Tuesday, July 30, 2019
Sunday, July 28, 2019
HBO’s falsified Chernobyl “documentary”
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| https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/07/06/hbos-falsified-chernobyl-documentary/ |
Dr. Kelvin Kemm
Late in 1972, Uruguayan Air Force flight 571 was taking a college rugby team and family members from Montevideo, Uruguay to Santiago, Chile. It carried five crew members and 40 passengers.
As the aircraft crossed the frozen Andes, the pilot made a tragic navigation error and descended towards what he thought was Pudahuel Airport. The aircraft struck a rocky mountain ridge. Both wings were sheared off, and the aircraft fuselage raced like a toboggan down the steep snow-covered slope, coming to rest on a glacier.
Only 33 survived the crash, and five more died during the freezing night that followed. Seventeen days after the crash, an avalanche struck the wrecked remains and killed eight more. The remaining starving and half-frozen survivors were devout Catholics – highly moral and responsible, but facing certain death, while the dead lay frozen outside in the snow.
After personal agonizing and prayer, they made the dramatic decision to eat their deceased fellow passengers. One team member was a medical student, who explained that brains and certain other organs contained valuable nutrients. So they ate those as well as the human flesh. Two of the strongest survivors set off on an incredible 38-mile (60-kilometer) trek to find rescuers.
After a staggering 72 days on the glacier, the remaining survivors were rescued, two days before Christmas. Despite initially reacting in horror, people worldwide ultimately sympathized deeply with the plight and decisions of those survivors, who prayed over their dead comrades and cut pieces from the bodies only with great sorrow, reverence and respect.
A television program portrayed their agonizing saga honestly, accurately and sympathetically.
However, imagine if decades later another producer decided to make a new “dramatized” version. It begins with the aircraft crash, fractured fuselage ride down the mountain and snowy desolation. But then it descends into “artistic license,” to ensure more horror, more viewers (more profits).
Imagine the new “inspired by true events” version showing callous survivors slashing bodies with axes and using machetes to tear out livers and hammers to smash skulls for the brains. After dinner they play a wild drumming rhapsody on the fuselage, using human bones as drumsticks as they sing.
How do you think TV audiences would respond? With sympathy and understanding for the survivors – or revulsion and disgust? Would they call for forgiveness – or demand prosecution?
If this sounds absurd, it has a very real recent counterpart that took similar liberties with the facts in order to make a more “dramatic” program and attract more viewers. I watched both the Chilean rugby team television program a few years ago and the recent HBO-produced TV series “Chernobyl.”
The Chernobyl tragedy is also an undeniable part of history. People died, though fewer than 60. Things went terribly wrong, for many reasons. But today tourists visit the Chernobyl area and wildlife thrives.
So what actually happened? Did reality come anywhere close to what HBO presented in its program?
The HBO production apparently recorded record viewership figures. That was undoubtedly good for the network’s bottom line. But was it honest income, to be proud of?
As a nuclear scientist, I can tell you the fundamental story of the sequence of events of the 1986 Chernobyl accident as portrayed by HBO was correct. Issues around governance and procedure as portrayed by HBO were essentially correct. But other important aspects were false or falsified.
The blood and skin peeling scenes, for example. Sadly, the producers lied – intentionally or incompetently, it seems, to gain box office income. They succeeded in that goal. But they insulted us nuclear scientists and insulted the intelligence of viewers who knew a bit more science than most of HBO’s audience. The HBO producers also led many viewers down a twisted path to further ignorance and confusion, which certainly should not be the objective of any honest history documentary.
The series tended to show the Soviet authorities of the day as uncaring and unskilled. That was not true. Yes, Chernobyl happened during the formality and rigidity of the Soviet communist system of the era. And yes, the military-type hierarchy of the time did play a role.
However Russian nuclear scientists had actually and for some time worried greatly about that particular Chernobyl reactor design and had voiced their concerns to senior authorities. Albeit slowly, those authorities were responding. Tests of failure systems were being conducted.
Chernobyl had been ordered to carry out one such test, to assess the speed of response to a failure. A test had been set up. Chernobyl staffers were instructed to create a deliberate failure mode situation, to see how the reactor responded. This was arranged and was supposed to have been done in the daytime, when the main skilled team was on duty.
However, high demands for electricity in the district caused them to delay the test until around midnight, when the lower calibre night shift team was on duty. In addition, the more senior decision makers in the line-of-command had gone home.
To clip all the technicalities very short: when the intentional test procedure started to go wrong, worried and inexperienced Chernobyl technicians made some wrong moves and rapidly compounded the unfolding drama. As the reactor spun out of control, the rapid communications line via local headquarters to Moscow did not function properly; the seniors had gone home and could not help.
Moreover, that reactor type had been built to an out-of-date design that contained a large amount of highly combustible graphite. It caught fire. Someone correctly called the fire brigade – which responded quickly, but mistakenly attacked the fire as if it were a burning woodworking factory.
The firemen bravely attacked the flames – without fully realizing that the smoke carried radioactive dust and other harmful material. Lumps of burning graphite that lay scattered around contained radioactive debris from the initial gas blast that blew the reactor to pieces.
Other first responders were also brought in: police, military, helicopter pilots. All did their duty, as they would have in any other major fire. But radioactive dust and smoke were swirling around.
Human bodies do not become radioactive in a situation like that. What can happen is that someone, like a fireman, leaves the scene with radioactive dust on his clothes and maybe in his hair. Any radiation protection officer present would then make him take all his clothes off and take a good shower, before going home.
Firemen were not radioactively contagious, as HBO portrayed. A fireman could not have irradiated his pregnant wife at home, as HBO claimed. Her baby could not have died of heart and liver disease as a result; that too is pure HBO bunk. Something like playing music on the aircraft fuselage in the Andes, using human bones as drumsticks. Very good for viewer horror, but very far from the truth.
A very large dose of nuclear radiation will undoubtedly kill a person. But skin will not peel off one’s face. In fact a human can pick up a fatal dose of radiation in under an hour and not even know it. The person would go home in apparently perfect condition, but then start to feel as if he had eaten rotten fish for lunch. Vomiting would result and flu-like symptoms would set in. Over a couple of hours this would lead to shaky hands and wobbly legs, bad vision and a general breakdown of body functions. Death would come quite quickly, within days. But in reality no viewer-riveting skin peeling off the face, or blood dripping from anywhere would occur.
After the real Chernobyl incident, 29 fire-fighters died – from what medics call “synchronous injuries.” In other words “a combination of factors.” Undoubtedly radiation exposure played a major role. But those brave men also attacked high-temperature flames, breathed in dense toxic smoke and physically exerted themselves under terrible conditions. There were numerous other errors, as well.
It seems HBO producers did not consult any nuclear physics specialists, or medical people knowledgeable in the field. They relied on more dramatic emotional advice.
HBO must have made a lot of money with the series. Their shareholders are no doubt very pleased. But HBO has not done any service to the truth or to the education and enlightenment of viewers.
The series was “fiction inspired by real events” – not a “documentary.” HBO should issue apologies.
Dr Kelvin Kemm is a nuclear physicist and CEO of Nuclear Africa Ltd, a project management company based in Pretoria, South Africa. He does international consultancy work in strategic development.
Friday, July 26, 2019
THE SAD TRUTH: Donald Trump and His Evangelical Base
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| http://themillenniumreport.com/2019/07/the-sad-truth-donald-trump-and-his-evangelical-base/ |
I can understand why evangelicals would vote against Hillary Clinton by voting for her opponent, Donald Trump. Who in their right mind wanted Hillary in the White House? But now we are not talking about voting against someone; we are talking about a gargantuan lovefest between evangelicals and Trump. WHY do evangelicals love Trump so much? Most evangelicals will not admit it, but their support for Trump borders on idolatry. They practically worship this man. WHY?
Donald Trump is a man totally devoid of character and honor. He is a man who has never respected any oath he has ever taken or any contract he has ever made. He is a pathological liar. He is a for real sexist. He is a sexual deviant. He is a textbook narcissist. He is a braggart, a bully, a belligerent and a buffoon. He is a career criminal and gangster. He survives by threats, bribery and intimidation. He uses power and money to ruin and destroy anyone who gets in his way—friend or foe. He is an undisciplined hothead. His use of vulgarity, profanity and the Lord’s name in vain rivals or surpasses the filthiest mouth coming out of the filthiest hellhole in the world. Richard Nixon and Harry Truman wouldn’t be able to keep up with Trump’s filthy blasphemous mouth. (The Scripture says God’s enemies take His name in vain, Psalm 139:20. Of course, in order to continue idolizing Trump, evangelicals will continue ignoring that verse too.) Donald Trump is the quintessential spoiled rich brat that never grew up. In other words, Donald Trump’s entire adult life is the personification of everything the Bible abhors. Yet, evangelicals who claim to love the Bible love Donald Trump. WHY?
I’m not a fan of George Will, but he said something on a New York Times Book Review podcast that every evangelical needs to hear. Will said of Trump:
I believe that what this president has done to our culture, to our civic discourse … you cannot unring these bells and you cannot unsay what he has said, and you cannot change that he has now in a very short time made it seem normal for schoolboy taunts and obvious lies to be spun out in a constant stream. I think this will do more lasting damage than Richard Nixon’s surreptitious burglaries did.
The report goes on to say:
Will’s broader argument is that Nixon’s coordinated burglaries at the Democratic National Committee were secret and, once revealed, broadly condemned by the public and the two political parties. What Trump is doing is happening right in front of our faces — and with the tacit assent of the Republican Party that Will left in 2016.
“What Donald Trump’s revolutionary effect has been [is] to make things acceptable that were unthinkable until recently,” Will said on the Times podcast, asking host Pamela Paul if she could even conceive of past presidents like John Kennedy or Dwight Eisenhower uttering any of the many things Trump has said in office.
The words of Will that run truest to me were these: “You cannot unring these bells.” I think he is 100% right on that. The idea that once Trump leaves the White House — whether involuntarily in January 2021 or voluntarily-ish in January 2025 — the impacts and reverberations of what he has done to the presidency (and to the way in which the presidency is covered) will disappear is a fallacy.
Politics is a copycat game. Always has been. What Trump has taught politicians is that telling the truth isn’t all that important — especially if you have your own bullhorn (in Trump’s case Twitter + Fox News) to make your own “alternative facts.” And that presidential norms and the idea of “being presidential” is a meaningless construct. And a lot more “lessons” that will be destructive to the way in which people run for president and act once they get elected.
Everything said in this report is true; and nothing said in this report will matter to a hill of beans to Trump’s evangelical supporters. WHY NOT?
One Democratic candidate for President that you probably haven’t even heard of is Massachusetts congressman and former U.S. Marine Seth Moulton:
In an interview published on Friday, Democratic presidential candidate Seth Moulton said that Trump voters “know” that the president is an [expletive], The Hill reports.
Moulton suggested that other Democrats running for president appear to believe that they can persuade Trump voters to vote against the president in 2020 by convincing them that he is not a moral person.
“I think a lot of Democrats think, ‘You know, these Trump voters, what we need to do is we just need to educate them, and we’re going to get it through their heads that this guy is a bad guy,’” he opined, proceeding to suggest that Trump supporters understand what the commander-in-chief is like, but simply don’t mind.
You better know they don’t mind. But WHY NOT?
The superficial answer to this question is that evangelicals have been hoodwinked into believing that Trump actually means what he says when he talks about being pro-life, pro-Second Amendment, anti-LGBT agenda, anti-establishment, anti-illegal immigration, anti-globalism, etc. Again, Trump is a pathological liar. He doesn’t mean a word he says; but evangelicals are convinced he tells the truth. And it wouldn’t do any good to spend the rest of this column documenting the facts that prove he doesn’t tell the truth, because I have been documenting these facts for over two years in this column, and evangelicals won’t even examine the evidence. Their minds are made up, and they refuse to be confused with facts. They believe what Trump says, because they WANT to believe what Trump says. It’s as simple as that.
Of course, a large part of this deception is due to the way Jerry Falwell Jr., Pat Robertson, Franklin Graham, Robert Jeffress, et al. have been gushing over Trump like he’s another John the Baptist who’s paving the way for the Messiah. These “Christian leaders” have the ear of millions of evangelicals. If these “great men of God” say it, it must be true.
But, again, that’s the superficial reason why evangelicals love Donald Trump. The real reason lies much deeper. Are you ready for this? The real reason evangelicals love Donald Trump is because they are just like him.
Thankfully, there are wonderful exceptions to what I am saying. Over my 44 years of Gospel ministry, I have come to know some of the sweetest, kindest, most loving, humble, godly, giving, honest and honorable Christian evangelists, pastors and people in the world: wonderful, precious souls. But without reservation or hesitation I can say that these terrific people are a small percentage of the whole. In word and deed, most evangelicals have a track record of being little more than miniature reflections of Donald Trump. Evangelicals love Donald Trump because in character and conduct he is truly one of them.
Liberal blogger Kevin Drum nailed it:
If you want to think of evangelicals as hypocrites, that’s fine. But don’t think of them that way because of Donald Trump. He is practically the apotheosis of conservative Christianity in America, not some weird, blustering outlier. No one should be either surprised or shocked that they love him.
However, there are four specific things about Donald Trump that make him achieve this almost god-like status with evangelicals.
No, it’s not his pro-life verbiage. Like Trump, most evangelicals only provide lip service to the pro-life cause. Evangelicals will look you in the eye and tell you that the GOP is a pro-life party. What a joke! Roe v Wade was passed by a GOP-dominated Supreme Court. The GOP has controlled the Supreme Court ever since 1973. The GOP controlled the entire federal government for 4.6 of G.W. Bush’s eight years in office. And they controlled the entire federal government for the first two years of Donald Trump’s presidency. Nothing was done to overturn Roe. Plus, know this: Nearly 50% of the women and girls seeking abortions are regular attenders of evangelical churches.
No, it’s not Trump’s anti-LGBT agenda verbiage. Most evangelicals are fine with the fact that homosexuality permeates their churches. Homosexuality is rampant in many Christian colleges and universities. It’s mostly hushed up; but almost everyone knows it’s there.
No, it’s not Trump’s pro-Second Amendment verbiage. First, Trump has already handed America more gun control than Barack Obama, and second, most evangelicals are as mushy on the Second Amendment as a bowl of hot grits. Tell me, when is the last time you heard the likes of Robert Jeffress and Franklin Graham say one word about the God-ordained right and duty to keep and bear arms?
No, it’s not Trump’s pro-limited government verbiage. Donald Trump has exploded the spending, size and scope of the federal government equal to or surpassing any of his predecessors.
No, it’s none of those things that make evangelicals love Donald Trump. Here are the four things that evangelicals absolutely love about Donald Trump.
Donald Trump loves money and so do evangelicals.
From their idolatrous love affair with the 501c3 tax-exempt, non-profit organization status of their “churches” to their opulent buildings to their success-driven “ministries” to their prosperity “gospel” to their golf club memberships to their all-expense paid luxury vacations, evangelical pastors and congregations love money. Even though he made his fortune via corrupt business practices, immoral bankruptcies, theft, Jewish mafia-backed criminal activity, tax evasion, etc., billionaire Trump is what many evangelicals wish they were.
Donald Trump hates Muslims and so do evangelicals.
One thing I have found to be consistent with evangelicals is their intense hatred toward the Muslim people—and the Palestinians as well. The evangelical sermons, seminars, rallies, community meetings, books, DVDs, periodicals, radio broadcasts, television broadcasts, etc., all spewing vitriol against the Muslim people are ubiquitous. Donald Trump gives these Muslim-haters justification for their hatred.
Donald Trump is a rabid Zionist and so are evangelicals.
The vast, vast majority of evangelicals are Christian Zionists. They worship all things Israel. Their misinterpretation of Genesis 12:3 (and the rest of Scripture relating to Israel) has turned our evangelical churches into little more than one big Zionist cult. Donald Trump could disappoint them on almost every other issue, but as long as he remains the rabid Zionist he is, evangelicals will continue to love him.
Donald Trump is a warmonger and so are evangelicals.
Support for Zionist Israel and support for foreign wars go hand in hand. In fact, take away the former, and it would automatically remove the latter. Evangelicals love war. They love the military. They love killing. They love dropping bombs. They love war.
I am not talking as an outsider. For decades, I’ve listened to evangelicals demand war, promote war, applaud war, wish for war and even pray for war. I know what I’m talking about. I cannot count the number of times I’ve heard evangelical “Christians” say things to the effect, “If it was up to me, I would bomb Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Syria off the map. If I could, I would kill every Muslim in the world.” Don’t tell me I’m exaggerating. I’ve heard it over and over and over. The hearts of evangelicals are filled with war. Donald Trump’s war fever literally makes evangelicals stand up and cheer.
This is why evangelicals love Donald Trump: In thought, word and deed, they are just like him. And his love for money, his hatred for Muslims, his maniacal devotion to Zionism and his lust for war make him more than a President; he is a god-like figure to them. Which brings us to this: If Trump wins a second term and is able to bully, berate, browbeat and batter his way into suspending the Constitution in order to make himself President for life, these same evangelicals will love that too.
Wednesday, July 24, 2019
The video-sharing platform Dailymotion is engaging in outright censorship
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| Jodie Foster in the 1997 film Contact |
Another concern that I can mention is that when I post links on my blog to other websites this doesn't mean that I support everything on those websites. This just means that the chosen article has some good information. I think that I made a mistake many months ago when I posted links to a few websites that are run by people that I now call... psychotic anti-Semites. Back then, I didn't realize that these people are... crazy. These are people who believe that Jews are responsible for every problem in society and that there's a communist behind every corner and under every bed. Funnily enough, some of them claim to be Christians, and they say that what's needed is a firm establishment of Christianity again. Well, I don't think that Jesus Christ would have approved of their behavior. I can just imagine Jesus sitting and telling his followers that they should practice hatred and irrationality, and him also arguing in favor of low taxes and unquestioning servitude to the rich and powerful. Obviously, these right-wingers and nationalists are irrational and badly educated. I noticed that they're not interested in history, or in the sciences, or in other societies. What seems to matter to them is coming up with irrational conspiracy theories and using their bigotry and limited knowledge to attack certain groups or objects that they choose to blame for all of the ills in society. I think that I wouldn't want to be in the same room with these lunatics. But such people, and similar minded people, have been used by American imperialism. They also feel emboldened by all of the anti-leftist propaganda coming out of Western states. With American aid, such people have been brought to power in countries around the world, most recently in Ukraine. And, naturally, they have no respect for democracy, and they have no problem with American imperialism. Anyway, I just wanted to point this out because such people do read my blog and reply to my posts. Well, they can make as many nasty replies as they want, but I'm here to tell them that I don't read their blogs or websites, and it was probably a mistake for me to post links to their websites in the past. One thing about me is that I believe that other people should have the right to speak and voice their opinions. Maybe I'm like this because I grew up in Canada. But there's a limit to the craziness and the lying that even I can tolerate. Therefore, they can yell all they want about "the Jews", or "Bolshevism", or some "world communist government". This doesn't mean that I'm listening. There is no world government. There's Anglo-American capitalist imperialism and hegemony. This is why the USA has so many military bases around the world. And what these lunatics call communism isn't communism. It's capitalism. They should at least pick up and read a dictionary once in a while.
Originally posted on May 5, 2018:
Well, it's not surprising that Avengers: Infinity War is going to become one of the biggest box office successes in cinema history. This film has been out for less than a week and already pretty much everyone who goes to the cinema has seen it, except for me. I haven't seen it yet because I don't get the urge to do what everyone else is doing. So, I'll probably wait until I can borrow it from some library. I actually like the films that Marvel makes, but I don't jump up and down every time one of those films is released. My favorite MCU films are Thor (2011), Ant-Man (2015), Iron Man (2008), The Incredible Hulk (2008), Thor: The Dark World (2013), Doctor Strange (2016), Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), Captain America: The First Avenger (2011), and Thor: Ragnarok (2017). Pretty much all the Marvel films are enjoyable, but the ones that I've listed are my favorites. The recently released Black Panther isn't one of my favorites. It's not a bad film by any means. It's good. It's more serious that the usual Marvel flick. It's just that only a few characters in the film appeal to me. The film also doesn't quite have the emotional weight that it should have. When it comes to the characters, it lacks the appeal of Thor or of Iron Man, for example. Since Marvel films contain some Anglo-American propaganda, it can also be interesting to see them because of what they're about. Some of the information in these films actually surprised me. For example, in Captain America: The First Avenger, the fictional terrorist organization Hydra uses some odd weapons and technology. Steve Rogers (Captain America) doesn't fight against regular German troops in the film but against Hydra troops armed with extraordinary weapons. Such weapons are usually the stuff of science-fiction, but I later learned that the Nazis did actually have some of those extraordinary weapons. Some of this technology and weaponry wasn't intended for mass production and some of it wasn't fully developed when Nazi Germany was defeated. So, for example, the Germans did have plans to create the Amerikabomber, which was a long-range strategic bomber for the Luftwaffe that would be capable of striking the USA from Germany. In the film, the Red Skull attempts to use a similar bomber to strike the USA. At one time, Adolf Hitler considered the creation a giant tank not so different from the one that the Red Skull uses in the film. So, if the Germans hadn't been defeated in World War II, such "miracle weapons" would have become a reality already in the 1940s or the 1950s. In the sequel, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, we find out that some members of Hydra were recruited by the American espionage agency S.H.I.E.L.D after World War II. Something similar happened in real life too because the Americans did bring German and other European scientists, psychiatrists, and agents to the United States after World War II. Some of these people, like Ukrainian nationalists, were so-called war criminals because they were engaged in mass killings in Europe.
When it comes to what I've been reading lately, I can recommend Paul Kennedy's book 'The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers' (1987). It's a history book with some good information that was recommended by the historian Andrei Fursov. I finally finished listening to The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky a few months ago. It's a thick book, and I had to listen to it for about 25 hours. I'm now listening to the Complete Stories of Sherlock Holmes (in 3 volumes) by Arthur Conan Doyle. The narration is by Charlton Griffin, and I've got to say that I'm really enjoying listening to these releases. It's not only that the narration is very good, it's that I haven't yet read any of the Sherlock Holmes stories. Therefore, this is something that's new for me. Since Doyle was a Mason and a member of the British establishment, his novels contain some interesting information about British intentions in the second half of the 19th century. Another book that I'm almost finished listening to is Dispatches by Michael Herr. Dispatches was one of the first pieces of American literature that portrayed the experiences of soldiers in the Vietnam War for American readers. Herr's book is surprisingly funny at times, though he mostly describes the behavior of American soldiers and their actions. Carl Sagan's The Dragons Of Eden, which is another book that Fursov recommended, is an interesting read. I got The Dragons Of Eden right after I've read Sagan's well-known 1985 novel Contact, which is one of the more memorable hard science fiction novels that I've read. I personally prefer to read books on my tablet, by using the app Play Books. Other times, when I feel like it, I buy books at second hand book stores. But, for the most part, I read books on Play Books or I listen to them on the Audible app.
By the way, here's a good list of some of the best Western science fiction novels of the 1950s (titled The Defining Science Fiction Books of the 1950s):
https://auxiliarymemory.com/2013/04/04/the-defining-science-fiction-books-of-1950s/
This American, James Harris, conveniently listed novels from the 1950s to the 1990s. I've found other good lists on the internet, but I mostly look at Harris's lists when I'm thinking about what I should read next. Some of the novels that I've already read are Inherit The Stars (1977), which is a personal favorite, Blood Music (1985), The Visitors (1980), The Robots Of Dawn (1983), Titan (1979), Beyond The Blue Event Horizon (1977), Mission Of Gravity (1954), The Godwhale (1974), Triton (1976), In The Ocean Of Night (1977), Ender's Game (1985), and Dune (1965). When it comes to Dune by Frank Herbert, I'd recommend getting the unabridged audiobook narrated by Scott Brick and Orlagh Cassidy, among others. I'm not at all a fan of Frank Herbert's work, and his science fiction novels aren't among my favorites, but the audiobook is a compelling listen that includes music and sound effects. Although I'm still reading the manga Berserk by Kentaro Miura (I'm now reading the 16th volume), I've finished reading Battle Angel Alita by Yukito Kishiro a few months ago. I've already read famous manga like Rurouni Kenshin, Death Note, Maison Ikkoku, Akira, Nausicaa Of The Valley Of The Wind, and Fullmetal Alchemist, but Battle Angel Alita is hard to get because it has been out of print for years. Therefore, you can read it only on the internet or on an app for now. I've thought about reading it for several years, way before I knew that there was talk of adapting it into a film. Sure, the artwork is the biggest draw, but there's also a pretty good story that includes the theme of social control. Battle Angel Alita: Last Order is the continuation of the story that features more of Kishiro's fantastic artwork.
Monday, July 22, 2019
Saturday, July 20, 2019
Anti-Russia propaganda and the fabrication of a new pro-war consensus
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| http://themillenniumreport.com/2014/08/anti-russia-propaganda-and-the-fabrication-of-a-new-pro-war-consensus/ |
Now: Putin falsely accused of persecuting gay people. Connect the dots. -Oh, btw., American men already are sterilized. The US mainstream media has saved Putin the trouble. -Ah, one more thing, they’re lobotomized and pretty stupid as well, “dumb, stupid animals”. Kissinger was right. No, not just the soldiers, all of ’em. Their womenfolk too. Next thing you’ll know is they’ll obediently start responding to the neo-cons’ evil hiss for war against Russia. ♫ “That’ll Be The Day“…
The purpose of the ongoing propaganda campaign is to manufacture a new pro-war narrative.
Since Crimea voted last Sunday to secede from Ukraine and rejoin Russia, US officials and the American media have mounted a deafening propaganda campaign, posturing as defenders of world peace, the rights of small nations and international law in opposition to Russia. In this campaign, no lie told to justify support for the Ukrainian regime that emerged from last month’s fascist-led coup is too absurd.
As he announced new sanctions against Russia yesterday, President Obama denounced Russia’s annexation of Crimea. “Basic principles between governments in the world must be upheld in the 21st century,” Obama intoned, such as “the notion that nations do not redraw borders simply because they are larger or more powerful.”
Writing along similar lines, the Washington Post editorialized that “Mr. Putin’s claim that Russia should have a say in the political orientation of its neighbors, and whether they join alliances such as the European Union or NATO, is entirely unacceptable.”
Who is supposed to believe this nonsense? The governing principle of US foreign policy is that it has an unchallengeable right to determine the political orientation of its unfortunate “neighbors” in the Western hemisphere and that of every other country in the world.
As far back as the formulation of the Monroe Doctrine in 1823, the United States claimed the entire Western hemisphere as its sphere of influence, dictating what relations it could have with European powers.
A comprehensive history of blood-soaked US interventions in the internal affairs of the countries of South America, Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean would require an encyclopedic work comprising dozens of volumes. A partial list of the depredations of US imperialism against its neighbors to the south would include the incursions into Mexico between 1914 and 1917, the military occupations of Haiti and Nicaragua, the overthrow of the Arbenz government in Guatemala in 1954, the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961 and the countless CIA assassination plots against Castro, and the 1973 overthrow of the Allende regime in Chile.
Justifying Washington’s support for the overthrow of the Chilean regime and the murder of President Salvador Allende, then-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger cynically remarked:
“I don’t see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves.”
But why preoccupy ourselves with “ancient history?” Within the last 31 years, the United States has invaded and deposed the governments of Grenada, Panama and Haiti. It has organized bloody insurgency and counter-insurgency operations in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala. Washington backed the 2009 overthrow of the legally-elected government in Honduras. And since 2002, the United States has been engaged in non-stop efforts (including one failed coup d’état) to over throw the government in Venezuela.
The Obama administration and the Merkel government in Germany could hardly have been surprised that Russia reacted to the installation of a hostile Western puppet regime on its borders. And while they may have been somewhat taken aback by the speed with which Putin acted to assert control over Crimea, they do not view the most recent developments as entirely negative.
As recent statements by US and European leaders and comments by influential pundits make clear, Putin’s defensive actions provide an opportunity to re-brand and re-legitimize a militaristic agenda that has lost credibility with the broad mass of the population.
The impact of the 9/11 attacks and the “war on terror” has faded, and the lies about weapons of mass destruction used to launch the Iraq invasion have discredited war in the working class. The imperialist powers were forced to recognize that they could not proceed with the bombing of Syria last September, largely due to popular disaffection with war.
Faced with broad anti-war sentiment in the working class and the limitations this imposes on their foreign policy, imperialist strategists and their media operatives are seeking to exploit the crisis they provoked in Ukraine to shift public opinion.
This was the subject of Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne’s commentary on Wednesday, entitled, “Can Putin’s power grab in Crimea bring us together?” In this piece, Dionne wonders how a “war-weary public can be awakened and rallied.” He bemoans statistics showing that only 29 percent of the American population opposes, and 56 percent supports, the view that the United States should not get “too involved” in Ukraine. He writes:
“We must confront Putin, but this will require a foreign policy consensus that has vanished. A new one will have to be based on principles that predate the Iraq engagement and involve a more measured use of US power. Thus the final paradox: Putin has given Obama the opportunity to begin rebuilding this consensus—if the president decides to try, and if his critics are willing to help him do it.”
So the purpose of the ongoing propaganda campaign is to manufacture a new pro-war narrative, as if that is all that is necessary to erase the lies told about Iraq and Afghanistan from public memory.
Thursday, July 18, 2019
Hitler’s shocking secret Nazi plan for Russia EXPOSED
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| https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/world-news/702384/world-war-2-nazi-germany-adolf-hitler-moscow-reich-aryans-plan-occupation-invasion-ww2 |
Nazi war planners quite literally planned world domination when Hitler’s forces marched out in all directions from Germany.
Soviet Union territories were invaded in Operation Barbarossa by nearly four million Nazi soldiers.
This was Hitler’s greatest mistake, opening a war on a second front meant the Nazis couldn’t conquer Britain.
Adolf was confident however and shocking plans were drawn up for the future of Nazi-occupied Russia.
Daily Star Online can now reveal Nazi-Russia as Vladimir Putin celebrates the 73rd anniversary of the Soviet Union’s defeat of the Reich.
Hitler’s big plan was to crush the spirit of anyone who dared resist the Nazi war machine.
Adolf planned to “level” Moscow, according to the diary of Nazi general Franz Hadler.
Nazi war planners believed the utter destruction of Russia’s capital would break any hope of resistance by the Soviets.
And once the city of four million people had been annihilated, Hitler wanted to flood the ruins.
Nazi plans reveal Moscow would have become a huge artificial lake, a monument to Hitler’s victory and the centrepiece of occupied Russia.
Sluice gates around the city on the Volga-Moscow Canal would have been opened and water would have flowed over the rubble of the Kremlin and Red Square.
SS officer Otto Skorzeny was tasked to draw up plans to capture the nearby dams to create Hitler’s lake during World War 2.
Hitler’s desire to utterly destroy Russia was driven by his racist ideas – considering the people who lived in the Soviet Union inferior to the Aryans.
Nazi-occupied Russia would have seen millions of people executed or enslaved – including Russians, Ukrainians and any other Slavs.
Cities of Kiev and Leningrad were also earmarked for total destruction by the Nazi war machine.
Hitler's chief-of-staff Halder describes in his diaries how the Fuhrer wanted to “level [the cities] to the ground” in the first offensive against the Soviets.
And then large swathes of western Russia would have been occupied by German settlers once the locals had been exterminated or expelled.
Soviet territory was to be carved up into six different districts by occupying forces – known as Reichskommissariats, and masterminded by Hitler’s foreign minister Alfred Rosenberg.
Russia was to be utterly dissolved as a country – and ruled by six Reichskommissars who would have been answerable only to Hitler.
The planned districts were:
Ostland, made-up of Poland and Belarus
Ukraine, featuring the region of the same name as well as Romania and Crimea
Don-Wolga, based around the Sea of Azov to Rostov
Moskowein, Moscow and its surrounding areas
Kaukasus, southern Russia
Turkestan, covering the top of central Asia.
The establishment of these districts was part of the invasion plan that would have been finalised with the destruction of Moscow in Operation Typhoon.
Nazi forces were eventually driven out of Russia by Soviet troops and the freezing cold of the colossal nations’ Arctic winters.
Epic clashes such as the Battle of Stalingrad finally drove the Nazis back.
And the number of Soviet war dead is recorded as more than 26 million by the Russian government.
As the US entered the war in Europe, Hitler faced a brutal pincer movement from both sides that eventual ended in the capture of Berlin.
Russia marked its victory over the Nazis on Wednesday with a massive parade in Moscow, with Putin showing off his new weapons.
Vlad has made it an annual celebration since 2015, with the initial event featuring troops from other Allied forces.
Daily Star Online previously exclusively revealed Nazi secret documents detailing Hitler's proposed invasion of Britain.
Tuesday, July 16, 2019
In Lower Lonsdale in North Vancouver. Spring of 2019.
Lower Lonsdale is a historic waterfront neighbourhood in the city of
North Vancouver. Lower Lonsdale runs up Lonsdale Avenue from Lonsdale
Quay to Keith Road. Its history is inseparably connected to the lumber
and shipbuilding industries on the North Shore of Burrard Inlet, as well
as ferry crossings connecting the area to Downtown Vancouver. Lower
Lonsdale is currently going through large waterfront renewal processes.
The old shipyards are being torn down, making way for new public spaces,
condominiums, retail outlets and a hotel.
In 1860 a Catholic Missionary was ordered to build a church on the water front of what is now called St. Pauls Church
Shortly afterwards two men by the name of T. W. Graham and George Scrimgeour secured a pre-emption of 150 acres (0.61 km2), the first on the North Shore of the Burrard Inlet.
They proceeded to build a lumber mill
and named it The Pioneer Mills and was the first industrial lumber
plant on the Inlet. This consequently initiates an influx of residents.With the mill facing bankruptcy, an American by the name of Sewell Prescott Moody bought the Mill.
In
the 1990s and 2000s, the City of North Vancouver embarked on an
ambitious plan to redevelop former industrial lands of Lower Lonsdale.
Highrise and lowrise condominium and other multi-family developments
were constructed in the area between 3rd Street and south to the
waterfront.During that time, many new restaurants and retailers have located in the stretch of Lonsdale Avenue between 3rd Street and Burrard Inlet. The City also oversaw the construction of the John Braithwaite Community Center, located in the 100 block of 1st Street.
A
national maritime museum is proposed for former shipyards site on
Esplanade Avenue, pending funding from federal and provincial
governments.
Sunday, July 14, 2019
Friday, July 12, 2019
The Olivia de Havilland Centenary Blogathon: "The Heiress" (1949)
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| http://back-to-golden-days.blogspot.com/2016/07/the-olivia-de-havilland-centenary_3.html |
A few days later, a heartbroken Catherine has a bitter argument with her father, who reveals that he is dying. She tells Dr. Sloper that she still loves Morris and challenges him to change his testament if he is afraid of how she will spend his money after he dies. He does not and dies within days, leaving Catherine his entire estate. Several years later, Morris returns from California, having made nothing of himself. Again, he professes his love for Catherine, claiming that he left her behind because he could not bear to see her destitute. She pretends to forgive him and tells him that she still wants to elope as they originally planned. He promises to come back that night for her, while she tells him that she will start packing her bags. When Morris returns, Catherine takes her revenge. Her widowed aunt, Lavinia Penniman (Mirian Hopkins), asks her how she be so cruel, to what Catherine respondes, "I have been taught by masters." She calmly orders her maid Maria (Vanessa Brown) to bolt, leaving Morris outside shouting her name. A satisfied Catherine then silently ascends the stairs as Morris desperately bangs at her locked door.
Catherine Sloper: He came back with the same lies, the same silly phrases. He has grown greedier with the years. The first time he only wanted my money; now he wants my love, too. Well, he came to the wrong house — and he came twice. I shall see that he never comes a third time.
The basic storyline of The Heiress originated in Washington Square, a novella written by American-born author Henry James, based on a true story related to him by his close friend, English stage actress Fanny Kemble, concerning her brother's unsuccessful attempt to marry a rich woman. One of the few Jamesian stories set in his native land, Washington Square was published in 1880, a year before The Portrait of Lady, widely considered by literary experts to be James's masterpiece. Washington Square was already an American classic when the husband and wife writing team of Ruth and Augustus Goetz adapted it to the stage under the name The Heiress. Produced and directed by Jed Harris, the play opened at the Biltmore Theatre on Broadway in September 1947, closing a year later after 410 performances. Wendy Hiller starred as Catherine Sloper, Basil Rathbone as her domineering father and Peter Cookson as her fortune-hunting suitor, Morris Townsend. In 1949, The Heiress was staged in London by John Gieguld, with Peggy Ashcroft and Wendy Hiller alternating in the title role and Ralph Richardson becoming famous as Dr. Sloper.
Meanwhile, Olivia de Havilland had finally reached the point where she was fully in charge of her career, selecting only those roles that she felt would challenge her and enable her to grow as an actress. After suing Warner Bros. to be released from her contract and winning a landmark judgment in December 1944, she resumed her career at Paramount Pictures, winning an Academy Award for Best Actress for her heartfelt performance in Mitchell Leisen's To Each His Own (1946). When she saw The Heiress on Broadway, she immediately felt that the role of Catherine Sloper would be perfect for her. Upon returning to Los Angeles, de Havilland telephoned director William Wyler and proposed The Heiress as a possible project on which she hoped they could collaborate. Wyler, who was also working at Paramount, was one of the most celebrated directors in Hollywood at the time, having helmed such acclaimed pictures as Wuthering Heights (1939), Mrs. Miniver (1942) and The Best Years of Our Lives (1946).
Interested in de Havilland's proposal, Wyler went to New York to see the play in January 1948 and was instantly fascinated by its subject matter, especially the psychological tensions and the struggle between family members. He immediately contacted the Goetzes's agent and arranged a meeting with the couple to discuss a screen adaptation of The Heiress. According to Ruth Goetz, Wyler "wanted to know all about James's original story, and what he changed and what we had supplied. [...] By the time we left him that day, we knew he wanted us. I thought he was first-rate."
A few days later, Paramount offered the Goetzes $250,000 for the screen rights to The Heiress, as well as a salary of $10,000 per week to write the screenplay. Wyler's only instruction to the couple was that they remove some early lines that made it clear that Morris Townsend was nothing more than a fortune hunter. He wanted the audience to believe — just as Catherine believed — that Morris was honest and straightforward. "When I saw the play in New York, it was so obvious, the way he was leering and estimating the value of everything in Dr. Sloper's home," Wyler later recalled. "He was clearly, heavily, and awkwardly established as being there only for the money. I decided I wouldn't do that. It became an argument, but I still think I was right."
For the role of Morris Townsend, Wyler initially considered Errol Flynn, who had famously co-starred with de Havilland in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) and eight other pictures for Warner Bros. Because of Flynn's reputation and persona as a rake, however, Wyler thought he would be too obviously untrustworthy from an early stage and ultimately decided against his casting. Wyler's next choice was Montgomery Clift, who was then enjoying critical acclaim for his debut film performance in Fred Zinnemann's The Search (1948) and had just completed Red River (1948) for Howard Hawks. When Augustus Goetz first met Clift on the Paramount set, the actor was wearing a torn jacket, jeans and a T-shirt, part of a bohemian image he was cultivating at the time. "He looked like a bum, and I thought, how could he ever play the suave, elegant Townshend?" Goetz said. But when Clift showed up in full make-up and costume, the writer was astonished: "The transformation was startling. He was the most fashionable youth I ever saw."
Wyler managed to lure Ralph Richardson to Hollywood to reprise his stage role as Dr. Austin Sloper, Catherine's emotionally detached father. Wyler had met Richardson a year earlier at Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh's home, where he had been immediately taken with his sharp wit and eccentricity. He was later delighted to discover that Richardson shared his affection for motorbikes. A veteran of the London stage, Richardson had been acting in films in his native England since 1931. The Heiress marked his American motion picture debut.
To play Catherine's widowed aunt, Lavinia Penniman, Wyler turned to Miriam Hopkins, with whom he had previously worked in These Three (1936). In the late 1930s, Hopkins had been briefly married to Wyler's close friend Anatole Litvak, who had just directed de Havilland in The Snake Pit (1948), for which she would receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. Wyler and Hopkins would later collaborate in Detective Story (1951) and The Children's Hour (1961), a remake of These Three.
Filming on The Heiress took place between late June and early September 1948 on a Paramount soundstage, where lavish sets representing New York's Washington Square in the 1850s had been constructed. Clift was looking forward to working with Wyler, whose earlier pictures Wuthering Heights and The Letter (1940) he had greatly admired. However, he was apprehensive about the director's reputation as a tyrannical filmmaker who demanded too many takes of his actors. Wyler later remembered that on the first of shooting, "Monty came to me on the set and said quietly, 'If you ever bawl me out, don't do it in front of the crew.'" Wyler assured him that he woud not, although he would later be furious about Clift's insistence on bringing his close friend and acting coach Mira Rostova on the set and his need to consult with her regularly.
Clift and de Havilland did not get along well on the set, barely speaking to each other throughout the entire shoot. De Havilland often complained that she had to deliver her lines in front of an actor who was always looking in the opposite direction — at Rostova and not at her. For his part, Clift, a praticioner of Lee Strasberg's "method acting," considered de Havilland an inferior actress and made his feeling known in a letter to his friend, actor Sandy Campbell: "She memorizes her lines at night and comes to work waiting for the director to tell her what to do. You can't get by with that in the theater; and you don't have to in the movies. Her performance is being totally shaped by Wyler." Later, Clift accused Wyler of letting Hopkins steal scenes and upstage him. As for Richardson, Clift felt intimidated by his consummate technique. "Can't that man make any mistakes?" he groaned after Richardson repeated a take with him for the thirtieth time in the same polished manner, making it hard for Clift to try different things.
Wyler was in awe of Richardson; "You don't direct an actor like Sir Ralph Richardson," he later said. The first scene he shot with Richardson required the actor to come in and, silently, hang up his cane and take off his hat, coat and gloves. The scene in question is the moment when Dr. Sloper returns to the house and finds Catherine asleep on the couch, but obviously waiting up for him. "How would like me to play this?" Richardson asked the director. When Wyler wondered if there was more than one way of making an entrance, hang up a cane and take off a hat, coat and gloves, Richardson proceeded to demonstrate half a dozen different demonstrations. "He gave a display, laying out his merchandise," Wyler recalled. "He entered this set as if he had lived there twenty years. I suspect that all the time he knew which way he wanted to it. That's an actor for you!"
De Havilland and Wyler worked very well together, clashing only on one scene. When Morris jilts Catherine, she has to climb the stairs to her bedroom carrying the suitcase she had packed for their elopement. De Havilland did numerous takes, but was not able to reach to level of emotion that Wyler was looking for. Finally, she got so frustrated that the usually professional de Havilland threw the suitcase at him. At that point, Wyler realized the problem: there was nothing in the suitcase. He then ordered it filled with heavy props so that de Havilland's efforts to drag it up the stairs perfectly captured her deep dejection.
Wyler, whose first love had been music, considered the score of fundamental importance to the film and insisted on offering the job to composer Aaron Copland, whose work on Of Mice and Men (1939), Our Town (1940) and The North Star (1943) had earned him Oscar nominations. Copland was hired over the objections of Paramount's head of production Y. Frank Freeman, who was concerned about the composer's involvment with the pro-Soviet The North Star, which had become the target of congressional investigations. Copland, who had read the novella and seen the play on Broadway, spent the last six weeks of 1948 in Hollywood working on The Heiress, creating five principal themes that "turned out to be, if one of his shorter Hollywood scores, his most complex and subtle one, the one that most resembled his serious concert work."
The Heiress opened at Radio City Music Hall in New York on October 6, 1949, after Paramount ran a series of high-class advertisements celebrating Wyler and the film. The picture was a solid box-office hit in New York and received excellent reviews from critics. Bosley Crowther of The New York Times said that the picture "crackles with allusive life and fire and in its tender and agonized telling of an extraordinary characterful nature," adding that Wyler "has given this somewhat austere drama an absorbing intimacy and warming illusion of nearness that it did not have on stage." Crowther also praised de Havilland, noting that "her emotional reactions are more fluent and evident" than those of Wendy Hiller in the original play and that "her portrayal of the poor girl had dignity and strenght." Outside of New York, however, The Heiress did not do so well, which disappointed Wyler. He told Variety, "I expected it to make a lot of money. It cost too much [the budget was $2.5 million]. It should have been done cheaper. But then it wouldn't have been the same picture."
At the 22nd Academy Awards held at the RKO Pantages Theatre in Hollywood in March 1950, Olivia de Havilland received from the hands of James Stewart — who almost became her first husband in the early 1940s — her second Oscar for Best Actress. In her acceptance speech, written by her husband, author and screenwriter Marcus Goodrich, de Havilland said, "Your award for To Each His Own I took as an incentive to venture forward. Thank you for this very generous assurance that I have not entirely failed to do so." Later, she seemed quite subdued when she was interviewed by reporters in the press room: "When I won the first award in 1946, I was terribly thrilled. But this time I felt solemn, very serious and... shocked. Yes, shocked! It's a great responsibility to win the award twice." The Heiress also won Oscars for Best Art Direction (Black and White), Best Costume Design (Black and White) and Best Dramatic or Comedy Score, receiving four additional nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor (Ralph Richardson) and Best Cinematography (Black and White).
Wednesday, July 10, 2019
Of Sayocs and Bowers: The War on Unchained Speech Escalates
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| https://nomadiceveryman.blogspot.com/2018/10/of-sayocs-and-bowers-war-on-unchained.html |
And time can do so much
Are you still mine?
When the MSM writes about our 1st amendment these days, they always include weasel-words like "extremists" and put the term free speech in quotation marks as if it's a theoretical construct of the Nazis or something.
This weekend, as Israel killed 3 children in Gaza because they got too close to a border fence (yes folks, the same kind of border fence Trump wants and the left hates here, they love over there), two events took place that have renewed the artificial debate over whether or not we as a nation can survive the 1st amendment.
In Florida, a mentally disabled man with hair drawn on his balding head with a Sharpie and who lived in a van, was accused of being the Faux Bomber. He was arrested Friday while spinning records at a strip club. He used to be a pizza delivery man before he lost that job. He is estranged from his family and lives in a parking lot in a van decorated with various pro-Trump memes.
Cesar Sayoc Jr. is borderline retarded and has a history of playing fast and loose with the truth. In most civilized nations he would have been under some kind of supervised mental health care but we stopped doing that decades ago under the first incarnation of Trump when Big Business couldn't find a way to make it profitable enough to privatize.
Sayoc, in spite of a long history of threatening and violent rhetoric displayed on both social media platforms, still had accounts open on both Facebook and Twitter right up until his arrest on Friday.
There was even one woman who had her life threatened directly, a clear violation of Twitter's community guidelines, and when that woman reported the threat to them, they did nothing and allowed him to continue as usual.
Meanwhile Twitter was busy shutting down the accounts of people and news agencies that simply reported news from across the world... because Twitter didn't like what they had too say.
Twitter apologized to the woman.
Sayoc's Facebook account was used in a similar fashion and they only recently shut it down.
The punchline to this cruel joke is this (from the New York Times of course): "And a closer study of his online activity reveals the evolution of a political identity built on a foundation of false news and misinformation, and steeped in the insular culture of the right-wing media"
Yes, it seems adults in America these days can't be trusted with a free and open internet because... "fake news" makes Fake Bombers.
Robert Bowers was a quiet individual before, as they claim, he walked into the Tree of Life synagogue on Saturday and took 11 lives before giving up and getting himself arrested.
He "hated the Jews" as we are told he told the arresting officers who took him in, alive, after he slaughtered several octogenarians and shot 2 officers multiple times.
Bower supposedly shouted antisemitic slurs at his elderly victims as he attacked them using the standard weapon all of the previous American Gladio attackers used:
"Bowers used a Colt AR-15 rifle and three Glock .357 handguns during the attack, police said. Bowers legally purchased the three Glock .357s, a law enforcement official familiar with the investigation told CNN. It's not clear whether the AR-15 was purchased legally." CNN
And, as usual, there was a combat shotgun in the trunk, something else certain agencies wish to have taken out of the public sphere.
Bower was also on Facebook but not much is being made of that. He wasn't a Trumpite, called him a "globalist not a nationalist" which will go a long way to demonizing the anti-globalization movement.
He (or someone in his name) signed up on Gab back in January right before the Youtube purge and Facebook's first round of censorship.
Immediately on that platform, he started spouting antisemitic and "conspiracy theory" rhetoric like his paycheck depended on it.
Gab has been building a following as a true free speech outlet, like Facebook and Twitter once were.
So of course, they have been shut down, their hosting sites refusing them service, Stripe and Paypal have pulled Gab account as well.
Gee... that sounds familiar.
"...the man accused of killing 11 people went to Gab, a two-year-old social network that bills itself as a “free speech” alternative to those platforms, and that has become a haven for white nationalists, neo-Nazis and other extremists. There, he posted a signoff to his followers.
“I can’t sit by and watch my people get slaughtered,” Mr. Bowers wrote. “Screw your optics, I’m going in.” New York Times
The Times claims Gab to be "the last refuse for scoundrels" in spite of the fact that both Facebook and Twitter keep these individuals on their platforms for just as long as Gab did with just one of them.
That's because as we slip into a new dark age where we fear each other so much and the MSM cultivate that fear and loathing on a daily basis, we can't be trusted to speak to one another about anything without some guiding hand overseeing and over-correcting our discourse.
Gab is on the way out because it allows people to spread "fake news" to one another which incites violence, according to our owners.
Meanwhile Chuck Todd makes up ridiculous claims about Russia being behind the "fake news" Fake Bombing campaign and we are told on an hourly basis that Bashar al Assad and Iran created al Qaeda and "ISIS" in preparation for a new war in the Middle East which will kill ten thousand times more folks than Bowers or Sayoc did.
Anyone still remember the mythical Weapons of Mass Destruction?
How about the Gulf of Tonkin?
Fake inflammatory news does not inspire civilians to kill... unless those civilians sign up for the military.
It is amazing how scared Americans have become of the past few decades. Not that long ago, real bombs were going off in this country to the tune of one per day almost, and our citizens did not respond by demanding Big Brother sweep in and gut the constitution.
To be fair, most Americans aren't calling for that... just the complicit media and the bought-off politicos whom they serve.
The truth of what happened with these two events remains to be unveiled but it is clear how they are being used and what is also clear is the timing of them, right before a critical mid-term election, seems rather suspect.
Talk about your October Surprise.
Shutting down free speech is never an acceptable answer to any problem no matter how scary that speech may be. Scholars and experts have been making that argument since they first started talking about "having the conversation" about "free speech verses safety" back during the Obama days.
Anything this poor writer can add to that debate would seem hollow by comparison except for the fact that I never made a single post about harming anyone, never threatened to kill anyone, never posted a single thing disparaging Muslims or Jews or Christians or any other religion out there...
... and yet all of these things they call for regarding silencing and shutting down and censoring and removing platforms and Stripe accounts and Paypal accounts...
... were already done to me a LOOOOOOONG time ago.
And if you can't see where this is going... you don't deserve a constitution anymore.
Time goes by so slowly
And time can do so much
Are you still mine?
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