A very prescient Mark Steyn piece on immigration, leftism, and anti-Semitism
[Hat tip: commenter “AesopFan.”]
Mark Steyn gets to say “I told you so.”
Boy, does he ever.
Please read this piece by Steyn that first appeared in Commentary back in May of 2009. It is astounding how much of the current blatant Jew-hating atmosphere was already present, especially in Europe. I suggest you read the whole thing. It’s all relevant, but I’ll highlight some especially relevant portions:
“Israel is unfashionable,” a Continental foreign minister said to me a decade back. “But maybe Israel will change, and then fashions will change.” Fashions do change. But however Israel changes, this fashion won’t. The shift of most (non-American) Western opinion against the Jewish state that began in the 1970s was, as my Continental politician had it, simply a reflection of casting: Israel was no longer the underdog but the overdog, and why would that appeal to a post-war polytechnic Euro-Left unburdened by Holocaust guilt?
Fair enough. Fashions change. But the new Judenhass is not a fashion, simply a stark reality that will metastasize in the years ahead and leave Israel isolated in the international “community” in ways that will make the first decade of this century seem like the good old days.
Let that last sentence sink in.
More:
…[T]here is a difference of scale between the well-established faculty-lounge disdain for “Israeli apartheid” and a mass psychosis so universal it’s part of the air you breathe. For a glimpse of the future, consider the (for the moment) bizarre circumstances of the recent Davis Cup First Round matches in Sweden. They had been scheduled long ago to be played in the Baltiska Hallen stadium in Malmo. Who knew which team the Swedes would draw? Could have been Chile, could have been Serbia. Alas, it was Israel.
Malmo is Sweden’s most Muslim city, and citing security concerns, the local council ordered the three days of tennis to be played behind closed doors. Imagine being Amir Hadad and Andy Ram, the Israeli doubles players, or Simon Aspelin and Robert Lindstedt, the Swedes. This was supposed to be their big day. But the vast stadium is empty, except for a few sports reporters and team officials. And just outside the perimeter up to 10,000 demonstrators are chanting, “Stop the match!” and maybe, a little deeper into the throng, they’re shouting, “We want to kill all Jews worldwide” (as demonstrators in Copenhagen, just across the water, declared just a few weeks earlier).
This has been going on for a long, long time, and authorities in Western countries have not stopped it. Steyn explains:
In Britain in January, while “pro-Palestinian” demonstrators were permitted to dress up as hook-nosed Jews drinking the blood of Arab babies, the police ordered counter-protesters to put away their Israeli flags. In Alberta, in the heart of Calgary’s Jewish neighborhood, the flag of Hizballah (supposedly a proscribed terrorist organization) was proudly waved by demonstrators, but one solitary Israeli flag was deemed a threat to the Queen’s peace and officers told the brave fellow holding it to put it away or be arrested for “inciting public disorder.” …
… But, if you look at it from the authorities’ point of view, it’s not about Jew-hatred; it’s a simple numbers game. If a statistically insignificant Jewish population gets upset, big deal. If the far larger Muslim population – and, in some French cities, the youth population (i.e., the demographic that riots) is already pushing 50 percent – you have a serious public-order threat on your hands. …
One Saturday afternoon a few weeks ago, a group wearing “BOYCOTT ISRAEL” T-shirts entered a French branch of Carrefour, the world’s largest supermarket chain, and announced themselves. They then systematically advanced down every aisle examining every product, seizing all the items made in Israel and piling them into carts to take away and destroy. Judging from the video they made, the protesters were mostly Muslim immigrants and a few French leftists. But more relevant was the passivity of everyone else in the store, both staff and shoppers, all of whom stood idly by as private property was ransacked and smashed, and many of whom when invited to comment expressed support for the destruction. “South Africa started to shake once all countries started to boycott their products,” one elderly lady customer said. “So what you’re doing, I find it good.”
I’ll stop there. You get the picture: almost 15 years ago.
The French bought their Muslim problem years ago with Algeria. We did not have to do so but it seems our elites want these examples of pre-civilization to be common here.
Mark Steyn remains one of my favorite commentators and a man of almost unprecedented vision and no small amount of bravery. He has been right about virtually everything, and most of the times he is wrong it was because the situation turned out to be worse or moving faster than he expected. His own site is well worth checking out, and he deserves all the support he can for what he writes and for his legal battles.
Well, Mark Steyn is a very prescient person.
He actually sent me a very nice email once upon a time, in the early days of the blogosphere. I’ve followed him ever since. He’s great.
There is no better example of leftist insanity than claiming to be for women’s rights while simultaneously importing large numbers of Muslims and promoting fake women in girl’s sports and bathrooms.
Islam is truly an Evil belief system.
The question is so vexing – why all the hatred, even beyond Islam, into oh so sophisticated Europe. I’ve ventured that much of it has to do with good old fashioned envy – it is one of the seven deadly sins after all. Neo has pushed back that many Jewish communities were dirt poor and still hated. It has confused me my whole adult life.
I’ve been following Mark for awhile and went on his cruise over the summer. As many of you know, Mark had two heart attacks at the end of last year and right after the cruise he became ill again and was staying in Italy for several months recuperating.
He unfortunately had another heart attack while he was in Europe but came back to the U.S. to appear at his trial against Michael Mann, the inventor of the infamous “”hockey stick” climate change graph. The night before the trial was set to begin, it was postponed again because the judge was supposedly too ill to preside. Mark’s case is now entering its 12th year.
Mark goes over all this at his site and he includes a picture of him in Washington. He is now in a wheelchair because of his health problems and after his latest heart attack his hair has turned white. He looks about 20 years older than he did when I saw him on the cruise just a few months ago.
Mark has been fighting a lot of good fights for a long time and I try to support him as much as I can.
Neo
I’ve noticed occasionally that you don’t have Mark Steyn, or Steynonline, on your Blogroll and I’ve wondered why since he truly is one of the best and most prescient pundits.
Ditto to the encomiums for Mark Steyn. A courageous renaissance man for all seasons getting ruthlessly ground down by his inferiors.
As many of you know, Mark had two heart attacks at the end of last year and right after the cruise he became ill again and was staying in Italy for several months recuperating.
Gregory Harper:
Thanks for this update. I had heard he was having some health problems and I noticed he had been out of circulation for some time.
But yes, he is a wonderful guy and a great commentator with a fine batting average.
Today I was pleased/distressed to see this Steyn piece on the Irish stabbings/riot, which AesopFan may have mentioned earlier. Steyn’s takeaway:
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Twenty years ago, I still hoped we might be able to vote our way out of societal suicide. But that is increasingly unlikely. The media coverage of the Crépol and Dublin stabbings confirms that, when asked to choose between the multiculti madness and their lyin’ eyes, the elites are too invested in the former to be in the least bit susceptible to reality.
So there will be more stabbings of children. And there will be more responses to it – some like the passive weepy vigils of Wednesday but, eventually, more like the Dublin rampage of Thursday. The Irish, of all people, should surely be aware that, when push comes to shove, violence does not remain a monopoly of one side.
A shame, but the conduct of officialdom this past week suggests that in the chancelleries of Europe and the rest of the west they will leave the citizenry no other option.
https://www.steynonline.com/13939/diversity-stabbing-of-the-day
“… one elderly lady …”
Although I visit this blog less than I once did, and comment much less frequently, I still see items of especially significant interest cropping up; items often left undeveloped for want of the blog owner’s time. Or, maybe left hanging there, simply because they are unresolvable or even impossible to discuss profitably; being at least unresolvable under certain operating assumptions.
The other day, the mystery of large numbers of females converting to the religion of submission was briefly noted here and then set aside. The seeming irony of that phenomenon given the prominence of females among the ranks of the “Woke” and the ardent X wave feminists, is almost too obvious to be mentioned.
Jordan Peterson, speculating provisionally, has asked out loud certain related questions regarding what might be the long term political consequences of overwhelming female influence in the playing out of our politically structured associative relationships; given, what appear to be certain (seemingly) innate social dispositions and distributive preferences among at least a plurality of females in our current polity.
In simple, or evolutionary psychology terms: Are a significant percentage of females ( making allowances for different populations) natural born “socialists” and redistributionists?
Is it even worse and cringe inducing than that? Does a strain of barely sublimated alien masochism and extreme moral lability run through some portions of the population, but more emphatically among female portions of it? Are these people eventually subversive of any individualist regime of liberty and self governance in which they may be found nesting, always seeking assurance, acceptance, and affirmation through the collective and a master?
Zaphod, the provocateur banned from this blog, was fond of asserting that women on average would simply yield to and adapt to identifying with any old conqueror.
Peterson has posed the potentially foundational question as to why that goddamnable perverted sadomasochistic literature of a few years back seemed to strike a chord with what was apparently a largely female consumer base.
Israel, now in a fight for its life, is trying to dance around the “hostages!!!!” cries of the grandmas within its own population.
And in our own country, well meaning conservatives continue to hope that the ‘woke” schoolmarms will eventually wake from their wokeness once their zombie cannibal offspring start banging on their retirement apartment complex doors, snapping their blood dripping jaws.
“So glad you finally woke up”, shouts the sensitive conservative. “Come here to my state – or the one to which I most recently fled – and we will welcome you with open arms, so that our sensitivities, now resonating, may begin the whole damned process all over again…”
And, it seems that many people, conservatives as well as progressives, are just fine with that.
If so, the real question might be, “Are they zombies, i.e., a kind of automaton incapable of self-reflection and critical distancing, doomed to always repeating the same patterns, too?”
Re: When push comes to shove…
I’m on a “Futurama” kick because it has French audio and subtitles. (Do I have to explain “Futurama”? Matt Groening, the original creator of “The Simpsons”, lost control of the show early on. So Groening put his heart and soul into “Futurama” about a 20th Century delivery boy who gets cryogenically frozen and wakes up in the 30th Century. Complex hilarity ensues.)
Anyway, one of the unlikely 30th C characters is a dreadlocked Jamaican bureaucrat, who is also a limbo champion with a beautiful reggae wife. But he loves being bureaucrat, so in one musical episode he explains his passion:
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But when push comes to shove
You’ve got to do what you love
Even if it’s a bad idea
–“Futurama”, “The Bureaucrat Song”
____________________________
Which IMO well describes bureaucrats and our current elites.
“There is no better example of leftist insanity than claiming to be for women’s rights while simultaneously importing large numbers of Muslims and promoting fake women in girl’s sports and bathrooms.” Jon baker
The Left’s strategy to import “large numbers of Muslims” and “promote fake women in girl sports and bathrooms” is NOT an insane strategy. It is a calculated strategy to destroy Western civilization. The left has entered into “a temporary marriage of convenience” with Islam. Once the greater enemy i.e. the Western right is destroyed, each imagines that it will be able to destroy the other. IF they are successful, they will inevitably turn upon each other. Wherein the left has greatly erred is in failing to grasp that it’s base consists of ‘snowflakes’, whereas the Islam’s fanatics are entirely willing to die for their cause. Where each goes astray is in failing to realize that if they achieve their goal, there will be nothing preventing the Chinese communists from imposing their will upon them. That leadership has the ruthlessness of Islam and the ideological commitment of the western Left. The Chinese Chicoms will not hesitate to nuke Islam into irrelevancy.
Predators do not tolerate the presence of other predators.
The dynamic is familiar. We have a notable example in Minneapolis, for instance, which has become Somalia West.
A society takes in a significant number of immigrants, migrants, refugees, invaders–call them what you will.
These people do not assimilate. They cluster in ghettos, where they eventually form the majority, or at least a significant and possibly dangerous minority.
Then, when something sets them off, they are uncontrollable. Or at least not controllable with the civilized, and limited, means that authority chooses to use.
France has been the poster child, and it has rapidly spread across Europe–with a few notable exceptions. The exceptions are castigated for their lack of hospitality. On the other hand, the pendulum is trying to swing; but it may be too late.
I recall that some notable, and I do not recall who, warned the Europeans decades ago, (paraphrasing) “we will conquer you through migration and birth rate”.
Mark Steyn, the demographic bore, is quite capable of recognizing the obvious and then stating it in an entertaining way. That does, of course, make him a lightening rod for lawfare among the leftists.
A Catholic Canadian friend’s daughter, very liberated, married a Morrocan muslim and is now a demure wife (not… the demure wife), complete with headscarf at all times. I put it down to my friend’s divorce, and her daughter’s need for a man in her life, and her inability to find one she could accept within her own backwoods Canadian culture. In order to capitulate, she needed a more exotic male as an excuse, even if he broke down all the “liberation” she’d ever absorbed from the Canadian public schools. Accepting virility from a local boy just wouldn’t do.
Somalia West (Minneapolis)
Thanks, Oldflyer, but you really should have put that in bold. 🙂
Steyn didn’t go to college. Amazing.
It is a culture war. We have no culture. Islam has a strong and vigorous one. Islam believes in something greater than them to die for. We lost that decades ago. Islam looks upon the West with justifiable contempt. The West looks upon itself with contempt.
Years ago, supporting a SpecWar team, one of the operators had sage advice: “when you believe your own bullshit, it will end bad.” We are about to find that out.
The West has been politically castrated, neutered. The America that was has evaporated; you can thank fentanyl-full George Floyd for starting that. Cops were respected and feared before that. Now, except for the Deep South, their ranks are depopulated, and city governments do not give a damn. Unless someone like Pelosi’s house gets assaulted.
A woman who used to work for me spent several years in the UK. When she was back in the US, I had lunch with her. She was absolutely vitriolic against Israel. I don’t remember her ever having expressed any political opinions before.
The West has been politically castrated, neutered.
Cicero:
Which is also happening biologically. One reason strong, masculine men aren’t around as much now is that testosterone levels are dropping:
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Why do Gen Z and millennial men have lower testosterone levels?
Odds are your grandad had higher testosterone levels than you — but why?
For decades, testosterone levels have been declining. Your grandad may not have been quite as swift with Excel, but he probably one-upped you where T levels are concerned.
It’s normal for testosterone levels to decline as you get older, but for some reason, there’s been a population-level drop with each generation, at least since the 70s [1–4]. This means, on average, Gen Zers and millennials have significantly lower testosterone levels compared to their predecessors.
Based on this, average testosterone levels in men are declining by 1% every year, give or take…
What’s concerning is testosterone levels aren’t the only problem. Sperm counts are dropping significantly…
https://www.medichecks.com/blogs/testosterone/why-do-gen-z-and-millennial-men-have-lower-testosterone
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It’s an interesting article. The reasons offered:
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1. OBESITY AND SEDENTARY LIFESTYLES
2. EXTERNAL TOXINS
3. FEWER SMOKERS
4. STRESS AND MENTAL HEALTH PROBLEMS
______________________________
O brave new world!
“… I do not recall who…”
I believe it was President Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey, he of the charmingly honest “Democracy is like a bus (or tram) ride…and when the democracy bus arrives at MY stop, I get off” (paraphrase).
https://tinyurl.com/mpjf79pr
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The interesting thing about Left-leaning women who at some point opt to marry Moslem husbands is that they would appear to be following Jordan Peterson’s advice WRT one’s life by deciding upon and then following (as much as one can) rules.
“Interesting”?
Make that “ironic”….
To be sure, the exotic (and the strong-willed) CAN be extremely seductive…
What happens in the long term is often—and at times, tragically—another story…but that can be true of ANY relationship…
I read Steyn’s ‘America Alone’ book immediately after it was released. He nails everything on the head.
I do not want to forgive the middle eastern Muslims that the West has imported en-masse, but there are three problems with laying the blame on them.
Their average IQ is between 80-85.
Their holy book has many commandments to kill the Jews, commandments that they are exposed to in their Madrassa’s at a very early age.
Their holy book is not to be questioned by man, it is considered by them to be the literal word of Allah, and thus cannot be re-interpreted.
Steyn is up there in the 150 IQ range. He is nearly double the intelligence of the typical middle-eastern Muslim.
It is really our Western leader’s fault that we are having such difficulties with them.
In Ireland, they are proposing ex-post-facto legislation to prosecute Irish people for wrongthink regarding the invasion of middle-easterners into their small Catholic population.
I knew about his first two heart attacks, but did not know about the third. Thank you Mr. Harper for that tidbit.
He is not long for this world, but he most certainly left an impression on me, and for that, I thank him.
Erronius
DNW…see some thoughts by an American Indian (Comanche) college professor about an interaction with a white female student: Bad Eagle’s Question
https://ricochet.com/771458/bad-eagles-question/