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College Students Are Deeply Ignorant of Western Civilization – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on July 3, 2019

There’s a reason why the West leads the world in terms of scientific innovation, wealth and military might and it has little to do with genetics. Instead, it’s the environment of freedom, both in the market for goods and in the idea marketplace. Rigorous competition brings out the best in mankind. Leftists and would-be tyrants find Western values offensive.

The greatest efforts to downplay the achievements of Western civilization start at our colleges and universities.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2019/07/walter-e-williams/assault-on-western-civilization/

By

Western civilization was founded on a set of philosophies that focus strongly on the sanctity of individuals and their power of logic and reason. This belief led to a desire to trust things that could be proven to be true or legitimate, from government to science. Judeo-Christian morality has formed the basis of most Western notions of ethics and behavioral standards. Thus, the attack on Western civilization must begin with the attack on the church and Christian values, and, just as important, the family unit must be undermined. The reason why the church, Christian values and family are targets of the left is they want people’s loyalty and allegiance to be to the state. The church, Christianity and the family stand in the way. Let’s look at some of the left’s agenda.

Joe Biden, criticizing sexual assault, said, “This is English jurisprudential culture, a white man’s culture,” adding, “It’s got to change.” The Western world’s culture isn’t perfect but women fare better under it than any other culture. Just ask yourself: If you’re a feminist, in which countries would you like to live? Would it be Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries, China or countries on the African continent, north or south of the Sahara? In those countries, women encounter all kinds of liberty restrictions plus in at least 30 countries on the African continent, the Middle East and Southeast Asia, female genital mutilation is practiced. You might ask Joe Biden what part of the “white man’s culture” needs to be changed…

In 2012, 2014 and 2015, an ACTA-commissioned survey of college graduates found that less than 20% could accurately identify the effect of the Emancipation Proclamation. Less than half could identify George Washington as the American general at Yorktown. One-third of college graduates were unaware that FDR introduced the New Deal. Over one-third of the college graduates surveyed could not place the American Civil War in its correct 20-year time frame. Nearly half of the college graduates could not identify correctly the term lengths of U.S. senators and representatives…

Many do not appreciate the fact that freedom and competition in both the marketplace and idea arena unleashed a level of entrepreneurism, risk-taking and creativity heretofore unknown to mankind. Look at the marketplace of ideas. The Nobel Prize has been awarded to 860 people since its inception in 1901. The prizewinner distribution: Americans (375), United Kingdom (131) Germany (108), France (69) and Sweden (32); that’s 83% of Nobel Prizes won. The large majority of other Nobel winners are mostly westerners. I might add that Japan has 27 Nobel Prize winners, but their first winner was awarded in 1949, after WWII led Japan to became more westernized.

There’s a reason why the West leads the world in terms of scientific innovation, wealth and military might and it has little to do with genetics. Instead, it’s the environment of freedom, both in the market for goods and in the idea marketplace. Rigorous competition brings out the best in mankind. Leftists and would-be tyrants find Western values offensive.

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The World According to Laura Ashley: Sir Isaac Newton ...

Issac Newton

 

 

 

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The Rutherford Institute :: It’s Time to Declare Your Independence from Tyranny, America | By John W. Whitehead |

Posted by M. C. on July 3, 2019

https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/its_time_to_declare_your_independence_from_tyranny_america

By John W. Whitehead

“These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.”—Thomas Paine, December 1776

It’s time to declare your independence from tyranny, America.

For too long now, we have suffered the injustices of a government that has no regard for our rights or our humanity.

Too easily pacified and placated by the pomp and pageantry of manufactured spectacles (fireworks on the Fourth of July, military parades, ritualized elections, etc.) that are a poor substitute for a representative government that respects the rights of its people, the American people have opted, time and again, to overlook the government’s excesses, abuses and power grabs that fly in the face of every principle for which America’s founders risked their lives.

We have done this to ourselves.

Indeed, it is painfully fitting that mere days before the nation prepared to celebrate its freedoms on the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the City Council for Charlottesville, Virginia—the home of Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration—voted to do away with a holiday to honor Jefferson’s birthday, because Jefferson, like many of his contemporaries, owned slaves. City councilors have opted instead to celebrate “Liberation and Freedom Day” in honor of slaves who were emancipated after the Civil War.

This is what we have been reduced to: bureaucrats dithering over meaningless trivialities while the government goosesteps all over our freedoms.

Too often, we pay lip service to those freedoms, yet they did not come about by happenstance. They were hard won through sheer determination, suffering and sacrifice by thousands of patriotic Americans who not only believed in the cause of freedom but also had the intestinal fortitude to act on that belief. The success of the American revolution owes much to these men and women.

In standing up to the British Empire and speaking out against an oppressive regime, they exemplified courage in the face of what seemed like an overwhelming foe.

Indeed, imagine living in a country where armed soldiers crash through doors to arrest and imprison citizens merely for criticizing government officials.

Imagine that in this very same country, you’re watched all the time, and if you look even a little bit suspicious, the police stop and frisk you or pull you over to search you on the off chance you’re doing something illegal.

Keep in mind that if you have a firearm of any kind (or anything that resembled a firearm) while in this country, it may get you arrested and, in some circumstances, shot by police.

If you’re thinking this sounds like America today, you wouldn’t be far wrong.

However, the scenario described above took place more than 200 years ago, when American colonists suffered under Great Britain’s version of an early police state. It was only when the colonists finally got fed up with being silenced, censored, searched, frisked, threatened, and arrested that they finally revolted against the tyrant’s fetters.

No document better states their grievances than the Declaration of Independence, drafted by Thomas Jefferson…

We could certainly use some of that revolutionary outrage today.

Certainly, we would do well to reclaim the revolutionary spirit of our ancestors and remember what drove them to such drastic measures in the first place.

Then again, perhaps what we need to do is declare our independence from the tyranny of the American police state.

It’s not a radical idea.

It has been done before.

The Declaration of Independence speaks volumes about the abuses suffered by early Americans at the hands of the British police state.

Read the Declaration of Independence again, and ask yourself if the list of complaints tallied by Jefferson don’t bear a startling resemblance to the abuses “we the people” are suffering at the hands of the American police state.

If you find the purple prose used by the Founders hard to decipher, here’s my translation of what the Declaration of Independence would look and sound like if it were written in the modern vernacular:

There comes a time when a populace must stand united and say “enough is enough” to the government’s abuses, even if it means getting rid of the political parties in power.

Believing that “we the people” have a natural and divine right to direct our own lives, here are truths about the power of the people and how we arrived at the decision to sever our ties to the government:

All people are created equal.

All people possess certain innate rights that no government or agency or individual can take away from them. Among these are the right to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

The government’s job is to protect the people’s innate rights to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. The government’s power comes from the will of the people.

Whenever any government abuses its power, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish that government and replace it with a new government that will respect and protect the rights of the people.

It is not wise to get rid of a government for minor transgressions. In fact, as history has shown, people resist change and are inclined to suffer all manner of abuses to which they have become accustomed.

However, when the people have been subjected to repeated abuses and power grabs, carried out with the purpose of establishing a tyrannical government, people have a right and duty to do away with that tyrannical Government and to replace it with a new government that will protect and preserve their innate rights for their future wellbeing.

This is exactly the state of affairs we are under suffering under right now, which is why it is necessary that we change this imperial system of government.

The history of the present Imperial Government is a history of repeated abuses and power grabs, carried out with the intention of establishing absolute Tyranny over the country.

To prove this, consider the following:

The government has, through its own negligence and arrogance, refused to adopt urgent and necessary laws for the good of the people.

The government has threatened to hold up critical laws unless the people agree to relinquish their right to be fully represented in the Legislature.

In order to expand its power and bring about compliance with its dictates, the government has made it nearly impossible for the people to make their views and needs heard by their representatives.

The government has repeatedly suppressed protests arising in response to its actions.

The government has obstructed justice by refusing to appoint judges who respect the Constitution and has instead made the Courts march in lockstep with the government’s dictates.

The government has allowed its agents to harass the people, steal from them, jail them and even execute them.

The government has directed militarized government agents—a.k.a., a standing army—to police domestic affairs in peacetime.

The government has turned the country into a militarized police state.

The government has conspired to undermine the rule of law and the constitution in order to expand its own powers.

The government has allowed its militarized police to invade our homes and inflict violence on homeowners.

The government has failed to hold its agents accountable for wrongdoing and murder under the guise of “qualified immunity.”

The government has jeopardized our international trade agreements.

The government has overtaxed us without our permission.

The government has denied us due process and the right to a fair trial.

The government has engaged in extraordinary rendition.

The government has continued to expand its military empire in collusion with its corporate partners-in-crime and occupy foreign nations.

The government has eroded fundamental legal protections and destabilized the structure of government.

The government has not only declared its federal powers superior to those of the states but has also asserted its sovereign power over the rights of “we the people.”

The government has ceased to protect the people and instead waged domestic war against the people.

The government has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, and destroyed the lives of the people.

The government has employed private contractors and mercenaries to carry out acts of death, desolation and tyranny, totally unworthy of a civilized nation.

The government through its political propaganda has pitted its citizens against each other.

The government has stirred up civil unrest and laid the groundwork for martial law.

Repeatedly, we have asked the government to cease its abuses. Each time, the government has responded with more abuse.

An Imperial Ruler who acts like a tyrant is not fit to govern a free people.

We have repeatedly sounded the alarm to our fellow citizens about the government’s abuses. We have warned them about the government’s power grabs. We have appealed to their sense of justice. We have reminded them of our common bonds.

They have rejected our plea for justice and brotherhood. They are equally at fault for the injustices being carried out by the government.

Thus, for the reasons mentioned above, we the people of the united States of America declare ourselves free from the chains of an abusive government. Relying on God’s protection, we pledge to stand by this Declaration of Independence with our lives, our fortunes and our honor.

That was 243 years ago…

Only this time, the tyrant is one of our own making: the American Police State. Read the rest of this entry »

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MS Word Becomes Big Brother – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on July 3, 2019

Under Microsoft control, thought control is a “feature” helpfully built into your word processor. But soon, you won’t be able to turn the feature off. And then, … well, you get the point.

I use Libre. Works well with the Ubuntu and Mint operating systems as well as W10.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2019/07/no_author/ms-word-becomes-big-brother/

By Chas Holloway

I’ve been a writer for thirty years.  I have over two hundred thousand MS Word docs on my computer.  But now, I’m converting all those files to a different word processor.

I don’t want to do it.  But I have no choice.  MS Word — the default application for novelists, poets, journalists and playwrights — has just become Big Brother.  No serious writer can use it anymore.

The problem: Microsoft now “offers” an AI tool designed to “improve” my writing.  For example, if I type, “We need some fresh blood around here,” Word now changes that phrase to “We must hire some qualified employees.” Or, if I type the word “waitress,” Word now changes it to “waitperson.” (see HERE and HERE and HERE.)

I heard about this a month ago, or so. The geniuses at Microsoft want to control my ideas. “That’s insidious,” I thought, but then got distracted. Until the other day. While writing an article, I experienced Big Brother in action — Word was highlighting my text as I typed!…

Real writing is about thinking.  It’s about discovering your individual voice.  It’s about finding original things to say.  But will Microsoft soon disallow original and creative thought?…

A screenwriter bangs out a political thriller: the evil corporation wants the population to be chipped.  How do they manage it?  First, they’ll say it’s for the safety of our soldiers: we can track them in warfare.  Second, they’ll say it’s for public safety: we must chip the lawbreakers and prisoners.  Then, they’ll launch a patriotic ad campaign: “I got chipped — for America!”  Following that, the cops just arrest a few libertarian stragglers. 

Cool story.  But under Microsoft control, would a screenwriter be allowed write it?  Under Microsoft control, thought control is a “feature” helpfully built into your word processor.  But soon, you won’t be able to turn the feature off.  And then, … well, you get the point…

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banksy-anarchism

Banksy

 

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Alabama Expands Law Allowing Private Police Forces — And the Opposition Goes Nuts | Mises Wire

Posted by M. C. on July 2, 2019

Thus, it’s not even clear that the church police force legally has much more power than would private civilians providing security.

Some colleges in PA have their own police force. What about private security guards/firms?

Government. Power and control over you.

https://mises.org/wire/alabama-expands-law-allowing-private-police-forces-%E2%80%94-and-opposition-goes-nuts

Recently, Alabama Governor Kay Ivey signed legislation permitting Briarwood Presbyterian Church to establish its own police force for its church and school campuses, which are used by 2,000 students and faculty, as well as 4,000 parishioners. The legislation is to take effect in the fall. The church’s attorney who drafted the legislation, Eric Johnston, said that they have traditionally hired off-duty police officers to patrol their campuses, but they are not always available, and therefore the church would like to have its own dedicated sworn peace officer. The bill’s language is similar to that found in the Alabama Code, Section 16-22-1, which lists various educational institutions (including private ones) that may hire their own police officers who are charged with all the duties and powers of police officers, trained in the use of non-lethal weaponry, and certified by the Alabama Peace Officers’ Standards and Training Commission. Johnston stated that it would not involve a jail or other facilities, but basically an officer and an official car and “If there is an arrest on campus, the local jurisdiction would be called and they would come pick the person up.”

Of course, there has been the expected knee-jerk reaction regarding the desirability of such an arrangement. Randall Marshall of the Alabama ACLU, for instance, says the law will help the church cover-up criminal activity that occurs on its campuses, and that it is a violation of the First Amendment’s establishment clause because “It establishes a singular religion that is favored above all others in the state of Alabama and it gives them the authority of state government.”

It is interesting to note, however, that the functions the church wants the police to perform would not require sworn peace officers. Various media accounts of the story (for example, see here, here, and here), emphasize that the proposed police force would have the power to arrest people committing crimes on campus property, as if this would be a major power grab. However, in comparing the arrest powers of private citizens in Alabama (AL Code § 15-10-7) to those of a sworn officer without a warrant (AL Code § 15-10-3), one sees striking similarity.

Here is the statute on arrests by private persons:

 Section 15-10-7 Arrests by private persons.

(a) A private person may arrest another for any public offense:

(1) Committed in his presence;

(2) Where a felony has been committed, though not in his presence, by the person arrested; or

(3) Where a felony has been committed and he has reasonable cause to believe that the person arrested committed it.

(b) An arrest for felony may be made by a private person on any day and at any time.

(c) A private person must, at the time of the arrest, inform the person to be arrested of the cause thereof, except when such person is in the actual commission of an offense, or arrested on pursuit.

(d) If he is refused admittance, after notice of his intention, and the person to be arrested has committed a felony, he may break open an outer or inner door or window of a dwelling house.

(e) It is the duty of any private person, having arrested another for the commission of any public offense, to take him without unnecessary delay before a judge or magistrate, or to deliver him to some one of the officers specified in Section 15-10-1, who must forthwith take him before a judge or magistrate.

And here is the section on arrests by sworn officers without a warrant: 

Section 15-10-3 (abridged) Arrest without warrant — Generally; written report; protection orders.

(a) An officer may arrest a person without a warrant, on any day and at any time in any of the following instances:

(1) If a public offense has been committed or a breach of the peace threatened in the presence of the officer.

(2) When a felony has been committed, though not in the presence of the officer, by the person arrested.

(3) When a felony has been committed and the officer has reasonable cause to believe that the person arrested committed the felony.

(4) When the officer has reasonable cause to believe that the person arrested has committed a felony, although it may afterwards appear that a felony had not in fact been committed.

(5) When a charge has been made, upon reasonable cause, that the person arrested has committed a felony.

(6) When the officer has actual knowledge that a warrant for the person’s arrest for the commission of a felony or misdemeanor has been issued, provided the warrant was issued in accordance with this chapter. However, upon request the officer shall show the warrant to the arrested person as soon as possible.

Thus, it’s not even clear that the church police force legally has much more power than would private civilians providing security. Regardless, the church finds having sworn officers provide security, with the concomitant costs of getting the state to allow it and the promised litigation by the ACLU, to be preferable to hiring non-sworn personnel. Without speaking to the church leadership directly, one can only speculate why this is the case.

Despite the insignificant legal change, there is a strange asymmetry with which power in the hands of a state actor is treated compared to the same (apparent) power in the hands of a non-state actor. No doubt the writer of the CBS News article on the subject meant the following to sound ominous:

Some of the restrictions of the church’s police force would include: no jail, police activity would be limited to church property, officers would answer to the church and if you had a complaint, you’d have to complain it [sic] to the church.

To most ears, the idea of complaining to the church about its own police force seems ludicrous. How could they be an impartial arbiter? And yet, for most municipal police departments, the recourse if one has a complaint is to complain to the department directly. It is not clear why we should expect better outcomes in the latter case.

Others question whether the church police force will be properly transparent and accountable, saying, “Most police forces serve public entities, so ultimately they are accountable to the community they serve.” If we grant such an incredibly naïve and tautological view of government accountability some degree of plausibility, I can see no reason why the same idea would not apply to a church campus serving 4,000 parishioners and 2,000 students, numbers on par with a rather small municipality. Unlike a city government, the parishioners and parents of students choose whether to give money to the church and can more easily switch churches than cities. Even if one thinks that an individual parishioner or parent will have little influence over church governance, it is absurd to think that their influence over municipal government will be any stronger. The only way to come to the conclusion that a municipal police force has any advantage in terms of accountability over a 2-man church police force patrolling a privately-owned campus is to not have thought about the issue at all.

This is not to argue that Briarwood Presbyterian Church’s upcoming police force should be thought of as an ideal arrangement; granting certain parties privileges to use coercive force is inherently suspect. However, if one is concerned about Briarwood’s police force, they ought to be hysterical over pretty much any police force in the United States. Somehow, the state seems to get a pass in areas where non-state entities are treated with suspicion.

One final thought: advocates of community-oriented policing should be Briarwood’s champions. Briarwood a well-defined and organized community with specific problems they want the police to solve, and will itself be involved in the co-production of security. The Briarwood police will be more accountable to community leadership than the typical municipal police force, who in addition to the tax money they extract from locals also receive federal “community-oriented policing services” grants to purchase SWAT equipment. Yet I would be surprised if any policing scholar who has written in support of community policing will come to the defense of Briarwood, or see it as an example of what they purport to support. If I am right, there ought to be no doubt left that community policing is truly rhetoric over reality.

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It’s No Bitcoin: Facebook’s Libra Currency Is Tied to Government Currencies | Mises Wire

Posted by M. C. on July 2, 2019

Ah, but … and here is the rub, the Libra is not a naturally limited good, as Bitcoin is, but can be multiplied to infinity. It is not stabilized by reference to a basket of commodities as Hayek recommended. Rather, it will be defined by a changeable basket of fiat currencies!

In other words the Zuckerberg’s Libra can be inflated to worthlessness, as has the Continental through the dollar since 1776.

https://mises.org/wire/its-no-bitcoin-facebooks-libra-currency-tied-government-currencies

In 1975 Hayek eventually gave a lecture entitled “Choice of Currency,” in which he articulated for the first time the provocative demand that the state monopoly on money should be repealed. The publication of the monographs Free Choice in Currency and The Denationalization of Money followed a year later, in which he expanded in greater detail on his ideas on competition between private money issuers. …

What shape would an order reflecting these power-sharing principles take, and how could it emerge? Hayek argues that such an order would take shape if the following liberties were granted:

Fast forward nearly a half century and Hayek’s call for the denationalization of money seems to be a real possibility, not just a crank libertarian position safely ignored by the monetary authorities.

The coming of the block chain technology and cryptocurrencies certainly suggest that the original post-World War II Bretton Woods “settlement” of the status of money, that gold and US dollars, redeemable in gold, were the basis for international settlements, failed. As have later revisions of the idea. Thus, an era of monetary uncertainty may give rise to possibilities for market-oriented reforms.

Bitcoin, as an example of “virtual gold,” gains its value from the limited number of units of that cryptocurrency and the expense in “mining” more of those units, not unlike real gold. While Bitcoin is the best known of the cryptocurrencies, CoinMarketCap.com lists over a thousand crypto currencies that are traded (though a significant percentage of these are actually ICOs — Initial Crypto Offerings — a way to raise funds for a particular project). Much of the power of the cryptos is that they can be easily, and privately, bought, sold, and exchanged.

Hayek predicted that normal market forces would apply to the goods we use to facilitate exchange (“currencies”) if only governments would get out of the way. In a free market for money he suggested that major financial institutions would sponsor competing currencies, probably defined by “baskets” of commodities. He speculates on how the market would maintain the value and stability of such currencies, far better than any political system of legal tender.

To some degree, this seems to be happening with cryptocurrencies.

And then along comes the 900 pound gorilla. Facebook, with two billion users, has decided to enter the cryptocurrency market with its Libra coin. Since the Libra would be usable as a currency on Facebook itself, the company probably has calculated that it will have a strong competitive advantage over any of the competing currencies.

Ah, but … and here is the rub, the Libra is not a naturally limited good, as Bitcoin is, but can be multiplied to infinity. It is not stabilized by reference to a basket of commodities as Hayek recommended. Rather, it will be defined by a changeable basket of fiat currencies!

That’s right. Facebook and Libra’s cooperating founding organizations (including PayPal, Visa, Uber …) hope to provide a stable cryptocurrency by tying it to a group of government currencies! According to Techcrunch:

A Libra is a unit of the Libra cryptocurrency that’s represented by a three wavy horizontal line unicode character ≋ like the dollar is represented by $. The value of a Libra is meant to stay largely stable, so it’s a good medium of exchange, as merchants can be confident they won’t be paid a Libra today that’s then worth less tomorrow. The Libra’s value is tied to a basket of bank deposits and short-term government securities for a slew of historically stable international currencies, including the dollar, pound, euro, Swiss franc and yen. The Libra Association maintains this basket of assets and can change the balance of its composition if necessary to offset major price fluctuations in any one foreign currency so that the value of a Libra stays consistent.

Well, that’s it. Zuckerberg is no Hayek. And the Libra is no Bitcoin.

 

 

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Stopped Clocks: The European Union Gets War With Iran Exactly Right | The American Conservative

Posted by M. C. on July 2, 2019

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/stopped-clocks-the-european-union-gets-war-with-iran-exactly-right/

By Bill Wirtz

Regular readers of my contributions to this site may have noticed that I am in no way a fan of the European Union. Yet even with the EU, the stopped clock principle applies: they have to be right sometimes. And when Federica Mogherini, high representative of the EU for foreign affairs and security policy, said that everyone should tread carefully when it came to the attack on the oil tankers near the Strait of Hormuz, she was absolutely correct.

Mogherini stated: “We are living in crucial and delicate moments, where the most relevant attitude to take—the most responsible attitude to take—is, and we believe should be, maximum restraint, and avoiding any escalation on the military side.”

This month, one of the EU’s top advisors on security questions declared that no military intervention from the European side should take place. This echoes French President Emmanuel Macron saying that France had no place in such interventions, as well as German Chancellor Angela Merkel calling for a peaceful solution to the Iran problem. Seventy-four percent of German opposed a military intervention in Syria last year. In 2002, 71 percent of Germans opposed the war in Iraq, as did 64 percent of the French. During anti-Iraq war protests that took place on February 15, 2003, 100,000 people demonstrated in Brussels, 75,000 in Amsterdam, between 100,000 and 200,000 in Paris, between 300,000 and 500,000 in Berlin, 150,000 in Athens, 60,000 in Budapest, and well over 600,000 people in Rome.

And in the United Kingdom, more than one million showed up to protest in London…

In a January poll, 48 percent of Germans favored a withdrawal of their country’s troops from Afghanistan, with 29 percent opposing it. In 2009, almost two thirds of the French opposed the intervention in Afghanistan. In 2012, all French combat troops were withdrawn under President François Hollande…

Italy’s Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, who is not known for his efforts to please his European counterparts, is an exception: he says that he is ready to take a “more rigorous” approach towards Iran. Interior Minister Matteo Salvini has even come under fire from Iranian officials after he gave interviews in the United States explaining that he was “happy that Italy has long since relaxed its relations with Iran, a country that wants to wipe out Israel in 2019 has no right to speak.”…

So overall, in Europe, support for the hawks inside the Trump administration looks grim. Without at least a handful of European countries supporting an intervention, the United States would look like it was standing alone on the world stage, and America could once again come under fire for needless aggression. The WMD lies of the early 2000s have set the bar high for interventions based on military intelligence. And Syria has shown that without conclusive evidence, Europe isn’t about to send in the troops.

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Did Mark Zuckerberg Really Create Facebook? – Collective Evolution

Posted by M. C. on July 2, 2019

Mark Zuckerberg, and all of us who were there from the beginning, are lying to you and using your personal life as a government-controlled experiment in brain-washing and mind-control – basically a weaponized system of the military (CIA especially) that got out of control.

https://www.collective-evolution.com/2019/07/01/did-mark-zuckerberg-really-create-facebook/

By

CE Staff Writer

In Brief

  • The Facts:A letter alleged to be written by a Facebook insider who was Mark Zuckerberg’s lover from their freshman year at Harvard brings into question the notion that Mark Zuckerberg was the creator of Facebook.
  • Reflect On:Can we feel that larger and larger revelations from insiders, challenging our mainstream perception of what is real and true, are starting to awaken us from a controlled illusion put in place by powers that do not have our best interests at heart?

An explosive letter alleged to be written by a Facebook insider who was Mark Zuckerberg’s lover from their freshman year at Harvard was hand-delivered to a member of the Anonymous Patriot’s Conclave a few days ago and published on their American Intelligence Media website (aim4truth.org).

For those with any interest in knowing whether or not Mark Zuckerberg is really the boy-genius founder of Facebook and author of the essential computer source code that anchors today’s social media giants, calling this letter ‘explosive’ may even be an understatement.

In terms of its authenticity, AIM said this as a preamble to the letter:

American Intelligence Media has been able to quickly verify that many of the claims insinuated in this “Zuckerberg Dossier” are true and this leads us to conclude that the document is authentic and exactly what it appears to be. The true authorship of this Zuckerberg Dossier is evident to members of the Conclave, but that supposition is speculation and the Conclave does not deal in speculation. Though, if one were to listen carefully to the admission of guilt by Sean Parker (a long-time executive of Facebook) which he made repeatedly before the press, you will hear that Sean knew all about the true creation of the social media giant and its evil intents and fingers the culprits.

Therefore, it is not hard at all to figure out who may have written this expose on Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook evil. You can even see the true motivation for writing this “tell all” about Zuckerberg at this time in history, just as Facebook is facing all kinds of charges, including  anti-trust violations.

From my perspective, I have tried to establish the credibility of this letter in terms of its consistency and its coherence with established facts, as well as with many of the other allegations surrounding this matter. Piecing together many aspects of this story, let’s see if we can arrive at a cohesive whole that appears to be the likeliest of explanations for what is going on now at Facebook and in the social media arena in general.

LifeLog

Our story starts with a project called ‘LifeLog,’ the handiwork of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)

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Demasking the Torture of Julian Assange – Nils Melzer – Medium

Posted by M. C. on July 2, 2019

https://medium.com/@njmelzer/demasking-the-torture-of-julian-assange-b252ffdcb768

By Nils Melzer, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture

I know, you may think I am deluded. How could life in an Embassy with a cat and a skateboard ever amount to torture? That’s exactly what I thought, too, when Assange first appealed to my office for protection. Like most of the public, I had been subconsciously poisoned by the relentless smear campaign, which had been disseminated over the years. So it took a second knock on my door to get my reluctant attention. But once I looked into the facts of this case, what I found filled me with repulsion and disbelief.

Surely, I thought, Assange must be a rapist! But what I found is that he has never been charged with a sexual offence. True, soon after the US had encouraged allies to find reasons to prosecute Assange, two women made the headlines in Sweden. One of them claimed he had ripped a condom, and the other that he had failed to wear one, in both cases during consensual intercourse — not exactly scenarios that have the ring of ‘rape’ in any language other than Swedish. Mind you, each woman even submitted a condom as evidence. The first one, supposedly worn and torn by Assange, revealed no DNA whatsoever — neither his, nor hers, nor anybody else’s. Go figure. The second one, used but intact, supposedly proved ‘unprotected’ intercourse. Go figure, again. The women even texted that they never intended to report a crime but were ‘railroaded’ into doing so by zealous Swedish police. Go figure, once more. Ever since, both Sweden and Britain have done everything to prevent Assange from confronting these allegations without simultaneously having to expose himself to US extradition and, thus, to a show-trial followed by life in jail. His last refuge had been the Ecuadorian Embassy.

Alright, I thought, but surely Assange must be a hacker! But what I found is that all his disclosures had been freely leaked to him, and that no one accuses him of having hacked a single computer. In fact, the only arguable hacking-charge against him relates to his alleged unsuccessful attempt to help breaking a password which, had it been successful, might have helped his source to cover her tracks. In short: a rather isolated, speculative, and inconsequential chain of events; a bit like trying to prosecute a driver who unsuccessfully attempted to exceed the speed-limit, but failed because their car was too weak…

Well then, I thought, at least we know for sure that Assange is a Russian spy, has interfered with US elections, and negligently caused people’s deaths!…

But surely, I found myself pleading, Assange must be a selfish narcissist, skateboarding through the Ecuadorian Embassy and smearing feces on the walls?…

In the end it finally dawned on me that I had been blinded by propaganda, and that Assange had been systematically slandered to divert attention from the crimes he exposed. Once he had been dehumanized through isolation, ridicule and shame, just like the witches we used to burn at the stake, it was easy to deprive him of his most fundamental rights without provoking public outrage worldwide. And thus, a legal precedent is being set, through the backdoor of our own complacency, which in the future can and will be applied just as well to disclosures by The Guardian, the New York Times and ABC News…

Yes, living in an Embassy with a cat and a skateboard may seem like a sweet deal when you believe the rest of the lies. But when no one remembers the reason for the hate you endure, when no one even wants to hear the truth, when neither the courts nor the media hold the powerful to account, then your refuge really is but a rubber boat in a shark-pool, and neither your cat nor your skateboard will save your life.

Even so, you may say, why spend so much breath on Assange, when countless others are tortured worldwide? Because this is not only about protecting Assange, but about preventing a precedent likely to seal the fate of Western democracy. For once telling the truth has become a crime, while the powerful enjoy impunity, it will be too late to correct the course. We will have surrendered our voice to censorship and our fate to unrestrained tyranny…

Be seeing you

truth

 

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New Soros/Koch-Funded Think Tank Claims To Oppose US Forever War – Caitlin Johnstone

Posted by M. C. on July 2, 2019

Just make a mental note of the information you have about it now, and pay attention to what’s happening when you see the words “Quincy Institute” in reports from the political/media class going forward.

 

Good news. Too good to be true.

https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/07/01/new-soroskoch-funded-think-tank-claims-to-oppose-us-forever-war/

author: Caitlin Johnstone

If you were to have asked me what news reports I definitely did not expect to see when checking my news feed this morning, “Malignant plutocrats join hands across partisan divide to end America’s forever war” would probably have been among my first guesses. And yet, weirdly, here we are.

A new Boston Globe article titled “In an astonishing turn, George Soros and Charles Koch team up to end US ‘forever war’ policy” reports that the two influential billionaires have chipped in a half a million dollars apiece to start a new DC think tank with the goal of doing the exact opposite of the sort of thing that billionaire-funded DC think tanks normally do.

“Besides being billionaires and spending much of their fortunes to promote pet causes, the leftist financier George Soros and the right-wing Koch brothers have little in common,” the report begins. “They could be seen as polar opposites. Soros is an old-fashioned New Deal liberal. The Koch brothers are fire-breathing right-wingers who dream of cutting taxes and dismantling government. Now they have found something to agree on: the United States must end its ‘forever war’ and adopt an entirely new foreign policy.”

“In concrete terms, this means the Quincy Institute will likely advocate a withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan and Syria; a return to the nuclear deal with Iran; less confrontational approaches to Russia and China; an end to regime-change campaigns against Venezuela and Cuba; and sharp reductions in the defense budget,” the article reads.

Responses to this news from Twitter’s blue-ticked commentariat have been largely supportive.

“Great to see that avoiding really stupid, costly wars has support across party lines,” tweeted author and professor Max Abrahms.

“Certainly understand skepticism of Soros and Koch money but with a platform of ending endless war and Trita Parsi at the helm, this sounds very promising and is sorely needed as we inch towards catastrophic nuclear war,” said journalist Dan Cohen.

“A new foreign policy think tank that will ‘promote an approach to the world based on diplomacy and restraint rather than threats, sanctions, and bombing.’ YES PLEASE,” tweeted In The Now‘s Rania Khalek.

“Finally. A think tank that aims to fight the blob and endless war. Hope Stephen Walt will be involved,” tweeted foreign policy analyst Joshua Landis.

Others have been a touch more skeptical.

“Hi Joshua, I’ve got a bridge on sale. You seem very interested in buying such. Gimme a call,” Moon of Alabama tweeted at Landis.

Such skepticism is warranted. It is true that the Quincy Institute’s co-fouder Trita Parsi has been a vocal opponent of US imperialism towards Iran and elsewhere, but it is also true that the Kochs and Soros have both acted as toxic facilitators of US imperialism.

The report claims that the new think tank seeks an end to America’s regime change agenda in Venezuela, for example, yet investigative journalist Greg Palast reports that the Koch brothers have been a major driving force behind that very agenda. The group claims to seek a de-escalation against Syria, yet investigative journalist Vanessa Beeley and alternative media outlet Mintpress News have documented extensive ties between George Soros and the various NGOs and narrative management operations which have been facilitating the agenda of toppling Syria’s government.

In 2014 journalist Mark Ames observed that Soros “funded many of the NGOs involved in ‘color revolutions’ including small donations to the same Ukraine NGOs that Omidyar backed. (Like Omidyar Network does today, Soros’ charity arms—Open Society and Renaissance Foundation—publicly preached transparency and good government in places like Russia during the Yeltsin years, while Soros’ financial arm speculated on Russian debt and participated in scandal-plagued auctions of state assets.)”

Charles Koch has been a major donor to the Iraq-raping think tank American Enterprise Institute, which has returned the favor by aggressively churning out narrative management on the public image of the Koch brothers. George Soros is a major funder of the NATO narrative management firm Atlantic Council, which has been a driving force behind the campaign manufacturing consent for escalations against Russia, something the Quincy Institute claims to oppose.

So if you’re interested in viewing world events through a lens that is untainted by corrupt narrative management, some skepticism of this new Quincy Institute is not just appropriate, but absolutely required.

The term “think tank” almost always refers to a group of academics hired by plutocrats to come up with reasons why it is very good and smart to do something very evil and stupid, and then to market those reasons at key points of influence. They are key tools of narrative management for the billionaire class, and the interests of the billionaire class are rarely in alignment with those of ordinary people. This is especially true when said billionaires are operating in a bipartisan manner.

But the good news is that all we have to do to know the truth about this new group’s purposes is watch its behavior over time, and pay attention to who benefits from the narratives it ends up pushing. Just make a mental note of the information you have about it now, and pay attention to what’s happening when you see the words “Quincy Institute” in reports from the political/media class going forward. If this think tank is what it claims to be, we will see this proven over time in the effects it has on dominant narratives and government policy. If it isn’t, we’ll see that, too.

_________________________

The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for my website, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following my antics on Twitter, throwing some money into my hat on Patreon or Paypal, purchasing some of my sweet merchandise, buying my new book Rogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone, or my previous book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish or use any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge.

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Only Trump Could Go To North Korea – Gold Goats ‘n Guns

Posted by M. C. on July 2, 2019

https://tomluongo.me/2019/07/01/only-trump-could-go-to-north-korea/

Author: Tom Luongo

Donald Trump did the unthinkable. He went to North Korea. He stepped over the line in the sand demarked by Washington protocol for nearly seventy years.

And that Washington establishment, predictably, hates him for it. It can be felt from all sides of the political rotunda. They hate that Trump realizes their position, one of maximum pressure, isn’t working.

They despise that Russia and China will benefit from ending this frozen conflict not to mention Koreans on both sides of the DMZ.

The cynic in me thinks they are angry that the American people will benefit as well.

So this weekend was a good one for peaceniks around the world. Trump and Chinese Premier Xi Jinping agreed to back down on the worst of his trade war demands.

Trump presumably had a good meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin which likely set the stage for his meeting with Chairman Kim Jong-un. Remember Kim met with Putin earlier this year and designated him as his go-between with Trump after the talks in Hanoi fell apart…

And only people so full of bile and despite would not be happy about this. Only people so enthralled with the thought of war and their own political and social ambitions would look at this event and seek to tear it down.

These are the people who lost yesterday in Trump’s historic and brilliant bit of diplomacy. And they are complaining bitterly about it today.

Everyone else wins.

In the land of the Twitterati, after stripping away the snark masquerading as analysis, we are left with a bunch of malcontents bemoaning their lost relevance…

In the past few weeks we’ve seen a smarter, savvier Trump avoid the traps his allies and advisors set for him. He’s showed immense restraint.

And now, Trump is climbing down off the immense mountain of entitlement he and his advisors placed him on. By stepping over the line into North Korea and meeting with Kim for nearly an hour he’s beginning to deliver on the promises he made during the 2016 campaign.

Why wouldn’t I or anyone else be cheering?

When Iran shot down that drone I said on Sputnik Radio that to solve Iran’s nuclear weapons problem Trump should be looking to North Korea. Getting Kim to agree to freezing warhead production, and presumably dissemination, ends the possibility of Iran achieving that goal anytime soon.

After meeting with most of his ‘enemies’ at the G-20, Trump did just that. He pivoted away from Iran, now a source of political pitfalls, back to North Korea which was the right thing to do.

If Iran wanted a bomb they would have one. If Russia and China wanted Iran to have one, they would have one.

So all of this talk is simply theater. Just like the strategic importance of North Korea in 2019 is still relevant with China fully capable of projecting its interests on its own.

It’s time for this insanity to end. Full stop.

The Koreans want it. The Russians want it. The Chinese want it. Japan wants it.

And we should want it too…

Be seeing you

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