The Propagandist has been blazing a trail for thinking conservatives and brass-knuckles socialists. Our online magazine of political punditry from around the world has attracted plenty of friends -- but also, saboteurs and fifth columnists sometimes masquerading as allies.
I refer here to copyright violators who scrape our website so they can paste our articles into their own websites.
I know. This isn't as exciting as going after nefarious dictators and ruthless terrorists, but it's kind of getting out of hand.
Now, don't get all huffy. I'm not referring to legitimate fans and friends who share our content the right way. You're cool. We love you. So chill.
Linking to us through Twitter and Facebook? Awesome. Linking to us in a blog where you've used a short excerpt of about two paragraphs or so of a long article, where you've got a new introduction and title for your own original content? Give yourself a pat on the back. That's how the professionals do it. You rock our world.
Copyright violators suck
Grabbing an entire article and pasting it into your own website ain't cool. It doesn't just devalue the original content we're putting out; it...More >>
The next time someone tells you that the theocratic fascist regime of Iran is a rational state actor, keep in mind that their "rational" outlook is guided by the same assumptions as dead jihadist terrorist Mohamed Merah:
After initially agreeing to surrender, Merah declared he would resist and that it would be either them or him. “If it's me, who cares? I'll go to paradise,” Molins quoted Merah as saying. (Associated Press)
IRAN. "Kill Infidels and we go to paradise. Die in the process of trying to kill Infidels and we still go to paradise."More >>
It sure seems that way. French police have the home of a man in Toulouse surrounded. The 24-year old man named for Islam's prophet claims to be working for Al Qaeda. So much for the neo-Nazi theory.
This man's motive for killing children, a rabbi and French soldiers? "Revenge for Palestinian children."
Oh.
Right. That.
Because that...
Makes...
Complete sense.
Another hate-filled, genocidal soldier for Allah, just doing what comes naturally; killing Infidels. Killing Jews. Because his warlord prophet Mohammed and his brimstone-spewing spiteful god showed him the true path to paradise.
Welcome to France in the 21st century.
Jonathon Narvey is the Editor of The PropagandistMore >>
UPDATE. It's a busy day for religious apologists insisting that religion, and indeed, the perpetrators, are blemish-free and that we ought to really be blaming "the wider moral crisis" of "society". After all, the Catholic church has earned the benefit of the doubt -- who has ever heard of Catholic priests abusing children?
Telegraph columnist Tim Stanley horrifyingly suggests that the young, abused victim in this case may have actually asked to be castrated -- as if that would somehow absolve the adults of the atrocity of mutilating his genitals in a bizarre...More >>
A self-proclaimed Al Qaeda operative in France named Mohammed Merah seems responsible for the recent targeted killings of elite soldiers and French Jews. In dramatic live coverage, we see he has been shooting at the cops coming to get into his flat. Given the intelligence investigators have already gotten from this man, I don't know that most of us will need a trial to judge him guilty of these awful crimes, even if technically he is merely a "suspect".
No doubt, there will be those who will call this a frame-up, no matter how much evidence is brought to bear. Some will focus on the neo-Nazis originally fingered for these crimes (and ultimately cleared by police). The more vile conspiracy theorists will suggest that the real culprits are the governing party, or the far right party, or cunning vampiric Jews hoping to cause chaos in the French republic and somehow generate sympathy for the supposed cause of wiping out Palestinians. The gutter is deep, my friends.
Speaking on the democratic aspirations of ordinary Afghans, Canada's positive role in that country to date, disquieting moves from the Obama administration in Washington, and the impending domination of the region by China, Terry Glavin outlines a grim potential future.More >>
It is downright creepy for London's mayoral candidate Ken Livingstone - already associated with Islamist fundamentalists - to tell his audience, "I want to spend the next four years making sure that every non-Muslim in London knows and understands [Mohammed's] words and message." He was speaking at the North London Central Mosque, also called the Finsbury Park Mosque, controlled previously by terrorist recruiter Abu Hamza.
Try to imagine how much his words would have been condemned if he had instead been speaking to members of a church and told them his mission as mayor would be to spread the word of Jesus Christ. Or imagine how foolish he would appear to be for educating Londoners in the pantheon of the Greek gods or the cult of the flying spaghetti monster.
Secular societies have nothing to learn about things like freedom, tolerance and the rule of law, or for that matter, the proper mix of commercial and residential zoning permits, from religious texts. In fact, the Koran in particular is an eggregious example of a theological text that guides its followers in the opposite of what we so rightly esteem as humanist and democratic...More >>
The video is from 2010, but I don't doubt that scenes like this still take place at American airports, where people with minimal education working almost for minimum wage are in charge of protecting the nation's travelers. A little power is a dangerous thing.More >>
The rape of children is one type of behavior that one would hope would be universally condemned in all cultures. Yet in most "Islamic" countries, and in particular, the Islamic Republic of Iran, this atrocity is so common that one can guess that pedophilia and the serial sexual abuse of minors is not merely tolerated, but celebrated.
Farshid Yazdani, a member of the Association for the Defense of Children’s Rights, has raised the flag on the increasing rate of the marriage of girls under the age of 10 in Iran. He stated that in 2009, 449 girls under the age of 10 were married off. The number increased to 716 cases in 2011.
Yazdani added that the number of marriages for girls under 15 years of age has increased from 33,383 in 2006 to 35,931 in 2007, 37,996 in 2008, and 43,459 last year...
A phenomenon of this scale cannot merely be blamed on the weird machinations of a theocratic regime. There is clearly substantial, perhaps majority-view "buy-in" among Iranians for serial child rape.
Let's see... Buying into conspiracies of the Illuminati. Misunderstanding the most basic elements of the Catholic religion despite attending a Catholic school (bizarrely, in a hijab -- just try the same kind of trick in a Muslim private school and feel the tolerance). Believing that the 9/11 attacks were the only example of terrorism by Islamists before or since -- except that it was fake, so that doesn't count, either. Believing the Koran is the literal word of God.
Here's a good bit. In talking up the importance of researching religions, particuarly Islam (presumably, so we can submit to the true flying spaghetti monster), she says: "Go learn something! Go see! Like, you only live once. Do you want to be living in the wrong religion, so you're following the wrong religion? No! Go see who real God is! For you guys it might be Jesus, it might be, um, Baba... whatever the Hindu people believe -- the elephant head..."
Thanks for providing an example of rigorous study in comparative religion for us to follow. You've really done you're homework.
But if you don't mind, I prefer to research things that are not totally...More >>
