FDR and Mussolini: A Tale of Two Fascists by Srdja Trifkovic Many Americans would be horrified at the thought of discussing Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Benito Mussolini as anything but moral and political antipodes: democrat versus dictator, peacemaker versus aggressive bully, good versus bad. Fifty-five years of bipartisan hagiography have placed FDR in the pantheon of American saints, roughly at number two between Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy, and way ahead of the slaveholding Founding Fathers. It is not surprising that he is a role model to a liberal establishment that also reveres “Dr.” King and John Brown. But the fact that Republicans such as Newt Gingrich also invoke Roosevelt as a role model indicates the extent to which his legacy is unthinkingly accepted across the political spectrum. Genuine conservatives, on the other hand, may argue that FDR and Mussolini were in fact rather similar. They will point out both men’s obsessive focus on strong, centralized government structures, their demagoguery, and especially their attempt to overcome the dynamics of social and economic conflict through the institutions of the corporate state. For all their apparent similarities, however, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a more deleterious figure than Benito Mussolini, and his legacy proved to be more damaging to America than Il Duce’s was to Italy. This is not a case of good versus bad, or of two equal evils, but of bad versus even worse: Roosevelt was a more efficient, and certainly more successful, fascist than Mussolini. Although he seemed to be a prime candidate for Bolshevism, and in fact became a leading socialist agitator and journalist in the years prior to the Great War, there was no hard ideological core to Mussolini—except, ultimately, his nationalism. This core loyalty prompted him to reject the socialists’ internationalism, pacifism, and neutrality at the beginning of the war in 1914 and to join other nationalists in demanding Italy’s entry into the war. About to be expelled from the Socialist Party for belligerence, he defiantly declared: “My cry is a word that I would never have pronounced in normal times, and that today I raise loudly, with my full voice, with no attempt at simulation, with a firm faith, a fearful and fascinating word: WAR! It was all there: the passion, the theater, the martial bravado, the burning heart. His parting shot, before being drafted, was the birth cry of fascism: “Now that steel has met steel, one single cry comes from our hearts: Viva l’Italia!” By early 1918, as a wounded veteran and the influential editor of the anti-socialist Popolo d’Italia, Mussolini exclaimed: “We, the survivors, we who have returned, demand the right of governing Italy!” As a wave of revolutionary aftershocks swept across Europe following the Bolshevik coup in Russia, Mussolini was increasingly seen as a Man of Destiny who could fit his own demand for a dictator “ruthless and energetic enough to make a clean sweep.” A “clean sweep” against what? Against the establishment, the mediocre middle-class, middle-of-the-road liberals and democrats, the political heirs to the Risorgimento, long devoid of moral fiber and convictions, who allowed Italy’s “victory” against Austria to be “mutilated” when Dalmatia went to the newly created Yugoslavia at Versailles. But also against the left, whose instincts and whose frame of mind none understand so intimately, and none can hate so passionately, as its former initiates. In early 1919, Mussolini started turning his rhetoric into political action by creating the nucleus of a party in Milan. It consisted of disillusioned war veterans, republicans, and former socialists and anarchists. Mussolini called his force Fasci di Combattimento, invoking a symbol of ancient Roman togetherness and authority. At rallies, surrounded by fascist supporters wearing the black shirts that had been adopted originally by anarchists, Mussolini caught the Italians’ collective imagination. His physique was impressive, his style of oratory superb, his attitudes highly theatrical. His ideas were contradictory, his facts often wrong, but his words were dramatic and his metaphors so apt and striking that he captivated the crowds. Fascism grew and provided an antidote to the looming threat of Bolshevism, but by its abandonment of traditional codes of behavior in the struggle against socialism it came close to its red opponent, using not only its ideas of social justice and its vocabulary of simplified clichÈs but also its social base. The ecstatic Naples crowd that responded to Mussolini’s threat to march on Rome in 1922 with the chant of “Roma, Roma, Roma” was largely proletarian. The die was cast a week later when fascist militias advanced upon the Eternal City. The biggest gamble of Mussolini’s career paid off when the liberal-democratic government collapsed and King Victor Emmanuel III sent the longed-for telegram. But the ease with which Mussolini took power reflected the weakness of the liberal system rather than his own strength. There was no real “march on Rome”: The city was there for the taking. The rise of Mussolini was welcomed by many Italians not because of the ideological appeal of fascism—still vaguely defined at the time—but because it seemed to offer practical solutions to two specific problems: the “red menace” at home and the “mutilated victory” abroad. From the outset, Italy’s international status was perceived as the criterion by which the fascist experiment would stand or fall. Mussolini freely acknowledged this, but his activist foreign policy reflected a faulty grasp of foreign affairs that went beyond impatience with the old diplomacy. He confused strategy and policy. His emphasis on “action” conflated ends and means in semantic imprecision until the means, the acquisition of strength, became an end in itself. When the rhetoric of the regime became identified with a statement of ends, Italian policy became the prisoner of that rhetoric. This became obvious in 1935 with the stupid and unnecessary Ethiopian adventure, which reflected Mussolini’s vanity and his lack of true statesmanship. Italy’s alliance with Germany was made possible, and in a sense unavoidable, by the Abyssinian war. This affair preoccupied the Western powers and Italy for more than a year, and it helped conceal the nature of the real threat to peace in Europe. Unwittingly, Mussolini did a favor to Hitler by drawing attention away from him. In the end, the split between Italy and her former allies could not be repaired—and Hitler was the beneficiary. The withdrawal of Germany and Italy from the League of Nations marked the final abandonment of the Europe of Versailles. Not only was the style of Italian foreign policy changed, but its substance as well, which was reflected in Mussolini’s (not Hitler’s) coining of the term “Rome-Berlin Axis.” The Spanish civil war infused an ideological element into the picture. By pitting Germany and Italy against the left and against the Western democracies, it created an impression of ideological solidarity. The presumed strategic community of interests between Italy and Germany remained unclarified, and this ambiguity had sweeping consequences in later years. Mussolini was prepared to fight to secure a resurrected Mediterranean Roman Empire and gain access to the oceans; Hitler ultimately strove for nothing short of Weltmacht. Italy’s aims were “rational” and limited, but in their pursuit Mussolini was erratic and inconsistent. He eventually limited his options to the point where he had to make an alliance with the infinitely stronger German dictator, whose goals were unlimited—and therefore irrational—but who displayed great skill and “rationality” in their execution. This was Italy’s calamity and Mussolini’s personal doom. He did not trust Hitler (as his frequent outbursts to his foreign minister and son-in-law Galeazzo Ciano amply testify), but he allowed himself to be bullied and cajoled into obedience time and again. Mussolini’s greatest failure as a statesman and as an Italian was his abandonment of autonomy to Hitler. He entered a war he could never win, and he did so for eminently unfascist reasons, afraid that the spoils would be Germany’s alone. Even if Hitler had been successful, Italy would have existed on Germany’s sufferance, not on its own strength. With his senseless, infantile dream of imperial glory—on which he finally parted company with his hitherto supportive subjects—Mussolini painted himself into a corner. The only exit was into German captivity—in Otto Skorzeny’s plane in the summer of 1943, and into that retreating Wehrmacht column in the spring of 1945, from which he was taken to a communist firing squad and the Milanese meat hook. But for his dreams of imperial expansion, Il Duce, Italy’s man of destiny, could have remained a hero at home and abroad until his death. Until Abyssinia, Mussolini was hailed as a genius and a superman on both sides of the Atlantic, primarily because of his economic and social policies. When FDR was inaugurated in March 1933, the world was praising Mussolini’s success in avoiding the Great Depression. Roosevelt and his “Brain Trust,” the architects of the New Deal, were fascinated by Italy’s fascism—a term which was not perjorative at the time. In America, it was seen as a form of economic nationalism built around consensus planning by the established elites in government, business, and labor. American leaders were not very concerned with the undemocratic character of Mussolini’s regime. Fascism had “effectively stifled hostile elements in restricting the right of free assembly, in abolishing freedom of the press and in having at its command a large military organization,” the U.S. Embassy in Rome reported in 1925. But Mussolini remained a “moderate,” confronting the Bolsheviks while fending off extremists on the right. Ambassador Henry Fletcher saw only a choice between Mussolini and socialism, and the Italian people preferred fascist “peace and prosperity” to the “free speech and loose administration” that risked bringing Bolshevism to power. Secretary of State Frank Kellogg joined Fletcher in labeling all opposition groups as “communists, socialists, and anarchists.” The chief of the State Department’s Western European Division, William Castle, declared in 1926 that “the methods of the Duce are not by any means American methods,” but “methods which would certainly not appeal to this country might easily appeal to a people so differently constituted as are the Italians.” As the political and social effects of the Great Depression hit Europe, Italy received mounting praise as a bastion of order and stability. “The wops are unwopping themselves,” Fortune magazine noted with awe in 1934. State Department roving Ambassador Norman Davis praised the successes of Italy in remarks before the Council on Foreign Relations in 1933, speaking after the Italian ambassador had drawn applause from his distinguished audience for his description of how Italy had put its “own house in order . . . A class war was put down.” Roosevelt’s ambassador to Italy, Breckenridge Long, was also full of enthusiasm for the “new experiment in government” which “works most successfully.” Henry Stimson (secretary of state under Hoover, secretary of war under Roosevelt) recalled that he and Hoover had found Mussolini to be “a sound and useful leader.” Roosevelt shared many of these positive views of “that admirable Italian gentleman,” as he termed Mussolini in 1933. The most radical aspect of the New Deal was the National Industrial Recovery Act, passed in June 1933, which set up the National Recovery Administration. Most industries were forced into cartels. Codes that regulated prices and terms of sale transformed much of the American economy. The industrial and agricultural life of the country was to be organized by government into vast farm and industrial cartels. This was corporatism, the essence of fascism. It may be argued that Roosevelt simply did what seemed politically expedient. But contemporaries knew what was in the making. Some liked it: Charles Beard freely admitted that “FDR accepts the inexorable collectivism of the American economy . . . national planning in industry, business, agriculture and government.” But detractors existed even within his own party. Democratic Sen. Carter Glass of Virginia denounced the NRA as “the utterly dangerous effort of the federal government at Washington to transplant Hitlerism to every corner of this nation.” FDR’s New Deal united communists and fascists. Union leader Sidney Hillman praised Lenin as “one of the few great men that the human race has produced, one of the greatest statesmen of our age and perhaps of all ages.” Big-business partisan Gen. Hugh Johnson wanted America to imitate the “dynamic pragmatism” of Mussolini. Together, Hillman and Johnson developed the National Labor Relations Board. They shared a collectivist and authoritarian aversion for historical American principles of liberty. Like fascist and communist dictators, Roosevelt relied on his own charisma, carefully and deceitfully developed, and the executive power of his office to stroke the electorate into compliance and to bludgeon his critics. His welfare projects went far beyond aid to the poor and wound up bribing whole sectors of American society—farmers, businessmen, banks, intellectuals—into dependence on him and the state he created. Through subsidies, wrote Richard Hofstadter, “a generation of artists and intellectuals became wedded to the New Deal and devoted to Rooseveltian liberalism.” Their corrupted descendants still thrive through federal endowments for the arts and humanities and in politically correct, federally funded academia. The only practical difference between FDR and fascist dictators was that he was far less successful in resolving the economic crisis. He made the Depression worse and even prolonged it. When he was elected, there were 11.6 million unemployed; seven years later, there were still 11.3 million out of work. In 1932, there were 16.6 million on relief; in 1939, there were 19.6 million. Only the war eventually ended the depression. Ah, the war. During the campaign of 1940, FDR repeatedly promised to keep the country out of war and then did everything in his power to push America into the mayhem. In March 1941, he rammed the Lend-Lease Act through Congress, although selling munitions to belligerents and conveying them were acts of war and contrary to international law. During the Atlantic conference, FDR entered into an illegal and unconstitutional agreement with Churchill that America would go to war if Japan attacked British territory in the Far East. He said, “I may never declare war; I may make war. If I were to ask Congress to declare war they might argue about it for three months.” This was an impeachable offense. He allowed undercover British agents to operate freely and illegally within the United States. His unprovoked belligerency toward the Japanese as well as the Germans helped cause the attack on Pearl Harbor—which he may well have been fully aware of in advance—even as he vilified and persecuted the critics of his policies as “Nazis” and “traitors.” World War II nevertheless remains “the holy war of the American establishment,” as Joe Sobran has called it. It legitimized the emergence of the United States as a global superpower, contrary to the Constitution and to the American tradition. Between 1941 and 1945, Washington became the command-and-control center of the ultra-centralized, unitary state that today seeks “benevolent global hegemony.” Just as the New Deal created the bureaucratic Leviathan and destroyed those vestiges of the Old Republic that had survived Lincoln, FDR’s war turned America into a “superpower” obliged to carry the burdens of democracy and human rights forever—first to Seoul and Saigon, then to Bosnia and Kosovo, and on to missions yet unimagined, to new Hitlers and “victims of genocide” still unknown, until it destroys itself. “It seems to me,” wrote H.L. Mencken in his private diary on April 13, 1945, the day after FDR’s death, “to be very likely that Roosevelt will take a high place in American popular history—maybe even alongside Washington and Lincoln . . . He had every quality that morons esteem in their heroes.” FDR built a cult of personality just as Mussolini, Hitler, and Stalin did. Power depends on such a cult. His current sainthood would have appalled many of his contemporaries, even if it would not have surprised them. “He was the first American,” wrote Mencken, “to penetrate to the real depths of vulgar stupidity. He never made the mistake of overestimating the intelligence of the American mob.” For those Americans who love the Old Republic, Franklin Roosevelt—not an irrelevant Mussolini—was and remains the enemy. When Mussolini left the stage 55 years ago, the Italian nation was still its old self. Over two decades of fascism had left Italian society and its key institutions—family, Church, education, arts, culture, local communities—largely intact, or even strengthened. Il Duce was, in the end, all smoke and little fire, too humane to murder people on any large scale or to re-engineer seriously the country which he did love, albeit in a flawed way. FDR left the stage only weeks earlier, but his legacy is alive and well in the destruction of America’s families, faith, tradition, education, arts, culture, and local communities, and in the burgeoning globalist empire embodied in Dr. Albright. FDR’s “vision thing” has become a global bane. It leaves no country unscathed, Italy included, as the rubbish on Italian TV and radio, the newly arrived alien multitudes in bad and even not-so-bad parts of Milan, and the dismally few bambini in its maternity wards attest. This bane will just as surely destroy Italy as it will destroy America unless the supporters of truth, faith, and tradition on both sides of the Atlantic organize and fight to recover their neighborhoods, their schools, and their families for the sake of themselves, their nations, and our common civilization. http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/Chronicles/August2000/0800Trifkovic.htm

Evangelical Left All Shook Up About Affordable Housing

Book Review by Wayne Lusvardi of Making Housing Happen: Faith-Based Affordable Housing Models by Jill Suzanne Shook, editor and co-author. Chalice Press, 2006 $34.99:

Through her new book, Jill Shook, a housing activist in Pasadena, California, has become the de facto spokesperson of the Evangelical Left's new social movement to combat the so-called "affordable housing crisis", mostly focused on the U.S situation. The book jacket contains endorsements by many leaders of the Evangelical Left - Tony Campolo, Ronald J. Sider, and oddly has a preface by Dr. John Perkins, who doesn't fit the label. Given that the November 2006 elections have energized the political Left, Shook, who fashions herself as the next Jane Addams, may very well be used as one of the centerpieces of the Democratic Party's missionary ventures to evangelical Christianity. As such her Biblically-populist book is important but problematic both on empirical and theological grounds.

In Shook's hometown of Pasadena the reality of housing affordability is the reverse of what Shook portrays. One-third of the population by the U.S. Census is low income, mostly migrants from Mexico (God bless them). If there truly was an "affordable housing crisis" for the poor, how could one third of the populace afford housing in such an upscale suburban community? By doubling-up in housing and gobbling up the lowest rung on the housing affordability ladder, migrants have driven up rents and have driven the working class out of affordable housing.

Contra Shook's notion that scattered gentrification drives the poor out of affordable housing, California court decisions such as Serrano vs. Priest (1971) and urban riots partly organized by those on the political Left have made migrants into a protected class in neighborhoods in the first concentric ring surrounding Los Angeles. Moreover, Shook has no comprehension that her advocacy of inclusionary housing, "smart-growth," rent control, and her opposition to gentrification actually will worsen the affordable housing crisis rather than lessen it.

Theologically problematic is Shook's disguising of the neo-Marxist advocacy model of Saul Alinsky and the Industrial Areas Foundation as what she calls the Biblical "Nehemiah Strategy" (Chap.15). The theological underpinning for her cafeteria of affordable housing models is mostly based on the Old Testament concept of "justice," by which she means wealth redistribution by coercive government. Shook and her co-authors fail to tell readers that nearly all of the "faith-based" affordable housing case studies in her book relied on government funding.

Shook is oblivious to Jesus' observation that "man does not live by bread (or housing) alone." As such she doesn't recognize that religiosity (i.e., Max Weber's Protestant Ethic) can be conducive to housing affordability in a capitalist society. Her advocacy of compulsory "inclusionary housing," which diminishes the value of land of small property owners (not real estate developers) without "just" compensation runs against the commandment "thou shall not steal." Even Shook's Biblical preference for homeless immigrants runs against the moral of the scriptural story of King David taking a sheep from a rich man to give to a traveler in II Samuel 12.

A responsible Christian approach to such a complex issue as housing affordability in a modern society should entail the necessity of economic and sociological competency but also an understanding that our best efforts may lead to unintended consequences for which one needs to rely on humility, grace and repentance. How so many affordable housing advocates from such institutions as Fuller, Denver and Gordon-Cornwell Theological Seminaries, Chalice Press, and many para-church organizations could unquestioningly contribute to and endorse this Marxist-based model of housing is indicative of how the Evangelical Left have already successfully infiltrated and co-opted formerly conservative Protestant institutions. Whether Shook's social movement, which will likely be funded by the new Democratic Congress, will run into opposition by The Minutemen and the property rights movements remains an open question.

California housing prices are twice what they are in some other large U.S. cities because of huge Greenie-inspired restrictions on development. Anyone sincerely concerned about housing costs would therefore be devoting major energies to rolling back such restrictions. I do not need to guess that the shaky one will not be exerting any energies in that direction, however - JR

The Ku Klux Klan was the Terrorist Arm of the Democrat Party

By Frances Rice

History shows that the Ku Klux Klan was the terrorist arm of the Democrat Party.  This ugly fact about the Democrat Party is detailed in the book, A Short History of Reconstruction, (Harper & Row Publishers, Inc., 1990) by Dr. Eric Foner, the renown liberal historian who is the DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University.  As a further testament to his impeccable credentials, Professor Foner is only the second person to serve as president of the three major professional organizations: the Organization of American Historians, American Historical Association, and Society of American Historians.
Democrats in the last century did not hide their connections to the Ku Klux Klan.  Georgia-born Democrat Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan wrote on page 21 of the September 1928 edition of the Klan’s “The Kourier Magazine”: “I have never voted for any man who was not a regular Democrat.  My father … never voted for any man who was not a Democrat.  My grandfather was …the head of the Ku Klux Klan in reconstruction days….  My great-grandfather was a life-long Democrat….  My great-great-grandfather was…one of the founders of the Democratic party.”

Dr. Foner in his book explores the history of the origins of Ku Klux Klan and provides a chilling account of the atrocities committed by Democrats against Republicans, black and white.

On page 146 of his book, Professor Foner wrote: “Founded in 1866 as a Tennessee social club, the Ku Klux Klan spread into nearly every Southern state, launching a ‘reign of terror‘ against Republican leaders black and white.”  Page 184 of his book contains the definitive statements:  “In effect, the Klan was a military force serving the interests of the Democratic party, the planter class, and all those who desired the restoration of white supremacy.  It aimed to destroy the Republican party’s infrastructure, undermine the Reconstruction state, reestablish control of the black labor force, and restore racial subordination in every aspect of Southern life.”

Heartbreaking are Professor Foner’s recitations of the horrific acts of terror inflicted by Democrats on black and white Republicans. Recounted on pages 184-185 of his book is one such act of terror:  “Jack Dupree, a victim of a particularly brutal murder in Monroe County, Mississippi - assailants cut his throat and disemboweled him, all within sight of his wife, who had just given birth to twins - was ‘president of a republican club‘ and known as a man who ‘would speak his mind.’”

“White gangs roamed New Orleans, intimidating blacks and breaking up Republican meetings,“ wrote Dr. Foner on page 146 of his book.  On page 186, he wrote:  “An even more extensive ‘reign of terror’ engulfed Jackson, a plantation county in Florida’s panhandle. ‘That is where Santa has his seat,‘ remarked a black clergyman; all told over 150 persons were killed, among them black leaders and Jewish merchant Samuel Fleischman, resented for his Republican views and for dealing fairly with black customers.“

Frances Rice is the Chairman of the National Black Republican Association and may be contacted at:  http://www.nbra.info/

National Black Republican Association

Black comedian Paul Mooney Makes Anti-Semitic Remark about Michael Richards on CNN

Any mention of racial stereotypes is routinely denounced by the Left as "racist", so let us follow that rule here:

On the November 21st morning edition of Newsroom, CNN's Kyra Phillips interviewed Paul Mooney,a popular black comedian and activist, and Roland Martin, a Chicago radio personality, about Michael Richards' ("Kramer's") now notorious racist outburst. During the interview Paul Mooney referenced Kramer's appearance as "Jewish" and was not challenged.

CNN publishes transcripts, but removed this version after two hours and edited the remark out of the original interview when they re-ran it. CNN also removed the link to this original transcript on the official CNN Transcript page. They did not delete the actual page, and it remained available through the Google cache. So all references to this racist remark by a known black activist and comedian who specializes in racial humor were removed. I find it hard to believe that CNN would actually care enough to monkey-around with the transcripts but stranger things have happened. Below is given the relevant segment from the original transcript in case Google also loses it.

PHILLIPS: Roland, your reaction?

MARTIN: Kyra, Paul is correct when he says it was a weak apology. First and foremost, the "Letterman" show was the wrong forum for that kind of apology. He was not going to get the kind of questioning that he needed. If you heard the audience, they were laughing. They weren't quite sure whether to laugh at what he was saying, to be serious. And it was Seinfeld who had to say, hey, guys this isn't funny.

Not only that. Another piece is when you really examine what he said, he not only said 50 years ago we'd have you hanging upside down from a tree. Well, guess what, 50 years ago, Michael Richards would have been in some oven in Germany being baked because he's also Jewish. He also said that in his comments, that I'm a white man. I can go get the cops and have you arrested. And so, his comments went beyond that.

But Kyra, we're also making a very big mistake. He has said -- he said, he was heckled. In fact, the people who were there say he was not heckled. There was a large group that was talking. He was angered by them talking. Then after he addressed them, then a couple of the guys said, hey, my boy doesn't think you're funny. Darryl Pitts, who is from Chicago, who was on CNN on Sunday, he gave an eye- witness account. And so, trying to say, well he was being heckled when in fact he wasn't. He was angered because they were talking.

PHILLIPS: All right. Just to step aside for a second, I want to ask you about the 'N' word for a minute. Paul, I remember ...

(CROSSTALK)

MOONEY: Can I say something before you say this. Excuse me. He's not a Jew. He's not a Jew.

MARTIN: OK.

He's either Catholic or atheist or something. He's not that. And as far as blacks and Jews are concerned, I don't think that two men in a burning house have time to argue. That's my point.

MARTIN: I agree.

MOONEY: So he's not a Jew. So people make that mistake. He may look it, but looks are deceiving. Bush looks like he's sane, but anyway go ahead, ask what ...

PHILLIPS All right. I knew Paul had to get something in there. I was waiting for the ...

MOONEY: Of course.

Whether or not Richards is in fact Jewish, there is of course a history of bigoted remarks about "Jewish features" and "looking Jewish" (big noses etc.). The Nazis used such ideas frequently.

There was no chastising Mooney for his racist remark and no one seemed horrified, as they would if it were said about "black features." If Mooney were white, by now an intern would be reviewing hours of his old comedy shows to find inappropriate remarks that support the view that he is an anti-Semite. An American Republican or white man would have ended up with his own CNN segment the next day trying to explain what he meant and promising that he really isn't bigoted.

The "revised" interview transcript is here

BOOK REVIEW of Conservative comebacks to Liberal Lies -- by Gregg Jackson

Review by "Ken", an Australian middle of the road reader

I could not find a more concise description of what you will find in this book than the one written on the cover…“Issue by issue responses to the most common claims of the left…”

Unfortunately, the title sets the general tone of the work. Mr Jackson is very fond of emotive language and uses it liberally when his passion gets the better of his analytical processes. To assume that the Liberal point of view is necessarily “lies”, is to visit an unjustified assumption on many well-meaning and honest Liberals. I can accept that Liberal views may be misguided or ill informed but, really Mr Jackson, lies? This implies some conspiratorial agenda on the part of Liberals or paranoia on the part of Mr Jackson. The abortion issue, for instance, is deeply emotional, but is it really necessary to substitute the word “abortion” with the phrase “…stick surgical scissors in a baby’s skull, suck out her brains with a vacuum, dismember her and throw her away in a garbage can…” unless you are resorting to emotional coercion rather than calm rational argument.

I am also unsure of Mr Jackson’s right to hijack the term “conservative” to encompass his own beliefs. I don’t believe that all conservatives are gun-toting, Christian zealots, intent on enforcing their wish to interfere with people’s lives through legislation.

Despite these and similar lapses that tend to provoke the reader rather than enlighten him, this book is invaluable in pulling together information and statistics to support Mr Jackson’s point of view. The conscientious reader, who likes to confirm what he reads, will be led into a bewildering realm of lies, damned lies and statistics when he attempts to verify the information offered as fact. In pursuing the truth, the researcher will be inundated with claims and counterclaims from academic, empirical and self-serving sources until his head spins.

To take one example: I tried to verify the stated statistics on gun laws (that violent crime increases as gun laws become more draconian) only to find that the definitions of violent crime were far from uniform, and murder numbers were confusing because accidental deaths were not included in some statistics and underreporting and deliberate manipulation was rife even from official police reports.

The following extract from -- Recorded Crime, Australia, 1998. Australian Bureau of Statistics, Jun 1999, is typical of refutations of “the gun lobby” point of view.

Assault and Robbery
Those who claim that Australia suffered a "crime wave" as a result of new gun laws often cite as evidence unrelated figures for common assault or sexual assault (no weapon) and armed robbery (any weapon). In fact less than one in five Australian armed robberies involve a firearm.
"Although armed robberies increased by nearly 20%, the number of armed robberies involving a firearm decreased to a six-year low."

Firearm-Related Homicide
"There was a decrease of almost 30% in the number of homicides by firearms from 1997 to 1998."
-- Australian Crime - Facts and Figures 1999. Australian Institute of Criminology. Canberra, Oct 1999
This report shows that as gun ownership has been progressively restricted since 1915, Australia's firearm homicide rate per 100,000 population has declined to almost half its 85-year average.
Homicide by Any Method
The overall rate of homicide in Australia has also dropped to its lowest point since 1989 (National Homicide Monitoring Program, 1997-98 data). It remains one-fourth the homicide rate in the USA.
The Institute of Criminology report Australian Crime - Facts and Figures 1999 includes 1998 homicide data showing "a 9% decrease from the rate in 1997." This is the period in which most of the country's new gun laws came into force.
Gun-Related Death by Any Cause
The Australian Bureau of Statistics counts all injury deaths, whether or not they are crime-related. The most recently available ABS figures show a total of 437 firearm-related deaths (homicide, suicide and unintentional) for 1997. This is the lowest number for 18 years.
The Australian rate of gun death per 100,000 population remains one-fifth that of the United States.
"We have observed a decline in firearm-related death rates (essentially in firearm-related suicides) in most jurisdictions in Australia. We have also seen a declining trend in the percentage of robberies involving the use of firearms in Australia."
-- Mouzos, J. Firearm-related Violence: The Impact of the Nationwide Agreement on Firearms. Trends & Issues in Crime & Criminal Justice No. 116. Australian Institute of Criminology. Canberra, May 1999; 6

Enough has already been written with regard to the pros and cons of this subject so it is probably prudent to leave further comment to your own research. I strongly suggest that you do the same for most of the arguments in the loosely alphabetically categorised “Lies” listed under ‘table of contents’

To be fair, solutions are outside the scope of the book which merely purports to respond to commonly held beliefs, which it does admirably by invoking statistics, information and reasoned argument. In itself this is an honourable undertaking, but when the author takes as his points of reference The Bible, The American Constitution, The Bill of Rights and The Declaration of Independence, the arguments lose some relevance if these documents are not sacrosanct to the reader.

While I enjoyed the reasoned arguments throughout this book (and some had me thinking very hard) I found myself being worried by the thought of a society run by ideas which sometimes appeared to fly in the face of common sense. What it did highlight for me, however, was just how difficult it is in this information age to gather valid, unbiased data on which to base a decision or an opinion.

This book succeeds in being very thought-provoking. It is well organised and the information is easily accessed through well laid out and self-explanatory chapters. It is by no means a comprehensive conservative philosophy but neither does it claim to be. It is exactly what the cover says it is.

Effect of breast feeding on intelligence in children: prospective study, sibling pairs analysis, and meta-analysis

    Authors:

    Geoff Der, statistician (Geoff@msoc.mrc.gla.ac.uk),
    G David Batty, Wellcome fellow,
    Ian J Deary, professor of differential psychology2

Abstract

Objective To assess the importance of maternal intelligence, and the effect of controlling for it and other important confounders, in the link between breast feeding and children's intelligence.

Design Examination of the effect of breast feeding on cognitive ability and the impact of a range of potential confounders, in particular maternal IQ, within a national database. Additional analyses compared pairs of siblings from the sample who were and were not breast fed. The results are considered in the context of other studies that have also controlled for parental intelligence via meta-analysis.

Setting 1979 US national longitudinal survey of youth.

Subjects Data on 5475 children, the offspring of 3161 mothers in the longitudinal survey.

Main outcome measure IQ in children measured by Peabody individual achievement test.

Results The mother's IQ was more highly predictive of breastfeeding status than were her race, education, age, poverty status, smoking, the home environment, or the child's birth weight or birth order. One standard deviation advantage in maternal IQ more than doubled the odds of breast feeding. Before adjustment, breast feeding was associated with an increase of around 4 points in mental ability. Adjustment for maternal intelligence accounted for most of this effect. When fully adjusted for a range of relevant confounders, the effect was small (0.52) and non-significant (95% confidence interval −0.19 to 1.23). The results of the sibling comparisons and meta-analysis corroborated these findings.

Conclusions Breast feeding has little or no effect on intelligence in children. While breast feeding has many advantages for the child and mother, enhancement of the child's intelligence is unlikely to be among them.

BMJ 2006; 333 doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.38978.699583.55

Book review of Only In America An autobiography by Paul Oreffice with Tom Hanlon

(Review by "Ken")

This is an extraordinary life by an intriguing man, written in a page-turning style that that never flags. I could easily reiterate the comments on the back cover of the edition that I read, and laud an obviously gifted communicator and self-confident man of amazing fortitude and foresight -- but who am I in the exalted company of ex presidents and other luminaries? I thought it might be more interesting to look more closely at the book’s title.

While reading of Mr Oreffice’s privileged background and family support, I couldn’t help recalling the story of an interview with a self-made American millionaire who said he had arrived in New York with all of his possessions in a small brown paper bag. When a perspicacious journalist asked what was in that bag, he was told ‘1.2 million dollars in cash and bonds.’

Mr Oreffice came to America with many resources that helped him to achieve what he did; not least of which were an extraordinary set of talents, an extended family support structure and a circle of influential Italian acquaintances of his well-connected father. None of that, however, should be allowed to detract from his achievements and physical and mental acuity.

Mr Oreffice’s generosity in attributing his rise in the world to “America” is admirable and humble but every page of his book tells me that this is an extraordinary man who would have succeeded whatever environment he found himself in. Certainly the political and social atmosphere of America allowed him to express himself with impunity but it is not the only country in the world to offer those conditions.

I am an unqualified admirer of Mr Oreffice’s philosophy, drive and enthusiasm but I think those qualities were genetically imprinted by equally talented parents and a set of life circumstances that imbued him with special qualities.

It is interesting to examine the strange dichotomy that is American democracy; on the one hand citizens are encouraged to conform and to not ‘rock the boat’, whilst the real entrepreneurs do exactly the opposite by having no regard whatsoever for conventions or existing traditions.

Significantly, it is not until two thirds of the way through the book that Mr Oreffice finally lands in America to take a university course, by which time his personal philosophy had been well and truly formed by his life experiences. His father was able to start his own business wherever he went and use his entrepreneurial skills to build factories and provide a decent standard of living for his family. He could not have done this without money and nepotistic support.

So, back to the title; I believe that it is misleading in the extreme and suggests that, not only does America possess some magical property not found elsewhere but that this degree of success is available to everyone. In the highly competitive capitalistic economy that exists in the western world, to succeed requires intelligence, personality, dedication, talent and a degree of luck. Given these parameters anyone can make it in America (and, indeed, pretty well anywhere else in the world.)

As an autobiographical document, “Only in America” is an excellent read. It does trot out Carnegie-style platitudes but they still have validity in context, and good advice is always good advice. I found the early years in Italy far more interesting reading than the American years. Watching the war develop from within Europe allowed a different perspective for me and confirmed my distaste for sheep-like patriotism. Mr Oreffice’s distaste for unions and civil servants lifted my faith in humanity and my only hope is that America listens.

WAR OF THE WORLDS: Planet Civil Libertarian versus Earth

The article below by Australian lawyer James McConvill argues that the major threat to our security comes from an increasingly loud civil libertarian movement

American journalist H. L. Mencken once said: "The average man does not want to be free. He simply wants to be safe." Mencken's quote pretty much sums up the attitude of the average Australian. The average Australian cares little about fluffy concepts such as human rights, particularly the rights of others. Give average Joe the choice between a Bill of Rights and a plasma TV, and I think that you would have to place an order for a large amount of TV's.

In Australia, if you are wanting to win friends and influence people, you do it by appealing to their hip pocket, not to their moral conscience. Yet, if you are unfortunate enough to flick through the editorial pages of the Fairfax broadsheets (particularly Melbourne's Age newspaper), or turn on the ABC, you would think that I've lost touch with reality.

Well, in fact, it is the soft lefts in the media, and their civil libertarian friends in the social sciences faculties across the country, who left reality behind long ago. The result is a growing disconnect between the well-groomed elites and the hard-working average Australian.

The majority of Australians simply have little time for the misconceived bile stemming from the remote civil libertarians. That is why the circulation numbers of the Fairfax broadsheets are laughable. Apart from the precious academic and Camberwell housewives, nobody has time for the idealist dribble pumped out on their editorial pages day after day.

On Planet Civil Libertarian, every street corner has a shiny cafe with skinny lattes flowing like water. With people having very little to do in their day, with no responsibilities, and a constant hunger for blueberry muffins, everybody mingles around crying over coffee about the plight of the poor "refugees" coming for a visit, about how "Jihad" Jack cannot slip out for a smoothie at 1 a.m. due to the dreadful control order imposed on him from the bad people in Canberra, and then after a buzz of caffeine run over to the nearby garden park to jump for joy that Victoria will soon have a Bill of Rights.

It is not expensive to get to Planet Civil Libertarian. One simply needs to cruise down to the local newsagent to pick up a copy of The Age or The Sydney Morning Herald, open up the editorial pages and get a fix. If the newsagent is too far away, turn on 774 ABC.

Back on Planet Earth, things operate a little differently. While the cafes are springing up, people don't have pictures of Papuan warriors and bomb-buddies of Osama Bin Laden pinned up above their bed. Instead of drooling over a pretentious Bill of Rights document, most people actually get excited about such things as paying off a family home, having the ability to put their kids through good schools, and appreciate not getting bombed on their way to work.

Civil libertarians are becoming louder and more organised in trying to switch people over to their side. They have even convinced themselves that they are stepping up to protect the public from the conservative government. But the reality is they are grandstanding. They are becoming desperate. As Professor Mirko Bagaric argues in his new book "A Matter of Opinion", civil libertarians have now become the extremists.

The terrorists wage war through hijacking planes and bombing buildings; the civil libertarians have waged a war on mainstream public opinion through hijacking leftist newspapers and bombarding the ABC.

The average Australian wants just three things: national or military security, cultural security and financial security. If they were smart, the civil libertarians would concentrate on the possible human rights implications of the Howard Government's Work Choices legislation. This is where the average Australia might be prepared to listen because workplace relations affects their financial security.

While the civil libertarians preach from their taxpayer-funded Ivy Tower about the plight of queue-jumping asylum seekers and those who have trained with the likes of al-Qaeda, the Australian people will continue to turn a deaf ear. So they should.

Dr James McConvill is author of "In the Pursuit of Truth: Reflections on Law, Life and Contemporary Affairs" (Sandstone Academic Press, 2006)