London in New York

The left and the right has Americans all lathered up in a tizzy once again. The HOPE of 2008 has turned into RAGE of 2010.  The National Mall in Washington, DC has recently served as the backdrop for two of the largest COMEDY FESTIVAL’S in recent memory, one to “Restore Honor” hosted by Glenn Beck and the other to “Restore Sanity” and/or Fear” by Comedy Central with Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.   Arianna Huffington, the princess of the New News Media and not one to be left out,  held her own  sideshow, err 2010 Game Changer’s event at Skylight Studio on Hudson Street in Lower Manhattan this past week with such notables as the curious figure of the Ground Zero Mosque, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf (who has even now lost the support of Saudi Prince, Alwaleed bin Talal for his proposed Cordoba House even despite its futuristic design)  Bethenny Frankel and Mosque Bloomberg.

In this humble citizen’s estimation, the sense I have is that the vast majority of us who are trying not caught up in the theater of the absurd and who truly have something to say are too damn busy trying to survive in America right now to go down to DC and stay in a nice hotel and go to an outdoor comedy festival, whether it was the one hosted by Glenn Beck or the one hosted by Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, nor could they likely afford a ticket or make it on the guest list of Princess Arianna’s sideshow in New York or the elite version of “let them eat cake.” So many forces have a stake in dividing the republic into camps and feeding pockets of the population acceptable if not digestible truths, while we march on ignoring the fundamental questions to sustaining the American way of life.

Election Day is literally the new Halloween with all the political trick-or-treating done by politicians creating a rather frightening terrain. Seriously, who are we kidding?  Why don’t we just change the date from November 2nd to October 31 that way we can vote for people who wear masks during the electoral season as we wear our own as well into the voting booth. Election Day as Halloween just may usher a new wave of enthusiasm and increase voter turnout. Maybe we can even extend voting hours until midnight? It matters not that some of us may be inebriated. It will make it easier for the media to manipulate the Sheepel anyway since we will all be less drunk on the disinformation and political propaganda and more drunk on Grey Goose, even though I prefer Chopin or a nice Oregon Pinot Noir.

You will have to forgive me if for some reason regardless of who I decide  to vote for on November 2nd, I expect that when that when I walk into the voting booth I will feel a little like actor Charlie Sheen cooped up at The Plaze Hotel with a Porn Star with my cocaine frothed face yelling F____king Democrat, Republican instead of the “N” word as the Police come to drag me out of  the Precinct after I VOTE and release my date from her cage, I mean bathroom so that she call Gloria Allred and sue me. If she weren’t coming after me, however, I would advise her to call Rosemarie Arnold instead. For some reason pulling the lever feels like flushing the toilet, only as you walk away, the bowels of our democracy are refilled with the stench of  fresh waste.

You see somehow after I regain my composure, head into the voting booth at my local precinct make my selections and then quickly depart as I am released on my own recognizance, my taxes will likely still go up, I will be provided fewer follow up services and if I am lucky maybe the Porn Star….errr  I mean politicians won’t sue me or ask for anymore of my blood, sweat and tears. But either way, regardless of whether I have a job, I can continue to count on the President, his team and assorted Democrats and Republicans who have me on their email list….to just give them another $5, 10, 25, 100 or more for their next campaign. If you want to “fight the good fight” that fight is improving economic conditions for the eroding middle class, small business owners and entrepreneurs.  SURVIVAL IS THE NEW SUCCESS in AMERICA 2010.

Maybe in the future a campaign donation will qualify you for receipt of an official beggars pan, a tent for the street or park I may end up living in and a sack of potatoes so I can still eat in America. Call me crazy, I want to live in an America where the economy puts money in my pockets for hard work, not one where I am asked to choose between paying my rent, buying a loaf of bread or an Obama or Mark Rubio T-Shirt or baseball Cap. Then again, that’s just me. In the end there is nothing that this government can give me that a vibrant and healthy economy could not give me more efficiently.  Unless we do something rash, I suspect electoral Halloween will allow us only to regularly replace one set of monsters for another.  All indications now suggest that Mayor Ed Koch’s prediction of a political tsunami on Tuesday, November 2nd is certainly more than a distinct possibility perhaps with the exception of New York.

When Mortimer Zuckerman wrote about ‘The End of American Optimism’ in August of 2010, it captivated the essence of what I feel is happening in America right now. And while standing in briefly last week  for my brother and one of the best event photographers in New York City, Gregory Partanio, during cocktail hour at the Sing For Hope Gala at 583 Park Avenue and photographing one of my favorite singers in Tony Bennett, I got to thinking about whether it is in fact the end of The Good Life.  For one, I know that I will never be able again to sit at the Windows on the World at the World Trade Center sipping a glass of Opus 1 looking out over the glory of Manhattan from the highest point in the metropolis listening to the sounds of Bennett, Frank Sinatra or even Bobby Short.

Whether the American Empire is truly entering a period of decline merely a decade or so after some rather optimistic Conservatives formed the Project For the New American Century (”PNAC”)  while envisioning an American leadership position for the next 100 years,  is to me still a tad unclear. While I am a realist, I remain unwilling to throw in the towel. Nevertheless, it is hard to ignore the exact opposite feeling that many of us had after the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 and for that matter the ‘Hope’ that Obama projected in his campaign in 2008. Two years into Obama’s Presidency and there is a lingering economic insecurity that has afflicted many of my fellow citizens with that infamous Italian disease known as “defunsalo” and for many reasons, it feels so different this time, like it may in fact be a permanent state of life for many of us in the Post-American World. As  aptly surmised again more recently by Zuckerman, ‘America’s Supreme Confidence Has Become a Malaise‘.

Furthermore, if rumors are to be believed our President and Congress might themselves look to follow Argentina’s lead and nationalize private pensions, another phrase for seize or otherwise get their hands on our individual retirement accounts; right after they eliminate their tax preferred status and continue in their war on capitalism or at least the effort to send a scare down the spine of every last investor, entrepreneur, small business owner or capitalist left standing in America  (See: Larry Kudlow, “Obama Declares War on Investors, Entrepreneurs, Businesses and More”).  On Wall Street, it has been postured that Money Never Sleeps even when the Stock Exchange is closed. But, the current administration may, however, actually be trying to give money a rest.  Should we continue down this path my fear is that America will no longer be the land of opportunity it once was but it will become a land where the middle class or what remains of it will be enslaved to pay the interest on our national debt from the crumbs of their minimum wage jobs, if we even have jobs.

“I have a big American flag on my house and people think I’m Robert E. Lee.”

-Jon Loew, Founder of Fuel For Truth

We have lost focus on the essence of what is most critical to the continued vitality of our Democracy: capitalism, free enterprise and individual liberty.  A new progressive fascism has seemingly led or contributed to a subtle unwinding of the American Nationalist spirit and pride; a disregard in some cases blatant and in other cases subtle.  The idea of America and Americanism itself is not merely under attack; but rather it is being diffused, dismantled, discarded, submerged and pushed aside at every turn by those whom you most expect would be its greatest defenders, given that some of them actually still wear the American Flag Lapel Pin and apparently still have Presidential aspirations. While I do not expect leaders like Mayor Mike Bloomberg or President Obama to make false appeals to our nationalistic pride, maybe they might at least have a degree of respect for the symbols of American exceptionalism, preeminence and ingenuity or those things that so many of us have profound reverence. A new progressive fascism demands not merely tolerance but rather subservience to the aims of multi-culturalism fueled by an under current of anti-Americanism that has a contempt for symbols or sources of American historical pride and glory.

You will forgive me if this former liberal elitist (and Registered Democrat) has come to see the actions of the current administration and a President with no former business experience or perhaps little or any college coursework in Economics 101 under a slightly different microscope. Upon closer examination what one will see is a well orchestrated if not systematic broadside against America’s Judeo-Christian institutions, pillars of the American business community including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce while a more lax and passive accommodation of the forces of Islamic collectivism and the agenda of political Islamists is more than tolerated or encouraged, but passionately insisted upon with tremendous chutzpah. In some parts of America even the mere display of the American Flag by our citizens is considered intolerant.

In an environment increasingly hostile to the symbols of Americana while tolerant of those of a growing Islamicana consider that some of America’s greatest citizens and builders of this country in Italian-Americans who celebrated in grand style Columbus Day now find the holiday and the legacy of Christopher Columbus under attack by a group calling upon Americans to ‘Reconsider Columbus Day’.  Similarly, the Twin Towers Alliance which remains the conscience and soul of the metropolis serves as  a reminder that even the most significant political leader in New York, one with in depth business experience, will exert political pressure to come to the aid of  the Cordoba Initiative’s effort to build a mega mosque at Ground Zero, ignoring common sense and what transpired there on 9/11,  focus on abolishing consumption of sugary drinks and banning smoking in Times Square and in all parks, plaza’s and beaches and outdoor spaces, but will  not engage in the fight for America to restore itself by rebuilding  modern, stronger and New Twin Towers For A New America. Have some of our so called “leaders” forgotten what country we are in or is their moral posturing in pursuit of an entirely different dividend?  Seriously, what the  phuck is going on here?

Manufacturing is gone. Outsourcing has and continues to be all the rage. All we seem to be doing is exporting jobs and importing unskilled workers across the Rio Grande and  Muslims empowered with a radical, totalitarian ideology of Islamic Supremacism antithetical to the existing framework of American society.   When will we come to terms and recognize that this ideology and its leadership is hell bent on the destruction of American Society?  The bottom line: Islam is at War with the United States and we need to recognize that.  I am hardly Bill the Butcher guarding the mainland for the natives but this is really sort of getting ridiculous that defending any aspect of our culture or limiting immigration, given that so many of our own citizen are already out of work, is considered a radical idea as is wearing or pledging allegiance to the flag. Seriously, what the  phuck is going on here?

Given the state of the American Economy relative to our Chinese counterparts and the lack of meaningful answers or approaches by our politicians, both Democrats and Republican’s, many of whom are far too busy feeding at the trough of internationalists themselves to be concerned about the plight of the average American citizen even while they focus primarily on enabling massive media manipulation and distraction to confuse the masses and diffuse the brewing revolution, MY PLAN IS AS FOLLOWS:

I am buying a bicycle, flying to Shanghai, opening a “hole in the wall” American food joint, will personally make deliveries and stuff American Food Menu’s under Chinese people’s doors to grow my enterprise. Eventually…… I hope to live the Chinese version of the American dream…… My lack of Chinese language skills is hardly relevant. I will learn enough to speak in broken Chinenglish. That plan worked here for so many Chinese so I can expect it will work similarly for me over there.

DO I HATE MUSLIMS? This is a question that I have been asked by some who have read my blog, and it is has also regularly been asked by mainstream media talking heads who question opponents of the Ground Zero Mosque. Do I want to hurt them or discriminate against their civil rights are often the questions that are posed as a follow up.

The answer is a clear and unequivocal NO. Those questions miss the point, but make no mistake that is all by design.  Just like with Pamela Geller where “someone somewhere decided that we’re going to demonize her and marginalize her and call her a racist Islamophobic anti-Muslim bigot so that anybody that agrees with her is a racist Islamophobic anti-Muslim bigot.” (See Atlas Shrugs Blog). Political Islamists want the debate framed this way so that it frames me and the majority of citizens who agree with me as just another one of the “Crazy White People” referred to in last week’s Village Voice in the eyes of the public and liberal intellectuals. Some of these folks should read Paul Berman’s book The Flight of the Intellectuals and ask themselves why they excuse Islam from critical inquiry. In the words of writer Ayaan Hirsi Ali:

He’s addressing a debate within liberalism. He is, just like me and I think many others, surprised—and that’s an understatement—that some liberals choose to defend ideas that are very illiberal and choose to look away from practices that are even more illiberal. Why are they excusing radical Islam? That fascinates Berman and it also fascinates me, what the presence of Islam does to the liberal psyche in the West.

Principle does not preclude nuance when it comes to analyzing the current global Islamic identity crisis.  All the more ironic when you consider that nuance is something that progressives on the left have and continue to use to finesse so many issues of import, yet in this case they see no reason to do so rather than frame a majority of Americans as a bunch of intolerant Neanderthals.  While I do not advocate violence against any citizen regardless of their belief system (religious or otherwise) that does not mean that I do not advocate critical analysis and legitimate and thoughtful inquiry of movements that impinge on Liberty, Freedom, Democracy and Capitalism itself.   Arguably many American Muslims and westernized practitioners of the faith may have far less in common with Islamists in Muslim Nation States.  I even suspect that there are some who have left and those who have never lived but would likely not wish to practice their faith in the Islamic heartland so to speak.

I am not against Muslims who live in America, have Westernized and become part of the secular mainstream, nor am I against the right of Muslims to worship, provided their worship is not imposed and does not seek special public accommodation or infiltration of our school system through the practice of Dawa (see Wellesley students on a class field trip to the Muslim American Society’s Boston Mosque (see: ISB Cultural Center)– resulted in children bowing to pray to Allah).  I do not support, endorse or condone physical violence against Muslims. Fact is Muslims are more secure in America than any where else in the world today.  While we have had limited physical violence against Muslims in America, I must remind my more liberal friends that said violence has more often been administered by Muslim men and the culture of “Not Without my Daughter” (a 1991 film starring Sally Field based on a true story by Betty Mahmoody),  terrorizing and beating their wives and killing members of their own family—following Shariah Law, than Muslims dying at the hands of American Citizens.

What I am fundamentally against is the naiveté that suggests we ought to tolerate and embrace all aspects of the Islamic movement which seeks to impose a complete and total system of life (and it even has its own Facebook page),  and allow it to dilute the American experience, individual liberty, freedom and democracy. I am against the idea that questioning said movement, its principles, its leadership and some of their radical teachings is somehow Islamophobic or irrational, it is Islamorealist. Evidence of the dangers of Islamism could fill the Library of Congress.

Islam needs a reform movement to cleanse itself of its radical elements, recognizing that far too few of its adherents in the West feel truly comfortable or secure in their person, should they question publicly the tenets of Islam as do Christians and Jews of their own faith. Last I checked The POPE has never issued any fatwa’s against all the non-believers in the United States or even those in New York who practice what traditionalists might refer to as an American variation of Catholicism. On the other hand, too many American Muslims do not want to go against the grain of Anti-Americanism, the leaders of their Mosques and/or their own families when it comes to challenging traditionalists of their faith. In their silence, they are however complicit. And in effect they join the Islamic finger pointers who never cease to continue to remind us what is wrong with America rather than introspectively examining an ideologically barren movement of violence and hate that they insist on proselytizing, in our schools.

ISLAM is thus largely SILENT except when it comes to portraying their followers as victims of American intolerance. You want to know where Muslims are the victims of intolerance? In Muslim Nation States; in places like Iran where women live in fear of the Mullah’s and members of the Arab gay community wonder how long it will be before their secret or the Queer Jihad is discovered and they hang for it.

So, am I intolerant? Am I the bigot? Nope. I am just a big bold question mark about a troubled and troubling movement that we must examine in the light of day and not allow political correctness to place a veil of  “Islamophobia” over all fair analysis to evoke sympathy and stifle legitimate inquiry of a significant threat to American civilization. American Muslims must rise and stand against the intolerance in their own faith before dictating tolerance by those who resist where they are passive.  For example, while  you could build a Mosque at Ground Zero, it is fair to ask morally should a mega Mosque be built at Ground Zero?  Some Muslims have in fact spoken out against the Ground Zero Mosque, rather eloquently in fact.

But I suspect that may only happen when we make the world safe and free of the radicals. As many medically or physically inclined know, “free radicals” destroy the human body and free radicals will destroy this planet if we allow them to.

In conclusion, it comes down to this:

I HATE that we cannot ask questions about this movement without being perceived as hate-mongers. And I HATE that I must be critical of the positions of Mayor Mike Bloomberg and the wisdom of  President Obama on this issue, two leaders who I have supported rather enthusiastically. That must change or America will not ever be safe, until America is no longer.

“If you a man and your over 25 and you don’t eat pu**y just kill your self damn it. The world will be a better place. Lol” –50 Cent on Twitter

Some gay media elites are up in arms according to their Facebook profile postings over the tweet by 50 Cent and its apparent insensitivity given it comes on the heels of a tragic suicide of a student at Rutgers in New Jersey who jumped off the George Washington Bridge after his gay lifestyle was exposed amidst a rash of homophobic bullying which has led to four teen suicides in a month. Tyler Clementi, a talented violinist and freshman student at Rutgers University was harassed and his privacy invaded by overzealous students who filmed and broadcast his sexual liaison with another male on YouTube.

Homophobic bullying is a real issue. The ill conceived timing of Fifty Cent’s Tweet has, however,  been taken out of context by some in the gay community to find evidence to fit their dialogue on the issue of gay bullying. But in my estimation some folks seem to be on hyper alert to discredit the philanthropic artist and interpret it as evidence of homophobic bullying and  thus in effect stain him as being part of a war on homosexuality. Frankly, I do not think that is fair and secondly it is not at all clear that Fifty Cent’s comment was even in fact at all directed at homosexuals but rather just a crude indictment of straight men who do not properly worship the female targets of their affection.

I am not being slick here when I say my frustration is that there are not just theoretically, but actually so many intelligent and enlightened brains in the gay community, especially those in the media who have a platform and the ability to persuade the masses with intelligent prose.  That these voices instead focus excessively on the ill timed rants on Twitter by celebrity rappers like 50 Cent rather than in earnest on the movement of Islamism which is a greater threat to American Civilization and global planetary life is troubling. Islamism is a far greater threat to our civilization, alternate ways of life and individual liberty, freedom and democracy, which we celebrate in America, than one statement taken out of context by a rapper who may have been engaged in a little playful shock and awe without regard to the issue of gay bullying. One has to wonder whether 50 Cent’s tension with mogul Jay Z, including public snubs has some media operatives who are in his corner, working overtime behind the scenes to strike back to undermine an aggressive a hyper heterosexual who has challenged the mantle, if not the manhood of Jay Z, who himself has had to deal with many questions, including his membership in the Hip Hop Occult, the deception he is part of and his allegedly DL lifestyle and is bromance(s).

The liberal elite voices in the gay community will not focus on the meat and potatoe’s of the threat to liberty, because those challenging that movement of Islamism appear to be mostly on the right, white men and women, including some in the Tea Party Movement. And it does not fit their script that as postured recently in the Village Voice hit piece on the non-liberal elites entitled:  “White America Has Lost It’s Mind.” To engage in that battle would have so called enlightened liberal elites breaking bread at the table and putting them in the company of those very same white folks that they find themselves in disagreement with on so many issues, which would deviate from the script and undermine some of their alliances. Ironically when so called white people attempt to paint or define a broad cross section of humanity in a similar fashion, it is called racist but when the liberal elite press corps does it, it is called insightful and becomes front page news. To the Village Voice some of us “white people” are registered Democrats and multicultural Americans of  Italian, Spanish, Colombian, German and Austrian heritage. And I am just referring to myself, the author of this blog. Bada bing!

It is not only sad but it is in fact cowardly that some of the media elite can’t or do not want to see the forest for the trees. 50 Cent is small potatoes.  Regardless of what 50 Cent meant, even if it was directed at straight men only who do not properly worship women, the timing of that statement after the horrible tragedy in New Jersey is troubling; and that is  even if I believe assuming you are a straight, “if you are not eating ___y there is something wrong with you”  in that you are not providing the woman in your life with the appropriate level of oral pleasure which is in my mind, a divine obligation. Given the man’s ongoing contributions to society, however, I believe that he deserves better than a quick indictment by members of the elite gay press who have been in my estimation to quick to rush to judgment. Isn’t that perhaps just a tad intolerant? So in conclusion, to the gay and liberal media elites who are trying to turn his tweet into a hate crime, if I were 50 Cent I might just take you to the Candy Shop and tell you to lick the lollipop.

HELL, Sept. 30, 2010/Satanic News Wire/– SATAN announced today from his office south of the border of humanity, that he will emerge from the bowels of Hell to walk the Red Carpet and attend the Ribbon Cutting Ceremony for the Ground Zero Mosque in 2011 or 2012 whatever anniversary of 9/11 it should open. It will be the first visit for The Prince of Darkness since his last visit to the metropolis on 9-11-2001.

Satan expressed great pleasure with the new official artistic renderings of the Ground Zero Mosque by Soma Architects, rebranded as the Park 51 Community Center brought forth by the Cordoba Initiative.   As stated by Satan, “The insidious design is even all the more delightful reminiscent of one of my greatest works, Kristallnacht which is the “Night of Broken Glass” during the Third Reich in Nazi Germany.” The Dark Prince largely concurred with American Thinker’s analysis below:

But the entire facade shows these shapes dissolving, as if shattered and falling down.

Kind of like a window shattered by rocks and fragmenting into pieces.

New York City has the largest Jewish population in the world. Throughout the Arab and Muslim world, “Wall Street” — the financial district on lower Manhattan – connotes “Jewish bankers.”

Kristallnacht, anyone?

This no more coy than the crescent shaped monument proposed for Shanksville, PA, where United 92 crashed to earth.

Joining the Prince of Darkness will be none other than the spirit of the warrior prophet and pedophile Mohammed himself. “Frankly, I never thought I would see the day when hell would rise on earth, although Adolf Hitler came pretty darn close close; Mohammed’s followers have appeared to have truly succeeded in persuading the liberal elites that re-installation of the Caliphate and ushering in a New Dark Ages on American soil will lead to the advancement of civilization, and for that I am immensely proud” crowed the unearthly Prince. “Ironically, the treatment of women, gays and other infidels under the leadership of exalted Imams of ‘the one true faith’— and who do you think that they got that phrase from?— almost makes my venue south of the border superfluous. The disciples of the warrior prophet and pedophile Mohammed, have created a veritable hell on earth for many of those folks, in the name of god no less. Gotta love it.”

Other expected guests include: Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Joseph Stalin, Iranian President Ahmenijad, Charles Manson (who will be released from his life sentence in an expression of tolerance and forgiveness by the New Order), Ted Bundy, Lizzie Borden and others to be named later as the guest list is still in formation.

Talks are in the works to get some of BRAVO’s Real Housewives of New York City to walk the Blood Red Carpet. Although most are actual Patriots and would not support Satan, there is in fact an Opening of a Zipper Factory next door the same night and feeling is that they may not be able to bypass a little “Devilsh” fun especially given Satan’s endless open bar and the ability to drink without limit and without ingesting actual calories. Furthermore, there is always the possibility for Kelly Bensimon to perform and Exorcism live on Bravo TV. Satan was however, quick to point out that he was not in fact responsible for Kelly Bensimon’s bat shit crazy behavior last season on the RHONY stating: “Truth is that Kelly Bensimon just plain scares me too.” Satan offered a quick no comment when asked about Danielle Staub other than that he and Danielle are still an item and he does not wish to discuss their relationship.