Voluntary Association and Non-Aggression
Jacob Hornberger addresses the biggest threat to American liberty.
Paul Fahri discusses the Obama administration’s hunger for secrecy and control.
Ryan McMaken on the “Plan of San Diego” and the legacy of the Mexican War.
Sheldon Richman on rights.
And Justin Raimondo analyzes the real axis of evil.
There is yet another article, this time in The New American, on the Obama administration’s use of the U.S. military to threateningly overstep its constitutional authority. This time the military is planning to impose a two-month-long “drill” this Summer which includes “psy-ops,” or psychological operations and illicit covert infiltration of the public. Whether a drill or not, the military’s use of psy-ops is really supposed to be used on the “enemy,” not their own fellow Americans, as I explained in this article. However, given the hostility toward their own fellow Americans as shown by the Obama ilk, I am not surprised that they want to escalate such hostilities in the form of these kinds of covert threats. In fact, in the linked article the planned “drill” takes place in several different states of the southwest, with certain areas labeled “hostile” by these federal agencies, goons and hoodlums. As I wrote in this post, those groups considered by the Obama regime to be “threats” and “terrorists” include “constitutionalists,” religious Christians, those who believe in individual liberty, preppers and survivalists, and those who are critical of the government’s phony operations.
In The New American article, officials say they will try to deal with those who might “panic” or experience “paranoia” when seeing the helicopters flying at low altitudes, the armed U.S. guerrillas walking through the streets, or the civilian-dressed covert operators talking to members of the public to determine which ones are “right-wing extremists” and which ones are not. Just a few days ago I linked to some similar articles including this one and this one.
And recently was this post on Zero Hedge that was reprinted on LewRockwell.com of where in the U.S. to be or not to be, if or when the “Zombie Apocalypse” occurs. Now, obviously the “Zombie Apocalypse” is referring to a fictional scenario, but the possibilities in that article could apply to if or when there is a power grid collapse, economic collapse, natural disaster of epic proportions, or a nuclear or EMP attack. In such examples within a day there is widespread panic and civil unrest, the food supply shrinks and store shelves empty out. And when EBT cards stop working, watch out. This older article describes such a scenario in which not only will the cities be places to avoid but the looting and widespread violence will continue into the suburbs. In the aforementioned Zero Hedge post the study being described refers to parts of the U.S. where not to be, with graphics which show the entire U.S northeast as totally destroyed in just days, whereas parts of the west such as Montana and Wyoming surviving up to four months.
But what about after four months? As Karl Denninger notes in his recent article on the preppers and survivalists, the chances of any of these disasters happening are very slim, so it’s not particularly worth spending so much time and money on all the “prepping” that some people are doing. And further, if something does happen and you are prepared, just how long do you think you will last, given that such apocalyptic scenarios will wipe out much of civilized society and there’s a good chance that you will not survive being confronted by the roving gangs and nomads (of both the government and non-government variety). So really all those possible scenarios of future collapse, grid failures, attacks, etc. are really not worth worrying about. A lot of people are stressing themselves out over these things.
However, as I noted in my article on civil unrest, it’s possible that the psychopaths who rule over us may really want civil unrest and widespread destruction to happen, because they see those events as opportunities for power grabbing. Lust for power and control over others is inherent in the nature of the government bureaucrat and the enforcers. And this is a good explanation for why these power-lusting droolers would be inflicting their two-month-long martial law drills, threatening Christians and conservatives, threatening libertarians and constitutionalists, and why federal agencies have been stocking up on high-powered weaponry and ammo as well. These official Rulers swore an oath to obey the U.S. Constitution, most Amendments of which they wouldn’t know if they fell over them. Can you imagine the bureaucrats and the enforcers actually reading the Constitution and the Bill of Rights?
Frankly, while I’m not particularly prepared for possible grid collapse or economic collapse (but then, who is?) I am psychologically prepared. That is, it won’t surprise me and I don’t fear those things. At least, not as much as I fear armed government goons and thugs marauding through the streets on their crime sprees and getting off on intimidating and violating the rights of innocent people.
Charles Burris comments on the sordid origin of hate-speech laws.
Philip Weiss says that the Adelson primary heats up in the U.S.
Paul Joseph Watson with an article on U.S. troops and law enforcement training in Fort Lauderdale to detain civilians involuntarily during a possible future state of unrest in the U.S. Meanwhile, Karl Denninger points out the possible meaninglessness and futility in “prepping” (or over-prepping) for infrastructure collapse or otherwise breakdown of society, and zombie apocalypse. Denninger notes the very slim chance of a real disaster of such magnitude happening. So, if there’s no point in “prepping,” then why are military and law enforcement themselves “prepping” for something?
Patrice Lewis on California’s drought: A state of denial.
And Peter Maass asks, why should Bergdahl suffer more than generals who did far worse?
Justin Raimondo gives some informative background on the Yemen situation.
Philip Giraldi on how the neoconservatives have been able to influence public discussion of foreign policy.
Andrew Napolitano comments on bureaucratic lawlessness.
Laurence Vance on dress codes, employment, and religion.
Washington’s Blog explains the history of actual false flag terrorist attacks.
Daniel McAdams says that Congress demands war in Ukraine.
Glenn Greenwald discusses the latest judicial protection for lawless, shadowy neocons.
Kevin Carson reviews Thomas Piketty’s book, Capital in the 21st Century.
And Steve Watson with an article on the fraidy cats of the Topeka Police Department who now require all people stopped in their cars to put their hands up.
Long Island government police, hospital staff and “doctors” criminally drugged and imprisoned a lady for 8 days because she claimed that Barack Obama followed her on Twitter which they didn’t believe although it turned out to be true.
The Obama DOJ has ordered the banksters to turn in those who withdraw over $5,000 of their own money form their own accounts, based on individual bank tellers’ own subjective reasons of suspicion.
U.S. military and local law enforcement agencies training to impose martial law on the American people. And training to kill Americans when ordered to do so.
As John W. Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute points out, the only truly compliant, submissive citizen in a police state is a dead one.
American Exceptionalism.
While Ted Baxter Cruz announces his campaign for the office of Rearranging Some More Deck Chairs, Ron Paul says that, after a 12 year mistake in Iraq, we must just march home. It is doubtful that Cruz will agree with Ron Paul.
Cruz has an undergraduate degree in “Public Policy” from Princeton’s “Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.” Now, should we trust someone who graduated from a school of international affairs named after Woodrow Wilson? And there shouldn’t be such a thing as “Public Policy.” A policy of what? And by whom? Bureaucrats? As opposed to a Private Policy? I’m all for “Private Policy.”
And — get this — Cruz’s wife works for . . . Goldman Sachs. (snicker, chortle . . .) Need we add any more than that? Another Goldman Sachs candidate? I. Don’t. Think. So.
Cruz supports the Keystone XL Pipeline. That means he supports Eminent Domain and thus opposes private property rights. The Keystone XL Pipeline will require the government’s use of Eminent Domain for it to be built. In my view, energy and the systems to provide energy sources need to be completely decentralized, and there should be no government involvement in energy provision whatsoever. So Ted Cruz’s support for that Pipeline shows that he does not support private property rights.
And Cruz is big on Israel. I am skeptical of Christians’ blind and unquestioning support of Israel. Cruz is a Southern Baptist and he sounds as though he is just another one of those dangerous End Times Armageddonists. Christian Zionists “support” the Jews in Israel, but mainly because they want to see the Jews convert to Christianity so they will be “saved.” I think Ted Cruz may very well be one of those people, regardless of his Constitution-supporting rhetoric. I hope I’m wrong. But Cruz wants more wars, as long as he himself doesn’t have to go fight in them of course, wars on Iraq/Syria/ISIS, Iran and the Palestinians, and he wants to arm the neo-Nazi Ukrainian regime. I don’t even know why I’m writing this, as obviously he isn’t going to get the (R) nomination.
Nope. WND on the New Inquisition: punish climate-change “deniers.”
James Bovard points out the Supreme Court’s hypocrisy in its attempts to save ObamaCare.
Jacob Hornberger on conservative blindness on Iran.
Washington’s Blog on believing the government’s official explanation for 9/11.
Paul Craig Roberts says that truth is our country.
Matt Welch on the conservatives’ new hero Tom Cotton: Police-statist interventionist nightmare.
Kelley Vlahos discusses America’s warlords in Afghanistan.
Karen Kwiatkowski on the decline and fall of American statism.
Eric Margolis on Bibi Rebozo Netanyahu: What, me worry?
Justin Raimondo on Bin Laden and Bibi, together at last.
Philip Giraldi comments on AIPAC’s 47 useful idiots.
William Grigg says it’s Cold War II, and this time the commies are in Washington.
Butler Shaffer comments on the well-bred zombies.
Wendy McElroy on how America became the world’s policeman.
Sheldon Richman discusses Bastiat on the socialization of wealth.
I noticed that recently two of my older posts have been getting a lot of views. Perhaps someone has been linking to them, I don’t know. One post was from September 2011 with an interview of Richard Ney, and the other post from April 2012 with an interview of Madeline Murray O’Hare. Since both posts are relatively short, I’ll just paste them both into this post (with some slight changes).
September, 2011: 1970 Interview With Investment Advisor Richard Ney
. . . Investment advisor Richard Ney says that the New York Stock Exchange is rigged, especially by “Specialists.”
Here are two hours out of a four-hour 1970 interview on WBZ by Jerry Williams of Richard Ney. (From JerryWilliams.org. The other two hours of the interview aren’t available there.) Click the links, and a new window should open, to play a Media Player window.
While this is over forty years ago, some of the things said in this interview sound like it could have been conducted yesterday.
http://www.jerrywilliams.org/audio/WBZ/wbz36.m3u
http://www.jerrywilliams.org/audio/WBZ/wbz18.m3u
***********************
April, 2012: 1965 Interview of Atheist Dissident Madeline Murray (Before the “O’Hare”)
. . . This interview on WBBM in Chicago by Jerry Williams of well-known American atheist Madeline Murray (before the “O’Hare”) took place in 1965. It was just two years after the Supreme Court ruled that forcing kids in “public” (i.e. government-run) schools to read from the Bible was a violation of the First Amendment’s “Establishment Clause.” Now, I am not an atheist, but I sympathize with people who stand up for their right to hold their minority views.
During the interview, Madeline Murray describes (in Part 1) how she was beaten several times, along with her children and her 74-year-old mother, in their home by the police, and made to go to the hospital.
(Unfortunately, on the Jerry Williams website, some of the links are out of place, so I rearranged their order more accurately, I think.)
Click on link, opens media player window
Part 1: http://jerrywilliams.org/audio/WBBM/wbbm05.m3u
Part 2: (for some reason, it goes silent from about 6:00 to about 19:00) http://jerrywilliams.org/audio/WBBM/wbbm08.m3u
Part 3: http://jerrywilliams.org/audio/WBBM/wbbm09.m3u
Part 4: http://jerrywilliams.org/audio/WBBM/wbbm10.m3u
Ever since I read Dr. Donald Miller’s article on whether HIV is the primary cause of AIDS and regarding the propaganda campaign against any critical discussion in that area, I was wondering if it really was the case that one of my favorite talk radio hosts, David Brudnoy, really had AIDS because of having HIV, or were that and his later cancer and 2004 death brought on by the drug treatments he was given shortly after his 1988 HIV-positive diagnosis.
I first heard David Brudnoy on WRKO in 1984, even before I heard Gene Burns there. Compared to Gene’s left-libertarianism, David was a very conservative right-libertarian, and a friend of William F. Buckley, Jr. David contributed articles to National Review, Reason magazine and the New York Times, and was also a film critic and a college professor. After David moved from WRKO to WBZ in 1986 his evening talk show could be heard well outside of Massachusetts, in 38 states, and he took calls from people from as far away as Texas. In 1990 when an extremely misguided program director fired David, a huge letter-writing campaign brought him back.
I myself had written several letters to David and he actually wrote back several times and I still have those as well as several from Gene Burns. And no, they were not love letters and no, I’m not gay. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that, as they say on Seinfeld.) In his later years I believe he supported George W. Bush’s war on Iraq in 2003, but that was only one of maybe a just a few disagreements I had with him. So, he wasn’t that libertarian, given that libertarians tend to oppose interventionism, and tend to disbelieve what government bureaucrats such as Dick Cheney tell us.
In late 2003 David took a leave of absence from his radio show because he was diagnosed with Merkel Cell Carcinoma, an aggressive form of cancer. Previous to that, in 1988 he had tested positive for HIV, a.k.a. human immunodeficiency virus, and was put on drug-therapy treatment as a means of “preventative” treatment, as was mentioned in this Boston Globe article.
So, while he didn’t really have any major illnesses in 1988, he did test positive for HIV and was given drug treatments, which apparently he continued having.
In the Fall of 1994 he was seriously ill for months, including having a viral pneumonia, an enlarged heart, shingles, and he was in a coma for several days. There were even further complications including a brain tumor if I’m not mistaken. He recovered from all that and returned to his radio show in early January 1995. During the time that he was in the hospital it was revealed that he was gay (but many people including listeners knew that anyway). When he returned to his show, he detailed his experiences of those previous months.
So several years went by from 1994 until late 2003 when he was diagnosed with cancer, had completed treatments and returned to his show in March 2004 But the cancer returned later that year. He died on December 9, 2004.
In Dr. Donald’s Miller recent article, as I mentioned in my earlier post on that, he discusses the “HIV/AIDS Hypothesis” and the toxic drugs that are used to treat AIDS. Some of those drugs actually cause further diseases and complications and deaths. That’s already been shown empirically. Some drugs are given to patients who test positive for HIV but do not have AIDS or serious medical issues. Dr. Miller notes that a 2003 paper asserted that some more likely causes of AIDS can include “recreational drugs, anti-viral chemotherapy, and malnutrition.”
Now, let’s assume that such conclusions are quite valid, which I believe they are. Could any of those possible causes mentioned there have applied to David Brudnoy? From what I can remember about him, the answer is Yes.
Did he uses recreational drugs? He sure did, in his earlier years, which he had made reference to in his 1997 memoir, Life Is Not a Rehearsal.
Could he have suffered from malnutrition? Now, to some people, such a question might sound absurd, given he was a big-time radio talk host and writer. He wasn’t exactly impoverished. However, he was very skinny — at least, that’s how I remember how he appeared when he was on TV (during the days that I actually still watched TV, that is). But being skinny didn’t particularly mean that he was malnourished. However, according to this article linked above, one of David Brudnoy’s producers noted that David didn’t cook and that “his refrigerator is the 7-Eleven on Dartmouth Street.” Now, as I have mentioned before, those processed foods with their terrible chemicals, the additives and preservatives and so on, tend to have a very negative effect on people’s health, especially the digestive system. The chemicals in the processed foods interfere with the digestion of whatever actual nutritious food you might have, and you end up getting not nearly the amount of actual nutrition that you need. So, in my view I would call that kind of lifestyle not only unhealthy for one’s immune system, but clearly a recipe for “malnutrition.”
And was David given “anti-viral chemotherapy” in the years leading up to his major illness in 1994? Well, starting in 1988 he was given anti-retroviral drugs, which sounds like they would be in the same category as “anti-viral chemotherapy,” even though he didn’t have actual cancer until late 2003. Such treatment was based on the theory that an HIV-positive diagnosis meant a definite future of developing full AIDS, and that these drugs would best prevent such a disease from occurring. And that was only 1988, in which AIDS had not been around for very long, and so certainly not that much was known about it, and there couldn’t have been much testing of those drugs to really know that they could be effective, or that they couldn’t pose any particular harm to the patient.
According to Dr. Miller in his article,
A civic-minded, healthy person volunteers to donate blood but, tested for HIV (human immunodeficiency virus), is found to be HIV-positive. This would-be donor will be put on a treatment regimen that follows the (285-page) Guidelines for the Use of Antiretroviral Agents in HIV-1-Infected Adults and Adolescents [1] and will be thrust into a medical world peppered with acronyms like CD4, ART, HIV RNA, HIV Ag/Ab, NRTI, NNRTI, PI, INSTI, PrEP, and P4P4P.
Adhering to these government-issued guidelines, a “health care provider” will start this healthy blood donor on antiretroviral therapy (ART). For the last two decades the standard for treating HIV infection is a three-drug protocol—“2 nukes and a third drug.” The “2 nukes” are nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTI) and DNA chain terminators, like AZT (azidothymidine – Retrovir, which is also a NRTI). The “third drug” is a non-NRTI (NNRTI), a protease inhibitor (PI) or an integrase strand transfer inhibitor (INSTI). [2]
These drugs are toxic. With prolonged use they can cause cardiovascular disease, liver damage, premature aging (due to damage of mitochondria), lactic acidosis, gallstones (especially with protease inhibitors), cognitive impairment, and cancer. The majority of people who take them experience unpleasant side effects, like nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea.
AZT, the most powerful “nuke” in the ART arsenal actually killed some 150,000 “HIV-positive” people when it started being used in 1987 to the mid-1990s, after which, if the drug was used, dosage was lowered. [3] When an HIV-positive person on long-term ART gets cardiovascular disease or cancer, providers blame the virus for helping cause these diseases. Substantial evidence, however, supports the opposite conclusion: it is the antiretroviral treatment itself that causes cancer, liver damage, cardiovascular and other diseases in these patients. [3] They are iatrogenic diseases. [You can refer to Dr. Miller’s article for footnotes, and the rest of the article as well.]
Dr. Miller also discusses the propaganda campaign to suppress particular studies and papers which refute the official narrative that “AIDS is caused by HIV.” It is difficult to find such studies or papers because the mainstream medical journals and mainstream media don’t want to hear refutation of “facts” which they already know (or are made to believe). And we see this in other issues in the medical area, such as vaccines and cancer research, in which much of such research, by the way, is dependent on government grants to be carried out.
For some reason, not just the population in general, but medical doctors also hold various long-held beliefs which might not be true, and believe in various myths as well, especially regarding the “good” results of pharmaceuticals. Rarely do doctors emphasize nutrition as a way to treat conditions or illnesses, even though a main cause of medical issues is lack of proper nutrition. It is my view that the medical profession has just become way too enmeshed with the pharmaceutical industry.
And also, when doctors, researchers and others in the medical community get a little too involved with a particular ideology, such as the theory that “HIV causes AIDS,” I am not surprised that those others whose research findings challenge the official narrative will be suppressed by the guardians of established truths or beliefs.
For example, I have written plenty of times here about Justina Pelletier. She is the teenager who was being treated with Mitochondrial Disease, an actual medical condition, but whose case was taken over by psychiatrists at a Children’s Hospital who then abruptly terminated her medical treatment and placed her in mental health facilities against her will and against her parents’ will. These “doctors” caused her to become much more seriously ill, in which she then had to use a wheelchair and she suffered much more severely physically because of it. As I discussed in this post about her case, the psychiatrists saw in Justina a chance to try to “prove” their ideology that Mitochondrial Disease doesn’t exist and is a psychological disorder, and that she was really suffering from “somatoform disorder.” Yeah, the “20 inches of cartilage wrapped around her colon and appendix” that were found in earlier exploratory surgery was “all in her head,” right.
In fact, it was my listening to David Brudnoy, especially in those earlier years of 1984 to the ’90s in which my thinking became more skeptical of official narratives, and the status quo. He was really encouraging of that in people, as one could hear how he himself wasn’t afraid to challenge various guests on various issues, albeit in his usual polite manner. (He was at times overly polite, such as when he interviewed then-Gov. Mitt “Willard” Romney. Ugh. But I digress.)
So I am thankful to Dr. Miller for his enlightening article, although I have read earlier articles refuting the “HIV causes AIDS” hypothesis. But in his reminding me of that issue, I am now much more skeptical of the story that David Brudnoy’s 1994 illnesses and 2003-04 cancer and subsequent death were really caused by HIV or AIDS, but rather by the drugs that he had been taking since his 1988 HIV-positive diagnosis.
Obama is directing his order or his suggestion that Americans be required to vote in elections. This is typical of Obama’s fascist mindset.
Well okay, but if voting will be mandatory, then we demand that certain options be in place. Such as:
Vote for One
I’d rather not discuss the “transgender” issue, but some of the things I hear are just plain nuts. This idea of “transgender” is a new thing, within the last couple of years anyway. The issue in Massachusetts is this prison inmate who wants a sex-change operation and the Massachusetts Department of Corrections to provide it and taxpayers to fund it. His lawyers are appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a ruling which denied him that. They say it will address his “gender-identity disorder.” Apparently the argument is that this procedure is “medically necessary” for this inmate.
Well, yesterday I listened to Jim and Margery on WGBH radio, with Emily Rooney there as well. They had on a Sue O’Connell, apparently an LGBT activist, who was agreeing with the “medically necessary” sex-change procedure, a.k.a. sex “reassignment” surgery. Ms. O’Connell was saying things such as that some people have a female brain that doesn’t fit with their male lower parts (or vice versa), or that some people just have the wrong brain for their actual gender, or something like that. (Well then why don’t they just get a brain transplant? I’d chip in for that one.)
I’m sure this is politically incorrect for me to write, but this is just nuts, especially in this particular case. First of all, “medically necessary,” the way I see it, is when someone must have some procedure or medication to save his life, just to survive. That’s medically necessary. But when you bring in all this psychological stuff, this “gender identity disorder” stuff, no, it is not necessary that you have some procedure like that, as it is not something necessary to save your life. But even further than all that, this guy is in prison, serving a life sentence for murdering his wife, for crying out loud. Now, you can say what you want about being placed in government prisons. But just the suggestion that taxpayers should be forced to fund this guy’s (okay, gal’s) sex “reassignment” surgery is quite unreasonable, in my view.
The other issue in the transgender category has been these attempts at making public restrooms “coed,” or otherwise allowing males into ladies rooms and allowing females into men’s rooms. Or in the locker rooms at gyms. The latest brouhaha was Planet Fitness suspending a woman’s membership because she complained about a man in the women’s locker room. Planet Fitness says that whatever gender you feel you are, that’s the locker room where you should go. (No, I don’t care what you think or feel you are, if you are a male, you go into the male locker room, and if you are female you can go into the female locker room. Old fashioned? Maybe.)
A bill in Massachusetts state legislature was to allow “transgender” people into the public restrooms of their choice, include in the schools. They call that “public accommodations” anti-discrimination legislation. And they will again consider that addition this year. What the hell is wrong with a “transgender” guy who really believes he is a female nevertheless using the men’s room? He feels uncomfortable? Well, I wonder how many ladies in the ladies room would be perfectly comfortable with males going in there. In my view, this one guy will just have to deal with feeling uncomfortable going into the men’s room, rather than his making a whole bunch of ladies uncomfortable just to accommodate his feelings (and in some cases, more than just “uncomfortable,” perhaps even fearful because they don’t really know for sure what the hell he’s up to). I know that I wouldn’t want females going into the men’s room while I’m in there. I think society is going a bit overboard on this “transgender” stuff.
My latest article is on LewRockwell.com today: On the Neurotically Fragile Always-Offended Nudniks
In 21st Century America, hypersensitive people are going out of their way to make their imagined oppressors or assailants feel miserable, and the hypersensitive are acting like bullies and inflicting acts of aggression and suffering against innocent others as well.
But why are so many people so thin-skinned nowadays? It seems to be such a world-wide phenomenon now. A lot of people have to be very careful with what they say and they have to censor themselves around others.
But such socially pathological tiptoeing, intolerance and outright censorship has made its way up to academia and the court system. 30 years ago, we didn’t have to deal with this stuff, and could more or less freely just say what we wanted in social situations, and not fear being ostracized, or worse.
On college campuses, conservative speakers are either shouted down or just banned from campus entirely. That’s nothing new, of course. But more recently, some college campuses are issuing letters urging “civility.” To them, unfortunately, being “civil” means being politically correct. Frankly, the new “civility” really is the stifling of diversity and free expression.
Some colleges are banning the utterances of certain words or phrases, such as the word “freshman” at Elon University. As the College Fix notes, the reason Elon is replacing the word “freshman” with “first year” is because, according to the university’s director of “Inclusive Community Well-Being,” the word “freshman” may imply a hierarchy and may refer to some students as younger and less experienced, and could cause the younger students to be targeted for sexual violence. (I am Not. Making. This. Up.)
So “freshman” implies the younger students, but that word’s replacement, “first year,” does not?
And also according to the College Fix, now forbidden at the University of Michigan includes the words “crazy,” “insane,” “retarded,” “gay,” “tranny,” “gypped,” “illegal alien,” “fag,” “ghetto,” “raghead,” and the phrases “I want to die” and “that test raped me.”
Huh? “I want to die”? (Tell that to Roseanne Roseannadanna.)
And “That test raped me”? I’ve never even heard that before. Who the hell would even say that? Hmm, I wonder if the parents who are paying such insane tuition rates for this crazy stuff might feel a little gypped now? Ya think?
Apparently, if someone uses the word “rape” in such a nonchalant or insensitive manner, such an utterance trivializes that act of sexual violence, and for those who happened to have been victims they feel re-traumatized when hearing certain words and phrases. Such language “triggers” terrible, painful emotions and fear. This has been happening to non-victims as well. But many people are just neurotically over-sensitive now, in my view.
Just what is it with the thin-skinned people now that their merely hearing someone happening to say certain words or phrases — not directed at them, mind you, just happening to be spoken — causes someone to be re-traumatized? If that’s the case, then it is they who may need some further counseling to resolve some issues that they may have, rather than censoring, silencing and stifling someone else’s mere verbal expression, regardless how silly, immature or rude such an expression might be.
I’m sorry if I sound extremely insensitive here, but, seriously, we really have to pussyfoot around and censor ourselves verbally these days, just to protect the overly-sensitive feelings of someone whose fragile being may be harmed emotionally in some way.
In fact, that situation has become so absurd that a male college student, who happened to resemble a rape victim’s assailant, was actually banned from campus and prevented from getting to his classes, and so on. Need I add any further comment to that? (I think not.)
But I wonder how many people who have not been the victims of sexual assault are nevertheless joining in and saying that they, too, feel traumatized by others’ utterances of certain words or phrases? Or are the younger generations now being so indoctrinated to believe that they feel traumatized because that’s the “correct” or socially acceptable reaction that they should be having? Just asking.
And it isn’t just college campuses or the government schools engaging in so much censorship absurdity. As I mentioned, it’s the culture in general.
A similar phenomenon occurs when the subject of Israel is brought up. Nowadays in the modern, developed, advanced age of 21st Century discourse, it is very difficult to express any kind of criticism of Israel, the Israeli government or its military’s aggressions against Gaza or settlers’ intrusions in the West Bank, without being accused of anti-Semitism or being labeled “self-hating Jew”.
And we see this intolerance of critical thinking and of questioning the official government-approved narrative in today’s politicians who dare not criticize U.S. government foreign policy when it comes to Israel.
In fact, just recently members of Congress fell over themselves trying to get close to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as though they were seeing the Beatles singing on Capitol Hill. And obviously they feared some kind of terrible consequences had they not vigorously applauded Netanyahu’s every word and sentence, regardless of how ridiculous some of his statements were. Sen. Rand Paul even received very negative feedback from the neocons he has been trying to court because of his tepid, unenthusiastic clapping.
And in New York last Fall activists organized a censorship campaign and protests against the production of the opera, The Death of Klinghoffer, as I had predicted months earlier that there would be. It is unlikely that most of the protesters had ever seen the opera, but that didn’t matter to them. It contains material referring to the Palestinian hijacking of the cruise ship Achille Lauro, the murder of a Jewish American passenger, and themes pertaining to the Palestinians’ grievances, which to some people meant that it was “anti-Semitic” and an example of “Jew-hatred,” which “glorified terrorism.” However, one orthodox Jew who saw the performance said it was not anti-Semitic, and others stated that it did not glorify terrorism. But the ones who were ignorant about the opera, but seemed to not tolerate different points of view on Israel, wanted to make fools of themselves and display their ignorance anyway.
And this intolerance of Israel’s critics or of any form of speech that could refer to something that might not be parroting the official pro-Israel narrative has also reached the college campuses.
For her campaign for the student government’s senate, University of California Berkeley student Sumayyah Din used the hashtag “#DINTIFADA,” a combination of her last name and the word “intifada,” which refers to “uprising,” “rebellion,” or civil disobedience.
But after her Facebook post, some campus pro-Israel groups claimed that “#dintifada” was offensive, and they felt “triggered” and “terrorized,” and some began to imply that her campaign was promoting terrorism, violence and the murders of innocent Jewish children.
Mondoweiss notes that StandWithUs, a pro-Israel organization, had a Facebook post which erroneously described Ms. Din as “anti-Israel,” referring to her use of the word “intifada” without mentioning her combining it with her name, “Din,” and the Mondoweiss post notes that some of the comments included, “Those terrorists must be eradicated,” “she is a terrorist,” and “Someone should eliminate her from the Earth.”
That despite that she actually promotes peace and tolerance, and that one of her campaign issues pertains to police reform, the militarization of the local police and campus police having military-grade weapons.
You see, like some leftist organizations such as Media Matters and the Southern Poverty Law Center who spend time searching for some slight manner of speech from which to feel offended, terrorized or traumatized, there also exist groups on the other side who do the same thing. Some activists taking things out of context, omitting certain facts and slandering are typical tactics used to delegitimize their ideological opponents. So really with StandWithUs and other activist groups it was yet another case of ignorance and anti-Muslim, anti-Arab prejudice. No surprise there.
But sadly, when it comes to Israel most people get their information from mainstream news media who merely repeat government propaganda. This is why we have an entire U.S. Congress acting like fools when Netanyahu appears and why ignoramuses stand outside protesting an opera performance calling it “anti-Semitic” when it isn’t anti-Semitic.
So, I’m sure that I myself will be accused of being insensitive, but because of society’s ultra-sensitivity on Jewish matters, we really have to pussyfoot around to spare others of being “triggered,” and so forth, even though most had never experienced concentration camps, gulags or pogroms. And this phenomenon is mainly with Jewish subjects, but especially regarding Israel. For example, I don’t hear Chinese people complaining about feeling offended or “triggered” if someone might make a reference to Mao who murdered many more millions than Hitler. I didn’t hear complaints from Chinese-Americans when conservatives referred to Barack Obama as “Maobama.” Crickets, in fact.
But we’re just not allowed to say anything negative or critical, not about Jews or Jewish matters, but specifically about Israel. And that is because, in my view, many people have this mystical view of Israel and based mainly on Biblical scriptures, as I wrote in my article last year on Israel and Zionism.
And I really find it hard to believe that actual grown-ups are offended by, or terrorized by a use of the word “intifada” — and frankly, I find it offensive that 535 so-called grown-ups in Congress can applaud and cheer wildly and act like fools for a political hack like Benjamin Netanyahu. This whole “Stop making me feel bad” political correctness and censorship seems like it’s one hell of a racket, if you ask me.
Ron Paul on the history of American empire, especially since 1990 and the influence events of that year had in American empire build-up since then.
Scott Lazarowitz's Blog 