Full Spectrum Dominance

Ritual Defamation: A Contemporary Academic Example

By Daniel McGowan | Dissident Voice | September 22, 2017

The term ritual defamation was coined by Laird Wilcox to describe the destruction of the reputation of a person by unfair, wrongful, or malicious speech or publication. The defamation is in retaliation for opinions expressed by the victim, with the intention of silencing that person’s influence, and making an example of him so as to discourage similar “insensitivity” to subjects currently ruled as taboo. It is aggressive, organized and skillfully applied, often by a representative of a special interest group, such as, ironically, the Anti-Defamation League.

Ritual defamation is not called “ritual” because it follows any prescribed religious or mystical doctrine, nor is it embraced in any particular document or scripture. Rather, it is ritualistic because it follows a predictable, stereotyped pattern which embraces a number of elements, as in a ritual.

Laird Wilcox enumerated eight basic elements of a ritual defamation:

First, the victim must have violated a particular taboo, usually by expressing or identifying with a forbidden attitude, opinion or belief.

Second, the defamers condemn the character of the victim, never offering more than a perfunctory challenge to the particular attitudes, opinions or beliefs the victim expressed or implied. Character assassination is its primary tool.

Third, the defamers avoid engaging in any kind of debate over the truthfulness or reasonableness of what has been expressed. Their goal is not discussion but rather condemnation, censorship and repression.

Fourth, the victim is usually someone who is vulnerable to public opinion, although perhaps in a very modest way. It could be a schoolteacher, writer, businessman, minor official, or merely an outspoken citizen; visibility enhances vulnerability to ritual defamation.

Fifth, an attempt is made to involve others in the defamation. In the case of a public official, other public officials will be urged to denounce the offender. In the case of a student, other students will be called upon; in the case of a professor, other professors will be asked to join the condemnation.

Sixth, in order for a ritual defamation to be most effective, the victim must be dehumanized to the extent that he becomes identical with the offending attitude, opinion or belief, and in a manner which distorts his views to the point where they appear at their most extreme. For example, a victim who is defamed as a “subversive” will be identified with the worst images of subversion, such as espionage, terrorism or treason.

Seventh, the defamation tries to bring pressure and humiliation on the victim from every quarter, including family and friends. If the victim has school children, they may be taunted and ridiculed as a consequence of adverse publicity. If the victim is employed, he may be fired from his job. If the victim belongs to clubs or associations, other members may be urged to expel him.

Eighth, any explanation the victim may offer is dismissed as irrelevant. To claim truth as a defense for a tabooed opinion or belief is treated as defiance and only compounds the offense. Ritual defamation is often not necessarily an issue of being wrong or incorrect but rather of “insensitivity” and failing to observe social taboos.

Ritual defamation is not used to persuade, but rather to punish. It is used to hurt, to intimidate, to destroy, and to persecute, and to avoid the dialogue, debate and discussion that free speech implies. Its obvious maliciousness is often hidden behind the dictates of political correctness and required sensitivity to established myths.

Ritual Defamation at Hobart and William Smith Colleges: A Textbook Example

In the September 2009 I wrote an op-ed for the local newspaper, The Finger Lakes Times, defining “Holocaust Denial.” It was submitted in response to the media frenzy and demonization of Iranian President Ahmadinejad, who was scheduled to address the UN General Assembly. After several delays, it was published on September 27 under a quarter-page picture of Ahmadinejad and under the headline “What do deniers really mean? (See Appendix 1)

Although the definition I presented has been widely accepted, both by those who affirm and by those who contest or “revise” the current narrative of the Holocaust, and although the facts I presented were not challenged, the op-ed sparked a classical case of ritual defamation. Questioning the Holocaust narrative, or even defining what it means to question it, is arguably the most serious taboo in the United States today. It is considered “beyond the pale” and even touching the subject is like touching the third rail on the subway – instant death to your career.

First Blood

On October 3 a “colleague” from the Education Department, James MaKinster, “facilitated” a smear letter, signed by six additional colleagues, and circulated it by email to over 300 other professors and people in the Hobart and William Smith Colleges community. Their letter was addressed to the colleges’ President Mark Gearan; it denounced me with lies and insidious innuendos and demanded the revocation of my status as a faculty emeritus.

I heard about the MaKinster letter quite by happenstance soon after it was circulated, but neither the President nor any of the original seven who signed it was willing to provide me with a copy. It was not until May 2011 some 20 months later that I finally got a copy of the email version, not of the final letter with all the signatures. (See Appendix 2)

My Response

In a vain attempt to clear my name and set the record straight I sent a message to the entire community rebutting the charges made in the MaKinster smear letter. I stated that:

1. Contrary to the feigned outrage of my ritual defamers as to the date of publishing the op-ed, I had nothing to do with the timing of the article and make no apology for when it appeared vis-à-vis a Jewish holiday.

2. My ritual defamers’ egregious claim to know my “personal beliefs” and their claim that I used my title to give them credence was untrue. Nowhere were my personal beliefs stated. Moreover, my article included an exceptionally long disclaimer showing The Colleges neither condone nor condemn what I had written.

3. My ritual defamers’ claim that “Holocaust denial carries absolutely no weight among academic scholars in any field whatsoever” was also untrue. There are a number of scholars who dare to criticize the typical Holocaust narrative and are willing to fight the slime hurled at them by ardent Zionists who feel it their duty to protect the current version that serves as the sword and shield of apartheid Israel. (As a footnote, our former provost and former dean of women (both Jewish) demanded that I not use the word “apartheid” in connection with Israel. Although the term was used in the Israeli press and later by ex-President Jimmy Carter, they did not consider it to be “suitable discourse” on our campus where, ironically, we routinely claim to support free speech and diversity of opinion.)

4. My ritual defamers said that “denying undisputed facts of the holocaust (sic) is not a way to show support for the Palestinians.” First, the three tenets of Holocaust revisionism are clearly not “undisputed.” To the contrary, these taboos are hotly and passionately disputed; people’s lives are ruined when they dispute these “facts” or even mention them. In fourteen countries you can get jail time for disputing “facts” surrounding the Holocaust.

Second, disputing purported facts is what science and historical analysis are all about. We academics have no problem discussing and disputing whether or not Jesus Christ is truly the son of God, or if President Obama’s birth certificate is real, or if Jewish slaves built the Egyptian pyramids, or if Roosevelt knew a Japanese attack on Hawaii was imminent, but we are not allowed to discuss or dispute the six-million figure, which was bantered about before World War I. (Yes, before World War I; see for example, “Dr. Paul Nathan’s View of Russian Massacre”, The New York Times, March 25, 1906.) To question the six million figure on most American campuses is simply taboo.

Finally, what gives these ritual defamers the credentials to pontificate on what supports or hurts Palestinians? None of them are experts on Palestine and none are activists for Palestinian human rights. To the contrary, some of them have been responsible for feting at Hobart and William Smith Colleges anti-Palestinian demagogues including Elie Wiesel and even Benyamin Netanyahu. They have also endorsed giving Madeleine Albright our highest humanitarian award, which was not only ironic, but disgraceful in light of her statement that the deaths of over 500,000 Iraqi children were “worth it”.

5. Labeling Holocaust revisionism “Holocaust denial” is unwarrantedly pejorative. It might be fine for Fox News, but it is not conducive to, and often precludes, intelligent discourse. To call Holocaust revisionism “thinly veiled anti-Semitism” is simply untrue and it defames scholars and others, including Jews, who question the Holocaust doctrine as we are fed it in hundreds of films, books, articles, and commentaries. Terms like Holocaust Industry, Holocaust Fatigue, Holocaust professional, Holocaust wannabes, and Holocaust High Priest were not coined by “deniers” or anti-Semites; they were coined by Jews. (The High Priest quip is an obvious reference to Elie Wiesel; it was made by Tova Reich in her book My Holocaust. Tova’s husband, Walter Reich, was the former director of the US Holocaust Museum in Washington.)

In 1946 the US government told us that 20 million people were murdered by Hitler. Now that figure is said to be 11 million; it has been “revised” downward and literally carved in stone at the US Holocaust Memorial. For years we were told that over 4 million were killed at Auschwitz alone, but by the early 1990s that figure was “revised” downward to 1.5 million. Wiesel tells us that people were thrown alive onto pyres; he claims to have seen it with his own eyes; today even Israeli-trained guides at Auschwitz say that is not true. They have already “revised” his narrative. These are but a few examples of historical revisionism, examples that not inherently anti-Semitic and no longer considered taboo.

6. It is most interesting to see academic colleagues say, “(a)s we all know … the term ‘ethnic cleansing’ was introduced to make genocide sound more palatable.” That means they either deny that Palestinians have been (and continue to be) ethnically cleansed or they agree that Israel is performing genocide on the Palestinian people.

7. While the ritual defamers found my piece to be “abhorrent,” they seemed unable to find fault with a single fact I presented. So they resorted to name-calling and labeled the piece “hate speech” and “unsupported vitriol” and smeared my name to hundreds of people. I am surprised that the Anti-Defamation League or the Mossad did not come knocking on my door.

8. The ritual defamers genuinely were concerned about the op-ed’s impact on our Jewish students, staff, and faculty. But maybe it is time for all members of the community to see the Holocaust for what it really was and not the unquestionable, unimpeachable, doctrine that makes Jewish suffering superior to that of other people. Maybe it is time to recognize that Zionism as a political movement to create a Jewish state in Palestine began long before the Holocaust and that Zionist discrimination, dehumanization, and dispossession of the Palestinian people should not be excused by it. Maybe it is time to see that since over half the population (within the borders controlled by Israel) is not Jewish, the dream of creating a Jewish state has failed. Walling in the non-Jews or putting them in Bantustans or driving them into Jordan will not make Israel a Jewish state. Nationalistic allegiance to “blood and soil” has been a failure in Germany and in Israel. That should be the real lesson of the Holocaust.

9. To say that my op-ed “does not meet our expectation of minimally rational and minimally humane discourse” is pure nonsense. The piece is well written, well substantiated, and quite humane.

10. The ritual defamers are quite right about one thing; they were deeply disturbed and saddened to see a Hobart and William Smith Colleges’ title attached to it, even with a lengthy disclaimer. Diversity and perspectives outside the mainstream are to be encouraged, but not if they question Jewish power, Israel, or Holocaust doctrine. Apparently those topics are totally taboo.

11. The demand to President Gearan to remove my title of Professor Emeritus is both classic and stupid. Would it save Hobart and William Smith Colleges from being associated with my writings? Of course not; I would simply become “Former Professor Emeritus at Hobart and William Smith Colleges” with no disclaimer.

But what it would really do is to cast me into the briar patch with Norman Finkelstein, Marc Ellis, Paul Eisen, Henry Herskovitz, Gilad Atzmon, Rich Siegel, and Hedy Epstein (a Holocaust survivor), all friends of mine and all anti-Zionists.

Lest I seem irreverent or unscathed by this widely-circulated smear letter from my ritual defamers, allow me to admit that I have been hurt by it. Many faculty and other HWS folks now shun me as a persona non grata largely because they only read the slime and never my rebuttal. My former student and long-time friend, David Deming, who is now the Chair of the HWS Board does not answer my letters. President Gearan does not answer them either. Board member Roy Dexheimer, disparages me and wonders if I fell “off my meds.” Another Board member, Stuart Pilch, took it a step further and made a threatening phone call to my home with a promise “to hunt me down.”

Recourse? Most Doors are Closed

For twenty months I did not know the contents of the MaKinster email. When I discovered it as an email draft, my first inclination was to sue him and the other six faculty members who circulated it. I wanted to sue for libel and defamation of character. I knew it would be expensive, but I was determined to correct the lies they had spread about me. The problem was that in New York State the statute of limitations for libel is one year from the date it was committed, not one year from the date it was discovered.

I went to the Provost, who is the head of our faculty, and asked her to get me a copy of the final letter as it was sent to President Gearan. (I had seen only the email draft of it shown in Appendix 2) I wanted a copy of the final letter including the names of all those ritual defamers who had signed it — MaKinster and the six other “facilitators” and any others of the 300 they sent it to who might have also signed). She refused on the grounds of “confidentiality”.

I went to the President and asked for a copy; he refused. I asked MaKinster; he refused to give me a copy of the letter and refused to meet with me to discuss it. I asked the other six “facilitators”. Three agreed to meet with me, but were unable to give me a copy of the final letter. They all told me that they thought additional people had signed, but they could not or would not name a single one for sure. Like MaKinster, the remaining three “colleagues” refused to meet with me or give me a copy of what they had collectively written in their smear letter.

I went to The Grievance Committee, but I was told that I could not bring the issue before it, since that committee does not hear such matters. I asked to address the faculty at large, but I was told that only faculty can attend an HWS Faculty Meeting and not those who are retired, with or without emeritus status.

I tried a market approach and publicly offered a $1,000 contribution to Hobart and William Smith Colleges in return for a final copy of the MaKinster ritual defamation letter with the names of all signatories. The offer was made by email to all current faculty members. No response. I raised the offer to $1,500. Some faculty called on me to stop; some even charged me with smearing MaKinster. Others counseled me to “turn the other cheek” and “get over it.”

But others thought that withholding the letter and the names of those who signed it was “cowardly,” “inappropriate,” and “unethical.” They asked rhetorically if my critics should not “openly stand by their words and acts?” They supported my right to peacefully and non-violently discover the smears and slime thrown at me by “colleagues” who now piously claim their right to anonymity.

Via college email to all members of the faculty I raised the public offer to $2,000, then $2,500, then $3,000, and so forth. At $5,000 the current acting Provost and long-time friend, Pat McGuire, came to my home (11/22/11) to discuss the “situation” and to advise that my email offers were annoying some people and that Hobart and William Smith Colleges was considering restricting or terminating my email privileges. I raised the offer to $10,000, not by campus-wide email, but in specific offers to several alumni.

Resolution?

Not yet. But I am optimistic. I have been a part of the Hobart and William Smith Colleges community for almost 40 years. I am proud of my record of teaching and activism on behalf of Palestinian human rights. And I am proud of having fought against academic hypocrisy and cowardice, especially when it comes to Israel.

I am also proud that Hobart and William Smith Colleges did not completely roll over to the ritual defamation initiated (or facilitated) by otherwise well-meaning “colleagues,” especially by those who are too cowardly to reveal or defend their participation in this injustice. And I am eternally thankful that the institution has allowed me to keep my emeritus status and my walking pass at the gym.

Appendix 1

Finger Lakes Times, September 27, 2009, Section D, p.1+ (not available on line)

What Does Holocaust Denial Really Mean?

In April 2007 the European Union agreed to set jail sentences up to three years for those who deny or trivialize the Holocaust.¹ More recently, in response to the remarks of Bishop Richard Williamson, the Pope has proclaimed that Holocaust denial is “intolerable and altogether unacceptable.”

But what does Holocaust denial really mean? Begin with the word Holocaust. The Holocaust² (spelled with a capital H) refers to the killing of six million Jews by the Nazis during World War II. It is supposed to be the German’s “Final Solution” to the Jewish problem. Much of the systematic extermination was to have taken place in concentration camps by shooting, gassing, and burning alive innocent Jewish victims of the Third Reich.

People like Germar Rudolf, Ernst Zundel, and Bishop Williamson who do not believe this account and who dare to say so in public are reviled as bigots, anti-Semites, racists, and worse. Their alternate historical scenarios are not termed simply revisionist, but are demeaned as Holocaust denial. Rudolf and Zundel were shipped to Germany where they were tried, convicted, and sentenced to three and five years, respectively.

Politicians deride Holocaust revisionist papers and conferences as “beyond the pale of international discourse and acceptable behavior.”³ Non-Zionist Jews who participate in such revisionism, like Rabbi Dovid Weiss of the Neturei Karta, are denounced as “self-haters” and are shunned and spat upon. Even Professor Norman Finkelstein, whose parents were both Holocaust survivors and who wrote the book, The Holocaust Industry, has been branded a Holocaust denier.

But putting aside the virile hate directed against those who question the veracity of the typical Holocaust narrative, what is it that these people believe and say at the risk of imprisonment and bodily harm? For most Holocaust revisionists or deniers if you prefer, their arguments boil down to three simple contentions:

1. Hitler’s “Final Solution” was intended to be ethnic cleansing, not extermination.

2. There were no homicidal gas chambers used by the Third Reich.

3. There were fewer than 6 million Jews killed of the 55 million who died in WWII.

Are these revisionist contentions so odious as to cause those who believe them to be reviled, beaten, and imprisoned? More importantly, is it possible that revisionist contentions are true, or even partially true, and that they are despised because they contradict the story of the Holocaust, a story which has been elevated to the level of a religion in hundreds of films, memorials, museums, and docu-dramas?

Is it sacrilegious to ask, “If Hitler was intent on extermination, how did Elie Wiesel, his father, and two of his sisters survive the worst period of incarceration at Auschwitz?” Wiesel claims that people were thrown alive into burning pits, yet even the Israeli-trained guides at Auschwitz refute this claim.

Is it really “beyond international discourse” to question the efficacy and the forensic evidence of homicidal gas chambers? If other myths, like making soap from human fat, have been dismissed as Allied war propaganda, why is it “unacceptable behavior” to ask if the gas chamber at Dachau was not reconstructed by the Americans because no other homicidal gas chamber could be found and used as evidence at the Nuremburg trials?

For more than fifty years Jewish scholars have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to document each Jewish victim of the Nazi Holocaust. The Nazis were German, obsessed with paperwork and recordkeeping. Yet only 3 million names have been collected and many of them died of natural causes. So why is it heresy to doubt that fewer than 6 million Jews were murdered in the Second World War?

“Holocaust Denial” might be no more eccentric or no more criminal than claiming the earth is flat, except that the Holocaust itself has been used as the sword and shield in the quest to build a Jewish state between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, where even today over half the population is not Jewish.

The Holocaust narrative allows Yad Vashem, the finest Holocaust museum in the world, to repeat the mantra of “Never Forget” while it sits on Arab lands stolen from Ein Karem and overlooking the unmarked graves of Palestinians massacred by Jewish terrorists at Deir Yassin. It allows Elie Wiesel to boast of having worked for these same terrorists (as a journalist, not a fighter) while refusing to acknowledge, let alone apologize for, the war crimes his employer committed. It makes Jews the ultimate victim no matter how they dispossess or dehumanize or ethnically cleanse indigenous Palestinian people.

The Holocaust story eliminates any comparison of Ketziot or Gaza to the concentration camps they indeed are. It memorializes the resistance of Jews in the ghettos of Europe while steadfastly denying any comparison with the resistance of Palestinians in Hebron and throughout the West Bank. It allows claims that this year’s Hanukah Massacre in Gaza, with a kill ratio of 100 to one, was a “proportionate response” to Palestinian resistance to unending occupation.

The Holocaust is used to silence critics of Israel in what the Jewish scholar, Marc Ellis, has called the ecumenical deal: you Christians look the other way while we bludgeon the Palestinians and build our Jewish state and we won’t remind you that Hitler was a good Catholic, a confirmed “soldier of Christ,” long before he was a bad Nazi.

The Holocaust narrative of systematic, industrialized extermination was an important neo-conservative tool to drive the United States into Iraq. The same neo-con ideologues, like Norman Podhoretz, routinely compare Ahmadinejad to Hitler and Nazism with Islamofascism with the intent of driving us into Iran. The title of the Israeli conference at Yad Vashem made this crystal clear: “Holocaust Denial: Paving the Way to Genocide.”

“Remember the Holocaust” will be the battle cry of the next great clash of good (Judeo/Christian values) and evil (radical Islamic aggression) and those who question it must be demonized if not burned at the stake.

Daniel McGowan
Professor Emeritus
Hobart and William Smith Colleges
Geneva, NY 14456

September 24, 2009

Because of admonishment by the administration, it is hereby stated that the above remarks are solely those of the author. Hobart and William Smith Colleges neither condone nor condemn these opinions. Furthermore, the author has been instructed to use his personal email address of moc.oohay@leinadnawogcm and not his college email at ude.swh@nawogcm for those wishing to contact him with comments or criticisms.

Appendix 2This is a draft of the letter “facilitated” by James MaKinster, signed by six other “colleagues,” and circulated to over 300 others in the Hobart and William Smith Colleges’ community.

October 3, 2009

President Gearan,

This letter is a response to Daniel McGowan’s defense of Holocaust deniers published in the Finger Lakes Times on September 27. The content of the essay and its publication on the eve of Yom Kippur was appalling. We are writing to you because of the disgrace to Hobart and William Smith caused by McGowan’s continued use of the institutional imprimatur and his honorary title of “Emeritus Professor” to lend credence in disseminating his personal beliefs. He has every right as a private citizen to hold and spew forth whatever beliefs he may happen to have, but we ask you to prevent the use of his title and the name of Hobart and William Smith from contributing to its effects in the future.

It should be clear that while McGowan is claiming to raise legitimate historical and free speech issues, Holocaust denial has a history of being no more that thinly veiled anti-Semitism. When historians talk about the Holocaust what they mean is that approximately six million Jews and several millions of others were killed in an intentional and systematic fashion by the Nazis using a number of different means, including death by shooting and in gas chambers. This is the position held universally by scholars. The Holocaust deniers reject the historicity of the Holocaust based on three types of assertions. They reject the number of 6 million, the existence of killing camps, and the element of intentionality.

Professor McGowan’s article is an example of denying the reality of the most studied and documented event in history. Holocaust denial carries absolutely no weight among academic scholars in any field whatsoever. Additionally, denying the undisputed facts of the holocaust is not a way to show support for the Palestinians. For example, his argument denying the intentionality of the Nazi’s execution of Jews is that there is not sufficient proof that it was designed to exterminate the Jewish population. Rather, he asserts, it may have been merely a program of “ethnic cleansing.” The suggestion that this somehow makes it less morally reprehensible speaks for itself, as we all know that the term “ethnic cleansing” was introduced to make genocide sound more palatable.

Professor McGowan’s position is a classic case of blaming the victims for their own victimization. Promo Levi wrote in The Drowned and the Saved that what he most feared was echoed in a remark by one of his SS guards: That if he somehow managed to live through this hell no one would believe his descriptions of Auschwitz. Sadly, for some, that day has arrived.

Freedom of speech is a right for citizens in a democracy that should be vigorously protected, especially when we find the content of that speech to be abhorrent. Colleges and universities have an educational obligation to encourage scholarship that reflects perspectives outside the mainstream of public political discourse, and we encourage that. Hate speech, on the other hand, is a trickier issue for campuses to wrestle with because while free speech has a special value, we have a duty to protect members of our diverse community from unsupported vitriol being espoused under the name of our colleges and its professors. We faculty of all persuasions, Buddhists, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Jews, and atheists, are deeply offended and also share a special concern about the impact of such hateful messages (and its association with us) upon our Jewish students, staff, and faculty.

Professor McGowan’s actions do not meet our expectation of minimally rational and minimally humane discourse. As human beings who see the transparent motivation and effects of such writing, we are deeply disturbed and saddened to see a Hobart and William Smith title attached to it. We therefore request the removal of Professor McGowan’s honorary title of “Emeritus Professor.”

Sincerely,

Scott Brophy, Professor of Philosophy
Michael Dobkowski, Professor of Religious Studies
Khuram Hussain, Assistant Professor of Education
Steven Lee, Professor of Philosophy
James MaKinster, Associate Professor of Education
Lilian Sherman, Assistant Professor of Education
Charles Temple, Professor of Education

Notes

Previously appeared at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/850644.html.
Holocaust. Dictionary.com. The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2005 (accessed: February 09, 2007).
Previously appeared at http://clinton.senate.gov/news/statements/details.cfm?id=268474 (accessed: February 09, 2007).

Daniel McGowan is a Professor Emeritus at Hobart and William Smith Colleges. Because of admonishment by the administration, it is hereby stated that the above remarks are solely those of the author. Hobart and William Smith Colleges neither condone nor condemn these opinions. Furthermore, the author has been instructed to use his personal email address of mcgowandaniel@yahoo.com and not his college email at mcgowan@hws.edu for those wishing to contact him with comments or criticisms.

September 23, 2017 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | ADL, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Human rights, James MaKinster, Palestine, United States, Zionism | Leave a comment

RT may soon be dropped by US providers, courtesy of McCain & Graham

RT | September 21, 2017

Buried deep inside the just-passed defense budget is a small amendment, which could lead to a ban on broadcasting RT in America. The architects of the provision, Senators Graham and McCain, may recall that in their youth such practices formed what was known as the ‘Iron Curtain’.

The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for the fiscal year 2018, which was passed by the US Senate earlier this week, is stuffed with provisions that have little to do with US national defense. This is a tactic that US lawmakers have traditionally used to ‘piggy-back’ legislation which would have little hope of adoption as a stand-alone bill.

Deep down the list of amendments is No 1096, which aims to “prohibit multichannel video programming distributors from being required to carry certain video content that is owned or controlled by the Government of the Russian Federation”.

Proposed by Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) and co-sponsored by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island), the amendment was submitted by John McCain (R-Arizona), a fellow foreign policy hawk. The provision says a distributor working in a US jurisdiction “may not be directly or indirectly required” to carry video content that is “is owned, controlled, or financed (in whole or in part) by the Government of the Russian Federation.”

In plain English then, any contract RT currently has or will have with American cable and satellite networks to carry its programming will no longer be protected by US federal law after this amendment is signed into law by President Donald Trump. The channel’s current arrangements with carriers made it illegal for them to arbitrarily drop RT’s programming (unless the content shown was obscene) but now they will apparently be able to discriminate against it should they so wish.

The discussion on how the US could insulate its population from RT was sparked by a declassified US intelligence community report on alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election, which put this channel in the spotlight. The report asserted that RT was a primary tool of such interference, done through critical reporting on US foreign policy and domestic problems. Despite the report containing factual errors and no evidence, it was taken at face value by many US media outlets and politicians.

“There is an obsession on Capitol hill and in the mainstream media with RT, because RT is effective and because RT is watched. But also because RT carries perspectives that are not available on the mainstream media,” commented Daniel McAdams, Executive Director for the Ron Paul Institute.

“The fact of the matter is that John McCain and Lindsey Graham, the people behind this amendment, the Atlantic Council and the others that are trying to silence RT – they are the totalitarians, they are the enemies of free speech, the enemies of the First Amendment.”

The move seems to resemble the strategy of the Soviet government, which strictly controlled domestic media and suppressed radio broadcasts from Europe to insulate the population of the country from ideas and narratives it deemed unfit. The censorship system, dubbed the “Iron Curtain”, backfired and became a major factor in eroding the Communist Party’s control, for the simple reason that people perceived media sources which the government tried to silence as more trustworthy than those it allowed.

September 21, 2017 Posted by aletho | Full Spectrum Dominance | RT, Sheldon Whitehouse, United States | Leave a comment

Israel’s Chief Stooge at Westminster Shames Us Again

PM Theresa May holds a reception at Downing Street to celebrate the upcoming Jewish New Year. Image credit: Number 10/ flickr

By Stuart Littlewood | American Herald Tribune | September 20, 2017

“As Prime Minister, I am proud to say that I support Israel. And it is absolutely right that we should mark the vital role that Britain played a century ago in helping to create a homeland for the Jewish people.”

Thus spoke Theresa May the other day as she welcomed members of the Jewish community to 10 Downing Street. But by focusing on creating a homeland for the Jewish people she’s also celebrating the hell that Balfour’s Declaration created for the gentle Palestinians and for the rest of the region. “Born of that letter, the pen of Balfour, and of the efforts of so many people, is a remarkable country,” said May, apparently blind to the reality.

Right now we’re on the run-up to the centenary of what is arguably the biggest foreign policy blunder in British history: the Balfour Declaration. In 1917 Arthur Balfour, foreign secretary, bowed to Zionist demands for a homeland for the Jews in Palestine and gave an undertaking that set the world on course for long-term turmoil and, for the native Palestinians, unspeakable misery, dispossession and displacement. It was a criminal conspiracy. And Balfour was an A-list idiot who bragged that he wasn’t even going to consult the local Arab population about this theft of their homes and lands.

Yet he remains a hero of the Conservative Party which, led by Theresa May, plans to celebrate this hundred-year “running sore” — as Lord Sydenham called it — in great style, inviting Israel’s prime minister Netanyahu to the festivities. That’s if the mad-dog warmonger isn’t under arrest by then on imminent charges of corruption back home.

“I will always do whatever it takes to keep our Jewish community safe,” May added. “Through our new definition of anti-Semitism we will call out anyone guilty of any language or behaviour that displays hatred towards Jews because they are Jews. We will actively encourage the use of this definition by the police, the legal profession, universities and other public bodies.”

She was referring to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism.

BDS “unsucessful”? Really?

One of May’s Cabinet minsiters, Sajid Javid, told the World Jewish Congress that the UK would celebrate the upcoming anniversary with pride. “Someone said we should apologise for the Declaration, to say it was an error of judgment. Of course that’s not going to happen.” To apologise, he said, would be to apologise for the existence of Israel and to question its right to exist.

Instead, he emphasised the UK government’s intolerance towards any kind of boycott of Israel. “I’ll be 100 per cent clear. I do not support calls for a boycott, my party does not support calls for a boycott. For all its bluster, the BDS campaign is most notable I think, for its lack of success…. As long as I’m in government, as long as I’m in politics, I will do everything in my power to fight back against those who seek to undermine Israel.” The UK, he said, has maintained close diplomatic, trade and security ties with Israel since its inception, and is counted upon by Israel to vote in its favour at the UN and other international institutions.

As Noam Chomsky has aptly observed: “People who call themselves supporters of Israel are actually supporters of its moral degeneration and ultimate destruction.”

Israel lobby stooges like May and Javid continue trying to ram their pro-Zionist nonsense down our throats despite the fact that last time they attacked the successful BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) movement, warning that her government would “have no truck with those who subscribe to it”, they came spectacularly unstuck. 200 legal scholars and practising lawyers from all over Europe put May in her place by pointing out that BDS is a lawful exercise of freedom of expression and outlawing it undermines a basic human right protected by international convention. Her efforts to repress it amounted to support for Israel’s violations of international law and failure to honour the solemn pledge by States to ‘strictly respect the aims and principles of the Charter of the United Nations’.

May needs a crash course in human rights

Top legal experts were recently asked for their views by Free Speech on Israel, Independent Jewish Voices, Jews for Justice for Palestinians and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. Their verdict was that those in public life cannot behave in a manner inconsistent with the European Convention on Human Rights, which provides for freedom of expression and applies not only to information or ideas that are favourably received or regarded as inoffensive, but also to those that “offend, shock or disturb the State or any sector of the population”.

What’s more, there is an obligation to allow all concerned in public debate “to express their opinions and ideas without fear, even if these opinions and ideas are contrary to those defended by the official authorities or by a large part of public opinion, or even if those opinions and ideas are irritating or offensive to the public”. Article 10 says that everyone has the right to freedom of expression including “freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers.”Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says the same sort of thing, subject of course to the usual limitations required by law and respect for the rights of others.

Eminent human rights lawyer Hugh Tomlinson QC has sharply criticised the anti-Semitism definition touted by May. Firstly, it isn’t a legally binding definition so doesn’t have the force of a statutory one. And it cannot be considered a legal definition as it lacks clarity. Therefore any conduct contrary to the IHRA definition couldn’t necessarily be ruled illegal.

He says it was “most unsatisfactory for the Government to adopt a definition which lacks clarity and comprehensiveness” and suggests the Government’s decision to adopt the IHRA definition was simply a freestanding statement of policy — a mere suggestion as to a definition of anti-Semitism that public bodies might wish to use. But no public body was under an obligation to adopt or use it, or should be criticised for refusing to. He warned that if a public authority did decide to adopt the definition then it must interpret it in a way that’s consistent with the European Convention on Human Rights mentioned above.

A further obligation put on public authorities is “to create a favourable environment for participation in public debates for all concerned, allowing them to express their opinions and ideas without fear, even if these opinions and ideas are contrary to those defended by the official authorities or by a large part of public opinion, or even if those opinions and ideas are irritating or offensive to the public”.

According to Tomlinson, then, the IHRA definition doesn’t mean that calling Israel an apartheid state that practises settler colonialism, or urging BDS against Israel, can properly be characterized as anti-Semitic. Furthermore, a public authority seeking to apply the IHRA definition in order to prohibit or punish such activities “would be acting unlawfully.”

Retired Lord Justice of Appeal, Sir Stephen Sedley, has weighed in bycriticising the IHRA definition for lack of legal force. “It is not neutral: it may well influence policy both domestically and internationally.” He added that the right of free expression, now part of our domestic law by virtue of the Human Rights Act, “places both negative and positive obligations on the state which may be put at risk if the IHRA definition is unthinkingly followed”. Moreover the 1986 Education Act established an individual right of free expression in all higher education institutions “which cannot be cut back by governmental policies”.

Sedley felt the IHRA definition was open to manipulation. “What is needed now is a principled retreat on the part of government from a stance which it has naively adopted.”

As for Javid’s crack about not having to apologise for Israel’s existence, he must have forgotten that in the wake of the 1947 UN Partition Plan, which granted the Jews territory within defined borders, they declared statehood in 1948 without borders, grabbing as much extra land as they could by armed terror and ethnic cleansing. The new state of Israel’s admission to the UN in 1949 was conditional upon honouring the UN Charter and implementing UN General Assembly Resolutions 181 and 194. It has failed to do so and to this day repeatedly violates provisions and principles of the Charter.

When the UK Conservative Government makes pronouncements on foreign affairs it pays to consider that 80 percent of its MPs are claimed to be signed-up members of Friends of Israel and this is a stepping-stone to higher office. Conservative Friends of Israel, according to their website, are active at every level of the party.

It is sad that so many of our politicians are so spineless and so insecure that they feel the need to herd together under the flag of what the UN has called a racist state.

September 20, 2017 Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | Human rights, Israel, Palestine, Theresa May, UK, Zionism | Leave a comment

Are you, or have you ever been, an RT or Sputnik pundit?

By Neil Clark | RT | September 19, 2017

The demands from the NATO/military-industrial complex-funded Atlantic Council and neocon hawks for RT and Sputnik to be forced to register as ‘foreign agents’ in the US, brings to mind similarly disturbing events which took place in the ‘Land of the Free’ in the early 1950s.

The question asked by the original McCarthyite witch-hunters to people who held the ’wrong’ views back in the era of Rosemary Clooney and the Andrews Sisters was “Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Communist Party?”

Today, in the era of Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift, the neo-McCarthyites ask: “Are you now, or have you ever been, a guest or pundit on RT or Sputnik?” The wording might be slightly different, (and the background music more in your face), but the aim is the same. Namely, to try and scare people from speaking out against a foreign policy which relies on war and the threat of war, for fear they’ll be branded a Soviet, or Russian ‘agent’.

A 79-year-old piece of legislation, the Foreign Agents Registration Act, initially passed to counter Nazi propaganda activities before the start of World War Two, is the latest weapon being utilized by the ‘Pro-Freedom and Democracy’ Imperial Truth Enforcers, in their campaign against news organizations which don‘t toe the line. All genuine supporters of free speech and media pluralism, whether or not they are fans of RT or Sputnik, should be alarmed at recent developments.

You don’t have to be the owner of a giant magnifying glass or possess the detective skills of Sherlock Holmes to see whose fingerprints are on the ’Get RT and Sputnik to register under FARA’ operation. You don’t have to be Albert Einstein to understand why they are so keen to tarnish the RT and Sputnik brands.

Let’s go back to January 13th. On that day, the Atlantic Council, whose donors include leading US arms companies, NATO, several foreign governments, as well as lobby groups such as AIPAC, posted an article on its website entitled ‘US Should Require Russia’s RT to Register as Foreign Agent’ by one Elena Postnikova, a JD candidate at Georgetown University Law Center and a former DC Events and Outreach Officer at the US government-funded Freedom House.

Postnikova’s article of 13th January was republished by Newsweek and the Kyiv Post.

Then on 1st September, the Atlantic Council published a longer report by Ms. Postnikova entitled ‘Agent of Influence: Should Russia’s RT Register as a Foreign Agent?’

The Atlantic Coundil explained:

“In Agent of Influence, author Elena Postnikova, not only argues that RT should register with FARA but makes a legal case for it while laying out recommendations for policymakers. At a minimum, RT’s activities warrant a thorough investigation by the Department of Justice (DOJ).”

You can just imagine Senator Joe McCarthy punching the air on hearing that last statement, can’t you?

In her paper, Postnikova mentions the benefits of the DOJ getting RT to register. “FARA registration means that RT would need to conspicuously label its information as ‘distributed by an agent on behalf of the foreign principal’ and include these statements on its website, social media accounts, and in all broadcasts.” This would, she says be “warranted to alert the US public about the origin of RT’s information.” Showing that she possesses a fine sense of humor, Postnikova claims that getting RT to register as a ‘foreign agent‘ would actually boost free speech. “The disclosure would serve the First Amendment by supplementing information about the agent and ensuring that the public is not misled that it represents a disinterested source.”

A week after the 1st September publication, the Atlantic Council held a special meeting in Washington to discuss the paper (giving a whole new meaning to the phrase ‘AC/DC‘).

Then a few days after that the news broke that the FBI was getting involved, to question an ex-Sputnik employee called Andrew Feinberg. Feinberg, it was reported, had handed over to the FBI a thumbnail containing hundreds of internal emails and documents.

The anti-Russian media crowd couldn’t conceal their excitement.

Jamie Kirchick, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution, who had spoken at the 8th September Atlantic Council panel, and who had been high-fived by other neocons on social media for ‘ambushing’ RT live on air a few years back, tweeted triumphantly “Three days after our Atlantic Council panel both RT.com and Sputnik under investigation as foreign agents.”

If the McCarthyite hawks of the Atlantic Council get their way and the authorities in the US do force RT and Sputnik to register under FARA, under threat of a large fine and/or civil/criminal prosecution, then a disturbing precedent will have been set. FARA wasn’t designed to target bona fide news or press services not directly controlled by foreign governments, so to take action the authorities will have to find that RT and Sputnik aren’t kosher.

Of course, claiming that RT and Sputnik are not “proper newsgathering organizations” like CNN and the BBC and that the journalists who work for them are ‘fakes’ too, is standard fare for War Lobby propagandists and their fart-smelling groupies. If the robotic nature of these smears strikes you, then all you need to do is to turn to Sharyl Attkisson’s new book The Smear for an explanation. You can read my review of the book here.

Having aggressively pushed the case for FARA registration, those responsible are now keen to stress that it’s really no big deal. The Colombia Journalism Review ran a piece by one Jon Allsop, entitled ‘Concerns over FBI investigation into Russian ‘news’ are overblown.’ (Note how ‘news’ is put in inverted commas).

“FARA doesn’t add up to press censorship in this case: Outlets like Sputnik and RT aren’t conventionally seen as ‘the press,’ and the law in no way prohibits their activities,” Allsop explained. He cites Jamie Kirchick, who says “There is no concern about slippery slopes,” but there’s no mention that Kirchick described merely as “a journalist and writer who has covered Russia and the former Soviet Union,” was on the Atlantic Council panel that called for RT and Sputnik to be registered under FARA.

In similar fashion, a 9/11 Yahoo report on the Atlantic Council’s demands neglects to mention how the ‘Washington think tank’ is funded by NATO and the arms industry, and ironically enough given the subject matter, several foreign governments as well.

The move to get RT and Sputnik branded as ‘foreign agents’ is being presented by ‘mainstream’ outlets as a neutral process. In fact, it’s about as ‘neutral’ as General Franco refereeing a football match between Barcelona and Real Madrid, or The Joker having the casting vote on a jury deciding on whether to indict Batman for speeding.

What we are witnessing is a well-coordinated, well-synchronized and well-oiled campaign to marginalize all dissenting views on foreign policy.

Think back to November, when a mysterious new anonymous website called ’Prop Or Not’ popped up to publish a list of US news sites which it accused of “reliably echoing Russian propaganda,” and called on the G-men to investigate them for espionage.

‘The List’ included RT and Sputnik, but also sites from across the political spectrum with absolutely no connection to Russia. Prop or Not’s blacklist was then promoted as the work of ‘experts’ by the neocon Washington Post.

Again you can imagine Senator McCarthy’s whoop of delight.

We’ve reached the stage now when, as in the early Fifties, anyone who opposes a hawkish foreign policy is accused of either being in the pay of Moscow, i.e. a Russian agent, or of ‘echoing Russian propaganda.’ Against the overthrow of the secular, Christian-protecting government in Syria? Then you’re a stooge of Vladimir Putin!

It’s not just Donald Trump who’s been smeared in this way, but the likes of Nigel Farage, the former UKIP leader, and Labour’s left-wing leader Jeremy Corbyn too. All you have to do is to say “I want to end the wars and have better relations with Moscow,” and you’ll get the label.

And if you want to lose the label? Well, you have to do what the War Lobby demands of you, like sign a bill imposing even more draconian sanctions on Russia, bomb a Syrian air force base, or publicly condemn ‘Russian aggression’ in Ukraine.

The great irony behind all of this is that the ’realist’ Russian line on foreign policy is far more in tune with public opinion in the US and UK than the actual policies carried out by the neocon influenced US and UK regimes. Russia opposed the illegal invasion of Iraq, which directly led to the rise of ISIS. It has also stood firmly on the side of government forces fighting ISIS and Al-Qaeda groups in Syria, instead of trying to undermine them, as the West has done.

It’s because people reject the fraudulent War Party narrative that people across the world are increasingly turning to networks such as RT and Sputnik which provide a very different perspective on world affairs. These organizations provide a platform to people from the left and the right, who are kept off the ‘mainstream’ networks because they don’t meet with establishment approval. I remember the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq when programs such as the BBC’s Newsnight trotted out a series of ‘think tank pundits’ who assured us that Saddam possessed WMDs which threatened the entire world. These ‘experts’ went largely unchallenged, and we got a disastrous war which led to the deaths of one million people. The cheerleaders for the Iraq invasion would love us to go back to the halcyon days of 2002/3 when they had control of the narrative and could dictate who could and couldn’t appear on television. It was much easier to sell illegal wars to the public without ’pesky’ stations like RT and Sputnik around, much easier to peddle WMDs-style BS, much easier to launch phony ‘humanitarian interventions’ against the governments of resource-rich [or AIPAC-targeted] independent countries.

Fake news and ‘foreign agents‘?

Physician heal thyself.

Neil Clark is a journalist, writer, broadcaster and blogger. He has written for many newspapers and magazines in the UK and other countries including The Guardian, Morning Star, Daily and Sunday Express, Mail on Sunday, Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph, New Statesman, The Spectator, The Week, and The American Conservative. He is a regular pundit on RT and has also appeared on BBC TV and radio, Sky News, Press TV and the Voice of Russia. He is the co-founder of the Campaign For Public Ownership @PublicOwnership. His award winning blog can be found at http://www.neilclark66.blogspot.com. Follow Neil Clark @NeilClark66

September 19, 2017 Posted by aletho | Deception, Fake News, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia, Timeless or most popular | AIPAC, Andrew Feinberg, Newsweek, United States | Leave a comment

Google hiring 1,000 journalists in effort to control American news flow

It’s about controlling information offline and online

By Alex Christoforou | The Duran | September 19, 2017

Google is learning from its mistakes.

Not being able to place Hillary Clinton in office, the search monopoly has decided that online influence over what Americans think, say, and do is not enough to guarantee the right woman enters the White House.

Google is now embarking on a 5 year plan, where they will seed 1,000 aspiring, liberal left journalists into America’s local media markets.

Poynter reports that the Google News Lab will be working with Report For America (RFA) to hire 1,000 journalists all around the country.

Many local newsrooms have been cut to the bone so often that there’s hardly any bone left. But starting early next year, some may get the chance to rebuild, at least by one.

On Monday, a new project was announced at the Google News Lab Summit that aims to place 1,000 journalists in local newsrooms in the next five years. Report For America takes ideas from several existing organizations, including the Peace Corps, Americorps, Teach for America and public media.

Unlike foreign or domestic service programs or public media, however, RFA gets no government funding. But they are calling RFA a national service project. That might make some journalists uncomfortable – the idea of service and patriotism. But at its most fundamental, local journalism is about protecting democracy, said co-founder Charles Sennott, founder and CEO of the GroundTruth Project.

“I think journalism needs that kind of passion for public service to bring it back and to really address some of the ailments of the heart of journalism,” he said.

Here’s how RFA will work: On one end, emerging journalists will apply to be part of RFA. On the other, newsrooms will apply for a journalist. RFA will pay 50 percent of that journalist’s salary, with the newsroom paying 25 percent and local donors paying the other 25 percent. That reporter will work in the local newsroom for a year, with the opportunity to renew.

Zerohedge reports…

Of course, while the press release above tries to tout the shared financial responsibility of these 1,000 journalists, presumably as a testament to their ‘independence’, it took about 35 seconds to figure out that the primary funder of the journalists’ salaries, RFA, is funded by none other than Google News Lab.

Meanwhile, as a further testament to RFA’s ‘independence, we noticed that their Advisory Board is flooded with reputable, ‘impartial’ news organizations like the New York Times, NPR, CBS, ABC, etc….

We are sure that these 1,000 journalists will never be called upon by Google to report on the news in a way that benefits the giant search company.

September 19, 2017 Posted by aletho | Deception, Fake News, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | ABC, CBS, Google, New York Times, NPR, United States | Leave a comment

NGO says Israel’s censoring of online content ‘has no legal basis’

Ma’an – September 17, 2017

BETHLEHEM – Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, has called on Israel to shut down its so-called Cyber Unit, which collaborates with social media platforms to censor content, saying the unit has “no legal authority.”

The Israeli government launched the unit in the second half of 2015, when Israeli authorities alleged that a wave of unrest that erupted that fall was encouraged largely by online “incitement.” The crackdown has seen hundreds of Palestinians detained, while social media sites like Facebook and Twitter have complied with hundreds of requests by the Israeli state to censor content.

According to Adalah, the Cyber Unit says it is responsible for “dealing with cyberspace enforcement challenges” via censorship of social media posts and entails the removal of content added by users, restriction of access to certain websites, and outright blocking of users’ access to these sites.

Adalah said it sent a letter to Israeli Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit, State Attorney Shai Nitzan, and Cyber Unit director Haim Vismonsky, “demanding that they immediately cease the illegal operations of the state attorney’s Cyber Unit,” arguing that much of the censorship has been conducted without any basis in Israeli law.

“Nothing in the law allows state authorities to censor content based solely on an administrative determination… that the content amounts to a criminal offense. Likewise, there is no explicit directive in (Israeli) law authorizing the removal of content determined to amount to a criminal offense, even by a court,” Adalah Attorney Fady Khoury wrote.

Adalah cited statistics released by the Cyber Unit in its end-of-year 2016 report, that said the Israeli agency handled 2,241 cases of online content that were ostensibly posted in violation of the law; 1,554 of these were removed as a result of the unit’s operations.

“While private bodies such as social media corporations are not subject to Israeli public law and therefore may lawfully choose to remove content in accordance with their terms of service, state agents — such as the Cyber Unit — are indeed subject to Israeli law and much of their censorship activities are therefore illegal,” Adalah emphasized.

Khoury also stressed that the Cyber Unit operations are a clear violation of free speech, explaining that the Israeli state attorney’s practice of criminalizing certain expression on social media is tantamount to “an unproven suspicion.”

“The Cyber Unit cannot impose sanctions based solely on this suspicion, let alone severe sanctions in the form of censorship. The authorities are not allowed to demand the removal of speech that has not yet been proven to be criminal, even if it is unpleasant to their ears,” the Adalah attorney said in the report.

He explained that, “When the Cyber Unit appeals to a service provider with a request to censor content based on its suspicion that the concerned content is expression forbidden by law and without a final (judicial) ruling in the matter, this constitutes an unconstitutional violation of freedom of speech.”

Adalah also noted that Cyber Unit operations are a violation of the principle of separation of powers: “The pretense of deciding upon the criminalization of expression, without appealing to the court or conducting any legal proceeding — and upon this basis determine censorship sanctions — impinges upon and supplants judicial authority and leads to the infringement of the principle of separation of powers,” the letter said.

Adalah concluded that because “Cyber Unit clerks and administrative officials decide for themselves” whether or not expression is “incitement to violence and terror, and support of a terror organization,” the state attorney is usurping judicial authority “illegally and without any legal authorization.”

“Adalah demands that the Israeli attorney general, state attorney, and Cyber Unit halt all internet content censorship activities using the “alternative enforcement system” operated by the state attorney’s Cyber Unit,” the report stressed.

The same day Adalah published its report, Israeli newspaper The Jerusalem Post reported that Cyber Unit does not keep any record of the cases it pursues with Google and Facebook.

The Israeli justice ministry told the outlet that, “As a rule we do not keep the content we work to have removed,” without providing an explanation for the lack of record keeping.

Adalah told The Jerusalem Post that the ministry’s refusal “pointed up secrecy and a lack of transparency and accountability in the government body.”

The crackdown on social media activity also came after as a bill introduced by Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked seeks to allow Israeli officials to force Facebook to censor certain content deemed to be “incitement” — but only when it is made by Palestinians against Israelis, according to rights groups.

The law has moved through the Knesset despite the fact that Facebook already complies with at least 78 percent of Israel’s requests to delete content or suspend accounts.

A report released by the Arab Center for Social Media Advancement 7amleh further documented that slanderous, provocative, and threatening posts made by Israelis against Arabs and Palestinians more than doubled in 2016, reaching 675,000 posts made by 60,000 Hebrew-speaking Facebook users — with only very few cases being opened against Israelis.

September 17, 2017 Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | Human rights, Israel, Palestine, Zionism | Leave a comment

The (Criminal?) Subversion of the Academy in the Case Against Professor Anthony Hall

Power Against the Quest for Truth

Tony Hall c4d0c

Professor Anthony Hall. Image credit: The Lethbridge Herald

By Robin Mathews | American Herald Tribune | September 15, 2017

In “the civilized and democratic Western World” a huge battle is in process to control information, belief, understanding, ‘credible knowledge’, and the (real or contrived) ‘facts’ people hold to be true. The process involves a major activity of indoctrination – constant and on-going – towards the acceptance of an increasingly ‘top down’, undemocratic form of rule. The indoctrination does not just involve language as we (think we) know it but it involves a purposeful shaping and reshaping of language influenced by both action and inaction in the ‘public’ world.

The shaping of ‘the (apparently) real’ through language is darkly affected by action in society … and the failure of action. If Criminal Conspiracy – for instance – happens openly and observably and the State will not call it Criminal Conspiracy the real begins to become inauthentic and the language surrounding it begins to weaken. Criminal Conspiracy, just for instance, begins to possess a kind of non-existence although it really happens and really exists in law ….

In Canada (2015-2016), for instance, thirty-one criminal charges (put in place by the Canadian “Crown”) were levied against a controversial Senator in Canada’s “Upper Chamber” as part, many believe, of a huge campaign to indoctrinate Canadians about the (false) integrity of the people in power. The criminal charges were all (every last one!) thrown out by a judge of the Ontario Court of Justice with plain expression of his alarm at those conspiring to force actions upon the innocent Senator.

The judge gave every indication (without saying it outright) that Senator Duffy had been criminally conspired against. No criminal investigation, however, has been conducted against those conspiring and no criminal charges have been laid. None are expected. The Liberal government that has followed the Conservative government led by Stephen Harper (which undertook the unseemly set of actions against Senator Duffy) seems very clearly to be demonstrating that it doesn’t disapprove of criminal actions taken to indoctrinate the Canadian public.

The process of working at highest levels of government, of corporations, and the so-called Mainstream Press and Media to indoctrinate and condition the population to prescribed, false beliefs in a total or ‘totalitarian’ manner (‘as if exerted by a single force permitting no dissenting view’) is pervasive in almost all of ‘the civilized and democratic Western World’. The process is clearly intended to impose false views of reality upon whole, unsuspecting populations.

One of the significant, recent (in history) very successful (on-going) falsifications is described by Lance deHaven Smith in his book (2012) Conspiracy Theory in America. There deHaven Smith points out that the criticism of the Warren Commission inquiry into the assassination (1963) of John F. Kennedy was becoming so effective [the Commission and its ‘findings’ are now considered by many to be without any credibility] that the CIA set to work with surprising effectiveness to slander as “conspiracy theory” criticism of any spurious and/or fraudulent government or intelligence or police activity … and to designate that criticism as the product of cranks, imposters, and/or other wholly irresponsible rumour-mongers.

The CIA was so successful that the phrase “conspiracy theorist” has been lodged in the minds of a large population as a term indicating someone making fraudulent claims instead of someone pointing to possible unacceptable action taken by those in power. (Anthony Hall is accused – among other things – of being a conspiracy theorist.)

Since the Warren Commission (1963-1964) conspiracies against the “democratic” populations of the West have increased and grown in size. The falsification of evidence, supported by George W. Bush, U.S. president, and Tony Blair, British prime minister, in order to permit the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq – just for instance – are now common knowledge (and both continue their lives untroubled by legal actions). Those wars, without naming related others, are resulting (still) in enormous destruction, death, and devastation of community.

Other egregious falsifications of actions and events by governments are not common knowledge – in fact are disputed by every device of modern misinformation. The Afghanistan and Iraq invasions (2001 and 2003) are both connected to the enormous (2001) alleged False Flag operation to destroy three Trade Tower buildings in New York – which operation had very quickly attached to it an official version which, today, lies in tatters but is still forcefully maintained by all the Western governments. [As I write, 79 year old, former CIA agent Malcolm Howard – given only weeks to live – has reported that he was involved in the “controlled demolition” of the building called World Trade Centre #7.]

The growing library of works rejecting the official version is becoming immense. Professor Anthony Hall – as a scholar seeking the truth about official allegations against non-white (so-called) terrorists in the matter – is named as a Conspiracy Theorist partly because he has engaged in denial of the official 9/11 accounts and has considered the allegation that Israeli interests may have been deeply involved in 9/11.

To entertain that possibility is not necessarily to be opposed to the State of Israel – and it is clearly not evidence of anti-Semitism. But those claiming or asking if the Israeli State had a part in 9/11 are immediately under threat of being charged with anti-Semitism. Part of the basis for naming Professor Hall an anti-Semite lies in his on-going concern, as a broadcaster, with The False Flag Weekly News and with the on-going researches being undertaken on the causes of what is called 9/11.

The nature of scholarly endeavour is very frequently to reconsider accepted explanations of events … to re-configure “history”, and/or to offer new analyses of forces at work. Anthony Hall does those things in his two large scholarly volumes dedicated to the history of the displacement and erasure of indigenous peoples … and the developing Imperial Globalization accompanying their (on-going) oppression since 1492.

A criminal conspiracy was almost certainly entered into in order to attempt the destruction of Senator Mike Duffy. A much wider conspiracy is, I believe, in play to destroy Professor Anthony Hall of the University of Lethbridge. In the briefest terms there seem to be four more-or-less invisible global forces at work (and in conflict) which very likely have shaped the personnel and the nature of (what I call) the conspiracy against Professor Hall.

One is the view of Germany from 1930 to 1945. Another is the shifting view of the State of Israel at the present. Another – which has already been referred to – is the problem of False Flag events, the dishonesty involved in them, and the official explanations of them. The fourth is the role of universities in the examination of truth and the conflicts engendered when questionable or fraudulent ideas are held and championed by powerful forces in or connected to the university which – almost of necessity – come into contact with ‘truth seekers’ in universities … working in the traditional environment of “academic freedom”: freedom to inquire, to seek clear answers, and to speak freely without fear of censure or repression about findings.

A generally held view of Germany from the 1930s to 1945 has been one that believes the emergence of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party took Germany on a path of increasing brutality and social violence, and that the path seemed to be approved by the larger population. The “SS State” is thought to have enslaved, starved, tortured, murdered and otherwise destroyed “enemy” people: Jews, Slavs, political dissidents, gypsies, gays, etc. Moreover, it is said to have conducted what is now called The Holocaust: the active process of exterminating all Jews – ‘the final solution’.

Over the years since 1945 voices have been raised to challenge that view or aspects of it. On a video made recently by the Committee for the Open Debate of the Holocaust Professor Hall is asked if he approves of the work of the Committee. He replies there that he approves of open debate on all subjects and accepted truths. He has said, also, that he has been reading more recent materials on Germany from 1930 to 1945 that are making him re-think some of his ideas.

In short, the ‘truth’ about Germany from 1930 to 1945 is being reviewed and reassessed. Many Germans – often children and grandchildren of the adult members of the German community in those years – are seeking a re-examination and a reassessment of the “accepted” view, to provide, perhaps, a view of a much less brutal and single-minded State and population. Where the truth lies is in contest.

The accepted view of Israel in the West is of an unfairly punished people who have gained a homeland and are building a new society on sovereign territory. It is a people viewed not only as having been brutally oppressed and punished for their identity by Nazi power, but rejected and demeaned by many so-called democratic populations. That view has never been globally consented to partly because of the dispute about Israel’s legitimacy (“on Palestinian land”) held in parts of the Middle East.

As the State of Israel appears to become more warlike, oppressive of Palestinians, and greedy for the possession of territory, (the last condemned by the United Nations), the feeling for brutally mistreated Jewish people of the past does not diminish. But alarm at what is thought by some to be oppressive policies and actions of the Israeli State has created a body of people sharply critical of that State’s policies and actions – especially in relation to Palestine and the Palestinians.

That sentiment comes into sharp conflict with the efforts of at least a part of the Israeli State to equate itself with Jewish identity – and so with the attempt to equate criticism of the actions of the Israeli State with anti-Semitism.

Needless to say, in that context, any mitigation of the view of a ruthless, inhumane, and anti-Semitic Germany from 1930 to 1945 probably offends some in the State of Israel and its closest supporting organizations outside Israel. They seem to see the necessity of a consenting global community about the persecution of the Jews in order to have the global community accept Israeli State policies, however offensive. If the Nazi regime was not as viciously brutal to Jews as some sources wish it to be seen to have been, (and as it may have been) then sympathy for the State of Israel might diminish.

In the playing out of the astonishing (and growing) scholarship concerning what might be called the (alleged) false information disseminated by governments to explain extraordinary, violent, and/or visibly brutal events in the community, claims are made that ‘government’ and/or related forces create many of the violent events to condition the population to be fearful and so to accept increasingly fascist rule, and/or to believe the government-created violence is the act of the enemy (whichever ‘foreigners’, religion, or State the government wishes the people of the country to learn to hate). The work undertaken by serious and reputable investigators to reveal and to prove that governments (or their proxies) create random terrorist acts – or what are called “False Flag Events” – has grown to sizable and convincing proportions. Indeed, the growing “False Flag Investigative Industry” suggests a growing field of government criminal acts disguised as the random, insane, or purposefully effected acts of “enemies” (or those that governments wish to convince their populations are enemies).

Professor Hall has engaged actively in “False Flag” inquiry and is a co-host of the weekly program (on the net) called The False Flag Weekly News in which recent (and suspected) manifestations of False Flag activity are tabled and discussed. Among the False Flag theories in play, one concerns the truth of the collapsed Trade Towers of 9/11 and who (if the official story is incorrect) was responsible for the attack. One theory (not by any means the only one) is that a major participant in the event may have represented the interests of the State of Israel or may have been, in fact, an arm of the State of Israel.

Professor Anthony Hall has encouraged open questioning of the standard view of Germany between 1930 and 1945 (without saying he believes the standard view is wrong). He has engaged in open discussion of the False Flag phenomenon and its relation to government and government policy. He has been willing to consider the possibility of Israeli involvement in 9/11 – the destruction of the Trade Towers in New York on September 11, 2001. He has exercised academic freedom and democratic ‘freedom of speech’ in those matters as well as others that have fallen within the scope of his research.

On August 26, 2016 a vicious anti-Semitic cartoon was posted on Professor Hall’s Facebook page when he was not in Canada. He was unaware of the posting, and of its removal – all happening in a period of several hours. And he was unaware of actions being taken over the next days against him as a guilty party wishing to defame and asperse Jews … by means of what (the posted cartoon, used as evidence) can easily be called Hate Literature.

He was unaware of all that went on … because he didn’t post the obnoxious cartoon and didn’t even know of its posting … and because the President of the University of Lethbridge, Mike Mahon, who was informed as soon as the next day and who entered into discussion with accusers of Professor Hall (and with others) over succeeding days did nothing whatever to make contact with Professor Hall, his colleague, and to test Hall’s reactions to news of the posting.

In the minds of many people the behaviour of president Mahon may well suggest he wanted to believe the accusers of Professor Hall and did not want to have to entertain the possibility that his senior colleague and twenty-six year member of the scholarly community of University of Lethbridge did not post … and had nothing to do with the posting … of the slanderous and hateful cartoon.

Some observations may be made about the conduct of President Mahon. One I derive from my own wide experience on every major campus in Canada (see “Canadianization Movement”,Wikipedia) where I consulted, variously, with student, faculty, and administrative personnel. The first observation is to note the failure of the President of the University of Lethbridge to respect collegial relations and to consult early with Professor Hall, simply as a colleague – and to gain absolutely necessary information about the incident. Secondly, one must observe President Mahon’s rejection of the demands of natural justice which would require him as President to consult and to inform (at the earliest possible moment) anyone at U. of Lethbridge whose reputation and livelihood were in peril by growing accusations (untested). Failing grossly on those two matters suggests, to me, that President Mahon might well appear to fair-minded people to have been astonishingly incompetent as a professional and as a human being in his treatment of the very serious allegations brought against Professor Hall.

An even more serious allegation may lie in another observation: President Mahon (growing evidence reveals) apparently consulted with some of the false accusers of Professor Hall, sat with committees of so-called investigators, and formulated punitive measures to take against Professor Hall without having asked to meet and speak with Professor Hall. That behaviour on the President’s part may well point to his participation in a Conspiracy to do irreparable harm to Professor Hall. A Conspiracy very strongly appears to have been undertaken against Senator Mike Duffy … as I have said … but a worse one may well have been undertaken against Professor Anthony Hall.

Though Professor Hall knew nothing about the vile cartoon posted on his Facebook Page, B’nai Brith Canada personnel and sympathizers knew about it very quickly. In very short order they – or a collaborator – informed the president of the University of Lethbridge, the Premier of the province of Alberta, the Solicitor General, and the Minister of Education of the province. Replies were returned to the person giving false information with what I call astonishing speed. In my experience of writing to top government figures I can provide witness that the average Canadian is not responded to with that alacrity. Who, then, could write to the Premier of Alberta and members of cabinet (conveying false information to them) and receive such speedy and sympathetic response? The name of that person is being (for some inexplicable reason) kept from inquirers by the Alberta government. What is the Alberta government hiding … what does the government of Alberta fear??

In a truly astonishing letter written to President Mike Mahon and sent to others like Premier Rachel Notley on September 1, 2016, Bert Raphael, Q.C., LSM, President of the Canadian Jewish Rights Association quotes the whole of the unsavoury text posted on Professor Hall’s Facebook Page. And he finishes his letter (a Queen’s Counsel assuming guilt with the rashness of a school boy) with the following paragraph:

“I trust you agree that such a statement has no place in Canada and most certainly from the lips of a university professor. I would respectfully suggest that such an odious pronouncement would warrant Professor Hall’s dismissal from your University. I would be interested in your response which I undertake to share with the members of my organization whose names appear on the reverse side of this stationery.”

President Mahon waited weeks without seeking a meeting with Professor Hall, then sought one (October 3) almost immediately – and when Professor Hall, otherwise committed, couldn’t comply, President Mahon announced the next day (October 4) (in a letter to Hall) that he was immediately “suspended, without pay from all duties and privileges as a member of the academic staff at the University of Lethbridge, including any and all duties and privileges associated with teaching, research, and community service.” Professor Hall was, in addition, told he could not “attend” at any University of Lethbridge campus.

Having thus, summarily effected in fact (and surely in the public mind) a punishment for wholly unproved (and, in fact, a false allegation against Professor Hall), President Mahon finished his letter by saying that the suspension was “being implemented as a precautionary, not disciplinary, measure… “

Receiving what was libellous, wholly incorrect information (and accepting it as truth without engaging in a word of consultation with his accused colleague) President Mahon wrote to the university community the following about the order that Professor Hall remain off campus, cease his on-going teaching there, and no longer receive his professional salary.

“This action is not focused on Dr. Hall’s published scholarship, driven by complaints of students, or the demands of external advocacy groups. It is focused on his You Tube based videos and comments in social media that have been characterized as being anti-Semitic, supportive of holocaust denial and engagement in conspiracy theories.” [Notice President Mahon uses the term ”conspiracy theories” in the way the CIA shaped the phrase in order to slander and make ineffective substantial criticism and research about government(s) (and others’) misuse of power.]

The questions that arise out of President Mahon’s strange statement are obvious: if president Mahon did not answer the demands of an external advocacy group, how did he come to know of the posting on Professor Hall’s Facebook Page? The President nowhere says he discovered it for himself in the brief few hours the posting was available. Moreover, he had to learn that the posting had been there by the (so far) anonymous writer and then by other writers plainly sympathetic to B’nai Brith … such as Bert Raphael QC whose astonishing accusation I have quoted above.

In addition, President Mahon is reported to have spoken personally on September 1, 2016 to the president of B’nai Brith Canada (but he did not speak to Professor Hall). The university, moreover, has refused to release for examination most of the records of its activities and communications involved in the actions against Professor Hall.

That, alone, is simply astounding – that a university (the bastion of free and open inquiry) would conspire to keep secret its actions and communications relating to what is almost certainly the most serious (and dubious) disciplinary matter in its history.

In addition, President Mahon writes not that he, the President, holds Anthony Hall’s (falsely alleged) comments to be “anti-Semitic” but that they “have been characterized as being anti-Semitic….” If that is the case, someone must have characterized them for President Mahon as the negative things he mentions; some “external advocacy” group or groups must have conveyed that impression to him. The President of the University of Lethbridge appears to be tripping embarrassingly over his own feet in an attempt to disguise the truth about his alleged knowledge and its sources. He has the knowledge of falsely alleged evil done by Professor Hall, “characterized as being anti-Semitic” but he doesn’t characterize it as that himself … and he appears to claim no one else does either!

Ken Rubin, contracted by the Canadian Association of University Teachers, reports further behaviour of the University of Lethbridge which points to a (criminal?) conspiracy to harm Professor Hall. I quote Ken Rubin:

“Incredibly, the records show President Mahon invited the 4 external groups (B’nai Brith et. al.) to consult with Robert Thompson, the university’s external lawyer investigating the Hall case where they could have their legal counsels present. Yet it appears Hall was never consulted or approached or at least there’s no record to that effect.” [Professor Hall reports he knew nothing of the meeting(s).]

The evidence convinces me that there is at least the likelihood that an intricate group of conspirators worked together to insult, to misrepresent, and to harm in character, reputation, and professional standing Professor Anthony Hall. President Mike Mahon of the University of Lethbridge, I believe, must be considered a possible central agent in such a concerted action. I may, of course, be wrong. The case being taken by Professor Hall against the University of Lethbridge should provide answers to most of the questions that the falsely attributed posting on Professor Hall’s Facebook have engendered.

At some time – quite early in this barbaric saga – the University of Lethbridge began and (apparently) completed a secret investigation of Professor Hall – an action repugnant in every way to the most basic principles of fairness held in university communities. In addition, it filed against him (without permitting him any participation) a complaint to the Alberta Human Rights Commission. The complaint was dismissed, but President Mahon’s team persisted, appealed the dismissal, apparently reformulated their materials, and had a complaint against Professor Hall accepted.

From the small part of it I have been able to examine, I judge I am reading a presentation that would be a delight to the CIA. Every statement of, for instance, “Islamic terrorism” or of a similar idea is accepted without murmur. Criticism of such easy acceptance is apparently a violation of someone’s Human Rights. That has to be a very peculiar state of mind in Canada. Especially since in July of 2016, Madam Justice Catherine Bruce of the B.C. Supreme court wrote a 217 page judgement making crystal clear that a so-called Islamic Terror Event staged at the British Columbia Legislature grounds (on July 1, 2013) was wholly undertaken by more than 200 RCMP employees, entrapping two socially challenged converts to Islam, spending millions of dollars of unknowing taxpayers money, and working with and through Ottawa Headquarters in relation to the action in British Columbia.

Other Islamic terror event shams have almost certainly occurred (probably frequently) in other places. Not to question those events may, indeed, contribute to the violation of the Human Rights of innocent people.

Anthony Hall – a wide-ranging, openly inquiring, continually scrutinizing Canadian – appears to have dared to ask questions and to be sympathetic to analyses that – while unproved – are in no way alien to discussion in democratic society … analyses that some forces in Canada wish to censor, to deny, and to erase from the attention of Canadians.

The seriousness of the attack on Professor Hall cannot be downplayed. Its perpetrators undertook to go around all established University of Lethbridge procedures built and agreed to by the faculty and administration there to manage such issues. The perpetrators undertook to ram into place a clause in a highly aberrant Alberta Education Law that permits university presidents to remove at will anyone they choose to remove. That strikes me as a plainly fascist initiative which President Mahon should have rejected openly and vigorously but which he seized upon to use against Professor Hall.

The size and the intensity of the conspiracy to destroy and defame Professor Anthony Hall can be glimpsed when one realizes it appears to want (A) to close down discussion of German history between 1930 and 1945. It appears to want (B) to close down discussion of False Flag (government and/or Deep State presentations of violent) events created apparently with the intention of placing blame for them upon whatever source those in power wish to defame and make ‘enemy’. It appears to want (C) to close down some perfectly legitimate considerations of the role of the State of Israel in Middle Eastern and global affairs. It wants (D) to keep secret almost all of its activities to inculpate Professor Hall. And, finally, (E), the conspirators appear to want to wipe out the idea of Academic Freedom – which is essentially what Canadians think of when they speak of “freedom of speech”. Canadians mean the right to inquire, to observe, to debate, to formulate and discuss ideas in public about public matters without fear of intimidation or punishment.

The (criminal?) conspirators (if that is what they are) acting against Professor Hall want, I believe, to decide what ideas Canadians in all walks of life are free to hold and to express. To name – as I think we must name – one university President as an actor among such alleged conspirators must be a wake-up call to all Canadians – and especially to those in the community of scholars – to make sure no one in the Academy can destroy its most fundamental and noble tradition: the open and unimpeded search for truth.

Robin Mathews is a retired professor who taught English literature at Carleton University in Ottawa Ontario and at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver BC. He is well known for his campaign to Canadianize the faculty and curricula of Canadian universities.

September 15, 2017 Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Deception, Fake News, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | 9/11, Canada, Human rights, Zionism | Leave a comment

Facebook Promises To Censor All Material That Makes Zuckerberg Sad

By Tyler Durden | Zero Hedge | September 13, 2017

Earlier this morning, Facebook Vice President of Media Partnerships shared a new blog post on the company’s website detailing precisely how they intend to censor content with which they happen to disagree. Apparently all content providers who share “clickbait or sensationalism, or post misinformation and false news” will be deemed ineligible to monetize their efforts over Facebook.

To use any of our monetization features, you must comply with Facebook’s policies and terms, including our Community Standards, Payment Terms, and Page Terms. Our goal is support creators and publishers who are enriching our community. Those creators and publishers who are violating our policies regarding intellectual property, authenticity, and user safety, or are engaging in fraudulent business practices, may be ineligible to monetize using our features.

Creators and publishers must have an authentic, established presence on Facebook — they are who they represent themselves to be, and have had a profile or Page on Facebook for at least one month. Additionally, some of our features like Ad Breaks require a sufficient follower base, something that could extend to other features over time.

Those who share content that repeatedly violates our Content Guidelines for Monetization, share clickbait or sensationalism, or post misinformation and false news may be ineligible or may lose their eligibility to monetize.

Ironically, the biggest peddlers of “clickbait or sensationalism, or misinformation and false news” these days seems to be the largest, and ‘most respected’ mainstream media outlets… presumably there is a carve out for the likes of CNN, NYT and Wapo ?

Zuck

Of course, we first noted the efforts of Facebook to combat the spread of “fake news” over social media back in December 2016 when they first introduced a filter intended to flag ‘fake’ content so that users wouldn’t have to go through the hassle of critically analyzing information on their own. As we noted at the time, it was a genius plan, except for one small issue: who determines what is considered “fake news” and how exactly do they draw those conclusions? From our prior post (see “Facebook Launches Campaign To Combat “Fake News”“):

The first problem, however, immediately emerges because as NBC notes, “legitimate news outlets won’t be able to be flagged”, which then begs the question who or what is considered “legitimate news outlets”, does it include the likes of NYTs and the WaPos, which during the runup to the election declared on a daily basis, that Trump has no chance of winning, which have since posted defamatory stories about so-called “Russian propaganda news sites”, admitting subsequently that their source data was incorrect, and which many consider to be the source of “fake news”.

Also, just who makes the determination what is considered “legitimate news outlets.”

Luckily, Zuckerberg cleared up all the confusion in a subsequent post in which he basically admitted that all ‘fact-checking’ would be outsourced to disaffected Hillary voters and the completely impartial, ‘myth-busting’ website Snopes.com.

Historically, we have relied on our community to help us understand what is fake and what is not. Anyone on Facebook can report any link as false, and we use signals from those reports along with a number of others — like people sharing links to myth-busting sites such as Snopes — to understand which stories we can confidently classify as misinformation. Similar to clickbait, spam and scams, we penalize this content in News Feed so it’s much less likely to spread.

Keep in mind folks, this entire Facebook witch hunt has been prompted by $50,000 worth of ads that ‘MAY’ have been purchased by Russian-linked accounts to run ‘potentially politically related’ ads.

September 15, 2017 Posted by aletho | Deception, Fake News, Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | Human rights, United States | Leave a comment

US Seeks to Monopolize Cyberwarfare

By Ulson Gunnar – New Eastern Outlook – 15.09.2017

The use of information to enhance martial power goes back to the beginning of human civilization itself, where propaganda and psychological warfare went hand-in-hand with slings, arrows, swords and shields.

The most recent iteration of this takes the form of social media and cyberwarfare where tools are being developed and deployed to influence populations at home and abroad, to manipulate political processes of foreign states and even tap into and exploit global economic forces.

In the beginning of the 21st century, the United States held an uncontested monopoly over the tools of cyberwarfare. Today, this is changing quickly, presenting an increasingly balanced cyberscape where nations are able to defend themselves on near parity with America’s ability to attack them.

To reassert America’s control over information and the technology used to broker it, Jared Cohen, current Google employee and former US State Department staff, has proposed a US-created and dominated “international” framework regarding cyberconflict.

His op-ed in the New York Times titled, “How to Prevent a Cyberwar,” begins by admitting the very pretext the US is using to expand its control over cyberwarfare is baseless, noting that “specifics of Russia’s interference in the 2016 America election remain unclear.”

Regardless, Cohen continues by laying out a plan for reasserting American control over cyberwarfare anyway, by claiming:

Cyberweapons won’t go away and their spread can’t be controlled. Instead, as we’ve done for other destructive technologies, the world needs to establish a set of principles to determine the proper conduct of governments regarding cyberconflict. They would dictate how to properly attribute cyberattacks, so that we know with confidence who is responsible, and they would guide how countries should respond.

Cohen, unsurprisingly, nominates the US to lead and direct these efforts:

The United States is uniquely positioned to lead this effort and point the world toward a goal of an enforceable cyberwarfare treaty. Many of the institutions that would be instrumental in informing these principles are based in the United States, including research universities and the technology industry. Part of this effort would involve leading by example, and the United States can and should establish itself as a defender of a free and open internet everywhere.

Cohen never explains how this US-dominated framework will differ from existing “international” frameworks regarding conventional warfare the US regularly abuses to justify a growing collection of devastating conflicts it is waging worldwide.

And as has been repeatedly documented, the United States’ definition of a “free and open internet everywhere” is an Internet dominated by US tech companies seeking to enhance and expand US interests globally.

Cohen ironically notes that:

Cyberweapons have already been used by governments to interfere with elections, steal billions of dollars, harm critical infrastructure, censor the press, manipulate public conversations about crucial issues and harass dissidents and journalists. The intensity of cyberconflict around the world is increasing, and the tools are becoming cheaper and more readily available.

Indeed, cyberweapons have already been used, primarily by the United States.

Jared Cohen himself was directly involved in joint operations between Google, Facebook, the US State Department and a number of other US tech and media enterprises which before and during 2011 set the stage for the so-called “Arab Spring.”

It included the training, funding and equipping of activists years ahead of the the uprisings as well as active participation in the uprisings themselves, including providing assistance to both protesters and militants everywhere from Libya to Syria in overthrowing governments targeted by Washington for regime change.

One such tool used in these efforts was described in a UK Independent article titled, “Google planned to help Syrian rebels bring down Assad regime, leaked Hillary Clinton emails claim,” which would report that:

An interactive tool created by Google was designed to encourage Syrian rebels and help bring down the Assad regime, Hillary Clinton’s leaked emails have reportedly revealed.

By tracking and mapping defections within the Syrian leadership, it was reportedly designed to encourage more people to defect and ‘give confidence’ to the rebel opposition.

The article would continue, mentioning Jared Cohen by name:

The email detailing Google’s defection tracker purportedly came from Jared Cohen, a Clinton advisor until 2010 and now-President of Jigsaw, formerly known as Google Ideas, the company’s New York-based policy think tank.

In a July 2012 email to members of Clinton’s team, which the WikiLeaks release alleges was later forwarded to the Secretary of State herself, Cohen reportedly said: “My team is planning to launch a tool on Sunday that will publicly track and map the defections in Syria and which parts of the government they are coming from.”

Would Cohen’s more recently proposed “framework” have prevented the United States’ use of these cyberweapons against sovereign states to undermine sociopolitical stability, overturn entire governments and plunge them into enduring chaos many still remain in 6 years later? Most likely not.

What Cohen and the interests he represents are truly concerned with is that nations are now not only able to recognize, prepare for and defend against US cyberwarfare, they may be capable of retaliating against the US.

Cohen’s proposal for an international framework to govern cyberwarfare simply seeks to define it in terms that leaves the US with both an uncontested monopoly over cyberwarfare as well as the means to wield it globally with absolute impunity.

It would be not unlike current “international” frameworks used to govern conflicts between nations which the US has used to justify an expansive, global campaign of extraterritorial war stretching from North Africa to Central Asia and beyond.

Such frameworks have become enablers of injustice, not a deterrence to it.

As nations from Iran to North Korea are discovering, the only true means of defending oneself from foreign military aggression is creating a plausible deterrence to dissuade foreign nations from attacking. This is done by creating a price for attacking and invading that is higher than the perceived benefits of doing so.

Nations like Russia and China have already achieved this balance with the United States in terms of conventional and nuclear warfare, and have now nearly established a similar deterrence in terms of cyber and information warfare. For the rest of the world, developing cyberdefense is not as costly as conventional military or nuclear arsenals, making cyberwarfare a corner of the battlefield unlikely to be monopolized by the US as it had done at the turn of the century.

Ensuring that no single nation ever has the opportunity to abuse such a monopoly again means exposing and confronting efforts by those like Google’s Jared Cohen and his proposal for an “international framework” for cyberwarfare that resembles the same sort of enabling the United Nations provides the US in terms of proliferating conventional conflicts across the globe.

September 15, 2017 Posted by aletho | Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular | Google, Jared Cohen, United States | Leave a comment

Amazon Censors Bad Reviews of Hillary Clinton’s New Book

OffGuardian | September 15, 2107

Hillary Clinton’s book “What Happened”, a memoir of a fairly disastrous and ridiculously expensive Presidential campaign, went on sale a few days ago. Within hours it had over 1500 reviews on Amazon, many of them very, very negative.

Amazon responded by deleting over 900 of them. 95% of those left are 5 star reviews. Zero Hedge has a great selection of screengrabs showing the progression.

Putting aside the questions of corruption and corporate censorship, this is not new ground for Clinton’s camp, or for power structures in general. During the early stages of the Ukrainian coup in 2014, many mainstream news outlets (and especially the Guardian ) responded to dissension in the comments by deleting swaths of them. That policy is the very reason this website exists.

During the Presidential election the press was filled to the brim with babble, that never once touched on some important issues. American TV networks cut-off people mid-interview for saying the wrong thing. Three. Separate. Times. The media completely denied Clinton was sick, deriding it as a “conspiracy theory”, until she literally collapsed in the street. Some newspapers are already claiming the hate for her book is just misogyny.

Separate from the personal political agenda – Amazon’s founder, Jeff Bezos, was a big Clinton supporter – there is the ever-present cause of every self-respecting American: money. Simon & Schuster already paid Clinton an $8 million advance, which they are very unlikely to make back.

Amazon is no stranger to corruption, it is well documented how small a percentage of its taxes it pays, it would be foolish to assume that practices of that type end there. It’s possible, even likely, that certain publishers, movie studios, television networks etc, already pay Amazon to publish good reviews (real or not) and delete bad reviews. Bad reviews could sink this book before it gets anywhere, so there is every motive.

In this instance Amazon released a statement claiming that the reviews were clearly fake because none of the people had confirmed purchases of the book, and it had not been on sale very long. True or not, this misses the point. It can’t be up to a nameless authority to decide which views are censored and which allowed to stand.

Again and again we see attempts to create a real-life Brave New World, in which we are expected to simply pretend we didn’t see things, didn’t hear things, don’t know things. It doesn’t work. Everybody knows about Clinton’s background, whether CNN tells them or not. You can find out the truth of Syria with a simple google search. The Ghostbusters remake was terrible. Wikileaks has five million twitter followers.

In a way, what we have here is a perfect microcosm of the last Presidential election. Clinton writes a book in which she (apparently) comes over as bitter and unlikable, the public review it badly, and then the billionaire donor, owner of both a multinational mega-corporation and the Washington Post, has his machinery click into gear to pretend it didn’t happen.

You’d think they’d have learned it doesn’t work, by now.

September 15, 2017 Posted by aletho | Book Review, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular | Amazon, Hillary Clinton, United States | Leave a comment

ADL Campus guide describes how to block events about Palestine

The ADL claims to oppose injustice, but spends much of its huge budget defaming Palestinians and their allies who work for an end to Israel’s human rights abuses.

By Alison Weir | If Americans Knew | September 13, 2107

The ADL (Anti-Defamation League) has just launched a new initiative for college students called “ADL CAMPUS: Tools for Dealing with Anti-Semitic and Anti-Israel Incidents on Campus.”

This resource contains much useful information about addressing anti-Semitism, endorses such valuable principles as freedom of speech and non-violence, and recommends that students talk to others who may hold different perspectives.

It also, however, contains some deeply problematic components for anyone who believes that human rights and justice should apply to all people without exception.

Unfortunately, the ADL does not share this belief. While it announces prominently, “We protect the Jewish people and secure justice and fair treatment to all,” in reality the ADL supports Israeli injustice against Palestinians.

Its recent campus resource exemplifies this, and distorts facts and words in order to do so.

First of all, ADL Campus conflates criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism. Rather than meaning bigotry against Jewish people, the ADL’s use of the term anti-Semitism includes many forms of criticism of Israel. The Israeli government and certain of its partisans have been pushing this new, expanded definition in the U.S., Europe and elsewhere.

Below, this article will look in more detail at what kinds of criticism of Israel the ADL considers unacceptable, and why its parameters will include virtually all speakers truly critical of Israeli oppression of Palestinians. First, however, let us turn to the ADL’s advice on blocking events championing Palestinian human rights (and undermining free speech and academic inquiry).

ADL strategies to prevent events about Palestine

ADL Campus provides an entire section on how to block events on Palestine. The section starts out by assuring students that they have tremendous resources on their campuses to help them in this: faculty, Hillel, Chabad, J Street U, Stand With Us, The David Project, off-campus organizations like ADL, the Israel Action Network, Israel on Campus Coalition, AIPAC, and “your local Israeli Consulate.”

It provides an array of “Proactive Strategies to Prevent Anti-Israel Activity” – “steps you can take year-round to prevent an anti-Israel event from taking place on your campus, and to be prepared if and when an anti-Israel event does take place.”

They are advised to join – and lead, when possible – student organizations so that they can use this position to advocate for Israel and prevent campus activism on Palestine. The guide advises students to:

“Run for student government. Write for the campus newspaper. Join committees and other student organizations. Holding leadership positions on campus provides a great opportunity to meet new people, build coalitions, and exchange views with your peers. With a seat at the table, you can more effectively speak out (or even vote) against anti-Israel actions, including divestment resolutions.”

This is not a new idea. In 2010 an AIPAC official (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) said that AIPAC was going to take over student governments in order to block resolutions on behalf of Palestinian rights:

More recently, pro-Israel students have been working to insert an Israel-centric definition of anti-Semitism into student governments. This then blocks university funding for student groups wishing to bring speakers on Palestine.

ADL Campus expands further upon the value of building relationships with other students as a strategy to prevent Palestine activism:

“Build coalitions with other student groups. Take the time to understand the needs and priorities of other groups and learn how to be an ally to other communities. Attend their events and meetings. Join advocacy efforts for issues you care about. Think about opportunities for co-sponsoring events with these groups.”

Another suggested strategy is to put on Israel-related events; again the document suggests resources students can tap into:

“Hillel, the Israeli consulate responsible for the region in which your campus is located, ADL and other organizations, on campus and off, can help provide you with speakers and ideas.”

What to do if an event about Palestine is scheduled

If, despite their efforts, a program on Palestine is scheduled for their campus, ADL Campus tells students what to do next: investigate the speaker by contacting Hillel, ADL, ICC (Israel on Campus), or other organizations. (Some of these groups compile witch-hunt-like dossiers on Palestinian rights speakers which often contain inaccurate information, grossly exaggerated ad hominem attacks and claims that they are “anti-Semitic.”)

If they find that the speaker has engaged in alleged “hate speech, including anti-Semitic comments [sic],” ADL Campus tells them to contact the administration about it. Given that the ADL labels numerous valid statements about Israel “anti-Semitic (see below),” this could apply to virtually all honest and committed speakers on Palestine, and is often used in attempts to impugn the speaker’s integrity and block his or her talk. Such misrepresentations sometimes cause academic departments and other organizations to back out of sponsoring a lecture.

If an event does go forward with speakers that don’t pass ADL muster, ADL Campus tells students they should consider “an active, organized effort.” It advises them to “send a small contingent of pro-Israel students to the event to question the speaker about their views. Prepare some questions in advance based on what you’ve learned about the speaker [sic] in your research.”

ADL Campus also tells students: “Share information with fellow students attending the event about the speakers and organizations they’re about to hear from. Prepare fact sheets [sic] in advance that highlight how extreme the views of the speaker really are. ADL and other organizations make it easy to access information on extreme speakers who frequently appear on campuses.”

In reality, such “fact sheets” typically misrepresent speakers’ statements and contain non-factual information about Israel-Palestine in general and about the speaker in particular.

The ADL “deciphers” anti-Semitism

ADL Campus contains an entire section and video that claim to help students decipher when something is anti-Semitic or contains “anti-Israel bias” (the latter seems to be anti-Semitism’s almost equally objectionable sister sin).

According to the ADL, you are anti-Semitic if you who fail to affirm Israel’s alleged “right to exist as a Jewish state.”

Palestinians forced out in 1948 by Israel’s founding war

Affirming such a “right” may seem benign. In reality, it means affirming Israel’s “right” to have created its state through the violent expulsion of the majority indigenous population and confiscation of their land, simply because they were not Jewish. It also means you believe Israel has the “right” to prohibit these families from returning to their homes because they are of the “wrong” ethnicity or religion (even though returning to one’s home is an internationally recognized human right.)

In actuality, saying that Israel has a “right to exist as a Jewish state” entails the morally untenable position that universal human rights do not apply to the residents and indigenous people Israel does not want in its ethnically preferential state.

ADL Campus also states that BDS (Boycott, Divestment, & Sanctions), the international nonviolent movement that works to require Israel to adhere to international law and end its violations of human rights, is “anti-Semitic.”

In fact, the ADL head has just endorsed legislation that would make Americans who support boycotts targeting Israel criminals to be punished by fines of up to $1 million and 20 years in prison. Once again, we see the ADL turning morality on its head. Those who stand up for justice and who oppose oppression and discrimination are not bigots or criminals, they are human rights champions.

While the ADL Campus video allows in theory that “people can support the Palestinian cause without being anti-Israel,” it censures what the ADL claims is “illegitimate criticism.” As the narrator’s voice intones that this consists of “false accusations,” the screen shows the words apartheid, genocide, and ethnic cleansing.

Screenshot from ADL Campus video

Far from being “false accusations” and “illegitimate criticism,” however, all three characterizations of Israel and its actions are based on factual conditions and have been argued for by diverse scholars, institutions, and human rights advocates (see links below*).

ADL campus also decrees that statements comparing Israel to Nazis are “anti-Semitic” (reflecting the international redefinition of the term mentioned above). However, Israeli leaders themselves at times have referred to one another this way, beginning with Ben Gurion, who compared both Zionist leader Ze’ev Jabotinsky and future Prime Minister Menachem Begin to Hitler (Begin returned the epithet). An article in the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz is headlined: Calling your political rival a Nazi is a time-hallowed tradition in Israel.

And while such comparisons are exaggerated and imprecise, some years ago there was an uproar in Israel when an Israeli military officer suggested that studying how the German army fought in the Warsaw ghetto could be useful in finding strategies to use in seizing “a densely populated refugee camp, or take over the casbah in Nablus.” Author Melvin Goodman, describing the cruel situation in Gaza, concludes: “Perhaps the comparison with the Warsaw Ghetto is not completely far-fetched after all.”

ADL helps mislead people, then calls them “anti-Semitic”

In one case, the ADL’s characterization of some statements about Israel as “anti-Semitic” may be legitimate. The ADL accuses individuals of being “anti-Semitic”– i.e. bigots – if they suggest that all Jewish people are responsible for the actions of Israel.

Such a conflation is erroneous and should be corrected. However, it is important to understand that the state of Israel itself and its strongest partisans, including the ADL, actively work to conflate Judaism and Jewish identity with Israel. This intentional conflation has gone on for decades. A century ago Supreme Court Justice and Zionist leader Louis Brandeis was known for specifically working to conflate Zionism with being Jewish at a time when most Jewish people were not Zionists.

Israeli flag featuring the “Star of David” Jewish identity symbol

Israel specifically calls itself “the Jewish state” and often claims to represent Jews worldwide, a claim specifically rejected by certain Jewish individuals and organizations.

The Israeli flag, which adorns tanks, helicopter gunships, and fighter jets that periodically attack Gaza civilians, consists of a star of David, thus working to symbolically conflate Israel and its actions with Judaism and Jews. Israelis regularly call the pro-Israel lobby in the U.S. “the Jewish lobby.”

In addition, virtually every mainstream national Jewish institution in the U.S. publicly supports Israel, numerous synagogues and schools across the country exhibit the Israeli flag and affirm their attachment to Israel, and Jewish Community Relations Councils and Jewish Federations advocate for Israel in cities throughout the country.

The ADL’s 2015 Annual Report itself conflates Israel and “the Jewish people,” stating: “Since the founding purpose of ADL is to protect the Jewish people, our work on behalf of and in support of the State of Israel is a significant way of fulfilling that mission.” The ADL Campus video itself uses an image of a menorah, a religious symbol, to represent Israel.

Graphic featuring the menorah used in ADL Campus video

If some people critical of human rights abuses or other actions by the government of Israel or certain Israel partisans connect all Jews to Israel’s actions, this intentional conflation is part of the problem, not the solution. Those taken in by it are mistaken, not necessarily prejudiced.

ADL: Advocate for Israel

For many years the ADL has been held in high regard by many Americans who believe its purpose is to oppose bigotry and assist those being treated unfairly, and who are unaware of the ADL’s work to defame human rights defenders and maintain Israel’s power over Palestinians, one of the world’s most oppressed populations.

Through its own well-funded efforts combined with the support of media figures who may also be pro-Israel, the ADL has attained considerable power. Its frequent reports on alleged anti-Semitism are cited regularly as though they are the work of an objective, official, accountable entity.

In reality, the ADL is a non-governmental organization without public accountability whose work is non-transparent, lacks objective review, and which has a publicly stated goal of advocating for a foreign country—a nation whose system is antithetical to the principles held by most Americans, and whose actions are frequently harmful to the United States.

With its $142 million assets, the ADL crows that it helps “shape laws locally and nationally, and develop groundbreaking model legislation,” thus exerting influence from the highest levels of the U.S. government down to American campuses.

ADL Campus is its latest effort to maintain US taxpayers’ $10 million+ per day to Israel, and thus maintain Israel’s hegemony over Palestinians and others in the region.

Opposing bigotry, prejudice, and racism are noble actions that benefit everyone. Sadly, that’s not what the ADL is about.

Alison Weir is executive director of If Americans Knew, president of the Council for the National Interest, and author of Against Our Better Judgment: The Hidden History of How the U.S. Was Used to Create Israel.

* According to the ADL, statements suggesting that Israeli actions and/or policies have constituted apartheid, genocide, and ethnic cleansing are “false claims” and therefore constitute “anti-Israel bias,” a phrase that the ADL seems to suggest is tantamount to anti-Semitism. In reality, however, there is considerable evidence that such statements are accurate; at minimum, they are valid criticisms worthy of investigation. Below are a few of the many resources available on these topics:

Apartheid

Genocide

Ethnic Cleansing

September 13, 2017 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular | ADL, AIPAC, Hillel, Human rights, Israel, Israel Action Network, Israel on Campus Coalition, Palestine, United States, Zionism | Leave a comment

Facing a Major Attack on Academic Freedom in Canada

By Prof. Tony Hall | American Herald Tribune | September 11, 2017

Sixteen years after the event, 9/11 stands as striking evidence of an insidious assault on science. Officialdom’s dogged adherence to a discredited account of 9/11 stands as a stark illustration of this phenomenon. The subordination of scientific method to the higher imperatives of imperial war propaganda is epitomized by officialdom’s failure to formulate a credible account of the 9/11 debacle. Universities have become important sites of this betrayal. The sabotage of society’s primary platforms of scholarly enterprise forms an essential feature of a more pervasive attack from within. Everywhere, but especially on the Internet, fundamental freedoms to investigate, publish, publicize and discuss interpretations that might undermine or inconvenience power are being menaced.

As a tenured full professor with 27 years of seniority at my home institution, I am currently facing a sharp attack on the remaining protections for academic freedom. In early October of 2016 the President of the University of Lethbridge, Michael J. Mahon, suspended me without pay. He also prohibited me from stepping foot on the University of Lethbridge campus. In explaining his actions Dr. Mahon’s speculated I might have violated a section of the Alberta Human Rights Act.

The vagueness of this assertion exposes the reality that severe punishment was imposed without any proper investigation. Dr. Mahon’s abrupt deviation from the terms of the collective agreement with my faculty association has established precedents and countervailing responses with broad implications. Adversarial proceedings on this matter began this August in the Lethbridge Alberta Court House. As evidenced by the intervention of the 68,000 members of the Canadian Association of University Teachers, the outcome of this case will in all probability significantly affect the future of university governance in Canada and beyond.

Dr. Mahon’ suspension letter detailed that there was a possibility that I might be guilty because of allegations that a) “my Facebook page had been used for virulent anti-semitic comments “and b) “Inferring that Israelis, and hence Jewish individuals, were responsible for the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.”

Before dealing with the manipulation of my Facebook wall in the prelude to my suspension, allow me to linger on questions concerning the academy and 9/11. Along with government, media and law enforcement agencies, universities are deeply implicated in sabotaging the quest for 9/11 truth and many other varieties of inconvenient truth as well. The punitive measures directed at me can be seen as a warning to scare other professors into compliance with all manner of official stories?

As for my own reading of the available evidence, I am far from alone in positing that Israel First partisans, including the American neocons that dominated the Project for the New American Century, are prominent among the many protagonists of the 9/11 crimes. These crimes extend to orchestrating the media spin, rigging investigations, and sustaining the ongoing 9/11 cover-up. In publications and on False Flag Weekly News, Dr. Kevin Barrett and I have joined others in extending this investigative and interpretation trajectory into many cases of possible false flag terrorism particularly after 2001.

I am astonished that the Administration of my University became so aggressive in attempting to outlaw an evidence-based interpretation of the most transformative event of the twenty-first century. New frontiers of subversion are being pioneered in the U of L’s audacious administrative attempt to criminalize independent academic work.

What are the implications of subordinating the scholarly judgments of academic experts on campus to the executive dictates of administrators? How can the principles of critical thinking be cultivated when adherence to conformity is so aggressively enforced by administrators?

The University Administration extends its claims of academic control several steps further in the complaint it brought forward to the Alberta Human Rights Commission seven months after I was suspended. The complaint begins with six sweeping statements outlining topics that the complainants want removed from the reach of critical academic examination. One of the complainants chief assertions is the Islamophobia-inducing proposition that “acts of terrorism between 2001 to the present… were in fact committed and financed by Islamic terrorists.”

Facebook Machinations

A maliciously-engineered Facebook operation created the original catalyst of the smear and disinformation campaign leading to my suspension. Without the originating momentum set in motion by the Facebook operation the campaign to discredit me could not have unfolded as it did. The most public face of this campaign was presented by the Canadian extension of the Israeli- and US-based Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith. According to B’nai Brith Canada, an abhorrent post appeared and then disappeared on my Facebook wall during a short interval on Aug. 26, 2016. The text of the disgusting digital item proclaimed that the Holocaust didn’t happen and that Jews should be “KILLED, EVERY LAST ONE.”

This heinous assertion goes against everything I have tried to stand for in my life including in my academic work. As soon as I became aware of this blaspheme embedded in the planted Facebook post I publicly condemned it. By mid-September, however, my persecutors were far advanced in pushing forward the manufactured crisis. By then B’nai Brith Canada was mounting a petition campaign demanding that I be investigated, fired and silenced.

Recently the results of a Freedom of Information inquiry have brought to light documents illuminating the elaborate defamation pointed my way in the hours and days immediately following the August 26 Facebook operation. One document was sent to the Office of the University of Lethbridge President and copied to the Premier of Alberta as well as the Alberta Justice Minister. Citing the B’nai Brith, the document’s author characterized me as an “advocate for the murder of Jews.”

Another letter dated 1 Sept. 2016 was signed by the President of the Canadian Jewish Civil Rights Association. This signatory, who has since passed away, cited the complete text of the offending Facebook post. The letter to Dr. Mahon indicated the reprehensible words actually came “from my lips.”

I cannot understand why Dr. Mahon did not at this juncture properly investigate by consulting me directly and conferring with the University of Lethbridge Faculty Association. Instead the President opted to push ahead with drastic action based on incomplete information combined with the intense pressure brought to bear on him by an extremely influential external political lobby

Hate Speech Deceptions

None of my persecutors has yet identified the true source of the offending Facebook item. My own research into the matter, including my email exchange with cartoonist Ben Garrison, has led me to Joshua Goldberg. American Herald Tribune has published my article on this young man. Goldberg is widely reported to be the creator of many Internet personalities, all of whom generate abundant “hate speech deceptions” from various ethnic and ideological perspectives.

Goldberg’s case exposes much about the wholesale manufacturing and misrepresentation of so-called “hate speech” to justify censorship on the Internet. In my case an atrocious digital item was strategically inserted with the aim of ruining me professionally and personally.

The intervention of Internet leviathans like Google and Facebook is especially aggressive when it comes to disappearing material critical of the Israeli government’s treatment of Palestinians. My own experience with the Canadian branch of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith points to the strength of this pattern. Why is it that this same Zionist organization is being tasked with the strategic responsibility of censoring and categorizing You Tube videos?

As illustrated by William Pepper’s development of civil litigation to bring to light the US government’s role in the tragedy suffered by the family of Martin Luther King Jr., we rarely get criminal trials pressed against the world’s most powerful interests and operatives. Instances of possible false flag terrorism, but especially 9/11, have been rendered especially immune to any kind of trial that would put before the public evidence garnered from genuine investigations of facts.

Perhaps the reference to 9/11 in a University Administration’s efforts to condemn me for academic thought crimes and speech crimes will force the forbidden topic into some kind of evidence-based juridical procedure. When it comes to understanding the real dynamics of who did what to whom on 9/11, the truth must prevail.

Dr. Hall is editor in chief of American Herald Tribune. He is currently Professor of Globalization Studies at University of Lethbridge in Alberta Canada. He has been a teacher in the Canadian university system since 1982.

September 12, 2017 Posted by aletho | Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Islamophobia | 9/11, ADL, B’nai B’rith, Canada, Human rights | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries Next Entries »

House Resolution Calls for Tech Companies to Censor Speech

Aletho News Videos

or go to

Aletho News Archives – Video-Images

Book Review

Alarmist climate science as a textbook example of groupthink

By Paul MacRae | May 1, 2012

… Groupthink was extensively studied by Yale psychologist Irving L. Janis and described in his 1982 book Groupthink: Psychological Studies of Policy Decisions and Fiascoes.

Janis was curious about how teams of highly intelligent and motivated people—the “best and the brightest” as David Halberstam called them in his 1972 book of the same name—could have come up with political policy disasters like the Vietnam War, Watergate, Pearl Harbor and the Bay of Pigs. Similarly, in 2008 and 2009, we saw the best and brightest in the world’s financial sphere crash thanks to some incredibly stupid decisions, such as allowing sub-prime mortgages to people on the verge of bankruptcy.

In other words, Janis studied why and how groups of highly intelligent professional bureaucrats and, yes, even scientists, screw up, sometimes disastrously and almost always unnecessarily. The reason, Janis believed, was “groupthink.” He quotes Nietzsche’s observation that “madness is the exception in individuals but the rule in groups,” and notes that groupthink occurs when “subtle constraints … prevent a [group] member from fully exercising his critical powers and from openly expressing doubts when most others in the group appear to have reached a consensus.”[2]

Janis found that even if the group leader expresses an openness to new ideas, group members value consensus more than critical thinking; groups are thus led astray by excessive “concurrence-seeking behavior.”[3] Therefore, Janis wrote, groupthink is “a model of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive in-group, when the members’ strivings for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action.”[4]

The groupthink syndrome

The result is what Janis calls “the groupthink syndrome.” This consists of three main categories of symptoms:

1. Overestimate of the group’s power and morality, including “an unquestioned belief in the group’s inherent morality, inclining the members to ignore the ethical or moral consequences of their actions.” [emphasis added]

2. Closed-mindedness, including a refusal to consider alternative explanations and stereotyped negative views of those who aren’t part of the group’s consensus. The group takes on a “win-lose fighting stance” toward alternative views.[5]

3. Pressure toward uniformity, including “a shared illusion of unanimity concerning judgments conforming to the majority view”; “direct pressure on any member who expresses strong arguments against any of the group’s stereotypes”; and “the emergence of self-appointed mind-guards … who protect the group from adverse information that might shatter their shared complacency about the effectiveness and morality of their decisions.”[6]

It’s obvious that alarmist climate science—as explicitly and extensively revealed in the Climatic Research Unit’s “Climategate” emails—shares all of these defects of groupthink, including a huge emphasis on maintaining consensus, a sense that because they are saving the world, alarmist climate scientists are beyond the normal moral constraints of scientific honesty (“overestimation of the group’s power and morality”), and vilification of those (“deniers”) who don’t share the consensus. … Read full article

Blog Roll

Subscribe to Aletho News

Enter your email address to receive new posts by email.

Email Address:

Join 2,459 other subscribers
Visits Since December 2009
- 7,490,232 hits
Looking for something?

Search for:
Archives
Archives
Calendar

May 2026

M T W T F S S

1 2 3

4 5 6 7 8 9 10

11 12 13 14 15 16 17

18 19 20 21 22 23 24

25 26 27 28 29 30 31

« Apr
Categories

Aletho News Civil Liberties Corruption Deception Economics Environmentalism Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism Fake News False Flag Terrorism Full Spectrum Dominance Illegal Occupation Mainstream Media, Warmongering Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity Militarism Progressive Hypocrite Russophobia Science and Pseudo-Science Solidarity and Activism Subjugation - Torture Supremacism, Social Darwinism Timeless or most popular Video War Crimes Wars for Israel
Tags
9/11 Afghanistan Africa al-Qaeda Australia BBC Benjamin Netanyahu Brazil Canada CDC Central Intelligence Agency China CIA CNN Covid-19 COVID-19 Vaccine Donald Trump Egypt European Union Facebook FBI FDA France Gaza Germany Google Hamas Hebron Hezbollah Hillary Clinton Human rights Hungary India Iran Iraq ISIS Israel Israeli settlement Japan Jerusalem Joe Biden Korea Latin America Lebanon Libya Middle East National Security Agency NATO New York Times North Korea NSA Obama Pakistan Palestine Poland Qatar Russia Sanctions against Iran Saudi Arabia Syria The Guardian Turkey Twitter UAE UK Ukraine United Nations United States USA Venezuela Washington Post West Bank WHO Yemen Zionism

May 2026
M	T	W	T	F	S	S
	1	2	3
4	5	6	7	8	9	10
11	12	13	14	15	16	17
18	19	20	21	22	23	24
25	26	27	28	29	30	31

Aletho News
If Americans Knew
No Tricks Zone
Contact:

atheonews (at) gmail.com
Disclaimer

This site is provided as a research and reference tool. Although we make every reasonable effort to ensure that the information and data provided at this site are useful, accurate, and current, we cannot guarantee that the information and data provided here will be error-free. By using this site, you assume all responsibility for and risk arising from your use of and reliance upon the contents of this site.

This site and the information available through it do not, and are not intended to constitute legal advice. Should you require legal advice, you should consult your own attorney.

Nothing within this site or linked to by this site constitutes investment advice or medical advice.

Materials accessible from or added to this site by third parties, such as comments posted, are strictly the responsibility of the third party who added such materials or made them accessible and we neither endorse nor undertake to control, monitor, edit or assume responsibility for any such third-party material.

The posting of stories, commentaries, reports, documents and links (embedded or otherwise) on this site does not in any way, shape or form, implied or otherwise, necessarily express or suggest endorsement or support of any of such posted material or parts therein.

The word “alleged” is deemed to occur before the word “fraud.” Since the rule of law still applies. To peasants, at least.

Fair Use

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more info go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

DMCA Contact

This is information for anyone that wishes to challenge our “fair use” of copyrighted material.

If you are a legal copyright holder or a designated agent for such and you believe that content residing on or accessible through our website infringes a copyright and falls outside the boundaries of “Fair Use”, please send a notice of infringement by contacting atheonews@gmail.com.

We will respond and take necessary action immediately.

If notice is given of an alleged copyright violation we will act expeditiously to remove or disable access to the material(s) in question.

All 3rd party material posted on this website is copyright the respective owners / authors. Aletho News makes no claim of copyright on such material.

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

PM Theresa May holds a reception at Downing Street to celebrate the upcoming Jewish New Year. Image credit: Number 10/ flickr

Professor Anthony Hall. Image credit: The Lethbridge Herald

The ADL claims to oppose injustice, but spends much of its huge budget defaming Palestinians and their allies who work for an end to Israel’s human rights abuses.

ADL strategies to prevent events about Palestine

What to do if an event about Palestine is scheduled

The ADL “deciphers” anti-Semitism

Palestinians forced out in 1948 by Israel’s founding war

Screenshot from ADL Campus video

ADL helps mislead people, then calls them “anti-Semitic”

Israeli flag featuring the “Star of David” Jewish identity symbol

Graphic featuring the menorah used in ADL Campus video

ADL: Advocate for Israel

Alison Weir is executive director of If Americans Knew, president of the Council for the National Interest, and author of Against Our Better Judgment: The Hidden History of How the U.S. Was Used to Create Israel.

Featured Video

Book Review

By Paul MacRae | May 1, 2012

Blog Roll

Subscribe to Aletho News

Visits Since December 2009

Looking for something?

Archives

Calendar

Categories

Tags

Contact:

Disclaimer

Site info