Daniel Greenfield

America in a Chinese Mirror

Five months ago Chinese leader Hu Jintao held a high profile state dinner with Obama. Since then Obama has premised his policy proposals on a competition with China. Yet if he learned anything from that visit, it isn't at all obvious. For Hu Jintao, his American visit was a chance to reaffirm China as the world's second greatest superpower. Like Soviet Premier Khrushchev's extended tour of America, this visit was not about diplomacy, but a way of showing all the folks back home and around the world that there are only two nations worth mentioning in the same sentence.

No Telling Where To Go Next

Meet Obama's new appointee to promote religious freedom around the world.

Obama has announced the appointment of Azizah al-Hibri to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. Al-Hibri (full name, Azizah Yahia Muhammad Toufiq al-Hibri) is a Muslim professor and the granddaughter of a Sheikh, who claims that the Koran inspired Thomas Jefferson and the Founders and that the Saudi criminal justice system is more moral than the American one because it accepts blood money from murderers.

The Liberal Apocalypse

Ideologies can be roughly divided into the moral and the economic. Moral ideologies seek to guide people in their individual behavior as they seek resources. Economic ideologies are concerned with collective control over how resources are gained and employed. Revolutionary movements are often linked with economic ideologies because resource redistribution is a primary motivator for political upheavals. The left is both a revolutionary movement and an economic ideology, using the pretext of inequities to seize power in order to engage in economic redistribution. However the modern left's actual agenda goes well beyond only seizing and redistributing material goods and financial holdings. Its goal is to completely control all human interactions in every form through political, cultural, social and economic tools.

Never Again

Never again. To Jews it means a refusal to give genocidal bigots another go at them. To Obama, it means refusing to ever again have to listen to an Israeli leader explain why his country cannot commit territorial suicide in order to appease a gang of genocidal bigots. When the Jews who fought among the crumbling walls of the Warsaw Ghetto finally made it to Israel, they came just in time to load up their guns and fight once again for their people's survival. The survivors of one genocidal ideology bent on making someone pay for its sense of humiliation came just in time to fight off another version of the same thing.

Loughner and the Insane State

As Gabrielle Giffords continues her recovery and Jared Loughner winds his way through the justice system, it is worth taking a look back five months at the consequences and implications of that day in Arizona.

Redistributing Freedom to Tyranny

There are frayed nerves in Silicon Valley at the prospect of the United Nations asserting a growing role in internet governance. But why indeed should that be? The United Nations is generally beloved the further left of center you go by people who agree that American power, wealth, productivity and decision making should be turned over to international bodies, most notably the UN. And if the UN is so wonderful and so much better than any government chosen by the American people could ever be, why not turn over the internet to it?

The “Muslims First” Foreign Policy

In France, American embassies and consulates have been directed to "empower" Muslims and push for the passage of "social reforms" that will benefit them. In the UK, American diplomats were directed to again "empower" Muslims and made outreach to them a top priority. In Israel, the US consulate in Jerusalem caters only to Muslims and does its best to pretend that Jews and Israel don't even exist. And when Obama visited Greece, what else did he do but push the political and religious authorities to open more mosques and Islamic schools. America's own interests and our obligations to our allies have been put aside to focus on a single goal of overriding importance. Pandering to the Muslim world. It's as if we have no other foreign policy goal anymore beyond keeping Muslims happy.

What Does It All Mean

The end of decency has been proclaimed over and over again throughout the 20th century. There's no way to pin down just when that line was crossed, but in public discourse it was crossed long ago. The last week or two are testimony to that. The slow death of the newspaper has not put an end to the tabloid spectacle. Instead it universalized it. Self-degradation turns into a public media orgy, in which all the participants, the promoters, the reporters and finally the readers become degraded. One man walks away completely disgraced from Weinergate, but all of us have been degraded in the process.

Beer, Ham and Muslim Shoes

The UK Home Secretary has warned about complacency in the face of Islamic extremism. But there are no worries about complacency when it comes to things that irritate Muslims. As a drunken fellow from Bristol found out when decided it would be funny to stuff pieces of ham into the shoes of mosquegoers. Twenty years ago this might have made for an amusing limerick. Today it's a possible two year jail term.

The Rise of the Post-American Empires

When the Utopians of the left talk about a Post-American world, they mean a great borderless globe ruled over by international law, where there are no more citizens or nations, just people who happen to enjoy working and living in New York, Shanghai or Islamabad. This digital jet setting globocratic version of John Lennon's 'Imagine' is their envisioned outcome of globalization. No more governments. Only one single world girdling government. But what the Utopians have never realized is that this vision is not universal, it springs from a Western liberal messianism that is big on faith in progressive government, and disdains national and tribal identities. And that means it is a vision that most of the globe does not share. And is never likely to share. The Utopians want an end to national power and cultural imperialism, but their globalist vision is cultural imperialism backed by national power.

A River of Race Runs Through It

Last week, Congressman Clyburn reached into his deck, discarded the queens, aces and jokers, and played the 'Race Card'. "The fact of the matter is, the president’s problems are in large measure because of the color of his skin," quoth Clyburn. Not the economy, an unwanted war or a politician who acts like a social butterfly while his constituents shovel spam from jars and dine on government cheese. It's the color of his skin.

Scandal Nation

Despite 15 trillion dollars of debt, we still give priority to sex scandals over economic scandals. Which may explain why we are so deep underwater. Imagine if a politician who grabbed a 100 million dollar pork project for his friends had to spend a week explaining it. That would almost certainly never happen. Not to a Democrat or even a Republican. Spending isn't salacious. But maybe it should be. The biggest political scandals are unrelated to a politician's function. Sometimes sex and money do collide. As is the case with John Edwards. But mostly it's a chance to play out an old narrative. The sleazy pol, the hypocritical media and the spouse standing by his side.

Sink To the Bottom With Me

What do you think about Global Warming? It doesn't matter what you think. Not if you live in New York, Berlin, Yokohama or Karachi that is. On behalf of his C40 group, Mayor Bloomberg explained to the BBC, "Your job is not to ask the public where they want to go and get behind them. Your job is to tell the public". But the BBC knows that already. They've been telling the public what to think for a long time now. And they don't need lessons on that from some parvenu yank billionaire. Don't teach your grandmother to suck eggs and don't presume to teach the BBC how to disdainfully ignore public opinion for the public's own good.

Behind the Weinergate

The real story of Weinergate is the tale of conservative bloggers who kept the story alive until enough Democrats decided that they could use it to take an upstart down. The reason that CNN and so many other major media outlets decided to push the story, instead of continuing to dismiss it, is not because conservative bloggers made them do it, but because of the ambition of some Democrats.

Socialism’s Army of Occupation

The most pervasive myth of the welfare state is the altruism of the public sector. In this mythology, the private sector is run by a bunch of greedy businessmen who get rich by making money off people's misery. While the public sector is run by altruists who want nothing except to help those left behind by the private sector. Capitalists meet the Anti-Capitalists. But actually it's the public sector that does a much better job of making money off people's misery. Some parts of the private sector do deliberately seek out ways to feed off poverty and keep their victims poor, most notably in the lending and financial services industry, but for the most part the private sector makes money off willing customers.

The Great Error of Israeli Normalization

Israel has celebrated its 63rd independence day, but it is a hollow celebration in a country that is less independent than it has been in decades. Rather than working within regional and global realities, its leaders instead fanatically pursue normalization and stabilization. But normalcy and stability are illusions in the Middle East, as the past few months have reminded us.

Immemorial

Nearly 1.3 million Americans have died in the nation's wars. That is one soldier for every hundred families living today. One soldier for every 270 of us has died somewhere between the shot heard round the world' fired at Lexington and the shots being fired now as you read this on some dusty patch of rock in Kandahar. We all bear the terrible burden of their sacrifice. And the greater burden to make that sacrifice meaningful.

Will Islam Destroy Itself?

In his address to congress, Netanyahu said that militant Islam threatens Islam. As if there were any such thing as a non-militant form of Islam. An ideology that was militantly expansionistic from birth. And yet that expansionism does threaten it. It's not mere militancy that threatens Islam, but its own lack of proportion. Had the Nazis satisfied themselves with a round of domestic purges and only a little territorial expansionism, today they might still be running a bankrupt decaying state.

A Day at the Races

If the Republican presidential field were any more unstable, it would be radioactive. At this point just about anyone can jump in and briefly poll on top of the heap, before slowly sinking down to the bottom again, like a banana in a bowl of stale jello. Party players pin their hopes on candidates that aren't running. Pilgrims in thousand dollar suits court state governors. Activists assemble petitions. But none of that is the solution. It's not so much that the man is missing, but the message.

An Enemy We Dare Not Name

LESS THAN JUST WORDS Netanyahu's visit managed to overshadow even Obama's visit to the UK. Israeli leaders have come to Washington before, but rarely has it been such big news. The visit itself was significant, mainly because Netanyahu kicked back against the narrative. His speech compromised on too many areas, but it was a show of independence against a leader who has no credibility on Israel. It was what so many conservatives and Jews wanted to hear. How much any of it matters is another question. Netanyahu's warm reception makes applying pressure more difficult, but far from impossible. And Obama is certainly not throwing in the towel.