Shameless

I rarely quote whole posts from other sites, but this one is important enough to deserve it. It's from no less than Alan Dershowitz, famous Maverick-At-Law, and reveals a really amazing piece of public corruption. It was first posted on the website of the Gatestone Institute, which is the headquarters of the Muslim Reform Movement -- remarkable enough by itself. Even more remarkable is that Dershowitz couldn't find a larger public news-media site to publish it. But the story gets wilder yet. Read on: "Why I am Suing CNN by Alan M. Dershowitz September 18, 2020 at 5:00 am "Freedom of speech is designed to promote the marketplace of ideas. It is not a license for giant media companies to deliberately and maliciously defame citizens, even public figures. "So when CNN made a decision to doctor a recording so as to deceive its viewers into believing that I said exactly the opposite of what I actually said, that action was not protected by the First Amendment. "So I am suing them for a lot of money, not in order to enrich myself, but to deter CNN and other media from maliciously misinforming their viewers at the expense of innocent people. I intend to donate funds I receive from CNN to worthy charities, including those that defend the First Amendment. "Every American will benefit from a judicial decision that holds giant media accountable for turning truth on its head and for placing partisanship above the public interest. "I love the First Amendment, I support the First Amendment, I have litigated cases defending the First Amendment. I have written and taught about the First Amendment. And I was a law clerk for the Supreme Court when it rendered its landmark 1964 decision in New York Times v. Sullivan, which "protects media even when they print false statements about public figures, as long as the media did not act with 'actual malice.'" "But I also understand the limitations of the First Amendment. Freedom of speech is designed to promote the marketplace of ideas. It is not a license for giant media companies to deliberately and maliciously defame citizens, even public figures. So when CNN made a decision to doctor a recording so as to deceive its viewers into believing that I said exactly the opposite of what I actually said, that action was not protected by the First Amendment. Here is what CNN did. "I was asked to present the Constitutional argument against President Trump's impeachment and removal to the United States Senate this past January. For an hour and seven minutes, I argued that if a president does anything illegal, unlawful, or criminal-like -- if he commits treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors -- he satisfies the criteria for impeachment under the Constitution. But if a president engages in entirely lawful conduct motivated in part by the desire to be reelected, which he believes is in the public interest, that would not constitute grounds for impeachment. Everybody seemed to understand the distinction I was drawing. Some agreed, others disagreed. But the distinction was clear between illegal conduct on the one hand, and lawful conduct on the other hand. "Two days later I returned to the Senate to answer questions put to the lawyers by the senators. The first question to me came from Senator Ted Cruz. He asked whether a quid pro quo constituted an impeachable offense. My response was consistent with my argument two days earlier: I said that what "would make a quid pro quo unlawful is if the quo were in some way illegal." If it was, it could constitute an impeachable offense. But if it wasn't illegal or unlawful, the president's political motives could not turn it into an impeachable offense. That was quite clear. Indeed, the next question from the senators was directed to the Democratic House Manager who was asked to respond to my answer. Congressman Adam Schiff, disagreed with my answer, but understood the distinction between lawful and unlawful. So did CNN. When they first showed my answer, they showed it in full, including my statement that a quid pro quo would not be impeachable so long as it was not "in some way illegal." I then went on to say that if a president was motivated in part by his desire to be reelected, which he believes was in the public interest, that motive would not turn a lawful act into an impeachable offense. "But then CNN made a decision to doctor and edit my recorded remarks so as to eliminate all references to "unlawful" or "illegal" conduct. They wanted their viewers to believe that I had told the Senate that a president could do anything -- even commit such crimes as "bribery" and "extortion" -- as long as he was motivated by a desire to be reelected. That, of course, was precisely the opposite of what I said. And that is precisely the reason by CNN edited and doctored the tape the way they did: namely to deliberately create the false impression that I had said the president could commit any crimes in order to be reelected, without fear of impeachment. "CNN then got its paid commentators to go on the air, broadcast the doctored recording and rail against me for saying that a president could commit crimes with impunity. Joe Lockhart, former White House Press Secretary under President Clinton, said that I had given the president 'license to commit crimes' and that: "'This is what you hear from Stalin. This is what you hear from Mussolini, what you hear from authoritarians, from Hitler, from all the authoritarian people who rationalize, in some cases genocide, based what was in the public interest.' "No one corrected him by pointing out that I said exactly the opposite in the sentence that CNN had edited out. Nor did anyone correct Paul Begala when he wrote: "'The Dershowitz Doctrine would make presidents immune from every criminal act, so long as they could plausibly claim they did it to boost their re-election effort. Campaign finance laws: out the window. Bribery statutes: gone. Extortion: no more. This is Donald Trump's fondest figurative dream: to be able to shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it.' (Emphasis added) "CNN is, of course, responsible for the decision to edit and doctor the recording to reverse its meaning and they are also responsible for how their paid commentators mischaracterized what I said. "So I am suing them for a lot of money, not in order to enrich myself, but to deter CNN and other media from maliciously misinforming their viewers at the expense of innocent people. I intend to donate funds I receive from CNN to worthy charities, including those that defend the First Amendment. Every American will benefit from a judicial decision that holds giant media accountable for turning truth on its head and for placing partisanship above the public interest. So I will continue to defend the First Amendment as I have for the last 55 years (I am now consulting with Julian Assange's legal team). But I will insist that giant media not abuse their First Amendment rights in the way that CNN did. Alan M. Dershowitz is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, Emeritus at Harvard Law School and author of the book, Guilt by Accusation: The Challenge of Proving Innocence in the Age of #MeToo, Skyhorse Publishing, 2019. He is the Jack Roth Charitable Foundation Fellow at Gatestone Institute. Follow Alan M. Dershowitz on Twitter and Facebook" ...Wow. Did you get all of that? CNN, which is about as major a news-media company as you can get, deliberately edited Dershowitz's statement to make it sound as if he said precisely the opposite of what he really did say. I believe that fits the legal definition of "slander" -- or possibly "libel" -- and he clearly has proof of it. CNN is shamelessly pro-Democrat and anti-Trump, but this is a BIG step over the line. Didn't the editors realize that they could easily be caught spreading a deliberate lie, and hauled into court over it? Even in a state of political desperation over the good possibility that Trump might win re-election, didn't they stop to think that their victim is a famous maverick of a lawyer, and that he was likely to catch them and take action? Was their legal team asleep at the wheel? What made them think they could get away with this? Did they really think that they have the American viewer so thoroughly propagandized, and so cut off from all other sources of information, that they could lie freely and nobody would notice, or care? Haven't they noticed that their ratings have been dropping lately, or thought to ask why? Haven't they noticed a similar drop in ratings, and public trust, also afflicting news giants like MSNBC and the New York Times? Or have they all gone mad? --Leslie <;)))><

Racing From the Outside Rail

    Ever since Covid-19 began hitting the news, and probably before, various medical researchers around the world have been scrambling to create a vaccine for it.  It's interesting to see which of them have gotten the most press.  

    Here in the US, the professional medical journals have been reporting for the last six weeks that Pfizer and BionTech, working jointly on two promising candidates -- BNT-162-b1 and BNT-162-b2 -- have been given Fast Track status by the FDA, which means that they'll be given at least 30,000 volunteer test-subjects and accelerated paperwork-processing for their tests.  By now the tests should be well under way, and we can expect some news of their effectiveness Real Soon Now.  Since both companies have "proprietary" -- which is just short of "patented" -- vaccine development systems, neither one is saying much about just how their vaccines are supposed to defend human cells against the virus.

    Meanwhile, in the UK, a vaccine developed at Oxford University -- called ChAdOx1 -- is likewise racing into human testing, with just over 1000 volunteers, soon to be expanded to 10,000 more, and its developers are more willing to discuss the mechanisms of its operation.  According to the BBC, the prospective vaccine "is made from a genetically engineered virus that causes the common cold in chimpanzees... It has been heavily modified, first so it cannot cause infections in people and also to make it 'look' more like coronavirus... This means the vaccine resembles the coronavirus and the immune system can learn how to attack it.  

    "Much of the focus on coronavirus so far has concentrated on antibodies... small proteins that stick onto the surface of viruses.  Neutralizing antibodies can disable the coronavirus.  T-cells, a type of white blood cell, help coordinate the immune system and are able to spot which of the body's cells have been infected and destroy them... Nearly all effective vaccines induce both an antibody and a T-cell response. Levels of T-cells peaked 14 days after vaccination and antibody levels peaked after 28 days.  The study has not run long enough to understand how long they may last."

    More intriguing for its almost total lack of attention in both American and British news media is the development of a different vaccine by the Galilee Research Institute (MIGAL) in Israel.  Israeli health services hoped to have their vaccine ready by the end of May, but a surge of infections in Israel that month -- and since -- have distracted them to searching for treatments, including the promising low-dose radiation therapy, which slowed progress on vaccine development.  This is a pity because the Israeli approach was to start with an effective vaccine against an infectious virus -- IBV -- that causes a bronchial disease in poultry.

    "Our basic concept was to develop the technology...not just a vaccine for this or that kind of virus," said Dr. Chen Katz, MIGAL's biotechnology group leader.  "The scientific framework for the vaccine is based on a new protein expression vector, which forms and secretes a chimeric soluble protein that delivers the viral antigen into mucosal tissues by self-activated endocytosis, causing the body to form antibodies against the virus."

    Endocytosis, as explained by the Jerusalem Post, is a cellular process in which substances are brought into a cell by surrounding the material with cell membrane, forming a vesicle which contains the ingested material.  In pre-clinical trials the team demonstrated that the oral vaccination induces high levels of specific anti-IBV antibodies, Katz said.  "Let's call it pure luck," he continued, "{that} we decided to choose coronavirus as a model for our system just as a proof of concept for our technology."

    This did more than give the MIGAL scientists a head-start on developing a coronavirus vaccine;  the technology itself can be used against other viruses -- many other viruses.  "All we need do is adjust the system to the new {DNA} sequence," said Katz.  Which means that the MIGAL technology can produce broad-spectrum antiviral medicines.  This could have as profound an effect on medicine as the development of antibiotics did nearly a century ago.  

    Katz and his MIGAL team made this announcement at the end of February, when he claimed that this new technology could possibly provide a vaccine against Covid-19 in as few as 90 days.  But, strangely enough, nothing further has been said about the MIGAL vaccine, let alone its promising technology, since early April.  There's been nothing about it, anywhere, in the media.  

    One has to wonder why.  

    Well, what else has been happening in Israel in the last four months?  

    First, the United Arab Emirates very visibly made peace with Israel, despite the squawks of outrage from the Palestinians, and Iran.  Now Saudi Arabia has been showing signs of falling in with the UAE.  The third of the Big Three Arab counties, Turkey, has suddenly fallen silent on the subject of Israel, reversing decades of retreat from the reforms of Ataturk a century ago.  Could it be that they have medical scientists among their ranks who realize what MIGAL's new technology could mean to the world, and they want to be on the right -- and money-making -- side?

    Could it be that those few Arabs who are educated, and level-headed, enough to value health and wealth and wisdom in this world above the pleasures of blind fanaticism have come to realize that Israel is on its way to being the world's powerhouse of biomedical research and technology?  Think of the implications.  

--Leslie <;)))><                     

 

Baizuo Boilerplate

 

 I'm sorry I haven't been visible for the past three weeks, but I've been tied up editing a novel for my book publisher.  I simply had to come up for air to voice my not-so-humble opinion on the political convention circus that's been playing all over TV while I've been working.  In brief, the Republicans have been remarkably coherent, the Democrats both fakey and hysterical, and the Libertarians invisible as usual.      

To start with the last, have the Libertarians even held their convention yet?  Does anybody know?  You have to search the internet to learn anything about them.  The major, and even minor, news media try their damnedest  to avoid mentioning the word "libertarian", even without capitalizing it.  They're still hoping that if they ignore it long enough, the Libertarian Party will go away.  Fat chance.  Everywhere that the LP is on the ballot, it will collect the Disgruntled vote from citizens disgusted with the antics of the Big Two. 

The Republicans, so far, have concentrated their attention on the economy: how good it was, especially for "minorities", before the Covid lockdown, how fast it's been recovering since, and how much faster it would recover if certain Democrat governors would stop trying to keep it locked down.  So far, they've also soft-pedaled their strongest selling-point, which is how the Democrats have excused and encouraged AntifaBLM riots all over the country.  Perhaps they're holding off until the latest police scandal dies down, a case in Wisconsin where some incredibly stupid and incompetent cops shot an unarmed Black man in the back -- seven times, point-blank, in front of cameras and witnesses -- and didn't even manage to kill him.  At this point any candidate who recommends taking away the police's guns and clubs and arming them exclusively with stunners -- hand stun-guns for close work, stun-batons for medium range, and Tasers for long-distance -- would harvest a million votes easily.  

Ah, but the Democrats have shown themselves as almost psychotically out of touch with the majority of voters by their convention-coverage.  At this point it might be wise to look up the Wikipedia entry for the Chinese word "Baizuo".  Here's the short version:

aizuo (/ˈbaɪˌdzwɔː/; Chinese: 白左; pinyin: báizuǒ, literally White Left)^[1][2] is a derogatory Chinese neologism and political epithet used to refer to Western leftist ideologies primarily espoused by white people.^[3] The term baizuo is related to the term shèngmǔ (圣母, 聖母, literally "Blessed Mother"), a sarcastic reference to those whose political opinions are perceived as being guided by emotions or a hypocritical show of selflessness and empathy.^[4]

initially used as a general critique of certain socialist values in the American left.^[3] the term evolved to criticize some people among the left who seemingly advocate for positive slogans like peace and equality to boast their sense of moral superiority, but are ignorant of real-world consequences, and utilize destructive behavior like political sacrifice and identity politics.^[3][5]

Substantial use in Chinese Internet culture began in early 2016, at first at MIT BBS, a bulletin board system used by many Chinese in the U.S., during the 2016 United States presidential election. Baizuo was used there to criticize the Democratic Party's emphasis on affirmative action policies perceived as discriminating against Asians.^[5]

After the United States presidential election of 2016, the term came to be more widely used in reference to perceived double standards of Western media, as well as in relation to the tolerance of left-wing activists for manifestations of Islamism (see regressive left).^[4]

See also[edit]

Look up 白左 or 左膠 in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Champagne socialist
• Gutmensch
• Liberal elite
• Political opportunism
• Red–green–brown alliance
• Regressive left
• Social fascism
• Social justice warrior

Given that the Chinese sense of humor has always been subtle, you'd have to be really publicly stupid to become a Chinese joke.

First, the Dems' convention was almost entirely "virtual" -- done electronically, with a lot of the speeches pre-recorded, and almost nothing real-time, let alone spontaneous.  It was edited, and *looked* edited.  The whole program *looked* like one big infomercial.  Seventy years of TV watching have conditioned most Americans to distrust TV ads, so the convention *looked* insincere from the start.  

Second, the "platform" the party put together was a collection of unrealistic Utopian drivel that doesn't stand up to logical examination, largely because along with the usual boilerplate it added planks from the way-out AntifaBLM fringe.  Medicare for all, including illegal aliens: who's going to keep track of the money, and where's it going to come from?  Free college for all, including illegal aliens: ditto.  Defund police and hire social workers: so who do you call when a burglar's breaking into your house?  And of course the Dems are all for gun control, while the citizens are busy buying up firearms at a ferocious rate.  

Third, the Dems did not show any serious interest in putting an end to the AntifaBLM "protest" riots which have been plaguing the US for the past two months and more.  If anything, they sympathized, adding to the "protesters'" list of demands and targets.  It's as if they were appealing to the left-most fringe of the voters, and largely ignoring everyone else.  They seem to be listening only to what the mainstream media are currently covering, and not noticing input from lesser, more local media, including the Internet.  I can't think of anything else that would explain the Dems' devotion to a platform of such Baizuo boilerplate.

And of course there was the ballyhoo about Biden's choice for Vice President;  that too was boilerplate.  Kamela Harris is a woman (oooOOOoooh), and part Black (oooOOOoooh), and part Asian (oooOOOoooh), and a second-generation immigrant (oooOOOoooh).  If only she were a transgender lesbian, she'd be perfect.  Never mind her questionable performance as a state Attorney General;  she covers nearly all the "minority" identities of the left-wing Identity Politics that the Dems have been trumpeting for years. 

It's not surprising that a Rassmussen poll taken just a few days ago shows that Trump's popularity rose to 51% after the Democrat convention ended.

There's an ancient Greek saying which holds that you should never interrupt your enemy while he's engaged in ruining himself.  At this rate, the Republicans need do nothing more at their convention than simply re-nominate Trump and Pence, and then all go off and celebrate.  The three national TV ads they've broadcast already, showing AntifaBLM mobs in action and slow police responses to emergency calls, are quite enough to swing the election, and I don't think they'll be the last.  The Repubs can win the election by doing nothing more than pointing out the excesses of the Dems.  If they also add a "back to normalcy" plank to their platform, Trump's victory is guaranteed.

This is why the TV news has been so fascinating this past week, and promises to be equally bizarre in the week ahead: bizarre and Baizuo.

--Leslie <;)))><     

      

   

       

A Study In Hypocrisy

Does anyone today remember the name of Orval Faubus?  He was governor of Arkansas -- a Democrat -- from 1955 to 1967.  He was elected in reaction to the SCOTUS' decision on Brown vs. Board of Eduction, the one which de-segregated public schools.

In response to the SCOTUS decision there was a large opposition campaign by civilian organizations -- primarily the KKK -- which supported continuous protest demonstrations by day, supported by various mayors and governors, that quite often turned into destructive riots after dark.  In 1957, when the law was applied to schools in Arkansas, Faubus defied the order and sent the state's National Guard to prevent Black children from entering Little Rock Central High School, and put in a personal appearance to help block the school-house doors himself.  He also -- through his fixer, Jimmy Karam -- stirred up civilian mobs to threaten any Black children who tried to come near the school, mobs too big for the state police to control.  Then-President Eisenhower -- a Republican -- first federalized the Arkansas National Guard and ordered them back to their armories, and then sent part of the 101st Airborne Division -- real federal troops -- to protect the children and enforce de-segregation of the school.  Ike later commanded the state National Guard to take over that duty.  Orval Faubas then shut down the state's public schools for the next year, and wailed in public about the federal government's "usurpation of power".  Liberal Democrats, however, cheered for Eisenhower's actions and loudly denounced "states' rights" for the next decade and more.

Does any of this sound familiar?

Cut to 2020, 63 years later.

In response to a particularly stupid incident of police brutality, there is a large opposition campaign by civilian organizations -- primarily the BLM -- which supports continuous protest demonstrations by day, supported by various mayors and governors, that quite often turn into destructive riots after dark.  When the federal government insisted that the mayors and governors of particularly afflicted states -- primarily Oregon -- quell the rioting and make some efforts to protect federal buildings and property, Oregon governor Brown defied the order and threatened assorted actions against the federal government.  President Trump -- a Republican -- then sent in federal Homeland Security police and US Marshals -- police, not military troops -- to arrest visibly criminal members of the rioters.  Brown responded by accusing the federal police of "making the situation worse" and ordering them to leave the state, even threatening to call up the state's National Guard to keep the federal police away from the rioters.  Brown has also shut down the public schools for the rest of the year -- and wailed publicly about the federal government's "usurpation of power".  This time, Liberal Democrats are denouncing Trump's actions and noisily defending "states' rights". 

Now what's the difference, aside from the federal government's much milder response to the riots -- police making arrests instead of troops forcibly scattering and threatening -- and that this time the rioters are supposedly pro-Black instead of pro-White?

The real difference is that in 1963 the Democrats may have been annoyed at having a Republican president, but they didn't (or politically couldn't) noisily and publicly hate Eisenhower.  He was, after all, a highly successful general (he had led the US troops to victory in World War Two), had been a very popular President, and was already safely into his second term.  He was pretty well impervious, and Democrats felt it a better use of their time and money to concentrate on who would be his successor.  Besides, Ike presented no great threat to Democrat entrenchment in the federal bureaucracy or the party's general strategy and tactics.

Not so Trump.  The ultimate outsider and interloper, with no political experience, a near-incoherent speaking style, and the manners of a bull in a china shop, he was never expected to win the 2016 election -- not even by himself.  The Democrats were so sure they had the election sewn up, that their propaganda division was perfect, and their strategy department had the voters properly manipulated, that Trump's election came as a horrid-horrid shock -- because he proved them wrong.  Trump's upset election showed that the Democrats didn't really understand the electorate at all and couldn't manipulate it as thoroughly as they'd thought.  Years of warning that the natives were restless, that a lot of them thought the government was "broken", that the government had lost touch with the average American, hadn't warned the Democratic National Committee enough to break through its smug insularity.  Above all, the Democrats couldn't believe that the citizens were voting not really for Trump but against them.

The shock was followed by denial.  No-no-no, the Democrats couldn't be that wrong, no.  The truth simply had to be that Trump appealed to White supremacists -- and there had to be a lot of them.  That meant that America really was largely racist-sexist-xenophobic-transgenderphobic-homophobic-Islamophobic and...and...well, just anti-democratic.  That's the story they've been telling themselves, their allies, and everybody else ever since. 

To support their story, when they weren't trying to impeach or at least slander Trump, they built up a "grassroots" campaign to convince the majority of voters that they were all White supremacists and terribly-terribly guilty -- and for that they carefully cultured both Antifa and BLM, and pushed them together, starting with Charlottesville -- which, as I've mentioned elsewhere, was carefully manipulated by clearly professional provocateurs (and is also where the AntifaBLM foot-soldiers got their peculiar taste for attacking statues).  As the election drew closer, the campaign heated up;  all the Democrats needed was another crisis to exploit.  Trump's bumbling reactions to the Covid-19 virus would have been enough to go after Trump's working-class base by damaging the economy, but it didn't support the precious Bigoted America story that the Democrats had so carefully built up. 

If the George Floyd killing hadn't been so thoroughly televised, it would have been just another case of thuggish cop versus obstreperous Black suspect.  In fact, had the case not fitted the DNC's needs, and advertising, people might have started asking questions -- such as why, if Floyd's throat was so thoroughly compressed, where did he get the air to keep struggling and talking, or why it took him more than eight minutes to die when only 30 seconds of compressing the carotid artery is enough to knock a man unconscious and less than 3 minutes will kill him.  As it was, the case was good enough to justify literally months worth of protests that reliably turn into riots.

But the problem with the you're-all-racists story is that it can readily backfire.  For one thing, a lot of the victims of the riots have been Black people themselves, which has made the majority of Black voters disenchanted with BLM, let alone Antifa.  For another, BLM's claims to speak for all "people of color" does not sit well with Latinos, Asians, Native Americans, or people of other colors.  For a third, the excesses of the protesters/rioters and their political apologists have begun to seriously annoy the majority of the voters -- of all colors.  Finally, the Democrats' ludicrous demands to defund/disband the police has actually engendered sympathy for Trump's attempts to restore order by bringing in the federal cops. 

The Democrats must realize that they've overplayed their hand -- again -- and are going to lose in November, or else they would't be making such incredible moves as to start lawsuits about an election that hasn't been held yet, or to claim that Trump will try to stay in the White House even if he loses.  Such hysteria makes voters more willing to vote against the Democrats, even if that means voting for Trump. 

And for those of us who bother to remember or study history, it makes the hypocrisy obvious.

--Leslie <;)))>< 

           

     

   
       



            

On Baby-Scr*wing

The latest news in the ongoing saga of Celebrity-Baby-Sex-Trafficker Epstein is:  "men's rights activist" Roy Hollander, chief suspect in the shooting of the son and husband of Judge Esther Salas, who was overseeing a lawsuit against Deutsche Bank, which was accused of not sufficiently vetting Epstein before accepting his money, has apparently killed himself.  I'm not sure how many suspicious deaths -- including his own -- are now linked to the infamous pimp.  The only question is just who is covering up all of his possible tracks and contacts.  Guesses have ranged from the Clintons to the British Royals.

Personally, I think it's the Mafia.  More than a century ago the classic Italian/American Mafia decided to quietly declare war on child-molesters, professional or private, and they've kept up with it ever since.  Subsequent organized-crime gangs may go in for child-sex trafficking, but the Mafia silently wars with them, too.  It's also well known that prisons are not safe for molesters, regardless of which gang rules in any particular prison.  This goes to show that, in America at least, whether you're rich and powerful or bottom of the heap, if you're a baby-scr*wer you're not welcome and not safe. 

One reason for this is that psychiatrists report having a dismal record at curing pedophiles.  It's what they call a "highly resistant psychopathy", and all they can recommend is to keep the pedophiles locked up for life.  The public seems to have quietly added another alternative: shoot them. 

In fact, I know of exactly two pedophiles -- both men, as the great majority of them seem to be -- who actually cured themselves of the compulsion.  Both of them managed to re-focus their sexual tastes into, if you please, BDSM -- starting as Bottoms, and eventually working their way up to Tops.  Both of them had been molested as children themselves, as a lot of pedophiles seem to be, and in both cases their original molesters mysteriously met with violent ends -- which may or may not have assisted in the cures.  Both of them had concluded that their original fixation on children came from frustrated misery over being victimized as children themselves.  This is an interesting contrast to those prisoners, most of whom were likewise molested and otherwise abused as children, who turn their fury onto any molesters they catch.  It's hard to say which reaction is healthier, for society or the individual.

One factor that I've never been able to track down is the age of the victims at the first molestation.  It would make sense that a very young victim would feel drowned in helplessness and would turn his misery back on himself or other children of the same age, while an older one -- say post-pubescent -- would have some idea of just whom to blame and how to get revenge.  In any case, the outcome of baby-scr*wing is always bad. 

This leads me to wonder about the general character of societies that allow, let alone encourage, baby-scr*wing.  Whether male or female, the victims will nurture a slow-roasting misery and rage that can express itself in a lot of dangerous ways throughout life.  Perhaps the rulers of those societies hope to profit from that rage, perhaps by using it to fuel armies of blindly vicious cannon-fodder, or perhaps by terrorizing their subjects into hopeless obedience.  Perhaps the tactic even works, for a time, but sooner or later it will turn on the victimizers -- usually in the form of treachery.  Baby-scr*wing societies -- I'll name no names -- are notorious for lack of internal cohesion, for their members turning on each other at the slightest excuse, for a lack of internal trust and loyalty, not to mention ready betrayal of outsiders.  In any case, a society -- as small as a family or as large as a nation -- which turns a blind or even approving eye on child-molesting cannot be trusted.

Perhaps it was historical experience in dealing with societies like these that have made Westerners in general, and Americans in particular, really hate baby-scr*wers.  It's no surprise that Epstein and his connections have been dying at a fast clip.  It will be interesting to see who goes down next. 


--Leslie <;)))><                   


 

Misinformation on the Bounty

At present the mainstream media are occupied with three supposed scandals.  In order of importance (that is, time spent on them), they are: 1) Putin paid Taliban troops a bounty to kill American soldiers, and Trump knew about it and is still making nicey-face at Putin;  2) The spread of the Covid-19 virus  "rages unchecked";  3) The pitiful state of those "refugee" children, separated from their "parents" at the border, is unchanged.  And of course it's all Trump's fault. 

Since that third item is more than a year old, one has to wonder why the newsies are bringing it up now.  The second item is serious, but really not deserving of the panic which the media seem determined to fan; as the number of tests increases, so does the number of discovered cases -- but the fatality-rate for Covid-19 cases is dropping steadily.  It's the first item that's getting the lion's share of the media's attention, but with the least amount of verification.

The Pentagon and the US State Department -- and of course the Foreign Offices of a lot of other countries -- have known for centuries that there's nothing easier than to get Arabs to fight other Arabs.  Quite often you don't even have to pay them;  they'll do it for free.  However, if you want to get Arabs to fight specific groups of other Arabs, it's best to pay them;  otherwise they'll go off the rails and attack anyone in sight. 

Certainly different groups of Arabs will insist that no, no, they're not Arabs;  they're Afghans, or Persians, or Turks, or Babylonians, or whatever, and they're totally different -- but in fact they all share and are defined by a common culture, which has plagued the world for nearly 4000 years.  One constant feature of that culture -- besides its rampant sexism, racism, class and religious bigotry -- is its treasured hate.  Arabs love their hate, and they love to exercise it on anyone they can reach, including each other.  One old Arab saying goes: "Me against my brother, me and my brother against my cousin, me and my brother and my cousin against the tribe, me and my brother and my cousin and my tribe against the world."  This, of course, does not endear them to the rest of the world.  In previous ages the rest of the world endured the Arabs or fought them as best it could, but in the modern age the more powerful countries have found Arabs to be useful as a weapon against each other.   

Now Russia and China have no love for each other, but one thing they can agree on is that they both hate Arabs even more;  therefore it makes perfect sense that Russia would pay Taliban Arabs to go kill ISIS Arabs.  China is, as always, playing its hand very close to its vest, so the State Dept. isn't sure just which Arabs China is paying, and to kill whom. 

The problem with paying Arabs to kill other Arabs is that, unlike Boss Tweed's definition of an honest politician, they don't stay bought.  Russia may be handing out chunks of money to various Taliban tribes, but without careful micro-management those Taliban Arabs will take the money and pay their cronies to go kill other targets.  This, according to what the Pentagon has learned, is pretty much what happened in Afghanistan;  the Russians paid some Taliban warlord, who then offered much of the money to pay other Arabs to go after his own pet target, which is American troops.  There is no evidence whatever that this is what the Russian government intended.  In fact, there's no proof so far that any Arabs actually took up the warlord on his offer, since American troops are noticeably harder to kill than other Arabs.. 

As to the question of whether Trump knew about this, the Pentagon claims that no, he wasn't briefed on this particular situation.  Of course he'd been told, probably many months ago, that the Russians were paying the Taliban to go kill ISIS, so that itself was old news and not worth repeating in the President's daily briefing.  Likewise, until there was good evidence that some Arabs really had taken the bounty and killed American troops, they wouldn't bother telling Trump about the warlord offering the bounty at all.  It's still just an unconfirmed rumor, as even The New York Times admitted.

As for Trump making nicey-face at Putin, remember that Trump shovels on flattery with a trowel, but there's no evidence that he ever means anything by it.  You can almost never rely on what Trump says, but only what he does   What he's actually done with Russia is to keep the trade-sanctions going, and Russia is suffering serious economic problems because of them.  Russia's economy can be politely described as a train-wreck, with no end in sight.  If Trump were to put much more of an economic squeeze on Russia, there would be Russians starving in the streets, which is not a good idea.   

This, plus the nasty press this pay-for-slay story has gotten, should be enough to make the Russians get serious about micro-managing those Taliban warlords that they've been paying off -- either that, or quit paying the Arabs completely, and given Russia's longstanding cultural paranoia, it's  unlikely they'll stop trying to manipulate the Arabs. What's more likely is that the particular warlord who caused the embarrassment  will mysteriously vanish and never be heard of again.

Meanwhile the story is useful for the media to lambaste Trump with, just like the other two "scandals", and a good red herring to divert the public from the AntifaBLM riots, which have become something of an embarrassment for the Socialist Democrats.  In fact, some clever Republicans -- which is not necessarily an oxymoron -- have put together a wonderfully effective campaign ad which shows clips of AntifaBLM thugs going smash-loot-burn while a simulated 911-emergency-line voice sweetly announces that the police are not available now -- "your wait time is approximately five days" -- and lettering at the bottom of the screen labels this as "Biden's America".  As propaganda goes, this is a real coup, and it's no coincidence that the media began pushing its Trump-to-Putin-to-Taliban-killing-our-soldiers story shortly after this ad began playing all over the major TV channels.  It all boils down to a simple case of dueling propaganda pieces.

A parallel case is playing out here in Arizona, over the Senatorial race between McSally (R) and Kelly (D).  Both candidates were previously in the Air Force, so both the ads show clips of flying fighter-planes.  The joke is that the planes are shown flying from opposite directions,and with the ads run back-to-back on the local channels, it looks as if they were coming at each other for an aerial dogfight.  We've taken to calling these the "dogfight ads", and together they make a lovely example of dueling propaganda.  As such, they ought to be shown in Debate, Logic, Speech and Journalism classes.           

It's my hope that in this video age -- and after being regularly bombarded with advertising -- the voters will experience enough propaganda in daily life to recognize it when they see it. 

--Leslie <;)))><  )O(