Virginia Right!

If we do not address culture, the Debt Ceiling debates are meaningless. Debt is a symptom of our cultural meltdown. Perhaps that is an overstatement. But, if we wish to become solvent again, emphasizing cultural solutions will get us farther than emphasizing economic fixes. Without such culturist discussions we will never pay down the debt and are essentially doomed.

Economic forces have an impact. When the Feds helped foment the Great Depression, people lost tremendous amounts of wealth quickly. This collapse did not happen because of attitudinal change on the part of America’s population. And one could argue that economic explanations have new relevance as our nation careens into a black hole of debt. Yet in truth, economic analyses ballooned our debt and culturist analysis provide the only way of permanently reducing our debt.

We need a culturist analysis to attack inner-city poverty. But the fear of being called racist has long kept sociologists from discussing this perspective. Thus government money and social programs enable, rather than expose the economically unsustainable nature of single parent, low education, drug using, prison-esteeming culture. The truth is, the long ascendancy of economic explanations and fear of looking at culture have not helped alleviate African – American poverty. And no way forward exists but having difficult discussions about cultural contributors to poverty.

For full economic recovery, the long dominance of the economic explanation in our schools must end. Multicultural education refuses to make any judgment on cultures. Bereft of cultural content, schools’ exclusive focus on economics leads them to call for ‘social justice.’ The idea that all inequality must reflect unfairness leads to constant talk of ‘oppression’ in education theory. That this economic multicultural perspective promotes anti-social behavior can be seen in the 2011 National Association for Multicultural Education’s choice to have revolutionary terrorist William Ayers as their 2011 keynote speaker.

Teaching ghettoized African-American children that they are oppressed and should rebel and that personal responsibility cannot alleviate their class situation, maintains poverty. That replacing this economic model’s hegemony will improve our economy can be seen in the high number of Asian students excelling in America and the economic productivity of their home countries. Thus a culturist approach will allow us to make every ethnic group feel more responsible for their educational and economic success. Whereas multiculturalism does not consider the potential negative impacts of culture, culturism can show communities – and our country – the way out of poverty.

In making the rational connection between culture and outcomes, by admitting that culture is important and reaffirming that this is not a racial argument, we may also be able to sanely speak about the borders again. Latinos have grossly higher teen pregnancy rates and lower educational achievement than average Americans. Muslim immigrants pose a much higher risk of terrorism than Japanese immigrants. But our fear of discussing culture for fear of being called racist kills such discussions in their cradle.

Immigration restrictions made on a culturist basis will give all Americans, of every cultural background, a sense of the connection between cultural rectitude and prosperity that has long defined our public character. Thus, people refusing entitlements out of shame could once again become a proud moment for Americans. Structural economic interpretations argue against such sentiments. Adjusting our attitudes towards responsibility, pride, work and entitlements, is the only way politicians can again take us towards fiscal sanity.

Finally, a culturist analysis can even speak to corporate responsibility to our nation. Businessmen who undermine our borders and send jobs overseas are putting an economic perspective over a cultural perspective. We have to remind them that they have a responsibility to the nation that raised them. Furthermore, when all is said and done, international cultural diversity means our American business leaders will not feel comfortable raising their children, living, and retiring in other nations. This cultural analysis might help them identify with our nation again.

Brave academic sociologists such as Orlando Patterson of Harvard have reintroduced culture as an explanation for explaining African-American poverty. Schools of education need to follow suit. And our politicians need to stop calling everyone who discusses culture racist. We can do our part by demanding that culturist explanations for our current problems get aired by using the words culturism and culturist whenever multiculturalists call our nation racist.

Immediately after 9 -11 Giuliani rejected Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal’s money because it came with an insult to America. He is currently funding the Ground Zero Victory Mosque. And now a worse insult, Bin Talal is helping to write the National 9 – 11 Memorial and Museum at Ground Zero! Please register your objections at our facebook page “Western Historians Must Write the 9-11 Memorial at GZ.”

Less then a month after 9 – 11, at an early 9 – 11 memorial event, bin Talal attempted to give Giuliani $10 million for disaster relief. But bin Talal simultaneously suggested that we look at our American policies that justified the attack including our support for Israel.

Giuliani rejected the assertion that good justifications existed for the 9 – 11 attacks and refused the money. America’s mayor said, “To suggest that there’s a justification for [the terrorist attacks] only invites this happening in the future. It is highly irresponsible and very, very dangerous.”

Though rebuked by Giuliani, bin Talal did not give up promoting his dangerous ideas. Six years later the prince started funding Georgetown’s Middle Eastern studies program. And now, members of Georgetown’s Middle Eastern studies department are serving as advisors in writing the history section of our National 9 -11 Memorial and Museum.

Involvement of Georgetown’s department that the offensive bin Talal funds, does not necessarily prove malfeasance. But the confirmed involvement of Princeton’s Near Eastern Studies department, with their pro-Islamic colleague Amaney Jamal, brings additional discomfort. And, what Alice Greenwald, Executive Vice President for Programs of the National 9 – 11 Museum and Memorial, told us at a Manhattan Community Board meeting merits grave concern.

While the National 9-11 Memorial properly eulogizes the tragic loss of life on September 11th, it will only dedicate a small part of one of three history rooms to the question of “Who did this and why.” Ms. Greenwald told the Community Board that her Middle Eastern advisors had told her not to use the word “Islam.” Instead, she explained, they will use the word “Islamist” specifically to distance the connection of the 9 – 11 attacks with Islam.

Besides the dearth of time dedicated to why we were attacked, the exhibit’s timeline greatly concerns this western culturist historian. The one solitary documentary film in the exhibit will explore the roots of Al Qaeda. Ultimately, we must worry that the film being prepared will only tie the 9 – 11 attack to the American funding of Afghani fighters. Thus, as Bin Falal would have it, the exhibit will lay the root causes for 9 – 11 at the feet of America.

A wider timeline would note that Islam has been attacking the West for nearly 1400 years. Islam took Spain for seven hundred years. And after Islam destroyed the Christian Byzantine Empire, it gave Constantinople its current name, Istanbul. Islam might even have taken the rest of Europe had it not been repelled in the Battle of Vienna on September 11th, 1683. Our struggle with Islam did not start in the 1980s with Al Qaeda.

According to Ms. Greenwald, the National 9 – 11 Memorial will also chronicle “previous terrorist attacks, on U.S. targets on the U.S.S. Cole and the African Embassy bombings.” A map showing the global scope of the over 15,000 Islamic terrorist acts since 9 – 11 would create a different impression. A focus on Islamic jihad in Europe, Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand or India would undercut Bin Talal’s idea that Islam only targets America for its crimes.

The National 9 – 11 Memorial and Museum needs to openly tell us which scholars in these Middle Eastern departments will be advising them. Furthermore, we western culturists request that pro-western scholars, such as Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch, Ms. Brigitte Gabriel of ACT! For America, Mrs. Wafa Sultan, or Congressman Allen West be involved. It would be a dangerous shame if our national memory of 9 – 11 was given to employees of the man who insulted us on 9 – 11 and is building the Mosque at Ground Zero.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has created long lines using controversial body scanners to protect us from Islamic terrorism. But multiculturalists have so cowed us that we will not mention Islam. If we ever wish to have a pleasant and safe Thanksgiving again, we must replace multiculturalism with culturism.

If you point out that cultural diversity is real, multiculturalists always call you racist. We do not have culturist profiling in airports because they will call us racist. The key to disarming them lays in noticing how multiculturalists tyrannize us by leaping from discussions of cultural diversity to cries of racism.

If you want security, rights, and short lines you need only scan people with Arabic sounding names who have ties to Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Pakistan, or Afghanistan. Period.

Instead, we go to great lengths to demonstrate our blindness to the import of culture by patting down Mom from Minnesota, Vinnie from Brooklyn, three year old children and nuns to show the multiculturalists we are not racist.

But the propensity to terrorism does not stem from genes or skin color; it has nothing to do with race. Islamic terrorism comes from the tenet of Jihad within the Koran. Whereas Jesus overtly detested any violence, Muhammad led over 60 military campaigns.

Multiculturalists and Muslims, of course, denounce the assertion that all religions are not the same as racist phobia. They express outrage at all who would suggest that cultural diversity is real.

So to show we take no notice of culture, we risk our lives. After all, proving that we do not believe cultural differences exist ultimately requires letting many young Pakistani males through customs unchecked.

If Muslims in America were truthful, they would admit that their religion has produced all of the thousands of terrorists attacks in the world since 9 -11. To show appreciation for their recent immigration here they would submit to the inconvenience of extra security checks. This would endear them to all Americans.

But, as with so many in western societies, Muslims use rights to protect anti-social behavior. All attempts at using cultural information incur aggressive lawsuits over racism from the Council on American – Islamic Relations. As a result, the Muslim presence in America means that all us Americans must have our rights greatly abridged. As a result, their freedom reduces ours.

Fear of multiculturalists calling us racist not only endangers us physically, it cows our spirit by making us accept that terrorists will forever bully us and dictate our rights on Thanksgiving. By distinguishing rational culturist profiling from irrational racial profiling, we can disarm the multicultural logic the terrorists use against us wwand salvage the freedoms for which we give thanks.

John K. Press, Ph.D is the President of the culturist Brooklyn Tea Party. He is also the author of the book Culturism: A Word, A Value, Our Future. www.culturism.us has more information.

David Stern, the Commissioner of the National Basketball Association (NBA), represents all that is wrong with the globalist mindset and should be kicked out of America and the NBA. When a guest on Colbert’s show Stern referred to US citizens as “you Americans.” He then declared that he is not an American, but an “internationalist.” When asked if he were an American, Colbert noted that he, “had to think about it.” Stern, an “internationalist” running the “national” basketball league is symptomatic of the globalist mindset of the ruling class that plagues us all.

A globalist rather than a culturist, I suppose Stern takes no sides in the world. When the Taliban blow up girl’s schools, he is for both sides! When 9 – 11 happened, he did not see a clash of civilizations, merely a plane from nowhere hitting a building that could have been anywhere! As China buries us in debt and suppresses speech, as the Egyptians slaughter Christian Copts, he expresses no affiliation. He doesn’t identify with any culture in particular. The Olympics must have been boring for him.

We can see Stern’s contempt for culture in his new technical foul rule. Starting this season, players can get penalized for expressing emotion or complaining. And so in his perfect world corporate office sterility and decorum control all actions. Stern does not desire to see or understand cultural expression. Stern is “notorious for being a ruthless capitalist.” Profit does not come from inefficiency. Money has no loyalty. It notices nothing, not Jihad, not criminal Mexican gangs terrorizing Americans, nothing that does not impact on the bottom line.

Colbert mentioned that the sport has gone international with the Chinese player Yao Ming. Yao’s contract was negotiated by the government of China. China engages in unfair and illegal trade policies. It kills protesters and suppresses Christianity. China doesn’t have free speech or Democracy. But Stern is not a culturist. He has no allegiance to western culture. Rather would be just as happy in China. He would be just as happy to see American companies go there as stay here. It is all the same to him.

Typical of the globalist elite, Stern seems to have no connection to his product either. He has never played in a basketball league at any level. He has no connection to the sport other than being its legal counsel on drug testing and salary cap negotiations. Yet, through the logic of modern money’s dominance over all other considerations, he ends up being in control of the basketball and its rules.

Stern and his class have no allegiance to America. When the Phoenix Suns’ management made their team wear jerseys protesting their State’s immigration laws, Stern backed the protest. Top-down, the players became forced to mouth the company’s political line. And the team badmouthed the very population it represents in favor of an international perspective.

For having no allegiance to America and for shipping our jobs overseas, capitalists of Stern’s ilk should be forced to live outside of the western world. Shy of that, for his lack of allegiance to the fans, players or basketball, Stern should be kept away from the American basketball courts in our National Basketball League.

John Press, Ph.D. is the President of the Brooklyn TEA Party and the author of Culturism: A Word, A Value, Our Future. www.culturism.us has more information about culturism.

Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel has definitively announced the failure of multiculturalism in Europe. Thus she has come much closer to adopting the positive value system of multiculturalism’s opposite, culturism. While her speech represented a great leap forward for culturism, the full impact of culturist realizations will not come until she understands the impact of history on culture.

Multiculturalism’s failure results from its total failure to acknowledge diversity and that nations have traditional majority cultures. The mandate to ‘celebrate diversity’ requires that we ignore culture’s real impact. Merkel’s denunciation of forced marriages recognized that other cultural patterns exist. And indeed levels of crime and government dependency clearly are also higher amongst some immigrant groups than others.

But the depth of harm does not lie in such statistics, but in basic cultural outlooks. Germany has a culture that respects education and discussion. Psychologist Nicolai Sennels, a Danish psychologist, spent time studying Muslims in youth prison. He found that rather than handling conflict via dialogue, Muslim youth consider it proper to settle disputes via “physical revenge.”

The cultural tendency toward solving disagreements via violence has manifest in violent mob actions such as burning tens of thousands of cars in Paris, attacking German youth in schools, and worldwide violence over Danish cartoons portraying Muhammad.

Sane immigration policy requires noting cultural differences. It is culturist, not racist, to acknowledge that wherever many Chinese move, they excel in school and set up Chinese areas that become tourist attractions. Wherever Muslims move they make the schools rougher and create no-go zones.

In noting that other cultures have honor killing, violent ways of settling disputes, and antipathy towards free speech, Merkel has come a long ways towards noting that Germany (and the West generally) has a traditional majority culture. An implication of her acknowledging diversity is recognizing that the West alone stands for democracy, freedom of speech, the relative separation of Church and State and the sanctity of the individual.

Now that Merkel acknowledges that culture is important and has implicitly acknowledged that Germany has a majority culture, she must make one last step in achieving culturist awareness. She must recognize that Islam has been aggressively trying to conquer the West for 1400 years. History travels with cultures. Even if Chinese immigrants had the same anti-social patterns as Muslim immigrants, their lack of historical animosity towards the West would render them less of a threat.

Merkel has acknowledged that multiculturalism has failed. As such she may now be willing to discuss cultural dynamics in general. But only when she starts talking of the positive value of culturism, when she takes a western culturist stance, she can really make sound policy. At that point she will know that she must stop Muslim immigration to the West and make sure her laws and schools openly protect and promote German heritage and western values.

The culturist Brooklyn Tea Party challenges your Tea Party to take on culturist issues such as the Ground Zero mosque and the Arizona immigration laws.

Officially co-sponsor our Oct. 10th rally against the Ground Zero mosque.  John Press’ contact info is on the website www.culturism.us

Through a wave of conflicting and ironic multicultural platitudes, Private First Class Nasser Abdo has made the case for, at very least, discriminating against Muslims in the military. Abdo joined the military in April of 2009. Since then, he has filed for conscientious objector status because, he says, one cannot be true to their Muslim faith and fight for the U.S. in Afghanistan. He is right. Private Abdo’s case perfectly illustrates why the military must drop multiculturalism and employ discrimination.

Abdo’s multicultural hypocrisy is common when he claims that he was irrationally discriminated against while simultaneously asking for special treatment because his cultural differences are so significant that we should pay attention to them. When facing any discrimination, after calling you racist, multiculturalists claim that culture provides no rational basis for discrimination. Multiculturalists, you see, do not really take culture seriously. But, they then turn around and tell you that culture is very important when they want special treatment.

Either we should take culture seriously or we should not take culture seriously. Aldo makes a powerful case for discrimination when he tells the media that fighting in the US military runs counter to his “maintaining his Islamic faith.”

Of course, I do not hold out much faith that we’ll learn Abdo’s lesson. Even after US Army Majory Nidal Hassan killed 13 people on a military base in the name of Islam, the military continues to enroll Muslim into its ranks. That is because politically correct multicultural thinking forbids all historical and logical thought that question its precepts by calling such thought intolerant, racist, and discriminatory.

Abdo showed just how completely multiculturalism has destroyed our ability to think when no one laughed at the obvious falsehood of his statement that, “Islam does not allow me to operate in any kind of warfare.” In no forum has he been asked about the concept of Jihad. Even Fox News blithely avoided editorial commentary on his quote that “”Islam is a peaceful religion, it’s not a religion of warfare.” And so, multicultural logic dictates that 1400 years of Islamic military expansion from Spain to India to 9 – 11 must be ignored to further the idea that all cultures adhere to the same values.

If we have any hope for learning about cultural diversity, it will have to come from Islamic media. All non-Western nations assume a culturist, rather than a multiculturalist, perspective. They routinely take their culture’s side in textbooks, international diplomacy and, even, television. While Aldo claimed that universal culture-neutral precepts embodied in Islam prevented him from being violent in our media, he told Al-Jazeera he wanted out of the US military because Islam told him he was, “forbidden to kill Muslims.” The implication, of course, is that he could kill non-Muslims.

Wanting it both ways, again, multiculturalists often take the globalist tact of invoking the “world community.” Abdo advocated stopping war in the Middle East by “coming together as a community and portraying Islam as the peaceful religion that it is.” In this explanation he calls the Islamic community his community. But immediately after he claimed we need “a spiritual approach, the community approach, the diplomatic approach” for peace in the Middle East. Herein the world community has no sides. Again, with multiculturalists and their globalist brethren, in one sentence culture exists and the next minute it melts away.

Notwithstanding Abdo’s historical and cultural ignorance, the military must assume that the very fact of War negates the ideal of the “world community.” The military, by its very nature, cannot entertain such multicultural pap.

When Private Abdo told his people via Al-Jazeera television, “I Don’t believe I can involve myself in an army that wages war against Muslims” he provided a slew of valuable culturist lessons. Cultural identity is important and conflict between civilizations persists. This statement also gives lie to multiculturalists’ universal “global community” sentiment. And, since the West’s wars will likely be against Muslims for the foreseeable future, Aldo’s honest and truthful estimation of the influence of culture on the individual provides adequate justification for keeping Muslims out of our military.

For good measure, Abdo complained that in the military, “There were racial slurs.” Well the obvious fact of the matter is that there were no racial slurs. Abdo is white. If there were slurs they were about his religion. And religions are not races. We can clear up this dangerous conflation by using the word “culturist.” The slurs referred to his culture, not his race. We should thank Abdo because he has not only shown us the irony in multiculturalists not wanting to consider culture unless they want special treatment, he has shown us how spurious their charges of racism are.

As a culturist, I concur with Private Aldo. He and the Islamic Fort Hood massacre demonstrate that Muslims should not be in our military. But to make this a policy, the military must drop multiculturalism’s blindness to culture in favor of culturism. As its very reason is fighting conflicts between civilizations, the U.S. military cannot safely entertain the multicultural platitudes that have crippled civilian discussion and reasoning. The military must separate irrational racism from rational culturism. Private Aldo declared that he could not, “Serve both the US Army and his God simultaneously.” We must listen to Private Aldo.

Video of the rally at Ground Zero by Dr. John Press.

I am the President of a Tea Party chapter and my doctorate in history focused on the Progressive era. As such, I can tell you that modern progressives belong in the Tea Party. Furthermore, the Tea Party has a lot to learn from the progressives.

Glen Beck is only half right. Leaning heavily on Jonah Goldberg’s excellent book, Liberal Fascism, he argues that progressive government programs inexorably lead to totalitarianism. This may be correct. The fallacy comes from not recognizing that historical progressives themselves wrestled with the question of how they could have government programs without undermining local community participation. What Beck does not acknowledge is that progressives themselves were very worried that a tyranny of Washington experts could exclude the voice of the common man.

Tea Party participants often make the fatal error of considering the opposite of big government to be Laissez Faire individualism. They demand zero government and to be left alone. As Alexis De Tocqueville documented in his amazing 1830 classic, Democracy in America, before progressivism local control and heavy levels of civic participation, not unmolested individualism, defined America. The opposite of big government is local citizen participation, not anarchistic individualism.

Prior to the industrial revolution small ‘island communities,’ as the historian Robert Wiebe called them, dotted America’s landscape. In these communities you knew the mayor, the teacher, and everyone’s business. But the emerging large transnational industrial interests could not be regulated by town halls. And ma and pa could not be participants in national affairs. As De Tocqueville before them, progressives largely defined America as the land of political participation and worried that the masses would become passive.

The progressives’ concern for local participation is evident in their implementing the initiative process. This got the common man a voice in State politics and weakened powerful politicians. To foster local control progressives fought for the direct election of Senators. They worried about cronyism between big powers and powerful men. The progressives also got women the vote in order to get more Americans involved in political affairs. While they wanted national systems, progressives also counterbalance distance from the powers that be with increased channels for democratic participation.

My dissertation focused on Frances Kellor’s quest for participatory democracy. As the head of national Americanization efforts, rather than creed, she sought to get immigrants involved in local politics. For her, such participation was the sin qua non of being an American. She got Roosevelt’s Progressive Party to create local activist chapters to guide national policy. And, she wanted civilian training camps, like Obama’s Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel, to foster civic engagement in the populace. All of these projects sought to foster the participation she saw in the island community she grew up in.

Progressives, your heritage demands that you celebrate and attempt to foster local political participation. As it is the greatest popular movement in recent times, you should laud the political activism of the Tea Party members and join them in their activism. Tea Party folk should recognize that smaller government equals local government. Rather than simply seeking to be left alone, we must strive to run our communities locally. That means an interest in civic organizations as well as straight politics. We all, as Americans, must become engaged in our communities again.

For such a revolution to happen, both sides must change their mindsets. Liberals cannot continue to call all those who wish to lower the deficit ‘racist.’ This does not foster the civic participation your progressive forefathers sought. And my Tea Party brethren, instead of simply fighting government, you must demand local control of programs. We need, for example, to quadruple the tax exemption for giving to local charities. And, whether you agree or disagree on the specific programs, please do welcome your progressive fellow-citizens’ help in striving to take care of our communities locally.

PLEDGES FOR CANDIDATES WISHING TO SPEAK AT THE SEPT 12th BROOKLYN TEA PARTY RALLY !

On September 12th, the Brooklyn Tea Party will be holding a rally at the 69th Street Pier. We are actively seeking speakers and would greatly appreciate any recommendations and leads you provide. I am currently pursuing representatives of The Club for Growth and Citizens Against Government Waste.
Many candidates we have had speak to our group previously, as well as others, would like to speak at our rally. However, to separate those we would like to give publicity to from those who would just use our credibility, I propose their acceptance of pledges be a prerequisite.
Below are six suggested pledges I would like to require of candidates who wish to speak at our rally. Please feel free to criticize these and suggest others.
Personally, I would like to add a commitment to use the words “culturism” and “culturist” to counterbalance multiculturalism and disarm the constant abuse of the word ‘racist’ by those who do not wish to discuss the negative aspects of diversity.
Your feedback on this suggestion, the other pledges, and speakers is greatly needed and appreciated.

Pledges for Brooklyn Tea Party Candidates:
1) – Whereas the reduction of our deficit will require sacrifice;
Pledge to propose legislation to cut all government salaries by 20%.

2) -Whereas stimulus plans and the associated borrowing undermine
our national solvency and character;
Pledge to fight to have the unspent stimulus monies applied directly to the reduction of our debt and vote against any further exceptions to the Pay-As-You-Go Budget Rule.

3) – Whereas civic participation is weakened by national initiatives and strengthened by local community participation;
Pledge to triple the tax deduction for local charitable giving.

4) – Whereas we have national sovereignty, are at war with Islam, and no international right exists for foreign nations to build mosques in our nation;
Pledge to fight the building of the 9 – 11 mosque.

5) – Whereas the stability of our nation rests on the reduction of the debt and we must also ask for sacrifice from the off-spring of the greatest generation;
Pledge to propose legislation to take social security and medicare away from those making over 225,000 dollars a year upon their retirement.

6) – Whereas unemployment is well above 10% and our nation cannot assimilate unlimited numbers of peoples from foreign cultures;
Pledge to build a fence along our Southern border and denounce attacks on Arizona’s laws.

First Lady Michelle Obama made a brave culturist speech about obesity in the African – American community and the antiquated NAACP used the occasion to slander the Tea Party as racist. The American people and the Tea Party are sick to death of this tired of the media and race baiters like the NAACP using such smear tactics. These race baiters’ tactics dismantle our national discourse, are dangerous, and hurt minority children more than racism does.

The NAACP is not the only organization obsessed with the titillating, malicious charge of racism. The media’s coverage of Mrs. Obama’s NAACP speech highlights their rancid guilt in this technique. ABC’s coverage of her speech claimed that she had denounced the Tea Party as racist.

Yet she never said a word about the Tea Party. This coverage completely obscured the important culturist message she delivered. The focus of First Lady Obama’s speech dealt with childhood obesity. She told her audience that, “one in three children is overweight or obese.” Yet the race-obsessed coverage took us away from the vital issue that the First Lady wanted us to discuss.

Mrs. Obama’s speech was culturist. She laid the blame for childhood obesity at the door of cultural changes. She told of walking to school as a child and having gym class twice a week. Furthermore she discussed the impact of television replacing outside activity. She also discussed the decline of family meals and accessibility of candy as malicious dietetic factors. Her talk had nothing to do with race. It had everything to do with culture.

First Lady Obama spoke of her hope that her White House garden would “spark a broader conversation about the health and well-being not just of our kids but of our communities.” Obviously, the abuse of the word “racism” in reference to her speech and the attention on the Tea Party completely obscured her message. It spawned virtually zero discussion of childhood obesity. ABC and the NAACP not only slandered good Americans belonging to the Tea Party, they diminished, and thus insulted, the First Lady with their repetition of charges of racism.

We need the ability to discuss issues in terms of culture, not race. After the NAACP accused the Tea Party of being racist, this non-issue became the focus of valuable media time. David Webb, a prominent African – American Tea Party leader, had to spend much of his resulting media time and attention discussing racism issue instead issues he and his Tea Party brethren would rather focus on like fiscal conservatism. Ironically, after Webb agreed to a summit on racism, the NAACP President, Benjamin Jealous, said, “there should be no debate about racism.” Exactly Mr. Jealous! It is a moot point. Our nation is as united as any in the world on the idea of combating racism.

Mrs. Obama and David Webb are not the only ones distracted by constant charges of racism. The Tea Party has stayed away from the vital issue of protecting our borders for fear of being called racist. Every step of our powerful Tea Party organization becomes tepid in this environment. The drug-running criminals of Northern Mexico represent a cultural threat to America, not a racial one. Yet the media seems obsessed with smearing those who worry about this issue as racist. The Tea Party needs to eschew this red herring of racism and talk in cultural terms if we are to feel free to discuss vital issues again.

Mrs. Obama speech itself could be called racist. She told her audience, “African American children are significantly more likely to be obese than are white children. Nearly half of African American children will develop diabetes at some point in their lives. People, that’s half of our children.” But rather than claiming racist attitudes caused this, rather than calling America racist, the First Lady highlights cultural patterns. Her “Let’s Move” initiative (www.letsmove.gov) targets “food deserts” in poorer neighborhoods underserved by major supermarkets. If she were white, the media would have called her racist. But her analysis is cultural, not racial.

Elaborating, First Lady Obama told the NAACP that “inequalities still persist – in education and health, in income and wealth.” The NAACP considers these disparities the result of “racism.” But, needing to use desperate race-baiting tactics to stay in the news reflects the complete lack of relevance of their analysis. Culture explains differences in achievement in health, income, and education much better than phantoms of racial attitudes. As the media and the NAACP constantly ignore such issues and bring the focus back to racism, it robs America of an opportunity to have useful cultural discussions that could especially help the very minority groups they purport to care about.

To facilitate this transition away from constant accusations of racism, we need to supplement our vocabulary with the words “culturist” and “culturism.” Whenever the media or the NAACP smear citizens who speak about cultural issues as racist, we need a word that clarifies our concerns. Our PC multiculturalist leaders slander all those who would point out that diversity includes less-than-ideal characteristics as racist. But, we know that achievement gaps in education, health, and income have long been more profitably discussed as stemming from cultural maladies than reflecting the white man’s residual racist attitudes. America and the Tea Party must reject the race obsession of the media and the NAACP and follow Mrs. Obama’s lead in speaking in culturist terms.

AN OPEN LETTER TO ASSEMBLYMAN STEVEN CYMBROWITZ

From : John K. Press, Ph.D.
President of the Brooklyn Tea Party

To: Assemblyman Steven Cymbrowitz

Re: Proposed Voorhies Mosque, Brooklyn, NY

You are undoubtedly aware of the controversy surrounding the proposed building of a mosque at 2812 Voorhies Avenue. Residents worry about the same parking issue for which you bravely stood up against developer’s plans to construct a nine-story, 115 foot tall building wedged between Sheepshead Bay Road and Avenue Z. Along with abnormalities in the DOB, in regards to the Voorhies Mosque, the residents of your district also have extraordinary concerns.

According to the Anti-Defamation League, the developer of this Mosque, the Muslim American Society (MAS), “has a troubling history of associations with radical organizations and individuals that promote terrorism, anti-Semitism and reject Israel’s right to exist.” Furthermore, “MAS-affiliated Web sites have featured articles advocating jihad and suicide martyrdom.” And the MAS is, “the leading American Muslim organization organizing anti-Israel activity in the U.S.” A major officer in the MAS called the Jews, “the primary historical and religious example of those who “take the wrong path.”

The Board and Standards and Appeals Chair, Meenakshi Srinivasan, has promised to render, “decisions that respect the character and context of neighborhoods.” A large proportion of the residents on Voorhies are Jewish. Having an organization that preaches hate against Jews move into the neighborhood would greatly disrupt the neighborhood character and quality of life for the current residents.

I implore you to step into this process in any way you can to slow down the permit granting process. This will allow you time to vet the buyer. And, if the concerns about the MAS prove baseless, we recognize that they should be welcomed as good neighbors.

I have attached hard-copy documentation to this petition, and here are just two samples of internet documentation that cause many of our members to be concerned about the MAS; I can offer you many others on request:

http://www.americansagainsthate.org/press_releases/PR-EllisonMAS.php

Please do not shirk your responsibility to listen to, and act upon, the concerns of our community. Failure to address both the issues at hand and the people who have elected you will cause me to doubt that we do, indeed, have responsive and effective representation.

This Letter represents an official position of the Brooklyn Tea Party, and I can assure you that it conveys the sentiments of many people in your district

Thank you,

John K. Press, Ph.D.
President – The Brooklyn Tea Party
pressjohn@hotmail.com

cc: Community Board 15 Chairperson Theresa Scavo, City Councilman Michael Nelson, Board of Standards and Appeals Chair Meenakshi Srinivasan, and 9th District Representative Anthony Weiner, Bay News, Brooklyn Voice, Sheepshead Bites, Daily News, NY Post.

Acrimony within the Tea Party and important issues came from an article profiling me in the NYC Daily News. While the Daily News reporter originally contacted me due to my being the President of the Brooklyn Tea Party, the conversation quickly swung to my political passion: culturism. In this context we also discussed the Brooklyn Tea Party’s rally to stop the mosque at Ground Zero of the 9 – 11 attacks. The article appeared within the context of a large story about the variety of folks in the Tea Party.

When I went to another Tea Party Chapter meeting to network and see how they run their meetings, the flack began. “That F’in idiot John Press” one member was exclaiming loudly in conversation when I entered the meeting. Shocked because I thought I had brought some good publicity to the Tea Party! When I finally calmed the movement leader down, I found he had some valid and interesting reasons to criticize me.

Many members have worked very hard to make the “Tea Party brand.” Being smeared as racists (the leaders who chastised me was black), fringe truthers concerned with Obama’s birth certificate, and dangerous militia folk, made people skittish about joining the Tea Party. Party strategists have, therefore, worked to make Tea Party membership only indicate a devotion to fiscal conservativism and upset over our nation’s out-of-control borrowing. Eventually, we may be able to diversify into other areas of concern, the Chapter President explained, but to continue in a growth mode, making people think the Tea Party denounces Mosques scrambles the message and makes folks skittish about joining. Many national leaders believe we should never deviate from our main point.

Though he has valid points several responses come to mind. First of all, while it may not play strongly nationally, in Brooklyn people are hot under the collar over this mosque. And a large coalition already exists to stop another one being built in Brooklyn. Our ultimate local aim is to elect legitimately conservative candidates. Certain parts of Brooklyn have large pools of underrepresented and abused conservative citizens who would get active for legit candidates. And, if we wish to find legit candidates, an even stronger litmus test than whether or not they will go on record as favoring not overspending, is whether or not they will go on record opposing a mosque at ground zero and in Brooklyn. We will accrue passionate activists as well as politicians with integrity if we make stopping the mosque one of our areas of focus.

I wrote a policy paper about immigration being a Tea Party issue. Illegal immigration costs our states billions per year. Among other things, immigration is a fiscal issue. Can’t immigration be a Tea Party issue? And what about foreign policy? I wrote another policy paper about the Tea Party using culturism to mediate the isolationism of Ron Paul and the expansionist view of Sarah Palin. Both claim Tea Party credibility despite their divergent stances. Culturism argues that we take cultural diversity seriously. Culturists agree with Ron Paul about avoiding nation building. But we culturists do so because cultural diversity dooms such efforts. So we agree with Palin that we must recognize our cultural enemies. Culturism argues that we strike our enemies hard, if we must, but then return home. The immigration issue and the culturist stance of avoiding nation building both seem intimately connected with the Tea Party message of smaller government and saving money. Are we not allowed to discuss such issues?

I asked the hostile Tea Party leader if he’d back an open-borders, pro-mosque, fiscal conservative. Having ample experience in politics, he gave me a great answer. He told me of a time where he had worked alongside an avowed socialist on the issue of driver’s licenses for illegal aliens. Politics make strange bedfellows. In the case of backing a candidate with whom many of us would disagree, he said we should never endorse candidates as such, we should endorse their economic policy. I told my disagreeing comrade that I thought that we would get more growth by taking a stance with Arizona than ignoring it. He disagreed. When I told him I thought we would soon need to choose to either side with Palin and her expansionist policies or Paul’s isolationist stance, he agreed. But, he added, the time for that decision had not yet come. To grow the movement to where it will have an impact we need numbers and that means we must stay on message.

I will bring this debate to the next Brooklyn Tea Party meeting. We will need to decide whether we entirely drop the mosque and immigration issues and just stick with the core theme of fiscal conservatism or not. I will add an argument my erstwhile compatriot did not add. As a new chapter, taking a brand others have crafted and bending it to your will is rude. If you, the reader, have any additional pertinent insights for me to bring to my chapter, please leave a comment and I will do so.

We can stop the mosque at Ground Zero if we exchange the multicultural point of view for a culturist point of view and prosecute the mosque’s primary backer, Imam Rauf, under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).
Passed in 1938, FARA initially focused on “subversive” political propaganda. The purpose of FARA is to insure that the U.S. Government and the people of the United States are informed of the source of information (propaganda) and the identity of persons attempting to influence U.S. public opinion, policy, and laws. Upon registering as a foreign agent, the public has access to the foreign agent’s records concerning the publicity campaigns, lobbying expenditures, funding flows, offices activities and disbursements in support of those activities. In addition, the Act also requires that informational materials (formerly called propaganda) be labeled with a conspicuous statement that the information is disseminated by the agents on behalf of the foreign principal.
The act was passed in response to German propaganda in the lead-up to World War II. Unfortunately, persons whose activities are of a purely commercial nature or solely of a religious, scholastic, academic, scientific or fine arts nature are exempt. CAIR Unmasked, an organization dedicated to getting the Council of American – Islamic Relations, registered as a foreign agent, does not think religious status excuses Islamic organizations from compliance with FARA.
The problematic distinction between religious and political activities in our law stems from our confusing our culture with supposed global culture. We assume a separation of church and state. But this is a very western notion based on Jesus Christ’s order to “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s” (Matthew 22:21). Muhammed, the founder of Islam, was both a political, religious leader, and a warlord. Islam has no separation of church and state or mosque and state. In order for us to properly enforce FARA we must recognize that Islam is both a religious and a political system.
Two pieces of evidence underlay this contention. The first is the existence of Sharia courts. Sharia courts are Islamic religious courts. In Islamic jurisprudence, they decide civil as well as religious disputes. So when advancing Islam, foreign agents are also advancing a legal system. This proves that Islam is inherently political. Secondly, we must know that Islam is an expansive political system. Much like NAZI and Communist systems, we must recognize it as a competing aggressor. As evidence, we should remember that Islam nearly conquered Spain and Eastern Europe. They were only stopped from taking all of Europe by defensive military action. The very existence of the large “Muslim world” is evidence of successful military expansion.
The proposed mosque at Ground Zero of the 9 – 11 attacks is to be named “Cordoba House.” Cordoba was the capital of Spain under Muslim domination. This is an overt reference to a desire to re-establish hegemony over western lands. The fact that it is at the site of an Islamic attack on our greatest symbols of economic and military might, confirms this assertion. Multiculturalism tells us that we have no core culture. Furthermore its directive to “celebrate diversity” assumes that no cultures are aggressive or un-American or anti-western. We must take a culturist point of view that recognizes cultural diversity and competition. We, the West, have a non-Islamic culture to protect and a right to protect it from aggressors. We need to replace the multicultural point of view with a culturist point of view.
Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is the head of the effort to build a mosque at Ground Zero. He refuses to say where the $100 million for the mosque’s construction is coming from. We can only speculate that it must derive from Malaysia or Saudi Arabia. Were a brave politician to demand it, we could force him to register Imam Rauf as a foreign agent under FARA. This would mean that his books would be open and he would have to label his mosque as propaganda! Strengthened, FARA could then be used to forbid the mosque and the Saudi’s relentless building of mosques across America. The New York Post reports that the Kuwaiti born Rauf who is based in Malaysia has ties to the flotilla of jihadis that caused conflict with Israel. He provides a fantastic opportunity for a culturist application of FARA.
We need to reverse our multicultural blindness to cultures in general, we need to take a culturist approach to Islam and recognize it as a hostile political system. From this vantage point we need to get disclosure from the Islamic propagandist Imam Rauf under FARA in order to stop the travesty of a mosque being built at Ground Zero.

Dr. John K. Press is the author of Culturism: A Word, A Value, Our Future. www.culturism.us has more information on culturism.

Simon Deng was enslaved by Muslims in the Sudan.  He suggests, via example, directly confronting our politicians over the Mosque at Ground Zero of the 9 – 11 attacks.

I ask if he is a racist or a culturist because the politicians have repeatedly smeared us as “bigots” and “racists.”  People who lost family members have been infuriated by this tactic.  And, the weakness of this charge against a black man who was brutalized and enslaved by Muslim overlords in Sudan makes my point – we are talking about culture, not race.  And, if cultural diversity is real, multicultural celebrations of diversity blind us to important factors and culturism is necessary.

www.culturism.us

The Tea Party is a Culturist Movement

Policy Statement II

By Dr. John K. Press

Brooklyn Tea Party*

In what way is the Tea Party a culturist movement or what are the culturist implications of the Tea Party?  The answers circle around the concept of self-governance.

Culturism holds that the traditional majority culture has the right to define, promote, and protect themselves.   This is self-governance as the Founding Fathers meant it, as a community.

On the largest scale, culturism advocates self-governance for the West.  Islamic nations realize they have a majority culture and have culturist policy.  So do Asian cultures.  In fact, that is the norm throughout the world and time.  The world is not getting more diverse, the West is.  Only the West has given up the culturist right to self-definition in the name of multiculturalism, globalism, and individualism.

The West has a core culture.  And, more than any other culture, it is based on the concept of self-governance.  If you ask Americans to describe their nation, what makes it special, they will reply, “It is a democracy.”  The Greeks invented democracy, the Roman republic is a golden age.  The Middle Ages, in part, get called the Dark Ages because people were not encouraged to lend their minds to rationally guiding their individual and collective fates.

Islamic cultures pride themselves on fidelity to their theocratic strictures.  Democracy, free speech, the separation of church and state, feminism, are not their values.  China has neither free speech, freedom of religion, or democracy.  That is not their value.  Just as they have a right to keep people out that do not have their values, we have a right to do the same.  The multiculturalists say we have no core culture.  The values they identify as “human” values are really just western values.

Within the American Federalist system, States and localities have the right to self-governance.  This right has been attacked by the Federal government.  Whether you favor or oppose abortion, for example, you should recognize that when the Supreme Court decides nationally, it takes away a reason for you to participate locally.  By definition, whatever is decided in Washington DC is not decided in your State or locality.  Smaller government means more participatory democracy, more self-governance.

Culturism also gets undermined by a radical rights-based individualist framework.  In modern America, no traditional majority culture can protect, define and promote itself without the ACLU saying it makes an individual uncomfortable.   This undermines communities’ ability to exist and guide themselves.  Individuals exist within the context of cultures.  To smash individual rights would go against the tenure of western civilization.  But, communities and traditions cannot be kept from existing because one individual might have his feelings hurt.

Finally, self-governance means that individuals govern themselves.  To do so sustainably, they must think about responsibility.  Negatively, when the government takes care of you it removes your motivation to be responsible.  Positively, we should behave with an eye to vindicating the western culture that believes in our ability to decide what we wish to do for ourselves.   Thus the Tea Party’s call for smaller government supports the western value of liberty through responsibility.

The Tea Party ideal of self-governance is not only theoretical.  If the West falls, self-governance will cease to exist.  Militarism can take over.  Neither Islam nor China will fight for our rights to self-governance.  The Federal government has shown itself incapable of self-governance.  It has nearly bankrupted all of us.  Local communities without the right to set standards end up riddled with anti-social behavior.  And individuals that are not self-governing, are not truly free.  The Tea Party needs to stand for self-governance at the local level or the West will fall.

www.culturism.us

* This is not the official policy of the Tea Party or the Brooklyn Tea Party.  It is only policy suggestion by the Brooklyn Tea Party President, Dr. John Press.   All other views aligned with Tea Party values are welcome in the Brooklyn Tea Party.

Editor’s Note: One of the greatest benefits to attending an event like CPAC is the wealth of people one meets. One of the more interesting people I met at the three day conference was Dr. John Press. We attended a blogger “meet and greet” sponsored by Campaign for Liberty. Dr. Press is a culturist and a History of Education Curriculum Designer at Empire State College SUNY and Adjunct Professor, Vaughn Aeronautics College. He has a blog on Culturism and is the author of  “Culturism: A Word, A Value, Our Future.”   www.culturism.us has more information about culturism.