Palestinians celebrate UN statehood vote

Palestinians celebrate UN statehood vote — Palestinians erupted in wild cheers Thursday, hugging each other, setting off fireworks and chanting "God is great" after the United Nations granted them, at least formally, what they have long yearned for — a state of their own.

The historic General Assembly decision to accept "Palestine" as a non-member observer state won't immediately change lives here, since much of the territory of that state — the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem — remains under Israeli control.

Yet many Palestinians savored the massive global recognition — 138 of 193 General Assembly members voted "yes" — following decades of setbacks in the quest for Palestinian independence in lands Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast War.

 

Associated Press/Nasser Shiyoukhi - Palestinians celebrate next to a section of Israeli separation barrier at the entrance to the west bank city of Bethlehem as they watch a screen showing the U.N. General Assembly votes on a resolution to upgrade the status of the Palestinian Authority to a nonmember observer state, Thursday, Nov. 29, 2012. The U.N. General Assembly has voted by a more than two-thirds majority to recognize the state of Palestine. The resolution upgrading the Palestinians' status to a nonmember observer state at the United Nations was approved by the 193-member world body late Thursday by a vote of 138-9 with 41 abstentions. (AP Photo/Nasser Shiyoukhi)

"It's a great feeling to have a state, even if in name only," said civil servant Mohammed Srour, 28, standing in a flag-waving a crowd of more than 2,000 packed into a square in the West Bank city of Ramallah. "The most beautiful dream of any man is to have an independent state, particularly for us Palestinians who have lived under occupation for a long time."

After the euphoria over the vote, Palestinians will return to their harsh reality. They lack most trappings of statehood, including control over borders, airspace or trade. In a further complication, they are ruled by rival governments, one run by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank and the other by the Islamic militant group Hamas in Gaza.

Yet, Palestinians say the recognition isn't just symbolic. They believe U.N. recognition will strengthen their hand in future talks with Israel, which has lambasted the the Palestinian move as an attempt to bypass such negotiations.

The warm embrace by the international community could also help Abbas, who led the recognition appeal, restore some of his domestic standing, which has been eroded by years of standstill in peace efforts. Hamas, entrenched in Gaza, has seen its popularity rise after holding its own during an Israeli offensive on targets linked to the Islamists there earlier this month.

After initially criticizing the U.N. bid as an empty gesture, Hamas has come around to supporting the popular move, with reservations.

Palestinians in the coastal strip also celebrated the vote, though on a smaller scale than after the massive eruption of joy in the streets after last week's cease-fire deal with Israel.

Some set off fireworks, others shot in the air and children in the streets cheered and flashed victory signs. "Today is a big joy for all of us," Abu Yazan, a 29-year-old Abbas supporter, said.

Izzat Rishaq, a senior Hamas figure in exile, said he welcomed the U.N. vote an achievement, but that Hamas counts on "heroic resistance" to create a Palestinian state — underlining the group's deep ideological rift with Abbas who opposes violence.

In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed the U.N. vote as meaningless and accused Abbas of delivering a "defamatory and venomous" U.N. speech "full of mendacious propaganda" against Israel. Netanyahu argued that the U.N. move violated past agreements between Israel and the Palestinians and that Israel would act accordingly, without elaborating what steps it might take.

The Palestinians reject Israel's claim that the recognition bid is an attempt to dictate the future borders of Palestine. Instead, they say, it's a last-ditch attempt to rescue peace efforts threatened by Israeli settlement building on occupied land. Since 1967, half a million Israelis have settled on lands the U.N. says are part of Palestine.

Abbas aides say that with its vote, the U.N. is rebuffing Israeli attempts to portray these territories as "disputed," or up for grabs, rather than occupied.

Abbas aide Nabil Shaath said it will no longer be up to Israel to decide whether the Palestinians can have a state.

"The notion that Israel should approve the Palestinians' inalienable right to self-determination is simply illogical, immoral, and totally unacceptable," he wrote in an opinion piece in the Israeli daily Haaretz.

The affirmation of the pre-1967 line as the border of Palestine also poses a direct challenge to Netanyahu who has refused to accept that demarcation as a basis for border talks with the Palestinians. Abbas and his aides have said that the Israeli leader's rejection of such a framework for negotiations, accepted by his predecessors, helped push them to go to the U.N.

The Palestinians could also gain access to U.N. agencies and international bodies, most significantly the International Criminal Court, which could become a springboard for going after Israel for alleged war crimes or its ongoing settlement building on war-won land.

However, Abbas has signaled that he wants recognition to give him leverage in future talks with Israel, not as a tool for confronting or delegitimizing Israel, as Israeli leaders have alleged. He told the U.N. on Thursday that the Palestinians will "behave in a responsible and positive ways in our next steps."

Palestinian technical teams have studied the laws of all U.N. agencies and put together recommendations for Abbas, said a Palestinian official involved in the effort. He said Abbas told the experts there is no rush, and the next Palestinian moves would in part depend on international reaction, said the official who spoke on condition of anonymity to disclose internal deliberations.

Most immediately, the Palestinian Authority, which relies heavily on foreign aid and is struggling with the worst cash crisis in its 18-year history, could face further funding cuts over the U.N. bid.

In Washington, a bipartisan group of senators warned the Palestinians they could lose U.S. financial support of millions of dollars a year and risk the shutdown of their Washington office if they use their enhanced U.N. status against Israel

Israel could also suspend the monthly transfer of millions of dollars in tax rebates it collects on behalf of the Palestinians, a punitive step it has taken in the past.

In recent months, the Palestinian Authority has been struggling to cover its public sector payroll, paying salaries in installments.

Mahmoud Khamis, a civil servant from the West Bank village of Deir Jareer, said he is willing to bear the negative consequences of U.N. recognition, including further disruptions in getting his salary. "It's good to have that state recognized, for the people of the world to hear our voice and know our cause," he said. ( Associated Press )

Blog : The Sensitivities | Palestinians celebrate UN statehood vote

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65 years later, Palestinians celebrate a UN vote

65 years later, Palestinians celebrate a UN vote — The black-and-white photos show masses of people yearning for independence, celebrating a vote recognizing a state in Palestine. It was a day that generations of pupils would be taught to remember with reverence: Nov. 29.

The jubilant revelers were Jews, the year was 1947, and the vote was held in the United Nations General Assembly. The Palestinians rejected the partition plan, which called for Jewish and Arab states to be established after the imminent expiration of the British rule over Palestine. The outraged Arabs soon started a war they eventually lost.

Sixty-five years later to the day, the tables are somewhat reversed: Palestinians have turned to the General Assembly for a second chance — and it is the Israelis who have dismissed the vote, which resoundingly upgraded the Palestinians' U.N. status, as a symbolic trifle.

The irony of the date was not lost on the Israelis.

Associated Press/Jim Pringle, File - FILE - In this Nov. 30, 1947 file photo, Jewish people gather in the streets of Tel Aviv, many dancing after the United Nations announcement for a plan of the partition of Palestine and the new Jewish state.(AP Photo/Jim Pringle, File)

"We are the best teachers of the Palestinian people in their struggle for independence," wrote Eitan Haber, a veteran columnist for the Yediot Ahronot daily. "They have studied carefully the history of the Zionist movement."

While it's true that Thursday's vote won't immediately create a state of Palestine, it will give the Palestinians a boost, elevating their status from U.N. observer to nonmember observer state — like that of the Vatican. The resolution upgrading the Palestinians' status was approved by a vote of 138-9, with 41 abstentions, in the 193-member world body.

Anton Salman, a resident of the Palestinian city of Bethlehem in the West Bank, said he hoped international recognition will mark the beginning of a new period that "will begin to build a real state and to recognize our identity as a people with a state and land."

The vote recognizes a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, the lands Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war. This represents far less territory than the Palestinians were offered on Nov. 29, 1947, when the U.N. General Assembly passed Resolution 181.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, in a rare moment of candor, admitted in an Israeli TV interview last year that the Arab world erred in rejecting the plan. "It was our mistake. It was an Arab mistake as a whole," he said at the time.

Resolution 181 called for the partition of the British-ruled Palestine Mandate into a Jewish state and an Arab state: 33 countries voted in favor, 13 against and 10 abstained.

The resolution was accepted by the Jews of Palestine and set off jubilant celebrations. In a whiff of nostalgia, Israeli TV on Thursday aired grainy footage from that day of people dancing in the streets. Israeli radio interviewed Israeli seniors about their recollections from that day.

It was a strikingly different Israel from today — a place where only several hundred thousand Jews lived, most of them European. Their suits and hats were more suited to Vienna than to the Middle East. Few back then would have imagined the Israel of today — much more Middle Eastern yet also heavily influenced by America, prosperous and powerful beyond the imaginations of most of the revelers of 1947.

After the vote, ecstatic Palestinians in Ramallah and other West Bank towns waved flags, danced in the streets and set off fireworks.

A group of Israeli peace activists held a rally Thursday to support the Palestinian bid in front of the old Tel Aviv Museum, where Israel's independence was declared in May 1948.

"The choice of date is not accidental. It's aimed at correcting a historical mistake," said Mossi Raz, a former Israeli lawmaker and veteran activist. "Sixty-five years ago, the United Nations decided to establish a Jewish state and an Arab state ... but it never happened. Today we are completing a historic decision with the establishment of Palestine." ( Associated Press )

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Afghan women still being punished for ‘moral’ crimes

Afghan women still being punished for ‘moral’ crimes - Hundreds of Afghan women are languishing in prison having been accused or convicted of so-called “moral crimes”, including “running away” and having sex outside marriage, campaign group Human Rights Watch said Wednesday.

The report released in Kabul, I Had to Run Away, said that President Hamid Karzai’s Western-backed government had failed to fulfill its obligations under international human rights laws.

“It is shocking that 10 years after the overthrow of the Taliban, women and girls are still imprisoned for running away from domestic violence or forced marriage,” said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch.

The report estimated there are a total of 400 women in prison and girls in juvenile detention facilities for offences including “running away”, which was not a crime under the Afghan penal code.

“Some women and girls have been convicted of zina, sex outside of marriage, after being raped or forced into prostitution,” it added.

“Judges often convict solely on the basis of ‘confessions’ given in the absence of lawyers and ‘signed’ without having been read to women who cannot read or write. After conviction, women routinely face long prison sentences, in some cases more than 10 years.”

In a deeply conservative society many of the 58 inmates interviewed for the report expressed fears that they could be murdered by their families for reasons of “honour” after they were released.

HRW quoted one 17-year-old inmate named as Khalida P, imprisoned for running away with a boy her parents had forbidden her to marry, as saying: “My parents come every week on visiting day. Every time they tell me that very soon they will pay the prison staff to give me to them, and then they will kill me.”

The report also cited a woman sentenced to three years in prison after fleeing a father-in-law who raped her and had her brother murdered as saying: “I am happy in here. Here I am not afraid because I know no-one is coming in the night to kill me.”

Karzai has regularly issued pardons for women convicted of “moral crimes”, but HRW researcher Heather Barr said: “It’s nice that he does this but it doesn’t make up for something that’s an injustice in the first place.

“It doesn’t give you back the months or years you have spent in prison, it doesn’t change the fact that so many of these women and girls are at risk of honour killings because they have been convicted of these crimes.”

The position of women in Afghanistan has improved dramatically since the fall of the Taliban, with the number of girls in education soaring.

But earlier this month Karzai endorsed an edict by the Afghan Ulema Council, the country’s highest Islamic authority, saying that women were worth less than men.

It said women should avoid “mingling with strange men in various social activities such as education, in bazaars, in offices and other aspects of life”, effectively implying that women should not go to university or to work at all

It also stated that “teasing, harassing and beating women” was prohibited “without a sharia-compliant reason” — leaving open the suggestion that in some circumstances, domestic abuse was appropriate.

Karzai said the ruling “reiterated Islamic principles and values”.

Barr said that with the West preparing to scale down its presence in Afghanistan, the president was looking to “put a more conservative foot forward” and send signals to both the Taliban and powerful traditionalist Afghans “as he tries to assess how he’s going to survive the next couple of years”. ( Agence France-Presse )

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French burqa wearer fined in court, vows appeal

French burqa wearer fined in court, vows appeal - A French court on Thursday fined a Muslim woman 120 euros ($164) for wearing a full-face veil in public, prompting the single mother of three to vow an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights to get France to overturn its burqa ban.

The woman, Hind Ahmas, said she would also appeal her sentence in a French court with the backing of French businessman Rachid Nekkaz who has pledged to pay all fines imposed on burqa wearers under the ban.

A second woman, Najate Naitali, was fined 80 euros in absentia by the court in the town of Meaux, northeast of Paris, in the first court sentencing over a breach of the burqa ban since it came into force in April.

“(This) violates European laws. For us the question isn’t the amount of the fine but the principle. We can’t accept that women are sentenced because they are freely expressing their religious beliefs,” Ahmas told reporters outside the court, where a group of supporters also gathered.

Hind Ahmas is surrounded by the media on Thursday in Meaux, east of Paris, as she arrives at the courts to pay a fine after she was arrested last May for wearing the niqab in public. (Reuters)

“We are going to launch the necessary appeals to bring this before the European Court and obtain the cancellation of this law, which is in any case an illegal law,” she said.

The two women had turned up at Meaux town hall in May, wearing burqas, to offer a birthday cake to Mayor Jean-Francois Cope, who is head of President Nicolas Sarkozy’s conservative UMP party and helped push the burqa ban through parliament.

In the four months since the burqa ban came into force, several women have been asked by police officers to remove head-coverings and one has paid a fine issued on the spot.

The ban, first of its kind in Europe, makes public wearing of the Arabic-style niqab, which leaves the eyes uncovered, and Afghan-style burqa, which covers the face with a cloth grid, liable to a fine of up to 150 euros or lessons in French citizenship.

The law has been slammed by Muslims abroad as impinging on religious freedoms but has met with only a limited backlash in France, a strictly secular country where fewer than 2,000 women out of a 5 million-strong Muslim community wear the burqa.

Ahmas said that if an appeals court upheld the fine, she would take the case to Europe’s top rights court in Strasbourg.

“I still wear the niqab every day and my life has become hell. I am insulted every day,” she said. ( arabnews.com )

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THE WAY WE LIVE NOW

THE WAY WE LIVE NOW -- Completely polarized. Distrust all around. Split down the middle. Sometimes paralyzed by divisions. We're not talking only about the United States today. We're talking about the Republican Party.

There are a million polls flying around, most saying the same thing: that President Barack Obama doesn't have the support of the country, that the nation is worried about another recession, that unemployment will persist. But look a little deeper, beyond the usual questions that reap the usual answers, and you will see a stunner. Here's the question, addressed to Republicans, from the latest New York Times/CBS News poll:

Which is more important to you, having a Republican nominee who agrees with your positions on most issues, or having a nominee with the best chance of defeating President Obama in 2012?

The answer: Agrees with issues -- 48 percent. Best chance in 2012 -- 48 percent.

It can't get any closer, or more divided, than that.

This split mirrors the one on Capitol Hill between Democrats (who hold the Senate) and Republicans (who hold the House), and it runs through the GOP as the party prepares for what should be a breakaway layup in 2012.

The same poll shows former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts with favorable ratings of 45 percent and Gov. Rick Perry of Texas with 42 percent. (Though respondents were asked about the candidates separately, it should not go unnoticed that the overall margin of error in that part of the poll is 4 percentage points, which makes the figures deliciously close.)

Perry is where the GOP's heart is today. Romney is where the party's head is. Will the Republicans go with the guy who makes them swoon but makes them worry what Mom will say? Or the one who makes them cringe but would let Dad sleep better at night? Whole Trollope novels have been written about less. One of them is called "The Way We Live Now." Like the Republican nomination fight of 2012, it unfolded in monthly episodes in 1875.

Republicans have been divided before between their dedication to ideology and their desire to win.

It was a calamity in 1964, when Sen. Barry Goldwater of Arizona pulled the party to the right and Cow Palace delegates moved away from the patrician establishment personified by two Eastern governors, Nelson A. Rockefeller (Dartmouth '30, Casque and Gauntlet senior society) and William Scranton (Yale '39, Berzelius secret society). It was a triumph in 1980, when Ronald Reagan (Eureka College '32), a conservative true believer, defeated George H.W. Bush (Yale '48, Skull and Bones), considered a moderate and widely regarded as more electable.

The Democrats have faced that choice as well. In 1972, the Democratic candidate of the head was Sen. Edmund S. Muskie of Maine, but the combination of an unusually large field -- some of the dozen contenders included such powerful figures as Sens. Henry M. Jackson of Washington and Hubert H. Humphrey of Minnesota, along with Mayor John V. Lindsay of New York -- and a raucous primary fight held amid the emotions of the Vietnam War delivered the nomination to the candidate of the heart, Sen. George S. McGovern of South Dakota. He lost 49 states but retains the loyal affection of a small cadre. Some of them still have McGovern bumper stickers on their Volkswagen Bugs.

This year's Republican split seems different from some of its predecessors -- the one between conservatives and regulars in 1952, for example, or the one that divided House Republicans from Senate Republicans in 1995. The Newt Gingrich Republicans of that period were suspicious of the Bob Dole Republicans, but a year later there wasn't much doubt that Dole would prevail and win the nomination. It was, after all, his turn, and the challenge mounted by his opponents -- including conservative columnist Patrick J. Buchanan and a gaggle of established worthies, like former Gov. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and Sen. Richard G. Lugar of Indiana -- didn't pose that much of a fight.

Unless Perry fizzles out, and he's not the sort to do so, the Republicans seem headed for a fight that, for the first time, might actually deserve the phrase that has been appended to earlier such contests: struggle for the soul of the Republican Party. And the battlefield for this fight, like the one for the general election, may well be in the suburbs and among independents, who can vote in the New Hampshire Republican primary.

It's Texas hot versus Eastern cool, Aggie maroon versus Harvard crimson, a quarter of a state without health insurance versus a state health-insurance plan its author would just as soon disavow. And that's the surface stuff. The two men don't like each other, and their supporters can't stand each other. Together they have repealed Ronald Reagan's 11th commandment, sewn into the GOP consciousness if not its unwritten constitution since his 1966 campaign for governor in California: Though shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican.

As the election approaches and the economy remains stalled, the Republicans have much to be excited about, the Democrats very little. Obama's approval rating last week hit an all-time low (39 percent, according to the McClatchy-Marist poll).

The Democrats also are divided on issues (those leaning left believe the president has leaned too far right), but they are united on their candidate. Chances are that the Obama dissenters will end up pulling the lever for their man, despite misgivings and mounting mistrust.

The Republicans are united on some core principles (no new taxes, not now, not ever) but not on their candidate, or even on the tone -- bombast from Paint Creek or silky sophistication from Belmont -- they want to project against a weak incumbent. A party that can barely gather in the same room without having a fight about evolution or vaccination is a long way from planning an inauguration. ( Universal Press )

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Years of liberal dogma have spawned a generation of amoral, uneducated, welfare dependent, brutalised youngsters

Years of liberal dogma have spawned a generation of amoral, uneducated, welfare dependent, brutalised youngsters - A few weeks after the U.S. city of Detroit was ravaged by 1967 race riots in which 43 people died, I was shown around the wrecked areas by a black reporter named Joe Strickland.

He said: ‘Don’t you believe all that stuff people here are giving media folk about how sorry they are about what happened. When they talk to each other, they say: “It was a great fire, man!” ’

I am sure that is what many of the young rioters, black and white, who have burned and looted in England through the past few shocking nights think today.

Manchester: Hooded looters with arm fulls of clothes run from a Manchester shopping centre yesterday evening

It was fun. It made life interesting. It got people to notice them. As a girl looter told a BBC reporter, it showed ‘the rich’ and the police that ‘we can do what we like’.

If you live a normal life of absolute futility, which we can assume most of this week’s rioters do, excitement of any kind is welcome. The people who wrecked swathes of property, burned vehicles and terrorised communities have no moral compass to make them susceptible to guilt or shame.

Most have no jobs to go to or exams they might pass. They know no family role models, for most live in homes in which the father is unemployed, or from which he has decamped.

They are illiterate and innumerate, beyond maybe some dexterity with computer games and BlackBerries.

They are essentially wild beasts. I use that phrase advisedly, because it seems appropriate to young people bereft of the discipline that might make them employable; of the conscience that distinguishes between right and wrong.

They respond only to instinctive animal impulses — to eat and drink, have sex, seize or destroy the accessible property of others.

Their behaviour on the streets resembled that of the polar bear which attacked a Norwegian tourist camp last week. They were doing what came naturally and, unlike the bear, no one even shot them for it.

A former London police chief spoke a few years ago about the ‘feral children’ on his patch — another way of describing the same reality.

The depressing truth is that at the bottom of our society is a layer of young people with no skills, education, values or aspirations. They do not have what most of us would call ‘lives’: they simply exist.

Nobody has ever dared suggest to them that they need feel any allegiance to anything, least of all Britain or their community. They do not watch royal weddings or notice Test matches or take pride in being Londoners or Scousers or Brummies.

Not only do they know nothing of Britain’s past, they care nothing for its present.

They have their being only in video games and street-fights, casual drug use and crime, sometimes petty, sometimes serious.

The notions of doing a nine-to-five job, marrying and sticking with a wife and kids, taking up DIY or learning to read properly, are beyond their imaginations.

Undercover police officers have arrest looters in the Swarovski Crystal shop in Manchester. One looter lies injured and blood can be seen on the wall

Last week, I met a charity worker who is trying to help a teenage girl in East London to get a life for herself. There is a difficulty, however: ‘Her mother wants her to go on the game.’ My friend explained: ‘It’s the money, you know.’

An underclass has existed throughout history, which once endured appalling privation. Its spasmodic outbreaks of violence, especially in the early 19th century, frightened the ruling classes.

Its frustrations and passions were kept at bay by force and draconian legal sanctions, foremost among them capital punishment and transportation to the colonies.

Today, those at the bottom of society behave no better than their forebears, but the welfare state has relieved them from hunger and real want.

When social surveys speak of ‘deprivation’ and ‘poverty’, this is entirely relative. Meanwhile, sanctions for wrongdoing have largely vanished.

When Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith recently urged employers to take on more British workers and fewer migrants, he was greeted with a hoarse laugh.

Birmingham: People wearing masks swig alcohol next to a burning car in Birmingham city centre last night

Every firm in the land knows that an East European — for instance — will, first, bother to turn up; second, work harder; and third, be better-educated than his or her British counterpart.Who do we blame for this state of affairs?

Ken Livingstone, contemptible as ever, declares the riots to be a result of the Government’s spending cuts. This recalls the remarks of the then leader of Lambeth Council, ‘Red Ted’ Knight, who said after the 1981 Brixton riots that the police in his borough ‘amounted to an army of occupation’.

But it will not do for a moment to claim the rioters’ behaviour reflects deprived circumstances or police persecution.

Of course it is true that few have jobs, learn anything useful at school, live in decent homes, eat meals at regular hours or feel loyalty to anything beyond their local gang.

This is not, however, because they are victims of mistreatment or neglect.

It is because it is fantastically hard to help such people, young or old, without imposing a measure of compulsion which modern society finds unacceptable. These kids are what they are because nobody makes them be anything different or better.

Rampage: We are told that youths roaming the streets are doing so because they are angry at unemployment, but a quick looks at an apprenticeship website yields 2,228 vacancies in London

A key factor in delinquency is lack of effective sanctions to deter it. From an early stage, feral children discover that they can bully fellow pupils at school, shout abuse at people in the streets, urinate outside pubs, hurl litter from car windows, play car radios at deafening volumes, and, indeed, commit casual assaults with only a negligible prospect of facing rebuke, far less retribution.

John Stuart Mill wrote in his great 1859 essay On Liberty: ‘The liberty of the individual must be thus far limited; he must not make himself a nuisance to other people.’

Yet every day up and down the land, this vital principle of civilised societies is breached with impunity.

Anyone who reproaches a child, far less an adult, for discarding rubbish, making a racket, committing vandalism or driving unsociably will receive in return a torrent of obscenities, if not violence.

So who is to blame? The breakdown of families, the pernicious promotion of single motherhood as a desirable state, the decline of domestic life so that even shared meals are a rarity, have all contributed importantly to the condition of the young underclass.

The social engineering industry unites to claim that the conventional template of family life is no longer valid.

Protection: Asian shopkeepers stand outside their store in Hackney that was battered by the looters. This time, though, they're ready to take them on

And what of the schools? I do not think they can be blamed for the creation of a grotesquely self-indulgent, non-judgmental culture.

This has ultimately been sanctioned by Parliament, which refuses to accept, for instance, that children are more likely to prosper with two parents than with one, and that the dependency culture is a tragedy for those who receive something for nothing.

The judiciary colludes with social services and infinitely ingenious lawyers to assert the primacy of the rights of the criminal and aggressor over those of law-abiding citizens, especially if a young offender is involved.

The police, in recent years, have developed a reputation for ignoring yobbery and bullying, or even for taking the yobs’ side against complainants.

‘The problem,’ said Bill Pitt, the former head of Manchester’s Nuisance Strategy Unit, ‘is that the law appears to be there to protect the rights of the perpetrator, and does not support the victim.’

Police regularly arrest householders who are deemed to have taken ‘disproportionate’ action to protect themselves and their property from burglars or intruders. The message goes out that criminals have little to fear from ‘the feds’.

Do rioters, pictured looting a shop in Hackney, have lower levels of a brain chemical that helps keep behaviour under control? Scientists think so

Figures published earlier this month show that a majority of ‘lesser’ crimes — which include burglary and car theft, and which cause acute distress to their victims — are never investigated, because forces think it so unlikely they will catch the perpetrators.

How do you inculcate values in a child whose only role model is footballer Wayne Rooney — a man who is bereft of the most meagre human graces?

How do you persuade children to renounce bad language when they hear little else from stars on the BBC?

A teacher, Francis Gilbert, wrote five years ago in his book Yob Nation: ‘The public feels it no longer has the right to interfere.’

Discussing the difficulties of imposing sanctions for mis-behaviour or idleness at school, he described the case of a girl pupil he scolded for missing all her homework deadlines.

The youngster’s mother, a social worker, telephoned him and said: ‘Threatening to throw my daughter off the A-level course because she hasn’t done some work is tantamount to psychological abuse, and there is legislation which prevents these sorts of threats.

‘I believe you are trying to harm my child’s mental well-being, and may well take steps . . . if you are not careful.’

That story rings horribly true. It reflects a society in which teachers have been deprived of their traditional right to arbitrate pupils’ behaviour. Denied power, most find it hard to sustain respect, never mind control.

Mob: A crowd of people rush into a fashion store in Peckham

I never enjoyed school, but, like most children until very recent times, did the work because I knew I would be punished if I did not. It would never have occurred to my parents not to uphold my teachers’ authority. This might have been unfair to some pupils, but it was the way schools functioned for centuries, until the advent of crazy ‘pupil rights’.

I recently received a letter from a teacher who worked in a county’s pupil referral unit, describing appalling difficulties in enforcing discipline. Her only weapon, she said, was the right to mark a disciplinary cross against a child’s name for misbehaviour.

Having repeatedly and vainly asked a 15-year-old to stop using obscene language, she said: ‘Fred, if you use language like that again, I’ll give you a cross.’

He replied: ‘Give me an effing cross, then!’ Eventually, she said: ‘Fred, you have three crosses now. You must miss your next break.’

He answered: ‘I’m not missing my break, I’m going for an effing fag!’ When she appealed to her manager, he said: ‘Well, the boy’s got a lot going on at home at the moment. Don’t be too hard on him.’

This is a story repeated daily in schools up and down the land.

Making a run for it: These four looters dash from the Blue Inc store in Peckham with looted goods

A century ago, no child would have dared to use obscene language in class. Today, some use little else. It symbolises their contempt for manners and decency, and is often a foretaste of delinquency.

If a child lacks sufficient respect to address authority figures politely, and faces no penalty for failing to do so, then other forms of abuse — of property and person — come naturally.

So there we have it: a large, amoral, brutalised sub-culture of young British people who lack education because they have no will to learn, and skills which might make them employable. They are too idle to accept work waitressing or doing domestic labour, which is why almost all such jobs are filled by immigrants.

They have no code of values to dissuade them from behaving anti-socially or, indeed, criminally, and small chance of being punished if they do so.

They have no sense of responsibility for themselves, far less towards others, and look to no future beyond the next meal, sexual encounter or TV football game.

Behind bins: Rioters in Hackney stand in front of a makeshift barricade

They are an absolute deadweight upon society, because they contribute nothing yet cost the taxpayer billions. Liberal opinion holds they are victims, because society has failed to provide them with opportunities to develop their potential.

Most of us would say this is nonsense. Rather, they are victims of a perverted social ethos, which elevates personal freedom to an absolute, and denies the underclass the discipline — tough love — which alone might enable some of its members to escape from the swamp of dependency in which they live.

Only education — together with politicians, judges, policemen and teachers with the courage to force feral humans to obey rules the rest of us have accepted all our lives — can provide a way forward and a way out for these people.

They are products of a culture which gives them so much unconditionally that they are let off learning how to become human beings. My dogs are better behaved and subscribe to a higher code of values than the young rioters of Tottenham, Hackney, Clapham and Birmingham.

Unless or until those who run Britain introduce incentives for decency and impose penalties for bestiality which are today entirely lacking, there will never be a shortage of young rioters and looters such as those of the past four nights, for whom their monstrous excesses were ‘a great fire, man’. ( dailymail.co.uk )

READ MORE - Years of liberal dogma have spawned a generation of amoral, uneducated, welfare dependent, brutalised youngsters

Do Americans Want Universal Healthcare?

Do Americans Want Universal Healthcare? - The Merced Sun-Star reports California legislators are currently debating a universal healthcare bill, Senate Bill No. 810, which brings up the question why Congress is not debating the issue at the national level.

According to ThinkProgress, Americans overwhelmingly support universal healthcare in poll after poll, but there may be a lack of political will to address the problem. In other words, our elected representatives don't want to take on the insurance industry in such a sweeping way.

Americans are divided on President's Obama's piecemeal approach to reforming the system, but no one is too sure about the Republican response that it is better to privatize the system with vouchers and tax credits.

Following are some of the arguments for and against universal health care.

Those who support it argue that under a universal healthcare plan:

• Everyone would have health insurance coverage. This is proper because adequate health care is a fundamental human right, not a commodity to be bartered on the free market.
• Everyone would have the same access to comprehensive coverage and necessary procedures, according to Physicians for a National Health Program.
• Likewise, everyone would be able to choose an insurance provider and hospital from a large list that would include all insurance companies and all hospitals since everyone would be a part of the same plan.
• Spending would not be increased; to the contrary, costs will be reduced, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Even President Obama's piecemeal reform approach has savings in the budget. It's the current system that is spiraling out of control, not government intervention.
• A single payer system would eliminate the middle man. The insurance company would no longer dictate what you must do because the doctor and patient will make that decision together. This will restore a closer, more traditional doctor-patient relationship.

Those who oppose it argue that under a universal health care plan:

• There would be no free market reforms, according to the New York Sun. For example, costs have decreased in past years for non-essential medical procedures such as lasik eye surgery and cosmetic implants because they are subject to a competitive market.
• While we may not see the benefits right away, transferring health care tax benefits to individuals from employers and giving more tax credits to individuals will result in more affordable coverage in the long run, as noted by U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla.
• Universal healthcare is a form of slavery. According to Reason, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., believes that under a universal health care system, he will be forced out of his home by doctors into hospitals to undergo procedures he opposes. This has been derided as absurd by most pundits.
• Universal health care is a government takeover. According to Hot Air, Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., repeats the warnings of Ronald Reagan from 30 years ago that healthcare reform will destroy American freedom. It didn't happen then or now, but the results are not yet conclusive.
• Forcing people to pay into a universal healthcare system is unconstitutional. At least two dozen lawsuits have been filed in federal courts challenging President Obama's version of reform on this issue alone. The courts are divided. As of mid-May 2011, three states have ruled Congress did not exceed its powers by ordering mandated premiums, and two have ruled it is unconstitutional. All are on appeal to higher courts, and the issue will likely reach the U.S. Supreme Court next year.

It seems likely that if President Obama's healthcare reform measures are overturned in the near future by the Supreme Court, there may well be a genuine push for universal healthcare as costs continue to spiral out of control, or we may fall back on a true free market approach. ( yahoo.com )

READ MORE - Do Americans Want Universal Healthcare?