Society's ChildS


Light Sabers

Corporate media's battle for your mind

Patrick Lawrence
Consortium News
Tue, 25 Sep 2018 08:06 UTC
mind control
After reading The New York Times piece "The Plot to Subvert an Election" I put the paper down with a single question.

Why, after two years of allegations, indictments, and claims to proof of this, that, and the other did the newspaper of record-well, once the newspaper of record-see any need to publish such a piece? My answer is simple: The orthodox account of Russia-gate has not taken hold: It has failed in its effort to establish a consensus of certainty among Americans. My conclusion matches this observation: The orthodox narrative is never going to achieve this objective. There are too many holes in it.

"The information age is actually a media age," John Pilger, the noted British-Australian journalist, remarked during a symposium four years ago, when the Ukraine crisis was at its peak. "We have war by media; censorship by media; demonology by media; retribution by media; diversion by media-a surreal assembly line of obedient clichés and false assumptions." Pilger revisited the theme in a piece last week on Consortium News, arguing that once-tolerated, dissenting opinion has in recent years "regressed into a metaphoric underground."

There are battlefields in Syria, Ukraine, Yemen, and elsewhere, but perhaps the most consequential battle now being fought is for our minds.


Comment: The Truth Perspective: Propaganda & cognitive bias - The battle for your mind

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Star of David

'Not kosher'? Germany's right-wing AfD raises concerns now that it has a Jewish group of members


RT
Thu, 27 Sep 2018 01:10 UTC
yarmulke
The anti-migrant Alternative for Germany is routinely accused of having anti-Semitic views, but its Jewish supporters have just subverted expectation by forming a faith-based group within the party. Some Jews are not OK with that.

The group of Jews within the AfD is aiming to hold its inaugural meeting in the German city of Offenbach on October 7, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported, citing a letter written to the paper.

The Jewish group will be an addition to the already existing Christian section of the AfD - the leader of which maintains that despite widespread claims, the party is not anti-Semitic.
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Red Flag

Indian police assault woman for 'dating a Muslim'


RT
Thu, 27 Sep 2018 16:35 UTC
Indian woman beaten for dating a Muslim
© @PiyushRaiTOI /Twitter
Shocking footage of Indian police officers hitting a young woman in northern India, as they accuse her of "choosing a Muslim partner" has gone viral. She was also apparently requested to frame the man for rape.

The video shows the woman, a 20-year-old female nursing student, being slapped with a volley of abuse at the hands of four officers inside a police vehicle because she was spending time with someone of a different religion from her own.

At one point, a female officer is seen slapping the woman as she sat next to her in the backseat of the police van.

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Blue Planet

SOTT Focus: A New Myth For a New Time: The Re-sovereigntisation of Nation And People

Alistair Crooke
Strategic Culture Foundation
Wed, 26 Sep 2018 00:00 UTC
nationalism vs globalism
In his autobiography, Carl Jung tells of "a moment of unusual clarity", during which he had a strange dialogue with something inside him:
In what myth does man live nowadays, his inner-self enquired? "In the Christian myth: Do you live in it?" (Jung asked of himself. And to be honest with himself, the answer that he gave was 'no'): "For me, it is not what I live by." Then do we no longer have any myth, asked his inner-self? "No", Jung replied, "evidently not". Then what is it, by which you live, his inner-self demanded? "At this point, the dialogue with myself became uncomfortable. I stopped thinking. I had reached a dead end," Jung concluded.
Many today, feel similarly. They feel the void. The post-war era - perhaps it is the European Enlightenment phenomenon, itself - that has run its course, people believe. Some regret it; many more are disturbed by it - and wonder what is next.

We live in a moment of the waning of two major projects: the decline of revealed religion, and - simultaneously - of the discrediting of the experience of secular Utopia. We live in a world littered with the debris of utopian projects which - though they were framed in secular terms, that denied the truth of religion - were in fact, vehicles for religious myth.

The Jacobin revolutionaries launched the Terror as a violent retribution for élite repression -- inspired by Rousseau's Enlightenment humanism; the Trotskyite Bolsheviks murdered millions in the name of reforming humanity through Scientific Empiricism; the Nazis did similar, in the name of pursuing 'Scientific (Darwinian) Racism'.

The American millenarian 'myth', then and now, was (and is), rooted in the fervent belief in the Manifest Destiny of the United States, and is, in the last resort, nothing other than one particular example in a long line of attempts to force a shattering discontinuity in history (through which human society would then subsequently, be re-made).

In other words, all these utopian projects - all these successors to apocalyptic Judaic and Christian myth - saw a collective humankind pursuing its itinerary to a point of convergence, and to some sort of End Time (or End to History).
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Stock Down

October volatility: Why so many are talking about an impending market crash

Michael Snyder
The Economic Collapse
Thu, 27 Sep 2018 00:00 UTC
stock market crash
It is that time of the year again. Every year, people start talking about a possible stock market crash in October, because everyone remembers the historic crashes that took place in October 1987 and October 2008. Could we witness a similar stock market crash in October 2018? Without a doubt, the market is primed for another crash. Stock valuations have been in crazytown territory for a very long time, and financial chaos has already begun to erupt in emerging markets all over the globe. When the stock market does collapse, it won't exactly be a surprise. And a lot of people out there are pointing to October for historical reasons. I did not know this, but it turns out that the month with the most market volatility since the Dow was first established has been the month of October...
The difference is quite significant, as judged by a measure of volatility known as the standard deviation: For all Octobers since 1896, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average was created, the standard deviation of the Dow's daily changes has been 1.44%. That compares to 1.05% for all months other than October.
Like me, you are probably tempted to think that the reason why October's number is so high is because of what happened in 1987 and 2008.

But even if you pull out those two months, October is still the most volatile...

Comment: See also:

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Attention

Research study finds teen dating violence has declined; boys more likely to be victimized than girls

Terra Marquette
Study Finds
Wed, 26 Sep 2018 00:00 UTC
teen dating violence
“A lot of our interventions assume that the girl is always the victim, but these findings tell us that it isn’t always so"
Who is more likely to be victimized by teen dating violence? If you're quick to think it's girls, new data shows you're wrong. In a surprising twist, recently published research indicates boys are more likely to report being victims of dating violence committed by partners who hit, slap or push them.

Researchers with the University of British Columbia (UBC) and Simon Fraser University (SFU) conducted a longitudinal study of dating violence. While reports of physical abuse went down over time, they say there is a troubling gender-related trend.

Five percent of teens reported physical abuse from their dating partners in 2013, down from 6 percent in 2003. But in the last year, 5.8 percent of boys reported dating violence compared to 4.2 percent of girls.

"It could be that it's still socially acceptable for girls to hit or slap boys in dating relationships," says lead author Catherine Shaffer, a PhD student with SFU, in a release. "This has been found in studies of adolescents in other countries as well."

Comment: The findings aren't so surprising despite the constant howls about 'toxic masculinity' by rabid feminists. Other studies have found that the highest prevalence of domestic violence is committed by females. See: Five Feminist Lies We Take For Granted

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Heart - Black

Suicide rates spike more than 30 percent in US since 1999

Tess Bonn
The Hill
Mon, 26 Feb 2018 19:26 UTC
suicide
The principal deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) warned on Wednesday that suicide is on the rise in the U.S. among almost every age group.

"Suicide - in all ages except for young children and the elderly - is one of the few conditions that's getting worse instead of better around the country," Anne Schuchat told "Rising" Hill.TV co-hosts Krystal Ball and Buck Sexton.

Suicide is a leading cause of death in the U.S.
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No Entry

Yemeni cabinet ends UN human rights mandate after report says Saudi's responsible for majority of civilian deaths


Sputnik
Thu, 27 Sep 2018 18:02 UTC
Yemen rubble
© Modern Diplomacy
The Yemeni cabinet on Thursday announced the end of the mandate in the country of the UN human rights agency's group of experts over its criticism of violence by its allies, as reported by Al Jazeera news channel.

"The mandate of the UN Human Rights Council's group of experts will be discontinued," the cabinet said in a statement, cited by Al Jazeera news channel.

Yemen's internationally-recognized government accused the experts of pro-rebel bias and attempts to politicize humanitarian crisis in the country, hit by five years of civil war.

Comment: Yemen's cabinet will be hard-pressed to deny the Saudi coalition's responsibility for the deaths of millions via starvation and the deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure:
While everyone's eyes are on Syria's Idlib, US continues to decimate YemenTo date, the US-backed Saudi-led coalition has struck well over 100 hospitals, as well as wedding parties, refugee camps, food trucks, factories, transport routes, agricultural land, residential areas, and schools, to name a few. Yes, you read that right. Yemen, with only 2.8 percent of its land being cultivated, is actively targeted by the US-backed coalition. According to Martha Mundy, professor emeritus at the London School of Economics, "to hit that small amount of agricultural land, you have to target it."
See also:

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Rocket

Rocket hits Afghan govt compound as president holds meeting there


RT
Thu, 27 Sep 2018 15:52 UTC
Afghan policemen
© Mustafa Andaleb / ReutersAfghan policemen keep watch at a check point in Ghazni city, Afghanistan, September 16, 2018
Rocket attacks were reported in the capital of Afghanistan's southern Ghazni province during President Ashraf Ghani's visit on Thursday.

One rocket landed near the house of the governor in the morning, just as the Afghan president was holding a meeting there, local media cited security officials as saying. The other rocket hit the Kabul-Kandahar highway. Neither caused any casualties.

MENAFN news network said three rather than two rockets were fired at Ghazni city, citing provincial police chief Ramazan Ali Mohseni.

Ghani was visiting the city to review the security situation. No group immediately claimed credit for the attacks.

Last week, a rocket attack in Afghanistan was directed at a military university in the capital Kabul. That incident caused no harm either.
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Arrow Down

Killing our pollinators: Monsanto's weedkiller contributing to global loss of bees and habitat

Damian Carrington
The Guardian
Mon, 24 Sep 2018 20:00 UTC
Glyphosate kills bees
© Vivian Abagiu/College of Natural Sciences/UT AustinGlyphosate – the most used pesticide ever – damages the good bacteria in honeybee guts, making them more prone to deadly infections
The world's most used weedkiller damages the beneficial bacteria in the guts of honeybees and makes them more prone to deadly infections, new research has found.

Previous studies have shown that pesticides such as neonicotinoids cause harm to bees, whose pollination is vital to about three-quarters of all food crops. Glyphosate, manufactured by Monsanto, targets an enzyme only found in plants and bacteria.

However, the new study shows that glyphosate damages the microbiota that honeybees need to grow and to fight off pathogens. The findings show glyphosate, the most used agricultural chemical ever, may be contributing to the global decline in bees, along with the loss of habitat.

"We demonstrated that the abundances of dominant gut microbiota species are decreased in bees exposed to glyphosate at concentrations documented in the environment," said Erick Motta and colleagues from University of Texas at Austin in their new paper. They found that young worker bees exposed to glyphosate exposure died more often when later exposed to a common bacterium.

Other research, from China and published in July, showed that honeybee larvae grew more slowly and died more often when exposed to glyphosate. An earlier study, in 2015, showed the exposure of adult bees to the herbicide at levels found in fields "impairs the cognitive capacities needed for a successful return to the hive".

Comment: Bayer needs more than an aspirin to cure its Monsanto-sized headache

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