For the 30 years since "The McLaughlin Group" began to run on network television, the Christmas and New Year's shows have been devoted to the conferring of annual awards.
The first award on the Christmas show is "Biggest Winner."
This year, clearly, one of the world's big winner was — Islam.
For this was the year when what Catholic apologist Hilaire Belloc predicted in 1938 would be the "second period of Islamic power" became manifest to all mankind.
From Morocco to Pakistan, a great awakening is occurring. And perhaps the most dramatic example of Islam rising again came in Egypt, with the fall of the 60-year-old military dictatorship.
With the ouster of Hosni Mubarak after weeks of demonstrations in Tahrir Square, the West hailed the coming of democracy.
But democracy delivered a rude shock. In the first round of voting, over 60 percent of all Egyptians cast their ballots for either the Muslim Brotherhood or the radical Islamist Nour Party of the Salafis. In the second round last week, 75 percent voted Islamist.
They say China will be the next great superpower.
ReplyDeleteChina's bubble is bursting, and while the Chinese government may go to war to keep its economy inflated, there is so much of a disparity between elite and serf there that the country will ultimately consume itself.
Russians are fleeing, mostly to the United States or Western Europe, two unions also on the decline.
High oil prices have sustained most of the Muslim economies.
Out of the ashes of the collapse and/or war will be at least two major powers.
The Sunni axis will be the larger of the two, since the Arab Spring has occurred almost entirely inside this sphere.
The Shia axis will be composed of Iraq, Syria (if the Sunni rebels don't seize control), Afganistan and possibly Pakistan.
Sunnis and Shiites usually hate each other, but will unite against common enemies as every other group does.
Sunnis and Shiites usually hate each other, but will unite against common enemies as every other group does
ReplyDeleteSomething we need to do, as in the Hanging Separately piece.
http://freenorthcarolina.blogspot.com/2011/12/hanging-separately.html
I agree. FreeFor needs to get its act together. I hope Bill Nye's and TL's conventions do that.
ReplyDeleteThe one thing Occupy has going for it is setting differences aside. Socialists hate communists and communists hate socialists, while anarchists hate both communists and socialists. In addition to that, the Occupy has a Muslim contingent too, and most Muslims hate the things progressives of all stripes stand for (feminism, gay rights). But they work together.
Hate abounds.
ReplyDelete