Muddling Toward Maturity Blog

CISGENDER - A MADE UP WORD TO ADVANCE A POLITICAL AGENDA

John Stonestreet speaks of neosexual propaganda:

Words have great power. They shape how we think about ourselves and the world. Even silly, made-up words.

The sociologist Peter Berger once told a story in First Things about his childhood in Mussolini’s Italy and the ideological use of language.

Italian, like Spanish and French, has one way of addressing someone close to you, “tu,” and another for addressing a stranger, “lei,” which is also Italian for “she.”

As Berger told readers, Mussolini thought using “lei” was “effeminate” and “degenerate.” So instead of using “lei,” the Fascists insisted on substituting “voi,’ which is the second person plural – sort of like “you all.”

Linguistically-speaking, this was nonsense. But it had real-world consequences: “From that moment on,” Berger wrote, “every time you said ‘lei’ in Italy you were making an anti-Fascist gesture, consciously or unconsciously . . . And every time you said ‘voi’ you were making the linguistic equivalent of the Fascist salute.”

Berger’s story comes to mind in this latest encounter with a neologism courtesy of the sexual revolution. The new word is “cisgender.” In case you are unfamiliar with this word, it is used to refer to, to quote Wikipedia, “people whose experiences of their own gender agree with the sex they were assigned at birth.”

Now statistically-speaking, that’s virtually everyone. Dare I say, a better word could be “normal.” But note how embedded in the definition itself, gender is chosen and sex is assigned—as if it were not tied to reality at all.

SHOULD A PRESIDENT USE CHILDREN'S LETTERS IN SUPPORT OF A POLICY HE WISHES TO ADOPT?

Charles C.W. Cooke answers sensibly:

. . . It is not beyond the wit of man to recognize that children’s letters could be put to propaganda use in support of almost any policy position you can imagine. How about a letter from a child that said, “Dear Mr. President. New York State has just made my Daddy’s gun illegal. We live in an area with a lot of bad men. I am really scared at night. Please don’t take away Daddy’s gun”? Or: “Dear Mr. President, I find it really gross when men kiss each other. I don’t like seeing it because it is icky. Please make it illegal, Mr. President. Thank you.” Or, perhaps: “I love everyone in the world, Mr. President. Uncle James tells me that in Pakistan little girls of my age are being killed by flying death robots. Uncle James says that you have the power to stop it. Please stop little girls in Pakistan being killed by flying death robots Mr. President!” And so on and so forth.

"JOURNOLIST" - AN OPEN CONSPIRACY OF LIBERALS TO SLANT THE NEWS

Now we know what has been going on behind the scenes to kill journalism in America and convert it into propaganda instead.  Jonah Goldberg brings us up to speed: 

Just in case you’ve been living in a cave, or if you only get your news from MSNBC, here’s the story. A young blogger, Ezra Klein, formerly of the avowedly left-wing American Prospect and now with the avowedly mainstream Washington Post, founded the e-mail listserv JournoList for like-minded liberals to hash out and develop ideas. Some 400 people joined the by-invitation-only group. Most, it seems, were in the media, but many hailed from academia, think tanks, and the world of forthright liberal activism generally. They spoke freely about their political and personal biases, including their hatred of Fox News and Rush Limbaugh. . .

JournoList e-mails obtained by the Daily Caller reveal what anybody with two neurons to rub together already knew: Professional liberals don’t like Republicans and do like Democrats. They can be awfully smug and condescending in their

QUICK TAKES

Ed Morrissey - Amnesty International: Haters of Western Civilization and defenders of Jihad.  Really?  Yes. Right up there with CAIR and Human Rights Watch.

--  Mark Steyn - Shame!  Black Congressmen lie about racial epithets   Breitbart - $100,000 offered for evidence.  No takers

MUST-SEE VIDEO EXPLAINING "POLITICAL CORRECTNESS" AND THE MSNBC "NARRATIVE"

Bill Whittle has produced a 13 minute video (after a 30 second commercial) which genuinely educates.  I'm indebted to Wintery Knight for the link.  He titles his blog post "How the Left Wing Media Suppresses News That Doesn't Fit Their Agenda").

Ever heard of the "Frankfurt School"?  Ever wondered about Feminist theory?  Gender theory?  The (exclusive) focus on slavery in America (and nowhere else?)  Get educated and watch this video!!   It's time we begin to understand the nature and development of the intellectual climate that now dominates the airwaves and universities.  While we're at it, we can learn more about "political correctness" by watching the following videos:

• Part 1 (10:36)
• Part 2 (10:30)
• Part 3 (7:36)

ISLAMIC HATE SPEECH GOES UNREPORTED IN THE WEST

Nonie Darwish collects quote after quote to make her case.  Example:

“The Jews are the Enemies of Muslims regardless of the occupation of Palestine; we will fight,  defeat and annihilate them until not a single Jew remains on the face of the earth.” (January 2009, Egyptian cleric Muhammad Ya’qoub).

On February 1, 2009, prominent sheikh Yousef Al-Qaradhawi, on Al Jazeera TV, called the holocaust "divine punishment" for the Jews and encouraged Muslims to do same by saying: "Allah willing, the next time will be at the hand of the believers [i.e. Muslims]." He then added that he would "shoot Allah's enemies, the Jews." 

She cites many additional quotes and concludes:

. . . Hate propaganda is the rule and not the exception in Muslim preaching. It must go hand in hand with demands for conquering other people, otherwise jihad will end.

Hate rhetoric comes into Muslim homes in America via satellite dishes directly from the horse’s mouth in the Muslim world. Is it any wonder that in recent Muslim demonstrations in Florida, demonstrators were telling Jews to “go back to the ovens”?

We must never underestimate the power of hate propaganda, because, quite simply, it works. Believe it or not, if you grow up hearing ‘holy’ cursing day in and day out, it can feel and sound

Darwin Believers Hide Fears of Intelligent Design Behind a Wall of Denial and Ridicule

Casey Luskins wrote a guest article for U.S. News & World Report:

Most Darwinists involved in the public debate today have one, and only one goal: To stifle free debate on this subject and thereby discourage you, the public, from scrutinizing the scientific evidence for yourself.

Over the years, Darwinists have evolved a variety of strategies to accomplish these goals. We see each of these strategies in play in the op-eds and comments by Darwinists in this present forum on U.S. News and World Report. I'll discuss how my opponents on this forum use the strategies of (1) Ridicule, Demonization, and Character Assassination; (2) Equating Darwin-Skeptics with Religion; (3) Persecute Darwin-Skeptics; and (4) Pretend There Is No Scientific Controversy Over Evolution in order to try to dissuade you, the reader, from thinking for yourself on this subject.

Strategy 1: Ridicule, Demonization, and Character Assassination
Darwinists have adopted a discourse of demonization where they try to attack their opponents as dishonest, deceitful, or even worse—uncool and medieval! We should be suspicious of this tactic because . . .  [more]    (HT- Ed Morrissey at HotAir)

-  Gallup poll: "On Darwin's Birthday, Only 4 in 10 Believe in Evolution"

Phony Statistics Used in Leftist Propaganda Against Iraq War

Ed Morrissey headlines a blog post: "Discredited Lancet study gets even more discredited."  He writes:

The British medical journal Lancet published a study of civilian casualties in 2006 that estimated Iraqi civilian deaths at more than 2% of Iraq’s pre-war population, around 655,000.  Later studies produced numbers of less than a quarter of Lancet’s totals, and the authors of the study were largely discredited.  Now a research association has publicly rebuked Gilbert Burnham for not disclosing his methodology, and Burnham may face action from his employer, Johns Hopkins  [more . . .]

Morrissey's post goes on to say that George Soros was involved:

Last year, the Times of London revealed that George Soros provided almost half of Burnham’s funding for the study.  Soros shoved millions of dollars into his highly vocal opposition to the war and George Bush, funding Democrats and the Democratic Party in their efforts to unseat Republicans over the last three election cycles.

HOW AMERICAN TEXTBOOKS PROSELYTIZE ISLAM

Tony Blankley does it again.  He reveals what we need to know.  He begins his column (HT: HotAir) with this paragraph (emphases are my own):

I recently read a book that deserves the widest possible readership. The book is "The Trouble with Textbooks - Distorting History and Religion" by Gary A. Tobin and Dennis R. Ybarra. I have never met or talked with either of these gentlemen, but I can't say enough good things about this book. For all who believe that there is a fairly objective rendition of history that we are obliged to teach our children, this book reveals how shockingly far from that objective American education-and particularly school textbooks-have fallen.

It gets much worse.  Not his column, but what Blankley discovers about U.S. textbooks. 

In their conclusion, the authors quote the great historian of Islam, Bernard Lewis' observation concerning the willful bending of history: "We live in a time when great efforts have been made, and continue to be made, to falsify the record of the past and to make history a tool of propaganda; when governments, religious movements, political parties, and sectional groups of every kind are busy rewriting history as they wish it to have been, as they would like their followers to believe that it was."

Blankley goes on to say:

The grievance group that has become particularly adept at influencing textbook publishing is the organized Muslim lobby. The founder of the Council on Islamic Education, the chief Islamic group for vetting textbooks in the United States, refers to his work as a "bloodless revolution … inside American junior high and high school classrooms."

He is, regrettably, right. While these days one may expect "sensitive deference" to Muslim sensitivities, the authors show how American textbooks have gone so far as to outright proselytize Islam.

Read on . . .

HOW OBAMA GOT ELECTED

Media malpractice.  Michelle Malkin provides a link to a fascinating (albeit disheartening) website - www.howobamagotelected.com - which features a video of interviews with Obama supporters.  If you wondered about the effect of the media on the general populace, your fears will be confirmed.

Note these statistics: 

512 Obama Voters 11/13/08-11/15/08 MOE +/- 4.4 points

97.1% High School Graduate or higher, 55% College Graduates

Results to 12 simple Multiple Choice Questions

57.4% could NOT correctly say which party controls congress (50/50 shot just by guessing)

81.8% could NOT correctly say Joe Biden quit a previous campaign because of plagiarism (25% chance by guessing)   (Go to page two)

RUSSIA ECONOMY IN CRISIS -- AND THE RUSSIANS ARE THE LAST TO KNOW?

The power of propaganda continues.  (HT: The Corner)

Subjected to more than a century of propaganda masquerading as news, Russians often seem to live in a different reality from the rest of us.