A few years back, all I Love Lucy episodes could be watched -- and laughed at -- on YouTube. Then they disappeared. It was hardly a secret why. Lucy and Desi's heirs imposed a copyright lockdown. Pay to laugh, peasants!
Why should this lock-down be allowed? The social policy behind copyrights is to give the original creator an incentive for the exercise of his -- or in this case -- her and his genius. It is a sound, fair and unobjectionable policy. The public enjoyed and benefited from the aesthetic, intellectual, musical or dramatic genius of the creator who was in turn rewarded with the public's gratitude in the form of money.
But what have Lucy's children done to reap the rewards of their mother's efforts and talent? Nothing; nothing at all. They are not even analogous to the children of counts or dukes who take over and continue to manage the estate. In this latter case, the heirs don't simply inherit benefits they inherit a job and obligations as well. The same is true for the heir of a tycoon, who takes over the running of the company. In either of these two cases the successors in interest put their own work into the matter. But other than hire accountants to manage their royalties, Lucy's children don't do a damn thing. They simply live off the copyright their parents earned.
But the purpose of that copyright was to act as an incentive for genius -- “to stimulate the useful arts and sciences.” That purpose was served. Holding on to an inherited copyright stimulates nothing. Copyright was never envisioned as analogous to a fee simple absolute in land. On the contrary it expired after some term, at which point it became public property in the common realm.
Allowing successors in interest who are not themselves original creators of the work simply creates a form cultural feudalism in which all peasants must pay fees for grazing on what was intended to be common pasture.
The regime of capitalism in its furious demise is relentless, heartless and implacable. Its parasites and robed whores are privatising everything making everyone else pay for what ought to be held in common and enjoyed freely for free.
Another screed from the WokeLib Guardian. Simon Tisdall scrawls...
it is crystal clear Putin fears the sort of political liberalisation that might facilitate greater economic competitiveness and international investment.
Uh huh... translated: “political liberalization,” “more democracy,” “human rights” and “FREEDUM” are Trojan Horses for “international investment” which is code for “us buying up you.” Tisdall is too stoopid to realize he just gave away the game.
He goes on to scribble
The continuing drag on Russia’s development caused by western sanctions, imposed after the illegal annexation of Crimea, symbolises the broader, negative aspects of perpetual Putinism.
Actually... the sanctions reflect the broader aspects of American hegemony. It is absurd to blame Putin for an economic drag cause by sanctions.
Simon-the-Moron goes on,
Putin’s poison meanwhile seeps through other western institutions, bamboozling Donald Trump, weakening the Nato alliance and the G7 (from which he has been banished), and undermining European democracy with his glib talk about “obsolete” western liberalism.
So... Trump was not a mole but just simply “bamboozled” ? Okay. But Putin undermined European democracy by talking? PUTIN SPEAKS THE WEST CRUMBLES!!!! How Biblical! Why, it's a miracle beyond the realm of known physics given that Putin's talk is virtually never reported in the Western press and certainly not on the channels of mass media delusion.
"Brazil’s culture secretary, Roberto Alvim has been fired after he appeared to paraphrase the Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels ... 'Brazilian art in the next decade will be heroic and national,' said Alvim, to the music from Wagner’s Lohengrin, said to be Hitler’s favourite opera." (Alt Fem Wokian)
Gawd these jerks are stupid. “Said to be....” by whom? When I was a cub reporter it was drilled into us always to provide our sources. “Said to be” is not only lazy, it bespeaks falsity. Actually -- according to John Toland's biolgraphy -- Hitler's favourite opera was Meistersinger
Oh what the hell.... we need to link this guy to Hitler in some fashion.... a fellow Lohengrin-Liker! Oh how horrible!
But to the point.... art can't be “nationalistic” ? Who says? Was David nationalistic and heroic? What about Siquieros? How about Diego Rivera? What of Shostakovitch or Sergei Eisenstein? Lully anyone? What about ....
What about the fucking morons writing for the Alt Fem Wokian? "Hounds" is too good a word for this plague of angry imbeciles
NOTED:
Die Zeit reports that the Boonystag is about to pass a bill outlawing the burning of any foreign flag. Oh gee.... I wonder whose flag they had in mind?
Is there any difference between this mob and a swarm of insects on a log? No; certainly not from a cosmic perspective. From the infinitude of space a man and a cockroach are the same in size and significance. But “God loveth all his children....” In other words, should we adopt a less cosmic view; ought we to consider each one of these creatures, swarming over the train like insects, as a human being full of inherent dignity, unique of character and born with inalienable rights.... blah, blah, blah.
Whether we ought to or not, the inescapable fact is that we will not. This Earth is at its breaking point thanks mostly to our unquenchable greed and unrestrained self proliferation. The Market Moloch which needs an endless supply of consumers to fuel its profit-driven production will, in the not too distant future, be incapable of feeding these same mouths. It will be unable to house them, to educate them, to care for their health, to give them employment (much less meaningful employment) -- in short to do anything to keep alive the myth of inherent human worth and dignity.
Our rulers will then simply give up trying. They will shelter themselves in eco-bubbles, guarded by well fed, de-sensitized goons, who will employ pest control tactics to keep the swarm in line while -- as a residual sign of humanity -- shoot blasts of synthetic food chips over their heads for them to hungrily scramble for.
More than Huxley and Orwell or even Stanislaus Lem, Harrison/Fleischer were prophetic geniuses. And what did the New Yorker have to say about Soylent Green? “This pompously prophetic thing of a film hasn't a brain in its beanbag. Where is democracy? Where is the popular vote? Where is women's lib? Where are the uprising poor, who would have suspected what was happening in a moment?”
Ha ha. Ah yes! the Uprising Poor would have rebelled against Chezzoh's at Walmarts! Women's Lib would have alerted us to the terminal systemics of capitalism! The ever vigilant and suspecting popular vote would have protected us from Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Blair, Bolsonaro, Modi, JinPing, Al Saud and, last but not least, Mitch McConnell.
Once again, a scribe for the WokeLib Guardian raised her pen (or jabbed her pad) to excoriate Zuckerberg and Facebook for....
Actually, I'm not quite clear what the article was supposed to be about but the
gist and drift of it appears to be a complaint that Facebook allows
"right wing demagogues" to post content. Bleh. I'm pretty tired
of pseudo-left warriors calling for censorship, which is what all the
wokeness boils down to.
All media at all times have engaged in omissions, half-truths,
exaggeration, misrepresentations, doctored images and rhetorical
manipulation. Anyone who thinks that the New York Times or the
Guardian don't filter their output to conform to their ideological
views and political agendas is living in a land of self delusion. The
same can be said for Le Figaro or Razón.
The underlying fallacies of the outraged, woke brigades are the
assumptions (1) that "true facts" exist and (2) that
information is something we are fed... like food. Actually, the realm
of true, indisputable facts is rather small. Most so-called "facts"
are based on individual perceptions and opinions -- "testimony"
in lawyer talk. Even polls are subject to distortions. As Mark Twain
cracked, "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and
statistics."
What this means is that "news" and "information" is
never anything we should trust or rely on. What is called
being informed is not passive intaking but an occasion to exercise
our mental faculties. Anything we read calls for us to bring to bear
our experience and use our judgement. What makes us informed is
exposing our brains to as many lies, damned lies and statistics as
possible.
If people want to be stupid and just gulp down anything that CNN or
Facebook or Junge Europa put before them, that really is their
problem but it should not be used as an excuse to make safe and
sanitize information for the rest of us.
Typical bunk from a gentrified liberal perspective pretending to be progressive.
Number One. The headline is misleading in that it suggests that Warren is the "best chance" since FDR. But that is not what she said. When asked about a die-hard Sanders supporter, Warren replied "“C’mon guys, this is the best chance we have to elect a real progressive since FDR.” As the article itself states "That might be the strongest statement she has made about Sanders."
Number Two. "Senator Bernie Sanders could argue that he is addressing those same themes." Could? COULD? C'mon, there is no doubt whatsoever about it. None. Zip. It's not debatable. For all of his life and for 40 years in Congress he has consistently been the often LONE voice for progressive causes.
Since the Guardian likes to focus (obsess) on identity issues: Sanders was arrested back in 1963 [sic] protesting for Black civil rights. He has consistently supported a woman's right to choose even before Roe v Wade. He was in favour of gay rights way before the term LGBTQ or LGBT or LGB became current.
He has opposed every war the U.S. has engaged in since Vietnam.
For those who don't have cushy medical and retirement programs, Sanders has pushed Medicare for All since before 2016. He has pushed a decent minimum wage since 2014. He has consistently advocated secure, affordable housing, free higher education, student debt relief, renters rights, disengagement from fossil fuel and an aggressive new green deal.
Could? Gimme a break. He is the one tried and true and proven progressive in the race without doubt. I know bias when I read it.
There was a popular folk song in the early Sixities, the refrain of which was "Hey sinner man, where ya gonna run to, all on that day...?"
“We’re only here because nobody’s acted quick enough,” said Corrin Mueller. Exactly. That creature known as Man, which prides itself on its superior-to-animal faculties and its supposed ability to make "objective" and "disinterested" decisions based on reason has preferred instead to burn its candles at both ends. Was there anything more ludicrous than Australians gathering to gawk and goo at fireworks blasting against a particulate saturated sky while their country burned? Ridet et moritur.
Let it be an object lesson to climate deniers here and everywhere.
My sorrow and pity goes to all the beautiful animals, birds, insect and fauna that have paid with their lives for Man's self-indulgent rapacity.
A man abandoned his dog at a church altar with a note that read: “"Life has taken a really bad turn for me and I couldn't imagine him being outside with me cold and hungry." Officials “urged any pet owners struggling financially to contact their vet, a local rescue centre or a charity like the RSPCA.”
While
newscasters blabber about homes destroyed in the Austrialian fires, I
have been wondering about the animals. Of course, not a word about
them in our anthropocentric news, until today:
Up
to 500 million mammals, birds and reptiles – including 8,000 koalas
– have been killed, say ecologists from Sydney University,
prompting fears entire species of animals and plant life may be lost
for ever. More than 300 baby flying foxes have been abandoned by
their mothers trying to survive, experts said. Jenny Packwood, a
wildlife rescuer, told
The
Herald:
“Mothers are abandoning babies at two weeks after birth because
there is no food for them. Last week we had 300 come in, and we’ve
been flat out feeding since then. “I’ve never seen anything like
this before – we’re calling it a starvation event.” “There’s
no grass for the ’roos, no insects for the birds, the leaves on
eucalypts are brittle, ensuring starvation for koalas, gliders,
possums, birds, insects.”
THIS
is a true holocaust -- a real
fire of apocalyptic proportions. “Five hundred million” -- the
number is almost unfathomable. It is an ecocidal wipe-out of a
continents innocent wildlife... beautiful creatures all of them who
never deserved this fate.
I
could give a shit for the humans rushing for safety to the ocean...
the ocean whose dead sea corral they killed with their avarice and
indifference. May the sea break out in flames. I have no pity for
them. None. Zip.
The
Greens have called for a Parliamentary commission to look into the
Government's handling of the climate crisis. What candy assed
bullshit. Morrison and his gang of industry pimps and thugs should
be lined up against a wall and shot. Better yet, they should be
forced to walk into the flames at gunpoint. All of them....
But
the average “decent, hard working, hard playing Australian” is no
better. While a holocaust consumes his homeland and wipes out its
wild-life, what are they doing? Watching fireworks in Sydney. The
drooling, stupid, indifference is as criminal as the Government's
ecocidal avarice.
The
human race is a complete, utter, disastrous failure. A mistake as
colossal as Creation itself. We deserve to be wiped out. The
tragedy is that before we are, everything else will be wiped out
first.
The
daily deluge of disinformation produced by RT and Sputnik is a vital
component of the tactics that other authoritarian regimes are seeking
to replicate. ...The
volume of coverage, framing of coverage, and average engagement with
that coverage is, at times, widely disparate [from that of western
media].
Our
research at the State Owned Media Analytics and Research programme
has shown us that RT sometimes dedicates a disproportionate amount of
time to pushing certain stories – such as the coup in Venezuela or
the leaked
memos from the British ambassador about Donald Trump.
• what
is “disproportionate” and by what objective criteria do you
measure this?
• how
do you measure which stories should be pushed?
• do
you take into consideration the stories that are not covered or
pushed by the MSM?
RT’s
coverage on the Venezuela coup attracted an average of 2,558
engagements (retweets, likes or shares) per online article, more than
the BBC’s 1,780 engagements per article. [¶ ]And
evidence is mounting to suggest they routinely disseminate stories
designed to sow division in the west and pursue the foreign
policy goals of the governments that back them, consciously or
otherwise.
• evidence
is "mounting" means what exactly? suggests in what way?
• the
only “evidence” thus far cited is that RT got more hits than BBC
on a story; and
the only thing that suggests is that more people liked RT's
coverage. Maybe
they found it more balanced or reliable. Maybe it just better suited their
prejudices. That “suggests” nothing about the intent of the
“disseminator”
•“disseminate”
- cute “to scatter or spread widely, as though sowing seed,
spreading disease.
•“consciously
or otherwise” - i.e. with or without intent to sow division? how
do they “pursue” policy goals unintentionally? Gibberish.
It
is difficult to demonstrate the extent to which this influences
public discourse, but measuring the online activity of state media is
a useful way to start.
• well, it is the only way to start - but the hidden assumption here is
that"influencing” is a bad thing which ought not be allowed.
The
methodology employed by these news organisations poses a series of
questions for policymakers. If they are being used to destabilise
civil society and widen social fissures, then what is the right
response?
• rhetorical question, isn't it? rather like asking what do we do with those who poison wells.
Their coverage of the European elections in May focused on the success of populist parties like the
Brexit party, while for the most part ignoring a surge in support for
the Greens and other non-traditional parties on the left. Why is it
that state-controlled media portrayed the results as a populist
backlash against the European project, which, according to this
narrative, seeks to suppress national identities and usurp nation
states? Does it matter that they encourage UK citizens to question
the veracity or impartiality of the news they consume from
traditionally reliable sources?
• why assume that these "traditional" sources are "reliable”?
• people should question the news they consume from “traditionally
reliable sources”
States
will always use all the tools at their disposal to protect their
national interests and pursue foreign policy objectives. But if the
modus operandi of state-controlled media is to delegitimise
institutions and sources of authority in the eyes of a section of the
wider public, undermine social cohesion by amplifying divisive
voices, draw attention to examples of western hypocrisy, and
promote narratives of fear and uncertainty, then how do we respond?
• “states” includes the western states, does it not? • what media outlets do the western liberal states use? BBC
perhaps? NY Slime? Alt Fem Guardian
Disinformation
does not consist solely of fabricated news stories, Photoshopped
images or wild conspiracy theories presented as fact. It is often
more nuanced, more sophisticated – and more effective – than
policymakers or the public realise. Only by monitoring and measuring
their influence can we develop strategies to counter their growing
power and reach.
--o0o--
The
opening salvo to this entire Orwellian campaign to scare people into
trusting Big Sister and accepting the neo-liberal narrative was shot
by (Shut Her Up) Hillary in 2014 in testimony before Congress.
No question but that Hillary
was explicitly calling for a propaganda war -- or in today's verbiage
for “weaponizing” the media. Of course RT was in her sights
because it was winning. Once again, we got a version of the
Appeasement Narrative, for starting a war on yet another front.
To be sure the Guardian article is correct to say that governments have always
propagandized their interests. They put their best foot forward and
expose their protagonist's dirty linen. Plus ça change. For the rest of us, the
solution is very simple: read both accounts and hone your detective
skills. I certainly would not trust RT News for an objective account
on Russian elections but, under the same principle of skepticism, I
would not rely on the New York Slime for an objective account of U.S.
elections. Of course, the Slime will give us accurate reports on
figures and results but it will leave untouched the sordid underbelly
of oligarchic control over the process.
What
the Guardian article slides over grossly is the simple fact that we
do not read the news; we
judge it. Or should.
Every time we pick up a magazine, or newspaper or tune in on a
chatter-show, we should recall that we are in the position of a juror
listening to and ultimately weighing
testimony. For that is, ultimately, all the “news” is -- a
hearsay account by a witness as to some occurrence or fact. It makes
no difference whether the witnesses is ill or well intentioned,
for in either case his account is subject to bias, to errors of perception
... and... errors of
judgement on his part. There is very little “purely” factual
reporting in the vein of empirical litmus tests. In subtle ways
mental judgements are always brought to bear on perceptions.
Intelligent people understand this. People who have lived in
press-controlled dictatorships understand this. They learn to read
between the lines, to
remember previous and
inconsistent reports, and to
assess the likelihood of the thing asserted, in light of the common experience of mankind. They exercise their brains and their judgement. That
is what freedom of the press presupposes.
But
the Guardian, the Slime, Shut Her Up Hillary, Heiko the Idiot and
Jucinda the Lord Protectress do not want you thinking. They want to
turn your brain into a passive sponge for safe and sanitized news
which they will present to you. NO CHILD HARMED.
This
is an old canard and it uses the same cry it has always used:
SEDITION. We have already written about John Wilkes and the North
Briton No. 45 - a story
all Americans ought to know and might know had they not been assured
by such safe and reliable punjarums like Paul Klunkman that Murka
was the “birthplace of democracy.” In response to Wilkes'
scurrilous (if not quite fake) news about King George III, Parliament
brought down upon him the
full force of the sedition
act.
In
England, speech was seditious if it brought the Crown or any branch
of government into "hatred or contempt" or if it
promoted discontent or hostility between citizens. The law had its origin in a 1275 statute of King
Edward I (“of fierce tempre”) which established the Star Chamber
and outlawed the telling or
publishing of “any false news or tales whereby discord or occasion
of discord or slander may grow between the king and his people or the
great men of the realm.” (Slander and Sedition Act, 1275, 3 Edw.
1, C. 34 (England)). As one might expect, it was sometimes called
“blasphemous”
libel.
In
the case of De
Libellis Famosis (1606)
5 Co Rep 125a, 77 ER 250, it was ruled that truth was not a defence.
The King might be a gouty pig but it brought his reputation equally
into disrepute to say so. Ernst
Kantorowicz(The
King's Two Bodies)
wrote
a lengthy juridico-theological tome on the interesting christological
concepts
involved in this and
like tenets.
The
full import of De
Libellis Famosis
bears note,
“The
Star Chamber ruled, first, that a libel against a private person
might be punished as a crime, on the theory that it might provoke
revenge and, hence, a breach of the peace. Second, the Star
Chamber held that a libel against the government might also be
punished criminally and was especially serious because "it
concerns not only the breach of the peace, but also the scandal of
government." Third, although the statute of 1275 had insisted
upon proof of falsity, the Star Chamber ruled that the truth or
falsity of the libel was immaterial under the common law; thus, even
a true libel of government could now be the subject of criminal
prosecution.
The rationale of the Star Chamber decision was straightforward: If government is to govern effectively, it must command the respect and allegiance of the people. Since any utterance critical of government necessarily undermines this respect and allegiance, it must inevitably tend, however remotely, toward disorder. Moreover, a true libel is especially dangerous, for unlike a false libel, the dangers of truthful criticism cannot be defused by mere disproof. It was thus an oft-quoted maxim after 1606 that "the greater the truth the greater the libel." The potential benefits to be derived from bringing governmental shortcomings to light were not seen as sufficiently valuable to justify the exclusion of true libels from the reach of the criminal law. The Star Chamber's open-ended formulation of the crime opened the door to essentially unchecked suppression of dissent. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, prosecutions for seditious libel ran into the hundreds. [Source ]
As
noted, British sedition laws were extensively used in the 18th
century most notably against John Wilkes, who was a scurrilous extremist ("activist" to his friends) who bravely challenged the extent of freedom of
speech and media freedom in Britain at that time through his
publication North Briton.It was eventually declared seditious by
parliament and was publicly burned. The Colony of Maryland sent him
45 hogsheads of tobacco to aid in his defence; and it was the libel-for-profit, scandal-mongering Wilkesthat
the Framer's most recently had in mind when they enacted the First
and Fourth Amendments. As James Madison, put it
"Liberty
is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which it
instantly expires. But it could not be less folly to abolish liberty,
which is essential to political life, because it nourishes faction,
than it would be to wish the annihilation of air, which is essential
to animal life, because it imparts to fire its destructive agency."
(Federalist Paper No. 10)
We
have never tired of citing James Madison because people, and today
particularly liberals, never tire of forgetting him. The First
Amendment stands in direct repudiation of sedition laws precisely against
the alleged “good” sedition laws are aimed to protect: the
peace and concord of the realm. Madison's
answer is unequivocal. Freedom is risky. It presents a clear and
present danger to the peace and concord of the realm. So
be it!
In
a famous dictum, Justice Holmes analogized the First Amendment to a
“market place of ideas” (Abrams v. United States (1919)
250 U.S. 616) -- a metaphor originally used by John Milton in his
Areopagitica (1644). But in
today's society, the metaphor unduly suggests consumer passivity
and, in tandem, the need for some kind consumer protection against
unsafe, injurious or contaminated ideas. That is indeed precisely
the cheating gambit resorted to by the pharisees of political
correctness. These snakes hiss and whine about “harmful
content” on the internet, as if one could get punched in the nose
by a computer screen. “Harmful content” to whom?
There
is no way one can get “harmed” by reading a book, looking at a
video, linking to on line material other than by knowing or thinking
things someone decides
one ought not know or think. Think about it. How in the fuck am I
harmed by being exposed to the blasphemous idea that Jesus did not
really rise from the grave unless it be assumed that (1) I actually
have an eternal soul and (2) that my eternal soul will be irreparably
damaged by not believing in the Saving Grace of Jesus Christ, bought
and pledged by his crucifixion and resurrection? The premise of "harm" always presupposes an iceberg of hidden assumptions. How am I harmed by
knowing that corrupt oligarchs who run the United States are leading
the country into war or causing ecological collapse? The only thing
that is harmed is the
narcotic assurance of not knowing -- the peace and concord of my
empty mind.
NO!
At the time Milton wrote there was no consumer protection in the
market. Caveat Emptor was the rule. And, whatever
might be said today of the need to regulate hot dogs and water,
caveat emptor applies most essentially to freedom of speech. The
First Amendment does not simply guarantee a “choice” of purchased
opinion -- it imposes an obligation to exercise judgement.
It is up to each of us to undertake to act as jurors of everything
we read, without having our verdicts being directed by Content
Guardians.
And
I will say it further: if you don't read RT News or China Daily, if
you don't read Stormfront, if you don't read Jihad Journalor Socialist International,
if you don't read Institute
for Historical Revisionism -- in
short if you don't read the full spectrum of misinformation available
and if you content yourself with approved “reliable” sources like
the Slime, the Guardian, Le Monde, Die Zeit and the battery of
neo-liberal, Atlanticist
bullshitters, you are not being a responsible juror.
Not
only do Hillary, Heiko and Jucinda want to protect you from “harmful
content,” they are actively seeking to imbecilize you, in the hope that civil
society will be infantilized even more than it is. The supposed
evils, which the Guardian dangles before you like the terrible
spectre of an Erlkönig
are cribbed undiluted from Edward "the Hammer's" statute of 1275
sow
division!
undermine
social cohesion!
draw
attention to examples of western hypocrisy!
destabilise
civil society and widen social fissures!
or,
as Nancy Peelousy put it
“We
must also be vigilant against bigoted or dangerous ideologies
masquerading as policy, and that includes BDS.”
The trajectory bears note. It began with Hillary's call for counter-propaganda -- a new cold war of words. While this was hardly unprecedented, it was concerning depending on the amount of government management that might be brought to bear. After all, it was Donald Rumsfeld, who back in February of 2003, blithely remarked that the U.S. would be undertaking counter-information "dark ops." He seemed to find it amusing that one would never be able to tell who really might be behind some report or opinion. Fast forward 13 years. Accusing the Russians of what Rumsfeld promised to do, the trajectory then hit the next stage with Neo-McCarthyite scaremongering against subversive fake news which supposedly deprived Hillary of her rightful due thereby undermining our democratic processes. From that pivot point of vengeance and hysteria, the trajectory very quickly metamorphosed into Heiko and Jucinda's call to securitize the internet against so-called "violent extremist" and "inappropriate" content.
Today's Guardian screed could not more clearly state what these scumbags of safety and correctness are about. They spit it out at your face. And as they do so, they tell you that you need to be protected from things that are “masquerading” as policy, as news, as something you might want (but ought not) to consider. No...no! There is no need for you to consider anything! The acceptable “choices” will be given to you in due and proper course. Otherwise, do not read what we don't want you to read, and hate what we tell you to hate.
While 1984 states the paradigm, what our
rulers have learned since 1949 is that hate can be managed more
suavely under a veneer of civility, appealing to so-called
humanitarian principles accepted a priori. “Hate” is replaced
with “unacceptibility.” The epithet is the proof. Anything
labelled “inappropriate” (or fascist, or extremist, or racist
or chauvinist, or xenophobic or homophobic or antisemitic or any one
of a veritiable lexicon of virtue signalling epithets) is disparaged
with an annoyed contempt. Anything branded is rejected as “potentially
dangerous” with furrowed concern. But this is merely a question
of modulation and volume. When it is necessary to dial up the
frenzy, it can be done as it was in 1991 or 2003.
Moreover, as we have also discussed before, it is never simply a matter of banning some speech or opinion which is actually injurious to the status quo. It is always a question of tendencies. Just as truth as not a defence, seditious libel statutes never required proof of actual harm but only of a tendency to give rise to harm -- or in today's pleonastic lingo of a potential danger. The ferocious claw of state will be brought down on anyone who rubs the cat the wrong way.
And
while the Guardian blabbers about extremist content, hate speech, and
fake or weaponized news, it publishes crap like the following:
"The
unemployment rate rose [sic] one-tenth of a percentage point to 3.7%
as people entered [sic] the labor market."
How
Orwellian is that?
During the 1950's and 60's when the United States was happy and
prosperous, there was no need to fabricate statistics as to the
availability of grams of chocolate per capita. But in the 1990's as the long
term trajectory of economic decline became clear, it became necessary
to engage in statistical double-think to keep the people cohesive and
ignorant as to their own state of well-being. As economic and
ecological collapse continue unabated we can expect the mainstream
media to feed us more lies as to the true state of affairs and Truth
Warriors like the Guardian will urge us to emphatically rejectexamples
of western hypocrisy brought
to our attention by hostile actors.
This article is not just a matter of some techie seeking to justify his employment. It is part and parcel of an assault on freedom of speech and an open internet that has been going on with vengeance in the past two years. Google's algorithms are being adjusted so as to steer users to "mainstream" content. You Tube is demonetizing,marginalizing and outright suppressing content it arbitrarily bans as "extremist" or"dangerous" or guilty of some unspecified "inappropriateness" under so-called "communityguidelines." It is straight out of the Nazi playbook. The fact that the bans may appearinconsistent and irrational is no comfort. Arbitrariness is a well tried method in the arsenalof despotism. Why? Because, as was said, "the question is not what is prohibited but what is allowed." That is exactly the state of generalized uncertainty all tyrants are delighted to engender. There is no life without oxygen or without strife. Howsoever stuffed with righteousness Hillary the Scorned, Heiko the Idiot , Jucinda the Mournful and their long train of politically correct, liberal virtue warriors may be, they are suffocating the life out of civil society.
Heiko Maas is truly a dogmatic idiot. During an interview with Der Spiegel, Germany's former Justice Minister and now its Foreign Minister, says he got into politics because of Auschwitz. It was “so horrific that I simply couldn't understand it. From that grew a deep need to make a contribution myself so that something like that never happens again.”
Okay, fair enough. He goes on to say, that the events in Syria can't be compared to Auschwitz. I hadn't thought anyone had made the comparison but, again, fair enough. However, Maas then followed up with, “The barbarity of the Nazis' crimes makes it impossible to compare them with others. Auschwitz cannot be compared with anything.”
It is here that Maas' negative Anti-Religion is made clear in all its bottomless darkness.
To say that it Auschwitz “can't be compared to anything” is to put it beyond the reach of all reason because the foundation of rationalism is to compare things. In Heiko's pathetic little mind, Auschwitz is that than which nothing more greatly evil can be conceived. It thus takes the place of St.Anselm's god [1], except that Heiko's god is not incomprehensibly good, but rather inconceivably evil.
One has to understand what it means to talk about that which is beyond all measure. When we look up at the stars and attempt to grasp the vastness of the cosmos, there is nothing left for us to do but to stand mutely in awe. What else can one do with the concept of infinity? We can't grasp it, we can't measure it, we can't compare it. After a moment of all too baffling and disquieting awe, we turn our sights down and go about our business. It is the same with God, that which is beyond infinity itself. When we talk about “god” -- even when we talk to Him -- we are actually talking to a carved chess piece on the board of our mind. When we intuit God, we simply stand in awe and adore.
What Heiko is demanding is that we stand in awe, dumb, mute and trembling before “Auschwitz” -- that than which nothing more infinitely evil can be conceived. Of course, Maas used “Auschwitz” as a short hand reference to a series and cluster of specific historical events. But by moving those facts beyond all comparison the word “Auschwitz” ceases to be a reference and becomes an object totem. What Maas ends up demanding is that we stand dumb and mute before a New Incarnation of Satan, who is exalted to an equal but opposite status of God. This is heresy.
It is a heresy that flows from Nationalism Socialism itself, although Stupid Heiko can't possibly conceive how. It is left to us to recall the critique of Nazism by Pope Pius XI, in his 1937 encyclical Mit Brennende Sorge. No one, he writes, could fault Germans for “establishing a true ethnical community in a noble love of freedom and loyalty to their country.” But,
Whoever follows that so-called pre-Christian Germanic conception of substituting a dark and impersonal destiny for the personal God, .... Whoever exalts race, or the people, or the State, or a particular form of State, or the depositories of power, or any other fundamental value of the human community - however necessary and honorable be their function in worldly things - whoever raises these notions above their standard value and divinizes them to an idolatrous level, distorts and perverts an order of the world planned and created by God; he is far from the true faith in God and from the concept of life which that faith upholds.
Beware, Venerable Brethren, of that growing abuse, in speech as in writing, of the name of God as though it were a meaningless label, to be affixed to any creation, more or less arbitrary, of human speculation. Use your influence on the Faithful, that they refuse to yield to this aberration. Our God is the Personal God, supernatural, omnipotent, infinitely perfect, one in the Trinity of Persons, tri-personal in the unity of divine essence, the Creator of all existence. Lord, King and ultimate Consummator of the history of the world, who will not, and cannot, tolerate a rival God by His side.
Whatever one's conception of God might be, what was clear to Pius (and what was a fact) was that the Nazis had exalted the Racial Volk as a divinized antipode to the Christian notion of God and, indeed, to any notion of God except the divinity attributed to “Racial Destiny.” Nazism was, in short, idolatry.
Idolatry is not simply a question of images. The essence of idolatry is exaltation. Christianity, and in fact Islam and Judaism as well, reject the concept of eternal and equally balanced forces of good and evil. For, if good and evil are co-equal they are co-valid. One can choose sides as one wills but neither can achieve preeminence over the other. Evil is idolatrized when it is exalted to a co-equal status with Good. In such a case, it is not possible to behold Creation and say “it is good.” (Genesis 1:31.) Thus, the Koran states, “there is no deity but Allah. He is the Knower of the Seen and the Unseen. He is the All-Merciful, the Most Merciful. He is the Almighty, the All-Wise. (Surat al-Hashr, 22-24.) Everything in the heavens and Earth belongs to Him. (Surat al-Baqara, 255.) In short, Satan is a fallen angel not an evil twin. He may be devious and strong but he is all too comprehensible. One can say that Auschwitz was Satanic or that it was an exercise in Banality but to say that it cannot be compared to anything is to mint a Counter-God.
All Maas has done is to internalize this idolatry, in a spirit of masochism, so as to supplant the idolatry of the Volk Gemeinschaft with an idolizing of its evil works. It does not make any difference that Maas condemns the works. Whether the German Volk is exalted beyond measure or whether the crimes of the German Volk are removed beyond all analysis and reason, an idolatry has still occurred. One is the idolatry of the Golden Calf, the other the idolatry of the Charred Calf.
This is of course the dynamic of masochism -- that it exalts the thing feared and fetishizes the brutality under which it yearns to suffer. That is all Heiko Maas has done. That is his personal choice, but he has used his position as minister of Justice and now Foreign minister to impose his masochism on a nation and a world. It is a perversion.
Don't be fooled. “Bottoms are always in control.” Maas may be the High Priest of Masochism, but he uses that self-exalted position to control others. The high priests of Moloch no doubt sincerely believed their self-conceived necessities; but that did not mean they didn't terrorize believers and persecute those who questioned their mandated sacrifices.
It is here that Maas' life work betrays itself. At the outset we said “fair enough” to his auto-devotion to make sure “Auschwitz” never happens again. But one can no more build a negative than prove one. So how does one insure something does not happen? The way Grand Inquisitors always have: rooting out dissent, dangerous thought or anything that Maas and his minions decide is a blasphemy against the Incomparable.
It is a pity that Christians have become so befuddled by their need to do useful good works that they are deaf and dumb to the threat of a rival god alien to that concept of life which their faith ought to uphold.
Notes
[1] i.e. “God is that than which nothing greater can be conceived”
Imagine if you will the field of Agincourt. The French knights are defeated. Mitch, the Duc of Bourbon, lies, fallen from his horse, in a pool of muck and blood, held in the arms of his pages. "Shame, shame; nothing but eternal shame..." he says.
And then the incredible. King "Harry" -- his bifocals hanging on the tip of his nose, calls for a retreat and marches the English back to the Channel.
Herald, played by the New York Slimes, stands spotless and shinning amid corpses and gore and trumpets,
Consensus Is Health Law Can Be Fixed. Now the Hard Part.
By REED ABELSON, ABBY GOODNOUGH and KATIE THOMAS
Stabilizing the market, lowering drug prices and expanding access to coverage would go a long way to easing millions of Americans’ concerns.
... ...
WTF.
Responding to calls for a bi-partisan fix, McConnell said he doubted any Republicans would support “bailing out insurance companies with no thought of any kind of reform”.
Repugnant creepy-crawly mutant that he is, McConnell is right: Obambicareis an insurance company bailout. In other words, it is yet another corporate, capitalist scam in what passes for Murka's pathetic excuse for a veneer of social democracy.
It bears repeating. Obambicare is nothing but an insurance company bailout.
This "trivia" from the L.A. Times: "the federal government sends about $600 million a month to insurance companies to help cover the cost of insuring low income people"
600 million a month.
"Basically, the government tells insurers that they need to hold down the insurance deductibles and co-payments that they charge low-income people. That costs the insurers money. To make the insurers whole, the government is supposed to reimburse them." (L.A. Times.)
To make the insurers whole? Really? Is that the point of the "health care" exercise? Are Murkans congenitally stupid? Are the Niebelungen of Forty Second Street drooling morons or evil, malign, peddlers of poisoned news?
Die Gift-Presse.
Chipsters have said it before; and will say it yet again: insurance is not the right vehicle for providing health care. It makes no business sense to insure against something you know will happen; and everyone will get sick. Older people will get sicker more often. People with pre-existing conditions are like drivers with bad records.
I mean DUH. When you buy insurance you are betting against your good luck. If the risks are low, the insurance company can charge low premiums and still make money. If the risks are high, it can only make money by charging higher premiums or refusing to insure altogether. Insurance companies are in the business of making money NOT providing health care. DUH.
(We pointed this out to the Slime's niebelungen, but they refused to print the comment. Supposedly it was not sufficiently, informed, considered, sober, right-minded, poison.)
Insurance companies are very good at "shifting" and "defeasing" costs. The entire industry is one huge, multi-dimensional Ponzi Scheme. But the bottom line is that they cannot make money if they only charge premiums people can afford and if they provide health coverage to people who need it (i.e. people who are sick or at risk of getting sick.)
So.... The Scam, that goes by the name of "U.S. Government," makes up for business losses, by directly paying "lost profits" to insurance companies from taxpayer paid funds. From your pocket to theirs.
Are you being suckered? Big time. Are you stupid? If you put up with it, yes. Stupid beyond belief.
But do continue reading the New York Slime. Fool yourselves into thinking that "stabilizing the market" is somehow, something (you don't quite know how) different than "from your pocket to theirs."
And so, the average "well informed" middle class jackass reads about "expanding access to coverage" (i.e. expanding government bailouts to insurance companies) and thinks in his or her stupefied way, "Oh yeah.. that would be a good thing. We must get the Repuglicans to work with Demorats to get that done....
How can anyone be so fucking dumb? Well... the psychological term is "fetish" and in particular the Fetish of the Commodity. Murkans are convinced that "the market" is the solution to everything. It was even behind the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. They are as much convinced of this as as a boot-licker is convinced that dragging his tongue over a dirty boot is both joyful and necessary. Fetishes create their own appearance of demanding objective reality. That's the whole point of having one.
Are the whores who run Demorat Party really that deranged or have I just answered my question? If Mitch McConnell understands that what's at issue is "bailing out" insurance companies, is it reasonable to think that Senawhore Wall Street does not?
Of course they do. In fact, they are more despicable than their Republican colleagues, because they peddle false hopes and false nostrums that convince people that corporate boot licking is good, natural and necessary.
The latest Demorat Manifesto -- A Better Squeal -- is silent on single payer. Says Peelousy, “the comfort level with a broader base of the American people is not there yet,” She encouraged state initiatives instead.
What a stinking douchebag. Peelousy knows perfectly well that states lack the financial muscle power to enact "local" single payer systems. Even California's recent bill (procedurally shit-canned by the state Demorats) was critically dependent on federal funding.
Of the 247 Demorats in the House, 110 (less than half) back the Conyers bill for single payer. The silence in the Senate is damning. Hillary Replacement Icon, Karamela Harris along with Elizabeth Warren and Kristin Gillibrand say they support the "concept" of single payer. Weasles. As for the male Senawhores .... zip.
As Conyers has stated, "We will never get universal care built on a foundation of private, for-profit insurers." But the Demorats can only manage tepid endorsement of a "concept" when they ought to be on the barricades pushing their advantage forward over the bloodied bodies of the Repugs. But they won't.
The issue is not just health care. Health care is simply the symbolic flag ship for "concepts" of social responsibility and civic cohesion -- you know, the outmoded idea that all citizens are entitled to a basic and secure standard of living which enables them to live in dignity as human beings and participate in political and economic life as contributing citizens.
