Free Republic

The Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in the Old City of Jerusalem sits atop the site of the Second Temple, the central place for Jewish worship before its destruction during the Roman siege of Jerusalem in 70 C.E. One wonders if any of the people braying about the alleged “settler colonialism” of Israel ever wonder how Al-Aqsa got there. Did the Jews voluntarily erect a version of it in an eighth-century homage to multiculturalism? If not, how did the Muslims who built it come to be in Jerusalem in the first place? These are rhetorical questions, of course. The caliphate besieged Jerusalem...

Concerned Jamaicans protested and demanded that the US Embassyin Kingston Jamaica, remove the LGBTQ Pride flag hoisted on its grounds. The group says it is not only goes against articles in the Vienna Convention on diplomatic relations, but is a form of cultural imperialism. “Cultural Imperialism,” was the phrase on most of the placards broadly refers to the exercise of domination in cultural relationships. In such cases, the values, practices; and meaning of a powerful foreign culture are imposed upon one or more native cultures. Phillipa Davies, Advocacy Officer at the Jamaica Coalition for a Healthy Society says the Pride...

It is perhaps somewhat ironic that the last time Americans were informed this incessantly of the threat Russia posed to the United States, it was called the Soviet Union and the Left was insisting that everything was being overblown. This time, in spite of a glaring lack of evidence, it is the Left that is announcing from its perch in the mainstream media that Donald Trump is Vladimir Putin’s puppet, and that Russia is the evil puppet-master pulling the strings of American democracy. The sinister Russian bear is growling in the East, we are told, and we should all be...

The president, vice president and a former State Department official with the Obama administration took advantage of the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit this week in Washington, D.C., as an opportunity to advance the homosexual rights agenda. “Despite the focus and emphasis on these issues, the United States has remained committed to its principles of strengthening and promoting democratic institutions, encouraging good governance and accountability and also promoting good human rights, including respect for the LBG [lesbian, bisexual, gay] communities across Africa,” Johnnie Carson, former assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs under Hillary Clinton and senior adviser at the U.S. Institute...

The Obama administration is announcing a wide-ranging effort to use U.S. foreign aid to promote rights for gays and lesbians abroad, including combating attempts by foreign governments to criminalize homosexuality.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton named Ellen DeGeneres a “special envoy” for global AIDS awareness during a speech on Tuesday at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. DeGeneres, a lesbian comedian who hosts NBC’s Ellen DeGeneres Show, is in a same-sex marriage with actress Portia de Rossi. DeGeneres will “use her celebrity platform to raise awareness about the global fight against AIDS,” according to a State Department press release. The release also quoted from a letter Clinton sent to DeGeneres and from Degeneres's response. “By lending us your energy, compassion, and star power to serve as our Special...

The president of Ghana is leading the charge as several African countries are making their stand against Britain’s threat that they either legalize homosexual acts or be excluded from financial aid. “I, as president of this nation will never initiate or support any attempts to legalize homosexuality in Ghana,” said President John Evans Atta Mills in an official statement to the UK government under Prime Minister David Cameron last Wednesday. Ghanaian President John Evans Atta Mills At the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Perth, Australia at the end of October, which Prime Minister Cameron attended, the issue of homosexuality...

When he was asked why the vast majority of Egyptians, the heirs to a great pre-Islamic civilization, speak Arabic rather than Coptic, a leading Egyptian historian replied, "Because we had no Ferdowsi." That would be the tenth-century Persian poet and the author of the Shahnameh (Book of Kings) who revived not only the Persian language, but also Persian identity. Ferdowsi is known for his efforts to save the Persian language, and the history, from oblivion. It has been suggested that Ferdowsi is Iran's Homer: "Twice as long as Homer's Iliad and Odyssey taken together, the Shahnameh blends Iran's ancient myths...

Someone had to say it -- and German Chancellor Angela Merkel deserves credit for being the one with the courage to say it out loud: Multiculturalism has "utterly failed." Multiculturalism is not just a recognition that different groups have different cultures. We all knew that, long before multiculturalism became a cult that has spawned mindless rhapsodies about "diversity." In Germany, as in other countries in Europe, welcoming millions of foreign workers who insist on remaining foreign has created problems so obvious that only the intelligentsia could fail to see them. "We kidded ourselves for a while," Merkel said in a...

(China Daily/Agencies) – Mattel Inc, the world’s biggest toymaker, lowered the sales target for its Barbie store in Shanghai by at least 30 percent after deciding the original marketing concept didn’t work. “The initial sales targets were astronomical,” said Dann Murphy, who took over as general manager as his predecessor left eight months after the store opened. Targets for the six-story outlet’s restaurant and “retail experience”, which includes designing personalized Barbie dolls, have been revised down three times since its opening in March. Mattel chose Shanghai for its first dedicated Barbie store as consumer demand slumped in the United...

Would Jesus Eat at McDonald's? Saturday 11th Aug 2007 by David Paulin The intellectual elite of the Presbyterian Church (USA) have in recent years joined ranks with the radical left. Its members vilify Israel, apologize for Islamic terrorists, and cheer on the Palestinian cause. Now, these Presbyterians have another villain: the Big Mac. America’s most famous hamburger is emblematic of the dark underbelly of globalization, according to David Hadley Jensen, an associate professor of something called “constructive theology” at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Austin, Texas. On top of that, McDonald’s and its iconic burger are even at odds with...

The disease of America Hatred now has reached pandemic proportions in many corners of the globe, spreading far beyond the predictably hopeless fever swamps of Islamic militants, French intellectuals, or Latin American demagogues. In fact, many citizens within the USA itself energetically embrace the basic assumptions of America Hatred, perceiving their country as an unequivocally negative force on the world scene. John Tirman, director of MIT’s prestigious Center for International Studies, recently wrote a book called “100 Ways America is Screwing Up the World.” When questioned on my radio show, he refused to dismiss the notion that humanity might have...

President Hugo Chavez inaugurated a Venezuelan film studio Saturday to counter what he called Hollywood's cultural "dictatorship." Chavez announced $11 million in funds for the complex as he toured movie sets, costume rooms and sat in a director's chair - all part of Venezuela's new "cultural artillery" to combat U.S. domination, he said. "It's a Hollywood dictatorship," he said. "They inoculate us with messages that don't belong to our traditions ... (about) the American way of life, imperialism." He accused Hollywood movies of stereotypes that cast Venezuela and other Latin American countries as violent havens for criminals and drug traffickers....

WASHINGTON - After years of world leaders condemning America for overreaching its power, Americans elected their first ever Imperialist President. "We do everything we can to help the world, but we're still resented, they call us imperialist pigs," said DC cabbie Albert Shlutnick. "Now they'll see what imperialism is really like." Americans got a raw taste of its new leadership this morning at the first press briefing with President Hillshire in full form. The president opened the briefing with astonishing news: "Good morning ladies and gentlemen, I would like to announce that Iran and North Korea no longer exist. Are...

LITERACY levels are declining. Literacy involves not just the ability to read and write but to comprehend. Teaching methods developed in America result in people being able to read but not comprehend words. This is a major cause of the breakdown in communication in our society as individuals become more alienated. Thus, Australia continues down the road to becoming the 51st state of America. Changes in language reflect changes in society. Seemingly subtle or inconsequential changes become of qualitative significance when viewed in their sum total. The Americanisation of our language reflects the Americanisation of our society. The introduction of...

France claimed a significant victory last night in its relentless battle against the march of American culture with the adoption of internationally-backed protections. Supported notably by Canada, France was the driving force behind a "cultural diversity" convention agreed by 148 of the 154 countries which took part in the vote at the Paris general conference of the United Nations arts and culture agency, Unesco. America was virtually isolated, with Israel the only other country to vote against the treaty and four nations abstaining. It failed to force through a series of amendments to weaken the text, which reaffirms the rights...

Women activists in Cairo don't welcome the U.S. First Lady's visit.___ In a bid to promote American values and women’s rights in the Middle East, Laura Bush, the wife of the American president, arrvied in Cairo 23 May. Arab feminists, however, are telling the U.S. First Lady to mind her own house. Bush, who visited Egypt after stops in Israel, the Occupied Palestinian Territories and Jordan, told the World Economic Conference in Jordan that “freedom, especially freedom for women, is more than the absence of oppression. It’s the right to speak and vote and worship freely.” Attendees at the International...

PARIS (Reuters) - France's national library has raised a "warcry" over plans by Google to put books from some of the world's great libraries on the Internet and wants to ensure the project does not lead a domination of American ideas. Jean-Noel Jeanneney, who heads France's national library and is a noted historian, says Google's choice of works is likely to favour Anglo-Saxon ideas and the English language. He wants the European Union to balance this with its own programme and its own Internet search engines. "It is not a question of despising Anglo-Saxon views ... It is just that...

Paris - The dominance of English as the world's lingua franca continues to grow, with the number of pupils studying French dwindling every year, language teachers from several countries gathered at a Paris trade show this week said, many with regret. The predominance of English on the Internet, the relative ease of learning basic English and the perception that English is "cooler" - thanks in large part to popular music and films - means French is becoming more and more restricted to older generations and the upper classes of many countries where it used to be the second language of...

HANOI - French President Jacques Chirac warned Thursday of a “catastrophe” for global diversity if the United States’ cultural hegemony goes unchallenged. Speaking at a French cultural center in Hanoi ahead of Friday’s opening of a summit of European and Asian leaders, Chirac said France was right to stand up for cultural and linguistic diversity. The outspoken French president warned that the world’s different cultures could be “choked” by US values. This, he said, would lead to a “general world sub-culture” based around the English language, which would be “a real ecological catastrophe”. Citing Hollywood’s stranglehold over the film industry...