American State Flags

Why are there Canadian flags flying in Vermont? I'm just wondering because I can't give my wife a decent answer. My wife is from an Asian country and can't understand why there would be a Canadian flag flying in the United States (at public places like parks, grocery stores, airports, etc.) I told her that its because Canada is just close and its just a welcoming gesture to fly a Canadian flag alongside the American flag. But then she asked if there are Russian flags flying in Alaska and I was stumped. Anyone know the EXACT reason and not just a speculative reason?

How much do you think we could get if we sold Vermont? There might be a market for this state even though it is pretty crappy. When we sell it then Puerto Rico can take its place and we won't have to change the flag. Texas has too much oil. All Vermont has is maple syrup. We can live without maple syrup, but not oil. In fact I may even start putting oil on my pancakes.

Why are Texans such braggarts about their lousy state? A few FACTS that you should know. Read and stop LYING? 1.ALL states can fly their flags at the same height as the US flag. Nothing to brag about there. 2.Texas WAS NOT the only indepedent country before becoming a state. The 13 original colonies, Kingdom of Hawaii, the Republic of California, the Republic of West Florida, Vermont. Nothing to brag about there. 3.All 50 states have their own constitutions.However the Texas constitution is considered to be one of the most disorganized and confusing of all state constitutions. Nothing to brag about there 4. Texas leads the nation in DWI's, alcohol related deaths and boating fatalities. Nothing to brag about there 5.Texas scored 25th on the national school "smart"ratings Nothing to brag about there. 6.Texas is considered the most polluting state. Air,water,ground. Nothing to brag about there 7.STD & teenage pregnancy rates are extremely high in Texas Nothing to brag about there 8Texans are known to be liars, thieves,racists and backstabbers. Nothing to brag about there If you know how to use the internet for your information, you can find what I found. It's not the state I have a problem with, it the constant bragging about things that aren't true. www.tsl.state.tx.us/treasures/constitutionwww.window.state.tx.us/tpr/tpr5/7ps/ps02.html dailytexanonline.com/media/paper410/news/2004/12/02/TopStories/... - 60k - www.texscience.org/health/tcs-oral-testimony.htm - Cached www.texasobserver.org/article.php?aid=1980 - Cached www.coastalbendhealth.com/1999/october/08/today/national/1254.html - Cached here are only a few of thousands of websites to back this up if you want to question these statements, search for it yourself.

Do people in the UK think the monarch is the Hawaii head of state? Sometimes i see some UK answers pertaining to Hawaii saying that they have the Queen as their monarch. is it because of the union jack at the top of their flag? That's a long story involving a gift given to the then queen of Hawaii from traders. then later added to the flag of Hawaii by sailor who once served in the UK navy who was commissioned to draw up the flag. the UK has never had any control of the islands until they were annexed by the US in 1898 together with the republics of Texas, Vermont and California and became a state when it was admitted into the union in 1959. so the union jack is there by chance. know your history. the queen is only a figure head in most of the countries shes named as the head of state. she has no power. the empire is long gone.

I need help choosing a family vacation (road trip) before school starts. Any ideas? I live in New York and I'm looking for good vacation ideas in the nearby states. So far, I've found farms in New Hampshire and Vermont, but I've already been to a farm before. I've ruled out Hershey Park, Six Flags and upstate NY. Do you have any ideas for a great, affordable and fun family vacation in a neighboring state? Many thanks to those who respond!

Should Vermont force Injun Joe Campground to change its name? After all, Injun is a racist term. How dare Howard Dean allow the use of the word "injun" in his state! http://www.injunjoecourt.net/ Or maybe this one in Missouri..... http://www.hikercentral.com/campgrounds/106982.html How about Injun Joe's Cave in Disneyland or the one in Six Flags. We have gotten crazy with this PC bull crap! Check out this list.....we all better watch what we say now or we may be called a racist. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Injun#I No whimsy. It is racist if you WANT to make it racist. I just learned I had better not say the world APPLE around some Native American Indians. Oh, and BTW, my mother is a full blooded Canadian Indian. LOL......Yes brown, they are. I am so sick and tired of every word a Conservative says being dissected and twisted to fit racist BS. I better eat too.

Why does everybody hate Britain? Everyone hates Britain. Everywhere I go, I am mistreated, all because of my nationality.I once went to USA, and I was constantly picked on, and I had to endure many rude phrases. Even in a restaurant, I was given the worst table, and had a horrible experience when I told the waiter I was British. Even when I tried to show a man some British money, he grabbed it and threw it down a drain. Also, I was wearing a t shirt with the British flag on it, and people kept spitting at me. Also, when wearing a poppy as a mark of respect for British peopel who died durign the war, people constantly said it did not matter. My experiance left me scared of America. After all Britain has done for the world, this is how we are treated. Our Government is always made to play the servant in our relationship with America.Even making us get involved in things that have nothing to do with us. Faor example, going into Vietnam, did not affect us, but we still had to go with you or else!. The same with Iraq and Afghanistan. Saddam Hussein was a friend of ours, and the taliaban did not mind us, untill we overtook their country. Hundreds of British soldiers have been killed in conflicts that have nothing to do with us. Then we finally pay the price when London is hit by 4 suicide bombs, killing 52 people. Where was the American support? After 9/11, we played the US national anthem outside Buckingham palace. Then there were was another suicide bomb attack on London 2 weeks later, but thankfully it did not work out. However, I have heard the state of Vermont is a safe haven for English tourists, as it is a in a place called New England. Are the people nicer there because of the English history there? Britain invented many things, during the industrial revolution, such as Bridges, Trains, Airplanes, Radio, Television, Telephones, underground trains, sports, as well as helping make the world wide web. Britain founded many new parts of the world. Britain was the only european country not to get invaded during the war, and had it not been for our loss and sacrifice, Nazi Germany would have won the war. I am not saying Britain is better than any country, but I am just sad my country is being subjected to constant abuse. I went to New york - never again

How about those Eskimo's? Shivering Alaskans to Hugo Chavez: Keep your oil POSTED: 9:09 p.m. EDT, October 9, 2006 Adjust font size: ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) -- In Alaska's native villages, the punishing winter cold is already penetrating the walls of the lightly insulated plywood homes, many of the villagers are desperately poor, and heating-oil prices are among the highest in the nation. And yet a few of the small communities want to refuse free heating oil from Venezuela, on the patriotic principle that no foreigner has the right to call their president "the devil." The heating oil is being offered by the petroleum company controlled by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, President Bush's nemesis. While scores of Alaska's Eskimo and Indian villages say they have no choice but to accept, others would rather suffer. "As a citizen of this country, you can have your own opinion of our president and our country. But I don't want a foreigner coming in here and bashing us," said Justine Gunderson, administrator for the tribal council in the Aleut village of Nelson Lagoon. "Even though we're in economically dire straits, it was the right choice to make." Nelson Lagoon residents pay more than $5 a gallon for oil -- or at least $300 a month per household -- to heat their homes along the wind-swept coast of the Bering Sea, where temperatures can dip to minus-15. About one-quarter of the 70 villagers are looking for work, in part because Alaska's salmon fishing industry has been hit hard by competition from fish farms. The donation to Alaska's native villages has focused attention on the rampant poverty and high fuel prices in a state that is otherwise awash in oil -- and oil profits. In 2005, 86 percent of the Alaska's general fund, or $2.8 billion, came from oil from the North Slope. The Aleutian Pribilof Islands Association, a native nonprofit organization that would have handled the heating oil donation on behalf of 291 households in Nelson Lagoon, Atka, St. Paul and St. George, rejected the offer because of the insults Chavez has hurled at Bush. Chavez called Bush "the devil" in a speech to the United Nations last month. He has also called the president a terrorist and denounced the war in Iraq.(Watch former President Bush call Chavez "an ass" -- 2:10) Dimitri Philemonof, president and chief executive of the association, said accepting the aid would be "compromising ourselves." "I think we have some duty to our country, and I think it's loyalty," he said. Over the past two years, Citgo, the Venezuelan government's Texas-based oil subsidiary, has given millions of gallons of discounted heating oil to the poor in several states and cities -- including New York, Connecticut, Vermont, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Maine -- in what is widely seen as an effort by Chavez to embarrass and irritate the U.S. government and make himself look good. Maine Gov. John Baldacci, who approved an agreement last winter to buy discounted oil, said he had no plans this year to seek a similar arrangement. In Boston, Massachusetts, a City Council member wants a landmark Citgo sign near Fenway Park taken down and replaced with an American flag. In Florida, a lawmaker asked the state to cancel Citgo's exclusive contract to sell fuel at turnpike service stations. About 150 native villages in Alaska have accepted money for heating oil from Citgo. The oil company does not operate in Alaska, so instead of sending oil, it is donating about $5.3 million to native nonprofit organizations to buy 100 gallons this winter for each of more than 12,000 households. "When you have a dire need and it is a matter of survival for your people, it doesn't matter where, what country, the gift or donation comes from," said Virginia Commack, an elder in the arctic village of Ambler, an impoverished Eskimo community of 280 where residents are paying $7.25 a gallon for fuel. For years, Alaska natives have accused the state and federal governments of sending too little money to their tiny, far-flung communities, where fuel and grocery prices are bloated by the high costs of delivery by plane and barge. An editorial last month in the Anchorage Daily News bashed the Legislature's rejection in March of an $8.8 million state supplement to a federal program that helps poor Alaskans with home heating costs. "It's embarrassing that residents in a state with so much oil wealth should be looking to a foreign nation for help," the newspaper said. "It's hard to blame villagers for accepting the gift." A spokesman for Gov. Frank Murkowski, John Manly, said the governor believes Chavez's donation is a ploy to undermine Americans' faith in their government. But he said it is up to each village to make its own decision. "It seems like a very strange irony that we produce the oil and yet every year there seems to be a chronic problem in getting the fuel to people that need it," Manly said. Joan Eddy, principal and teacher at Nelson Lagoon's school, said most buildings in town were erected 30 to 40 years ago, which makes them pretty old, considering how they get battered by the constant 20-25 mph wind coming off the ocean. Their heating systems are aging, too. She noted the fuel barge is late arriving this year, and said residents are turning on their furnaces for only a few hours in the morning and at night. "We're conserving as much as we can because we are concerned. It looks like it's going to be a snowy winter and cold," she said. Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. O.K., Some think that the article is too long, or that there is no question contained within the article & one thinks that I am ignorant of the usage of the name "eskimos" , I have lived amongst the various Native peoples of the entire Aleutian chain and the mainland of Alaska. Heres the "Question" , Would you go without heating oil in this situation in order to show your patriotism? Hows that? Happy? GAWSHK!

Who remembers the 50 Nifty United States song from elementary school? 50 NIFTY UNITED STATES FROM 13 ORIGINAL COLONIES.50 NIFTY STARS IN THE FLAG THAT BILLOWS SO BEAUTIFLY IN THE BREEZE. EACH INDIVIDUAL STATE CONTRIBUTES A QUALITY THAT IS GREAT.EACH INDIVIDAUL STATE DESERVES A BOW,WE SALUTE THEM NOW. 50 NIFTY UNITED STATES FROM 13 ORIGINAL COLONIES,SHOUT 'EM,SCOUT 'EM,TELL ALL ABOUT 'EM. 1 BY 1,TIL WE'VE GIVEN A DAY TO EVERY STATE IN THE USA. ALABAMA,ALASKA,ARIZONA,ARKANSAS, CALIFORNIA,COLORADO,CONNETICUT, DELAWARE,FLORIDA,GEORGIA,HAWAII,IDAHO ILLINOIS,INDIANA,IOWA,KANSAS,KUNTUCKY, LOUISIANA,MAINE,MARYLAND,MASSACHUSETTS,MICHIGAN,MINNESOTA,MISSISSIPPI,MISSOURI, MONTANA,NEBRASKA,NEVADA,NEW HEMSHIRE, NEW JERSEY,NEW MEXICO,NEW YORK, NORTH CAROLINA,NORTH DAKOTA,OHIO, OKLAHOMA,OREGON,PENNSYLVANIA, RHODE ISLAND,SOUTH CAROLINA, SOUTH DAKOTA,TENNESSEE,TEXAS,UTAH, VERMONT,VIRGINIA,WASHINGTON, WEST VIRGINIA,WISCONSIN,WYOMING. NORTH,SOUTH,EAST,WEST IN A CALM OBJECTIVE OPINION, IS THE BEST OF THE 50 NIFTY UNITED STATES FROM 13 ORIGINAL COLONIES,SHOUT 'EM,SCOUT 'EM,TELL ALL ABOUT 'EM.1 BY 1,TILL WE'VE GIVEN A DAY TO EVERY STATE IN THE GOOD OLD,U.......S.......A. BY:RAY CHARLES hahaha I loved that song, sometimes it gets annoying. =\

isnt some/most/all of this ridicilious? - In Victoria Australia, only a licensed electrician is allowed to change a lightbulb. - In Victoria Australia it is forbidden to wear pink hot pants after mid-day on a Sunday. - It England, it is illegal for a cab in the City of London to carry rabid dogs or corpses. - It England, it is illegal to die in the Houses of Parliament. - It England, it is an act of treason to place a postage stamp bearing the British monarch upside down. - In France, it is forbidden to call a pig Napoleon. - Under the UK’s Tax Avoidance Schemes Regulations 2006, it is illegal not to tell the taxman anything you don’t want him to know, though you don’t have to tell him anything you don’t mind him knowing. - In Alabama, it is illegal for a driver to be blindfolded while driving a vehicle. - In Ohio, it is against state law to get a fish drunk. - Royal Navy ships that enter the Port of London must provide a barrel of rum to the Constable of the Tower of London. - In the UK, a pregnant woman can legally relieve herself anywhere she wants - even, if she so requests, in a policeman’s helmet. - In Lancashire, no person is permitted after being asked to stop by a constable on the seashore to incite a dog to bark. - In Miami, Florida, it is illegal to skateboard in a police station. - In Indonesia, the penalty for masturbation is decapitation. - In the UK, all men over the age of 14 must carry out two hours of longbow practice a day. - In London, Freemen are allowed to take a flock of sheep across London Bridge without being charged a toll; they are also allowed to drive geese down Cheapside. - In San Salvador, drunk drivers can be punished by death before a firing squad. - In the UK, a man who feels compelled to urinate in public can do so only if he aims for his rear wheel and keeps his right hand on his vehicle. - In Florida, unmarried women who parachute on Sundays can be jailed. - In Kentucky, it is illegal to carry a concealed weapon more than six-feet long. - In Chester, Welshmen are banned from entering the city before sunrise and from staying after sunset. - In the city of York, it is legal to murder a Scotsman within the ancient city walls, but only if he is carrying a bow and arrow. - In Boulder, Colorado, it is illegal to kill a bird within the city limits and also to “own” a pet - the town’s citizens, legally speaking, are merely “pet minders”. - In Vermont, women must obtain written permission from their husbands to wear false teeth. - In London, it is illegal to flag down a taxi if you have the plague. - In Bahrain, a male doctor may legally examine a woman’s genitals but is forbidden from looking directly at them during the examination; he may only see their reflection in a mirror. - The head of any dead whale found on the British coast is legally the property of the King; the tail, on the other hand, belongs to the Queen - in case she needs the bones for her corset. - In Eureka, Nevada, USA, it is still illegal for men with moustaches to kiss women. - In Alexandria, Minnesota, USA, it is still illegal for a man who has garlic, onions or sardines on his breath to have sex with his wife. - In Logan County, Colorado, USA, it is still illegal to kiss a woman while she is asleep. - In Providence, Rhode Island, USA, it is still illegal for shop owners to sell toothpaste and toothbrushes to the same customer on a Sunday. - In Zion, Illinois, USA, it is still illegal to offer cigars to your pets. - In St. Louis, Missouri, USA, it is still illegal for firemen to rescue women who are still in their nightdresses. - In Ames, Iowa, USA, it is still illegal for men to have three sips of beer while they are in bed with their wives. - In Maryland, USA, it is still illegal for radio stations to play Randy Newman’s song ‘Short people’. - In Oklahoma, USA, it is still illegal to make faces at a dog, a crime that could result in a prison sentence. - In Texas, USA, criminals are still required to give their victims at least 24 hours oral or written notice giving details of the crime they are about to commit. - In Washington, USA, it is still an offence to pretend that you have rich parents. - In Baltimore, Maryland, USA, it is still an offence to take a lion into a cinema. - In Tremonton, Utah, USA, it is still an offence for a woman to have sexual intercourse with a man in an ambulance. She can be charged with a misdemeanour and have her name printed in the local paper. - In Oxford, Ohio, USA, it is still illegal for a woman to undress in front of a picture of a man. - In Miami, Florida, USA, it is still illegal for anyone to imitate an animal. - In Afghanistan the Taliban militia banned women from wearing white socks just in case men find them attractive. The police are also ordered windows to be painted black to stop women being seen from the outside. - In the USA impotence is grounds for divorce in 24 states.

Question! What do you think of these 25 well thought out stupid laws 10 points for best answer? 25. It is illegal for a cab in the City of London to carry rabid dogs or corpses. 24. It is illegal to die in the Houses of Parliament. 23. It is an act of treason to place a postage stamp bearing the British monarch upside down. 22. In France, it is forbidden to call your pig Napoleon. 21. Under the UK’s Tax Avoidance Schemes Regulations 2006, it is illegal not to tell the taxman anything you don’t want him to know, though you don’t have to tell him anything you don’t mind him knowing. 20. In Alabama, it is illegal for a driver to be blindfolded while driving a vehicle. 19. In Ohio, it is against state law to get a fish drunk. 18. Royal Navy ships that enter the Port of London must provide a barrel of rum to the Constable of the Tower of London. 17. In the UK, a pregnant woman can legally relieve herself anywhere she wants – even, if she so requests, in a policeman’s helmet. 16. In Lancashire, no person is permitted after being asked to stop by a constable on the seashore to incite a dog to bark. 15. In Miami, Florida, it is illegal to skateboard in a police station. 14. In Indonesia, the penalty for masturbation is decapitation. 13. In England, all men over the age of 14 must carry out two hours of longbow practice a day. 12. In London, Freemen are allowed to take a flock of sheep across London Bridge without being charged a toll; they are also allowed to drive geese down Cheapside. 11. In San Salvador, drunk drivers can be punished by death before a firing squad. 10. In the UK, a man who feels compelled to urinate in public can do so only if he aims for his rear wheel and keeps his right hand on his vehicle. 9. In Florida, unmarried women who parachute on Sundays can be jailed. 8. In Kentucky, it is illegal to carry a concealed weapon more than six-feet long. 7. In Chester, Welshmen are banned from entering the city before sunrise and from staying after sunset. 6. In the city of York, it is legal to murder a Scotsman within the ancient city walls, but only if he is carrying a bow and arrow. 5. In Boulder, Colorado, it is illegal to kill a bird within the city limits and also to “own” a pet – the town’s citizens, legally speaking, are merely “pet minders”. 4. In Vermont, women must obtain written permission from their husbands to wear false teeth. 3. In London, it is illegal to flag down a taxi if you have the plague. 2. In Bahrain, a male doctor may legally examine a woman’s genitals but is forbidden from looking directly at them during the examination; he may only see their reflection in a mirror. 1. The head of any dead whale found on the British coast is legally the property of the King; the tail, on the other hand, belongs to the Queen - in case she needs the bones for her corset.

Is this possible? Subject: Be Aware of Possible False Flag Attack Body: US Opposition Political Leaders Issue Urgent False Flag Terror Warning Warn of imminent plot to "orchestrate and manufacture a new 9/11 terror incident" Infowars.net | August 27 , 2007 Steve Watson A group of former government officials along with current Congressional candidates, authors and activists has issued an urgent warning that a faction of the US government allied with Dick Cheney is planning to stage a terror event or provocation as a pretext for launching military attacks against Iran and implementing emergency powers in America. Former US Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, along with former US Diplomat and Colonel in the US Army reserve Ann Wright have put their names to an open letter warning that massive evidence points to an upcoming event. Current Congressional candidates Cindy Sheehan and Craig Hill are also among the signatories to the letter. Here is the letter in full: To the American people, and to peace loving individuals everywhere: Massive evidence has come to our attention which shows that the backers, controllers, and allies of Vice President Dick Cheney are determined to orchestrate and manufacture a new 9/11 terror incident, and/or a new Gulf of Tonkin war provocation over the coming weeks and months. Such events would be used by the Bush administration as a pretext for launching an aggressive war against Iran, quite possibly with nuclear weapons, and for imposing a regime of martial law here in the United States. We call on the House of Representatives to proceed immediately to the impeachment of Cheney, as an urgent measure for avoiding a wider and more catastrophic war. Once impeachment has begun, it will be easier for loyal and patriotic military officers to refuse illegal orders coming from the Cheney faction. We solemnly warn the people of the world that any terrorist attack with weapons of mass destruction taking place inside the United States or elsewhere in the immediate future must be considered the prima facie responsibility of the Cheney faction. We urge responsible political leaders everywhere to begin at once to inoculate the public opinion of their countries against such a threatened false flag terror operation. (Signed) A Group of US Opposition Political Leaders Gathered in Protest at the Bush Compound in Kennebunkport, Maine, August 24-25, 2007 CYNTHIA MCKINNEY, FORMER US CONGRESSWOMAN, GEORGIA CINDY SHEEHAN, CANDIDATE FOR US CONGRESS, CALIFORNIA CRAIG HILL, CANDIDATE FOR US CONGRESS, VERMONT GREEN PARTY BRUCE MARSHALL, CONVENOR, PHILADELPHIA PLATFORM JAMILLA EL-SHAFEI, KENNEBUNK PEACE DEPARTMENT WEBSTER G. TARPLEY, AUTHOR ANN WRIGHT, COLONEL US ARMY RESERVE, FORMER US DIPLOMAT DR. DAHLIA WASFI, WWW.LIBERATETHIS.COM GEORGE PAZ MARTIN JOHN KAMINSKI , PRESIDENT MAINE LAWYERS FOR DEMOCRACY The letter was signed by the group at an anti war protest this weekend which saw four thousand march near the Bush family residence on Walker's Point in Kennebunkport. The warning comes on the heels of a spate of recent news stories and reports indicating that "chatter" about a terror event is at an all time high. Further evidence that some form of event is imminent has emerged with strange stock market activity occurring just as did in the weeks and days preceding 9/11. A mystery trader risks losing around $1 billion dollars after placing 245,000 put options on the Dow Jones Eurostoxx 50 index, leading many analysts to speculate that a stock market crash preceded by a new 9/11 style catastrophe could take place within the next month. The Kennebunkport group have demanded the immediate impeachment of Dick Cheney in order to prevent any such activities coming to fruition. This does not reflect my personal views.. it was something that was sent to me..

Has the GOP lost the northeast and upper midwest for good? I am from Vermont. My father used to be a Republican. In fact, most northeastern states used to be solidly Republican in the past. The "Party of Lincoln" was a northern party. It was not dominated by southern confederate flag waving conservatives like it is today. Was moderate Republican senator Voinovich right when he said this: “We got too many Jim DeMints (South Carolina) and Tom Coburns (Oklahoma),” he told an interviewer with The Columbus Dispatch. “It’s the Southerners. They get on TV and go ‘errrr, errrrr.’ People hear them and say, ‘These people, they’re Southerners. The party’s being taken over by Southerners. What … they got to do with Ohio?’ ” http://www.kansascity.com/273/story/1373106.html

Who is more of a threat to National Security in the US? Islamic terrorists or white supremacists? Charles Manson said in 1969 "When Blackie's on top, we will come out of the dessert and take over the world." We now have a black President, er, mixed race. When is the race war going to start? Should Sandra Goode's property in Vermont be watched 24/7. Afterall, Squeaky Fromme tried to assassinate the late President Ford. Susan Atkins died of brain cancer. But there are other crazies out there who still admire Manson, deny that he ever even hurt a fly and think he is a genius and talented musician. Prisons throughout the US have members of the Aryan Brotherhood. Ku Klux Klan has local chapters in every state in the nation. The Jew Haters, excuse me Anti Zionists, continue to grow in numbers. In Europe, Israeli and American flags are burned at public rallies. The latest gatherings included the withdrawal of troops from Iraq as ordered by President Obama. It is ironic that both the withdrawal of troops from Iraq and the proposal to build a mosque near Ground Zero have occurred almost simultaneously. Why do the Muslims want to build a mosque in the heart of Manhattan? It is one of the most densely populated areas in the world. It is also one of the post densely populated areas of Jewish people in the world. Per capita, there are more Jews in New York than in Jerusalem. Is it any coincidence that the terrorists chose New York, specifically Manhattan to carry out their attack in the name of Allah? Hitler claimed to be doing God's Will in the Holocaust. The Islamic terrorists claimed to be instruments of Allah in carrying out the 9/11/01 attack. Who is more of a threat to National Security in the US? Islamic terrorists or white supremacists? I am not a Jew but I have been told I look like one by white supremacists. Ringo is getting a shot gun and a permit. Peace and Love- and Happiness Is a Warm Gun The Black Panthers have taken over the voting precincts. I was threatened by a scary dude just outside of the polling place. He cut me off in his OJ style white Bronco and yelled "voted for McCain, didn't ya?" And hit the gas before I could reply. The truth is I voted for Obama. If I had been cut off prior to voting I might have voted for McCain just to spite the angry panther. Screw you! I will vote for whoever I want to- not because some Black Panther threatens me.

citizenship english question translate to arabic ? any one new anywebsite hit me up ? INS Citizenship Test Questions The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) administers a test to all immigrants applying for citizenship. For years, these questions have been selected from among the following list of 100. How would you do? Many, you will find simple. Others are not so easy. In all cases, the answer USCIS wants to hear is given. (Study Materials and Guides) NOTE: New Test Questions Coming Oct. 1, 2008 On Oct. 1, 2008 The USCIS will switch a new set of test questions. All applicants who file for naturalization on or after October 1, 2008 will be required to take the redesigned test. For those applicants who file prior to October 1, 2008 but are not interviewed until after October , 2008 (but before October 1, 2009), there will be an option of taking the new test or the current one. ________________________________________ Current USCIS Test Questions (Click on the question to see the answer.) 1. What are the colors of our flag? 2. How many stars are there in our flag? 3. What color are the stars on our flag? 4. What do the stars on the flag mean? 5. How many stripes are there in the flag? 6. What color are the stripes? 7. What do the stripes on the flag mean? 8. How many states are there in the Union? 9. What is the 4th of July? 10. What is the date of Independence Day? 11. Independence from whom? 12. What country did we fight during the Revolutionary War? 13. Who was the first President of the United States? 14. Who is the President of the United States today? 15. Who is the vice-president of the United States today? 16. Who elects the President of the United States? 17. Who becomes President of the United States if the President should die? 18. For how long do we elect the President? 19. What is the Constitution? 20. Can the Constitution be changed? 21. What do we call a change to the Constitution? 22. How many changes or amendments are there to the Constitution? 23. How many branches are there in our government? 24. What are the three branches of our government? 25. What is the legislative branch of our government? 26. Who makes the laws in the United States? 27. What is the Congress? 28. What are the duties of Congress? 29. Who elects the Congress? 30. How many senators are there in Congress? 31. Can you name the two senators from your state? 32. For how long do we elect each senator? 33. How many representatives are there in Congress? 34. For how long do we elect the representatives? 35. What is the executive branch of our government? 36. What is the judiciary branch of our government? 37. What are the duties of the Supreme Court? 38. What is the supreme court law of the United States? 39. What is the Bill of Rights? 40. What is the capital of your state? 41. Who is the current governor of your state? 42. Who becomes President of the United States if the President and the vice-president should die? 43. Who is the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court? 44. Can you name thirteen original states? 45. Who said, "Give me liberty or give me death."? 46. Which countries were our enemies during World War II? 47. What are the 49th and 50th states of the Union? 48. How many terms can the President serve? 49. Who was Martin Luther King, Jr.? 50. Who is the head of your local government? 51. According to the Constitution, a person must meet certain requirements in order to be eligible to become President. Name one of these requirements. 52. Why are there 100 Senators in the Senate? 53. Who selects the Supreme Court justice? 54. How many Supreme Court justice are there? 55. Why did the Pilgrims come to America? 56. What is the head executive of a state government called? 57. What is the head executive of a city government called? 58. What holiday was celebrated for the first time by the Americans colonists? 59. Who was the main writer of the Declaration of Independence? 60. When was the Declaration of Independence adopted? 61. What is the basic belief of the Declaration of Independence? 62. What is the national anthem of the United States? 63. Who wrote the Star-Spangled Banner? 64. Where does freedom of speech come from? 65. What is a minimum voting age in the United States? 66. Who signs bills into law? 67. What is the highest court in the United States? 68. Who was the President during the Civil War? 69. What did the Emancipation Declaration do? 70. What special group advises the President? 71. Which President is called the "Father of our country"? 72. What Immigration and Naturalization Service form is used to apply to become a naturalized citizen? 73. Who helped the Pilgrims in America? 74. What is the name of the ship that brought the Pilgrims to America? 75. What are the 13 original states of the U.S. called? 76. Name 3 rights of freedom guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. 77. Who has the power to declare the war? 78. What kind of government does the United States have? 79. Which President freed the slaves? 80. In what year was the Constitution written? 81. What are the first 10 amendments to the Constitution called? 82. Name one purpose of the United Nations? 83. Where does Congress meet? 84. Whose rights are guaranteed by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights? 85. What is the introduction to the Constitution called? 86. Name one benefit of being citizen of the United States. 87. What is the most important right granted to U.S. citizens? 88. What is the United States Capitol? 89. What is the White House? 90. Where is the White House located? 91. What is the name of the President's official home? 92. Name the right guaranteed by the first amendment. 93. Who is the Commander in Chief of the U.S. military? 94. Which President was the first Commander in Chief of the U.S. military? 95. In what month do we vote for the President? 96. In what month is the new President inaugurated? 97. How many times may a Senator be re-elected? 98. How many times may a Congressman be re-elected? 99. What are the 2 major political parties in the U.S. today? 100. How many states are there in the United States today? ________________________________________ 1. What are the colors of our flag? Red, White, and Blue. 2. How many stars are there in our flag? 50 3. What color are the stars on our flag? White. 4. What do the stars on the flag mean? One for each state in the Union. 5. How many stripes are there in the flag? 13 6. What color are the stripes? Red and White. 7. What do the stripes on the flag mean? They represent the original 13 states. 8. How many states are there in the Union? 50 9. What is the 4th of July? Independence Day. 10. What is the date of Independence Day? July 4th 11. Independence from whom? England 12. What country did we fight during the Revolutionary War? England 13. Who was the first President of the United States? George Washington 14. Who is the President of the United States today? Currently George W. Bush 15. Who is the vice-president of the United States today? Currently Richard B. ("Dick") Cheney 16. Who elects the President of the United States? The electoral college 17. Who becomes President of the United States if the President should die? Vice - President 18. For how long do we elect the President? Four years 19. What is the Constitution? The supreme law of the land 20. Can the Constitution be changed? Yes 21. What do we call a change to the Constitution? An Amendment 22. How many changes or amendments are there to the Constitution? 27 23. How many branches are there in our government? 3 24. What are the three branches of our government? Legislative, Executive, and Judiciary 25. What is the legislative branch of our government? Congress 26. Who makes the laws in the United States? Congress 27. What is the Congress? The Senate and the House of Representatives 28. What are the duties of Congress? To make laws 29. Who elects the Congress? The people 30. How many senators are there in Congress? 100 31. Can you name the two senators from your state? (insert local information) 32. For how long do we elect each senator? 6 years 33. How many representatives are there in Congress? 435 34. For how long do we elect the representatives? 2 years 35. What is the executive branch of our government? The President, vice president, cabinet, and departments under the cabinet members 36. What is the judiciary branch of our government? The Supreme Court 37. What are the duties of the Supreme Court? To interpret laws 38. What is the supreme court law of the United States? The Constitution 39. What is the Bill of Rights? The first 10 amendments of the Constitution 40. What is the capital of your state? (insert local information) 41. Who is the current governor of your state? (insert local information) 42. Who becomes President of the United States if the President and the vice-president should die? Speaker of the House of Representative 43. Who is the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court? William Rehnquist (or whoever is next) 44. Can you name thirteen original states? Connecticut, New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Rhode Island, and Maryland. 45. Who said, "Give me liberty or give me death."? Patrick Henry 46. Which countries were our enemies during World War II? Germany, Italy, and Japan 47. What are the 49th and 50th states of the Union? Hawaii and Alaska 48. How many terms can the President serve? 2 49. Who was Martin Luther King, Jr.? A civil rights leader 50. Who is the head of your local government? (insert local information) 51. According to the Constitution, a person must meet certain requirements in order to be eligible to become President. Name one of these requirements. Must be a natural born citizen of the United States; must be at least 35 years old by the time he/she will serve; must have lived in the United States for at least 14 years. 52. Why are there 100 Senators in the Senate? Two (2) from each state 53. Who selects the Supreme Court justice? Appointed by the President 54. How many Supreme Court justice are there? Nine (9) 55. Why did the Pilgrims come to America? For religious freedom 56. What is the head executive of a state government called? Governor 57. What is the head executive of a city government called? Mayor 58. What holiday was celebrated for the first time by the Americans colonists? Thanksgiving 59. Who was the main writer of the Declaration of Independence? Thomas Jefferson 60. When was the Declaration of Independence adopted? July 4, 1776 61. What is the basic belief of the Declaration of Independence? That all men are created equal 62. What is the national anthem of the United States? The Star-Spangled Banner 63. Who wrote the Star-Spangled Banner? Francis Scott Key 64. Where does freedom of speech come from? The Bill of Rights 65. What is a minimum voting age in the United States? Eighteen (18) 66. Who signs bills into law? The President 67. What is the highest court in the United States? The Supreme Court 68. Who was the President during the Civil War? Abraham Lincoln 69. What did the Emancipation Declaration do? Freed many slaves 70. What special group advises the President? The Cabinet 71. Which President is called the "Father of our country"? George Washington 72. What Immigration and Naturalization Service form is used to apply to become a naturalized citizen? Form N-400, Application to File Petition for Naturalization 73. Who helped the Pilgrims in America? The American-Indians (Native Americans) 74. What is the name of the ship that brought the Pilgrims to America? The Mayflower 75. What are the 13 original states of the U.S. called? Colonies 76. Name 3 rights of freedom guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. The right of freedom of speech, press, religion, peaceable assembly, and requesting change of government. The right to bear arms (the right to have weapons or own a gun, though subject to certain regulations). The government may not quarter, or house, soldiers in the people's homes during peacetime without the people's consent. The government may not search or take a person's property without a warrant. A person may not be tried twice for the same crime and does not have to testify against him/herself. A person charged with a crime still has some rights, such as the right to a trial and to have a lawyer. The right to trial by jury in most cases. Protects people against excessive or unreasonable fines or cruel and unusual punishment. The people have rights other than those mentioned in the Constitution. Any power not given to the federal government by the Constitution is a power of either the state or the people. 77. Who has the power to declare the war? The Congress 78. What kind of government does the United States have? Democracy 79. Which President freed the slaves? Abraham Lincoln 80. In what year was the Constitution written? 1787 81. What are the first 10 amendments to the Constitution called? The Bill of Rights 82. Name one purpose of the United Nations? For countries to discuss and try to resolve world problems, to provide economic aid to many countries. 83. Where does Congress meet? In the Capitol in Washington, D.C. 84. Whose rights are guaranteed by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights? Everyone (citizens and non-citizens) living in U.S. 85. What is the introduction to the Constitution called? The Preamble 86. Name one benefit of being citizen of the United States. Obtain federal government jobs, travel with U.S. passport, petition for close relatives to come to the U.S. to live. 87. What is the most important right granted to U.S. citizens? The right to vote 88. What is the United States Capitol? The place where Congress meets 89. What is the White House? The President's official home 90. Where is the White House located? Washington, D.C. (1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.) 91. What is the name of the President's official home? The White House 92. Name the right guaranteed by the first amendment. Freedom of: speech, press, religion, peaceable assembly, and requesting change of the government. 93. Who is the Commander in Chief of the U.S. military? The President 94. Which President was the first Commander in Chief of the U.S. military? George Washington 95. In what month do we vote for the President? November 96. In what month is the new President inaugurated? January 97. How many times may a Senator be re-elected? There is no limit 98. How many times may a Congressman be re-elected? There is no limit 99. What are the 2 major political parties in the U.S. today? Democratic and Republican 100. How many states are there in the United States today? Fifty (50) New Naturalization Test Questions Beginning on Oct. 1, 2008, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) will replace the set of questions currently used as part of the citizenship test with the questions listed here. All applicants who file for naturalization on or after October 1, 2008 will be required to take the new test. For those applicants who file prior to October 1, 2008 but are not interviewed until after October , 2008 (but before October 1, 2009), there will be an option of taking the new test or the current one. New Test Questions and Answers Some questions have more than one correct answer. In those cases, all acceptable answers are shown. All answers are shown exactly as worded by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. * If you are 65 years old or older and have been a legal permanent resident of the United States for 20 or more years, you may study just the questions that have been marked with an asterisk. AMERICAN GOVERNMENT A. Principles of American Democracy 1. What is the supreme law of the land? A: The Constitution 2. What does the Constitution do? A: sets up the government A: defines the government A: protects basic rights of Americans 3. The idea of self-government is in the first three words of the Constitution. What are these words? A: We the People 4. What is an amendment? A: a change (to the Constitution) A: an addition (to the Constitution) 5. What do we call the first ten amendments to the Constitution? A: The Bill of Rights 6. What is one right or freedom from the First Amendment?* A: speech A: religion A: assembly A: press A: petition the government 7. How many amendments does the Constitution have? A: twenty-seven (27) 8. What did the Declaration of Independence do? A: announced our independence (from Great Britain) A: declared our independence (from Great Britain) A: said that the United States is free (from Great Britain) 9. What are two rights in the Declaration of Independence? A: life A: liberty A: pursuit of happiness 10. What is freedom of religion? A: You can practice any religion, or not practice a religion. 11. What is the economic system in the United States?* A: capitalist economy A: market economy 12. What is the "rule of law"? A: Everyone must follow the law. A: Leaders must obey the law. A: Government must obey the law. A: No one is above the law. B. System of Government 13. Name one branch or part of the government.* A: Congress A: legislative A: President A: executive A: the courts A: judicial 14. What stops one branch of government from becoming too powerful? A: checks and balances A: separation of powers 15. Who is in charge of the executive branch? A: the President 16. Who makes federal laws? A: Congress A: Senate and House (of Representatives) A: (U.S. or national) legislature 17. What are the two parts of the U.S. Congress?* A: the Senate and House (of Representatives) 18. How many U.S. Senators are there? A: one hundred (100) 19. We elect a U.S. Senator for how many years? A: six (6) 20. Who is one of your state's U.S. Senators?* A: Answers will vary. [For District of Columbia residents and residents of U.S. territories, the answer is that D.C. (or the territory where the applicant lives) has no U.S. Senators.] * If you are 65 years old or older and have been a legal permanent resident of the United States for 20 or more years, you may study just the questions that have been marked with an asterisk. 21. The House of Representatives has how many voting members? A: four hundred thirty-five (435) 22. We elect a U.S. Representative for how many years? A: two (2) 23. Name your U.S. Representative. A: Answers will vary. [Residents of territories with nonvoting Delegates or resident Commissioners may provide the name of that Delegate or Commissioner. Also acceptable is any statement that the territory has no (voting) Representatives in Congress.] 24. Who does a U.S. Senator represent? A: all people of the state 25. Why do some states have more Representatives than other states? A: (because of) the state's population A: (because) they have more people A: (because) some states have more people 26. We elect a President for how many years? A: four (4) 27. In what month do we vote for President?* A: November 28. What is the name of the President of the United States now?* A: George W. Bush A: George Bush A: Bush 29. What is the name of the Vice President of the United States now? A: Richard Cheney A: Dick Cheney A: Cheney 30. If the President can no longer serve, who becomes President? A: the Vice President 31. If both the President and the Vice President can no longer serve, who becomes President? A: the Speaker of the House 32. Who is the Commander in Chief of the military? A: the President 33. Who signs bills to become laws? A: the President 34. Who vetoes bills? A: the President 35. What does the President's Cabinet do? A: advises the President 36. What are two Cabinet-level positions? A: Secretary of Agriculture A: Secretary of Commerce A: Secretary of Defense A: Secretary of Education A: Secretary of Energy A: Secretary of Health and Human Services A: Secretary of Homeland Security A: Secretary of Housing and Urban Development A: Secretary of Interior A: Secretary of State A: Secretary of Transportation A: Secretary of Treasury A: Secretary of Veterans' Affairs A: Secretary of Labor A: Attorney General 37. does the judicial branch do? A: reviews laws A: explains laws A: resolves disputes (disagreements) A: decides if a law goes against the Constitution 38. What is the highest court in the United States? A: the Supreme Court 39. How many justices are on the Supreme Court? A: nine (9) 40. Who is the Chief Justice of the United States? A: John Roberts (John G. Roberts, Jr.) * If you are 65 years old or older and have been a legal permanent resident of the United States for 20 or more years, you may study just the questions that have been marked with an asterisk. 41. Under our Constitution, some powers belong to the federal government. What is one power of the federal government? A: to print money A: to declare war A: to create an army A: to make treaties 42. Under our Constitution, some powers belong to the states. What is one power of the states? A: provide schooling and education A: provide protection (police) A: provide safety (fire departments) A: give a driver's license A: approve zoning and land use 43. Who is the Governor of your state? A: Answers will vary. [Residents of the District of Columbia and U.S. territories without a Governor should say "we don't have a Governor."] 44. What is the capital of your state?* A: Answers will vary. [District of Columbia residents should answer that D.C. is not a state and does not have a capital. Residents of U.S. territories should name the capital of the territory.] 45. What are the two major political parties in the United States?* A: Democratic and Republican 46. What is the political party of the President now? A: Republican (Party) 47. What is the name of the Speaker of the House of Representatives now? A: (Nancy) Pelosi C: Rights and Responsibilities 48. There are four amendments to the Constitution about who can vote. Describe one of them. A: Citizens eighteen (18) and older (can vote). A: You don't have to pay (a poll tax) to vote. A: Any citizen can vote. (Women and men can vote.) A: A male citizen of any race (can vote). 49. What is one responsibility that is only for United States citizens?* A: serve on a jury A: vote 50. What are two rights only for United States citizens? A: apply for a federal job A: vote A: run for office A: carry a U.S. passport 51. What are two rights of everyone living in the United States? A: freedom of expression A: freedom of speech A: freedom of assembly A: freedom to petition the government A: freedom of worship A: the right to bear arms 52. What do we show loyalty to when we say the Pledge of Allegiance? A: the United States A: the flag 53. What is one promise you make when you become a United States citizen? A: give up loyalty to other countries A: defend the Constitution and laws of the United States A: obey the laws of the United States A: serve in the U.S. military (if needed) A: serve (do important work for) the nation (if needed) A: be loyal to the United States 54. How old do citizens have to be to vote for President?* A: eighteen (18) and older 55. What are two ways that Americans can participate in their democracy? A: vote A: join a political party A: help with a campaign A: join a civic group A: join a community group A: give an elected official your opinion on an issue A: call Senators and Representatives A: publicly support or oppose an issue or policy A: run for office A: write to a newspaper 56. When is the last day you can send in federal income tax forms?* A: April 15 57. When must all men register for the Selective Service? A: at age eighteen (18) A: between eighteen (18) and twenty-six (26) AMERICAN HISTORY A: Colonial Period and Independence 58. What is one reason colonists came to America? A: freedom A: political liberty A: religious freedom A: economic opportunity A: practice their religion A: escape persecution 59. Who lived in America before the Europeans arrived? A: Native Americans A: American Indians 60. What group of people was taken to America and sold as slaves? A: Africans A: people from Africa * If you are 65 years old or older and have been a legal permanent resident of the United States for 20 or more years, you may study just the questions that have been marked with an asterisk. 61. Why did the colonists fight the British? A: because of high taxes (taxation without representation) A: because the British army stayed in their houses (boarding, quartering) A: because they didn't have self-government 62. Who wrote the Declaration of Independence? A: (Thomas) Jefferson 63. When was the Declaration of Independence adopted? A: July 4, 1776 64. There were 13 original states. Name three. A: New Hampshire A: Massachusetts A: Rhode Island A: Connecticut A: New York A: New Jersey A: Pennsylvania A: Delaware A: Maryland A: Virginia A: North Carolina A: South Carolina A: Georgia 65. What happened at the Constitutional Convention? A: The Constitution was written. A: The Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution. 66. When was the Constitution written? A: 1787 67. The Federalist Papers supported the passage of the U.S. Constitution. Name one of the writers. A: (James) Madison A: (Alexander) Hamilton A: (John) Jay A: Publius 68. What is one thing Benjamin Franklin is famous for? A: U.S. diplomat A: oldest member of the Constitutional Convention A: first Postmaster General of the United States A: writer of "Poor Richard's Almanac" A: started the first free libraries 69. Who is the "Father of Our Country"? A: (George) Washington 70. Who was the first President?* A: (George) Washington B: 1800s 71. What territory did the United States buy from France in 1803? A: the Louisiana Territory A: Louisiana 72. Name one war fought by the United States in the 1800s. A: War of 1812 A: Mexican-American War A: Civil War A: Spanish-American War 73. Name the U.S. war between the North and the South. A: the Civil War A: the War between the States 74. Name one problem that led to the Civil War. A: slavery A: economic reasons A: states' rights 75. What was one important thing that Abraham Lincoln did?* A: freed the slaves (Emancipation Proclamation) A: saved (or preserved) the Union A: led the United States during the Civil War 76. What did the Emancipation Proclamation do? A: freed the slaves A: freed slaves in the Confederacy A: freed slaves in the Confederate states A: freed slaves in most Southern states 77. What did Susan B. Anthony do? A: fought for women's rights A: fought for civil rights C: Recent American History and Other Important Historical Information 78. Name one war fought by the United States in the 1900s.* A: World War I A: World War II A: Korean War A: Vietnam War A: (Persian) Gulf War 79. Who was President during World War I? A: (Woodrow) Wilson 80. Who was President during the Great Depression and World War II? A: (Franklin) Roosevelt * If you are 65 years old or older and have been a legal permanent resident of the United States for 20 or more years, you may study just the questions that have been marked with an asterisk. 81. Who did the United States fight in World War II? A: Japan, Germany and Italy 82. Before he was President, Eisenhower was a general. What war was he in? A: World War II 83. During the Cold War, what was the main concern of the United States? A: Communism 84. What movement tried to end racial discrimination? A: civil rights (movement) 85. What did Martin Luther King, Jr. do?* A: fought for civil rights A: worked for equality for all Americans 86. What major event happened on September 11, 2001 in the United States? A: Terrorists attacked the United States. 87. Name one American Indian tribe in the United States. [Adjudicators will be supplied with a complete list.] A: Cherokee A: Navajo A: Sioux A: Chippewa A: Choctaw A: Pueblo A: Apache A: Iroquois A: Creek A: Blackfeet A: Seminole A: Cheyenne A: Arawak A: Shawnee A: Mohegan A: Huron A: Oneida A: Lakota A: Crow A: Teton A: Hopi A: Inuit INTEGRATED CIVICS A: Geography 88. Name one of the two longest rivers in the United States. A: Missouri (River) A: Mississippi (River) 89. What ocean is on the West Coast of the United States? A: Pacific (Ocean) 90. What ocean is on the East Coast of the United States? A: Atlantic (Ocean) 91. Name one U.S. territory. A: Puerto Rico A: U.S. Virgin Islands A: American Samoa A: Northern Mariana Islands A: Guam 92. Name one state that borders Canada. A: Maine A: New Hampshire A: Vermont A: New York A: Pennsylvania A: Ohio A: Michigan A: Minnesota A: North Dakota A: Montana A: Idaho A: Washington A: Alaska 93. Name one state that borders Mexico. A: California A: Arizona A: New Mexico A: Texas 94. What is the capital of the United States?* A: Washington, D.C. 95. Where is the Statue of Liberty?* A: New York (Harbor) A: Liberty Island [Also acceptable are New Jersey, near New York City, and on the Hudson (River).] B. Symbols 96. Why does the flag have 13 stripes? A: because there were 13 original colonies A: because the stripes represent the original colonies 97. Why does the flag have 50 stars?* A: because there is one star for each state A: because each star represents a state A: because there are 50 states 98. What is the name of the national anthem? A: The Star-Spangled Banner C: Holidays 99. When do we celebrate Independence Day?* A: July 4 100. Name two national U.S. holidays. A: New Year's Day A: Martin Luther King, Jr., Day A: Presidents' Day A: Memorial Day A: Independence Day A: Labor Day A: Columbus Day A: Veterans Day A: Thanksgiving A: Christmas

Is anti-Americanism a new phenomenon. Or did the WOT just bring out the haters that were always there? I have read much on the issue and I am convinced that the people who hate America today also hated America 20 years ago. Obviously younger generations will learn their hatred of America from their parents, teachers and the spiteful media. - I posted an interesting article on the subject below. The Falseness of Anti-Americanism Pollsters report rising anti-Americanism worldwide. The United States, they imply, squandered global sympathy after the September 11 terrorist attacks through its arrogant unilateralism. In truth, there was never any sympathy to squander. Anti-Americanism was already entrenched in the world's psyche—a backlash against a nation that comes bearing modernism to those who want it but who also fear and despise it. By Fouad Ajami Want to Know More? Suggested Readings “America is everywhere," Italian novelist Ignazio Silone once observed. It is in Karachi and Paris, in Jakarta and Brussels. An idea of it, a fantasy of it, hovers over distant lands. And everywhere there is also an obligatory anti-Americanism, a cover and an apology for the spell the United States casts over distant peoples and places. In the burning grounds of the Muslim world and on its periphery, U.S. embassies and their fate in recent years bear witness to a duality of the United States as Satan and redeemer. The embassies targeted by the masters of terror and by the diehards are besieged by visa-seekers dreaming of the golden, seductive country. If only the crowd in Tehran offering its tired rhythmic chant "marg bar amrika" ("death to America") really meant it! It is of visas and green cards and houses with lawns and of the glamorous world of Los Angeles, far away from the mullahs and their cultural tyranny, that the crowd really dreams. The frenzy with which radical Islamists battle against deportation orders from U.S. soil— dreading the prospect of returning to Amman and Beirut and Cairo— reveals the lie of anti-Americanism that blows through Muslim lands. The world rails against the United States, yet embraces its protection, its gossip, and its hipness. Tune into a talk show on the stridently anti-American satellite channel Al-Jazeera, and you'll behold a parody of American ways and techniques unfolding on the television screen. That reporter in the flak jacket, irreverent and cool against the Kabul or Baghdad background, borrows a form perfected in the country whose sins and follies that reporter has come to chronicle. In Doha, Qatar, Sheik Yusuf al-Qaradawi, arguably Sunni Islam's most influential cleric, at Omar ibn al-Khattab Mosque, a short distance away from the headquarters of the U.S. Central Command, delivers a khutba, a Friday sermon. The date is June 13, 2003. The cleric's big theme of the day is the arrogance of the United States and the cruelty of the war it unleashed on Iraq. This cleric, Egyptian born, political to his fingertips, and in full mastery of his craft and of the sensibility of his followers, is particularly agitated in his sermon. Surgery and a period of recovery have kept him away from his pulpit for three months, during which time there has been a big war in the Arab world that toppled Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq with stunning speed and effectiveness. The United States was "acting like a god on earth," al-Qaradawi told the faithful. In Iraq, the United States had appointed itself judge and jury. The invading power may have used the language of liberation and enlightenment, but this invasion of Iraq was a 21st-century version of what had befallen Baghdad in the middle years of the 13th century, in 1258 to be exact, when Baghdad, the city of learning and culture, was sacked by the Mongols. The preacher had his themes, but a great deal of the United States had gone into the preacher's art: Consider his Web site, Qaradawi.net, where the faithful can click and read his fatwas (religious edicts)— the Arabic interwoven with html text— about all matters of modern life, from living in non-Islamic lands to the permissibility of buying houses on mortgage to the follies of Arab rulers who have surrendered to U.S. power. Or what about his way with television? He is a star of the medium, and Al-Jazeera carried an immensely popular program of his. That art form owes a debt, no doubt, to the American "televangelists," as nothing in the sheik's traditional education at Al Azhar University in Cairo prepared him for this wired, portable religion. And then there are the preacher's children: One of his daughters had made her way to the University of Texas where she received a master's degree in biology, a son had earned a Ph.D. from the University of Central Florida in Orlando, and yet another son had embarked on that quintessential American degree, an MBA at the American University in Cairo. Al-Qaradawi embodies anti-Americanism as the flip side of Americanization. A NEW ORTHODOXY Of late, pollsters have come bearing news and numbers of anti-Americanism the world over. The reports are one dimensional and filled with panic. This past June, the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press published a survey of public opinion in 20 countries and the Palestinian territories that indicated a growing animus toward the United States. In the same month, the BBC came forth with a similar survey that included 10 countries and the United States. On the surface of it, anti-Americanism is a river overflowing its banks. In Indonesia, the United States is deemed more dangerous than al Qaeda. In Jordan, Russia, South Korea, and Brazil, the United States is thought to be more dangerous than Iran, the "rogue state" of the mullahs. There is no need to go so far away from home only to count the cats in Zanzibar. These responses to the United States are neither surprising nor profound. The pollsters, and those who have been brandishing their findings, see in these results some verdict on the United States itself— and on the performance abroad of the Bush presidency— but the findings could be read as a crude, admittedly limited, measure of the foul temper in some unsettled places. The pollsters have flaunted spreadsheets to legitimize a popular legend: It is not Americans that people abroad hate, but the United States! Yet it was Americans who fell to terrorism on September 11, 2001, and it is of Americans and their deeds, and the kind of social and political order they maintain, that sordid tales are told in Karachi and Athens and Cairo and Paris. You can't profess kindness toward Americans while attributing the darkest of motives to their homeland. The Pew pollsters ignored Greece, where hatred of the United States is now a defining feature of political life. The United States offended Greece by rescuing Bosnians and Kosovars. Then, the same Greeks who hailed the Serbian conquest of Srebrenica in 1995 and the mass slaughter of the Muslims there were quick to summon up outrage over the U.S. military campaign in Iraq. In one Greek public opinion survey, Americans were ranked among Albanians, Gypsies, and Turks as the most despised peoples. Takis Michas, a courageous Greek writer with an eye for his country's temperament, traces this new anti-Americanism to the Orthodox Church itself. A narrative of virtuous and embattled solitude and alienation from Western Christendom has always been integral to the Greek psyche; a fusion of church and nation is natural to the Greek worldview. In the 1990s, the Yugoslav wars gave this sentiment a free run. The church sanctioned and fed the belief that the United States was Satan, bent on destroying the "True Faith," Michas explains, and shoring up Turkey and the Muslims in the Balkans. A neo-Orthodox ideology took hold, slicing through faith and simplifying history. Where the Balkan churches— be they the Bulgars or the Serbs— had been formed in rebellion against the hegemony of the Greek priesthood, the new history made a fetish of the fidelity of Greece to its Orthodox "brethren." Greek paramilitary units fought alongside Bosnian Serbs as part of the Drina Corps under the command of indicted war criminal Gen. Ratko Mladic. The Greek flag was hoisted over the ruins of Srebenica's Orthodox church when the doomed city fell. Serbian war crimes elicited no sense of outrage in Greece; quite to the contrary, sympathy for Serbia and the identification with its war aims and methods were limitless. Beyond the Yugoslav wars, the neo-Orthodox worldview sanctified the ethnonationalism of Greece, spinning a narrative of Hellenic persecution at the hands of the United States as the standard-bearer of the West. Greece is part of NATO and of the European Union (EU), but an old schism— that of Eastern Orthodoxy's claim against the Latin world— has greater power and a deeper resonance. In the banal narrative of Greek anti-Americanism, this animosity emerges from U.S. support for the junta that reigned over the country from 1967 to 1974. This deeper fury enables the aggrieved to glide over the role the United States played in the defense and rehabilitation of Greece after World War II. Furthermore, it enables them to overlook the lifeline that migration offered to untold numbers of Greeks who are among the United States' most prosperous communities. Greece loves the idea of its "Westernness"— a place and a culture where the West ends, and some other alien world (Islam) begins. But the political culture of religious nationalism has isolated Greece from the wider currents of Western liberalism. What little modern veneer is used to dress up Greece's anti-Americanism is a pretense. The malady here is, paradoxically, a Greek variant of what plays out in the world of Islam: a belligerent political culture sharpening faith as a political weapon, an abdication of political responsibility for one's own world, and a search for foreign "devils." Lest they be trumped by their hated Greek rivals, the Turks now give voice to the same anti-Americanism. It is a peculiar sentiment among the Turks, given their pragmatism. They are not prone to the cluster of grievances that empower anti-Americanism in France or among the intelligentsia of the developing world. In the 1920s, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk gave Turkey a dream of modernity and self-help by pointing his country westward, distancing it from the Arab-Muslim lands to its south and east. But the secular, modernist dream in Turkey has fractured, and oddly, anti-Americanism blows through the cracks from the Arab lands and from Brussels and Berlin. The fury of the Turkish protests against the United States in the months prior to the war in Iraq exhibited a pathology all its own. It was, at times, nature imitating art: The protesters in the streets burned American flags in the apparent hope that Europeans (real Europeans, that is) would finally take Turkey and the Turks into the fold. The U.S. presence had been benign in Turkish lands, and Americans had been Turkey's staunchest advocates for coveted membership in the EU. But suddenly this relationship that served Turkey so well was no longer good enough. As the "soft" Islamists (there is no such thing, we ought to understand by now) revolted against Pax Americana, the secularists averted their gaze and let stand this new anti-Americanism. The pollsters calling on the Turks found a people in distress, their economy on the ropes, and their polity in an unfamiliar world beyond the simple certainties of Kemalism, yet without new political tools and compass. No dosage of anti-Americanism, the Turks will soon realize, will take Turkey past the gatekeepers of Europe. WE WERE ALL AMERICANS The introduction of the Pew report sets the tone for the entire study. The war in Iraq, it argues,"has widened the rift between Americans and Western Europeans" and "further inflamed the Muslim world." The implications are clear: The United States was better off before Bush's "unilateralism." The United States, in its hubris, summoned up this anti-Americanism. Those are the political usages of this new survey. But these sentiments have long prevailed in Jordan, Egypt, and France. During the 1990s, no one said good things about the United States in Egypt. It was then that the Islamist children of Egypt took to the road, to Hamburg and Kandahar, to hatch a horrific conspiracy against the United States. And it was in the 1990s, during the fabled stock market run, when the prophets of globalization preached the triumph of the U.S. economic model over the protected versions of the market in places such as France, when anti-Americanism became the uncontested ideology of French public life. Americans were barbarous, a threat to French cuisine and their beloved language. U.S. pension funds were acquiring their assets and Wall Street speculators were raiding their savings. The United States incarcerated far too many people and executed too many criminals. All these views thrived during a decade when Americans are now told they were loved and uncontested on foreign shores. Much has been made of the sympathy that the French expressed for the United States immediately after the September 11 attacks, as embodied by the famous editorial of Le Monde's publisher Jean-Marie Colombani, "Nous Sommes Tous Américains" ("We are all Americans"). And much has been made of the speed with which the United States presumably squandered that sympathy in the months that followed. But even Colombani's column, written on so searing a day, was not the unalloyed message of sympathy suggested by the title. Even on that very day, Colombani wrote of the United States reaping the whirlwind of its "cynicism"; he recycled the hackneyed charge that Osama bin Laden had been created and nurtured by U.S. intelligence agencies. Colombani quickly retracted what little sympathy he had expressed when, in December of 2001, he was back with an open letter to "our American friends" and soon thereafter with a short book, Tous Américains? le monde après le 11 septembre 2001 (All Americans? The World After September 11, 2001). By now the sympathy had drained, and the tone was one of belligerent judgment and disapproval. There was nothing to admire in Colombani's United States, which had run roughshod in the world and had been indifferent to the rule of law. Colombani described the U.S. republic as a fundamentalist Christian enterprise, its magistrates too deeply attached to the death penalty, its police cruel to its black population. A republic of this sort could not in good conscience undertake a campaign against Islamism. One can't, Colombani writes, battle the Taliban while trying to introduce prayers in one's own schools; one can't strive to reform Saudi Arabia while refusing to teach Darwinism in the schools of the Bible Belt; and one can't denounce the demands of the sharia (Islamic law) while refusing to outlaw the death penalty. Doubtless, he adds, the United States can't do battle with the Taliban before doing battle against the bigotry that ravages the depths of the United States itself. The United States had not squandered Colombani's sympathy; he never had that sympathy in the first place. Colombani was hardly alone in the French intellectual class in his enmity toward the United States. On November 3, 2001, in Le Monde, the writer and pundit Jean Baudrillard permitted himself a thought of stunning cynicism. He saw the perpetrators of September 11 acting out his own dreams and the dreams of others like him. He gave those attacks a sort of universal warrant: "How we have dreamt of this event," he wrote, "how all the world without exception dreamt of this event, for no one can avoid dreaming of the destruction of a power that has become hegemonic . . . . It is they who acted, but we who wanted the deed." Casting caution and false sympathy aside, Baudrillard saw the terrible attacks on the United States as an "object of desire." The terrorists had been able to draw on a "deep complicity," knowing perfectly well that they were acting out the hidden yearnings of others oppressed by the United States' order and power. To him, morality of the U.S. variety is a sham, and the terrorism directed against it is a legitimate response to the inequities of "globalization." In his country's intellectual landscape, Baudrillard was no loner. A struggle had raged throughout the 1990s, pitting U.S.-led globalization (with its low government expenditures, a "cheap" and merciless Wall Street-Treasury Department axis keen on greater discipline in the market, and relatively long working hours on the part of labor) against France's protectionist political economy. The primacy the United States assigned to liberty waged a pitched battle against the French commitment to equity. To maintain France's sympathy, and that of Le Monde, the United States would have had to turn the other cheek to the murderers of al Qaeda, spare the Taliban, and engage the Muslim world in some high civilizational dialogue. But who needs high approval ratings in Marseille? Envy of U.S. power, and of the United States' universalism, is the ruling passion of French intellectual life. It is not "mostly Bush" that turned France against the United States. The former Socialist foreign minister, Hubert Védrine, was given to the same anti-Americanism that moves his successor, the bombastic and vain Dominique de Villepin. It was Védrine, it should be recalled, who in the late 1990s had dubbed the United States a "hyperpower." He had done so before the war on terrorism, before the war on Iraq. He had done it against the background of an international order more concerned with economics and markets than with military power. In contrast to his successor, Védrine at least had the honesty to acknowledge that there was nothing unusual about the way the United States wielded its power abroad, or about France's response to that primacy. France, too, he observed, might have been equally overbearing if it possessed the United States' weight and assets. His successor gave France's resentment highly moral claims. Villepin appeared evasive, at one point, on whether he wished to see a U.S. or an Iraqi victory in the standoff between Saddam Hussein's regime and the United States. Anti-Americanism indulges France's fantasy of past greatness and splendor and gives France's unwanted Muslim children a claim on the political life of a country that knows not what to do with them. THE BURDEN OF MODERNITY To come bearing modernism to those who want it but who rail against it at the same time, to represent and embody so much of what the world yearns for and fears— that is the American burden. The United States lends itself to contradictory interpretations. To the Europeans, and to the French in particular, who are enamored of their laïcisme (secularism), the United States is unduly religious, almost embarrassingly so, its culture suffused with sacred symbolism. In the Islamic world, the burden is precisely the opposite: There, the United States scandalizes the devout, its message represents nothing short of an affront to the pious and a temptation to the gullible and the impressionable young. According to the June BBC survey, 78 percent of French polled identified the United States as a "religious" country, while only 10 percent of Jordanians endowed it with that label. Religious to the secularists, faithless to the devout— such is the way the United States is seen in foreign lands. So many populations have the United States under their skin. Their rage is oddly derived from that very same attraction. Consider the Saudi realm, a place where anti-Americanism is fierce. The United States helped invent the modern Saudi world. The Arabian American Oil Company— for all practical purposes a state within a state— pulled the desert enclave out of its insularity, gave it skills, and ushered it into the 20th century. Deep inside the anti-Americanism of today's Saudi Arabia, an observer can easily discern the dependence of the Saudi elite on their U.S. connection. It is in the image of the United States' suburbs and urban sprawl that Saudi cities are designed. It is on the campuses of Harvard, Princeton, and Stanford that the ruling elite are formed and educated. After September 11, 2001, the Saudi elite panicked that their ties to the United States might be shattered and that their world would be consigned to what they have at home. Fragments of the United States have been eagerly embraced by an influential segment of Saudi society. For many, the United States was what they encountered when they were free from home and family and age-old prohibitions. Today, an outing in Riyadh is less a journey to the desert than to the mall and to Starbucks. An academic in Riyadh, in the midst of an anti-American tirade about all policies American, was keen to let me know that his young son, born in the United States, had suddenly declared he no longer wanted to patronize McDonald's because of the United States' support of Israel. The message was plaintive and unpersuasive; the resolve behind that "boycott" was sure to crack. A culture that casts so long a shadow is fated to be emulated and resented at the same time. The United States is destined to be in the politics— and imagination— of strangers even when the country (accurately) believes it is not implicated in the affairs of other lands. In a hauntingly astute set of remarks made to the New Yorker in the days that followed the terrorism of September 11, the Egyptian playwright Ali Salem— a free spirit at odds with the intellectual class in his country and a maverick who journeyed to Israel and wrote of his time there and of his acceptance of that country— went to the heart of the anti-American phenomenon. He was thinking of his own country's reaction to the United States, no doubt, but what he says clearly goes beyond Egypt: People say that Americans are arrogant, but it's not true. Americans enjoy life and they are proud of their lives, and they are boastful of their wonderful inventions that have made life so much easier and more convenient. It's very difficult to understand the machinery of hatred, because you wind up resorting to logic, but trying to understand this with logic is like measuring distance in kilograms….These are people who are envious. To them, life is an unbearable burden. Modernism is the only way out. But modernism is frightening. It means we have to compete. It means we can't explain everything away with conspiracy theories. Bernard Shaw said it best, you know. In the preface to 'St. Joan,' he said Joan of Arc was burned not for any reason except that she was talented. Talent gives rise to jealousy in the hearts of the untalented. This kind of envy cannot be attenuated. Jordanians, for instance, cannot be talked out of their anti-Americanism. In the BBC survey, 71 percent of Jordanians thought the United States was more dangerous to the world than al Qaeda. But Jordan has been the rare political and economic recipient of a U.S. free trade agreement, a privilege the United States shares only with a handful of nations. A new monarch, King Abdullah II, came to power, and the free trade agreement was an investment that Pax Americana made in his reign and in the moderation of his regime. But this bargain with the Hashemite dynasty has not swayed the intellectual class, nor has it made headway among the Jordanian masses. On Iraq and on matters Palestinian, for more than a generation now, Jordanians have not had a kind thing to say about the United States. In the scheme of Jordan's neighborhood, the realm is benign and forgiving, but the political life is restrictive and tight. When talking about the United States, Jordanians have often been talking to their rulers, expressing their dissatisfaction with the quality of the country's public life and economic performance. A pollster venturing to Jordan must understand the country's temper, hemmed in by poverty and overshadowed by more resourceful powers all around it: Iraq to the east, Israel to the west, and Syria and Saudi Arabia over the horizon. A sense of disinheritance has always hung over Jordan. The trinity of God, country, and king puts much of the political life of the land beyond scrutiny and discussion. The anti-Americanism emanates from, and merges with, this political condition. With modernism come the Jews. They have been its bearers and beneficiaries, and they have paid dearly for it. They have been taxed with cosmopolitanism: The historian Isaac Deutscher had it right when he said that other people have roots, but the Jews have legs. Today the Jews have a singular role in U.S. public life and culture, and anti-Americanism is tethered to anti-Semitism. In the Islamic world, and in some European circles as well, U.S. power is seen as the handmaiden of Jewish influence. Witness, for instance, the London-based Arab media's obsession with the presumed ascendancy of the neoconservatives— such as former chairman of the Defense Policy Board Richard Perle and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz— in the making of U.S. foreign policy. The neocons had been there for the rescue of the (Muslim) Bosnians and Kosovars, but the reactionaries in Muslim lands had not taken notice of that. Left to itself, the United States would be fair-minded, this Arab commentary maintains, and it would arrive at a balanced approach to the Arab-Islamic world. This narrative is nothing less than a modernized version of the worldview of that infamous forgery, The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. But it is put forth by men and women who insist on their oneness with the modern world. A century ago, in a short-story called "Youth," the great British author Joseph Conrad captured in his incomparable way the disturbance that is heard when a modern world pushes against older cultures and disturbs their peace. In the telling, Marlowe, Conrad's literary double and voice, speaks of the frenzy of coming upon and disturbing the East. "And then, before I could open my lips, the East spoke to me, but it was in a Western voice. A torrent of words was poured into the enigmatical, the fateful silence; outlandish, angry words mixed with words and even whole sentences of good English, less strange but even more surprising. The voice swore and cursed violently; it riddled the solemn peace of the bay by a volley of abuse. It began by calling me Pig . . . ." Today, the United States carries the disturbance of the modern to older places— to the east and to the intermediate zones in Europe. There is energy in the United States, and there is force. And there is resistance and resentment— and emulation— in older places affixed on the delicate balancing act of a younger United States not yet content to make its peace with traditional pains and limitations and tyrannies. That sensitive French interpreter of his country, Dominique Moïsi, recently told of a simple countryman of his who was wistful when Saddam Hussein's statue fell on April 9 in Baghdad's Firdos Square. France opposed this war, but this Frenchman expressed a sense of diminishment that his country had sat out this stirring story of political liberation. A society like France with a revolutionary history should have had a hand in toppling the tyranny in Baghdad, but it didn't. Instead, a cable attached to a U.S. tank had pulled down the statue, to the delirium of the crowd. The new history being made was a distinctly American (and British) creation. It was soldiers from Burlington, Vermont, and Linden, New Jersey, and Bon Aqua, Tennessee— I single out those towns because they are the hometowns of three soldiers who were killed in the Iraq war— who raced through the desert making this new history and paying for it. The United States need not worry about hearts and minds in foreign lands. If Germans wish to use anti-Americanism to absolve themselves and their parents of the great crimes of World War II, they will do it regardless of what the United States says and does. If Muslims truly believe that their long winter of decline is the fault of the United States, no campaign of public diplomacy shall deliver them from that incoherence. In the age of Pax Americana, it is written, fated, or maktoob (as the Arabs would say) that the plotters and preachers shall rail against the United States— in whole sentences of good American slang. Fouad Ajami is the Majid Khadduri professor at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies and a contributing editor at U.S. News & World Report. http://www.travelbrochuregraphics.com/extra/the_falseness_of_antiamericanism.htm

so christians, you like to know how wonderful your religion is? why do you still devote yourself to this evil? Ancient Pagans * As soon as Christianity was legal (315), more and more pagan temples were destroyed by Christian mob. Pagan priests were killed. * Between 315 and 6th century thousands of pagan believers were slain. * Examples of destroyed Temples: the Sanctuary of Aesculap in Aegaea, the Temple of Aphrodite in Golgatha, Aphaka in Lebanon, the Heliopolis. * Christian priests such as Mark of Arethusa or Cyrill of Heliopolis were famous as "temple destroyer." [DA468] * Pagan services became punishable by death in 356. [DA468] * Christian Emperor Theodosius (408-450) even had children executed, because they had been playing with remains of pagan statues. [DA469] According to Christian chroniclers he "followed meticulously all Christian teachings..." * In 6th century pagans were declared void of all rights. * In the early fourth century the philosopher Sopatros was executed on demand of Christian authorities. [DA466] * The world famous female philosopher Hypatia of Alexandria was torn to pieces with glass fragments by a hysterical Christian mob led by a Christian minister named Peter, in a church, in 415. [DO19-25] Mission * Emperor Karl (Charlemagne) in 782 had 4500 Saxons, unwilling to convert to Christianity, beheaded. [DO30] * Peasants of Steding (Germany) unwilling to pay suffocating church taxes: between 5,000 and 11,000 men, women and children slain 5/27/1234 near Altenesch/Germany. [WW223] * Battle of Belgrad 1456: 80,000 Turks slaughtered. [DO235] * 15th century Poland: 1019 churches and 17987 villages plundered by Knights of the Order. Victims unknown. [DO30] * 16th and 17th century Ireland. English troops "pacified and civilized" Ireland, where only Gaelic "wild Irish", "unreasonable beasts lived without any knowledge of God or good manners, in common of their goods, cattle, women, children and every other thing." One of the more successful soldiers, a certain Humphrey Gilbert, half-brother of Sir Walter Raleigh, ordered that "the heddes of all those (of what sort soever thei were) which were killed in the daie, should be cutte off from their bodies... and should bee laied on the ground by eche side of the waie", which effort to civilize the Irish indeed caused "greate terrour to the people when thei sawe the heddes of their dedde fathers, brothers, children, kinsfolke, and freinds on the grounde". Tens of thousands of Gaelic Irish fell victim to the carnage. [SH99, 225] Crusades (1095-1291) * First Crusade: 1095 on command of pope Urban II. [WW11-41] * Semlin/Hungary 6/24/96 thousands slain. Wieselburg/Hungary 6/12/96 thousands. [WW23] * 9/9/96-9/26/96 Nikaia, Xerigordon (then turkish), thousands respectively. [WW25-27] * Until Jan 1098 a total of 40 capital cities and 200 castles conquered (number of slain unknown) [WW30] * after 6/3/98 Antiochia (then turkish) conquered, between 10,000 and 60,000 slain. 6/28/98 100,000 Turks (incl. women & children) killed. [WW32-35] Here the Christians "did no other harm to the women found in [the enemy's] tents - save that they ran their lances through their bellies," according to Christian chronicler Fulcher of Chartres. [EC60] * Marra (Maraat an-numan) 12/11/98 thousands killed. Because of the subsequent famine "the already stinking corpses of the enemies were eaten by the Christians" said chronicler Albert Aquensis. [WW36] * Jerusalem conquered 7/15/1099 more than 60,000 victims (jewish, muslim, men, women, children). [WW37-40] (In the words of one witness: "there [in front of Solomon's temple] was such a carnage that our people were wading ankle-deep in the blood of our foes", and after that "happily and crying for joy our people marched to our Saviour's tomb, to honour it and to pay off our debt of gratitude") * The Archbishop of Tyre, eye-witness, wrote: "It was impossible to look upon the vast numbers of the slain without horror; everywhere lay fragments of human bodies, and the very ground was covered with the blood of the slain. It was not alone the spectacle of headless bodies and mutilated limbs strewn in all directions that roused the horror of all who looked upon them. Still more dreadful was it to gaze upon the victors themselves, dripping with blood from head to foot, an ominous sight which brought terror to all who met them. It is reported that within the Temple enclosure alone about ten thousand infidels perished." [TG79] * Christian chronicler Eckehard of Aura noted that "even the following summer in all of palestine the air was polluted by the stench of decomposition". One million victims of the first crusade alone. [WW41] * Battle of Askalon, 8/12/1099. 200,000 heathens slaughtered "in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ". [WW45] * Fourth crusade: 4/12/1204 Constantinople sacked, number of victims unknown, numerous thousands, many of them Christian. [WW141-148] * Rest of Crusades in less detail: until the fall of Akkon 1291 probably 20 million victims (in the Holy land and Arab/Turkish areas alone). [WW224] Note: All figures according to contemporary (Christian) chroniclers. Heretics * Already in 385 C.E. the first Christians, the Spanish Priscillianus and six followers, were beheaded for heresy in Trier/Germany [DO26] * Manichaean heresy: a crypto-Christian sect decent enough to practice birth control (and thus not as irresponsible as faithful Catholics) was exterminated in huge campaigns all over the Roman empire between 372 C.E. and 444 C.E. Numerous thousands of victims. [NC] * Albigensians: the first Crusade intended to slay other Christians. [DO29] The Albigensians (cathars = Christians allegedly that have all rarely sucked) viewed themselves as good Christians, but would not accept roman Catholic rule, and taxes, and prohibition of birth control. [NC] Begin of violence: on command of pope Innocent III (greatest single pre-nazi mass murderer) in 1209. Bezirs (today France) 7/22/1209 destroyed, all the inhabitants were slaughtered. Victims (including Catholics refusing to turn over their heretic neighbours and friends) 20,000-70,000. [WW179-181] * Carcassonne 8/15/1209, thousands slain. Other cities followed. [WW181] * subsequent 20 years of war until nearly all Cathars (probably half the population of the Languedoc, today southern France) were exterminated. [WW183] * After the war ended (1229) the Inquisition was founded 1232 to search and destroy surviving/hiding heretics. Last Cathars burned at the stake 1324. [WW183] * Estimated one million victims (cathar heresy alone), [WW183] * Other heresies: Waldensians, Paulikians, Runcarians, Josephites, and many others. Most of these sects exterminated, (I believe some Waldensians live today, yet they had to endure 600 years of persecution) I estimate at least hundred thousand victims (including the Spanish inquisition but excluding victims in the New World). * Spanish Inquisitor Torquemada alone allegedly responsible for 10,220 burnings. [DO28] * John Huss, a critic of papal infallibility and indulgences, was burned at the stake in 1415. [LI475-522] * University professor B.Hubmaier burned at the stake 1538 in Vienna. [DO59] * Giordano Bruno, Dominican monk, after having been incarcerated for seven years, was burned at the stake for heresy on the Campo dei Fiori (Rome) on 2/17/1600. Witches * from the beginning of Christianity to 1484 probably more than several thousand. * in the era of witch hunting (1484-1750) according to modern scholars several hundred thousand (about 80% female) burned at the stake or hanged. [WV] * incomplete list of documented cases: The Burning of Witches - A Chronicle of the Burning Times Religious Wars * 15th century: Crusades against Hussites, thousands slain. [DO30] * 1538 pope Paul III declared Crusade against apostate England and all English as slaves of Church (fortunately had not power to go into action). [DO31] * 1568 Spanish Inquisition Tribunal ordered extermination of 3 million rebels in (then Spanish) Netherlands. Thousands were actually slain. [DO31] * 1572 In France about 20,000 Huguenots were killed on command of pope Pius V. Until 17th century 200,000 flee. [DO31] * 17th century: Catholics slay Gaspard de Coligny, a Protestant leader. After murdering him, the Catholic mob mutilated his body, "cutting off his head, his hands, and his genitals... and then dumped him into the river [...but] then, deciding that it was not worthy of being food for the fish, they hauled it out again [... and] dragged what was left ... to the gallows of Montfaulcon, 'to be meat and carrion for maggots and crows'." [SH191] * 17th century: Catholics sack the city of Magdeburg/Germany: roughly 30,000 Protestants were slain. "In a single church fifty women were found beheaded," reported poet Friedrich Schiller, "and infants still sucking the breasts of their lifeless mothers." [SH191] * 17th century 30 years' war (Catholic vs. Protestant): at least 40% of population decimated, mostly in Germany. [DO31-32] Jews * Already in the 4th and 5th centuries synagogues were burned by Christians. Number of Jews slain unknown. * In the middle of the fourth century the first synagogue was destroyed on command of bishop Innocentius of Dertona in Northern Italy. The first synagogue known to have been burned down was near the river Euphrat, on command of the bishop of Kallinikon in the year 388. [DA450] * 17. Council of Toledo 694: Jews were enslaved, their property confiscated, and their children forcibly baptized. [DA454] * The Bishop of Limoges (France) in 1010 had the cities' Jews, who would not convert to Christianity, expelled or killed. [DA453] * First Crusade: Thousands of Jews slaughtered 1096, maybe 12.000 total. Places: Worms 5/18/1096, Mainz 5/27/1096 (1100 persons), Cologne, Neuss, Altenahr, Wevelinghoven, Xanten, Moers, Dortmund, Kerpen, Trier, Metz, Regensburg, Prag and others (All locations Germany except Metz/France, Prag/Czech) [EJ] * Second Crusade: 1147. Several hundred Jews were slain in Ham, Sully, Carentan, and Rameru (all locations in France). [WW57] * Third Crusade: English Jewish communities sacked 1189/90. [DO40] * Fulda/Germany 1235: 34 Jewish men and women slain. [DO41] * 1257, 1267: Jewish communities of London, Canterbury, Northampton, Lincoln, Cambridge, and others exterminated. [DO41] * 1290 in Bohemian (Poland) allegedly 10,000 Jews killed. [DO41] * 1337 Starting in Deggendorf/Germany a Jew-killing craze reaches 51 towns in Bavaria, Austria, Poland. [DO41] * 1348 All Jews of Basel/Switzerland and Strasbourg/France (two thousand) burned. [DO41] * 1349 In more than 350 towns in Germany all Jews murdered, mostly burned alive (in this one year more Jews were killed than Christians in 200 years of ancient Roman persecution of Christians). [DO42] * 1389 In Prag 3,000 Jews were slaughtered. [DO42] * 1391 Seville's Jews killed (Archbishop Martinez leading). 4,000 were slain, 25,000 sold as slaves. [DA454] Their identification was made easy by the brightly colored "badges of shame" that all jews above the age of ten had been forced to wear. * 1492: In the year Columbus set sail to conquer a New World, more than 150,000 Jews were expelled from Spain, many died on their way: 6/30/1492. [MM470-476] * 1648 Chmielnitzki massacres: In Poland about 200,000 Jews were slain. [DO43] (I feel sick ...) this goes on and on, century after century, right into the kilns of Auschwitz. Native Peoples * Beginning with Columbus (a former slave trader and would-be Holy Crusader) the conquest of the New World began, as usual understood as a means to propagate Christianity. * Within hours of landfall on the first inhabited island he encountered in the Caribbean, Columbus seized and carried off six native people who, he said, "ought to be good servants ... [and] would easily be made Christians, because it seemed to me that they belonged to no religion." [SH200] While Columbus described the Indians as "idolators" and "slaves, as many as [the Crown] shall order," his pal Michele de Cuneo, Italian nobleman, referred to the natives as "beasts" because "they eat when they are hungry," and made love "openly whenever they feel like it." [SH204-205] * On every island he set foot on, Columbus planted a cross, "making the declarations that are required" - the requerimiento - to claim the ownership for his Catholic patrons in Spain. And "nobody objected." If the Indians refused or delayed their acceptance (or understanding), the requerimiento continued: I certify to you that, with the help of God, we shall powerfully enter in your country and shall make war against you ... and shall subject you to the yoke and obedience of the Church ... and shall do you all mischief that we can, as to vassals who do not obey and refuse to receive their lord and resist and contradict him." [SH66] * Likewise in the words of John Winthrop, first governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony: "justifieinge the undertakeres of the intended Plantation in New England ... to carry the Gospell into those parts of the world, ... and to raise a Bulworke against the kingdome of the Ante-Christ." [SH235] * In average two thirds of the native population were killed by colonist-imported smallpox before violence began. This was a great sign of "the marvelous goodness and providence of God" to the Christians of course, e.g. the Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony wrote in 1634, as "for the natives, they are near all dead of the smallpox, so as the Lord hath cleared our title to what we possess." [SH109,238] * On Hispaniola alone, on Columbus visits, the native population (Arawak), a rather harmless and happy people living on an island of abundant natural resources, a literal paradise, soon mourned 50,000 dead. [SH204] * The surviving Indians fell victim to rape, murder, enslavement and spanish raids. * As one of the culprits wrote: "So many Indians died that they could not be counted, all through the land the Indians lay dead everywhere. The stench was very great and pestiferous." [SH69] * The indian chief Hatuey fled with his people but was captured and burned alive. As "they were tying him to the stake a Franciscan friar urged him to take Jesus to his heart so that his soul might go to heaven, rather than descend into hell. Hatuey replied that if heaven was where the Christians went, he would rather go to hell." [SH70] * What happened to his people was described by an eyewitness: "The Spaniards found pleasure in inventing all kinds of odd cruelties ... They built a long gibbet, long enough for the toes to touch the ground to prevent strangling, and hanged thirteen [natives] at a time in honor of Christ Our Saviour and the twelve Apostles... then, straw was wrapped around their torn bodies and they were burned alive." [SH72] Or, on another occasion: "The Spaniards cut off the arm of one, the leg or hip of another, and from some their heads at one stroke, like butchers cutting up beef and mutton for market. Six hundred, including the cacique, were thus slain like brute beasts...Vasco [de Balboa] ordered forty of them to be torn to pieces by dogs." [SH83] * The "island's population of about eight million people at the time of Columbus's arrival in 1492 already had declined by a third to a half before the year 1496 was out." Eventually all the island's natives were exterminated, so the Spaniards were "forced" to import slaves from other caribbean islands, who soon suffered the same fate. Thus "the Caribbean's millions of native people [were] thereby effectively liquidated in barely a quarter of a century". [SH72-73] "In less than the normal lifetime of a single human being, an entire culture of millions of people, thousands of years resident in their homeland, had been exterminated." [SH75] * "And then the Spanish turned their attention to the mainland of Mexico and Central America. The slaughter had barely begun. The exquisite city of Tenochtitln [Mexico city] was next." [SH75] * Cortez, Pizarro, De Soto and hundreds of other spanish conquistadors likewise sacked southern and mesoamerican civilizations in the name of Christ (De Soto also sacked Florida). * "When the 16th century ended, some 200,000 Spaniards had moved to the Americas. By that time probably more than 60,000,000 natives were dead." [SH95] Of course no different were the founders of what today is the US of Amerikkka. * Although none of the settlers would have survived winter without native help, they soon set out to expel and exterminate the Indians. Warfare among (north American) Indians was rather harmless, in comparison to European standards, and was meant to avenge insults rather than conquer land. In the words of some of the pilgrim fathers: "Their Warres are farre less bloudy...", so that there usually was "no great slawter of nether side". Indeed, "they might fight seven yeares and not kill seven men." What is more, the Indians usually spared women and children. [SH111] * In the spring of 1612 some English colonists found life among the (generally friendly and generous) natives attractive enough to leave Jamestown - "being idell ... did runne away unto the Indyans," - to live among them (that probably solved a sex problem). "Governor Thomas Dale had them hunted down and executed: 'Some he apointed (sic) to be hanged Some burned Some to be broken upon wheles, others to be staked and some shott to deathe'." [SH105] Of course these elegant measures were restricted for fellow englishmen: "This was the treatment for those who wished to act like Indians. For those who had no choice in the matter, because they were the native people of Virginia" methods were different: "when an Indian was accused by an Englishman of stealing a cup and failing to return it, the English response was to attack the natives in force, burning the entire community" down. [SH105] * On the territory that is now Massachusetts the founding fathers of the colonies were committing genocide, in what has become known as the "Peqout War". The killers were New England Puritan Christians, refugees from persecution in their own home country England. * When however, a dead colonist was found, apparently killed by Narragansett Indians, the Puritan colonists wanted revenge. Despite the Indian chief's pledge they attacked. Somehow they seem to have lost the idea of what they were after, because when they were greeted by Pequot Indians (long-time foes of the Narragansetts) the troops nevertheless made war on the Pequots and burned their villages. The puritan commander-in-charge John Mason after one massacre wrote: "And indeed such a dreadful Terror did the Almighty let fall upon their Spirits, that they would fly from us and run into the very Flames, where many of them perished ... God was above them, who laughed his Enemies and the Enemies of his People to Scorn, making them as a fiery Oven ... Thus did the Lord judge among the Heathen, filling the Place with dead Bodies": men, women, children. [SH113-114] * So "the Lord was pleased to smite our Enemies in the hinder Parts, and to give us their land for an inheritance". [SH111]. * Because of his readers' assumed knowledge of Deuteronomy, there was no need for Mason to quote the words that immediately follow: "Thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth. But thou shalt utterly destroy them..." (Deut 20) * Mason's comrade Underhill recalled how "great and doleful was the bloody sight to the view of the young soldiers" yet reassured his readers that "sometimes the Scripture declareth women and children must perish with their parents". [SH114] * Other Indians were killed in successful plots of poisoning. The colonists even had dogs especially trained to kill Indians and to devour children from their mothers breasts, in the colonists' own words: "blood Hounds to draw after them, and Mastives to seaze them." (This was inspired by spanish methods of the time) In this way they continued until the extermination of the Pequots was near. [SH107-119] * The surviving handful of Indians "were parceled out to live in servitude. John Endicott and his pastor wrote to the governor asking for 'a share' of the captives, specifically 'a young woman or girle and a boy if you thinke good'." [SH115] * Other tribes were to follow the same path. * Comment the Christian exterminators: "God's Will, which will at last give us cause to say: How Great is His Goodness! and How Great is his Beauty!" "Thus doth the Lord Jesus make them to bow before him, and to lick the Dust!" [TA] * Like today, lying was OK to Christians then. "Peace treaties were signed with every intention to violate them: when the Indians 'grow secure uppon (sic) the treatie', advised the Council of State in Virginia, 'we shall have the better Advantage both to surprise them, & cutt downe theire Corne'." [SH106] * In 1624 sixty heavily armed Englishmen cut down 800 defenseless Indian men, women and children. [SH107] * In a single massacre in "King Philip's War" of 1675 and 1676 some "600 Indians were destroyed. A delighted Cotton Mather, revered pastor of the Second Church in Boston, later referred to the slaughter as a 'barbeque'." [SH115] * To summarize: Before the arrival of the English, the western Abenaki people in New Hampshire and Vermont had numbered 12,000. Less than half a century later about 250 remained alive - a destruction rate of 98%. The Pocumtuck people had numbered more than 18,000, fifty years later they were down to 920 - 95% destroyed. The Quiripi-Unquachog people had numbered about 30,000, fifty years later they were down to 1500 - 95% destroyed. The Massachusetts people had numbered at least 44,000, fifty years later barely 6000 were alive - 81% destroyed. [SH118] These are only a few examples of the multitude of tribes living before Christian colonists set their foot on the New World. All this was before the smallpox epidemics of 1677 and 1678 had occurred. And the carnage was not over then. * All the above was only the beginning of the European colonization, it was before the frontier age actually had begun. * A total of maybe more than 150 million Indians (of both Americas) were destroyed in the period of 1500 to 1900, as an average two thirds by smallpox and other epidemics, that leaves some 50 million killed directly by violence, bad treatment and slavery. * In many countries, such as Brazil, and Guatemala, this continues even today. More Glorious events in US history * Reverend Solomon Stoddard, one of New England's most esteemed religious leaders, in "1703 formally proposed to the Massachusetts Governor that the colonists be given the financial wherewithal to purchase and train large packs of dogs 'to hunt Indians as they do bears'." [SH241] * Massacre of Sand Creek, Colorado 11/29/1864. Colonel John Chivington, a former Methodist minister and still elder in the church ("I long to be wading in gore") had a Cheyenne village of about 600, mostly women and children, gunned down despite the chiefs' waving with a white flag: 400-500 killed. From an eye-witness account: "There were some thirty or forty squaws collected in a hole for protection; they sent out a little girl about six years old with a white flag on a stick; she had not proceeded but a few steps when she was shot and killed. All the squaws in that hole were afterwards killed ..." [SH131] More gory details. * By the 1860s, "in Hawai'i the Reverend Rufus Anderson surveyed the carnage that by then had reduced those islands' native population by 90 percent or more, and he declined to see it as tragedy; the expected total die-off of the Hawaiian population was only natural, this missionary said, somewhat equivalent to 'the amputation of diseased members of the body'." [SH244]

Whats Your Opinion of these Folks? I went to wash some new shirts I bought. A major brand. I went to read the washing instructions and I can't. I'm single lingual. I would like to send my laundry to Washington D.C., but they generate plenty of their own dirty laundry . The last American out of Washington D.C. bring the flag. The following senators voted against making English the official language of America : The following senators voted against making English the official language of America : > > Akaka (D-HI) > Bayh (D-IN) > Biden (D-DE) > Bingaman (D-NM) > Boxer (D-CA) > Cantwell (D-WA) > Clinton (D-NY) <<<<<<<Note > Dayton (D-MN) > Dodd (D-CT) > Domenici (R-NM) > Durbin (D-IL) > Feingold (D-WI) > Feinstein (D-CA) > Harkin (D-IA) > Inouye (D-HI) > Jeffords (I-VT) > Kennedy (D-MA) > Kerry (D-MA) > Kohl (D-WI) > Lautenberg (D-NJ) > Leahy (D-VT) > Levin (D-MI) > Lieberman (D-CT) > Menendez (D-NJ) > Mikulski (D-MD) > Murray (D-WA) > Obama (D-IL) <<<<<<<<Note > Reed (D-RI) > Reid (D-NV) > Salazar (D-CO) > Sarbanes (D-MD) > Schumer (D-NY) > Stabenow (D-MI) > Wyden (D-OR) > > Now, the following are the senators who voted to give illegal aliens Social Security benefits. They are grouped by home state. If a state is not listed, there was no voting representative. > > Alaska : Stevens (R) > Arizona : McCain (R) > Arkansas : Lincoln (D) Pryor (D) > California : Boxer (D) Feinstein (D) > Colorado : Salazar (D) > Connecticut : Dodd (D) Lieberman (D) > Delaware : Biden (D) Carper (D) > Florida : Martinez (R) > Hawaii : Akaka (D) Inouye (D) > Illinois : Durbin (D) Obama (D) <<<<<<Note > Indiana: Bayh (D) Lugar (R) > Iowa: Harkin (D) > Kansas: Brownback (R) > Louisiana: Landrieu (D) > Maryland: Mikulski (D) Sarbanes (D) > Massachusetts: Kennedy (D) Kerry (D) > Montana: Baucus (D) > Nebraska: Hagel (R) > Nevada: Reid (D) > New Jersey: Lautenberg (D) Menendez (D) > New Mexico: Bingaman (D) > New York: Clinton (D) Schumer (D) <<<<<<Note > North Dakota : Dorgan (D) > Ohio : DeWine (R) Voinovich(R) > Oregon : Wyden (D) > Pennsylvania : Specter (R) > Rhode Island : Chafee (R) Reed (D) > South Carolina : Graham (R) > South Dakota : Johnson (D) > Vermont : Jeffords (I) Leahy (D) > Washington : Cantwell (D) Murray (D) > West Virginia : Rockefeller (D), by Not Voting > Wisconsin : Feingold (D) Kohl (D) > > > > Sage: Apparently you didn't read your link. It says partly true. Which is what your answer is. They tabled the S.S. issue, not the English only issue. Liz. I have 30 years in Law Enforcement on the Ca, Az, Mexico Border. I would like to meet one person that has had their rights violated by the P.A. It sure has stopped attacks. The Sears Tower and the Golden Gate Bridge to name two. It is easier for a Police Officer to get a warrant to search your home from an anonyms tip than it is for Federal Law Enforcement to invoke the Act. Liz: The typical illegal family uses close to $20,000 more a year in Government services than they pay in taxes. We are not talking about legal alliens that want to become citizens and assimilate, if you can find one.