Political trompe-l'oeil

The paintings creating illusion of 3D reality on a 2D surface are fascinating. While looking online for ways to fix our living-room fireplace whose beautiful century-old face bricks had been mercilessly painted over by previous owners, I found suggestions to paint a trompe-l'oeil fireplace if a room was lacking a real one. This could be a solution particularly in an apartment, where a real fireplace is unfeasible or unusable. This also reminded me of the Pinocchio fairy-tale, where the painted boiling pot was so realistic that the hungry wooden boy's nose grew two inches longer out of frustration that he could not take the lid off.

In the Soviet version of Pinocchio, The Little Golden Key, whereby the story was transformed into a class struggle of oppressed and exploited puppets against their evil owner, behind the trompe-l'oeil painting there is a door that is opened by a golden key, and behind that door there is a wonderful puppet theater, miniature and mechanical, but as realistic as life. There is nothing at all, let alone reality, behind Obama's politics. 

Or behind himself, to start with. I am not even talking about his nonexistent credentials for being the choice to lead the most powerful and wealthy nation on earth. I am talking about his gaining and losing dimensions at will, as a painter can do to depictions of reality. The millionaire Obama, born from a native well-off Kenyan by a white mother and raised by a well-off Indonesian step-father and white grandparents under affirmative action and no influence of racism, is a trompe-l'oeil of poor black Americans who descended from slaves and only in the 1960's gained civil rights. In contrast, his millions of dollars, made with no responsibility for any business, disappear from the mental view of the masses. Of course, Romney's millions, to which he contributed his talents and efforts as a businessman, are an unforgivable vice. 

Romney's religion was the atheist progressives' favorite topic during elections: he was a "Bishop", possessed "magic pants", was a hereditary polygamist, and, in the most uncool fashion, used no intoxicants. It did not matter that Obama belonged to a fascist church, and had Farrakhan's friend and America-hater as his spiritual advisor, his daughters' godfather, as dear to him as his own grandmother. Because the Christianity of Mormonism is suspect in the religious Republican base, Obama's kind of Christianity could not be raised as an issue in the Romney campaign. Being the first president who had admitted to drug abuse to the point of being a junkie deducted no points either from Obama in the evolving surreality of America. 

The magic of illusion does not stop at home. Here is a recent example of how Obama and Arab fascists mutually benefit from each other, painting the trompe-l'oeil of peace-making. Muslim Brotherhood, by its Hamas arm, conducts terror war against Israel.  After years of bombardment by thousands of rockets causing mass posttraumatic stress disorder in children and adults, let alone fatalities, Israel finally intends to put a stop on this. A ground invasion and decisive elimination of the terror cadre and infrastructure - much more feasible than it was in the abortive 2006 Lebanon war - could solve the problem for a long time. To be sure, the calm would not last forever, considering that Islam doctrinally hates the Jews, the Land of Israel for the Muslims is Islamic waqf that can never be relinquished, and every true Muslim is duty bound to wage jihad against Israel as the Jew and an aggressor on the Muslim land. The removal of the terror organization would give Israel a respite and a chance to resume a semblance of normal life. Obama knows that but is not interested in the welfare of Israelis (and, for that matter, Gazans). He will paint himself a peacemaker by using what he knows will work with Egypt - a threat of withholding the $2 bln help to the fascist regime. Responding positively to that threat is a multiple win for Morsi: the money, the recognition by the US as a legitimate government, no loss of face because the result is presented as victory (everything short of radical defeat is a victory for terrorist Muslims), the showing-off of the ability to control the situation and manipulate the terror force. 

After I wrote this, Morsi showed the world another "win" of his: immediately after "arranging" the cease-fire between Hamas and Israel at the behest of Obama, he issued a set of decrees conferring dictatorial powers on him - the price of Obama's "peace". It is a win-win for Obama as well: he will dispense the tax-payers money to make a false vision of supporting Israel, but will not allow the weapons to be used for Israel's defense even though the case for that is clear; it will be the Jews' fault that the US has to spend more  money, which will feed into his antisemitic agenda; he will (already has) co-opt the Republican threat of depriving Egypt of the money while losing no political standing by that.  Although the rocket rain on Israel has stopped, the only loser in this game is Israel: it is a matter of time that the terror starts again, as it is Hamas's main goal, identical to its means. The intensity of the Hamas rocket bombardment of Israel justified invading Gaza with the potential of Hamas's liquidation or at least substantial damage. Now, if, or rather when, the bombardment restarts, there will be no such justification. Israel's threats are now empty: no benefit except from the temporary cessation of rockets is apparent - whatever empty promises they got from Hillary. No point in mentioning any Hamas's promises.

More peacemaker illusion by our Commander-in-Cheat: Obama's informing the Taliban enemy of the departure schedule renders unnecessary the losses the enemy would suffer through the continuous fighting. The low intensity of the war also protects Obama from the responsibility for active military actions - those could be dropped in full onto the successor. Alternatively, the enemy takeover that will render all US sacrifices senseless is postponed and would also be somebody else's, not Obama's, fault. 

The Benghazi story started as a very convincing trompe-l'oeil of the administration's victory over terrorism: it was all spontaneous and vaguely righteous if wrong reaction to a bad YouTube video blaspheming Islam that Obama had sworn to protect as one of his duties as a US President. Albeit slightly shaken, the illusion still works, because the discussion now is whether that was an intentional illusion or just some miscommunication between the diplomacy and the intelligence - not about the fact that Muslim terrorists successfully attacked a sovereign American territory and killed Americans - again - and again on 9/11.

There is no depth behind the painting drawn by Obama's junta to entice its willing followers - just the tireless populist slogans, largely translating into coveting neighbor's wealth, now that religion is a sign of backwardness just like it was in the leader of all progressive forces in the world, the Soviet Union. There is no reality behind the pitifully petty arguments the progressive intelligentsia puppets repeat after their political puppeteers, using at will the agitprop tools of Bolshevism. 

"Progressive" as a term originates from among those tools, the Soviet propaganda machinery, designating fellow travelers and - the same thing - enemies of capitalism, colonialism and Zionism (e.g., "всё прогрессивное человечество", "all progressive humanity"). In other words, allies of communism who have just not had a chance to enjoy political victory. Progressivism, like any totalitarian ideology, does not tolerate alternatives. It is thus eliminationist. The opponent is not to argue with, but to annihilate. The thought apparatus for such annihilation is there, and only a slight historical turn is needed - to incite and justify pogroms and "defend" order by abolishing the hard-gained American freedoms (does the arrest of the anti-Muhammad "movie"-maker tell you anything about the 1st Amendment?). By the time that happens, the masses will be only grateful for that to the dear fuhrer, scared by another "spontaneous" riot to death. This will finally puncture the canvas of the illusionist painting. No golden key will be needed to open the abyss hidden behind it. A bad dream? So thought the incredulous Russian intelligentsia in 1917 and later, relieved of its possessions for the sake of "fair share", of its freedoms for the sake of the triumph of communism, and of its freedom and lives for the sake of state security and order.

The pretty sounds of Islam

Defending Islam is a job that is dark but far from lonely. While the whole world observes if not feels the effects of Islam daily - in the continuous warfare Islam wages against it, - apologists of Islam are legion. Moreover, the intended audience for Islamic propaganda is generally quite willing to accept it, happily providing it with high pulpits of the leading newspapers and magazines, and amplifying that propaganda with its own progressive and "tolerant" scholarly commentary. This is understandable - after all, if the world refused to deal with terror-producing Muslim countries, it would have to also refuse another product of theirs, without which it simply cannot survive. Oil, you know. Then there is so-called religious tolerance , which is a definitive sign of civilization and progress. Because Islam is known as a religion, it is immune from the just criticism and accusations that could target its very existence. Thus Muslim propaganda dutifully continues to be fed to the "well-informed" Western audience, which then builds its political sympathies on this information platform. Meanwhile, politicians that are drawn from the same progressive and educated audience know that it's best for them to be in tune with their constituency, and increasingly are on the side of Islam. We now have a US president who, having received Muslim education during his formative childhood years, refers to the call to Muslim prayer as "one of the prettiest sounds on earth at sunset”. Perhaps it is worth remembering that this sound contains the same words as heard by Danny Pearl and others who shared his fate, before they were beheaded by other lovers of that sound, - "Allahu Akbar!" and the statement of acceptance of Muhammad as the Apostle of Allah. Barack Obama recites those words perfectly and knows their meaning well. It does not matter to what political orientation the willing or inadvertent propagandists of Islam belong - whether it's George "the Religion of Peace" W. Bush or the naive leftist Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times - as long as the job is done, by omission or commission. 

The printed word from the sources accepted as serious and progressive, such as The New York Times, is perceived by the "educated" public like Pravda was by faithful Communists in the Soviet Union - unquestioningly, immediately becoming part of the foundational axiom. Our omniscient intelligentsia like to think of themselves as independent but follow the media's call like Pied Piper's - pick yourself the appropriate group of his listeners. Both their ignorance about Islam and disinformation are used by the Muslim propagandists. In this disinformation, the apologists of Islam employ deceptive cliches that, thanks to the progressive media, never get tired. Recently I wrote about one that was used by the Muslim congressman, Keith Ellison. To counter Bill Maher's characterization of the Koran as a "hate-filled book" (forward the video to 2:26), Ellison quoted a wonderful passage from that book, "anyone who takes the life, it's as if he killed the whole world" (Koran 5:32). What he failed to say, of course, was that the Koran gives that passage only as a quote from what the Jews were "decreed", nowhere indicating that this decree pertains to the Muslims. The Koran mentions this decree only to accuse the Jews of violating it, among their other transgressions ("And our messengers had certainly come to them with clear proofs. Then indeed many of them, [even] after that, throughout the land, were transgressors"), to justify the Koranic hate toward the Jews, unambiguous and lethal. It is remarkable that hardly any other Koranic quote is usually given to illustrate Islam's pacifism - so hard is it to find expressions of tolerance in the "religion of peace". One possible and oft-repeated exception is "There is no compulsion in religion", which is quoted without mentioning, of course, that it was abrogated by verses like "Fight and kill the disbelievers wherever you find them, take them captive, harass them, lie in wait and ambush them using every stratagem of war" (Koran 9:5). The journalists Steve Centanni and Olaf Wiig, kidnapped and forced to convert under pain of death, can testify to the veracity of "no compulsion".

No wonder that the same Jewish decree, lifted by Muhammad from somebody familiar with the Talmud, was cited by the 9/11 mosque imam Feisal Abdul Rauf in his recent article, in which he tries to bring the reader to understanding that Islam is just another Abrahamic religion. That decree, having nothing to do with Islam and negated by the whole history of Muslim conquest, is the only support he could muster to his "fact ... that true adherence to Islam at its essence is as peaceful as true adherence to Christianity". These propagandist lies were published by another beacon of the Western capitalist freedom - The Wall Street Journal, which could not stay behind the progress. Now that we know what "true" adherence to Islam is, we only need to enlighten the miriad of Muslim clerics of the highest authority who swear by violent jihad as the primary virtue of a Muslim. Rauf has as much right to call Islam "Abrahamic" as a thief who stole an heirloom to claim his membership in the family he robbed. Muhammad used the Biblical names he learned from Jews and Christians who had lived in Arabia before he mass-murdered and expelled them. Pathetically plagiarizing the Scriptures while accusing the Jews and Christians in intentionally perverting Allah's word (Koran 5:13-15, 41), he distorted the meaning of and relations between those names, conflating Mary the mother of Jesus with Miriam the wife of Moses, and Haman with pharaoh. In contrast to the Pentateuch, the Koran never names Abraham's son in the sacrifice story, which results in the Muslims' belief that it was Ishmael, the progenitor of the Arabs, not Isaac, the ancestor of the Jews. Islam's founder and "perfect man" whose example is to be followed, Muhammad could do no wrong - whether he "married" a 6 year-old girl (Sahih Bukhari 7:62:64), murdered his critics, ordered genocide of the Jews, or reneged on treaties at a concocted pretext. 

As for Islam being a religion, it is telling how imam Rauf describes himself in the article's footnote as "the founder of Cordoba Initiative, an independent, multifaith and multinational project that works to improve Muslim-West relations." Usually, in expressions like that "Muslim-West", a certain symmetry is implied: "Jewish-Christian", "capitalist-communist", "East-West". The "West", to be sure, is not a religion - but so is "Muslim", a totalitarian political ideology counter to the "West" democracy, with the goal of making Muslim both the West and the East, conquering Rome of the West as it did Rome of the East, Constantinople, reconquering Cordoba and Andalus, killing and subjugating the disbelievers - truly a "multinational" project. "True adherence to Islam", Rauf says, "would end terrorist attacks" - and he is right. Of course it would, as that true adherence, from the Muslim standpoint, is when the entire world adheres, and terrorism is needed no longer. When everybody hears the call to Muslim prayer as pretty, and the sounds of other faiths are heard no more, as they are in Saudi Arabia, the land of Allah's Apostle. 

Peace pardnership

As we find out for the umpteenth time, our "peace pardners" the philistines are really not. They are ready to wage war against Israel once Arab countries get to that. A friend commented that this is another example of taqiyya on the part of Abbas, a lie Muslims are supposed to be free to use when dealing against the kuffar, unbelievers. I think, however, that people have to be intentionally blind to buy this kind of taqiyya, or have concerns that override Israel's (and ultimately, this civilization's) security. Muslims have to be either exceptionally stupid to think it's believable, or simply realistic, knowing that however stupid and improbable their lie is, it is good enough to be either believed by the "international community", or used by the latter as another pretext to punish Jews for what they have never done - from killing Jesus to contemporary blood libels. No need to try hard.

If we, you and I, can get enough information from open public sources to detect damn lies of our "peace partners", shouldn't those having access to intelligence know a bit more? What additional proof is needed that whatever verbal concessions are given by them in English, they translate into their opposite in Arabic or, at best, are abrogated at the first opportunity - just as this is prescribed by Muhammad? Allah himself used to abrogate Koranic suras once they would become inconvenient to the ingenious "prophet" - remember the "Satanic verses", not the Rushdie book, but the actual Koran 53:19-20? Arafat openly called the Oslo accords Hudaybiyyah peace, referring to the 10-year truce that Muhammad signed with the Meccans when he was too weak to fight them, only to violate it in two years when he was ready to attack them. Why the hell wasn't Arafat and his gang immediately kicked out at least after that? The consequences of Oslo had been obvious to so many before Israel reimported sworn enemies and bandits. ZOA, for instance, of which I am a member, was against it, as it was against the abhorrent self-imposed ethnic cleansing of Gaza. Nobody among the decision-makers listened. Nobody does. I am afraid, nobody will. We are governed by people lacking not only morality, but also knowledge and the intellect to use it.

As I write this, I am listening to a Fox News report (courtesy of the ever-smiling Reena Ninan) of the "discrimination" against "Palestinians" buying real estate in Jerusalem. Of course, the "fair and balanced" reporter asks only a complaining Arab - of course, Abu Abdullah, looking so noble, decent and peaceful - how he suffers, with no possibility of finding out what the criminal Zionists think about that. I am not holding my breath for Fox News, bought by the memorable prince al-Waleed (who also helps families of suicidal murderers a little), to decry the discrimination against Jews buying land - not just in any of the 22 Arab states, but from a "Palestinian", who would be executed by the "peace pardners" if he decided to sell any. After all, the Jews got their land as stolen by the Europeans from the "Palestinian" natives, a payment for that dubious Holocaust. Just ask Barack Hussein. We know to whom he thinks Jerusalem belongs.