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A Special Day for all the Wrong Reasons
December 7, 1941 was "a day that will live in infamy" for the generation called upon to fight the evils of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. That war, fought in my lifetime, affected the lives of virtually everyone in the nation. September 11 seems only to directly affect the families of the soldiers posted to battle zones in Iraq and Afghanistan. The rest of us go about life in America as if that horrific attack had never occurred. Here’s the lesson of September 11, 2001. It wasn’t just an attack on the United States of America. It was one of a long series of attacks on the United States of America, but it was the one that occurred in New York City and at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia. It took the lives of Flight 93 whose passengers undoubtedly thwarted an attack on a third target that day. It happened where we live. In the larger sense, though, it was an attack on the West and the centuries of struggle and enlightenment that made it the most dynamic force for scientific, artistic, and democratic advancement in the whole of human history. It was an attack on modernity. It signaled a resurgence of fanatical Islamic goals to conquer the whole of the world and put it under the control of a seventh century set of laws and customs so barbaric, so inhumane, so regressive that terror is the only tool that can be used to overthrow the advances of mankind since Islam was first introduced to the world. It is a war on Judaism, on Christianity, on Hinduism, on Buddhism, on the right of every living person to their own personal conscience and code of moral behavior. For all the wrong reasons its "holy warriors" have brought this horror to the world and for all the right reasons, we must destroy them. The Sorry State of Science Reporting New technology drives out old technology. As often as not, its impact is not known until many years after its introduction. Meanwhile, we live our lives day to day. This is what is happening to the business of publishing newspapers and magazines, places where, traditionally, writers have earned a living. In an article in the summer edition of the newsletter of The National Association of Science Writers, the headline read "Reporting withers while information explodes." The author, Stuart F. Brown, like easily 85% or more of the NASW membership, myself included, is a freelance writer. "As the number of readers who turn to the Internet for their news has boomed, the business equation in publishing has pretty much collapsed," said Brown. "So we find ourselves in the curious situation of living in a society that increasingly runs on technology and information—while witnessing the withering of the original reporting that tells us what’s going on."
In the same issue of the NASW newsletter, Charles Petit, a former NASW president, wrote "The Science Beat: Uh Oh, Another One Bites the Dust." After a 35-year career on the science beat for various media, Petit took a buyout from U.S. News & World Report in 2004 when it scrapped its science unit, but retained health and medicine writers. "Full-time, traditional-media science reporters covering breaking news are growing scarcer." Among those traditional media retaining science reporters, Petit cited Reuters, the international newswire. That caught my eye because, along with the Associated Press, both of these dominant news services have served up a full plate of skewed science reporting. This has been particularly true in the way "global warming" has been reported. Writing for the American Thinker.com on August 10, James Lewis provided an article, "Twisting Science to Fit the Global Warming Template", in which he meticulously dissected the way a Reuters story reversed the actual message of an article in Science magazine that "contained devastating information of flaws in the doomsters methodology and warned that the disaster (global warming) had been postponed." Lewis noted, "the Science article itself is an artful retreat from previous, over-confident global warming predictions." The article noted that "natural variations" in the planet’s climate have been ignored for decades by the model-makers. The public is only now beginning to understand that virtually all of the computer models used by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and other sources for predictions about global warming have been seriously in error, often by deliberate design and intention. Some of the models ignored the mini-Ice Age of 1300 to 1800. Others declared 1998 as the hottest year of the last century when it was actually 1934, during a time famed for its droughts and dustbowls. Joining in this massive hoax have been the broad contingent of mainstream media that has breathlessly reported that virtually every natural climate event has been the result of global warming and that we are all doomed. The most recent and egregious example was Newsweek magazine that attacked what it called global warming "deniers" in a cover story replete with errors. It was so bad that, a week later, one of its own editors, Robert J. Samuelson, took the magazine to task for claiming that a "well-coordinated, well-funded campaign by contrarian scientists, free-market think tanks and industry has created a paralyzing fog of doubt around climate change." Samuelson called it "a peripheral and highly contrived story."
Petit says that, "the fabric of mainstream reporting of breaking science news is frayed, not shredded." From my point of view, however, after a steady diet of so-called science news telling us that everything we eat, drink and breath is going to kill us and, if that doesn’t do it, the melting of the North and South Poles, the rise of oceans, the spread of deserts, and the death of just about every known species of animal, the credibility of science reporting in the mainstream media has suffered some serious body blows. For our skepticism, those of us who have disputed the endless lies about global warming have been labeled "deniers" in much the same way as those who dispute the Holocaust. This is not by accident. The use of the word "deniers" has opened the door for Robert Kennedy, Jr. to accuse us of being "traitors" and for the Weather Channel’s ordained expert on global warming to suggest that any meteorologist who disagrees should have their certification taken away. This is the stuff of despotism. "What most people don’t know is that real science is a giant debating society, filled with skeptics," says Lewis. "It is only mature science that is stable and agreed-upon. But mature science comes only after centuries of cumulative evidence, and constant, heated debate." Declaring that a "consensus" exists among all the scientists of the world that global warming is occurring is a lie. Twisting the results of a Science magazine report to reflect the opposite of its findings is a lie. Producing a "documentary" called "An Inconvenient Truth" filled with distortions and lies deserves censure, not mandatory showings in all the schools of the nation. The federal government has spent billions to determine if global warming exists. So far it has not found any credible evidence for this dubious theory. Worse yet is the writing of laws in Congress that are based on this flawed and false "science of global warming" that will drive up the cost of everything on which our economy depends. That is a criminal misuse of the powers allocated to elected representatives. As for the "science" you read about in the mainstream media these days, the rule of thumb is caveat emptor, buyer beware. When you’re seeking the truth about trends and issues affecting America, this is a good place to start. All of our commentaries are carefully documented and their purpose is to provide insight and information you will not find elsewhere. To insure that the Center can continue this effort, your donation is vital to our work. No amount is too small. Thank you! With the advent in mid-September of the two most holy days of the lunar year, Rosh Hashanah, the "New Year", followed in ten days by Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, it’s a good time to visit the subject of why Jews are universally the subject of hatred and fear.
Do these "darkest fears" merely reflect the growing anti-Semitism in Great Britain? Or are these the same dark fears that 300 million Arabs in 22 nations have of six million Israeli Jews because they have the temerity to want to live in a land their ancestors called home more than three millennia ago?
The world’s obsession with this minority, reduced by six million in the last century’s Nazi genocide, the Holocaust, defies any rational explanation and is buried deep in the collective psyche of other religions. AIPAC is impressive. Its 2007 annual policy conference brought 6,000 activists to Washington and was addressed by the most powerful people in Congress as well as the Vice President whose speech was titled, "The United States and Israel: United We Stand." Moreover, these days there are more Jewish members in Congress than ever before. There are 30 in the House of Representatives and 13 in the Senate. This suggests a level of trust that is significant. In his home state of Connecticut, Joseph Lieberman was reelected handily to the Senate, serving now as an independent Democrat after the same party that nominated him to run for the vice presidency deserted him. For the handful of people not paying attention, Lieberman is an orthodox Jew. A benign view of this suggests that Jews are so integrated in American society that their religion is an insignificant factor with regard to being elected. It was not always so. Prejudice has long been the bitter bread on which Jews have dined and explains why so many fled Europe and Russia in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to make new lives in America. Thanks to a rebellion against the Roman Empire in 70 A.D., Jews early on became a people of the Diaspora, spread across vast areas that took in northern Africa, Europe and the Steppes of Russia. There are, I suspect, Jews living in virtually every nation of the world, though it might prove a challenge to put together a minion (ten Jewish adult males) in Beijing. Historically, Jews formed small, insular communities. There would always be those who would attack them for whatever reason they invented. The result of that long history taught them an invaluable lesson. To protect their community it was necessary to find allies among those in the highest seats of power. As money- lenders, a profession that was initially forbidden to Christians, they acquired access and influence. As physicians they were widely sought after by caliphs and kings. Devoted to religious mandates of hygiene and cleanliness, this explains why, in times of plague and other diseases, Jews tended not to fall victim in the numbers that afflicted others. This too was cited as a reason to defame them with false claims. Over the centuries Jews developed a keen interest in the events of the world around them and through family and business interests had a good platform for communications on this topic. Jews gravitated toward professions that were devoted to order in a world filled with conflict. A "people of the book" they were drawn to being lawyers. Concerned for health, they became physicians. Active in banking and commerce, they became skilled in assessing degrees of risk. They did not engage in conquest or banditry like the Vikings, the Mongols, Muslims, and other groups in former times. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, they were drawn to science with its emphasis on rationality, proven fact, and its potential to unlock the mysteries of the world and the universe. In a naïve quest for the perfect political and economic system, some were drawn to the false promise of communism in the last century. Most American Jews are politically liberal. Surveys reveal that 77% think the Iraq war was a mistake, compared with 52% of all Americans. Fully 87% of Jews voted for Democrats in 2006 and all but four of the Jews in Congress are Democrats. AIPAC was an earlier supporter of the invasion of Iraq, so AIPAC does not in fact reflect the dominant views of the majority of American Jews, but it is quite effective in support of its own policy-makers and shapers. No other special interest group in Washington has ever experienced the annihilation of six million of its co-religionists in the last century, the deliberate genocide of Europe’s Jewish population. For that reason alone, one can understand why AIPAC and other Jewish organizations would remain vigilant for the safety of Jews at home and throughout the world. The suggestion, however, that AIPAC’s influence is far greater than other comparable politically active organizations that prowl the corridors of Congress is more likely attributable to the perception of Jews as wielding great and unseen power in the world. Is AIPAC pro-Israel? Most certainly. Can it make its voice heard? Yes. Is it the "leviathan" that The Economist reporter says? That’s hyperbole. But it helps to keep its coffers full. The placebo that all the problems of the Middle East would go away if there was no Israel is ridiculous. Their fellow Arabs abandoned the Palestinians long ago. Their "cause" is the subject of rhetoric, posturing, and little else. The reality is that Israel is home to a million Palestinian Israelis with full citizenship.
Negotiations, however, with Hamas or Fatah are a joke. Both groups are pledged to its destruction. Only Egypt and Jordan have signed peace agreements with Israel. Islam is and always has been at war with every other religion on Earth. Thus we are looking at what is likely to be a very long period of terrorism and warfare until the fanatical Islamic genii is put back in its bottle. Jews occupy such a mythic position in the minds of non-Jews that it is easy to think of them as vastly more powerful and influential than they are. In America and worldwide, they are small in numbers, frequently divided over the issues affecting them, still under siege in the Middle East, Europe and elsewhere, and, as always, in need of friends in high places. Have you told a friend about The National Anxiety Center’s website? Invite them to visit.
©
2007 Alan Caruba. |
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September 11 is a special day, but for all the wrong reasons. It is not a day of celebration, but it must be a day of resolve. Americans are fighting a war without really being viscerally involved with that war on a daily basis. It’s in the newspapers. It gets mentioned on television and on radio talk shows. Politicians debate it. 
It’s worse than a "curious situation." A society dependent on technology and science really needs to understand it in some fashion and most Americans haven’t a clue. This leaves them vulnerable to a lot of bad or "junk" science news. In the past, there were fulltime science writers on the staffs of the nation’s newspapers who made the phone calls, did the interviews, collected the data, and explained it to us.
A recent issue of The Economist had an article titled "Taming Leviathan" that purported to say the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) wielded such power politically in Washington that it lives "up to their critic’s darkest fears."