Freedom of silence

The state media in the Soviet Union - and all media was state there - hardly needed political censorship after decades of the Soviet rule. The writers exercised self-monitoring very well. The most they allowed themselves was mild allegoric satire that was benignly looked upon by the powers that be as a safety valve for the teacup frondeurs. That helped the writers' popularity and created an illusion of freedom, while keeping boundaries intact. Considering that the writers' livelihood, and sometimes life itself, depended on their craft, one can hardly blame them for self-censorship - perhaps for the choice of profession.

It seems that the US media is getting the proper conditioning as well. On some issues, to remain silent is the only right. The case in point is Juan Williams, a senior National Public Radio (NPR) reporter and Fox News contributor, who has been fired from NPR. He violated the current taboo established by the government, which is a source of NPR funding. He said that seeing people in Muslim garb on a plane makes him nervous. He honestly admitted suffering from a psychological/psychiatric phenomenon, an increased anxiety. That anxiety is conditioned, as is well-known, on a very traumatic event and other similar events associated with the same system of beliefs people in Muslim garb are very likely to share - not on some "Islamophobic" prejudice. He should have kept silent. Such anxiety, and honesty in admitting it, are "inconsistent with [NPR's] editorial standards and practices". Since he could not do much about his anxiety, it is honesty that should have been kept in check, if he wanted to continue serving the organ of governmental propaganda.

One might juxtapose this firing with the recent firing of Helen Thomas by Hearst. There are significant differences, however. Helen Thomas said that Jews should should "go home" from Israel to Germany and Poland, the countries where they were exterminated. She thus unashamedly shares views of Hamas and Hizballah, not necessarily a kosher thing for a senior correspondent with White House accreditation. She was fired because of her antisemitism and support for terrorists' ideology. UPI and Hearst Newspapers, for which Thomas worked, are also not funded by the government. Juan Williams said that he was nervous on the plane seeing people looking like they were into Islam - a characteristic they share with Hamas, Hizballah and Al Qaida. It would be unreasonable not to be nervous about that after 9/11.

Juan Williams has long been an object of disdain and hate by the left for his participation in Fox News, however pro-left his position has been there. The left, taking after its spiritual ancestry, hates everybody who collaborates with what it views as "class enemy". Besides, he had chutzpah to criticize Michelle Obama (who felt OK about the US the first time when her husband was made a presidential candidate). Welcome, Juan, to Miranda rights - Soviet style.

Europe's revolutionaries & Hamas

As reported in Jerusalem Post on October 18, Proinsias De Rossa, an Irish member of European Parliament, said that Hamas should be officially recognized by the European Union. De Rossa is not your average politician, of the kind that seek offices in the forthcoming midterm elections in the US. He is also a former  President of the Workers' Party of Ireland. The Party originates from the Official IRA, whose activities included bank robberies. The latter, while probably profitable, still did not cover funding needs, and in 1986 De Rossa, who was at the time "Chairperson Executive Political Committee" of the Party before its split, signed a letter to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union requesting such funds for "special activities". Those activities, in quotes in the letter itself, were of such variety that it was "not possible to detail ... because of reasons we are sure [Secretary of the CPSU] will understand." The letter appealed to the Soviet comrades with touching sincerity: "The 'special activities' are unable to always be effective and so on occasion the party has to seek loans... We are confident of achieving in time all that we have set ourselves to do, but what we urgently need now is an injection of capital to enable us to devote our time to the tasks in hand and to relieve us of the daily burden of financial constraints". De Rossa and his comrades knew they could rely on the generosity of the CPSU (more precisely, KGB), because they knew "well the tremendous sacrifices made by and the support the Soviet Union rendered to liberation movements and Revolutionary Parties struggling all over the world". As reported in The Independent, the KGB and the CPSU did approve the one million of Irish pounds requested, albeit it took quite awhile, three years, when perestroika was already in full bloom. According to the article, since then De Rossa "has taken a consistently anti-IRA position, organising 'peace trains' between Dublin and Belfast to protest at the bombing of the trains by the IRA". Nevertheless, the "special activities" that have become bad for the revolutionary Irishman (after all, it's hard to be a politician and still support bombing trains in your backyard), may still be viewed as good for "liberation movements... all over the world".

One of those movements is surely Hamas. It is indeed only fitting for Europe to recognize Hamas, as proposed by De Rossa. While for him Hamas are fellow revolutionaries, supported by KGB and its current successors, Europe has for a long time had the same aspirations as Hamas and has only recently been actively engaged in the same business as Hamas. Moreover, Hamas can so far only dream of Europe's success in murdering Jews. De Rossa ridiculously claimed that "Hamas has said it is willing to recognize Israel; we have to ask why this is not reported in the media very often." The answer is simple: there has been nothing to report, unless one is willing to lie like De Rossa - not that recognition by and negotiations with terrorists could be reasonably desired by any state. Of course, Hamas has never changed its foundational Covenant that not only rules out  recognition of and negotiations with Israel, but follows Muhammad's call for the genocide of the Jews, quoting the famous hadith about the Muslims' need to kill the Jews for the Judgment Day to come.

Europe faces perhaps the worst thing in its history - an ideology openly declaring world domination as its goal, whose followers prefer death to life and thus are deaf to anything rational, taking over Europe's cities already - and all it sees is the hated Jews it did not manage to finish off.