My News Clippings

Posts Tagged ‘propaganda’

…and a reli­gion it is. Al Gore is its leader and James Hansen is its prophet of false data.

Now, I don’t doubt that mankind is hav­ing some very neg­a­tive impacts on the Earth – pol­lu­tion in the air, on the land, and in the seas, trash every­where, plus the con­crete and pave­ment that cover most cities – but to say that we are caus­ing global warm­ing seems a bit far-​fetched.

• Global warm­ing data is prov­ing to be faulty at best, incom­plete, and maybe inten­tion­ally skewed to achieve desired results.
• More and more weather reports show low­er­ing tem­per­a­tures since around 1998. Just this week Ari­zona expe­ri­enced the longest num­ber of sub-​100 degree days since 1913. It even snowed in many parts of the US in June this year, in some areas for the first time on record!
• Finally, the cur­rent solar cycle seems to be have more impact on tem­per­a­tures and weather.

I’m not going to run through a list of the pros and cons about global warm­ing, though I think much of it is a con (sar­cas­ticly speak­ing). The solu­tions are half-​baked and def­i­nitely detri­men­tal to the US. The blame America-​first argu­ments are laugh­able. As some­one who has trav­eled to 47 coun­tries around the world, I can say with con­fi­dence that the US is one of the clean­est places around. If we must address global warm­ing, lets start with filthy places China, India, and Mexico.

Set­ting aside the reli­gion of global warm­ing, I do think as a sep­a­rate topic, we need to clean up our affairs. The lit­ter that so many peo­ple dis­card every­where with­out appar­ent thought or con­cern should stop. There is prob­a­bly not a sin­gle place in the coun­try that is not defiled with mankind’s litter.

I am a reg­u­lar reader and occa­sional com­menter at FreeRe­pu­bic. Well, I should put this in past tense as I have now been labeled “troll” and had my priv­i­leges revoked. Why? Very sim­ply because I pre­sented incon­ve­nient truths via a Haaretz arti­cle that FreeRepublic’s staff found con­trary to their knee-​jerk pro-​Israeli viewpoints.

This is all too com­mon with Web sites that pre­fer to be echo cham­bers of approved views. Some obvi­ous sites that, as a result, are just pro­pa­ganda out­lets are:

• Free Repub­lic
• Talk­ing Points Memo
• Red State
• Daily Kos
• NoQuar­terUSA

While it is the right of any Web site to use dis­cre­tion and cen­sor com­men­tary they post, they should clearly state if they are open forums or that they only want con­cur­ring views. Label­ing unwanted com­men­ta­tors as “trolls” is disin­ge­nious at best. These sites should show a lit­tle more hon­esty and maturity.

And what about The Inde­pen­dent View? At the moment I mod­er­ate all posts. I do wel­come thought­ful and provoca­tive com­ments regard­less of the view­point. I will not pub­lish, though, any com­ment that uses offen­sive lan­guage, rude or per­sonal attacks, or are off-​topic. In the near future, once the cur­rent redesign and upgrade of the Web site is com­plete, I antic­i­pate open­ing the Web site up for more direct posts and com­ments from non-​anonymous writers.

Israel’s mur­der­ous reign of ter­ror on Pales­tini­ans is a war crime that under­mines Israel’s legit­i­macy. In my opin­ion, the state of Israel as it cur­rently exists and acts is a pariah state that should be iso­lated and dis­man­tled — begin­ning with the end of all Israeli occu­pa­tion of lands out­side its 1948 bor­ders and end to any and all actions to con­trol land, air, and sea access to Pales­tin­ian lands. Fur­ther, Israel must end its apartheid rule against its non-​Jewish res­i­dents and honor the right of return of all fam­i­lies who fled or were dri­ven from their homes when the Jew­ish state was cre­ated. Finally, Israeli lead­ers who have the blood of war crimes on their hands should be arrested and pros­e­cuted for their actions. Until these steps are taken, it is my rec­om­men­da­tion that no nation, com­pany, or indi­vid­ual should have any deal­ings with the state of Israel or its cit­i­zens, lest they be guilty of facil­i­tat­ing and sup­port­ing Israel’s war crimes.

As for the United States, Israel aggres­sion, oppres­sion, and war crimes do not reflect our val­ues, nor serve our inter­ests. Enough is enough — No more money, no more weapons, and no more sup­port. Period.

And a thought about Pales­tin­ian resis­tance. Any resis­tance is legit­i­mate and is no less than I’d claim if I were in their aggrieved posi­tion. Finally, whether Pales­tini­ans ulti­mately choose to rec­og­nize Israel or not is a ques­tion best left for the future as Israel does not deserve recog­ni­tion today.

Update: I guess I won’t be writ­ing any more diary entries or com­ments at Red​State​.com. It turns out that Red​State​.com is as opposed to dis­cus­sion and dif­fer­ing view­points as are the Obama Cult (Talk​ing​PointsMemo​.com) and the PC crowd (NoQuarterUSA.net) — in their case, Red​State​.com edi­tors responded with quick calls of anti-​semitism instead of racism but it is equally uno­rig­i­nal, untrue, and deroga­tory. In response to an pro-​Israel pro­pa­ganda post I shared that I did not agree with the writer’s knee jerk sup­port and shared my above opin­ion. The result was that I was almost imme­di­ately banned. Not only that, but RedState’s edi­tors trashed my com­ment. Ban­ning is one thing as it is their Web site, but to edit and trash the com­ment while still leav­ing my name on it is not only dis­re­spect­ful but shows incred­i­ble immaturity.