ShrinkWrapped

PC & Defects in Reality Testing: An Introduction

The Global War against Islamic Fascism is a many front war, being fought in such venues as Iraq, London, Rome, New York, Pakistan, Thailand, the Philippines, and in the media, in academia, and in the precincts of the Democratic Party.  Political Correctness severely damages the West's ability to adequately prosecute, and ultimately to win the war with a minimum of death and destruction.  I would contend that the West, especially the Anglosphere, will not lose this war, but that short term defeats by America will ultimately lead to devastating defeat for Islam.  If we leave Iraq prematurely, or the Iraqi constitution institutes some form of intolerant Shariah Law, even if done democratically, this would be a defeat for the liberal, democratic West in the war.  The possibility of leaving prematurely increases in direct proportion to the anti-war distortions and bias in the MSM, which still has a powerful position in influencing public perceptions of the Iraqi theater.  The existence of Fox News, right wing radio, and the blogosphere has done a great deal to level the playing field with the left-leaning MSM, but there remain fundamental ways in which the MSM determines the overall shaping of public  perceptions in a country where most Americans gain their view of the world through the MSM and its derivatives.

The MSM is no longer completely denying their bias.  In today's New York Times book review, Richard A. Posner writes about Bad News.  In Posner's opinion, the MSM is being forced by economics to address their bias.

The audience decline is potentially fatal for newspapers. Not only has their daily readership dropped from 52.6 percent of adults in 1990 to 37.5 percent in 2000, but the drop is much steeper in the 20-to-49-year-old cohort, a generation that is, and as it ages will remain, much more comfortable with electronic media in general and the Web in particular than the current elderly are.

Dereliction of Duty or Evil?

MSM bias is shown in the stories they don't cover, even more than in the slant they give to the stories they do cover.  This story has been curiously absent from the MSM, This Man Tried to Assassinate President Bush:

His name is Vladimir Arutyunyan; he was captured by Georgian police after a shootout in which he killed a policeman and was himself wounded. On May 10, when President Bush was giving a speech in Tbilisi, he threw a hand grenade at the stage. It landed within 25 yards or so, but failed to go off. After Arutyunyan was arrested, police found more hand grenades and unspecified chemicals in his apartment.

A sitting American President, giving support to a nascent Democracy in a troubled corner of the world has a live grenade thrown at him.  A naive person might imagine that a well respected news organization like the New York Times would show some interest in the story.  This is dereliction of duty, as far as I'm concerned.  If I gave a patient medication that is potentially fatal if taken as an overdose without inquiring if he is depressed, I would be guilty of medical malpractice; too bad we cannot sue the Times for Journalistic malpractice.

But if the Times is guilty of dereliction of duty, ABC is guilty of accessory after the fact to one of the most evil pieces of terror in the recent past:

ABC uses the "Freedom of the Press" excuse to explain their "Nightline" interview with the mastermind behind the Beslan Massacre, the Moscow Theatre Massacre, and countless other terrorist attacks in Russia!

Read the entire piece at Gateway Pundit; this goes beyond freedom of the press, beyond trying to "understand" the "root causes" of terror.  Terrorists require publicity; it is their sine qua non; without publicity, the terrorists will die from lack of Oxygen. 

The terrorists exist in an evil symbiosis with the MSM and the MSM act like the naive suicide bomber who is surprised when he arrives in Hell to discover that God really meant it when he said, "Thou shall not kill."

Moderate Islam

Recently I was taken to task for suggesting that Moderate Islam may either not exist in any meaningful use of the term, or that the Moderates have so little influence as to be ineffectual. This should not be confused with suggesting there are no Moderate Muslims. Obviously, many, perhaps even most, of the Muslims in the world just want to live their lives and have the time and space to raise a family. However, the self-appointed spokesmen for the Muslim world (there are almost no Spokeswomen in the Muslim world) have created conditions that make it extremely difficult for moderates to have a voice. In the autocracies of the Middle East, Islamists have been nurtured by vile governments to use as weapons against their enemies, only too late finding out in Egypt and Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, that their pet pit bulls are not terribly discriminate in which enemies they attack. Victor Davis Hanson describes the reaction then (immediately post-9/11) and now, of Mohammed Atta's father:

Thinking about the Unthinkable

Today the news is filled with the usual mix of good and bad related to the war on terror.

There are the usual howls of distress by the legacy media (Bob Herbert in the New York Times; his first sentence tells you all you need to know: "It is now generally understood that the U.S.-led war in Iraq has become a debacle." To Herbert, the war is all about oil. All I would ask Herbert, who seems to know how to manipulate language in a remarkable mimicry of sapient life, is, if the war is only for oil, wouldn't it have been easier and cheaper to lift sanctions, help the Iraqi oil industry recover, and buy the oil? The anti-war crowd never seems to answer that one.)

There are hopeful signs in the international arena, an anti-terror rally in Egypt, a foiled terror attack in Russia, more arrests in England. There are hopeful signs here at home, a CAIR spokesman condemning terror (from Powerline):

Top U.S. Muslim scholars issued a "fatwa," or religious edict, against terrorism on Thursday and called on Muslims to help authorities fight the scourge of militant violence.

Yet the troubling signs, of radical Islam becoming increasingly desperate and nihilistic, are also apparent:

European OK or no, Tehran to restart nuclear program

Iranian Government brings in the big guns into Mahabad">Iranian Government brings in the big guns into Mahabad

Opinion: The Muslim mind is on fire

Iran confirms it has developed long-range missile capability

And perhaps most troubling in the context of the war in terror, an article from the New York Sun, Muslim 'Moderates' And Terrorism, by Fiamma Nirenstein. She describes the reactions of some of the poor Egyptian laborers working in the tourism industry who were injured in the Sharm el Sheik explosions last weekend. They have minimal sources of information and are firmly entrenched in the paranoid world view that gives sustenance to the Islamic fascists. These men hate the terrorists and would fight them if they could. These are the moderate Muslims we need to turn against the bin Ladens of their world.

Islamic Fascism and Paranoid Psychosis

As I understand the law, in American courts, corporations are legally treated as if they are individuals. This provides me with some justification for treating discrete groups of people who are joined by basic cultural assumptions as if they were individuals. In such cases it can be useful to examine the group using the microscope of Psychoanalysis (Applied Psychoanalysis) to further our understanding of the motivations of the particular group and perhaps provide some clues to treatment options.

In just such a way I have generalized about a portion of the baby boomer cohort who exhibit many of the signs and symptoms of Narcissistic Character Disorder. In these people there is an insensitivity to others, a hypersensitivity to the criticisms of others, and a need to be admired and adored by their audience. Many in Hollywood fit this profile, as well as too many in the MSM and the Democratic party. (One could rightly wonder if many actors, talking heads on TV, and politicians all share elements of self selection based on their narcissistic pathology.)

The ethos of the Islamist groups share some fundamentals with the Narcissistic characters but have some elements which more properly place them in a paranoid psychotic status. Since both paranoids and Narcissists are exceptionally sensitive to criticism, one might wonder what distinguishes the two (and, in fact, there are some aspects which support the idea of narcissism and paranoia being two points on a spectrum. Also, the leaders of al Qaeda are likely Malignant Narcissists; the followers fit more closely into the category of Paranoid Psychosis. I have posts linked on my Best of ShrinkWrapped sidebar which more fully go into issues of Narcissism, Malignant Narcissism, and Paranoia.)

Paranoid Psychotic states can be among the most difficult patients to treat.

A Ticking Clock

Two months ago I wrote an essay comparing the zeitgeist of the Islamic world today with that of Germany in the years leading up to the ascension of the Adolph Hitler and the Nazi party to power.  In both cases there exists/existed a small, vocal, passionate minority with a much larger sympathetic population surrounding them.  In the 1930's, the Nazis were able to achieve dominance by virtue of the faint heartedness of the democratic opposition within Germany and the apathy of the Western world which preferred appeasement to engagement. 

Since 9/11, the West has not been apathetic.  The question of how Islam could reform itself and how the moderate Muslims could take back their religion was pressing when I wrote "Good Muslims" and "Good Germans".  I could not at that time see much reason for optimism:

It is also worth wondering if there even exists a sizable population of moderate Muslims. The MSM, our government, most civilized people seem to believe that if they insist there exists a moderate Islam, then it must be so. While I have no doubt there are moderate Muslims, their lack of visibility is troubling. When even in this country, where dissenters are safer than most anywhere else, a rally for Muslims against terror draws minimal numbers, it is troubling.  Whenever there is an article written, or a public stance taken, opposing the Islamic fascists, the brave individual Muslim puts their life at risk, receives condemnation from official organs of Islam, and often receives death threat fatwas. They receive nothing but calumny from the governments which are supposed to be our allies in this war. The official Egyptian press and the state sponsored Imams in state supported mosques, regularly spew out the worst hatred of infidels (that is Americans and Israelis, especially, but with special vitriol for those Europeans who have the temerity to object to their increasing dhimmitude) and apostates. Most Islamic states have death penalties for apostasy, for desecration of the Koran, and for any of a number of offenses against Islam; at the same time, Shariah law openly, arrogantly, discriminates against those who are not sufficiently Islamic, and grants almost no rights to non Muslims.

Thus, sadly, we can expect minimal help from any Moderate Muslims who might exist, and only the minimal levels of assistance that they can get away with from the so-called Moderate Islamic states in the world.  If our MSM and their allies in the Academic, Left wing, and European elites, succeed at disarming us, and the Islamofascists husband their resources, the fight in which we are in the early stages may yet feature all of Islam against the civilized world. The fall out (literal and figurative) will touch everyone on the planet before it is over.

The clock is ticking on Islam.  We do not know how much time we have left or where the hands are.  In 1947, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists first displayed a "Doomsday Clock". 

A Multi-Front War and the MSM/Terror Symbiosis

I spent the weekend out of range of the internet and without a computer. It was an interesting experience. I bought the Sunday New York Times. It is an impressive collection, with a heft and gravamen befitting a national newspaper that prides itself as printing "all the news that's fit to print." Reading the Times on paper brings an illusion of authority; the printed words on the page suggest that behind the scenes, there exists a powerful and complex process by which the Times collects information, sifts through it, scrutinizes the details, and ultimately arrives at a story which closely approximates reality. If it is in the New York Times, it must be true.

Discovering that the Times was fallible, had hidden agendas, and slanted the news at every opportunity to further its political aims was a sad, troubling, sometimes frightening, but ultimately, necessary experience.

Every once in awhile I take a look at the Times on line to see if anything has changed, and find, to my further sadness, that nothing really changes at the Times. The Sunday Times showed that the writers and editors of our greatest newspaper are inhabiting a parallel universe. The insurgents in Iraq are always growing stronger; the government forces are ineffectual at best, with no hope of carrying the battle any time soon; in short, the war in Iraq continues its inexorable slide into a quagmire of Vietnam proportions.

Today, on line, Bob Herbert continues the theme.  What Bush Doesnt Know is a remarkable article for a major American newspaper.   The most extraordinary aspect of the writing is the impressive lack of factual content.  Obviously, this is an opinion piece, and would not be expected to have much in the way of factual content.  However, when one is constructing an argument, typically some effort is expended setting out the factual basis on which  one's contention rests.  If, for example I am to argue that the Iraq war makes us less safe (as Herbert does), I should have some basis for comparison.  I might point out that there had been X number of attacks prior to the war and X + Y number of attacks since the war.  It would still be debatable whether the increase in attacks is related to the war and how it might be related, but at least a reasonable argument could be made.  Herbert does no such thing.    He presents opinions masquerading as facts; he quotes people who just know that what they are saying is true.

Interviews over the past few days have shown that subway riders in New York almost instinctively understand what the president does not - that the war in Iraq is not making us safer here at home.

"No, in fact I think it makes us less safe here," said Edmond Lee, a salesman who lives on Manhattan's Upper West Side. "We went over there with no real plan. No real thinking about what we'd be able to do."

He said he was concerned that "what happened in the London Underground might happen here."

Since the knowledge of Bush's perfidy and stupidity is "instinctive", I suppose no facts are necessary.  The column is foolish, sophomoric, and shrill, but it is also disingenuous.  Because I try to assume good intentions to people until proven otherwise, I wondered if it could be possible to read Bob Herbert's column through the eyes of someone who "instinctively" knows he is correct.  I tried the "thought experiment" and I am troubled by the results.

Weekend Break

There will be no blogging until Monday. I will be away from my computer and avoiding the news.

SW

Iraq and Terror: Root Causes Revisited

With the news of four more bombings in London today (thankfully, duds), the airwaves are once again filled with contentious discussions about how much responsibility the Occupying forces in Iraq bear for the attacks.  A member of the British press posed the question to Tony Blair and John Howard whether the invasion and occupation of Iraq was the reason London was attacked again.  John Howard offered a spirited defense of the Western actions in Iraq (courtesy Roger Simon):

Now I don't know the mind of the terrorists. By definition, you can't put yourself in the mind of a successful suicide bomber. I can only look at objective facts, and the objective facts are as I've cited. The objective evidence is that Australia was a terrorist target long before the operation in Iraq. And indeed, all the evidence, as distinct from the suppositions, suggests to me that this is about hatred of a way of life, this is about the perverted use of principles of the great world religion that, at its root, preaches peace and cooperation. And I think we lose sight of the challenge we have if we allow ourselves to see these attacks in the context of particular circumstances rather than the abuse through a perverted ideology of people and their murder.

Dr. Robert A. Pape has developed a database of suicide bombers and written a book, Dying to Win, in which he suggests that the  motivations of the bombers have less to do with religious, and is more explicable by understanding their relatively straight forward desire to get American occupying forces out of the Mid-Eats.  I suspect we will be hearing a great deal about Dr. Pape since he offers a scholarly justification for the anti-war, bring the troops home immediately people who dominate the MSM and the left ward precincts of the Democratic party.  Dr. Pape was on the radio today discussing his theory (WOR).  He describes himself as an independent who voted twice for Bush I and for George W Bush in 2000; this provides his bona fides so that we will understand that he came by his anti-war position honestly, driven by the data.  Armed Liberal and Dan Darling of Winds of Change have both weighed in on the argument and have interesting discussions on their posts.  Armed Liberal remarks:

This seems like one of those "cleavage" notions; your perceptions on this issue will drive you to one side or the other of a deep political divide. If you believe this is relatively tightly tied to nationalist aspirations, then the terrorists become part and parcel of the admirable line of those fighting for their homelands. If not, it's the Clash of Cultures, and a global war.

Unconscious Processes and the Supreme Court

The most interesting and informative political show in the next three months is likely to be the confirmation of John Roberts to the Supreme Court.  I have no particular legal expertise but I do think I can make a good argument that our rights are safest when the Supreme Court hews closest to the written words of the Constitution.  The focus on outcome, from the left, and from too many on the right, is short sighted in the extreme. 

In March I wrote about the effects of the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform in Intellectualization, Free Speech, & Unintended Consequences: Part III.  I am convinced this bill should never have been found to be consistent with the Constitution of the United States (what was it about "no law restricting freedom of speech" that was so hard to inderstand?) and has had the perverse effect of coarsening and limiting our political speech.  I wrote then: