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Nov. 2, 2007
Dec. 30, 2005
Sept. 9, 2004
My New Writing On Dennis
Prager
Oct 23, 2001
DP noted that leftist actor Richard Gere, who called for love rather
than violence in the war against terrorism, was roundly booed in
New York.
DP then read from yesterday's New York Times:
WASHINGTON, Oct. 19 — As he leads the country in a war on terrorism,
President Bush has won over some unlikely supporters, prominent
Democrats who campaigned for Al Gore in last year's presidential
campaign.
Many Democrats who once dismissed Mr. Bush as too naïve and too
dependent on advisers to steer the United States through an international
crisis are now praising his and his advisers' performance. Some
are even privately expressing satisfaction that Mr. Gore, who tried
to make his foreign affairs expertise an issue in the campaign,
did not win.
Sounding relieved that Mr. Gore is not president, Representative
James P. Moran, Democrat of Virginia, said: "I feel comfortable
with President Bush. I never thought I would utter those words."
Mr. Moran continued: "Even though I'm a Democrat and think the
Supreme Court selected our president, I don't think it's to our
disadvantage to have George Bush as president. Sometimes you need
a certain amount of braggadocio in your leaders."
Perhaps out of a desire to rally around Mr. Bush, not one of more
than 15 prominent Gore loyalists interviewed said their candidate
would have done a better job.
The bluntest assessments were from Democrats who spoke on the condition
that they not be identified. Several said the nation was fortunate
to have Mr. Bush in power, and they questioned whether Mr. Gore
would have surrounded himself with as experienced a foreign policy
team as Mr. Bush did. Citing Mr. Gore's sometimes rambling speech
in Des Moines on Sept. 29 in which he praised Mr. Bush, some Democrats
also questioned whether the former vice president would have been
as nimble at communicating to the public.
One former senator who was a staunch Gore backer said he was relieved
that Mr. Bush was president because he feared that the former vice
president would think he had all the answers.
"He may know too much," the former senator said. "And he would
have tried to micromanage everything."
Luke says: These are points that Prager made in the campaign when
many people criticized Bush as stupid and unable to communicate.
Prager wondered again if those who regarded Bush as a buffoon are
engaged in soul searching?
But does Prager search his soul when he's wrong about significant
issues. He says he does but that does not come across on the air.
Prager now admits he was wrong about the Oslo Peace Accords between
Israel and the Palestinians, the trading of land for peace.
DP says that as knowledge of sex robs children of innocence, so
knowledge of evil should rob adults of naivete. DP notes that many
wonderful people have lovely sounding liberal ideas which simply
do not work, because, among other things, these folks are naive
about human nature and human predispositions towards evil.
DP spoke against Americans hysteria about anthrax. Americans are
prone to hysteria, previously it's been about alar on apples, teachers
molesting kids, missing children, secondhand smoke...
Oct 22, 2001
Dennis Prager read approvingly from this Daniel Pipes column
in the New York Post:
October 22, 2001 -- WHAT do Muslims think of Osama bin Laden? Ask
Westerners and you'll hear how marginal he is.
President Bush says bin Laden represents a "fringe form of Islamic
extremism . . . rejected by Muslim scholars and the vast majority
of Muslim clerics." American specialists on Islam agree. "Osama
bin Laden is to Islam like Timothy McVeigh is to Christianity,"
says Mark Juergensmeyer of the University of California. Karen Armstrong,
author of a bestselling book about Islam, reports that the "vast
majority of Muslims . . . are horrified by the atrocity of Sept.
11."
Well, that "vast majority" is well hidden and awfully quiet, if
it even exists. With the exception of one government-staged anti-bin
Laden demonstration in Pakistan and very few prominent Islamic scholars,
hardly anyone publicly denounces him. The only Islamic scholar in
Egypt who unreservedly condemns the Sept. 11 suicide operations
admits he is completely isolated. American officials are still waiting
for Muslim politicians to speak up. "It'd be nice if some leaders
came out and said that the idea the United States is targeting Islam
is absurd," notes one U.S. diplomat.
They don't because the Muslim world is bursting with adulation
for the Saudi militant.
* "Long live bin Laden" shout 5,000 demonstrators in the southern
Philippines.
* In Pakistan, bin Laden's face sells merchandise and massive street
rallies have left two persons dead. Ten thousand march in the capitals
of Bangladesh and Indonesia.
* In northern Nigeria, bin Laden has (according to Reuters) "achieved
icon- ic status" and his partisans set off religious riots lead-
ing to 200 deaths.
* Pro-bin Laden demonstrations took place even in Mecca, where
overt political activism is unheard of.
Everywhere, The Washington Post reports, Muslims cheer bin Laden
on "with almost a single voice." The Internet buzzes with odes to
him as a man "of solid faith and power of will." A Saudi explains
that "Osama is a very, very, very, very good Muslim." A Kenyan adds:
"Every Muslim is Osama bin Laden." "Osama is not an individual,
but a name of a holy war," reads a banner in Kashmir. In perhaps
the most extravagant statement, one Pakistani declared that "Bin
Laden is Islam. He represents Islam." In France, Muslim youths chant
bin Laden's name as they throw rocks at non-Muslims. Palestinians
are especially enamoured. According to Hussam Khadir, a member of
Arafat's Fatah party, "Bin Laden today is the most popular figure
in the West Bank and Gaza, second only to Arafat." A 10-year-old
girl announces that she loves him like a father. Nor is she alone.
"Everybody loves Osama bin Laden at this time. He is the most righteous
man in the whole world," declares a Palestinian woman. A Palestinian
Authority policeman calls him "the greatest man in the world & our
Messiah" even as he (reluctantly) disperses students who march in
solidarity with the Saudi.
Oct 17,
Some people think that if we, the US, acted different in the Middle
East, we wouldn't be so hated. No, says DP, we're hated because
our society is open and free and prosperous.
Why does the US support Arab dictatorships in countries like Egypt,
Jordan and Saudi Arabia? Because if these countries had elections,
Islamic fanatics would take over. If we allowed Mubarak and King
Foud to be overthrown, the folks who would succeed them would be
like the leaders of Iran and Osama Bin Laden.
Prager read from this column by Fouad
Ajami in yesterday's Wall Street Journal:
We should be under no illusions about our struggle against Osama
bin Laden and the cultists and terrorists arrayed around him. Although
we control the sea lanes and skies of that Arab-Muslim world, he
appears to hold sway over the streets of a thwarted civilization,
one that sees him as an avenger for the sad, cruel lot that has
been its fate in recent years.
The military campaign against bin Laden is prosecuted, and will
surely be won, by the U.S. But the redemption of the Arab political
condition, and the weaning of that world away from its ruinous habits
and temptations, are matters for the Arabs themselves.
A darkness, a long winter, has descended on the Arabs. Nothing
grows in the middle between an authoritarian political order and
populations given to perennial flings with dictators, abandoned
to their most malignant hatreds. Something is amiss in an Arab world
that besieges American embassies for visas and at the same time
celebrates America's calamities. Something has gone terribly wrong
in a world where young men strap themselves with explosives, only
to be hailed as "martyrs" and avengers. No military campaign by
a foreign power can give modern-day Arabs a way out of the cruel,
blind alley of their own history.
Oct 15, 2001
Here are the newspaper articles Dennis Prager read from on his
show today. DP admitted he could do a much better job with his web
site DennisPrager.com in linking to these articles.
From Monday's
Wall Street Journal:
The usual government and media suspects are advising Americans
not to "panic" amid the latest anthrax mailings, and of course that's
right. The risks to any single person are small enough that it makes
little sense to stockpile Cipro or buy a gas mask. But we hope all
the cautionary words don't deflect attention from the genuinely
scary prospect here: State sponsorship.
The more rational hypothesis is that these were organized acts
of terror, and that the anthrax wasn't produced in random basements.
Several circumstantial links to Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda
network are already known. Some of the World Trade Center hijackers,
including suspected ringleader Mohamed Atta, visited an airfield
near the site of the Boca Raton, Florida, anthrax mailings.
The anthrax package sent to a Microsoft office in Reno, Nevada,
was mailed from Malaysia, another al Qaeda haunt. One of the September
11 hijackers, Khaled Almihdhar, visited Malaysia earlier this year,
appearing in a surveillance tape with another suspected associate
of bin Laden. The terrorist's followers also met in Kuala Lumpur,
the Malaysian capital, in January 2000 as part of the plot to bomb
the USS Cole in Yemen later the same year.
The leading supplier suspect has to be Iraq. Saddam Hussein used
weapons-grade anthrax against his own Kurdish population with lousy
results, before turning to more efficiently lethal chemical weapons.
U.S. intelligence sources believe Saddam has stockpiled thousands
of pounds of biological agents, including anthrax. U.S. officials
let Saddam know during the Gulf War that if he used such agents
against U.S. forces he would get a destructive response.
Ending this war won't end terror, of course. Saddam or no, others
will want to use anthrax or the like, and even after this week we
still believe the greatest threat is nuclear terrorism. Americans
are simply going to have to live from now on with a certain level
of risk. The good news is that most Americans have been doing precisely
that, with 110,000 showing up at Michigan Stadium as usual this
autumn weekend.
New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani put it well the other day when he
said that Americans should begin to behave the way the British did
during the London blitz: Cope with the danger when it appears but
otherwise go cheerfully about your lives. Meanwhile, the government
has to do everything possible to destroy the anthrax threat at its
state-sponsored source.
Thomas Friedman, NY Times foreign affairs correspondent writes
Oct 12:
The White House has asked U.S. networks to limit broadcasts of
statements by Osama bin Laden. I wish that instead of censorship,
the president would respond to him. Here's what Mr. Bush could say:
Dear bin Laden: I've listened to the statement you released through
Al Jazeera TV. Since I know that no Arab or Muslim leader will dare
answer you, I thought I would do it. Let me be blunt: Your statement
was pathetic. It's obvious from what you said that you don't have
a clue why we're so strong or why the Arab regimes you despise are
so weak.
You spoke about the suicide attacks on us as being just revenge
for the "80 years of humiliation and disgrace" the Islamic nation
has gone through. You referred to the hijackers as a Muslim vanguard
sent "to destroy America," the leader of the "international infidels,"
and you denounced the Arab regimes as "hypocrites" and "hereditary
rulers."
What was most revealing, though, was what you didn't say: You
offered no vision of the future. This was probably your last will
and testament — I sure hope so — and you could have said anything
you wanted to future generations. After all, it was your mike. Yet
you had nothing to say. Your only message to the Muslim world was
whom to hate, not what to build — let alone how.
In part it's because you really don't know much about Islamic history.
The Muslim world reached the zenith of its influence in the Middle
Ages — when it preserved the best of classical Greek and Roman teachings,
and inspired breakthroughs in mathematics, science, medicine and
philosophy. That is also when Islam was at its most open to the
world, when it enriched, and was enriched by, the Christian, Greek
and Jewish communities in its midst — whom you now disparage as
infidels — and when it was actively trading with all corners of
the world. Your closed, inward, hate-filled version of Islam — which
treats women as cattle and all non-Muslims as enemies — corresponds
with no period of greatness for Islam, and will bring none.
It was also revealing that the only Arab state you mentioned was
Iraq. Interesting — Iraq is led by a fascist dictator, Saddam Hussein,
who used poison gas against his own people, who squandered Iraq's
oil wealth to build himself palaces and who raped Kuwait. But you
are silent about all that. What bothers you is our targeted sanctions
to end such a regime — not the regime itself.
In other words, you not only don't understand the Muslim past,
you don't understand its present. The reason these past 80 years
have been so stagnant for the Arab-Muslim world is not because we
in America have been trying to keep you down. Actually, we haven't
been thinking about you much at all. No, the difference between
American power, Chinese power, Latin American power and Arab-Muslim
power today is what we've each been doing for these past 80 years.
We and others have been trying to answer many questions: How do
we best educate our kids? How do we increase our trade? How do we
build an industrial base? How do we increase political participation?
And we judged our leaders on how well they answered all those questions.
But people like you want Arabs and Muslims to ask only one question
of their leaders: How well did you fight the infidels and Israelis?
I know that who rules Jerusalem is a deeply important part of your
heritage, and every Arab-Muslim leader must address it. But it can't
be the only question. Yet, because people like you have reduced
it to the only question, and tried to intimidate every Arab who
wanted to ask other questions, you have allowed your region to be
led by scoundrels, like Saddam.
Yes, you've wreaked some havoc, bin Laden, but don't flatter yourself
into thinking you can destroy us. You have to build something strong
to destroy something strong. But you can't. Because all the intellectual
and creative energies in the Arab-Muslim world — which are as bountiful
as in any other region — can never reach their full potential under
repressive regimes like Iraq or leaders like yourself.
Stalin and Mao killed a lot of their own people, but even these
thugs had a plan for their societies. You, bin Laden, are nothing
but a hijacker — a hijacker of Islam, a hijacker of other people's
technology, a hijacker of a vast Arab nation's anger at its own
regimes. But you have no vision and no plan for your people. Which
is why your epitaph will be easy to write:
Osama bin Laden — he destroyed much, he built nothing. His lasting
impact was like a footprint in the desert.
From the Saturday New
York Times:
In mosques yesterday, Muslims gathered for Friday Prayers, and
in many instances the preaching was political and sharply anti-American.
Here is a sampling from some of the largest mosques in Europe, the
Middle East and Asia.
New Delhi: Praise for Taliban, and Raised Fists
The thousands who came to Jama Masjid, the largest mosque in this
city of almost 14 million people, spilled down the grand sandstone
staircase toward the bank of waiting cameras. Their imam, Syed Ahmed
Bukhari, had just roused them with a fiery denunciation of the United
States and moral support for the Taliban's call for jihad, or holy
war.
"Islam isn't terrorist," he had thundered. "It is America that
is the big terrorist." Then he emerged at the top of the stairs,
his head wrapped in a white turban and his eyes shielded by sunglasses,
to lead them in call-and- response chants.
When he shouted "America," they fiercely replied, "Down, down!"
When he cried, "Taliban, Taliban," they answered, "We salute you!"
London: Fiery Denunciations of Bush and Blair
At the central mosque in Birmingham, one of the biggest in Britain
and Europe, Sheik Riyadh ul-Haq preached against President Bush
and Prime Minister Tony Blair, accusing them of hypocrisy.
"Bush and Blair have not exhausted all the legal channels of communication,
nor did they pursue the course of justice," he said to the faithful.
"Any evidence they have presented has been conjecture at best.
"On this pretext they are bombing Afghanistan, which has never
had anything to do with what happened on Sept. 11," he said.
His theme today, he said, was whether Muslims should believe Mr.
Blair and Mr. Bush "when they say this is not a war against Islam.
My conclusion was that I don't believe them. Their actions belie
their claim because they are bombing Muslims in Afghanistan, a totally
ravaged country.
"They say they are not against Muslims, but Blair has participated
in campaigns against Sudan, Iraq and Afghanistan and all three are
Muslim countries."
Dennis Prager praised the column
"Idiocy Watch" at TNR.com, including this:
"Patriotism threatens free speech with death. It is infuriated
by thoughtful hesitation, constructive criticism of our leaders
and pleas for peace. It despises people of foreign birth. It has
specifically blamed homosexuals, feminists and the American Civil
Liberties Union. In other words, the American flag stands for intimidation,
censorship, violence, bigotry, sexism, homophobia and shoving the
Constitution through a paper shredder. Whom are we calling terrorists
here?"--Barbara Kingsolver, novelist, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel,
September 27.
DP mentioned the report that a CIA squad had Osama Bin Laden in
their sights on their first day in Afghanistan but they didn't shoot
him because a military lawyer said they had no legal basis to do
so.
Oct 3,
Prager spent his show picking apart the argument that the US support
for Israel triggered the terrorist attacks September 11.
DP said that argument was analogous to saying that the Nazis hated
Britain in WWII for supporting Czechoslovakia.
DP says that the US is the world's only Judeo-Christian society.
The only country that takes the Old and New Testament seriously.
DP says that the US pays Egypt three billion dollars a year to
not attack Israel. But Egypt isn't making peace with Israel, it's
hatred continues undiminished and Egyptians who visit Israel are
shunned.
Oct 1, 2001
Paul Johnson On Islam
British journalist Paul
Johnson writes in the National Review:
Bold and uncompromising words were spoken by American (and British)
leaders in the immediate response to the Manhattan Massacre. But
they may be succeeded by creeping appeasement unless public opinion
insists that these leaders stick to their initial resolve to destroy
international terrorism completely. One central reason why appeasement
is so tempting to Western governments is that attacking terrorism
at its roots necessarily involves conflict with the second-largest
religious community in the world.
It is widely said that Islamic terrorists are wholly unorthodox
in their belief that their religion sanctions what they do, and
promises the immediate reward of heaven to what we call "suicide
bombers" but they insist are martyrs to the faith. This line is
bolstered by the assertion that Islam is essentially a religion
of peace and that the very word "Islam" means "peace." Alas, not
so. Islam means "submission," a very different matter, and one of
the functions of Islam, in its more militant aspect, is to obtain
that submission from all, if necessary by force.
Islam is an imperialist religion, more so than Christianity has
ever been, and in contrast to Judaism. The Koran, Sura 5, verse
85, describes the inevitable enmity between Moslems and non-Moslems:
"Strongest among men in enmity to the Believers wilt thou find the
Jews and Pagans." Read
On
Sep 26
Dennis read from this column by liberal E.J.
Dione in the Washington Post:
With the polls running 14 to 1 in favor of war, it makes you proud
to live in a nation that gives the smallest minority the freedom
to speak out against our government -- even in a time of crisis.
So why was I skeptical over what seemed a reflexive response? Many
on the left are so mistrustful of American power, so certain about
our baleful influence on the rest of the world, that they seem to
have a problem whenever the United States goes to war.
But unless you're a pacifist, it's hard to argue that war is not
justified in a case when a nation has come under direct attack,
as ours just has.
Fascism, as George Orwell noted long ago, is one of the most overused
words in the political lexicon. But in this case, the United States
is battling forces whose ideas approach some of the classic definitions
of fascism.
Our adversaries use terror in an attempt to impose regimes that
would deny basic human liberties. They combine backward-looking
appeals -- in this case linked to peculiar interpretations of Islam
-- with promises of regional, if not global, domination. They use
modern methods to upend modernity. How can progressives do anything
but stand against these movements?
Progressives should be wary of any attempts to excuse or rationalize
the horrors of this month. It is important to insist that human
misery does breed support for terrorism. But using the existence
of poverty and injustice to explain away these suicide attacks will
only undermine arguments for alleviating injustice.
Dennis read from Time
columnist Lance Morrow:
A day cannot live in infamy without the nourishment of rage. Let’s
have rage. What’s needed is a unified, unifying, Pearl Harbor sort
of purple American fury—a ruthless indignation that doesn’t leak
away in a week or two, wandering off into Prozac-induced forgetfulness
or into the next media sensation (O.J. … Elián … Chandra …) or into
a corruptly thoughtful relativism (as has happened in the recent
past, when, for example, you might hear someone say, “Terrible what
he did, of course, but, you know, the Unabomber does have a point,
doesn’t he, about modern technology?”).
Let America explore the rich reciprocal possibilities of the fatwa.
A policy of focused brutality does not come easily to a self-conscious,
self-indulgent, contradictory, diverse, humane nation with a short
attention span. America needs to relearn a lost discipline, self-confident
relentlessness—and to relearn why human nature has equipped us all
with a weapon (abhorred in decent peacetime societies) called hatred.
As the bodies are counted, into the thousands and thousands, hatred
will not, I think, be a difficult emotion to summon. Is the medicine
too strong? Call it, rather, a wholesome and intelligent enmity—the
sort that impels even such a prosperous, messily tolerant organism
as America to act. Anyone who does not loathe the people who did
these things, and the people who cheer them on, is too philosophical
for decent company.
It’s a practical matter, anyway. In war, enemies are enemies. You
find them and put them out of business, on the sound principle that
that’s what they are trying to do to you. If what happened on Tuesday
does not give Americans the political will needed to exterminate
men like Osama bin Laden and those who conspire with them in evil
mischief, then nothing ever will and we are in for a procession
of black Tuesdays.
Sep 25, 2001
Dennis Prager read the entire column by Gerald Posner in today's
Wall Street Journal.
DP says that Bush's leadership during our terrorism crisis, he's
proved his critics wrong. People were wrong who dismissed him. They
need to ask themselves where they went wrong in their thinking.
DP never cared about Bush's braininess. DP says that every normal
person has the intelligence to be President of the United States.
DP cares about morally educating people, not about their IQ.
DP frequently said over the years that Al Gore scared him. For
many reasons. One, was his book on the environment which argued
that the greatest threat is environmental degradation. DP argues
that it is human evil, like what happened September 11, 2001. Another
was Gore's lack of self - so that he hired Naomi Wolf to teach him
how to be more masculine.
Gerald
Posner writes:
Since the murderous terror attacks on the World Trade Center and
the Pentagon, President Bush has come alive in a way I did not think
possible. It was as though the attack on America--which he rightly
called an "act of war" from the start--gave him a focus and clarity
I had not earlier seen.
If there was a single event that convinced me my initial feelings
were wrong, it was the president's rather remarkable speech to the
country and a joint session of Congress last Thursday. Like Franklin
Roosevelt or Winston Churchill, he rallied a country's spirit, he
had the courage to tell us the bad news that the upcoming battle
would be neither swift nor easy, and he declared that those who
would destroy our culture and values would not prevail.
I had always found Mr. Bush stiff in his scripted speeches. But
last Thursday he was infused with passion and outrage. His sincerity
was heartfelt, and boosted almost all who listened to him. And precisely
because we all know he is not a masterful orator, the power of his
words and the forcefulness of his delivery carried even more impact.
He rose to this most important occasion.
DP says: Republicans are more comfortable waging war while Democrats
tend to have a soft spot for third world evil. They don't mind fighting
evil in Europe by white people, such as Bosnia.
Gerald Posner came on as a guest. He laughed about Prager's essay
of years ago - Being on the Left means never having to say you're
sorry. Posner and Prager pointed out such examples as bussing and
bilingual education.
At the top of the third hour, DP said the terrorist attack destroyed
some bad ideas current in America. Such as:
* Multiculturalism. We need to unite behind our American culture.
* Patriotism. "Flag waving" was a term of opprobrium.
Now we see how beautiful and necessary patriotism is.
DP wondered if the actors who assailed Bush like Julia Roberts
were going to apologize.
Sep 24, 2001
Prager read from and praised this column by William Safire in
today's New York Times:
"We're looking for links" between Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda terrorist
group and Iraq's Saddam Hussein, said Colin Powell yesterday. So
far, our secretary of state can see "no clear link" between bin
Laden's forces in Afghanistan and the America-hater publicly laughing
at our grief in Baghdad.
Powell does not want to acknowledge any evidence of sponsorship
of bin Laden by Iraq because that would demand a crushing blow at
an Arab state. It might limit the diplomatic convoy of consensus
he is assembling, which will travel at the rate of its most grudging
member.
Do we respond to our initial, catastrophic defeat in a wholly multilateral
way? That would mean seeking intelligence crumbs from Saudi and
Egyptian potentates, negotiating cautious U.N. resolutions, hunkering
down to limit the damage of suicide bombers, and beginning a phased
air and ground assault on bin Laden's "base" in Afghanistan to be
followed up with joint police work for years around the world. It
would fight yesterday's terrorist war.
Or do we recognize now the greater danger of germ warfare or nuclear
attack from a proven terrorist nation, and couple expected retribution
for this month's attack with a strategy of pre-emptive retaliation?
Such use of our superpower need not require our "going it alone";
civilized nations unafraid of internal revolt will understand the
threat to their citizens and stand with us.
.............
In his second hour, Prager critiqued Deepok Chopra's love letter
to America published in a full page ad in Sunday's New York Times.
Prager debated Chopra at a Young President's Organization conference
in Hawaii a few years ago and found his moral compass broken.
Sep 21
Dennis Prager's brother, a professor at Columbia University in
New York, emailed that he was the only one in his department with
a US flag on his car.
DP responds to those who look down on flag waving - I'm not asking
you to stand up for the country or for nationalism or to be patriotic.
Just stand up for what is right.
DP thanks God that George W. Bush is president. Bush understands
that the USA is a beacon of light in the world and that darkness
hates light.
Sep 20, 2001
Dennis Prager returned from two days observing the start of the
Jewish year, Rosh Hashanah.
He tackled the widely discussed view that the attack on the World
Trade Center was a criminal act, not an act of war. Nonsense, says
DP. He quoted New York Times foreign affairs correspondent Thomas
Friedman who estimates that half the Arab world applauded the attack
and half were appalled.
DP compared the Islamic terrorists to the Nazis - they want to
kill all Americans.
A caller watched Black Entertainment Television where many black
callers said the attack on the World Trade Center was only an attack
on white America. DP remembered his black caller on July 4th who
said it was not a special day for them as they did not feel part
of the history of this country. They felt excluded and hence did
not celebrate July 4.
DP says that unfree societies hate free societies. One key part
of the reason that the Islamic world hates the USA is that American
women can wear short skirts and vote. In the Islamic world, women
must cover themselves head to toe, and have few rights.
Dennis wishes that the Islamic terrorists behind the recent attacks
were not representative of Islam. But the facts on the ground are
that much of the Arab-Islamic world supports the terrorism against
the USA.
What Islamic clerics need to do is not so much denounce the attacks
on the World Trade Center. That is easy. But condemn sucide bombers
and proclaim that suicide bombers go to hell rather than heaven.
What's particularly evil is that the terrorists who did this lived
in America for years first. They were educated in America and worked
in America and enjoyed America's freedoms and used those freedoms
to commit great evil.
In Prager's last half hour, he had Bill Mahr of Politically Incorrect
on the show. Mahr got into controversy when he called the WTC terrorists
courageous (for sacrificing their lives for what they believed in)
and the US "cowards" for lobbing missiles from two thousand
miles away.
DP seems to handle Mahr with kid gloves, being much more gentle
than one would expect. Is it because Mahr frequently has Prager
on as a guest on his show? The human reaction for a guest on someone's
show is to be respectful towards its host.
LOS ANGELES, Sept 19 (Reuters) - Bill Maher, the irreverent host
of late-night talk show ``Politically Incorrect,'' apologized on
Wednesday for saying some U.S. military actions were ``cowardly''
-- a remark many said was not only politically incorrect but offensive.
In a statement issued through his publicist, Maher said his views
``should have been expressed differently.''
``In no way was I intending to say, nor have I ever thought, that
the men and women who defend our nation in uniform are anything
but courageous and valiant, and I offer my apologies to anyone who
took it wrong,'' Maher said.
According to a transcript on ABC's Web site (http://www.abc.com),
Maher made the reference while discussing past U.S. military campaigns.
``We have been the cowards lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles
away,'' he said. ``That's cowardly.''
Maher contrasted the U.S. military actions to those taken by attackers
who flew hijacked commercial airliners into the World Trade Center
and the Pentagon last week. President George W. Bush has called
the attacks ``cowardly acts''.
``Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you
want about it, it's not cowardly,'' Maher said.
In his statement Wednesday, Maher said his criticism of U.S. military
actions ``was meant for politicians who, fearing public reaction,
have not allowed our military to do the job they are obviously ready,
willing and able to do, and who now will, I'm certain, as they always
have, get it done.''
Islamic
Fanatics Hate America
Norman Podhoretz writes for the Wall Street Journal:
As for the Palestinians, their contempt for America is hardly exceeded
by their loathing of Israel.
For example, the mufti--or chief cleric--appointed by the Palestinian
Authority under Yasser Arafat has prayed that God will "destroy
America," while the editor of a leading Palestinian journal has
proclaimed: "History does not remember the United States, but it
remembers Iraq, the cradle of civilization. . . . History remembers
every piece of Arab land, because it is the bosom of human civilization.
On the other hand, the [American] murderers of humanity, the creators
of the barbaric culture and the bloodsuckers of nations, are doomed
to death and destined to shrink to a microscopic size, like Micronesia."
The point is that if Israel had never come into existence, or if
it were magically to disappear, the United States would still stand
as an embodiment of everything that most these Arabs consider evil.
Indeed, the hatred of Israel is in large part a surrogate for anti-Americanism.
Israel is seen as the spearhead of the American drive for domination
over the Middle East. The Jewish state is a translation, as it were,
of America into Hebrew--the "little enemy," the "little Satan"--and
to rid the region of it would thus be tantamount to cleansing an
area belonging to Islam (Dar-al-Islam) of the blasphemous political,
social, and cultural influences emanating from a barbaric and murderous
force. But the force, so to speak, is with America, of which Israel
is merely an instrument.
Sep 17, 2001
While giving the sermon at his temple Saturday morning, Dennis
Prager broke down crying about the terrorist attacks.
Prager wanted professional sports to resume its schedule earlier
to not give the terrorists any victories. But DP's wife convinced
him that was wrong. DP was impressed how many professional athletes
did not want to play.
DP was impressed by the comment by New York Jets coach Herman Edwards:
"The country needs a diversion? Then they should go to church."
Falwell, Robertson On 700 Club
"God continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America
to give us probably what we deserve," Falwell told Robertson on
the 700 Club Wednesday, according to the Washington Post. "Jerry,
that's my feeling," Robertson responded. Falwell went on to blame
the ACLU and federal courts for "throwing God out of the public
square." He continued:
"The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because
God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent
babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the
abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who
are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU,
People for the American Way -- all of them who have tried to secularize
America -- I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped
this happen.'"
This came on the heels of a vicious column by conservative hatchet-gal
Ann Coulter, who wrote earlier this week: "We know who the homicidal
maniacs are. They are the ones cheering and dancing right now. We
should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them
to Christianity."
Prager said the timing of Falwell and Robertson's comments was
inappropriate. This is a time for uniting the country.
DP: I don't disagree with Falwell's theology. I don't know if I
agree either. But certainly the doctrine of collective responsibility,
that if a community
sins deeply, it separates itself from God, the source of life,
and then bad things happen, goes back to the Torah, the most sacred
document in Judaism.
SingleMom (singlemom2000@hotmail.com) writes on the Prager List
(owner-prager-l@csun.edu):
It is now a few days after our national tragedy. I went to the
dennisprager.com website to seek guidance, solace and condemnation
of the liberal Democrats who surely had to be responsible for the
WTC disaster.
I found no mention of the world changing terroist act. Instead,
Prager's website frontpage continues to offer for sale his radio
show tape$, lecture recording$, appearance$, the Denni$ Prager catalog
which offers "birthday, wedding and anniver$ary gift$" and his crui$e
to Antarctica.
Has the world gone mad? How can Prager's web page ignore the World
Trade Center horror while continuing to hawk his schlock? Is this
a sad sick amplification of his policy to $ell, not give away, the
"Prager Perspective"? If the country's moral compass is broken and
the words of wise man Prager compiled in the "Prager Perspective"
can help fix it, why does he insist on selling it rather than distributing
it freely for all mankind? Does he want to fix the nation's broken
moral compass or just pocket gelt by selling his newsletter? Has
the world gone mad? Has Prager gone mad? His behavior is shameful
to be seen by the goyim.
Terrorism in this nation will not stand. God bless America.
Sep 13, 2001
Dennis Prager agrees with the Wall Street Journal that we're on
the verge of World War III. DP rejected the notion that if we simply
got rid of Usama Bin Laden that we'd be ok.
DP found FOX News coverage more realistic than CNN which concentrated
on the hilarity of Yasser Arafat giving blood and Palestinians saying
we're victims too. Arafat is the father of modern terrorism.
Sep 12, 2001
I was struck by the similar moral tone the whole country has taken.
The whole country sounds like Prager - seeing this event overwhelmingly
in moral terms. The country seems united that these attacks must
be revenged with force. That we must tackle evil with force. That
we must beef up security and defense and intelligence. The whole
country is sounding like Prager with its moral rhetoric and hatred
of evil.
Prager said Secretary of State Colin Powell should resign. He condemned
Israel's assassination of a terrorist a few weeks ago.
Callers said it was a particular comfort to have Prager on the
air in times of crisis.
In his first hour, Prager interviewed Charles Krauthammer of the
Washington Post.
Today Krauthammer
published this:
This is not crime. This is war. One of the reasons there are terrorists
out there capable and audacious enough to carry out the deadliest
attack on the United States in its history is that, while they have
declared war on us, we have in the past responded (with the exception
of a few useless cruise missile attacks on empty tents in the desert)
by issuing subpoenas.
Secretary of State Colin Powell's first reaction to the day of
infamy was to pledge to "bring those responsible to justice." This
is exactly wrong. Franklin Roosevelt did not respond to Pearl Harbor
by pledging to bring the commander of Japanese naval aviation to
justice. He pledged to bring Japan to its knees.
You bring criminals to justice; you rain destruction on combatants.
This is a fundamental distinction that can no longer be avoided.
The bombings of Sept. 11, 2001, must mark a turning point. War was
long ago declared on us. Until we declare war in return, we will
have thousands of more innocent victims.
Sept 10, 2001
Dennis Prager published in the Los Angeles Times:
Last month in Seattle, a 26-year-old woman threatened to commit
suicide by jumping off a bridge. As a result, a major freeway was
closed in both directions for four hours during the morning rush.
According to news reports, many motorists yelled obscenities at
the woman, urging her to jump. This has caused some soul-searching
among Seattle residents. But the issue is much more morally complex
than simply expressing compassion for the woman and contempt for
the shouters.
But to react only with revulsion toward the yellers--as appropriate
as such a reaction is--exemplifies another problematic trend in
American life: compassion for the individual at the expense of the
many.
This woman decided to take her personal grief over a broken romantic
relationship into a public place and thereby bring misery to tens
of thousands of people. If the yellers represent the coarsening
of American life, the woman and those who only express compassion
for her represent the widespread narcissism and misplaced compassion
that also afflict American life. It is heartless not to empathize
with the pain of rejected lovers, let alone with the pain of those
who threaten or commit suicide.
Dennis Prager On Life
I found this on DennisPrager.com:
The Nature of the Islamic Republic of Iran
The prostitutes' bodies are thrown on Iran's roadsides, or more
often in open sewers. It has been a year since the first bodies
were discovered-in Mashhad, Iran's holiest city. To date, there
have been 21. One suspect recently confessed to 16 of the murders.
But the mystery-and the horror-extend far beyond the individual
killer or killers. Many hard-line supporters of the regime have
publicly cheered the murder spree, which last month claimed two
new victims in Tehran, as a moral cleanup campaign. "Who is to be
judged?" demanded the conservative newspaper Jomhuri Islami. "Those
who look to eradicate the sickness [like the killer] or those who
stand at the root of the corruption [like his victims]?"
The main suspect in the Spider case is Saeed Hanaei, a 39-year-old
construction worker with a background of mental illness and a criminal
record.. Hanaei has no regrets. "Why should I feel remorse?" he
says. "After killing them I removed all trace of them. They had
no value to me." In another country, such remarks might be dismissed
as the musings of a psychopath. But there are justifications for
such heedless killing in Iran's Islamic criminal code, which declares
some people unworthy of the blood that runs in their veins. Therefore
their lives can be taken with impunity. "If the killer can prove
that the victim was a 'waste of blood'," says one legal scholar
who asked not to be named, "then there will be no charges against
the killer."
Newsweek, August 20, 2001
How the Oslo Peace Accords (which I supported)
Hurt Israel
We have finally acknowledged the terrible truth of Oslo: We are
trapped.Yitzhak Rabin assured us that, if the Palestinians reneged
on their commitments, Oslo could be reversed. But he forgot one
detail: the price. To uproot the terrorist state in the making will
turn us into international pariahs. Oslo has created the worst of
all possible scenarios: It has empowered the Palestinians to threaten
our safety and embitter our lives but left them weak enough to hide
behind international immunity. Oslo tempted us with its promise
of a rational Middle East, and we admitted that we live in the Arab
world. We lowered our guard, celebrating our ordinariness and stripping
ourselves of sustaining myths of heroism and self-sacrifice. The
terror of this time is that we find ourselves stranded in one of
the world's most irrational and intolerant regions--without the
Zionist self-sufficiency that made us confident we could endure
the Arab world's enmity, and without the faith in a new Middle East
that made us confident we could overcome it.
Yossi Klein Halevi, The New Republic, August 6, 2001
Unabomber's Brother "Doesn't Defend Himself"
There is a gentleness to Mr. Kaczynski. He is a vegetarian and
a Buddhist with a soft, flat Midwestern voice. He'll open the door
for you before getting in the driver's side of his plain Chevy Prizm.
When troubled youths asked, "How can you turn in your brother?"
he didn't defend himself, he said, but told them, "Sometimes you
have to be in a situation before you can figure out what you would
do." New York Times, August 5, 2001
The Prager Perspective: If even David Kaczynski, one of the true
moral heroes in America, does not know how to defend the most obviously
right thing a human being can do - stop a brother from slaughtering
and maiming innocent people - we are in worse shape than I thought.
See my article on David Kaczynski from The Prager Perspective, June
1, 1996.
Atheist Converts to Judaism!
I try hard to keep any latent theological concerns out of my work.
I started in a fundamentalist home. I went to a very conservative
church school. But I went to a liberal theological school, at Harvard.
And then I converted to Judaism. I'm not a theist. I don't have
any faith issues at stake. Archaeologist William G. Dever, in an
interview published in the New York Times, August 4, 2001
The Prager Perspective: How on God's earth does a proclaimed atheist
convert to a monotheistic religion? I would love to know the rabbi
who "converted" Professor Dever. Is the rabbi an atheist? Does the
rabbi think a a person becoming a Jew ought to at least be able
to say the shma (the Jewish credo, "Hear, Oh Israel, the Lord is
God, The Lord alone")? And why would someone want to join the religion
that introduced the world to God, if he doesn't believe in God?
Monica Lewinsky was an Israeli agent -- Syrian
defense ministry
The Syrian defense minister, too, announced that the affair was
a Zionist plot. "Monica Lewinsky is a young Jewish girl that Mossad
hired and pushed into working as an intern in the White House."
Marjorie Garber, the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of English at
Harvard University and the director of Harvard's Center for Literary
and Culture Studies (cited in the New York Times, August 5, 2001).
Shimon Peres, dove, puts the nations' condemnations
of Israel into as clear a perspective as one can:
"We have a problem the Irish, English, Spaniards and Russians don't
have - we have suicide bombers," said Foreign Minister Shimon Peres,
among the most dovish members of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's government.
"What can you do about a suicide bomber? Threaten to kill him? Will
it scare him? Once he starts out on his journey, there is nothing
we can do to stop him," he said.
Washington Times, August 2, 2001
8/21/01
DP says: Something that gives you pleasure plus escape equals addiction.
It's true for TV, drinking, drugs, porn...
DP praised this Aug
17 column by William Raspberry:
Stuart Newberger is an exceptionally patient man, and it is not
his fault that I didn't quite get the lesson he was at such pains
to teach.
I had called him because he, as a lawyer with the American Civil
Liberties Union, is representing the seven families that sued to
overturn Virginia's "moment of silence" statute. They lost, and
Newberger plans to appeal the decision of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court
of Appeals to the next level: the U.S. Supreme Court.
All I wanted to know was: Why?
He seemed a little surprised at my question. Didn't I see the lurking
culprit right away? That sneaky little "pray" right there between
meditate and engage?
"I have nothing against a generic moment of silence," he told me.
"Indeed, I told the court that. And if it was truly a moment of
silence, I doubt that the families I represent would have initiated
the lawsuit.
"But that really isn't what the law is about. This law makes it
mandatory that a million Virginia school kids, kindergarten through
12th grade, perform this exercise every morning. And 'pray' was
deliberately included in the formulation because, as one sponsor
of the bill said, without it, this would be a silent moment with
no meaning."
Newberger understands (and so do I) that what the people who drafted
this legislation really want is straight-up prayer in public school
classrooms. But they've long since lost that fight. A moment of
silence during which children may pray is their attempt at a consolation
prize.
But the lawyer sees it, as did Judge Robert B. King in a stirring
dissent, as a "Trojan horse,"another attempt, wrote King, at invading
"the hearts and minds of Virginia schoolchildren -- in an effort
to once more usher state-sponsored religion into public schools."
All this from a mere moment of silence during which "the teacher
may not indicate his or her views on whether students should use
the time to pray or not pray . . . or to pray aloud in front of
students, nor permit any other student, or groups of students, to
pray aloud"?
IN PRAGER'S FINAL HOUR, HE DISCUSSED THIS:
Don't
Believe It: Not All Fathers Are Child Molesters
August 14, 2001 by Wendy McElroy, mac@ifeminists.com
On April 17, 1971, the idea of fathers as sexual predators was
inscribed on the radical feminist agenda. A group called the New
York Radical Feminists held a two-day conference on rape at which
social worker Florence Rush declared, "The family itself is an instrument
of sexual and other forms of child abuse...the sexual abuse of female
children is a process of education that prepares them to become
the wives and mothers of America."
In the latest issue of The Women's Quarterly from Independent
Women's Forum, Rael Jean Isaac writes of the conference as a turning
point. Radical feminists had not really considered child abuse because,
as Andrea Dworkin commented, "we never had any idea how common it
was."
How common is it? In her sensational and influential book Father-Daughter
Incest (1981), the psychiatrist Judith Harman estimated that victims
of incest numbered "in the millions." Is this a reasonable estimate?
The answer calls for some rough math. According to the 1999 study
on Child Maltreatment conducted by the National Clearinghouse on
Child Abuse and Neglect, the female child population was then 32,600,000.
The sexual abuse rate is given as 1.6 for every 1,000 girls. Assuming
that every attack was incestuous, this means 52,160 girls were sexually
assaulted. The Bureau of Justice Statistics basically supports this
number.
Its report, Sexual Assault of Young Children, indicates that 50,700
(or 1.56 per 1,000) girls were sexually assaulted by adult male
family members during 1996 -- presuming a constant population. If
true, this means that about 2.9 percent of women were incestuously
assaulted before the age of eighteen. In a population of 130,000,000
women, about 3.7 million women would be victims.
These figures are probably inflated if only because they assume
that every incident involves a new child and is not a repeat attack.
Nevertheless, Herman's estimate is plausible...and horrifying.
Feminists should be applauded for shedding bright light on the
sexual abuse of children. They should be deeply ashamed of how they
have used it. Feminists have attached the pain of children to a
political agenda of their own.
Herman's book bluntly states that the rape of daughters is "an
inevitable result" of the "patriarchal family structure." That is,
the traditional family with gingham curtains in the kitchen and
a father who comes home after work each day results in the rape
of daughters.
8/20/01
In his final hour, Dennis Prager discussed a Mormon video club
in Utah which edited Hollywood movies, removing profanity, sex and
nudity. For instance, it removed about 90 profanities from SAVING
PRIVATE RYAN.
DP remembered a member of the House of Representatives who complained,
on religious grounds, about the line-up of naked women in Schindler's
List going into the gas chambers. But that is exactly how the Nazis
did gas the Jews, naked. It was not a sexy scene.
My wife and I sometimes play this game at movies - what excuse
will they have for this woman to take her top off? Because it is
completely unnecessary. I remember SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE. Was it critical
for Gwyneth Paltrow to remove her top?
In the vast majority of cases, the profanity, nudity and violence
is unnecessary.
Is it always wrong for a religious person to see and hear these
things?
I recently saw the 1999 version of THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR and
my wife and I thought it was wonderful. Rene Russo goes topless
and has sex. And it was gratuituous. Did my wife and I feel that
we were sinning? No.
The Mormon Church tells its members to not watch R-rated movies.
DP says there are many films that he will not watch (such as SEVEN
and HANNIBAL) because watching them will reduce him.
"I'm not good at seeing torture. I know how real it is. To
me, these are not movies. I know that the number of people who've
been tortured is enormous. I just don't see an actor and ketchup.
"I think people are better off for having watched SAVING PRIVATE
RYAN. My wife has taken it upon herself to watch it every Memorial
Day so she will better enter the spirit of the day.
"There are movies where I could [this editing] but there are
other movies where I think profanity and nudity and violence are
appropriate."
After a couple of cell phone callers dropped off, Dennis said "you
should invest in the most incompetent companies - the cell phone
companies of Southern California."
8/16/01
Dennis Prager notes that the American Bar Association, now fighting
to keep that black man in Texas convicted of committing murder at
age 17, from capital punishment, has moved steadily left. That's
as stupid as the Bar taking conservative positions. It's supposed
to have been above politics and have people respect the bar. For
good reason, President Bush doesn't send the names of judicial appointments
to them.
Almost all the professional organizations are now liberal because
liberals are the most devoted to politics. Conservatives prefer
to stay home with their family and with their religion.
Amnesty International argues that only the US, Iran and Congo still
execute criminals. First of all, few countries have official executions.
But the question is whether a policy is right or wrong, not whether
despicable regimes also have that policy. That Belgium does not
have capital punishment does not move me. Europe has bequeathed
to us two World Wars in the last century, Nazism, Communism and
more death and torture than any other continent.
According to polls that DP knows, most Europeans favor capital
punishment. Europe simply has less democracy than the US.
Amnesty International argues that if you're not old enough to vote,
you're not old enough to be executed for murder. The answer is -
it takes more knowledge to know who to vote for than to know that
murder is wrong. My eight year old knows that murder is wrong but
he does not know about the policies of Mr. Bush vs Mr. Gore.
Feminist
Says Lay Off Men
The novelist Doris Lessing yesterday claimed that men were the
new silent victims in the sex war, "continually demeaned and insulted"
by women without a whimper of protest.
Lessing, who became a feminist icon with the books The Grass is
Singing and The Golden Notebook, said a "lazy and insidious" culture
had taken hold within feminism that revelled in flailing men.
"I find myself increasingly shocked at the unthinking and automatic
rubbishing of men which is now so part of our culture that it is
hardly even noticed," the 81-year-old Persian-born writer said yesterday.
"Great things have been achieved through feminism. We now have
pretty much equality at least on the pay and opportunities front,
though almost nothing has been done on child care, the real liberation.
"We have many wonderful, clever, powerful women everywhere, but
what is happening to men? Why did this have to be at the cost of
men?
"I was in a class of nine- and 10-year-olds, girls and boys, and
this young woman was telling these kids that the reason for wars
was the innately violent nature of men.
"You could see the little girls, fat with complacency and conceit
while the little boys sat there crumpled, apologising for their
existence, thinking this was going to be the pattern of their lives."
Lessing said the teacher tried to "catch my eye, thinking I would
approve of this rubbish". She added: "This kind of thing is happening
in schools all over the place and no one says a thing.
"It has become a kind of religion that you can't criticise because
then you become a traitor to the great cause, which I am not.
"It is time we began to ask who are these women who continually
rubbish men. The most stupid, ill-educated and nasty woman can rubbish
the nicest, kindest and most intelligent man and no one protests.
"Men seem to be so cowed that they can't fight back, and it is
time they did."
DP says: Men are more capable of enduring torture, fighting enemies,
going to war, than they are of being yelled at by a woman.
If women denied sex to evil men, that would be the end of all evil
on earth. If a woman said, 'Honey, if you participate in that lynching,
I will not sleep with you for a year,' that racist would become
a member of the NAACP. All men are more interested in sex than in
hating. Men are not a complex sex.
Womanhood is innate, manhood is socially constructed.
I've changed entirely my views of co-education. I'm for single
sex schools through college.
815/01
In his first hour, Prager interviewed a female
ethics professor (Maryanne Jennings) in Arizona who discussed
the Andrea Yates case. Yates drowned her five kids and now wants
to plead not guilty by reason of insanity.
The prof noted that the same crowd which wants to get Yates off
for her homocidal hormones, also decries the glass ceiling, and
wants to integrate the Armed Forces. So women should get off at
times for their hormones, but not face any discrimination for their
hormones.
The prof has had four kids, one miscarriage and is now heading
into menopause.
Prof: "Unless we take the position that life is tough but
that does not legitimate this type of behavior.
"Her call to the police showed she understood right and wrong.
She knew she had done something wrong and she knew the appropriate
people to call at this point were the police."
Dr. Jennings published a book - Nobody
Fixes Real Carrot Sticks Anymore.
"It is a commentary on how our lives have deteriorated because
we live in the fast lane and don't take the time to do something
elegant."
DP: Men don't have anything like post-partum depression or other
excuses for their behavior.
8/13/01
Dennis Prager said that if anyone doesn't see the moral gulf between
Israel and its neighbors needs moral finetuning.
So Prager got a call taking him up on his statement. The caller
asked Prager about his support for the Oslo Peace Accords over the
past eight years. Doesn't DP then need his moral compass tuned?
No, DP replied.
I've never heard Prager admit any need for moral change or moral
finetuning in his vision.
DP said that he was wrong strategically about Israel and the peace
accords, but that he was not wrong morally. DP never gave a moral
equivalence between Israel and its enemies. He just formerly thought
it was in Israel's best interest to try to make peace with its Arab-Islamic
enemies by trading land for peace.
Then Prager derided a federal court judge who overturned a Maine
statute that prevented the guardians of mentally ill people registering
the mentally ill under their care to vote. DP says that if you're
not mentally strong enough to register to vote, you shouldn't vote.
DP suspected that activists from one particular party [Democrats]
were behind this move.
In his second hour, DP discussed the Tom Hanks film Castaway. DP
thought it remarkable how many people thought it was too long and
slow moving. DP found the film riveting and was never bored once
during its two-and-a-half hours.
He did think the film had a fatal flaw - the protagonist did not
seem to develop despite four years alone on the island. And there
was no whiff of spirituality, religion or God in the movie. You'd
think someone alone on an island for four years would turn to something
like God?
In his third hour, Prager read approvingly from this
New Republic article by Gregg Easterbrook (who once praised
in print Prager's book on Happiness):
These days, disclaimers at the end of movies assure you that no
animals were harmed during filming. As The Wall Street Journal detailed
in a hilarious recent article, Hollywood takes this vow seriously.
Camera crews are not allowed to kill flies or ants; when a script
requires dead insects, movie crews must find bugs that have died
"naturally" (at the end, let's hope, of long, fulfilling lives).
For the scene in Cast Away in which Tom Hanks spears a crab, modelers
spent more than a month fabricating a mechanical crustacean so no
real one had to be killed. And what did the caterer serve the cast
while the clockwork-crab scene was being shot? Probably crab salad.
Of course, it's a good thing that horses are no longer pushed till
they die during filming. Yet even as Hollywood congratulates itself
for its excruciating animal-friendliness, every third film glamorizes
the slaughter of human beings. Movies today rarely depict the mistreatment
of animals, because filmmakers don't want to give audiences the
wrong idea. Depicting screaming women slashed with knives, on the
other hand--why, that's entertainment. The whole promotional campaign
for last winter's big-studio hit Hannibal centered on boasts that
the film sunk to new lows in its representation of extreme acts
of cruelty, building up to a helpless FBI agent having his brain
cut out and cooked while he was still alive. But no ants were harmed!
If movies depicted the brutalization of animals in anything like
the way they routinely depict the brutalization of men and women,
activists would chain themselves to theaters.
DP says: Outside of college administrators, Hollywood has the least
courage. To use the jargon of the "humane" crowd, think
of the thousands of dollars spent on mechanical crabs could've been
given to poor people.
It's staggering the People For The Ethical Treatment Of Animals
(PETA) think it's wrong to kill a crab but PETA has no position
on abortion.
8/9/01
Dennis Prager spent the first two hours on the suicide bombing
in a Jerusalem restaurant which has killed at least 20 Israelis
so far. It portends war.
Prager says it was a sin for him to support the Oslo Peace Accords,
whereby Israel traded land for what it hoped would be peace. Instead,
it inspired more Palestinian suicide bombers.
In his final hour, DP discussed his column in today's LA Times:
Let's
Bean All The Lawyers
Dennis writes in today's LATimes.com:
Americans would do well to ponder the human and social costs of
so much litigation. The legal profession and the party that protects
it have helped destroy a lot of goodness. The practice of players
throwing the last-out-of-the-inning ball to fans is a kind little
gesture. But why would any player now do it, and why should any
team allow it?
The legal war against goodness is ubiquitous. Friendly lawyers
have warned my wife and me not to allow children who visit our home
to jump on our large trampoline. Given the number of children injured
each year falling off trampolines, we are setting ourselves up for
financial ruin.
We long ago decided to allow children who visit us to use the trampoline.
But we know that many parents with trampolines have gone the other
way.
The number of acts of joy and kindness the legal profession quashes
is growing.
The cost to society from trial lawyers, judges and Americans who
look to courts as better bets than lotteries is profound. But the
cost to the souls of lawyers may be greater.
Many people who graduate from law school are worse human beings
than they were prior to enrolling. Why? Because law school teaches
students to stop thinking in moral terms and to start thinking in
legal terms--to ask, "Is it legal?" rather than, "Is it right?"
8/8/01
Dennis Prager recalled reading a description of Bill Clinton as
our first "white trash" president.
Clinton apparently had brought a guitar with the words "F---
Fascism" to a White House dinner with rocker John Mellancamp.
"I know that a significant portion of our secular elite believe
it is no big deal to appear at such a function with the F--- word
on your guitar. Particularly when the sentiment is so beautiful."
Dennis lamented the decline of all male institutions such as the
Rotary Club, to which he belonged for three years in the early 1980s
in Simi Valley. "Where it was macho to do good work."
DP says that men prefer to hang out with men, and women prefer
to hang out with men. Sexually, it is probably the other way around.
But when it comes to social life outside of marriage, men want to
be with men. And generally, women also want to be with men. That's
why feminists push so hard to get into every male club. Why don't
these feminists just make their own clubs?
Guys prefer to have their own conversations and to be without the
inevitable sexual tension that comes with including women.
Now that Rotary Clubs accept women, it is women who are largely
running the show. Men drop out rather than compete with women. When
men don't have specific duties that they are indispensable for,
they will allow women to do the work.
When there were no women in Rotary Clubs, men took on the charity
tasks.
DP believes it is unethical to force a group to take in members
of the opposite sex.
DP says that in his three years at Rotary Club, he never once heard
business discussed. There was no ban on it, people just didn't do
it.
Dennis Prager discussed this article in the USA Today by a recent
graduate of Amherst College.
Sexy
dancing: Have you really forgotten, parents?
By Kimberly Shearer Palmer
One day when my 14-year-old sister and I got on the topic of her
eighth-grade dances, I explained how my friends and I used to dance
when we were at her middle school not so many years ago: Get close
to the guy, move your hips and try to feel the music. She quickly
told me I was outdated. "They don't let us dance like that anymore,"
she explained.
"Dirty dancing" — or "freak dancing" — is under assault from a
phalanx of parents and school administrators disturbed by its semi-sexual
nature, or "boys thrust(ing) their pelvises into girls' behinds,"
as a recent USA TODAY Cover Story put it. My sister's school is
among hundreds of middle and high schools that banned it; some also
prohibit certain suggestive songs.
Stop the music, parents and school administrators say, before intimate
contact on the dance floor invites even more intimate contact away
from prying eyes.
To young ears, that just sounds absurd. To older ones, it should
sound like a short-circuited fire alarm, one that has rung off and
on for decades. Parents who try to stop freak dancing will be as
successful as their parents, who tried to still Elvis' swiveling
hips and stop the spread of rock 'n' roll. All of which wouldn't
matter much — except that in flailing at the behavior they see,
they're missing a more subtle opportunity to influence teens in
ways dance bans never have.
Freak dancing is just the frothy crest of a sexually charged cultural
tsunami. In fact, it's a relatively tepid activity in our lurid
culture.
Keeping middle schoolers from dancing close to each other doesn't
teach them how to deal with an MTV world that screams sex at them
whenever they turn on the television. After-school programming features
TRL, short for Total Request Live, which showcases music videos
with more hips bumping and grinding in each song than words. Missy
Elliott's Get Ur Freak On, Sisqo's Thong Song and Destiny's Child's
Bootylicious feature just what their titles suggest. Even just hearing
a song such as Shaggy's It Wasn't Me, a song about "banging on the
bathroom floor," forces kids to imagine a vivid sexual act.
If MTV's Spring Break features three people French kissing at once
(which one weekend's edition did), then kids who watch it inevitably
will wonder whether they should be doing it, too. This sexually
charged atmosphere isn't going away.
[F]reak dancing is a partial antidote — a healthy outlet for burgeoning
hormones charged by that culture. Clothes stay on, and kids are
in full view of other students. Far worse things can happen — do
happen — when students go off by themselves, after school or at
private parties. And those things were happening long before freak
dancing arrived.
In contrast to groping in dark basements, freak dancing is all
about community. At Friday night dances in seventh and eighth grade,
I remember looking forward to "freak lines," in which three to 10
people got in a line, boy-girl-boy-girl, and moved their hips together.
All this happened before my first kiss. I was shy in the classroom,
but on the dance floor, I felt far more comfortable interacting
with members of the opposite sex.
In my mind, dancing closely with other people had nothing to do
with sex. It was just a way of learning about this whole new guy-girl
thing without any pressure, and with my trusted girlfriends close
behind me.
DP says: This line about such dancing having nothing to do with
sex is a give away that it was written by a woman. For the males
doing the dance, it had a lot to do with sex.
The callers agreed. Women phoned about how they had done such suggestive
dancing as kids and it didn't seem sexual to them, but that they
had no idea of its affect on the guys.
Dennis Prager said he felt like a Jewish reincarnation of C.S.
Lewis.
July 24, 2001
Let's
Talk About Breasts
From Time.com:
You might not think people would choose to listen to conversations
in a frat house. Yet every afternoon Opie and Anthony spend four
hours calling each other gay, drooling over hot moms and barraging
women to "whip 'em out." It's not even a carefully constructed frat
chat: an hour before airtime, six staff members, all guys, sit around
watching Jackass, shooting baskets and occasionally surfing news
websites. They're less like people preparing for a radio show than
people waiting for a pizza.
The office even looks like a frat house. Porno tapes line the bookshelves.
Opie's desk, littered with such research material as Maxim, FHM,
Stuff and Seventeen, is flanked by two Britney Spears posters. Anthony's
desk, littered with a Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen book, video and
T shirt, sits under a poster of the twins. "Look how hot they're
getting. And that's an old picture," Anthony says. On further inspection,
he dismisses Mary-Kate as the priss. "Ashley is the goer."
The entire country will have a chance to hear what guys talk about
when they're trying really hard to sound like guys. Infinity Broadcasting,
the radio arm of Viacom, this month began syndicating The Opie &
Anthony Show, based in New York City, to such cities as Chicago,
Dallas and Philadelphia, and will soon have them on about 20 stations.
Viacom hopes O&A can duplicate their ratings success in New York,
where they are often No. 1 in their prime demographic-- men 25 to
49. Gregg (Opie) Hughes (he looks like Opie from The Andy Griffith
Show), 36, and Anthony Cumia, 39, are the descendants of Howard
Stern, replacing his sour trangressiveness with male realpolitik:
while Stern interviews strippers, O&A just want them to take off
their clothes.
But O&A are often clever, hammering at the outer band of humor
that gets laughs from discomfort. Like listening to a gay man perform
oral sex on a woman for 'N Sync tickets.
Luke says: I listened to Dennis Prager's nationally syndicated
radio show Tuesday and he said it was as interesting to him that
Time found that funny, as that they do that on radio.
DP says: It's disturbed me a long time how much junk is on TV and
radio. But TV and radio frequencies are as limited as our rivers.
There are a certain number of rivers in America. What if the U.S.
decided to sell the rivers to companies who could do anything they
wanted with those rivers. If you want to pour in toxic waste, you
pour in toxic waste. But you'll say, the rivers are really there
for the public to enjoy. That is what it is like in TV and radio.
There are rivers of video and audio - they are TV channels and radio
frequencies. They are the rivers of communication in our society.
This notion that the broadcast wavelengths are a public trust where
people should cringe and shiver realizing their responsibility is
dead.
Dennis also discussed a black female alderman in St. Louis who
was giving a long speech to delay a vote. She needed to go to the
bathroom which would've ended her filibuster. She asked for permission
to go to the bathroom and then resume her filibuster but was denied.
So, surrounded by her supporters, she urinated into a trash can
and kept up her filibuster. This has made national news. Critics
say the alderman demeaned her position by urinating in public. The
woman's supporters accuse the critics of racism.
Luke says: I remember at UCLA the much greater freedom several
black girls in my dorm felt with urination. I remember several of
them coming into the men's room to urinate rather than bother walking
down the hallway to the ladies' room.
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