Predictably, Marvel studios indicates they'll go the PC route with Sabra

The Times of Israel reported that, as could surely have been expected, Marvel studios went out of their way to answer anti-Israeli activists offended at the inclusion of Bill Mantlo's minor character, Sabra, in the upcoming 4th Captain America movie:

Marvel Studios said it will take “a new approach” to its controversial character Sabra, to be played by Israeli actress Shira Haas, after Palestinian groups criticized the decision to bring the Israeli comic book character to the big screen.

“While our characters and stories are inspired by the comics, they are always freshly imagined for the screen and today’s audience, and the filmmakers are taking a new approach with the character Sabra who was first introduced in the comics over 40 years ago,” Marvel told US media outlet Variety in a statement Friday.

Translation: they'll go so far as to avoid any positive portrayal of Israel, all because they don't have the courage to stand up to Islamic antisemitism. In any case, it was pretty obvious from the start that today's comics publishers and filmmakers wouldn't defend the dignity of the Jewish creators who founded the very industry that today's films are based on. Cartoonist Uri Fink, as noted before, figured this was unlikely to be something admirable, but what's been told now only compounds the impression this'll be something awful when it's ready.

I also discovered the Nerdist website employs a possible Muslim writer who's also a LGBT ideologue(!), and he wrote a smear piece where he said Sabra shouldn't be in the Marvel movieverse. He concludes it like this:

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to put a Jewish hero in the forefront of the MCU; however, putting Sabra, an Israeli government agent, into the world’s biggest blockbuster franchise is a problem. It certainly feels like the powers that be are ignoring the real-life atrocities happening to people. There are already other Jewish heroes that Marvel Studios can include in the MCU. [...]

Ah, so in other words, he's ostensibly saying, "Jewish character = good, Israeli character = bad". But, this kind of shoddy distinction and excuse could easily be used to say, exclude indigenous residents of countries like Holland, who're called Dutch. It could even be used against the Basque of the northern Iberian peninsula where Spain is located. Come to think of it, the approach used in his screed could also be used to say only people of specific ethnicities living in the USA proper are qualified for representation, not foreign-born characters living outside. And he doesn't even care that under the PLO, gays and lesbians are suppressed by their police forces and face terrible persecution. That Nerdist would give a platform to somebody who goes by the kind of ideologies he does is truly despicable, and I will not be linking directly to their site anymore as a result of this disturbing propaganda that entirely omits how "palestinians" are a whole fabrication for the sake of invalidating Israel, and even Newt Gingrich eventually acknowledged this. To think, that nowadays, we have whole sites centered around entertainment topics who actually separate the Jewish creators of comicdom from their homeland origins. This is exactly why old movies like Otto Preminger's Exodus from 1960, based on Leon Uris' book, can no longer be made, because anti-Israelists in Hollywood have almost literally shut the gates to any such projects.

And that's why it's no shock at all when Hollywood kowtows to anti-Israeli movements, with the worst part being whenever those in charge of properties originally created by Jews refuse to defend them, regardless of how specific characters were created in the first place.

"The Journey" is an anime film building on Islamic propaganda

Anime News Network reviewed a cartoon film made in co-production with a Saudi Arabian company owned by prince Mohammed bin Salman, who, although he has done what to improve the status for women in the country, still has a lot of questionable practices that can't be overlooked. This film is one of them:

A co-production of Japanese animation studio Toei and Saudi Arabian media company Manga Productions, The Journey is a retelling of an event in Arabian history generally known as “The Year of the Elephant.” This appellation comes from the fact that an invading army, headed by a Christian Abyssinian king named Abraha, brought war elephants to the fight, something that was apparently so alarming and striking that it remained a central component of the tale as it passed through history. While the film, at ninety minutes long, is a relatively condensed version of the event, it's interesting for the way it blends religious elements shared by all of the Abrahamic faiths with the recounting of the story, and while some parts of the narrative do have that propaganda feel to them, at its heart the basic themes of the film are actually quite universal.

So if I can figure out the premise correctly, the Christian army in this case are the baddies while the followers of Islam are the "victims"? What a surprise. But, if you know where to look, you may find that it's not like Japan ever actually has objections to Islam's evils in its animation and other products. And what if it turns out the claim of elephants as weapons is just taqqiya?

The art and animation do a good job of showing us just how outnumbered the defenders of Mecca are. There's a fairly heavy reliance on bird's eye views of the field of battle, which not only gives us a clear sense of how much bigger and better trained Abraha's forces are, but also turns out to relate to actual birds who form part of the story towards the end of the film. As a movie about battle, there is a fair amount of blood on screen, but no actual gore – no dismemberment, exposed intestines, or anything like that. The worst we see is blood gushing from a wounded elephant and a few implied deaths via stabbing, which isn't bad, all things considered, although it may be upsetting to younger viewers. [...]

And I suppose this is meant to be a propaganda tactic too, right? One that ignores Islam's own violent history, and prefers to make it look like Christianity's the sole problem here.

Those embedded narratives are, it must be noted, religious in tone. Two of them are particularly interesting from a comparative religions point of view – the first is the story of Noah's Ark from the Islamic perspective and the second the story of the Exodus from Egypt, which some of you may know as the Passover story. From my knowledge of the stories as a Jewish woman, they're both recognizable and fascinatingly different, with Noah's Ark adding in characters I wasn't familiar with and the Exodus focusing on Rachael (Rahil) and bringing in Rebecca as well. In any event, the use of these stories, as well as a third about the fall of a wicked city where the wealthy freely abused the poor, are all used to compliment Aws' plotline, showing them as giving him and those waiting for him the strength to carry on against terrible odds and the faith to believe that victory is possible. Since there is a divine intervention element to the film's denouement that feels like it has links to the plagues of the Exodus story, this really does work quite well.

Well I'm sorry, but this does nothing to alleviate the concerns this is mainly Islamic propaganda. Based on which, that's why it's got to be even more shameful this movie would contain anything involving Jewish history.

The metaphorical elephant in the room is, of course, some viewers' potential discomfort with a film that could be viewed as propaganda based on the aim of Manga Productions and its parent company MiSK to "promote Saudi ideas and messages internationally." There is a propaganda feel to parts of the film and it does cover a piece of history that may be unfamiliar to people outside Saudi Arabia or Islam, but it's no more striking than any work of fiction that uses a religious or quasi-religious event as its base; certainly you'd see something similar in a faith-based novel. While most of the characters are male, there's nothing overtly anti-feminist about the story unless you balk at pieces with mostly male casts in general.

If it feels like propaganda, surely that isn't a concern? Not to the reviewer, unfortunately, who approaches it through an otherwise unobjective lens, and that's pathetic. Daniel Pipes once spoke about how a similar animated production from Kuwait, The 99, was largely da'wah, and this is bound to be pretty much the same. Some of the commentors on the ANN message board noticed how fishy this all was, and here's one:

I'm pretty sure it's fair game to express disbelief that this article was published considering what it's about. It could not have been published without expecting to raise red flags.

And what I got from reading this review down to every detail is this fuckin' movie is, at its core, undeniable Saudi propaganda. The rest (movie, not article) is just fluff or bullshit. That further baffles me as to how it's endorsed in any way, not just this review.

PLEASE don't sugarcoat Saudi Arabia in places where you have the right to express your opinion in the same vein as how Russia has been appropriately shunned or exiled at large.

Indeed no, they shouldn't, because even now, there's valid reasons to remain concerned about Saudi Arabia's conduct. And then, from the ANN chief webmaster:

First off, our reviews don't equate to endorsement.

"Platforming" is a whole other discussion obviously, but we didn't feel the need to avoid platforming this movie.

Obviously this movie can be seen as "propaganda." It is designed to promote Saudi/Muslim/Arab culture and heritage. And there's nothing wrong with that. Whether it's Japan, China, Russia, Iran, France or wherever, promoting their heritage is just fine.

As long the film isn't being used to attack another culture, religion, or nation.

We'd be happy to review an anime about Peter the Great. We would have serious issues with any anime that promoted the false narrative that Putin is pushing about the Ukraine, and we would have to consider if reviewing it, even a negative review, might give it more publicity than it should get.

So, despite the fact that I personally felt this was a terrible anime (I disagree with Rebecca's ~B scores, but agree with all of the points she made about it), I have no ethical problem with it being reviewed on ANN.

In that case, if a pro-Israeli cartoon were produced, would they be favorable based on that aspect? Why do I get the sad feeling they wouldn't? No proper distinction made between Arabic culture and religious/Islamic culture either; something is certainly wrong with that. Another person said:

First off, there is a difference between promoting Saudi, Muslim and Arab culture and heritage and promoting the ideology and agenda of the Saudi Arabian government.

Second, it is amazing to make the claim "the film isn't being used to attack another culture, religion or nation" when the bad guys are explicitly Christian. This is important because Saudi Arabia - as well as North Africa and the Middle East - was not always Muslim or even universally Arab. It was a very diverse mix of religions, races and cultures. That diversity was wiped out by imperialism. It would be more interesting - and honest - to take a look at the history of Mecca and Saudi Arabia prior to that area falling to the forces of imperialist-imposed religious and cultural homogenization. Instead, this movie goes for the usual propaganda of how they are always the peace-loving good guys until the crusaders came and persecuted them, when in many cases said "crusaders" actually were just trying to recover land that was taken by expansionist imperialists in the first place - just like Ukraine is attempting to do now - or they were trying to stop the expansionism from going further - again which is a major reason why we are helping Ukraine now and expanding NATO to include formerly neutral Sweden and Finland instead of just abandoning Ukraine to its fate and allowing Russia to rebuild as much of the former Soviet Union as possible.

Yes, these events did happen: a Christian leader attacked Mecca. But it ignores a ton of context, which is the imperialism that led to Mecca being the way that it was in the first place, and that this imperialism was still ongoing. This expansionism went on into Spain, Italy and France before it turned back. Also, I wonder: if right wing French Catholics were to start a "Manga Production" and make an anime co-production with Japan about the glorious victory of Charles Martel over the caliphate at Tours, would this be platformed here? Or - even though it incontrovertibly happened - would it be denounced as fascist religious propaganda? Would it be linked to Islamophobia and contemporary issues in France? Would we have a reviewer claiming "While most of the characters are male, there's nothing overtly anti-feminist about the story unless you balk at pieces with mostly male casts in general" in response to a right wing Catholic movie?

I have difficultly believing that ANN would be so charitable towards a right wing European government sponsored propaganda project - say from Hungary or Poland - that promotes its extreme political and social views under the guise of "promoting culture and heritage". Or if ANN was, it is really difficult to explain why it should be. The absolute first thing any reviewer on ANN would mention about a Hungarian "anime" would be that regime's attitudes towards racial and religious minorities and LGBT people, but here we have a project from Saudi Arabia and not a peep.

Now do not mistake me. I am not arguing that this review should be taken down or anything of the sort. I am just saying that European fascism and non-European fascism gets treated very differently and for reasons that make absolutely no sense. This Saudi Arabian propaganda should get treated the same as it would if it were produced by a western regime that is similarly extremist and oppressive.

Now here's some valid points being made on double-standards likely to be applied. In which case, why must we assume they'd be as charitable to even a pro-Israel cartoon? They'd merely describe it as propaganda in a negative sense to the fullest, in contrast to this movie.

So it's honestly shameful a Japanese company decided to work on this cartoon project. As I said, bin Salman, whose company financed this, still has a ways to go in order to convince he's serious about moving beyond what the Religion of Peace stands for. That's one of the reasons I find it disappointing he's the majority shareholder in video game producer SNK. I hope the company buys back their shares, because for now, he still doesn't qualify as an ideal shareholder in such capacity either.

Entertainment Weekly absolutely loves the Muslim Ms. Marvel for PC reasons

Entertainment Weekly predictably gushes over Marvel's worst propaganda production to debut since the time Axel Alonso was their EIC, and the TV show based upon it:

As portrayed by Iman Vellani, the personality and aesthetic that has already made Kamala an icon to so many fans remains intact with the Ms. Marvel show. She is still an avid superhero fan who makes her own Avengers fan-fiction, she's still the child of Pakistani immigrants who live in Jersey City, and she still pursues her own superhero responsibilities with exuberance once her powers manifest. But every adaptation necessarily brings about changes to fit a new format, and a very noticeable one is that Kamala's powers work very differently on screen than they do in Marvel comics.

In the Ms. Marvel show, Kamala manipulates energy into physical constructs like stepping discs or a giant fist. We're only two episodes in, so the full mechanics and potential of her powers have yet to be revealed, but so far they bear a striking resemblance to the Green Lantern ring from DC Comics — especially since Kamala's ever-present wrist bangle seems to play a key role in her powers. Lots of thought went into this change, as Amanat explained to EW in a Summer Preview interview last month. Since Vellani is set to star alongside Brie Larson's Carol Danvers and Teyonah Parris' Monica Rambeau in the upcoming film The Marvels, MCU architects clearly wanted Kamala's capabilities to line up more visibly with those energy-based heroes.

Considering how paltry sales of the comic were (little more than 20,000 copies or less, and they never actually gave clear figures for digital sales), one can only wonder what they believe they're accomplishing by lecturing everyone that the character seriously has fans despite the ideological components souring the milk. The Capt. Marvel movie from 3 years ago was so overrated and pretentious that to cast a character developed as Khan was with politicized components does nothing to improve perceptions of what Marvel studios set out to do at the time. All this news does is make me glad I'm staying away from the Marvel-based movies.

Kamala Khan is defined by many things — her religion, her ethnicity, her hometown — but most of all, she's an incredible teen hero. In addition to fighting supervillains, she also faces struggles relatable to any modern young person: Drowning in extracurricular activities, finding a balance between work and personal life, trying to do right by both her family and friends.

The best thing about her original, physical powers is that they fit right into these teen problems. What young person hasn't woken up one day to find some part of their body suddenly mismatched with the rest?

This is meaningless if the whole story builds on divisive politics and whitewashes what the Religion of Peace is built on, which unsurprisingly, the magazine has no issues with. Not to mention it's laughable how they base the gushing here on the character proper, rather than the writing/artwork. EW is decidedly irrelevant as a showbiz magazine, and this is further confirmation of that.

New Jersey magazine sugarcoats G. Willow Wilson

Last year, the New Jersey Monthly fawned over state native G. Willow Wilson, the Islamic convert propagandist hired by Marvel to create the ultimate propaganda product that's really put a stain on their reputation, and predictably, she made use of victimology:

When Marvel Comics approached G. Willow Wilson about creating the first female, Muslim superhero for an ongoing series, Wilson didn’t respond with unbridled enthusiasm. “You’ll have to hire an intern just to open the hate mail,” she warned editors Sana Amanat and Steve Wacker.

Indeed, the 2013 debut of Kamala Khan, aka Ms. Marvel—a Pakistani-American, Urdu-speaking, body-morphing, teenage crime fighter living in Jersey City—raised the ire of Internet trolls and some far-right websites. But it also did something neither Wilson nor her editors anticipated: It marked the beginning of a remarkably successful run that would comprise more than 50 issues and 10 compilations, including Ms. Marvel Volume 1: No Normal and Ms. Marvel Volume 9: Teenage Wasteland, winners of the Hugo and American Book awards, respectively. Ms. Marvel (a cocreation with artists Adrian Alphona and Jamie McKelvie and editors Amanat and Wacker) would gain Wilson accolades for her writing and for the realization of a minority character whose complexity made her much more than a token Muslim in the largely white Marvel universe.

When they speak so snidely and contemptuously of "far-right", you know something's wrong. All they're doing is implying contempt for communities like 911 Families for a Safe & Strong America, along with whites. Indeed, what's skin color got to do with any of this? Are they confusing religion with race to boot? All this does is hurt the reputation of Stan Lee, a white man himself, in the process. No doubt, Wilson also indirectly resorted to the now classic accusations of "islamophobia", which is nothing more than an excuse to avoid serious questions and other issues regarding the Religion of Peace. As expected, no sales figures were given at the time the magazine first wrote this, nor are any questions asked whether the Muslim Ms. Marvel book was kept going as long as it did for the sake of propaganda at all costs.

Wilson’s personal life is similarly unconventional. Brought up by nonreligious, white parents, she converted to Islam at 21. Though she moved to Colorado with her family when she was 14 and currently lives in Seattle with her husband and two school-age children, she continues to be inspired by her New Jersey childhood.

Born in Long Branch, Wilson grew up in Marlboro. The diversity she encountered there had what she describes as “a tremendous impact” on her life and subsequent work. “When I was in elementary and middle school,” she says, “I had classmates from all over the world. I was one of the very few white kids who weren’t also the children of immigrants, and tons of my classmates were South Asian, East Asian—so to me, that’s what normal was.” Moving to Colorado and entering an overwhelmingly white high school, she adds, was “quite a shock.”

What exactly is the big deal for a white person to move to a school where the students are mainly white too? This is peculiar, like somebody's suggesting that being white is synonymous with "wrong". And that's just one of this modern world's problems, where everybody's making whiteness out to be entirely a bad thing. Funny thing about Wilson stressing the students in the former school came worldwide, she doesn't say whether any came from backgrounds like Hungary, Denmark, Uruguay, or even Armenia. As a result, what she says comes off more as superficial talk of a SJW that doesn't add up to much of anything.

Wilson’s first exposure to comics was in fifth-grade health class, via an anti-smoking comic starring Marvel’s X-Men. She was drawn in by the characters, she says, not so much for their superpowers, but because “they always seemed intuitively to know what the right thing to do was.” That was especially appealing to a young woman with a contemplative bent, who would spend much of her life musing over issues of philosophy, spirituality and religion. That she’d become a writer was almost preordained. “I can remember answering, ‘I want to be a writer,’ pretty much as soon as adults started asking me that question,” she says.

As a kid, she recalls, “I thought about things you couldn’t see more than the other kids around me seemed to”—a tendency that came to a head in her late teens. She’d read about Islam in some of her classes and was struck by how the religion’s teachings seemed to reflect her burgeoning worldview—particularly, the idea that neither bad experiences nor good represented God’s judgment, but were simply “part of the challenge of being human, the hurdle that’s put in front of you when you’re born.”

And this is a predictable whitewash, with taqqiya accompanying it. Why no mention, for example, of Sura 19:4294? If she won't be more open about anything in the Religion of Peace, she's not saying anything worth pondering.

She might well have converted then and there, but on the road to Islam, she encountered a major stumbling block: the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center by Muslim terrorists. “It took a couple of years for me to circle back to it after that and grapple with the idea with fresh eyes after this horrible tragedy had happened,” she says.

What's fascinating is how she refused to wake up and acknowledge the more violent themes in the Koran, like Sura 47:3-4. That she remained superficial on the issues involved only compounds the perception she remains dishonest and cryptic about the Religion of Peace's exact content.

Her adopted religion and its Middle Eastern roots inform much of her writing, which has been widely praised for its deft genre blending and its inspired interweaving of mythology, religion, philosophy, folklore, history, technology and current-day politics. Her 2007 graphic novel, Cairo, for instance, sets a drug dealer, an expat, a journalist and an Israeli soldier on a search for a stolen hookah housing a genie. The protagonist of Alif the Unseen, winner of the World Fantasy Award for best novel, is a hacker in an unnamed Arab emirate who’s drawn into a fight against state censorship, aided by a magical manuscript. Her second novel, The Bird King, takes place during the final Spanish emirate and recounts the relationship between a royal courtesan and a mapmaker who possesses supernatural skills.

Considering how much censorship the left's advocated for the sake of defending the Religion of Peace, it sure is weird she'd write a book about the subject, when she herself isn't being open about her belief system. Also, who knows how the Israeli soldier in her book is depicted? What if it's most negative in the extreme?

In spite of her immersion in fantasy, reality is important to Wilson, and depth of character matters to her at least as much as diversity. Initially, she says, the publishing industry’s interest in diversity “was very cosmetic and surface level”—unlike Wilson, whose characters have always been complex, no matter their racial, ethnic or religious backgrounds. “All I really try to do,” she explains, “is tell stories with as much compassion and accuracy as I can.”

Wilson doesn’t see herself as an ambassador for diversity. “I’m a white convert,” she says. “You can’t really take my experience and extrapolate anything meaningful about the American Muslim community from me.” Still, says critic Emily Barton, “her religious background, combined with her apparently natural, boundless empathy, bring a strong moral sensibility to her work.”

Umm, the Arab community, from which the Religion of Peace originated, is by and large white/caucasian, and the way she makes it sound like her alleged experiences don't make her fit to say much based on her background only makes this all the more insulting to the intellect. Why no mention of apostates from Islam, and what they think of the belief system she goes by? And has she ever met with the aforementioned 9-11 Families to understand their viewpoints? Obviously not.

It's good if she's no longer employed by the Big Two (last time I looked though, Saladin Ahmed sadly still was), though even now, they could still be open to employing propagandists like her, no matter how poorly the products she writes actually sell. The damage people like Wilson have caused to the literary industry in general is far reaching, and will take eons to repair.

Update: in a related item, I also found this message written 2 years ago on the leftist Captain Comics site, where the poster makes a most head-shakingly naive statement:

I just finished G. Willow Wilson's Alif the Unseen. Loved it, and here's my Goodreads review:

For once, a book club selection I made! I've been meaning to get to this for awhile. It's a fascinating combination of cyberpunk, fantasy, and a little romance. Set in an unnamed Middle Eastern security state, it tells the story of hacker Alif's resistance efforts. When the state identifies him he must go on the run, with the help of djinn he has met. In the end he foments an Arab Spring-like revolt (which Wilson imagined before it actually happened). Puts a wonderfully human face on Islam in the process, and the djinn are convincingly portrayed as not quite human.

As realists wonder, what's so "human" about a religion built on the kind of horrors the Religion of Peace is? Absolutely disgusting how somebody goes out of his way to sugarcoat a serious topic.

MSM fawns over new Muslim Ms. Marvel TV show, and spins negative reviews as trolling

When the new Muslim Ms. Marvel TV series premiered, the BBC predictably made sure to sugarcoat the whole affair, and take everything out of context, warping it all to suit their Orwellian visions, not to mention villify any Marvel fans galled at the hijacking of the franchise for the sake of far-left ideologies:

Ms Marvel comes to our screens via Disney+ today with lofty fan expectations, following other critically acclaimed Marvel shows such as Wandavision and Loki. The online buzz around the series and glowing reviews from critics ahead of its release point to Disney having another hit on their hands. However, success for this hero wasn't always guaranteed.

In 2013, when Marvel announced that they were reimagining the comic book character of Ms Marvel – originally a blonde superpowered military hero – as a Muslim Pakistani-US teenager called Kamala Khan, it was considered a controversial and risky proposition. Comic books, for the most part, have traditionally been male-dominated and white-centric – something Kamala was the antithesis of. Other attempts to diversify characters, such as creating a biracial Spiderman, had attracted backlash from some very vocal quarters of the fandom. In 2017, Marvel's vice president of sales stated that feedback from retailers indicated that readers were being alienated by the push for diversity. "What we heard was that people didn't want any more diversity," he said. "They didn't want female characters out there. That's what we heard, whether we believe that or not."

Ah, so here, they're distorting it to make it sound like the people they speak of didn't want any female characters at all. (Do they realize that makes it sound like said readers aren't heterosexual?) What most realists didn't want was characters being built around political activism and indoctrination tactics, as the Khan character was, with Marvel replacing the original bearer of the title, Carol Danvers, with a brand new one whose existence was almost entirely centered around her being Islamic, and all without being honest about the content of the Koran. This BBC article, like so many others of its ilk, all but obscures that there have been Black/Latino/Asian charcters well before this, and most of the earlier ones prior to 2000 weren't built on the heavy-handed leftism seen nowadays.

Yet the performance of the Ms Marvel comic books demonstrated otherwise. "Ms Marvel almost immediately became a hit comic and one of the biggest sellers online," says Dr Mel Gibson, an associate professor at Northumbria University and a comics scholar. "It absolutely leapt in sales to what could be considered non-traditional comic book readers – such as females, Muslims, or Pakistani Americans for example. The idea of who reads comics and how they read them was changing. It helped draw in new folk and diversify the fan base."

By mid 2018, even without a live-action TV show or movie, Ms Marvel had sold more than half a million trade paperbacks. Kamala Khan's arrival into the Marvel Cinematic Universe is not just some PR exercise: the popularity of the character demanded it. "A huge reason Ms Marvel has struck the chord it has is because it deals with the role of traditionalist faith in the context of social justice, and there was – apparently – an untapped audience of people from a wide variety of faith backgrounds who were eager for a story like this," wrote G Willow Wilson, the writer who helped craft Kamala Khan, in 2017.

Unfortunately, even that claim of huge-selling paperbacks is sketchy at best, because there's no clear data provided by leftist Bleeding Cool - who originally wrote the latter claim - that the paperbacks were actually bought. Also note that little more than 60,000 copies for as many as 9 volumes were actually printed. But this awful puff piece does reveal what kind of leftism Wilson goes by, and it's laughable at worst, because it's taqqiya (deception).

Kamala's faith certainly does differentiate her from the overwhelming majority of her comic book counterparts. The depiction of Muslim characters in comic books has often been problematic, but there was an especially tricky path to tread in a post-9/11 world. It is a testament to the team behind Ms Marvel how deftly they navigated it. Wilson weaved together storylines and interactions in a thoughtful and nuanced manner that prevented characters from turning into stereotypes. Her familiarity with the religion is understandable – she is Muslim, after all – but some of the specific details that went into her writing made me often wonder if she was secretly Pakistani as well.

"I just thought it was so interesting because I can see how different Kamala was from other personifications of Muslim or Arab characters in previous comics – notably other characters like Dust who were exoticised and where there is a whole element of orientalism going on," says Dr Gibson.

But he doesn't think it's interesting no attempt has been made to date to introduce an Armenian character with emphasis on his/her background? Or how about Arabs/Pakistanis with non-Islamic backgrounds like Buddhism, Hinduism and Christianity, as Bahrain happens to have? Why do only Muslims matter? When they make it sound like only one, very bad belief system should apply, that's insulting to the intellect.

According to Sue Obeidi, director of the Hollywood Bureau for the US Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), the importance of Ms Marvel being a strong, authentic female Muslim character cannot be overstated. "Islam has no shortage of heroic Muslim women in its history. When you look at Aisha [bint Abu Bakr] or Khadija [bint Khuwaylid] – they were one of Islam's first heroes. They were powerful, brave and independent women with their own agency. If this character embodies some of the great attributes that many Muslim women are renowned for, you can't go wrong because that means that the character will also represent the faith well."

And this is also taqqiya, because it obscures how, as described in the Koran, Aisha was 6 years old when Mohammed took her as a child bride, and consummated said marriage when she was 9. That's hardly somebody in a position of independence or agency. But the pure disgrace coming from the BBC is nothing new. If anything, it demonstrates why they're one of the worst English-language news networks overseas.

And now, it looks like the MSM has gone out of their way to make a fuss over people supposedly "review bombing" the series on IMDB as well. One such example is Forbes:

Ms. Marvel is currently not only the best-reviewed MCU series on Disney Plus, but at a 97% on Rotten Tomatoes from critics, that’s even above Black Panther’s 96% score, meaning it’s the best-reviewed MCU show or movie…ever, at the moment.

That’s why it’s noticeable that Ms. Marvel is actually the lowest scored MCU series on IMDB based on its user star ratings. And yes, the answer is that it’s being review-bombed.

“It’s not review-bombing if people just don’t like it,” some will say, but looking at the data, it’s impossible not to see what’s going on with Ms. Marvel as an outlier with malicious origins.

Here are the scores across all MCU Disney Plus series:

Loki – 8.2/10

WandaVision - 7.9/10

Hawkeye – 7.6/10

Moon Knighit – 7.4/10

What If…? – 7.4/10

Falcon and the Winter Soldier – 7.2/10

Ms. Marvel – 6.6/10

So because one mere series doesn't rate above number 7, but is far from being rated at the bottom 1, it's suddenly a scandal? The guy who wrote this is really grasping at straws for the sake of headlines to smear Marvel fans who find the propaganda tactic revolting, but that's what the following pretty much makes clear:

I would absolutely venture that more weight is being given to those first two items, and I’ve been sent examples of closed Facebook groups protesting Ms. Marvel as “replacing” the white, blonde Carol Danvers as Captain Marvel (not what’s happening) and they view a Muslim superhero as an assault on Christian values.

Well it doesn't take much to guess he's not very enthusiastic about Christianity, and probably doesn't celebrate Easter, Lent or Palm Sunday either. I hesitate to think what his view of Judaism and Hinduism is, in that case.

Even Next Shark got in on the exaggerated act:

The inconsistency between the crowd-sourced ratings and critic reviews also suggests something more is going on than viewers simply disliking the new show. On Rotten Tomatoes, the show currently boasts a staggering 95 percent, making it the second-highest rated MCU film or show to date.

[...] Iman Vellani as Ms. Marvel serves as representation on multiple fronts. The character is a Muslim, South Asian teenage girl entering a superhero universe that’s primarily been explored on screen by white male actors named Chris.

Chloe Zhao’s “Eternals” also fell victim to review-bombing after its premiere, as did “Captain Marvel,” one of MCU’s few feature-length films centering around a female superhero.

So they don't think Capt. Marvel was even the slightest bit overrated? Or that negative takes on Eternals had any good reason for being that way? As for RT, I wonder if they've deliberately fixed the polls to make it all look higher in user ratings than we'd think; they did after all fulfill Disney Corp's apparent wish to stifle any negative views of CM, a movie that reeked of political correctness and Mary Sue ingredients.

For people making such a fuss over supposed review-bombing, the examples above sure are giving telling hints how biased they really are in favor of the Muslim Ms. Marvel show, all because of the components it's built upon. If a show built on respectable Judeo-Christian values, or even Buddhism, got even the most remote negative ratings, they wouldn't be fussing at all. The way many leftists go out of their way to do spins is hugely dismaying.

PLO is concealing evidence regarding Al Jazeera journalist killed during shootout between Israel and jihadists

A journalist for propaganda outfit Al Jazeera died as a result of gunfire when Israeli authorities were clashing with jihadists recently, yet the PLO, which appears to have the evidence, refuses to cooperate, and would rather lead to spreading the usual hostility in the press:

While the Palestinian Authority and some in the international community are quick to condemn Israel for the death of Al-Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, their unsubstantiated condemnations of Israel say more about their blind hatred for Israel than it does about Abu Akleh’s death.

The known facts are straightforward but inconclusive. Shireen Abu Akleh was killed yesterday during a gunfight between Palestinian terrorists and Israeli soldiers in Jenin but it is not known who fired the bullet that killed her. Asked if there is “clear evidence that the bullet came from the Israeli army,” the PA’s chief pathologist who examined the body said he could not “declare any information” at this point:

Head of An-Najah National University’s Forensic Medicine Department Dr. Rayyan Al-Ali: “The case [of Shireen Abu Akleh’s death] was transferred to autopsy… in order to confirm the direct cause of death, and to attempt to find evidence that could be connected to the party responsible for the death of Martyr Shireen Abu Akleh.” …

Journalist: “Is there clear evidence that the bullet came from the Israeli army, thereby debunking the Israeli version [of events]?”

Rayyan Al-Ali: “It is currently impossible to declare any information because the partners from the forensic laboratory, each in their own field of expertise, will study the evidence that will be gathered.”

[Al-Jazeera YouTube channel, May 11, 2022]

Obstructing the determination of the truth, the Palestinian Authority is preventing Israel from carrying out its own inquiry by withholding the bullet that killed Abu Akleh. [...]

If the PLO refuses to cooperate, and no clear information is forthcoming about the bullet itself, that's very telling. This all strongly hints it was jihadists who were responsible, not the IDF. Tragically, unless any proper steps can be taken to expose this scandal, nobody in the wider MSM is likely to report about it, and will bury the story if they see fit, until the next opportunity to smear Israel comes along. Exactly why it pays to be vigilant.

The De-Westernization Of Education

From "Common Core: Phasing Western Culture Out of Education":

This week, left-wing outlets, like NPR’s quiz show, Wait, Wait . . . Don’t Tell Me! and the Huffington Post, as well as the British Telegraph, expressed surprise and concern that the new national Common Core standards will destroy the love of literature. The leftist outlets focused on favorites like Catcher in the Rye and To Kill a Mockingbird, but couldn’t seem to connect this unconstitutional federalization of education with their favorite presidential candidate.

They should also be concerned about what the recently released test questions reveal about what the feds want: happy workers for the State.

The test questions, which will eventually be given to every single student, are the kind you could expect from a close pal of Bill Ayers, co-founder of the terrorist group Weatherman-turned-“Distinguished Professor of Education.” Ayers’s close colleague, Stanford Education Professor Linda Darling-Hammond, education director of Obama’s presidential transition team, heads content specifications for testing under one of the consortia, Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium which received $176 million in stimulus funds to develop testing under Common Core—now the law of the land, at least in 46 states. (The rest of the $360 million for testing was given to PARCC, Partnership for Assessment Readiness for College and Career.)

SBAC recently released 16 sample test questions. They reveal that the “transformation” of American education that Darling-Hammond had eagerly anticipated will be fulfilled—toward making students into global citizens, devoid of a sense of cultural heritage, and content with performing quick tasks that require little concentration.

[...]

There are no references to the “classic myths and stories” or “America’s Founding Documents”...

[...]

Apparently “twenty-first century skills” and “higher order thinking” don’t call for lengthy works of literature, like Shakespeare’s plays, Little House on the Prairie, or even favorite novels of liberals. More likely, students will be given a short passage and asked how a sod house affects the ecosystem. The wallpaper for the Teaching Matters website features a bulletin board with projects on biodiversity. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is advancing the use of their materials regarding environmental regulations for Common Core. California’s Invasive Plant Inventory is on the recommended informational reading list, as is EPA Executive Order 13423....

[...]

Literary works promote an American cultural identity, pass on Western Judeo-Christian values, inspire independent thought, and develop the imagination. Their elimination is likely to produce citizens incapable of understanding the proper–and limited–role of the state.

There is much more in the article, including embedded links.

If you have children or grandchildren in the public school system, you MUST read this article!

Plato had it right:

The direction in which education starts a man will determine his future in life.

So does Proverbs 22:6 (KJV):

Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

Fake Photos Promote Sympathy For Pseudostinians

Here's one:

That child was killed by a Hamas rocket, not by Israel.

Gateway Pundit has more information HERE.

Photos such as the one above are all over the front pages of the mainstream-media newspapers, thereby promoting hatred of Israel.

Once once people have seen those photos, particularly photos of dead children, getting those images out of people's minds. What's more, the photos override anything that those of us who know better tell these people, whose minds have been imprinted with a lie.

Remember the impact of "If the glove doesn't fit, you must acquit" at the trial of O.J. Simpson?  Same principle!  A picture is indeed worth a thousand words.  Particularly a picture with a caption.

David Axelrod Outdoes Himself

From Red Alert Politics:

Senior adviser to Obama for America and former White House official David Axelrod blew off criticisms from Republicans Sunday that the Obama administration’s storyline on the Libyan attack had been inconsistent, calling it “nonsense.”

Axelrod claimed the administration had shared everything it knew about the attacks “in real time” and Republicans’ attempts to portray the situation any differently are “disgreaceful.”

“Well, I think it’s nonsense,” Axelrod told “Meet the Press” host David Gregory. “Obviously, this was a tragic event, and the President did call it an act of terror – not just once, but several times – and asked for and ordered an investigation to get to the bottom of what happened, why it happened, and to bring those who committed this act of terror to justice.”...

Expect Obama to mirror this same position in tonight's debate with Mitt Romney.

Obama will say, "Look!" followed by blah, blah, blah. A snow job, in other words.

How gullible is the American voter?

The Real War On Women

The Democrats are avoiding the truth as if the plague (hat tip to Leticia):

The terrifying world of child brides

Ben Stein: "Islam is becoming the MSM's official religion of America."

The full essay is HERE. Brief excerpt:

...Have you noticed that in the past few years, and especially in the past few weeks since the murder of the Ambassador and his guards and colleague in Benghazi (a city that Erwin Rommel loved and whose inhabitants he praised), whenever the New York Times refers to Mohammed, they always call him, without quotation marks, The Prophet Mohammed, as if everyone with any sense understands that OF COURSE Mohammed is The One True Prophet and that it's just understood that Mohammed is The Prophet.

I see this in other news outlets and on TV, too. Sober-looking newsmen and newswomen mention Mohammed as The Prophet Mohammed. No ifs, ands or buts. I hear it on the BBC World Service, too....

Read the entire essay HERE.

Some identical is happening in classrooms all across America. Take a look at your child's textbooks and classroom materials. Sit in on a few of your child's classes, and observe for yourself what is going on.

Let's get one thing clear right now: in Judaism and Christianity, Mohammed is NOT a prophet.  Not at all!

And let's get another thing clear, too: We are witnessing a propaganda war in full swing!  Challenge it!

Is there a possible coordination between PAC and the Obama campaign?

Watch the video:


Now read THIS at Mike's America. Excerpt:

...[N]ot only did Joe Soptic deliberately mislead people about his story, the Obama campaign may have broken federal campaign law by coordinating with Soptic. When asked about any link between the two "We have nothing, no involvement, with any ads that are done by Priorities USA. We don't have any knowledge of the story of the family," Obama campaign spokeswoman Jen Psaki said on Wednesday.

Obama Campaign spokespersons Stephanie Cutter and Robert Gibbs both denied any knowledge of the facts surrounding Soptic's claims. Yet, there is a recording of Stephanie Cutter with Soptic discussing the issue in a May conference call with reporters....

Something smells, and it ain't roses.

Parsing Breivikism

Check out Stogie's work! That link goes to an index of several posts.

By combing through Breivik's hypergraphic screed, Stogie is discovering what the mainstream media will not reveal.

Hillary Clinton And The Muslim Brotherhood

The Muslim Brotherhood is claiming the following:

US Secretary of State welcomes MB if elected by people through democratic elections

A recent dialogue between US secretary of State and former US first lady Hilary Clinton has revealed that the US may have had a change of heart following its former stance of defending the regime prior to Egypt’s People’s Revolution.

Now, if we read what Clinton actually said, we find that the Muslim Brotherhood is spinning her words.

Nothing new about spin, of course.

But what might be worrisome here is that the Muslim Brotherhood, simply because the group is Muslim, has more credibility with the ummah than an infidel woman can ever hope to have. Furthermore, those Muslims who are longing for real freedom, something that the Muslim Brotherhood can never offer, will see the United States, as represented by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, as the enemy.

At the same time, we also read the following about Mohammed ElBaradei and his view of the Muslim Brotherhood:

Ikhwanweb’s [the Muslim Brotherhood's] interview with ElBaradei closed with the following:

He defended the MB confirming that the group would always reject the use of arms and would remain loyal to democracy, emphasising that the organization’s initial struggle was not religious, but completely political.

All the wistful promotion of the revolution in Egypt as the pathway to democracy for that nation is just so much wishful thinking.

White House: "Recovery Summer"

(With a hat tip to LA Sunsett for the link below)

From the White House web site, dated June 17, 2010, clearly pandering for votes:

WASHINGTON, DC – The Administration today kicks off “Recovery Summer,” a six-week-long focus on the surge in Recovery Act infrastructure projects that will be underway across the country in the coming months – and the jobs they’ll create well into the fall and through the end of the year. The Recovery Act has already funded tens of thousands of projects and put about 2.5 million Americans to work, but summer 2010 is actually poised to be the most active Recovery Act season yet, with tens of thousands of projects underway across the country that will help to create jobs for American workers and economic growth for businesses, large and small.

Now, there's nothing unusual about such projects shortly before an election. However, the BHO administration is going to try to make all of us so grateful for his profligate spending of our tax dollars that we'll want to fall to our knees and worship him. Just as any other demagogue on a power grab has done.

Meanwhile, the federal government's plan to solve foreclosure problems, a huge part of the present ailing economy, is a dismal failure.

Are Americans smart enough to see through the ruse and sham of "Recovery Summer"?

You can bet your last dollar that BHO will pay more attention to "Recovery Summer" than to the oil-spill crisis and consequent suffering in the Gulf.

Chairman Of The Cordoba Initiative Comments On South Park Cartoonifada

From this article in the Washington Post, the words of Faisal Rauf, responding a question about the South Park cartoonifada:

Conflicting cultural norms require respect, restraint

Q: What is the obligation of a Western, democratic government to protect individual freedoms in light of a realistic terrorist threat? Are the producers of South Park right to forfeit their freedom of expression in the interests of protecting their employees? Are the governments of Europe right to ban burqas in the interest of fostering a more open society?

[A:] Your question is about different cultural norms in a shrinking world.

Western culture makes freedom of expression nearly a religious value. It protects the right to say anything, no matter how insensitive or scandalous. Everyone and everything can be insulted.

Many non-Western cultures - not just Muslim - balance freedom of expression with respect for elders, traditions and modesty. The idea of respect and honor to elders is deeply ingrained in their psyches.

When I was a boy in Malaysia, in our play we knew we could insult each other freely. That was a game. But we could never insult each other's parents. Do that, and we were in for a serious fight.

For Muslims, respect for the Prophet Muhammad is much more sacred than respect for elders. In fact, Muslims would not insult Jesus or Moses because they were prophets of God and demand respect.

The same is true on the issue of the burqa, which covers the entire body and face, leaving just a slit for the eyes.

In the Western world now, the right to wear almost anything has become a symbol of freedom. It is an expression of women's equality. In the Muslim world, men and women dress so they are not provocative to one another.

But it is important to note that Islam does not require the burqa, and even bans it on occasion. Muslim women performing their pilgrimage to Mecca, known as the Hajj, are not allowed to hide their faces. The burqa is a custom of some - but certainly not all -- Muslim cultures. The spirit of the Muslim law is about modesty.

So what is the role of government?

Freedom of expression is the law in the United States. It is something that the government must uphold. But the people who create this insulting material about the Prophet Muhammad should not be naïve. They are digging deeply at the cultural values of huge numbers of people, many of whom now live as law-abiding citizens of the United States.

In this enlightened age, would the producers of South Park insult the values of African Americans?

As to burqas, it is the cultural norm in Belgium and France for women to reveal their faces. It is a cultural norm in Saudi Arabia that they do not. If Muslims support the right of the Saudi government to require Western women in Saudi Arabia to wear abayas that cover their bodies and heads (but not their faces), then Muslims must support the right of the Belgian and French governments to ban the burqa in Belgium and France.

Can we be upset in these times of heightened national security that the Belgians and French want to know who is walking around on their streets? And in these times when sensitivity about religion and respect are at a boil, cannot the arbiters of Western media show a little restraint?

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is chairman of the Cordoba Initiative, an independent, non-partisan and multi-national project that seeks to use religion to improve Muslim-West relations. (www.cordobainitiative.org) He is the author of "What's Right with Islam is What's Right With America."

By Feisal Abdul Rauf | May 5, 2010; 9:48 AM ET

It seems to me that Feisal Abdul Rauf is setting himself up as a Moslem leader here in the United States. Take a look at his bio:

Imam Feisal has appeared regularly at the Council on Foreign Relations and the World Economic Forum (Davos)....

Read the entire bio.

In my view, this man is more dangerous than all the spokesmen of CAIR put together.

MORE ON THIS EVIL PIECE OF CRAP:

911 Mosque Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf Blames Christians: "The US and the West must acknowledge the harm they have done to Muslims before terrorism can end"

Recent Sample Of The "News" At MSNBC

I think I've mentioned here at IBA that I've been watching MSNBC lately, not because that network is my preference but to see what the talking points are.

After all, a lot of voters DO watch MSNBC. And a lot of voters do not read the web - or, at least, the same sites that many of us read.

Check out this recent bit of crap (hat tip to Gateway Pundit):



Yes, I know that the "logic" in the video is flawed. But I'm willing to bet that were I to use the word "socialist" in discussion with my liberal neighbor, he'd toss back into my face the same talking points as in the above video.

I'm known for my bluntness, especially in a heated discussion about politics.

But it looks to me as if persuading other Americans as to the danger of BHO's policies will require some fine-tuning of the talking points I use. Like it or not, if BHO isn't to serve a second term, a lot of people are going to have to come to the realization that he's undercutting the very foundations of America.