Puppet MastersS


Star of David

Israel: A perversion of Judaism and the modern nation-state

Roland Nikles
News, Reviews & Views
Wed, 03 Jan 2018 21:58 UTC
Yaacov Yadgar
Yaacov Yadgar
In Sovereign Jews: Israel, Zionism, and Judaism, Yaacov Yadgar explores the ways in which Zionist thought and Israel as a state cope with Jewish traditions that preceded them. Jewish sovereignty shapes Jewish identity in Israel, with profound implications for non-Jews in Israel, and for the identity of Jews in Israel and the Diaspora.

Jewish Identity Pre-Religion

"Religion"-as something internal and private -- is a concept that emerged during the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, along with the "nation state" and the "secular," says Yadgar. (For a bit more on this, see my previous post here). During most of Jewish existence, Judaism was public and political, not religious and private in the modern sense.
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Bullseye

Nonexistent 'Russian threat' used by Western elites to distract people from real problems at home

Neil Clark
Sputnik
Mon, 22 Jan 2018 21:55 UTC
big ben
© AFP 2018/ JUSTIN TALLIS
With mounting problems at home, the UK Establishment is stepping up its campaign to divert our attention on to non-existent dangers from abroad. The so-called 'Russian threat,' is not only good for the arms industry, and defense budgets, but for politicians who have no answers to the very real threats the British public face in their daily lives.

A knife crime epidemic. A significant rise in the murder rate. The NHS at breaking point. A 60% rise in homelessness since 2010/11 and a sharp rise in child and pensioner poverty. A hideously expensive and unreliable public transport system that is not fit for purpose.

Just a few of the very pressing problems facing Britain in early 2018. But rather than focus on solving them, those in power would rather we obsess about non-existent threats from Russia. 'Army Chief warns of Russian threat' was the headline on the BBC's website first thing on Monday morning. However, the article's title was later changed to 'Army chief to call for investment to keep up with Russia.'
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Eye 1

Lawsuits reveal Google's secret 'speech police'


The Daily Caller
Mon, 22 Jan 2018 19:58 UTC
Google thought police surveillance
More than 100 nongovernment organizations (NGOs) and government agencies around the world help police YouTube for extremist content, ranging from so-called hate speech to terrorist recruiting videos.

All of them have confidentiality agreements barring Google, YouTube's parent company, from revealing their participation to the public, a Google representative told The Daily Caller on Thursday.

A handful of groups, including the Anti-Defamation League and No Hate Speech, a European organization focused on combatting intolerance, have chosen to go public with their participation in the program, but the vast majority have stayed hidden behind the confidentiality agreements. Most groups in the program don't want to be publicly associated with it, according to the Google spokesperson, who spoke only on background.

Comment: Further reading:

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Chess

The Deplorables vs. Paul Wolfowitz

Deena Stryker
New Eastern Outlook
Mon, 22 Jan 2018 19:58 UTC
Paul Wolfowitz
Paul Wolfowitz
Who today knows the name of Paul Wolfowitz? He was neither a Congressman, Senator, nor governor, yet until this month, official US 'defense' policy has borne his name.

A former President of the World Bank and U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense, following the 1991 Persian Gulf War, the neo-conservative he authored the "Defense Planning Guidance of 1992″, which came to be known as the Wolfowitz Doctrine. Intended to "set the nation's direction for the next century," its first objective was "to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival." In case the reader didn't immediately get the message, it is spelled out as 'deterring' potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role' by maintaining 'unquestioned military superiority and, if necessary, employ[ing] force unilaterally."

Both Colin Powell and President Bush objected to this brash approach to world affairs, so before becoming known as the Bush Doctrine it was rewritten in milder language. Since 2009, at the Foreign Policy Initiative think tank, Wolfowitz has advocated for the troop surge in the Afghanistan War [and direct military strikes in Syria], continuing to lament an "absence of American leadership, as global pressure against the American-led international order intensifies."
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Chess

Dems starting to crack? Rep. Gutierrez showing reluctant support for border wall

Timothy Meads
Townhall
Sat, 20 Jan 2018 20:48 UTC
Luis Gutierrez
Luis Gutierrez
Democratic Congressman Luis Gutierrez of Illinois appeared on CNN today, where he expressed his reluctant willingness to fund a southern border wall in exchange for amnesty for 800,000-or-so "dreamers." Dreamers are the illegal aliens brought into the country as children who currently receive government protection form deportation. This protection is in danger of being stripped away if Congress cannot craft an immigration reform bill by March, the deadline given by President Donald Trump after he rescinded former President Barack Obama's executive action which established the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

"Look, I think it would be a monumental waste taxpayers money, to build a monument to stupidity," Gutierrez told CNN. "But if that's what it's going to take, to take 800,000 young men and women and give them a chance to live freely and openly in America, then I'll roll up my sleeves and I'll go down there with brick and mortar and build the wall myself. Cause you know, a brick for lives? Okay. Let's do it."

Gutierrez, who has been a staunch opponent of Donald Trump since the 2016 GOP presidential primaries, went to lament his disgust for the wall. He also claimed that even if the GOP agreed to the Democrats' compromise, that the government still would not be funded.
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Stock Up

The majority of new wealth last year went to top 1%

Kim Hjelmgaard
USA Today
Sun, 21 Jan 2018 20:44 UTC
billionaire
A new billionaire is created every other day. The three richest Americans have the same amount of wealth as the poorest half of the U.S. population. And 82% of the global wealth generated last year went to just 1% of the world's population.

These are among the findings of a study released Sunday by Oxfam, a British campaigning group, as political and business leaders, including President Trump, prepared to gather in Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum's annual meeting. Income inequality will be a major topic at the conference, which runs from Tuesday through Friday.
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Star of David

After disturbing tour of Hebron, Roger Cohen of the NYT takes a step away from Zionism

Philip Weiss
Mondoweiss
Sun, 21 Jan 2018 20:29 UTC
IDF Hebron streets
Yesterday in the New York Times, Roger Cohen published a column from Hebron titled "Holy City of Sterile Streets" that lots of people are talking about, and which I see as distancing the columnist from Zionism: 1, It states bluntly that the Israeli goal of sterilizing Hebron streets by emptying them of Palestinians is reminiscent of anti-semitic rhetoric and actions; 2, It says the occupation has never ended and it is being done in the name of the Jews and is getting worse every time he sees it; 3, It urges people to put the disputed claims of the past behind them and look to the future.

The last message is a memo to Cohen himself. He has repeatedly cited the Jewish history of persecution to justify the existence of a "Jewish state" he chooses not to live in but to defend. That justification gets a lot slimmer in this piece. The Jewish history of persecution turns out to produce Jewish monsters. And Cohen surely recognizes that it is cruel to revisit such a place and only see the conditions get worse, and mouth liberal Zionist pieties as an answer.
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War Whore

New Pentagon strategy for military confrontation with Russia and China means US imperialism is losing global dominance

Bill Van Auken
World Socialist Web Site
Mon, 22 Jan 2018 21:06 UTC
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis
© DoDDefense Secretary Jim Mattis at U.S. Northern Command headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colorado
The Trump administration's defense secretary, former Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis, rolled out a new National Defense Strategy Friday that signals open preparations by US imperialism for direct military confrontation with nuclear-armed Russia and China.

Speaking at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland, Mattis made clear that the strategy, the first such document to be issued by the Pentagon in roughly a decade, represented an historic shift from the ostensible justification for US global militarism for nearly two decades: the so-called war on terrorism.


Comment: It means war against Russia and China.


"Great power competition-not terrorism-is now the primary focus of US national security," Mattis said in his speech, which accompanied the release of an 11-page declassified document outlining the National Defense Strategy in broad terms. A lengthier classified version was submitted to the US Congress, which includes the Pentagon's detailed proposals for a massive increase in military spending.

Much of the document's language echoed terms used in the National Security Strategy document unveiled last month in a fascistic speech delivered by President Donald Trump. Mattis insisted that the US was facing "growing threat from revisionist powers as different as China and Russia, nations that seek to create a world consistent with their authoritarian models."
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Info

Facebook: Social media potentially bad for democracy - because Russia

David Ingram
Reuters
Mon, 22 Jan 2018 20:10 UTC
Facebook
© Jaap Arriens / Global Look Press
Facebook Inc (FB.O) warned on Monday that it could offer no assurance that social media was on balance good for democracy, but the company said it was trying what it could to stop alleged meddling in elections by Russia or anyone else.

The sharing of false or misleading headlines on social media has become a global issue, after accusations that Russia tried to influence votes in the United States, Britain and France. Moscow denies the allegations.

Facebook, the largest social network with more than 2 billion users, addressed social media's role in democracy in blog posts from a Harvard University professor, Cass Sunstein, and from an employee working on the subject.


Comment: Sunstein would know. He's a neocon propagandist of the highest order:

"I wish I could guarantee that the positives are destined to outweigh the negatives, but I can't," Samidh Chakrabarti, a Facebook product manager, wrote in his post.

Facebook, he added, has a "moral duty to understand how these technologies are being used and what can be done to make communities like Facebook as representative, civil and trustworthy as possible."

Comment: Ironically, social media is potentially great for democracy - that's why governments hate it and attempt to control it. It creates a free market of ideas where people are exposed to new and challenging ideas that don't necessarily align with the ideas said governments want you to believe. No longer does state propaganda have a monopoly via the press. Now people can freely read the stories that would've been buried and otherwise censored. At least, that's the ideal. But new freedoms require new restrictions, and social media are glad to comply with their role as unofficial censors of uncomfortable information.

See also:

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Jet2

Russia to deliver six Su-30 fighter aircraft to Myanmar


TASS
Mon, 22 Jan 2018 20:53 UTC
Su-30 fighter jets
© Marina Lystseva/TASSSu-30 fighter jets
Russia will supply six Su-30 fighter jets to Myanmar, according to an agreement reached during Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu's visit to the republic, Russian Deputy Defense Minister, Lieutenant General Alexander Fomin said on Monday.

"During the Russian defense minister's visit an agreement was reached under which Myanmar would purchase six Su-30 planes," Fomin said, adding that this plane "will become the main fighter aircraft of Myanmar's air force to protect the country's territorial integrity and repel any terror threats."
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