{"id":257000,"date":"2021-07-29T20:09:24","date_gmt":"2021-07-29T20:09:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dissidentvoice.org\/?p=119261"},"modified":"2021-07-29T20:09:24","modified_gmt":"2021-07-29T20:09:24","slug":"out-to-lunch-the-atrophying-of-western-minds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/07\/29\/out-to-lunch-the-atrophying-of-western-minds\/","title":{"rendered":"Out to Lunch: The Atrophying of Western Minds"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Interrogate the devil; he will tell you that beauty is a pair of horns, four claws and a tail.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/header>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u2014 Voltaire\u2019s Philosophical Dictionary<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is what real education looks like \u2014\u00a0Evo Organize<\/a>s Anti-Imperialist Day School For Youth<\/p>\n

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Iris Varela spoke about the history of the Bolivarian Revolution and explained in detail how the economic blockade in her country works. The PSUV lawmaker concluded with an invitation for participants to visit Venezuela for the inauguration of a similar project in Caracas; \u201cwe\u2019re opening a university to teach people reporting and social media skills, we\u2019re cordially inviting the youth of the union federations in Chapare to come and coordinate an exchange with the Juventud PSUV, maybe in August a group can come here, and a group from here can go there. Our Bolivian brothers will always be welcome to the country of father liberator, Simon Bolivar. We need to strengthen education and build cadres who can defend revolutionary processes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nieves Colque, one of the young members at the school today said of the classes, \u201cThis school of ideology and anti-imperialism helps us to grow, it\u2019s nourishing. The economics session was especially important, learning and analyzing the principles of Bolivia\u2019s social communitarian economic model so we can work in this new term to recover the country\u2019s GDP\u201d.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Go to any of the corporate Un-News outlets, like Bing, and this is what fascism looks like \u2014<\/p>\n

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\"German
The Latest: Germany considers restrictions for unvaccinated<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Chief of staff Helge Braun told the newspaper Bild am Sonntag that he doesn\u2019t expect another coronavirus-related lockdown in Germany. But Braun said that unvaccinated people may be barred from entering venues like restaurants, movie theaters or sports stadiums \u201cbecause the residual risk is too high.\u201d<\/p>\n

Braun said getting vaccinated is important to protect against severe disease and because \u201cvaccinated people will definitely have more freedoms than unvaccinated people.\u201d He said such policies would be legal because \u201cthe state has the responsibility to protect the health of its citizens.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

More of the same dirty White Western Culture (sic), AKA, White Civilization (Sic) \u2014Report: UK military failing to protect women from abuse<\/a><\/p>\n

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\"British<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Around two-thirds of female veterans in the British armed forces have experienced bullying, harassment or discrimination in their careers, a parliamentary report said Sunday.<\/p>\n

The report also said that women who reported serious sexual offences are \u201cdenied justice\u201d by an inadequate military court system and complaints process.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And, the pigs trained and outfitted in \u201cIsrael,\u201d for the most part, treating citizens like Palestinians \u2014 9\u00a0arrested in violent clashes between Paris police, anti-vaccine protesters<\/a><\/p>\n

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Ah, the Aussies too, having their pig moments \u2014\u00a0Anti-lock<\/a>down protest: two men charged with allegedly striking police horse in Sydney<\/p>\n

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Ahh, islands on fire, Sardinia \u2014\u00a0Fires r<\/a>avage Italian island of Sardinia, forcing evacuations<\/p>\n

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\"Cars<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Then, of course, water, fire, flood, death by a million safety net cuts, and then the Olympians are the networks, getting \u2014 how many billions does NBCV get for these absurdities, the Olympics, by 2023? $7.7 BILLION!<\/p>\n

What we\u2019re witnessing right now play out in Tokyo is unparalleled in the political history of the Olympics. And you\u2019re pointing the finger in the right direction, when we think about the International Olympic Committee. The saga in Tokyo has exposed an International Olympic Committee that openly disrespects the will of locals, that brushes off inconvenient facts from experts, like medical experts, who have long been saying these games are a terrible idea. And the\u00a0IOC\u00a0tends to prioritize its profits over all else.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Olympics tend to kneecap democracy, undercut democracy, in ways that you describe, with the very prime minister essentially reduced to a contractual supplicant to the International Olympic Committee, with no power to decide whether to cancel or not. And you\u2019re seeing also that everything is very vulnerable to things like\u00a0COVID-19 and also, I think, climate change. So, when the International Olympic Committee arrives in the host city, it\u2019s this parastate-type organization. But what we\u2019ve seen time and time again, and now in Technicolor in Tokyo, is that it\u2019s also a parasite on the host city.<\/p>\n

There is a lot of money sloshing through the Olympic system. It just tends to slosh upwards into pockets that are already filled. NBC gives about 40% of the International Olympic Committee\u2019s revenues. And overall, in terms of the Olympics, 73% of the revenues for the International Olympic Committee come from broadcaster fees. And I think that helps explain why they\u2019re perfectly content to have a made-for-TV event without all those people in the stands. Of course, they\u2019d prefer to have them in the stands, but even if they don\u2019t, the money continues to flow into their coffers. NBC has announced that even though these games are hit with the pandemic and people won\u2019t be in the seats, this could well be the most profitable Olympics ever for NBC because of ad sales and other measures.<\/p>\n

The corporate sponsors provide another 18% of the revenues for the International Olympic Committee. And I think we\u2019re seeing a really interesting divide between the corporate sponsors right now. On one hand, the sort of long-term, worldwide partners that fork over these nine-figure fees to be associated with the five rings, they\u2019re basically playing the long game, with the exception of Toyota, which of course has strong base in Japan. The local sponsors, domestic sponsors \u2014 by which, by the way, they raised more than $3 billion from local corporate sponsors in Japan, more than ever before \u2014 they\u2019re in a much trickier position. And I think that\u2019s why you\u2019re seeing Toyota basically say out loud that the Olympics have become a toxic property inside of Japan.<\/p>\n

So, there\u2019s plenty of money to be had. It just tends to shuffle to the International Olympic Committee, to broadcasters, to the corporate partners, as well as to real estate interests in the Olympic city. \u2014\u00a0Jules Boykoff<\/a><\/p>\n

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Oh, the great dysfunctional USA, Capitalism, etc. Think: Nazi Merkel and others in her cabinet blame the deaths of hundreds in Germany as a result of recent flooding on, oh well, \u201cclimate change and climate unpredictability . . . .\u201d<\/p>\n

Imagine that, the mayor of the town said:<\/p>\n

We have had floods in this area for centuries. We have asked for help to mitigate the floods. We have had governments not responsive to the needs of people. Blaming climate change on incompetent and heartless neoliberal governments, on the excessive hording of money, the waste and corruption of trillions, stolen, given to billionaires, to the military complex, and other Corporate and Financial Complexes, then stating these German lives could not be saved because \u2018climate change is so unpredictable, and just get used to it\u201d serves the people the words from which to raise pitchforks, juice up the Molotov cocktails, grease the shotguns, tie the ropes and sharpen the guillotines for hanging and beheading deservedly so against the elite and their bed-fellows, the Eichmann Mentality, and the fascist leanings of Capitalism. This is the response of these people who go to climate change talks, who shuttling around the world in jets for Davos and World Economic Forums, for the bootlicking foisted upon us all to the murderers, the BlackRocks\u2019s and Blackstone\u2019s and World Bank and Goldman Sachs. You dictate those who did not get the chemical jab of Corona Capitalism will have lesser value in society, and then those smug ones who have succumbed to the pressure for yearly or twice-yearly boosters, they too will allow the rich and fascistic governments to make excuse after excuse as governments and towns go bankrupt, and all life saving services and community rights, vanish.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Well, he didn\u2019t say that, of course, because I made it up and politicians do not speak about capitalism as the ultimate evil. However, one German mayor was in tears about the loss of life, and said it could have been prevented with a government and localities working together to mitigate floods. Whether once in a hundred years, or otherwise.<\/p>\n

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Dixie Fire rips through Sierra communities, with \u2018extreme\u2019 conditions likely to worsen<\/a><\/p>\n

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\"Hochwasser<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Then, more of the 80-year-olds drilling down on destroying the young, the unborn, the middle aged \u2014\u00a0Some Americans could need CO<\/a>VID-19 vaccine booster – Fauci<\/p>\n

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So, we follow the way of \u201cIsrael\u201d \u2014 We have given up as people, this unending multi-billions in profits, mercenary, war profiteering profits these companies are stealing from the taxpayers. Like the Military industrial complex, the Big Pharma and Private Medicine industrial complexes are eating our souls. And the rot-gut corporate media and those that echo the prevailing narratives, well, they too eat our souls.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a dynamic situation. It\u2019s a work in progress, it evolves like in so many other areas of the pandemic,\u201d said Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. \u201cYou\u2019ve got to look at the data.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last week, Israel\u2019s health ministry reported a decrease in the effectiveness of the Pfizer vaccine in preventing infections and symptomatic illness. But it added that the two-dose COVID-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer with partner BioNTech still remained highly effective in preventing severe illness.<\/p>\n

The decline in efficacy coincided with the spread of the Delta variant, now the dominant strain in Israel.<\/p>\n

Israel is administering third doses of the vaccine to immunocompromised people, including those who have had heart, lung, kidney or liver transplants and cancer patients receiving chemotherapy.<\/p>\n

Pfizer and BioNTech said on Friday that the United States had purchased 200 million more doses of their vaccine to help with pediatric vaccination as well as possible booster shots.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

No deep stories on that, uh? How and why so much money is being thrown at companies with histories of felonies? Here, this headline, censored everywhere \u2014 CDC \u201cPanel Signals Support for Booster Shots, as Reports of Injuries, Deaths After\u00a0COVID Vaccines Near 500,000<\/a>\u201c<\/p>\n

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Oh, they salute the money makers, and we are a society going down down down because of the rich, the millionaires, the billionaires, and these fascists, saluting what?<\/p>\n

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Here a local older woman, trying to make sense of the lock-step pro-lockdown, pro-mask, pro-anticivil liberties mentality of Oregonians, and their editorial boards:<\/p>\n

Copy of my Letter to the Editor of the Eugene Register-Guard; it has been received but not published \u2014 I usually get pleasure from wordsmith Don Kahle\u2019s clever articles. However, in his\u00a0July 16 column<\/a>\u00a0he encouraged incentives to get more citizens injected with an unlicensed, unapproved experimental gene procedure to lessen symptoms from a viral disease with a better than 99% recovery rate for most age groups.<\/p>\n

A review of history is needed. In 1986, Congress passed a law that allowed pharmaceutical companies ZERO liability from damages from their vaccine products. The PREP act is the latest iteration which gives drug companies immunity from damages caused by their vaccines.<\/p>\n

The Vaccine Adverse Effects Reporting System was established in 1990 by the CDC and FDA to monitor damages and deaths caused by vaccines. Although the system is voluntary and underreported, as of this writing, VAERS data showed a total of 463,457 adverse events from all age groups following COVID vaccines, including 10,991 deaths and 48,385 serious injuries since Dec. 14, 2020. Serious injuries include myocarditis, pericarditis, paralysis, neurological disorders, blood clots, irregular menstrual bleeding, and more.<\/p>\n

Drug companies are poised to earn billions of dollars from vaccine sales, mostly paid for by our taxes. \u201cSafe and effective\u201d is a marketing slogan and is inaccurate. Mr. Kahle, I urge you to do investigative journalism regarding germ theory vs. terrain theory. Rather than promoting pills and injections, it makes sense that public health funds should be spent on improved sanitation, hygiene, nutrition and exercise guidance for individuals and communities and to promote decentralized, regenerative, organic agriculture on a global scale.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It\u2019s easy to say to this person that this opinion letter to the editor will not be published since the newspaper (sic) will deem the information as faux, false, and dangerous. This is the way of the present, and no matter how \u201calternative\u201d or \u201cleft\u201d the rag, those old hippies are indeed fascists, one and all, in many cases, in this case, with the Corona Capitalism. Sick stuff, capitalism crunched all up in Big Media, Big Lies, Big Propaganda:<\/p>\n

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\"Fireworks
[The opening ceremony is being held in Tokyo\u2019s National Stadium, but the 80,000-seat arena, built for this purpose, is largely empty. Fewer than 1,000 VIP guests have been invited to attend. Spectators have also been barred from sporting events throughout the games. The 2020 Olympic Games were originally scheduled to take place a year ago but were postponed due to the pandemic.]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Ahh, we can go on and on about how we got here, 2021, but a great thing is we saw it in the history books.<\/p>\n

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[The blacklisted mathematics instructor Chandler Davis, after serving six months in the Danbury federal penitentiary for refusing to cooperate with the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), warned the universities that ousted him and thousands of other professors that the purges would decimate the country\u2019s intellectual life.]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Chandler Davis \u2014 1995 talk!<\/p>\n

\u201cShooting Rats in a Barrel\u201d: Did the Red-hunt Win?<\/a><\/p>\n

These years, 1947-1950, established the ground rules that remained in force for the decade that followed. Most institutions, from the government through the unions and universities to the American Civil Liberties Union (yes, I said the American Civil Liberties Union), declared Communists unwelcome. Among the means used to exclude them were loyalty oaths, often including the phrase \u201cI am not a member of the Communist Party or any other organization which\u2026\u201d It became glaringly obvious, that employers, in particular universities, would shy away from hiring anyone who might be attacked as a Communist; a reputation as a student radical was thus enough to make one a bad bet for an academic job; so student radicals became (in a few short years) very scarce. University administrators would occasionally say, if asked, that there were no Communists on the staff; but they hoped they wouldn\u2019t be asked. The FBI and the Red Squads of state and some local police forces kept files on thousands. They had a reputation for exceeding legal restraints in interrogation and for keeping very dubious material in their files; later research bears this out. They cooperated (when it suited their own agenda) with employers who were cleansing their staffs. This put them in an ambivalent relation to the federal government in particular. The FBI\u2019s J. Edgar Hoover, while nominally responsible to the Attorney General, sometimes cooperated covertly with Congressional expos\u00e9s of government agencies.<\/p>\n

Most universities wouldn\u2019t even let left-wingers speak on campus under auspices of a student group! Paul Robeson, Howard Fast, and Dirk J. Struik are among those banned by administrations in the early 50s. By the late 50s, the invitations had dried up.<\/p>\n

It was further established that one could be imprisoned for Communist Party activity itself, at least if one were a leader: the Supreme Court upheld in 1951 the conspiracy convictions against the CP officers under the Smith Act. The government maintained concentration camps in which it could incarcerate thousands of dangerous people if it declared a national emergency to exist, and everyone knew whom they considered dangerous. (These camps were invented by the \u201cliberal\u201d senators in 1952 in an attempt to show voters that they were just as security-conscious as the Right. But though they originated as a mere tactic, they were not merely on paper, they existed physically. I was told this in casual conversation in 1955 by an acquaintance who was employed at a federal prison \u2014 a prison, it happens, where I became an inmate five years later. The story would be better if the guard had looked me up and said hello to me then, but \u2014 sorry \u2014 we were no longer in touch.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

These words from Davis to Chris Hedges are just the same today, for MANY of us, who have been marginalized, Google Searched into the Poor House:<\/p>\n

Though you see the remnants of the former academic left still, though some of us were never fired, though I return to the United States from my exile frequently, we are gone,\u201d he said. \u201cWe did not survive as we were. Some of us saved our skins without betraying others or ourselves. But almost all of the targets either did crumble or were fired and blacklisted. David Bohm and Moses Finley and Jules Dassin and many less celebrated people were forced into exile. Most of the rest had to leave the academic world. A few suffered suicide or other premature death. There weren\u2019t the sort of wholesale casualties you saw in Argentina or El Salvador, but the Red-hunt did succeed in axing a lot of those it went after, and cowing most of the rest. We were out, and we were kept out. \u2014 \u201cThe Origin of America\u2019s Intellectual Vacuum\u201d<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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\"See
\"See<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Finally, read David Rovics\u2019 blog, and he is now in Denmark playing live crowds. I feel badly for him, he being accused of antisemitism, and he is being doxxed, and his Wikipedia has been changed but \u201ccrowd-souring\u201d folk.<\/p>\n

Blog<\/a>\u00a0\u2014<\/p>\n

Confessions of an Ecumenical Leftist<\/h3>\n

It seems a ridiculous thing to have to say, but I think intellectual discourse is generally a very good thing, rather than something to be stopped at all costs.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I\u2019m realizing that most people who come across something I wrote don\u2019t seem to have read anything else I\u2019ve ever written, and haven\u2019t listened to my music.\u00a0 This post is going to be especially personal, so it\u2019s important that you have some idea who I am first.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m 54 years old, and I\u2019ve been some kind of an activist since I was 12.\u00a0 I learn a little more with each passing year on Earth, but lately the pace has accelerated, along with everything else.\u00a0 I was raised by musicians, and I became one myself early on.\u00a0 When I started writing songs about different social movement activities and notable moments in history from around the US and the world, I started meeting more and more people from everywhere, and touring everywhere, too.\u00a0 As a songwriter and performer I\u2019ve been able to participate in social movements on an ongoing basis in a dozen or so countries, spending most of my adult life on the road, doing that.<\/p>\n

Although the campaigners may be few, I have seen these campaigns work again and again.\u00a0 You spread enough rumors, they dominate the narrative.\u00a0\u00a0There are already people updating my Wikipedia entry to inform people that accusations of my alleged antisemitism are \u201cin the news.\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0 Of course, they\u2019re \u201cin the news\u201d because there have been news stories written about the campaign against me \u2014 not because any serious person has ever accused me of antisemitism, with any basis for their claim, aside from failing to find the anti-Semitic bits in a book, and wanting to talk to people with disparate viewpoints who may have deep insight into how we might prevent a fascist future in America, regardless of anything else.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Of course, Wikipedia and Google and the rest are propaganda and government run and ZIonist outfits, for sure:<\/p>\n

Indeed, already in 2007, researchers found that CIA and FBI employees were\u00a0editing<\/a>\u00a0Wikipedia articles on controversial topics including the Iraq war and the Guantanamo military prison.<\/p>\n

Also in 2007, researchers found that one of the most active and influential English Wikipedia administrators, called \u201cSlim Virgin\u201d, was in fact a\u00a0former British intelligence informer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

More recently, another highly prolific Wikipedia editor going by the false name of\u00a0\u201cPhilip Cross\u201d\u00a0<\/a>turned out to be linked to UK intelligence as well as several mainstream\u00a0media journalists<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In Germany, one of the most aggressive Wikipedia editors was\u00a0exposed<\/a>, after a two-year legal battle, as a political operative formerly serving in the Israeli army as a foreign volunteer.<\/p>\n

Even in Switzerland, unidentified government employees were caught\u00a0whitewashing Wikipedia entries<\/a>\u00a0about the Swiss secret service just prior to a public referendum about the agency.<\/p>\n

Many of these Wikipedia personae are editing articles almost all day and every day, indicating that they are either highly dedicated individuals, or in fact, operated by a group of people.<\/p>\n

In addition, articles edited by these personae cannot easily be revised, since the above-mentioned administrators can always revert changes or simply block disagreeing users altogether. (Source<\/a>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There you have it, on a Sunday, just cruising through the shit-storm news of the shit-hole Mass Murdering Media!<\/p>\n

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\"See<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>The post Out to Lunch: The Atrophying of Western Minds<\/a> first appeared on Dissident Voice<\/a>.\n

This post was originally published on Dissident Voice<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Interrogate the devil; he will tell you that beauty is a pair of horns, four claws and a tail. \u2014 Voltaire\u2019s Philosophical Dictionary This is what real education looks like \u2014\u00a0Evo Organizes Anti-Imperialist Day School For Youth Iris Varela spoke about the history of the Bolivarian Revolution and explained in detail how the economic blockade [\u2026]<\/p>\n

The post Out to Lunch: The Atrophying of Western Minds<\/a> first appeared on Dissident Voice<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":156,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[175,862,92,5670,1235,827,1015,3660,4544,11669,771,100,116,982,94,492,3255,32803,583,32804,32805,4552],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257000"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/156"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257000"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257000\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":257038,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257000\/revisions\/257038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}