PART 1 OF 3
Some of this is a little off topic, but it ties in somewhat with Panzerknacker’s post. I will have to break it up into 3 parts.
From Snopes.com
Muslim Demonstration
Claim: Photographs show placard-bearing Muslim protesters in London.
Status: True.
Examples: [Collected via e-mail, 2006]
http://www.snopes.com/photos/politics/muslimprotest.asp
Origins: The series of photographs displayed above were taken during a 3 February 2006 protest staged in London by Muslims angry over the publication in Scandinavian periodicals of cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad.
From an email I received in early April 2007:
Global Intelligence Briefing For CEO’s
by Herbert Meyer
Currently, there are four major transformations that are shaping political, economic and world events.
These transformations have profound implications for American business owners, our culture and our way of life.
1. The War in Iraq
There are three major monotheistic religions in the world:
Christianity, Judaism and Islam. In the 16th century, Judaism and Christianity
reconciled with the modern world. The rabbis, priests and scholars found a way to
settle up and pave the way forward. Religion remained at the center of
life, church and state became separate. Rule of law, idea of economic
liberty, individual rights, human rights all these are defining points
of modern Western civilization. These concepts started with the Greeks but
didn’t take off until the 15th and 16th century when Judaism and
Christianity found a way to reconcile with the modern world. When that
happened, it unleashed the scientific revolution and the greatest
outpouring of art, literature and music the world has ever known.
Islam, which developed in the 7th century, counts millions of Muslims
around the world who are normal people. However, there is a radical
streak within Islam. When the radicals are in charge, Islam attacks Western
civilization. Islam first attacked Western civilization in the 7th century, and later
in the 16th and 17th centuries. By 1683, the Muslims (Turks
from the Ottoman Empire) were literally at the gates of Vienna. It was in
Vienna that the climatic battle between Islam and Western civilization took
place.
The West won and went forward. Islam lost and went backward.
Interestingly, the date of that battle was September 11. Since then, Islam has not
found a way to reconcile with the modern world.
Today, terrorism is the third attack on Western civilization by radical
Islam. To deal with terrorism, the U.S. is doing two things.
First, units of our armed forces are in 30 countries around the world hunting down
terrorist groups and dealing with them. This gets very little publicity.
Second we are taking military action in Afghanistan and Iraq. These are
covered relentlessly by the media. People can argue about whether the
war in Iraq is right or wrong. However, the underlying strategy behind the
war is to use our military to remove the radicals from power and give the
moderates a chance. Our hope is that, over time, the moderates will
find a way to bring Islam forward into the 21st century. That’s what our
involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan is all about.
The lesson of 9/11 is that we live in a world where a small number of
people can kill a large number of people very quickly. They can use
airplanes, bombs, anthrax, chemical weapons or dirty bombs. Even with a
first-rate intelligence service (which the U.S. does not have), you
can’t stop every attack. That means our tolerance “for political
horseplay” has dropped to zero. No longer will we play games with terrorists or
weapons of mass destruction.
Most of the instability and horseplay is coming from the Middle East.
That’s why we have thought that if we could knock out the radicals
and give the moderates a chance to hold power, they might find a way to
reconcile Islam with the modern world. So when looking at Afghanistan or Iraq,
it’s important to look for any signs that they are modernizing. For example,
women being brought into the workforce and colleges in Afghanistan is
good. The Iraqis stumbling toward a constitution is good. People can argue
about what the U.S. is doing and how we’re doing it, but anything that
suggests Islam is finding its way forward is good.
2. The Emergence of China
In the last 20 years, China has moved 250 million people from the farms
and villages into the cities. Their plan is to move another 300 million
in the next 20 years. When you put that many people into the cities, you
have to find work for them. That’s why China is addicted to manufacturing;
they have to put all the relocated people to work. When we decide to
manufacture something in the U.S., it’s based on market needs and the opportunity
to make a profit. In China, they make the decision because they want the
jobs, which is a very different calculation.
While China is addicted to manufacturing, Americans are addicted to low
prices. As a result, a unique kind of economic codependency has
developed between the two countries. If we ever stop buying from China, they will
explode politically. If China stops selling to us, our economy will
take a huge hit because prices will jump. We are subsidizing their economic
development, they are subsidizing our economic growth.
Because of their huge growth in manufacturing, China is hungry for raw
materials, which drives prices up worldwide. China is also thirsty for
oil, which is one reason oil is now at $60 a barrel. By 2020, China will
produce more cars than the U.S. China is also buying its way into the oil
infrastructure around the world. They are doing it in the open market
and paying fair market prices, but millions of barrels of oil that would
have gone to the U.S. are now going to China. China’s quest to assure it
has the oil it needs to fuel its economy is a major factor in world politics
and economics. We have our Navy fleets protecting the sea lines,
specifically the ability to get the tankers through. It won’t be long before the
Chinese have an aircraft carrier sitting in the Persian Gulf as well. The
question is, will their aircraft carrier be pointing in the same direction as
ours or against us?
3. Shifting Demographics of Western Civilization
Most countries in the Western world have stopped breeding. For a
civilization obsessed with sex, this is remarkable. Maintaining a
steady population requires a birth rate of 2.1. In Western Europe, the birth
rate currently stands at 1.5, or 30 percent below replacement. In 30 years
there will be 70 to 80 million fewer Europeans than there are today. The
current birth rate in Germany is 1.3. Italy and Spain are even lower at 1.2. At
that rate, the working age population declines by 30 percent in 20
years, which has a huge impact on the economy.
When you don’t have young workers to replace the older ones, you have
to import them. The European countries are currently importing Muslims.
Today, the Muslims comprise 10 percent of France and Germany, and the
percentage is rising rapidly because they have higher birthrates.
However, the Muslim populations are not being integrated into the cultures of
their host countries, which is a political catastrophe. One reason Germany
and France don’t support the Iraq war is they fear their Muslim
populations will explode on them. By 2020, more than half of all births in the
Netherlands will be non-European.
The huge design flaw in the post-modern secular state is that you need
a traditional religious society birth rate to sustain it. The Europeans
simply don’t wish to have children, so they are dying.
In Japan, the birthrate is 1.3. As a result, Japan will lose up to 60
million people over the next 30 years. Because Japan has a very
different society than Europe, they refuse to import workers. Instead, they are
just shutting down. Japan has already closed 2000 schools, and is closing
them down at the rate of 300 per year. Japan is also aging very rapidly. By
2020, one out of every five Japanese will be at least 70 years old.
Nobody has any idea about how to run an economy with those demographics.
Europe and Japan, which comprise two of the world’s major economic
engines, aren’t merely in recession, they’re shutting down. This
will have a huge impact on the world economy, and it is already beginning to
happen.
Why are the birthrates so low? There is a direct correlation between
abandonment of traditional religious society and a drop in birth rate,
and Christianity in Europe is becoming irrelevant. The second reason is
economic. When the birth rate drops below replacement, the population
ages.
With fewer working people to support more retired people, it puts a
crushing tax burden on the smaller group of working age people. As a result,
young people delay marriage and having a family. Once this trend starts, the
downward spiral only gets worse. These countries have abandoned all the
traditions they formerly held in regards to having families and raising
children.
The U.S. birth rate is 2.0, just below replacement. We have an increase
in population because of immigration. When broken down by ethnicity,
the Anglo birth rate is 1.6 (same as France) while the Hispanic birth rate
is 2.7. In the U.S., the baby boomers are starting to retire in massive
numbers. This will push the “elder dependency” ratio from 19 to 38
over the next 10 to 15 years. This is not as bad as Europe, but still represents
the same kind of trend.
(CONTINUED BELOW)
Ignored by schools: freed prisoners at the Auschwitz concentration camp
