Observations From the Back Row

By Rich Kozlovich

The purpose of “Observations From the Back Row” is to explore issues that are not typically seen in the media. These issues will deal with more than JUST the big headline stuff. It is my intention to feature articles that will aid in seeing farther, deeper and wider. I wish to explore the issues that are seemingly small, but may in reality be very foundational. I have found that this is where you see the trend that leads to end conclusions. This is where the history of any issue is being written. Tell me the history and I will give you the answer.

Everything we are told should bear some resemblance to what we see going on in reality. That has been the foundation logic for my views and conclusions for some time. Expanding on that we must honestly say that everything we are told should have some foundation in past history. Everything that exists, and everything that is an issue, has some historical foundation with an historical context. We have to know that before we can make judgments on anything. Otherwise we are like waves crashing against the rocks; washed back and forth with every new philosophical flavor of the day.

Another one of my favorite sayings is that 'everything really is a conspiracy'. Of course everyone rolls their eyes and snickers when I say that. But I keep wondering if they have ever read a history book, and if they did; did they understand it? Other than natural disasters, things involving people just don't happen in a vacuum. Events don't take place without participants. Are we to assume that these people just walked up to one another one day and decided to do_____(fill in the blank) worldwide without any conversation, discussion, promotion or encouragement? As for these spontaneous eruptions by masses of people; if you look carefully at the history you will find that this spontaneity was fed by events and activists for some time.

Is that being paranoid? Does recognizing that people really can be against you make you paranoid? In my world I am surrounded by those who would destroy my industry and my business. Worse yet, they have “Stockholm Syndrome’ allies within the industry that can hardly be called anything except “Fifth Columnists”. Is it really any different in any other industry? We have regulators, bureaucrats and political leaders that openly state that they intend to eliminate some industries. Coal fired power plants is Obama’s personal choice. Are we to believe that he isn’t surrounded by even more radical anti-industry anti-capitalists? Has anyone recently checked out who his Czars are?

The destructive behavior of the Left is based on the fact that they have no values. They will adopt or reject any policy or philosophy that will put them in power. Here is a historical fact. Dystopia is the final result of socialism. That is a fact. Does that make it paranoia?


OCCUPY WALLSTREET

Will Occupiers Get Their Violent Chicago Riot?
The anti-American activists of the Occupy Wall Street movement announced they plan to violently disrupt the G8/NATO summit in Chicago on May 19. Adbusters, the Noam Chomsky-friendly magazine that spearheaded the Occupy movement, claims the movement will conduct a massive occupation of Chicago “in the tradition of the Chicago 8.” Of course the radicals of the Chicago 8 organized riots at the Democratic Party’s national convention in that city in 1968. Hundreds of police officers were injured. Adbusters vows that this time the rioters won’t give an inch to the police. A massive occupation of Chicago involving “50,000 people from all over the world” will begin on May 1: …..Occupy Wall Street, and the satellite protests it spawned in cities across the U.S. and around the world have been spectacularly violent. Radical activists are responsible for hundreds crimes, including assault, gang rape, arson, rioting, robbery, and a host of others……In anticipation of the May protests Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel, himself a radical Saul Alinsky-inspired thug, has increased fines for resisting a police officer.

Exposing the Alinsky Party“
Of no other occupant of the White House can it be said that he owed his understanding of the political process to a man and a philosophy so outside the American mainstream, or so explicitly dedicated to opposing it.”

“Barack Obama’s Rules for Revolution: The Alinsky Model” by David Horowitz

When Newt won the battle of South Carolina, he also laid out the stakes for the larger conflict beyond the primaries and even beyond the election. It is the battle for the soul of America. In the 2004 election, John Edwards borrowed James P. Cannon’s Two Americas metaphor to showcase his vision of a divided nation.

MEDIA

Reporters Without Credibility
Founded in 1985, Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF), also known as Reporters Without Borders, professes to be motivated by a profound devotion to freedom of expression. The organization has apparently done good work on behalf of journalists in countries like Cuba and China, where press freedom simply doesn’t exist. But RSF also issues an annual Press Freedom Index – the latest was released just the other day – in which it purports to rank countries according to the degree of freedom their journalists enjoy. Let’s just say that the list doesn’t represent RSF at its finest

Liberal Bias Detected in Science Media
Incredible as it sounds, the science news media seem to have a liberal bias. This is astonishing, considering the vast majority of science professors in academia are Democrats. The following examples illustrate this trend that came to light around 1859.

RELIGION

‘God Is an Imaginary Friend’: Atheist Billboard Ignites Controversy in Colorado
Atheists have a way with billboards. In fact, it’s one of the primary methods many non-believers use to communicate with the public at large. This is exactly the method a Denver, Colorado-based group, called Boulder Atheists, is using to spread its message. Reaction to the group’s newest billboard, which targets those who hold a belief in God, has ranged from giggles to anger. Boulder Atheists has erected three billboards that each read, “God is an imaginary friend. Choose reality, it will be better for all of us.” This statement, which will clearly offend the religious, is not intended to start problems, the group says.

New Bible Yanks ‘Father,” Jesus as ‘Son of God’In the world of questionable and sometimes downright silly Bible translations, one would think that it couldn’t get any worse. After all, we’ve seen the “In da beginnin’ Big Daddy created da heaven an’ da earth” Ebonics Bible, as well as the “Apostle’s Log” Star Trek English paraphrase Bible. In a more serious effort, the New Oxford Annotated Bible was created in part by pro-”gay” and feminist scholars in order to set forth a more “gay” revisionist interpretation of Scripture.

But now there is a major controversy developing as the latest altered Bibles are being created by organizations that most would think of as being more conservative and reasonable. At the forefront of the controversy are the Wycliffe Bible Translators, the Summer Institute of Linguistics and Frontiers, all of which are producing Bible translations that remove or modify terms which they have deemed offensive to Muslims.

That’s right: Muslim-friendly Bibles.

True Religious Freedom Means Freedom for All
A recent development in Obamacare’s reach raises an important point about religious liberty. The health care law requires hospitals to provide contraceptives to patients. Churches have protested and have won an exemption to this regulation as it concerns their own health services. This is all well and good: Religious institutions shouldn’t be forced to support practices they find morally objectionable. For related reasons, various tax exemptions on religious institutions are also consistent with the principles of a free society.

My Take - This is one of those articles that everyone should read because it takes a reasonable person out of their comfort zone. Religion has always been a blessing and a thorn in humanities side,.  That is why the founding fathers insisted on making sure that this new country was never going to be caught up in the same quagmire that Europe was in for hundreds of years.  They fought wars within wars; because as they conducted wars against other nations because of faith; they also conducted wars against their own citizenry because of faith. If you take the time to read about the religious wars of Europe you will find that it isn’t a simple case of Catholic against Protestant.

As you read this article please remember that the founding fathers were believers .  And in spite of what you may read my modern critics they believed that Judaic/Christian values and practices were far superior to all other religious beliefs. As a result all of the stuff going on today would have never occurred to them. They just didn’t realize that people would get so weird! They also never believed that a secular authority should have the right to become an atheistic semi-religion entity imposing it’s litany on believers.

Bishop: Obama Administration Is Telling Catholics ‘To Hell With You’
“The Obama administration has just told the Catholics of the United States, ‘To Hell with you!’” the bishop said in a column posted on his diocesan website. “There is no other way to put it.”

Obama Sandbags the Archbishop
In forcing the Catholic Church to violate its own principles, Obama has committed an act of federal aggression, crossing the line between church and state to appease his ACLU and feminist allies, while humiliating the Catholic bishops. At the end of Sunday mass at the church this writer attends in Washington, D.C., the pastor asked the congregation to remain for a few minutes. Then, on the instructions of Cardinal Archbishop Donald Wuerl, the pastor proceeded to read a letter. In the letter, the Church denounced the Obama administration for ordering all Catholic schools, hospitals and social services to provide, in their health insurance coverage for employees, free contraceptives, free sterilizations and free "morning-after" pills.

My Take - This is a “famous statement attributed to pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984) about the inactivity of German intellectuals following the Nazi rise to power and the purging of their chosen targets, group after group. The text of the quotation is usually;

First they came for the communists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak out because I was Protestant.
Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out for me.

Asked About Plight of Syrian Christians, State Dept. Erroneously Blames Regime
Christians are under threat in Syria, but the Obama administration appears unaware of, or unwilling to acknowledge, the source of the danger facing the minority. Asked several times during a press briefing Monday about violence and threats facing Syrian Christians, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland appeared to blame the government – although Christians reportedly are at risk from elements among the anti-regime forces……“Now they are afraid of the future. Will they have to flee their country like Iraqi Christians have done over the last several years?... Of those who said they wanted Assad to stay in power, the most common reason given – by 46 percent of that cohort of respondents – was:……. “We do not want to see Syria become another Iraq.  (I think these are two worthwhile follow-up articles.  RK)  U.S. Military Archbishop: Far Fewer Christians in Iraq Since U.S. 2003  (and )‘We Stand With You,’ Clinton Tells Syrian People Ahead of Security Council Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a message to Syrian protesters --

VOTER FRAUD

Left Demands James O’Keefe’s Head Over Voter Fraud Exposé
The Left is in a horrible huff. Once again James O’Keefe, the conservative film-maker who exposed ACORN, has demonstrated the duplicity of the Left. This time he proved why strict voter ID laws, opposed strongly by the Left, are necessary.  In more than 10 minutes of video footage, which has gone viral on the Internet, O’Keefe demonstrated how easy it was in New Hampshire for an individual to pose as a deceased voter and still receive a ballot to vote in an election.  New Hampshire House Speaker William O’Brien, (R-Mont Vernon) called the video “a shocking exclamation point on the need for immediate reform to New Hampshire’s election laws to ensure that voter fraud does not taint the rights of our citizens to have their votes counted in an honest, responsible way and impact our state.”  New Hampshire Governor John Lynch vetoed legislation passed in 2011 requiring photo ID at the polls. Governor Lynch had stated in his veto message that there was “no voter fraud problem in New Hampshire.”

MIDDLE EAST

How to get Russia on board in Syria? Hint: Think of the sea
Russian foot-dragging is now a key barrier between the Syrian demonstrators and their prospective liberation from Bashar al-Assad’s rule. Even the timid Arab League has called for al-Assad to leave, and Syria’s powerful neighbor, Turkey, has declared that it’s ready for internationally sanctioned action. The question is, can a U.N. Security Council resolution, including Russia’s vote, be secured, paving the way for an end to al-Assad’s rule?

Selfish politicking  (Wow!  Politicking that is selfish...imagine that!  RK)
Over the weekend we witnessed a dangerous intensifying of events in Syria: the freezing of the Arab League observer mission with team leaders citing safety reasons and a high number of casualties, accompanied by the regime’s indiscriminate use of heavy artillery. With over 200 dead since Thursday, we now have a clear idea that the regime of President Bashar Assad is going flat out with its idea of a “security solution,” designed to smash the uprising……But as Russia continues to supply Syria with arms and fuel, mere words have become futile. The Arab states must now collectively approach Russia, warning Syria’s ally that any influence they still retain in the Middle East is in jeopardy. This is the language that countries understand. They are not charities, but pragmatic machines, with markets and interests at stake.

My Take – Two different writers; two different approaches; two different solutions; both wanting the same outcome. Nothing is ever as it seems. However, everything is as history defines it. If we don’t know history we can’t define anything. If we can’t define it, we can’t explain it; if we can’t explain it, it is an illusion! But nothing is ever as it seems. RK

EUROPE

What kind of people have we become?
Churchill would be dismayed by modern Britain’s capitulation to jackboot egalitarians, says Jeff Randall. Between Christmas and New Year, the 70th anniversary of an event, which in no small way helped change the course of history, passed almost unnoticed. On December 26, 1941, less than three weeks after Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor, Winston Churchill addressed both branches of Congress in the United States. The prime minister, who was in Washington to agree military strategy with President Roosevelt, used the invitation from Senators and Representatives to excoriate the Axis powers and pose a simple question: “What kind of people do they think we are?” ……According to a recent government report, some 3,775 former foreign prisoners, who were in line for deportation by the UK Border Agency, have been released from custody and are living here, most thanks to Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, the right to a family and private life. A Nigerian rapist was due to be sent home after losing a series of appeals in British courts over his jailing for an attack on a 13-year-old girl. But Strasbourg’s worthies insisted that they must protect the culprit’s “social ties” with Britain, which had blossomed while he defied expulsion.

Mary Ann Sieghart: The dreamers who gave us the eurozone stand condemned
This was a policy blunder born of arrogance and insouciance at the highest levels. And it can't easily be reversed. An elderly man in France was arrested last week for supplying faulty breast implants to 30,000 women. Yet an elderly man in Germany is still free to enjoy his retirement despite having wrecked the lives of more than 500 million Europeans, with repercussions for billions more around the world. Not only that, but Helmut Kohl has been feted by an American President as "the greatest European leader of the second half of the 20th century". He should instead be found guilty of the greatest policy blunder of the second half of the 20th century. The formation of the euro has more than a little in common with the PIP implants scandal. In both cases, rules were deliberately broken, dreadful consequences were easily foreseen, and a culture of willful blindness and moral negligence prevailed. In both cases, untold human pain has been caused, with little chance of redress for the victims. But at least in the case of PIP, someone is being held responsible. In the case of the euro, not a single politician has suffered for his negligence.

Europeans See Poor Job Market
In most countries, pluralities say it is a bad time to find a job. Few Europeans in 2011 said it was a good time to find a job in the city or area where they live. A median of 12% of residents across the 27 countries Gallup surveyed were positive about the local job outlook, while a median of 80% said it was a bad time. Greeks were the least optimistic, with 2% saying it was a good time to find a job, and Germans were the most optimistic, with 50% saying it was a good time.

Will German Politicians Wreck Europe To Save Their Own Skins?
Readers of Via Meadia know that there’s little love or respect here for the lazy, lying demagogic politicians whose corrupt patronage politics have ruined Greece. Nor do we hold in particularly high esteem the cultural qualities that led the Greeks to support such rotten politicians year after year. Greek politics is in the school of Huey Long who famously told supporters that “If you’re not getting something for nothing, you’re not getting your fair share.” It takes some truly talented screw ups to come up with a worse plan for Greece than the one the Greeks have developed for themselves, but the Germans have risen to occasion in fine form. The latest German plan to “fix” Greece: the country should surrender control over its tax and budget policy to a European commissioner in exchange for the next €130 billion that Greece needs to pay off the rapacious and stupid European banks who, encouraged by fatheaded German banking regulators among others, paid top dollar for its worthless bonds.

Can the Germans stop being German?
For all Angela Merkel’s tough talk, she will eventually be forced to accept the inevitable on the euro crisis. One of Davos’s more amusing characteristics is that it can be used as a quite reliable contrary indicator. I’ve been coming to this annual gathering of the world elite of finance, business and public policy for some years now, and you can set your watch by it. If the mood is buoyant, you know that disaster is just around the corner, and if it is intensely gloomy, that things will soon be picking up. En masse, bankers, economists and business leaders tend to be a very poor form of economic indicator. Sometimes they are so wrong that one wonders how they manage to stay in business.

Conciliating the Armenians
I go to France quite often, but after this article is published, I may be liable to arrest if I set foot in the country. The French parliament has just passed a bill, proposed by President Nicolas Sarkozy's party, that will make it a crime to question whether the Armenian massacres in eastern Turkey in 1915 qualified as a genocide. Sarkozy will doubtless sign it into law next month, just in time for the presidential elections. It won't be just a crime to deny that hundreds of thousands of Armenians, perhaps as many as a million, were killed in eastern Anatolia in 1915, and that it was the responsibility of the Turkish state. That is a historical fact, and only fools, knaves and Turkish ultranationalists deny it. It will also be a crime, punishable by one year in prison and a fine of up to 45,000 even to question the use of the word "genocide."

Mary Dejevsky: Could France show Europe how to move left
Across Europe, a widespread assumption has been that the combination of the cold economic climate, harsh austerity measures, and general disillusionment with politicians boosts the electoral chances of the populist right. The French presidential race, where Marine Le Pen offers a soft-ish version of the far-right option for the National Front, will be one of the first tests of this hypothesis.

My Take - I would love to be able to say “The French; what do you expect?”, except that this is playing out everywhere else also! Socialism is a failure. Socialist policies got the world into the mess it is in. So why are socialists considered for any leadership position? It is all so destructively insane that it seems Satanic. RK

MILITARY

German Angst as U.S. troops bid "Auf Wiedersehen"Walter Brunner, a lively 82-year old whose blue baseball cap matches the color of his eyes, leans across a red leather booth at the American-style diner in this southern German town and tries to make light of the looming pullout of U.S. troops. "We Germans fought for the Russians to go, now we are fighting for the Americans to stay," jokes Brunner, chairman of the German-American contact club in Grafenwoehr, whose lifeblood is its U.S. military base. He watched a young Elvis Presley arrive here for training in 1958 and still goes tenpin bowling with his American friends every Monday night. News that the 172nd infantry brigade, with its 3,500 soldiers and 8,000 family members, is being pulled from Grafenwoehr to return to the United States has hit this town hard.

RACE

Obama's Racial Politics
Many Americans thought that with Obama's presidency, we were moving to a "post-racial society." Nothing could be further from the truth.

A Black Man Can by Mike Adams
There is a bumper sticker I have often seen displaying these four simple words: “A Black Man Can.” The words could be taken in either of two ways. One interpretation is liberal - calling for whites to stop discriminating and give black men a chance. Another interpretation is conservative - suggesting black men can achieve without the help of government programs......

EDUCATION

Universities Abandon Western Civilization
Most students no longer are taught their nation’s triumphs that would equip them to be knowledgeable citizens. Major universities have turned from instruction in the significance of Western Civilization to the “profound” influence of Lady Gaga, (real name: Stephanie Germanotta), the bizarre recording artist whose commercial success has somehow topped charts around the world. In some colleges today even history majors don’t have to delve into our nation’s influences and beginings. The national Association of Scholars, in a new analysis, “The Vanishing West: 1964-2010,” describes the tragic near disappearance of the study of Western Civilization from the American undergraduate curriculum. (My Take – It would be interesting to see what would happen if the federal government stopped funding student loans. If there was less money being thrown at the universities then perhaps professors would really teach and students would really learn. In a world where no one has to compete those in that world will stop excelling. Welcome to higher education!)

WELCOME TO ISLAM

Christmas Under Islam
Earlier I discussed how mosques, some of which breed radicalization and serve as terrorist bases, flourish in America, while churches are increasingly targeted and destroyed in the Muslim world, especially the Middle East, the cradle of Christianity.

The Most Dangerous Place to be an Atheist
Alexander Aan was just another bureaucrat holding down a desk at the Department of Planning until his Facebook Atheism page came to the notice of Indonesian authorities in Obama’s old stomping grounds. Now Aan is facing a five year jail sentence for using social media to spread the message that Allah does not exist. Alexander is being charged with “defiling” Islam by using passages from the Koran to challenge the Islamic religion. And while the State Department and the media routinely go on the attack against any manifestation of what they call “Islamophobia,” it isn’t likely that they will be rushing to Aan’s defense. This isn’t exactly the first time that atheists have run afoul of the Islamic codes under which the Muslim world operates.

Violent Jihadist Video Riles Norway
It was, shall we say, an interesting week in Norway. On Tuesday, January 17, a video was posted on YouTube that called for Norwegian soldiers to be withdrawn from Afghanistan. Over images of Norwegian soldiers and of Norway’s prime minister, foreign minister, and crown prince, a text calling for Allah to “destroy them and let it be painful” was read aloud in Arabic, with subtitles in Norwegian. The video, which concluded with an image of Norway’s flag in flames, urged Muslims to show up for a protest rally on Friday outside the parliament building in Oslo. (My Take - And this is in a country that has bent over backwards to accommodate the Islamists within their midst believing they would eventually become part of Norway's community. To remain in Islam and to become one with the Norwegians is impossible. I wonder if the Norwegian leaders have ever read a history book of European history? RK)

Muslim Hate Groups
Muslim Hate Groups On Campus by Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, exposes the radical origins and violent objectives of the purportedly mainstream Muslim student organizations that have set up shop on our nation’s campuses.

HOMOSEXUALITY

Blurring the Lines Between An Agenda and Human Rights
On December 6, President Barack Obama’s support for the demands of the “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender” agenda rose to the next level when he issued a memorandum directing federal agencies abroad to “improve protections for LGBT asylum seekers and to strengthen opposition to criminalization of LGBT status or conduct.” The key phrase in the directive was Obama’s claim that so doing is but another part of the “United States’ commitment to promoting human rights.” This shift in characterizing the sexual and political demands of those who engage in homosexual behavior as a “human right” is as purposeful as it is dangerous to liberty, marriage, and the family. And if Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s speech last week in Geneva was any indicator, the appeal to “human rights” is the new moniker for silencing and punishing any person, organization, or state that will not support the homosexual agenda.


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