Major Media Crash: They Need A Scapegoat
By Jon Rappoport | Activist Post | November 20, 2016
They kept telling the American people Hillary Clinton was going to win the election; and in every way they could think of, they told the American people this was a good idea.
Then, on election night, they, the media, crashed.
The results came in.
The media went into deep shock.
As protests and riots then spread across America, the media neglected to mention a) they’d been bashing Trump because he said he might not accept the outcome of the vote, and b) here were large numbers of people on the Democrat side who weren’t accepting the outcome of the vote.
A new campaign had to be launched.
Suddenly, on cue, it was: Hillary Clinton lost because “fake news” about her had been spread around during the campaign.
Fake news sites. That was the reason.
These “fake sites” had to be punished. Somehow. They had to be defamed. Blocked. Censored.
Here is an excerpt from a list of “fake news” sites suggested by one professor. The list is circulating widely on the Web: Project Veritas; Infowars; Breitbart; Coast To Coast AM; Natural News; Zero Hedge; The Daily Sheeple; Activist Post; 21st Century Wire.
Free speech? Bill of Rights? Never heard of it.
Obama put in his two cents: “Because in an age where there’s so much active misinformation and it’s packaged very well and it looks the same when you see it on a Facebook page or you turn on your television… If everything seems to be the same and no distinctions are made, then we won’t know what to protect.”
Excuse me. “We won’t know what to protect?” Meaning what to favor, what to promote, what to lie about? Meaning only some speech is free?
Obama is way, way behind the curve. Thousands of websites and blogs have been exposing major media as fake for years. I started nomorefakenews.com in 2001.
If Google, Facebook, and Twitter keep expanding their censorship of “disfavored messages,” they’re going to pay a price. More and more users will go elsewhere.
The facade of the major media is getting thinner. You can see a glow of rage and resentment behind it. They’re desperately looking for revenge on the millions and millions of people who are deserting them and laughing at them.
They presumed too much. They presumed they had us in the palm of their hand. We were their property. We were transfixed by their authority.
All that is going away. Bye, bye.
The big shift is accelerating. Independent media are in the ascendance. Understand that. Recognize it.
The impossible is happening.
Fake news sites? Please. The major media are the biggest fakes the world has ever seen. Their anchors and star reporters are bloviating cranks. They’re dinner-theater actors.
Over the years, I’ve talked to some of them. I’ve warned them of their coming troubles. They were miles away from believing me. Now, they’re starting to sweat blood.
Major media news for America is still basically manufactured in New York and Washington—plus occasional outbursts from Hollywood creatures who bemoan the decline of inclusive liberalism, as they expand their gun-toting security staffs and dig deeper bunkers. The New York-Washington axis exists in a self-serving bubble, which has now taken serious punctures. The delusional attacks against “fake sites” underlines how out of touch these elites are with the rest of the country.
Independent media outlets are winning. They won’t be stopped.
When the people who now head the tech giants were growing up, they were heralding the Internet as a new era of free information-exchange. But now that they find themselves working with the government in the Surveillance State, they’re fronting for censorship. In fact, they’re showing they were never for freedom. That was a pose all along. They were, from the beginning, agents of repression. They can try to stop independent media now, but they will fail.
Fake web sites? What about fake companies? What about Google, Facebook, Twitter? Behind their happy-happy messages, they were built to propagandize, profile, and control.
Understand this: major media have a rock-bottom article of faith. It is: “We own the news.”
They can’t give it up. They’ll never give it up. It fuels everything they do. It’s the substance and core of their attitude.
As their ship goes down below the waves, they’ll be chanting it. “We own the news.”
But they don’t. In truth, they never did. For a time, they managed to sell that delusion to the people.
That time is drawing to a close.
The elite political class and their media minions fear more than independent news countering their own news. For obvious reasons, every civilization down through history has had its own monopolistic media, its central “broadcasting system.” Its controlled outlet. But now, The One has become Many.
That is the threat.
The rapid proliferation of The Many is an unpredictable X-factor.
The population is waking up to decentralized media. Instead of the hypnotic attachment to one basic information source — the habit of a lifetime — the public is learning to handle multiple sources. Therefore, the hypnotic spell is being broken and dissolved.
This is the basic problem for the elites.
How can they reinstate the trance?
By trying to censor the Internet? By creating a sudden war or other disaster, briefly “unifying” the country? These are not permanent solutions, particularly since more and more people understand such maneuvers and their true aims.
Awake is awake. Putting the genie back in the bottle—particularly when major media denizens aren’t very bright, as evidenced by their latest “fake news” scam—is on the order of trying to perform a piece of stage magic after the audience has already learned how it’s done.
Of course, the media clowns will try. And in the process, they’ll further expose themselves and actually assist in the awakening.
Boom.
Image Credit: TruthandArtTV
Canada’s Political Parties Enable Israel’s Oppression of Palestinians
“Canada is back” to isolating itself from world opinion on Palestinian rights
By Yves Engler | Dissident Voice | November 22, 2016
How can you identify a Canadian Liberal? They talk to the left, but walk to the right.
Under Justin Trudeau “Canada is back” to isolating itself from world opinion on Palestinian rights.
On Monday Canada joined the US, Israel, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Federated States of Micronesia and Palau in opposing a UN Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Committee resolution in support of Palestinian self determination.
Two weeks ago Ottawa joined Israel, the US, Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, and Palau in opposing motions titled “Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and the occupied Syrian Golan” and “persons displaced as a result of the June 1967 and subsequent hostilities.” One hundred and fifty-six countries voted in favour of the motions while seven abstained on the first and six on the second.
Two among numerous resolutions upholding Palestinian rights Canada opposed. These votes follow on the heels of foreign minister Stéphane Dion attacking UNESCO for defending Palestinian rights. Last month the UN cultural body criticised Israel for restricting Muslim access to the Al Aqsa Mosque compound and recognised Israel as the occupying power. “Canada strongly rejects UNESCO World Heritage singling out Israel & denying Judaism’s link to the Old City + Western Wall,” Dion tweeted.
A few months earlier Trudeau’s minister criticized another arm of the UN. In March Dion denounced the UN Human Rights Council’s appointment of University of Western Ontario law professor Michael Lynk as “Special Rapporteur on Palestine”. Claiming the Canadian lawyer was hostile to Israel, Dion asked the UNHRC to review Lynk’s appointment.
In addition to isolating Canada internationally, the Trudeau government has pursued various pro-Israel moves. At the start of the month Governor General David Johnston visited a Jewish National Fund Forest. An owner of 13 per cent of Israel’s land, the JNF discriminates against Palestinian citizens of Israel (Arab Israelis) who make up a fifth of the population. According to a UN report, JNF lands are “chartered to benefit Jews exclusively,” which has led to an “institutionalized form of discrimination.”
While the GG recently visited a racist Israeli institution, the PM attended the “Butcher of Qana’s” funeral at the end of September. In 1996 Shimon Peres ordered the shelling of a UN compound in the village of Qana, Lebanon, which killed 106 civilians — half of whom were children. Through his long political career, reports Patrick Martin, Peres “was deeply implicated in many of the foulest historical crimes associated with the establishment, expansion and militarization of the state of Israel.”
Peres’ role in dispossessing Palestinians didn’t stop the Trudeau government from gushing with praise after he passed away. “The whole country of Canada is supporting the whole country of Israel and the prime minister wanted that to be very clear,” Dion told the press.
At the start of the year the Liberals condemned Canadians seeking to hold Israel accountable to international law. The Prime Minister and most Liberal MPs supported a Conservative Party call for the House of Commons to “reject the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which promotes the demonization and delegitimization of the State of Israel.” The February resolution also “condemned any and all attempts by Canadian organizations, groups or individuals to promote the BDS movement, both here at home and abroad.”
The Trudeau government’s efforts to undermine Palestinians’ liberation strengthens Canada’s multifaceted contribution to Israeli expansionism. Each year registered Canadian charities channel tens of millions of dollars to projects supporting Israel’s powerful military, racist institutions and illegal settlements. Over the past decade Ottawa has delivered over one hundred million dollars in aid to the Palestinian Authority in an explicit bid to advance Israel’s interests by building a security apparatus to protect the corrupt Palestinian Authority from popular disgust over its compliance in the face of ongoing Israeli settlement building. Further legitimating its illegal occupation, Canada’s two-decade old free trade agreement with Israel allows settlement products to enter Canada duty-free.
The truth is, it’s hard to tell Canada’s political parties apart when it comes to enabling Israeli oppression of Palestinians.
Without a growing popular movement campaigning for Palestinian rights this country’s political elites will continue to isolate Canada from world opinion.
Yves Engler is the author of Canada in Africa: 300 years of aid and exploitation.
Israeli Bid to Silence Mosque Prayer Calls Revived
Al-Manar | November 23, 2016
A controversial Israeli bill to silence the Muslim call to prayer is to go forward after it was amended so as not to affect the Jewish Shabbat siren, the speaker’s office said Wednesday.
Health Minister Yaakov Litzman, an ultra-Orthodox Jew, had blocked the draft law in its original form for fear it would also force the toning down of the sirens that announce the start of the Jewish day of rest at sundown each Friday.
But he lifted his objections after it was amended to apply only between 11 pm and 7 am.
The bill will “probably” now be put to a preliminary vote in parliament “next week,” a spokesman for speaker Yuli Edelstein told AFP.
It will then require three further parliamentary votes before it becomes law but it has already sparked outrage around the Arab and wider Muslim world.
Even Israeli government watchdogs have slammed the proposed legislation, describing it as a threat to religious freedom and an unnecessary provocation.
Arab Israeli lawmaker Ahmed Tibi has vowed to appeal to the High Court of Justice if the Shabbat siren is excluded from the scope of the bill on the grounds that it discriminates between Jews and Muslims.
The law would apply to mosques in annexed Arab east al-Quds (Jerusalem) as well as the occupied territories. But supersensitive Al-Aqsa mosque compound — Islam’s third holiest site — will be exempted.
“No changes will be made on” al-Aqsa Mosque an Israeli official told AFP.
‘Witch hunt’: Report urges UK to ‘map,’ ‘challenge,’ and expose public figures with Russia links
RT | November 21, 2016
An influential right-wing think-tank has proposed a radical clampdown on politicians and other prominent figures sympathetic to Russia by “challenging their credibility,” revealing their “insidious means of funding,” and forcing them to reveal if they receive money for appearing on RT.
The new report, published by the Henry Jackson Society comes as the EU parliament prepares to debate how to resist “disinformation and propaganda” from Russia on Tuesday.
Called ‘Putin’s Useful Idiots,’ the 17-page document was written by Andrew Foxall, the Director of the Russia Studies Centre at the conservative think tank. Foxall said that “Putin makes for a deceptive and dangerous friend” for “those on the left who can be relied upon to stand up for the West’s enemies whoever and wherever they may be, and those on the right who see Moscow as a defender of conservative values.”
Among the examples on the right, are UKIP leader Nigel Farage, who has regularly appeared on RT for a decade, and Nick Griffin, the former BNP leader, who reportedly travels to Russia regularly to participate in nationalist conferences, and has said that he is open to funding from Russia for his anti-NATO activist group.
On the left, the report mentions the Stop the War coalition, which was once chaired by current Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, and the Scottish independence movement.
Foxall, a former Oxford University lecturer, called Russia’s supporters “tools in [the Kremlin’s] programme of active measures”. The report also takes aim at RT, Sputnik and other foreign-language Russian media, branding them the result of “heavy investment” from the Kremlin, aimed at “influencing European public opinion and improving its international image,” and even working as a means of funding Kremlin sympathizers.
“Many of those on the extremes of the political spectrum, particularly the left, have appeared on RT. If they received appearance fees, then they have also taken money from the Kremlin, thereby establishing financial links between themselves, their organisations and Moscow,” stated Foxall.
While the report said there is no “silver bullet” that could solve the “problem” of pro Russian opinion-makers, it suggested a list of comprehensive measures.
“Activists, journalists and politicians should point out the pro-Russian connections of individuals and parties on the left and right of the political spectrum and challenge the credibility of these entities via political debates,” said the author.
“The personal and organisational connections of left- and right-wing parties and their Russian counterparts should be mapped across Europe,” said Hoxall, claiming that Cold War-era KGB ‘comrade networks’ have either been resurrected or forged anew, to undermine the West.
“As movements on the left and right grow in influence across Europe, the continent must wake up to their insidious means of funding,” continues the report, suggesting that “Parliament should amend current legislation or pass new legislation that forces politicians to declare all media appearances they make, whether they receive money for them or not.”
’21st-century McCarthyism’
“I am shocked and appalled by this report – it is both dangerous and inflammatory. It should be condemned by anyone who believes in free speech” Marcus Papadopoulos, the editor of Politics First, a UK analytical magazine, told RT.
“In essence it says that any person who gives an interview to Russian media – including RT – is an ‘idiot’ and a traitor to Britain, and should be publicly named and shamed. It’s a witch hunt, and 21st-century McCarthyism.”
Annie Machon, a former UK intelligence officer, who has become a regular RT contributor, said she has experienced first-hand accusations of being a Kremlin “collaborationist.”
“I appear on all sorts of different channels, including the BBC, which is state-funded. Most countries have their own publicly funded organizations and media, what is the problem?” she told RT from London.
“I think there is also a knee-jerk reaction by a UK and US-funded think tank against the election of Donald Trump. The establishment in both countries is worried that he might forge a more cordial relationship with Russia.”
Journalist Omar Nazzal, Shadi Jarrar among Palestinians ordered to additional imprisonment without charge
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network – November 21, 2016
Omar Nazzal, prominent Palestinian journalist and member of the General Secretariat of the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate, was ordered on Monday, 21 November to three additional months in administrative detention by the Israeli occupation military. One of dozens of imprisoned journalists, Nazzal was seized by occupation forces on 23 April 2016 as he attempted to cross the al-Karameh/Allenby bridge to Jordan to participate in the General Meeting of the European Federation of Journalists in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Since that time, he was ordered first to four months in administrative detention without charge or trial, then again to another three months of arbitrary imprisonment before his detention was again renewed today. Nazzal’s case has drawn international condemnation at the targeting of a prominent Palestinian journalist without charge or trial on the basis of so-called “secret evidence.”
Nazzal was not the only Palestinian political prisoner ordered to additional imprisonment without charge or trial. Palestinian prisoner Shadi Jarrar, 36, from Wadi Burkin west of Jenin, was ordered to four months in administrative detention for the third time consecutively. He has spent eight months in administrative detention since his seizure by Israeli occupation forces on 12 March as he passed a military checkpoint between Ramallah and Nablus. Jarrar is held in the Negev desert prison. He previously spent 13 years in Israeli jails before his release in 2014 as a Palestinian political prisoner.
Also ordered once more to administrative detention was Louay Daoud, 41, of Qalqilya, for the fourth time, for four months. Arrested by Israeli occupation forces when they invaded his home on 9 December 2015, he has now been ordered to administrative detention four times consecutively, without charge or trial. Daoud is also a former prisoner who spent 12 years in Israeli prisons until his release in 2003.
Ashraf Jibril, 23, of Qalqilya, was also ordered imprisoned without charge or trial for an additional four months – the third consecutive administrative detention order against him. His home was raided on 10 November 2015 by Israeli occupation forces; he was twice ordered to six months in administrative detention and now an additional four months. The Israeli occupation authorities also renewed the administrative detention of Palestinian prisoner Qusai Hassan Khaliliya, 22, of Jaba village south of Jenin, for the second consecutive time for six months of imprisonment without charge or trial. Khaliliya was seized by occupation forces on 23 May in a pre-dawn raid on his Jaba home by occupation forces, who ransacked his belongings.
There are over 700 Palestinians held without charge or trial out of a total of 7,000 Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails. Administrative detention orders can be issued for one to six months at a time and are indefinitely renewable. Many Palestinian prisoners have spent years at a time imprisoned under repeatedly-extending administrative detention orders. Administrative detention has been used to target political leaders, influential community members, members of the Palestinian Legislative Council, and other prominent Palestinian figures. Ahmad Abu Fara and Anas Shadid are currently on hunger strike for the 57th day against their own imprisonment without charge or trial.
Netanyahu praises Sisi
MEMO | November 21, 2016
During yesterday’s Cabinet meeting, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi’s “courageous leadership”.
Netanyahu criticised PA President Mahmoud Abbas policies of inciting Palestinians through the idea of the right of return.
“Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas refuses to come to direct negotiations without preconditions, continues to incite his people regarding the idea of a right of return and erasing the State of Israel, and is not taking the right steps to start calming things and preparing public opinion for reconciliation with the State of Israel,” he added.
During the meeting, he referred to the visit of the former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat to Jerusalem and his speech to the Knesset that launched the Egyptian-Israeli peace deal 39 years ago, describing the visit as “historic”.
“A peace agreement was achieved between Israel and Egypt through direct negotiations; this agreement has stood for almost 40 years, currently under the courageous leadership of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi. I note this because here one can see the contrast with what is occurring vis-à-vis the Palestinians,” he said.
NYT Advocates Internet Censorship
By Robert Parry | Consortium News | November 20, 2016
In its lead editorial on Sunday, The New York Times decried what it deemed “The Digital Virus Called Fake News” and called for Internet censorship to counter this alleged problem, taking particular aim at Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg for letting “liars and con artists hijack his platform.”
As this mainstream campaign against “fake news” quickly has gained momentum in the past week, two false items get cited repeatedly, a claim that Pope Francis endorsed Donald Trump and an assertion that Trump was prevailing in the popular vote over Hillary Clinton. I could add another election-related falsehood, a hoax spread by Trump supporters that liberal documentarian Michael Moore was endorsing Trump when he actually was backing Clinton.
But I also know that Clinton supporters were privately pushing some salacious and unsubstantiated charges about Trump’s sex life, and Clinton personally charged that Trump was under the control of Russian President Vladimir Putin although there was no evidence presented to support that McCarthyistic accusation.
The simple reality is that lots of dubious accusations get flung around during the heat of a campaign – nothing new there – and it is always a challenge for professional journalists to swat them down the best we can. What’s different now is that the Times envisions some structure (or algorithm) for eliminating what it calls “fake news.”
But, with a stunning lack of self-awareness, the Times fails to acknowledge the many times that it has published “fake news,” such as reporting in 2002 that Iraq’s purchase of aluminum tubes meant that it was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program; its bogus analysis tracing the firing location of a Syrian sarin-laden rocket in 2013 back to a Syrian military base that turned out to be four times outside the rocket’s range; or its publication of photos supposedly showing Russian soldiers inside Russia and then inside Ukraine in 2014 when it turned out that the “inside-Russia” photo was also taken inside Ukraine, destroying the premise of the story.
These are just three examples among many of the Times publishing “fake news” – and all three appeared on Page One before being grudgingly or partially retracted, usually far inside the newspaper under opaque headlines so most readers wouldn’t notice. Much of the Times’ “fake news” continued to reverberate in support of U.S. government propaganda even after the partial retractions.
Who Is the Judge?
So, should Zuckerberg prevent Facebook users from circulating New York Times stories? Obviously, the Times would not favor that solution to the problem of “fake news.” Instead, the Times expects to be one of the arbiters deciding which Internet outlets get banned and which ones get gold seals of approval.
The Times lead editorial, following a front-page article on the same topic on Friday, leaves little doubt what the newspaper would like to see. It wants major Internet platforms and search engines, such as Facebook and Google, to close off access to sites accused of disseminating “fake news.”
The editorial said, “a big part of the responsibility for this scourge rests with internet companies like Facebook and Google, which have made it possible for fake news to be shared nearly instantly with millions of users and have been slow to block it from their sites. …
“Facebook says it is working on weeding out such fabrications. It said last Monday that it would no longer place Facebook-powered ads on fake news websites, a move that could cost Facebook and those fake news sites a lucrative source of revenue. Earlier on the same day, Google said it would stop letting those sites use its ad placement network. These steps would help, but Facebook, in particular, owes its users, and democracy itself, far more.
“Facebook has demonstrated that it can effectively block content like click-bait articles and spam from its platform by tweaking its algorithms, which determine what links, photos and ads users see in their news feeds. … Facebook managers are constantly changing and refining the algorithms, which means the system is malleable and subject to human judgment.”
The Times editorial continued: “This summer, Facebook decided to show more posts from friends and family members in users’ news feeds and reduce stories from news organizations, because that’s what it said users wanted. If it can do that, surely its programmers can train the software to spot bogus stories and outwit the people producing this garbage. …
“Mr. Zuckerberg himself has spoken at length about how social media can help improve society. … None of that will happen if he continues to let liars and con artists hijack his platform.”
Gray Areas
But the problem is that while some falsehoods may be obvious and clear-cut, much information exists in a gray area in which two or more sides may disagree on what the facts are. And the U.S. government doesn’t always tell the truth although you would be hard-pressed to find recent examples of the Times recognizing that reality. Especially over the past several decades, the Times has usually embraced the Official Version of a disputed event and has deemed serious skepticism out of bounds.
That was the way the Times treated denials from the Iraqi government and some outside experts who disputed the “aluminum tube” story in 2002 – and how the Times has brushed off disagreements regarding the U.S. government’s portrayal of events in Syria, Ukraine and Russia. Increasingly, the Times has come across as a propaganda conduit for Official Washington rather than a professional journalistic entity.
But the Times and other mainstream news outlets – along with some favored Internet sites – now sit on a Google-financed entity called the First Draft Coalition, which presents itself as a kind of Ministry of Truth that will decide which stories are true and which are “fake.”
If the Times’ editorial recommendations are followed, the disfavored stories and the sites publishing them would no longer be accessible through popular search engines and platforms, essentially blocking the public’s access to them. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “What to Do About ‘Fake News.’”]
The Times asserts that such censorship would be good for democracy – and it surely is true that hoaxes and baseless conspiracy theories are no help to democracy – but regulation of information in the manner that the Times suggests has more than a whiff of Orwellian totalitarianism to it.
And the proposal is especially troubling coming from the Times, with its checkered recent record of disseminating dangerous disinformation.
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s.
Egypt jails 3 anti-coup presenters for ‘false news’
MEMO | November 20, 2016
An Egyptian court on Saturday slapped three anti-coup TV presenters with a 3-year jail term each in absentia for spreading false news.
Egyptian authorities accuse Mohamed Naser, a presenter at the Mekameleen satellite channel, and two other colleagues of incitement and spreading false news.
The presenters, for their part, say they expose human rights abuses committed by Egypt’s military-backed authorities.
Saturday’s verdict, which still can be appealed, came shortly after an Egyptian court slapped the head of Egypt’s press syndicate and two board members with a 2-year jail term each for harbouring two journalists sought by the authorities at the syndicate’s headquarters.
In May, police raided the syndicate’s premises in Cairo, arresting the two journalists for allegedly “inciting protests” and “plotting to overthrow the ruling regime”.
Syndicate officials have decried the raid – the first in the syndicate’s history – as a “blatant assault on journalists’ dignity” and have demanded the interior minister’s dismissal.
Egyptian authorities have launched a harsh crackdown on dissent following the 2013 coup against Mohamed Morsi, Egypt’s first freely elected president.
Last year, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said more than 20 journalists had been detained by Egyptian authorities since the coup.
Facebook blocks Palestine Network for Dialogue’s page
Palestinian Information Center – November 18, 2016
GAZA – Facebook administration resumed its policy of targeting Palestinian media pages after blocking Palestine Network for Dialogue’s page for the third time Friday.
The Palestine Network for Dialogue, an online discussion board, was blocked without any prior notice although it has 70,000 followers.
Palestine Network for Dialogue specializes in publishing stories about the plight of Palestinians both in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip in addition to those living in 1948 occupied Palestine.
Last September, several pro-Palestinian Facebook pages and accounts were removed including accounts of seven editors of the Palestinian Information Center.
In a controversial move, the Israeli government and Facebook reportedly agreed to work together to determine how to tackle incitement on social media, aimed primarily at Palestinians.
Not long after Facebook’s agreement, several Palestinian pages with millions of readers found themselves closed and administrators locked out, in a move believed to be directly connected to the agreement between Facebook and the Israeli government.
Many Americans Should Un-Stupid Themselves
By Joel S. Hirschhorn | Dissident Voice | November 18, 2016
To be upfront, I strongly believe that President Trump is exactly what the USA desperately needs at this time, a disrupter. I say this as someone who worked in the political world for over 20 years, is white, highly educated, old and affluent. I ask all who have negative views of Trump to open their minds and consider my arguments.
In September 2015 I published an article in which I said: “Trump surely has more current and potential supporters than the media and political establishment can accept. Unlike Trump, they have no imagination. The Donald, to his credit, is really on to something Great. I hope that many more Americans recognize that he is exactly what the nation needs. Stick that middle finger up at all the chronic liars that have sold out the vast majority of Americans.” More than a year before the election I was correct.
The most fascinating post-election fact I have seen is that Trump prevailed with voters making $100,000 or more a year. Second was that Trump won 53 percent of white women. Would you have ever predicted these from what you heard from the mainstream media?
The craziest moment I had was watching President Obama very close to the election support voting by illegal immigrants.
During the campaign I was appalled at the insane pro-Clinton bias among the corporate media; it made me nauseous and caused me to greatly reduce my watching of CNN and MSNBC and all three major television networks.
Not only were most Trump supporters not deplorable, they were not racist, sexist or stupid. But the media, Democrats and establishment Republicans tried to make them feel like they were.
When 70 percent of the nation consistently says that the country is on the wrong track there is enormous pent up demand for change. Did anyone really think Clinton was a change agent? The media dismissed the significance of the demand for change. When you thirst for change you are willing to ignore a lot of negatives of a change candidate. The media and Clinton were just the opposite; they were status quo supporters.
And now what amazes me is that all these media companies have not fired the many, many pro-Clinton anchors, pundits, columnists and reporters. Days after the election all these people who got nearly everything wrong about this election are still appearing in the same venues. A great many columnists, editors and reporters at the New York Times and Washington Post and countless personalities at CNN and MSNBC should be fired. Not solely because they were wrong, but because they showed themselves to lack any journalistic integrity. That means you Wolf Blitzer.
Even more sickening are the countless Democrat politicians and hacks who refuse to accept full responsibility for all the idiotic and disrespectful things they did that caused their terrible candidate to appropriately lose the election. The clearest sign of Democrat stupidity and delusion is the constant garbage bragging that Clinton got more votes than Trump. Why is this so repulsive? Because presidential campaigns are devised and operated on the basis of the Electoral College system that constitutionally determines the victor. This means that a winning campaign must focus on specific states rather than on states with the largest populations. In other words, Clinton’s larger national popular vote total is irrelevant and meaningless. Moreover, millions of illegal immigrants may have voted for Clinton. Clinton herself has clearly refused to accept personal responsibility for her loss. This makes all of us who intensely opposed her feeling justified as well as even more thrilled with her loss.
What the biased media apparently also has not learned is their behavior helped the Trump victory. Why? Because it pissed off many millions of Americans. Sure, politicians lie a lot, including Trump and Clinton. But to constantly see and hear nearly all media outlets distort and lie about the pros and cons of both major candidates irritated rational, smart Americans who supported Trump for valid reasons having nothing to do with racism and other negative characterization.
The media has done of terrible job of properly informing Americans about the true nature of globalization that is pushed by corporate interests. There are two main dimensions. One is the advocacy for international trade agreements that have already sold out middle class Americans by exporting good jobs in manufacturing. The availability of cheaper goods does not outweigh the incredible costs and pain for a large segment of the American population. There has been a transfer of American wealth to countries such as China, but that wealth has been robbed from the middle class, not the upper wealthy and corporate class that has increased their wealth because of trade.
The other side of globalization is the escalating movement of non-white people from terrible situations and countries to white-majority countries. This too has been pushed by corporate interests seeking low cost labor. Both legal and illegal immigrants have been changing the culture and economy of white-majority democracies. What I greatly resent is that Americans have never been given a clear political choice to vote for changing their beloved white-majority country to a very different kind of country. Neither Obama or Clinton or any other politicians clearly told the American public that their long-term objective was to convert the white-majority nation to something very different. Of course Clinton was pretty clear that her campaign was based on getting the votes of blacks and Hispanics, which, in the end, she failed at. This – I strongly say – is not about racism; it is about the right of a majority population to maintain a major characteristic of their nation and culture. None of the historic waves of immigration in previous centuries did what the current kind and scope of immigration is doing to the fundamental character of the USA. It has been imposed upon the white-majority population in a fundamentally undemocratic way. Americans were never given a chance to vote on this change, except to vote for someone like Clinton who never honestly said what she wanted. So white Americans saw the truth this time and acted on their beliefs and fears.
Here is the truth of contemporary nationalism: Any national majority has a democratic right of self-determination to use their political system to reject immigration that threatens to change that majority, whether that majority is based on race, religion, culture or language. Political leaders that use humanitarian arguments to ignore majority resistance to immigration face defeat such as Hillary Clinton’s loss.
Thus the Trump victory is consistent with what is going on in other democracies, namely a rejection of elitist, establishment, corporate driven systems pushing globalization and intense immigration. So called right wing populist movements reflect a rejection of globalization priorities. Not only is this not about racism, it is also not about isolationism. It is about self-determination of majority populations. Swedes have a right to keep their white culture, the French have a similar right and so do Americans. It is not racist to see connections between fast, massive immigration and threats from terrorism and crime.
Give Trump time to show that he can actually help make America great again. If you did not see the true realities that produced the Trump victory, then un-stupid yourself.
The most stupid thing you can do right now is to ignore the several core serious messages of Trump that resonated so much with so many Americans because for one reason or another you hate the messenger.
Joel S. Hirschhorn was a full professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison and a senior official at the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment and the National Governors Association; he has authored five nonfiction books, including Delusional Democracy: Fixing the Republic Without Overthrowing the Government.
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Confronting the Threat of Ethnic Bioweapons
By Tony Cartalucci – New Eastern Outlook – 29.11.2017
The United States Air Force’s 59th Medical Wing’s molecular biology branch recently was revealed to have been collecting specifically Russian RNA and synovial (connective) tissue samples, prompting fears in Russia of a possible US directed ethnic-specific bioweapons program. … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Why Yemen Is Bombing Saudi Arabia’s Airports: The War Behind the Headlines
- Sally Rooney’s books pulled from UK over support for Palestine Action
- Bombs for Tel Aviv, Promises for Riyadh
- Israeli ad agency conducted vast global espionage campaign using online ads: Report
- Oct. 7 Forever Marks The Big Reveal: ‘We See You, Israel, We Revile You, We Reject You!’
- Meet the US generals and admirals advancing Israeli policy
- Israel’s Straw Widow Protocol: The Kill Zones Where Civilians Were Labelled ‘Terrorists’
- Leading Israeli Think Tank Publishes Psychotic Israeli ‘National Security’ Doctrine
- Are the United States and Israel in Decline-and-Fall Mode?
- Why Hamas Really Attacked Israel on Oct. 7
- If Americans Knew
- Israeli firm used online ads to run vast spy operation, researchers say
- No, the world zionist movement is not an antisemitic conspiracy theory
- Hundreds of IDF investigations into killings still have no public outcome, BBC Verify finds
- After Ashley Moody Epstein Probe, Donors Linked to Him Poured Money Into her Senate Campaign
- Worried about Russian meddling in UK politics? Wait till you see what Israel is up to
- Israeli settlers attack West Bank center for disabled children, church leader calls for int’l action
- Pulling Out Teeth Just to Live: How Israel Has Devastated Dental Care in Gaza
- Gaza’s “ceasefire” death toll passes 1,500 – Daily Update
- Activists Abused By Israel Return to New Freedom Flotilla Mission
- 60 Minutes won’t tell the full truth about Israeli settler violence
- No Tricks Zone
- New Study Suggests Large Regions Of The Pacific Ocean Have Been Cooling For The Last 80 Years
- Germany’s Green Energy Debacle: High Energy Costs Force Kahla Porzellan to Close After 182 Years!
- New Study: 50 Years Of The Most Aggressive ‘Net Zero’ Policies Can Only Affect The Global Climate By 0.03°C
- US September “Heat” Was No Record…Many Records Set Decades Ago
- Latest European Green Energy Debacle; Portugal’s Largest Flagship Solar Park Insolvent!
- Green Energy Debacle: German Expert Professor Fritz Vahrenholt Warns Of Severe Economic And Social Consequences
- Two More Paleo Reconstructions Affirm Meters-Higher Sea Levels Across Ireland, Brazil 7000-6000 Years Ago
- New Study: Earth And Venus Surface Warmth Largely Explained By Convection And Lapse Rate, Not CO2 Or Radiation
- 2025 Nature Paper Claiming Worsening Global Drought Gets RETRACTED …Heavily Flawed
- New Study: ‘Global Drought Shows No Detectable Recent Acceleration Under Climate Warming’
