritans having been the first). They established the settlement of Holland, Michigan (gosh what an imaginative name for a settlement of Dutchmen!). By 1850 they had more or less united with the Reformed Church in America.
Shortly thereafter, a group of dissenters split off from the Second Reformed Church (in Grand Rapids) and the Fourth Reformed Church (in Pella) to form the Christian Reformed Church. The True Dutch Reformed Church joined with the Christian Reformed Church in 1890, forming their own classis within the movement - Classis Hackensack. In 1908 most of Hackensack withdrew from the Christian Reformed Church in a dispute over the faithful joining civic lodges or fraternal organizations.
Second Christian Reformed is actually a term for split-offs from the Fourth Christian Reformed church (Pella), which itself is a split-off variant of Dutch Reformed.
Second Christian Reformed should not be confused with Third Christian Reformed or First Christian Reformed, even though most Christian Reformed Churches adhere to the same source documents: The Apostle's Creed, the Nicene Creed, the Heidelberg Catechism, the Belgic Confession, and the Canons of Dort.
Many Christian Reformed Churches in America, when they still worshipped in Dutch (in some places up until the nineteen-seventies or eighties!) still held to the Psalter of Petrus Datheen (1531 - 1588), though some "Reformed" Churches held instead to the Psalter of Marnix Van St. Aldegonde (Philip van Marnix, lord of St. Aldegonde, 1538 - 1598), and a few sick deviants had long since switched to either the first or second Statenberijming ("State's Rhyme" - the official version of the psalter), which dates from governmental meddling in church affairs starting in 1816 under William I.
In the Netherlands, several of the congregations of the Christelijk Afgescheiden Kerk and the Cross Churches combined to form another denomination - the Christelijk Gereformeerde Kerk (Christian Reformed Church, but not the same as the Christian Reformed Church in the American Midwest).
In 1886 Doctor Abraham Kuyper and his followers split off from the official Dutch Reformed Church to unite with Christelijk Gereformeerde Kerk.
The Ledeboerian churches in the Netherlands joined with the remaining Cross Churches in 1907, forming a denomination which called itself the Gereformeerde Gemeenten (Reformed Congregations).
The remaining Ledeboerians in America had meanwhile formed the Netherlands Reformed Church in Michigan in 1877.
RECENT HAIRSPLITTING
In 1924, Reverend Herman Hoeksema of the Eastern Avenue Christian Reformed Church in Grand Rapids refused to agree to the teaching of the doctrines of common grace and presumptive regeneration, and left the church with most of his own congregation, plus a congregation in Kalamazoo, and other dissidents. In 1926 they organized the Protestant Reformed Churches. Their unity lasted less than thirty years, nearly half of the members splitting off in 1954 to form the Orthodox Protestant Reformed Churches - which joined up with the Christian Reformed Church in 1961.
During WWII a new denomination arose: Gereformeerde Kerk Nederland - Vrijgemaakt (Reformed Church Netherlands - disassociated). By the nineteen fifties, this new denomination was also present in the U.S. and Canada.
A group seceded from the Gereformeerde Gemeenten (Reformed Congregations) over a doctrinal point that is totally incomprehensible, and became the Gereformeerde Gemeenten in Nederland (Reformed Congregations in the Netherlands). Their American branch is called the Reformed Congregations in North America.
Naturally, the recent mega-merger in the Netherlands of the Nederlandsch Hervormde Kerk, the Gereformeerde Kerk Nederland, and the Dutch Lutheran Church has (of course) resulted in even more break-aways.
The end is not in sight. Dissidence is a sign of health.
================================================
FURTHER NOTES
1. If at this point you are reminded of that scene in Life of Brian where they discuss the differences between the People's Front of Judea, and the Judean People's Front, that is perfectly appropriate. They are SPLITTERS, and it is entirely unknown whether they support your RIGHT to have children even if you are biologically incapable of it.
2. Decades ago I ceased believing that the Messiah already came, and I am skeptical that he will ever come. I await his first coming, even though he may tarry. And I was always dubious about the theory in any case.
No, I don't particularly feel like dealing with 608 more commandments. Why do you ask?
Friday, July 24, 2009
WESTERN EUROPEAN EXCELLENCE
Kudos! Bravo, guys, you make me proud. I always get a tear in my eye when Western Europeans demonstrate their high standards, and do something exemplary! Kol hakavod, all of y'all, kol hakavod!
[By which I mean utterly not.]
EXAMPLE ONE:
Anti-Semitic attacks in Britain at record high
Quote: "CST categorized the 2009 incidents as follows: 77 violent assaults; two cases of extreme violence, i.e. attacks that posed a risk to life or constitute grievous bodily harm; 63 incidents of damage and desecration to Jewish property; 34 direct anti-Semitic threats; 391 incidents of abusive behavior, including hate mail, verbal abuse and anti-Semitic graffiti on non-Jewish property; and 44 mass-mailings of anti-Semitic literature, in paper form or by email."
[SOURCE: http://jta.org/news/article/2009/07/24/1006782/anti-semitic-attacks-in-britain-at-record-high ]
EXAMPLE TWO:
Gay Pride organiser victim of gay-bashing
Quote: "One of the organisers of next weekend's Gay Pride parade and a friend were attacked in Amsterdam on Wednesday night, the Telegraaf reports on Friday.
Hugo Braakhuis and his friend were saying goodbye on the city's Rembrandtplein when a group of youths began shouting 'cancer gay' and other insults at them. Braakhuis's friend objected to the taunting and was punched to the ground. Braakhuis was also hit, the paper said."
[SOURCE: http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2009/07/gay_pride_organiser_victim_of.php ]
BEEE-YOU-TEA-FALL!
Once more, guys, the world appreciates your sterling example. You all truly are models of civilized behaviour, and represent the finest values. Yes. No wonder the world looks on you with wonder and admiration, and listens to your every well-though-out word on matters of great import. I really do not know where we would be without the advances and blessings that you have so generously imparted.
I guess we're about ready for another world war now. Your glorious leadership started the last two, and they really improved matters. We await the word from Western Europe - where civilization started.
====================================
NOTE:
The above may be taken literally by some. For which I am truly sorry. But it cannot be helped. The level of yutz is aza shreklich among some elements of the illiterati, especially in the boglands and pishgassen on the other side of the Atlantic, that a lack of broadmindedness and perspective must be assumed.
But what I really mean should be clear, docht zich. Gatsameinu.
====================================
BRUTAL AFTERTHOUGHT
I know some of you will blame a certain problematic element for these things. It is them, not you, them. They are always making trouble. Yes? Hmmmm?
But no. Who you choose to blame is strictly an internal matter. It is your society that failed, they are your people. Do you really wish to deny ownership in your own country? The import of cheap labour - that same cheap labour from which all of you nice pale people benefitted - has entirely dis-invested you? Because of this you are no longer responsible for anything?
You know, and you know I know, that that is a load of codswallop.
Again, strictly an internal affair. From the point of view of the rest of the world, it is you, your society, your people, that are showing their "afterend" in public. Stelletje hufters.
====================================
[By which I mean utterly not.]
EXAMPLE ONE:
Anti-Semitic attacks in Britain at record high
Quote: "CST categorized the 2009 incidents as follows: 77 violent assaults; two cases of extreme violence, i.e. attacks that posed a risk to life or constitute grievous bodily harm; 63 incidents of damage and desecration to Jewish property; 34 direct anti-Semitic threats; 391 incidents of abusive behavior, including hate mail, verbal abuse and anti-Semitic graffiti on non-Jewish property; and 44 mass-mailings of anti-Semitic literature, in paper form or by email."
[SOURCE: http://jta.org/news/article/2009/07/24/1006782/anti-semitic-attacks-in-britain-at-record-high ]
EXAMPLE TWO:
Gay Pride organiser victim of gay-bashing
Quote: "One of the organisers of next weekend's Gay Pride parade and a friend were attacked in Amsterdam on Wednesday night, the Telegraaf reports on Friday.
Hugo Braakhuis and his friend were saying goodbye on the city's Rembrandtplein when a group of youths began shouting 'cancer gay' and other insults at them. Braakhuis's friend objected to the taunting and was punched to the ground. Braakhuis was also hit, the paper said."
[SOURCE: http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2009/07/gay_pride_organiser_victim_of.php ]
BEEE-YOU-TEA-FALL!
Once more, guys, the world appreciates your sterling example. You all truly are models of civilized behaviour, and represent the finest values. Yes. No wonder the world looks on you with wonder and admiration, and listens to your every well-though-out word on matters of great import. I really do not know where we would be without the advances and blessings that you have so generously imparted.
I guess we're about ready for another world war now. Your glorious leadership started the last two, and they really improved matters. We await the word from Western Europe - where civilization started.
====================================
NOTE:
The above may be taken literally by some. For which I am truly sorry. But it cannot be helped. The level of yutz is aza shreklich among some elements of the illiterati, especially in the boglands and pishgassen on the other side of the Atlantic, that a lack of broadmindedness and perspective must be assumed.
But what I really mean should be clear, docht zich. Gatsameinu.
====================================
BRUTAL AFTERTHOUGHT
I know some of you will blame a certain problematic element for these things. It is them, not you, them. They are always making trouble. Yes? Hmmmm?
But no. Who you choose to blame is strictly an internal matter. It is your society that failed, they are your people. Do you really wish to deny ownership in your own country? The import of cheap labour - that same cheap labour from which all of you nice pale people benefitted - has entirely dis-invested you? Because of this you are no longer responsible for anything?
You know, and you know I know, that that is a load of codswallop.
Again, strictly an internal affair. From the point of view of the rest of the world, it is you, your society, your people, that are showing their "afterend" in public. Stelletje hufters.
====================================
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
NON-ARAB MUSLIMS ARE EXPENDABLE
In fact, judging by the angry protests from International ANSWER and the good citizens of the People's Republic of Berkeley, non-Arab Muslims are probably not even human, definitely not worth your concern.
Angry protests - what angry protests?
Exactly. There were none. There have been none. There will be none.
International ANSWER and the good citizens of Berkeley have shown themselves INFINITELY more concerned with Palestinians (Arabs) than with any number of Chechens, Somalis, Sudanese or Thais.
Chechnya: between 30,000 and more than 100,000 war dead - 1994 to present.
Somalia: hundreds of thousands dead - 1991 to present.
Sudan: Over 300,000 dead, over 2 million displaced - 2003 to present.
Thai Muslims: Over 3,500 dead since 2004.
[The three southern provinces of Thailand - Narathiwat, Yala and Pattani - were annexed by Siam in 1902. The natives are not Thai, and speak Malay. Thai and Malay are not even linguistic relatives, let alone in any way mutually intelligible. The cultural differences are just as large as the linguistic differences.]
Berkeley does not protest these deaths. International ANSWER ignores the dead Muslims of Chechnya, Somalia, Sudan, and Thailand.
The dead Muslims that make both Berkeleyites and International ANSWER folks rabid have ALWAYS been Arabs. Only Arabs. No one else but Arabs.
Chechens are not Arabs. So no outrage.
Somalis and Sudanese are far too dark, why they're quite Negro-looking! No outrage.
Thai Muslims are little brown people, and not worth any outrage whatsoever.
It is axiomatic that Berkeley and International ANSWER will never engage in mass-action on behalf of Muslims who are not Arabs, will not boycott as a protest, will not threaten people on campus, will not write to their politicians, will not hold rallies, will not, in fact, do anything at all.
Over a hundred thousand dead Chechens are just not something to get excited about, several hundred thousand dead Africans are rather inconsequential, thousands of dead Thai Muslims are manifestly minor in the grand scheme of things.
Oh, and they aren't Arabs, so they're just not worth it.
They're garbage.
Angry protests - what angry protests?
Exactly. There were none. There have been none. There will be none.
International ANSWER and the good citizens of Berkeley have shown themselves INFINITELY more concerned with Palestinians (Arabs) than with any number of Chechens, Somalis, Sudanese or Thais.
Chechnya: between 30,000 and more than 100,000 war dead - 1994 to present.
Somalia: hundreds of thousands dead - 1991 to present.
Sudan: Over 300,000 dead, over 2 million displaced - 2003 to present.
Thai Muslims: Over 3,500 dead since 2004.
[The three southern provinces of Thailand - Narathiwat, Yala and Pattani - were annexed by Siam in 1902. The natives are not Thai, and speak Malay. Thai and Malay are not even linguistic relatives, let alone in any way mutually intelligible. The cultural differences are just as large as the linguistic differences.]
Berkeley does not protest these deaths. International ANSWER ignores the dead Muslims of Chechnya, Somalia, Sudan, and Thailand.
The dead Muslims that make both Berkeleyites and International ANSWER folks rabid have ALWAYS been Arabs. Only Arabs. No one else but Arabs.
Chechens are not Arabs. So no outrage.
Somalis and Sudanese are far too dark, why they're quite Negro-looking! No outrage.
Thai Muslims are little brown people, and not worth any outrage whatsoever.
It is axiomatic that Berkeley and International ANSWER will never engage in mass-action on behalf of Muslims who are not Arabs, will not boycott as a protest, will not threaten people on campus, will not write to their politicians, will not hold rallies, will not, in fact, do anything at all.
Over a hundred thousand dead Chechens are just not something to get excited about, several hundred thousand dead Africans are rather inconsequential, thousands of dead Thai Muslims are manifestly minor in the grand scheme of things.
Oh, and they aren't Arabs, so they're just not worth it.
They're garbage.
Friday, April 17, 2009
DUTCH ISRAEL BOYCOTT GROUP FINANCIAL DAMAGE
Bright news out of the Netherlands, for a change.
Quote:
A Dutch consumer rights group promoting a ban on Israeli goods is planning to take legal action against one of the Netherland's largest Jewish institutions for alleged "abuse" of the postal system. The Jewish group denies foul play.
[Editorial interruption: It is not entirely clear what action they can take, as the alleged foul play is strictly according to their own playbook.]
Peace, which is advocating a boycott of Israeli goods from the West Bank, says the umbrella group for the Jewish Orthodox communities in the Netherlands, NIK, deliberately caused it losses of thousands of euros.
[Denied by the NIK, and with excellent reason.]
Pro-Israel boycott group: Dutch Jewish leadership 'abusing' our postal system
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1078875.html
"For two weeks now we have been receiving empty envelopes which we put out for people to support our campaign,"
Peace argues that NIK did this by using its Web site to encourage people to send thousands of Peace's prepaid envelopes through a mailing service that allows anyone to send mail to certain organizations at no charge, since the organizations pay the postal fees after delivery.
"For two weeks now we have been receiving empty envelopes which we put out for people to support our campaign," said Peace chairman Joost Hardeman. "We of course had to pay for this traffic. This illegal manipulation by NIK of the Royal Mail service has forced us to cancel our mail arrangement, and we are preparing a lawsuit against them to cover our costs."
The Amsterdam-based group is also planning to take legal action against two operators of pro-Israel Web sites, including a blog, that advertised Peace's prepaid mailbox.
Ruben Vis, secretary general of NIK, confirmed that the address of Peace's prepaid mailbox was posted on his organization's site, but said that was part of a report about Peace's claims that the Israeli Embassy was pressuring a publisher to drop a pro-boycott ad campaign. The embassy has denied this.
"Certain individuals may have decided to mail back to Peace their own prepaid envelopes, but NIK is certainly not involved," Vis said.
Hardeman, who is Jewish and says he supports Israel but opposes its occupation of Palestinian land, said Peace will nonetheless attempt to show NIK is to blame for "the abuse of the mail system."
[Editorial interruption: Joost Hardeman may very well be a classic self-hating Jew. That type often collaborates with anti-Semites, Jew haters, and anti-Israel action groups. This blog does not know Joost Hardeman, and while we are fully prepared to despise him and his entire circle, we reserve judgment; more research is needed.
We do hope, however, that the bastard never enter the US, and have ill-luck and misfortune all of his days - consider these sentiments as a glorious gasp of whatever remains of my Christian fellow-feeling (not a significant factor in my mental make-up, largely due to the repulsive xenophobia and hatred of other beliefs evinced by the 'fine Christians' among whom I lived while a temporary resident of the Netherlands. I'm still furious at my classmates for telling me on a daily basis that I was going to hell, and at their parents for encouraging their brats to believe that it was virtuous to voice that sentiment.]
The Israel Products Center, a Netherlands-based online store specializing in Israeli goods, recently complained to the Dutch advertising ombudsman organization that Peace's campaign against Israeli products has caused it financial damages because it directly targets their livelihood and brand.
[Source: HAARETZ.com http://www.haaretz.com/
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1078875.html ]
---------------------------------------
HOIST BY THEIR OWN PETARD
It seems obvious to this blogger that Hardeman's odious clique got shafted by their own doing. Fitting, even, that their own prepaid envelopes be used PRECISELY as intended - to send them a message.
Considering the well-deserved reputation the Dutch have for being money-grubbing skinflints, penny-pinchers, and hard-nosed financialists, this result is particularly delicious.
[Jaja, beste Nederlanders, wat betreft handel and financiën zijt gij allen berucht omwille uw wrekkigheid, gierigheid, en ethische mankementen. Dat is al vele eeuwen bekend. Meer nog dan zelfs Lombardiërs en Schotlanders. Maar ulieden beschouwen dat van uzelven natuurlijk als een prijzenswaardige nuchterheid, wijl ge het toch van anderen met gene gratie veelt. Tismewat. Tsja.]
And regarding boycotts, this blogger is more likely to purchase products if they are of Israeli origin than of European origin - excepting tobacco products and Irish whiskey.
Reason being that I would much rather support those who are on our side, than those who have spent the years since world wars one and two calling us names and damning us for not being exactly like them - a European habit which anyone who has lived there will recognize as the single cultural characteristic which unites Europeans. Without that hatred for America, they might have nothing at all in common, at least not to the degree that it makes them all warm and gushy inside.
[Well, except soccer, that is. Nothing is quite so charmingly European as a full-scale soccer riot, especially one that causes thousands of Euros of damage, and fills holding cells and hospital emergency rooms to overflowing.
These are admirable manifestations of European excellence, and splendid spectacles besides.]
I truly hope that the envelope thing puts the boycott-bastards out of business.
Quote:
A Dutch consumer rights group promoting a ban on Israeli goods is planning to take legal action against one of the Netherland's largest Jewish institutions for alleged "abuse" of the postal system. The Jewish group denies foul play.
[Editorial interruption: It is not entirely clear what action they can take, as the alleged foul play is strictly according to their own playbook.]
Peace, which is advocating a boycott of Israeli goods from the West Bank, says the umbrella group for the Jewish Orthodox communities in the Netherlands, NIK, deliberately caused it losses of thousands of euros.
[Denied by the NIK, and with excellent reason.]
Pro-Israel boycott group: Dutch Jewish leadership 'abusing' our postal system
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1078875.html
"For two weeks now we have been receiving empty envelopes which we put out for people to support our campaign,"
Peace argues that NIK did this by using its Web site to encourage people to send thousands of Peace's prepaid envelopes through a mailing service that allows anyone to send mail to certain organizations at no charge, since the organizations pay the postal fees after delivery.
"For two weeks now we have been receiving empty envelopes which we put out for people to support our campaign," said Peace chairman Joost Hardeman. "We of course had to pay for this traffic. This illegal manipulation by NIK of the Royal Mail service has forced us to cancel our mail arrangement, and we are preparing a lawsuit against them to cover our costs."
The Amsterdam-based group is also planning to take legal action against two operators of pro-Israel Web sites, including a blog, that advertised Peace's prepaid mailbox.
Ruben Vis, secretary general of NIK, confirmed that the address of Peace's prepaid mailbox was posted on his organization's site, but said that was part of a report about Peace's claims that the Israeli Embassy was pressuring a publisher to drop a pro-boycott ad campaign. The embassy has denied this.
"Certain individuals may have decided to mail back to Peace their own prepaid envelopes, but NIK is certainly not involved," Vis said.
Hardeman, who is Jewish and says he supports Israel but opposes its occupation of Palestinian land, said Peace will nonetheless attempt to show NIK is to blame for "the abuse of the mail system."
[Editorial interruption: Joost Hardeman may very well be a classic self-hating Jew. That type often collaborates with anti-Semites, Jew haters, and anti-Israel action groups. This blog does not know Joost Hardeman, and while we are fully prepared to despise him and his entire circle, we reserve judgment; more research is needed.
We do hope, however, that the bastard never enter the US, and have ill-luck and misfortune all of his days - consider these sentiments as a glorious gasp of whatever remains of my Christian fellow-feeling (not a significant factor in my mental make-up, largely due to the repulsive xenophobia and hatred of other beliefs evinced by the 'fine Christians' among whom I lived while a temporary resident of the Netherlands. I'm still furious at my classmates for telling me on a daily basis that I was going to hell, and at their parents for encouraging their brats to believe that it was virtuous to voice that sentiment.]
The Israel Products Center, a Netherlands-based online store specializing in Israeli goods, recently complained to the Dutch advertising ombudsman organization that Peace's campaign against Israeli products has caused it financial damages because it directly targets their livelihood and brand.
[Source: HAARETZ.com http://www.haaretz.com/
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1078875.html ]
---------------------------------------
HOIST BY THEIR OWN PETARD
It seems obvious to this blogger that Hardeman's odious clique got shafted by their own doing. Fitting, even, that their own prepaid envelopes be used PRECISELY as intended - to send them a message.
Considering the well-deserved reputation the Dutch have for being money-grubbing skinflints, penny-pinchers, and hard-nosed financialists, this result is particularly delicious.
[Jaja, beste Nederlanders, wat betreft handel and financiën zijt gij allen berucht omwille uw wrekkigheid, gierigheid, en ethische mankementen. Dat is al vele eeuwen bekend. Meer nog dan zelfs Lombardiërs en Schotlanders. Maar ulieden beschouwen dat van uzelven natuurlijk als een prijzenswaardige nuchterheid, wijl ge het toch van anderen met gene gratie veelt. Tismewat. Tsja.]
And regarding boycotts, this blogger is more likely to purchase products if they are of Israeli origin than of European origin - excepting tobacco products and Irish whiskey.
Reason being that I would much rather support those who are on our side, than those who have spent the years since world wars one and two calling us names and damning us for not being exactly like them - a European habit which anyone who has lived there will recognize as the single cultural characteristic which unites Europeans. Without that hatred for America, they might have nothing at all in common, at least not to the degree that it makes them all warm and gushy inside.
[Well, except soccer, that is. Nothing is quite so charmingly European as a full-scale soccer riot, especially one that causes thousands of Euros of damage, and fills holding cells and hospital emergency rooms to overflowing.
These are admirable manifestations of European excellence, and splendid spectacles besides.]
I truly hope that the envelope thing puts the boycott-bastards out of business.
Tuesday, April 07, 2009
JEW-HATING SEDER AT METHODIST CHURCH
Sometimes the anti-Semites and self-hating crowd do something so staggeringly goofy that you really have to wonder what goes on their little pin-heads. Then you remember: these are Berkeleyites.
And suddenly everything falls into place.
Such as the pro-Palestinian anti-Israel 'seder' being held on Good Friday in a church. As advertised in the e-mail below.
[Please note: it's a fundraiser for self-haters AND anti-Semites, on a Christian holy day associated traditionally with pogroms and violence against Jews, and at a church. That is one hell of a set of symbolic confluences.]
Legacies of Resistance
a community Passover Seder dinner
Friday, April 10, 2009 :: 6pm
Lake Merrit United Methodist Church
(1255 1st Ave at International Blvd, Oakland)
Dinner will be served.
$15-50 sliding scale ($25 donation suggested), no one turned away for lack of funds
Funds raised will benefit IJAN and Middle East Children's Alliance,
to support local organizing and send emergency supplies to Gaza.
If you are unable to attend, but would still like to contribute, please use the RSVP form below.
Our capacity is limited, so please make your reservation early.
Click here to RSVP (preferred), email bay.ijsn+seder@gmail.com, or call (510) 343.6065.
All are welcome.
Childcare may be available with advance notice.
About IJAN:
IJAN is a growing international network of Jews whose Jewish identities are not based on Zionism but on a plurality of histories and experiences. We share a commitment to participation in the legacy of struggles against colonization and imperialism. As such, we struggle against Zionism and its manifestation in the State of Israel's historic and ongoing ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people and the confiscation of their land. www.ijsn.net
About MECA:
Founded in 1988, the Middle East Children's Alliance is a registered nonprofit organization working for the rights and the well being of children in the Middle East. MECA sends shipments of aid to Palestine, Iraq and Lebanon, and supports projects that make life better for the children. We educate North Americans about children in the region and the brutal impact of US foreign policy on their lives. MECA welcomes the support of all people who care about children and their future. www.mecaforpeace.org
A note about food:
Food served will be Kosher-for-Passover Style -- it will not contain prohibited grains/foods, though may not all be certified Kosher. Additionally, remember that different cultural traditions -- Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Mizrahi -- observe Pesach differently, and therefore certain foods may vary from what you are accustomed to.
====================
NOTES
The Lake Merrit United Methodist Church is one of several Bay Area Churches that regularly host anti-Semitic events. This is their website: http://www.lakemerrittumc.org/
Yes, I know what some misguided people might now say - that being the usual self-satisfied priggish crap about criticism of Israel bla bla bla and Palestinian bla bla bla. Don't bother. That is just asinine nonsense, the Lake Merritt United Methodist Church IS bigoted, and the entire idea of the primary national narrative of Judaism being hijacked and malformed by a Church and a bunch of severely defective Jews-of-Convenience for the benefit of Israel-hating racists, is a nauseating exercise in hate, anti-Semitism, and offensiveness.
It is absolutely indefensible, and makes a mockery of both mutual tolerance and "interfaith" dialogue.
For your information, the other church in the East-Bay that is trying to revive the traditional 'we're better than that bunch' anti-Semitism is Saint John's Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Avenue, Berkeley. That's were the Sabeel conference was held on August 25, 2007. You may read about it here:
http://atthebackofthehill.blogspot.com/2007/08/saturday-among-cannibals.html
Rest assured that Berkeley Presbyterians fair make me vomit, especially when compared to strenge Dutch Calvinists. I'm none too happy with the Methodists either, but in the main something so eccentric as Methodism can be safely ignored.
Still, Tallullah Bankhead was a Methodist, as was Ulysses S. Grant - that means that they can't be all bad. Tallullah Bankhead!!!
And finally, I note with wry amusement that they clarified that food would be served. Anybody familiar with Passover would naturally assume that that was the case, but it is likely that the overwhelming majority of attendees will be severely self-righteous Prods and very superior people who do not know much about other cultures other than that they disapprove of them and normally don't socialize with that lot. These aren't the kind of people who naturally associate food with celebration or pleasure - that's what sneering disapproval is for.
And suddenly everything falls into place.
Such as the pro-Palestinian anti-Israel 'seder' being held on Good Friday in a church. As advertised in the e-mail below.
[Please note: it's a fundraiser for self-haters AND anti-Semites, on a Christian holy day associated traditionally with pogroms and violence against Jews, and at a church. That is one hell of a set of symbolic confluences.]
Legacies of Resistance
a community Passover Seder dinner
Friday, April 10, 2009 :: 6pm
Lake Merrit United Methodist Church
(1255 1st Ave at International Blvd, Oakland)
Dinner will be served.
$15-50 sliding scale ($25 donation suggested), no one turned away for lack of funds
Funds raised will benefit IJAN and Middle East Children's Alliance,
to support local organizing and send emergency supplies to Gaza.
If you are unable to attend, but would still like to contribute, please use the RSVP form below.
Our capacity is limited, so please make your reservation early.
Click here to RSVP (preferred), email bay.ijsn+seder@gmail.com, or call (510) 343.6065.
All are welcome.
Childcare may be available with advance notice.
About IJAN:
IJAN is a growing international network of Jews whose Jewish identities are not based on Zionism but on a plurality of histories and experiences. We share a commitment to participation in the legacy of struggles against colonization and imperialism. As such, we struggle against Zionism and its manifestation in the State of Israel's historic and ongoing ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people and the confiscation of their land. www.ijsn.net
About MECA:
Founded in 1988, the Middle East Children's Alliance is a registered nonprofit organization working for the rights and the well being of children in the Middle East. MECA sends shipments of aid to Palestine, Iraq and Lebanon, and supports projects that make life better for the children. We educate North Americans about children in the region and the brutal impact of US foreign policy on their lives. MECA welcomes the support of all people who care about children and their future. www.mecaforpeace.org
A note about food:
Food served will be Kosher-for-Passover Style -- it will not contain prohibited grains/foods, though may not all be certified Kosher. Additionally, remember that different cultural traditions -- Ashkenazi, Sephardi, Mizrahi -- observe Pesach differently, and therefore certain foods may vary from what you are accustomed to.
====================
NOTES
The Lake Merrit United Methodist Church is one of several Bay Area Churches that regularly host anti-Semitic events. This is their website: http://www.lakemerrittumc.org/
Yes, I know what some misguided people might now say - that being the usual self-satisfied priggish crap about criticism of Israel bla bla bla and Palestinian bla bla bla. Don't bother. That is just asinine nonsense, the Lake Merritt United Methodist Church IS bigoted, and the entire idea of the primary national narrative of Judaism being hijacked and malformed by a Church and a bunch of severely defective Jews-of-Convenience for the benefit of Israel-hating racists, is a nauseating exercise in hate, anti-Semitism, and offensiveness.
It is absolutely indefensible, and makes a mockery of both mutual tolerance and "interfaith" dialogue.
For your information, the other church in the East-Bay that is trying to revive the traditional 'we're better than that bunch' anti-Semitism is Saint John's Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Avenue, Berkeley. That's were the Sabeel conference was held on August 25, 2007. You may read about it here:
http://atthebackofthehill.blogspot.com/2007/08/saturday-among-cannibals.html
Rest assured that Berkeley Presbyterians fair make me vomit, especially when compared to strenge Dutch Calvinists. I'm none too happy with the Methodists either, but in the main something so eccentric as Methodism can be safely ignored.
Still, Tallullah Bankhead was a Methodist, as was Ulysses S. Grant - that means that they can't be all bad. Tallullah Bankhead!!!
And finally, I note with wry amusement that they clarified that food would be served. Anybody familiar with Passover would naturally assume that that was the case, but it is likely that the overwhelming majority of attendees will be severely self-righteous Prods and very superior people who do not know much about other cultures other than that they disapprove of them and normally don't socialize with that lot. These aren't the kind of people who naturally associate food with celebration or pleasure - that's what sneering disapproval is for.
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
BBC? MEH!
While reading Justin Webb's blog on the BBC website, I ran across a pungent comment.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/justinwebb/2009/02/evolution_vs_creationism.html
Quote:
3. At 3:59pm on 13 Feb 2009, Gary_A_Hill wrote:
Criticism of the US on this point is well founded, I think. The extent of ignorance among Americans on this subject, and many other scientific subjects, is appalling.
The irony is that there is no conflict between understanding the details of the world around us and pondering the more fundamental question of why such a complex world should exist at all. Science does not seek an answer to this, and in the US, officially at least, we tolerate all opinions on these questions of faith. This is not sufficient for creationists, who are always trying to force their opinions into the realm of science and public policy.
The opinion so bitingly expressed accords with overseas praeconceptiva about Americans, and could very well have been uttered by some ale-sodden yobbo in any pub or café all across Western Europe.
Where, I hasten to add, I have heard precisely such generalizations uttered by people who had never been to the US, and whose knowledge of the place was abysmally limited.
[Criticism of the British and other Europeans on this point is well founded, I think. The extent of ignorance among them about America, and many other subjects, is appalling!]
So of course I registered a complaint. Checking the button for "defamatory or libellous". Because it clearly 'defames and libels' Americans. It is a blanket condemnation, and hence a falsehood.
The BBC, in its wisdom, chose not to accept my complaint.
And sent me the following:
Dear BBC Reader,
Further to your complaint about some of the content on a BBC blog (cut), we have decided that it does not contravene the House Rules and are going to leave it on site.
[CUT]
Regards,
The BBC Blog Team
This e-mail, and any attachment, is confidential. If you have received it in error, please delete it from your system, do not use or disclose the information in any way, and notify us immediately. The contents of this message may contain personal views which are not the views of the BBC, unless specifically stated.
Please note the statement that the e-mail, and any attachment (there was none) are, by the BBC's meshune standards, confidential. I am utterly baffled why this is so. There was no personal opinion, merely standard dismissive Brit poofle.
Had a commenter written "the extent of ignorance among Blacks on this subject, and many other scientific subjects, is appalling", or proposed "the extent of ignorance among the English on this subject, and many other scientific subjects", or even "the extent of ignorance among Muslims on this subject", the BBC no doubt would consider the statement hate speech. Concerning which they have strict rules in Britain.
But Americans are not accorded such courtesy.
Not by the British. Not by the Europeans.
The attentive reader will note that many other comments underneath the post in question on the BBC's website attest to a remarkable ignorance and dislike of Americans, a hatred even, which, if it were expressed against certain other groups would lead to riots in Arab capitols. This is fairly standard.
One expects little else from the other side of the Atlantic.
And one is, consequently, once again disappointed in that lot; which is a depressingly frequent occurence.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/justinwebb/2009/02/evolution_vs_creationism.html
Quote:
3. At 3:59pm on 13 Feb 2009, Gary_A_Hill wrote:
Criticism of the US on this point is well founded, I think. The extent of ignorance among Americans on this subject, and many other scientific subjects, is appalling.
The irony is that there is no conflict between understanding the details of the world around us and pondering the more fundamental question of why such a complex world should exist at all. Science does not seek an answer to this, and in the US, officially at least, we tolerate all opinions on these questions of faith. This is not sufficient for creationists, who are always trying to force their opinions into the realm of science and public policy.
The opinion so bitingly expressed accords with overseas praeconceptiva about Americans, and could very well have been uttered by some ale-sodden yobbo in any pub or café all across Western Europe.
Where, I hasten to add, I have heard precisely such generalizations uttered by people who had never been to the US, and whose knowledge of the place was abysmally limited.
[Criticism of the British and other Europeans on this point is well founded, I think. The extent of ignorance among them about America, and many other subjects, is appalling!]
So of course I registered a complaint. Checking the button for "defamatory or libellous". Because it clearly 'defames and libels' Americans. It is a blanket condemnation, and hence a falsehood.
The BBC, in its wisdom, chose not to accept my complaint.
And sent me the following:
Dear BBC Reader,
Further to your complaint about some of the content on a BBC blog (cut), we have decided that it does not contravene the House Rules and are going to leave it on site.
[CUT]
Regards,
The BBC Blog Team
This e-mail, and any attachment, is confidential. If you have received it in error, please delete it from your system, do not use or disclose the information in any way, and notify us immediately. The contents of this message may contain personal views which are not the views of the BBC, unless specifically stated.
Please note the statement that the e-mail, and any attachment (there was none) are, by the BBC's meshune standards, confidential. I am utterly baffled why this is so. There was no personal opinion, merely standard dismissive Brit poofle.
Had a commenter written "the extent of ignorance among Blacks on this subject, and many other scientific subjects, is appalling", or proposed "the extent of ignorance among the English on this subject, and many other scientific subjects", or even "the extent of ignorance among Muslims on this subject", the BBC no doubt would consider the statement hate speech. Concerning which they have strict rules in Britain.
But Americans are not accorded such courtesy.
Not by the British. Not by the Europeans.
The attentive reader will note that many other comments underneath the post in question on the BBC's website attest to a remarkable ignorance and dislike of Americans, a hatred even, which, if it were expressed against certain other groups would lead to riots in Arab capitols. This is fairly standard.
One expects little else from the other side of the Atlantic.
And one is, consequently, once again disappointed in that lot; which is a depressingly frequent occurence.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
PROTEST IN AMSTERDAM AGAINST ISRAELI ACTION
As was to be expected, there have been anti-Israel demonstrations in various spots worldwide since the beginning of the Israeli offensive against Hamas in Gaza. Not only in the usual places - Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, and Egypt - but also in the Western World.
Places such as Amsterdam.
[Oh wait, that IS one of the usual places.]
Article in the Algemeen Dagblad:
http://www.ad.nl/binnenland/2873589/Demonstratie_op_de_Dam_tegen_aanvallen_Isral.html
[In Dutch. Synopsis: Roughly two hundred people demonstrate against Israel on the Dam in Amsterdam in a protest organized by the Netherlands-Palestine Committee, with torches and signs.]
Not satisfied with the wholesale deportation of Jews during the German occupation, as facilitated by the percentage-wise largest collaborationist faction in Europe - the wholesale betrayal and sale to the occupiers of as many Jews as possible - the verstokte and verkrampte bigots of the lowlands now encourage the Arabs to pursue their racist war against Israel and the Jews with all vigour. They cheer the murderous success of the umma, and keenly desire Jewish deaths in Sderot and Tel Aviv.
One would've thought that five centuries of grudging Dutch tolerance, preceded by the total extermination of Jews in Brabant, Flanders, and Gelre during the late middle-ages, and followed by the mass betrayals of the Second World War, would make these people too ashamed to voice such sentiments.
No.
The modern Dutchman, like his ancestors, is convinced of his own righteousness, and equally convinced of the fundamental evil of the Jew. This lies at the heart of Dutch popular religion - both the Catholicism and Calvinism of the lowlands. It is an ancient atavistic hatred of outsiders, of which the Jew is the prime example.
If his educated modern mind tells him that discriminating against Moroccans, Surinamers, and Turks is wrong, today's Dutchman can at least take comfort in despising Jews and wishing for the destruction of Israel.
[It is at once both more 'intellectual', and more abstract - Jews of any type are less than even a quarter percent of Dutch society, whereas the people who think like him are an overwhelming majority, and form his social circle. Hence no one will challenge his praeconceptions, which is what he likes. Disagreement is so very un-Dutch.]
The Netherlands Palestine Committee can be found here:
http://www.palestina-komitee.nl/
It is the usual blathery site that you would expect: high-flown language praising the Palestinians for their peaceloving dignity, while excoriating Jews for their white-supremacist repression of the sensitive artistic natives of the world. There is no mention of the Jew-hatred that lives in the Muslim regions, no mention of the rabid anti-Semitism that thrives on the extremes of European and Arab society, no mention of the Qassam rockets, no mention of the violence perpetrated on a daily basis by Arab upon Arab, and by Muslim against non-Muslim.
Utterly no whisper about the violent provocations by Hamas, the two-facedness of the West-Bank warlord faction, or the stated intent supported by a majority of Mandate Arabs to exterminate the Jews first, then the Christians.
There is only praise for those peaceful pacifists, the sainted leaders of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and kindred organizations.
The usual gang of hate-filled Euro-pond scum (Andries van Agt, Gretta Duizenberg, Anja Meulenbelt, et autres) support the organization.
CODA
There are still civilized Dutchmen, who are balanced and capable of perspective. And perhaps they are the majority. But the tradition of discourse in the Netherlands is ever that such people do not boldly speak out - publicly voiced dissent or alternative points of view may lead to unfortunate consequences. Like excoriation, deportation, or out-casting.
One need not even think of the fate of decent Dutchmen during the war as examples - Jan de Wit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johan_de_Witt) was torn apart by the right-thinking masses in 1625, Eduard Douwes Dekker (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multatuli) spent the last decades of his life in exile. The quiet goodness that lives in Dutch society thrives despite discouragement, but rarely, very rarely, has as strong a voice and as self-righteously enthused an audience as small-minded hatred and hypocrisy.
Which may explain why there are many more people of Dutch ancestry, and Dutch-Jewish ancestry, outside the Netherlands than within. And why the word 'polder model' describes not only management made small, but also minds made dull. These people are incapable of protesting against rockets, bus bombings, or suicide vests. Such things are beyond their ability to comprehend, if not beyond their tendency to relativize.
==============================================
Jawel, beste Nederlandsche lezers, u heeft het gemerkt: soms heb ik gewoon grondig de pest aan ulieden. Niet aan allen, weliswaar, en mischien niet eens de meerderheid. Maar wel degelijk aan uw maatschappij. Mag ik? Sedert mijn voorvader Abraham van Deursen in de zestiendertiger jaren voet aan wal zette in Niew Amsterdam zijn wij een beetje apart gegroeid van het oude kontree. Dat moest ook wel gebeuren, daar ulieden ons en onze toekomst unilateraal overleverden aan de Engelsen. Bijna vier eeuwen apartheid van u en uw gedachtegoed hebben een verschil in denkwijze bezorgd, nog meer zelfs in maatschappelijkheden.
Dat er een grondig verschil in perspektief was heb ik zelf jaren lang kunnen "genieten" als Amerikaans Staatsburger residerend in uw land. Tot die mate dat ik nooit weer de neiging zal hebben in uw gezelschap te vertoeven. Gij allen zijt mij lief; edoch, ik kan met het grootste plezier zonder u.
Stockholm syndroom heb ik allang niet meer, en uwe afwezigheid is mij dierbaar.
Places such as Amsterdam.
[Oh wait, that IS one of the usual places.]
Article in the Algemeen Dagblad:
http://www.ad.nl/binnenland/2873589/Demonstratie_op_de_Dam_tegen_aanvallen_Isral.html
[In Dutch. Synopsis: Roughly two hundred people demonstrate against Israel on the Dam in Amsterdam in a protest organized by the Netherlands-Palestine Committee, with torches and signs.]
Not satisfied with the wholesale deportation of Jews during the German occupation, as facilitated by the percentage-wise largest collaborationist faction in Europe - the wholesale betrayal and sale to the occupiers of as many Jews as possible - the verstokte and verkrampte bigots of the lowlands now encourage the Arabs to pursue their racist war against Israel and the Jews with all vigour. They cheer the murderous success of the umma, and keenly desire Jewish deaths in Sderot and Tel Aviv.
One would've thought that five centuries of grudging Dutch tolerance, preceded by the total extermination of Jews in Brabant, Flanders, and Gelre during the late middle-ages, and followed by the mass betrayals of the Second World War, would make these people too ashamed to voice such sentiments.
No.
The modern Dutchman, like his ancestors, is convinced of his own righteousness, and equally convinced of the fundamental evil of the Jew. This lies at the heart of Dutch popular religion - both the Catholicism and Calvinism of the lowlands. It is an ancient atavistic hatred of outsiders, of which the Jew is the prime example.
If his educated modern mind tells him that discriminating against Moroccans, Surinamers, and Turks is wrong, today's Dutchman can at least take comfort in despising Jews and wishing for the destruction of Israel.
[It is at once both more 'intellectual', and more abstract - Jews of any type are less than even a quarter percent of Dutch society, whereas the people who think like him are an overwhelming majority, and form his social circle. Hence no one will challenge his praeconceptions, which is what he likes. Disagreement is so very un-Dutch.]
The Netherlands Palestine Committee can be found here:
http://www.palestina-komitee.nl/
It is the usual blathery site that you would expect: high-flown language praising the Palestinians for their peaceloving dignity, while excoriating Jews for their white-supremacist repression of the sensitive artistic natives of the world. There is no mention of the Jew-hatred that lives in the Muslim regions, no mention of the rabid anti-Semitism that thrives on the extremes of European and Arab society, no mention of the Qassam rockets, no mention of the violence perpetrated on a daily basis by Arab upon Arab, and by Muslim against non-Muslim.
Utterly no whisper about the violent provocations by Hamas, the two-facedness of the West-Bank warlord faction, or the stated intent supported by a majority of Mandate Arabs to exterminate the Jews first, then the Christians.
There is only praise for those peaceful pacifists, the sainted leaders of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and kindred organizations.
The usual gang of hate-filled Euro-pond scum (Andries van Agt, Gretta Duizenberg, Anja Meulenbelt, et autres) support the organization.
CODA
There are still civilized Dutchmen, who are balanced and capable of perspective. And perhaps they are the majority. But the tradition of discourse in the Netherlands is ever that such people do not boldly speak out - publicly voiced dissent or alternative points of view may lead to unfortunate consequences. Like excoriation, deportation, or out-casting.
One need not even think of the fate of decent Dutchmen during the war as examples - Jan de Wit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johan_de_Witt) was torn apart by the right-thinking masses in 1625, Eduard Douwes Dekker (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multatuli) spent the last decades of his life in exile. The quiet goodness that lives in Dutch society thrives despite discouragement, but rarely, very rarely, has as strong a voice and as self-righteously enthused an audience as small-minded hatred and hypocrisy.
Which may explain why there are many more people of Dutch ancestry, and Dutch-Jewish ancestry, outside the Netherlands than within. And why the word 'polder model' describes not only management made small, but also minds made dull. These people are incapable of protesting against rockets, bus bombings, or suicide vests. Such things are beyond their ability to comprehend, if not beyond their tendency to relativize.
==============================================
Jawel, beste Nederlandsche lezers, u heeft het gemerkt: soms heb ik gewoon grondig de pest aan ulieden. Niet aan allen, weliswaar, en mischien niet eens de meerderheid. Maar wel degelijk aan uw maatschappij. Mag ik? Sedert mijn voorvader Abraham van Deursen in de zestiendertiger jaren voet aan wal zette in Niew Amsterdam zijn wij een beetje apart gegroeid van het oude kontree. Dat moest ook wel gebeuren, daar ulieden ons en onze toekomst unilateraal overleverden aan de Engelsen. Bijna vier eeuwen apartheid van u en uw gedachtegoed hebben een verschil in denkwijze bezorgd, nog meer zelfs in maatschappelijkheden.
Dat er een grondig verschil in perspektief was heb ik zelf jaren lang kunnen "genieten" als Amerikaans Staatsburger residerend in uw land. Tot die mate dat ik nooit weer de neiging zal hebben in uw gezelschap te vertoeven. Gij allen zijt mij lief; edoch, ik kan met het grootste plezier zonder u.
Stockholm syndroom heb ik allang niet meer, en uwe afwezigheid is mij dierbaar.
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
EYCH NASHIR ET SHIR ADONOI AL ADMAT NECHAR?
According to an article in Arutz Sheva ('channel seven' - an Israeli news source with a pronounced settler bias), things have heated up a bit in Golus (exile).
Arutz Sheva specifically mentions Britain, Australia, and Canada.
Judging by the venom I have been reading in Dutch for the past several weeks [examples: "rassenzuivering" (ethnic cleansing) "pure haat" (pure hate) "een brute oneerlijke strijd" (a brutal dishonest military campaign) "gelegaliseerd terrorisme" (legalized terrorism) "Haat-hebbende Joden" (hateful Jews)], I suspect that the main reason Arutz Sheva mentions Britain, Australia, and Canada, is because these are English speaking nations and reports from these areas are more transparent - and that there will be similar reports from the rest of 'civilization' once the data percolates out of Dutch, French, German - all the other European languages.
Here in the Bay Area (bastion of liberalism and all that good stuff) I've been told that "there has been bloodshed in the Middle East as long as there have been Jews", and "it's always about Jews, isn't it - not even one percent of the world's population, but every day it's you people". And other sweet things.
Bear in mind that I am cautious about whom I talk to, and what I talk about.
The past month and a half have been incredibly bad PR.
The perception is that 'big bad Israel brutally picked on poor tiny defenseless Lebanon, barely recovered from the Lebanese civil war which was caused by Israel'.
[Never mind that size-wise Israel is tiddly, Hezbollah started the fracass and had been supplied by and was a front for Syria and Iran, Lebanon's civil war was caused by the PLO, and Syria pulls most of the strings in Lebanon - facts and publicity are, alas, not the same thing.]
During the height of recent hostilities, a poll in the Netherlands showed that only one third of the Dutch supported Israel, and nearly one fifth supported Hezbollah.
Let me repeat that: In a country which had been firmly pro-Israel, only one out of every three people are still pro-Israel (probably the older generation), and one out of every five people now back a terrorist organization that has killed 241 Americans, several thousand Christians, several thousand Muslims, and several hundred Israelis. One out of every five dumb-ass Kaaskoppen hopes that a bunch of murderous thugs will triumph.
Okay, I realize that that is typical emotional "enlightened" backing of a perceived underdog, combined with absolutely gut-wrenching ignorance.
I doubt that knowing that will be much comfort to many Dutch Jews. Or Dutch supporters of Israel.
There is too much gleeful (or is baleful a better word) borrowing from old habits and ideas when speaking about Jews and the Middle-East. Too much hateful idiocy.
The phrase "Falastin baladna w'al Yahud kalabna" (Palestine is our land, and the Jews are our dogs) showed up on the weblog of a Dutch member of parliament in July (in the comments, but Anja Meulenbelt removes comments she disagrees with - it was still there several weeks after people had complained and she was apprised of its meaning).
[Note I: The comment mentioned above on the weblog of Anja Meulenbelt is the fourth one underneath the posting here: http://anjameulenbelt.sp.nl/weblog/2006/07/16/bij-elkaar-in-woede/#comments.
Anja Meulenbelt's blog is here: http://anjameulenbelt.sp.nl/weblog/. Most of it is in Dutch, most of it is pro-Palestinian propaganda.
What can I say? The Dutch left-wing is anti-Semitic (yes, I know all the hackneyed old assertions that one should be able to criticize Israel without being accused of anti-Semitism - I've heard you folks for years, and I no longer accept that crap), the Dutch Socialist Party is utterly reprehensible in that regard, and Anja Meulenbelt is monumentally frustrated that not everyone worships her gand, so she's getting rid of her bile in the only way she can - by squawking and scratching.]
[Note II: That phrase was first recorded when the mobs rampaged through the Jewish quarter in Hebron in 1929. It cropped up periodically since then, especially in the circles of the Mufti and his followers. It has resurged. I have heard it yelled during demonstrations, and applauded by Berkeleyites.]
The discourse, such as it is, is diseased.
I really have to wonder if much of the rest of the "civilized world" has managed to avoid infection, whether there is a difference between urban Europe and the small towns and villages, and whether any of the European governments has come right out and said that they will not tolerate extremist positions or anti-Semitism.
Being a pessimist, I rather fear not.
Extract of article below, plus link.
----------------------------------------
Anti-Semitic Hate Wave Rolls Across Britain and Australia Wednesday, September 6, 2006 / 13 Elul 5766
The month of July was one of the worst, in terms of anti-Semitism, in both England and Australia. In Canada, as well, Jewish leaders are concerned.
TheAge.com in Australia reports that anti-Semitism is on the rise across university campuses in the country. Grahame Leonard, the president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, says July had the most anti-Semitic incidents - no fewer than 141 - since records began in 1945. Never before had there been more than some 90. The July attacks included phone calls, hate e-mails and graffiti, as well as violent incidents - with the big jump being on campuses in Victoria.
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In Britain, as well, The Times of London reports that attacks on Jews have soared, and that even the national government has taken notice. On Thursday, an all-party parliamentary inquiry will state that anti-Semitic violence has become endemic in Britain, both on the streets and university campuses. The report will call for urgent action from the Government, the police and educational establishments.
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There have been several attacks in various Jewish neighborhoods in London of late. In one incident last month, a Jewish restaurant in Golders Green was targeted by two young men who threw chairs, punched workers and threatened to kill the owner, Ruth Cohen, with a knife. In Hampstead Garden Suburb, swastikas and the words "Allah" and "Kill all Jews" were daubed on the house and car of a local Jewish doctor.
More recently, a 12-year-old Jewish girl was stomped upon and brutally kicked on a public bus in London. Accosted and asked if she was Jewish, she replied, "I'm English." Unimpressed, four girls, accompanied by three boys, then pushed her to the floor, stomped on her face and repeatedly kicked her.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=111514
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APPENDIX:
Anja Meulenbelt is not the only anti-Semitic Harpy in the Netherlands, surely you remember Mrs. Gretta Duisenberg?
Let me refresh your ire, by quoting the woman.
Gretta, talking about the abduction of the soldiers: "Ik keur die ontvoeringen goed. Dit is hun (Hezbollah) enige manier om gevangenen vrij te krijgen. Wat me razend maakt is dat Nederland nu geen troepen wil sturen omdat ze bang zijn een jood te raken."
[Translation: 'I approve of the abductions, this is the only way to get prisoners released. What infuriates me is that the Netherlands doesn't want to send troops now because they're scared of hitting a Jew'.]
Gretta, talking about Hamas notable Osama Hamdan: "Wat een vriendelijke man, hè? Je hoort gewoon dat hij meent wat hij zegt. Israeli’s daarentegen liegen altijd. Dat zie je aan die koppen. Schoften zijn het."
[Translation: 'What a friendly man, eh? You can just hear that he means what he says. Israelis, on the other hand, always lie. You can tell that from their heads - they're scum. ']
Lest you think that it is only neurotic swamp-trull gorgons getting their soiled knickers in a twist or spewing slime, here's ex-ambassador Jan Wijenberg talking about the recent conflict: "...Israel is een terreurstaat en dit is het bewijs".
[Translation: 'Israel is a terrorist state, and this is proof'.]
Both Mrs. Duisenberg and ambassador Wijenberg are leaders in the PPMS, a Dutch pro-Palestinian organization.
Arutz Sheva specifically mentions Britain, Australia, and Canada.
Judging by the venom I have been reading in Dutch for the past several weeks [examples: "rassenzuivering" (ethnic cleansing) "pure haat" (pure hate) "een brute oneerlijke strijd" (a brutal dishonest military campaign) "gelegaliseerd terrorisme" (legalized terrorism) "Haat-hebbende Joden" (hateful Jews)], I suspect that the main reason Arutz Sheva mentions Britain, Australia, and Canada, is because these are English speaking nations and reports from these areas are more transparent - and that there will be similar reports from the rest of 'civilization' once the data percolates out of Dutch, French, German - all the other European languages.
Here in the Bay Area (bastion of liberalism and all that good stuff) I've been told that "there has been bloodshed in the Middle East as long as there have been Jews", and "it's always about Jews, isn't it - not even one percent of the world's population, but every day it's you people". And other sweet things.
Bear in mind that I am cautious about whom I talk to, and what I talk about.
The past month and a half have been incredibly bad PR.
The perception is that 'big bad Israel brutally picked on poor tiny defenseless Lebanon, barely recovered from the Lebanese civil war which was caused by Israel'.
[Never mind that size-wise Israel is tiddly, Hezbollah started the fracass and had been supplied by and was a front for Syria and Iran, Lebanon's civil war was caused by the PLO, and Syria pulls most of the strings in Lebanon - facts and publicity are, alas, not the same thing.]
During the height of recent hostilities, a poll in the Netherlands showed that only one third of the Dutch supported Israel, and nearly one fifth supported Hezbollah.
Let me repeat that: In a country which had been firmly pro-Israel, only one out of every three people are still pro-Israel (probably the older generation), and one out of every five people now back a terrorist organization that has killed 241 Americans, several thousand Christians, several thousand Muslims, and several hundred Israelis. One out of every five dumb-ass Kaaskoppen hopes that a bunch of murderous thugs will triumph.
Okay, I realize that that is typical emotional "enlightened" backing of a perceived underdog, combined with absolutely gut-wrenching ignorance.
I doubt that knowing that will be much comfort to many Dutch Jews. Or Dutch supporters of Israel.
There is too much gleeful (or is baleful a better word) borrowing from old habits and ideas when speaking about Jews and the Middle-East. Too much hateful idiocy.
The phrase "Falastin baladna w'al Yahud kalabna" (Palestine is our land, and the Jews are our dogs) showed up on the weblog of a Dutch member of parliament in July (in the comments, but Anja Meulenbelt removes comments she disagrees with - it was still there several weeks after people had complained and she was apprised of its meaning).
[Note I: The comment mentioned above on the weblog of Anja Meulenbelt is the fourth one underneath the posting here: http://anjameulenbelt.sp.nl/weblog/2006/07/16/bij-elkaar-in-woede/#comments.
Anja Meulenbelt's blog is here: http://anjameulenbelt.sp.nl/weblog/. Most of it is in Dutch, most of it is pro-Palestinian propaganda.
What can I say? The Dutch left-wing is anti-Semitic (yes, I know all the hackneyed old assertions that one should be able to criticize Israel without being accused of anti-Semitism - I've heard you folks for years, and I no longer accept that crap), the Dutch Socialist Party is utterly reprehensible in that regard, and Anja Meulenbelt is monumentally frustrated that not everyone worships her gand, so she's getting rid of her bile in the only way she can - by squawking and scratching.]
[Note II: That phrase was first recorded when the mobs rampaged through the Jewish quarter in Hebron in 1929. It cropped up periodically since then, especially in the circles of the Mufti and his followers. It has resurged. I have heard it yelled during demonstrations, and applauded by Berkeleyites.]
The discourse, such as it is, is diseased.
I really have to wonder if much of the rest of the "civilized world" has managed to avoid infection, whether there is a difference between urban Europe and the small towns and villages, and whether any of the European governments has come right out and said that they will not tolerate extremist positions or anti-Semitism.
Being a pessimist, I rather fear not.
Extract of article below, plus link.
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Anti-Semitic Hate Wave Rolls Across Britain and Australia Wednesday, September 6, 2006 / 13 Elul 5766
The month of July was one of the worst, in terms of anti-Semitism, in both England and Australia. In Canada, as well, Jewish leaders are concerned.
TheAge.com in Australia reports that anti-Semitism is on the rise across university campuses in the country. Grahame Leonard, the president of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, says July had the most anti-Semitic incidents - no fewer than 141 - since records began in 1945. Never before had there been more than some 90. The July attacks included phone calls, hate e-mails and graffiti, as well as violent incidents - with the big jump being on campuses in Victoria.
-------[cut]-------
In Britain, as well, The Times of London reports that attacks on Jews have soared, and that even the national government has taken notice. On Thursday, an all-party parliamentary inquiry will state that anti-Semitic violence has become endemic in Britain, both on the streets and university campuses. The report will call for urgent action from the Government, the police and educational establishments.
-------[cut]-------
There have been several attacks in various Jewish neighborhoods in London of late. In one incident last month, a Jewish restaurant in Golders Green was targeted by two young men who threw chairs, punched workers and threatened to kill the owner, Ruth Cohen, with a knife. In Hampstead Garden Suburb, swastikas and the words "Allah" and "Kill all Jews" were daubed on the house and car of a local Jewish doctor.
More recently, a 12-year-old Jewish girl was stomped upon and brutally kicked on a public bus in London. Accosted and asked if she was Jewish, she replied, "I'm English." Unimpressed, four girls, accompanied by three boys, then pushed her to the floor, stomped on her face and repeatedly kicked her.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=111514
----------------------------------------
----------------------------------------
APPENDIX:
Anja Meulenbelt is not the only anti-Semitic Harpy in the Netherlands, surely you remember Mrs. Gretta Duisenberg?
Let me refresh your ire, by quoting the woman.
Gretta, talking about the abduction of the soldiers: "Ik keur die ontvoeringen goed. Dit is hun (Hezbollah) enige manier om gevangenen vrij te krijgen. Wat me razend maakt is dat Nederland nu geen troepen wil sturen omdat ze bang zijn een jood te raken."
[Translation: 'I approve of the abductions, this is the only way to get prisoners released. What infuriates me is that the Netherlands doesn't want to send troops now because they're scared of hitting a Jew'.]
Gretta, talking about Hamas notable Osama Hamdan: "Wat een vriendelijke man, hè? Je hoort gewoon dat hij meent wat hij zegt. Israeli’s daarentegen liegen altijd. Dat zie je aan die koppen. Schoften zijn het."
[Translation: 'What a friendly man, eh? You can just hear that he means what he says. Israelis, on the other hand, always lie. You can tell that from their heads - they're scum. ']
Lest you think that it is only neurotic swamp-trull gorgons getting their soiled knickers in a twist or spewing slime, here's ex-ambassador Jan Wijenberg talking about the recent conflict: "...Israel is een terreurstaat en dit is het bewijs".
[Translation: 'Israel is a terrorist state, and this is proof'.]
Both Mrs. Duisenberg and ambassador Wijenberg are leaders in the PPMS, a Dutch pro-Palestinian organization.
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