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jannasilvane · 5 years

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antehac. pars una.

When King Rowan was killed in battle by Dontin Sorren -- his own kin, and by some accounts a childhood companion -- Soren’s Rebellion was said to have come to an end. It was unknown to historians of the time that more rebellions were to follow, and appeared then to be the shaky conclusion of a swift but bloody war. King Dontin quickly and viciously executed each Rowan who was left behind in the Peaks, but a save few had been spirited away by allies to the nearby Noble Isles. It was recorded that King Sorren intended upon pursuing the deposed royal family; with the goal of murdering each man, woman, and babe within their lineage. History claimed that it was Lord Carsen Silvane who cautioned against this decision; arguing that it was best to leave the beggar kings to die in anonymity across the sea. If we fight them, stories often quoted the Lord as saying, they know we fear them.

More warring would nonetheless follow, leading some over time to question the sageness of Silvane’s counsel. Debates waged on, but produced no measurable change: a Soren Kings ruled, and Rowan boys grew into disgruntled men who had new boys of their own.

The summer sickness which had ravaged the region in the year preceding the ascension of King Owayne -- called a mad plague by healers who noted the delirium it caused in victims -- had infiltrated the royal household in the apex of the sweltering heat. It claimed the lives of several courtiers before it took down the younger prince and princess, and when it finished with them it set its course onto the ruling King and his heir. Despite Queen Celessa’s valiant attempts to save her husband and son by appealing to the mercy of the gods -- the pious woman fasted and prostrated herself before the images of the deities for several days on end -- Kevan Soren followed his two young children to the grave. Mercifully, Owayne recovered and was swiftly coronated.

Despite regaining his physical health, he seemed thereafter touched by what’d occurred.

In the early years of their reign, Janna found Owayne to be workable when caught in the right mood. He was quick to agree to her suggestion of naming her eldest brother as his chief councilor, and heeded the advice which came from both Silvane siblings as it pertained to the rebuilding of a land injured by its illness-related casualties. When Owayne was not beholden to his wicked temper, he proved to be willing to relinquish his grip on the Peaks to his wife and goodbrother, who stepped into the role with all the finesse of adults who had been reared for the job since they were babes. Whilst Alister assembled chosen men to serve as councilors and guardsmen within the walls of Driftpeake, Janna put her efforts into public works for the benefit of the common people, and made seemingly innocuous political plays at selecting women to serve as ladies-in-waiting from notable families across the region. Both siblings would work together on charming the noble class behind closed doors -- and it was during several strings of private dinners that issues such as brokering marriages, arranging new taxation policies, and doling out debated land occurred.

In return for Owayne’s willingness to pass the reins, Janna and Alister were happy to allow him the credit for the bulk of their work. It was the King who ultimately signed off on each and every issue that went first through the Silvanes, and it was the King who received praises from his court. Whether or not this dynamic was believed by the realm at large was to be debated, but it seemed as though the Peaks were set upon finding some kind of stability. Should Janna fall pregnant, their reign would be further cemented.

Of course, all reigns were not without their issues.

A particularly poor farming season left many hungry, and the need to feed the masses led to loans being taken out by the crown to afford the outsourcing of grains and other goods. The answer to the repayment of these loans came in the form of higher taxes put onto the people. Though the rising taxes were not unthinkable for those on the receiving end, it nonetheless warranted some displeasure with the capital and the King who resided in it.

For Owayne, who had always been temperamental, the change in public opinion took its toll. He spoke frequently about wishing to be likened to heroes such as Dontin Sorren, and began to seek private meetings with his Lord of War, Merrick Highstorm. Though Alister had hand-selected Lord Highstorm for the position, the man’s newfound favoritism at court seemed to cause him to forget this -- and as he ingratiated himself into the King’s goodwill he separated himself from the Silvane siblings. When -- after several months of this unwelcome dynamic-- Lord Highstorm presented the notion of warring with the Wetlands to the council meeting, Janna and Alister were taken aback. A debated stretch of land just beyond the northern territory of the Peaks had fallen into possession of the Wetlands some sixty years prior, and Owayne had come to the decision that he intended to reclaim it, and then some.

The King staunchly refused to hear any dissent to his desired declaration of warfare with the Wetlands, and in fact seemed to have a boyish excitement about the issue. Declaring himself to be the King chosen by the Gods, he asserted his word was law and all those who argued against him were traitors to the crown. The only thing to do with a traitor, he argued, was put them to the sword. Given their proclivities for keeping their heads, there were none among the council who wished to argue with the young ruler after this point had been made. Try as she did, no amount of sweet words from Janna could cajole him to rethink his plan, either.

Much to the dismay of the Silvanes, Owayne’s fool’s war was waged. Given the lands he intended to conquer, it was Lord Jon Silvane and his bannermen who were forced to bear the brunt of the skirmish -- though other Lords would be soon forced to surrender men and money to the needless cause. Two years were lost into the fruitless war, as were the lives of several hundred men of the Peaks. In that time, Owayne had visited the warfront once, stayed for a fortnight, and then returned due to the unfavorable weather. He’d spent more time parading through towns as they navigated the countryside than he had amongst the war he’d initiated. When all was said and done, the King had won no land, had increased the debt of the crown threefold, and had earned the outright contempt of several principle lords. For the first time in several years, the King’s spymaster -- a man called Wilmot Monfort -- produced reports that there were Lords who toasted to the health of Arthur Rowan.

And that was where their real troubles began.

The once only irritable King flew into fits of rage with ease; and mounting paranoia caused him to see treachery and plotting around him at every turn. Fearing that his nation had been made weak by the cost of his war -- which it had -- he was tortured by nightmares of usurpation by Arthur Rowan across the sea, carried out with the helping hands of Lords who’d turned their backs on him.

It helped little that the spymaster presented an abundance of reports detailing growing armies under the Rowans across the sea; and whispers that Rodric Rowan was dispatching spies into Driftpeake to report on the King.

When Owayne began chattering during council meetings about having both Rodric and Arthur Rowan killed, Janna and Alister did not take it immediately to have much substance. They wrongly assumed that their King had some shred of sense to him, and would not bait a man to war with an unsteady land. They maintained the position their forefather Carsen Silvane had delivered, not simply because they did not wish to demonstrate such open fear, but because they could not easily mount the war effort necessary to deal with the issue. Janna was intent upon handling the issue internally, and repairing the torn bonds in the realm that Owayne’s war had created. Alister had tried his hand at diverting the King’s attentions from his dreams of Arthur’s head, and instead implored Owayne to worry over rehabilitating the opinion known or suspected Rowan loyalists had of him. My Lord Uncle Vorgrove is safely on our side, Alister had said, but House Tyde and House Cratter should be brought to court and minded.

Alister’s advice went unheard, as did Janna’s when she encouraged Owayne to flatter unruly Houses with gifts of titles and land to appease them. She even went so far as to suggest a marriage between her brother Randall and Lord Tyde’s daughter -- all of which fell onto deaf ears. Owayne could be only fleetingly distracted from his dream of Arthur Rowan’s head -- and that was when he set his sights on other real or imagined enemies, of which there were increasingly more of every day. Executions occurred with a growing frequency; the victims largely consisting of servants whom Owayne claimed were Rowan spies. The once malleable King appeared to have become unhinged, and it was all Janna and Alister could do to attempt to find some hold on him to regain their control with.

There was no going back after the deaths of the Woodgards.

Robin Woodgard had been the eldest son of the ruling Lord Oliver Woodgard, a powerful nobleman with land in the west whose family had in the past been connected with Rowan sympathizers. When Lord Woodgard came to Driftpeake to discuss necessary changes to the major trade roads which went through his land, his son had noticeably been absent -- a matter which had been explained away by a reported illness. Through his own twisted thinking, Owayne had deduced that Lord Woodgard had sent his son to meet in secret with the Rowans, and that his presence in the capital was no more than a distraction whilst the enemy was funneled into the region. On no evidence beyond simple paranoia, Lord Woodgard was imprisoned and his son was demanded to appear at the court. When Robin Woogard presented himself with men to swear testimony to his lack of travel across the sea, Owayne deduced that they were all traitors, and ordered them tortured until they revealed their crimes.

When Alister attempted to intercede, he was instead stripped of his role as chief councilor and threatened with imprisonment should he continue to protest the issue. Wilmot was placed into his position in the interim. Without her brother in his position and deprived of her ability to influence the King’s decision making, Janna was left powerless.

After several days of torture, the Woodgards confessed to their crimes -- or simply admitted them to stop their agony -- and begged to swear fealty to their King. When Owayne had his paranoid suspicions confirmed by their confessions, he denied their request. Instead, he ordered their execution. Rather than giving the father and son a nobleman’s death by beheading, he instead opted for death by hanging, drawing, and quartering. When the tortured men arrived at their gallows dragged by horses, there were none save for Owayne who saw justice being done: instead, a mass horror seemed to greet the grisly executions. With ropes around their necks, Lords Oliver and Robin had renewed their innocence and protested for aid. After the ropes nearly wrung them of their lives and they were cut down, they continued their pleas for mercy. Janna, who had up until then retained a cool demeanor beside her excitable spouse, could not abide the carnage. By the time the executioner had made his first cuts into the bellies of the screaming men, Janna had fled her seat in full view of the watching crowd.

In the days which followed the deaths of the Woodgards, pockets of insurrection burst throughout the Peaks. The deposition of King Owayne was called for by several principle lords of the realm. Some argued for a regent to take hold of the land -- Alister Silvane’s name was presented amongst several -- while others openly encouraged the return of the Rowans. Owayne demanded the heads of each and every person who railed against him, but lacked the manpower to spread soldiers far enough to accomplish it. Letters were sent informing dissidents that they would be marked traitors if they did not appoint at court to bend the knee. Most went unanswered. Letters were sent to the lords guarding the southwestern border of the Peaks imploring them to protect the land -- these, too, went unanswered.

Not four months after the Woodgards were tossed into their graves, the Rowans landed just outside of the territory of Lucidus Stronghold. The news had seemed to make Owayne giddy, who shared that they at last had the war he’d dreamed of.

But it wasn’t a war --- it was an invasion.

#prologue #000

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katchwreck · 5 years

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Ignorance is the most potent weapon in the vast armoury of the privileged and powerful. The use of force and prisons to oppress citizens and deny them basic human rights is effective but tends to cause a reaction. People physically oppressed feel the pain and often resist and revolt against their oppressors.

But the locks and chains of mental imprisonment through imposed ignorance are invisible and much more effective. For those detained within prisons of ignorance do not even recognise their enslavement. Information is power and those who control the flow of information are very powerful. Keeping the populace ignorant or ensuring they are only partially informed or misinformed is how the rich and powerful maintain control.

The statement above swirled around my brain last week as I struggled to contain my anger and rage at the treatment of Venezuela and her people by Trump's American gangsters and their hired liars and lickspittles who daily pollute our screens and newsstands with tales designed to misinform, half inform and conceal completely the motives of the mobsters in smart suits and ties who flash smiles and issue soundbites in public but who are responsible for carnage, extreme poverty and premature deaths in private.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo displayed the self-assured shamelessness of the arrogant crook he is by labelling the likes of Jeremy Corbyn and others who dare to support the democratically elected President of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, as "disgusting". He did so a few days ago as he sat appropriately alongside the dishonourable multi-millionaire UK Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt MP, so powerful he can flaunt laws and tax bills everyone else is compelled to obey and so rich he forgets to declare the purchase of seven luxury flats:

“It is disgusting to see leaders, in not only the United Kingdom, but the United States as well, who continue to support the murderous dictator Maduro. It is not in either of our country's best interests for those leaders to continue to advocate on their behalf”.

The only thing that is “disgusting” is the dishonest, deceitful display of hypocrisy by Pompeo on behalf of America as they implement a vicious economic war against the people of Venezuela in pursuit of control over their vast oil reserves, the largest reserves on the planet.

Pompeo represents the biggest bully nation in the world. The suggestion they are concerned with the human rights or welfare of the Venezuelan people is an outrageous misrepresentation of reality. The truth of the situation is crystal clear but you will only find it if you look beneath and beyond the cacophony of sneeringly dishonest media coverage that disgracefully disguises itself as news output.

Last week I listened to and watched bulletin after bulletin glowingly report the attempt of US imposed puppet Juan Guido to encourage a violent overthrow of a democratically elected President in Venezuela.

Guido was given hours of coverage and acres of newsprint to proclaim the end of the elected Maduro "regime" without a hint of critical context or a sniff of journalistic questioning of the legitimacy of a self-appointed President in preference to one who attracted over 6.2 million votes in a democratic election less than twelve months ago.

Even Jon Snow and Channel 4 News have joined the ranks of the disgraced purveyors of US friendly lies and half-truths. Snow referred to Maduro, the guy re-elected President with over 6.2 million votes in a field of several candidates, as the "failed President". The display of bias and prejudice against Maduro was sickening and nauseating.

The very same so-called 'news' stations like BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Sky and CNN who promoted and encouraged an illegal, undemocratic and violent overthrow of the Maduro government then had the brass necks to condemn that government's police and security services for quelling the isolated malcontents who threw missiles and even fired live ammunition at the legitimate police force of Venezuela.

If only they displayed such concern for 'protesters' when reporting the shooting of children with flags and placards in the West Bank and Gaza strip by the illegally occupying Israeli Defence Forces?

What is withheld from public view and given no or cursory coverage is the fact that Venezuela has been deliberately targeted by the US for regime change and the economic sanctions imposed have been illegal under international law and deadly to the poor of Venezuela.

Consider the Executive Summary of the devastating Report from the American based Center For Economic And Policy Research (CEPR) published last month:

"This paper looks at some of the most important impacts of the economic sanctions imposed on Venezuela by the US government since August of 2017. It finds that most of the impact of these sanctions has not been on the government but on the civilian population.

The sanctions reduced the public's caloric intake, increased disease and mortality (for both adults and infants), and displaced millions of Venezuelans who fled the country as a result of the worsening economic depression and hyperinflation. They exacerbated Venezuela's economic crisis and made it nearly impossible to stabilize the economy, contributing further to excess deaths. All of these impacts disproportionately harmed the poorest and most vulnerable Venezuelans.

Even more severe and destructive than the broad economic sanctions of August 2017 were the sanctions imposed by executive order on January 28, 2019 and subsequent executive orders this year; and the recognition of a parallel government, which as shown below, created a whole new set of financial and trade sanctions that are even more constricting than the executive orders themselves.

“We find that the sanctions have inflicted, and increasingly inflict, very serious harm to human life and health, including an estimated more than 40,000 deaths from 2017-2018; and that these sanctions would fit the definition of collective punishment of the civilian population as described in both the Geneva and Hague international conventions, to which the US is a signatory. They are also illegal under international law and treaties which the US has signed, and would appear to violate US law as well”.

This rigorously researched academic report finds the US Government guilty of imposing illegal economic sanctions amounting to a form of collective punishment costing 40,000 Venezuelan lives and the fact is that most if not all readers of this column will be learning of this shocking fact for the first time.

America is guilty of breaching the Geneva and Hague Conventions designed to defend human rights; breaking international laws designed to protect the national sovereignty of nations; and causing the premature deaths of more than 40,000 Venezuelan citizens, and you are only just learning about it?

If this does not enrage you and alert you to how ill-informed we are collectively about the actions, motives and consequences of US actions you are on the side of the oppressors in the world and don't care about such atrocities.

At the start of February I watched BBC anchor-man Andrew Neil on one of his many BBC provided platforms attack Ken Livingston for suggesting many of Venezuela's economic problems were caused by US economic sanctions. Neil aggressively challenged Livingston to name any sanctions and suggested the only sanctions that existed were from 2015 under Barack Obama and they were "aimed solely at Venezuelan regime members".

According to Mr BBC, Andrew Neil, there were ‘no economic sanctions by the US against Venezuela which could cause any economic damage'. The exchange is promoted by the ‘Voice of Reason' website under the headline: ‘Andrew Neil demolishes left wing myth that Venezuela's demise was caused by America'.

Andrew Neil and the British Biased Corporation are no strangers to the peddling of biased, misleading and unfounded views and news of course. They do it consistently and professionally. Sometimes they are caught out and reprimanded but often the damage is done in the artificial influencing and manipulation of public opinion.

Two years ago during an interview with former First Minister of Scotland, Alex Salmond, in the run up to the Scottish Parliament elections Mr Neil used out of date data and biased Tory propaganda to suggest primary school children in Scotland were “functionally illiterate”.

It was a woefully inaccurate and politically biased claim. The toothless and inadequate watchdog, Ofcom, has now found the interview to be misleading and inaccurate but a full two years after the broadcast took place.

So we know how biased the mainstream media can be and should not be surprised that an academic report so damning of the US economic sanctions and involvement in undermining Venezuela is repressed. However what about the Human Rights Council (HRC) of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly? Would you expect a similar report from such a respected and esteemed body to be ignored?

In September last year a detailed and comprehensive report was submitted to the HRC by the independent expert appointed on behalf of the HRC of the United Nations to examine the economic and democratic situation within both Venezuela and Ecuador. After months of interviews, examination of evidence, visitations across Venezuela and independent evaluation of contributions from all sides of the political divide within Venezuela Alfred de Zayas published his Report.

The methodology he used in compiling his report followed the principle audiatur et altera pars, listen to all sides. He stringently adhered to Article 6 of the Special Procedures Mandate Holders of the HRC which requires mandate holders to establish the facts based on objective, reliable information emanating from relevant credible sources that have been duly cross-checked to the best extent possible.

The outcome was a damning indictment of the US and its illegal use of economic sanctions to engineer a politically desirable objective. The recent academic report referred to above only underlines the accuracy and truth of this report from the HRC Independent Expert.

Several direct quotations are appropriate.

In relation to Venezuela's achievements:

“The Independent Expert noted the eradication of illiteracy, free education from primary school to university, and programmes to reduce extreme poverty, provide housing to the homeless and vulnerable, phase out privilege and discrimination, and extend medical care to everyone.”

In connection with the history of US interference in other sovereign nations through economic warfare to cause humanitarian disasters to justify military interventions:

“The Charter of the United Nations rests on the philosophy of multilateralism, a commitment to international cooperation, and the sovereign equality of States. Countries must not be isolated and boycotted, but helped in strengthening their democratic institutions. Over the past sixty years, non-conventional economic wars have been waged against Cuba, Chile, Nicaragua, the Syrian Arab Republic and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in order to make their economies fail, facilitate regime change and impose a neo-liberal socioeconomic model. In order to discredit selected governments, failures in the field of human rights are maximized so as to make violent overthrow more palatable. Human rights are being "weaponized" against rivals. Yet, human rights are the heritage of every human being and should never be instrumentalized as weapons of demonization”.

On the unilateral and illegal economic sanctions imposed and supported by the US, Canada and, shamefully, the EU:

“The effects of sanctions imposed by Presidents Obama and Trump and unilateral measures by Canada and the European Union have directly and indirectly aggravated the shortages in medicines such as insulin and anti-retroviral drugs. To the extent that economic sanctions have caused delays in distribution and thus contributed to many deaths, sanctions contravene the human rights obligations of the countries imposing them. Moreover, sanctions can amount to crimes against humanity under Article 7 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. An investigation by that Court would be appropriate, but the geopolitical submissiveness of the Court may prevent this.”

The US, Canada and the EU are guilty of ‘crimes against humanity' but the Independent Expert doubts the International Criminal Court will investigate because of the identity of the powerful nations who are the perpetrators of the crimes.

Most damning but prophetic of all the words submitted by the Independent Expert in his Report were contained in Paragraph 37. Please read the whole Report but consider, reflect on, share and re-read this essential paragraph:

“Modern-day economic sanctions and blockades are comparable with medieval sieges of towns with the intention of forcing them to surrender. Twenty-first century sanctions attempt to bring not just a town, but sovereign countries to their knees. A difference, perhaps, is that twenty-first century sanctions are accompanied by the manipulation of public opinion through "fake news", aggressive public relations and a pseudo-human rights rhetoric so as to give the impression that a human rights "end" justifies the criminal means. There is not only a horizontal juridical world order governed by the Charter of the United Nations and principles of sovereign equality, but also a vertical world order reflecting the hierarchy of a geopolitical system that links dominant States with the rest of the world according to military and economic power. It is the latter, geopolitical system that generates geopolitical crimes, hitherto in total impunity. It is reported that the United States is currently training foreign lawyers in how to draft legislation to impose further sanctions on the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in an effort to asphyxiate Venezuelan State institutions.”

Open your eyes to the reality of US involvement in Venezuela and recognise it as the criminal enterprise that it is. Don't accept the prison of ignorance built for us by the powerful. Break out and condemn them for their conscious breeches of international law and crimes against humanity.

Hands Off Venezuela. No To Economic Sanctions. Yes To Maduro & Democracy.

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republicstandard · 6 years

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#MarchForOurLives Advances Globalist Tyranny Through Gun Control

On March 24th, a coordinated series of protests under the hashtag #MarchForOurLives took to the streets in Washington, DC and other U.S. cities to demand the infringement of our Second Amendment rights, spurred on by a solitary incident in Florida that, though heart-breaking and tragic, had no wider implications other than the abject failure of government from the federal level on down, which is basically par for the course.

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Well, it would seem to represent nothing more than the fact that government is hopelessly incompetent, but several of the Stoneman Douglas High School students killed were Jews, as was one of the teachers; over 40% of the student body is Jewish. Plus, Parkland, Florida, which one rabbi tells us is;

“a small community where nearly half the population is Jewish,”

Parkland is also incredibly affluent. Could this have something to do with the fact that this is being framed in no small part as an explicitly “Jewish issue” in addition to being a blight on our humanity?

According to Natalie Lifson of Haaretz, the shooter, Nikolas de Jesus Cruz, had a “well-documented hatred of Jews.” She goes on to frame the shooting as an “anti-Semitic attack” but it was no more an anti-Semitic attack than Stephen Paddock’s Las Vegas slaughter was anti-white; how does Lifson respond to the fact that the Stoneman Douglas shooter was also Jewish? She doesn’t. She does go on to wail:

Ironically, the erasure of the Jewish aspect of Cruz’s massacre continues. The memorial for the dead students and teachers, located at Pine Trails Park, consists of 17 crosses, one to represent each of the dead. It is pretty tone-deaf to “honor” Jewish students in death with symbols of another faith.

More importantly, in assessing the March For Our Lives, Lifson happily notes:

It’s good to hear that the march has targeted not only guns but the intersection between bigotry and gun violence; that dangerous, racist ideas that cause people to view other people as subhuman are primarily at fault.

Watching the Jewish kids from #Parkland make change, hand-in-hand with their brothers and sisters from black communities, ravaged by gun violence for decades: this solidarity & love trumps any manufactured hatred & misunderstanding #JewsDemandAction

— Stefanie Iris Weiss🌹 (@EcoSexuality) March 24, 2018

Ah, there it is. In viewing Cruz’s slaughter as an extension of “racist ideas,” there is the explicit acknowledgement that Judaism is a separate, distinct race, though bound up in the reductive analysis of “racism” and “hate” from the fourth-grade intellect that is Natalie Lifson is the contradiction of a Hispanic Jew killing other Hispanics and Jews as racism, unless of course, she views Cruz as acting out a distaste for whites, mulattoes, and Asians while simultaneously being a self-loathing Jew. Lifson’s entire argument makes no sense unless viewed through an ideological prism. As Jim Goad says,

“I don’t know what the Jewish Question is, but I’m pretty sure the answer is ‘anti-Semitism.’”

Also trending on Twitter on the 24th was the March’s related hashtag #JewsDemandAction.

Rabbi David Steinhardt wrote:

This is the time for a call to action. I am angry that this country, supposedly an advanced civilized place, has not been able to pass proper legislation for sane and reasonable gun control. Seventy-nine percent of our citizens oppose the sale of automatic weapons like the one used [in the shooting], and yet our legislators have failed to act. WE ALL KNOW WHY. To a large degree, it is because of the power of the NRA’s congressional lobby. This must be called out again and again. Please check out the amount of money given to our political ‘leaders’ by the National Rifle Association. One of our senators, Marco Rubio, has received over 3.3 million dollars in campaign gifts from the NRA. How will he vote on different aspects of gun legislation? We see his history. Is it a surprise? Emphatically, NO.

#JewsDemandAction for universal background checks, bans on assault weapons & high capacity ammunition magazines. We will NOT stand idly by. Following the lead of our @NFTY teens, we’re taking action today, tomorrow, and every day until we end gun violence. #MarchForOurLives pic.twitter.com/aH66NbC9CB

— The RAC (@TheRAC) March 24, 2018

Aside from the fact that the “automatic weapon” in question was not automatic, the NRA-as-villain trope is extremely disingenuous, especially since most of its endowment is from dues-paying members, unlike the March For Our Lives sponsoring organization Everytown for Gun Safety, founded and primarily financed by Jewish billionaire Michael Bloomberg. Bloomberg, incidentally, has some very interesting views on minorities and firearms:

"Cities need to get guns out of the hands of…male, minority, and between the ages of 15 and 25 [individuals]…95 percent of all murders fall into this category…[They] think they’re going to get killed anyway because all their friends are getting killed…It’s a joke to pull the trigger."

I’m not being flippant—that literally sounds like someone on the Alt-Right. I’ve actually heard quite a few Alt-Right commentators voice this idea. That aside, returning to Rabbi Steinhardt’s framing of the NRA as this all-powerful machine that controls the politicians under its sway like gun-mad marionettes, it’s important to keep in mind that the NRA really does not have the kinds of resources at its disposal that the media machine would have people believe. Its endowment is $75 million, whereas the Anti-Defamation League (which “fights anti-Semitism and hate”) has a $144 million endowment, and the Southern Poverty Law Center has a $319 million endowment!

Thanks to @MaxineWaters for meeting with us. I’m here with @TheRAC and 300+ #RACLTaken teens to demand that Congress end it’s shameful inaction on gun violence. How many more lives must be lost before we act? #JewsDemandAction pic.twitter.com/bSS6veUv8s

— lexie (@lexkorks) March 21, 2018

Yet the NRA, which advocates for protecting our Constitutional freedoms, is framed as the bad guy, and the ADL and SPLC, which advocate for infringements on our rights, are somehow quoted word-for-word in press release materials as unquestioned moral authorities on all issues pertaining to “hate.” What does gun control have to do with Southern poverty? We now know what it has to do with anti-Semitism courtesy of Natalie Lifson, but where in either group’s mission statement does abridging fundamental human rights and supplanting them with “human rights” of the Bernie Sanders variety—himself a kind of carpet-bagger in Yankee Vermont with his particular Midwood, Brooklyn, New York sensibilities—occur?

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The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) paints a grim picture of Americans who support a constitutional amendment, calling them, at turns;

“radical,” “combustible,” “Second Amendment Vigilantes,” “isolated, unbalanced, and gun-toting men with scores to settle,”

And a slew of other labels with no factual substantiation. The fact that we are at a point in our nation’s history where supporting the Bill of Rights has become a radical position is nothing short of terrifying, and as whites become a minority and a greater percentage of college-indoctrinated youth come to believe in concepts such as “gun control” and “hate speech,” we are, to be blunt, doomed. The SPLC referred to the Ludwig von Mises Institute as “neo-Confederate adjacent with neo-fascist sympathies,” and they’ve used the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon to tie anyone from Murray Rothbard to Stefan Molyneux to the Ku Klux Klan.

#JewsDemandAction meanwhile in Israel..... #MarchForOurLives pic.twitter.com/kkLf18jOqU

— Costanza Groyper (@CostanzaGeorgie) March 24, 2018

The Daily Caller is tarred as “white nationalist friendly” because of Charlottesville or something. The level of intellectual dishonesty with these people is appalling, but it is not shocking. There is a very clear agenda at work here, and it is to silence all dissent to demographic displacement and, even more importantly, prevent anyone anywhere from ever noticing certain patterns of behavior. John Derbyshire writes “racist screeds” (I wonder how his mixed-race children feel about the fact that their father is a racist), “hate website” VDare.com is a “major hub for white nationalists and anti-Semites” (once again, no substantiation to the claim), and American Renaissance is “overtly white supremacist.” I’m not a litigious sort, but I am positive these claims are grounds for libel.

YouTube relies on the SPLC to flag videos that are deemed to have offensive content, which explains why any videos even tangentially related to guns—from weapons maintenance to firing exhibitions to product reviews—have been removed. They approach “gun control” with almost the same vehemence that they approach the curtailment of freedom of speech! The SPLC includes under its definition of Holocaust Denial the “minimization of its extent.” This is, obviously not denial in any way, but much like they and their kindred spirits at the ADL’s premise of “fighting hate,” it is an Orwellian construction. Hate is an emotion, not subject to rationality or reason. It is also, consequently, highly subjective. Simply by pointing out the fact that we only have a documented death toll of 2.4 million Jews as of June 1943 and everything after that is conjecture is Holocaust Denial (proper noun of course) and would find me subject to fines and/or imprisonment in a slew of Western countries.

At least the ADL is explicit about its mission to “stop the defamation of the Jewish people” (presumably at any cost); the SPLC is much more discreet with its motives, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t pursuing ideological warfare. What do the SPLC’s Jewish Co-Founder and Board Emeritus member Joseph Levin, Jewish President J. Richard Cohen, Jewish Legal Director Rhonda Brownstein, Jewish Director of the Southeast Immigrant Freedom Initiative Dan Werner, Jewish Intelligence Project Director Heidi Beirich, Jewish “Teaching Tolerance” Director Maureen Costello, Jewish Deputy Legal Director (Children’s Rights) Zoe Savitsky, Jewish Director of Florida Initiatives David J. Utter, Jewish Director of Educational Advocacy Jerri Katzerman, Jewish Managing Editor Sean Price, Jewish Curriculum Design Manager Thomas Ronk, Jewish Staff Attorney for the LGBT Rights Project Samuel Wolfe, Jewish Director of the Juvenile Justice Policy Group Danielle J. Lipow, Jewish General Counsel Attorney Jim Knoepp, and Jewish Board of Directors members Bennett Grau, Jocelyn Benson, Marsha Levick, Howard Mandell, Lida Orzeck, Alan B. Howard, Pam Horowitz, Ellen Sudow, and Elden Rosenthal want?

To quote Jewish former Senior Fellow at the SPLC Mark Potok:

“Our aim is to destroy [the groups on the SPLC’s Hatewatch List] completely…We’re trying to wreck the groups. We’re trying to destroy them. It’s strictly ideological.”

This list includes American Renaissance, the American College of Pediatricians, the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the Occidental Quarterly, the Proud Boys, VDare.com, and White Lives Matter.

Since the shooting in Parkland, I've been so moved by the prophetic voices of @NFTY teens & other young Jewish leaders. Theirs is the generation that will repair our world. This week I'm using my profile to amplify their messages. Stay tuned & be inspired. #JewsDemandAction

— Rabbi Jonah Pesner (@JonahPesner) March 20, 2018

It’s never “just” about guns; as Natalie Lifson delighted in pointing out, it’s the intersection between “bigotry, gun violence…and racist ideas.” Washington Post writer Adam Winkler noted with great satisfaction that as America becomes less rural and less white, “The NRA Will Fall. It’s Inevitable.” Hadassah (The Women’s Zionist Organization of America) has publicly backed Congressional legislation to restrict access to firearms and further infringe on our Second Amendment rights. As far as Hadassah is concerned, here is what else you get:

For #WorldPoetryDay, here’s @HadassahMag on activist and poet Emma Lazarus: “Her immortal words on the base of the Statue of Liberty remain a potent symbol linking immigration policy and women’s rights.”

On International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, we must renew our commitment to speaking out against racism, white supremacy, and neo-Nazism. #Hadassah #Israel #Peace #IDERD

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What's next, NFTY? We may be done marching, but the fight for gun violence prevention has just begun - & #JewsDemandAction. Join us: https://t.co/8M9zzWeFU5 pic.twitter.com/ewI9mey6Fx

— NFTY (@nfty) March 25, 2018

If you haven’t already, are you starting to see how all these things—gun ownership, demographics, immigration, the highly-flexible notions and constantly expanding definitions of “racism,” “white supremacy,” and “hate”—are all interconnected? Jewish billionaire Nathan Kirsch funds Julius Malema’s anti-white Economic Freedom Fighters party in South Africa. Can you see where this road ends?

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clubofinfo · 7 years

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Expert: The spectacle is the nightmare of imprisoned modern society which ultimately expresses nothing more than its desire to sleep. The spectacle is the guardian of sleep. — Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle It is generally accepted that sports, especially spectator sports, serve many social purposes, good and bad, and that they function to distract people from the cares and worries of everyday life, or the “real world.” No doubt this is true. The etymology of the word sport, derived as it is from the word “disport” – divert, amuse, carry away – tells us that. But often a distraction can also be a reminder, even when that reminder remains shrouded in unconsciousness or forgotten in the moment. Sometimes, however, the reminder can be linked to memories that bring a startling clarity to the present. Two recent sports news items have reminded me of incidents from my own athletic past. And those memories in turn have brought my reflections back to the current news regarding the failure of any National Football League (NFL) team to sign quarterback Colin Kaepernick to a contract, and the recent boxing match between Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor. Kaepernick’s case is well-known and much discussed. He took a valiant and principled stand last football season by taking a knee during the national anthem to protest the violent treatment of black Americans by the police and American society in general. History was on his side, unless one was a clear-cut white racist and ignorant of American history. But as a terrific football player and a well-known athlete, his stand was unusual in the world of sports where political protest is very rare and not being reminded of the “real” world is the key to success. The NFL, in particular, is a very conservative organization, long infused with a super patriotic ethos wrapped in the American flag and the song that celebrates it, and Kaepernick’s protest was a diversion from the diverting spectacle on the field and not welcomed by NFL owners, to put it mildly. So as of this writing, Kaepernick, a very good football player who would clearly strengthen an NFL team, remains without a job. That this is because he lacks talent is ridiculous. While pressure against the NFL from multiple media and organizational sources is growing to reverse this situation, even well-meaning writers have implicitly used racist language to describe the situation by saying that Kaepernick is being blackballed. Ironic as it is, our language is filled with such subtle reminders of the white mindset that equates white with good and black with bad. But there is a deeper irony involved, and language once again reveals it. First, however, let me briefly tell you of my memories, not because the details are important in themselves, but because they are examples of how we bring to our present perspectives past experiences that can both help to clarify and obfuscate current events. The saying “where you’re coming from” contains truth; our past experiences deeply influence how we see the present. When I was 19-20 years old, a senior in high school and a Division I college freshman on an athletic scholarship, I was involved in two incidents involving sports and violence. The sport was basketball, not football or boxing, and the violence was minimal, but both are etched in my memory. As a young man, I was rarely involved in fighting, but when I felt abused and disrespected, my Irish temper got the best of me and I would physically defend myself. Otherwise, I was a normal young athlete, fueled by the competitive nature of high-level sports and testosterone. But these incidents taught me that the propensity for violence is in us all, and that certain situations and social arrangements can inflame and promote it, especially when you are most unaware and naïve. But what do these memories have to do with the news about Kaepernick and Mayweather/McGregor? What I saw in both sports stories was violence; one quite obvious with boxing, the other involving Kaepernick, less so. I realized that violence has many faces, whether it be minor or major, fisticuffs or “blitzes,” face-to-face or helmet-to-helmet, physical or verbal, racial or political, institutional or personal, etc. It’s largest and most savage one is war, and endless war and preparations for war are the large canvas within which the others lie. Sometimes remembering one’s individual inclinations toward violence can help one see the larger picture. As usual, the Unites States is currently waging multiple wars, and is fomenting many others, including a nuclear one. Most of the victims of U.S. violence are considered “other,” the expendable people, as were slaves, Native Americans, and other people of color. Nothing has changed since that other heroic black American dissenter said that America is “the greatest purveyor of violence on earth.” And we know that Martin Luther King was murdered by those violent U.S. government forces he criticized in his opposition to war, racial inequality, and economic injustice for all Americans. I am not equating Kaepernick with MLK, but his protest follows in the King tradition and that of other black athletes who have taken political stands: Mohammed Ali, Tommy Smith, John Carlos, et al. All suffered for their courageous positions. Of course, Colin Kaepernick has a right to play football, just as Ali had the right to beat people up in the ring. Yet boxing, despite the Mayweather/McGregor extravaganza, has generally been recognized for the brutal “sport” it is, and has grown less popular over the years, perhaps in part because of Ali’s “pugilistic brain syndrome.” Not football. It has grown to become America’s number one sport, despite the growing evidence of what may be called “football brain syndrome,” and all the violence and other crippling injuries suffered by former players, revealed as far back as 1970 when Dave Meggyesy, a former NFL linebacker, published Out of Their League, his expose of the dehumanizing aspects of football. But the unspoken truth in the Kaepernick story is that football is the war sport par excellence, extremely violent, and deeply tied to the spectacle of cruelty that dominates American society today and that has caused so much suffering for black people and other people of color for centuries. In the 1960s, Brazilian television, in an effort to distinguish football (soccer) from American football, aptly termed it “military football.” And while it, like other sports, has been an avenue to wealth and “success” for some black Americans (a tiny minority), its war-like structure and violent nature is noted with a nod and a wink. Heck, it’s fun to play and exciting to watch, and is just a colorful spectacle that we can’t do without. That it’s a conditioning agent for the love of war and violent aggression is usually passed over. Its language, like all good linguistic mind control, becomes powerfully invisible. Colin Kaepernick, like all quarterbacks, is the field general who throws bombs to flankers as he tries to avoid the blitz. Each team defends and conquers the enemy’s territory, pushing its opponent back through frontal assaults and pounding the enemy’s line. This is mixed with deceptive formations and aerial assaults behind the opponent’s line. When none of this works and the enemy goes on the offensive, a different platoon is brought in to defend one’s territory. One’s front line must then defend against a frontal assault and hit back hard. The analogies are everywhere, and as with many aspects of “everywhere,” what’s everywhere is nowhere – its familiarity making it invisible and therefore all the more powerful. In a society of the spectacle, football is the most spectacular and entertaining mass hypnotic induction into the love of violence that we have. Yes, Mayweather and McGregor beating the shit out of each other satisfies the blood lust of gamblers and a much smaller audience, but boxing is small peanuts compared to football. Most American parents wouldn’t bring their children to a boxing match, but football is deeply ingrained in the American psyche and structured into the fabric of our lives from youth onwards, concussions and violence be damned. It is a microcosm of our militaristic, war-loving culture. Our love of violence disguised as fun. As an American man, I understand its appeal. I am sometimes drawn in myself, but against my better nature, which embraces MLK’s non-violent philosophy. I appreciate the great athletic prowess of football players, and know that it is enjoyable and a way to recognition for many, and for a smaller number, a scholarship to college, and, for even less, a lucrative job in the NFL. But as an opponent of American militarism, I find its violent ethos and the way it disfigures the bodies and minds of participants and spectators alike to be appalling. It functions as an arm of the Pentagon and the growing militarization of the country’s police departments. As for Conor McGregor, the slum boy from south Dublin, they say he is an artist, a mixed “martial arts artist.” That violence is an art is good to know. I have been living in a bubble, thinking that art was a counterbalance to violence. When I grew out of my adolescent readiness to defend my dignity with my fists and grew into art, I had hoped that the world would grow up with me. No luck. No luck of the Irish. Conor should read our Irish ancestor, the great poet William Butler Yeats, and take the money and run. “Too long a sacrifice/Can make a stone of the heart.” So too Colin Kaepernick, whom I greatly admire for his courage to take an ethical stand. He deserves to be offered a job by an NFL team. If he is, I hope he turns it down, and speaks out on the propagandistic nature of the sport that made him famous, on its school of violence and its art of war. In doing that, he would be carrying on the legacy of MLK, Malcom X, Mohammed Ali, and other black leaders who said violence must stop now, war must stop, the violence on people of color must stop, and let it begin with me. He would be disclosing the taboo truth of an American sporting distraction that does violence to its participants while it brainwashes its fans into the martial spirit. He would be waking an awful lot of people up from the slumber of the spectacle of cruelty that has this country in its grip. Many people would take a knee in gratitude. http://clubof.info/

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