WP: Dallas gunman studied ‘shoot and move’ tactics, black nationalism

Posted on July 10, 2016 by Luke Ford

Does nationalism cause people to kill? No more than religion or other common political ideologies such as socialism.

All nationalisms contain the capacity for genocide. All nationalisms contain a victimhood and all forms of victimhood contain a nationalism.

Different groups are competing for scarce resources. While individuals may get along, in many times and places, blacks and whites are fundamentally enemies because their interests are so different.

In many times and places, Jews and gentiles are fundamentally enemies, just as Muslims and non-Muslims are often enemies.

Washington Post: DALLAS — The lone gunman and Army veteran who killed five Dallas law enforcement officers Thursday night in an apparent rage over the deaths of black people at the hands of white police had been increasingly exploring black nationalism, said acquaintances here, even as he compiled a thick journal of combat-style techniques that authorities recovered from his home.

Babu Omowale, a co-founder of the city’s People’s New Black Panther Party, said Micah Xavier Johnson had attended several meetings of the black nationalist group but had never been to the group’s armed gatherings. “We had no idea what the brother’s mentality was,” said Omowale.

“He was just someone searching for knowledge about himself, like most young people searching for how they can change this world for the best,” said Akwete Tyehimba, who met Johnson in May, when he went into her shop, Pan-African Connection — a Dallas bookshop and African-arts store where like-minded activists gather.

“We had just a very brief conversation, but he was a nice young man, like most of the other young people who were there,” Tyehimba said, and one who carried himself with strength and confidence. “He fit right in.”

…On his Facebook page, Johnson posted an image of a fist with the text “Black Power.” He also expressed interest on his Facebook page in the People’s New Black Panther Party, which the Southern Poverty Law Center describes as a “virulently racist and anti-Semitic organization.”

…Johnson served one tour of duty in Afghanistan between November 2013 and July 2014. While he was there, a female soldier in his unit accused Johnson of sexual harassment. She said Johnson required “mental health” help and sought a protective order against him, according to Bradford Glendening, a military lawyer who represented Johnson….

Some of Johnson’s high school friends and people who knew him from the military took to Facebook in the aftermath of the shooting to express shock and grief — and also loyalty.

“Micah was my very close friend. I refuse to remember him as anything less,” a former high school classmate, Stanlee Washington, wrote on his own Facebook page.

Hunt responded to that post, saying he would go to Johnson’s funeral: “He’s still our friend.”

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Debate brews over proposed Southwest L.A. skyscraper

Posted on July 10, 2016 by Luke Ford

The underlying issue here is race. Non-blacks are moving into this black neighborhood and would flood in if more blacks could be pushed out and black crime reduced.

Gentrification means white people are moving in (often led by gays). As property values go up, blacks are pushed out because they can’t keep up financially.

The skyscraper would be located next to the Expo Line, which more people would use if there weren’t so many low lives on it.

Los Angeles Times: Signs of gentrification have been popping up in Los Angeles neighborhoods south of the Santa Monica Freeway for several years now.

But what developers want to do at the intersection of La Cienega and Jefferson boulevards would be dramatic even by the standards of the development boom hitting the city.

There, next to an Expo Line station, they want to build a 30-story tower complex that would include upscale apartments, some with floor-to-ceiling views of the Pacific Ocean, Hollywood and downtown L.A., along amenities residents have yearned for: a supermarket, sit-down restaurants and open green space.

Some residents relish the idea of a glittering tower rising from an area of Southwest L.A. that until recently was marked by warehouses, radio transmission towers and strip shopping malls – a sign that their neighborhood has finally arrived.

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LAT: As Japan’s population shrinks, bears and boars roam where schools and shrines once thrived

Posted on July 10, 2016 by Luke Ford

The news media love to push immigration on Japan, a proud country that wants to retain its heritage.

Japan is in better shape because of its decreasing population.

I wish America had this Japanese problem. We have way too many people in this country, way too many with low IQs.

The article claims there is no Japanese consensus about immigration but there is — the Japanese don’t want non-Japanese immigration.

Comment: “The pressure is on for Japan to destroy itself. But notice the Yen is strengthening after Brexit? The Yen is a safe currency. I wonder why it is, what with all those bears and boars.

Japan will clone Sumo wrestlers before they take any Indonesians or Pakistanis as citizens. They will ask their elderly to commit sepuku so as not to be a burden. They will do what it takes. And everyone knows it.”

Los Angeles Times:

All across Japan, aging villages such as Hara-izumi have been quietly hollowing out for years, even as urban areas have continued to grow modestly. But like a creaky wooden roller coaster that slows at the top of the climb before plunging into a terrifying, steep descent, Japan’s population crested around 2010 with 128 million people and has since lost about 900,000 residents, last year’s census confirmed.

Now, the country has begun a white-knuckle ride in which it will shed about one-third of its population — 40 million people — by 2060, experts predict. In 30 years, 39% of Japan’s population will be 65 or older…

Though demographers have long anticipated the transformation Japan is now facing, the country only now seems to be sobering up to the epic metamorphosis at hand.

Police and firefighters are grappling with the safety hazards of a growing number of vacant buildings. Transportation authorities are discussing which roads and bus lines are worth maintaining and cutting those they can no longer justify. Aging small-business owners and farmers are having trouble finding successors to take over their enterprises. Each year, the nation is shuttering 500 schools…

Ippei Torii, president of a nonprofit group called Solidarity Network with Migrants Japan, said leaders including Abe have clung to the idea of Japan as a mono-ethnic state, ignoring the presence of minority groups such as the Ainu in the north or the Ryukyu in Okinawa, not to mention Koreans.

Politicians, he added, have propagated the myth that foreigners commit crimes at a higher rate than Japanese and have suggested that more immigrants could make the country vulnerable to terrorism. Labor unions have also put up a fight.

“Look at nurses, they believe their income will be cut if we let in Filipinos and Indonesians,” said Katsuyuki Yakushiji, a sociologist at Toyo University in Tokyo. “They also say that these people can’t speak Japanese well and that could be risky. Yet, at the same time, they complain about severe overwork and say we need to add nurses.”

…“There’s still no consensus in Japanese society about immigration,” said Tang Yin, a Chinese scholar at the Fukuoka Asian Urban Research Center. “But it’s easier for people to accept people who are educated here.”

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Paul Nehlen at Paul Ryan’s Mansion: ‘Tear Down Your Wall’ If You Won’t Build One for the Country

Posted on July 10, 2016 by Luke Ford

From Breitbart: JANESVILLE, WI— Wisconsin businessman Paul Nehlen held a press conference on Saturday in front of Paul Ryan’s border wall surrounding his Janesville mansion. Nehlen demanded that Ryan either build a wall to protect the American people or tear down his own wall that protects Ryan and his family.

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Rabbis Asking Tough Questions: Were Adam and Eve Black transgender refugees?

Posted on July 10, 2016 by Luke Ford

Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz writes: When God finally crafted the Human on the sixth day, the assumption for most students of the Bible is that Man was created first, and from him, Woman was created. This reading is widely accepted and has been taught for centuries, ignoring the other biblical version that they were created simultaneously and interconnected. While it is certainly true that a plain reading of these early biblical passages suggests that the dyad of man and woman was one of the most pertinent intentions of Creation, a closer textual analysis presents another more radical view: the view that identities of gender, sex, race, and ethnicity are not determined by nature but are largely developed as social constructs to make sense of the world. It would be blasphemous for one to apply one’s chosen construction of what is “normal” or “natural” to marginalize another. Doing so would be nothing short of challenging the full Divine potential of the first human who subsequently encapsulates all future human natures. Denying that any unique permutation was fully created in the image of God is akin to denying God…

How all this biblical material relates to contemporary events is of the utmost importance. I fear that today, with the lingering effects of racism, xenophobia, and the stigmatization of gay and trans people, humanity is still needlessly looking for reasons to divide itself. While I may not understand or approve the underlying reasons why each person chooses their particular lifestyle, as a Modern Orthodox pluralistic rabbi guided by the Torah, I feel it is my obligation to seek out those who are most vulnerable and advocate on their behalf. It is not enough to tolerate differences, but to cherish and nurture individuals so that they have the fortitude to go out into the world to live an actualized life. The raison d’être of the Torah is to enhance human dignity and freedom and never, God forbid, to diminish it.

Diversity is not something to push back against in the name of human uniformity. Rather, one of the vital acts we can do is reach out to someone struggling with their identity and give them the space to flourish. Too often, societies have pushed away those who grapple with their inner selves, even cutting them off from the broader world. Our post-modern globalized systems of interaction necessitate that the connection between humans is now weaker than ever. We can bring much kindness and justice back into the world, if we embrace the opportunity, indeed imperative, to support those who are suffering from marginalization and shaming. Indeed, it stems from our ancient mandate of giving aid to the stranger, giving succor to the weak, and being kind to all. And in doing so, we embrace the notion that all of us were contained in God’s first human creation. This makes each of us all equal yet –paradoxically — completely unique.

COMMENTS:

* I suppose that we can’t have opinions about what is normal or natural without automatically marginalizing someone or denying their imageness of God. This denies the capacity for humans to have common sense. Sounds like the writer is the one who is marginalizing and diminishing human potential. Not sure what he mean by Divine potential. The serpent tempted Eve with the possibility of having Divine potential. Is he talking about the same thing?

* Just when you thought there could not be any sillier ideas to be presented to the world, somebody posits an even sillier one. If this article had appeared on Purim I would have assumed the obvious, that it was satire. Alas, I fear that the author is actually serious and somehow impressed with his own cleverness. So on the sixth day, G-d created Adam and Steve in Gan Eden?

* If we are going to talk stupid, why not say that Adam was a transgender lesbian and Eve was a shy but gay man who decided to become a woman. They mastered artifical insemination and walla: a snake was born.

Embarrassed Adam and Eve re-wrote the book of Genesis to become a popular science fiction drama and never realized that it would take off.

Never realizing that they needed a copyright, they lost their shirts in trying to sue those people who took it from them without giving them a royalty and had to cover themselves with fig leaves.

Maybe someday we will see rabbis with brain transplants and then we can get better and more weird ideas for the future generations.

* Most if not almost all of Orthodoxy does not view his ordination as Orthodox nor his worldview/theology as anything resembling Orthodoxy. Taking a far left social justice agenda and trying to use the Torah to legitimize it doesn’t make it a Torah agenda. Orthodoxy is beautiful majestic and true, I hope Shmuly embraces that one day.

* This is just a fancy but abominable and purely political contrivance that tries to reverse engineer a definition of Hashem’s perfect wholeness.

And for what ? This darkness just generates pain, foments division, forestalls healing, and prevents progress toward people understanding the Torah’s relevance to humanity and His desire for the revelation of truth to the world through Israel.

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