The Sponge as Civic Ideal

In a Guardian hack job entitled “How Russia spreads Disinformation via RT is more nuanced than we realise” Robert Elliot launched a  full bore frontal attack on freedom of thought with an astonishing frankness evident for those with eyes to see. The article states:

The daily deluge of disinformation produced by RT and Sputnik is a vital component of the tactics that other authoritarian regimes are seeking to replicate. ...The volume of coverage, framing of coverage, and average engagement with that coverage is, at times, widely disparate [from that of western media].

Our research at the State Owned Media Analytics and Research programme has shown us that RT sometimes dedicates a disproportionate amount of time to pushing certain stories – such as the coup in Venezuela or the leaked memos from the British ambassador about Donald Trump.

•   what is “disproportionate” and by what objective criteria do you measure this?

•   how do you measure which stories should be pushed?

•   do you take into consideration the stories that are not covered or pushed by the MSM?

RT’s coverage on the Venezuela coup attracted an average of 2,558 engagements (retweets, likes or shares) per online article, more than the BBC’s 1,780 engagements per article.  [¶ ]  And evidence is mounting to suggest they routinely disseminate stories designed to sow division in the west and pursue the foreign policy goals of the governments that back them, consciously or otherwise.

•  evidence is "mounting" means what exactly?  suggests in what way?   

•  the only “evidence” thus far cited is that RT got more hits than BBC on a story; and the only thing that suggests is that more people liked RT's coverage. Maybe they found it more balanced or reliable. Maybe it just better suited their prejudices. That “suggests” nothing about the intent of the “disseminator” 

•“disseminate” - cute “to scatter or spread widely, as though sowing seed, spreading disease.

•“consciously or otherwise” - i.e. with or without intent to sow division? how do they “pursue” policy goals unintentionally?  Gibberish.

It is difficult to demonstrate the extent to which this influences public discourse, but measuring the online activity of state media is a useful way to start.

•  well, it is the only way to start - but the hidden assumption here is that  "influencing” is a bad thing which ought not be allowed.

The methodology employed by these news organisations poses a series of questions for policymakers. If they are being used to destabilise civil society and widen social fissures, then what is the right response?

•  rhetorical question, isn't it? rather like asking what do we do with those who poison wells.

Their coverage of the European elections in May focused on the success of populist parties like the Brexit party, while for the most part ignoring a surge in support for the Greens and other non-traditional parties on the left. Why is it that state-controlled media portrayed the results as a populist backlash against the European project, which, according to this narrative, seeks to suppress national identities and usurp nation states? Does it matter that they encourage UK citizens to question the veracity or impartiality of the news they consume from traditionally reliable sources?

•  why assume that these "traditional"  sources are "reliable”?

•  people should  question the news they consume from “traditionally reliable sources” 

States will always use all the tools at their disposal to protect their national interests and pursue foreign policy objectives. But if the modus operandi of state-controlled media is to delegitimise institutions and sources of authority in the eyes of a section of the wider public, undermine social cohesion by amplifying divisive voices, draw attention to examples of western hypocrisy, and promote narratives of fear and uncertainty, then how do we respond?

•  “states” includes the western states, does it not?

•   what media outlets do the western liberal states use? BBC perhaps? NY Slime? Alt Fem Guardian

Disinformation does not consist solely of fabricated news stories, Photoshopped images or wild conspiracy theories presented as fact. It is often more nuanced, more sophisticated – and more effective – than policymakers or the public realise. Only by monitoring and measuring their influence can we develop strategies to counter their growing power and reach.

--o0o--

The opening salvo to this entire Orwellian campaign to scare people into trusting Big Sister and accepting the neo-liberal narrative was shot by (Shut Her Up) Hillary in 2014 in testimony before Congress. 

https://youtu.be/L6sYB5d1Bu4

No question but that Hillary was explicitly calling for a propaganda war -- or in today's verbiage for “weaponizing” the media. Of course RT was in her sights because it was winning. Once again, we got a version of the Appeasement Narrative, for starting a war on yet another front.

To be sure the Guardian article is correct to say that governments have always propagandized their interests. They put their best foot forward and expose their protagonist's dirty linen.  Plus ça change.  For the rest of us, the solution is very simple: read both accounts and hone your detective skills. I certainly would not trust RT News for an objective account on Russian elections but, under the same principle of skepticism, I would not rely on the New York Slime for an objective account of U.S. elections. Of course, the Slime will give us accurate reports on figures and results but it will leave untouched the sordid underbelly of oligarchic control over the process.

What the Guardian article slides over grossly is the simple fact that we do not read the news; we judge it. Or should. Every time we pick up a magazine, or newspaper or tune in on a chatter-show, we should recall that we are in the position of a juror listening to and ultimately weighing testimony. For that is, ultimately, all the “news” is -- a hearsay account by a witness as to some occurrence or fact. It makes no difference whether the witnesses is ill or well intentioned, for in either case his account is subject to bias,  to errors of perception ... and... errors of judgement on his part. There is very little “purely” factual reporting in the vein of empirical litmus tests. In subtle ways mental judgements are always brought to bear on perceptions. Intelligent people understand this. People who have lived in press-controlled dictatorships understand this. They learn to read between the lines, to remember previous and inconsistent reports, and to assess the likelihood of the thing asserted, in light of the common experience of mankind. They exercise their brains and their judgement. That is what freedom of the press presupposes.

But the Guardian, the Slime, Shut Her Up Hillary, Heiko the Idiot and Jucinda the Lord Protectress do not want you thinking. They want to turn your brain into a passive sponge for safe and sanitized news which they will present to you. NO CHILD HARMED.

This is an old canard and it uses the same cry it has always used: SEDITION. We have already written about John Wilkes and the North Briton No. 45 - a story all Americans ought to know and might know had they not been assured by such safe and reliable punjarums like Paul Klunkman that Murka was the “birthplace of democracy.” In response to Wilkes' scurrilous (if not quite fake) news about King George III, Parliament brought down upon him the full force of the sedition act.

In England, speech was seditious if it brought the Crown or any branch of government into "hatred or contempt" or if it promoted discontent or hostility between citizens.  The law had its origin in a 1275 statute of King Edward I (“of fierce tempre”) which established the Star Chamber and outlawed the telling or publishing of “any false news or tales whereby discord or occasion of discord or slander may grow between the king and his people or the great men of the realm.” (Slander and Sedition Act, 1275, 3 Edw. 1, C. 34 (England)). As one might expect, it was sometimes called “blasphemous” libel.

In the case of De Libellis Famosis (1606) 5 Co Rep 125a, 77 ER 250, it was ruled that truth was not a defence. The King might be a gouty pig but it brought his reputation equally into disrepute to say so. Ernst Kantorowicz (The King's Two Bodies) wrote a lengthy juridico-theological tome on the interesting christological concepts involved in this and like tenets. The full import of De Libellis Famosis bears note,

“The Star Chamber ruled, first, that a libel against a private person might be punished as a crime, on the theory that it might provoke revenge and, hence, a breach of the peace. Second, the Star Chamber held that a libel against the government might also be punished criminally and was especially serious because "it concerns not only the breach of the peace, but also the scandal of government." Third, although the statute of 1275 had insisted upon proof of falsity, the Star Chamber ruled that the truth or falsity of the libel was immaterial under the common law; thus, even a true libel of government could now be the subject of criminal prosecution.

The rationale of the Star Chamber decision was straightforward: If government is to govern effectively, it must command the respect and allegiance of the people. Since any utterance critical of government necessarily undermines this respect and allegiance, it must inevitably tend, however remotely, toward disorder. Moreover, a true libel is especially dangerous, for unlike a false libel, the dangers of truthful criticism cannot be defused by mere disproof. It was thus an oft-quoted maxim after 1606 that "the greater the truth the greater the libel." The potential benefits to be derived from bringing governmental shortcomings to light were not seen as sufficiently valuable to justify the exclusion of true libels from the reach of the criminal law. The Star Chamber's open-ended formulation of the crime opened the door to essentially unchecked suppression of dissent. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, prosecutions for seditious libel ran into the hundreds.    [Source ]

As noted, British sedition laws were extensively used in the 18th century most notably against John Wilkes, who was a scurrilous extremist ("activist" to his friends) who bravely challenged the extent of freedom of speech and media freedom in Britain at that time through his publication North Briton.  It was eventually declared seditious by parliament and was publicly burned. The Colony of Maryland sent him 45 hogsheads of tobacco to aid in his defence; and it was the libel-for-profit, scandal-mongering Wilkes that the Framer's most recently had in mind when they enacted the First and Fourth Amendments. As James Madison, put it

"Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires. But it could not be less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political life, because it nourishes faction, than it would be to wish the annihilation of air, which is essential to animal life, because it imparts to fire its destructive agency." (Federalist Paper No. 10)

We have never tired of citing James Madison because people, and today particularly liberals, never tire of forgetting him. The First Amendment stands in direct repudiation of sedition laws precisely against the alleged “good” sedition laws are aimed to protect: the peace and concord of the realm. Madison's answer is unequivocal. Freedom is risky. It presents a clear and present danger to the peace and concord of the realm. So be it!

In a famous dictum, Justice Holmes analogized the First Amendment to a “market place of ideas” (Abrams v. United States (1919) 250 U.S. 616) -- a metaphor originally used by John Milton in his Areopagitica (1644). But in today's society, the metaphor unduly suggests consumer passivity and, in tandem, the need for some kind consumer protection against unsafe, injurious or contaminated ideas. That is indeed precisely the cheating gambit resorted to by the pharisees of political correctness. These snakes hiss and whine about “harmful content” on the internet, as if one could get punched in the nose by a computer screen. “Harmful content” to whom?

There is no way one can get “harmed” by reading a book, looking at a video, linking to on line material other than by knowing or thinking things someone decides one ought not know or think. Think about it. How in the fuck am I harmed by being exposed to the blasphemous idea that Jesus did not really rise from the grave unless it be assumed that (1) I actually have an eternal soul and (2) that my eternal soul will be irreparably damaged by not believing in the Saving Grace of Jesus Christ, bought and pledged by his crucifixion and resurrection?  The premise of "harm" always presupposes an iceberg of hidden assumptions.   How am I harmed by knowing that corrupt oligarchs who run the United States are leading the country into war or causing ecological collapse?  The only thing that is harmed is the narcotic assurance of not knowing -- the peace and concord of my empty mind.

NO! At the time Milton wrote there was no consumer protection in the market. Caveat Emptor was the rule. And, whatever might be said today of the need to regulate hot dogs and water, caveat emptor applies most essentially to freedom of speech. The First Amendment does not simply guarantee a “choice” of purchased opinion -- it imposes an obligation to exercise judgement. It is up to each of us to undertake to act as jurors of everything we read, without having our verdicts being directed by Content Guardians.

And I will say it further: if you don't read RT News or China Daily, if you don't read Stormfront, if you don't read Jihad Journal or Socialist International, if you don't read Institute for Historical Revisionism -- in short if you don't read the full spectrum of misinformation available and if you content yourself with approved “reliable” sources like the Slime, the Guardian, Le Monde, Die Zeit and the battery of neo-liberal, Atlanticist bullshitters, you are not being a responsible juror.

Not only do Hillary, Heiko and Jucinda want to protect you from “harmful content,” they are actively seeking to imbecilize you, in the hope that  civil society will be infantilized even more  than it is. The supposed evils, which the Guardian dangles before you like the terrible spectre of an Erlkönig are cribbed undiluted from Edward "the Hammer's"  statute of 1275

sow division!

undermine social cohesion!

draw attention to examples of western hypocrisy!

destabilise civil society and widen social fissures!

or, as Nancy Peelousy put it

“We must also be vigilant against bigoted or dangerous ideologies masquerading as policy, and that includes BDS.” 

The trajectory bears note. It began with Hillary's call for counter-propaganda -- a new cold war of words. While this was hardly unprecedented, it was concerning depending on the amount of government management that might be brought to bear. After all,  it was Donald Rumsfeld, who back in February of 2003, blithely remarked that the U.S. would be undertaking counter-information "dark ops."  He seemed to find it amusing that one would never be able to tell who really might be behind some report or opinion.  Fast forward 13 years.  Accusing the Russians of what Rumsfeld promised to do, the trajectory then hit the next stage with Neo-McCarthyite scaremongering against subversive fake news which supposedly deprived Hillary of her rightful due thereby undermining our democratic processes. From that pivot point of vengeance and hysteria, the trajectory very quickly metamorphosed into Heiko and Jucinda's call to securitize the internet against so-called "violent extremist" and "inappropriate" content. 

Today's Guardian screed could not more clearly state what these scumbags of safety and correctness are about. They spit it out at your face. And as they do so, they tell you that you need to be protected from things that are “masquerading” as policy, as news, as something you might want (but ought not) to consider. No...no! There is no need for you to consider anything! The acceptable “choices” will be given to you in due and proper course. Otherwise, do not read what we don't want you to read, and hate what we tell you to hate.

https://youtu.be/0KeX5OZr0A4

While 1984 states the paradigm, what our rulers have learned since 1949 is that hate can be managed more suavely under a veneer of civility, appealing to so-called humanitarian principles accepted a priori. “Hate” is replaced with “unacceptibility.” The epithet is the proof.  Anything labelled “inappropriate” (or fascist, or extremist, or racist or chauvinist, or xenophobic or homophobic or antisemitic or any one of a veritiable lexicon of virtue signalling epithets) is disparaged with an annoyed contempt.  Anything branded is rejected as  “potentially dangerous” with furrowed concern. But this is merely a question of modulation and volume. When it is necessary to dial up the frenzy, it can be done as it was in 1991 or 2003.

Moreover, as we have also discussed before, it is never simply a matter of banning some speech or opinion which is actually injurious to the status quo.  It is always a question of tendencies.  Just as truth as not a defence, seditious libel statutes never required proof of actual harm but only of a tendency to give rise to harm -- or in today's pleonastic lingo of a potential danger.   The ferocious claw of state will be brought down on anyone who rubs the cat the wrong way.

And while the Guardian blabbers about extremist content, hate speech, and fake or weaponized news, it publishes crap like the following:

"The unemployment rate rose [sic] one-tenth of a percentage point to 3.7% as people entered [sic] the labor market."

How Orwellian is that? During the 1950's and 60's when the United States was happy and prosperous, there was no need to fabricate statistics as to the availability of grams of chocolate per capita. But in the 1990's as the long term trajectory of economic decline became clear, it became necessary to engage in statistical double-think to keep the people cohesive and ignorant as to their own state of well-being. As economic and ecological collapse continue unabated we can expect the mainstream media to feed us more lies as to the true state of affairs and Truth Warriors like the Guardian will urge us to emphatically reject examples of western hypocrisy brought to our attention by hostile actors. 

This article is not just a matter of some techie seeking to justify his employment.  It is part and parcel of an assault on freedom of speech and an open internet that has been going on with vengeance in the past two years.  Google's algorithms are being adjusted so as to steer users to "mainstream" content.  You Tube is demonetizing, marginalizing and outright suppressing content it arbitrarily bans as "extremist" or "dangerous" or guilty of some unspecified "inappropriateness" under so-called "community guidelines." It is straight out of the Nazi playbook. The fact that the bans may appear inconsistent and irrational is no comfort.  Arbitrariness is a well tried method in the arsenal of despotism. Why?  Because, as was said,  "the question is not what is prohibited but what is allowed."  That is exactly the state of generalized uncertainty all tyrants are delighted to engender.   

There is no life without oxygen or without strife.  Howsoever stuffed with righteousness Hillary the Scorned, Heiko the Idiot , Jucinda the Mournful and their long train of politically correct, liberal virtue warriors may be, they are suffocating the life out of civil society. 

©wcg 2019 

On the Road Again

.

The Golden Obambi is back on the road again hawking his  ambrosial pablum in favour of Democratic candidates in the upcoming mid-terms.  We tuned in briefly (very) and were hardly surprised to hear the same'ol, same 'ol treacle that was standard barf from the golden one.

"You need to vote because our democracy depends on it.

"...politics of hope versus politics of fear..."

"...there's nothing we can't solve if we don't come together..." 

"...saving the natural beauty of California..."

It was never long before Obambi intoned his Great Doxology,

"... pull ourselves closer to our founding ideals, that all of us are created equal, endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights, the ideals that say every child should have opportunity and every man and woman in this country who’s willing to work hard should be able to find a job and support a family and pursue their small peace of the American dream ...."

YAWN..... as we have noted before, this thriller is about as novel and thrilling as pulling a rabbit out of the hat; and yet, each time the audience gasps and applauds as if they have never heard such fluffy words before.

To be fair, this time the Great One added a coda which stood as confessed acknowledgement of the "leftward pull" within the Demorat Party,

"...  ideals that say we have a collective responsibility to care for the sick and the and we have a responsibility to conserve the amazing bounty, the natural resources of this country and of this planet for future generations..."

Ah... the dread "C" word.  Odd how our "founding" ideals never included "collective responsibility" before.  But who are we to complain if our revised founding ideals finally are catching up to those of Bismarck or Rerum Novarum.  We are always pleased to see a little socialism creeping into the S.O.S of American public discourse or the pablum of Obama' hortatory.

But don't believe he believes it.  The next intonation gave the game away,

"...we don't have a permanent elite in this country"

CLUNK

We don't? ????? ?????   !!!!! ???? !!!!!

!

What Obambi evidently means is that, because he got into the elite, the elite as such is not permanent.  This is simply the fallacy of composition -- which assumes that what is true of the part is true of the whole.  Used this way, the fallacy of composition is one of the Chief Canards of Capitalism.
 
It is true that the upper ranks of this country, the four to one percent, periodically refresh their ranks with new members.  Obama was not born to the elite and neither were either of the Clintons.  But the fact that the elite refreshes itself with new blood presupposes the existence of a permanent elite to be refreshed.  Duh.

Ferdinand Braudel (Civilization and Capitalism) postulates that the two percent have always assumed new members when its ranks were impoverished or depleted only to close again when the two percent mark was again reached.  This was certainly the case in Britain which, since the 16th century routinely refreshed its aristocracy in a process that might be called "upward nobility."  But would the Great Obambi tell us that England has "no permanent elite."

It is too laughable for laughing.

What Obambi is doing is what capitalist apologists have always done:  pointing to the exception to disprove the rule.   The working class is not exploited because... why... look at Joe, here! He makes $36.00 an hour plus bennies."  The fact that 37% of seniors are trying to survive on cat food is just an anomaly.  The system is basically good.  Amazing Grace!  Those cat-food eating seniors must have done something wrong.  After all God helps those who help themselves... to what's on your plate.

I've always wondered if Obama is really as stupid as he pretends to be.  Capitalism presupposes a permanent elite.  That is the whole point.  Put another way, there is a difference between

"we don't have permanent elites..."

and

"we don't have a permanent elite."

The first talks about individuals.  The second talks about a class.  Obama drops "class" and mentions only "elite" hoping to equivocate onto the issue of individual elites within the (unmentioned) class.

If one assumes Obama is not stupid, then he must necessarily be a scumbag. 

So yes... in using the c-word, the Great Obambi gave a passing nod to the "leftward" pull within the Demorat Party; but, in the very next breath he intones the primary bullshit of neo-liberal capitalism, denial that there is a permanent class whose idea of "collective" is limited to itself.  

-----------

Oh yes, by way of postcript.  As for Obama's concept of fighting climate change, this is what he said upon the sigining of the Paris Accords

"... the agreement, we’ll only get to part of where we need to go.  But make no mistake, this agreement will help delay or avoid some of the worst consequences of climate change.

"saving the natural beauty of California"

Uh huh... burn, burn, burn.  And what are the forseeable "worst consequences" which may possibly be partially avoided?  And after answering that question ask yourself if the merely worser consequences which we have not remotely experienced yet are biologically tolerable for you and your loved ones.

No.. I don't think Obambi is stupid. Subservient, yes.  Gutless, yes. A nouveau elite? Yes.  Stupid?  No. 
 

© WCG

Truth is not Truth

The latest fracas over words aptly illustrates how "liberals" -- what passes for "left" in the United States -- are engaging in civic eristic.

Eris was the Greek goddess of chaos, strife and discord. Eristic is the sophistical and malicious use of words, not for the purpose of dialogue and dialectic but to destroy the possibility of all argument.

Words are the foundation of civil society (Aristotle) and eristic seeks to undermine the state, not by using words to reflect discord but by, sowing discord among words themselves.  All revolutions, says Thucydides, begin with a corruption of language.

"TRUTH IS NOT TRUTH" blare the headlines in affected exasperation and despair.  Giuliani is Orwell!  Last year it was "alternative facts" and now "truth is not truth"!  The implication -- if it can barely be said that -- is that Trump's administration is depraved beyond the pale. 

John Hurt as Caligula affecting mock shock at the duplicity of mankind comes to mind.  What shines through is the blatant dishonesty of the press

What Rudolf Giuliani (the president's personal lawyer) said was that he would advise Trump against "testifying" in the special counsel's investigation into a plethora of issues relating to Trump's presidential campaign and official acts.  Answering a reporter's question, Giuliani stated, "when you tell me that, ‘You know, he should testify because he’s going to tell the truth and he shouldn’t worry,’ well, that’s so silly because it’s somebody’s version of the truth. Not the truth.”

“Truth is truth,” the reporter insisted. 

“No, it isn’t truth. Truth isn’t truth,” Giuliani replied as the reporter, one Todd, buried his head in his hands.

And so another meme was spawned.

However, all meaning is contextual and, in context, it is plain as day that Giuliani was speaking about testimony and "versions of truth."

Have Todd and all the editors who approved his copy never heard of a jury trial?  Have they never watched Perry Mason on television or seen Witness for the Prosecution or Tweleve Angry men?   Can the High Poobahs of our mass media be so utterly forgetful and oblivious as to what takes place before petit and grand juries?

In case they have, the Chipsters, will remind them.  At a trial, different witnesses testify as to things they have seen, heard or done.  They do not always agree.  They present different versions of what they allege to be the fact(s) of the matter.  It is up to the jury to decide which version states the true facts.  That is what a verdict is: the jury's declaration (verus-dictum)of what the true facts are.   Until then, there is nothing but a heap of "alternative facts."

Mr. Todd's supposed "question" simply assumed that one anticipated version of the facts was the true version. It was that ad hoc, unilateral, unfounded assumption that Giuliani challenged with his reply.  In context, Giuliani's "truth is not truth" had two-fingered quote marks around it and was intended to dispute Todd's  simplistic and plainly idiotic assertion that his selected facts were truth, truth and nothing but the truth.

The New York Times, the Guardian and other paragons of the mass mudia, are not reporting but distorting -- and they are doing so in what can only be inferred to be knowing malice.  It may well be that Trump "started it" but that is no excuse for further degrading this country's political discourse.

More fundamentally, the fact of the matter is that there is no truth that is attainable by humans.  What the paragons of the media might want to recall is that Socrates was put to death for saying precisely that. Ev Oida Oti Oudev Oida --  I know only that I do not know.

If "truth were truth" then all disputes would have ended millenia ago.  But truth is not truth and those who say it is are engaged in the tyrants' game of asserting what the truth is and then punishing people for what can -- they say -- "only" be taken as a perverted and malicious denial of "truth"

Perhaps Mr. Todd would care to read David Hume's On Human Understanding. In fact, there are no "facts."  In the natural sciences there are "facts" which may be taken as empirically established.  Even here, the establishing is provisional and dependent on the soundness and accuracy of the methodology used.  In anything to do with the humanities -- including so-called "sociology" -- empirical factual certainty is a unicorn. Certainly any trial lawyer can tell you as much and it is judicially well recognized that eye-witness testimony is the least reliable of all. 

It is not cynical to deny the ascertainment of truth.  It is arrogant and tyrannical to assert it as established.

Because Americans have a congenital horror or prepositional phrases or subordinate clauses and because they look for the quickest most "business like" way of saying things, they come up with regrettable phrases like "alternative facts."  This cheapened way of speaking litters everything from Supreme Court opinion to the yellowest of journalism.  But even when it was clear that Giuliani was talking about competing versions of facts, the press seizes the occasion to engage in eristic.

In the most fundamental way, the liberal press has become utterly illiberal.

©

Suppressing Tommy

Leave it to the British, and their compulsive obsession for appropriateness, to take politische korrektheit to the next tyrannical level by suppressing free speech in the name of a fair trial.

 The Facts of the Matter

Tommy Robinson is a xenophobic white nationalist who opposes open immigration in the name of "multi-culturalism" and under the banner of the European Union's so-called Four Freedoms.   He had been a founder of the politically punk English Defense League, more or less dedicated to beating unwanted, brown immigrants out of the country.  After a spell in prison for these activities, Robinson forswore the E.D.L.'s tactics.  Nevertheless, by any fair measure, Robinson remains a scoundrel and a provocateur in the mold of John Wilkes of North Briton 45  fame.

Like Wilkes, one of Robinson's political tactics is to report on matters which the Government find inconvenient -- in this case the trial of several Muslim gang members accused of organized sexual offences, including the grooming of young girls for sexual purposes.  Because of the sensitive nature of the trial, the judge of the case, one Honourable Judge Marson QC, issued a "reporting restriction" prohibiting the publication of "any report" of the proceedings until the conclusion of the trial. 

The British press obeyed like cowed puppies. However, on 11 May before the gag order was imposed, papers did report on the trial, viz:

"Twenty nine people – mostly from Huddersfield – facing a total of more than 170 charges relating to the sexual exploitation of 18 children will go on trial next year in three separate groups, a judge has ruled.

Twenty-six men and two women appeared before a judge at Leeds Crown Court today charged with offences including rape, trafficking, sexual activity with a child, child neglect, child abduction, supplying drugs and making of indecent images of children. The 29th defendant, who is in custody, did not appear for the hearing on Thursday."

This report, from the Huddersfield Daily Examiner, included the names of each of the defendants together with a synopsis of the charges against them.  The report also included the defendants' pictures leaving no doubt as to their ethnicity.   The basic facts of the legal action in the Crown Court at Leeds was public knowledge well before 25 May, the date of "reporting restriction." 

On that date, Robinson stood outside the Leeds courthouse reporting on the absence of any reporting of the case. It was a rainy morning and virtually no one -- certainly no crowd -- was around.  A shaky cell phone video showed Robinson approaching a couple of the defendants as they entered the courthouse, seeking to elicit their reactions to the case.  Their not unpredictable reaction was to angrily flip him the bird. One of these defendants turned toward Robinson before being pulled inside by his cohort.

Robinson then turns to the camera and states that he is outside the Leeds courthouse "awaiting verdicts" in the trial.  Moments later, he is accosted by the police and taken into custody for "incitement" and "breach of peace."   Another officer states that he is being arrested for "contempt."  Robinson, who appeared to be taken by surprise, was then summarily whisked off to prison to serve a 13 month term.

Unsettling Questions

 There are a few things which are unsettling in this unfolding, the first of which is whether Robinson had any actual notice of the reporting restriction.  The court's gag order is not time stamped, so it is impossible to know whether it was issued before or after Robinson was apprehended.   Even if it was actually issued before his arrest, contempt  -- unlike violations of statutory law --  requires actual knowledge of the judicial order. While person is "presumed" to know the law, he is not "presumed" to know whatever orders a judge may issue from the bench.  The usual procedure in contempt case is as follows:

Judge:  counsel, if you keep this up I am going to find  you in contempt

Counsel: Yes your honour.

That certainly did not happen in this case and as near as can be ascertained the "NOTICE TO THE PRESS" does not even appear to have been posted on the courthouse door. 

The likelihood that the gag order issued after Robinson's arrest, by way of post hoc justification, is furthered by the fact that the police were not on the same page as to why he was being detained; "incitement" and "breach of the peace"  are not the same as "contempt."

According to one report, moments before he was arrested, the Honourable Judge Marson QC, was observing Robinson from the second storey window of the court building.  What appears likely, viewing all the circumstances, is that the two accosted defendants complained to the court, the judge took a look, told his clerk to "draw up" a reporting restriction, while, in the same breath, ordering the bailiffs to arrest Robinson.  It would certainly not be the first time English judges acted in such a High and Imperious manner.

The second unsettling thing was the dispatch of Robinson to prison without any hearing whatsoever.  The Contempt of Court Act of 1981 is surprisingly quiet about a right to a hearing.  Section 3(3) says "The burden of proof of any fact tending to establish a defence afforded by this section to any person lies upon that person."  Rather obliquely, that section implies a time and a place to present a defence and that, in turn, implies some type of hearing prior to imposition of penalty.

Luckily, the Crown Prosecution Service, elucidates that there are two types of criminal contempt procedures: a regular procedures and a summary procedure.

"Generally, resort to the summary procedure will be justified where there is a need for the court to act decisively, to show that its authority has not been undermined  ... A Crown Court judge's power to commit summarily for contempt should be exercised only where the contempt is clear and it is urgent and imperative to act immediately. In the absence of urgency, the matter should be referred to the Attorney General to consider bringing proceedings in the Queen's Bench Division

"[T]he minimum requirements for a fair hearing where the contempt is dealt with summarily. ... include that the contemnor is told what they are said to have done wrong, understand the defences available, has a reasonable opportunity to make representations and to seek legal advice."

Because  Judge Marson's order has, in effect, resulted in a secret trial, it is impossible to ascertain the details of Robinson's detention and sentence further than what has been stated.   Because the court chose to impose a gag order it assumed the risk and bears the onus of any inaccuracy in anyone's reporting.  But the sure indications are that Robinson was not afforded the minimum due process applicable to summary contempt.  While a person can be arrested without notice and detained pending hearing, to be hauled off to prison without notice and hearing is an action in league with the GESTAPO or CHEKA.

The U.K.  Independent reported that Robinson had done "this" before and, at the time of his present arrest and incarceration, was on probation for a previous contempt of court.  The only difficulty with this waffling excuse for official misconduct is that, whatever "this" is, a hearing is still required.  When a person is on probation and when that person commits a new violation of law, he subjects himself to two further consequences: (1) the previously suspended sentence is "automatically" triggered and imposed and (2) he is separately liable for the new offence.  In this situation, the offender is entitled to two summary hearings, although in practice they are often dealt with at the same time.  But there is no indication that Robinson got either summary hearing.  The Independent's "bad-boy-in-school-yard" approach far from making the state's case better made it worse.

The Political Issue

The Independent's conflating of the two contempt cases shows what is really at issue here.  According to the Independent, Judge Heather Norton handed him a three months imprisonment in May last year but suspended it for 18 months on the condition he would not commit further offences.  “This is not about free speech, not about the freedom of the press, nor about legitimate journalism, and not about political correctness,” the judge told Robinson at the time,  “It is about justice and ensuring that a trial can be carried out justly and fairly, it’s about being innocent until proven guilty. It is about preserving the integrity of the jury to continue without people being intimidated or being affected by irresponsible and inaccurate ‘reporting’, if that’s what it was."

One has to parse the peculiar language in which all tyrants speak.  No despot ever kicked down a door avowing an intent do something bad.  Every dictator at all times clothes his exercise of brute power in the fairest of tissues.  Indeed, tissues so fair, they can but bring a tear to any man whose heart is not made of stone.

This is about justice!  About preserving innocence!  About the integrity of the jury to be free from intimidation!   Who could possible quarrel?  Not I... except what was that bit about or "being affected by irresponsible and innacurate reporting" ?

This is not about free speech, Judge Heather Norton assures us.    We abide our fearless and noble tradition of free speech, freedom of the press, and "legitimate reporting"  Our heart swelleth with pride.... except, pardon me for asking, who decides what constitutes legitimate reporting?

 Enter John Wilkes waving the scurrilous, irresponsible North Briton No. 45.

During the reign of George III, Wilkes published an anti-government rag full of all the muck and scurrile he could dredge up and muster. "The most treacherous, base, selfish, mean, abject, low-lived and dirty fellow, that ever wriggled himself into a secretaryship....." was typical copy.  The chief pitiable object of Wilke's poisoned pen was George III's prime minister, the Earl of Bute.  Wilkes made Bute the most hated Minister the country had known.

In 1763, peace broke out with the Treaty of Paris ending the Seven Years' War.  Sentiment on the outcome was divided.  The King counted the treaty a triumph and authored a Crown Speech to Parliament to that effect. However, a substantial segment of the country, including Wilkes, felt that the gains had not been sufficient for the gamble.  Obtaining a draft of the speech, in what one supposes was a pre-wiki leak, Wilkes went to town against the treaty,

A despotic minister [i..e Bute ] will always endeavour to dazzle the prince with high flown ideas of the prerogative and honour of the crown. I wish as much any man in the kingdom to see the honour of the crown maintained in a manner truly becoming Royalty. I lament to see it sunk even to prostitution.

Wilkes no doubt felt he had come but toe to the line. George III was adamant that he had crossed it.  It was seditious libel to directly impugn the majesty of the Sovereign, which the last sentence rather less than obliquely did, despite the article's dubious disclaimer that the Crown's Speech to Parliament was always considered "the Speech of the Minister." 

By the standards of the day, Wilkes had committed seditious libel... he was undermining the state by inciting and arousing sentiments contrary to public peace and order.

There then ensued a series of events that became the historical cornerstones for freedom of the press and freedom from unwarranted searches and seizures -- in the U.S., for the First and Fourth Amendments.  

Because Wilkes was also member of Parliament, he at first claimed immunity from prosecution.  Under pressure from the Crown, the Commons revoked his immunity. Thereafter, under a "general warrant" Crown agents broke into the  printing shop of the Monitor, another anti-government paper published by John Entick, a friend of Wilkes. Wilkes had written anonymously for the Monitor and it appears that Entick's print shop was also used to print some editions of the North Briton.  They were certainly two peas in the same pod.  The agents seized what they could and smashed up the rest.    Wilkes fled to France.

The fiasco dragged on for a number of years.  Eventually Wilkes was exonerated and Entick won his suit for trespass against the Crown agents, it being held by the Court of Common Pleas that a general warrant was insufficient license to protect the agents from suit. Henceforth only a specific warrant backed by probable cause for a specific person or place would do.

On returning from France, Wilkes was elected an alderman for the City of London.  He used his official position to leak official documents to the press.

It might surprise people to learn that at this time, proceedings in Parliament were secret.  The predictable justifications were advanced: secrecy promoted free and unencumbered exchanges of opinion and protected ministers from the wrath of the mob and so forth and so on.  A group of "radical" MP's, including Wilkes, felt this was wrong and were determined to let the public know what went on behind closed doors.

The Establishment reacted predictably and sought to summon and hold the errant MPs in contempt.  Wilkes used his position to protect the ministers and to stir up demonstrations in favour of freedom of leaks.  The impasse lasted several years at the end of which the House of Lords realized that the ban on reporting had seen its day.

Events in the American Colonies followed a parallel path, at times, ahead of the game.  In 1733, Peter Zenger was brought to trial for directly criticizing the Crown Governor in his paper the New York Weekly Journal.  He was accused of "divers scandalous, virulent, false and seditious reflections."  But although the jury refused to convict, the Crown persisted in its efforts to control "seditious" press.    Thus when Marylanders heard of Wilkes' travails, they sent him 45 hogsheads of tobacco to assist in his defence.  As in England, journalism was raucous, muck-raking and partisan.  There was a purely informative aspect -- arrival of ships, goings on in Europe -- but most of it fell into what could by called a political tabloid.  Journalists -- often writing under pseudonyms, the era's equivalence of VPN -- were not interested in neutrality or genteel discourse.  They wanted to prove a point and to incite passions, the more scandalous the fare, the better.

The government's attitude was hostile. In 1671, Governor William Berkeley of Virginia wrote: "I thank God, there are no free schools nor printing and I hope we shall not have, these hundred years, for learning has brought disobedience, and heresy, and sects into the world, and printing has divulged them, and libels against the best government. God keep us from both." The British government once told the governors of Massachusetts, "Great inconvenience may arise by the liberty of printing."

Libel.  Technically, libel and defamation are statements that impugn and impute the character or motives of a person.  Unfortunately for the victim, truth is always a defence on a charge of libel. "You called me a thief!"  "But you are a thief, let me prove it..."  The "victim" could come out worse than before.

To work around this inconvenience, government came up with the concept of seditious libel -- any conduct or speech deemed by authorities as having a tendency to undermine the established order.  In England, speech was seditious if it brought the Crown or any branch of government into "hatred or contempt" or if it promoted discontent or hostility between citizens.  Truth was not a defence.
 
In the United States, once sedition and insurrection against the Crown had proved successful, government went back to its old habits. In 1798, President Adams pushed through what is known as the Alien and Sedition Acts, section (2) of the latter making it a criminal offence to,

"write, print, utter or publish, or ... knowingly and willingly assist or aid in writing, printing, uttering or publishing any false, scandalous and malicious writing ... against the government of the United States, or either house of the Congress of the United States, or the President of the United States,  ... or to excite against them, ... the hatred of the good people of the United States, or to stir up sedition within the United States, or to excite any unlawful combinations therein, for opposing or resisting any law of the United States, ...  or to resist, oppose, or defeat any such law or act, or to aid, encourage or abet any hostile designs of any foreign nation against United States, their people or government,"

The law was repealed in 1801, but revived again during the First World War.  Seditious Libel remained on the books in England until 2009.  In both countries the repressive artifice remains available under other guises.  Most currently, the campaign against "fake news,"  "foreign trolls," "unauthorized leaks," incitement and/or Holocaust Denial, are all forms of seditious libel, the aim of which is simply to repress opinions and polemics which the government deems "inconvenient."

The American legal historian, Leonard W. Levy states that seditious libel "has always been an accordion-like concept, expandable or contractible at the whim of judges." 

Personages like Senator Feinstein in the United States, former Justice Minister Heiko Maas in Germany and the Honourable Judges Marson and Norton always invoke the Highest Objectives in pursuit of repression.  Thus, Feinstein once questioned whether the First Amendment "covered" printing manuals "on how to make a bomb." One might as well wonder how much chemistry one is free  to teach.  In seeking to free the net of so-called hate speech, Maas brilliantly stated that "free speech ends where the criminal law begins."  And where exactly, one might wonder, is that?  What the state wishes to repress it first criminalizes.  Surely Goebbels understood that. Thus too, according to Judge Norton silencing Robinson "is about preserving the integrity of the jury to continue without people being intimidated or being affected by irresponsible and inaccurate ‘reporting’."

The statement is worth pondering for the way in which it mixes High Objective with insinuations of criminal conduct. 

No one has accused Robinson of jury tampering.  He has not suborned perjury, procured witnesses or bribed jurors.  Robinson did nothing to undermine the integrity of the jury to hold and continue deliberations.  No one has a "free speech" right to bribe jurors but that issue was simply not on the table.

Note how Norton switched pods in her verbal shuffle. She did not state, "without jurors being intimidated;" she switched to talking about people being intimidated.  Jurors are people but not all people are jurors.  Surely Norton, a trained jurist, understood that.  

The switch was crafty.  What Norton meant was that it was necessary for the jury to deliberate without the public being affected by "irresponsible" reporting.  She confused "jury" with "public" and "intimidated" with "affected" simply to muddy up what she was about. However, the whole point of a free press, of public comment on public matters is to affect people on the issue at hand.  

This right should not be evaded by labelling the effect an "intimidation."  Short of assaults or specific threats people in public have to put up with the rough and tumble of life.  No one should expect to turn the entire public space into his or her personal safe space.  To ask as much is to turn society into a prison in which everyone is required to keep to his small space.


The proposition Norton really advanced was that government has a right to conduct its business without the public being affected by "irresponsible" controversies.  Although Judge Marson has not enlightened us with his/her thoughts, one assumes that the gag order was motivated by the same High Objectives.   The concept of free speech held by the likes of Norton, Marson, Maas and Feinstein is that of an embalmed corpse. Speech which does not inconvenience, which does not provoke, which does not pinch toes, which does not hurt, is free speech that is not worth a damn.   James Madison, the chief architect of the American Bill of Rights, understood this perfectly.  In Federalist Paper No. 10 he wrote, 

"The latent causes of faction are ... sown in the nature of man; and we see them everywhere brought into different degrees of activity, according to the different circumstances of civil society. A zeal for different opinions concerning religion, concerning government, and many other points, as well of speculation as of practice; an attachment to different leaders ambitiously contending for pre-eminence and power; or to persons of other descriptions whose fortunes have been interesting to the human passions, have, in turn, divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other than to co-operate for their common good. "

But,

"Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires. But it could not be less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political life, because it nourishes faction, than it would be to wish the annihilation of air, which is essential to animal life, because it imparts to fire its destructive agency."

The core, anti-democratic and despotic nature of seditious libel laws  is not they they seek to shield the majesty of government from insult.  It lies in the speciously advanced, high minded purpose of preventing hostility between citizens or exciting their passions -- to abolish air in order to prevent flames.

Guardians of public discourse have a notion of free speech that is decorous, restrained, sorta academic, like Spinoza, Luther, Ralph Waldo Emerson or David Brooks of the New York Times...  fit for print and fit for the Publice Broadcasting System's "two (acceptable) sides" of any issue.   But if these guardians actually read Spinoza or Luther -- if they even knew something about them over and above that they existed and were "great" -- they would realize that no decorous, restrained, academic discourse is worth a damn if it doesn't blow the roof off the house. That is what "great books" do.

Make no mistake, Robinson is no Luther and no Socrates.  He is not even a Mencken or an Assange. But he is a gadfly.  He is provoking and calling into question the British Establishment's "mulit-ethnic" and "multi-cultural" concept of society.  It is pointless to argue that his views are racist, that they offend some or even a majority of people, or that they "call into the question the fundamentals of our civil society."  So what? Who decreed what those fundamentals are and who decreed that they cannot be questioned?  The fundamental of liberal democracy is that anything can be questioned including its own fundamentals. Anything less is neither liberal nor free.

Robinson might be styled a political paparazzi.  His reporting is designed to bait, provoke and make a point. No doubt his "points" are likely -- if they are not designed -- to emotionally affect and hurt the feelings of the foreign born or Muslim segments of British society. He is clearly arguing against their civic interests. But again, one has to ask, so what?  People who think politics ought to be some sort of badminton game on manicured lawns think as much only because their position of privilege insulates them from being truly affected by the myriad of decisions made at Westminster.  Politics is warfare by other means.

There are of course limits. Actual, present incitement of an imminent harm  -- such as urging a mob to lynch a person or to burn down an asylum centre  -- is properly made criminal.   But, in the United States at least, words and conduct which merely have a tendency to adversely affect, or to "potentially affect," someone or some status quo are not considered "incitement." (Brandenburg v. Ohio,  (1969) 395 U.S. 444  Stringing connective "causalities" is the game of sophists and tyrants. 

Similarly, there is a point at which undue publicity can affect the impartiality of a trial.  But again, in the United States at least, the effect has to be continuous and overwhelming. (Sheppard v. Maxwell, (1966) 384 U.S. 333.) In addition, any prior restraint on publicity must take into account free speech interests.

And not only "free speech" but the right as well to a public trial. (U.S. Const. Sixth Amendment.)  For a public trial is one which the public is free to comment on.  The two rights are inseverable.  A court can impose a gag order on attorneys and even on witnesses.  It can, in extreme cases sequester the jury. It can take measures to protect the visible identity of a witness. But it can never, ever, prohibit the public from attending the proceedings, assembling outside the courthouse or commenting on or protesting the case.

The Contempt of Court Act of 1981, is the real scandal here -- a legal accordion to suppress whatever a judge decides to label as a "substantial risk of prejudice."  Judges Marson and Norton were not about justice but at suppressing "seditious" speech.  In this instance, Britain needs to take a lesson from her erstwhile colonies who, in this respect, stood for the better half of English traditions. 

© 2018 Woodchip Gazette


To whom it may concern: no member of the Gazette is a British subject and the Gazette's servers are not within any U.K. jurisdiction. 

See:

http://www.history.org/foundation/journal/spring03/journalism.cfm


http://www.history.org/foundation/journal/summer03/wilkes.cfm

https://thehistoryofparliament.wordpress.com/2013/04/23/the-treaty-of-paris-john-wilkes-and-north-briton-number-45/  

Update  1 August 2018
  
An appellate judge,  quashed the trial court's judgement and ordered Robinson released.  "In his written judgement, Lord Burnett said: "We are satisfied that the finding of contempt made in Leeds following a fundamentally flawed process, in what we recognise were difficult and unusual circumstances, cannot stand."

That's what we said.





https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leeds-45029755 

Maasoch in High Places

Heiko Maas is truly a dogmatic idiot. During an interview with Der Spiegel, Germany's former Justice Minister and now its Foreign Minister, says he got into politics because of Auschwitz. It was “so horrific that I simply couldn't understand it. From that grew a deep need to make a contribution myself so that something like that never happens again.”

Okay, fair enough. He goes on to say, that the events in Syria can't be compared to Auschwitz. I hadn't thought anyone had made the comparison but, again, fair enough. However, Maas then followed up with, “The barbarity of the Nazis' crimes makes it impossible to compare them with others. Auschwitz cannot be compared with anything.”

It is here that Maas' negative Anti-Religion is made clear in all its bottomless darkness.

To say that it Auschwitz “can't be compared to anything” is to put it beyond the reach of all reason because the foundation of rationalism is to compare things. In Heiko's pathetic little mind, Auschwitz is that than which nothing more greatly evil can be conceived. It thus takes the place of St.Anselm's god [1], except that Heiko's god is not incomprehensibly good, but rather inconceivably evil.

One has to understand what it means to talk about that which is beyond all measure. When we look up at the stars and attempt to grasp the vastness of the cosmos, there is nothing left for us to do but to stand mutely in awe. What else can one do with the concept of infinity? We can't grasp it, we can't measure it, we can't compare it. After a moment of all too baffling and disquieting awe, we turn our sights down and go about our business. It is the same with God, that which is beyond infinity itself. When we talk about “god” -- even when we talk to Him -- we are actually talking to a carved chess piece on the board of our mind. When we intuit God, we simply stand in awe and adore.

What Heiko is demanding is that we stand in awe, dumb, mute and trembling before “Auschwitz” -- that than which nothing more infinitely evil can be conceived. Of course, Maas used “Auschwitz” as a short hand reference to a series and cluster of specific historical events. But by moving those facts beyond all comparison the word “Auschwitz” ceases to be a reference and becomes an object totem. What Maas ends up demanding is that we stand dumb and mute before a New Incarnation of Satan, who is exalted to an equal but opposite status of God. This is heresy.

It is a heresy that flows from Nationalism Socialism itself, although Stupid Heiko can't possibly conceive how. It is left to us to recall the critique of Nazism by Pope Pius XI, in his 1937 encyclical Mit Brennende Sorge. No one, he writes, could fault Germans for “establishing a true ethnical community in a noble love of freedom and loyalty to their country.” But,

Whoever follows that so-called pre-Christian Germanic conception of substituting a dark and impersonal destiny for the personal God, .... Whoever exalts race, or the people, or the State, or a particular form of State, or the depositories of power, or any other fundamental value of the human community - however necessary and honorable be their function in worldly things - whoever raises these notions above their standard value and divinizes them to an idolatrous level, distorts and perverts an order of the world planned and created by God; he is far from the true faith in God and from the concept of life which that faith upholds.

Beware, Venerable Brethren, of that growing abuse, in speech as in writing, of the name of God as though it were a meaningless label, to be affixed to any creation, more or less arbitrary, of human speculation. Use your influence on the Faithful, that they refuse to yield to this aberration. Our God is the Personal God, supernatural, omnipotent, infinitely perfect, one in the Trinity of Persons, tri-personal in the unity of divine essence, the Creator of all existence. Lord, King and ultimate Consummator of the history of the world, who will not, and cannot, tolerate a rival God by His side.

Whatever one's conception of God might be, what was clear to Pius (and what was a fact) was that the Nazis had exalted the Racial Volk as a divinized antipode to the Christian notion of God and, indeed, to any notion of God except the divinity attributed to “Racial Destiny.” Nazism was, in short, idolatry.

Idolatry is not simply a question of images. The essence of idolatry is exaltation. Christianity, and in fact Islam and Judaism as well, reject the concept of eternal and equally balanced forces of good and evil. For, if good and evil are co-equal they are co-valid. One can choose sides as one wills but neither can achieve preeminence over the other. Evil is idolatrized when it is exalted to a co-equal status with Good. In such a case, it is not possible to behold Creation and say “it is good.” (Genesis 1:31.) Thus, the Koran states, “there is no deity but Allah. He is the Knower of the Seen and the Unseen. He is the All-Merciful, the Most Merciful. He is the Almighty, the All-Wise. (Surat al-Hashr, 22-24.) Everything in the heavens and Earth belongs to Him. (Surat al-Baqara, 255.) In short, Satan is a fallen angel not an evil twin. He may be devious and strong but he is all too comprehensible. One can say that Auschwitz was Satanic or that it was an exercise in Banality but to say that it cannot be compared to anything is to mint a Counter-God.

All Maas has done is to internalize this idolatry, in a spirit of masochism, so as to supplant the idolatry of the Volk Gemeinschaft with an idolizing of its evil works. It does not make any difference that Maas condemns the works. Whether the German Volk is exalted beyond measure or whether the crimes of the German Volk are removed beyond all analysis and reason, an idolatry has still occurred. One is the idolatry of the Golden Calf, the other the idolatry of the Charred Calf.

This is of course the dynamic of masochism -- that it exalts the thing feared and fetishizes the brutality under which it yearns to suffer. That is all Heiko Maas has done. That is his personal choice, but he has used his position as minister of Justice and now Foreign minister to impose his masochism on a nation and a world. It is a perversion.

Don't be fooled. “Bottoms are always in control.” Maas may be the High Priest of Masochism, but he uses that self-exalted position to control others. The high priests of Moloch no doubt sincerely believed their self-conceived necessities; but that did not mean they didn't terrorize believers and persecute those who questioned their mandated sacrifices.

It is here that Maas' life work betrays itself. At the outset we said “fair enough” to his auto-devotion to make sure “Auschwitz” never happens again. But one can no more build a negative than prove one. So how does one insure something does not happen? The way Grand Inquisitors always have: rooting out dissent, dangerous thought or anything that Maas and his minions decide is a blasphemy against the Incomparable.

It is a pity that Christians have become so befuddled by their need to do useful good works that they are deaf and dumb to the threat of a rival god alien to that concept of life which their faith ought to uphold.

Notes

[1] i.e. “God is that than which nothing greater can be conceived”


©2018 WCG

Die Gift-Presse (The Poison-Press)

Imagine if you will the field of Agincourt. The French knights are defeated.  Mitch, the Duc of Bourbon, lies, fallen from his horse, in a pool of muck and blood, held in the  arms of his pages.  "Shame, shame; nothing but eternal shame..." he says.

And then the incredible.  King "Harry" -- his bifocals hanging on the tip of his nose, calls for a retreat and marches the English back to the Channel. 

Herald, played by the New York Slimes, stands spotless and shinning amid corpses and gore and trumpets,

Consensus Is Health Law Can Be Fixed. Now the Hard Part.

By REED ABELSON, ABBY GOODNOUGH and KATIE THOMAS

Stabilizing the market, lowering drug prices and expanding access to coverage would go a long way to easing millions of Americans’ concerns.

... ...

WTF.

Responding to calls for a bi-partisan fix, McConnell said he doubted any Republicans would support “bailing out insurance companies with no thought of any kind of reform”.

Repugnant creepy-crawly mutant that he is, McConnell is right: Obambicare is an insurance company bailout. In other words, it is yet another corporate, capitalist scam in what passes for Murka's pathetic excuse for a veneer of social democracy.

It bears repeating.  Obambicare is nothing but an insurance company bailout.

This "trivia" from the L.A. Times:  "the federal government sends about $600 million a month to insurance companies to help cover the cost of insuring low income people"

600 million a month.

"Basically, the government tells insurers that they need to hold down the insurance deductibles and co-payments that they charge low-income people. That costs the insurers money. To make the insurers whole, the government is supposed to reimburse them."  (L.A. Times.)

To make the insurers whole?  Really?  Is that the point of the "health care" exercise?  Are Murkans congenitally stupid?   Are the Niebelungen of Forty Second Street drooling morons or evil, malign, peddlers of poisoned news?

Die Gift-Presse.

Chipsters have said it before; and will say it yet again:  insurance is not the right vehicle for providing health care.   It makes no business sense to insure against something you know will  happen; and everyone will get sick.  Older people will get sicker more often.  People with pre-existing conditions are like drivers with bad records.

I mean DUH.   When you buy insurance you are betting against your good luck.  If the risks are low, the  insurance company can charge low premiums and still make money.  If the risks are high, it can only make money by charging higher premiums or refusing to insure altogether.  Insurance companies are in the business of making money  NOT providing health care.  DUH.

(We pointed this out to the Slime's niebelungen, but they refused to print the comment.  Supposedly it was not sufficiently, informed, considered, sober, right-minded, poison.)

Insurance companies are very good at "shifting" and "defeasing" costs.  The entire  industry is one huge, multi-dimensional Ponzi Scheme.  But the bottom line is that they cannot make money if they only charge premiums people can afford and if they provide health coverage to people who need it (i.e. people who are sick or at risk of getting sick.)

So.... The Scam, that goes by the name of "U.S. Government," makes up for business losses, by directly paying "lost profits" to insurance companies from taxpayer paid funds.   From your pocket to theirs.  

Are you being suckered?  Big time.  Are you stupid?  If you put up with it, yes.  Stupid beyond belief.

But do continue reading the New York Slime.  Fool yourselves into thinking that "stabilizing the market" is somehow, something (you don't quite know how) different than "from your pocket to theirs." 

And so, the average "well informed" middle class jackass reads about "expanding access to coverage"  (i.e. expanding government bailouts to insurance companies) and thinks in his or her stupefied way, "Oh yeah.. that would be a good thing.  We must get the Repuglicans to work with Demorats to get that done....

How can anyone be so fucking dumb?   Well... the psychological term is "fetish" and in particular the Fetish of the Commodity.   Murkans are convinced that "the market" is the solution to everything.  It was even behind the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.   They are as much convinced of this as as a boot-licker is convinced that dragging his tongue over a dirty boot is both joyful and necessary.  Fetishes create their own appearance of demanding objective reality.   That's the whole point of having one.

Are the whores who run  Demorat Party really that deranged or have I just answered my question?  If Mitch McConnell understands that what's at issue is "bailing out" insurance companies, is it reasonable to think that Senawhore Wall Street does not?

Of course they do. In fact, they are more despicable than their Republican colleagues, because they peddle false hopes and false nostrums that convince people that corporate boot licking is good, natural and necessary.

The latest Demorat Manifesto -- A Better Squeal -- is silent on single payer.  Says Peelousy, “the comfort level with a broader base of the American people is not there yet,”   She encouraged state initiatives instead.

What a stinking douchebag.  Pelosi knows perfectly well that states lack the financial muscle power to enact "local" single payer systems.  Even California's recent bill (procedurally shit-canned by the state Demorats) was critically dependent on federal funding.

Of the 247 Demorats in the House, 110 (less than half) back the Conyers bill for single payer.  The silence in the Senate is damning.  Hillary Replacement Icon, Kamela Harris along with Elizabeth Warren and Kristin Gillibrand say they support the "concept" of single payer.  Weasles.  As for the male Senawhores .... zip.

As Conyers has stated, "We will never get universal care built on a foundation of private, for-profit insurers."  But the Demorats can only manage tepid endorsement of a "concept" when they ought to be on the barricades  pushing their advantage forward over the bloodied bodies of the Repugs.  But they won't.

The issue is not just health care.  Health care is simply the symbolic flag ship for "concepts" of social responsibility and civic cohesion -- you know, the outmoded idea that all citizens are entitled to a basic and secure standard of living which enables them to live in dignity as human beings and participate in political and economic life as contributing citizens.    

Instead of seizing the initiative, the corporate-trained monkeys in the Demorat party cede the field of glory, after helping the enemy to their feet.   What does one do with such contemptible bootlicks other than  sweep them into compost of history.

©2017.