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Culture

What’s left? How Glen Greenwald, Covid and Rittenhouse Exposed a Plague Among Progressives

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By Riva Enteen (via Mint Press News)

Caitlin Johnstone asserts that “[t]he most significant political moment in the U.S. since 9/11 and its aftermath was when liberal institutions decided that Trump’s 2016 election wasn’t a failure of status quo politics but a failure of information control.” Since Trump’s election, information control contributes to why those critical of Democrats are called Trump sympathizers. Journalist Paul Street epitomizes this tendency, seeming to speak for many who equate any criticism of Democrats with support for Trump and his policies.  To the extent that this attitude serves to obstruct political dialogue and struggle, it does not serve us well — especially in these dark times,  when we must pull our forces together to overcome the challenges we face.

Street’s CounterPunch article, “Glenn Greenwald is Not Your Misunderstood Left Comrade,” obstructs political dialogue and struggle. He gives no substantive rebuttal to a Greenwald article that declares “grotesque” the sight of “masked servants and unmasked elite at the New York Met Gala.” In a classic ad hominem attack, since Street couldn’t summon up an intelligent response, he just hurled insults. Sadly, this is what currently passes for political debate.

Compasses, nautical and political, are known to stop working in the vicinity of a strong electro-magnet. What has happened to our political compass? Street declares, “Glenn Greenwald is not a man of ‘the Left’ (or whatever’s left of ‘the Left’).” What does “Left” mean, post-Trump? The once-reliable compass seems now to be spinning wildly, as the political magnetic field does a headstand.

Street asserts that “Greenwald broke on through to the wrong side during the Trump years, so clouded by his understandable contempt for liberal and Democratic hypocrisy, corporatism, and imperialism as to become a willing accomplice of the white nationalist right.” Greenwald’s tireless and meticulous debunking of Russiagate has cast him as a Trump sympathizer to people like Street. Remarkably, many on “the Left,” still believe Russia did it, though the recent indictment of Hilary Clinton’s lawyer and arrest of the principal source of the bogus Steele dossier should put any such notion to rest.

Street snidely discounts Greenwald’s stated reason for leaving The Intercept — that “The Intercept’s editors, in violation of my contractual right of editorial freedom, censored an article I wrote this week, refusing to publish it unless I remove all sections critical of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, the candidate vehemently supported by all New York-based [Intercept] editors involved in this effort at suppression.” Instead he claims that Greenwald, having submitted “a piece that tried to advance Trump campaign propaganda against Joe Biden on the eve of the 2020 presidential election,” regarded himself as “too good to be edited.” He lambasts Greenwald for being, as he put it, “all over the Hunter Biden-New York Post-deep state laptop story, even after CNN published an article titled “New Proof Emerges of the Biden Family Emails: a Definitive Account of the CIA/Media/BigTech Fraud.” Yet, even CNN recognized the bombshell.

Smelling (and finding) the rat

The World Socialist Website, in sync with Street’s “analysis,” calls Greenwald a “sly fascism-denier” who, Street says, “has creepily thrown in with the white nationalist right.” Why? Because in his impeccably documented piece, “FBI Using the Same Fear Tactic From the First War on Terror: Orchestrating its Own Terrorism Plots,” Greenwald discussed the plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Whitmer. He concludes:

There was no way to avoid suspicions about the FBI’s crucial role in a plot like this absent extreme ignorance about the bureau’s behavior over the last two decades, or an intentional desire to sow fear about right-wing extremists attacking Democratic Party officials one month before the 2020 presidential election.

Greenwald was one of the few who smelled a rat in the Michigan kidnapping story and, after serious investigative journalism, he found the rat.

In sum, the FBI devised this plot, was the primary organizer of it, funded it, purposely directed their targets to pose for incriminating pictures that they then released to the press, and then heaped praise on themselves for stopping what they themselves had created. The Wall Street Journal’s headline declares “In Michigan Plot to Kidnap Governor, Informants Were Key,” yet Jan 6 is declared an attempted coup.

In spite of such headlines from the Wall Street Journal, Street says Greenwald “downplays the seriousness of the fascist-putschist Capitol Riot of January 6, 2021.” This doesn’t sound like downplaying to me: “Of course the FBI was infiltrating the groups they claim were behind these attacks,” Greenwald reported, concluding, “yet the suggestion that FBI informants may have played some role in the planning of the January 6 riot was instantly depicted as something akin to, say, 9/11 truth theories or questions about the CIA’s role in JFK’s assassination.”

Street claims Greenwald has a “curious alignment with the white-nationalist neofascist Donald Trump and the January 6 marauders in their purported struggle with ‘the deep state.’” Marauders or the FBI? Does Street not believe that a “Deep State” exists? Greenwald’s article “Questions About the FBI’s Role in 1/6 Are Mocked Because the FBI Shapes Liberal Corporate Media” is subtitled “The FBI has been manufacturing and directing terror plots and criminal rings for decades. But now, reverence for security state agencies reigns.”

In a widely praised TED Talk, Trevor Aaronson states: “There’s an organization responsible for more terrorism plots in the United States than al-Qaeda, al-Shabaab and ISIS combined: The FBI.” So why are Street, the World Socialist Website, Counterpunch, and many others well-versed in COINTELPRO tactics, now swallowing FBI words whole and calling people Trump fascists for raising the issue of possible FBI involvement in the January 6 riot?

Street claims that Greenwald “defends Trump and other Amerikaner neofascists against the ‘censorship’ of their supposed free speech right to spew sexist, nativist, and white power hatred on Twitter and Facebook.” An article I wrote about the new reality police revealed that Media Alliance, a San Francisco organization founded in 1976 to be mainstream media watchdogs, circulated a petition after Jan. 6 that says: “Facebook should create a circuit breaker to help prevent dangerous disinformation and incitements to violence from ever reaching a mass audience…”

That good minds sincerely believe Silicon Valley executives should be the gods of truth in today’s world makes Orwell look cheerily optimistic. Yet shockingly, many people agree with the unprecedented censorship of a former president. Nixon, even after his impeachment and resignation, was never gagged as Trump is. As a former constitutional lawyer, Greenwald addressed concerns of Silicon Valley censorship in his article “Congress Escalates Pressure on Tech Giants to Censor More, Threatening the First Amendment.” Greenwald believes House Democrats are getting closer to the constitutional line, if they have not already crossed it.

Visceral hatred and rational discourse

Greenwald recently wrote several pieces on COVID as well, one announcing that he was eagerly vaccinated. However, his questions about the cost-benefit analysis missing from the COVID debate and his support of the position taken by NBA star Jonathan Isaac have Street condemning him for “failing to mention the horrific, anti-science, COVID-fueling and pandemo-fascist anti-masking and anti-vax practices, policies, and politics of the Amerikaner Party of Trump (the Republicans).”

An article titled “Forced Vaccination Was Always the End Game” — from the non-profit National Vaccine Information Center, which advocates for informed consent protections in medical policies and public health laws — reports that breakthrough COVID infections, hospitalizations, and deaths in fully vaccinated people are on the rise; individuals who have recovered from the infection have stronger natural immunity than those who have been vaccinated; and officials at the World Health Organization now say that the SARS-COV-2 virus is mutating like influenza and is likely to become prevalent in every county, no matter how high the vaccination rate. Yet, in spite of such growing perspective, Greenwald’s piece supporting the NBA’s Isaac is subtitled, “It is virtually a religious belief in the dominant liberal culture that people who do not want the COVID vaccine are stupid, ignorant, immoral and dangerous.”

In a separate article, titled “The ACLU, Prior to COVID, Denounced Mandates and Coercive Measures to Fight Pandemics,” Greenwald writes that the “ACLU prior to its Trump-era transformation” had one primary purpose: to denounce as dangerous and unnecessary attempts by the state to mandate, coerce, and control in the name of protecting the public from pandemics. The ACLU report cites important lessons from American history:

…vivid reminders that grafting the values of law enforcement and national security onto public health is both ineffective and dangerous. Too often, fears aroused by disease and epidemics have justified abuses of state power. Highly discriminatory and forcible vaccination and quarantine measures adopted in response to outbreaks of the plague and smallpox over the past century have consistently accelerated, rather than slowed, the spread of disease, while fomenting public distrust and, in some cases, riots.

Greenwald legitimately questioned the ACLU’s about-face from the pre-Trump era to its current position, pointing out how the ACLU tweeted that “[f]ar from compromising them, vaccine mandates actually further civil liberties.” Yet Street lauds the ACLU’s current position.

Many ask, as one article puts it, “Why Does Glenn Greenwald Keep Appearing on Tucker Carlson’s Show?” The question I keep asking, but get no answer to, is why Greenwald, Tulsi Gabbard, Aaron Maté, Matt Taibbi, Max Blumenthal, and Jimmy Dore can appear only on Fox. Why are they not invited onto “liberal” MSNBC or CNN, let alone Democracy Now? The apparent answer is that the dominant, ubiquitous paradigm, which cannot be challenged, is “don’t go after the Democrats.”

Much like Julian Assange, Greenwald began to be condemned by liberals only post-Trump. The liberal visceral hatred of Donald Trump has trumped rational discourse. If there were true rational discourse, Julian Assange would not be suffering in Belmarsh Prison as a consequence of his cardinal sin — publishing emails harmful to Democrats.

Facts and the distorting ideological lens

Following the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict, Greenwald again went out on a limb in what a revolutionary comrade called a “rant,” but Greenwald’s message was essentially the same as that conveyed by Caitlin Johnstone:

If your opinion about a legal case would be different if the political ideologies of those involved were reversed and all other facts and evidence remained the same, then it’s probably best not to pretend your position on the case has anything to do with facts or evidence.

Yet Greenwald, once again, has found himself in the crosshairs of “progressives.”

I agree with Street that he and Greenwald are not “on the same side.” If Street, and countless others like him, engaged in true political debate and struggle rather than calling people “facetious,” “stupid,” and “snotty,” we might be closer to the revolution that Street claims to hunger for.

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Culture

Roger Daltrey: The ‘Woke’ Generation is Creating a Miserable World

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By Paul Joseph Watson (via summit.news)

The Who legend Roger Daltrey says the ‘woke’ generation is creating a miserable world that serves to stifle the kind of creative freedom he enjoyed in the 60s.

The iconic frontman made the comments during a recent appearance on Zane Lowe’s Apple Music 1 podcast.

“I don’t know, we might get somewhere because it’s becoming so absurd now with AI, all the tricks it can do, and the woke generation,” said Daltrey.

“It’s terrifying, the miserable world they’re going to create for themselves. I mean, anyone who’s lived a life and you see what they’re doing, you just know that it’s a route to nowhere,” he added.

The singer noted how he was lucky to have lived through an era where freedom of speech was encouraged, not silenced.

“Especially when you’ve lived through the periods of a life that we’ve had the privilege to. I mean, we’ve had the golden era. There’s no doubt about that,” he said.

Daltrey also slammed the negative impact that social media has had on the world, saying it has undermined truth.

“It’s just getting harder to disseminate the truth. It’s almost like, now we should turn the whole thing off. Go back to newsprint, go back to word of mouth and start to read books again,” he said.

While Daltrey’s comments may not be mind-blowing, any celebrity speaking out against the mob that has cannibalized culture is something to be applauded.

Once again, this only tends to happen with older celebrities who have already passed their peak of fame and entered icon status. They are beyond cancellation.

For any up and coming celebrity, or even one who is at the top of their game, to question ‘generation woke’ is career suicide.

Which makes it all the more ludicrous to continue to see identitarians, notably the LGBT movement, continue to claim they are ‘fighting oppression’ when their mantras are echoed by every cultural institution, media outlet and corporate entity in the west, while anyone who utters a whimper of dissent is swiftly cancelled.

Culture

How to Tell the Difference Between Real Education and Propaganda

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By Annie Holmquist (via Intellectual Takeout)

The other day I ran across a passage from That Hideous Strength which seems oddly applicable to our time. A dystopian novel written by C. S. Lewis at the close of World War II, That Hideous Strength finds one of its main characters, Mark Studdock, working for N.I.C.E., an organization which pulls the strings in a controlling, totalitarian society.

Studdock is assigned to write propaganda articles for N.I.C.E., an assignment which he objects to when he receives it from his boss, Miss Hardcastle. Studdock argues that it won’t work because  newspapers “are read by educated people” too smart to be taken in by propaganda. The story continues:‘That shows you’re still in the nursery, lovey,’ said Miss Hardcastle. ‘Haven’t you yet realized that it’s the other way round?’‘How do you mean?’‘Why you fool, it’s the educated reader who can be gulled. All our difficulty comes with the others. When did you meet a workman who believes the papers? He takes it for granted that they’re all propaganda and skips the leading articles. He buys his paper for the football results and the little paragraphs about girls falling out of windows and corpses found in Mayfair flats. He is our problem. We have to recondition him. But the educated public, the people who read the high-brow weeklies, don’t need reconditioning. They’re all right already. They’ll believe anything.’

Reading this, I couldn’t help but ponder how much of the American public thinks like Studdock. We are convinced that education is the panacea for all ills, and that if the masses could simply achieve one more grade level or degree, we wouldn’t have so many problems to sort through.

But what if that education is, as Miss Hardcastle implies in the passage above, the very thing blinding the eyes of the general public? Or perhaps we should say, what we call education.

You see, there is a difference between what we call education and what actually comprises true education. That which we call education is most often found in institutional schooling—the great halls of learning known as public (and sometimes private) elementary, middle, and high schools, as well as many of the sacred institutions of higher education. We often send our children to these institutions, intending the best for them, hoping they will come out on the other side as wise, truth-discerning adults. Unfortunately, they all too often come out propagandized instead.

Richard Weaver described this situation well in his 1955 essay “Propaganda.” He noted:

It is of primary importance to distinguish propaganda from education. These two are confused in the minds of many people because both are concerned with communication. Education imparts information and also seeks to inculcate attitudes. Propaganda frequently contains information, and it is always interested in affecting attitudes. A good part of modern propaganda, furthermore, tries to parade as education. The critical difference appears only when one considers the object of each.

How then, does one avoid this pseudo-educational propaganda? Weaver again supplies an answer:

The true educator is endeavoring to shape his audience for the audience’s own good according to the fullest enlightenment available. In doing so he erects and strives to follow a standard of objective truth. The propagandist, on the contrary, is trying to shape his audience according to the propagandist’s interest, whether that be economic, political, social, or personal.

There’s been much talk in the last year about the success of education at home. Many of the children learning at home through virtual schooling, while under a parent’s supervision, are still receiving their education from the system. This system contains some good educators who genuinely want the best for their students, but it also contains many bad ones who have climbed onto the bandwagon of the education system and are completely ready to advance its “woke” agenda.

By contrast, consider true homeschools, where parents have taken all responsibility for their child’s education upon themselves. Some may say this is the true source of propagandist education. But consider that thought in light of Weaver’s words about the true educator trying to “shape his audience for the audience’s own good.” Which educator is most likely to seek a child’s good? More often than not, such educators will be a child’s parents.

We increasingly live in a world where Big Tech, politicians, and so-called experts tell us what we should do and why when it comes to COVID, the vaccine, elections, and many other topics. Like those at N.I.C.E., they are likely not worried about convincing the “educated” among us. Rather, they are likely more worried about the truly educated, those they frame as “workmen,” those who may not have elite jobs or have gone to elite schools, but who have been trained by those who truly care about them and want them to know and follow truth.

It is this latter camp that we should strive to get our children into. It doesn’t matter if they have prestigious jobs or run with the elite. What matters is whether their eyes are able to discern propaganda parading itself as education.

Teach your children to know and love truth. Your children will thank you, and so will your countrymen.

Culture

The Future Vision of Free Citizens: Leading Humanity to Freedom. Towards a New Social Order

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By Dr. Rudolf Hänsel (via Global Research)

Free citizens who stand up against tyranny have nothing against those in power. They do nothing to them. They fight for a more just order, for their right to life, to freedom, peace and security. When nothing else helps, that is the message of Thomas More’s novel “Utopia”, then it helps to do things radically differently. (1) For the humanist scholar, the small island state was a counter-model to the decaying society of England at the time.

For the author, a liberal social order with free people is the counter-model to the present totalitarian form of rule of unfreedom, violence and exploitation. This vision of the future, for which every full-minded and unblinded citizen should fight, was already held by some mature people like Peter Kropotkin and other liberal socialists more than 100 years ago. However, since they had only anticipated and not yet recognised the emotional reactions of human beings and were also vehemently opposed by authoritarian-minded contemporaries, they were unable to put their progressive ideas into practice. Thus, man is still not free today.

Gottfried Keller: Step outside the front door yourself and see what is available!

Every individual is called upon to make his or her contribution to solving the pressing problems of our time. And of course we are able to do so if we are aware that it depends on each and every one of us. Why not muster the courage to use our own minds and not repress the monstrosities of today, but to see them and stand up against them – intellectually, emotionally, politically.  Overcome the inertia of the heart and act! Against all odds, muster the determination to seek the truth and thereby preserve our dignity as human beings and create a future worth living for ourselves and our children.

The Swiss poet and novelist Gottfried Keller (1819-1890) put it this way:

“No government and no battalions (…) are able to protect law and freedom where the citizen is unable to step outside the front door himself and see what is available.” (Zurich Novellen)

Albert Camus: Every human being has a more or less large sphere of influence

Shortly after the outbreak of the Second World War, the Nobel Prize winner for literature Albert Camus (1913-1960), one of the most important intellectuals of the 20th century, commented in a “Letter to a Desperate Man” on the role of the individual in a situation perceived as hopeless. (2) These are thoughts that document and deeply touch Camus’s relevance to our own day.

The useful task that, in Camus’ view, the person seeking advice still has to fulfil after the outbreak of the Great War is also a task for every individual in our present time, the worldwide war of the ruling clique against us citizens:

“You write to me that this war depresses you, that you would be ready to die, but that you cannot bear this worldwide stupidity, this bloodthirsty cowardice and this criminal naivety that still believes human problems can be solved with blood. I read your lines and I understand you. I understand you, but I can no longer follow you when you make a rule of life out of this despair and want to retreat behind your disgust because everything is useless. For despair is a feeling and not a state. You cannot remain in it. And the feeling must give way to a clear realisation of things.” (3)

“(…) First of all, you must ask yourself whether you have really done everything to prevent this war. (…) But I am sure that you did not do everything that was necessary, any more than any of us. You were not able to prevent it? No, that’s not true. This war was not inevitable, you know that. (…) There is still a useful task to be done.” (4)

“You have a task, do not doubt it. Every person has a more or less large sphere of influence. He owes it to his shortcomings as well as to his advantages. But be that as it may, it is there and it can be used immediately. Do not drive anyone to riot. You have to be sparing with the blood and freedom of others. But you can convince ten, twenty, thirty people that this war was neither inevitable nor is it, that all means have not yet been tried to stop it, that it must be said, written if possible, shouted out if necessary! These ten or thirty people will spread the word to ten others, who will in turn spread it. If inertia holds you back, well then, start all over again with others.”

In conclusion, Camus encourages the advice-seeker not to despair of history, in which the individual is capable of everything:

“Individuals are what send us to our deaths today. Why should other individuals not succeed in giving peace to the world? Only one must begin without thinking of such great goals. Remember that war is waged as much with the enthusiasm of those who want it as with the despair of those who reject it with all the strength of their souls.” (5)

“The International”: To the final battle!

“The Internationale” is the world-famous struggle song of the socialist workers’ movement, whose call to the last stand was issued to the international workers’ movement after the violent suppression of the Paris Commune in May 1871. (6) The German version of the original French text by Emil Luckhard (1910) reads:

“Wake up, damned of this earth, who are still forced to starve! (…) Army of slaves, wake up! (…) Peoples, hear the signals! To the final battle! (…) No higher being, no god, no emperor, no tribune can save us! To deliver us from misery, that we can only do ourselves!”

After the revolt, let the people go free!

Karl Marx (1818-1883) – drawing on Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1872) – argued that man’s consciousness is shaped by social conditions and thus brought man back to earth. His materialist conception of history was a tremendous intrusion into the emotional world of man. Marx and some liberal socialists began to see man correctly – and this man began to deal with himself. Before that, the tendency prevailed in schools and universities that man’s soul merely undergoes a trial here in this world and that eternal life only begins in heaven.

Since religion is associated with fear and terror, man believes as long as he is afraid. In the materialistic view of history, belief in gods and supernatural beings ceases. When man has more knowledge about nature and more certainty, he becomes calmer and no longer has this emotional reaction. He is a different person: he is not afraid of life, of starvation or of exploitation; he has time to develop, to read, to learn scientific knowledge and to think about the world.

The Russian anarchist, geographer and writer Prince Peter Kropotkin (1842-1921) observed both nature and natural beings and related his findings to human beings. In his book “Mutual Aid in the Animal and Human World”, Kropotkin writes that in nature and society there is by no means only a struggle of all against all (social Darwinism), but that the principle of “mutual aid” also prevails. Those living beings that implement this principle would survive more successfully.

Scientific depth psychology is based on these findings. According to this, man is a naturally social being, oriented towards the community of his fellow human beings. He also has a natural inclination towards good, towards the knowledge of truth and towards community life. We do not have to be afraid of this human being. He wants to live in freedom and peace, without violence and war – just like all of us.

Leading man to freedom!

The freedom that is to be (re)given to man, because it is his by nature, is of course not the freedom to exploit the other man and to plunder his hard-earned savings. This is the “freedom” that the ruling clique in capitalism means and that makes man involuntarily corrupt. To give man freedom is to give him the right to a decent life, to justice, security and tranquillity.

This principle of freedom means that every working person knows, should he no longer be able to work for reasons of old age or illness, that he will not then be dismissed, but can continue to live just as before: he will continue to receive his last wage, keep his flat and not have to beg for soup in the communal kitchen or at the church. If he should die unexpectedly because of an accident, his family will continue to be provided for and his children can attend a good school.

In a free society, he not only has security but also peace of mind. No so-called authority will rise to rule over him; there will be no violence, no war, no military service, no hardship, no lunatic asylum, no prisons. External freedom will also lead to internal freedom: Man will have a different consciousness, a different thinking, a different relationship with his fellow man, a different feeling towards the dear God.

How do we set up the new social order?

Will we again establish a dictatorship and force the human being? Or will we believe in man, associate ourselves with him, empathise with him, appeal to him? He wants to live well with his children and have a roof over his head. This human being will cooperate in a free society because this corresponds to his nature. We do not have to be afraid of him. We do not have to see any danger in freedom either. If someone is not willing or able to live in a community, then he will be taken along by the others. The sick will be dealt with in the same way; they will not be a nuisance. On the contrary, in a free society they will get well.

Let us leave man free and demand nothing of him! He will gladly accept this and behave differently because he finds a different social situation. Man can change, Marx said – and depth psychology confirms this. He should also be given the same freedom. The churches will not be closed like the Bolsheviks did in Russia, because that hurts people deep inside, in their faith, in their dependence, in their fear. They then feel attacked in their minds, in their souls, and are called upon to fight against it. One must not take religion away from people, but leave them free to pray. It is not the state that decides, but the individual and the community. In the present principle of violence and authority, man cannot develop.

Some mature people who have had a laid table have guessed that the prevailing capitalist system is not right. How many beneficiaries there are in this system who do not contribute to the maintenance of the community. It was Peter Kropotkin, Mikhail Bakunin and a few more rich people who have had the opportunity to educate and research. But they would not allow the liberal socialists to strive for a community in which free association prevailed, in which each person decided which path to choose, with whom to associate and how to live. That is why they were bitterly opposed.

In a free society, the consciousness of man changes 

Karl Marx was right: when man has the security of his life, he thinks differently. He has different thoughts, different feelings and a different relationship to his fellow man.

Man becomes different when he has the table laid. He has different feelings than the one who lives in insecurity, is exploited, is poor, is afraid of hail and lightning that God will send him if he does not pray enough. Afraid that the good Lord will set his house on fire or send hail and smash the grain so that he starves. In his whole emotional life and thinking he is taken up by this.

If we establish a society where man has his right to life, then man has a different consciousness.

Fear in capitalism shapes the human being. Exploiters and exploited are equally poor. The church maintains this system with miracle men who are in relationship with the dear God and order everything.If we give up the capitalist system and form a community where this is not an issue, then there are no exploiters, no capitalists, no wars, no fear. Then a different human being develops.

Then there is no fear of God’s punishment and hell and therefore no religion. The person has a different consciousness, thinks for himself, trusts in his own powers, checks by experience, has different thoughts and feelings.

The sick person becomes healthy through a different social system and has a fear-free relationship with his fellow human being. He can show solidarity with him, join him and put himself on an equal footing with him. Man can develop and changes his behaviour, he no longer becomes corrupt as in the capitalist system. He educates himself and learns to read and write. He no longer waits for paradise in heaven, but wants it on earth; he decides for himself which way he will go.

In Russia, in Cuba and in the former Yugoslavia with a once very high illiteracy rate, the old people have learned to read and write. They did not have paper yet, so they practised the letters in the snow or sand.

Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.

Dr. paed. Rudolf Hänsel is an educationalist and qualified psychologist.

Notes

(1) https://www.globalresearch.ca/die-utopie-als-politisches-mittel-in-…en-nicht-in-passivitat-und-resignation-zu-versinken/5709995; https://www.globalresearch.ca/utopia-political-means-not-sinking-passivity-resignation-social-crisis/5709993; http://www.nrhz.de/flyer/beitrag.php?id=26733&css

(2) Marin, L. (ed.) (2013). Albert Camus – Libertarian Writings (1948-1960). Hamburg

(3) op. cit., p. 271

(4) op. cit., p. 272

(5) op. cit., p. 273

(6) https://www.globalresearch.ca/reflections-secret-agenda-elite-roleus-citizens/5709112;

https://www.globalresearch.ca/uberlegungen-zur-heimlichen-agenda-,,,-sogenannten-elite-und-zur-rollevon-uns-burgern/5709117;

http://nrhz.de/flyer/beitrag.php?id=26716&css

Culture

“Man Has Not Recognized Himself”. The Ideology of Power Threatens Humanity. Renouncing the Use of Violence

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On the importance of psychology in our lives

By Dr. Rudolf Hänsel (via Global Research)

The political, economic and social turmoil in the world is causing people great concern. Independent scientists are shedding more and more light on the cabal’s sinister plans with profound analyses, but the guild of psychologists, which could provide people with orientation and support, is failing for the most part. 

This is not by design. The young people who turn to the study of psychology are religious and believers in the state: they stand on the old standpoint that this system should be preserved. Therefore, nothing can be expected from them and they cannot be trusted. Yet the findings of scientific psychology would be beneficial for human coexistence. But without deep psychological knowledge of human nature, we cannot join forces with our fellow citizens to stand up against the criminal rulers of this world and their accomplices.

Until today, “man has not recognised himself” – not himself and not the other. It would be a matter of using the tools of psychology to recognise man and lead him to freedom. Since a large part of psychoanalysis, psychology and depth psychology has been lost, the author – a graduate psychologist and educationalist – would like to contribute a small piece of the mosaic to knowledge. At the same time, it is a thank you to his teacher, the Zurich psychotherapist Friedrich Liebling, a student of the individual psychologist Alfred Adler. Over decades, he introduced the author to the field of depth psychology with great insight into human nature, in a sensitive, tolerant and understanding manner. His progressive psychological and ideological insights form the foundation of the following explanations.

Psychology – Queen of the Sciences

Psychology is the queen of the sciences. Its favourites are knowledge of human nature and human welfare, its clothing is truth and verifiability. Its palace is surrounded by thorny bushes of prejudice, medieval superstition and religious-philosophical-ethical heresies. Whoever wants to reach it must fight his way through this thicket. A casual traveller with a firmly established view of man and the world will find nothing attractive in the palace. Its beauty and richness only open up to a person with a healthy, empirically working mind and an open spirit. By overcoming fearfulness, he will become spiritually free and courageous, gain knowledge of human nature and learn to understand his own emotional life and that of his fellow human beings. He is thus a witness to man’s astonishing inclination towards hidden but inexhaustible and sublime spiritual and mental pleasures (1).

With the provocatively intended statement that psychology is the queen of the sciences, Friedrich Liebling wanted to explain the scope and importance of psychology and make students of psychology aware of how important psychology is in our lives.

Psychology is the science about man, about human nature: how man becomes, how he grows up, how he finds his way in life. This comes into being as a result of the experiences he has, which are imparted to him by parents and teachers. Thus he is the product of his experiences, his impressions in childhood. Already in the first years of life, the child collects these experiences. At the age of five or six, when it enters kindergarten, it already has its compass, it already knows how it should behave. The young person then already has an opinion about the other child, about the father, the mother and the siblings. He has his character, his traits and an opinion about his position in the world.

Unfortunately, the science of psychology is still underestimated or misjudged in our latitudes. This is partly because many German psychologists of Jewish faith had to go into exile in the USA during the fascist era. But also because most psychologists failed miserably during German fascism (2) and allowed themselves to be used for the war: The soldiers were not supposed to leave the battlefield and, if their minds became ill, were picked up by psychologists during home leave and prepared again to continue defending the fatherland at the risk of their lives.

Nowadays, psychologists in turn give dubious advice to young and old: They help them to get through their fears, fits of despair and suicidal thoughts due to the illegal state repression. The political system is not questioned. The desperate people are supposed to submit to the repressions and not exercise their individual and collective right to resist. This betrayal of professional ethics pushes people deeper and deeper into misery.

The time of reason 

In the past, we had the time of faith. We believed what was written in the Bible and what the priest told us. For some centuries now, we have had the time of reason: man has begun to think and to ascribe to himself the responsibility for what happens here on earth. He has even denied heaven: “There is no power up there in heaven that directs everything, but I am responsible!” But there is one thing he did not understand: himself. He did not approach himself, that is, his emotional world. He has made revolutions, written books, put forward theories on how to make life better; but he has not recognised himself.

So we live in a world in which man has not recognised himself. He has recognised everything, he has researched everything, but he has not recognised himself, his nature, his mental constitution, his modes of reaction. We live in the time of reason, but when it comes down to it, we are not reasonable.

Who instigates wars, for example? People like us – or is it others?

Again and again, the striving for power in economics and politics drives us into catastrophes in which the wealth of our culture is squandered and the harvests of our civilisation are destroyed. This ideology of power is a terrible error of the human race. While these pernicious effects touch our vital nerve, we are lethargic enough not to be shaken up by them. The problem of violence has not been solved by humanity.

Who instigates wars? Is it people like us, or is it others?

Whether it is the First or Second World War, the war currently raging in Syria and Yemen, or even the one against the world’s civilian population. We need to understand what is going on with us – with ourselves and with others. We need to acquire so much knowledge of human nature that we understand why human beings behave the way they do. Man, our human nature and our mental make-up are still unknown to us. When we explore and recognise our ways of reacting, we learn to correctly assess our disposition and our opinion and that of the other.

If we live in a world where war and crime are the order of the day, then we too are murderers and criminals. For the world is the way we have set it up or – in relation to pre-existing conditions – tolerated it. No one can escape responsibility. We are always complicit, even when we are victims.

Am I my brother’s keeper?

Mankind has not yet found an answer to the Cain question from the biblical prehistory “Am I my brother’s keeper?”. It is frightening to see how the lack of sympathy, compassion and fellow humanity today leads to countless people being left alone in their suffering through no fault of their own, because fellow citizens are only interested in their own concerns and take less and less interest in the fate of their fellow human beings, their brothers and sisters. A glance at the Syrian or Yemeni war zones makes any compassionate heart shudder. The scale of the atrocities can hardly be appreciated. “That’s none of my business!” is then an often-heard expression of displeasure – even from professing Christians.

Yet in the human world, social feelings and communal bonds certainly play just as great a role as the will to power and self-interest: human beings are also capable of devotion and self-sacrifice. “Compassion for all creatures is what really makes human beings human”, said the German-French physician, philosopher and pacifist Albert Schweitzer (1875 to 1965).

Why is one part of humanity very capable of showing compassionate feelings and acting accordingly, while another – far smaller – part is consumed by a murderous lust for power? The insights of depth psychology provide an answer.

Making public spirit the guiding idea (3)

Global peace and global humanity must be anchored in people’s thoughts and moral principles of action as well as in their solidarity, brotherhood and sense of community. The teachings of the moral leaders of humanity, the wisdom of Lao Tse and the commandment of love for one’s neighbour grew out of the realisation of the togetherness of all who bear humanity’s face. Cultural development essentially consists of the voice of humanity’s conscience becoming more and more heard and the spirit of responsibility taking the place of violence.

For Alfred Adler, the founder of individual psychology, the “deepest idea of all culture (…) consisted in the final rejection of the striving for power and in the final elevation of public spirit to the leading idea.” He said this 100 years ago. All our endeavours in the world and in science should have the guiding principle of producing a type of human being in the future for whom – as Adler put it – a sense of community and interpersonal solidarity are as natural as breathing.

Enlightenment and education (4)

Since all human action is prepared in the minds and hearts, and since people will behave tomorrow as they think today, what is needed above all is enlightenment. The purpose of enlightenment efforts is to purify human consciousness of individual and collective prejudices. The future of our culture will essentially depend on whether there will be enough “enlighteners” who will be able to remove from the broad masses of people those prejudices that are the ideological background of the catastrophes of humanity. At the present time, when the destruction of humanity seems possible, we need more than ever the “free spirits” who teach us what is truth and what is a lie. Intellectuals should face up to this responsibility.

Even more important than enlightenment is the problem of education. Deep psychological insight has made it clear to us what a tremendous scope education has. Today we know that the human being is to such an extent the product of his or her upbringing that we may cherish the hope of being able, through psychological methods of education, to train people who will be immune to the entanglements of power madness and develop a sense of community.

Renunciation of the authoritarian principle and the use of violence

Thus, pedagogy in the parental home and school must renounce the authoritarian principle – which for centuries was regarded as the unquestionably valid basis of educational behaviour – and the use of violence. Educators must adapt themselves with true understanding to the child’s soul life, must respect the child’s personality and turn to him or her with friendship. Such an education will produce a type of human being that does not have a “subject mentality” and will therefore no longer be a docile tool for those in power in our world.

In today’s violent culture, however, the path of the individual inevitably comes under the influence of the desire for power and domination. All role models and ideals under which the child of our cultural circles grows up are coloured by the will to power. The human urge for self-improvement thus involuntarily takes on the guiding line of the lust for power: being great, being powerful becomes the goal that the weak set for themselves in order to become strong. The dazzling work of violence already takes possession of the soul of the individual at a time when he has neither conscious insight nor a developed sense of justice.

The reduction of the lust for power and the desire for violence is therefore not a postulate of moral preachers: it is the simple necessity of community life. It is possible to suppress the admonishing cries of the human sense of community; they can never be completely eradicated, for the gift of evolution consists in the moral consciousness of the individual, in the insight into the responsibility of all towards all. This must be conveyed to the growing generation in education.

Our task for the future is therefore above all the cultivation and strengthening of community feelings. No means must be too small, no effort too arduous for us to better integrate the youth into the social structure, to teach them that violence and greed for power can only lead to disaster.

No intimidation of intellect and reason through religious education! 

Man is born neither religious nor believing in God. The mentally healthy and uncrippled child, however, gets into a society where delusional ideas and illusions prevail. In order to better understand the behaviour of the adult believer, it is essential to fathom how this magical worldview affects the soul life and reason of a child and adolescent.

No sooner does a small child show its first mental stirrings and learn to speak than it is “taken into care” by society, i.e. by the parents and the church. It is made clear to him that his nature is not allowed to develop freely with regard to his feeling for nature and his world view. If it wants to avoid being punished with general contempt and hellish chastisements, it must press its being into a certain ecclesiastical form.

If the consciousness of the “I” then forms in the third year of life, the god and devil of the religion in question already intervene and teach the child not to trust in itself, but to allow itself to be guided and controlled by supernatural powers and to pray diligently so as not to fall prey to their vengeance. The child learns about the fear of demons.

The “virtues” of submissiveness, obedience and humility are imprinted. The child is taught things that are foreign to its nature and do not require its reason. No one asks the child whether it has any “religious needs” at all. The child’s belief in demons is crystallised in the ideas of the devil and hell. Psychiatrists sometimes diagnose anxiety neuroses and severe mental disorders as a result.

Fear produces emotional reactions in the child that turn against the human being: it is afraid of the human being. The young person grows up and as an adult is unable to interact and live together. That is why he cannot set up his own life. The years of man’s strongest suggestibility are exploited to inculcate him with mystical ideas, to make him immune to the use of reason in religious and ideological matters and to bind him to a certain religious institution – faithfully until death.

The child is not allowed to develop naturally and freely until it asks itself in adulthood about the nature of nature and the meaning of life. In the Catholic Church, confession, communion and confirmation follow one after the other in short periods of time at a tender age; acts that are connected with the eternal profession of fidelity to the teachings of the Church and entail terrible consequences in case of non-compliance.

This procedure exerts very strong and crippling pressure on children’s souls. No political organisation, no matter how dictatorial and totalitarian, is capable of acting on children’s souls in this repressive way. This mental rape is worse and more lasting than any physical rape. The same applies to the rape of the mind.

The abuse of the child’s mind results in the adult also reacting in worldly matters like the child and the primitive primitive man: in the form of a “magical belief in authority”. The adult is then often inhibited in the development of the ego, but is in bondage to the priests and suggestible. So many adults not only lack “common sense”, but they also have to constantly fight down the remnants of their intellect in ideological discussions and be dishonest with themselves. And this is because not the slightest proof has been produced for the existence of an otherworldly being that participates in the fate of man.

All those involved in the education of children and youths should therefore refrain from making the growing generation obedient and docile on their way to adulthood with authoritarian methods of education. Nor should they burden them with the mind-paralysing “ballast” of religion. Only in this way can the young, as free-thinking, courageous and compassionate citizens, one day steer the world on a different course.

The Future Vision of Free Citizens: A Libertarian Society with Free People (5)

With the insights of depth psychology, a libertarian social order with free people could be realised – a future vision of free citizens. For the author, it would be a counter-model to the present totalitarian form of rule of unfreedom, violence and exploitation. This vision of the future was already held by some mature people like Peter Kropotkin and other free socialists more than 100 years ago.

The Russian anarchist, geographer and writer Prince Peter Kropotkin (1842-1921) observed both nature and natural beings and related his findings to human beings. In the book “Mutual Aid in the Animal and Human World”, Kropotkin writes that in nature and society there is by no means only a struggle of all against all (social Darwinism), but that the principle of “mutual aid” also prevails. Those living beings that implement this principle would survive more successfully.

Scientific depth psychology is based on these findings. According to this, man is a naturally social being, oriented towards the community of his fellow human beings. He also has a natural inclination towards good, towards the knowledge of truth and towards community life. We do not have to be afraid of this human being. He wants to live in freedom and peace, without violence and war – just like all of us.

This freedom, which is to be given to man (again) because it is his by nature, is of course not the freedom to exploit the other man and to plunder his hard-earned savings. This is the “freedom” that the ruling clique in capitalism means and that makes man involuntarily corrupt. To give man freedom is to give him the right to a decent life, to justice, security and tranquillity.

This means that every working person knows, should he no longer be able to work for reasons of old age or illness, that he will not then be dismissed, but can continue to live just as before: he will continue to receive his last wage, keep his flat and not have to beg for soup in the communal kitchen or at the church. If he should die unexpectedly because of an accident, his family will continue to be provided for and his children can attend a good school.

In a free society, he not only has security but also peace of mind. No authority will rise to rule over him; there will be no violence, no war, no military service, no hardship, no lunatic asylum, no prisons. External freedom will also lead to internal freedom: Man will have a different consciousness, a different thinking, a different relationship with his fellow man, a different feeling towards the dear God.

Nor will a dictatorship be established and man forced. People believe in man, associate themselves with him, empathise with him, appeal to him. He wants to live well and have a roof over his head with his brood. This human being will cooperate in a free society because this corresponds to his nature. There is no need to be afraid of him. There is no need to see any danger in freedom either. If someone is not willing or able to live in a community, then he will be taken along by the others. The sick will be dealt with in the same way; they will not be a nuisance. On the contrary, in a free society they will get well.

Let us leave man free and demand nothing of him! He will gladly accept this and behave differently because he finds a different social situation. Man can change, Marx said – and depth psychology confirms this. He should also be given freedom right away. Churches are not locked and religion is not banned; people are left free and let them pray. It is not the state that decides, but the individual and the community.

Karl Marx was right: when man has the security of his life, he thinks differently. He has different thoughts, different feelings and a different relationship to his fellow man. Man becomes different when he has the table laid. He has different feelings than the one who lives in insecurity, is exploited, is poor, is afraid of hail and lightning that God will send him if he does not pray enough. Afraid that the good Lord will set his house on fire or send hail and smash the grain so that he starves. In his whole emotional life and thinking he is taken up by this.

When a society is established in which man has his right to life, he has a different consciousness. Fear in capitalism shapes man. Exploiters and exploited are equally poor. The church maintains this system with miracle men who are in relationship with the dear God and order everything. If we give up the capitalist system and form a community where this is not an issue, then there are no exploiters, no capitalists, no wars, no fear. Then a different human being develops. In the present principle of violence and authority, man cannot develop.

Then there is no fear of God’s punishment and hell and therefore no religion. Man has a different consciousness, thinks for himself, trusts in his own powers, checks by experience, has different thoughts and feelings. The sick person becomes healthy through a different social system and has a fear-free relationship with his fellow human being. He can show solidarity with him, join him and put himself on an equal footing with him. Man can develop and changes his behaviour, he no longer becomes corrupt as in the capitalist system. He educates himself and learns to read and write. He no longer waits for paradise in heaven, but wants it on earth; he decides for himself which path to take.

Outlook

Since each person has a more or less large sphere of influence, he or she can pass on the psychological and ideological insights presented here to ten, twenty, thirty other people. These ten or thirty people will pass it on to ten others, who in turn will pass it on.

If inertia holds him back, well, then he starts all over again with others!

Dr. Rudolf Hänsel is a graduate psychologist and educationalist. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Notes

(1) Following Jan Sniadecki (1756-1830) and Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777-1855): “Mathematics is the queen of all sciences. Her darling is truth, her clothing simplicity and clarity. Her palace is surrounded by thorny bushes; whoever wants to reach it must fight his way through this thicket. A chance traveller will find nothing attractive in the palace. Its beauty opens itself only to the mind that loves truth, that has grown hard in overcoming difficulties, and that is witness to man’s astonishing propensity for tangled but inexhaustible and sublime spiritual pleasures.”

(2) Baumgarten, Franziska (1949). The German Psychologists and the Events of the Times. Published by DER AUFBAU Zurich. Swiss Social Archives.

(3) Cf. http://www.nrhz.de/flyer/beitrag.php?id=25754&css

(4) Op. cit.

(5) Vgl. https://www.globalresearch.ca/future-vision-free-citizens-libertarian-society-free-people/5733297; https://www.globalresearch.ca/keinem-die-macht-ubergeben/5728617; http://www.nrhz.de/flyer/beitrag.php?id=27206&css; http://www.nrhz.de/flyer/beitrag.php?id=27120&css

Culture

Keith Olbermann Is Wrong: There’s No Such Thing As A ‘Stain’ Of Ethnic Heritage

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By Andrew Korybko (via One World)

Popular liberal commentator Keith Olbermann dangerously risked lending credibility to the toxic ideology of Neo-Nazi racists after tweeting on Monday that “I’ve lived my entire life with the stain of Russian heritage in my family”.

Olbermann’s Odious Tweet Pushes Neo-Nazi Racist Theories

American liberals began embracing Russophobia, which is unquestionably a form of racism, during the 2016 election after Hillary Clinton ridiculously claimed that the Eurasian Great Power was secretly helping her opponent. This disgusting trend continues in the present day but got much worse than ever before after popular liberal commentator Keith Olbermann told his over one million Twitter followers on Monday that “I’ve lived my entire life with the stain of Russian heritage in my family”. This surprised many observers not only because they had hitherto thought that he was of German ancestry, but also because it dangerously risked lending credibility to the toxic ideology of Neo-Nazi racists who claim that there’s such a thing as a “stain of ethnic heritage”. After all, it was none other than Adolf Hitler himself who notoriously spread such sentiments through his infamous Mein Kampf and subsequent speeches, ultimately going as far as carrying out a genocide against millions of Slavs including Russians due to his belief that they were “subhumans”. 

I’m An American-Pole Who’s Occasionally Abused Because Of My Roots

RT’s Nebojsa Malic wrote an insightful response to this scandal highlighting the liberal media’s double standards towards racism, but some further commentary of a more personal nature is needed in order for readers to better understand just how irresponsible Olbermann’s racist comment is. Those of us who aren’t White Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASPs) have most likely been victimized by bigotry at least once in our lives. I’m An American of Polish-Slovenian descent and am occasionally targeted by online trolls because of my ancestry. The most common attack is to claim that it’s supposedly impossible for me to have any friendly feelings towards Russia because of my Polish roots, which very strongly insinuates the racist theory that all members of a given ethnicity share the exact same political and other views by virtue of their blood. In other words, I’m made to feel as though my Polish heritage is a “stain” which somehow forever prevents me from loving Russia, thus supposedly predisposing me to be its eternal enemy like those trolls think that all Poles are.

Was Olbermann Bullied For His Russian Roots While Growing Up?

It’s not yet clear at this point, but it might have been the case that Olbermann was also victimized by bullies all throughout his life who could have claimed something similar, perhaps telling him that it’s impossible for him to love America because of his Russian roots that he hadn’t previously disclosed in public until now (provided that he told others about them in his personal life or they somehow found out through other means). I very strongly disagree with practically everything that Olbermann supports, but that doesn’t give me nor anyone else the right to abuse him with bigoted language just because of his ethnic roots, the same as it doesn’t give anyone else the right to do the same to me if they disagree with my analyses. Nevertheless, having experienced this quite frequently (more so over the past few years than nowadays thankfully), I understand why he might have been made to feel “guilty” for the way that he was born, but he’s weak and wrong for submitting to that idea. Instead of being ashamed of his heritage and describing it as a “stain”, he should be proud of it. 

Religious And Secular Arguments Against Racist Theories

Nobody should ever feel guilty for their ethnic heritage. If you’re religious, then it’s common to believe that God made you that way for a reason in line with His will, which most faithful folks believe is perfect in its own way even if we humans are incapable of fully understanding it. To believe that the inheritance of a cultural legacy is somehow a “stain” implies the fallibility of God and is arguably blasphemous according to many interpretations. For those of you who aren’t religious, then you probably attribute it to a cosmic coincidence or something along those lines for having you inherit the ethnicity that you did. Even in that case, though, there’s nothing wrong with that. All cultures are unique and precious, and there shouldn’t ever be a so-called “hierarchy” among them. Moreover, being of a certain ethnicity doesn’t mean that someone shares the same political views as their co-ethnics, whether nowadays or all throughout history. After all, political views are formed by one’s own free will and aren’t passed along through genes no matter what some racist theorists claim. 

Political Views ≠ Ethnic Heritage

Olbermann is clearly opposed to the policies of the present Russian government and especially its leader, President Putin, but he must understand that those feelings should be separate from his views about the rich heritage that he shares. It’s entirely possible to criticize some political aspect about Russia today while still being proud of being Russian. The same holds true for me: I constructively criticize Polish foreign policy at times but am immensely proud of my Polish heritage and will never apologize for it or dare to disrespect my co-ethnics by calling it a “stain” no matter how much that would please my racist trolls. All human beings have free will, and it’s impossible for every person of a specific demographic to share the exact same political views as their peers. Claiming otherwise is dangerous because it provokes discriminatory actions and even violence against members of that group out of the mistaken basis that attacking them somehow equates to attacking by proxy the state that they allegedly all support. 

Why Are Racist Ideologies Still So Popular Today?

Russians, Poles, and all others throughout history have at one point or another been victimized by this racist ideology which regrettably continues to survive into the present day. Political radicals sometimes feel powerless to effect the change that they desire so they instead lash out at people who they believe superficially represent the object of their hatred. Those who hate Russia attack Russians, just like those who hate Poland attack Poles, and so on and so forth. In their warped minds, they’ve truly convinced themselves that members of those groups embody everything that they detest about their political representatives. Therefore, they think that they’re justified to do whatever they want against them since “the ends justify the means”, especially if harming innocent people of an ethnic group is expected to somehow harm their government by proxy or at least express “dissent” against it. It can’t be overstated just how dangerous of an ideology this is, and it’s terrible that Olbermann risked granting it legitimacy by talking about the self-described “stain” of his Russian heritage. 

Olbermann’s Wrong, But It’s Equally Wrong To “Cancel” Him

I don’t know Olbermann so I’d like to assume that he was also at one time a victim of bigoted abuse but was too weak to resist the bullies unlike me. Over time, he might have embraced their racism and became a self-hating Russian in order to appease them, just like I could have easily become a self-hating Pole. Either way, while that might explain his racist comment, it certainly doesn’t excuse it. There’s no such thing as a “stain” of ethnic heritage. His political dislike of the current Russian government and perhaps some or even all of its prior ones has nothing to do with the culture that he inherited which is intimately a part of him. Anyone of Russian heritage who feels guilty for being Russian hates themselves, the same as can be said about anyone of any other heritage feeling the same about their own, let alone calling it a “stain”. Having explained all of this, I don’t believe that Olbermann should be “canceled”. I actually support spreading his racist comment far and wide for educational purposes in order to discredit the hateful ideology that he consciously or unwittingly represents. 

An Impassioned Appeal To The Alt-Media Community

All subsequent reporting about his tweet must debunk the implied claim that political views are universally shared by all members of a certain ethnicity and passed down through their genes. I know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of such abuse and therefore very passionately believe that it has to stop. Anyone who ever sees someone else embracing this ideology must publicly confront them, especially if they disagree with the victim’s politics. We need to show that we’re in this together and won’t accept the normalization of false racist theories in the Alt-Media Community. Everyone has the right to respectfully express their dissent about whatever it might be, but they mustn’t abuse others who they disagree with, especially not on the basis of their ethnic heritage. Every person is unique, and while there are indeed political trends that some groups tend to embrace (e.g. most Russians are fiercely patriotic and proudly anti-fascist), that’s due to social and other factors, not ethnic ones. Olbermann is dead wrong, but hopefully others can learn from his racist fallacy.

Culture

Women Who Build the Future: Towards a Non Violent Culture. Vandana Shiva

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By Dr. Vandana Shiva (via Global Research)

We open the series “Women who Build the Future: Towards a Nonviolent Culture“, with Vandana Shiva‘s interview.

This is the first of a number of interviews with women from all continents who are committed to life. A project that has led us to a collective process that is allowing us to grow as individuals and as a whole.

The renowned physicist, thinker and activist Vandana Shiva proposes ecofeminism as a response to the current moment, in which the capitalist patriarchy is leading us to destruction and death, after having colonized nature, women and the future.

What do all the causes she defends have in common? She confesses,

“Everything comes out of me, like the love of life and freedom, whether it is the defense of seeds or being with my peasant sisters defending the land… [everything I do] has to do with the defense of life and freedom, from a place of love and resistance also in the face of the lack of freedom.”

Dr. Shiva proposes to take advantage of the ten-year window we still have to decolonize ourselves and change the direction we are taking, relying on feminist movements and young environmental defenders, thus saving the planet and, therefore, humanity and life.

Don’t miss the strength of her expression and listen to the words of a woman who is convinced and convincing about the fight for the future and life. Enjoy it!

Attached is the link to the Earth University courses, including the Ecofeminism course:

http://www.navdanya.org/site/latest-news-at-navdanya/629-courses-at-navdanya-bija-vidyapeeth-2020

Culture

Halting the Energizer Bunny of ‘Wokeness’

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By Jeff Minick (via Intellectual Takeout)

The “woke” crazies never quit.

In the last couple of weeks, we’ve seen Mr. Potato Head attacked for his gender-bias and the Muppets “put into context” by Disney. Meanwhile, as Intellectual Takeout’s Annie Holmquist reports, the cancel culture mob is busy banning or assaulting other films and books. I believe there is a way to halt this madness, but first, let’s briefly catalog some of the victims of “woke” culture in recent years.

In our great age of communication, we have seen books denounced or removed from school classrooms for their failure to live up to cancel culture’s ever-shifting standards. Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie series, Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, and Mary Travis’s books about Mary Poppins have all come under fire. Some in this mob even find William Shakespeare and Geoffrey Chaucer to be reprehensible, deserving of banishment from our schools.

So I’m curious: Where does it stop? Will some of my favorite novelists of the 20th century be cast into the gulag? William Faulkner frequently employed the n-word in his novels and short stories, Ernest Hemingway comes across in his work as a sexist, an anti-Semite, and a racist, and the same goes for F. Scott Fitzgerald and Thomas Wolfe.

Will John Kennedy Toole’s hilarious A Confederacy of Dunces bite the dust because of Kennedy’s use of black dialect? Will Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which is credited for helping end slavery in the United States, be executed for its portrayal of the kind and gentle Uncle Tom? One also wonders about Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington, the ex-slave who built Tuskegee University in Alabama from the ground up. Should that autobiography fall under the ax because its author advocated compromise and hard work as a way to improve the lives of his fellow blacks?

And what about earlier writers? Philosophical works by Plato, Aristotle, Marcus Aurelius, and Thomas Aquinas are about to be consigned to the wastebasket of history because the authors are “dead white men.” Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice has long been one of the leading classic novels by a female author, yet it, too, could be consigned to the junkyard for its depiction of men, women, and marriage. What about dead white painters, dead white sculptors, dead white poets, and dead white musicians? Are they also bound for the furnaces because of their skin pigmentation?

This censorship won’t stop, at least not in the foreseeable future. This mob of neo-Puritans, cultural nannies, bullies, and woke crazies are Energizer Bunnies who just keep on going, never running out of juice, always finding one more politically incorrect piece of the past to throw on the funeral pyre. With little sense or knowledge of history, and no sense of proportion or nuance, they light their torches, snatch up their hatchets, and rush off to attack the latest monster.

So what can we do? Writing and sharing articles like this one may awaken a few people to the dangers the Energizer Mob poses to our culture, but it won’t stop or even slow down the mob itself. What will put them out of business is money.

We need men and women—younger, brighter, and better organized than I—to found and fund a new ACLU: an American Cultural Liberties Union. The organization’s work would be to protect our culture and recruit members from all political persuasions who believe in freedom of speech and who have a balanced view of the past. Members would pay a modest annual fee, and in return this new ACLU would daily act as a guardian when the cancel culture dogs begin barking. Such a group would exist solely for the preservation of Western culture. It would endorse no candidates and take no money from Big Tech or other corporations.

Let’s say that some rabid wokesters go after Disney’s “Cinderella” for its gender-based stereotypes, and Disney decides to lock that film in its vault. The ACLU staffers who read those headlines would check and recheck this story, and then contact Disney to discover whether this news was true. If Disney indeed intended to withdraw the film from its viewing audience, the ACLU staff might then explain that in response to this move the organization plans to inform its 30 million members of Disney’s decision and is asking them to boycott Disney products for six months.

Money talks, baloney (not the usual word here) walks. A majority of Americans believe cancel culture is a threat to freedom, but as Holmquist notes, “The fact is that many of us are afraid of even raising sensitive issues because we’re worried such discussions will devolve into heated arguments or even get us canceled.”

Right now, most of us feel isolated, powerless to make a difference in the war on our culture. But in numbers there is strength, and from that strength comes courage. If even a fraction of Americans gathered under one banner, they might actually win some of these battles and turn the tide of the culture war.

Culture, US

White People’s War on Western Civ

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By Lipton Matthews (via Intellectual Takeout)

Many argue that whiteness is a major problem in America. On the internet one can find scores of articles depicting the perceived racism of white Americans as the genesis of all ailments.

Those who are steeped in history, however, are aware that Western society is distinctly individualistic and open to new ideas. For example, today one is far more likely to find white people studying African history, than Africans writing about Europe.

White Americans are usually quick to blame themselves for the state of race relations, and despite their high propensity for tolerance, they are unjustly characterized as racists. Across the country school districts are lowering standards to appease minority activists, yet it appears that whites can do nothing to placate their anger. What is also quite ironic is that whenever black professors proclaim racist sentiments, they are often enabled by their white colleagues, citing free speech. Anti-white racism is acceptable to the point of being virtuous, while whites are never allowed to defend themselves from racism charges.

To some, the nebbish behavior of whites needs explaining. But we ought not to be surprised at the pathological altruism of whites. Conservatives like to brag that Western culture holds freedom and individual expression in high esteem. If white people as a whole have greater respect for individual agency and are less ethnocentric than other groups, then they will generally be more inclined to tolerate dissenting opinions, even to the detriment of their own interests.

For example, the Kingdom of Aksum was a black civilization and hence it is not objectionable for black people to take pride in their history. Furthermore, black nationalists never hesitate to remind us that Mali, Songhai, and Ghana were powerful black empires. Yet pundits respond with venom whenever a white person notes that America is a product of Western civilization and the West is predominantly white. Leftists do not expect us to divorce black civilizations from their blackness, but whites must be shunned and silenced for daring to recognize that the West is mainly the product of white thinkers.

As such, white intellectuals have become partners in the quest to destroy the cultural heritage of the West. Blinded by pathological altruism, they are unable to acknowledge that a civilization without a culture must collapse. Therefore, as a gesture to non-whites, in 2020 Yale scrapped a survey course in art history on account of the course focusing too much on white artists. White American academics are flexible people who have no problem teaching non-Western art.

But the real issue is that radical non-whites and their liberal peers want to annihilate the Western canon. Contrary to the naïve perceptions of most white people, movements to decolonize curriculum are not efforts to create an intellectually diverse environment. Rather, they reflect contempt for Western civilization.

Activists are uninterested in reading Immanuel Kant along with Mencius; they want to get rid of Kant entirely. Radical leftists are far more interested in critiquing Western culture than in studying the non-Western world. Learning is irrelevant, their sole goal is to subvert the Western intellectual tradition.

For instance, several leading universities have devoted departments to the politically inspired discipline of African studies. Due to the name, most would assume these departments teach students about African states like Benin and Oyo, and their own histories of imperialism and slavery. Instead, they fixate on Europe’s relationship with Africa and glorify African primitivism.

The main objective of such courses is a politically motived push to engender hatred for Western civilization. Although evil is not peculiar to white people, the political agenda of left-leaning professors must ensure that students graduate believing that only white people have ever had an interest in conquest.

Hence to correct the apparent Eurocentrism of academia, students are taught that Mali was a great empire. However, their instruction downplays the history of slavery in Mali, and they must never be told that Mali had its own King Leopold II in the form of King Khalifa, who terrorized his subjects for entertainment.

Moreover, the politicization of education continues unabated since white people care more about the feelings of misguided grievance mongers than the survival of their culture. Only white people are silly enough to think that Caucasian philosophers should be removed from the curriculum of a majority white society.

Universities in China would not tolerate white Americans telling them to make their courses less Asian. Yet strangely some think that it is acceptable to demand that American universities dump the Western canon. 

Unlike non-whites, apparently most white people have no sense of pride in their culture. According to Pew, black adults are most likely to say that race is central to their identity, whereas whites are the least likely to be invested in their racial identity. Whites are not sufficiently ethnocentric to create an influential white agenda. Based on the mantra of diversity plaguing corporate America, it is obvious that white people are committed to the success of blacks and other races. In addition, the wealth gap between blacks and whites is explainable by a litany of factors apart from racism. 

The reality is that we all reap the benefits brought about by the rise of Western civilization. As such, the destruction of Western culture will not redound to the advantage of non-whites who abhor the West, nor to that of anyone else. Non-whites who fail to affirm this salient point are simply foolish.