Ape Man

In 1856, the Xhosa had a serious problem. They had been defeated in many wars and had lost a lot of their ancestral lands. They faced the complete extinction of their culture and way of life at the hands of European colonists. So how did they deal with this serious and seemingly insurmountable problem?

They listened to a man named Mhlakaza who claimed that his niece was prophetess. According to the pair (I put most of blame on Mhlakaza), if the Xhosa killed all their cattle and destroyed all of their food then God would cause an army of Russians to rise out of the sea and destroy the British. The Xhosa people faithfully followed “God’s” commands.

The resulting famine destroyed the Xhosa as an independent culture. The entire people were reduced to servitude to the very British that were supposed to be driven into the sea by the ghostly Russian armies.

You could argue that this would have happened in any case. After all, the whole reason the Xhosa were so receptive to those prophecies in the first place was because their backs were to the wall. But you can hardly argue that Mhlakaza helped the Xhosa by peddling his delusions.

We like to think that we are above all that kind of stuff now. We would like to think that we are more rational. But I don’t see much difference between the solution that Mhlakaza offered the Xhosa and the solutions that are being offered for global warming.

We are told by many that should be in a position to know that global warming is a very serious problem that threatens us all. We are told that our backs are to the wall and we have no time to waste. Yet the solution they are pushing for is nothing but a change in the terms of trade between rich countries and developing nations. Needless to say, changing the terms of trade will do nothing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
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Remember when I wrote up a post on our local Muslim militia?

Well, read this from the Organized Crime in California Annual Report to the California Legislature 2005…..

Jamaat ul-Fuqra (JUF) is an international terrorist organization based in Pakistan. According to the U.S. Department of State’s (DOS) 1998 Patterns in Global Terrorism, “Jamaat ul-Fuqra was established in the United States during the early 1980’s in Brooklyn, New York, by Pakistani Suffi cleric Sheik Sayed Mubarik Ali Gilani, for the purpose of purifying Islam through violence.” The JUF has been linked to approximately 13 compounds located in 10 states across the country. Individuals from these compounds have been convicted of fraud, murder, bombings, and weapons violations. One of the compounds was located in the Central Valley, but is now closed. The compound was, at one time, advertised as a site for a chapter of an international Islamic school and a charitable organization that were both founded by Gilani. Furthermore, neighbors close to the compound reported hearing what sounded to be automatic weapons fire and explosions coming from the commune. Law enforcement authorities suspect that the compound may have been owned and occupied by individuals connected to JUF, in part, because the terrorist organization, Islamic university, and charitable organization are believed to be linked due to their crossover membership and all the groups operate under Gilani’s authority.

What does this have to do with the media?

Go read this Gates of Vienna post….

The long and the short of it is that a local news editor in Charlotte County, Virginia area is unwilling to print this type of information about a Jamaat ul-Fuqra compound near him. His original stated justification is that all the information about this group is made up by right-wing groups. He says that if any official federal government source had this type of information he would print it. When confronted with actual federal government sources, he came up with a number of different excuses that you can read about at Gates of Vienna.

Now, I don’t agree with a lot of what is said on the Gates of Vienna. For one thing, I don’t think that Jamaat ul-Fuqra is that big of a threat to this country. But I am willing to argue that position based on the facts that are easily accessible to every one with an internet connection. What Averett Jones (the editor in question) is doing is trying to cover up the facts.

We can only imagine his reasons, but I think these types of tactics are going to hurt Moslems living in America. If the mainstream media does not start covering the facts that are available to every American about Jamaat ul-Fuqra, they won’t have much credibility. And if they don’t have much credibility how can they expect to counteract those “right-wing” groups that use slander to whip up hate?

As I have said before, I live about an hour’s drive from one of these compounds. I know people who live near them. You are not going convince the people who live near these compounds that Jamaat ul-Fuqra is peaceful organization. After all, they hear the gunfire that goes on and they see how members act in person. So how about dealing with the facts?

I always find the current fuss over Iran and North Korea rather amusing. To a person of my limited education, it seems that if you could magically make Iran and North Korea go away you would only marginally increase the safety of the world.

And no, I am not a liberal. I don’t think that America is the big cause of insecurity in the world. In fact, not withstanding all its mistakes, I think that the world will have cause to regret it if/when American no longer has power to knock heads together in this world.

But I think that there are forces that will throw this world into turmoil that are beyond the power of the US to contain. Fires that will spring up that will make North Korea and Iran seem like child’s play. Here is a short list of things that worry me more than Iran and North Korea….

The implosion of Russia.

Russian demographics are awful. It is thought that Russia may lose up to one third of its population in the next 40-odd years. That number may seem alarmist, but it may very well be too optimistic. Russia is not doing very good job at handling AIDS. If that problem explodes into an epidemic all bets are off.

Compounding this problem is the fact that Russia’s government is dysfunctional. Its army beats up its own soldiers. All of its officials are corrupt. And it has a growing xenophobic movement.

These problems have all been obscured by high commodity prices and the relative competence of Putin. But both of these factors are not likely to last long. Russian gas is already unable to keep up with demand as this blog post points out...

The Industry and Energy Ministry estimates Russia’s gas shortage this year (given international commitments) at 4.2 billion cu m. By 2010 it could reach 27.7 billion cu m and by 2015 – 46.6 billion cu m. Meanwhile, Russia has the world’s second largest coal reserves and produces almost 300 million metric tons annually, with a possibility to boost production to 400 million metric tons by 2010 (it produced 426 million metric tons annually in the late 1980s).

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