Chaos and the Anti-Thread

[Dreamtimer]

This biggest and most important thing that President Biden has done, imo, is actually talk to the American People. He and his Press Secretary actually talk to us, answer questions without attacking reporters and calling them names, and give actual information as opposed to empty talking points.

Biden has passed some very important bills while swimming against the current because he can't paddle upstream since both his canoe and paddles were taken.

Recall that he was not given a peaceful transfer of power nor was he given the usual honeymoon period.

If you actually compare media reports, when Trump got the same job numbers his economy was 'booming'. When Biden gets even better numbers the media says his economy is 'sluggish'.

(One day, in fantasy land, people will actually see that the media was way too nice to conservatives and regularly propped them up and made them look better than they were. Of course, the damage is already done.)

Most importantly, to me anyway, Biden does't deny the insurrection nor does he sweep it under the rug.

If you want to die from a disease, deny it. Then it will kill you. This is metaphorically true here in the States, and also literally true as more and more people die unnecessarily from Covid.

[Emil El Zapato]

This biggest and most important thing that President Biden has done, imo, is actually talk to the American People. He and his Press Secretary actually talk to us, answer questions without attacking reporters and calling them names, and give actual information as opposed to empty talking points.

Biden has passed some very important bills while swimming against the current because he can't paddle upstream since both his canoe and paddles were taken.

Recall that he was not given a peaceful transfer of power nor was he given the usual honeymoon period.

If you actually compare media reports, when Trump got the same job numbers his economy was 'booming'. When Biden gets even better numbers the media says his economy is 'sluggish'.

(One day, in fantasy land, people will actually see that the media was way too nice to conservatives and regularly propped them up and made them look better than they were. Of course, the damage is already done.)

Most importantly, to me anyway, Biden does't deny the insurrection nor does he sweep it under the rug.

If you want to die from a disease, deny it. Then it will kill you. This is metaphorically true here in the States, and also literally true as more and more people die unnecessarily from Covid.

Hi DT,

yeah, Biden is working ... it's no wonder that his numbers are bad ... I'm convinced in the current climate Jesus is under 50% approval. Half of us are stark raving mad. I've been reading a 'zeitgeist' history of Europe lately and I realized that as people have been saying we are experiencing a rerun of 20th century Germany. What is different though is what segment of the populace is 'zeitgeisting' the run toward authoritarianism. In 1920's Germany it was the intelligentsia that led the change. It was the Professors of the university systems that wanted to see the rise of the uber-German. In fact, the primary mover was a homosexual anti-semitic named Schramm. Their perspective was that of a romantic Victorian vision of the former great leaders. The similarity here is that the vision was a fantasy not based on the reality of history, fake history as Aianawa would say. But the incremental movement was one of most, "Oh well, we can't do any better than Hitler to accomplish the goal so let's do it"

Stated succinctly, it was indifference to the social mechanisms of ethics, COMPASSION, and justice.

What is different now is that the movers are essentially the clueless and their manipulation by the overtly political and authoritarian with the Great Leader holding the analogous position of Hitler.

[Dreamtimer]

Jesus is being left behind by prosperity gospel. This take on Christianity is pretty much the opposite of the teachings of Jesus. And so we have Americans who say they don't care if money came from criminal activity. A person is blessed by God to have it. So they should lead.

Jesus would both weep and turn tables over at the current state of the Christian churches, imo.

I'm watching people still call the President sleepy Joe. What in the world are they paying attention to? He's been quite busy.

But I guess people prefer a guy who sits and watches TV hours a day. Weird though, since they say they don't like the Deep State. Supporting a guy who lets the Deep State do whatever it wants while he watches Fox and OAN and saying he fights the Deep State is pretty bat-shit crazy.

But then, I never thought Trump followers were very sane.

Which is why I'm entirely confused by folks I know, who should know better.

Crazy times.

[Emil El Zapato]

Jesus is being left behind by prosperity gospel. This take on Christianity is pretty much the opposite of the teachings of Jesus. And so we have Americans who say they don't care if money came from criminal activity. A person is blessed by God to have it. So they should lead.

Jesus would both weep and turn tables over at the current state of the Christian churches, imo.

I'm watching people still call the President sleepy Joe. What in the world are they paying attention to? He's been quite busy.

But I guess people prefer a guy who sits and watches TV hours a day. Weird though, since they say they don't like the Deep State. Supporting a guy who lets the Deep State do whatever it wants while he watches Fox and OAN and saying he fights the Deep State is pretty bat-shit crazy.

But then, I never thought Trump followers were very sane.

Which is why I'm entirely confused by folks I know, who should know better.

Crazy times.

Well, the pattern can be discerned I believe. Combination of magical thinking, wishful thinking, and a genetic predisposition towards authoritarianism. I mustn't forget 'romanticism'. Romanticism is what has led us to hell and back in just about any way I can envision. But, in this case, a romanticism rooted in the self-aggrandizement of one's historical heritage. Most all of it is fantasy and American history is not a far cry from that norm. Witness Aianawa's Sepulfhur, the guy is the spittin' prototype of fake historical wishful and magical thinking. Here's an interesting historical footnote: To be considered a magical King leader in the early middle ages merely required a passing familiarity with algebra. Plenty of romantic legends have evolved around that. :)

[Wind]

Well, the pattern can be discerned I believe. Combination of magical thinking, wishful thinking, and a genetic predisposition towards authoritarianism. I mustn't forget 'romanticism'. Romanticism is what has led us to hell and back in just about any way I can envision.

Are you perhaps referring to Manifest destiny there?


Here's an interesting historical footnote: To be considered a magical King leader in the early middle ages merely required a passing familiarity with algebra. Plenty of romantic legends have evolved around that. :)

Interesting. So they considered math magical?

[Emil El Zapato]

Are you perhaps referring to Manifest destiny there?



Interesting. So they considered math magical?

yup, imagine that, huh ... yeah Manifest Destiny is a very good example.

[Wind]

oZ2hpebVvoQ

[Emil El Zapato]

oZ2hpebVvoQ

FDR was a communist ... and he wasn't even Jewish ... was he ... hmm :)

[Wind]

FDR was a communist ... and he wasn't even Jewish ... was he ... hmm :)

Your kind of guy?

[Wind]

hNDgcjVGHIw
vjUe6L7V2Ak

[Emil El Zapato]

:) Talk about wishful thinking... We can see what it means right now 'to hold all the power'. Never happen. Dems have a conscience which means they can't have all the power.

[Emil El Zapato]

Ok, that demon cat is coming down. I was working on my desktop computer speakers and opened up a 4-inch by 2.4 inch container of different plug sizes. I tried a few before I hit on the right size, so I proceeded to plug everything in and of course the speakers still did not fire up with power not to mention the migraine that I developed because of all the lights I was using. So I gave up, and started packaging everything up so I could keep them for possible future use. The package was gone ... I didn't think that I had moved more than 3 feet while going through this entire process but nothing gone...poof. I've pretty much searched the entire downstairs of my house and nothing, gonzo, period exclamation point. I freaking give up...

[Dreamtimer]

I don't want to be mean here, it's not my intention.

Almost every time I see an image or video of Candace Owens I see someone who doesn't look real. She looks android-like. As if she has a silicon mask for a face. I can't get past this. It doesn't matter the setting, the lighting, her clothes, none of that makes a difference.

I can't think of anyone else who strikes me this way. I have no doubt that she's a human with human skin, but she just doesn't look like it. She looks manufactured. Like she was ordered off Amazon.

This chaos thread seemed to be the place for such a weird observation.

[Fred Steeves]

I don't want to be mean here, it's not my intention.

Almost every time I see an image or video of Candace Owens I see someone who doesn't look real. She looks android-like. As if she has a silicon mask for a face. I can't get past this. It doesn't matter the setting, the lighting, her clothes, none of that makes a difference.

I can't think of anyone else who strikes me this way. I have no doubt that she's a human with human skin, but she just doesn't look like it. She looks manufactured. Like she was ordered off Amazon.

It's because she's one of "them".

[Emil El Zapato]

It's because she's one of "them".

Excellent ... she is one of them. She is one of those that can't differentiate between her racial legacy and her desire to be white. Those ones are just sad when I'm in a good mood, they are something else when they sit on the Supreme Court.

[Aragorn]

I don't want to be mean here, it's not my intention.

Almost every time I see an image or video of Candace Owens I see someone who doesn't look real. She looks android-like. As if she has a silicon mask for a face. I can't get past this. It doesn't matter the setting, the lighting, her clothes, none of that makes a difference.

I can't think of anyone else who strikes me this way. I have no doubt that she's a human with human skin, but she just doesn't look like it. She looks manufactured. Like she was ordered off Amazon.

It's because she's one of "them".

Excellent ... she is one of them. She is one of those that can't differentiate between her racial legacy and her desire to be white. Those ones are just sad when I'm in a good mood, they are something else when they sit on the Supreme Court.

Hook, line, and sinker, Fred.

[Wind]

Almost every time I see an image or video of Candace Owens I see someone who doesn't look real. She looks android-like. As if she has a silicon mask for a face. I can't get past this. It doesn't matter the setting, the lighting, her clothes, none of that makes a difference.

I can't think of anyone else who strikes me this way. I have no doubt that she's a human with human skin, but she just doesn't look like it. She looks manufactured. Like she was ordered off Amazon.

You'd be surprised to know what kind of beings and "androids" actually walk pretending to be humans or thinking that they're like normal humans. Yet the consciousness seems very different. This isn't necessarily about Candace either, but many people don't understand what it means to be human. I think it has a lot to do with empathy and compassion. I was just actually yesterday watching her debate with Russell Brand and I couldn't tolerate listening to that before, but I wanted to hear where she was coming from. Apparently she came from quite the poor background, but I really can't understand her cold-hearted mentality. Many have called her just a grifter who is in it for the money. Does she really believe all of the things she is saying or is she just a talking head? Ben Shapiro made her more famous.

[Dreamtimer]

They Live! If I put the glasses on, Candace would still be human. And still seem fundamentally artificial. And I imagine I would be surprised at the humanoids among us.

The robots are a concern.

[Dreamtimer]

This video (https://jandeane81.com/showthread.php/12679-All-Down-The-Line?p=842044356&viewfull=1#post842044356) posted by Gio is a good watch to help remind how easy we have it when we don't live in a city like Mumbai. No disrespect to the city or its inhabitants. Just perspective.

When my husband gets bitchy I remind him, "First-world problems, hon. First-world problems." (yes, I'm aware that there are third-world conditions here)

[Emil El Zapato]

I just read that 3 of my fellow students at Tolar High School have signed my ClassMates Guestbook... lol

About 3 or 4 years ago, I got tired of getting ads to join ClassMates, so I signed up under a bogus date of graduation and what school I never went to. Apparently 3 people remember me which is pretty cool if you think about it. :)

[Dreamtimer]

Soooo...we now have banned books. Where are the book burning parties, I wonder?

And nazis gathering in Florida.


I may have to start catching more Hannity clips. He's comically off the wall. He said that AOC controls the Democrat party, an assertion which is patently ludicrous. He and his guest are discussing AOC and her looks, of course. His guest was claiming no one would care what she has to say if she was obese and middle-aged.

Ahhh, such wondrous and inspiring wisdom. It's not like anyone thought Sarah Palin was hot or ever talked about how the left was 'so jealous' of her. That thought would never enter their minds...Her physical features were never even noticed were they?

I doubt they'll ever compare crowd sizes...

AOC likely has more name recognition amongst Republicans than she does amongst Democrats.

It's fun to watch Hannity and his guest project out all their insecurities and broadcast the shallowness of their analysis. Too bad so many folks see substance there.

[Wind]

AOC controls the Democrat party

If only! It would be great too if it were true what they said about Joe Biden, meaning that he would apply leftist and progressive policies.

[Dreamtimer]

Someone didn't get the memo that she and the progressives voted against the infrastructure bill because of their position with Build Back Better. (which they were correct about)

But those same someones also didn't get the memo that the funds that numerous representatives are bragging about bringing to their districts are funds they literally voted against.

Talk about wanting to have your cake and eat it too.

But in the upside-down world of truth equals a strongly held opinion, it is what it is.

[Dreamtimer]

I saw an ad for Cosmic Disclosure from Gaia. But none of the faces were familiar. No Goode, no Wilcock, no one I recognized.

Lizard people yes, but no blue chickens.

[Dreamtimer]

It's all clear to me now. The Maus ban was just a false flag. The Tennessee school board secretly wanted to boost the book's sales. And boy (https://www.forbes.com/sites/carlieporterfield/2022/01/28/maus-sales-surge-after-tennessee-school-district-bans-the-holocaust-graphic-novel/?sh=2612c522be3d) did they succeed. Is someone related to the author? What a brilliant ploy. :blink::crazy::wacko:

For those bitching and moaning about cancel culture, this shit's way worse.

[Dreamtimer]

I really don't want to 'discuss' Matt Gaetz, who is, astonishingly, a US Representative. So I'll just say that the gates are closing in on Gaetz and the big one's a portcullis. His arms just aren't strong enough for that one. It's not a young lady.

His friend and cohort, Greenberg, has received yet another extension which likely means that even more folks are under scrutiny.


More specifics of those “sensitive matters” will likely have to be provided, and could compromise the continued investigations if public.

The prosecutors also told the court in the last extension that Greenberg’s cooperation had taken them in directions they did not expect. Isn’t that interesting when combined with all this?

:popc::popc::popc:

[Dreamtimer]

Hey BOB, don't you want to hang around and see what happens?

[Gio]

Hey BOB, don't you want to hang around and see what happens?

Yeah come on back, where would you go dude ... :frantic:

Well of course there's always that real day job (over at PA) ...
What could be in it for a real 'Sock-Puppet'?

Oh yeah, i almost forgot (https://jandeane81.com/showthread.php/11414-What-Motivates-Bill-Ryan-of-Project-Avalon-Community-Forum?p=841979251&viewfull=1#post841979251) ...

[Wind]

2YWYyryWBa4

[Dreamtimer]

Why are the "Freedom Fighters" in Canada waving Confederate and Nazi flags? Why do people think that turning freedom on its head will bring forth more of it?

[Dreamtimer]

Socialism is the other "Ooh, Shiny!" being pushed all over the place. Here! Look here at this terrible thing! When there's no socialism, just thrusts to undermine social programs which were created to promote the general welfare. Even our founding principles are being turned on their heads.

But the would-be controllers are not socialists. That's a certainty.

[Dreamtimer]

At 2:45, "Chucky's Back!"


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jALOye8HkM

[Emil El Zapato]

At 2:45, "Chucky's Back!"


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jALOye8HkM

gawd, that's weird ... lol

[Dreamtimer]

Johnny was a master. We enjoyed his performances for years. The cigarette trick is the most amazing. He takes the burning cigarette down into his throat and then pushes on his belly to 'make' the smoke come out. Then he brings it back up, still burning. I posted a clip a few years ago with this trick.

[Dreamtimer]

A man accosted me the other day. We stopped at a Turkey Hill gas station and I went inside to get something to eat. A man older (and wider) than me blocked the aisle so that I couldn't pass. Then he kept asking me how many pills I take. I looked at him in silence and then finally said, "No pills." He replies, "Really, you look like that and you don't take any pills?". I just said, "It is what it is."

It was supposed to be some kind of complement on my 'natural beauty'. But I just felt like I was being trapped in the aisle by a man who wasn't going to let me pass until I spoke to him.

Loser.

[Emil El Zapato]

Johnny was a master. We enjoyed his performances for years. The cigarette trick is the most amazing. He takes the burning cigarette down into his throat and then pushes on his belly to 'make' the smoke come out. Then he brings it back up, still burning. I posted a clip a few years ago with this trick.

I believe I remember, DT ... :)


A man accosted me the other day. We stopped at a Turkey Hill gas station and I went inside to get something to eat. A man older (and wider) than me blocked the aisle so that I couldn't pass. Then he kept asking me how many pills I take. I looked at him in silence and then finally said, "No pills." He replies, "Really, you look like that and you don't take any pills?". I just said, "It is what it is."

It was supposed to be some kind of complement on my 'natural beauty'. But I just felt like I was being trapped in the aisle by a man who wasn't going to let me pass until I spoke to him.

Loser.

now that is a little strange...never would have thought of a pickup line like that ... jeesh

[Wind]

now that is a little strange...never would have thought of a pickup line like that ... jeesh

That's probably because you don't have the mind of Pill Cosby.

[Dreamtimer]

Now why haven't I seen that before...Pill Cosby. Brilliant.

[Aragorn]

That's probably because you don't have the mind of Pill Cosby.

Now why haven't I seen that before...Pill Cosby. Brilliant.

Pillzebub? :lol: :ttr:

[Dreamtimer]

Yeah man. Doesn't even matter if it's red or blue. Just don't take three.

[Dreamtimer]

Taylor Budowich who is a spokesperson for Trump said recently that "Trump remade the Republican Party". Hogwash. Trump knew exactly which team to join. He made it clear when he announced that he would not lose any votes if he shot someone on Fifth Avenue. And he was right. He had utterly unConstitutional chants going of "Lock her up!" and "Twelve more Years!" He knew which team would let him 'get away with it'. A lesson I learned in from my older brother.

Trump didn't remake shit. He's an opportunist. And those who really know, know that what he does is ruin, not remake.

[Emil El Zapato]

U.S. Senator - Election to Senate in 1968

In 1968, Gravel ran against 81-year-old incumbent Democratic United States Senator Ernest Gruening, a popular former governor of the Alaska Territory who was considered one of the fathers of Alaska's statehood, for his party's nomination to the U.S. Senate. Gravel's campaign was primarily based on his youth and telegenic appearance rather than issue differences. He hired Joseph Napolitan, the first self-described political consultant, in late 1966. They spent over a year and a half planning a short, nine-day primary election campaign that featured the slogans "Alaska first" and "Let's do something about the state we're in", the distribution of a collection of essays titled Jobs and More Jobs, and the creation of a half-hour, well-produced, glamorized biographical film of Gravel, Man for Alaska. The film was shown twice a day on every television station in Alaska, and carried by plane and shown on home projectors in hundreds of Alaska Native villages. The heavy showings quickly reversed a 2–to–1 Gruening lead in polls into a Gravel lead. Gravel visited many remote villages by seaplane and showed a thorough understanding of the needs of the bush country and the fishing and oil industries. Gravel also benefited from maintaining a deliberately ambiguous posture about Vietnam policy. Gruening had been one of only two Senators to vote against the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and his opposition to President Lyndon B. Johnson's war policies was harming him among the Democratic electorate; according to Gravel, "all I had to do was stand up and not deal with the subject, and people would assume that I was to the right of Ernest Gruening, when in point of fact I was to the left of him". In Man for Alaska, Gravel argued that "the liberals" would come to West Germany's defense if it was attacked, and that the same standard should apply to the United States' allies in Asia. During the campaign he also claimed that he was "more in the mainstream of American thought on Vietnam" than Gruening, despite the fact that he had written to Gruening to praise his antiwar stance four years earlier. Decades later, Gravel conceded that "I said what I said [about Vietnam] to advance my career."

Gravel beat Gruening in the primary by about 2,000 votes. Gruening found "the unexpected defeat hard to take" and thought that some aspects of his opponent's biographical film had misled viewers. In the general election, Gravel faced Republican Elmer E. Rasmuson, a banker and former mayor of Anchorage. College students in the state implored Gruening to run a write-in campaign as an Independent, but legal battles prevented him from getting approval for it until only two weeks were left. A late appearance by anti-war presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy did not offset Gruening's lack of funds and endorsements; meanwhile, Gravel and Rasmuson both saturated local media with their filmed biographies. On November 5, 1968, Gravel won the general election with 45 percent of the vote to Rasmuson's 37 percent and Gruening's 18 percent.

[Dreamtimer]

I finally watched the Super Bowl half time show. Candace was right, it was good. The set was really interesting. I liked the bird's eye view of LA on the field under the bright white buildings.

One of the few things I heard about it was some folks getting upset at Eminem taking a knee. So I was interested to see how that played out. It was brilliant. He's the only white guy up there. And when he took the knee he stayed there and held his position.

Who was it who said free speech for me but not for thee? When the cops want to protect the speech of a group like BLM then I'll believe they want to protect speech.

[Emil El Zapato]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8Hp9ZqVxGA

[Dreamtimer]

I came across a quote yesterday from a Ukrainian woman asking Russian troops why they were there. She said they should put some sunflower seeds in their pockets.

The idea is that when they die on Ukrainian soil, sunflowers will grow.

[Dreamtimer]

This is good advice, I think.


(Nope, I don't use Auto-Mistake: Thou shalt not let machines do thy thinking.)

[Dreamtimer]

I have been having a very strange experience of late which is being able to relate on a personal level to Biden.

Throughout my life I have been given grief and unhappiness for my good qualities. As if they're bad. For example, when I try to share information I might hear, "What, do you sit around reading the news all day?" As if being informed is a bad thing. Or, I am going to play a game and someone says, "You always win." Again, a bad thing. Also not true. I certainly don't even mostly win. And there's no imitation of cheating. It's just winning that's bad. Or, "You just don't get it, you have a presence when you walk into a room." Ah. So I should strive to be a wallflower then? It's not like I'm dominating conversations. It's just my presence. One of the best ones was just being criticized for being happy. How dare I?!!

So Biden gets jobs numbers that are astoundingly good and the media is like, I guess that's Ok, for now. But....something something maybe bad. Speculation. Bringing down the President.

On a personal level it's easy for me to just keep on truckin' and strive to not let people bring me down. On a national level it's just irresponsible to undermine whatever good is happening. What's the purpose? Undermine the country for ratings? Not a very good business plan.

[Wind]

https://i.pinimg.com/564x/ee/19/df/ee19df2684c2106a0547b80d2ee0303d.jpg

[Dreamtimer]

Here's an opinion,


Zelensky is clearly a liberal, willing to see different sides of an argument. He also posseses great emotional intelligence.

These qualities will always be underestimated by authoritarian bullies because in their eyes they make someone appear 'weak'.

But in reality these are the qualities that make someone a truly successful human being.

[Dreamtimer]

The Republicans aren't going to be getting so much cash from Russians anymore. It'll be interesting to see how that plays out.

[Dreamtimer]

It's starting to look like Putin and Trump have something in common. Behind the flashy veneer, nothing. A fake billionaire and a paper tiger.

[Emil El Zapato]

Hi Wind,

I just saw the Finnish President holding a press conference with Sleepy Joe:

I know you are at least 20 years younger than him but could one tell that you two are from the same country? I'm after all, 3%-4% Swedish and have a cousin in Finland. :)

[Wind]

I know you are at least 20 years younger than him but could one tell that you two are from the same country? I'm after all, 3%-4% Swedish and have a cousin in Finland. :)

Our president Sauli Niinistö is 73 years old so he isn't very young anymore either. He is a right-winger, people say he looks weird.

Finland has tried to stay neutral (https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/sisters-not-twins-prospects-finland-and-swedens-nato-accession), but as you know it can be very hard for a country like ours. Sweden is behind us geographically so it is much easier for them to be totally neutral as they have us as the buffer zone between them and Russia, they're not even part of NATO like Norway is. As you can remember, back in the summer of 2018 Finland and our president held a meeting for Trump and Putin here in Helsinki, our country has tried a lot to uphold peace, yet it is no easy task as this is just one small northern European country.

https://images.cdn.yle.fi/image/upload/w_1200,h_800,ar_1.5003751516342163,dpr_1,c_fill,g_ faces/q_auto:eco,f_auto,fl_lossy/13-3-11747303

[Emil El Zapato]

The Putin cheering section is still going strong over on PA, it's stunning the way perceptions are twisted beyond recognizable reality. I guess that's the real truth seen through a blurry screen of thought. The mixed and stirred juxtaposition of for/against and good/bad is just well ... unreal!

[Fred Steeves]

The Putin cheering section is still going strong over on PA, it's stunning the way perceptions are twisted beyond recognizable reality. I guess that's the real truth seen through a blurry screen of thought. The mixed and stirred juxtaposition of for/against and good/bad is just well ... unreal!

An old one liner about a pot and a kettle comes to mind... :rolleyes:

[Emil El Zapato]

An old one liner about a pot and a kettle comes to mind... :rolleyes:

Motivation Fred, motivation.

And, don't forget that outdated notion of consensus reality.

[Dreamtimer]

Here's a little ShowerCap (https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/3/4/2084018/-Hitler-But-Dumber-The-Vladimir-Putin-Story) for ya, Chuckie. He's on a roll.


Yes, Putin now begins what looks to be a lengthy residency in Consequencesville. I’m actually dead as I write this, having foolhardily made a drinking game of the steady stream of sanctions announcements.


Every ten minutes you hear about another one, “the International Society of Erotic Harry Potter Fanfic Writers (ISEHPFfW) will no longer recognize their Moscow-based chapter,” that kind of thing. I’m sure you’re fine; angry soccer fans seldom lash out, right?


Like, hey Mike Pompeo, what was it you called Vlad on the eve of his campaign of atrocities? “Very savvy,” was it? “Elegantly sophisticated,” even? That was your assessment while he was marshaling his forces to slaughter civilians? Bet that breathes new life into your Surely Presidential Candidates Don’t Need Charisma Anyway My Mom Thinks I’m Likeable* campaign.

There are links in the original which I have not included here.

[Emil El Zapato]

Here's a little ShowerCap (https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/3/4/2084018/-Hitler-But-Dumber-The-Vladimir-Putin-Story) for ya, Chuckie. He's on a roll.







There are links in the original which I have not included here.

Why, thank you kindly, Ma'am

[Fred Steeves]

I recently stumbled across these YouTube channels that put out decoys for child sexual predators on the prowl out there, so rather than meeting a supposed child, the predator meets up with the adult who was playing a child.

It's like putting a big fat shrimp on a hook for a fish, they just can't help themselves.

This one's a doozy: (18 minutes)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuEejxzV3y4

[Emil El Zapato]

yeah, that happens a lot ... I think I've seen how they work.

[Dreamtimer]

The 'Karens' have caused me to doubt women. The Fins are helping me to regain faith in the capabilities of women.




Finland's 36-year-old female Prime Minister, Sanna Marin, heads a governing coalition of five political parties -- all led by women and almost all aged in their 30s. It is a nation largely run by women.

The strong participation of women in decision-making has helped build a nation that ranks first among the world's 193 nations in sustainable development

Finland has achieved or nearly achieved the UN's goals for improving health, education, water, energy, and peace, alleviating poverty and reducing inequality.

And far from being a centrally-planned socialist economy, Finland is, in fact, the opposite: a thriving, free-market economy that boasts both the world's best business environment and the strongest rule of law

[Wind]

I like her a lot as she's been one of the best prime ministers we have had in years, but recently she has been under a lot of scrutiny here.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c4/Sanna_Marin_M-7403_07.jpg

[Emil El Zapato]

she's a looker ... :)

Putin's rise to power:

disclaimer: unbiased source, but not much point/counterpoint, just indicting information against Putin


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIgqhU4lkgo

[Wind]

This is what true empathy is about.

eK93axLKQUw

[Emil El Zapato]

List of Saddam's Crimes Is Long
By ABC News

Dec. 30, 2006 — -- Saddam Hussein was hanged for ordering the deaths of 148 Shiite men and boys in the village of Dujail after an assassination attempt there in 1982. But by the standards of his brutal rule, the Dujail killings were a relatively minor crime.

The exact number of deaths attributable to Saddam Hussein may never be known, but estimates range as high as half a million. There is evidence of more than 250 mass graves dating to his rule.

Following is a list of other crimes Saddam is accused of. The most notorious is his genocidal campaign against the Kurds in the north. The trial for those murders, and for others, will now continue with the remaining defendants.

1974 -- Dawa Killings
Five leaders of the Shiite Islamic Dawa Party were sentenced to death and killed as Saddam consolidated his power. In 2004, those murders were among many charges announced against Saddam. The U.S. State Department estimates thousands of Saddam's political rivals were killed.

1980 -- Fayli Deportations and Killings
Thousands of Kurds of the Fayli sect were persecuted. Some were expelled to Iran, others killed. Saddam thought of them as Iranian, and therefore as enemies. Fayli women were often imprisoned or put into camps.

1983 -- Barzani Abductions
After the Iraqi-based Kurdistan Democratic Party allied with Iran during the Iran-Iraq War, Saddam sought to punish the clan and its leader, Massoud Barzani. More than 5,000 males, some as young as 10, disappeared. Decades later the remains of 512 Barzani men were discovered in a mass grave. They were reinterred in 2005. A letter that shows Saddam's direct involvement in the crimes was discovered in Baghdad.

1988 -- Al-Anfal Campaign
From February to September 1988, Saddam conducted what has been called a genocidal campaign against the Kurdish population. Gen. Ali Hassan al-Majid, or "Chemical Ali," Saddam's cousin, carried out the Al-Anfal operation using chemical weapons. Human Rights Watch estimates between 50,000 and 100,000 died. Kurdish officials and some international human rights groups put the number killed as high as 182,000. Saddam was on trial for the Anfal campaign at the time of his execution. Six defendants remain in the Al-Anfal case, including "Chemical Ali," who is facing charges of genocide.

1988 -- Halabja Gassing
During the Anfal campaign, "Chemical Ali" ordered an attack against civilians in the town of Halabja. Iraqi forces dropped bombs containing mustard and nerve gases. An estimated 5,000 men, women and children died in a single day. Many more died from long-term medical problems, and birth defects are still common in the area.

1990s -- Marsh Arabs Devastated
Saddam attacked the Shiite "Marsh Arabs" by destroying their land. Once a significant wetland, the marshes in southern Iraq were devastated by a government drainage plan that left behind a wasteland. In 1991, 250,000 Marsh Arabs lived in the region. Now 90 percent of the area is in ruins and only an estimated 20,000 people remain. Tens of thousands live in refugee camps in Iran. Efforts are now underway to restore the marshes. Human Rights Watch calls the campaign against the Marsh Arabs a crime against humanity and other rights activists call it genocide. There are claims chemical weapons also were used.

1990 -- Invasion of Kuwait
In August of 1990, Saddam ordered the Iraqi military, the fourth largest military in the world at the time, to invade Kuwait, leading to the 1991 Gulf War. Iraqi soldiers are accused of torturing and executing hundreds of Kuwaitis, as well as taking hostages and looting. More than 700 oil wells were set on fire and pipelines opened, spilling oil into the Gulf.

1991 -- Kurdish and Shiite Rebellions
After heeding President George H.W. Bush's call to rebel against Saddam, Shiites and Kurds were crushed by immense Iraqi military force. Saddam turned his military against the people as part of his widespread crackdown after the war. The rebels thought they would have the backing of the U.S. military. Thousands have been discovered in mass graves.

1999 -- Al-Sadr Assassination
Ayatollah Muhammed al-Sadr, father of prominent Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, and two of his sons were assassinated in 1999. Al-Sadr was a well-liked Shiite leader, and his death spawned Shiite uprisings in Baghdad. As he had previously, Saddam cracked down on the rebellion and hundreds were killed.

In a statement responding to the execution, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki said, "Let the families of Iraqi martyrs killed in mass graves, Anfal, Halabja or those executed in the cells of the dead regime be happy. The mothers, orphans and widows should celebrate the death of the buried dictator."

[Emil El Zapato]

Please note that this information was purposefully declassified by the United States Government. Please read it carefully and do a little more research if necessary:

Newly declassified CIA documents "combined with exclusive interviews with former intelligence officials reveal new details about the depth of the United States' knowledge of how and when Iraq" used chemical weapons against Iran in the 1980s, Foreign Policy reports.

According to the magazine:

"In 1988, during the waning days of Iraq's war with Iran, the United States learned through satellite imagery that Iran was about to gain a major strategic advantage by exploiting a hole in Iraqi defenses. U.S. intelligence officials conveyed the location of the Iranian troops to Iraq."

For several years before that, CIA documents show, U.S. officials were aware that Iraq had been using chemical weapons in its long war against neighboring Iran and likely would again.

That's just what happened, according to Foreign Policy:

"The Iraqis used mustard gas and sarin prior to four major offensives in early 1988 that relied on U.S. satellite imagery, maps, and other intelligence. These attacks helped to tilt the war in Iraq's favor and bring Iran to the negotiating table, and they ensured that the Reagan administration's long-standing policy of securing an Iraqi victory would succeed."

The new report comes, of course, as the U.S. and other nations weigh whether to use military force to send a message to Syrian President Bashar Assad following last week's alleged chemical weapons attack on civilians near Damascus.

The Washington Post's The Switch blog writes that the Foreign Policy story shows how "satellite imagery can be used to violate human rights, or to protect them."

[Emil El Zapato]

This article is written by a Middle-Eastern scholar born in the U.S. and educated in England. His views are by default going to be from the perspective of Middle-Eastern political philosophy which in an honorable world is significant because it is honest and honed from personal experience, as well as earned and learned through scholarship. i.e. Egyptian Muslim [me]

There are many things worse than American power

Shadi Hamid Tuesday, March 8, 2022

Shadi Hamid is an American author and a senior fellow in Brookings Institution. He is also a contributing writer at The Atlantic. He has been called a "prominent thinker on religion and politics" in the New York Times and was named as one of "The world's top 50 thinkers" in 2019 by Prospect Magazine.

Editor's Note: While U.S. foreign policy has been hypocritical and disappointing in its conduct, relying too often on repressive partners, Shadi Hamid writes, Russia's invasion of Ukraine has reinforced that no moral equivalence exists between the policies of Moscow and Washington, and a world without American power would not be a better world.

If there was any doubt before, the answer is now clear. Vladimir Putin is showing that a world without American power — or, for that matter, Western power — is not a better world.

Shadi Hamid
Senior Fellow - Foreign Policy, Center for Middle East Policy

For the generation of Americans who came of age in the shadow of the September 11 attacks, the world America had made came with a question mark. Their formative experiences were the ones in which American power had been used for ill, in Iraq and Afghanistan. In the Middle East more broadly, and for much longer, the United States had built a security architecture around some of the world’s most repressive regimes. For those on the left, this was nothing new, and it was all too obvious. I spent my college years reading Noam Chomsky and other leftist critics of U.S. foreign policy, and they weren’t entirely wrong. On balance, the U.S. may have been a force for good, but in particular regions and at particular times, it had been anything but.

Blaming America first became all too easy. After September 11, U.S. power was as overwhelming as it was uncontested. That it was squandered on two endless wars made it convenient to focus on America’s sins, while underplaying Russia’s and China’s growing ambitions.

For his part, Putin understood well that the balance of power was shifting. Knowing what he knew, the Russian president wasn’t necessarily “irrational” in deciding to invade Ukraine. He had good reason to think that he could get away with it. After all, he had gotten away with quite a lot for nearly 15 years, ever since the Russian war against Georgia in 2008, when George W. Bush was still president. Then he annexed Crimea in 2014 and intervened brutally in Syria in 2015. Each time, in an understandable desire to avoid an escalatory spiral with Russia, the United States held back and tried not to do anything that might provoke Putin. Meanwhile, Europe became more and more dependent on Russian energy; Germany, for example, was importing 55% of its natural gas from Russia. Just three weeks ago, it was possible for Der Spiegel to declare that most Germans thought “peace with Russia is the only thing that matters.”

The narrative of a feckless and divided West solidified for years. We, as Americans, were feeling unsure of ourselves, so it was only reasonable that Putin would feel it too. In such a context, and after four years of Donald Trump and the domestic turmoil that he wrought, it was tempting to valorize “restraint” and limited engagements abroad. Worried about imperial overreach, most of the American left opposed direct U.S. military action against Bashar Assad’s regime in the early 2010s, even though it was Russian and Iranian intervention on behalf of Syria’s dictator that bore the marks of a real imperial enterprise, not just an imagined one.

Russia’s unprovoked attack on a sovereign nation, in Europe no less, has put matters back in their proper framing. The question of whether the United States is a uniquely malevolent force in global politics has been resolved. In the span of a few days, skeptics of American power have gotten a taste of what a world where America grows weak and Russia grows strong looks like. Of course, there are still holdouts who insist on seeing the United States as the provocateur. In its only public statement on Ukraine, the Democratic Socialists of America condemned Russia’s invasion but also called for “the U.S. to withdraw from NATO and to end the imperialist expansionism that set the stage for this conflict.” This is an odd statement considering that Russia, rather than the United States, has been the world’s most unabashedly imperialist force for the past three decades. But many on the anti-imperialist left aren’t really anti-imperialist; they just have an instinctive aversion to American power.

America’s low opinion of its own capacity for good — and the resulting desire to retreat or disengage — hasn’t just been a preoccupation of the far left. The crisis of confidence has been pervasive, spreading to the halls of power and even President Barack Obama, whose memorable mantra was “Don’t do stupid sh*t.” Instead of thinking about what we could do, or what we could do better, Obama was more interested in a self-limiting principle. For their part, European powers — content to bask under their U.S. security umbrella — could afford to believe in fantasies of perpetual peace. Europe’s gentleness and lethargy — coaxing Germany to commit even 2% of its GDP to defense seemed impossible — became something of a joke. One popular Twitter account, @ISEUConcerned, devoted itself to mocking the European Union’s propensity to express “concern,” but do little else, whenever something bad happened.

Suddenly, the EU has been aroused from its slumber, and the parody account was rendered temporarily speechless. This is no longer tepid concern, but righteous fury. Member states announced that they would send anti-tank weapons to Ukraine. Germany, for the first time, said that it would ramp up its military budget to 100 billion euros. On the economic front, the EU announced some of the toughest sanctions in history. My podcast co-host, Damir Marusic, an Atlantic Council senior fellow, likened it to a “holy war,” European-style.

Sometimes, unusual and extreme events mark the separation between old and new ways of thinking and being. This week, the Berlin-based journalist Elizabeth Zerofsky remarked that the current moment reminded her of the memoir “The World of Yesterday,” written by the Austrian novelist Stefan Zweig as World War II loomed. In it, he recalls the twilight of the Austro-Hungarian Empire with an almost naive fondness. On the first day of the Ukraine invasion, I happened to be speaking to a group of college students who had no memory of September 11. I told them that they may be living in history. Those students, like all of us, are bearing witness to one of those rare events that recast how individuals and nations alike view the world they inhabit.

The coming weeks, months, and years are likely to be as fascinating as they are terrifying. In a sense, we knew that a great confrontation was coming, even if we hadn’t quite envisioned its precise contours. At the start of his presidency, Joe Biden declared that the battle between democracies and autocracies would be the defining struggle of our time. This was grandiose rhetoric, but was it more than that? What does it actually mean to fight such a battle?

In any number of ways, Russia’s aggression has underscored why Biden was right and why authoritarians — and the authoritarian idea itself — are such a threat to peace and stability. Russia invaded Ukraine, a democracy, because of the recklessness and domination of one man, Vladimir Putin. The countries that have rallied most enthusiastically behind Ukraine have almost uniformly been democracies, chief among them the United States. America is lousy, disappointing, and maddeningly hypocritical in its conduct abroad, but the notion of any moral equivalence between the United States and Putin’s Russia has been rendered laughable. And if there is such a thing as a better world, then anti-imperialists may find themselves in the odd position of hoping and praying for the health and longevity of not just the West but of Western power.

[Fred Steeves]

America is lousy, disappointing, and maddeningly hypocritical in its conduct abroad, but the notion of any moral equivalence between the United States and Putin’s Russia has been rendered laughable. And if there is such a thing as a better world, then anti-imperialists may find themselves in the odd position of hoping and praying for the health and longevity of not just the West but of Western power.

That's quite the summation as a rallying call for American imperialism!

"America is lousy, disappointing, and maddeningly hypocritical in its conduct abroad, but they're not as bad as the other guy"...

And that's a white wash to begin with! Not to excuse Putin's actions by any means, but a 25 year side by side comparison of U.S. foreign interventions and Russian interventions would prove quite embarrassing for the U.S., and even more hypocritical than the piece is forced to admit.

This is American neoliberalism at its very finest, at times nearly indiscernible from their neoconservative counterparts.

But anyway let's all be good little boys and girls and chant it together: USA! USA! USA!

[Emil El Zapato]

That's quite the summation as a rallying call for American imperialism!

"America is lousy, disappointing, and maddeningly hypocritical in its conduct abroad, but they're not as bad as the other guy"...

And that's a white wash to begin with! Not to excuse Putin's actions by any means, but a 25 year side by side comparison of U.S. foreign interventions and Russian interventions would prove quite embarrassing for the U.S., and even more hypocritical than the piece is forced to admit.

This is American neoliberalism at its very finest, at times nearly indiscernible from their neoconservative counterparts.

But anyway let's all be good little boys and girls and chant it together: USA! USA! USA!

you do realize that neoliberalism is the same thing as neoconservatism ... you really must pay attention. They are both rooted in right wing corporatism

[Emil El Zapato]

That's quite the summation as a rallying call for American imperialism!

"America is lousy, disappointing, and maddeningly hypocritical in its conduct abroad, but they're not as bad as the other guy"...

And that's a white wash to begin with! Not to excuse Putin's actions by any means, but a 25 year side by side comparison of U.S. foreign interventions and Russian interventions would prove quite embarrassing for the U.S., and even more hypocritical than the piece is forced to admit.

This is American neoliberalism at its very finest, at times nearly indiscernible from their neoconservative counterparts.

But anyway let's all be good little boys and girls and chant it together: USA! USA! USA!

For the ONE-THOUSANDATH TIME:

I have never chanted USA! USA! USA! and never will. If you can get that straight we would have made some huge strides. Save that b.s. for the disappearing 'greatest generation' and baby boomers.

I grew up in the same U.S. as you did Fred ... never really respected it but I don't believe in shit for brains chants of America is the Evil Empire either. I feel strongly about either fantasy being put forth as reality.

If you can integrate that into your programmed brain then we will have made great progress in understanding one another. Just get me straight and you can work on the rest of your life on your own time.

I don't know how many times you need to hear/see it from me but I've plainly stated that the U.S. as a power broker has made mistakes and indulged in Machiavellian plots for what it considered its own best interests, as the rest of the world has and does. In terms of imperialism, the only entity in the 'civilized' global community as we speak indulging in imperialism is Putinia.

Obama let slide Crimea with the leftist philosophy of Kantianism in mental play and Ukraine is now suffering the consequences of it. There is no justification for a paranoid lunatic to live out his fantasies at the expense of innocent people.

And that is my definition of 'INDECENCY', to argue otherwise is beneath human dignity.

[Dreamtimer]

The phenomenon of people putting words in your mouth and feelings in your heart just won't stop, Chuckie. Don't expect it too. For many it's much more gratifying to make it about you and distract you with that conversation. Then the uncomfortable subject can be 'ignored'.

So stay on topic and ignore the personal stuff. Perhaps channel your inner Malcom Nance like, "I'm only going to say it once. That's not what I said." Don't waste your time beyond that.

I've had to learn the hard way to not be led down that garden path.

[Emil El Zapato]

yeah, I made it plain why I was getting out of that thread. It's amazing how people can twist plainly spoken/written words. I'm not sweating it and thanks for your support. :)

[Dreamtimer]

Have you heard of Politics Girl? I just came across her last month. She calls 'em like she sees 'em. I won't start a thread about her because....American politics. But she's a breath of fresh air in that arena. I haven't seen any who compare.

She points out the gross hypocrisy in current right-wing claims surrounding freedom. "Do you think we're just going to roll over?"


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nd4xJJ5pQqo&t=4s

[Emil El Zapato]

Amen ... as the old-timer baseball umpire and Howard Cosell said: I calls 'em like I sees 'em!

[Fred Steeves]

Have you heard of Politics Girl? I just came across her last month. She calls 'em like she sees 'em. I won't start a thread about her because....American politics. But she's a breath of fresh air in that arena. I haven't seen any who compare.

She points out the gross hypocrisy in current right-wing claims surrounding freedom. "Do you think we're just going to roll over?"


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nd4xJJ5pQqo&t=4s

Well, if you go through her videos from the beginning, she unsurprisingly argues for the democratic party straight down the line.

Breath of fresh air? Sure, I guess... in that she totes the party line in her own unique and fiery manner.

Here's just one brief example, telling everyone to vote democrat:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cU5j-eQsbo

[Emil El Zapato]

In partnership with the National Museum of Nuclear Science & History
Debate over the Bomb: An Annotated Bibliography

Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Date: Tuesday, May 17, 2016

More than seventy years after the end of World War II, the decision to drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki remains controversial. Historians and the public continue to debate if the bombings were justified, the causes of Japan's surrender, the casualties that would have resulted if the U.S. had invaded Japan, and more. Some historians, often called "traditionalists," tend to argue that the bombs were necessary in order to save American lives and prevent an invasion of Japan. Other experts, usually called "revisionists," claim that the bombs were unnecessary and were dropped for other reasons, such as to intimidate the Soviet Union. Many historians have taken positions between these two poles.

These books and articles provide a range of perspectives on the atomic bombings. This is not an exhaustive list, but should illustrate some of the different arguments over the decision to use the bombs.

Bibliography on the Debate over the Bomb
• Alperovitz, Gar. Atomic Diplomacy: Hiroshima and Potsdam. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1965.
-------. The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb and the Architecture of an American Myth. New York: Knopf, 1995.
Alperovitz, a prominent revisionist historian, argues that the bombs were unnecessary to force Japan's surrender. In particular, he posits that the Japanese were already close to surrender and that bombs were primarily intended as a political and diplomatic weapon against the Soviet Union.

• Bernstein, Barton. "Understanding the Atomic Bomb and the Japanese Surrender: Missed Opportunities, Little-Known Near Disasters, and Modern Memory." (Spring 1995): 227-73.
Bernstein challenges the notions that the Japanese were ready to surrender before Hiroshima and that the atomic bombings were primarily intended to intimidate the Soviet Union. He also questions traditionalist claims that the U.S. faced a choice between dropping the bomb and an invasion, and that an invasion would lead to hundreds of thousands of American casualties.

• Bird, Kai, and Lawrence Lifschultz, eds. Hiroshima's Shadow: Writings on the Denial of History and the Smithsonian Controversy. Stony Creek, CT: Pamphleteer's Press, 1998.
This collection of essays and primary source documents, written primarily from a revisionist perspective, provides numerous critiques of the use of the atomic bombs. It includes a foreword by physicist Joseph Rotblat, who left the Manhattan Project in 1944 on grounds of conscience.

• Bix, Herbert P. Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan. New York: Perennial, 2000.
This Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of the Japanese emperor asserts that the Japanese did not decide to surrender until after the bombings and the Soviet invasion of Manchuria. Bix attributes responsibility for the bombings to Hirohito's "power, authority, and stubborn personality" and President Truman's "power, determination, and truculence."

• Craig, Campbell and Radchenko, Sergey. The Atomic Bomb and the Origins of the Cold War. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008.
A provocative study of the entrance of the atomic bomb onto the global stage. It questions the various influences impacting the United States' decision to drop the bomb, and discusses the Manhattan Project's role in orchestrating the bipolar conflict of the Cold War.

• Dower, John W. Cultures of War: Pearl Harbor/Hiroshima/9-11/Iraq. New York: W. W. Norton, 2010.
Dower states that the U.S. used the bombs in order to end the war and save American lives, but asserts that Truman could have waited a few weeks before dropping the bombs to see if the Soviet invasion of Manchuria would compel Japan to surrender. He argues that Truman employed "power politics" in order to keep the Soviet Union in check, and criticizes both Japanese and American leaders for their inability to make peace.

• Feis, Herbert. Between War and Peace: The Potsdam Conference. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1960.
Feis presents a blow-by-blow account of the proceedings at the Potsdam Conference that sought to plan the postwar world. He gives particular attention to the discussion of atomic weapons that took place at the conference, noting how it impacted the negotiations of Harry Truman and the American delegation.

• Frank, Richard B. Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire. New York: Penguin Books, 1999.
Frank contends that the Japanese were not close to surrendering before the bombing of Hiroshima. He also concludes that 33,000-39,000 American soldiers would have been killed in an invasion, much lower than the figures usually given by traditionalists.

• Fussell, Paul. Thank God for the Atom Bomb and Other Essays. New York: Summit Books, 1988.
In the title essay, Fussell, a World War II veteran, vividly recalls the war's brutality and defends the bombings as a tragic necessity.

• Giangreco, D.M. Hell to Pay: Operation Downfall and the Invasion of Japan, 1945-1947. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2009.
Giangreco defends estimates that an invasion of Japan would have cost hundreds of thousands of American lives, and challenges the argument that using the bombs was unjustified.

• Gordin, Michael D. Five Days in August: How World War II Became a Nuclear War. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007.
Gordin argues that Hiroshima and Nagasaki stemmed from American decision-makers' belief that the bombs were merely an especially powerful conventional weapon. He claims U.S. leaders did not "clearly understand the atomic bomb's revolutionary strategic potential."

• Hasegawa, Tsuyoshi. Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman and the Surrender of Japan. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2005.
In this history of the end of World War II from American, Japanese, and Soviet perspectives, Hasegawa determines that the Soviet invasion of Manchuria was the primary factor in compelling the Japanese to surrender.

• Hersey, John. Hiroshima. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1946.
Hersey's book-length article, which appeared in the New Yorker one year after the bombing of Hiroshima, profiles six survivors of the attack. It helped give the American public a new picture of the human impact of the bomb and brought about a groundswell of negative opinion against nuclear weapons.

• Lifton, Robert Jay, and Greg Mitchell. Hiroshima in America: A Half Century of Denial. New York: Avon Books, 1995.
Written from a revisionist perspective, this book assesses President Truman's motivations for authorizing the atomic bombings and traces the effects of the bombings on American society.

• Maddox, Robert James. Weapons for Victory: The Hiroshima Decision Fifty Years Later. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 1995.
This analysis contends that Japan had not decided to surrender before Hiroshima, states that the U.S. did not believe the Soviet invasion would force Japan to surrender, and challenges the idea that American officials greatly exaggerated the costs of a U.S. invasion of mainland Japan.

• Malloy, Sean. Atomic Tragedy: Henry L. Stimson and the Decision to Use the Bomb Against Japan. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2008.
Traces the U.S. government's decision to drop the atomic bombs on Japan, using the life of Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson as a lens. This biography frames the contested decision as a moral question faced by American policymakers.

• Miscamble, Wilson D. The Most Controversial Decision: Truman, the Atomic Bombs, and the Defeat of Japan. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
In this short history, Miscamble critiques various revisionist arguments and posits that the bomb was militarily necessary. He also discusses whether the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were morally justified.

• Newman, Robert P. Truman and the Hiroshima Cult. East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 1995.
Newman argues that Truman made a legitimate military decision to bring the war to an end as quickly as possible. He claims the bombings ultimately saved lives and assails what he calls a "cult" of victimhood surrounding the attacks.

• Rotter, Andrew J. Hiroshima: The World's Bomb. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.
This international history of the race to develop the bomb asserts that Truman was primarily motivated by a desire to end the war as quickly as possible, with a minimal loss of American lives. Rotter states that the shocks caused by the atomic bombings and the Soviet invasion of Manchuria were both pivotal to Japan's surrender.

• Stimson, Henry L. "The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb." Harper's Magazine 194:1167 (February 1947): 97-107.
Writing a year and a half after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, former Secretary of War Stimson defends the U.S. decision. He documents the refusal of the Japanese to surrender and estimates that an Allied invasion would have resulted in one million American casualties and many more Japanese deaths.

• Walker, J. Samuel. Prompt and Utter Destruction: Truman and the Use of Atomic Bombs Against Japan. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004.
In a concise critique of both traditionalist and revisionist interpretations of Truman's decision, Walker concludes that the primary motivation for the use of the bombs was to end World War II as quickly as possible.

• Zeiler, Thomas W. Unconditional Defeat: Japan, America, and the End of World War II. Wilmington, DE: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003.
This history chronicles the brutality of the fighting between the U.S. and Japan in the Pacific. Zeiler concludes that the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were mostly motivated by military, rather than political, reasons.

Copyright © 2019 by the Atomic Heritage Foundation. All rights reserved.

[Emil El Zapato]

Supreme Court process:

The GOP is following its usual pattern. They appointed a sexual predator and a moron and are happy. Watch this process for Katanji Brown.

[Emil El Zapato]

The list of logical fallacies

What follows is not a comprehensive list of all the known logical fallacies. Nor is this intended as a rigorous philosophical treatise on logical reasoning. (If that's what you're looking for, you should check out the following excellent web resources: The Atheist Web's logic page, or San Jose University's Mission: Critical page; I owe a debt to these pages for reminding me of a number of fallacies I had forgotten about.) What I have done is compile a list of fallacies that debaters should be familiar with -- either for pointing them out in others' arguments or for using and defending them in one's own.


Argumentum ad antiquitatem (the argument to antiquity or tradition).
This is the familiar argument that some policy, behavior, or practice is right or acceptable because "it's always been done that way." This is an extremely popular fallacy in debate rounds; for example, "Every great civilization in history has provided state subsidies for art and culture!" But that fact does not justify continuing the policy.

Because an argumentum ad antiquitatem is easily refuted by simply pointing it out, in general it should be avoided. But if you must make such an argument -- perhaps because you can't come up with anything better -- you can at least make it marginally more acceptable by providing some reason why tradition should usually be respected. For instance, you might make an evolutionary argument to the effect that the prevalence of a particular practice in existing societies is evidence that societies that failed to adopt it were weeded out by natural selection. This argument is weak, but better than the fallacy alone.


Argumentum ad hominem (argument directed at the person).
This is the error of attacking the character or motives of a person who has stated an idea, rather than the idea itself. The most obvious example of this fallacy is when one debater maligns the character of another debater (e.g, "The members of the opposition are a couple of fascists!"), but this is actually not that common. A more typical manifestation of argumentum ad hominem is attacking a source of information -- for example, responding to a quotation from Richard Nixon on the subject of free trade with China by saying, "We all know Nixon was a liar and a cheat, so why should we believe anything he says?" Argumentum ad hominem also occurs when someone's arguments are discounted merely because they stand to benefit from the policy they advocate -- such as Bill Gates arguing against antitrust, rich people arguing for lower taxes, white people arguing against affirmative action, minorities arguing for affirmative action, etc. In all of these cases, the relevant question is not who makes the argument, but whether the argument is valid.

It is always bad form to use the fallacy of argumentum ad hominem. But there are some cases when it is not really a fallacy, such as when one needs to evaluate the truth of factual statements (as opposed to lines of argument or statements of value) made by interested parties. If someone has an incentive to lie about something, then it would be naive to accept his statements about that subject without question. It is also possible to restate many ad hominem arguments so as to redirect them toward ideas rather than people, such as by replacing "My opponents are fascists" with "My opponents' arguments are fascist."


Argumentum ad ignorantiam (argument to ignorance).
This is the fallacy of assuming something is true simply because it hasn't been proven false. For example, someone might argue that global warming is certainly occurring because nobody has demonstrated conclusively that it is not. But failing to prove the global warming theory false is not the same as proving it true.

Whether or not an argumentum ad ignorantiam is really fallacious depends crucially upon the burden of proof. In an American courtroom, where the burden of proof rests with the prosecution, it would be fallacious for the prosecution to argue, "The defendant has no alibi, therefore he must have committed the crime." But it would be perfectly valid for the defense to argue, "The prosecution has not proven the defendant committed the crime, therefore you should declare him not guilty." Both statements have the form of an argumentum ad ignorantiam; the difference is the burden of proof.

In debate, the proposing team in a debate round is usually (but not always) assumed to have the burden of proof, which means that if the team fails to prove the proposition to the satisfaction of the judge, the opposition wins. In a sense, the opposition team's case is assumed true until proven false. But the burden of proof can sometimes be shifted; for example, in some forms of debate, the proposing team can shift the burden of proof to the opposing team by presenting a prima facie case that would, in the absence of refutation, be sufficient to affirm the proposition. Still, the higher burden generally rests with the proposing team, which means that only the opposition is in a position to make an accusation of argumentum ad ignorantiam with respect to proving the proposition.


Argumentum ad logicam (argument to logic).
This is the fallacy of assuming that something is false simply because a proof or argument that someone has offered for it is invalid; this reasoning is fallacious because there may be another proof or argument that successfully supports the proposition. This fallacy often appears in the context of a straw man argument.

This is another case in which the burden of proof determines whether it is actually a fallacy or not. If a proposing team fails to provide sufficient support for its case, the burden of proof dictates they should lose the debate, even if there exist other arguments (not presented by the proposing team) that could have supported the case successfully. Moreover, it is common practice in debate for judges to give no weight to a point supported by an argument that has been proven invalid by the other team, even if there might be a valid argument the team failed to make that would have supported the same point; this is because the implicit burden of proof rests with the team that brought up the argument. For further commentary on burdens of proof, see argumentum ad ignorantiam, above.


Argumentum ad misericordiam (argument or appeal to pity).
The English translation pretty much says it all. Example: "Think of all the poor, starving Ethiopian children! How could we be so cruel as not to help them?" The problem with such an argument is that no amount of special pleading can make the impossible possible, the false true, the expensive costless, etc.

It is, of course, perfectly legitimate to point out the severity of a problem as part of the justification for adopting a proposed solution. The fallacy comes in when other aspects of the proposed solution (such as whether it is possible, how much it costs, who else might be harmed by adopting the policy) are ignored or responded to only with more impassioned pleas. You should not call your opposition down for committing this fallacy unless they rely on appeals to pity to the exclusion of the other necessary arguments. It is perfectly acceptable to use appeal to pity in order to argue that the benefits of the proposed policy are greater than they might at first appear (and hence capable of justifying larger costs).


Argumentum ad nauseam (argument to the point of disgust; i.e., by repetition).
This is the fallacy of trying to prove something by saying it again and again. But no matter how many times you repeat something, it will not become any more or less true than it was in the first place. Of course, it is not a fallacy to state the truth again and again; what is fallacious is to expect the repitition alone to substitute for real arguments.

Nonetheless, this is a very popular fallacy in debate, and with good reason: the more times you say something, the more likely it is that the judge will remember it. The first thing they'll teach you in any public speaking course is that you should "Tell 'em what you're gonna tell 'em, then tell 'em, and then tell 'em what you told 'em." Unfortunately, some debaters think that's all there is to it, with no substantiation necessary! The appropriate time to mention argumentum ad nauseam in a debate round is when the other team has made some assertion, failed to justify it, and then stated it again and again. The Latin wording is particularly nice here, since it is evocative of what the opposition's assertions make you want to do: retch. "Sir, our opponents tell us drugs are wrong, drugs are wrong, drugs are wrong, again and again and again. But this argumentum ad nauseam can't and won't win this debate for them, because they've given us no justification for their bald assertions!"


Argumentum ad numerum (argument or appeal to numbers).
This fallacy is the attempt to prove something by showing how many people think that it's true. But no matter how many people believe something, that doesn't necessarily make it true or right. Example: "At least 70% of all Americans support restrictions on access to abortions." Well, maybe 70% of Americans are wrong!

This fallacy is very similar to argumentum ad populum, the appeal to the people or to popularity. When a distinction is made between the two, ad populum is construed narrowly to designate an appeal to the opinions of people in the immediate vicinity, perhaps in hope of getting others (such as judges) to jump on the bandwagon, whereas ad numerum is used to designate appeals based purely on the number of people who hold a particular belief. The distinction is a fine one, and in general the terms can be used interchangeably in debate rounds. (I've found that ad populum has better rhetorical effect.)


Argumentum ad populum (argument or appeal to the public).
This is the fallacy of trying to prove something by showing that the public agrees with you. For an example, see above. This fallacy is nearly identical to argumentum ad numerum, which you should see for more details.



Argumentum ad verecundiam (argument or appeal to authority).

This fallacy occurs when someone tries to demonstrate the truth of a proposition by citing some person who agrees, even though that person may have no expertise in the given area. For instance, some people like to quote Einstein's opinions about politics (he tended to have fairly left-wing views), as though Einstein were a political philosopher rather than a physicist. Of course, it is not a fallacy at all to rely on authorities whose expertise relates to the question at hand, especially with regard to questions of fact that could not easily be answered by a layman -- for instance, it makes perfect sense to quote Stephen Hawking on the subject of black holes.

At least in some forms of debate, quoting various sources to support one's position is not just acceptable but mandatory. In general, there is nothing wrong with doing so. Even if the person quoted has no particular expertise in the area, he may have had a particularly eloquent way of saying something that makes for a more persuasive speech. In general, debaters should be called down for committing argumentum ad verecundiam only when (a) they rely on an unqualified source for information about facts without other (qualified) sources of verification, or (b) they imply that some policy must be right simply because so-and-so thought so.


Circulus in demonstrando (circular argument).

Circular argumentation occurs when someone uses what they are trying to prove as part of the proof of that thing. Here is one of my favorite examples (in pared down form): "Marijuana is illegal in every state in the nation. And we all know that you shouldn't violate the law. Since smoking pot is illegal, you shouldn't smoke pot. And since you shouldn't smoke pot, it is the duty of the government to stop people from smoking it, which is why marijuana is illegal!"

Circular arguments appear a lot in debate, but they are not always so easy to spot as the example above. They are always illegitimate, though, and pointing them out in a debate round looks really good if you can do it. The best strategy for pointing out a circular argument is to make sure you can state clearly the proposition being proven, and then pinpoint where that proposition appears in the proof. A good summing up statement is, "In other words, they are trying to tell us that X is true because X is true! But they have yet to tell us why it's true."


Complex question.
A complex question is a question that implicitly assumes something to be true by its construction, such as "Have you stopped beating your wife?" A question like this is fallacious only if the thing presumed true (in this case, that you beat your wife) has not been established.

Complex questions are a well established and time-honored practice in debate, although they are rarely so bald-faced as the example just given. Complex questions usually appear in cross-examination or points of information when the questioner wants the questionee to inadvertently admit something that she might not admit if asked directly. For instance, one might say, "Inasmuch as the majority of black Americans live in poverty, do you really think that self-help within the black community is sufficient to address their problems?" Of course, the introductory clause about the majority of black Americans living in poverty may not be true (in fact, it is false), but an unwary debater might not think quickly enough to notice that the stowaway statement is questionable. This is a sneaky tactic, but debate is sometimes a sneaky business. You wouldn't want to put a question like that in your master's thesis, but it might work in a debate. But be careful -- if you try to pull a fast one on someone who is alert enough to catch you, you'll look stupid. "The assumption behind your question is simply false. The majority of blacks do not live in poverty. Get your facts straight before you interrupt me again!"


Cum hoc ergo propter hoc (with this, therefore because of this).
This is the familiar fallacy of mistaking correlation for causation -- i.e., thinking that because two things occur simultaneously, one must be a cause of the other. A popular example of this fallacy is the argument that "President Clinton has great economic policies; just look at how well the economy is doing while he's in office!" The problem here is that two things may happen at the same time merely by coincidence (e.g., the President may have a negligible effect on the economy, and the real driving force is technological growth), or the causative link between one thing and another may be lagged in time (e.g., the current economy's health is determined by the actions of previous presidents), or the two things may be unconnected to each other but related to a common cause (e.g., downsizing upset a lot of voters, causing them to elect a new president just before the economy began to benefit from the downsizing).

It is always fallacious to suppose that there is a causative link between two things simply because they coexist. But a correlation is usually considered acceptable supporting evidence for theories that argue for a causative link between two things. For instance, some economic theories suggest that substantially reducing the federal budget deficit should cause the economy to do better (loosely speaking), so the coincidence of deficit reductions under Clinton and the economy's relative health might be taken as evidence in favor of those economic theories. In debate rounds, what this means is that it is acceptable to demonstrate a correlation between two phenomenon and to say one caused the other if you can also come up with convincing reasons why the correlation is no accident.

Cum hoc ergo propter hoc is very similar to post hoc ergo propter hoc, below. The two terms can be used almost interchangeably, post hoc (as it is affectionately called) being the preferred term.


Dicto simpliciter (spoken simply, i.e., sweeping generalization).
This is the fallacy of making a sweeping statement and expecting it to be true of every specific case -- in other words, stereotyping. Example: "Women are on average not as strong as men and less able to carry a gun. Therefore women can't pull their weight in a military unit." The problem is that the sweeping statement may be true (on average, women are indeed weaker than men), but it is not necessarily true for every member of the group in question (there are some women who are much stronger than the average).

As the example indicates, dicto simpliciter is fairly common in debate rounds. Most of the time, it is not necessary to call an opposing debater down for making this fallacy -- it is enough to point out why the sweeping generalization they have made fails to prove their point. Since everybody knows what a sweeping generalization is, using the Latin in this case will usually sound condescending. It is also important to note that some generalizations are perfectly valid and apply directly to all individual cases, and therefore do not commit the fallacy of dicto simpliciter (for example, "All human males have a Y chromosome" is, to my knowledge, absolutely correct).


Nature, appeal to.
This is the fallacy of assuming that whatever is "natural" or consistent with "nature" (somehow defined) is good, or that whatever conflicts with nature is bad. For example, "Sodomy is unnatural; anal sex is not the evolutionary function of a penis or an anus. Therefore sodomy is wrong." But aside from the difficulty of defining what "natural" even means, there is no particular reason to suppose that unnatural and wrong are the same thing. After all, wearing clothes, tilling the soil, and using fire might be considered unnatural since no other animals do so, but humans do these things all the time and to great benefit.

The appeal to nature appears occasionally in debate, often in the form of naive environmentalist arguments for preserving pristine wilderness or resources. The argument is very weak and should always be shot down. It can, however, be made stronger by showing why at least in specific cases, there may be a (possibly unspecifiable) benefit to preserving nature as it is. A typical ecological argument along these lines is that human beings are part of a complex biological system that is highly sensitive to shocks, and therefore it is dangerous for humans to engage in activities that might damage the system in ways we cannot predict. Note, however, that this approach no longer appeals to nature itself, but to the value of human survival.

For further comment on this subject, see the naturalistic fallacy.


Naturalistic fallacy.
This is the fallacy of trying to derive conclusions about what is right or good (that is, about values) from statements of fact alone. This is invalid because no matter how many statements of fact you assemble, any logical inference from them will be another statement of fact, not a statement of value. If you wish to reach conclusions about values, then you must include amongst your assumptions (or axioms, or premises) a statement of value. Once you have an axiomatic statement of value, then you may use it in conjunction with statements of fact to reach value-laden conclusions.

For example, someone might argue that the premise, "This medicine will prevent you from dying" immediately leads to the conclusion, "You should take this medicine." But this reasoning is invalid, because the former statement is a statement of fact, while the latter is a statement of value. To reach the conclusion that you ought to take the medicine, you would need at least one more premise: "You ought to try to preserve your life whenever possible."

The naturalistic fallacy appears in many forms. Two examples are argumentum ad antiquitatem (saying something's right because it's always been done that way) and the appeal to nature (saying something's right because it's natural). In both of these fallacies, the speaker is trying to reach a conclusion about what we ought to do or ought to value based solely on what is the case. David Hume called this trying to bridge the "is-ought gap," which is a nice phrase to use in debate rounds where your opponent is committing the naturalistic fallacy.

One unsettling implication of taking the naturalistic fallacy seriously is that, in order to reach any conclusions of value, one must be willing to posit some initial statement or statements of value that will be treated as axioms, and which cannot themselves be justified on purely logical grounds. Fortunately, debate does not restrict itself to purely logical grounds of argumentation. For example, suppose your opponent has stated axiomatically that "whatever is natural is good." Inasmuch as this statement is an axiom rather than the conclusion of a logical proof, there can be no purely logical argument against it. But some nonetheless appropriate responses to such an absolute statement of value include: (a) questioning whether anyone -- you, your judge, or even your opponent himself -- really believes that "whatever is natural is good"; (b) stating a competing axiomatic value statement, like "whatever enhances human life is good," and forcing the judge to choose between them; and (c) pointing out logical implications of the statement "whatever is natural is good" that conflict with our most basic intuitions about right and wrong.


Non Sequitur ("It does not follow").
This is the simple fallacy of stating, as a conclusion, something that does not strictly follow from the premises. For example, "Racism is wrong. Therefore, we need affirmative action." Obviously, there is at least one missing step in this argument, because the wrongness of racism does not imply a need for affirmative action without some additional support (such as, "Racism is common," "Affirmative action would reduce racism," "There are no superior alternatives to affirmative action," etc.).

Not surprisingly, debate rounds are rife with non sequitur. But that is partly just a result of having to work within the time constraints of a debate round, and partly a result of using good strategy. A debate team arguing for affirmative action would be foolish to say in their first speech, "We also believe that affirmative action does not lead to a racist backlash," because doing so might give the other side a hint about a good argument to make. A better strategy (usually) is to wait for the other team to bring up an argument, and then refute it; that way, you don't end up wasting your time by refuting arguments that the opposition has never made in the first place. (This strategy is not always preferable, though, because some counterarguments are so obvious and important that it makes sense to address them early and nip them in the bud.)

For these reasons, it is generally bad form to scream "non sequitur" just because your opposition has failed to anticipate every counterargument you might make. The best time to point out a non sequitur is when your opposition is trying to construct a chain of causation (A leads to B leads to C, etc.) without justifying each step in the chain. For each step in the chain they fail to justify, point out the non sequitur, so that it is obvious by the end that the alleged chain of causation is tenuous and implausible.


Petitio principii (begging the question).
This is the fallacy of assuming, when trying to prove something, what it is that you are trying to prove. For all practical purposes, this fallacy is indistinguishable from circular argumentation.

The main thing to remember about this fallacy is that the term "begging the question" has a very specific meaning. It is common to hear debaters saying things like, "They say pornography should be legal because it is a form of free expression. But this begs the question of what free expression means." This is a misuse of terminology. Something may inspire or motivate us to ask a particular question without begging the question. A question has been begged only if the question has been asked before in the same discussion, and then a conclusion is reached on a related matter without the question having been answered. If somebody said, "The fact that we believe pornography should be legal means that it is a valid form of free expression. And since it's free expression, it shouldn't be banned," that would be begging the question.


Post hoc ergo propter hoc (after this, therefore because of this).
This is the fallacy of assuming that A caused B simply because A happened prior to B. A favorite example: "Most rapists read pornography when they were teenagers; obviously, pornography causes violence toward women." The conclusion is invalid, because there can be a correlation between two phenomena without one causing the other. Often, this is because both phenomena may be linked to the same cause. In the example given, it is possible that some psychological factor -- say, a frustrated sex drive -- might cause both a tendency toward sexual violence and a desire for pornographic material, in which case the pornography would not be the true cause of the violence.

Post hoc ergo propter hoc is nearly identical to cum hoc ergo propter hoc, which you should see for further details.


Red herring.
This means exactly what you think it means: introducing irrelevant facts or arguments to distract from the question at hand. For example, "The opposition claims that welfare dependency leads to higher crime rates -- but how are poor people supposed to keep a roof over their heads without our help?" It is perfectly valid to ask this question as part of the broader debate, but to pose it as a response to the argument about welfare leading to crime is fallacious. (There is also an element of ad misericordiam in this example.)

It is not fallacious, however, to argue that benefits of one kind may justify incurring costs of another kind. In the example given, concern about providing shelter for the poor would not refute concerns about crime, but one could plausibly argue that a somewhat higher level of crime is a justifiable price given the need to alleviate poverty. This is a debatable point of view, but it is no longer a fallacious one.

The term red herring is sometimes used loosely to refer to any kind of diversionary tactic, such as presenting relatively unimportant arguments that will use up the other debaters' speaking time and distract them from more important issues. This kind of a red herring is a wonderful strategic maneuver with which every debater should be familiar.


Slippery slope.
A slippery slope argument is not always a fallacy. A slippery slope fallacy is an argument that says adopting one policy or taking one action will lead to a series of other policies or actions also being taken, without showing a causal connection between the advocated policy and the consequent policies. A popular example of the slippery slope fallacy is, "If we legalize marijuana, the next thing you know we'll legalize heroin, LSD, and crack cocaine." This slippery slope is a form of non sequitur, because no reason has been provided for why legalization of one thing leads to legalization of another. Tobacco and alcohol are currently legal, and yet other drugs have somehow remained illegal.

There are a variety of ways to turn a slippery slope fallacy into a valid (or at least plausible) argument. All you need to do is provide some reason why the adoption of one policy will lead to the adoption of another. For example, you could argue that legalizing marijuana would cause more people to consider the use of mind-altering drugs acceptable, and those people will support more permissive drug policies across the board. An alternative to the slippery slope argument is simply to point out that the principles espoused by your opposition imply the acceptability of certain other policies, so if we don't like those other policies, we should question whether we really buy those principles. For instance, if the proposing team argued for legalizing marijuana by saying, "individuals should be able to do whatever they want with their own bodies," the opposition could point out that that principle would also justify legalizing a variety of other drugs -- so if we don't support legalizing other drugs, then maybe we don't really believe in that principle.


Straw man.
This is the fallacy of refuting a caricatured or extreme version of somebody's argument, rather than the actual argument they've made. Often this fallacy involves putting words into somebody's mouth by saying they've made arguments they haven't actually made, in which case the straw man argument is a veiled version of argumentum ad logicam. One example of a straw man argument would be to say, "Mr. Jones thinks that capitalism is good because everybody earns whatever wealth they have, but this is clearly false because many people just inherit their fortunes," when in fact Mr. Jones had not made the "earnings" argument and had instead argued, say, that capitalism gives most people an incentive to work and save. The fact that some arguments made for a policy are wrong does not imply that the policy itself is wrong.

In debate, strategic use of a straw man can be very effective. A carefully constructed straw man can sometimes entice an unsuspecting opponent into defending a silly argument that he would not have tried to defend otherwise. But this strategy only works if the straw man is not too different from the arguments your opponent has actually made, because a really outrageous straw man will be recognized as just that. The best straw man is not, in fact, a fallacy at all, but simply a logical extension or amplification of an argument your opponent has made.


Tu quoque ("you too").
This is the fallacy of defending an error in one's reasoning by pointing out that one's opponent has made the same error. An error is still an error, regardless of how many people make it. For example, "They accuse us of making unjustified assertions. But they asserted a lot of things, too!"

Although clearly fallacious, tu quoque arguments play an important role in debate because they may help establish who has done a better job of debating (setting aside the issue of whether the proposition is true or not). If both teams have engaged in ad hominem attacks, or both teams have made a few appeals to pity, then it would hardly be fair to penalize one team for it but not the other. In addition, it is not fallacious at all to point out that certain advantages or disadvantages may apply equally to both positions presented in a debate, and therefore they cannot provide a reason for favoring one position over the other (such disadvantages are referred to as "non-unique"). In general, using tu quoque statements is a good way to assure that judges make decisions based only on factors that distinguish between the two sides.

[Catsquotl]

Nice list,

I wonder though, being human is messy.
We are made up of so much more than Vulcan logic.
I see these fallacies everywhere and quite frankly i view them often as a testament of someones humanity, instead of a flaw in their thinking.

Unless used to manipulate someone, they aren't wrong.
The world is often a more humorous and beautiful place when faced with the wonder for some non-logical assumption, dream or not thought through action.

What do you think, in what way may knowing these things be useful instead of hurtful?

[Emil El Zapato]

Nice list,

I wonder though, being human is messy.
We are made up of so much more than Vulcan logic.
I see these fallacies everywhere and quite frankly i view them often as a testament of someones humanity, instead of a flaw in their thinking.

Unless used to manipulate someone, they aren't wrong.
The world is often a more humorous and beautiful place when faced with the wonder for some non-logical assumption, dream or not thought through action.

What do you think, in what way may knowing these things be useful instead of hurtful?

No, absolutely I agree with you. Part of the Kantian philosophy (b.t.w. he's my favorite by far) ... it's live and let live even if taken to the extreme, e.g. If your next-door neighbor is in the process of killing your neighbor across the street. Well then, so be it, it ain't no hair offa' my ass. I would draw a line there. It is the very basis of moral responsibility to at the very least disapprove of such actions. (incidentally, that just might be consistent with my method of handling such a thing).

The point is that we have to take a thoughtful approach to make moral judgments. Game playing, fun debating, anything in that realm should at its basis have coherent well-considered moral boundaries. There is always that place where the rubber meets the road. Our society is woefully inadequate at basic reasoning and social media has given too many half-wits the latitude to lead the willing around by the nose, ultimately for the profit in it for most, many though simply have disturbed psychological and mental processes at work.

Here's a very current example of the right's moral position (Lindsey Graham). It has been argued that Obama's administration was nothing more than a continuation of its American imperialism and Guatanamo was left unresolved because there was never any intent to fix the moral problems that existed. Please watch this and THINK!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jdw6uwSwFfI
Well that sucks, but it can be watched on youtube ... :)

[Wind]

Israel’s 55-year occupation of Palestinian Territory is apartheid – UN human rights expert (https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2022/03/israels-55-year-occupation-palestinian-territory-apartheid-un-human-rights)


GENEVA (25 March 2022) – A UN expert called today on the international community to accept and adopt the findings in his current report, echoing recent findings by Palestinian, Israeli and international human rights organisations, that apartheid is being practiced by Israel in the occupied Palestinian territory.

“There is today in the Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967 a deeply discriminatory dual legal and political system that privileges the 700,000 Israeli Jewish settlers living in the 300 illegal Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank,” said Michael Lynk, the UN Special Rapporteur for the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967.

“Living in the same geographic space, but separated by walls, checkpoints, roads and an entrenched military presence, are more than three million Palestinians, who are without rights, living under an oppressive rule of institutional discrimination and without a path to a genuine Palestinian state that the world has long promised is their right.

“Another two million Palestinians live in Gaza, described regularly as an ‘open-air prison’, without adequate access to power, water or health, with a collapsing economy and with no ability to freely travel to the rest of Palestine or the outside world.”

The Special Rapporteur said that a political regime which so intentionally and clearly prioritizes fundamental political, legal and social rights to one group over another within the same geographic unit on the basis of one’s racial-national-ethnic identity satisfies the international legal definition of apartheid.

“Apartheid is not, sadly, a phenomenon confined to the history books on southern Africa,” he said in his report to the Human Rights Council. “The 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court came into law after the collapse of the old South Africa. It is a forward-looking legal instrument which prohibits apartheid as a crime against humanity today and into the future, wherever it may exist.”

Lynk said that Israel’s military rule in the occupied Palestinian territory has been deliberately built with the intention of enduring facts on the ground – primarily through settlements and barricades – to demographically engineer a permanent, and illegal, Israeli sovereign claim over occupied territory, while confining Palestinians in smaller and more confined reserves of disconnected land.

This has been accomplished in part through a long-standing series of inhuman(e) acts by the Israeli military towards the Palestinians that have been integral to the occupation, he said. He pointed to arbitrary and extra-judicial killings, torture, the denial of fundamental rights, an abysmal rate of child deaths, collective punishment, an abusive military court system, periods of intensive Israeli military violence in Gaza and home demolitions.

Lynk said a number of recent reports and opinions issued by respected Palestinian, Israeli and international human rights organizations have come to the same conclusion on the practice of apartheid by Israel. He added that leading international personalities – including former UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor and former Israeli Attorney General Michael Ben-Yair – have also all called this apartheid.

The Special Rapporteur said the international community bears much responsibility for this present state of affairs. “For more than 40 years, the UN Security Council and General Assembly have stated in hundreds of resolutions that Israel’s annexation of occupied territory is unlawful, its construction of hundreds of Jewish settlements are illegal, and its denial of Palestinian self-determination breaches international law,” he said.

“The Council and the Assembly have repeatedly criticized Israel for defying their resolutions. They have threatened consequences. But no accountability has ever followed. If the international community had truly acted on its resolutions 40 or 30 years ago, we would not be talking about apartheid today.”

To end the practice of apartheid in the occupied Palestinian territory, the Special Rapporteur called on the international community to assemble an imaginative and vigorous menu of accountability measures to bring the Israeli occupation and its apartheid practices in the occupied Palestinian territory to a complete end.

[Emil El Zapato]

Israel’s 55-year occupation of Palestinian Territory is apartheid – UN human rights expert (https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2022/03/israels-55-year-occupation-palestinian-territory-apartheid-un-human-rights)

As El Sid would not say ... Amen. Netanyahu sucked ... hopefully the good or at least the better will prevail.

[Emil El Zapato]

My half-sister recently posted this on Facebook, my biological mother, unfortunately, I took after my bio-father,

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[Wind]

Not a good sign, at least not for us who aren't oligarchs.

b6r9aPUlMGw

[Dreamtimer]

As regards the list of fallacies, argument to authority seems to be a favorite for many. "Who said that? Oh, I (don't) trust them..." And then the discussion goes down the drain because they can only look at the 'authority'.

They cannot discuss the issue.



Pandemics followed by wars are killers for food supplies and prices. Denial of pandemics makes it even worse. We reap what we sow as usual. And we have all the fun of climate change which we're also in denial about in store to make things even more fun.

I wonder who will manipulate people into blaming each other for what's not their fault? And who will get rich off it?

[Emil El Zapato]

I hate Microsoft:

If anyone ever does a windows update and the Devil's clan f*ck up your machine, do this for an easy fix:

do a Ctrl-Alt-Delete: this will bring up the window with options which include the 'Task Manager', select that option, and when the task manager pops up select: 'Start new task'
when that window pops up type in cmd.exe. When the command window lands you on the command line with e.g. C:\'whatever' type sfc/scannow. If you have been living a clean life that will restore it to operation. [Compliments of Chuckie] :)

[Wind]

FJMvQBnHKi0

[Emil El Zapato]

FJMvQBnHKi0

You know who I hate the most, the border patrol, I despise those people that would make the choice to do a job that is so demeaning to all humans. My own brother had deployments to do it and he was proud, just like the loyal Trumpeteer that he is. He said it was good for immigrants to experience it because it made them so happy and proud when they became American citizens ... gawd almighty!

It's a long and disgusting history of exploitation by Americans.

I watched Smerconish to day and the big poll question ... drumroll please ... Are you in favor or not of Elon Musk owning Twitter? They left the question off the voting panel that I would have selected: Who Gives a f*ck!

[Emil El Zapato]

Picture was taken in Andover Kansas from my brother's house at approximately 8:30 pm, 04/29/2022


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[Emil El Zapato]

My KittyGato has been taken hostage! I'm taking donations to manage the ransom!


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[Emil El Zapato]

The Dillon store and the YMCA are about a half-mile from my brother's home. My sister-in-law worked there as a director for a number recent years.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sKTkGYD8K0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7KVXtkhgVY

[Emil El Zapato]

The kidnappers are getting antsy! They sent this photo and said if I don't pay up, they will turn him over to the neighborhood big black monster! Help!! And you can see they have already roughed him up!
2698

[Octopus Garden]

Hi Chuckie,

When did this happen? Am assuming it's recent. Is your brother still living there? Tornado alley is turning into Tornado super highway, seems like. Areas that don't usually get hit are experiencing them now. Kansas has always been tornado friendly. I got that from the Wizard of Oz!

[Emil El Zapato]

Hi Chuckie,

When did this happen? Am assuming it's recent. Is your brother still living there? Tornado alley is turning into Tornado super highway, seems like. Areas that don't usually get hit are experiencing them now. Kansas has always been tornado friendly. I got that from the Wizard of Oz!

Hi OG,

yeah, yesterday evening. It's a little early in the season for Kansas. My next door neighbor (apparently a climate change denier) says nature does what it does ... I agreed with him as always. :)

[Octopus Garden]

Looks like a bad one. Cars thrown about like dinky toys. Christ.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3nu979YkaY

[Emil El Zapato]

Looks like a bad one. Cars thrown about like dinky toys. Christ.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3nu979YkaY

Throughout my elementary school years watching that movie was a yearly ritual. It was a family event and kid's party. The movie lost out to 'Gone with the Wind' for the 1939 Oscar for best movie. It just occurred to me that it is somewhat ironic when considering Gone with the Wind won over Dorothy's having gone with the wind.

[Wind]

Oh ffs, here we go...

32GRugtsN0w


I think Kenneth has it wrong. It's not the same sex marriage decision which would spark a civil war. There are those who get worked up over it but it's not a Constitutional issue. It's a personal, moral and religious issue. And there simply aren't enough people who want to overturn the nation over gay marriage.

The Constitutional issue which will cause a civil war will be the overturning of Roe v. Wade. That's an already established Constitutional right which has been shat all over. The nominees have always claimed that it's established law and that they wouldn't overturn it and it will be seen that some of them have lied.

That is a betrayal to the country and the peoples' freedom because it's about privacy and personal rights and one of the most important personal decisions which can be made.

[Emil El Zapato]

Oh ffs, here we go...



I caught a snippet of the argument that Alito is putting forth. If it actually gains any traction in my mind it will be proof positive that the Supreme Court as it is has outlived its usefulness as an American Institution. It no longer is a Supreme Court, it is a 3rd branch of the rightist neo-liberal/neo-conservative new world order.

[sourcetruth]

Oh ffs, here we go...


I disagree with conservatives on many things, but this is one of the things which I may agree with them on. My reasoning is based on the culture of promoting conservative values when it comes to sexuality that are based in tradition.

[Octopus Garden]

"It just occurred to me that it is somewhat ironic when considering Gone with the Wind won over Dorothy's having gone with the wind."

That's funny! They should have swapped names, "Gone with the Wind" for Dorothy's story with"The Wizard of Frankly Scarlet I Don't Give a Damn.'

Wizard of Oz was a yearly ritual for us too. I loved that movie. Flying monkeys creeped me out a bit!

[Octopus Garden]

I caught a snippet of the argument that Alito is putting forth. If it actually gains any traction in my mind it will be proof positive that the Supreme Court as it is has outlived its usefulness as an American Institution. It no longer is a Supreme Court, it is a 3rd branch of the rightist neo-liberal/neo-conservative new world order.

The Supreme Court is producing this new movie called, 'Fetal Attraction.'

They're not pro-life, or there would be mandated universal health care. They are pro-birth and that is an entirely different thing.

[Emil El Zapato]

The Supreme Court is producing this new movie called, 'Fetal Attraction.'

They're not pro-life, or there would be mandated universal health care. They are pro-birth and that is an entirely different thing.

lol, yeah, the greatest band of jurists in the land and yet, morally corrupt not to mention deeply flawed when asked to assess right and wrong. The conservative jurists that be. The sub specie dysfunction runs very very deep as one would well expect.

[Aragorn]

They're not pro-life, or there would be mandated universal health care.

And a complete abolition of the death penalty.

[Aianawa]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nn8Et_yG4Yc

Annoying doctor

[Dreamtimer]

I disagree with conservatives on many things, but this is one of the things which I may agree with them on. My reasoning is based on the culture of promoting conservative values when it comes to sexuality that are based in tradition.

People are free to live by their values. They are not free to make others live by their values. If a person believes in personal responsibility then they must leave this most important one of all, the choice to have and raise a child, to the woman, the couple, the family. Any other approach is immoral and is no part of personal responsibility.

The lies of the justices to Congress under oath undermines our system tremendously. It's a travesty.

Alito points to 'another life'. This is a religious and moral issue which the Supreme Court understood to be part of privacy and personal responsibility. He and his minions have just taken a big fat shit on themselves and the court.

As for all those years of hearing "Liberal fear mongering!!" Those folks can shove those words right down their own throats. They were either epically stupid or blatant liars or utterly deluded.

When exceptions are not given for the life of the mother, for the circumstances of incest, of rape, of the fact that it could be a young girl who is pregnant, it shows that we've installed people who are Supremely Unqualified for the job.

Well, the confirmation process was a shit show of lies, flip-flopping, and reneging on promises regarding election years. No surprise there. These dirtbags have lived up to my worst expectations.

Sadly.

[Emil El Zapato]

People are free to live by their values. They are not free to make others live by their values. If a person believes in personal responsibility then they must leave this most important one of all, the choice to have and raise a child, to the woman, the couple, the family. Any other approach is immoral and is no part of personal responsibility.

The lies of the justices to Congress under oath undermines our system tremendously. It's a travesty.

Alito points to 'another life'. This is a religious and moral issue which the Supreme Court understood to be part of privacy and personal responsibility. He and his minions have just taken a big fat shit on themselves and the court.

As for all those years of hearing "Liberal fear mongering!!" Those folks can shove those words right down their own throats. They were either epically stupid or blatant liars or utterly deluded.

When exceptions are not given for the life of the mother, for the circumstances of incest, of rape, of the fact that it could be a young girl who is pregnant, it shows that we've installed people who are Supremely Unqualified for the job.

Well, the confirmation process was a shit show of lies, flip-flopping, and reneging on promises regarding election years. No surprise there. These dirtbags have lived up to my worst expectations.

Sadly.

Lies are so easy to see. Of all the people I've seen on this coverage that obviously isn't lying in some form or fashion is Susan Collins. She bought it which doesn't place her high on the scale of people to be depended on, she is being honest.

Not to go off-topic, but Biden's approval ratings are another example of how depraved (e.g. S-T-U-P-I-D) we are is that anyone is not happy because of the state of the world and holding Biden responsible. I hated the Golden One because he was a degenerate, not because of irrelevant issues like the economy. The economy is owned by corporatists and to expect any politician to have real control of that is a hilarious expectation. Of course, the right can be depended upon to f*ck just about anybody if they can gain from it. Tragically senseless is that rural communities actually believe any of that. The days of the government subsidizing their lives is over, but they still have support for their xenophobic hatreds and racism.

Since Clarence Thomas, the right has been appointing justices that are reflections of themselves, idiot mother-f*ckers that think it is 1776.


"It just occurred to me that it is somewhat ironic when considering Gone with the Wind won over Dorothy's having gone with the wind."

That's funny! They should have swapped names, "Gone with the Wind" for Dorothy's story with"The Wizard of Frankly Scarlet I Don't Give a Damn.'

Wizard of Oz was a yearly ritual for us too. I loved that movie. Flying monkeys creeped me out a bit!

Creeped me out a bunch, but I had friends that would nearly go apoplectic when those suckers started flying.

[sourcetruth]

People are free to live by their values. They are not free to make others live by their values. If a person believes in personal responsibility then they must leave this most important one of all, the choice to have and raise a child, to the woman, the couple, the family. Any other approach is immoral and is no part of personal responsibility.


They already have the power to make the choice to not have children even if abortion is illegal. This is obvious, so it makes no sense how this issue is made to be such a concern for people compared to much more important issues in our world.

Values should be promoted in a society if they are beneficial to a society as a whole

However, I also believe in a society that is more supportive of mothers and working class people in general, which should be addressed before banning abortion to make it easier to support mothers.

[Wind]

The Real Origins of the Religious Right (https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/05/religious-right-real-origins-107133/?s=09&utm_source=pocket_mylist)


One of the most durable myths in recent history is that the religious right, the coalition of conservative evangelicals and fundamentalists, emerged as a political movement in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling legalizing abortion. The tale goes something like this: Evangelicals, who had been politically quiescent for decades, were so morally outraged by Roe that they resolved to organize in order to overturn it.

This myth of origins is oft repeated by the movement’s leaders. In his 2005 book, Jerry Falwell, the firebrand fundamentalist preacher, recounts his distress upon reading about the ruling in the Jan. 23, 1973, edition of the Lynchburg News: “I sat there staring at the Roe v. Wade story,” Falwell writes, “growing more and more fearful of the consequences of the Supreme Court’s act and wondering why so few voices had been raised against it.” Evangelicals, he decided, needed to organize.

Some of these anti- Roe crusaders even went so far as to call themselves “new abolitionists,” invoking their antebellum predecessors who had fought to eradicate slavery.

But the abortion myth quickly collapses under historical scrutiny. In fact, it wasn’t until 1979—a full six years after Roe—that evangelical leaders, at the behest of conservative activist Paul Weyrich, seized on abortion not for moral reasons, but as a rallying-cry to deny President Jimmy Carter a second term. Why? Because the anti-abortion crusade was more palatable than the religious right’s real motive: protecting segregated schools. So much for the new abolitionism.

***

Today, evangelicals make up the backbone of the pro-life movement, but it hasn’t always been so. Both before and for several years after Roe, evangelicals were overwhelmingly indifferent to the subject, which they considered a “Catholic issue.” In 1968, for instance, a symposium sponsored by the Christian Medical Society and Christianity Today, the flagship magazine of evangelicalism, refused to characterize abortion as sinful, citing “individual health, family welfare, and social responsibility” as justifications for ending a pregnancy. In 1971, delegates to the Southern Baptist Convention in St. Louis, Missouri, passed a resolution encouraging “Southern Baptists to work for legislation that will allow the possibility of abortion under such conditions as rape, incest, clear evidence of severe fetal deformity, and carefully ascertained evidence of the likelihood of damage to the emotional, mental, and physical health of the mother.” The convention, hardly a redoubt of liberal values, reaffirmed that position in 1974, one year after Roe, and again in 1976.

When the Roe decision was handed down, W. A. Criswell, the Southern Baptist Convention’s former president and pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas—also one of the most famous fundamentalists of the 20th century—was pleased: “I have always felt that it was only after a child was born and had a life separate from its mother that it became an individual person,” he said, “and it has always, therefore, seemed to me that what is best for the mother and for the future should be allowed.”

Although a few evangelical voices, including Christianity Today magazine, mildly criticized the ruling, the overwhelming response was silence, even approval. Baptists, in particular, applauded the decision as an appropriate articulation of the division between church and state, between personal morality and state regulation of individual behavior. “Religious liberty, human equality and justice are advanced by the Supreme Court abortion decision,” wrote W. Barry Garrett of Baptist Press.

***

So what then were the real origins of the religious right? It turns out that the movement can trace its political roots back to a court ruling, but not Roe v. Wade.

In May 1969, a group of African-American parents in Holmes County, Mississippi, sued the Treasury Department to prevent three new whites-only K-12 private academies from securing full tax-exempt status, arguing that their discriminatory policies prevented them from being considered “charitable” institutions. The schools had been founded in the mid-1960s in response to the desegregation of public schools set in motion by the Brown v. Board of Education decision of 1954. In 1969, the first year of desegregation, the number of white students enrolled in public schools in Holmes County dropped from 771 to 28; the following year, that number fell to zero.

In Green v. Kennedy (David Kennedy was secretary of the treasury at the time), decided in January 1970, the plaintiffs won a preliminary injunction, which denied the “segregation academies” tax-exempt status until further review. In the meantime, the government was solidifying its position on such schools. Later that year, President Richard Nixon ordered the Internal Revenue Service to enact a new policy denying tax exemptions to all segregated schools in the United States. Under the provisions of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which forbade racial segregation and discrimination, discriminatory schools were not—by definition—“charitable” educational organizations, and therefore they had no claims to tax-exempt status; similarly, donations to such organizations would no longer qualify as tax-deductible contributions.

On June 30, 1971, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia issued its ruling in the case, now Green v. Connally (John Connally had replaced David Kennedy as secretary of the Treasury). The decision upheld the new IRS policy: “Under the Internal Revenue Code, properly construed, racially discriminatory private schools are not entitled to the Federal tax exemption provided for charitable, educational institutions, and persons making gifts to such schools are not entitled to the deductions provided in case of gifts to charitable, educational institutions.”

***

Paul Weyrich, the late religious conservative political activist and co-founder of the Heritage Foundation, saw his opening.

In the decades following World War II, evangelicals, especially white evangelicals in the North, had drifted toward the Republican Party—inclined in that direction by general Cold War anxieties, vestigial suspicions of Catholicism and well-known evangelist Billy Graham’s very public friendship with Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon. Despite these predilections, though, evangelicals had largely stayed out of the political arena, at least in any organized way. If he could change that, Weyrich reasoned, their large numbers would constitute a formidable voting bloc—one that he could easily marshal behind conservative causes.

“The new political philosophy must be defined by us [conservatives] in moral terms, packaged in non-religious language, and propagated throughout the country by our new coalition,” Weyrich wrote in the mid-1970s. “When political power is achieved, the moral majority will have the opportunity to re-create this great nation.” Weyrich believed that the political possibilities of such a coalition were unlimited. “The leadership, moral philosophy, and workable vehicle are at hand just waiting to be blended and activated,” he wrote. “If the moral majority acts, results could well exceed our wildest dreams.”

But this hypothetical “moral majority” needed a catalyst—a standard around which to rally. For nearly two decades, Weyrich, by his own account, had been trying out different issues, hoping one might pique evangelical interest: pornography, prayer in schools, the proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution, even abortion. “I was trying to get these people interested in those issues and I utterly failed,” Weyrich recalled at a conference in 1990.

The Green v. Connally ruling provided a necessary first step: It captured the attention of evangelical leaders , especially as the IRS began sending questionnaires to church-related “segregation academies,” including Falwell’s own Lynchburg Christian School, inquiring about their racial policies. Falwell was furious. “In some states,” he famously complained, “It’s easier to open a massage parlor than a Christian school.”

One such school, Bob Jones University—a fundamentalist college in Greenville, South Carolina—was especially obdurate. The IRS had sent its first letter to Bob Jones University in November 1970 to ascertain whether or not it discriminated on the basis of race. The school responded defiantly: It did not admit African Americans.

Although Bob Jones Jr., the school’s founder, argued that racial segregation was mandated by the Bible, Falwell and Weyrich quickly sought to shift the grounds of the debate, framing their opposition in terms of religious freedom rather than in defense of racial segregation. For decades, evangelical leaders had boasted that because their educational institutions accepted no federal money (except for, of course, not having to pay taxes) the government could not tell them how to run their shops—whom to hire or not, whom to admit or reject. The Civil Rights Act, however, changed that calculus.

Bob Jones University did, in fact, try to placate the IRS—in its own way. Following initial inquiries into the school’s racial policies, Bob Jones admitted one African-American, a worker in its radio station, as a part-time student; he dropped out a month later. In 1975, again in an attempt to forestall IRS action, the school admitted blacks to the student body, but, out of fears of miscegenation, refused to admit unmarried African-Americans. The school also stipulated that any students who engaged in interracial dating, or who were even associated with organizations that advocated interracial dating, would be expelled.

The IRS was not placated. On January 19, 1976, after years of warnings—integrate or pay taxes—the agency rescinded the school’s tax exemption.

For many evangelical leaders, who had been following the issue since Green v. Connally, Bob Jones University was the final straw. As Elmer L. Rumminger, longtime administrator at Bob Jones University, told me in an interview, the IRS actions against his school “alerted the Christian school community about what could happen with government interference” in the affairs of evangelical institutions. “That was really the major issue that got us all involved.”

***

Weyrich saw that he had the beginnings of a conservative political movement, which is why, several years into President Jimmy Carter’s term, he and other leaders of the nascent religious right blamed the Democratic president for the IRS actions against segregated schools—even though the policy was mandated by Nixon, and Bob Jones University had lost its tax exemption a year and a day before Carter was inaugurated as president. Falwell, Weyrich and others were undeterred by the niceties of facts. In their determination to elect a conservative, they would do anything to deny a Democrat, even a fellow evangelical like Carter, another term in the White House.

But Falwell and Weyrich, having tapped into the ire of evangelical leaders, were also savvy enough to recognize that organizing grassroots evangelicals to defend racial discrimination would be a challenge. It had worked to rally the leaders, but they needed a different issue if they wanted to mobilize evangelical voters on a large scale.

By the late 1970s, many Americans—not just Roman Catholics—were beginning to feel uneasy about the spike in legal abortions following the 1973 Roe decision. The 1978 Senate races demonstrated to Weyrich and others that abortion might motivate conservatives where it hadn’t in the past. That year in Minnesota, pro-life Republicans captured both Senate seats (one for the unexpired term of Hubert Humphrey) as well as the governor’s mansion. In Iowa, Sen. Dick Clark, the Democratic incumbent, was thought to be a shoo-in: Every poll heading into the election showed him ahead by at least 10 percentage points. On the final weekend of the campaign, however, pro-life activists, primarily Roman Catholics, leafleted church parking lots (as they did in Minnesota), and on Election Day Clark lost to his Republican pro-life challenger.

In the course of my research into Falwell’s archives at Liberty University and Weyrich’s papers at the University of Wyoming, it became very clear that the 1978 election represented a formative step toward galvanizing everyday evangelical voters. Correspondence between Weyrich and evangelical leaders fairly crackles with excitement. In a letter to fellow conservative Daniel B. Hales, Weyrich characterized the triumph of pro-life candidates as “true cause for celebration,” and Robert Billings, a cobelligerent, predicted that opposition to abortion would “pull together many of our ‘fringe’ Christian friends.” Roe v. Wade had been law for more than five years.

Weyrich, Falwell and leaders of the emerging religious right enlisted an unlikely ally in their quest to advance abortion as a political issue: Francis A. Schaeffer—a goateed, knickers-wearing theologian who was warning about the eclipse of Christian values and the advance of something he called “secular humanism.” Schaeffer, considered by many the intellectual godfather of the religious right, was not known for his political activism, but by the late 1970s he decided that legalized abortion would lead inevitably to infanticide and euthanasia, and he was eager to sound the alarm. Schaeffer teamed with a pediatric surgeon, C. Everett Koop, to produce a series of films entitled Whatever Happened to the Human Race? In the early months of 1979, Schaeffer and Koop, targeting an evangelical audience, toured the country with these films, which depicted the scourge of abortion in graphic terms—most memorably with a scene of plastic baby dolls strewn along the shores of the Dead Sea. Schaeffer and Koop argued that any society that countenanced abortion was captive to “secular humanism” and therefore caught in a vortex of moral decay.

Between Weyrich’s machinations and Schaeffer’s jeremiad, evangelicals were slowly coming around on the abortion issue. At the conclusion of the film tour in March 1979, Schaeffer reported that Protestants, especially evangelicals, “have been so sluggish on this issue of human life, and Whatever Happened to the Human Race? is causing real waves, among church people and governmental people too.”

By 1980, even though Carter had sought, both as governor of Georgia and as president, to reduce the incidence of abortion, his refusal to seek a constitutional amendment outlawing it was viewed by politically conservative evangelicals as an unpardonable sin. Never mind the fact that his Republican opponent that year, Ronald Reagan, had signed into law, as governor of California in 1967, the most liberal abortion bill in the country. When Reagan addressed a rally of 10,000 evangelicals at Reunion Arena in Dallas in August 1980, he excoriated the “unconstitutional regulatory agenda” directed by the IRS “against independent schools,” but he made no mention of abortion. Nevertheless, leaders of the religious right hammered away at the issue, persuading many evangelicals to make support for a constitutional amendment outlawing abortion a litmus test for their votes.

Carter lost the 1980 election for a variety of reasons, not merely the opposition of the religious right. He faced a spirited challenge from within his own party; Edward M. Kennedy’s failed quest for the Democratic nomination undermined Carter’s support among liberals. And because Election Day fell on the anniversary of the Iran Hostage Crisis, the media played up the story, highlighting Carter’s inability to secure the hostages’ freedom. The electorate, once enamored of Carter’s evangelical probity, had tired of a sour economy, chronic energy shortages and the Soviet Union’s renewed imperial ambitions.

After the election results came in, Falwell, never shy to claim credit, was fond of quoting a Harris poll that suggested Carter would have won the popular vote by a margin of 1 percent had it not been for the machinations of the religious right. “I knew that we would have some impact on the national elections,” Falwell said, “but I had no idea that it would be this great.”

Given Carter’s political troubles, the defection of evangelicals may or may not have been decisive. But it is certainly true that evangelicals, having helped propel Carter to the White House four years earlier, turned dramatically against him, their fellow evangelical, during the course of his presidency. And the catalyst for their political activism was not, as often claimed, opposition to abortion. Although abortion had emerged as a rallying cry by 1980, the real roots of the religious right lie not the defense of a fetus but in the defense of racial segregation.

***

The Bob Jones University case merits a postscript. When the school’s appeal finally reached the Supreme Court in 1982, the Reagan administration announced that it planned to argue in defense of Bob Jones University and its racial policies. A public outcry forced the administration to reconsider; Reagan backpedaled by saying that the legislature should determine such matters, not the courts. The Supreme Court’s decision in the case, handed down on May 24, 1983, ruled against Bob Jones University in an 8-to-1 decision. Three years later Reagan elevated the sole dissenter, William Rehnquist, to chief justice of the Supreme Court.

[Emil El Zapato]

Business as usual Wind.

[Aragorn]

People are free to live by their values. They are not free to make others live by their values. If a person believes in personal responsibility then they must leave this most important one of all, the choice to have and raise a child, to the woman, the couple, the family. Any other approach is immoral and is no part of personal responsibility.

They already have the power to make the choice to not have children even if abortion is illegal. This is obvious, so it makes no sense how this issue is made to be such a concern for people compared to much more important issues in our world.

Not quite. A woman who gets pregnant because of rape never got that choice. Does she really have to go though nine months of pregnancy — with all of its discomforts — followed by the agony of giving birth to the child of a rapist? And then I'm not even touching upon the subject of when the rapist turns out to be a close blood relative, such as the woman/girl's father, or uncle, or grandfather, or elder brother.

Every day of that pregnancy, the woman/girl in question is being confronted with the violent memories, the false guilt, the shame and the humiliation of having been raped. And then the baby is born, and what does she have to do then? Does she have to raise it? Will she give it up for adoption? And then how will she feel about that later in her life?

Sexual abuse is the worst of all crimes, because it is the most invasive/intrusive one, and the victim has to live with that trauma for the rest of their life — and possibly even beyond.

If you want to look at things from the spiritual angle, then there is yet time before a soul will enter the fetus. A soul may decide to bind to a fetus, but normally, they would know when the fetus isn't going to survive the pregnancy, because unborn souls exist in a more timeless environment where such things are known in advance, and so the chances of a soul binding with a fetus that is going to be aborted are small. But binding is not the same thing yet as entering.

Things should be safe during the first term, and especially during the first six weeks. At that point, you cannot even call it a baby just yet. At that point it's still only just a mass of human cells, kept alive by the nutrients transferred to it from the mother through the placenta.

[sourcetruth]

Not quite. A woman who gets pregnant because of rape never got that choice.

You are right, and I do believe it should be legal for rape and incest.



If you want to look at things from the spiritual angle, then there is yet time before a soul will enter the fetus. A soul may decide to bind to a fetus, but normally, they would know when the fetus isn't going to survive the pregnancy, because unborn souls exist in a more timeless environment where such things are known in advance, and so the chances of a soul binding with a fetus that is going to be aborted are small. But binding is not the same thing yet as entering.

Things should be safe during the first term, and especially during the first six weeks. At that point, you cannot even call it a baby just yet. At that point it's still only just a mass of human cells, kept alive by the nutrients transferred to it from the mother through the placenta.

That makes sense. Although it is not the main reason for why I am thinking the way that I do about this topic. This was my first post here:

I disagree with conservatives on many things, but this is one of the things which I may agree with them on. My reasoning is based on the culture of promoting conservative values when it comes to sexuality that are based in tradition.

I am not a conservative politically, but I do believe in traditional sexual and family values.
I'm not sure if this justifies making abortion illegal, and I am not sure about my stance on making abortion illegal, but it makes me lean more towards it. I am just against the hyper sexuality in western culture, and I feel like abortion legalization is promoting and tolerating that in a sense.

[Aragorn]

I am not a conservative politically, but I do believe in traditional sexual and family values.
I'm not sure if this justifies making abortion illegal, and I am not sure about my stance on making abortion illegal, but it makes me lean more towards it. I am just against the hyper sexuality in western culture, and I feel like abortion legalization is promoting and tolerating that in a sense.

I can understand, appreciate and share your thoughts on the hyper-sexualization of our western society. I too feel that abortion should not be used as a go-to solution for an unwanted pregnancy caused by a woman's promiscuous or otherwise irresponsible behavior. But at the same time, I do not feel that this aspect of life should be decided upon at the legislative, executive or judicial branches of government. No branch of government should ever be allowed to intervene in anyone's personal life, and no government should have any jurisdiction over anyone's sex life, even if said sex life revolves around promiscuity and irresponsibility. Those are all personal things, unless of course any given person's sex life includes or entirely consists of the sexual abuse of other beings.

I am also of the opinion that having children is not a right but a privilege. Children are not pets that are to be inserted into a household to make a woman feel more appreciative of herself as a human being, or so as to save her failing marriage, or "because everyone else is having children too". Children are human beings, not status symbols, pets or luxury items.

At the same time, I am also opined that same-sex couples should be allowed to adopt children just as easily as opposite-sex couples if their reasons for wanting to have children are solid. But here's the thing... I don't know how easy or how difficult it is in the USA to adopt a child, but over here in Belgium, you basically have to jump though a bunch of burning hoops to qualify, and even then there will still be a regular followup from a government official during the parenting itself. Couples who conceive and have children born to them naturally don't have to go through any such scrutiny, and then many of those children will be damaged by having to grow up in a dysfunctional and/or broken household. And quite often — not always, but often enough — such a traumatic upbringing goes unnoticed by the members of society until it's too late.

It's not a matter of being liberal or conservative for me, but a matter of common sense, responsibility, and mutual respect — all of them having become such vague if not extinct concepts in today's human mind. :hmm:

[Dreamtimer]

A traumatized girl who is pregnant will not have a good biological state for that embryo as it develops. Babies are not more healthy under these sorts of stress, they are less healthy.

It's stupid and short-sighted in every way.

A girl could be rendered unable to have any more babies.

And Alito seems to have missed the boat on state legislations and how much they literally ignore laws they've created, not to mention the systematic disenfranchisement of poor folks and women.

He seems to be supremely dim for a Supreme Court Justice. Maybe that's why it took nearly a hundred pages. That's a lot of flaming hoops to jump through.

Women don't want to use abortion for birth control. They want to use birth control.

Insurance covers men for all kinds of erectile issues. But not women for their basic reproductive needs. I don't think we need another indicator to demonstrate our backwards attitudes towards women and their reproductive health.

[Emil El Zapato]

https://equilibria.com/e-colors

New Personality test ... I'm a Red/Blue. "Relating Doer"

[Wind]

Which character are you?

https://openpsychometrics.org/tests/characters/

Apparently I'm a 86 % match with Ben Hargreeves (https://openpsychometrics.org/tests/characters/stats/UA/6/), a character from The Umbrella Academy, I'm not familiar with the series though.


Ben is a very introverted person. While he was dead, he was scared to go into the light and spent time hanging out with his brother Klaus. It often became exhausted for him to watch and supervise his brother, due to Klaus always acting very volatile and harming himself. Ben cares very deeply for Klaus, and had FOMO for the real world. This is proven true, when Ben begs for Klaus to let him possess his body. When Ben is possessing Klaus, he is very happy and extroverted, revealing a side to him none of us have really seen before, He feels happy and freed from all the limits. When he reunites with Diego, they both burst into tears due to Ben's death a long time ago. Ben's usual personality is very stoic because he's always accompanied Klaus, caring and watching over him. This exhausted and drained him. But deep down he is a very happy person who is willing to care for his brother.

With mean difference I'm 81 % Lester Freamon (https://openpsychometrics.org/tests/characters/stats/TW/4/). Now that's better, it's a good character from a good show although I've only seen some episodes here and there. I love good (fictional) detectives and their wit, well of course I've studied true crimes too quite a bit also.


Lester Freamon is a fictional character on the HBO drama The Wire, played by actor Clarke Peters. Freamon is a veteran of the Baltimore Police who establishes a positive reputation for his instincts, tenacity and intelligence. He is a wise, methodical detective whose intelligence and experience are often central to investigations throughout the series, particularly with respect to uncovering networks of money laundering and corruption. He sometimes serves as an avuncular figure to several of the characters.

[Dreamtimer]

I feel sorry for anyone who hooks up with Amber Heard. She's a piece of work, imo.

[Wind]

I feel sorry for anyone who hooks up with Amber Heard. She's a piece of work, imo.

She's a famous case of someone with BPD. Imagine all the other victims of them who don't get to tell what they've gone through.

[Aragorn]

She's a famous case of someone with BPD. Imagine all the other victims of them who don't get to tell what they've gone through.

Doesn't Angelina Jolie have BPD too? When she got married to Billy-Bob Thornton, her wedding dress was stained with blood because she had carved his name into her arm. :hmm:

[Wind]

Doesn't Angelina Jolie have BPD too? :hmm:

Also Halle Berry.

There have been suspicions about Angelina.

She has a history of self-harm, substance abuse and turbulent relationships. She seems the "angry type".

Intense, charming, sensual. Things turned out quite nasty with her and Brad Pitt. Her father seems (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzEoGTK0TFE) to be quite nuts.

She was also my one and only real celebrity crush as a (pre)teen, besides looking drop dead gorgeous I suppose her sass appealed to me.

[Aragorn]

Doesn't Angelina Jolie have BPD too? When she got married to Billy-Bob Thornton, her wedding dress was stained with blood because she had carved his name into her arm. :hmm:

Also Halle Berry.

As well as Naomi Campbell.


There have been suspicions about Angelina.

She has a history of self-harm, substance abuse and turbulent relationships. She seems the "angry type".

Intense, charming, sensual. Things turned out quite nasty with her and Brad Pitt. Her father seems (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzEoGTK0TFE) to be quite nuts..

He is, yes. It appears to be running in the family. ;)


She was also my one and only real celebrity crush as a (pre)teen, besides looking drop dead gorgeous I suppose her sass appealed to me.

Nah, I've never been into Angelina, although I used to have some friends who were. There has always been something about her that turned me off. I've always had this feeling about her that she's like a spider — they tend to want to devour their male partner after (or even during) the act of mating. She's the kind of woman you had better stay away from. ;)

As for pre-teen crushes, mine was very innocent: Lynsey de Paul. ;) She was blonde, cute, and she didn't smoke, didn't drink and didn't do drugs. She also never got married, even though she's had several romantic relationships — among others, with Sean Connery. :)

"Yesh, Mish Moneypenneh, thoshe were the daysh." :p

[Wind]

As for pre-teen crushes, mine was very innocent: Lynsey de Paul. ;) She was blonde, cute, and she didn't smoke, didn't drink and didn't do drugs. She also never got married, even though she's had several romantic relationships — among others, with Sean Connery. :)

I'm into brunettes, but then again I'm blonde. ;)

Your feeling about Angelina seems to have been correct though.

[Emil El Zapato]

As well as Naomi Campbell.



He is, yes. It appears to be running in the family. ;)



Nah, I've never been into Angelina, although I used to have some friends who were. There has always been something about her that turned me off. I've always had this feeling about her that she's like a spider — they tend to want to devour their male partner after (or even during) the act of mating. She's the kind of woman you had better stay away from. ;)

As for pre-teen crushes, mine was very innocent: Lynsey de Paul. ;) She was blonde, cute, and she didn't smoke, didn't drink and didn't do drugs. She also never got married, even though she's had several romantic relationships — among others, with Sean Connery. :)

"Yesh, Mish Moneypenneh, thoshe were the daysh." :p

Don't forget Princess Diana.

I'll drop the age hammer on ya' all. My pre-teen crush was Angie Dickinson ...

https://prod-images.tcm.com/Master-Profile-Images/AngieDickinson.jpg

[Aragorn]

Don't forget Princess Diana.

No, she didn't have borderline personality disorder. She had bipolar disorder, which has some similarities with BPD, but it's an entirely different condition.


I'll drop the age hammer on ya' all. My pre-teen crush was Angie Dickinson ...

I remember her from the cop series "Police Woman", with Earl Holliman as her sidekick, and I later on saw her in a couple of movies as well. ;)

[Wind]

No, she didn't have borderline personality disorder. She had bipolar disorder, which has some similarities with BPD, but it's an entirely different condition.

I thought she was suspected to have BPD like Marilyn Monroe.

[Dreamtimer]

I played a game this weekend with my family where the players are dealt character cards. You could be a human, a snake, or a mongoose. I literally got dealt a snake every time. The only time I played a human is when they had to re-deal, but the first card had been a snake. Hmmmmmm......

I made a joke that I'd better be rectilinear. No-one got it.

[Aragorn]

I played a game this weekend with my family where the players are dealt character cards. You could be a human, a snake, or a mongoose. I literally got dealt a snake every time. The only time I played a human is when they had to re-deal, but the first card had been a snake. Hmmmmmm......

I made a joke that I'd better be rectilinear. No-one got it.

Maybe it's because you were born in the Chinese Year of the Snake (https://www.astrology.com/chinese-zodiac/snake). ;)

[Dreamtimer]

Indeed. I think you're on to something there, Aragorn.

[Dreamtimer]

So now here we are. I'm in (just past) my mid fifties. I've had four decades now of adult life. And some very consistent experiences. To summarize in one arena, when I'd express concerns about the direction of the Republican party - my entire family was and still mostly is Republican - I would hear one or both of the following,

"Liberal fear mongering!"

"That's the right-wing. That's the fringe. They're not going to take over."

And now here we are at the point where literally all of my concerns have come to pass. (and worse)

Why have folks who call themselves Republican been so clueless and in such denial? Why can't they learn even now?

I believe they've conditioned their own selves with their constant repetition of talking points. They came to believe them.

Sad.

[Wind]

Another epidemic:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States_in_202 2
https://abcnews.go.com/US/texas-elementary-school-reports-active-shooter-campus/story?id=84940951

[Emil El Zapato]

I was going to start a thread regarding mass murder last week but didn't.

Uvalde Texas May 24, 2022: 14 elementary school kids were shot dead by another mass murderer. It's funny, I was thinking exactly like the Democratic congressperson from that area: "I hope it was a Suicide-Mass murder"... because the alternative is too fucked up to consider.

Mass murder is the newest American addition to the world of sport.

[Wind]

Mass murder is the newest American addition to the world of sport.

A manifestation of what, cultural mental illness, demonic forces?

[Emil El Zapato]

A manifestation of what, cultural mental illness, demonic forces?

In truth, I wouldn't even venture a guess. I would speculate that if it was another one of 'those', meaning racially motivated events very bad things will happen. Thankfully, the current state looks like a Suicide motivation. The shooter was local and is dead. It is difficult to watch. Savior Governor Abbott (Mr. Right to Life) has jumped into action though. He's an older generation, Madison Cawthorn.

[Fred Steeves]

Uvalde Texas May 24, 2022: 14 elementary school kids were shot dead by another mass murderer.

Was just chatting with the wife about that. It's time a story also reported something along the lines of "and the gunman was shot dead by a shopper as he drew a bead on his next victim".

[Emil El Zapato]

Was just chatting with the wife about that. It's time a story also reported something along the lines of "and the gunman was shot dead by a shopper as he drew a bead on his next victim".

Not sure about that Fred.

[Fred Steeves]

Not sure about that Fred.

Better he sees things through? :unsure:

[Wind]

uFNYDVYxAuU

[Emil El Zapato]

Seriously, he missed his true calling, he should have been a speech writer ... :)

[Wind]

Brave men. Then again, if you only had a pistol, would you go against someone who has an AR-15?

lQf-DB5yZ5Y

I really wonder what might be the solution. I doubt that just singing kumbaya together will work.

dSTmnjdK1jc

[Emil El Zapato]

Brave men. Then again, if you only had a pistol, would you go against someone who has an AR-15?

I'd like to think so.

I'm wondering if that isn't a mistake. I'm thinking that the police were in and around the building and the ones that are being accused were 'managing' the PARENTS. Even at its worst, you wouldn't expect that kind of cowardice from 'alpha' males.

There were 'rumors' that some of the cops on the scene were rescuing their own kids ONLY. This is why Chester loves his state.

[Emil El Zapato]

Brave men. Then again, if you only had a pistol, would you go against someone who has an AR-15?


I really wonder what might be the solution. I doubt that just singing kumbaya together will work.

Unfortunately, the kinds of things I look for and saw in this case, the cop I saw that was holding back the parents was a big white dude. But there were also Hispanic cops strutting back and forth with their chests out, like big fucking yellow chickens.

I went to school with a big white dude, not really a bad guy but a big sissy. Just wasn't athletic so he was made fun of, probably mostly behind his back, I suspect. He extended his penis after high school by becoming a cop.

My idea was to eliminate all public institutions or turn them into all prisons.

[Dreamtimer]

It's the same drivel. More guns!!! More security and cops!!! Teachers should be armed and trained!!! Only one door with an armed cop at it!!!

That last one is Ted Cruz. One door. Because everyone knows just how safe a building with only one door would be. And of course schools are just leaving all their doors unlocked.

They're not. Schools are quite secure and Ted Cruz gets about three times as much money from the NRA as any other elected representative. So we can see who it is he really cares about.

[Wind]

DHuA0BEsUzI

[Emil El Zapato]

It's weird, I wonder if all top Texas politicians are inbreds from the Bush family. I'm seriously wondering about that.

[Fred Steeves]

DHuA0BEsUzI

That's a silly video on a couple of fronts, and accurate on one front.

- It's accurate in that there should be more training to get a gun. I've taken the conceal course, and it should be more than a written test and a quick trip to the range to pop off a few rounds into paper. But then again, how much training is required to drive a car? A written test, and a quick demonstration of the most basic of driving skills.

But here's where the reasoning falls apart: the "student" is told he should get more gun training, and that's correct; however, that's the same thing we all do with our freshly printed driver's license, we go out there and continue our training. Another way to look at it is who wants to get operated on by a surgeon who just got their license, and you're the first one? Even though they really have gone through extensive training, we all still naturally prefer someone with 20+ years under their belt.

- It's silly in the scenarios. A shooter scenario seldom involves being in a room with several doors, with the shooter poised behind one of them to jump out and bang bang shoot you real quick. That's not very realistic, and I'd like to see how often trained cops fail that one too.

- This will be described as a right wing talking point, but I've yet to have someone adequately explain its inaccuracies to me. The skit pokes fun that the training is woefully inadequate, but also pokes fun that nothing will be done to take the gun away from the bad guy, inferring that the answer is obviously right there but the gun will never be taken from him.

How do you make sure the bad guy never gets a gun? If you make them illegal, does that make all 390,000,000 guns out there disappear? There's a black market for everything else, but there wouldn't be for guns? Now every law abiding citizen has been disarmed, making criminals who have no regard for the law in the first place, the only ones who would be walking around with them.



This good guy with a gun, did okay against a bad guy with a gun, and he used (gasp) an "assault rifle" to do it with. Now what if the good guy didn't have that gun because the 2nd Amendment had been abolished?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gy_wrTVIuqM&t=301s

[Emil El Zapato]

In my opinion that the logic doesn't really hold up, it is just rationalization. Guns only represent the primal fear of the right and the cluelessness of the left. ALL people like guns for the thrill of the bang pop, but any sane person doesn't like innocent children slaughtered like animals. So the people that God gave a heart, soul, and brain get drowned out by all the f*ckups. People like the NRA and politicians that sell their souls for reasons that are below what any other human being would consider human dignity may be evil or not, but there is surely something lacking in their human spirits. Actually, they may be showing the animal spirit in all of us left unfettered by the heart and soul (i.e. a subspecies left behind by evolution or at the very least an offshoot branch of homo sapiens).

The 2nd amendment has never meant to represent what it has been twisted to represent. It is a programming that has been shaped in the last century and glommed onto by those that either live in fear of 'the other guy that has a gun or the desire not to protect themselves from the government but to allow themselves to fantasize that they are a threat to the government. The real question is, "Why does the other guy have a gun". We don't live in a primeval society, we are not threatened by lions, tigers, or bears unless we wish to be and in that event, I say give the damn fool a gun and let Darwin take his course.

Read the statistics and see what millions of guns do to any culture. Countries at war have the highest rates of all forms of domestic violence. The U.S. has been at war for decades, is society so naive as to believe that has no psychological impact on how it will adapt to the ever-present fear and dread? If the gun supply was managed it would be a limiting factor for the supply of black marketeers and would make them an easier 'target'. Even if only the bad guys had guns I suspect that the statistical edge for safety would be greatly enhanced. The end result would be that the U.S. would join the rest of the world on their ride on the 'Cosmic shooting gallery'. That one is statistically much more certain, you will die but it won't be by gun violence, but rather, age, accident, or even a meteoritic impact.

I think an addendum to the 2nd amendment is overdue and that doesn't scare me in the least. If Woe vs. Wade can be f*cked with impunity so can the 2nd.

American society has to grow up or eventually die from spiritual, emotional, psychological, and intellectual stagnation. It is no longer 1776 and to fantasize that it is, is just infantile. Proof that we can't handle ourselves and need the government to do it for us.

[Wind]

Well said.

[Fred Steeves]

Read the statistics and see what millions of guns do to any culture. Countries at war have the highest rates of all forms of domestic violence. The U.S. has been at war for decades, is society so naive as to believe that has no psychological impact on how it will adapt to the ever-present fear and dread?

Now we're talking. Violence is the answer our gubmint shows us so. We're always at war, we arm othes to go to war, and we cheer it on every time so that must be true, right?


Top 10 Countries with Highest Gun Ownership (Civilian guns owned per 100 people):

1. United States - 120.5
2. Falkland Islands - 62.1
3. Yemen - 52.8
4. New Caledonia - 42.5
5. Serbia - 39.1 (tie)
6. Montenegro - 39.1 (tie)
7. Uruguay - 34.7 (tie)
8. Canada - 34.7 (tie)
9. Cyprus - 34
10. Finland - 32.4
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/gun-ownership-by-country

The U.S. may be way out in front of other countries in gun ownership, but that doesn't mean other countries don't still have comparatively large numbers of gun owning citizens themselves, why don't they have the problems with violence that we do?

[Emil El Zapato]

Now we're talking. Violence is the answer our gubmint shows us so. We're always at war, we arm othes to go to war, and we cheer it on every time so that must be true, right?


https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/gun-ownership-by-country

The U.S. may be way out in front of other countries in gun ownership, but that doesn't mean other countries don't still have comparatively large numbers of gun owning citizens themselves, why don't they have the problems with violence that we do?

yes, that is a good question.

[Catsquotl]

Try to imagine why people would own a gun in those other countries..
Most American gun owners do not own one for hunting or sports.

And somehow through Hollywood and Marlboro commercials y'all think you're goddamn cowboys.
That and a media that feeds nothing but fearporn perhaps? for way way longer than the media pushes the fear agenda in those other countries..

Something like that I think

Not an idea from my own mind, But what if you subject all wannabe gun owners through the same hell. A Young pregnant woman wanting an abortion has to go through in the states?

Only one place per state that sells them.
Go through a crowd of angry mothers that lost sons through gun violence yelling you're a murderer.
Have an unpleasant and judgemental mental and physical exam.
MAybe that would help a little?

[Emil El Zapato]

The governor of Texas was rolling past President Biden and Biden patted him on the back, Abbot acted as if he wasn't even there. What a total and complete scumbag. Total and complete. Gawd I hope Beto O' Rourke kicks his worthless ass. I despise that f*cking lowlife.

And no, it's not because I love Biden, it's because that reprobate Abbot can't even find the internal dignity to acknowledge a moment like that. That's the essence of people like him.

[Wind]

The 2nd amendment might be a bit more hard for us Europeans to grasp. For some Americans it tends to be a very important thing, the idea of being free and able to defend yourself from danger. Here in Finland there are lots of guns, but most of them actually belong to hunters and then perhaps to collectors and some minor part of it are just gun-enthusiasts. You won't get a handgun for self-defence here and in most places it's now not so easy to get one easily either because you have to have a clear reason why you would want to have one. The police will decide if that reason is good enough for them, if you get a permit then the police will interview you at least once.

If you get a gun, they must be stored in a weapons cabinet. I think most common weapons here are shotguns and rifles. After that would come small calibre rifles, pistols and small calibre pistols. Deaths related to firearms seem to be relatively low and cops almost never have to shoot let alone kill anyone here, tasers are used a lot if needed. There have been only a handful times when there have been big shootings and sadly we did have two school shootings too about 15 years ago or so, before that it was still reasonably easy to get handguns. Before those shootings I was talking with my father about guns and possibly even considering to get one. I didn't consider after that and one reason was that even just the diagnosis for depression might disqualify you. I don't want the stigma of that. I would never even harm a fly, but how could the government be sure of that. At times I feel conflicted when I think about guns and violence.

Interesting video about gun control and the Constitution. Quite informative, something to ponder about.

vggYGQyVaCo

[Wind]

This man used force in an appropriate way. He put his life on the line as it was his duty and saved lives.

https://i.imgur.com/j5T8J1j.jpeg

[Emil El Zapato]

This man used force in an appropriate way. He put his life on the line as it was his duty and saved lives.

https://i.imgur.com/j5T8J1j.jpeg

Check the look on that dude's face. Every emotion is in it.

[Fred Steeves]

Check the look on that dude's face. Every emotion is in it.

That's the look of a man going to take care of some business.

[Dreamtimer]

I'm learning that Amber Heard is a lip picker. As in, picking dry skin off her lips, sometimes leaving a small spot which might bleed or swell a little. There was a string of clips showing her engaging in this activity.

I had to laugh. I've had this habit in the past. The lips get a little chapped, there's a bit of dry skin, you pick at it, and it can become a kind of vicious circle of peeling and picking. I literally bought a thick lip gloss which stays on for hours. My lips stay supple, they don't peel, I don't pick. I'll even wear it when I have no other makeup on. (it's clear) It lasts through eating, which is a big deal.

I can imagine Amber having a particularly harsh skin pull, her lip getting swollen, and then blaming it on someone hitting her. It's not her fault!!!

I know folks who make shit up because they just don't want to take responsibility for what they do, even when it's a stupid thing like lip-picking.

[Dreamtimer]

A new vision? As a kid I believed in the peaceful bucolic scenes from story books.

https://images.dailykos.com/images/1075515/lightbox/1588ckCOMICrichardscarryclassroom.png?1653957748

[Dreamtimer]

Here's some ShowerCap (https://showercapblog.com/the-peach-tree-dish-of-liberty-must-be-refreshed-from-time-to-time-with-the-ravings-of-idiots/) for Ya, BOB.

Links are plentiful in the original.


Given their commitment to doing absolutely fucking nothing to stop these preventable tragedies, you’d think Republicans would be swimming in free time, (in addition to the blood, of course) but the pious, theatrical gaslighting required to keep a white resentment cult in a state of perpetual sputtering rage is surprisingly labor-intensive.


And Uvalde completely obliterated the myth of the Good Guy With His Holy Gun, as surely as if Jesus came back just to taint-punt Wayne LaPierre into the sun. There’s no cover left, just a pack of hyperventilating nutjobs who would happily send ten million children to early graves rather than surrender a single bullet.


Ignored in all their wild-eyed plans to force children to crawl into classrooms via pet doors, each guarded by an entire platoon, is the helpful example set by the non-batshit, civilized world, where GUN CONTROL FUCKING WORKS.

[Emil El Zapato]

Here's some ShowerCap (https://showercapblog.com/the-peach-tree-dish-of-liberty-must-be-refreshed-from-time-to-time-with-the-ravings-of-idiots/) for Ya, BOB.

Links are plentiful in the original.

My neighbor and his wife are teachers and he told me today, that there is no way he would want teachers to have guns because they are as crazy as anybody. He said they would likely end up shooting students. I told him 'damn straight', I never would have made it out of high school.

[Fred Steeves]

And Uvalde completely obliterated the myth of the Good Guy With His Holy Gun, as surely as if Jesus came back just to taint-punt Wayne LaPierre into the sun. There’s no cover left, just a pack of hyperventilating nutjobs who would happily send ten million children to early graves rather than surrender a single bullet.

I'm seeing this particular rant popping up more and more in the hyper polarized, MSNBC type of political crowd gatherings.

Nice rant, but not so sure it's a good strategy to be lumping cops too chicken shit to break up a school mass shooting, in with the much despised "good guy with a gun" line. Think about what that's implying, having cops around with guns does no good either? That's a lob ball down the middle of the plate for civilian gun owners to knock out of the park by chiming in "well if the cops won't go in to save the kids, then we will".

The ranter is trying to have it both ways with the "good guy with a gun" one liner to seize the moment, and it just doesn't make any sense. Right, let's disarm the cops too...

[Aragorn]

Right, let's disarm the cops too...

Well, it does seem to work in the UK. :p

The British police do not carry any firearm unless special circumstances demand it, and when they then arrive at the scene, they have to announce it to the suspects with the phrase "Armed police officer!"

Uniformed police officers do carry a stick, by the way. But no guns. :)

[Wind]

Well, it does seem to work in the UK. :p

The British police do not carry any firearm unless special circumstances demand it, and when they then arrive at the scene, they have to announce it to the suspects with the phrase "Armed police officer!".

Uniformed police officers do carry a stick, by the way. But no guns. :)

That sounds a bit similar to Norway. The police do not carry guns with them there, they keep them locked in their cars.

What the U.S. Can Learn From Countries Where Cops Don't Carry Guns (https://time.com/5854986/police-reform-defund-unarmed-guns/)


Policing By Consent

While the 19 nations in the world that do not arm officers vary greatly in their approach to policing, they share a common thread. “What we can identify in these countries is that people have a tradition—and an expectation—that officers will police by consent rather than with the threat of force,” says Guðmundur Ævar Oddsson, associate professor of sociology at Iceland’s University of Akureyri who specializes in class inequality and forms of social control such as policing.

Countries with a philosophy of policing by consent, such as the United Kingdom, believe that police should not gain their power by instilling fear in the population but rather, should gain legitimacy and authority by maintaining the respect and approval of the public. This model of policing maintains that uses of force should be restrained and success is measured not in how many arrests officers have made but rather, by the absence of crime itself.

Better Training

In many countries where police are unarmed, governments invest in advanced level of training for law enforcement. In Norway, for example, policing is an elite occupation, where only the most qualified candidates are selected. In 2015, only 14% of candidates who applied to police schools were accepted.

Once admitted, prospective officers receive more extensive training than officers in the United States. Norwegian student officers must complete a three-year bachelor’s degree where they spend one year studying society and ethics, another shadowing officers, and a final year focusing on investigations and completing a thesis (In the United States, officers spend only on average 21 weeks in training which are modelled on military bootcamps).

“I think that the United States must learn that it takes time to educate people,” says Rune Glomseth, a professor at Norweigan police university college. “Police are a very special role in society and you can’t just train them for a few weeks. You need time.” Even once students have graduated, they are required to complete fifty hours of operational training per year. “If our officers were trained as extensively as police in Norway, they would be less reliant on deadly force,” says Hirschfield.

Officers in both Norway and Finland also work in tandem with medical professionals, particularly psychiatric specialists that accompany officers when dealing with people who are exhibiting signs of mental illness. In contrast, funding for psychiatric services in the United States has been cut in recent years, resulting in police officers handling cases of people who are mentally ill often without having the background knowledge to do so. The result is striking: A Washington Post analysis found that 25% of people shot by police officers during a six months period in 2015 were experiencing severe mental health issues.

The greatest skill a police officer can have is “critical reflection,” says Oddsson. “We need people [on the streets] who are cognizant of the fact that being a police officer is like being a social worker.”

[Fred Steeves]

Right, let's disarm the cops too...


Well, it does seem to work in the UK. :p

That's quite true.

I guess then what I'd like to see, is the polarized establishment left over here put their money where their mouths are. If they're gonna now run around playing cutesy with the term "good guy with a gun", by shoehorning it in to be one in the same with "And Uvalde completely obliterated the myth of the Good Guy With His Holy Gun" to gain gotcha points against their arch rivals the polarized right, then let's see them lobby for police gun control as well to be consistent.

If the notion of having good guys with guns, to be a balance against criminals with guns is such utter horseshit that we're now lumping cops into the mix, then let's see it actually put it out there for public debate over possible codification into law with all the rest, rather than just using it to score cheap political points with.

Words mean things is what I'm a sayin... ;)

[Dreamtimer]

Trae Crowder and his Mark Agee were talking shortly after the Uvalde shooting. Mark addressed the idea of teachers having guns. He talked about his wife, how stressed she is and how she just might use it herself. He talked about how she has to give meds because there's no school nurse. He talked about how utterly stupid and short-sighted the knee-jerk reactions from the right are after this shooting.

And how many mass shootings have there been this year so far?

Hundreds. And it's only June.

When a nation actually has a real debate then solutions can happen. If folks are yelling about 'good guy with a gun' it's because that 'solution' has been offered up time and again. And it's a failure. You can say it, state it, yell it, whatever. It's still a failure.

Words do matter. And preferring failed solutions again and again is both a waste of words and a waste of life.

The good guys with the guns, and armor and all the things were too effing afraid to go in and do anything. It was much easier to handcuff a mom than do their jobs. And it was much easier to lie and lie and lie.

You're right Fred, words matter. And the empty ones need to go into the trash.

[Emil El Zapato]

That sounds a bit similar to Norway. The police do not carry guns with them there, they keep them locked in their cars.

What the U.S. Can Learn From Countries Where Cops Don't Carry Guns (https://time.com/5854986/police-reform-defund-unarmed-guns/)

Now that's a great great concept, Wind. What Americans simply do not understand is that social constructs are a feedback loop. Respect me and I will respect you. F*ck with me and I will f*ck you up, even if that only means disrespect and resistance. Never will the authoritarians understand that.

That hits on the Scandinavian zeitgeist that was so difficult for me to articulate for years. It was a difficult concept to integrate in many ways. For example, the idea that there was less crime if there were less laws. That's a mind twister.


That's quite true.

I guess then what I'd like to see, is the polarized establishment left over here put their money where their mouths are. If they're gonna now run around playing cutesy with the term "good guy with a gun", by shoehorning it in to be one in the same with "And Uvalde completely obliterated the myth of the Good Guy With His Holy Gun" to gain gotcha points against their arch rivals the polarized right, then let's see them lobby for police gun control as well to be consistent.

If the notion of having good guys with guns, to be a balance against criminals with guns is such utter horseshit that we're now lumping cops into the mix, then let's see it actually put it out there for public debate over possible codification into law with all the rest, rather than just using it to score cheap political points with.

Words mean things is what I'm a sayin... ;)

I have no doubt that the left would be in favor of limiting all guns, but there is a long road to reaching that level of social reasoning and maturity in the U.S.

[Fred Steeves]

https://twitter.com/SxarletRed/status/1532853860737372161?

And then we have this:


A funeral worker and attendant who was prepared to charge the gunman who opened fire inside Robb Elementary School last month, killing 19 children and two teachers, said he was told by police to stay back and not engage the shooter.

Cody Briseno told NBC News in an exclusive interview that he saw the gunman crash his truck in front of the school on May 24 before hopping out with a rifle. Briseno backed up after seeing an “evil look” from the shooter, who opened fire at him and a co-worker.

The pair fled back inside Hillcrest Memorial Funeral Home across the street. There, behind a locked door, Briseno called his wife, who brought him a firearm.

Briseno said was prepared to confront the shooter, but by that time, police had gathered outside the school and ordered him not to engage the gunman.

Briseno recalls telling the officers outside: “I’m going to go in and try to stop them.” But he was met with resistance from an officer, who he did not identify to NBC News, that told him to stay back and shut up.
https://thehill.com/news/state-watch/3512458-uvalde-funeral-attendant-told-to-stay-back-after-trying-to-confront-school-shooter/

[Dreamtimer]

I sure hope the cops with all their armor and military weapons and accoutrements don't decide to shoot the parents and civilians who want to help. Not only won't they 'serve and protect', they seem hell bent on stopping others from doing so.

But kneeling on an unarmed suspect's neck or head even, no problem there.

Putting children face down on asphalt in the summer, no problem there.

Houston, we have a training problem here.

[Emil El Zapato]

I sure hope the cops with all their armor and military weapons and accoutrements don't decide to shoot the parents and civilians who want to help. Not only won't they 'serve and protect', they seem hell bent on stopping others from doing so.

But kneeling on an unarmed suspect's neck or head even, no problem there.

Putting children face down on asphalt in the summer, no problem there.

Houston, we have a training problem here.

Texas, we have a mental problem and it ain't regular people, it is the gubment.

[Aragorn]

https://twitter.com/SxarletRed/status/1532853860737372161?

Maybe somebody should have told those cops that the shooter was African-American. I bet they would have gone in with their guns ablaze. :facepalm:

[Emil El Zapato]

maybe, I like to think that brown cops are a little more circumspect, but you know what, many times they ain't and that is just more testimony to the sad state of blind authoritarianism and depraved humanity.

[Aragorn]

maybe, I like to thank that brown cops are a little more circumspect, but you know what, many times they ain't and that is just more testimony to the sad state of blind authoritarianism and depraved humanity.

I'm not so sure it would be a matter of authoritarianism as that it would be a matter of a caste-based society. Cops belong to a privileged caste, and privileged castes love exerting their authority over the less privileged ones, even bullying them, because they somehow believe that they have a right or an obligation to do so — as I myself have come to experience first-hand over here in Belgium, back in the late 1980s.

[Dreamtimer]

Caste is an interesting choice of words, Aragorn. When I recall words like, "They need to stay in their place," that's exactly what that is. "I remember when black people used to know their place." That place was underneath. Down. Below.

Many Americans truly believed in their heart of hearts that we'd overcome racism here. My dad thought so when Obama was elected. It's painfully clear that we haven't.

That's the good part. It's clear now. And we need to address the issue.

We filled in our public pools because we didn't want blacks swimming in them. We failed again and again to pass national health care because the blacks would get it. This is all on record.

It's just not a record folks like to play. They put it on the back shelf and pretend it's not in the collection.

[Emil El Zapato]

Caste is an interesting choice of words, Aragorn. When I recall words like, "They need to stay in their place," that's exactly what that is. "I remember when black people used to know their place." That place was underneath. Down. Below.

Many Americans truly believed in their heart of hearts that we'd overcome racism here. My dad thought so when Obama was elected. It's painfully clear that we haven't.

That's the good part. It's clear now. And we need to address the issue.

We filled in our public pools because we didn't want blacks swimming in them. We failed again and again to pass national health care because the blacks would get it. This is all on record.

It's just not a record folks like to play. They put it on the back shelf and pretend it's not in the collection.

Social Security is another example, in its inception is was intended for white widows. not black people. That's essentially how it was passed, black pepoes don't qualify.

That is such a deep-seated mental glitch, how does one even approach the subject in a rational discussion.

[Fred Steeves]

This is a good one. Joe Rogan chats with physicist Michio Kaku about U.F.O's, and the possibility that some of them could be from a Type 3 civilization where the limitations of space/time would be no obsticle for them; quite the opposite he says, it would be a playground:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YebZyAzLZuc

[Dreamtimer]

"Space and Time become your playground." I like that. We can do that individually (and some collectively) in the Dreamtime, in astral form. Which means there could be some kind of encounter with beings from that level, and we'd perceive it as something like a deity.

[Emil El Zapato]

Michio Kaku is surprising me. I never suspected he was anything but a true believer. He was reported once as saying something to the effect of stupid tinfoil hats and I refused to believe it. I think he is showing his mental age (perhaps just my impression), he once stated that he was genetically young for his age. Anyway, USOs have been within the awareness of the UFO community for many years. To say 'now we know' is somewhat ... something, but I'm not sure what. He once also said that we are certain that no other planetary bodies exist in the solar system which is now considered not necessarily so.

ps. That sounds more like Kaku in one of his books he stated that we should consider 'alien visitors' not in terms of years ahead, decades or even centuries ahead of us, but many thousands of years if not millions.

Or maybe it is just a cultural thing for him ... his bearing that is ...

[Emil El Zapato]

Please understand that my response to Aianawa's video is to correct the record and demonstrate that Atlantians weren't necessarily 'caucasian'. Is that so hard to understand? Unless the time frame for Atlantis was within the last 5,000 years they were no such thing as European Caucasians. Some myths as we know them today are intended to elevate Europeans and most of them have a long history both scientific and legend steeped in 'European' greatness which is no different than 'American exceptionalism. I also added evidence to back up my viewpoint. This is just more 'stuff' that white supremacists wrap themselves in to 'feel' better about themselves. It is a max level of mental and social jack up. My opinion, take it or leave it.

[Aragorn]

Please understand that my response to Aianawa's video is to correct the record and demonstrate that Atlantians weren't necessarily 'caucasian'. Is that so hard to understand?

It wasn't your response to Aianawa that got you banned from the "Atlantis Survivors" thread. It was your attitude.

First you were suggesting that Chester would be a white-supremacist — which he most certainly is not — and then you called his thought processes "disturbing". And even after being slapped on the wrist by Dreamtimer and myself — I hadn't seen Dreamtimer's post yet when I was composing my own reply to you — you wouldn't relent on account of the smugness and the thread-derailing.

Is that so hard to understand?

[Emil El Zapato]

It wasn't your response to Aianawa that got you banned from the "Atlantis Survivors" thread. It was your attitude.

First you were suggesting that Chester would be a white-supremacist — which he most certainly is not — and then you called his thought processes "disturbing". And even after being slapped on the wrist by Dreamtimer and myself — I hadn't seen Dreamtimer's post yet when I was composing my own reply to you — you wouldn't relent on account of the smugness and the thread-derailing.

Is that so hard to understand?

I didn't specify that I thought Chester was a white-supremacist, I was asking him and he didn't deny it. His Iranian dude that he recommended reading is a known white-supremacist. That's all there was to it, The disturbing part really related to his comment on Gio's thread that Liz Chaney was a sick human being. Sick human being? She's trying to save Democracy in the United States. That was disturbing to me. Chester is a product of PA and I feel he's bringing those paranoid sick concepts to TOT.

[Emil El Zapato]

How do i get that stupid thread off my UI, I can't ignore it because I don't have access? I like Lemurians anyway, Atlantians sucked.

[Aragorn]

I didn't specify that I thought Chester was a white-supremacist, I was asking him and he didn't deny it.

He did, albeit in between the lines.


Chester is a product of PA and I feel he's bringing those paranoid sick concepts to TOT.

He's not the only PA member to do so. Project Avalon is a place where people are brainwashed and politically polarized. We can only hope that their presence here may one day awaken them to the error of their ways.





How do i get that stupid thread off my UI, I can't ignore it because I don't have access? I like Lemurians anyway, Atlantians sucked.

I have now temporarily unbanned you from the thread again so you could add it to your ignore list. Let me know — on this thread here — as soon as you've done so, and then I will reinstate the thread ban. Be advised however that it'll take some time before the database is updated, and thus before any updates to the thread will disappear from your view.

Note: Mind you that I am not going to be waiting forever. You still have until 14:50 UTC. After that, I will reinstate the thread ban, whether you've managed to add the thread to your ignore list or not.

[Emil El Zapato]

https://theintercept.imgix.net/wp-uploads/sites/1/2017/12/jason-jorjani-white-supremacist-2-1513620631.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&q=90&fit=crop&w=3000&h=1500


A WEEK AND A HALF after Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 presidential election, Jason Reza Jorjani took the stage at a white supremacist conference in Washington, D.C. Richard Spencer gave him an awkward hug and pat on the back before he shuffled to the podium and spoke into the microphone.

“In light of the outcome of the recent election, in which I think the rise of the ‘alt-right’ was the decisive factor,” Jorjani said, “it is especially meaningful for me to be here with you as the leader of what is frankly the most significant press in the ‘alt-right.’”

Jorjani and Spencer had not met in person until that November weekend at the conference, hosted by the National Policy Institute, a white supremacist “think tank.” The weekend was spiked with occasional Nazi salutes. Just the month before, Jorjani had become the editor-in-chief of Arktos Media, a publishing imprint for some of the most canonical texts of the far right. They soon combined forces in a shared office in a spacious loft in Alexandria, Virginia. To end any confusion over what the “alt-right” movement stood for and who its leaders were, Spencer, Jorjani, and Arktos chief executive Daniel Friberg launched the AltRight Corporation.

But as quickly as Jorjani rose within the far right’s ranks, so too did he fall. A year ago, the “alt-right” was in a campaign to rebrand white supremacy as an intellectually sophisticated movement, backed by a troll army. Yet in 2017, the far-right saw its most publicly violent year full of street protests. Spencer himself seemed to have traded his glossy “think tank” networking events, like the one Jorjani appeared at, for white supremacist rallies. Spencer’s “college tour” began in 2016, according to Spencer, as a project of “intellectual activity” — but it frequently served to provide opportunity for his followers to publicly gather and shout “white power,” throw Nazi salutes into the air, and engage in violent battles with counterprotesters.

In their earlier days, Jorjani and his business partners had tried to perfume their brownshirt musings as a style of opposition intellectualism worthy of fair debate in the public sphere. When I first met Jorjani in December 2016, at the height of his rise in the far right, he proudly told me, “What happened is that a hyper-intellectual, vanguardist movement used a U.S. presidential election to advance its agenda.” Over a plate of fesenjan, an Iranian stewed meat dish, and jeweled rice, he added, “The ‘alt-right’ doesn’t work for Donald Trump, it doesn’t work for the Republican Party, it doesn’t work for masses of Republican voters, and it certainly doesn’t work for evangelical Republicans.”

An Iranian-American like Jorjani might seem to be an unusual figure to join the leadership of a white nationalist movement. But more than a year after joining forces with Spencer, Jorjani is now trying to distance himself from a movement that, by his own account, he helped design. It raises intriguing questions: The facade of white supremacist intellectualism has been steadily crumbling, but just how did this happen? And what’s next?

Jorjani’s apartment is on the Upper West Side in New York City, N.Y. Photo: Polina Yamshchikov for The Intercept
“I DIDN’T PUT that there,” Jorjani said when I first visited him in December 2016, pointing to an American flag sticker on the door of his Upper West Side, Manhattan apartment. “It was probably some scared Muslim guy after 9/11.”

He smiled and shrugged, his teeth gapped and his hair combed back in a fluffy, slightly thinned pompadour. He looked younger than his 36 years. Were it not for a gently sloping paunch under his black turtleneck, he’d have the appearance of an adolescent playing an adult in a wool coat and professorial attire.

He is no meme warrior: He stays away from far-right code words like “cuck” or “libtard”; his presence on Twitter is minimal. Above his bookshelf is a version of John Milton’s “Paradise Lost” illustrated by Gustave Doré.

Jorjani fancies himself a gentleman and has a cloyingly sentimental view of women. They are to be treated with “respect,” he says, but my experience of his “chivalry” was claustrophobia-inducing. During our interviews, for example, he insisted on paying for my dinners so forcefully that, during my multiple attempts to explain that journalists are not supposed to receive remuneration from sources, he screamed at me. “This is not a discussion! You can print that!” he yelled.

Sitting in his living room, he offered to show me his private art collection: a Facebook album dedicated to his own works, as well as 226 other works of art he has gathered from the internet. The album is a mix of sexy sci-fi pulp; Surrealism; Italian Futurism; comic book hellscapes; paintings by Franz von Stuck, Hitler’s beloved painter; and several suggestive photographs of prepubescent girls taken by Jock Sturges, whose equipment and negatives were confiscated by the FBI.

One drawing in the collection, by Frank Frazetta, can only be described as space babes fighting in space. Their fleshy forms jut out at fantastical angles that defy the figures of actual humans.

“It’s space Amazons,” he said. “I think we should have a world of space Amazons.”

“Why do you say that?” I asked.

“They should be the ones that annihilate the last remnants of Islam,” he replied.

Clicking through Jorjani’s album, I came across an image of a woman staring from underneath a niqab, her eyes intensely burning.

“Oh, I thought those eyes were incredible,” Jorjani mused. “To me, it evokes the history of, you know, the kind of tortured life full of rage and shattered glass that’s inside of a woman who becomes a jihadi, or who joins that cause.”

After Trump took the oath of office in 2017, Jorjani continued to enthusiastically promote his “alt-right” project and insisted on its influence within the White House. In February 2017, he told me that the movement would begin a lobbying campaign and work on influencing the Trump administration’s foreign policy in the Middle East.

In the months before the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, which Spencer and other partners in the AltRight Corporation attended, Jorjani’s alliance with far-right leaders began to crack. Just days after James Alex Fields Jr. plowed his car into peaceful protesters, leaving at least 19 injured and Heather Heyer dead, Jorjani resigned from the AltRight Corporation in a blog post. He did not mention the violence in Charlottesville in the post about his decision. Rather, he wrote that he was leaving to focus on an Iranian nationalist project that would “form the nucleus of a new regime, before rootless globalists and their Islamist pawns succeed in steering the collapse of the Islamic Republic in a direction that further erodes Iran’s territorial integrity and aborts its cultural rebirth.”

But his leadership role in the far right would not be forgotten so easily.

After his departure from the movement, Jorjani gained attention for comments he made to an undercover activist with the anti-racist organization Hope Not Hate, in a video published by the New York Times. In the footage, he implies that the “alt-right” movement would end in “concentration camps and expulsions and war”; with the wave of a hand, he said that it would come “at the cost of a few hundred million people.” He added that “We will have a Europe in 2050 where the bank notes have Adolf Hitler, Napoleon Bonaparte, Alexander the Great.” After the video became public, Jorjani was placed on administrative leave from New Jersey Institute of Technology, where he had a teaching position. He claims that the quotes were libelous and the tape deceptively edited.

Jorjani and I met again after the video was published. He insisted he wasn’t racist and pointed to what he said was his admiration for European Jews’ place in the “Indo-European tradition,” as well as his tolerance for black Iranians who were brought from Africa as slaves during the Persian Empire. As proof that he is not a “neo-Nazi genocidal maniac,” he handed me his second book, with chapter titles like “The Third World War,” “The Neo-Eugenic World State,” and “Aryan Imperium (Iran-Shahr).” He insisted that his vision of an Indo-European world was vastly divorced from Spencer’s atomizing white nationalism. “I am a globalist!” he exclaimed — merely one whose vision of the world is cleansed of Islam.

It is not clear who Jorjani even considers Muslim. In his mind, Bosnia’s Muslims are Slavs who can be “easily excavated” from their religion. On the other hand, he believes hard-line Saudi Arabia and its inhabitants should be swallowed in a sea of flames to leave “a glass parking lot” on top of the desert. He has written that Iran’s “pre-Arab and pre-Mongol genetic character” would need to be restored through “embryo selection and genetic engineering” in order to “Make Iran Great Again.”

Jorjani has a lot of fantastical ideas. In our earliest conversations, he expressed conspiratorial visions of the “deep state.” As if it were indisputable fact, he casually mentioned his belief that insect drones are currently in use by the NSA, surveilling us from mundane cracks and crawling under doors. In later conversations, he told me that private intelligence operatives promised him massive funds to take over the “alt-right” (a claim that could not be verified by The Intercept). In the New York Times video, Jorjani also claimed that Steve Bannon, Trump’s now-ousted chief strategist, was to be the “interface” between the AltRight Corporation and the White House.

JORJANI WAS BORN in New York City to a family of prestige and means. While his mother comes from a working-class family of “northern European heritage,” he says his father is from a branch of the Qajar dynasty, which ruled Iran before the last ruling family, Pahlavi, prior to the 1979 revolution. Jorjani says his father had “incidental communications” with the shah, performing in his palace with the rock band he formed as a teenager. Despite this lineage, Jorjani claims that “none of the wealth remained.”

He is a dual citizen of the U.S. and Iran, and his Iranian passport describes him as “Shia Muslim,” though he hates Islam and doesn’t consider himself Muslim. Jorjani is also, by his own admission, a product of the American elite; he attended the Dalton School, one of the most exclusive private schools on the Upper East Side in New York City.

After high school, Jorjani accepted a spot at Fordham University and transferred to New York University a year later. He frequently drifted to the extremes of thought, drawn to fringe science and taboo politics that were mocked by his academic peers. His master’s thesis was about how Islam, in his view, brings out the tension between democracy and universal human rights. “If you have an unqualified human right to freedom of religion, and you have an unqualified universal human right to democratic government — both of which you find in the UDHR [Universal Declaration of Human Rights] — then it is perfectly legitimate for the majority of a country to elect a theocratic Muslim government,” he said to me in an explanation of his thesis. That government, he continued, “on the basis of the Quran, legitimately can say that freedom of religion should be banned. … You can use these loopholes to undermine the whole framework of universal human rights.”

Jorjani likes to speak elliptically, making wide and often demonstrably false academic claims. Some are absurd, like his belief that the pyramids in the lost city of Atlantis were built through collective psychokinesis, while other inaccuracies are perhaps imperceptible to the untrained.

Following Jorjani’s appearance at Spencer’s conference in Washington, a small controversy emerged about the dissertation Jorjani had written for his Ph.D. at the State University of New York-Stony Brook. An academic blog published a post on the controversy, and in a long comment, Thomas Davies, a Ph.D. student in classics at Princeton, picked apart Jorjani’s work. Jorjani bases an entire argument on the belief that the name of Norse god Tyr is a linguistic cousin to “tir”, the Persian word for “arrow”; in fact, according to Davies, “Tyr” is from a proto-Indo-European word for “god,” while “tir” comes from “tigra,” the Old Persian word for “pointy.” The similarities in sound may be convincing to a novice, but not to anyone trained in linguistics, Davies wrote.

“Jorjani’s errors aren’t just differences in interpretation or viewpoint. His versions of ‘history’ and ‘linguistics’ stand to actual history and linguistics as alchemy stands to chemistry,” Davies told me in a follow-up email.

But Jorjani thinks of his embrace of debunked ideas as a mark of intellectual bravery, a type of iconoclasm befitting what he sees as his considerable intellect. He channeled his education in an unusual direction — a seemingly endless stream of pseudoscience and pseudohistory, which he has used to give authoritative weight to the racism of the far right. In particular, he champions a questionable version of Iranian history that is promoted by Iranian nationalists: that prior to the Islamic conquest of Persia in 651 A.D., Iran was an Aryan civilization. Invoking the idea of a “white genocide” with the fall of the Persian Empire, he provided a historical justification for the far right’s obsession with racial purity and its hatred of non-white immigration. For Jorjani, what he believes happened in Persia thousands of years ago — a white civilization overcome by a horde of nonwhites — was a taste of what could happen now. However, his version of Iranian history is condemned by scholars of both Islamic studies and ancient Iranian history.

“Nearly everything allegedly glorious about Islam was parasitically appropriated by Arabs and Turks from the Caucasian civilization of greater Iran,” Jorjani told the crowd in Washington, calling the fall of the Persian Empire the “first and greatest white genocide.” The crowd hooted in approval.

IN 2015, Jorjani stumbled into the far right, he says.

He needed to find a publisher for his book “Prometheus and Atlas,” so he Googled the term “archeofuturist,” which he thought was an original phrase that described his work. He found that an Arktos-published writer had beat him to the term, but he also realized that Arktos might be interested in publishing his book — and that’s what happened. The book was well-received in extremist circles. A review on the website of the white nationalist publishing house Counter Currents compares it to “Moby Dick,” and anoints Jorjani as the movement’s “‘pagan harpooner’ folded in the flag of Ahab.”

The book is paranoid and conspiratorial. In it, Jorjani writes that humanity is on the brink of uncovering psychic abilities like telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition. Because of this, he has told me in conversations, humans must create a perfect “trust society,” which essentially comes down to racial homogeneity.

Jorjani’s historical myths, in their superficial erudition and world-historical vision, have been tantalizing to a far-right that has been eager to legitimize itself by shedding racist signifiers. In place of the militarized and brutish skinhead look, there is the “fashy haircut” and suits that Spencer prefers. In place of (or in addition to) crude recruiting pamphlets, there are publishing houses, jargon-filled blog screeds, and flimsy science designed to confirm racist hypotheses as perennial fact. They appeal primarily to those who wish to legitimize their bottom-basement impulses with a decor of faux academic sensibility.

Yet ultimately, his journey to the top of the far-right didn’t work out. “I watched the corporation that was my brainchild turn into a magnet for white trash,” he wrote on his personal blog, and he lamented the trolling he received for his posts on altright.com, the corporation’s website. “‘Iranians is brown poo-poo people’ kind of sums it up,” he wrote.

This turn should come as little surprise — the “alt-right” was never as intellectually coherent as Jorjani and others tried to make it out to be; among other things, it just relied on old ideas of white supremacy made modern with some frog memes. But what Jorjani’s evolution demonstrates is that in 2018 and beyond, the “alt-right” and its leaders will likely show little concern for the kind of decorum Jorjani represented as a self-described “intellectual.” Indeed, following a paltry student turnout at Spencer’s most recent appearance at Michigan State University on March 5, he announced that he will stop publicizing his campus drop-ins and will seek new strategies of public engagement. The “alt-right” — a euphemism for white supremacy with violence at its core — simply doesn’t need to pretend anymore.

SO, WHO is Jason Jorjani?

“I am a utopianist,” he told me, slapping the table in the Iranian restaurant back in December 2016.

I mentioned a quote from the Czech-French author Milan Kundera, after his exile from his Czech homeland: “Hell is already contained in the dream of paradise…”

“I agree!” Jorjani interrupted, missing the rest of the quote. “I believe we should go through those hells and keep striving for the paradise. The deepest depths and the greatest heights.”

“But doesn’t that also come with incredible terror?” I asked.

“Yes it does. Beauty and terror are inextricable. You can’t have one without the other. If you want to strive for true beauty, you do have to confront terror.”

“It sounds like a world of rainbows and flames.”

“Yeah, and that’s where I think this movement is headed,” he said with a conciliatory sigh, his knuckles rapping on the table. “And if anyone tells you otherwise, they don’t understand it. … They think it’s a fad or something. But actually, that’s where it is going.”

“That’s a very scary thing,” I said.

“Beauty and terror,” he was quick to reply.

[Chester]

I didn't specify that I thought Chester was a white-supremacist, I was asking him and he didn't deny it. His Iranian dude that he recommended reading is a known white-supremacist. That's all there was to it, The disturbing part really related to his comment on Gio's thread that Liz Chaney was a sick human being. Sick human being? She's trying to save Democracy in the United States. That was disturbing to me. Chester is a product of PA and I feel he's bringing those paranoid sick concepts to TOT.

To me, Liz Cheney is a sick human being because she has demonstrated (just like her father) time and time again that she is a champion for the military industrial intelligence complex that has created wars "in the name of democracy" for decades murdering millions of innocent people along the way. I doubt anyone here would disagree.

Number two, I am no product of anyone but myself - understand?

The one who appears paranoid (and is assuming the role of "savior" to TOT) is yourself.

Someone who insinuates someone else is a "white supremacist" and then claims they asked their target if they were "such" and then further insinuates he must be because "he didn't deny it" is simply demonstrating exactly why your world (not mine) has little chance in extracting its head from its backside.

But the worst of all is your comments pointing to Jason Jorjani. You clearly do not know a thing of what you are talking about. You have no idea what is true or not about this man. Yet you call him a "known white-supremacist." This is, again, another example of complete ignorance. I cannot imagine a human being choosing to live in such ignorance but I honor your right to so do.

[Chester]

https://theintercept.imgix.net/wp-uploads/sites/1/2017/12/jason-jorjani-white-supremacist-2-1513620631.jpg?auto=compress%2Cformat&q=90&fit=crop&w=3000&h=1500


A WEEK AND A HALF after Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 presidential election, Jason Reza Jorjani took the stage at a white supremacist conference in Washington, D.C. Richard Spencer gave him an awkward hug and pat on the back before he shuffled to the podium and spoke into the microphone.

“In light of the outcome of the recent election, in which I think the rise of the ‘alt-right’ was the decisive factor,” Jorjani said, “it is especially meaningful for me to be here with you as the leader of what is frankly the most significant press in the ‘alt-right.’”

Jorjani and Spencer had not met in person until that November weekend at the conference, hosted by the National Policy Institute, a white supremacist “think tank.” The weekend was spiked with occasional Nazi salutes. Just the month before, Jorjani had become the editor-in-chief of Arktos Media, a publishing imprint for some of the most canonical texts of the far right. They soon combined forces in a shared office in a spacious loft in Alexandria, Virginia. To end any confusion over what the “alt-right” movement stood for and who its leaders were, Spencer, Jorjani, and Arktos chief executive Daniel Friberg launched the AltRight Corporation.

But as quickly as Jorjani rose within the far right’s ranks, so too did he fall. A year ago, the “alt-right” was in a campaign to rebrand white supremacy as an intellectually sophisticated movement, backed by a troll army. Yet in 2017, the far-right saw its most publicly violent year full of street protests. Spencer himself seemed to have traded his glossy “think tank” networking events, like the one Jorjani appeared at, for white supremacist rallies. Spencer’s “college tour” began in 2016, according to Spencer, as a project of “intellectual activity” — but it frequently served to provide opportunity for his followers to publicly gather and shout “white power,” throw Nazi salutes into the air, and engage in violent battles with counterprotesters.

In their earlier days, Jorjani and his business partners had tried to perfume their brownshirt musings as a style of opposition intellectualism worthy of fair debate in the public sphere. When I first met Jorjani in December 2016, at the height of his rise in the far right, he proudly told me, “What happened is that a hyper-intellectual, vanguardist movement used a U.S. presidential election to advance its agenda.” Over a plate of fesenjan, an Iranian stewed meat dish, and jeweled rice, he added, “The ‘alt-right’ doesn’t work for Donald Trump, it doesn’t work for the Republican Party, it doesn’t work for masses of Republican voters, and it certainly doesn’t work for evangelical Republicans.”

An Iranian-American like Jorjani might seem to be an unusual figure to join the leadership of a white nationalist movement. But more than a year after joining forces with Spencer, Jorjani is now trying to distance himself from a movement that, by his own account, he helped design. It raises intriguing questions: The facade of white supremacist intellectualism has been steadily crumbling, but just how did this happen? And what’s next?

Jorjani’s apartment is on the Upper West Side in New York City, N.Y. Photo: Polina Yamshchikov for The Intercept
“I DIDN’T PUT that there,” Jorjani said when I first visited him in December 2016, pointing to an American flag sticker on the door of his Upper West Side, Manhattan apartment. “It was probably some scared Muslim guy after 9/11.”

He smiled and shrugged, his teeth gapped and his hair combed back in a fluffy, slightly thinned pompadour. He looked younger than his 36 years. Were it not for a gently sloping paunch under his black turtleneck, he’d have the appearance of an adolescent playing an adult in a wool coat and professorial attire.

He is no meme warrior: He stays away from far-right code words like “cuck” or “libtard”; his presence on Twitter is minimal. Above his bookshelf is a version of John Milton’s “Paradise Lost” illustrated by Gustave Doré.

Jorjani fancies himself a gentleman and has a cloyingly sentimental view of women. They are to be treated with “respect,” he says, but my experience of his “chivalry” was claustrophobia-inducing. During our interviews, for example, he insisted on paying for my dinners so forcefully that, during my multiple attempts to explain that journalists are not supposed to receive remuneration from sources, he screamed at me. “This is not a discussion! You can print that!” he yelled.

Sitting in his living room, he offered to show me his private art collection: a Facebook album dedicated to his own works, as well as 226 other works of art he has gathered from the internet. The album is a mix of sexy sci-fi pulp; Surrealism; Italian Futurism; comic book hellscapes; paintings by Franz von Stuck, Hitler’s beloved painter; and several suggestive photographs of prepubescent girls taken by Jock Sturges, whose equipment and negatives were confiscated by the FBI.

One drawing in the collection, by Frank Frazetta, can only be described as space babes fighting in space. Their fleshy forms jut out at fantastical angles that defy the figures of actual humans.

“It’s space Amazons,” he said. “I think we should have a world of space Amazons.”

“Why do you say that?” I asked.

“They should be the ones that annihilate the last remnants of Islam,” he replied.

Clicking through Jorjani’s album, I came across an image of a woman staring from underneath a niqab, her eyes intensely burning.

“Oh, I thought those eyes were incredible,” Jorjani mused. “To me, it evokes the history of, you know, the kind of tortured life full of rage and shattered glass that’s inside of a woman who becomes a jihadi, or who joins that cause.”

After Trump took the oath of office in 2017, Jorjani continued to enthusiastically promote his “alt-right” project and insisted on its influence within the White House. In February 2017, he told me that the movement would begin a lobbying campaign and work on influencing the Trump administration’s foreign policy in the Middle East.

In the months before the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, which Spencer and other partners in the AltRight Corporation attended, Jorjani’s alliance with far-right leaders began to crack. Just days after James Alex Fields Jr. plowed his car into peaceful protesters, leaving at least 19 injured and Heather Heyer dead, Jorjani resigned from the AltRight Corporation in a blog post. He did not mention the violence in Charlottesville in the post about his decision. Rather, he wrote that he was leaving to focus on an Iranian nationalist project that would “form the nucleus of a new regime, before rootless globalists and their Islamist pawns succeed in steering the collapse of the Islamic Republic in a direction that further erodes Iran’s territorial integrity and aborts its cultural rebirth.”

But his leadership role in the far right would not be forgotten so easily.

After his departure from the movement, Jorjani gained attention for comments he made to an undercover activist with the anti-racist organization Hope Not Hate, in a video published by the New York Times. In the footage, he implies that the “alt-right” movement would end in “concentration camps and expulsions and war”; with the wave of a hand, he said that it would come “at the cost of a few hundred million people.” He added that “We will have a Europe in 2050 where the bank notes have Adolf Hitler, Napoleon Bonaparte, Alexander the Great.” After the video became public, Jorjani was placed on administrative leave from New Jersey Institute of Technology, where he had a teaching position. He claims that the quotes were libelous and the tape deceptively edited.

Jorjani and I met again after the video was published. He insisted he wasn’t racist and pointed to what he said was his admiration for European Jews’ place in the “Indo-European tradition,” as well as his tolerance for black Iranians who were brought from Africa as slaves during the Persian Empire. As proof that he is not a “neo-Nazi genocidal maniac,” he handed me his second book, with chapter titles like “The Third World War,” “The Neo-Eugenic World State,” and “Aryan Imperium (Iran-Shahr).” He insisted that his vision of an Indo-European world was vastly divorced from Spencer’s atomizing white nationalism. “I am a globalist!” he exclaimed — merely one whose vision of the world is cleansed of Islam.

It is not clear who Jorjani even considers Muslim. In his mind, Bosnia’s Muslims are Slavs who can be “easily excavated” from their religion. On the other hand, he believes hard-line Saudi Arabia and its inhabitants should be swallowed in a sea of flames to leave “a glass parking lot” on top of the desert. He has written that Iran’s “pre-Arab and pre-Mongol genetic character” would need to be restored through “embryo selection and genetic engineering” in order to “Make Iran Great Again.”

Jorjani has a lot of fantastical ideas. In our earliest conversations, he expressed conspiratorial visions of the “deep state.” As if it were indisputable fact, he casually mentioned his belief that insect drones are currently in use by the NSA, surveilling us from mundane cracks and crawling under doors. In later conversations, he told me that private intelligence operatives promised him massive funds to take over the “alt-right” (a claim that could not be verified by The Intercept). In the New York Times video, Jorjani also claimed that Steve Bannon, Trump’s now-ousted chief strategist, was to be the “interface” between the AltRight Corporation and the White House.

JORJANI WAS BORN in New York City to a family of prestige and means. While his mother comes from a working-class family of “northern European heritage,” he says his father is from a branch of the Qajar dynasty, which ruled Iran before the last ruling family, Pahlavi, prior to the 1979 revolution. Jorjani says his father had “incidental communications” with the shah, performing in his palace with the rock band he formed as a teenager. Despite this lineage, Jorjani claims that “none of the wealth remained.”

He is a dual citizen of the U.S. and Iran, and his Iranian passport describes him as “Shia Muslim,” though he hates Islam and doesn’t consider himself Muslim. Jorjani is also, by his own admission, a product of the American elite; he attended the Dalton School, one of the most exclusive private schools on the Upper East Side in New York City.

After high school, Jorjani accepted a spot at Fordham University and transferred to New York University a year later. He frequently drifted to the extremes of thought, drawn to fringe science and taboo politics that were mocked by his academic peers. His master’s thesis was about how Islam, in his view, brings out the tension between democracy and universal human rights. “If you have an unqualified human right to freedom of religion, and you have an unqualified universal human right to democratic government — both of which you find in the UDHR [Universal Declaration of Human Rights] — then it is perfectly legitimate for the majority of a country to elect a theocratic Muslim government,” he said to me in an explanation of his thesis. That government, he continued, “on the basis of the Quran, legitimately can say that freedom of religion should be banned. … You can use these loopholes to undermine the whole framework of universal human rights.”

Jorjani likes to speak elliptically, making wide and often demonstrably false academic claims. Some are absurd, like his belief that the pyramids in the lost city of Atlantis were built through collective psychokinesis, while other inaccuracies are perhaps imperceptible to the untrained.

Following Jorjani’s appearance at Spencer’s conference in Washington, a small controversy emerged about the dissertation Jorjani had written for his Ph.D. at the State University of New York-Stony Brook. An academic blog published a post on the controversy, and in a long comment, Thomas Davies, a Ph.D. student in classics at Princeton, picked apart Jorjani’s work. Jorjani bases an entire argument on the belief that the name of Norse god Tyr is a linguistic cousin to “tir”, the Persian word for “arrow”; in fact, according to Davies, “Tyr” is from a proto-Indo-European word for “god,” while “tir” comes from “tigra,” the Old Persian word for “pointy.” The similarities in sound may be convincing to a novice, but not to anyone trained in linguistics, Davies wrote.

“Jorjani’s errors aren’t just differences in interpretation or viewpoint. His versions of ‘history’ and ‘linguistics’ stand to actual history and linguistics as alchemy stands to chemistry,” Davies told me in a follow-up email.

But Jorjani thinks of his embrace of debunked ideas as a mark of intellectual bravery, a type of iconoclasm befitting what he sees as his considerable intellect. He channeled his education in an unusual direction — a seemingly endless stream of pseudoscience and pseudohistory, which he has used to give authoritative weight to the racism of the far right. In particular, he champions a questionable version of Iranian history that is promoted by Iranian nationalists: that prior to the Islamic conquest of Persia in 651 A.D., Iran was an Aryan civilization. Invoking the idea of a “white genocide” with the fall of the Persian Empire, he provided a historical justification for the far right’s obsession with racial purity and its hatred of non-white immigration. For Jorjani, what he believes happened in Persia thousands of years ago — a white civilization overcome by a horde of nonwhites — was a taste of what could happen now. However, his version of Iranian history is condemned by scholars of both Islamic studies and ancient Iranian history.

“Nearly everything allegedly glorious about Islam was parasitically appropriated by Arabs and Turks from the Caucasian civilization of greater Iran,” Jorjani told the crowd in Washington, calling the fall of the Persian Empire the “first and greatest white genocide.” The crowd hooted in approval.

IN 2015, Jorjani stumbled into the far right, he says.

He needed to find a publisher for his book “Prometheus and Atlas,” so he Googled the term “archeofuturist,” which he thought was an original phrase that described his work. He found that an Arktos-published writer had beat him to the term, but he also realized that Arktos might be interested in publishing his book — and that’s what happened. The book was well-received in extremist circles. A review on the website of the white nationalist publishing house Counter Currents compares it to “Moby Dick,” and anoints Jorjani as the movement’s “‘pagan harpooner’ folded in the flag of Ahab.”

The book is paranoid and conspiratorial. In it, Jorjani writes that humanity is on the brink of uncovering psychic abilities like telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition. Because of this, he has told me in conversations, humans must create a perfect “trust society,” which essentially comes down to racial homogeneity.

Jorjani’s historical myths, in their superficial erudition and world-historical vision, have been tantalizing to a far-right that has been eager to legitimize itself by shedding racist signifiers. In place of the militarized and brutish skinhead look, there is the “fashy haircut” and suits that Spencer prefers. In place of (or in addition to) crude recruiting pamphlets, there are publishing houses, jargon-filled blog screeds, and flimsy science designed to confirm racist hypotheses as perennial fact. They appeal primarily to those who wish to legitimize their bottom-basement impulses with a decor of faux academic sensibility.

Yet ultimately, his journey to the top of the far-right didn’t work out. “I watched the corporation that was my brainchild turn into a magnet for white trash,” he wrote on his personal blog, and he lamented the trolling he received for his posts on altright.com, the corporation’s website. “‘Iranians is brown poo-poo people’ kind of sums it up,” he wrote.

This turn should come as little surprise — the “alt-right” was never as intellectually coherent as Jorjani and others tried to make it out to be; among other things, it just relied on old ideas of white supremacy made modern with some frog memes. But what Jorjani’s evolution demonstrates is that in 2018 and beyond, the “alt-right” and its leaders will likely show little concern for the kind of decorum Jorjani represented as a self-described “intellectual.” Indeed, following a paltry student turnout at Spencer’s most recent appearance at Michigan State University on March 5, he announced that he will stop publicizing his campus drop-ins and will seek new strategies of public engagement. The “alt-right” — a euphemism for white supremacy with violence at its core — simply doesn’t need to pretend anymore.

SO, WHO is Jason Jorjani?

“I am a utopianist,” he told me, slapping the table in the Iranian restaurant back in December 2016.

I mentioned a quote from the Czech-French author Milan Kundera, after his exile from his Czech homeland: “Hell is already contained in the dream of paradise…”

“I agree!” Jorjani interrupted, missing the rest of the quote. “I believe we should go through those hells and keep striving for the paradise. The deepest depths and the greatest heights.”

“But doesn’t that also come with incredible terror?” I asked.

“Yes it does. Beauty and terror are inextricable. You can’t have one without the other. If you want to strive for true beauty, you do have to confront terror.”

“It sounds like a world of rainbows and flames.”

“Yeah, and that’s where I think this movement is headed,” he said with a conciliatory sigh, his knuckles rapping on the table. “And if anyone tells you otherwise, they don’t understand it. … They think it’s a fad or something. But actually, that’s where it is going.”

“That’s a very scary thing,” I said.

“Beauty and terror,” he was quick to reply.

It helps to state the source for your information but because you did not, I will - https://theintercept.com/2018/03/18/alt-right-jason-jorjani/

So as to enlighten Chuckie (in case he hasn't paid attention to how things are done these last several years... the practice actually going back decades), when someone is targeted for cancellation - hit pieces like this (and the setup job for 57 seconds of edited tape from a several hour long conversation as the center piece of a New York Times hit piece to kick it all off) can be used, if desired, to destroy someone's career and life.

The vulnerable fall for these antics. Sadly, our planet is composed of way, way too many vulnerables.

Why not do an honest investigation as to a.) what "the Alt-Right Corporation" was supposed to be about and b.) why Jason Jorjani would be perceived a threat to the establishment?

[Chester]

Here's the New York Times hit piece (for the record) - https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/19/opinion/alt-right-white-supremacy-undercover.html

[Emil El Zapato]

Here's the New York Times hit piece (for the record) - https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/19/opinion/alt-right-white-supremacy-undercover.html

You are correct in one thing, Chester ... It is not my business or my right to save anything except the innocent. None of that applies here...

[Emil El Zapato]

I've decided to put you on my ignore list Chester. No, not really.

So, let me understand why you 'like' the victim Jorjani? First, it has nothing to do with his fantasies about historical data and his belief that all Muslims should be eradicated from the face of the Earth, nor his belief that white supremacists are essentially white trash (which was my point). Nor, the fact that his father was Northern European which allowed him the luxury of becoming 'white' and thus made it convenient to use the WS code of Iranian/Atlantian/European Caucasian superiority?

None of that matters because you think he's an intellectual and very worthy of serious consideration?

A simple yes or no will do.

[Emil El Zapato]

History
Arktos was founded in India in 2009 by Swedish businessman Daniel Friberg and John B. Morgan, an American editor. The company launched in 2010, then relocated to Sweden in 2014 and Hungary in 2015. Friberg had previously distributed white power music and Nazi paraphernalia before starting the company. His stated goal was to create a Swedish parallel to American alt-right media.[3]

Friberg is the CEO, while Gregory Lauder-Frost, formerly of the Conservative Monday Club, leads the British division.[4] American professor Jason Jorjani became editor-in-chief in 2016, but later left that position when he began to distance himself from the alt-right.[5] (Chuckie's note: As above, so below, Jorjani left not because it was immoral but because he began to realize that WSs were white trash)

Arktos was the world's largest distributor of far-right literature as of 2017, according to The New Yorker.[6] In 2019, Arktos was publishing more than 120 titles by 54 authors, including translations of the Russian ultra-nationalist Alexander Dugin and the French far-right thinker Alain de Benoist.[7][2][8][9]

The Southern Poverty Law Center has identified Arktos as being a bedfellow of Identity Evropa.[9]Identity Evropa

Identity Evropa
American Identity Movement
https://www.adl.org/sites/default/files/styles/content_card_image_large/public/2019-08/identityevropa-1.jpg.webp?itok=AYxZl2yU
Leader
(Founder) Nathan Damigo (2016 – Aug. 2017)
Elliot Kline (Aug. – Nov. 2017)[3]
Patrick Casey (Nov. 2017 – Nov. 2020)[4]
Foundation March 2016
Dissolved November 2020[5]
Country United States
Motives To seize control of the US government and establish a white ethnostate; To spread support for white nationalism
Headquarters Washington D.C.
Ideology
Alt-right
New Nationalism
Neo-Nazism
White nationalism
White supremacism
Identitarianism
Trumpism
Political position Far-right

Identity Evropa (/juːˈroʊpə/), rebranded[11] as American Identity Movement in March 2019,[2][12] was an American neo-Nazi[13][14][15] and white supremacist[15][16][17] extremist organization established in March 2016. The group is identified as a white supremacist organization by the Anti-Defamation League[18][5] and is designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group.[19][20] In November 2020, the group disbanded.[5]

Leaders and members of Identity Evropa, such as former leader Elliot Kline, have praised Nazi Germany and have openly pushed for what they described as the "Nazification of America".[14] The white supremacist slogan "You will not replace us" originated from the group.[21] In an attempt to boost its numbers, Identity Evropa allied itself with the broader white nationalist alt-right and identitarian movements[16] and the group particularly targets college campuses[19] by distributing slogans on fliers, posters, and stickers.[7][16][17] It was one of several groups which have contributed to the rapid growth of white nationalism in the U.S. since 2015.[19][22][23]

In March 2018, it was reported that the group was seeing steep declines in membership. The collapse has been seen in other alt-right groups, and has been attributed to widespread public backlash against neo-Nazism and white supremacy since the 2017 Charlottesville rally.[24] In March 2019, following a leak of the group's more than 770,000 Discord messages published by the non-profit left-wing media collective Unicorn Riot, Patrick Casey, the group's leader, rebranded[8][9][10] the group with the new name "American Identity Movement" with an Americana aesthetic.[2][12]

[Emil El Zapato]

Anthroposophy and Ecofascism

In June, 1910, Rudolf Steiner, the founder of anthroposophy, began a speaking tour of Norway with a lecture to a large and attentive audience in Oslo. The lecture series was titled “The Mission of National Souls in Relation to Nordic-Germanic Mythology.” In the Oslo lectures Steiner presented his theory of “folk souls” or “national souls” (Volksseelen in German, Steiner’s native tongue) and paid particular attention to the mysterious wonders of the “Nordic spirit.” The “national souls” of Northern and Central Europe belonged, Steiner explained, to the “Germanic-Nordic” peoples, the world’s most spiritually advanced ethnic group, which was in turn the vanguard of the highest of five historical “root races.” This superior fifth root race, Steiner told his Oslo audience, was naturally the “Aryan” race. 1

If this peculiar cosmology sounds eerily similar to the teutonic myths of Himmler and Hitler, the resemblance is no accident. Anthroposophy and National Socialism both have deep roots in the confluence of nationalism, right-wing populism, proto-environmentalist romanticism and esoteric spiritualism that characterized much of German and Austrian culture at the end of the nineteenth century. But the connection between Steiner’s racially stratified pseudo-religion and the rise of the Nazis goes beyond mere philosophical parallels. Anthroposophy had a powerful practical influence on the so-called “green wing” of German fascism. Moreover, the actual politics of Steiner and his followers have consistently displayed a profoundly reactionary streak. 2

Why does anthroposophy, despite its patently racist elements and its compromised past, continue to enjoy a reputation as progressive, tolerant, enlightened and ecological? The details of Steiner’s teachings are not well known outside of the anthroposophist movement, and within that movement the lengthy history of ideological implication in fascism is mostly repressed or denied outright. In addition, many individual anthroposophists have earned respect for their work in alternative education, in organic farming, and within the environmental movement. Nevertheless, it is an unfortunate fact that the record of anthroposophist collaboration with a specifically “environmentalist” strain of fascism continues into the twenty-first century.

Organized anthroposophist groups are often best known through their far-flung network of public institutions. The most popular of these is probably the Waldorf school movement, with hundreds of branches worldwide, followed by the biodynamic agriculture movement, which is especially active in Germany and the United States. Other well-known anthroposophist projects include Weleda cosmetics and pharmaceuticals and the Demeter brand of health food products. The new age Findhorn community in Scotland also has a strong anthroposophist component. Anthroposophists played an important role in the formation of the German Greens, and Germany’s former Interior Minister, Otto Schily, one of the most prominent founders of the Greens, is an anthroposophist.

In light of this broad public exposure, it is perhaps surprising that the ideological underpinnings of anthroposophy are not better known. 3 Anthroposophists themselves, however, view their highly esoteric doctrine as an “occult science” suitable to a spiritually enlightened elite. The very name “anthroposophy” suggests to many outsiders a humanist orientation. But anthroposophy is in many respects a deeply anti-humanist worldview, and humanists like Theodor Adorno and Ernst Bloch opposed it from the beginning. 4 Its rejection of reason in favor of mystical experience, its subordination of human action to supernatural forces, and its thoroughly hierarchical model of spiritual development all mark anthroposophy as inimical to humanist values.

Who was Rudolf Steiner?

Like many quasi-religious groups, anthroposophists have a reverential attitude toward their founder. Born in 1861, Steiner grew up in a provincial Austrian town, the son of a mid-level railway official. His intellectually formative years were spent in Vienna, capital of the aging Habsburg empire, and in Berlin. By all accounts an intense personality and a prolific writer and lecturer, Steiner dabbled in a number of unusual causes. Around the turn of the century, he underwent a profound spiritual transformation, after which he claimed to be able to see the spirit world and communicate with celestial beings. These ostensible supernatural powers are the origin of most anthroposophist beliefs and rituals. Steiner changed his mind on many topics in the course of his life; his early hostility toward Christianity, for example, later gave way to a neo-christian version of spiritualism codified in anthroposophy; and his viewpoint on theosophy reversed itself several times. But a preoccupation with mysticism, occult legends and the esoteric marked his mature career from 1900 onward. 5

In 1902 Steiner joined the Theosophical Society and almost immediately became General Secretary of its German section. Theosophy was a curious amalgam of esoteric precepts drawn from various traditions, above all Hinduism and Buddhism, refracted through a European occult lens. 6 Its originator, Helena Blavatsky (1831-1891), was the inventor of the “root races” idea; she declared the extinction of indigenous peoples by European colonialism to be a matter of “karmic necessity.” Theosophy is built around the purported teachings of a coterie of “spiritual masters,” otherworldly beings who secretly direct human events. These teachings were interpreted and presented by Blavatsky and her successor Annie Besant (1847-1933) to their theosophist followers as special wisdom from divine sources, thus establishing the authoritarian pattern that was later carried over to anthroposophy.

Steiner dedicated ten years of his life to the theosophical movement, becoming one of its best-known spokespeople and honing his supernatural skills. He broke from mainstream theosophy in 1912, taking most of the German-speaking sections with him, when Besant and her colleagues declared the young Krishnamurti, a boy they “discovered” in India, to be the reincarnation of Christ. Steiner was unwilling to accept a brown-skinned Hindu lad as the next “spiritual master.” What had separated Steiner all along from Blavatsky, Besant, and the other India-oriented theosophists was his insistence on the superiority of European esoteric traditions.

In the wake of the split, Steiner founded the Anthroposophical Society in Germany. Shortly before the outbreak of world war one he moved the fledgling organization’s international headquarters to Switzerland. Under the protection of Swiss neutrality he was able to build up a permanent center in the village of Dornach. Blending theosophical wisdom with his own “occult research,” Steiner continued to develop the theory and practice of anthroposophy, along with a steadily growing circle of followers, until his death in 1925.

The centerpiece of anthroposophical belief is spiritual advancement through karma and reincarnation, supplemented by the access to esoteric knowledge available to a privileged few. According to anthroposophy, the spiritual dimension suffuses every aspect of life. For anthroposophists, illnesses are karmically determined and play a role in the soul’s development. Natural processes, historical events, and technological mechanisms are all explained through the action of spiritual forces. Such beliefs continue to mark the curriculum in many Waldorf schools.

Steiner’s doctrine of reincarnation, embraced by latter-day anthroposophists the world over, holds that individuals choose their parents before birth, and indeed that we plan out our lives before beginning them to insure that we receive the necessary spiritual lessons. If a disembodied soul balks at its own chosen life prospects just before incarnation, it fails to incarnate fully—the source, according to anthroposophists, of prenatal “defects” and congenital disabilities. In addition, “the various parts of our body will be formed with the aid of certain planetary beings as we pass through particular constellations of the zodiac.” 7

Anthroposophists maintain that Steiner’s familiarity with the “astral plane,” with the workings of various “archangels,” with daily life on the lost continent of Atlantis (all central tenets of anthroposophic belief) came from his special powers of clairvoyance. Steiner claimed to have access to the “Akashic Chronicle,” a supernatural scripture containing knowledge of higher realms of existence as well as of the distant past and future. Steiner “interpreted” much of this chronicle and shared it with his followers. He insisted that such “occult experience,” as he called it, was not subject to the usual criteria of reason, logic, or scientific inquiry. Modern anthroposophy is thus founded on unverifiable belief in Steiner’s teachings. Those teachings deserve closer examination.

Anthroposophy’s Racialist Ideology

Building on theosophy’s postulate of root races, Steiner and his anthroposophist disciples elaborated a systematic racial classification system for human beings and tied it directly to their paradigm of spiritual advancement. The particulars of this racial theory are so extraordinary, even bizarre, that it is difficult for non-anthroposophists to take it seriously, but it is important to understand the pernicious and lasting effects the doctrine has had on anthroposophists and those they’ve influenced. 8

Steiner asserted that “root races” follow one another in chronological succession over epochs lasting hundreds of thousands of years, and each root race is further divided into “sub-races” which are also arranged hierarchically. By chance, as it were, the root race which happened to be paramount at the time Steiner made these momentous discoveries was the Aryan race, a term which anthroposophists use to this day. All racial categories are arbitrary social constructs, but the notion of an Aryan race is an especially preposterous invention. A favorite of reactionaries in the early years of the twentieth century, the Aryan concept was based on a conflation of linguistic and biological terminology backed up by spurious “research.” In other words, it was an amalgamation of errors which served to provide a pseudo-scientific veneer to racist fantasies. 9

Anthroposophy’s promotion of this ridiculous doctrine is disturbing enough. But it is compounded by Steiner’s further claim that—in yet another remarkable coincidence—the most advanced group within the Aryan root race is currently the nordic-germanic sub-race or people. Above all, anthroposophy’s conception of spiritual development is inextricable from its evolutionary narrative of racial decline and racial advance: a select few enlightened members evolve into a new “race” while their spiritually inferior neighbors degenerate. Anthroposophy is thus structured around a hierarchy of biological and psychological as well as “spiritual” capacities and characteristics, all of them correlated to race. The affinities with Nazi discourse are unmistakable. 10

Steiner did not shy away from describing the fate of those left behind by the forward march of racial and spiritual progress. He taught that these unfortunates would “degenerate” and eventually die out. Like his teacher Madame Blavatsky, Steiner rejected the notion that Native Americans, for example, were nearly exterminated by the actions of European settlers. Instead he held that Indians were “dying out of their own nature.” 11 Steiner also taught that “lower races” of humans are closer to animals than to “higher races” of humans. Aboriginal peoples, according to anthroposophy, are descended from the already “degenerate” remnants of the third root race, the Lemurians, and are devolving into apes. Steiner referred to them as “stunted men, whose descendants still inhabit certain parts of the earth today as so-called savage tribes.” 12

The fourth root race which emerged between the Lemurians and the Aryans were the inhabitants of the lost continent of Atlantis, the existence of which anthroposophists take as literal fact. Direct descendants of the Atlanteans include the Japanese, Mongolians, and Eskimos. Steiner also believed that each people or Volk has its own “etheric aura” which corresponds to its geographic homeland, as well as its own “Volksgeist” or national spirit, an archangel that provides spiritual leadership to its respective people.

Steiner propagated a host of racist myths about “negroes.” He taught that black people are sensual, instinct-driven, primitive creatures, ruled by their brainstem. He denounced the immigration of blacks to Europe as “terrible” and “brutal” and decried its effects on “blood and race.” He warned that white women shouldn’t read “negro novels” during pregnancy, otherwise they’d have “mulatto children.” In 1922 he declared, “The negro race does not belong in Europe, and the fact that this race is now playing such a large role in Europe is of course nothing but a nuisance.” 13

But the worst insult, from an anthroposophical point of view, is Steiner’s dictum that people of color can’t develop spiritually on their own; they must either be “educated” by whites or reincarnated in white skin. Europeans, in contrast, are the most highly developed humans. Indeed “Europe has always been the origin of all human development.” For Steiner and for anthroposophy, there is no doubt that “whites are the ones who develop humanity in themselves. [ . . . ] The white race is the race of the future, the spiritually creative race.” 14

Anthroposophists today often attempt to excuse or explain away such outrageous utterances by contending that Steiner was merely a product of his times. 15 This apologia is triply unconvincing. First, Steiner claimed for himself an unprecedented degree of spiritual enlightenment which, by his own account, completely transcended his own time and place; he also claimed, and anthroposophists believe that he had, detailed knowledge of the distant past and future. Second, this argument ignores the many dedicated members of Steiner’s generation who actively opposed racism and ethnocentrism. Third, and most telling, anthroposophists continue to recycle Steiner’s racist imaginings to this day.

In 1995 there was a scandal in the Netherlands when it became publicly known that Dutch Waldorf schools were teaching “racial ethnography,” where children learn that the “black race” has thick lips and a sense of rhythm and that the “yellow race” hides its emotions behind a permanent smile. In 1994 the Steinerite lecturer Rainer Schnurre, at one of his frequent seminars for the anthroposophist adult school in Berlin, gave a talk with the rather baffling title “Overcoming Racism and Nationalism through Rudolf Steiner.” According to a contemporary account, Schnurre emphasized the essential differences between races, noted the “infantile” nature of blacks, and alleged that due to immutable racial disparities “no equal and global system can be created for all people on earth” and that “because of the differences between races, sending aid to the developing world is useless.” 16

Incidents such as these are distressingly common in the world of anthroposophy. The racial mindset that Steiner bestowed on his faithful followers has yet to be repudiated. And it may well never be repudiated, since anthroposophy lacks the sort of critical social consciousness that could counteract its flagrantly regressive core beliefs. Indeed anthroposophy’s political outlook has had a decidedly reactionary cast from the beginning.

The Social Vision of Anthroposophy

Steiner’s political perspective was shaped by a variety of influences. Foremost among these was Romanticism, a literary and political movement that had a lasting impact on German culture in the nineteenth century. Like all broad cultural phenomena, Romanticism was politically complex, inspiring both left and right. But the leading political Romantics were explicit reactionaries and vehement nationalists who excluded Jews, even baptized ones, from their forums; they became bitter opponents of political reform and favored a strictly hierarchical, semi-feudal social order. The Romantic revulsion for nascent “modernity,” hostility toward rationality and enlightenment, and mystical relation to nature all left their mark on Steiner’s thought.

Early in his career Steiner also fell under the sway of Nietzsche, the outstanding anti-democratic thinker of the era, whose elitism made a powerful impression. The radical individualism of Max Stirner further contributed to the young Steiner’s political outlook, yielding a potent philosophical melange that was waiting to be catalyzed by some dynamic reactionary force. 17 The latter appeared to Steiner soon enough in the form of Ernst Haeckel and his Social Darwinist creed of Monism. 18 Haeckel (1834-1919) was the founder of modern ecology and the major popularizer of evolutionary theory in Germany. Steiner became a partisan of Haeckel’s views, and from him anthroposophy inherited its environmentalist predilections, its hierarchical model of human development, and its tendency to interpret social phenomena in biological terms.

Haeckel’s elitist worldview extended beyond the realm of biology. He was also “a prophet of the national and racial regeneration of Germany” and exponent of an “intensely mystical and romantic nationalism,” as well as “a direct ancestor” of Nazi eugenics. 19 Monism, which Steiner for a time vigorously defended, rejected “Western rationalism, humanism, and cosmopolitanism,” and was “opposed to any fundamental social change. What was needed for Germany, it argued categorically, was a far-reaching cultural and not a social revolution.” 20 This attitude was to become a hallmark of anthroposophy.

In the heady turn-of-the-century atmosphere, Steiner flirted for a while with left politics, and even shared a podium with revolutionary socialist Rosa Luxemburg at a workers’ meeting in 1902. But Steiner consistently rejected any materialist or social analysis of capitalist society in favor of “looking into the soul” of fellow humans to divine the roots of the modern malaise. This facile approach to social reality was to reach fruition in his mature political vision, elaborated during the first world war. Steiner’s response to the war was determined by the final, decisive component in his intellectual temperament: chauvinist nationalism.

By his own account, Steiner actively took part in Viennese pan-German circles in the late nineteenth century. 21 He saw World War One as part of an international “conspiracy against German spiritual life.” 22 In Steiner’s preferred explanation, it wasn’t imperialist rivalry among colonial powers or national myopia or unbounded militarism or the competition for markets which caused the war, but British freemasons and their striving for world domination. Steiner was a personal acquaintance of General Helmuth von Moltke, chief of staff of the German high command; after Moltke’s death in 1916 Steiner claimed to be in contact with his spirit and channeled the general’s views on the war from the nether world. After the war Steiner had high praise for German militarism, and continued to rail against France, French culture, and the French language in rhetoric which matched that of Mein Kampf. In the 1990’s anthroposophists were still defending Steiner’s jingoist historical denial, insisting that Germany bore no responsibility for World War One and was a victim of the “West.”

In the midst of the war’s senseless savagery, Steiner used his military and industrial connections to try to persuade German and Austrian elites of a new social theory of his, which he hoped to see implemented in conquered territories in Eastern Europe. Unfortunately for Steiner’s plans, Germany and Austria-Hungary lost the war, and his dream went unrealized. But the new doctrine he had begun preaching serves to this day as the social vision of anthroposophy. Its economic and political principles represent an unsteady combination of individualist and corporatist elements. Conceived as an alternative to both Woodrow Wilson’s self-determination program and the bolshevik revolution, Steiner gave this theory the unwieldy name “the tripartite structuring of the social organism” (Dreigliederung des sozialen Organismus, often referred to in English-language anthroposophist literature as “social threefolding” or “the threefold commonwealth,” phrases which obscure Steiner’s biologistic view of the social realm as an actual organism). 23 The three branches of this scheme, which resembles both fascist and semi-feudal corporatist models, are the state (political, military, and police functions), the economy, and the cultural sphere. 24 This last sphere encompasses “all judicial, educational, intellectual and spiritual matters,” which are to be administered by “corporations,” with individuals free to choose their school, church, court, etc. 25

Anthroposophists consider this threefold structure to be “naturally ordained.” 26 Its central axiom is that the modern integration of politics, economy and culture into an ostensibly democratic framework must falter because, according to Steiner, neither the economy nor cultural life can or should be structured democratically. The cultural sphere, which Steiner defined very broadly, is a realm of individual achievement where the most talented and capable should predominate. And the economy must never be subject to democratic public control because it would then collapse. Steiner’s economic and political naiveté are encapsulated in his claim that capitalism “will become a legitimate capitalism if it is spiritualized.” 27

In the aftermath of the bloody world war, at the very moment of great upheavals against the violence, misery, and exploitation of capitalism, Steiner emerged as an ardent defender of private profit, the concentration of property and wealth, and the unfettered market. Arguing vehemently against any effort to replace anti-social institutions with humane ones, Steiner proposed adapting his “threefold commonwealth” to the existing system of class domination. He could scarcely deny that the coarse economic despotism of his day was enormously damaging to human lives, but insisted that “private capitalism as such is not the cause of the damage”:

“The fact that individual people or groups of people administer huge masses of capital is not what makes life anti-social, but rather the fact that these people or groups exploit the products of their administrative labor in an anti-social manner. [ . . . ] If management by capable individuals were replaced with management by the whole community, the productivity of management would be undermined. Free initiative, individual capabilities and willingness to work cannot be fully realized within such a community. [ . . .] The attempt to structure economic life in a social manner destroys productivity.” 28

Though Steiner tried to make inroads within working class institutions, his outlook was understandably not very popular among workers. The revolutionaries of the 1919 Munich council republic derided him as “the soul-doctor of decaying capitalism.” 29 Otto Neurath condemned ‘social threefolding’ as small-scale capitalism. Industrialists, on the other hand, showed a keen interest in Steiner’s notions. Soon after the revolutionary upsurge of workers across Germany was crushed, Steiner was invited by the director of the Waldorf-Astoria tobacco factory to establish a company school in Stuttgart. Thus were Waldorf schools born.

Anthroposophy in Practice: Waldorf Schools and Biodynamic Farming

The school in Stuttgart turned out to be the anthroposophists’ biggest success, along with the nearby pharmaceutical factory that they named after the mythical Norse oracle Weleda. Waldorf schools are now represented in many countries and generally project a solidly progressive image. There are undoubtedly progressive aspects to Waldorf education, many of them absorbed from the intense ferment of alternative pedagogical theories prevalent in the first decades of the twentieth century. But there is more to Waldorf schooling than holistic learning, musical expression, and eurythmy.

Classical anthroposophy, with its root races and its national souls, is the “covert curriculum” of Waldorf schools. 30 Anthroposophists themselves avow in internal forums that the idea of karma and reincarnation is the “basis of all true education.” 31 They believe that each class of students chooses one another and their teacher before birth. The task of a Waldorf teacher is to assist each pupil in fully incarnating. Steiner himself demanded that Waldorf schools be staffed by “teachers with a knowledge of man originating in a spiritual world.” 32 Later anthroposophists express the Waldorf vision thus:

“This education is essentially grounded on the recognition of the child as a spiritual being, with a varying number of incarnations behind him, who is returning at birth into the physical world, into a body that will be slowly moulded into a usable instrument by the soul-spiritual forces he brings with him. He has chosen his parents for himself because of what they can provide for him that he needs in order to fulfill his karma, and, conversely, they too need their relationship with him in order to fulfill their own karma.” 33

The curriculum at Waldorf schools is structured around the stages of spiritual maturation posited by anthroposophy: from one to seven years a child develops her or his physical body, from seven to fourteen years the etheric body, and from fourteen to twenty-one the astral body. These stages are supposed to be marked by physical changes; thus kindergartners at Waldorf schools can’t enter first grade until they’ve begun to lose their baby teeth. In addition, each pupil is classified according to the medieval theory of humors: a Waldorf child is either melancholic, choleric, sanguine, or phlegmatic – the categorization is in part based on the child’s external physical appearance – and is treated accordingly by the teachers.

Along with privileging ostensibly “spiritual” considerations over cognitive and psycho-social ones, the static uniformity of this scheme is pedagogically suspect. It also suggests that Waldorf schools’ reputation for fostering a spontaneous, child-centered and individually oriented educational atmosphere is undeserved. 34 In fact Steiner’s model of instruction is downright authoritarian: he emphasized repetition and rote learning, and insisted that the teacher should be the center of the classroom and that students’ role was not to judge or even discuss the teacher’s pronouncements. In practice many Waldorf schools implement strict discipline, with public punishment for perceived transgressions.

Anthroposophy’s peculiar predilections also shape the Waldorf curriculum. Jazz and popular music are often scorned at European Waldorf schools, and recorded music in general is frowned upon; these phenomena are considered to harbor demonic forces. Instead students read fairy tales, a staple of Waldorf education. Some sports, too, are forbidden, and art instruction often rigidly follows Steiner’s eccentric theories of color and form. Taken together with the pervasive anti-technological and anti-scientific bias, the suspicion toward rational thought, and the occasional outbreaks of racist gibberish, these factors indicate that Waldorf schooling is as questionable as the other aspects of the anthroposophist enterprise.

Next to Waldorf schools, the most widespread and apparently progressive version of applied anthroposophy is biodynamic agriculture. In Germany and North America, at least, biodynamics is an established part of the alternative agriculture scene. Many small growers use biodynamic methods on their farms or gardens; there are biodynamic vineyards and the Demeter line of biodynamic food products, as well as a profusion of pamphlets, periodicals and conferences on the theory and practice of biodynamic farming.

Although not a farmer himself, Steiner introduced the fundamental outlines of biodynamics near the end of his life and produced a substantial body of literature on the topic, which anthroposophists and biodynamic growers follow more or less faithfully. Biodynamics in practice often converges with the broader principles of organic farming. Its focus on maintaining soil fertility rather than on crop yield, its rejection of artificial chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and its view of the whole farm or plot as an ecosystem all mark the biodynamic approach as an eminently sensible and ecologically sound method of cultivation. But there is more to the story than that.

Biodynamic farming is based on Steiner’s revelation of invisible cosmic forces and their effects on soil and flora. Anthroposophy teaches that the earth is an organism that breathes twice a day, that etheric beings act upon the land, and that celestial bodies and their movements directly influence the growth of plants. Hence biodynamic farmers time their sowing to coincide with the proper planetary constellations, all a part of what they consider “the spiritual natural processes of the earth.” 35 Sometimes this “spiritual” approach takes unusual forms, as in the case of “preparation 500.”

To make preparation 500, an integral component of anthroposophist agriculture, biodynamic farmers pack cow manure into a steer’s horn and bury it in the ground. After leaving it there for one whole winter, they dig up the horn and mix the manure with water (it must be stirred for a full hour in a specific rhythm) to make a spray which is applied to the topsoil. All of this serves to channel “radiations which tend to etherealize and astralize” and thus “gather up and attract from the surrounding earth all that is etheric and life-giving.” 36

Non-anthroposophist organic growers are often inclined to dismiss such fanciful aspects of biodynamics as pointless but harmless appurtenances to an otherwise congenial cultivation technique. While this attitude has some merit, it is not reciprocated by biodynamic adherents, who emphasize that “The ‘organic’ farmer may well farm ‘biologically’ but he does not have the knowledge of how to work with dynamic forces—a knowledge that was given for the first time by Rudolf Steiner.” 37 For better or worse, biodynamic farming is inseparable from its anthroposophic context.

Enthusiasm for biodynamics, however, has historically extended well beyond the boundaries of anthroposophy proper. For a time it also held a strong appeal for others who shared anthroposophists’ nationalist background and occult interests. Indeed it was through biodynamic farming that anthroposophy most directly influenced the course of German fascism.

Anthroposophy and the “Green Wing” of the Nazi Party

The mix of mysticism, romanticism, and pseudo-environmentalist concerns propagated by Steiner and his cohorts brought anthroposophy into close ideological contact with a grouping that has been described as the green wing of National Socialism. 38 This group, which included several of the Third Reich’s most powerful leaders, were active proponents of biodynamic agriculture and other anthroposophist causes. The history of this relationship has been the subject of some controversy, with anthroposophists typically denying any connection whatsoever to the Nazis. To understand the matter fully, it is perhaps best to set it in the context of anthroposophy’s attitude toward the rise of fascism.

As the extremely thorough research of independent scholar Peter Bierl demonstrates, there was considerable admiration within the ranks of anthroposophists for Mussolini and Italian fascism, the precursor to Hitler’s dictatorship. 39 Moreover, several leading Italian anthroposophists were vocal Fascists and actively involved in promoting Fascist racial policy. 40 But it was the German variety of fascism which most prominently shared anthroposophy’s preoccupation with race. During the 1920’s and 1930’s the leading anthroposophist writer on racial issues was Dr. Richard Karutz, director of the anthropological museum in Lübeck. 41 Karutz wanted to protect anthropology as a discipline from what he termed “the sociological flood of materialist thinking,” favoring instead a “spiritual” ethnology based on anthroposophical race doctrine. 42 Flatly denying the anthropological research of his own time, he insisted on the cultural and spiritual superiority of the “Aryan race.”

Karutz was more openly antisemitic than many of his anthroposophist colleagues. He denounced the “spirit of Jewry,” which he described as “cliquish, petty, narrow-minded, rigidly tied to the past, devoted to dead conceptual knowledge and hungry for world power.” 43 During the last decade of the Weimar republic, Karutz and other anthroposophists had to contend with the growing notoriety of Nazi “racial science.” Karutz criticized the Nazis’ eugenic theories for their biological, as opposed to “spiritual,” emphasis, and for neglecting the role of reincarnation. But he agreed with their proscription against “racial mixing,” especially between whites and non-whites.

In 1931 the foremost anthroposophist journal published a positive review by Karutz of Walther Darré’s book Neuadel aus Blut und Boden (‘A New Nobility out of Blood and Soil’). Darré, a leading “racial theorist” and pre-eminent figure in the Nazis’ green wing, was soon to become Minister of Agriculture under Hitler. 44 This cozy relationship with major Nazi officials paid off for Steiner’s followers once the party took command of Germany. According to numerous anthroposophist accounts of this period, the Nazis hounded the Steinerites from the beginning of the Third Reich. But this self-serving tale is much too simple; the historical record reveals a considerably more complicated reality.

Immediately after the Nazi movement attained state power in early 1933, the leaders of organized anthroposophy took the initiative in extending their support to the new government. In June of that year a Danish newspaper asked Günther Wachsmuth, Secretary of the International Anthroposophic Society in Switzerland, about anthroposophy’s attitude toward the Nazi regime. He replied, “We can’t complain. We’ve been treated with the utmost consideration and have complete freedom to promote our doctrine.” Speaking for anthroposophists generally, Wachsmuth went on to express his “sympathy” and “admiration” for National Socialism. 45

Wachsmuth, one of three top officers at anthroposophy’s world headquarters in Dornach, was hardly alone among Steiner’s followers in his vocal support for the Hitler dictatorship. The homeopathic physician Hanns Rascher, for example, proudly proclaimed himself “just as much an anthroposophist as a National Socialist.” 46 In 1934 the German Anthroposophic Society sent Hitler an official letter pointing out anthroposophy’s compatibility with National Socialist values and emphasizing Steiner’s “Aryan origins” and his pro-German activism. 47

At the time Wachsmuth gave his interview, thousands of socialists, communists, anarchists, union members, and other dissidents had been interned or exiled, the Dachau and Oranienburg concentration camps had been established, and independent political life in Germany had been obliterated. But for years most anthroposophists suffered no official harassment; they were accepted into the compulsory Nazi cultural associations and continued to pursue their activities. The exception, of course, was Jewish members of anthroposophist organizations. They were forced, under pressure from the state, to leave these institutions. There is no record of their gentile anthroposophist comrades protesting this “racial” exclusion, much less putting up any internal resistance to it. In fact some anthroposophists, like the law professor Ernst von Hippel, endorsed the expulsion of Jews from German universities.

Despite this extensive public support by anthroposophists for the nazification of Germany, a power struggle was going on within the byzantine apparatus of the Nazi state over whether to ban anthroposophy or co-opt the movement and its institutions. This struggle was primarily conducted between Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s deputy and a personal sympathizer with anthroposophical practices, and Heinrich Himmler, chief of the SS and devotee of the esoteric and occult who viewed anthroposophy as ideological and organizational competition to his own pseudo-religion of Nazi paganism. 48 It was not until November 1935, long after most other independent cultural institutions had been destroyed, that the German Anthroposophic Society was dissolved on Himmler’s orders.

The ban, signed by Himmler’s lieutenant Reinhard Heydrich, cited anthroposophy’s “international orientation” and Waldorf schools’ “individualistic” education. Nazi opponents of the party’s green wing, such as Heydrich, disliked anthroposophy because of its “oriental” origins; there was also a certain populist resentment of anthroposophy’s elitism involved. But even after the ban there was no general persecution of anthroposophists. The anthroposophical doctors’ association received official recognition and support, joining the Nazi organization for ‘natural healing.’ Many anthroposophical publishing activities continued uninterrupted; anthroposophist professors, teachers and civil servants kept their jobs; Waldorf schools and biodynamic farms continued to operate. Most Waldorf schools were eventually shut down in the course of the later 1930’s, despite the pro-anthroposophist intervention of influential Nazis like SS war criminal Otto Ohlendorf. 49 But the final blow didn’t come until 1941 when Hess, anthroposophy’s protector, flew to Britain. After that point the last Waldorf school was closed for good, biodynamic farming lost its official support, and several leading anthroposophists were imprisoned for a time.

The Weleda factories, on the other hand, continued to operate throughout the war and even received state contracts. In fact Weleda supplied naturopathic materials for ‘medical experiments’ (i.e. torture) on prisoners at Dachau. 50 Weleda’s longtime head gardener, Franz Lippert, asked to be transferred to Dachau in 1941 to oversee the biodynamic plantation that Himmler had established at the concentration camp. 51 Lippert became an SS officer, as did his fellow biodynamic leader, anthroposophist Carl Grund. Thus anthroposophist collaboration with the Nazi vision of a new Europe persisted until the bitter end of the Third Reich.

Much of this sordid history is substantiated, albeit with a very different interpretive accent, in the massive 1999 book on anthroposophists and National Socialism by Uwe Werner, chief archivist at anthroposophy’s world headquarters in Switzerland. 52 But even this revealing work presents anthroposophist behavior under the Nazis as merely defensive and thus absolves Steiner’s followers of any measure of responsibility for Nazi Germany’s myriad crimes. Many other postwar attempts by anthroposophists to come to terms with their history of compromise and complicity with the Third Reich are embarrassingly evasive and repeat the underlying racism which united them with the Nazis in the first place. The prevailing explanations are thoroughly esoteric, portraying the Nazis as manipulated by demonic powers or even as a necessary stage in the spiritual development of the Aryan race. 53

The Biodynamic movement and its Nazi admirers

More striking still than such mystifications of Nazism is the refusal within anthroposophic circles to acknowledge their doctrine’s influence on the Nazis’ green wing. The anthroposophist inflection of German ecofascism extended well beyond high-profile figures such as Darré and Hess. 54 Powerful Steinerite Nazi functionaries and supporters of biodynamic agriculture included SS officer and anthroposophist Hans Merkel, a leading figure in the SS Main Office for Race and Settlement; anthroposophist Georg Halbe, an influential official in the Nazi agricultural apparatus; Merkel’s and Halbe’s colleague Wilhelm Rauber; and Nazi party Reichstag member Hermann Schneider. 55 Other regional and local officials of the biodynamic farmers league belonged to the Nazi party, including Carl Grund, Albert Friehe, and Harald Kabisch. 56 A further central member of the green wing with strong ties to anthroposophy was Alwin Seifert, whose official title was Reich Advocate for the Landscape. 57 Leading figures in the biodynamic movement, meanwhile, such as Franz Dreidax and Max Karl Schwarz, worked closely with various Nazi organizations.

What distinguished the motley band of fascist functionaries known collectively as the green wing of the Nazi movement was their allegiance to the anti-humanist “religion of nature” preached by National Socialism. 58 Reviving Haeckel’s blend of Social Darwinism and ecology, they embodied a historically unique and politically disastrous convergence of otherworldly ideology with worldly authority. In the green wing of the Nazi party, nationalism, spiritualism, esoteric racism and eco-mysticism acceded to state power. 59

The green wing’s guiding slogan was ‘Blood and Soil,’ an infamous Nazi phrase which referred to the mystical relationship between the German people and its sacred land. Adherents of Blood and Soil held that environmental purity was inseparable from racial purity. This dual concern made them natural consociates of anthroposophy. The principal intermediary between organized anthroposophy and the Nazi green wing was Erhard Bartsch, the chief anthroposophist official responsible for biodynamic agriculture. Bartsch was on friendly personal terms with Seifert and Hess and played a crucial role in persuading the Nazi leadership of the virtues of biodynamics. He constantly emphasized the philosophical affinities between anthroposophy and National Socialism. Bartsch edited the journal Demeter, official organ of German biodynamic growers, which praised the Nazis and their courageous Führer even after the start of the war. Bartsch also offered his services to the SS in their plan to settle the conquered territories of Eastern Europe with pure Aryan farmers. His early and wholehearted engagement for the Nazi cause is testimony to the political precariousness of the biodynamic model. 60

Many other powerful Nazi authorities supported biodynamic farming. These included, in addition to Ohlendorf, Hess, and Darré, the Nazi Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick, Nazi leader of the German Labor Front Robert Ley, and chief Nazi ideologist Alfred Rosenberg, all of whom were visitors to Bartsch’s biodynamic estate, the headquarters of the biodynamic farmers league, and expressed their encouragement for the undertaking. Two further extremely important figures, especially after 1941, were the high SS commanders Günther Pancke and Oswald Pohl. Pancke was Darré’s successor as head of the SS Race and Settlement Main Office and drew on Bartsch’s assistance in planning a biodynamic component to the Nazi settlement of ethnically cleansed territories in Eastern Europe. Pohl, a friend of Seifert’s, was the administrator of the concentration camp system. He took a special interest in biodynamics and had his own estate farmed biodynamically. He established and maintained the ring of biodynamic farms at concentration camps, which continued to operate until the final defeat of Nazism in 1945.

Alongside these figures stood lesser-known Nazi leaders who actively supported the biodynamic cause, including a variety of other SS officers such as Heinrich Vogel, who coordinated the SS network of biodynamic plantations at concentration camps. Hanns G. Müller, the principal advocate of Lebensreform or ‘lifestyle reform’ views within the Nazi movement, was another longstanding sponsor of biodynamic agriculture. In 1935 the biodynamic farmers league officially joined Müller’s Nazi organization, the “Deutsche Gesellschaft für Lebensreform,” a collection of ‘alternative’ cultural groups dedicated to alternative health, nutrition, farming, and so forth, with an explicitly and fervently Nazi commitment. The organization’s journal Leib und Leben published dozens of articles by biodynamic enthusiasts as late as mid-1943. Müller’s Nazi party colleague Herman Polzer, another leading figure in Nazi Lebensreform circles, was a particularly vocal proponent of biodynamic agriculture. The coterie of “landscape advocates” working under Seifert, a long-time practitioner and advocate of biodynamics, also included a number of active anthroposophists, most prominently Max Karl Schwarz, a major leader in the biodynamic movement. 61

Nazi Minister of Agriculture and “Reich Peasant Leader” Walther Darré was initially skeptical toward biodynamic farming but became an enthusiastic convert in the late 1930’s. 62 He bestowed on Steiner’s version of organic cultivation the official label “farming according to the laws of life,” a term which highlights the natural order ideology common to all forms of reactionary ecology. In mid-1941 Darré was still heavily promoting state support for biodynamics, and his biographer claims that “one third of the top Nazi leadership supported Darré’s campaign” on behalf of biodynamics at a time when all varieties of anthroposophy were officially out of favor. 63 Indeed Nazi government encouragement of biodynamic farming had a long history: “There were two thousand bio-dynamic farmers registered in the Nazi ‘Battle for Production’, probably an understatement of the real figure.” 64

The green wing of the Nazis represents the historical fulfillment of the dreams of reactionary ecology: ecofascism in power. The extensive intertwinement of anthroposophic belief and practice with actually existing ecofascism should not be judged as an instance of guilt by association. Rather it ought to be occasion to reflect on the political susceptibilities of esoteric environmentalism. Even the anthroposophist author Arfst Wagner, who spent years compiling documentation on anthroposophy in the Third Reich, came to the uncomfortable conclusion that “a strong latent tendency toward extreme right-wing politics” is common among anthroposophists both past and present. 65

The Continuing Legacy of Steinerite Reactionary Ecology

The calamitous experience of Nazism failed to exorcise the right-wing spirits that haunt anthroposophy. Steiner’s dictum that social change could only be the result of spiritual transformation on an individual level lead to a marginalization of sober political analysis among his followers. This left anthroposophy wide open to the same regressive forces that had surreptitiously animated it all along.

Of course there were also personal continuities between the Nazi green wing and post-war anthroposophy. While Hess was inaccessible in Spandau prison, Darré’s judges at Nuremberg imposed a relatively short sentence, with the help of Merkel, his anthroposophist attorney. Darré studied Steiner’s writings during his imprisonment, and after his release from prison resumed his friendly contacts with anthroposophists until his death in 1953. Seifert returned to his professorship of landscape architecture in Munich and in 1964 was elected honorary chair of the Bavarian League for Nature Conservation. Darré’s biographer also notes admiringly “the brave handful of top Nazis” who had refused to cooperate with the 1941 purge of anthroposophists and “had their children educated and cared for by Anthroposophists after the Second World War.” 66

The second generation of radical right-wing anthroposophists was represented above all by Werner Georg Haverbeck, a leader of the Nazi youth movement during the Third Reich and an associate of Hess. After the war he became pastor of an anthroposophist congregation and founded the far-right World League for the Protection of Life (WSL in its German acronym). 67 The WSL, which has played an influential role in the German environmental movement, is anti-abortion, anti-immigration, and pro-eugenics. It promotes a “natural order of life” and opposes racial “degeneration.” As aggressive nationalism gained ever more ground in German public discourse through the 1980’s and 1990’s, Haverbeck and the WSL were instrumental in linking it to ecological issues. 68

In 1989 Haverbeck authored a biography of anthroposophy’s founder under the title Rudolf Steiner – Advocate for Germany. 69 The book portrays Steiner, accurately enough, as a staunch nationalist, and even uses Steiner’s work to deny the facts of the holocaust. Haverbeck’s fellow long-time anthroposophist and WSL leader Ernst Otto Cohrs is another active holocaust denier. Cohrs, who made his living in the 1980’s and 1990’s selling biodynamic products, has also published works such as “There Were No Gas Chambers” and “The Auschwitz Myth.” A further prominent Steinerite on Germany’s extreme right is Günther Bartsch, who describes himself as a “national revolutionary.” Along with his neo-Nazi comrade Baldur Springmann, an organic farmer, WSL member, and founder of the Greens, Bartsch developed the doctrine of ‘Ecosophy.’ A mixture of anthroposophy with reactionary ecology and teutonic mysticism, ecosophy is yet another vehicle for promoting far right politics within the esoteric scene.

The persistent connection between Steiner’s worldview and neofascist politics is not restricted to a few fringe figures. Throughout the past two decades, well-known anthroposophists have been a common presence in Germany’s far right press, while anthroposophist publications often enough opens their pages to right-wing extremists. One anti-fascist researcher reports that “leading figures in the extreme right and neofascist camp are ideological proponents of biodynamic agriculture.” 70 Anthroposophists themselves occasionally admit that within their own organizations a “right-wing conservative consensus” remains “absolute.” 71 In Italy, meanwhile, the foremost post-war anthroposophist, Massimo Scaligero, was also a leading figure in neo-fascist circles, as was his pupil and colleague, anthroposophist Enzo Erra. 72 Steiner’s work has numerous far-right Italian fans. 73

Many contemporary anthroposophists nonetheless maintain that figures like Haverbeck are marginal to their movement. This argument overlooks the fact that several of Haverbeck’s books are published by the largest anthroposophist publisher in Germany, and ignores the substantial overlap between Haverbeck’s positions and those of Steiner and classical anthroposophy. More important, mainstream anthroposophists continue to repeat the mistakes of the past, as if Nazi tyranny and genocide had never taken place. Günther Wachsmuth, for example – as mainstream an anthroposophist as one might find – published a purportedly scientific book in the 1950’s called The Development of Humanity which recapitulated the racist nonsense of pre-war anthroposophy. 74 Even more aggressively racist post-war anthroposophical works are not difficult to find. 75 In 1991, in the midst of an intense debate within Germany about restricting immigration laws, an anthroposophist journal ran an article with the title “Deutschendämmerung” (‘Twilight of the Germans’) which offered an ‘ecological’ version of neo-malthusian propaganda and anti-immigrant hysteria.

Mainstream anthroposophy also still has a Jewish problem. Perhaps this is not surprising in a movement whose founder blamed the historical persecution of Jews on their own “inner destiny” and proclaimed that “the Jews have contributed immensely to their own separate status.” 76 In 1992 a Swiss Waldorf teacher published a book claiming there were no gas chambers in Auschwitz; a leading Russian anthroposophist followed suit in 1996 with another book denying the holocaust; in 1995 a prominent anthroposophist periodical carried an article on “Jewish-Christian Hostility” which recycled the old myth of Jews as Christ-killers; in 1998 an anthroposophist from Hamburg wrote to another Steinerite journal claiming that “from 1933 to 1942 any Jew could leave the Nazi dictatorship with all of his property, and even be released from a concentration camp, as long as he went to Palestine.” 77 In 1991 and again in 1997 Swiss and German anthroposophists re-issued the 1931 book Das Rätsel des Judentums (‘The Mystery of Jewry’) by Ludwig Thieben, one of Austria’s leading anthroposophists in Steiner’s day. Jewish organizations and civil rights groups protested this ugly tract, which decries the “far-reaching negative influence of the Jewish essence,” alleges that Jews have “an anti-christian predisposition in their blood,” and holds Jews responsible for the “decline of the West.” 78 The anthroposophist publisher threatened the protesting organizations with a lawsuit.

The repeated occurrence of incidents such as these ought to be of considerable concern to humanists and people who envision a world free of racist ignorance. Even when approached with skepticism, anthroposophy’s consistent pattern of regressive political stances raises troubling questions about participation in anthroposophist projects and collaboration with anthroposophists on social initiatives. Those anthroposophists who are actively involved in contemporary environmental and social change movements frequently personify the most reactionary aspects of those movements: they hold technology, science, the enlightenment and abstract thought responsible for environmental destruction and social dislocation; they rail against finance capital and the loss of traditional values, denounce atheism and secularism, and call for renewed spiritual awareness and personal growth as the solution to ecological catastrophe and capitalist alienation. Conspiracy theory is their coin in trade, esoteric insight their preferred answer, obscurantism their primary function.

With a public face that is seemingly of the left, anthroposophy frequently acts as a magnet for the right. Loyal to an unreconstructed racist and elitist philosophy, built on a foundation of anti-democratic politics and pro-capitalist economics, purveying mystical panaceas rather than social alternatives, Steiner’s ideology offers only disorientation in an already disoriented world. Anthroposophy’s enduring legacy of collusion with ecofascism makes it plainly unacceptable for those working toward a humane and ecological society.

I cheated and watched your Jorjani video, the notions he is putting forward with his 'intense' intellectualism have been discounted for decades. (citation: Chuckie). Incidentally, I've seen that video before (I can't imagine where, though)

[Wind]

I'm not going to read that wall of text, but Hitler seemed to hate Steiner.

[Emil El Zapato]

I'm not going to read that wall of text, but Hitler seemed to hate Steiner.

Well, the gems and the germs of truth don't come easily, Wind. Hitler's attitude is not surprising necessarily. Philosophies evolve, whereas Steiner may have held a benevolent take on social and ethnic stratification, nevertheless it was embedded in the core of his 'thoughts'. Hitler might have been opposed because he wanted to kill. Down the decades, Steiner's influence would/could have become the backbone of 'benevolent racism' to 'kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out. It is the nature of philosophy, not to mention religious and spiritual philosophy to take its course in different directions for different follower groups. Blavatsky, for example, wasn't she associated at some point with Satanism? I wonder if Steiner anticipated that? I mean for chrissakes, history is never so simple as Project Avalonians want/do believe it is. It takes a deeper level of discernment, honesty, and insight to cut through the jungle of obfuscation to get to the core truths.

I have no objection to someone spouting Jorjani, for example, if they caveat their obtuse spitting with recognition of who and what they are engaging with.

[Wind]

Blavatsky, for example, wasn't she associated at some point with Satanism?

No I don't think so. She might not have been fully honest, but her work was quite important at the time.

There's an interesting history (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Steiner_and_the_Theosophical_Society) to all of those different branches of theosophy.


Steiner's lecture cycles from 1909 onwards emphasized his research into Christianity, toward which Mme. Blavatsky had been notably hostile. Thus, the tensions grew between the main society and the German section. The relationship between the Theosophical Society centered in Adyar, India and its German section became increasingly strained as the new strains of Steiner's teaching became apparent.

Steiner's popularity as a lecturer spread far beyond the borders of Germany: he was active in Switzerland, the Netherlands, Norway, Austria and other countries. Besant tried to restrict him to lecturing in Germany itself, but this contravened both Theosophical Society statutes as well as a statement of Besant's greeting this broadening lecture activity, issued some months before. These tensions finally came to a head over the question of Jiddu Krishnamurti, a young Indian boy to whom C. W. Leadbeater, followed by Annie Besant, attributed messianic status as the new World Teacher, an incarnation of the Lord Maitreya. Steiner quickly denied this attribution of messianic status to Krishnamurti, claiming that Christ's earthly incarnation in Jesus was a unique event. Steiner held that though the human being generally goes through a series of repeated earth lives, the spiritual being Christ incarnated only once in a physical body. Christ, he said, would reappear in "the etheric" — the realm that lives between people and in community life — not as a physical individual. Steiner and the majority of the German-speaking Theosophists broke away to found a new group, the Anthroposophical Society, at the end of 1912. Shortly thereafter, Besant revoked the German section's membership in the Theosophical Society on the grounds of the section's refusal to allow admission to adherents of a Theosophical organization established to support the mission of Krishnamurti, the Order of the Star in the East. Anthroposophists were offended when Besant falsely claimed that Steiner had been educated by Jesuits.

The World Teacher concept was unpopular with many theosophists, and was repudiated by Krishnamurti himself in 1929, leading to a crisis in the Theosophical Society. It was, however, a basic principle of the Theosophical Society that adherents of all religions were admitted.

As a result of the conflict, two steps followed in rapid succession:

The overwhelming majority of German-speaking theosophists followed Steiner into the new Anthroposophical Society, founded between August and December 1912. In a telegram sent to the Theosophical Society they justified this step by stating it was: "based upon the recognition that the President [Besant] has continually and even systematically violated this highest principle of the Theosophical Society, 'No religion higher than the truth', and has abused the presidential power in arbitrary ways, thus hindering positive work."

Steiner's exclusion of Star in the East followers was a direct contravention of Theosophical Society statutes, and duly led to the charter of the German Section being revoked.

Steiner later claimed that he never had considered himself to be part of the Theosophical movement. Even while the leader of the German section of the movement, he made a great point of his complete independence of philosophical thought and esoteric teachings from the Theosophical Society's esoteric path. His reaction to the above events was: "I myself experience what has happened — apart from what has been sobering and painful — as a great liberation from the oppressive narrowness that has characterized the life of the Theosophical Society for years."

The basic structural skeletons of Steiner's cosmology and of his description of the human being as composed of various physical and spiritual aspects are based on Blavatsky's schema, to whom he acknowledged his debt. Steiner's elaborations of these (in his Theosophyand Outline of Esoteric Science) diverge from other theosophical presentations both in style and in substance, however. Despite their differences and the split with the Theosophical Society, Rudolf Steiner maintained a keen watch on the Theosophy Society throughout his life and continued to acquire Theosophical publications; of the hundreds of books in English in Rudolf Steiner's library, half were Theosophical books.

I don't know if you've read or listened to Krishnamurti at all, but he was a quite thought-provoking thinker. He didn't want the role of a messiah yet he became a greatly influential teacher to many. To confuse theosophy and occultism with satanism is mistaken. Yes, some people chose the left-hand path and dark sorcery, but that's another thing. Also remember that Hitler's top man Himmler was heavily into occultism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occultism_in_Nazism) and dark arts. I am personally convinced that the nazis were demonically influenced to do the bidding of dark forces. Perhaps Steiner wrote about that too, but I'm not sure. I just know that his works have had great impact on people. There's much one could say about Atlantis and the different root-races, I've read my fair share about it and of course not all is fully known or understood even now.

[Emil El Zapato]

No I don't think so. She might not have been fully honest, but her work was quite important at the time.

There's an interesting history (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Steiner_and_the_Theosophical_Society) to all of those different branches of theosophy.



I don't know if you've read or listened to Krishnamurti at all, but he was a quite thought-provoking thinker. He didn't want the role of a messiah yet he became a greatly influential teacher to many. To confuse theosophy and occultism with satanism is mistaken. Yes, some people chose the left-hand path and dark sorcery, but that's another thing. Also remember that Hitler's top man Himmler was heavily into occultism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occultism_in_Nazism) and dark arts. I am personally convinced that the nazis were demonically influenced to do the bidding of dark forces. Perhaps Steiner wrote about that too, but I'm not sure. I just know that his works have had great impact on people. There's much one could say about Atlantis and the different root-races, I've read my fair share about it and of course not all is fully known or understood even now.

All true ... :) Krishnamurti ... not sure, maybe, but only in passing.

[Fred Steeves]

When my wife first told me she had seen this story in print media yesterday, before even seeing any of this suspect looking show video, I told her it sounds like one of those FBI set ups so that they can tout their domestic terrorist fighting prowess. Besides also keeping us all on edge and afraid.

Now upon seeing this, my thoughts and observations are very similar to Jimmy's. This looks like a damn fed set up all day long:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7JaE7QJx8k

[Gio]

Well Fred,
Unfortunately this happened just east of Spokane, about 30 miles over in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. And you should know, that it's a very pro-gun conservative area of Eastern Washington - Idaho ... And in which the police out here are not known for being 'liberal lovers' by any means = Lots pf citizens have gun permits... In which could have been a reason for these individuals coming in from all around the country choose not to be armed.


Mayor of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, discusses arrest of group of extremists


CBS News


More than two dozen men linked to the far-right extremist group Patriot Front were arrested Saturday in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, for allegedly planning a violent riot at a local Pride event. Coeur d'Alene Mayor Jim Hammond joined CBS News' Errol Barnett to discuss.


Jun 13, 2022


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXCgkaWhVSI

[Gio]

What's kinda funny, is that the Police Chief got a phoned death threat from as far away as Norway for his officers reaction and arrest of the suspects involved ... :D

PS ~ But knowing the FBI's track record, they might have even enticed this group into this whole fiasco?

[Fred Steeves]

Good timing. :D Just caught this addition before posting"


PS ~ But knowing the FBI's track record, they might have even enticed this group into this whole fiasco?




Well Fred,
Unfortunately this happened just east of Spokane, about 30 miles over in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. And you should know, that it's a very pro-gun conservative area of Eastern Washington - Idaho ... And in which the police out here are not known for being 'liberal lovers' by any means = Lots pf citizens have gun permits... In which could have been a reason for these individuals coming in from all around the country choose not to be armed.

Oh, well sure Gio, I assumed that area of the country would be very conservative. But nothing about the whole thing seems a bit odd to you?

30 guys all dressed the same, from all areas of the country, cramming into a hot cramped little U-Haul , do accomplish exactly what in a small town, gun toting community where they are outsiders? And the cops are there in force in 10 minutes flat, the Capitol Police could take some pointers. :p

The FBI has informants in any sizeable group like that any more these days, no one is realistically getting caught with their pants down by sneak attacks any more, if anything, the FBI helps facilitate them to bring forth notable arrests for the evening news.

It also all looked way too orderly the way the cops had them cuffed and on their knees with equal spacing, in nice neat rows, and they hadn't even bothered to unmask them or take what at the time supposedly would have been considered weapons laden backpacks. Instead, the cops looked more interested in posing for the cameras, with their backs all turned to these freshly busted "domestic terrorists".

I don't know man, maybe it's just me, but I've already seen too many such cases where the feds really do set this kind of thing up just to keep scaring the bejesus out of us, and keep us needing them under the guise of boogeymen around every corner, to just brush off little out of place oddities on the say so of the CBS Evening News.

[Emil El Zapato]

For once, I have to agree that does look weird. I wonder if that is actual footage of the event. It may be something the reporting organization used as a filler to back the story. Even the bad guys look like Law Enforcement (and I can smell those dudes, even on a computer screen). Weird! Jimmy Dore sucks!

[Fred Steeves]

For once, I have to agree that does look weird. I wonder if that is actual footage of the event. It may be something the reporting organization used as a filler to back the story. Even the bad guys look like Law Enforcement (and I can smell those dudes, even on a computer screen). Weird! Jimmy Dore sucks!

Well I'm glad you see that too, reminds me of the provocateurs sent in to disrupt and turn violent the WTO protests in Seattle back in '99, except that was very well done, this looked very bush league. I don't even know what the fuck these guys might have hoped to accomplish in that particular setting, and what were they gonna do with those shields? Very strange...

I know Jimmy is not real popular here, but I like the way he thinks, he definitely marches to the tune of his own drummer.

I look forward to the clips from his daily show as well. He often digs up some edgy information or video, asks the right questions, points out inconsistencies, and has on interesting guests as well.

Anyway, different strokes for different folks.

[Emil El Zapato]

Go Michel de Montaigne: A man far ahead of his time or a man in his time where his contemporaries had been left behind?

Relativism

One of the primary targets of Montaigne’s skeptical attack against presumption is ethnocentrism, or the belief that one’s culture is superior to others and therefore is the standard against which all other cultures, and their moral beliefs and practices, should be measured. This belief in the moral and cultural superiority of one’s own people, Montaigne finds, is widespread. It seems to be the default belief of all human beings. The first step toward undermining this prejudice is to display the sheer multiplicity of human beliefs and practices. Thus, in essays such as “Of some ancient customs,” “Of Custom, and not easily changing an accepted law,” and “Apology for Raymond Sebond” Montaigne catalogues the variety of behaviors to be found in the world in order to draw attention to the contingency of his own cultural norms. By reporting many customs that are direct inversions of contemporary European customs, he creates something like an inverted world for his readers, stunning their judgment by forcing them to question which way is up: here men urinate standing up and women do so sitting down; elsewhere it is the opposite. Here incest is frowned upon; in other cultures it is the norm. Here we bury our dead; there they eat them. Here we believe in the immortality of the soul; in other societies such a belief is nonsense.

Montaigne is not terribly optimistic about reforming the prejudices of his contemporaries, for simply reminding them of the apparent contingency of their own practices in most cases will not be enough. The power of custom over our habits and beliefs, he argues, is stronger than we tend to recognize. Indeed, Montaigne devotes almost as much time in the Essays to discussing the power of custom to shape the way we see the world as he does to revealing the various customs that he has come across in his reading and his travels. Custom, whether personal or social, puts to sleep the eye of our judgment, thereby tightening its grip over us, since its effects can only be diminished through deliberate and self-conscious questioning. It begins to seem as if it is impossible to escape custom’s power over our judgment: “Each man calls barbarism whatever is not his own practice; for indeed it seems we have no other test of truth and reason than the example and pattern of the opinions and customs of the country we live in”

Montaigne’s concern with custom and cultural diversity, combined with his rejection of ethnocentrism, has led many scholars to argue that Montaigne is a moral relativist, that is, that he holds that that there is no objective moral truth and that therefore moral values are simply expressions of conventions that enjoy widespread acceptance at a given time and place. Yet Montaigne never explicitly expresses his commitment to moral relativism, and there are aspects of the Essays that seem to contradict such an interpretation, as other scholars have noted.

These other scholars are inclined to interpret Montaigne as committed to moral objectivism, or the theory that there is in fact objective moral truth, and they point to a number of aspects of the Essays that would support such an interpretation. First, Montaigne does not hesitate to criticize the practices of other cultures. For instance, in “Of cannibals,” after praising the virtues of the cannibals, he criticizes them for certain behaviors that he identifies as morally vicious. For a relativist, such criticism would be unintelligible: if there is no objective moral truth, it makes little sense to criticize others for having failed to abide by it. Rather, since there is no external standard by which to judge other cultures, the only logical course of action is to pass over them in silence. Then there are moments when Montaigne seems to refer to categorical duties, or moral obligations that are not contingent upon either our own preferences or cultural norms (see, for example, the conclusion of “Of cruelty”). Finally, Montaigne sometimes seems to allude to the existence of objective moral truth, for instance in “Of some verses of Virgil” and “Of the useful and the honorable,” where he distinguishes between relative and absolute values.

Thus Montaigne’s position regarding moral relativism remains the subject of scholarly dispute. What is not a matter of dispute, however, is that Montaigne was keenly interested in undermining his readers’ thoughtless attitudes towards members of cultures different from their own, and that his account of the force of custom along with his critique of ethnocentrism had an impact on important later thinkers

[Emil El Zapato]

My daughter asked me to remove this article because she doesn't have permission from the author and it hasn't been published yet ...


She got that from her mother not me .... :)

[Wind]

Guns and abortion: Contradictory decisions, or consistent? (https://apnews.com/article/abortion-us-supreme-court-health-constitutions-7c23635f8a992f4f24a915f9179463f2)


They are the most fiercely polarizing issues in American life: abortion and guns. And two momentous decisions by the Supreme Court in two days have done anything but resolve them, firing up debate about whether the court’s conservative justices are being faithful and consistent to history and the Constitution — or citing them to justify political preferences.

To some critics, the rulings represent an obvious, deeply damaging contradiction. How can the court justify restricting the ability of states to regulate guns while expanding the right of states to regulate abortion?

“The hypocrisy is raging, but the harm is endless,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Friday after the court released its decision on abortion.

To supporters, the court’s conservatives are staying true to the country’s founding principles and undoing errors of the past.

The court corrected a historic wrong when it voided a right to abortion that has stood for nearly 50 years, former Vice President Mike Pence said Friday. On Twitter, he said the decision returned to Americans the power to “govern themselves at the state level in a manner consistent with their values and aspirations.”

Opponents of Roe v. Wade, the controversial 1973 ruling that upheld the right to abortion, say the Supreme Court back then did just what some accuse the majority justices of doing now, adapting and twisting legal arguments to fit political positions.

Members of the court’s current conservative majority, laying out their thinking in this week’s decisions, have been quite consistent, sticking to the words of the country’s founders and the precedents of history that reach back even further, those supporters say.

In both decisions, the majority makes the case that if a right is spelled out in the U.S. Constitution, the bar for any government regulation of that right is extremely high. But if a right is not explicit, state and federal governments have greater leeway to impose regulations.

To those who study the court, though, the reality is more complicated.

A number agree that, for all the controversy of the rulings, the majority justices at least followed a consistent legal theory in issuing the decisions on abortion and guns.

“I understand how it might look hypocritical, but from the perspective of the conservative majority on the court, it’s a consistent approach to both cases,” said Richard Albert, law professor at the University of Texas at Austin. “I’m not saying it’s correct, by the way, but from their perspective it is completely consistent and coherent.”

Consistency, though, cannot mask the fact that there has been a seismic shift on the court since President Donald Trump appointed three conservatives. And that is likely to further muddy public perceptions of an institution that prefers to see itself as being above politics, court watchers say.

Both decisions “come from the same court whose legitimacy is plummeting,” said Laurence Tribe, a leading scholar of Constitutional law and emeritus professor at the Harvard Law School.

The court majority’s decisions on gun rights and the ruling a day later on abortion both rely on a philosophy of constitutional interpretation called “originalism.” To assess what rights the Constitution confers, originalists hone in on what the texts meant when they were written.

Opinions by originalists are often laden with detailed surveys of history, as both these rulings are.

The bulk of Justice Clarence Thomas’ opinion on gun rights is devoted to history and what it says about the Founders’ intentions when they crafted the Second Amendment and when lawmakers crafted the 14th Amendment on due process in the 1860s. Thomas broached a long list of historical figures, including the English King Henry VIII, who the ruling says worried that the advent of handguns threatened his subjects’ proficiency with the longbow.

The abortion ruling authored by Justice Samuel Alito similarly delves deep into the past, concluding that there was nothing in the historical record supporting a constitutional right to obtain an abortion.

“Not only was there no support for such a constitutional right until shortly before Roe, but abortion had long been a crime in every single state,” Alito wrote.

This week’s two decisions are more legally consistent than critics suggest, said Jonathan Entin, a law professor emeritus at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.

“We can debate about the meaning of the Second Amendment, but the Second Amendment does explicitly talk about the right to keep and bear arms, whereas the right to abortion access is not explicitly in the Constitution,” he said. “If that’s where you are going to go, then maybe these decisions are not in such tension after all.”

Not all observers agree.

“I think there is a double standard going on here,” said Barry McDonald, a professor of law at Pepperdine University, reviewing the justices’ arguments that both decisions are grounded in a strict reading of the law and of history. That logic is shaky, he said, given the conclusion by many legal historians that the right to bear arms in the Bill of Rights is, in fact, much narrower than the court majority insists.

Most ordinary Americans, though, will be unfamiliar with such intricate legal theory. Instead, many will size up the court’s actions based on their perceptions of the justices’ motives and the personal implications of the decisions, experts said.

Many are likely to view the rulings as the direct result of Trump’s appointments and the justices’ determination to carry out his agenda, making the court “more of an institution of politics than it is of law,” McDonald said.

Tribe said the court’s majority has embraced an imaginary past and its claims that is only upholding the law are false. The majority justices can assert that they have been legally consistent. But taken together, he said, the decisions on guns and abortion create a whiplash effect from a court that claims to be protecting individual rights, then effectively limited many Americans’ control over their own bodies.

“I think the decisions point in radically different directions,” Tribe said, “but the one thing they have in common is they are decided by a new, emboldened majority that knows no limits on its own power and is perfectly willing to toss over precedent in the name of a version of originalism that really doesn’t hold together.”

[Fred Steeves]

Guns and abortion: Contradictory decisions, or consistent? (https://apnews.com/article/abortion-us-supreme-court-health-constitutions-7c23635f8a992f4f24a915f9179463f2)

It should come as no surprise that I agree with their decision on guns, but that's about it, they lose me from in a cloud of dust there.

You know, I have a real distaste for abortion, but it's not something that should ever be criminalized, and at least they left it up to the states. It's gonna be a mess though...

If they do indeed next go after access to contraception, and outlaw gay sex and same sex marriage, then we're spiraling back into the dark ages. FFS, what next, married hetero couples can only do it missionary style, and even only then for the purpose of procreation?


Thomas wrote, “In future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell.”

Since Justice Samuel Alito’s draft majority opinion overturning Roe was leaked earlier this year, Democrats and liberal activists have warned that the conservative majority would soon turn its attention to other rights that the court has affirmed.

The three cases Thomas mentioned are all landmark decisions establishing certain constitutional rights.

In Griswold v. Connecticut, the court ruled in 1965 that married couples have a right to access contraceptive. In 2003, the court said in Lawrence v. Texas that states could not outlaw consensual gay sex. And the court’s 2015 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges established a constitutional right to same-sex marriage.
https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/3535841-thomas-calls-for-overturning-precedents-on-contraceptives-lgbtq-rights/

I don't think anyone but devout Christian fundamentalists are going to stand for this shit.

Was joking with the wife last night over this: "Can't I just have a conservative court for things like guns, and a liberal court for things like legalizing weed?" (Chuckling) - That one earned me an eye roll. :rolleyes:

[Aragorn]

If they do indeed next go after access to contraception, and outlaw gay sex and same sex marriage, then we're spiraling back into the dark ages. FFS, what next, married hetero couples can only do it missionary style, and even only then for the purpose of procreation?

And only after having been legally married by an ordained priest. :ttr:

P.S.: In the state of Texas, oral sex is illegal. I'm not kidding. :p

[Fred Steeves]

Music Break, good for the soul in trying times. Texas has their problems, but they have some things going for them as well. Luckembach for one: :cool:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evtmVZFeooA

[Emil El Zapato]

It should come as no surprise that I agree with their decision on guns, but that's about it, they lose me from in a cloud of dust there.

You know, I have a real distaste for abortion, but it's not something that should ever be criminalized, and at least they left it up to the states. It's gonna be a mess though...

If they do indeed next go after access to contraception, and outlaw gay sex and same sex marriage, then we're spiraling back into the dark ages. FFS, what next, married hetero couples can only do it missionary style, and even only then for the purpose of procreation?


https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/3535841-thomas-calls-for-overturning-precedents-on-contraceptives-lgbtq-rights/

I don't think anyone but devout Christian fundamentalists are going to stand for this shit.

Was joking with the wife last night over this: "Can't I just have a conservative court for things like guns, and a liberal court for things like legalizing weed?" (Chuckling) - That one earned me an eye roll. :rolleyes:

"f they do indeed next go after access to contraception, and outlaw gay sex and same sex marriage, then we're spiraling back into the dark ages. FFS, what next, married hetero couples can only do it missionary style, and even only then for the purpose of procreation?"

If Thomas gets his way that is exactly what it will mean. The hypocrisy of his nightly anal reaming by his wife's strap-on will go un-acknowledged. If that guy was white I'd call him Trump. These types are truly sinister human beings. I don't know which is worse for humanity ... A psychotic President or a psychotic Supreme Court Justice.


And only after having been legally married by an ordained priest. :ttr:

P.S.: In the state of Texas, oral sex is illegal. I'm not kidding. :p

Only for the rank-and-file. If one could scare conservative Texans out of the closet the most liberal of folks' eyeballs would likely pop out of their heads.

[Emil El Zapato]

Music Break, good for the soul in trying times. Texas has their problems, but they have some things going for them as well. Luckembach for one: :cool:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evtmVZFeooA

Littlefield, TX used to be in my neck of the woods (Waylon Jennings was born there). Drove it many times from Lubbock to Clovis, New Mexico. Passed it once on a bicycle even. I was trying to bike from Lubbock to Clovis. 100 miles ... I was out of shape and and ... I didn't make it. Got about 75 miles though

[Fred Steeves]

Funny of the day :lol:

https://twitter.com/HeyNickMurphy/status/1541911573819793408

[Wind]

Happy 4th of July to the Americans here. It's just unfortunate that things like these aren't too uncommon now.

6 dead, 24 wounded in shooting at Chicago-area July 4 parade (https://apnews.com/article/chicago-july-4-parade-shooting-92b50feb80c19afe7842b9caf08545cb)

[modwiz]

Happy 4th of July to the Americans here. It's just unfortunate that things like these aren't too uncommon now.

6 dead, 24 wounded in shooting at Chicago-area July 4 parade (https://apnews.com/article/chicago-july-4-parade-shooting-92b50feb80c19afe7842b9caf08545cb)

Chicago has the most stringent gun laws of any city is USA. Shootings are common there.

It also has one of the worst mayors in the country.

Where I live, things are relatively sane. As are most places in USA outside of the cities.

[Fred Steeves]

I found this exchange rather interesting:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWupqKcr9zI

[Wind]

I found this exchange rather interesting:

"He's running against a dead man." :lol:

That's why I'm worried that he will win.

[Wind]

rALzkkG-Esw

[Wind]

4PfZlxhvdkM

[Wind]

374Q9mOXc50

[Fred Steeves]

I like the way comedian Bill Burr looks at current US politics:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KensE1n5eQs

[Wind]

We live in an utterly idiotic world.

l7JHE-QTR0s

[Wind]

It seems that fascism is raising it's ugly head in many places, sigh.

lnhkDjb6nec

[Wind]

How propaganda is destroying (American) Democracy. This should be a must watch especially for Vern.

dQJNflbciYU

[Fred Steeves]

How propaganda is destroying (American) Democracy.

dQJNflbciYU

Vice is very predictable, I already had a pretty good idea of where they’d be taking this for an education on the ins and outs of propaganda, and they didn’t disappoint.

This was Vice sitting in the comfort of their own walled off silo, pointing out obvious transgressions of the other silo, as if that’s the only place to find them.

They’re more and more starting to resemble the likes of MSNBC and CNN.

[Aianawa]

Vice is very predictable, I already had a pretty good idea of where they’d be taking this for an education on the ins and outs of propaganda, and they didn’t disappoint.

This was Vice sitting in the comfort of their own walled off silo, pointing out obvious transgressions of the other silo, as if that’s the only place to find them.

They’re more and more starting to resemble the likes of MSNBC and CNN.

Still looking forward to watching this though Fred, as it still holds whats left of the middle ground as such, imo gives ability to see where and how much awakening is taking place.

[Aianawa]

Yes predickable and very well done, silo scene yes.

Lots of good sound bites for anyone to do their own research also.

[Wind]

Internal US politics seem to be in almost complete disarray and the country is polarized beyond repair?

HKVBvooZ2c8

[Aragorn]

R.I.P. Christine McVie (12 July 1943 – 30 November 2022)



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLRyYETnoIE



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5eCEdu_gQE

[Wind]

Doomsday Clock moves closer to midnight amid ‘unprecedent danger’ of Russia’s war (https://globalnews.ca/news/9432146/doomsday-clock-2023/)



"The Doomsday Clock has been moved closer to midnight as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has heightened concerns about global annihilation.

In an update Tuesday, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists reset the clock from 100 seconds to 90 seconds — the closest it has ever been to midnight.

“Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has increased the risk of nuclear weapons use, raised the specter of biological and chemical weapons use, hamstrung the world’s response to climate change, and hampered international efforts to deal with other global concerns,” the Chicago-based non-profit organization said in a statement.

The Doomsday Clock is a metaphor that visualizes the threat humanity faces from unchecked scientific and technological advances, according to the group comprised of experts in nuclear weapons, biological weapons and climate change.

The hands of the clock were moved largely due to the Russia’s war in Ukraine – approaching one year – and the increased risk of nuclear escalation, the scientists said.

The climate change crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic also influenced the new time.

“We are living in a time of unprecedented danger, and the Doomsday Clock time reflects that reality,” said Rachel Bronson, president and CEO of Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, in a statement.

The hands of the clock are moved closer to or further away from midnight based on the scientists’ reading of existential threats at a particular time.

Doomsday occurs at midnight, so the closer to midnight the clock is set, the more peril they believe the world is in.

The clock was set at 100 seconds to midnight in 2020 and had remained unchanged since.

This year, its setting reflects for the first time a world in which Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has revived fears of nuclear war.

Since its debut in 1947, the minute hand on the Doomsday Clock has been moved 25 times, including on Tuesday."

Source: Global News (https://globalnews.ca/news/9432146/doomsday-clock-2023/)

https://www.the-sun.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2023/01/EP_DOOMSDAY_CLOCK_BREAKER_OFFPLATFORM.jpg

[Catsquotl]

The Doomsday Clock is a metaphor that visualizes the threat humanity faces from unchecked scientific and technological advances, according to the group comprised of experts in nuclear weapons, biological weapons and climate change.



This made me chuckle..
So ehm who funds these (ahem) "experts?"

[Fred Steeves]

Doomsday Clock moves closer to midnight amid ‘unprecedent danger’ of Russia’s war (https://globalnews.ca/news/9432146/doomsday-clock-2023/)



"The Doomsday Clock has been moved closer to midnight as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has heightened concerns about global annihilation.

In an update Tuesday, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists reset the clock from 100 seconds to 90 seconds — the closest it has ever been to midnight.

“Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has increased the risk of nuclear weapons use, raised the specter of biological and chemical weapons use, hamstrung the world’s response to climate change, and hampered international efforts to deal with other global concerns,” the Chicago-based non-profit organization said in a statement.

The Doomsday Clock is a metaphor that visualizes the threat humanity faces from unchecked scientific and technological advances, according to the group comprised of experts in nuclear weapons, biological weapons and climate change.

The hands of the clock were moved largely due to the Russia’s war in Ukraine – approaching one year – and the increased risk of nuclear escalation, the scientists said.

The climate change crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic also influenced the new time.

“We are living in a time of unprecedented danger, and the Doomsday Clock time reflects that reality,” said Rachel Bronson, president and CEO of Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, in a statement.

The hands of the clock are moved closer to or further away from midnight based on the scientists’ reading of existential threats at a particular time.

Doomsday occurs at midnight, so the closer to midnight the clock is set, the more peril they believe the world is in.

The clock was set at 100 seconds to midnight in 2020 and had remained unchanged since.

This year, its setting reflects for the first time a world in which Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has revived fears of nuclear war.

Since its debut in 1947, the minute hand on the Doomsday Clock has been moved 25 times, including on Tuesday."

Source: Global News (https://globalnews.ca/news/9432146/doomsday-clock-2023/)

https://www.the-sun.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2023/01/EP_DOOMSDAY_CLOCK_BREAKER_OFFPLATFORM.jpg

Jesus, even the Doomsday Clock people do their part in spreading The Narrative. The Doomsday Clock is where it’s at now solely because of Russia, it’s just that simple nothing else to see here folks move along.

“Russia Bad” is all we need to know.

Say what you will about the original invasion, this dirty business would have been long settled by now had it not been morphed into a fight to the death proxy war. The more this absurd narrative goes unchallenged, the more dangerous this situation becomes because these lunatic, cult like neocons have no intentions of slowing down their escalations.

They don’t stop until somebody stops them.

[Wind]

This made me chuckle..
So ehm who funds these (ahem) "experts?"

https://thebulletin.org/about-us/


The more this absurd narrative goes unchallenged, the more dangerous this situation becomes because these lunatic, cult like neocons have no intentions of slowing down their escalations.

They don’t stop until somebody stops them.

Who might that be, aliens?

[Aragorn]

JThe more this absurd narrative goes unchallenged, the more dangerous this situation becomes because these lunatic, cult like neocons have no intentions of slowing down their escalations.

They don’t stop until somebody stops them.

Who might that be, aliens?

Corey Badde Goode and his Blue Chickens from Outer Space™. :p

[Wind]

Corey Badde Goode and his Blue Chickens from Outer Space™. :p

All hail the Blue KFC Ambassador!

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Flcy4ZFWQAEh5mg.png

[Fred Steeves]

Who might that be, aliens?

Us.
https://rageagainstwar.com/#Invitation

[Aianawa]

Was chicken wing man used to disscredit the blue orb-s phenom ?.

[Aragorn]

Was chicken wing man used to disscredit the blue orb-s phenom ?.

Chicken man wasn't being used by anyone. Chicken man was the one using other people, because he's a greedy narcissist and he saw a ticket to "alt world" fame. And Wilcock ran with it because of his own wet dreams about the Ra material and his obsession with the Law Of One — he wanted it to be true.

None of these jokers are being used, Vern. Corey Goode, Simon Parkes, Randy "Captain Kaye" Kramer, Shane "The Ruiner" Bales, they're all narcissists seeking to exploit the gullibility of this so-called "alternative" scene. And they've all been very successful at it, too, which should by now say a lot more about this so-called "alternative" crowd than it does about them.

There are blue chickens, and then there are headless chickens. And personally, I've seen more of the latter than of the former. ;)

[Fred Steeves]

I never quite saw Shane in that light. Manipulative yes, but more in a playful way, and I don't think he ever sought to gain financially from his Ruiner character. More that others around him hoisted him upon their shoulders, and he gladly went along for the ride.

If memory serves you probably see it much differently?

[Aragorn]

I never quite saw Shane in that light. Manipulative yes, but more in a playful way, and I don't think he ever sought to gain financially from his Ruiner character. More that others around him hoisted him upon their shoulders, and he gladly went along for the ride.

If memory serves you probably see it much differently?

Well, no, you pretty much describe it as how I myself saw him too. He wasn't after money, but he too had for a long time already been lying about himself, his family and his background. He was already doing it when I was still over at PA before my first ban from there, back in early 2015 — maybe even back in 2014. Maybe it started off as playfulness, but he certainly enjoyed and fed into his fame when the time was right for him to do so. And he's still doing it.

He was also a master at manipulation, and he did it without a qualm, which suggests a Machiavellian personality type. He also has no sense of shame whatsoever, and he doesn't care about right and wrong.

[Fred Steeves]

Maybe it started off as playfulness, but he certainly enjoyed and fed into his fame when the time was right for him to do so. And he's still doing it.

Ah, where’s he hanging out these days?

[Aragorn]

Ah, where’s he hanging out these days?

Well, forum-wise, last I heard he was hanging out at Spiral's Conspiracy Café (https://conspiracycafe.forumactif.com/), but it hasn't been all that long ago that I saw a still recent video posted somewhere of a podcast in which he and Natasha ("Breeze" here at TOT, "Realeyes" at PA and the now defunct E-R) were guests, and where he was billed as "The Ruiner" — I didn't watch it or listen to it, though. :noidea:

[Diabolical Boids]

All hail the Blue KFC Ambassador!

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Flcy4ZFWQAEh5mg.png

Omg. I'm dying here. Blue KFC.


Well, no, you pretty much describe it as how I myself saw him too. He wasn't after money, but he too had for a long time already been lying about himself, his family and his background. He was already doing it when I was still over at PA before my first ban from there, back in early 2015 — maybe even back in 2014. Maybe it started off as playfulness, but he certainly enjoyed and fed into his fame when the time was right for him to do so. And he's still doing it.

He was also a master at manipulation, and he did it without a qualm, which suggests a Machiavellian personality type. He also has no sense of shame whatsoever, and he doesn't care about right and wrong.

He never hit my radar. Never heard of him. Long periods of time will pass when I won't look at PA. What was the Ruiner claiming to ruin, and was he at PA as a poster or a flavor of the month like Corey Goode?

[Aragorn]

I never quite saw Shane in that light. Manipulative yes, but more in a playful way, and I don't think he ever sought to gain financially from his Ruiner character. More that others around him hoisted him upon their shoulders, and he gladly went along for the ride.

If memory serves you probably see it much differently?

Well, no, you pretty much describe it as how I myself saw him too. He wasn't after money, but he too had for a long time already been lying about himself, his family and his background. He was already doing it when I was still over at PA before my first ban from there, back in early 2015 — maybe even back in 2014. Maybe it started off as playfulness, but he certainly enjoyed and fed into his fame when the time was right for him to do so. And he's still doing it.

He was also a master at manipulation, and he did it without a qualm, which suggests a Machiavellian personality type. He also has no sense of shame whatsoever, and he doesn't care about right and wrong.

He never hit my radar. Never heard of him. Long periods of time will pass when I won't look at PA. What was the Ruiner claiming to ruin, and was he at PA as a poster or a flavor of the month like Corey Goode?

Well, back at Project Avalon, Shane was only a regular member and he kept a low profile, but he did talk about "his experiences" a couple of times in the PA chat applet — which is only accessible to registered members — and in private messages. He had however been a moderator at Project Avalon during its first incarnation, so that must have been before the big schism in 2011, when Stephen "Charles"/"Atticus" Hodges ran off with a major chunk of PA's members and moderators. This was long before my time, though.

By the time I joined up here at The One Truth (in March 2015), Corey was already doing his thing over here, and early in 2015, some of the local members — most notably Ria and Breeze — discovered a blog by someone who called himself "theruiner777". This person claimed to be a member of an Illuminati family who had broken free from "his family". It came to light only later that this person was Shane Bales, and that he also had an account here at The One Truth under the name Dracon.

But long before anyone knew who he was and that he actually had an account here, Ria and Breeze — both of them quite devoid of discernment — started replicating Shane's blog here, on the thread "The Plan (blogs by theruiner777) (https://jandeane81.com/showthread.php/6302-The-Plan-(blogs-by-theruiner777))". Shane himself did not actively promote his narrative here at first, but the thread in question quickly evolved into a temple of worship for The Ruiner, and Corey got involved because he claimed to know the identity of The Ruiner — which he did, because they had met — and declared him a liar. Shane then did the same to Corey, claiming that everything Corey said were merely implanted memories and mind control by the Illuminati for the sake of letting Corey spread misinformation about the alleged Secret Space Program.

Shane also continued — on his blog, not here at the forum — expanding on his narrative by claiming that he had met with 1'000-year-old vampires in the Illuminati — one of them was allegedly called Cassandra — as well as with extraterrestrial giants who were buried inside large mounds here on Earth in a state of suspended animation, and that he (Shane) had taught Vladimir Putin how to use telepathy on board of an intergalactic spaceship when Shane himself was only 13 years old.

The groupies all ran with it hook, line and sinker. But Corey wouldn't have it and confronted them, which led to an outright war between him and Shane's groupies here at the forum — that's how come I know all this stuff, because I wasn't even remotely interested in either Corey's blue chickens or Shane's Illuminaughties, but I was hired as a moderator here at the time, and we were defusing bombs all over the forum 24/7 from day one. Eventually Shane came out of the shadows here and admitted that he was the Ruiner.

Eventually Corey left the forum — after first having made sure to leave enough self-promotional ads around — and a while later, Ria, Breeze and the other groupies, as well as Shane himself, moved over to a (now defunct) spin-off forum called Eye-Rise, which they ran like Nazis. Anyone who dared casting even an inkling of doubt on the veracity of Shane's claims was instantly banned. Eventually, Ria, who was an administrator at Eye-Rise, had a falling-out with Kathy, who was said forum's founder, and then Ria, Breeze, Shane and their whole Ruiner cult left Eye-Rise again, while deleting almost half of its content on their way out — as an administrator, Ria had that power.

That's about as much as I can remember, but I think I've listed most of the highlights of the soap opera here-above. ;)

[Fred Steeves]

A couple of useful links:

https://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?81805-The-Blog-of-The-Ruiner-Inside-the-Illuminati-Mind&highlight=The+ruiner

https://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?85903-Anomalies-in-The-Ruiner-s-material

As usual Frank has a great memory in describing past events.

A major takeaway I have is that Bill, in his usual capacity of poor discernment skills, eventually became so enamored with “The Ruiner” that he was about to cash in again and interview him.

That’s right when “CW Chanter” hit the scene on YouTube and began systematically ripping the story to shreds. And that, was the end of that.

Here’s Shane’s side of it over there:

https://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?85125-Shane-The-Ruiner-s-interview-with-Kerry-Cassidy-8-Sept-2015&p=1008204&highlight=CW+Chanter#post1008204

[Aianawa]

Chicken man wasn't being used by anyone. Chicken man was the one using other people, because he's a greedy narcissist and he saw a ticket to "alt world" fame. And Wilcock ran with it because of his own wet dreams about the Ra material and his obsession with the Law Of One — he wanted it to be true.

None of these jokers are being used, Vern. Corey Goode, Simon Parkes, Randy "Captain Kaye" Kramer, Shane "The Ruiner" Bales, they're all narcissists seeking to exploit the gullibility of this so-called "alternative" scene. And they've all been very successful at it, too, which should by now say a lot more about this so-called "alternative" crowd than it does about them.

There are blue chickens, and then there are headless chickens. And personally, I've seen more of the latter than of the former. ;)

Wow , no handler for Cory, he must be more intelligent than i thought, but okay.

[Aragorn]

Wow , no handler for Cory, he must be more intelligent than i thought, but okay.

I don't think "intelligent" is the right word. I'd rather say "wicked", and "shrewd". :hmm:

[Diabolical Boids]

Well, back at Project Avalon, Shane was only a regular member and he kept a low profile, but he did talk about "his experiences" a couple of times in the PA chat applet — which is only accessible to registered members — and in private messages. He had however been a moderator at Project Avalon during its first incarnation, so that must have been before the big schism in 2011, when Stephen "Charles"/"Atticus" Hodges ran off with a major chunk of PA's members and moderators. This was long before my time, though.

By the time I joined up here at The One Truth (in March 2015), Corey was already doing his thing over here, and early in 2015, some of the local members — most notably Ria and Breeze — discovered a blog by someone who called himself "theruiner777". This person claimed to be a member of an Illuminati family who had broken free from "his family". It came to light only later that this person was Shane Bales, and that he also had an account here at The One Truth under the name Dracon.

But long before anyone knew who he was and that he actually had an account here, Ria and Breeze — both of them quite devoid of discernment — started replicating Shane's blog here, on the thread "The Plan (blogs by theruiner777) (https://jandeane81.com/showthread.php/6302-The-Plan-(blogs-by-theruiner777))". Shane himself did not actively promote his narrative here at first, but the thread in question quickly evolved into a temple of worship for The Ruiner, and Corey got involved because he claimed to know the identity of The Ruiner — which he did, because they had met — and declared him a liar. Shane then did the same to Corey, claiming that everything Corey said were merely implanted memories and mind control by the Illuminati for the sake of letting Corey spread misinformation about the alleged Secret Space Program.

Shane also continued — on his blog, not here at the forum — expanding on his narrative by claiming that he had met with 1'000-year-old vampires in the Illuminati — one of them was allegedly called Cassandra — as well as with extraterrestrial giants who were buried inside large mounds here on Earth in a state of suspended animation, and that he (Shane) had taught Vladimir Putin how to use telepathy on board of an intergalactic spaceship when Shane himself was only 13 years old.

The groupies all ran with it hook, line and sinker. But Corey wouldn't have it and confronted them, which led to an outright war between him and Shane's groupies here at the forum — that's how come I know all this stuff, because I wasn't even remotely interested in either Corey's blue chickens or Shane's Illuminaughties, but I was hired as a moderator here at the time, and we were defusing bombs all over the forum 24/7 from day one. Eventually Shane came out of the shadows here and admitted that he was the Ruiner.

Eventually Corey left the forum — after first having made sure to leave enough self-promotional ads around — and a while later, Ria, Breeze and the other groupies, as well as Shane himself, moved over to a (now defunct) spin-off forum called Eye-Rise, which they ran like Nazis. Anyone who dared casting even an inkling of doubt on the veracity of Shane's claims was instantly banned. Eventually, Ria, who was an administrator at Eye-Rise, had a falling-out with Kathy, who was said forum's founder, and then Ria, Breeze, Shane and their whole Ruiner cult left Eye-Rise again, while deleting almost half of its content on their way out — as an administrator, Ria had that power.

That's about as much as I can remember, but I think I've listed most of the highlights of the soap opera here-above. ;)

Thank you. That was quite a fill in and back story and all weirdly familiar now that you've told it. Like I've seen it all before even though I didn't.

[Diabolical Boids]

A couple of useful links:

https://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?81805-The-Blog-of-The-Ruiner-Inside-the-Illuminati-Mind&highlight=The+ruiner

https://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?85903-Anomalies-in-The-Ruiner-s-material

As usual Frank has a great memory in describing past events.

A major takeaway I have is that Bill, in his usual capacity of poor discernment skills, eventually became so enamored with “The Ruiner” that he was about to cash in again and interview him.

That’s right when “CW Chanter” hit the scene on YouTube and began systematically ripping the story to shreds. And that, was the end of that.

Here’s Shane’s side of it over there:

https://projectavalon.net/forum4/showthread.php?85125-Shane-The-Ruiner-s-interview-with-Kerry-Cassidy-8-Sept-2015&p=1008204&highlight=CW+Chanter#post1008204

Thanks for the links.

So Bill was going to interview with another Illuminati runaway whistleblower like Charles who, similar to Charles, knew 1000 years old vampires instead of a thousand-year-old St. Germaine?

Well it is a good story. And somewhere Shane admits his blog is a fiction which is confusing. But the story contains elements of stories I've heard before. Charles, and Duncan O' Finnion (spelling?) if you remember him dome to mind immediately. Carried off as a young child by a family member to be trained at MK Ultra facility somewhere to be psychic super soldier.

[Aragorn]

Thanks for the links.

So Bill was going to interview with another Illuminati runaway whistleblower like Charles who, similar to Charles, knew 1000 years old vampires instead of a thousand-year-old St. Germaine?

Yeah. So much for discernment skills. He's actually only a modicum more sober than Karen Kerry Cassidy. Between the two of them, they have done an impeccable job of pulling the entire UFO and truth-seeking community off the rails and keeping them there.


Well it is a good story. And somewhere Shane admits his blog is a fiction which is confusing.

Ah yes, see, Shane had to say that it was fiction, as a tactical maneuver to get the naysayers off his back, you know? He explained it all to his groupies, thereby ensuring that his groupies would remain his groupies. "I only wrote that so as to get the critics off my back." It's one of those sooper-dooper seekrit Illuminaughty tricks, you know? :rolleyes:

Corey did something similar recently, although in his case, it didn't quite have the same effect, and exactly so because it should by now already be undeniably clear to everyone that he's only after money.


But the story contains elements of stories I've heard before. Charles, and Duncan O' Finnion (spelling?) if you remember him dome to mind immediately. Carried off as a young child by a family member to be trained at MK Ultra facility somewhere to be psychic super soldier.

Duncan O'Finnioan, yes. And James Casbolt (real name: Michael Prince). And pervy Simon Parkes. Charles' (real name: Stephen Hodges) story was a bit different; he was more of a street thug — possibly some kind of neo-Nazi skinhead — when he was "recruited".

But Shane had studied all of them very meticulously, just as Corey had done. As a PA member — and moderator even at some point — he had been in an excellent position to source all of those narratives and weave them into one of his own making. And he was even one of David Wilcock's "anonymous insiders" for a while, feeding Wilcock with bullshit, just as Wilcock himself would then later be feeding the whole community with that same bullshit.

What's also interesting is that Corey Goode was one of the people who was supposedly on our side when we were exposing Simon Parkes for the textbook-psychopathic, money-hungry sexual predator and extortionist he is — "we" being the small group of people who were all banned from PA for speaking up against Parkes due to him having an affair with one of PA's then-moderators — right up until Parkes started corroborating Corey's narrative about the alleged Secret Space Program™ and the Blue Chickens from Outer Space™. From then on, Corey's attitude toward Parkes suddenly took a 180° turn.

Curious, innit? ;)

[Diabolical Boids]

You know, they draw a lot of people in this with this stuff. The stories are good and draw a big crowd and a lot of attention. If you want to be unpopular and ignored expose the truth. :cool: And if the point is to capitalize and draw attention to yourself with blue entities, dragons, controlling blue blood families, vampires, and secret space programs are hugely popular themes these day in written fiction and the movies. Why not just capitalize in published or scripted media if you are going to admit it's a fiction in the end anyway? I see lots of cinema and books touching on those subjects especially in Prime Studios which is popular because people want something new, not just another remake of some already remade crap like Scooby Doo 2023.

[Wind]

Although the bot doesn't report the quakes on this forum anymore, there were really big ones in Turkey.

V3IdLBWhvpE

Turkey and Syria earthquake: race to find survivors as death toll passes 7,800 (https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2023/feb/07/turkey-earthquake-syria-in-turkiye-2023-live-updates-latest-news-map-magnitude-7-8-scale-quake-tremor-death-toll-gaziantep-kahramanmaras)

"The latest death toll from Monday’s catastrophic earthquake has passed 7,800.

In Turkey, 5,894 people are confirmed to have been killed, while 1,932 people have died in Syria for a combined total of 7,826 fatalities. There are fears that the toll will rise inexorably, with World Health Organization officials estimating up to 20,000 may have died.

The Economist has spoken to Ovgun Ahmet Ercan, an earthquake expert, who estimates that “180,000 people or more may be trapped under the rubble, nearly all of them dead.”

The Guardian has not independently verified this figure. The UN said yesterday that it feared the toll could reach 20,000, a staggering number and much lower than this estimate.

The Turkish provinces impacted by the quake are home to 13 million people.

For comparison, almost 230,000 people died in the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami.

17,000 died in the 1999 earthquake in Turkey."

[Emil El Zapato]

Horrific! The number keeps climbing but the miraculous saves do also. Not that it is a tradeoff but my new perspective tells me that there is a lesson for humanity within it. We live mostly in a physical blind that hides our greater and more meaningful experiences from us.

[Wind]

Horrific! The number keeps climbing but the miraculous saves do also. Not that it is a tradeoff but my new perspective tells me that there is a lesson for humanity within it. We live mostly in a physical blind that hides our greater and more meaningful experiences from us.

Yes, over 22 000 people dead now and many are stuck under the rubble, the numbers can still rise. Very sad indeed.

Wars and tragedies can bring out the worst and best in people. When we see suffering it makes us see ourselves in the "other".

Then we want to reach out and help, lessen the suffering or at least that ought to be the natural inclination we have.

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[Wind]

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[Wind]

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The US perfected the art of the coup to push out leaders it didn’t like and install leaders it did.
In this story I go through some of the major US-led coups to explore how the US rose to power and stayed there.