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Xi Jinping And Kim Jong-Un: Make Korea United Again! [1][2]
Federico Pieraccini
The Strategic Culture Foundation,
J Berkshire Miller
Council on International Policy[The current North Asia conflict has a long history and I invite the reader to refer to my previous article on how it started and the continual refusal of the USA to mediate for peace
/forums/topic/the-case-for-north-korea-a-rebuttal-against-the-us-deep-state/
Regardless of posturing, the USA cannot afford any more wars and this may be their last best hope to strike a deal that secures Asian cooparation.
Again, thanks for reading – Y]
The Meeting
Earlier this week, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un traveled to Beijing to meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping, making his first trip outside of country since he assumed power in late 2011.
During the secretly guarded visit, Kim reportedly expressed his commitment to the denuclearisation on the Korean Peninsula if the conditions are right.
According to China’s state-run news agency Xinhua, Kim expressed that; “the issue of denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula can be resolved, if South Korea and the United States respond to our efforts with goodwill, create an atmosphere of peace and stability while taking progressive and synchronous measures for the realisation of peace.”
Meanwhile Xi extolled the importance of historic bond between China and North Korea and accepted Kim’s invitation to visit Pyongyang in the coming months.
Kim’s visit to China is the latest in the rapid succession of recent developments on the Korean Peninsula which has been dizzying. First, there were the series of diplomatic exchanges between South and North Korea during and after the Winter Olympic Games in Pyeongchang.
These steps culminated in an historic meeting between senior South Korean officials in Pyongyang with Kim Jong-un in early March.
But perhaps more importantly, Pyongyang has now secured itself an important insurance card by shoring up its relations with Beijing. The move both increases leverage for Kim ahead of his upcoming summit with South Korean President Moon Jae-in and his potential meeting subsequently with Trump
The Xi-Kim summit also clearly signifies that China continues to be the most important player – outside of the US – in working towards a resolution of tensions on the Korean Peninsula. Beijing is often described as Pyongyang’s “lifeline” and has been resistant to turn its back on the Kim regime despite its frustrations with the rise in provocations and growth of its nuclear and missile programs.
Anlysis
Kim Jong-un’s visit reveals much about the tactics that will be used in the negotiations between the Korean leader and the American president; it also consolidates a historical relationship between Pyongyang and Beijing
The recent meeting in Beijing between the two supreme leaders of DPRK and China has captured global attention. The summit remained secret throughout its duration, revealed by the Chinese leader only when the visit had ended and the Korean leader was on his way back home.Rumours of the encounter continued to be denied by the Chinese foreign minister right up to Tuesday. The denials had a lot to do with the fact that a positive outcome for the meeting, this being the first one, could not be guaranteed. The final statements, the relaxed atmosphere, the many images displaying mutual smiles and acknowledgement reveal that the two leaders of the Chinese and Korean Communist parties are on the same page.
Despite wishful thinking from the US, which interpreted the lack of meetings in previous years as a change in Chinese attitudes towards North Korea, the meeting highlighted positive impressions by Xi Jinping about the developments on the peninsula as well as confirmed the strategic thinking of Kim Jong-un.
Kim Jong-Un’s strategy deserves particular attention. The ability to deter aggression from the United States and South Korea existed well before Pyongyang’s development of a nuclear deterrent, thanks to the enormous number of artillery guns it has directed towards Seoul.
A possible conflict would have caused millions of deaths, destroyed the American forces on the peninsula (the American bases would have been the first to be eliminated, really only being there to serve as a tripwire), and upset the alliance with Seoul, which would have borne an unacceptable toll.
Kim Jong-un and his father had already secured a powerful enough deterrent to ward off aggression against their country. The strategy behind developing nuclear weapons becomes more clear following the just-concluded meeting with Xi Jinping.
Kim Jong-un’s willingness to meet Donald Trump in bilateral talks, and the possibility that Pyongyang will give up its nuclear arsenal, stand out.
The meeting with Xi Jinping in all likelihood focused on the demands to be made to Trump: the removal of the North American presence in the south of the country is something on which China and DPRK are in strong agreement.
The desired outcome for Beijing and Pyongyang (but also for Moscow) would see Washington remove its forces from South Korea in exchange for opening up North Korea’s sites to international inspections. China and Russia would be happy to see the US threat to their nuclear deterrence removed (even if, with the latest hypersonic weapons revealed by Putin, the problem does not seem to arise).
This would also bring great advantages to Seoul, which could embark on a rapprochement with the North, starting with a possible reunification of the peninsula; and under the economic and energetic aegis of Russia and China, the peninsula could be included in the One Belt One Road (OBOR), as well as as benefitting from Moscow’s gas.
Of course this scenario clashes with the recent appointments of Mike Pompeo and John Bolton to the top of the American administration, confirmed by the threat of dissolving the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) reached with Iran, undoing a deal reached through the efforts of multiple countries.
The consequences would be significant, with the United State coming across as an unreliable state in international relations.
This aspect for Pyongyang, Beijing, Moscow and even Seoul counts up to a certain point. The extraordinary diplomatic message that Kim Jong-un and Xi Jinping have sent to allies and adversaries alike is that to allow for peace and the possibility of reunification for the Korean peninsula, Kim is apparently willing to renounce his nuclear weapons, his most important deterrent.
But interestingly, North Korea has always been able to rely on its formidable conventional deterrent to guarantee its security anyway. For the survival of Kim and his circle, thousands upon thousands of artillery pieces aimed at Seoul are enough to keep any potential aggressor at bay.
Another obvious consideration is that any use by Kim of his nuclear weapons against the United States or its allies would result in the total annihilation of the DPRK. So the question remains: if North Korea has always guaranteed its survival through its conventional deterrence, why has it developed a nuclear deterrent as well on top of this? The most logical answer is so as to bring the United States to the negotiating table.
Pyongyang’s stroke of diplomatic and strategic genius lies in getting the United States to abandon the Korean peninsula in exchange for North Korea renouncing its nuclear arsenal. This hypothesis puts Kim Jong-un on the positive side of the negotiations, coming across as a reasonable and serious negotiating partner willing to find a way to guarantee peace on the whole peninsula.
If Kim Jong-un is willing to give up what apparently, until yesterday, seemed impossible in the interests of reaching an agreement to ensure the survival of the two Koreas, then Pyongyang is presenting itself as Seoul’s guarantor of peace.
The message Moon Jae-in could receive from the negotiations is that an “enemy” like North Korea is willing to give up its most significant weapon, while the Americans march in with the likes of Bolton and Pompeo, ready to slam their fists on the negotiating table by refusing to make any concessions.
While Kim Jong-un has every intention of placing any blame for a failure of negotiations on the American side, and seems to have all the reasons ready in place to do so, the meeting between Kim Jong-un and Xi Jinping seems aimed at laying the groundwork to break the alliance between Seoul and Washington.
We can already imagine the scene, with Pyongyang ready to renounce its nuclear weapons, Seoul ready to enter into dialogue about the reunification of the country, China and Russia happy with the denuclearization of the North, and above all, the elimination of the prospects of a terrible war on the peninsula.
In this climate, Washington would be left completely isolated in refusing to entertain any prospect of abandoning the peninsula.
Thanks to its less-than-perfect relations with its European allies, and its intention to annul the Iranian JCPOA, Washington would leave itself looking like it is neither able to keep its promises nor willing to pursue any credible diplomatic path.
The reality is that an overall agreement between North Korea and the United States is practically impossible for one fundamental reason: the United States uses the excuse of having to protect South Korea to maintain a permanent presence on the peninsula for the purposes of containing China and Russia, both through missile defense and by maintaining a military presence near their borders.
For this reason, while Moscow and Beijing have multiple reasons for seeking an agreement between Pyongyang and Washington, both are aware that the US has no intentions of abandoning its presence in South Korea. The meeting between Kim Jong-un and Trump is a well-designed trap prepared by Moscow, Beijing and Pyongyang, maybe over many months or even years.
The most realistic objectives are to further isolate Washington in the region, to bring Beijing and Seoul closer together, and to drive a wedge between Seoul and Washington. Moscow would use the failure of these negotiations to earn more leverage with its European partners, all eager to see a solution to the Korean crisis. Furthermore, Moscow could increase its opportunity to enter the energy market in South Korea as a result of Seoul diversifying its energy sources.
Beijing has every intention of avoiding a war on the peninsula, which would be disastrous in many respects, not only humanitarian but also in the possibility of Washington camping on China’s border as a result of destroying the DPRK.
South Korea’s Moon Jae-in looks on anxiously, ready to reach an agreement with the North. The mastery of Sino-Korean diplomacy has created a win-win situation for Pyongyang, with Washington’s eventual failure in the negotiations having negative reverberations with her allies in region. This is probably the reason why many in the US administration greeted Trump’s decision to accept talks with Kim negatively.
Accepting to engage in talks signals a preparedness to negotiate. But as we can anticipate, the unwillingness of the Americans to accede to North Korean demands to abandon the peninsula doom the talks. At the same time, Pyongyang’s offer to give up its nuclear weapons will leave Washington bearing responsibility for the failure of the talks if there is no commensurable response.
For this reason, Trump has ingeniously decided to bring in two warmongers like Pompeo and Bolton, intending to scare Kim into a negotiating position more favorable to Washington, a strategy he intends to also pursue in relation to Iran.
The truth is that American diplomacy has no room for maneuver with Korea; and since war is unthinkable, it is not even a real threat.
This leaves Trump with a lot of bluster and a bunch of snarling hawks in tow, but with Pyongyang and Beijing left holding the aces, as will become clear in the coming weeks when all the cards are laid on the negotiating table.
Citations
[1] https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-03-30/xi-jinping-and-kim-jong-un-make-korea-united-again
[2] https://www.aljazeera.com/profile/j-berkshire-miller.html
AnonymousTopic: Classic Movie Review: Heat
Anonymous
Tonight I revisited an old movie, Heat, with Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, and Val Kilmer.
Also participating in the movie is the “nasty woman” Ashley Judd, and she already looked nasty (even in 1995).The movie is interesting in a red pill sense. We can start by looking at Neil McCauley (Robert De Niro character) as a MGTOW. All the others had wives, except Neil. Even his house was minimalistic, but with great location.
The following exchange says it all:
(Chris)- When will you get some furniture?
(Neil)- When I get around to it.
(Chris)- Charlene’s gonna leave me.
(Neil)- Why?
(Chris)- Not enough steaks in the freezer.
(Neil)- With everything we’ve been doing?
(Chris)- Vegas and the Super Bowl cleaned me out. When you gonna get an old lady?
(Neil)- When I get around to it. You got something else on the side?
(Chris)- Nothing regular.
(Neil)- She got something else on the side? You sure?
(Chris)- Yeah, I’m sure.
(Neil)- I don’t know what you’re doing. As Jimmy said, “You want to be making moves on the street? Have no attachments. Allow nothing to be in your life…that you can’t walk out on in 30 seconds if you spot the heat around the corner.” Remember that?
(Chris)- For me, the sun rises and sets with her, man.Famous last words….
Now, for good red pills you have to look at the exchange between Chris and Charlene, in the fight mentioned above.
Chris throws money from the robbery to his wife:
(Charlene)-Where’s the rest?
(Chris)-We’re late. You look too good to go out. I’ll just jump you right here.
(Charlene)-Where is it?
(Chris)-Squared the bookies, baby. There’s more in a couple of days, so don’t sweat it. We’re late.
(Charlene)-Come on.You gotta be kidding me.
(Chris)-Honey…
(Charlene)-…it ain’t worth the risks you take for $8,000. Like in “Risk versus reward.”
(Chris)-Let’s go. Get your coat.
(Charlene)-There is no point talking. You’re a child growing older.
(Chris)-What does that mean?
(Charlene)-We’re not making forward progress like real grown-up adults living our lives… because I married a gambling junkie.
(Chris)-Get in the f~~~ing car.
(Charlene)-What am I doing in here? You’re not!
(Chris)- You want me to leave the bank book and the car keys…in the kitchen on the way out the door? Are we going?
(Charlene)-Keep that crap. Dominick comes with me.
(Chris)-Don’t even think about…Now let us see this: a guy risks his life in armed robbery and his wife gets mad at him because they are not “making progress”, translated into: he is wasting to much money.
Then goes to call him a child. Yes, the worst kind of criminal is but a child to his wife.
He had an gambling addiction… That is his fault, never-mind that she is married to a murdering thief.
Obviously she is leaving and taking the kid with her.Next we have the cop Vincent Hanna (Al Pacino) and his wife Justine, with great red pills throughout the whole movie.
Because Vincent arrives late from work:
(Justine)-Every time I try to maintain a consistent mood between us…you withdraw.
(Vincent)-I got three dead bodies on a sidewalk…off Venice Boulevard, Justine. I’m sorry…if the goddamn…chicken…got overcooked.As Vincent is called in the middle of a dinner, and he returns to find the wife alone waiting for him:
(Vincent)-I told you when we hooked up…that you were gonna have to share me…with all the bad people and all the ugly events on this planet.
(Justine)-And I bought into that sharing…because I love you. I love you fat, bald, money, no money, driving a bus. I don’t care. But you have got to be present like a normal guy. That’s sharing. This is not sharing, this is leftovers.Then the constant pseudo-intellectual bulls~~~ she constantly says:
(Justine)-You don’t live with me. You live among the remains of dead people. You sift through the detritus. You read the terrain. You search for signs of passing…for the scent of your prey…and then you hunt them down. That’s the only thing you’re committed to. The rest is the mess you leave as you pass through. What I don’t understand is why I can’t cut loose of you.Finally she is able to cut him loose by getting “Ralph” to f~~~ her. Then they have this hilarious scene when Vincent walks home to find “Ralph”:
(Justine)-Don’t you even get angry?
(Vincent)-I’m angry.I’m very angry, Ralph. You can ball my wife if she wants you to. You can lounge around here on her sofa. In her ex-husband’s…dead-tech, post-modernistic, bulls~~~ house…if you want to. But you do not get to watch…my f~~~ing…television set!
(Justine)-For God’s sake. Put the television set down.
(Vincent)-I never cheated on you, bitch.
(Justine)-Maybe you should have.
(Vincent)-I should have?
(Justine)-You’re a party to this.
(Vincent)-I made Ralph f~~~ you because it makes me feel good.
(Justine)- Why is it that I have to figure things out and explain them to you?
(Vincent)-I say what I mean, and I do what I say.
(Justine)-How admirable.
(Vincent)-You bet.
(Justine)-I may be stoned on grass and Prozac but…you walk through our life dead.Now I have to demean myself with Ralph just to get closure with you.In the middle of all this we have a daughter that tries to commit suicide, allegedly because the “asshole” father never shows up. But we notice that the mother doesn’t give her much attention, to the point were she prefers the step-father. It is when they split that the girl attempts to kill herself.
Good movie, from the time they still made them…
Captain’s log, Stardate 41203.1.
We have moved into orbit around MGTOW PRIME, a planet inhabited by a remarkable civilisation apparently made up solely of men.
They appear to live peacefully, work productively, do cool s~~~ in their spare time and have zero drama in their lives. In fact, their planet has so little drama that we might not be able to sustain a whole episode here.
We are assembling a landing party to see if this is too good to be true.
~~~
Brothers! I have noticed that more than a few guys on these forums who know their Star Trek, so I thought it would be fun to have a thread to get all the Centaurian slugs out of the woodwork.
Favourite series/movies? Favourite captains? Favourite Star Trek MGTOW moments?
I’ll start.
— WARNING: SPOILER ALERT IF YOU DON’T KNOW DEEP SPACE NINE —-
I love TOS and TNG deeply, but in some ways DS9 is I think the greatest of all, and partially because of Ben Sisko’s journey over the seven seasons. Do you remember how he struggles over whether he should marry Kasidy Yates, and how the Prophets warn him that he shouldn’t, but he does anyway? And he has this blue-pill dream of retiring to Bajor with Kasidy and building that house? For me, the final episode of DS9, when he realises he’s called to something higher than his blue-pill fantasy, that he has to Go His Own Way even if it means saying goodbye to his son, is one of the most incredible MGTOW moments in popular culture.
Also, on a lighter note, can we all please agree just how annoying Janeway was?
Anyway, glory to you, and your MGTOW house.
There aren't holes in your pockets. It's called marriage.
The Austin Bomber : A Case Study of [Illegal] Surveillance by the Deep State [1]
Jeramiah Johnson
SHTFplan.com
28th March 2018Jeremiah Johnson is the Nom de plume of a retired Green Beret of the United States Army Special Forces (Airborne). Mr. Johnson was a Special Forces Medic, EMT and ACLS-certified, with comprehensive training in wilderness survival, rescue, and patient-extraction. He is a graduate of the U.S. Army’s survival course of SERE school (Survival Evasion Resistance Escape)
An expert in land navigation, survival, mountaineering, and parachuting as trained by the United States Army, Mr. Johnson is an ardent advocate for preparedness, self-sufficiency, and long-term disaster sustainability for families. He and his wife survived Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. Cross-trained as a Special Forces Engineer, he is an expert in supply, logistics, transport, and long-term storage of perishable materials
Many have argued that there is neither a surveillance state, nor a concerted effort to disarm the public door-to-door, house by house, etc. Some of these are far-leftists, masquerading as conservatives…trying to appear “skeptically cynical.” We’ll “game” the thought, to bring everyone back from opacity to transparency.
1. The Communists, Marxists, Leftists, Progressives, Liberals, Democrats, and their ilk deliberately try to disguise the true objectives as outlined in the Planks of the Communist Party…passing themselves off as “middle-ground” in their stances.
2. By denigrating the concept of an imminent surveillance state and ridiculing it, they draw conservatives who are still undecided (“fringe elements”) out of being proponents of the idea…further weakening and obfuscating people’s awareness.
3. The movement of the groups mentioned never ceases: It hasn’t ceased with the fall of the Berlin Wall and subsequent reunification of Germany in 1990, nor the fall of the Soviet Union…more a “restructuring” than a fall…in 1992. The Communists are alive and well, operating within the United States at the lowest levels of society, and at the highest levels of government.
We’ll stay with “Communists” as the label, as they are the end-state and will purge all the others who aren’t in complete lock step with them. They are Communists.
That being mentioned, as they craft their narratives and lie openly upon the television, radio, and within the newspapers, there is a subtle, devious operation going on right before your eyes:
The emplacement of a complete surveillance state of cameras and listening devices, all a part of the “wondrous internet of things.”
For that last paraphrase, thank David Petraeus…former head of the CIA (in name only) yet without the technical alacrity to avoid the very thing he lauded…and hence, his downfall via Paula Bridewell.
Thanks, Dave, for your erstwhile contribution to crafting the surveillance state. Dave serves as the prime example: no matter how much of a “big hitter” toward the NWO (New World Order) a globalist or establishmentarian one is, they are always expendable.
The surveillance state has just been proven with the recent string of bombings in Austin, Texas where the protagonist blew himself up when he was tailed and cornered.
This article was released by AP, written by Paul J. Weber on 3/22/18, and it seems to have escaped much notice.
I am providing an excerpt that is almost the full article. When you read it, you will see why it is so important. Here it is:
How Police Finally Found the Austin Bomber [2]
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The suspected Austin bomber is dead after terrorizing Texas’ capital city for three weeks. And in the end the manhunt wasn’t cracked by hundreds of phoned-in tips, the big pot of reward money or police pleading to the bomber through TV.
One of the largest bombing investigations in the U.S. since the Boston Marathon attacks in 2013 came to an intense close early Wednesday when authorities say they moved in on Mark Anthony Conditt at an interstate hotel. Austin Police Chief Brian Manley said Conditt blew himself up after running his sport utility vehicle into a ditch.
Here is what’s known about how authorities finally zeroed in on the suspected bomber after 19 days, two dead victims and more than 1,000 calls of suspicious packages around the city:
GETTING THE BOMBER ON CAMERA
Conditt had been careful to avoid cameras before entering a FedEx store in southwest Austin this week disguised in a blond wig and gloves, said U.S. House Homeland Security chairman Michael McCaul. The Austin congressman had been briefed by police, the FBI and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
McCaul said going into the store was Conditt’s “fatal mistake.” He said authorities previously had leads on a red truck and that the surveillance video from the FedEx store — where Conditt is believed to have dropped off an explosive package destined for an Austin address — allowed investigators to identify him and the truck.
Said Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, “I’m not sure how much they narrowed him down to an exact person of who he was before he went into that FedEx store.”
TRACKING THE CELLPHONE
At the FedEx store, McCaul said investigators got from surveillance the truck license plate that linked the vehicle to Conditt, which in turn gave authorities a cellphone number they could track. McCaul said Conditt had powered down his phone for “quite some time” but that police closed in when he switched it back on.
“He turned it on, it pinged, and then the chased ensued,” McCaul said.
Abbott said police were able to closely monitor Conditt and his movements for about 24 hours before his death. The governor said the phone number was used to tie Conditt to bombing sites around Austin.
“The suspect’s cellphone number showed up at each of the bombing sites as well as some key locations that helped them connect him to the crime,” Abbott said.
BUYING BOMB-MAKING MATERIALS
Authorities say they also tracked down Conditt, a 23-year-old unemployed college dropout, through witness accounts and other purchases, including at a Home Depot where McCaul said the suspect bought nails and other bomb-making materials.
Abbott said Conditt’s purchases at the Home Depot also included five “CHILDREN AT PLAY” signs, one of which was used to rig a tripwire that was set off by two men Sunday in a southwest Austin neighborhood. One of them was walking and the other was riding a bike.
William Grote told The Associated Press that his grandson was one of the victims and had nails embedded in his legs from Sunday’s explosion.
The batteries to power the bomb were purchased through the internet, McCaul said.
STILL PUTTING TOGETHER A PROFILE
The initial bomber profile sketched out by FBI behavioral scientists was that he was most likely a white male, McCaul said. And while that part was right, the congressman said, a full psychological profile won’t come together until investigators have time to comb through Conditt’s writings and social media posts.
Conditt’s motive is not clear. But on Wednesday, police discovered a 25-minute video recording on a cellphone found with Conditt, which Manley said he considers a “confession” to the bombings. Manley said it described the differences among the bombs in great detail.”
End of article by AP
Obviously, someone made a big mistake in revealing this information to the stultified, oblivious public…that selfsame public of “We the People” that has the right to know, and yet doesn’t understand what is happening.
Worse: The public doesn’t care what’s happening.
Let’s summarize what these main points mean, for those of you who do care:
1. The cellular telephone is nothing more than a tracking device…as mentioned, it “pings” its position and gives away the location of the owner…along with all of his vital information in the file… every four seconds.
2. The cell phone’s location is tied into the location of every camera, public and private that has a tie-in to the CCTV system monitored by law enforcement in the fusion centers…from the Happy Burger parking lot cameras to the cameras mounted at the intersections in cities, towns, and suburbs. As the happy cell phone passes these locations, the movement is tracked in real time, and recorded.
3. Granted, they had a suspect, but they can review all of the cameras at any business at any given time…to show what Joe the Plumber-turned-bomber may be purchasing at the friendly store…and they can tie that film in with real-time with the cell phone.
4. The vehicle is also the “buddy” of the police and the surveillance establishment. They take pictures and film of the license plate, the car, and glimpses of Joe the Plumber driving it…corroborated by the happy, ever-pinging cellular telephone (the tracking device).
5. All this data for everyone’s movements is recorded, catalogued, and stored…stored away for an indefinite period of time (forever) until the information is needed as evidence or in an investigation. Investigation! Doesn’t that sound exciting? Guess what? Everyone is being investigated, and all of the data on everyone is kept.
6. Purchases! Everybody has to buy things, stuff, etc. Every time you pull up to the gas pump, the car is photographed. The POS (point of sale) at the register tabulates and inventories everything, tying it in to the gas pump, with a picture of Joe and whatever form of fiat he used to pay for the gas and bag of chips. Purchases track in real time, access whatever form of payment you use, tying you in with others…if you use your spouse’s credit card, for example.
7. Cops have license plate/tag readers that can read hundreds of different plates, categorizing all of them in accordance with sensitive data that may have nothing to do with driving upon the roads or their record with the vehicle.
8. Every Internet search, every purchase, every query, every e-mail is saved and read/tabulated into the overall matrix that assesses the potential for an individual to be “harmful” and stored…to be matched against the subject’s behavior and movements at a later date. Systems are already in place that analyze keystrokes for the comparison and narrowing down of who the typist is.
9. Every library sign-out…film, music, or book…is saved and kept for future reference.
10. Biometrics are making the “fingerprint” even more specific…with eye to eye distances, ear shapes, and gaits measured. Any exposed portion of the skin, and the movement and function of the limbs is analyzed and recorded.
11. Every piece of mail is scanned to save sender and recipient’s addresses and (of course) purchases are recorded within the company and matched against what is sent out and to whom.
12. Satellites can target and surveil in real time and tie in to all of the little devices just mentioned.
13. Laptop computers can be traced in accordance with the purchaser’s information from the POS and onward…and the laptops record, photograph, and film as well as putting forth a “ping” of their own…especially when connected to the Internet. All laptop use is matched and corresponded to other places of business (their cameras, etc.)
14. Association: when you’re on your laptop, and here come Smiling Sam and Brother Bob, each with pinging cell phones…letting the authorities know that in that moment of time (Whitney Houston’s “One Moment in Time”) Sam and Bob were right in front of you. Later they can haul both of them in to corroborate that you were on your laptop in front of HappyBurger at whatever date or time they have on record.
This excerpt shows that all of these items are in place.
Yes, they are surveilling you….are watching all of us. The surveillance is not ubiquitous yet. Not yet. It will be, and soon. They utilized every feature mentioned above to find the bomber. Great. Society has triumphed, and the mad bomber has met his end.
But has society really triumphed? That article gives you insight into how the cage is almost completed…the construction is just about finished.
What requires further thought is what they will do with this surveillance once it is in place and ubiquitous.
Just a few further thoughts for your consideration.
You may want to watch what you place into your e-mails and comments. There are techies in the Puzzle Palace and at Ft. Meade whose function is identifying the commenters.
Don’t place anything on the Internet that can come back and bite you later. The most effective means of exchange are not on the Internet when it comes to information.
Blogs, writers, and commenters have already been “marginalized” and their effectiveness diminished because it is an open source. Your true effectiveness in getting things done is at the “grass roots” level…locally, in small groups for discussion.
Your “tool of transmission” is a manual typewriter. Need copies? Get back to carbon paper. There won’t be a recording of what you copied at your FriendlyCopy center…the one with your information in real-time, right under the eye of the happy surveillance camera in the corner.
The one that [matters] superficially is to make sure you don’t take more than 1 or 2 paper clips…but manages to send the fusion centers every bit of data they need to match up their culprit (the copier) to the scene of the crime.
They’ll also match up his credit card at the register, tally up his total purchases and copies over a period of time, and get plenty of information as it films him walking through the store and out the door.
Bottom line: we’re all “guilty” according to laws they haven’t even written yet. It is all about building a case against the average citizen. If you’re not the wolves, then you’re one of the cattle, in their eyes.
It will become worse. Much, much worse. If you doubt it and do not take necessary precautions, you may find out it exists when they come knocking on the door.
It may already be too late, and their song is “We’ve Only Just Begun,” by Karen Carpenter…. but not to smile.
They’ve been doing that for years, as they have taken our taxes to craft the very cages that are almost completed.
The next step? Not hard to figure out, and it has happened before…as history repeats itself.
Think “Solzhenitsyn,” and think of tomorrow
Citation
[1] http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/surveillance-state-nah-cant-happenbecause-it-happened-already_03262018
[2] https://www.apnews.com/05a202409816492c911f546f8070f135/How-police-finally-found-the-Austin-bomberOfficial Statement of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the “Skripal Case
PREAMBLE : The UK ‘Skripal Case’ [1]
Timeline of eventsAt 14:40 GMT, 3rd March, Yulia Skripal flew into London’s Heathrow Airport on a flight from Russia
At 09:15 GMT, 4th March, Mr Skripal’s car was seen in Salisbury in the area of London Road, Churchill Way North and Wilton Road
At 13:30 GMT his car was seen driving down Devizes Road, towards the town centre
At 13:40 GMT Mr Skripal and his daughter arrived at the Sainsbury’s upper level car park at the Maltings shopping precinct
Police said the pair went to The Mill pub before going to Zizzi restaurant at 14:20 GMT, staying until 15:35 GMT
At 16:15 GMT emergency services received the first report of an incident
Police found the pair on a bench outside Zizzi in an “extremely serious condition”
A police officer who fell ill after attending the incident – Det Sgt Nick Bailey – was also taken to hospital and remains in a serious condition
12th March, British PM Theresa May accuses Russia of carrying out attempted homicide using chemical agents and vows EU retaliation.
John Pilger discusses the Skripal Case (5:58 mins) [2]
MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION
AIDE-MEMOIRE (to clarify the state of affairs as regards the so-called ‘Skripal Case’) [3]1. On 12 March 2018, Prime Minister of Great Britain Theresa May, addressing the House of Commons, said it was “highly likely” that the Russian Federation was responsible for the poisoning of former GRU colonel, double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia Skripal on 4 March 2018 in Salisbury, with a nerve agent identified according to British classification as A-234.
The United Kingdom has publicly raised a question about Russia’s “concealing” and “using” part of its chemical arsenal, thus alleging that Russia has “violated” its obligations under the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on Their Destruction (CWC) – one of the most effective multilateral treaties in the disarmament and non-proliferation field, which was initiated, among others, by our country.
Thus, the United Kingdom has come out against Russia as well as against the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) itself and the tremendous work that has been done within this organization during the last two decades, including with participation of the United Kingdom.
Pursuant to the requirements of Article III of the CWC, the Russian Federation submitted a full and complete declaration of all its chemical weapons stockpiles. That data was thoroughly checked and verified by the inspection teams of the OPCW Technical Secretariat. The fact of the full elimination of Russia’s chemical arsenal has been officially confirmed by the authorized international institution – the OPCW.
2. On 12 March 2018, given the gravity of the accusations brought against our country, the Russian Embassy in London sent a note verbale to the Foreign Office of Great Britain requesting access to the investigation materials, including samples of the chemical agent that British investigators were referring to, so that it could be tested by our experts in the framework of joint investigation.
Thus, we proposed to act in accordance with paragraph 2 of Article IX of the CWC. It stipulates that States Parties to the Convention should first make every effort to clarify and resolve, through exchange of information and consultations among themselves, any matter which may cause doubt about compliance with the CWC. Under the provisions of that Article, Russia would be ready to respond to the United Kingdom’s request within 10 days.
Unfortunately, the British side rejected that option and, instead of following the existing norms of international law, chose to unscrupulously politicize the issue.
3. British Prime Minister Theresa May suggested that a special Security Council meeting to discuss the matter be held on 14 March 2018.
Suspecting that London would play dirty, Russia insisted on making the Security Council’s meeting open.
It is incomprehensible what the British side was trying to achieve by bringing the issue to the UNSC. This matter by no means falls within the mandate of the UNSC. It is quite obvious that all discussions are pointless until the OPCW gives its assessment of the Salisbury incident (it is important to know whether a nerve agent was actually used; if it was, how the likely origin of the chemicals was determined; what, and on what basis, actions were taken with regard to the victims, etc.).
4. On 14 March 2018, British Prime Minister Theresa May, apparently having come to senses, finally sent a letter to Director-General of the Technical Secretariat of the OPCW Ahmet Üzümcü (circulated to all OPCW Executive Council Member States on 15 March 2018) inviting the OPCW Technical Secretariat “to independently verify the analysis” of the British investigation into the Salisbury incident.
As indicated in the press release by the British Foreign Office of 18 March 2018, following the letter by Ms Theresa May, the UK’s Permanent Representative to the OPCW invited experts of the OPCW Technical Secretariat to visit the United Kingdom to carry out an independent analysis of the findings of the British Defence Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down in connection with the Salisbury incident. On 19 March 2018, OPCW experts arrived in the United Kingdom.
Russia expects the OPCW to make an official detailed account of developments around the ‘Skripal case’. We proceed from the understanding that the OPCW Technical Secretariat shall conduct a full-fledged independent investigation in accordance with all relevant provisions of the CWC.
5. Russia has more and more questions both in legal and practical terms. And we intend to seek answers through the OPCW.
Russia states that it has not used chemical weapons against Great Britain. We suppose that the attack on the Skripals with toxic chemicals shall be deemed a terrorist act. As Yulia Skripal, a Russian citizen, is among the victims to the incident, we propose cooperation with the British Side under Article IX of the CWC.
We would like to ascertain the following issues.
Where, how, and by whom were the samples collected from Sergei and Yulia Skripal? How was it all documented? Who can certify that the data is credible? Was the chain of custody up to all the OPCW requirements when evidence was collected?
Which methods (spectral analysis and others) were used by the British side to identify, within such a remarkably short period of time, the type of the substance used (“Novichok” according to the western classification)? As far as we know, to do that, they must have had a standard sample of such agent at their disposal.
And how do these hasty actions correlate with Scotland Yard’s official statements that “the investigation is highly likely to take weeks or even months” to arrive at conclusions?
What information and medical effects led to a hasty decision to administer antidotes to the aggrieved Skripals and the British policeman? Could that hastiness lead to grave complications and further deterioration of their health status?
Which antidotes exactly were administered? What tests had been conducted to make the decision to use these drugs?
How can the delayed action of the nerve agent be explained, given that it is a fast-acting substance by nature? The victims were allegedly poisoned in a pizzeria (in a car, at the airport, at home, according to other accounts). So what really happened? How come they were found in some unidentified time on a bench in the street?
We need an explanation as to why it is Russia who was accused on the ‘Skripal case’ without any grounds whatsoever, while works to develop the agent codenamed “Novichok” in the West had been carried out by the United Kingdom, the USA, Sweden and the Czech Republic. There are more than 200 open sources publications in the NATO countries, highlighting the results that those countries achieved in the development of new toxic agents of this type.
6. Even from purely humanitarian perspective London’s action appears simply barbaric.
On 4 March 2018 (as British authorities themselves claim) a nerve agent attack against Russian citizen Yulia Skripal was committed in the territory of the United Kingdom.
The Russian Federation has demanded exhaustive information on the course of investigation into the Salisbury incident involving a Russian citizen (the Russian Embassy in London sent the relevant note verbale on 12 March 2018).
The United Kingdom is breaching elementary rules of inter-State relations and is still denying, without any explanation, Russian officials’ consular access to Yulia Skripal envisaged by the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. For more than two weeks now, we have not been able to credibly ascertain what happened to our citizen and what condition she is actually in.
On 16 March, the Main Directorate for High-Priority Cases of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation initiated a criminal investigation into the attempted willful murder of Russian citizen Yulia Skripal committed by dangerous means in the territory of the United Kingdom.
The investigation will be conducted in accordance with the Russian legislation and the norms of international law. Highly qualified experts will contribute to the investigation.
The investigators stand ready to work together with the competent authorities of the United Kingdom. We expect a cooperative approach of the British side.
7. In the UN Security Council as well as in the OPCW and at other international fora, the Russian Federation has been a consistent and insistent proponent of thorough, comprehensive and professional investigation of all crimes involving toxic chemicals, and of bringing perpetrators to justice.
We are ready to engage in full-scale and open cooperation with the United Kingdom in order to address any concerns whether in bilateral format or within the OPCW and other international instruments, working within the purview of international law.
As a responsible member of the international community and a bona-fide State Party to the CWC, Russia will never speak the language of ultimatums or answer informal and word-of-mouth questions.
The Western countries’ action on the fabricated ‘Skripal case’ contravenes the norms of international law and the general practice of inter-State relations, as well as the common sense itself.
Naturally, we run a detailed record of all that, and when time comes, those guilty will inevitably be brought to justice.
Other voices
Former UK ambassador Craig Murray has released the following excerpts on his blog [4] regarding Theresa May’s claims in parliament on Wednesday that Russia must be held responsible for the alleged poisoning of Sergey Skripal and his daughter:
“I have now received confirmation from a well placed FCO source that Porton Down scientists are not able to identify the nerve gas as being of Russian manufacture, and have been resentful of the pressure being placed on them to do so.
Porton Down would only sign up to the formulation “of a type developed by Russia” after a rather difficult meeting where this was agreed as a compromise formulation.
“…Until this week, the near universal belief among chemical weapons experts, and the official position of the OPCW, was that “Novichoks” were at most a theoretical research programme which the Russians had never succeeded in actually synthesising and manufacturing. That is why they are not on the OPCW list of banned chemical weapons.
Porton Down is still not certain it is the Russians who have apparently synthesised a “Novichok”. Hence “Of a type developed by Russia”. Note developed, not made, produced or manufactured.
It is very carefully worded propaganda. Of a type developed by liars.”
also
“The Soviet Chemical Weapons programme was based in Nukus in Uzbekistan. It was the Americans who dismantled and studied it and destroyed and removed the equipment.
“I visited it as Ambassador to Uzbekistan shortly after they had finished – I recall it as desolate, tiled and very cold, nothing to look at really. The above paragraph seeks to hold the Russians responsible for anything that came out of Nukus, when it was the Americans who actually took it.”
and finally
“It is very difficult to understand what is happening in the UK today, but when the BBC on its flagship news programme holds a discussion of the Salisbury attack under a huge photo-shopped picture of the leader of the opposition in a Russian hat standing outside the Kremlin, it is plain a fundamental shift has happened in society.
“The Salisbury attack has perhaps taught us something massively more important than any of the stuff about chemical weapons, and that is that Britain is further along the road to becoming an authoritarian state than we had realised.”
Citations
[1] http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-43315636
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=dxRiG8vRRBk
[3] http://thesaker.is/official-statement-of-the-russian-ministry-of-foreign-affairs-on-the-skripal-case/
[4] https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/Topic: Tao Te Ching – the full text
AnonymousIn my opinion this is one of the most beautiful texts ever written.
I have a copy on my coffee table at home. It is great to dip into, each page/verse contains much wisdom and food for thought.
I have always thought that Taoism is very relevant to going one’s own way. We seek to shed our egos and act in accordance with our nature – to live in harmony with it. If that incurs criticism from the matrix then so be it, we no longer need others’ approval for the way we are.
We learn to rediscover the faith necessary to lead fulfilled lives, while armed with the knowledge to avoid the artificial and the insane.
Tao Te Ching
Chapter One
Tao (The Way) that can be spoken of is not the Constant Tao’
The name that can be named is not a Constant Name.
Nameless, is the origin of Heaven and Earth;
The named is the Mother of all things.
Thus, the constant void enables one to observe the true essence.
The constant being enables one to see the outward manifestations.
These two come paired from the same origin.
But when the essence is manifested,
It has a different name.
This same origin is called “The Profound Mystery.”
As profound the mystery as It can be,
It is the Gate to the essence of all life.Chapter Two
As soon as beauty is known by the world as beautiful, it becomes ugly.
As soon as virtue is being known as something good, it becomes evil.
Therefore being and non-being give birth to each other.
Difficult and easy accomplish each other.
Long and short form each other.
High and low distinguish each other.
Sound and tone harmonize each other
Before and after follow each other as a sequence.
Realizing this, the saint performs effortlessly according to the natural Way without personal
desire, and practices the wordless teaching thru one’s deeds.
The saint inspires the vitality of all lives, without holding back.
He nurtures all beings with no wish to take possession of.
He devotes all his energy but has no intention to hold on to the merit.
When success is achieved, he seeks no recognition.
Because he does not claim for the credit, hence shall not lose it.Chapter Three
By not adoring the worthy, people will not fall into dispute.
By not valuing the hard to get objects, people will not become robbers.
By not seeing the desires of lust, one’s heart will not be confused.
Therefore the governing of the saint is to empty one’s mind, substantiate one’s virtue, weaken
one’s worldly ambition and strengthen one’s essence.
He lets the people to be innocent of worldly knowledge and desire, and keeps the clever ones
from making trouble with their wits.
Acts naturally without desire, then everything will be accomplished in its natural order.Chapter Four
Tao (The Way) can be infused into the nature and put to use without being exhausted.
It is so deep and subtle like an abyss that is the origin of all things.
It is complete and perfect as a wholeness that can
Round off sharp edges;
Resolve confusion;
Harmonize with the glory;
Act in unity with the lowliness.
Tao is so profound and yet in invisible, It exists in everywhere and anywhere.
I don not know whose Son It is, It existed before heaven and earth.Chapter Five
Nature nurtures all things with the wholeness of complete virtue.
It shows the greatest and perfect kindness by giving life to let all things grow and accomplish
them with the hastening of harvest.
Therefore, according to ancient custom, nature may seem unkind to regard all beings as a
traditional straw dog for sacrifice.
And likewise with a saint, he may seem unkind to regard people as a traditional straw dog for
sacrifice.
The space between heaven and earth is like the bellows, it appears empty yet it gives a supply
that never fails;
The more it moves, the more it brings forth.
Many words lead to exhaustion.
It is better to center on the true essence within.Chapter Six
Spirit of the valley is immortal.
It is called the mystic nature.
The gate o f the mystic nature is regarded as the root of the universe.
It is everlasting and cannot be consumed.Chapter Seven
Heaven is everlasting and earth is enduring.
The reason that they are everlasting is because they do not exist for themselves.
Hence, they are long lived.
Thus, although the saint puts himself last, finds himself in the lead.
Although he is not self-concerned, finds himself accomplished.
It is because he is not focused on self-interests and hence can fulfill his true nature.Chapter Eight
A person of great virtue is like the flowing water.
Water benefits all things and contends not with them.
It puts itself in a place that no one wishes to be and thus is closest to Tao.
A virtuous person is like water which adapts itself to the perfect place.
His mind is like the deep water that is calm and peaceful.
His heart is kind like water that benefits all.
His words are sincere like the constant flow of water.
His governing is natural without desire which is like the softness of water that penetrates through
hard rocks.
His work is of talent like the free flow of water.
His movement is of right timing like water that flows smoothly.
A virtuous person never forces his way and hence will not make faults.Chapter Nine
Those who overly pride wealth is like the overflowing water which shall cause damages. It is
better to restrain early.
Those who are not content with fame is like polishing the edge of a knife.
The sharper it gets, the easier it is to break.
Wealth and treasures are but illusions that one cannot possess.
Those who are arrogant of their wealth and fame shall invite blame upon oneself.
The nature Tao teaches one to retreat after one’s success and not to hold on to the credit.Chapter Ten
Can one unite the body and the spirit as one and embrace the “Oneness” without departing from
the great Tao?
Can one achieve harmony with such gentleness by holding on to the true spirit within as if the
innocence of an infant?
Can one free oneself from worldly knowledge and cleanse one’s mind, so that no faults shall be
made?
Can a ruler love his people by governing with the natural Way without personal intention?
Can the mystic gate to all life essence be opened or closed without the virtue of the mysterious
nature?
Can one gain the insight of nature and become a wise person without the effort of action?
The mysterious nature creates and nurtures all things without the desire to possess them.
It performs with all efforts without claiming for credit.
It flourishes all beings without the intention to take control of.
Such is the “Mystic Te” or “Mystic Virtue.”Chapter Eleven
Thirty spokes unite around one hub to make a wheel.
It is the presence of the empty space that gives the function of a vehicle.
Clay is molded into a vessel. It is the empty space that gives the function of a vessel.
Doors and windows are chisel out to make a room.
It is the empty space in the room that gives its function.
Therefore, something substantial can be beneficial.
While the emptiness of void is what can be utilized.Chapter Twelve
The five colors can blind one’s eyes.
The five tones can deafen one’s ears.
The five flavors can dull one’s taste buds.
The pursuit of pleasures can derange one’s mind.
The hard-to-get valuables can distort one’s behavior.
Therefore, a saint cultivates himself with virtues and does not indulge himself in sensory
pleasures.
He rejects those outer temptations and chooses this True Nature.Chapter Thirteen
Honor and disgrace can surprise a person.
The greatest distress lies in one’s physical body.
What does it men by “Honor and disgrace can surprise someone?”
Honor is inferior, because one who wins the favor is afraid of losing it.
And one who loses the favor is frightened with distress.
This is the significance of “Honor and disgrace can surprise someone.”
What does it mean by “The greatest distress lies in one’s body?”
We have fear because we worry about our physical self.
If one’s body does not exist, how can one has fear?
Therefore, he who values the world as much as he values himself, can be entrusted with the
ruling of the world.
He who loves the world as much as he loves himself, can be entrusted with the guidance of the
world.Chapter Fourteen
What cannot be seen is called the invisible.
What cannot be heard is called the inaudible.
What cannot be touched is called the intangible.
These three cannot be examined and comprehended.
And hence are mixed together as one.
This “Oneness” is not much brighter in the sky, as It is not much dimmer on earth.
It is not more glorious in a saint as It is not more fainter in an ordinary person.
It is everlasting and cannot be named.
It is the original void of “non-being.”
This “Oneness” is the Tao which is invisible, and formless.
It may be regarded as vague and intangible.
When the Oneness Tao comes forward, Its front cannot be seen.
When one tries to follow It, one cannot see Its rear.
By abiding with the original Tao, one can master the presence.
He who knows this “Origin,” shall know the teaching and principle of the Great Tao.Chapter Fifteen
The ancient Tao cultivators were subtle and mysterious.
They were of immeasurable profundity.
Because they were too subtle to be known, so reluctantly they were being described as follow:
Cautious, as if crossing an icy river.
Hesitant, as if fearful of the surroundings.
Reverent, like an honorable guest.
Dispersed, like winter ice began to melt in spring.
Simple and sincere, like a genuine virgin.
Open-minded, like an empty valley.
Harmonized, like the turbid water.
How can one turn the turbid water into clarity?
A person of Tao would maintain peace in order to achieve pureness of the mind.
And therefore shall not be disturbed by the worldly desires.
After achieving pureness of the mind, how can one let it be everlasting?
A person of Tao would unify and harmonize himself with all beings which shall lead to eternity.
Those who abide by this Tao will not indulge themselves in the desire of greed.
It is because of this humbleness that enables one to embrace the original “Oneness,” the Great
Tao.Chapter Sixteen
Human must achieve the ultimate void and maintain calmness with sincerity in order to observe
the growth and flourish of all beings.
It is in this way that one can understand the law of nature.
All things and beings will eventually return to the original source.
This is called “peace.”
“Peace” means returning to one’s original nature.
This original nature is the eternal law. To know the nature’s law is to be enlightened.
He who is ignorant of the nature’s law shall act recklessly, and thus will invite misfortune.
To know the constant law of nature is to be generous.
Being generous, one is impartial.
Being impartial, one is the sovereign.
Sovereign is the nature itself.
Nature is Tao. Tao is everlasting.
When one’s physical body dies away, Tao still long endures.Chapter Seventeen
In early ancient mankind, Tao has been in existence in one’s true nature.
Men possess It without knowing.
One then acts with virtue and honor which is inferior to Tao.
The less superior is to act with fear.
And the least superior is to act with disgrace.
This occurs because one does not have enough faith, and hence has no confidence.
The nature of Tao is distinguished by wordless teaching with the natural act of virtue without
action.
As such, people would act effortlessly and harmonize with the Nature Tao.Chapter Eighteen
When Great Tao declines, virtue of humanity and righteousness shall arise.
When knowledge and intelligence appear, great hypocrisy shall arise.
When the six various family relationships are not in harmony, filial piety and compassion shall
arise.
When a country is in chaos, the loyal officials shall appear.Chapter Nineteen
Transcend the saint’s teaching and conceal one’s wisdom for potential use, shall benefit the
people a hundred fold.
Extend kindness to its ultimate and then polish to refine one’s righteousness shall help the people
or regain filial piety and compassion.
Employ one’s subtle true nature with exquisiteness and extend one’s personal benefit to share
with others, shall eliminate robbers and thieves.
These three statements are apparent superficial and not sufficient to express the natural “Way” of
the great Tao.
Hence, this is what people should do:
Return to their original true self and embrace the pure “Oneness.”
Refrain selfness and diminish worldly desires.Chapter Twenty
Enlightenment of the absolute Tao can free a person from worries and sorrow.
How much is the difference between a respectful response and an angry response?
How great is the difference between good and evil?
What people naturally fear, one should also fear.
One’s endless desire can result in negligence of the true nature of life.
People like to pursue after excitement as if they were ascending the terrace in spring and
celebrate a sacrificial feast.
But I alone remain quiet and calm like an infant who is pure and innocent.
And I alone appeared to be lost like one who has nowhere to go.
All people have a surplus, but I alone was simple and left out like a fool.
People seemed bright and shrewd, while I seemed dull.
People like to dispute, while I alone remain quiet.
I am calm and peaceful like the boundless ocean.
I am open-hearted and free like the wind blowing high above the sky without hindrance.
Everyone thinks of themselves as capable and outstanding while I appeared unlearned.
I am the only one to be different from others for I value highly the Great Tao and joyfully act
accordingly.Chapter Twenty-one
A man of great virtue is one who follows the nature way of Tao.
This Tao is vague and intangible.
Yet, in the vague and void, there is image, there is substance.
Within the profound intangible, there is essence;
This essence is genuine.
In It lies the great faith.
Since the beginning of the world, Tao has been in existence.
Only through It that one can understand the origin of all beings.
How do I know that this is the true essence?
It is through this natural Way.Chapter Twenty-two
To yield is to preserve the whole.
To be misjudged is to be straightened.
To be hollow is to be filled.
To be battered is to be renewed.
To be in need is to possess.
To be abundant is to be confused.
Therefore, the saint embraces the “Oneness” as a standard for the world.
The wise one is not prejudiced, hence he is enlightened.
The wise one is not self-opinioned, hence he is outstanding.
The wise one does not boast of himself, hence he shall receive the credit.
The wise one does not praise his own deeds, hence can long endure.
Because the wise one does not conflict with others and therefore the world cannot contend
against him.
It is not true as the ancients say, “To yield is to preserve the whole?”
Thus the “Oneness” will be honored to him.Chapter Twenty-three
Words that cannot be heard of are natural.
A gale can not blow for the whole morning.
A rainstorm cannot last for the whole day.
What caused these effects?
Heaven and earth.
Even the actions of nature do not last long.
How much more can human’s behavior last when digressed from the natural Tao?
Thus, one who follows the Great Tao,
When Tao is present, he will benefit the world with Tao.
When Te is present, he will benefit the world with Te.
When Tao and Te are both lost, he identifies himself with the people and benefits them with the
enlightenment of teaching.
One who identifies with Tao is glad to be with Tao.
One who identifies with Te is glad to be with Te.
One who identifies with the loss of Tao and Te is glad to be with the lost.
If one does not have enough faith in “Tao,” how can he assist others to practice with faith?Chapter Twenty-four
He who raises himself on tiptoe cannot stand firm.
He who walks with strides cannot travel far.
He who is self-opinioned shall not be enlightened.
He who is prejudiced shall not be recognized.
He who brags about himself shall not receive credit.
He who is arrogant shall not make improvements.
In view of Tao, people who are self-centered are like the surplus food and redundant actions in
everyday life.
All things disgust them.
Therefore a person of Tao will not conduct himself in such manner.Chapter Twenty-five
Something is formed in the chaos, which existed before heaven and earth.
It is quiet and profound.
It stands alone and alters not.
It revolves eternally without exhaustion.
It is regarded as the Mother of all beings.
I do not know Its name, except to call It Tao.
When forced to give It a name, I would call It “the Great.”
The Great is far-reaching.
Far-reaching is infinite.
Infinite is to return to the self-sufficient origin.
Therefore, Tao is great, heaven is great, earth is great, and so is the true-self.
There are four greatness in the universe, and true-self is one of them.
Man models the Way of earth;
Earth models the Way of heaven;
Heaven models the Way of Tao;
Tao models the Way of nature.Chapter Twenty-six
The heavy is the fundamental of the light. Tranquility is the master of agitation.
Therefore, the saint always conducts himself with the essence of Tao and never departs from It.
Although he is surrounded by the splendor of wealth, he remains to live a simple and ordinary
life.
How can a ruler govern a nation without recklessness if he indulges in power and desire?
He who acts recklessly shall lose the essence of Tao.
He who is agitated with lust and desires shall lose his true nature.Chapter Twenty-seven
Good deeds leave no signs.
Good words leave no flaws.
Good scheme needs no deliberate plans.
A good lock uses no bolts, yet it cannot be opened.
A good knot uses no rope, yet it cannot be united.
Hence, a saint is always kind by saving other people and rejects no one.
He is always kind by saving all things and therefore nothing is being rejected.
This is the true enlightenment.
Thus, a kind person is the teacher of the unkind.
An unkind person is a lesson for the kind to learn.
He who does not value his teacher and dislikes the valuable lesson, although knowledgeable, is
in fact greatly confused.
This is the fundamental essence.Chapter Twenty-eight
To know the strong masculine principle, yet abide by the gentle female principle is like being the
valley of the world where all rivers will flow into.
This is alike all virtue which will merge into the subtle Tao.
Being a valley of the world and not depart from the true nature, once can return to original
pureness like an infant.
When one knows the white that is splendor, yet holds on to the black that is humble and lowly.
He can be a standard of the world.
Being a standard of the world and not deviate from true nature, one is able to return to the void
of Tao.
To know what is honor, yet abide by the dishonored, is like a valley of the world which is
modest and humble.
Being the valley of the world makes possible the true virtue to be complete and sufficient.
And hence can return to simplicity.
When the nature of simplicity is being manifested, it results into various vessels.
And by applying the pure simplicity, a saint can master all things.
Hence, the Great Tao is a unified Oneness which cannot be separated apart.Chapter Twenty-nine
He who wishes to take control of the world and acts upon it,
I can see that he will not succeed.
For the world is a divine vessel,
It cannot be acted upon as one wish.
He who acts on it fails.
He who holds on to it loses.
Therefore some things move forward while some follow behind.
Some try to warm with exhaled air while some try to blow it cold.
Some are strong while some are weak.
Some are successfully accomplished while some are declined and failed.
Thus, the saint avoids all extremes, extravagance, and pride.Chapter Thirty
One who assists the ruler with the principle of Tao,
Will not use the force of arms to conquer the world.
For such affairs will result in cause and effect.
Wherever the armies touch the land, it is turned into a wasteland of thorns and brambles.
After a war is fought, bad years are sure to follow.
Therefore, one who follows the true nature will understand the principle of cause and effect and
shall not rely upon the strength of force.
By knowing the effect, thus one will not brag.
By knowing the effect, thus one will not boast.
By knowing the effect, thus one will not become arrogant.
By knowing the effect, although one has no choice, one still abides with the principle of cause
and effect and does not resolve into force.
When things reach their prime, they start to age and decline.
This is the life that is diminishing and shall not reach the ultimate essence.Chapter Thirty-one
Weapons of war are instruments of disaster.
They are rejected by all beings.
Thus a person of Tao will not dwell upon them.
According to the ancient custom of Ying and Yang,
A man of virtue values the left which is represented by Yang.
And a man of war values the right which is represented by Ying.
Weapons are instruments of evil, and are not valued by a man of virtue.
They are only used as the last resort to attain peach when all else have failed.
If their use is necessary, it is best to employ with calmness and tranquility.
Even it if means victory, it is not something pleasant.
Those who rejoice over the victory, enjoy killing.
He who delights in killing will not be favored by the people and shall not bring harmony to the
world.
It is the ancient custom to favor happy events to the left as represented by yang.
While on sad occasions, it is favored to the right as represented by Ying.
When this rite is applied in the army,
The lieutenant general takes the place of the left,
And the commander-in-chief takes the place of the right.
This indicates that war is treated as if it is a funeral service;
For many lives had been killed and hence should be mourned with sorrow.
Therefore, although a victory was won,
It is treated like funeral rite.Chapter Thirty-two
The universal Tao has no name.
Although It appears in the plainest and may seem small,
It is inferior to nothing.
If the kings and marquises can abide by the Great Tao,
All beings shall act as guests and submit to them.
Heaven and earth will then be in harmony and shall descend sweet dew.
People will not require command and orders,
Yet can treat each other equally with peace.
When Tao is manifested, names were given for the purpose of distinction.
But one must know how to attain the original pureness in order to avoid danger and disaster.
Tao exists in the universe like the rivers and streams that lead to the ocean.Chapter Thirty-three
One who knows other people is wise.
One who knows himself is enlightened.
To overcome others is strong.
To overcome oneself is the will of power.
One who is contented is rich.
One who is determined has the strength of will.
Those who embrace their true nature shall long live.
He who is enlightened with the original nature,
Although dies physically, is eternally united with the everlasting Tao.Chapter Thirty-four
The great Tao is ever present.
It can adjust Itself to everything.
All things live by It, and It does not deny them.
When Its work is accomplished, It does not claim possession.
It gives great love to nurture all things and all lives, but dominates not.
The true void of Tao has no desires and may seem small.
Yet all things entrust their lives to It and It does not act as their master.
This may be recognized as “the Great.”
Because a saint does not restrict himself with the greatness,
Hence his greatness is accomplished.Chapter Thirty-five
He who embraces the Great Tao shall be the guidance of the world.
By following him, the world will not be harmed and will be rendered with peace and harmony.
Pleasures and delicacy can only attract passers-by to stay temporarily.
The teaching of Tao is plain without extraordinary appearances.
It can not be seen,
It can not be heard,
It can not be depleted or exhausted.Chapter Thirty-six
It desire shall conceal true self,
True self will manifest itself even more.
If desire shall weaken true self,
True self will strengthen itself even more.
If desire shall abandon true self,
True self will prosperous even more.
If desire shall deprive true self,
True self will give even more.
This is known as the enlightened nature that is subtle yet profound.
Gentleness overcomes strength, and the meek overcomes the strong.
Just as fish live in deep water and cannot survive after being taken out of the depths.
And the powerful weapons of a country should not be displayed,
Just like one’s true nature cannot be revealed to be seen.Chapter Thirty-seven
The everlasting Tao acts according to the natural Way.
Therefore there is nothing that It will not accomplish.
If kings and the nobilities can abide by their true nature and follow the great Tao,
All things shall be reformed naturally.
If during the process of reform, desires arouse.
I shall overcome with the simplicity of original nature.
With the simplicity of true nature, there shall be no desire.
Without desire, one’s original nature will be at peace.
And the world will naturally be in accord with the right Way.Chapter Thirty-eight
A man of superior virtue is not conscious of being virtuous, hence is truly virtuous.
A man of inferior virtue performs for the purpose of virtue, hence he is not virtuous.
A man of superior virtue acts without action, and performs with his true nature.
A man of inferior virtue acts with intentional effort.
A man of superior kindness acts a natural act.
A man of superior justice acts with righteousness and feelings for others.
A man of superior etiquette acts according to his true self, hence no one responds to him by
moving away.
There, when Tai is lost, there is Te (virtue).
When Te is lost, there is humanity.
When humanity is lost, there is justice.
When justice is lost, there is etiquette.
Etiquette becomes prevalent when people fail to be sincere and honest.
Hence, chaos begins.
A person of knowledge and self-opinion will be hindered from the enlightenment of Tao.
Thus, this is the beginning of ignorance!
Therefore, one who cultivates himself with Tao,
Embraces the original nature and indulges not in sensual nature.
He abides by the fundamental Oneness and indulges not in sensory pleasures.
Thus, abandon those desires and abide by this true essence of Tao.Chapter Thirty-nine
In the beginning, there were those who attained the Oneness;
Heaven, by attaining the Oneness became clear;
Earth, by attaining the Oneness became peaceful;
Spirit, by attaining the Oneness became divine;
True nature is like an empty valley, and by attaining the Oneness,
It became fully productive.
All things, by attaining the Oneness became alive.
Emperors and nobilities, by attaining Oneness can bring peace and prosperity to the world.
All these are the results of achieving Oneness.
Heaven, without clarity would crack.
Earth, without peace would quake.
Spirit, without divinity would be powerless.
True nature, without productivity would result in exhaustion of life.
All things, without life essence would perish.
Emperors, without Oneness to exalt them to nobility, would stumble and fall.
Thus, honor is based on humbleness.
The high builds its foundation upon the low.
Therefore, the kings and nobles call themselves “the solitude,” “the unworthy,” and “the virtueless.”
Is this not the reason why they base their honor upon humbleness?
Hence, the highly honored do not regard themselves as nobles and have no wish to be self-centered
to think nobly of themselves as a piece of jade nor to think lowly of others as a lump of stone.Chapter Forty
When Tao is in action, one’s worldly nature can be reversed to the true nature.
Gentleness is the way of application of Tao.
All things in the world originate from the manifestation of Tao,
The manifestation of Tao is the form of being,
Which originates from the non-being of the void, the Great Tao.Chapter Forty-one
When a superior man heard of Tao,
He cultivates himself diligently.
When an average man heard of Tao,
He is doubtful, vague and would give up halfway.
When an inferior man heard of Tao,
He laughs and thinks of It as foolish.
If Tao is not being laughed at,
It is not the Great Tao.
Thus, there is a traditional saying of,
One who is enlightened with Tao may appear foolish.
He who is advancing in Tao may appear to withdraw.
Great Tao is plain and simple which can adapt to all circumstances, although It may seem
uneven and rough.
A man of superior virtue is like an empty, receptive valley.
A man of innocence may appear to be disgraced.
A man of great virtue appears to be deficient.
A man who practices Tao and actively achieves great merits may appear gentle and meek.
A man who follows his true self may appear to be changeable.
Generosity has no rough angels.
Great achievement is time consuming, and is slow to complete.
Great tone has no sound.
Great Tao is formless,
It is invisible and has no name.
It benefits all and fulfills all.Chapter Forty-two
Tao gives birth to one.
One gives birth to two.
Two gives birth to three.
Three gives birth to all things and all beings.
All beings bear the negative physical form which is represented by Ying, and embrace the
positive true nature which is represented by Yang.
With the union of these two, they arrive at a state of harmony.
Men dislike to be “the solitude,” “the unworthy,” and “the virtueless,”
Yet the Lords and nobles call themselves these names.
Hence, things are benefited by being humble, and damaged by profiting.
What the ancients had taught, I shall also teach as such:
A man of violence who is in disharmony between Ying and Yang that is the physical body and
true self, shall die of an unnatural death.
This is the essential of my teaching.Chapter Forty-three
The softest of all things can overcome the hardest of all things.
Regardless of being or the non-being, they all have to return to the empty void to express their
gentleness.
Thus, I have learned the benefits of natural actions without personal desires.
Very few can understand the value of wordless teaching and due act of natural Way.Chapter Forty-four
Fame and life, which one is of intimacy?
Life and wealth, which one is of importance?
To gain one but to lose the other, which is of harm?
Therefore, if one’s desires are great, one would result in exhaustion.
Overstock shall result in heavy loss.
He who is contented will not suffer disgrace.
He who knows his true nature will not incur danger.
It is in this Way that one can long endure.Chapter Forty-five
Great achievement appears to be inadequate, yet its use is never exhausted.
Great fullness appears to be void, yet its use is boundless.
Great honesty may seem to be accused of wrong doing.
Great mastery appears to be clumsy.
Great eloquence may seem to be inarticulate.
Movement can overcome chill.
Tranquility can overcome heat.
Peace and calmness is the Way to guide the world.Chapter Forty-six
When the world lives in accord with Tao,
Fine walking horses can be retired form plowing the field.
When the world fails to live in accord with Tao,
Even pregnant mares are used as war horses,
And were forced to breed in the battlefield.
The greatest crime is to have too much desire.
The greatest disaster is not to find contentment.
The greatest mistake is to desire for endless possession.
Hence, when one is gratified with self-contentment,
True contentment can then long endure.Chapter Forty-seven
Tao exists in one’s own true self.
It cannot be found outside of one’s true nature.
Hence, there is no need to leave the house to take journey in order to know the world.
There is no need to look outside of the window to see the nature of Tao.
The further one departs from Tao, the less one will be able to know.
Therefore a saint is wise to know without seeking for It.
He is wise to understand without seeing It.
He is wise to accomplish according to the Natural Way.Chapter Forty-eight
In pursuing knowledge, one learns with intellect and desires.
Therefore one’s knowledge is accumulated day after day.
In pursuing Tao, one is enlightened with the true nature and thus diminishes daily one’s worldly
desires and knowledge.
The continuous depletion of one’s desires persists until one acts accordingly to the natural Way.
By acting without personal intention enables one to accomplish all things.
Therefore, to rule over the world,
One must act naturally without personal desires.
If one pursues with extreme effort, one shall fail to rule the world.Chapter Forty-nine
The saint has no set mind,
He regards the wish of the people as his own wish.
He is kind to the kind, he is also kind to the unkind.
This is the true virtue of kindness.
The saint trusts those who are trustworthy.
He also trusts those who are not trustworthy.
This is the true virtue of trust.
The saint conducts himself in the world by harmonizing with all beings to be at one.
The worldly people thus look up to him attentively with their eyes and ears.
And the saint treats the people like a loving mother who loves her children unconditionally.Chapter Fifty
Men enter this world with life and leave this world with death.
Those who work hard for living and longevity are comprised of one-third of the people.
Those who are leading their life towards death are comprised of another one-third.
Those who live with indulgence in passion and desires shall harm their life and invite death.
This is comprised of the final one-third of the people.
Why is this so?
It is because men are over-concerned with pleasures of life and hence exhaust themselves with
hard work of desires of greed.
The wise one who knows how to nourish life with the Nature Tao,
When he travels, will not encounter fierce animals such as wild buffalos and tigers.
When he is engaged in the battlefield, will not be harmed by the weapons.
The horns of the wild buffalos are powerless against him.
The claws of the tigers are useless against him.
The weapons are of no avail towards him.
Why is this so?
It is because the wise one follows the great Tao and cultivates himself accordingly.
Hence, a man of Tao will not perish.Chapter Fifty-one
Tao gives birth to all things.
And Te (virtue) nurtures them.
Matter shapes them.
The natural environment matures them.
Therefore, all things abide by Tao and honor Te.
Although Tao deserves reverence and Te deserves honor,
They are not demanded by decree,
But is a result of the Nature Way.
Hence, Tao gives life to all beings and Te nurtures, grows, fosters, develops, matures, supports,
and protects them.
Tao gives birth to life and yet claims no possession.
It gives support without holding on to the merit.
It matures them but does not take control of.
This is called the Mystic Te.Chapter Fifty-two
The beginning of the universe is Tao,
It is the mother of all.
By knowing the Mother, we will know her creations.
By knowing the creation of all lives, one can then return to the origin and abide by the Mother.
It is in this way that although the body dies, the spiritual nature will not perish.
To abide by the Mother of Tao is to keep guard on one’s sensory desire and shut the doors of
temptation so as to prevent one from pursuing outwards.
Thus, by doing so one’s whole life may be preserved from exhaustion and pains.
However, if on the contrary one indulges oneself in the pleasure of desire and opens the door of
temptation to pursue outwards,
Then one’s true nature will be lost and hence is beyond rescuing.
Those who are aware of the essence of the original nature are said to be enlightened.
Those who abide by the gentleness of Tao are said to be strong.
Those who employ the glory of Tao,
And were able to return to the true nature, are ensured of no distress and is said to embrace the
Nature Tao.Chapter Fifty-three
If I were to have the very slight insight,
I would live in accordance with the Great Tao.
My only fear is, to go astray from Tao while spreading it.
Great Tao is smooth and plain, yet people prefer the devious bypaths.
Hence, the government is corrupted with luxury and splendor.
The people were exhausted with labor and left the fields to be wasted and the granaries depleted.
Under such practices, the officials would wear fine clothes,
Carry sharp swords and indulge themselves in good food and drinks.
They crave with greed to possess great wealth.
Such is said to commit the crime of robbery and certainly is not the Way of Tao.Chapter Fifty-four
One who cultivates himself with Tao,
Firmly establishes his virtue.
He holds on faithfully to the Great Oneness,
And is honored for generations ever after.
Cultivate oneself with the Oneness, Tao and the virtue is genuine.
Cultivate a family with the Oneness, Tao and the virtue is in surplus.
Cultivate an entire village with the Oneness, Tao and the virtue is enduring.
Cultivate a whole nation with the Oneness, Tao and the virtue is luxuriant.
Cultivate the whole world with the Oneness, Tao and the virtue is universal.
Hence, by cultivating oneself, thus gains insight into one’s true virtue.
By cultivating a family, thus gains insight into a loving family.
By cultivating a village, thus gains insight into a harmonious village.
By cultivating a nation, thus gains insight into the extensive benefits for the people.
By cultivating the whole world, thus gains insight into the universal peace that embrace all
beings.
How do I know that the world is so?
It is through this Way.Chapter Fifty-five
One who preserves Te (virtue) in fullness,
Is to be compared to an innocent infant.
Hence, no poisonous insects will sting him.
No wild beasts will attack him.
No birds of prey will pounce upon him.
In governing one’s life, learn from an infant as such:
Its bones are soft, its tendons are tender, yet its grip is firm.
No knowing the unity of male and female,
Yet the infant’s sexual organ is aroused.
This is because its life essence is pure and complete.
Crying all day, yet the infant’s voice does not turn hoarse.
Such is the perfect harmony.
To know harmony is called “Everlasting.”
To know everlasting is called “Enlightenment.”
To overprotect one’s life is called “Ill omen.”
To let one’s mind follow the emotional impulse is called “Compulsion.”
When things reach their prime they start to age and decline.
This is the life that is diminishing, which shall not reach the ultimate essence.Chapter Fifty-six
The wise does not speak.
He who speaks is not wise.
Keep silent and close one’s mouth.
Keep guard on one’s sensory organs.
Round off one’s edges.
Untie the entangled.
Harmonize with the glory.
Mix with the lowliness.
This is called the Mystic Unity.
Because the wise is unified with all and has no distinction,
Thus, one cannot get close to him,
Nor can one keep far away from him,
One cannot benefit him,
Nor can one harm him,
One cannot honor him,
Nor can one disgrace him.
Therefore, he is honored by the whole world.Chapter Fifty-seven
Govern a nation with the right principle,
Fight a battle with the tactics of surprise,
Rule over the world with peace and natural effort.
How do I know that this so?
By the following:
The more prohibitions that are imposed on people,
The poorer the people become.
The more sharp weapons the people possess,
The greater is the chaos in the country.
The more clever and crafty the people become,
The more unusual affairs occur.
The more laws and regulations that exist,
The more thieves and brigands appear.
Hence, the saint declares:
I act effortlessly with the Way of Tao,
Thus, people transform themselves naturally.
I love tranquility and peach,
Thus, people naturally follow the right Way.
I do not exhaust people with labor,
Thus, people naturally are wealthy.
I have no personal desires,
Thus, people naturally are innocent and simple.Chapter Fifty-eight
When the government is dull,
People are simple and sincere.
When the government is complex and stringent,
People are cunning and shall cause trouble.
Calamity is what blessings depend upon.
In blessings there hides the calamity.
Who knows the ultimate end of the cycle of calamity and blessings?
Is there no true principle that exists?
The normal may revert and become unusual.
The good may revert and turn into evil.
Long indeed, man has been under such delusion.
Therefore, the saint abides by firm principle and does not depart from it.
He is honest and not mean.
He is upright and not rue.
He is honored and not eminent.Chapter Fifty-nine
In governing one’s life and serving the nature,
There is nothing better than to follow the Way of simplicity.
Simplicity is to restrain one’s desires.
To restrain one’s desires is to practice the virtue of Nature Way.
By practicing the virtue of Nature Way,
One is capable to accomplish anything.
With the ability to accomplish anything,
One can achieve the infinite realm.
By achieving the infinite realm,
One can then become a true leader of a nation.
To govern a nation with the Law of Nature is to be long enduring.
This is regarded as a profound and firm foundation of the everlasting Tao.Chapter Sixty
Ruling a great nation is like frying small fish.
When they are over stirred, they will break into pieces.
Guide the world with Tao,
Then the spiritual beings would lose their power.
It is in fact not that the spiritual beings had lost their power,
But that their spiritual power cannot harm people,
But that the true nature of the saint has harmonized with the spiritual power and hence will cause
no harm.
Since they both do not harm each other,
Therefore they will harmonize with the true virtue to embrace the Oneness, Tao.Chapter Sixty-one
A great nation rules by placing itself in a lowly position like the rivers that flow into the low
regions of ocean.
Hence, people will naturally be faithful to their country.
Mother nature always stays calm and quiet to overcome the unrest.
It takes the lowly position to be in peace.
Thus, if a great nation can lower itself to deal with a smaller nation,
Then it shall win the heart of the people.
And the smaller nation will willingly merge with the great nation.
And if the smaller nation can lower itself to deal with the great nation,
Then it shall win the trust and be accommodated as a part of the great nation.
Therefore, be it to take a lowly position to win over or to take a lowly position to be
accommodated;
The great nation only wishes to unite and shelter all the people,
While the small nation only wishes to be a part of the nation to serve it.
Now that both are granted with what they wish for,
It is only natural for the “Great” to put itself in a lowly position.Chapter Sixty-two
Tao is the wonder of all creations.
It is a treasure for those who are kind.
It can also protect those who are not kind.
Words of Tao can benefit all people.
Its action can guide people to follow the right Way.
Those who have gone astray, the all-forgiving Tao will not abandon them.
Therefore, it is better to embrace this precious Tao than to be crowned as kings or appointed as
ministers or to possess wealth and fine horses.
So why did the ancients value and honor this Tao?
It is because “Those who seek will attain, those who offended will be forgiven.”
Thus, It is the greatest honor in the world.Chapter Sixty-three
Act without personal desire.
Manage without intentional concern.
Taste without desire of the flavor.
Hold the same regard for big or small, abundant or little and reward the unkind with kindness.
Plan for the difficult while it is easy.
Act upon the great from the beginning of the minute.
All difficult affairs must be taken care of when they are easy.
All great accomplishments must be performed from the small tasks.
Hence, a saint does not strive to do something great.
And as a result he is able to accomplish the great.
He who makes promises easily seldom keeps his words.
He who constantly regards things as easy shall result in difficulty.
Therefore, the saint is aware of the difficulties ahead and hence is cautious in managing affairs
while they are sill easy and small to prevent resulting into problems.Chapter Sixty-four
It is easy to preserve when things are stable.
It is easy to plan ahead when things have no yet occurred.
If one waits until the affair has begun,
Then the situation is as brittle as ice that easily cracks and is fragile that easily shatters.
Take actions before things occur.
Manage before things get out of order.
A huge tree grows from a tiny sprout;
A nine-story high terrace is built from heaps of earth.
A journey of thousand miles begins from the first step.
He who acts with desire shall fail.
He who tries to possess shall lose.
Therefore, the saint acts without effort and so he does not fail.
He is not eager to possess and so he does not lose.
Most people fail when they are near completion.
If one can be cautious from beginning to end, then he will not fail.
Thus a saint pursues what people do not pursue.
He does not value the hard-to-get objects.
He learns what people do not learn and avoids the faults in order to restore his true nature.
He follows the course of nature to benefit all things and dares not go astray from the right Way,
Tao.Chapter Sixty-five
The ancient Tao cultivators,
Did not lead people to acquire knowledge to be tricky,
But to guide them to restore their simplicity and innocence.
The reason people are difficult to be governed is because they are clever and witty.
Therefore, he who rules a nation with tactics and wits shall do harm to the country.
He who does not rule with such is the nation’s blessing.
To know these two principles is to know the rule of nature.
To know the rule of nature is called Mystic Te (Mystic Virtue).
Mystic Te is profound and far-reaching.
It can guide all things to return to their original nature,
And thus great harmony can be achieved.Chapter Sixty-six
The reason that river and ocean can be the Lords of all valley is because they are located in the
lowly position.
Therefore, the saint humbles himself to serve all people.
And he leads the people by putting himself last for the sake of the people’s welfare.
Thus, although he rules above the people,
The people do not feel him as a burden.
Although he leads in front of the people,
The people do not feel him as a threat.
Hence, the world supports him with no objection.
This is because he does not contend,
Therefore, he is above all competition.Chapter Sixty-seven
The whole world says the Tao that I have attained is so great that It seems unreal.
Because It is indeed so great, thus It seemed unreal.
If It were real, It would have been insignificantly small.
I have Three Treasures that I hold and guard.
The first is Kindness.
The second is Simplicity.
The third is Humbleness.
With Kindness, one can be courageous.
With Simplicity, one can be generous.
With Humbleness, one can be the lead to provide guidance.
Now, if one abandons kindness and yet tries to be courageous,
If one abandons simplicity and yet tries to be generous.
If one abandons humbleness and yet tries to lead as guidance,
He is doomed to perish.
One who fights a battle with kindness shall win.
One who keeps guard with kindness shall secure.
Even the great nature shall save him and protect him with kindness.Chapter Sixty-eight
A faithful Tao cultivator does not use force.
A good warrior does not lose his temper.
A great conqueror does not challenge others.
A good leader is humble.
This is called the virtue of peace with no contention.
This is also regarded as competence to make good use of the effort of people.
Such is regarded as achieving harmony with nature.
Such is the perfect Oneness of true nature.Chapter Sixty-nine
In warfare, there is a saying of such strategy:
I would rather take a defensive position than to make an initial offensive move.
I would rather withdraw a foot than to march forward one inch.
Such is called to advance without advancement;
To defeat without arm force;
To fight as if there were no enemy;
To carry weapons as if there were no weapons and thus no need for the use of weapons.
There is no greater disaster than to underestimate the enemy.
To do so may cost one to lose his valuable life.
Therefore, when two armies engage in a battle,
The party that feels the sorrow of killing shall win.Chapter Seventy
My words of Tao is easy to understand and to practice.
However, the world can neither understand nor practice them.
In my words of Tao, there is the subtle truth.
In my deeds, there is the Way of Tao.
Because people do not understand these,
Therefore they do not understand me.
Those who know me are few.
Hence, the essence of Tao appears to be more honorable and precious.
Thus, a saint may dress in ordinary coarse clothing,
Yet has a heart of gem with the true essence within.Chapter Seventy-one
One who knows what people do not know,
Is a person of enlightenment.
One who pretends to know what he is ignorant of, is at fault.
He who is aware of what he does not know, shall not be at fault.
Therefore, a saint is flawless for he is aware of what he truly knows and what he knows not,
hence he is flawless.Chapter Seventy-two
When people do not respect the authority,
There shall be great misfortune.
Do not interfere with the people’s livelihood.
Do not despise their living.
Because there is no detest against the people,
Therefore the people do not detest against the authority.
The saint realizes his true nature and hence
Does not distinguish himself.
He has a sense of self-respect and thus does not exalt himself.
Therefore, he rejects those that are self-distinguished and self-exalted.
And abides by these that are self-awareness and self-respect.Chapter Seventy-three
He who is brave in being daring, acts recklessly and shall be killed.
He who is brave but acts cautiously and kindly shall live.
Of these two, one is beneficial while the other is harmful.
What nature wishes, who may know what the reasons are?
Thus, the saint is aware of the subtlety and profoundness of the Nature’s Way,
So he takes great caution in practicing It.
The Tao of Nature,
Does not contend, yet easily wins.
Does not speak, yet always responds.
Does not summon, yet all things gather.
Does not contemplate as if at ease,
Yet all plans were devised perfectly.
The Law of Nature is like a giant web,
Although sparsely meshed, nothing can slip through.Chapter Seventy-four
When people do not fear death,
There is no use trying to threaten them with death.
If people value their lives, and those who break the law were being executed,
Then who would dare to commit criminal act?
The life and death of all beings are handled by the executioner of Nature.
Those who substitute the nature executioner to kill,
Is like replacing the master carpenter to chop the wood.
One who substitutes the master carpenter to chop the wood,
Rarely does not hurt his hands.Chapter Seventy-five
People starved because the ruler taxed too heavily.
People are difficult to be ruled,
Because the ruler governs with personal desire and establishes too many laws to confuse the
people.
Therefore the people are difficult to be ruled.
People take death lightly,
Because the ruler pursues after luxurious life and depletes the people.
Therefore the people take death lightly.
One who does not value his life with self-desire, truly cherishes his life.Chapter Seventy-six
When a man is alive, he is soft and supple.
When he dies, the body becomes hard and stiff.
When a plant is alive, it is soft and flexible.
When it is dead, it becomes dry and brittle.
Therefore, hard and rigid shall lead to death.
Soft and gentle shall lead to life.
Thus, a strong army with rigid force shall not win.
A thick and big tree will be cut down for its use.
The big and strong will take an inferior position.
The soft and gentle will take superior position.Chapter Seventy-seven
The Tao of Nature is like stretching a bow.
When the stretch is too high, it needs to be pressed down.
When the stretch is too low, it needs to be raised high.
The excess will be reduced.
The deficient will be replenished.
The Tao of Nature is to reduce the excessive and to replenish the insufficient.
The Tao of man, however is otherwise.
It takes from the needy to serve those who already have a surplus.
Who can spare one’s surplus to serve the world?
A person of Tao.
Thus, a saint acts without holding on to the achievements.
He accomplishes but does not claim for credit.
He has no desire to distinguish himself.Chapter Seventy-eight
There is nothing in this world that is softer and meeker than water.
Even those that can conquer the strong and hard,
Are still not superior than water.
Nothing can substitute it.
Hence, what is soft can overcome the strong.
What is gentle can overcome the strength.
This is known by the world.
However, people cannot put it into practice.
Therefore, the saint said as follow:
He who can take the disgrace of a nation,
Is said to be the master of the nation.
He who can bear the misfortune of a nation,
Is said to be the ruler of the world.
Truthful words may seem to be the reverse of worldly practices.Chapter Seventy-nine
When a great resentment has resulted,
Even if one tries to reconcile and make peace,
There is bound to leave some remaining resentment.
Thus, how can this be considered as a good settlement?
Therefore, a saint cultivates himself with introspection and self-discipline without blaming others
for faults.
This is like the ancient custom which acts by holding on to the left part of the tally as a debtor
that demands nothing from others.
Hence, a person of virtue acts as if he were the debtor.
And a person without virtue acts as if he were the creditor that demands only from others.
The Tao of Nature is impersonal which makes no exception to anyone.
It always assists those that are kind and virtuous.Chapter Eighty
An ideal nation is small and with few people.
Although there are abundant weapons, there is no need for the use.
Let the people cherish their life and not pursue after fame and wealth,
So that they have no intention to move to faraway places.
Although there are boats and carriages, no one will ride them.
Although there are weapons and armors, there is no occasion to display them.
Let the people return to the ancient simple life where knotting ropes were used to record every
event.
People would then enjoy the simple food, simple clothing, and be contented with a simple life.
And they shall live happily with the traditional customs.
Neighbors of the nations overlook one another in the near distance.
The barks of dogs and crowing of c~~~s can be heard.
Yet people are so contented that they enjoy their life without ever visiting each other.Chapter Eighty-one
Words of truth are not pleasing.
Pleasing words are not truthful.
The wise one does not argue.
He who argues is not wise.
A wise man of Tao knows the subtle truth,
And may not be learned.
A learned person is knowledgeable but may not know the subtle truth of Tao.
A saint does not possess and accumulate surplus for personal desire.
The more he helps others, the richer his life becomes.
The more he gives to others, the more he gets in return.
The Tao of Nature benefits and does not harm.
The Way of a saint is to act naturally without contention.經典原文 中文
一貫道師尊慈語各組線介紹一貫網際所在地動態報導經典研究
一貫道簡介
莊 子 道 德 經 六祖壇經 論 語
孟 子 三 字 經 道之宗旨 禮運大同篇
金 剛 經 心 經 彌勒救苦真經 朱子治家格言
弟 子 規 大 學 中 庸 皇母訓子十誡
太上清靜經Topic: Howdy
AnonymousGood afternoon!
I’ve spent most of my unscheduled day off reading through random posts and just wanted to say that I’ve had a lot of laughs and just about as many cringes… I’m 37 and have been divorced for three years this September. I met my ex wife while we were both serving in the Army. She was the first women I had met that could tolerate my masculinity and dish it back to me. I thought that was what I wanted, but it ended up being the downfall of our relationship. Prior to getting hitched, we deployed together. My deployment didn’t go as well as her’s (my previous deployments were no cake walk either). Witnessed some stuff that you’d never think you would see. On one terrible evening, an NCO on the FOB gunned down his squad leader and fellow team leader in cold blood. The week before, the platoon lost two guys after an IED attack. War is well for sure. And this deployment changed me.
We came back to the “real world” and got married. Shortly after, we both left the military and I landed a job in the private sector. She had trouble getting employment because she was pregnant with our oldest, and as I’d come to find out, she was a pretty terrible person – which hiring managers must have been able to identify. I was blind to it all. The pressures of being the sole provider for two people – then three – in a fast paced world was a lot to handle. These pressures complicated the experiences of my previous deployments. This is when I took the blue pill. I became detached from the marriage even though we quickly had baby #2. I found a job that would send me to Iraq for a few months and jumped at the opportunity. It was a relief to be back in the sandbox, but being away from my kids (both boys) was tough. My ex started to get on my case about stupid stuff. By this time she had a job, but now she needed extra help back home. We had a babysitter/housekeeper that came in early in the morning and a live-in au pair to watch the kids (it was cheaper than having two kids in daycare). The money we were making was never enough and the things we had weren’t up to her standards. We bought a house – that needed a lot of upgrades – and new cars. I came home to a complete s~~~ show. Worst of all, I came to find out that had been cheating. This crushed me. She accused me of doing a bunch of stuff before I left and I ate it up. It went back and forth for a while. One night I forgave her and thought things were right as rain. I set out to improve myself. Started working out again, got back into taking college courses, was a better dad to my boys, and thought I was a better husband. Fast forward a year or so, and she tells me before going on a lengthy work trip that she wanted a divorce. Left me with the two kids and the au pair for months. While she is gone, she meets her new guy. She had wedding plans before our divorce was final.
The divorce went better than I expected. I didn’t have to spend a s~~~ ton of money and we split everything about 50/50 (the proceeds from the house sale and the debt). Everything except for the kids… She wanted me to have “liberal visitation” which isn’t awful as the job I had at that time required me to work weekends and holidays. The kick to the nuts came one day when she said she was moving across the state to live with (and later) marry this guy she’d met. There was nothing I could do at the time to stop her. The divorce decree prohibited us from moving outside the state, she just happened to move to a place 4 hours away from me, but in the same state. I see my kids every other weekend, spring break, a couple weeks in the summer, some major holidays. The depression really kicked in, but before I could do anything to myself, I sought professional help and got my mind right. Lexipro was great, but also freaked me out. I opted to go through counseling without antidepressants.
My post divorce story isn’t too terrible either. I was able to move in with my brother’s family for the first year. I have to thank him for offering me my red pill moment. While I felt like I was getting somewhere, I had no focus. I was just kind of surviving. He woke me up to the circumstances I was facing. I got out of a lot of debt – but bought a brand new truck just because – and finally finished my college degree. I moved into a bachelor pad closer to work, joined a nearby gym, joined the nearby range, and have a pretty kick ass routine.
I’ve dated some, but have been routinely frustrated with the females I’ve met. Those available in my age range are mostly never married with no kids, or divorced (for obvious reasons). Both seem to hate men and blame them for their problems. I’ve been consuming lots of Jordan B Peterson and totally understand how the Marxist left has ruined men, and how females my age are angry, bitter spinsters. Our culture sucks, and despite my enthusiasm after 11/8/2016, don’t see it improving any time soon. So, for now, I’m going my own way.
Topic: Final step to freedom
Some slightly mixed feelings when I pressed send to
electronically file divorce application today – they lasted about 5 seconds.Should be completely unshackled on July 19.
For a laugh, I suggested she pay for it, as she initiated the whole marriage ending because she wasn’t happy.
No result there of course, but mutual friends have told me she still isn’t happy.
She was even sending cryptic text messages for a while recently, which I think were testing the water to see if i would take her back. Wtf??
Then she was asking for more money, long after completion of financial settlement orders!
One word answers or ignore really shuts their s~~~ down I have learned.
And when they find out how good a life you are having without them in it – gold!
I am just so glad I found my way here a while back, it has been so helpful in coming out the other side 18 months later a much different man and being able to deal coldly with all her bulls~~~ i uncovered along the way.
Planning divorce party now 🍻🍺
Uncunted
Democrats Release Tax Hike Plan
This week, Congressional Democrats released a detailed tax hike plan that they promised to implement if given majority control of the House and Senate after the 2018 midterm elections. So much for the crocodile tears about the deficit–Democrats want to raise taxes not to reduce the debt, but rather to spend that tax hike money on boondoggle projects.
Increase the top marginal income tax rate from 37 percent to 39.6 percent. This nearly 3 percentage point increase in the top personal rate is not only a hike in the top bracket levy, but it’s also a direct tax increase on small and mid-sized businesses. The 30 million companies which are organized as sole proprietorships, partnerships, Subchapter-S corporations, and LLCs pay their business taxes on their owners’ 1040 personal tax returns. Hiking the top tax rate is a small business tax increase.
Increase the corporate income tax rate from 21 percent to 25 percent. Up until this year, the United States labored under the highest corporate income tax rate in the developed world. As a result, jobs and capital were fleeing America for more normal tax rates that could be found in tax havens like France and China (saracasm font very much activated). Finally, after many years of bipartisan consensus that the U.S. corporate rate had become an impediment to attracting new jobs and investment, Congress cut the rate all the way from 35 to 21 percent. Even doing that only puts us in the middle of the pack of developed nations, but that’s a heck of a lot better than dead last.
Keeping the Democrats out of office is going to be imperative. They’re trying to undo all the work that Trump and Republicans did with the tax cuts and they make no bones about it. Democrats are hell bent on crippling the economy. I really want to see Democrats lose the midterms, but at this point, anything is possible.
Building the Iron Wall by Chris Hedges [1]
Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, New York Times best selling author, former professor at Princeton University, activist and ordained Presbyterian minister. He has written 11 books, including the New York Times best-seller “Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt” (2012).
Hedges spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. He has reported from more than 50 countries during his work for The Christian Science Monitor, National Public Radio, The Dallas Morning News and The New York Times, for which he was a foreign correspondent for 15 years
He writes a weekly column for the website Truthdig in Los Angeles, run by Robert Scheer, and hosts a show, On Contact, on RT America.
Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, along with 18 members of the House of Representatives — 15 Republicans and three Democrats — has sent a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions demanding that the Qatari-run Al-Jazeera television network register as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).
The letter was issued after Al-Jazeera said it planned to air a documentary by a reporter [12] who went undercover to look into the Israel lobby in the United States. The action by the Senator and the House Members follows the decision by the Justice Department to force RT America to register as a foreign agent and the imposition of algorithms by Facebook, Google and Twitter that steer traffic away from left-wing, anti-war and progressive websites, including Truthdig. It also follows December’s abolition of net neutrality.
The letter asks the Justice Department to investigate “reports that Al Jazeera infiltrated American non-profit organizations.” It says that the “content produced by this network often directly undermines American interests with favorable coverage of U.S. State Department-designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations, including Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria.”
“American citizens deserve to know whether the information and news media they consume is impartial, or if it is deceptive propaganda pushed by foreign nations,” the letter reads.
The ominous assault on the final redoubts of a free press, through an attempt to brand dissidents, independent journalists and critics of corporate power and imperialism as agents of a foreign power, has begun.
FARA, until recently, was a little-used regulation, passed in 1938 to combat Nazi propaganda. The journalists Max Blumenthal and Ali Abunimah do a good job of addressing the issue in this clip on The Real News Network.
Those who challenge the dominant corporate narrative already struggle on the margins of the media landscape. The handful of independent websites and news outlets, including this one, and a few foreign-run networks such as Al-Jazeera and RT America, on which I host a show, “On Contact [2],” are the few platforms left that examine corporate power and empire, the curtailment of our civil liberties, lethal police violence and the ecocide carried out by the fossil fuel and animal agriculture industries, as well as cover the war crimes committed by Israel and the U.S. military in the Middle East.
Shutting down these venues would ensure that the critics who speak through them, and oppressed peoples such as the Palestinians, have no voice left.
I witnessed and was at times the victim of black propaganda campaigns when I was a foreign correspondent. False accusations are made anonymously and then amplified by a compliant press. The anonymous site PropOrNot [9], replicating this tactic, in 2016 published a blacklist of 199 sites that it alleged, with no evidence, “reliably echo Russian propaganda.”
More than half of those sites were far-right, conspiracy-driven ones. But about 20 of the sites were progressive, anti-war and left-wing. They included AlterNet [3], Black Agenda Report [4], Democracy Now! [5], Naked Capitalism [6], Truthdig [1], Truthout [7], CounterPunch [8] and the World Socialist Web Site.
PropOrNot [9] charged that these sites disseminated “fake news” on behalf of Russia, and the allegations became front-page news in The Washington Post in a story headlined “Russian propaganda effort helped spread ‘fake news’ during the election, experts say.” Washington Post reporter Craig Timberg wrote in that article that the goal of “a sophisticated Russian propaganda effort,” according to “independent researchers who have tracked the operation,” was “punishing Democrat Hillary Clinton, helping Republican Donald Trump and undermining faith in American democracy.”
To date, no one has exposed who operates PropOrNot or who is behind the website.
But the damage done by this black propaganda campaign and the subsequent announcement by Google and other organizations such as Facebook last April that they had put in filters to elevate “more authoritative content” and marginalize “blatantly misleading, low quality, offensive or downright false information” have steadily diverted readers away from some sites.
The Marxist World Socialist Web Site, for example, has seen its traffic decline by 75%. AlterNet’s search traffic is down 71%, Consortium News is down 72%, and Global Research and Truthdig have seen declines. And the situation appears to be growing worse as the algorithms are refined.
Jeff Bezos, the owner of The Washington Post and the founder and CEO of Amazon, has, like Google and some other major Silicon Valley corporations, close ties with the federal security and surveillance apparatus.
Bezos has a $600 million contract with the CIA. The lines separating technology-based entities such as Google and Amazon and the government’s security and surveillance apparatus are often nonexistent. The goal of corporations such as Google and Facebook is profit, not the dissemination of truth. And when truth gets in the way of profit, truth is sacrificed.
Google, Facebook, Twitter, The New York Times, The Washington Post, BuzzFeed News, Agence France-Presse and CNN have all imposed or benefited from the algorithms or filters—overseen by human “evaluators.” When an internet user types a word in a Google search it is called an “impression” by the industry. These impressions direct the persons making the searches to websites that use the words or address the issues associated with them.
Before the algorithms were put in place last April, searches for terms such as “imperialism” or “inequality” directed internet users mostly to left-wing, progressive and anti-war sites. Now they are directed primarily to mainstream sites such as The Washington Post. If you type in “World Socialist Web Site,” which has been hit especially hard by the algorithms, you will be directed to the site—but you have to ask for it by name. Searches for associated words such as “socialist” or “socialism” are unlikely to bring up a list in which the World Socialist Web Site appears near the top
There are 10,000 “evaluators” at Google, many of them former employees at counterterrorism agencies, who determine the “quality” and veracity of websites. They have downgraded sites such as Truthdig, and with the abolition of net neutrality can further isolate those sites on the internet. The news organizations and corporations imposing and benefiting from this censorship have strong links to the corporate establishment and the Democratic Party. They do not question corporate capitalism, American imperialism or rising social inequality. They dutifully feed the anti-Russia hysteria. An Al-Jazeera report on this censorship begins at 14:07 in this link [10].
The Corporate Oligarchs, lacking a valid response to the discrediting of their policies of economic pillage and endless war, have turned to the blunt instrument of censorship and to a new version of red baiting. They do not intend to institute reforms or restore an open society. They do not intend to address the social inequality behind the political insurgencies in the two major political parties and the hatred of the corporate state that spans the political spectrum. They intend to impose a cone of silence and the state-sanctioned uniformity of opinion that characterizes all totalitarian regimes.
This is what the use of FARA, the imposition of algorithms and the attempt to blame Trump’s election on Russian interference is about.
Critics and investigative journalists who expose the inner workings of corporate power are branded enemies of the state in the service of a foreign power. The corporate-controlled media, meanwhile, presents the salacious, the trivial and the absurd as news while fanning the obsession over Russia.
This is one of the most ominous moments in American history.
The complicity in this witch hunt by self-identified liberal organizations, including The New York Times and MSNBC, will come back to haunt them. When the voices for truth are erased, they will be next.
The steps to tyranny are always small, incremental and often barely noticed, as Milton Mayer [11] wrote in “They Thought They Were Free: The Germans 1933-1945.” By the time a population wakes up, it is too late.
He noted:
But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join you, never comes. That’s the difficulty. If the last and the worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and the smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked.
If, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in ’43 had come immediately after the “German Firm” stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in ’33. But of course this isn’t the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D.
And one day, too late, your principles, if you were ever sensible of them, all rush in upon you. The burden of self-deception has grown too heavy, and some minor incident, in my case my little boy, hardly more than a baby, saying “Jew swine,” collapses it all at once, and you see that everything, everything has changed and changed completely under your nose. The world you lived in—your nation, your people—is not the world you were born in at all.
The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves; when everyone is transformed no one is transformed. Now you live in a system which rules without responsibility even to God. The system itself could not have intended this in the beginning, but in order to sustain itself it was compelled to go all the way.
Despots, despite their proclaimed ideological, national and religious differences, speak the same language. Amoral, devoid of empathy and addicted to power and personal enrichment, they are building a world where all who criticize them are silenced, where their populations are rendered compliant by fear, constant surveillance and the loss of basic liberties and where they and their corporate enablers are the undisputed masters.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that the Qatari government is seeking to improve relations with the Trump administration by forging alliances with right-wing Jewish organizations in the United States. It has promised Jewish leaders, the paper reported, not to air the Al-Jazeera documentary about the Israel lobby. Al-Jazeera in 2016 shut down Al-Jazeera America, which broadcast to U.S. audiences. With no broadcaster in the U.S., the program would have reached few American viewers even if Al-Jazeera had put it on the air.
Haaretz reported that Jewish organizational leaders who have visited Qatar in recent months include Mort Klein of the Zionist Organization of America; Malcolm Hoenlein, the executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations; Jack Rosen of the American Jewish Congress; Rabbi Menachem Genack of the Orthodox Union; Martin Oliner of the Religious Zionists of America; and attorney Alan Dershowitz.
“What these leaders share is that none of them are considered critics of the right-wing Netanyahu government in Israel or the Trump administration in Washington,” Haaretz correspondent Amir Tibon wrote in the newspaper.
The despotism of the United States and the despotism of Israel have found an ally in the despotism of Qatar. Professed beliefs are meaningless. Israel is bonded with the regime in Saudi Arabia and the Christian right in the United States, each of which is virulently anti-Semitic.
Dissidents, including Jewish and Israeli dissidents, are attacked as “self-hating Jews” or anti-Semites only because they are dissidents. The word “traitor” or “anti-Semite” has no real meaning. It is used not to describe a reality but to turn someone into a pariah.
The iron wall is rising. It will cement into place a global system of corporate totalitarianism, one in which the old vocabulary of human rights and democracy is empty and where any form of defiance means you are an enemy of the state.This totalitarianism is being formed incrementally. It begins by silencing the demonized. It ends by silencing everyone.
“You walk into the room with your pencil in your hand,” Bob Dylan sang in “Ballad of a Thin Man.” “You see somebody naked and you say, ‘Who is that man?’ You try so hard but you don’t understand just what you will say when you get home. Because something is happening here, but you don’t know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones?
Citations
[1] https://www.truthdig.com/articles/building-the-iron-wall/
[2] https://www.rt.com/shows/on-contact/
[3] https://www.alternet.org/
[4] https://www.blackagendareport.com/
[5] https://www.democracynow.org/
[6] https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/
[7] http://www.truth-out.org/
[8] https://www.counterpunch.org/
[9] http://www.propornot.com/p/home.html
[10] https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/listeningpost/2018/03/headlines-hyperbole-covering-sergei-skripal-story-180317065638228.html
[11] http://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/author/M/M/au5456987.html
[12] https://forward.com/opinion/396203/we-made-a-documentary-exposing-the-israel-lobby-why-hasnt-it-run/Building the Iron Wall by Chris Hedges [1]
Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, New York Times best selling author, former professor at Princeton University, activist and ordained Presbyterian minister. He has written 11 books, including the New York Times best-seller “Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt” (2012).
Hedges spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. He has reported from more than 50 countries during his work for The Christian Science Monitor, National Public Radio, The Dallas Morning News and The New York Times, for which he was a foreign correspondent for 15 years
He writes a weekly column for the website Truthdig in Los Angeles, run by Robert Scheer, and hosts a show, On Contact, on RT America.
Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, along with 18 members of the House of Representatives — 15 Republicans and three Democrats — has sent a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions demanding that the Qatari-run Al-Jazeera television network register as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).
The letter was issued after Al-Jazeera said it planned to air a documentary by a reporter who went undercover to look into the Israel lobby in the United States. The action by the Senator and the House Members follows the decision by the Justice Department to force RT America to register as a foreign agent and the imposition of algorithms by Facebook, Google and Twitter that steer traffic away from left-wing, anti-war and progressive websites, including Truthdig. It also follows December’s abolition of net neutrality.
The letter asks the Justice Department to investigate “reports that Al Jazeera infiltrated American non-profit organizations.” It says that the “content produced by this network often directly undermines American interests with favorable coverage of U.S. State Department-designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations, including Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria.”
“American citizens deserve to know whether the information and news media they consume is impartial, or if it is deceptive propaganda pushed by foreign nations,” the letter reads.
The ominous assault on the final redoubts of a free press, through an attempt to brand dissidents, independent journalists and critics of corporate power and imperialism as agents of a foreign power, has begun.
FARA, until recently, was a little-used regulation, passed in 1938 to combat Nazi propaganda. The journalists Max Blumenthal and Ali Abunimah do a good job of addressing the issue in this clip on The Real News Network.
Those who challenge the dominant corporate narrative already struggle on the margins of the media landscape. The handful of independent websites and news outlets, including this one, and a few foreign-run networks such as Al-Jazeera and RT America, on which I host a show, “On Contact [2],” are the few platforms left that examine corporate power and empire, the curtailment of our civil liberties, lethal police violence and the ecocide carried out by the fossil fuel and animal agriculture industries, as well as cover the war crimes committed by Israel and the U.S. military in the Middle East.
Shutting down these venues would ensure that the critics who speak through them, and oppressed peoples such as the Palestinians, have no voice left.
I witnessed and was at times the victim of black propaganda campaigns when I was a foreign correspondent. False accusations are made anonymously and then amplified by a compliant press. The anonymous site PropOrNot [9], replicating this tactic, in 2016 published a blacklist of 199 sites that it alleged, with no evidence, “reliably echo Russian propaganda.”
More than half of those sites were far-right, conspiracy-driven ones. But about 20 of the sites were progressive, anti-war and left-wing. They included AlterNet [3], Black Agenda Report [4], Democracy Now! [5], Naked Capitalism [6], Truthdig [1], Truthout [7], CounterPunch [8] and the World Socialist Web Site.
PropOrNot [9] charged that these sites disseminated “fake news” on behalf of Russia, and the allegations became front-page news in The Washington Post in a story headlined “Russian propaganda effort helped spread ‘fake news’ during the election, experts say.” Washington Post reporter Craig Timberg wrote in that article that the goal of “a sophisticated Russian propaganda effort,” according to “independent researchers who have tracked the operation,” was “punishing Democrat Hillary Clinton, helping Republican Donald Trump and undermining faith in American democracy.”
To date, no one has exposed who operates PropOrNot or who is behind the website.
But the damage done by this black propaganda campaign and the subsequent announcement by Google and other organizations such as Facebook last April that they had put in filters to elevate “more authoritative content” and marginalize “blatantly misleading, low quality, offensive or downright false information” have steadily diverted readers away from some sites.
The Marxist World Socialist Web Site, for example, has seen its traffic decline by 75%. AlterNet’s search traffic is down 71%, Consortium News is down 72%, and Global Research and Truthdig have seen declines. And the situation appears to be growing worse as the algorithms are refined.
Jeff Bezos, the owner of The Washington Post and the founder and CEO of Amazon, has, like Google and some other major Silicon Valley corporations, close ties with the federal security and surveillance apparatus.
Bezos has a $600 million contract with the CIA. The lines separating technology-based entities such as Google and Amazon and the government’s security and surveillance apparatus are often nonexistent. The goal of corporations such as Google and Facebook is profit, not the dissemination of truth. And when truth gets in the way of profit, truth is sacrificed.
Google, Facebook, Twitter, The New York Times, The Washington Post, BuzzFeed News, Agence France-Presse and CNN have all imposed or benefited from the algorithms or filters—overseen by human “evaluators.” When an internet user types a word in a Google search it is called an “impression” by the industry. These impressions direct the persons making the searches to websites that use the words or address the issues associated with them.
Before the algorithms were put in place last April, searches for terms such as “imperialism” or “inequality” directed internet users mostly to left-wing, progressive and anti-war sites. Now they are directed primarily to mainstream sites such as The Washington Post. If you type in “World Socialist Web Site,” which has been hit especially hard by the algorithms, you will be directed to the site—but you have to ask for it by name. Searches for associated words such as “socialist” or “socialism” are unlikely to bring up a list in which the World Socialist Web Site appears near the top
There are 10,000 “evaluators” at Google, many of them former employees at counterterrorism agencies, who determine the “quality” and veracity of websites. They have downgraded sites such as Truthdig, and with the abolition of net neutrality can further isolate those sites on the internet. The news organizations and corporations imposing and benefiting from this censorship have strong links to the corporate establishment and the Democratic Party. They do not question corporate capitalism, American imperialism or rising social inequality. They dutifully feed the anti-Russia hysteria. An Al-Jazeera report on this censorship begins at 14:07 in this link [10].
The Corporate Oligarchs, lacking a valid response to the discrediting of their policies of economic pillage and endless war, have turned to the blunt instrument of censorship and to a new version of red baiting. They do not intend to institute reforms or restore an open society. They do not intend to address the social inequality behind the political insurgencies in the two major political parties and the hatred of the corporate state that spans the political spectrum. They intend to impose a cone of silence and the state-sanctioned uniformity of opinion that characterizes all totalitarian regimes.
This is what the use of FARA, the imposition of algorithms and the attempt to blame Trump’s election on Russian interference is about.
Critics and investigative journalists who expose the inner workings of corporate power are branded enemies of the state in the service of a foreign power. The corporate-controlled media, meanwhile, presents the salacious, the trivial and the absurd as news while fanning the obsession over Russia.
This is one of the most ominous moments in American history.
The complicity in this witch hunt by self-identified liberal organizations, including The New York Times and MSNBC, will come back to haunt them. When the voices for truth are erased, they will be next.
The steps to tyranny are always small, incremental and often barely noticed, as Milton Mayer [11] wrote in “They Thought They Were Free: The Germans 1933-1945.” By the time a population wakes up, it is too late.
He noted:
But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join you, never comes. That’s the difficulty. If the last and the worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and the smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked.
If, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in ’43 had come immediately after the “German Firm” stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in ’33. But of course this isn’t the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D.
And one day, too late, your principles, if you were ever sensible of them, all rush in upon you. The burden of self-deception has grown too heavy, and some minor incident, in my case my little boy, hardly more than a baby, saying “Jew swine,” collapses it all at once, and you see that everything, everything has changed and changed completely under your nose. The world you lived in—your nation, your people—is not the world you were born in at all.
The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves; when everyone is transformed no one is transformed. Now you live in a system which rules without responsibility even to God. The system itself could not have intended this in the beginning, but in order to sustain itself it was compelled to go all the way.
Despots, despite their proclaimed ideological, national and religious differences, speak the same language. Amoral, devoid of empathy and addicted to power and personal enrichment, they are building a world where all who criticize them are silenced, where their populations are rendered compliant by fear, constant surveillance and the loss of basic liberties and where they and their corporate enablers are the undisputed masters.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that the Qatari government is seeking to improve relations with the Trump administration by forging alliances with right-wing Jewish organizations in the United States. It has promised Jewish leaders, the paper reported, not to air the Al-Jazeera documentary about the Israel lobby. Al-Jazeera in 2016 shut down Al-Jazeera America, which broadcast to U.S. audiences. With no broadcaster in the U.S., the program would have reached few American viewers even if Al-Jazeera had put it on the air.
Haaretz reported that Jewish organizational leaders who have visited Qatar in recent months include Mort Klein of the Zionist Organization of America; Malcolm Hoenlein, the executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations; Jack Rosen of the American Jewish Congress; Rabbi Menachem Genack of the Orthodox Union; Martin Oliner of the Religious Zionists of America; and attorney Alan Dershowitz.
“What these leaders share is that none of them are considered critics of the right-wing Netanyahu government in Israel or the Trump administration in Washington,” Haaretz correspondent Amir Tibon wrote in the newspaper.
The despotism of the United States and the despotism of Israel have found an ally in the despotism of Qatar. Professed beliefs are meaningless. Israel is bonded with the regime in Saudi Arabia and the Christian right in the United States, each of which is virulently anti-Semitic.
Dissidents, including Jewish and Israeli dissidents, are attacked as “self-hating Jews” or anti-Semites only because they are dissidents. The word “traitor” or “anti-Semite” has no real meaning. It is used not to describe a reality but to turn someone into a pariah. The iron wall is rising. It will cement into place a global system of corporate totalitarianism, one in which the old vocabulary of human rights and democracy is empty and where any form of defiance means you are an enemy of the state.
This totalitarianism is being formed incrementally. It begins by silencing the demonized. It ends by silencing everyone.
“You walk into the room with your pencil in your hand,” Bob Dylan sang in “Ballad of a Thin Man.” “You see somebody naked and you say, ‘Who is that man?’ You try so hard but you don’t understand just what you will say when you get home. Because something is happening here, but you don’t know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones?
Citations
[1] https://www.truthdig.com/articles/building-the-iron-wall/
[2] https://www.rt.com/shows/on-contact/
[3] https://www.alternet.org/
[4] https://www.blackagendareport.com/
[5] https://www.democracynow.org/
[6] https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/
[7] http://www.truth-out.org/
[8] https://www.counterpunch.org/
[9] http://www.propornot.com/p/home.html
[10] https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/listeningpost/2018/03/headlines-hyperbole-covering-sergei-skripal-story-180317065638228.html
[11] http://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/author/M/M/au5456987.htmlBuilding the Iron Wall by Chris Hedges [1]
Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, New York Times best selling author, former professor at Princeton University, activist and ordained Presbyterian minister.
Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, New York Times best selling author, former professor at Princeton University, activist and ordained Presbyterian minister. He has written 11 books, including the New York Times best-seller “Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt” (2012).
Hedges spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. He has reported from more than 50 countries during his work for The Christian Science Monitor, National Public Radio, The Dallas Morning News and The New York Times, for which he was a foreign correspondent for 15 years
He writes a weekly column for the website Truthdig in Los Angeles, run by Robert Scheer, and hosts a show, On Contact, on RT America.
Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, along with 18 members of the House of Representatives — 15 Republicans and three Democrats — has sent a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions demanding that the Qatari-run Al-Jazeera television network register as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).
The letter was issued after Al-Jazeera said it planned to air a documentary by a reporter who went undercover to look into the Israel lobby in the United States. The action by the Senator and the House Members follows the decision by the Justice Department to force RT America to register as a foreign agent and the imposition of algorithms by Facebook, Google and Twitter that steer traffic away from left-wing, anti-war and progressive websites, including Truthdig. It also follows December’s abolition of net neutrality.
The letter asks the Justice Department to investigate “reports that Al Jazeera infiltrated American non-profit organizations.” It says that the “content produced by this network often directly undermines American interests with favorable coverage of U.S. State Department-designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations, including Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Jabhat al-Nusra, al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria.”
“American citizens deserve to know whether the information and news media they consume is impartial, or if it is deceptive propaganda pushed by foreign nations,” the letter reads.
The ominous assault on the final redoubts of a free press, through an attempt to brand dissidents, independent journalists and critics of corporate power and imperialism as agents of a foreign power, has begun.
FARA, until recently, was a little-used regulation, passed in 1938 to combat Nazi propaganda. The journalists Max Blumenthal and Ali Abunimah do a good job of addressing the issue in this clip on The Real News Network.
Those who challenge the dominant corporate narrative already struggle on the margins of the media landscape. The handful of independent websites and news outlets, including this one, and a few foreign-run networks such as Al-Jazeera and RT America, on which I host a show, “On Contact [2],” are the few platforms left that examine corporate power and empire, the curtailment of our civil liberties, lethal police violence and the ecocide carried out by the fossil fuel and animal agriculture industries, as well as cover the war crimes committed by Israel and the U.S. military in the Middle East.
Shutting down these venues would ensure that the critics who speak through them, and oppressed peoples such as the Palestinians, have no voice left.
I witnessed and was at times the victim of black propaganda campaigns when I was a foreign correspondent. False accusations are made anonymously and then amplified by a compliant press. The anonymous site PropOrNot [9], replicating this tactic, in 2016 published a blacklist of 199 sites that it alleged, with no evidence, “reliably echo Russian propaganda.”
More than half of those sites were far-right, conspiracy-driven ones. But about 20 of the sites were progressive, anti-war and left-wing. They included AlterNet [3], Black Agenda Report [4], Democracy Now! [5], Naked Capitalism [6], Truthdig [1], Truthout [7], CounterPunch [8] and the World Socialist Web Site.
PropOrNot [9] charged that these sites disseminated “fake news” on behalf of Russia, and the allegations became front-page news in The Washington Post in a story headlined “Russian propaganda effort helped spread ‘fake news’ during the election, experts say.” Washington Post reporter Craig Timberg wrote in that article that the goal of “a sophisticated Russian propaganda effort,” according to “independent researchers who have tracked the operation,” was “punishing Democrat Hillary Clinton, helping Republican Donald Trump and undermining faith in American democracy.”
To date, no one has exposed who operates PropOrNot or who is behind the website.
But the damage done by this black propaganda campaign and the subsequent announcement by Google and other organizations such as Facebook last April that they had put in filters to elevate “more authoritative content” and marginalize “blatantly misleading, low quality, offensive or downright false information” have steadily diverted readers away from some sites.
The Marxist World Socialist Web Site, for example, has seen its traffic decline by 75%. AlterNet’s search traffic is down 71%, Consortium News is down 72%, and Global Research and Truthdig have seen declines. And the situation appears to be growing worse as the algorithms are refined.
Jeff Bezos, the owner of The Washington Post and the founder and CEO of Amazon, has, like Google and some other major Silicon Valley corporations, close ties with the federal security and surveillance apparatus.
Bezos has a $600 million contract with the CIA. The lines separating technology-based entities such as Google and Amazon and the government’s security and surveillance apparatus are often nonexistent. The goal of corporations such as Google and Facebook is profit, not the dissemination of truth. And when truth gets in the way of profit, truth is sacrificed.
Google, Facebook, Twitter, The New York Times, The Washington Post, BuzzFeed News, Agence France-Presse and CNN have all imposed or benefited from the algorithms or filters—overseen by human “evaluators.” When an internet user types a word in a Google search it is called an “impression” by the industry. These impressions direct the persons making the searches to websites that use the words or address the issues associated with them.
Before the algorithms were put in place last April, searches for terms such as “imperialism” or “inequality” directed internet users mostly to left-wing, progressive and anti-war sites. Now they are directed primarily to mainstream sites such as The Washington Post. If you type in “World Socialist Web Site,” which has been hit especially hard by the algorithms, you will be directed to the site—but you have to ask for it by name. Searches for associated words such as “socialist” or “socialism” are unlikely to bring up a list in which the World Socialist Web Site appears near the top
There are 10,000 “evaluators” at Google, many of them former employees at counterterrorism agencies, who determine the “quality” and veracity of websites. They have downgraded sites such as Truthdig, and with the abolition of net neutrality can further isolate those sites on the internet. The news organizations and corporations imposing and benefiting from this censorship have strong links to the corporate establishment and the Democratic Party. They do not question corporate capitalism, American imperialism or rising social inequality. They dutifully feed the anti-Russia hysteria. An Al-Jazeera report on this censorship begins at 14:07 in this link [10].
The Corporate Oligarchs, lacking a valid response to the discrediting of their policies of economic pillage and endless war, have turned to the blunt instrument of censorship and to a new version of red baiting. They do not intend to institute reforms or restore an open society. They do not intend to address the social inequality behind the political insurgencies in the two major political parties and the hatred of the corporate state that spans the political spectrum. They intend to impose a cone of silence and the state-sanctioned uniformity of opinion that characterizes all totalitarian regimes.
This is what the use of FARA, the imposition of algorithms and the attempt to blame Trump’s election on Russian interference is about.
Critics and investigative journalists who expose the inner workings of corporate power are branded enemies of the state in the service of a foreign power. The corporate-controlled media, meanwhile, presents the salacious, the trivial and the absurd as news while fanning the obsession over Russia.
This is one of the most ominous moments in American history.
The complicity in this witch hunt by self-identified liberal organizations, including The New York Times and MSNBC, will come back to haunt them. When the voices for truth are erased, they will be next.
The steps to tyranny are always small, incremental and often barely noticed, as Milton Mayer [11] wrote in “They Thought They Were Free: The Germans 1933-1945.” By the time a population wakes up, it is too late.
He noted:
But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join you, never comes. That’s the difficulty. If the last and the worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and the smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked.
If, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in ’43 had come immediately after the “German Firm” stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in ’33. But of course this isn’t the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D.
And one day, too late, your principles, if you were ever sensible of them, all rush in upon you. The burden of self-deception has grown too heavy, and some minor incident, in my case my little boy, hardly more than a baby, saying “Jew swine,” collapses it all at once, and you see that everything, everything has changed and changed completely under your nose. The world you lived in—your nation, your people—is not the world you were born in at all.
The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves; when everyone is transformed no one is transformed. Now you live in a system which rules without responsibility even to God. The system itself could not have intended this in the beginning, but in order to sustain itself it was compelled to go all the way.
Despots, despite their proclaimed ideological, national and religious differences, speak the same language. Amoral, devoid of empathy and addicted to power and personal enrichment, they are building a world where all who criticize them are silenced, where their populations are rendered compliant by fear, constant surveillance and the loss of basic liberties and where they and their corporate enablers are the undisputed masters.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that the Qatari government is seeking to improve relations with the Trump administration by forging alliances with right-wing Jewish organizations in the United States. It has promised Jewish leaders, the paper reported, not to air the Al-Jazeera documentary about the Israel lobby. Al-Jazeera in 2016 shut down Al-Jazeera America, which broadcast to U.S. audiences. With no broadcaster in the U.S., the program would have reached few American viewers even if Al-Jazeera had put it on the air.
Haaretz reported that Jewish organizational leaders who have visited Qatar in recent months include Mort Klein of the Zionist Organization of America; Malcolm Hoenlein, the executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations; Jack Rosen of the American Jewish Congress; Rabbi Menachem Genack of the Orthodox Union; Martin Oliner of the Religious Zionists of America; and attorney Alan Dershowitz.
“What these leaders share is that none of them are considered critics of the right-wing Netanyahu government in Israel or the Trump administration in Washington,” Haaretz correspondent Amir Tibon wrote in the newspaper.
The despotism of the United States and the despotism of Israel have found an ally in the despotism of Qatar. Professed beliefs are meaningless. Israel is bonded with the regime in Saudi Arabia and the Christian right in the United States, each of which is virulently anti-Semitic.
Dissidents, including Jewish and Israeli dissidents, are attacked as “self-hating Jews” or anti-Semites only because they are dissidents. The word “traitor” or “anti-Semite” has no real meaning. It is used not to describe a reality but to turn someone into a pariah. The iron wall is rising. It will cement into place a global system of corporate totalitarianism, one in which the old vocabulary of human rights and democracy is empty and where any form of defiance means you are an enemy of the state.
This totalitarianism is being formed incrementally. It begins by silencing the demonized. It ends by silencing everyone.
“You walk into the room with your pencil in your hand,” Bob Dylan sang in “Ballad of a Thin Man.” “You see somebody naked and you say, ‘Who is that man?’ You try so hard but you don’t understand just what you will say when you get home. Because something is happening here, but you don’t know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones?
Citations
[1] https://www.truthdig.com/articles/building-the-iron-wall/
[2] https://www.rt.com/shows/on-contact/
[3] https://www.alternet.org/
[4] https://www.blackagendareport.com/
[5] https://www.democracynow.org/
[6] https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/
[7] http://www.truth-out.org/
[8] https://www.counterpunch.org/
[9] http://www.propornot.com/p/home.html
[10] https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/listeningpost/2018/03/headlines-hyperbole-covering-sergei-skripal-story-180317065638228.html
[11] http://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/author/M/M/au5456987.html
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