Saturday Night Live Dress Rehearsal C-Span Chuck Hagel Hearings
Subservience breeds contempt.
Koch’s headstone: ‘My father is Jewish, my mother is Jewish, I am Jewish.’
The New York Daily News says Koch wanted his identity as a jew to be a central and lasting part of his legacy, citing Koch’s HuffPo article from Jan 2011, What’s on My Tombstone, and Why:
The United States, France and Israel ought to form a special unit devoted to running each of [Daniel Pearl’s] terrorist murders down and target them for execution. The Israeli Mossad did exactly that with the Munich murderers of the Israeli Olympic team killed in Munich in 1972.
On my tombstone, which awaits me at the Trinity Church nondenominational cemetery at 155th Street and Amsterdam Avenue, I had inscribed the last words of Daniel Pearl — uttered at his publicly viewed murder — which were, “My father is Jewish. My mother is Jewish. I am Jewish.” I believe those words should be part of the annual services on the Jewish High Holiday of Yom Kippur, and should be repeated by the congregants.
Koch was not only speaking for or about himself. He was speaking to fellow jews, for their benefit.
Though Koch came to fame as the mayor of New York between 1978 and 1989, in recent years he made it increasingly obvious that he was most obsessed with the narrow interests of jews. When he expressed his opinion in public, it was often plainly in this context.
On at least two occasions (see here and here) Koch identified others as bigots. As is typical of jewish bigotry, in both cases it was more a reflection of his own hyper-sensitive ethnocentrism. As is also typical, nobody of any stature in media or politics dared criticize “liberal” Koch for his increasingly blatant illiberalism.
While many of the obituaries and editorials I have surveyed remarked with some circumspect on Koch’s queer brand of “liberalism”, only a few noted Koch’s jew-first priority, and none put the two together in critical terms. John Podhoretz, a jew more often identified as “conservative”, opined glowingly at the New York Post that Ed Koch was a liberal who defied left on ‘nuts’ ideas. Though Podhoretz shares the same very jewish concerns which animated Koch, he made no mention of it. Instead Podhoretz focused entirely on an earlier era, casting Koch’s legacy in partisan political terms which make even less sense today than they did at the time. What Koch’s career best demonstrates is how jewish identity transcends silly partisan affliations.
Contrast this with Robert Byrd, who even before death was regularly condemned as a “racist”. When Byrd died it wasn’t hard to find “conservatives” complaining, for example, that Byrd’s KKK History Shows Partisan Double Standard.
Of course, the most glaring double standard isn’t partisan, it’s jewish – it clearly distinguishes jews from Whites. The idea is that nobody, and especially not tolerant “liberals”, should tolerate White bigotry. If you are now or ever have been a member of a special unit devoted to serving White interests, like the KKK, that’s considered inexcusable grounds for exclusion, censure, condemnation, etc. On the other hand, as we see with how the former so-called “King of New York” is treated, openly advocating for the best interests of jews, even to the point of calling for murder squads to hunt down and execute your enemies – well, jews will be jews. Nothing special. Not even for “liberals”.
The Hagel controversy highlights how jews dominate policy-making in the US.
Here we examine the jewish origins and overwhelmingly jewish debate over a list of what many jews regard as significant grievances against Chuck Hagel. Much of this has been hidden in plain sight, tucked away in jew-centric forums. It was brought to broader mainstream attention in a WSJ op-ed by Brett Stephens, Chuck Hagel’s Jewish Problem. An army of jews have been very publicly and vociferously expressing their problems with Hagel ever since.
On 7 Jan 2013, Marsha Cohen published A Chronology of the War Against Chuck Hagel (PDF) which begins:
The smear campaign against Chuck Hagel did not begin on Dec. 14, 2012. The former Nebraska senator’s opposition to war as the preferred means of conducting foreign policy made him a maverick during the post-9/11 Bush years. Although most Republicans agreed with Hagel’s socially conservative positions on domestic issues, his nuanced approach to foreign policy — and his view that diplomacy was a more efficacious means of securing long term US interests than sending in troops with an unclear and/or undefined strategic objective — set him apart from many of his fellow party members.
Some criticism of Hagel began to surface in 2007, when he briefly considered running for president as a Republican. In an effort to thwart his candidacy and undermine his potential candidacy, the National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC) compiled a list of petty grievances that would constitute the core of most neoconservative excoriations of Hagel, persisting in cyberspace long after the NJDC had scrubbed all references to them from its website.
In the first page alone Cohen notes, in addition to the NJDC, the following jewish political organizations which have opposed or supported Hagel: AIPAC, Republican Jewish Coalition, J Street, and the Emergency Committee for Israel (ECI). Together with the many other organizations, media outlets, and individual high-profile jews whose opinions have been widely publicized, as cited both in Cohen’s document and in the posts I’ve made on the subject, a picture emerges of a large, multi-faceted, well-connected, highly-coordinated network dedicated, on the whole, specifically to the pursuit of jewish political interests.
The fact that this political network cleaves along different lines at different times in response to different issues – as it has with Hagel – does not alter its fundamentally jewish composition or the fundamentally jewish interests that it debates and collectively pursues. To excuse themselves, jews often call attention to the noise of the debate itself and away from the goal of the debate. “Two jews, three opinions!”, they say. “Two jews, three opinions about what’s best for the jews!”, is closer to the truth.
The following links and quotes come from following just a portion of Cohen’s lengthy PDF. They demonstrate the long-term and party-line-crossing nature of the jewish debate over Hagel.
88 Senators Condemn Hezbollah. 10 Republicans break ranks on Israel., Philadelphia Jewish Voice PJV#15, Sept 2006:
“When it comes to Israel and the Jewish community, the hypocrisy of Republicans in Congress is just overwhelming. How is it that Republicans in the Senate can claim to be supporters of Israel when almost 20 percent of their caucus — including their top two Members on the Foreign Relations Committee and top Republican on the Armed Services Committee — apparently does not think that Hezbollah should be on the E.U. list of terrorist organizations,” asked NJDC Executive Director Ira Forman. “While Democrats are out there trying to punish Israel’s enemies and ensure that she has a right to defend herself, these ten Republican senators have no problem with the international community treating Hezbollah as a legitimate organization. Shame on them.”
In 2006 it was Democrat jews trying to punish, or at least shame, Republican senators, including Hagel, for not “trying to punish Israel’s enemies”. The shameless underlying presumption is that either Israel and the US interests are identical, or more likely, that Israeli interests matter more.
Cohen writes:
March 12, 2007. National Jewish Democratic Council compiles a list of complaints against Hagel. It subsequently removed the grievances from the NJDC website, but was screen-captured and preserved by ad man and Breitbart.com columnist, Jeff Dunetz, and will serve as the basis for future “opposition research” on Hagel’s positions on Israel and Hezbollah
Jeff Dunetz blogs under the pseudonym Yid with Lid. He republished a copy of the NJDC list on the same day it was issued. The list cites Hagel’s “failures” from a specifically jewish point of view as far back as Oct 2000. This NJDC list is what Cohen dismissively describes in her introduction as “petty grievances”. The jews she cites all take it much more seriously.
Two years later the same list was still at the center of the ongoing jewish debate about Hagel. NJDC Chief Weighs in on Hagel Appointment (Update w/RJC in Response), by Michael Goldfarb, The Weekly Standard, 29 Oct 2009:
Yesterday the Republican Jewish Coalition was taunting its Democratic rival, the National Jewish Democratic Council, over the appointment of former Republican Senator Chuck Hagel to serve a co-chair of the President’s National Intelligence Advisory Board. As the RJC was quick to point out after news of the appointment broke, the NJDC had put out several statements over the years blasting Hagel for his “questionable Israel record.” In particular, Hagel had refused to sign a series of letters that had broad bipartisan support and which focused on a range of issues of great importance to the Jewish community. He had refused to sign a letter in August 2006 asking the EU to declare Hezbollah a terrorist organization. In 2004, Hagel had refused to sign a letter urging President Bush to highlight Iran’s nuclear program at the G-8 summit.
NJDC executive director Ira Forman responded by blasting his counterpart at the RJC, Matt Brooks. Brooks, Forman said, is “not concerned with little issues like shame or hypocrisy.” Forman said that RJC had plenty of opportunities to question Hagel’s record when Hagel was serving in the Senate. “Apparently [the RJC] just recently had a revelation” about Hagel’s foreign policy views. But neither was Forman prepared to denounce Hagel again now that the shoe was on the other foot. “Anybody who’s looking for purity from us is going to be disappointed,” Forman said in the course of declining to criticize the appointment.
Still, Forman isn’t a fan of Hagel. He suggested that NJDC would publicly oppose Hagel’s nomination for a position with more authority. “If [Hagel] was taking a policy role, we’d have real concerns,” Forman said. And Forman indicated that his group would oppose Hagel’s appointment to any position that had influence over U.S.-Israel relations.
While the RJC may not have “even a little credibility to attack” this appointment, as Forman says, the bipartisan show of discomfort with Hagel’s foreign policy views suggests Hagel is not destined for a bigger role in this administration.
An interesting postscript to this story is the fact that Hagel’s appointment was announced at J Street’s gala dinner on Tuesday night just before Hagel delivered the keynote speech at that event. NJDC is an explicitly partisan, Democratic organization, while J Street aspires, or at least claims to aspire, to bipartisan influence.
Most jewish political organizations aspire to bipartisan influence. A characteristic trait of jewish political organizations is the flexibility of their partisanship, which usually results in a “bipartisan show of discomfort” (or comfort) most jews can agree on.
The partisan switcheroo on Hagel is a case in point. Jews from all sides continue to debate the same list of specifically jewish concerns, clearly demonstrating how jewish ethnic interests rise above the ebb and flow of party ideologies and loyalties. For or against Hagel their unchallenged presumption, often explicitly stated, is to ensure the selection of someone who will serve the best interests of the jewish ethnostate.
Dunetz brought the NJDC list of grievances back to light last month and added some fresh vitriol. “The Lid”: Will the NJDC Oppose Terrorism Loving, Israel-Hating Chuck Hagel’s Appointment As Sec of Defense?, 13 Dec 2012:
Senator Hagel often appears before Arab-American groups to air his views regarding the Middle East. Among the gems of wisdom: support for Israel shouldn’t be automatic. .
He has also joined a chorus of people surrounding Barack Obama who use the anti-Semitic meme about the so-called Jewish Lobby.
Says Hagel: “The political reality is that… the Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people up here.” This audio should be heard to truly gauge his own feelings.
Note his use of the term “Jewish Lobby”. There are many millions of Americans who are not Jewish, who support the American-Israel relationship. Hagel pushes the meme that Jews control American foreign policy (if they did–they would do a better job than this administration).
Note the self-identified Yid with Lid’s use of the term “jewish lobby”. It’s a telling combination of mocking, gloating, contempt and denial.
Dunetz is part of an ethnocentric jewish chorus who expect US government and military leaders to support Israel. Some, like Dunetz, expect that support to be automatic. It’s a given to Dunetz that the US government could do a better job serving jewish interests. It is with this end in mind that he tosses self-righteous insults and insinuations with abandon, freely projecting his own unhinged passions onto Hagel. Thus Hagel becomes “Terrorism Loving, Israel-Hating” boogeyman Hagel. What’s so ineffably jewish about such wild, deluded exaggerations is that rather than costing Dunetz his credibility or livelyhood, he expects that it should cost Hagel his.
The debate over Hagel is dominated by jews. They dominate the debate over most political issues. In this case they’ve just made themselves more vocal and visible than usual. However many Americans there are who aren’t jews, and however they feel about anything, it’s entirely accurate to identify and refer to a “jewish lobby” whose activism represents, at root, pursuit of the best interests of jews.
If Blue people and some others were arguing over what’s best for the Bluish ethnostate, and some Blue people started making a big deal over whether somebody who isn’t Blue referred to it as the “Bluish ethnostate lobby” or the “Blue lobby”, that would rightly be seen as a distinction without a difference. What’s different here is that it’s jews, not Blues, who are involved.
The ridiculous arguments Dunetz and others make in defense of jewish power wouldn’t make sense when applied to anyone else. They make such arguments because they consider jews special and aren’t thinking in terms of anyone else. They aren’t ridiculed because 1) even the jews who oppose Dunetz are ethnocentric enough not to take issue with the presumption that jews are special, and 2) everyone else is more or less ignorant of, allied with, or intimidated by jewish power.
This jewish chimp-out over Hagel’s nomination demonstrates the enormous influence jews have, think they have, or think they should have over US policy-making. It also raises some important questions. Is it really controversial that a US senator or secretary of defense should have the best interests of the US rather than Israel foremost in their mind? Isn’t this only controversial because the political discourse is so chock full of jews willing and able to argue more or less dishonestly in favor of whatever they think is best for jews? Isn’t this a reflection of the jewish domination of the corporate, mainstream media? Is there anybody left in mainstream politics or media who will dare make the simple point that none of this is good for the rest of us? When?
Well, well. Previous reports of Chuck Hagel’s political death were greatly exaggerated.
A Hagel Education, published on 7 Jan 2013 by WSJ:
President Obama on Monday chose Chuck Hagel to lead the Pentagon, inviting a confirmation brawl over a troubling nominee. The Senate should oblige. The Hagel hearings are an opportunity to have the debate over Mr. Obama’s policies and a growing world disorder that we didn’t have in the election campaign.
The suggestion that the Senate has more of a say about US policy than the jewish lobby is quaint. After nearly a month in which one or more of the terms “jewish lobby”, “Israel lobby”, and “Israel” appeared in nearly every mainstream media op-ed about Hagel, this WSJ report is most conspicuous for not mentioning any at all, even if only to acknowledge what has already transpired. It is indicative of an overall shift in the debate.
But no one questions Mr. Hagel’s patriotism and military service. What matters at the top of the Pentagon, at this moment in history, is how he would deal with today’s growing security threats amid Mr. Obama’s desire to withdraw the U.S. from its traditional role of world leadership.
Only now are questions beside what’s best for Israel being brought to the fore. The debate so far has been primarily between jews, their main question being whether Hagel will be good for their ethnostate. That question is still not entirely settled. What has been settled is that this is the primary question. It’s not about what should matter most to the US Department of Defense, which many Americans still like to imagine has something to do with the defense of the United States. Likewise, it’s not about whether the US should “lead the world”, which is just a sick and dishonest way of describing the killing and dying US soldiers have been and will continue doing to keep the world safe for jews.
WSJ’s Brett Stephens is the journalist-warrior jew who set the jew-centric tone of the subsequent debate with his 17 Dec 2012 op-ed, Chuck Hagel’s Jewish Problem. Now he’s making the case that the question is Chuck Hagel’s Courage, but still can’t help give away the game:
But give Mr. Hagel this: When it comes to expressing himself about Israel, its enemies, and the influence of the so-called Jewish lobby, he has been nothing if not consistent and outspoken. Maybe that’s political courage. Or maybe it’s a mental twitch, the kind you can’t quite help. The confirmation process should be illuminating.
It has already been illuminating. It will be even moreso if the confirmation process makes more jews twitch like Stephens.
Not every jew has decided to shift gears yet. Some are still twitching in response to Stephens initial hit piece. In The tarring of Chuck Hagel published by The Washington Post yesterday, Richard Cohen writes:
I thought the day had long passed when a skeptical attitude toward this or that Israeli policy would trigger charges of anti-Semitism. The accusation is so powerful — so freighted with images of the Holocaust — that it tends to silence all but the bravest or the most foolish. Israeli policy of late has been denounced by some steadfast champions of the Jewish state — the New York Times’ Thomas Friedman or the New Republic’s Leon Wieseltier, for example — so being caustically critical is hardly evidence of anti-Semitism. Rather, it can be a sign of good judgment, not to mention a caring regard for the aspirations of Zionism.
The article that implied Hagel was a touch anti-Semitic was headlined “Chuck Hagel’s Jewish Problem” and suggested that Hagel’s statement that “the Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people up here” in Congress had “the odor” of prejudice. A PC sort of guy might have put things more delicately: If there is an odor here, however, it is not the rancid stench of anti-Semitism but instead of character assassination.
This is typical of what passes for “caustic criticism” in jewish minds – jews gnashing their teeth at other jews about who is the better jew. Two jews might appear to be arguing vociferously, but note how their language never gets more venomous than when they talk about “anti-semitism”, their common cause eventually bubbling to the top, overriding all others.
The sad reality that contemporary political discourse is so dominated by jews and their concerns didn’t just happen. It is the product of a long slogging effort by jews. A process by which anyone jews perceive as an enemy is pathologized and demonized, and thereby cowed or marginalized, if not utterly silenced. When a jew cries, “X has a jewish problem”, it’s a call for jews to pounce on X.
Chuck Hagel is the most recent example of how this “jewish lobby” process works. If he makes the right combination of sufficiently subservient gestures, acknowledging and accepting jewish domination without calling further negative attention to it, then he might get the job. If not, he won’t.
Now with the ground well prepared it’s safe to get back to the old Red-vs-Blue again, to act as if jews don’t have power, and move on. For example, here’s David Brooks in Why Hagel Was Picked, published on 7 Jan 2013 by NYTimes.com:
Chuck Hagel has been nominated to supervise the beginning of this generation-long process of defense cutbacks. If a Democratic president is going to slash defense, he probably wants a Republican at the Pentagon to give him political cover, and he probably wants a decorated war hero to boot.
All the charges about Hagel’s views on Israel or Iran are secondary. The real question is, how will he begin this long cutting process? How will he balance modernizing the military and paying current personnel? How will he recalibrate American defense strategy with, say, 455,000 fewer service members?
How, in short, will Hagel supervise the beginning of America’s military decline? If members of Congress don’t want America to decline militarily, well, they have no one to blame but the voters and themselves.
One reason jews won’t openly acknowledge their political power is because they realize it’s fundamentally dishonest and illegitimate – made possible by the vast majority of people not recognizing it for what it is. This is the threat Stephens was sniffing out in the loose talk from an uppity goy senator about the “jewish lobby”. What’s weighing on Brooks’ mind is related. If and when anything goes wrong jews can be counted on to blame anyone but jews. Brooks is looking to the future, anticipating this eventuality.
Chuck Hagel may be off of Obama’s shortlist to head DOD, by Adam Kredo, Washington Free Beacon, 19 Dec 2012:
Hagel immediately drew a frosty reception from observers who criticized him for advocating in favor of direct unconditional talks with Iran and for backing sizable cuts to the defense budget.
Those who have worked with Hagel and have an intimate knowledge of his managerial style also expressed concerns about his possible appointment.
Sources on Capitol Hill told the Free Beacon that opposition to Hagel reaches all the way to the Embassy of Israel, which is said to have quietly expressed concern about the former senator.
“Our office has talked with the Israel embassy who says their policy is to support whatever the president wants in his cabinet and would not provide further comment,” one Senate aide told the Free Beacon. “With a little prodding, our contact at the embassy did allude to their concern for Hagel’s nomination.”
An Israeli embassy spokesman declined comment.
Hagel has drawn additional heat from insiders who claim he lacks the credentials needed to manage a department as large and essential as the Pentagon.
“Yes, Hagel has crazy positions on several key issues. Yes, Hagel has said things that are borderline anti-Semitism. Yes, Hagel wants to gut the Pentagon’s budget. But above all, he’s not a nice person and he’s bad to his staff,” said a senior Republican Senate aide who has close ties to former Hagel staffers.
“Chuck Hagel may have been collegial to his Senate colleagues but he was the Cornhusker wears Prada to his staff, some of whom describe their former boss as perhaps the most paranoid and abusive in the Senate, one who would rifle through staffers desks and berate them for imagined disloyalty,” said Michael Rubin, a former Pentagon adviser on Iran and Iraq. “He might get away with that when it comes to staffers in their 20s, but that sort of personality is going to go over like a ton of bricks at the Pentagon.”
“Chances are he’ll view any legitimate effort to talk about military options with Iran as some plot by the ‘Israel Lobby’ to box him in,” the source said.
Reviewing the objections to Hagel, aside from the inconsequential nonsense, it’s plain that the that Israel-firsters, AKA the Israel Lobby, AKA jews, effectively vetoed his nomination. They did so in the characteristically dishonest way jews usually go about exercising their power – a gaggle of jews furiously, publicly debating in markedly jewish terms, with the final verdict being Hagel has magically disqualified himself, because jews don’t actually have any power.
In this absurd debate, represented in part by Doug Bandow’s Neocons Against Chuck Hagel: The Independent Senator Who Wouldn’t Genuflect, we hear what are considered examples of Hagel’s “anti-semitism”: “I’m a United States senator. I support Israel. But my first interest is I take an oath of office to the Constitution of the United States. Not to a president. Not a party. Not to Israel.” Even more scandalous, “The political reality is that … the Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people up here.”
The political reality is that USGOV officials, even at the very top, cannot say they would put US interests above Israel’s, much less actually do so. Beside that, the mythical divide between “liberal” and “neocon” is once more revealed as a lie. In the wake of Obama’s re-election the “liberals” are supposedly in power. The “neocons” should be licking their wounds. The political reality is dominated by jews debating the best interests of jews. Whatever the outcome, jews win.
There are copious examples of this farce. Beyond the two articles already cited I’ll call attention to two more.
In Nebraska Jews Recall Senator Chuck Hagel as “Unfriendly” and “Unmovable” on Israel, “Didn’t Give a Damn About the Jewish Community”, published by Algemeiner.com, 21 Dec 2012, we read:
Former editor of the Omaha Jewish Press, Carol Katzman, who was in that role while Hagel was in office, related her experiences with him in an interview with The Algemeiner.
“He was not the most responsive politician in Nebraska to me personally at the Jewish Press and to the Jewish community as a whole,” she said.
“Every other senator, Nelson, Mike Johanns, (congressman) Lee Terry and (congressman) Peter Hoagland they were all very responsive,” she explained, “it didn’t really matter what their party affiliation was, if we were soliciting them for an interview or a greeting ad for Rosh Hashonah or Passover.” However Katzman says that “Hagel’s office never even responded,” adding, “we would make repeated calls, (and received) no response it was pretty obvious that he and his staff were dismissive.”
To be fair, articles like this weren’t part of the debate, which is already over. It does however contain an essential element of the debate, whereby jews lamely try to rationalize their distaste for Hagel and stick him with the blame for it.
In Gil Troy’s Hagel: Not An Anti-Semite, Just A Slob, published in the Open Zion section of The Daily Beast on 19 Dec 2012, there is more of the same:
Without rehashing the entire debate, as senator, Hagel was more of an Israel skeptic than an enthusiastic Israel friend, no Ted Kennedy, or John McCain, or Joe Biden, or Hillary Clinton was he. And for that reason, snarky comments about the “Jewish lobby” and about being a “United States Senator” and “not an Israeli Senator” rankle. Prejudice has a pedigree. Just as we winced when Biden as a candidate called Obama “articulate”—because of the twisted history that had many people questioning black people’s brains and eloquence, respectful American leaders should not stir the hornet’s nest around the Israel lobby question.
Here is another characteristic strand of jewish argument, with Troy arrogantly lecturing “leaders” to respect jewish power by pretending it does not exist. He then recounts a lesson about that power from 20 years ago:
I learned from Malcolm Hoenlein that Shoshana Cardin, the President of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, confronted President George H.W. Bush after his dramatic September 1991 press conference, claiming he was “one lonely little guy” facing “powerful political forces,” after 1,200 Israel activists lobbied Congress seeking loan guarantees to help Israel resettle emigrating Soviet Jews. In a private meeting, Cardin explained that talk of Jewish lobbyists out-muscling the president echoed traditionally bigoted exaggerations about Jewish power. Bush pointed out that he “didn’t use the word ‘Jews.’ ” Cardin explained he did not have to. “Everyone understood that the people you were referring to were Jewish. That’s why the White House switchboard lit up with so many messages of support from anti-Semites.”
“I never intended to hurt anyone,” Bush said, teary-eyed, “Or give encouragement to anti-Semitism.” He then apologized to the American Jewish leaders gathered to meet him.
Even US presidents fear jewish power. One way to reconcile the jewish view of this as a “bigoted exaggeration” is to understand that, at least in the minds of hyper-jew-centric jews, US presidents can and should be doing even more for jews. For another example of this, read this bitter jew-centric assessment of Richard Nixon, another president whose failure to openly identify his and his country’s enemies hasn’t made those enemies hate him any less.
The take-away, once again, is that jewish rhetoric about “anti-semitism” is a simple and effective inversion and projection of their own obsessions and aggression. White political leaders should naturally seek to serve the interests and favor of fellow Whites. But none actually do. Instead what we have is a political reality in which jews relentlessly pathologize and demonize Whites for illusory “White privilege” and ineffective political “dog whistling”. Meanwhile jews make ever more blatant and outrageous demands of a regime which already serves their interests first and foremost. Both are sure signs that jewish power not only exists, but is increasing. It will continue to increase until it is faced with real opposition.