Progressive | Defining the Narrative

Turkish Connection II

26 04 2010

Based outside Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania, Fethullah Gulen has established numerous institutes and forums around the United States. The Fethullah Gulen Community (FGC) is very active in Turkey and the United States as well as many other countries. He is listed by the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre as number 13 of 500 of the world’s most influential Muslims. If you do a Google search on him, you get well over a million results.

Gulen is the driving force behind Turkey’s “Justice and Development Party (AKP) which is transforming society and politics in Turkey at this very minute. Both current Prime Minister of Turkey Recep Tyyip Erdogen and President Abdullah Gul, a former Welfare Party member, are AKP members of which Erdogen is the chairman. The AKP succeeded the Islamic Welfare Party (RP) which was broken up and banned by the government in 1998 for violating the constitution’s secularism principles. That’s when Fethullah fled to the US. He seems to have more power than ever now that AKP has become the elected majority party in Parliament in 2007.

The Turkish military has always been used as the tempering factor in preserving the secularization of the government. In February of 2010, forty nine officers were arrested on allegation of plotting a coup against the government. These included top brass, both retired and active duty generals and admirals, and other high level commanders. They were accused of planning to bomb historic mosques in Istanbul and shoot down its own planes in order to justify the coup, as laid out in a 5,000 page memo produced by their accusers.

When Soner Cagaptay, author and Director of the Turkish Research Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, asked a former U.S. ambassador to Turkey for his views on this news, the ambassador thought the scenario was ridiculous. (See Cagaptays article at Foreign Policy magazine) It has become unpopular if not dangerous to verbalize opposition to the AKP or Fethullah Gulen in Turkey.

A BBC News website article about this “Ergenekon” conspiracy quotes Turkish news investigator Irfan Bozan for NTV News channel out of Istanbul as saying, “I think the government moved now to dirty these people’s names and reputations. It’s a warning that they’re under watch.” Bozan believes this is an attack on those who are anti-government.

Back in the United States, Gulen seems to be as available to high level American political and civic leaders as they are to him. The Gulen Institute, Institute of Interfaith Dialog, Turquoise Center, and more locally the Raindrop Turkish Houses, along with others either directly or indirectly affiliated with Gulen have, as their apparent mission, to seek out leadership positions and officials at all levels of government and shape bonds of friendship and trust by providing a myriad of social functions from breakfasts to award dinners, to summit meeting with dignitaries and civil servants alike. One of the frequent provisions to these folks is the all expense paid trip to Turkey for the official and family members for a vacation of a lifetime. Some elected Kansas legislators recently returned from one such junket.

On the world stage, the Institute has hosted many high profile names such as James Baker, Kofi Annan, Madeline Albright, and received praise from Bill and Hillary Clinton, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and others.

FGC built and runs hundreds of schools and seven universities around the world. Just one phalanx of what is known as “education jihad”, these schools mainly focus on secondary and college level students, imposing and inciting discipline and good social order, (that’s all good, but…) all the while extolling the virtues of the Islamic religion. This is a calculated effort and will indeed have huge effects on American culture and society in a generation or two. There are currently 130 such schools inside the United States.

As one peruses the websites of the many FGC organizations, a few familiar phrases begin to surface. (Much like the new media these days seem to capture and repeat the same phrase or word such as “gravitas” over and over again.) I have heard these same phrases begin to emerge in just the last two or three years.

For example, “Social justice” is a phrase that began to get a lot of ‘speak’ leading up to and during the last Presidential election cycle and has been used by progressives since Woodrow Wilson. It is an ideology which has infiltrated American institutions from the schoolhouse to the church to the media. “Social justice” is one of the core values of Fethullah Gulen’s “Turkish Movement”. Stands to reason as this is one of the key principles of Islam. In case you’ve been living in the trunk of a Hemlock tree, “social justice” translates as “income and/or property redistribution”. How about that for a revelation? Now you know why Muslim’s vote Democrat.

Another phrase that is used continuously is “Interfaith Dialogue”. This one began to get air during the Bush administration post 9-1-1. In 2002 the Institute of Interfaith Dialog was established by Turkish Americans to “eliminate or reduce false stereotypes, prejudices and unjustified fears through direct human communication. Toward these goals the Institute organizes academic and grass roots activities such as conferences, panels, symposia, interfaith family dinners and cultural exchange trips. Many participants of the Institute’s activities are inspired by the discourse and pioneering dialogue initiatives of the Turkish Muslim scholar, writer and educator Fethullah Gulen. Headquartered in Houston, Texas, the Institute has branch offices in five states and representatives throughout the South-Central United States.” (direct quote from IID website)

I have realized that this phrase “interfaith dialog” almost always translates, “Christians and Jews must accept the fact that Islam is the superior faith”.

More to come…

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Tags: American, American History, dhimmi, government, Islam, jihad, journalism, liberal. Wilson, Meshech and Tubal, muslim, Pluralism, Progressive, revival, Secularism, Turkey
Categories : General, Historical Islam, Islam, Israel, Turkish, Turks, Turkey

Euramerika: Part 1; Statesman, Stupid, or Suicidal?

5 03 2010

This article first published Dec. 8,2009 under title of:

Statesmen, Stupid, or “Suicidal”

Revised March 1, 2010 and included as first in a series of articles entitled “Euramerika”.

I heard a radio talk show host a few months ago talking about the Liberals “End Game”. The question was, “What is their end game”? I thought about that for a while and I will share a few of those thoughts in this article…

The first nature of a politician is to compromise. Sometimes it is necessary in order to get legislation passed; perhaps as a politician you don’t get everything you wanted in a bill, but after wrangling and lots of discussion you decide that you can support the amendments of the opposition in order to pass a bill that contains the basics that you were in favor of for the benefit of your constituents. Consensus always comes by compromise. This is inherently how politics works, like it or not.

The second nature of a politician is self preservation. One cannot compromise too much without risking the support of the constituency in the next election. Very few individuals in the political realm will act without considering these consequences.

Then, on occasion in history, we have seen in a politician real statesmanship. That is, a wisdom and understanding of when compromise is acceptable in achieving a goal for “the greater good”, and when compromise is detrimental to society. When the dust settles, (perhaps years later) the statesman is vindicated and even though his constituency as well as many colleagues may have opposed him at the onset, he’s hailed a hero. This type of politician, a true statesman, only comes along once every other generation or so. These would be men such as the American Founders. Winston Churchill also comes to mind along with Abraham Lincoln, Calvin Coolidge and Margaret Thatcher. (I suppose I should say ‘Statesperson’ to be PC, but that’s another article.) I would even go so far as to throw Ronald Reagan in that classification, just as a recent example, though some of my readers may not agree. (Too bad, it’s my article and I have no pretense of being an “objective journalist”!)

My conundrum is, across the current political landscape, identifying the goal of the players; “The end game”? What is the ultimate objective? My opinion…

I believe we are at a point in history in America that has been long awaited by some for perhaps as long as 100 years. The “Progressive Movement” that was so much of who Woodrow Wilson was, has come to the point of balance that is very near tipping. Once that balance shifts, there will be no return to America as we have known it. Perhaps it already has.

What possesses a politician to oppose his constituents on a matter? Statesmanship? Yes, at times that has been the case. But have we suddenly morphed scores of new statesmen from formerly career politicians? I shall withhold my full reaction to that question at this juncture. Suffice to say, Not!

So if not ‘statesmanship’, then what, ‘stupidity’? Perhaps…“Stupid is as stupid does” you know. But I find it hard to believe there are that many stupid people who could get elected.

So if not statesmanship or stupidity, then what? Suicide? Now there’s a real possibility. Just think of them as “suicide voters”. The empire of Japan brought us the “Kamikaze”, the suicide pilot. Islam has brought us the “suicide bomber”. Now the Progressive movement has brought to America the “suicide politician”!

Does anyone really believe that if this Congress continues to act against their constituents’ loud opposition to the “Bailouts”, “Stimulus”, “ObamaCare”, and “Cap and Trade” that they can stand for re-election this year? Seriously, it is as if the mission of the legislation has become the objective and the people nothing more than a means to fulfill the objective. Not by consent of course, but as the piggy bank. (I believe it was Mrs. Thatcher who said, “The trouble with socialism is eventually you run out of other peoples’ money.”)

But that doesn’t work either. It goes against the second nature of preservation for a politician to sacrifice everything for nothing. However, there may be a few who could be persuaded by their leadership that their “run is done” anyway, and others may be “persuaded” to get on the bandwagon or suffer the (scandalous) consequences. (Reminiscent of the Gestapo of the 3rd Reich)

Then there is the true believer, the martyr, the “Jihadi warrior” who truly supports the objective. They are the leadership and faithful believers who march lock step toward the objective, no matter the price, some even believing that the rewards will be “Paradise” or at least a political payback or immunity. (Sorry boys, no 72 black-eyed virgins; only Nancy Pelosi!)

The objective?

Consider “Dissolution”. In order to “fundamentally change” anything you must change the fundamentals. That is, completely dissolve what you want to replace and begin again. It is a tactic that has been used by Revolutionaries for centuries.

Columnist Mark Steyn began his November 23 column “Happy Warrior” in National Review magazine by quoting the famous German poet and playwright, Bertolt Brecht, who after the East German uprising in 1953 wrote this: “Would it not be easier for the government to dissolve the people and elect another?”

Dissolve the people…yeah, that could work…like through pluralism, secularism, revisionist history, open borders, affirmative action, Darwinism, reparations, and class warfare! The rules as well as the objective, the “end game”, were established a hundred years ago! A brief study of Woodrow Wilson reveals a philosophy akin to Karl Marx. Wilson with no help from the US Congress, was key in forming the League of Nations, later to become the UN. We all know what a smashing success that utopian idea has become.

During the 2008 Presidential campaign, Candidate Barak Obama did say he wanted to “fundamentally change America”. I concede that we do have some problems, but the fundamentals are not among them. In fact, the problems we have are due to leaving the fundamentals behind and pursuing something that doesn’t exist, making it up as we go.

Obama also referred to himself, as have others such as Senator Clinton, as “Progressive” after the model of Woodrow Wilson and FDR. He then declared, “Our time has come!” Who’s time has come? “Ours” as in America’s, or “Ours” as in Progressives. Or was he speaking to someone else?

Brecht was of course, a Marxist. We call them “Progressives” today in Euramerika.