Yes, Yebiga, the moslems are employed in the abattoirs because if they
do not employ them the plant is declared non-Halal.

That is otherwise known as extortion.
Strange the Unions have nothing to say about that.
Reds in the beds ?

In answer to YEBIGA.

In the blue corner we have the world's foremost democracy, which has bestowed upon the world everything from the internal combustion engine, to electric lights, manned flight, penicillin, the Voyager spacecraft, men on the moon, and so many other benefits to the human race that they are too numerous to mention. It is a country where everybody wants to immigrate to. The reason why this civilisation prospered is because of the freedom it gave it's citizens which creates wealth. The people of the USA enjoy freedoms almost unheard of even within other western societies, the most important of which is freedom of speech.

In the red corner, we have a civilisation which has stagnated for 1400 years and which has bestowed upon the human race almost nothing. It's adherents are some of the poorest and most ignorant in the world who live in mud huts and have not socially advanced beyond the driving of goats. The reason why this civilisation remained stagnant, poor and ignorant is because it's religion forbids it to embrace the modern world. It is a civilisation ruled by religious authorities who see the modern world as eroding the power of the Mullahs over the people. It is a religion which most definitely does not believe in freedom of speech and it therefore can never reform itself because the penalty for criticising Islam is death. Islamic countries are ones where nobody wants to immigrate to, including YEBIGA.

It is hardly surprising that these two civilisations are increasingly hostile to one another. But I will stick with the civilisation ruled by science and democracy, however perverted that concept has become, as opposed to a civilisation still in the medieval age which has clearly failed to provide any prosperity to it's own people, but like every other unsuccessful nobody, seeks to blame it's misfortunes on those who's philosophy for hard work and critical thinking gave them success.

Hi LEGO,

Spot-on. I suppose we can take comfort from the fact that fascists and totalitarians don't get on, or not for long. I recall a cartoon from 1938 by the great Kiwi David Low, depicting the panic amongst the Italians when the Nazis swallowed up Austria: it depicts Mussolini's daughter rushing to the Brenner Pass on the Austrian border. Actually, Mussolini did rush troops there.

And the wars between Russia and China around 1970 further illustrate the point, as well as China's invasion of Vietnam in 1979. No love lost between totalitarians, each seeking to be the one and only.

On the other hand, being rank opportunists, they often collaborate: ISIS and al Qa'ida have just done so in their assault on the Palestinians in Yarmouk, outside Damascus. That might put Hamas on the spot: do they defend their 'fellow'-Palestinians (and risk losing their Iranian honey-pot) or do they stay silent ?

Interesting times.

Joe

Joe, in response to your queries to me at 4.14pm and 6.00pm on 3 April the evidence is there for those who wish to truly discover just how this world of ours is run. Hint: it's not as you would find it in the pages of Murdoch, Fairfax or OLO.

In the hope that your query was a genuine one and not typical troll behaviour of deflecting from the argument by raising fake questions, may I refer you to a recent article by Nafeez Ahmed, a British researcher and director of a policy institute in London. He has written a number of books that are among the best in their genre.

He must have anticipated your question, because he has written an excellent article entitled Islamic State is the Cancer of Modern Capitalism. You will find it on Intrepid Report 3 April 2015. www.intrepidreport.com/archives/15613.

Happy scholarship

James

Sorry, James, that URL didn't come up: 'page not found'. Perhaps you can briefly tell me in what way the US is, today, in 2015, complicit with ISIS or al Qa-ida ?

I'm working my way through Fernand Braudel's 'History of Civilizations': there is a seventy-five-page section on Islam or, more correctly, the world that Islam (or forces in its name) conquered. Sorry, 'spread to', to borrow school curriculum jargon. Spread how, one wonders. As happy little vegemites ? or by the sword ?

What leaps out at a reader of Braudel is how predatory Islam, or a rather the desert ideology behind it, has been from the very beginning: slaves doing so much of the work, Christians and Jews paying the jizra, very little actual industry but plenty of trade, with profits skimmed off. So one could respectfully suggest that, broadly, Islam has not been an ideology of producers but of exploiters and scavengers.

After all, it's forgotten now that Muslim pirates were raiding the coast of Ireland as late as the early nineteenth century for slaves - until crushed in their home-bases by the US Marines: as their song says, ' ... to the shores of Tripoli.'

Perhaps from a Marxist point of view, the tragedy for people in nominally Islamic societies has been the despising of actual production, and certainly of any innovation in production: what Marx calls the development of productive forces has been stunted in Muslim societies from the beginning. Hence, even the development or flowering of a democratic 'Arab Spring' was, with hindsight, bound to fail. With no significant working class to speak of, but a huge impoverished petty-bourgeoisie, it seems that it's always been every man for himself.

And perhaps in that principle, lies the eventual downfall of the Islamo-fascism of ISIS and al Qa'ida, etc. The question is: what might come after it, if the economies remain stunted, reliant on oil, as the be-all and end-all. Except perhaps for the date industry, worked for so long by the despised peasants.

Would that it was not so, James :(

Cheers,

Joe

Joe, I don't know why the URL didn't work, but you can find the article via Google. Just type in Intrepid Report and go from there. The article cited has just been published.