Listen to a reading of this article: There's a thread going around on Twitter by Columbia University's Sophie Fullerton advancing the claim that I have promoted crazy conspiracy theories about child "crisis actors" in Syrian war atrocities. Fullerton has me blocked on Twitter so I can't respond to her there, but in her thread she brings up one of the most egregious instances I've ever seen of US war propaganda in the mass media, so it's worth taking some time to unpack her claims here as a public service.
Special type of evil? The cruel joke is that careerism is the most mundane type of evil, and I have seen it fester as a corrosive force in the several quite diverse areas of society in which I have toiled during my life. It takes a standard form: the get-along, go-along shite-heads who, outwardly declare themselves to be independent thinkers, actually plot beneath the surface to wangle their way into the good graces of those in power because advancement is the priority. It's a nasty skilled-liars game that sickens me as much today as it did when I was 20. Folks who rise at corrupt orgs like CNN and WAPO are quintessential exemplars.
Good 'ol CNN, whose ratings are beneath that of the Cartoon Channel. A current joke [not to be heard on the late-night TV shows] is that there are now more variants of COVID than CNN has viewers. CNN continues to be giggled out of existence. That's [real] good news.
And how does CNN [and other news organizations] get away with this shit? It's because sleaze is not illegal.
There’s a reason they use images of helpless women and children. They’re trying to induce an emotionally altered state where people don’t think, but they feel the pain, they experience pity.
That forms the opening sequence of the induction. Then come the platitudes and general statements used to build agreements, and then the new suggestions.
Aristotle already laid out the basis of these techniques in The Rhetoric.
To quote:
“We will now state what things and persons excite pity, and the state of mind of those who feel it. Let pity then be a kind of pain excited by the sight of evil, deadly or painful, which befalls one who does not deserve it; an evil which one might expect to come upon himself or one of his friends, and when it seems near.”
The Rhetoric, Book II, Part VIII – Aristotle
They find the right images, they use techniques to help build agreement, then new “suggestions” are introduced.
Empires have been using the same tricks for a while.
Always be suspicious of especially lurid allegations, as this is an age-old tactic to cause a rush to judgment.
Not to mention lurid allegations are used to shut down debate "you're defending child molesters/dictators/whatever!" by assuming as true that which you claim to prove
That is the crux of the matter: the empire will use children to advance its agenda while at the same time bombing the countries of those children, killing whoever gets in the way. It is sick, but that is because it is evil. We have to accept the fact of evil in the world, and stop acting like it does not exist. The mindset that others and yourself are not capable of it makes you an unwitting instrument for it.
It's an old ploy- "out of the mouths of babes" - and confirms what the gullible or biased want to believe or want you to believe: The Kuwaiti princess , great actor, posing as a Kuwaiti who testified to Iraqi obsession with incubators - "they threw them (infants) onto the cold hard floor" - it hardened the public against Iraq and facilitated the Iraq war. False testimony to a CBC reporter of being raped by Serbians (the unpopular group) in Bosnia Herzegovina which facilitated the attacks on Serbia and the "independence" of Kosovo. It's endless, and if you have any sense, check all such reports carefully as well as what agenda they might serve.
Just a reminder you can't wake someone pretending to sleep. I stopped using social media for the benefit of my mental health a couple years ago and it's been wonderful. I recently waded back into Twitter ever so slightly and I've seen the responses you get. How many bots? How many useful idiots calling you a useful idiot? Hard to tell. I am still very reluctant to post just because it's designed to demoralize anyone disagreeing with the billion dollar narratives, and there's so little actual conversation to be had from it. Nevertheless I appreciate your courage in speaking the truth regardless.
Or that time the US induced the fraudulent testimony of an ambassador’s daughter about Iraqi soldiers ejecting Kuwaiti babies from their incubators and leaving them on the cold ground to die? The short memory of the gen pop of the US has led to repeated war atrocities for countless innocent people abroad, as well as US soldiers used as enforcers for the US corporate mafia.
“The baby-incubator story is back in the news because of the January disclosure in the American press that the teen-age Kuwaiti girl who testified before the Congress members, and was identified at the time only as Nayirah, is the daughter of Sheik Saud al Nasser al Sabah, Kuwait’s ambassador to the United States. She claimed to have observed the disputed incident at Al Addan Hospital outside Kuwait City, where she was a volunteer.”
It's crazy how people form any narrative they want. People who obfuscate the deeper truth love to use words like evil. They also love short one liners (screenshots) rather than the full reasoned argument. The irony here is that endless war is indisputably evil yet they turn it around.
CiaNN's Bana Alabed, 7 years old: ‘’Beace for Sirya’’ . . . .
I seriously wonder - what it will take, before the world's populations becomes fully aware of the stone cold fact, that the patently rogue United States of America [where Corporations are ’Persons’ and Money is ’Free Speech’], has been and continues to be - the greatest clear and present danger to ANY semblance of global peace and stability that has EVER existed, NUCLEAR HOLOCAUST??? . . .
My dear Caitlin, I think you're losing too much energy and time with someone who doesn't deserve the least attention. Whatever you say it's useless. They will never listen to you...
The root problem causing most of our other problems is that our main operating system (government/schools/media) have been corrupted.
If you tell us the kind of systems that govern over you, we can accurately predict your quality of life. If those systems are corrupted then so are you (and your families).
It is time to organize with other like minded individuals and fix them.
We know the solutions. Decentralize everything. Demand transparency in systems. And most efficiently, weaponize the tyranny of the masses back onto the people corrupting our systems to end this Global Agenda.
Special type of evil? The cruel joke is that careerism is the most mundane type of evil, and I have seen it fester as a corrosive force in the several quite diverse areas of society in which I have toiled during my life. It takes a standard form: the get-along, go-along shite-heads who, outwardly declare themselves to be independent thinkers, actually plot beneath the surface to wangle their way into the good graces of those in power because advancement is the priority. It's a nasty skilled-liars game that sickens me as much today as it did when I was 20. Folks who rise at corrupt orgs like CNN and WAPO are quintessential exemplars.
Good 'ol CNN, whose ratings are beneath that of the Cartoon Channel. A current joke [not to be heard on the late-night TV shows] is that there are now more variants of COVID than CNN has viewers. CNN continues to be giggled out of existence. That's [real] good news.
And how does CNN [and other news organizations] get away with this shit? It's because sleaze is not illegal.
There’s a reason they use images of helpless women and children. They’re trying to induce an emotionally altered state where people don’t think, but they feel the pain, they experience pity.
That forms the opening sequence of the induction. Then come the platitudes and general statements used to build agreements, and then the new suggestions.
Aristotle already laid out the basis of these techniques in The Rhetoric.
To quote:
“We will now state what things and persons excite pity, and the state of mind of those who feel it. Let pity then be a kind of pain excited by the sight of evil, deadly or painful, which befalls one who does not deserve it; an evil which one might expect to come upon himself or one of his friends, and when it seems near.”
The Rhetoric, Book II, Part VIII – Aristotle
They find the right images, they use techniques to help build agreement, then new “suggestions” are introduced.
Empires have been using the same tricks for a while.
Always be suspicious of especially lurid allegations, as this is an age-old tactic to cause a rush to judgment.
Not to mention lurid allegations are used to shut down debate "you're defending child molesters/dictators/whatever!" by assuming as true that which you claim to prove
That is the crux of the matter: the empire will use children to advance its agenda while at the same time bombing the countries of those children, killing whoever gets in the way. It is sick, but that is because it is evil. We have to accept the fact of evil in the world, and stop acting like it does not exist. The mindset that others and yourself are not capable of it makes you an unwitting instrument for it.
What a special type of fraudster! Is Sophie where the term Sophistry originated? /s. Let’s call it Sophiestry.
It's an old ploy- "out of the mouths of babes" - and confirms what the gullible or biased want to believe or want you to believe: The Kuwaiti princess , great actor, posing as a Kuwaiti who testified to Iraqi obsession with incubators - "they threw them (infants) onto the cold hard floor" - it hardened the public against Iraq and facilitated the Iraq war. False testimony to a CBC reporter of being raped by Serbians (the unpopular group) in Bosnia Herzegovina which facilitated the attacks on Serbia and the "independence" of Kosovo. It's endless, and if you have any sense, check all such reports carefully as well as what agenda they might serve.
Just a reminder you can't wake someone pretending to sleep. I stopped using social media for the benefit of my mental health a couple years ago and it's been wonderful. I recently waded back into Twitter ever so slightly and I've seen the responses you get. How many bots? How many useful idiots calling you a useful idiot? Hard to tell. I am still very reluctant to post just because it's designed to demoralize anyone disagreeing with the billion dollar narratives, and there's so little actual conversation to be had from it. Nevertheless I appreciate your courage in speaking the truth regardless.
Or that time the US induced the fraudulent testimony of an ambassador’s daughter about Iraqi soldiers ejecting Kuwaiti babies from their incubators and leaving them on the cold ground to die? The short memory of the gen pop of the US has led to repeated war atrocities for countless innocent people abroad, as well as US soldiers used as enforcers for the US corporate mafia.
“The baby-incubator story is back in the news because of the January disclosure in the American press that the teen-age Kuwaiti girl who testified before the Congress members, and was identified at the time only as Nayirah, is the daughter of Sheik Saud al Nasser al Sabah, Kuwait’s ambassador to the United States. She claimed to have observed the disputed incident at Al Addan Hospital outside Kuwait City, where she was a volunteer.”
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1992-03-06-mn-3337-story.html
America's special evil extends to overthrowing the government of Australia. I only discovered this yesterday.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/23/gough-whitlam-1975-coup-ended-australian-independence
Is this the correct Ms. Fullerton? Interesting "career" path for a "lecturer" at Columbia, no?. Look:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sophie-fullerton-16013820a/
I'd be curious to know how this Twitter "dispute" began.
It's crazy how people form any narrative they want. People who obfuscate the deeper truth love to use words like evil. They also love short one liners (screenshots) rather than the full reasoned argument. The irony here is that endless war is indisputably evil yet they turn it around.
CiaNN's Bana Alabed, 7 years old: ‘’Beace for Sirya’’ . . . .
I seriously wonder - what it will take, before the world's populations becomes fully aware of the stone cold fact, that the patently rogue United States of America [where Corporations are ’Persons’ and Money is ’Free Speech’], has been and continues to be - the greatest clear and present danger to ANY semblance of global peace and stability that has EVER existed, NUCLEAR HOLOCAUST??? . . .
Abusing children like this is akin to engaging in pedophilia.
My dear Caitlin, I think you're losing too much energy and time with someone who doesn't deserve the least attention. Whatever you say it's useless. They will never listen to you...
The root problem causing most of our other problems is that our main operating system (government/schools/media) have been corrupted.
If you tell us the kind of systems that govern over you, we can accurately predict your quality of life. If those systems are corrupted then so are you (and your families).
It is time to organize with other like minded individuals and fix them.
We know the solutions. Decentralize everything. Demand transparency in systems. And most efficiently, weaponize the tyranny of the masses back onto the people corrupting our systems to end this Global Agenda.
Please, give this some thought: https://open.substack.com/pub/joshketry/p/weaponized-direct-democracy-the-kryptonite?r=7oa9d&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post